THE KIMONO
_Na we to wa wo
Hito zo saku naru.
Ide, wagimi!
Hito no naka-goto
Kiki-kosu na yume!_
It is other people who have separated
You and me.
Come, my Lord!
Do not dream of listening
To the between-words of people!
After a ghastly night of sleeplessness at Nikko, Geoffrey Barrington
reached Tokyo in time for lunch. His thoughts were confused and
discordant.
"I feel as if I had been drunk for a week," he kept on saying to
himself. Indeed, he felt a fume of unreality over all his actions.
One thing was certain: financially, he was a ruined man. The thousands
a year which yesterday morning had been practically his, the ease and
comfort which had seemed so secure, were lost more hopelessly than if
his bank had failed. Even the cash in his pocket he touched with the
greatest disgust, as if those identical bills and coins had been paid
across the brothel counter as the price for a man's dirty pleasures
and a girl's shame and disease. He imagined that the Nikko
hotel-keeper looked at his notes suspiciously as though they were
endorsed with the seal of the Yoshiwara.
Geoffrey was ruined. He was henceforth dependent on what his brain
could earn and on what his father would allow him, five hundred pounds
a year at the outside. If he had been alone in the world it would not
have mattered much; but Asako, poor little Asako, the innocent cause
of this disaster, she was ruined too. She who loved her riches, her
jewellery, her pretty things, she would have to sell them all. She
would have to follow him into poverty, she, who had no experience of
its meaning. This was his punishment, perhaps, for having steadily
pursued the idea of a rich marriage. But what had Asako done to
deserve it? Thank God, his marriage had at least not been a loveless
one.
Geoffrey felt acutely the need of human sympathy in his trouble. By
sheer bad luck he had forfeited Reggie's friendship. But he could
still depend upon his wife's love.
So he ran up the stairs at the Imperial Hotel longing for Asako's
welcome, though he dreaded the obligation to break the bad news.
He threw open the door. The room was empty. He looked for cloaks and
hats and curios, for luggage, for any sign of her presence. There was
nothing to indicate that the room was hers.
Sick with apprehension, he returned to the corridor. There was a _boy
san_ near at hand.
"_Okusan_ go away," said the _boy san_. "No come back, I think."
"Where has she gone?" asked Geoffrey.
The _boy san_, with the infuriating Japanese grin, shook his head.
"I am very sorry for you," he said. "To-day very early plenty people
come, Tanaka San and two Japanese girls. Very plenty talk. _Okusan_
cry tears. All nice kimono take away very quick."
"Then Tanaka, where is he?"
"Go away with _okusan_" the boy grinned again, "I am very sorry--"
Geoffrey slammed the door in the face of his tormentor. He staggered
into a chair and collapsed, staring blankly. What could have happened?
Slowly his ideas returned. Tanaka! He had seen the little beast in
Yaé's motor car at Chuzenji. He must have come spying after his master
as he had done fifty times before. He and that half-caste devil had
raced him back to Tokyo, had got in ahead of him, and had told a pack
of lies to Asako. She must have believed them, since she had gone
away. But where had she gone to? The _boy san_ had said "two Japanese
girls." She must have gone to the Fujinami house, and to her horribly
unclean cousins.
He must find her at once. He must open her eyes to the truth. He must
bring her back. He must take her away from Japan--forever.
Harrington was crossing the hall of the hotel muttering to himself,
seeing nothing, hearing nothing, when he felt a hand laid on his arm.
It was Titine, Asako's French maid.
"_Monsieur le capitaine_" she said, "_madame est partie_. It is not my
fault, _monsieur le capitaine_. I say to madame, do not go, wait for
monsieur. But madame is bewitched. She, who is _bonne catholique_, she
say prayers to the temples of these yellow devils. I myself have seen
her clap her hands--so!--and pray. Her saints have left her. She is
bewitched."
Titine was a Breton peasant girl. She believed implicitly in the
powers of darkness. She had long ago decided that the gods of the
Japanese and the _korrigans_ of her own country were intimately
related. She had served Asako since before her marriage, and would
have remained with her until death. She was desperately faithful. But
she could not follow her mistress to the Fujinami house and risk her
soul's salvation.
"_Monsieur le capitaine_ go away, and madame very, very unhappy. Every
night she cry. Why did monsieur stay away so long time?"
"It was only a fortnight," expostulated Geoffrey.
"For the first parting it was too long," said Titine judicially.
"Every night madame cry; and then she write to monsieur and say, 'Come
back.'" Monsieur write and say, 'Not yet.' Then madame break her heart
and say, 'It is because of some woman that he stay away so long time!'
She say so to Tanaka; and Tanaka say, 'I go and detect, and come again
and tell madame;' and madame say, 'Yes, Tanaka can go: I wish to know
the truth!' And still more she cry and cry. This morning very
early Tanaka came back with Mademoiselle Smith and mademoiselle _la
cousine_. They all talk a long time with madame in bedroom. But they
send me away. Then madame call me. She cry and cry. 'Titine,' she say,
'I go away. Monsieur do not love me now. I go to the Japanese house.
