American Stories

by Nagai Kafu

  that nothing could move one deeper than a house with music in it. After his return to Japan, it was only at the home of this Kabuki playwright, infected to its root by the moribund Edo and corrupt pleasure quarters, that he was able to find a single example where music took place. . . . From a strict, moralistic point of view, this home would be considered dirty to its core. But in the society of his native country, he was able to

  find the beautiful life of happiness and harmony, comparable to that he had witnessed in the healthy family life in the West only in this morally corrupt family. 16

  When young Kafû started frequenting the pleasure quarters in his teens, he was not completely out of step with the Japanese males of his time. It was still more or less acceptable for a married man to have a mistress or a de facto second wife (frequently a geisha or a former geisha), and the pleasure quarters were a prominent milieu for socializing among men. Yet Kafû’s father was different: he kept away from the demimonde and remained faithful to his wife. As a result, his son felt defensive and at times defiant about his nocturnal activities. After spending four years in the United States, where he was able to observe first hand that a more colorful and exciting life was possible even within the confines of a healthy home, returning to the pleasure quarters was no longer a mere act of frivolity and debauchery. Nor was it just an escape into the past or an avoidance of reality, themes most students of Kafû stress. Rather, it provided him with a medium that was lacking in the middle-class Japan of his time for reconciling, however precariously, the world of the late Edo period and the French salon as he understood it.

  Kafû’s writing is appealing because of his evocative yet simple prose style and his sense of humor, but it is also a product of the culture shock he experienced while in the United States and the way he coped with it. Although he was not a particularly rational or profound thinker, he was gifted with an unusual sensitivity that he cultivated and relied upon while living in the West and reading French literature. Primarily nonreligious, Kafû believed in being true to his sensitivity. At a time when the encounter with a vastly different civilization was making an incredible and frequently chaotic impact on Japan, Kafû managed to develop his art, writing what truthfully represented his feelings and observations as well as his appreciation of Western

  literature and culture. He neither resented the West nor applauded Japan’s modernization. Kafû’s observations of the natural surroundings and the people of the United States at the turn of the century are vivid and informative. Even a piece like “Ladies of the Night,” which seems to have been inspired in part by Maupassant’s “La Maison Tellier,” describes the variety of people in America that so few Japanese visitors to this country seemed to grasp.

  All in all, then, Amerika monogatari, described by Donald Keene as “Kafû’s first masterpiece,” is worth reading both as one Japanese writer’s attempt to come to grips with Western literature, art, and music at the turn of the twentieth century and as a unique observation of American life in various parts of the country. 17 Few Japanese, or for that matter writers from any country, have produced more intimate, sensitive depictions of America. The American Stories are therefore of interest not just to students of modern Japanese literature but also to historians of American culture and society.

  ABOUT THIS TRANSLATION

  This book is a translation of Amerika monogatari’s first edition (1908), containing twenty-one stories, and of the two pieces subsequently added to the collection, as explained above. I have used the texts of these twenty-three pieces contained in volume 4 of Kafû Tenshû [Collected works of Kafû], published by Iwanami Shoten in 1992, which reprints the stories exactly as they first appeared. My footnotes indicate significant changes made by Kafû in subsequent versions.

  Kafû’s writing includes extremely long sentences, and he regularly mixes tenses, a practice that was not uncommon at that time. While I have tried to remain as faithful to the original version as possible in rendering his Japanese into English, I have made a small number of changes in punctuation and tense where I have felt the author’s meaning would otherwise be obscure. Even so, Kafû’s sentences may impress the modern reader as rather clumsy and sometimes stilted. But we should remember that the stories in Amerika monogatari were among his early works, published before he acquired a reputation for his mastery of the modern Japanese writing style.

  Where Kafû uses Japanese terms (for food, for instance) that are not familiar to non-Japanese readers, or where his expressions are not entirely clear, I have inserted brief explanations within square brackets. Parentheses, on the other hand, are his own.

  Finally, these stories contain several quotes from French poems. In all such instances, Kafû provides his own Japanese translation. I have rendered his translations verbatim into English even where he makes obvious mistakes.

  Mitsuko Iriye

  Acknowledgments

  I am grateful to Frank Gibney and Thomas Rimer, who first suggested that I undertake a translation of Kafû’s Amerika monogatari. It was many years ago, and they waited patiently while I worked on the project little by little. Without their encouragement and gentle prodding, it might have taken even longer to complete.

  The translation has gone through several stages, as I have checked it against Kafû’s original on numerous occasions. At every stage, I have had the benefit of a careful reading and editing by my daughter Masumi, who, together with her husband, David O’Brien, has given me much-needed moral support over the years. My husband has helped me as unpaid editor, typist, secretary, and agent. I am greatly indebted to our friends and neighbors of over thirty years in Chicago, Bob and Barb Thompson, who have been unfailing sources of information, geographical and otherwise. Lastly, Leslie Kriesel, of Columbia University Press, has been an ideal editor in every respect: efficient, resourceful, and truly conscientious.

