Long before the beautiful band had finished their poem and dance of the four seasons, twilight had fallen. Andons, or saucers of oil, burning on high stands inside square paper lantern frames, made Rembrandtesque effects. Everything was lost in shadow but the figures of the maiko moving over the shining mats. One tiny girl of thirteen, belonging to the house, slipped in and out with a bronze box and snuffers, and, kneeling before the andons, opened the paper doors to nip off bits of the wicks. The child, a miniature beauty, was grace itself, gentle and shy as a kitten, blushing and quaintly bowing when addressed.
It was six hours after the entrance of the tabako bons before the guests rose to depart. All the troop of maidens escorted us to the door, and after endless bows and farewells, sat on the mats in matchless tableaux, their sweet sayonaras ringing after us as our jinrikishas whirled us down the dark avenues of Shiba.
Cha no yu might well be a religious rite, from the reverence with which it is regarded by the Japanese, and a knowledge of its forms is part of the education of a member of the highest classes. Masters teach its minute and tedious forms, and schools of cha no yu, like the sects of a great faith, divide and differ. The cha no yu ceremony is hedged round with the most awesome, elaborate, and exalted etiquette of any custom in polite Japanese life. Weddings or funerals are simple affairs by comparison. The cha no yu is a complication of all social usages, and was perfected in the sixteenth century, when it was given its vogue by the Shogun Hideyoshi. Before that it had been the diversion of imperial abbots, monarchs retired from business, and other idle and secluded occupants of the charming villas and monasteries around Kioto. Hideyoshi, the Taiko, saw in its precise forms, endless rules, minutiæ, and stilted conventionalities a means of keeping his daimios from conspiracies and quarrels when they came together. It was an age of buckram and behavior, when solemnity constituted the first rule of politeness. Tea drinking was no trivial incident, and time evidently had no value. The daimios soon invested the ceremony with so much luxury and extravagance that Hideyoshi issued sumptuary laws, and the greatest simplicity in accessories was enjoined. The bowls in which the tea was made had to be of the plainest earthen-ware, but the votaries evaded the edict by seeking out the oldest Chinese or Korean bowls, or those made by some celebrated potter. Tea-rooms were restricted to a certain size—six feet square; the entrance became a mere trap not three feet high; no servants were permitted to assist the host, and only four guests might take part in the six-hour or all-day-long ceremony. The places of the guests on the mats, with relation to the host, the door, and the tokonoma, or recess, were strictly defined. Even the conversation was ordered, the objects in the tokonoma were to be asked about at certain times, and at certain other times the tea-bowl and its accompaniments were gravely discussed. Not to speak of them at all would be as great an evidence of ill-breeding as to refer to them at the wrong time.
The masters of cha no yu were revered above scholars and poets. They became the friends and intimates of Emperors and Shoguns, were enriched and ennobled, and their descendants receive honors to this day. Of the great schools and methods those of Senké, Yabunouchi, and Musanokoji adhere most closely to the original forms. Their first great difference is in the use of the inward or the outward sweep of the hand in touching or lifting the utensils. Upon this distinction the dilettanti separated, and the variations of the many schools of to-day arose from the original disagreement. To get some insight into a curious phase of Japanese social life, I took lessons in cha no yu of Matsuda, an eminent master of the art, presiding over the ceremonial tea-rooms of the Hoishigaoka club-house in Tokio.
There could be no more charming place in which to study the etiquette of tea drinking, and the master was one of those mellow, gentle, gracious men of old Japan, who are the perfect flower of generations of culture and refinement in that most æsthetic country of the world. In the afternoon and evening the Hoishigaoka, on the apex of Sanno hill, is the resort of the nobles, scholars, and literary men, who compose its membership, but in the morning hours, it is all dappled shadow and quiet. The master was much pleased at having four foreign pupils, and all the hill-side took an interest in our visits. We followed the etiquette strictly, first taking off our shoes—for one would as soon think of walking hob-nailed across a piano-top, as of marring the polished woods of Japanese corridors, or the fine, soft mats of their rooms with heel-marks—and sitting on our heels, as long as our unaccustomed and protesting muscles and tendons permitted.
THE NESANS AT THE HOISHIGAOKA
First, bringing in the basket of selected charcoal, with its pretty twigs of charred azalea coated with lime, Matsuda replenished the fire in the square hearth in the floor, dusted the edges with an eagle’s feather, and dropped incense on the coals. Then he placed the iron kettle, filled with fresh water from a porcelain jar, over the coals, and showed us how to fold the square of purple silk and wipe each article of the tea-service, how to scald the bowl, and to rinse the bamboo whisk. For cha no yu, tea-leaves are pounded to a fine powder, one, two, or three spoonfuls of this green flour being put in the bowl, as the guests may prefer a weak or a strong decoction. Boiling water is poured on the powder, and the mixture beaten to a froth with the bamboo whisk. This thick, green gruel, a real purée of tea, is drank as a loving-cup in the usu cha ceremony, each one taking three sips, wiping the edge of the bowl, and passing it to his neighbor. The measures and sips are so exact that the last one drains the bowl. Made from the finest leaves, this beverage is so strong that a prolonged course of it would shatter any but Japanese nerves.
