I am going to tell you something that you must never tell any one. Stupid people wouldn’t believe it, anyway; and there are so many stupid people that I should seem like the greatest fibber in the world. But if you will keep still I will confide in you.
Once on a time, I was in Japan in a city called Takoshima. It rained buckets full. I was thoroughly disgusted, and not being able to walk about the streets, decorated with lanterns and weathercocks, and through the gardens full of flowers, I had to stay shut up in a little room sitting on the floor, for in Japan they don’t use chairs.
I kept yawning like a dog in front of a fire.
Trying to forget how tedious it was I began to poke into all the corners of the room, hoping to discover something with which to amuse myself. After a thorough search, all I found was a box of matches. For lack of anything else to do they might help me to pass the time, as I could place them in all sorts of positions, and make any number of interesting designs.
In the box, however, there were only three, and you know with three matches even a genius can’t make anything but a triangle, the simplest of all the figures in geometry.
After all, I might try to make a little man. I had learned that game long ago when I wore short trousers and went to school, and always had my pockets stuffed full of marbles, pens, peach stones, buttons, twine and other precious things—sometimes even matches.
With patience and a little string I used to tie them together and make arms and legs, and so transform them into a very slim person that seemed to me altogether lovely.
I began to work, and in a quarter of an hour the three matches had become the little man that I remembered; and I can assure you, he still looked to me extremely fine.
First he was very bold, with arms and legs stretched out in the position of a fierce warrior. Then I changed him into a calm and civilized person, and made him sit down on his box, and then began to hold an old time conversation with him.
“Good-morning, little match; how are you?”
I suppose that you are surprised that a man of my age could still amuse himself with this game. But you know a man is always a boy when he is all by himself and lonely. If you look over the manuscripts of illustrious scientists and celebrated writers, you will see here and there the same kind of scribbling and the same little drawings that they made in their copy books when they were boys and didn’t want to write their compositions.
The little match naturally greeted my advances with dignified silence. When I was young and talked to my toys, I made up their answers too, and so it was possible to hold long and animated discussions. But in these days my imagination is worn out. After a few minutes, my little man looked to me like nothing but a match, and I thought I had better use him in the way I was accustomed to. I put a cigarette in my mouth and holding out my hand I said to him:
“Dear little match, I will now strike your head and....”
But I got no further. The little man moved, and falling on his knees held out his hands as if in prayer.
I was very much surprised, and examined him carefully on every side. I had made a great many little men just like him, but I had never seen any one of them move by himself. I looked to see if there was anywhere a bit of string that I had pulled without meaning to. But no, I found nothing. The little man remained quite still in his new position, until at last I was reassured. I thought the jar of some one passing outside, or a puff of air had thrown him from the box, he was so slim and light. I sat him up again and watched him closely.
After a few minutes I saw distinctly that he moved himself. For some time he trembled very slightly, then he held out his arms, and slowly rose to his feet. I could hear a tiny voice, which seemed to come from him, but it was so feeble that compared with it the voice of a cricket would sound like a trombone.
I leaned toward him, so that I almost touched I him with my ear and, still uncertain, I said to him:
“Did you speak?”
“Yes,” said the voice, about as loud as a needle piercing a cork.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“I was so afraid you might burn me up.”
I was stupefied. You understand why. It was all so unexpected. I didn’t in the least know what to say to him, but the idea of a match that was afraid of being burned up made me laugh.
“Don’t laugh,” he exclaimed. “I am a Haji.”
“A Haji!” I repeated.
“Yes, I was the Haji of an old willow.”
Ah! now I understood. Everything was explained. Certain trees in Japan are inhabited by Genii which are like our fairies, and are called Haji. Only we have no more fairies, and Hajis still exist, because Japan is much younger than our countries. When a country grows old it loses all its fairies, magicians and incantations. But how could a Haji ever leave his woods, and his flowers, and become a match, with the risk of being destroyed to light the cigarette of a foreigner?
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Oh, I lived so happily for two hundred and fifty years on the mountain Karniyama in the province of Noto! Now they have cut down the woods up there.”
“Why?”
“Judging from the conversations I overheard, they needed the wood for railroads. From the soft wood of trees like me they made matches. Look at all that remains of my beautiful willow! Look at me! Just to think, I once had branches ten arms long; and with my roots I could drink from the fountain of Tashira, which was fifty feet away.”
“What shall I call you, poor Haji?” I asked impetuously.
“Call me by the name you have already given me.”
“Fiammiferino?”
