It is clear to me from Kotmasu’s talk, glances, and conduct in general,
that he has not yet got to consider Mousmé in the light of the mistress
of the house. I am also sure that he even yet cannot understand that my
marriage with her is anything more serious than a passing freak, a fancy
of the hour.
He is very familiar with her, and she with him—they have known each other
so long—chatting together quite freely. I am not jealous, surely; but I
suddenly discover that it is time to go out. Kotmasu at once agrees that
it is, and Mousmé seems delighted.
Where shall we go?
That is the all-important question, which is not easily settled.
Mousmé inclines to paying her mother a visit; Kotmasu to visiting a
little play-house down below in Nagasaki, where some new _geishas_ from
Yeddo are to make their _début_.
I am not so fond of my mother-in-law as I should be, nor of my
perplexingly numerous sisters and brothers-in-law, both small and great.
The former I suspect of rapacity, an insatiable appetite for “handsome
presents,” which, if not always very costly in European eyes, are
certainly numerous, and range from _rouge fin_ (imported from Paris) and
_blanc perle_ to gay-hued _obis_ and handsome hairpins of tortoise-shell,
or of bronze with carved jade heads.
Fancy supplying one’s mother-in-law with rouge! But it was Kotmasu’s
doing. He was evidently in her confidence; for he said one day, just as
my marriage arrangements were nearing completion:
“You give Madame Choto some rouge. The woman very fond of it. You make
her like you.”
This being what I wished her to do, I did as friend Kotmasu desired,
expending three _yen_ (12s.) upon a box at Yan’s, the best druggist in
Nagasaki, and paying at least four times its original price. The only
satisfaction I have is the knowledge that my mother-in-law’s complexion
is of the best!
Mousmé clearly is to-night all for going down to Madame Choto’s, but I
have one trump card to play against that. I am destined to find it in the
future—as in the past—of great service. I have merely to say, “Let us go
and look at the shops.”
“Yes, yes,” answers Mousmé with alacrity, clapping her small hands.
And so it is settled.
The recollection of Madame Choto and the little brothers and sisters she
was half a minute ago so bent on visiting, speedily fades from her mind.
Kotmasu agrees readily enough, no doubt thinking that there is still a
chance of our dropping in, later on, at the Willow Tree Theatre, to see
the famous _geishas_ from Yeddo.
To get down into the town at night is a matter of some difficulty, the
path being so rough and unlighted. Of course, we carry lanterns—nearly
every one does at night—and one constantly meets processions of families
or friends, out either for a walk or on their way to some place of
amusement, all carrying paper lanterns of various colours, and giving a
pretty, fantastic effect to the dark roads and narrow streets of the town.
It is far more interesting to go down into the older quarter of the town,
the true Japanese, if so I may call it—the native quarter unalloyed by
European customs and commerce.
Mousmé leaves us for an instant to look out three paper lanterns with
their slender, quivering carrying-sticks of bamboo. She at any rate is
all eagerness to be off, visions of possible purchases for her personal
adornment doubtless flitting through her mind.
It is nicer out under the verandah; the dry wood roof, in which the
cicalas live a chirping existence, seems to be giving out the heat with
which a thorough sun-baking has stored it during the day.
Kotmasu and I step out on to the balcony to await Mousmé’s coming with
the lanterns.
There is no moon to-night, and the clouds hang low, making the evening
dull and close. Everything is so still, with a deep silence that is at
once oppressive and slightly terrifying, until one is accustomed to
it. Down below lies the town, like some vast black monster with many
twinkling eyes. There is no wind; indeed, there is scarcely enough air
to disperse the smoke of our cigars, the ends of which glow like the red
eyes of some wild animal. I can just see Kotmasu’s face when his glows
brighter as he inhales.
“And you are not getting bored?” he asks, puffing a cloud of smoke
amongst the foliage of a creeper trailing at his elbow.
I know what he means, although he mentions no name, because we are
talking in Japanese, and Mousmé may even now be creeping silently, as is
her wont, across the room behind us.
“No; I am charmed. She is even more charming than I thought. I shall
certainly go home to England as soon as I can.”
“And take her?”
“Certainly; why not?”
Kotmasu can on occasion be fairly concise, if not epigrammatic.
“Mousmé in Bond Street!” he ejaculated; and if he had been English, I
knew instinctively that he would have whistled.
“Why Bond Street?” I asked somewhat feebly, with just a shade of
chilliness at my heart from the incongruity conjured up by his words.
“Because,” he replied slowly, “that would be a good test.”
I might have attempted a reply, but there is a sudden glow of light on
the verandah, a yellow-red, diffused light, which fails to pierce the
gloom at the far end, and Mousmé and Oka appear with the lanterns.
