To the Spring Equinox and Beyond

by Sōseki Natsume

  "Oh, you've done it up quite nicely," her mother said, and Chiyoko, quite pleased as she looked at Yoiko from behind, instructed the child, "Now go to your father and show it to him."

  Yoiko tottered to the entrance of Matsumoto's study and got down on all fours. Whenever she went in to see her father, she would greet him in this way. She raised her hips as high as she could, and lowering her ricecake-offering-like head a few inches from the threshold, again said, "Ibbon! Ibbon!"

  Matsumoto turned his eyes from the book he was reading. "Ah, your head is very pretty," he said. "Who made you up?" With her head still bowed, Yoiko replied, "Chii, Chii." The lisping child usually called Chiyoko by this name. Standing behind the girl, Chiyoko heard her name coming from the tiny lips and laughed aloud in delight.

  Meanwhile, the other children returned from school, suddenly adding their own varied colors to the scene hitherto centered solely on the red ribbon. The six-year-old came back from kindergarten with what looked like a war drum with a crest of three commas shaped into a circle painted on it. He led Yoiko away, promising to let her beat on it. Chiyoko gazed at the shadow of Yoiko's red woolen socks, which looked like two money pouches moving along the corridor. The round tassel at the end of the string binding each sock skipped with every jumping step of her tiny feet.

  "I believe that's the pair you knitted for her."

  "Yes, they do look cute on her, don't they?"

  For a while Chiyoko sat talking with her uncle. A dreary rain, suddenly falling from clouded skies, splattered down and rapidly drenched the bare paulownia trees. Matsumoto and Chiyoko turned their eyes simultaneously toward the dreary color of the rain beyond the glass doors of the veranda, their hands held over the small brazier.

  "The plantain really makes the rain sound noisy," Chiyoko said.

  "It certainly holds on. I've been watching it every day, thinking it would wither this day or the next, but it's still fresh. The flowers of the sasanqua are gone, and the paulownia are bare, yet the plantain still has its green leaves, as you can see."

  "You do wonder about funny things, Uncle. That's why a certain somebody says that Tsunezo's an idler."

  "Your father would never be able to study the plantain all his life like an idler."

  "I wouldn't want to either—to study that. But you're so much more learned than my father. I truly admire you for it."

  "Don't be fresh!"

  "I'm telling the truth! No matter what I ask, you never fail to give me an answer."

  As they were talking, the maid entered to hand Matsumoto something that looked like a letter of introduction. "A gentleman has just come with this," she said.

  Matsumoto stood up laughing. "Wait here, Chiyoko. I have something interesting to tell you."

  "Not if it's that horrible stuff you told me the other day—asking me to learn a ridiculous number of foreign tobacco brand-names!"

  Without responding, Matsumoto went out toward the drawing room. Chiyoko returned to the living room. Someone had already put on the electric lamps, since the daylight coming through the heavy downpour was now scant. Blue flames from the gas burning busily on two portable stoves in the kitchen indicated that supper preparations had begun. Soon the children sat down facing one another on either side of the large table. It was customary for Yoiko to be fed by a maid apart from the family, but Chiyoko took the maid's role that evening. Carrying a tray with a petite vermilion-lacquered bowl of rice porridge and a plate of cooked fish on it, she led the child into the small six-mat room used mainly for changing clothes, a room just off the living room. Two chests of drawers stood against the wall as did a full-length mirror, in front of which Chiyoko placed the tray containing the toy-like bowl and the porcelain dish.

  "All right, Yoiko-san, here's your supper, what you've been waiting for."

  With each spoonful of rice porridge that Chiyoko put into Yoiko's mouth, the child was pressed into saying things like "Umm-mm!" and "More, more!" Finally she insisted on feeding herself and took the spoon from Chiyoko, who carefully taught her how to hold it. Yoiko, who could of course pronounce only the simplest short words, inclined her flattish ricecake-like head and asked, "So? Like so?" each time she was told she was holding the spoon wrong. Amused over how she said it, Chiyoko made her repeat the words again and again.

  As the child began to say the phrase yet another time, her big eyes looking slightly sideways at Chiyoko, she suddenly let her spoon fall and dropped face down in front of Chiyoko's knees.

