by Неизвестный
Okamoto interrupted, “Surely you had anticipated all that.”
“That’s the whole point. That’s why I now maintain that a pleasant reality is much better than any ideal. I had anticipated what my lot would be, but I must say it didn’t appeal to me when the time came. In the first place, you get thin.” Kamimura moistened his lips with some more whiskey. “I never thought I’d get thin.”
Everybody laughed again.
“Then I sat down and thought it over. ‘That Kajiwara was right,’ I said to myself. ‘It’s absolutely ridiculous; I’m going to quit.’ So I quit. If I had stuck it out that winter, I’d have been dead.”
“And what, may I ask, is your present stand?” Okamoto asked, half scornfully but half in earnest.
“That’s why I said that I was fed up with potatoes. I’m a practical person now in everything; I earn money, eat delicious food, drink and warm myself at the stove like this with you, say whatever I please, and when I’m hungry, I eat meat . . .”
Watanuki shouted excitedly, “Hear, hear, that’s the way I feel, too. Loyalty, patriotism, anything can be made compatible with meat. Anyone who suggests that they are not compatible simply is incapable of making them so. It’s people like that who are fools.”
“I can’t go along with that,” shouted Kondō, who straddled his chair with his back to the stove. There was a strange gleam in his eyes as he looked about him. “I don’t belong to the Potato Party or the Beef Party. Kamimura and the rest of you at first belonged to the Potato Party and later switched your loyalty to the Beef Party. In other words, you’re weak willed and indecisive. You are poets, I guess, degenerate dregs of poets. That’s why you go around wriggling your noses and sniffing for the smell of braised beef. How disgusting!”
Kamimura cut in, “Hey, wait a minute. Before you start denouncing others, you ought to tell us what your convictions are. What are you the degenerate dregs of?”
“Degenerates? Bah. Degenerate implies falling from a high place to a low place. Because I never aspired to your heights, I don’t have to behave so disgracefully. The likes of you ate potatoes as an ‘ism,’ not because you liked them, and that’s why you got hungry for meat. Right from the start I ate meat because I liked it, and that’s why I never starved for it, I never had to be voracious about it . . .”
Kamimura shouted, “I don’t get the point.”
Just as Kondō was about to elaborate, a waiter came straight over to him and whispered something in his ear. Kondō thundered, “Tell them that the generosity of Kondō does not extend that far.”
“What was that?” one of the men in the room asked in astonishment.
“That wretch of a rickshaw man! He lost again at gambling and said he wants me to lend him a little money. . . . What do you mean, you don’t get the point? I think it’s perfectly clear. You and the rest are meat eaters; you belong to the Beef Party by principle: I’ve liked beefsteak right from the start; it has nothing to do with principles.”
Then someone said in a calm and quiet voice, “I agree completely.”
“Of course you’ll agree,” Kondō grinned and looked at Okamoto’s face.
“I agree completely. I agree that principles have nothing to do with it. There’s nothing sillier in the world than ‘isms.’ ” Okamoto’s eyes shone brightly as he looked about him.
Kondō jutted his chin out and said, “I’d like you to follow that up.”
“Which are you for, meat or potatoes? Potatoes, I suppose.” Kamimura spoke as though he already knew Okamoto’s views.
“I’m also for neither meat nor potatoes, but unlike Kondō I haven’t decided I like beef. Of course, I hate these homemade ‘isms,’ but I cannot bring myself to simply follow my likes or dislikes, either.”
“Then where do you stand?” Iyama blinked his bleary eyes and asked seriously.
“It’s very simple. I’ll stop using analogies and be very blunt. I cannot embrace any particular ideal, but at the same time I can’t be satisfied by just wallowing in self-gratification. I just can’t; it isn’t a question of being one way or another. I often wish, in fact, that I could decide on one or the other, but I am still unable to do so, because by a strange quirk of fate, I have been holding onto one unusual wish.”
