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Updated: June 2, 2025
Clapping his hands, the maid-servant appeared and falling down and bowing her head to the floor, listened: "Make some tea, and tell Miss Kiku to serve it." Had you been in the back rooms of that house, you would have seen Kiku blush as the maid told her who was in the front room and what her father had said.
She was to marry a noble by name, nature and achievement, with health, family, wealth and honor. Kiku lived in a new world of anticipation and of vision, the gate of which the Japanese call iro, and we love. At times, as she tried on for the twentieth time her white silk robe and costly girdle, she fell into a reverie, half sad and half joyful.
Resuming our narrative, we must mention that Kiku's father had once had an offer from one Matsui, a wealthy retainer of the Wakasa clan, through that young nobleman's middleman or agent, which he refused, to the disgust of both middleman and suitor. The latter had seen Kiku walking with her mother while going to the temple at Shiba, and, being struck with her beauty, inquired who she was.
On the third day after her marriage Kiku visited her parents, and after that spent many days in returning the visits of all who had called on her. Now, like the "goosie gander" of nursery memory, we must wander again into the lady's chamber.
"For then I can have a little brother of my own to carry on my back, just the way O Kiku San carries hers! I've never had a thing but borrowed babies before! And O Kiku San is not polite about lending hers at all! Please, please let me hold him!" She held up her arms, and the Father laid the little baby in them very, very gently.
With denuded brows and changed coiffure surely the Japanese Hymen demands no more sacrifices at his shrine? Surely Kiku can still keep the treasures of a set of teeth that seem like a casket of pearls with borders of coral? Not so. The fashion of all good society from remotest antiquity demands that the teeth of a wife must be dyed black.
A Japanese mnemonic verse tells us the number of souls or natures corresponding to each of the Five Elemental Influences namely, nine souls for Wood, three for Fire, one for Earth, seven for Metal, five for Water: Kiku karani Himitsu no yama ni Tsuchi hitotsu Nanatsu kane to zo Go suiryo are. But even these hints give no idea whatever how enormously complicated the subject really is.
Taro's and Take's letters were very big and queer-looking, and the paper got so wet that the teacher said, "Children, you may all carry your copy-books outdoors and hang them up to dry, and you may eat your rice out of doors." The children took their copy-books and their bags of rice and ran out. The Twins found a nice shady place to eat their luncheon. O Kiku San ate her rice with Taro and Take.
Now, in the house of one of that daimyo's chief retainers there was a maid-servant, of good family, whose name was O- Kiku; and the name 'Kiku' signifies a chrysanthemum flower. Many precious things were intrusted to her charge, and among others ten costly dishes of gold.
Sometimes, when gentlemen called to see her father, Kiku would bring tea to the guest, and was thus made the subject of compliments; but as to "receiving" male company, she never did it. Kiku never went out unless accompanied by her mother or the maid, who was like her shadow.
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