gradually life became smoothed into the old routine existence. news seemed to occur sporadically in cycles, like the apexes and depressions of a chart; at times the vernacular press would be filled with accounts of disturbing events, strikes, mass meetings of workmen, of socialists demanding this or that, establishment of shop committees in factories, recognition of the soviet government; reports of arrests and police dispersing gatherings; and this would be followed by hiatus-like intervals when it seemed almost as if all these things had been forgotten, as if the excitement had outworn itself. kent found himself going often to the dances at tsurumi; there was little else to do. he began to find tokyo dull.
he was sitting with karsten one evening in the study upstairs, talking idly of this and that. it was late; the brilliant glitter of the machiai below was gradually fading. some one in the entrance hall was talking with jun-san; they could hear the faint murmur of voices. suddenly jun-san appeared.
"kent-san," wide-open eyes showed surprise, bewildered wonder. "a young lady has come to see you, suzuki kimiko-san. she says she must see you. what shall i do?"
"well, i'll be hanged! just wait a moment, jun-san." he turned to karsten, met only his ironic smile as he blew great smoke clouds luxuriously against the ceiling. "damn it, karsten, don't sit there like an ass. i haven't the slightest idea what that girl has come here for. i have been with her often at tsurumi and[pg 249] at hotel dances, you know, but, by the gods, there isn't the slightest reason why she should come here, a girl of her class, at this time of the night, a go-fujin, a lady. why it's even more serious in japan than it would be at home."
"seems to me the only thing you can do is to ask her up here. you can't in decency let her stand there in the hall. ask suzuki-san to come up, jun-san. kent, you've got to find out what is the trouble, anyway. by cæsar, for a man of your continent tastes, you seem to have more than your share of exciting episodes with women."
they could hear the exchange of the usual ritual of polite phrases between the women as they were mounting the stairs. "please enter." jun-san drew the partition aside.
kimiko stood in the doorway, hands nervously clenched, quivering a little, lips trembling as she spoke, words issuing haltingly in short breaths. "kent-san. i've come to you. i've run away."
"you've run away." he had risen to meet her; stood dumbly gazing at her as if she had suddenly dropped from the ceiling. she had run away! it seemed as if his brain could grapple with just that one idea, that he could not get beyond it.
"sit down please, suzuki-san," karsten came to the rescue. "jun-san, will you please have some tea brought. get to your senses, kent. we must do what we can to assist this young lady. here, let me take your wraps, suzuki-san," he took them, pressed her gently into a chair, bustled about to give kent time to collect himself.
but kent was still bewildered. "so you have run away. why?"
"oh, it's a long story. i'll tell you presently, to-morrow; only find some place for me here to-night."[pg 250] she was fighting hard for control of her voice, hands clenched tightly to the chair arms. "only let me stay here to-night."
"but what about your family? you must go home, kimiko-san, or you'll have all kinds of trouble. i'll see you home, little girl, and then to-morrow you can come and tell me all about your troubles. can't you see that that will be better," he spoke soothingly. "i'll see you home."
"i can't go home. there's no one there. they have all gone to the country. they don't know yet that i have run away."
that, at least, was some relief. she explained that the family had left tokyo a few days before, while she stayed with friends, expecting her to join them later. "but then i heard, oh, then i heard——" she glanced at karsten. he looked to kent. jun-san and the servants entered with the tea things. the matter-of-fact mechanics of having tea brought the situation down to a more natural level. "i wonder, suzuki-san, whether it would not be better to wait until to-morrow," suggested karsten. "then you'll be less excited. we'll take care of you. what do you think?" she nodded eagerly. in the reaction of the commonplace she wished only to gain postponement. it was arranged that she should stay the night in jun-san's cottage.
after breakfast, kent found himself alone with kimiko. karsten and jun-san had contrived to withdraw inconspicuously. "and now, kimiko-san," he drew his chair close to hers. "tell me all about it."
she brought both hands up to her hair, smoothed it back slowly. "i ran away," she spoke evenly, measuredly—evidently she had rehearsed carefully what she intended to say—"i ran away because i heard that they wanted me to marry kikuchi-san."
