JAPANESE WIFE 
 
 Tlia 
 
 BY CLIVE 
 HOLLAND 
 
 UTHOR OF "MOUSME"
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORHtA 
 
 SAN DIEQO
 
 My Japanese Wife
 
 My 
 
 Japanese 
 Wife 
 
 A Japanese Idyl 
 
 By 
 
 Clive ^Holland 
 
 A utiior of 
 
 "Mousmi," "Marcelle of the Quarter, 
 "A Writer of Fiction," etc. 
 
 4- 
 
 *AB< 
 
 New York 
 
 Frederick A. Stokes 
 Company 
 
 Publishers
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1902, 
 BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 I
 
 To the real ZMousme 
 with my love
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THAT the present edition of " My Jap- 
 anese Wife " has been called for is a source 
 of satisfaction to the writer. Of previous 
 editions some 60,000 copies have been sold, 
 and it is hoped the present version will 
 prove none the less acceptable from the 
 fact that the story has been revised and a 
 considerable amount of new matter added 
 to it. 
 
 The author has done this to enable the 
 final form of the novel to be that in 
 which it was originally written, but 
 which for purposes of first publication in 
 a particular series it was necessary to 
 alter. 
 
 BOURNEMOUTH, ENGLAND. 
 April 2, 1902.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Mousing is leaning over me as I write. 
 Mousing, a butterfly from a far Eastern 
 land, her dress of apricot silk, with a ma- 
 genta satin obi (sash), a blot of bright 
 colour in the dulness of my English study. 
 My Mousnie! with Dresden-china tinted 
 cheeks, and tiny ways ; playing at life, as 
 it always seems to me, with the dainty 
 grace of Japan, that idealised doll's-house 
 land. Mousm^, who goes with me every- 
 where, whose bizarre clothing attracts 
 notice to her even when the delicately 
 pretty face of a child-woman with inno- 
 cent, soft eyes and finely arched brows is
 
 4 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 hidden behind the ever-present fan, which 
 she draws from the ample folds of her obi. 
 
 My friends at Nagasaki told me that I 
 was foolish to marry a mousme, especially 
 as I was to return to England so soon. 
 
 " Why not hire one for the remaining 
 period of your stay ? " suggested Kotmasu, 
 who dined with me at my little toy-like 
 villa so often that he began to offer advice 
 as a matter of course. " Misawa would 
 find you a mousme," he continued, " whom 
 you could put off as easily as an old glove. 
 A real mousm&, not a geisha girl with a 
 past, an ambiguous present, and a who- 
 knows-what future." 
 
 Others of my friends laughed till they 
 made the paper partitions of my house 
 shiver like the strings and parchment of 
 the samisen. " You will tire of her," said 
 they. 
 
 Yet others with a knowing smile, " She 
 will tire of you. They are all the same.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 5 
 
 Butterflies that change with the day. 
 Moths which the night-air of reality blows 
 to pieces." 
 
 But I would not be advised. 
 
 Advice is so cheap one seldom values it. 
 Besides, had I not lived in Japan long 
 enough to know what I was doing ? 
 
 The only soul on earth who could have 
 deterred me was Lou, that terrible sister 
 who, before I had come out East, had 
 formulated so many plans for my " settling 
 down ! " Who had selected much as she 
 would have a bonnet or a dress, and with 
 almost as much care several nice girls, 
 any one of whom she had thought would 
 make me a good wife. But Lou was 
 thousands of miles away how I revelled 
 in that fact! and would only be made 
 wise after the event. Now as Mousme* is 
 looking over me as I write she knows as 
 much English as I Japanese I must set 
 down how I met her.
 
 6 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 It was one night at the Tea-house 
 (chaya) of the Plum Grove. I had come 
 up there with Kotmasu. The djins, bare- 
 legged, panting runners, had rushed us 
 along in the inevitable rikishas to this 
 suburban resort up the hillside. 
 
 The town, illuminated with thousands 
 of lanterns hung outside even the smallest 
 of the houses, became, as we climbed up- 
 wards to our destination, a fairyland of 
 colour and delight, as it always did at 
 nightfall. In the silent waters of the har- 
 bour this gay scene was repeated by re- 
 flection in the glassy surface. 
 
 Upwards we went, Kotmasu and I ; he 
 calling to me every now and then, as his 
 rikisha, spider-like phantom of a vehicle, 
 was momentarily lost in the gloom to re- 
 appear just as suddenly in the patch of 
 light thrown by some paper lantern swing- 
 ing to mark the gateway of a villa retired 
 from the road.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 7 
 
 A Japanese night ! Balmy, delicious ; 
 intoxicating with the odour of the flowers 
 which came sweeping down on us in the 
 breath of the mountain air, or creeping in 
 varied scents over the hedges or toy-like 
 fences of the gardens we passed ; so sooth- 
 ing that Kotmasu, more used to the jolting 
 of the rikisha than I, felt drowsy, and left 
 off talking. 
 
 The sounds of the town, the music of 
 guitars or samisens being played in the 
 tea-houses or gaming-houses, had grown 
 gradually indistinct and distant. Now 
 scarcely any noise save the whirring chirp 
 of the cicalas broke the still, sweet-scented 
 air. 
 
 Soon we reached our goal, where I was 
 fated to meet and be enslaved by the 
 charms of Hyacinth for so Mousme was 
 called. Above us, an inky mass against 
 an indigo sky starred with points of light, 
 rose the mountain, tree-clad, as I knew, on
 
 8 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 whose sides gleamed here and there the 
 beams of light emanating from paper lan- 
 terns or paper-shuttered casements, mark- 
 ing the presence of houses or huts deep-set 
 among the fantastic greenery of the woods. 
 
 " Will the sir get out ? " exclaimed my 
 djin respectfully, panting with the exer- 
 tion of the ascent. I climbed down into 
 the darkness, almost falling over Kotmasu, 
 who had already alighted, laughing at our 
 adventure. 
 
 Beside us, just where our rikishas had 
 drawn up, was the ghostly gateway 
 marking the entrance to the tea-garden, 
 which lay at the top of a narrow path 
 sloping upward; this wooden gateway 
 painted Indian red and white, the white 
 timbers showing like some spectral skel- 
 eton in the dusky gloom. 
 
 " Up there, sir," pointed my djin, who 
 bowed low whilst acting as spokesman. 
 
 Telling them not to wait, because we
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 9 
 
 should, as Kotmasu put it, "be many 
 hours," we two entered the gateway, which 
 marked the line of the palings of bamboo, 
 and made our way up the narrow flower- 
 bordered path to the chaya. 
 
 Through an avenue of sweet odours we 
 walked, the mingled scent of tea-roses, 
 gardenias and the soil making the atmos- 
 phere almost cloying with sweetness. 
 
 This wonderful garden of the tea-house, 
 with its miniature ponds, bridges and 
 grottoes, now all hidden in the darkness, 
 was mysterious and even uncanny as all 
 Eastern gardens are at dusk. 
 
 Set back a little from the path were ser- 
 ried ranks of sentinel-like sunflowers, of 
 whose black, vacant faces, yellow-fringed, 
 I felt conscious, staring at me out of the 
 gloom. 
 
 A turn of the path and we were in a 
 fairyland, whose existence none a hundred 
 yards off would have suspected. Light
 
 10 MY JAPANESE WIFE 
 
 for darkness; sounds in the place of 
 silence. 
 
 We made our way beneath the paper 
 lanterns of many hues, suspended in mid- 
 air by slender, undistinguishable cords: 
 dragons, green, yellow or red, as their 
 bellying background of variegated paper 
 demanded or the taste of the artist dic- 
 tacted, are there ; and cats, monstrous and 
 eccentric-limbed, such as provoke memories 
 of such things drawn on slates in child- 
 hood's days. 
 
 There is a flood of yellow, orange, white 
 and blue light on the paths and flower- 
 beds stocked thick with asters, zinnias, 
 strange f ringed-edged ragged carnations 
 and chrysanthemums, whilst bushes 
 clipped and trained into fantastic shapes 
 form climbing stations, so to speak, for 
 huge and lesser convolvuli. 
 
 Through the paper shutters of the house 
 itself stream more light and sounds of 
 music played upon the samisen.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 1.1 
 
 Kotmasu, an habitutf, knocks upon the 
 lacquer panel of the big door, which is 
 speedily drawn back in its grooved- way. 
 The wife of Takeakira the proprietor ap- 
 pears at the opening, a queer little old 
 woman, silhouetted, with all the ugliness 
 which so often comes with age, against a 
 background of light ; behind her a pretty 
 attendant mousme*, just as if she was a 
 figure taken from a vase. Both bow so 
 low on recognising visitors that their faces 
 touch the floor, and then they take off our 
 shoes. 
 
 The mousm conducts us upstairs, along 
 a naiTow passage, over the floor of which 
 is stretched, stainless and wrinkleless, a 
 matting of bamboo fibre, into a room which 
 is bare and clean-looking almost to desper- 
 ation and chilliness. 
 
 " Shibaraku" says the mousme, address- 
 ing us both with a smile of welcome, as 
 she leads the way, which speech Kotmasu
 
 12 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 tells me is meant for him, as well as the 
 smile and show of white teeth between 
 pretty red lips. Perhaps it is, " What a 
 long time since you have been here ! " be- 
 ing obviously inapplicable to me on a first 
 visit. 
 
 The paper walls of the room spotlessly 
 clean into which we are eventually ush- 
 ered with a great amount of ceremonious 
 bowing, are just like those in my own 
 little doll's-house of a villa down in the 
 outskirts of Nagasaki mere sliding panels, 
 each one in its own ingenious groove. 
 And these by some wonderful process all 
 fit into one another and mysteriously dis- 
 appear. It is here we have to wait; in 
 this bare room, with its long verandah 
 running in front of it, from which " The 
 Garden of a Thousand Lights," as its pro- 
 prietor loved to call it, can be seen ; and 
 in the daytime the harbour, an irregular 
 segment of the ocean beyond, calm, green,
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 13 
 
 but animated by the presence of sampans 
 gondola-like, graceful, with indigo beaks 
 and queer odd-shaped cabins j links with 
 sails of matting, traders of all nations, 
 hulking colliers, and here and there a man- 
 of-war belonging to a friendly or un- 
 friendly Power. 
 
 We are given squares of matting on 
 which to squat, in lieu of chairs, by the 
 ever-smiling mousme, who then stands 
 mute, awaiting our orders. 
 
 " Are there no other guests ? " asks Kot- 
 masu, with a quick glance at the little 
 standing figure. 
 
 " Yes, several," replies the mousine*, 
 smiling. And, as though to verify her 
 words, and dispel Kotmasu's enigmatic and 
 somewhat incredulous smile, we hear un- 
 mistakable sounds of hilarity arising from 
 the room beneath our feet, and from a dis- 
 tant chamber on our right. 
 
 " But," continued our mousme", glancing
 
 14 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 curiously at ine, and adjusting her obi of 
 some flower-sprinkled material with mi- 
 nute care, " the English sirs mostly like to 
 feast alone." Such was, at all events, 
 Kotmasu's translation of the remark. 
 
 Kotmasu orders our repast ; it is to be 
 ultra-Japanese. 
 
 Sometimes at my own villa I regale him 
 and seek to revive my own gastronomic 
 memories with pseudo-European fare, 
 which he pretends to like, but in reality 
 loathes because of its immense portions 
 in the estimation of my Japanese chef ; at 
 these I always laugh because the meal 
 seems so grotesquely disproportionate to 
 one's needs in Japan. 
 
 There is another reason than that so 
 naively given " the English sirs mostly 
 care to feast alone " by the almond-eyed 
 mousme ; and Kotmasu explains it when 
 the dainty little figure has disappeared 
 through a sliding door to execute our
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 15 
 
 orders. I must not set it down here. 
 What is common and picturesque in 
 Japan, is so unspeakable in English. 
 Kotmasu sits silent, thinking of the meal 
 to come, perhaps, in which " teal duck," 
 raw spinach, raw shrimps, and even dog, 
 were to find a place all save the first, 
 thank goodness, in minute proportions. 
 
 The sounds of revelry by night went 
 on all the while that Kotmasu and I 
 waited, coming to us softened and indis- 
 tinct through chinks in the floor and 
 through the paper panels forming the 
 walls of the room the voices of women 
 and the accompanying music of the sam- 
 isen, with its note of sadness. Then we 
 heard the muffled sounds of the feet of 
 geishas dancing, in their shoeless, gliding 
 motions. 
 
 The strains of the monotonous music, 
 punctuated with Japanese phrases, echoed 
 in the bare passage outside.
 
 16 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 Kotmasu got up and opened the door of 
 grey paper leading on to the verandah, 
 which had black and vermilion storks in 
 flight across its two long panels. 
 
 We stepped out. 
 
 I for the first time ; for Kotmasu I can- 
 not answer. The sounds of the music be- 
 came clearer, because the others had also 
 slid back their paper doors, perhaps so 
 that the sweet-scented air of the garden 
 might enter, or a whiff of fresh night- 
 wind from off the mountain come in to 
 cool the breathless geishas. 
 
 The garden of a thousand lights, with 
 its fountain of doll-like dimensions, in the 
 lower and larger basin of which swim 
 gold, silver and copper-hued fish, lies just 
 beneath our verandah, and, after an arti- 
 ficial plateau, runs away down-hill into the 
 darkness, following each side of the nar- 
 row, flower- edged path. 
 
 The paper lanterns with painted, bulg-
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 17 
 
 ing sides, some round, some like two mor- 
 tar-boards of college days which, had taken 
 each other into partnership, some like 
 elongated helmets of a Uhlan, and others 
 like monstrous fishes, birds, or reptiles 
 swimming and floating in ether, diffuse a 
 soft, subdued light. A puff of air makes 
 the whole lot swing to and fro so wildly, 
 with a rustle of their paper emptiness, 
 that Kotmasu and I are set wondering idly 
 whether an immense lantern, meant to rep- 
 resent a gold-fish with vermilion fins and 
 black vertebra, which is obviously troubled 
 in its interior, will not flare up and hang, 
 a blackened skeleton, amidst its gay com- 
 panions. 
 
 A white cat flits ghost-like and silent- 
 footed across the path and vanishes down 
 it in answer to a dissonant call of its fel- 
 low, and in that moment the disaster 
 happens. The gold-fish, which has re- 
 garded us with vacant vermilion-rimmed
 
 18 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 eyes, ig instantly a mass of flame, and 
 then, in another instant, a blackened tra- 
 vesty of a fish. 
 
 There are trees in the garden, also fan- 
 tastic ; green grotesques tended and trained 
 with the minute care of a singular taste. 
 There are little nooks, little rockeries in 
 which strange toads and reptiles hide in 
 the fresh moss and darkened crannies, com- 
 ing out occasionally, sometimes to slip 
 unawares or through ungainliness into 
 miniature lakes toy ponds frightening 
 the lazy gold-fish and making the water- 
 lily buds and blossoms nod and curtsey in 
 the ripples caused by their immersion. 
 
 The moon is rising, and the wall of 
 blackness which begins where the lights 
 of the garden end becomes gradually less 
 inky, till at last, as the moon tops the 
 mountain ridge, like some laborious and 
 persistent climber, and floods the harbour 
 with her pale, silver light, the vastness of 
 the scene is disclosed.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 19 
 
 Down below in the streets of the town 
 the lights of art are paling in that of 
 Nature's lantern. The harbour is a liuge 
 replica of the glass of frosted silver I 
 bought last week in a curio-shop for twenty 
 yen. The ships at anchor are mere spec- 
 tres, narrow lines of ink, some of them 
 with dots of light along their sides ; the 
 shadow of the hills, over which the moon 
 peeps with cold, white face, just the breath 
 on the glass as when a woman looks too 
 closely into it. 
 
 The sounds of singing and dancing ap- 
 pear fewer now it is less sombre. Why 
 does darkness exaggerate noise ? 
 
 A steamer is going out ; it is the mail, a 
 thin thing like the match P. and O. boats 
 I often swam in a bowl when a boy the 
 lights of her saloon mere glow-worms at 
 this distance. But my companion must 
 have seen all this many times before. Of 
 course he has. And being more interested
 
 20 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 just now in " teal-duck " than the night 
 side of Nature, he vanishes through the 
 opened doorway, and I hear him drumming 
 with his stockinged heel upon the floor 
 to summon the mousme. 
 
 " Ayakou ! " sings out Kotmasu,who has 
 sung " Hi ! hi ! " till there came an answer- 
 ing voice from below. 
 
 I leave my post on the verandah and 
 enter the room, and along the passage at 
 the back comes the sound of a mousme 
 pattering barefoot, her quick, short steps 
 making a gentle thud, thud on the matting. 
 
 The panel door is thrust aside, and our 
 attendant enters with a bow, and many 
 ingenious excuses for the delay.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 KOTMASU and I are seated ; and on the 
 floor before us our attendant mousme* 
 places a wonderful bowl of seaweed soup 
 a dainty thing with sprays of chrysan- 
 themums adorning its china-blue sides, the 
 white-blue that you see in the eyes. To 
 this soup I am used, and also to beans en- 
 shrined in sugar, and little fish equally 
 astray from their proper element ; but to 
 the live fish, quivering its last quiver, per- 
 haps, I cannot become accustomed, and 
 even to watch Kotmasu humane man in 
 ordinary placing the chop-stick impaled 
 morsels in his mouth is almost too much 
 for my still Western stomach. Of the 
 " teal duck " and prawns I partake largely, 
 making the mousme laugh so infectious 
 are the emotions in this laud of make-
 
 24 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 believe by pretending to swallow the lat- 
 ter whole. I am not yet quite used to the 
 chop-sticks, and occasionally fail ludi- 
 crously to spit my morsels, making both 
 my companion and the mousing roar, the 
 latter clapping her pretty small hands with 
 delight. But I am not annoyed ; I have 
 yet to see the foreigner who handles these 
 strange implements better. 
 
 " It is not so easy as it looks," I say in 
 excuse ; and Kotmasu, with recollections of 
 far worse performances than mine, agrees 
 with me. 
 
 Our little dinner of toy-like viands, 
 served by the soft-footed little mousme, is 
 gone through with fitting ceremoniousness, 
 but at last it is finished, and Kotmasu is so 
 pleased with the repast, that he is in no 
 hurry for the long walk back to the town. 
 
 " There are generally pretty geishas 
 here," he said to me, when we had lighted 
 the ridiculous little pipes mere tubes of
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 25 
 
 silver, with a pigmy bowl at the end 
 which the mousme' had now brought us. 
 
 The jars placed before each of us, filled 
 with sweet-scented tobacco of the colour 
 of tow, and so " mild " that a baby might 
 have inhaled its smoke ; the spittoons and 
 the porcelain stove containing the glowing 
 embers at which we lit our pipes ; always 
 made me smile they were so toy-like and 
 minute and long for my briar and honey- 
 dew. 
 
 " Yes ? " I replied interrogatively be- 
 tween the puffs. " Shall I tell Gazelle " 
 (for such was the mousm^'s poetic name) 
 " to summon one ? " he continued. 
 
 Why not ? I had seen them many times 
 before, it was true; but we were in no 
 hurry, and they were always graceful, 
 dainty, pretty and amusing at least the 
 best of them were, and no one troubled 
 about those who were not. 
 
 " Is there dancing ? " Kotmasu asked
 
 26 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 Gazelle, who had stood regarding us with 
 a friendly look during our colloquy. 
 
 " Yes. Some of the best geishas from 
 the town are here in the house. There is 
 a party below, the most noble young Sen " 
 (we had never heard of him, but no matter 
 it was but the mousme's way of describ- 
 ing a good customer, who had probably 
 kissed her pretty Dresden-china face and 
 given her half a yen for the privilege) " is 
 here with his most noble companions from 
 the big ship. They have brought the 
 geishas with them. They are dancing 
 now. Listen ! But doubtless I can get 
 one to come for the pleasure of Mr. the 
 English sir." 
 
 We nodded assent, and with a smile Ga- 
 zelle vanished. 
 
 We heard the sound of the pad, pad of 
 her footsteps retreating along the passage, 
 then a sudden cessation of the noises in the 
 room below, as we could imagine her open-
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 27 
 
 ing the door. The zing, zing of the saini- 
 sen suddenly ceased, and the girls' voices 
 stopped their monotonous, chant-like song. 
 Then came the sound of other voices seem- 
 ingly in argument; then a recommence- 
 ment of the previous noises as before our 
 mousme had interrupted the proceedings. 
 
 Then we hear Gazelle returning. 
 
 " Alone ? " I suggest to rny companion, 
 who merely shakes his head and laughs, 
 replying, "No. The geisha is light of 
 foot a butterfly, coming without sound, 
 the heavy circling flutter of her fan 
 like the beatings of the wings of the 
 great grey moths outside there in the 
 garden." 
 
