CHAPTER XXV
TOM STREET
I had been in Yokohama about half an hour when he opened our sitting-room door and informed me in charmingly broken English that he was my jinrickshaw coolie that my husband had engaged him, and that he was ready to start as soon as I was. As it was about ten o’clock at night, as it was dark, as I was very hungry, and our dinner was just coming in, I entreated him to defer until the morning the appointment my husband had been kind enough to make.
“You did not lose much time in getting me a ’rickshaw here,” I said to my comrade as we were dining.
“No;” was the answer; “a fellow waylaid me on the verandah. He seemed amazingly ambitious to go, and as you are more ambitious to go than any other person I ever met, I thought him just the steed for you, and hired him.”
I was up early the next morning—very early indeed for me. I stole out, meaning to take a solitary ramble, but my “pull man” jumped at me and intercepted me with a clean, cozy ’rickshaw.
In all Yokohama there was not such another ’rickshaw coolie, I am sure. He taught me half that I know about Japan, and I am confident that what he taught me was true—he taught it so inadvertently. He insisted that his name was “Tom Street.” He never would own to having any other or more Japanese appellation. When I saw that he really wished to be known, only as Tom Street, I could not, of course, question him further. I had a theory that he was a Japanese nobleman in disguise, but the theory did not merit serious investigation. In the first place he had no disguise; in the second place, I fancy that the police is the most plebeian body ever joined by a high-born Japanese.
The Japanese are very romantic; they are sensational; they are emotional to a degree. They reminded me in many ways of the French. They have more self-control than the French, but are not without a French touch of hysteria. The spirit of mad romance, of almost affected chivalry which led the rônins of old Japan to deeds of extreme, elaborate, and artistic valour, is still rife in Japan, and spurs her jeunesse dorée to strike strange attitudes in strange places. The Japanese would sometimes be ridiculous were they not so invariably graceful. As a matter of fact, they are never ridiculous; their grace is so great that it amounts to national dignity. We find a Japanese gentleman standing on civil guard at the street corner. He calls us a ’rickshaw, tells us the time, and is the angel of general information that a well-regulated policeman should be. We think Japanese situations amusing sometimes, but they never approach burlesque.
MRS. KEUTAKO’S BABY. Page 224.
The Japanese have quaint epidemics. Once they had a Chinese epidemic: everything with them was Chinese. Once they had a Corean epidemic: everything was Corean. Then they have almost hysterical reactions. Some years ago they had a European epidemic. They sent the flower of their youth to Europe to be educated. The ladies of fashion sent to Paris for their frocks, and every man in Japan who could afford it bought a pair of English boots, a frock-coat, and a stove-pipe hat. When we were in Japan a reaction had begun. Europeans were less liked than they had been. When the attempt was made upon the life of the Tsarevitch it fed the growing flame of Japanese dislike of Europeans. That dislike has, I hear, been growing steadily ever since. It culminated a few days ago in an attack upon a venerable Anglican Archdeacon, who was brutally assaulted on the streets of Tokio. At least I hope it has culminated. I hope there is nothing worse to follow. It will decrease again as causelessly as it rose, this anti-foreign feeling, and we shall ride again upon the pretty rainbow-hued waves of Japanese popularity.
It all comes from the over-sensitiveness of the Japanese people. It never comes from their badness of heart, for they have none. Their hearts are essentially good. It is all a misunderstanding. Let us remember that, and provoke it as little as possible. Above all, we must never laugh at the Japanese. That they never forgive. I laughed at them once. It was a tender, loving laugh, that ought not to have bruised the wing of a butterfly, nor hurt the face of a baby. It was a mere smile compared to the laughter I have freely hurled at my own people and had them join in heartily. It was simply nothing compared to the uproarious laughs I constantly have at my own expense. And I indulged myself in it at a most respectful distance, away off here in London. But it gave great offence.
I once described a red house as white, a house I had seen in Tokio some years before. This caused quite an excitement, and I was condemned in eloquent, if not elegant English in the pages of a great and good paper published in Japan—but published in English.
