Sanshiro

by Sōseki Natsume

  “Yes, it’s all settled.”

  “Who is the man?”

  “The one who asked for me! Isn’t it funny! He’s a friend of Mineko’s brother. Soon I’ll be living in a house with my brother again. I can hardly stay at the Satomis’ after Mineko is gone.”

  “Won’t you be getting married?”

  “I will, if there’s a man I want to marry.” She wrapped the subject up neatly with a hearty laugh. There was no one she wanted to marry now, that was certain.

  *

  Sanshirō stayed in bed four more days. On the fifth he risked a bath and looked at himself in the mirror. Not bad, for a corpse. The sight spurred him on to the barber’s.

  The next day was Sunday. After breakfast he dressed to ward off the cold, with two undershirts and an overcoat, and went to Mineko’s. Yoshiko was in the hallway, preparing to step down into her sandals. She was about to leave for her brother’s, she said. Mineko was out. He accompanied Yoshiko as far as the street.

  “Have you recovered completely?”

  “Yes, I’m fine now, thanks. I was hoping to see…”

  “Kyōsuke?”

  “No, Mineko.”

  “She’s gone to church.”

  This was the first he had heard of Mineko’s being a churchgoer. He asked Yoshiko for directions as they parted. Turning three corners, he came out in front of the church. Sanshirō had never had anything to do with the “Jesus religion,” had never seen the inside of a church. He stood out front and looked at the building. He read the placard announcing the sermon. He walked back and forth beside the iron fence, and sometimes he leaned against it. He was determined to wait there until Mineko came out.

  Eventually he heard singing. This must be what they call a hymn, he thought. It was something that happened inside high, sealed windows. Judging from the volume, there were a good many people singing. Mineko’s must be one of the voices he was hearing now. Sanshirō listened closely. The singing stopped. The wind blew. Sanshirō turned up the collar of his overcoat. One of Mineko’s clouds appeared in the sky.

  Once, he had looked at the autumn sky with Mineko. That had been upstairs at Professor Hirota’s. Once, he had sat by a little stream in the fields. He had not been alone that time, either. Stray sheep. Stray sheep. The cloud had taken the form of a sheep.

  Suddenly the church door opened. People came out, returning from Paradise to the fleeting world of men. Mineko was fourth from the last. She wore a striped, ankle-length coat. Her head was bowed as she came down the front stairway. She seemed to be feeling the cold. With her shoulders hunched and her hands clasped before her, she was doing her best to minimize contact with the outside world. Mineko maintained this air of rising to nothing until she reached the gate. As if only then aware of the rush of the street, she looked up. The dark image of the cap in Sanshirō’s hand registered in her eyes. The two young people moved together by the sermon placard.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “I just dropped by your house.”

  “Oh? Well, let’s go back there.”

  She began to turn away. She wore the same low clogs she always wore. Instead of following her, Sanshirō edged against the church fence.

  “I just wanted to see you here for a minute. I’ve been waiting for you to come out.”

  “You should have come inside. You must have been cold.”

  “I was.”

  “Is your cold all better now? You could have a relapse if you’re not careful. You still look a little pale.”

  He did not answer, but instead took a small packet wrapped in writing paper from his overcoat pocket.

  “It’s the money I borrowed from you. Thanks very much. I’ve been meaning to give it back for a long time now. Sorry I let it go.”

  Mineko glanced at Sanshirō, but she took the packet without protest. Once it was in her hand, though, she simply looked at it. Sanshirō looked at it too. For a few moments, they said nothing. Finally, Mineko spoke. “Are you sure you don’t need this?”

  “No, I had it sent from home a while ago for this very reason. Please take it.”

  “I see. Well then, I will.”

  She put the packet in the breast of her coat. When she withdrew her hand, she was holding a white handkerchief. She pressed it to her face, looking at Sanshirō. She might have been inhaling something in the cloth. All at once, she held it out. The handkerchief came before Sanshirō’s face. A sharp fragrance poured from it.

  “Heliotrope,” she said softly.

  Sanshirō jerked his head back. The bottle of Heliotrope. The evening in Yonchōme. Stray sheep. Stray sheep. In the sky, the high sun shone bright and clear.

