He hastened to cut her short. "Yes, I know. But it is far. Let us have tiffin first. Where? What do you prefer, Japanese or foreign food."
He knew she would prefer the rare experience of a foreign restaurant, as Japanese girls almost invariably do. They went to one of the best in Tokyo, a large, airy place thoroughly modern, a hot, wet towel in a small wicker tray, for wiping the face after the meal, being the sole concession to Japanese custom. As he sat facing her, he watched appreciatively the dainty grace with which her slim fingers, long practiced in agile manipulation of chopsticks, managed easily the unfamiliar silver. She was enjoying it, flushed a little, happily. He knew he would gain pleasure from this germinating friendship.
He wished to call a taxi, but she restrained him. "No, Uyeno is not so far. We will go by tram."
But why bother about a crowded tram? Taxis were not such a luxury.
"But they are a luxury. Why should we spend money needlessly when the masses of the people must ride in trams or even walk. It is wrong." Her earnestness amused him. The deep seriousness of her expression lent her a charm as that of a child artlessly philosophizing. What odd surprises they held, the minds of these Japanese girls, ideas shaped from impressions gained God knows where. They compromised on an auto-bus.
The exhibition was crowded. It had always pleased him to note the character of the people who thronged such places, art galleries, concerts, theaters, high and low, rich and poor, a great number, in fact, persons to whom even the smallest fee must mean sacrifice of some material need. And here they were, as usual, small merchants, poorly paid artisans, some even fairly close to the coolie type, solemnly, seriously viewing the pictures, saying but little, absorbing, gratifying a natural, spontaneous love of beauty. What would happen to a New York bricklayer should he suggest to his mate that they go to see the Metropolitan Art Gallery? The grotesque contrast of the idea amused him.
They went through the Japanese art section first. He always enjoyed this part the best, for while he had small technical knowledge of art, he sensed a subtle gratification from the consummate perfection which the artists of Nippon had attained in this field of their own where century after century of painstakingly striving lovers of beauty had succeeded in gradually climbing higher and higher towards fashioning in concrete form the mirages of their vision. The eye rested, filled itself with the wealth of delicate beauty of pure, surely drawn lines, marvelously blended symphonies of color, almost imperceptible nuances of shade and tint, a myriad of infinitely carefully elaborated details which the makers contrived to weld into perfectly balanced, full-toned consonance. There were the tremendous six-leafed screen paintings, incidents from legend or history of feudal Japan, knights in armor with long two-handed swords, archers with bow and quiver, women in scintillating kimono and elaborate coiffure, or, of even more ancient period, in simple flowing robes and with hair falling loose over their shoulders, reminiscent of the art of China, the original inspiration whence Japan had worked out that which was now her glorious own. There were landscapes on screen or scroll, serrated crag and cliff with gnarled pines overhanging foaming stream or glittering waterfall; quaint and charming bits of life of old, or still existing but ever disappearing Japan,—dancers in graceful postures, young girls in boats, slender lily hands lying languidly in limpid waters, brown old men, sickle in hand, garnering the rice, each ear of hundreds drawn with veritable botanical accuracy of detail, still retaining the free, swaying grace of nature.
It always cost him an effort to leave this section to enter that devoted to art after Western fashion, which was constantly, year after year, encroaching on, elbowing out of the way that fashioned after the ideals of old Japan. A few years ago there had been only a couple of these modern rooms; now those of the old and the new were almost even; soon the latter would predominate entirely. It seemed such a pity; it irritated him, the relentlessness of this march of progress? Still, it was in its way more instructive than the other, gave concrete, graphic illustration of the ideas and ideals of the young generation, what it was seeking, striving for, more or less uncertainly, but always coming nearer to the goal ever shimmering before it, mastery of the modern, the new culture.
They were improving. Every year the exhibitions showed more certain mastery of technique, better grasp of the spirit of the French art which seemed to be the almost universally accepted school. Kent admitted it to himself grudgingly; every step in advance in this direction meant defeat of the old. What would it all amount to, after all? Even if, with their amazing facility for copying, for imitation, they might produce work which was creditable, which might pass muster even in Europe, as, in fact, some of the things he saw before him might, they would probably never climb out beyond the mediocre, would never attain original achievement. There were some very good portraits, excellent flower pieces, though, of course, this was but natural, considering that this subject was a preëminent favorite with the Japanese schools. Even some of the landscapes were undeniably fine, though, he noted, this was the case especially where some Oriental subject had been chosen, great, carved junks with blood-red sails glaring in the sunlight against a faint blue sky; mountain scenes following largely the composition of kakemono subjects, the delicacy of the latter being replaced by the more massive boldness made possible by the medium of canvas and oils.
He felt that he was ungenerous; still it irritated him that they should be making such headway in their apostacy. Only the nudes gave him an incongruous sense of satisfaction. They were atrocious and the exhibit was cluttered with them. In the old art of Japan, kakemono, color-print and screen, they were virtually unknown, but during the last few years the craze for them had swept over the moderns like an obsession; the very fact that they were utterly new to Japan, the sense that they were unconventional, modern, outré, was undoubtedly the reason. So there they were, scores of them, clumsy masses of female flesh, blatantly brazen, in all sorts of absurd and contorted attitudes—and all these women were not nude, they were naked. The conception of the spirit, the idea of their French masters, the verve, the élan, they had missed it all. The paintings were bad, and the sculpture, with which the rooms were filled, was worse. Evidently these young enthusiasts had rushed forth fanatically intent to place on canvas something naked; almost anything would do. The clumsy, paunchy forms, shapeless limbs, invariably thick ankles, all seemed to indicate that they had found their models where best they might, among country wenches and servant maids, bringing forth on canvas or from clay mere lumps of flesh, utterly soulless reproductions of female kind.