_The Evergreen Series_ KIMIKO AND OTHER JAPANESE SKETCHES By LAFCADIO HEARN BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1923 COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. Transcriber's Note: Dialect spellings, contractions and inconsistencies have been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with underscores; _italics_. KIMIKO _Wasuraruru Mi naran to omo Kokoro koso Wasuré nu yori mo Omoi nari-keré._[1] [1] "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 wood-work 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--attending 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.