IV
I was seated in the office of that flourishing Tōkyō newspaper, Yorodsu Chōhō—waiting for my friend the sub-editor, whose name, Kishimoto Bunkyo, will one day be famous, when my tedium was enlivened by an apparition. In spite of the care taken to entertain foreigners in the waiting-room of that popular journal, I had been bored. The square of Brussels carpet, the presence of table and chairs, the permission to keep one’s shoes on, the literary delights afforded by Macaulay’s “Essays,” Washington Irving’s “Sketchbook,” and Mr. Stead’s “If Christ came to Chicago”—all these things failed to dispel that ennui, born of perpetual waiting, which only Oriental patience can endure. Suddenly entered this welcome apparition, feminine, furious. “Is there any one here who speaks English?” it asked impetuously. The old door-keeper, catching at the sound “English,” muttered the word “Kishimoto,” and climbed the stairs in quest of my friend. The apparition and myself were thus left alone, and eyed each other furtively, with embarrassment. At any other time I should have been delighted to make the acquaintance of this pretty, smart American, but an instinct warned me that her business was private and delicate. I pretended to be absorbed by the dreary violence of Mr. Stead. Kishimoto descended, alert and smiling. The apparition, thrusting a lady’s visiting-card before his eyes, did not smile, but said rapidly:
“That’s who I am. About that paragraph in yesterday’s paper; who wrote it?”
“It was our reporter, madam. He is not at the office to-day, but if you wish to make an appointment——”
“Can he speak English?”
“No, madam, but I shall be pleased to put my services at your disposal, if I can be of any use. Personally my responsibility is limited to the English column, whereas——”
“I know, I know. Well, just tell your reporter that my husband’s real mad about this, and he don’t intend to let it drop. Likely as not, he’ll be round here with a horse-whip, if your editor don’t make some kind of apology or explanation. Good-day to you.”
The apparition disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. I looked reproachfully at Kishimoto. “Personal paragraphs?” I asked. “Are you trying to attack Americans with their own weapons? And why don’t you leave ladies alone?” He explained that Mrs. Kurumaya, the pride of Idaho, was married to a Japanese professor, and had recently come to Tōkyō with her husband. As there happened to be a German from Idaho in the same hotel, the materials of a ménage à trois were too tempting to be neglected by a sharp penny-a-liner. Hence the paragraph, the scandal, and the apparition. “And what next?” I asked. “The editor will censure his informant, insert an apology, and banish the matter from his readers’ memories by fresh paragraphs of a similar character.”
Ten minutes after we had forgotten Mrs. Kurumaya and her grievances, for Kishimoto had invited me to visit his quarter of Hongō, and on the way thither we engaged in a vain effort to find the grave of the painter Hokusai. Yet the indications given by Professor Revon in his careful monograph seemed exact. We discovered the little monastery of Sekioji (divine promises) near Asakusa, and, having traversed the short avenue of cherry-trees which leads to the temple door, began our search among the black, lichen-stained tombs. In the third row we should have found a stone bearing on one side the words—
“Hokusai, of Shimōsa Province,
Famous Genius, Sincere Man,
Died May 10, 1849.”
and on the other a poem, which the old man of eighty composed on his death-bed, one summer evening half a century before—
“Lightly a man’s soul,
Lightly a fire-fly,
Passes in summer
Over the plains.”
But though a young priest came to our assistance, the neglected row of undecipherable inscriptions guarded their secret, and we were obliged to give up the search.