  "What are you doing?" Unaware that anything was wrong, Chiyoko lifted the child in her arms. But she felt the body go limp, like that of a sleeping child, and cried aloud, "Yoiko-san! Yoiko-san!"

  Yoiko lay propped on Chiyoko's lap with her eyes half-closed and her mouth half-open as though she had dozed off. Chiyoko patted her on the back a few times, but it produced no effect.

  "Auntie, come quickly! Something awful has happened!"

  The child's mother flung aside her chopsticks and rice bowl and ran noisily into the room. "What is it?" she cried, turning Yoiko's face directly up under the electric bulb. Already the lips were purplish. She held her palm over the child's mouth but felt no breathing. In a choked, agonized voice, she had the maid fetch a damp towel. Placing it on Yoiko's forehead, she asked Chiyoko whether there was any pulse.

  Chiyoko instantly clasped the tiny wrist but did not know where to feel for the pulse. Pale and beginning to cry, she said, "Auntie, what can we do?"

  The mother ordered the other children, who were standing there stunned, to hurry and call their father. All four ran to the drawing room. Soon after their footsteps ceased at the end of the hallway, Matsumoto came in, a baffled look on his face.

  "What happened?" he said, leaning over his wife and Chiyoko and peering down at Yoiko. A single glance at the child was enough to make him frown.

  "The doctor . . ."

  He wasted no time in arriving. "There's something strange about the symptoms," he said, immediately giving the child an injection. But there was no change.

  "Is it hopeless?" This painfully strained question passed the father's tightly closed lips.

  The eyes of the three, filled with extraordinary light as if hoping against hope, were fixed on the doctor. He had been looking into the child's eyes with a speculum and now, when asked this question, began rolling up Yoiko's kimono to examine her further.

  "There's nothing I can do. The pupils and anus are dilated. I'm very sorry."

  In spite of his words, he injected another drug into the region of the child's heart. As he had expected, it did nothing for her. When Matsumoto saw the needle pierce his tiny daughter's almost transparently clear skin, he knitted his brows in spite of himself.

  Chiyoko's eyes welled with tears, which fell to her lap.

  "What caused it?" asked Matsumoto.

  "It's strange, very strange. No matter how I analyze it," said the doctor, meditating.

  "How about a mustard bath?" said Matsumoto, offering a layman's suggestion.

  "I have no objection." The doctor's response was immediate, but his face showed no sign of encouragement.

  Soon a washtub filled with steaming water was brought in, and a bag of mustard was emptied into it. The mother and Chiyoko silently removed Yoiko's kimono. The doctor, patting his hand onto the hot water, cautioned, "Pour in a little more cold so she doesn't get scalded."

  The doctor held Yoiko in his arms and placed her into the bath for several minutes. In breathless suspense the three others watched the color of the child's soft skin. "This is enough. If it's too long . . ." he said and lifted the child from the tub.

  The mother took the infant in her hands, drying her carefully with a towel before putting her clothing back on. But she remained as limp as ever, showing no sign of change. "Let's leave her lying as she is for a while," the mother said, casting a sad glance at her husband.

  Saying simply "All right," Matsumoto returned to the drawing room and saw his visitor off at the entrance.

/>   Presently a small pillow and bedding were taken from the closet. Seeing the child lying there as though she had fallen asleep as peacefully as she usually did at night, Chiyoko broke down, sobbing hysterically. "Oh, what have I done!"

  "It's not your fault, Chiyo-chan."

  "But I was the one feeding her. I must beg forgiveness from my aunt and uncle!"

  In faltering words Chiyoko related again and again how the child looked her usual self just a while ago when she had been helping her eat.

  "And still, it's so odd," Matsumoto said, his arms folded. "Come, Osen," he urged, "it's too sad leaving her lying here. Let's carry her into the drawing room."

  Chiyoko helped move the bedding.

  Gently they laid the infant in bed with her head to the north, as custom demanded. The place in the room was suitable, though open to view, as they did not have the proper folding screen for the occasion. Osen brought in from the living room a balloon Yoiko had been playing with in the morning and placed it beside the pillow. A bleached cotton cloth was put over Yoiko's face. Often Chiyoko uncovered it to observe the child, and often she cried.