 The footsteps of Gazelle came on, and 
 then halted outside. There was no 
 knocking at the door. How can one 
 beat upon fragile paper panels with one's 
 fist? And the usual little knocker of 
 brass, a grotesque lizard, or miniature lion-
 
 28 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 head with bristling whiskers indicated and 
 large white-balled eyes, was missing. The 
 door-panel, with its flight of storks, and 
 stiff but wonderfully realistic bed of 
 rushes from which the storks had risen, 
 was slid aside, and through the narrow 
 opening the little dancing-girl fluttered 
 softly in, like some gay-hued butterfly or 
 large-winged night-moth. 
 
 " It is Snowflake ! " exclaimed Kotmasu, 
 and ere the dainty little figure bowed low 
 before us, I caught a fleeting glance of rec- 
 ognition shot to him from beneath her 
 drooped eyelids. 
 
 What a droll doll she is! Childish, 
 with an assumption of innocence which 
 is as charming as it must be unreal. An 
 elegant, slender little figure, full of dainty 
 grace. Her face painted till it looked 
 positively funny its whiteness hiding the 
 native transparency of her warm-hued 
 skin, all damask rose and nut-brown
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 21) 
 
 tinted. And the two little dabs of rouge 
 oh ! with what inartistic exactness they 
 are placed, one on either cheek. The 
 little rosebud of a mouth, with childishly 
 pouting lips, is reddened brilliantly. And 
 the delicate nostrils of her charming lit- 
 tle nose so piquant, so retrousstf are 
 coloured just the same. Her jetty hair 
 somewhat coarse, I admit, but so glossy 
 is taken back from off her whitened brow, 
 and lies in smooth, heavy coils on the 
 shapely little head. A silver pin or two, 
 and one of mother-of-pearl, with some 
 charming baby-curls in rebellion on the 
 nape of her slender neck, soften any 
 severity. 
 
 And her dress. Plum-coloured brocade, 
 with long pendent sleeves and a double 
 tunic, the under one of a different stuff 
 and very light, opening to disclose gar- 
 ments, such as her Western sisters are 
 struggling for, of canary- coloured satin,
 
 30 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 vanishing into the curious tobi of white 
 cotton, shoes and stockings all in one, with 
 separated toes. 
 
 She was such a fairy-like little being, 
 and her fan-play and posturing, which 
 passes for dancing, so charming and grace- 
 ful, that I could have watched her, as I 
 have other geishas soothed by the slum- 
 brous pad, pad of her gliding steps upon 
 the matting which covers the floor almost 
 all night. But at last she gracefully 
 bowed, asked for her yen, and withdrew 
 with the elegant fluttering motions of her 
 class. 
 
 With the exit of Snowflake one became 
 aware of the existence of time. Even 
 Kotmasu was becoming drowsy. I could 
 see through the open panels that the lan- 
 terns in the garden outside were going out 
 one by one, beginning to give it a deserted 
 look. The moon was on the wane, the 
 white-faced moon in an indigo sky, and the
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 31 
 
 walk home was a rather long one to which 
 to look forward. 
 
 We rose, my companion very reluctant 
 to go. The noise of the samisen still con- 
 tinued in the room beneath us, and the pad, 
 pad of the dancers had begun again to the 
 accompanying falsetto of the musicians' 
 voices, in a strange monotonous chant. 
 
 We had paid the bill, mysterious items 
 done in red ink upon a narrow strip of 
 satin-like rice-paper ; and so we went out 
 by way of the verandah down the funny 
 little steps which led from it to the garden 
 path a dozen feet or less below. 
 
 We went down into the " garden of a 
 thousand lights," and I idly counted those 
 whose hearts were cold, whilst Kotmasu 
 spoke to a friend. 
 
 " We are here ! " said the friend, and in a 
 little pagoda near a willow I caught a 
 glimpse of others, a gay blot of colour in the 
 half -shadow denoting the presence of ladies.
 
 32 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 And thus was it that I found Mousme 
 and fell in love with her at first sight. 
 
 She, it appears, is the sister of Kot- 
 masu's friend. In the subdued light of 
 the little pagoda, where all the lanterns 
 swinging to and fro in slight draught of 
 air are yellow or red, I am introduced with 
 marvellous ceremony to this radiant, child- 
 ish being who is destined at once to capti- 
 vate the heart and senses of the " English 
 sir," as Kotmasu grandiloquently describes 
 me. 
 
 She is clad in silks of extreme richness, 
 and brocades which glitter with gold 
 thread (for her family is a wealthy one), 
 and her obi of turquoise-blue silk swathes 
 her supple waist, and makes her look still 
 more slender by reason of its exaggerated 
 bow. 
 
 Her coiffure is pyramidical, the ebon- 
 hued hair dressed a la butterfly. And 
 the fantasy suits her ; even the long, large-
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 33 
 
 headed pins, which serve as mock antennae, 
 seem appropriate to the queer grace of my 
 mousine*. Her brilliant complexion is 
 softened by the subdued light. Only her 
 eyes sparkle innocently with interest. 
 
 Why had not Kotmasu presented me 
 before ? Was he about to relinquish his 
 bachelor and somewhat erratic and amo- 
 rous habits ? The thought gave me quite 
 a new sensation. Upon analysis I was 
 forced to admit that it was jealousy. Miss 
 Hyacinth (for that was Mousm's name, I 
 soon discovered), so fresh and delicate, a 
 little figure off a tea-caddy, quaint and 
 charming withal, had no doubt ensnared 
 his vagrant affections, as she had my own 
 admiration already. 
 
 Miss Hyacinth was addressing me in 
 soft tones from behind her paper fan, 
 which had pagodas, willows, and dainty 
 little women like herself painted upon it. 
 
 Yes ! I had been in Nagasaki a long
 
 34 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 time. I was English. No : England was 
 not like Japan. Everything was larger, 
 people ate more. There were no gardens 
 like these, except sometimes when there 
 was some grand feast taking place. This 
 is but a tithe of the replies I made. 
 
 " Are the women pretty, and do they 
 all wear rich clothing ? " my mousme in- 
 quired. 
 
 And I said "Some" in answer to the 
 former, and earned a petulant moue. And 
 " Not often " in reply to the latter, gaining 
 thereby a smile of evident satisfaction as 
 my reward ; adding that " an ugly climate 
 enforces ugly clothes." But I felt sorry 
 almost on the instant,- because she seemed 
 not to understand. 
 
 "No paper lanterns at night! Is 
 there then a moon ? " with a look of won- 
 dering astonishment and apprehension. 
 
 " Yes ! " 
 
 She seemed relieved.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 35 
 
 " I have been to school," she explained, 
 with a delicate assumption of dignity. " I 
 have seen the map " the Japanese maps 
 are marvellous things, some of them " I 
 know where the mail-boats go. But there 
 are so many countries in the way. How 
 do they get there 2 " 
 
 All this in Japanese, of course, whilst 
 Kotmasu talked to her brother in an under- 
 tone of the latest addition to the ranks of 
 the Nagasaki geishas, a girl trained in 
 Yeddo. And the other ladies sipped their 
 tea and talked to the other men, who were 
 nonentities to me. 
 
 Kotmasu had finished his jokes about 
 the geishas, and became, perhaps, aware of 
 my monopoly of Miss Hyacinth whose 
 name indicated a far less voyant flower 
 than Western minds would associate with 
 it so he said, somewhat abruptly, " We 
 must go." 
 
 For a moment Mousme's small, shapely
 
 36 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 hand, with its cool, white fingers, rested in 
 mine. 
 
 "I shake the hand English way," she 
 explained, with a ripple of laughter. And 
 then, with low bows to the other ladies, 
 Kotmasu and I leave the merry party in 
 the pagoda, and go away down the steep 
 path bordered with the staring sunflowers. 
 
 I had read a few days before and 
 laughed at the idea a line in a verse of a 
 decadent poet that, 
 
 " Woman gone, 
 
 The darkness wraps us round in sable pall." 
 
 But now I did not laugh; I felt it, and 
 understood. 
 
 I could have sworn that all the lanterns 
 were extinguished, that the stars had gone 
 down. And why? Because Kotmasu 
 and I had turned our backs upon a pair of 
 sparkling eyes, and I had put a hundred 
 feet or so between me and Miss Hyacinth's 
 beguiling, coquettish personality.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 37 
 
 We don't talk much, and I switch 
 absent-mindedly at the flowers with my 
 toy cane of bamboo, as we pass along the 
 naiTow path towards the spectral gateway, 
 now just visible at the bottom, a gaunt, 
 white skeleton. Not till I send a big sun- 
 flower's head spinning off and up against 
 my companion's legs, who starts as if 
 something had bitten him, do I become 
 aware that we have not spoken since we 
 started down the hill. 
 
 Kotmasu pulls out his watch, a relic of 
 his college days in England, and I waste 
 a whole wax vesta a luxury almost price- 
 less in Japan, which I cling to in en- 
 abling him to see the time. 
 
 Then we hurry out through the ghostly 
 gateway on to the rough road, and thence 
 onward down towards my house at as 
 quick a rate as the obstruction of loose 
 stones, sticks and ruts will let us. 
 
 Kotmasu shakes hands at my gateway.
 
 38 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 No, lie wouldn't come in and have any- 
 thing. Whisky sakti would not tempt 
 him, and " brant wein " was too much for 
 his head, with still a good way down-hill 
 yet to go. 
 
 My house had never seemed so lonely. 
 
 I fancied, strange though it may appear, 
 that something which after all had never 
 existed was missing. The tiny rooms 
 seemed vast, the matting floor almost un- 
 familiar in its deadly silence. 
 
 The servants are at rest, of course. I 
 think all I have to do is to push aside a 
 panel and enter. There are no locks ; and 
 if there were, they would be but toy ones, 
 ingenious, but useless all the same. I 
 have a cash-box, a European one of tin, 
 but I have given it a rice-paper jacket, 
 because it looked so terribly substantial 
 amid all my other frail belongings. 
 
 How lonely it is ! Even Oka the cook's 
 snoring down in the basement does not 
 prove so companionable as usual.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 39 
 
 As I cross the floor of my bedroom, arid 
 light the absurd little lamp near my apol- 
 ogy for a couch, the dry boards of the thin 
 flooring creak noisily and drearily beneath 
 my tread. Some of the youthful fear of 
 darkness is revived within me by the awful 
 silence and the fitful flicker of my lamp. 
 The little red-and-blue tortoises painted 
 on the paper panels near the window seem 
 to be coming to life and crawling about. 
 
 A glance out of the window as I throw 
 off the last of my garments does not reas- 
 sure me. Quite the reverse. It is so 
 black outside. So I close the casement, 
 and turn in sadly. 
 
 I lie thinking for some time in the dark, 
 and almost insensibly my thoughts revert 
 to our supper at the chaya of "A Thou- 
 sand Lights " and to Kotmasu's friend. 
 
 A bright idea presents itself, solving 
 my longing and loneliness. 
 
 It is Miss Hyacinth I want, and such a 
 thing should not be impossible in Japan.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 NEXT morning when I look out of my 
 window, whilst shaving in front of a 
 " trade " glass I had obtained after some 
 trouble for the express purpose, the view 
 charms me with its vastness, just as the 
 night before it had depressed me with its 
 indefinable starlight gloom. " The view," 
 I say to myself, "is the only big thing 
 about Nagasaki." 
 
 Down below lay the harbour, bathed in 
 Japanese sunlight, which as even Japan- 
 ese advertisements are beginning to put it 
 is like none other. On this particular 
 morning it was filtering through a silver 
 haze, and the water of the harbour looked 
 like a solid block of chrysoprase with in- 
 digo shadows. In the distance one saw 
 flaws in it where a sampan was, and white
 
 44 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 flecks where an incoming or outgoing for- 
 eign trader sailed. 
 
 What a network of narrow streets there 
 was down below in the town proper! 
 Narrow streets most of which by now I 
 knew with slabs of stone laid in the 
 middle of them, and in the older quarters, 
 rickety houses nearly meeting overhead. 
 It was down there that Kotmasu had his 
 office, to which, however, owing to the in- 
 dustry and keenness of his merchant father 
 before him, he was not very much tied. I 
 had made up my mind to go and see him 
 this morning, as he was usually to be found 
 there in the forenoon. 
 
 It is pleasant to look upon the green 
 hills, and even to watch the higher ones, 
 bare and brown-topped, break through the 
 fleecy mist hanging about their summits, 
 as I have my breakfast on the verandah 
 in the tiny cups and tinier plates and dishes 
 in which my servants delight.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 45 
 
 " Surely Mousm6 Miss Hyacinth " (I 
 have got to call her this soon, in all 
 conscience) " will like my house," I 
 speculate as I swallow beans in sugar, 
 prunes in ditto, toy-sized cups of tea, and 
 Huntly and Palmer's biscuits as my solid 
 dish. She lives down there somewhere, 
 nearer the town. I suddenly recollect 
 Kotmasu once pointing out her brother 
 Otiri to me, and telling me he lived some- 
 where over there. This must be better up 
 here, and I remember quite gleefully that 
 M'Kenzie, my chum, who died last New 
 Year's Day, had found no difficulty in 
 persuading a dainty little mousme of 
 equally good family to take him for better, 
 for worse. I also recollect the circum- 
 stance of his having reddish hair, and an 
 uncommon amount of freckles, even for a 
 Scotsman, with amazing satisfaction. Be- 
 cause, although fair, I had neither of these 
 things, and had even some pretensions to 
 good looks.
 
 46 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 I would go down and consult Kotmasu 
 that was the best thing to do. 
 
 I gulped down two or three tiny cups of 
 tea, and hastily sought my hat. 
 
 Oka's wife was under the verandah, 
 reeling silk off the cocoons on to strangely 
 primitive wooden wheels, fixed between 
 two upright pieces of wood stuck into a 
 flat stone or cake of hardened, sun-baked 
 clay for firmness. She rose, however, with 
 a smile, and bowing, gave me one of my 
 gayest paper umbrellas, "to match the 
 morning." Strangely enough, the ground- 
 work was of the colour of Mousme's dress 
 the night before. I used not to admire it 
 greatly ; now I wondered vaguely why. 
 
 I made my way down the hillside, strik- 
 ing the principal street or road after I left 
 my own garden, in which camellias, garde- 
 nias, tea-roses and mimosa bloomed with 
 such profusion, that the very air was scented 
 and heavy with the mingled perfume.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 47 
 
 It was a pretty garden strange to 
 European eyes, perhaps with its make- 
 believe fountains, toy bridges over equally 
 miniature streams, and several tiny pago- 
 das. It was pretty enough even for Miss 
 Hyacinth, I thought, as I thrust open the 
 quaint little rustic gate with my toe, and 
 stepped out upon the road. 
 
 All the way down to Kotmasu's office I 
 imagined, or tried to imagine, her flitting 
 along the walks between the tea-roses and 
 sunflowers. A dainty little figure in an 
 elfin fairyland. 
 
 I had been down this way into the town 
 scores of times before, of course, and the 
 people knew me. The old man in the cor- 
 ner shop of the street, whose signboard 
 was a queer mixture of Japanese and Eng- 
 lish of a sort, was painstakingly decorating 
 the same large blue Nankin vase with 
 sprays of chrysanthemums and the inevi- 
 table storks, as he was a week ago. But
 
 48 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 this morning I didn't stop, as I usually 
 did, for a chat and to express my admira- 
 tion for his painstaking art, which though 
 almost totally lacking perspective, was yet 
 quaint and pretty. 
 
 " No ! I am in a hurry " this to him. 
 
 " Is the sir going back to England ? " 
 
 " No ! " scarcely stopping. 
 
 " That is well ! good, good ! The Nan 
 kin vases you, most illustrious sir, are so 
 condescending as to admire are still unsold. 
 Will you take them, honourable sir ? They 
 
 are " All this I hear him say in his 
 
 queer, cracked, high-pitched, monotonous 
 voice ere I turn the corner. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Kotmasu is in," replied San, 
 my friend's clerk, and I could see him. 
 
 Kotmasu's office is a strange mixture of 
 East and West. It is on the second floor 
 of a warehouse, down on the Natoba near 
 the water-side. He, with memories of 
 English ways, has a writing-table made of
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 49 
 
 mahogany, with camphor-wood and ebony 
 inlaid work; but he still writes with a 
 fine bnish, either in Indian ink or vermil- 
 ion, as the occasion requires, on dainty 
 slips of flimsy and, to my Western mind, 
 unbusiness-like rice paper. 
 
 How a London merchant would laugh 
 at the idea of grinding up one's ink in a 
 tiny saucer as one required it ! And yet 
 this is just what my good friend was doing 
 when I entered in a tiny jade saucer in- 
 laid with threads of gold, with a minute 
 bronze frog, just ready for a dive, upon 
 the edge. 
 
 I sat down in a revolving chair, which 
 had once graced the saloon of an English 
 steamer lost along the coast, and opened 
 fire upon Kotmasu concerning Miss Hya- 
 cinth. 
 
 I felt so miserably sure, with the pessi- 
 mism of an ardent lover, that he must be 
 in love with my darling. But it proved
 
 50 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 that he had no intentions. So much was 
 evident to me after five minutes' talk in 
 the cool room. He didn't want to chatter 
 about her, but began instead to tell me 
 untellable things about the new geisha. 
 He didn't even seem to think Miss Hya- 
 cinth pretty. How strange, I thought ! 
 And then he went on again to sing the 
 praises of the geisha, who was called Sil- 
 ver-Moon Face. His taste was evidently 
 vitiated ; he preferred art to nature, tricks 
 to charms, a whitened face with two hectic 
 spots of rouge, and the gold-lined lip, to 
 the damask skin and smiles of my mousme. 
 But all this was very satisfactory to me, 
 nevertheless. 
 
 I must have kept returning to the sub- 
 ject of Miss Hyacinth, for all at once he 
 makes a discovery, and says without pre- 
 amble, and as if certain in his own mind 
 that he has "hit the right nail on the 
 head "
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 51 
 
 "Her people are rich, but still they 
 might be induced to sell her." 
 
 " Man alive," I say, without remember- 
 ing that Kotmasu's English does not ex- 
 tend to a knowledge of such a phrase, 
 " what do you think I want ? " 
 
 He is laconic, and smiles. " Hyacinth 
 the mousing. " 
 
 " Yes ! but it is not for a temporary 
 marriage " I dress the phrase almost in- 
 stinctively "I want to marry her. 
 Marry her as a wife, before the consul, or 
 any one else, for that matter. Do you un- 
 derstand ? " 
 
 Kotmasu's face is a study of simulated 
 obtuseness. 
 
 At last, however, I make him under- 
 stand, show him that I am in earnest. 
 
 Then he argues the matter in the polit- 
 est Japanese, so as to magnify my " hon- 
 ourable position and name " as much as 
 possible, and without detracting from that 
 of Miss Hyacinth, show me my error.
 
 52 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 But it is no use. I may be mad. We 
 shall see, I tell him with an indwelling 
 confidence ; and he nods his head and re- 
 marks stolidly, " Yes, we shall see." 
 
 I should be angry with Kotuiasu if I 
 did not know that his opposition, like all 
 the disagreeables of childhood, was in- 
 tended " for my good." 
 
 In the end he promises to introduce me 
 to my inamorata's family, and let circum- 
 stances rule the rest. 
 
 I go out into the sunlight, down the 
 creaking outside stairs, quite light-hearted, 
 and only haggle for ten minutes with Yen- 
 kow the jeweller for a prospective en- 
 gagement ring with a magnificent pink 
 pearl. 
 
 I am sure as I leave the shop with the 
 ring in my pocket that my weakness over 
 the bargaining has lowered me fifty per 
 cent, in the eyes of the stout little jewel- 
 ler.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 53 
 
 I go and buy some hyacinths, and then 
 transact some of iny business. 
 
 Kotmasu is coming to take me to see 
 Mousme at sundown. 
 
 I am at home again early in the after- 
 noon, and, with a view to my proposed 
 marriage, I begin to take stock of my sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 I have lived long enough in Japan to 
 see nothing exceptional in a marriage 
 which will probably be concluded in a 
 space of time that would be considered ex- 
 tremely short to a Western mind. The 
 worst of it is, I am returning to England 
 for good in less than nine months' time, and 
 what will my people say to my choice ? 
 
 I have neither mother nor father to reck- 
 on with. But I have a sister Lou, who, 
 alas, is a dragon of propriety (and I am no 
 St. George), who will, I fear, never realise 
 that my wife is not an abstraction off a 
 paper screen or a lacquer tray.
 
