Part 16

Our inn was full of guests, quite full, and all the rooms have paper panels. There are no keys, no locks, no bolts, the whole inn, were it so minded, could go in and out of every room; and yet we all sleep in peace and quite secure. It is true that an innkeeper here must bear an unblemished character or his house is shut, and that the guests often come with a letter from their last innkeeper, but not always, and yet we all sleep with half an inch of rice-paper between us, and walls of sliding panels. Could a hotelful of civilised Europeans be so trusted? If not to steal, then not to pry as well? But here nobody looks. Although we have become great personages indeed, nobody looks. And in the big towns as in the country villages, in railway hotels as in this remote corner of the Land of the Gods, we have slept in absolute security in rooms that are always open. Only once in all our wanderings did someone push the _shōji_. It was an _Ijin San_ who thought it was “a lark.”

* * * * *

And so we lived in the Land of the Gods and learnt wisdom, wisdom from the lake, and the hills, and the rice-fields, from the night and the daylight, and the inner beauty of the land lay before our eyes, still dim, for western eyes are blind to eastern meaning through want of power to focus, but in part we saw, and the joy of that seeing has never passed away. The town, the inn, the comely landlady, and the wee, wide-eyed children all taught us wisdom and the meaning and the beauty of the land. Slowly we saw, dimly too, for western eyes are very blind to eastern meaning, and race, religion, training and the whole up-make of our ideas and beliefs stand so often in the way. Still in part we saw, and the lessons of that seeing have never passed away. We had come in all humility, so the Gods were kind. They opened our eyes that we might see.

* * * * *

When we announced that we were going the household was upset. And on the last morning of our stay they all, landlord, landlady, plain daughter, goggle-eyed waiting-girls, came in a procession bearing gifts. We had fans to keep us cool upon the journey, white towels with pictures of the inn in blue, and above all, gifts of the beautiful Matsué china which we had so much admired. Everything was tied up in the neatest parcels wrapped in pieces of brocade, and presented on lacquered trays. On the top of the Matsué china lay a tiny white paper cone lined with red in which was stuck a splinter of bamboo cane, the modern symbol of the old-time fish which was always presented with each gift. And the meaning of the whole is peace, plenty, and prosperity. We had nothing so beautiful to give in exchange, only a cake of foreign soap and a visiting-card. The cake of soap was considered by the rest of the household, including the old grandmother, who had come in, as a palpable hit, and the visiting-cards were much prized.

Then with every one carrying our luggage we were escorted to the gravel recess of the entrance, where our _kurumaya_ stood waiting, and all the household went down on its knees on the polished wooden platform and said sweet _sayonara_.

And there in the walled-in recess with the wooden _gheta_ lying on the big grey block of stone the kneeling figures stayed. Clad in their dark blue _kimono_ with the bright-coloured _obi_ at the waist, they knelt on the polished wood, their heads on their hands, their hands on the floor; and as they knelt the rolls and whorls of their coiffures seemed to grow like flowers from bending stalks of blue.

“_Sayonara_,” they said, and all the blue stalks swayed.

“_Sayonara_,” we called back. “Farewell.” Oh, dear Land of the Gods that has taught us wisdom, not you, but we have need to fare well.

VI

THE TWO SPIRITS

Out of the town and above it, the _daimyō_ of Matsué once built him a castle, and he filled it with the stern warriors whose soul was their sword. _Daimyō_ after _daimyō_ lived and died, and still a _daimyō_ ruled over Izumo; and warrior after warrior fought and was slain, and still the _samurai_ learned the laws of the _bushi_, the way of the warrior, and the strong fortress of Matsué, with its moat and its walls, was guarded and kept by men whose lives were one long servitude to honour and duty. The grim ideals of a code which feared no death and no torture, which exacted the sternest courage and self-control, were taught and practised in the castle of Matsué, until the Son of Heaven ruled in Tokyo and _daimyō_ and _samurai_ were feudal lord and loyal vassal no longer.

The grim walls are standing now, the castle with its moat still rises above Matsué to possess it, but the spirit of its fierce dominance is gone; instead, that twin-soul of the Japanese race has entered into the stronghold, the Love of Beauty has cast out the Love of Battle, the sword is changed to flowers, for in the moat of the castle the lotus is blooming.

Stern and very strong the grey walls rise high into the air, they have not lost their grimness though their feet are bathed in flowers. It is true the gateway is broken, and where the drawbridge once fell there is now a broad path of stamped earth, but the long lines of solid wall are firm still and uninjured. They still rise frowning from out the deep waters of the moat; but to-day the moat itself has disappeared, in its place the broad thick leaves of the lotus stretch like a silvery green river around the walls. So broad, so strong, so helpless, the great leaves hang like unsteady giants on their stalks, and the pin-points of water gather and gather on the hairy surface, till the leaf curls to a cup and a big waterdrop, molten as quicksilver, runs gleaming over the green.

