A Dark Night's Passing

by Naoya Shiga

  In profile she much resembled her mother, who again was a far cry from what he had imagined Mr. N’s sister would be like. She was every inch the country woman, with a large face and a short, stocky body. He was not impressed by her hair either, which had been dyed a strikingly unnatural black. Naoko’s resemblance to her reminded him of a story by Maupassant called “An Unfortunate Likeness,” which described a similar situation. True, he was not as disillusioned as the hero of the story; but it was a fact that she was not as beautiful as he had thought.

  Later, after they were married, she told him that she had felt quite awful that evening. She had had a tiring train journey the day before, and tense from fatigue, had not been able to go to sleep. All next day she had suffered not only from a nagging headache but slight nausea. And indeed it was a rare occasion when she ever looked quite as bad as she did then.

  She was not the only despondent one that evening. Kensaku, too, felt strained and tired. He had always found new acquaintances an ordeal, especially those whom he could not ignore. Naoko’s elder brother was a pleasant enough man, but conscious of their lack of common interests, was apt to spring on Kensaku some sudden comment about literature which would leave Kensaku searching desperately for a suitable response. He tried to tell himself that this was only light conversation, that he could say anything he pleased, but it did no good; words came slowly, ponderously, as though his very reputation as a writer were now at stake. The brother seemed not to mind. He would look straight at Kensaku with affectionate eyes and interrupt their conversation with some such remark as, “Do forgive my awkward ways,” or “You mustn’t mind mother, she’s getting on in years.” There was such decency and goodwill in the man that Kensaku could not resist his offer of friendship. They had known each other for only a few hours, and already he had become much more than a new acquaintance to Kensaku.

  On the stage they were doing a scene from Chikamatsu’s Love Suicide at Amijima. Kensaku had seen it a number of times; besides, he was not much taken with the actor who was playing Jihei. Though a skillful performer, he was far too mechanical and predictable. But it was not just the performance on the stage that left Kensaku feeling uninvolved. This was supposed to be a festive occasion, yet here he was, unable somehow to participate in it, unable even to accept the reality of his fiancée’s being the same young woman whom he had admired from a distance two months before.

  Naoko, looking sad and dispirited yet with an air of concentration, watched the stage. Her forlornness touched him. But he was too preoccupied with his own wretched condition to feel more than a fleeting pity for her.

  He managed with great effort to maintain an outward calm. Inwardly, however, he was struggling against the desire to rush away from the scene, which increased with every passing moment until he thought it would soon overwhelm him completely. He had of course often felt this way before; but the necessity under the present circumstances of having to be on his very best behavior made the strain all the greater. The truth was that the prospect of getting married had driven him into a life of debauchery again—just as his imaginings about Oei as his potential wife had done earlier—and as a result he had again become tense and unresilient, easily subject to moods of utter nervous exhaustion.

  It was late when the performance at last concluded and they came out of the theatre. The moon, nearly full, hung high in the sky. He quickly parted from the others, and feeling like a small bird just freed from its cage, began to walk away from Yasaka Shrine toward Chion’in Temple. Solitude was all he wanted at the moment. As he approached the great gate of the temple the moon became hidden behind it, and in the darkness the gate appeared even bigger.

  The evening had not been an auspicious prelude to their marriage. But, he reminded himself, he was the culprit, no one else. If he had been able to lead a more disciplined life of late, he might have behaved better. And though he had no intention of excusing himself, he was nevertheless tempted to think that once again he had been betrayed by the ugly heritage bequeathed him by his grandfather. But he must forget what had happened that evening, he told himself. What was done was done. Of much greater importance was the way he would conduct himself in the future. If he did not learn to exercise moderation, he could easily end up destroying himself. Yes, he would try to lead a better kind of life, especially after marriage. And so again he made that very same resolution he had broken repeatedly in the past.

