He doffed his kimono and placed it on a shelf. The maid held open a door. As he started to enter some one from inside was about to pass out. He stood aside; a young matron, about thirty, and two little girls, all absolutely nude. He noted curiously that in his surprise there was no hint of being shocked, they were so natural, without hint of embarrassment. Came to him instead an odd sense of purity; the impression was like that of a graceful doe with a couple of fawns, nothing more.
The room was spacious; three sides were of finely grained wood, the fourth wall being the natural hillside with small shrubs growing in the interstices among the mossy rocks whence jetted the hot spring water, effervescent, into a rill in the immaculate tile floor leading to the tank, a huge thing, about three feet deep, filled with crystal-clear water. The room was so large that there was not even the veil of steam which usually half obscures the bathers in such places. On the floor close to him were a couple of Japanese men, rubbing themselves with towels, preparing to leave. A little farther over were three women, two very young, rinsing from their bodies the soap which covered them with a creamy foam; the third, a little older, was having her back rubbed by the old bath-man.
Kent took a wooden bucket and dipped water from the tank, poured it over himself, found a diminutive wooden stool and sat down to soap himself. The men left and he was alone with the women. They paid no attention to him, ignored his presence altogether. What a graceful picture they made, holding high the small buckets whence they poured streams of the sparkling water over their smooth, slender bodies, ivory-gleaming, creamy, almost white. The bath-man poured water over the oldest girl, and all three climbed into the tank. Then he turned to Kent and began to massage his back. The girls were chatting gayly. He wished they would have finished before time came for him to enter the tank. But the bath-man had completed the rubbing; now he was sousing him with clean water. "Please, danna-san, step in. This water is very healthful."
There was nothing for it. He went to the edge. The girls regarded him disinterestedly. "Please, excuse me." He noted surprise in their glances; evidently apology had been superfluous, out of the ordinary. They said nothing. He started to climb in hurriedly, to hide his embarrassment, but drew back with an exclamation. The water was much hotter than he had expected. One of the two younger girls tittered, tried to control herself, but failed. The other became infected by it, tittered also uncontrollably; from giggles they went into laughter, grasped each other's hands, bodies shaking, sending ripples scurrying over the mirror-like surface.
"Oh, do keep quiet," the older girl managed to repress a smile. "Please, don't mind them. They're very rude, but they are so young. Anyway," she added, "you should come into the water quickly; then you don't feel the heat so much."
"Thank you very much." He plumped in. It was not so bad, after all. "It is hotter than any place I have ever been before," he explained, ashamed at having flinched.
"Yes, it is hotter here than in most places," said the girl. "So you live in Japan?"
One remark led to another. The younger girls joined in. Soon they were conversing freely, Hakone, the weather, and particularly the news of the strike, the great event of the day. As they sat there, letting the heat from the water seep into their bodies, an undercurrent of thought kept running through his mind, minutely probing analysis into his own thoughts, his impressions from this astonishing situation. Yes, here he was, with these three young women, side by side almost, immersed in this water which offered no more concealment than glass, and yet his sense of embarrassment was leaving him, had left him; even the feeling of unconventionality disappeared. He felt no different than he might have, had he been sitting with them, fully clothed, in a café. Curiously, there was not even hint of suggestive thought, erotic inspiration. The utter absence thereof puzzled him a little. Men might experience such at the fashionable seasides of America where female beauty chose to adorn itself with wetly clinging textures, boldly cut garments, designedly piquant, stirring curiosity with artfully contrived faintness of concealment—while here the very absence of suggestion, of thought on the part of these women of the man-woman idea, produced an effect of naturalness, purity even; one would feel ashamed of harboring fancies of sensuality. And yet these girls—they were quite evidently gentlewomen—would have blushed in shame should they, when on the street or any place other than the bath, suffer accidental exposure of even the slightest bit of bosom; they would disdain being seen in the daringly cut evening gown of Western fashion. In the bath this was natural, obvious; one did not bathe in clothes; this was evidently the idea.
They climbed out and prepared to leave. He watched them, as they stood erect or knelt in easy, graceful attitudes, as he might have looked at a picture. He was pleased that he had grasped the idea, the Japanese attitude of mind, that a man might look at a woman, unclothed, without taint of thought of sex.
"Sayonara." The girls smiled to him. An elderly couple came in. He climbed out, dried himself and passed out into the hall, donned his kimono and started back for the room. He mounted a flight of stairs, went down a corridor, climbed more stairs, occupied with his thought of the incident in the bath. Presently he faced a storeroom filled with great heaps of quilts. He tried to retrace his steps, but wandered into another part of the house which was unknown to him. Lost again, another labyrinth. He would inquire; but he did not even know the number of his room. The servants were all busy elsewhere. He asked a couple of young men who passed to show him to the top floor. They laughed at his predicament and undertook to guide him, but the floor they finally reached was as unknown to him as the rest had been. As they wandered along the corridors they could look into many rooms where withdrawn partitions showed each its separate little scene, parents with children, young couples, large families, groups of students, all eating, drinking, discussing the strike or their own more intimate affairs. Here and there the two young men would make inquiry, explaining the contretemps. It excited merriment. Others joined the search, became lost in their turn, pointing out directions, finding themselves baffled; still more joined the fun. It became a procession of young fellows and girls, highly amused, laughing, thoroughly enjoying the childish adventure. How likable they were, lovable in their ingenuousness; no hint here of racial antipathies. They took him in as one of themselves in this fine game which had happened so fortuitously to beguile the time. Kent came to enter into the spirit of the thing, the infectious spirit of hilarity, with the assurance that they were laughing with him, not at him; that they were all friends. He was almost disappointed when a maid who knew where he belonged came to his rescue and led him back amid laughing calls of "good luck" and "go yukkuri nasai," "don't be in a hurry to leave," from his host of new friends.