Our hotel was run on European lines. It was very late, and I was unable to make any radical change in the menu of our supper. Mr. Keutako we found pleasant and intelligent. He was a prominent member of the Japanese Parliament. He was evidently familiar with all our viands, but our supper-table was palpably a mensa incognita to his pretty little wife. She watched her husband with shy slyness, and tried to do what he did; but I could see that she didn’t like our food. I managed to get a tin of salmon, for I knew that the Japanese are as invariably fond of fish as cats are. She ate the salmon readily enough, though it was new to her, and she nibbled a few vanilla wafers as she sipped her champagne, with which she seemed to have a dainty acquaintance. When we had left the table I asked her (through her husband) if the gentlemen might smoke. She nodded and laughed, and drew from her obi a microscopic silver pipe; she filled it with half a thimbleful of tobacco, mild as corn silk, which she carried in a silken pouch slung from her obi. She lit it, using a match with difficulty. She was accustomed to a small box filled with glowing coals. She handed her pipe to me; I found that one breath exhausted it. Among many other things typical of this interesting people, I afterwards learned that all Japanese women of fashion carry their pipe and pouch when they pay a visit. Their smoking together is an interchange of courtesy. The tobacco is almost tasteless, and one puff marks the length of the prescribed smoke. Our husbands talked, and, at her request, I showed her my baby clothes, and took her upstairs to see my sleeping children. When we came back to our sitting-room, she suggested, through her husband, that we should smoke cigarettes. I had been in the habit of smoking, semi-occasionally, one or two cigarettes in the strictest conjugal seclusion. I never had smoked before but one gentleman; but I thought the circumstances demanded any possible deviation from my usual customs. The gentlemen found a great deal to say to each other; while they talked we smoked. The next morning I had the almost unknown affliction of a headache. I learned from Mr. Keutako that his wife suffered sooner and less pleasantly. She had suggested, as I supposed, a Japanese custom. On her part, she thought that she was proposing a custom universal with European women. I have often wondered which of the ladies of the European Legations in Tokio was indirectly responsible for the maladresse from which we both suffered. I often reflect how much better it always is to be natural if one can do so without gaucherie.
A few days later we went to Tokio. I used often to wonder how it was that people were content to live and die in the gray Occident and never look upon the picture of the Orient. I never wondered more than when we were in Tokio. I know of no capital in Europe so comfortably and generously planned, except Vienna. The cities remind me of each other in many ways. The streets of both are broad and clean. Both are rich in parks, in drives, in trees, and in places of refreshment. Both are peopled by a pleasure-loving, pleasure-seeking race. Tokio is very beautiful, and it would be ungrateful of me not to mention that Tokio has one of the best hotels in the world.
The Imperial Palace is surrounded by three beautiful moats, all strictly guarded. It is impossible to look upon, much less to pass into, the holy of holies, the home of the Mikado, unless your presence is desired there. Even the members of the Legations know the palace very superficially, and enter even its outer rooms but rarely. I believe Madame Sannomiya to be the only European who has really seen the interior in anything like its entirety.
The architecture of Tokio varies from humble to elaborate; but it is all picturesque, and, in the heart of the city, all Japanese. Many of the nobles, who chiefly live in the suburbs, build very Western-looking houses. The width of the principal streets is almost unequalled. In the great parks blossoming vine strives with blossoming vine, and flowering tree crowds flowering tree. Amid them stand quaint statues of quaint gods, and carved and gilded figures. The distances in Tokio are immense; but I soon grew glad that it was so,—every inch of the long way was so thick with interest. The bazaars have not been robbed of their native colour by travelling multitudes of Europeans. Around Tokio are her hundred temples; many famous, all marvellous, and not to be indicated by a few hasty lines. The air blows softly through the carved portals, and gently sways the golden bells that hang from the jewelled ceiling; and that air is unpolluted by the breath of many Europeans.
We visited the Keutakos. The father dressed as a European. The mother, the children, and the servants wore the national costume. The customs of the house were Japanese; but I was surprised to find the rooms furnished in the European mode. There was a bust of Scott in the library, and an engraving of the Coliseum in the dining-room. When I coaxed Mrs. Keutako to take me upstairs I found everything different. She seemed afraid I would not like it; and I think she never believed that I thought it infinitely prettier than the reception rooms downstairs. But it was! The floors of the long, shady rooms were covered with cool, quaint mattings. One room pleased me particularly. A long, low screen stood near one end of the room; an inviting cushion was thrown near it. At the other end of the room was a tall blue vase, filled with chrysanthemums and fleur-de-lis. There were not a dozen articles in the room; but each thing in it was perfect. The Japanese always give a work of art the advantage of being framed in ample space. This is one reason why a Japanese interior is so effective; another reason is that they are very loath to give house-room to anything that is not a work of art.
Mrs. Keutako was always at ease. We spent long hours together alone. We could not speak to each other, but she never let it embarrass her or me. She let me amuse myself as freely as she had amused herself in my dressing-room. She understood how glad I was to quietly watch ordinary Japanese home-life. She had a hundred ways of entertaining me. Sometimes she would beckon me into the kitchen that I might see what was being cooked, and how. She sent for her hairdresser that I might see his wonderful methods. Sometimes she would steal behind me as I sat reading, and drop a rose on to my book. Sometimes it was her soft ball of a pet kitten; often it was her soft ball of a baby. One day she made her amah undress her, and dress her again, that I might see just what a Japanese woman wore, and how it was put on. She emptied her chests of clothing for my diversion. It was a wonderful collection. She was very fond of dress, and her husband delighted in gratifying her; besides, she had many garments that had been in her family for generations. She showed me her wedding-dress, she kept it in a sandal-wood box, and touched it reverently.
She was devoted to her two little girls. They were pretty, and oh, so quaint! They were well-behaved, but not painfully so. They climbed over their parents and begged for sweets for all the world like my bairns. The elder spoke a little English.
Their mother never was guilty of the stupidity of speaking to me in Japanese; but she would take a fantastic little instrument (I forget its name) and sing sweet, tinkling Japanese songs as she played upon it for me.
She had been brought up in luxury. She was the wife of a rich man. She had plenty of servants; still, she sewed a little, a very little. But she supervised her house perfectly; and she helped her husband a great deal in his political working. I have known her to copy notes for him, and write from his dictation, by the hour, when his secretary and he were over busy. And I know that he often consulted her about the turn of a sentence or a fact of history.
The last time I was in Tokio I was alone. I was there on business, and I was hurried. I only found time to call upon the Keutakos. She received me with the warm affection of an old friend and all the ceremony of Japanese etiquette. She gave me clear tea (no milk or sugar) in rare cups, without handles, and about the size of big thimbles. Then she gave me sweetmeats from a small lacquered chest of drawers. Each drawer contained a different kind of sweet; they were all made of sugar, tinted and shaped in imitation of some flower or leaf.