XXII
CONCLUSION
Thirty-seven years have passed since this story opened. It is in the month of May, 1895, and two men are sitting at a hibachi in an upper room in Shinagawa, formerly a suburb of Yedo, now a part of the city of Tokyo. The men were hale and hearty, but their gray hair, bordering on white, showed that they were beyond middle age. Their hair was cut after our fashion, but one wore a straggling beard, while the other’s snow-white moustache showed off to advantage his small mouth.
The room where they were sitting was at the back of the second story of a house, which, apparently at least was of our cottage style of architecture. If one had pressed the electric bell, and entered it, he would not have seen anything except what might be expected in the home of a well-to-do American or European. He might have noticed the taste displayed by the owner, and the quiet, unobtrusive elegance, but it would not have caused him to suspect that he was in the house of a Japanese.
The whole of the lower floor, except the kitchen and servants’ rooms, was such as one might have expected in an opulent American or English city. The upper story, however, retained the native simplicity, save that walls, instead of the light, airy sho ji, helped to support the roof. The prospect from every side was lovely, for the house stood on one of the bluffs, bordering the former Tokaido. That highway was there still, but its glory has departed. Every hour, and sometimes more frequently, trains run between Yokohama and Tokyo, and thousands of passengers mingle daily in the large waiting-rooms and in the depot at Shinbashi. There the former daimiyo comes in actual contact with the ninzoku, and the kuge of old stands by the side of the merchant.
The front of the house gives a view of the bay, lovely at high tide but disagreeable when the ebb exposes mud-banks extending three miles from the shore. It will not be long before the government will perceive the value of this land, and the eyesore will disappear. If Rome could have been built in a day, these Japanese would have done it.
If Ito looks from the windows on the right, toward Shinagawa, his eye must fall upon the handsome residence of Mori, where the son of his former lord now leads a life of quiet elegance. He is well satisfied with it. When Ito, now higher in rank than his former lord, calls to pay his respects as he often does, the same relation seems to exist as in former days. Again Ito is the simple samurai, his lord the daimiyo, and in both there is a secret longing for the days that are past. But when they look about them that longing ceases, and they are glad and proud of what they see.
From the windows in the left, Ito looks upon Tokyo, now grown into one of the world cities. Has it changed in these thirty-seven years? To be sure it has, but not oppressively. As we walk through the streets where dwell the people, we notice that they are wider and cleaner; but the houses are still as they were before, although there is evidence of greater prosperity. In Ginza, the street of the large shops, we see a mixture of the occident and orient, not altogether pleasant; houses built in foreign style, divided into Japanese rooms or Japanese houses with imitation foreign stores. Still it is all Japanese, that is, we can not, even for a moment, lose sight of the fact that we are in Japan.