“Well, what is this unusual wish?” Kondō asked in his usual aggressive manner.
“I can’t say it in a word.”
“It couldn’t be that you want to eat a roast wolf with your drinks?”
“It’s something like that. . . . Once I was in love with a beautiful woman.” Okamoto was serious as he began to tell his story.
“Say, this is getting more and more interesting. Go on.” Matsuki, who was young, dragged his chair closer to the stove.
“I know this is rather abrupt. But I ought to start about here if I’m going to tell you what my unusual wish is. That young woman was really beautiful.”
“Woo, woo!” Matsuki almost danced with joy.
“She had a roundish face and fair skin. Her shoulders were like a Westerner’s, fully formed and gently rounded. There was a winsome charm about her eyes, a slightly sleepy look. They weren’t what you’d call sparkling, but they gave the impression that she was lost in thought, and when she fixed them on a person, she could soften the heart of the most hardened man. I succumbed easily. I didn’t appreciate her charm when I first saw her, but once led to twice, and after about the third time I knew I was being drawn to her more and more; she began preying on my mind. I still didn’t think it was love.
“One day when I went to her house, both her parents were out; only the maid, the girl, and her twelve-year-old sister were home. The maid told me the girl was depressed and wasn’t feeling well. She was sitting alone in an inner room lost in her own thoughts, but I could hear her singing softly from where I sat on the veranda.
“ ‘When I hear you sing like that, Oei, it makes me unbearably sad.’ Without thinking, the words came out of my mouth. “ ‘Oh, I don’t know why I’m living in a world like this.’ She sounded completely alone and helpless. To me her words were more real than any philosophical treatise on pessimism—even if I don’t go into great detail, I know you’ll understand.
“In no time the two of us became slaves of love. Then for the first time, I knew the happiness and misery of love. Two months passed as if in a dream. I might tell you one or two things that happened during that time. Yes, there was one that went like this:
“Around five o’clock in the evening I attended a farewell party for a friend and his wife who were going abroad. My love was also there with her mother. It was quite a gala occasion; there was even a count’s daughter among the guests. The party broke up around ten o’clock, and because there was such a fine moon, I decided to walk back with the girl and her mother as far as their house in Shiba sannai. As we walked along slowly the mother talked about the couple who were going abroad. She praised them lavishly and sounded very envious. It seemed obvious in what she said that she regretted the tendency in her daughter to remain aloof from worldly matters, and she even broadly hinted that this was due to the kind of company she kept. My love was walking close to me, and at this she clasped my hand tightly and I clasped hers in return. This was her vain protest against her mother.
“Then we entered a grove. The pale moonlight filtered through the trees and added all the more to the effect. Her mother was walking about five steps ahead of us. It was very quiet all around, for it was late at night and hardly anyone was passing by. Only the click of my shoes and the clop-clop of the wooden clogs broke the silence, creating a weird echo. Both the girl and I walked in silence, for her mother’s words had made a deep impression on us. Her mother also walked in glum silence.
“By and by we came to a place where the shadows of the trees blocked off the moonlight. Suddenly the girl clung to me tightly and whispered, ‘You mustn’t take seriously what mother said; you mustn’t forsake me.’ She placed her hand on my shoulder; instantly, I felt something hot graze my le
ft cheek and I breathed an aroma sweeter than flowers.
“Suddenly we came out into the moonlight, and I saw that her eyes were filled with tears and her face horribly pale. I thought it was partly due to the flood of moonlight, but as I looked at her, a chill came over me. I couldn’t quite describe it; it was partly fear and partly sorrow and perhaps something else. I felt as though a lead weight was pressing down on my heart.
“That night I went as far as the gate. Her mother invited me in for tea, but I declined and set out for my home. But things kept preying on my mind. I felt as though someone had given me a difficult puzzle, and by solving it I would come to fully understand the bitterness of my fate. This is no figure of speech; it’s exactly how I felt, and I couldn’t help myself.
