Part 10

Then it should be remarked that the wife figures as frequently as the sweetheart in this lyrical woodland, vocal with twittering sentiment. The European has been so long accustomed to regard romance as the province of young men and maidens, led through three volumes or five acts to the altar, that married life is either prosaic or only to be made interesting by a breach of the Seventh Commandment. More than ever does he presume that this convention must apply to domestic life in the East, for he has always been informed that there a girl must stifle the instincts of her heart and pass submissively from her father’s to her mother-in-law’s yoke. As the French saw puts it, _Fille on nous supprime, femme on nous opprime_. But this reasoning fails to take into account two modifying considerations. Custom is so tempered by practice that an affectionate parent (his name is legion) would not risk his daughter’s happiness by marrying her to an odious or notoriously evil person. Japanolaters will assert that no Japanese person can be odious unless corrupted by Western influence. But this is nonsense. What most makes for happy marriages is the strong sense of duty and the loving disposition of a Japanese girl. Neither husband nor wife regards the sexual instinct, however veiled, as the corner-stone of partnership for life. Obedience to parental wisdom is the first stage, mutual politeness the second, devotion to children, begotten or adopted, the third. From these unselfish elements a high average of felicity is attained, possibly even higher than elsewhere. However that may be, the wife’s fidelity, jealousy, affection recur as motives of popular poesy. That essentially feminine quality which every bachelor has observed in some otherwise perfect wife “wedded to a churl,” and of which I can find no better definition than the following verse affords, would seem common to both hemispheres:

RAISON DE FEMME.

Dearer than kindness Of those I love not Is thine unkindness, Loved one, to me.

This degrading and doglike devotion explains the joy in service which robs it of all sting. Take this revolting picture, which I christen

CONTENTED.

Gladly on love’s road Pulling the rickshaw, Undrawn, I draw it On to the end.

The husband (selfish brute!) is of course seated in the rickshaw, and it is worth notice that “love’s road” is the first metaphor we have encountered. Against the jealous wife, bending, lantern in hand, over her faithless lord, may be set this quiet tribute of grateful security:

MY HUSBAND.

Thou art as yonder Delicate hill-pine, Through years a thousand Ever the same.

It would not occur to a Tōkyō editor to invite his readers in the silly season to answer the question, “Have women a sense of humour?” But, if it did, such quatrains as follow might convince him that they have:

WARNING.

I am my master’s Single-flowered cherry; Folk seeking blossom Bend no boughs here.

WAITING.

All night I waited, Yet my lord came not; None but the moon came Under my net.

The _kaya_ (mosquito-net) is not a mere curtain, but a green gauze room within a room, suspended from the corners of the ceiling.

Humour has indeed discharged thousands of these pretty pellets, which lend themselves admirably to satire, drollery, and play on words. Yet these are precisely the most difficult to render. A jest, of which the point depends on punning ambiguity, should never cross the frontier. When a foreigner has been made to see the quaint conjunction of incongruous ideas, he will yet miss the surprise attending identity of sound, which strikes with comic duplicity a native ear. Moreover, the Japanese looks for verbal legerdemain in his most serious literature with an appreciation that seems puerile to us, who relegate puns and riddles to half-educated minds. There is an equally large field of fun which can only be indicated, since British prudery plants it round with fig-trees. The Japanese, like the French, see no harm in tipping Apollo’s arrows with malicious mirth to assail humanity in the arms of Venus, where it cuts a vulnerable and often ridiculous figure. The Anglo-Saxon professes to exclude comedy from the bedroom. He gains in dignity; he loses in gaiety. If this same comedy, banished to the smoking-room, descend to too gross levels, he has only to cross the Channel and will find at the Palais Royal or elsewhere such traps for laughter as Shakespeare and Aristophanes did not disdain to set. He supposes that the interests of morality require many drags on the wheels of humour. He is generally sincere: the restraint is not imposed by “hypocrisy,” as foreigners believe and assert. But neither is the opposite assumption justified, that races which permit themselves more joyous licence are less virtuous than our own. On the contrary, they find in laughter a safety-valve sanctioned by custom. And it seems to me that Madame and Okamisan, who are free to giggle behind their fans at audacious pleasantry, are placed by destiny in a more fortunate attitude than the British matron, who is reduced to indignation or discomfort. Critics of Japanese poems, novels, and plays usually dismiss this element of mirth with the adjective “pornographic,” but the epithet (if it presuppose an ignobly prostituted pen) entirely misses the mark. The passages so labelled do not allure readers with the promise of forbidden fruit: they merely denote a wider range of innoxious merriment, indulged in by a nation whose sense of humour is as yet unfettered by our local and artificial sense of propriety. The _naïveté_ of such songs is proved by the fact that they hardly ever sound a cynical note. The tone of the only one which I shall quote is exceptional:

