I Am a Cat

by Sōseki Natsume

  “No, there wasn’t. Such things as the Red Cross didn’t exist at all.

  There are other welcome innovations. Only in this present time has it become possible actually to lay one’s eyes on members of the imperial family. I’m lucky to have lived so long and I’m especially fortunate to have attended today’s general meeting of the Red Cross where, with my own two ears, I heard the voice of the Crown Prince. If I die tonight, I shall die a happy man.”

  “It’s good that, once again, you can see the sights of Tokyo. D’you know, Sneaze, my uncle came up from Shizuoka specially for today’s general meeting of the Red Cross in Ueno, from which we are in fact now on the way home. It’s because of the meeting that he’s wearing that splendid frock coat that I recently ordered for him at Shirokiya’s.”

  He is wearing a frock coat all right. Not that it fits him anywhere. The sleeves are too long, the lapels are strained back too far, there’s a dent in the back as big as a pond, and the armpits are too tight. If one tried for a year to make an ill-cut coat, one could not match the mis-shapen marvel on Waverhouse’s uncle. I should add that the old man’s white wing-collar has come adrift from the front stud in his spotless shirt so that, whenever he lifts his head, his Adam’s apple bobbles out between the shirt top and the levitating collar. At first I couldn’t be sure whether his black bow tie was fastened around his collar or his flesh. Moreover, even if one somehow could contrive to overlook the enormities of his coat, his topknot of white hair remains a spectacle of staggering singularity. I notice, too, that his famous iron fan, more precisely his famous iron-ribbed fan, is lying close beside him.

  My master has now, at last, managed to pull himself together, and I observed that, as he applied the results of his recent mental training to his study of the old man’s garb, he looked distinctly shaken. He had naturally taken Waverhouse’s stories with several pinches of salt but now, with the old man dumped down before his very eyes, he recognizes that the truth of the man is stronger than any of Waverhouse’s fictions. I could see my master’s thoughts moving behind his cloudy eyes. If my wretched pockmarks, he was thinking, constitute valuable material for historical research, then this old man’s get-up, his topknot and his iron fan, must be of yet more striking value. My master was obviously yearning to pose a thousand questions about the history of the iron fan, but equally obviously believed it would be rude to make a blunt enquiry. He also thought it would be impolite to say nothing, so he asked a question of the uttermost banality. “There must,” he said, “have been a lot of people there?”

  “Oh, an awful lot of people, and all of them just staring at me. It seems that men have grown too greatly and far too blantantly inquisitive. In the old days of the shogunate, things were very different.”

  “Quite so. In the old days things were not like that at all,” says my master as if he, too, were venerable with years. To be fair, however, I must assert that, in speaking as he did, my master was not trying to show off. It’s just that the words came out like that, random fume drifts from the dingy cloud-wastes of his brain.

  “What’s more, you know, all those people kept gawping at this helmet cracker.”

  “Your iron fan? It must be very heavy,” says my master.

  “Sneaze, you try it. It is indeed quite heavy. Uncle, do let him hold it.”

  Slowly the old man lifts it up and, with a courteous “Please,” hands it to my master. He, like some worshiper at the Kurodani Temple who has been allowed briefly to hold the long sword treasured there, holds the iron fan for several minutes and finally says, “Indeed.” Then, reverently, he passed the ancient weapon back to its ancient owner.

  “People call it an iron fan but actually it’s a helmet cracker. A thing quite different from an iron fan.”

  “Ah yes? And what was it used for?”

  “For cracking helmets. And while your enemy is still dazed, you just finish him off. I believe this particular fan was in use as long ago as the early fourteenth century, possibly even by the great General Masashige himself.”

  “Really, Uncle? Masashige’s helmet cracker?”

  “It is not known for certain to whom this beauty belonged. But it’s certainly an old one. Probably fangled in 1335.”

  “It may be quite as ancient as you say, but it surely had that bright young Coldmoon worried. You know, Sneaze, since we happened today to be passing through the university grounds on our way back from Ueno, I thought it would be pleasant and convenient to drop in at the Science Department. We asked to be shown around the physics laboratory and, because this helmet cracker happens to be made of iron, every magnetic device in the place went completely crazy. We caused a most almighty stir.”

