Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

not exclusively whisky, could be drunk in conclusion?" I inquire of our Lieutenthose steaming tumblers which the Lieutenant loved to see.

[blocks in formation]

ant, who is lazily letting the cigar-smoke curl about his moustache and beard as he lies back, and fixes his light blue eyes contemplatively on the ceiling.

"How do I know? I do not know: I think so. He ought to be very well satisfied of knowing a young lady like that and very proud of going to marry her instead of annoying her with bad tempers."

ever.

"That is true. A young man under such circumstances cannot be too grateful or too amiable. They are not always so, howYou yourself for example, when you parted from Fräulein FallersleHere the Lieutenant jumped up in his chair, and said, with an unnecessary vehe

And as she sang, with her eyes cast down,
the Lieutenant seemed to be regarding
her face with a peculiar interest. He for-
got to lift the hot tumbler that was oppo-ben-
site him on the table- he had even for-
gotten Tita's gracious permission that he
might have a cigar- he was listening and
gazing merely, in a blank. silence. And
when she had finished he eagerly begged
her to sing another of the old English
songs. And she sang -

"O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear, your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low."
And when she had finished, he once more
eagerly begged her to sing another of
those old songs; and then, all of a sudden,
catching sight of a smile on my Lady's
face, he stopped, and apologized, and
blushed rather, and said it was too bad-
that he had forgotten, and would himself
try something on the guitar.

When, at length, the women had gone upstairs, he fetched down his cigar from the mantelpiece, lit it, stretched out his long legs, and said

"How very English she is!" "She? who?"

mence

I had! It was not my ill-temper; I am
"Donnerwetter! look at the provocation
not more ill-tempered than other men:
but when you know you mean very well,
and that you treat a woman as perhaps
not all men would be inclined to do in the
same case, and she is a hypocrite, and she
pretends much, and at the same time she
is writing to you, she is - pfui! I cannot
speak of it!"

"You were very fond of her."
"Worse luck."

"And you had a great fight, and used hard words of each other, and parted so that you would rather meet Beelzebub than her."

"Why, yes, it is so: I would rather meet twenty Beelzebubs than her."

"That is the way of you boys. You don't know that in after years, when all these things have got smooth and misty and distant, you will come to like her Why, your Miss Bell. I do like to again; and then what will you think of hear her talk of England as if she had a your hard words and your quarrels? If pride in it, and mention the names of you children could only understand how towns as if she loved them because they very short youth is, how very long middle were English, and speak of the fairies and age is, and how very dull old age is, — if stories as if she was familiar with them you could only understand how the chief because they belong to her own country. occupation of the longer half of your life You can see how she is fond of everything is looking back on the first short half of that is like old times, an old house, an it, you would know the value of storing old mile-stone, an old bridge, every- up only pleasant recollections of all your thing that is peculiar and old and English. old friends. If you find that your sweetAnd then she sings, oh! so very well- so heart is a woman compelled by her nature very well indeed; and these old songs, to fall in love with the man nearest her, about English places and English customs of village-life, they seem to suit her very well, and you think she herself is the heroine of them. But as for that young man in Twickenham, he is a very pitiful fellow."

"How have you suddenly come to that

and forget him who is out of the way, why devote her to the infernal gods? In after years, you will be grateful to her for the pleasant days and weeks you spent with her, when you were both happy together, and you will look back on the old times very tenderly; and then, on those occa

sions when you German folks drink to the, into the grate, "what a woman this one health of your absent dear ones, won't showed herself to be. After all, it does you be sorry that you can't include her not matter. But when I look at such a who was dear enough to you in your woman as your Miss Bell hereyouth?" "Yes: when you look at her?"

"That is very good; it is quite true," said the Lieutenant, in almost an injured tone as if Fräulein Fallersleben were responsible.