  “I heard you’re getting married.”

  Mineko dropped the handkerchief into her sleeve. “You know?” she said, narrowing her softly creased eyelids to look at Sanshirō. She had placed him at a distance, her eyes were telling him, but now she was sorrier about that than she ought to be. The concern did not show in her brows, however, which maintained an undeniable calm. Sanshirō’s tongue became glued to the roof of his mouth.

  After she had looked at him for a time, Mineko released an almost inaudible sigh. And finally, touching a slender hand to her rich eyebrows, she murmured, “For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.”63

  She spoke almost too softly to be heard, but Sanshirō heard her distinctly. It was thus that Sanshirō and Mineko parted. When he came back to his room, he found a telegram from his mother. “When do you leave?” it said.

  13

  Haraguchi’s painting was finished. The Tanseikai hung it on the main wall of one gallery. In front of the painting they set a long bench. It was for resting. It was also for looking at the painting. It was for both rest and appreciation. The Tanseikai thus catered for the convenience of the many spectators who would linger by this major work. This was special treatment. It was, they said, because the painting was a special accomplishment. Some said it was because the title attracted people’s notice. A few said it was because of the woman in the picture. One or two of the Tanseikai members explained that it was simply because the painting was so big. And big it certainly was. In its new, six-inch-wide gold frame, it looked big enough to be taken for a whole new painting.

  Haraguchi stopped in the day before the opening to inspect his work. He sat on the bench and looked at it for a long time, smoking his pipe. Finally, he sprang to his feet and made a careful circuit of the show. Then he returned to the bench and smoked a second leisurely pipeful.

  Crowds gathered before “Woman in Forest” from the day the show opened. The bench turned out to be a useless ornament—although tired spectators would sit there in order not to see the picture. But even while they rested, some exchanged views on “Woman in Forest.”

  Mineko’s husband brought her to the show on the second day. Haraguchi was their guide. When they came to “Woman in Forest,” Haraguchi looked at the couple and asked, “How do you like it?”

  “Excellent,” the husband said, fixing his gaze on it from behind his glasses. “This standing pose holding up the round fan is especially fine. The eye of a professional does see things differently after all. Who else could have thought of this? The light on the face is beautifully done. The contrast between shadow and sunlight is distinct. The face alone is full of extraordinarily interesting modulations.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t take credit for it,” Haraguchi said. “The subject herself wanted it this way.”

  “Thank you very much,” Mineko said.

  “And let me thank you,” Haraguchi answered.

  Mineko’s husband looked very pleased to hear that the idea for the picture had been his wife’s. The thanks he expressed were the most gracious of all.

  After midday on the first Saturday following the opening, Professor Hirota, Nonomiya, Yojirō and Sanshirō all came to the exhibition together. Leaving the rest for later, the four of them went straight in to see “Woman in Forest.”

  “
That’s it, that’s it,” said Yojirō.

  A crowd stood in front of the painting. Sanshirō hesitated for a moment in the doorway. Nonomiya calmly strolled in.

  Sanshirō glanced at the painting once from behind the crowd, and turned away. He leaned against the bench, waiting for the others.

  “What a big, beautiful painting!” Yojirō exclaimed.

  “Haraguchi tells me he wants you to buy it,” Professor Hirota said to him.

  “I’m not the one…” he started to say until he noticed Sanshirō leaning against the bench, scowling.

  “His use of color is very stylish. It’s rather chic.” This was Nonomiya’s critical opinion. Professor Hirota then offered his.

  “It’s almost too cleverly done. Now I see why he confessed he could never do a painting that plops like a drum.”

  “Plops like a drum? What kind of painting is that?” Nonomiya asked.

  “One that’s pleasantly half-witted like the plop of a little Noh drum. An interesting sort of painting.”

  The two of them laughed. They discussed only technique, but Yojirō had his own view. “Nobody could paint Mineko looking pleasantly half-witted.”

  Nonomiya shoved his hand in his pocket, looking for a pencil with which to mark the catalogue. Instead he came out with a printed card. It was an invitation to Mineko’s wedding reception. Nonomiya and Professor Hirota had gone in their frock coats. Sanshirō had found an invitation on his desk the day he came back to Tokyo. The wedding had already taken place.

