Day was fading into twilight as we trailed after the Satsuma men into
the heart of Shinagawa. On either side of the Tokaido extended rows
of handsome two-storied inns and teahouses, set one against the other
without a gap except where divided by narrow cross streets. The upper
windows and balconies of every building were sealed over with opaque
screens to prevent persons from looking down upon the _daimio_ and his
retinue, and across the entrances of the side streets were stretched
frail ropes of twisted straw, behind which kneeling crowds waited for
the passage of the last Satsuma man.
The street was guarded by wardsmen, or householders, bearing iron
staves with large rings at the top. We shuffled along between these
warders, with downbent heads, perilously close to the rear of the
procession. Three or four times the wardsmen seemed inclined to halt
us, but we passed by them with outward indifference, keeping well in
advance of the crowds that surged out behind us into the Tokaido from
the unbarred side streets.
Midway of the long suburb Yoritomo turned sharply into a narrow street
leading towards the bay. I stooped under the barring rope after him,
and found myself in the midst of a dense crowd of men, many of whom
were still kneeling. Packed side by side in the jam were cotton-clad
tradesmen and silk-gowned _samurais_, half-naked artisans and nobles
in lacquered _norimon_ palanquins. All alike were provided with paper
lanterns, round, square, or octagonal in shape, and inscribed with
crest or name in Chinese ideographs. These lanterns and the rows of
similar ones hung along the fronts of the houses were being lighted as
twilight deepened into darkness.
Suddenly the crowd through which we were attempting to pass swayed
forward and filled the air with the clash of their wooden clogs on
the hard ground. The rope had been taken down and the crowd permitted
to surge out into the Tokaido. While we worked our way in against the
outpouring stream, I was pleased to see that there were no women in
the jam. But on either side of the street wide-flung screens exposed
to view artistically decorated interiors where smiling young girls
in gorgeous dress knelt on the mats, twanging odd music on their
three-string _samisens_ or preening themselves before mirrors of
polished bronze. In other houses dainty waiting maids fluttered about
like butterflies, serving the hungry guests.
The crowd in the street was the sweetest one with which I had ever come
in contact, and this was no less true when we elbowed our way through
a band of breech-clouted porters. The explanation was not far off
when, with the breaking of the jam, we approached a building through
whose latticed front issued clouds of vapor and a babel of chatter and
laughter.
When opposite this house I glanced in through the wide spaces of the
lattice and was startled to see a large company of nude men and women
splashing about together in a great tank of hot water. It was a public
bath--public in all senses of the term! As we passed by, a dripping
nymph stepped up from the water within a foot of the lattice and gazed
idly out into the street, as naively unconscious in look and manner and
as innocent of costume as Eve before the Fall.
Yoritomo swung by unheeding, and hastened on to the open front of
one of the larger teahouses. A moment later we had entered a long
stone-paved passageway that ran back through the centre of the
building. On one side we looked in upon the charcoal ranges and sniffed
the savory odors of the inn kitchen, on the other we viewed through
half-closed screens the commoner guest-rooms of the house.
At sight of our tattered robes bowing waitresses sought to usher us
into one of these front apartments. Yoritomo thrust past them and
on down the passage, fifty paces or more, until we came out into a
veritable fairy garden, strung with myriads of painted lanterns. As we
seated ourselves on a low bench under a grape arbor, the host overtook
us and, bowing curtly, asked what we desired.
“Does Kohana, the free _geisha_, still live here?” asked Yoritomo.
“Kohana San, the artist patronized by princes, still honors my poor
establishment,” replied the man.
“We would speak with her,” said Yoritomo, pushing back his hat until
his pale aristocratic face could be seen in the soft lantern light.
The landlord, who had been about to turn us off, hesitated and answered
in a more respectful tone: “The most famous dancer of Yedo enjoys the
favor of _daimios_. How then can I bid her come to attend those who
seem no more than Yamabushi?”
Yoritomo drew a sheet of paper from his bosom, and taking his brush
pen from the case at his girdle, wrote a few small ideographs in the
classical Chinese character. Swift as were his strokes, the first
letter was scarcely drawn before the host was kowtowing, forehead to
earth. He rose, touched the finished writing to his brow, and clattered
off on his high wooden clogs across the fairyland of his garden.
“You have declared yourself!” I exclaimed.
“To him, no. My manner of writing convinced him that I am of high rank.