“Yes, Fiammiferino.”
“Let’s say Fiam then, for short.”
With this he put out the little sticks of which his arms were made, and caressed the lobe of my ear and asked timidly:
“You are my friend, aren’t you?”
“Certainly,” I replied, much moved.
“You won’t burn me, will you?”
“Never.”
“If you take care of me, I will live with you, and serve you—and I am able to.”
“Yes, I will take care of you.”
“I was powerful, respected, and venerated in the woods. I had a beautiful voice, and sang when the wind swayed my branches. Now I am so different—but I can be useful to you and help you. I know many things. I can see a long distance, and I know the world, and can give you advice and information, and tell you old stories when you are sad. I promise to be affectionate and faithful. Now I will try to walk.”
With a stiff step and unsteadily, as if he were walking on stilts, Fiam took a trip around the room and then returned and climbed up on my knee.
“Is it all right?” I asked.
“Tighten up the joint of the left leg. The knot is loose so the leg is trembly.”
With the help of my teeth I tightened the knot, and placed Fiam on the floor. He tried again, and this time stepped more quickly and steadily.
“Thank you,” he said to me, as he came back. “Now, listen to me. You must carry me always with you; you must never leave me; you must never give me to any one else.”
“Don’t be afraid. I shall put you in your little box. That will be your home. Does it please you?”
“Yes, although I have suffered so much in there, constantly afraid of being put to death. If I hadn’t been found by you....”
“Thank you, my friend.”
“And when you put me in there wrap up my head in cotton; have you any?”
“No. Let me see; wait. I will take some from the quilt. Will that be all right?”
“Yes; I’m so afraid of taking fire, you see. Imagine how scared you would be if your head were covered with phosphorus like mine.”
“Don’t speak of it. I can imagine it very well. It makes me shudder to think of it.”
“Look out for fire, then. Don’t mix me up with others; I mean with ordinary matches. Never smoke in my presence.”
“No, no, I promise you, I won’t.”
“Now put me away; I need a little rest. All this has made me tired. Good-night.”
“Good-night, little match.”
I covered his head with a tuft of cotton which I took from the quilt on my bed, and placed my friend in the wooden box, on which was printed the picture of a dragon surrounded by Chinese words which meant “Matches made in Sweden.”
In this way I came to have a new companion and dear confidant with whom I lived happily for many months. I soon became accustomed to him, but I must own to you that during the first two or three days, when I wasn’t looking at him, I still thought it all a dream. As soon as I had put him to rest I went to sleep myself (the noise of the rain was so soothing), and when I awoke I was so sure that Fiam was a dream that I forgot him entirely. But the little boy was near me on the floor and before long I heard rapid tapping on the thin wooden sides. Fiam was knocking.
I opened his prison, and out he came. He took the cotton from his head carefully, so as not to break the phosphorus, and sat down on top of a slipper that was near him.
“Glad to see you,” I said.
“Thank you,” he replied in his feeble voice.
As I leaned toward him he shouted at me:
“Put me on your white wall; we can talk then more easily.”
“What wall?” I asked, looking all around me. “I don’t see any.”
“I mean the battlement that defends your neck. Put me on top of that. I shall be near your ear.”
Then I understood what the little match meant. The walls of the Japanese fortresses are painted white, and he had taken my collar for a bulwark to defend my neck. I explained, and put him astride of the collar.
“You are right,” he said to me as he sat serenely on the edge. “I find now that it isn’t a wall. But you see I don’t know what is little and what is big. I am so small myself that I can’t make things out. You seem to me larger than Fuji-Yama, the sacred mountain.”
We began to chat. He talked so well that I listened enchanted. I already loved him. It gave me pleasure to feel on my neck the light touch of his little leg and the caress of his wooden arms on my ear calling my attention when he had something important to tell me. This little trick of his was the cause of some unfortunate incidents.
Occasionally when I was absent-minded and thinking of something else, I would feel my ear being tickled and I would wave my hand as if brushing away an insect, and that would throw poor Fiam to the floor from a height that was really dangerous to him.
That first day, sitting astride the “battlement,” he gave me some confidences. He told about his past so sorrowfully that it made me very sad. It was the only time Fiam ever entertained me with the story of his life in the tree; but if I should live a thousand years I could never forget a single word of it.
This is what he told me.
“My father was the geni of a maple tree. My mother was the spirit of a birch tree. They died of old age when their trees withered. I was lively and vigorous. My tree was the first one to get its leaves in the spring and the last one to lose them in the autumn. I always tried to be faithful, and after a hundred years I hadn’t a single dry branch, so attentive had I been in keeping my tree in good condition.”
