Читать книгу The American Diary of a Japanese Girl - Yoné 1875-1947 Noguchi - Страница 4

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“Belgic,” 7th

Good night—native land!

Farewell, beloved Empress of Dai Nippon!

12th—The tossing spectacle of the waters (also the hostile smell of the ship) put my head in a whirl before the “Belgic” left the wharf.

The last five days have been a continuous nightmare. How many a time would I have preferred death!

My little self wholly exhausted by sea-sickness. Have I to drift to America in skin and bone?

I felt like a paper flag thrown in a tempest.

The human being is a ridiculously small piece. Nature plays with it and kills it when she pleases.

I cannot blame Balboa for his fancy, because he caught his first view from the peak in Darien.

It’s not the “Pacific Ocean.” The breaker of the world!

“Do you feel any better?” inquired my fellow passenger.

He is the new minister to the City of Mexico on his way to his post. My uncle is one of his closest friends.

What if Meriken ladies should mistake me for the “sweet” wife of such a shabby pock-marked gentleman?

It will be all right, I thought, for we shall part at San Francisco.

(The pock-mark is rare in America, Uncle said. No country has a special demand for it, I suppose.)

His boyish carelessness and samurai-fashioned courtesy are characteristic. His great laugh, “Ha, ha, ha!” echoes on half a mile.

He never leaves his wine glass alone. My uncle complains of his empty stomach.

The more the minister repeats his cup the more his eloquence rises on the Chinese question. He does not forget to keep up his honourable standard of diplomatist even in drinking, I fancy.

I see charm in the eloquence of a drunkard.

I exposed myself on deck for the first time.

I wasn’t strong enough, alas! to face the threatening grandeur of the ocean. Its divineness struck and wounded me.

O such an expanse of oily-looking waters! O such a menacing largeness!

One star, just one sad star, shone above.

I thought that the little star was trembling alone on a deck of some ship in the sky.

Star and I cried.

13th—My first laughter on the ocean burst out while I was peeping at a label, “7 yens,” inside the chimney-pot hat of our respected minister, when he was brushing it.

He must have bought that great headgear just on the eve of his appointment.

How stupid to leave such a bit of paper!

I laughed.

He asked what was so irresistibly funny.

I laughed more. I hardly repressed “My dear old man.”

The “helpless me” clinging on the bed for many a day feels splendid to-day.

The ocean grew placid.

On the land my eyes meet with a thousand temptations. They are here opened for nothing but the waters or the sun-rays.

I don’t gain any lesson, but I have learned to appreciate the demonstrations of light.

They were white. O what a heavenly whiteness!

The billows sang a grand slow song in blessing of the sun, sparkling their ivory teeth.

The voyage isn’t bad, is it?

I planted myself on the open deck, facing Japan.

I am a mountain-worshipper.

Alas! I could not see that imperial dome of snow, Mount Fuji.

One dozen fairies—two dozen—roved down from the sky to the ocean.

I dreamed.

I was so very happy.

14th—What a confusion my hair has suffered! I haven’t put it in order since I left the Orient. Such negligence of toilet would be fined by the police in Japan.

I was busy with my hair all the morning.

15th—The Sunday service was held.

There’s nothing more natural on a voyage than to pray.

We have abandoned the land. The ocean has no bottom.

We die any moment “with bubbling groan, without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.”

Only prayer makes us firm.

I addressed myself to the Great Invisible whose shadow lies across my heart.

He may not be the God of Christianity. He is not the Hotoke Sama of Buddhism.

Why don’t those red-faced sailors hum heavenly-voiced hymns instead of—“swear?”

16th—Amerikey is away beyond.

Not even a speck of San Francisco in sight yet!

I amused myself thinking what would happen if I never returned home.

Marriage with a ’Merican, wealthy and comely?

I had well-nigh decided that I would not cross such an ocean again by ship. I would wait patiently until a trans-Pacific railroad is erected.

I was basking in the sun.

I fancied the “Belgic” navigating a wrong track.

What then?

Was I approaching lantern-eyed demons or howling cannibals?

“Iya, iya, no! I will proudly land on the historical island of Lotos Eaters.” I said.

Why didn’t I take Homer with me? The ocean is just the place for his majestic simplicity and lofty swing.

I recalled a few passages of “The Lotos Eaters” by Lord Tennyson—it sounds better than “the poet Tennyson.” I love titles, but they are thought as common as millionaires nowadays.

A Jap poet has a different mode of speech.

Shall I pose as poet?

’Tis no great crime to do so.

I began my “Lotos Eaters” with the following mighty lines:

“O dreamy land of stealing shadows!

O peace-breathing land of calm afternoon!

O languid land of smile and lullaby!

O land of fragrant bliss and flower!

O eternal land of whispering Lotos Eaters!”

Then I feared that some impertinent poet might have said the same thing many a year before.

Poem manufacture is a slow job.

Modern people slight it, calling it an old fashion. Shall I give it up for some more brilliant up-to-date pose?

17th—I began to knit a gentleman’s stockings in wool.

They will be a souvenir of this voyage.

(I cannot keep a secret.)

I tell you frankly that I designed them to be given to the gentleman who will be my future “beloved.”

The wool is red, a symbol of my sanguine attachment.

The stockings cannot be much larger than my own feet. I dislike large-footed gentlemen.

18th—My uncle asked if my great work of poetical inspiration was completed.

“Uncle, I haven’t written a dozen lines yet. My ‘Lotos Eaters’ is to be equal in length to ‘The Lady of the Lake.’ Now, see, Oji San, mine has to be far superior to the laureate’s, not merely in quality, but in quantity as well. But I thought it was not the way of a sweet Japanese girl to plunder a garland from the old poet by writing in rivalry. Such a nice man Tennyson was!” I said.

I smiled and gazed on him slyly.

“So! You are very kind!” he jerked.

19th—I don’t think San Francisco is very far off now. Shall I step out of the ship and walk?

Has the “Belgic” coal enough? I wonder how the sensible steamer can be so slow!

Let the blank pages pass quickly! Let me come face to face with the new chapter—“America!”

The gray monotone of life makes me insane.

Such an eternal absence of variety on the ocean!

20th—The moon—how large is the ocean moon!—sat above my head.

When I thought that that moon must have been visiting in my dearest home of Tokio, the tragic scene of my “Sayonara, mother!” instantly returned.

Tears on my cheeks!

Morning, 21st—Three P.M. of to-day!

At last!

Beautiful Miss Morning Glory shall land on her dream-land, Amerikey.

That’s my humble name, sir.

18 years old.

(Why does the ’Merican lady regard it as an insult to be asked her own age?)

My knitting work wasn’t half done. I look upon it as an omen that I shall have no luck in meeting with my husband.

Tsumaranai! What a barren life!

Our great minister was placing a button on his shirt. His trembling fingers were uncertain.

I snatched the shirt from his hand and exhibited my craft with the needle.

“I fancied that you modern girls were perfect strangers to the needle,” he said.

He is not blockish, I thought, since he permits himself to employ irony.

My uncle was lamenting that he had not even one cigar left.

Both those gentlemen offered to help me in my dressing at the landing.

I declined gracefully.

Where is my looking-glass?

I must present myself very—very pretty.

IN AMERIKEY