As we go along towards the lower and harbour end of the town, the crowd of people gets denser and denser. If the terrors of horses—Nagasaki is as guiltless of horses as Venice itself—driven or ridden, were added to the djin-harnessed rikishas, one would walk along at momentary risk of annihilation.
But the djins are wonderfully active and intelligent, and avoid obstacles with marvellous ability. There are few corns in Japan, and the wheel of a rikisha over one’s feet, therefore, is of somewhat less moment.
Mousmé flutters along at my side, chattering in Japanese, and English of a sort, gay and contented, her sense of the ludicrous being aroused every now and then by the sight of one or other of her countrymen in the garb of civilization—Western civilization, that is. A Japanese in European attire in Europe may be an artistic mistake; in Japan an inartistic atrocity. There are several of these about, in out-of-date pot-hats, and tail-coats of the year before last’s cut. Even Kotmasu, who himself is attached to pseudo-European attire, laughs at them. How queer they look!—the pot-hat cum a fringe of black, shining hair beneath its brim, and other really picturesque garments.
We are getting tired, and Mousmé’s natural lust of buying useless things is increasing.
Unfortunately, she has been told I am “one very much rich man.” Kotmasu—who is beginning to pine for the geishas—and I have our arms uncomfortably full of purchases——little lacquer boxes, fantastic hair-combs and pins, silk sashes, a tiny silver tobacco-pipe with tortoises, frogs and tiny lizards scarcely bigger than a pin’s head crawling up the chased stem, boxes of plums preserved in sugar, and French bonbons purchased at a ruinous price. All this is very strange, and even Mousmé’s recklessness is charming, captivating.
There is no time for the theatre now, so Mousmé and I make our way to a tea-house, and Kotmasu, who has been such a long-suffering companion of our peregrinations, goes off to see the geishas, and, I fear, a somewhat improper variety entertainment.
The chaya is full of its patrons. Such a crowd of mousmés and their escorts; and very few of the crimson-and-gold covered futons (cushions), which are negligently arranged for the use of the guests under the verandah overlooking the garden, are vacant. So we step out into the garden, and enter a quaintly constructed summer-house built to accommodate two.
We have scarcely seated ourselves, after my having drawn aside the paper shutters on the garden side, ere a charming little scrap of an attendant mousmé, with a dress of yellow silk and scarlet satin obi, presents herself to take our orders.
She stands in the lantern-light just outside the doorway, caressing her knees with her tiny hands, and smiling and showing her pretty teeth in anticipation of receiving a “good order.”