Outside My Room An Open Balcony With Many Similiar Rooms Ran Round
A Forlorn Aggregate Of Dilapidated Shingle Roofs And Water-Butts.
These Rooms Were All Full.
Ito asked me for instructions once for
all, put up my stretcher under a large mosquito net of coarse
Green
canvas with a fusty smell, filled my bath, brought me some tea,
rice, and eggs, took my passport to be copied by the house-master,
and departed, I know not whither. I tried to write to you, but
fleas and mosquitoes prevented it, and besides, the fusuma were
frequently noiselessly drawn apart, and several pairs of dark,
elongated eyes surveyed me through the cracks; for there were two
Japanese families in the room to the right, and five men in that to
the left. I closed the sliding windows, with translucent paper for
window panes, called shoji, and went to bed, but the lack of
privacy was fearful, and I have not yet sufficient trust in my
fellow-creatures to be comfortable without locks, walls, or doors!
Eyes were constantly applied to the sides of the room, a girl twice
drew aside the shoji between it and the corridor; a man, who I
afterwards found was a blind man, offering his services as a
shampooer, came in and said some (of course) unintelligible words,
and the new noises were perfectly bewildering. On one side a man
recited Buddhist prayers in a high key; on the other a girl was
twanging a samisen, a species of guitar; the house was full of
talking and splashing, drums and tom-toms were beaten outside;
there were street cries innumerable, and the whistling of the blind
shampooers, and the resonant clap of the fire-watchman who
perambulates all Japanese villages, and beats two pieces of wood
together in token of his vigilance, were intolerable. It was a
life of which I knew nothing, and the mystery was more alarming
than attractive; my money was lying about, and nothing seemed
easier than to slide a hand through the fusuma and appropriate it.
Ito told me that the well was badly contaminated, the odours were
fearful; illness was to be feared as well as robbery! So
unreasonably I reasoned! {7}
My bed is merely a piece of canvas nailed to two wooden bars. When
I lay down the canvas burst away from the lower row of nails with a
series of cracks, and sank gradually till I found myself lying on a
sharp-edged pole which connects the two pair of trestles, and the
helpless victim of fleas and mosquitoes. I lay for three hours,
not daring to stir lest I should bring the canvas altogether down,
becoming more and more nervous every moment, and then Ito called
outside the shoji, "It would be best, Miss Bird, that I should see
you." What horror can this be? I thought, and was not reassured
when he added, "Here's a messenger from the Legation and two
policemen want to speak to you." On arriving I had done the
correct thing in giving the house-master my passport, which,
according to law, he had copied into his book, and had sent a
duplicate copy to the police-station, and this intrusion near
midnight was as unaccountable as it was unwarrantable.
Nevertheless the appearance of the two mannikins in European
uniforms, with the familiar batons and bull's-eye lanterns, and
with manners which were respectful without being deferential, gave
me immediate relief.
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