Kimono by John Paris

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Mr. Fujinami sat on the sill of his study, and meditated. Around him
was the stillness of early morning. From the house could be heard the
swish of the maids' brooms brushing the _tatami_, and the flip-flap
of their paper flickers, like horses' tails, with which they dislodged
the dust from the walls and cornices.

A big black crow had been perched on one of the cherry-trees in the
garden. He rose with a shaking of branches and a flapping of broad
black wings. He crossed the lake, croaking as he flew with a note
more harsh, rasping and cynical than the consequential caw of English
rooks. His was a malevolent presence "from the night's Plutonian
shore," the symbol of something unclean and sinister lurking behind
this dainty beauty and this elaboration of cleanliness.

Mr. Fujinami's meditations were deep and grave. Soon he put down the
book. The spectacles glided along his nose. His chest rose and fell
quickly under the weight of his resting chin. To the ignorant observer
Mr. Fujinami would have appeared to be asleep.

However, when his wife appeared about an hour and a half afterwards,
bringing her lord's breakfast on another red lacquer table she
besought him kindly to condescend to eat, and added that he must
be very tired after so much study. To this Mr. Fujinami replied by
passing his hand over his forehead and saying, "_D[=o]m[=o]! So des' ne!_
(Indeed, it is so!) I have tired myself with toil."

This little farce repeated itself every morning. All the household
knew that the master's hour of meditation was merely an excuse for
an after-sleep. But it was a tradition in the family that the master
should study thus; and Mr. Fujinami's grandfather had been a great
scholar in his generation. To maintain the tradition Mr. Fujinami had
hired a starveling journalist to write a series of random essays of
a sentimental nature, which he had published under his own name, with
the title, _Fallen Cherry-Blossoms_.

Such is the hold of humbug in Japan that nobody in the whole
household, including the students who respected nothing, ever allowed
themselves the relief of smiling at the sacred hour of study, even
when the master's back was turned.

* * * * *

"_O hay[=o] gozaimas_'!"

"For honourable feast of yesterday evening indeed very much obliged!"

The oily forehead of Mr. Ito touched the matting floor with the
exaggerated humility of conventional gratitude. The lawyer wore
a plain kimono of slate-grey silk. His American manners and his
pomposity had both been laid aside with the tweed suit and the
swallow-tail. He was now a plain Japanese business man, servile
and adulatory in his patron's presence. Mr. Fujinami Gentaro bowed
slightly in acknowledgment across the remnants of his meal.

"It is no matter," he said, with a few waves of his fan; "please sit
at your ease."

The two gentlemen arranged themselves squatting cross-legged for the
morning's confidential talk.

"The cherry-flowers," Ito began, with a sweep of the arm towards the
garden grove, "how quickly they fall, alas!"

"Indeed, human life also," agreed Mr. Fujinami. "But the guests of
last evening, what is one to think?"

"_Ma_! In truth, _sensei_ (master or teacher), it would be impossible
not to call that Asa San a beauty."

"Ito Kun," said his relative in a tone of mild censure, "it is foolish
always to think of women's looks. This foreigner, what of him?"

"For a foreigner, that person seems to be honourable and grave,"
answered the retainer, "but one fears that it is a misfortune for the
house of Fujinami."

"To have a son who is no son," said the head of the family, sighing.

"_D[=o]m[=o]!_ It is terrible!" was the reply; "besides, as the _sensei_
so eloquently said last night, there are so few blossoms on the old
tree."

The better to aid his thoughts, Mr. Fujinami drew from about his
person a case which contained a thin bamboo pipe, called _kiseru_ in
Japanese, having a metal bowl of the size and shape of the socket of
an acorn. He filled this diminutive bowl with a little wad of tobacco,
which looked like coarse brown hair. He kindled it from the charcoal
ember in the _hibachi_. He took three sucks of smoke, breathing them
slowly out of his mouth again in thick grey whorls. Then with three
hard raps against the wooden edge of the firebox, he knocked out again
the glowing ball of weed. When this ritual was over, he replaced the
pipe in its sheath of old brocade.

The lawyer sucked in his breath, and bowed his head.

"In family matters," he said, "it is rude for an outside person to
advise the master. But last night I saw a dream. I saw the Englishman
had been sent back to England; and that this Asa San with all her
money was again in the Fujinami family. Indeed, a foolish dream, but a
good thing, I think!"

Mr. Fujinami pondered with his face inclined and his eyes shut.

