Kokoro

by Sōseki Natsume

  And so I grew wary again. Still, at times I scoffed at my own foolishness. What use was all my caution about her mother, when I still loved Ojōsan as deeply as ever? But no matter how foolish I recognized myself to be, this contradiction was hardly a source of much pain. My real anguish began when it occurred to me that Ojōsan might be as devious as her mother. The instant it occurred to me that everything was a result of plotting behind my back, I was racked with agony. This was not mere unhappiness—I was in the grip of utter despair. And yet, at the same time I continued to have unwavering faith in Ojōsan. Thus I found myself paralyzed, suspended between conviction and doubt. Both seemed to me at once the product of my imagination and the truth.

  CHAPTER 70

  I kept up my attendance at college, but the professors’ lectures sounded distant in my ears. It was the same with my own study. My eyes took in the print on the page, yet its meaning vanished like a wisp of smoke before it really penetrated. I grew taciturn. Several friends, misinterpreting this, reported to others that I seemed as if deep in meditation. I made no attempt to correct them; in fact, I was delighted to be provided with this convenient mask. But at times some inner dissatisfaction would produce an outburst of high-spirited romping, astonishing my friends.

  Not many visitors came to the house. The family seemed to have few relatives. Once in a while Ojōsan’s friends stopped by, but generally they would spend the time talking in such low voices that one could scarcely tell they were in the house. For all my heightened sensitivity, I did not realize that they spoke quietly out of deference to my presence. My own friends who came calling, though hardly rowdy, were not inclined to feel constrained by the presence of others. Thus, where guests were concerned, our roles were essentially reversed—I seemed the master of the house, while Ojōsan behaved like a timorous guest.

  I write this simply because it is something I recall, not because it bothered me. One thing did bother me, though: one day I heard the startling sound of a male voice coming from somewhere in the house, either the sitting room or Ojōsan’s room. It was a very quiet voice, unlike that of my own visitors. I had no idea what he was saying, and the more I tried and failed to catch the words, the more it provoked my straining nerves. A strange sense of mounting frustration seized me as I sat in my room. I began by wondering whether he was a relative or only some acquaintance. Then I tried to guess if he was a young man or someone older. I had no way to tell from where I sat. Yet I could not get up and open the door to look. My nerves were not so much trembling as afflicting me with strong waves of painful tension.

  Once the man left, I carefully inquired his name. They gave a simple and straightforward answer. Though I made it clear I was still not satisfied, I lacked the courage to ask further. Nor, of course, did I have the right to do so. I had been taught to maintain dignified self-respect, but a blatant greed for information undermined it; both were evident on my face. They laughed. So perturbed was my state that I was unable to judge whether their laughter was scornful or well intentioned. Even once the incident had passed, I continued to mull over the thought that they might have been jeering at me.

  I was quite free—I could leave college at any time if I chose, go or live anywhere I liked, or marry any girl I wished, without having to consult anyone. Many times I had reached the decision to come right out and ask Okusan if I could marry her daughter. But each time I hesitated, and in the end said nothing. It wasn’t that I was afraid of a refusal—I could not imagine how life might change for me if she turned me down, but I could at least steel myself with the thought that a refusal might give me the advantage of a new perspective on the world. No, what irked me was the suspicion that they were luring me on. The thought that I could be innocently playing into their hands filled me with resentful rage. Ever since my uncle’s deception, I was determined that come what may I would never again become such easy prey.

  CHAPTER 71

  I spent my money on nothing but books. Okusan told me I should get some clothes, and it was true, all I had were the country-woven cotton robes that had been made for me back home. Students in those days never wore anything with silk in it. One of my friends, who came from a wealthy family of Yokohama merchants who did things extravagantly, was once sent an underrobe of fine silk. We all laughed at it. He produced all sorts of shamefaced excuses and tossed it unworn into his trunk, till we gathered around one day and bullied him into wearing it. Unfortunately, the thing became infested with lice. This was a lucky break for my friend, who bundled it up and carried it off on one of his walks, where he threw it into the large ditch in Nezu. I was with him, and I remember standing on the bridge laughing as I watched him. It never crossed my mind that this was a wasteful thing to do.