Kishimoto could not understand the foreigner’s admiration for Hokusai, and regarded it with the same tolerant contempt as most Germans exhibited thirty years ago towards admirers of Wagner. “There is nothing noble,” he cried, “in his pictures, nothing sublime. He simply reproduced the vulgar street scenes in which he lived. Even his drawings of Fuji, the holy mountain, are defiled by grinning carpenters and ostlers.” He promised to show me specimens of what his countrymen considered far higher art when we should reach his father’s house, and in effect, when we were seated in a pretty tea-room, overlooking a large garden, he unrolled for me some fine kakemono by Sesshu, Yeitoku, and Kiyonaga, which his family cherished with intense veneration. But nothing could arouse in me the enthusiasm which he evidently felt for three or four pieces of Chinese calligraphy. There was, of course, no colour in such masterpieces, no historic or anecdotic interest, for he assured me that the words themselves had no particular depth or beauty. Their sole charm consisted in the divine sureness of touch, which had traced the intricate flying characters through a maze of stroke and curve, and it seemed to my untrained intelligence that to appreciate them properly one must be a brush rather than a man.
From kakemono we turned to masks, of which he had a splendid collection. Students of Japanese demonology could have told me many weird stories of the cruel, leering monsters, whose faces reflected so vividly the devilish imagination of their makers. But Kishimoto only knew one story, and that rather a pretty one, concerning Kijin, whose rank in the diabolic hierarchy I have not been able to ascertain. He had it from a Buddhist nun, his aunt, and it bears every mark of having been invented pour les jeunes filles.
The Story of Kijin and O Kamma San.
“When her mother died O Kamma was so overcome with grief that she lost for a time all interest in living. Every day she laid flowers on the grave and every night she cried herself to sleep. But, when a month had passed, her father, who was of a gay disposition, loving music and saké, scolded the girl severely, saying, that since it was the will of Heaven that his sezénnin, or faithful housewife, had left the world of tears, it was undutiful to make the survivors miserable by perpetual Ah-ing, and impious as well. So O Kamma kept a bright face while she went about her household duties, and contrived every evening to slip up the hill to the temple of Kiyomizu-dera, where she prayed to the Most Compassionate One, the goddess Kwannon, whose countenance was gentle as her mother’s had been. But when this habit had brought her into a peace of mind which was not remote from happiness, her father took a wife from among the geisha of Shimabara, whose jealousy and cruelty soon made her stepdaughter’s life unbearable. She discovered that the girl’s chief pleasure was her nightly visit to Kiyomizu, and, as she did not dare to forbid her openly to go to the temple, she would set her long tasks, saying, ‘You must not leave the house until you have mended all the shōji,’ or ‘First finish embroidering this kimono.’ But O Kamma worked twice as hard as before, and never once missed her evening prayer to the goddess. Then the wicked stepmother tried to frighten her out of going. One night she hid herself behind a pillar of the temple, and when the girl entered darted upon her wearing the fearful mask of Kijin, whose teeth glittered fiercely in the twilight. But O Kamma said, ‘Bite me if you will, O Kijin Sama; I shall still say my prayers.’ And then the tables were turned. For a scream of terror came from the geisha’s lips, and when Kamma rose from her knees she saw that the devil’s mask was so tightly fixed that it could not be removed from her stepmother’s features. The latter, in an agony of fright, cried out to the girl to pray for the help of the Most Compassionate One. So Kamma interceded with Kwannon, and the demon let go of the wicked woman’s face; but from that time she lost all beauty and lightness of heart, nor did she interfere any more with the filial piety of O Kamma San.”
Having shown me his private treasures, Kishimoto very kindly proposed taking me to some exhibitions, which would at least be strange, if not beautiful. We drove first to the Chrysanthemum Show at Dango-zaka, where my friend pointed out to me more kinds of blossom than I can remember; but some, by reason of their fanciful names, it would be impossible to forget. There were “White Dragon” and “Sleepy Head,” a heavy disc with towzled petals; “Fisher’s Lantern,” of which the dark lustre showed like velvet beside the blushing pink-and-white complexion of “Robe of Feathers”; “Starlit Night,” resembling frost-flowers; and, most marvellous of all, a galaxy of various sorts and colours, radiating by the grafter’s patient skill from a single stem. Fearful of outraging his refined taste by such vulgar curiosity, I persuaded the sub-editor to wait for me in the tea-house which faces the river, while I followed some gaping women and children into twopenny shows which delight and instruct the simple. There, trained over trellis-work or encasing figures of wood and wax, the docile chrysanthemum evokes familiar scenes from legend or play. Chrysanthemum warriors pursue chrysanthemum maidens; chrysanthemum Danjuro dances the cryptic measure of Jiraiya before a chrysanthemum frog; chrysanthemum elephants, castles, warships, monkeys, and demons compose a fantastic universe in which the flowers seem turned to magic serpents, which simulate and strangle all other creatures.
