[ Page 264.]
Each year that passes sees a few more stores adopting the habit of fixed prices, not to be altered by haggling.
[ Page 282.]
On another occasion the good offices of the fortune-teller were sought concerning a marriage, and the powerful arranger of human destinies discovered that though everything else was favorable, the bride contracted for was to come from a quarter quite opposed to the luck of the bridegroom. This was no laughing matter, as the bride was of a noble family and the breaking of the engagement would be attended with much talk and trouble on both sides; but, on the other hand, the family of the bridegroom dared not face the danger so mysteriously prophesied by the fortune-teller. In this predicament, there was nothing to do but to pull the wool over the eyes of the gods as best they might. For this purpose the bride with all her belongings was sent the day before the wedding from her father's house to that of an uncle living in another part of the city, and on the morning of the wedding-day she came to her husband from a quarter quite favorable to his fortunes. It seems quite probable that the gods were taken in by this somewhat transparent subterfuge, for no serious evil has befallen the young couple in three years of married life.
[ Page 317.]
To the American mind this method of terminating relations is always irritating and frequently embarrassing, but in Japan any discomfort is to be endured rather than the slightest suspicion of bad manners. If the foreign visitor is trying to learn to be a good Japanese, she must submit patiently when the servant solemnly engaged fails to appear at the appointed hour, sending a letter instead to say that she is ill; or when the woman upon whom she is depending to travel with her the next day to the country receives a telegram calling her to the bedside of a mythical son, and departs, bag and baggage, at a moment's notice, leaving her quondam mistress to shift for herself as best she may.
[ Page 318.]
Among the many changes that have come over Japan in the transition from feudalism to the conditions of modern life, there is none that Japanese ladies regard with greater regret than the change in the servant question. As the years go by and new employments open to women, it becomes increasingly difficult to engage and keep servants of the old-time, faithful, intelligent sort. Notwithstanding increased pay, and the still existing conditions of considerate treatment, comfortable homes, and light work, it is hard to fill places vacated, even in noble households: and there is almost as much shaking of heads and despondent talk over the servant question in Japan to-day as there is in America.