These suicides of lovers are termed 'joshi' or 'shinju'--(both
words being written with the same Chinese characters)--signifying
'heart-death,' 'passion-death,' or 'love-death.' They most commonly
occur, in the case of women, among the joro [2] class; but occasionally
also among young girls of a more respectable class. There is a
fatalistic belief that if one shinju occurs among the inmates of a
joroya, two more are sure to follow. Doubtless the belief itself is the
cause that cases of shinju do commonly occur in series of three.
The poor girls who voluntarily sell themselves to a life of shame for
the sake of their families in time of uttermost distress do not, in
Japan (except, perhaps, in those open ports where European vice and
brutality have become demoralising influences), ever reach that depth of
degradation to which their Western sisters descend. Many indeed retain,
through all the period of their terrible servitude, a refinement of
manner, a delicacy of sentiment, and a natural modesty that seem, under
such conditions, as extraordinary as they are touching.
Only yesterday a case of shinju startled this quiet city. The servant of
a physician in the street called Nadamachi, entering the chamber of his
master's son a little after sunrise, found the young man lying dead with
a dead girl in his arms. The son had been disinherited. The girl was a
joro. Last night they were buried, but not together; for the father was
not less angered than grieved that such a thing should have been.
Her name was Kane. She was remarkably pretty and very gentle; and
from all accounts it would seem that her master had treated her with a
kindness unusual in men of his infamous class. She had sold herself for
the sake of her mother and a child-sister. The father was dead, and they
had lost everything. She was then seventeen. She had been in the house
scarcely a year when she met the youth. They fell seriously in love with
each other at once. Nothing more terrible could have befallen them;
for they could never hope to become man and wife. The young man, though
still allowed the privileges of a son, had been disinherited in favour
of an adopted brother of steadier habits. The unhappy pair spent all
they had for the privilege of seeing each other: she sold even her
dresses to pay for it. Then for the last time they met by stealth, late
at night, in the physician's house, drank death, and laid down to sleep
for ever.
I saw the funeral procession of the girl winding its way by the light
of paper lanterns--the wan dead glow that is like a shimmer of
phosphorescence--to the Street of the Temples, followed by a long
train of women, white-hooded, white-robed, white-girdled, passing all
soundlessly--a troop of ghosts.
So through blackness to the Meido the white Shapes flit--the eternal
procession of Souls--in painted Buddhist dreams of the Underworld.