FOUR WOMEN THAT I KNEW IN TOKIO
_The Countess Oyama[1] and Mrs. Uriu_
STAMATZ YAMAKAWA was born very near the top of the Japanese social
ladder. Shige Nagai came into the world a few rungs lower down.
Assimilation is the _forte_ of the Japanese. They create nothing, but
they improve everything they touch. Japan was once conquered by China.
The Japanese retaliated by completely mastering every detail of Chinese
art, and developing from it a Japanese art system, superior to anything
the Chinese artists have ever been able to accomplish. Japan
successfully invaded Korea. From the spoils of that war (and they were
many) Japan learned to still more enrich her arts.
When Stamatz and Shige were babies, Japan had turned covetous eyes upon
Europe and the United States. Not upon the territories of these
countries, but upon their modes of life, their social customs, their
thought-methods even. The Japanese are complacently conscious of having
the most beautiful country upon earth, and they, the wisest of them at
least, quite understand that they would cut a sorry figure in battle
with a great Western Power. Japan never sought to conquer Western acres;
but Japan longed to acquire everything that was good in Western thought
and in Western methods of life. Things European became highly
fashionable in Japan,—the fashion grew and grew. In ten years it was a
rage. The Japanese Government encouraged boys and young men to visit
Europe and America, and to there take University degrees as far as
possible. The Japanese Government did more; they sent eight or ten (I
think it was eight) girls to America to be educated. All of these girls
were of gentle birth; several were noble. The youngest was seven years
old, the eldest was twelve. The Japanese Minister at Washington, to whom
they were sent in the first instance, was instructed to divide the
little band into twos, and to place each pair into separate American
homes,—of course, only in the homes of men and women of exceptional
culture. Stamatz and Shige were received into the home of Dr. J. S. C.
Abbott, the historian. He was a man of fine attainments, and the
newcomers were initiated into a simple home-life of great refinement.
Five and a half of the ten years they spent in America were spent in
that New England home. They met there a considerable contingent of
eminent Americans. Their home-sickness was mitigated by frequent visits
from the Japanese students at Harvard. They saw the purest American form
of good behaviour. They learned American literature with the rare
advantage, or disadvantage, of intimacy with many of the men who were
making American literature. They studied English literature under a man
who reverenced it. They made delightful trips through the adjacent parts
of America with the best companionship. After five years and a half they
entered Vassar College at Poughkeepsie-on-the-Hudson. Stamatz Yamakawa
entered the freshman class of 1882 with a high average. Shige Nagai was
less capacitated to benefit by the prescribed College course than by a
more elective system of education. She became an “Art Student,” and
devoted herself to music. She was obliged by the College regulations to
pursue the lighter of the studies embraced in the ordinary College
curriculum.
[Illustration: DANJERO IN HIS FAVOURITE RÔLE. DANJERO IN EUROPEAN
COSTUME. DANJERO AS I KNEW HIM. _P. 253._]
In the fall of 1879—when they had been there a year—I went to Vassar.
A daughter-in-law of Dr. Abbott’s was one of my dearest friends; that
gave me an added interest in my two Japanese college-mates, and it
secured me their immediate acquaintance. It was easy to know Shige.
Stamatz was exclusive; she was very brilliant. Shige was very sweet.
They both wore European dress. Stamatz looked like a very beautiful
Jewess of a poetic type; Shige was broadly and indubitably Japanese.
Stamatz was president of her class in her Sophomore year. She was a
member of the “Shakespeare”—a club always confined to the girls who
were easily first intellectually. She took high honours in English
literature. She wrote charming essays. And I noticed, when I saw her in
Tokio, ten years later, the beautiful purity of her English. She spoke,
as she always had spoken, with a slight accent; but her vocabulary and
her use of it were flawless. Shige was never president of anything; but
every one loved her. She was invaluable at our fortnightly “candy
pulls.” She was splendid on a sleigh ride, or when we went “coasting.”
