The next morning Sergy went with the first train to Tokio, the metropolis of Japan, which is three-quarters of an hour’s drive by railway from Yokohama, to call upon Mr. Khitrovo, the Russian Ambassador to Japan.
Three days later we left for Tokio, where my husband went to pay his respects to the Emperor of Japan. We called for rikshas and drove off full gallop to the railway station. In the waiting-room we saw a placard stuck up on one side of the wall, bearing the inscription in English “First-Class,” and on the opposite wall was written “Second-Class,” without any partition at all. All the passengers were Japs, sitting shoeless on their heels on the sofas in monkey-poses.
We took seats in a large car of American pattern, with wooden benches around and a door at each end, and tore through the country with few pauses. The road from Yokohama to Tokio is very picturesque, the shrubs are very green and dense, and the mimosa in full bloom. It is not for nothing that Japan is called “The Garden of Asia.” But everything is Lilliputian. We see on our right tiny groves and dwarfed trees. We roll now through maize and rice plantations. Cottages with rush-cane roofs peep out from between the rich vegetation.
CHAPTER LXVI
TOKIO
On arriving at Tokio we drove in a splendid landau sent to meet us by the Japanese minister of Foreign Affairs, to the Oriental Hotel, where we took an apartment of several rooms. We had barely time to take a little rest, when we received the visit of our Ambassador and the Japanese Naval Minister.
After dinner we sat on the verandah. The city lay in utter darkness before us; the streets were only lighted here and there with paper lanterns carried by the passers-by.
Our Ambassador invited us to his beautiful house close to Tokio, to show us geishas, whose dancing was held to have no equal in Japan. We drove in rikshas through a lovely avenue of cherry trees. When we arrived at the Ambassador’s residence we were shown into a large hall hung with many rows of weapons of every description, rifles, revolvers, yataghans, etc., etc. Against the walls stood suits of armour. After having admired the beautiful collection, we entered another hall where four geishas awaited us. They were bare-legged, bare-armed, and with very much painted faces, dressed in bright-coloured kimonos. These little bits of womanhood looked as if they wanted to play at dolls; the eldest of the geishas was barely fifteen. Three musician-girls, arrayed in dark-blue kimonos, were seated cross-legged on the matting. They began to sing melodies resembling the mewing of enamoured cats on the roofs, to the accompaniment of the samissen, a kind of guitar of three strings. The dancing-girls had no more space than an ordinary square rug to dance upon. They were sitting in a circle; one of them rose, and saluting us to the ground, crossed her arms across her chest and began to act a mimic of a blind girl. Her performance could scarcely be called a dance, groping about the matting with her eyes closed. I found her companion’s dances rather disappointing also. Their arms twisted and they glided without their body making any movement; a few shuffling steps to-and-fro, a wave of shapely olive bangled arms, all to the nasal twangling of a hideous accompaniment. I began to yawn behind my hand and looked longingly at the clock, and did all I could to keep awake. I should have dropped off to sleep certainly if tea and cakes hadn’t come to my rescue. The geishas gathered in a group round us and sat at our feet. They looked at Mrs. Serebriakoff and me as at some object of extraordinary interest. Opening wide their little eyes they examined and tried on bracelets and rings, uttering funny little cries. It was nearly daylight when we returned to Tokio.
The next day my husband, in full military uniform, drove to the Imperial Palace, accompanied by his suite, to be presented to the Emperor of Japan. He returned delighted with his visit to the Taushi-Sama, the Son of Heaven. The word Mikado, by which the Emperor is known in Europe, is never used in Japan. Mikado is an ancient designation which has passed out of date in remote antiquity. The Emperor wore a uniform of European cut, with a Russian order on it, and the Empress was resplendent in a dress that she had ordered from Paris, with the Russian order of St. Catherine worn across her shoulder. The Imperial couple presented my husband with their portraits and their autographs.
On the following day my husband was invited to lunch with the Emperor’s uncle, Prince Arissougava. In the afternoon we went to visit the Buddhist Temple of Shiba, to see the tombs of the “shioguns,” the ancient Emperors of Japan. Two bonzes (Buddhist priests), enveloped in black gauze, followed by a big dog, served as guides to us. The Temple is surrounded by a magnificent shady park of camphor and other aromatic trees. We inhaled with delight the perfume of myrtle and orange blossoms. We found our way into a courtyard open to the sky, where a fountain played over a marble basin. Beyond is a long, low building, the sides are simple wooden screens. It is the Temple. Men and women kneel and pray before the entrance of the Temple. On each side stand two monster figures, demoniac, with eyes of fury, the guardians of holy things. The custom of offerings is very peculiar in Japan; pilgrims cast their offerings in a box destined for the purpose, placed before the threshold, consisting of sheets of gilt paper or small coloured incensed tapers. The very poorest throw only a handful of rice into the box. I saw piles of straw sandals thrown at the feet of a huge marble Buddha, seated cross-legged on a bronze pedestal, and was told that it was the modest offering of riksha-men, begging Buddha to grant them strong legs. At the door of the Temple we slipped off our shoes and put on a pair of sandals, for in Japan one may not enter the House of God with shoes on. A white-robed priest with a shaven head appeared and motioned us, with a bow, to enter. The screens slide open and an immense hall is before us, full of unfamiliar sweet smell of Japanese incense, produced by strings of incensed paper which pilgrims burn before their idols. We pass through a great red gateway of the sacred enclosure and enter the mortuary shrines of Setsugu, one of the Shioguns, full of bronze lanterns, which are offerings to the dead from their royal relatives.