by Osamu Dazai
It's all right to be dead drunk as long as you aren't rude. Isn't that obvious? I can hold my alcohol. I think I may be many times stronger than the old man Basho. I don't intend to be stupid and get too drunk at someone else's home. If not given a cup of sake, I can't be normal. I drink a lot. Another rule of a pilgrimage of Basho is there should be no small talk only haiku, and if small talk starts, you should work hard to doze off. I didn't follow this rule either.
From our perspective as laymen, as much as we'd like to suspect the pilgrimage of Basho was not a business trip to the countryside to publicize the correct style of haiku, he held haiku gatherings at each destination of the trip and set up regional branches for advancing the proper style of haiku. If a lecturer is surrounded by special students of haiku, the students avoid small talk with each other. If small talk starts, what should you do? Pretend to be asleep? My trip is not a trip to set up regional branches in the style of Dazai. N wanted to hear a lecture on literature from me and had no reason to throw a party. Also, influential men were the visitors at N's home that night. Because I have been a close friend of N for many years, they felt somewhat friendly to me, too, and we exchanged drinks. I took the offensive and explained the location of the literary mind every way possible. When engaged in small talk with the alcove post at my back, I believed faking sleep would not be a gentle gesture.
That night, I did not speak one word about literature. I didn't even use the words of Tokyo. I struggled to not act prim and spoke in a pure Tsugaru dialect. I only chatted about trivial everyday matters. Not working too hard to that point was good. As much as I thought anyone at the party was sure to feel left out, I faced these people as the jerky younger brother from the Tsushima family in Tsugaru. (The name Tsushima Shuji was my name entered in the family registry at birth. The kanji for Uncle Scum could be used for the one called the jerky brother. If the third or the fourth son is spoken of with disdain, those words are used in the dialect of this region.) For this trip, I had no reason not to be reduced again to this Uncle Scum of the Tsushima. They felt uneasy towards me as a city boy and desired to grab onto me as a native of Tsugaru.
In other words, I wanted to understand the nature of a Tsugaru native and embarked on this trip. I came to Tsugaru to search for a purebred Tsugaru native to model my life on. I easily discovered him everywhere. It didn't matter who. Arrogant criticism by an indigent traveler cannot be allowed. That is extremely rude. He would not be discovered in the actions and words of individuals or in the hospitality extended to me. I intended not to travel with the wary eyes of a detective. So I mostly looked down at my feet as I walked. I often heard my fate being whispered in my ears. I believed it. I discovered it was very subjective with neither reason or form. I didn't worry particularly about who did what or what someone said. That was natural because I have almost no capacity to fret about anything. In fact, I saw nothing. I wrote the strange saying, "There is reality in belief, and reality can never be what people are made to believe," twice in my travel journal.
Although prudent, my description left a bad impression. My theory is confused. I often don't understand what I'm saying. And I lie. Thus, I hate explaining my feelings. I only blush red with shame like it's all transparent affectation. Although I know I will feel deep regret, I get excited and pout giving my mouth whiplash and slurring my words and begin a long-winded, incoherent complaint. My sad fate may be that contempt will develop in my companion's heart or feelings of mercy will be awakened.
That night, without exposing that bad impression, I rebelled against the teachings of Basho and took an interest only in small talk without dozing off. Gazing at the mountain of crabs before my eyes, I drank until late in the night. N's petite and wise wife noticed I enjoyed only looking at the mountain of crabs but never reached for one. She thought I had tired of shelling crabs and, with great skill, diligently shelled them herself and piled the beautiful white meat on each crab shell. Several fruits were offered to me in the form of a fragrant, refreshing jelly dessert containing fruits in their original forms.
Perhaps, the crabs were brought from Kanita beach that morning. The flavor was fresh and light like freshly-picked fruit. I remained tranquil as I broke my self-discipline of apathy towards food and ate three or four. That night, N's wife gave a tray to each guest, even the local people were surprised by the abundance of food on those trays.
