CHAPTER IV
UNDER THE RED SUNSET
The slowing of the train awoke Barbara from her reverie. The three boystudents got out, casting sidelong glances at her. More Japaneseentered, and two foreigners--a bright-faced girl on the arm of akeen-eyed, soldierly man with bristling white hair, a mustache like awalrus, and a military button. The girl's hands were full ofcherry-branches, whose bunches of double blossoms, incredibly thick andheavy, filled the car with a delicate fragrance. The bishop folded hisnewspaper and put it into his pocket.
As he did so the owner of the expansive waistcoat leaned across theaisle and addressed him.
"Say, my friend," he said, "you've lived out here some time, Iunderstand."
"Yes," the bishop replied. "Twenty-five years."
"Well, I take it, then, you ought to know this country right down to theground; and if you don't mind, I'd like to ask a question or two."
"Do," said the bishop. "I'll be glad to answer if I can."
The other got up and took a seat opposite. "You see," he pursuedconfidentially, "I came on this trip just for a rest and to settle thebills for the curios my wife"--he indicated the lady, who had now movedup beside him--"thinks she'd like to look at back home. But I've beengetting interested by the minute. It's quite some time since I went toschool, and I guess there hadn't so much happened then to Japan. I wishyou'd run down the scale for me--just to hit the high places. Now therewas a big rumpus here, I remember, at the time of our Civil War. Theychose a new Emperor, didn't they?"
"No. The dynasty has been unbroken for two thousand years."
"Two thousand years!" cried the lady. "Why, that's before Christ!"
"When our ancestors, Martha, were painting themselves up in yellow ochreand carrying clubs--what was the row about, then?"
"It was something like this. To go back a little, the Emperor was alwaysthe nominal ruler and spiritual head, but the temporal power wasadministered by a self-decreed Viceroy called the _shogun_. Japan was aclosed country and only a little trading was allowed in certain ports."
His questioner nodded. The girl beside the white-haired old soldier hadtouched the latter's sleeve, and both were listening attentively. "ThenPerry came along and kicked open the gate. Bombarded 'em, didn't he?"
The bishop's eyes twinkled. "Only with gifts. He brought a smallprinting-press, a toy telegraph line and a miniature locomotive andrailroad track. He set up these on the beach and showed the officialswhom the _shogun's_ government sent to treat with him, how they worked.In the end he made them understand the immense value of the scientificadvancement of the western world. The visit was an eye-opener, and thewiser Japanese realized that the nation couldn't exist under the old_regime_ any longer. It must make general treaties and adopt new ideas.Some, on the other hand, wanted things to stay as they were."
"Pulling both ways, eh?"
"Yes. At length the progressists decided on a sweeping measure. Underthe _shogunate_, the _daimyos_ (they were the great landed nobles) hadbeen in a continual state of suppressed insurrection."
"Some wouldn't knuckle down to the _shogun_, I suppose."
"Exactly. There was no national rallying-point. But they all alikerevered their Emperor. In all the bloody civil wars of a thousandyears--and the Japanese were always fighting, like Europe in the MiddleAges--no _shogun_ ever laid violent hands on the Emperor. He was halfdivine, you see, descended from the ancient gods, a living link betweenthem and modern men. So now they proposed to give him complete temporalpower, make him ruler in fact, and abolish the _shogunate_ entirely."
"Phew! And the big _daimyos_ came into line on the proposition?"
"They poured out their blood and their money like water for the newcause. The _shogun_ himself voluntarily relinquished his power andretired to private life."
"Splendid!" said the stranger, and the girl clapped her gloved hands."So that was the 'Restoration,' the beginning of _Meiji_, whatever thatmay mean?"
"The 'Era of Enlightenment.' The present Emperor, Mutsuhito, was a boyof sixteen then. They brought him here to Yedo, and renamed itTokyo----"
"And proceeded to get reeling drunk on western notions," said the manwith the military button, smiling grimly. "I was out here in theSeventies."
"True, sir," assented the bishop. "It was so, for a time. And theopposition took refuge in riot, assassination, and suicide. Butgradually Japan worked the modernization scheme out. She sent her youngstatesmen to Europe and America to study western systems of education,jurisprudence and art. She hired an army of experts from all over theworld. She sent her cleverest lads to foreign universities. In the endshe chose what seemed to her the best from all. Her military ideas comefrom Germany and her railroad cars from the town of Pullman, Illinois.When the best didn't suit her, she invented a system of her own, as shehas done with wireless telegraphy."
"So!" said the other. "I'm greatly obliged to you, sir. I've read plentyin the newspapers, but I never had it put so plain. It strikes me," headded to the old soldier, "that a nation plucky enough to do this infifty years, in fifty more will make some other nations get a move on."He brought a big fist smashing down in an open palm. "And, by gad! theJapanese deserve all they get! When we go back I guess me and Marthawon't march in any anti-Jap torch-light processions, anyway!"
The fields were gone now. The train was rumbling along a canal teemingwith laden _sampan_, level with the paper _shoji_ of frail-lookinghouses on its opposite bank. Beyond lay a sea of roofs, swelling graybillows of tiling spotted with green foam, from which steel factorychimneys lifted like the black masts of sunken ships. A leafy hill ofcryptomeria rose near-by, and an octagonal stone tower peeped above itsfoliage. Crows were circling about it, black dots against the bronze.The train was entering Tokyo.
