Where do you think I went from there? I walked around the town for the longest time. From the moment I picked up the lemon and held it in my hand, I could feel the ominous lump in my throat begin to disappear. I was terribly happy standing there in the street. That ungodly persistent melancholy could be dispelled by simply gripping a lemon! The incredible fact of it was paradoxically true. How mysterious are the workings of the human heart.
The coolness of the lemon was beyond compare. Because I had done nothing to check the inflammation of my lungs, I was constantly running a fever. As a matter of fact, I insisted friends shake hands with me so that I could show it off. No hand was hotter than mine. Perhaps it was on account of the fever, but as I held the lemon, its coolness circulated throughout my body. It was a truly delightful feeling.
Again and again I lifted the lemon to my nose and sniffed it. A vision of California, where it had been grown, rose before my eyes. Snatches of the Chinese story “Sayings of a Tangerine Seller”—such as its definition of “pungent” as “hitting the nose”—came to mind. As I filled my lungs with the fragrance, I felt my blood stir and course through my veins, bringing warmth to my limbs and my face. Strength seemed to awaken within me. Not for some time had I dared to breathe so deeply.
How could it be that the simple coolness, touch, smell, and sight of a lemon were in tune with what I had been seeking so long? But that’s how I was those days.
With a lightness to my step and a haughty tilt to my head, I walked along imagining I was a poet who strutted about town dressed as an artiste. I tried measuring the reflection of the lemon’s color against my dirty kerchief. I held it against my cape.
And I thought, “Why, it’s the weight. Yes, that’s what it is.”
Indeed, its weight represented everything I had sought so long and grown weary of hoping to obtain. Without a doubt, it was all of the good things, all of the beautiful things in the world, converted into just the right degree of heaviness.
That was the sort of silly thought to which my newfound sense of humor gave rise. No matter. I was happy.
I shall never know how I got there, but soon I found myself standing in front of the Maruzen store. Of late I had been careful to avoid it, but this time I felt confident enough to go in.
“Let’s give ’er a try today,” I said to myself as I marched through the door.
I do not know what happened, but the happy feeling that had been welling inside me began to disappear. The perfume atomizers and pipes failed to pique my interest.
“The melancholia will close in on me again,” I thought, “and exhaustion ensue from having walked so much.”
I tried going to the art books section, although I told myself I would need more strength than ever were I to be so foolish as to go pulling through a shelf of art books. But I took down the books anyway. One after the other I looked at the covers, then opened them and looked inside. But the desire to peruse them page by page began to flag. To make matters worse, I would already have the next volume coming down from the shelf.
I did it again. I stood there and did not feel satisfied until I had leafed through a few pages. I could not bear to do anything more. Onto the heap the book would go. There was no possibility of my returning it to the shelf. I do not know how many times I repeated this act.
Finally I came to the heavy orange folio of Ingres’s paintings, of which I have been especially fond across the years. Now, its weight all the more unbearable, I plopped it down. How cursed can a man be? My hands ached with fatigue. I felt very depressed as I surveyed the mountain of unshelved books piled in front of me.
What had happened to the power of art books to excite me as they once had? In the past I had never failed to enjoy the strange feeling of incongruity that comes when, having scanned their illustrations, I would look up and perceive the utter ordinariness of my surroundings.
“That’s it,” I said. “I almost forgot.”
I remembered the lemon in the sleeve of my kimono. I took the many-color books and began to arrange them in a pile. I gave the lemon a try.
“Yes, that’s it!”
My merriment returned. Taking the books, I piled them up, looked them over, and wildly heaped them together again. I unshelved new ones and put some back on the shelf. The bizarre, illusory castle turned red, turned blue. . . .
At last it was finished. Bringing my pounding heart under control—oh so fearfully, fearfully—I crowned the castle with the lemon.
And it was good.
