Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (101 page)

Very great preparations are being made for this royal visit. The apartments in the palace by the sea
⁷
have all been furnished and decorated anew; there are to be triumphal arches and illuminations and Court balls; and the Emperor intends to lavish honours—and fun—on his guest.
⁸

Nicholas and his suite arrived in Nagasaki on April 27. They had left St. Petersburg in November of the previous year and had boarded the warship
Pamiat Azova
in Trieste, the major port of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The ship had called at Egypt, Bombay, Ceylon, Singapore, Java, Saigon, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Canton, and Shanghai before reaching Japan. Nicholas was scheduled to visit different regions of Japan and then go on to Vladivostok, where he would inaugurate the construction of the Ussuri Railroad from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk.
⁹
The decision to send the youthful (he was twenty-three) Nicholas to the East undoubtedly reflected the growing interest of Russia in East Asia.

In Nagasaki, Nicholas received a state reception. Prince Takehito (the younger brother of Prince Taruhito) headed the welcoming party and would accompany the Russian prince throughout his stay in Japan. The reception given Nicholas was on a grand scale and planned to the last detail, down to which kind of tea or cakes would be offered at each stop during the princes’ tour of the city.
¹⁰

It seems likely that young Nicholas was hoping for other things than tea and cakes. The night before landing in Nagasaki, Nicholas read Pierre Loti’s
Madame Chrysanthème
, a book that seems to have inspired a desire to acquire a temporary Japanese “wife.” The evening of his arrival in Nagasaki, he met eight junior officers of the Russian navy stationed in the Inasa district and learned that each had married a Japanese wife. He commented, “I would like to follow their example.” He added, “But how shameful to think of such things, just as Holy Week, when Christ suffered, is about to begin.”
¹¹

May 3 was Easter Sunday, and Nicholas was expected to spend the preceding week in prayers. The Japanese, learning of this, did not schedule any official ceremonies until May 4, but Nicholas was so impatient to see the city that instead of devoting himself to prayers aboard ship, he secretly went sightseeing in a jinrikisha.
¹²
He was delighted with the cleanliness of the streets and houses and with the friendliness of the people. Wherever he went, he was trailed by Japanese plainclothes police responsible for his safety. Their secret reports on his movements reported precisely when Nicholas went where and what he bought at souvenir shops.
¹³
In imitation of Loti, Nicholas had a dragon tattooed on his right arm; it took seven hours, from nine in the evening until four the next morning.
¹⁴

On May 4 Nicholas, free of religious impediments to his activities, enjoyed a rousing welcome from the citizens of Nagasaki. The long association—more than thirty years—of the Russian Pacific Fleet with the city had fostered a friendly attitude toward Russians. In his diary Nicholas expressed surprise at the number of people who could speak Russian. That day he was entertained at an elaborate Japanese banquet offered by the governor of Nagasaki. After the meal, he and the Greek prince were shown a display of Arita ceramics and other Japanese artistic wares and then were taken to see the Suwa
jinja
, the principal Shint
ō
shrine in the city. They returned to the ship afterward, but that evening Nicholas and George slipped ashore and went to Inasa, where they met the resident Russian officers and their Japanese wives. Geishas danced for them. Nicholas mentioned in his diary that everyone had a little to drink.
¹⁵

The secret police report on that evening’s amusements supplied details not recorded in Nicholas’s diary. They mentioned that the Russians were entertained by five geishas from Maruyama. Then followed a drinking party at which the geishas danced and the two princes sang Russian songs. Late that night, they went to a Western-style restaurant run by one Morooka Matsu. They did not return to the ship until four in the morning. Another source states that Matsu arranged private entertainment for the two princes on the second floor of her establishment; the names of the ladies involved are a matter of dispute.
¹⁶
Nicholas much regretted leaving Nagasaki, which he praised especially for its cleanliness.

