Kotto

by Lafcadio Hearn

  * * * * * *

  —Having become quite ill, I hoped that mother would be able to help me. But Kō was again sick, and Yoshi [a younger sister here mentioned for the first time] and mother had both to attend her constantly: so I could get no aid from father's house. There was no one to help me except some of my female neighbours, who attended me out of pure kindness, when they could spare the time. At last I got Hori-Shi to engage a good old woman to assist me; and under her kind care I began to get well. About the beginning of the eighth month I felt much stronger....

  On the fourth day of the ninth month my sister Kō died of consumption.

  —It had been agreed beforehand that if an unexpected matter1 came to pass, my younger sister Yoshi should be received in the place of Kō. As Goto-Shi found it inconvenient to live altogether alone, the marriage took place on the eleventh day of the same month; and the usual congratulations were offered.

  On the last day of the same month Okada-Shi suddenly died.

  We found ourselves greatly troubled [pecuniarily embarrassed] by the expenses that all these events caused us.

  —When I first heard that Yoshi bad been received so soon after the death of Ko, I was greatly displeased. But I kept my feelings hidden, and I spoke to the man as before.

  In the eleventh month Goto went alone to Sapporo.

  On the second day of the second month, thirty-third year of Meiji [1900], Goto-Shi returned to Tōkyō; and on the fourteenth day of the same month he went away again to the Hokkaidō [Yezo], taking Yoshi with him.

  * * * * * *

  On the twentieth day of the second month, at six o'clock in the morning, my third child—a boy—was born. Both mother and child were well.

  —We had expected a girl, but it was a boy that was born; so, when my husband came back from his work, he was greatly surprised and pleased to find that he had a boy.

  —But the child was not well able to take the breast: so we had to nourish him by means of a feeding-bottle.

  On the seventh day after the boy's birth, we partly shaved his head. And in the evening we had the shichiya [seventh-day festival]—but, this time, all by ourselves.

  —My husband had caught a bad cold some time before; and he could not go to work next morning, as he was coughing badly. So he remained in the house.

  Early in the morning the child had taken his milk as usual. But, about ten o'clock in the forenoon, he seemed to be suffering great pain in his breast; and he began to moan so strangely that we sent a man for a doctor. Unfortunately the doctor that we asked to come was out of town, and we were told that he would not come back before night. Therefore, we thought that it would be better to send at once for another doctor; and we sent for one. He said that he would come in the evening. But, about two o'clock in the afternoon, the child's sickness suddenly became worse; and a little before three o'clock—the twenty-seventh day of the second month—aenaku!1—my child was dead, having lived for only eight days....

  —I thought to myself that, even if this new misfortune did not cause my husband to feel an aversion for me, thus having to part with all my children, one after another, must be the punishment of some wrong done in the time of a former life. And, so thinking, I knew that my sleeves would never again become dry,—that the rain [of tears] would never cease,—that never again in this world would the sky grow clear for me.

  And more and more I wondered whether my husband's feelings would not change for the worse, by reason of his having to meet such trouble, over and over again, on my account. I felt anxious about his heart, because of what already was in my own.

  Nevertheless, he only repeated the words, Temméï itashikata tore naku: "From the decrees of Heaven there is no escape."

  —I thought that I should be better able to visit the tomb of my child if he were buried in some temple near us. So the funeral took place at the temple called Sempukuji in Ōkubo; and the ashes were buried there....

  Tanoshimi mo

  Samété hakanashi

  Haru no yumé!1

  [Translation.]

  —All the delight having perished; hopeless I remain: it was only a dream of Spring!2

  [No date.]

  —... I wonder whether it was because of the sorrow that I suffered—my face and limbs became slightly swollen during the fortnight3 after my boy's death.

  —It was nothing very serious, after all, and it soon went away.... Now the period of twenty-one days [the period of danger] is past....

  Here the poor mother's diary ends. The closing statement regarding the time of twenty-one days from the birth of her child leaves it probable that these last lines were written on the thirteenth or fourteenth day of the third month. She died on the twenty-eighth of the same month.

