When We Were Strolling Players in the East

by Louise Jordan Miln

CHAPTER XXII

FOUR WOMEN THAT I KNEW IN TOKIO

Mrs. Keutako

Three of them were Japanese. One was the Anglo-Saxon wife of a Japanese gentleman. Two of them I had known in America. Two of them I met for the first time in Japan.

The two girls whom I knew at Vassar College as Stamatz Yamakawa and Shige Nagai had become the Countess Oyama and Mrs. Uriu. My new acquaintances were Mrs. Keutako and Madame Sannomiya. Mrs. Keutako was a dear bit of Japanese femininity whom I always longed to seize upon and cuddle. We were really very good friends, though our conversation was very limited. She knew two words of English. I had the advantage of her inasmuch as I knew three words of Japanese.

Madame Sannomiya was one of the most powerful personalities of the Japanese Court; she was English, but her husband was a high functionary of the Mikado’s household. I called upon her with no vouchment but that of a few common acquaintances. I went to ask her kindly offices for a performance of the Merchant of Venice we were ambitious to give before the Emperor. The attempt upon the life of the Tsarevitz threw the Japanese Court into a trembling, mortified state of chagrin that doomed our little plan. But I gained the acquaintance of one of the most uniquely interesting women I ever met.

The four women of whom I am writing were, I believe, rather familiarly acquainted, because they were all, more or less, habitués of the Imperial palace. The differentiation of their individualities could scarcely have been sharper.

We reached Yokohama one night after dark. When I woke in the early morning I dressed quickly and went out for a ramble alone,—as I love to do in a new place. I felt as if I had fallen asleep and dreamed of a fairy land peopled by the figures off my best tea-cups and off my summer fans. Japan is perpetually blessed with an atmosphere as clear as crystal, as soft as down, and as sweet as incense. Nature loves Japan with the tender, yearning love of a mother for a favourite child. On Japan Nature lavishes her most fragrant verdure and her utmost picturesqueness of life. And, to end, she touches the picture she has made with some delicate trail of graceful vine, some matchless slope of hillside. She adds to the figures on the canvas the seductive witchery of unrivalled eyes, the grace of perfect manner; and the people of her favourite country echo her. The Japanese peasant, who sits upon the floor to suck his meal of raw eggs, has a handful of superb flowers in a graceful vase; and the floor upon which he sits is white and clean. But, as I was to learn, Yokohama is nothing to Tokio. You meet Europeans in almost every street in Yokohama. I have been days in Tokio without seeing a European. There are, I believe, only six European ladies resident in Tokio, and proportionately few European men.

It was in Yokohama that I first met Mrs. Keutako. My husband had mailed a letter of introduction to Mr. Keutako only that morning, and had added a line, saying, “My wife and I are coming to Tokio for a few days next week, and I shall give myself the pleasure of calling upon you.” The response was very prompt and very Japanese. It was this: a basket of beautiful roses was brought to my dressing-room that night, with a card on which was written in English, “With Mrs. Henrico Keutako’s compliments and welcome.” When the curtain rose we saw in the front row a Japanese gentleman in European evening dress; beside him sat a breathing Japanese doll, with glancing, dancing eyes, and brave with exquisite Japanese raiment.

We sent out a note begging them to have supper with us after the play. When the curtain fell Mr. Paulding brought them on to the stage. How the dear little woman bowed; then she laughed and patted my hand, put her dainty finger on her lips, and shook her head. I bore her off in triumph to my room. Mr. Keutako was a Harvard graduate, and had spent some years in England. We could hear him and my husband talking in the next room. But I don’t believe they enjoyed themselves as much as we did. My guest took a wild, childish delight in everything. She tried on my rings and made me try on hers; she tried on several pairs of my slippers; she was greatly amused at my hare’s foot; she pantomimed to me to “make her up”; she was in an ecstasy over my blonde wig. The only English she knew was “Thank you,” but she said it over and over. While she was investigating all my little belongings, I looked at her. She was dainty and little, of course. Her skin was a few shades darker than mine; her black hair was dressed with extreme Japanese elaborateness; she was clad in robes of pale-blue and pale-pink crêpe, and an outer robe of rich brown satin dotted sparsely with pale-blue flowers and lined with pale-pink silk. Her obi was of black and silver, and was fastened in front with three or four flashing diamonds. She wore four or five more fine diamonds on her pretty hands, and a big turquoise, that must have felt very heavy on the wee finger. She wore a deep-red rose at her throat. On the shoulder of her kimono was embroidered her coat-of-arms; that is a custom with the Japanese of gentle birth on state or semi-state occasions. She had paid me the compliment of wearing one of her Court kimonos, though I didn’t know it at the time. She wore segregated white-silk stockings. She had thrown off her shoes before she would come into my untidy little den. The only European detail of her attire (except the fashion of her rings) was a sheer white handkerchief edged with Valenciennes. I think it was rather an innovation, for she kept drawing it across her little scarlet lips, and every time she did so she looked at me and laughed. She was evidently very puzzled to find that I had joss sticks burning in my room. She moved like a bird; she laughed like a child. She had gleaming white teeth, and that indescribable charm of person and manner which is the great birthright of every Japanese woman.