 54 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 But then, after all, she will be my wife, 
 and because she is pretty and " strange " 
 I fancy that's what Lou will call her 
 she may succeed in a society which, like 
 the Athenians, is always running after 
 some new thing. The latest " craze " is to 
 my mind like a glass of sherbet. It cre- 
 ates the greatest amount of stir for the 
 least space of time. 
 
 Not even thoughts of Lou, who is the 
 pink of propriety why isn't impropriety 
 dubbed pink? can terrify me from my pur- 
 pose, because I am in love. I never felt so 
 unafraid of Lou, her tongue and her smile, 
 in all my life, even at the distance of many 
 thousand miles, and I conclude therefrom 
 that I must be terribly in earnest. As for 
 the others, I don't care. 
 
 They have pleased themselves, have 
 married as they wished, and surely may be 
 reasonably expected to let me do the same, 
 I argue.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 55 
 
 My house, which seemed complete 
 enough before, now appears only to require 
 Miss Hyacinth's presence to make it all 
 it should be. 
 
 I am very critical, but I can scarcely 
 find anything to alter in my little home. 
 My rooms at Cambridge, ere every one 
 went in for Art with a big A talked 
 Art, dreamed Art, abused Art, and out- 
 raged Art were considered artistic, and 
 my chambers in St. James' Street the 
 same. It is in me, and has cropped out in 
 many of the little details of my Japanese 
 home. Clever and appreciative workmen 
 ind artificers have enabled me to see my 
 desires carried into effect. 
 
 I play at having tea imagining the 
 while how the little white room, which is 
 rather bare for European taste perhaps, but 
 so clean, airy and spotless, will look with 
 Mousme" in it ; and then I go out on the 
 verandah to wait till Kotmasu comes.
 
 56 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 From my position I can overlook the 
 road which runs away up alongside my 
 boundary fence, higher and higher, till at 
 last it vanishes amid the greenery and the 
 tea-gardens. Down below, the older quar- 
 ters of the town lie huddled together like 
 a flock of sheep crushing each other in the 
 endeavour to avoid some danger, swarm- 
 ing with people of the poorer class. It is 
 not quite so fine an evening as last night 
 was, and the hill-tops are hidden in the 
 woolly masses of threatening clouds. The 
 twilight is gloomy, and not orange-hued as 
 before, -and darkness comes more quickly 
 upon its heels. 
 
 I light my treasured briar, and wait as 
 patiently as may be for my friend. 
 
 When first I came here, how all my 
 acquaintances used to laugh at the im- 
 mense bowl of my pipe, which would, I 
 should think, hold nearly ten times as 
 much light- hued tobacco as theirs !
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 57 
 
 " Ah ! Here he is at last ! " I exclaim, 
 discerning a dark mass approaching in the 
 gloom, up the little narrow path. 
 
 " We will go at once ? " I say question- 
 ingly. 
 
 "Yes," he replies. "They will be at 
 home now." 
 
 We start off down the hillside, Kot- 
 masu evidently from his remarks regard- 
 ing the matter as a huge joke. If only he 
 realized how sincere is my admiration for 
 Miss Hyacinth. At last we reach our 
 destination, and turn down a short road, 
 which shuts the gaily-lit town still further 
 below us from our view. 
 
 Miss Hyacinth is more charming than 
 ever. Or is it the coming in from the 
 gloom of the dark road, along which we 
 have picked our way by the light of paper 
 lanterns? She is quite delightful. She 
 oven knows a little English, which she 
 learned at the school, so she tells me ; and
 
 58 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 we talk together, I smiling inwardly at 
 her funny phrasing. 
 
 " You speakee Japanese good," she says, 
 with a glance from her sparkling eyes, and 
 red lips wide open in her struggle with the 
 last word. 
 
 I, of course, compliment her equally 
 upon her English, which I assert is " won- 
 derful," " charming." 
 
 This is all very interesting, and I more 
 decidedly most decidedly wish to marry 
 her. 
 
 I do not altogether like my mamma-in- 
 law. But no doubt matters can be so 
 arranged that my domestic peace will not 
 be too frequently broken in upon, nor my 
 artistic sense too often shocked by her 
 puffy cheeks, inane smile and gimlet-hole 
 eyes. To see her salute me to witness 
 the elevation of the immense bow of her 
 dove- coloured silk obi as she bent to the 
 floor was too comical.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 59 
 
 Mousme" gets nothing from her mother, I 
 am glad to notice, except, perhaps, a cer- 
 tain almost indefinable womanliness, which 
 all Japanese women seem to possess. It 
 is almost as intangible as some of their per- 
 fumes. 
 
 I am offered tea in dainty doll's-house 
 cups of blue egg-shell china, and smoke a 
 ridiculous little pipe, because Miss Hya- 
 cinth prepared it for me, stuffing the to- 
 bacco into the tiny bowl with the tip of 
 her small finger. She smoked, too, a little 
 silver-mounted pipe, with a great deal of 
 useless ornamentation on it ; but refused 
 my offer of a service like that rendered to 
 me. She let me light it, however, with a 
 bit of glowing charcoal, held in a pair of 
 tongs which were formed by bronze lizards 
 placed in the necessary acrobatic pose ; and 
 seemed pleased with the attention I paid 
 her. 
 
 Mousme, for so I begin to call her, has,
 
 60 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 it appears, several brothers and sisters; 
 but I reflect placidly that if a man mustn't 
 marry his grandmother, neither is he 
 obliged, so to speak, to marry his wife's 
 relations. Her little brother, Aki, a scrap 
 of yellow humanity, with wonderful black 
 eyes, and equally dark hair, is the only 
 member of the family besides her mother 
 present. And he not yet at the enfant 
 terrible stage of existence regards me 
 with curious but, I flatter myself, not un- 
 friendly gaze, between bouts of playing 
 with several minute bronze frogs and a 
 box of dominoes. 
 
 Kotmasu keeps up an uninterrupted 
 conversation in a rather grating undertone, 
 whilst Miss Hyacinth and I chatter, and 
 gradually get upon most friendly terms. 
 
 I am quite sure that she already thinks 
 I wish to marry her. And possibly the 
 only question now agitating her mind is, 
 "For how long?"
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 61 
 
 Permanent marriages between Euro- 
 peans and Japanese women are as infre- 
 quent as temporary ones are the reverse. 
 
 I am more than ever in love with 
 Mousm6 by the time of our departure, and 
 am beginning to feel pained that I cannot 
 relieve her mind as to my intentions being 
 permanent. To do so will be quite possi- 
 ble without any breach of decorum in two 
 or three days. 
 
 Kotmasu is full of the marriage, and as 
 we walk homeward he tells me that 
 Mousmes mother will be delighted. He 
 has at least commenced to arrange things, 
 I think, with the celerity of a professed 
 matrimonial broker. 
 
 "But," he said, "she is nevertheless 
 surprised that you should not require Miss 
 Hyacinth on trial." 
 
 " Did you say anything to her, then ? " 
 I ask in my surprise. 
 
 " It is all arranged, if you are willing,"
 
 62 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 he answered, with some amount of pride 
 at his successful diplomacy. 
 
 " But what about Miss Hyacinth her- 
 self?" 
 
 " She ! Oh, she will be only too hon- 
 oured to wed with the English sir." 
 
 How strange Mousme's easy compliance 
 with my wishes appears to me. But I ac- 
 cept Kotmasu's statement gratefully, for 
 at least it relieves my anxiety. 
 
 I laugh quite light-heartedly; it is all 
 so delightfully easy. And when I have 
 had a smoke, after Kotmasu has drunk 
 my health comically thrice over in whiskey 
 sak& and departed, I turn in and fall asleep, 
 thinking that he is really a very good 
 fellow.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ALL has gone well, and I am to be mar- 
 ried to-morrow. Kotmasu is to be best 
 man, and for this purpose he has hunted 
 out from the depths of his disused steamer- 
 trunk an antiquated suit of Bond Street 
 " morning attire," a relic of his stay in 
 London; which, if less modern, is more 
 correct than the creations of Kinew, the 
 Anglo- Japanese tailor near the quay, who 
 has a tendency, so I am told, to make his 
 coats short in the waist. 
 
 Mousme's mother is delighted a state 
 of mind perhaps not altogether unconnected 
 with various handsome presents which 
 faithful Kotmasu, who should be a member 
 of the corps diplomatique, naively sug- 
 gested my making her. 
 
 The marriage can be very easily con-
 
 66 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 tracted ; and Kotmasu, who still seems to 
 have little or no faith in my constancy, has 
 assured me, over and over again, that if, 
 after all, I should change my mind about 
 taking Mousme" with me back to England, 
 a few more handsome presents to Mous- 
 me's mother, and the gift of a couple of 
 hundren yen, with a handsome dress or 
 two, to Mousme herself, will simplify 
 matters. 
 
 But I am vain enough to think that this 
 is not so ; and that the gleams of Western 
 ideas which I have detected in Housing's 
 conversations, picked up doubtless at the 
 school, may cause liking to ripen into a 
 lasting affection on her side, and be the 
 forerunners of greater breadth of mind. 
 There is a great deal of complexity about 
 relationship in Japan, and I had long ago 
 ceased to be surprised at anything in this 
 way ; but I received a mild shock on my 
 wedding day when I discovered to what
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 67 
 
 innumerable families to say nothing of 
 individuals I had allied myself. In fact, 
 I somewhat ruefully thought that I must 
 be brother-in-law, son-in-law or grandson- 
 in-law to half the Japanese population of 
 Nagasaki. 
 
 The marriage company was a study if 
 I had been in the humour to make one of 
 all sorts and conditions of men, women, 
 children and babies, all gathered together 
 to do honour to the marriage of their kins- 
 woman, Miss Hyacinth, with "the most 
 honourable English sir." 
 
 Mousme's mother was resplendent in one 
 of my " handsome presents," and her com- 
 pliments were interminable. She ad- 
 vanced smilingly to meet me, and remained 
 in the same condition throughout the 
 whole proceedings. I felt almost as ner- 
 vous as I should have been expected to be 
 had I contracted an aristocratic alliance in 
 England, culminating in a smart wedding.
 
 68 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 I have very little recollection of the details 
 of a day, or rather part of a day, which 
 seemed to resolve itself into a series of oft- 
 repeated salutations and endless congratu- 
 lations, refreshments, smoke and discreetly 
 repressed excitement. 
 
 At length it was over. 
 
 I had plucked my Hyacinth, and was 
 free to lead her away to my home. 
 
 Mousme in all her bridal finery of flow- 
 ered satin gown, and obi of plum-coloured 
 silk ; Mousme* with the shy face, and 
 pretty ways which might or might not be 
 artificial. 
 
 I was to discover all this, perhaps, and 
 many other things. 
 
 The legal formalities had been all pre- 
 viously arranged with the assistance of my 
 excellent Kotmasu, who is a person of 
 some importance, and of weight with the 
 officials who attend to such matters. 
 
 There is really such a very little to do ;
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 69 
 
 so few things for Mousine to transport to 
 her new home ; nearly all could be easily 
 packed in a large Gladstone if she pos- 
 sessed such a thing. As it is, her belong- 
 ings are brought up the hill to my house 
 in an elaborately decorated lacquer box, by 
 a big little brother with a bullet-head, nice 
 eyes, and a great liking for teriyaki (plums 
 in sugar coats). This box is a fit ornament 
 for the boudoir of a princess, I think, as 
 the youngster puts it down in a corner 
 with a sigh, produced by aching arms. 
 
 I smile and fancy how Lou would laugh 
 at a trousseau contained in a lacquer box 
 measuring about 20 inches by 12 inches by 
 10 inches ! remembering that hers, which 
 was described at portentous length and 
 with unblushing detail in the columns of 
 the Queen and Lady's Pictorial, must have 
 occupied little short of six large Saratoga 
 trunks. But what matter ? This style of 
 thing is a mere flaunting of wealth by
 
 70 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 Dives before the aching eyes of Lazarus. 
 Even the wealthiest can only wear one 
 dress at a time, and Mousme can do this, 
 and with far more grace than some of the 
 salt of society. 
 
 As for Mousme, she seems quite at 
 home. She soon unpacks her tiny box; 
 and, noticing that things connected with 
 my toilet, such as my razors, hair-brushes, 
 comb, and tin of shaving soap, are ar- 
 ranged near the window on an improvised 
 dressing-table which was (when I first 
 took the house) in reality an idol stand, 
 she arranges hers there too. How queer 
 they look, to be sure ! 
 
 Alongside my shaving soap now stands 
 a tiny lacquer pot with a jade lid, on 
 which is carved a wonderfully pretty group 
 of storks, containing the rouge which gives 
 a delicate sunset flush to her cheeks. She 
 puts a little on at once, right in front of 
 me, as naturally as another woman might
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 71 
 
 wash her hands, probably because she feels 
 she must do something before a glass 
 which is, as she puts it, " so big and great 
 and bright," compared to those to which 
 she has been accustomed. Then there is a 
 little pot also with a jade lid containing 
 a white face preparation, the use of which 
 I shall at once inhibit; this she puts close 
 beside the other by the force of association 
 of ideas. The tiny brushes, with backs of 
 tortoise-shell, the combs of the same, the 
 hair-pins with big eccentric knobs, are all 
 placed near my gigantic brushes. 
 
 Then her few garments are taken from 
 the box and hung also like mine on 
 pegs which I have had put up on the wall 
 near my mattress-like bed. 
 
 Mousme is satisfied with her work, ex- 
 claiming, " Velly good ting that ! " in the 
 monotonous voice of a person speaking an 
 unaccustomed tongue, and we are ready 
 for our first meal.
 
 72 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 She is pleased with herself, with me, 
 with her new home, with everything. 
 And after our dinner, dining which she has 
 chattered in most diverting English, learned 
 at school from an " English teacher," anx- 
 ious to please me, whom she still, I fear, 
 looks upon as her owner, she proposes to 
 sing. 
 
 What queer English it was !- often al- 
 most unrecognizable from mispronuncia- 
 tion. She still calls me " Mister," and al- 
 most makes me choke with smothered 
 laughter each time. 
 
 Fully twenty minutes are occupied in 
 attemps to master the appalling intricacies 
 of " Cyril " my name. The nearest ap- 
 proach as yet is " Cy-reel," which must do 
 for the present, with lapses into " Mister " 
 when she forgets. 
 
 Whilst I smoke, Mousing sings songs in 
 a soft little tone, to the accompaniment of 
 her long-necked samisen.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 73 
 
 She has a rather pretty voice, and more 
 idea of expression than any other Japanese 
 singer I have heard. 
 
 Night comes at last, and after a long 
 look down from the verandah at the hun- 
 dreds of lights gleaming far below, we go 
 to rest upon the mattresses which Oka's 
 wife has unrolled ready for us upon the 
 floor; Mousme with her head fixed into 
 the groove of a block of mahogany, which 
 serves her as a pillow, and preserves her 
 wonderful erection of hair intact. 
 
 We are under a huge mosquito-net, of 
 course one of steel-blue gauze. When I 
 first came I used to detest the confinement, 
 and tried to do without it. But mosquitos 
 are invincible, humanity frail, and the 
 epidermis easily punctured. I returned to 
 the protection of what I laughingly got to 
 call "my meat-safe," after the second 
 night. 
 
 Outside our tent-like mosquito-curtain
 
 74 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 we hear the angry buzzing of the foe ; 
 whilst big, heavy- winged moths every now 
 and again come with a tiny thud against 
 the enshrouding gauze, to dart away again 
 towards the small, glowworm-like flame of 
 the pendent lamp, which for no particular 
 reason I always keep alight throughout 
 the night. 
 
 When I awake next morning with the 
 sunlight streaming in through one of the 
 shutters, which the warmth of the previous 
 night induced me to leave open, Mousmt 
 is sleeping still, sleeping as peacefully as a 
 child, her face wreathed in the smile of a 
 happy dream, and her head still resting 
 upon her little wooden pillow. 
 
 I creep out from beneath the environing 
 curtain without disturbing her, after care- 
 fully reconnoitring lest one of the enemy 
 should gain entrance. 
 
 I blow out the tiny flame of the lamp, 
 which looks so horribly yellow and sickly
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 75 
 
 in the daylight, put on my flannels, and go 
 out into the garden. 
 
 I am going to get some flowers for 
 Mousme when she awakes. I cross one of 
 the tiny bridges spanning an equally tiny 
 streamlet which seem made only in child- 
 ren's size, and which creak complainingly 
 beneath my tread, and make my way to 
 the thicket of roses in which my soul de- 
 lights. A big frog contemplates me with 
 an offensively open stare for an instant, 
 from the edge of the basin of the plashing 
 fountain, before diving with outstretched 
 hind-legs beneath the shining surface. The 
 red-gold noses of the fish, which are poked 
 just above the water as they nibble at the 
 edges of the lily leaves, disappear instantly 
 the surface is ruffled. 
 
 I gather a huge bunch of damask- 
 petalled tea-roses, heavy with perfume, and 
 smelling as attar never smells. As I go 
 along the walk with the mossy edge, in
 
 76 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 which lizards and strangely beautiful 
 beetles play hide-and-seek in the sun, in 
 search of some gardenias, the stanzas of a 
 native poet stray through my mind, com- 
 mencing : 
 
 " The dew shines on the lily ; and the rose opens 
 her crimson heart to greet the rising sun." 
 
 I soon have my sprigs of gardenias min- 
 gled with the roses, and I return to the 
 house, hoping to lay my offering by Mous- 
 me's side ere she awakes. 
 
 I enter the strangely bare bedroom, with 
 its gray panels and vermilion storks, from 
 the verandah. A queer old idol, belonging 
 to the former owner of the house, grins 
 there is no other word for an accurate de- 
 scriptio n benign approval from its 
 pedestal in the corner. I had retained it 
 because it filled a niche; because I have 
 rather a penchant for curios; and lastly, 
 because, as an irrepressible midshipman 
 nephew once put it. " It's the jolliest-look-
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 77 
 
 ing old idol I've ever seen a combination 
 of J. L. Toole and Madame Blavatsky." 
 
 Mousme" is still asleep when I enter, but 
 the creaky floor awakes her ere I have half 
 crossed it. She rubs her eyes in a some- 
 what bewildered fashion, and then with a 
 smile promptly buries her little retroussg 
 nose in the posy I have brought. 
 
 Then she rises from the mattress-like 
 bed, a blue linen gowned little figure with 
 tiny bare feet, and nails on them like rose 
 leaves, and trots across the matting floor to 
 a position in front of our improvised dress- 
 ing-table. 
 
 She peers into the glass anxiously to see 
 whether her slumbers have disturbed her 
 hair, touches the thick, neatly- arranged 
 plaits with deft fingers on either side of 
 her smiling face, and then laughs at my 
 amusement. 
 
 Mousme's toilet is a very simple matter. 
 She has few garments to put on, no hair to
 
 78 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 do, or rather no hair which wants doing, 
 her elaborate coiffure being a permanent 
 erection for some considerable time. She 
 tells me that it took " nearly a large day 
 to do it," and I quite believe her ; it is 
 such a wonderful erection. 
 
 All is so delightfully simple. She puts 
 on her little patches of rouge with a less 
 reckless hand, in deference to my opinions 
 on the subject in a trice, puffs some white 
 powder upon her cheeks and charmingly 
 impudent nose, reddens her lips with the 
 certitude of a practised hand, slips into her 
 gown of flowered silk, and with a pretty 
 little pleading moue entreats me to tie the 
 enormous bow of her brilliantly coloured 
 obi; and hey, presto ! as the conjurer says, 
 almost in less time than it takes a Western 
 woman to put on her bonnet, Mousm's 
 toilet is complete, and she is ready for our 
 make-believe playing at breakfast. 
 
 She eats her sugared plums with dainty
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE, 79 
 
 grace, and drinks an astonishing number of 
 cups of pale amber-coloured tea ; but then 
 the cups are so small that her doing so 
 provokes little wonder in my mind. She 
 has, perhaps, a misgiving that she has 
 eaten more than I can afford, although I 
 overheard my mother-in-law telling her 
 that I was a very rich man ; for she says, 
 interrogatively, " I eat too great velly 
 much ? Not eat so again ? " 
 
 I smilingly assure her that she is to eat 
 as much as she can, and she laughs and gets 
 up to attend to the flowers on the veran- 
 dah, and place fresh blossoms in the blue 
 china bowls which stand on eccentric 
 perches on the walls, in the corners of the 
 room, on a bamboo and lacquer cabinet, 
 and on my English-pattern knee-hole writ- 
 ing-table in the window. 
 
 Mousme has deft fingers and good taste, 
 and the flowers seem to arrange themselves 
 in negligently artistic masses beneath her 
 touch.
 
 80 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 She makes an exquisite picture as she 
 flutters about in the bright sunshine of 
 this white, airy room, in her dress of rich, 
 gay colours. 
 