LOTHARIO.

Steered with deft rudder, Fooled with soft speeches, To my verandah I hale her up.

But this song may have the opposite meaning of a woman alluring a man with soft speeches. As there are no pronouns and no genders in the vernacular, the sense is entirely ambiguous, and the Japanese whom I have consulted do not agree. So I append the original:

“Shita go kaji toru Ano kuchiguruma Noshite nikai Hiki-ageru.”

A fragrant anthology might be compiled of Dodoitsu written in praise of flowers. There is certainly no other country where flowers are so universally loved. The humblest cottager will place in the _tokonoma_ (an alcove with slightly raised daïs) of his living room an iris, a spray of plum-blossom, or a liliputian tree. The noble will devote years of patient cultivation to the production of a chrysanthemum more variegated in colour and shape than those of his neighbour. Wistaria, lotus, convolvulus, and azalea vie with the cherry-blossom in attracting sightseers, who come in crowds to feast their eyes on garden or pond. The arts of flower-arrangement and landscape-gardening may be looked upon as branches of science and philosophy; at least, they command as much veneration. Inevitably, then, is the minstrel’s lyre enwreathed with innumerable garlands. Yet, possibly because of the “pathetic fallacy,” which so constantly pervades similar parterres of English poesy that its absence makes the Japanese flower-plot seem scentless, the fancies which find expression in this class of subject appear particularly trivial. Sometimes a personal preference is stated, as in

WHITE PEONY.

Full of set flowers, Full is my chamber; Thou art most stately, White peony.

Sometimes the cut blossom is commiserated, as in

ADRIFT.

Ah! how my petals Float in the flower-vase; Helpless and rootless; Sad is my lot.

Sometimes the operation of a natural law, to which plants as well as other forms of life are subject, points a moral:

DEATH, THE LEVELLER.

Peonies, roses, Faded, are equal; Only while life blooms Differ the flowers.

But human egoism, which only sees in nature a background to its own existence, has not stained with drops of romantic blood these pale flowerets. No Japanese poet would conceive such a stanza as that in “Maud”--

“There has fallen a splendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate; The larkspur listens ‘I hear,’ ‘I hear’; And the lily whispers, ‘I wait.’”

He knows that the Great Mother has other cares more absorbing than the love-sick suspense of a whining suitor, that the myriad marriages of bird and beast and blossom are perhaps as much or as little to her as the predilections of Maud. He would enjoy Professor Huxley’s rap at the singers who “mistake their sensual caterwauling for the music of the spheres,” and his pedestrian fancy would shudder at the unchartered imagination of Tennyson.

Buddhist doctrines have so profoundly influenced thought and feeling, that thousands of little songs rise daily like prayers of intercession or gratitude to the Lord Buddha. But these would demand a volume of explanation, which I am not competent to write. I select one playful and one serious poem, having reference to religious ideas. The first might be called

EXTRAVAGANCE.

Joy drew the rickshaw, Heaven takes vengeance, Empty the larder, Rickshaw of fire.

