Part 6

--'Yes, it is so,' I answered. 'One can no longer see the Tokio of thirty years ago. The residences of the feudal lords in former days were very grand, especially the parts just beyond the inner moats surrounding the castle, where stood the residential mansions of great lords, called Daimio-Koji, _i.e._ broad way of the Grand Seigneurs. The premises of these mansions generally formed a square, the main building stood in the middle, the four sides of the square were generally occupied by long lines of buildings in which the retainers lived. There were several gateways, the main entrance, of course, being the largest. Some great lords spent a good deal more money than necessary in making their mansions appear grand in order to efface any suspicion of their unfaithfulness to the Shogunate--in other words, they showed by so doing that they had no idea of accumulating wealth for secret designs. I well remember those buildings, but nothing is left of them now. The very centre of the place where those houses stood is now a park. The gates, which were constructed of wood, were very elaborate and imposing. There are only three or four of them left in Tokio, but not on their old sites. They are but reminiscences of old ones, and reconstructed elsewhere by private persons as curiosities. The streets where the great lords once marched in grand state are now crossed in all directions by electric tramways. But we are not sorry for all that.'

--'People say there will soon be no more old Japan to be seen in Japan,' said Lady Dulciana, 'unless one visits her without delay.'

--'That is not likely,' I said. 'A nation cannot completely metamorphosise itself at a moment's notice. Despite all those changes, Japan is still Japan, especially in the interior. The old Japan will not disappear during the lifetime of either you or me. However, we have a saying, "For good things let us hurry." If you have any idea of going to see Japan, which I consider a good thing, hurry by all means.'

--'I suppose the style of residence in Japan differed, and still differs, from ours?' asked the duchess.

--'Yes, very much; and not only the grand residences, but also the houses of all classes. If you allow me to be candid, I will tell you a conversation I had with a Frenchman a little time ago on the very subject. He asked me what I thought of the appearance of Paris, and if I did not think the rows of grand, lofty houses which form the avenues and streets magnificent. "They are magnificent for sights," I answered. The last part of my remark made him a little suspicious, and he pressed me to explain my meaning, and I did so. Can you guess my answer?'

--'No, I cannot.'

--'My answer was to the following effect. You see, here in Paris, people who dwell in a building generally occupy only one part of it. They share a house and live in different flats and corners of the same building; and yet the people, who meet every day at their very door, do not know each other. Their rooms are generally dark, because the buildings overshadow each other. They cannot move out of their rooms without putting on hat and jacket, and generally have no spare ground attached to the house where they can rest or promenade. They seldom see the moon or the beautiful morning and evening sun, being buried in deep valleys of houses. For practical purposes, therefore, my preference is for the style of my country--I mean houses detached, though not grand and lofty, so that one can use every part of the building, from the basement to the roof, with some ground, around the building, be it large or small, tastefully laid out into a garden. I say, therefore, people who live in magnificent, high buildings may not necessarily be happier than those who live in smaller and humbler dwellings. This is what I said to that French friend of mine. Please excuse my making such remarks: I have no thought of running down your style of living, but have only been tempted to say what little good I can of my country.'

--'When spaces are available,' said Baron C, 'we also attach gardens to our houses. _Apropos_, you were at the matinée dance at the Palais Elysée, were you not?'

--'Yes, I had the pleasure of being invited by Monsieur le President and Madame Loubet.'

--'The trees there are fine, are they not?' said Baron C.

--'Yes, they are very fine, and the gathering was fine also. An incident which I experienced there was rather unique. I was walking with Madame Matoni in the crowd. We encountered two gentlemen clad in fashionable attire. Somehow or other, Madame Matoni began conversing with one of them. At the same time I heard a female voice echoing in my ears--I could not imagine where it came from, except from the gentleman with whom madame was talking. I thought it very queer, but presently I was introduced to them: they were announced as Monsieur and Madame Ecrivan. Then it occurred to me that the person whom I thought a gentleman was in reality a lady of whom I had heard something before. She was an author attired like a man.'

--'Yes, she is an author, and a clever one too,' said the duchess. 'But what did you think of the whole reception?'

--'Simplicity was, I thought, its features as compared with similar occasions in monarchical countries, but it was in unison with the constitution of the country. Then, too, although somehow or other I missed entering into the dancing pavilion, I understood the matinée dance there was customarily given chiefly for the entertainment of the orphan daughters of army and naval officers. The idea is pleasant.'

--'And what of the President?' inquired one young lady.

--'A fine old gentleman, I thought, and kind-hearted too. I was specially introduced to him, in the garden, after the formal reception. He repeatedly pressed me to put my hat on while talking with him, because the sun's rays glanced on my head through the foliage.'