"Look for a moment," I say to my pensive pupil, "at the pull a man has who has spent his youth in pleasant scenery. When he gets old, and can do nothing but live the old life over again by looking back, he has only to shut his eyes, and his brain is full of fresh and bright pictures of the old times in the country; and the commonest landscape of his youth he will remember then as if it were steeped in sunlight."

"That is quite true," said Von Rosen, thoughtfully; but the next moment he uttered an angry exclamation, started up from his chair, and began walking up and down the room.

"It is all very well," he said, with an impatient vehemence, "to be amiable and forgiving when you are old - because you don't care about it, that is the reason. When you are young, you expect fair play. Do you think if I should be seventy I will care one brass farthing whether Pauline

that is, Fräulein Fallersleben - was honest or no? I will laugh at the whole affair then. But now, when you are ashamed of the deceit of a woman, is it not right you tell her? Is it not right she knows what honest men and women think of her? What will she think of you if you say to her, Farewell, Fräulein. You have behaved not very well; but I am amiable; I will forgive you.''

"There, again: you parted with her in wrath, because you did not like to appear weak and complaisant in her eyes."

"At all events, I said what I felt," said the Lieutenant, warmly. "I do think it is only hypocrisy and selfishness to say, 'I hate this woman, but I will be kind to her, because when I grow old I will look back and consider myself to have been very good.'

66

[ocr errors]

Why, I see the difference," said the Lieutenant gloomily; and therewith he pulled out another cigar.

I stopped this, however, and rang for candles. As he lit his in rather a melancholy fashion, he said

"It is a very good thing to see a woman like that-young-hearted, frank, honest in her eyes, and full of pleasantness, too, and good spirits-oh! it is very fine indeed, merely to look at her; for you do believe that she is a very good girl, and you think there are good women in the world. But as for that young man at Twickenham

66

[ocr errors]

Well, what of him?"

The Lieutenant looked up from the candle; but saw nothing to awaken his suspi

cions.

"Oh," he said, carelessly, as we left the room, "I do think him a most pitiful fellow."

From The Cornhill Magazine. WANDERINGS IN JAPAN.

II.

A LONG morning's work under a hot sun has made us more than ready for the luncheon which awaits us at the pretty little inn, nor is the prospect of an hour's rest unwelcome before proceeding on our journey. Had I had time, I would gladly have spent the night here, for assuredly the Island of Enoshima is one of the fairest spots I have seen, but I was forced to hurry on that I might sleep that night at Fujisawa, a straggling town on the great highway.

The evening was far advanced when I reached Fujisawa and rode up to the Suzukiya, once a porcelain-shop, now a really excellent hostelry, where, to my astonish"You have been deeply hit, my poor ment and delight, I found the luxury of a lad; you are quite fevered about it now. table and a very hard, straight-backed You cannot even see how a man's own chair, such as our great grandmothers sat self-respect will make him courteous to a in and were contented, such as we more woman whom he despises; and is he likely effeminate vote to be an instrument of torto be sorry for that courtesy, when he ture. The room was so natty and tidy as looks at it in cold blood, and recognizes to deserve a few words of description. the stupendous fact that the man who com- The sliding panels were covered with a plains of the inconstancy of a woman ut- smart new paper, decorated with a pattern ters a reflection against Providence?" of fans sprinkled over it with marvellous "But you don't know-you don't effect; the tokonoma, the raised recess, know," said the Count, pitching his cigar which is the place of honour, was sup