“Isn’t it tiresome to be a tree and always stay still and be quiet?” I interrupted.
“Oh, no. I played with the wind, which would swing my branches, and I amused myself with the birds that came to me by the hundreds, and made their nests among my leaves. I was just a hundred and fifty years old when the quiet of the woods was broken by a great event. But I am afraid I am tiring you.”
“No, no, go on, please tell me.”
“Listen, then. One evening in May, a wonderful evening, my friend the stork arrived. He was always traveling around, and when he passed by the mountain Hamiyama he never failed to rest himself on my third branch toward the east. He was called To. He brought a lot of news from the other mountains and from the plains across which he had flown in his travels. This evening while he was still far off, he stopped in the air, poising on his wings, and looking about for his favorite branch began to cry, ‘Mikara! terrible things are happening. It is a miracle that I am still alive.’
“‘What is the matter?’ I asked.
“He sat down, arranging the feathers on his breast, smoothing them with his beak, and all out of breath replied, ‘Horrors, I have escaped from the midst of a cloud of arrows which flew hissing about me. Brrrr...!’”
Fiam paused, absorbed in his thoughts. Anxious to hear the rest, I said earnestly:
“And who shot the arrows?”
“Exactly the question I asked To.
“‘Who? The men!’ replied To. ‘The valley is full of soldiers, who are fighting with bows and arrows, with lances and spears. There is war! They are killing each other; they pursue, they shout, they gallop on horseback; they are covered with shining armour. A great castle is burning, and all around the ground is covered with the dead. Listen,’ added To, as he scratched his head with one of his long claws, as he always did when he was thinking. ‘I must leave you. Don’t be offended if I don’t pass the night with you. I must go farther on. Not that I am afraid, you know, quite otherwise, but it is best to be careful. Lances and spears don’t frighten me, but arrows—you never know. Adieu, Mikara,’ and he drew in his claws and stretched his wings and swept away into the air just like an arrow himself, without giving me time to say good-bye. He said he wasn’t afraid, but really he was trembling. Never believe in the courage of any one who boasts of not being afraid.”
“And weren’t you afraid?” I asked Fiam.
“To tell the truth, I wasn’t any too brave. I kept thinking about the castle on fire. My father had often told me, when I was a little tree, that in war men burned the woods in order to drive out the enemy. If the war came near me and the woods were burned, poor me! You can imagine how anxiously I waited. I listened all night. When the wind blew I held my branches still so they wouldn’t make a noise. At midnight a cuckoo came. As he was a good friend I begged him to keep quiet.
“‘I can’t,’ he said; ‘it is my duty to call “Cuckoo, cuckoo” a thousand times every night. That is my work. But if it will give you any pleasure I will go to another part of the mountain,’ and so he did. The night passed peacefully. The dawn came, and then....”
“I beg of you, don’t stop. What happened at dawn?”
“At dawn I heard some noises here and there. I raised my leaves to listen better and heard the sound of animals in flight.
“I waited to see some of them and to ask questions, and pretty soon out of a hole came a family of boars; father, mother and two sons. I didn’t love wild boars; they are worthless and badly educated beasts that often came around to clean their tusks on my trunk, stripping off all my bark, but this time I forgot all about my hatred and tried to welcome them by holding out a branch. The father boar tore off some leaves and went on without even saying thank you, and all the family followed grunting.
“By good luck, soon after, a roebuck came along. ‘What is happening?’ I whispered to him. He turned panting, and held up one ear, all anxiety, and replied:
“‘They are coming here.’
“‘Who?’
“‘Armed men,’ he said and scampered away.
“‘And I must stay here,’ I thought.”
“Poor little match man!”
“Oh, yes. If I had only been able to fly. Even a mosquito can defend himself, but a willow, even if he is large and has lived a hundred and fifty years, can’t protect himself from any peril. It is terrible!”
“Indeed it is.”
“But to go on. Not long after I heard a cautious step and a rustling among the shrubs. My leaves shivered all over when I saw approaching—guess what!”
“A ferocious wild beast.”
“Worse! I saw a man coming.
“‘This is the first,’ I said to myself. ‘Now others will come—they will set fire to the woods, and I shall die tortured in the flames.’ And my leaves shook even harder, as if there had been I don’t know what kind of a wind.
