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_The Mirror._
By George Japy.
[Illustration]
It has always been said that the Japanese are the French of the Orient.
Be that as it may, it is very clear that in certain traits which
characterize the French, there is no resemblance whatever between the
people of those two nations.
Almost as soon as a French baby (a girl, be it understood) is born, its
first instinct is to stretch out its tiny hands for a mirror, in which
to admire its beautiful little face and its graceful movements. This
natural, and we may say inborn, taste grows with the child's growth, and
ere the fair girl has reached her seventeenth year, her ideal of perfect
bliss is to find herself in a room with mirrors on every side. There is
indeed a room in the Palace of Versailles which is the elysium of the
Frenchwoman. It is a long room with looking-glasses from ceiling to
floor, and the said floor is polished so that it reflects, at any rate,
the shadow of the feet.
Now, in the little Japanese village of Yowcuski a looking-glass was an
unheard-of thing, and girls did not even know what they looked like,
except on hearing the description which their lovers gave them of their
personal beauty (which description, by-the-bye, was sometimes slightly
biased, according as the lover was more or less devoted).
[Illustration: "HE PICKED UP ONE DAY IN THE STREET A SMALL POCKET
HAND-MIRROR."]
Now it happened that a young Japanese, whose daily work was to pull
along those light carriages such as were seen at the last Paris
Exhibition, picked up one day in the street a small pocket hand-mirror,
probably dropped by some English lady-tourist on her travels in that
part of the world.
It was, of course, the first time in his life that Kiki-Tsum had ever
gazed on such a thing. He looked carefully at it, and to his intense
astonishment saw the image of a brown face, with dark, intelligent eyes,
and a look of awestruck wonderment expressed on its features.
Kiki-Tsum dropped on his knees, and gazing earnestly at the object he
held in his hand, he whispered, "It is my sainted father. How could his
portrait have come here? Is it, perhaps, a warning of some kind for me?"
He carefully folded the precious treasure up in his handkerchief, and
put it in the large pocket of his loose blouse. When he went home that
night he hid it away carefully in a vase which was scarcely ever
touched, as he did not know of any safer place in which to deposit it.
He said nothing of the adventure to his young wife, for, as he said to
himself "Women are curious, and then, too, _sometimes_ they are given to
talking," and Kiki-Tsum felt that it was too reverent a matter to be
discussed by neighbours, this finding of his dead father's portrait in
the street.
For some days Kiki-Tsum was in a great state of excitement. He was
thinking of the portrait all the time, and at intervals he would leave
his work and suddenly appear at home to take a furtive look at
his treasure.
[Illustration: "ALWAYS WITH THE SAME SOLEMN EXPRESSION."]
Now, in Japan, as in other countries, mysterious actions and irregular
proceedings of all kinds have to be explained to a wife. Lili-Tsee did
not understand why her husband kept appearing at all hours of the day.
Certainly he kissed her every time he came in like this. At first she
was satisfied with his explanation when he told her that he only ran in
for a minute to see her pretty face. She thought it was really quite
natural on his part, but when day after day he appeared, and always with
the same solemn expression on his face, she began to wonder in her heart
of hearts whether he was telling her the whole truth. And so Lili-Tsee
fell to watching her husband's movements, and she noticed that he never
went away until he had been alone in the little room at the back of
the house.
[Illustration: "WHAT WAS IT SHE SAW?"]
Now the Japanese women are as persevering as any others when there is a
mystery to be discovered, and so Lili-Tsee set herself to discover this
mystery. She hunted day after day to see if she could find some trace of
anything in that little room which was at all unusual, but she found
nothing. One day, however, she happened to come in suddenly and saw her
husband replacing the long blue vase in which she kept her rose leaves
in order to dry them. He made some excuse about its not looking very
steady, and appeared to be just setting it right, and Lili-Tsee
pretended there was nothing out of the common in his putting the vase
straight. The moment he had gone out of the house, though, she was up on
a stool like lightning, and in a moment she had fished the looking-glass
out of the vase. She took it carefully in her hand, wondering whatever
it could be, but when she looked in it the terrible truth was clear.
What was it she saw?
Why, the portrait of a woman, and she had believed that Kiki-Tsum was so
good, and so fond, and so true.
Her grief was at first too deep for any words. She just sat down on the
floor with the terrible portrait in her lap, and rocked herself
backwards and forwards. This, then, was why her husband came home so
many times in the day. It was to look at the portrait of the woman she
had just seen.
Suddenly a fit of anger seized her, and she gazed at the glass again.
The same face looked at her, but she wondered how her husband could
admire such a face, so wicked did the dark eyes look: there was an
expression in them that she certainly had not seen the first time she
had looked at it, and it terrified her so much that she made up her mind
not to look at it again.
She had no heart, however, for anything, and did not even make any
attempt to prepare a meal for her husband. She just went on sitting
there on the floor, nursing the portrait, and at the same time her
wrath. When later on Kiki-Tsum arrived, he was surprised to find nothing
ready for their evening meal, and no wife. He walked through to the
other rooms, and was not long left in ignorance of the cause of the
unusual state of things.
"So this is the love you professed for me! This is the way in which you
treat me, before we have even been married a year!"
"What do you mean, Lili-Tsee?" asked her husband, in consternation,
thinking that his poor wife had taken leave of her senses.
"What do I mean? What do you mean? I should think. The idea of your
keeping portraits in my rose-leaf vase. Here, take it and treasure it,
for I do not want it, the wicked, wicked woman!" and here poor Lili-Tsee
burst out crying.
"I cannot understand," said her bewildered husband.
"Oh, you can't?" she said, laughing hysterically. "I can, though, well
enough. You like that hideous, villainous-looking woman better than your
own true wife. I would say nothing if she were at any rate beautiful;
but she has a vile face, a hideous face, and looks wicked and murderous,
and everything that is bad!"
"Lili-Tsee, what do you mean?" asked her husband, getting exasperated in
his turn. "That portrait is the living image of my poor dead father. I
found it in the street the other day, and put it in your vase
for safety."
Lili-Tsee's eyes flashed with indignation at this apparently barefaced
lie.
"Hear him!" she almost screamed. "He wants to tell me now that I do not
know a woman's face from a man's."
Kiki-Tsum was wild with indignation, and a quarrel began in good
earnest. The street-door was a little way open, and the loud, angry
words attracted the notice of a _bonze_ (one of the Japanese priests)
who happened to be passing.
"My children," he said, putting his head in at the door, "why this
unseemly anger, why this dispute?"
"Father," said Kiki-Tsum, "my wife is mad."
"All women are so, my son, more or less," interrupted the holy _bonze_.
"You were wrong to expect perfection, and must abide by your bargain
now. It is no use getting angry, all wives are trials."
"But what she says is a lie."
"It is not, father," exclaimed Lili-Tsee. "My husband has the portrait
of a woman, and I found it hidden in my rose-leaf vase."
"I swear that I have no portrait but that of my poor dead father,"
explained the aggrieved husband.
"My children, my children," said the holy _bonze_, majestically, "show
me the portraits."
"Here it is; there is only one, but it is one too many," said Lili-Tsee,
sarcastically.
The _bonze_ took the glass and looked at it earnestly. He then bowed low
before it, and in an altered tone said: "My children, settle your
quarrel and live peaceably together. You are both in the wrong. This
portrait is that of a saintly and venerable _bonze_. I know not how you
could mistake so holy a face. I must take it from you and place it
amongst the precious relics of our church."
So saying, the _bonze_ lifted his hands to bless the husband and wife,
and then went slowly away, carrying with him the glass which had wrought
such mischief.