Confessions of a Mask

by Yukio Mishima

  Yet another memory : It is the odor of sweat, an odor that drove me onward, awakened my longings, overpowered me. . . .

  Pricking up my ears, I hear a crunching sound, muffled and very faint, seeming to menace. Once in a while a bugle joins in. A simple and strangely plaintive sound of singing approaches. Tugging at a maid's hand, I urge her to hurry hurry, wild to be standing at the gate, clasped in her arms.

  It was the troops passing our gate as they returned from drill. Soldiers are fond of children, and I always looked forward to receiving some empty cartridges from them. As my grandmother had forbidden me to accept these gifts, saying they were dangerous, my anticipation was whetted by the joys of stealth. The heavy thudding of army shoes, stained uniforms, and a forest of shouldered rifles are enough to fascinate any child utterly. But it was simply their sweaty odor that fascinated me, forming a stimulus that lay concealed beneath my hope of receiving cartridges from them.

  The soldiers' odor of sweat—that odor like a sea breeze, like the air, burned to gold, above the seashore —struck my nostrils and intoxicated me. This was probably my earliest memory of odors. Needless to say, the odor could not, at that time, have had any direct relationship with sexual sensations, but it did gradually and tenaciously arouse within me a sensuous craving for such things as the destiny of soldiers, the tragic nature of their calling, the distant countries they would see, the ways they would die. . . .

  These odd images were the first things I encountered in life. From the beginning they stood before me in truly masterful completeness. There was not a single thing lacking. In later years I sought in them for the wellsprings of my own feelings and actions, and again not a single thing was lacking.

  Ever since childhood my ideas concerning human existence have never once deviated from the Augustinian theory of predetermination. Over and over again I was tormented by vain doubts—even as I continue being tormented today—but I regarded such doubts as only another sort of temptation to sin, and remained unshaken in my deterministic views. I had been handed what might be called a full menu of all the troubles in my life while still too young to read it. But all I had to do was spread my napkin and face the table. Even the fact that I would now be writing an odd book like this was precisely noted on the menu, where it must have been before my eyes from the beginning.

  The period of childhood is a stage on which time and space become entangled. For example, there was the news I heard from adults concerning events in various countries—the eruption of a volcano, say, or the insurrection of an army—and the things that were happening before my eyes—my grandmother's spells or the petty family quarrels—and the fanciful events of the fairytale world in which I had just then become immersed: these three things always appeared to me to be of equal value and like kind. I could not believe that the world was any more complicated than a structure of building blocks, nor that the so-called "social community," which I must presently enter, could be more dazzling than the world of fairy tales. Thus, without my being aware of it, one of the determinants of my life had come into operation. And because of my struggles against it, from the beginning my every fantasy was tinged with despair, strangely complete and in itself resembling passionate desire.One night from my bed I saw a shining city floating upon the expanse of darkness that surrounded me. It was strangely still, and yet overflowed with brilliance and mystery. I could plainly see a mystic brand that had been impressed upon the faces of the persons in that city. They were adults, returning home in dead of night, still retaining in speech or gesture traces of something like secret signs and countersigns, something smacking of Freemasonry. Moreover, in their faces there shone a glistening fatigue that made them shy of being looked at full in the face. As with those holiday masks that leave powdered silver on the fingertips when one touches them, it seemed that if I could but touch their faces, I might discover the color of the pigments with which the city of night had painted them.

  Presently Night raised a curtain directly before my eyes, revealing the stage on which Shokyokusai Tenkatsu performed her feats of magic. (She was then making one of her rare appearances at a theater in the Shinjuku district; although the staging of the magician Dante, whom I saw at the same theater some years later, was on a many times grander scale than hers, neither Dante nor even the Universal Exhibition of the Hagen-beck Circus amazed me so much as my first view of Tenkatsu.)

