to meet the head of the school. He was not in his administration
room, but he entered in a few minutes. After the formal introduction
he clapped his hands for tea. His appearance and his dignity were of
ancient Japan. His thin divided moustache fell in long pencil-like
strands from the corners of his lip, as do those of the sages in the
ancient Chinese paintings. His _kimono_ was silk. We smoked and drank
tea and talked abstractedly about education. It was a girls’ school but
he talked of boys. We strayed from Montessori methods to industrial
training. After he had used some such phrases as “a sound education,”
O-Owre-san asked how many years of a boy’s life he considered should be
given over to his schooling. His eyes had been of passive light. They
now gleamed like those of a warrior.
“Until he has been taught loyalty to his Emperor!”
It perhaps may be a debatable question for the other nations of the
world, that question of Socrates whether virtue can be taught, but the
headmaster of the high school in Kama-Suwa declared that in Japan a
teacher is not a teacher unless he can teach loyalty. The boys must
be taught loyalty; the daughters of the Empire must be taught grace.
(And by grace I think he meant also charm.) To exemplify, we were led
to the “flower-arranging room.” The Japanese arranging of flowers is
a ceremony and there is commingled in it both the suggestion of the
actual in life and the ideal of the perfect. The room which we were
shown was an attempt to achieve the supreme inheritance of Japanese
art in architecture and decoration--rhythm, harmony, and simplicity.
Something of the spirit of didacticism must ever hang over a room
so built but, in the room that we were shown, charm and beauty had
surprisingly survived the inevitable refrigeration of being labelled
“classic.”
[Illustration: THE BOYS MUST BE TAUGHT LOYALTY; THE DAUGHTERS OF THE
EMPIRE MUST BE TAUGHT GRACE.]
XII TSURO-MATSU AND HISU-MATSU
In the same town of Kama-Suwa where the barracks-like high school
for girls spreads its wings there also rises the tiled roof of a
_geisha_ house. Under its protection other daughters of the Empire
are also being rigorously trained to duties--the life of amusing and
entertaining. The position of the _geisha_ cannot be illuminated by
comparisons. There are the “sing-song girls” of Peking and the nautch
dancers of India, and there were in the days of the fruition of Greek
civilization the sisters of Aspasia; the life of the _geisha_ might
be considered to be somewhat parallel to their lives in so far as it
is a response to the demand of highly civilized man for the romance
of idealized anarchy; the inhibitions of custom, or dogma, having
precluded the expression of inborn romantic desire in his conventional
life. Men whose minds have realized some measure of freedom through
imagination and culture instinctively seek idealistic companionship
with women. When realization is compressed by such custom as marriage
by family arrangement this desire finds expression in some direction
where there is at least the illusion of freedom. Human nature is like
the human body, if pressure is applied in one spot, unless there is
some equitable, compensating bulge elsewhere, the compression is
likely to be vitally destructive. If the highest ideality has as its
cornerstone responsibility, then when marriage is an institution by
arrangement and the sense of responsibility is not created through the
freedom of choice, feminine companionship and charm will inevitably
be sought in the romance of some more voluntary arrangement. Who will
absolutely deny that when the endeavour to save poetical yearning
from defeat is such companionship as the almost classical ceremony
of watching the white fingers of a _geisha_ pour tea into a shell
of porcelain, a sort of mutual sense of responsibility to save the
fineness of life may enter into the relationship as a redeeming grace
against the professionalism of the _geisha’s_ life?
We turned from the street into the gate of the principal tea-house.
There was a clapping of hands by the first servant who heard our
steps on the gravel path and in a moment the mistress and all the
men-servants and maid-servants were at the door to greet us. It was
at an hour in the afternoon when the tea-house did not expect guests.
We took off our shoes and were led to the floor above. There were
four or five rooms but they soon became one, the maids removing the
sliding screen panels, and we were given the luxury of unpartitioned
possession. One side, entirely without wall, overhung the garden.
The maids brought cold water and tea and sherbets and iced beer and
fruits and cakes, and there were dishes on the table of which we did
not even lift the covers. Then they knelt and awaited our orders
whether they should send for _geishas_. They explained that at that
hour there might be the rude annoyance to our honourable patience of
having to endure an unavoidable delay. It would not be likely that the
_geishas_ could come immediately. We told them that our honourable
patience would suffer the delay.
