DANJERO IN HIS FAVOURITE RÔLE. DANJERO IN EUROPEAN COSTUME. DANJERO AS I KNEW HIM.P. 253.
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 moreen 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 ofThe 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.
[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.
[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.
CHAPTER XXIV
FOUR WOMEN THAT I KNEW IN TOKIO
Madame Sannomiya
I thoughther the most picturesque bit in the picture of Tokio life: a European woman living among the Japanese, speaking their language or her own indiscriminately, as occasion dictated, preserving her individuality and her national traits, and yet wielding an almost incredible influence at the conservative Court of the Mikado.
In one way my fellow-Occidentals were a great trial to me in the Orient. Their ungainly presence was always blotching some otherwise flawless picture of Eastern life. But in Tokio one so rarely saw a European that one forgot to resent it when one did, and indeed welcomed it as one more unique detail of an enchantingly novel whole.
I believe that Madame Sannomiya stands alone—the one European woman, of high character, high intellect, and charming personality, who has become a naturalised and potential individual at an Eastern Court.[2]I have seen, at the courts of native princes in India, European women who, to speak mildly, would never be received at the Court of St. James’s, and who would be painfully embarrassed if they were. But this European woman is very different. She is the respected wife of an eminent man. Her position is even very unlike that of the wife of a foreign minister, who is tolerated by diplomatic policy or welcomed by international courtesy. She is one of the Japanese. They like and honour her. She likes, and is certainly happy with them.
Yoshitane Sannomiya was the handsomest Japanese man I ever saw, and by far the manliest-looking. My husband, who had much talk with Mr. Sannomiya, found him the superior of his countrymen in general information, in mental grasp, and in his command of English.
A card of his lies before me as I write. Beneath his name is engraved: “Vice Grand Maître des Cérémonies, et Maître de la Cour de S. M. l’Impératrice.”
He was a first favourite of both Emperor and Empress, and I often heard his wife spoken of as the most influential person at the Court. The statement seems extreme; but when I came to see and know Madame Sannomiya, I grew to regard the expression as very conceivably exact.
Speaking broadly, the Japanese never do anything. They indicate everything. Madame Sannomiya indicated nothing. She did everything. The Japanese have two gifts pre-eminently: the gift of grace and the gift of touch. Their national gift of touch amounts to national genius. Upon a common piece of paper, with a blunt pencil, a Japanese artist (and almost all Japanese are artists) makes four or five strokes. When he takes away his hand you see a picture; not a thoroughly elaborated picture, but a picture in which every detail is indicated with inspired fidelity. He draws three petals—but draws them so that you see the whole flower. Yes, and you can smell it too, if your soul is half as artistic as his is! Madame Sannomiya was graceful, but hers was the grace of a large woman. Her grace supplemented her dignity. The Japanese admired her dignity; it was novel. It indicated a strange force of character, and it was saved from ever grating upon them, because it was never ungraceful. Madame Sannomiya had, rather than the gift of touch, the gift of grasp. If anything interested or concerned her, she thrust her supple fingers about its roots. But her fingers were white and warm. She was superlatively a gentlewoman; and her friends at Tokio respected her thoroughness and energy of nature, which they never dreamed of imitating.
I first saw Madame Sannomiya in her own house. I went to her to ask her a favour—went without a line of introduction. I wonder if any one ever lived who liked to ask favours? I hate it so much that I have almost never done it. I believe that I can count the times, partly because they have been so few and partly because they have made such a nasty impression on me. There were a number of reasons why this particular favour should be asked of the Empress by me, through Madame Sannomiya. I suppose every woman does her duty once in a lifetime; and I did my duty.
I remember that I felt very uncomfortable as I stepped out of the Imperial Hotel into my ’rickshaw. But put me in a ’rickshaw and whirl me through the streets of Yeddo, and I defy anything, short of keen physical pain or deep personal sorrow, to keep me in discomfort over five minutes. I forgot everything in looking. We may not all paint pictures, but we may all drink them in, if we are blessed with real eyesight.
It was a long ride. I had only been in Tokio a few days, and I drank deep, intoxicating draughts of beauty. We went through streets of native shops; not shops decked out with things affectedly, exaggeratedly, or occasionally Japanese—things grouped to snare the heavy-pursed Europeans—but shops stocked with the everyday necessities of ordinary Japanese life.
There is not, I believe, a European shop in Tokio. Think of it! It is the only place of any considerable size I have ever been in that was entirely destitute of a European shopkeeper.