She spent half her leisure in the infirmary, coddling the sick girls.
She got through her examinations with eminent respectability. She wrote
stiff, correct English. She spoke very broken English, and, when I saw
her in Tokio, her vocabulary had shrunk to meagre dimensions; and she
used it with a fine disregard of narrow propriety. But I have no memory
of an hour’s indisposition at Vassar that I did not hear the click,
click of Shige’s funny little walk, as she came down the corridor
bringing me a pitcher of lemonade and unlimited sympathy. I don’t
remember a headache there that her little fingers didn’t soothe away.
Strangely enough when she wrote to me, after I had left Tokio for
Yokohama, I saw that she wrote English quite as well as she did when we
were in Poughkeepsie. I never saw Stamatz excited, though two red spots
always flamed on her face the days when the Japanese mails were due; and
I have seen her hand shake as she thrust it through the window of our
college post-office and asked for letters. I have never seen Shige when
she wasn’t excited. Stamatz was very beautiful from every standpoint;
she was slim and tall for a Japanese woman. Shige was plain; she was
dumpy and very near-sighted. She had a wee, broad nose. Stamatz was
always self-possessed. Shige was easily flurried. Stamatz played a
wonderful game of chess, and excelled every professor in the faculty at
whist. Shige was immense at blind-man’s-buff, and could dance a
supremely ridiculous version of the Highland-fling. Once a day they
secluded themselves in their “parlour” and spoke Japanese for an hour.
Stamatz was fanatic in her observance of this, and compelled Shige to be
as regular. Stamatz wrote a letter “home” every day. Shige had all a
schoolgirl’s horror of letter-writing. They spent four years at Vassar.
Then, after a six months’ tour of America, they returned to Japan.
When we were in Colombo I learned from some Japanese naval officers that
Stamatz Yamakawa had made a brilliant marriage. She had married the
Minister of War, Count Oyama, an elderly man of high position, great
power, and immense wealth.
As we neared Japan we heard the name Oyama more and more often. The
Count is very popular. He is a courteous gentleman, and is at the head
of Masonry in Japan. The Countess has become a noted hostess. She speaks
French and English fluently; unless I mistake, she speaks German and
Italian well. She is an excellent Latin scholar. I found her very
changed—the flower of her beauty was dead. The girl had been anxious to
maintain for Japan a high intellectual standard in our little college
world; the woman seemed to be half asleep. She had shed her
Occidentalisms as she had shed her Western habiliments. She had sunk
back into the drowsy ease of Oriental existence. She was four times a
mother, and she had four step-children.
Long before we could see the house we knew that our ’rickshaws had
crossed the boundaries of Count Oyama’s Tokio dominions; for everywhere
were outdoor servants. Some were binding up the gigantic rose trees.
Some were training great ropes of violet-flowered wistaria around the
tree trunks. Some were leisurely rolling the velvet lawn. All bore upon
the backs of their kimonos a large Japanese coat-of-arms or crest—the
arms of the ancient house of Oyama. In Japan the members of a noble
family have a small reproduction of the crest woven in or embroidered on
their garments. On the clothes of their servants it appears very much
larger. On the robes of the head of the house it is about the size of a
sixpence. On the back of a coolie the emblazonment is the size of a
generous dinner plate. Count Oyama’s extensive grounds were beautifully
cared for. The house, which was large and plain, and of Western
architecture, was built of red brick. It was partly covered with vines.
The interior was beautifully furnished in the best European style. A few
very rare and beautiful Japanese things were scattered about each room;
but I know a dozen London houses where things Japanese are more _en
évidence_,—though certainly not things of such value and interest.
The Countess received me with all her old grace and graciousness. She
gave us tea and spongecake. The tea service was old English silver. Her
face lit up a little when she told me how she should enjoy showing me
Tokio; but it grew listless when I mentioned Vassar. It was evident to
me that she had spent ten years in exile, because the Mikado had thought
it best. Her exile was over, and she had little pleasure in recalling
it. She spoke as entertainingly as ever of the books she had read in
America; but I could not learn that she had read one printed page of
French or English since her return to Japan. I spoke of _The
Miscellany_, a little college monthly in which she had been greatly
interested, and for which she sometimes wrote. She said, she believed
they sometimes sent her a copy, but she wasn’t sure.
