Three-Cornered World

by Sōseki Natsume

  2 The Hokku (Haiku) is a poem of seventeen syllables.

  1 An outer coat.

  "Anybody there?' I called, but there was no reply.

  Standing under the eaves, I peeped inside. The smoke-stained and grimy shōji1 at the back of the shop had been closed, so I was unable to see into the room which lay beyond. Five or six pairs of melancholy-looking straw sandals hanging from the sloping roof, swung listlessly to and fro. Below these stood three solitary boxes of cheap cakes, around which were scattered a few small coins.

  'Anybody there?' I called again. In a corner of the earth floor inside the doorway stood a hand-mill, on which were perched a cock and a hen, their feathers puffed out in sleep. Startled by the sound of my voice, they awoke and set up an excited clucking. Just in front of the threshold there was an earthen cooking furnace, half discoloured by the rain which had been falling a little while ago. On this had been placed a tea-kettle so blackened with smoke that I was unable to tell if it was earthen or silver. I was glad to see that there was a fire in the furnace.

  Again there was no answer, but nevertheless I went inside and sat down on a bench. This made the chickens beat their wings and hop from the hand-mill up on to the matted floor of the shop itself. Had it not been for the screens, they might well have gone right through into the inner room. The cock crowed lustily, and to this the hen added her

  reedy cackling, for all the world as though they thought I were a fox or a dog. A tobacco-tray, about the size of a two-litre rice measure, had been set on a low table, and in it a coil of incense was smouldering very slowly, heedless of the passage of time. The effect of this was to give an air of tranquillity to the room. The rain was gradually easing off.

  Presently I heard footsteps in the back room. Then the smoke-stained shōji slid back, and an old woman came out.

  I had known all along that someone must eventually come. It was obvious with the fire alight, coins scattered around the cake boxes, and the incense smouldering leisurely. Nevertheless, this was certainly different from Tokyo if you could leave a shop wide open and unattended without any qualms. Somehow I could not quite believe that coming into a shop and sitting down on a bench uninvited, and then waiting and waiting for ages really belonged to the twentieth century. I was thoroughly enjoying this remoteness from the everyday world, but more than this, I found the old woman's face charming.

  Two or three years ago I went to see Takasago at the Hosho Noh theatre. I remember thinking at the time that it was like looking at some beautiful painting which had been brought to life. The old man in the play, carrying a broom over his shoulder, took five or six paces along the hashigakari1, and very slowly and sedately turning his back on the audience, came face to face with the old woman. To this day I can still see their postures as they stood there facing one another. From where I was sitting I was able to see the old woman almost full-face, and I thought how beautiful she looked. In that instant her features were indelibly imprinted on my mind. The likeness between the old woman in the tea-shop and that image in my mind was so striking that it quite took my breath away.

  'Excuse me sitting down uninvited like this, Obahsan1.'

  'Not at all. I had no idea that anyone had come in.'

  'It certainly did rain, didn't it?'

  'Yes, it's terrible weather. It must have been very unpleasant for you out there. Heavens, you're soaked through. I'll light a fire so you can dry yourself.'

  'If you would just be kind enough to make up the furnace a little, the heat will reach me over here, and I'll soon get dry. I've got rather cold sitting here.'

  Certainly I'll make it up right away. And I'll bring you a cup of tea too.'

  So saying, she stood up and shooed the chickens away. With much clucking they hopped from the grubby dark-brown matting straight down into the boxes of cheap cakes, and then flew out into the street, the cock letting his droppings fall on the cakes as he went.

  'Here we are, a nice cup of tea.'

  In no time at all the old woman had returned carrying a cup of tea on a shallow tray. The tea had been stewed for so long that it was almost black, but I could just make out a cluster of three plum-bossoms painted roughly with one stroke of the brush on the bottom of the cup.

  'Would you like a cake?'

  She brought over some of the assorted cakes on which the chickens had walked. I scrutinized them carefully to make sure there were no droppings on them, but the droppings had been left behind in the box.