--'You met with many fashionable belles there, too, I suppose,' remarked another.

--'There were Madame Riviera, who is so very vivacious, and several other ladies; I mean the wives of cabinet ministers and other high personages. But on the whole, I did not think the gathering was particularly unique for Paris, with regard to beauty.'

--'By the bye, have you ever seen Mr. Roosevelt?' asked the duchess.

--'Yes, I have. He impresses one at first sight with his enormous energy and intellectual power. He likes Japan. He was taking lessons in jiujitsu under a Japanese master when I was at Washington early last year. He told me he had been practising it three times a week.'

--'Yes,' said the duchess, 'I understand jiujitsu is much in vogue in England and America just at present.'

--'It seems so. In New York and Washington some ladies are also taking lessons, I am told; so also in England, as you know.'

--'But I suppose even in Japan it is only studied something like fencing is in our fencing schools, not as a part of the universal education.'

--'Just so,' I answered. 'It does not form a part of the general education, though it is very extensively studied in the higher colleges and schools.'

--'It looks certainly like an art worth paying attention to,' said the duchess.

--'Here, too, some time ago,' said Baron C., 'a Japanese jiujitsu master once came to Paris and gave an exhibition at a theatre, challenging, with the offer of a prize, any Frenchman who would combat with him. No Frenchman won. They were beaten one after the other. The people did not like so much humiliation, and the audience decreased, so the master had to go back to London; such is the Frenchman.'

--'Well,' said I, 'it might have been only a momentary caprice, perhaps because Japan is not your ally, but the audience could not have been diminished for such a cause as you say. There can be no notion of humiliation, because it is a question of art. However, if the Occidentals, with their natural strength and physique, become well equipped with that art, we the small Japs shall never be a match for them; so I would rather wish you Occidentals do not learn the art.'

All present broke into laughter, and in a minute or two I was once more wafted through the air and making my way elsewhere.

III

Japanese art and the West--Night-fêtes--Sale of flowers and plants--Singing Insects--A discussion on the moon, flowers, snow, etc.--Music of snow and rain--Lines on hailstones--A particular evening for lunar perspective--A blind scholar and his wife--The deaf, dumb, and blind of Japan--The calendar and its radical change in Japan--Calumnies on Japan, and an anonymous letter--Japanese ways of counting ages--The question of women and a lady's opinion on Japanese women--Lafcadio Hearn--Japanese names--Difficulty of distinguishing between 'L' and 'R'--Discussion on pronunciation--London and Tokio patois--Japanese nobility and the method of addressing nobility --Books on Japan--Once more on Lafcadio Hearn--Discussion on women's education--_The Risen Sun_

Time and space in dreamland have become more inconsecutive, and events have crowded rapidly one on another. In dreamland, moreover, one frequently sees in an incongruous group people who in ordinary life seldom come into contact with one another. Such is my experience.

Now I found myself guest at a reception given by a lady whose residence was in the neighbourhood of the Grand Opera, where I met a number of authors and critics of both sexes. Then at our Legation, near the l'Arc de Triomphe, where I was spending the evening in a large company, which included several ladies of my own country. Again at the soirée of an association interested in things Japanese, where also were members of both sexes, and then, hey presto! all these events and places would transform themselves into one single scene, as though they had been but one and the same gathering.

I remember well that at the meeting of the association a special toast was proposed after dinner by the president in my honour, to which I responded, saying how much I thanked its members for their sympathy for Japan. The little which Japan had been made known to France, or perhaps to Europe, was largely due to the appreciation of the Japanese arts by those present, and some others who had preceded them, such as MM. Bing and Guimet. I also said that a nation having an art such as ours, though perhaps not equal to the best arts of Europe, could not be so savage and wild as many calumniators represent, and further, that I wished Frenchmen, and indeed Europeans generally, would study and examine Japan a little more, and cast away their prejudices. I also remarked _en passant_ that the oriental section of the Louvre was anything but strong in Japanese _objets d'art_, Japanese painting was scarcely represented at all. Other conversations that I had were an agglomeration, so that I cannot remember where and with whom they were held.

--'By the bye, have you seen the fêtes of Neuilly?' asked a lady.

--'Yes, I have seen them,' I answered; 'but the place was so crowded, I could scarcely stand. It was interesting to watch the common people enjoy themselves. One thing which struck me most in the fête was that there were so many _ménage aux chevaux_ (roundabouts) without any horses at all. All the objects on which people were riding were other animals--even pigs, the dirtiest animal on earth.'

