Light and Darkness

by Sōseki Natsume

  Having proceeded this far, his mind was unable to stop. With the force of a powerful blow to the back it jolted him forward. Abruptly he called out silently inside himself:

  It’s the same with the mind. Exactly the same. There’s no knowing when or how it will change. I’ve witnessed such a change with my own eyes.

  Pursing his lips, he glanced around him with the eyes of a man whose self-esteem has been injured. But the other passengers were oblivious of what was happening inside him and paid no heed to the look in his eyes.

  Like the streetcar he was riding, his mind merely moved forward on its own tracks. He recalled what his friend had told him a few days ago about Poincarré. Having explained “probability” for his benefit, his friend had turned to him and spoken as follows:

  “So you see, what you commonly hear described as chance, an accident, a chance occurrence, is really just a case where the actual cause is too complex to grasp. For a Napoleon to be born, an extraordinary sperm must unite with an extraordinary egg; but when you start considering the circumstances that were required to create that necessary union it boggles the imagination.”

  He was unable to dismiss his friend’s words as merely a fragment of new knowledge that had been imparted to him. Thinking about how closely they fit his own circumstances, he seemed to become aware of a dark, imponderable force pushing him left when he meant to go right or pulling him back when he meant to go forward. Until that moment, he would have felt certain that his actions had never been subject to restraint by others. He had been certain that he did whatever he did of his own accord, that everything he said he intended to say.

  Why would she have married him? Because she chose to, no doubt. But she couldn’t possibly have wanted that. And what of me, why did I marry the woman who is my wife? No doubt our marriage happened because I chose to take her. But I have never once felt that I wanted her. Chance? Poincarré’s so-called zenith of complexity? I have no idea.

  Alighting from the streetcar, he walked ruminatively home.

  [ 3 ]

  TURNING THE corner and entering a narrow street, Tsuda recognized the figure of his wife standing in front of the gate to their house. She was looking in his direction. But as he rounded the corner she turned back to the street in front of her. Lifting her slender, white hand as if to shadow her brow, she appeared to be looking up at something. She maintained the stance until Tsuda had moved to her side.

  “What are you looking at?”

  As if surprised by his voice, Tsuda’s wife quickly turned to face him.

  “You startled me—welcome home.”

  As she spoke, she turned her sparkling eyes on him and drenched him in their light. Then, bending forward slightly she dipped her head in a casual greeting. Tsuda halted where he stood, half responding to the coquette in her and half hesitating.

  “What are you doing standing here?”

  “I was waiting—for you to come home.”

  “But you were staring at something.”

  “A sparrow. You can see the sparrow nesting under the eaves across the street.”

  Tsuda glanced up at the roof of the house. But there was no visible sign of anything that appeared to be a sparrow. His wife abruptly extended her hand toward him.

  “What?”

  “Your stick.”

  As if he had just noticed it, Tsuda handed the cane to his wife. Taking it, she slid open the lattice door at the entrance and moved aside for her husband to enter. Close behind him, she stepped up to the wooden floor from the concrete slab for shoes.

  When she had helped him change out of his kimono, she brought from the kitchen a soap dish wrapped in a towel as he was sitting down in front of the charcoal brazier.

  “Go and have a quick bath now. Once you get comfortable there you won’t feel like going out.”

  Tsuda had no choice but to reach out and take the towel. But he didn’t stand right away.

  “I might skip a bath today.”

  “Why? You’ll feel refreshed. And dinner will be ready as soon as you get back.”

  Tsuda stood up again as he was told. On his way out of the room he turned back toward his wife.

  “I stopped in at Kobayashi’s on the way home from work and had him take a look.”

  “Goodness! What did he say? By now you must be mostly better?”

  “I’m not—it’s worse than before.”

  Without giving his wife a chance to question him further, he left the room.

  It wasn’t until early that evening, after dinner and before he had withdrawn to his study, that the couple returned to the subject.

  “I can’t believe it, surgery is horrible; it scares me. Couldn’t you just ignore it as you’ve been doing?”

  “The doctor says that would be dangerous.”

  “But it’s so hateful, what if he makes a mistake?”

  His wife looked at him, bunching slightly her thick, well-formed eyebrows. Tsuda smiled, declining to engage her. Her next question seemed to have occurred to her abruptly.

  “If you do have surgery won’t it have to be on Sunday?”

  On the coming Sunday his wife had made a date with relatives to see a play and bring Tsuda along.

  “They haven’t bought tickets yet so you needn’t worry about canceling.”

  “But wouldn’t that be rude? After they were kind enough to invite us along?”

  “Not at all. Not under the circumstances.”

  “But I want to go!”

  “Then do.”

  “And you come too, won’t you? Won’t you, please?”

  Tsuda looked at his wife and forced a smile.

  [ 4 ]

  AGAINST THE fairness of her complexion her well-formed eyebrows stood out strikingly, and it was her habit, almost a tic, to arch them frequently. Regretfully, her eyes were too small and her single eyelids were unappealing. But the shining pupils beneath those single lids were ink black and, for that reason, very effective. At times her eyes could be expressive to a degree that might be called overbearing. Tsuda had experienced feeling helplessly drawn in by the light that emanated from those small eyes. Not as if there weren’t also moments when abruptly and for no reason the same light repelled him.