Japanese courtesy is infectious. When we were ready to go, I took up her little shoes and tried to put them on her. She snatched them from me with a pretty little cry of affected horror; she wiped my hands with her handkerchief. She laughed and bowed, and bowed and laughed, and said “Thank you, thank you.”

When she saw where the two gentlemen stood waiting for us she skimmed across the stage like a humming-bird. Seizing her husband by the arm, she spoke rapidly in Japanese. He translated, “My wife asks, have you any children?” When he told her, “Yes, I had two,” she made him tell me that she had two. And then she danced back to me and threw her arms about me, and laughed so softly. Bless it! What a womanly little person it was! We couldn’t speak together. Considering that we were both civilised, our methods of life could scarcely have been more different. But our babies had made us friends. We went to our ’rickshaws with her arm still about me; and I felt as if I were again a schoolgirl, whom some younger child had singled out and favoured with a caress.

It is pleasant to ride at midnight in a ’rickshaw through the streets of Yokohama. We seemed to be the only living things awake. We glided almost noiselessly along the silent streets. The naked feet of the coolies who drew our quaint two-wheeled carriages fell almost without a sound upon the soft roads. Whenever Mrs. Keutako’s ’rickshaw ran near mine, she waved her hand and laughed, and laughed and waved her hand.

MRS. KEUTAKO’S DAUGHTER. Page 242.

Our hotel was run on European lines. It was very late, and I was unable to make any radical change in the menu of our supper. Mr. Keutako we found pleasant and intelligent. He was a prominent member of the Japanese Parliament. He was evidently familiar with all our viands, but our supper-table was palpably a mensa incognita to his pretty little wife. She watched her husband with shy slyness, and tried to do what he did; but I could see that she didn’t like our food. I managed to get a tin of salmon, for I knew that the Japanese are as invariably fond of fish as cats are. She ate the salmon readily enough, though it was new to her, and she nibbled a few vanilla wafers as she sipped her champagne, with which she seemed to have a dainty acquaintance. When we had left the table I asked her (through her husband) if the gentlemen might smoke. She nodded and laughed, and drew from her obi a microscopic silver pipe; she filled it with half a thimbleful of tobacco, mild as corn silk, which she carried in a silken pouch slung from her obi. She lit it, using a match with difficulty. She was accustomed to a small box filled with glowing coals. She handed her pipe to me; I found that one breath exhausted it. Among many other things typical of this interesting people, I afterwards learned that all Japanese women of fashion carry their pipe and pouch when they pay a visit. Their smoking together is an interchange of courtesy. The tobacco is almost tasteless, and one puff marks the length of the prescribed smoke. Our husbands talked, and, at her request, I showed her my baby clothes, and took her upstairs to see my sleeping children. When we came back to our sitting-room, she suggested, through her husband, that we should smoke cigarettes. I had been in the habit of smoking, semi-occasionally, one or two cigarettes in the strictest conjugal seclusion. I never had smoked before but one gentleman; but I thought the circumstances demanded any possible deviation from my usual customs. The gentlemen found a great deal to say to each other; while they talked we smoked. The next morning I had the almost unknown affliction of a headache. I learned from Mr. Keutako that his wife suffered sooner and less pleasantly. She had suggested, as I supposed, a Japanese custom. On her part, she thought that she was proposing a custom universal with European women. I have often wondered which of the ladies of the European Legations in Tokio was indirectly responsible for the maladresse from which we both suffered. I often reflect how much better it always is to be natural if one can do so without gaucherie.

A few days later we went to Tokio. I used often to wonder how it was that people were content to live and die in the gray Occident and never look upon the picture of the Orient. I never wondered more than when we were in Tokio. I know of no capital in Europe so comfortably and generously planned, except Vienna. The cities remind me of each other in many ways. The streets of both are broad and clean. Both are rich in parks, in drives, in trees, and in places of refreshment. Both are peopled by a pleasure-loving, pleasure-seeking race. Tokio is very beautiful, and it would be ungrateful of me not to mention that Tokio has one of the best hotels in the world.

