A Snow, on Cherry Blossoms - 10
A novella
III Land of Combat – Manchuria
March unto doom.
1
It is here that I can resume the missives that I wrote Because the flow of paper beneath a brush is such a natural way to express myself.
My dearest companion,
Very few words have gone between us – and it is my fault entirely. Please accept these scrawled words as either a farewell – because I am near the front lines of the war – beginning, where I shall tell you all that I have seen. It is hard to write those words because very little has been allotted – because there was something not said, and perchance both ways. It is but under that hope that these words are sent to you.
This evening it was my lot to go battle, and I was dressed in fresh clothes before being briefed on that mission which it is essential that I do my duty. Do not think that the duty is not a glorious one; nor that it demands the ultimate sacrifice. Because this is the reason that it is called – and it is a great honor to serve. However, in those spaces where honor does not quite fill all of the space allotted – there is a portion that demands that the inner man speaks to the inner flower. That is, though it has been reticent on my tongue, do not believe that it has not escaped me that I should propose to marriage. Of course, certain forms must be observed – and one of them is to write to your father and ask permission. It is a duty which I willingly accept.
However, such a letter to your father deals with duty, and perhaps honor – it does not speak yet of love, which is a foreign concept to those who are formed in older times. It may be that I will be called from this earth, and therefore will be denied the ecstatic pleasure of marriage to you – but do not think that it will not be on my mind – now or in the hereafter, when my spirits lift me up and set me among their number.
Please forgive any faults that I must have had to you, and the many trepidations which I stumbled over in expressing my love to you. There is and only it does what fate shall become me – I hope it is engaged in the rituals of courtship and marriage – but it is out of our hands. Now is the time for battle, and my part in it.
Your beloved companion,
In the previous 2 weeks, she had heard nothing from me; which was an indictment of my true feelings. But if you can not feel it a particular you must seem so and hope that it will carry the day. Else you will be found out as a fraud, charlatan, or worse. And that would not be honorable.