“But no more men came, and I began to calm myself and to look about coolly. This man was very handsome, and dressed all in silver armour. He was so exhausted he could hardly walk. It seemed to me he left drops of blood behind him. He breathed hard. He stumbled over tufts of grass, he fell and rose again and went on staggering. Where he fell the grass was covered with blood. I am telling the truth when I say I forgot my own danger, I was so full of pity for him.”
“Good for you, Fiam!”
“At last he fell, close to my trunk. I looked at him. He was very young. The armour on his breast was broken. He took off his helmet, which was tied with a red cord under his chin, and laid his head against me to rest better. The sun had risen and I gave some shade to the wounded man. Some time passed, but I don’t know how long it was when I heard a distant noise.”
“Was it the others?”
“Wait. I heard the sound of arms, of steps, of voices. Little by little the tumult drew nearer. It came from all sides. It filled the woods. And the young warrior also heard it. He rose slowly to his feet, and stood immovable, leaning against me listening.
“Suddenly a voice shouted, ‘Haiya, Hay!’ a kind of hurrah. A hundred voices from every side called ‘Haiya!’ and the first said, ‘Come, I have found traces of his blood! Let us follow it! Hay!’
“The other voices howled, ‘Haiya’ with so much eagerness and satisfaction that I thought they were all friends and followers of this unfortunate young man, happy to find him to save him, and care for him. So little did I know about men.”
“And weren’t they friends?”
“Far from it! The first voice said, ‘He can’t escape us any longer! He is our prisoner!’ The others echoed, ‘He is ours. Haiya!’ They were enemies looking for him, do you understand? He heard them. He knelt down and bowed his head calling on Amaterasu, the god of the sun, the god who made Japan. Then he took off his armour and bared his chest, which was covered with blood, and put his hand to his side to find the hilt of his sword. I saw at once that he didn’t wish to fall alive into the hands of his enemies, and I decided to save him.”
I was so astonished at what Fiammiferino said that I threw up my hand in amazement, and came near sending him flying with his legs in the air.
“You,” I cried. “How could you save him?”
“I twisted the end of one of my branches around the hilt of his sword to attract his attention, and then I spoke to him.”
“How could you speak to him?”
“You know each Haji is allowed to reveal himself three times during his life. This was my first time. I whispered:
“‘Wait.’
“The young man turned and bowing politely exclaimed, ‘Honorable Willow! may you live ten thousand years! I perceive that you are a Haji and my friend, although I have done nothing to deserve your kindness. Thank you for it, but you must let me die. You know what a disgrace it would be for a soldier to fall alive into the hands of his enemies. I must conquer or cease to live. You would not wish to have me dishonored.’
“I replied: ‘I desire above all things your honorable salvation. Keep near my trunk and don’t move.’
“He obeyed, and I surrounded him with branches, covering him all over with leaves, and interlacing my boughs in a tangle so thick that it would have been impossible to see him or get at him without first chopping off every branch with a hatchet.”
“How about the enemies?”
“Well, the enemies arrived. There were ever so many and all around. They brandished their glistening swords and lances, and shouted, ‘He is here, he is here.’ Guided by the drops of blood, they came directly to me. I must confess I was frightened, not for myself but for him. I strained every joint as much as I could and looked around. The one who seemed to be the leader pointed to me with his sword and said:
“‘The tracks of blood end here, but he can’t be hidden in this thicket; not even a bird could get through it. It isn’t possible for him to be here; we must look somewhere else.’ And the disorderly crowd walked off among the stubble and scrubbly trees thrusting their swords here and there as if they were after game.”
“So the warrior was saved.”
“Yes, I saved him. I raised my branches and showed him the fountain of Tashira, in which he could bathe his wounds, and told him where he could find some healing fruit. He stayed near me for two days. At night he slept at the foot of my trunk. When I heard suspicious noises I called him and put my branches around him as a mother would do to a child. The third day he said to me, bowing low:
“‘Generous and beloved willow, I must leave you. I am a prince; my name is Funato. My enemy has attacked me with his army, burned my castle and confiscated my property. But I must return to my people and save them from further perils. I must protect them. I shall never forget what I owe to you. You will be adored by me and my people as long as we have life.’ And dressed in his armour, his helmet on his head, his sword at his belt, he walked away, turning every few steps to look back as long as he could see me.”
“And you?”
“I waved my branches to salute him, and from far away he could see me swaying and bowing. No tempest ever shook me so hard. I was very sad and not ashamed to weep.”
“Dear little Fiam; and have you ever seen him again?”
