To be adopted by four young men and one older one; to be surrounded by
every care and luxury; to be alternately scolded, pampered, admonished
and petted, this was the joyous fate of Sunny. Life ran along for the
happy child like a song, a poem which even Takumushi could not have
composed.
Sunny greeted the rising sun with the kisses that she had been taught to
throw to garden audiences, and hailed the blazing orb each morning,
having bowed three times, hands on knees, with words like these:
"Ohayo! honourable Sun. I glad you come again. Thas a beautiful day you
are bring, an I thang you thad I are permit to live on those day. Hoh!
Amaterasuoho-mikami, shining lady of the Sun, I are mos' happiest girl
ad those Japan!"
The professional geisha is taught from childhood--for her apprenticeship
begins from earliest youth--that her mission in life is to bring joy and
happiness into the world, to divert, to banish all care by her own
infectious buoyancy, to heal, to dissipate the cares of mere mortals; to
cultivate herself so that she shall become the very essence of joy. If
trouble comes to her own life, to so exercise self-control that no trace
of her inner distress must be reflected in her looks or conduct. She
must, in fact, make a science of her profession. To laugh with those who
laugh and weep with those who find a balm in tears--that is the work of
the geisha.
Sunny, a product of the geisha house, and herself apprentice to the joy
women of Japan, was of another race by blood, yet always there was to
cling to her that intangible charm, that like a strange perfume bespeaks
the geisha of Japan. In her odd way Sunny laid out her campaign to charm
and please the ones who had befriended her, and toward whom she felt a
gratitude that both touched and embarrassed them.
Her new plan of life, however, violated all the old rules which had
governed in the teahouse. Sunny was sore put to it to adjust herself to
the novelty of a life that knew not the sharp and imperative voice,
which cut like a whip in staccato order, from the master of the geishas;
nor the perilous trapeze, the swinging rope, to fall from which was to
bring down upon her head harsh rebuke, and sometimes the threatening
flash of the whip, whirling in the air, and barely scraping the girl on
the rope. She had been whipped but upon that one occasion, for her
mother was too valuable an asset in the House of a Thousand Joys for
Hirata to risk offending; but always he loved to swing the lash above
the girl's head, or hurl it near to the feet that had faltered from the
rope, so that she might know that it hung suspended above her to fall at
a time when she failed. There were pleasant things too in the House of a
Thousand Smiles that Sunny missed--the tap tap of the drum, the pat pat
of the stockinged feet on the polished dance matting; the rising and
falling of the music of the samisen as it tinkled in time to the swaying
fans and posturing bodies of the geishas. All this was the joyous part
of that gaudy past, which her honourable new owners had bidden her
forget.
Sunny desired most earnestly to repay her benefactors, but her offers to
dance for them were laughingly joshed aside, and she was told that they
did not wish to be repaid in dancing coin. All they desired in return
was that she should be happy, forget the bitter past, and they always
added "grow up to be the most beautiful girl in Japan." This was a
joking formula among them. To order Sunny to be merely happy and
beautiful. Happy she was, but beauty! Ah! that was more difficult.
Beauty, thought Sunny, must surely be the aim and goal of all Americans.
Many were the moments when she studied her small face in the mirror, and
regretted that it would be impossible for her to realise the ambition of
her friends. Her face, she was assured, violated all the traditions and
canons of the Japanese ideal of beauty. That required jet black hair,
lustrous as lacquer, a long oval face, with tiny, carmine touched lips,
narrow, inscrutable eyes, a straight, sensitive nose, a calmness of
expression and poise that should serve as a mask to all internal
emotions; above all an elegance and distinction in manners and dress
that would mark one as being of an elevated station in life. Now Sunny's
hair was fair, and despite brush and oil generously applied, till
forbidden by her friends, it curled in disobedient ringlets about her
young face. The hair alone marked her in the estimation of the Japanese
as akin to the lower races, since curly hair was one of the marks
peculiar to the savages. Neither were her eyes according to the Japanese
ideal of beauty. They were, it is true, long and shadowed by the
blackest of lashes, and in fact were her one feature showing the trace
of her oriental taint or alloy, for they tipped up somewhat at the
corners, and she had a trick of glancing sideways through the dark
lashes that her friends found eerily fascinating; unfortunately those
eyes were large, and instead of being the prescribed black, were pure
amber in colour, with golden lights of the colour of her hair. Her skin,
finally, was, as the mentor of the geisha house had primly told her,
bleached like the skin of the dead. Save where the colour flooded her
cheeks like peach bloom, Sunny's skin was as white as snow, and all the
temporary stains and dark powder applied could not change the colour of
her skin. To one accustomed to the Japanese point of view, Sunny
therefore could see nothing in her own lovely face that would realise
the desire of her friends that she should be beautiful; but respectfully
and humbly she promised them that she would try to obey them, and she
carried many gifts and offerings to the feet of Amaterasu-ohomikami,
whose beauty had made her the supreme goddess of the heavens.