  Glancing up abruptly at his wife’s face, he beheld for an instant an eerie power resident in her eyes. It was an odd brilliancy utterly inconsonant with the sweet words that had been issuing from her lips until now. His intention to respond was impeded a little by her gaze. In that moment she smiled, exposing her beautiful teeth, and the look in her eyes vanished without a trace.

  “It’s not so. I don’t care a bit about going to the theater. I was just being spoiled.”

  Tsuda was silent, unable for a while longer to take his eyes off his wife.

  “Why are you frowning at me that way? I’m not going to the play so please have your surgery on Sunday, won’t you? I’ll send the Okamotos a postcard or drop in and tell them we can’t come.”

  “Go if you want to, they were nice enough to invite us.”

  “I’d rather not—your health is more important than a play.”

  Tsuda felt obliged to tell his wife in more detail about the surgery in store for him.

  “This isn’t a simple matter of draining the pus out of a boil. I have to flush out my colon with a laxative before the doctor goes to work with his scalpel, and apparently there’s a danger of hemorrhaging after the incision is made so I’ll have to lie still in bed five or six days with the wound packed with gauze. But that means, on the other hand, I could postpone until Monday or Tuesday or even move the date up to tomorrow or the day after and it wouldn’t make much difference—in that sense it’s an accommodating condition.”

  “It doesn’t sound so accommodating to me, having to lie in bed for a week without moving.”

  His wife arched her eyebrows again. As if indifferent to this display, Tsuda, lost in thought, leaned his right elbow against the brazier between them and gazed at the lid on the iron kettle atop
it. Beneath the russet bronze lid the water in the kettle was boiling loudly.

  “I suppose you’ll have to take a whole week off?”

  “I’m thinking I won’t pick a date until I’ve had a chance to let Yoshikawa-san know what’s happening. I could just stay home without saying anything but that wouldn’t feel right.”

  “I think you should talk to him. He’s always been so kind to us.”

  “If I do say something he might tell me to check in to the hospital right away.”

  At the word “hospital,” his wife’s small eyes appeared suddenly to widen.

  “Hospital? It’s not as if you’ll be going to a hospital.”

  “It’s the same thing—”

  “But you said once that Dr. Kobayashi’s place isn’t a hospital—it’s only for out-patients.”

  “I suppose it’s more of a clinic, but the second floor is available for staying over.”

  “Is it clean?”

  Tsuda forced a smile.

  “Maybe cleaner than our place—”

  It was his wife’s turn to smile stiffly.

  [ 5 ]

  TSUDA, WHOSE custom it was to spend an hour or two at his desk before going to bed, presently rose. His wife remained where she was, leaning comfortably against the brazier, and looked up at her husband.

  “Study time again?”

  This wasn’t the first time she had asked the question as he stood up. And there was always something in her tone that sounded to him like dissatisfaction. Sometimes he attempted to mollify her. At other times he felt rebellious and wanted to escape. In either case he was always aware, at the back of his consciousness, of a feeling that amounted to a disparagement:

  I can’t be wasting all my time with a woman like you—I have things to do for myself.

  Sliding open the paper door to the adjoining room in silence, he was on his way out when his wife spoke to his back.

  “So the theater is off? And I’m to decline the Okamotos’ invitation?”

  Tsuda paused, turning around.

  “You should go if you like. The way things are, I can’t make any promises.”

  His wife’s eyes remained on her lap. Nor did she reply. Tsuda turned and climbed the steep stairs to the second floor, the steps creaking under his feet.

  A Western tome was waiting on top of his desk. He sat down and, opening the book to the bookmark, began at once to read. But the context eluded him, the price of having abandoned the book for a number of days. As recalling where he had left off would require rereading the preceding section, he merely riffled the pages guiltily and regarded the volume as though oppressed by its thickness. A spontaneous feeling that the road ahead was endless took possession of him.

  He recalled having acquired the book during the first three or four months of his marriage. And it struck him that, although more than two months had passed, he had succeeded in making his way through less than two-thirds of it. Against the common practice of most men, beneath contempt as he put it, of leaving books behind when they embarked on their careers, he had frequently inveighed in front of his wife. And sufficient hours had been expended on the second floor to oblige her, accustomed to hearing him carry on about others, to acknowledge that he was indeed an avid student. Together with his sense that the road ahead was endless, a feeling of humiliation emerged from somewhere and nibbled perversely at his self-esteem.

  However, the knowledge he was struggling to absorb from the book that was open in front of him was of no quotidian consequence to his life at work. It was too specialized, and again too refined. It might have been styled as utterly irrelevant to an occupation such that even the knowledge he had obtained from college lectures had almost never availed him. This was knowledge he wanted to store away as a source of a certain strength that derived from self-confidence. He also wished to acquire it as an ornament for attracting the attention of others. Now, as he became sensible in a vague way of how difficult that was likely to be, he framed a question inwardly to his vanity:

  Will this be tougher than I thought?