The lotus leaves lie all lazy at angles of rest, but the flowers seem to rise on their stalks as birds taking wing. All pure white or palest pink, each single flower is a giant’s handful of blossom, and yet the petals are delicate, almost transparent; thin, too, in their texture, but of a satiny softness, they curl with the grace of a rose above the pure gold of their hearts.

The lotus leaves dream inert, each on its stalk hangs drooping, often awry: they encircle the walls like a green river of water that stagnantly sleeps; but the flowers are awake and they rise from their leaves as the Spirit of Beauty once rose from the waters. All pure white on this side of the gateway, all pale pink on that, the great cups of blossom stand stately. Very fragile in their texture, and yet so ample in their form the lotus flower seems the meeting-point of luxuriance and grace; the point where more of either were really less of both.

With its roots deep down in the mud, with its leaves often frankly ridiculous in the large uncouthness of their attitudes, with its beauty in no way ethereal, the lotus is yet the symbol of Death, not of Nirvana, but of Death, of the completing of one brief period in this long cycle which we call Life. So in Matsué they planted the moat of the castle with the flower of the lotus for the life of Old Japan, of castle and _daimyō_ and _samurai_, is ended. It is Death but a new Beginning.

* * * * *

Beyond the gateway, a grass-grown flight of granite steps leads to the castle, and we climb.

All the castles in all Japan are the same, bigger or smaller, with details of decoration or style that differentiate them, they are yet in the broad outlines of their architecture one and the same. A Japanese house is Japanese, but the castle comes from China, at least originally, and its pagoda character is very evident. The castle at Matsué had its ground floor of stone, rough-hewn blocks of granite which fitted closely to each other without mortar. The stone storey, as all the succeeding ones of wood above it, tapered gradually inwards so that the topmost wooden storey would have fitted into the one below it, and that into the next, and all into the square stone box of the ground floor, as neatly as the nest of baskets sold in the streets of the town below.

Inside, the rough-hewn stone walls were left as bare as the outside, and a long steep ladder of a staircase, which began abruptly in the middle of one floor to end with equal abruptness in the middle of the floor above, led from storey to storey. The stone storey was divided into two, the rest were of wood, and all now were absolutely bare and unadorned; the mere outer shell of a building which had once lived and sheltered lives. Only in the top floor, where on all four sides sliding panels of glass had replaced the rice-paper _shōji_, was there any sign of life. This room had been turned into a sort of Military Museum with relics of the China war, swords and guns, and a whole long series of wonderful coloured prints, with the Chinese always fleeing, their long, long pigtails floating in the breeze, the Japanese always pursuing with impossible profiles and highly polished boots; and gravely studying the pictures was a group of schoolboys. Their comments were mostly bloodthirsty; the best way of sticking the pink Chinaman on the left, or of beheading the yellow one on the right; but they did not seem moved with any animosity or any sense of triumph, they merely discussed the sword-cuts scientifically, seriously, as though it were a grave business of life and they wished to arrive at a right conclusion.

* * * * *

Matsué’s castle is beyond and above the town, and the _daimyō_ who built it and the warriors who guarded it looked down on this side over the grey roofs of the houses to the wide blue waters of the still lagoon, on that side over the grey roofs of the houses and the sweep of the quiet rice-fields where the river, like a broad path of steel wanders through the bright green fields; and further round they looked to where the tall trees climb the steep hillsides, and further still to the great blue lines of the hills themselves shutting in the sky. And the old warriors in their watch-tower looked out over this wide fair world which lay so still around them. They guarded the castle and they kept it, and the light that was set in that tower was the light of courage and of duty. Over the world beneath their feet it shone out clear and bright, but the world was wider than their horizon. After many years they learned that lesson, and then they came down from their watch-tower, and the light which once burned there in the castle is gone to-day through all the land.

Then the Spirit of Beauty, the soul of that world which lay so still beneath the tower, went up to the castle, where with courage and duty the love of battle and of death had ruled so long, to possess it. And in the waters of the moat the lotus is blooming.

* * * * *

With its roots in the mud, say the Japanese Buddhists, the lotus flower is an emblem of man, of a good man in this wicked world. From among the sins and the passions of life Buddha himself rose perfect, pure as the lotus, and perfect. So for a sign and a comfort to all men, Lord Buddha himself sits throned on the lotus, showing how Goodness Eternal came, not from good, but from the midst of things evil.

