Through friends he arranged that we should meet Count Okuma, the
Premier of the Empire. We had made most of our visits about the city on
foot, and on one of the hottest days we had walked the round trip of a
dozen miles to have afternoon tea with a former Japanese diplomat to
America and his family, trusting that his sense of humour would forgive
our perspiration, but one does not arrive thus at a palace door. Great
was the excitement at the inn when ’ricksha men were called and our
destination was given out. We dashed away and careened around the
corners at tremendous speed. It was at least the second hottest day of
the year, but the coolies realized that they were part of a ceremony
and that their duty was to arrive streaming, panting, and exhausted.
Count Okuma, on his son’s arm, entered the small reception room into
which we were shown. (The bullet of a fanatic shattered the bone
of his leg when he was a young man.) Count Okuma is almost the last
survivor of that group who directed the miracle of transforming the
Japan of feudalism into the modern nation.
We drank tea and asked formal questions. Following some turn of the
conversation--Count Okuma was speaking of loyalty--we inquired, as we
had of the ancient schoolmaster of Kama-Suwa: “Can virtue be taught?”
The expression in the eyes of the Premier’s great, handsome head had
been passive as he had acquiesced in what had been said up to that
time. Now his expression became positive. He spoke slowly as if he were
summing up the belief and experience of a lifetime.
“When Japan, after her centuries of hermitage, had suddenly either to
face the West and to compete successfully with you, or to sink into
being a tributary and exploited people, our greatest necessity in
patriotism was to recognize instantly that in the physical and material
world we had to learn everything from you. Our social, commercial, and
governmental methods were suited only to the organization of society
which we then had. We discovered that your world is a world of commerce
and competition; that the achieving of wealth from the profits of
trade demands training, efficiency, ingenuity, and initiative. Our
civilization had not developed these qualities in us. We could only
hope that we had latent ability. Furthermore, observation of you taught
us to realize the value of physical power. We saw that mere superior
cleverness and ability in the competition to live is not sufficient
until backed by a preparedness of force. America was our great teacher
and we shall never cease to be grateful. In the physical world we had
everything to learn from you, and to-day we must constantly remember
that we have only begun to learn.
“It was our overwhelming task to begin at the beginning, and we should
have had no success if it had not been for the moral qualities of the
Japanese people. These virtues cannot be taught--merely as they are
required. They are the spiritual and moral inheritage from the past.
In the avalanche of Western ideas which came upon us, it was our great
work to pick, to choose, and to adapt. These ideas were the ideas of
the commercial world. There are those who say that Japan in taking over
these standards of materialism relinquished the priceless inheritance
of its own spiritual life. No! We have had _everything_ to learn from
you in methods, but that should not be confused with spiritual values.
I do not mean mere creeds and dogma, but to the essence, the great
fundamentals of all true religion.
“It is possible that sometime in the future the outside world may
discover that it will have need to come to us for the values that are
ours through our great moral inheritance of loyalty. In a material way
we can never pay back to you our obligation for having been taught your
material lessons. But it may be that Western nations have put too great
faith in materialism and that they will arrive at the bitter knowledge
that the fruit of life is death unless the faith of men reaches out
for something beyond the material. Then, if we of Japan have humbly
guarded our spiritual wealth, the world may come to ask the secret of
our spiritual values as we went to you to ask the inner secret of your
material values.”
XVI BEACH COMBERS
On the morning that the boat was to sail from Yokohama we were up as
soon as the sun first came through the bamboo shades. We exchanged
presents with everyone in the inn and then walked away to the station,
and everyone from the aristocratic mistress to the messenger boy stood
waving to us as long as we could turn back to see them. Our packages
and presents half filled the car. Hori had had a telegram to hurry
home. The train was a through express to Kyoto and we said “_sayonara_”
to him from the Yokohama platform.
We went to the bank and I exchanged my receipt for the envelope which
held the money for my steamer ticket. In our treasury was left one last
Japanese note which we had been saving as a margin. We now thought
it was safely ours to spend as we might choose. We went to find some
very particular incense and some very particular tea which a Japanese
acquaintance had discovered and had given us the address of. We
plunged almost to the limit of the note.
“Haven’t you heard that your boat has been held up forty-eight hours in
Kobe?” asked the steamship agent.
We had heard no such news, but we were interested. To be able to have,
when one might wish to make the choice, the gift of forty-eight hours
in Japan would be one sort of a blessing. At that particular moment the
prospect had complications. Until that instant our system of finance
had been the pride of our hearts. We had calculated so admirably that
we had retained just one _yen_ for porters’ fees at the dock.
O-Owre-san had his return ticket. “Can’t I pay for my ticket in part by
cheque?” I asked.
After consultation in the inner office the agent returned and
announced, “No, that isn’t done.”
