The Three-Cornered World

by Sōseki Natsume

  When I drew closer, the forms proved to be great cactus plants about seven or eight feet tall. Their green gourds, which were the size of sponge cucumbers, resembled in shape large flattened soup spoons with the handles pointing downwards. The plants were, in fact, composed of a series of these gourds each sprouting from the stem of the one beneath, and stretching up and up in a spatulate progression which would eventually end Heaven only knew where. It seemed likely that these cacti would, this very evening, break their way through the eaves and emerge on to the roof above. Undoubtedly, the 'spoons' suddenly materialized out of thin air fully grown, for I could not imagine the older ones giving birth to young which gradually grew to maturity in the fullness of time. This persistent sticking of one 'spoon' upon another was somehow eccentric. There can be few plants as comical as the cactus, and yet it affects an air of composed indifference. A certain Zen priest when asked by a pupil, 'What is Buddha?' is said to have replied, 'That oak tree in the garden.' If, however, I were asked the same question, I should answer without a moment's hesitation, 'That lord of all plants: a cactus in the moonlight.'

  When I was a boy, I read an account by the classical Chinese writer Ch'ao Pu-chih of a journey he once made, and there is one passage which I can still quote from memory. I repeated the words over to myself.

  It was the ninth month of the year. Not a cloud obscured the vault of heaven. The dew lay pure upon the ground and the mountains were deserted. The moon was bright, and the stars, which shone brilliantly, seemed to have been casually scattered across the sky. Cast on the shōji were the shadows of a thousand bamboo stems from which the passing wind drew a ceaseless rustling whisper. Between the bamboos could be seen a host of plum and palm trees like hobgoblins with hair in spiky disarray. My companions discussed this with each other, and it so disturbed them that they were unable to sleep. The next morning we departed.

  Suddenly I burst out laughing. Given the right combination of time and place I too might have been disturbed by these cactus plants, and gone scuttling down the mountainside as soon as I had caught sight of them. I touched the spines and felt them prick my fingers.

  Having followed the stone path to the end, I bore to the left and came to the misericord in front of which stood a large magnolia. I should say that this tree had a girth of almost an arm-span, and in height too it was considerable, being taller than the building. Above my head was tier upon tier of branches, and finally, perched on top of all, the moon. Usually when a tree has so many branches you can see very little of the sky from below, and if there are blossoms as well, then it is completely blotted out. The magnolia, however, is not cluttered with scores of useless twigs which throw the eyes of the person beneath into confusion. Thus, however many branches there may be, the patches of sky between them are always sharply defined. Even the blossoms themselves are distinct, and from far below one may still make out each individual bloom. It is impossible to judge the extent of this swarm of blossoms, yet nevertheless each one is a separate entity, and between them the pale blue of the sky is clearly visible. Magnolia blossoms are not of course pure white in colour, for stark unrelieved whiteness is too cold, and seems to be no more than a deliberately immodest device to attract men's eyes. No, they are different. They purposely avoid extreme whiteness, and their warm creamy tint is an expression of gentility and self-depreciation. Standing on the flagstones gazing upward, I was lost, for a while, in contemplation of how this pagoda of modest blossoms seemed to rise and spread endlessly into the vastness of space. My whole attention was held by the flowers. For me not a single leaf existed. The following lines formed in my mind.

  Above, the sometime realm of star and moon

  Is all magnolia to my enraptured gaze.

  Somewhere the pigeons were still cooing softly to each other.

  I entered the porch of the misericord. The verandah which ran along the side of the building was completely open, seemingly indicating that this was a world where thieves were unknown. There were of course no dogs to bark.

  The only response to the call of 'Excuse me,' with which I announced my visit was a deathly hush. Once again I called out in the hope that someone would come and show me the way. 'Is anybody there?' All I heard was the 'coo, coo, coo' of the pigeons.