[pg 251]
during the night he had puzzled the matter over and had come to the conclusion that it must be something like that, that the family, after the old japanese fashion, must have decided that now that she had reached the age when girls must marry, arrangements must be made for contracting a suitable alliance. he had even thought that young kikuchi might be the one; the families were close, and the suzuki money might fit in well with the noble but not over-wealthy kikuchi house. it seemed natural enough; kikuchi had shown that he liked the girl. he had wondered whether this young japanese might not resent the evident intimacy of a foreigner with this bright, young beauty, though he had never given sign thereof. and now, why the deuce had she come to him? that, too, had puzzled him. could it be that——? no, of course, not. still, the thought had insisted. what if she wanted him to marry her? the idea had had allurement. he liked her very much, could almost contrive to believe that he might love her. but he held out against the thought; the family would be sure to set itself against it; and even if they should marry first and confront it with the accomplished fact, the papers would be sure to revel in the incident, as they always did where daughters of the aristocracy followed the unconventional. they would make her out a decadent, wantonly abandoning the decent traditions, would harry her into unhappiness with their hue and cry. and then he himself; he had made up his mind that karsten had been right, that in spite of its allurement, marriage with a japanese girl would not work out in his case. he had reasoned it all out that time at hakone. but was that why she had come to him?
she seemed to read his thought. "i came to you, kent-san, because i could go to no japanese. they would have been shocked, would have sent me home.[pg 252] and i wanted to talk to some one, to get away from the family where i was. i knew that the go-between would be coming in a few days, and i wanted to get advice first. i didn't know what to do.
"but why don't you want to marry kikuchi-san? don't you like him?" he was sparring, trying to elicit from her something that might give a clew.
"yes, i like him, but i would never marry a japanese like him, to be just like these other old-fashioned japanese married women, always obedient, always compelled to serve him, to have to regard whatever he might do as right, even if he had geisha sweethearts; never to have a right to have a personality of my own."
"but surely kikuchi-san is modern. i know him. sometimes i think he's almost radical. he takes after foreign ideas in everything. it seems to me——"
"oh, yes, of course, he's modern. he goes to the dances, and dresses after the haikara fashions, and plays golf, and talks very advanced politics, and all that. and in all that he is really modern, advanced, like so many of our young men; but when it comes to marriage, to the matter of the standing of women, he's like the rest of them, too. they want modernism and liberalism, but only for the men. in regard to us women their view is different; there they want to stick entirely to the old, hidebound rules. they want the modern freedom of thought and of action—but only for the men.
"but we women, we want the right to think too, to live our own lives just as your women do. we are no more stupid, no more old-fashioned than the men. but they are all against us, all the men. see how often the fujin koraon, the public opinion of women paper, is suppressed by the police. but still we learn and we know. women are going into business and[pg 253] into politics; there are even many women socialists, and the police are afraid of them. and in the matter of marriage; we want now to have a right to say whom we want to marry, to have a right to marry—for love." she looked him straight in the eye, compelling her glance to meet his, blushing a little, but only finger tips rubbing restlessly against one another betraying her nervousness. "even in school we talked about love, yes, even free love. it is right if people love each other, if there's no other way. shikataganai. it can't be helped then. and the principal called in shinto priests, and had them perform, right in the school, the 'soul-quieting ceremony,' and eighteen of us had to assist them, all dressed in white. and we laughed at it all. it was so silly.
"that is the reason why you hear about the clover leaf club, which receives letters from men and women who want to marry, and the officers sort them out and bring together the couples which they think are well matched. that's why you see sometimes in the newspapers advertisements for husbands, occasionally even for foreign husbands," she laughed demurely. "oh, that's silly, i know, but still it all shows how we feel. and that's how i feel. i don't want to marry, at least, not now; but if i ever do, i shall want to make my own choice, and i shall surely choose a man who believes as i do.