"Ito Kun," he said at last, "you are indeed a great schemer. Every
month you make one hundred schemes. Ninety of them are impracticable,
eight of them are foolish, and two of them are masterpieces!"

"And this one?" asked Ito.

"I think it is impracticable," said his patron, "but it would be worth
while to try. It would without doubt be an advantage to send away
this foreigner. He is a great trouble, and may even become a danger.
Besides, the house of Fujinami has few children. Where there are no
sons even daughters are welcome. If we had this Asa, we could marry
her to some influential person. She is very beautiful, she is rich,
and she speaks foreign languages. There would be no difficulty. Now,
as to the present, how about this Osaka business?"

"I have heard from my friend this morning," answered Ito; "it is good
news. The Governor will sanction the establishment of the new licensed
quarter at Tobita, if the Home Minister approves."

"But that is easy. The Minister has always protected us. Besides, did
I not give fifty thousand _yen_ to the funds of the _Seiyukwai_?"
said Mr. Fujinami, naming the political party then in the majority in
Parliament.

"Yes, but it must be done quickly; for opposition is being organised.
First, there was the Salvation Army and the missionaries. Now, there
are Japanese people, too, people who make a cry and say this licensed
prostitute system is not suitable to a civilised country, and it is a
shame to Japan. Also, there may be a political change very soon, and a
new Minister."

"Then we would have to begin all over again, another fifty thousand
_yen_ to the other side."

"If it is worth it?"

"My father says that Osaka is the gold mine of Japan. It is worth all
that we can pay."

"Yes, but Mr. Fujinami Gennosuke is an old man now, and the times are
changing."

The master laughed.

"Times change," he said, "but men and women never change."

"It is true," argued Ito, "that rich and noble persons no longer
frequent the _yukwaku_ (pleasure enclosure). My friend, Suzuki, has
seen the Chief of the Metropolitan Police. He says that he will not
be able to permit _Oiran Dochu_ another year. He says too that it
will soon be forbidden to show the _jor[=o]_ in their windows. It will
be photograph-system for all houses. It is all a sign of the change.
Therefore, the Fujinami ought not to sink any more capital in the
_yukwaku_."

"But men will still be men, they will still need a laundry for their
spirits." Mr. Fujinami used a phrase which in Japan is a common excuse
for those who frequent the _demi-monde_.

"That is true, _sensei_," said the counsellor; "but our Japan must
take on a show of Western civilisation. It is the thing called
progress. It is part of Western civilisation that men will become more
hypocritical. These foreigners say our Yoshiwara is a shame; but, in
their own cities, immoral women walk in the best streets, and offer
themselves to men quite openly. These virtuous foreigners are worse
than we are. I myself have seen. They say, 'We have no Yoshiwara
system, therefore we are good.' They pretend not to see like a
_geisha_ who squints through a fan. We Japanese, we now become more
hypocritical, because this is necessary law of civilisation. The two
swords of the _samurai_ have gone; but honour and hatred and revenge
will never go. The _kanzashi_ (hair ornaments) of the _oiran_ will go
too; but what the _oiran_ lose, the _geisha_ will gain. Therefore, if
I were Fujinami San, I would buy up the _geisha_, and also perhaps the
_inbai_ (unregistered women)."

"But that is a low trade," objected the Yoshiwara magnate.

"It is very secret; your name need never be spoken."

"And it is too scattered, too disorganised, it would be impossible to
control."

"I do not think it would be so difficult. What might be proposed is a
_geisha_ trust."

"But even the Fujinami have not got enough money."

"Within one month I guarantee to find the right men, with the money
and the experience and the influence."

"Then the business would no longer be the Fujinami only--"

"It would be as in America, a combine, something on a big scale. In
Japan one is content with such small business. Indeed, we Japanese are
a very small people."

"In America, perhaps, there is more confidence," said the elder man;
"but in Japan we say, 'Beware of friends who are not also relatives,'
There is, as you know, the temple of Inari Daimy[=o]jin in Asakusa. They
say that if a man worships at that temple he becomes the owner of his
friend's wealth. I fear that too many of us Japanese make pilgrimage
to that temple after nightfall."

With those words, Mr. Fujinami picked up a newspaper to indicate
that the audience was terminated; and Mr. Ito, after a series of
prostrations, withdrew.

