Kimono Part 29

"They are over two hundred years old," said their proud owner, "they came from one of the Emperor's palaces at Kyoto."

But the pride of the collection were the conifers and evergreens--trees which have j.a.panese and Latin names only, the _hinoki_, the _enoki_, the _sasaki_, the _keyaki_, the _maki_, the _surgi_ and the _kusunoki_--all trees of the dark funereal families of fir and laurel, which the birds avoid, and whose deep winter green in the summer turns to rust. There were spreading cedar trees, black like the tents of Bedouins, and there were straight cryptomerias for the masts of fairy ships. There was a strange tree, whose light-green foliage grew in round clumps like trays of green lacquer at the extremities of twisted brandies, a natural _etagere_. There were the distorted pine-trees of j.a.pan, which are the symbol of old age, of fidelity, of patience under adversity, and of the j.a.panese nation itself, in every att.i.tude of menace, curiosity, jubilation and gloom.

Some of them were leaning out of their pots and staring head downwards at the ground beneath them; some were creeping along the earth like reptiles; some were mere trunks, with a bunch of green needles sprouting at the top like a palm; some with one long pathetic branch were stretching out in quest of the infinite to the neglect of the rest of the tree; some were tall and bent as by some sea wind blowing sh.o.r.eward. Streaking a miniature landscape, they were whispering together the tales of centuries past.

The j.a.panese art of cultivating these tiny trees is a weird and unhealthy practice, akin to vivisection, but without its excuse. It is like the Chinese custom of dwarfing their women's feet. The result is pleasing to the eye; but it hurts the mind by its abnormality, and the heart by its ruthlessness.

Asako's admiration, so easily stirred, became enthusiastic as Countess Saito told her something of the personal history of her favourite plants, how this one was two hundred years old, and that one three hundred and fifty, and how another had been present at such and such a scene famous in j.a.panese history.

"Oh, they are lovely," cried Asako. "Where can one get them? I must have some."

Countess Saito gave her the names of some well-known market gardeners.

"You can get pretty little trees from them for fifty to a hundred _yen_ (5 to 10)," she said. "But of course the real historical trees are so very few; they hardly ever come on the market. They are like animals, you know. They want so much attention. They must have a garden to take their walks in, and a valet of their own."

This great j.a.panese lady felt an affection and sympathy for the girl who, like herself, had been set apart by destiny from the monotonous ranks of j.a.panese women and their tedious dependence.

"Little Asa Chan," she said, calling her by her pet name, "take care; you can become j.a.panese again, but your husband cannot."

"Of course not, he's too big," laughed Asako; "but I like to run away from him sometimes, and hide behind the _shoji_. Then I feel independent."

"But you are not really so," said the j.a.panese, "no woman is. You see the wisteria hanging in the big tree there. What happens when the big tree is taken away? The wisteria becomes independent, but it lies along the ground and dies. Do you know the j.a.panese name for wisteria?

It is _fuji_--Fujinami Asako. If you have any difficulty ever, come and talk to me. You see, I, too, am a rich woman; and I know that it is almost as difficult to be very rich as it is to be very poor."

Captain Barrington and the ex-Amba.s.sador were sitting on one of the benches of the terrace when the ladies rejoined them.

"Well, Daddy," the Countess addressed her husband in English, "what are you talking about so earnestly?"

"About England and j.a.pan," replied the Count.

As a matter of fact, in the course of a rambling conversation, Count Saito had asked his guest:

"Now, what strikes you as the most surprising difference between our two countries?"

Geoffrey pondered for a moment. He wanted to answer frankly, but he was still awed by the canons of Good Form. At last he said: "This Yoshiwara business."

The j.a.panese statesman seemed surprised.

"But that is just a local difference in the manner of regulating a universal problem," he said.

"Englishmen aren't any better than they should be," said Geoffrey; "but we don't like to hear of women put up for sale like things in a shop."

"Then you have not actually seen them yourself?" said the Count.

He could not help smiling at the characteristic British habit of criticising on hearsay.

"Not actually; but I saw the procession last month."

"You really think that it is better to let immoral women stray about the streets without any attempt to control them and the crime and disease they cause?"

"It's not that," said Geoffrey; "it seems to me horrible that women should be put up to sale and exposed in shop windows ticketed and priced."

Count Saito smiled again and said:

"I see that you are an idealist like so many Englishmen. But I am only a practical statesman. The problem of vice is a problem of government.

No law can abolish it. It is for us statesmen to study how to restrain it and its evil consequences. Three hundred years ago these women used to walk about the streets as they do in London to-day. Tokugawa Iyeyasu, the greatest of all j.a.panese statesmen, who gave peace to the whole country, put in order this untidiness also. He had the Yoshiwara built, and he put all the women there, where the police could watch both them and the men who visited them. The English might learn from us here, I think. But you are an unruly people. It is not only that you object for ideal reasons to the imprisonment of these women; but it is your men who would object very strongly to having the eye of the policeman watching them when they paid their visits."

Geoffrey was silenced by the experience of his host. He was afraid, as most Englishmen are, of arguing that the British determination to ignore vice, however disastrous in practice, is a system infinitely n.o.bler in conception than the acquiescence which admits for the evil its right to exist, and places it among the commonplaces of life.

