We went into the garden, and took our coffee there in a shaded corner. Meanwhile I noticed a little puppy looking up at us from a corner of the turf. It did not move, and I soon discovered it was porcelain.
—'Ah, I see, I thought it was a live dog when I was here last. It was towards evening, just as I was leaving when I noticed it.'
At this moment a servant brought in a tortoise: it was a very large one and quite tame. The duchess fed it with lettuce, saying:
—'This is my pet, and I am very fond of it. It prefers lettuce to any other vegetable.'
—'I have seen many tortoises,' I said, 'but this is the first time I have seen one as a pet. In Japan, one sees in the ponds or small lakes round the temples, hundreds, nay, thousands, floating in the water, or lying on rocks or boards basking in the sun. Their preservation is chiefly due to the customary kindness and religious sentiment of the Japanese.'
I then told the duchess what I knew of tortoises and their habits, remarking that those amphibians lived more in the water than on land, and it was necessary for them to be put in the water at least occasionally.
And so the soft summer evening glided away as we passed from one topic of conversation to another.
—'Do you find European languages very difficult to learn?' asked one of the young ladies. 'I suppose there is no similarity between our language and yours?'
—'None whatever,' I replied, 'and we certainly find them very difficult to acquire. The difference between the various European languages might perhaps be compared to the difference between a horse and a mule, while the difference between Japanese and the European languages would certainly not be closer in comparison than a horse to an ox. That is to say, the former differs only in species, and the latter in kind. Hence you can easily see how much more difficult it is for an Oriental to learn any European language, than a European to learn a second European language. Even amongst the European languages, there are, as you know, many idioms differing one from the other, and consequently difficult to understand. Only the other day I was not a little amused at a French translation of the English sentence "hold good" in the sense that "one thing had an advantage over another." You can imagine how much more difficult it is for a Japanese to know the value of every word, not to say an idiom, of a European language. Once in Japan, I was watching some European and Japanese children playing Hide-and-Seek together. The European children were making use of the Japanese words meaning "Hot and Cold" in place of "Far and Near." I could only make out what they meant after I had carefully watched the game. I am sure we commit similar errors every day when speaking in a foreign language. More than thirty years ago a party of Japanese ambassadors, including the present Marquis Ito, whom you know, and their suites, made a round trip through America and Europe: perhaps the duke remembers it. The mayor of a large manufacturing town in England, which a portion of the party were visiting, invited the visitors to the play. The party was divided into two and occupied two boxes opposite each other. The mayor and his wife were in a box and their daughter in the other. An Englishman who was in the mayor's box remarked to a Japanese guest, of an eminent fellow-guest seated beside the young lady opposite, "Monsieur K. must be very happy," meaning, no doubt, to pay a compliment indirectly to the mayor and his wife; but the Japanese to whom the remark was addressed understood but little English and replied: "K. must be quite ashamed."
—'It spoilt everything. In our language the word meaning "shame" and "bashfulness" are identical and the sense is only modified by a slight difference in construction. A somewhat similar example is the great difference in the meaning between the phrases fâché contre and fâché de. The results of the misconstruction, as may be imagined, were rather serious. It was only made good by another Japanese who made a timely explanation. I heard this incident direct from that gentleman who made the explanation. That incident clearly demonstrates how difficult and delicate it is to express oneself in a tongue other than one's own.'