  'Is anybody there?' This time I shouted the words. An answering bellow sounded far off within the building. In all the times I had visited people's houses I had never received such a reply as this. At length there came the sound of footsteps approaching the verandah, and the light from a taper fell on the other side of the shōji. Suddenly a young priest was standing before me. It was Ryonen.

  'Is the abbot at home?'

  'Yes, he is. May I ask what you want him for?'

  'Will you tell him, please, that the artist who is staying at the hot spring is here?'

  'Oh, you're the artist? Come on in.'

  'Hadn't you better tell the abbot I'm here first?'

  'No, that's all right.'

  I slipped off my wooden clogs and stepped up on to the verandah.

  'You're a rather ill-mannered artist, aren't you?'

  'Why?'

  'Put your clogs straight. Look here,' he said thrusting the taper almost under my nose. In the middle of one of the black posts of the porchway, no more than five feet from the ground was a small piece of paper on which I could just make out some writing.

  'Read that It says, "First, set thine own house in order."'

  'I see,' I replied, carefully arranging my clogs.

  We walked along the verandah, followed its right-angled turn and came to the abbot's room which was next to the main hall. Ryonen knelt respectfully and eased open the shōji.

  'Er, I'm sorry to trouble you sir, but the artist from Shioda's is here.' His extremely apologetic attitude struck me as rather amusing.

  'Is he? Show him in.'

  Ryonen withdrew, and I went in. The room was very small. On the hearth which had been cut in the centre, an iron kettle was singing. The abbot, who was sitting across the room, had been reading.

  'Come in, come in,' he said removing his spectacles and pushing his book to one side. 'Ryonen! Ryo—ne—n!'

  'Ye—es?'

  'Bring a cushion for our guest, will you?'

  'Ye—es,' came Ryonen's protracted reply from some way off.

  'It's nice to see you. I expect you got terribly bored.'

  'There was such a beautiful moon that I thought I'd take a stroll.'

  'It is beautiful,' he agreed opening the shōji.

  Just across the level garden, whose only contents were two stepping stones and a pine tree, was the edge of the cliff, and there spread out immediately beneath me in the evening was the sea. Here and there on the water was the flicker of fishing-fires. Those in the farthest distance had forsaken the sea for the sky, presumably with the intention of becoming stars.

  'What a wonderful view, Abbot. Don't you think it's a pity to keep the shōji shut?'

  'It is, of course, but I see it every evening.'

  'But you could never tire of scenery like this, however many evenings you saw it. I'd go without sleep to look at it.'

  'Ha, ha, ha, ha. Obviously, because you're an artist. But you and I are a little different.'

  'But, Abbot, if you can appreciate the beauty of it, then you too are an artist.'

  'Yes, I suppose that's true, though I've never got farther than drawing pictures of Dharma Buddha. Speaking of Dharma, there's a picture of him here. My predecessor painted it. I think it's very well done.'

  Sure enough there was a scroll painting of Dharma Buddha hanging in a small alcove. As a picture it was, however, atrocious. All that could be said for it was that it was not vulgar or worldly, and the artist had made no attempt to cover up his lack of skill. It was an unsophisticated painting.

  'It's an unsophisticated piece of work, isn't it?'

  'That's quite sufficient for a priest. Providing that it expresses his mood. . .'

  'Well, it's better than being s
kilfully executed but vulgar.'

  'Ha, ha, ha, ha. I accept the compliment. By the way, have they instituted a Doctor of Painting degree recently?'

  'No, there's no such thing as a Doctor of Painting.'

  'Oh, isn't there? Anyway, I met one the other day.'

  'You did?'

  'I suppose to get a doctorate you have to be a remarkable person.'

  'Yes, I suppose you do.'

  'You know, it seems to me that there ought to be a doctorate for painting. I wonder why there isn't one.'

  'If you take that view, there ought to be a doctorate for priests too, oughtn't there?'

  'Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Perhaps that's so.—Now what was his name, that fellow I met recently? I ought to have his card here somewhere.'

