by Naoya Shiga
Below him a Tokyo-bound train goes past, making a great noise. While it is immediately below, he can see only the smoke. Then he can hear it no more, and in the distance he sees the train going around the curve of another mountain like a twisting caterpillar, emitting black smoke and pulling itself along with all its might. It seems to him to move terribly slowly. He looks at it with envy, and wonders how it can reach Tokyo by next morning. To a man leading such an inactive life, next morning does seem very soon. In a while the tail of the train disappears around the corner.
But it never occurred to him to pack up and return to Tokyo. If he were to do so, he would never come to Onomichi again. Besides, returning to Tokyo so soon would be an admission of defeat. He had to finish his work, however good or bad it might prove to be. Often during the day he would go to town and hang around the post office or the railroad station. This was because these places seemed to him closest to Tokyo. The barley, two or three inches tall when he had first arrived, had now grown to about six inches.
He had the feeling that his face muscles around the cheeks had gone slack. He found it difficult to open his eyes wide. And he realized that for weeks, from morning to night, his face had kept the same glum expression, never angry, never amused. He had not even taken a deep breath once.
Early one evening, when a strong north wind was blowing, he decided he would go to some deserted place along the beach and shout as loud as he could. He found a spot just outside town. Nearby stood three tile kilns. The pine oil sizzled loudly as the wind hit the kilns, and the fires glowed brilliantly in the dusk. He stood still for a minute gazing at the almost blinding glow, then walked up to the top of the stone embankment and faced the sea. There was no song for him to sing. He gave a few meaningless shouts, but they sounded to his ears like feeble, miserable cries. The cold north wind beat against his back. The black smoke from the kilns was being blown out over the sea, and would scatter into wisps over the dark silver of the water. In frustration at his own feebleness, he walked back to the house.
There was a cunning little local prostitute he had come to know who would say things like, “Please, boss, take me away somewhere—I’ll pay the expenses.” She was a peasant girl, plump and pretty.
Made bold by the knowledge that she was attractive to him, she would brazenly feign sadness over her predicament and squeeze an extra yen or two out of him.
One pleasant afternoon he crossed the channel by ferry to see the salt fields on Mukaijima. Afterward he decided he would walk to the other side and take a good look at the other island, Hyakkanjima, only the top of which he had so far managed to see. He was walking up a gently sloping road between two hills when he saw a man and a woman coming toward him. The woman looked like the young prostitute. Instinctively he turned into a narrow path that cut through a bamboo grove, walked a few yards, stopped, turned around and waited for the couple to pass. He was right, it was the prostitute. She was wearing a colorful, long-sleeved outer kimono. The white makeup on her face was so thick, she looked almost grotesque. She was talking gaily to her companion, who wore a felt hat pulled low over his eyes. He was young, and looked like some sort of clerk.
Kensaku came to enjoy his work less and less, and his health and emotional condition continued to deteriorate. His shoulders were now always painfully stiff. His head felt heavy, and when he held the scruff of his neck hard the muscles there made an ominous sound. He lost his appetite and slept badly. Most of the time in bed he would doze rather than sleep and be continually visited by unpleasant dreams.
But at night when working he came to experience more and more frequently protracted periods of abnormal, high-pitched excitement —not that his work necessarily progressed during these periods. Unable to sit still any longer he would stand up and start wandering around excitedly in the small six-mat room, not hearing the clatter of the loose floorboards underneath. At such times he would feel as if he had become a person of immense significance, ready to confront all.
During the day, however, there was no respite from misery. He was nearly a sick man, both spiritually and physically, He was weary, he felt the lack of sleep; his eyes were bloodshot; indeed, there was hardly any life left in him at all.
Once, at the suggestion of the old woman next door, he visited a blind masseur who lived just below the stone steps of Hōdoji Temple.
The masseur called himself Iwabē, and had formerly been a stevedore at the harbor. His technique was punishingly rough, so much so that Kensaku found him almost hateful, but it did no good. Reluctantly Kensaku decided he would stop working temporarily.
4
Late one morning on a pleasant, springlike day, Kensaku sat in the front room with the screen doors wide open, eating his breakfast-lunch. From between the stones of the wall in front a large lizard had dragged its half-dormant body out to bask in the sun. Kensaku too felt more alive. He could see beyond Mukaijima the faint, blue-green outlines of the mountains of Shikoku. Suddenly he wanted to travel again. He brought out a guidebook and was looking at the timetable for ships going to Sanuki when the old woman from next door came and sat down on the verandah. “You never miss a meal, do you?” she said to the two puppies that were always there when Kensaku ate. Only their little black noses showed over the edge of the verandah, twitching as though they had a life of their own.
“Would the ferryboat be best for going to Kotohira Shrine?” he asked.
“I think so. There’ll be so many people going there today, the steamer run by the steamship company will be packed.”
“The ferryboat leaves at two, doesn’t it?”
“That’s right. So you’re going to Kotohira Shrine, are you?”
“Yes. Don’t worry about the house. Please leave everything as it is. There isn’t anything here that a burglar would want.”
“Oh, I’m sure you have something you wouldn’t want to lose,” she said, laughing.
