“There. Have a drink,” Shunsuke said. “It’s an autumn evening. You are there, the wine is here, there’s not a thing more this world requires. Socrates listened to the cicada’s voice and in the morning by the little stream lectured to the beautiful boy Phaedrus. Socrates asked questions and answered them himself. He discovered the roundabout method of arriving at truth through questioning. But you’ll never get a question from absolute beauty in a natural body. Questions and answers can only be exchanged between things in the same category. Spirit and body can never engage in dialogue.
“Spirit can only inquire. It can never get a reply—outside of an echo.
“I did not choose to be in the position of questioning and then answering. Asking is my fate. There you are, beautiful nature. Here I am, ugly spirit. This is the eternal schema. No algebra can" bring about a mutual exchange of those terms. I don’t have any intention of deliberately belittling my own spirit. Spirit has many quite wonderful things about it.
“But, Yuichi, my boy, love—at least my love—doesn’t have even the hope of Socrates’ love. Love is born from nothing less than hopelessness. Spirit against nature—the demonstration of spirit in the face of such an incomprehensible thing as love.
“Then why do I inquire? To spirit, there is no way of proving oneself save in inquiring of something else. Spirit that does not inquire leads a precarious existence ..
Shunsuke paused. He turned about and opened the bay window, looking through the screen and down into the garden. There was a faint rustle of wind.
“The wind seems to be rising. Autumn is getting on. Is it hot in here? Since it’s hot, leaving it open won’t ...”
Yuichi shook his head. Shunsuke closed the window again and then, looking the youth in the face, resumed his lecture.
“There we are. Spirit constantly formulates questions. It must store up inquiries. The creative power of spirit lies in its ability to create questions. Thus the supreme objective of spirit is in the creation of the question itself—in short, the creation of nature. But that is impossible. Yet the march toward impossibility is the method of spirit.
“Spirit is—well, it is the drive to pile zero on zero endlessly in order to arrive at one.
“Let’s say I ask you: ‘Why are you so beautiful?* Can you answer? Spirit from the beginning anticipates no reply.”
His eyes stared fixedly. Yuichi tried to return the stare. Yuichi’s power as one who sees, however, had been lost, as if he had been put under a spell.
The beautiful youth was looked at—willy-nilly. What towering impoliteness there was in that look! It turned its object to stone, it robbed him of his will, it reduced him to nature.
Of course, that look wasn’t directed at me, Yuichi thought, in terror. Mr. Hinoki’s look was undoubtedly directed at me, but the thing Mr. Hinoki was looking at was not me. Another Yuichi who is not me is in this room.
That was nature itself, the Yuichi who yielded nothing to the ancient statues in their perfection—Yuichi saw clearly the sculptures of the beautiful youths beyond his powers of seeing. Another beautiful youth clearly existed in that study—a youth who never shrinks no matter how much he is stared at.
The sound of wine being poured into a glass brought Yuichi to his senses. He had been dreaming with his eyes open.
“Drink,” said Shunsuke, bringing his glass to his mouth and going on with his talk.
“So, beauty, do you see, is on this side, yet unreachable. Isn’t that right? Religion always puts the other side, the future world, over there in the distance. Distance, however, in man’s concept, in the long run is something that can be traversed. Science and religion only differ in respect to the distance. The great nebula six hundred and eighty thousand light-years away, similarly, can be reached. Religion is the vision of reaching; science is the technique of it.
“Beauty, on the other hand, is always on this side. It is in this world, in the present, firm; it can be touched with the hand. That our sexual appetites can taste it is beauty’s precondition. Sensuality is, therefore, essential. It confirms beauty. However, beauty can never be reached, because the susceptibilities of sense, more than anything else, block attainment of it. The method by which the Greeks expressed beauty through sculpture was a wise one. I am a novelist. Of all the rubbish that has been invented in modem times, the profession I have chosen is the worst. Don’t you think that for the expression of beauty it is the most bungling and low-class of professions?
“Right here, a thing that cannot be touched. When I say this, you must know what I mean. Beauty is the nature under man’s nature, under man’s condition. Among men, it controls men most deeply. It is beauty that defies mankind. Thanks to beauty, spirit cannot get a moment of decent rest.”
Yuichi listened. He felt as if, close by, the sculpture of the beautiful youth was listening intently in the same way. In the room the miracle had already occurred. After the miracle had occurred, however, only a commonplace quiet occupied the place.
“Yuichi, my boy, in this world there are times known as the supreme moments,” Shunsuke said. “They are moments of the reconciliation of spirit and nature, the conjunction of spirit and nature in this world.
