Whenever the plaster had to be removed, whether by his father or brother or by someone else, the scab would pull off, and the boy would cry out in pain. When the doctor’s daughter did it, though, he endured it silently.
As a matter of practice, the doctor used the poor physical condition of his patients as an excuse to put things off whenever he knew he couldn’t do anything to help. After three days passed, the boy’s hardworking father left his older son to look after the younger one and returned to the mountains. Bowing and scraping, he excused himself and backed out to the entrance of the doctor’s house. He slipped on his straw sandals, got down on the ground and bowed again, imploring the doctor to do what he could to save his son’s life.
The boy didn’t get any better, though. On the seventh day, the older brother also returned to the mountains, saying that this was harvesttime and by far the busiest season of the year. Bad weather was moving in, and if the storms continued for very long, the rice crop, their very source of life, would rot in the fields and their family would starve. Because he was the oldest son and the strongest worker in his family, he couldn’t afford to stay away any longer. “Don’t cry now,” he said softly to his brother and left him behind.
After that, the boy was alone. According to official records he was six years old, but actually he was eleven. The army wouldn’t draft a son whose parents were already sixty. And so the boy’s parents had waited five years before they registered his birth. Having been born and raised in the mountains, he had difficulty understanding people in the valley, but he was a bright and reasonable child who understood that his diet of three eggs a day was producing the extra blood that was to be drained. He would whimper from time to time. But because his brother had told him not to cry, he bore his burden well.
The doctor’s daughter felt sorry for the boy and invited him to eat with them, even though he preferred going over to a corner of the room to chew on a pitiful chunk of pickled radish. On the night before the operation, after everyone had gone to sleep, the doctor’s daughter got up to use the bathroom and heard him weeping quietly. Out of pity, she took him to her bed.
When it came time for the bloodletting, she held him from behind as she usually did for her father’s patients. The boy perspired profusely and bore the pain of the scalpel without moving, but—was it because the doctor had cut the wrong place?—they couldn’t staunch the flow of blood. As they watched, the boy lost his color and his condition became critical.
The doctor himself grew pale and agitated. By the grace of the gods, the hemorrhaging stopped after three days, and the boy’s life was saved. Still, he lost the use of his legs and from that point on was a cripple.
All the boy could do was drag himself around and look pathetically at his lifeless limbs. It was an unbearable sight, like seeing a grasshopper carrying its torn-off legs in its mouth. When he cried, the doctor, irritated by the thought that his reputation might suffer, glared angrily at him, making the boy seek refuge in his daughter’s arms. The doctor had wronged his patients many times before. But this time he admitted his mistake and, though feeling it was inappropriate for a woman his daughter’s age to be letting the boy bury his face in her bosom, he just folded his arms and sighed deeply.
Before long, the boy’s father came to get him. He didn’t complain to the doctor but accepted what had happened to his son as fate. Because the boy refused to leave the young woman’s side, the doctor, finding an opportunity to make amends, sent his daughter to accompany them home.
As it turns out, the boy’s home is the very mountain cottage that I’ve been telling you about. At the time, it was one of about twenty houses that formed a small village. The doctor’s daughter intended to stay only one or two days but lingered because of her affection for the child. On the fifth day of that stay, the rain came pouring down in an unrelenting torrent, as if waterfalls had been unleashed on the mountains. Everyone wore straw raincoats even inside their homes. They couldn’t open their front doors, let alone patch the holes in their thatched roofs. Only by calling out to each other from inside were they able to know that the last traces of humanity had not been wiped off the face of the earth. Eight days passed as if they were eight hundred. On the ninth, in the middle of the night, a great wind began to blow; and when the storm reached its peak, the mountains and village were turned into a sea of mud.
Strangely enough, the only ones who survived the flood were the doctor’s daughter, the young boy, and the old man who had been sent from the village to accompany them.
The doctor’s household was also annihilated by the same deluge. People say that the birth of a beautiful woman in such an out-of-the-way place is a harbinger of a new era. Yet the young woman had no home to which to return. Alone in the world, she has been living in the mountains with the boy ever since. You saw for yourself, he said, how nothing has changed. From the time of the flood thirteen years ago, she’s cared for him with utter devotion.
