Even as they made their way up the hill, among the booths, animal
cages, swinging bridges and slides of the amusement park which formed
an adjunct of the Kagetsuen, the crash and cry of the jazz orchestra
came down to them. Dancing began early and a number of couples filled
the floor of the large hall. The musicians, some fifteen of them, were
all Japanese, but they had mastered their peculiar art, the latest
phase of the modernity invading Japan. Emphasis seemed to have been
laid on modernity. With the exception of a few Japanese lanterns,
some characteristic masks, the arrangements were entirely in foreign
style. Wicker tables and chairs lined two sides of the hall, where tea
was served, English fashion. For a moment this modern air struck Kent
as disappointing. Then he looked about at the people, the dancers,
those sitting at the tables, and the feeling vanished. A glitter of
color shimmered and moved inside this tedious frame, brilliant kimono,
gorgeous obi, rich silk, blazing reds, radiant blues, color in all
shades and tints scintillating in motion. The colorless space, the
commonplace garb of the men, seemed rather to heighten the effect of
the exotic radiance of the women.
Kipling's "For East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall
meet" came to his mind. It might be true, but the scene before him
seemed to belie it. Was there ever such a melting-pot, raiment of a
civilization thousands of years old, substantially unchanged, absorbed
in the arms of extreme modernism, the unimaginative West and the
evanescent romance of the Orient moving and mingling in the rhythm of
jazz. It was bizarre, discordant, but it made a picture odd, almost
incongruously anachronistic, but interesting, strikingly illustrative
of New Japan.
They found a table and sat down to tea, Kikuchi, his sister, the
Suzuki sisters and Kent. They made up programs, but Kent reserved only
a few dances. He wished to have opportunity to watch, to study this
heterogeneous potpourri of humanity.
Japanese predominated, the men all in European clothing, most of the
women in kimonos, though many wore foreign dress, generally simple,
but well tailored, becomingly worn. There were many Europeans and
Americans, nearly all men. It was difficult to determine their status;
they were so much alike, most of them in pongee. Of the women many were
apparently business girls, stenographers from Yokohama probably, though
here and there might be seen one a bit indeterminable, who caused the
mind to hesitate for a moment, in question.
Then there were the Eurasians, slim young men, inclined to be a shade
dandified, smooth, graceful dancers; the girls slim also, but with
a svelte luxuriance of body, a starry-eyed, almost tropical hint
of potentialities of fiery passion slumbering lightly behind their
sinuous grace. But, after all, his eyes would revert constantly to the
kimonos. They made the high light and luster of the scene, stirring
the imagination to wonder who were they, what were they, what were the
thoughts, the ambitions, the desires and passions, in these faintly
contoured breasts held tightly under silken folds above the stiff
brocade sashes? Difficult as it was to determine the character of the
others, Europeans and Eurasians, he felt himself utterly baffled
by the Japanese women. Any one of them might be a daughter of the
aristocracy, or she might be a geisha, for all he could know. All the
usual minute signs, the hints conveyed by dress, speech and gesture
familiar in white women, the indescribable, subtle nuances, which
made it possible at home to distinguish between the gentlewoman and
the demimonde, were unknown to him here. It added to the fascination,
the bewildering sense of not being able to know, to determine, even
to guess with reasonable certainty, as if one were hesitatingly,
cautiously venturing into a marvelously fascinating, strange,
unexplored country.
A hundred questions clamored for explanations. Who was this one; what
could that one be? But his companions gave him little information. They
did not know these people, they said. Their tone conveyed to him that
he must restrain his curiosity. It was plain that they insisted on
being exclusive. They showed acquaintance with only one or two other
groups, a party, much like their own, in which young Watanabe, son of
the shipping magnate, was the leader; another composed of the sons
and daughters of wealthy silk merchants from Yokohama. These, quite
evidently, formed a set aside, remote from the gay throng about them.
