husband is not allowed to be over five feet five inches. His nose should
be of the cast of Robert Stevenson’s.
Each one of them carries a high look. He may be the President at the
next election, he seems to say. How mean that only one head is in
demand!
A directory and a dictionary are kind. The ’Merican husband is like
them, I imagine.
I have no gentleman friend yet.
To pace alone on the street is a melancholy discarded sight.
What do you do if your shoe-string comes untied?
I have seen a gentleman fingering the shoestrings of a lady. How glad he
was to serve again, when she said, “That’s too tight!”
Shall my uncle fill such a part?
Poor uncle!
Old company, however, isn’t style.
He is forty-five.
Why can I not choose one to hire from among the “bully” young men
loitering around a cigar-stand?
5th—My uncle was going out in a black frock-coat and tea-coloured
trousers. I insisted that his coat and trousers didn’t match.
How can a man be so ridiculous?
I declared that it was as poor taste as for a darkey to wear a red
ribbon in her smoky hair.
Uncle surrendered.
He said, “Hei, hei, hei!”
Goo’ boy!
He dismissed the great tea-colour.
6th—We had a shower.
The city dipped in a bath.
The pedestrians threw their vaguely delicate shadows on the pavements.
The ladies voluntarily permitted the gentlemen to review their legs. If
I were in command, I would not permit the ladies to raise an umbrella
under the “para para” of a shower. Their hastening figures are so
fascinating.
The shower stopped. The pavements were glossed like a looking-glass. The
windows facing the sun scattered their sparkling laughter.
How beautiful!
I am perfectly delighted by this city.
One thing that disappoints me, however, is that Frisco is eternally
snowless,
Without snow the year is incomplete, like a departure without sayonara.
Dear snow! O Yuki San!
Many Winters ago I modelled a doll of snow, which was supposed to be a
gentleman.
How proud I used to be when I stamped the first mark with my high ashida
on the white ground before anyone else!
I wonder how Santa Claus will array himself to call on this town.
His fur coat is not appropriate at all.
7th—Why didn’t I come to Amerikey earlier—in the Summer season?
I was staring sadly at my purple parasol against the wall by my dresser.
I have no chance to show it.
I have often been told that I look so beautiful under it.
8th—My darling O Ada came in a carriage. Her two-horsed carriage was
like that of our Japanese premier.
She is the daughter of a banker.
The sun shone in yellow.
Ada’s complexion added a brilliancy. I was shocked, fearing that I
looked awfully brown.
Ada said that I was “perfectly lovely.” Can I trust a woman’s eulogy?
I myself often use flattery.
A jewel and face-powder were not the only things, I said, essential to
woman.
We drove to the Golden Gate Park and then to the Cliff House.
What a triumphant sound the hoofs of the bay horses struck! I fancied
the horses were a poet, they were rhyming.
I don’t like the automobile.
Ada was sweet as could be.
“Tell me your honourable love story!” she chattered.
I did only blush.
I hadn’t the courage to burst my secrecy.
I loved once truly.
It was an innocent love as from a fairy book.
If true love could be realised!
In the park I noticed a lady who scissored the “don’t touch” flowers and
stepped away with a saintly air. The comical fancy came to me that she
was the mother of a policeman guarding against intruders.
We found ourselves in the Japanese tea garden.
A tiny musume in wooden clogs brought us an honourable tea and o’senbe.
The grounds were an imitation of Japanese landscape gardening.
Homesickness ran through my fibre.
The decorative bridge, a stork by the brook, and the dwarf plants hinted
to me of my home garden.
A sudden vibration of shamisen was flung from the Japanese cottage close
by.
“Tenu, tenu! Tenu, tsunn shann!”
Who was the player?
When I sat myself by the ocean on the beach I found some packages of
peanuts right before me.
The beautiful Ada began to snap them.
She hummed a jaunty ditty. Her head inclined pathetically against my
shoulder. My hair, stirred by the sea zephyrs, patted her cheek.
