our sight. Then hour-glass drum, the flute, the two tambourine-like
instruments that wail, shake out their last weird tuneless tune. The
chant of the chorus ends on a note that to us is a middle--and stops.
My ears still wait the end of the phrase when the hush of intense
silence dissolves. There is a rustle in each square shallow box, a
lighting of tiny bronze pipes and cigarettes, a filling of tea-cups, a
tapping of chopsticks.
The _Nō_ is over.
NOTE.--In quoting from this _Nō_, “The Robe of Feathers,” I have
followed Mr. B. H. Chamberlain’s translation in “The Classical Poetry
of the Japanese.”
IX
A JAPANESE BANK-HOLIDAY
The bulletins grew longer, and all the world waited and watched.
The Japanese papers were full of minute descriptions and hopeful
prognostications. The cherry-trees were doing well; they were expected
to bloom next week.
Then came a cold wind and rain; “for flowers,” as the proverb says,
“bring showers.” And the bulletins became paragraphs.
But the sky grew blue again, and even the foreign papers broke through
their Western disdain, and announced that “Marquis Itō had gone to
Kyoto to see the cherry-trees.” Imagine the _Times_ gravely recording
amongst its official intelligence that “Mr. Balfour had gone to
Devonshire (not a third of the journey) to see the apple-blossoms”! But
the Japanese are, of course, uncivilised!
On Easter Monday the trees were out, and all the world with them.
The two long miles of river-bank at Mukojima were crowded. The river
itself was thick with _sampan_. And still all Tokyo pours itself out
over the bridges, across the canals, out under the long double line of
cherry-trees.
The chrysanthemum may well be the Imperial crest; the cherry-tree is
the national emblem, and its flowering a national _fête_--a Japanese
Bank Holiday, with Mukojima for its Hampstead Heath.
The two long miles of raised bank is a sea of heads, a second black
river set between pale pink banks; and it washes slowly, undisturbedly
onwards. Nobody pushes, nobody shouts, nobody calls rude remarks. And
the blue-tuniced coolies, like Florentine noblemen out at elbows, with
the work-a-day blue towel round their heads replaced by a pink one, the
very shade of the cherry-blossoms above, say polite “_Go men nasai_”
(“I beg your honourable pardon”) if in looking upwards they stumble
against each other.
The _kurumaya_ has drawn his wife and children to Mukojima, and they
wander slowly under the trees, the little ones in their gay-coloured
_kimono_, covered with the largest of large flowers. Even the little
tonsured babies blink up at the pink wonder overhead from the warm
pouch on their mother’s backs. And the old grandmothers, with their
cropped grey heads and shaven eyebrows, tell how the cherry-trees were
much finer when they were young. The little girls, with their hair
oiled into lengths of black ribbons and tied in loops on the top of
their heads; the young wife, with the wonderful whorls of the married
woman’s coiffure; the bare-legged, blue-knickerbockered _’ricksha_ man;
the schoolboys, with their striped cotton _hakama_; the fathers, in
their grey _kimono_--all the working world, all the people are here.
Below the level of the bank, raised high here, for the Sumidagawa,
like all the rivers of Japan, is fierce in its floods, and set thick
together, are the _chaya_. These range from the humblest little roofed
shed, with its broad, low tables, like a series of large trays on dwarf
legs, covered with coarse red blankets, to the superb tea-houses with
their snow-white matted rooms, their painted _shōji_. And they are all
full. The _kurumaya_ drinks his bowl of pale green tea, sitting on his
heels on the red blanket. The little wife tries the immensely popular
drink of _ramuné_ (lemonade) out of a doll’s tumbler. The coolie, with
his festive pink towel, pours warm _saké_ from slim china vases into
tiny china bowls, and the smile on his broad, bullet-headed face grows
broader. For the _saké_ drinker, unlike Western drunkards, only becomes
politer and politer, until the Japanese smile of courtesy broadens
into a large, fixed, unending, amiable grin, and the _saké_ drunkard
goes politely, though stumblingly, home to sleep. But of even _saké_
drunkenness there is little, for the most part _o cha_ (honourable
tea) and _o kashi_ (honourable cakes) content these uncivilised Bank
Holiday-makers, who have come out to see--just the pink cherry-blossoms
against the blue sky. And will go home again--content.