We went through the quarter of the frail. I noticed that the women were moving slowly, and that they were clad in soft and dainty raiment. Then I saw that their eyes were deeply ringed with khol, saw that the lips that parted about their gleaming teeth were thickly painted. I passed one woman whose lips, parting about her blackened teeth, were gilded! Then I recalled some half-forgotten page of Mitford, and knew that I was in the famous Yoshiwara quarter. I afterwards found that I had not been in the old walled Yoshiwara, but in one of the many new Yoshiwaras, or, to speak more correctly, one of the flower districts.
Sexual morality is on so un-Western a basis in Japan that only a long and careful essay could possibly give untravelled Europeans any glimmering of its real character. In one brief passing sentence, the women of whom I am writing have in Japan an acknowledged and assured position. It is not the highest or the most respected, but it is tangible and unimpugned. The courtesans of the world are unmistakable in their resemblance to each other. They may crouch in tattered tinsels on the steps of a crumbling temple in old Ferozepore; they wear furs in St. Petersburg; they drink champagne in Paris; they may huddle together from the sudden rain in a corner of Regent Street; but there is, the world over, an unmistakable sign upon the faces of the women who have taken into their own hands the highest law of life and broken it—the women who have made the great mistake! But this sign is faintest in Japan. The women in the quarter of Tokio through which we were passing looked at me quietly. They neither shrank from my eyes nor peered into them. The jewels flashed on their hands and in their hair. But the wearers did not flaunt. They walked with a deliberate indolence—these tawny lilies of the town—an indolence which said, “They toil not, neither do they spin.”
My coolies ran into the Shiba Park. I was in a hurry, but I made them rest. Not that they were tired! No self-respecting ’rickshaw coolie ever owns to being tired until the journey’s end. But I halted them that I might look. It was the trees! The “big trees” of California are more huge, the “Black Forest” is denser, but for majestic beauty there are no trees like to those in the Shiba Park.
Next we passed into the country. In the distance the farm coolies stood ankle deep in the wet of the yellow “paddy” fields. Here and there, where some peasant farmer had planted the young rice plants earlier, the yellow had turned to the softest, brightest green. Now and again I saw a peasant’s house, with its cool, clean verandah, its quaint paper windows, and its sliding paper-door. At least I knew it was there. It was daytime, and every door was open. We passed a funny little company of Japanese soldiers. The Japanese play at war far less gravely than your boys and mine do. Frankly, they are very droll in their martial aspect; and their exquisite good taste makes them conscious of this. The land of the Hara-kiri is not the land of men who lack fortitude in death. The Japanese know how to die, but they do not know how to fight; at least, not against Occidental forces. And, if they did, the odds are so preposterously against them that they must be beaten in any conflict with a Western power. They know this; and they avoid war, and will avoid it in every way consistent with their national self-respect, of which they have plenty. The present moment seems to give me the lie. But, elated as the Japanese are over the outcome (so far) of the Chino-Japanese war, I doubt if they would be mad enough to throw down the gauntlet to a Western power.
Then we came to pretty, home-like places where liveried servants—or their Japanese analogies—were working in the ample grounds. We had reached the suburb where the Sannomiyas lived. Their house, which was a peculiarly dark red, sat far back amid graceful shady trees and profuse fragrant flowers. I sent up my card with a pencilled message; for the servant who answered the door could not understand the most rudimentary English.
The drawing-room in which I waited was furnished very handsomely. The necessary articles of furniture had been made either in Europe or after European models. The bric-à-brac and the ornamental pieces of furniture (except the piano) were principally Japanese. It was a delightful collection. The pictures, which were very fine, were both Japanese and European.
A door opened noiselessly, and I thought of some lines of Scott’s—lines I had so often had the pleasure of parsing:—
The mistress of the mansion came,Mature of age, a graceful dame;Whose easy step and stately portHad well become a princely court.
The mistress of the mansion came,Mature of age, a graceful dame;Whose easy step and stately portHad well become a princely court.
The mistress of the mansion came,Mature of age, a graceful dame;Whose easy step and stately portHad well become a princely court.
The mistress of the mansion came,
Mature of age, a graceful dame;
Whose easy step and stately port
Had well become a princely court.