She was dressed quietly, and with but two traces of her Western
residence. She wore bronze slippers of Parisian make; and her very
beautiful hair was worn in the prettiest and simplest of Greek fashions.
A noted European called upon the Countess Oyama; he was accompanied by a
Japanese gentleman. When Stamatz entered the room her countryman bent
seven times to the floor. “Countess!” exclaimed the stranger, holding
out his hand, “if I bow as often and as low as that, I shall fall down.
But I am extremely glad to meet you.” She smiled, and made his call very
delightful; but she never forgave him. Stamatz Yamakawa was born in the
purple, and she loves it.
The Countess Oyama was easily found. I hunted three days for Mrs. Uriu;
and then I only found her because it occurred to my husband to ride out
to Count Oyama’s and ask for Shige’s address.
The little woman’s house was a two hours’ ’rickshaw ride from the
Imperial Hotel; and in Tokio there are two coolies to each ’rickshaw,
and they run very rapidly. When we left the hotel we skirted the outer
moat of the palace. Then we flew through miles of streets, each more
interesting than the others. All were lined with booths. We had a
dissolving view of quaint bronze lamps, rich ivories, unique wood
carvings, and a thousand other temptations. Is it not Sir Edwin Arnold
who says that, when he was in Tokio, he was tempted to sell his boots
that he might buy one more curio? I did sell all my husband’s old
clothes one day. He seemed to feel that I had been indiscreet. And I
have a very choice bit of Satsuma at which he always looks with a very
queer smile. I received a “collect” parcel from Yokohama a few weeks
ago; when the housemaid brought it in, my husband went into the hall,
and brought me in his overcoat, his best umbrella, and his crush hat.
But “he laughs best who laughs last,”—I made him pay for that parcel.
On the coolies ran. We passed the big, bare theatre where Danjero
plays—Danjero, whom we were afterwards to meet, and also to see in one
of Japan’s classic dramas. Next we crossed one of the great parks; and
then we began twisting in and out of innumerable tortuous lanes. They
found the house at last; but I don’t know how they did it.
We went up a funny little path, and knocked at a funny little door. It
was a minute house, purely Japanese. The door slid back. The little fat
servant fell on her nose at our feet, and cried out some words of
ceremonial greeting. We couldn’t make her understand what we wanted. We
couldn’t make her get up. I tried to give her our cards: I might as well
have offered her an infernal machine. Her mistress heard our voices and
came out. The jolly little woman was not changed a bit. She seized me by
one hand and my husband by the other. She had never seen or heard of
him,—she hadn’t seen me for ten years,—but she instinctively knew who
he must be and adopted him with her funny little motherly way.
She had forgotten most of her imperfect English, and, just at first, we
could barely understand each other; and then, somehow, the ten years
seemed but as a day. She overwhelmed me with questions about every one
we had known in our schooldays; but not until she had made us very
welcome, and given us tea. She clapped her hands three times, and the
tea came in. In reality, the servant brought it in; but she came on her
hands and knees, and the tea-tray was far more conspicuous than she.
Shige sent for her five little children; they bobbed us queer little
curtsies, with their queer little bodies, and laughed and ran out.
The only hint of Europe I saw in Mrs. Uriu’s little home were three old
books and a box of cigars, which she brought out for my husband, with a
gleeful laugh.
She was so sorry her husband was away with his ship, he was so nice. He
was a lieutenant in the navy. She was teaching music; the Empress had
founded a girls’ college, and she, Shige, was professor of the piano.
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[1] The Countess Oyama is the wife of the Count (sometimes called
Marshal) Oyama who has so recently distinguished himself in the
Chino-Japanese war.