American Stories

by Nagai Kafu

  “The long and short of it is this. Since you have something we don’t, we are asking you to share it with us.”

  “How about it? If you understand what we mean, why don’t you answer us right away?”

  The man turned dead pale and did nothing but shake his whole body violently. The woman fell at his feet crying, without any strength left to call for help.

  A frightening dead of the night, with winds and rain still howling furiously, deep in the desolate mountains. Soon a woman’s scream inside the cottage. . . . Hearing it, the man fainted and fell on the ground.

  He did regain consciousness, but he had lost his mind and was never the same person again. So he ended up being taken to the insane asylum.

  I was quite shocked, hearing this story. As for my friend, he had already pulled up his bicycle, which had been lying on the grass, and, stepping on the pedal, he said, “But it couldn’t have been helped, could it? All we can say is that it was his misfortune to have met such a fate. We are simply helpless in the face of someone stronger than ourselves.” He rode his bicycle for two or three ken [twelve to eighteen feet], and then looked back at me, following him.

  “Don’t you agree? It’s impossible to resist something that is powerful. Therefore, we cannot resist Our Mighty God . . . that is, the Almighty God who is more powerful than we. We must always obey him.”

  He laughed cheerfully to himself and accelerated his bicycle at full speed through the meadows, which were being radiantly lit by the light of the evening sun that was about to set. Without saying a word, I pedaled away on my bicycle in order not to fall behind.

  The sound of bells on grazing cattle’s necks could be heard somewhere. A train heading south toward Portland was running along the edge of the fields.

  (January 1905 )

  Atop the Hill

  1

  When I first came to this country, America, I decided to go to attend a certain college to practice my language, a college that had been built in a small town of less than four thousand people, about a hundred miles up the Mississippi River from Chicago, where I was then staying. As people already know, American colleges are mostly denominational schools, established in the scenic countryside, far removed from the cities that are full of temptation, and the teachers as well as the students lead an ideally clean religious life. The school to which I went was one of them, and at first I thought it would be most unlikely to meet another Japanese in such a remote place. Yet quite unexpectedly, I came across a Japanese who had been leading a strangely anguished life there.

  For approximately four hours after leaving Chicago, wherever I looked, all I could see were cornfields. As soon as the train reached a tiny station standing in the middle of a vast prairie, I got off, and carrying a heavy bag, I walked all the way down a straight road of this provincial town, full of chickens and children at play, and called at the school, situated among leafy trees atop a small hill. The kindly-looking elderly principal greeted me, saying, even without looking at the letter of introduction given me by a Western friend in Chicago, and wrinkling his entire face in a big smile as if we were already good friends, “It is nice of you to come. Mr. Watano will surely be glad to see you. Ever since he came to us, he has not seen a Japanese for almost three years, so . . .”

  I was at a loss, not understanding what this was all about, but the old gentleman, his face still all smiles, asked me, “Did you know Mr. Watano in Japan, or did you get to know him after you came to the United States?” The principal had jumped to the conclusion that because I was Japanese I must have come to visit my compatriot, Mr. Watano, at this school. This misunderstanding was soon dissolved in guileless laughter, and I was duly introduced to the person named Mr. Watano.

  He must have been thirty-seven or -eight years of age. In an all but torn, threadbare striped suit and a faded black tie, he was dressed in a modest fashion one would hardly encounter in a flashy city like Chicago; as soon as I saw him, with his shiny black hair grown long the American way and his slender face with gold-rimmed eyeglasses, I thought he was a handsome man. His complexion was not so much white as pale, and there was something abnormally oversensitive about his large eyes.

  Quite contrary to what the principal had told me, he looked neither particularly pleased nor surprised when he first saw me, and after shaking hands without uttering a word, he pointedly stared at the ceiling. Thus, since I myself was a rather unfriendly type with a gruff disposition, I didn’t have a chance to find out what kind of background he had, other than that he was helping out with the collection of material in connection with the study of the history of Oriental thought in the school’s department of philosophy, and would occasionally appear at lecture halls for Bible study.

  However, it was on a Saturday afternoon about three months later [that I next saw him]. I had come to this place at the end of September when it was still warm; but the cornfields, which then looked like a green sea, were now a vast uninterrupted prairie under the dark, gray sky.

  It was just after four o’clock in the afternoon, but the sun had already sunk below the vast horizon, and all that was left was a faint streak of crimson, low in a gap of gray sky. The air was calm, and the chill that penetrated the bones had been arising steadily from the bowels of the wilderness. As I climbed up the hill near the school on my way back from the post office located inside the railway station, I ran into Watano, who stood forlornly, with an indescribably sad face, on this hilltop with only a bare tree, gazing at the light of the setting sun, which was about to disappear, reflected on the face of the frozen wasteland. Noticing me, Watano just said, “What a desolate view,” and looked at me intently.

