Kotmasu and I are seated; and on the floor before us our attendant mousmé places a wonderful bowl of seaweed soup—a dainty thing with sprays of chrysanthemums adorning its china-blue sides, the white-blue that you see in the eyes. To this soup I am used, and also to beans enshrined in sugar, and little fish equally astray from their proper element; but to the live fish, quivering its last quiver, perhaps, I cannot become accustomed, and even to watch Kotmasu—humane man in ordinary—placing the chop-stick impaled morsels in his mouth is almost too much for my still Western stomach. Of the “teal duck” and prawns I partake largely, making the mousmé laugh—so infectious are the emotions in this land of[24] make-believe—by pretending to swallow the latter whole. I am not yet quite used to the chop-sticks, and occasionally fail ludicrously to spit my morsels, making both my companion and the mousmé roar, the latter clapping her pretty small hands with delight. But I am not annoyed; I have yet to see the foreigner who handles these strange implements better.

“It is not so easy as it looks,” I say in excuse; and Kotmasu, with recollections of far worse performances than mine, agrees with me.

Our little dinner of toy-like viands, served by the soft-footed little mousmé, is gone through with fitting ceremoniousness, but at last it is finished, and Kotmasu is so pleased with the repast, that he is in no hurry for the long walk back to the town.

“There are generally pretty geishas here,” he said to me, when we had lighted the ridiculous little pipes—mere tubes of[25] silver, with a pigmy bowl at the end—which the mousmé had now brought us.

The jars placed before each of us, filled with sweet-scented tobacco of the colour of tow, and so “mild” that a baby might have inhaled its smoke; the spittoons and the porcelain stove containing the glowing embers at which we lit our pipes; always made me smile—they were so toy-like and minute—and long for my briar and honey-dew.

“Yes?” I replied interrogatively between the puffs. “Shall I tell Gazelle” (for such was the mousmé’s poetic name) “to summon one?” he continued.

Why not? I had seen them many times before, it was true; but we were in no hurry, and they were always graceful, dainty, pretty and amusing—at least the best of them were, and no one troubled about those who were not.

“Is there dancing?” Kotmasu asked[26] Gazelle, who had stood regarding us with a friendly look during our colloquy.

“Yes. Some of the best geishas from the town are here in the house. There is a party below, the most noble young Sen” (we had never heard of him, but no matter—it was but the mousmé’s way of describing a good customer, who had probably kissed her pretty Dresden-china face and given her half a yen for the privilege) “is here with his most noble companions from the big ship. They have brought the geishas with them. They are dancing now. Listen! But doubtless I can get one to come for the pleasure of Mr. the English sir.”

We nodded assent, and with a smile Gazelle vanished.

We heard the sound of the pad, pad of her footsteps retreating along the passage, then a sudden cessation of the noises in the room below, as we could imagine her opening[27] the door. The zing, zing of the samisen suddenly ceased, and the girls’ voices stopped their monotonous, chant-like song. Then came the sound of other voices seemingly in argument; then a recommencement of the previous noises as before our mousmé had interrupted the proceedings.

Then we hear Gazelle returning.

“Alone?” I suggest to my companion, who merely shakes his head and laughs, replying, “No. The geisha is light of foot—a butterfly, coming without sound, the heavy circling flutter of her fan like the beatings of the wings of the great grey moths outside there in the garden.”

The footsteps of Gazelle came on, and then halted outside. There was no knocking at the door. How can one beat upon fragile paper panels with one’s fist? And the usual little knocker of brass, a grotesque lizard, or miniature lion-head[28] with bristling whiskers indicated and large white-balled eyes, was missing. The door-panel, with its flight of storks, and stiff but wonderfully realistic bed of rushes from which the storks had risen, was slid aside, and through the narrow opening the little dancing-girl fluttered softly in, like some gay-hued butterfly or large-winged night-moth.

“It is Snowflake!” exclaimed Kotmasu, and ere the dainty little figure bowed low before us, I caught a fleeting glance of recognition shot to him from beneath her drooped eyelids.

