“And the daughter? Did the Taiko get her after Rikiu’s death?” we asked, as we sat waiting in Senké’s garden, listening to the many histories connected with the place. “Wakarimasen” (I do not know), said our friend, with that Japanese indifference to the end of a story that so perplexes the western mind.
Senké has a lovely garden beyond the palace walls, and reached by deserted streets, whose blank walls shelter aristocratic homes. Crossing a court, we crept through a small door in a large gate-way and entered this retreat, whose floor was all irregular stones, covered evenly with a soft, velvety, green moss. Upon this verdant surface fell dappled shadows and an occasional ray of sunshine from a canopy of maple, cherry, and pine branches, carefully clipped and trained so as to form an even tent-roof over the whole enclosure. The stillness was unbroken, though upon this strange paradise looked out a dozen exquisitely simple tea-rooms, each isolated and sheltered from the view of any other. Pupils come to Senké from all parts of Japan, but even when every tea-room is in use the same hush reigns. To subdue us to what we were to work in, and to enhance Fortune’s supreme favor of a cha no yu in the Taiko’s manner, we were made to wait and wait before we were invited into the cool twilight of a large tea-room. The house has been burned twice since Hideyoshi’s day, but each time has been exactly reproduced, so that virtually we sat where the Taiko had sat for many hours, and we used the veritable bowls, spoons, trays, and tea-caddies sanctified by his touch three hundred years ago. The Taiko’s crest was on the simple, gold-flecked screens of the room, and an autograph verse on a kakemono, and a single pink lily in a bronze vase, were the ornaments of the tokonoma.
Senké, now past seventy years of age, receives few pupils himself, but neither he nor his handsome son of about thirty years is wholly incurious as to the strange fashions that have entered the country since the Restoration. We bowed with the profound solemnity of mourners, but with the vigilance of spies we watched Senké as he built the fire, laid on the white azalea charcoal, dropped some chips of sandal-wood, and boiled his historic iron kettle. Then followed the feast of many delicate dishes—tea; bean-soup, with bits of egg-plant; raw fish with shreds of daikon and fresh ginger; tai-soup, with sea-weed and mushrooms; broiled ai, with shoyu; bamboo-soup; dried Shikoku salmon; broiled birds; Kaga walnuts, preserved in a thick syrup, and other dishes; each course accompanied by rice, and ending with barley-water. An old iron saké-pot and shallow red lacquer saké-cups were passed around with the various dishes, and we gravely pledged one another and the master who served us. When the dried fish was brought in my Kencho friend nipped off some choice bits with his chop sticks and offered them on a paper to our host, who ate them, and put the paper in his sleeve. At the end of the feast the first guest—the one sitting nearest the tokonoma—wiped all his bowls and dishes clean with paper, which he put in his sleeve, and we followed his example. With the thirteenth course we gathered up our tray of sweets and retired to the garden, waiting there until soft strokes on an old bell called us back to the room, which had been swept, and the picture and vase in the tokonoma changed. Senké, too, had replaced his dark gauze kimono by one of pale-blue crape, and sat in a reverent attitude. With infinite deliberation he went through the solemn rites, and duly presented us each with a bowl of green gruel more bitter than quinine, twelve spoonfuls of powdered tea being the measure used. This was his koi cha. The usu cha was a less strong decoction, demanding a simpler ceremony, and was served in a bowl passed around for all to sip from in turn. Previous study enabled us to note intelligently every movement of the old master, and the significant position of each thumb and finger, hand, elbow, and wrist, as the venerable artist of cha no yu exemplified the grace and niceties of the “outward” school.
At the proper time we asked the history of the implements used in the ceremony. The na tsume, or tea-bowl of Raku ware, in Jo-o shape, belonged to Rikiu, Jo-o having been the teacher of Rikiu, and the arbiter of the form of many implements of cha no yu. The little bamboo slip with a flat, curved end, which lifted the powdered tea from its box, was cut by Rikiu. It bears no decoration or mark, and is of the ordinary shape; but this commonplace cha shaku cannot be bought for even two hundred dollars. The Emperor Komei, father of the present Emperor, was taught by the elder Senké, and bequeathed to his master various autographs and an incense-box of great antiquity. Driven though he is by the spirit of innovation and progress, the present Emperor occasionally enjoys a few quiet hours at cha no yu. The Empress is most accomplished in its ceremonial, and delights in the little poems which guests are always expected to write for the host.
When the moment arrived for the production of these tributes at Senké’s tea, our Japanese friends dashed them off in an instant, as if, with the return to their ceremonial silk gowns, they had returned to the habits of thought of old Japan, when poetry filled the air. But one of them whispered, to encourage us, “I have been thinking it these two weeks.”
With regret we saw cha ire (tea-caddy), cha wan (tea-bowl), cha sen (tea-whisk), and cha shaku (teaspoon), tied up in their precious brocade bags, and, with profound obeisances, we took leave of Senké, feeling that for a day we had slipped out of our century, and almost out of our planet, so unlike is the cha no yu to any other function in this irreverent, practical, and pushing era.
Of our friend, who had drained two or three bowls of it, we asked, “Does not this strong tea make you nervous, keep you awake, give you the cha ni yotta, or tea tremens?”
“Oh no,” he answered; “I do not drink enough of it. I am very careful. But my friends, when they begin the study of English and foreign branches, find that they must stop drinking it. The English seems to bring into action many nerves that we do not use, and the drink is probably exciting enough in itself.”
Foreign teachers say the same thing, and at the Doshisha school tobacco must be given up, though, next to tea, it is the great necessity of the Japanese.
Kioto’s maiko and geisha performances are, of course, more splendid than those of any other city. The great training-school of maiko conforms to the classic traditions, and critics and connoisseurs assemble at the Kaburenjo theatre each spring when the famous Kioto dance, the Miakodori, is given by troops of maiko.