Page:My Japanese Wife.djvu/29

Rh orders. I must not set it down here. What is common and picturesque in Japan, is so unspeakable in English. Kotmasu sits silent, thinking of the meal to come, perhaps, in which “teal duck,” raw spinach, raw shrimps, and even dog, were to find a place—all save the first, thank goodness, in minute proportions.

The sounds of revelry by night went on all the while that Kotmasu and I waited, coming to us softened and indistinct through chinks in the floor and through the paper panels forming the walls of the room—the voices of women and the accompanying music of the samisen, with its note of sadness. Then we heard the muffled sounds of the feet of geishas dancing, in their shoeless, gliding motions.

The strains of the monotonous music, punctuated with Japanese phrases, echoed in the bare passage outside.