After the prominent guests went home, N and I moved the drinking party from the inner drawing room to the parlor, and the second wind began. In the Tsugaru region, after the guests leave after a gathering at someone's home for a celebration, the second wind is a modest thank-you party where a small number of relatives and close friends gathers the leftover snacks for drinking and sounds like the word meaning insatiable drinker in the Tsugaru dialect. N was a stronger drinker than I, and the danger of slipping into a disturbance wouldn't happen with us.
"And you…" I sighed deeply and said, "always drink. But since you were my teacher, it won't be a problem."
In fact, N taught me to drink. That is certain.
"Okay," said N with a cup in hand. He looked grim and nodded.
"I think about that often. You seem to have a fondness for using sake in an attempt to fail. I feel responsible for this, and it's hard on me. These days, I'm struggling to reconsider this. Even if I had not taught you, you're definitely the type of guy who, all by yourself, would have become a sake drinker. That's not my business."
"Ah, that's true. That's exactly right. You're not the least bit responsible. You're absolutely right."
Soon his wife came in and we chatted about our children. As the second wind quietly progressed, crowing cocks announced dawn to our surprise, and I withdrew to my bedroom.
When I woke the next day, I heard the voice of T from Aomori City. As promised, he came on the first bus of the morning. I leaped to my feet. With T here, I felt calm and reassured. T brought along a co-worker from the Aomori hospital who was fond of novels and a man named S, the business manager at the Kanita branch hospital of the Aomori hospital. While washing my face, I heard the young man M, who liked novels, was from Imabetsu near Minmaya and tagged along with a bashful smile. N told me about him when I was in Kanita. M seemed to be an old friend of N, T, and S. After a short discussion, we settled on going cherry-blossom viewing in the mountains near Kanita.
We set off to Kanranzan. I wore my customary purple jacket and green gaiters. My garish outfit was not needed. The mountain was a small one no more than one hundred meters high and beside the town of Kanita. However, the view from this mountain was not bad. On that fine day with almost no wind, we could see Natsudomari Cape across Aomori Bay and Shimokita Peninsula, which looked very close, separated from us by Tairadate Strait.
People in the south may imagine the seas in Tohoku as dark, threatening, raging waters. The seas near Kanita are tranquil with light-colored water, a low salt content, and the faint scent of a beach. Snow melts into the sea making it similar to a lake. For reasons of national defense, its depth and other aspects are best left unsaid. The waves gently lap the sandy beach. Over the four seasons, nets are erected close to the seaside, and crabs, shrimp, various fish like flounder, mackerel, sardines, cod, and monkfish are easily caught.
Today as in the past in this town, every morning, fish are piled into carts. Fish sellers walk around and sound mad as they shout, "Mackerel over shrimp! Greens over mackerel! Mackerel over sea perch! They walk around selling local fish caught that day not the unsold leftovers from the previous day, maybe those fish are sent elsewhere.
Therefore, the townspeople eat only fish caught live the same day. However, on days with no fish caught because of turbulent seas, not one fresh fish can be found in town. On those days, the townspeople eat dried food and wild plants. Not only Kanita, any fishing village in the Sotogahama belt, and not only Sotogahama, any fishing village on the west coast of Tsugaru is the same. Kanita is also blessed with amazing wild plants.
Kanita is a town on the c
oast but lies both on the plain and in the mountains. On the Tokai coast of the Tsugaru Peninsula, the mountains are near the coast. The plain is meager, and some rice and crop fields were reclaimed on the mountain slopes. Over the mountain, the people living on the expansive Tsugaru Plain on the western part of the Tsugaru Peninsula call the people of the Sotogahama region The Shadows because they live in the shadows of the mountains and are not inclined towards pity.
However, only the Kanita region has splendid fertile plains that are in no way inferior to the western region. If pitied by the people in the west, the people in Kanita are tickled. In the Kanita area, a gentle river called the Kanita River flows slowly and discharges rich waters. The rice and crop fields expand widely over the river basin. This area is battered by strong winds from the east and the west, and years of crop failures are not few. However, the land is not as infertile as the people in the west imagine.
