Kimono Part 24

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 j.a.panese people, too, people who make a cry and say this licensed prost.i.tute system is not suitable to a civilised country, and it is a shame to j.a.pan. 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 j.a.pan. 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 n.o.ble 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 j.a.pan is a common excuse for those who frequent the _demi-monde_.

"That is true, _sensei_," said the counsellor; "but our j.a.pan 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 Yos.h.i.+wara 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 Yos.h.i.+wara system, therefore we are good.' They pretend not to see like a _geisha_ who squints through a fan. We j.a.panese, 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 _kanzas.h.i.+_ (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 Yos.h.i.+wara 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 j.a.pan one is content with such small business. Indeed, we j.a.panese are a very small people."

"In America, perhaps, there is more confidence," said the elder man; "but in j.a.pan 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 wors.h.i.+ps at that temple he becomes the owner of his friend's wealth. I fear that too many of us j.a.panese 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 st.u.r.dy blossoms still clung pathetically, like weather-beaten b.u.t.terflies. Beyond a green shrubbery, on a little knoll, a clean newly-built j.a.panese 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 penmans.h.i.+p, just as his son's was literature.

Among j.a.panese 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 Dais.h.i.+!"

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 j.a.panese wife."