--'But pigs are considered objects of luck.'

--'Ah! that's an ideal notion of the civilised people, I presume.'

--'Have you any similar fêtes in your country?'

--'Yes, we have. In Tokio, especially, we have fêtes very similar almost all the year round, though not on so large a scale as your night-fêtes of Neuilly. In Tokio there are one or two fêtes in the same night in some quarters of the town. There are many small shrines in different parts of Tokio, and the fêtes are nominally in their honour. I say nominally, because most people who go there, go to see the sights or the pretty things rather than to do homage to the shrines. Each of these shrines has a certain day which is kept in its honour. In our fêtes the things most sold are small plants and flowers with their roots, so that they may be planted as they are! They are taken to the fêtes by gardeners living in the suburbs, who make this kind of business their regular occupation, and therefore the occasion is more properly considered as the gardeners' evening. Sweets, toys, and small light objects for domestic use are sold, and there are different kinds of entertainments as well. The nature of your evening fêtes seems very different. In fact, I have not seen any plants or flowers sold there.'

--'The difference seems remarkable; but what do you do with those plants and flowers?'

--'There is a difference between our common people and yours. You see the bulk of those who frequent the fête in Tokio are ordinary townspeople. They buy the plants or flowers for a small sum of money; when first offered for sale a high price is asked, but it is quite an understood thing to bargain and at last to buy at a very low price. The more advanced the evening, the cheaper one can get them. The bargaining at these fêtes is so lively that it has become proverbial, and people often say, this or that is not like buying night-fête plants. It is, however, a mistake if one were to suppose bargaining is a common thing at every shop in Japan, as in Italy or Egypt. Well, these people, however moderate their means, purchase one or other of the plants or flowers and take them home, and plant them either in their small gardens or in pots and vessels, and place them in their rooms. Some plants or flowers are already planted in a tasteful manner in pots or vessels of different shapes, so that they may be used as they are. The people are very happy with these objects. In summer and autumn all sorts of singing insects[1] are sold in pretty little cages. In the Orient, unlike in the Occident, the term insect itself is very poetic, and conveys more of the significance of the singing than of the object itself.'

--'I have always heard that your people in general are very artistic,' said she. 'I should like to follow their sentiments in regard to nature. For instance, when we look at the moon we sometimes become very sentimental.'

--'You mean in such cases as the night-scene where sweet Jessica and her lover Lorenzo sang "In such a night, in such a night as this."'

--'Exactly.'

--'Well, in that respect,' I answered, 'we are perhaps more developed than other peoples. Even the etymology of our language proves it. We have such terms as Hanami, that is a flower-seeing; Tsukimi, that is moon-seeing; and Yukimi, that is, snow-seeing. You have phrases such as "to see the flowers," "to see the moon," and "to see the snow," but these are hardly an equivalent. Our phrases imply a deeper feeling, both poetical and artistic; may even imply an act of seeing those objects in the company of congenial friends. The snow is, as I indicated, one of these sights. _Apropos_ of snow, I went to Richmond once in company with a few compatriots, to see the snow-scene in the park there, whence one commands a beautiful view of the river Thames. Many years afterwards I was asked if we had snow in my country (you know this kind of question is asked of us very often). I answered "Yes." Thereupon a lady, who happened to remember that I had gone to Richmond to see the snow there years ago, abruptly remarked, "Oh! I thought you had no snow in your country." When I replied, "What makes you think so," she said, "Because you went to Richmond on purpose to see the snow." I had then to explain that our excursion to Richmond was not because we did not know what snow was, but because we liked to see the sight. We do not get tired of seeing such scenes any more than you Europeans get tired of going to the opera, to see, or rather to hear the same opera over and over again, as for instance _Faust_.'

--'But at the opera we can satisfy our sense of sight as well as that of hearing,' said a young lady, 'but what of the snow! It has no colour, being white,--it has no sound: besides, the season must be cold and the very sight of it must be chilling.'

--'You are partly right, I admit, but is not white the very ideal of purity? Are you not very fond of it? Do not you ladies like wearing pure white dresses? Are you not wearing one at this very moment? We Japanese are very fond of white. The ideal colour of Shintoism is white. According to that creed, even for mourning, white is preferred to black. It suggests a notion of cleanliness, which is the essence of the creed. Besides, you cannot surely say opera boxes are ideally comfortable. They are not cold, it is true, but certainly they are generally stifling. One sees there scenery, but what is it compared with the grandeur of nature. Then again, you cannot exactly say snow has no sound. We, in our poetry, speak of the music of falling snow, or the music of dropping rain. Those sounds are considered especially musical in the depth of night: we even poetise the sounds of falling hailstones. There is a well-known poem on a hailstorm composed some seven centuries ago. It is a short poem, as ours usually are, but to us it gives a deep impression, and animates a martial spirit. It is difficult to translate, but it runs somewhat like this:

"Oh see in this wilderness of vast Nasu How the hailstones dash on the frozen ground! And ring on the gauntlets of hunters bold As they draw their arrows from leathern fold!"