“I shall put everything of any value in a bag. May I leave that with you?”
“Of course. The moon should be lovely tonight in Tomonotsu.”
“Were you ever there to see it?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “We went on a pilgrimage tour of Shikoku last year, and we passed Tomonotsu on a ship, that’s all.”
“I thought I would view the moon at Tomonotsu tonight, go to Takamatsu the day after and see the castle garden that I hear is now open.”
“They say it’s a wonderful garden, even better than the one in Okayama.”
Kensaku scraped together on a plate what was left of his meal and gave it to the dogs. One of them growled menacingly and kept the other away from the plate. “Stop that!” the old woman said, and pretended to try to kick the dog from where she was sitting. Her swinging foot in the straw sandal looked quite innocuous.
Kensaku saw down below the figure of her husband coming up the steep, narrow path at a slow and steady pace. He was retired, but had a part-time job with the steamship company selling tickets at the harbor. “Your husband’s coming back,” Kensaku said. She looked down the hill and smiled. “So I see.”
Their neighbors’ six-year-old girl stood in front of the small gate of her house and shouted, “Hello!” The old man stopped, tried to straighten his back and looked up. He was wearing heavy clothes which hung loosely on his bent back. “Hello, Yoshiko!” he shouted back in a voice that was hoarse yet pleasing to the ear.
“Hello!” the little girl shouted again, and again the old man responded, “Hello, Yoshiko!”
When the exchange between the shrill voice and the hoarse voice had ended, the old man allowed his body to bend to its earlier position and resumed his slow climb. The old woman went back to her house.
Kensaku went down the hill to get some money out of the post office which was in the near end of town. He walked up to the opening at the counter where it said “Savings and Money Orders,” and produced a money order. “I’m very sorry,” the man behind the counter said, “but we closed at noon. We just handed in our accounting fo
r the day.” Kensaku had totally forgotten that it was Sunday. Not wanting to give up too easily he stepped back and looked at the big clock above his head. It was already twenty minutes past noon. He had no choice but to postpone his trip.
The following day was cold and unpleasant, with meager sunlight. The sky looked untrustworthy, and there was a little wind. He hesitated at first but in the end decided to go anyway. At one-thirty that afternoon he was standing on the wharf, waiting for the boat.
The boat arrived half an hour late, so that her departure was equally delayed. He stayed out on deck, wrapped in his grandfather’s shabby Inverness cape. The boat sailed eastward alongside the stretched-out town. Halfway up the mountain on which Senkōji stood was his little house, looking smaller than ever. On the bamboo pole under the eaves hung the wadded kimono and the outer kimono he had worn that very morning. From where he stood, they looked tiny. The old woman sat on the verandah, just in front of the hanging clothes. He raised his hand a little. She responded by raising hers awkwardly. She seemed to be smiling.
The boat now sailed past Saikokuji, the temple farthest up the mountains, then another temple, Jōdoji, and finally the edge of town. She began to take a more southerly course, and after rounding Mukaijima sailed straight out to sea. A whole string of islands came into view. Innoshima and Hyakkanjima were the only ones he knew by name. They were so close together that he could see nothing between them; it was rather like sailing along a coastline with a lot of inlets.
The sky was now completely clouded over. A cold wind blew from the west. He thought of going to his cabin but decided that it would be a pity not to see as much of the scenery as possible. He pulled together the upper layer of his cape, buried his chin deep in it, and remained seated on the bench.
The boat wove her way through the islands. Each one of the barley fields on the hillsides was clearly distinguishable from the adjacent field by its shade of green—one would be dark green, the next one would be light. Under the cloudy sky the greens had a lovely, soft sheen like velvet. The lines of the mountains on the islands were etched with greater clarity and forcefulness than if the sun had been out. Kensaku was reminded of the thin cracks on the dried gourds hanging in the shops in Onomichi, and thought how strong and beautiful were such lines made by nature.
The boat passed certain islands far out from their shores and others close in to them. Every beach that showed signs of habitation would be certain to have standing on it one or two old pine trees bent by the winds from the sea. And always underneath the trees there would be an old-fashioned stone beacon with the words “everburning light” carved deep on it. Kensaku remembered the legend so often told: a girl, in love with a young man living on another island, swam every night from her island to his, guided by the beacon; the young man then ceased to love her, and one stormy night blew out the light and let her drown. Every beacon that Kensaku now saw seemed to befit the legend.
The temple of the Abuto Kannon became visible. It was on a headland that stuck out into a narrow channel between the mainland and an island. The outer shrine stood on land and the inner shrine on a ten-foot-high stone platform built on a great rock jutting out of the water. The two buildings were connected by a sloping, covered bridge about ten yards long. There was nothing else man-made in the vicinity, and Kensaku felt as though he were looking at a Chinese painting.
The boat rounded the headland and continued along the coastline. Kensaku saw several pine-covered miniature islands that looked almost small enough to be put in one’s garden. Not long after, the boat reached the port of Tomonotsu. Nearby, the island of Sensuito lay serenely in the water. Kensaku was a little disappointed to find that it pointed in a direction quite different from what he had imagined from postcards. Nevertheless it was a fine island, restful and dignified. The town was too built-up for his taste. There were chimneys sticking out here and there, painted with signs advertising brands of the local specialty, a “life-preserving” medicinal wine.
