The Pipe
I
Maeda Narihiro, Lord of Kanazawa Castle in Ishikawa District of Kaga Province, every time he went up to the Honmaru in Edo Castle to serve the Shōgun, was sure to take his favorite pipe along. Made by Sumiyoshiya Shichibei, a then famous pipe maker, it was an elegant piece of workmanship of pure gold with the plum-blossom-and-spear-point crest scattered over it.
Under the system of the Tokugawa government, the Maedas, when on duty at the Shōgun’s castle, had taken precedence immediately after the three families of Owari, Kii and Mito ever since the time of the fifth lord of Kaga, Tsunanori. Of course, in riches too they were practically without a peer among the greater and lesser lords of the time. So it was only to have an ornament suitable to his station that Narihiro, the head of the family at that time, carried a pipe of pure gold.
But Narihiro was exceedingly proud of carrying that pipe. I should explain, however, that his pride was due in no sense to a fondness for the thing itself. He was delighted because the power which enabled him to use such a pipe daily was superior to that of the other lords. In short we may say that he was proud of being able to carry about with him everywhere the million koku of rice of Kaga Province in the form of this pure gold pipe.
So Narihiro was almost never without his pipe while in attendance at the Shōgun’s castle. Of course when conversing with others and even when alone, he was sure to take it from the bosom of his kimono, and putting it in his mouth vaingloriously, puff calmly away at Nagasaki or some such fragrant tobacco.
Of course this feeling of pride may not have been of such an arrogant nature as to make him deliberately show off the pipe and the million koku represented by it. But even though he did not show it off himself, it was clearly evident that the attention of the whole palace was concentrated on it. And the consciousness of that attention gave Narihiro a rather pleasant feeling. Indeed after he had been asked by other lords present just to show them the pipe, as it was such a splendid one, he felt that even the familiar smoke of the tobacco bit his tongue more agreeably.
II
Among those astonished at the pure gold pipe carried by Narihiro, those who liked to talk about it most were the shave-pate attendants called obōzu. Whenever they met, they put their noses together and chattered away at each other, as they loved to, on the subject of Kaga’s pipe.
“It’s an article fit for a lord.”
“And what’s more, such a thing has intrinsic value.”
“If you pawned it, how much do you suppose it would bring?”
“Who but you would ever pawn it?”
In general, such was the tone of their conversations.
Then one day when five or six of them had their round heads together smoking and talking about the pipe as usual, Kōchiyama Sōshun, attendant of the Osukiya, came by chance where they were. (He was the man who came in later years to play the chief role among the “Six Poetical Geniuses of the Tempō Period.”)
“H’m, that pipe again?” he grunted, looking askance at the group.
“It’s a splendid thing both as to carving and the metal of which it’s made. To us who haven’t even silver pipes, it’s an eyesore—”
The attendant Ryōtetsu, who was letting himself go for a little speech, suddenly noticed that Sōshun had drawn over his tobacco pouch and, having filled his own pipe from it, was calmly blowing smoke rings into the air.
“Here, here, that’s not your pouch!”
“That’s all right.”
Without so much as looking at Ryōtetsu, Sōshun filled his pipe again. And when he had smoked it up, he threw back the pouch with a suppressed yawn and said,
“Faw, that’s bad tobacco. A nice pipe-fancier, you!”
Ryōtetsu put away his tobacco pouch hurriedly.
“Nonsense! In a gold pipe, it’d taste pretty good, all right.”
“H’m, that pipe again?” said Sōshun for the second time. “If you think so much of pure gold, why don’t you go and ask him to give you the pipe?”
“Ask him to give me the pipe?”
“Yes.”
Even Ryōtetsu seemed surprised at Sōshun’s audacity.
“However avaricious I may be—at least, if it were silver, it would be different. But it’s pure gold, that pipe.”
“Of course it is. That’s just why you ought to ask for it. Who’d ever go and get anybody to give him a brass pipe?”
“But I’d be a bit ashamed.”
Ryōtetsu gave his closely shaven pate one tap and struck a posture of reverential awe.
“If you don’t get it, I will. See? Don’t be envious afterwards.”
So saying, Kōchiyama, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, shrugged his shoulders and laughed derisively.
III
While Narihiro was smoking as usual in a room in the palace, one of the golden doors with a picture of Seiōbo painted on it slid quietly open and an attendant clad in a darkish kimono of kihachijō silk and a crested black haori crawled reverentially into his presence. As he did not
