Part 11

The first friend I made was a silk merchant and a poet. I shall call him Yamada San. I had gone one day a few hundred yards down the precipitous path leading to Shibukawa, when my attention was arrested by a very pretty tableau. To the left of the road lay a lute-shaped pond, traversed by little bridges and dotted with islands on which stone lanterns and wooden shrines proclaimed the owner’s piety. The deeper end of the lakelet was overshadowed by a balcony, on which sat two serious young men with rod and line, while a daintily-dressed girl reclining beside them was preparing bait--that is, crumbling a soft bread-cake with delicate fingers. The fish seemed wary, and I remarked one astute leviathan among gold-fish that succeeded in snatching the bait and swimming away with an impudent cock of the tail that would have exasperated a less patient angler. Remarking my interest, the fishermen politely invited me to join them; and then I discovered two curious features of this gentle angling--its cheapness and its humanity. The proprietor was willing to provide all accessories and implements for three-farthings, on one condition: any fish which had the imprudence to be hooked must be tenderly replaced in the water. Thus he reconciled Buddhistic kindness to animals with encouragement of sport, and the fish obtained a maximum of food with a minimum of risk. It seemed that Yamada San was also staying at Kindayu’s. We therefore returned together, while O Mitsu, his charming child-wife, walked submissively behind. Woven silk filled his business hours, but woven sentiments his leisure. Before the hotel was reached he confided to me the poem which had just germinated in his mind that afternoon. He had really been fishing for fancies.

“Yioyeyama Kasanaru kumono Ōkunaron Honokani moreru Saoshika no koye.”

Range above range, piled up to the clouds, what numberless mountains! Faintly between escapes from afar the voice of the roebuck.

As he understood a little English, I conferred on him this brace of hexameters. He was naturally astonished by such long lines, but, as his Tanka contained thirty-one syllables and my translation only thirty, we had both expressed the same ideas in about the same space. Exchange of verses was followed by exchange of presents. In the evening I received a large cake with Yamada San’s compliments. Then came my first unconscious lapse from etiquette. In the hope of pleasing both husband and wife, I presented O Mitsu with a quaintly carven _kanzashi_, an ornamental hair-pin; but, though she did not seem displeased, the poet thanked me with a cold, disapproving air. At a later stage he explained how improper it was considered to pay the least attention to a married woman. I apologised, and he went on to explain that love-marriages were becoming the rule and not the exception, and that among his friends few matches were now arranged without consulting the wishes of the two most concerned. However, O Mitsu was permitted to play to me on her _koto_, and to condone my indiscretion with the parting gift of a much-cherished fan, on which was inscribed a famous poem by Tsuma to the following effect:

Though I may sing of the beautiful garments of beautiful women, Dearer to me are the pines of Japan and the cherries in blossom.

By this engaging couple I was initiated into a novel game, played with flower cards, _Hana-Karuta_. The pack consists of forty-eight pieces, each three inches by two, and of twelve suits, Moon, Rain, Iris, Clover, Cherry-blossom, Maple-leaf, Wistaria, Chrysanthemum, Pine, Peony, Plum, and _Paulownia Imperialis_. The four cards of each suit are worth 1, 5, 10, and 20 points respectively. The player may only draw a card from the pool if he have one of the same suit in his hand. Failing this, he must enrich the pool by one of his cards when his turn comes to draw. Each pair, when made, is laid on the table, and when the pack is exhausted the player who has scored most points is declared winner. This very simple game had much vogue in Ikao, but when the party included no ladies the more difficult _Go-Ban_ was more popular. Like all his countrymen, Yamada San was a rapid draughtsman, and would often, when appealed to for information on historical or religious matters, illustrate his meaning by clever sketches. Of these I retain two excellent specimens: a drawing of Yoshitsune in elaborate armour and a long-nosed _tengu_, or mountain-goblin, which has many characteristics in common with the Scandinavian _trold_. Unfortunately, our acquaintance was limited to three days, for at the end of that time business recalled the poet to Ashikaga, but he exacted a promise that I would pay a visit to that interesting town, given up to cotton and Confucius.