“Their expression is nothing if not impossible for human beings while they are alive. Living men can taste those moments, perhaps, but they cannot express them. That goes beyond human powers. Do you ask: ‘Then human beings cannot express superhuman things?’ That would be a mistake. Human beings in truth cannot express the ultimate in human conditions. Human beings cannot express the highest moments that occur to human beings.
“The artist is not capable of everything, nor is expression capable of all. Expression is always being pressured to make alternative judgments. Expression or action? The action of love, now—without action man cannot love. So he expresses it afterward.
“The truly important problem, however, is the thing in which expression and action might be possible simultaneously. Of these, man knows only one. That is death.
“Death is action, but there is no action so supremely unitary as this—oh, yes, I made a mistake.”
Shunsuke smiled.
“Death does not go beyond truth. Suicide might be called death through action. A man cannot be born of his own will, but he can will to die. This was the basic proposition of all the ancient suicide philosophies. However, there can be no doubt that in death, the action known as suicide and the expression of all that is life can come simultaneously. The supreme moment must wait for death. This can be proved in reverse, it seems.
“The highest expression of the living—occupying at best the second highest position—is the total form of life minus alpha. To this expression add the alpha of life, and life is complete. Why? Even while expressing it men go on living —undeniably their lives are excluded from expression, but they are only simulating a temporary death.
“This alpha, how men have dreamed about it! Artists’ dreams are always connected with it. The fact that life dilutes expression, robs the real preciseness from expression, everybody is aware of. The preciseness that the living conceive of is only one form of preciseness. To the dead, for all I know, the sky we think blue may glimmer green.
“It’s a strange thing. When living men are driven to hopelessness in trying to express this, again and again it is beauty that comes rushing in to save them. It is beauty that teaches that one must stand one’s ground firmly among the impressions of life.
“And now we see that beauty is bound by life and sensuality. It teaches men to have faith only in the validity of sensuality. In that respect, indeed, we may understand how beauty is logical to men.”
When Shunsuke had finished speaking, he laughed softly and added: “Well, that all. It wouldn’t be right to have you fall asleep. There’s no reason to hurry tonight; after all, you haven’t been here for a long time. If you’ve had enough wine ...”
Shunsuke saw that Yuichi’s glass was still full.
“Well! Shall we play chess? Kawada
taught you how, I suppose.”
“Yes, a little.”
“Kawada was my teacher, too. Of course, he didn’t teach us chess so that we could play on into an autumn night in this way. This board, now—” He pointed to a fine old board with pieces arranged in their places.
“I found it in an antique shop. Chess is now perhaps my only debauchery. Can you stand it?”
“I don’t mind.”
Yuichi did not deter him. He had forgotten that he had come here to return the 500,000 yen.
“I’ll give you the white men.”
On either side of the chessboard the unfinished glasses of white wine shimmered. Then the two men were quiet; only the faint click of moving pieces broke the silence.
As they sat thus, the presence of another person in the study made itself evident. Yuichi looked over his shoulder several times toward the invisible statue that was observing the moves of the chessmen.
There was no way of estimating what time they spent in this way, whether long or short they did not know. If the “supreme moment,” as Shunsuke had called it, were to come in a moment of unawareness like this, it would surely go by unnoticed. One game was over. Yuichi had won.
“Well, I lose,” the old author said. In his face, however, delight flowed. He wore a peaceful expression Yuichi had never seen before.
“Maybe I had too much to drink and that beat me. Let’s try a return bout. Maybe I’d better sober up . . .” As he said this he poured some water into a cup from the pitcher in which thin slices of lemon had been floating. He stood up, holding the cup: “Excuse me just a moment.”
He went into the library. After a while he lay down on the bed in a position in which only his legs were visible. His serene voice called to Yuichi from the study: “If I just doze off a little, I’ll sober up. Wake me in twenty or thirty minutes. When I wake up I’ll play you that return match. Wait, now.”
Yuichi moved to the window seat. He stretched his legs comfortably and toyed with the chessmen.
Afterward, when Yuichi went to wake him, Shunsuke did not answer. He was dead. On the table near his head, held down by his wrist watch, was a slip of paper on which something had been hurriedly written:
“Sayonara. There’s a gift for you in the right-hand drawer of the desk.”
