Part 20

Other festivals, more intimate than these, assuaged the rigour of imprisonment. Though Inari had four temples in which to welcome her votaries, other divinities, too, offered distraction and consolation. When the evil spirits had been exorcised on the fourteenth day of the first month, the field was clear to garner divine favour. Ebisu, the jovial, pot-bellied god of good luck, claimed his meed of fish and _saké_; the sacred monkey-dance preceded the _fête_ of Inari; Tanabata, the star of happy marriage, was warmly greeted with poems and fans and paper stars, which budded on bamboo branches fastened to the door; the feast of lanterns lasted a month, flooding the dark with radiance, but on the evening sacred to the memory of ancestors no guests were admitted, and the girls were free to hold communion with those parental dead whose exigence pressed so hardly on their flower-sweet heyday of life. Then O Tsuki San, the Lady Moon, must be “looked at” on three successive nights, while persimmon, rice dumplings, boiled beans, and chestnuts were set outside the house on tiny tripods, to catch her auspicious rays. On the occasion of the annual fire-incantation oranges were scattered about the garden and scrambled for by children, and three weeks before the year ended came the great cleaning, the preparation of rice-cakes and countless emblems for New Year’s Day.

The observance of _oyaku_, when one of the little girls in waiting became a Shinzo with flowing sleeves, involved much expense for the _anejōro_ to whose service she had been attached. First _ohaguro_, to blacken her teeth, was collected from seven friends; presents were made of buckwheat and red beans and rice to the tea-houses which they had visited together; a row of cooking vessels, filled with steaming food, was covered with lengths of silk crape and damask outside the house, while indoors a table was set out with fans, tobacco-pouches, and embroidered towels for the geisha and servants. For three days the newly promoted damsel would promenade the Naka-no-cho, wearing on the first day a long red cloak, on the second a purple cloak, on the third one of pale blue. The coiffure also varied from day to day, and the total expense of this ceremonious coming of age varied from twenty to forty pounds.

Occasionally it would happen that a guest fell in love with a girl and wished to marry her. Such a consummation was the object of many vows to Inari and the subject of many poems addressed to the Star of the Weaver at the festival of Tanabata. If he could raise the sum of 600 _ryo_ (about £60), the rest was easy. Debts had to be paid, innumerable gifts conferred on patrons, companions, and attendants, of whom farewell was taken at a great feast on the day of departure. It requires much suffering and evil influence to uproot from the heart of any Japanese woman the flowers of gratitude and affection. If tradition may be credited, more than one suitor who anticipated Aubrey Tanqueray’s experiment was rewarded for his courage with a happier fate. When the heavy black gate clanged behind her, happy indeed was the Scarlet Lady to put off her state-robes and become the obscure angel of a long-prayed-for benefactor. Sometimes she turned out badly. In that case the husband had the right to send her back, wearing a gown of penitential grey, to finish out her term in Yoshiwara.

II

How much colour had been washed out of the foregoing picture by Western disapproval, filtering through merchants and missionaries, I was curious to learn. To their credit or discredit be it said, none of my Tōkyō friends cared to visit the Shin-Yoshiwara in the company of an alien. They were not exactly hindered by moral scruples, but rather by a disinclination to disclose the seamy side of their fellow-countrymen to censorious eyes. They professed ignorance and changed the subject to railways or ironclads. However, one evening I met by chance the secretary of a famous lawyer-politician, who was taking a country cousin to see the sights of the capital; and, as he obligingly invited me to join the party, we made our way together through the maze of variety-shows and toy-shops which surround the Temple of Kwannon at Asakusa, until we reached the high embankment of Nihon-tsutsumi.

As we stood on the great dyke in a whirr of hurrying rickshaws, the country on the outer side stretched away into darkness, like the waste tracks which border the northern exterior boulevards of Paris. But at our feet, brilliant with light and clamorous with _samisens_, lay a clustering mass of lofty buildings, their roofs adorned with wooden seven-pronged rakes, which I had seen so often in old prints and knew to be emblems of good luck, purchased in November by pious traders from the priests of the Temple of the Eagle.

