Anthony The Absolute. Merwin Samuel
all about, and yet with Japanese servants, and yellow, shrewd little Oriental faces behind the desk, and a Chinese cashier in a blue rote, and Chinese tailors pressing in on one, samples on arm, offering to make suits of clothes overnight. And out the window, floating about the glittering harbor, sampans and a great Chinese junk or two, and the fleet of fishing-boats with ribbed sails just skimming in between the breakwaters. We were the West, we and our absurdly Anglo-Saxon hotel; but all about us were hints and flavors of the eternal East.
Suddenly I realized that Crocker had been for quite a little time twisting restlessly in his armchair. I looked at him now. He was tapping the carpet softly but very rapidly with his right foot, and rubbing his chin with his hand. Crocker’s chin is of good size and shape, the sort we usually speak of as “strong.” He is a dark man, inclined to fullness in the face and figure, but still athletic in appearance. His eyes are brown. He is not at all a bad-looking fellow, when you study him out. I rather like the blend in him of vigor, and perhaps stubbornness, with frankness. I should say that apart from the abnormal experiences, whatever they may be, that have driven or drawn him to this part of the world, he is a man of will and spirit. He would fight, I think, in a pinch. When fully himself, in his own home and business environment, he must be a man’s man. He is nearly a head taller than I.
He caught me looking at him, and smiled.
“Well,” said he, “shall we go along?”
“Where?”
“On that little expedition we spoke of last night.”
“Oh!” I remembered now. “But – is n’t it – do we want to go to such a place now – in the day-time?”
He raised his eyebrows. “You old sybarite!” he chuckled, and hummed, “Et la nuit, tous les chats sont gris!” Then he added, more seriously:
“But really, Eckhart, three ships are in to-day – the Pacific Mail and the French finer besides ours – and if we wait until evening we shall have no choice at all.”
“Very well,” said I then, briskly, for I do not like to be ridiculed. “Just wait until I can get my phonograph.”
“Your what?” said he.
“My phonograph,” I repeated, with dignity. And I went upstairs for ft.
When I came down, with the heavy instrument in its case under one arm and a box of new record cylinders under the other, he was not in the lounge. I passed on out to the porch, and found him there with two rickshaws waiting. When he saw me with my heavy burdens, he began laughing in that nervous, jumpy way he has. But I ignored him, and placed the boxes carefully in my rickshaw. We were about to start when I realized that I had forgotten my record-taking horn, so I went back for it.
“Look here, old man,” said Crocker, from his rickshaw, when I reappeared, “it’s all right, of course, – I don’t mind, – but what on earth are you bringing all that junk for?”
“You were so good as to explain that I would find the music interesting,” I replied. “You surely don’t suppose that I trust my ear in this delicate research work. Why, my dear fellow, in my studies of our American Indian songs I have succeeded in recording intervals as close as the sixteenth part of a tone.”
He was still grinning. “All right,” he said; “don’t get stuffy. I’ll be good. Hop into your rickshaw.”
I did so. The coolies turned for directions. Crocker was about to give them when two of our fellow passengers, accompanied by their wives, stepped out of the hotel. Crocker waited, and we sat there, looking rather foolish, until they had passed on out of ear-shot; then he leaned forward and said in a low voice:
“Number Nine.”
“Heh!” cried the two coolies instantly, as one man, and wheeling about they ran the little vehicles out of the court and into the street.
I must admit that my first impression of the Yokohama streets was rather disappointing – that is, until we turned a corner unexpectedly and entered the Yoshiwara district. The streets were much more like England than the Japan of my fancy. Crocker tells me that Yokohama was built up as a foreign concession for purposes of trade, and therefore is really not Japanese at all. But once in the Yoshiwara quarter my nerves began to tingle; for this was a bit of Japan.
Crocker insists that it is small and tawdry compared to the Tokio Yoshiwara. Never having explored that portion of the capital, I can not say. To me it was quite enchanting. The houses were higher than is customary in Japanese cities. In color all were of the unpainted but pleasantly weathered shade of light brown that is so agreeable to the eye – very possibly they stain the wood, as we do in the case of our modern bungalows. There were little hanging balconies on the upper stories, with decorative festoons of colored paper lanterns. Through the windows and the open doorways one caught glimpses of the spring flowers and blossoms that play so great and fine a part in the esthetic life of this extraordinary people. And here and there, at a window or over a balcony railing, could be seen a face – a quaint and girlish face with glossy black hair done up fantastically high over wide shell combs and with glimpses of flowered silks about slim shoulders. The fragrance of the early cherry and plum blossoms was in the air.
The famous “Number Nine” proved to be a large house at the end of the street. The door stood invitingly open. A well-trained servant took my two boxes and the horn and carried them in. Another servant guided us upstairs.
The interior was cool and spacious. It differed in so many respects from photographs of typical Japanese house interiors that I decided it is really a foreign resort. Later inquiries this evening have confirmed this conclusion. In the actual Japanese house, the floor is elevated a foot or more and is also the seat; and in entering one passes first into a tiny hall on the street level, removes his shoes, then steps up to the floor proper. Here there was no such arrangement. We mounted steps, then walked through a broad hall that led into a central court full of flowers. The woodwork of floor and walls was of that characteristic and agreeable tan or natural shade. The rugs were simple and quiet in design and color.
Our guide led us to a stairway. The boy with my apparatus looked to me for instructions, and I motioned him to follow. Then we mounted the stairs, and passed along a broad corridor overlooking the court to an office-like room in the corner that was furnished with European tables and chairs. On the way we passed an open doorway, and I caught a passing glimpse of a dim, large room, in which the only furniture appeared to be a low platform covered with a rug of light red.
“That’s where the geisha girls dance,” Crocker whispered.
I nodded. I was looking forward with a good deal of interest to hearing the music that accompanies this performance.
In the corner room we were welcomed very civilly by a little old woman, and tea was brought us. Then she said something to Crocker in a sort of pidgin-English which I did not quite catch. He nodded eagerly.
It occurred to me, with some bitterness I am afraid, that the little old woman would never have thought of turning to me as the leading spirit – never in the world. She hardly looked at me. So I went on sipping my tea.
A door opened, and in came a file of girls – fourteen of them. All were young; one, I thought, of not more than thirteen or fourteen years – though it is difficult for us of the West to judge accurately the age of Orientals. They shuffled along in their curious little shoes. Several seemed to me extremely pretty; all were small and dainty. Everything considered, they made a pleasing picture as they stood there, looking at us with a demure twinkling in each almond eye. I wondered what would come next. A dance, perhaps.
Crocker had hitched forward in his chair and was looking rapidly from one end of the line to the other. His face was more flushed even than usual; his eyes were eager. Finally his gaze rested on the third girl from the right end of the line. I began to feel uncomfortable.
After a moment he rose, and nodded toward that third girl. She promptly stepped forward. “See you later, old man,” he said to me bruskly, hardly looking at me, and then, laying down a gold coin and taking the girl’s arm, hurried from the room with her.
Left alone there, with the old woman and the thirteen