John Paris

“ Next evening, when Asako had spread the two quilts on the golden matting, when she had lit the rushlight in the square andon, when the two girls were lying side by side under the heavy wadded bedclothes, Sadako said to her cousin:
"Asa Chan, I do not think you like me now as much as you used to like me."
"I always like people when I have once liked them," said Asako; "but everything is different now."
"I see, your heart changes quickly," said her cousin bitterly.
"No, I have tried to change, but I cannot change. I have tried to become Japanese, but I cannot even learn the Japanese language. ”

“ Never before had she seen a Japanese soul laid bare.
"But you will marry Sekiné, Sada dear; and then you will be happy."
"Marry Sekiné!" the girl hissed, "marry a boy with no money and leave you to be the Fujinami heiress, when I am promised to the Governor of Osaka, who will be home Minister when the next Governor comes!"
"Oh, don't do that," urged Asako, her English sentimentalism flooding back across her mind. "Don't marry a man whom you don't love. You say you are a new woman. Marry Sekiné. Marry the man whom you love. Then you will be happy." ”

“ The latent soul of Tokyo, the mystery of Japan, lies within the confines of that moat, which is the only great majestic thing in an untidy rambling village of more than two million living beings.
The Palace of the Mikado—a title by the way which is never used among Japanese—is hidden from sight. That is the first remarkable thing about it. The gesture of Versailles, the challenge of "l'etat c'est moi," the majestic vulgarity which the millionaire of the moment can mimic with a vulgarity less majestic, are here entirely absent; and one cannot mimic the invisible. ”

“ I still have much to learn, thank God. Véronique was personal; Yaé is symbolic. She is my model, just like a painter's model, only more platonic. She is the East to me; for I cannot understand the East pure and undiluted. She is a country-woman of mine on her father's side, and therefore easier to understand. Impersonality and fatalism, the Eastern Proteus, in the grip of self-insistence and idealism, the British Hercules. A butterfly body with this cosmic war shaking it incessantly. Poor child! no wonder she seems always tired."
"She is a half-caste?" asked Geoffrey. ”

“ The new life appealed to Asako's love of novelty, and the strangeness of it to her child's love of make-believe. The summoning of her parents' spirits awakened in her the desire for a home, which lurks in every one of us; the love of old family things around us, the sense of an inheritance and a tradition. She was tired of hotel life; and she turned for relaxation to playing at Japan with cousin Sadako, just as her husband turned to tennis. ”

“ Asako gradually accustomed herself to the noises of the house. First, there was the clattering of the amado, the wooden shutters whose removal announced the beginning of the day, then the gurgling and the expectorations which accompanied the family ablutions, then the harsh sound of the men's voices and their rattling laughter, the sound of their geta on the gravel paths of the garden like the tedious dropping of heavy rain on an iron roof, then the flicking and dusting of the maids as they went about their daily soji (house-cleaning) , their shrill mouselike chirps and their silly giggle ”

“ Asako rang up Reggie; and on the next afternoon the young diplomat called for the Barringtons in a motor-car, where Miss Yaé Smith was already installed. They drove through Tokyo. It was like crossing London for the space of distance covered; an immense city—yet is it a city, or merely a village preposterously overgrown?
There is no dignity in the Japanese capital, nothing secular or permanent, except that mysterious forest-land in the midst of the moats and the grey walls, where dwell the Emperor and the Spirit of the Race. ”

“ The Barrington ménage had seemed to him so devoted that he had often despaired of his boast to his patron that he would divide the wife from her husband, and restore her to her family. Now, if Tanaka's story were true, his task would be child's play. A woman charged with jealousy becomes like a weapon primed and cocked. If Ito could succeed in making Asako jealous, then he knew that any stray spark of misunderstanding would blast a black gulf between husband and wife, and might even blow the importunate Englishman back to his own country—alone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is always an air of petty conspiracy in the wake of every foreigner who visits the country. If he is a Japan enthusiast, he is amused by the naive ways, and accepts the conventional smile as the reflection of the heart of "the happy, little Japs." If he hates the country, he takes it for granted that extortion and villainy will accompany his steps.
Geoffrey and Asako enjoyed immensely their introduction to Japan. The unpleasant experiences of Nagasaki were soon forgotten after their arrival at Kyoto, the ancient capital of the Mikado, where the charm of old Japan still lingers. ”

“ Round a sunny fountain, the source of the stream, just below the terrace of the Count's mansion, they thronged together more densely, surrounding the music of the water with the steps of a slow sarabande, or pausing at the edge of the pool to admire their own reflection.
Count Saito showed Geoffrey where the roses were coming on, new varieties of which he had brought from England with him.
"Perhaps they will not like to be turned into Japanese," he observed; "the rose is such an English flower."
They passed on to where the azaleas would soon be in fiery bloom. ”

“ After taking leave of the Cairns, Geoffrey and Asako crossed the garden compound, white and Christmas-like under its covering of snow. They found their way down the by-path which led to the discreet seclusion of Reggie Forsyth's domain. The leaping of fire shadows against the lowered blinds gave a warm and welcoming impression of shelter and comfort; and still more welcoming were the sounds of the piano. It was a pleasure for the travellers to hear, for they had long been unaccustomed to the sound of music. Music should be the voice of the soul of the house ”

