by Naoya Shiga
The boat began sounding her whistle persistently—it was a deep, unpleasant noise that shook one’s eardrums—as she approached the harbor of Tadotsu, a town crammed with rooftops.
And so ended Kensaku’s absurd fantasy. He himself saw nothing particularly amusing in it. True, when it came to the point where he was about to take on all of mankind, he felt a little odd; but to him whose natural inclination to fantasize had become gradually more pronounced during his recent solitude, the entire fantasy did not seem at all silly.
He went down to the lounge to pick up his umbrella—he had no luggage to worry about—and came up again. The sun, which had not shown itself all day, was now out, a bright red ball hanging over the island of Okinoshima. There were fifteen or so passengers standing about.
“Are you going to Kotohira Shrine?” one of them asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you by yourself?”
“Yes, I am.”
“It must be lonely, traveling all alone.”
“Yes.”
“What inn are you staying at?”
“Where would you recommend?”
“Well, the best one is Toraya, then Bitchūya, I suppose. But I doubt they’ll give you a room if you’re by yourself.”
Kensaku simply nodded in reply.
“Why don’t you try a place called Yoshikichi? I’m spending the night in Tadotsu myself, and that’s where I’m going, so come along with me if you like.”
Kensaku looked the man over. He was about twenty-five, common-looking, and probably some kind of salesman. He also had a dirty face and hands. He seemed to take it for granted that Kensaku would be staying at the same inn, and proceeded to explain where it was and so on.
Moored in the harbor were old-fashioned wooden cargo boats of various sizes and shapes, tossing restlessly in the choppy water.
Kensaku was the first to get onto the floating pier. He walked across it quickly, steadying himself against the wind that blew sharply at him from the side. It was low tide, and the bridge that connected the floating pier to the landing was at a sharp incline. As he went up this steep bridge a whole tour group of old ladies, carrying their wooden clogs, came down gingerly in their bare feet to board the boat. A few yards behind him the grubby salesman had separated himself from the rest of the disembarking passengers and was hurrying after him. Not caring if he hurt the pursuer’s feelings or not, Kensaku quickened his pace. He had no idea where the railroad station was, but he was afraid that if he were to stop and ask someone for directions the fellow would catch up with him. He walked on quickly toward what looked like the busy part of town.
The fellow had given up the chase. As Kensaku passed by the post office, he saw one of the clerks leaning out of the window, looking bored. He stopped and asked him where the station was. It turned out to be very near.
There was a good fire going in the stove in the waiting room. After about twenty minutes a train, smaller than the standard, came in. He got on it and proceeded to Kotohira.
5
That night in Kotohira he stayed at the inn which he had been told would not be likely to accept a lone guest. On the following morning he went to see the shrine. Its treasures gave him particular delight. He thought quite beautiful the bindings of its ancient copies of such classics as the Tales of Isé, the Tale of Hōgen and the Tale of Heiji.
He normally disliked Kanō Tan’ya’s paintings, but he liked the snow scene by him that he saw there, in black and white on a folding screen. Was he so starved for such things, he wondered, that even this painter could move him?
On the way to the main building, too, he had found pleasing examples of man’s art. He liked particularly the approach to the steep stone steps leading up to the main building. But the path that one took from the main shrine to the inner shrine seemed new, and was without man-made beauty. All that impressed him there were the great mountain trees, a refreshing change from those pines in Onomichi. But his admiration for these trees was short-lived. For their bark soon struck him as ominous-looking, and his nervous condition was such that they began to frighten him.
In the afternoon he went to Takamatsu as planned. He could not get into the castle garden that he had wanted to see. Instead he visited Ritsurin Park. Afterward he walked around the town. He found on one street corner a shop specializing in imported wines and foods. It was not much of a shop to look at from the outside, but on going in he found that it was not at all badly stocked. There was no such shop in Onomichi, and what he wanted to do was buy a supply of imported tinned meat and take it back with him. He went around the shop slowly, examining the shelves. But all he saw in the way of tinned meat were the standard Japanese brands, cooked in native sauces, which he could easily get in Onomichi.
A young man with heavily pomaded hair came up to him. “Can I help you?” Kensaku could not tell whether he was the proprietor or an employee.
“Yes, please. Do you have any imported tinned meat?”
“Yes, we do,” the young man said and went away. He came back immediately holding a large, dark blue can. The label said in English, “Pure English Oats.”
“Are you sure this is meat?”
“Of course,” said the young man without hesitation.
Kensaku took the can and shook it. It made a dry, rattling sound. He gave it back to the young man, and asked again, “Are you sure it’s meat?”
The man looked at the label and said, “Yes, that’s what it says,” then read out with surprising fluency, “ ‘Pure English Oats.’ ”
Kensaku walked out in silence. He felt a little angry, but then remembered that his own appearance was hardly calculated to impress any shopkeeper—a dirty cloth cap, a black twill Inverness cape made twenty years ago, cheap clogs with loose straps, a fat, inelegant umbrella, and on top of all this an unshaven, cheerless face. What customer looking like that would know anything about imported food? All the same, it was difficult to forgive the impudent fellow, and he was almost tempted to return to the shop and force him to open the can in his presence.
