Empires and Emperors of Russia, China, Korea, and Japan Part 20

XII

THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS OF j.a.pAN AT THE YEDDO PALACE

It is snowing. The white flakes fall persistently, and are driven round and round in whirlwinds. Looking out of my window the landscape is cold and dreary. The large square roofs of the houses and the trees are covered with a heavy white mantle.

In no direction can a single soul be seen. It is as if the whole town and the inhabitants had gone into their winter sleep; all is silent and dead under Nature's immaculate pall. I can scarcely believe that I am in the Land of the Rising Sun; it is so difficult to realize that this snowed-in city is the capital of j.a.pan, as colour and glitter form the two main features in our primary conception of Nippon's Island.

We expect to see the brilliant shades of the bright pictures and rich embroideries and heavy silks of j.a.pan even more brilliant under the beams of this Eastern sun, as it is represented on the national flag.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STREET IN j.a.pAN "I never saw more poles and beams and masts of different height piercing the sky"

To face page 300]

The European hopes to find j.a.pan above all an Asiatic, even an exotic country. He wants something like the bazaars of Cairo or Ceylon's palm-groves, tropical like the wildernesses of Java, and ever-blooming like Burmah's gardens. Arriving at Tokio, disappointment in this respect is general, for Tokio is neither bright nor artistic. In fact, the capital of j.a.pan is one of the most colourless and prosaic places on the globe.

Its buildings are nearly all of logs of wood--planks nailed to each other--without any external ornamentation; to commend their style or taste is impossible, for most of the houses have not even an attractive appearance. The old paG.o.das and the historic temples make an exception to the general rule, but their number is limited, and they are hidden by the groves of centuries.

The general impression of the town is monotonous, and what makes it even more so is that the houses are, as a rule, only one storey high, and the unpainted wood they are constructed of a.s.sumes in time a weather-beaten hue; in fact, the outline is only broken by an innumerable number of telegraph-poles. I never saw more poles and beams and masts of different height piercing the sky.

I was rather sorry to have such a cold morning for the day of the audience graciously accorded to me by the Emperor. I must confess that I should have preferred a warm, bright day in the late spring, when everything is in blossom, every corner full of flowers, and j.a.pan looks more as it is pictured on its rich screens and artistic fans.

It is still quite early when the large, heavy barouche belonging to our legation comes to fetch me, and the two strong, well-bred, native horses have hard work to get through the snow-covered streets. Our way is uninteresting; the thoroughfares are too wide altogether, and the small houses on both sides are dwarfed and insignificant.

But we also pa.s.s some large modern buildings, American brick-and-steel erections. These are public offices and banks, and make a rather unpleasant contrast in the calm scenery. For some time we skirt a large ca.n.a.l partly frozen over; this forms the outer moat of the Imperial castle.

We stop before a large gate. It is opened at once, and a detachment of small but well-set-up j.a.panese soldiers present arms. Next comes a bridge, a new stone construction, ornamented with huge candelabra, without much architectural beauty, and without any j.a.panese flavour. But it leads to a magnificent avenue of cryptomerea, each tree a giant, and all of them of venerable age, their trunks covered with dark moss, and their foliage forming an emerald arch--emerald set in crystals, for their branches are heavily laden with frost.

The avenue looks like a corner of the famous Tokado highway, the j.a.panese main artery for centuries, where the whole country wandered--rich and poor, mighty and humble, from Kioto to Tokio, from the Mikado's to the Shogun's Court, the Daimios with their retinues in gold and silver; where, too, all the warriors rode in their rich armour, and all the troops marched to war, or home to rest; where all the pilgrims walked to the famous shrines of Nara and Nikko.

This avenue, leading to the palace, affords compensation for all the inartistic streets outside the walls. I am even glad that it is covered with snow, and that its sole inhabitants are a few gardeners shovelling the ice aside. The dark trees and the white snow, and these few men clad in straw capes looking very much like the back of a porcupine, and wearing hats like flat tea-trays, are so original and so typical. At last I have a real j.a.panese picture before me, and not one of those we get at home highly coloured and made partly for the cheap Western markets, but a picture full of harmony in an artistic setting, like one of those famous Kakomenos in black and white by the most celebrated disciples of the great Kano school.

A sharp turn brings us to an open s.p.a.ce, and the palace is in front of us.

I am afraid "palace" is not the right expression, as it looks from the outside like a large Indian bungalow. It is only one storey high, mainly constructed of wood and beams, scarcely ornamental, and covered with a sloping roof of indifferent tiles. There is nothing striking about it, nothing that would attract attention, nothing that is at all imposing; it looks comfortable and nothing more.