“What do you think of them?” asked Kishimoto, when I rejoined him. “Have you ever seen such monstrosities before?” “No,” I answered; “they suggest to me a collaboration between Madame Tussaud and the author of the ‘Arabian Nights.’” “Well,” he said, “since you mention the ‘Arabian Nights,’ how would you like to hear one of our professional story-tellers? Shall we dine at Asakusa and go to a yosé afterwards?” “You anticipate my heart’s desire, and lay up for yourself undying gratitude. Let us go to a yosé.”
At the Isemon Restaurant delicious shrimp-cutlets and delightful geisha made of dinner a rather protracted ceremony. When we arrived at Tsurusé, near the Nihon-Bashi, only a few seats at the back of the room were unoccupied. We had paid 30 sen (about sevenpence-halfpenny) at the door, and the nakauri, a daintily-dressed waiting-maid, charged only twopence for tea, cushion, and tobacco-box. On the curtained platform at the opposite end of the hall a zenza, or débutant, was relating a comic anecdote, which greatly amused his auditors. Like so much Tōkyō humour, the laughter was calculated to flatter the townsman’s shrewdness at the countryman’s expense. A farmer, whose son had gone to make a living in the capital, received a telegram asking for a pair of new shoes, stout and solid, such as only the provinces can produce. Proud of his telegram, the first which had been received in those parts, and believing the mischievous information of a neighbour who saw his way to an excellent joke, the father had the shoes made and hung them on the telegraph-wires, never doubting that they would at once be transported to Tōkyō. Soon after the crafty neighbour took down the shoes and substituted an old pair of his own. When the farmer happened to pass by in the evening, he was astounded by the excellence and promptness of telegraphic communication. “Look, my friends,” said he; “in half a day I can send my son a pair of new shoes and receive his old ones in return.”
A Professional Story-teller.
The zenza was followed by a tezuma, or conjurer, whose tricks, though exceedingly deft and graceful, were such as I had seen before. Then came a mimic, whose impersonations of popular actors provoked much applause. At last, after a musical performance which served as interlude, the famous raconteur, Sukeroku, continued his elaborate historical romance, dealing with a Japanese Perkin Warbeck, whose pretensions to the Shōgunate had caused much dissension among the adherents of the Tokugawa dynasty. Evidently the frequenters of the yosé, like the bulk of playgoers, prefer mediæval to modern topics. As the venerable author tapped with his fan on a little wooden slab to emphasise his points, and passed with rich elocution from incident to incident, the audience followed with rapt attention. Abruptly, as it seemed, he arrested his narrative, and the formula “To be continued in our next” was legible in the half-expectant, half-disappointed looks of his hearers. Before leaving I gathered a few particulars about the profession of a hanashika or story-teller. An established artist, or shinuchi, will receive 100 yen (about £10) a month (during half of which period one tale will continue from night to night), or perhaps 60 per cent. of the takings. He may receive this sum from three or four yosé, since the hanashika form a corporation and have branch-houses in all the chief towns. Many of the more famous, like Hakuen and Encho, publish their stories after they have been delivered orally. I was not able to hear the English story-teller, Mr. Black, whose knowledge of Western literature and Japanese speech enables him to draw on a larger répertoire than his colleagues. Foreigners who desire to accustom their ears to the sound of the language will find the yosé infinitely more useful than the theatre, for the style is less literary and the diction less artificial.