“Yes, listen. Exactly a year later, the stork who always stopped to rest on my branch passed by again.
“‘How are things going?’ I asked him.
“‘I am in a hurry,’ he answered, scratching his head.
“YOU WILL BE ADORED”
“‘Oh, oh!’ I observed. ‘Arrows in the air?’
“‘Not yet,’ he exclaimed, ‘but there are armed men near here. I am obliged to look after some business. Good-bye,’ and he flew away.
“There were really men in arms in the vicinity. Imagine my surprise when I saw Prince Funato appear at the head of his soldiers and a great number of servants all dressed in holiday clothes. They surrounded me, they saluted me, they knelt about me, they burned incense to me under my branches. They had brought food and saki, which is their wine made of rice. For two days they had a great festival. Beautiful songs were sung in my honor by their musicians. They poured saki on my trunk. I drank so much that I wanted to dance, and to tell the truth, if I could have walked I am afraid I should have reeled. Fortunately I was a tree and no one discovered my condition. On the third day they returned to the valley.”
I soon learned to feel so much affection and admiration for Fiam that even now I never light a match without thinking of him.
“Was that the end?” I asked him.
“No; every year at that date in May there was a festival in the wood. You see, I had become a god to these people; they adored me. But as the years passed the festival grew very sad. The men became old. The army dwindled away. The musicians lost their voices, and each year the songs were slower and feebler. Prince Funato’s hair turned white, then his back was bent, then he came up the mountain leaning on a cane, then he was carried on a litter, and then he came no more.
“The first year his followers returned without him; they wept as they burned incense under my boughs. Funato was dead. From that time the pilgrimage was more and more melancholy.
“Fifty years after the battle there were left only one musician, two servants and nine soldiers. At the end of another year, that day in May, only one man came. He looked as if he were a hundred years old. He could hardly drag himself along. He laid his wrinkled forehead against me and murmured:
“‘Honorable Willow, we shall never meet again.’
“After that I saw no one; I was forgotten. How could I tell what men were doing in the valley? But I am tiring you with all these old memories.”
“Fiam!” I exclaimed, after a few minutes of silence, “I not only love you, but respect you. You have done some beautiful things in your life.”
“But think what I have come to be—a match!”
“Tell me how it happened.”
“Well, some years passed; then one day I heard voices and the sound of axes in the woods, and I saw that companies of men were chopping down the trees. This work lasted for months. Near me there was another Haji living in a beautiful elm half-way up the mountain. One evening I heard the crash of a great tree falling, and in the midst of the noise I could hear the voice of my friend, who called out to me:
“‘Farewell, Mikara.’
“I looked over the tops of the trees. He was gone, and I never saw him again. The next morning a man passed near me, looked at me and, with a brush soaked in paint as red as blood, he made on my trunk the words that mean, ‘To be cut down.’
“I shook my bark in the way horses shake their skins to drive away flies, hoping to make those horrible words drop off, but I didn’t succeed. Some days later a group of ragged men arrived with axes; they read the words and fell upon me.”
“And what did you do?”
“I? In that moment of danger I revealed myself for the second time. You know, I told you that Hajis could make themselves known three times. I shouted, ‘Stop!’”
“And did they?”
“Yes, for an instant. They listened and I repeated, ‘Stop!’ They laughed and said it was an echo. I don’t know what sort of a thing an echo is. Once on a time when we heard a voice in the wood we all knew it was a Haji speaking. Now they say: ‘It is an echo,’ and laugh.”
“And they cut you down?”
“Yes, indeed, they cut me down. They worked a whole day. They took me first into the valley; next I felt myself carried quickly by a monster that spit fire.”
“The train.”
“Call it that, if you like. I was taken into a great house where there was another monster that cut the trees in sheets.”
“A sawmill.”
“Call it that if you like. I was cut into eight hundred parts, and each part was caught by iron jaws, swallowed and spit out, turned into thousands and thousands of little sticks, all exactly alike. A real army of sticks, whole regiments, were put at one time into a suffocating bath, from which they came out with phosphorus heads.
“At last they were shut up in little boxes, and then they were piled in pyramids in an immense room.”
“A store.”
“Call it that if you like.”
“And what became of you?”
“You know that a Haji before dying can take refuge in whatever part of the tree still remains. So I passed from box to box. As the boxes were packed in larger boxes and carried away, I went from one to another of those that remained.