 I sit still, and desist from my mail letter 
 to watch her. And as I do so, I become 
 aware that a journalist who " did " Japan 
 may be forgiven much for one true, pic- 
 turesque phrase, "Japanese women are 
 butterflies with hearts" 
 
 The cicalas chirp unceasingly, making a 
 natural orchestral accompaniment to her 
 movements the chirping cicalas, which 
 seem to rest neither day nor night. 
 
 The only bowl still unfilled with flowers 
 is that on the table at which I am sitting. 
 Perhaps she is still too shy of me to touch 
 it. A thought has evidently flitted 
 through her pretty head, for she goes out 
 on to the balcony, and a minute later I see 
 her slender, quaint little figure going 
 down one of the sunlit garden- walks, evi-
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 81 
 
 dently in search of something. A lizard 
 scuttles away across the path at her ap- 
 proach, to cower amongst the moss and 
 tea-roses; and as she turns the corner 
 towards the gold-fish pond, I catch a last 
 glimpse of the huge, brilliant bow of her 
 obi which I laboriously tied an hour or so 
 before. 
 
 It is very pleasant to have my pretty 
 little mousine" flitting about my home and 
 garden. I wonder somewhat vaguely why 
 her absence has never struck me before. 
 Love apparently is one of those flavours of 
 life which one misses least when one has 
 not enjoyed its piquancy. 
 
 I take up the thread of my letter to Lou 
 again. It is a thousand pities, I think as 
 I do so, that I cannot present Mousme* to 
 her some such bright morning as this, and 
 in Japan. The rarest gem is best seen in 
 its proper setting. How surprised Lou 
 will be ! She is large and fresh-coloured.
 
 82 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 There is sure to be an explosion. How 
 well I know the sort of thing which is cer- 
 tain to occur! Her handsome face will 
 redden, and the letter will be tossed across 
 to Bob with a sharp, " How ridiculous of 
 him ! He really should think of us a lit- 
 tle. I only hope he won't bring the 
 woman here. Fancy a Japanese sister-in- 
 law ! Why, Bob, you're laughing ! It's 
 no laughing matter, I can assure you. A 
 yellow-faced, painted scrap of a woman. 
 
 There " 1 can hear her in imagination 
 
 saying all this, and in my mind's eye see 
 her expression. Ah ! Lou, I also remem- 
 ber that all your roses are not of Dame 
 Nature's giving, and that others mali- 
 cious, no doubt have remarked upon the 
 fact. 
 
 I hear the patter of feet coming up the 
 verandah steps. It is Mousme returning. 
 Ah 1 Mousme, you and I will conquer 
 London together ! You with your dainty
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 83 
 
 grace and piquante face, I with my 
 wealth, as you esteem it, and family name. 
 
 Her hands are so full of flowers that 
 she has to push aside the panel with one 
 knee ere she can enter. 
 
 She comes across to my table and 
 places the blossoms in the empty bowl of 
 bronze. 
 
 By a stroke of genius in coquetry the 
 flowers are hyacinths ! 
 
 When she has finished their arrange- 
 ment, she says smilingly, her lips parted, 
 and twin rows of white pearls showing 
 between them : 
 
 "They are me. You never forget me 
 when you see them ! " 
 
 " No ! Mousme, I never shall."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 I HAVE only seen Kotmasu once since our 
 marriage, now five days ago ; and then it 
 was quite by accident, down near the quay, 
 where I had gone to discover whether my 
 quarterly parcel of magazines and books 
 had arrived, which Lou with commendable 
 regularity despatches " to that brother of 
 mine who is out in Japan, living at one of 
 those towns with a heathenish and unpro- 
 nounceable name." 
 
 Kotmasu seemed somewhat surprised to 
 see me. 
 
 " Where is Madame ? " he asks with a 
 siniJe, as though as no doubt he did he 
 half suspected she had returned to her 
 mother already. 
 
 I must have shown that I read the un-
 
 88 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 dercurrent of suggestion somewhat plainly. 
 " At home," I answered. " You wouldn't 
 surely expect me to bring her out at this 
 part of the day, in all this heat, and down 
 here, too ! " 
 
 " No ! no ! Of course not," he hastened 
 to reply. 
 
 I was somewhat mollified by his evi- 
 dent anxiety to put matters straight again 
 between us. He can scarcely, I thought, 
 be expected to have the same faith in my 
 experiment as I have. To him my marri- 
 age, until it has existed for some time, can, 
 I realize, only appear in the light of a tem- 
 porary arrangement. 
 
 " Why do you not come up as you 
 used ? " I inquire in a friendly tone. 
 
 " It is your what you call it ? some- 
 thing to do with the bees and the moon. 
 I did not care to intrude," he replies 
 deprecatingly. 
 
 " How ridiculous ! We shall be always
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 89 
 
 glad to see you, my good fellow," I reply, 
 laughing as naturally as I can. 
 
 Kotmasu is so terribly English. 
 
 Even his attire this morning is that odd 
 mixture of Anglo-Japanese garments he so 
 much affects, consisting of a straw hat and 
 tennis flannels, worn in conjunction with 
 the flowered dressing-gown-like garment of 
 a well-to-do merchant. 
 
 He looks a strange figure as he stands 
 talking to me, in the sun, at the corner of 
 the little narrow alley leading from the 
 water-side into one of the newer streets, 
 the incongruities of his garments thrown 
 up into strong relief by a background 
 formed by the sail of a large trading-junk 
 alongside the quay, which a swarm of Jap- 
 anese coolies, all dressed alike in tight hose 
 and dark butcher's-blue cotton tunics, with 
 some bizarre device in a different colour 
 on the back, were unloading with extraor- 
 dinary rapidity.
 
 90 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 " I must go back to the warehouse," he 
 says, after considering my remark. " I 
 will come to see you to-night." 
 
 He shakes hands ; and a coolie who has 
 been staring at my " strange white face," 
 as I overheard him call it, for at least five 
 minutes, to the neglect of his work, ap- 
 pears much mystified by the supposed rite. 
 
 I am glad Kotmasu is coming, as I wish 
 him to believe in my experiment as thor- 
 oughly as I do myself. 
 
 The books have come, and I return to 
 the warehouse of my parcels-agent to see 
 if they are unpacked. 
 
 Mr. Karu's office is always a source of 
 wonder to me. 
 
 The amount of business transacted there, 
 in a building of toy-like dimensions and 
 fragile structure, was little less than mar- 
 vellous. Whenever a parcel heavier than 
 usual was dropped on the floor by a care- 
 less coolie, I expected that the room, with
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 91 
 
 its ink-stained, paper-panelled walls, on 
 which were pasted or fixed with quaint- 
 headed pins the steamship bills and those 
 of several of the theatre tea-houses, would 
 collapse forthwith with no more warning 
 than the crack of its slight, dry timbers. 
 
 The parcel was ready. 
 
 Mr. Kara was all smiles. He was a 
 little, short man with extremely beady 
 eyes, quick movements, and a yellow skin 
 deeply pitted by small-pox. 
 
 " It is very big to-day ! " he exclaimed 
 in Japanese, referring to the package. 
 " Very much larger ; half a yen more, 
 please, most honourable gentleman," as I 
 put down the usual amount. 
 
 The smiles were explained; and there 
 was no doubt some truth, I thought, in 
 what the little chief -clerk at the bank, 
 who is so anxiously cultivating a beard, 
 said, namely, " That most excellent friend, 
 Kara, is in great much hurry to get much 
 rich man."
 
 92 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 I pay what I know to be in great part 
 an imposition, with an indulgent grin I 
 am in a hurry to get back to Mousme, or 
 might have argued the matter even in this 
 heat accept the offer of a coolie to carry 
 my parcel for the equivalent of three- 
 halfpence, and start to climb up the shady 
 side of the rough-paved street to my home. 
 
 Mousme was waiting for me at the little 
 gate in the toy fence of bamboo a fence 
 the like of which in no country save Japan 
 would have been deemed sufficient for the 
 purpose intended. 
 
 She came forward to be kissed (I had 
 had to give her a few lessons in this cus- 
 tom) with her chin which in the sunlight 
 was as if carved out of ivory, so fine is the 
 texture of her skin tilted up, and the 
 red rosebud mouth wreathed in a smile. 
 Mousme is learning European ways rapidly. 
 My experiment seems very promising ; and 
 she is evidently growing very fond of me.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 93 
 
 She is learning English, and even the 
 English alphabet, so books are becoming 
 of interest to her, especially those with 
 pictures in them. 
 
 " What is there ? " she inquires eagerly 
 in Japanese, pointing to the parcel which 
 the coolie carries on ahead of us up the 
 garden-walk. 
 
 "Books." 
 
 "Books? More books!" 
 
 My slender library, contained on shelves 
 about five feet high and three feet six 
 broad, appeal's illimitable to her. 
 
 "Yes," I replied, smiling. 
 
 " Are there pictures in them ? " 
 
 "I expect so." 
 
 " Hi ! " to the coolie staggering under 
 the weight of the parcel. " Hayaku ! 
 Walk faster! Run!" 
 
 And then, almost before I know she has 
 left my side, she is gone, hurrying with 
 short steps up the moss-bordered walk
 
 94 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 after the coolie, who has quickened his 
 pace into a shambling run. 
 
 By the time I reach the house at my 
 slower rate, and enter my room by way 
 of the balcony, she has already got the 
 parcel in front of her on a square of white 
 matting in a patch of brilliant sunshine. 
 
 The only fault I am able to find with 
 Mousme's face is that it is somewhat apa- 
 thetic at times, a trifle expressionless. It 
 is animated enough now, however. A 
 look of eager curiosity suffuses it. She is 
 like some gay-coloured humming-bird in 
 her brilliant-hued dress, squatting there in 
 the patch of sunlight, already at work 
 with nimble, painstaking fingers upon the 
 knots of the string around the parcel, 
 coaxing loose the more stubborn ones with 
 the point of one of her immense jade- 
 topped hairpins. 
 
 Lou has sent some magazines this quarter 
 which delight Mousme immensely The
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 95 
 
 Strand, English Illustrated, and a copy of 
 the Universal Review. This last is a ver- 
 itable El Dorado of pictures, and provokes 
 exclamations of delight when Mousme" turns 
 the pages over. Only there is so much she 
 cannot understand. 
 
 One particular picture in a number of 
 the English Illustrated, a group of ladies 
 at an evening party, mystifies her im- 
 mensely. 
 
 " Why are all these women cut out in 
 the middle ? " she asks with a puzzled ex- 
 pression. " Are they all born like that ? " 
 
 " No," I reply. 
 
 " Then do they make themselves like 
 that ? " glancing at her own slender 
 though by no means exaggerated figure. 
 
 " Yes ; they make themselves so, I sup- 
 pose. It is a custom of our nation, and 
 other European nations," I explain as 
 best I can. 
 
 " Oh ! " with another look at the ultra-
 
 96 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 fashionably slender figure of the woman in 
 the foreground of the picture. " How 
 very uncomfortable ! " 
 
 We both laugh; I because Mousme" 
 makes this last remark in such a finite 
 voice, and without any real idea of its 
 naive truthfulness, and she because to her 
 loose-robed little body such a fashion ap- 
 pears highly ridiculous. 
 
 There is evidently something mysterious 
 about this funny custom, which, as Mousme" 
 says, " makes women look as if a dog had 
 bitten a great piece out of them, both 
 sides ; " for she says, ere turning over the 
 page: 
 
 " Shall I do that when I go with you 
 to England ? " 
 
 " No, certainly not." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " Because you're much prettier as you 
 
 are." 
 
 Mousme" smiles contentedly, and pats
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 97 
 
 my big hand, which looks so very large 
 beside hers, and rambles off to tell me of a 
 lizard she found in our bed just before I 
 came back from the town ; whilst I, glanc- 
 ing over the pages of one of the magazines, 
 divide my attention between her story and 
 a critique of Robert Elsinere. 
 
 The time passes very quickly with 
 Mousme"; she is soon tired of looking at 
 books and papers which, at present, she 
 only half understands ; and lest she should 
 interrupt me, she gets up, and goes with a 
 hushed pad, pad of her shoeless feet into 
 our bedroom, to fetch a strange little lac- 
 quer box which contains her writing ma- 
 terials. A flat shell, with lovely mother- 
 of-pearl tints on its nacre hollow, in which 
 she grinds her Indian ink; the fine paint- 
 brush, which plays the part of pen ; the 
 flimsy rice-paper, in long, thin strips, and 
 envelopes to match, are among her belong- 
 ings, and are decorated with tiny pictures
 
 98 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 of trees and strangely grotesque animals, 
 birds and fishes. She is going to write 
 to her mother, to ask her to send up a sash 
 of turquoise-blue silk which was left be- 
 hind when she was married, and which she 
 has found out I admired. 
 
 I watch her as she writes, her head bent 
 over her paper, and the lower half of her 
 face in shadow such a scrap of daintily 
 dressed femininity. 
 
 I wonder what else she is saying 
 women's inter-confidences are always so 
 distressing and perplexing to a man for 
 she has already covered one long strip 
 with delicately minute writing, which at 
 a little distance looks like the ground-plan 
 of an intricate maze; and surely even a 
 turquoise silk obi cannot call for such a 
 lengthy description, except, perhaps, in 
 a Parisian fashion- journal. 
 
 She has finished by the time I have cut 
 the pages of one of the novels Lou has in-
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 99 
 
 eluded in the parcel ; and, with a solem- 
 nity worthy of the best traditions of the 
 Japanese official, she seals it up securely 
 in an envelope of whitey-blue rice-paper 
 so small, that it necessitates the folding 
 of the letter half a dozen times. 
 
 One of the ever-amiable Oka's almost 
 innumerable children, a quaint toddler of 
 five, with a queer, shaven head, with its 
 little ebon queue, and small, bright, black 
 beads of eyes, is easily persuaded to take 
 it down to Housing's mother for a couple 
 of sen. 
 
 Then we have tea. 
 
 Really it is a sort of dinner, a nonde 
 script meal best conveyed to the mind by 
 that equally nondescript English phrase, 
 " high tea " a strange meal indulged in 
 by people who are too hungry to have 
 tea, and too modest to have a second 
 dinner. 
 
 How Mousme 1 can tackle plums still
 
 100 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 green, though coated in sugar, without 
 paying the penalty for her seeming in- 
 discretion, is a mystery. But she does; 
 and I sit and watch her in genuine though 
 unexpressed admiration. The shrimps, 
 really large prawns, with their intricately 
 stuffed interiors, I can venture upon ; and 
 seaweed, with sweet sauce, I take with 
 resignation. She does not care for the 
 latter to-night, and so she goes to a panel 
 cupboard, where we keep our priceless 
 English biscuits cunningly hidden from 
 the possible depredations of Oka's some- 
 what inquisitive children, and eats some of 
 these instead, nibbling off first the pink- 
 and-white sugar decorations, which are 
 such a source of delight. 
 
 We have scarcely finished our meal, and 
 Mousm6 is still nibbling a biscuit, when we 
 hear the sound of Kotmasu's expected foot- 
 steps coming up the garden-path.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IT is clear to me from Kotmasu's talk, 
 glances, and conduct in general, that he 
 has not yet got to consider Mousme in the 
 light of the mistress of the house. I am 
 also sure that he even yet cannot under- 
 stand that my marriage with her is any- 
 thing more serious than a passing freak, a 
 fancy of the hour. 
 
 He is very familiar with her, and she 
 with him they have known each other so 
 long chatting together quite freely. I 
 am not jealous, surely ; but I suddenly dis- 
 cover that it is time to go out. Kotmasu 
 at once agrees that it is, and Mousme* seems 
 delighted. 
 
 Where shall we go ? 
 
 That is the all-important question, which 
 is not easily settled.
 
 104 MY JAPANESE WIPE. 
 
 Mousme" inclines to paying her mother a 
 visit; Kotmasu to visiting a little play- 
 house down below in Nagasaki, where 
 some new geishas from Yeddo are to make 
 their debut. 
 
 I am not so fond of my mother-in-law as 
 I should be, nor of my perplexingly numer- 
 ous sisters and brothers-in-law, both small 
 and great. The former I suspect of rapac- 
 ity, an insatiable appetite for " handsome 
 presents," which, if not always very costly 
 in European eyes, are certainly numerous, 
 and range from rouge fin (imported from 
 Paris) and blanc perle to gay-hued obis and 
 handsome hairpins of tortoise-shell, or of 
 bronze with carved jade heads. 
 
 Fancy supplying one's mother-in-law 
 with rouge ! But it was Kotmasu's doing. 
 He was evidently in her confidence ; for he 
 said one day, just as my marriage arrange- 
 ments were nearing completion : 
 
 "You give Madame Choto some rouge.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 105 
 
 The woman very fond of it. You make 
 her like you." 
 
 This being what I wished her to do, I 
 did as friend Kotmasu desired, expending 
 three yen (12s.) upon a box at Yan's, the 
 best druggist in Nagasaki, and paying at 
 least four times its original price. The 
 only satisfaction I have is the knowledge 
 that my mother-in-law's complexion is of 
 the best ! 
 
 Mousme clearly is to-night all for going 
 down to Madame Choto's, but I have one 
 trump card to play against that. I am 
 destined to find it in the future as in the 
 past of great service. I have merely to 
 say, " Let us go and look at the shops." 
 
 "Yes, yes," answers Mousme" with alac- 
 rity, clapping her small hands. 
 
 And so it is settled. 
 
 The recollection of Madame Choto and 
 the little brothers and sisters she was half 
 a minute ago so bent on visiting, speedily 
 fades from her mind.
 
 106 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 Kotmasu agrees readily enough, no 
 doubt thinking that there is still a chance 
 of our dropping in, later on, at the Willow 
 Tree Theatre, to see the famous geishas 
 from Yeddo. 
 
 To get down into the town at night is a 
 matter of some difficulty, the path being 
 so rough and unlighted. Of course, we 
 carry lanterns nearly every one does at 
 night and one constantly meets proces- 
 sions of families or friends, out either for a 
 walk or on their way to some place of 
 amusement, all carrying paper lanterns of 
 various colours, and giving a pretty, fan- 
 tastic effect to the dark roads and narrow 
 streets of the town. 
 
 It is far more interesting to go down 
 into the older quarter of the town, the true 
 Japanese, if so I may call it the native 
 quarter unalloyed by European customs 
 and commerce. 
 
 Mousm6 leaves us for an instant to look
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 107 
 
 out three paper lanterns with their slen- 
 der, quivering carrying-sticks of bamboo. 
 She at any rate is all eagerness to be off , 
 visions of possible purchases for her per- 
 sonal adornment doubtless flitting through 
 her mind. 
 
 It is nicer out under the verandah ; the 
 dry wood roof, in which the cicalas live a 
 chirping existence, seems to be giving out 
 the heat with which a thorough sun-baking 
 has stored it during the day. 
 
 Kotmasu and I step out on to the bal- 
 cony to await Mousme's coming with the 
 lanterns. 
 
 There is no moon to-night, and the 
 clouds hang low, making the evening dull 
 and close. Everything is so still, with a 
 deep silence that is at once oppressive and 
 slightly terrifying, until one is accustomed 
 to it. Down below lies the town, like 
 some vast black monster with many twink- 
 ling eyes. There is no wind; indeed,
 
 108 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 there is scarcely enough air to disperse the 
 smoke of our cigars, the ends of which 
 glow like the red eyes of some wild animal. 
 I can just see Kotmasu's face when his 
 glows brighter as he inhales. 
 
 " And you are not getting bored ? " he 
 asks, puffing a cloud of smoke amongst the 
 foliage of a creeper trailing at his elbow. 
 
 I know what he means, although he 
 mentions no name, because we are talking 
 in Japanese, and Mousme may even now 
 be creeping silently, as is her wont, across 
 the room behind us. 
 
 " No ; I am charmed. She is even more 
 charming than I thought. I shall certainly 
 go home to England as soon as I can." 
 
 "And take her?" 
 
 " Certainly ; why not ? " 
 
 Kotmasu can on occasion be fairly con- 
 cise, if not epigrammatic. 
 
 " Mousme* in Bond Street ! " he ejacu- 
 lated ; and if he had been English, I
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE, 109 
 
 knew instinctively that he would have 
 whistled. 
 
 " Why Bond Street ? " I asked somewhat 
 feebly, with just a shade of chilliness at 
 my heart from the incongruity conjured up 
 by his words. 
 
 "Because," he replied slowly, "that 
 would be a good test." 
 
 I might have attempted a reply, but there 
 is a sudden glow of light on the verandah, 
 a yellow-red, diffused light, which fails to 
 pierce the gloom at the far end, and 
 Mousme and Oka appear with the lanterns. 
 
