by Ogai Mori
Otama had been in the habit of getting out of bed as soon as her eyes opened in the morning, but when Ume would say: “The sink's frozen. Stay where you are,” her mistress remained under the covers.
As a safeguard against obscene thoughts, educators warn young people not to remain awake after going to bed and to get up as soon as they awaken, for in the vigors of youth kept warm in bed, an image like the flower of a poisonous plant blooming in fire is apt to be engendered. At such times Otama's imagination was unbridled. Her eyes would glow, and the flush would spread from her eyelids to her cheeks as though she had drunk too much saké.
One frosty morning after a starry night, Otama remained idly in bed for a long time—a habit she had acquired of late. Not until she saw the morning sun through the front window did she rise. And with only a narrow band around her kimono and a housecoat over it, she stood brushing her teeth in the open corridor outside her room. Suddenly the lattice door opened, and Ume's friendly voice greeted a visitor. Otama heard him enter the room.
“Hey there! You lazy-riser!” said Suezo, sitting at the brazier.
“Oh! Excuse me,” Otama said, hastily taking the toothbrush from her mouth. “You've come awfully early.”
To Suezo's eyes, her smiling face, flushed somewhat as though the blood had rushed to her head, was lovelier than ever. Since coming to live at Muenzaka, she had become prettier by the day. At first Suezo admired the maiden-like naïveté of her manners. But lately they had changed, and he was even more enchanted. He saw this transformation as evidence of her understanding of love, and he was proud that she had learned what it was from him. In spite of his insight into reality, this was a ridiculous misunderstanding of his mistress' state of mind. At first she had served him faithfully, but as a result of her unhappiness and the reflectiveness caused by the sudden changes in her life, she had arrived at a self-consciousness which might almost be called impudent negligence. She had acquired that coolness of mind that most women in the world who do have it can reach only after experiences with many men. Suezo found it stimulating to be trifled with by her coolness. She had begun to neglect her duties with an increasing disregard for them, and she had become less tidy. But this untidiness fanned Suezo's passions to a higher intensity. He did not realize the basis for these alterations, so he was more charmed than before.
Squatting down and drawing a brass basin near her Otama said: “Turn around, please.”
“Why?” he asked, lighting a cigarette.
“Because I'm washing.”
“Don't worry about me. Go ahead.”
“But if you sit there staring at me, I can't.”
“My, but you're proper. How's this? All right?” And with his back toward the corridor Suezo smoked his cigarette. “What an innocent thing she is,” he thought.
Pushing back the top of her kimono and letting it slip off her shoulders, she washed herself quickly. She was not as careful as she usually was, but since she had no blemish to hide or smooth over by using make-up in secret, she had no reason to feel embarrassed at being observed.
Before long, Suezo turned around. While she was washing, she didn't notice that he had turned, but after finishing and drawing the mirror stand in front of her, she saw his face in it, the cigarette still in his mouth.
“Ah? So that's the kind of man you are!” she said, continuing to comb her hair.
A triangular patch of white skin revealing her neck and part of her back could be seen above the loosened kimono, and her soft arms, lifted high and exposed a few inches above the elbows, were sights Suezo never tired of.
“Don't rush,” he said, fearing his silence would hurry her and making his tone deliberately easy. “I haven't come for anything in particular. When you asked me the other day when I'd be here, I told you this evening. But I've got to go to Chiba. If everything goes all right, I'll be able to come back tomorrow. If not, maybe the day after.”
“Oh?” said Otama, wiping her comb and looking back at him. She made herself seem sad.
“Be a good child and wait for me,” said Suezo humorously, putting his cigarette case in his kimono sleeve. Suddenly he got up and went out to the entrance.
Throwing her comb down, Otama said: “Oh, excuse me for not giving you even a cup of tea!” But when she stood up to see him off, he had already opened the door and was gone.
Ume brought Otama's breakfast in from the kitchen and, setting it down, bowed with her hands on the mats to apologize.
“What are you asking pardon for?” said Otama, sitting at the brazier and knocking the ashes off the fire with a pair of charcoal tongs.
“For being late with the tea.”
“Oh, is that all? Why, I was only being polite. Your master doesn't mind,” she said, taking up her chopsticks.
Watching her eat, Ume thought Otama was unusually good-natured, though for that matter her mistress was seldom in a bad temper. A trace of the smile with which Otama had said “What are you asking pardon for?” still remained on her faintly flushed cheeks. The maid wondered why Otama had smiled, but she was too simple to probe causes. And she felt infected by her mistress's happiness.
Looking at Ume's face and making herself even more cheerful, Otama said: “Ah, don't you want to go home?”
The maid's eyes rounded in wonder. As late as the second decade of the Meiji era, the customs of the trades-men's houses in Edo were still kept up, although they were slowly dying out. As a result, even those servants whose families lived in the city were not easily allowed to go home except on Servants' Day.
“Well,” Otama continued, “since your master's not expected this evening, you might as well go and spend the night with your family if you wish.”
“Oh, do you mean it?” Ume did not doubt Otama's sincerity, but she felt that she was unworthy of the favor allowed her.
