In and out of these side streets flowed a multitude of boys and men, in unbelted summer robes of light colors, lazily vivacious, moving on naked, clogged feet, making the air a bluish haze of cigarette smoke. In the blazing dusk they suggested the populace of some crowded Spa strolling to the pools in flowing bath-robes and straw hats. On some of the far balconies Barbara could see women leaning, in ornate costumes, smoking tiny pipes. Here and there girls strolled past her, for the most part in couples, gaudily clad, their cheeks white with rice-powder, their lips carmined, their blue-black hair wonderfully coaxed and pomaded into shining wings and whorls, thrust through with many jeweled hair-pins, like slim daggers. They jested freely with the men they passed, laughing continually with low voices. In a doorway a slim girl, dressed in deep red, gleefully tickled with one bare foot the hide of a shaggy poodle vainly essaying slumber. As she went on, the crowd became more numerous; men's kimono brushed Barbara's skirts and eyes stared at her with contemplative boldness.
"Madame!"
She felt a hand pluck her sleeve. It was a young Japanese, in foreign dress, with a shining brown derby, shining aureated teeth, and shining silver-handled cane. "Madame wishes a guide?" he inquired. She recollected him instantly as the youth who had slipped into her hand the printed card when she had landed from the ship at Yokohama. She did not know the name of the theater she had left, however, so shook her head and hurried on.
Without warning she emerged into the nun-like quiet of a park with an acre of growing trees and an irregular little lake that lay dark and still under the moon. Beside it was a stretch of hard, beaten earth, seemingly a playground. Benches were set under the trees, and among them moved or sat other girls in costumes like those she had seen on the pavement. At sight of Barbara's foreign dress some of them giggled with amusement and called to one another in repressed, laughing voices. A bell struck somewhere, and, as though this had been a signal, they all rose and departed, passing out by the way Barbara had come.
She traversed the park—to come face to face with a high palisade. She took a new direction, only to come again on the same barrier. The park seemed only a part of a vast inclosure into which she had penetrated. Had this no outlet save the gate at which she had entered? Wondering, she retraced her steps to the lighted pavement. She was puzzled now, and turned into one of the cross streets. Its blaze of light, its movement and murmur of humanity bewildered her for a moment; then what she saw instantly arrested her.
The lower stories of most of the abutting buildings had for fronts only lattices of vertical wooden bars, set a few inches apart. Inside these bars, which made strange, human bird-cages, seated on mats of brocade, or flitting here and there, were galaxies of Japanese girls, marvelously habited in chameleon colors—even more brilliant than the geisha she had seen at Mukojima—like branches of iridescent humming-birds or banks of pulsing butterflies. Here and there, a foil to the fluttering cages, stretched a silent arcade brilliantly lighted and hung with women's photographs. Above each was fixed a placard with a name in Japanese characters.
What was this place into which she had strayed? She had heard of the famous "Street-of-the-Geisha," where the dancers live. Had she stumbled on this in the throes of some festival? Why were there no women on the pavements? She had seen none save those in the gaudy robes whom the bell had called away. What was the meaning of the high palisades?—the narrow gate with its stolid policemen?—the barred house fronts?
Projecting on to the pavement, at the side of each building, was a small, windowed kiosk like the box-office of a theater. In the one nearest Barbara a man was sitting. His arm was thrust through the window, and his hand, holding a half-opened fan, tapped carelessly on its side while he chanted in a coaxing voice. Inside a man with close-cropped gray hair strode along the seated rows, striking sharply together flint and steel, till a shower of gleaming sparks fell on each head-dress. This done, he emerged and paced three times up and down the pavement, making squeaking noises with his lips, and describing with his hands strange passes in the air. These reminded Barbara irresistibly of a child's cryptic gestures for luck. He then struck the flat of his hand six times smartly against the door-post and retired. She noticed that he paused at the entrance to snuff the row of candles that burned in a shrine beside it.
The whole street, with its rows of gilded cages was a gleaming vista of tableaux-vivants, drenched in prismatic hues. Each, Barbara noted, had its uniform scheme of costume: one showed the sweeping lines and deep, flowing sleeves of the pre-Meiji era; another the high, garnet skirt of the modern school-girl; in one the kimono were of rich mauve, shading at the bottom to pale pink set with languorous red peonies; in another, of gray crepe figured with craggy pine-trees; in a third, of scarlet and blue, woven with gold thread and embroidered in peacock feathers. Before each inmate's cushion sat a tiny brass hibachi, or fire-bowl, in whose ashes glowed a live coal for the lighting of pipes and cigarettes, and a miniature toilet-table, like a doll's-cabinet, topped by a small, round mirror. From tiny compartments now and then one would draw a little box of rouge, a powder-puff of down, or an ivory spicula, with which, in complete indifference to observation, she would heighten the vivid red of a lip, or smooth a refractory hair. The background against which they posed was of heavy and exquisitely intricate gold-lacquer carvings of stork, dragon and phoenix, of cunningly disposed mirrors, or of draped crimson and silver weaves. Before the bars men paused to chat a moment and pass on: behind them the gorgeous robes and tinted faces flitted hither and thither with a magpie chatter, with glimpses of ringed fingers clutching the lattice, and of naked feet, slim and brown against the flooring.
Barbara watched curiously. She was no longer conscious that passing men studied her furtively—that here and there, through the slender bars, a delicate hand waved daringly to her. In all the fairy-like gorgeousness she felt a subtle sense of repugnance that kept her feet in the middle of the pavement. She noted now that, however the costumes varied, they agreed in one particular: the obi of each inmate was tied, not at the back, but in front. It seemed a kind of badge. Somewhere she had read what it stood for. What was it?