Finally, a note on language is needed, a reminder that the readers of this anthology must experience these writers in translation. Translation is always a complex issue. Even with the best of efforts, literary language is invariably smoothed over and flattened out in translation; and when the languages are as different as Japanese and English, the forbearance required is all the greater. Moreover, in the period covered in this volume, there existed above and beyond matters of individual style the larger issue of a shift from the increasingly retrograde Tokugawa language to a more fluid modern Japanese, far closer in its written form to the spoken vernacular than what had existed before in Japanese literature. For example, readers who enjoy Ōgai’s “The Dancing Girl” in an up-to-date and highly readable English version will not be aware of the discrepancies—indeed, the visible strains—among the vocabulary, grammar, and general tonality of the older written language available to Ōgai and the utterly modern sentiments that he tried—with remarkable success—to express. Kōda Rohan’s literary language is still filled with vocabulary, references, and stylistic devices familiar from Tokugawa literature, while the excerpt from Futabatei Shimei’s Drifting Clouds reveals in the original a courageous attempt to express contemporary thoughts and feelings in a new vernacular language. Even the twentieth-century poems written in the traditional forms of waka and haiku reveal intriguing experiments with the Japanese language that cannot be rendered with any fluency or accuracy in translation. Thus one of the major “revolutions” in the earlier modern Japanese literature can only be commented on but not directly experienced here.
By the 1920s, a modern literary language had been satisfactorily created and domesticated. These changes, which took place over a few decades, were, generally speaking, arguably as great as those in written English from Chaucer to Hemingway, a process that took many centuries. This also is a part of the story that this anthology would like to tell.
Chapter 1
FIRST EXPERIMENTS
With the influx of new ideas and new literary forms from Europe and America, the landscape of Japanese literature quickly began to change. By the beginning of the twentieth century, these shifts had become obvious as the concerns of writers and readers increasingly reflected the massive alterations in the political, cultural, and spiritual nature of Japan as a nation.
In the artistically complex last decades of the nineteenth century, a number of issues important to the creation of a truly contemporary prose literature were addressed. Some of these changes could be seen in the accomplishments of young writers who, using their own experiences, recorded their personal intellectual and emotional reactions to the life they observed around them. Some made more use of the literary conventions available to them, and others, because of their particular experiences, were forced to find fresh means of self-expression. In this chapter, some of the prose works exemplify some of these changes.
With its traditions stretching back a thousand years or more, Japanese poetry was slower to change, but the impact of the longer forms of European and American verse eventually led to the development of a new and experimental style of Japanese verse.
Of all the forms of literary expression in this anthology, drama was the slowest to change, since no performers in the early years of the Meiji period were capable of articulating spoken dialogue. Kabuki still remained the norm throughout the nineteenth century, with the first experiments coming later. Some examples can be found in later chapters of this anthology.
FICTION
MORI ŌGAI
Mori Ōgai (1862–1922) exemplifies the nascent cosmopolitan strain in early Meiji Japanese literature. The son of a physician who practiced traditional medicine, Ōgai belonged to the first generation of students to study Western medical methods with German professors living in Tokyo. The Japanese army then sent Ōgai to Germany to study continental hygiene, and he remained there from 1884 to 1888.
Ōgai thus had a greater and more personal exposure to literature and the arts as found in Germany than he did from any previous detailed knowledge of the Japanese tradition. His attempts to describe his emotional experiences during these years abroad, most notably in “The Dancing Girl” (Maihime, 1890), owe much to Goethe and the later continental writers he had come to admire. Indeed, this early work brought a new dimension to the literary expression of personal emotions in Japanese literature. (An example of Ōgai’s later work appears in chapter 2 of this anthology.)
THE DANCING GIRL (MAIHIME)
Translated by Richard Bowring
They have finished loading the coal, and the tables here in the second-class saloon stand in silence. Even the bright glare from the electric lights seems wasted, for tonight the group of card players who usually gather here of an evening are staying in a hotel, and I am left alone on board.
It is now five years since the hopes I cherished for so long were fulfilled and I received orders to go to Europe. When I arrived here in the port of Saigon, I was struck by the strangeness of everything I saw and heard. I wonder how many thousands of words I wrote every day as I jotted down random thoughts in my travel diary. It was published in a newspaper at the time and was highly praised, but now I shudder to think how any sensitive person must have reacted to my childish ideas and my presumptuous rhetoric. I even recorded details of the common flora and fauna, the geology, and the local customs as if they were rarities. Now, on my way home, the notebooks that I bought intending to use for a diary remain untouched. Could it be that while studying in Germany I developed a kind of nil admirari attitude? No, there is another reason.
Returning to Japan, I feel a very different person from when I set out. Not only do I still feel dissatisfied with my studies, but I have also learned how sad this transient life can be. I am now aware of the fallibility of human emotions, but in particular I realize what a fickle heart I have myself. To whom could I possibly show a record of fleeting impressions that might well be right one day and wrong the next? Perhaps this is why my diary was never written. No, there is another reason.
