KŌBE, January, 1895.
Since I wrote you last, you dear old fellow, I've been through some
trouble. Indeed, the very _day_ after writing you, I broke down, and had
to remain three weeks with compresses over my eyes in a dark room. I am
now over it--able to write and read for a short time every day, but have
been warned to leave routine newspaper work alone. Which I must do.
Your letter was--well, I don't just know what to call its
quality:--there was a bracing tenderness in it that reminded me of a
college friendship. Really, in this world there is nothing quite so holy
as a college friendship. Two lads,--absolutely innocent of everything
wrong in the world or in life,--living in ideals of duty and dreams of
future miracles, and telling each other all their troubles, and bracing
each other up. I had such a friend once. We were both about fifteen when
separated, but had been together from ten. Our friendship began with a
fight, of which I got the worst;--then my friend became for me a sort
of ideal, which still lives. I should be almost afraid to ask where he
is now (men grow away from each other so): but your letter brought his
voice and face back,--just as if his very ghost had come in to lay a
hand on my shoulder....
Kōbe is a nice little place. The effect on me is not pleasant,
however. I have become too accustomed to the interior. The sight of
foreign women--the sound of their voices--jars upon me harshly after
long living among purely natural women with soundless steps and softer
speech. (I fear the foreign women here, too, are nearly all of the
savagely _bourgeoise_ style--affected English and affected American ways
prevail.) Carpets,--dirty shoes,--absurd fashions,--wickedly expensive
living,--airs,--vanities,--gossip: how much sweeter the Japanese life
on the soft mats,--with its ever dearer courtesy and pretty, pure
simplicity. Yet my boy can never be a Japanese. Perhaps, if he grows
old, there will some day come back to him memories of his mother's
dainty little world,--the _hibachi_,--the _toko_,--the garden,--the
lights of the household shrine,--the voices and hands that shaped his
thought and guided every little tottering step. Then he will feel very,
very lonesome,--and be sorry he did not follow after those who loved
him into some shadowy resting-place where the Buddhas still smile under
their moss....
Ever affectionately,
LAFCADIO.