Читать книгу Broken Butterflies - Henry W. Kinney - Страница 5

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Kent's office was in the rear of a building in the Shimbashi section, a corner room facing two sides on narrow alleys, neither more than four feet wide. His landlord, Nishimura, whose International Agency occupied the front, was holding forth volubly. He would talk inexhaustibly about his life, his affairs and, principally, about his manifold abilities, in English, for he had lived for years in the United States.

As he talked, Kittrick came in. Kent had known him years ago, in the San Francisco Press Club, before he had gone to Japan for the Universal Syndicate. He hoped that his arrival would put an end to Nishimura's talk, but the Japanese only waved a greeting to Kittrick—evidently he knew him. He bubbled on.

"I am very pleased that I can always help you, in anything, everything. If you want anything, ask Nishimura. I can get you access to all the big men, the ministers of state, the politicians, the big business men, everybody. I can get you anything, an interview, a clerk, invitations to the official functions, a streetcar pass, a sweetheart," he leered suggestively. "You have a unique advantage of situation, Mr. Kent, between knowledge," he pointed towards the region of the International Agency, "and pleasure," he waved his hand generally in the direction of the walls and paper-covered shoji appearing, familiarly close, through the office windows.

"It is a select neighborhood, Mr. Kent. The heart of the most refined geisha quarter, hidden, so discreetly, don't you think, behind our respectability, yours and mine. There, you see, is the Akebono machiai, one of the most famous waiting houses, where you may feast with geisha." He pointed across one of the alleys where the shojis had been drawn aside, the wide window opening displaying a large, immaculately clean room, furnished with the constraint usual in Japan, with only a low table and some silk cushions, a kakemono, hanging silk scroll picture, in the tokonoma recess. "A very quiet place usually in the day," he explained. "But at night, ah, what scenes of revelry, with happy guests disporting themselves with sake wine and the pretty geisha." He sighed and threw wide his arms, as would he, ravished, press to his breast one of the beauties of his imagination. "You shall see, Mr. Kent, even here," now he was pointing through the window in the other wall to a smaller house. The closed, opaque paper shoji, bamboo barred, were almost within arm's length. From beyond it came the strident whimper of samisen strings. "That is O-Toshi-san," he explained confidentially, impressively, "the famous O-Toshi-san. You shall see her often, there in her window; but, Mr. Kent, do not lose your heart there. No, don't," he became even more confidential, suggestively smiling. "She belongs to Mr. Kato, the police commissioner. He paid big makura-kin, pillow-money, oh, so big, I hear——"

A clerk entered and whispered to Nishimura. "I am so sorry," said the landlord. "My affairs. I must go, but I shall come and see you often. Good morning."

It was a relief. His chatter had filled the room, monopolized the situation. "I have certainly fallen into a queer neighborhood," said Kent. "I shall apparently have a liberal and inexpensive education in geisha matters. What did he mean by pillow-money, anyway?"

"That's so; you left Japan too young to know about such things," said Kittrick. "Well, the institution differs considerably, according to locality, I think, but it means ordinarily a sum paid to a geisha who then becomes, so far as love favors are concerned, the exclusive jewel of the man who pays it. She may, of course, continue to entertain other guests as a singer or dancer and so forth, but that man is, or is supposed to be, her only lover. In fact, you know, you are not as queerly situated as you think you are. The geisha quarters are scattered in various parts of the city; you find them rubbing up against business and office quarters in lots of places. They are not bad neighbors at all. You may come to like these girls. For while some of them are just common women, many are quite exclusive, as, for instance, your neighbor lady appears to be, with just one lover; and not a few are absolutely clean morally, virginal, even though they make their living by singing, and playing, and entertaining men in their idle hours. For the Japanese they are institutional. In many cases important business deals are closed only in the machiai, with geisha adding grace to the occasion. Statesmen discuss their affairs in their presence. The Japanese tired business man, when he wants a change from the formality of family life, finds relaxation in a few hours with them, drinking, chatting, listening to their singing, enjoying their bright wit; often, as a rule, I think, that is all, though, of course, it frequently goes further. I myself have come to appreciate very much the Japanese point of view. There is so little to do in Tokyo, no theaters or concerts to speak of; only the cinemas. So occasionally, when time hangs on my hands, I go to some clean little tea house, call a geisha or two, lie about comfortably, lazily, enjoy their chatter—they are such merry, charming children. You get complete relaxation. It is easy to understand how the Japanese men, whose wives, as gentlewomen, could not and would not think of unbending to the gay fripperies of such talk and play, find their amusement with these girls. Of course, many of the men have sweethearts, mistresses, mekakes, concubines, as they commonly are called, but these things are not as greatly different from similar phenomena in America and Europe as you might think, and I am under the impression that the characteristically Japanese concubine system, if there is such a thing, is gradually dying out.