"Beauty," said Jerry Hammond, walking up and down the big living room,
his hair rumpled, and his hands loosely in his pockets, "is the aim and
end of all that is worth while in life, Sunny. If we have it, we have
everything. Beauty is something we are unable to define. It is elusive
as a feather that floats above our heads. A breath will blow it beyond
our reach, and a miracle will bring it to our hand. Now, the gods
willing, I am going to spend all of the days of my life pursuing and
reaching after Beauty. Despite my parents' fond expectations of a
commercial career for their wayward son, I propose to be an artist."
From which it will be observed that Jerry's idea of beauty was hardly
that comprehended by Sunny, though in a vague way she sensed also his
ideal.
"An artist!" exclaimed she, clasping her hands with enthusiasm. "Ho!
_how_ thad will be grade. I thing you be more grade artist than
Hokusai!"
"Oh, Sunny, impossible! Hokusai was one of the greatest artists that
ever lived. I'm not built of the same timber, Sunny." There was a touch
of sadness to Jerry's voice. "My scheme is not to paint pictures. I
propose to beautify cities. To the world I shall be known merely as an
architect, but you and I, Sunny, we will know, won't we, that I am an
artist; because, you see, even if one fails to create the beautiful, the
hunger and the desire for it is just as important. It's like being a
poet at heart, without being able to write poetry. Now some fellows
_write_ poetry of a sort--but they are not poets--not in their thought
and lives, Sunny. I'd rather be a poet than write poetry. Do you
understand that?"
"Yes--I understand," said Sunny softly. "The liddle butterfly when he
float on the flower, he cannot write those poetry--but he are a poem;
and the honourable cloud in those sky, so sof', so white, so loavely he
make one's heart leap up high at chest--thas poem too!"
"Oh, Sunny, what a perfect treasure you are! I'm blessed if you don't
understand a fellow better than one of his own countrywomen would."
To cover a feeling of emotion and sentiment that invariably swept over
Jerry when he talked with Sunny on the subject of beauty, and because
moreover there was that about her own upturned face that disturbed him
strangely, he always assumed a mock serious air, and affected to tease
her.
"But to get back to you, Sunny. Now, all you've got to do to please the
Syndicate is to be a good girl _and_ beautiful. It ought not to be hard,
because you see you've got such a bully start. Keep on, and who knows
you'll end not only by being the most beautiful girl in Japan, but the
Emperor himself--the Emperor of Japan, mark you, will step down from his
golden throne, wave his wand toward you and marry you! So there you'll
be--the royal Empress of Japan."
"The Emperor!" Sunny's head went reverently to the mats. Her eyes, very
wide, met Jerry's in shocked question. "You want me marry wiz--the Son
of Heaven? _How_ I can do those?"
Again her head touched the floor, her curls bobbing against flushed
cheeks.
"Easy as fishing," solemnly Jerry assured her. "They say the old dub is
quite approachable, and you've only to let him see you once, and that
will be enough for him. Just think, Sunny, what that will mean to you,
and to us all--to be Empress of Japan. Why, you will only need to wave
your hand or sleeve, and all sorts of favours will descend upon our
heads. You will be able to repay us threefold for any insignificant
service we may have done for you. Once Empress of Japan, you can summon
us back to these fair isles and turn over to us all the political plums
of the Empire. As soon as you give us the high sign, old scout, we'll be
right on the job."
"Jerry, you like very much those plum?"
