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Lafcadio Hearn - Kokoro
really belong all human emotions, whether of the living or the dead.
XV. KIMIKO
Wasuraruru
Mi naran to omo
Kokoro koso
Wasure nu yori mo
Omoi nari-kere.
"To wish to be forgotten by the beloved is a soul-task harder far than trying not to forget." - Poem by
Kimiko.
I
The name is on a paper-lantern at the entrance of a house in the Street of the Geisha.
Seen at night the street is one of the queerest in the world. It is narrow as a gangway; and the dark
shining woodwork of the house-fronts, all tightly closed, - each having a tiny sliding door with
paper-panes that look just like frosted glass, - makes you think of first-class passenger-cabins. Really the
buildings are several stories high; but you do not observe this at once, - especially if there be no moon, -
because only the lower stories are illuminated up to their awnings, above which all is darkness. The
illumination is made by lamps behind the narrow paper-paned doors, and by the paper-lanterns hanging
outside, - one at every door. You look down the street between two lines of these lanterns, - lines
converging far-off into one motionless bar of yellow light. Some of the lanterns are egg-shaped, some
cylindrical; others four-sided or six-sided; and Japanese characters are beautifully written upon them.
The street is very quiet, - silent as a display of cabinet-work in some great exhibition after closing-time.
This is because the inmates are mostly away, - at tending banquets and other festivities. Their life is of
the night.
The legend upon the first lantern to the left as you go south is "Kinoya: uchi O-Kata;" and that means
The House of Gold wherein O-Kata dwells. The lantern to the right tells of the House of Nishimura, and
of a girl Miyotsuru, - which name signifies The Stork Magnificently Existing. Next upon the left comes
the House of Kajita; - and in that house are Kohana, the Flower-Bud, and Hinako, whose face is pretty as
the face of a doll. Opposite is the House Nagaye, wherein live Kimika and Kimiko.... And this luminous
double litany of names is half-a-mile long.
The inscription on the lantern of the last-named house reveals the relationship between Kimika and
Kimiko, - and yet something more; for Kimiko is styled Ni-dai-me, an honorary untranslatable title
which signifies that she is only Kimiko No.2. Kimika is the teacher and mistress: she has educated two
geisha, both named, or rather renamed by her, Kimiko; and this use of the same name twice is proof
positive that the first Kimiko - Ichi-dai-me - must have been celebrated. The professional appellation
borne by an unlucky or unsuccessful geisha is never given to her successor. If you should ever have good
and sufficient reason to enter the house, - pushing open that lantern-slide of a door which sets a gong-bell
ringing to announce visits, - you might be able to see Kimika, provided her little troupe be not engaged
for the evening. You would find her a very intelligent person, and well worth talking to. She can tell,
when she pleases, the most remarkable stories, - real flesh-and-blood stories, - true stories of human
nature. For the Street of the Geisha is full of traditions, - tragic, comic, melodramatic; - every house has
its memories; - and Kimika knows them all. Some are very, very terrible; and some would make you
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