The Imperial Palace is surrounded by three beautiful moats, all strictly guarded. It is impossible to look upon, much less to pass into, the holy of holies, the home of the Mikado, unless your presence is desired there. Even the members of the Legations know the palace very superficially, and enter even its outer rooms but rarely. I believe Madame Sannomiya to be the only European who has really seen the interior in anything like its entirety.

The architecture of Tokio varies from humble to elaborate; but it is all picturesque, and, in the heart of the city, all Japanese. Many of the nobles, who chiefly live in the suburbs, build very Western-looking houses. The width of the principal streets is almost unequalled. In the great parks blossoming vine strives with blossoming vine, and flowering tree crowds flowering tree. Amid them stand quaint statues of quaint gods, and carved and gilded figures. The distances in Tokio are immense; but I soon grew glad that it was so,—every inch of the long way was so thick with interest. The bazaars have not been robbed of their native colour by travelling multitudes of Europeans. Around Tokio are her hundred temples; many famous, all marvellous, and not to be indicated by a few hasty lines. The air blows softly through the carved portals, and gently sways the golden bells that hang from the jewelled ceiling; and that air is unpolluted by the breath of many Europeans.

We visited the Keutakos. The father dressed as a European. The mother, the children, and the servants wore the national costume. The customs of the house were Japanese; but I was surprised to find the rooms furnished in the European mode. There was a bust of Scott in the library, and an engraving of the Coliseum in the dining-room. When I coaxed Mrs. Keutako to take me upstairs I found everything different. She seemed afraid I would not like it; and I think she never believed that I thought it infinitely prettier than the reception rooms downstairs. But it was! The floors of the long, shady rooms were covered with cool, quaint mattings. One room pleased me particularly. A long, low screen stood near one end of the room; an inviting cushion was thrown near it. At the other end of the room was a tall blue vase, filled with chrysanthemums and fleur-de-lis. There were not a dozen articles in the room; but each thing in it was perfect. The Japanese always give a work of art the advantage of being framed in ample space. This is one reason why a Japanese interior is so effective; another reason is that they are very loath to give house-room to anything that is not a work of art.

Mrs. Keutako was always at ease. We spent long hours together alone. We could not speak to each other, but she never let it embarrass her or me. She let me amuse myself as freely as she had amused herself in my dressing-room. She understood how glad I was to quietly watch ordinary Japanese home-life. She had a hundred ways of entertaining me. Sometimes she would beckon me into the kitchen that I might see what was being cooked, and how. She sent for her hairdresser that I might see his wonderful methods. Sometimes she would steal behind me as I sat reading, and drop a rose on to my book. Sometimes it was her soft ball of a pet kitten; often it was her soft ball of a baby. One day she made her amah undress her, and dress her again, that I might see just what a Japanese woman wore, and how it was put on. She emptied her chests of clothing for my diversion. It was a wonderful collection. She was very fond of dress, and her husband delighted in gratifying her; besides, she had many garments that had been in her family for generations. She showed me her wedding-dress, she kept it in a sandal-wood box, and touched it reverently.

She was devoted to her two little girls. They were pretty, and oh, so quaint! They were well-behaved, but not painfully so. They climbed over their parents and begged for sweets for all the world like my bairns. The elder spoke a little English.

Their mother never was guilty of the stupidity of speaking to me in Japanese; but she would take a fantastic little instrument (I forget its name) and sing sweet, tinkling Japanese songs as she played upon it for me.

She had been brought up in luxury. She was the wife of a rich man. She had plenty of servants; still, she sewed a little, a very little. But she supervised her house perfectly; and she helped her husband a great deal in his political working. I have known her to copy notes for him, and write from his dictation, by the hour, when his secretary and he were over busy. And I know that he often consulted her about the turn of a sentence or a fact of history.

The last time I was in Tokio I was alone. I was there on business, and I was hurried. I only found time to call upon the Keutakos. She received me with the warm affection of an old friend and all the ceremony of Japanese etiquette. She gave me clear tea (no milk or sugar) in rare cups, without handles, and about the size of big thimbles. Then she gave me sweetmeats from a small lacquered chest of drawers. Each drawer contained a different kind of sweet; they were all made of sugar, tinted and shaped in imitation of some flower or leaf.

When I had to go she gave me a silver pipe she had bought for me. It was in a satin case, and the case matched a pouch which was filled with Japanese tobacco. A little white box held the whole. I made her write her name upon it, and mine. We often handle it, and speak of her and her husband, and I set great store by the excellent photographs she gave me of her two babies.