Pack all my things, Titine.' I say, 'No, madame, never. I never go to
that house of devils. How can madame tell the good confessor? How can
madame go to the Holy Mass? Will madame leave her husband and go to
these people who pray to stone beasts? Wait for monsieur!' I say,
'What Tanaka say, it is lies, all the time lies. What Mademoiselle
Smith say all lies.' But madame say, 'No come with me, Titine!' But
I say again, 'Never!' And madame go away, crying all the time: and
sixteen rickshaw all full of baggage. "Oh, _monsieur le capitaine_,
what shall I do?"
"I'm sure, I don't know," said the helpless Geoffrey.
"Send me back to France, monsieur. This country is full of devils,
devils and lies."
He left her sobbing in the hall of the hotel with a cluster of _boy
sans_ watching her.
* * * * *
Geoffrey took a taxi to the Fujinami house. No one answered his
ringing; but he thought that he could hear voices inside the building.
So he strode in, unannounced, and with his boots on his feet, an
unspeakable offence against Japanese etiquette.
He found Asako in a room which overlooked the garden where he had been
received on former occasions. Her cousin Sadako was with her and Ito,
the lawyer. To his surprise and disgust, his wife was dressed in the
Japanese kimono and _obi_ which had once been so pleasing to his eyes.
Her change of nationality seemed to be already complete.
This was an Asako whom he had never known before. Her eyes were ringed
with weeping, and her face was thin and haggard. But her expression
had a new look of resolution. She was no longer a child, a doll. In
the space of a few hours she had grown to be a woman.
They were all standing. Sadako and the lawyer had formed up behind the
runaway as though to give her moral support.
"Asako," said Geoffrey sternly, "what does this mean?"
The presence of the two Japanese exasperated him. His manner was
tactless and unfortunate. His tall stature in the dainty room looked
coarse and brutal. Sadako and Ito were staring at his offending boots
with an expression of utter horror. Geoffrey suddenly remembered that
he ought to have taken them off.
"Oh, damn," he thought.
"Geoffrey," said his wife, "I can't come back. I am sorry. I have
decided to stay here."
"Why?" asked Geoffrey brusquely.
"Because I know that you do not love me. I think you never loved
anything except my money."
The hideous irony of this statement made poor Geoffrey gasp. He
gripped the wooden framework of the room so as to steady himself.
"Good God!" he shouted. "Your money! Do you know where it comes from?"
Asako stared at him, more and more bewildered.
"Send these people out of the room, and I'll tell you," said Geoffrey.
"I would rather they stayed," his wife answered.
It had been arranged beforehand that, if, Geoffrey called, Asako was
not to be left alone with him. She had been made to believe that she
was in danger of physical violence. She was terribly frightened.
"Very well," Geoffrey blundered on, "every penny you have is made
out of prostitution, out of the sale of women to men. You saw the
Yoshiwara, you saw the poor women imprisoned there, you know that any
drunken beast can come and pay his money down and say, 'I want that
girl,' and she has to give herself up to be kissed and pulled about
by him, even if she hates him and loathes him. Well, all this filthy
Yoshiwara and all those poor girls and all that dirty money belongs to
these Fujinami and to you. That is why they are so rich, and that is
why we have been so rich. If we were in England, we could be flogged
for this, and imprisoned, and serve us right too. And all this money
is bad; and, if we keep it, we are worse than criminals; and neither
of us can ever be happy, or look any one in the face again."
Asako was shaking her head gently like an automaton, understanding
not a word of all this outburst. Her mind was on one thing only, her
husband's infidelity. His mind was on one thing only, the shame of
his wife's money. They were like card-players who concentrate their
attention exclusively on the cards in their own hands, oblivious to
what their partners or opponents may hold.
Asako remaining silent, Mr. Ito began to speak. His voice seemed more
squeaky than ever.
"Captain Barrington," he said, "I am very sorry for you. But you
see now true condition of things. You must remember you are English
gentleman. Mrs. Barrington wishes not to return to you. She has been
told that you make misconduct with Miss Smith at Kamakura, and again
at Chuzenji. Miss Smith herself says so. Mrs. Harrington thinks this
story must be true; or Miss Smith do not tell so bad story about
herself. We think she is quite right--"
"Shut up!" thundered Geoffrey. "This is a matter for me and my wife
alone. Please, leave us. My wife has heard one side of a story which
is unfair and untrue. She must hear from me what really happened."
"I think, some other day, it would be better," cousin Sadako
intervened. "You see, Mrs. Barrington cannot speak to-day. She is too
unhappy."
It was quite true. Asako stood like a dummy, neither seeing nor
hearing apparently, neither assenting nor contradicting. How powerful
is the influence of clothes! If Asako had been dressed in her Paris
coat and skirt, her husband would have crossed the few mats which
separated them, and would have carried her off willy-nilly. But in her
kimono did she wholly belong to him? Or was she a Japanese again,
a Fujinami? She seemed to have been transformed by some enchanter's
spell; as Titine had said, she was bewitched.
"Asako, do you mean this?" The big man's voice was harsh with grief.
"Do you mean that I am to go without you?"