* * * * *

As soon as he was out of sight, Mr. Fujinami Gentaro selected from the
pile in front of him a number of letters and newspapers. With these
in his hand, he left the study, and followed a path of broad, flat
stepping-stones across the garden towards the cherry-orchard. Here
the way sloped rapidly downward under a drift of fallen petals. On the
black naked twigs of the cherry-trees one or two sturdy blossoms still
clung pathetically, like weather-beaten butterflies. Beyond a green
shrubbery, on a little knoll, a clean newly-built Japanese house,
like a large rabbit hutch, rested in a patch of sunlight. It was
the _inkyo_, the "shadow dwelling" or dower house. Here dwelt Mr.
Fujinami, senior, and his wife--his fourth matrimonial experiment.

The old gentleman was squatting on the balcony of the front corner
room, the one which commanded the best view of the cherry-grove. He
looked as if he had just been unpacked; for he was surrounded by reams
and reams of paper, some white, and some with Chinese letters scrawled
over them. He was busy writing these letters with a kind of thick
paint-brush; and he was so deep in his task that he appeared not to
notice his son's approach. His restless jaw was still imperturbably
chewing.

"_O hay[=o] gozaimas_'!"

"_Tar[=o], yo! O hay[=o]_!" cried the old gentleman, calling his son by his
short boy's name, and cutting off all honorifics from his speech.
He always affected surprise at this visit, which had been a daily
occurrence for many years.

"The cherry-flowers are fallen and finished," said the younger man.
"Ah, human life, how short a thing!"

"Yes, one year more I have seen the flowers," said Mr. Fujinami
Gennosuke, nodding his head and taking his son's generalisation as
a personal reference. He had laid his brush aside; and he was really
wondering what would be Gentaro's comment on last night's feast and
its guests of honour.

"Father is practising handwriting again?"

The old man's mania was penmanship, just as his son's was literature.
Among Japanese it is considered the pastime becoming to his age.

"My wrist has become stiff. I cannot write as I used to. It is
always so. Youth has the strength but not the knowledge; age has the
knowledge, but no strength."

As a matter of fact, Mr. Gennosuke was immensely satisfied with his
calligraphy, and was waiting for compliments.

"But this, this is beautifully written. It is worthy of Kobo Daishi!"
said the younger man, naming a famous scholar priest of the Middle
Ages. He was admiring a scroll on which four characters were
written in a perpendicular row. They signified, "From the midst of
tranquillity I survey the world."

"No," said the artist; "you see the _ten_ (point) there is wrong. It
is ill-formed. It should be written thus."

Shaking back his kimono sleeve--he wore a sea-blue cotton kimono, as
befitted his years--and with a little flourish of his wrist, like a
golfer about to make his stroke, he traced off the new version of the
character on the white paper.

Perched on his veranda, with his head on one side he looked very like
the marabout stork, as you may see him at the Zoo, that raffish bird
with the folds in his neck, the stained glaucous complexion, the bald
head and the brown human eye. He had the same look of respectable
rascality. The younger Fujinami showed signs of becoming exactly like
him, although the parentage was by adoption only. He was not yet so
bald. His black hair was patched with grey in a piebald design. The
skin of the throat was at present merely loose, it did not yet hang in
bags.

"And this Asa San?" remarked the elder after a pause; "what is to be
thought of her? Last night I became drunk, as my habit is, and I could
not see those people well."

"She is not loud-voiced and bold like foreign women. Indeed, her voice
and her eyes are soft. Her heart is very good, I think. She is timid,
and in everything she puts her husband first. She does not understand
the world at all; and she knows nothing about money. Indeed, she is
like a perfect Japanese wife."

"Hm! A good thing, and the husband?"

"He is a soldier, an honourable man. He seemed foolish, or else he is
very cunning. The English people are like that. They say a thing. Of
course, you think it is a lie. But no, it is the truth; and so they
deceive."

"_Ma, mendo-kusai_ (indeed, smelly-troublesome!) And why has this
foreigner come to Japan?"

"Ito says he has come to learn about the money. That means, when he
knows he will want more."

"How much do we pay to Asa San?"

"Ten per cent."

"And the profits last year on all our business came to thirty seven
and a half per cent. Ah! A fine gain. We could not borrow from the
banks at ten per cent. They would want at least fifteen, and many
gifts for silence. It is better to fool the husband, and to let them
go back to England. After all, ten per cent is a good rate. And we
want all our money now for the new brothels in Osaka. If we make much
money there, then afterwards we can give them more."

"Ito says that if the Englishman knows that the money is made in
brothels, he will throw it all away and finish. Ito thinks it would be
not impossible to send the Englishman back to England, and to keep Asa
here in Japan."