He had indicated a girl who had passed them in the dance, rather
full-figured, Eurasian apparently, with large, languid eyes, who moved
with a slow swaying grace before them. It was the sense of dreamlike
voluptuousness that had attracted him.
"Eurasian. I hear she is a moving-picture actress," answered Kikuchi.
"It is democratic, you see. There are all kinds here, girls of gentle
birth and geishas, stenographers and actresses. It is queer to have
that kind of thing here in Japan, don't you think? Our girls couldn't
come into such mixed company abroad, you know. But we must dance, and
there are only these places, this and a few smaller ones in Tokyo; and
the management is strict; in fact, I believe they pretend to keep out
the geisha element, though I'm sure they wink at their coming so long
as they behave themselves. It is really entirely respectable, and our
girls are quite all right here so long as we keep to ourselves."
Kent took the hint. He would have liked to have mingled at close range
with the others, to venture into the tangle of dazzling, mysterious
femininity where your partner of chance might turn out to be a
demoiselle of ancient samurai lineage or a motion-picture queen, a
stenographer or a geisha. Still, he enjoyed his growing intimacy with
the girls in his own party. The fact that they were confined mainly to
their own circle brought them together, made it necessary to dance more
often with his companions than would otherwise have been the case. He
found special pleasure in Kimiko-san. It was his first experience in
dancing with a girl in kimono. He enjoyed the strange sense of grasping
about the thick, stiff obi; it was something new. He was surprised at
her agile vivacity. The orchestra was playing an amazing adaptation
of "Zigeunerweisen," stolen almost bodily by the enterprising
pseudo-composer, retaining the gipsy fire and sparkle of the original,
and she seemed to radiate the electric tingle, the flushing abandon
thereof, confusing with the sense of odd contrast of hot, pulsing
passion contained within the feudal conventionality of her gorgeous
costume.
They sat out the next dance. They were alone at their table. "Do you
like to dance with me? Can I dance?" Her eyes flashed at him.
"It is marvelous. It seems so impossible that you can be so wonderful.
And in _zori_; how do you do it?"
She laughed, delighted, looked about. Then she slipped from her small
foot, clad in _tabi_, the mitten-like white silk covering which takes
the place of a stocking, a _zori_, sandal-like flat footgear, held in
place by cross bands. She passed it to him in the shadow of the table.
"See, it is slit. We have them made especially for dancing."
It seemed almost impossible that this might be such a prosaic thing as
a shoe, this dainty, small object in his hand, surfaced with figured
crimson and gold brocade, like a precious work of art, with its red
silk cross bands.
"It simply adds to the illusion," he told her. "Out of the mysterious
Orient has come to me a gorgeous Cinderella slipper."
"Who is Cinderella?"
He explained, tritely and mechanically at first, restrained by the
oddness of bringing forth such a puerility. But she was interested,
leaned towards him intently. He warmed to the telling. How was it
possible that she might be so interested in such a simple thing? A
moment ago she had been a woman, palpitating, warm, in his arms. Now
she was a child, listening with eager wonder to a fairy tale. What was
she; what were they, anyway, these girls,--children or women, or both?
He enjoyed her intentness; tried to apply in the telling all the skill
and artistry that he could contrive.
"Oh, what a lovely story! I didn't know you could tell stories. You
must tell me many more. I love it." She was radiantly delighted. It
pleased him immeasurably. It would be a novel thing, a new experience
in life, to recall to memory the half-forgotten childhood tales and to
dress them up for her, in terms suitable to fanciful Oriental setting,
enjoying the tremulous reactions which he might thus cause in this
beautiful creature with the clear, innocent mind of a child, clothed in
the budding curves of the body of a woman.
They were silent for a moment, then she placed her hand on his arm.
"But you still have my _zori_."
He had forgotten it. It lay in his hand, absurdly small and elegant.
"If it were not really necessary for you to have it, I should like to
keep it, as a souvenir, a reward for my story."