 Mousme" gives me a kiss, to the peril of 
 her lantern with its monster of a crayfish 
 painted in vermilion on its yellow side ; at 
 which Kotmasu smiles indulgently; then 
 we start off. 
 
 We go away down our garden which 
 has such narrow paths, some of them 
 scarcely less pigmy than those associated 
 in my memory with the garden of child-
 
 110 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 hood's days now so dark and full of 
 mysterious shadows, heavy with the strong 
 scent of flowers, alive with the incessant 
 noise of the cicalas, and movements of 
 huge, soft- winged night-moths, which circle 
 round the light of our lanterns, beating 
 their wings with a soft, quick rattle against 
 their distended sides, and every now and 
 again flying into our faces and making 
 Mousme give a little scream of simulated 
 terror, at which Kotmasu and I laugh. 
 
 I shut the gate after us, arid then taking 
 Mousme's arm, we make our way down the 
 rapidly sloping road. There is another 
 party ahead of us, also with lanterns ; and 
 so steep is the path, that in the black dark- 
 ness we almost seem as though we should 
 step off into the abyss, right down on to 
 the swaying lights below us. 
 
 Such strange shadows are set dancing on 
 the road by the swaying lanterns we carry, 
 that Mousme, who must, after all, have
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. Ill 
 
 seen such things dozens of times before, 
 clings closer to me for protection, and in a 
 low, frightened undertone she says : 
 
 " Cy-reel ! Cy-reel ! I am frightened ! I 
 shall shut rny eyes and take hold of you ! " 
 
 But when I look down at her a few 
 paces further on, I see that it is but her 
 delightful coquetry; for her dark-brown 
 eyes, which in the lantern light have shad- 
 ows like a lake, are open, and are watching 
 Kotmasu, who is a little in advance of us 
 two. 
 
 She catches sight of ine, and bursts out 
 laughing. She is never a bit ashamed of 
 being caught like this. 
 
 When once we reach the bottom of the 
 road, which runs past older houses even 
 than mine, villas mostly inhabited by the 
 better-class merchants and the few foreign- 
 ers who may have protracted business in 
 Nagasaki, we are plunged almost without 
 transition or warning into the heart and 
 life of the town.
 
 112 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 We go along the street, brightly illumi- 
 nated by hundreds of lanterns, pendent 
 and ambulatory, at some small risk of be- 
 ing run over by rikishas taken at a rapid, 
 nay, almost reckless pace by their active 
 drawers. 
 
 Mousme walks along quite gaily, her 
 wooden clogs making a great clatter on 
 the stones which crop up in the street, in 
 concert with those of scores of other women 
 who are out with husbands, brothers or 
 escorts for an evening's amusement or stroll. 
 She is so naively proud of her " English 
 sir," who is a real husband after all. 
 
 We go through the streets, which at 
 night seem all the same, all gaily lit with 
 flaring oil-lamps, and illuminated with 
 countless numbers of paper lanterns, which 
 throw a mellow-coloured radiance on the 
 faces of the passers-by; looking in this 
 shop and that as we walk slowly along. 
 
 The sense of possession is very strong in
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 113 
 
 Mousme*. Every now and again she 
 clutches my hand or arm though, strictly 
 speaking, to do so is not Japanese eti- 
 quette and fires off little nods to ac- 
 quaintances. Every clutch at the sleeve 
 of my coat means that she has caught sight 
 of some one to whom she wishes to exhibit 
 me as her real husband. When Kotmasu, 
 who is a wonderful recounter of tales relat- 
 ing to those we meet and nod to, laugh- 
 ingly reproaches her with indecorousness, 
 she says : 
 
 "What you say well enough; but I 
 Engleesh now, you know," with a moue 
 and a little quick turn of her dainty head, 
 which makes both of us laugh, and the 
 passers-by stare in astonishment at our 
 sudden merriment. 
 
 Yes, Mousme* is so English in every- 
 thing except what really constitutes Eng- 
 lishness. What a revelation England will 
 be to her, and she to my respected relatives !
 
 114 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 These streets we walk through are won- 
 derful. They are all alike ; the houses, of 
 frailest woodwork and paper panelling, 
 are scarcely varied in any particular, save 
 that of ornamentation, from one end of the 
 long row to the other. There are no shop 
 fronts, no glass windows ; so that intend- 
 ing purchasers, or even those who have no 
 intentions other than curiosity, can take up 
 the various articles so openly displayed, 
 and examine them at their leisure. 
 
 This is what Mousme delights in doing. 
 She likes best the shops in which rich 
 dress fabrics and women's ornaments play 
 an important part. 
 
 A tiny parcel, done up neatly in rice- 
 paper, betrays the fact that she has al- 
 ready coaxed me into purchasing " a little 
 present." The shopkeepers, who squat in 
 the midst of their wares, offer no objection 
 to Mousme" 's inspection ; and as it amuses 
 her, why should I mind ?
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 115 
 
 As we go along towards the lower and 
 harbour end of the town, the crowd of 
 people gets denser and denser. If the 
 terrors of horses Nagasaki is as guiltless 
 of horses as Venice itself driven or rid- 
 den, were added to the cZ/m-harnessed 
 rikishaSj one would walk along at momen- 
 tary risk of annihilation. 
 
 But the djins are wonderfully active 
 and intelligent, and avoid obstacles with 
 marvellous ability. There are few corns 
 in Japan, and the wheel of a rikisha over 
 one's feet, therefore, is of somewhat less 
 moment. 
 
 Mousme" flutters along at my side, chat- 
 tering in Japanese, and English of a sort, 
 gay and contented, her sense of the ludi- 
 crous being aroused every now and then 
 by the sight of one or other of her country- 
 men in the garb of civilization Western 
 civilization, that is. A Japanese in Euro- 
 pean attire in Europe may be an artistic
 
 116 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 mistake ; in Japan an inartistic atrocity. 
 There are several of these about, in out-of- 
 date pot-hats, and tail-coats of the year 
 before last's cut. Even Kotmasu, who 
 himself is attached to pseudo-European 
 attire, laughs at them. How queer they 
 look ! the pot-hat cum a fringe of black, 
 shining hair beneath its brim, and other 
 really picturesque garments. 
 
 We are getting tired, and Housing's 
 natural lust of buying useless things is 
 increasing. 
 
 Unfortunately, she has been told I am 
 ' 'one very much rich man. ' ' Kotmasu who 
 is beginning to pine for the geishas and I 
 have our arms uncomfortably full of pur- 
 chases little lacquer boxes, fantastic 
 
 hair-combs and pins, silk sashes, a tiny 
 silver tobacco-pipe with tortoises, frogs 
 and tiny lizards scarcely bigger than a 
 pin's head crawling up the chased stem, 
 boxes of plums preserved in sugar, and
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. H7 
 
 French bonbons purchased at a ruinous 
 price. All this is very strange, and even 
 Mousm^'s recklessness is charming, cap- 
 tivating. 
 
 There is no time for the theatre now, 
 so Mousme" and I make our way to a tea- 
 house, and Kotmasu, who has been such a 
 long-suffering companion of our peregrina- 
 tions, goes off to see the geishas, and, I 
 fear, a somewhat improper variety enter- 
 tainment. 
 
 The chaya is full of its patrons. Such 
 a crowd of mousme*s and their escorts ; and 
 very few of the crimson-and-gold covered 
 futons (cushions), which are negligently 
 arranged for the use of the guests under 
 the verandah overlooking the garden, are 
 vacant. So we step out into the garden, 
 and enter a quaintly constructed summer- 
 house built to accommodate two. 
 
 We have scarcely seated ourselves, after 
 my having drawn aside the paper shutters
 
 118 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 on the garden side, ere a charming little 
 scrap of an attendant mousme, with a 
 dress of yellow silk and scarlet satin obi, 
 presents herself to take our orders. 
 
 She stands in the lantern-light just 
 outside the doorway, caressing her knees 
 with her tiny hands, and smiling and show- 
 ing her pretty teeth in anticipation of re- 
 ceiving a "good order." 
 
 After a hurried consultation with 
 Mousme, who says, " Sugar plums ! 
 Oranges ! Tea ! " the little gay-hued wait- 
 ress flits away in search of what we have 
 ordered. 
 
 The garden, of which the owner is so 
 proud that he calls it that of " The Hun- 
 dred Beautiful Lights," is a quaintly 
 pretty one. Just behind our little sum- 
 mer-house, with its octagon roof of thin 
 split laths of mahoghany and paper shoji, 
 with French-grey backgrounds adorned 
 with country views by a local artist who
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 119 
 
 has shamefully overlooked all the canons 
 of perspective, are lotus-ponds tiny, toy- 
 like expanses of water in which doubtless 
 the inevitable gold-fish swim and mouth 
 for air bubbles ; miniature waterfalls, 
 stone votive lamps, and grotesquely trained 
 trees, dwarfed by some strange process to 
 accord with the minuteness of their sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 Whilst we are observing all these 
 things, and the now blossomless wisterias 
 in their belated garb of light green, our 
 mousine" returns, staggering along with two 
 huge iron candlesticks three feet high, one 
 in each hand, which are to light us at our 
 feast. With great exactitude, she sticks 
 two wax candles upon their respective 
 spikes, and lights them ; and then vanishes, 
 like the genie of the lamp, to carry out 
 further bidding. 
 
 Although the garden and tea-house were 
 so full of patrons, we had not long to wait
 
 120 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 for our refreshments. Our mousme knew 
 that I was English not, of course, a diffi- 
 cult matter ; and to be English spells gen- 
 erosity in Japanese eyes in the matter of 
 sen for her own little pocket. So we were 
 waited on quickly. 
 
 In a few minutes we seemed positively 
 surrounded by tiny dishes and plates. 
 
 As an Irish gentleman who came to 
 Japan for three months, and made my ac- 
 quaintance, once said, " Every thing relat- 
 ing to meals is so singularly numerous." 
 
 This exactly puts it. 
 
 We had ordered a simple enough meal, 
 in all conscience, and yet we were literally 
 surrounded by it. 
 
 Mousm6 sipped her light-coloured tea, 
 which was suffused with cherry blossoms, 
 with the air of a princess, and behaved as 
 a great lady. At any rate the attendant 
 mousm6 should clearly understand that she 
 was not like the party of geishas over
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 121 
 
 there in the brilliantly lighted pagoda near 
 the balcony, who were entertaining and 
 being entertained by some of the gilded 
 youths of Nagasaki. 
 
 " What a noise they make ! " exclaims 
 Mousme with a smile of pitying disgust. 
 " Their laugh is as hollow as a drum, and 
 they sing because they must. They will 
 be with some one else to-morrow night, 
 and the next, and the next. While," and 
 the expression of Mousm6's face changes 
 and grows very soft and tender, " I have 
 always you." 
 
 "Yes, always me," I answer, taking her 
 hand that she has rested on my knee 
 whilst talking.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 NEXT morning I awoke early, roused 
 by the twittering of grass sparrows and 
 the weakened croak of a frog, hoarse from 
 its vocal efforts of the night. 
 
 It was New Year's day, and the sun 
 was streaming through the open windows. 
 Mousme had already crept from her white 
 mattress beneath the smoke-blue mosquito 
 curtains, and was doubtless sunning her- 
 self, after a hasty toilet, in the wonderful 
 garden which we had fashioned out of the 
 rocks and red-brown soil. 
 
 I stretched sleepily, and wondered 
 vaguely what they were doing in England, 
 and whether my estimable, though trying, 
 sister Lou (fashionable to her finger-tips) 
 had cajoled my unfortunate brother-in-law 
 into changing her last year's set of furs 
 for " something a little more the thing, 
 don't you know, Stanmere."
 
 126 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 Mousing requires no furs. Her wants 
 are few. A piece of silk with wonderful 
 patterns over it birds which seem to fly, 
 irises whose vivid tints almost make 
 unaccustomed eyes ache, and chrysan- 
 themums which one could swear nod 
 upon their slender, almost leafless stalks 
 which she fashions into a robe of delight. 
 A few jade and lacquer pins for her 
 wonderful jet-black hair. Some new tabi. 
 Long white digitated stockings reaching 
 above her dimpled knees. A sash to 
 make her girl acquaintances and married 
 brother's wife jealous. And so you have 
 the costume in which she is prepared to 
 receive her visitors and to glide with a 
 soothing shish-shish over the white mat- 
 ting of the floor and through the comically 
 narrow passages. 
 
 The mail arrived yesterday week, and 
 down at Kotmasu's office I found Lou's 
 usual parcel of New Year's gifts. For
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 127 
 
 me there were several new novels the 
 pictures in which will cause Mousm4 to 
 wonder and open her almond eyes wide, 
 with the little trick of quivering the lids 
 which she has some papers, tobacco five 
 pounds of it in a sealed tin (a good soul 
 is Stanmere) a shaving tidy worked by 
 Irene in some mysterious stitch which 
 seems to have come into fashion since I 
 scorned crewel-work anti-macassars with 
 lace frills that hung on the back buttons 
 of one's coat, turning one at afternoon tea 
 into an object of interest and amusement. 
 For Mousme there was a Paris hat 
 (Lou will never, I fear, realise that Paris 
 fashions have as yet little interest for 
 Nagasaki belles), in which Mousme's 
 piquant face would be smothered and 
 turned to no account, a silk tea-gown 
 which she will wear with the dignity 
 becoming five feet one inch and a half of 
 really married Japanese womanhood.
 
 128 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 There was also something more. 
 
 My present, which I have had sent 
 out from the Compagnie des Fondants 
 Parisiens a huge box of the best con- 
 fectionery that money could buy. I 
 knew that Mousme would like this better 
 than anything else, and that for the time 
 the native teriyaki and such-like sugar- 
 coated joys would be nowhere. 
 
 All the presents are in the little room 
 I use as a study a room into which 
 Mousme creeps with awe. It is (to her 
 untutored mind) so full of books and 
 mysterious writings. 
 
 I had risen and was gazing out over 
 the harbour, which lay below me veiled 
 in a gauze-like, opalescent haze, when the 
 farther paper-panelled door was slid softly 
 back in its groove, and Mousme* entered. 
 
 A quaint little figure with the flush of 
 lawn transferred to her porcelain cheeks 
 ind eyes bright with the early morning
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 129 
 
 air of the scented garden; her elaborate 
 coiffure, with its many pins, a striking 
 contrast to the negligee of her plum- 
 coloured kimono with its sprays of bamboo 
 in gold thread. Against her bare little 
 throat and dimpled shoulders she pressed 
 a wealth of iris and lotus blooms and 
 tender green shoots of the slenderest 
 bamboo, her face peeping out elfish and 
 smiling from the midst. 
 
 " These are for you, Cy-reel," she said, 
 laughing and casting the brilliant blossoms 
 on to the floor in a patch of sunlight at my 
 feet. " Now den what have you for me ? " 
 
 It is difficult to resist Mousm6 when 
 she pulls one's face down to her own 
 smiling one, and throws slender but 
 wonderfully tenacious little arms round 
 one's neck. 
 
 Mousme, since she married, has lost some 
 of the shyness for the "velly much rich 
 Englishman " who had so strange a fancy
 
 130 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 as to marry her right away, and in its 
 place has come the knowledge of certain 
 privileges of her sex (for she knows little 
 as yet of the " advanced " woman), and she 
 exacts them with a pretty persistence which 
 I find charming. 
 
 We went along the passage to the room 
 in which are all the presents. They have 
 been taken out of their case, and piled with 
 masculine breadth of effect upon two low 
 lacquer-and-bamboo settees in a corner 
 near one of the windows. 
 
 " Oh ! Oh ! " exclaimed Mousme, and 
 then she fell down before this wonderful 
 collection of gifts, her tiny hands flutter- 
 ing over them like those of a child un- 
 certain which thing to touch first. 
 
 Irene's shaving tidy, the tin of tobacco 
 sent by Stanmere, Lou's gift of books all 
 these things are brushed aside, and the 
 wonderful pale blue tea-gown is at last 
 taken up. It is absurdly long for her, of
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 131 
 
 course, and as she slipped into it she 
 laughed softly at the comical figure she 
 presented. 
 
 " It is velly nice, I like it. But it must 
 be cut off. You cannot come near me with 
 all this on the floor. 
 
 She glided once or twice across the 
 room, like a big- winged moth, with the soft 
 sound of silk frou-frou on the matting, and 
 then the gown was laid aside, so that she 
 might more easily find the other presents. 
 
 Then the box of fondants was discovered. 
 What rapture ! Smiles stole over her face. 
 Her little fingers trembled when she at 
 last made up her mind to undo the satin 
 ribbon, which, crossing from corner to cor- 
 ner, is tied in a great bow in the centre of 
 the lid. There are wonderful sweets of 
 all sorts, things which Mousme almost 
 fears to taste, and which when once tasted 
 encourage her to further depredations and 
 experiments.
 
 133 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 " Mousme, you'll be ill." 
 
 " No, Cy-reel, not nearly so sweet and 
 ill-producing as teriyaki" 
 
 I laughed at the gentle sophistry and 
 suggested that we should go to breakfast. 
 
 After the meal a huge bullock-cart came 
 along the road which runs at the foot of 
 our sloping garden. It is laden with New 
 Year's gifts to tempt those who have put 
 off the inevitable spending of sen and yen 
 till the last possible moment. 
 
 Mousme drew me along the garden path, 
 past the iris pond, in the shade of which 
 gold-fish are keeping New Year's day on 
 a fly-and-mosquito diet, to the side of the 
 cart. The proprietors in new suits are 
 explaining the merits of their wares, which 
 are cheapened enormously as at Western 
 " sale " times. A light air stirred the paper 
 lanterns with which the cart was decked. 
 
 One represented a huge gold-fish with a 
 gold and vermilion body and fins boldly
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 133 
 
 sketched in black. It took Mousme's fancy. 
 We purchased it, and earned the absurdly 
 exaggerated thanks of the smiling vendors, 
 knowing the while that we did not require 
 it, and that it would be placed with a 
 score of others, hung on their slight bam- 
 boo rods, in the cupboard at the end of 
 the passage. 
 
 Some night, perhaps, unless another 
 lantern comes more easily to hand, we 
 might take it out to guide us on our way 
 down to the clmya at which the best 
 geishas dance. 
 
 During the whole of the morning we 
 were expectant. Before sunset many of 
 Mousme's numerous relations will have 
 called to wish us New Year joys : and my 
 respected, if too effusive, mother-in-law 
 will have once more asked me if I am 
 satisfied with her daughter. 
 
 She even yet seems to think that her 
 daughter is on approval, and liable at any
 
 134 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 time to be returned with liquidated dam- 
 ages in the form of an extra handsome 
 kimono from Nara-Ya's famous store on 
 the Bund. Everyone calls on everyone, 
 and after mid-day we are not long left 
 without visitors. 
 
 Kotmasu turned up in good time. He 
 brought Mousme the tiny dog she has been 
 longing for. A charming present, which 
 she will almost want to wear round her 
 neck with a chain, lest it be lost. 
 
 It was only when our little home almost 
 trembled and our garden seemed to swarm 
 with the incursion of Housing's relatives 
 that I realised how throughly I was 
 married. By the time the sun had com- 
 menced its downward flight into the sea 
 behind the hills, many had arrived, and 
 little moon-faced Aki had taken the usual 
 and seemingly inevitable plunge into the 
 water-lily pond in search of the sprites who 
 are supposed to dwell therein.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 135 
 
 These obsequious relatives by marriage 
 amuse me immensely. They all take so 
 much au serieux. But how truly polite 
 they all are. Even the sampanman (a 
 cousin of whom Mousme" is not quite sure) 
 is a polished gentleman, and the new suit 
 with which he has managed to start the 
 year, with the manners thrown in, gave 
 him quite a distinguished air. I noticed 
 that the box of sweets was reserved by 
 Mousme 1 for those who were drinking tea, 
 suiTounded by many plates and cups the 
 favoured few, mostly girl friends. 
 
 If only I might have believed the charm- 
 ing prevarications of my relatives, how 
 beautiful everything belonging to me 
 must have been. 
 
 At length the last of them disappeared 
 down the road. And the paper lanterns, 
 whose dull white surfaces challenge the 
 moon swinging in the sky above the 
 amethyst hills, swung round the corner.
 
 136 MY JAPANESE WIPE. 
 
 Mousm4 waved her hand sympathetically, 
 and then we sat down together on the 
 veranda to watch the last hours of a New 
 
 Year's Day glide into the aeons of the past. 
 ****** 
 
 ONE day is so very much like another to 
 me in this strange land, where I have the 
 lightest of business duties to perform, few 
 friends other than Kotmasu, and no great 
 desire to gain any more, though I find the 
 natives I know vastly more interesting than 
 the few English who are settled more or less 
 permanently in Nagasaki for business or 
 other purposes. 
 