But I wrote only a quotation from one of the ancient poems. Even if he
is learned enough to read it--”
“Will this dancer then grasp your meaning?”
“Kohana is one of the higher class of _geisha_ called
_shirabyoshi_,--one of the superior artists. She is of _samurai_ blood,
and the old _geisha_ who bought her in childhood, and trained her after
the manner of _geishas_, gave her the highest of women’s culture.
Before I left Yedo I bought the girl’s freedom from service. She was
then in her eighteenth year.”
“You bought her freedom!” I murmured. “You who look so coldly upon
women!”
“I could do no more for her,--and no less. We loved, but love cannot
bind a true _samurai_ when duty calls. I vowed to give my life to the
service of the Mikado and Dai Nippon. To have lingered with her after
that would have been despicable.”
I sat silent, reflecting upon the strange customs of this queer people
and the hidden depths in the nature of my friend. All my intimacy
with him, backed by close study of Kämpfer and Siebold, had failed to
prepare me for the bizarre contrasts and impressions of the mysterious
land of Nippon.
In the garden about us pleasure-seekers strolled along the rough-paved
walks on lacquered clogs, but none disturbed our seclusion in the
arbor until the landlord came shuffling back. He kowtowed before us,
with loud insuckings of his breath. I could scarcely hear his murmured
words: “Kohana San sends humble greetings to the honorable writer, and
entreats him and his honorable companion to honor her lowly dwelling
with their august presence.”
“We need no guide,” replied Yoritomo, as the landlord rose to conduct
us.
The man again prostrated himself and held to the obsequious salute
until we had moved away. The moon gave no light through the curtain of
drifting cloud, but as we hastened along a winding path, in through
the gay rows of swaying paper lanterns, I made out amidst the graceful
trees and flowering shrubs grotesque bronze figures, odd shaped rocks,
and quaint pagoda-topped stone lanterns.
Soon the path led down along the shore of a tiny lake, whose still
surface glinted with the many-hued reflections of the lanterns. We
crossed over at one corner on a frail bamboo bridge, arched like a
quarter-round of hoop, and passed through a fern-set rockery, to
a gateless opening in a hedge of bamboos. Beside this entrance,
resplendent in a miniature _kimono_ of silver-wrought blue silk,
waited a doll-like little maiden of twelve, who, having duly kowtowed
to us, tottered ahead on her high clogs, to conduct us to the house of
her mistress.
A few steps brought us to a rambling red-tiled bungalow with broad,
low eaves and deep-set verandas. Mounting daintily before us up the
rough stone steps, the child knelt upon the polished planking of the
veranda, to remove our sandals. If she was astonished at our mudstained
leggings, she showed not the slightest sign, but bowed us into the
house with winsome smiles.
Though all the screens were open, the interior before us was dark as
midnight. The little maiden reached down one of the lanterns that hung
from the eaves among the tinkling wind-bells, and lighted us in across
two tiny rooms to a large apartment fronting on a miniature garden
court. All one side of the room was open to the court veranda, and two
of the other walls were formed of sliding screens, but the far end of
the room was closed with a solid partition containing a shallow double
alcove.
The little maid hastened to place two soft leather cushions for us,
hesitating just perceptibly over the second until Yoritomo indicated
that it was to be laid beside the first, close before the raised floor
of the larger recess. Having kowtowed while we reposed ourselves on
knees and heels, she pattered about the room with a taper, lighting
the pith wicks of several little saucer lamps that were set about the
room in square paper frames.
I glanced around the apartment in the increasing glow. The soft, thick
mats, all about three by six feet in size, were set in the floor
on a level with the slotted sill-beams of the wall-screens. Unlike
those I had seen in the front rooms of the inns, they were not only
immaculately white and clean but were bordered with strips of silk.
The sliding screens of the room were rimmed with gold leaf and painted
with exquisite landscapes in rich soft colors. The low ceiling and the
recessed wall behind us were finished in fanciful cabinetwork, and
the beautiful grain of the two woods used was polished without oil or
varnish to a surface that shone like satin.
The one side of the recess was an open closet, filled with shelves
and drawers; the other was the sacred _tokonoma_ mentioned by the
Dutch writers. Upon its wall hung a blue silk banner, painted with
a summer view of Fuji-yama. Below, on the polished floor, a vase of
plain earthenware held a single fragrant spray of Cape jasmine. Across
from the vase stood the bronze figure of a playful kitten, with paw
outstretched in graceful invitation. Before it were placed a few grains
of boiled rice, a tiny cup of amber liquid, and a stick of burning
incense. It was the emblem and godlet of the _geishas_,--a frolicsome
young cat, behind whose velvet touch lurked cruel claws, ever ready to
mangle.