  Over her sleeveless top-coat, the old woman tied a cord round her shoulders and under her arms to keep the sleeves of her kimono back, and squatted down by the furnace. I took my sketch-book out from inside my kimono, and began to draw her side-face as we talked.

  'It's nice and peaceful here, isn't it?'

  'Yes. As you can see it's just a small mountain village.'

  'Are there any uguisu1 here?'

  'Oh yes, you can hear them singing almost every day— Even in summer.'

  'I'd love to hear them. I never get the chance, and that makes me want to all the more.'

  'It's a pity you came today. That rain a while ago has driven them all away.'

  Just then there was a crackling, and the glowing embers sent out a sudden rush of hot air around the furnace.

  'Why don't you come nearer? You must be absolutely frozen.'

  I looked up and saw the column of blue smoke break against the eaves, and then thin out until only a few small wreathes were left weaving themselves in and out of the rafters.

  'Oh this is wonderful. Thanks to you I'm coming to life again.'

  'The weather's clearing up. Look, you can see the Tengu2 rock over there.'

  Growing impatient with the indecision of the overcast spring sky, the storm had resolutely swept down, completely clearing away the cloud from an angle of the mountain which lay before us. It was at this that the old woman was pointing. There, rising majestically into the air, was a tall tapering rock like a pillar from which large chips have been cut. This apparently was the Tengu rock. I gazed first at the mountain, and then at the old woman. Finally, I looked half at one and half at the other, comparing them.

  As an artist, I have only two impressions of old women's faces in my mind. The first is that of the old woman in Takasago, and the second that of the mountain witch drawn by Rosetsu. Having seen Rosetsu's picture, my conception of an old woman was as a rather weird creature; a person to be seen against a background of autumn-tinted leaves, or in a setting of cold moonlight. Thus when I saw the Noh play at the Hosho theatre, I was astonished that an old woman could have such gentle features. Unfortunately, I do not think I ever heard who carved that mask, but whoever it was, was undoubtedly an expert. Depicted in such a way even an old women looks handsome, and has an air of gentle kindliness. Such a person would not be out of place on a gold-leafed screen, and is not at all inconsistent with the idea of soft spring breezes and cherry-blossom. At all events, as I looked at the old woman standing beside me, her arms bare, her back straight, one hand shading her eyes and the other pointing away off into the distance, I thought how much more in keeping she was with the scenery of a mountain track in springtime, than with the Tengu rock. I picked up my book and began to sketch her. Just before I had finished, however, her pose broke. Feeling rather awkward, and not quite knowing what to do with my hands, I held my book to the fire to dry.

  'You look very healthy Obahsan, I must say.'

  'Yes, I'm glad to say I'm still quite active. I sew, and spin hemp, and I grind the flour for the dumplings.'

  I wished suddenly that I could see her tinning the millstone, but since I could scarcely make such a request, I changed the subject.

  'I believe it's less than two and a half miles to Nakoi from here, isn't it?'

  'Yes, I would say it's just about two miles. Are you going to the hot-spring there, sir?'

  'If it isn't too crowded I may stay there. That is if I feel in the mood.'

  'Well, it won't be too crowded. Since the beginn
ing of the war1 people have gradually stopped going there. It's just like a private house now.'

  'That's wonderful. Oh, but perhaps they won't let me stay there.'

  'Yes they will. You can stay there any time if you ask.'

  'There's only the one inn there, isn't there?'

  'Yes, just ask for Shioda, and you'll soon find it. He's the richest man in the village. In fact, it's difficult to say whether the place is really a hot-spring resort, or just his country house.'

  'Well in that case, I don't suppose he minds if he never has any guests.'

  'Will this be your first time at the hot-spring?'

  'No, I was there once before for a while, a long time ago.'