When the French builders and decorators tried to attain the ultimate
for the housing of royalty in the age of the Grand Monarch, their
success approached close to the realization of what the imagination
of the period asked. Versailles was built with the idea of reaching
theoretical perfection through the completion of detail. The
imagination of the beholder was supposed to find complete satisfaction
in what he saw and not to feel the urge of the possibility of still
higher flights. If the beholder was not content with this “perfection,”
he was indeed in a plight, for there was no next step except to begin
all over again. The rhythm of the art of the Japanese tea-house is not
dependent upon regularity nor balance. Its perfection can never be
completed. The last word cannot be spoken. It is like life.
We walked over the soft mats examining the work of the craftsman
builder who had made his material yield its beauty through the grain
and line of each plank, board, beam, pillar, and panel. I moved a
cushion to the balcony and sat down to study the room in deeper
perspective. I never followed out this sedate contemplation, for
instead I happened to look over the balcony. Across the court of the
garden I saw into an open room of a wing. Three little girls, from
about five to seven years of age, were being trained in the arts of the
_geisha_. At that moment their instruction was in the dance.
The work was being gone through seriously but the teachers were
sympathetic and encouraging. A dancing master assumed the general
superintendence: several older girls, full-fledged _geishas_, sat
offering suggestions from their experience. They were in simple,
everyday dress and not in _geisha_ costume. The novitiates sometimes
begin their training even younger than five years. Quite often such
children are orphans who come into the profession by legal adoption;
others are the children of parents who have apprenticed their daughters
under an arrangement which virtually amounts to a sale. Naturally the
_geisha_ master does not select children who do not possess the promise
of grace, beauty, and charm. The long training is expensive and it is
intended that there shall be a return on the investment. The little
girls, whom we could see, were practising over and over again the
steps of some classical dance to the music of a _samisen_. From the
expression of their faces to the position of their fingers in carrying
their fans, every possibility of technic which should enter into the
dance was receiving the minutest attention.
For many years, Hori whispered, the training of those little girls
must go on to one end--to interest, to entertain, and to amuse men.
They will be taught to wear the gorgeous silks and embroideries of the
_geisha_; they will be taught that every movement of the hand and arm
in pouring tea or passing the cup should be an art; they will be taught
when they should smile, when they should laugh, and when they should
sympathize; they will be taught how to converse, how to repeat the
classical tales and the tales of folklore and how deftly to introduce
merry stories of the day. After all this training the graduation comes
when they enter actively into the life of the _geisha_. In this budding
a girl may amuse partly by the mere gossamer fragility of her youth,
but later maturity brings the capital of acquired experience, not only
in the art of entertaining but through having learned that the charm
of woman is largely the solace that she can bring through sympathy and
understanding.
What is the end? It may be better or worse, tragic or domestic,
marriage, shame, servitude, modest anonymity, or the retirement to the
teaching of her art to another generation. Her life is one obviously
wherein the path has many by-ways to temptation. There is much that
must be insincere and tinsel. If many a little heart, sweet, modest,
and unhardened, is crushed, nevertheless if there be forgiving gods
among those to whom she prays, surely those gods must know that these
Mary Magdalenes are (so a poet of the _yoshiwara_ wrote) in the greater
truth as the flowers of the lotus. Though their feet have touched the
black mud of the stagnant pond, “the heart of the _geisha_ is the
flower of the lotus.”
We heard a footstep at the door and turned to see a _geisha_ standing
there. She was tall and slender. The delicate paleness of her face
was even whiter through fear. She saw us, barbarians, sitting in the
refinement of the tea-house room. The carmine spots on her lips shone
brightly, giving to her expression the unreality of the frightened
look a doll might have if suddenly brought to life. She was carrying a
_samisen_. Her fingers tightly clutched the wrappings. She came across
the room toward us and as her knees bent against the skirt of her
_kimono_ I could see that they were trembling. She sat down and tried
to smile. The duty of a _geisha_ is to smile. She smiled with the same
last effort of loyalty which carries the soldier into a hopeless charge.