He had intended to stay the night there to view the moon, but looking at the cloudy sky decided he might as well remain on the boat and continue the journey.
It had become too cold to sit on the bench any longer; reluctantly he stood up and went to the lounge. He was traveling second class, so that there were only a half-dozen other passengers sharing it with him. He followed their example and lay down. The boat was pitching a little, and he could hear the sound of the hull hitting the water every time she came down. He was sleepy, but was afraid that if he went to sleep he would catch cold. He sat up and began reading a novel he had brought with him.
An officer wearing gold braid on his sleeves walked in, followed by an ordinary seaman carrying a phonograph. The officer himself carried a box of records. “You must all be bored,” he announced. Seeing that Kensaku was the only passenger sitting up, he walked up to him and put down the box in front of him. “They’re all yours, sir,” he said, grinning.
Kensaku continued to read for a while; then, since no one else seemed interested, he pulled the box toward him and began looking at the records. They were all folk-type ballads, mostly of the naniwabushi variety. But some were gidayū, which he liked. He played three of these, one after the other. There were two men lying near him discussing the stock market. One of them stopped talking, listened to the record being played, and said, “She’s really special, that Rosho. What a voice she has.” He looked around and said to Kensaku, “Excuse me, but are there any ‘gay-mood songs’?”
“What?” said Kensaku with deliberate brusqueness. He guessed that “gay-mood songs” meant naniwabushi, but decided to pretend he had no idea what the man was talking about. He put on another gidayū record. The man thus dismissed fell silent. Kensaku was immediately sorry, and put on next a song called “The Song of Four Seasons” sung by a Yoshiwara geisha, thinking that it was the one that went, “Spring means flowers/ So let’s all go and see them/On Mt. Higashiyama.” For a few seconds all that came out of the megaphone was the scratchy sound of the needle on the record, then the singer burst into song in a startlingly gay voice, “Spring is here/Oh, how happy/ You and I together.” With a cross look on his face he listened to the rest of the banal, cheerful song. Summer followed spring, then came autumn, and the singer was still happy. There was no defense against such cheer; he pictured himself, morose and a little startled, seated beside the blaring megaphone, and the ludicrousness of the scene almost made him smile. Accompanied by the various noises made by the boat—chug, chug, chug, chug (that was the engine), boh, boh (that was the whistle), thump, thump (that was the hull hitting the water)—the singer was at last singing of the couple’s happiness in winter, when they could sip saké together as they viewed the snow. When the song ended he got up and went back on deck.
A few passengers were standing there talking to the officer who had brought the records. The boat was already off the Sanuki coast. One of the passengers said to the officer, “Purser, which one of those mountains is the one with Kotohira Shrine on it?”
“It’s that one there,” said the officer, pointing. “It’s supposed to resemble an elephant’s head. Lord Kotohira on Elephant Head Mountain—that’s how they used to refer to the shrine in the old days, I’m told. You see that black patch on the side of the mountain? It looks pretty small from here, but when you get there you’ll find that it’s a big forest.”
Four or five fishing boats, their sails taut, sped past over the indigo sea. The purser said that they were now just about in the middle of the Inland Sea, where the tides from the east and west met as they came in and parted as they went out. “Next month will be even busier,” he said, “when Zentsūji Temple has its festival.”
Kensaku moved away from the group and went astern. There he sat down on a bench and looked at the line of mountains in the distance. There was a mountain on this side of the one the purser pointed at which seemed to Kensaku to have a much greater resemblance to an elephant’s head.
The elephant, which has until now only
shown its head, suddenly rises out of the ground. The people are thrown into a panic. Will this monster destroy all mankind, or will they find a way to destroy it? Soldiers, statesmen and scholars from all over the world gather together and rack their brains. Guns and mines won’t do, for the elephant’s skin is a hundred yards thick, and they would only scratch its surface. Trying to starve it would be useless, for it eats at fifty-year intervals. The more intelligent men say that so long as it is not annoyed it will do no mischief. Certain men of religion in India say that it is a god. But the great majority of men clamor for its immediate destruction, and are full of foolish ideas as to how this might be accomplished. The elephant begins to get angry.
Before he knew it, Kensaku himself had become the elephant, excitedly preparing for his one-man war against the world at large. He is in a city. Each time he stamps a foot, fifty thousand men are crushed to death. Guns, mines, poison gas, airplanes, airships—all such ingenious devices created by man’s intelligence are directed at him. He takes a deep breath, exhales through his long nose, and the airplanes, feebler than mosquitoes, fall to the ground; the airships float away helplessly like balloons. He draws up water into his nose and disgorges it, and there is a flood; he descends into the depths of the ocean and comes up suddenly, causing a tremendous tidal wave …
“I hope the trip hasn’t been too boring for you, sir. That over there is Tadotsu. We’ll be arriving in about ten minutes.” It was the purser. Little did he know that at that moment Kensaku was far from being bored.