He decided to go to Yashima, and went to the streetcar terminal by rickshaw. He got on a streetcar bound for Shidoji Temple. His streetcar was almost empty, but those returning to the terminal were packed. Apparently the city newspaper and the streetcar company had that day held a fair for the public in Yashima, providing such entertainment as treasure hunts, etc. And when he got off at Yashima he faced a whole multitude of returning merrymakers, mostly with flushed faces, leaning on each other as they tottered tiredly toward the station. They were a motley crowd—shop clerks and apprentices wearing identical saffron-colored kerchiefs around their heads or necks, drunkards accompanied by geisha, fathers with their children’s balloons tied to the cloth bands of their hats, men being carried on palanquins bizarrely bedecked with flowers, students, railway employees in their uniforms, stallkeepers carrying their wares home. He walked in the opposite direction past them, an alien figure in the midst of this festive crowd. Yet he was not unhappy, for as he walked he remembered with gentle nostalgia the outings he had enjoyed as a child—going to Kameido to view the wisterias or to Ōkubo to view the azaleas, or to the Komaba playing grounds on a field day. They were fleeting yet soothing memories. By the time the road which had been on dusty, level ground began at last to climb, the returning crowd had thinned out considerably. Slowly he walked up the road that cut through pine woods, resting often. The salt fields that stretched all the way from Takamatsu gradually came into view below him. From the chimneys of the huts where the sea water was being boiled, thick, white columns of steam rose, undisturbed in the still, evening air. Far into the distance the white columns lined the landscape. The view did much to ease his melancholy.
There was hardly a soul in sight when he reached the plateau. Scattered all about him were crushed lunch boxes, tangerine peelings and the like. Little shops that sold postcards and dried crab were closing down.
He walked on until he came to an inn nestling in a pine grove and
overlooking the sea. There was one group of customers that had not gone home with the rest making a lot of noise in one of the annexes. Aside from serving these, the maids were busy clearing up.
Kensaku was shown to another annex, a sedate little cottage that stood on the top of a cliff. Down below was the sea. To his right was the island of Shōdoshima, wrapped in evening mist. Far and near were other islands whose names he did not know. Immediately below were wooden cargo boats like those he had seen in Tomonotsu harbor, moored for the night with lighted mastheads.
The deepening dusk seemed to rise out of the sea. But even in the gathering darkness he could see the arched outline of the sea as it rolled toward the shore. It was a fine view, though for some reason it gave him no pleasure.
A maid came in with the dinner. He was not hungry, and ate very little. As she cleared the table the maid said, “You’ll be sleeping in the main house.”
“Let me know when the room’s ready.”
He felt depressed. What he felt was not the transitory sadness of a lone traveler but something much darker and more oppressive.
The maid returned to show him to his room. It was quite close, just on the other side of the main garden. Above the pine grove behind the cottage hung the moon, large and rose-colored. One entered the garden through a small gate with a roof over it. As Kensaku was about to go through the gate he almost stepped on a man lying face down beside it, apparently quite unconscious. The man had not had a haircut or a shave for months, and looked like a beggar. He must have urinated as he lay there, for his trousers were dark with a spreading stain.
The maid hardly paid any attention to the prone figure. But Kensaku could not dismiss him quite so easily. Once in the room he said to her, “Are you sure the man isn’t ill?”
“Oh, no, he’s just drunk.”
“Is he from these parts?”
“Yes. He’s a beggar, without a home or family. He took advantage of today’s festivities and had too much to drink.”
The fire in the copper brazier was burning nicely. Kensaku sat beside it, wishing that the maid would leave. He knew that she was dutifully waiting to put away the clothes he was wearing; but he was not about to put on the night kimono provided by the inn. The maid remained, impatient but stubborn. Finally he said, “You may go.”
“But sir, your clothes have to be folded properly.”
“I understand, but really, they’re not worth the trouble.”
The maid departed, laughing. He stood up immediately and took off only his outer kimono. He turned the sash around so that the knot was in the front, and went to bed in his own clothes.
He opened the book he had brought with him, but it failed to draw his interest. He lay still, as though made immovable by the dark loneliness that assailed him. It was truly a quiet evening, and very cold. Though the fire in the brazier was still going, his face felt cold, and his feet seemed to take forever to warm up.
Outside, the beggar had begun to snore.
Wide awake, Kensaku thought about the beggar’s life, with no home to return to and no one to wait for him, and could not help likening that condition to his own. There was no one who would feel truly sorry if he should fail in his work, no one with whom he could share his joy if he should succeed. His father and stepmother, his brother and sisters—he belonged to none of them. If only he had a family that he could call his own …
The loneliness that he felt then seemed to reach the very core of his being. He was no less alone, he thought, than the drunken beggar lying beneath the cold night sky.
And then he became aware that of all the people he knew, it was Oei whom he now wanted to see, it was Oei to whom he felt closest.
Why then should she not have been much more involved in his life? What they felt toward each other was almost like blood kinship. His father had long ago determined her role for him: she was a servant, destined to leave the household when Kensaku got married. But why should she and Kensaku have so readily accepted the role imposed on her by his father? Why had it never occurred to either of them to question the reasonableness of his father’s dictate?