  At this point we both lapsed into silence. I picked up my book again, and was quietly sketching the chickens, when the steady jingling of horse-bells reached my ears. Indeed it penetrated them to the very depths. This jingling had a rhythm all its own, and the monotonous regularity of it beat round and round in my head. I felt just as though the hand-mill which stood next to me were lulling me into a dream with its rhythmic grinding. I stopped sketching the chickens, and wrote on the same page:

  It is spring,

  And the bells of packhorses invade Inen's2 ears

  Carried on the breeze.

  Since I had first started up the mountain I had met five or six horses. Every one of those five or six horses had worn trappings fitted with jingling bells! They were like creatures from some other world.

  Presently, as I sat there beside the mountain path, beneath a sky already dimmed by the early evening of spring, the gentle and soothing sound of a packhorse driver's song broke through into my reverie. It was a song full of tenderness and compassion, yet somewhere locked in the depths there pulsed an irrepressible light-heartedness. I could not get it out of my head that the voice was coming from a figure in a painting. I scrawled the following lines slantwise across the page.

  Swifter than the deer, a song comes on ahead through the spring rain.

  Leaving the packhorse to follow with his tinkling bells.

  When I read this poem through, however, I had the feeling that it had not been written by me at all.

  'Ah, here comes someone else,' said the old woman half to herself.

  Since there was only the one road, everybody, both coming and going, passed close enough to the tea-house to be seen. Each one of those five or six horses I had met recently must, with the jingling of its bells, have made the old woman think, 'Ah, here comes someone else,' only to pass on its way up or down the mountain. In that tiny village, where if you did not like flowers there was nowhere to walk, she had lived with the loneliness of the track through one spring after another. I wondered for just how long she had been living there, counting the times she heard the bells day in day out, her hair growing whiter with each succeeding year. I turned to the next page and wrote:

  The songs of packhorse drivers tell the passing days,

  And Spring, white hair untinted, draws on to its end.

  But this did not express my feelings properly. It probably needed a little more planning. I sat there gazing fixedly at the point of my pencil, trying to compress into seventeen syllables1 the ideas of white hair, a great number of years, and the songs of the packhorse drivers in addition to the idea of spring, when the packhorse driver whose song had reached me earlier appeared in person in front of the shop, and came to a halt.

  'Hello there!' he said in a loud voice.

  'Why it's Gen. Are you on your way to town again?'

  'Yes. If there's anything you need I'll be glad to bring it up for you.'

  'Let me see. If you're going through Koji-cho, would you get me a holy tablet from the Reiganji temple for my daughter?'

  'Yes, I'll get that for you. Just the one?—Your girl Aki must be happy, having married so well, eh Obasan2?'

  'Well, she has no particular worries at the moment. Perhaps you could say she's happy.'

  'Of course she's happy. Just compare her with that young lady down in Nakoi.'

  'Yes, I feel really sorry for her. And she's so talented and beautiful too. Are things any better these days?'

  'No, just the same.'

  'Oh, what a shame,' said the old woman heaving a sigh.

  'Yes, it's a shame all right,' agreed Gen stroking his horse's nose.

  Clusters of raindrops still rested, after their long descent, on the leaves and blossoms among the thickly interwoven branches of the wild cherry tree outside. Just then, however, a passing gust of wind gave them a push, and unable to keep their balance, they came tumbling down in a shower from their temporary nest. This startled the horse, and he tossed his long mane up and down. The sound of Gen's scolding voice saying, 'Whoa there;' mingled with the jingling of the horse's bells, roused me from my thoughts. The old woman was speaking.

  'Gen, sometimes I still picture her now as she was on her wedding day, with her wide flowing sleeves, and her hair dressed up in a high Shimada1 style. She was sitting on her horse, and . . . .'

  'Yes that's right, we didn't come by boat, we came on horseback, didn't we Obasan?'

  'Yes, and as her horse was standing under that cherry tree, some blossom fluttered down flecking her hair over which she had taken so much trouble.'

  Once again I opened my sketch book. Such a scene as the old woman had described would make an excellent subject for either a picture or a poem. I could visualize her as she was on that day, and with a look of satisfaction I wrote:

  Wise is the bride who goes horseback

  After the blossom has all fallen from the bough.

