TOM STREET
I HAD been in Yokohama about half an hour when he opened our
sitting-room door and informed me in charmingly broken English that he
was my jinrickshaw coolie that my husband had engaged him, and that he
was ready to start as soon as I was. As it was about ten o’clock at
night, as it was dark, as I was very hungry, and our dinner was just
coming in, I entreated him to defer until the morning the appointment my
husband had been kind enough to make.
“You did not lose much time in getting me a ’rickshaw here,” I said to
my comrade as we were dining.
“No;” was the answer; “a fellow waylaid me on the verandah. He seemed
amazingly ambitious to go, and as you are more ambitious to go than any
other person I ever met, I thought him just the steed for you, and hired
him.”
I was up early the next morning—very early indeed for me. I stole out,
meaning to take a solitary ramble, but my “pull man” jumped at me and
intercepted me with a clean, cozy ’rickshaw.
In all Yokohama there was not such another ’rickshaw coolie, I am sure.
He taught me half that I know about Japan, and I am confident that what
he taught me was true—he taught it so inadvertently. He insisted that
his name was “Tom Street.” He never would own to having any other or
more Japanese appellation. When I saw that he really wished to be known,
only as Tom Street, I could not, of course, question him further. I had
a theory that he was a Japanese nobleman in disguise, but the theory did
not merit serious investigation. In the first place he had no disguise;
in the second place, I fancy that the police is the most plebeian body
ever joined by a high-born Japanese.
The Japanese are very romantic; they are sensational; they are emotional
to a degree. They reminded me in many ways of the French. They have more
self-control than the French, but are not without a French touch of
hysteria. The spirit of mad romance, of almost affected chivalry which
led the rônins of old Japan to deeds of extreme, elaborate, and artistic
valour, is still rife in Japan, and spurs her _jeunesse dorée_ to strike
strange attitudes in strange places. The Japanese would sometimes be
ridiculous were they not so invariably graceful. As a matter of fact,
they are never ridiculous; their grace is so great that it amounts to
national dignity. We find a Japanese gentleman standing on civil guard
at the street corner. He calls us a ’rickshaw, tells us the time, and is
the angel of general information that a well-regulated policeman should
be. We think Japanese situations amusing sometimes, but they never
approach burlesque.
[Illustration: MRS. KEUTAKO’S BABY. _Page 224._]
The Japanese have quaint epidemics. Once they had a Chinese epidemic:
everything with them was Chinese. Once they had a Corean epidemic:
everything was Corean. Then they have almost hysterical reactions. Some
years ago they had a European epidemic. They sent the flower of their
youth to Europe to be educated. The ladies of fashion sent to Paris for
their frocks, and every man in Japan who could afford it bought a pair
of English boots, a frock-coat, and a stove-pipe hat. When we were in
Japan a reaction had begun. Europeans were less liked than they had
been. When the attempt was made upon the life of the Tsarevitch it fed
the growing flame of Japanese dislike of Europeans. That dislike has, I
hear, been growing steadily ever since. It culminated a few days ago in
an attack upon a venerable Anglican Archdeacon, who was brutally
assaulted on the streets of Tokio. At least I hope it has culminated. I
hope there is nothing worse to follow. It will decrease again as
causelessly as it rose, this anti-foreign feeling, and we shall ride
again upon the pretty rainbow-hued waves of Japanese popularity.
It all comes from the over-sensitiveness of the Japanese people. It
never comes from their badness of heart, for they have none. Their
hearts are essentially good. It is all a misunderstanding. Let us
remember that, and provoke it as little as possible. Above all, we must
never laugh at the Japanese. That they never forgive. I laughed at them
once. It was a tender, loving laugh, that ought not to have bruised the
wing of a butterfly, nor hurt the face of a baby. It was a mere smile
compared to the laughter I have freely hurled at my own people and had
them join in heartily. It was simply nothing compared to the uproarious
laughs I constantly have at my own expense. And I indulged myself in it
at a most respectful distance, away off here in London. But it gave
great offence.
I once described a red house as white, a house I had seen in Tokio some
years before. This caused quite an excitement, and I was condemned in
eloquent, if not elegant English in the pages of a great and good paper
published in Japan—but published in English.