Once the tale had been told, the old man sneered again. “So now that you know her story, you probably feel sorry for her. You want to gather firewood and haul water for the woman, don’t you? I’m afraid your lustful nature’s been awakened, Brother. Of course, you don’t like to call it lust. You’d rather call it mercy or sympathy. I know you’re thinking of hurrying back to the mountains. But you’d better think twice. Since becoming that idiot’s wife, she’s forgotten about how the world behaves and does only as she pleases. She takes any man she wants. And when she tires of him, she turns him into an animal, just like that. No one escapes.
“And the river that carved out these mountains? Since the flood, it’s become a strange and mysterious stream that both seduces men and restores her beauty. Even a witch pays a price for casting spells. Her hair gets tangled. Her skin becomes pale. She turns haggard and thin. But then she bathes in the river and is restored to the way she was. That’s how her youthful beauty gets replenished. She says ‘Come,’ and the fish swim to her. She looks at a tree, and its fruit falls into her palm. If she holds her sleeves up, it starts to rain. If she raises her eyebrows, the wind blows.
“She was born with a lustful nature, and she likes young men best of all. I wouldn’t be surprised if she said something sweet to you. But even if her words were sincere, as soon as she gets tired of you, a tail will sprout, your ears will wiggle, your legs will grow longer, and suddenly you’ll be changed into something else.
“I wish you could see what the witch is going to look like after she’s had her fill of this fish—sitting there with her legs crossed, drinking wine.
“So curb your wayward thoughts, Good Monk, and get away as quickly as you can. You’ve been lucky enough as it is. She must have felt something special for you; otherwise you wouldn’t be here. You’ve been through a miracle and you’re still young, so get on with your duties like you really mean it.” The old man slapped me on the back again. Dangling the carp from his hand, he started up the mountain road.
I watched him grow smaller in the distance until he disappeared behind the mass of a large mountain. From the top of that mountain, a cloud rapidly blossomed into the drought-cleared sky. Over the quiet rush of the waterfall, I could hear the rolling echoes of clapping thunder.
Standing there like a cast-off shell, I returned to my senses. Filled with gratitude for the old man, I took up my walking staff, adjusted my sedge hat, and ran down the trail. By the time I reached the village, it was already raining on the mountain. It was an impressive storm. Thanks to the rain, the carp the old man was carrying probably reached the woman’s cottage alive.
This, then, was the monk’s story. He didn’t bother to add a moral to the tale. We went our separate ways the next morning, and I was filled with sadness as I watched him begin his ascent into the snow-covered mountains. The snow was falling lightly. As he gradually made his way up the mountain road, the holy man of Mount Kōya seemed to be riding on the clouds.
KŌDA ROHAN
Master of many styles and modes, synthesi
zer and syncretist, Kōda Rohan (1867–1947) tried to reinvent the Japanese language and its literature for a new era without jettisoning the classical Sino-Japanese heritage. Indeed, he sought to elucidate the universal workings of history and the essence of the human psyche.
One of Rohan’s most admired fictional works is his second, The Icon of Liberty (Fūryū-butsu, 1889, rendered by Donald Keene as The Buddha of Art). Can imagination liberate the spirit in a putatively “enlightened” era in which freedom is stifled?
THE ICON OF LIBERTY (FŪRYŪ-BUTSU)
Translated by Kyoko Kurita and James Lipson
In the Beginning: Thus Have I Heard . . .
1: YEARS OF UNSWERVING DEVOTION & DISCIPLINE
A Buddha Triad, the Four Deva Kings, the Twelve Acolytes, the Sixteen Arhats, even unto the Five Hundred Arhats: all these the sculptor stored within his heart while in his art he carved them out with hatchet stroke and knife work so expert that people ignorant even of Unkei offered praise embarrassing to one familiar even with Tori Busshi and so deeply committed to his chosen way that he could only rue his own shortcomings.