  Strangely enough, although I had a clear impression of the clothes, the hair-style, the horse and the cherry tree, the one thing I just could not picture was the bride's face. I was searching my mind for a face that would fit, trying now one type, now another, when suddenly the face of Millais' Ophelia came to me, and slipped neatly into place beneath the high 'Shimada' hair-style. 'No, that's no good,' I thought, and immediately allowed my carefully built up picture to disintegrate. The clothes, the hair-style, the horse and the cherry tree, all completely disappeared in an instant from the scene I had created. Somewhere deep within me,however, the misty figure of Ophelia being carried along by the stream, her hands folded in prayer, remained. It was as indestructable as a cloud of smoke which, when you beat at it with a fan, merely thins and becomes less palpable. Somehow it gave me the sort of strange and wonderful feeling as if I had been watching a long-tailed comet streaking across the sky.

  'Well,' said Gen, 'if you'll excuse me I'll be on my way.'

  'Call in on your way back. After that terrible downpour it must be very difficult down there along that part where the track bends so much.'

  'Yes, it is rather hard going,' said Gen as he began to walk off followed by his horse.

  There go those bells again.

  'Does he come from Nakoi,' I asked.

  'Yes, that's Gembei.'

  'Who was the bride he brought on horseback through the mountain pass?'

  'Shioda's daughter. He mounted her on his grey, and led her down to the town at the time of her marriage.—My, how time flies. That was, let me see, five years ago.'

  Those who lament their white hair only when confronted with it in a mirror are of a happy breed, but far more of a sage was that old woman who, merely by counting the passage of five years on her fingers, could appreciate how that consuming disease, time, presses on relentlessly.

  'She must have been very beautiful,' I said, 'I wish I'd been here to see her.'

  'Ha, ha, ha. You can still see her now. If you stay at the hot-pring resort, she's bound to come out to welcome you.'

  'Is she still in the village then? It would be wonderful if she were still wearing those long billowing sleeves, and had her hair done up in a high "Shimada" style . . . .'

  'Well, perhaps she'll dress up for you. Ask her and see.'

  I thought this most unlikely, but was surprised to find that the old woman was serious. Th
is journey, on which I was trying to detach myself from emotion, would not have been very interesting had this sort of thing not occurred.

  'Shioda's daughter is so much like the maid of Nagara,' continued the old woman.

  'In looks, you mean?'

  'Oh no, I mean the course of their lives.'

  'Really? Who is this maid of Nagara?'

  'Well, once upon a time, so they say, there lived in this village a girl whom men called the maid of Nagara. She was the daughter of a very rich man, and was of great beauty.'

  'Go on.'

  'As fate would have it, however, two men fell in love with her at the same time.'

  'I see.'

  'She could rest neither night nor day worrying whether to give her heart to the man called Sasada or to Sasabe. Eventually, in anguish at not being able to decide, she cast herself into the Fuchi river, and put an end to her life. Just before her death she composed this poem

  From leaves of autumn flushed with love,

  A pearl of dew shakes free

  And falls to shatter on the earth beneath.

  So too must I, to flee Love's stifling folds Drop from the world.

  I had little thought when I arrived at that small mountain village, to meet an old woman such as this, and to hear from her such a charming tale, told with such old-fashioned elegance.

  'About six hundred yards down the hill, going East from here, is a five-storied pagoda quite near to the track. That's the tomb of the maid of Nagara. You should go and have a look at it on your way down to Nakoi.'

  I made up my mind that I would do this.

  'Shioda's daughter had the misfortune to have two men in love with her at the same time too,' said the old woman continuing her story. 'One was a man she had met while she was studying in Kyoto, and the other was the richest man in the castle town near here.'

  'Really? Which one did she choose?'

  'Well herself she undoubtedly wanted to marry the man in Kyoto, but for various reasons her father was against it, and made her marry the other one.'