The truth must be told that we recanted much of our wrath after the friendliness of a half-hour’s roadside palaver. The meeting, however, had a uniqueness of experience far beyond anything merely casual. It allowed us the extraordinary record that we once did acquire local information from a Japanese whose conception of daily time and highroad space had some coincidence with our Western science of absolute fact. Mr. Yoshida, he who had called after us, knew that corner of Japan and he told us about it.
O-Owre-san says: “Certain Japanese inexplicabilities are extremely ubiquitous.” He thus confines himself to six words. I cannot. I require a paragraph. Despite the ubiquitous mystery, there is always one certainty: Whatever may be the thought processes of the Japanese concerning hours, distances, and direction, the inquirer may be sure of this: the answer will not be concerned with answering the question. The courteous answerer earnestly uses his judgment to determine what reply is likely to be most pleasing. If you appear weary, or in a hurry, then the distance to go is never very long. If you appear to be enjoying your walk, then the distance is a long way. The village which has been declared just around the bend of the road may be two ri off. This is the desire to please, inculcated by the [Bushido] creed of honourable conduct. It may be thought that such paradoxical solicitude becomes extremely irritating, but rarely does it. The wish to help is real, at least, and is not merely the carelessness of superficiality. The peasant may tell you that you have but a step to go, but if you are lost he will turn aside from his own path and show you the way, though it be for miles.
We noted down Mr. Yoshida’s details concerning the inns and villages which we should find along the way to distant Nagoya. Experience soon told us to hold fast to his information, no matter the contradictions that were agreeably offered in its stead.
We shouldered our packs and again were off. After a time O-Owre-san said: “I met Mr. Yoshida once at a dinner in America.”
“Why didn’t you tell him so?” I gasped.
O-Owre-san seemed surprised at my amazement. As nearly as I could determine he must have completely disassociated the metabolic Owre sitting on the bench in front of the rest house, drinking warm ramune, and the Owre of practical America. Perhaps the Japanese believe in the “unfathomable mystery of the American mind.”
We had six hours through the hills ahead of us if we were to keep on that night to Minakuchi. Our mentor had told us that one of the most luxurious of all the country inns in Japan was sequestered there. To hurry to any particular place was against our code, but this time it seemed reasonable to make an honourable exception.
The sun went down behind the paddy fields. The muddy waters of the terraces caught the gleaming yellows and reds, but our backs were against this suffusion of colour. Into the darkness ahead the narrow road led on and on. Says the essayist: “The artist should know hunger and want.” But surely not the art patron. He cannot perform his function of appreciation unless comfortably removed from immediate pangs. If I were to be an enthusiast over that wonderful sunset—as O-Owre-san persisted in suggesting—I needed food. It had been fifteen hours since our cold breakfast and I thought of the inn with an ardency of vision.
When we did see the town it sprang up abruptly out of the fields. All along the streets the lights were shining through the paper walls. We made inquiry for the [yado-ya] and in a moment were surrounded by volunteer guides. They are always diverting, the Japanese children, running along on their wooden clogs and looking up into your face.