She said the song was “My Gal’s a High-Born Lady.”
Who was its author? Emerson did not write it surely.
* * * * *
When I returned to the hotel, I undertook to place on the wall the
weather-torn fragment of cotton which I had picked up at the park.
These words were printed on it:
“KEEP OFF
THE GRASS.”
I decided to mail it to my Japan, requesting my daddy to post it upon my
garden grasses—somewhere by the old cherry tree.
9th—To-day is the third anniversary of my grandmother’s death.
I will keep myself in devotion.
I burned the incense I had bought from a Chinaman. I watched the
beautiful gesticulation of its smoke.
Good Grandma!
She wished she could live long enough to be present at my wedding
ceremony. She prayed that she might select the marriage equipage for me.
I am alone yet.
I wonder if she knows—does her ghost peep from the grasses?—that I am
drifting among the ijins she ever loathed.
I don’t see how to manage myself sometimes—like an unskilful fictionist
with his heroine.
When shall I get married?
10th—I yawned.
Nothing is more unbecoming to a woman than yawning.
I think it no offence to swear once in a while in one’s closet.
I was alone.
I tore to pieces my “Things Seen in the Street,” and fed the waste-paper
basket with them.
The basket looked so hungry without any rubbish. An unkept basket is
more pleasing, like a soiled autograph-book.
“I didn’t come to Amerikey to be critical, that is, to act mean, did I?”
I said.
I must remain an Oriental girl, like a cherry blossom smiling softly in
the Spring moonlight.
But afterwards I felt sorry for my destruction.
I thrust my hand into the basket. I plucked them up. They were illegibly
as follows:
“ women coursing like a
’rikisha of ’Hama their children
crying at home left somewhere
their womanliness
gentleman with stove-pipe hat blowing
nose with his fingers young
lady kept busy chewing gum
while walking. If you once show such a grace
at Tokio, you shall wait fruitlessly for the
marriage offer.
“ old grandma in gay red skirt
aged man arm-in-arm with wife
so young What a martyrdom
to marry for G-O-L-D! policeman
has no
“San Francisco is a beautiful city, but
’vertisements of ‘The Girl From Paris’
W——d’s Beer
with the watches hanging on their breasts
God bless you, red necktie
gentleman woman at the corner
chattering like a street politician.”
And I missed some other hundred lines.
11th—A letter from the minister arrived.
(I’d be a postman, by the way, if I were a man. A noble work that is to
deliver around the love and “gokigen ukagai.”)
I clipped off the Mexican stamp.
I will make a stamp book for my boy who may be born when I become a
wife.
Before opening the letter I pressed it to my ear. My imaginative ear
heard his illustrious “Ha, ha, ha——” rolling out.
How I missed his happy laughter!
Can he now pronounce a “How do?” in Mexican?
12th—It surprises me to learn that many an American is born and dies in
a hotel.
Such a life—however large rooms you may possess—is not distinguishable,
in my opinion, from that of a bird in a cage.
Is hotel-living a recent fashion?
Don’t say so!
The business locality—like the place where this Palace Hotel takes its
seat—does not afford a stomachful of respectable air.
I preferred some hospitable boarding house in a quiet street, where I
might even step up and down in nude feet. I wished to occupy a chamber
where the morning sun could steal in and shake my sleepy little head
with golden fingers as my beloved mama might do.
We will move to the “high-toned” boarding house of Mrs. Willis this
afternoon.
Her house is placed on the high hill of California Street.
I am grateful there is no car quaking along there.
My uncle says I shall have a whole lot of millionaires for neighbours.
California must be one dignified street.
The Chinese colony is close at hand from Mrs. Willis’,—the exotic
exposition brilliant with green and yellow colour. The incense surges.
So cute is the sparrow-eyed Asiatic girl—such a “karako”—with a small
cue on only one side of the head. Dear Oriental town!
