Part 6

--'Yes, I have. He impresses one at first sight with his enormous energy and intellectual power. He likes Japan. He was taking lessons in jiujitsu under a Japanese master when I was at Washington early last year. He told me he had been practising it three times a week.'

--'Yes,' said the duchess, 'I understand jiujitsu is much in vogue in England and America just at present.'

--'It seems so. In New York and Washington some ladies are also taking lessons, I am told; so also in England, as you know.'

--'But I suppose even in Japan it is only studied something like fencing is in our fencing schools, not as a part of the universal education.'

--'Just so,' I answered. 'It does not form a part of the general education, though it is very extensively studied in the higher colleges and schools.'

--'It looks certainly like an art worth paying attention to,' said the duchess.

--'Here, too, some time ago,' said Baron C., 'a Japanese jiujitsu master once came to Paris and gave an exhibition at a theatre, challenging, with the offer of a prize, any Frenchman who would combat with him. No Frenchman won. They were beaten one after the other. The people did not like so much humiliation, and the audience decreased, so the master had to go back to London; such is the Frenchman.'

--'Well,' said I, 'it might have been only a momentary caprice, perhaps because Japan is not your ally, but the audience could not have been diminished for such a cause as you say. There can be no notion of humiliation, because it is a question of art. However, if the Occidentals, with their natural strength and physique, become well equipped with that art, we the small Japs shall never be a match for them; so I would rather wish you Occidentals do not learn the art.'

All present broke into laughter, and in a minute or two I was once more wafted through the air and making my way elsewhere.

III

Japanese art and the West--Night-fêtes--Sale of flowers and plants--Singing Insects--A discussion on the moon, flowers, snow, etc.--Music of snow and rain--Lines on hailstones--A particular evening for lunar perspective--A blind scholar and his wife--The deaf, dumb, and blind of Japan--The calendar and its radical change in Japan--Calumnies on Japan, and an anonymous letter--Japanese ways of counting ages--The question of women and a lady's opinion on Japanese women--Lafcadio Hearn--Japanese names--Difficulty of distinguishing between 'L' and 'R'--Discussion on pronunciation--London and Tokio patois--Japanese nobility and the method of addressing nobility --Books on Japan--Once more on Lafcadio Hearn--Discussion on women's education--_The Risen Sun_

Time and space in dreamland have become more inconsecutive, and events have crowded rapidly one on another. In dreamland, moreover, one frequently sees in an incongruous group people who in ordinary life seldom come into contact with one another. Such is my experience.

Now I found myself guest at a reception given by a lady whose residence was in the neighbourhood of the Grand Opera, where I met a number of authors and critics of both sexes. Then at our Legation, near the l'Arc de Triomphe, where I was spending the evening in a large company, which included several ladies of my own country. Again at the soirée of an association interested in things Japanese, where also were members of both sexes, and then, hey presto! all these events and places would transform themselves into one single scene, as though they had been but one and the same gathering.

I remember well that at the meeting of the association a special toast was proposed after dinner by the president in my honour, to which I responded, saying how much I thanked its members for their sympathy for Japan. The little which Japan had been made known to France, or perhaps to Europe, was largely due to the appreciation of the Japanese arts by those present, and some others who had preceded them, such as MM. Bing and Guimet. I also said that a nation having an art such as ours, though perhaps not equal to the best arts of Europe, could not be so savage and wild as many calumniators represent, and further, that I wished Frenchmen, and indeed Europeans generally, would study and examine Japan a little more, and cast away their prejudices. I also remarked _en passant_ that the oriental section of the Louvre was anything but strong in Japanese _objets d'art_, Japanese painting was scarcely represented at all. Other conversations that I had were an agglomeration, so that I cannot remember where and with whom they were held.

--'By the bye, have you seen the fêtes of Neuilly?' asked a lady.

--'Yes, I have seen them,' I answered; 'but the place was so crowded, I could scarcely stand. It was interesting to watch the common people enjoy themselves. One thing which struck me most in the fête was that there were so many _ménage aux chevaux_ (roundabouts) without any horses at all. All the objects on which people were riding were other animals--even pigs, the dirtiest animal on earth.'

--'But pigs are considered objects of luck.'

--'Ah! that's an ideal notion of the civilised people, I presume.'

--'Have you any similar fêtes in your country?'

--'Yes, we have. In Tokio, especially, we have fêtes very similar almost all the year round, though not on so large a scale as your night-fêtes of Neuilly. In Tokio there are one or two fêtes in the same night in some quarters of the town. There are many small shrines in different parts of Tokio, and the fêtes are nominally in their honour. I say nominally, because most people who go there, go to see the sights or the pretty things rather than to do homage to the shrines. Each of these shrines has a certain day which is kept in its honour. In our fêtes the things most sold are small plants and flowers with their roots, so that they may be planted as they are! They are taken to the fêtes by gardeners living in the suburbs, who make this kind of business their regular occupation, and therefore the occasion is more properly considered as the gardeners' evening. Sweets, toys, and small light objects for domestic use are sold, and there are different kinds of entertainments as well. The nature of your evening fêtes seems very different. In fact, I have not seen any plants or flowers sold there.'