  He and Naoko were married about a week after that. One day before the marriage she, her mother, and her brother paid him a visit. It was a cloudy and cold afternoon. Sen was busy in the kitchen, so he had come out to mail a card he had just written to Nobuyuki. He was standing by the mailbox when he saw in the distance the three figures walking toward him. The mother walked a step or two behind her son and daughter. Naoko walked close to her brother, almost leaning against his large body, and was talking animatedly. She seemed so beautiful then, so full of life, that Kensaku could hardly believe it was the same person he had met the other night. He watched her, conscious of the mounting excitement inside him.

  Kensaku himself was feeling very relaxed that day, so the visit was altogether a success. Sen, too, entered into the spirit of the occasion and worked hard to please her future mistress. Kensaku brought out his casket which he had not opened for a long time and showed his visitors photographs of his dead mother, his brother and sisters, Oei, and old school friends.

  They decided to go out and visit Ginkakuji. On the way they stopped to look at Anrakuji and Hōnen’in. When Kensaku was explaining the history of Asoka’s Tower at Hōnen’in, Naoko listened intently, rather in the manner of a schoolgirl listening to her favorite teacher.

  They were near Ginkakuji when Naoko’s brother suddenly said, “I’m afraid I shall have to go back to the inn. I’m not feeling well.” He did look pale, and there were beads of sweat on his forehead. “Nothing serious, I’m sure,” he said as the others looked at him with concern. They agreed that it was probably the heat in Kensaku’s room; for Kensaku, who hated the cold, had kept a very hot fire going in his brazier that day. Fortunately there was a rickshaw nearby; and despite the brother’s insistence that he would be all right by himself, the mother decided to go back with him.

  Left by themselves the two silently walked up the rest of the path paved with broken tiles, and entered the gate. Just inside the gate there was a standing screen that had written on it the word “virtue.” Here they waited for a guide, exchanging a few awkward remarks. They began to feel more comfortable with each other, however, as they were led through the temple by a small boy wearing formal Japanese trousers that were too short for him. For his size he had a remarkably loud voice. “And there in the garden is our famous miniature sandscape, depicting the hill of the moon standing over the silver sand rapids!”

  “What you see on the sliding screens to your right and left is the work of Taigadō!”

  During the tour Kensaku turned to Naoko and said, “You left your bag and umbrella behind at my house, didn’t you? If you’re intending to go back to the inn by rickshaw after this, I’ll send them along sometime this evening.” Naoko looked at him a little angrily, saying nothing. “Or perhaps you’d like to stop at the house?”

  “Yes,” she said brusquely, as if what she meant was, “What a stupid question!”

  There was a drainage system that led from the back of Nanzenji Temple to the ricefields near Kurodani. The two walked along the path beside this small canal, side by side where they could, and Naoko behind Kensaku where the path was too narrow. As he walked ahead of her he would picture in his mind her neat, little feet (they were small for a woman her size) in spotless white socks following his own footsteps, firmly and determinedly yet gracefully. That such a person, or rather such pretty feet, should be following so close behind him gave him a novel sense of well-being and contentment.

  A baby turtle, its neck stuck out purposefully, was crawling with tremendous effort over the pebbles laid on the bottom of the canal. Amuse
d by the sight, the two stopped for a while to watch. Suddenly she said as they stood there, “I know nothing about literature.” Kensaku squatted down, and picking up a handful of mud, threw it into the water just a few inches in front of the turtle. The turtle withdrew its neck a little and stopped, waiting for the water to clear; then it resumed its slow journey, carrying on its back a thin layer of mud.

  “I’m glad,” Kensaku said, still squatting.

  “Well, I’m not.”

  “Really, I’d much prefer it if you didn’t know anything about it.”

  “But why?”

  Kensaku was not sure how exactly he should answer her question. He used to feel differently once, but more recently he had come to feel that it mattered very little whether or not his wife had any understanding of his work. Indeed, by the time he proposed to Oei, he had already started feeling this way. And had Naoko said, “I love literature,” or something of the sort, he would have found it unbearable.