  “It couldn’t have been the fan. It’s pure iron of the Kemmu period.

  Iron of superior quality. Absolutely safe.”

  “It’s not a question of the quality of the iron. Any iron would have the same effect. Coldmoon told me so himself. So let’s not quibble about that.”

  “Coldmoon? Is that the fellow we found polishing a glass bead? A sad case, that. For he is very young. Surely there must be something better he could do.”

  “Well,” said Waverhouse, “I suppose it is pretty heart-rending, but that’s his speciality and, once he’s got his polishing right, he can look forward to a fine future as a scholar.”

  “How very extraordinary. If one can become a fine scholar by rubbing away at a glass bead, the road to intellectual eminence must be open to us all. Even to me. Indeed the owners of toy shops that sell glass marbles to schoolboys would be particularly well advantaged in the quest for professorships. You know,” he went on, turning to my master as if seeking the concurrence of that noted academic, “in old Cathay such polishers of stony baubles were known as lapidaries and, I fancy rightly, their standing in the social scale was really rather low.”

  My master lets his head droop slowly downward in a gesture of respectful assent. “Quite so,” he said.

  “Nowadays all learning seems to be concentrated on the physical sciences which, though there’s superficially nothing wrong with them, are, when it comes to the crunch, totally useless. In the old days it was different. One trained for the profession of arms at literal risk of one’s life, and one consequently disciplined one’s mind to ensure that in moments of supreme effort or danger one did not lose one’s head. I imagine you would agree that such a training was noticeably more rigorous than buffing up beads or winding wires around an armature.”

  “Quite so,” my master once again observes with the same air of respect.

  “Tell me, uncle, that discipline of the mind which you mentioned, wasn’t it a matter, totally different of course from buffing up beads, of sitting around dead still with your hands tucked into your bosom?”

  “There you go again! No, the disciplining of the mind was not just a simple matter of sitting still and saying nothing. More than two thousand years ago Mencius is said to have impressed upon his pupils that a freed mind must then be returned to examine its liberator’s self. This wisdom was reiterated, at least in part, by Shao K’ang-chieh, that eminent scholar of the Sung dynasty, who insisted that the highest achievement of human aspiration was the liberated mind. He, of course, was a Confucian, but even among the Chinese Buddhists you will find that such worthies as the Zen master Chung Feng have always taught that a steady and devoted mind was all important. Such teachings, as I’m sure you will agree, are by no means easy to understand.”

  “If you’re asking me,” said Waverhouse, “I’d say they were absolutely incomprehensible. What are the recipients of such teachings supposed to do with it?”

  “Have you ever read Priest Takuan’s discourses upon Zen doctrines?”

  “No, I’ve never even heard of him, let alone his book.”

  “Takuan, who also wrote importantly upon the seasoning of turnips, was basically concerned with the focusing of mind. If, he says, one focuses one’s mind upon the movements of an enemy, then the mind will be entrammeled by a
nd subject to such movements. If upon a foeman’s sword, then mind will be subjected to that sword.

  Correspondingly, if one’s mind is concentrated upon the thought of wishing to kill an enemy, that thought will dominate all else. If concentrated upon one’s own sword, then it will become effectively possessed by one’s own sword. If one’s mind centers upon the idea that one does not wish to be killed, then it becomes possessed by that idea. If one’s mind is bent solely upon someone’s posture, then one’s mind will be absorbed to be that posture. In brief there is nowhere that a mind can be directed without ceasing to be itself. Thus, wherever the mind is, it becomes, by definition, non-existent.”

  “Quite remarkable. Uncle, you must have astonishing powers of memory to be able to quote such complicated stuff at such impressive length. Now, tell me, Sneaze, did you follow the reasoning of that turnip pickling priest?”

  “Quite so,” replied my master, employing his stock answer to good defensive effect.

