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Updated: June 2, 2025


Faithfully following Japanese etiquette, Kiku had been carefully kept from the company of any of the male sex since her eighth year. She never talked with any young man except her brothers. Occasionally at family parties she was addressed by her uncles or cousins.

O Kiku, tightly bound and in agony, could not move; but at last she contrived to bite or cut the ropes asunder, and, escaping into the garden, threw herself into a well, and was drowned.

A huge maguro-fish, thinly sliced, but perfectly raw, was the pièce de résistance of the feast. Now, having briefly described Kiku's wedding, perhaps we should stop here. Although fairly married, however, Kiku was not through the ceremonies of the night.

The leader of feminine fashion in Japan, the young empress Haruko, has set her subjects the example by for ever banishing the galls and iron, appearing even in public with her teeth as Nature made them. Kiku and Taro, though once proud to own allegiance to the Shô-gun, are now among the staunch supporters of the lord of the Shô-gun, the Mikado, the only true sovereign of the Sunrise Kingdom.

The shimada or virginal coiffure, however, is changed after marriage, and Kiku, like the rest of her wedded friends, now wore the maru-mage, or half-moon-shaped chignon, which is wound round an ivory, tortoise-shell or coral-tipped bar, and is the distinguishing mark of a Japanese wife.

The black teeth, maru-mage and shaven eyebrows constitute a talisman of safety in a land which foreigners so like to believe licentious and corrupt beyond the bounds of conception. Now that we have Kiku married, we must leave her to glide into the cool, sequestered paths of a Japanese married lady's life.

Her toilet finished, she stepped out of her childhood's home to take her place in the norimono or palanquin which, borne on the shoulders of four men, was to convey her to her future home. Just as Kiku stands in the vestibule of her father's house let us photograph her for you.

Having come of age and wishing a wife, he had sued for Kiku to her father, who, for reasons of his own, refused the request, on the ground that Kiku was too young, being then but fifteen years old.

He told the children where to open their books. Taro and Take couldn't even find the place, but O Kiku San, who sat next, found it for them. The teacher gave Taro and Take each a little stick. "Now I will tell you the names of these letters," he said, "and when I call the name of each one, you can point to it with the little stick. That will help you to remember it." He began to read.

Caged, the little creature will remain silent and die. Poets often wait vainly in the dew, from sunset till dawn, to hear the strange cry which has inspired so many exquisite verses. But those who have heard found it so mournful that they have likened it to the cry of one wounded suddenly to death. Hototogisu Chi ni naku koe wa Ariake no Tsuki yori kokani Kiku hito mo nashi.

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