I felt an abysmal brute to be there. Absurd perhaps, but it was as
if the command of some strange, scornful, hitherto unheeded, almost
unknown spirit of justice was calling me to name some defence why man
in his arrogance has assumed the right to pluck the beauty of the
flowers and has assumed the justification that the reason for the
perfume and the beauty is that they were created for him. It was a
strange beginning for the gaiety of a _geisha_ luncheon.
Tsuro-matsu drew back the fold of her sleeve to her elbow and raised
the teapot. The spout trembled against the rim of the cup which she
was filling. She handed the cup to Hori and until that moment I do not
believe that she had noticed that he was a Japanese.
“The child is frightened to death,” said O-Owre-san. “Say something,
Hori, quick! If she wants to go home----”
Tsuro-matsu had read the meaning of the words from their tone before
Hori tried to translate. She smiled and this time her lips parted from
her pretty teeth spontaneously. Then she said that Hisu-matsu, a second
_geisha_, would soon come. When the messenger had arrived for them they
had first to send for their hair dresser. The messenger had told them
that the guests at the tea-house were foreigners. Thus her frightened
anticipation had had its beginning before she had entered the room. We
asked what had been her fears.
Tsuro-matsu did not wish to say. She had once before seen foreigners
but only from her balcony. We still persisted in our question. When she
realized that the truth would please us more than compliments, even
if the telling somewhat offended against the etiquette of hospitality,
she ventured slowly to repeat some of the tales which had been passed
along by imaginative tongues until they had eventually reached the
_geisha_ house of Kama-Suwa. We sat waiting to hear some legend truly
scandalous, but there was nothing of such atrocity. She had not
heard of Buddhist children being stolen for sacrifice on Christian
altars. Our barbarities of the Western world that worried the _geisha_
sensibility were departures not from mercy but from manners. We were
wild and rough and of much noise, always in a hurry, and knowing
nothing of the refinements, such as tea drinking, and we were always to
be discovered dropping rice grains from our chopsticks onto the floor.
And, as a conclusion, the foreigner, such was her information, had no
appreciation for gentle conversation, nor for any of the arts of social
intercourse of which the _geisha_, in her vocation, is the guardian
priestess.
Of all the intricacies of thought in modern Japan, the most interesting
is the side-by-side existence (without its possession seemingly
arousing any astonishment in the mind of the possessors) of two
completely different conceptions of the foreigner. A Japanese
may sometimes sincerely render honour to a foreigner for superior
attainments and yet sustain the old feudal idea that the foreigner
must be a barbarian even in those very attainments. It is quite
possible when the frightened Tsuro-matsu left the _geisha_ house in her
’ricksha that she not only felt that she was going to an ordeal where
she would suffer from the crudities of the _inferior_ foreigner, but
that she was being singled out for the distinct honour of entertaining
the _superior_ foreigner. In one way, for the common people, this
paradox may be partially explained by the fact that their leaders
order them to honour the foreigner for his practical achievements, and
in their unhesitating loyalty they do as they are told. It is much
easier to accept such authority than to puzzle out how the knowledge
and experience of their worshipped ancestors could have been of such
superior brand and yet been of such ignorance.
Tsuro-matsu was telling us something of her fears when Hisu-matsu
entered. Upon what scene she had expected to come, I have no imagining,
but her surprise at the state of intimate peace which did reign proved
that she had been thinking of a different probability. Her surprise
dissipated her timidity, and she began to laugh at Tsuro-matsu’s
earnestness. Hisu-matsu was somewhat older. Her _geisha_ dress was
perhaps richer; quite likely her skill in conversation and in playing
the _samisen_ was superior--but she was not so exquisitely fragile in
her beauty.
Japan is the court of Haroun al-Raschid in the love of hearing stories.
Always we were being asked for stories, stories of romance, love, and
adventure, “such as you tell at home when sitting on the mats drinking
tea.” Perhaps the elevation to chairs has subtly sapped away from us
the art of tale spinning beyond the briefest of anecdotes and jokes.
There was no more of a response in us when Tsuro-matsu asked us to
tell a story than there had been when Hori had asked us to extemporize
poetry in the valley of the Kiso. We scored a failure as always but a
moment later chance gave us a second opportunity for the vindication of
Occidental accomplishments.