--'The difference seems remarkable; but what do you do with those plants and flowers?'

--'There is a difference between our common people and yours. You see the bulk of those who frequent the fête in Tokio are ordinary townspeople. They buy the plants or flowers for a small sum of money; when first offered for sale a high price is asked, but it is quite an understood thing to bargain and at last to buy at a very low price. The more advanced the evening, the cheaper one can get them. The bargaining at these fêtes is so lively that it has become proverbial, and people often say, this or that is not like buying night-fête plants. It is, however, a mistake if one were to suppose bargaining is a common thing at every shop in Japan, as in Italy or Egypt. Well, these people, however moderate their means, purchase one or other of the plants or flowers and take them home, and plant them either in their small gardens or in pots and vessels, and place them in their rooms. Some plants or flowers are already planted in a tasteful manner in pots or vessels of different shapes, so that they may be used as they are. The people are very happy with these objects. In summer and autumn all sorts of singing insects[1] are sold in pretty little cages. In the Orient, unlike in the Occident, the term insect itself is very poetic, and conveys more of the significance of the singing than of the object itself.'

--'I have always heard that your people in general are very artistic,' said she. 'I should like to follow their sentiments in regard to nature. For instance, when we look at the moon we sometimes become very sentimental.'

--'You mean in such cases as the night-scene where sweet Jessica and her lover Lorenzo sang "In such a night, in such a night as this."'

--'Exactly.'

--'Well, in that respect,' I answered, 'we are perhaps more developed than other peoples. Even the etymology of our language proves it. We have such terms as Hanami, that is a flower-seeing; Tsukimi, that is moon-seeing; and Yukimi, that is, snow-seeing. You have phrases such as "to see the flowers," "to see the moon," and "to see the snow," but these are hardly an equivalent. Our phrases imply a deeper feeling, both poetical and artistic; may even imply an act of seeing those objects in the company of congenial friends. The snow is, as I indicated, one of these sights. _Apropos_ of snow, I went to Richmond once in company with a few compatriots, to see the snow-scene in the park there, whence one commands a beautiful view of the river Thames. Many years afterwards I was asked if we had snow in my country (you know this kind of question is asked of us very often). I answered "Yes." Thereupon a lady, who happened to remember that I had gone to Richmond to see the snow there years ago, abruptly remarked, "Oh! I thought you had no snow in your country." When I replied, "What makes you think so," she said, "Because you went to Richmond on purpose to see the snow." I had then to explain that our excursion to Richmond was not because we did not know what snow was, but because we liked to see the sight. We do not get tired of seeing such scenes any more than you Europeans get tired of going to the opera, to see, or rather to hear the same opera over and over again, as for instance _Faust_.'

--'But at the opera we can satisfy our sense of sight as well as that of hearing,' said a young lady, 'but what of the snow! It has no colour, being white,--it has no sound: besides, the season must be cold and the very sight of it must be chilling.'

--'You are partly right, I admit, but is not white the very ideal of purity? Are you not very fond of it? Do not you ladies like wearing pure white dresses? Are you not wearing one at this very moment? We Japanese are very fond of white. The ideal colour of Shintoism is white. According to that creed, even for mourning, white is preferred to black. It suggests a notion of cleanliness, which is the essence of the creed. Besides, you cannot surely say opera boxes are ideally comfortable. They are not cold, it is true, but certainly they are generally stifling. One sees there scenery, but what is it compared with the grandeur of nature. Then again, you cannot exactly say snow has no sound. We, in our poetry, speak of the music of falling snow, or the music of dropping rain. Those sounds are considered especially musical in the depth of night: we even poetise the sounds of falling hailstones. There is a well-known poem on a hailstorm composed some seven centuries ago. It is a short poem, as ours usually are, but to us it gives a deep impression, and animates a martial spirit. It is difficult to translate, but it runs somewhat like this:

"Oh see in this wilderness of vast Nasu How the hailstones dash on the frozen ground! And ring on the gauntlets of hunters bold As they draw their arrows from leathern fold!"

--'Many hundred years after this poem was composed, when our country was enjoying a perfect peace, a well-known statesman, reflecting on that poem, gave his own bent of thought, as follows:

"Not knowing the age when hailstones rang On the gauntlets of warriors' hands; Warmly enveloped I lay me down, Listening all night to their dropping sound."

