Although, as has already been stated, there is no hard and fast rule for the disposition of the rooms, the commonest is perhaps the following:—At the front entrance there is the porch; the ground in front of it may be open with only a roof projecting over it, or it may be enclosed by latticed doors. In the open porch there is a stone step where the footgear are taken off before entering, while in the closed one there is a wooden ledge for stepping from the ground on to the mats. The porch itself, which would correspond to the hall in a European-built house, is of two or three mats; here the visitor leaves his hat, greatcoat, and other articles which he would not take into the parlour. On one side of the porch may be the student’s room if there is one at all and on the opposite side the porch opens upon the anteroom. The size of this room depends upon that of the parlour; sometimes it is of the same size, but more frequently smaller by two or more mats. Thus, if the parlour is of ten mats, the anteroom has eight; and if the former has eight mats as is oftenest the case, there are six in the other. The anteroom opens upon the same verandah as the parlour; and the two rooms are separated only by sliding-doors, so that these doors may, when necessary, be removed and the two rooms run into one. Such a room, which would have from fourteen to eighteen mats, would be large enough for most purposes. The anteroom thus opens upon the porch on one side, upon the verandah on another, and upon the parlour on the third, and on the fourth it usually communicates directly or indirectly with the servant’s room. In large houses, however, there is a separate passage from the kitchen to the porch. Thus, the room is open on all sides though there may sometimes be a bit of a wall by the doors from the porch and the kitchen. The room has little furniture, except, perhaps, one or two framed pictures or writings over the lintels of the doors; and in rare cases there is an alcove by the wall. Cushions for callers are usually kept in a corner of the anteroom.
AN EIGHT-MATTED PARLOUR.
The parlour, the principal room of the house, is always kept tidy. It has an alcove, six feet long by three deep, consisting of a dais, a few inches high, of plain hard wood, which will bear polishing, though a thin matting is sometimes put over it. Not unfrequently, another piece of wood, generally square, forms the outer edge so that the thickness of the floor of the alcove can be concealed. The dais has a special ceiling of its own, or a bit of a wall, of plaster or wood, coming down over it a foot or more from the ceiling. On the dais is set a vase of porcelain or metal, bottle-shaped or flat, in which branches of a tree or shrubs in flower are put in, and on the wall is hung a kakemono, or scroll of picture or writing. These two constitute the main ornament of the room. New flowers are put in every few days and the kakemono is changed from time to time. This is the peculiarity of the kakemono as a piece of house decoration. We do not exhibit all our treasures in kakemono at the same time, but hang them one, two, or three at a time according to the size of the alcove and the kakemono themselves, so that the visitor calling at different seasons may delight his eyes with the sight of fresh pictures or writings each time he calls. The inmates, too, do not grow weary with gazing at the same pictures day after day, but enjoy the variety the seasons offer. To the Japanese it is a more artistic and pleasurable method of displaying his treasures than keeping them all, as it were, on permanent exhibition. The flowers, too, in the vases are arranged in an artistic style; their arrangement is an art which boasts many schools and professors and is considered an indispensable branch of a girl’s education. They are not thrown haphazard in a bundle into a vase and expected to give pleasure merely by the profusion of colours and forms, It may be a single stem or half a dozen with the flowers ranged in relation to one another after fixed canons of the art.
There are in the parlour as in the anteroom pictures or writings in frames over the lintels of the sliding-doors. On a line with the alcove and usually of the same length is another recess, with a small closet at the top or bottom where the kakemono and their cases are generally kept. In this recess there are, also, a pair of shelves at different heights and coming out from opposite walls, the free ends of which overlap each other a few inches. On these shelves some ornaments, usually curios, are placed. When unoccupied, the room is kept clear of any other object. When a visitor calls, even the cushion is brought from the anteroom for him to sit on, and then a small cup of tea set before him and a brazier if it is cold and if warm, a tabako-bon. The cushion is round or square; that for summer is made of matting, hide, or a thin wadding of cotton in a cover of hempen cloth, while for winter use the wadding is much thicker and the cover is silk or cotton. It is about sixteen inches at the side if square. The brazier is of various shapes and makes. It may be a wooden box with an earthenware case inside or with a false bottom of copper, or it may be a glazed earthenware case alone; the wooden box may be plain with two holes for handles, or it may be elaborately latticed; and sometimes a brazier is made of the trunk of a tree cut with the outside rough-hewn or only barked and highly polished. The tabako-bon, or “tobacco-tray,” is a small open square or oblong box of sandal-wood or other hard wood, which holds a small china or metal pan, three-quarters full of ashes, with a few tiny pieces of live charcoal in the middle to light a pipe with, and beside it a small bamboo tube with a knot at the bottom for receiving tobacco-ashes.
A VISITOR.
The sitting-room has little furniture. An indispensable article in it is the brazier, usually oblong, with a set of three small drawers one under another at the side and two others side by side under the copper tray filled with ashes, on which charcoal is burnt inside an iron or clay trivet. On this trivet is set a kettle of iron or copper. The iron kettle is made of thick cast-iron and kept on the trivet so as always to have hot water ready for tea-making: and the copper kettle is used when we wish to boil water quickly. Beside the brazier is a small shelf or cabinet for tea-things. Behind the brazier is a cushion where the wife sits; this is her usual post. There is also a cushion on the other side or the brazier, where the husband or other members of the house may sit.
A SITTING-ROOM.