"But I can't give it to you now, you know," she was smiling, with
just a shade of seriousness. "But you shall have your reward, if you
really want such a trifling thing as this, for I wish to have many more
stories from you. You must see me often and tell me many just like
Cinderella."
After that telling stories to Kimiko-san became a regular part of
their evenings at Tsurumi. They came often, and he fell into the habit
of thinking up his tales in advance, finding his themes among the
rich treasures of the West, from mythology and history, folk tale and
medieval romance, even from the Old Testament. It amused him to take
the essential dramatic values, coloring the action so as to render it
understandable to the Japanese mind, dressing the material in Oriental
form. Samson became a valiant samurai and Delilah a perfidious geisha.
Hercules performed his prodigies in the atmosphere of the legendary
_Momotaro_. He became interested as the thought began to take definite
form that here was an idea that he might some day work out into more
concrete shape, and in the meantime he enjoyed the breathless interest,
the childishly intent response which he always awakened in the girl.
It brought them closer together. Their intimacy became recognized
gradually by tacit understanding in their little group. He became her
acknowledged cavalier. He wondered at times why this girl had become so
much more attractive to him than the elder sister. He was still fond
of Tsuyuko-san, but the feeling remained the same, neither increasing
nor decreasing, while he sensed that Kimiko-san and he were coming
constantly nearer to each other, more intimately parts of each other's
thoughts. Could it be that what attracted was in its intrinsic essence
the glamor of the East, the charm of the seductive, unknown Orient?
The question would come to his mind--were they drifting towards a more
definite relation; might not the love element already be germinating,
unconsciously developing? He recalled the words of Miss Elliott that
these girls were not children, that they were moved and driven by the
same passions as those which dominate the more sophisticated women of
the West. But he put the thought from him. His moral code was a simple
and rigid one. He was married, and he must keep the faith. Even though
marriage had been a failure, as long as the bond existed he would play
the game. He, at least, would keep his record clean, and while the
relation remained there would be no dalliance for him with other women.
So in the case of Kimiko-san, as with other women, there could be no
question of love relations. There were times when a lingering of her
hand, a sidelong glance from dark almond eyes would cause a nervous
titillation of agreeable unrest, would quicken his blood, give a
flashing hint of something pleasantly, subtly dangerous, but sweet; but
it was so evanescent, so intangible. The next moment she would be the
gay, virginal child.
He felt that it was rather stupid, an absurd exaggeration of caution;
still he had made opportunity to tell her of his wife, in California;
but she had not been interested. "Oh, she is far away," had been her
only comment, carelessly laughing, with no accentuation of meaning;
and she had turned instantly to light chatter of the moment. Quite
apparently it meant nothing to her. So the play kept on. He allowed
himself to take pleasure from her radiant presence, her beauty, to
rest his eye on her flower-like features, dark eyes, to enjoy the
slenderness of her fingers, sense the palpitating magnetism of her
lithe body and inhale the perfume of her hair, as he held her, swaying,
in the rhythm of the dance. He felt pleasure in the thought that he
might enjoy all this rich beauty, as one might that of a flower, a
butterfly, unvitiated by sordid taint of sex interest.
But his delight in the charm of Kimiko-san did not dull his interest
in the others, the great throng of women, shimmering about him in
their glimmering silks, unknown, mysterious to him. They piqued his
curiosity. He wanted to know who they were, what they were, what were
their lives, their thoughts, to come to know them as intimately as did
these care-free youths who held them in the dance, chattered gayly
with them at the tables. He felt as if he were being withheld from the
familiarity of the charmed circle, resented a little the restraint
which he was under when he was with Kimiko-san and her sister. Finally
he decided that he would come alone. Lüttich seemed to be there
always. Through him he would contrive himself to become a part of this
marvelously fascinating butterfly whirl of strangely unknown femininity.
So he came alone, one afternoon, and sought out Lüttich.
"I shall be glad to show you about," said the Russian, "but the fact is
that I have little time. I am busy. You see, I am here professionally.