Of course, to marry a woman who had been his grandfather’s mistress would be an odd thing to do. But how much better to marry her than to continue to lust after her secretly as he had done, or worse, to begin an illicit relationship with her. He knew that such a marriage would make him a target of ridicule and abuse. But he would not mind that; indeed, it would make him a better man. Aside from the fact that she had been his grandfather’s mistress, then, there was little reason why they should not marry each other. It was the most obvious thing to do. He could then settle down, and she would have security. Why hadn’t the idea occurred to him before?
He felt much happier now. He promised himself he would write to her immediately upon returning to Onomichi if he had not changed his mind by then. But would Oei accept his proposal? He decided then and there that if she did not, he would go back to Tokyo at once and try to allay her fears.
6
The next day Kensaku caught the boat for Onomichi. The weather was quite good, and he could have stopped at Tomonotsu this time and viewed the moon. But he was in no mood for such leisurely pastimes and returned to Onomichi directly.
That night he sat down to write his letter. But how was he to begin it? The simplest way of course was to state his intention bluntly. But as the saying went, that would be like pouring water into the ear of someone fast asleep. The person jumps up in shock, hardly in a state to listen intelligently to a proposition, no matter how cogently presented. He decided there was no way but to write to Nobuyuki and have him talk to Oei.
He began by describing honestly how painful had been his secret desire for Oei while he was still in Tokyo, and proceeded to explain how he had come to his decision in Yashima.
He understood, he then said, how unpleasant his proposed marriage would be to their father, stepmother, and the rest of the family in Hongō; but he had no intention of seeking anyone’s approval of it, for had not their father told him, when he had gone to talk to him about Aiko, that he, Kensaku, as head of his own household, should handle all such matters himself? Besides, if he were to consult the family in Hongō they might try to interfere and he would not like that. And if, because of this marriage, they should sever all relations with him, he would not complain.
No doubt, he continued, Oei would be surprised. But he would ask Nobuyuki to explain the situation to her so that she would understand. Of course Nobuyuki would have his own reservations about the proposal; but he must ask Nobuyuki to put those aside for the moment, self-centered though such a request might seem; and would he try to explain his younger brother’s point of view as only he, who knew him so well, could?
He then wrote a letter to Oei. He was sorry he had not written for so long, he said. He hoped she was well. He was not going to say anything in this letter, for in a letter to Nobuyuki he had written in detail what he had to say. The two letters would be posted at the same time. Nobuyuki was sure to visit her on the day following his receipt of the letter, and he would say all kinds of things that would shock her; but he hoped she would overcome her initial shock and calmly try to understand his feelings. He implored her not to lose courage, for there was nothing to fear.
When he had finished the letters he was overcome by a strange sense of dejection. By these two letters, he thought helplessly, I have committed a large part of my life. But he had no second thoughts. And though it was past midnight he decided he had to post the letters immediately lest he should later be tempted to change his mind. He lit his lantern and walked down the hill to the railroad station to deliver the letters.
He anticipated an uneasy period of waiting until the replies came. Even if they answered immediately, it would be three days before he heard from them. And if they procrastinated at all, it would be at least five days. He could see already how nervous and fearful he was going to be during these next five days. It was disconcerting to find how uncertain he was
so soon after exhorting Oei not to lose courage, so soon after displaying his determination in his letter to Nobuyuki.
What angered Kensaku, what made him so pathetic in his own eyes, was the fact that there were even now two utterly conflicting desires at war within himself. One was the desire that his proposal should succeed; and the other was that it should somehow fail. Which of these was true to his innermost feelings, he could not tell. What he was sure about was that whatever happened, he would learn to come to terms with it. But until the decision was made, either way, he would continue to suffer from the conflict within him. Such was his habit, indeed his sickness. And characteristically he soon became a passive actor, willing to allow Oei’s decision to shape his fate.
Yet, however confused and tentative his mental state may have been, his body, stimulated beyond bearing by thoughts of Oei after their marriage, suddenly began craving constant satisfaction. During the days of waiting for word from Tokyo, he visited the local brothel several times.
Six days passed, and at last Nobuyuki’s letter arrived.
“I was at first taken aback by your letter. To be honest, my immediate response was to wish, for various reasons, that you would change your mind if you could. But there was that unfortunate business over Aiko, and given your character besides, I knew that it would be useless for me to try to dissuade you; and so I decided that I would do as you asked—show Oei your letter and, where needed, explain your point of view. I would then write and report to you on the meeting and express my own thoughts on the matter.
“Today, on my way home from the office, I stopped by at your house and saw Oei. I’ll tell you here and now that she will not accept your proposal. She showed me your letter to her. From it she had guessed what you had in mind, so that when I showed her your letter to me she was not very surprised. She read it, then immediately said that it wouldn’t do. She spoke with assurance and dignity, and I was impressed. Truly, her attitude was such that I could not argue with her. You might think me feeble, you might even think that I had gone to see her in the hope that she would speak and behave as she did. And to be honest, I had half-hoped that she would. I would nevertheless have spoken on your behalf had she given me the chance.