a

port on one side by a wooden pillar, com-, gan to wish that some man would find a posed of a single tree stripped of its bark so use for them, or that a new Batrachomyoas to be perfectly smooth, and contained machia might arise ending in the victory one of those quaint zigzag sets of shelves of the mice, and the utter extermination which have their origin in a piece of obso- of the croakers; for hardly had I got to lete etiquette. When persons of rank used bed, hoping for a good night's rest, than to meet together in old days to drink there arose from the neighbouring paddyand be merry, they would lay aside their fields such a chorus of brekekekek koax caps and dirks, the man of highest rank koax, as has not been heard since the days placing his traps upon the highest shelf, of Aristophanes. The night long they those of lower rank not presuming even sang their hideous song, banishing sleep: to allow their caps to take a precedence sometimes indeed there would come which did not belong to them. This is sudden lull, bringing hope with it; but said to have occasioned the invention of hardly had the heavy eyelids time to close those shelves which in lacquer cabinets before some deep-voiced, hoarse precentor must have puzzled collectors at Christie would lead off again, the whole choir foland Manson's. The mats and woodwork lowing one by one, until it seemed as if which are the pride of the Japanese house- every frog that had ever been a tadpole holder were white and new, the beams had been summoned to take part in the decorated with carving of no mean taste. concert. Until the first dawn of day they One solitary picture, executed with won- went on with what I remember to have derful freedom of touch and grotesque- seen in some old book is a serenade of ness, represented, in a few bold strokes of love from the males to the females; with the brush, a group of husbandmen sow- the dawn they rested, and so did I. ing rice in the field, and on one side of the drawing was a distich running

[merged small][ocr errors]

Useless even for drugs

How happy are the frogs!"

The literal translation must plead my excuse for the badness of the rhyme. I was not a little puzzled by the meaning of the couplet until Shiraki came to the rescue and solved the riddle.

"Sir," said he pompously, "here is a lesson of humility and content conveyed in a parable. It is a fact which will meet with the imperial assent, that frogs are of no use in the world either as food or even as medicine."

"Very good food," I objected, "either in a curry as eaten at Hongkong, or with a white sauce as at Paris."

October 10. Whilst my people were packing up, paying the reckoning, and making ready for a start, I wandered into the yard of the handsome temple opposite the inn. On one of the stone lanterns were graven the two Chinese characters Shên Tien - God's Field. What an exact reproduction of our expression "God's Acre!' That the daily wants of man kind should have produced such tools as the saw, the plane, the chisel, the plumbline, and a thousand others, all the world over, seems natural enough: but it is astounding to find how the minds of men have hit upon the same expressions of thought. Almost all the proverbs of China and Japan have their fellows in our European languages, while some are identically the same; such as "Walls have ,, ears; "Birds of a feather flock to"Talk of a man and you will cause his shadow to appear; "" "Silence is better than speech;" besides many more. Here in this Ultima Thule is "God's Acre."

Shiraki smiled a smile that was incredu-gether; lous. "Some insects feed upon smartweed. However that may be, we say that the frogs being useless, no man interferes with them, and they are allowed to live out their lives in undisturbed peace. So it is with the farmers: their position is lowly, but they have none of the cares which haunt greatness: therefore they should be contented, and the poet praises their modest lot."

O fortunatos nimium! Has the Corpus Poetarum Latinorum been translated into Japanese? As for the frogs, I soon be

• Kusuri ni mo naraneba,

Buji na kawadzu kana!

+ A proverb equivalent to our "There is no accounting for tastes."

[ocr errors]

A nipping and an eager air blowing over the mountains in our faces reminds us how fast the year is waning, and it is so chilly that we are glad to dismount and walk, in order to keep ourselves warm. But the rays of a scorching sun soon disperse the delicious crispness of early morning, and drive us to take shelter under the fragrant shade of the grand old pines and firs which border this portion of the highroad.

Journeying on in a westerly direction, we soon arrive at the little village of

Nango, beyond which a sharp turn of the
road brings us upon one of the views most
esteemed by Japanese landscape-paint-
ers. The highway follows such a straight
line that Mount Fuji appears almost always
on the right-hand of the westward-bound
traveller. Here is one of the rare excep-
tions to the rule: the Peerless Mountain
rises on his left, its glorious cone towering
above the rugged outline of the Hakoné married the sister of Yoritomo's wife and
range, and the wilds of Mount Oyama, had become a widower, built a bridge over
dark, gloomy, and lowering, a sacred haunt the river Sagami and held a great festival,
long guarded jealously from the profa- according to the Buddhist ritual, in hon-
nation of a foreigner's foot. Among yon- our of his dead wife. Upon the day ap-
der mysterious glens, crags, and gorges is pointed for the ceremony, Yoritomo, on ac-
the home of the Tengu or Dog of Heaven, count of the relationship which existed be-
a hideous elf, long-clawed, long-beaked, tween him and Shigénari, set out to do hon-
winged, loving solitude; terror of naughty our to the occasion by his presence. Hav-
children who refuse to go to sleep at the ing arrived at the place, the Shogun was
word of command, or are guilty of other received with due respect by his brother-in-
infantine crimes: altogether an uncanny law, who forthwith gave orders that the
hobgoblin and should you, losing your priests should begin their prayers and lit-
way among the hills, find its nest, which anies. Then there arose a great storm of
is built in the highest trees, go your way thunder and lightning, and in the midst of
and disturb it not, lest some foul evil the storm there appeared a hideous ghost
should overtake you. The enchanting mocking and gibbering, and a black cloud
scenes of this day's journey, which change was seen dancing down the river on the
and bring fresh charms before the eye at top of the water. Startled by the appari-
every turn in the road, would alone repay tion, the Shogun's horse snorted and
the pilgrim for the trouble of his expedi- reared so that Yoritomo was thrown, and
tion, and he will understand how supersti- the horse leaping over the parapet, jumped
tion has peopled haunts more beautiful,
more wild, and more lonely than usual
with a race of fairies and demons fairer
or more terrible than the children of

reached the supreme power by a bloody
road. Among the chief of the persons who
perished in the civil wars were the infant.
emperor Antoku (whose grandmother,
clasping him to her bosom, jumped into
the sea in despair), and Yoritomo's own
brother Yoshituné. Now it happened
in the twelfth month of the year 1198, that
a certain noble named Shigénari, who had

men.

:

into the flood and was drowned - and this mishap gave the name to the river. But when the bystanders saw all these signs their hearts quailed, and they knew that some terrible calamity was about to hapA glance at the map of Japan will pen. Nor was this the only portent which show that, the watershed being so close to they were destined to behold, for when the sea, it is impossible that there should Yoritomo on his homeward journey be any rivers of importance; indeed, there reached the moor of Yatsumato, the are very few that are navigable even to ghosts of his brother, Yoshituné and of junks and steam-launches, and most of another hero, called Yukiiyé, appeared to those are guarded by dangerous and al-him in anger, and at Cape Inamura he was most impassable bars.* Here the rivers met by the ghost of the emperor Antoku, are mere mountain torrents, rising rapidly so that the Shogun, terror-stricken by the and wickedly, to use a Scotch fisherman's sight, fell fainting from his horse. expression, and in the absence of bridges, often putting a stop to all communication. The little river Sagami, which we presently have to cross, is in full spate; luckily, however, it is not yet so swollen as to stop our progress. At this point it is called Banin-gawa, or the Horse-Plunge River, from an adventure which happened to the Shogun Yoritomo.

Yoritomo, it will be remembered, had

The bars at the mouths of the rivers at Osaka

and Niigata have been frequently fatal to the lives and merchandise of foreigners. It was in crossing

the bar at Osaka that the American Admiral Bell was lost, with his flag-lieutenant and all his boat's crew, in the mouth ot January, 1868.

His

attendants caught him in their arms, carried him back to Kamakura; but from that time forth he sickened, until on the thirteenth day of the first month of the following year he died, being fifty-three years of age, and having ruled as Shogun during eight years.

In justice to the character of the Japanese historical books, I should add that the story of the miraculous apparitions which preceded the death of Yoritomo is based merely upon tradition; but it is treasured nevertheless in the memory of a marvel-loving people.

Twice during the day we halted; first at Hiratsuka for luncheon, and again in the

[ocr errors]

afternoon at the village of Meida, for the manded that friendly relations should exintense heat of the afternoon sun made a ist with foreign countries, and that all rest and cup of tea very acceptable. At matters should be treated directly by the Meida my groom fell in with a friend, and Imperial Court.* The Treaties will be it was most amusing to see the two lads, observed according to International Law, half-naked, their wonderfully tattooed and the people of the whole country, relimbs showing the lowness of their class, ceiving the expression of the Imperial will meet one another, bowing and prostrating with gratitude, are hereby ordered to rest themselves with more ceremonious greet-assured upon this point. ings than would be exchanged between two "Henceforth those persons who, by viowestern potentates: lently slaying foreigners, or otherwise insulting them, would rebel against the Imperial commands, and brew trouble in the country, and all other persons whatsoever, are hereby ordered to behave in a friendly manner. Those who do not uphold the Majesty and Good Faith of their country in the eyes of the world, being guilty of most audacious crime, in accordance with the heinousness of their offence, will, even should they belong to the Samurai class, be stripped of their rank, and will meet with a suitable punishment. Let all men receive the Imperial commands, by which riotous conduct, however slight, is strictly forbidden."

Welcome! welcome! Mr. Chokichi, this is indeed a matter of congratulation. You must be fatigued - let me offer you up a cap of tea." (All this, by-the-by, with the word "Imperial' thrown in most untranslatably at every step.)

"Thank you, sir. This is truly rare tea. Kekko! Kekkô! delicious! delicious! Whence are you making your imperial progress?"

From Odawara-it is a long time since I have had the pleasure of placing myself before the imperial eyes."

And so they went on, with truly Oriental courtesy, nor did there seem any reason why they should ever have stopped, unless The virtue of the proclamation lies in I had given the signal for a start, when the words, "even should they belong to down they went again in renewed prostra- the Samurai class." From the common tions. Five minutes afterwards I over-people, who are mostly well disposed and heard my groom telling one of the other friendly, the foreigner has nothing to fear, horseboys a long story, the upshot of which was to show what a rogue, rascal, and villain was his acquaintance, whom he had parted with so affectionately with compliments coming as much from the heart as kisses exchanged between fine ladies.

unless it be perhaps a volley of stones at the hands of a party of merry-makers in holiday time, and a few cuts of his horsewhip will amply avenge him; but that the privileged and armed Samurai should learn that in cutting down a barbarian he is not only not performing an act of devotion pleasing in the eyes of the gods, but is committing a crime which even deprives him of his dearly valued birthright of selfimmolation by hara-kiri, and puts him under the sword of the common headsman, is an immense point gained in our relations with Japan. The Son of heaven, the lineal descendant and successor of the gods, himself takes us under his protection, and commands "that friendly relations should exist with foreign countries."

The left bank of a broad shallow river, upon which we presently come, is the limit within which, according to treaty, the foreigners resident at Yokohama are bound to confine themselves; and two white notice-boards inscribed with that announcement in French and English stand by an office for the examination of passports, which are now readily granted to those desirous of extending their observations. A third notice is very significant of the danger which the traveller yet runs I do not of course mean to say that. should he fall in with a fanatic or ill-con- this law will of itself be sufficient to proditioned fellow this proclamation is now tect foreigners from insult and outrage in stuck up at all the principal places through- a land which numbers so many fanatie out the Empire, in accordance with an dare-devils, and where the jo-i or barbaagreement entered into by the Japanese rian-expulsion party, who hold, with some Government with the foreign representa- truth on their side, that foreign intertives after the attacks upon foreigners course has brought nothing but trouble which took place in 1868. Translated, it upon the country, are yet very strong. runs as follows: But it is a step in the right direction, and

"Now that the Imperial Government has

been newly stablished, in obedience to the Instead of by the Tycoon, the head of the exeoprinciples of the Court, it has been com- utive, as heretofore.

[blocks in formation]

1149

« VorigeDoorgaan »