Part 15

Kōbe received us, weary and late, with hospitable arms. In that prosperous port, so rapidly distancing Yokohama in commercial importance, an English colony is solidly entrenched with pews and cricket-bats and pianos. I went to the club, and was at once in England. _The Saturday Review_ was reviewing and _The World_ revolving on the same lines as when I was last in Fleet Street. Mr. Bernard Shaw was still unmasking demerits in Shakespeare, while Mr. William Archer was inventing merits for American comic opera. In a moment of nostalgia I sauntered into a well-filled church, whose congregation were listening with rapture to a beautiful rendering of Gounod’s “There is a Green Hill”: finally, I learned at a friend’s table that a cricket-match between the ladies and gentlemen of Kōbe was the burning topic of the week. Between Mr. Bernard Shaw and Buddha (vegetarians both), between Gounod and geisha, between batting and bathing, lay the gulf which separates the hard-hitting West from the lotus-loving East. I could not bridge the gulf without a violent effort. In fact, I felt a little ashamed on mixing with my fellow-countrymen, so pious and strenuous and practical. While they had been working and playing as only Britons can, I had utterly forgotten that any country except Japan could enthral and stimulate. I had been taking the waters--of Lethe.

PLAYING WITH FIRE

PLAYING WITH FIRE

I

This is the love-story of René Beauregard and O Maru San. It does not illustrate the cynical conceit of a French dandy, æsthetically explaining and profaning love to amuse an indelicate public, nor does it demonstrate the folly of mixed marriages, in which nuptial ceremonies, high-flown speeches, adultery, and suicide are hypocritically served up to suit the British palate. It is the straightforward story of an ordinary attachment in the Far East between two rather bad and rather good friends of mine, whose notions of “good” and “bad” as translated into deeds were lax, but, in their eyes and in that region, not absolutely damnable.

M. René Beauregard had been in Tōkyō about a fortnight, when I found him one evening at a print-seller’s shop in the Ginza, surrounded by an inquisitive crowd of admirers and much embarrassed by inability to declare his meaning in Japanese. He was accompanied by an hotel-boy, who, knowing no French words but _Oui_, _monsieur_, and _Bon jour_, recognised me with relief and solicited assistance. I was able to extricate him from the curiosity of the bystanders and the plurality of prices to our mutual satisfaction, for we returned together to the Métropole, the richer by some rare prints and the promise of congenial companionship. Literary reminiscence furnished many bonds of common interest. We had witnessed, it seemed, simultaneously several incidents which marked the waning of old and the rising of new constellations in the firmament of French art. The _première_ of Rodenbach’s “Le Voile” and Rostand’s “Les Romanesques,” the funeral of Paul Verlaine, the students’ repudiation of Brunetière and acclamation of Zola at the Sorbonne, the banquets to Puvis de Chavannes and Emile Verhaeren, had strangely enough united us in the same company without opportunity of introduction. But community of tastes counts for less in friendship than charm of character. What particularly pleased me in M. Beauregard was a modesty, not too common among his compatriots, and a chivalry towards women which the Quartier Latin had failed to destroy. I had known so many _petits féroces_ (as Daudet called them), vaunting their talents and their _bonnes fortunes_, for whom a mistress ranked somewhere between an advertisement and an absinthe. He was not an _arriviste_, then; but neither was he a worker. Too self-critical to write badly, too lazy to write well, he ended by not writing at all, and, as his means permitted him to play the _rôle_ of spectator, he followed various movements in art and letters with amiable, intelligent passivity. He had come to Japan with the object of studying on the spot the Kōrin and Shijō schools of painting, but found his progress much hindered by ignorance of the language, which he had not seriously tried to learn. As we were both anxious to see the _Matushima_, or Pine Islands, perhaps the most lovely of the _Sankei_, or Three Views, which the Japanese celebrate above all others, it was resolved to travel there together in search of grammar and scenery.

About the grammar he was rather fastidious. A personage of high rank, whom he had met at an Imperial garden-party, had said jokingly: “Why not follow the example of M. Pierre Loti and find a second ‘Madame Chrysanthème’? We call such persons in our idiom ‘pillow-dictionaries,’ and they are the most instructive manuals in the world.” The young Parisian was, of course, neither shocked nor offended by the suggestion. Not only had he no moral scruples himself about forming temporary ties such as nine Frenchmen out of ten contract before marriage, but he had come to a country, or so he had been told, where such ties were neither illegal nor dishonourable, but openly recognised, and where a mistress did not forfeit her chance of ultimate marriage when the relationship should be dissolved. But the idea of buying a mate as one buys a horse or a picture was repugnant to him, and he preferred to wait a while, in the hope that Fortune would provide an occasion of affection preceding purchase rather than of a purchase which might or might not precede affection. The geisha of the capital did not attract him: they were too openly venal or brightly conspicuous for his quiet taste, which desired gentle companionship without such publicity as the appropriation of a Tōkyō geisha would involve. So, for the moment, scenery took precedence of grammar.