  She lounged indolently about the stage, her opulent body veiled in garments like those of the Great Harlot of the Apocalypse. On her arms were flashy bracelets, heaped with artificial stones; her make-up was as heavy as that of a female ballad-singer, with a coating of white powder extending even to the tips of her toenails; and she wore a trumpery costume that surrendered her person over to the kind of brazen luster given off only by shoddy merchandise. And yet, curiously enough, all this somehow achieved a melancholy harmony with her haughty air of self-importance, characteristic of conjurers and exiled noblemen alike, with her sort of somber charm, with her heroine-like bearing. The delicate grain of the shadow cast by these unharmonious elements produced its own surprising and unique illusion of harmony.

  I understood, though vaguely, that the desire "to become Tenkatsu" and "to become a streetcar operator" differed in essence. Their most marked dissimilarity was the fact that in the case of Tenkatsu the craving for that "tragic quality" was almost wholly lacking. In wishing to become Tenkatsu I did not have to taste that bitter mixture of longing and shame. And yet one day, trying hard to still my heartbeats, I stole into my mother's room and opened the drawers of her clothing chest.

  From among my mother's kimonos I dragged out the most gorgeous one, the one with the strongest colors. For a sash I chose an obi on which scarlet roses were painted in oil, and wrapped it round and round my waist in the manner of a Turkish pasha. I covered my head with a wrapping-cloth of crepe de Chine. My cheeks flushed with wild delight when I stood before the mirror and saw that this improvised headcloth resembled those of the pirates in Treasure Island.

  But my work was still far from complete. My every point, down to the very tips of my fingernails, had to be made worthy of the creation of mystery. I stuck a hand mirror in my sash and powdered my face lightly. Then I armed myself with a silver-colored flashlight, an old-fashioned fountain pen of chased metal, and whatever else struck my eye.

  I assumed a solemn air and, dressed like this, rushed into my grandmother's sitting-room. Unable to suppress my frantic laughter and delight, I ran about the room crying:

  "I'm Tenkatsu! Me, I'm Tenkatsu!"

  My grandmother was there sick abed, and also my mother and a visitor and the maid assigned to the sickroom. But not a single person was visible to my eyes. My frenzy was focused upon the consciousness that, through my impersonation, Tenkatsu was being revealed to many eyes. In short, I could see nothing but myself.

  And then I chanced to catch sight of my mother's face. She had turned slightly pale and was simply sitting there as though absent-minded. Our glances met; she lowered her eyes.I understood. Tears blurred my eyes.

  What was it I understood at that moment, or was on the verge of understanding? Did the motif of later years—that of "remorse as prelude to sin"—show here the first hint of its beginning? Or was the moment teaching me how grotesque my isolation would appear to the eyes of love, and at the same time was I learning, from the reverse side of the lesson, my own incapacity for accepting love? . . .

  The maid grabbed me and took me to another room. In an instant, just as though I were a chicken for plucking, she had me stripped of my outrageous masquerade.

  My passion for such dressing-up was aggravated when I began going to movies. It continued markedly until I was about nine.

  Once I went with our student houseboy to see a film version of the operetta Fra Diavolo. The character playing Diavolo wore an unforgettable court costume with cascades of lace at the wrists. When I said how much I should like to dress like that and wear such a wig, the student laughed derisively. And ye
t I knew that in the servant quarters he often amused the maids with his imitations of the Kabuki character Princess Yaegaki.

  After Tenkatsu there came Cleopatra to fascinate me. Once on a snowy day toward the end of December a friendly doctor, yielding to my entreaties, took me to see a movie about her. As it was the end of the year, the audience was small. The doctor put his feet up on the railing and fell asleep. All alone I gazed avidly, completely enchanted: The Queen of Egypt making her entry into Rome, borne aloft on an ancient and curiously wrought litter carried on the shoulders of a multitude of slaves. Melancholy eyes, the lids thickly stained with eye-shadow. Her other-worldly apparel. And then, later, her half-naked, amber-colored body corning into view from out the Persian rug. . . .

  This time, already taking thorough delight in misconduct, I eluded the eyes of my grandmother and parents and, with my younger sister and brother as accomplices, devoted myself to dressing up as Cleopatra. What was I hoping for from this feminine attire? It was not until much later that I discovered hopes the same as mine in Heliogabalus, emperor of Rome in its period of decay, that destroyer of Rome's ancient gods, that decadent, bestial monarch.