A door slammed sharply. From the forward smoking carriage a man hadentered. He was an European and Barbara was struck at once by his greatsize and the absence of color in his leaden face. The bored-lookingdiplomatist in the corner gathered himself hastily into a bow, which theother acknowledged abstractedly. Seemingly he had been occupied in someintent speculation which spread a kind of glaze over his sharp features.A book drooped carelessly from his heavy fingers.
"That is Doctor Bersonin," said the bishop, as the girls collected theirwraps. "He came just before I left, last fall. He is the governmentexpert, and is supposed to be one of the greatest living authorities onexplosives."
"Oh, yes," said Patricia, "I know. He invented a dynamo or a torpedo, orsomething. I saw him once at a reception; he had a foreign decoration asbig as a dinner-plate."
The big man made his way slowly along the aisle and, still absorbed,took a dust-coat from a rack. As he ponderously drew it on, the daylightwas suddenly eclipsed, and the rumbling reechoed from metal roofing.They were in Shimbashi Station.
"Isn't he simply odious!" whispered Patricia, as the expert steppedbefore them on to the long, dusky, asphalt platform. "His eyes are likea cat's and his hands look as if they wanted to crawl, like big whitespiders! There is the Embassy _betto_," she said suddenly, pointing overthe turnstile, where stood a Japanese boy in a wide-winged _kimono_ oftea-colored pongee with crimson facings and a crimson mushroom hat. "Thecarriage is just outside. You'll come, too, of course, Bishop," sheadded. "Father will expect you."
He shook his head and motioned toward a dense assemblage comprising ahalf dozen of his own race in clerical black, and a half hundred_kimono'd_ Japanese, whose faces seemed one composite smile of welcome."There is a part of my flock," he said. "There will be a jubilation atmy bachelor palace to-night. I shall see you to-morrow, I hope."
They watched him for a moment, the center of a ceremonious ring ofbowing figures, then passed through the station to the steps where thecarriage waited.
The station debouched on to a broad open square bordered with canals andlined with ranks of _rick'sha_, some of which had small red flags withthe name of a hotel in white letters, in English. The spac
e was gray anddusty; pedestrians dotted it and across it a bent and sweatingstreet-sprinkler hauled his ugly trickling cart, chanting in a half-toneas he went. A little distance away Barbara caught a glimpse of a busypaved street, lined with ambitious glass shop-fronts and with a doubleline of clanging trolley-cars passing to and fro beneath a maze oftelegraph wires seemingly as fine as pack-thread. Her nostrils twitchedwith strange odors--from stagnant moats of sticky, black mud, frompanniers of dressed fish, from the rice-powder and pomade of women'stoilets--all the scents bred in swarming streets by a glowing tropicsun.
At one side waited a handful of foreign carriages. All the drivers ofthese wore the loose, flapping liveries and the round hats of green orcrimson or blue. "They are Embassy turn-outs," explained Patricia. "Eachone has its color, you see. Ours is red and you can see it farthest." Asthey took their seats an open victoria rolled up, with cobalt-bluewheels, and a _betto_ with a _kimono_ of dark cloth trimmed with widestrips of the same hue ran ahead, clearing the way with raucous cries."There goes the Bulgarian Minister's wife," said Patricia. "She's gotthe finest pearls in Tokyo."
A hundred yards from the entrance the Embassy carriage halted abruptlyand Barbara caught her companion's arm with a low exclamation. At theside of the square, seated or reclining on the ground was a body ofperhaps eighty men dressed in a deadly brownish-yellow, the hue ofiron-rust, with coarse hats and rough straw sandals. They were disposedin lines, a handcuff was on each left wrist, and a thin, rattling ironchain linked all together.
"They are convicts," said Patricia; "on their way to the copper mines, Iimagine. They will move presently and we can pass."
At the head of the melancholy platoon stood an officer in dark bluecloth uniform and clumsy shoes, a sword by his side. He stood motionlessas an idol, his sparse mustaches waxed, his visored cap set square onhis crisp, black hair, his bronze face impassive. The prisoners lookedon stolidly at the stir of the station, the flying _rick'sha_, thecrowded _sampan_ in the canal, and the noisy trolley-cars passingnear-by. Some talked in low tones and pointed here and there, withfurtive glances at the officer. Barbara noted their differentexpressions, some stolid, low-browed and featureless, some withside-looks of sharper cunning, all touched with oriental apathy.
A bell now began to clamor in the train-shed and there came the raspinghoot of an engine. The officer turned, gave a sharp order, and theprisoners rose, with light clanking of their chains. Another order, andthey moved, in double lines of single file, into the station.
Patricia heaved a sigh of relief as the halted traffic started."_Hyaku_, Tucker," she called to the driver. "_Hyaku_ means quickly,"she explained aside. "His name is Taka, but I call him Tucker becauseit's easier to remember."
As they rolled swiftly on, through the wondrous panorama of teemingTokyo streets, the sun hung, an elongated globe of deep orange-crimson,streaked with little whips of rosy cloud. Beneath it the mountains laylike coiled, purple dragons, indolent and surfeited. One star twinkledpalely in the lemon-colored sky. Yet now to Barbara the splendor ofcolor seemed tragic, the poured-out beauty but a veil, behind whichmoved, old and apish and gray, the familiar passions of the world.Before her eyes were flowing and mingling a thousand strands of orientlife, yet she saw only the red light glowing on the stone entrance ofShimbashi, with those hideous saffron jackets filing perpetually intoits yawning mouth, like unholy spectres in a dream.