As if to console me on the evening of this departure, the kindly Kindayu family invited all their guests to a performance given by three local geisha in the principal room of the hotel. The chief musician was a masculine-looking woman of fifty, who thrummed a _kokyu_, or three-stringed fiddle, and broke in on the recitative of her young companions at unexpected moments with peculiar growls and sharp cries as of an animal in agony. When the narrative of the soloist took a tragic turn, these inhuman noises were so distressing that, without following the story, I experienced acute pain, while my neighbours of the more sympathetic sex were actually in tears. Had my musical education been more advanced, I should have realised that these were no singers of light Dodoitsu, but exponents of a far loftier type of entertainment, the _Gedayu_ or musical drama. It originated in the middle of the seventeenth century, and is sometimes called _Jōruri_ after a heroine of that name, whose tragic love for Yoshitsune is a favourite theme of composers. In fact, the geisha on this occasion were usurping the _rôle_ of _Jōruri-katari_ or dramatic reciters, whose chanted recitative formed the nucleus, first, of the marionette theatre, and, later, of the popular theatre, when dialogue and scenic art were superadded. In the absence of either human or wooden dolls, a most lugubrious effect was produced. At last, to my relief, a male performer, a _pince-sans-rire_, whose dry humour and staccato diction stamped him of the tribe of Grossmith, transformed the audience from weeping Niobes to effigies of mirth. In vain the polite little ladies tried to smother their smiles behind their raised _kimono_ sleeves: as the song proceeded they were vanquished by fits of laughter, and shook helplessly on their cushions. I possessed but one cue to this infectious merriment in the constantly recurring word _emma_, which on the lips of Mr. Dan Leno would have assuredly referred to his wife or his mother-in-law, those patient butts of music-hall humour, but which would only mean for Japanese ears the Buddhist Rhadamanthus, who pronounces sentence on all who enter hell. Considerably mystified, I turned to Tanaka Okusama, another visitor from Ashikaga, and inquired if “the honourable singer were really singing about hell-things.” He was. The song was an amusing but irreverent pastiche of social satire. It described the arrival in Hades of the bad judge, the cheating merchant, the false singing-girl; their confession and appropriate punishment. Again I missed the marionettes, for their presence would have recalled an exactly similar treatment of the same theme in a Montmartre puppet-show. And I remembered how the Parisian populace joined delightedly in the cry of “A la chaudière!” as the mimic devil chased lawyer and cocotte into a Punch-and-Judy Inferno. It was the mystery play of the Middle Ages, surviving as a crude comedy for the ignorant poor--a rough travesty of the theology in which their more instructed superiors still affect to believe.

In the course of the next fortnight I became well acquainted with Tanaka Okusama, and through her with many others. She was a most intelligent, capable woman, who conducted one business while her husband had charge of another, grain and rice being the commodities in which they dealt. She considered herself middle-aged at the age of thirty-two, wore therefore most sombre colours, and was the mother of six boys, two of whom joined her at Ikao. Her explanation of the _emma_ song was followed by an avowal of religious disbelief. She was neither a Buddhist nor a Shintōist, but believed that the priests taught old wives’ fables, and for her own part concentrated her mind on her business and her family. A free-thinking Japanese woman was a novel phenomenon to me then, though I have since met several. The fragments of Western history which she had acquired were also interesting items in her conversation. Plied with questions about English sights and customs, I was also asked to give an opinion on Cæsar, Napoleon, and Epaminondas. What I recalled of the last hero was so shadowy that I felt inclined to parody the Oxford undergraduate’s evasive reply: “About Epaminondas little is known, but it may safely be assumed that, as he lived, so he died.” However, Tanaka Okusama knew more than that about him, for she had just been reading “Keikoku Bidan,” a popular novel by Yano Fumiō, who is supposed to have selected Theban politics for his subject, that he might administer useful lessons to his compatriots. I suspected that novel-reading was the source of most of the lady’s knowledge. Indeed, she disclaimed all pretension to the title of blue-stocking.

