by Неизвестный
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.
KUNIKIDA DOPPO
Kunikida Doppo (1871–1908) wrote in a lyrical and moving style, using experiences from his own wanderings around Japan. His interest in literary themes inspired by his Christian concerns led him to portray the sometimes hidden significance of the life of those, sometimes the humble and the poor, he found around him. Doppo’s story “Meat and Potatoes” (Gyūniku to bareisho, 1901) chronicles the tribulations of those men and women who tried to live and work in Hokkaido, the frigid and, at that time, largely unsettled northern island of Japan.
MEAT AND POTATOES (GYŪNIKU TO BAREISHO)
Translated by Leon Zolbrod
There was a fairly substantial Western-style building called the Meiji Club along the moat in downtown Tokyo. The building still stands today but it has since changed hands, and the Meiji Club as such no longer exists.
It was a winter night while the club was still doing well. Lights were burning in the dining room upstairs, and now and then you could hear loud laughter inside. This was very unusual, for the club seldom had gatherings at night. Generally it was only during the daylight hours that smoke rose from the chimney. The clock had already struck eight, but there were no signs that the meeting was breaking up. Six rickshaws were lined up beside the entrance, but all the rickshaw men seemed to be at the service entrance playing their favorite game of dice.
Just then a man emerged from the darkness. His overcoat collar was turned up and his felt hat was pulled down over his eyes. Walking up to the door, he pressed hard on the doorbell. When the door opened, he asked in a low, quiet voice, “Is Mr. Takeuchi here?”
The doorman answered politely, “Yes sir, he is. And you?” He was a thin-faced man with one eye, and he wore Japanese clothes.
The visitor said, “Please take this to him.” He gave the doorkeeper a calling card which simply read, “Okamoto Seifu.” It gave no rank or title. The doorman took it, quickly went upstairs, and soon returned.
“This way, please.” The upstairs room to which he was led was suffocating, for the stove had been going full blast. Three men were sitting in front of the stove, and there were three others who sat a little ways from it. They were all leaning against the back of their chairs. Off to one side was a table with a whiskey bottle on it. Whiskey glasses, some empty and some half-filled, were scattered on the table, and the men looked half drunk.
When he saw Okamoto, Takeuchi immediately stood up and heartily offered him a chair. “Sit over here, won’t you?” Okamoto, however, seemed to be in no hurry; he looked around. Five of the men he recognized, but he had never met the sixth, a light-skinned, well-dressed man of medium height. Takeuchi noticed this.
“That’s right, you probably haven’t met this person before. Let me introduce you. This is Kamimura. He works for a coal-mining company in Hokkaido. Kamimura, this is an old friend of mine, Okamoto . . .”
He hadn’t finished the introduction when Kamimura said cheerfully, “I’m glad to meet you. I’ve read everything you’ve written, and now to meet you personally . . .”
Okamoto simply said, “I’m glad to meet you,” and sat down without another word.
“Now go on with your story,” said Watanuki, a short man with black sideburns.
“Yes, what happened then?” demanded Iyama. He was a thin man who was balding and bleary-eyed.
Kamimura, the man from the coal-mining company, laughed uneasily, “With Okamoto here, it’s hard for me to go on.”
“What’s it all about?” Okamoto asked Takeuchi.
“It’s really quite fascinating. Somehow or other we got started on our personal philosophies. Most scintillating and what erudition; you’ll see.”
“I’ve said just about all I have to say. We’d like to hear what your personal philosophy is. How about it, fellows? After all you’re the real thing, not philistines like us.” Kamimura was trying to back out.
“Oh no, you don’t. You finish first what you were saying.”
“Yes, I’d like that very much.” Okamoto took a glass of whiskey and tossed it down in one gulp.
“I’m afraid my views are entirely different from Okamoto’s. My point is that the real and the ideal are simply irreconcilable; they can never be reconciled.”
“Hear, hear,” chimed in Iyama.
Kamimura continued, “And if the two are irreconcilable, my ideal is to submit to reality rather than follow the ideal.”
“Is that all,” Okamoto groaned as he picked up a second glass of whiskey.
“But, look, you can’t eat ideals!” Kamimura made a face like a rabbit when he said this.
&nb
sp; “Obviously, they’re not beefsteaks!” Takeuchi opened his large mouth and laughed.
“Yes, they are beefsteaks. I mean reality is beefsteak. It is stew.”
“Omelets, perhaps?” said Matsuki with a straight face, and everybody burst out laughing. Till then he had been silent and half-asleep; his face was flushed and he looked to be the youngest one there.