"And how about the people who make money out of such a place?" asked Geoffrey. "They must be contemptible specimens."

The face of the wise statesman became suddenly gentle.

"I really don't know much about them," he said. "If we do meet them they do not boast about it."

CHAPTER XV

EURASIA

_Mono-sugo ya Ara omoshiro no Kaeri-bana._

Queer-- Yes, but attractive Are the flowers which bloom out of season.

Although he felt a decreasing interest in the j.a.panese people, Geoffrey was enjoying his stay in Tokyo. He was tired of traveling, and was glad to settle down in the semblance of a home life.

He was very keen on his tennis. It was also a great pleasure to see so much of Reggie Forsyth. Besides, he was conscious of the mission a.s.signed to him by Lady Cynthia Cairns to save his friend from the dangerous connection with Yae Smith.

Reggie and he had been at Eton together. Geoffrey, four years the senior, a member of "Pop," and an athlete of many colours, found himself one day the object of an almost idolatrous worship on the part of a skinny little being, discreditably clever at Latin verses, and given over to the degrading habit of solitary piano practicing on half-holidays. He was embarra.s.sed but touched by a devotion which was quite incomprehensible to him; and he encouraged it furtively. When Geoffrey left Eton the friends did not see each other again for some years, though they watched each other's careers from a distance, mutually appreciative. Their next meeting took place in Lady Everington's drawing-room, where Barrington had already heard fair ladies praising the gifts and graces of the young diplomat. He heard him play the piano; and he also heard the appreciation of discerning judgment. He heard him talking with arabesque agility. It was Geoffrey's turn to feel on the wrong side of a vast superiority, and in his turn he repaid the old debt of admiration; generosity filled the gulf and the two became firm friends. Reggie's intelligence flicked the inertia of Geoffrey's mind, quickened his powers of observation, and developed his sense of interest in the world around him. Geoffrey's prudence and stolidity had more than once saved the young man from the brink of sentimental precipices.

For Reggie's unquestionable musical talent found its nourishment in love affairs dangerously unsophisticated. He refused to consider marriage with any of the sweet young things, who would gladly have risked his lukewarm interest for the chance of becoming an Amba.s.sador's wife. He equally avoided p.a.w.ning his youth to any of the maturer married ladies, whose status and character, together with those of their husbands, license them to practice as certificated Egerias. His dangerous _penchant_ was for highly spiced adventuresses, and for pastoral amourettes, wistful and obscure. But he never gave away his heart; he lent it out at interest. He received it again intact, with the profit of his musical inspiration. Thus his liaison with Veronique Gerson produced the publication of _Les demi-jours_, a series of musical poems which placed him at once in the forefront of young composers; but it also alarmed the Foreign Office, which was paternally interested in Reggie's career. This brought about his banishment to j.a.pan. The _Attente d'hiver_, now famous, is his candid musical confession that the coma inflicted upon him by Veronique's unconcern was merely the drowsiness of the waiting earth before the New Year brought back the old story.

Reggie would never be attracted to native women; and he had not the dry inquisitiveness of his predecessor, Aubrey Laking, which might induce him to buy and keep a woman for whom he felt no affection. The love which can exchange no thoughts in speech was altogether too crude for him. It was his emotions, rather than his senses, which were always craving for amorous excitement. His frail body claimed merely its right to follow their lead, as a little boat follows the strong wind which fills its sails. But ever since he had loved Geoffrey Barrington at Eton it was a necessity for his nature to love some one; and as the haze of his young conceptions cleared, that some one became necessarily a woman.

He soon recognized the wisdom of the Foreign Office in choosing j.a.pan.

It was a starvation diet which had been prescribed for him. So he settled down to his memories and to _L'attente d'hiver_, thinking that it would be two long years or more before his Spring blossomed again.

Then he heard the story of the duel fought for Yae Smith by two young English officers, both of them her lovers, so people said, and the vaguer tale of a fiance's suicide. Some weeks later, he met her for the first time at a dance. She was the only woman present in j.a.panese dress, and Reggie thought at once of Asako Barrington. How wise of these small women to wear the kimono which drapes so gracefully their stumpy figures. He danced with her, his right hand lodged somewhere in the folds of the huge bow with the embroidered peac.o.c.k, which covered her back. Under this stiff brocade he could feel no sensation of a living body. She seemed to have no bones in her, and she was as light as a feather. It was then that he imagined her as Lilith, the snake-girl. She danced with ease, so much better than he, that at the end of a series of cannons she suggested that they might sit out the dance. She guided him into the garden, and they took possession of a rustic seat. In the ballroom she had seemed timid, and had spoken in undertones only; but in this shadowy _tete-a-tete_ beneath the stars, she began to talk frankly about her own life.

She told him about her one visit to England with her father; how she had loved the country, and how dull it was for her here in j.a.pan. She asked him about his music. She would so like to hear him play. There was an old piano at her home. She did not think he would like it very much--indeed, Reggie was already shuddering in antic.i.p.ation--or else?

Would she come to tea with him at the Emba.s.sy? That would be nice! She could bring her mother or one of her brothers? She would rather come with a girl friend. Very well, to-morrow?

On the morrow she came.