There is no people that I admire more than I do the Japanese. But I must
describe Japan as it appeared to me, even though it brings upon me an
abusive editorial from far Cathay.
The Japanese are super-sensitive. If they were not, they could not be
the most exquisite artists, the daintiest artisans on earth. We owe
Japan so much—so much that we can perhaps never pay—that we owe it to
ourselves to deal very gently with her few faults. And they are such
gentle faults! Let us remember that the Japanese are the most sensitive
nation on earth, and that for all their genius of assimilation they are
not wholly _en rapport_ with our coarser Western ways.
And yet it would be to them a distinct national gain if the Japanese
could learn that the truest dignity does not search for offence, nor
seize upon it too trivially,—if they could learn that no nation ever
was or ever will be perfect, not even the Japanese nation, and that no
criticism that is entirely laudatory is of the slightest value.
When we were in Japan the feeling against Europeans mumbled and crept.
Now I hear that it is standing erect and declaiming loudly. It has been
throwing stones and mud in Tokio. It will fall asleep again,—let us
hope that it will sleep itself to death. Perhaps, if we are very good
and prove ourselves quite worthy the steadfast friendship of Japan, we
may gain it. That is to be desired; for Japan is the garden of the
world—the Eden of the nineteenth century, and it is a pity that we
should be shut out of it, or admitted on grudging sufferance.
Tom Street knew his Yokohama well. He knew where all the pretty views
were and all the lovely bits. He used to whisk me round a corner with a
dramatic, impressario sort of air, when we came upon a place of
exceptional beauty. He would often stop and say authoritatively, “You
draw that.” Then he would saunter off to gather me an armful of wild
flowers. Many’s the hour that I’ve sat a few yards from some lovely
thatched cottage and tried to sketch it and a bit of its blossoming,
perfumed hedge. Tom always told me frankly what he thought of my
attempt; but he was a good-natured critic. If I had my box of
water-colours with me he would always contrive to get me a dish of
water, begging it from a cottage or dipping it from a brook. Often I
took my little son with me, sometimes in my ’rickshaw, but oftener in
another. That never prevented me from sketching. Tom would amuse the
child for hours. Together they gathered flowers, and Tom wove the
flowers into queer combinations. He built a house once of wild asters,
and made a doll who had a blush rose for a face and a gorgeous kimono
woven of wistarias. He used to teach my boy Japanese in a natural
kindergarten system; and he told him quaint Japanese legends and made
him marvellous Japanese puzzles. Sometimes they chased each other up and
down the warm hill-slopes. Often the baby went to sleep; then Tom,
looking very important, would bring him back in his arms, and put him on
my lap or lay him in his own ’rickshaw.
Tom knew all the choice shops and the crazy bazaar byways where genuine
curios were to be picked up, if one had industry, perseverance,
enthusiasm, and discrimination. He took a keen interest in my purchases,
and would often ask the amah to show him the contents of a bundle. He
laughed with delight at my soft heaps of rainbow crêpe. He actually
tried to buy from me a piece of bronze that I had picked up in Tokio. He
knew something of bronzes did Tom; for a Yokohama curio dealer offered
me just twenty-five times what I gave for my bronze vase, if I would
sell it. Tom told me bluntly that I had paid too much for a piece of
Satsuma; but he was in an ecstasy over a rather unusual water-colour I
got in Yokohama.
Tom was a very well dressed ’rickshaw coolie. He wore strong, whole
shoes, long, neat stockings, and a coat or shirt, and short trousers of
strong, dark-blue stuff. He was crowned with a white straw sailor hat;
it had a clean white ribbon on it, and in the ribbon Tom often stuck a
rose. He was a handsome fellow, splendidly strong; and, for a Japanese,
very large. He was very anxious to come to Europe, and begged us to
bring him. He would do any work we liked, and would work for two years
for nothing. He was intensely curious about the West. He never
questioned me; but often, when he was waiting for me, he would creep
near the verandah steps and ask my husband, “You do this in New York?”
“You have that in London?” “One strong man earn plenty in England?” He
read English rather fairly and was anxious to write it. My husband wrote
his name for him in a blank book. Tom was enchanted. Almost every day he
would bring the book to show how he had improved.
