Lafcadio Hearn's Japan (18 page)

But the most remarkable novelty of this sort yet produced is a kind of
toko-niwa
recently on display at a famous shop in Ginza. A label bearing the inscription,
Kaï-téï no Ikken
(View of the Ocean-Bed) sufficiently explained the design. The
suïbon,
or “water-tray,” containing the display was half filled with rocks and sand so as to resemble a sea-bottom; and little fishes appeared swarming in the foreground. A little farther back, upon an elevation, stood Otohimé, the Dragon-King's daughter, surrounded by her maiden attendants, and gazing, with just the shadow of a smile, at two men in naval uniform who were shaking hands,—dead heroes of the war: Admiral Makaroff and Commander Hirosé! . . . These had esteemed each other in life; and it was a happy thought thus to represent their friendly meeting in the world of Spirits.

Though his name is perhaps unfamiliar to English readers, Commander Takeo Hirosé has become, deservedly, one of Japan's national heroes. On the 27th of March, during the second attempt made to block the entrance to Port Arthur, he was killed while endeavoring to help a comrade,—a comrade who had formerly saved him from death. For five years Hirosé had been a naval attaché at St. Petersburg, and had made many friends in Russian naval and military circles. From boyhood his life had been devoted to study and duty; and it was commonly said of him that he had no particle of selfishness in his nature. Unlike most of his brother officers, he remained unmarried,—holding that no man who might be called on at any moment to lay down his life for his country had a moral right to marry. The only amusements in which he was ever known to indulge were physical exercises; and he was acknowledged one of the best
j
Å«
jutsu
(wrestlers) in the empire. The heroism of his death, at the age of thirty-six, had much less to do with the honors paid to his memory than the self-denying heroism of his life.

Now his picture is in thousands of homes, and his name is celebrated in every village. It is celebrated also by the manufacture of various
souvenirs, which are sold by myriads. For example, there is a new fashion in sleeve buttons, called
Kinen-botan,
or “Commemoration-buttons.” Each button bears a miniature portrait of the commander, with the inscription,
Shichi-sh
ō
h
ō
koku,
“Even in seven successive lives—for love of country.” It is recorded that Hirosé often cited, to friends who criticised his ascetic devotion to duty, the famous utterance of Kusunoki Masashigé, who declared, ere laying down his life for the Emperor Go-Daigo, that he desired to die for his sovereign in seven successive existences.

But the highest honor paid to the memory of Hirosé is of a sort now possible only in the East, though once possible also in the West, when the Greek or Roman patriot hero might be raised, by the common love of his people, to the place of the Immortals. . . . Wine-cups of porcelain have been made, decorated with his portrait; and beneath the portrait appears, in ideographs of gold, the inscription,
Gunshin Hirosé Ch
Å«
sa.
The character
“gun”
signifies war; the character
“shin,”
a god,—either in the sense of
divus
or
deus,
according to circumstances; and the Chinese text, read in the Japanese way, is
Ikusa no Kami
. Whether that stern and valiant spirit is really invoked by the millions who believe that no brave soul is doomed to extinction, no well-spent life laid down in vain, no heroism cast away, I do not know. But, in any event, human affection and gratitude can go no farther than this; and it must be confessed that Old Japan is still able to confer honors worth dying for.

Boys and girls in all the children's schools are now singing the Song of Hirosé Ch
Å«
sa, which is a marching song. The words and the music are published in a little booklet, with a portrait of the late commander upon the cover. Everywhere, and at all hours of the day, one hears this song being sung:—

He whose every word and deed gave to men an example of what the
war-folk of the Empire of Nippon should be,—Commander
Hirosé: is he really dead?

Though the body die, the spirit dies not. He who wished to be
reborn seven times into this world, for the sake of serving his
country, for the sake of requiting the Imperial favor,—
Commander Hirosé: has he really died?

“Since I am a son of the Country of the Gods, the fire of the evil-
hearted Russians cannot touch me!”—The sturdy Takeo who
spoke thus: can he really be dead?. . .

Nay ! that glorious war-death meant undying fame;—beyond a
thousand years the valiant heart shall live;—as to a god of war
shall reverence be paid to him. . . .

Observing the playful confidence of this wonderful people in their struggle for existence against the mightiest power of the West,—their perfect trust in the wisdom of their leaders and the valor of their armies,—the good humor of their irony when mocking the enemy's blunders,—their strange capacity to find, in the world-stirring events of the hour, the same amusement that they would find in watching a melodrama,—one is tempted to ask: “What would be the moral consequence of a national defeat?” . . . It would depend, I think, upon circumstances. Were Kuropatkin able to fulfill his rash threat of invading Japan, the nation would probably rise as one man. But otherwise the knowledge of any great disaster would be bravely borne. From time unknown Japan has been a land of cataclysms,—earthquakes that ruin cities in the space of a moment; tidal waves, two hundred miles long, sweeping whole coast populations out of existence; floods submerging hundreds of leagues of well-tilled fields; eruptions burying provinces. Calamities like this have disciplined the race in resignation and in patience; and it has been well trained also to bear with courage all the misfortunes of war. Even by the foreign peoples that have been most closely in contact with her, the capacities of Japan remained unguessed. Perhaps her power to resist aggression is far surpassed by her power to endure.

