“Then I don’t think I shall like England,” says Mousmé the child.
“We shall see.”
We make our way to the terrace, bordered by tea-houses, now thronged by the beauties and golden youths of Nagasaki and the country round. At every turn we seem to meet some acquaintance of Mousmé’s, who keeps up a continuous series of bows and nods and smiles.
The grove of giant camellias, camphor-wood trees, and cryptomerias stretch out like a vast roof, the camellias covered with a wealth of blood-red blossoms which, falling in continuous showers in the vibrating air, form a crimson carpet under the feet. Even the dark recesses are luminous with the flood of light which streams from the lanterns and brilliantly illuminated interiors of the tea-houses. We find seats at last.
In an instant a mousmé with huge pins in her hair, a humble smile, and gaily rouged and whitened cheeks, brings us tiny cups of tea.
Beyond and below us we can hear noises which tell of the presence of side-shows, wrestlers, mountebanks; and the roar of approving audiences makes Mousmé hasten to drink her tea and eat her beans in sugar with the greatest possible speed.
When she has finished, we make our way along a terrace and take up our position to form a part of the audience outside a miniature theatre.
There is not much to see. What there is would scarcely amuse any one less unsophisticated in the Thespian art than the Japanese. It is something like a shadow-show. Only the horrible puppets which appear and go through almost incomprehensible antics are realities, which, in truly terrifying masks, cause Mousmé what are known as delightful “creeps,” and send her hand clutching at my arm. The noises from an orchestra of four or five which accompany the doings of the characters, some of which are a mixture of man and beast, ghoul-like and given to sudden and unlooked-for appearances and disappearances, are weird and disquieting; of harmony the musicians know nothing. Their colour tones are all blues, greens, grays, and bilious yellows; their merits, that they are in accord with the impressions of the puppets.
We remain watching these human puppets for some time, surrounded by a dense crowd craning their necks, and on tip-toe as each new shadow appears upon the scene. Some of the antics of these shadow-like forms are so monstrous that I begin to think that Mousmé is getting really frightened, and so I propose moving on to where some clever tumblers, contortionists and conjurers are to be seen.