This may be expanded into: “We drove about in a rickshaw, enjoying ourselves; we spent all our money; we are punished by Heaven, for we suffer remorse, like the sinners, who are pulled in fiery rickshaws by avenging devils in hell.” Such engaging pictures of a future state are often exhibited at temple _fêtes_, and serve to stimulate liberality on the part of worshippers. Quite philosophic is the pessimism of

OCCASION.

For the moon, cloud-wrack; For the flower, tempest; For the truth, _this_ world; Wanting the hour.

I translate _ukiyo_ by “_this_ world”: the more scrupulous dictionary renders it by “this fleeting or miserable world, so full of vicissitudes and unsettled.” For the “vale of tears” is not a Christian concept only: Mrs. Gummidge was also a Buddhist without knowing it. It is curious that this theological term, with its disparaging connotation, was affixed to the modern popular school of painters, among whom Hokusai is the best known, because they descended from lofty, conventional subjects to the life of workaday folk. The central thought of the poem, however, narrowed to a romantic application, recalls a line by Browning:

“Never the time and place, and the loved one altogether.”

Writers of Dodoitsu have this advantage over versifiers who employ more classical metres, that they are not forced by convention to repeat stereotyped fancies, but are at liberty to invent new ones. The balloon, the camera, the locomotive, may take the place of dragon, stork, and phœnix. This pouring of foreign wine into native bottles produces a quaint blend. A girl thus reproaches her lover with

INCONSTANCY.

My heart to body Fuel to engine; Thy heart an air-ship Loose in the sky.

Here the similes are plain and forcible. The next poem is less lucid:

DESPAIR.

Borne in no road-car, Endless the railway, How shall poor I reach Station at last?

Literally: “Riding in no vehicle (which is used for a short journey), the train whithersoever going (for an indefinite distance), by doing what shall this body of mine, Terminus?” That is: My love is not a short-lived fancy, but a lifelong passion, until I reach the terminus of death. Graceful, indeed, but scarcely gracious is a lady’s reply to an admirer who had sent her his photograph:

THE HIGHER PHOTOGRAPHY.

Only your likeness! Faithful? I know not. Could I but take one, Too, of your heart!

The double meaning of a “faithful” likeness and a “faithful” lover can, for once, be preserved in English. A pun on the word _tokeru_, which means “to melt” and “to be undone,” is allied with a dainty antithesis in

DISSOLUTION.

White snow of Fuji Loosened at sunrise; Maiden’s _shimada_ Loosened for sleep.

The _shimada_ is perhaps the most elaborate, and certainly the most elegant, way of dressing the hair. It is generally adopted by geisha and young married women, dividing favour with the _chōchō_ or butterfly coiffure. Respect for age is counselled in a rather pathetic protest by an old woman, who recalls her faded beauty in a conventional image. Nightingales and plum-trees are always associated in Japanese minds.

ONCE.

Mock not the puckered Bloom of a dried plum; Once on its fresh spray Nightingales wept.

The _umeboshi_, a plum pickled in salt and _shiso_ and afterwards dried, is as happily descriptive of the wizened monkey face of a Japanese crone as the peach of an Anglo-Saxon lassie’s complexion. It will be seen that serio-comic touches of self-depreciation, like the old lady’s frank comparison of faded bloom to dried fruit, do not jar on the Japanese. Sincerity--genuine feeling and just appreciation--is at the root of their poetic impulse. Why should a disappointed girl shrink from whispering her secret to the reeds of anonymous minstrelsy?

REJECTION.

As vine weds ivy, So would I clasp him; If the man will not, What can be done?