“ The smaller houses of the secretaries and the interpreters also wear a smug, suburban appearance, with their red brick and their black-and-white gabling. Only the broad verandas betray the intrusion of a warmer sun than ours.
The lawns were laid out as a miniature golf-links, the thick masses of Japanese shrubs forming deadly bunkers, and Reggie was trying some mashie shots when one of the rare Tokyo taxi-cabs, carrying Geoffrey Barrington inside it, came slowly round a corner of the drive, as though it were feeling its way for its destination among such a cluster of houses. ”

“ Then she began to cry, hiding her face in her kimono sleeve.
"Do you love him?" Asako could not help asking.
"Of course, I love him," cried Sadako, starting up from her sorrow. "You see me. I am no more virgin. He is my life to me. Why cannot I love him? Why cannot I be free like men are free to love as they wish? I am new woman. I read Bernard Shaw. I find one law for men in Japan, and another law for women. But I will break that law. I have made Sekiné my lover, because I am free."
Asako could never have imagined her proud, inhuman cousin reduced to this state of quivering emotion. ”

“ They drove up a steep gravel drive and stopped before a broad Japanese entrance, three wide steps like altar stairs leading up to a dark cavernous hall full of bowing women and men in black clothes, similar, silent and ghostlike. The first impression was lugubrious, like a feast of mutes.
Boots off! Geoffrey knew at least this rule number one in Japanese etiquette. But who were these fluttering women, so attentive in removing their cloaks and hats? Were they relatives or waitresses? And the silent groups beyond? Were they Fujinami or waiters? ”

“ But to return to Yaé, you must meet her. This evening? No? To-morrow then. You will like her because, she looks something like Asako; and she will adore you because you are utterly unlike me. She comes here to inspire me once or twice a week. She says she likes me because everything in my house smells so sweet. That is the beginning of love, I sometimes think. Love enters the soul through the nostrils. If you doubt me, observe the animals. But foreign houses in Japan are haunted by a smell of dust and mildew. You cannot love in them. ”

“ The Japanese must be humble, and must admit that the most difficult part of their lesson has yet to be learned. Cut and dried systems are useless. Prussian constitution, technical education, military efficiency and bravado—such things are not progress. Japan must denounce the slavery of ancestor-worship, and escape from the rule of the dead. She must chase away the bogeys of superstition, and enjoy life as a lovely thing, and love as the vision of a life still more beautiful. ”

“ The Japanese consider, not unreasonably, that our dancing is disgusting.
A nice girl no doubt, and a nice man too, thinks of a dance as a graceful exercise or as a game like tennis or hockey. But Yaé was not a nice girl; and when the music stopped with its hideous abruptness, it awoke her from a kind of trance in which she had been lost to all sensations except the grip of Geoffrey's hand and arm, the stooping of his shadow above her, and the tingling of her own desire. ”

“ Her feet are encased in little white tabi like gloves, for the big toe has a compartment all to itself. She walks with her toes turned in, and with the heels hardly touching the ground. This movement produces a bend of the knees and hips so as to maintain the equilibrium of the body, and a sinuous appearance which is considered the height of elegance in Japan, so that the grace of a beautiful woman is likened to "a willow-tree blown by the wind," and the shuffle of her feet on the floor-matting to the wind's whisper.
Mrs. Fujinami carries a red lacquer tray. ”

“ Every stone has its message for Japanese eyes, every tree its association with poetry or romance. Even among Western connoisseurs of Japanese wood engraving, its fifty-two resting places are as familiar as the Stations of the Cross. Such is the Tokaido, the road between the two capitals of Kyoto and Tokyo, still haunted by the ghosts of the Emperor's ox-drawn wagons, the Shoguns' lacquered palanquins, by feudal warriors in their death-like armour, and by the swinging strides of the samurai. ”

“ The Fujinami had hypnotized Asako with this phrase, as a hen can be hypnotized with a chalk line. Day after day it was dinned into her ears, cutting off all hope of escape from the country or of appeal to her English friends.
"You had better marry a Japanese," said Sadako, "or you will become old maid. Why not marry Ito San? He says he likes you. He is a clever man. He has plenty of money. He is used to foreign ways."
"Marry Mr. Ito!" Asako exclaimed, aghast; "but he has a wife already."
"They will divorce. It is no trouble. There are not even children." ”

“ Happiness shone out of Asako like light. But would she always be happy? There were the possibilities of the future to be reckoned with, sickness, childbirth, and the rearing of children, the hidden development of the character which so often grows away from what it once cherished, the baleful currents of outside influences, the attraction and repulsion of so-called friends and enemies all of which complicate the primitive simplicity of married life and forfeit the honeymoon Eden. Adam and Eve in the garden of the Creation can hear the voice of God whispering in the evening breeze ”

“ But the greatest disillusionment was the Akasaka garden. Geoffrey was resigned to be bored by everything else. But his wife had grown so enthusiastic about the beauties of the Fujinami domain, that he had expected to walk straight into a paradise. What did he see? A dirty pond and some shrubs, not one single flower to break the monotony of green and drab, and everything so small. Why, he could walk round the whole enclosure in ten minutes. Geoffrey Barrington was accustomed to country houses in England, with their broad acres and their lavish luxuriance of scent and blossom. ”

“ The house stood on a high hill; and Asako, seated at the window, could watch the multiplex activity of the streets below, the jolting tramcars, the wagons, the barrows and the rickshaws. To the left was a labyrinth of little houses of clean white wood, bright and new, like toys, with toy evergreens and pine-trees bursting out of their narrow gardens. This was a geisha quarter, whence the sound of samisen music and quavering songs resounded all day long. ”