“Well, by now everyone was getting pretty fed up because, though they kept the racket going for days and nights on end, the din had no effect. Only the riff-raff and the rickshawmen enjoyed the row they made, and they of course were happy because they were getting wages for making themselves a nuisance.”
“What,” asked Sunko, “are wages?”
“Wages are money.”
“What would they do with money?”
Yukie was flummoxed. “Well, when they have money. . .” she began and then dodged the question first by a loud false laugh and then by telling Sunko how naughty she was. “Anyway,” she continued, “the people just went on making their silly noises all through the day and all through the night. Now it so happened that at that time there was an idiot boy in the district whom they all called Daft Bamboo. He was, as the saying goes, simple. He knew nothing, and nobody had anything to do with him. Eventually, even this simpleton noticed the terrible racket. ‘Why,’ he asked ‘are you making all that noise?’ When someone explained the situation, the idiot boy remarked, ‘What idiots you are, trying for all these years to shift a single Jizō with such idiotic tricks.’”
“A remarkable speech from an idiot.’”
“He was indeed a rather remarkable fool. Of course nobody thought he could do any good but, since no one else had done better, why not, they said, why not let him have a go at it? So Daft Bamboo was asked to help. He immediately agreed.‘Stop that horrible noise,’ he said,‘and just keep quiet.’ The riff-raff and the rickshawmen were packed off somewhere out of sight, and Daft Bamboo, as vacuous as ever, then walked up to the Jizō with utter aimlessness.”
“Was Utter Aimlessness a special friend of Daft Bamboo?”
Mrs. Sneaze and Yukie burst into laughter at Tonko’s curious question.
“No, not a friend.”
“Then, what?”
“Well, utter aimlessness is. . . impossible to describe.”
“‘Utter aimlessness’ means ‘impossible to describe’?”
“No, that’s not it. Utter aimlessness means. . .”
“Yes?”
“You know Mr. Sampei, don’t you?”
“Yes, he’s the one who gave us yams.”
“Well, utter aimlessness means someone like Mr. Sampei.”
“Is Mr. Sampei an utter aimlessness?”
“Yes, more or less. . . Now, Daft Bamboo ambled up to the Jizō with his hands in his pockets and said, ‘Mr. Jizō, the people in this town would like you to move. Would you be so kind as to do so?’ And the Jizō promptly replied,‘Of course I’ll do so. Why ever didn’t they come and ask before?’With that he slowly moved away to a corner of the crossroads.”
“What a peculiar statue!”
“Then the lecture started.”
“Oh! Is there more to come?”
“Most certainly. Professor Kidd went on to say that he had opened his address to the women’s meeting with that particular story because it illustrated a point he had in mind.‘If I may take the liberty of saying so,’
he said, ‘whenever women do something, they are prone to tackle it in a roundabout way instead of coming straight to the point. Admittedly, it is not solely women who beat about the bush. In these so-called enlightened days, debilitated by the poisons of Western civilization, even men have become somewhat effeminate. There are, alas, all too many now devoting their time and effort to an imitation of Western customs in the totally mistaken conviction that aping foreigners is the proper occupation of a gentleman. Such persons are, of course, deformed, for, by their efforts to conform with alien ways, they deform themselves. They deserve no further comment. However, I would wish you ladies to reflect upon the tale I’ve told today so that, as occasion may arise, you, too, will act with the same clear-hearted honesty as was shown by Daft Bamboo. For if all ladies did so act, there can be no doubt that one-third of the abominable discords between husbands and wives and between wives and their mothers-in-law would simply disappear. Human beings are, alas, so made that the more they indulge in secret schemes, schemes whose very secrecy breeds evil, the deeper they drive the wellsprings of their own unhappiness. And the specific reason why so many ladies are so much less happy than the average man is precisely because ladies over indulge themselves in secret schemes. Please,’ he begged us as his lecture ended, ‘turn yourselves into Daft Bamboos.’”
“Did he, indeed! Well,Yukie, are you planning to follow his advice?”
“No fear! Turn myself into a Daft Bamboo! That’s the last thing I would do. Miss Goldfield, too, she was very angry. She said the lecture was damned rude.”
“Miss Goldfield? The girl who lives just round the corner?”
“Yes. Little Miss Popinjay in person.”
“Does she go to the same school as you,Yukie?”
“No, she just came to hear the lecture because it was a Women’s Society meeting. She certainly dresses up to the nines. Really astonishing.”
“They say she’s very good looking. Is it true?”
“She’s nothing special, in my opinion. Certainly not the knock-out that she fancies herself. Almost any girl would look good under that much make-up.”
“So if you,Yukie, daubed on the same amount of make-up, you’d look twice as pretty as she does? Right?”
“What a thing to say! But truly, Auntie, she puts on far too much.
Rich she may be, but really she overdoes it.”
“Well, it’s pleasant to be rich, even if one does consequently overdo the paints and powder. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, perhaps you’re right. But if anyone needs to take lessons from Daft Bamboo, that Goldfield girl’s the one. She is so terribly stuck-up.
Only the other day she was swanking to all the other girls that some poet or other had just dedicated to her a collection of his new-style poetry.”
“That was probably Mr. Beauchamp.”
“Really? He must be a bit flighty.”
“Oh no, Mr. Beauchamp is very sober-minded man. He would think such a gesture the most natural thing in the world.”
“A man like that shouldn’t be allowed to. . . Actually there is another amusing thing. It seems that somebody recently sent her a love letter.”
“How disgusting! Whoever did such a thing?”
“Apparently nobody knows who sent it.”
“Wasn’t there a name?”
“It was signed, but with a name that no one’s ever heard of. And it was a very, very long letter, about a yard long, full of the weirdest things.
For instance, it said, ‘I love you in the same way that a saintly man loves God.’ It said, ‘Gladly for your sake would I die like a lamb sacrificed on the altar; for me, so to be slaughtered would be the greatest of all honors.’ It said, ‘My heart is shaped like a triangle in the center of which, like a bull’s eye pierced by a blowgun dart, is Cupid’s arrow stuck!’”
“Is all that meant to be serious?”
“It would seem to be. Three of my own friends have actually seen the letter.”
“I do think she’s awful to go around showing people such a letter.
Since she intends to marry Mr. Coldmoon, she could get into trouble if that sort of story begins to get around.”
“On the contrary, she’d be terribly pleased if everyone should know about it. I’m sure she’d say you’d be welcome to pass the news to Mr.