H ō rai

Blue vision of depth lost in height,—sea and sky interblending through luminous haze. The day is of spring, and the hour morning.

Only sky and sea,—one azure enormity. . . . In the fore, ripples are catching a silvery light, and threads of foam are swirling anything save color: dim warm blue of water widening away to melt into blue of air. Horizon there is none: only distance soaring into space,—infinite concavity hollowing before you, and hugely arching above you,—the color deepening with the height. But far in the midway blue there hangs a faint, faint vision of palace towers, with high roofs horned and curved like moons,—some shadowing of splendor strange and old, illumined by a sunshine soft as memory.

. . . What I have thus been trying to describe is a kakémono,— that is to say, a Japanese painting on silk, suspended to the wall of my alcove;—and the name of it is SHINKIR
Ō
, which signifies “Mirage.” But the shapes of the mirage are unmistakable. Those are the glimmering portals of H
ō
rai the blest; and those are the moony roofs of the Palace of the Dragon-King;—and the fashion of them (though limned by a Japanese brush of to-day) is the fashion of things Chinese, twenty-one hundred years ago. . . .

Thus much is told of the place in the Chinese books of that time:—

In H
ō
rai there is neither death nor pain; and there is no winter. The flowers in that place never fade, and the fruits never fail; and if a man taste of those fruits even but once, he can never again feel thirst or hunger. In H
ō
rai grow the enchanted plants
So-rin-shi,
and
Riku-g
ō
-aoi,
and
Ban-kon-t
ō
,
which heal all manner of sickness;—and there grows also the magical grass
Y
ō
-shin-shi,
that quickens the dead; and the magical grass is watered by a fairy water of which a single drink confers perpetual youth. The people of H
ō
rai eat their rice out of very, very small bowls; but the rice never diminishes within those bowls,—however much of it be eaten,—until the eater desires no more. And the people of H
ō
rai drink their wine out of very, very small cups; but no man can empty one of those cups,— however stoutly he may drink,—until there comes upon him the pleasant drowsiness of intoxication.

All this and more is told in the legends of the time of the Shin dynasty. But that the people who wrote down those legends ever saw H
ō
rai, even in a mirage, is not believable. For really there are no enchanted fruits which leave the eater forever satisfied,—nor any magical grass which revives the dead,—nor any fountain of fairy water,—nor any bowls which never lack rice,—nor any cups which never lack wine. It is not true that sorrow and death never enter H
ō
rai;—neither is it true that there is not any winter. The winter in H
ō
rai is cold;—and winds then bite to the bone; and the heaping of snow is monstrous on the roofs of the Dragon-King.

Nevertheless there are wonderful things in H
ō
rai; and the most wonderful of all has not been mentioned by any Chinese writer. I mean the atmosphere of H
ō
rai. It is an atmosphere peculiar to the place; and, because of it, the sunshine in H
ō
rai is
whiter
than any other sunshine,—a milky light that never dazzles,—astonishingly clear, but very soft. This atmosphere is not of our human period; it is enormously old,—so old that I feel afraid when I try to think how old it is;—and it is not a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. It is not made of air at all, but of ghost,—the substance of quintillions of quintillions of generations of souls blended into one immense translucency,—souls of people who thought in ways never resembling our ways. Whatever mortal man inhales that atmosphere, he takes into his blood the thrilling of these spirits; and they change the senses within him,—reshaping his notions of Space and Time,—so that he can see only as they used to see, and feel only as they used to feel, and think only as they used to think. Soft as sleep are these changes of sense; and H
ō
rai, discerned across them, might thus be described:—

—Because in H
ō
rai there is no knowledge of great evil, the hearts of people never grow old. And, by reason of always being young in heart, the people of H
ō
rai smile from birth until death—except when the Gods send sorrow among them; and faces then are veiled until the sorrow goes away. All folk in H
ō
rai love and trust each other, as if all were members of a single household;—and the speech of the women is like birdsong, because the hearts of them are light as the souls of birds;—and the swaying of the sleeves of the maidens at play seems a flutter of wide, soft wings. In H
ō
rai nothing is hidden but grief, because there is no reason for shame;—and nothing is locked away, because there could not be any theft;—and by night as well as by day all doors remain unbarred, because there is no reason for fear. And because the people are fairies—though mortal—all things in H
ō
rai, except the Palace of the Dragon-King, are small and quaint and queer;—and these fairy-folk do really eat their rice out of very small bowls and drink their wine out of very, very small cups. . . .

—Much of this seeming would be due to the inhalation of that ghostly atmosphere—but not all. For the spell wrought by the dead is only the charm of an Ideal, the glamour of an ancient hope;—and something of that hope has found fulfillment in many hearts,—in the simple beauty of unselfish lives,—in the sweetness of Woman. . . .

—Evil winds from the West are blowing over H
ō
rai;—and the magical atmosphere, alas! is shrinking away before them. It lingers now in patches only, and bands,—like those long bright bands of cloud that trail across the landscapes of Japanese painters. Under these shreds of elfish vapor you still can find H
ō
rai—but not elsewhere. . . . Remember that H
ō
rai is also called Shinkir
ō
, which signifies Mirage,—the Vision of the Intangible. And the Vision is fading,— never again to appear save in pictures and poems and dreams. . . .