I pulled them off. The keeper, grinning at their weight, added them to a line of wooden sandals placed along the wall; and the stout woman led me to a small room with a balcony opening on the street. Everything about the place made me feel as if I were a giant among pigmies: the low ceiling, covered with gayly painted dragons; the walls, mere sliding screens of paper stamped with flowers and strange figures; the highly polished floor of such light boards that they bent under my feet with every step. With a flying start I could have run straight through the house and left it a wreck behind me.
Osaka: One of her many canals.
The room was entirely unfurnished. My hostess placed a cushion for me in the center of the floor, and clapped her hands. A servant-girl slipped in, carrying a tray on which was a tiny box of live coals, several cigarettes, a joint of bamboo standing upright, and a pot of tea with a cup and saucer. Having placed her burden at my feet and touched her forehead to the floor, the maid handed me a cigarette, poured out tea, and remained kneeling a full half hour, filling the tiny cup as often as I emptied it.
When she was gone I picked up the joint of bamboo, fancying it contained sweetmeats. It was empty, however, and I was left to wonder until the hostess returned. When she understood my motions, she began to explain by talking rapidly; but I shook my head. Then, with a wry face, she caught up the hollow joint and spat into it. The thing was merely a Japanese spittoon.
A maid soon served supper. She brought first of all a table some eight inches high; then a great wooden bucket brimming full of hard-packed rice; and, lastly, several little paper bowls. One held an oily liquid in which floated the yolk of an egg; another a small boiled turnip; a third a sample of some native salad; at the bottom of a fourth lay, in dreary loneliness, a pitiful little minnow. Of rice there was enough for a squad of soldiers, but without it the meal could not have satisfied a hungry canary.
As I ate, the girl poured out tea in a cup that held a single swallow. Fortunately, I had already learned how to use chop-sticks, or I should have been forced to eat with my fingers. As it was, it took a great deal of skill to possess myself of the swimming yolk; and he who fancies it is easy to balance a satisfying mouthful of rice on the ends of two slivers has only to try it to discover his mistake.
I fancied I might have to sleep on the polished floor; but the hotel-keeper’s wife glided in once more, and asked, by resting her head in the palm of her hand, if I was ready to go to bed. I nodded, and at her signal a servant appeared with a quilt of great thickness, which she spread in the center of the floor. This seemed of itself a soft enough resting-place; but not until six pudding-like covers had been piled one on top of the other was the landlady content. Over this couch, that had taken on the form of a huge layer-cake, the two of them spread a coverlet,—there were no sheets,—and backed out of the room. They returned shortly after dragging behind them a great net. While the matron fastened the four corners of the top to hooks in the ceiling, the maid tucked the edges under the stack of quilts, so that the net formed a sort of tent over my bed. I crawled under it, and was soon asleep.
Horses are rare in Japan. Men and baggage are drawn by coolies.