  "Just look," Osen sobbed, her nose clogged as she glanced back to her husband. "Her face is as lovely as a Kannon-sama's."

  "Mm," Matsumoto said, peering at the child's face without moving from his seat.

  Soon a plain wooden desk was set down, and a twig of anise, an incense burner, and white dumplings were arranged on it. When they saw the feeble light from the candles, the three adults were struck for the first time with the lonely feeling that a great distance now separated them from Yoiko, who would never awaken. Each in turn lit an incense stick. The odor from the burning incense stimulated the nostrils of the three, drawn into a quite different world from the one they had been in two hours ago. The children had been sent to bed early as usual except that the eldest, Sakiko, would not leave the spot where the incense was burning.

  "You go to bed too," her mother said.

  "But no one has come yet from Uchisaiwaicho or Kanda."

  "They'll be here soon. It's all right. You can go to bed before they get here."

  Sakiko went out to the corridor, but she looked back and beckoned Chiyoko. When Chiyoko came out, the girl whispered to be taken to the toilet. She was afraid because the room had no light. With a match Chiyoko kindled a hand lamp and turned the corner of the corridor with Sakiko. On the way back Chiyoko happened to glance into the servants' room, where in undertones the kitchen maid was talking over the brazier with a rick-shawman patronized by the family. She's probably giving him a detailed account, thought Chiyoko. The other maid was wiping trays in the living room, readying teacups in preparation for visitors.

  Before long a few of the relatives who had been informed of the news came to pay their condolences. Some of the visitors left soon, promising their attendance at the funeral. To each visitor Chiyoko repeated her account of Yoiko's last moments, which had come on so suddenly. After midnight Osen brought in a portable warmer for those keeping the wake, but none would use it. The Matsumotos were exhorted to retire and, against their will, did so. Afterward Chiyoko kept the incense fresh and burning continuously by adding new sticks to those that had burned down. The rain had not yet stopped, but she no longer heard the sound of the downpour striking the plantain leaves. Rather, the sound on the zinc-roofed eaves sent into her ears the ceaseless drops of a desolate and lonely sadness. From time to time until the dawn broke, she took the cloth from Yoiko's face and sobbed.

  The next day all the women present helped sew a hemp kimono in which to clothe Yoiko. The little sleeves and kimono skirt went round from hand to hand among the women, including Momoyoko, who had arrived from Uchisaiwaicho, and two wives from neighborhood families on friendly terms with the Matsumotos. Chiyoko carried in sheets of paper, a brush, and an inkstone to those gathered there, asking each to write on a single sheet the six Chinese characters Na-mu A-mi-da Butsu. When she came to Sunaga, she said, "Please, Ichi-san, copy some too."

  "What are you going to do with them?" he asked with a puzzled look on his face as he took the brush and paper.

  "Write as many of the characters as you can, as small as you can, all over the paper. Later we'll cut it into small strips, each with the six characters on it, and they'll be scattered into the coffin."

  Everyone sat formally writing the prayer for Buddha's mercy. "Don't look at me while I'm writing," said Sakiko, screening her paper with her kimono sleeve as she composed her crooked strokes. The ten-year-old son said that he would write his prayer in kana. He copied several lines, all in syllabary letters as in a telegram.

  In the afternoon just before Yoiko's body was to be placed into the coffin, Matsumoto told Chiyoko to dress it in the newly sewn kimono. Chiyoko, so choked with tears that she was unable to reply, took off Yoiko's clothes and raised the cold naked body in her arms. All over the child's back were purple spots. When it had been changed into its hemp kimono, Osen passed a small string of beads around its folded hands. A small braided hat and an equally small pair of straw sandals were placed into the coffin, as were the pair of red woolen socks that Yoiko had worn until the evening before. At once there drifted before Chiyoko's eyes the image of the dangling tassels attached to the strings of those socks. All the toys that had been given to the child were crowded into the space at the child's head and feet. And last of all, over the body were strewn like piles of snow the strips of paper containing the prayer to Buddha. Then the lid of the coffin was put into place, and a cloth of white figured satin was placed gently over it.