As I stood back to take a look, I realized the lemon was quietly absorbing the melody of the jumbled colors into its spindle-shaped self. It seemed to have turned icy cold in an instant. I sensed that the air in the store, otherwise so dusty, had taken on a special tension in the vicinity of the lemon. I stood there and beheld it for a short while.
That was when I had my second inspiration. Even I was aghast at my own machinations.
Leaving everything as it was, I walked nonchalantly toward the door. I felt a prick of conscience.
“Should I?” “Yes, let’s go.”
I strode from the store.
Now that I was back on the street, the feeling of having done something naughty made me smile to myself. Yes, I was the one, the strange rogue who had set a dreadful, shiny, lemon-color bomb on the counter at the Maruzen store! What a kick I would get ten minutes later when the big bomb planted in the art books section blew Maruzen to bits.
I gave full rein to my fantasy. “When she goes, stuffy old Maruzen will be in smithereens!”
I headed further down Kyōgoku Street. To the place wild with the billboards for the moving pictures.
KAWABATA YASUNARI
The works of Kawabata Yasunari (1899–1972) still are widely read and highly regarded both in Japan and abroad. Kawabata’s early work shows a poetry, charm, and interiority that brought a fresh vision, one quite unlike that of the writings of the “naturalists” active in the previous generation. Kawabata’s self-scrutiny was completely different as well. His most beloved story from the prewar years is doubtless “The Dancing Girl of Izu” (Izu no odoriko) of 1926, which captures all his special qualities. In 1968 Kawabata was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
THE DANCING GIRL OF IZU (IZU NO ODORIKO)
Translated by J. Martin Holman
1
About the time the road began to wind and I realized that I was finally near Amagi Pass, a curtain of rain swept up after me at a terrific speed from the foot of the mountain, painting the dense cedar forests white.
I was twenty years old. I wore my school cap, hakama over my indigo-dyed kimono, and carried a student’s bag over my shoulder. It was the fourth day of my solitary journey down the Izu Peninsula. I had stayed at Shuzenji Hot Springs one night, then two nights at Yugashima. And now, wearing high clogs, I was climbing Amagi. Although I had been enchanted by the layers upon layers of mountains, the virgin forests, and the shades of autumn in the deep valleys, I was hurrying along this road, my chest pounding with a certain expectation. Before long, great drops of rain began to pelt me, and I bolted up the steep, twisted road. I was relieved to reach the teahouse on the north side of the pass at last but stopped short in the doorway. My expectation had been realized all too splendidly. The troupe of itinerant performers was inside, taking a rest.
As soon as the dancing girl noticed me standing there, she pulled out the cushion she had been kneeling on, turned it over, and placed it near her.
“Yes.” That’s all I said before I sat down. The words “thank you” stuck in my throat. I was out of breath from running up the road and from my astonishment.
Sitting so close, facing the dancing girl, I fumbled to pull a cigarette from my kimono sleeve. The girl took the ashtray sitting in front of her female companion and placed it near me. Naturally, I did not speak.
The dancing girl looked to be about seventeen years old. Her hair was arranged elaborately in an unusual old style unfamiliar to me. Although it made her striki
ng oval face look quite small, it created a beautiful harmony. She gave the impression of the girls from illustrations in old romances who were depicted with an emphasis on their extravagant hair. The dancing girl was accompanied by a woman in her forties, two older girls, and a man of about twenty-five, who was wearing a jacket with the insignia of Nagaoka Hot Springs on it.
I had seen this troupe twice previously. The first time I encountered them, near Yugawa Bridge, I was on my way to Yugashima Hot Springs while they were going to Shuzenji. There were three girls in the group. The dancing girl was carrying a drum. After we passed, I looked back at them again and again. I had finally experienced the romance of travel. Then, my second night at Yugashima, the entertainers had come to the inn to perform. Sitting halfway down the ladderlike stairs, I had gazed intently at the girl as she danced on the wooden floor of the entryway.