Mousmé gives me a kiss, to the peril of her lantern with its monster of a
crayfish painted in vermilion on its yellow side; at which Kotmasu smiles
indulgently; then we start off.
We go away down our garden—which has such narrow paths, some of them
scarcely less pigmy than those associated in my memory with the garden
of childhood’s days—now so dark and full of mysterious shadows, heavy
with the strong scent of flowers, alive with the incessant noise of the
cicalas, and movements of huge, soft-winged night-moths, which circle
round the light of our lanterns, beating their wings with a soft, quick
rattle against their distended sides, and every now and again flying into
our faces and making Mousmé give a little scream of simulated terror, at
which Kotmasu and I laugh.
I shut the gate after us, and then taking Mousmé’s arm, we make our way
down the rapidly sloping road. There is another party ahead of us, also
with lanterns; and so steep is the path, that in the black darkness we
almost seem as though we should step off into the abyss, right down on to
the swaying lights below us.
Such strange shadows are set dancing on the road by the swaying lanterns
we carry, that Mousmé, who must, after all, have seen such things dozens
of times before, clings closer to me for protection, and in a low,
frightened undertone she says:
“Cy-reel! Cy-reel! I am frightened! I shall shut my eyes and take hold of
you!”
But when I look down at her a few paces further on, I see that it is but
her delightful coquetry; for her dark-brown eyes, which in the lantern
light have shadows like a lake, are open, and are watching Kotmasu, who
is a little in advance of us two.
She catches sight of me, and bursts out laughing. She is never a bit
ashamed of being caught like this.
When once we reach the bottom of the road, which runs past older houses
even than mine, villas mostly inhabited by the better-class merchants and
the few foreigners who may have protracted business in Nagasaki, we are
plunged almost without transition or warning into the heart and life of
the town.
We go along the street, brightly illuminated by hundreds of lanterns,
pendent and ambulatory, at some small risk of being run over by
_rikishas_ taken at a rapid, nay, almost reckless pace by their active
drawers.
Mousmé walks along quite gaily, her wooden clogs making a great clatter
on the stones which crop up in the street, in concert with those of
scores of other women who are out with husbands, brothers or escorts for
an evening’s amusement or stroll. She is so naïvely proud of her “English
sir,” who is a real husband after all.
We go through the streets, which at night seem all the same, all gaily
lit with flaring oil-lamps, and illuminated with countless numbers of
paper lanterns, which throw a mellow-coloured radiance on the faces of
the passers-by; looking in this shop and that as we walk slowly along.
The sense of possession is very strong in Mousmé. Every now and again
she clutches my hand or arm—though, strictly speaking, to do so is not
Japanese etiquette—and fires off little nods to acquaintances. Every
clutch at the sleeve of my coat means that she has caught sight of some
one to whom she wishes to exhibit me as her real husband. When Kotmasu,
who is a wonderful recounter of tales relating to those we meet and nod
to, laughingly reproaches her with indecorousness, she says:
“What you say well enough; but I Engleesh now, you know,” with a _moue_
and a little quick turn of her dainty head, which makes both of us laugh,
and the passers-by stare in astonishment at our sudden merriment.
Yes, Mousmé is so English—in everything except what really constitutes
Englishness. What a revelation England will be to her, and she to my
respected relatives!
These streets we walk through are wonderful. They are all alike; the
houses, of frailest woodwork and paper panelling, are scarcely varied
in any particular, save that of ornamentation, from one end of the long
row to the other. There are no shop fronts, no glass windows; so that
intending purchasers, or even those who have no intentions other than
curiosity, can take up the various articles so openly displayed, and
examine them at their leisure.
This is what Mousmé delights in doing. She likes best the shops in which
rich dress fabrics and women’s ornaments play an important part.
A tiny parcel, done up neatly in rice-paper, betrays the fact that
she has already coaxed me into purchasing “a little present.” The
shopkeepers, who squat in the midst of their wares, offer no objection to
Mousmé’s inspection; and as it amuses her, why should I mind?
As we go along towards the lower and harbour end of the town, the crowd
of people gets denser and denser. If the terrors of horses—Nagasaki is as
guiltless of horses as Venice itself—driven or ridden, were added to the
_djin_-harnessed _rikishas_, one would walk along at momentary risk of
annihilation.
But the _djins_ are wonderfully active and intelligent, and avoid
obstacles with marvellous ability. There are few corns in Japan, and the
wheel of a _rikisha_ over one’s feet, therefore, is of somewhat less
moment.
