CHAPTER XXIV
NISHI OKUBO
"From the foot of the mountain, many are the paths ascending in shadow; but from the cloudless summit all who climb behold the selfsame Moon."—Buddhist poem translated by Lafcadio Hearn.
It was on the 19th of March, 1902, that the Koizumi family removed from 21, Tomihasa-chio, Ichigaya, Ushigome, to 266, Nishi Okubo.
Hearn had purchased the house out of his savings and settled it on his wife according to English law, as no woman can hold property in Japan. It is there that Mrs. Hearn now lives, sub-letting half of it to Captain Fujisaki—one of Hearn's Matsue students, who has remained an intimate friend of his widow and children. Nishi Okubo is known as the Gardeners' Quarter, where the celebrated Tokyo azaleas are grown, and where a show of azaleas is held once a year.
After he took possession, Hearn added on the library, or Buddha-room, as it is now called, and a guest-room, which was assigned to Mrs. Koizumi for her occupation.
Had Hearn at this time managed his affairs with the least businesslike acumen, he might have enjoyed the comfortable competency which his widow now receives from the royalties and sales of his books, which have most of them been translated into German, Swedish and French, and achieved a considerable circulation in England.
There is little doubt he was lamentably wanting in the most rudimentary knowledge of practical business affairs, and was entirely to blame for the difficulties in which he so repeatedly found himself. "I have given up thinking about the business side of literature, and am quite content to obtain the privilege of having my books produced according to my notions of things," he writes to Mitchell McDonald.