The old man looked up suddenly, and for once his jaw stopped chewing.

"That would be best of all," he exclaimed. "Then indeed he is
honourable and a great fool. Being an Englishman, it is possible. Let
him go back to England. We will keep Asa. She too is a Fujinami; and,
even though she is a woman, she can be useful to the family. She will
stay with us. She would not like to be poor. She has not borne a baby
to this foreigner, and she is young. I think also our Sada can teach
her many things."

"It is of Sada that I came to speak to father," said Mr. Gentaro. "The
marriage of our Sada is a great question for the Fujinami family. Here
is a letter from Mr. Osumi, a friend of the Governor of Osaka. The
Governor has been of much help to us in getting the concession for
the new brothels. He is a widower with no children. He is a man with a
future. He is protected by the military clan. He is wishful to marry
a woman who can assist his career, and who would be able to take the
place of a Minister's wife. Mr. Osumi, who writes, had heard of the
accomplishments of our Sada. He mentioned her name to the Governor;
and His Excellency was quite willing that Mr. Osumi should write
something in a letter to Ito."

"Hm!" grunted the old gentleman, squinting sidelong at his son; "this
Governor, has he a private fortune?"

"No, he is a self-made man."

"Then it will not be with him, as it was with that Viscount Kamimura.
He will not be too proud to take our money."

The truth of the allusion to Viscount Kamimura was that the name of
Sadako Fujinami had figured on the list of possible brides submitted
to that young aristocrat on his return from England. At first, it
seemed likely that the choice would fall upon her, because of her
undisputed cleverness; and the Fujinami family were radiant at the
prospect of so brilliant a match. For although nothing had been
formally mentioned between the two families, yet Sadako and her mother
had learned from their hairdresser that there was talk of such a
possibility in the servants' quarter of the Kamimura mansion, and
that old Dowager Viscountess Kamimura was undoubtedly making inquiries
which could only point to that one object.

The young Viscount, however, on ascertaining the origin of the family
wealth, eliminated poor Sadako from the competition for his hand.

It was a great disappointment to the Fujinami, and most of all to the
ambitious Sadako. For a moment she had seen opening the doorway into
that marvellous world of high diplomacy, of European capitals, of
diamonds, duchesses and intrigue, of which she had read in foreign
novels, where everybody is rich, brilliant, immoral and distinguished,
and where to women are given the roles to play even more important
than those of the men. This was the only world, she felt, worthy of
her talents; but few, very few, just one in a million Japanese women,
ever gets the remotest chance of entering it. This chance presented
itself to Sadako--but for a moment only. The doorway shut to again;
and Sadako was left feeling more acutely than before the emptiness
of life, and the bitterness of woman's lot in a land where men are
supreme.

Her cousin, Asako, by the mere luck of having had an eccentric parent
and a European upbringing, possessed all the advantages and all the
experience which the Japanese girl knew only through the glamorous
medium of books. But this Asa San was a fool. Sadako had found that
out at once in the course of a few minutes talk at the Maple Club
dinner. She was sweet, gentle and innocent; far more Japanese, indeed,
than her sophisticated cousin. Her obvious respect and affection for
her big rough husband, her pathetic solicitude for the father whose
face she could hardly remember and for the mother who was nothing but
a name; these traits of character belong to the meek Japanese girl
of _Onna Daigaku_ (Woman's Great Learning), that famous classic
of Japanese girlhood which teaches the submission of women and the
superiority of men. It was a type which was becoming rare in her own
country. Little Asako had nothing in common with the argumentative
heroines of Bernard Shaw or with the desperate viragos of Ibsen, to
whom Sadako felt herself spiritually akin. Asako must be a fool. She
exasperated her Japanese cousin, who at the same time was envious of
her, envious above all of her independent wealth. As she observed to
her own mother, it was most improper that a woman, and a young woman
too, should have so much money of her own. It would be sure to spoil
her character.

Meanwhile Asako was a way of access to first-hand knowledge of that
world of European womanhood which so strongly attracted Sadako's
intelligence, that almost incredible world in which men and women were
equal, had equal rights to property, and equal rights to love. Asako
must have seen enough to explain something about it; if only she were
not a fool. But it appeared that she had never heard of Strindberg,
Sudermann, or d'Annunzio; and even Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde were
unfamiliar names.

CHAPTER XIII

THE FAMILY ALTAR

_Yume no ai wa
Kurushikari keri?
Odorokite
Kaki-saguredomo
Te ni mo fureneba._

(These) meetings in dreams
How sad they are!
When, waking up startled
One gropes about--
And there is no contact to the hand.