There is no people that I admire more than I do the Japanese. But I must describe Japan as it appeared to me, even though it brings upon me an abusive editorial from far Cathay.
The Japanese are super-sensitive. If they were not, they could not be the most exquisite artists, the daintiest artisans on earth. We owe Japan so much—so much that we can perhaps never pay—that we owe it to ourselves to deal very gently with her few faults. And they are such gentle faults! Let us remember that the Japanese are the most sensitive nation on earth, and that for all their genius of assimilation they are not wholly en rapport with our coarser Western ways.
And yet it would be to them a distinct national gain if the Japanese could learn that the truest dignity does not search for offence, nor seize upon it too trivially,—if they could learn that no nation ever was or ever will be perfect, not even the Japanese nation, and that no criticism that is entirely laudatory is of the slightest value.
When we were in Japan the feeling against Europeans mumbled and crept. Now I hear that it is standing erect and declaiming loudly. It has been throwing stones and mud in Tokio. It will fall asleep again,—let us hope that it will sleep itself to death. Perhaps, if we are very good and prove ourselves quite worthy the steadfast friendship of Japan, we may gain it. That is to be desired; for Japan is the garden of the world—the Eden of the nineteenth century, and it is a pity that we should be shut out of it, or admitted on grudging sufferance.
Tom Street knew his Yokohama well. He knew where all the pretty views were and all the lovely bits. He used to whisk me round a corner with a dramatic, impressario sort of air, when we came upon a place of exceptional beauty. He would often stop and say authoritatively, “You draw that.” Then he would saunter off to gather me an armful of wild flowers. Many’s the hour that I’ve sat a few yards from some lovely thatched cottage and tried to sketch it and a bit of its blossoming, perfumed hedge. Tom always told me frankly what he thought of my attempt; but he was a good-natured critic. If I had my box of water-colours with me he would always contrive to get me a dish of water, begging it from a cottage or dipping it from a brook. Often I took my little son with me, sometimes in my ’rickshaw, but oftener in another. That never prevented me from sketching. Tom would amuse the child for hours. Together they gathered flowers, and Tom wove the flowers into queer combinations. He built a house once of wild asters, and made a doll who had a blush rose for a face and a gorgeous kimono woven of wistarias. He used to teach my boy Japanese in a natural kindergarten system; and he told him quaint Japanese legends and made him marvellous Japanese puzzles. Sometimes they chased each other up and down the warm hill-slopes. Often the baby went to sleep; then Tom, looking very important, would bring him back in his arms, and put him on my lap or lay him in his own ’rickshaw.
Tom knew all the choice shops and the crazy bazaar byways where genuine curios were to be picked up, if one had industry, perseverance, enthusiasm, and discrimination. He took a keen interest in my purchases, and would often ask the amah to show him the contents of a bundle. He laughed with delight at my soft heaps of rainbow crêpe. He actually tried to buy from me a piece of bronze that I had picked up in Tokio. He knew something of bronzes did Tom; for a Yokohama curio dealer offered me just twenty-five times what I gave for my bronze vase, if I would sell it. Tom told me bluntly that I had paid too much for a piece of Satsuma; but he was in an ecstasy over a rather unusual water-colour I got in Yokohama.
Tom was a very well dressed ’rickshaw coolie. He wore strong, whole shoes, long, neat stockings, and a coat or shirt, and short trousers of strong, dark-blue stuff. He was crowned with a white straw sailor hat; it had a clean white ribbon on it, and in the ribbon Tom often stuck a rose. He was a handsome fellow, splendidly strong; and, for a Japanese, very large. He was very anxious to come to Europe, and begged us to bring him. He would do any work we liked, and would work for two years for nothing. He was intensely curious about the West. He never questioned me; but often, when he was waiting for me, he would creep near the verandah steps and ask my husband, “You do this in New York?” “You have that in London?” “One strong man earn plenty in England?” He read English rather fairly and was anxious to write it. My husband wrote his name for him in a blank book. Tom was enchanted. Almost every day he would bring the book to show how he had improved.