“Hey, this is no laughing matter,” Kamimura said, a little agitated. “This is merely an analogy. If you follow the ideal, you’ll have nothing to eat but potatoes, and remember, you may not even have potatoes to eat. Now which do you prefer, potatoes or meat?”
“I prefer meat.” In a sleepy monotone Matsuki spoke up again. He was serious.
“Yes, but potatoes are a side dish for meat,” said Watanuki, the man with the black sideburns, looking pleased with what he had said.
“Exactly! Ideals are a side dish for reality. What would this world be if we didn’t have potatoes? But to eat only potatoes . . . I shudder at the thought,” Kamimura turned toward Okamoto looking somewhat satisfied.
Okamoto asked calmly, “Isn’t Hokkaido famous for its potatoes?”
“I’ve had my share of Hokkaido potatoes. Takeuchi knows about it. You may not believe it, but I happen to be an old alumnus of Dōshisha,1 and just as you might expect, I was an ardent Christian like the rest of them. In other words, I belonged to the Potato Party in a big way.”
Iyama blinked his eyes in amazement and pointed at Kamimura. “You?”
“After all there’s nothing odd about it. I was still young. Okamoto, I don’t know how old you are, but I graduated from Dōshisha at twenty-two. That was thirteen years ago, and I wish you could have seen what an idealist and puritan I was then. From the time I was in school, I was so completely under the spell of Hokkaido that I trembled whenever I heard the name.”
Matsuki spoke up again. “Quite a puritan!”
Kamimura cut him short with his chin and continued as he sipped on his drink, “I wanted to leave this sullied and defiled part of the country and build my life on the free land of Hokkaido.” Okamoto looked quietly and intently at Kamimura’s face.
“I took every opportunity to hear about Hokkaido. Whenever any missionaries came down from Hokkaido, I went to hear all they had to say. And, oh, what nice things they had to say about it. They kept telling about nature being this or that, about the wide Ishikari River, and about forests extending as far as the eye could see. Why, it was just too much. I completely fell under its spell. From all I gathered I pictured the whole thing this way: I’d work as hard as I could clearing forests and felling trees, and then I’d plant azuki beans on the land . . .”
Takeuchi laughed, “You’re one farmer I’d like to have seen.”
“But I actually did it, you know. Just wait a bit; I’ll get to it. As time went on, I’d open new fields and plant mostly potatoes; I figured as long as I had potatoes I’d never have to worry about food.”
Matsuki put in his bit again, “Ho! Here come the potatoes.”
“Now, there in the very middle of the fields is a house. It’s crudely built, but anyone can see it’s American style, a copy of a New England colonial. The roof slopes very steeply, like this, and to one side of the house you can see a stately chimney. I was in a quandary about how many windows to put in.”
Iyama blinked again and said, “Then you really had built a house, eh?”
“No, that’s what I dreamed of while I was in Kyoto. When was it I thought about the windows? That’s it, I remember! It was on my way home from a walk to Nyakuō Temple.
“And then what did you do?” asked Okamoto seriously.
“Then I marked off a shelter belt of trees; I wanted to keep as much of the woods as possible. A small brook with clear, running water would curve out from the right side of the shelter belt and flow past the house. Ducks with purple wings and geese with pure white backs would float in the brook, over which a bridge made of a plank three inches thick would be suspended. I wondered whether to attach a railing to the bridge but finally decided not to—it’s better to leave it natural. This was the general layout I had in mind, but my imagination wasn’t satisfied yet. Now when winter comes, then . . .”
“Excuse the interruption, but weren’t you carried away by the very sound of the word ‘winter’?” asked Okamoto.
Kamimura looked surprised. “How did you know? That is interesting; no wonder you’re a member of the Potato Party. Yes, when I heard about winter, I was ecstatic. Somehow I felt that winter was synonymous with freedom. Besides, as you know, I was an ardent Christian then and belonged to that band of people who celebrated Christmas, and it just wasn’t Christmas without deep snow and long icicles hanging from the eaves. Rather than thinking of winter in Hokkaido, I thought of winter as Hokkaido. Whenever anybody started warning me, ‘When winter comes . . .’ my body trembled from excitement. That’s why even when I was picturing things in my mind, my house would be buried deep in snow in winter, and at night a red glimmer of light could be seen from the window. Now and then a gust of wind would come up, and the snow would fall from the treetops in the woods.”
“You’re a poet!” someone shouted, stamping the floor. It was a tall, sinister-looking man named Kondō who had been drinking quietly alone. He had said nothing, not even when Okamoto first entered the room.