“At last the pyramid became very small; only a hundred and forty-four boxes were left. They were all put together and I was carried to this city. The boxes were sold one by one. I lived in the last, in this one where you found me. All this time I had before me the picture of the frightful end that awaited me. At first when I realized that my power, my peace and happiness were over, I supposed I should still live, so imagine my terror when.... It makes me crazy to think of it.”
“Poor little thing!” I exclaimed. “Do tell me more.”
I was anxious to hear the end of this story, with which I had sympathized so much.
“Well, then at last even my box was sold. I don’t know whether it was daytime or night, for shut up in there I knew nothing about time. I felt myself all shaken up; a little later the box was opened and two big fingers fumbled around inside and rudely grasped one of the sticks, which in this last store I had heard called matches. Then: tric, trac! the head of the stick was struck violently against the side of the box and ffroo! it burned. I jumped with horror and waited anxiously as the little stick was consumed by its own flame between the big fingers. I understood everything at once. This was my destiny!”
“You suffered horribly, eh?”
“Oh! I passed days and nights in agony. Every four or five hours the box was opened and one of my matches was taken out to its death. Each time I hid among the lower sticks till, at last, there remained only three. I resigned myself to my dreadful end and began to count the hours of my life. By this time I knew that all my tree, my beautiful tree, with branches ten arms long, was all burned, fibre by fibre, and had absolutely vanished. It was no use to struggle.”
“Why didn’t you try flight?”
“How? What could I do? How could I open the box? And if it was open how could I fly without legs? If I had only had these legs that you have made for me! But enough of that! By chance the box was forgotten and laid where you found me. And you have saved me. I am your faithful servant forever. To you I am revealing myself for the third and last time.”
“Fiam, you are my dearest friend.”
“Do you know what the most evil thing in the world is?”
“No; what?”
“Those monsters that cut, and split and destroy and change, those new monsters that once didn’t even exist.”
“The machines?”
“Call them that if you like. They are merciless. They devour the most sacred and ancient beings to make things to sell. They respect nothing.”
“But, my friend, you are not able to judge.”
Fiammiferino pinched my ear furiously and howled in a voice that sounded like a whistle, it was so loud and shrill:
“Don’t contradict me. You must be careful, you know, for if you make me angry I may take fire.”
I quieted him, talking as gently as I could. I was sorry he had such an inflammable temper, but I suppose the phosphorus was largely to blame.
I can’t tell you how many other intimate conversations I had with Fiam. When we were alone he always sat astride of my collar, and I usually let him sit there when I was working and writing. I must tell you that he gave me excellent advice, made suggestions, and explained Japanese affairs to me. I shall even have to own that more than once my success as a journalist at this time was due entirely to Fiam, but for pity’s sake don’t mention it to any one.
He often left his post of observation on the battlement, and came down onto my necktie, which he called “the silk waterfall.” There he read what I wrote and gave me his opinion with a frankness that would have made me very angry if I hadn’t been so fond of him. Sometimes in the midst of a sentence I would hear his little voice shrieking:
“Oh, what stupidity! What have you written? Throw it away. I can’t understand a word of it.”
At this interruption I would stop writing and say:
“What is that?”
And he would go on: “Rub out that nonsense. I will tell you what to say, and you can put quotation marks.”
“Don’t you want to sign it, too?” I asked, laughing.
But I agreed to what he proposed, and was always satisfied with what he did. In the end I accepted his services absolutely.
“Fiam,” I would sometimes say, “I am tired. I don’t feel like thinking. Tell me what to write.”
And he would shout at me: “Lazy fellow, if I weren’t here what would you do? Well, just this once” ... and he would dictate page after page.
Dear little Fiam, how good he was!
Fiam had been with me about a month when I was ordered to go to the war.
You know, this was just the time when a great war had broken out between Japan and another empire, and I was ordered to go out and describe what I saw there. While writing up the important events that sent two armies to the front I couldn’t stop to narrate the adventures of my little friend, and so I never put a word about Fiam in any of my writings. Besides, grown people are so incredulous!
The war took place in a part of China called Manchuria. In order to get there you have first to travel by railroad to a seaport, then on a ship to China, then on horseback or afoot, crossing plains and mountains for about a hundred miles, and so to the field of battle.
In telling his story Fiam had shown so much fear of war that I hadn’t dared to tell him where we were going. He fairly flooded me with questions.
“Why do we travel so much?” he asked me one day in the train when I had put him up on my collar so that he could see the country out of the window. I made him look at it well so that he could give me a description of it, as, in fact, he did.
“We are traveling to amuse ourselves,” I replied.