On the river the red towels are perhaps more numerous, for all the
fishermen, all the dock labourers, the whole riverside population of
Tokyo have come in their _sampan_ to Mukojima. And they float past now,
little and big, crowded with blue tunics or grey _kimono_. Some with
an awning of paper lanterns, and all gay with flags and banners. And
full as the river is with boats, and jammed together as they are under
the bank, nobody shouts, nobody quarrels, nobody swears. A garden party
at Windsor Castle might be better dressed, it could hardly be better
behaved. Nor in the whole length of those two miles of crowded bank,
with the line of _sampan_ on one side and the line of public-houses on
the other--_sampan_, avenue, inns, all full to overflowing--are there
three policemen. More, the trees, with their exquisite cloud of pink
flowers, are within easy reach of a man’s arm, and nobody breaks them.
The municipality of Tokyo has not even considered it necessary to affix
a notice regarding the penalty for damaging trees. I should doubt if it
had even thought to invent one.
And yet the blossoms are beautiful enough to make a man’s heart long to
possess them.
“A little pink cloud of the sunset has caught in the bare branches of
the cherry-tree.” And not all Western imagery can surpass the simile,
for the pink is the pink of a cloud at sunset, and soft as the softest
mist. When the wind stirs the trees, the blue sky seems scattering pink
snowflakes to the ground.
“What is the soul of Japan?” asked the poet. “It is the mountain
cherry-tree in the morning sun.”
But a soul so simple, the civilised nations, of course, disdain!
X
THE PALACE OF THE SON OF HEAVEN
Kyoto is a city of immense distances where the brown earth streets, set
in between their rows of low brown houses, run on interminably. Even
under the weltering summer sky the streets are full; for Kyoto, the
once-time capital, is still the second city of the Empire, and the art
centre of Japan. My _kurumaya_ scatters men and children as he runs;
and the sounds of busy bargaining, the inevitable _takai_ (too much),
following the _ikura des ka_ (how much?) pursue me as I ride.
At each corner two more streets stretch out, as straight as
interminable, as full of life. And still my _kurumaya_ runs.
I am going to see the Emperor’s Palace. Through many hundred years,
through most that is history in Japan, the Son of Heaven dwelt in the
heart of this city, and these long interminable streets so full of life
stretched all around him. The _Tenshisama_ lived in the midst of his
people, and neither saw nor heard.
We have left the streets at last; on either hand stand railed-in
squares of growing trees; the road is wide and smooth, the busy
thousands in the streets drop out of sight and sound. My _kurumaya_
runs more swiftly.
Here is neither shop nor house, nor passer-by, the restless hum of
life itself has ceased. It is quieter than a forest, for in these
artificial squares of railed-in trees nothing stirs. Men’s gardens are
always three parts dead.
The broad road widens still; white as fuller’s earth and hard, it
stretches like an avenue between high walls of smooth white brick, laid
flat and thin as Roman tiles, on thick layers of pale white mortar. Two
carefully paved-in streams of fresh grey water run between wall and
road. And streams and road and walls go on and on. It is the Palace of
the Heir Apparent.
The walls are twelve feet high, the stream is three feet wide; and
still my _kurumaya_ runs. The pale white walls stretch down the road
like parallels in Euclid. It is the Palace of the Princes of the Blood.
And still he runs. The pale white walls, thin tiles set in their thick
layers of mortar, run as he runs.
I have lost sense of the city now, lost memory of the gardens, lost
belief in life itself. The world is a dead white road between white
walls. This is the Palace of the Son of Heaven, one speck of brown
breaks the interminable line of white, the carved gateway whence the
great _Tenshisama_ issued once a year to visit the temple. One other
speck, the gate by which he returned. And then the pale white walls,
thin tiles set in thick layers of mortar, stretch out of sight.
Inside these miles of walls, in his artificial solitude, year in, year
out, the Son of Heaven dwelt. The life of the city, surging through its
streets, surged up in vain; he could not see it, hear it, nor conceive
it. Lord of a world he did not know, the Son of Heaven lived, while
all around the sons of earth fought and toiled, were born and died,
and not a murmur of their being passed his Palace walls. Shut up in
his rose-garden world, fictitious, quite unreal, the Son of Heaven
augustly ruled. And while the thousands in the city and the millions
in the land held him divine, so that whoso looked upon his face did
surely die, the men who looked usurped his power, crowned or deposed
him; ruled in his name, but reigned supreme, and fought to reign. The
history of Japan lies there. War and worship, divine unquestioned right
and civil strife, never rebellion, each army fighting in the name of
the ever-sacred Son of Heaven, to use victory for its own ends.
And the living son of these dead Emperors, brought up as they, Son of
Heaven still, though without the walls, a modern monarch holding levees
and cabinet councils, does that fictitious rose-garden world lie about
him yet shutting out the real?