Asako still showed no sign of comprehension.
"Answer me, my darling; do you want me to go?"
Her head moved in assent, and her lips answered "Yes."
That whisper made such a wrench at her husband's heart that his grip
tightened on the frail _shoji_, and with a nervous spasm he sent it
clattering out of its socket flat upon the floor of the room, like
a screen blown down by the wind. Ito dashed forward to help Geoffrey
replace the damage. When they turned round again, the two women had
disappeared.
"Captain Barrington," said Ito, "I think you had better go away. You
make bad thing worse."
Geoffrey frowned at the little creature. He would have liked to have
crushed him underfoot like a cockroach. But as that was impossible,
nothing remained for him to do but to depart, leaving the track of his
dirty boots on the shining corridor. His last glimpse of his cousins'
home was of two little serving-maids scuttering up with dusters to
remove the defilement.
Asako had fainted.
* * * * *
As Reggie had said in Chuzenji, "What actually happens does not
matter: it is the thought of what might have happened, which sticks."
If Reggie's tolerant and experienced mind could not rid itself of the
picture conjured up by the possibility of his friend's treachery and
his mistress's lightness, how could Asako, ignorant and untried, hope
to escape from a far more insistent obsession? She believed that her
husband was guilty. But the mere feeling that it was possible that he
might be guilty would have been enough to numb her love for him, at
any rate for a time. She had never known heartache before. She did not
realise that it is a fever which runs its appointed course of torment
and despair, which at length after a given term abates, and then
disappears altogether, leaving the sufferer weak but whole again.
The second attack of the malady finds its victim familiar with the
symptoms, resigned to a short period of misery and confident of
recovery. A broken heart like a broken horse is of great service to
its owner.
But Asako was like one stricken with an unknown disease. Its violence
appalled her, and in her uncertainty she prayed for death. Moreover,
she was surrounded by counsellors who traded on her little faith, who
kept on reminding her that she was a Japanese, that she was among her
father's people who loved her and understood her, that foreigners
were notoriously treacherous to women, that they were blue-eyed and
cruel-hearted, that they thought only of money and material things.
Let her stay in Japan, let her make her home there. There she would
always be a personage, a member of the family. Among those big,
bold-voiced foreign women, she was overshadowed and out of place. If
her husband left her for a half-caste, what chance had she of keeping
him when once he got back among the women of his own race? Mixed
marriages, in fact, were a mistake, an offence against nature. Even if
he wished to be faithful to her, he could not really care for her as
he could for an Englishwoman.
* * * * *
As soon as Geoffrey Barrington had left the house, Mr. Ito went in
search of the head of the Fujinami, whom he found at work on the
latest literary production of his tame students, _The Pinegrove by the
Sea-shore_.
Mr. Fujinami Gentaro put his writing-box aside with a leisurely
gesture, for a Japanese gentleman of culture must never be in a hurry.
"Indeed, it has been so noisy, composition has become impossible," he
complained; "has that foreigner come, to the house?"
He used the uncomplimentary word "_ket[=o]jin_" which may be literally
translated "hairy rascal". It is a survival from the time of Perry's
black ships and the early days of foreign intercourse, when "Expel the
Barbarians!" was a watchword in the country. Modern Japanese assure
their foreign friends that it has fallen altogether into disuse; but
such is not the case. It is a word loaded with all the hatred, envy
and contempt against foreigners of all nationalities, which still
pervade considerable sections of the Japanese public.
"This Barrington," answered the lawyer, "is indeed a rough fellow,
even for a foreigner. He came into the house with his boots on,
uninvited. He shouted like a coolie, and he broke the _shoji_.
His behaviour was like that of Susa-no-O in the chambers of the
Sun-Goddess. Perhaps he had been drinking whisky-sodas."
"A disgusting thing, is it not?" said the master. "At this time I am
writing an important chapter on the clear mirror of the soul. It is
troublesome to be interrupted by these quarrels of women and savages.
You will have Keiichi and Gor[=o] posted at the door of the house. They
are to refuse entrance to all foreigners. It must not be allowed to
turn our _yashiki_ into a battlefield."
Mr. Fujinami's meditations that morning had been most bitter. His
literary preoccupation was only a sham. There was a tempest in the
political world of Japan. The Government was tottering under the
revelations of a corruption in high places more blatant than usual.
With the fall of the Cabinet, the bribes which the Fujinami had
lavished to obtain the licences and privileges necessary to their
trade, would become waste money. True, the Governor of Osaka had not
yet been replaced. A Fujinami familiar had been despatched thither
at full speed to secure the new Tobita brothel concessions as a _fait
accompli_ before the inevitable change should take place.
The head of the house of Fujinami, therefore, being a monarch in a
small way, had much to think of besides "the quarrels of women and
savages." Moreover, he was not quite sure of his ground with regard to
Asako. To take a wife from her husband against his will, seems to the
Japanese mind so flagrantly illegal a proceeding; and old Mr. Fujinami
Gennosuké had warned his irreligious son most gravely against the
danger of tampering with the testament of Asako's father, and of
provoking thereby a visitation of his "rough spirit."