Kimono Part 16

"Exactly," said his friend, "and every man of intelligence who has to live in this country thinks that he need only learn their language and use their customs, and then he will find out what is hidden. That is what Lafcadio Hearn did; and that is why I wear a kimono. But what did he find out? A lot of pretty stories, echoes of old civilization and folk-lore; but of the mind and heart of the j.a.panese people--the only coloured people, after all, who have held their heads up against the white races--little or nothing until he reached the third stage, Disillusionment. Then he wrote _j.a.pan, an Interpretation_, which is his best book."

"I haven't read it."

"You ought to. His other things are mere melodies, the kind of stuff I can play to you by the hour. This is a serious book of history and political science."

"Sounds a bit dry for me." laughed Geoffrey.

"It is a disillusioned man's explanation of the country into which he had tried to sink, but which had rejected him. He explains the present by the past. That is reasonable. The dead are the real rulers of j.a.pan, he says. Underneath the surface changing, the nation is deeply conservative, suspicious of all interference and unconventionally, sullenly self-satisfied; and above all, still as much locked in its primitive family system as it was a thousand years ago. You cannot be friends with a j.a.panese unless you are friends with his family; and you cannot be friends with his family unless you belong to it. This is the deadlock; and this is why we never get any forwarder."

"Then I've got a chance since I've got a j.a.panese family."

"I don't know of course," said Reggie; "but I shouldn't think they would have much use for you. They will receive you most politely; but they will look upon you as an interloper and they will try to steer you out of the country."

"But my wife?" said Geoffrey, "she is their own flesh and blood, after all."

"Well, of course, I don't know. But if they are extremely friendly I should look out, if I were you. The j.a.panese are conventionally hospitable, but they are not cordial to strangers unless they have a very strong motive."

Geoffrey Barrington looked in the direction where his wife was seated on a corner of the big cus.h.i.+on, turning over one by one a portfolio full of parti-colored woodprints on their broad white mounts. The firelight flickered round her like a crowd of importunate thoughts.

She felt that he was looking at her, and glanced across at him.

"Can you see in there, Mrs. Barrington, or shall I turn the lights on?" asked her host.

"Oh, no," answered the little lady, "that would spoil it. The pictures look quite alive in the firelight. What a lovely collection you've got!"

"There's nothing very valuable there," said Reggie, "but they are very effective, I think, even the cheap ones."

Asako was holding up a pied engraving of a sinuous j.a.panese woman, an Utamaro from an old block recut, in dazzling raiment, with her sash tied in front of her and her head bristling with amber pins like a porcupine.

"Geoffrey, will you please take me to see the Yos.h.i.+wara?" she asked.

The request dismayed Geoffrey. He knew well enough what was to be seen at the Yos.h.i.+wara. He would have been interested to visit the licensed quarter of the demi-monde himself in the company of--say Reggie Forsyth. But this was a branch of inquiry which to his mind should be reserved for men alone. Nice women never think of such things. That his own wife should wish to see the place and, worse still, should express that wish in public was a blatant offence against Good Form, which could only be excused by her innocent ignorance.

But Reggie, who was used to the curiosity of every tourist, male and female, about the night-life of Tokyo, answered readily:

"Yes, Mrs. Barrington. It's well worth seeing. We must arrange to go down there."

"Miss Smith tells me," said Asako, "that all these lovely gay creatures are Yos.h.i.+wara girls; and that you can see them there now."

"Not that identical lady of course," said Reggie, who had joined the group by the fireside, "she died a hundred years ago; but her professional great-granddaughters are still there."

"And I can see them!" Asako clapped her hands. "Ladies are allowed to go and look? It does not matter? It is not improper?"

"Oh, no," said Yae Smith, "my brothers have taken me. Would you like to go?"

"Yes, I would," said Asako, glancing at her husband, who, however, showed no signs of approval.

CHAPTER IX

ITO SAN

_Ama no hara Fumi-todorokas.h.i.+ Naru-kami mo Omou-naka wo ba Sakuru mono ka wa?_

Can even the G.o.d of Thunder Whose footfall resounds In the plains of the sky Put asunder Those whom love joins?

Geoffrey's conscience was disturbed. His face was lined and worried with thought, such as had left him untroubled since the effervescences of his early youth. Like many young men of his caste, he had soon submitted all the baffling riddles of conduct to the thumb rule of Good Form. This Yos.h.i.+wara question was to him something more than a moral conundrum. It was a subtle attack by the wife of his bosom, aided and abetted by his old friend Reggie Forsyth and by the mysterious forces of this unfamiliar land as typified by Yae Smith, against the citadel of Good Form, against the stronghold of his principles.

Geoffrey himself wished to see the Yos.h.i.+wara. His project had been that one evening, when Asako had been invited to dinner by friends, he and Reggie would go and look at the place. This much was sanctioned by Good Form.

For him to take his wife there, and for people to know that he had done so, would be the worst of Bad Form, the conduct of a rank outsider. Unfortunately, it was also Bad Form for him to discuss the matter with Asako.

A terrible dilemma.

Was it possible that the laws of Good and Bad Form were only locally binding, and that here in j.a.pan they were no longer valid?

Reggie was different. He was so awfully clever. He could extemporize on Good Form as he could extemporize on the piano. Besides, he was a victim to the artistic temperament, which cannot control itself. But Reggie had not been improved by his sojourn in this queer country, or he would never have so far forgotten himself as to speak in such a way in the presence of ladies.

Geoffrey would give him a good beating at tennis; and then, having reduced him to a fit state of humility, he would have it out with him.

For Barrington was not a man to nurse displeasure against his friends.

The tennis courts at Tokyo--which stand in a magnificent central position one day to be occupied by the j.a.panese Houses of Parliament--are every afternoon the meeting place for youth in exile with a sprinkling of j.a.panese, some of whom have acquired great skill at the game. Towards tea-time the ladies arrive to watch the evening efforts of their husbands and admirers, and to escort them home when the light begins to fail. So the tennis courts have become a little social oasis in the vast desert of oriental life. Brilliant it is not.

Sparkle there is none. But there is a certain chirpiness, the forced gaiety of caged birds.

The day was warm and bright. The snow had vanished as though by supernatural command. Geoffrey enjoyed his game thoroughly, although he was beaten, being out of practice and unused to gravel courts. But the exercise made him, in his own language, "sweat like a pig," and he felt better. He thought he would shelve the unpleasant subject for the time being; but it was Reggie himself who revived it.

"About the Yos.h.i.+wara," he said, seating himself on one of the benches placed round the courts. "They are having a special show down there to-morrow. It will probably be worth seeing."

"Look here," said Geoffrey, "is it the thing for ladies--English ladies--to go to a place like that?"

"Of course," answered his friend, "it is one of the sights of Tokyo. Why, I went with Lady Cynthia not so long ago. She was quite fascinated."

"By Jove!" Geoffrey e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "But for a young girl--? Did Miss Cairns go too?"

"Not on that occasion; but I have no doubt she has been."

"But isn't it much the same as taking a lady to a public brothel?"

"Not in the least," was Reggie's answer, "it is like along Piccadilly after nightfall, looking in at the Empire, and returning via Regent Street; and in Paris, like a visit to the _Rat Mort_ and the _Bal Tabarin_. It is the local version of an old theme."

"But is that a nice sight for a lady?"

"It is what every lady wants to see."

"Reggie, what rot! Any clean-minded girl--"

"Geoffrey, old man, would _you_ like to see the place?"