What a droll doll she is! Childish, with an assumption of innocence which is as charming as it must be unreal. An elegant, slender little figure, full of dainty grace. Her face painted—till it looked positively funny—its whiteness hiding the native transparency of her warm-hued skin, all damask rose and nut-brown[29] tinted. And the two little dabs of rouge—oh! with what inartistic exactness they are placed, one on either cheek. The little rosebud of a mouth, with childishly pouting lips, is reddened brilliantly. And the delicate nostrils of her charming little nose—so piquant, so retroussé—are coloured just the same. Her jetty hair—somewhat coarse, I admit, but so glossy—is taken back from off her whitened brow, and lies in smooth, heavy coils on the shapely little head. A silver pin or two, and one of mother-of-pearl, with some charming baby-curls in rebellion on the nape of her slender neck, soften any severity.

And her dress. Plum-coloured brocade, with long pendent sleeves and a double tunic, the under one of a different stuff and very light, opening to disclose garments, such as her Western sisters are struggling for, of canary-coloured satin,[30] vanishing into the curious tabi of white cotton, shoes and stockings all in one, with separated toes.

She was such a fairy-like little being, and her fan-play and posturing, which passes for dancing, so charming and graceful, that I could have watched her, as I have other geishas—soothed by the slumbrous pad, pad of her gliding steps upon the matting which covers the floor—almost all night. But at last she gracefully bowed, asked for her yen, and withdrew with the elegant fluttering motions of her class.

With the exit of Snowflake one became aware of the existence of time. Even Kotmasu was becoming drowsy. I could see through the open panels that the lanterns in the garden outside were going out one by one, beginning to give it a deserted look. The moon was on the wane, the white-faced moon in an indigo sky, and the[31] walk home was a rather long one to which to look forward.

We rose, my companion very reluctant to go. The noise of the samisen still continued in the room beneath us, and the pad, pad of the dancers had begun again to the accompanying falsetto of the musicians’ voices, in a strange monotonous chant.

We had paid the bill, mysterious items done in red ink upon a narrow strip of satin-like rice-paper; and so we went out by way of the verandah down the funny little steps which led from it to the garden path a dozen feet or less below.

We went down into the “garden of a thousand lights,” and I idly counted those whose hearts were cold, whilst Kotmasu spoke to a friend.

“We are here!” said the friend, and in a little pagoda near a willow I caught a glimpse of others, a gay blot of colour in the half-shadow denoting the presence of ladies.

[32]

And thus was it that I found Mousmé and fell in love with her at first sight.

She, it appears, is the sister of Kotmasu’s friend. In the subdued light of the little pagoda, where all the lanterns swinging to and fro in slight draught of air are yellow or red, I am introduced with marvellous ceremony to this radiant, childish being who is destined at once to captivate the heart and senses of the “English sir,” as Kotmasu grandiloquently describes me.

She is clad in silks of extreme richness, and brocades which glitter with gold thread (for her family is a wealthy one), and her obi of turquoise-blue silk swathes her supple waist, and makes her look still more slender by reason of its exaggerated bow.

Her coiffure is pyramidical, the ebon-hued hair dressed à la butterfly. And the fantasy suits her; even the long, large-headed[33] pins, which serve as mock antenn?, seem appropriate to the queer grace of my mousmé. Her brilliant complexion is softened by the subdued light. Only her eyes sparkle innocently with interest.

Why had not Kotmasu presented me before? Was he about to relinquish his bachelor and somewhat erratic and amorous habits? The thought gave me quite a new sensation. Upon analysis I was forced to admit that it was jealousy. Miss Hyacinth (for that was Mousmé’s name, I soon discovered), so fresh and delicate, a little figure off a tea-caddy, quaint and charming withal, had no doubt ensnared his vagrant affections, as she had my own admiration already.

Miss Hyacinth was addressing me in soft tones from behind her paper fan, which had pagodas, willows, and dainty little women like herself painted upon it.

Yes! I had been in Nagasaki a long[34] time. I was English. No: England was not like Japan. Everything was larger, people ate more. There were no gardens like these, except sometimes when there was some grand feast taking place. This is but a tithe of the replies I made.

“Are the women pretty, and do they all wear rich clothing?” my mousmé inquired.