“Instead of going straight home, therefore, I sought out the lonely spots in the area and walked aimlessly about. Before I realized it I had reached the top of Maruyama. I sat down on a bench and for some time gazed at the sky off Shinagawa.
“ ‘Is it possible that my love may soon die?’ The idea flashed like lightning in the dark recesses of my heart. I jumped to my feet and walked frantically back and forth with my eyes riveted on the ground. ‘That will never happen, it just will not!’ I shouted this as though to rebuke the devil that put the idea in my mind, but the devil would not depart. Occasionally I stopped and stared fixedly at the ground. Then the pallid face of the girl would appear vividly before me. How clearly the color of her face indicated she was not something of this world!
“Finally, I managed to calm myself down. I decided that I’d better get a good night’s sleep, that I was suffering from a delusion. I started down the hill, but then I ran into something that threw me into further confusion. I hadn’t even noticed it on the way up. A body was hanging from a branch of a tree beside the road. I was shocked. I felt as if someone had poured ice water over my head. I stood rooted to the spot.
“Then I mustered up my courage and moved closer to it. It was a woman. Of course I couldn’t see the face, but when I saw the discarded wooden clogs on the road, I knew it was a young woman. . . . I was completely beside myself as I ran to the police box and reported what I had seen. You know the one at the head of the road as you go down toward Sannai from the Kōyōkan building.”
“And the woman turned out to be the one you were in love with. Is that it?” Kondō remarked coldly.
“That only happens in novels; no, that isn’t the way it turned out.
“Two days later I saw an article in the newspaper about a nineteen-year-old girl who had an affair with a soldier and became pregnant. The soldier was transferred, and the girl, apparently at a loss as to what to do, had committed suicide. Anyway, the night I found her, I could hardly sleep.
“But to my good fortune, when I saw my girl the next day, her face looked just as it always did, and when she greeted me with a smile in those languid eyes of hers, all my misery from the night before vanished. After that, for about another month nothing happened, and we went on joyfully and happily . . .”
“Oh, this is really priceless,” said Watanuki, kicking the floor.
Matsuki said very soberly, “Hey, keep quiet and listen—and then what?”
But Kondō said, “I’ll tell you what happened next; I’ll bet it was like this. In the end the girl got bored, and that was the end of your divine love. Wasn’t that it?”
Two or three of the men burst out laughing.
Kondō went on, “At least that’s the way my love affair turned out.”
Iyama asked, “Do you even know about things like love?” It wasn’t like him to say things like that.
“I know Okamoto hasn’t finished his story yet. But shall I tell you about my experience with love? It’ll only take a minute. I became intimate with a girl. For a while, we were in ecstasy and had wonderful times together. The third month the girl got bored. We separated and that was it. This is the way all love ends. Of the animal called woman, ten out of ten get bored with a man after three months. When a woman gets married, she maintains the tie just because there’s no way out. The married woman just has to suppress her yawns and pass her days. Well, don’t you agree?”
“You may be right, but unfortunately our relationship didn’t last long enough for her to get bored. Listen to the rest.”
“In those days I was also fired with an enthusiasm for Hokkaido, just as Kamimura had been. To tell the truth, I still think life on Hokkaido should be pretty good. I used to imagine what life on Hokkaido would be like, and my love and I got some of our greatest pleasures talking about it together. Like Kamimura, I drew plans on a folio-size sheet for an American-style house. But there was a slight difference. Besides the red glimmer of light from the window, I wanted to hear the sound of happy laughter from time to time; I wanted to hear a girl singing in a clear, bell-like tone.”
“But I didn’t have a woman,” Kamimura said remorsefully. Everybody laughed.
Watanuki said, “That’s probably one of the reasons you switched your loyalties to the meat eaters.”
Kondō thundered, “No, that’s a lie. If Kamimura had had a woman, he would have switched loyalties before he had ever set foot on Hokkaido. Don’t you know that women, the wretches, aren’t able to stick to a potato diet? They’re congenital meat eaters, just as I am. It just isn’t true to say that women like potatoes.” Again there was laughter.