When looking down from Kanranzan, Kanita River with abundant waters undulated like a long snake. We had a wonderful view of the rich, paddy fields planted first on both sides of the river and quietly waiting. The mountains are the Bonju mountain range, a branch of the Ou mountain range that goes directly north from the root of the Tsugaru Peninsula, runs to Cape Tappi at the tip of the peninsula, and drops to the sea.
Mount Okuratake consists of small mountains two hundred to three or four hundred meters high and towers in blue almost directly west of Kanranzan. It is one of the highest mountains in this mountain range along with Mount Masukawatake and may be seven hundred meters high. But don't judge a book by its cover. Because the people of Tsugaru are utilitarian, not afraid to be declared killjoys, they see no need to be ashamed of the low mountain range. This range is the leading habitat of hiba cypress in all Japan. The product of Tsugaru with a proud, long tradition is cypress, not apples.
Varieties of apples were received from Americans in the first year of Meiji (1868) and test planted. Later, in Meiji year 20, a French pruning method taught by a French missionary led to sudden success. From then on, the people in the region began to cultivate apples. The products known throughout the country as specialty products of Aomori after entering the Taisho era are not silly novelty products like Tokyo Kaminari Okoshi rice cakes or Kuwana grilled food, but compared to mandarin oranges from Kishu, have a very shallow history.
The people of Kanto and Kansai immediately think of apples when they hear Tsugaru and appear not to know about the cypress trees. I believe those trees are the origin of the name of the prefecture Aomori (green forests). In the mountains of Tsugaru, the branches of the trees intertwine and even winter is a lush green.
Since long ago, it has been counted as one of the three largest forests in Japan. From the Showa year 4 (1929) edition of the Japan Geography and Customs Survey:
First, the large forests in Tsugaru are linked to unfinished work of the founder Tsugaru Tamenobu at his death. Under the strict system in effect since that time, those luxuriant forests still exist and comprise the model forest system of our nation. Beginning in the Tenna and Jokyo eras (1681-1688), trees were planted over several dozen miles of sand dunes on Japan Sea coast as an investment to block sea breezes and cultivate wilderness in the downstream area of the Iwaki River. Since that time, the clan attacked that plan and worked earnestly to reforest. As a result, the mature trees of the so-called Byobu forest were seen in the Kan'ei era (1624-1644), and the cultivation of eight thousand three hundred hectares of arable land was seen. And the lands in the clan domain often underwent forestation and provided the large forests at over one hundred locations for the clan. Even at the onset of the Meiji era (1868-1912), the authorities heeded forest management and heard about the popularity of the cypress trees in Aomori Prefecture. Timber from this region is well suited as wood for use in various buildings and has the property of water resistance. The timber yield is abundant, relatively easy to transport, and valued at eight hundred thousand koku.
These data are from the Showa year 4 edition, so the current yield may be three times greater.
Above I described cypress forests throughout the entire Tsugaru region, but this alone cannot be the unique pride of only the Kanita area. The mountains thick with forests seen from Kanranzan are a belt of superior forests even for the Tsugaru region. A large picture of the mouth of Kanita River was published in the Japan Geography and Customs Survey. The caption for that picture said:
There are national cypress forests dubbed the three most beautiful forests in Japan near Kanita River. Kanita is prosperous as a shipping port. From here, the logging railroad leaves the coast, enters the mountains, is piled with a great deal of wood everyday, and carries the load back here. Wood from this area is known to be of good quality and inexpensive.
The people of Kanita should be proud.
Moreover, the Bonjusan mountain range forms the backbone of the Tsugaru Peninsula. Not only cypress, cedar, beech, katsura, and larch trees grow on the mountains. The Kanagi area in the western part of the peninsula is known to be rich with wild herbs. In the Kanita region, bracken, royal fern, ginseng, bamboo shoot, butterbur, thistle, and mushrooms are easily gathered from the foothills close to town. Kanita has paddy fields and crop fields, and is blessed with seafood and vegetables, wild game, and mushrooms from the mountain. The reader may think of a town like Kanita as a different world, a place of perfect contentment, but Kanita seen from Kanranzan shows signs of weariness. There's no vitality. Even now, I write with excessive praise of Kanita. Here is a criticism but not enough for the people of Kanita to thrash me. The people of Kanita are gentle.