  Startled by his strange air, I was not able to respond right away. Watano cast down his eyes and then said, as if to himself, “People say that the sunset by a grave is sad, but it merely reminds you of ‘death’ . . . on the other hand, look at this sight; twilight by a wasteland brings to mind life’s sorrows, the agony of existence. . . .”

  We remained silent and climbed down the hill; suddenly, Watano called to me, “What do you think? Do life’s goals lie in pleasure, or—” He stopped himself, as if he had become terribly fearful that he had said something thoughtless; then, eyeing my face intently, he added, “Do you believe in the Christian God?”

  I told him that I wanted to believe and couldn’t yet, but that I knew how happy I would feel if I ever were able to. To which Watano responded, energetically and swinging his arms, “So you are a skeptic. Very good.” And then he asked quietly, “What sort of skepticism is yours? Of course, I myself don’t have the kind of faith Americans have. . . . Let’s hear what your views are.”

  So I freely explained my ideas about religion, life, and such matters. To my great surprise, he seemed to think my ideas had much in common with his; his eyes became animated as if to express his inner joy, and he ended up praising my abilities again and again.

  Nothing is more pleasant than for two individuals, no matter who they are, to come together and discover that they share the same thought, even to a tiny extent. Such a coincidence also draws the two closer together spiritually.

  After this encounter, we became close friends, talking together day and night, and I came to have some idea of Watano’s background without directly asking him about it. It appeared that in Japan he had inherited a considerable fortune. About seven years earlier he had come to the United States and obtained a degree at an East Coast university, but after that he did not do any serious work and idled away his time in the New York area. But at a certain gathering he became acquainted with the president of this college, who told him that his school was looking for a Japanese who could help with the study of Oriental thought and customs. So he volunteered to come to this place. It was not, however, that he knew much about Oriental subjects; he just thought that he could at least help with the collection of research material. But his primary purpose in coming here was above all to see if his inherently skeptical views would give way to some deep fai
th so that he could attain a sense of security. For this reason, he told me, he had intentionally chosen to embrace religious life in this remote country.

  Although he obviously had no need to work for a living, I could not but admire him for his decision, derived from a genuine spiritual anguish, not to return to his native land even after obtaining a degree but to live alone in a foreign land.

  2

  I spent a cold, cold American winter very peacefully and agreeably with this friend whom I admired so much. Then April came, and from Easter onward the warm sunlight returned from time to time, and the month of May for which we had eagerly waited arrived. How delight- ful were the skies of May, in contrast to the unbearably cold winter! Even the plains, which till yesterday had appeared utterly and incredibly lonely and unpleasant, suddenly transformed themselves into a boundless sea of fresh grass. How could we describe the sensation of enjoying soft green color all around us, under a bright blue sky?

  I would roam about the orchards filled with apple blossoms, go to the meadows to lie down on soft clover leaves next to grazing cattle, or stand near a brook, getting drunk with the fragrance of violets and singing along with field larks; I walked at least three miles a day doing these things. Family members of rich farmers would wait impatiently for the afternoon and then set out in their carriages to enjoy themselves in the fields. Merry laughter of women and children could be heard everywhere. And yet, my friend Watano was an exception; even as the beautiful spring arrived, he became more and more melancholy, to such an extent that not once did he agree to go out for a walk with me and instead confined himself in his room.

  How could I help but wonder what was going on? One evening, I determined to visit him in his room and ask him to tell me, even if against his will, whatever was bothering him so that at least I could try to comfort him. But once I reached the gate of the boarding house where he was renting a room, for some strange reason I could not quite go through with my plans. Actually, I really had not been able to form a firm idea of Watano’s personality; and just as we combine a sense of admiration with some fear when we are face to face with a great man or a hero, so toward Watano I was not quite able to get rid of a slight squeamishness. In the end, I did not have the courage to knock on his door, not to mention asking him to tell me what was on his mind. . . . Thus I turned around and started walking here and there in this spring night, and before I realized it, I found myself on top of the hill where Watano and I had had our first serious talk last winter.

  The lone leafless tree, which had been thin and worn out then, was now filled with snow-white apple blossoms, enveloping me in an indescribable fragrance. As I stood on the tender grass and looked around, I saw a hazy full moon over the vast prairie whose expanse made one realize that indeed here was a surface of the earth. Water puddles here and there caught the moon’s pale light and reflected the dark colors of the sky. Behind me stood the college, where some music accompanying merrymaking by girl students could be heard; and the houses in the nearby town had all their windows lit with gentle lights. What a dreamlike spring night in a faraway land, as if conjured up by magic!