"However, I didn't come here to talk geisha. If you want me to show you the ropes as a newspaperman, I'm going now to the Foreign Office, and you had better come along."

The first glimpse of the Foreign Office attracted Kent—the great wall, with white mortar forming big lozenges, the only glimpse of typical Japan in the vicinity where great red brick buildings, the Navy Department, the courts, and, gray and forbidding, imposing even while its walls were crumbling, the Russian Embassy, formed the nucleus of official Japan. But once inside the iron grilled gate, the Foreign Office buildings were unimpressive, tediously modern. They did not even go to the main structure, but went to the right into a long, drab edifice.

"This will be one of your main points in your work," said Kittrick, as they waited while the solemn old commissionaire shuffled upstairs to announce them. "This is the information bureau of the Foreign Office, the main function of which is to see that foreign correspondents are kept satisfied with as little information as possible. We are now about to see the head oracle, Mr. Kubota. He was in London and Washington for years, and Japanese officialdom speaks highly of his abilities. He has to be quite a diplomat, you know, to answer a great many questions and still give out next to no information, anyway."

The commissionaire appeared and ushered them into Kubota's office, a large, simply furnished room. A middle-aged, pleasant-faced man, immaculate in frock coat, rose to greet them. His English was perfect. He was courteously cordial. One liked him instinctively. They chatted awhile about Kent's plans, how he liked Japan, the usual trivialities. "I hope you will come here often. We shall all be glad to be of every service possible to you, I and my assistants."

He called over a young man who had been sitting in the background. "My chief assistant, Mr. Kikuchi," he introduced. Kikuchi, more interesting at first sight than his chief, was a typical young aristocrat, in rich silk kimono, with long, sensitive fingers, urbanely smiling. Kent learned later on that he was regarded as one of the rising men in the Foreign Office, a man with brains as well as prestige. His father, Viscount Kikuchi, was considered, in the most intimately informed circles, to be the leading mind of the Privy Council.

"We have heard of you already from Baron Saiki," said Kikuchi, shaking Kent's hand firmly. "We shall be glad to become your good friends, if we may. In fact——" he glanced towards his chief.

The older man smiled. "Yes, Mr. Kittrick, we had, in fact, thought of having one of our little tea parties as a welcome to Mr. Kent and for Mr. Jones, you know, who came a few weeks ago for the New York Chronicle. To get them acquainted, just a few of us from the office here and the newspapermen. We have these little informal, friendly gatherings now and then, Mr. Kent. Do you think you should like to come?"

Kent thanked him. They chatted for a while. Kent was introduced to a few more officials, all pleasant, extremely urbane, fluent in English. Then they came away.

"It should be pleasant to come here," commented Kent. "They seem intelligent and friendly. I like them."

"They are pleasant," replied Kittrick. "And clever too, though, queerly enough, it is the common thing for the Japanese to regard the Foreign Office as a pretty stupid institution. Although it has done mighty well, it seems to me, disentangling the foreign policy mess left by Terauchi and his ilk, cleaning up the Yap, Shantung, Chinese and Siberian questions, the Japanese people and press seem to think that they are a pretty poor lot. Of course, they have had a fairly hard time of it with the War Office, the General Staff. Many people think that they are unduly under the thumb of the militarists, but the very fact that the army and navy Ministers are not responsible to the Cabinet makes running the foreign policy harder, as the militarists have had the habit of letting the Foreign Office propose, and then doing the disposing themselves, and that seems to me to make what our diplomatic friends have done the more praiseworthy.