The next port of call was Kagoshima, a curious choice considering the xenophobia for which Satsuma was renowned. Shimazu Tadayoshi was particularly conservative, as was apparent from his refusal to cut his hair or to wear European clothes, and he was not fond of foreigners; but when he learned that the Russian prince was to visit Japan, he decided to invite him to Kagoshima. The Russians arrived on May 6.

The entertainment offered by Shimazu Tadayoshi was of an earlier day. When Nicholas reached Tadayoshi’s residence, the latter, along with 170 elderly samurai all dressed in traditional armor, came out to welcome him. The samurai performed warlike dances led by Tadayoshi’s six-year-old son, Tadashige, and Tadayoshi himself led the display of mounted archery.
¹⁷
Nicholas was delighted with his reception in Kagoshima. He was particularly pleased that he saw no other Europeans in the city, proof that the place was still “unspoiled.” He enjoyed the elaborate Japanese meal, but above all he was pleased with the conservatism of Shimazu Tadayoshi, which accorded with his own taste.

Not all the Russians were so impressed: Prince E. E. Ukhotomskii, who accompanied the czarevitch, complained that Kagoshima, the birthplace of “samurai-ism” and xenophobia, was a hotbed of Shint
ō
and feudal tradition. He found the music for the samurai dances gloomy, and the battle cries raised by the samurai, cacophonous.
¹⁸
But a bond had been formed between Nicholas and the Shimazu family that would be maintained in years to come. The Russian ships left the same day at dusk.

May 7 and 8 were spent at sea. The
Pamiat Azova
passed through the Shimonoseki Straits and proceeded through the Inland Sea to K
ō
be, arriving a little after midday on the ninth. After about two hours visiting the sights of the city, the Russians boarded a train for Ky
ō
to, arriving that evening. Nicholas was delighted with Ky
ō
to. He referred to it as the Moscow of Japan, alluding to the fact that both cities had once been capitals. He stayed at the Tokiwa, a modern hotel, but declined the Western-style room prepared for him, preferring a traditional Japanese room. That night Nicholas suddenly said that he would like to see some “Ky
ō
to prostitutes” dance. He was taken to the Nakamura-r
ō
in Gion, where he remained until two in the morning.

The next day was spent in sightseeing and shopping. He visited (among other places) the Gosho, Nij
ō
Castle, and both East and West Honganji, the two biggest Buddhist temples. He saw
kemari
played by members of the Asukai family and observed long-distance firing of arrows. He seemed delighted by whatever he saw, and needless to say, wherever he went, he was acclaimed by crowds. He spent more than 10,000 yen on art objects and at the Nishi Honganji donated 200 yen for relief of the poor. The Japanese were impressed by his thoughtfulness in asking before he entered any building if he should remove his shoes.

The next morning Nicholas, George, and members of their suite left the hotel in Ky
ō
to for
Ō
tsu in order to enjoy the sights of Lake Biwa and the surrounding mountains. Nicholas, dressed in a striped woolen suit and wearing a gray bowler hat, rode in a jinrikisha. At the border between Ky
ō
to and Shiga Prefectures had been erected an arch of evergreens surmounted with crossed Japanese, Russian, and Greek flags. Once the party had passed through the arch, they were welcomed by the
Ō
tsu regimental commander, the chief of the Shiga police, city officials, teachers, schoolchildren, and so on, all lined up along the road.
¹⁹

As the long procession of jinrikishas, stretching back more than 300 feet, entered
Ō
tsu, the crowds, like those in the other Japanese cities Nicholas had visited, cheered and waved flags. The procession headed first to the Miidera, where the royal guests were shown treasures of the temple and told of its long history. They enjoyed the views of Lake Biwa from the temple and presently were escorted to the shore of the lake, where they boarded the
Hoan maru
. The ship, gaily decorated with green leaves and flowers, sailed to Karasaki, where, as the foreign princes approached, daytime fireworks (invisible but audible) greeted them. After inspecting the display of armor in the shrine, they returned to the
Hoan maru
, which took them back to
Ō
tsu.
²⁰