 Everything has a certain charm 
 Mousme" always but four long years have 
 robbed my surroundings of that subtlest of 
 all interests, novelty. I am eager to test 
 my experiment, which is answering here 
 so admirably, with a new environment. 
 
 "Mousme" in Bond Street." Kotmasu's 
 phrase haunts me with a sinister purpose, 
 but I am not to be daunted easily, for I have
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 137 
 
 my own opinions. Have I not? I ask 
 myself. 
 
 I remember the Frenchman who, with 
 some delicacy, sums up the question of 
 marriage in eveiy clime where any cere- 
 mony is attached to the rite : " Given a 
 woman and one possesses the possibility 
 of great happiness or its exact antithesis," 
 and I am thankful that my experiment so 
 far has resulted well. 
 
 Mousm6 is neither the serpent nor the 
 eel of another French writer's experience, 
 but is always fresh, always charming. She 
 is a graduate in the art of pleasing. She 
 knows nothing further of astronomy than 
 to suspect that the stars are really big dia- 
 monds, nor of mathematics than what gen- 
 erally enables her to make a good bargain for 
 an obi, dress or hairpin. Hers are entirely 
 applied mathematics, and of the simplest 
 kind. All this ignorance is very stupid, 
 no doubt, to you. I can well imagine the
 
 138 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 smile of the Girton girl or " superior per- 
 son " which will reward my confession of 
 Housing's ignorance, but then you are at a 
 disadvantage in short, you do not know 
 Mousme" as I do. She has lately taken 
 to writing me love-letters whilst I am 
 away down in the town, and when she is 
 tired of trying to read what is printed un- 
 derneath the pictures in the papers and 
 magazines queer narrow little strips of 
 letters, folded ever so many times, which 
 she places in her prettiest envelopes, and 
 lays upon my writing-desk ; then hides be- 
 hind a paper screen, or in the next room, 
 to watch me unobserved whilst I read 
 them. 
 
 Of course, she could tell me all that they 
 contain, and often does; but Mousine" is 
 quite a child in some things the blending 
 of childishness with womanhood, which is 
 one of her most delightful traits. 
 
 There are such quaint turns of expres-
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 139 
 
 sion in these rice-paper billets-doux, which 
 by turns bring smiles and tears into my 
 eyes, such naive confessions, such strange 
 lapses into her limited vocabulary of Eng- 
 lish words. 
 
 To-day there is one of those notes on my 
 writing-table, in a shrimp-pink envelope, 
 on which is depicted a dainty little geisha 
 dancing in one corner. There is a rather 
 strong air I cannot call it a wind, or even 
 breeze stirring ; and Mousme, fearful lest 
 the treasury of her love should be blown 
 away, has weighed it down with the bronze 
 frog I use for a paper-weight, which she 
 made me buy as an ornament (!) for my 
 table the other day. 
 
 I take the little letter up, of course, with 
 the knowledge that Housing's eye is upon 
 me from some near retreat, from which she 
 can steal forth silently to kiss me, English 
 fashion ; or startle me with some sudden 
 noise, in imitation of the mice which scam-
 
 140 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 per about in the basement at night, or 
 with a mimicry of the strange han! hanf 
 of the vultures which whirl, screaming 
 hoarsely and as if in complaint, over the 
 water of the harbour below. 
 
 Mousme comes out softly from her hid- 
 ing-place behind the turquoise-blue paper 
 screen in the corner, unaware that two tell- 
 tale glasses, her big one (which she soon 
 made me purchase for her) and my little 
 one, have from their juxtaposition long 
 ago betrayed to me the secret of her where- 
 abouts. 
 
 Two soft white arms, bare to the elbows, 
 encircle my neck suddenly from behind ; a 
 pretty, piquant face appears over my left 
 shoulder, and well, after a time, when we 
 stand up and look at each other, there is a 
 peal of gay, spontaneous laughter. And, 
 behold ! there is a tell-tale patch of white 
 upon my cheek and coat where her face 
 has rested.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 141 
 
 It is several days since we have been 
 anywhere that is, further afield than a 
 flying visit to my mother-in-law down the 
 hill and to-night we are going to the fete 
 at the great temple away up the hillside. 
 I have been to such before, but Mousme" is 
 crazy to go with her real husband ; and as 
 there is certainly no valid objection to urge 
 against her desire, we are going. 
 
 Mousme puts the little shrimp-coloured 
 love-letter in a box on top of the numerous 
 others she has written me during our three 
 months of married life, and then we sit 
 down to a dinner of the usual perplexing 
 dishes. 
 
 We talk gaily enough in Japanese, 
 Mousme describing to me all the delights 
 she is anticipating from the proposed ex- 
 cursion, and telling me all that has occur- 
 red during my two hours' absence. 
 
 What a charming little vis-a-vis she 
 proves as we, seated on our squares of
 
 142 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 spotless matting, pretend to make a good 
 meal off impossible dishes, as to the con- 
 stituents of which, even now, after some 
 years of experience, I am frequently in 
 mysterious doubt! Oka, our cook, is of 
 an inventive turn of mind, and to-day he 
 serves on the tiny blue plates wee potatoes 
 h la inarrons glac&, and cherries in vine- 
 gar ! But Mousme pronounces them a 
 success, and insists on leaning across the 
 elaborate square of magenta silk worked 
 with white cranes fishing, which she has 
 instituted as a tribute to European ideas of 
 a table-cloth, to put the larger of the cher- 
 ries in my mouth on the end of a chop- 
 stick. All this is very frivolous, doubtless ; 
 but very charming. To be anything but 
 gay with such make-believe surroundings, 
 and Mousm4 sitting opposite playful and 
 smiling, would be out of place. I assert 
 this to myself whenever the thought of 
 Lou crosses my mind. I am compelled to
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 143 
 
 do so to lay the ghost of Lou's outraged 
 sense of propriety, for, truth to tell, she is 
 very proper over some things, a somewhat 
 hide-bound devotee of society etiquette 
 with the responsibilities of a rapidly up- 
 growing daughter. 
 
 What a child Mousm6 is! And yet 
 there is an indefinable charm inseparable 
 from womanhood about her. She was 
 pouting just now because the camellia she 
 had stuck in the front of her gown had 
 fallen in a shower of scarlet petals into a 
 tiny cup of tea on her knees. Now she is 
 smiling again, and giving herself a lesson 
 in English. 
 
 " Cy-reel ! Cy-reel ! " She always seems 
 to practise this first ; and then, " I luv yew. 
 I luv yew velly much." This over and 
 over again, till we both burst out laugh- 
 ing, and the scene ends in the usual way. 
 
 At present our life is a dainty comfdie A 
 deux, and is nothing approaching the farce
 
 144 MY JAPANESE WIFE, 
 
 with its underlying tragic note which 
 timorous Kotmasu feared and predicted. 
 
 Soon after sunset we start out Mousme" 
 and I to make our way to the temple. 
 The moon swims up rapidly into the cloud- 
 clear vault of heaven, and floods our 
 scented garden with a pure silver radiance. 
 We have our paper lanterns all the same, 
 although in competition with the strong 
 white moonbeams they look almost trum- 
 pery. 
 
 Our garden, with its narrow paths and 
 tangled vegetation, is full of exquisite per- 
 fumes released by the blossoming flowers, 
 scents wafted under one's nostrils by the 
 faintest breath of air, which causes the 
 full-blown tea-roses to shiver and then 
 shatter in a hail of falling petals. 
 
 As we turn the corner of the path near 
 the largest of our several fountains, we look 
 back (as we always do) at our home. The 
 door-panels of the rooms leading on to the
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 145 
 
 verandah are open, and I can see right into 
 our bed-chamber. On its bracket a little 
 lamp is burning, and near it Mousme has 
 placed a tiny image of Buddha an ivory- 
 god with a fixed smile. She does not pray 
 to it now, however. I am vaguely con- 
 scious that I have ousted the ivory Buddha 
 from its temple. Why Mousme keeps it 
 there I have been as yet unable to discover. 
 How strange it seems to leave the whole 
 side of one's house open after dark ! Ere 
 we step out on to the road through the 
 bamboo wicket with its quaintly chased 
 brass hinges, I take one more look back, 
 and see Oka's wife with her funny little 
 squat figure pass along the verandah on 
 her way to tidy the rooms. 
 
 Mousme is charmingly dressed to-night 
 in a peach-coloured silk gown, so stiff and 
 rich, and an amber-yellow sash. Her hair 
 is done into a marvellous butterfly, and her 
 head is full of half a score of the most
 
 146 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 handsome of her many pins. The moon- 
 light gives a silver sheen to her ebon locks ; 
 and did I not know how black they are, I 
 might have a chill come to my heart be- 
 cause of Mousme's getting grey. 
 
 We make our way as rapidly as we can 
 down into the town. 
 
 Long before we arrive at the commence- 
 ment of the town proper we are made aware 
 that the fete is in full swing by the sounds 
 of gaiety, the blaze of lanterns which is 
 reflected above the town as if there were a 
 conflagration, and the softened, confused 
 roar of the thronging multitudes in the 
 streets. 
 
 We reach the end of the street at last, 
 and Mousme" is almost torn from my arm 
 by the crowd by which we are immediately 
 absorbed. 
 
 Every one is gay and good-humoured. 
 I tread upon some one's heels, but he only 
 smiles, and assures me that iny " honoura-
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 147 
 
 ble feet " have not hurt his humble heel. 
 My toes are trodden on in turn, Mousme 
 laughs, and even I, the injured party, do 
 not remonstrate. Indeed, I almost say, 
 " Gomen navai" as though I were the 
 offender and do murmur politely " It is 
 no matter " that is all I reply to the po- 
 lite speech with which the offender asks 
 pardon. 
 
 Mousme* is used to this, and she pilots 
 me amid this bewildering blaze of ambula- 
 tory lanterns, swaying recklessly on the 
 ends of their quivering sticks. 
 
 The moving crowds of women and girls 
 diffuse a subtle perfume from the flowers 
 they wear in their dresses and hair. 
 Mousm6s in the brilliant colours of their 
 gayest holiday attire jostle one another 
 good-humouredly laughing, thoughtless 
 little souls. The men are seemingly suf- 
 fering from a bad attack of "European 
 fever," as is indicated by the frequent
 
 148 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 presence of the top-bat or " bowler " above 
 their amiable though unbeautiful faces, 
 and the occasional presence of trousers be- 
 neath their skirt-like robes. 
 
 Alas ! just as we near the temple, the 
 pressure of the throng drives us into the 
 proximity of my mother-in-law, and little 
 Aki, who is carrying high above his queer 
 shaven head, with its ' one tuft of hair 
 or rather fringe which is like nothing 
 so much as the traditional chimney-sweep's 
 circular broom a lantern, like the banner 
 in " Excelsior," " with a strange device " 
 a most quaintly hideous imp. 
 
 Mother-in-law is too busy protecting one 
 of my "handsome presents," a ruby-col- 
 oured silken obi, from contamination with 
 the crowd, to notice us. But I quickly 
 perceive that Aki's narrow slots of eyes 
 have spied us out, for the imp-like lantern 
 sways violently upon its stick as he pushes 
 his way through the dense crowd towards 
 us. f 
 
 I
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 149 
 
 We are so hedged in that escape is im- 
 possible even if we wished; but Mousme* 
 has a penchant for this queer little brother 
 with his intelligent monkey-face and ever- 
 present smile. 
 
 She, too, has caught sight of the strug- 
 gling Aki, who at times seems swallowed 
 up in the crowd, as though never to reap- 
 pear. But he does. And we can see him 
 working an eel-like course towards the 
 fluttering banner under which he doubtless 
 noticed we were standing. 
 
 He reaches us at last, and advertises the 
 fact by unconsciously swinging his imp 
 lantern into my face. 
 
 Mousme bursts out laughing, and so do I 
 merriment is so infectious; and in a 
 moment the people near us are laughing too. 
 
 Aki is delighted, and seizes hold of a 
 hand of mine and one of Housing's, and we 
 advance along the street a little further. 
 
 The shops we pass are simply blazing
 
 150 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 with lights. They have stall-like exten- 
 sions, encroaching upon the roadway, all 
 of them piled up with astonishing sweet- 
 meats of brilliant hues, toys, flowers, and 
 hideously grotesque masks. 
 
 Aki is so attracted by the latter that we 
 make scarcely any progress. Mousme, who 
 is getting impatient, makes a brilliant sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 " Cy-reel, buy Aki a mask. He will 
 never cease gazing at them or come along 
 if you don't. And we shall never reach 
 the temple. No one can see my obi and 
 dress here." 
 
 I laugh quietly to myself at this last 
 remark. The woman had popped out un- 
 wittingly. 
 
 I buy my little brother-in-law a most 
 monstrous head. He is in raptures, and 
 Mousme* and I are in convulsions of laughter 
 at the hideous god into which little Aki is 
 at once transformed. We get on famously
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 151 
 
 now, till his acquisitive eyes light upon a 
 pile of crystal trumpets. 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaims Mousine", as she sees 
 him pause, "he must have one." 
 
 It is obvious that queer little Aki's 
 heart is set upon possessing one of these 
 weirdly articulate instruments, so another 
 quarter of a yen changes hands, and Aki 
 adds his quota to the unearthly, gobbling 
 sounds which dozens of these strange 
 instruments produce, blown by other 
 equally lusty-lunged boys. 
 
 The houses we pass by are all thrown 
 open, and decorated exquisitely with 
 flowers and foliage. It is a scene of fairy- 
 like beauty, and Mousm6 at my side, upon 
 whom I have to look down to admire, is a 
 fairy. 
 
 She is getting tired ; Aki is dragging on 
 her arm, and I am glad when the climb up 
 is done, and we are at last at the bottom 
 of the first flight of the temple steps.
 
 152 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 Below us once more, as from our veran- 
 dah (only from a different and almost op- 
 posite point) we see the town and the 
 land-locked bay flooded in a silver haze of 
 moonlight, which fails, however, to make 
 the crimson and golden reflection from the 
 thousands of lanterns less apparent. 
 
 The scene is like nothing that can be 
 imagined in beauty, and all around us ap- 
 pears to be enveloped in a veil of impalpa- 
 ble light. 
 
 We are close to the portico of the tem- 
 ple, and we pass underneath it and enter 
 the courtyard, carried onward by the 
 pressure of the multitude from behind. 
 
 We pass two enormous white-and-blue 
 porcelain lanterns with encircling serpents 
 of mythological type, and then we are in 
 fairyland again. 
 
 Mousm6 heaves a little sigh of delight ; 
 her colour is deepened by the crimson of 
 excitement, and her eyes are dancing like
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 153 
 
 fire-flies. Aki is lost, and we forget all 
 about him. He will be all right. There 
 are scores of other children straying about, 
 and no one seems to take any notice. Be- 
 sides, they mostly wear masks, and blow 
 intermittently upon crystal horns, the 
 noise of which reminds me of the irate 
 gobble-gobble of turkeys engaged in a 
 farmyard fracas. 
 
 "Cy-reel, is England like this?" 
 Mousme asks in an excited whisper. 
 
 "No," I am forced to admit, though 
 foreseeing the inevitable rejoinder. 
 
 " Then I don't think I shall like Eng- 
 land," says Mousme the child. 
 
 "We shall see." 
 
 We make our way to the terrace, bor- 
 dered by tea-houses, now thronged by the 
 beauties and golden youths of Nagasaki 
 and the country round. At every turn 
 we seem to meet some acquaintance of 
 Mousme's, who keeps up a continuous se- 
 ries of bows and nods and smiles.
 
 154 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 The grove of giant camellias, camphor- 
 wood trees, and cryptomerias stretch out 
 like a vast roof, the camellias covered with 
 a wealth of blood-red blossoms which, fall- 
 ing in continuous showers in the vibrating 
 air, form a crimson carpet under the feet. 
 Even the dark recesses are luminous with 
 the flood of light which streams from the 
 lanterns and brilliantly illuminated in- 
 teriors of the tea-houses. We find seats at 
 last. 
 
 In an instant a mousme* with huge pins 
 in her hair, a humble smile, and gaily 
 rouged and whitened cheeks, brings us tiny 
 cups of tea. 
 
 Beyond and below us we can hear noises 
 which tell of the presence of side-shows, 
 wrestlers, mountebanks; and the roar of 
 approving audiences makes Mousme hasten 
 to drink her tea and eat her beans in 
 sugar with the greatest possible speed. 
 
 When she has finished, we make our
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 155 
 
 way along a terrace and take up our posi- 
 tion to form a part of the audience outside 
 a miniature theatre. 
 
 There is not much to see. What there 
 is would scarcely amuse any one less unso- 
 phisticated in the Thespian art than the 
 Japanese. It is something like a shadow- 
 show. Only the horrible puppets which 
 appear and go through almost incompre- 
 hensible antics are realities, which, in truly 
 terrifying masks, cause Mousme what are 
 known as delightful "creeps," and send 
 her hand clutching at my arm. The noises 
 from an orchestra of four or five which ac- 
 company the doings of the characters, some 
 of which are a mixture of man and beast, 
 ghoul-like and given to sudden and un- 
 looked-for appearances and disappearances, 
 are weird and disquieting ; of harmony the 
 musicians know nothing. Their colour 
 tones are all blues, greens, grays, and 
 bilious yellows ; their merits, that they are
 
 156 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 in accord with the impressions of the pup- 
 pets. 
 
 We remain watching these human pup- 
 pets for some time, surrounded by a dense 
 crowd craning their necks, and on tip-toe 
 as each new shadow appears upon the 
 scene. Some ' of the antics of these 
 shadow-like forms are so monstrous that I 
 begin to think that Mousme is getting 
 really frightened, and so I propose moving 
 on to where some clever tumblers, contor- 
 tionists and conjurers are to be seen. 
 
 " No," says Mousm6, " let us go home." 
 
 Then, seeing I do not quite understand 
 her desire, she explains with charming 
 natvetg that she is afraid of bad dreams. 
 
 How queer, little Mousing ! and how 
 childlike, to be sure ! 
 
 Mousme's words have made me notice 
 that the crowd is lessening in density, and 
 the lanterns are going out. Or is it they 
 are paling before the coming dawn ?
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 157 
 
 I look into the face of Mousm, and then 
 into the faces of the people near us. Yes, 
 that is it. The moon is gone down into 
 the sea, and the sun will be climbing up 
 the first steps of another day's journey ere 
 we arrive home. 
 
 We leave the terrace, with its lingering 
 crowds of tired-faced holiday-makers, and 
 fading light of lanterns and tea-houses, and 
 by a short cut gain a mountain-path lead- 
 ing close home. 
 
 The sound of the trumpets is less and 
 less distinct, and that of the ever-chirping 
 cicalas more so, as we wend our way 
 Mousme and I along the narrow, rough, 
 unpaved path in the rapidly growing dawn 
 of a Japanese morning. 
 
 Below us to the left lies the town as yet 
 indistinct in the slowly increasing light, 
 a mysterious mass of shadows and pro- 
 jections which mark the places of streets 
 and roofs of houses. Here and there
 
 158 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 twinkle yellowish red points of light which 
 grow dimmer each moment in the quicken- 
 ing dawn. The harbour stretches a mist- 
 obscured expanse, with gaps here and 
 there like chrysoprases laid in cotton wool. 
 Soon the shipping will become visible, and 
 the mist roll off the face of the tranquil 
 water, like a gauze curtain lifted by un- 
 seen hands. 
 
 The path runs between fields of flowers, 
 and is edged with dewy grass. The per- 
 fume of the blossoms and the keen fresh- 
 ness of the morning air arouse Mousme's 
 almost slumbering senses. Through the 
 indescribable fragrance and glamour of an 
 Eastern dawn we wend our way home- 
 wards slowly and with tired feet. 
 
 The women, in blue cotton garments, 
 are already coming up to work in the fields. 
 Good-looking children accompanying them 
 chase each other across the dew-spangled 
 grass, trampling under foot flowers which 
 would have graced a palace.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 159 
 
 At last we have walked up the little 
 garden path, slippery now with the morn- 
 ing exhalations. Indoors all are asleep. 
 Everywhere is quiet. 
 
 But no matter. When Mousme has 
 drowsily mounted the verandah steps we 
 have only to enter our little house, which 
 looks so lonely and mysterious at this early 
 hour, by pushing aside one of those sliding 
 paper panels; to cross the creaking floor 
 covered with spotlessly clean matting ; and 
 then fall asleep in two minutes on the soft, 
 mosquito-guarded mattress, lulled, if we 
 need a lullaby, by Oka's muffled snores 
 down below.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IT is nearly a month since our night of 
 pleasure at the templeyete of the thousands 
 of lanterns, and I have been in terrible 
 trouble. 
 