  The night-soil man, the Maid of Orleans, and the soldiers' sweaty odor formed one sort of preamble to my life. Tenkatsu and Cleopatra were a second. There is yet a third that should be related.

  Although as a child I read every fairy story I could lay my hands on, I never liked the princesses. I was fond only of the princes. I was all the fonder of princes murdered or princes fated for death. I was completely in love with any youth who was killed.But I did not yet understand why, from among Andersen's many fairy tales, only his "Rose-Elf" threw deep shadows over my heart, only that beautiful youth who, while kissing the rose given him as a token by his sweetheart, was stabbed to death and decapitated by a villain with a big knife. I did not yet understand why, out of Wilde's numerous fairy tales, it was only the corpse of the young fisherman in "The Fisherman and His Soul," washed up on the shore clasping a mermaid to his breast, that captivated me.

  Naturally I was also fond enough of other childlike things. There was Andersen's "The Nightingale," which I liked well, and I delighted in many childish comic books. But my heart's leaning toward Death and Night and Blood would not be denied.

  Visions of "princes slain" pursued me tenaciously. Who could have explained for me why I was so delighted with fancies in which those body-revealing tights worn by the princes were associated with their cruel deaths? There is a Hungarian fairy tale that I particularly remember in this connection. For a long time my heart was captivated by an extremely realistic illustration to this story.

  Printed in primary colors, the illustration showed the prince dressed in black tights and a rose-colored tunic with spun-gold embroidery on the breast. A dark-blue cape that flashed a scarlet lining was flung about his shoulders, and around his waist there was a green and clear-cut agony, not fuzzy remorse; it was like being forced to look down from a window at a reflection of fierce summer sunlight that is dividing the street into a glaring contrast of sun and shadow.

  One cloudy afternoon during the rainy season I happened to be walking through Azabu on an errand. This was a section of the city I had seldom been in. Suddenly, from behind me, someone called my name. It was Sonoko. Upon looking around and catching sight of her I was not as surprised as I had been that time on the streetcar when I had mistaken another girl for her. To me this chance encounter seemed perfectly natural, as though I had foreseen it all along. I felt as though I had known everything about this instant since long before.

  She was wearing a simple dress, with a flower pattern like that of chic wallpaper, and no ornament other than some lace at the V of the neck; there was nothing about her to proclaim that she was now a married woman. She was probably returning from drawing rations as she was carrying a bucket and was also followed by an old servant woman carrying another bucket. She sent the woman on home and walked along talking with me.

  "You've become a little thin, haven't you?"

  "Ah, thanks to studying for the exams."

  "So? Please take care of your health."

  Then we fell silent for a time. Soft sunlight began gold belt. He was equipped with a helmet of green gold, a bright-red sword, and a quiver of green leather. His left hand, gloved in white leather, grasped a bow; his right hand rested upon the branch of one of the ancient trees of the forest; and with a grave, commanding countenance he was looking down the terrifying throat of the raging dragon that was about to set upon him. On his face was the resolve of death. If this prince had been destined to be a conqueror in his engagement with the dragon, how faint would have been his fascination for me. But fortunately the prince was destined to die.

  To my regret, however, his fate of death was not perfect. In order to rescue his sister and also to marry a beautiful princess, seven times did this prince endure the ordeal of death and, thanks to the magical powers of a diamond that he held in his mouth, seven times did he rise from death, finally living happily ever after.

  The illustration showed a scene just prior to death number one—being devoured by a dragon. After that he was "caught by a great spider and, after his body had been shot full of poison, was eaten ravenously." Again, he was drowned, roasted in a fire, stung by hornets and bitten by snakes, flung bodily into a pit completely lined with there is no saying how many great knives planted with their points up, and crushed to death by countless boulders that came falling "like a torrential rain."

  His death by being devoured by the dragon was described in particular detail:"Without a moment's delay, the dragon chewed the prince greedily into bits. It was almost more than he could stand, but the prince summoned all his courage and bore the torture steadfastly until he was finally chewed completely into shreds. Then, in a flash, he suddenly was put back together again and came springing nimbly right out of the dragon's mouth. There was not a single scratch anywhere on his body. The dragon sank to the ground and died on the spot."