  'Where did you meet him, in Tokyo?' 'No, here. I haven't been up to Tokyo in twenty years. I hear that recently they've started running those tramcar things. I'd rather like to have a ride on one.'

  'You wouldn't like it at all. They're too noisy.'

  'Maybe you're right. They say that those of litde learning disbelieve and ridicule the greatest achievements, and those of little experience fear all things. If that's the case, perhaps an old yokel like me, far from enjoying a tram ride, would be upset by it.'

  'It wouldn't upset you. You just wouldn't find it interesting, that's all.'

  'Perhaps you're right.'

  Steam was now issuing steadily from the spout of the kettle. The abbot took out the tea things from a small chest of drawers, and poured me a cup of tea.

  'Have some tea. It's very poor quality, I'm afraid. Not nearly as good as old Mr Shioda's.'

  'I'm sure it's very nice.'

  'You seem to do quite a lot of wandering about from place to place. This is so that you can paint, is it?'

  'Yes. All I take with me is my colour-box, but whether I actually produce a picture or not doesn't worry me.'

  'So these trips are half for pleasure, are they?'

  'Yes, I suppose you could say that. The fact is, I don't like having people count how many times I break wind.'

  Zen priest though he was, this was one metaphor that apparently the abbot could not understand.

  'What do you mean by "counting how many times you break wind"?'

  'If you live in Tokyo for any length of time, you have your farts reckoned up.'

  'How do you mean?'

  'If that were all it wouldn't be so bad, but they do such unwarranted things as examining your backside to see whether your anus is triangular or square.' 'Ah, you mean the sanitary inspectors, I suppose.'

  'No, I do not mean the sanitary inspectors. I mean detectives.'

  'Detectives? Oh, I see, the police. What in the world is the use of the police? Are they really necessary, I wonder?'

  'Well, artists certainly don't need them.'

  'Nor do 1.1 have never yet had occasion to ask for their assistance.'

  'No, I don't suppose you have.'

  'But I don't see that it should bother you, however much they may count the times you break wind. Why don't you just ignore them? For all that they are police, they can do nothing unless you have committed some crime.'

  'Even their fart-counting is insufferable.'

  'I remember that my predecessor often used to tell me when I was a young priest, that a man cannot be said to have completed his education until he can stand at Nihon-bashi in the centre of Tokyo, and lay bare his soul to the world without embarrassment. You too should strive towards that end, for if you attained it, you wouldn't have to take these trips to find peace of mind.'

  'I could reach that state if I became a true artist.'

  "Then you had better become one.'

  'I can't all the time I'm having my farts counted.'

  'Now look at O-Nami Shioda down where you're staying. She had so much weighing on her mind when she came back to her father's place after her divorce, that she could not bear it; and because she could not bear it she eventually came to me and asked for religious instruction. Recently she has improved tremendously. Look at her, she's now a highly rational woman.'

  'Yes, I thought somehow that she was no ordinary woman.'

  'She isn't. She has an extremely quick and lively mind.— Because of her, a young priest named Taian, who was here to finish his training, came to realise that destiny had ordained that he must devote himself to studying things of magnitude and not waste his time on trifling matters.—I believe he will now become a very wise man.'

  The shadow of the pine tree fell across the garden. Far below, the sea, as though torn with indecision, sent back dim intermittent flashes to answer those in the sky.

  'Look at the shadow of that pine tree,' I said.

  'It's pretty, isn't it?'

  'Just "pretty"?'

  'Yes.'

  'Not only is it pretty, it has the advantage of having nothing to fear even if the wind should blow.'

  I drank the last drops of coarse tea, and then placing the cup upside down on the saucer, I stood up.

  'I'll see you as far as the gate. Ryo—ne—n! Our guest is leaving.'

  Accompanied by the abbot and Ryonen, I left the misericord. The pigeons were still cooing.

  "There is nothing more charming than a pigeon. When I clap my hands, they fly to me. Shall I call them?'

