The men, so long as they wear the native dress, are dark, pleasant-looking little men; but when you see them, as you frequently do now, with a kimono surmounted by a brown or black pot-hat, a solar topee, or even a tweed stalking-cap, they are positively evil and unpleasant to look at.
Viscount Okabé, so long Minister in London, took us for a drive in the afternoon, and then we had time, before a pleasant dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Fraser at the British Legation, to go to the Theatre.
The corridor is covered with piles of sandles and umbrellas, whilst from the adjoining kitchens come savoury and nauseous smells. The floor of the Theatre slopes upwards from the stage, and is divided into square compartments, neatly matted, and intended for family boxes. The galleries are divided in the same way. And here groups of ladies and gentlemen are encamped for the whole day, for a Japanese theatre begins at 9 a.m. and lasts for ten hours; nor is this all, for the same piece may be continued from day to day, and last for six weeks. It is now five in the afternoon, and yet the audience maintain a deep interest and breathless gaze on the stage.
This is the outline of the story. The lank, die-away lady we see trailing across the stage has retired to a wood, with a rill of crystal water, to live in a temple, there, to mourn the death of her father in a war. The young man who was (unknown to her) his murderer, passes casually along and she falls in love with him. This love-making, in the drawling nasal accents, and its tediously slow movements, is most unreal, and as they drink the loving cup of saké together, the father's disapproving spirit, in a rushing flame of fire, blazes up from the temple. Darkness drowns the applause, and warriors rush on the scene and begin to fight the maiden, who mesmerizes them, until one by one they fall at her feet.
The orchestra is represented by five musicians, perched up on a rock. I may say at once that, artistic as is the nature of the Japanese, their idea of music is absolutely _nil_. It consists of a series of grunts and groans, or of nasal notes in a bass key, or of falsetto in a high one.
But the interest lies to us in the audience, who, in the interval of twenty minutes, eat their evening meal. Some have brought their food with them, and nearly all their own china tea-pots, for a constant supply of tea. Others buy theirs, and are provided with a succession of little wooden bowls piled on each other, and for which they have to pay the usual theatre price of ten cents, or double the ordinary one. In each box there is a hibachi, or china bowl full of hot ashes, where they light their pipes, for men and women are continually smoking, and their pipes have the smallest bowl, the size of a thimble--two whiffs and it is empty again; but it is sufficient for their modest wants.