  At any rate, Naoko seemed to think it necessary to warn Kensaku of her ignorance. There was another matter, she said, that she had to mention: she had an aunt, a divorcée, who had come to live with her mother before she was born; being childless, this aunt had showered Naoko with affection; she was now past sixty, and would miss her niece terribly; would Kensaku mind if occasionally she were to visit them in Kyoto? “My aunt begged me to ask you.”

  The two rested for a while in Kensaku’s house. Naoko still seemed worried about her lack of literary knowledge. Examining the bookshelves in the study she said, “Tell me, which of these should I read?” Kensaku accompanied Naoko all the way back to the inn. There they found her brother sitting up, seemingly fully recovered. “A short nap was all I needed,” he said.

  13

  The simple wedding ceremony took place five days or so later at a restaurant called Sa’ami in Maruyama. In Kensaku’s party were Nobuyuki, Ishimoto and his wife, Miyamoto who loved Kyoto, Takai who had come back to Nara, and a few others. In Naoko’s party, besides Mr. and Mrs. N and three or four other relatives and friends, were Mr. and Mrs. S, who were the official intermediaries, Dr. Yamazaki, and Kensaku’s former landlady from Higashisanpongi. “Simple” perhaps by ordinary standards, the occasion was still considerably more festive than Kensaku had ever imagined his own wedding would be, and at times he felt his own presence to be something of an incongruity. Yet all in all he felt surprisingly relaxed and cheerful, and was able to watch all the goings-on with innocent pleasure. How good it was, he thought, to be the cause of so much cheer in others.

  Among the dancing girls who wore their beautiful dresses with accustomed aplomb, Naoko in her long-sleeved formal dress looked conspicuously awkward. And her stiff, high coiffure sat very badly on her, making her seem quite provincial. He felt a little sorry for her; but his mood was such that he looked at her more with kindly amusement than with any sense of condescension.

  The festivities came to an end at about eleven. As he was about to leave, Nobuyuki said to Kensaku, “I’m staying at Ishimoto’s inn. I’ll send Oei a telegram the first thing in the morning, so don’t you worry. But it would be nice if you wrote her a letter when you felt settled.” He had drunk a great deal that evening, and had become very boisterous. But there had not been the slightest unpleasantness in his rowdiness, and no one had been made at all uncomfortable by it. Nevertheless Kensaku, who had not seen Nobuyuki in such a state before and had therefore watched his antics with curiosity and amusement at first, had finally become somewhat apprehensive. If Nobuyuki has another drink, he began to think, he’s going to become really unmanageable. But now he seemed incredibly in control of himself as he made his parting statement. With renewed respect and affection, Kensaku bid his brother good-night.

  When Kensaku and Naoko returned to the house, Sen came out to the front hall to receive them, decked out in an old-fashioned dress with her crest on it.

  Early next morning they went to Mr. S’s house to offer their formal thanks. It was past Mr. S’s time to leave for his office, but he was waiting for them. After that they went to see the Ishimotos at their inn, and from there they went to Tōsanrō, this time accompanied by Nobuyuki, to see Naoko’s family.

  The two spent the next couple of days busily meeting their social obligations—seeing some people off, accompanying others on a trip to Nara, and so on.

  The house that Kensaku had rented was a small one, with an eight-mat living room, a narrow, four-mat anteroom that faced north and unusable now that there were the two of them, and a maid’s room. Obviously, they had to move.

  Kensaku had no work that had to be done immediately. But he was loathe to get into that post-marriage condition where one did no work for a while; he was therefore anxious to set himself up so that whenever he felt like working, he could do so comfortably. One day, then, he and Naoko went to look at a house in the grounds of Kodaiji Temple that had interested him earlier. They discovered that the house, one of two semidetached houses, had already been promised to someone else. But two more semidetached houses, also with two stories, had since been built next to these. The one on the east side appealed to Kensaku and Naoko, and they thought they would take it.

  “This isn’t too good,” Kensaku said, sticking his head out of a second-floor window facing south. “If someone were to look out of the same window next door, we would be staring right into each other’s face.”

  “Absolutely,” said Naoko.