“Don’t you think so, Okamoto?” he added. Okamoto simply nodded in agreement.
“A poet? Yes, I really was a poet then. Remember the line ‘Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,’ from Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard’? I read it in translation, but it was my favorite poem, and I wrote things of my own, too. I suppose I could call myself one of the early modern free-verse poets.”
“I composed some free verse myself.” It was Matsuki this time who seemed to take a more active interest in what was going on.
“So what? Even I wrote two or three,” said Iyama seriously, not to be outdone.
Takeuchi turned to Watanuki, “What about you?”
“Who? Me?” Watanuki looked a little embarrassed and ran his hand through his hair. “I hate to admit it, but there was nothing of the poet in me. As you well know, I lack the gentle, feminine touch. Since rights and obligations were the two things on which my approach to life was based, I simply fulfilled my obligations, and that’s all. I guess I’m pretty much of a boor.”
“No, I’m the one to feel embarrassed, for even I wrote some. In fact two or three of them were printed in a magazine!” Everybody burst out laughing.
Watanuki shouted, “That means all of you have dabbled in poetry. Ha, ha, ha, ha. This is rare!”
“So, you’ve all tried your hand at it! Well, I’ll be damned; then in those days you were all potato eaters.” Kamimura looked very pleased with himself.
Okamoto urged Kamimura on. “I’d like to hear the rest of the story.”
“Yes, tell us the rest!” Kondō called out as though he were giving an order.
“All right. For a whole year after I was graduated, I stuck around Tokyo not knowing what to do, but then I made up my mind to go to Hokkaido. What a wonderful feeling it was. I felt like shouting to everyone, ‘Fools! Idiots!’ I boarded the train at Ueno Station, and when the train whistle blew and the train began to pull out, I stuck my head out the window and spat in the direction of Tokyo. I felt so happy I secretly cried in my handkerchief. That’s the truth!”
Watanuki, the man with the obligations, asked earnestly, “Just a second, friend; you mentioned something about fools and idiots. I don’t understand. What did you mean by that?”
Kamimura answered solemnly, “I meant the miserable creatures in Tokyo. What a spectacle they make struggling after fame and gain! Fools, idiots! Just look at me! I’m different. That’s the feeling I meant.
“I’ll skip the trip. Anyway I arrived safely in Sapporo, Hokkaido. There I was in the potato country itself. It wasn’t hard to obtain two hundred acres of land. ‘Now the real work
begins,’ I said to myself. ‘I have to start working with the sweat of my brow’ and immediately set to work. Of course I had a friend who also shared my ideals—now he’s also with the same company I am. Together we started clearing the land.
“Takeuchi, you probably know him—it’s Kajiwara Shintarō . . .”
“What! Kajiwara? So he was also a potato eater then; but look at him now; he’s as fat as a pig.” Evidently Takeuchi was also surprised.
“That’s right. Now he would gobble up a dripping steak in two mouthfuls like a hungry devil. But from the very start he was a whole lot smarter than I. I think we were at it about two months when he suggested one day that we give up our crazy scheme. He argued that there was no need to put up with all this and become a hermit, that instead of fighting nature, why not tackle the social world? His point was that meat has more nourishment than potatoes. Oh, I argued against him; I said boldly, ‘If you want to quit, quit. I will go on alone if necessary.’ Then he said, ‘Go ahead and do what you want, you’ll see the light soon.’ In brief, he said that ideals are fantasies, a simpleton’s idle dream. He ranted on about something like that and left. Although I had put on a bold show of will, left to my own devices, I actually felt forlorn. But then I stuck it out for three more months with a couple of tenant farmers. Pretty remarkable, don’t you think?”
“Pretty foolish,” said Kondō, as if in rebuke.
“Foolish? Now, that’s too much. It’s true that in retrospect I was a complete fool, but at that time I was remarkable.”
“You were still a fool. You just weren’t the type. You were never cut out to run off to Hokkaido and eat only potatoes. What else can I call you but a fool when you put up with it for three months without realizing this fact?”
“All right, so I was; but I gradually came to realize what you said about not being the type. I’m thankful I wasn’t cut out to be a potato eater. Anyway, summer passed and winter approached, the ‘winter’ which, as I had mentioned earlier, I was looking forward to. Autumn was its prelude, and right from the start it was worse than I had expected. Over the hush of the forests the autumn drizzle descended; the sunlight seemed faint and dim. There was no one to talk to, and for food there was only a meager supply of rice and, of course, potatoes. A shack with walls made of bark was all I had to sleep in.”