Maids without number came running to the entrance of that aristocratic inn, and dropped to their knees. They bowed until their glossy black hair touched the ground. The auguries all appeared auspicious. Then came the mistress. There were many polite words, but no one took our rucksacks and no one invited us in. Every second’s waiting for the bath and dinner was very, very long.
My Japanese of twelve years before had been but a few words. Days on the Trans-Siberian of grammar and dictionary study had not even brought back that little, but now suddenly I began to understand what the mistress of that inn was saying. I had no vanity in my understanding. The understanding was that we were not wanted. I had been tired and I had been hungry when we reached the door, but now I knew the unutterable weariness of smelling a dinner which may not be eaten.
The crowd was amused, but it showed its amusement considerately and with restraint. Nevertheless two seiyo-jins had lost face. Apparently the mistress did not wish such suspicious-looking foreigners, grimy, dustless, and coatless, to remain even in the same town. She called two ’rickshas. She named the next village. She had this much magnanimity that she purposed giving us the chance of orderly retreat.
I tried to continue smiling with dignity and affability. It is somewhat of a strain on diplomatic smiles when the subject of discussion is vitally concerned with one’s own starvation. Nevertheless I did smile. I explained that whatever we did we were not going on to the next town. I knew the word for “another,” and the word for “inn,” and how to say, “Is it?” And thus I asked: “Another inn here, is it?” There was little incitement to believe that she understood except that her mouth pouted ever so slightly as if in surprise that I should imply that the mistress of such a superior inn could have any knowledge concerning mere bourgeois caravansaries.
O-Owre-san, during this parleying, had put on his coat and in other subtle ways had transformed himself into a conventional foreigner. After that he had settled into repose and silence. I looked at him. I searched for a flaw. I declared by the great Tokaido itself that with such a fright-producing handicap as his ultra-Occidental beard we should never find resting spots outside the local jails.
“Humph!” said he. “Stop talking for a minute and put on your coat.”
I succumbed. “All right, then,” I said. “Here’s for the magic of that vestment of respectability.”
I sat down on the ground and untied the bag. The prophecy of magic was too feeble by far for the prestidigitation which followed. I shook out the folds of the garment which is called a coat, a mere two sleeves, a back and a front and a few buttons. The circle came closer. But it was not the coat after all which caused our audience so graciously to begin giving back our lost faces to us—it was the supermagic of one leg of a pair of silk pajamas. A black-eyed jackdaw, a trifle more daring in her curiosity than the others, discovered the hem of that garment tipping out from a corner of my pack. She gave it a jerk, and then another. Next she looked up with coaxing persuasion, suggesting encouragement to tug again.
O-Owre-san had insisted that I have those pajamas made in Kyoto. He has theories about the necessity of silk pajamas. I never, even remotely, followed the dialectics of his reasons, but I must add to the credit side of such theorizings that pajamas are a most intriguing garment to pass around for the benefit of an inn courtyard crowd. The maid gave the next tug and out they came. Everybody reached forward a finger and a thumb to feel.