Good luck, I pray, my Palace Hotel!
Sayonara, my graceful butlers!
I shall hear no more of their sweet “Yes, Madam!” They talk gently as a
lottery-seller.
The more they bow and smile the more you will press the button of tips.
They are so funny.
So long, everybody!
13th—The savour of the air is rich without being heavy.
The Tokio atmosphere emits a lassitude.
It’s natural that the Japs are prone to languor.
A good while ago I pushed down my window facing the Bay of San
Francisco. I leaned on the sill, my face propped up by both my hands.
The grand scenery absorbed my whole soul.
“Ideal place, isn’t it?” I emphasised.
The bay was dyed in profound blue.
The Oakland boat joggled on happily as from a fairy isle. My visionary
eyes caught the heavenly flock of seagulls around it.
If I could fly in their company!
The low mountains over the bay looked inexpressively comfortable, like
one sleeping under a warm blanket.
The moon-night view from here must be wonderful.
I felt a new stream of blood beginning to swell within my body.
I buzzed a silly song.
I crept into my uncle’s room.
I stole one stalk of his cigarettes.
I bit it, aping Mr. Uncle, when my door banged.
14th—I bustled back to my room.
My breast throbbed.
A naked woman in an oil painting stood before me in the hall.
Is Mrs. Willis a lady worthy of respect?
It is nothing but an insulting stroke to an Oriental lady—yes sir, I’m a
lady—to expose such an obscenity.
I brought down one of my crape haoris, raven-black in hue, with blushing
maple leaves dispersed on the sleeves, and cloaked the honourable
picture.
My haori wasn’t long enough.
The feet of the nude woman were all seen.
I have not the least objection to the undraped feet. They were faultless
in shape.
I myself am free to bestow a glimpse of my beautiful feet.
I turned the key of my door.
I stripped off my shoes and my stockings also.
Dear red silken stockings!
I scrutinised my feet for a while. Then I asked myself:
“Which is lovelier, my feet or those in the painting?”
15th—I couldn’t rest last night.
The long wail of a horn somewhere in the distance—at the gate of the
ocean perhaps—haunted me. The night was foggy.
I had a wild dream.
The fogs were not withdrawn this morning.
I was discouraged, I had to go out in my best gown.
Wasn’t it a shame that two buttons jumped out when I hurried to dress
up?
“Are the buttons secure?” is my first worry and the last.
Why don’t Meriken inventors take up the subject of buttonless clothes?
Woman cannot be easy while her dress is fastened by only buttons.
16th—I wish I could pay my bill with a bank check.
Have I money in the bank with my name?
I fancied it a great idea to sleep with a big bank book under the
pillow.
I decided to save my money hereafter.
How often have I expressed my hatred of an economical woman!
I detested the clinking “charin charan” of small coins in my purse. Very
hard I tried to get from them.
Extravagance is a folly. Folly is only a mild expression for crime.
I deducted ten dollars from the fifty that I had settled for my new
street gown. I dropped a card notifying my ladies’ tailor that I had
altered my mind for the second price.
“Ten already for the bank!” I said.
I took it to the “Yokohama Shokin Ginko” of this city.
I was given a little book for the first time in my life.
I thought myself quite a wealthy woman preserving my money in the bank.
I pressed the book to my face. I held it close to my bosom as a tiny
girl with a new doll.
And I smiled into a looking-glass.
17th—I went to the gallery of the photographer Taber, and posed in
Nippon “pera pera.”
The photographer spread before me many pictures of the actress in the
part of “Geisha.”
She was absurd.
I cannot comprehend where ’Mericans get the conception that Jap girls
are eternally smiling puppets.
Are we crazy to smile without motive?
What an untidy presence!
She didn’t even fasten the front of her kimono.
Charm doesn’t walk together with disorder under the same Japanese
parasol.
And I had the honour to be presented to an extraordinary mode in her
hair.