And I said “Some” in answer to the former, and earned a petulant moue. And “Not often” in reply to the latter, gaining thereby a smile of evident satisfaction as my reward; adding that “an ugly climate enforces ugly clothes.” But I felt sorry almost on the instant, because she seemed not to understand.

“No paper lanterns at night! Is there then a moon?” with a look of wondering astonishment and apprehension.

“Yes!”

She seemed relieved.

[35]

“I have been to school,” she explained, with a delicate assumption of dignity. “I have seen the map”—the Japanese maps are marvellous things, some of them—“I know where the mail-boats go. But there are so many countries in the way. How do they get there?”

All this in Japanese, of course, whilst Kotmasu talked to her brother in an undertone of the latest addition to the ranks of the Nagasaki geishas, a girl trained in Yeddo. And the other ladies sipped their tea and talked to the other men, who were nonentities to me.

Kotmasu had finished his jokes about the geishas, and became, perhaps, aware of my monopoly of Miss Hyacinth—whose name indicated a far less voyant flower than Western minds would associate with it—so he said, somewhat abruptly, “We must go.”

For a moment Mousmé’s small, shapely[36] hand, with its cool, white fingers, rested in mine.

“I shake the hand English way,” she explained, with a ripple of laughter. And then, with low bows to the other ladies, Kotmasu and I leave the merry party in the pagoda, and go away down the steep path bordered with the staring sunflowers.

I had read a few days before—and laughed at the idea—a line in a verse of a decadent poet that,
“Woman gone,
The darkness wraps us round in sable pall.”

But now I did not laugh; I felt it, and understood.

I could have sworn that all the lanterns were extinguished, that the stars had gone down. And why? Because Kotmasu and I had turned our backs upon a pair of sparkling eyes, and I had put a hundred feet or so between me and Miss Hyacinth’s beguiling, coquettish personality.

[37]

We don’t talk much, and I switch absent-mindedly at the flowers with my toy cane of bamboo, as we pass along the narrow path towards the spectral gateway, now just visible at the bottom, a gaunt, white skeleton. Not till I send a big sunflower’s head spinning off and up against my companion’s legs, who starts as if something had bitten him, do I become aware that we have not spoken since we started down the hill.

Kotmasu pulls out his watch, a relic of his college days in England, and I waste a whole wax vesta—a luxury almost priceless in Japan, which I cling to—in enabling him to see the time.

Then we hurry out through the ghostly gateway on to the rough road, and thence onward down towards my house at as quick a rate as the obstruction of loose stones, sticks and ruts will let us.

Kotmasu shakes hands at my gateway.[38] No, he wouldn’t come in and have anything. Whisky saké would not tempt him, and “brantwein” was too much for his head, with still a good way down-hill yet to go.

My house had never seemed so lonely.

I fancied, strange though it may appear, that something—which after all had never existed—was missing. The tiny rooms seemed vast, the matting floor almost unfamiliar in its deadly silence.

The servants are at rest, of course. I think all I have to do is to push aside a panel and enter. There are no locks; and if there were, they would be but toy ones, ingenious, but useless all the same. I have a cash-box, a European one of tin, but I have given it a rice-paper jacket, because it looked so terribly substantial amid all my other frail belongings.

How lonely it is! Even Oka the cook’s snoring down in the basement does not prove so companionable as usual.

[39]

As I cross the floor of my bedroom, and light the absurd little lamp near my apology for a couch, the dry boards of the thin flooring creak noisily and drearily beneath my tread. Some of the youthful fear of darkness is revived within me by the awful silence and the fitful flicker of my lamp. The little red-and-blue tortoises painted on the paper panels near the window seem to be coming to life and crawling about.

A glance out of the window as I throw off the last of my garments does not reassure me. Quite the reverse. It is so black outside. So I close the casement, and turn in sadly.

I lie thinking for some time in the dark, and almost insensibly my thoughts revert to our supper at the chaya of “A Thousand Lights” and to Kotmasu’s friend.[40]

A bright idea presents itself, solving my longing and loneliness.

It is Miss Hyacinth I want, and such a thing should not be impossible—in Japan.