For the moment, at least, dancing has taken the upper hand over music
with young Japan, so I have become a dancing teacher. I have more
than I can do. I dance from morning till night, giving lessons. It is
not bad. They learn more easily than you would think. Then, when they
become a bit proficient, I take them out here; but I must dance with
them myself, at first, to give them confidence. A lot of these girls,
and men, too, for that matter, are my pupils. So you see I am busy as a
matter of duty. _N'importe._ It pays, and one must live.
"However, let us sit down for a moment. Have a drink." He called a
boy. "You want to know who they are. Well, they are a mixed crowd.
All kinds; that's part of the charm, is it not? See that pretty young
woman over there, just passing the pillar. She is the wife of the
Buddhist priest of the big temple on the other side of the hill.
The young fellow with her is an American boy in some company in
Yokohama. Priestess and office clerk. Odd, isn't it? Bizarre. Still, I
daresay mighty few of them realize it, or give it a thought. See that
cadaverous Eurasian with his Japanese wife? They are pupils of mine.
They dance well, don't they? Well, two years ago they had never danced
a step. Now that is all they do; it is their whole life interest, a new
step, the latest fox-trot. You can still see when she walks that she
has not gotten over the duck-walk that they get from Japanese _geta_;
but you don't see it when she dances. These two have reduced life to
terms of fox-trot. That has become their sole standard of measurement;
they regard people as good or bad, according to how well they dance."
It was interesting. "Tell me about more of them," said Kent. "I have an
absolutely insatiable curiosity."
"I'll do what I can, when I get the chance, but, as I told you----" He
caught by the arm a young chap who was passing. "Here, Dick, I want you
to look after my friend, Kent. He wants to know some of the girls. Show
him about." He turned to Kent. "Dick here can do the honors better than
I can. He knows nearly all of them. Duty calls, I am off. Be good."
Dick grinned pleasantly. Kent had noticed him often, a slim, vivacious
man of about thirty, always laughing behind his small mustache,
radiating effervescent vitality, infectiously bubbling over with joy of
life.
"First of all you must know Madame Hirano," he said. "She's the boss.
It pays to be on the good side of her. She rules with a hand of iron
in a velvet glove, not so much velvet, either, if she should catch
you here with a girl too much on the off side. Then she'd give you
the quick bounce. She's done it often enough. But she's a good fellow
really. Come along over and I'll introduce you."
They went over to a corner where the tyrant had a place of vantage,
whence she might survey the entire hall. She was an elderly woman,
handsomely dressed. As she sat there, surrounded by a small court of
girls from the neighborhood, attached in an indefinite way to the
establishment, with her sharp, black eyes constantly roving among
the dancers, it was easy to see that here was one of these rather
exceptional Japanese women with will power and executive ability; that
she was, as Dick had said, the "boss."
She acknowledged the introduction graciously, with the slightest hint
of condescension, consciousness of her power. It was evidently in
Kent's favor that he was a newspaperman. She told him, annoyedly, of
the inimical attitude towards foreign dancing of the Japanese press.
They were so stupid, she complained, so old-fashioned. He began to ask
her questions about the dancers. She looked at him sharply, as if a bit
suspicious. He explained his motive--curiosity--how all these types
which were familiar to her were strange to him. He wanted to become
acquainted with the new woman of Japan. For instance, he should like
to meet some of the motion-picture actresses, a type which seemed so
characteristic of the most modern tendencies of the country.
Yes, some of them came here, she acknowledged, but she let it go at
that, and gave him no information. He tried to press the subject. A
slight, vivacious girl, in a splendid kimono in the black and white
checkerboard-like pattern which was fashionable that year, fox-trotted
nimbly past them. He had often noticed the passionate pleasure which
she took in the dance, the cat-like grace with which she swung her body
in intoxicated undulations, clinging to her partner, smiling up to him,
teeth flashing in an alluring smile--a Japanese Theda Bara, it seemed
to him. There now, he ventured, was undoubtedly a lady of the screen.