  He smoked a cigarette in silence. Then, as if suddenly noticing it, he turned the book face down and stood up from his desk. With quick steps that caused the stairs to creak again he went back downstairs.

  [ 6 ]

  “O-NOBU!” “O-NOBU!”

  Calling his wife’s name through the fusuma,* he slid open the patterned paper door and stood in the threshold of the sitting room. Instantly his vision filled with the colors of the beautiful obi and kimono she had at some point spread in front of her as she sat alongside the brazier. They appeared, as he peered at them in the lighted room from the dark hallway, more strikingly vibrant than usual, and for a long moment he stood there, glancing from his wife’s face to the dazzling patterns and back again.

  “Why take all that out at this hour?”

  With one end of a thick obi woven in an iris pattern across her knee, O-Nobu looked at her husband as if across a great distance.

  “I felt like it—I haven’t worn this obi even once.”

  “I suppose that’s the outfit you’re planning to wear for your big day at the theater?”

  In Tsuda’s voice was the coldness that accompanies an ironic jab. O-Nobu cast her eyes down without speaking. In her wonted manner she arched her dark eyebrows. There were times when this singular gesture excited him in an odd way, while at other times he felt curiously aggravated. In silence he stepped out onto the engawa* and opened the door to the lavatory. Thence he moved back to the stairs. This time it was his wife who called him back.

  “Yoshio-san. Wait.”

  As she spoke she rose and approached him.

  “Is there something you need?” she asked, stepping between him and the stairs.

  What he needed that minute was related to a matter of more importance than an obi or a long under-robe.

  “Still no letter from my father?”

  “Not yet—when it arrives I’ll put it on your desk as usual.”

  Tsuda had bothered to come back downstairs because the letter he was expecting wasn’t waiting on his desk.

  “Shall I have O-Toki look in the mailbox?”

  “It’ll come registered; they won’t just toss it into the mailbox.”

  “Perhaps not, but let’s have a look just to be sure.”

  O-Nobu slid open the shoji at the front entrance and stepped down onto the concrete.

  “I’m telling you. There’s no point looking in the mailbox for a registered letter.”

  “But maybe it wasn’t registered; wait just a minute while I have a look.”

  Tsuda withdrew to the sitting room and sat down with his legs crossed in front of him on the cushion he had used at dinner, still in place alongside the brazier. His gaze came to rest on the brilliant profusion of scattered color, the glowing animals and flowers in a yuzen pattern.

  O-Nobu was back from the front of the house a minute later with a letter in her hand.

  “There was one! This might be from your father.”

  As she spoke, she held the white envelope up to the bright light.

  “It is. Just as I thought.”

  “And it’s not registered?”

  Taking the envelope from her hand, Tsuda opened it at once and read it through to the end. When he folded it to replace it in the envelope, his hands moved mechanically. He didn’t look down at them, or at O-Nobu’s face. Gazing vacantly at the pattern of broad stripes on her dressy crepe kimono, he muttered, as if talking to himself,

  “Damn.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing to worry about.”

  Acutely concerned with appearances, Tsuda was disinclined to reveal the content of the letter to his newlywed wife. At the same time, it was about something he was obliged to discuss with her.

  * Fusuma are a substantial version of shoji, partitions consisting of a wooden framework papered on both sides.

  * An engawa is a deck of highly polished wood that runs the length of
the house, usually along the garden side, from which various rooms can be accessed.

  [ 7 ]

  “HE SAYS he can’t send money so we should manage on our own this month. That’s the thing about old people. He could have written earlier, but he has to wait until we’re just about to need some extra cash.”

  “But why? Does he explain?”

  Tsuda removed the letter he had replaced in the envelope and unrolled it on his lap.

  “He says two of his rentals went vacant at the end of last month and he’s still waiting for the rent from others that are occupied. On top of that he has gardeners to pay, a fence to build, maintenance he hadn’t figured on, you name it—so this month is out of the question.”

  He passed the unfurled letter across the brazier to O-Nobu. His wife accepted it in silence but made no attempt to read it. It was this coldness in her attitude that Tsuda had feared from the beginning.

  “It’s not as though he needs that rent to manage his payment to us if he wanted to send it. And how much can a fence cost; he’s not building a brick wall.”

  Tsuda was speaking the truth. His father may not have been wealthy, but neither were his circumstances such that covering the shortage in funds needed by his son and his young wife for monthly expenses would burden him. It was simply that he lived modestly. Tsuda might have called him plain and simple to a fault. To O-Nobu, far more inclined to extravagance than her husband, the old man appeared to be meaninglessly frugal.

  “Your father probably thinks we love to throw money away on things we don’t need. I bet that’s exactly what he thinks.”

  “The last time we were in Kyoto he did imply something like that. Old people remember how they lived when they were young, and they tend to think that young people today should behave just as they did when they were the same age. Thirty may be thirty no matter whose age it is, but we live in a completely different world. He once asked me what a ticket cost me when I went to a lecture, and when I told him five yen he looked horrified.”