CHAPTER XXXVI

“THEY FEEL THE MERCY OF THE SUN”

(GUMMA, KANAGAWA AND CHIBA)

I find the consolation of life in things with which Governments cannot interfere, in the light and beauty the earth puts forth for her children.  If the universe has any meaning, it exists for the purposes of soul.—­AE

One December night there walked into my house a professor of agricultural politics, clad in tweeds and an overcoat, and with him a man who wore only a cotton kimono and a single under-garment.  The sunburnt forehead of this man showed that he was not in the habit of wearing a hat.  There is a smiling Japanese face which to many foreigners is merely irritating.  It is not less irritating when, as often happens, it displays bad teeth ostentatiously gold-stopped.  This man’s smile was sincere and he had beautiful teeth.  His hands were nervous and thin, his bearing was natural and his voice gentle.  Here, evidently, was an altruist, perhaps a zealot, probably a celibate.  He was introduced as a rural religionist from Gumma prefecture set on reforming his countrymen.  It is important to know the strength of the reforming power which Japan is itself generating:  here was a man who for eight years had lived a life of poverty in remote regions and had shaped his life by three heroes, “St. Francis, Tolstoy and Kropotkin.”  He believed that the way to influence people was “to work with them.”  He lived on his dole as a junior teacher in an elementary school.  His food, which he cooked himself, was chiefly rice and miso.  He had been a vegetarian for ten years.  He was twenty-nine.

He said that as far as the people of his village—­largely peasant proprietors who hired additional land—­were concerned, “It is happy for them if they end the year without debt.”  I asked how the men in the village who owned land but did not work it spent their time.  The reply was:  “They are chattering of many things, very trivial things, and they disturb the village.  They drink too much and they have concubines or women elsewhere.”

“If an ordinary peasant went to the next town to see women there,” the speaker continued, “young men of the village would go and give him a good knock.  In former times ‘waitresses’ were highly spoken of in the village, but not now.  There are some young men who may go at night to a house where there are young girls in the family and open the door.  Sometimes they bring cucumbers.  Cucumbers are symbols.  Some do this out of fun and some sincerely to express their feelings.  If the young men who do such a thing do it out of fun they are given a good knock by members of that house when discovered.  If they are sincere the members of the family will smile.  There are in our village of 6,000 inhabitants only four illegitimate children.”

As to the influences exerted for the betterment of the people the follower of St. Francis was convinced that “when Buddhist influence, Shintoism, Confucianism and the good customs of our race are all mixed together so that you cannot discern one from the other we have some living power.”  His own religion was “that of St. Francis combined with Buddhism.”