“If they were at Shuzenji the other day and Yugashima tonight, then they would probably go to Yugano Springs on the south side of Amagi Pass tomorrow. Surely I could catch up with them along the fifteen miles of mountain road over Amagi.” Thus I had been daydreaming as I hastened along the road that day. Now we had ended up taking shelter from the rain at the same teahouse. My heart was pounding.
In a moment the old woman who ran the teahouse led me to another room. It appeared it was not used regularly and had no sliding paper doors. When I peered down into the magnificent valley outside the window, I could scarcely see the bottom. It gave me goose bumps. My teeth chattered and I shivered. The old woman came back to serve tea. I told her I felt cold.
“You’re all wet, aren’t you, sir?” She spoke with great deference. “Come in here for a while. Dry your clothes.” Reaching for my hand, she led me into her own parlor.
There was a hearth in the middle of the floor of her room. When she opened the sliding door, the hot air flowed out. I stood at the threshold, hesitating. An old man sat cross-legged by the fire, his body pale and swollen like a drowning victim. He turned his languid eyes toward me. They were yellowed to the pupils as if putrefied. Around him lay piles of old letters and scraps of paper. They almost buried him. I stood stiff, staring at him, wondering how he could be alive, this mystery in the mountains.
“I’m embarrassed to have you see him this way. Don’t worry. This is my old husband. He may be unsightly, but he can’t move. Please be patient with him.”
After thus apologizing, the old woman explained that her husband had suffered from palsy for many years and now his whole body was almost paralyzed. The mountains of papers were actually correspondence from every possible source describing treatments for palsy and packets of medicine the old man had ordered from throughout the country. Whenever he heard of a treatment from travelers who came over the pass or saw an advertisement in the newspaper, he never failed to send for it. He kept the papers around him in heaps, staring at them, never disposing of a single one. Through the years he had accumulated mountains of aging scraps of paper.
Without a word to the old woman, I bent over the hearth. An automobile navigating the pass rattled the house. I wondered why the old man did not move down to a lower elevation, with the autumn already this cold and snow soon to cover the pass. Steam rose from my kimono. The fire was hot enough to scorch my face. The old woman went back out to the shop, commenting to one of the female entertainers.
“So this is the little girl you had with you before. She’s turned out to be such a nice girl. That’s good for you. How pretty she’s become. Girls grow up so fast.”
About an hour later, I heard the entertainers preparing to leave. I had not settled in to stay either, but I was so anxious that I did not have the courage to stand up. Although they were seasoned travelers, they would be walking at a woman’s pace, so I was certain I could catch up even if I left a mile or so behind them. Still, I grew impatient sitting by the hearth. Once the entertainers had left, my daydreams began a vivid, reckless dance. The old woman returned from seeing the entertainers off.
“Where are they staying tonight?” I asked.
“There’s no way to tell where people like that are going to stay, is there, young man? Wherever they can attract an audience, that’s where they stay. It doesn’t matter where it might be. I don’t think the likes of them would have a place already planned.”
The scorn that lurked in the woman’s words so stirred me, I thought to myself: If that is true, then I’ll have the dancing girl stay in my room tonight.
The rain abated and the mountain peak cleared. The old woman tried to detain me longer, telling me the sky would be completely cloudless if only I would wait ten more minutes. But I just could not remain sitting there.
“Please take care of yourself,” I said to the old man. “It’s going to get colder.” I spoke from my heart as I stood up. His yellow eyes lolled in his head, and he gave a slight nod.
“Sir! Sir!” The old woman followed me outside. “This is far too much money. I just can’t accept it.” She picked up my bag in both hands and refused to give it to me. She would not listen, no matter how much I tried to dissuade her. The old woman told me she would accompany me up the road a bit. She repeated the same words as she tottered along behind me for a hundred yards.
“This is much too generous. I’m sorry we didn’t serve you better. I’ll make certain to remember your face. When you pass this way again, we’ll do something special for you. Be sure to stop by next time. I won’t forget you.”
