Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/247

Rh most lovely of the Sankei, or Three Views, which the Japanese celebrate above all others, it was resolved to travel there together in search of grammar and scenery.

About the grammar he was rather fastidious. A personage of high rank, whom he had met at an Imperial garden-party, had said jokingly: "Why not follow the example of M. Pierre Loti and find a second 'Madame Chrysanthème'? We call such persons in our idiom 'pillow-dictionaries,' and they are the most instructive manuals in the world." The young Parisian was, of course, neither shocked nor offended by the suggestion. Not only had he no moral scruples himself about forming temporary ties such as nine Frenchmen out of ten contract before marriage, but he had come to a country, or so he had been told, where such ties were neither illegal nor dishonourable, but openly recognised, and where a mistress did not forfeit her chance of ultimate marriage when the relationship should be dissolved. But the idea of buying a mate as one buys a horse or a picture was repugnant to him, and he preferred to wait a while, in the hope that Fortune would provide an occasion of affection preceding purchase rather than of a purchase which might or might not precede affection. The geisha of the capital did not attract him: they were too openly venal or brightly conspicuous for his quiet taste, which desired gentle companionship without such publicity as the appropriation of a Tōkyō geisha would involve. So, for the moment, scenery took precedence of grammar.

The journey to Sendai on the Northern Railway is generally tedious, but was made more so by delays and uncertainties of transit owing to extensive