"But no," she was shocked, with quick intake of breath. "What a
mistake. That is a _go-fujin_, a lady of good, oh, extremely fine
family. Certainly not."
Kent saw he had made a _faux pas_. He was glad when the cadaverous
dance-mad Eurasian led her off into the dance.
Dick was laughing. "You certainly got off on the wrong foot, Kent. I'd
better do the honors. I know most of them. I ought to. I have lived
here all my life. So, fire away."
It was fascinatingly interesting. He was a complete "Who's Who," able
to sketch in a few sentences the entire curriculum _vitæ_ of most of
the dancers, _go-fujin_, actresses, stenographers, married women, rich
men's daughters, geisha, girl students, who they were, whence they
came, approachable or otherwise. Before them, past them, moved the
dancing couples, unconscious of the fact that their lives were being
laid bare, their characters stripped, good-naturedly, laughingly, but
with a sure, quick touch.
"That girl in pink foreign dress, with pink slippers, that's one of the
Thompson girls, Eurasians; father is in silk. They live in Honmoku.
There are three of them, but one's married. That one, in red, the one
with the pink beads, that's a stenographer with the Standard Oil in
Yokohama. Now, that one, with the big, gold obi, I am not quite sure,
but I think she is geisha. They say she's from Shimbashi. It is odd,
you know, most of the fuss in the Japanese papers has been stirred
up by the geisha guilds. They are afraid that if the men get used to
foreign dancing, it will raise the devil with the geisha business, that
they will come to these dances instead of spending fifty or a hundred
yen an evening on geisha. And still the geisha themselves can't keep
away from the dance places. The lure has got them, too."
He went on. One after one these elusive, dazzling women, who had so
baffled Kent's ventures at guessing, were singled out for brief,
concise description, as if they were picked out individually, suddenly,
by a searchlight, moving hither and yon in the throng, illuminating
each one in intense glare for a moment, then allowing her to slip back
into the background of the crowd, as the beam shifted to, rested on,
stripped the mystery from another kimono-clad enigma; then moved on to
still another.
"Now, there are the Kincaids," he went on. Kent had been curious to
know who they were, a middle-aged, quiet American, and a young woman,
whose kimono, with its marvelously delicate texture, glorious though
subdued luxuriance, was noticeable even in that dazzling kaleidoscope
of rich Oriental stuffs. He had taken the man to be some wealthy
foreigner, "import and export" man probably, who took pleasure in
showering his wealth on this slight, fairy-like beauty, to indulge his
fancy by arraying her in constantly changing ornate frames for her
enchanting loveliness.
"Kincaid is a teacher in one of the most exclusive girls' schools in
Tokyo," Dick was going on. "She was a pupil there, comes from an old
samurai family, blood blue as indigo, but family estates, riches,
glory, the whole business gone, all but pride, tenacious grasp on
the old traditions. She's a beauty, isn't she? Exquisite. Kincaid
was smitten. How he ever managed to see her alone is a mystery. It
was romance. Imagine yourself, in this day of wireless and gasoline,
conducting a courtship after the fashion of feudalism, the infinitely
obscure and meaningless _minutiæ_ of the days of the Shogunate. It
can't have been anything else. The family must have insisted on it.
Kincaid is a deep Oriental scholar. He could do it if any one could.
He may even have enjoyed it, taken it as a sort of top examination, a
supreme test, if he thought of it in that light. I don't know. Nobody
knows just what he went through. But he had the devil's own time.
Luckily, he had influential Japanese friends, blue-blooded, too, but
modern, and they helped him out. And then the girl was infatuated with
him, crazy after him. You know they get all kinds of new ideas, these
girls, Socialism, free love, careers of their own, art, literature,
foreign husbands, it may be one fad or another, anything. Hers
evidently was a foreign husband, or, at least, Kincaid. So at last the
family gave in; but that was only half the game. Then came the wedding.