--'_Apropos_ of hailstones, what a strange occurrence it was the other day, when hailstones ravaged the vicinity of Paris, and that too in the height of summer. I met a compatriot and his wife, now staying near St. Germain, at a small gathering on the evening of the same day, and they described the size of the stones and the damage done to the glass of the different houses. At first no one present believed them, but my friends did their best to explain that some of the stones they picked up and put on a tray were still large when they had left their home several hours afterwards. What they said was perfectly true, for I read in the papers next morning that in some places the hailstones were like eggs and weighed on an average from twenty to forty grammes; some even two hundred grammes. But ah! how silly I am to tell you all this, as you must all be well aware of it.'

--'Never mind,' said those present, 'but please proceed with your discourse.'

--'Well, there is a particular night of the year which is considered the best for the moon-scene; the 15th of August by the Lunar Calendar. The people generally get up a small social gathering to celebrate that evening. It was on one of those occasions that Hanawa, the celebrated blind scholar of Japan, gently sang as he sighed:

"If it were a flower, I might touch it."

'The line does not sound very sympathetic when translated into a foreign language, but in the original Japanese it is full of poetry, and the meaning is understood that he could not even console himself by the sense of touch. The remark was overheard by his wife, who pathetically joined him by singing:

"This Moon! 'tis the night that makes blind men's wives weep."

--'Very fine and pathetic; but you said just now "celebrated blind scholar,"' remarked a lady. 'What do you mean by that? Do you mean to say he was a blind poet like Homer?'

--'No, he was not exactly a poet, but a great scholar. In England there was a celebrated blind scholar, Fawcett, and Hanawa was our Fawcett. He was a Professor under the Shogunate Government, and one of the best and largest collections of rare old Japanese books made by him was his crowning achievement, and we are all much indebted to him.'

--'I suppose there are as many blind, deaf, and dumb in your country as in any other?' asked another; 'and what do they do, or rather, what do you do with them?'

--'There are some deaf, dumb, and blind schools at present, and those, among them, who are fortunate, are educated there as in Europe. There was no such school in former days, but much care was taken of the blind, even more than at present.'

--'In what way?' asked she.

--'In former days the blind had several privileges. In the first place, there was a special order consisting of several degrees, which was bestowed on meritorious blind people; next, there was a law which protected blind men when lending money, so that they had great facility in getting their dues paid, inasmuch as a lay debtor was summarily ordered to pay any claim raised by a blind man. Then the musical profession was generally assigned to them, thus, the professors of the Koto, a stringed instrument, were generally blind men, and they had the privilege of giving out diplomas to their pupils. In the country parts, blind men were allowed to make a round of visits to the different houses of the gentry, singing a particular kind of war-song, called "Heike," to the accompaniment of the Biwa, another kind of stringed instrument. Then again, the Amma, the Japanese "massage" was mostly the profession of blind men.'

'You say "blind men," but what of blind women?' asked another.

--'Ah! I was wrong, for I have only spoken of blind men, but blind women were accounted much the same. But that Japanese Amma, I can never forget it, especially after hard work when one's muscles have become stiffened. It is such a soothing remedy. In Europe massage is used only for people who have some ailment, but in Japan ordinary people very commonly make use of it, and consequently a large number of blind people follow that occupation. The protection of the blind under the old régime was, of course, good in its aim, but it produced some abuse, and, besides, the great change of all methods of administration also affected the privileges given them. There is no longer any order bestowed on them, nor any special protection given to blind money-lenders, but in other respects their occupations remain pretty much the same.'

--'You have just spoken of lunar months of August,' said another: 'here in Paris the Russian Embassy and the Chinese Legation celebrate their New Year each differently from ours. Russia still sticks to the old style of calendar though solar; and China seems to hold to the lunar. How is it with you? Your calendar does not seem to differ from ours.'

--'Yes, our calendar at present is exactly the same as yours,' I answered. 'It used to be lunar, as is the Chinese, but it is now thirty-four years since we adopted the solar by a stroke of the pen, that is to say, by an edict of the Emperor. We thought in this world of cosmopolitanism that it was rather inconvenient for the different nations to have different calendars, and that it would be expedient to follow the example of the majority of the nations. We considered it a bold stroke of policy, but you see all such changes are made subjects of ridicule, and the Japanese are called mere imitators.'

--'Oh no, you go too far,' said another. 'No one ridicules Japan for that kind of change. It was excellent.'

--'And yet,' said I, 'all other changes are exactly the same in our eyes as that one.'

--'People are now beginning to understand Japan,' said she.