"Yes, you will find the Foreign Office crowd pleasant," he continued. "But as a source of information you'll find them disappointing. Like all the rest of the officials, they are obsessed with the national mania for secrecy. All the officials seem to think that they may get into all kinds of trouble by telling the press something; that they can never get into trouble when they tell nothing. The great cry of the Japanese is constantly that they are misunderstood by the rest of the world, and still when we fellows who honestly want to bring about understanding try to help them along, they won't help us or themselves. Say, for instance, that some fool report against Japan crops up in Washington, or London, or Paris, and you come here to get the thing straightened out, to get Japan's side; you will, as a rule, find it is like pulling teeth, and often, when you do get the story, they won't let you quote the Foreign Minister, or even the Foreign Office generally. They want you to cable that 'it is reported,' or 'it is said' or 'there are indications that,' taking all the value out of the statement. Then, if you want to see one of the Ministers or some other big gun, they will probably arrange that you see him—they are tremendously obliging, I admit—but it will take a week or more before the interview can be arranged, and in the meantime the harm has been done abroad. Your story, Japan's version, has become old as Genesis, it has gone cold. And then they sit up and wail that the world misunderstands them. All this talk you hear about the infernally clever, insidious Japanese propaganda is plain rot. If there is one thing they don't know a thing about, it is propaganda. They have their propaganda newspapers, it is true, particularly in China, but everybody knows them, and they don't count. This talk about the Foreign Office handing out huge sums to writers and others is funny. The War Office people have the funds, and I daresay they spend them where they think it will do good. The General Staff, that is the secret force in the Japanese Government, and you and I never hear what goes on in there. See its headquarters, that old, gray building with the green copper roof; that's the last remaining stronghold of militarism, in its good old form, on this earth; and General Matsu, the chief, is the proper high priest, the simon-pure militarist, with ethics as primitive as those of a cave man. They are giving in now. They have to, for Japanese public opinion about spending great sums on armies is the same as it is in the rest of the world, but they are clever. They feel—it is probably their sincere idea of patriotism—that Japan can be great only by militarism, and where they reduce the army by two soldiers, they probably buy one machine gun, making up in strength in one way what they lose in the other. They probably feel that if they can't preserve Japan's strength openly on account of public opinion, they must do it quietly, for Japan's good. But there, under that green roof, lie the forces of old Japan, and there, on the other side of the city, in the students' quarter in Kanda, in the laborers' quarters of Honjo and Fukagawa, the forces of new thought are stirring and fermenting. It is medieval feudalism as opposed to modern industrialism, with a lot of more 'isms thrown in, Socialism, Communism, Sovietism even, new ideas, half understood, misunderstood, but grasped at with passionate eagerness, the young generation and the workers seeking such morsels of new thought, often the worse thought, that they can find, and swallowing them, half digested, or not digested at all.

"There is danger in all this. There is a turbulence of too precipitate transition. It needs wise handling. There is good in it all, this passionate desire for making Japan modern, but all these young, restless forces should be directed, led along wholesome paths, and all that the powers-that-be—the militarists, the capitalists, the police—seem to know is repression. I can see lots of good in both sides, the cautious conservatism of the old generation which clings desperately to the ancient virtues which it sees spurned; and which sees all that is bad, unwholesome, in the new movement; and the young generation which wants to create a new Japan in a day, which wants to walk before it has learned to crawl, which is prone to discard the virtues and values of old Japan before it has learned to understand and use modern, Western civilization. It is a game for high stakes which is going on here under our eyes, where immeasurably precious values of an old civilization, unique, irreplaceable, are likely to be lost, to be thrown ruthlessly aside; and, on the other hand, there is loss every day that the intentness, the eagerness of the younger generation, of the masses in the cities where they have acquired zest for modernism, is suffered to waste itself in futile groping after lots of unwholesome stuff, which they think must be good fruit mainly because it is forbidden; especially when all this eagerness to learn, this ambitious energy might, with a little sympathy, a bit of understanding wisdom, be made into a tremendous power for constructive good. The longer you live here, Kent, the more you will come to see that what Japan needs to-day, what she must have, is another Meiji, some strong, wise directing force, a truly big man—but there is no such man to-day."