There were a great many Americans in Yokohama, and they were all delightful people. We had a man-of-war in the harbour, and the charming fellows who officered it came ashore continually. Admiral Belknap very kindly loaned us his band, and by doing so rescued us from an orchestral condition that was dire.
What happy days and nights we spent in the home of the American gentleman who is the editor of a breezy Yokohama paper! His wife and I had common friends in San Francisco, and when I sat in her charming home and watched her graceful ways, and her pretty children, I almost felt that I was home once more. I should have quite thought it but for the strange flowers in the vases and the kimonoed servants. I have everywhere found newspaper people a most delightful part of the community. In Yokohama, in Shanghai, in Hong-Kong, in Singapore, in Calcutta, and in a score of other Eastern places I remember with very great pleasure our journalistic friends. Soldiers and sailors and their wives are a little nicer than other people, I think, and next to them I have found the ink-stained fraternity companionable, interesting, and likeable.
“What about actors?” some one asks. They are my brothers and sisters; I am proud of them and I love them. But it will be more becoming of me, perhaps, to let some other pen praise them. Then, too, we met very few actors in the East, save our own little contingent.
Two charming Boston women used to send me white roses from their pretty garden. What a place of delight and of restful refinement their house was! I love to think of it, and of them. In all Yokohama we did not meet one obnoxious American. There is no society more delightful than the nicest American society, and in Yokohama there was great social wealth,—American and English.
We were out in our ’rickshaw, my boy and I, on the thirtieth of May. Tom pulled aside to let a little procession pass, and my heart gave a great thump. The man-of-war’s men came marching slowly on. They carried the United States flag at their head, and the band was playing, “Hail Columbia.” It was Decoration Day, and the Americans in Yokohama had been through the scorching sun to lay roses on the graves of the American sailors who had died in Japan and been buried in the Yokohama European Cemetery.
Night falls upon Japan a starlit blessing. I used in Yokohama to go, between the acts, on to the landing of the theatre outer steps. They were the steps that led to the “stage door” and were nowhere near the parts of the house to which the public had egress. How strange it used to seem to me! The steps led down to a fantastic garden. The flowers were hidden beneath the gray shadows of the big-leafed trees. The band—the kindly-loaned band of our flag-ship—was playing, “Way down upon the Swannee Ribber.” Then they changed into, “Massa’s in the cold, cold Ground.” As the sweet darky melody sobbed into silence, the pathetic music of the blind shampooer’s cry came from the city, and the most plaintive song of Japan mingled with the most plaintive song of America.
I know nothing more characteristic of Japanese good taste and of Japanese kindliness than the place of profitable industry that Japan has found for her blind. In Japan massage is only a less perfect luxury, less perfectly a fine art, than it is in Hindoostan. And what could be more fit, what could speak more trumpet-mouthed of their national delicacy, than that to the blind of that nation has been given the monopoly of massage?
They walk about the streets alone—do the blind shampooers of Japan. They are as fearless as they are safe. The sad note of their whistle is an appeal to the kindness and the protection of their people. It is an appeal that is answered with universal and invariable generosity and chivalry. I remember, in Japan, many a night that was absolutely silent save for the sorrowful sound of these poor sightless givers of rest and of sleep. I recall no night through which I did not hear their one drear note.
I long to tell how we did not play before the Mikado. But there must be limits to a chapter, even when it is written by a woman; and I must squeeze the story of nights of plotting and days of diplomacy into a page.
We were ambitious to play the Merchant of Venice before his Majesty and his Court. We brought to bear influence that we thought not inconsiderable, but we failed. We might, perhaps, have succeeded had it not been for the mad coolie who tried to kill the Tsarevitch. That struck a deathblow to our hope, and we missed the privilege we craved of unfurling the banner we loved, the pennant of great English drama, in the palace of the Mikado. But we tried very hard, and to our persistence I, at least, owe many of my happiest memories. “All successes rise phœnix-like from the ashes of some failure.” We failed to play before the Mikado,—but to that failure I owe the two most unique experiences I had in Japan.