--'May be,' I said. 'I am very glad of it, but, you see, our calumniators even now make very unjust accusations against us, and still speak of us as monkeys. Since my arrival in Europe, not only have I noticed that these things have been written in newspapers, but I have myself received many letters of that kind. I cannot think what good they can do by sending me such letters and wasting stamps. I suppose they are but an infinitesimal part of the money spent for such purposes by our opponents. This very day, when I was coming out of the hotel, I received one of those letters: the postmark is Paris. I read it through on the way, and I have it still here. It is this: you may read it.'

So saying, I handed the letter to the lady, and she read it out as follows:

'MON CHER SINGE JAUNE,--Vous singes jaunes, voulez avoir beaucoup de pièces jaunes--travaillez--vous les aurez; mais avec votre tuerie--vous n'arriverez pas à les avoir--je vous assure. Fichez le camp--allez habiter aux Philipines. L'Europe et l'Amérique sont fermées aux singes jaunes sauvages. Vous martirisez chez vous les femmes! Votre meilleur homme Yoma (_sic_)--en a tué plusieurs. Vous êtes singes jaunes très méprisables--oh, bientôt l'or aura raison de vos hordes ... Souvenez-vous de mes singes. Singes jaunes sauvages dégoutants.

MISS NELLY.

'Qui ne vous aime pas: oh du tout....'

Finishing the reading, the lady exclaimed, 'What a shame!' in which all those listening joined.

Said I,--'The letter evidently refers to the question of indemnity. You see, it is written on a telegraph-form, and the article and the song, both equally disgusting, pasted purposely for me to read, are cuttings from Russophile papers: you can pretty well surmise from what source it came; the signature is also amusing!'

--'Shame!' they all exclaimed once more, but we all soon burst into laughter. When the laughter, whereby the peace of my dreamland had been a trifle disturbed, subsided, a lady present said:

--'You have a peculiar way of counting one's age, have you not? Has that anything to do with the calendar? Don't you say, for instance, a baby born the year before the last, three years old?'

--'Yes,' I answered, 'we still do so in ordinary conversation. But it has nothing to do with the calendar; it is only a matter of usage. You see the year in which one is born is counted as one year, and the year in which one is counting is counted as another, and therefore, a child born the year before last is reckoned as three years old. In the case of a dead person, the year in which he died is counted as one year; therefore, when you read of the age of our heroes or statesmen in history, you have always to take that into account. In former days, young ladies born late in the year used to complain to their mothers that they had a disadvantage in point of age. Young ladies like to minimise their age all over the world. Don't they?'

--'No joking, please.'

--'Very well! since the alteration of the calendar we have adopted your mode of reckoning for legal purposes, and we say in that case, "full so many years." It is therefore rather strange in actual society to hear people often speaking of so many years of age according to the new style, and so many years according to the old style.'

--'It must sound very odd. _Apropos_ of ladies, I adore Japanese ladies,' said a lady.

--'Ah! that's too much: surely you do not think so,' I remarked.

The lady just referred to was an American by birth, who came to France when a mere child, and having grown up in this country had married a Frenchman. The couple were out in Japan for many years. They had several children, the majority of whom were born there. She had resided in one of the most populous towns, her husband having been attached to a certain public function. She seemed not entirely to approve of the social condition of France.

--'France will be ruined by her women. Look, for instance, at the condition of Paris,' she said.

--'You jest. I imagine your ideal of women must be very different from ours,' I said.

--'No! Not at all,' she answered.

--'And yet,' said I, 'the question of the status of women is becoming more keen, far more keen in America than in this country. I have observed it in many writings.'

--'That's true, I dare say,' she said.

--'A little time ago,' I continued, 'I read an article describing the influence of American wives and daughters over their husbands and parents. I remember one instance mentioned in that article. The daughter of a well-to-do business man took a fancy to live in a town where she had been on a visit for a little time. She prevailed on her father to remove their home to that town. He did so, and the result was his total ruin in consequence of losing old customers and not obtaining new. The story may be a little exaggerated.'

--'No, it is quite possible,' she said. 'I like Japanese ladies and their children. The Japanese ladies I met with were so sweet and gentle and real models of women. I came to know them very intimately in this way. You see, in the town where I lived there is an association for the promotion of the mutual interests of France and Japan, the members being mostly Frenchmen. No lady was admitted into membership at first. I insisted on having it done. I was the first lady member. I induced many Japanese ladies to become members. The views I held were that mutual understanding could only be promoted by both sexes associating with each other. We found the innovation work very satisfactory. I often invited Japanese ladies to my home to spend an afternoon or evening. I usually caused them to bring their children, and made them play with mine. I did all this with as little ceremony as possible, because only by doing so can real friendship be brought about. I, of course, returned the visits and took my children with me. During that intercourse I naturally came to know a great deal about the Japanese ladies, and for that reason I think so much of them. They are real ideals of women. Perhaps a little more freedom for them might be good, but on the whole nothing more could be desired. Don't let them get spoilt by the evil influence of the West.'