What a pity, mused Shuun, for someone born into Japan, the Nation of Fine Arts, were it to be said that no Hida the Artisan exists today. So long as Destiny gives me life, so long shall I devote what poor powers I have to fulfilling my heart’s desire and to purging myself somewhat of my resentment of those foreigners who look down their long alabaster noses at us. Thus did this admirable man swear his unswerving devotion to the Shakyamuni of Saga. How old was he then? It was the spring of his twenty-first year.
From that moment on, Shuun had no occasion to enjoy the sight of the cherry blossoms whose falling petals some haiku poet—the kind who suffers visceral anguish when the wind clears the mist off Ranzan1—might wish transformed into butterflies. Rather, he would concentrate so intently on carving an Indian flower he had never seen that he would mourn the clang of the temple bell, telling the end of a long day. A summer shower at dusk might wash the dust off Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue in Kyoto, leaving the pebbles wet; a poet might then take his leisure in the cool of an evening by the river; might find pleasure in wordplay; might savor as a fragrance lingering on his “sweet teeth” the flavor of a melon chilled in a spring-fed pool, a pool that also hosted a clearly nonchalant moon. But as Shuun enjoyed a last, twilit view of moonflowers undesignedly entangled in a hedge, he felt thankful even for the mosquito-repelling scent of the chips of sandalwood he was burning, a bonus of working with wood. Extraordinary.
He would not enter the warmly liquorish society of aesthetes—libertines whose complexions competed with the autumn foliage—nor would he join the epicurean cliques who regarded the snow through glass windows while indulging in warm tofu recumbent on a bed of kelp. Much less would he cast so much as a sidelong glance at the tawdry temptations of Shimabara and Gion.2 No, our Shuun would drool instead, utterly infatuated, over a Benten3 he had handcrafted himself. Nor would he heed suggestive ballads sung to the accompaniment of koto and shamisen; but such was his passion that in his dreams he would hear the voices of the kimnara.4 How could this man not be possessed by the spirit of Visvakarman?5
Thus did Shuun charge straight through three more years in this floating world: no demon overtakes a diligent worker as a rule. His innate talent had been revealed even in boyhood when he astonished people by molding snow into figures of Bodhidharma6 or by sculpting a daikon into the likeness of a bullfinch. Accumulating the benefits of a regimen of training, compounded by the valor of his exertions, he honed his keen skills still keener, his sharp chisels sharper. He had awakened to his calling at age seven: now, at the dawn of his twenty-fourth year, he completed his course of apprenticeship. His master declared it so and gave Shuun his leave.
Whereupon our Shuun conceived, forthwith, a notion. With a bachelor’s devil-may-care he sold off all the household items he had inherited from his parents, slung a few tools over his shoulder, and it was, Off I go! to seek out the legacy of the ancient masters at Nara, Kamakura, and Nikkō. Only . . . he wasn’t used to tying the laces of his straw walking sandals, which often came undone, to the merriment of onlookers. And thus began Shuun’s journey toward an appreciation of pathos in the universe, a sense of the transitoriness of all things.
2: INNOCENCE ENTERS THE SCHOOL OF EXPERIENCE
How trying, when the world has locomotives, to discipline the body so severely! Shuun’s sedge hat reddened with the dust of the highway; his underwear bred lice from the public baths. On long spring days, exhausted by the footpaths running between the rice paddies, he could only envy the wings of the peacefully fluttering butterfly. On autumn nights, in some lonesome hostel bed, he would start with fright at the sound of teeth grinding in the next room.
Conditions on the road were miserable. When the rough wind spat hot grit in his face, he strode on, eyes squeezed shut . . . until his innards were shrunk by the blaring horn—Watch it!—of a clattering horse-drawn carriage passing him by. As the rain poured down, jagged stones in new roads bit up into his feet, ripping nail from toe. Observing his distress, avaricious rickshaw men levied an exorbitant charge for their services and then, on the pretext that it was the norm, extorted another 50 percent pourboire. Enmity or charity, neither outlasted the day; comfort and comforter, both were so thin he felt chilly about the neck. His welcome feast? A dark slab of root jelly on a cold, flat plate.