  I must have been quite grown-up by then, but I still had not come to understand the need for a set of good clothes. I had the odd idea that I had no need to bother about clothes until I graduated and grew an adult mustache. So my response to Okusan was that I only needed books. Knowing just how many I bought, she asked whether I read them all. I was stuck for an answer; some were dictionaries, but there were quite a few others that I should have read but whose pages were not even cut. Books or clothing, I realized then—it made no difference if the thing went unused. Besides, I wanted to buy Ojōsan an obi or some fabric that took her fancy, on the pretext of repaying them for all the kindness I had received. I therefore relented and asked Okusan to purchase the necessary things for me.

  She was not prepared to go alone. I must accompany her, she told me, and furthermore her daughter must come too. We students were brought up in a different world from today, remember, and it was not the custom in those days to go around in a girl’s company. Being still very much a slave to convention, I was hesitant, but I finally gathered up my courage and we all set off together.

  Ojōsan was dressed up for the occasion. She had whitened her naturally pale face with copious amounts of powder, and the effect was striking. Passersby stared at her. Then their eyes would stray to my face as I walked beside her, which I found disconcerting.

  We went to Nihonbashi and bought all we wanted. The process involved a lot of dithering over choices, so it took longer than anticipated. Okusan made a point of constantly calling me over to ask my opinion. From time to time she hung a piece of fabric over Ojōsan’s shoulder and asked me to step back a few paces and see what I thought. I always managed to respond convincingly, declaring that this worked or that did not.

  It was dinnertime when we were finally through. Okusan offered to treat me to a meal by way of thanks, and she led us down a narrow side street where I remember there was a vaudeville theater called Kiharadana. Our restaurant was as tiny as the lane. I knew nothing of the local geography, and Okusan’s familiarity with it quite surprised me.

  We didn’t get home until after dark. The next day was a Sunday, and I spent it shut away in my room. On Monday no sooner did I arrive at the university than a classmate asked me teasingly when I’d gotten myself a wife, and congratulated me on marrying such a beauty. He had evidently caught sight of the three of us on our Nihonbashi excursion.

  CHAPTER 72

  When I got home, I told this story to Okusan and Ojōsan. Okusan laughed, then looked me in the eye and added, “That must have been awkward for you.” I wondered then whether this was how a woman induces a man to talk. Her look certainly gave me reason to think so. Perhaps I should have asked for Ojōsan’s hand then and there. But my heart was by now deeply ingrained with distrust. I opened my mouth to speak, then stopped and deliberately shifted the direction of the conversation elsewhere.

  Carefully avoiding the crucial subject of my own feelings, I probed Okusan on her intentions for her daughter’s marriage. She told me frankly that there had already been two or three proposals, but as her daughter was still a young schoolgirl, there was no hurry. Though she did not say as much, she clearly set great store by her daughter’s good looks. She even remarked in passing that a suitable husband could be found anytime they
wished. But as her daughter was an only child, she said, she was not inclined to send her off with just anyone. I got the impression that she was of two minds about whether to adopt a son-in-law as a member of their own household, or let her daughter marry out as a bride.1

  I felt I was gaining quite a lot of information as I listened. Effectively, however, I had forfeited my own chance to speak. I couldn’t say a word on my own behalf now. At an appropriate point I broke off the conversation and returned to my room.

  Ojōsan, who had been sitting with us laughing and protesting at my tale, by this time had retreated to a corner with her back turned. As I stood to leave, I turned and saw her there. It is impossible to read the heart of someone who is looking away, and I couldn’t guess what she might have been thinking as she listened. She was sitting beside the half-open closet and had taken something from it and laid it on her lap. She now appeared to be gazing intently down at it. In a corner of the open closet, I caught sight of the fabric I had bought her two days before. My own new robe, I saw, lay folded there with hers.