  I doubt if any one not really familiar with the life of Japan can fully understand this simple history. But to imagine the merely material conditions of the existence here recorded should not be difficult:—the couple occupying a tiny house of two rooms—one room of six mats and one of three;—the husband earning barely £1 per month;—the wife sewing, washing, cooking (outside the house, of course);—no comfort of fire, even during the period of greatest cold. I estimate that the pair must have lived at an average cost of about seven pence a day, not including house-rent. Their pleasures were indeed very cheap: a payment of twopence admitted them to theatres or to gidayū-recitations; and their sight-seeing was done on foot. Yet even these diversions were luxuries for them. Expenses represented by the necessary purchase of clothing, or by the obligation of making presents to kindred upon the occasion of a marriage or a birth or a death, could only have been met by heroic economy. Now it is true that thousands of poor folk in Tōkyō live still more cheaply than this,—live upon a much smaller income than £1 per month,—and nevertheless remain always clean, neat, and cheerful. But only a very strong woman can easily bear and bring up children under such conditions,—conditions much more hazardous than those of the harder but healthier peasant-life of the interior. And, as might be supposed, the weakly fail and perish in multitude.

  Readers of the diary may have wondered at the eagerness shown by so shy and gentle a woman to become thus suddenly the wife of a total stranger, about whose character she knew absolutely nothing. A majority of Japanese marriages, indeed, are arranged for in the matter-of-fact way here described, and with the aid of a nakōdo; but the circumstances, in this particular case, were exceptionally discomforting. The explanation is pathetically simple. All good girls are expected to marry; and to remain unmarried after a certain age is a shame and a reproach. The dread of such reproach, doubtless, impelled the writer of the diary to snatch at the first chance of fulfilling her natural destiny. She was already twenty-nine years old;—another such chance might never have offered itself.

  To me the chief significance of this humble confession of struggle and failure is not in the utterance of anything exceptional, but in the expression of something as common to Japanese life as blue air and sunshine. The brave resolve of the woman to win affection by docility and by faultless performance of duty, her gratitude for every small kindness, her childlike piety, her supreme unselfishness, her Buddhist interpretation of suffering as the penalty for some fault committed in a previous life, her attempts to write poetry when her heart was breaking,—all this, indeed, I find touching, and more than touching. But I do not find it exceptional. The traits revealed are typical,—typical of the moral nature of the woman of the people. Perhaps there are not many Japanese women of the same humble class who could express their personal joy and pain in a record at once so artless and pathetic; but there are millions of such women inheriting—from ages and ages of unquestioning faith—a like conception of life as duty, and an equal capacity of unselfish attachment.

  Footnotes

  1 A kozukai is a man-servant chiefly employed as doorkeeper and messenger. The term is rendered better by the French word concierge than by our English word "porter"; but neither expression exactly meets the Japanese meaning.


  1 The reader must understand that "the man of the opposite house" is acting as nakōdo, or match-maker, in the interest of a widower who wishes to remarry. By the statement, "no preparation has been made," the father means that he is unable to provide for his daughter's marriage, and cannot furnish her with a bridal outfit,—clothing, household furniture, etc.,—as required by custom. The reply that "no preparation is needed' 1 signifies that the proposed husband is willing to take the girl without any marriage gifts.

  2 Throughout this Ms., except in one instance, the more respectful form Sama never occurs after a masculine name, the popular form Sbi being used even after the names of kindred.

  1 The father has evidently been consulting a fortune-telling book, such as the San-zé-sō, or a professional diviner. The allusion to the astrologically determined natures, or temperaments, of the pair could scarcely be otherwise explained.

  2 Miai is a term used to signify a meeting arranged in order to enable the parties affianced to see each other before the wedding-day.

  1 Meaning: "I am ready to become your wife, if you are willing to take me as you have been informed that I am,—a poor girl without money or clothes."

  2 Lucky and unlucky days were named and symbolized as follows, according to the old Japanese astrological system:—

  1 This statement also implies that a professional diviner has been consulted. The reference to the direction, or bōaku, can be fully understood only by those conversant with the old Chinese nature-philosophy.