The czarevitch had lunch at the prefectural office, and at half-past one he and his party set out on the return journey to Ky
ō
to. The procession of jinrikishas was headed by four in which police and civil officials of Shiga and Ky
ō
to rode. Nicholas was in the fifth jinrikisha, George in the sixth, and Prince Takehito in the seventh.
²¹
There had been rumors that something untoward might happen to the Russian prince this day, and police were stationed along the way. The procession had traveled some six or seven
ch
ō
from the prefectural office, barely making its way through the crowds on both sides of the narrow street, when suddenly a policeman leaped out and, aiming at the czarevitch’s head, attacked with his saber. The first blow lopped off the brim of the prince’s hat and dealt him a wound on the forehead. Nicholas recorded in his diary:

I was returning along the same street in a jinrikisha. Crowds were lined up on both sides of the street. We turned left on the narrow street. Just then I felt a sharp sensation on my right temple. I turned back and a policeman, so ugly as to turn my stomach, was swinging a saber in both hands and coming at me for a second attack. The next instant I jumped from the jinrikisha onto the paved road, shouting all the while, “What do you think you’re doing?” The reprobate came pursuing me. No one tried to stop the man. Pressing my hand against the bleeding wound, I ran as fast as I could. I wanted to hide in the crowd, but I couldn’t because the Japanese had panicked and were scattering in all directions.

As I ran I looked back once again, and I noticed George running after the policeman who was pursuing me. After I had run about sixty feet I stopped at the corner of a narrow lane and turned back. To my great relief, the attack was over. George, to whom I owe my life, had knocked the reprobate down with a blow from his bamboo whip. When I went up to the place, I saw our jinrikisha coolies and several police officers were dragging the reprobate by the legs, and one of them was cutting at the reprobate’s neck with a saber.

Everyone was standing there in a daze. I could not understand why George and I and the madman had been left alone on the street, why not one person had run up to help me and to stop the policeman. I could, however, understand why nobody in our escort had been able to help me. Prince Arisugawa, third in the line, couldn’t have seen anything. In order to reassure them, I deliberately remained on my feet as long as I could.
²²

Nicholas’s account should have been definitive, but the testimony of numerous other witnesses makes it clear that he erred in several particulars. He was incorrect in stating that George had knocked down the policeman and that nobody had helped him and George when they were threatened. At the trial, witnesses testified that George was indeed first to resist the attacker. He used the bamboo whip purchased that day as a souvenir. However, the whip did not cause the assailant to fall down; it only made him flinch, but that was long enough for Nicholas’s ricksha coolie to tackle him. The saber dropped from the policeman’s hand as he fell, and one of George’s coolies, picking it up, slashed the man’s neck and back. The vital role of the two rickshaw coolies in saving the Russian prince was soon recognized not only by the Japanese but also by the Russians.
²³

The mistakes in Nicholas’s account can be attributed to extreme agitation and to the effects of the wounds, but the reward he bestowed on the rickshaw coolies prove that he later came to recognize their courage. All the same, every year on May 11, the anniversary of the
Ō
tsu incident, in his prayers he thanked George (not the coolies) for saving his life.
²⁴

We may conjecture, however, that the sensation of being abandoned by a crowd that was more concerned with its own safety than with saving two unarmed men from a maniac may have embittered Nicholas toward the Japanese. There is no overt indication of this feeling in his diary; on the contrary, it mentions how moved he was to see Japanese kneeling along the streets, their hands clasped in prayer, apologizing for the disaster that had befallen him.
²⁵
Moreover, he assured Prince Takehito immediately after the attack that his trifling wounds would certainly not make him think ill of Japan.
²⁶

But in his memoirs, Count Witte interpreted the prince’s reactions quite differently:

It seems to me that the attack left the Tsesarevich with an attitude of hostility toward and contempt for Japan and the Japanese, as can be seen from official reports in which he refers to the Japanese as “
macaques
” [baboons].