While we had been talking of his vices and his virtues, the gregarious student had invaded Kindayu’s. On returning to the hotel we encountered a band of eight or nine stalwart young men wearing blue cotton _hakama_ (trousers so ample as to resemble a divided skirt) and armed with small hammers. They had come to geologise, disappeared on long expeditions during the day, and only returned at a late hour. As they shared a room and were by no means uproarious at night, the other guests were scarcely conscious of their presence. I think, however, that two pretty schoolmistresses, the wives of officers in the army, who had carefully abstained from making the acquaintance of any other visitors, welcomed the arrival of these ardent scientists. Their rooms adjoined, and sitting on the threshold, that no beholder might misinterpret their platonic comradeship, they indulged in intellectual flirtation--a joy too subtle for the understanding of their unsophisticated sisters.
Ikao was in truth a microcosm of Japanese society. Representatives of nearly every class came and bathed and went their way refreshed in spirit, if not cured in body, by the restful babbling water. One day an ex-daimyō, who had held high office in a recent Cabinet, arrived with a small retinue of relations and dependants. Quiet and dignified, he was only to be distinguished by a greater sobriety of manner from less aristocratic neighbours. Occasionally odd instances of polygamous experiment attracted general remark. A Tōkyō merchant came accompanied by an elderly wife, a blind baby, and two mistresses who had formerly been geisha. The three women were on excellent terms, and disputed only the privilege of spoiling the thrice-mothered child. Every evening for them was a “musical evening,” as the man had a good voice and the geisha were expert _samisen_ players. Nitobe San described the _ménage_ as “a little barbarous.” But, whether his opinion was shared by many or few, it made no difference in the reception of the new-comers, who were treated with the same frank courtesy as less numerously married folk. Indeed, frankness and propriety were marked characteristics of this hydropathic paradise. If the bathers imitated Adam and Eve in simplicity of _tenue_, their behaviour, too, like that of our first parents before the Fall, was faultless. Conversation was entirely unembarrassed and perfectly decorous. The very publicity of this hotel life was a guarantee of morality. And, in fact, one could see that beneath extreme freedom of intercourse careful etiquette was observed. Neither young girl nor married woman ever went out alone: the tea-party never became a _tête-à-tête_. The _shōji_ of the apartments were generally half open; the amusements were such as to assemble and introduce the visitors to one another. Dancing and flirting, as practised in English watering-place or French casino, were unknown. If the men desired other female society than that of their own class, they could seek the _geisha-ya_ or _jōro-ya_. If many of the diversions were childish, those of Brighton or Trouville cannot rank as intellectual exercises. It was a lazy, healthy, happy sort of paradise, and I did not live in it long enough to discover the serpent.