It would seem that the routine of ambrosial nights does not greatly vary in the land of perpetual etiquette. Having sipped rather than supped, the dishes being light and fluid, we summoned the usual geisha, but among them, as the artist had forewarned me, was one of unusual distinction. O Wakatai San (her name was equivalent to “The Honourable Young Person”) had long been the torture and despair of susceptible visitors. Her father was a _samurai_, strict and proud, who had trained her in a school of arbitrary virtue. Suitors had been one and all rejected; even Lord W., offering bribes of incredible amount, had gone empty away. She was losing her youth, having reached the age of twenty-three, but her regular features and sunny smile helped one to forget the rather raucous tones of her voice. She had seen enough of the Shimabara life to pity its victims, and sang us some rather sad ditties on the subject, of which I transcribe two. The first refers to the prisoner’s longing for liberty.
Could I but live like Butterflies flitting, Settling together, Free, on the moor!
[Illustration: The _Taiyu_ waves her _saké_-cup.]
The other is a little difficult to render, since each line has a double meaning: the point turns on the punning elasticity of _mi_, a word signifying seed, self, and body. The flower to which allusion is made, a yellow rose that blooms in mountainous districts, is always known as the wanton’s flower.
The hill-girl’s body Is sold for silver: Poor, seedless hill-rose, A prison-flower!
Whatever novelists and dramatists may have written in glorification of the Scarlet Lady, the popular feeling, as voiced in vulgar songs, is pure compassion.
It was signified that on payment of a small sum we might now behold a resurrected _taiyu_, wearing the robes and insignia of her order. Assent being given, three blows were struck on a huge gong at the gate to summon the siren, who had never been subjected to the ignominious exposure of a cage, but came in state to meet her suitors at the Tsumi-ya. Alas! the state had been sadly curtailed! We saw no attendant henchmen, no ministering children, but three rosy-cheeked peasant-girls rather suddenly irradiated the gloom of that historic chamber, bearing without dignity the weight of a bygone royalty. The costumes were, in truth, splendid enough, and the crowns of heavy hairpins quite impressive. On the trailing robe of the first was represented a cloud cleft by lightning above a golden dragon; on that of the second, a rock with peonies; on that of the third, a tiger chasing a butterfly. All three designs were lavishly embroidered with gold. Sweeping her cumbrous skirt aside with one hand, the _taiyu_ held in the other a wide _saké_-cup, which she slowly waved in air, repeating an old Japanese formula, which neither the artist nor the red-aproned _nakauri_ could interpret. For nearly five hundred years the room of fans had seen the _taiyu_ wave her _saké_-cup, had heard her use those words, but we could not evoke from its shadowy depths the ghost of an explanation. We must take the spectacle for what it was, the pale survival and ineffectual remnant of dying custom. Somehow, the awkward mummery of the girls and the bleak discomfort of the old tea-house seemed strangely appropriate. It was as though we were fitly rewarded for copying Dr. Faustus’ impious trick of calling up fair phantoms from the past, not realising that communion is impossible between living and dead....