  Right away, I fell under the spell of it all and lapsed into an inexplicably sad daydream, when all of a sudden someone came up to me from behind, tapped me on the shoulder, and called out, “You!” To my surprise, I saw it was Watano. He looked as if he had something to tell me.

  “I was just at your place.”

  “My place? . . . Then we must have crossed each other,” I responded, but I said nothing about my almost having knocked on his door.

  “Actually, I wanted to talk with you, so I went to your place.”

  I was taken by surprise and said, “What is it? What sort of thing?”

  “Let’s sit here.” He took the initiative and sat down first under the apple tree, but did not say a word. It was quite likely that he too had been struck by the mysterious atmosphere of the spring night veiling the vast prairie in this foreign land. But then, as if awakening from a reverie, he turned at once toward me and said, “I may have to say good-bye to you in a few days.”

  “What? Where will you be going?”

  “I am thinking of going to New York once again. Or I may decide to go to Europe. . . . Anyway, I have decided to leave this place.” “Anything urgent?”

  “Oh, no. You know I don’t have any urgent business. It is just that I’ve been thinking about something,” he said in a rather dispirited way.

  “About what?”

  To my question, he responded after a while, “Well, that’s what I wanted to tell you tonight. We’ve known each other for less than half a year, but I feel as if I’ve known you for already ten years. So I wanted to leave you after telling you everything. But on the other hand, we may run into each other again since you tell me you will be traveling through America.” Smiling sadly, he began in a quiet voice.

  3

  “Shortly after graduating from the University, I parted from my father and inherited all my share of his property, thus gaining an enviable status as a propertied new university graduate, able to move in any worldly direction I wanted. As I had majored in literature, I decided to organize a society, on the advice of my friends who gathered around me, and to publish a fine monthly dedicated to saving lives and reforming society.

  “It so happened that my name was known at least to some people, since I used to contribute essays to journals and newspapers even while I was a student. So it was with a great fanfare that, backed up by the property I had inherited from my father, I made a grand debut into the world. The organization I represented consisted only of young university graduates who were entering the real world for the first time, but as soon as we advertised the new journal, even before its first issue was published, it came to be counted as one of the most important. Naturally, there were those around me who were not above obsequiousness, and I could not, indeed, hear anything but praises at that time.

  “I was twenty-seven years old then, and still a bachelor. It may not have been true, but I frequently heard rumors to the effect, for example, that the daughter of a certain count had become lovesick after seeing me give a talk, or that a row had been stirred up at a girls’ school somewhere as they argued about my person. Indeed, I even received some amorous letters.

  “So, anyway, I could not help becoming conscious that I must have some power that subtly affected the feelings of the opposite sex . . . not only did I become conscious of it, but I felt an indescribable pleasure. This pleasure was even greater than the joy I had felt when I became aware that my argument or my character appeared to be taken seriously by society. How foolish of me! I really can offer no excuse other than to say that just at that moment, at that instant, this was how I felt.

  “Having experienced such a pleasurable sensation, I felt like pushing this pleasure as far as possible. That’s when I heard an inner voice saying something like, ‘If that’s what you want, then don’t get married too soon. You men certainly know that there is no comparison between a married woman who is indescribably beautiful and a virgin who is less so in stimulating your fantasy. So it is with your own charm.’

  “I became entirely enslaved to this voice. I would groom myself with care, visit the sitting rooms of young wives and daughters of peers during the day, and become intoxicated by the glitter of coquettish glances and bright smiles, while at night I would go wherever lights blazed and listen to the singing of beautiful women. In no time two or three years passed by like a dream.

  “But one day, in order to avoid catching people’s attention in Tokyo, I took as many as three beautiful women to a small quiet geisha house by the seaside. It was already twilight in winter. Waking up suddenly from an afternoon nap, I noticed that the geisha who was my favorite and who had been letting me rest my head on her lap was leaning against the wall behind her and dozing off. I had no idea where the other two had gone; the room was semi-dark, and outside, only the languid voice of tides in the distant ocean could be heard, as if
something were crying out.

  “I did not stir but closed my eyes again. But I started thinking, almost unconsciously: Who in the world would know that I was behaving like this, in such a place? Didn’t everyone know me solely through my impressive title of social reformer? . . . Such thoughts gave rise to a disagreeable, helpless sensation. To be sure, this was not the first time that I felt this way. From the beginning, I knew this kind of pleasure seeking was not something good that was to be praised or encouraged, not something to be openly talked about like advertisements for charitable causes. That is, I had cleverly avoided public notice until now, keeping all this an utmost secret. It should be easy to continue to keep it; you cannot accomplish anything in this world if you cannot even keep such a secret. To that degree, indeed, I could be called a clever fellow. What came upon me now, however, was a question: What if I had no such secret, if I were innocent, so to speak? Would it be agreeable or disagreeable if I became a man of integrity, which was how the world imagined me?