Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/287

Rh medical comedy, probably inspired to some extent by Dr. Silenus, had for motif a quarrel between a physician and a farmer, whose wife was expecting to give birth to a child but had no wish to complicate an old-fashioned process by new-fangled medicine. The outspoken dialogue did not shock the unsophisticated audience, for whom Nature is not swathed in conventional veils of reticence, but the actors observed the ne coram publico maxim to this extent, that the birth took place in the wings, to be followed by a rather thrilling infanticide. Bloodshed is always pleasing to the playgoers of Tōkyō. The last piece to be performed was a duologue between Kitsune, the fox-god, and a greedy rustic. Kitsune carried a bag of rice, and offered a mouthful in reward for every athletic or acrobatic feat which the other should succeed in imitating. When the gilt-snouted fox had set the example of leaping or balancing with adroit agility, the sly lout would make a clumsy pretence of doing the same, and always managed to obtain the rice by chicanery. At last the god discovered that he was being tricked, and killed the peasant with a blow from his rake. Nothing seemed to amuse the Azabu children so much as the antics of these two.

On another occasion Dr. Silenus invited a large party to witness a still more interesting exhibition in his garden. If I have used the word "degeneracy" to express his repudiation of certain moral ideas to which the Anglo-Saxon race pays the compliment of formal adherence, it should yet be added that his "self-indulgence" included the laborious pleasure of teaching himself the art of sword-making. Under Japanese tuition he had attained great proficiency, and if his blades did not rank with those of Masamune and