O-Owre-san had picked up a _samisen_ and was searching for some
harmonies in the long strings. In the mystery of the night, coming out
of the darkness, the music of Japan has a certain functioning charm
harmonizing with the rhythm of the wings of insects beating their way
through the shadows; but to hear the love song of a strident cicada
coming from the white throat and red lips of a _geisha_--at least that
is not our melody of passion. It was Hisu-matsu this time who made
the request. She asked O-Owre-san to sing a song, “as you sing songs
in America.” This was the chance to redeem our failure. The hills of
Norway gave O-Owre-san a birth-gift of melody. His whistling is like a
bird call, clear and true. Hori and I insisted that he must whistle. It
was the air of a folksong that he remembered. It had the Viking cry of
the Norse wind and the lust of storm and battle. The two girls tried to
listen.
“Change to Pagliacci,” I whispered. The music of the North had failed.
I was in duress to save our faces.
Again they tried to listen. Then they looked at each other in
astonishment and in each pair of eyes there was annoyance. They began
talking to each other in disregard of Pagliacci and everything Italian.
It was an obvious disregard. At first they had thought that he might
be practising, but when he continued the distressing sounds, then they
were sure that we were making fun of their request. They were trying
to save their own faces. They had begun talking to prove that they
could not so easily be taken in. Hori had the brilliancy to retreat.
He hastened to ask them to sing and play again. By sitting raptly
while the strings of the _samisen_ were rasped by the sharp ivory pick
and their voices followed in accompaniment, we were able in a measure
to atone for the barbarity of our own music by showing that we could
listen appreciatively to good music when opportunity granted.
The hour came to pay our reckoning and to depart. We said good-bye
over the teacups, but when we were sitting at the door putting on
our shoes we heard the sound of the _geishas’_ white _tabi_ on the
stairs. Their two ’rickshas wheeled up to the entrance for them, but
they hesitated. They stood whispering to each other for a moment and
then turned to us and suggested that they would walk as far as our
inn gate with us if we wished. O-Owre-san and I were nonplussed. Hori
hurriedly told us that their suggestion was a marked compliment, that
we should accept it with thanks, and that he would explain later.
Sometimes--and the occasions are supposed to be so sufficiently rare
as to be of complimentary value--a popular _geisha_ will drag the
hem of her embroidered _kimono_ along the street in this custom of
courtesy by which she shows her appreciation for her entertainment.
It should be remembered that a _geisha_ is traditionally a guest. In
Tokyo, said Hori, a young blood who has spent his last spendthrift
_sen_ on a gorgeous dinner will await such approval as the hallmark
upon his artistry as host. If it is denied he reads in the answer not
a mere feminine caprice but an impartial, critical disapproval. He
seeks for the reason by trying to remember any errors in his own hostly
proficiency. It is to be imagined, however, that while the bestowal of
this approval may theoretically only be employed for the maintenance
of the rigid standard of etiquette and artistry, in practice it is not
always confined to such rarefied judgment.
The five of us started on the long walk to the inn gate. I am afraid
that the gentle _geishas_ had not given thought to the composition of
the picture. Tsuro-matsu was rather tall for a Japanese, but Hisu-matsu
was not, and the _seiyo-jins_ were somewhat over six feet each. In the
daylight, also, the _geisha_ costume noticeably brightens a street.
Walking abreast we made a cordon stretching across the road to the
utter bewilderment of Kama-Suwa.
We had found before this that the crowds which gather in provincial
towns are seldom intentionally annoying, although sometimes they do
jam around a shop door, shutting off the light and air. The steadfast
staring may be unpleasant, but the foreigner soon learns to think
little about naïve curiosity. Our march through Kama-Suwa certainly
did attract attention, but the crowds separated and allowed us to pass
without following at our heels, and I believed Hori when he said that
this heroic restraint of curiosity arose from their innate feeling
that its manifestation would be discourteous and inhospitable. This
sense of consideration was not a sufficiently quick reaction, however,
to prevent inordinate amazement when anyone met us suddenly. A boy on
a bicycle, coming round a corner, forgot his own personal existence
entirely and his unguided wheel carried him directly into a shop door,
somewhat to the disturbance of the ménage and himself. Our progress
continued slowly as the toed-in sandals under the long _kimono_ skirts
of the _geishas_ did not take steps measuring with our usual stride. We
found that dictionary conversation could not be pursued expeditiously
in the street, and after a few attempts to make known words do the work
of unknown with discouraging results, the advance proceeded silently
and rather solemnly, although I received flashes from those two demure
maids that they had a sense of humour. The corners of their mouths did
twitch in mischievous enjoyment of the situation.