In the moat of the castle the people of Matsué have planted whole fields of the lotus, that the flower which is perfect might grow from the sins of the past, grow with each cycle of Life ever more perfect.

THE HEART OF THE PEOPLE

“Shakspeare would have us know that there is no devotion to truth, to justice, to charity, more intense and real than that of the man who is faithful to them out of the sheer spirit of loyalty, unstimulated and unsupported by any faith which can be called theological.” DOWDEN, “Shakspeare, his Mind and Art.”

I

TOKYO

Tokyo is a city of one million five hundred thousand souls, and in its heart of hearts stands the Palace of the Son of Heaven.

The city through its girdle of brown streets works hard, its wharfs and factories, its shops and warehouses are dense with human life and resonant with human labour. The low brown streets so thick with flimsy paper houses stretch for ten miles along the plain. In them the children play, the _kuruma_ pass quickly, the heavy laden hand-carts of the coolies push and jostle, but the heart of this great capital lies still.

From circumference to centre as you come, through street on street of houses, wharves and shops, the magic of the city grows. First the streets space out and out, then the houses dwindle as the trees and gardens grow, greener, wilder, stiller, till the heart of Tokyo’s city is a moated park of peace.

Up nine steep hills the city spreads, and sea and river, and the wide green rice-fields lap it round, while far away across the land, above the level blue of sky great Fuji rises peerless in the midmost heaven.

Engirdled by the thronged and busy streets the nine tall hills peaceful with well-kept houses and secluded gardens, make a crescent round the moated park. For in this strange city whose centre is a palace and a peaceful walled-in pleasaunce the “suburbs” lie within and not without the town.

And through the town and over street and roadway, in the gardens and the courtyards the gaunt beaked crows flap coal-black wings as they sail past, and their cynical “Haw, haw” is sarcastic with an utter disbelief. With stately swoop, black wings outspread, they drift past the ear of the newcomer confident with a three weeks’ visit that he understands the East, and in the midst of his cocksureness they drop their cold, sarcastic “Haw.”

Brown and so crowded are the streets, bewildering with their jostle of blue-clad men and women, their open stalls, their unmade roads of earth stretching flat between the houses on each side, where man-drawn carts, and _kuruma_, passengers, and children get in each other’s way. The white uniformed policeman, sword on thigh, stands, a bronze statue, at each busy corner, and to him even the criminal is polite. And down the streets and through and through the town, cut straight or winding, the brown canals, valleys of black mud, or slow streams of dark water, run to the river and the sea. And thousands upon thousands, too, seem the bridges, some flat and narrow as gangways, most arched in a crescent curve, and the brown canals run from the sea and from the river far within the town.

On one of them, at high tide, a steamer like the ark of Noah plies. It seems to go indifferently stern or bow foremost, and is no larger than a big-sized rowing boat. The one landing-stage to which I traced it was like a pasteboard on two rolling-pins, and stood as the threshold to the back door of a house. A European picture hung above the entrance, bright with greens and blues and reds and yellows, where this resplendent steamer floating amid green waves, showed at alternate windows a head, male, Japanese, dressed “foreign”; a head, female, Japanese, dressed Japanese. A policeman and a soldier both in uniform balanced on the deck at either end. The ark’s ports of call, as its starting-place and destination, remained a mystery. At low tide the canal was an inch of water between two banks of mud, and only at high tide could this toy ark float at all.

* * * * *

One long, straight street, broken into sections at the bridges, and then reset at different angles, runs from end to end of Tokyo, runs from Shimbashi to Ueno, from the “Mercantile Marine Store,” which sells dried fishes, to the Parcels Office of that delicious “Internal Railway,” otherwise unknown to fame. This is the main street of the town, here is the Ginza, with its red brick sidewalks, its shop-boys who speak English, even its plate glass windows. Here, too, is the goldsmith who advertises:

“RINGS, BRONCHITIS, AND OTHER JEWELRY. BEST KINDS ONLY KEPT IN STOCK”;

And the residence of that mysterious baker who keeps:

“BEARDS, VINE CAKES AND SLOR FOR SALE.”

And down it from end to end runs Tokyo’s main tramway. With the river on the east, the moated park upon the west, north and south the broad street runs, and the park of Shiba lies at one end and the park of Ueno at the other. Shiba, where the tombstones of the dead _shōgun_ lie in their sumptuous lacquered temples; Ueno, where the lacquered temples stand bullet-pierced, for the soldiers of the _shōgun_ and the soldiers of the emperor fought their last fight here before the great _Tenshisama_ came back to his own again. Once the closed gardens of Buddhistic monasteries, both parks now are open to the town, bicycles ride through them, nursemaids, their babies on their backs, loiter in them, little girls play classic games of bones, boys catch grasshoppers, while beneath the trees the low red blanketed tables of the _chaya_ offer ¼_d._ teas.

