One glance at the face of the old inn-keeper decides me to
accept his invitation. I must remain here until to-morrow: my runners
are too wearied to go farther to-night.
Weather-worn as the little inn seemed without, it is delightful within.
Its polished stairway and balconies are speckless, reflecting like
mirror-surfaces the bare feet of the maid-servants; its luminous rooms
are fresh and sweet-smelling as when their soft mattings were first laid
down. The carven pillars of the alcove (toko) in my chamber, leaves and
flowers chiseled in some black rich wood, are wonders; and the kakemono
or scroll-picture hanging there is an idyl, Hotei, God of Happiness,
drifting in a bark down some shadowy stream into evening mysteries of
vapory purple. Far as this hamlet is from all art-centres, there is no
object visible in the house which does not reveal the Japanese sense of
beauty in form. The old gold-flowered lacquer-ware, the astonishing box
in which sweetmeats (kwashi) are kept, the diaphanous porcelain
wine-cups dashed with a single tiny gold figure of a leaping shrimp, the
tea-cup holders which are curled lotus-leaves of bronze, even the iron
kettle with its figurings of dragons and clouds, and the brazen hibachi
whose handles are heads of Buddhist lions, delight the eye and surprise
the fancy. Indeed, wherever to-day in Japan one sees something totally
uninteresting in porcelain or metal, something commonplace and ugly, one
may be almost sure that detestable something has been shaped under
foreign influence.
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