The journey to Sendai on the Northern Railway is generally tedious, but was made more so by delays and uncertainties of transit owing to extensive inundations of the Tonegawa. Many passengers contemplated the advisability of quitting the train and proceeding by relays of boat and rickshaw. Happily this troublesome alternative was avoided, and we contrived to reach the dull but important capital of the Rikuzen province shortly before midnight. The next morning we travelled by a branch line to Shiogama, the little port on the bay of Sendai from which passage is taken to the hamlet of Matsushima or the more distant Ishinomaki. We chose the latter route, since it traverses the entire archipelago and gives a more complete idea of the number and disposition of the Pine Islands. Legend counts them to be precisely eight hundred and eighty-eight, and, if one disappear, eaten by the sea, another pushes up its head, conveniently severed by a sword of water from some broken peninsula. As the rocks never increase nor diminish in number, so the thousand pine-trees, which start from crag or shelf in every conceivable posture, are never more nor less than one thousand. From this banquet of volcanic tufa the ravenous Pacific had crunched odd morsels, leaving for future meals bizarre and bitten fragments, as capricious in shape as its own appetite. Unfinished bastions, wild arches, irregularly tunnelled rocks, cone and staircase and plateau, lie densely or sparsely scattered over an expanse of forty miles, like a herd of amorphous sea-monsters, badly made and willingly abandoned to the solvent action of time and tide. But then, as if to apologise for the Originator’s clumsiness and to prove that his failure may have been expressly intended to ensure their success, on the backs and in the crevices of the else uncouth stone creatures wave the thousand arms of pine, softening rough contours with their clinging green, protesting and protecting with graceful curve, or beckoning with siren gesture to passing mariners. Every island has its name, rooted in historic or legendary allusion. To the Japanese one has suggested “Buddha’s entry into Nirvana,” another “The island of question and reply,” while a third group is symbolic of “The twelve Imperial consorts.” But our Western eyes could well dispense with that strange bias of Eastern fancy which prefers to associate form with meaning: for us it was enough to glide slowly through the haunted waters, to watch the blue waves foaming at the island’s edge or leaping in the sunlight to meet the pine’s tentacular caress.

From the last of the islands to the mouth of the Kitakami River, on which Ishinomaki stands, is a rough stretch of sea exposed to the full force of the Pacific rollers. Our tiny steamer was buffeted by wind and rain, and my companion suffered such agonies of sea-sickness that it took him two days to recover health and spirits. By good luck we found in the Asano-ya one of those cosy and coquettish hostelries which only Japan can boast, where the eye is as constantly charmed by good taste as the body is comforted by good cheer. The sliding doors which divided our apartment from others had panels of white paper, flecked with clouds of gold-dust and framed in black lacquer. In the _tokonoma_ or alcove stood a pink-flowered shrub and a peacock of bronze beneath a beautiful painting by Kano Tan-yu. In vain we offered to buy this _kakemono_ from the landlord, or the screen, which displayed fighting dragons on one side and a noble tiger on the other. They were heirlooms, which his children must inherit. Nearly everything was pretty in the Asano-ya, except O Maru San. She was the landlord’s niece, an orphan Cinderella, condemned by destiny to wait on her uncle’s guests. While her better-looking sisters had found husbands, she trotted contentedly about her work, laughing a great deal and singing snatches of song. She was about four feet ten inches in height; her face was too large and too round, though this fault was somewhat redeemed by fine teeth and soft eyes. She tried to atone for plainness of feature by elaborate coiffure and punctilious toilette; but, do what she would, she could not escape from the category of ordinary squat village girls, who remain at home while their prettier neighbours fill the tea-houses and geisha-houses of Tōkyō. Her parents must have had excellent judgment, for instead of calling her Lily or Chrysanthemum or some other flower-name whose irony must have pursued her to the grave, they hit upon O Maru (Miss Round), an unromantic but felicitous description of her person and character. She had no angularities, moral or physical, but was just an elastic, docile ball of Japanese womanhood, both useful and playful; one of those domestic conveniences which Confucian moralists regard as admirably adapted to promote the peace and happiness of man.