* * * * *
“And always in Japan,” says my _kurumaya_, “the Son of Heaven augustly
rules.”
And he sings:
“Kimi ga yo wa
Chiyo ni yachiyo ni
Sazaré ishi no
Iwaho to narité
Koké no musu madé.”
“The descendants of the Emperor shall live for a thousand times ten
thousand years, until the little stones are grown great rocks, until
the great rocks are all green with moss.”
XI
AND SHE WAS A WIDOW
_O Mmé San_ looked into her son’s eyes and saw that they were sad.
It was in the month of the plum-blossom, when throughout the length
and breadth of Japan the soldiers of the Empire were daily leaving for
the front; for the war with Russia had been declared, and the rich
were giving of their wealth, the poor of their poverty, and every one
of his sons. In Tokyo the rival newspapers had agreed to bury their
political differences until the war was over. An Osaka merchant had
offered his priceless art treasures for sale. On the western coast the
poor fishermen, forbidden to fish in the sea of Japan because of the
danger, sent a petition to the Government asking to be allowed to go
out “as scouts.” Noble students on the far-off banks of the Sungari
were risking an ignominious death as they crouched beneath dark bridges
with dynamite in their hands. Everywhere, every one was giving, giving,
giving. Even in this remote country town each day mothers saw their
sons march away, and bid them a last “_Sayonara_.”
O Mmé San had been waiting many days, expecting, hoping, dreading, and
to-night in the sad eyes of her son she read the long delayed summons.
“He has heard at last,” she thought. And for one moment her heart grew
very tender over this, her fatherless son, her only boy.
Then she put away her weakness, for she was the wife and the daughter
of _samurai_, and she knew that it was the proudest privilege of a
warrior to fight for his lord, that it was the most sacred duty of her
race to give her life and her son’s life to the Emperor. So, looking
towards the curved swords of the family, which lay on the _tokonoma_,
she began to talk of her husband, of the grim old _samurai_ his
fathers, and to tell old tales of battle and of death that made her
boy’s eyes glisten, and then look sadder than before. But he said
nothing, and O Mmé San wondered. She knew that he had been down to the
Prefecture that morning. O Kiku San’s two sons had left last week, O
Hana’s eldest was going to-morrow. Surely her boy must know when he was
leaving, or why did his eyes look so sad?
Then she began to tell him of all the plans she had thought of for
managing without him, for they were poor. And at last her son looked
up, and said, very gently as he took her hand:
“Honourably trouble not; as for leaving, it is not for me.”
And this time it was O Mmé San’s turn to be silent.
When dinner was over her son went out to his work, and O Mmé San
wondered and wondered. The wife and daughter of a _samurai_ she was
eager to give, give even her only son for _Dai Nippon_, and the Son of
Heaven. And yet her boy was not going, what could it mean?
It was O Hana San who brought the answer. O Hana came in, very proud
and pleased to tell all the last news about her eldest and his regiment.
“They say these Russians are seven feet high,” she said, as they sat
opposite one another on the kneeling cushions sipping tea, “and that
they never wash. And, just think, over there in _Chō-sen_ (Korea)
everything is still frozen.”
O Mmé San listened. “A warrior is always warm enough when he fights,”
she said, looking at the long curved swords which lay on the _tokonoma_.
O Hana San followed her glance. There were no swords at home on her
_tokonoma_.
“Oh! fighting’s very different nowadays,” she said. “My boy hasn’t got
a sword at all. They only carry guns now.”
For O Hana was not above a certain feeling of pleasure at getting even
with a _samurai_.
O Mmé San bowed, and gently offered more tea.
“That is the Emperor’s will,” she said, in her soft, low voice. “My son
will also carry a gun.”
“But your son isn’t going,” cried O Hana San. “Didn’t you know?
The Prefect said yesterday something about the law of the Emperor
forbidding it. I forget why.” And she gave a little giggle of pride at
the idea of her son going to the war when the son of a _samurai_ must
stay at home.
O Mmé San’s hands trembled as she poured more tea into the tiny bowls,
but her voice was as low and as gentle as ever, and she did not abate
one bow or one word of politeness; but how glad she was when O Hana
was gone! She sat back on her heels after her last bow, her face
flushed with anger. The Emperor would not take her son! O Hana must be
mistaken. It could not be true. But “the Prefect said.” Then she would
go and ask the Prefect. And O Mmé San got up resolute.