"You better believe I do."
Sunny, chin in hand, was off in a mood of abstraction. She was thinking
very earnestly of the red plum tree that grew above the tomb of the
great Lord of Kakodate. He, that sleeping lord, would not miss a single
plum, and she would go to the cemetery in the early morning, and when
she had accomplished the theft, she would pray at the temple for
absolution for her sin, which would not be so bad because Sunny would
have sinned for love.
"A penny for your thoughts, Sunny!"
"I are think, Jerry, that some things you ask me I can do; others,
no--thas not possible. Wiz this liddle hand I cannod dip up the ocean.
Thas proverb of our Japan. I cannod marry those Emperor, and me? I
cannod also make beauty on my face."
"Give it a try, Sunny," jeered Jerry, laughing at her serious face. "You
have no idea what time and art will do for one."
"Time--and--art," repeated Sunny, like a child learning a lesson. She
comprehended time, but she had inherited none of the Japanese traits of
patience. She would have wished to leap over that first obstacle to
beauty. Art, she comprehended, as a physical aid to a face and form
unendowed with the desired beauty. She carried her problem to her maid.
"Hatsu, have you ever seen the Emperor?"
Both of their heads bobbed quickly to the mat.
Hatsu had not. She had, it is true, walked miles through country roads,
on a hot, dry day, to reach the nearest town through which the Son of
Heaven's cortege had once passed. But, of course, as the royal party
approached, Hatsu, like all the peasants who had come to the town on
this gala day, had fallen face downward on the earth. It was impossible
for her therefore to see the face of the Son of Heaven. However, Hatsu
had seen the back of his horse--the modern Emperor rode thus abroad,
clear to the view of subjects less humble than Hatsu, who dared to raise
their eyes to his supreme magnificence. Sunny sighed. She felt sure that
had she been in Hatsu's place, she would at least have peeped through
her fingers at the mikado. Rummaging among her treasures in the bamboo
chest, Sunny finally discovered what she sought--a picture of the
Emperor. This she laid before her on the floor, and for a long, long
time she studied the features thoughtfully and anxiously. After a while,
she said with a sigh, unconscious of the blasphemy, which caused her
maid to turn pale with horror,
"I do not like his eye, and I do not like his nose, and I do not like
his mouth. Yet, Hatsusan, it is the wish of Jerry-sama that I should
marry this Emperor, and now I must make myself so beautiful that it will
not hurt his eye if he deigns to look at me."
Hatsu, at this moment was too overcome with the utter audacity of the
scheme to move, and when she did find her voice, she said in a
breathless whisper:
"Mistress, the Son of Heaven already has a wife."
"Ah, yes," returned Sunny, with somewhat of the careless manner toward
sacred things acquired from her friends, "but perhaps he may desire
another one. Come, Hatsusan. Work very hard on my face. Make me look
like ancient picture of an Empress of Japan. See, here is a model!" She
offered one of her mother's old prints, that revealed a court lady in
trailing gown and loosened hair, an uplifted fan half revealing, half
disclosing a weirdly lovely face, as she turned to look at a tiny dog
frolicking on her train.
It was a long, a painful and arduous process, this work of beautifying
Sunny. There was fractious hair to be darkened and smoothed, and false
hair to help out the illusion. There was a small face that had to be
almost completely made over, silken robes from the mother's chest to
slip over the girlish shoulders, shining nails to be polished and hidden
behind gold nail protectors, paint and paste to be thickly applied, and
a cape of a thousand colours to be thrown over the voluminous many
coloured robes beneath.
The sky was a dazzling blaze of red and gold. Even the deepening shadows
were touched with gilt, and the glory of that Japanese sunset cast its
reflection upon the book-lined walls of the big living room, where the
Americans, lingering over pipe and hook, dreamily and appreciatively
watched the marvellous spectacle through the widely opened windows. But
their siesta was strangely interrupted, for, like a peacock, a strange
vision trailed suddenly into the room and stood with suspended breath,
fan half raised, in the manner of a court lady of ancient days, awaiting
judgment. They did not know her at first. This strange figure seemed to
have stepped out of some old Japanese print, and was as far from being
the little Sunny who had come into their lives and added the last touch
of magic to their trip in Japan.