“Why should I lie? I'd never play tricks on you unfairly. Don't put away the breakfast things, but go on—now! Take all the time you want, and stay there for the night. But don't forget to come back early tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, yes—I will! Ume said, her face flushed with delight. She saw her father's house, his two or three rickshaws in the entrance, her father resting on a cushion placed in a space scarcely wider than the cushion itself between a chest of drawers and the brazier. And, her father at work, Ume also pictured her mother there, her sidelocks hanging loosely over her cheeks, a thin sash holding up her sleeves and seldom taken off her shoulders. These images, like so many silhouettes, came alternately in rapid succession to Ume's mind.
When Otama had finished the meal, Ume took the tray away. The girl felt she should wash the dishes even though she had been told to leave them, and when Otama came in with something folded in a piece of paper, Ume was rinsing the bowls and plates in a small wooden bucket filled with hot water.
“Oh, you're washing them even though I said not to? I'll do it for you. It's not much work for me to wash a few things. You did your hair last night, so it looks all right, don't you think? Hurry and dress. I've nothing to give you as a present for your parents, so take this.”
Otama handed Ume the folded paper. Inside was a half-yen note, blue-colored and resembling a playing card.
Otama had hurried Ume off, and like a good maid with her sleeves tied up with a sash and her kimono ends tucked up under her obi , she went directly into the kitchen. She began the half-washed bowls and plates as though it were a pleasant pastime for her. She was used to such work and could do it far more quickly and thoroughly than Ume could, but now she went about it more slowly than a child playing with its toys. She cleaned one plate for five minutes. Her face was animated, rosy, her eyes distant.
Hopeful images entered her mind. Women pitiably waver in their decisions until they have made up their minds, yet once they have decided on their course of action, they rush forward like horses with blinders, looking neither to the right nor left. An obstacle which would frighten discreet men is nothing to determined women. They dare what men avoid,
and sometimes they achieve an unusual success.
In Otama's desire to make overtures to Okada, she had delayed so long that a person observing her might have felt impatient because of her indecision. But now that Suezo had told her of his journey to Chiba, she made up her mind to dash toward the port like a ship under full sail in a favorable wind. Suezo, the obstacle in her way, was to remain overnight at Chiba, and the maid was to be at her parents'.
What a delight for Otama to find herself quite free of restraints until the following morning! Since everything had turned out so well for her, she thought that it could only be a good omen that she would attain her object. On that day of all days Okada would most certainly pass her house! Sometimes he came by twice, first in going and then in returning. And even if she missed him once, to do so twice was an impossibility. “I don't care what happens—I'll talk to him today! And once I speak, I'm sure he'll stop to talk,” she told herself.
She was a degraded woman, true, a usurer's mistress. But she was even more beautiful than when she had been a virgin. In addition, misfortune had taught her what she wouldn't otherwise have known: somehow men were interested in her. And if this were the case, Okada could not look on her with absolute disfavor. No, that was out of the question. If he had disliked her, he would not have continued to bow to her whenever they saw each other. It was because of this same interest that he had killed the snake for her some time ago. She doubted that he would have offered his assistance if the event had happened at any other house. If it had not happened at her house, he wouldn't even have turned his eyes. Moreover, since she cared for him so much, at least some of her affection, if not all of it, must have been felt by him. “Why, even the birth of a child isn't as difficult as one thinks beforehand,” she assured herself.
As she probed her thoughts, she was not aware that the water in the bucket had grown cold.
After she had put away the trays on the shelf, she sat down at her usual place before the charcoal brazier. She felt restless. She took up the pair of tongs and stirred the ashes that Ume had sifted smooth. Then she got up to change into her kimono.
“I'll go to the hairdresser's,” she decided.
A good-natured woman who came to Otama to arrange her hair had recommended this shop for special occasions. But up to that time Otama had never gone there.
Chapter Twenty-two
IN A EUROPEAN book of children's stories, there is a tale about a peg. I can't remember it well, but it was about a farmer's son who got into a series of difficulties on his journey because the peg in his cartwheel kept coming out. In the story I'm telling now, a mackerel boiled in bean paste had the same effect as that peg.
I was barely able to keep from starving because of the meagre dormitory and boarding house meals, yet there was one dish that made my flesh creep. No matter how much air there is in the room or how clean the serving tray is, the moment I see this food, I recall the indescribable odors of the dormitory dining room. When I am served boiled fish with cooked seaweed and wheat gluten cakes, I have that hallucination of smell. And if the boiled fish is mackerel made in bean paste, the sensation is at its peak.
This dish, much to my disgust, was once served for supper at the Kamijo. The maid had set my tray down, but seeing me hesitate in lifting up my chopsticks, which I usually didn't do, she said: “Don't you like mackerel?”
“Well, I don't dislike it. When it's broiled, I can eat it with pleasure. But not when it's boiled in bean paste.”
“Oh, I'm sorry. The okamisan didn't know. Do you want some eggs instead?” she said, preparing to rise.
“Wait a while,” I told her. “I'm not hungry yet, so I'll go out for a walk. Make it look all right to the landlady. Don't say I dislike it. I don't want to give her any trouble.”
