A FACE IN THE CROWD
They rode to the parade-ground--Barbara and Patricia with the
Ambassador, behind his pair of Kentucky grays--along wide streets grown
festive overnight and buzzing with _rick'sha_ and pedestrians. Every
gateway held crossed flags bearing the blood-red rising-sun, and colored
paper lanterns were swung in festoons along the gaudy blocks of shops,
as wide open as tiers of cut honeycomb.
In their swift flight the city appeared a living sea of undulations, of
immense green wastes alternating with humming sections of trade, of
abrupt, cliff-like hills, of small parks that were masses of
cherry-bloom and landscapes of weird Japanese beauty. Patricia quoted
one of Haru's quaint sayings: "So-o-o many small village got such a
lonesomeness an' come more closer together. Tha's the way Tokyo born."
Occasionally the Ambassador pointed out the stately palace of some
influential noble, or the amorphous, depressing front of the
foreign-style stucco residence of some statesman, built in that
different period when the empire took first steps in the path of
world-powers, with its low, graceful Japanese portion beside it.
Everywhere Barbara was conscious of the flutter of children--of little
girls whose dress and hair showed a pervasive sense of care and
adornment; of faces neither gay nor sad looking from latticed windows
that hung above open gutters of sluggish ooze; of frail balconies
adorned with growing flowers or miniature gardens set in earthen trays;
of doorways hung with soft-fringed, rice-straw ropes and dotted with
paper charms--the talismanic _o-fuda_ seen on every hand in Japan. In
Yokohama what had struck her most had been the curious composite, the
jumbled dissonance of East and West. Here was a new impression; this was
real Japan, but a Japan that, if it had taken on western hues, had
everywhere qualified them by subtle variations, themselves oriental.
Past the carriage whirled landaus bearing Japanese _grandes dames_ in
native dress, with pomade-stiff coiffures against which their
rice-powdered faces made a ghastly contrast; between the rear springs of
each vehicle was fixed a round flat pommel on which a runner stood,
balancing himself to the swift movement. A Japanese military officer in
khaki, with a row of decorations on his breast, rode by on a horse too
big for him, at a jingling trot. Two soldiers passing afoot, faced
sidewise and their heavy cowhide heels came together with a thud, as
they saluted. Their arms had the jerky precision of a mechanical toy.
Through all there seemed to Barbara to strike a sense of the tenacity of
the old, of the stubborn persistence of type, as though eyes behind a
mask looked grimly at the mirror's reflection of some outlandish and but
half-accustomed masquerade. It was the shadow of the old Japan of castes
and spies and censors, of homage and _hara-kiri_, of punctilio and
porcelain. Trolley cars rumbled past; skeins of telegraph wire spun
across the vision. Yet when stone wall gaped or green hedge opened, it
was to reveal the curving tops of Buddhist _torii_ in quaint vistas of
straight-boled trees, gliding Tartar contours of roof between clumps of
palm, or bamboo thickets with shadows as black as ink; while from the
lazy scum of the wide, moat-like, stone gutters, open to the
all-putrefying sun, rose thick, marshy odors suggesting the vast languor
of a land more ancient than Egypt and Nineveh.
The carriage stopped abruptly at a cross street. A _Shinto_ funeral
_cortège_ was passing. Twelve bearers, six on each side, clad in
mourning _houri_ of pure white, bore on their shoulders the hearse, like
a shrine, built of clean unpainted wood, beautifully grained, and with
carven roof and curtains of green and gold brocade. Priests in yellow
robes, with curved gauze caps and stoles of scarlet and black, walked at
the head, fanning themselves now and then with little fans drawn from
their girdles. Coolies, dressed in white like the hearse bearers,
carried stiff, conical bouquets, six feet long, made of flowers of
staring colors, and clumps of lotos made of _papier maché_ covered with
gold and silver leaf. The chief mourner, a woman, rode smiling in a
_rick'sha_. She wore a silver-gray _kimono_ and a tall canopied cap of
white brocade with wide floating strings like an old-fashioned bonnet.
"Well, of all things!" said Patricia, in an awe-struck whisper. "What do
you think of that?" For the file of _rick'sha_ following her carried a
curious assemblage of mourners. In each sat a dog, some large, some
small, with great bows of black or white crepe tied to their collars.
Taka, the driver, turned his head and spoke:
"Dog-doctor die," he said. "All dog very sorry."
"It's the 'vet.,' father," Patricia cried. "He is dead, then--and all
his old patients are attending the funeral! See, Barbara! They are lined
up according to diplomatic precedence. That French poodle in front
belongs to the Japanese senior prince. The Aberdeen is the British
Ambassador's. And there's the Italian Embassy bull-terrier and the
Spanish _Chargé's_ 'chin.' The foreigners' dogs have black bows and the
others white. Why is that, I wonder?"
