XV
THE END OF THE TRAIL
Whether or no the Bosen-ka inn of Kofu does possess a wide reputation for comfort, it should deservedly have it. O-Shio-san was the name of the maid. This means O-Salt-san, but we renamed her “O-Sato-san,” which means Miss Sugar. She said that she had been at the inn for fifteen years, but until the day before there had never come a foreigner, and now there were two besides ourselves. I do not understand how such immunity could have been possible in a city the size of Kofu. However, the fact that there were Occidentals under the roof of the hostelry at that moment was proved by sight and sound. After the many days of hearing only the Japanese cadence, the sound of Western tongues was almost startling. The large room, which became ours, was in the main building and faced the garden. We could look across to the wing where the two foreigners were sitting on their balcony. They were eating tiffin and talking vigorously. One was a short, black-haired, merry Frenchman, the other a tall, blond, closely-cropped German. They spoke either language as the words came. Quite likely they had been in the same university in some European city, and their travelling was a leisurely grand tour. They could not have been hurried or they would not have taken time to search out Kofu. Their gay spirit was charming. They looked into the eyes of the world with a friendly gaze and the world smiled back at them. Within the month, France and Germany were to declare the implacable war.
High-pitched footbridges linked together the miniature islands of the garden and carried a labyrinthine path over the lotus-covered pond. Lying on the cool, clean mats of our room, sheltered from the sun, the thought of antique shops lured me not. I declared for contemplation, but Hori and O-Owre-san wandered forth. O-Shio-san brought fresh tea and a brazier of glowing charcoal for my pipe. My contemplation began and ended with a luxurious enjoyment of the view of the garden. Through the quiet air came the slow, deep tones of temple gongs. It was a day of special masses. My thoughts found rest in sensuous nothingness and I drifted tranquilly in a glory of inaction. Another day of such devotion to passivity might have started the unfolding within me of the leaves of appreciation for the philosophy of Nirvana, but in the morning some illogical shame for such laziness urged me into joining the pilgrimage of Hori and O-Owre-san to the Sen-sho cañon.
O-SHIO-SAN IN THE BOSEN-KA INN GARDEN.
The deep, sharp cleft in the granite through which that mountain stream pitches has a rugged beauty. Most perversely, if we had discovered the grandeur for ourselves and had not been over-persuaded by the innkeeper to take the long walk, we would undoubtedly have been more enthusiastic, but as it was we decided that we would rather have spent the day wandering about in Kofu. Even the unscalable cliffs took on sophistication from the well-worn path below, which proclaimed that the view had been the conventional thing for centuries. Despite all the instruction which the innkeeper had given us about distances and direction, he had escaped correctness in every detail. As often, there was no information obtainable from the heavily-laden coolies tramping along the way. If there is really any mystery which separates East and West it is the East’s oblivious indifference to time and space and our complete inability to understand the working of a mind which has over and over again been on a journey and yet has never considered it sufficiently worth while to take cognizance either of the distance or the hours.
As we were walking over the flat plain to the beginning of the valley, we stopped for a few minutes to watch a field drill of the conscript army. It was a very hot day, but the uniforms seemed designed for a Manchurian winter. A few of the men had fallen out of the ranks from exhaustion. We heard later that during that hot week in one of the provinces some officer with a new theory had issued an order against the drinking of water during drill, and that the lives of a number of soldiers had been sacrificed to sunstroke. It stirred up an angry scandal. My knowledge of positive thirst would have made me a hanging judge if I had sat on the inquiring court-martial.
We walked on and had forgotten the drill when four or five men and a panting officer overtook us. They entered into a sharp debate with Hori. Finally they dropped behind but followed us until we were a mile away. They had suspected that we were Russian spies.
We lingered in Kofu for several days but at last again took the old road which runs through the long valleys to Tokyo. This trail from Kofu on is rather closely followed by the railway just as is the Tokaido in the South. I do not know whether it was in honour of (or in disgust at) all such modernities that feudal Yedo changed its name to Tokyo. The capital was our destination and we had intended keeping along the direct road but upon a whim (and a look at the map) we suddenly decided to climb the ridge between us and Fuji-san, and then to encircle the base of the sacred mountain until we should find again the Tokaido which we had forsaken at Nagoya.