  I dedicate this modest volume to the memory of my parents, Yôichi and Yû Maeda, who, throughout the very difficult years during the war in Europe and the United States and after the war in Japan, instilled in me love of learning and especially of literature.

  AMERICAN STORIES

  From around October in the fall of 1903, I spent leisurely time in the United States and left New York for France last summer, July 1907; on that occasion I collected the various pieces I had written during my journey, which I have now entitled American Stories and respectfully present to my revered teacher and friend, Mr. Iwaya Sazanami.

  Nagai Kafû

  Mais les vrais voyageurs sont ceux-là seuls qui partent

  Pour partir; coeurs légers, semblables aux ballons,

  De leur fatalité jamais ils ne sécartent,

  Et, sans savoir pourquoi, disent toujours: Allons!

  (Le Voyage—Ch. Baudelaire)

  The true travelers are those who leave for the sole purpose

  Of leaving. With hearts as light as balloons, unable to flee

  From ill fate, they just call out all the time, Let’s go

  Let’s go, without knowing why.

  (Le Voyage—Ch. Baudelaire)18

  Night Talk in a Cabin

  Crossing the seas with no land in sight anywhere is almost unbearably tedious, and the voyage between Yokohama and the port of the newly developed city of Seattle is no exception.

  Once the passengers have parted with the mountains of their homeland on the day of sailing, they cannot expect to see a single island, a single mountain, for more than half a month, until the day when they reach the continent on the other side of the ocean. It was all ocean yesterday, and so it is again today—one gets a view of the never-changing Pacific Ocean as simply vast, where all one can see are gray albatrosses with long wings and crooked beaks, flying about among giant, undulating waves. To make matters worse, pleasant, clear days become rarer and rarer as the ship steadily advances northward, and practically every day, not only is the sky completely covered by gloomy gray clouds, but it is even likely that rain or fog will come.

  I hav
e unexpectedly been a wayfarer in this desolate ocean now for ten days. During the day it is possible somehow to kill time playing ring toss on the deck or playing cards in the smoking room, but once dinner is over at night, there is hardly anything left to do. Furthermore, it seems that the weather has turned considerably colder today. Thinking that it would be impossible to walk across the deck to the smoking room without an overcoat, I shut myself up in my cabin. I was just wondering if perhaps I should lie down on the sofa and read some of the magazines I brought from Japan, when someone softly knocked on the door with a fingertip.

  “Come in,” I called out, sitting up.

  The door opened. “What’s the matter? It is swaying again a little, don’t you think? Do you feel weak?”

  “Oh, no,” I replied. “I decided to withdraw to my room since it was a bit cold. Do sit down.”

  “Yes, it is really cold. They say we are about to pass the Gulf of Alaska,” said Yanagida, sitting down at the end of the sofa, a smile on his lips, adorned with a rather thin moustache. He is a gentleman with whom I have become acquainted on this voyage.

  Of middle height and build, he seemed to be over thirty by at least one or two years. He was wearing a brown overcoat over a striped suit and displayed a colorful necktie from a high collar. Resting one leg over his knee in a rather affected manner and knocking off cigar ashes with the tip of his ringed small finger, he said, “It will be beautiful weather in Japan now.”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “Are you trying to remember something?”

  “Ha ha. That’s something you should say to the fellow next door.”

  “Maybe. Speaking of the fellow next door, how is he doing? He must be holed up in his cabin as usual. Why don’t we invite him over?”

  “Good,” I said and knocked on the wall two or three times. There was no answer for a while, but presently Kishimoto, who occupied the cabin next door, appeared at my cabin door and said in his usual weak voice, “What is it?”

  “Hello, come in!” the chic Yanagida called out immediately in an affected pronunciation.

  “Thank you, but I am dressed like this, so . . .” answered Kishimoto, still standing.

  “My dear fellow, don’t stand on silly ceremony. This is my room. It doesn’t matter if you are undressed or whatever. So do come in.” I stood up from the sofa and opened up the folding chair that had been propped up against the wall.

  Kishimoto was also about thirty years old and of rather short stature, and was wearing a haori [half-coat] made of Ôshima pongee over a lined pongee kimono and an unlined flannel garment.

  “All right, thanks.” He sat down, after a small bow, and said, “It is too cold in Western clothes, and so I was about to change into my night clothes and go to bed.”

  Yanagida responded in a most puzzled tone, looking at Kishimoto, “Do you mean Western clothes don’t keep you warm? In my case, it is exactly the opposite. On a voyage like this, especially, if I put on Japanese clothes, I’ll feel too chilly around the neck and will catch a cold right away.”

  “Is that so? Maybe this means that I have not quite gotten used to Western clothes.”

  “Not really. When it’s cold, it doesn’t matter what you wear,” I said, just smiling and looking at both of them. “By the way, Yanagida, I know you are a drinker. Shall I order something for you?”

  “Well, I don’t particularly feel like it tonight. I just came over for a chat, as I was getting bored.”

  Pressing the bell, I said, “But it isn’t much fun talking without holding glasses. So shall we hear your story again, Kishimoto?”