“Beautiful amusement,” he grumbled, “to be carried by this monster spitting out smoke. It seems to me like going back to that great house where I was split up and cut to pieces. Look up there,” he added after a few moments. “What lovely country! See the roof of that temple through the trees, and that wonderful field of flowers. Let us stop here.”
“We can’t.”
“Why not, if we are traveling to amuse ourselves?”
“Yes, but the amusement will come further on.”
Fiam gave a soft whistle—it was his way of sighing. Then he crept down on my shirt to find the silk waterfall and rest a while in a fold; but he couldn’t find any tie. I was wearing a kind of uniform similar to that of the soldiers.
“Why are you dressed this way?” he asked in a surprised tone, tapping me on my chin.
“It is the fashion in my country.”
He whistled again, and going down from button to button he reached my knees.
“Why do you wear these great boots?” he said, looking down at my feet, stretching himself out cautiously as if he were an Alpine climber hanging over a precipice.
“It is the fashion in my country.”
The train stopped at a large station. A dozen officers entered the car all talking, threw their bags into their racks, took off their swords and placed them near the window, seated themselves and lighted their cigarettes. There was a perfect slaughter of matches. Poor Fiam was so frightened that he hurried under my waistcoat and, creeping near a buttonhole, hid his head under a button.
Outside of the train there was the noise of a great crowd. We could hear the tread of the troops as they went to their places in the cars prepared for them. We heard shouted commands, the rattle of cartridges in their boxes at the belts of the soldiers, and the guns dropping to the ground all at once sounded like falling iron. In the distance hundreds of people kept shrieking and repeating: “Sayonara!” which means good-bye. “Banzai,” hurrah. “Come back victorious! Destroy the enemy! Glory!” and other similar cries.
One of the officers in my compartment asked:
“What are we waiting for?”
“They are attaching the cars of guns,” replied another.
“There will be lots of guns needed in this war!” exclaimed a third.
“It is going to be the greatest war of our country,” a fourth added complacently.
Some one began to hum a tune. The others joined in the chorus. The train started. I felt Fiam, who had taken his head from under the button, climb along the waistcoat and crawl into his little box, which was in an inside pocket. The box had been used so much that it was all broken on one side, so that Fiam had learned to come and go through the hole by himself.
He didn’t appear until late at night, when every one was asleep, swaying with the motion of the train, and the car only dimly lighted by a covered lamp. I was awakened by his little voice. He had climbed up on my shoulder near my ear and was calling to me. In the dazed condition of a person half awake I thought it was the singing of a mosquito and put up my hand to catch him.
“It is I,” he said. “I am Fiammiferino.”
“Oh! good-morning. Aren’t you asleep?”
“No, I never sleep. I am not a man.”
“Then if you will excuse me, allow me to sleep. I am a man.”
“First tell me—from the conversation I have overheard I judge there is war; is it true?”
“Yes, perfectly true.”
“And are we going there?”
“Does it displease you?”
“No, but it displeases me that you haven’t been frank with me. Am I not your friend?”
“I believe so.”
“Well, I forgive you; don’t say anything more. I will go anywhere with you. They talked of war in my country. If I could only do something to help them to conquer.”
“You!” I exclaimed laughing. “Then aren’t you afraid?”
“No. I am afraid of nothing but fire; and you will protect me.”
“Yes, of course.”
“And you will always tell me the truth?”
“I promise you.”
“That’s all. Good-night.”
I could have kissed him if it were only possible to kiss a match. He disappeared. At that moment some one shook me. It was one of the officers who looked into my eyes.
“Are you awake?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I replied, sitting up.
“Are you feeling sick? I am the army surgeon; my name is Tasa. Let me feel your pulse.”
“But I am perfectly well.”
“No, you are talking to yourself, and must have something the matter with your head.”
“I assure you I am perfectly well.”
“Show me your tongue.”
“Not if I know myself,” I replied irritated.
“All right,” concluded Dr. Tasa; “calm yourself. I see you are armed. I think it would be best for you to give me your revolver, and for you to put a little ice on your head.”
“But I am not in the least crazy.”
“Well, well,” and his little yellow face wrinkled up as if to say, “Who knows?”
“I wasn’t talking to myself,” I said in order to convince him.
“With whom were you talking?”
“With Fiam....” I didn’t finish, for I remembered my promise not to reveal his presence to any one.
“Humph, humph!” He shook his head and murmured, “Quiet yourself, and don’t think anything more about Fiam. Go to sleep; we shall see to-morrow.”