 Something has happened to Mousme, 
 and till that catastrophe to me it seemed 
 nothing less I never realized what she 
 was to me. 
 
 It was so sudden. 
 
 I had left her in the morning, bright as 
 the sunshine which forced its way through 
 the bamboo and paper shoji, and, filtering 
 thus, fell in golden, thread-like rays like 
 spun silk upon the floor. The last I saw 
 of her was a tiny figure upon the balcony 
 as I turned the corner of the road, blowing 
 kisses to me with one hand, and waving a 
 huge bunch of crimson lotus in the other,
 
 164 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 flowers we bad just gathered together in 
 the sun-bathed garden. 
 
 And in three or four hours all this was 
 altered, obliterated. 
 
 I climbed up from the town leisurely, 
 taking the shady side of the road, and 
 availing myself to the full of every shadow 
 cast by the trees or by the queer old villas 
 with their mossy roofs and eccentric arch- 
 itecture. If I had but known, how my 
 steps would have hastened ! 
 
 Arrived at the wicket, I cannot see even 
 a flutter of Mousme's dress to-day. She is 
 usually awaiting my return in the shady 
 corner of the verandah with her samisen, 
 or with a pile of books at her side, from 
 which she has been trying to spell out the 
 words in big print. 
 
 I walk up the path, which is flower- 
 bordered, and alive with bees whose hum- 
 ming sounds are like the deeper notes of 
 an ^Eolian harp, and across the garden
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 165 
 
 where dragon-flies flit, iridescent shuttles 
 weaving their colours, blue, green and 
 yellow, into the sunlit air, darting between 
 the little ponds in which gold-fish hide 
 from the sunlight beneath the tranquil 
 floating lotus-leaves. 
 
 I enter the house. Everything is 
 strangely still. 
 
 There is no one in the room in which we 
 usually sit. The blue-and-white vases of 
 Arita porcelain are filled with lotus-blooms, 
 dainty, fantastic in their arrangement, with 
 spiked grasses and sedges. A tiny vase 
 of bronze stands upon my writing-table. 
 As usual, dear little Mousme has placed in 
 it the finest blossoms, and in their rose- 
 hued cups I fancy some of her kisses may 
 lurk Her shoes are standing in a patch 
 of sunlight on the floor. " She cannot 
 have gone out, then," I say to myself. 
 "It is evident that she is not down at 
 mother-in-law's. "
 
 1C6 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 Where is she ? 
 
 I push back one of the panels to enter 
 the next room. Perhaps she is there. 
 
 The room is so dark that I can scarcely 
 see across it ; but in the dimness I can just 
 discern a something stretched upon the 
 floor. 
 
 I step hastily forward. 
 
 Yes, it is Mousme" lying there, with her 
 face, upturned, looking a white, featureless 
 oval in the gloom, her gown elongating her 
 slender figure, and her huge sleeves of blue 
 flowered silk with orange linings spread 
 out like the maimed wings of a brilliant, 
 long-bodied moth. 
 
 I stoop down. 
 
 Is she asleep ? No, but she is terribly 
 still. Is it a coquettish ruse on her part, 
 and will she open her eyes in a minute or 
 two, and burst out laughing in my face, 
 and then pull it down for a shower of 
 kisses from her rosebud mouth ?
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 167 
 
 Half expecting this, I wait an instant, 
 and feel as if I were kneeling beside my 
 own grave. But the fantastic little figure 
 I love so well gives no sign of movement. 
 My alarm increases. I get up, hastily 
 push back one of the sliding paper panels, 
 and let in a flood of sunlight from the 
 garden. 
 
 It streams full on Housing's face ; it 
 seaches out the gold threads in the em- 
 broidery of her gown ; it tells me in an in- 
 stant that there is something seriously 
 wrong. 
 
 There are no bells in this strange little 
 house of mine, so I beat upon the floor 
 with my heel to summon Oka or his wife. 
 
 I wait anxiously, kneeling beside silent 
 little Mousme*. Each second seems to ex- 
 tend itself into an hour. How long it 
 seems that minute or two ere I can hear 
 some one ascending the rickety stairs from 
 the basement. It is Oka's wife who en-
 
 108 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 ters, her eyes still but half unfastened 
 from an interrupted siesta. 
 
 She comes forward to where I am kneel- 
 ing beside Mousme*. 
 
 Unlike women of her class in England, 
 Oka's wife is laconic. 
 
 " Fever," she says, on catching sight of 
 Mousme's face. " Send for the doctor 
 veiy quick ! " She is evidently waiting 
 for me to give my assent to her suggestion, 
 so I nod my head, and she goes away softly 
 across the room. 
 
 A few minutes later I hear one of her 
 numerous progeny go away down the path 
 at a run, and I know the doctor has been 
 sent for. 
 
 Mousme remains unconscious all the 
 time that we are getting her partially un- 
 dressed and on to the mattress. 
 
 Am I to lose her ? 
 
 The bare thought drives the blood away 
 from my heart. I know what Kotmasu
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 169 
 
 would say, for he still disbelieves, or at 
 least pretends to disbelieve, in my mar- 
 riage. 
 
 " There are velly plenty more mousme's." 
 
 " Yes, very well," something inside my 
 mind replies, "but only one Mousme." 
 
 Whilst we wait the coming of Han Sen, 
 the doctor, I am driven almost frantic by 
 the noises which one can never shut out of 
 a Japanese house. The droning hum of 
 the bees at work on the roses outside, the 
 unceasing chirruping whirr of the cicalas, 
 all the sounds of a garden in summer-time, 
 are magnified tenfold because I fear that 
 Mousme" will be disturbed. 
 
 She uncloses her eyes once when the 
 doctor's steps are heard coming up the gar- 
 den-path. But she says nothing, and only 
 takes my large brown hand in her small 
 one. 
 
 I have not much faith in the doctor. 
 His phials are so finikin and toy-like, and
 
 170 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 I have heard something, too, about their 
 drugs, and my memory of their fantastic 
 and extraordinary nature does not tend to 
 reassure me. 
 
 He is a little, oldish man with gimlet 
 eyes in a face full of wrinkles, which seem 
 to serve no other purpose than to disguise 
 his emotions if he has any. He treads 
 softly across the matting floor, with Oka's 
 wife hovering, anxious-faced, in the rear. 
 
 " Madame the most honourable lady has 
 been unwell some time ? " he inquires in a 
 high-pitched key, with an insinuating in- 
 flection on the first word, which many 
 people annoy me with when referring to 
 Mousme". 
 
 "No." 
 
 " No ! " and his eyebrows depart up- 
 ward from overhanging his narrow, beady 
 black eyes. 
 
 " Her illness dates but from an hour or 
 two ago."
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 171 
 
 "Ah, then she will get better, most 
 honourable English Mister," is the reply. 
 And then, whilst I am explaining matters, 
 the doctor's yellow fingers, with their 
 wrinkled, dried-parchment skin, are busy 
 compounding something which smells 
 abominably, and in the efficacy of which I 
 feel I have no faith, notwithstanding his 
 reiterated assurance that tl the most honour- 
 able madame " will speedily recover. 
 
 When he has finished mixing the medi- 
 cine in the little jar-like cup Oka's wife 
 has brought him, he examines his patient 
 veiy carefully with a pair of spectacles 
 thrust up on his forehead, holding Mous- 
 me's hand and counting the pulse-beats, 
 lifting her eyelids and staring into her un- 
 seeing eyes, talking all the while in the 
 high-pitched, squeaky tone which reminds 
 me of the old man who sits at the corner 
 of Nisson Street and writes the illiterate 
 mousmeV love-letters, putting in all sorts
 
 172 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 of dreadful tilings in response to the usual, 
 " You know what to say," of his unimagi- 
 native clients. 
 
 When Dr. Han Sen has finished the ex- 
 amination, and has listened with a stetho- 
 scope of native manufacture to the beating 
 of Housing's heart, to the bird-like flutter- 
 ing of which I am so used in the wakeful 
 stillness of the night, he rises to go. 
 
 Shall he come to see the most honour- 
 able lady to-morrow ? 
 
 A vague idea formulates itself as I look 
 into his unintelligent, vacuous face. 
 
 " No, I will send if I want your services," 
 I hastily explain. 
 
 " No ? " There is a look of almost pro- 
 fessional regret on the wizened face. Do 
 I know my most honourable madame is ill, 
 very ill ? 
 
 " Yes ! I know. I will send if I require 
 the most honourable Dr. Han Sen." 
 
 Then he goes out down the path, no 
 doubt mystified at my eccentric conduct.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 173 
 
 "What a fool I was not to have thought 
 of this before ! 
 
 As soon as Dr. Han Sen has had time to 
 get clear of the garden, I hasten off down 
 into Nagasaki, leaving Mousme, who is 
 evidently sleeping now, in charge of Oka's 
 wife. 
 
 I am going to get the European doctor 
 of the mail-boat to come and see her. 
 
 " Why did not I think of this before ? " 
 I ask myself as I hasten over the roughly 
 paved roadway down the hill-side towards 
 the harbour. Ah ! why, indeed, not ? 
 
 Mousme was very ill, and at one time I 
 watched beside her day and night, fearing 
 every hour, nay, almost every moment, lest 
 the frail thread of life should be snapped, 
 and the sun of my happiness go down with 
 that of her life. 
 
 My friend M'Phail, the cheery doctor of 
 the mail-boat, was most untiring in his 
 attendance ; and at last I think professional
 
 174 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 interest in the case was replaced by a deep 
 and friendly one. Oka's wife, who has 
 seen so many cases of fever, and so many 
 lives allowed to slip through the native 
 practitioners' fingers, is unceasing in her 
 praises of the ship's doctor, whose skill and 
 resourcefulness seem to her simple mind 
 nothing short of miraculous. Indeed, she 
 almost forgets to give the family god, be- 
 fore whose impassive figure a light has 
 been kept burning night and day during 
 her mistress's illness, any credit for Mous- 
 me's wonderful recovery. 
 
 However, when she remembers it, she 
 in penitence places additional offerings of 
 fruit and flowers on the little shelf on 
 which the image stands, and when I go 
 down to give some order to Oka, I see her 
 prostrated, in the comparative gloom of 
 their basement bed-chamber, pouring out 
 her supplications, whilst the scent of burnt 
 incense pervades the house more than ever.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 175 
 
 When she hears me she comes out, half 
 fearing lest I should treat her orisons with 
 ridicule. 
 
 " Him hear," she says, pointing and nod- 
 ding in the direction where the idol sits 
 solemnly, in a halo of yellow light from 
 the little earthen-ware lamp. " Missus " 
 she has mastered the word, and uses it 
 with infinite care " velly much better." 
 
 " Yes," I reply. 
 
 And who knows, Oka's wife, perhaps 
 your prayers offered in good faith have 
 reached ears that are not deaf, and have 
 brought an answer from " the God of the 
 English sir," I say to myself.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MOUSM is better. 
 
 At last, after weary and anxious days of 
 waiting and watching, the crisis is past. 
 From that mysterious land, whose borders 
 so often touch ours in sleep and illness, in 
 which Mousme had almost set foot, my 
 little wife has returned. A frail ghost of 
 her former bright self. One who looks as 
 though she had seen visions. 
 
 She seems more fairy-like than ever, sit- 
 ting out under the verandah, wrapped up 
 in an elaborate dressing-gown of silver- 
 grey silk with a delicate rose-pink lining. 
 She doesn't look a whit older Japanese 
 women never appear so till they are quite 
 old only more like some toy woman 
 taken bodily from off a screen or jar dec-
 
 180 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 orated by an artist drawing his inspiration 
 from models of the highest types. 
 
 There seems something almost unreal in 
 the slight figure in its quaint Eastern 
 dress, and the dainty ways that are return- 
 ing to her one by one with the strength 
 which comes back so slowly. 
 
 Oka's wife is delighted. She is very 
 fond of the little mistress, who is so gay 
 and childlike and amiable. I shall be 
 sorry when the time comes for us to leave 
 old Oka, with his ugly, amiable, yellow 
 face, and his wife, who is, as are many of 
 the lower-class women, really more than 
 passably good-looking, though verging 
 upon forty. 
 
 We sit out almost all day long; and 
 when I am obliged to leave Mousme" to 
 attend to business in the town, Oka's wife 
 sits within call, and Mousme looks at the 
 pictures in the illustrated papers and mag- 
 azines Lou has from time to time sent me ;
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 181 
 
 or pores over a tattered copy of a rudi- 
 mentary English spelling-book and gram- 
 mar combined, which Chen Yo, the pub- 
 lisher of the principal paper, put aside for 
 me as a great curiosity which he had 
 bought one day. 
 
 Mousme is learning English well. Her 
 accent is still peculiar, of course, though 
 her vocabulary is greatly extended. I talk 
 to her as much as I can, for soon English 
 will be the only language she will hear. 
 
 These are ever- to-be-remembered days, 
 spent in my Japanese home overlooking 
 the wonderful garden, full of brilliance of 
 flower, earth, life and sky. I smoke, and 
 Mousm6 plays her guitar ; and she sings in 
 a voice into which love and patience have 
 translated greater harmony and sweetness 
 than any other woman's voice that I have 
 heard during the last four years 
 
 " What shall I sing to thee, my love ? 
 In the garden where the moonbeams play,
 
 182 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 And pipe the nightingale and dove, 
 And plash the fountain's silver spray. 
 
 "What shall I bring to thee, my own ? 
 Visions of heaven's mansions fair ; 
 Never had king a truer throne 
 Than my heart's casket rich and rare." 
 
 " Sing on, little Mousme ; there are 
 other verses of your little love-song," I 
 say. 
 
 But she is tired, and, unconsciously like 
 a European prima donna, only sings the 
 last two lines over again 
 
 " Never had king a truer throne 
 Than my heart's casket rich and rare." 
 
 "True, Mousme, true," I say, half to 
 myself, as the song loses itself in the air. 
 But she catches the words, and smiles. 
 
 The wet season is coming on, alas ! be- 
 fore I can leave, and our evenings beneath 
 the verandah will be less frequent. It is 
 not nearly so pleasant indoors, but the
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 183 
 
 damp air is bad for Mousme. So we play 
 Japanese draughts, and talk of England. 
 
 Sometimes Kotmasu comes in. He is 
 convinced at last of the bona-fides of my 
 marriage, and is as profuse in his apologies 
 for ever having doubted the success of my 
 experiment, as he was with his lugubrious 
 predictions that it would never succeed. 
 
 We are always glad to see him; for 
 since Mousm6's illness I have been into 
 the tea-houses, and even the town it- 
 self, very little. We hear gossip from my 
 queer mother-in-law, but it is usually only 
 a chronique scandaleuse of the doings of the 
 geishas, of her friends, and last, though 
 by no means least, of her enemies, half of 
 whom I do not even know by name. 
 
 Kotmasu, on the other hand, has always 
 some scrap of more or less reliable Euro- 
 pean news, which, if it does nothing else, 
 serves as a peg on which to hang a remi- 
 niscence, or an echo to awaken old memor- 
 ies of Western men and things.
 
 184 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 The evenings we spend together are far 
 from being uninteresting; and Mousme", 
 who has picked up the art of conversation 
 wonderfully, is delighted to intrude her 
 quaint ideas upon us. She is burning with 
 curiosity concerning the strange country 
 called England, which Kotmasu, willing 
 enough to shine even in the eyes of a mar- 
 ried woman, and she my wife, pretends he 
 knows so well. 
 
 He is really very funny in his descrip- 
 tions sometimes. In a sense they are fairly 
 correct ; but they are, just like all Japan- 
 ese pictures, lacking in the most ele- 
 mentary perspective. It is not because 
 his perceptive faculties are lacking, but 
 only that they follow the national groove, 
 the worship of the minute to the exclusion 
 of broader effects. 
 
 Mousme", no doubt with a desire to be in 
 the possession of two opinions, addresses a 
 multitude of questions to him when, as is
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 185 
 
 the case to-night, he is spending the even- 
 ing with us. 
 
 " What do the women wear ? How do 
 they dress? Are their obis as handsome 
 as mine ? " and so on. 
 
 Kotmasu endeavors to describe the 
 attire of my fellow-countrymen, blunder- 
 ing magnificently over its hidden intri- 
 cacies. 
 
 " It is dull, very dull indeed," he 
 explains, with an apologetic glance in my 
 direction, as if fearful that I should seek 
 to upset his statement. "There are no 
 colours worn at least," he hastens to add, 
 with another glance over in my direction 
 through the tiny cloud of bluish-grey 
 smoke his absurd tobacco-pipe permits 
 him to eject, " not colours like ours. Not 
 like you are wearing, Mousme"." 
 
 I laugh to myself, partially at the per- 
 plexed expression on Mousme's face, and 
 partially at the idea of her promenading
 
 186 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 in England in all the glory of a canary- 
 coloured obi, plum-coloured gown em- 
 broidered in gold thread, and a bifurcated 
 garment of ivory satin. 
 
 " The women wear no obis" continues 
 Kotmasu, complacently. 
 
 " No obis I " ejaculates Mousme", evi- 
 dently incredulous. 
 
 " No. Sometimes the children do." 
 
 " It is velly stlange," says Mousme, " and 
 they not look velly large here. See ! " she 
 continues, placing her tiny hands as 
 though to span her waist. " What do they 
 wear, then ? " 
 
 Kotmasu is launched forthwith into a 
 veritable catalogue, the garments com- 
 prised in which must be individually 
 explained for Mousm6's enlightenment. 
 Kotmasu, plunging innocently into the 
 sea of impropriety, at last succeeds in satis- 
 fying her curiosity. 
 
 As we rise and step out upon the veran-
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 187 
 
 dah to get a breath of cooler air, she 
 comes close to me, and taking my hand in 
 her pretty I-wish-to-be-protected way, 
 whispers in Japanese, " How strange it 
 will be ! Cy-reel, I am a little frightened ; 
 I feel like the other night when I was 
 awoke by the nidzoumi scampering across 
 the floor, and squeak, squeaking in the 
 walls." 
 
 Mousme" is like her Western sisters in 
 her fear of mice. 
 
 " But I shall be there, Mousme"," I 
 reply, as she squeezes my hand. 
 
 " Yes, Cy-reel ; " then with a coquettish 
 smile, which I can see ere we pass out into 
 the gloom of the verandah, " perhaps, per- 
 haps it may be all right." 
 
 It had been raining. Such torrents of 
 rain! Kotmasu had come up to see us 
 through it all. A queer figure in an out- 
 of-date English mackintosh, the rubber as 
 well as the style of which, he had ad-
 
 388 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 mitted under pressure of my chaff, had 
 perished, and a wonderful umbrella-like 
 hat of huge diameter. 
 
 Down all the mountain-paths, and the 
 steep roads leading into the town, the 
 miniature torrents ran, as if they must 
 sweep away the very foundations of the 
 frail, queer-looking houses. 
 
 The harbour was blotted out, the town 
 obscured by the vast grey masses of cloud, 
 which, topping the hills they hid, seemed 
 to fall down their sides into the hollow of 
 the town. 
 
 Mousme and I, till Kotmasu came, had 
 watched the scene from the verandah, 
 waiting for the rifts in the watery veil 
 which, sure to come sooner or later, would 
 give us exquisite peeps of indescribable 
 loveliness. 
 
 Now all three of us are standing there 
 in all the silver glorv of Japanese moon- 
 light.
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 180 
 
 Kotmasu even is silent, and makes no 
 further attempt to explain English ways 
 and customs to Mousme". 
 
 The hillside, with its drenched foliage 
 and grassy slopes, is like a sheet of frosted 
 silver. In the foreground lies our garden 
 set thick with Nature's flashing, gem-like 
 rain-drops. The harbour can be seen 
 again, as usual, an immense black pearl of 
 irregular shape, with here and there a 
 streak of moonlight pencilled on its tran- 
 quil surface. The cemeteries and tea-fields 
 stretched below us to the right and left 
 are but darker oxidised silver ; the temples 
 and tea-houses but embossed figures. 
 
 Down quite below us is the still darker 
 patch of colouring, immense, far-spreading, 
 which marks the town ; the lights and the 
 gleam of lanterns look in the damp air 
 like angry eyes seen in tears. 
 
 Few sounds reach us, and even the 
 cicala's chirp is far less noisy than usual.
 
 190 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 Mousme still has hold of my hand, and I 
 can see her face glancing upward now and 
 then. 
 
 We might have remained there on the 
 verandah with the light of the room be- 
 hind us streaming out, a warm yellow 
 patch, for another hour or two, so im- 
 pressive was the view, and the silence 
 which all three of us seemed so reluctant 
 to break. But suddenly we are startled 
 by the Boom I Boom m m ! of the im- 
 mense gong belonging to the Shinto 
 monastery far below us down the moun- 
 tain side. Such a noise! awe-inspiring, 
 terrific (if there be tone colours, then red, 
 purple and orange), invading every hill- 
 side cranny, seeming positively to engulf 
 us in its ever- widening air circles of sound. 
 