  Nonomiya tore the invitation apart and threw it on the floor. Soon he and Professor Hirota became involved in criticizing the other paintings.

  Yojirō moved closer to Sanshirō. “How do you like ‘Woman in Forest’?”

  “The title is no good.”

  “What should it be, then?”

  Sanshirō did not answer him, but to himself he muttered over and over, “Stray sheep. Stray sheep.”

  Notes

  1. moxibustion scars: A procedure used in traditional Chinese medicine, as practiced in Japan, sometimes performed with acupuncture, wherein bits of dried moxa (Japanese mogusa, or mugwort) are burned on the skin to stimulate the circulation in certain key locations of the body.

  2. Kyushu… homesick: It is the second day of Sanshirō’s three-day trip from Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, to Tokyo, 730 miles away. See Translator’s Note for more on this tiring itinerary.

  3. during the War: The Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), fought to determine which of the two imperial powers would dominate parts of Manchuria and Korea, cost Japan over 100,000 fighting men’s lives as they took such strategic Russian-occupied ports in Manchuria as Port Arthur and Da-lien (Dairen in Japanese).

  4. college: Sanshirō has graduated from one of five national colleges (or higher schools: kōtō gakkō) by way of which the exclusively male-educated elite prepared to enter one of three imperial universities, Tokyo Imperial University being the premier institution. Kyushu Imperial University would not be founded until 1910.

  5. electric lights: A modern luxury in 1907, when most Japanese homes still used oil lamps.

  6. Fukuoka Prefecture: See Translator’s Note for information on this partially fictional address in northern Kyushu.

  7. Kumamoto: A major city in the middle of Kyushu, site of the Fifth National College.

  8. Shiki’s: Masaoka Shiki (1867–1902), the modern haiku master, was a great friend of Sōseki’s. See Chronology.

  9. straddling the fence… fallen asleep there: More literally, “He had taken a nap on Hora-ga-tōge.” In the Battle of Yamazaki in 1582, one general was thought to have lingered on top of a mountain pass (Hora-ga-tōge), waiting to see which side would be stronger before committing his forces. Sanshirō has gone one better and fallen asleep in the midst of his indecision.

  10. Meiji: Period in Japanese history from 1868 to 1912. See Chronology.

  11. beam of light: Sōseki based his description of Nonomiya’s laboratory on that of a former student and literary disciple of his, the physicist Terada Torahiko (1878–1935), who did not want his own current work described in fiction and instead verbally summarized for Sōseki an experiment on the pressure of light by the American physicist Ernest Fox Nichols (1869–1924) that he was just reading. Terada later wrote how impressed he was with Sōseki’s accuracy, based on a single hearing.

  12. Hongō: One of Tokyo’s fifteen wards at the time (now part of Bunkyō Ward), best known for the presence of Tokyo Imperial University. Most of the novel is set in Hongō around the University in such neighborhoods as Oiwake (where Sanshirō lives), Nishikatamachi, and Masago-chō.

  13. The Mansion: The central campus of Tokyo Imperial University was built on the former estate of the great Maeda feudal lords of the Edo Period. The pond was a major feature of its ornamental garden, and the hilltop mansion was converted to serve as a faculty conference center. The Red Gate, frequently mentioned in the novel, was (and is) another relic of the Maeda estate.

  14. noon gun: A cannon fired at noon in the imperial palace grounds every day from 1871 to 1929.

  15. Uraga: The small port town into which Commodore Matthew Perry sailed in 1853, demanding that Japan open its doors to trade with the United States. See Chronology.

  16. old horse… Napoleon III: In the fall of 1867, just a few months before the last Tokugawa Shōgun was overthrown, Napoleon III (r. 1852–71) presented him with twenty-six Arabian horses, one of which was said to have been kept at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo until 1894, so the rumor about the “old horse” could well have been true.

  17. letter to his mother: Sanshirō writes in the modern colloquial style (genbun-itchi), more appropriate to friends and family than the traditional epistolary style (sōrōbun), still used in formal correspondence in Sōseki’s day.