"that's the trouble in japan, if a girl grows a few years older than twenty, the family consider that it is a disgrace if she doesn't marry. that is why they are beginning to worry about me, especially as they have had to give it up about my sister; but then they think that in her case it is the fault of the schooling she received abroad. so now they are doubly anxious on my account; they don't want two old maids well over twenty in the family. but now that i have run away,[pg 254] that would be an even worse scandal. the papers would play it up as they did the countess who tried to commit double suicide with a chauffeur, or as they did with akiko-san, the millionaire's wife who ran away with a poet. you know, i have been in the papers once already. that was when they were making such a fuss about japanese girls dancing foreign fashion, and some of them even published the names of girls who went to dances. one of them mentioned my name, and my parents were so angry. now, if they don't leave me alone, i won't go home, and the papers will learn about my having run away, and that will be worse than ever, especially because i have run away to a foreigner."
she leaned back, crossed one knee over the other, looked at him expectantly. she had gained her composure entirely, even enjoyed the situation, now that the difficult part, the telling, was done with. she evidently anticipated approval from him, praise of her cleverness. but the revelation of her motive in coming to him was like a douche of cold water. of course, he ought to be pleased. what he had taken to be the unfolding of a melodrama, tragedy possibly, developing slowly, ominously, towards an inescapable woeful climax, had suddenly grotesquely become transformed into a droll burlesque, fantastic but harmless. but the suddenness of the metamorphosis irritated him, the sense of finding himself taking a rôle in farce where he had, gravely, been preparing himself for pathos. so all his vain imaginings that she might have sought him out because of affection on her part, because of her having greater confidence in him, was mere fancy. the little minx was using him merely as a convenient lay figure where a moment before he had thought himself to be cast in a principal rôle. what an anti-climax!
[pg 255]
"and now that you have planned it all out so well, what do you propose to do now? what do you expect me to do?"
she caught the irony in his voice. "now, please, kent-san, don't be angry. i thought you would be pleased when i got it all arranged so nicely. i thought it all out last night. you wouldn't really want me to run away to you, with you, would you now?"
was she in earnest? was the serious note that had crept into her voice, the appeal vaguely to be sensed therein, something more than mere anxiety to dispel his displeasure with her stratagem? how much did she think of him, or how little? it seemed as if he might detect the faintest undertone of earnestness under the words rippling from her lips, a hint of dark shadow deep in her eyes. for a moment the temptation to grasp her hands, to draw her to him, to learn just what was passing in her mind, gripped him; but instantly came the other thought,—what if she should be in earnest? he shook himself together; he had been on the brink of taking a chance which might have been replete with fateful potentialities. steady!
"no such luck, of course." purposely he spoke lightly, banteringly. the moment had passed safely; still, curiosity piqued him and he knew it would continue to do so—now that he would never know.
"you know, i think the very best thing would be to have a talk with your sister." the only thing for him to do now was to get this tangle straightened as soon and as neatly as possible. "she could fix it up for you with your parents. do you think you can get her here to-day if you send a telegram?"
"oh, yes; it's only a couple of hours by train." she adopted the suggestion easily, seemed almost to have lost interest. it was arranged that kent should return to the house that afternoon that council might[pg 256] be held between him and the sisters. the entire episode was becoming flat and prosaic.
on his way to the office he wondered whether he had better look up kikuchi. they were intimate; had he been an american he should surely have sought a frank discussion of the whole affair. he was sure that kikuchi would be able to give the advice which he felt he needed as he stumbled fumblingly into this maze of oriental convention and custom, prescriptive usages governed by modes of thought crystallized by centuries of observance, at which he might but conjecture vaguely. but as he thought of how he might venture to approach the subject, it seemed too amazingly difficult, too delicate a matter to attack hampered by uncertainty as to the reactions which might be caused in the oriental mind.
so he gave it up, decided to give the whole affair no more thought until the afternoon, and flung open the door to the office determined to devote himself entirely to whatever routine the day might bring. there was kikuchi, sitting lazily, feet against a table. it was almost uncanny, as if by mere thought, summoned by a wish, he had materialized like a genii of some kind.
"well, i'll be hanged. you know, i had just been thinking of you, kikuchi-san. by jove, you're just the man i wanted to see." now, that was just what he should not have said; in his surprise the words had slipped from him. well, anyway, now he would wait and see what the other might have to say.
"i thought so; so you see, i'm here." he advanced, hand outstretched, smiling. "no use beating about the bush, is there? it's about your charming little visitor, kimiko-san, is it not?"
confound him, how did he know? of course, it was generally accepted that the authorities kept [pg 257]themselves fairly well informed as to the doings of foreigners, especially correspondents and such, but this was just a little too surprising, too damnably efficient.