“And the two of us, . . .” Okamoto went on totally unperturbed, and this brought silence again.
“The two of us decided to make Hokkaido our home. As our plans had matured, I first returned to my village to settle my affairs. I had some land which my people were looking after for me, and I was going to sell every bit of it and use the money to open new land on Hokkaido. I was planning to spend no more than ten days there. But first there was the matter of the family’s convenience. Then there was the matter of agreeing on a price, and I ended up staying there twenty days. Then a telegram came from the girl’s mother. I was shocked and rushed back to Tokyo. When I arrived, the girl was dead.”
“Dead?” Matsuki cried out.
“Yes, so all my hopes were in vain.”
Okamoto hadn’t quite finished saying this when Kondō spoke up as if he were making a speech. “We who have just been allowed to hear this extremely interesting love story extend to you our deep gratitude. However, for Okamoto’s sake I will celebrate his love’s death. If that word is improper, I will say that I am glad, inwardly glad. Yes, I prefer to say that I am glad; I am glad that it happened that way, for if that girl had not died, I am convinced that the outcome would have been far more tragic than the tragedy of death itself.”
He was all seriousness up to this point. But then perhaps he felt a bit foolish; he lowered his voice and said with a smile, “After all, women do get bored—there are different kinds of boredom. Two in particular are most tragic and hateful. With one you weary of life; with the other you weary of love. Men usually weary of life, and women weary of love. We grieve for the one and hate the other.”
Then he returned to his more serious tone. “You hardly ever hear of a woman tiring of life. Young girls sometimes show signs of it, but that is just an abnormality arising from their thirst for love. Then they find love, and for a while they seem supremely happy. They really are happy, too. The total meaning of the word ‘happy’ is probably best exemplified in the condition of these girls. But they weary rapidly; that is, they finally tire of love, and surely there is nothing more difficult to deal with than a woman who is tired of love. I said earlier that this is hateful, but it’s rather to be pitied.
“Men are different, for they often tire of life itself, and if, at this juncture, they encounter love, they find in it a means of escape. That’s why they throw their whole heart into the fire of love. In cases like this love becomes synonymous with life for men.” Then he turned to Okamoto, “How about it? Doesn’t my theory fit the facts?”
“I don’t get the point at all,” Matsuki shouted.
“So, you don’t get the point? As a matter of fact I don’t get the point very well, either, but I just felt like saying it. Anyway, Okamoto, this is what I think. When you say you’re neither a potato eater nor a meat eater and that you have one unusual wish, isn’t it that you want to meet the dead girl?”
“No!” cried Okamoto, and he got up from his chair. He was already quite drunk.
“First of all, I’ll say ‘no’ to that. If you’re willing to listen, I’ll tell you what my wish is.”
Kondō raised his hand. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I definitely want to hear.” Everybody else kept silent and looked at Okamoto. Matsuki and Takeuchi looked serious, but Watanuki, Iyama, and Kamimura were smiling.
“Once more I shout out ‘NO!’ Kondō was right in that I am a man who tried to escape my boredom with life through love. That’s why her death was such a blow to me. Just as I said before, my hopes were all but dashed. If there is to be found, as in an old legend, a special kind of incense that would bring back the dead, I’d buy three or four hundred pounds of it. I want to have her back once more, and this wish is so intense that I don’t care what happens to me or what other people might think. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve cried many times over her. Many times I’ve called her name and looked up at the sky. I certainly do wish she would come back to life once more.
“But this is not the unusual wish I have in mind. It isn’t the one true wish I have. I have an even greater wish, a deeper wish, a more ardent wish. If only this wish were granted, I wouldn’t even mind if the girl didn’t come back to life, and if she did, and in my presence traded me off, I wouldn’t care. I wouldn’t even mind if her ghost stuck out its red tongue and laughed derisively in my face.