“But I feel so sorry—”
“Oh forget it.”
Seeing me stand to put on my hakama , the maid took the tray out into the corridor.
“Are you in, Okada?” I said, calling out to my neighbor.
“Do you want anything?” he asked, his voice clear.
“Nothing in particular, but I'm off for a walk. And I'm going to get some sukiyaki at a restaurant on my way back. Come on along.”
“All right. There's something I've been wanting to tell you anyway.”
I took my cap off the hook and went out of the Kamijo with my friend. I guess it was after four. Neither of us had talked about the direction to take, but we turned right at the lodging house gate.
Just as we were about to go down Muenzaka, I nudged Okada, saying: “Look—there she is!”
“Who?” he asked, in spite of knowing whom I meant, for he turned to the left side to glance at the house with the lattice door.
Otama was standing in front of her house. She would have looked beautiful even if she had been ill. But a young, healthy beauty is made even more beautiful by using make-up, and she was just that. I couldn't tell why, but there was a difference from her usual appearance. I thought she was lovelier than ever. And the radiance of her face dazzled me.
I felt she was transformed as she fixed her eyes on Okada. When he took off his cap, I noticed how upset he was, and I saw him unconsciously quicken his step.
Having the liberty of a third party, I looked back several times and saw that she continued to watch Okada.
He went down the slope with his head bent and without relaxing his hurried gait. I followed him in silence. Opposing thoughts tumbled inside me. They arose from the desire to put myself in Okada's place. But the idea sickened me. Denying my wish, I thought to myself that I couldn't be that base—yet I was annoyed at not being able to repress it effectively.
The thought of putting myself in Okada's place was not that I wanted to surrender to the woman's temptations. I had simply felt that I would have been happy if, like Okada, I had been loved by such a beauty. But how would I have behaved then? I would have kept my freedom of choice, but I wouldn't have run as Okada had just done. I would have visited her, talked with her. I would have kept my virginity, but I would have gone so far as to stop at her house, have conversations with her, love her as one loves a sister. I would have helped her. I would have rescued her from the dirty mud. My imagination had gone that far!
We walked on without speaking until we came to the crossing at the bottom of the slope. After we had passed the police box, I was finally able to talk to Okada.
“Look here,” I said, “the situation's getting dangerous.”
“What? What's getting dangerous?”
“Don't pretend with me. Why, you must have been thinking about that woman ever since you saw her. I turned around a number of times, and she was always watching you. She's probably standing there right now and looking in this direction. It's just as it's described in the Saden: ‘His eyes received her and saw her off.' Only in your case it's just the reverse.”
“That's enough about her! Since you're the only person I confided in about how I got to know her, you shouldn't tease me.”
We reached the edge of the pond and stopped for a moment.
“Should we go that way?” Okada asked, pointing to the northern end of the pond.
I agreed and turned to the left. About ten steps later, I looked at the two-storied houses on the side of the street and said as though talking to myself: “Those houses belong to Fukuchi and Suezo.”
“They're a fine contrast. Though I hear the journalist hasn't much integrity either.”
“He's a politician too, and a politician,” I said without giving much thought to the question, “no matter how he may live, is not free from slander.” Perhaps I wanted to make the distance between these two men as wide as possible.
As we talked on in this way and crossed a small bridge leading to the north end of the pond, we saw a young man in student uniform standing at the water's edge and watching something. At our approach he shouted: “Hello there.”
It was Ishihara, a student who was interested in jujitsu and who read only those books related
to his major subject. Neither Okada nor I knew him well, but we didn't dislike him.
“What are you looking at around here?” I asked.
Without answering he pointed across the water. We stared in that direction through the gray vagueness of the evening air. In those days, rushes grew all over the section of the pond from the Nezu ditch to where we were now standing. The withered stalks became more and more sparse toward the center of the pond, where only dried up lotus leaves like bunches of rags and seed sacs like sponges were seen here and there with stems broken at various heights into acute angles. They lent a picturesque desolation to the scene. Among these bitumen-colored stems and over the dark gray surface of the water reflecting faint lights, we saw a dozen wild geese slowly moving back and forth. Some rested motionless on the water.
“Can you throw that far with a stone?” Ishihara asked, turning to Okada.
“Of course, but I don't know if I can hit anything or not.”
“Go ahead. Try.”
Okada hesitated. “They're going to sleep, aren't they? It's cruel to throw at them.”
Ishihara laughed. “Don't be sentimental! If you don't, then I will.”
“Then I'll make them fly away,” said Okada, reluctantly picking up a stone.
The small stone hissed faintly through the air. I watched where it landed, and I saw the neck of a goose drop down. At the same time a few flapped their wings and, uttering cries, dispersed and glided over the water. But they did not rise high into the air. The one that was hit remained where it was.
“Excellent shot!” Ishihara cried. He looked at the surface of the water for a short time and said: “I'll get it. But help me a little.”
“How can you?” Okada asked. Like him, I was eager to hear the answer.
“Now's not a good time,” said Ishihara. “In half an hour it'll be dark. And then I can easily get it. I won't need your help in actually going out there, but be here then and do what I tell you. And then I'll treat you to a feast!”