Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/126

 species of lectern and armed with a fan and a small flat baton of paper, the koshaku-shi carries his audience with him through scenes where all the passions that sway humanity are pourtrayed with admirable force and fidelity. Petty adjuncts as the fan and the paper baton seem, the uses that they serve are extensive. A hesitating poise of the half-opened fan introduces the audience at once to some mood of coyness or expectancy; a graceful sweep of its full spread surface invokes the presence of summer airs, moonlight dancers, or stately ladies; the sharp snap of its suddenly folded ribs suggests fateful resolve or exhausted patience; now its crescent rises slowly in unison with the growth of some sound of menace or the march of some disaster's prelude; now it sinks as hope dies or the power of resistance fades from some hero's arm in mortal peril; and when the tale begins to climb to a crisis, the baton beats out a swift sharp note of warning on the wooden lectern, its startled raps growing quicker as incident crowds upon incident, until the rush and rattle of the armed combat, the din and confusion of the mêlée, the crash of the catastrophe, seem to be actually reproduced before the eyes of the audience. The koshaku-shi uses no book. The stories that he has to tell are not fully recorded in any public document, nor can absolute historical accuracy be claimed for them. The figures that move through the drama and the cardinal incidents are historical; all the en-