  I read this passage hundreds of times. But the sentence "There was not a single scratch anywhere on his body" seemed to me to be a defect that could not go unchallenged. Reading this, I felt the author had both betrayed me and committed a grave error.

  Before long I chanced upon a discovery. This was to read the passage while hiding under my hand:

  suddenly was put back together again and came springing nimbly right out of the dragon's mouth. There was not a single scratch anywhere on his body. The dragon. Thereupon the story became ideal:

  "Without a moment's delay, the dragon chewed the prince greedily into bits. It was almost more than he could stand, but the prince summoned all his courage and bore the torture steadfastly until he was finally chewed completely into shreds. Then, in a flash, he sank to the ground and died on the spot."

  An adult would certainly have seen the absurdity in such a method of cutting. And even that young and arrogant censor discerned the patent contradiction between "being chewed completely into shreds" and "sinking to the ground," but he was easily infatuated with his own fancies and found it still impossible to discard either phrase.

  On the other hand, I delighted in imagining situations in which I myself was dying in battle or being murdered. And yet I had an abnormally strong fear of death. One day I would bully a maid to tears, and the next morning I would see her serving breakfast with a cheerfully smiling face, as though nothing had happened. Then I would read all manner of evil meanings into her smiles. I could not believe them to be other than the diabolical smiles that come from being fully confident of victory. I was sure she was plotting to poison me out of revenge. Waves of fear billowed up in my breast. I was positive the poison had been put in my bowl of broth, and I would not have touched it for all the world. I ended many such meals by jumping up from the table and staring hard at the maid, as though to say "So there!" It seemed to me that the woman was so dismayed at this thwarting of her plans for poisoning me that she could not rise, but was only staring from a
cross the table at the broth, now become completely cold, with some dust floating on its surface, and telling herself I'd left too much for the poison to be effective.

  Out of concern for my frail health and also to keep me from learning bad things, my grandmother had forbidden me to play with the neighborhood boys, and my only playmates, excepting maids and nurses, were three girls whom my grandmother had selected from the girls of the neighborhood. The slightest noise affected my grandmother's neuralgia—the violent opening or closing of a door, a toy bugle, wrestling, or any conspicuous sound or vibration whatsoever—and our playing had to be quieter than is usual even among girls. Rather than this I preferred by far to be by myself reading a book, playing with my building blocks, indulging in my willful fancies, or drawing pictures. When my sister and brother were born, they were not given over into my grandmother's hands as I had been, and my father saw to it that they were reared with a freedom befitting children. And yet I did not greatly envy them their liberty and rowdiness.

  But things were different when I went visiting at the homes of my cousins. Then even I was called upon to be a boy, a male. An incident which should be related occurred in the early spring of my seventh year, shortly before I entered primary school, during a visit to the home of a certain cousin whom I shall call Sugiko. Upon our arrival there—my grandmother had accompanied me—my great-aunt had praised me to the skies —"How he's grown! How big he's become!"—and my grandmother had been so taken in by this flattery that she had granted a special dispensation regarding the meals I took there. Until then she had been so frightened by the frequent attacks of autointoxication I have already mentioned that she had forbidden me to eat all "blue-skinned" fish. My diet had been carefully limited: of fish, I was allowed only such white-flesh kinds as halibut, turbot, or red snapper; of potatoes, only those mashed and strained through a colander; of sweets, all bean-jams were forbidden and there were only light biscuits, wafers, and other such dry confections; and of fruits, only apples cut in thin slices, or small portions of mandarin oranges. Hence it was on this visit that I ate my first blue-skinned fish—a yellowtail—which I devoured with immense satisfaction. Its delicate flavor signified for me that I had finally been accorded the first of my adult rights, but at the same time it left a rather bitter tang of uneasiness upon the tip of my tongue—uneasiness at becoming an adult—which still recalls me to a feeling of discomfort whenever I taste that flavor.