It had to be Japanese style, most formal ritual, _san san kudo_, three
times three cups of sake drunk by bride and groom and all that. That
didn't bother Kincaid. Probably he liked it. But the expense! You know
these high-class Japanese weddings sometimes run up to hundreds of
thousands of yen. There are all kinds of expensive gowns for the bride,
kimonos, obi, ornaments, God knows what. Then the banquet, hordes of
guests, at fifteen, twenty, thirty yen a plate, something like that.
And then, finally, the presents. You know in Japan the wedded folk
must give return presents, usually about twice the value of those they
get. You get married. I give you something utterly useless, a vase, a
_kakemono_, and then you must come back with something quite as useless
but worth twice the price. They say it cost Kincaid thirty thousand
yen, which wasn't so bad under the circumstances. He spent every yen
he had. That was over two years ago, and they are still saving, paying
off their wedding debts, living in a couple of rooms. She does most
of the housework, but they are both happy. You can see it. He gets
his pleasure taking her here and there, his prize, in her wonderful
kimonos, the trousseau, intensely proud of her; and she adores him.
Look at her. Her eyes are always on him. She has realized her dream; he
has his. No room for regret, no thought of it. Romance, the new, modern
West and the age-old East, they have become one. So it works sometimes."
The orchestra blared into a new dance. Dick went off for a partner
somewhere in the other end of the hall. Kent leaned back, summarizing,
trying to classify his new knowledge. In a way the glib explanations,
the reduction into terms of commonplace of these people, these women,
dimmed the picture a little, detracted from its attraction of being
unknown; still, he had had but a glimpse behind the veil. What he had
learned would but serve to initiate him further, to penetrate more
deeply, to insinuate himself more intimately into this attractive,
strange world of utterly foreign thoughts, fashions, modes of life.
Behind him, in the garden outside, staring through the open windows, a
fringe of Japanese, the ordinary folk who found their pleasures in the
slides, and swings and other marvels of the park, were discovering rare
entertainment in watching the dancers, the strange new foreign custom
of women, gentlewomen at that, dancing together with, in the arms of,
men. Abstractedly he listened to their churlish comment.
"They have the luck, these chaps," a burly fellow of the rickshaw man
type nudged his friend. "For two yen they can put their arms about
these girls, pretty girls, ladies. It's cheaper and better fun than
playing with geisha."
The voice of a woman cut in; her hair, dressed high, with a great,
heavily oiled knot, proclaimed that she was married. "I don't like it.
It's dirty."
A girl sitting next to Kent laughed. She had noticed that he had caught
the remark. "Funny, isn't it?" she remarked to him. He aroused himself
from his thoughts. He had not noticed her. It was the priestess. She
chatted on. He had not been introduced, but, would she dance? Why,
certainly; he was a friend of Dick's. So he found himself in the
midst of the whirl, enjoying the thought that he, himself, had now
become part of this bewildering inconsistency, fox-trotting with a
Buddhist priestess, absurd, amusing, but delectable. She danced with
full-bodied enjoyment, chatting vivaciously, with a nimble, flash-like
wit. When they had returned to their seats, he led her to tell him
about the others. She knew them well, as did Dick, but he enjoyed her
characterizations, the Japanese point of view.
The full-figured Eurasian girl, whose dreamy voluptuosity had attracted
his attention the first night, when he had been with the Suzuki
girls, passed in the dance, nodded over her partner's shoulder to the
priestess.
"Do you know that girl? I hear she is a motion-picture actress?"
"_Naruhodo_," she was noncommittal. "Yes, I see her often here. I have
spoken to her."
"Then introduce me, please. I know so few people here."
She hesitated for a moment, overcame her doubts. "All right, come."
The dance had finished. The girl was sitting at one of the large
tables, with two or three other girls and some young foreigners. He
hesitated in his turn. It was a bit awkward. Still, the die had been
cast. He must see it through. The priestess laid her hand on his
sleeve. "This is Mr. Kent. He wants to meet you."