  1 Lit. "thrice-three-nine-times-wine-cup."

  2 At a Japanese wedding it is customary to avoid the use of any words to which an unlucky signification attaches, or of any words suggesting misfortune in even an indirect way. The word sumu, "to finish," or "to end"; the word kaëru "to return," (suggesting divorce), as well as many others, are forbidden at weddings. Accordingly, the term o-hiraki has long been euphemistically substituted for the term oitoma ("honourable leave-taking," i.e. "farewell"), in the popular etiquette of wedding assemblies.

  3 "I felt a tumultuous beating within my breast," would perhaps be a closer rendering of the real sense; but it would sound oddly artificial by comparison with the simple Japanese utterance: "Ato ni iva futari sasbi-mukai to nari, muni ucbi-saivagi; sono bazukasbisa bissbi ni tsukusbi-gatasbi."

  1 From sato "the parental home," and kaeri, "to return." The first visit of a bride to her parents, after marriage, is thus called.

  2 Aigasa, a fantastic term compounded from the verb "to accord," "to harmonize," and the noun kasa. "an umbrella. It signifies one umbrella used by two persons—especially lovers: an umbrella-of-loving-accord. To understand the wife's anxiety about being seen walking with her husband under the borrowed umbrella, the reader must "know that it is not yet considered decorous for wife and husband even to walk side by side in public. A newly wedded pair, using a single umbrella in this way, would be particularly liable to have jests made at their expense—jests that might prove trying to the nerves of a timid bride.

  1 She means the great Buddhist temple of Kwannon,—the most popular, and perhaps the most famous, Buddhist temple in Tokyo.

  2 In the Okubo quarter. The shrine is shadowed by a fine grove of trees.

  1 That is to say, "It was agreed that we should all go together to see the flowers." The word banami ("flower-seeing") might be given to any of the numerous flower-festivals of the year, according to circumstances; but it here refers to the season of cherry blossoms. Throughout this diary the dates are those of the old lunar calendar.

  1 A literal rendering is almost impossible. There is a ferry, called the Ferry of Imado, over the Sumidagawa; but the reference here is really neither to the ferry nor to the ferryman, but to the nakōdo, or match-maker, who arranged for the marriage. Mimeguri-Inari is the popular name of a famous temple of the God of Rice, in Mukojima; but there is an untranslatable play here upon the name, suggesting a lovers' meeting. The reference to the Sumidagawa also contains a play upon the syllables sumi,—the verb "sumi" signifying "to be clear." Shirabige-Yashiro ("White-Hair Temple") is the name of a real and very celebrated Shintō shrine in the city; but the name is here used chiefly to express the hope that the union may last into the period of hoary age. Besides these suggestions, we may suppose that the poem contains allusions to the actual journey made,—over the Sumidagawa by ferry, and thence to the various temples named. From old time, poems of like meaning have been made about these places; but the lines above given are certainly original, with the obvious exception of a few phrases which have become current coin in popular poetry.

  1 The Soga Brothers were famous heroes of the twelfth century. The word kaichō signifies the religious festival during which the principal image of a temple is exposed to view.

  1 Name of a public hall at which various kinds of entertainments are given, more especially recitations by professional story-tellers.

  2 Lit. "there never yet having been any waves nor even wind between us."

  3 The Shintō parish-temple, or more correctly, district-temple of the Yotsuya quarter. Each quarter, or district, of the city has its tutelar divinity, or Ujigami. Suga-jinja is the Ujigami-temple of Yotsuya.

  1 Iyogasuri is the name given to a kind of dark-blue cotton-cloth, with a sprinkling of white in small patterns, manufactured at Iyō, in Shikoku.

  1 The Kanazawa-tei is a public hall in the Yotsuya quarter. Harimadayu is the professional name of a celebrated chanter of the dramatic recitations called jōruri and gidayū—in which the reciter, or chanter, mimes the voices and action of many different characters.