  As I was standing wordlessly to leave, Okusan suddenly grew serious. “What’s your opinion?” she asked. Confused by the unexpected question, I had to ask what she meant. She wanted to know, she explained, whether I thought an early marriage was a good idea. I said I thought it wise to take things slowly. “I think so too,” she replied.

  It was at this point in the relationship among the three of us that another man entered the picture, one whose arrival in the household crucially affected my fate. If he had not crossed my path, I doubt that I would need to write this long letter to you now. It was as if I stood there oblivious as the devil brushed by me, unaware that he cast a shadow upon me that would darken my whole life. It was I who brought this man into the house, I must confess. Naturally, I needed Okusan’s consent, so I told her his story and asked if he could move in with me. She advised against it but had no convincing argument to offer. For my part, I could see every reason why I must bring him into the household, and so I persisted in following my own judgment and did what I believed was right.

  CHAPTER 73

  I will call this friend of mine K. We had been friends since childhood. As you will no doubt realize from this, our native place was a bond between us. K was the son of a Pure Land Buddhist priest—but not the eldest son and heir, I should add, which is how he came to be adopted by a doctor’s family. The Hongan subsect had a very powerful presence in my home district, and its priests were better off than others. If the priest had a daughter of marriageable age, for instance, one of his parishioners would help to find her a suitable match, and the wedding expenses would of course not come out of his own pocket. Pure Land temple families were thus generally quite wealthy.

  K’s home temple was a prosperous one. Even so, the family may not have had the funds to send him to Tokyo for his education. Did they decide to have him adopted into the other family because the other family had the means to educate him? I have no way of knowing. I only know that the doctor’s family adopted him while we were still middle-school students. I still remember the surprise I felt when the teacher called the roll one day and I realized K’s name had suddenly changed.

  His new family was also fairly wealthy, and they paid for him to go to Tokyo for his studies. I left before he did, but he moved into the same dormitory when he arrived. K and I shared a room—in those days it was common for two or three students to study and sleep together in the one room. We lived huddled together like wild animals trapped in a cage, hugging each other and glaring out at the world. Tokyo and its inhabitants frightened us both. There in our little room, however, we spoke with contempt of the world at large.

  But we were in earnest, and determined one day to become great. K’s willpower was particularly strong. Son of a temple family that he was, he was in the habit of talking in terms of the Buddhist concept of dedicated self-discipline, and his behavior certainly seemed to me to epitomize this ideal. In my heart, I stood in awe of him.

  Ever since our middle-school days, K had bewildered me with difficult discussions on religion and philosophy. I do not know whether his father had inspired this interest, or whether the atmosphere peculiar to temple buildings had infected him as a child. In any event, K seemed to me far more monkish than the average monk. His adoptive family had sent him to Tokyo to study medicine. In his stubborn way, however, he had decided before he arrived that he would not become a doctor. I reproached him, pointing out that he was in effect deceiving his adoptive parents, and he brashly agreed that he was. Such deception did not bother him, he said, since it was in the cause of his “chosen path.” I doubt if even he understood precisely what he meant by this phrase. I certainly had no idea. But we were young, and this vague abstraction had for us a hallowed ring. Comprehension was beside the point. I could not but admire these lofty sentiments that governed and impelled him. I accepted his argument. I do not know how important my agreement may have been for K, but he would surely have gone his way, stubbornly, regardless of any protest I made.

  Child though I still was, however, I was prepared to accept that by going along with him, I would bear some responsibility if problems ever arose. Even if I could not quite summon such resolve at the time, nevertheless I spoke my words of encouragement to him firm in the belief that if in later life I ever had cause to look back on this moment, I would properly acknowledge the degree of responsibility I bore.