The girl nodded to him slightly, looking at him, her big eyes wide in
surprise. The others at the table stared. Utter silence. He wished he
were a hundred miles away. But he was in for it. "Please, Miss ----"
Hang it, the priestess had not even given her name. He slid over it. "I
am quite strange here. I wonder if you would be kind enough to give me
a dance?"
"I am sorry. My dances are all taken." The others still stared. He
bowed. The priestess was already in retreat. He trailed after her, to
the corner of the lady tyrant. Damn it. He bit his lip in resentment.
Who was she, this Eurasian, to hold herself too high, too precious,
as if he were not good enough for her? Still, of course, the girl was
right. What a fool he was immediately to think of race, when he had
always insisted, did, in fact, maintain that he had no race prejudice.
Good for her, whoever she might be. But he had been an ass. He had made
a bad beginning.
Dick appeared. Kent told him. He laughed. "By Jove, but that's funny.
You do need a guardian. The moment I leave you, you start adventuring
on your own. That's a very respectable girl, a stenographer in Tokyo,
nice parents, you know. She's no motion-picture lady. You can't do like
that. If you are so anxious to meet the motion-picture folk, why didn't
you tell me. The fact is that there are a couple right here. I had sort
of a halfway date with them. Come on. We'll take them to dinner down in
one of the tea houses below in the park. You eat Japanese chow, don't
you?"
The two girls were at a table at the farther end of the hall. He had
noticed them often. One of them, the elder, he had guessed to be
professional of some sort, theatrical, because of her kimono, a bit
too bright, and especially her unusual coiffure, after some eccentric
foreign fashion, in a mode which he had never seen, a sort of high,
long cone, reminiscent of an Assyrian helmet, which showed to advantage
her luxuriant hair, black with a faint tinge of chestnut, effective,
but odd. The other was one of the girls who had eluded classification.
She had puzzled him, with her large, voluptuous mouth, slow smile
showing teeth which might really be described as pearly, but with her
quiet manner, almost diffident, giving the lie to those sensuous lips.
"O-Tsuru-san. Kin-chan." There was no trouble over these introductions.
The girls laughed, made room at the table. "No," said Dick. "It's time
to eat. Let us go below."
The tea house was typically Japanese. They slipped off their shoes
and squatted down at a low table, on _zabuton_. The girls were at
ease, friendly. He felt as if he had known them for years. Kin-Chan,
the elder, evidently lived for excitement. She drank continuously.
"Dick-san," she complained, "we should have had a koku-tail before we
came down here, but, never mind, we'll have some by-and-by."
She chattered incessantly, flitting from subject to subject, light
gossip of Tokyo, dancing, acting, kimono styles, fashions in rings--she
let it be known that she was fond of rubies set in platinum--places
to go to, hot spring resorts, how she liked foreigners, the wiles of
geisha. It amused him to listen to her. As they went back to the dance
hall, up the hill, she leaned on his arm confidentially. The perfume
from her hair came to him pleasantly. He inhaled it, enjoying it, and
her warm, close presence, the bewildering chatter affording flash-like
glimpses of the mind of an engaging phase of modern feminine japan.
As they danced, she chattered on, touched on this subject and that,
one thought crowding away the other before it had been more than half
expressed, giving him a sense as were he surrounded, enveloped, in
an aura of bright, strange, girlish musings, a glimmering of myriad
fragmentary ideas, oddly, entrancingly interesting. He was beginning to
learn what lay inside these budding breasts under the tensely tightened
kimono silks--at last.
The other girl said little, smiled, with glimmer of white teeth behind
her full, soft lips, but she seemed to absorb her pleasure by feeling
it, through the senses, silently. Little by little he tried to induce
her to tell about herself. Was she, too, a motion-picture actress? Oh,
no! She went to higher school. She lived with her parents.
He mentioned it to Dick, in English. It was delightfully safe, even
right in front of the girls.