"never mind," kikuchi had caught his thought. "i found out about it quite accidentally. it's all right. there will be no scandal; it won't get out. but i had an idea that i might be concerned in this, you know, so i just came to see you to find out; that is, if you will tell me?"
well, why not? he had hesitated about seeing kikuchi, but here fate had solved the question for him. he filled his pipe deliberately, spoke slowly, felt his way, gave but a bare outline. kimiko had run away because she feared a marriage was being arranged for her. she did not want to marry at all. he emphasized the unimportance of his own appearance in the drama, as a mere incidental figure, convenient as a basis for the threat of potential scandal which formed the kernel of kimiko's scheme.
"you don't flatter yourself, do you," kikuchi laughed. "well, neither do i, for, of course, you needn't have been so studiously delicate in leaving out the fact that i am the unwelcome bridegroom—for i take it that she told you. but it all suits me splendidly. i don't want to marry her any more than she wants to marry me, and her scheme should work out fine for both of us. but we'll have to move quickly lest there be a scandal in earnest. that sort of thing won't remain secret forever."
he leaned back, fingers drumming a rat-tat-tat on the chair arm, evidently entirely content. "why so serious, kent-san. what are you thinking? here, out with it."
"well, since you yourself invite it, i don't mind telling you that you puzzle me, you two, you and kimiko-san." he was glad that the other had given[pg 258] him the opportunity. "you seem to me made for each other, both young, having the same tastes, liberal thoughts, modern mode of living; and you seem to like each other, quite evidently so; and yet, when it comes to marriage, you both fight shy. you know, to me, to the foreign point of view, the whole thing is, to tell the truth, mighty puzzling."
"of course it is," kikuchi laughed. "you've missed the main point entirely; but she didn't, kimiko-san. she knew well enough. kent-san, old man, you're quite right about my liking kimiko-san. in fact, it's more than probable that i like her far more than i shall care for whatever girl i eventually marry. but the point is that i don't want a modern wife, after modern style, with love, woman's rights, modern female thoughts and all that. will you let me be entirely frank, kent-san. all right; then i'll tell you just how i and many others look at it. the point is that japan has attained great gains from western civilization, electricity, steamships, railroads, and thousands of other things that make life more pleasant and convenient; but, honestly now, can you show me where we have gained much culturally, or spiritually, or morally? of course, some foreigners point to christianity, but you know as well as i do that much of that is entirely on the surface. the better classes become christians because it is modern, just as they might learn fox-trotting or playing the piano; and the poorer ones take it up because it is a cheap way to learn english or any other of the matters of instruction that the missionaries hold out as bait. what else have we gotten morally or culturally from you that was better than our own? we are losing our art, manners, morals, and getting instead your freak futurism, your jazz and your cocktail-drinking, leg-displaying flapper. now, i'm willing to admit that[pg 259] all that amuses me. i enjoy the dancing, the freedom with these girls. i have a better time with them than i possibly shall have with the girl of the type whom i shall marry; but, heavens, i don't marry a wife for entertainment, because she's a good fellow. i marry a girl whom i can respect as a mother to my children. mind you, i don't want to seem to criticize your system. it may suit you entirely, be just the thing for you; but it is entirely inapplicable to us. your country is run on the theory of the development and the rights of the individual. in japan the basis of our entire social system and body politic is the family. in america, where each individual must look after the expression of his own personality, it is plain that marriage must be by personal selection, though i admit it astounded me,—what i saw in america. a young man and a girl meet, dance. 'here, your step just fits in with mine. let's get married.' you know, it's almost as bad as that; and then, when you have let themselves tie themselves up thus unthinkingly, you make it almost impossible for them to remedy it if it's a mistake. divorce must be due to some disgraceful reason,—adultery, desertion, failure to provide; one must either continue to drag out life in a marriage which is a curse to the parties thereto and which does no good to the community, or prove oneself some kind of a beast. in japan we make marriage a serious matter, try to give it the best possible chance for permanency for the sake of the community and of the state; but incidentally the parties themselves benefit. when you read the papers of america and those of japan—and ours are, if anything, more sensational than yours—you'll find that on the whole we have far fewer marriage messes than you have.