From the moment of René Beauregard’s entrance until his departure from Ishinomaki, O Maru devoted herself to his service. While his illness lasted she sat beside him, bathing his forehead and anticipating his desires. When he grew well enough to take part in the expeditions which I proposed to neighbouring temples or islands, she was waiting with his shoes and hat on the threshold, bowing low as he went out; and, when he returned for the evening bath, she attended him with towel and soap, as assiduously and with as little false shame as Nausicaa attended Odysseus. Observing that he seemed anxious to learn the language, which she was quite incompetent to teach, she managed, with much laughter and many misunderstandings, to increase his vocabulary. She was particularly proud of having interpreted two inscriptions which hung framed in the vestibule of the hotel. One, equivalent to “Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest,” was thus worded:

“Asa okuri yu mukai.”

More literally it reads, “At morning, honourably send on his way; at hot-water time, honourably receive.” The other was more difficult to render. We disputed two versions, of which I commended the first to M. Beauregard’s notice, while preferring the second in our common interest. Like many maxims, it was plausibly vague:

“Omoi yokoshima nashi.”

Could it mean “Love without naughtiness”? Or had it the particular application of “Hospitality without fraud”? I hoped the latter.

We remained for seven days at Ishinomaki, charmed with the busy life of the place, which owes its prosperity to slate-quarries and salmon-fisheries, with the boats for ever passing up and down the Kitakami, with Kinkwa-zan, “the golden-flower mountain,” that sacred island on which in ancient times no women might set foot, though the deer roam freely round the pilgrim’s circuit or ascend to the shrine of Watazumi-no-Mikoto, the Shintō god of the sea. During this week two circumstances revealed to my French friend the fact that O Maru was actuated by quite as much tenderness as dutifulness in her solicitude for his welfare. One day a Norwegian captain, coasting from Sendai to the northern island of Yezo, put into harbour for a day, and proposed to the landlord that the girl should take passage with him for a couple of months in return for fifty _yen_ (about £5), but she displayed strong repugnance to this not ungenerous proposition. On another occasion O Maru, having innocently introduced a handsome brunette, her bosom friend, to Monsieur René, who did not disguise his pleasure at the presentation, was discovered by him at the foot of his bed convulsed by tearful jealousy. At first she would only give negative replies to his questions. “Nakimasen” (“I’m not crying”), and “Shirimasen” (“I don’t know why I’m crying”), she said. But at last she gave the reason. “Because you are now tired of O Maru, and will honourably take notice of O Kiku.” I must suppose that he found a way of reassuring her, as the next day they were warmer friends than ever; and it became plain to me that a dictionary, plainly bound but a devoted pocket-companion, had been providentially deposited for M. Beauregard at the Asano-ya, Ishinomaki. Indeed, the book was more anxious to be bought than the buyer to acquire it, for as soon as the date of our return to Tōkyō was given out O Maru begged her foreign lover to take her with him, and extracted a promise that, if her family made no objection, as soon as he had made suitable arrangements he would send for her to continue the studies which had begun so pleasantly on the banks of the Kitakamigawa.

II

It is one thing in Japan to make a bargain; it is another and far more difficult thing to secure its fulfilment. Though by no means infatuated with O Maru, Beauregard had been touched by her devotion and amused by her simplicity. What seemed to him certain was that he had merely to send word to Ishinomaki, and the faithful girl would fly to his side. But this showed his utter ignorance of Japanese character and methods of procedure. Before the two were reunited, an interchange of six letters and thirteen telegrams, spread over six weeks, taught him some useful lessons touching the unimportance of time and the futility of haste.

About ten days after our return to the capital, he wrote a long letter to the Asano-ya, in which he offered to take O Maru with him for two or three months if her uncle made no objection, and enclosed several _yen_ for travelling expenses. Four days passed and brought no reply. Then he wired: “Have you received money? When are you coming?” and was somewhat pacified by the answer: “Money received; will come soon.” His knowledge of the language was not then fixed, or he would have found little consolation in the treacherous words, _sono uchi_, soon. Another two days and the uncle sent a very polite letter to the following effect. They had all been much honoured by the honourable stranger’s presence in their humble home, and thanked him for his great kindness to O Maru. She would very much like to travel with so distinguished and noble-hearted a person, nor had he, the uncle, any objection to her doing so. But he would like to call august attention to the fact that he had an adopted son who wished to learn French and would make an excellent guide, if permitted to join the party. He hoped the proposal would commend itself to so kind a friend of the family as Borega Sama had shown himself to be. Instead of pleasing “Borega Sama,” this offer to include an “adopted son” in the compact distinctly frightened him. He knew cases of Europeans who had been led by liking for a native girl to burden themselves with her incalculable relations, but he did not consider that a trip of two months should be encumbered by any such superfluous attendants. So he wrote a courteous refusal. By this time the vagueness of _sono uchi_ preyed on his intelligence, and, when its elasticity stretched to eight days, he wired once more: “What do you mean by _sono uchi_? When will you come?” And the answer appeased him: “Will come before the end of the month.” But the end of the month brought a second most affable letter from the host of the Asano-ya, in which he expressed his intense anxiety to oblige the honourable stranger in every possible way, but it so happened that just at that time O Maru could not be spared, as his humble house was full of reverend pilgrims on their way to Kinkwa-zan, the golden-flower mountain, and these monopolised her services. He therefore would send back the money which Borega Sama had so kindly placed at her disposal, unless he would wait a few weeks longer, when she could join him, as the time of pilgrimage would be over. We both regarded this letter as a polite intimation that the incident was closed. Either O Maru had misled her friend when she assured him that her uncle wished her to take the opportunity of travelling with a “noble-hearted person,” or the old man had formed other plans for his niece’s future which did not concern us. In either case Borega Sama resolved to finish the matter. He wrote briefly but plainly, being a little sore at so much tergiversation, that he had no wish to inconvenience any of his kind friends at Ishinomaki, whom he should always remember with grateful pleasure, and, if he ever returned to Sendai, would revisit them. Then he turned his attention to prints and curios.