  “But don’t you agree with its truth? Where indeed should one place one’s mind? If one focuses one’s mind upon the movements of an enemy, then the mind will be entrammeled by and subject to such movements.

  If upon a foeman’s sword. . .”

  “Come now, uncle. Mr. Sneaze is already deeply versed in such concepts. In fact, he’s only just emerged from his study where he was busy training his mind. As you may yourself have noticed, he’s getting so regularly to abandon his mind that he wouldn’t even answer the door to a visitor. So don’t worry about Sneaze. He’s perfectly all right.”

  “I’m relieved to hear what you say. It’s highly commendable that he should so often go out of his mind. You’d do well to do as he does.”

  Waverhouse giggled, half in horror, half in embarrassment, but then, as ever, rose to the occasion. “Alas,” he said, “I haven’t got the time. Just because you, uncle, live in a leisurely style, you shouldn’t assume that others can afford to fritter their hours away.”

  “But are you not, in truth, idling your life away?”

  “On the contrary. I manage to cram busy moments into my leisured life.”

  “There you go again. You’re a scallywag and a scatterbrain. That’s why I keep telling you to discipline your mind. One often hears it said that someone manages to secure odd moments of leisure in a busy life, but I’ve never heard anyone brag of his ability to cram busy moments into his leisured life. Have you, Mr. Sneaze, ever heard such a thing before?”

  “I don’t believe I have.”

  Waverhouse laughed again, this time in genuine amusement. “I’d hoped that wouldn’t happen, you two ganging up on me. By the way, uncle,” he immediately continued, “how about having some Tokyo eels?

  It’s a long time since you tried them. I’ll stand you a meal at the Chikuyo. If we take the tram, we can be there in next to no time.”

  “Eels would be delightful, and that eel restaurant is undoubtedly the best. Unfortunately, however, I have an appointment with Suihara, and indeed I must be off immediately.”

  “So you’re seeing Mr. Sugihara? Is that old fellow keeping well?”

  “Not Sugihara—Suihara. Once again, I catch you in an error, and it’s especially rude to make errors about a person’s name. You should be more careful.”

  “But it’s written Sugihara.”

  “It is indeed written Sugihara but it is pronounced Suihara.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “Not odd at all. It’s technically known as a nominal reading. The common stonechat for instance, is called a wheatear, but its name has nothing to do with either wheat or ears. The bird is really a kind of sparrow with particularly pallid feathers on its rump. Its name, in fact, means white arse.”

  “How extraordinary!”

  “Similarly, the magpie was originally a maggot pie, not because it had anything to do with either maggots or meat pies, but because this pied, this black-and-white crow, was still earlier named a Margaret pie; just as the sparrow was dubbed Phillip, the redbreast Robin, and some tits Tom. Margaret and its associated nicknames seem to have been particularly fruitful in this field of linguistics, for it was also from that name that the owl came to be called a madge. So to go around referring to Suihara as Sugihara marks you as a provincial, as much a laughable yokel as someone from the backwoods who still clumps round counting maggot pies for luck.”

  “All right, all right. I defer to your superior knowledge of patavinities. But if you’re going off to see your old friend, how shall we arrange things?”

  “If you don’t want to come, you needn’t. I’ll go by myself ”

  “Can you manage alone?”

  “I doubt that I could walk so far. But if you would be so kind as to call a rickshaw, I’ll go directly from here.”

  My master bowed respectfully and quickly arranged for O-san to go and find a rickshaw. When it arrived, the old man delivered the expectedly long-winded speech of departure and, having settled his bowler hat comfortably over his top-knot, left. Waverhouse stayed behind.

  “So that’s your famous uncle.”

  “The very one.”

  “Quite so,” said my master who, reseating himself on a cushion, then sank back into thought with his hands tucked back in his bosom.

  “Isn’t he an astonishing old fellow? I’m lucky to have such an uncle.

  He carries on like that wherever he goes. You must have been a bit surprised, eh?” Waverhouse evidently likes the idea that my master should have been taken aback.

  “No, not at all surprised.”