  The landlord’s son, who had come with the key to let them into the house, said cheerfully, “We could put up a small fence on top of the lavatory roof. It would keep the afternoon sun out too.”

  “That would certainly be satisfactory,” said Kensaku. “By the way, would you put a longer cord on the light? I’ll have my desk in the corner of this room, and I’ll want the light there when I’m working. I could have it done myself, if you’d rather.”

  “Oh no, we’ll do it,” the landlord’s son said. Everyone seemed to be in an amicable mood.

  They then went downstairs to the morning room. Kensaku saw that here, too, the electric cord hanging from the ceiling was no more than two feet long. “This won’t do either,” said Kensaku. “You couldn’t possibly do any sewing with the light so high up, could you, Naoko?”

  “Surely it stretches,” she said, standing on tiptoe and trying to pull the cord down.

  “No, it doesn’t,” said the young man. He stepped away from them and looked at them in offended silence. He knew Kensaku and Naoko were waiting for him to offer to have the cord lengthened; but for some reason, he had chosen this moment to be obstinate.

  Now it was Kensaku’s turn to be offended. By nature willful, he was not one to tolerate such perverse behavior from another. He thinks we’re arrogant, he thought; perhaps we are, but why be so damn difficult about a small thing like that? “You wouldn’t mind if we had it lengthened ourselves, would you?” he said challengingly.

  “Yes, I would,” the young man answered with extreme brusqueness.

  “Why, if I may ask?”

  “No Kyoto man would have wanted it longer.”

  Kensaku was speechless with anger.

  “It would be ridiculous to have a long cord like that dangling from the ceiling.”

  “When we move out we’ll have the cord shortened again. That would satisfy you, wouldn’t it?”

  “No, it wouldn’t!” The young man’s face had gone pale.

  “You’re an idiot! All right, then, we won’t rent the house. Come on, Naoko.” Without giving the young man another look Kensaku marched out of the room. Naoko, utterly confused, stood there for a moment, then bowed and said she was leaving. The young man returned her bow with great courtesy.

  Outside, Naoko opened her parasol and ran after Kensaku. She was laughing. “What a short-tempered pair!”

  Kensaku grinned sheepishly. “A likeable sort of fellow, wasn’t he?” Now that he had calmed down, he was a trifle ashamed of his own impetuosity, and couldn’t help thinking that the young man
’s animosity was not entirely unjustified.

  “What’s the point of approving of a man after quarreling with him like that?” she said. “I liked the house, and I’m sorry we can’t have it.”

  “Well, it’s too late now.”

  “Next time, don’t say anything, take the house, and then make the changes. Of course they get annoyed if the first thing you do is tell them you want this and that done.”

  They decided to do no more house-hunting that day, and instead look for presents to give in return for their wedding presents. They went to Gojōzaka, where the famous potters—Rokubē, Seifū, Sōroku—had their shops, and stopped at each one to look at their wares. At Sōroku’s shop they were received courteously by a man who showed them red-glazed incense burners made by the last Sōroku but one. These were there to show only, the man explained, and not for sale. He was relatively young and very modestly dressed, but Kensaku guessed that he was the present Sōroku. The first Sōroku, Kensaku had been told, had come originally from Kameyama in Ise; and the family which Kensaku’s aunt on his mother’s side had married into were closely related to the potter’s family, so that whenever she came to Kyoto she would stay with them. For this reason, then, Kensaku was drawn to this man; yet, when he thought of his aunt, he somehow could not feel that he himself was truly her nephew.

  In contrast to Sōroku’s shop, which was dank and gloomy, Mokusen’s shop that they next went to had a bright and lively atmosphere. The first Mokusen had once worked for the house of Sōroku, but had left to establish his own workshop. Here they found much that they liked, and were able to buy all the presents they needed. It was a pity, for Kensaku would have bought them from Sōroku, if only he had had suitable things to sell. The second Mokusen, seated in the midst of all his wares, talking to his customers as he poured the tea himself, was indeed the very picture of vigorous entrepreneurship.