  The moon had grown brighter. In perfect silence the magnolia offered up its innumerable clouds of blossoms to the sky. There in the lonely emptiness of a spring night, the abbot clapped his hands sharply. The sound, however, died in the wind, and not a single pigeon came.

  'They aren't going to come down. I thought they would.'

  Ryonen looked at my face and smiled slightly. The abbot seemed to think that the pigeons would be able to see in the dark. He was an optimist.

  At the gateway, I parted from my two companions. Looking back I could see two round shadows, one large and one small, on the paving. They changed places and disappeared in the direction of the misericord.

  Footnotes

  1 Iwasa Matabei, Japanese artist (1578-1650)

  2 Used in Buddhist services.

  As I remember, it was Oscar Wilde who said that Christ possessed a superlatively artistic temperament. I do not know about Christ, but the abbot of the Kankaiji temple certainly qualifies for such a description. This is not to say that he was a man of good taste, or that he was conversant with all that was going on in the world about him. The scroll painting of Dharma Buddha that he had hung on the wall was one to which you would scarcely deign to apply the word picture, yet he felt that it was well done. He was convinced that there was such a degree as Doctor of Painting, and thought that pigeons could see in the dark. In spite of this, I still say that he can be termed an artist. His mind may be compared to the stomach, which being open at both ends allows nothing to accumulate. Since everything within his mind was constantly on the move and passed through freely, there was no sign that any deposit had remained behind to putrefy. Given just an added dash of discrimination, he would have been a perfect artist, at one with his surroundings wherever he might find himself, even in the course of the trivial round of everyday life. I, on the other hand, am the sort of person who can never become a true artist as long as he is having his farts counted by detectives. I can stand before an easel, and I can hold a palette, but that does not make an artist. Only in a place like this mountain village, even the name of which I do not know, with my five foot odd of slender body totally submerged in the darkening colours of spring, am I able to achieve a truly artistic frame of mind. Once I have entered this realm, all the beauty of the universe is mine, and without painting even one square inch of canvas, indeed without so much as lifting my brush, I become a great artist. I may not equal Michelangelo in technique, nor be able to match Raphael in skill, but in intrinsic artistic character I acknowledge not the slightest inferiority to any artist, however great, who has ever lived. Since I had come to the hot spring I had not yet painted a single picture. This gives the impression that I had only brou
ght my colour-box with me to satisfy an idle whim, and there may be those who will laugh and wonder whether I thought I should become an artist merely by so doing. For all their laughter, however, the fact remains that here, I was a true artist, a fine artist. It does not follow that everyone who achieves this state of mind that I was now in will necessarily produce a masterpiece, but what can be said is that it is impossible to produce a masterpiece unless you do achieve this state of mind.

  These, then, were my sentiments as I sat lingering over a cigarette after breakfast. The sun had risen high above the morning haze, and when I opened the shōji I could see green-clad trees on a hill away to the rear of the house. There was something remarkably diaphanous about them and they looked unusually bright and fresh.

  I have always thought the relationship between air, objects and colours to be one of the most fascinating studies that this world has to offer. The problem is whether one should make the colours of prime importance and thus bring out the quality of the air, or whether to disregard the air in favour of stressing the objects themselves. There is a third alternative, namely to make the air the most important factor, and weave both colours and objects into it.Every slight nuance in treatment produces a picture of a different mood, and this mood varies according to the individual tastes of the artist. This of course is an obvious point. Moreover, it is equally obvious that the mood is also automatically dictated by time and place. There is not a solitary bright landscape painted by an English artist. Perhaps the reason is that they dislike bright paintings, but with the air they have in England they could not paint one even if they wanted to. Goodall was an Englishman, but the quality of his colours is altogether different, as well it might be, for although English, he never once painted an English scene. He never chose a theme from his own country, but instead painted landscapes of Egypt and Persia where the air is infinitely clearer. His pictures are so vivid that everyone seeing them for the first time is astonished, and wonders how an Englishman was able to produce such clarity of colour.