Sometimes a little one would cry: "Mother, mother! Here comes the procession!"
"Nonsense!" said the mother; "the priests have not even finished dressing yet."
But still she moved towards the front of the house, and, leaning over the light balustrade, gazed into the street.
Carriers, naked save for a strip of stuff knotted round their waists, hastened rapidly by, across their shoulders a bamboo stick, which bent at the tip from the weight of a package of letters. They went in the direction of the Shogun's residence.
Before the barber's shops the crowd was thicker than elsewhere; the boys could not possibly shave all the chins presented, or dress all the heads offered. Customers awaiting their turn chatted gayly outside the door. Some were already dressed in their holiday garb, of bright colors, covered with embroidery. Others, more prudent, naked to the waist, preferred to finish their toilet after their hair was dressed. Vegetable-sellers and fish-merchants moved about through the throng, loudly praising their wares, which they carried in two buckets hanging from a cross piece of wood laid over one shoulder.
On every side people were trimming their houses with pennants, and streamers, and embroidered stuffs covered with Chinese inscriptions in gold on a black or purple ground; lanterns were hung up, and blossoming boughs.
As the morning advanced, the streets became fuller and fuller of merry tumult. Bearers of norimonos, clad in light tunics drawn tightly round their waist, with large shield-shaped hats, shouted to the people to make room. Samurais went by on horseback, preceded by runners, who, with lowered head and arms extended, forced a passage through the crowd. Groups paused to talk, sheltered from the sun by huge parasols, and formed motionless islands in the midst of the surging, billowy sea of promenaders. A doctor hurried by, fanning himself gravely, and followed by his two assistants carrying the medicine-chest.
"Illustrious master, are you not going to the feast!" cried the passers-by.
"Sick men pay no heed to feasts," he answered with a sigh; "and as there are none for them, there can be none for us."
On the banks of Yedogava the excitement was still greater. The river was literally hidden by thousands of vessels; the masts trimmed, the sails still unset, but ready to unfurl, like wings; the hatchways hung with silks and satins; the prows decked with banners whose golden fringe, dipped into the water, glittered in the sun, and stained the azure stream with many-colored ripples.