There were a great many Americans in Yokohama, and they were all
delightful people. We had a man-of-war in the harbour, and the charming
fellows who officered it came ashore continually. Admiral Belknap very
kindly loaned us his band, and by doing so rescued us from an orchestral
condition that was dire.
What happy days and nights we spent in the home of the American
gentleman who is the editor of a breezy Yokohama paper! His wife and I
had common friends in San Francisco, and when I sat in her charming home
and watched her graceful ways, and her pretty children, I almost felt
that I was home once more. I should have quite thought it but for the
strange flowers in the vases and the kimonoed servants. I have
everywhere found newspaper people a most delightful part of the
community. In Yokohama, in Shanghai, in Hong-Kong, in Singapore, in
Calcutta, and in a score of other Eastern places I remember with very
great pleasure our journalistic friends. Soldiers and sailors and their
wives are a little nicer than other people, I think, and next to them I
have found the ink-stained fraternity companionable, interesting, and
likeable.
“What about actors?” some one asks. They are my brothers and sisters; I
am proud of them and I love them. But it will be more becoming of me,
perhaps, to let some other pen praise them. Then, too, we met very few
actors in the East, save our own little contingent.
Two charming Boston women used to send me white roses from their pretty
garden. What a place of delight and of restful refinement their house
was! I love to think of it, and of them. In all Yokohama we did not meet
one obnoxious American. There is no society more delightful than the
nicest American society, and in Yokohama there was great social
wealth,—American and English.
We were out in our ’rickshaw, my boy and I, on the thirtieth of May. Tom
pulled aside to let a little procession pass, and my heart gave a great
thump. The man-of-war’s men came marching slowly on. They carried the
United States flag at their head, and the band was playing, “Hail
Columbia.” It was Decoration Day, and the Americans in Yokohama had been
through the scorching sun to lay roses on the graves of the American
sailors who had died in Japan and been buried in the Yokohama European
Cemetery.
Night falls upon Japan a starlit blessing. I used in Yokohama to go,
between the acts, on to the landing of the theatre outer steps. They
were the steps that led to the “stage door” and were nowhere near the
parts of the house to which the public had egress. How strange it used
to seem to me! The steps led down to a fantastic garden. The flowers
were hidden beneath the gray shadows of the big-leafed trees. The
band—the kindly-loaned band of our flag-ship—was playing, “Way down
upon the Swannee Ribber.” Then they changed into, “Massa’s in the cold,
cold Ground.” As the sweet darky melody sobbed into silence, the
pathetic music of the blind shampooer’s cry came from the city, and the
most plaintive song of Japan mingled with the most plaintive song of
America.
I know nothing more characteristic of Japanese good taste and of
Japanese kindliness than the place of profitable industry that Japan has
found for her blind. In Japan massage is only a less perfect luxury,
less perfectly a fine art, than it is in Hindoostan. And what could be
more fit, what could speak more trumpet-mouthed of their national
delicacy, than that to the blind of that nation has been given the
monopoly of massage?
They walk about the streets alone—do the blind shampooers of Japan.
They are as fearless as they are safe. The sad note of their whistle is
an appeal to the kindness and the protection of their people. It is an
appeal that is answered with universal and invariable generosity and
chivalry. I remember, in Japan, many a night that was absolutely silent
save for the sorrowful sound of these poor sightless givers of rest and
of sleep. I recall no night through which I did not hear their one drear
note.
I long to tell how we did not play before the Mikado. But there must be
limits to a chapter, even when it is written by a woman; and I must
squeeze the story of nights of plotting and days of diplomacy into a
page.
We were ambitious to play the _Merchant of Venice_ before his Majesty
and his Court. We brought to bear influence that we thought not
inconsiderable, but we failed. We might, perhaps, have succeeded had it
not been for the mad coolie who tried to kill the Tsarevitch. That
struck a deathblow to our hope, and we missed the privilege we craved of
unfurling the banner we loved, the pennant of great English drama, in
the palace of the Mikado. But we tried very hard, and to our persistence
I, at least, owe many of my happiest memories. “All successes rise
phœnix-like from the ashes of some failure.” We failed to play before
the Mikado,—but to that failure I owe the two most unique experiences I
had in Japan.