The carriage stops before a flight of steps leading to a simple but s.p.a.cious ante-room. There is a large table on which are the Imperial visiting-books, a few chairs; round the room stand some servants, dressed in ordinary French livery. I am shown through a long corridor, which is j.a.panese in character. It has no furniture at all; the beams are carved, and if not imposing are perfect in detail. The large drawing-room, where we sit down, is entirely modern.

The furniture is such as you would see anywhere in Europe, and specially in America--rich, but without any special style or individuality, the only exceptions being a fine cabinet of priceless old lacquer ware, and a large golden screen ornamented with an enormous dragon and signed "Kano Montonabu."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TOKADO "The avenue looks like a corner of the famous Tokado highway" To face page 304]

I was rather sorry that the decorations of the whole room did not adhere to the national taste. I should have liked to banish every gilded bracket and velvet lounge, and restore it to its original simplicity--such simplicity as is to be found in the Katsura Palace at Kioto.

The Emperor is a late riser, and until he is ready Baron S----a keeps me company. He speaks perfect English, having studied in England for many years; and, even more, he married an English lady whose house has become the meeting-place of all Western and local celebrities.

It is a charming villa, looking very much like an English cottage, and overlooking one of the prettiest corners of the Bay of Tokio; full of English books and j.a.panese art treasures--English comfort and j.a.panese taste--it is one of those homes that one remembers with pleasure, and looks forward to seeing again.

The Baron is certainly a most accomplished Master of Ceremonies; he has all the gentleness of old j.a.panese manners, and all the culture of j.a.panese civility, and performs his somewhat tedious duties as if they gave him a personal pleasure.

There are several other gentlemen in attendance--the Lord Chamberlain, also a few A.D.C.'s and chamberlains-in-waiting. They are all wearing Court dresses of dark blue, or of red with gold lace.

His Majesty receives me in his private apartment, whither I am escorted through endless pa.s.sages. The nearer we get, the colder is the temperature. All the reception-rooms are heated with water-pipes to suit Western taste, but in the Imperial rooms there are only old-fas.h.i.+oned braziers. The reception-room is small, typically j.a.panese, has no windows, but only sliding screens, and is denuded of all furniture. The Mikado is standing in the centre, and for the occasion is wearing the uniform of a general of his army, consisting of a dark blue tunic, and even darker red trousers; and as a kind attention he wears the diamond-set star of St. Stephen, first King of Hungary. He is surrounded by his staff and several A.D.C.'s, and throughout, the formalities are carried out with perfect Court ceremonial.

His Majesty shakes hands in a military fas.h.i.+on and at once puts me at my ease by asking questions. First, he wants to hear about my country and our venerable monarch.

"When did you leave home?" "How is His Majesty, your benevolent sovereign?" "By what route did you come out?" "Did you find the Siberian line comfortable?" "Prince Katsura came from King Edward's Coronation by the same line, and enjoyed his journey very much. Your journey through this region which is so little known must have interested you." "How long did the last part of your journey through Manchuria take, and what were your experiences like in Korea?" "It must be most interesting coming from Europe to see such entirely different countries and people." "I hope your experiences have been satisfactory." "I wish you to see as much in j.a.pan as you think would be of interest to you. As you may observe, we are working very hard, and we try to adopt in many respects the main features of Western civilization and ideas. I am glad to hear you are interested in education. I dare say you liked our University library and the new printing establishments; you ought to see some of the provincial towns, too, and the commercial activity carried on in some of them. Don't omit to see Osaka; I am going myself next month, so I hope I may meet you there again."

Commercial and economic questions evidently interested His Majesty, who was taking a very active part in the arrangements for the Exhibition at Osaka, which was about to be opened. And he spoke about many other questions regarding the country and its development.

The Emperor detained me for an unusual length of time, and seemed to be interested in all the different matters that formed the subject of our conversation. It must be rather difficult for a sovereign who is brought up from birth within these palace walls to realize the outer world, and it must be even more so to get an insight into human nature, meeting it only at official receptions.

Before I left a message came from Her Majesty the Empress, expressing a wish to receive me too. Her apartments are in an adjoining wing. Her boudoir is ornamented in the French style, and her windows overlook a small j.a.panese garden. Her dress was of Western fas.h.i.+on too, rather elaborate for that early hour of the day, but in good taste. Her two ladies-in-waiting were clad in the same fas.h.i.+on.