We walked down the slope of Emonzaka (the hill of the collar), which perhaps took its name from the habit of the Tōkyō blood to adjust the _kimono_ collar in careful folds at the moment of entry, and traversed Gojikken-machi, the street of fifty tea-houses leading to the ponderous gate, where two dapper policemen, neatly gloved and sworded, kept watch and ward. Now we are between handsome edifices, four storeys high, adorned with balconies and electric light, in the broad central Naka-no-cho, which three narrow turnings intersect on either side, containing shops of less imposing dimensions. The upper storeys tell no tales, though their paper-panelled shutters give twinkling and tinkling signs of revelry. On the ground-floor is an unbroken series of shop-windows, not fronted with plate-glass as in Piccadilly nor open to the street as in the Ginza, but palisaded with wooden bars from three to seven inches wide. And behind the bars, on silk or velvet cushions against a gaudy background of draped mirrors and ornamental woodwork, sit the wares--a row of powdered, painted, exquisitely upholstered victims. Most of them look happy enough, as they chatter or smoke or run laughing to the barrier to greet a passing acquaintance, but I know what heroic endurance is masked by a Japanese smile, and the sight of caged women turns me sick. Then I reflect that Western sentiment, however justified by inherited ethics, is scarcely the best auxiliary of fair judgment, so, striving to convert my conscience to a camera, I follow my companions through the strange avenue of animated dolls. If they were really dolls of cunning fabrication, how much more readily could one inspect and appraise them! It seems that the most costly are reserved for their own compatriots. An English painter was, indeed, permitted to begin the portrait of one of these, but, when he came back to finish his work, admittance was refused. It was easy to believe that the inmates of the best houses were socially superior to the rest, for those whom I saw had gentle, refined faces, and did not raise their eyes from book or embroidery.

The least expensive dolls’ houses--they were of four grades--were decorated in execrable taste, and the Circes who cried or beckoned from their red-and-gilt dens had harsh voices and were of ungainly build. But between these extremes were some groups of prettily dressed exhibits, whose rich yet sober colouring harmonised admirably with the vision of whatever artist had been invited to decorate their show-room. There was the House of the Well of the Long Blooming Flowers, which should have been isolated for sheer loveliness from its flaunting neighbours. Behind the motionless houri, whose bright black tresses and mauve _kimono_ were starred with white flowers, ran a riot of branch and blossom on wall and screen. Had Mohammed been Japanese, here was a tableau to win believers with the lure of a sensual paradise, but for the fact that, having realised so material a heaven on earth, the most inquisitive nation in the world would have demanded less familiar felicity. Beautiful, too, was the House of the Three Sea-shores, whose triple tide of waveless blue seemed silently advancing to reclaim the mermaid-daughters of Benten, who waited in such pathetic patience on the beach for a new Urashima. My fancy was most taken by the House of the Dragon Cape, for the ancient ferocity of the saurian symbol, wrought in dusky bronze, not only fascinated with its boldness of coil and curve, but hovered with appropriate cruelty over the meek prisoners, coquettishly disguised. By the time we arrived at the lair of the Dragon I was thoroughly tired. We had been tramping and gazing for more than an hour at nearly two thousand replicas of the same figure, watching its movements and conjecturing its feelings. The cages were beginning to empty, as the more attractive centre-pieces found purchasers. I detected a certain impatience in my companions’ bearing, and I was on the point of taking leave of them when the secretary suggested that, if I would like to enter the Dragon-house and take notes of the interior, he would explain my mission to the proprietor.

It was needful to release three damsels from the public gaze if we would enter, and this we cheerfully did, bidding Young Bamboo, Golden Harp, and River of Song escape to their chambers. Then, leaving our shoes in charge of bowing attendants, we climbed to the first floor and began the evening with a mild tea-party. The Shinzo, in black dresses, brought in lacquer trays, on which were scarlet bowls containing eggs, fish, soup, and other delicacies. _Saké_ flowed more copiously than tea. I was sorry to hear that the old-time processions were falling into disuse, and, though not yet abandoned entirely, were losing their antique splendour. The _taiyu_, too, was a thing of the past. The aureole of combs, the manifold robe over robe, the child attendants, had all gone. Varying now only in costume and accomplishment, all the women alike were cage-dwellers, whereas in former days the superior classes of them were spared that indignity. So far from evading questions, the presiding representative of Spear-hand, an elderly woman with a not unkindly face, seemed amused by my interest and answered readily. I began to think we had made a mistake. This decorous tea-party, removed from the glare and hustle of the street, bore small resemblance to an orgy. But now and then wild incidents surged up in the low ripple of current gossip. Six months before a fire had broken out in Ageyamachi, consuming half an alley of too contiguous wooden dwellings and costing twenty lives. Recently a brawl between Russian sailors and Tōkyō students had fluttered all the dovecots of Sami Cho, but had been speedily quenched by the fearless dapper police.

A sound of thrumming from the floor above hinted that the next item on the programme would be musical. We mounted and found ourselves in presence of two geisha, Miss Wistaria and Miss Dolly, who had been summoned by my cicerone while I was interrogating the Shinzo. The status and performance of these geisha differ considerably from those of their more respectable sisters, and Europeans, by confusing the two, have no doubt helped to affix a stigma to the whole class. Miss Dolly was no more than a child, and Miss Wistaria looked about sixteen. Both songs and dances, without being vulgar, were decidedly lax; and, as the songs were topical, I followed them less easily than the dance, which might have been named after a primitive Japanese goddess, “The Female who Invites.” Yet I must confess that the indelicacy was not blatant, but redeemed by a coy conscientiousness as of one who, half laughing, half shrinking, complies with an inevitable command. After some forty minutes of minstrelsy (my companions joining in the songs), the entertainment concluded with a polite request to the “honourable stranger” to return, and, handing us their cards--dainty cardlets, one inch square, inscribed with tiny hieroglyphics--the performers returned to the tea-house whence they had been hired.

At this moment Young Bamboo, Golden Harp, and River of Song, whom I had completely forgotten, reappeared on the scene. They had changed their scarlet robes for looser ones of white satin, and awaited our pleasure. I explained to River of Song, whose intelligent expression had influenced my choice, that if she would tell me her story and describe her impressions of Yoshiwara life, her duties would be at an end and her fee doubled. Entering readily into the _rôle_ of Scheherazadé, she began by declaring that, though eagerly awaiting the day of liberation, which was yet two years off, she was not so unhappy as many of her companions. At first, when the bell rang before the shrine at evening for a signal to enter the cage (_mise_, “the shop,” she called it), the ordeal was both long and painful. But time had assuaged this feeling, and she had made many friends. Moreover, the Spear-hand of Dragon Cape had taken a fancy to her and made her life easier. Then she recalled her childhood. Her real name was Miss Mushroom (Matsutaké), and her father had been a fisherman of Shinagawa. Ever since she could remember, it had been her habit to patter bare-footed along the beach and gather shellfish at low tide. But bad times drove her parents into Tōkyō, where an uncle had a small shop in the main street of Asakusa. On him they built their hopes, but his business failed, her mother died, and at last the father, hoping to make a fresh start by capitalising his daughter, sold her to the house of the Dragon Cape. At this point I asked if I could see the _nenki-shomon_, or certificate of sale, which would probably be in the possession of Spear-hand. The River of Song hesitated, not liking to ask, but I volunteered to accompany her, and we finished the story in the actual sanctum of Spear-hand, whom I had propitiated with coins and cigarettes.

The document (except in the matter of names) was thus worded:

_Name of Girl_--Ito Matsutaké.

_Age_--Eighteen years.

_Dwelling-place_--Asakusa, Daimachi 18.

_Father’s name_--Ito Nobuta.

You, Minami Kakichi, proprietor of the House of the Dragon Cape, agree to take into your employ for five years the above named at a price of:--

300 _yen_ (about £30).

30 _yen_ (about £3) you retain as _mizukin_ (allowance for dress).

270 _yen_ (about £27), the balance, I have received.

I guarantee that the girl will not cause you trouble while in your employ.

She is of the Monto sect, her temple being the Higashi Hongwanji in Asakusa.

_Parent’s name_--Ito Nobuta.

_Witness’s name_--Kimoto Nagao.

_Landlord’s name_--Yamada Isoh.

_Proprietor’s name_--Minami Kakichi.

_Name of Kashi-zashiki_--House of the Dragon Cape.

It seemed to me that this certificate was story enough, with its batch of red seals denoting the triple sanction of father, master, and gods. Yet was it not better so? Hard as her fate might be, these were regular sponsors of a legal profession. She was not living in lonely defiance of public opinion and private remorse. She would still be gentle, submissive, modest, until the lapse of time should restore her liberty, unless the rascaldom that would beset her pathway for five long years should coarsen and undo her natural goodness. The Japanese used to boast that they were born good; that only the Chinese, and such barbarians, require a code of prohibitive clauses defining and forbidding sin. It is a charming theory, and many foreigners have subscribed to it. It is certain that if you deduct from Yoshiwara the heinousness which Western moralists impute, a tangle of pros and cons would confuse the Japanese conservative who knows anything of Western wickedness. But, as I wavered to the sentimental side of Oriental legality, seduced by the condoning circumstances of politeness and security, I suddenly remembered that this city of pleasure was founded upon a marsh, for all night long the frogs, like thousands of sinister voices, sustained their croaking chorus, as if in ironic commentary on the

“riddle that one shrinks To challenge from the scornful Sphinx.”

III

Whenever Tōkyō crushed a hope or destroyed an illusion, I generally sought and sometimes found balm in Kyōto. There at least historic beauty is not marred and violated at every turn by modern innovation. The vulgar reality of the Shin-Yoshiwara had effectually dissipated my preconception of it, romantically based on book and picture. But, five months after the Asakusa frogs had mocked at my disillusion, I was urged by a Japanese artist to accompany him to Shimabara, about five miles out of Kyōto on the way to Lake Biwa, where, he said, some few vestiges were yet to be seen of the _oiran’s_ fading supremacy. Accordingly, having telephoned from the city to the village (impossible to avoid modernity!), which is happily omitted from the discreet pages of Murray, we drove out on a cold October evening to the once fashionable Tsumi-ya, a tea-house which figures in more than one notorious novel. As we sat shivering on the mats of the large fan-room, dimly lit by a single lamp, it was hard to realise what famous revels had contributed to its renown. Yet the relics were many and convincing. On the ceiling were painted the eight hundred and eighty-eight fans by Tosa, each inscribed with the autograph of a distinguished visitor, a poet or a daimyō, generally both. Hard by was the pine-room, whose faintly pictured canopy of serpentine boughs was the work of Kōrin. And, when the servants entered to lay the preliminary meal, they wore the same red aprons and red sleeve-cords as in the days when Iyeyasu was borne in his litter to the gardens of Shoji Jinyemon.

It would seem that the routine of ambrosial nights does not greatly vary in the land of perpetual etiquette. Having sipped rather than supped, the dishes being light and fluid, we summoned the usual geisha, but among them, as the artist had forewarned me, was one of unusual distinction. O Wakatai San (her name was equivalent to “The Honourable Young Person”) had long been the torture and despair of susceptible visitors. Her father was a _samurai_, strict and proud, who had trained her in a school of arbitrary virtue. Suitors had been one and all rejected; even Lord W., offering bribes of incredible amount, had gone empty away. She was losing her youth, having reached the age of twenty-three, but her regular features and sunny smile helped one to forget the rather raucous tones of her voice. She had seen enough of the Shimabara life to pity its victims, and sang us some rather sad ditties on the subject, of which I transcribe two. The first refers to the prisoner’s longing for liberty.

A WISH.

Could I but live like Butterflies flitting, Settling together, Free, on the moor!

The other is a little difficult to render, since each line has a double meaning: the point turns on the punning elasticity of _mi_, a word signifying seed, self, and body. The flower to which allusion is made, a yellow rose that blooms in mountainous districts, is always known as the wanton’s flower.

THE WANTON’S FLOWER.

The hill-girl’s body Is sold for silver: Poor, seedless hill-rose, A prison-flower!

Whatever novelists and dramatists may have written in glorification of the Scarlet Lady, the popular feeling, as voiced in vulgar songs, is pure compassion.

It was signified that on payment of a small sum we might now behold a resurrected _taiyu_, wearing the robes and insignia of her order. Assent being given, three blows were struck on a huge gong at the gate to summon the siren, who had never been subjected to the ignominious exposure of a cage, but came in state to meet her suitors at the Tsumi-ya. Alas! the state had been sadly curtailed! We saw no attendant henchmen, no ministering children, but three rosy-cheeked peasant-girls rather suddenly irradiated the gloom of that historic chamber, bearing without dignity the weight of a bygone royalty. The costumes were, in truth, splendid enough, and the crowns of heavy hairpins quite impressive. On the trailing robe of the first was represented a cloud cleft by lightning above a golden dragon; on that of the second, a rock with peonies; on that of the third, a tiger chasing a butterfly. All three designs were lavishly embroidered with gold. Sweeping her cumbrous skirt aside with one hand, the _taiyu_ held in the other a wide _saké_-cup, which she slowly waved in air, repeating an old Japanese formula, which neither the artist nor the red-aproned _nakauri_ could interpret. For nearly five hundred years the room of fans had seen the _taiyu_ wave her _saké_-cup, had heard her use those words, but we could not evoke from its shadowy depths the ghost of an explanation. We must take the spectacle for what it was, the pale survival and ineffectual remnant of dying custom. Somehow, the awkward mummery of the girls and the bleak discomfort of the old tea-house seemed strangely appropriate. It was as though we were fitly rewarded for copying Dr. Faustus’ impious trick of calling up fair phantoms from the past, not realising that communion is impossible between living and dead....