It might be entitled “ghost style.” It suggested an apparition in the
“Botan Toro” played by kikugoro.
The photographer handed me a fan.
Alas! It was a Chinese fan in a crude mixture of colour.
He urged me to carry it.
I declined, saying:
“Nobody fans in cool November!”
18th—We had a laugh.
Ada, my sweet singer of “My Gal’s a High-Born Lady,” accompanied me to a
matinée of one vaudeville.
This is the age of quick turn, sudden flashes.
The long show has ceased to be the fashion. Modern people are tired of
the slowness of old times which was once supposed to be seriousness.
Could anything be prouder than the face of the acrobat retiring after a
perilous performance?
Woman tumbler!
I wondered how Meriken ladies could enjoy looking at such a degeneration
of woman.
I was glad, however, that I did not see any snake-charmer.
What a delightful voice that negro had! Who could imagine that such a
silvery sound could come from such a midnight face? It was like clear
water out of the ground.
I was struck by a fancy.
I sprang up.
I attempted to imitate the high-kick dance.
I fell down abruptly.
“Jap’s short leg is no use in Amerikey—can’t achieve one thing. I am
frankly tired of mine,” I grumbled.
19th—The Sunday chime was the voice of an angel. The city turned
religious.
Mrs. Willis—I had no curiosity about her first name; it is meaningless
for the “Mrs.” of middle age—indulged in chat with me.
If I say she was “sociable”?—it sounds so graceful.
She announced herself a bigot of poetry. She was bending to make a full
poetical demonstration.
Of course it was more pleasing than a mourning-gowned narrative of her
lamented husband. (I suppose he is dead, as divorce is too commonplace.)
But it were treachery, if I were put under her long recital of the
insignificant works of local poets.
Tasukatta wa!
A little girl came as a relief.
Dorothy! She is a boarder of Mrs. Willis’, the golden-haired daughter of
Mrs. Browning.
(Mrs. Browning was a disappointment, however. I fancied she might be a
relative of the poet Browning. I asked about it. Her response was an
unsympathetic “No!”)
“O’ hayo!” Dorothy said, spattering over me her familiarity.
It takes only an hour to be friends with the Meriken girl, while it is
the work of a year with a Japanese musume.
“Great girl! Your Nippon language is perfect! Would you like to learn
more?” I said.
“I’d like it,” was her retort.
Then we slipped to my room.
I wonder how Mrs. Willis fared without an audience!
I was sorry, thinking that she might regard me as an uncivil Jap.
“Chon kina! Chon kina!”
Thus Dorothy repeated. It was a Japanese song, she said, which the
geisha girls sung in “The Geisha.”
Tat, tat, tat, stop, Dorothy!
Truly it was the opening sound—not the words—of a nonsensical song.
I presume that “The Geisha” is practising a plenteous injustice to Dai
Nippon.
I recalled one Meriken consul who jolted out that same song once at a
party.
He became no more a gentleman to me after that.
20th—I pasted my little card on my door.
I wrote on it “Japanese Lessons Given.”
I gazed at it.
I was exceedingly happy.
21st—A gardener came to fix our lawn.
There is nothing lovelier than verdant grasses trimmed neatly. They are
like the short skirt of the Meriken little girl.
We women could be angels, I thought, if our speech lapped justly. Women
talk superfluously. I do often.
What language did that gardener use?
It must be the English of Carlyle, I said, for its meaning was
intangible.
I discovered, by and by, that German English was his honourable choice.
My eyes could express more than my English uttered in Nippon voice. My
gestures helped to make my meaning plain.
He became my friend.
He carried a red square of cotton to wipe his mouth, like the furoshiki
in which a Japanese country “O’ ba san” wraps her New Year’s present.
And again as he was leaving I saw a red thing around his neck.
Was it not the same furoshiki which served for his nose?
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to play amateur gardener.
The season wasn’t fitting for such a performance, however.
A large summer hat! That was the customary attire.