One was a jinrickshaw ride from Yokohama to Tokio, the other was a performance of Julius Cæsar that we gave in a Japanese theatre to a Japanese audience. Not an audience of cosmopolitanised Japanese, but an audience of the insular Japanese populace. That was the funnier experience; the other was the more enjoyable.
As a matter of fact, we played twice in the Japanese theatre; once in the afternoon, once in the evening. Our auditors sat on benches—very low benches—and squatted on the auditorium floor. They behaved better than we did, for we laughed when we should have been tragic. I was sorry at the time for my individual misconduct. I had not been guilty of inappropriate laughter on the stage since the first season of my professional life. But they were so irresistibly funny, those hundreds of gaping, kimonoed humans. Many of them, very many, were women. Every woman seemed to have a baby, and the yellow rolly-polies did everything that babies would naturally be expected to do at a very fine performance of Julius Cæsar. It was a droll experience; but we were glad the next night to return to the European theatre and our more sophisticatedly sympathetic audience.
I had great difficulty in inducing Tom Street to pull me from Yokohama to Tokio. He assured me that I could, in a fraction of the time and for far less money, go on the train. I assured him that I knew all that, but that I had often been by train, and that I was determined to go once by ’rickshaw. Tom was positively melancholy, but after I had threatened him and my husband had bribed him, he consented. I forget how far it is from Yokohama; I never remember those nice sensible useful points. But it was between fifteen and twenty miles.
We started in the early dawn, which in Japan, in June, is very early indeed. John, the Madrassi, was up betimes, and bullied some one into boiling me an egg and making me a cup of coffee. My husband drew an ulster over his kimono and came out to see me start. Amah lined the ’rickshaw with a lot of cushions and we started.
Tom had a mate, a happy looking, muscular fellow. He was called a “push man.” In Tokio when there are two coolies to one ’rickshaw they both pull, running tandem; but in Yokohama when there are two, one pulls and one goes behind and pushes. One is a “pull man”; one is a “push man.”
Tom and his fellow changed places several times en route to Tokio. They rested twice; about fifteen minutes each time. Three hours and a half after I left Yokohama, I had had a warm bath and was leisurely eating my delicious breakfast in the Tokio hotel.
Our journey had been through the country and through small villages—villages where you might search in vain for one taint of Europe.
I questioned Tom about everything I saw that morning, and about everything he told me intelligently enough, and, as I afterwards learned, accurately. He was one of the people, and he knew them and the manner of their lives.
About half-way between Yokohama and Yeddo we halted at a toll-gate. I paid the few coppers the old woman in charge demanded of me in the name of the Government. I bought a horrible liquid something that I could not drink; my coolies ate raw eggs with gusto; and then on we went. Our second and only other halt was after we had reached the outskirts of Tokio. The coolies ate snow mixed with sugar and saki, and served in long slim goblets.
I was so delighted with my ride that I gave each of my coolies a yen, and told them to rest all day, and be ready to start back at five o’clock that evening. At two o’clock, when I came in from the business calls I had been making, the proprietor of the hotel calmly informed me that Tom and his friend had returned to Yokohama, and had left word for me to come by train. I was very angry, for I had counted on that ride through the Japanese gloaming. I spent a long, busy day; and when I went back at night my anger had evaporated. Tom was at the station to meet me.
“How did you dare leave me?” I demanded. “How did you know that I had enough money to come home on the train?”
“You had plenty yen,” he said; “you gave us two.”
Housekeeping is delightful in Japan, but less easy than it is in China. Most of the Japanese servants were, like Tom, extremely quick and capable, but liable at times to take the domestic bit between their teeth.
When we left Yokohama I gave Tom three yen more than I owed him. He abused me roundly for not giving him more; but he gave my boy a souvenir of Japan, and waved his straw hat as we put off from the pier.
I long to see Japan again, to feel the soft breeze of her myriad fans, to see the glimmering light of her innumerable lanterns, to smell the perfumes of her blossoms and her joss sticks, and to watch the gay, gossamer flight of her countless butterflies.