Before each guest were set the tabako bon, a tray holding a tiny hibachi with live coals lying in a cone of ashes, and a section of bamboo stem for an ash-receiver. Then came the tea and sweetmeats, inevitable prelude to all good cheer. Next the nesans set in front of each guest an ozen, or table, not four inches in height, on which stood a covered lacquered bowl containing the first course, a tiny cup of soy, or piquant bean sauce, in which to dip morsels of food, and a long envelope containing a pair of white pine chopsticks. The master of the feast broke apart his chopsticks, which were whittled in one piece and split apart for only half their length, to show that they were unused, and began a nimble play with them. In his fingers they were enchanted wands, and did his bidding promptly; in ours they wobbled, made x’s in the air, and deposited morsels in our laps and upon the mats alternately. The nesans giggled, and the host almost forgot his Japanese decorum, but the company patiently taught us how to brace one chopstick firmly in the angle of the thumb and against the third finger. That stick is immovable, and the other, held like a pen with the thumb and first and second fingers, plays upon it, holding and letting go with a sureness and lightness hardly attained with any other implements. The supreme test of one’s skill is to lift and hold an egg, the round surface making a perfect balance and firm hold necessary, while too much force applied would cause disasters.
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Innumerable courses of dainty dishes followed, accompanied by cups of hot saké, which our host taught us to drink as healths, offered by each one of the company to the others in turn, rinsing, offering, filling, and raising the cup to the forehead in salutation, and emptying it in three prescribed sips. Custom even requires one to offer a health to the nesans, which they receive with a modest and charming grace.
Midway in the feast three charming girls in dark crape kimonos, strewn with bright maple-leaves, slipped the screens aside and knelt on the mats with the koto, samisen, and tsuzumi drum, on which they played a prelude of sad, slow airs. Then the gilded panels disclosed a troop of dazzling maiko in soft blue kimonos brocaded with brilliant maple-leaves and broad obis of gold brocade, the loops of their blue-black hair thrust full of golden flowers, and waving gold fans painted with gay maples. To the melancholy accompaniment of the geisha, they danced the song of the maple-leaf in measures that were only a slow gliding and changing from one perfect pose to another. Watching these radiant creatures in their graceful movements, we were even deaf to the soft booming of the temple bells at the sunset hour, and the answering croak of the mighty ravens.
These maiko and geisha, professional dancers and singers, are necessary to any entertainment, and are trained to amuse and charm the guests with their accomplishments, their wit, and sparkling conversation; lending that attraction, brightness, and charm to social life, which wives and daughters are permitted to do in the Occident. The maiko dances as soon as she is old enough to be taught the figures and to chant the poems which explain them; and when she begins to fade, she dons the soberer attire of the geisha, and, sitting on the mats, plays the accompaniments for her successors and pupils. Until this modern era, the geisha were the most highly educated of Japanese women, and many of them made brilliant marriages.