But my light-hearted straw one with its laughing bouquet was not adapted
to November, however gorgeously the sun might shine.
And it’s sheer stupidity to track after a tradition.
I wound a large flapping piece of black crape about my head. (How
awfully becoming the garb of a Catholic nun would be! I do not know what
is dear, if it is not the rosary. A writhing rope around the waist is
celestial carelessness.)
I appeared on the lawn, but without a sprinkler and rake. It would have
been too theatrical to carry them.
I gathered the small stones from amid the grasses into a wheelbarrow
near by.
Just as my new enterprise was beginning to seem so delightful, the
luncheon gong gonged.
My uncle goggled from the hall, and said:
“Where have you been? I was afraid you had eloped.”
“I’ve no chance yet to meet a boy,” I spoke in an undertone.
Afterward I was ashamed that I had been so awkwardly sincere.
22nd—There was one thing that I wanted to test.
My uncle went out. I understood that he would not be back for some
hours.
I found myself in his room, pulling out his drawer.
“Isn’t it elegant?” I exclaimed, picking up his dress-suit.
At last I had an opportunity to examine how I would look in a tapering
coat.
Gentleman’s suit is fascinating.
“Where is his silk hat?” I said.
I reached up my arms to the top shelf of a closet, standing on the
chair.
The door swung open.
Tamageta! My liver was crushed by the alarm.
A chambermaid threw her suspicious smile at me.
Alas!
My adventure failed.
23rd—I mean no one else but O Ada San, when I say “my sweet girl.”
She was tremendously nice, giving a tea-party in my honour.
The star actress doesn’t appear on the stage from the first of the first
act. I thought I would present myself a bit later at the party, when
they were tattling about my delay.
I delight in employing such little dramatic arts.
I dressed all in silk. It’s proper, of course, for a Japanese girl.
I chose cherry blossoms in preference to roses for my hat. Roses are
acceptable, however, I said in my second thought, for they are given a
thorn against affronters.
I went to Miss Ada’s looking my best.
They—six young ladies in a bunch—stretched out their hands. I was coaxed
by their hailing smile.
Ada kissed me.
I had no charming manner in receiving a kiss before the people no more
than in giving one. I blushed miserably. I knew I was bungling.
O Morning Glory, you are one century late!
They besieged me.
None of them was so pretty as Ada. Beauty is rare, I perceive, like good
tweezers or ideal men.
I distributed my Japanese cards.
All of my new friends held them upside down.
Is it a modern vogue to be ignorant?
Ada played skilfully her role of hostess, which was a middle-aged part.
She didn’t even spill the tea in serving. Her “Sugar? Two lumps?”
sounded fit. She divided her entertaining eye-flashes among us.
Tea is the thing for afternoon, when woman is excused if she be silly.
We all undressed our too-tight coat of rhetoric in the sipping of tea.
We laughed, and laughed harder, not seeing what we were laughing at.
I couldn’t catch all of their names.
Such a delicious name as “Lily” was absurdly given to a girl with red
blotches on her face.
(A few blemishes are a fascination, however, like slang thrown in the
right place.)
Her flippancy was like the “buku buku” of a stream.
Lightness didn’t match with her heavy physique.
“How lovely an earthquake must be!” she chirruped. “Shall I go to Japan
just on that account? A jolly moment I had last February. A baby
earthquake visited here, as you know. I was drinking tea. The worst of
it was that I let the cup tumble on to my pink dress. I prayed a whole
week, nevertheless, to be called again.”
Woman has nothing to do with a hideous make-up. Miss Lily should not
select a pink hue.
“You are awful!” I said.
I told about the horror of a certain famous Japanese earthquake. They
all breathed out “Good heavens!”
There was one second of silence.
Ada struck a gushing melody on the piano.
The lively Meriken ladies prompted themselves to frisk about.
I was ready to cry in my destitution.
One girl hauled me up violently by the hand.
“Come and dance!”