The Prefect was very busy, and refused at first to see her, but, with
the softest and gentlest politeness, O Mmé San still persisted, and at
last she was admitted into the ugly “foreign” room where the Prefect,
in a frock-coat and tweed trousers, sat on a “foreign” chair. O Mmé San
sat on the edge of hers and held her _kimono_ tightly with both hands.
She was not used to chairs.
“You wish to know when Suzuki Tetsutarō leaves for the front.
Honourably please to wait a moment.”
O Mmé San waited. The Prefect, deep in his work, almost forgot her.
Something in the tremulous way in which she had spoken made him think
she was afraid for her boy; and he was a stern man, with the sternest
ideas of duty to the Emperor. So when the answer came back to him, he
turned to her somewhat coldly.
“Suzuki Tetsutarō is exempt from service. It is the will of the Emperor
that the only son of a widow shall stay and take care of his mother.”
A great light sprang into O Mmé San’s eyes. “Honourably please to say
is that the reason?” she asked, bowing low.
The Prefect looked at her, at the strange light shining in her eyes;
and in his heart he regretted the old stern times when _samurai_
mothers sent out their sons to fight to victory or to death.
“That is the reason,” he said, and he bowed her out.
* * * * *
That night O Mmé San did not sleep. She sat up looking at the curved
swords of her fathers and thinking.
She knew now why her son’s eyes were sad. The Son of Heaven, in his
graciousness, had wished to spare the widow’s son, but--but a subject’s
duty was to give, give all, give himself, give everything that was most
precious to him; above all, a _samurai_ boy must not stay at home when
peasants’ sons went out to fight. And in the quiet night, with the
blossoming plum-tree stretching like a white wing above the house, Mmé
thought.
This gentle, soft-voiced woman, tender as the white blossoms overhead
from which she took her name, was delicate as they; but in her soul
there dwelt that subtle, untouched fragrance, the sense, of sacrifice
and duty, which, like the scent of the blossoming plum-tree, penetrated
all things. Brought up on the “greater” and “the lesser learning,” in
the strict rule of the three obediences--to father, husband, son--O Mmé
San had lived her simple life, a loving, tender woman, exquisite in
grace and courtesy; but in her heart there burned that ecstatic faith
and fealty which we have never truly known, but call by the cold name
of loyalty. So she sat there and thought in the still, dark night,
and all the thoughts and feelings of the dead, all their resolutions
and impulses, stirred back to life in her all the long line of her
_samurai_ fathers, who had fought and died, the yet longer line of
patient mothers, who had endured and given their sons, husbands,
fathers, called to her. They were not dead nor sleeping. They were
alive in her. She sat and listened as their lives thrilled through her
in the silence, and their voices spoke aloud within her soul. It seemed
a simple thing to sacrifice herself. She had no fear of death, rather
a great desire. No haunting fear of Purgatory or Hell beset her. Even
the all-loving Buddha was forgotten; she trusted to the older gods
to-night--Amaterasu, the great Sun-Goddess, from whom the Son of Heaven
himself descended. Beyond the shadow of this life the great gods lived,
and all the long line of her fathers stood waiting to welcome her.
When she slipped into that light her son’s father himself would stoop
to take her hand, content that she had proved herself worthy to be a
warrior’s wife.
The snow-white _mmé_, the blossoming plum-tree, stirred in the cold
night wind. “Chastity, purity and strength, womanly strength,” it
whispered, and its pale soft blossoms sighed. The fragrance of them
floated by in the chill spring air; floated wide from end to end of
Great Japan.
“Strength, womanly strength,” it said, and O Mmé San looked up and
smiled, a little sad, sweet smile. For the strength of a woman lies in
the sacrifice of herself. And getting up she went to look at her boy
tossing in his sleep.
Then she too slept, for she knew what she had to do; and Shinigawa, the
Lord of Death-Desire, drew near and touched her as she slept.
* * * * *
It was nearly dusk the next evening before everything was prepared. All
her son’s clothes mended and ready, the house put straight, the letter
written, telling her boy quite simply that, having learned the reason
why the Emperor in his graciousness would not take him for his soldier,
she had taken her own life that he might be free to fight. On her knees
she thanked the gracious _Tenshisama_, but her son and her son’s life
were his not hers.
Then she sharpened her dagger, and when O Mmé San felt its edge was
keen enough, she knelt down on the matting, took off her long silken
under-girdle, and tied it carefully around her knees, for a _samurai_
woman must lie modestly even in death. Then she felt in her throat for
the artery, and with one quick thrust drove the dagger home.