The Scarlet Lady has not yet lost her hold on new Japan. The “unruly wills and affections of sinful men” are too strong for that. But she has lost her glamour. Poets do not sing of her, painters withhold their homage, though she is represented by a barrister in the Lower House of the Diet. For now she has become a thing more sacrosanct than any vestal virgin--a vested interest. She is exploited by numerous joint-stock companies, in which shares are held by quite important people. Their aggregate capital is enormous, their ability to block all reform, which might tend to reduce profits, correspondingly great. The law is at once her protector and her gaoler. If invoked to check cruelty, it must also enforce the observance of contracts. All one can hope is that, so long as custom shall recognise and government control her, at least her outlook may not darken from red to black.

INDEX

I

PLAYS

Aoi No Uye, 46, 50, 57

Bataille de Dames, 82

L’Enfant Prodigue, 65

The Fisher-boy of Urashima, 75

Fukuro Yamabusshi, 46, 56

Funa Benkei, 46, 54

The Geisha, 61

The Geisha and the Knight, 70

Gompachi and Komurasaki, 282

The Green-eyed Monster, 266

Hamlet, 85

Ichi-no-tani Futaba-gunki, 76

Jiraiya, 264

Kagamiyama-Kokyo-no-nishiki, 81

Kajima Takanori (The Loyalist), 68

Kajincho, 265

Kasuga no Tsubone, 86

Kitsune-Tsuki, 46, 48

Koi no Omoni, 46, 49

Madame Butterfly, 64

Maki no Kata, 85

The Merry Wives of Windsor, 188

The Mikado, 61

Miracle Plays, 57

Le Monde où l’on s’ennuie, 84

Monte Cristo, 84

The Moonlight Blossom, 63

The Nabeshima Cat, 81

Nakamitsu, 76

Niobe, 68

Othello, 85

Our Boys, 80

Pistorigoto, 117

La Poupée, 68

Roku Jizō, 46, 52

Round the World in Eighty Days, 67, 84

Shimazomasa, 116

Shunkwan, 46

Sweet Lavender, 80

The Tongue-cut Sparrow, 75

Les Trois Mousquetaires, 84

Tsuchigumo, 46, 55

Zaza, 64

Zingoro, an Earnest Statue Carver, 68

II

PERSONS

Adams (Will), 18

Alcock (Sir Rutherford), 18

Archer (William), 206

Asada (Lieutenant), 79

Aston (W. G.), 14, 85, 144

Belasco (David), 64

Benkei, 54, 265

Bernhardt (Madame Sara), 93

Binzura, 226

Browning (Robert), 127, 140

Bruant (Aristide), 123

Buddha and Buddhism, 23, 25, 35, 42, 52, 57, 71, 78, 82, 112, 114, 116, 139, 155, 160, 175, 184, 190, 195, 225

Campbell (Mrs. Patrick), 93

Chamberlain (B. H.), 8, 12, 25, 121, 127

Chevalier (Albert), 123

Chikamatsu, 58, 72

Confucius, 80, 154, 240, 279

Danjuro (Ichikawa), 66, 73, 82, 93

Diosy (Arthur), 62

Fenollosa (Ernest), 237

Fernald (A.), 64

France (Anatole), 228

Fukai (T.), 4

Fukuchi (Mr.), 85, 97, 263

Fukuzawa (Y.), 13

Gautier (Théophile), 122, 237

Gilbert (W. S.), 61

Godaijo (Emperor), 69

Greene (Robert), 72

Guilbert (Mademoiselle Yvette), 123

Hall (Owen), 61

Hayashi (Mr.), 27

Hearn (Lafcadio), 7, 18, 189

Hidari Jingoro, 68, 111