"that's why i shall marry a girl who will place her duty to her family above everything else, who will be[pg 260] content with her home, flower arrangement, ceremonial tea, looking after her children and her husband. there won't be much excitement in it, or fun, but then, if i want that, i can find it elsewhere. i don't marry for fun or for excitement. i marry to form a family.
"so there is one thing where you may call me reactionary, if you like, and that's in respect to women. when i saw in america your eternally jazzing, slangy, impertinent flapper, the girl who bobs her hair and 'rolls them below the knee,' i was told is the phrase, and when i saw the inroads which this phenomenon, this freakish caricature of womanhood, was beginning to make in japan, with some of our girls who want to be modern, by talking woman's rights, and personal expression, and free love and all that, then i said to myself, yes, japan owes much to western civilization, and we may yet gain much from it; but when it comes to the women, the family relations, let us keep out the western system as we would a plague."
"thanks, i understand," kent spoke drily. "i see your point; still it seems to me a bit rough on the women, especially those like the suzuki girls. you've surprised me, kikuchi-san. i thought you were among the foremost of the moderns."
"and why am i not?" he snapped out the retort. "simply because i don't want to see japan adopt a system which has resulted in a riot of divorce scandals, married women running loose, the family system a mockery? and yet, kent-san you know that we young men in japan cannot justly be accused of being reactionary, and you know that we are likely to have on our hands problems so pressing that we won't have time to dabble with drawing-room sex questions. can you find it illustrated any better than it is in the case of us younger men in the foreign office? we know[pg 261] jolly well that the general staff is still running the country; we see our diplomats humiliated continually when, after they have bound japan to some international agreement, the militarists cynically walk right through it and leave us to wipe up the mess as best we can, leaving us a laughing stock and placing japan in the position of a nation whose word is worth nothing.
"do you know that all we are waiting for is a chance to get rid of the older men, these pussyfoot, over-careful old men who now run affairs, and to fight it out with the militarists. we shall have the people with us. we must have a government for the people and not for the army and navy. it's bound to come. the government is rotten as it is, with the general staff doing as it pleases without being responsible to the cabinet; with the officials nothing but politicians, many of them in the pay of this or that of the big interests. that's why they call them geisha politicians, because, like geisha, they are being kept by rich men. what can you expect where the premier gets six thousand dollars and the cabinet ministers four thousand dollars a year and their underlings in proportion? that's what we have got to do away with, that and favoritism because of money or title. you know, i'm not going to accept the title when my father dies. peerages should last only one generation; should go only to the men who earn them. and i'm not the only one of my class who feels like this. there are many of us. evil days have come on japan; the country is being run for the benefit of the few, a rotten, corrupt bureaucracy in the service of plutocracy; or by the militarists, who may be patriotic enough, according to their lights, but who have become anachronistic—so they must go, too. remember, kent-san, no matter how badly things may look on the surface that you[pg 262] see, the great bulk of the japanese people remains as it was, patriotic, frugal, hard-working, eager to learn. they will give japan its great future, these masses, and that task is what interests me, not chattering over sex sentimentalities with flappers. girls like kimiko-san, dancing, jazz and the rest, are all very well as a pastime in one's leisure, just as are geisha, but when it comes to the serious affairs of life, pah!" he waved his hand, snapping the fingers. "you get me, kent-san?"
kimiko's sister brought the news, that afternoon, that the parents were ready to surrender. they had already called off the go-between. kimiko-san would never again be exposed to marriage without being consulted first. they all had tea. it should have been a gay occasion; karsten tried desperately to bring about an atmosphere of high spirits; but the feeling of uneasiness, high-strung quiver of excitement, would not away. the women were ever together, the girls and jun-san, whispering, fluttery. for some reason it was a failure. it was almost with a sense of relief that they saw the girls to the gate.
"poor little things." kent was looking down at them as they tripped down the stone stairway, hand in hand, a pretty, entrancing picture, one in the fashion of the west, chic turban, high-heeled shoes, narrow waist; the other dainty, richly colored, brilliant, with her gorgeous obi, widely drooping kimono sleeves. at the foot of the stairs they stopped, waved; then they climbed into the waiting automobile.
"yes, i'm sorry for them," said karsten. "they are so eager to adopt our civilization, our modernism; they try so hard; and the better they succeed the worse it will probably be for them. they're ahead of their day, victims of the transition period, poor little butterflies broken on the wheel."