Our dinner was very late. Finally the stumbling maid came, rubbing her eyes and yawning. She was, as always we had seen her, on the immediate point of going to sleep. She had been carrying sake, all the night before, but she had been almost as sleepy on the previous day. Now, in serving dinner, she went definitely to sleep every time there was a lull in her duties. She had one hiatus of lukewarm wakefulness in which she mumbled some appeal to Hori, but he declared to us that the words had no sense. We began fearing for the few faculties she appeared to have.
Hori listened more carefully. “I believe she is saying something,” he decided.
Little by little we learned that she had a favour to ask the foreign doctor. Just how she had discovered that O-Owre-san had medical wisdom was a mystery. She said that all Japan knows that foreign doctors can do anything. She begged for a drug to keep her awake, something that she could swallow so that she would never feel sleepy again, or better than that, some drug so potent, if there were any such, that she would never even have to sleep again.
“H’m,” said the foreign doctor. “Tell her there isn’t any such drug. Tell her to get a good night’s sleep. She will feel better about it in the morning.”
Her disappointment was pitiful.
“But I shall never have a night’s sleep,” she said. “If I ask for time to sleep I shall be told that there are many maids who will be glad to take my place.” She knew, she went on, that she was very stupid, but she maintained that she was not so stupid when she was not so sleepy.
It is outside our comprehension and experience how the Chinese and Japanese can labour on and on, more nearly attaining a wakeful condition for the full round of the day than the individuals of other races would consent to endure even if they could continue life under the strain. In all inns the maids work long hours, nor do the mistresses spare themselves. The mistress of the inn at Kama-Suwa seemingly lacked the usual kindly sympathy for her maids and was unusually demanding. O-Hanna-san (the irony of calling her a flower!) could not dare the risk of attempting to escape from her slavery. It was for the sake of her fatherless child that she dared not, she told us. She, the clumsy, stumbling, stupid, sleepy maid, had had her tragedy as had had the pale, forsaken daughter of the nobility whom she had waited upon the night before.
After her disappointment that she could obtain from us no sleep-dispelling drug she toppled again into unconsciousness. We could at least give her temporary help. We sent for the mistress and asked her for a full night’s sleep for the girl. For the maid’s sake it was necessary to put our demand on the ground that we must have better service in the morning. This saved the face of the mistress. After the mistress had consented and had gone, poor O-Hanna-san’s affectionate thanks were embarrassing.
On a point reaching into the lake and under our balcony stood a small, one-storied shrine. It was sheltered by a tiled roof pitched on four columns. We saw from our room two figures in white walking along the shore. They stopped at the shrine and knelt for some time. When they arose the bright moon suddenly revealed that the two figures were Tsuro-matsu and Hisu-matsu. Hori went down to speak to them and in a moment their three heads appeared up the stairs. The geishas had changed the silks and brocades of their costume for simple white kimonos and their hair was not now arranged after the elaborate style of the professional hairdresser. Instead of this simplicity detracting it quite startlingly bespoke the charm of their delicate beauty.