VII
THE IDEALS OF A SAMURAI
In the morning we found great brass basins of water waiting for us in the sunny iris garden. One of the super-errors that a foreigner can make in a native inn is to ask to have the basins brought to his room. Such a request can be understood only as a perversion, or a barbarity. One reason why the houses and inns seem so clean is that they eliminate so many of the chances for their being otherwise; and this defence might be added into the weighing when criticizing Japanese nudity at ablutions.
Breakfast was brought to us steaming under the lacquer covers of the bowls, but the priest’s daughter was not holding the wooden ladle for the rice. It was a rather late hour when she had returned to her father’s house, but the mothers and daughters of a Japanese home are accustomed to having their working hours overlap into the night. In subtlety we brazenly accused each other of having frightened the gentle ne-san into not returning. The truth was—as it afterwards came out—that we had each found opportunity to hint to the host’s ear the night before that the maid’s slumber by no means should be disturbed for our morning’s start. Thus we each privately thought we knew the secret of her non-appearance, but just as we were tying on our shoes at the door a breathless message was brought by her small brother. She had overslept. It had not been our late hour which was responsible. The family of the Shinto priest had sat up almost until the first light in the East to listen to the wonder tale of their daughter who had endured such a singular and daring adventure.
The ancient host gave us presents and we gave him presents. We said our farewells at the door and then, after that, he and his granddaughter walked along with us half through the village. Finally we bowed our formal seven bows of farewell. When we reached the end of the street we turned and saw them still standing where we had left them.
The road led across a wide, flat valley. That morning there was a truly extraordinary phenomenon. The claret red of the sun flamed and danced against the snows of the mountain wall at our left. Finally our road broke up into a delta of small paths. The soft earth had been so cut into ruts by heavy carts that Hori was forced to accede to the demands of the bicycle that it should be assisted and not ridden, but he did not surrender until the wheel had demonstrated its malevolence by pitching him a half-dozen times off the saddle. Thus we all walked along together. The villages were rather mean, with the air of having come down in the world. Some of the towns, in the days before machinery, had had special fame in the various handicrafts; one had been known for its hand-made wooden combs. Evidently there remain some conservatives who have not yet countenanced modern vulcanite innovations, as wooden combs were still being made for sale. Entire families, from grandparents to children, were the manufacturers, the factories their own homes. We bought a boxful for a few sen. In arriving at a selling price they must have valued their time in the manufacturing as a gratuitous contribution to the arts.
Every once in a while O-Owre-san and I had had our pleasure in drawing the long bow of our imagination concerning the architectural reason for a certain peculiar type of house. A recurring example is to be found in nearly every village. These buildings are unusually substantial and the windows are always heavily barred and shuttered. They give a suggestion of descent from the castles of feudal days. As I said, we had employed our elaborate imagining over the mysterious buildings, but our guesses had never brought us anywhere near to the truth. Hori explained that they are the houses of the pawnbrokers. Hori is the son of a samurai. (He has the right to wear, if he wishes, the full number of crests on his formal kimono.) The artists who made the old colour prints used to give to the eyes of the two-sworded samurai an expression of warlike ferocity. When Hori spoke of the pawnbrokers his eyes glared, and I was sure that I detected his hand starting to reach for the sword that has now gone from his girdle. However, the ubiquitous bicycle just then swung around and entangled him, as a reminder, probably, that this is a new age, a mechanical and not a feudal one, and that a samurai no longer has the general and hearty acquiescence of law and society to proceed to direct action against the loathed money lender. The law of the land says to-day that the pawnbroker must be considered as a free and equal citizen, enjoying full rights under the mercy of the Mikado; albeit (as the bars and shutters of his windows show), the money lender still wisely believes in keeping his powder dry even in an age of enlightenment.
When we had extricated Hori from the bicycle and we had all got going again, he explained why the pawnbroker is the most hated member of Nipponese society. Here are some of the other remarks that Hori made about pawnbrokers:
They are always rich. (He meant the Asiatic wealth,—hoards of gold, not a checking account at a bank.)
They are uncanny.