Ikamon arose and stepped out of the tasselled chair, and stood waiting to assist Yasuko. Ready and willing maids had already spread the leopard skin, and as she thrust forward her dainty, white stockinged feet, two gold-lacquered shoes were placed for them. Her husband extended his hand, and she arose, gracefully walking toward the house where is known the golden crow and the jewelled hare, the laws luxury and mans inheritance.
The prime minister drew from his girdle a string of cash which he scattered, and a horde of thankful underlings scrambled for the bounty. He too entered the privileged house, and soon after, taking his proper leave, retired to his own chamber, where he planned and schemed the grandest geisha party that his age had known.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE GEISHA PARTY
The giving of a geisha party such as Ikamon proposed involved no small amount of preparation and entailed much thought and care, yet when the Harvest Moon camefor that was the time selectedeverything had been gotten in readiness, and Maido and his family occupied their booth, surrounded by all that luxury and refinement could offer to still the cares of man. Shibusawa entered into the spirit of the occasion with every possible determination to do his part, but down in his heart there lived a yearning, and with each repeated failure came a corresponding hope for Kinsan. He had sought her long and earnestly, and now grasped at each straw. Would she, could she be there that night?
The young prince could not avoid facing Takara, who sat to his left, across the big auditorium, and each look from her burned into him a still deeper sense of his ingratitude. Tetsutaisho occupied an adjoining booth, and no color in Shibusawas cheek escaped his eye. An inner consciousness smote him, and he looked out into the brilliant scene before him for relief.
And as he became transported, that subtile, elusive something seemed all but there, for the geisha party, the universal and proper form, probably fits the case quite as well as any other opera or means devised for the diversion of mankind. Here, in ancient Japan, it is the very acme of united, contributive art, and whether the affair be a small or a grand one matters not; the ever festive and elastic geisha meets the emergency. If but the modest return of a chance relation, whereupon the trifling consequences of a happy trade in jack-knives is discussed, or if it be the social fête, where the destinies of a monarch are framed and harangued, the geisha party is the occasion, and it stands for all that opportunity may or can require. No demand can be too exacting, no hope too flattering. It paves the way to good-fellowship, and inspires the heart to nobler deeds. Ikamon chose it as a means for bringing together the best in the land, and he used it as an instrument to touch them, to sway and move them.
The matter of finding a suitable place had worried him, and going in person to all of the noted tea houses, one after another, he discarded them as being inadequate or impracticable. Ryogoku, Tsukiji, Asakusa, and others in turn were visited, and none offered suitable accommodation. His wants were exacting, and as he went from place to place his imagination grew and requirements multiplied beyond all hope of fulfilment.
Uyeno pleased him most; here he found at least an ideal spot, endowed by nature with all that is lofty and inspiring. The spacious park lay upon a gently sloping hillside, terminating in a high promontory, jutting out over the nestling roof tops far below. From the quiet of its level there stretched away to the right, to the left, and in front, a million earnest, faithful homes. The glistening, silvered waters in the distance had again and again marked the stately course of the splendid Harvest Moon in her onward march with time, while from the background came the breathless hush of the forest, the silent mysteries of the gloom, the awakening of the spirit world. He returned to it a second and a third time, studied the situation at its best, then decided.