  “If that old uncle of mine didn’t at least startle you, you must have uncommonly steady nerves.”

  “It seems to me that there’s something magnificent about your uncle.

  For instance, one could but admire, admire and deeply respect, his insistence on the necessity of training the mind.”

  “You think that admirable? Maybe when you’re well into your sixties, like my uncle, you will be able to afford to be old-fashioned. But for the time being you’d do better to keep your wits about you. You’ll do yourself no good if you get yourself known as devoted to old-fashioned notions.”

  “You worry too much about being considered old-fashioned.

  Sometimes, in particular cases, being old-fashioned is far more admirable than being up-to-date. Modern education, for instance, attempts too much, and people, ever grasping for more and more, never once question the wisdom of its limitless spread. By comparison, a traditional, even an old-fashioned, Oriental education is less aggressive and, by its very passivity, produces a more discriminating taste. For the traditional education trains the mind itself.” Glibly exact, my master trots out as his own views the twaddle that he has only recently picked up from his philosophizing friend.

  “This,” said Waverhouse in genuine concern, “is getting serious. You sound like Singleman Kidd.”

  At mention of that name a look of real shock came over my master’s face. For the sage philosopher who so recently visited the Cave of the Sleeping Dragon and who, having there converted my master to new styles of thinking, then serenely went upon his way, bore that very name. And Waverhouse had been dead right in his comparison, for my master’s words, solemnly spoken as his own original conclusions, were in fact all straight cribs from Kidd’s unhinging homily. Since my master had not realized that Waverhouse knew Kidd, the speed with which Waverhouse attributed such ideas to their true source reflected unflatteringly on the superficiality of my master’s grasp of them. Indeed, my master actually seems bright enough to regard Waverhouse’s comment as a slight upon himself. To establish how much Waverhouse really knew, my master point blank asked him, “Have you ever heard him explaining his ideas?”

  “Have I ever heard him! That man’s ideas haven’t changed one whit in the long ten years since first I heard them in our own undergraduate days.”

  “Since truth does not change, perhaps that very lack of variance at which you sneer is, in fact, a point in favor of his theories.”
r />   “Oh dear, oh dear. Look, it’s because men like you lend a sympathetic ear to his ravings that he keeps on raving away. But just consider the man. His family name suggests that he’s descended from goats, and that straggly beard, a billy’s goatee even in college days, confirms his blood-stock. And his own name too, is singular beyond the point of simple idiosyncrasy. Now let me tell you a story. One day some years ago he came to visit me and, as usual, lectured me at length on the marvels of his mental training and his consequent passive discipline. He went on and on. All the same old tripe and he simply wouldn’t stop talking.

  Eventually I suggested it was getting late, but he wouldn’t take the hint.

  He said he didn’t feel at all sleepy and, to my intense annoyance, rattled ever on about his cranky notions. He became so much of a nuisance that I finally told him that, however wakeful he might feel, I was dead tired.

  I begged and coaxed him to go to bed, and at long last he went. So far, so good. But in the middle of the night there was a major disturbance.

  A rat, I’m almost sorry to say, came and bit him on the nose. Now, although he’d worn my ears off with his repetitive accounts of his spiritual enlightenment, of the way his training had lifted him above all concern with merely mundane matters, as soon as the rat had nipped his nose he displayed a tremendous interest in worldly realities. He was even worried lest his life should be in danger. What, he demanded, if the rat’s teeth were infected? The poison, he whimpered, would be spreading through his system while we wasted time in idle talk. Do something, he pestered me, do something and do it quickly. Well, I didn’t know what to do. But, after racking my brains, I staggered off into the kitchen and pressed some grains of boiled rice onto a piece of paper, and that did the trick.”

  “How can boiled rice grains cure a rat bite?”

  “I told him that the gooey mash was an imported ointment recently invented by a famous German doctor and that it had proved an immediate and sovereign cure when applied, in, I think, the State of Hyderabad, to persons fanged by venomous serpents. Provided you clap this on, your life, I told him from the bottom of my heart, will be entirely safe.”