We go along the street, brightly illuminated by hundreds of lanterns, pendent and ambulatory, at some small risk of being run over by rikishas taken at a rapid, nay, almost reckless pace by their active drawers.
Mousmé walks along quite gaily, her wooden clogs making a great clatter on the stones which crop up in the street, in concert with those of scores of other women who are out with husbands, brothers or escorts for an evening’s amusement or stroll. She is so naïvely proud of her “English sir,” who is a real husband after all.
We go through the streets, which at night seem all the same, all gaily lit with flaring oil-lamps, and illuminated with countless numbers of paper lanterns, which throw a mellow-coloured radiance on the faces of the passers-by; looking in this shop and that as we walk slowly along.
The sense of possession is very strong in Mousmé. Every now and again she clutches my hand or arm—though, strictly speaking, to do so is not Japanese etiquette—and fires off little nods to acquaintances. Every clutch at the sleeve of my coat means that she has caught sight of some one to whom she wishes to exhibit me as her real husband. When Kotmasu, who is a wonderful recounter of tales relating to those we meet and nod to, laughingly reproaches her with indecorousness, she says:
“What you say well enough; but I Engleesh now, you know,” with a moue and a little quick turn of her dainty head, which makes both of us laugh, and the passers-by stare in astonishment at our sudden merriment.
Yes, Mousmé is so English—in everything except what really constitutes Englishness. What a revelation England will be to her, and she to my respected relatives!
These streets we walk through are wonderful. They are all alike; the houses, of frailest woodwork and paper panelling, are scarcely varied in any particular, save that of ornamentation, from one end of the long row to the other. There are no shop fronts, no glass windows; so that intending purchasers, or even those who have no intentions other than curiosity, can take up the various articles so openly displayed, and examine them at their leisure.
This is what Mousmé delights in doing. She likes best the shops in which rich dress fabrics and women’s ornaments play an important part.
A tiny parcel, done up neatly in rice-paper, betrays the fact that she has already coaxed me into purchasing “a little present.” The shopkeepers, who squat in the midst of their wares, offer no objection to Mousmé’s inspection; and as it amuses her, why should I mind?