At the first glance I understood the Empress's great popularity. Her gentleness and kind heart are visible in her glance in an exceptional way. There is something very small and fragile about her. She looks rather delicate, and her pale features wear an expression of sadness which cannot fail to impress. She seems, besides being kindly disposed and benevolent by nature, to have had sorrows like most other human beings, and this feature, shared in common by owners of palaces and of hovels, makes her very human, and very sympathetic. She has led, in her vast palace and high position, a rather solitary life, and solitude gives time for thought, and to ponder deeply on the problems of our destinies. n.o.body could better understand this spirit of abnegation for the sake of a higher ideal than Her Majesty. Indeed woman's devotion of herself to the good of her family has always been as much praised in j.a.pan as man's loyalty to his country. The paramount qualities of the female side of this nation are not yet known by the world at large, and are very often misjudged by those who have pa.s.sed through Nippon's island. But all those who have stayed for some length of time, especially the members of the Missions, speak with great respect of their qualities and virtues, and particularly of the marvellous sense of duty and spirit of self-sacrifice of the daughters for their parents, of the wives for their husbands, and of the mothers for their sons.

Our conversation was mainly about abstract questions, family life, education, charitable works, hospitals, orphanages, and homes. She is patroness of the Red Cross Society of j.a.pan, and listened with great interest to my account of the work carried on by the Sisters of Charity, and in the different inst.i.tutions under the Archbishop's care. Her sympathy can do a great deal, and I hope she will use it in favour of this great work, carried out with such apostolic zeal for the benefit of the sick and forlorn orphans, to save the children's lives, and to nurse the lepers and the incurables, whatever the cost and sacrifice.

She went into all kinds of details, and asked hundreds of questions about these poor little mites, and exhibited that interest which only a woman can when she is talking about children. It seemed to appeal to her heart, and she repeatedly expressed her gladness at having had the opportunity of hearing about the good work carried on by our church.

I left the room full of the hope that her n.o.ble kindness might prove to be a support to this little fraction of her needful subjects.

As a special favour, I was shown over all the different apartments. We went through the state rooms and inner apartments, walked through endless corridors, and viewed the numerous art treasures. There is an extraordinary mixture in taste of West and East, but there is no doubt that the supremacy belongs to the latter, for what is j.a.panese is really fine.

All the long dadoes are carved elaborately and of exquisite workmans.h.i.+p, and the fretted ceilings are charming in design and colouring. They are as a rule of dark beams, framing gilt grounds; the carving and bronze casts are finely executed.

We finished our wanderings in a delightful little garden, which is j.a.panese indeed in the highest degree. There is a tiny pond, no larger than a good-sized basin, surrounded by a rockery imitating Fuji; and across an almost imaginary stream a few inches wide is thrown a wooden bridge. Everything is minute: even the little rustic summer-house is no larger than that of a doll. It is a Lilliputian world of its own. Even the trees are dwarfs; but the j.a.panese imagination makes everything large.

If any one is interested in the j.a.panese mind and its imaginative qualities, the best fields of study are some of these famous gardens laid out by the great aesthetes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; men of undoubted refinement and culture, some being statesmen retired from the excitement of political life, and many Mikados seeking rest in solitude, after the glitter and pomp of the Court.

Their gardens simply consisted of a few square yards of ground, surrounded by a plain bamboo hedge, a log house built of a few planks, and consisting of two rooms, with gravel scattered before the doorways, and a few tiny bushes growing round. Small and simple, I dare say primitive to European eyes, but to a j.a.panese mind these shrubs represent a virgin forest, the log house is a palace, the gravel court unlimited sea, and the stepping-stones so many islands.

With their love of artistic refinement and elaborate civilization, they look through the shades of broken prisms, and scent perfumes of different compositions, and build up a whole imaginary world of dainty colours and exquisite odours. But who, coming from the West, would ever understand any of these details of an historical past and ancient customs and strange manifestations of national culture?

And who, returning from one of these gardens, so full of reminiscences of old j.a.pan, to the modern streets, would understand how the new towns are being built up of brick and steel, and how the whole nation is changed by hard work and boundless energy?

And above all, who can at this moment explain or understand all the progress of modern j.a.pan and fully realize all its future importance?

[Ill.u.s.tration: A TYPICAL NIPPON BUILDING Small and simple, I dare say primitive to European eyes, but to a j.a.panese mind the log house represents a palace" To face page 312]

XIII

j.a.pAN AND CHINA ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY