Bab Bab 15 · KIMIKO

. KIMIKO

O

_Wasuraruru

Mi naran to omo

Kokoro koso

Wasure nu yori mo

Omoi nari-kere_.

"To wish to be forgotten by the beloved is a soul-task harder far

than trying not to forget."--Poem by Kimiko.

I

The name is on a paper-lantern at the entrance of a house in the

Street of the Geisha.

Seen at night the street is one of the queerest in the world. It

is narrow as a gangway; and the dark shining woodwork of the

house-fronts, all tightly closed,--each having a tiny sliding

door with paper-panes that look just like frosted glass,--makes

you think of first-class passenger-cabins. Really the buildings

are several stories high; but you do not observe this at

once,--especially if there be no moon,--because only the lower

stories are illuminated up to their awnings, above which all is

darkness. The illumination is made by lamps behind the narrow

paper-paned doors, and by the paper-lanterns hanging

outside,--one at every door. You look down the street between two

lines of these lanterns,--lines converging far-off into one

motionless bar of yellow light. Some of the lanterns are

egg-shaped, some cylindrical; others four-sided or six-sided; and

Japanese characters are beautifully written upon them. The street

is very quiet,--silent as a display of cabinet-work in some great

exhibition after closing-time. This is because the inmates are

mostly away,--at tending banquets and other festivities. Their

life is of the night.

The legend upon the first lantern to the left as you go south is

"Kinoya: uchi O-Kata;" and that means The House of Gold wherein

O-Kata dwells. The lantern to the right tells of the House of

Nishimura, and of a girl Miyotsuru,--which name signifies The

Stork Magnificently Existing. Next upon the left comes the House

of Kajita;--and in that house are Kohana, the Flower-Bud, and

Hinako, whose face is pretty as the face of a doll. Opposite is

the House Nagaye, wherein live Kimika and Kimiko.... And this

luminous double litany of names is half-a-mile long.

The inscription on the lantern of the last-named house reveals

the relationship between Kimika and Kimiko,--and yet something

more; for Kimiko is styled Ni-dai-me, an honorary untranslatable

title which signifies that she is only Kimiko No.2. Kimika is the

teacher and mistress: she has educated two geisha, both named, or

rather renamed by her, Kimiko; and this use of the same name

twice is proof positive that the first Kimiko--Ichi-dai-me--must

have been celebrated. The professional appellation borne by an

unlucky or unsuccessful geisha is never given to her successor.

If you should ever have good and sufficient reason to enter the

house,--pushing open that lantern-slide of a door which sets a

gong-bell ringing to announce visits,--you might be able to see

Kimika, provided her little troupe be not engaged for the

evening. You would find her a very intelligent person, and well

worth talking to. She can tell, when she pleases, the most

remarkable stories,--real flesh-and-blood stories,--true stories

of human nature. For the Street of the Geisha is full of

traditions,--tragic, comic, melodramatic;--every house has its

memories;--and Kimika knows them all. Some are very, very

terrible; and some would make you laugh; and some would make you

think. The story of the first Kimiko belongs to the last class.

It is not one of the most extraordinary; but it is one of the

least difficult for Western people to understand.

II

There is no more Ichi-dai-me Kimiko: she is only a remembrance.

Kimika was quite young when she called that Kimiko her

professional sister.

"An exceedingly wonderful girl," is what Kimika says of Kimiko.

To win any renown in her profession, a geisha must be pretty or

very clever; and the famous ones are usually both,--having been

selected at a very early age by their trainers according to the

promise of such qualities, even the commoner class of

singing-girls must have some charm in their best years,--if only

that _beaute du diable_ which inspired the Japanese proverb that

even a devil is pretty at eighteen(1). But Kimiko was much more

than pretty. She was according to the Japanese ideal of beauty;

and that standard is not reached by one woman in a hundred

thousand. Also she was more than clever: she was accomplished.

She composed very dainty poems,--could arrange flowers

exquisitely, perform tea-ceremonies faultlessly, embroider, make

silk mosaic: in short, she was genteel. And her first public

appearance made a flutter in the fast world of Kyoto. It was

evident that she could make almost any conquest she pleased, and

that fortune was before her.

But it soon became evident, also, that she had been perfectly

trained for her profession. She had been taught how to conduct

herself under almost any possible circumstances; for what she

could not have known Kimika knew everything about: the power of

beauty, and the weakness of passion; the craft of promises and

the worth of indifference; and all the folly and evil in the

hearts of men. So Kimiko made few mistakes and shed few tears. By

and by she proved to be, as Kimika wished,--slightly dangerous.

So a lamp is to night-fliers: otherwise some of them would put it

out. The duty of the lamp is to make pleasant things visible: it

has no malice. Kimiko had no malice, and was not too dangerous.

Anxious parents discovered that she did not want to enter into

respectable families, nor even to lend herself to any serious

romances. But she was not particularly merciful to that class of

youths who sign documents with their own blood, and ask a

dancing-girl to cut off the extreme end of the little finger of

her left hand as a pledge of eternal affection. She was

mischievous enough with them to cure them of their folly. Some

rich folks who offered her lands and houses on condition of

owning her, body and soul, found her less merciful. One proved

generous enough to purchase her freedom unconditionally, at a

price which made Kimika a rich woman; and Kimiko was

grateful,--but she remained a geisha. She managed her rebuffs

with too much tact to excite hate, and knew how to heal despairs

in most cases. There were exceptions, of course. One old man, who

thought life not worth living unless he could get Kimiko all to

himself, invited her to a banquet one evening, and asked her to

drink wine with him. But Kimika, accustomed to read faces, deftly

substituted tea (which has precisely the same color) for Kimiko's

wine, and so instinctively saved the girl's precious life,--for

only ten minutes later the soul of the silly host was on its way

to the Meido alone, and doubtless greatly disappointed.... After

that night Kimika watched over Kimiko as a wild cat guards her

kitten.

The kitten became a fashionable mania, a craze,--a delirium,--one

of the great sights and sensations of the period. There is a

foreign prince who remembers her name: he sent her a gift of

diamonds which she never wore. Other presents in multitude she

received from all who could afford the luxury of pleasing her;

and to be in her good graces, even for a day, was the ambition of

the "gilded youth." Nevertheless she allowed no one to imagine

himself a special favorite, and refused to make any contracts for

perpetual affection. To any protests on the subject she answered

that she knew her place. Even respectable women spoke not

unkindly of her,--because her name never figured in any story of

family unhappiness. She really kept her place. Time seemed to

make her more charming. Other geisha grew into fame, but no one

was even classed with her. Some manufacturers secured the sole

right to use her photograph for a label; and that label made a

fortune for the firm.

But one day the startling news was abroad that Kimiko had at last

shown a very soft heart. She had actually said good-by to Kimika,

and had gone away with somebody able to give her all the pretty

dresses she could wish for,--somebody eager to give her social

position also, and to silence gossip about her naughty

past,--somebody willing to die for her ten times over, and

already half-dead for love of her. Kimika said that a fool had

tried to kill himself because of Kimiko, and that Kimiko had

taken pity on him, and nursed him back to foolishness. Taiko

Hideyoshi had said that there were only two things in this world

which he feared,--a fool and a dark night. Kimika had always been

afraid of a fool; and a fool had taken Kimiko away. And she

added, with not unselfish tears, that Kimiko would never come

back to her: it was a case of love on both sides for the time of

several existences.

Nevertheless, Kimika was only half right. She was very shrewd

indeed; but she had never been able to see into certain private

chambers in the soul of Kimiko. If she could have seen, she would

have screamed for astonishment.

(1) Oni mo jiuhachi, azami no hana. There is a similar saying of

a dragon: ja mo hatachi ("even a dragon at twenty").

III

Between Kimiko and other geisha there was a difference of gentle

blood. Before she took a professional name, her name was Ai,

which, written with the proper character, means love. Written

with another character the same word-sound signifies grief. The

story of Ai was a story of both grief and love.

She had been nicely brought up. As a child she had been sent to a

private school kept by an old samurai,--where the little girls

squatted on cushions before little writing-tables twelve inches

high, and where the teachers taught without salary. In these days

when teachers get better salaries than civil-service officials,

the teaching is not nearly so honest or so pleasant as it used to

be. A servant always accompanied the child to and from the

school-house, carrying her books, her writing-box, her kneeling

cushion, and her little table.

Afterwards she attended an elementary public school. The first

"modern" text-books had just been issued,--containing Japanese

translations of English, German, and French stories about honor

and duty and heroism, excellently chosen, and illustrated with

tiny innocent pictures of Western people in costumes never of

this world. Those dear pathetic little text-books are now

curiosities: they have long been superseded by pretentious

compilations much less lovingly and sensibly edited. Ai learned

well. Once a year, at examination time, a great official would

visit the school, and talk to the children as if they were all

his own, and stroke each silky head as he distributed the prizes.

He is now a retired statesman, and has doubtless forgotten

Ai;--and in the schools of to-day nobody caresses little girls,

or gives them prizes.

Then came those reconstructive changes by which families of rank

were reduced to obscurity and poverty; and Ai had to leave

school. Many great sorrows followed, till there remained to her

only her mother and an infant sister. The mother and Ai could do

little but weave; and by weaving alone they could not earn enough

to live. House and lands first,--then, article by article, all

things not necessary to existence--heirlooms, trinkets, costly

robes, crested lacquer-ware--passed cheaply to those whom misery

makes rich, and whose wealth is called by the people _Namida no

kane_,--"the Money of Tears." Help from the living was

scanty,--for most of the samurai-families of kin were in like

distress. But when there was nothing left to sell,--not even Ai's

little school-books,--help was sought from the dead.

For it was remembered that the father of Ai's father had been

buried with his sword, the gift of a daimyo; and that the

mountings of the weapon were of gold. So the grave was opened,

and the grand hilt of curious workmanship exchanged for a common

one, and the ornaments of the lacquered sheath removed. But the

good blade was not taken, because the warrior might need it. Ai

saw his face as he sat erect in the great red-clay urn which

served in lieu of coffin to the samurai of high rank when buried

by the ancient rite. His features were still recognizable after

all those years of sepulture; and he seemed to nod a grim assent

to what had been done as his sword was given back to him.

At last the mother of Ai became too weak and ill to work at the

loom; and the gold of the dead had been spent. Ai said:--"Mother,

I know there is but one thing now to do. Let me be sold to the

dancing-girls." The mother wept, and made no reply. Ai did not

weep, but went out alone.

She remembered that in other days, when banquets were given in

her father's house, and dancers served the wine, a free geisha

named Kimika had often caressed her. She went straight to the

house of Kimika. "I want you to buy me," said Ai;--"and I want a

great deal of money." Kimika laughed, and petted her, and made

her eat, and heard her story,--which was bravely told, without

one tear. "My child," said Kimika, "I cannot give you a great

deal of money; for I have very little. But this I can do:--I can

promise to support your mother. That will be better than to give

her much money for you,--because your mother, my child, has been

a great lady, and therefore cannot know how to use money

cunningly. Ask your honored mother to sign the bond,--promising

that you will stay with me till you are twenty-four years old, or

until such time as you can pay me back. And what money I can now

spare, take home with you as a free gift."

Thus Ai became a geisha; and Kimika renamed her Kimiko, and kept

the pledge to maintain the mother and the child-sister. The

mother died before Kimiko became famous; the little sister was

put to school. Afterwards those things already told came to pass.

The young man who had wanted to die for love of a dancing-girl

was worthy of better things. He was an only son and his parents,

wealthy and titled people, were willing to make any sacrifice for

him,--even that of accepting a geisha for daughter-in-law.

Moreover they were not altogether displeased with Kimiko, because

of her sympathy for their boy.

Before going away, Kimiko attended the wedding of her young

sister, Ume, who had just finished school. She was good and

pretty. Kimiko had made the match, and used her wicked knowledge

of men in making it. She chose a very plain, honest,

old-fashioned merchant,--a man who could not have been bad, even

if he tried. Ume did not question the wisdom of her sister's

choice, which time proved fortunate.

IV

It was in the period of the fourth moon that Kimiko was carried

away to the home prepared for her,--a place in which to forget

all the unpleasant realities of life,--a sort of fairy-palace lost

in the charmed repose of great shadowy silent high-walled

gardens. Therein she might have felt as one reborn, by reason of

good deeds, into the realm of Horai. But the spring passed, and

the summer came,--and Kimiko remained simply Kimiko. Three times

she had contrived, for reasons unspoken, to put off the

wedding-day.

In the period of the eighth moon, Kimiko ceased to be playful,

and told her reasons very gently but very firmly:--"It is time

that I should say what I have long delayed saying. For the sake

of the mother who gave me life, and for the sake of my little

sister, I have lived in hell. All that is past; but the scorch of

the fire is upon me, and there is no power that can take it away.

It is not for such as I to enter into an honored family,--nor to

bear you a son,--nor to build up your house.... Suffer me to

speak; for in the knowing of wrong I am very, very much wiser

than you.... Never shall I be your wife to become your shame. I

am your companion only, your play-fellow, your guest of an hour,

--and this not for any gifts. When I shall be no longer with you

nay! certainly that day must come!--you will have clearer sight.

I shall still be dear to you, but not in the same way as

now--which is foolishness. You will remember these words out of

my heart. Some true sweet lady will be chosen for you, to become

the mother of your children. I shall see them; but the place of a

wife I shall never take, and the joy of a mother I must never

know. I am only your folly, my beloved,--an illusion, a dream, a

shadow flitting across your life. Somewhat more in later time I

may become, but a wife to you never, neither in this existence

nor in the next. Ask me again-and I go."

In the period of the tenth moon, and without any reason

imaginable, Kimiko disappeared,--vanished,--utterly ceased to

exist.

V

Nobody knew when or how or whither she had gone. Even in the

neighborhood of the home she had left, none had seen her pass. At

first it seemed that she must soon return. Of all her beautiful

and precious things-her robes, her ornaments, her presents: a

fortune in themselves--she had taken nothing. But weeks passed

without word or sign; and it was feared that something terrible

had befallen her. Rivers were dragged, and wells were searched.

Inquiries were made by telegraph and by letter. Trusted servants

were sent to look for her. Rewards were offered for any

news--especially a reward to Kimika, who was really attached to

the girl, and would have been only too happy to find her without

any reward at all. But the mystery remained a mystery.

Application to the authorities would have been useless: the

fugitive had done no wrong, broken no law; and the vast machinery

of the imperial police-system was not to be set in motion by the

passionate whim of a boy. Months grew into years; but neither

Kimika, nor the little sister in Kyoto, nor any one of the

thousands who had known and admired the beautiful dancer, ever

saw Kimiko again.

But what she had foretold came true;--for time dries all tears

and quiets all longing; and even in Japan one does not really try

to die twice for the same despair. The lover of Kimiko became

wiser; and there was found for him a very sweet person for wife,

who gave him a son. And other years passed; and there was

happiness in the fairy-home where Kimiko had once been.

There came to that home one morning, as if seeking alms, a

traveling nun; and the child, hearing her Buddhist cry of

"_Ha--i! ha--i!_" ran to the gate. And presently a house-servant,

bringing out the customary gift of rice, wondered to see the nun

caressing the child, and whispering to him. Then the little one

cried to the servant, "Let me give!"--and the nun pleaded from

under the veiling shadow of her great straw hat: "Honorably allow

the child to give me." So the boy put the rice into the

mendicant's bowl. Then she thanked him, and asked:--"Now will

you say again for me the little word which I prayed you to tell

your honored father?" And the child lisped:--"_Father, one whom

you will never see again in this world, says that her heart is

glad because she has seen your son_."

The nun laughed softly, and caressed him again, and passed away

swiftly; and the servant wondered more than ever, while the child

ran to tell his father the words of the mendicant.

But the father's eyes dimmed as he heard the words, and he wept

over his boy. For he, and only he, knew who had been at the gate,

--and the sacrificial meaning of all that had been hidden.

Now he thinks much, but tells his thought to no one.

He knows that the space between sun and sun is less than the

space between himself and the woman who loved him.

He knows it were vain to ask in what remote city, in what

fantastic riddle of narrow nameless streets, in what obscure

little temple known only to the poorest poor, she waits for the

darkness before the Dawn of the Immeasurable Light,--when the

Face of the Teacher will smile upon her,--when the Voice of the

Teacher will say to her, in tones of sweetness deeper than ever

came from human lover's lips:--"_O my daughter in the Law, thou

hast practiced the perfect way; thou hast believed and understood

the highest truth;--therefore come I now to meet and to welcome

thee!_"