After the first shock, they recognised Sunny. Her face was heavily
plastered with a white paste. A vivid splotch of red paint adorned and
accentuated either slightly high cheek bone. Her eyebrows had
disappeared under a thick layer of paste, and in their place appeared a
brand new pair of intensely black ones, incongruously laid about an inch
above the normal line and midway of her forehead. Her lips were painted
to a vivid point, star shaped, so that the paint omitted the corners of
Sunny's mouth, where were the dimples that were part of the charm of the
Sunny they knew. Upon the girl's head rested an amazing ebony wig, one
long lock of which trailed fantastically down from her neck to the hem
of her robe. Shining daggers and pins, and artificial flowers completed
a head dress. She was arrayed in an antique kimona, an article of stiff
and unlimited dimensions, under which were seven other robes of the
finest silk, each signifying some special virtue. A train trailed behind
Sunny that covered half the length of the room. Her heavily embroidered
outer robe was a gift to her mother from a prince, and its magnificence
proclaimed its antiquity.
It may be truly said for Sunny that she indeed achieved her own peculiar
idea of what constituted beauty, and as she swept the fan from before
her face with real art and grace there was pardonable pride in her voice
as she said:
"Honourable Mr. sirs, mebbe _now_ you goin' say I are beautifullest
enough girl to make those Emperor marry wiz me."
A moment of tense silence, and then the room resounded and echoed to the
startled mirth of the young barbarians. But no mirth came from Sunny,
and no mirth came from Jerry. The girl stood in the middle of the room,
and through all her pride and dazzling attire she showed how deeply they
had wounded her. A moment only she stayed, and then tripping over her
long train and dropping her fan in her hurry, Sunny fled from the room.
Jerry said with an ominous glare at the convulsed Bobs, Monty and even
the aforesaid melancholy Jinx:
"It was my fault. I told her art and time would make her beautiful."
"The devil they would," snorted Bobs. "I'd like to know how you figured
that art and time could contribute to Sunny's natural beauty. By George,
she got herself up with the aid of your damned art, to look like a
valentine, if you ask me."
"I don't agree with you," declared Jerry hotly. "It's all how one looks
at such things. It's a symptom of provincialism to narrow our admiration
to one type only. Such masters as Whistler of our own land, and many of
the most famous artists of Europe have not hesitated to take Japanese
art as their model. What Sunny accomplished was the reproduction of a
living work of art of the past, and it is the crassest kind of ignorance
to reward her efforts with laughter."
Jerry was almost savage in his denunciation of his friends.
"I agree with you," said Professor Barrowes snapping his glasses back on
his nose, "absolutely, absolutely. You are entirely right, Mr. Hammond,"
and in turn he glared upon his "class" as if daring anyone of them to
question his own opinion. Jinx indeed did feebly say:
"Well, for my part, give me Sunny as we know her. Gosh! I don't see
anything pretty in all that dolled-up stuff and paint on her."
"Now, young gentleman," continued Professor Barrowes, seizing the moment
to deliver a gratuitous lecture, "there are certain cardinal laws
governing art and beauty. It is not a matter of eyes, ears and noses, or
even the colour of the skin. It is how we are accustomed to look at a
thing. As an example, we might take a picture. Seen from one angle, it
reveals a mass of chaotic colour that has no excuse for being. Seen from
another point, the purpose of the artist is clearly delineated, and we
are trapped in the charm of his creation. Every clime has its own
peculiar estimate, but it comes down each time to ourselves. Poetically
it has been beautifully expressed as follows: 'Unless we carry the
beautiful with us, we will find it not.' Ahem!" Professor Barrowes
cleared his throat angrily, and scowled, with Jerry, at their
unappreciative friends.
Goto, salaaming deeply in the doorway, was sonorously announcing
honourable dinner for the honourable sirs, and coming softly across the
hall, in her simple plum coloured kimona with its golden obi, the paint
washed from her face, and showing it fresh and clean as a baby's,
Sunny's April smile was warming and cheering them all again.
Jinx voiced the sentiment of them all, including the angry professor and
beauty loving Jerry:
"Gosh! give me Sunny just as she is, without one plea."