 " It has spoiled all," whispers Mousme, 
 heaving a sigh. 
 
 "Yes, little Mousine". See, it has even 
 frightened the moonbeams."
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 191 
 
 A dense cloud drags its edge across the 
 face of the moon, and now all except the 
 lights of the town and the few twinkling, 
 feeble lamps of the ships out in the har- 
 bour, which appear brighter suddenly for 
 lack of their celestial rival is dark. 
 
 Kotmasu knocks the ashes out of his 
 tiny pipe bowl with a sharp, metallic tap 
 upon the bamboo verandah rail, and says : 
 
 " There will be another storm soon. I 
 must be going." 
 
 He says good-night somewhat reluc- 
 tantly after all ; and when we have 
 watched him go away down the path, over 
 the edges of which our poor rain-beaten 
 tea-roses are straggling, with his big hat, 
 paper umbrella on which a grinning and 
 intelligent-looking red dragon is fearlessly 
 daubed, and an orange paper lantern with 
 bars and lozenges of vermilion, which the 
 rising wind threatens every moment to 
 overturn or extinguish, we go in.
 
 192 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 Oka's wife is playing her samisen in the 
 basement, its twanging strains ascending to 
 us through the thin floor. She is singing 
 now in a shrill, squeaky voice, perhaps to 
 amuse Oka, or to lull one of the numerous 
 little Okas to sleep. The song goes on to 
 some accompaniment which is too irregular 
 to be anything save an improvisation, all 
 the time Mousme" is taking a few of the 
 most valuable and elaborate pins out of her 
 hair, preparatory to sleep. My toilet is a 
 simple one compared to that of Mousme, 
 which indeed is so elaborate that I have 
 frequently caught myself idly wondering 
 why she ever gets up or goes to bed to go 
 through such a process. There are her 
 garments to be carefully stowed away in 
 her little cupboards, curiously contrived be- 
 hind the panelling. The proper folding of 
 her obi is in itself a matter of some consider- 
 able importance, to judge from the serious, 
 rapt expression of her face. Then there
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 193 
 
 are the wonderful pins with which her 
 pretty head, set so well on her sloping 
 shoulders, is adorned. 
 
 There is no light to put out, because I 
 always keep the lamp with its glowworm 
 flame burning throughout the night. It 
 permits, for one thing, Mousnie properly 
 to arrange her head in the little hollow of 
 her camphor- wood pillow; for another, it 
 allows me to watch her fall asleep, and 
 the antics of the moths outside our slate- 
 blue gauze mosquito curtain when I can- 
 not sleep myself. 
 
 To-night, however, I am lulled to rest 
 by the sheer monotony of Oka's wife's 
 song ; and the last thing I remember is the 
 twang, twing, twang of her samisen, which 
 is quite loud now, I have my ear so close 
 to the floor.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THIS morning we have had a visit from 
 mother-in-law and the little monkey of an 
 Aki. It appears that Kotmasu has told 
 her and what is more, has made her at 
 last believe that we are really going away 
 to England. 
 
 Mother-in-law is unlearned except in the 
 housekeeper's art, and this conveys noth- 
 ing very definite as regards locality to her 
 mind. England, Europe even, is as in- 
 definite a place as the Shinto heaven. 
 Somewhere out beyond the harbour, which 
 she can see from our verandah, even be- 
 yond green-wooded Hoyaki and Cape 
 Nomo, but that is all she knows or can im- 
 agine. We are going away, therefore she 
 will not be the further recipient of the
 
 198 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 " handsome presents " in which her soul 
 delights. I quite comprehend that this is 
 the direction her thoughts will take, and it 
 is really to assure herself that Kotmasu's 
 statement is absolutely true that she has 
 toiled up the hillside in the hot sun so 
 early in the day. 
 
 Why she has brought Aki to the family 
 council I cannot conceive; but Aki has 
 brought a tortoise about the size of a silver 
 dollar, with which he contentedly plays in 
 the sun on the verandah, where I can see 
 his funny little shaven head, with its tufts 
 of black hair, bobbing about, above the 
 edge of the lower half of our sliding-panel 
 window as we talk. No doubt he has 
 brought some fantastically shaped and gor- 
 geously coloured doughtoy out from the 
 folds of his outer garment to keep the 
 tortoise company. 
 
 " So you are going away ? " says mother- 
 in-law in Japanese, Housing's efforts to
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 199 
 
 teach her even a few words of English 
 having proved quite unavailing. 
 
 "Yes," I reply ; " we are going to Eng- 
 land soon." 
 
 I somehow feel as though I were com- 
 mitting a robbery ; and her next remark 
 sei-ves rather to deepen my disquietude. 
 
 "You are going to take my daughter 
 with you, honourable sir ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I thought you would only require her 
 whilst you remained in Nagasaki." 
 
 I have never yet succeeded in making 
 my mother-in-law understand the perma- 
 nency of my attachment, and I do not hope 
 to accomplish the feat now ; but I explain, 
 hinting that there will be " handsome 
 presents " to all the members of her (for 
 me inconveniently large) household when 
 we take our departure. 
 
 This, if nothing else, she comprehends; 
 and she offers no further objection to Mous- 
 me^s accompanying me.
 
 200 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 In many respects I like this queer little 
 painted doll of a mother-in-law, who has 
 really wonderfully beautiful brown hair, 
 and a childish way and smile, notwith- 
 standing her seven children, and underlying 
 native rapacity on a small and engagingly 
 frank scale. So I suggest that Mousm6 
 and I shall give a farewell entertainment 
 to my Japanese relations, and this idea 
 meets with her most cordial approval. 
 
 I smile to myself at having mollified her 
 so easily, and reflect that, as Kotmasu 
 once philosophically remarked, marriage 
 was cheaper after all, and I should have 
 no cash payment to make for permission to 
 take Mousme" with me. 
 
 Mother-in-law is quite content now, and 
 as firmly convinced as ever that I am a 
 "velly much rich honourable English sir," 
 for thus Oka always describes me. She 
 insists upon prostrating herself most out- 
 rageously, to the disarrangement of her obi,
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 201 
 
 on the end of which she unfortunately 
 steps when she takes her leave, which she 
 does as soon as she is satisfied that it is 
 really my intention to ask all my relations 
 to a farewell /ete. 
 
 Mousme is, I fancy, a little alarmed at 
 the prospect; for as soon as her mother 
 has gone with Aki weeping at her side, 
 and apparently refusing to be comforted 
 by his mother's more or less specious prom- 
 ises, because of the disappearance of his 
 tortoise, which has doubtless fallen down 
 amongst Oka's progeny through a crack in 
 the verandah floor, she exclaims in an awe- 
 struck voice : 
 
 " Cy-reel, do you know how many there 
 are ? " 
 
 " No," I am forced to admit. 
 
 " They are as numerous as the bees in 
 the garden." 
 
 " Very well," I answer resignedly; " we 
 must do our best."
 
 202 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 " They are very strange, some of them, 
 very strange persons indeed," she con- 
 tinues, with a look of surprise that I am 
 not frightened. 
 
 " The more bees, the greater the honey," 
 I reply, quoting a maxim that may be hers, 
 or her mother's, or one of national adoption. 
 
 Her little face perhaps she is dreading 
 all the fuss and bother and pain of taking 
 leave of people she may care for becomes 
 more sober than ever. 
 
 " But there is a barber ! " 
 
 I exhibit no surprise. 
 
 She takes my hand to prepare me for 
 the last and greatest shock of all. 
 
 " Cy-reel, I am afraid that there may be 
 a sampan boy." 
 
 This is coming down in the world with 
 a vengeance. But what are the odds? 
 So I reassure her. 
 
 "Mother is sure to let it be known. 
 Perhaps, even, people who are not re-
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 203 
 
 lations may come, people I should not care 
 to know," resumed Mousme, drawing her- 
 self up, and looking ridiculously funny in 
 her sudden affectation of pride and after 
 the sampan man, too ! 
 
 I shall have a queer party, it is certain. 
 Never mind. Only, I must caution 
 Mousme not to mention her uncle the 
 barber to Lou when we get to England, 
 nor refer even casually to the brother-in- 
 law who earns a living as a sampan rower. 
 
 During the next few days Mousme" is 
 very busy. She knows, if I do not, what 
 a superior and lavish entertainment will be 
 expected of the " very much rich English 
 sir; " men and women from the town seem 
 to be clicking our wicket gate after them 
 all day long, and walking up the path to 
 the house interminably. 
 
 Mousme has ordered everything which 
 can in any way assist in confirming their 
 belief in my importance and wealth. The
 
 204 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 puces de resistance of the feast are differ- 
 ent sorts of Huntley and Palmer's biscuits. 
 I know well how little Aki's eyes will 
 gleam at the mere sight of the sugared 
 ones. 
 
 These biscuits, strange to say, will 
 stamp the entertainment as one of super- 
 ior character. They are, of course, very 
 dear, and Mousm6 knows they will be duly 
 appreciated. 
 
 She tells me in an awed voice that her 
 numerous relatives will come early and de- 
 part late. 
 
 " Will, perhaps, not go until all these 
 wonderful biscuits have disappeared." 
 
 I smilingly pretend to be very terrified. 
 * * * * * * 
 
 We have entertained our vast collection 
 of relatives ; and possibly more than one 
 stranger unawares. 
 
 What a quaint conglomeration they 
 proved ! How they all could be related
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 205 
 
 still puzzles me ; but related undoubtedly 
 most of them were, from " gilded youths " 
 (some of Mousme^s numerous cousins-in- 
 law) in their bowler hats and other pseudo- 
 European garments, with the silly faces of 
 idlers, to the much-feared sampan rower, 
 who proved quite a gentleman in manners. 
 
 Mousing and I received them, and lis- 
 tened to their profuse compliments, whilst 
 I, at least, was inwardly amused at their 
 salutations and kow-towing, performed 
 even by the ladies on all-fours. 
 
 Oka and his wife hand round tiny cups 
 of tea, equally minute plates of candied 
 beans, plums in sugar, and cherries in vin- 
 egar ; and as our guests' tastes are satis- 
 fied, they pass out into the garden, gay 
 with lanterns, and full of music performed 
 by some strolling samisen players whose 
 
 services I secured. 
 
 These really play well. If only they 
 would not sing !
 
 206 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 My numerous relatives are in no hurry 
 to go. But at length, quite late, the last 
 family has left us, with their lanterns in 
 their hands and reiterated good wishes 
 and compliments on their lips ; and the 
 garden is again silent save for the chirrup- 
 ing cicalas, who, like the poor, are indeed 
 always with us, the splash of the fountains, 
 and the hoarse, sepulchral croak, croak of 
 awakened frogs. 
 
 We linger, Mousme and I, a little while 
 in the garden, which at the end of the 
 month we shall give over into other hands, 
 and then we go in, and Mousme* smokes a 
 little pipe ere retiring to rest. It took me 
 some time to get accustomed to the habit, 
 which seems to afford her such-unqualified 
 delight, but now I am resigned. The 
 tobacco is so mild, and the little silver 
 pipe with its thimble-sized bowl looks so 
 toy-like and innocent; and now I find, 
 from the papers and magazines Lou sends
 
 MY JAPANESE WI1 K. 207 
 
 me, that it is becoming quite the fashion 
 for women and girls in England to smoke 
 mild and scented cigarettes sub rosa. 
 
 Mousine knocks out the ashes from her 
 pipe on the edge of her little ember bowl, 
 with a metallic pin, pin, pan, and then, 
 taking off her day garment of plum-col- 
 oured brocade, slips into a dressing-gown 
 robe of blue linen, with wide sleeves and 
 an obi of powder-blue muslin, which she 
 knots in the inevitable exaggerated butter- 
 fly bow round her supple waist. 
 
 I shall, after all, be sorry to leave this 
 strange Eastern home of mine, with its 
 queer noises at the dead of night, and its 
 fragrant garden, the sweet perfume from, 
 which drifts in and even penetrates 
 through our blue mosquito-curtain of stout 
 gauze, when we leave, as we frequently do, 
 the panels of our outer wall pushed back 
 for air. 
 
 Then there is the trouble of packing ;
 
 208 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 the bother of going through, all the letters 
 and papers which I at first, when home- 
 sick, commenced to keep because they 
 came from home, and afterwards because 
 I was too indolent to destroy them. All 
 this must be done now, however; must 
 indeed be begun to-morrow. There are 
 Mousmd's belongings, too, which she is 
 already packing in her mind's eye in ridic- 
 ulous little lacquer boxes, which would be 
 battered into matchwood ere they were 
 stowed in the hold. 
 
 I lie awake for some time thinking over 
 all this, and watching the big night-moths 
 come in through the open panel of the 
 window, and then flutter round the idol's 
 head for a moment ere singeing their poor 
 soft wings at the flame of the lamp burn- 
 ing before its placid features. Some of 
 them are so big that they make quite an 
 appreciable noise on the white matting 
 floor when they fall headlong on to it. I 
 fall asleep watching
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 209 
 
 " the deadly gyrations of the poor fascinated 
 things, on suicide intent," 
 
 and dream that I am ] mi-sued by huge 
 monsters of moths with heads like the aw- 
 ful masks I see every day in the curio shops. 
 And I frighten little Mousnie nearly out 
 of her wits, just as it is getting light, by 
 my frantic attempts to escape from my 
 dream-bred horrors, and the environment 
 of the mosquito-curtain. 
 
 When I am fully awake we sit bolt up- 
 right on our mattress bed, and laugh just 
 like children; I because Mousine", with 
 face screwed up in half -laughter, half-tears, 
 looks so comical with her eyes blinking at 
 the light; and she because it is such n 
 relief for her to find that " Cy-reel is not 
 gone mad after all." 
 
 Mousme and I spent the first part of the 
 day shopping, buying Japanese curios and 
 native silks and embroideries for those at 
 home, a very expensive cabi in- 1 with \vhoK>
 
 210 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 nests of tiny drawers for Lou frankly, to 
 propitiate her and European articles 
 when and where we could get them for 
 the " handsome presents " of which my 
 mother-in-law and Mousme's numerous 
 brothers and sisters are so fond. 
 
 Mousme's dress is an ideal one for such 
 an amusement as shopping. It is simply 
 astounding how much she can stow away 
 mysteriously in the many pockets of her 
 wide sleeves aloue. 
 
 Down at Ako San's, the jeweller, near 
 the quay, whose shop is a general depot 
 for things European, she packs away, I 
 can scarce conceive where, half the numer- 
 ous little purchases we make. I take thy 
 rest; and then loaded, both of us, arms, 
 pockets and all, we slowly climb the hill 
 to our home, which is already partially 
 dismantled in view of our departure. 
 
 It has that terrible, painful vacancy of 
 a house half-deserted. It seems no lonirer
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 211 
 
 to belong to us, as though the ghosts of 
 possible future tenants already possessed 
 it. Poor tiny house, which will probably 
 know Mousine 's laugh no more ! 
 
 Whilst Mousine is wrapping up our 
 presents in soft, silky textured rice-paper 
 ready for their recipients, I get together 
 some of my things. 
 
 Alas ! when I come to sort my clothing, 
 I am made painfully aware that when I 
 land in England I shall be shabby and 
 out-of-date. 
 
 There is a whole pile of European cloth- 
 ing on the floor near my writing-table, the 
 sunlight cruelly exposing all its shabbi- 
 uesses ; but little of it will be of use. I 
 shall give some of the best of the garments 
 remaining when I have selected mine, to 
 Mousine 's two elder brothel's. They will 
 be delighted even if the things don't fit. 
 They possess minds happily un vexed by 
 such momentous questions as
 
 2: 2 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 the knees " and " a bad fit about the 
 back and shoulders." Happy Japanese 
 mashers ! 
 
 At last I have persuaded Mousme that 
 her toy trunks and lacquer boxes are no 
 use for travelling to England. She has 
 never had anything else, and can scarcely 
 understand why they will not do. 
 
 I have bought her, through the kind 
 agency of Kotmasu (who is up with us 
 nearly all clay long, now that we are going 
 to leave so soon), a big trunk a veritable 
 Saratoga, I fondly believe which had be- 
 longed to a deceased lady missionary. Into 
 this trunk, with infinite care, Mousme is 
 placing all her little belongings, packed for 
 double security in the lacquer boxes, with 
 storks, frogs and fishes decorating them, 
 which I had condemned. 
 
 Really, Mousme has quite a respectable 
 amount of luggage. 
 
 This will be something in her favour at
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 213 
 
 any rate in sister Lou's eyes. What a 
 gorgeous little faiiy she will look in all her 
 fantastic finery ! 
 
 A possible new owner of the house has 
 been here this morning ; and although he 
 was terribly polite and ridiculous in his 
 lengthy-phrased humility and repeated 
 prostrations, he did not succeed in dispel- 
 ling the impression all possible new owners 
 seem to create, namely, that the old owner 
 is an intruder whose presence is only by suf- 
 ferance, though his lease may not have 
 actually expired. This attitude of this 
 one the man about to take possession is 
 a bit of human nature ; the same, I found, 
 in Japan as elsewhere. 
 ' We finish our packing at sunset. 
 
 Nothing now remains visible in our 
 
 O 
 
 bare-stripped home except the things we 
 retain for our use, which will be packed in 
 confusion at the moment of departure. 
 We fully intended to go down to the
 
 214 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 great tea-Louse to-night for the last time ; 
 but although we both say we are too tired, 
 we are iu truth both aware that we have 
 no heart for mixing with the merry throng, 
 or for watching the geishas dancing. So 
 we go to rest. 
 
 " Our last night here," as Mousnie says, 
 with a little choked sob. Everything is 
 now described as "last." 
 
 It is terribly melancholy. 
 
 In the morning we go round the garden, 
 and Mousnie gathers a posy of the choicest 
 flowers, pink-cupped lotus, gardenias and 
 roses ; she buries her face in it to hide the 
 tears I know are falling in salt dew upon 
 the fragrant blossoms. Then we feed the 
 gold-fish, and watch them poke their red- 
 gold heads just above the surface, making 
 rippling circles which widen and rock the 
 lily-leaves and lotus blossoms. And whilst 
 we are doing all this in the sunlit garden of 
 our late home, we can hear Oka's deep, gruff
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE, 215 
 
 voice giving directions to the men who, 
 with dilapidated rikishas now turned into 
 hand-trucks, are loading up our luggage to 
 take it down to the quay and on board the 
 steamer. 
 
 " That is the last," we hear Oka say in 
 jmiff tones ; " mind that the honourable 
 
 O ' 
 
 English sir's effects are not damaged." 
 
 " Yes, that is the last," says one of the 
 porters. 
 
 " This is the last," says Mousme, open- 
 ing her hand over the gold-fish pond. 
 
 We go up the path to the house in si- 
 lence ; look sorrowfully into each of the 
 bare, empty rooms ; take leave of Oka, 
 and Oka's wife, who is in tears ; press a 
 shining new yen into each of the innumer- 
 able children's hands, even into that of the 
 brown baby in Oka's wife's arms, whose 
 tiny fist is not large enough to hold the 
 shining silver, in which it sees only a new 
 plaything; and then walk away out of the
 
 216 MY JAPANESE \VIFE. 
 
 garden oi sweet flowers to follow our por- 
 ters with the luggage. 
 
 Next morning we are to sail soon after 
 sunrise, and we get up to see the last of 
 Nagasaki and our home, now a mere match- 
 box-looking villa (when seen from the deck 
 of our steamer down here in the harbour) 
 perched high up on the hillside, in 
 company with scores of other similar 
 abodes. 
 
 As we drift out from our moorings in 
 mid-harbour, we catch sight of it for the 
 last time, and Mousm through her tears 
 kisses her fingers to it. 
 
 We wave our hands and handkerchiefs 
 to those on shore, to Kotmasu, a tiny figure 
 on the quay, and to the men who have con- 
 gregated in their sampans, like a flock of 
 water-fowl, to see the great jokisen off. 
 
 Then we pass through the narrow neck 
 of the harbour, with the towering greeu 
 slopes of the hilld seeming almost about to
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 217 
 
 fall on top of us, past Hoyaki, out into the 
 ocean beyond. 
 
 Mousme, who stands by my side all the 
 time, her hand clutching my arm, gives a 
 shuddering little sob. 
 
 Who can blame her ? 
 
 With every throb of the engines, every 
 heave of the huge vessel to the ocean swell, 
 we are carried farther and farther into 
 the for her unknown. 
 
 And it is only the unknown which is 
 terrible.
 

 
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