--'Many hundred years after this poem was composed, when our country was enjoying a perfect peace, a well-known statesman, reflecting on that poem, gave his own bent of thought, as follows:

"Not knowing the age when hailstones rang On the gauntlets of warriors' hands; Warmly enveloped I lay me down, Listening all night to their dropping sound."

--'_Apropos_ of hailstones, what a strange occurrence it was the other day, when hailstones ravaged the vicinity of Paris, and that too in the height of summer. I met a compatriot and his wife, now staying near St. Germain, at a small gathering on the evening of the same day, and they described the size of the stones and the damage done to the glass of the different houses. At first no one present believed them, but my friends did their best to explain that some of the stones they picked up and put on a tray were still large when they had left their home several hours afterwards. What they said was perfectly true, for I read in the papers next morning that in some places the hailstones were like eggs and weighed on an average from twenty to forty grammes; some even two hundred grammes. But ah! how silly I am to tell you all this, as you must all be well aware of it.'

--'Never mind,' said those present, 'but please proceed with your discourse.'

--'Well, there is a particular night of the year which is considered the best for the moon-scene; the 15th of August by the Lunar Calendar. The people generally get up a small social gathering to celebrate that evening. It was on one of those occasions that Hanawa, the celebrated blind scholar of Japan, gently sang as he sighed:

"If it were a flower, I might touch it."

'The line does not sound very sympathetic when translated into a foreign language, but in the original Japanese it is full of poetry, and the meaning is understood that he could not even console himself by the sense of touch. The remark was overheard by his wife, who pathetically joined him by singing:

"This Moon! 'tis the night that makes blind men's wives weep."

--'Very fine and pathetic; but you said just now "celebrated blind scholar,"' remarked a lady. 'What do you mean by that? Do you mean to say he was a blind poet like Homer?'

--'No, he was not exactly a poet, but a great scholar. In England there was a celebrated blind scholar, Fawcett, and Hanawa was our Fawcett. He was a Professor under the Shogunate Government, and one of the best and largest collections of rare old Japanese books made by him was his crowning achievement, and we are all much indebted to him.'

--'I suppose there are as many blind, deaf, and dumb in your country as in any other?' asked another; 'and what do they do, or rather, what do you do with them?'

--'There are some deaf, dumb, and blind schools at present, and those, among them, who are fortunate, are educated there as in Europe. There was no such school in former days, but much care was taken of the blind, even more than at present.'

--'In what way?' asked she.

--'In former days the blind had several privileges. In the first place, there was a special order consisting of several degrees, which was bestowed on meritorious blind people; next, there was a law which protected blind men when lending money, so that they had great facility in getting their dues paid, inasmuch as a lay debtor was summarily ordered to pay any claim raised by a blind man. Then the musical profession was generally assigned to them, thus, the professors of the Koto, a stringed instrument, were generally blind men, and they had the privilege of giving out diplomas to their pupils. In the country parts, blind men were allowed to make a round of visits to the different houses of the gentry, singing a particular kind of war-song, called "Heike," to the accompaniment of the Biwa, another kind of stringed instrument. Then again, the Amma, the Japanese "massage" was mostly the profession of blind men.'

'You say "blind men," but what of blind women?' asked another.

--'Ah! I was wrong, for I have only spoken of blind men, but blind women were accounted much the same. But that Japanese Amma, I can never forget it, especially after hard work when one's muscles have become stiffened. It is such a soothing remedy. In Europe massage is used only for people who have some ailment, but in Japan ordinary people very commonly make use of it, and consequently a large number of blind people follow that occupation. The protection of the blind under the old régime was, of course, good in its aim, but it produced some abuse, and, besides, the great change of all methods of administration also affected the privileges given them. There is no longer any order bestowed on them, nor any special protection given to blind money-lenders, but in other respects their occupations remain pretty much the same.'

--'You have just spoken of lunar months of August,' said another: 'here in Paris the Russian Embassy and the Chinese Legation celebrate their New Year each differently from ours. Russia still sticks to the old style of calendar though solar; and China seems to hold to the lunar. How is it with you? Your calendar does not seem to differ from ours.'