“Is something the matter, miss?” The man asked in an accented Japanese that was good enough for Chizuru to understand.
His calm and intelligent smile and his magnificent mustache gave her a favorable impression of him.
“It’s nothing. Please excuse me.”
His smile grew wider.
“You are the first Japanese lady I have met tonight. You are the only proper lady in this odd and highly incompatible party.”
“Oh, no…”
“Have a look around.” The officer turned a cynical eye toward the people around him. “Your countrymen are stubbornly trying to imitate our ways, but that is not what it means to truly understand a culture. Rather than trying to imitate the look of a culture, if they just opened their hearts to accept things as they are, then they would learn what is admirable about that culture naturally. Go home. This is no place for you,” the officer said seriously.
As soon as he had said it, however, the servant from earlier returned and gestured Chizuru toward the far door. Bowing once to the officer, Chizuru headed that way, for some reason feeling sorry to leave him.
The servant led her into what appeared to be a dressing room, and a middle-aged foreign woman helped her to dress.
Chizuru blushed when she had to change out of everything, including her underwear.
The woman’s eyes sparkled, as she said, “Beautiful. Very beautiful. Tonight, I have met a true lady.” Her Japanese was even better than the officer’s.
Wearing a dress for the first time was agonizing for Chizuru. She couldn’t breathe in the corset, which made her look even thinner; and the bustle, which was worn to make the skirt look fuller, just seemed strange to her.
Her embarrassment had turned to anger when she saw how low-cut the front of the dress was. Although the woman had pinned a blue artificial rose on her bodice, it could not hide the swell of her breasts.
“This is part of a woman’s appeal.” Without this maidservant’s passionate insistence, Chizuru might have decided not to attend the party. “As for your hair, it will simply have to do. There are women here with a similar style, but you must go now. It’s time.”
The woman led Chizuru by the hand out of the room.
The orchestra had already started to play inside the ballroom. There were two orchestras, one German and one French, which played alternately.
It was the French orchestra’s turn. The song was The Blue Danube.
A purple curtain with a chrysanthemum crest, and a Chinese flag with a dragon rising upward decorated the wall. Countless chrysanthemums lined the wall underneath.
Many of the dancing women wore gowns and had their hair arranged in a Japanese style, something like Chizuru’s.
To the blue-eyed ladies present, it must have been a strange sight.
They politely tried to stifle their laughs and closed their eyes in exasperation, as they saw the Japanese dancers tripping over themselves, unable to dance in time with the music.
Pierre Roti, the French writer who had attended a ball at Rokumeikan, later dismissed it as a “parody.”
To Chizuru, however, this was the first time she had laid eyes on such a bizarre scene. She felt as though everything, from the beautiful melody to the gorgeous gowns to the twinkling chandeliers and the dancers as well as the people admiring them, refused to accept her.
As she stood in a daze, someone called out, “Miss Kashiwabara.”
Feeling as though she’d been saved, she turned around and saw Minister Inoue standing there.
Hastily, she started to say hello, but he smiled and interrupted, “Good to see you, and looking so very beautiful. Allow me to find you a suitable partner. You have danced before, have you not?”
“No, not once.”
When she shook her head, Inoue’s expression stiffened.
“What a shock. That a man of Kashiwabara’s stature has not property educated his daughter to dance. What a waste of an invitation,” he said coldly, like a different person. “Ah, well. Then please entertain our foreign guests. You do speak some English?”
“No…”
Chizuru thought this might be the worst day of her life.
Inoue refused to say any more. He briskly turned his back and disappeared into the crowd, but not before Chizuru saw the vein popping out on the side of his forehead.
Oddly, she felt neither humiliation nor anger. She felt rather relieved.
She could now leave this sad imitation of Western society. Her coming here had not helped anyone. It was her only regret, but that couldn’t be helped.
Suddenly she felt the tightness of the corset. How could anyone dance wearing that thing?
When she turned around to go back to the dressing room, there was a buzz of activity by the entrance.
The dancing and music stopped.
Every face, including Chizuru’s, turned toward the door.
“Ohh!” Inoue’s voice rose up from somewhere in the room.
The pale face of a warrior, resting atop a mountainous body, looked down upon the crowd.
The women inexplicably covered their necks, while the men shuddered. The shadow flapping away might have been a bat.
A dog barked in the distance.
“Our guest from Transylvania!” Lord Inoue announced.
The expressions on the faces of the foreign officials changed. They shuddered as if they’d seen something loathsome; their frightened stares pierced the enormous man.
The ballroom, which was an Eastern imitation of the Western world, was about to be interrupted by a different European presence, one of crimson and black.
“I sent him an invitation to this party on the very same day we met. I hope you will all make him feel welcome.”
Why had Lord Inoue’s voice, the voice of Japan, trembled?
“This is Count Dracula.”