Would the worshipper of this image meet her former lover with feline
treachery?
As I asked myself the question the room re-echoed with a ripple of
gentle laughter, melodious as the note of an Æolian harp, sweeter than
the tinkle of fairy bells. I faced to front, and saw floating towards
us a vision as wondrously beautiful as a Buddhist angel. Against the
jet blackness of her high coiffure glinted comb crests and pin heads
of amber and coral, while from slender throat to tiny feet she was
enveloped in a robe of scarlet silk, gorgeously embroidered with
flowers in gold thread, and her plump little hand fluttered a vividly
colored fan.
Like my friend’s, the girl’s face showed the _samurai_ type in its
oval contour, small mouth, and aristocratic nose,--features so
markedly different from the broad, flat faces of the lower classes.
The characteristic lack of prominence of her brows and the bridge of
her nose lent to the upper part of her face a mildness of expression
well in keeping with the inimitable gracefulness and gentleness of her
bearing, but her rosebud mouth and lustrous black eyes held all the
subtle allurement of a Spanish Carmen’s.
Bound about as she is by narrow skirts, modesty compels the Japanese
woman to assume in walking a short, scuffling, intoed gait, with
forward bent body and head. Yet even to this awkward movement Kohana
San, the dancer, contrived to give a semblance of grace as she hastened
forward to prostrate herself at the feet of my friend.
The little maid was tripping from the room. The _geisha_ sank down
before us, her forehead upon the mat between her little olive-hued
hands, and her body quivering with an excess of emotion which even a
lifetime of training could not enable her to repress.
Yoritomo gazed down upon her as serenely impassive in look as a bronze
Buddha. Yet beneath his placid tone even I could detect the hidden note
of tenderness: “Kohana, we have come to you from a long journey.”
“My lord!” she murmured, “to my lowly house first of all!”
She rose to her knees and gazed into his face with a look of such
radiant love and devotion that I forgot on the instant my suspicion
of her loyalty. And in the same moment I forgave the thick powdering
of rice flour upon her face, and the dark red stain of thistle juice
upon her lips, and the greasy pomade with which her hair was matted and
stiffened.
For a minute or more the lovers sat silent and motionless, gazing into
one another’s eyes, Yoritomo gravely smiling, Kohana melting to happy
tears. That was their greeting after three years of separation!
“Tomo,” I whispered in English, “do you not see how she has waited and
longed for you all the time since you left her? Console her for the
past! I will go out and leave you.”
“Do not trouble,” he replied. “Have I not told you that we Japanese
do not kiss and embrace?” He turned and spoke to the girl, who was
glancing at me out of the corners of her long eyes with intense
curiosity: “Kohana, my brother is weary, and we have not bathed in two
days.”
“My lord! no bath in two days!” she gasped, and she clapped her hands
sharply. There sounded an answering “_Hai!_” and the little serving
maid appeared at the end of the room--“Quick, girl! see that the bath
is heated.”
As the child trotted away, Yoritomo peered out through the open side of
the room into the dim garden. “Close the _shoji_,” he ordered.
Kohana hastened across, and from either end of the room drew white
paper screens out along the slotted sill and lintel-beams, until
the room was shut in from the garden. Within a minute she was again
kneeling before us. Yoritomo smiled into her beaming face, and said:
“You will now be honored by seeing the countenance of my august
brother. He is my friend and benefactor.”
At the word, I lifted off my deep-brimmed hat and looked at her,
smiling. What she had expected to see I cannot say. My oval face and
even my nose might easily have passed for Japanese, and my cheeks were
tanned almost to the darkness of Yoritomo’s. But the two days’ stubble
upon my lip and chin was very thick for the beard of an Oriental, and
my forehead much too white, while yet far more my round blue eyes spoke
of a terrifying world all unknown to this gentle girl. Before my look
her eyes widened and purpled with terror. She sank down at my feet in
speechless fear.
“Is it so Kohana welcomes my friend and brother?” asked Yoritomo in
quiet reproach. “There is nothing to fear.”