When we reached the shores of the lake we sat down on the rocks and
watched the boats. The rising breeze roughened the surface into a long
path of flame against the red sun. Hisu-matsu had been dissatisfied all
afternoon with the hurried effort of her hairdresser. She drew out the
large combs and the heavy strands of hair fell over her shoulders. She
told us a queer, whimsical story about the birds that were flying over
the reeds. They said good-bye to us and walked away and we turned in at
our inn lane.
Our dinner was very late. Finally the stumbling maid came, rubbing her
eyes and yawning. She was, as always we had seen her, on the immediate
point of going to sleep. She had been carrying _sake_, all the night
before, but she had been almost as sleepy on the previous day. Now, in
serving dinner, she went definitely to sleep every time there was a
lull in her duties. She had one hiatus of lukewarm wakefulness in which
she mumbled some appeal to Hori, but he declared to us that the words
had no sense. We began fearing for the few faculties she appeared to
have.
Hori listened more carefully. “I believe she is saying something,” he
decided.
Little by little we learned that she had a favour to ask the foreign
doctor. Just how she had discovered that O-Owre-san had medical wisdom
was a mystery. She said that all Japan knows that foreign doctors can
do anything. She begged for a drug to keep her awake, something that
she could swallow so that she would never feel sleepy again, or better
than that, some drug so potent, if there were any such, that she would
never even have to sleep again.
“H’m,” said the foreign doctor. “Tell her there isn’t any such drug.
Tell her to get a good night’s sleep. She will feel better about it in
the morning.”
Her disappointment was pitiful.
“But I shall never have a night’s sleep,” she said. “If I ask for time
to sleep I shall be told that there are many maids who will be glad to
take my place.” She knew, she went on, that she was very stupid, but
she maintained that she was not so stupid when she was not so sleepy.
It is outside our comprehension and experience how the Chinese and
Japanese can labour on and on, more nearly attaining a wakeful
condition for the full round of the day than the individuals of
other races would consent to endure even if they could continue life
under the strain. In all inns the maids work long hours, nor do the
mistresses spare themselves. The mistress of the inn at Kama-Suwa
seemingly lacked the usual kindly sympathy for her maids and was
unusually demanding. O-Hanna-san (the irony of calling her a _flower_!)
could not dare the risk of attempting to escape from her slavery.
It was for the sake of her fatherless child that she dared not, she
told us. She, the clumsy, stumbling, stupid, sleepy maid, had had her
tragedy as had had the pale, forsaken daughter of the nobility whom she
had waited upon the night before.
After her disappointment that she could obtain from us no
sleep-dispelling drug she toppled again into unconsciousness. We could
at least give her temporary help. We sent for the mistress and asked
her for a full night’s sleep for the girl. For the maid’s sake it was
necessary to put our demand on the ground that we must have better
service in the morning. This saved the face of the mistress. After the
mistress had consented and had gone, poor O-Hanna-san’s affectionate
thanks were embarrassing.
On a point reaching into the lake and under our balcony stood a small,
one-storied shrine. It was sheltered by a tiled roof pitched on four
columns. We saw from our room two figures in white walking along
the shore. They stopped at the shrine and knelt for some time. When
they arose the bright moon suddenly revealed that the two figures
were Tsuro-matsu and Hisu-matsu. Hori went down to speak to them and
in a moment their three heads appeared up the stairs. The _geishas_
had changed the silks and brocades of their costume for simple white
_kimonos_ and their hair was not now arranged after the elaborate style
of the professional hairdresser. Instead of this simplicity detracting
it quite startlingly bespoke the charm of their delicate beauty.