The agent and his advisers thought that if I should happen to fall
overboard there might be a legal complication with my estate--if I
happened to have an estate.
“Your records show,” I argued, “that my friend has crossed on your line
three times. Discounting any other substantiality, at least that proves
that one of us has had practice in not tumbling overside.”
Evidently my logic was at fault. From the dubious looks that came
across the desk I judged that the agent was thinking that such fly-like
pertinacity of sticking aboard a vessel was suspicious and unnatural in
a passenger.
“Well,” said O-Owre-san as we walked away, “you’ve wondered what it
would be like to be an amateur beach comber. Now is your admirable
chance.”
O-Owre-san seemed to forget that he was in no better position than was
I in regard to funds.
The day before we had had tea with the Premier of Japan. Now we faced
forty-eight hours of starvation. Our horoscopes evidently had been
cast that we were to be beach combers, the admirable chance of which
O-Owre-san had suggested.
We did not deceive ourselves that our few hours of homelessness made
us professionals, nevertheless we were given a picture impression of
Yokohama that could only have been bought by hunger and sleeplessness.
We saw the going to bed of the city, and we saw its getting up. We saw
Theatre Street gay with lanterns and filled with merrymakers. Hours
later we saw the lanterns go out and the waiters and waitresses come
forth to crowd into the public baths. We walked through the glitter
of the street which winds between the houses of the wall-imprisoned
_Yoshiwara_ district. There is but one entrance to this district--a
long stone bridge. We saw that bridge again, at the hour of sunrise.
It was then crowded with beggars and loathsome hangers-on, waiting to
importune the exodus. Vice by grey daylight is horrible, and those
brilliant palaces of the night before bulked in a row of dull and
sinister ugliness in the half daylight. Back and forth we explored
the streets of the city. We passed a foreign sailors’ low dive, and a
toothless old woman and a leering youth grabbed at our arms and invited
us in. They spoke phrases of English. There was wild laughter and music
on the upper floor.
Sometimes the hours went quickly, sometimes they lingered interminably
with no seeming relation between their speeding and the interest of the
moment. Sometimes we were hungry and sometimes we forgot our hunger. We
found a small park near the foreign settlement with benches admirable
for sleeping if it had not been for the diligence of the sand fleas
and the gnats. From the park we walked down along the bund and on the
promenade facing the harbour we found two seats. A Japanese sailor
was sitting on one.
We wished him good-evening and shared with him our cigarettes. After a
time we wandered away to walk again through the streets of the bright
lanterns. We had been refusing ’ricksha men for so many hours that the
guild at last seemed to remember us as non-possibilities, that is,
all except one man who persisted in turning up at every corner. He
spoke some English and had a new suggestion for his every proposal.
If ever a coolie looked theatrically villainous, it was that coolie;
and furthermore, he was half-drunk from cheap _sake_. Eventually he
discovered a companion and the two of them settled down at our heels.
Whenever we hesitated they threw their ’ricksha shafts across our
path. They thought that we were officers from some ship and they were
counting upon our having to return before the four-o’clock watch. I do
not know that officers ever do have to return at that hour, but the
coolies were sure that we had such necessity. When four o’clock came
they were mystified and angry. Until then they had rather amused us.
We now told them to be off and we walked away into the quiet streets.
They still persisted in their following. We tried indifference and
we tried invective. I could see that the police at the corners were
watching the procession. We might have appealed to them, but one seldom
appeals to the police in a foreign land, especially in Japan, if there
is any question of time to be considered. We had to take the boat the
next morning. We had no desire to be ordered to report the next day at
a police station; and for the matter of that, I should hardly have felt
like criticizing any officer for deciding to lock us all up together.
The coolies might have appealed that we had hired them and had not
paid them. Anyhow, why should two foreigners be wandering around in
questionable districts at such an hour of the night? If there had to be
a settlement with our pair of villains, it was just as well to have it
beyond the eye of the law.
Our next move was melodramatic. We drew a line across the road and
when our parasites caught up we told them that they crossed that line
at their peril. Just what we should have done if they had crossed the
line I have no idea. We walked along pleased with the result of our
ultimatum until, ten or fifteen minutes later, I happened to turn
around and again saw the two men, this time without their ’rickshas.
We were now headed toward the sea front by way of the foreign
sections. The buildings were absolutely dark but there was an
occasional street light. If there were any watchmen they were within
the walls. We had walked through the narrow streets of that district
so often that we remembered the turns. We felt sure that the men could
not catch up with us except from behind. We were well out on the bund
before they came out of the alley that we had left. They were both
carrying sticks, which looked like ’ricksha shafts, and the second man
had a knife.
