THREE:"It is nothing to me," Hetty said coldly. "If you desire to avoid a scandal for the sake of the house, my lips are sealed. If you have nothing further to say to me, I will go and see if Mamie is still asleep."
THREE:But I was wrong this time, he said. I gave you a lot of trouble in consequence."Oh, God," he cried out, at last, and shivering from head to foot. "Are you doing these things on purpose to frighten me, or can't you, can't you help it? Do you think I don't believe you? Do you think I can keep on deceiving myself? I tell you I'm ready to believe anythingI capitulateI only ask you to let me down lightly. I'm only human, and human nerves weren't made to stand this."
THREE: "They have a great deal of embroidered and figured silk; and when you go into a shop, these are the first things they show you. Some of the work is magnificent; and when you look at it and learn the price, it does not take you long to conclude that the labor of Kioto is not very highly paid. There are many silk-weavers here, and we have visited some of the factories. The largest that we saw contained twenty looms, about half of them devoted to brocades and other figured work, and the rest to plain silks. The looms for ordinary work are quite plain and simple; those for the figured silks are somewhat complicated, and require two persons to operate them. One sits in the usual position in front of the loom, and the other up aloft; each of them has a pattern of the work, and there is a bewildering lot of threads which must be pulled at the right time. The process is very slow; and if these weavers could see a Jacquard loom, I think they would be astonished."The orchestra furnishes music by means of the guitar, or 'samisen.' It is played something like our guitar, except that a piece of ivory is used for striking the strings, and is always used in a concert that has any pretence to being properly arranged. There are two or three other instruments, one of them a small drum, which they play upon with the fingers; but it is not so common as the samisen, and I don't think it is so well liked. Then they have flutes, and some of them are very sweet, and harmonize well with the samisen; but the singers do not like them for an accompaniment[Pg 235] unless they have powerful voices. The samisen-players generally sing, and in the theatres the musicians form a part of the chorus. A good deal of the play is explained by the chorus; and if there are any obscure points, the audience is told what they are. I remember seeing the same thing almost exactly, or, at any rate, the same thing in principle, in the performance of "Henry V." at a theatre in New York several years ago, so that this idea of having the play explained by the chorus cannot be claimed as a Japanese invention.