One was a jinrickshaw ride from Yokohama to Tokio, the other was a
performance of _Julius Cæsar_ that we gave in a Japanese theatre to a
Japanese audience. Not an audience of cosmopolitanised Japanese, but an
audience of the insular Japanese populace. That was the funnier
experience; the other was the more enjoyable.
As a matter of fact, we played twice in the Japanese theatre; once in
the afternoon, once in the evening. Our auditors sat on benches—very
low benches—and squatted on the auditorium floor. They behaved better
than we did, for we laughed when we should have been tragic. I was sorry
at the time for my individual misconduct. I had not been guilty of
inappropriate laughter on the stage since the first season of my
professional life. But they were so irresistibly funny, those hundreds
of gaping, kimonoed humans. Many of them, very many, were women. Every
woman seemed to have a baby, and the yellow rolly-polies did everything
that babies would naturally be expected to do at a very fine performance
of _Julius Cæsar_. It was a droll experience; but we were glad the next
night to return to the European theatre and our more sophisticatedly
sympathetic audience.
I had great difficulty in inducing Tom Street to pull me from Yokohama
to Tokio. He assured me that I could, in a fraction of the time and for
far less money, go on the train. I assured him that I knew all that, but
that I had often been by train, and that I was determined to go once by
’rickshaw. Tom was positively melancholy, but after I had threatened him
and my husband had bribed him, he consented. I forget how far it is from
Yokohama; I never remember those nice sensible useful points. But it was
between fifteen and twenty miles.
We started in the early dawn, which in Japan, in June, is very early
indeed. John, the Madrassi, was up betimes, and bullied some one into
boiling me an egg and making me a cup of coffee. My husband drew an
ulster over his kimono and came out to see me start. Amah lined the
’rickshaw with a lot of cushions and we started.
Tom had a mate, a happy looking, muscular fellow. He was called a “push
man.” In Tokio when there are two coolies to one ’rickshaw they both
pull, running tandem; but in Yokohama when there are two, one pulls and
one goes behind and pushes. One is a “pull man”; one is a “push man.”
Tom and his fellow changed places several times _en route_ to Tokio.
They rested twice; about fifteen minutes each time. Three hours and a
half after I left Yokohama, I had had a warm bath and was leisurely
eating my delicious breakfast in the Tokio hotel.
Our journey had been through the country and through small
villages—villages where you might search in vain for one taint of
Europe.
I questioned Tom about everything I saw that morning, and about
everything he told me intelligently enough, and, as I afterwards
learned, accurately. He was one of the people, and he knew them and the
manner of their lives.
About half-way between Yokohama and Yeddo we halted at a toll-gate. I
paid the few coppers the old woman in charge demanded of me in the name
of the Government. I bought a horrible liquid something that I could not
drink; my coolies ate raw eggs with gusto; and then on we went. Our
second and only other halt was after we had reached the outskirts of
Tokio. The coolies ate snow mixed with sugar and saki, and served in
long slim goblets.
I was so delighted with my ride that I gave each of my coolies a yen,
and told them to rest all day, and be ready to start back at five
o’clock that evening. At two o’clock, when I came in from the business
calls I had been making, the proprietor of the hotel calmly informed me
that Tom and his friend had returned to Yokohama, and had left word for
me to come by train. I was very angry, for I had counted on that ride
through the Japanese gloaming. I spent a long, busy day; and when I went
back at night my anger had evaporated. Tom was at the station to meet
me.
“How did you dare leave me?” I demanded. “How did you know that I had
enough money to come home on the train?”
“You had plenty yen,” he said; “you gave us two.”
Housekeeping is delightful in Japan, but less easy than it is in China.
Most of the Japanese servants were, like Tom, extremely quick and
capable, but liable at times to take the domestic bit between their
teeth.
When we left Yokohama I gave Tom three yen more than I owed him. He
abused me roundly for not giving him more; but he gave my boy a souvenir
of Japan, and waved his straw hat as we put off from the pier.
I long to see Japan again, to feel the soft breeze of her myriad fans,
to see the glimmering light of her innumerable lanterns, to smell the
perfumes of her blossoms and her joss sticks, and to watch the gay,
gossamer flight of her countless butterflies.