We walked along toward the benches where we had been sitting earlier in
the night. Steamer lights were twinkling on the harbour and O-Owre-san
pointed out our ship waiting to dock at sunrise. Years before I had
been attacked in the streets of San Francisco, but that assault had
been so sudden that there was no anticipatory excitement. Our Yokohama
anticipatory reflection was the amusing idea that if the knaves should
attain the triumph of searching our pockets they would have a most
disheartening anti-climax after all their evening’s trouble.
Just as we reached the benches they came for us. We stepped around the
first bench to break the charge. Outstretched on the bench was our
Japanese sailor whom we had helped out with cigarettes. He may have
been asleep, but when he jumped to his feet he was very wide awake.
Without waiting for particulars he whipped out a clasp knife. We had
been friends and this was a chance to even up his obligation to us.
The two coolies stopped as if they had run against an invisible wire.
We stood facing each other, and then, as stealthily as a great cat,
the sailor began moving forward. He walked very slowly but he seemed
to thirst to use his knife. Even with three to two, I felt that the
coolies, half-drunken, would have tried to hold their ground if it had
not been for the sailor’s uncanny deliberation. They waited for him to
come no nearer. They fled. We could hear them running long after the
darkness closed them in.
We tried to express our appreciation to the sailor for his interest. He
made some answer which sounded as if he were bored.
One place and another we had found a little sleep in the two days but
the thought of a soft, clean steamer bunk began to form itself in my
brain and the first sign of the sun was truly welcome. We turned back
to the city for one last long walk over the heights. The town was
sleepily waking up. The streets that had been the darkest in the night
were now the busiest. Our walk ended at the parcel room of the railway
station where we had left our rucksacks. The boy who was sweeping out
the station restaurant allowed us to shave and scrub behind a screen
and make ourselves somewhat presentable for the boat.
Our luggage, which had been in storage, was on the dock waiting for
us. O-Owre-san thoroughly shook the linen envelope which had so long
been our treasury but the yield refused to increase beyond three silver
ten-_sen_ pieces. I once saw an Italian in Venice fee an entire hotel
line with a few coppers. He accomplished the act with such graceful
courtesy that seemingly the servitors were appreciative of the spirit
of the giving rather than the value of the coins. I tried to distribute
our pieces of silver to the porters on the dock with an air copied
from my remembrance of the Italian, and the Nipponese recipients
entered into the drama with sufficient make-belief to have saved our
faces if it had not been for the chill in the critical eyes of two
English sailors standing at the gangplank. The implication of their
Anglo-Saxon hauteur was that it might be satisfying to the heathen in
their darkness to weigh in with the heft of compensation such useless
freight as palaver and smiles, but as for them, they belonged to a
civilization preferring less manners and more substance.
As the boat swung from the pier and open water began to show, a man
came running down the dock waving the copy of a cablegram. “Germany has
invaded France and England may declare war,” he shouted. Yes, decidedly
our days of turning back the clock were over. We were no longer
_ronins_ wandering in feudal Japan. We had left the Two-Sworded Trails
and were back in the civilization of the two English sailors.
Slowly the harbour of Yokohama was curtained and disappeared behind a
brightly glistening mist. I stood against the rail trying to think of
America and Europe. My mind had that illusory, abnormal clearness which
sometimes follows days without sleep. I stood, thinking, thinking, the
first beginning of that agony of trying to add a cubit to our vision by
thought.
[Illustration: SLOWLY THE HARBOR OF YOKOHAMA WAS CURTAINED AND
DISAPPEARED BEHIND A BRIGHTLY GLISTENING MIST]
* * * * *
GLOSSARY OF JAPANESE WORDS
GLOSSARY OF JAPANESE WORDS
AKAMBO Infant
BENTO Luncheon Box Sold at Railway Stations
BUSHIDO Code of Honourable Conduct
DAIMYO A Noble of Old Japan
FUROSHIKI Large Handkerchief Used for Carrying Various
Objects and Packages
GEISHA Trained Entertainers, Singing and Dancing Girls
GETA Clogs
HEI Expression of Affirmation
HIBACHI Brazier for Holding Charcoal
IIYE No
KEBUKAI Hairy
KIREI Beautiful
KISHA Local Train
NE-SAN Literally “Elder Sister,” Maid
OBI Girdle for Kimono
O-HAYO Good-morning
RAMUNE Carbonated, Bottled Lemonade
RONIN Unattached, Wandering _Samurai_
SAKÉ Rice Wine
SAMURAI Military Class; Retainers of Daimyo (Feudal)
SAYO Formal “Yes”
SEIYO-JIN Foreigner
SEN Standard Small Coin Equalling One-half Cent
SHOGI Sliding Screen
TABI A Cloth Compromise Between Shoes and Stockings
YADO-YA Native Inn
YEN Currency Standard, Equalling Fifty Cents
O-YASUMI-NASAI Good-night
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they are
mentioned.
Punctuation has been made consistent.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have
been corrected.