"I presume," said the Ambassador, "because white is the Japanese
mourning color."
"Of course. How stupid of me!" She sat suddenly upright. "Of all
_things_! There's our 'Dandy'!" She pointed to a tiny Pomeranian on the
seat of the last _rick'sha_. "I wondered why number-three boy was
washing him so hard this morning! It's a mercy he didn't see us, or he'd
have broken up the procession. Please take note that he's the
tail-end--which shows my own unofficial insignificance."
"There's a tourist at the hotel," said the Ambassador, "who should have
seen this. I was there the other day and I overheard her speaking to one
of the Japanese clerks. She said she had seen everything but a funeral,
and she wanted him to instruct her guide to take her to one. The clerk
said: 'I am too sorry, Madam, but this is not the season for funerals.'"
The horses trotted on, to drop to a walk, presently, on a brisk incline.
High, slanting retaining walls were on either side, and double rows of
cherry-trees, whose interlacing branches wove a roof of soft pink bloom.
Along the road were many people; _inkyo_--old men who no longer labored,
and _ba-San_--old women whom age had relieved from household cares--bent
and withered and walking with staves or leaning on the arms of their
daughters, who bore babies of their own strapped to their backs;
children clattering on loose wooden clogs; youths sauntering with
_kimono'd_ arms thrown, college-boy fashion, about each other's
shoulders; a troop of young girls in student _hakama_--skirts of deep
purple or garnet--laughing and chatting in low voices or airily swinging
bundles tied in colored _furoshiki_. Midway the wall opened into a
miniature park filled with trees, with a small lake and a _Shinto_
monument.
"Why, there's little Ishikichi," said Patricia. "I never saw him so far
from home before. Isn't that a queer-looking man with him!"
The solemn six-year-old, Barbara's window acquaintance of the morning,
was trotting from the inclosure, his small fingers clutching the hand of
a foreigner. The latter was of middle age. His coat was a heavy,
double-breasted "reefer." His battered hat, wide-brimmed and
soft-crowned, was a joke. But his linen was fresh and good and his
clumsy shoes did not conceal the smallness and shapeliness of his feet.
He was lithe and well built, and moved with an easy swing of shoulder
and a step at once quick and graceful. His back was toward them, but
Barbara could see his long, gray-black hair, a square brow above an
aquiline profile at once bold and delicate, and a drooping mustache shot
with gray. Many people seemed to regard him, but he spoke to no one save
his small companion. His manner, as he bent down, had something
caressing and confiding.
At the sound of wheels the man turned all at once toward them. As his
gaze met Barbara's, she thought a startled look shot across it. At side
view his face had seemed a dark olive, but now in the vivid sunlight it
showed blanched. His eyes were deep in arched orbits. One, she noted,
was curiously prominent and dilated. From a certain bird-like turn of
the head, she had an impression that this one eye was nearly if not
wholly sightless. All this passed through her mind in a flash, even
while she wondered at his apparent agitation.
For as he gazed, he had dropped the child's hand. She saw his lips
compress in an expression grim and forbidding. He made an involuntary
movement, as though mastered by a quick impulse. Then, in a breath, his
face changed. He shrank back, turned sharply into the park and was lost
among the trees.
"What an odd man!" exclaimed Patricia. "I suppose he resented our
staring at him. He's left the little chap all alone, too. Stop the
horses a moment, Tucker," she directed, and as they pulled up she called
to the child.
But there was no reply. Ishikichi looked at her a moment frowningly,
then, without a word, turned and stalked somberly after his companion.
"What an infant thunder-cloud!" said Patricia as the carriage proceeded.
"That must be where our precious prodigy gets his English. Poor mite!"
she added. "He was the inseparable of the son of Toru, the flower-dealer
opposite the Embassy, Barbara, and the dear little fellow was run over
and killed last week by a foreign carriage. No doubt he's grieving over
it, but in Japan even the babies are trained not to show what they feel.
I wonder who this new friend is?"
"I've seen the man once before," said the Ambassador. "He was pointed
out to me. His name is Thorn. His first name is Greek--Aloysius, isn't
it?--yes, Aloysius. He is a kind of recluse: one of those bits of human
flotsam, probably, that western civilization discards, and that drift
eventually to the East. It would be interesting to know his history."
So this, thought Barbara, was the exile of whom Daunt had told her, who
had chosen to bury himself--from what unguessed motive!--in an oriental
land, sunk out of sight like a stone in a pool. When he looked at her
she had felt almost an impulse to speak, so powerfully had the shadow in
his eyes suggested the canker of solitariness, the dreary ache of
bitterness prolonged. She felt a wave of pity surging over her.
But the carriage leaped forward, new sights sprang on them and the
fleeting thought dropped away at length behind her, with the overhanging
cherry-blooms, the little green park, and the strange face at its
gateway.