Gentleness is a virtue, but the townsmen's lethargy makes the town melancholy and lonely to the traveler. The many natural blessings may be bad for the energy of the town. Kanita is a docile and quiet place. The seawall at the mouth of the river seemed half-built and abandoned. The ground is leveled to build a house, but the house is started but not finished, and pumpkins grow in the vacant lot of red soil. I could not see all of this from Kanranzan, but there seemed to be many buildings abandoned while under construction. When I asked N, "Does it mean, old schemers hampering the vigorous drive of the town administration?" this young councilman forced a smile and said, "Come here. Come here." The business method of a descendant of samurai and the political talk of a man of letters should be discreet.
My questions about the administration of Kanita ended in the idiotic result of only a smile of pity from the expert town councilman. The story I immediately recalled was a story of a failure of Degas. By chance, the master painter Edgar Degas in France's art circles sat on the same couch as the powerful politician Georges Clemenceau in the corridor of some dance theater in Paris. Without reserve, Degas embarked on a lofty political conversation with the powerful politician.
Degas said with passion, "If I became the prime minister, I believe in the importance of that responsibility and would cut ties to all loves; choose a simple, frugal life like an ascetic; and rent a very small room in a five-story walk-up close to the government offices. The apartment would only have a table and a humble iron bed. After returning home from the office, I would settle unfinished business on that table until late at night. When attacked by sleepiness, I would roll into bed with my clothes and shoes on. When I woke the following morning, I'd jump right up and enjoy eggs and soup while standing. Then I'd sling my bag over my shoulder and head to the office. That would be my life, I have no doubt!"
Clemenceau did not say a word. He only glared with scorn as if utterly appalled and looked hard at the face of the master painter. Mr. Degas seemed to wilt under his gaze and looked embarrassed. No one knew about that story of failure. Fifteen years later, he disclosed this to Mr. Bellelli, the closest of his few friends. Fifteen years is a long time. It looks like hiding at all costs. The arrogant master painter remembers being looked at with unconscious contempt by the professional politician and seemed chilled to the marrow of his bones, and, in spite of himself, remembers the feelings of pity stirred in his heart. The po
litical musings of an artist are the origin of the wound. Degas is a good model. I'm nothing more than a destitute writer and will only talk about the cherry blossoms on Kanranzan and the love of my friends in Tsugaru. That seems safe.
Strong westerly winds blew the previous day and rattled the doors and papered shoji sliding doors of N's house.
"Kanita is a windy town," I said tossing out my usual enlightened understanding. Today, Kanita enjoyed fine weather as if softly laughing at my absurd remarks the previous evening. There was no gentle breeze. The cherry blossoms of Kanranzan seemed to be at their peak and faintly blooming in silence. The description of full bloom misses the mark. I felt the flower petals were washed in snow and chiseled slightly open. I thought they may be a different type of flower. The blue flower of the poet Novalis was an indistinct flower that makes me wonder if he imagined this flower. We sat cross-legged under the cherry blossoms and spread out the multi-tiered food boxes. Of course, the food had been prepared by N's wife. Crabs and clams filled a large bamboo basket. And there was beer. Almost looking uncouth, I shelled the clams, sucked on crab legs, and even ate food from the boxes. The food in the boxes included transparent eggs packed into a squid's torso, toasted with soy sauce, and cut into round slices. They were delicious.
The returned soldier T mentioned how hot he was, took off his jacket, stood up half-naked, and began doing military exercises. Wearing a headband, he used a hand towel to wipe his dark face that bore a slight resemblance to the Burmese Chief Bamoo. The party gathered that day seemed slightly different from each other in their degree of enthusiasm. They appeared to want to draw out recollections about some novel from me. I answered what was asked. I followed the usual rules of pilgrimages by Basho of "A question must be answered," unless it conflicted with another important rule. Do not present the flaws of others and display one's own merits.