Mousmé flutters along at my side, chattering in Japanese, and English of
a sort, gay and contented, her sense of the ludicrous being aroused every
now and then by the sight of one or other of her countrymen in the garb
of civilization—Western civilization, that is. A Japanese in European
attire in Europe may be an artistic mistake; in Japan an inartistic
atrocity. There are several of these about, in out-of-date pot-hats,
and tail-coats of the year before last’s cut. Even Kotmasu, who himself
is attached to pseudo-European attire, laughs at them. How queer they
look!—the pot-hat _cum_ a fringe of black, shining hair beneath its brim,
and other really picturesque garments.
We are getting tired, and Mousmé’s natural lust of buying useless things
is increasing.
Unfortunately, she has been told I am “one very much rich man.”
Kotmasu—who is beginning to pine for the _geishas_—and I have our
arms uncomfortably full of purchases——little lacquer boxes, fantastic
hair-combs and pins, silk sashes, a tiny silver tobacco-pipe with
tortoises, frogs and tiny lizards scarcely bigger than a pin’s head
crawling up the chased stem, boxes of plums preserved in sugar, and
French bonbons purchased at a ruinous price. All this is very strange,
and even Mousmé’s recklessness is charming, captivating.
There is no time for the theatre now, so Mousmé and I make our way to
a tea-house, and Kotmasu, who has been such a long-suffering companion
of our peregrinations, goes off to see the _geishas_, and, I fear, a
somewhat improper variety entertainment.
The _chaya_ is full of its patrons. Such a crowd of mousmés and
their escorts; and very few of the crimson-and-gold covered _futons_
(cushions), which are negligently arranged for the use of the guests
under the verandah overlooking the garden, are vacant. So we step out
into the garden, and enter a quaintly constructed summer-house built to
accommodate two.
We have scarcely seated ourselves, after my having drawn aside the paper
shutters on the garden side, ere a charming little scrap of an attendant
mousmé, with a dress of yellow silk and scarlet satin _obi_, presents
herself to take our orders.
She stands in the lantern-light just outside the doorway, caressing her
knees with her tiny hands, and smiling and showing her pretty teeth in
anticipation of receiving a “good order.”
After a hurried consultation with Mousmé, who says, “Sugar plums!
Oranges! Tea!” the little gay-hued waitress flits away in search of what
we have ordered.
The garden, of which the owner is so proud that he calls it that of
“The Hundred Beautiful Lights,” is a quaintly pretty one. Just behind
our little summer-house, with its octagon roof of thin split laths of
mahogany and paper _shoji_, with French-grey backgrounds adorned with
country views by a local artist who has shamefully overlooked all
the canons of perspective, are lotus-ponds—tiny, toy-like expanses of
water in which doubtless the inevitable gold-fish swim and mouth for
air bubbles; miniature waterfalls, stone votive lamps, and grotesquely
trained trees, dwarfed by some strange process to accord with the
minuteness of their surroundings.
Whilst we are observing all these things, and the now blossomless
wisterias in their belated garb of light green, our mousmé returns,
staggering along with two huge iron candlesticks three feet high, one in
each hand, which are to light us at our feast. With great exactitude, she
sticks two wax candles upon their respective spikes, and lights them; and
then vanishes, like the genie of the lamp, to carry out further bidding.
Although the garden and tea-house were so full of patrons, we had
not long to wait for our refreshments. Our mousmé knew that I was
English—not, of, course, a difficult matter; and to be English spells
generosity in Japanese eyes in the matter of _sen_ for her own little
pocket. So we were waited on quickly.
In a few minutes we seemed positively surrounded by tiny dishes and
plates.
As an Irish gentleman who came to Japan for three months, and made my
acquaintance, once said, “Everything relating to meals is so singularly
numerous.”
This exactly puts it.
We had ordered a simple enough meal, in all conscience, and yet we were
literally surrounded by it.
Mousmé sipped her light-coloured tea, which was suffused with cherry
blossoms, with the air of a princess, and behaved as a great lady. At any
rate the attendant mousmé should clearly understand that she was not like
the party of _geishas_ over there in the brilliantly lighted pagoda near
the balcony, who were entertaining and being entertained by some of the
gilded youths of Nagasaki.
“What a noise they make!” exclaims Mousmé with a smile of pitying
disgust. “Their laugh is as hollow as a drum, and they sing because they
must. They will be with some one else to-morrow night, and the next, and
the next. While,” and the expression of Mousmé’s face changes and grows
very soft and tender, “I have always you.”
“Yes, always me,” I answer, taking her hand that she has rested on my
knee whilst talking.
[Illustration: CHAPTER SEVEN]