After dinner we had kyogen[29] by distinguished amateurs, one of whom, a neighbouring landowner, had lately appeared before the Emperor.  After the plays he painted kyogen scenes for us on kakemono and fans.  He painted the kakemono as he knelt with his paper lying on a square of soft material on the floor.

The plays were performed in ancient costumes or copies of old ones and of course without scenery.  The players were lighted by oily candles two inches in diameter, which flamed and guttered in candlesticks not of this century nor of the last.  A player may make his exit merely by sitting down.  The players are men; masks are used in playing women’s parts.  The stories are of the simplest.  There was the well-known tale of the sly servant who was sent to town by a stupid daimyo in order to buy a fan, and, though he brought back an umbrella, succeeded in imposing it on his master.  There was also the play of the fox who comes to a farmer to advise him not to kill foxes, but is himself caught in a trap.  I also recall a story of two good tenants who had been rewarded by their landlord with an order that they should receive hats.  Owing to an oversight they received one hat only between the two.  Problem, how to meet the difficulty.  It was solved by the rustics fastening two pieces of wood together T-shape, raising the hat of honour upon the structure and walking home in triumph under either side of the T.

The next morning I was greeted by the aged father and mother of our host.  The household was an interesting one, for the landlord and his brother were married to two sisters.  Before taking our departure we knelt with our landlord and his father before the Buddhist shrine on which rested the memorial tablets of former heads of the house.  I expressed my sense of the privilege extended to strangers.  The reply was, “Our ancestors will feel pleasure in your being among us.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[25] Samurai or shizoku comprise about a twentieth of the population.

[26] Every Japanese signs by means of a stone or hard-wood seal which he keeps in a case and ordinarily carries with him.

[27] A sho is about a quart and a half.

[28] The raised recess in which is usually displayed the flower arrangement, a piece of pottery and a kakemono. (See Note, page 35.)

[29] Farcical interludes of the No stage.

CHAPTER V

COUNTRY-HOUSE LIFE

The sense of a common humanity is a real political force.—­J.R.  GREEN