* * * * *
The Prefect was sitting with his family that evening when Suzuki
Tetsutarō came to the house. He carried a paper in his hand, and he was
trembling.
“Honourably please to take notice,” he said, “that I am qualified to
serve, for my mother is dead.” And he handed the Prefect the paper.
When he had read it the stern official turned to the lad.
“The detachment has not yet left for headquarters,” he said, writing
rapidly as he spoke. “Go straight to the station. Give this card to the
officer in charge. I will bury your mother and perform the rites.”
Then he laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Suzuki Tetsutarō,” he
said, “your mother was worthy of her race. Go, that her spirit may have
peace.”
So Suzuki Tetsutarō went straight to the front.
GLOSSARY
=Aino.= The aboriginal inhabitants of Japan, only found now in the
North Island. A remarkably hairy, remarkably dirty race, with the
flattened shin-bone only occurring in skeletons of the cave-men. They
are great hunters and fishers.
=Amado.= Sliding wooden walls which are drawn all round a Japanese
house at night, completely enclosing it.
=Amaterasu=, _lit._ “Heaven-Shiner.” The Sun-Goddess, born from the
right eye of the Creator Izanagi.
=Amida Butsu.= Buddha as Amida. Originally Amida was an abstraction,
the ideal of boundless light.
=Benten.= One of the seven Deities of Luck, frequently represented
riding on a serpent. Her shrines are mostly on islands, and from her
connection with the sea she has certain points of resemblance with
Venus. Benten always has a white face.
=Biwa.= A musical instrument with four strings, something like a lute.
=Boy.= Term universal among foreigners in the Far East for a male
servant, of whatever age.
=Bot’chan.= A little boy; baby; Japanese baby language. Derived from
_bōsan_, a Buddhist priest (bonze). Japanese babies, like Buddhist
priests, having completely shaven heads.
=Bushi.= Warrior.
=Bushidō.= Way of the warrior.
=Cha-no-yu.= Tea ceremony, from _cha_, tea. The people of Tokyo and
the initiated call it _chanoyī_. This ceremony, religious in its
inception, has in the course of the 600 or 700 years of its existence
passed through a medico-religious, a luxurious, and an æsthetic
stage. A little of the religious element still clings to it, tea
enthusiasts usually joining the Zen sect of Buddhism, while diplomas
of proficiency are obtained from the abbot of Daitokuji at Kyoto.
=Cha-ya.= Tea-house.
=Cloisonné.= A species of mosaic, its characteristic feature being
a network of copper, brass, or silver wire soldered on to a solid
foundation of the same metal. The _cloisons_, or spaces between the
network, are then filled in with enamel paste.
=Daimyō=, _lit._ Great name; a feudal lord. Before the Restoration of
1868 Japan was divided into provinces, each ruled by a _daimyō_. Every
_daimyō_ was the head of a clan of armed retainers, the _samurai_,
and all _samurai_ had to belong to some _daimyō_. Shortly after the
Restoration the _daimyō_ voluntarily gave up their lands, powers, and
possessions to the Emperor.
=Fuji.= Usually translated as “The Peerless Mountain,” from the two
Chinese characters with which, in poetry, it is usually written,
meaning “not two,” “unrivalled.” In prose it is generally written with
Chinese characters meaning “rich _samurai_.” It can also be written
with ideographs meaning “not dying” and so “deathless.” Most probably
Fuji is derived from the Aino word _push_, to burst forth.
=Futon.= A sort of eiderdown quilt made of silk wadding. The Japanese
spread one of these on the matting at night to sleep on, using a
second as a covering. The native pillow is a shaped and padded piece
of wood or lacquer which supports the neck.
=Geisha.= Girls trained to the profession of dancing, singing,
playing, and socially entertaining. They are the usual accompaniment
to a Japanese dinner.
=Gheta.= A sort of wooden clogs kept on by straps passing between
the big and second toes. _Gheta_ are only worn in the street, and
are left outside houses, temples, or other buildings. It would be as
disrespectful to enter a house or a temple with your _gheta_ on as for
a man to walk into a church, or a drawing-room, in his hat.
=Godown.= A fire-proof building for storing valuables. Derived from
Malay word _gādong_, a warehouse.
=Hakama.= A divided skirt of either cotton or silk, pleated into a
broad stiff band in big pleats. Worn by the _samurai_ on official or
ceremonial occasions. Always worn by both teacher and pupil in the
classrooms. Also worn nowadays by the girl students.
=Hibachi.= A brazier in the shape of a lidless box of wood or bronze
containing charcoal, the warming apparatus of Japanese houses.