From the foregoing thirty Dodoitsu the reader can form a not inadequate opinion of “ditties sung by singing-girls to the twanging of the guitar.” That accidental glamour, which constitutes style and makes of one word a queen, of another a beggar-maid, through vicissitudes of usage, does not emanate from one of them. They are marred for a native ear by domestic and colloquial idiom, “soiled by all ignoble use”; they treat too often of sexual sentiment, which our literary verse parades to satiety, and which theirs rather shrouds in dignified silence. No doubt you will find among Tanka and Haikai more ingenuity of thought, more dexterity of pen. But, putting that aside, the Dodoitsu has more interest for a humanist, since its range of feeling is wider. Just as the street-scenes of Hokusai and the love-scenes of Utamaro afford more humane pleasure than the purely artistic studies of their academic precursors, so we are less allured by “A Fan in my Lady’s Chamber,” by “A Distant View of a Fishing Boat,” by “Hoar-frost on the Bamboos,” than by the artless outcries of else inarticulate nature. The blue-stocking at court, who finds it so easy to turn a polished compliment, is more remote from our hearts than her humble sister, doing rough work in the rice-field. The sorrows of wife and maid, the joy of flowers and laughter--these inspire in us deeper sympathy than the experimental literature of dilettante dames. There is often a crude spontaneity in the non-literary poem which is more pleasing than a recondite conceit. But, however crude the expression may be, it yet owes something to form. The poet is obliged to satisfy the easy metrical conditions which regulate the structure of a Dodoitsu, thus ensuring a neat circlet for a single gem, whether it be paste or diamond. How clumsy a Japanese song can become, when the Muse has forgotten her corset, may be seen by the following effusion:

“Mukōjima, Cherry-blossom, Sliced dumpling, Boiled eggs, Girl, come here! Drinking, sleeping, Heigh-ho! Tra-la-la!”

This is neither poetry nor literature. It reminds one of the primitive war-song, which Mr. Aston quotes in his “History of Japanese Literature” as being sung by the Imperial Guards:

“Ho! now is the time; Ho! now is the time; Ha! Ha! Psha! Even now My boys! Even now My boys!”

In conclusion, let me say that an exhaustive study of Dodoitsu would assuredly yield richer results than the writer has been able to obtain by the casual gleaning of such songs as fell in his way from the lips of geisha or student.

TAKING THE WATERS

TAKING THE WATERS

I

In a large enclosure behind one of the smaller Shiba temples on a burning 1st of July sat a perspiring crowd of men and boys, whose attitude of joyful and critical attention strangely revived memories of a great match at Lord’s or the Oval. Yet the trial of strength which was provoking similar enthusiasm presented a very different spectacle. Instead of the green pitch, a sanded ring formed the arena; instead of twenty-two lithe cricketers, clad in white flannels and protected by glove and pad from dangerous balls, a band of twenty-two wrestlers, enormous and bloated, with no clothing but a garish loin-cloth and no protection but their own skill, awaited the umpire’s word to begin. He, too, bore little likeness to the straw-hatted oracle in a milkman’s coat, whose vigilant silence is unbroken but for occasional appeals from bowler or batsman. His _kimono_ was of grey silk, his sash embroidered with gold, his short cape of black silk with brightly coloured clasp; and, as he gave the signal with his fan, or directed the combatants with excited insistence, hopping and crying on the flanks of the panting giants, he resembled some gorgeous gadfly goading two buffaloes to the fray. Nothing could be less Japanese than the build and bulk of the wrestlers. They seemed men of another race, Maoris or Patagonians, with their huge naked limbs and long hair, drawn forward in a queue to the middle of the head or falling loose on the shoulders. Before entering the ring each would carefully adjust his apron and bind his hair as coquettishly as possible, for, hideous though they appear to us, these monsters of fat and muscle are the darlings of every schoolboy, enjoying a popularity as fervent as that of “W. G.” or Prince “Ranji.” Their names, their records, their chances of success are on every tongue.

