Ernest Mason Satow as a child dreamed of the orient and especially Japan. By God's Grace, he embarked after answering a civil service advertisement for interpreters to Japan, upon the career which he had dreamed.
As Japanese Secretary, a job he rose to from interpreter, as that was looked most condescendingly upon in feudal Japan, he gained insights of the Japanese which few had, and in gaining friendship and trust, he had opened to him the world which none had ever witnessed, prior or since.
We had two charming _geishas_ to attend on
the party, one looking as if she had just stepped out of a picture, the
classical contour of the face, arched nose, small full underlip, narrow
eyes, and a good-hearted expression of countenance. The other personally
more attractive according to western notions of beauty, but with a
little of the devil in her eyes. Lastly, there was an old _geiko_ or
musician of six or eight and twenty, a clever woman. The streets were
still illuminated at night for the festival, and crowded with dancers.
The Geisha being the most profound development of any feudal society, for they projected more than French coutesan or any feminine form in history, as they were skilled and crafted to be the ultimate woman or companion. They simply were schooled in the art of how to be a woman to make a man at ease with being a man.
To be able to be on friendly terms with Japanese aristocracy of the Shogun order and commerical order, to speak their language in full meaning, and to be seated at table with Geishas as the living ornaments upon the Bonsai tree was a rare glimpse of history that only a paragraph could never do justice to.
No one can comprehend really outside of Japan, who a Geisha was, for they never could become wife, but they were an integral part of the chivalristic culture of that land. They were sold usually by parents who were poor as little girls, and would rise to provide for an entire house of an elder Geisha, older matrons and those little girls chosen.
In a feudal world, they were one of the most independent and powerful of women, and sex was not the pre eminent focus of the entire structure, as the powerful males could gain sex from wives or prostitutes, but the Geisha entertained the men allowing them to relax to become little boys again, whereby they were free from responsibilities of business, government, war, wives, children and sex.
Charming is not the correct word, but the Geisha did produce a hypontic trance upon those she entertained. She captivated them by every movement, every word, every laugh and every song.
She was a performer of feminine, and by that she ruled and by that governance never produced fear in those most powerful and dangerous of men in taming their savage breast.
agtG