Many circumstances render the collector’s life particularly exciting at the present time. Good finds become scarcer every year; the chief dealers in Tōkyō and Kyōto send their agents not only all over Japan, but also to Europe in the hope of redeeming lost treasures. Sometimes an old family or impoverished temple is compelled by misfortune to part with the works of old masters; sometimes the new masters of the art of forgery palm off surprising imitations which deceive even the elect. The jealousy of rival collectors, the artifices of rival dealers, the uncertainty of losing by one purchase what you gain through another--all these aspects of the game render it quite as amusing as other forms of speculation. To Beauregard the beauty of his favourite designs naturally outweighed their commercial value, but it was impossible to escape the fury of competition which disturbed the _attaché_ in his bureau and the professor in his study. Every morning Minami San or Ohara San appeared with a stock of tempting pictures, and as they perfectly understood the art of playing off one buyer against another, you often paid too high a price or delayed decision until a bolder and perhaps more foolish gudgeon took the bait. Minami San was a thin, melancholy man, with carefully plaistered hair and irreproachable attire. He had the air of letting things go at an appalling sacrifice, so that at times you almost hesitated to haggle with him. He seemed too gentle for his trade. But Ohara San roused defiance and inspired respect. He was an obese, jolly man of shrewd capacity. As he sat on your floor drinking tea or taking snuff, his patience and persistence were admirable. He interspersed the bargaining with merry anecdotes and jovial information, as though he rather sought your company than your cash, but nothing escaped his twinkling eye, and, when a hasty covetous glance of the would-be purchaser revealed a preference, the wily merchant refused all abatement of price. He was of coarser grain than Minami, who, when Beauregard left the country, presented him with a very good Kunisada, as a polite acknowledgment of his many purchases. But Ohara lent him for a few days an extremely rare series of pornographic designs by Utamaro, and reclaimed them on the morning of his departure.

One morning Ohara was unrolling a very spirited _makimono_, copied from Keion’s “Flight of the Court,” and giving a vivid representation of military pageant in the fourteenth century. As the original is, of course, not to be bought, we were on the point of arranging terms, when the hotel-boy entered and handed a telegram to Beauregard: “I have run away. What shall I do? Reply Saito Hotel, Shiogama. Maru.” His first impulse was to reply “Come at once,” for the unexplained opposition had increased his desire to make a settlement, but, on second thoughts, the consideration for women, which I had already remarked as a kindly trait in his character, prompted this unkind response: “Go home; do not come to Tōkyō; will write.” The letter took the sting from the telegram, for he explained how foolish it would be to leave home without her family’s consent, as it might well happen in such a case that when he returned to France Maru’s uncle might refuse to take her back. He repeated that, unless she could be spared (and of course he would recompense the hotel-keeper for loss of service), their proposed trip must be abandoned. So, the futile colloquy along the wires began again. Two days after: “All right at home. Am coming soon (_sono uchi_). Reply.” But this time the student of Japanese was not to be put off with _sono uchi_. He replied: “Come by first train to-morrow, or not at all. Am leaving Tōkyō.” As a matter of fact, he was going to Kose, while I was due at Ikao, and we should travel together as far as Karuizawa. Late the following evening, after spending the whole day in the theatre, he was handed a telegram by the hotel manager, who had not thought it his duty to send direct to the Kabuki-za, in which were these words: “I have missed the train. Box at station. Reply. Maru.” Then the Frenchman lost his temper. He was quite incapable of playing the Oriental game of patience, and preferred to throw up the cards. This reply, brutal in its brevity, was flashed to poor Maru: “Too late. Do not come.”