The Park of Shiba is green and quiet, smaller than Ueno, for its temples hold so large a space. It is a forest growing in the heart of a town. Ueno is lighter, brighter, fuller of flowers and festivals, with long avenues of cherry-trees, and a lake where the lotus flowers grow thickly.

And over the lake and the temples, over the cherry-trees and the tea-stalls, over the city below and the playing children within, the big bronze bell of Ueno sends forth its great booming note--that note which is outside our music, deeper, more liquid, which comes with its low, booming sway, just when daylight turns to darkness. Cast of bronze and silver, rung by a wooden beam that strikes a boss outside, the note of the great bell comes swaying as though the air were water. And slowly over the city the bell booms, trembling, and he who hears it sits still and thinks; sits lost and dreams of the song of the seven spheres.

* * * * *

When Ueno’s avenues of cherry-trees are pink with flowers, when the stalls beneath the trees are full of flower hairpins, then Tokyo through its gardens and its roadways blushes too, for the whole city is planted thick with cherry-trees. Not only on the river bank, where the long two-mile avenue of Mukojima is a perpetual _fête_, but everywhere, in private gardens and in public streets, the delicate, pale pink blossoms on their brown leafless branches catch the sunshine and the showers, and fall as little rosy clouds from heaven on to the ground beneath. For Tokyo is a city holding the country in its lap. Not an artificial bedded-out country, stiff as a Versailles park, but the real wayward country, though tended with a loving, understanding care.

And Tokyo is a city brimful of flowers. Between the cherry-trees of April and the chrysanthemums of November most of the flowers can be seen within the city in temple courts or nursery gardens or public parks. The lake of the lotus at Ueno is famous through Japan, and in the temple of Kameido grow the age-old wistarias.

Trained on horizontal trellis work, their long pale tassels hang down towards the water, stirring with each breeze. The trailing clusters of the flowers grow four feet long sometimes, and droop towards the surface of the lake in thick swaying pendants of pure colour. Behind these living curtains, in a twilight of pale mauve or soft white light, on the edge of the pond whose shape spells “heart,” sometimes afloat on the pond itself, the tables of the _chaya_ stand, and those who make holiday because the flowers are blooming, all Tokyo, sit and look, drinking wee bowls of pale green tea, or writing poems to the flowers.

On the waters of this lake of the letter “heart” float the pale mauve petals and the petals of pure white, which fall and drift and sink, and fall and drift and sink, until the waters are hidden with flower flakes and the wistaria is over and gone.

Kameido lies on the far bank of the Sumidagawa, in a network of poor streets, for the left bank of the river, like the big island at its mouth, is denser with yards and factories than is the right. The streets are narrower, fuller of children and the noise of hammers and of wheels. Yet in this poor wage-working quarter the festivals of the plum-blossoms, the wistaria, and the peony are held.

In all Japan there is no other flower _fête_ which in the least resembles a horticultural show except that of _Botan_, the tree-peony. For when the peony blooms, the little trees, large as dwarf rose-bushes, are placed on tiers inside a matted tent. There the resemblance ends. These plants are set each in a framework of space, and the colours are grouped and blended with the thought and the instinct of an artist.

The flowers of the peony are as large as the largest chrysanthemum, larger than ours, but their petals are rich, made of satin where ours are of cotton, delicate, fragile, and sheeny. The colouring is soft and subdued, and the faint sweet scent which comes from them is like the dream of a rose. The colours are simple, white warming to cream, paling to snow, and all the tints of pale reds, deep reds, and crimsons.

The matting which covers them is of pale yellow, but somehow the light, as it comes through it, touched perhaps by the flowers, is the light of a dream--as sunlight without heat, as moonlight warmed and living, a light that shimmers, holding colour fast within, yet fast asleep. To-day the light in that peony tent at Kameido remains to me as definite as the flowers, as distinct as the scent, as real and, in truth, more beautiful. It was as though one saw the radiance of an unknown, unmade jewel, light but not yet substance.

* * * * *

All this left bank of the river from Fukagawa to Eko-in is full of workmen and workshops, of small trades and smaller traders, and here in the month of May in the grounds of the temple raised to the memory of the hundred thousand citizens killed in the great fire of 1657, the yearly wrestling contests are held. The _Smō_, tall, broad, powerful men, many six feet high or more, who dress in large checked _kimono_ and wear their hair in the old-fashioned top-knot, are adored by the populace who come in thousands to see them.