I never learned who Madame Sannomiya was in Europe, nor how she came to decide upon so unusual a marriage and the consequent residence. But I knew before she spoke that she was no adventuress. She had had character and position all her life. Her every word and motion proclaimed it. She had been facile in the ways of many a Western Court before she became one of the Court circle of Japan.
She was a tall, large woman, with a plain, strong face. She had a quantity of waving fair hair which she wore elaborately dressed. Her even teeth were large and white. Her hands were over large, but surpassingly beautiful. When I first saw her she wore a soft pink cashmere house-robe; it was touched here and there with sage-green, which might have been Japanese; but I was sure it was French.
I have rarely met a better-informed woman than Madame Sannomiya, and never one who gave me more the impression of quiet force. She had just come back from Kioto, where she had been sent as the representative of the Empress to the Tsarevitch; for I am writing of a time a few days after the attempt upon the life of his Imperial Highness.
Great preparations had been made in Tokio for the reception of the Russian prince. The Japanese Court was like a nursery full of children about to give a tea-party. All the detail of the elaborate arrangements had devolved upon the master of ceremonies, Mr. Sannomiya. Everything had been so admirably planned that I shall always believe it had in reality evolved from the active, capable brain of his English wife. Then the attempt was made upon the life of the son of the “Great White Monarch” just as he was entering Japan. The Japanese Court was like a beehive turned upside down! It was a burlesque reign of terror. Every one that could went to bed. The Empress set the example; her Majesty kept her bed for weeks and spent the time crying. The entire nation seemed to expect the Russian fleet to swoop down upon their little island and sink it for ever in the deep ocean. The Mikado hastened to the Tsarevitch at Kioto, and the Empress sent Madame Sannomiya with him. It was the most sensible thing she could possibly have done. Madame Sannomiya was charmed with his Imperial Highness, and with his princely, generous way of passing over and making light of an incident which very nearly cost him his life, and which did curtail his pleasant trip, for his Imperial mother very naturally insisted upon his immediate return home. What mother would not have done so? For weeks the Japanese Court eschewed all festivities.
A reaction against Western influence had already begun. Thiscontretempsfanned it into a flame. That is not altogether to be regretted. It was a pity to see the clear, bright tints of Japanese life shrouded by the gray of our duller Western existence. It was a crime for the women of Japan to disfigure their forms (or lack of form) with inappropriate European gowns. I gloated over Japan; it feasted my eyes and my mind. I rejoice to feel that the characteristics of her people are to be preserved yet a little longer. Madame Sannomiya, who, I am sure, loved Japan and sought its welfare, felt this keenly. She was, however, ambitious for the Imperial family to have the broadest cosmopolitan culture. Nor was she a woman of passive ambitions. She told me how she had deplored the adoption of European dress by the women of Japan.
It was the second time I visited Madame Sannomiya that she took me into her dining-room. Above the wainscoting hung a remarkable collection of framed photographs. They were all of “great folk” and all were autographed. Almost every crowned head in Europe was represented there. The largest and the most handsomely framed of the photographs was of Queen Victoria. Madame Sannomiya was very proud of it, and of the letter her Majesty had sent with it. The Duke of Connaught was ill in Japan. Madame Sannomiya nursed him. When his Royal Highness had returned to England, his Queen-mother sent a note of thanks and her picture to the woman who had the good fortune to serve the Duke.
I do not know why she was called “Madame” Sannomiya. Her cards are engraved “Mrs. Yoshitane Sannomiya,” but “Madame” she invariably is throughout Japan.
She always spoke of the Empress with great and almost tender affection. I can well understand that her sovereign lady has come to lean upon her, and often finds it easier to bid Madame Sannomiya decide for her than to decide for herself. Certainly “Madame” is extremely influential, and I think she enjoys her influence. No woman in Japan, not of the immediate blood-royal, is so free of her Majesty’s bedchamber; yet no one seems jealous. Added to the gift of strength, she has the grace of tact.
[2]In that I was wrong. Viscountess Aoki, the accomplished wife of the Japanese minister to the Courts of St. James’s and Berlin, is also European.
[2]
In that I was wrong. Viscountess Aoki, the accomplished wife of the Japanese minister to the Courts of St. James’s and Berlin, is also European.
CHAPTER XXV
TOM STREET
I hadbeen 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 herjeunesse doréeto 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.
MRS. KEUTAKO’S BABY.Page 224.
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 whollyen rapportwith 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 theMerchant of Venicebefore 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 ofJulius Cæsarthat 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 ofJulius 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 timesen routeto 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.