Continual tea-parties in my room or hers, though very educational, were marred for one of us by two circumstances--the familiarity of servants and the uncertainty of time. Democratic in sympathy, preferring the expansiveness of the simple to the discreet inanity of the genteel, I was yet a little surprised to remark the ultra-friendly relations between servant and guest. A “boy” would enter with profound obeisance, deliver a message or an article demanded, and, being invited to join the party, would play cards, ask and be asked very personal questions, make himself thoroughly at home, and depart when duty called, bowing low. At first it is difficult not to associate these prostrations with subservience, but they really imply nothing but good manners. When the guest left the hotel, he would hand the “boy” a tip, wrapped in paper, as etiquette requires, for that delicacy which impels us to concede intimacy and refuse money, or to refuse intimacy and concede money to social inferiors, because the conjunction of the two offends our sense of the deference due to class-distinctions, would appear strange to the far more rigidly classified Japanese. In fact, more real democracy--if by that be meant frank and unembarrassed intercourse between high and low--is possible under a caste system than any other. Every one “knows his place,” and has no inducement to affect a higher rank than he really possesses by an assumption of haughty manners. The innate courtesy of most Japanese servants renders friendship with them more delightful than might be supposed, but occasionally one comes across a conceited, half-educated fellow in European dress, who passes from familiarity to impertinence. However, I was soon taught a more difficult lesson than that of forgetting class prejudice. Perhaps the hardest of all truths engrained in Oriental theory and conduct is the unimportance of time. We, who live by machinery which measures for most men the hours of work, the hours of play, until life becomes a time-table and the heart a chronometer, are absolutely incapable of indifference to Time’s tyranny. When I proffered or accepted an invitation, nothing amused these hospitable lotus-eaters so much as my natural bias towards punctuality. What did it matter? The morning, if I liked, or the afternoon, or the evening: time was made for man, not man for time. Accordingly, if I paid a promised call and became the involuntary witness of a toilette, a meal, or a siesta, I had merely to withdraw and call again. If my guests did not arrive at the prescribed hour, they would come some hours later, or even sooner, or not at all. At first I was so put out by these vagaries and so fearful of intruding, that it took message after message to draw me from my own society or that of a book. But gradually I realised that in this happy country offence was not readily given or taken; that time was a negligible convention; that to follow the impulse of the moment was wiser than to ape the precision of a clock. I have heard the British trader exclaim in Japan, “They can never become a great nation; they are so unbusinesslike!” and I sympathised with his horror of Eastern nonchalance, but I doubt his conclusion. Merchants in Russia are just as dilatory. Yet either country can count on promptitude in military or political exigency. What commerce loses in time it gains to some extent through restrictions imposed on foreign rivalry. In any case, as they emerge from feudal to industrial conditions those indolent races will be forced by the law of self-defence to quicken the pace. As for me, I resolved to ignore my watch and rely on Zaburo Tanaka.

Zaburo was a bright-eyed schoolboy of ten. Close-shaven and bare-footed, he raced from wing to wing of the hotel in a single cotton garment with cheerful impetuosity. At breakfast I would hear him on a balcony fifty yards away reading aloud in that monotonous sing-song which his countrymen adopt, even in trains, without evoking a protest from fellow-travellers. At first I imagined him to be reciting prayers, but this supposition was erroneous. Two or three times a day his knock would rattle on my sliding-door and a loud summons would entreat Edoardo San to keep him company. When his mother was occupied with private cares, he would obtain leave to visit with me the Benten-daki, and as we watched the tumbling terror of that lovely waterfall, sparkling against green boughs, I was the recipient of many schoolboy confidences. His great ambition was to fight for the Mikado; his accounts of school life were tinged with military ardour. The elder boys had guns and knapsacks of fur; in the summer boys and masters camped out together; his intimate friend, Rokutaro, had lost an elder brother in the war with China, and the others were quite envious of that funereal privilege. He remembered one verse of a song which his school-fellows were fond of singing, as they marched to the drill-ground. The air was spirited, but the words were more _naïf_ than ingenious, if the following stanza be typical of the rest:

[Music:

_Ana u-reshi_ _yo-ro-ko-bashi_ _ta-ta-kai ka-chi no_

Oh, how full of bliss, how delightful ’tis, When you fight, to win the day!

_Momo chi-ji no_ _Ad-a wa mina_ _A-to naka nari nu_

Hundreds went before, Thousands are no more, All our foes have passed away. ]

Though precociously intelligent, Zaburo was not too old to play with toys, and the gift of a pop-gun cemented our too brief alliance.

In the middle of July falls the Buddhist festival of Bon, better known as the Feast of Lanterns, when the souls of the dead revisit the living. The decay of religion has unfortunately robbed this touching celebration of its more striking features. Formerly on the eve of the _fête_ the graves were hung with lanterns, that the spirits might be lighted on the way to their old homes. On the day itself the villagers fasted, but left before the household shrine flowers and water and a little food, while they went out towards evening and danced in a large circle, singing quaint songs and clapping their hands to the strains of drum and flute. Then, when the time was come for the spirits to return, on river and stream were launched a fleet of tiny boats of straw, each with its paper lantern, in which the invisible visitors were wafted back to shadow-land. These things are done no more, or only in remote rural districts. Danger to shipping caused the floating of little fire-ships to be prohibited in the ports, while at Tōkyō the ceremony of “opening the river” covers the Sumidagawa with gay pleasure-boats, and in the secular crackle of fireworks the sacred associations of the day are forgotten. In the villages the peasants have not abandoned the dance, which town-folk delegate to geisha, but its date varies from district to district, and I did not witness one until a month later at Akakura. Yet Ikao has contrived to preserve the more pious aspect of All Souls’ Day by two simple services of devotion in graveyard and temple.