  CHAPTER 74

  K and I entered the same faculty. He proceeded to pursue his chosen course of study, using the money sent to him, quite unconcerned. I could only interpret this as a mixture of complacent faith that the family would not find out, and a defiant resolve that if they did, he would not care. I was far more concerned than he over the question.

  During the first summer vacation he did not go home, choosing instead to rent a room in a temple in the Komagome area1 and study during the break. When I came back in early September, he was holed up in a shabby little temple beside the Great Kannon. He had a small room tucked in beside the main temple building, and he seemed delighted that he had been able to get on with his studies there as planned. I think it was then I realized that he was becoming more and more monastic in lifestyle. A circlet of Buddhist rosary beads adorned his wrist. I asked the reason, and in response he told off a couple of beads with his thumb. I gathered that he counted through them a number of times each day. The meaning of this escaped me. If you count off a circle of beads, you never reach an end. At what point, and with what feelings, would his fingers cease to move those beads? This may be a silly question, but it haunts me.

  I also saw a Bible in his room, which rather startled me. On numerous occasions in the past he had referred to Buddhist sutras, but we had never discussed the subject of Christianity. I could not resist asking about it. There was no real reason, he replied. He thought it natural to want to read a book that brought such comfort to others. If he had the chance, he added, he would like to read the Koran as well. He seemed particularly interested in the idea of Muhammad spreading the Word “with book or sword.”

  In the second year he finally gave in to family pressure and went home for the summer. He apparently told them nothing about what he was studying even then, and they did not guess. Having been a student yourself, you will of course be well aware of such things, but the world at large is surprisingly ignorant about student life, school regulations, and so forth. Things that are quite routine for students mean absolutely nothing to outsiders. On the other hand, locked away in our own little world, we are far too inclined to assume that the world is thoroughly acquainted with everything great and small to do with school. K no doubt understood this ignorance better than I. He returned to college with a nonchalant air. We set off for Tokyo together, and as soon as we were in the train, I asked him how it had gone. Nothing had happened, he told me.

  Our third summer vacation was the time when I decided to leave forever the land that held my parents’ graves. I urged K to go home that
summer, but he resisted. He said he saw no point in going back every year. He clearly planned to spend the summer in Tokyo studying again, so I resignedly set off for home without him. I have already written of the deep turmoil into which my life was thrown by those two months at home. When I met K again in September, I was in the grip of anger, misery, and loneliness.

  In fact, his life had undergone an upheaval rather like my own. Unknown to me, he had written a letter to his adoptive parents confessing his deceit. He had intended all along to do so, he said. Perhaps he was hoping that they would react by grudgingly accepting the change, and decide it was too late to argue, so he could have his way. At any rate, it seemed he was not prepared to continue deceiving them once he entered university; no doubt he realized that he would not get away with it much longer.

  CHAPTER 75

  His adoptive father was enraged when he read K’s letter and immediately sent off a forceful reply to the effect that he could not finance the education of a scoundrel who had so deceived his parents. K showed me the letter. He then showed me the one he had received from his own family, which condemned him in equally strong terms. No doubt an added sense of failed obligation to the other family reinforced their decision to refuse to support him. K was faced with the dilemma of whether to return to his own family or consent to compromise with his adoptive parents to stay on their family register. His immediate problem, however, was how to come up with the money he needed to stay at college.

  I asked if he had found a solution, and he replied that he was thinking of taking work teaching at an evening school. Times were far easier back then; it was not as difficult as you might think to find part-time work of this sort. I thought it would see him through very well. But I also bore responsibility in the matter. I had been the one to agree with his decision to ignore his adoptive family’s plans for him and tread a path of his own choosing, and I could not now stand idly by. I immediately offered K financial assistance. He rejected it absolutely. Given who he was, no doubt financial independence gave him far greater satisfaction than the prospect of living under a friend’s protection. Now that he was a university student, he declared, he must be man enough to stand on his own two feet. I was not prepared to hurt K’s feelings for the sake of satisfying my own sense of responsibility, so I let him have his way and withdrew my offer of a helping hand.