Shuun had been accustomed to poverty, but that was by the Kamo River’s softly flowing waters. Now for the first time he learned the arduousness of crossing plain and mountain. Now he must accept a dewy pillow of grass; desolate dreams of wheeling perilously about the sky above his familiar old capital;7 piercing his sleep, the unawaited cry of a cuckoo; the scintillation of a proud star glimpsed dolefully through a crack in a wooden storm window; the swirl of leaves shed by the paulownia and willow trees; the ephemeral knell of a rural temple bell.
He was struck profoundly by the thought resonating within him that human life is but a flash of lightning stitching through the woods; it hardly lasts; yet his own goal lay far ahead. This served to rein in any waywardness and to spur his intent. Gradually he made the circuit of the famous old Buddhist temples and Shintō shrines of the Tokaidō, studying wooden statues of gods and buddhas, examining even the carvings on crossbeams and transoms. So I’ve seen Kamakura, Tokyo, and Nikkō ; now for the final treat: Nara! He hastened his climb through the Usui Pass in the dead of winter. Undaunted by the deep snow or by the icy winds whipping down through the foothills of Mount Asama, his woven straw boots trampled right on over the famous mountain passes of Wada and Shiojiri. Joining the Kiso Road, he made his way past the “sun-scorched” Mount Hideri, over the Kake Suspension Bridge, and through the Nezame “ravine of awakening” before arriving at the post town of Suhara.
Chapter 1: Thus the Appearance
INDESCRIBABILITY AS THE FIRST DEFINITION OF BEAUTY
What’s special about local specialties is not the taste (or so the saying goes); yet Shuun’s empty stomach found the thick yam soup in Suhara so exceptionally delectable that a couple of bowlfuls of rice slid down as well. He realized that sleeping on such a full stomach was not healthy, but he had nothing to do.
He updated his journal. He stretched forward. He leaned backward. He read the faded graffiti on the wall next to the soot-covered lamp. It was scrawled with the stubble of an old brush: I, Yamamoto Kansuke, descendant of samurai of Yamanashi Prefecture, passed a night in this place at the time of the subjugation of the Ogre Brigand on Mount Ōe. Even Lord Hero here had been bored silly on his solitary journey, hence such mischief.
It was amusing, but Shuun also sympathized. He himself had no companion to share his kotatsu table,8 though a kotatsu could set even strangers at their ease and chatting from the first encounter. Seated there alone, toasting his toes above the fading embers, his head nodding over the tabletop, Shuun was almost asleep when he heard bare footsteps approaching, gently, gracefully. Not the dry cracked hee
ls of the maid who had served him earlier. And then a voice, delicately crossing to him through the paper-screen door. Begging your pardon, sir. At this our Shuun’s heart went pit-a-pat. Half-swallowing the yawn he had just commenced, he mumbled something in reply. The door slid softly open. The young woman bowed respectfully.
You must be quite exhausted, sir, traveling the Kiso Road on such a winter’s day. But do have a look at these, my salted flowers:9 the pride of this region. Their colors have not faded through the summer’s heat and into winter’s snow. Plum, and peach, and cherry blossoms, sir, competing for your favor. If any take your fancy, why, there’s a souvenir for a certain someone back home in the old capital, who still sets your place at table, thinking of Shinano10 and who has come to know a coldness others cannot know!
Her speech was both clever and charming: an appealing sales patter, yet it was to her that he was attracted; even as her words added spice to the merchandise, they demonstrated her intelligence. Neither reserved nor flighty, she was at ease in the world. Gently she untied the bundle she had brought; with a modest movement of her hands she pushed a few boxes toward him. When she noticed that our Shuun’s eyes were directed someplace other than the flowers—that is to say, compulsively stealing glances at her—she turned her head to avoid his gaze. But if her beauty could not be seen clearly in the lamplight, which was flickering in the eddies of a draft that had just leaked in through a crack somewhere, neither could it be concealed. Shuun was dumbstruck.
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series) Page 17