By the merest accident I caught sight of a group of women passing through a dark grove of cryptomeria, whose lofty aisles are sown with innumerable tombs. I had often been there, allured by the tranquil images of Buddha, whose face and posture seemed eloquent of everlasting repose. To-day their silent watch was broken by the passage of many rustling skirts and gentle laughter, for even in such places the childish _musumé_ does not deem it sinful to smile. I struck across the wood and recognised the sister of my landlord, Kindayu San, accompanied by three or four serving-women. One carried a kettle of boiling water, another some sticks of incense, and a third some flowers. Permission being accorded to join them, I went along with them to more than thirty graves. On each a little water was poured, a little incense burned, and the prayer, “Namu Amida Butsu,” uttered. The humblest of the dead was equally honoured with the nearest kinsman, and, after relations by marriage or adoption had been visited, the last to receive salutation was a _banto_, or temporary bookkeeper, who had died four years before after eight years’ service. “Will not the honourable stranger also make a prayer?” was asked, and I complied, repeating “Namu Amida Butsu,” “I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha,” in the hope that their god would understand that his claim to adoration by barbarian lips lay in the kind memorial offices which his faith inspired. Many of the graves lay so far apart that we had crossed two valleys and found ourselves some miles from home at the luncheon-hour of noon. So we entered the nearest tea-house and were served with tea and sweet cakes. As the proprietor had a small stock of sacred images for sale, I bought for a souvenir of the day two clay foxes with tails gilded at the tip, the snarling door-keepers of the rice-goddess; but Inari must have rejected in anger my mock homage, for three weeks later in a carefully packed _yanagori_ I grieved to find chaotic “fragments of no more a” fox.

That afternoon I remarked an unusual stir and clatter of small feet below my balcony. Crowds of children, on foot or slung behind the patient backs of mother or elder sister, were making their way to the large school-house, which stood a few yards beyond and below the southern entrance of the hotel. It being holiday time, I had never seen any of the scholars, and the sole occupant of the spacious play-ground was a weather-beaten stone effigy of Jizō in a red cotton night-cap and yellow bib. This wet saint (_nure-botoke_), as the Japanese laughingly call such unhoused divinities, had always excited my sympathy, for there he stood without his five companions’ society, exposed to rain and wind, disregarded even by the very infants whose patron saint he is considered to be. At any rate, I could see no pious heap of pebbles laid on his knees, though the neglectful little ones would be glad enough, on reaching the dry bed of the River of Souls, to seek refuge in his large _kimono_ sleeves, when mischievous demons should demolish the pebble-heaps which it would be their duty to pile up there as the penalty of childish faults. But perhaps they were too busy playing to remember him during the holidays, or perhaps they had unbelieving teachers who connived at their neglect. I indulged a faint hope that public expiation was to be made, and that the toddling crowd would lay some tribute on his faithful lap. But its destination was a temple situated below the school-house, and as it swept merrily by grotesque, deserted Jizō I fancied that the stone features grew more rigid and grey beneath the cotton night-cap, his consolatory proof of at least one worshipper.

Having set a few stones on his pedestal, I followed the rest to a small temple, which was surrounded by women and children. On a raised platform, which formed the temple-floor, about a dozen priests, resplendently robed, were moving in rotatory procession and chanting passages of the Buddhist canon. The babies were gazing open-eyed on the bright embroideries of instruments and vestments, while as many people as could be accommodated were allowed to occupy mats at one extremity of the platform. Among them a place was obligingly made for me, and soon after I had taken my seat the priests also sat down to listen to a discourse from a young and eloquent preacher. I had been in many temples, and watched the crowds making prostration, buying holy knick-knacks, and flinging copper coins into the broad-barred money-boxes, but this was the first sermon I had the good fortune to hear. Continually reverting to the theme, “Mina sekai no hito kiodai”--all beings in the universe are brothers--the orator spoke long and earnestly of the unseen ties which bind the living and the dead, of the infinite chords and scales of existence, of the love and goodwill which no creature was too humble to show or too lofty to accept. Sometimes an old man groaned, and sometimes an urchin was removed screaming, but most of the listeners remained passive and stolid till the end. Then babies were hoisted, farewell bows were exchanged, and the congregation melted away. If you ask me why so many children were present, I can only suppose that they were attracted by the excitement of novelty. There was none of the bustle and glare which make a _matsuri_, the ordinary temple _fête_, one glorious saturnalia of piety and merriment, when theatres and booths, covered with wonderful paper toys and every known variety of sweetmeat, block the approaches to the sacred building. In this the Buddhists greatly outshine their more austere Shintōist rivals. Probably nine-tenths of the peasants are in agreement with an old man with whom I conversed after an impressive service at Hommonji, the chief temple of the Nichiren sect. As we descended the temple-steps I asked him why he preferred Buddhism to other forms of faith. “Because,” he answered, “it is more amusing.”