The bouts are more interesting to watch than any I had seen elsewhere, for attack and defence were more various. The conqueror might win by other methods than by bringing his opponent to the ground: if he could hurl or hustle him outside the ring, victory was his. The rules are said to authorise forty-eight falls--twelve throws, twelve lifts, twelve twists, and twelve throws over the back. To avoid being pinned down or pitched out, the smaller men must exercise extraordinary agility, and loud was the shouting when Goliath fell victim to a scientific ruse. It happened sometimes that the men lost their tempers; spitting, slapping, taunting would precede more legitimate sport: then indeed it was good to hear the bystanders’ Homeric laughter, which soon recalled the heroes to their higher selves. I will confess that these indecorous interludes were partly due to a mischievous American, who primed his favourites with praise and whisky. As the afternoon wore on, the heat became intolerable, but, fired with professional ambition, Dares succeeded Entellus, while cheap coloured portraits of the competitors found ready sale and the overcrowded enclosure reeked of sweat and sand. At length the final bout was announced. Each side chose a champion, whose laurels were difficult to gain, for three rivals must be worsted in continuous struggle by the prize-winner. Before the end was reached my patience had been exhausted. On a degenerate descendant of the fighting Anglo-Saxon breed this barbarous exhibition of brute locked with brute began to pall. Besides, the tropical atmosphere, which from that day forward made dress a weariness and sleep impossible, pleaded more eloquently than any argument how wise it were to seek less fiery pleasures. I resolved to leave Tōkyō the following day and take the waters of some mountain-spa, remote from wrestlers and mosquitoes.

At an altitude of nearly three thousand feet on the north-eastern slope of Mount Haruna, an extinct volcano, stands the picturesque village of Ikao. Half the houses are hotels and most have balconies, which command a view of the Tonegawa Valley and sublime Akagi San. The main street climbs from terrace to terrace, a natural staircase, between châlets equipped with bamboo pipes, through which the hot yellow water pours incessantly. Proximity to the capital makes this health resort very popular, yet access is not altogether easy. After five hours’ train to Mayebashi, another five hours are required of rather rough rickshaw travelling: at one point the Tonegawa must be crossed by means of a rope ferry; at others the traveller must dismount, so steep is the road. Yet he will be well rewarded at his journey’s end by a panorama of rare extent and beauty. Behind him, and eighteen hundred feet above, soars Soma-yama, from which the summit of Fuji is just visible; opposite stretch the Mikuni and Nikkō ranges; at his feet are wooded valleys and foaming torrents. The Kindayu Hotel, under most courteous and capable management, combines two great advantages. It supplies the foreigner with such food and general comfort as his habits generally render indispensable; at the same time, it accommodates so many Japanese of all classes, that exceptional opportunities are afforded of becoming more intimately acquainted with the latter than would be possible in their own homes, where various duties and claims absorb their time. Here they seek only health and pleasure: no obstacle but the easily surmounted barrier of language hinders mutually delightful intercourse. At least, the writer formed more friendships and obtained more glimpses of native life during a month at Ikao than at any other period of his stay in the country.

Bathing is, of course, the centre round which existence revolves. Half-a-dozen small baths, fitted with hot and cold water, that the temperature may be modified to suit each bather, enable the stranger to bathe in the solitude he prefers. But more than two dozen others, in which from three to thirteen people can bathe together, are more characteristic of the place. The largest has a hot douche, and the temperature is often as high as 115° Fahrenheit. Here the native guests return two or three times a day to soak and to gossip. In this _al fresco_ salon laughter reigns and conversation flows as freely as the water. Surprised indeed would the bathers be to learn that a costume is deemed essential by more prurient races, whose artificial manners divorce simplicity from decency. Yet Western prudery is beginning to corrupt the upper classes, who tend to convert these social gatherings into family parties, without going so far as to adopt a bathing-dress. The water is rather turbid and yellow. It contains iron and sulphate of soda. Most of the patients suffer from rheumatism or barrenness, and look on a course of treatment as a sovereign remedy. Some also drink of the mineral spring which lies at the end of the Yusawa ravine, where seats and swings line a well-shaded avenue. Probably they derive more benefit from the pleasant promenade than the unpleasant beverage.