“Our customs are not the customs of the Occident, but they are now your customs, Woroto,” said Yoritomo, and he ungirt his priest robe.
There was no escape, and my hesitancy was brief. My friend had submitted to many customs repugnant to him, in my country. Since this was a custom of his country, I could do no less. His matter-of-fact manner, taken with the girl’s naive unconsciousness of all wrong, helped me to realize that true modesty and purity are of the spirit and not of outward convention.
The ordeal was no light one, yet long before the bath was finished I had begun to forget my embarrassment in the girl’s ecstasies of wonder and delight over the whiteness of my skin. Though distinctly a brunette in all else than the color of my eyes, I seemed marvellously fair to this daughter of the Orient, whose own skin was of the olive tint of southern Italy and Spain.
With strict impartiality she aided our ablutions with the cold water, and then, at a sign from Yoritomo, led me first to the tub. It was scalding hot, yet the girl betrayed surprise when I insisted upon the addition of two cooling buckets before I would venture in. Even with that I was almost parboiled before Kohana had finished shaving my friend and dressing his hair.
When at last he came to take my place in purgatory, the girl deftly set about drying and shampooing me, still exclaiming upon the fairness of my skin, though it was now far other than “snow white.” Having dried the “honorable tojin sama,” she proceeded to shave my face and crown with her queer little razor and to reknot my cue. To my vast relief, she then cast aside my Yamabushi robe and soiled leggings, and left me to dress myself in the rich garments I had worn inside my tatters.
CHAPTER IX—Nippon’s Greetings
Cleansed and refreshed, we returned to compose ourselves upon our mats in the guest-room, while Kohana San, once more resplendent in gala dress, hastened out for our dinner. We were not long kept waiting. She returned with a lacquered tray, or rather, a low table, twelve or fourteen inches high. This she placed before me, and was out and back again in a few minutes with a similar tray for Yoritomo.
Each tray held many little bowls of steaming hot food and a pair of plain chopsticks, cut from a single piece of wood and not yet split apart at the upper end. At first I hesitated to begin eating under the eyes of this most cultured of geishas, but my single biscuit and the handful of persimmons had served only to whet my appetite, and the savory odors of many of the dishes before me were very tempting.