Twenty days or more have passed since we left Brindisi. Usually it is the custom at sea to while away the cares of travel even in the company of utter strangers, but I have shut myself up in my cabin under the pretext of feeling somewhat indisposed. I seldom speak to my fellow travelers, for I am tormented by a hidden remorse.
At first this pain was a mere wisp of cloud that brushed against my heart, hiding the mountain scenery of Switzerland and dulling my interest in Italy’s ancient ruins. Then gradually I grew weary of life and weary of myself and suffered the most heartrending anguish. Now, remorse has settled in the depths of my heart, the merest shadow. And yet with everything I read and see, it causes me renewed pain, evoking feelings of extreme nostalgia, like a form reflected in a mirror or the echo of a voice.
How can I ever rid myself of such remorse? If it were of a different nature, I could perhaps soothe my feelings by expressing them in poetry. But it is so deeply engraved upon my heart that I fear this is impossible. And yet as there is no one here this evening and it will be some while before the cabin boy comes to turn off the light, I think I will try to record the outline of my story here.
Thanks to a very strict education at home since childhood, my studies lacked nothing, despite the fact that I lost my father at an early age. When I studied at the school in my former fief and in the preparatory course for the university in Tokyo and later in the Faculty of Law, the name Ōta Toyotarō was always at the top of the list. Thus, no doubt, I brought some comfort to my mother, who had found in me, her only child, the strength to go through life. At nineteen I received my degree and was praised for having achieved greater honor than had any other student since the founding of the university. I joined a government department and spent three pleasant years in Tokyo with my mother, whom I called up from the country. Being especially high in the estimation of the head of my department, I was then given orders to travel to Europe and study matters connected with my particular section. Stirred
by the thought that I now had the opportunity to make my name and raise my family fortunes, I was not unduly sorry to leave even my mother, although she was over fifty. So it was that I left home far behind and arrived in Berlin.
I had the vague hope of accomplishing great feats and was used to working hard under pressure. But suddenly here I was, standing in the middle of this most modern of European capitals. My eyes were dazzled by its brilliance; my mind was dazed by the riot of color. To translate Unter den Linden as “under the Bodhi tree” would suggest a quiet secluded spot. But just come and see the groups of men and women sauntering along the pavements that line each side of that great thoroughfare as it runs, straight as a die, through the city. It was still in the days when Wilhelm I would come to his window and gaze down upon his capital. The tall, broad-shouldered officers in their colorful dress uniform, and the attractive girls, their hair made up in the Parisian style, were everywhere a delight to the eye. Carriages ran silently on asphalt roads. Just visible in the clear sky between the towering buildings were fountains cascading with the sound of heavy rain. Looking into the distance, one could see the statue of the goddess on the victory column. She seemed to be floating halfway to heaven from the midst of the green trees on the other side of the Brandenburg Gate. All these myriad sights were gathered so close at hand that it was quite bewildering for the newcomer, but I had promised myself that I would not be impressed by such captivating scenes of beauty, and I continually closed my mind to these external objects that bore in on me.
The Prussian officials were all happy to welcome me when I pulled on the bell rope, asked for an interview, and handed over my open letter of introduction, explaining to them why I had come. They promised to tell me whatever I wished to know once formal application had been received from the Legation. I was fortunate enough to have learned both French and German at home, and no sooner was I introduced than they asked where and when I had learned to speak so well.
I had already obtained official permission to enter Berlin University, and so I enrolled to study politics whenever my duties might permit. After one or two months, when the official preliminaries had been carried out and my investigations were making good progress, I sent off a report on the most urgent matters, and the rest I wrote down in a number of notebooks, As far as the university was concerned, there was no chance of providing special courses for would-be politicians, as I had naively hoped. I was irresolute for a while, but then, deciding to attend two or three law lectures, I paid the fee and went to listen.
Some three years passed in this way like a dream. But there is always a time when, come what may, one’s true nature reveals itself. I had obeyed my father’s dying words and had done what my mother had taught me. From the beginning I had studied willingly, proud to hear myself praised as an infant prodigy, and later I had labored unremittingly in the happy knowledge that my department head was pleased with my excellent work. But all that time I had been a mere passive, mechanical being with no real awareness of myself. Now, however, at the age of twenty-five, perhaps because I had been exposed to the liberal ways of the university for some time, there grew within me a kind of uneasiness; it seemed as if my real self, which had been lying dormant deep down, was gradually appearing on the surface and threatening my former assumed self. I realized that I would be happy neither as a high-flying politician nor as a lawyer reciting statutes by heart and pronouncing sentence.
My mother, I thought to myself, had tried to make me into a walking dictionary, and my department head had tried to turn me into an incarnation of the law. The former I might just be able to stand, but the latter was out of the question. Up to then I had answered him with scrupulous care even in quite trifling matters, but from that time on, I often argued in my reports that one should not be bothered with petty legal details. Once a person grasped the spirit of the law, I grandly said, everything would solve itself. In the university I abandoned the law lectures and became more interested in history and literature; eventually I moved into the world of the arts.
