We lunched in a little tea-house and came back laden with flowers—four beautiful glowing azaleas, a brilliant fern-like green shrub, and a budding yellow broom, for which I paid a sum total of exactly elevenpence.
The roots were all tied up neatly in paper—and then they wouldn’t let us on the car! Other people were carrying them tied up in feruskés just exactly as ours were in paper, so I was furious and asked a policeman why. “Had we no feruskés? Then we must cover them completely in paper, and the officials would not see them.” “But the roots were covered in paper,” I replied, “other people have them like that.” “Ah, they have roots in feruskés or handkerchiefs, then the officials cannot see that the roots are there, but they can see the roots through paper. If, however, you cover them completely, then they will not know they are flowers at all. Roots are not allowed on the tram.”
We went to a shop and got newspapers to cover them up, and the same officials who had barred my way smiled approval!
May 4.—A pouring day, the roads simply awful, as it came down in torrents all night. My little plans for getting to work early on my bicycle were all knocked on the head. I saw not a soul in the Institute all day, and was glad when Mrs. P—— came across to have a little chat. I am arranging about a Debate, Tokio doesn’t seem really to know what that is! But we meet at parties and talk endless gossip, so I am going to give a tea-party, have an amusing Debate (if possible), and found a society which, I hope, will live for ever, like Mother’s Norwood one. I forgot, because in a way it came in between two days, that the other night we went to the Greek Church Easter Service. It is held at midnight, and the Russian Greek Church is by far the most successful of the churches here. It is the only one with an imposing building, the only one with a great choir, and a sense of wealth and success in the appearance of the interior. The great domed building stands high on a hill, and can be seen from most parts of Tokio. We found a huge crowd of Japanese waiting to go into the gates, and as they entered each bought a candle and lit it, so that, as well as the regular altar and other candles, the church was illuminated with hundreds of these tapers. The Bishop, in gorgeous white and gold, was seated in the centre of the church, and swung incense over the people, while a choir, quite unaccompanied, sang the whole service. This choir is splendid, though composed of Japanese, and is one of the wonders of the church. The congregation crowded into the church area, where there were no seats, but the floor was covered with carpet (which would certainly be a sea of candle grease in the morning), on which the people stood or sat. There were very many children present, some very tiny, and all in their best. A few of them were charmingly beautiful pictures. The service, sung by the choir, was followed by few of the congregation; they stood or sat reverently, seeing to their candles and sometimes crossing themselves, but they did not hesitate to go through their ceremonial bows if they met an acquaintance, some going down on the floor and touching it with their foreheads, to the peril of the tapers. The service was principally chanted, but sometimes the voices rose into a grand chorus, and all the time the Bishop and his clergy kept up a picturesque ceremonial. The altar was magnificent, vast, and gilded and lit with huge candles. We felt the whole ceremonial and its setting splendid, impressive, but almost weird. The power of the Bishop is clear, if one only knew that he got all those hundreds of Japanese out at midnight, while for social functions they find 9 o’clock too late.
We had to walk home, and came through the outer palace gardens and under the ancient Japanese gates, lovely in the moonlight, and palpitating with the lives of the past.
May 5.—The weather cleared up nicely and I set off gaily on my bicycle, but a dozen things went wrong with it, and I left it at a shop, hoping they would steal it, and I should never see it again. I cut fossils all day without seeing a soul to speak a word to, and went back to the shop and found they had not stolen the bicycle, but had put it right, so that it went quite well. I set off on it to cross Tokio and call on Miss H——, who had a private view of some copper-plate etchings done by a friend of hers, and very charming they were. The roads of Tokio should be simply blood-curdling. There is no rule for the traffic, the electric cars are the only things that keep any kind of order, and foot-passengers and playing children simply swarm. Fortunately there are few carts or carriages, but those few dart about anyhow, and the horses often run away. One has simply to thread one’s way through this stream of things. The children are particularly trying, and take no notice of violent bells and shouts.
May 8. Professor M—— came to take me to the Faculty lunch. A serio-comic incident happened just before we started. He came for me to the fossil laboratory, and waited a minute while I was finishing a stone. As he stood there, a stone, which I was heating in molten zinc, exploded, and the zinc flew in drops all over the room, and settled on all of us, but fortunately only on our clothes. The bright hard drops looked quite funny on his coat and hat, and some of them wouldn’t peel off. There must have been some internal moisture or gas in the stone; it is the first time such a thing has happened. After lunch Professor S—— took me and Professor Y—— to see his garden (he lives within easy walking distance of the University), and it was a delightful sight. I have described the house and garden before, and now it was gay with pink roses and many different coloured azaleas. His tiny daughter was running about with “bells on her shoes.” Little bells were fastened on the under-side of the wooden clog, “on the same principle,” the Professor said, “as the bell is round the neck of a kitten—it is convenient to know where it is.”
After an hour’s rest I returned to the fossils, and at 4 bicycled off to Baroness d’A——’s garden party,—bicycled in a white muslin frock, which, had the people not thrown buckets of water into the roads, would have come through scathless, but as it was, was heavily specked with mud all up the front, and I felt all the carriage folk staring at me. Otherwise I had a good time, and arranged some details about the forthcoming Debate.
May 9.—At work all day on fossils. Dr. M—— came to the laboratory about 2, and we had a long chat; he is one of the very few Japanese who know enough of my work to be really interested.
May 10.—On Sunday Professor S—— asked me to go to see the celebrated Buton flowers (paeonies), and I set off at 9 and met him and his wife at Ryonokubashi at 10. We then drove to the gardens, which lie across the river, in quite a slummy part of the town. The south part of Tokio, across the river, corresponds in a way with the south of London, and is distinctly its working quarter.