The next morning I pretended to leave the train, and changed cars in order to escape the watchfulness of Dr. Tasa.
The journey went on without incident. I didn’t dare to have Fiam come out during the day, as I was never alone. But at night he took a walk on my shoulders, and we held whispered conversations.
On board the steamer on our way to China we had more liberty, and often conferred together. After our work was put away in an envelope, Fiammiferino began looking for a postage stamp in the depths of the portfolio. He went in and traveled all about the leather, explored the little pockets, and came out with amazing dexterity. He had a passion for putting on postage stamps after I had wet them. He walked over them, carefully pressing the edges flat with his feet to be sure they would stick fast to the envelope; when he had finished this operation, which he did as carefully as an upholsterer laying a carpet, he always danced a ballet to express his satisfaction in his completed work.
One evening—it was the night before we were to land—the officers with us were polishing their swords, trying to make them like mirrors. In order to enjoy themselves while they worked they had had saki brought, and invited me to drink with them. As they drank they sang. Then they put their swords in their scabbards and went to sleep. I was about to follow their example when I felt Fiam moving.
He had come out of his box, and was walking energetically about on my chest. I unbuttoned a button on my waistcoat and called to him: “Fiam!” I forgot to tell you that sometimes he didn’t like this nickname that I had adopted. He felt as if he had lost half his name, and would show his disapproval by completing the word.
“Fiam!”
“Miferino!” he added.
“What do you want?”
“What do I want?” he replied excitingly, stepping outside with an agility I had never observed in him before. “What do I want? How delightful! I smell saki, and you left me shut up in the box.”
“Well, what of it?”
“Saki, sakii, sakiii,” he began to sing, dancing around on my shoulder.
He was beside himself with excitement.
“Be careful,” I said, “or you will fall off.” I had never seen him so lively.
If Fiam had one fault it was that of being melancholy. Sometimes I scolded him for it.
“In this world you must be resigned,” I would say. “It is true you are no longer a beautiful willow in the woods, and I am sorry for you, but that is no reason for being so sad, and for grumbling all the time about everything and everybody.”
FIAM BEGAN TO DANCE
“But you don’t understand, my good friend,” he said now, “that the odor of saki, this delicious perfume, reminds me of the most delightful time of my life. When Prince Funato came with his court every year they poured saki on my trunk. I loved it. It made me want to dance. It is more than a hundred years since I smelled this marvelous odor. I beg you to put me near the cup.”
I did so. The cup of saki from which I had drunk was as small as a doll’s cup. It was beautiful blue china with white dragons and was still half full of the good warm liquor which was something like Marsala wine.
Fiam began to dance around on the brim as children do on the edges of fountains in gardens. Then he leaned over and stirred the liquid. I could hear him singing in his mosquito voice.
Unfortunately the dry wood of Fiam’s arms absorbed the saki, which rose through the fibres till it reached his head. Then he indulged in the craziest antics. At last he took a little run and, turning a magnificent somersault, plunged into the cup.
I realized it all too late. I was perfectly distracted when I heard Fiam splashing in the saki, spinning around quite like a top. I drew him out and held him between two fingers to dry, but I couldn’t keep him still. He was so wet he slipped away and skipped about, leaving drops of liquid everywhere, and if I held him tight he pricked me on the nails and kicked desperately.
Taking a good hold I raised him up so as to look at him near by. The phosphorus on his head had melted and shone palely through my fingers.
“What have you done?” I said. “A little more and you would have been drowned.”
“Who are you?” he answered, trying to make his voice heavy. “Who dares to place mortal hands on the body of a god? Let me down, barbarian,” and he twisted around. “Let me go or my vengeance will annihilate you! You are a coward! I will try the effect of my divine power! Tremble....”
I saw now what was the matter and whispered:
“Fiam, be good.”
“Shame on you! I am a Haji.”
“Yes, but you are also acting disgracefully. Let me put you in your box and to-morrow you will thank me.”
“You want to lock me up. You want to make me a prisoner. You aren’t satisfied to have me for a servant to carry around with you everywhere. You are the cause of all my woes, but my power is infinite. At a call from me all the animals in the world will come and tear you to pieces. My friend To, the Stork, will come and eat your eyes out. The Prince Funato will come and cut your head off with his sword.”
“Fiam, keep still; you are not used to wine. Don’t you see that if I were really your enemy I should light you, and burn you to the tips of your toes? I think I will now smoke a cigarette....”
These words quieted him, and in a little while I put him in his box and placed that in my pocket.