  Osen objected to having the funeral fall on the inauspicious tomobiki, "pulling-your-friend day," so the ceremony was delayed for twenty-four hours. Thus, in spite of the gloomy atmosphere, the house had more people in it than usual. The six-year-old Kakichi was scolded for beating his toy war-drum. He silently came over to Chiyoko to ask if his little sister would ever return. Laughing, Sunaga teased him, "We plan to take Kakichi to the crematory tomorrow too and burn him with Yoiko-san!" The boy's big eyes bulged out even more as he replied, "I don't like that plan!"

  Sakiko begged her mother to be taken to the funeral. And the eight-year-old Shigeko said, "Me too!"

  Osen, as if reminded just then by her children's request, called Matsumoto from the room where he was talking with the Taguchis and asked, "It's not the custom, but will you be going to the crematory tomorrow with the others?"

  "I intend to. You ought to go too."

  "Yes, I've decided to. What should the children wear?"

  "Haori with the family crest will do."

  "But the patterns are too bright.. . ."

  "They can put on hakama over them, and it should be all right. And sailor suits will be enough for the boys. You'll be in a mourning kimono with the family crest, I suppose. Do you have a black obi?"

  "Yes, I have one."

  "Chiyoko, you wear a mourning kimono too if you have one, and accompany the coffin."

  Having given these instructions, Matsumoto went back to his guests. Chiyoko rose to offer more incense. On the coffin was a pretty garland she had not noticed before. "When did it arrive?" she asked her sister, who was there beside her.

  "Just a few minutes ago," Momoyoko explained in an undertone. "Auntie ordered it especially made up of red flowers as well as white ones because she thought that only white flowers would be too lonely for a child."

  The sisters continued to sit there side by side. Several minutes later Chiyoko whispered into her sister's ear, "Momoyo-san, did you see Yoiko's face?"

  "Yes," Momoyoko nodded.

  "When?"

  "You know I did when we put her in the coffin. Why?"

  Chiyoko had forgotten. What she had been thinking was that if her sister had said she had not seen it, they could have reopened the coffin.

  "Oh don't do that! I'd be afraid to," Momoyoko said, shaking her head.

  At night a priest engaged for the wake came to recite the sutras. As Chiyoko listened nearby, she heard her un
cle arguing with him on such esoteric subjects as the Sutra Trilogy and Japanese translations of Buddhist hymns. The names of the saints Shinran and Rennyo often cropped up in their talk. But a little after ten Matsumoto placed some cakes and alms before the priest. "It would be all right if you left now, as we've had enough prayers for tonight," he said.

  Once the priest had gone, Osen asked her husband why he had dismissed the man so soon.

  "He'll be better off if he gets to bed early. Besides, Yoiko doesn't like hearing sutras either," Matsumoto replied nonchalantly.

  Chiyoko and Momoyoko exchanged smiling glances.

  The next day the small coffin moved quietly under a clear, windless sky. People on the street gazed after it as if it were something wondrous to behold, for instead of the usual white paper lanterns and plain wooden bier, which Matsumoto said he disliked, he had the coffin placed on a wheeled hearse. Whenever the black curtain hanging around it swung, one caught glimpses of the garland decorating the small coffin covered with its white figured satin. Children playing here and there ran up to peep in with curious eyes. Some pedestrians removed their hats when they passed the vehicle.

  At the temple the sutra-chanting and incense-burning were carried on as ceremony demanded. Oddly enough, no tears appeared in Chiyoko's eyes as she sat in the wide area of the main part of the temple. When she looked at her uncle and aunt, she found neither of their faces perceptibly downcast. She could hardly suppress a laugh when she saw Shigeko's mistake during the incense-burning : the girl, instead of taking a pinch of incense powder and letting it fall into the incense burner, pinched some ashes in the burner and dropped these into the incense receptacle.

  When the ceremony was over, Matsumoto and Sunaga accompanied the coffin to the crematory with a few of the others. Chiyoko returned to Yarai with the rest of the relatives. In the rickshaw she thought that the painful sorrow she had felt during the past two days seemed to her to contain in it more of the pure and beautiful than the less anguished mood she was now in, and she experienced rather a longing for that acute grief undergone then.