She seemed so overwhelmed, as if she were on the verge of tears, just because I had left a fifty-sen coin. But I was eager to catch up with the dancers, and the old woman’s doddering pace hindered me. At last we reached the tunnel at the pass.
“Thank you very much,” I said. “You’d better go back now. Your husband is there all alone.” The old woman finally released my bag.
Cold drops of water plopped inside the dark tunnel. Up ahead, the tiny portal to southern Izu grew brighter.
2
The mountain road, stitched on one side with whitewashed pickets, coursed down from the mouth of the tunnel like a jagged lightning bolt. The scene resembled a landscape in miniature. I could make out the itinerant entertainers down at the bottom. Before I had walked half a mile, I overtook them. It would be too obvious were I to slacken my pace too abruptly, so I nonchalantly passed the women. When the man, who was walking about twenty yards ahead of the others, noticed me, he paused.
“You walk fast. . . . We’re lucky the weather cleared up,” he said.
Relieved, I fell into step with the man. He asked me all kinds of questions. Seeing the two of us talking, the women scurried to join us.
The man was carrying a large wicker trunk on his back. The woman in her forties was holding a puppy. The oldest girl was toting a cloth bundle. The middle girl also had a wicker trunk. Everyone carried something. The dancing girl had a drum and frame on her back. Little by little, the woman, who seemed to be in her forties, began to talk to me.
“He’s an upper-school student,” the oldest girl whispered to the dancing girl. When I looked around she smiled. “That’s right, isn’t it? I know that much. Students are always coming down to the island.”
They were from the harbor town of Habu on Ōshima, the largest island off the southern tip of the Izu Peninsula. They had been on the road since leaving the island in the spring, but it was turning cold and they had not yet made preparations for winter. They said they were planning to stay in Shimoda for just ten days, then cross over to the island from Itō Hot Springs. At the mention of Ōshima, I felt even more the poetry of the situation. Again I glanced at the dancing girl’s lovely hair. I asked questions about Ōshima.
“A lot of students come to the island to swim, don’t they?” the dancing girl said to the girl with her.
I turned back toward them. “In the summer, right?”
The dancing girl was flustered. “In the winter, too,” I thought I heard her answer softly.
“In the winter, too?” I asked.
Th
e dancing girl simply looked at her companion and giggled.
“You can swim in the winter, too?” I asked again. The dancing girl blushed. She nodded, with a serious look.
“This girl is such a silly one,” the older woman laughed.
The road to Yugano ran about eight miles down through the valley of the Kawasu River. On this side of the pass, even the mountains and the color of the sky began to look more southern. As the man and I continued our conversation, we took a liking to each other. We passed tiny villages with names like Oginori and Nashimoto. About the time the thatched roofs of Yugano came into view at the foot of the mountain, I ventured to tell the man that I wanted to travel with them to Shimoda. He seemed delighted.
When we arrived at a cheap lodging house in Yugano, the older woman nodded as if to say good-bye. But the man spoke for me: “This young gentleman has kindly offered to accompany us.”
“Well, well. As the old saying goes, ‘On the road, a traveling companion; and in the world, kindness.’ Even boring people like us will help you pass the time. Come on in and take a rest.” She spoke without formality. The girls all glanced at me at the same time. They stopped talking, their faces seemingly indifferent. Then their gaze turned to embarrassment.
I went upstairs with them and put down my bag. The woven floor mats and sliding panel doors were old and dirty. The dancing girl brought us some tea from downstairs. Kneeling in front of me, she blushed bright red. Her hands were trembling. The teacup almost tumbled off the saucer. She set it down on the mat to keep it from failing but spilled the whole cup of tea. I was amazed at her bashfulness.
“My goodness. She’s started thinking about the opposite sex. How disgusting! Look at that!” The older woman furrowed her brow in dismay and threw a hand towel at the girl, who picked it up and wiped the mat, looking ill at ease.
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series) Page 67