Her arm crawled around my waist, while she directed:
“Right foot—now, left!”
I returned to Mrs. Willis’, my thoughts absorbed in a dancing academy.
“I must learn how to skip,” I said.
24th—I hate the alarm clock, simply because it is always so punctual.
“I was too late” is a delightful expression.
“Mrs. Willis’ breakfast is at quarter-past eight!”
Isn’t that “quarter-past” interesting?
And I can never be ready before nine.
25th—I dragged my uncle off to the Chute to enrich my store of zoology.
“One gape more, Uncle, to count up one dozen!” I said, and pulled his
mustache in the car.
It was lucky that no one saw my act.
Poor Oji San! Playing chaperon is not a very promising occupation, is
it?
I stood by the “happy family” of monkeys. I tried to descry their point
of view in orations.
I gave it up.
The vain Miss Polly worked hard to bring everybody to an understanding
with one eternal “Hello, dear!”
I found such grace in the elephant when he waved his honourable trunk.
The stupid Mr. Elephant wasn’t stupid a bit in accepting my present.
How philosophically he gazed at me! Very likely I was the first Jap girl
to his audience.
What respectable eyes!
“You’ll bankrupt yourself in peanuts,” my uncle warned.
26th—A white apron on my black dress makes me so cute.
I am just suited to be a chambermaid. Shall I volunteer as a servant?
I bought an apron.
To-day is house-cleaning day.
I kept busy a good while arranging my theatrical costume as a maid.
Wasn’t it fun?
I was ready to scrub the floor, when I heard “kotsu kotsu,” on my door.
It was Annie with a broom.
“I’m your help. Just a moment! I have forgotten the finishing glance in
my mirror.”
27th—I have been studying the catechism.
I am afraid to go to church, for the minister may put many a question to
me.
Is Miss Ada a dutiful church-goer?
I don’t think so.
She would rather mumble a nigger song than a chapter from the Bible.
I will ask her a few things from the catechism at my first opportunity.
28th—“Hand me your cup after you are done with your tea!” Mrs. Browning
requested. “I will ponder on your fortune.”
“How delightful!” I said.
My fortune?
I remembered how I used to scatter my pocket money among the
fortune-tellers, pleased to be informed of a lot of nice things.
What meaning she could find in a cup!
I felt like a mother with her children already in bed, when I dropped my
spoon into my tea.
I felt mistress of the situation.
Was there ever anything more welcome than to learn your fortune?
“A young American (rich, very rich—indeed) will win your affection. The
marriage will be a happy one,” she prophesied.
Is that so?
Life is becoming very interesting.
I wonder where my would-be husband is seeking me.
Shall I advertise in a paper?
How?
If my first-rate picture by Mr. Taber were printed, it would be a whole
thing in such a business.
I thought the picture beautiful enough to sell at any stationer’s of
U.S.A.
How many thousand could I sell in a week?
Could I make money out of it? Some decent fortune, I mean, of course.
29th—Ho, ho, such a day!
I was aroused by the roar of a milk-wagon early in the morning.
I sought a pin in vain.
I tore my skirt on a sneering nail at the door.
I upset my flower-vase.
I sat by my window. A vegetable pedlar howled to me, “Potatoes?
Potatoes?”
I couldn’t recall a sweet dream I had last night.
The clamour of a Chinese funeral passed under my room. The carriages
were packed with hired “crying women.” Isn’t it a farce?
I went out. My street-car ran off the track.
A fire-engine deafened me.
I passed by an undertaker’s. It was cold like a grave.
The sight stunned me.
30th—Is my nose high enough?
I bought a pair of “nose spectacles.”
Those with wires to circle the ears, which are Oriental (that is to say
old-fashioned), would suit even a noseless Formosa Chinee.
But how many Japs could show themselves ready for nose spectacles?
The Optician asked if they were for myself.
He was a trifle uncertain about my nose, I suppose.
“No! For my friend,” I said.