Yuichi awoke the housekeeper; the family physician, Dr. Kumemura, was called. The doctor heard all that had been going on. The cause of death was uncertain at first; finally it was put down as suicide, brought about by a lethal dose of Pavinal, which Shunsuke had been taking daily to relieve the neuralgic pains in his knee. Yuichi wa asked whether a note had been left. He produced the slip of paper. When the right-hand drawer of the desk was opened, they discovered a legally executed will. In it nearly ten million yen in personal and real property and other assets in the estate were left in entirety to Yuichi Minami. The two witnesses were the head of the publishing firm that had published the complete works, an old friend of Shunsuke, and the head of his book publishing department. They had accompanied Shunsuke to a notary in Kasumigaseki a month before.
Yuichi’s plan to return the 500,000 yen debt had failed. To make matters worse, he was depressed by the thought that his entire life would be bound by the ten million yen through which Shunsuke had expressed his love for him, though under the circumstances depression was inappropriate. The doctor phoned the police station, and the chief inspector came, along with a detective and a coroner, to look into the matter.
Yuichi replied to all questions during the investigation. The doctor put in friendly words, and there seemed to be not the slightest suspicion of collusion in regard to the suicide. On seeing the will, however, the assistant police inspector inquired closely into the nature of the relationship with the deceased.
“He was a friend of my dead father and brought my wife and me together. In this respect he was a second father to me and went to much trouble on my behalf. He always treated me with great affection.”
With this single perjury, Yuichi’s eyes streamed with tears. The chief investigator took these tears with professional detachment. He was convinced of Yuichi’s complete innocence.
The ever vigilant newspapermen came in, badgering Yuichi with the same questions.
“Since he made you his sole heir, he must have loved you a lot, didn’t he?”
That word “love” among these words that had no ulterior intent pierced Yuichi’s heart.
The young man sat with a serious look on his face and made no reply. Then he remembered he had not informed his family, and he went to call Yasuko.
The night was over. Yuichi did not feel tired. He was not sleepy, but he was tired of the mourners and the newspapermen who had been crowding in since early in the morning, so he told Dr. Kumemura he was going to take a walk.
It was a very clear morning. He went down the hill and looked at the trolley tracks stretching away in twin, freshly gleaming rails through the silent street. Most of the stores were still closed.
Ten million yen, the young man thought, as he crossed the broad street. But watch out! You get hit by a car now and you’ll spoil it all.
A flower shop had just opened its doors. The array of plants and blooms leaned forward with a damp, depressed air.
Ten million yen—you can buy a lot of flowers with that, the young man thought.
A nameless freedom hung heavily in his chest, heavier than the long night’s gloom. Uneasiness made his steps clumsy as he hurried along—an uneasiness brought on by his staying up all night, one might say. The Government Line Station came into view; he could see the early working people gathering toward the ticket gate. In front of the station two or three bootblacks had already lined up.
First, get your shoes shined ... Yuichi thought.
Table of Contents
Forbidden Colors
Chapter 1 THE BEGINNING
Chapter 2 MIRROR CONTRACT
Chapter 3 THE MARRIAGE OF A DUTIFUL SON
Chapter 4 FOREST FIRE IN THE DISTANT TWILIGHT
Chapter 5 THE FIRST STEPS TOWARD SALVATION
Chapter 6 THE VEXATIONS OF WOMANHOOD
Chapter 7 ENTRANCE TO THE STAGE
Chapter 8 THE JUNGLE OF SENTIMENT
Chapter 9 JEALOUSY
Chapter 10 THE FALSE ACCIDENT AND THE TRUE
Chapter 11 FAMILY RITUAL: TEA WITH RICE
Chapter 12 GAY PARTY
Chapter 13 COURTESY
Chapter 14 ALONE AND INDEPENDENT
Chapter 15 BLUE SUNDAY
Chapter 16 FLIGHT IN FORMATION
Chapter 17 ONE’S HEART’S DESIRE
Chapter 18 SIGHTSEER’S MISFORTUNE
Chapter 19 MY HELPMATE
Chapter 20 CALAMITY TO JANE IS CALAMITY TO JOHN
Chapter 21 CHUTA IN OLD AGE
Chapter 22 THE SEDUCER
Chapter 23 DAYS OF RIPENING
Chapter 24 DIALOGUE
Chapter 25 TURNABOUT
Chapter 26 SOBERING SUMMER
Chapter 27 INTERMEZZO
Chapter 28 HAILSTONES FROM A CLEAR SKY
Chapter 29 DEUS EX MACHINA
Chapter 30 HEROIC PASSION
Chapter 31 PROBLEMS SPIRITUAL AND FINANCIAL
Chapter 32 GRAND FINALE
Forbidden Colors Page 46