Miss Fujinami made up her mind to cultivate Asako's friendship, and to
learn all that she could from her. So she at once invited her cousin
to the mysterious house in Akasaka, and Asako at once accepted.

The doors seemed to fly open at the magic of the wanderer's return.
Behind each partition were family retainers, bowing and smiling.
Three maids assisted her to remove her boots. There was a sense of
expectation and hospitality, which calmed Asako's fluttering shyness.

"Welcome! Welcome!" chanted the chorus of maids, "_O agari
nasaimashi!_ (pray step up into the house!)"

The visitor was shown into a beautiful airy room overlooking the
landscape garden. She could not repress an Ah! of wonder, when first
this fairy pleasance came in sight. It was all so green, so tiny, and
so perfect,--the undulating lawn, the sheet of silver water, the pigmy
forests which clothed its shores, its disappearance round a shoulder
of rock into that hinterland of high trees which closed the vista and
shut out the intrusion of the squalid city.

The Japanese understand better than we do the mesmeric effects
of sights and sounds. It was to give her time to assimilate her
surroundings that Asako was left alone for half an hour or so, while
Sadako and her mother were combing their hair and putting their
kimonos straight. Tea and biscuits were brought for her, but her fancy
was astray in the garden. Already to her imagination a little town
had sprung up along the shingles of the tiny bay which faced her;
the sails of white ships were glimpsing where the sunlight struck the
water; and from round the rock promontory she could catch the shimmer
of the Prince's galleon with its high poop and stern covered with
solid gold. He was on his way to rescue the lady who was immured in
the top of the red pagoda on the opposite hill.

Asako's legs were getting numb. She had been sitting on them
in correct Japanese fashion all this time. She was proud of the
accomplishment, which she considered must be hereditary, but she could
not keep it up for much longer than half an hour. Sadako's mother
entered.

"Asa San is welcome."

Much bowing began, in which Asako felt her disadvantage. The long
lines of the kimono, with the big sash tied behind, lend themselves
with peculiar grace to the squatting bow of Japanese intercourse. But
Asako, in the short blue jacket of her tailor-made serge, felt that
her attitude was that of the naughty little boys in English picture
books, bending over for castigation.

Mrs. Fujinami wore a perfectly plain kimono, blackish-brown in colour,
with a plain gold sash. It is considered correct for middle-aged
ladies in Japan to dress with modesty and reserve. She was tall for a
Japanese woman and big-boned, with a long lantern-face, and an almost
Jewish nose. The daughter was of her mother's build. But her face was
a perfect oval, the melon-seed shape which is so highly esteemed in
her country. The severity of her appearance was increased, by her
blue-tinted spectacles; and like so many Japanese women, her teeth
were full of gold stopping. She was resplendent in blue, the blue of
the Mediterranean, with fronds of cherry-blossom and floating pink
petals designed round her skirts and at the bottom of the long
exaggerated sleeves. The sash of broad stiff brocade shone with light
blue and silver in a kind of conventional wave pattern. This was tied
at the back with a huge bow, which seemed perched upon its wearer like
a gigantic butterfly alighting on a cornflower. Her straight black
hair was parted on one side in "foreign" style. But her mother wore
the helmet-like _marumage_, the edifice of conservative taste in
married women, which looks more like a wig than like natural hair.

Rings sparkled on Sadako's fingers, and she wore a diamond ornament
across her sash; but neither their taste nor their quality impressed
her cousin. Her face was of the same ivory tint as Asako's, but it
was hidden under a lavish coating of liquid powder. This hideous
embellishment covers not only the Mongolian yellow, which every
Japanese woman seems anxious to hide, but also the natural and
charming nuances of young skin, under a white monotonous surface
like a mask of clay. Painted roses bloomed on the girl's cheeks. The
eyebrows were artificially darkened as well as the lines round the
eyes. The face and its expression, in fact, were quite obscured by
cosmetics; and Miss Fujinami was wrapped in a cloud of cheap scent
like a servant-girl on her evening out.

She spoke English well. In fact, at school she had achieved a really
brilliant career, and she had even attended a University for a time
with the intention of reading for a degree, an attainment rare among
Japanese girls. But overwork brought on its inevitable result. Books
had to be banished, and glasses interposed to save the tired eyes from
the light. It was a bitter disappointment for Sadako, who was a proud
and ambitious girl, and it had not improved her disposition.

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