  18. Shōnosuke’s latest doings: Stage name of Toyotake Yone (c.1889), an actual female balladeer (musume gidayū) popular around the time of the novel.

  19. Professor Koizumi Yakumo: The Japanese name of Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904). See Translator’s Note.

  20. Yonchōme: The “fourth block” of the University’s Hongō Ward included the northwest corner of the busy intersection through which the streetcars passed, although the stop itself officially belonged to the “third block” (Sanchōme) across the street. This was the most commercially active area near the University, but anyone seeking entertainment was likely to come to the intersection to travel to more interesting areas such as the two mentioned here, Shinbashi and Nihonbashi.

  21. Kiharadana… Kosan: Kiharadana (or Kiharatei) was an actual variety theater at the time, and Kosan (1856–1930) and En’yū (1849–1907) were actual storytellers.

  22. fifty-five yen a month: The average monthly income of a low-level civil servant at the time was 29 yen, while 50 yen was a middle-class average, and Sōseki had to hold three teaching jobs in 1906 to earn up to 155 yen to support his extended family. At 200 yen per month as the Asahi newspaper’s staff novelist, he was considered handsomely paid.

  23. chrysanthemum doll show… Dangozaka: “Dangozaka, ‘Dumpling Slope,’ just north of the university in Hongō, was a famous chrysanthemum center” (Edward Seidensticker, Low City, High City (New York: Knopf, 1983), p. 131) where, from Edo times, an annual display was held of large dolls clothed in chrysanthemums and posed to portray characters and scenes from the kabuki stage. The practice was abandoned for the first decade of Meiji but revived in 1878.

  24. new baron: The Japanese government created a new peerage system in 1884, with “baron” (danshaku) the most widely held rank.

  25. lighthouse: Yojirō is not being clairvoyant. He is referring to a well-known Japanese proverb for missing what is close at hand while focusing on what is far away, “It’s darkest beneath the lamp,” in which the word for “lamp” is synonymous with the word for “lighthouse,” the meaning Sōseki uses here.

  26. Meiji 18: 1885. This assumes that the novel is set in Meiji 40 (1907) and that Sans
hirō’s age is calculated in the traditional Japanese manner, according to which a baby is counted as one year old in the year it is born and becomes a year older each New Year’s day. See Translator’s Note on the novel’s chronology.

  27. those slim pipes: The traditional Japanese tobacco pipe, or kiseru, usually consists of a slim, straight bamboo tube with a metal mouthpiece and tiny metal bowl that burns the tobacco a pinch at a time.

  28. Chinese literary references: Yojirō quotes briefly from “Fu Studies South of the City” by the poet Han Yu (768–824). See Stephen Owen, The Poetry of Meng Chiao and Han Yü (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1975), pp. 271–5. Han Yu’s encouragement of learning sounds ironic coming from Yojirō’s lips.

  29. Burning House of worldly suffering: A well-known Buddhist image.

  30. History of Intellectual Development: Sōseki owned a heavily marked-up copy of John Beattie Crozier’s 1897 book by that title.

  31. moving pictures: First shown to large audiences as a foreign import in Japan in 1897. The first Japanese films were shown in 1899, and by 1908 Tokyo had perhaps a dozen theaters.

  32. attack of the Soga Brothers: Story based on an actual event of 1193. Brothers Gorō and Jūrō avenged the death of their father, who was a retainer of General Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147–99), de facto ruler of the country.

  33. Yōrō waterfall: From a traditional tale of filial piety in which a young man scoops life-giving liquor for his father from a stream.

  34. A. Propagule: Yojirō uses a haiku poet’s playful pseudonym, “Reiyoshi,” which literally means “propagule,” i.e., plant material used for propagation, but which puns self-deprecatingly on the word reiyo’s meaning of “tiny remnant,” or “remainder”. As a young man hoping to germinate a new age of creative ferment, he probably would have preferred the former reading.

  35. the beach at Tago-no-ura: celebrated in poetry for its view of Mount Fuji.

  36. red sake, a cheap local brew: Made only in the Kumamoto area, red sake contains wood ash and other additives and preservatives that impart a reddish hue to the otherwise clear rice wine.