Parent’s name—Ito Nobuta.
Witness’s name—Kimoto Nagao.
Landlord’s name—Yamada Isoh.
Proprietor’s name—Minami Kakichi.
Name of Kashi-zashiki—House of the Dragon Cape.
It seemed to me that this certificate was story enough, with its batch of red seals denoting the triple sanction of father, master, and gods. Yet was it not better so? Hard as her fate might be, these were regular sponsors of a legal profession. She was not living in lonely defiance of public opinion and private remorse. She would still be gentle, submissive, modest, until the lapse of time should restore her liberty, unless the rascaldom that would beset her pathway for five long years should coarsen and undo her natural goodness. The Japanese used to boast that they were born good; that only the Chinese, and such barbarians, require a code of prohibitive clauses defining and forbidding sin. It is a charming theory, and many foreigners have subscribed to it. It is certain that if you deduct from Yoshiwara the heinousness which Western moralists impute, a tangle of pros and cons would confuse the Japanese conservative who knows anything of Western wickedness. But, as I wavered to the sentimental side of Oriental legality, seduced by the condoning circumstances of politeness and security, I suddenly remembered that this city of pleasure was founded upon a marsh, for all night long the frogs, like thousands of sinister voices, sustained their croaking chorus, as if in ironic commentary on the
“riddle that one shrinks
To challenge from the scornful Sphinx.”
III
Whenever Tōkyō crushed a hope or destroyed an illusion, I generally sought and sometimes found balm in Kyōto. There at least historic beauty is not marred and violated at every turn by modern innovation. The vulgar reality of the Shin-Yoshiwara had effectually dissipated my preconception of it, romantically based on book and picture. But, five months after the Asakusa frogs had mocked at my disillusion, I was urged by a Japanese artist to accompany him to Shimabara, about five miles out of Kyōto on the way to Lake Biwa, where, he said, some few vestiges were yet to be seen of the oiran’s fading supremacy. Accordingly, having telephoned from the city to the village (impossible to avoid modernity!), which is happily omitted from the discreet pages of Murray, we drove out on a cold October evening to the once fashionable Tsumi-ya, a tea-house which figures in more than one notorious novel. As we sat shivering on the mats of the large fan-room, dimly lit by a single lamp, it was hard to realise what famous revels had contributed to its renown. Yet the relics were many and convincing. On the ceiling were painted the eight hundred and eighty-eight fans by Tosa, each inscribed with the autograph of a distinguished visitor, a poet or a daimyō, generally both. Hard by was the pine-room, whose faintly pictured canopy of serpentine boughs was the work of Kōrin. And, when the servants entered to lay the preliminary meal, they wore the same red aprons and red sleeve-cords as in the days when Iyeyasu was borne in his litter to the gardens of Shoji Jinyemon.
It would seem that the routine of ambrosial nights does not greatly vary in the land of perpetual etiquette. Having sipped rather than supped, the dishes being light and fluid, we summoned the usual geisha, but among them, as the artist had forewarned me, was one of unusual distinction. O Wakatai San (her name was equivalent to “The Honourable Young Person”) had long been the torture and despair of susceptible visitors. Her father was a samurai, strict and proud, who had trained her in a school of arbitrary virtue. Suitors had been one and all rejected; even Lord W., offering bribes of incredible amount, had gone empty away. She was losing her youth, having reached the age of twenty-three, but her regular features and sunny smile helped one to forget the rather raucous tones of her voice. She had seen enough of the Shimabara life to pity its victims, and sang us some rather sad ditties on the subject, of which I transcribe two. The first refers to the prisoner’s longing for liberty.
A Wish.
Could I but live like