  1 She alludes to a popular saying of Buddhist origin:—Jisbin, kivaji, kaminari, misoka, kikin, yamai no naki kuni é yuku ("Let us go to the Land where there is neither earthquake, nor fire, nor lightning, nor any last day of the month, nor famine, nor sickness").

  2 Ujigami of the Ushigome district.

  3 Festival of the "Further Shore" (that is to say, Paradise). There are two great Buddhist festivals thus called,—the first representing a period of seven days during the spring equinox; the second, a period of seven days during the autumnal equinox.

  1 This drama is founded upon the history of a famous rice merchant named Matsumaëya Gorōbei.

  2 Shiogama-Daimyōjin, a Shintō deity, to whom women pray for easy delivery in child-birth. Shrines of this divinity may be found in almost every province of Japan.

  1 Uréshiki ma wa wazuka nite, mata kanashimi to henzuru; umaréru mono wa kanarazu shizu.—A Buddhist text that has become a Japanese proverb.

  1 Composed by the bereaved mother herself, as a discipline against grief.

  2 Nadeshiko literally means a pink; but in poetry the word is commonly used in the meaning of "baby."

  3 Samidaré is the name given to the old fifth month, or, more strictly speaking, to a rainy period occurring in that month. The verses are, of course, allusive, and their real meaning might be rendered thus: "Oh! the season of grief! All things now seem sad: the sleeves of my robe are moist with my tears!"

  1 The sotoba is a tall wooden lath, inscribed with Buddhist texts, and planted above a grave. For a full account of the sotoba, see the article entitled "The Literature of the Dead," in my Exotics and Retrospectives, p. 102. I am not able to give any account or explanation of the curious superstition here referred to; but it is probably of the same class with the strange custom recorded in my Gleanings in Buddha-Fields, p. 126.

  2 It would be unfair to suppose that this visit to the theatre was made only for pleasure; it was made rather in the hope of forgetting pain, and probably by order of the husband.

  Ōkubo Hikozaemon was the favourite minister and adviser of the Shogun Iyemitsu. Numberless stories of his sagacity and kindness are recorded in popular literature; and in many dramas the notable incidents of his official career are still represented.

  3 There are five holidays thus named in every year. These go-sekku are usually called, Jinjitsu (the 7th of the 1st month), Joki (the 3d of the 3d month), Tango (the
5th of the 5th month), Tanabata (the 7th of the 7th month), and Chōyō (the 9th of the 9th month).

  1 A divinity half-Buddhist, half-Shintō, in origin, but now popularly considered Shintō. This god is especially worshipped as a healer, and a protector against sickness. His principal temple in Tōkyō is in the Nihonbashi district.

  2 A festival in commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the establishment of Tokyo as the Imperial capital, instead of Kyōto.

  3 Daimyō-no-gyōretsu. On the festival mentioned there was a pageant representing feudal princes travelling in state, accompanied by their retainers and servants. The real armour, costumes, and weapons of the period before Meiji were effectively displayed on this occasion.

  1 A congratulatory feast, held on the evening of the seventh day after the birth of a child. Relatives and friends invited usually make small presents to the baby.

  1 The first annual Festival of Girls is thus called.

  1 All the objects here mentioned are toys—toys appropriate to the occasion. The Dairi are old-fashioned toy-figures, representing an emperor and empress in ancient costume. Hina are dolls.

  1 Another name for the Buddhist Paradise of the West,—the heaven of Amida (Amitabha).

  1 Nephritis.

  2 Or, "very thin and loose,"—the Karma-relation being emblematically spoken of as a bond or tie. She means, of course, that the loss of the child was the inevitable consequence of some fault committed in a previous state of existence.

  3 Gidayū-bon "the book of the gidayū." There are many gidayu books. Gidayū is the name given to a kind of musical drama. In the dramatic composition here referred to, the characters Miyagino and Shinobu are sisters, who relate their sorrows to each other.

  1 I.e. before she herself (the mother) dies;—there is a colloquial phrase in the Japanese text. Ko ga oya ni sakidatsu is the common expression: "the child goes before the parents,"—that is to say, dies before the parents.