Samurai Trails: A Chronicle of Wanderings on the Japanese High Road

by Lucian Swift Kirtland

An opinion about temperature is more or less a personal judgment, but the falling of raindrops is a material fact. On the yesterday it had not rained.

This time the circle could not restrain itself but sighed with positive and audible contentment. Minakuchi had been vindicated. If the audience showed content with its spokesman, it was as nothing compared to his own contentment. The artist in tongues now opened his books with a business-like air and put on his spectacles. His visit was not, then, purely social. The sentences which followed were, as nearly as we could determine, questions to us. They came, a word at a time, out of his dictionary. The conventions of speech which the Japanese employ in polite inquiry have been moulded by symbolism, mysticism, and analogy into phrases most remote from the original rudiment. A word by word translation into English carries no meaning whatsoever. We answered by: “Oh, yes, yes,—of course.”

The baby was growing restless. The scholar took in this sign from the corner of his eye. His dramatic sense was keen. He had no intention that his audience should become bored and he snapped shut the books with the pronounced meaning that everything had been settled as far as he was concerned. Then he clapped his hands loudly. Instantly from below came more footsteps and a clank-clanking of metal on wood, and in a moment into the room walked an officer of the police. His heavy dress uniform was white, with gold braid twisting round and about the sleeves and shoulders. His sword, the secret of the rhythmic clanking, was almost as tall as himself. He faced us rigidly and without a smile, then slowly sank to his knees and dropped his head to the mat. I have faith that that man, without an extra heart-beat, would have joined a sure death charge across a battlefield, but his present duty brought the red blush of painful embarrassment to his olive skin from the edge of his tight collar to the fringe of his black hair. He was silently and perspiringly suffering in the cause of duty—but what was his duty?

I do not know just how we gained the idea, if it were not through telepathy, but we decided that he was discounting the abilities of the interpreter down to an extreme minimum, although he listened attentively enough to some long statement. After the explanation, which seemingly concerned us, the youth arose and with much dignity withdrew from the room followed by many expressions of appreciation from the inn family. Every one of us who had been left behind, except the baby who had gone to sleep, now waited for some continuance of the drama, but nothing proceeded to materialize. I grew so sleepy that if the policeman had suddenly said that we were to be executed at sunrise the most interesting part of the information would have been the finding out whether we could sleep until that hour. As I did not know how polite it might be to say that we were tired, I found a phrase, “You must be very tired,” to which I linked, “therefore we shall go to bed.”

This veiled ultimatum was as graciously accepted as if they had been waiting those exact words to free them to go their way. The ne-sans ran for mattresses and prepared the beds. Then they hung the great mosquito netting. After that we all said our good-nights, all except the police official who, image like, remained sitting against the wall.

By earnest beseeching we had persuaded the maids not to close the wooden [shogi] around the balcony. Thus, when we turned out the lamp and stretched out on our beds, the starlight came in. It shone on the white uniform. I had never happened to have the experience of going to sleep under the eye of a policeman but realism proved that practice was unnecessary. Sinking to oblivion was as positive as a plunge. The vast embracing fluid of rest closed in over my head.

I was dreamless until I awoke under a sudden, crushing nightmare. I thought that an army of white and gold uniforms had mobilized and was tramping over my chest, taking care that every heel should fall pitilessly. The one policeman who existed in reality had been trying to wake me up and he had evidently had a task, but as soon as he was sure that my eyes were open to stay he forwent further assault. He had lighted the lamp and I could see back of him a naked coolie, convulsively gasping for breath. The man was carrying an envelope. The officer took the envelope and then sent him off. He reeled to the stairs holding his panting sides. The officer then took out a sheet of paper and handed it to me. The page was written in modified English but was quite intelligible. While the sentences were nothing more than a series of questions, at the same time they gave a clue to the mystery of the evening.

Our inn-keeper had had the inspiration to call upon the scholar-interpreter to ask us the questions which all travellers must answer for the police record in every town where a stop is made for the night. We had been correct about there being one doubter in Minakuchi of the ability of the interpreter. In a plot for his own amusement the police officer had sent a runner to a neighbouring town to have the conventional list of questions translated into English, and thus to compare our written answers with the answers given him by the youth. There they were, the questions: who were we—how old—profession—antecedents whence and whither. If one is tempted into wayward rebellion against such minuteness of interrogation, it is wise to remember that the claim of a sense of humour may be considered very poor testimony in a Japanese court perchance misunderstandings at any time arise and the answers in the police records have to be looked up.

I wrote out the answers. With no one in the room as a witness except ourselves, the officer allowed a twinkle to come into his eye. He even winked and pointed to where the youth had sat. Then he shut up the paper in his register and blew out the light and clanked off down the stairs. Again we slept.

The etiquette of an inn is that all crude appearance of hurry should be avoided by waiting in one’s room in the morning for one’s bill. The Japanese do not travel hurriedly; if they wish an early start they get up proportionately in time. We had asked for an early breakfast and it had been served at the hour which we had named. We had happened to have good intentions about not rushing. Nevertheless, of course, we fell into an inevitable hurry. After breakfast I had been so interested in sitting on our balcony watching the waking up of the day that I forgot to pack my rucksack. O-Owre-san said that he would pay the bill downstairs and wait at the door.