  But Kishimoto did not respond and, looking up, said, “The ship seems to be swaying a great deal again.”

  “Well, after all, this is the Pacific Ocean,” Yanagida put in, twisting his thin moustache once again.

  I was just responding, “If this were the second or third day of our voyage, we would suffer more, but we seem to have gotten used to it and don’t feel anything, do we?” when a cabin boy opened the door.

  “Yanagida, do you want whisky as usual?”

  The cabin boy, after hearing his “Of course,” gently closed the door and went away, but at that very moment, we heard the deep roaring sound of the foghorn, followed by a sound of waves washing the decks.

  “It does rock a little, doesn’t it? Well, that’s all right. Let’s have a nice little chat this evening,” said Yanagida, stretching his legs comfortably. Glancing around the ceiling of the cabin, brightly lit with electric lights, the kimono-clad Kishimoto said, “What is wrong? They are blowing the foghorn a great deal, aren’t they?”

  “Maybe the fog has thickened.” Yanagida started to explain but was interrupted by the cabin boy, who promptly brought the ordered drinks on a tray and, after placing them on a small table by the bed, filled the glasses. As soon as he left again, first Yanagida raised his cup and offered his “Good luck!” followed by our repeated, laughing “Good luck!”s.

  Time passed. In the far distance the forlorn sound of a bell tolling the time could be heard. Just then, the waves seemed to swell higher and higher until we heard them hitting the round porthole above the bed with a crushing sound and dashing against the deck area, while the wind sweeping by the tall masts sounded just like the dry winds of February in Tokyo. The grating sound of something creaking somewhere began. But this was a large ship of considerable tonnage, so the rolling and pushing were rather gentle, and, as we had become used to the voyage, we didn’t worry about getting seasick at all. As we drew the curtains over the porthole and door so that the tiny cabin would be warmed by steam and reclined on armchairs, listening to the storm outside, all this somehow recalled the comfort of a fireside on a winter night. Yanagida seemed to feel the same way, as he said, putting down his whisky glass, “Don’t you think that once you believe in your own safety, even raging storms outside somehow sound attractive?”

  “Quite. I guess this is what is meant by ‘feeling secure like being on a big boat.’ But suppose this were a sailboat, then I am sure it’s quite possible that we might be shipwrecked,” said Kishimoto in a serious tone.

  “It’s the same with everything. Whenever some are having fun, others may have to suffer. Like a fire—it is a disaster to those who lose their home, but a great spectacle for the rest.” I intoned some such silly argument, having perhaps drunk too much whisky.

  “It’s true, it is quite true,” Yanagida responded, as if deeply moved by something. “To continue your metaphor, I am one of those who have lost their homes. I lost my home in a fire and am fleeing all the way to America. Actually, it was only last year that I returned to Japan, and I am amazed at myself for having started my overseas trip again even before I had time to unpack all my trunks.”

  Both Kishimoto and I eagerly asked Yanagida to tell us about his aspirations behind this trip to America, assuming that he must have entertained grand thoughts; he was the kind of person who could not talk of little things without discussing such items as the civilization of a continent or the pettiness of an island country.

  “Ha, ha, ha, ha. I really don’t have anything like a grand idea. However . . .” Yanagida twisted his thin moustache and began telling us his story.

  It went back to the time when he graduated from a certain school. Immediately, he was employed by a firm and proceeded to Australia with great eagerness. After a considerable amount of time, he returned to his native Japan with a sense of triumph immeasurably greater than when he had initially left the country. He preached and praised the civilization of the continent and the commerce of the world everywhere to whomever he met, including his old friends who gave him welcome parties. And he never doubted that the minuscule island country would surely offer him an important position. But instead, he was assigned a job as a translator at the head office, with a monthly wage of only forty Japanese (devalued silver) yen. He did not protest and accepted the job, after carefully considering conditions in Japan. But he could not help constantly feeling dissatisfi
ed, and, in order to relieve himself of that feeling, decided to look for a wife, preferably a beautiful daughter of an aristocratic family, and started to campaign actively in that direction. He was secretly confident that being someone who had returned from abroad would recommend him to such young women or their mothers, but in reality nothing of the sort happened. The daughter of a certain viscount whom he pursued ended up marrying a university graduate of the island country, the type of person he scorned the most. Not only had his self-confidence been shattered twice, he now had to suffer from a broken heart.

  But Yanagida never completely gave up hope. As a reaction against his pain, he began denouncing everything about the island country even more strongly than before and decided to undertake another joyful trip abroad.

  “As long as you are in Japan, it is simply impossible to shout with delight from the bottom of your heart. Luckily, it so happened that a raw-silk merchant in Yokohama wanted me to study conditions in the United States, and I gladly accepted. When it comes to business, you must really go abroad at all costs. I am very happy to see that you gentlemen, my compatriots, are also going to the United States.” Yanagida picked up his glass, took a sip, and turned his body around, saying, “Kishimoto, didn’t you tell me that you wanted to go to school in the United States?”