"She's a liar," said Dick bluntly. "She's an actorine of some sort at
the Imperial. Probably a minor one. I don't know. But in a way she's my
girl, for the present. She probably wants to throw you off, to hold you
off. They have more guile than you think, these girls, behind all their
childishness."
So Kin-chan, Little-Gold, fell to Kent, and he saw the girls home, to
Tokyo, as Dick lived in Yokohama. He enjoyed Kin-chan, arranged with
her to come to Tsurumi again. After that, when the Suzukis could not
come, she was often his companion.
He found constant pleasure in studying her thoughts, in seeing Japan,
Japanese life, through Japanese eyes; learned that in her he might
experience a frankness which could never be obtained from the men.
It was evident that she liked him. At times she even quite openly
encouraged him, as if she were impatient with his slowness in response.
As they became more intimate, she told, without reserve, of her life.
Impatience at the drudgery and bonds of a lower middle-class family.
Then she had begun to go to foreign motion-picture shows. At first it
had been the pictures of foreign children which had taken her fancy.
_Kawaii_; they were so dear! So she had run away, to Yokohama, where
there were many foreigners. She had wanted to take care of children.
Then, after a while, she had become an actress.
Gradually, as their friendship became older, she gave more detail.
He was amazed at the frankness with which she displayed to him her
intimate life. At last, one evening when they were alone in a discreet
little tea house in Tokyo to which she had taken him--she had become
his wondrously efficient guide into the innermost mazes of the great
rambling metropolis--she threw an arm about his neck, as they were
sitting at a window, looking out over the roofs and told him about
herself.
It was a girl friend who had persuaded her to come to Yokohama, and she
had taken her to a house, a bad house, where foreigners came. She had
been frightened, she had cried. She had wanted to return home; but she
was afraid of the parents. And it had been a nice class of foreigners
who had come there. They had treated her courteously, been kind to her,
kinder than the Japanese men had been at home. So--_shikataganai_, it
couldn't be helped. But she had hated it. She had stayed only a few
months. She had learned to be independent. And then luck had come her
way. One of the foreigners, who was in Japan selling American films,
had obtained employment for her with a Japanese company which made
pictures. Oh, that wasn't the end; she smiled bitterly. The Japanese
men were just like the rest, one must let them have their way if one
would succeed. "But now I have succeeded, and I can be independent of
them. And I am. There are only half a dozen real Japanese stars, and
I am one of them. Pictures of me go abroad. I get two hundred yen a
month."
It surprised him, the wage, so infinitesimally small as compared with
the fortunes harvested by the Pickfords, the Chaplins, in the United
States. Why?
"Oh, it is these Japanese men. They never want to give us women a
chance. They won't advertise our names. They won't feature us, as
they do in America. They are afraid that then we should get popular
and ask for more money." But she was impatient at the interruption.
This phase of the matter was not what she wanted to dwell on. "I don't
like Japanese men. They don't treat us nicely, courteously, as do you
foreigners. If they do, it is only in the beginning. In the end, very
soon, they are all the same. I like foreigners. I am not a bad girl any
more. I never wanted to be. But, sometimes I feel that I should like a
sweetheart, a foreign sweetheart, who would love me, as foreigners do,
and be good to me----" The clasp of the arm about his neck tightened.
The fragrance from her hair, the subtle, evanescent perfume which he
delighted in, which had become to him characteristic of her, became
overpoweringly sweet. She would be his. She was his now, if he cared
to take her. They were tempting, these Japanese girls, with their
quaint, childlike ways, unsophisticated, even though this one had
passed through the mud. The charm of the Japanese women! Kimiko-san
flashed into his mind. It was difficult to hold out against their
seductiveness. Still, he had made up his mind to play the game with his
wife. And yet? He felt that he was hovering. How deliciously soft she
was as she clung to him, closer.
The sliding door behind them clattered. A maid came in. The tenseness
dissipated. It was like a shock in its suddenness. Trite common sense
came back to him, over him, like a shower of cold water, irritating,
but dominatingly. By Cæsar, it had been a close call.