My department head had obviously tried to turn me into a machine that could be manipulated as he desired. He could hardly have been very pleased with someone who entertained such independent ideas and held such unusual views. I was in a precarious situation. If that were all, however, it would not have been enough to under mine my position. But among the students studying in Berlin at the time was an influential group with whom I did not see eye to eye. They were only suspicious of me at first, but then they began to slander me. They may have had good reason.
Attributing the fact that I neither drank nor played billiards with them to apparent stubbornness and self-restraint on my part, they ridiculed and envied me. But this was because they did not know me. How could anyone else know the reason for my behavior when I did not know it myself ? I felt like the leaves of the silk-tree which shrink and shy away when they are touched. I felt as unsure of myself as a young girl. Ever since my youth I had followed the advice of my elders and kept to the path of learning and obedience. If I had succeeded, it was not through being courageous. I might have seemed capable of arduous study, but I had deceived not only myself but others too. I had simply followed a path that I was made to follow. The fact that external matters did not disturb me was not because I had the courage to reject them or ignore them, but rather because I was afraid and tied myself hand and foot. Before I left home I was convinced I was a man of talent. I believed deeply in my own powers of endurance. Yes, but even that was short-lived. I felt quite the hero until the ship left Yokohama, but then I found myself weeping uncontrollably. I thought it strange at the time, but it was my true nature showing through. Perhaps it had been with me from birth, or perhaps it came about because my father died and I was brought up by my mother.
The ridicule of the students was only to be expected, but it was stupid of them to be jealous of such a weak and pitiful mind.
I used to see women sitting in the cafés soliciting for custom; their faces were heavily made up and their clothes were gaudy. But I never had the courage to go and approach them. Nor did I have the nerve to join with those men about town, with their tall hats, their pince-nez, and that aristocratic nasal accent so peculiar to Prussians. Not having the heart for such things, I found I could not mix with my more lively fellow countrymen, and because of this barrier between us, they bore a grudge against me. Then they started telling tales, and thus I was accused of crimes I had not committed and had to put up with so much hardship in so short a time.
One evening I sauntered through the Tiergarten and then walked down Unter den Linden. On the way back to my lodgings in Monbijoustrasse, I came in front of the old church in Klosterstrasse. How many times, I wonder, had I passed through that sea of lights, entered this gloomy passage, and stood enraptured, gazing at the three-hundred-year-old church that lay set back from the road. Opposite it stood some houses with the washing hanging out to dry on poles on the roofs, and a bar where an old Jew with long whiskers was standing idly by the door; there was also a tenement house with one flight of steps running directly to the upper rooms and another leading down to the home of a blacksmith who lived in the cellar.
Just as I was walking past I noticed a young girl sobbing against the closed door of the church. She must have been about sixteen or seventeen. Her light golden hair flowed down from under the scarf around her head, and her dress was spotlessly clean. Surprised by my footsteps, she turned around. Only a poet could really do her justice. Her eyes were blue and clear but filled with a wistful sadness. They were shaded by long eyelashes which half hid her tears. Why was it that in one glance over her shoulder she pierced the defenses of my heart?
Perhaps it was because of some profound grief that she was standing there in tears oblivious to all else. The coward in me was overcome by compassion and sympathy, and without thinking I went to her side.
“Why are you crying?” I asked. “Perhaps because I am a stranger here I may be able to help you all the more.” I was ast
ounded by my audacity.
Startled, she stared into my sallow face, but she must have seen my sincerity from my expression.
“You look a kind sort of person,” she sobbed. “Not cruel like him or my mother!”
Her tears had stopped for a moment, but now they overflowed again and ran down her lovely cheeks.
“Help me! You must help me from having to lose all sense of shame. My mother beat me because I did not agree to his proposal. My father has just died, and we have to bury him tomorrow. But we don’t have a penny in the house.”
She dissolved into tears again. I gazed at her as she hung her head and trembled.
“If I am to take you home, you must calm down,” I said. “Don’t let everyone hear you. We’re out in the street.”
She had inadvertently laid her head on my shoulder while I was speaking. Suddenly she looked up and, giving me the same startled glance as before, she fled from me in shame.
She walked quickly, as if unwilling for people to see her, and I followed. Through a large door across the road from the church was a flight of worn stone steps. Up these steps on the third floor was a door so small that one needed to bend down to enter. The girl pulled on the twisted end of a rusty piece of wire.
“Who’s there?” came a hoarse voice from inside.
“It’s Elise. I’m back.”
She had hardly finished speaking when the door was roughly pulled open by an old woman. Although her hair was graying and her brow clearly showed the traces of poverty and suffering, it was not an evil face. She was wearing an old dress of some wool and cotton material and had on some dirty slippers. When Elise pointed to me and went inside, the old woman slammed the door in my face as if she had been waiting impatiently.
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series) Page 3