The girl straightened and gazed up at me, wide-eyed yet with a smile on
her trembling lips. “_Tojin sama!_ forgive the rudeness of one who is
foolish and ignorant! Accept the humble greetings of your servant!”
“Is the _tojin_ so fearful a beast or devil in the eyes of Kohana San
that she still trembles?” I asked.
“Woroto Sama is my friend and brother. He has been my benefactor during
all my travels among the _tojin_,” added Yoritomo.
“Among the _tojin_, my lord! You have travelled among the
barbarians?--beyond the sea?”
“To the five continents. I sailed away with Woroto Sama towards the
rising sun, and sailed back with him from the setting sun. The world
is an enormous ball, Kohana, and I have been around it as a gnat might
crawl around Fujiyama.”
“My lord is no gnat!” she laughed. “I do not understand. Even Fuji-san
rests broadly upon the back of Dai Nippon, and Dai Nippon upon the back
of the great fish. How then could my lord go beneath? Did my lord see
the great fish?”
“I saw greater things than the fish of our myth. Beyond the seas are
lands vastly greater than Nippon. I have sailed in the black ships and
seen the power of the _tojin_. Tell me quickly. Has word come of the
fleet from America?”
“No more, my lord, than a message from the _tojin_ at Deshima that the
black ships had sailed for Dai Nippon and would force the Shogunate to
open other ports than Nagasaki.”
Yoritomo’s eyes glowed. “We are in time, brother! All now turns upon
the wisdom or folly of the Elder Council.”
Kohana rose to her feet barely in time to mask my face from the gaze of
the child-maid. She had returned to announce that the bath was ready.
“Go bid the landlord prepare his best dishes for my guests. Then see
that no one enters unannounced,” said her mistress.
[Illustration: SHE DROPPED HER BLUE ROBE FROM HER GRACEFUL SHOULDERS]
The child turned away in smiling obedience. Yoritomo signed me to rise
and follow Kohana, who took up a lantern and thrust open one of the
screens of the inner wall. We walked along a smooth planked passage
twenty or thirty paces to a little room with sloping slatted floor.
Beside the door stood clothes-racks, on which hung thin towels of
cotton print. Three or four buckets of cold water ranged along the
wall, and at the lower end, half sunk below the level of the floor,
was a great tub, or wide-mouthed barrel, from which warm vapors were
beginning to rise.
The _geisha_ hung her lantern to a convenient hook, and unwrapped
her long crepe _obi_, or sash. In a moment she had slipped off her
gold-brocaded robe and disclosed a still more beautiful under _kimono_
of azure silk embroidered with gold dragons. Loosening the inner _obi_,
she dropped her blue robe from her graceful shoulders, and stood before
us as nude and as unconscious as the nymph of the public bath. Though I
was aware that she was a member of a profession that her people class
little above the courtesans, one look into her earnest, smiling face
convinced me that her thoughts were innocent of all immodesty.
“Our customs are not the customs of the Occident, but they are now your
customs, Woroto,” said Yoritomo, and he ungirt his priest robe.
There was no escape, and my hesitancy was brief. My friend had
submitted to many customs repugnant to him, in my country. Since this
was a custom of his country, I could do no less. His matter-of-fact
manner, taken with the girl’s naive unconsciousness of all wrong,
helped me to realize that true modesty and purity are of the spirit and
not of outward convention.
The ordeal was no light one, yet long before the bath was finished I
had begun to forget my embarrassment in the girl’s ecstasies of wonder
and delight over the whiteness of my skin. Though distinctly a brunette
in all else than the color of my eyes, I seemed marvellously fair to
this daughter of the Orient, whose own skin was of the olive tint of
southern Italy and Spain.
With strict impartiality she aided our ablutions with the cold water,
and then, at a sign from Yoritomo, led me first to the tub. It was
scalding hot, yet the girl betrayed surprise when I insisted upon the
addition of two cooling buckets before I would venture in. Even with
that I was almost parboiled before Kohana had finished shaving my
friend and dressing his hair.
When at last he came to take my place in purgatory, the girl deftly set
about drying and shampooing me, still exclaiming upon the fairness of
my skin, though it was now far other than “snow white.” Having dried
the “honorable _tojin sama_,” she proceeded to shave my face and crown
with her queer little razor and to reknot my cue. To my vast relief,
she then cast aside my Yamabushi robe and soiled leggings, and left me
to dress myself in the rich garments I had worn inside my tatters.