by Nagai Kafu
“Of course it would be agreeable, I decided. Why? Because secrets are like relatives; they are equally cumbersome.
“At this point, I finally reached my period of penitence. I determined never again to lead a life of worldly pleasure but to marry a pure and wise woman who would help me avoid the dangers of a bachelor’s life and carry out my resolution.”
4
“What kind of a wife did I finally choose? “It was a nurse.
“Just around that time, I came down with a severe cold and was tended to by a nurse whom I had hired upon my doctor’s advice. The nurse was a twenty-seven-year-old virgin, not very short in stature, very skinny, and as for her looks . . . she was not exactly ugly, but she had neither the charm nor the air that would entice a man’s heart. Her thin face, with its hollow cheeks, was just as white as snow, and she always kept her large, melancholy eyes downcast, as if she were constantly absorbed in some meditation. Apparently, she had been separated from her parents when she was little and had dedicated her painful orphan’s life to the constant worship of God.
“While I was sick, I would often wake up in the middle of the night, and whenever I did so, I would always find her reading the Bible by the yellow light of a lamp. Her pure white figure, sitting erect as the night wore on, always gave me an indescribable sense of peace and of solitude. . . . Such an exalted sublime feeling, I could not help but think, emanated from someone above us mortals on earth. And I half-consciously asked myself how much I would be inspired if I married such a pious, saintly woman, and resolved that there was no other woman I would rather choose as my wife. So as soon as I recovered from my illness, I proposed to her.
“She seemed surprised, but, suppressing her emotions resolutely, gently declined my proposal. But I forcefully took her hand, confessed all my sins in the past, and told her that only with her sacred love would I be able to renounce worldly pleasures and sins and to start a truly meaningful life. . . . She listened intently and, moved to tears, began repeating some prayers under her breath. People may laugh at me or think that I was out of my mind, but at that moment I truly believed that she was a gift from Heaven, the only person who could save me.
“Alas, this was a big mistake—no, more than just a mistake, but the cause of my further wretchedness. I tried to turn to her as the helping hand of God and to love her from the bottom of my heart, but it was simply impossible to feel any warm and tender passion toward her. Merely a feeling of respect was aroused in me, but simply not the desire to combine two souls into one.
“One spring day, the two of us were alone, strolling in our garden, and I was trying to talk to her about this and that. . . . It was a dreamlike, beautiful spring day. The blue sky was glistening like a gem, cherry and peach blossoms were blooming in all their glory, and little birds were singing at the top of their voices. Is any season more conducive to setting ablaze one’s youthful ardor than such spring? As we were about to sit down in a little gazebo underneath the blossoms, I held her hands tightly and kissed her on the cheek. She let me do as I pleased. But how strange it was to find that her white cheeks were not just pale but cold as snow; the chill my lips felt served completely to cool off what bodily passion I had forced to arouse in me. She was like a marble statue. Taken aback, I let go of her hands and looked at her face. She looked back at me and smiled sweetly and sorrowfully. . . . I shuddered in spite of myself. I didn’t know why. But for no particular reason, a feeling of indescribable displeasure and repugnance swelled up inside me.
“I just left my seat and walked alone toward a clump of trees. She did not follow me but stayed where she was, looking up at the sky with her usual melancholy eyes, I supposed. Presently, I heard her sing a hymn in a low voice, but her tone at that moment sounded for some reason very disagreeable to me. I simply didn’t understand why. Even when I was leading a life of debauchery, hymns that I heard outside the windows of a church on a starry quiet evening were music to soothe my heart, never something to arouse an intense feeling of revulsion. Why did this change now? I felt a little miserable and walked past the trees toward the backyard, my mind full of incoherent thoughts.
“This area had been turned into a fairly spacious vegetable garden where pretty flowers of melons and beans bloomed in profusion in summertime, and I particularly loved it when the evening moon shone above it. But this was just after seeding time, and all I could see was cultivated flat soil. At the same time, as nothing obstructed the spring sunlight that emanated from the sky, it was dazzlingly bright. I bathed in the light with my whole body, and I became warm as if I had been steamed, even perspiring slightly around my hairline. The hymn she was singing was no longer to be heard, and all I could hear were the cries of swallows flying past in the sky. In springtime it is sometimes even quieter during the height of the day than in the middle of the night. My confused thoughts had vanished somewhere, and, in a thoroughly dazed state, I turned my steps toward my house near the kitchen area at the edge of the vegetable garden, gazing at the clouds moving languidly at the corner of the sky.
“Peach blossoms in full bloom caught my eyes. It was as if a fire were burning. Then, all of a sudden, from among the peach blossoms, a female figure. . . . I halted in spite of myself. The peach blossoms were blooming in such profusion that they practically obscured the roof of the house, but just underneath the shadow of the trees, a woman was peacefully taking a nap, with her elbows placed on a low bay windowsill and one side of her face tightly pressed against them. With the whole place bathed in the spring light and the reflection of the peach blossoms shading the window, the charm of her profile displaying an indefinable deep red color was such that from the distance of ten steps, I thought it could not be anything else but a painting.
“She was a parlor maid, said to be nineteen years of age, who had come to our house to learn proper manners. I was not even thinking of such things but was just captivated by her beauty: her well-formed arms, her smooth cheeks, and what a complexion! All of a sudden a pretty butterfly fluttered over and alighted on the woman’s lovely, crimson-tinged earlobe, as if mistaking it for a petal of some flower. What was the butterfly whispering into her ear on a spring day? . . . Whether you call it a pleasant or a sweet sensation, an indescribably exquisite fantasy welled up inside me and plunged me into an entrancing dream.
“I became completely oblivious of the world, myself, everything. Of course, at that moment I did not even ask myself if I loved her or not. All I can say is that the hot blood circulating within me told me to go near and touch her radiant cheek. I made my way toward her, but just at that moment, the woman suddenly woke up and, looking around, saw me, and for a while seemed not to know what to do. . . . She then covered her face and ran toward the next room.
“This was such a trifling incident. But to me it was a major event. From that day on, even if I was not conscious of it, I once again began recalling my earlier, pleasure-filled life. I could hear the sound of music and the whispers of beautiful women and see the fluttering red hems of dancing geisha. My previous resolutions had now completely vanished. And I became totally uninterested in the woman whom I had respected as God incarnate, who had redeemed me, and whom I had compelled to marry me. . . . I might have been forgiven if this were all, but what had come over me? I began disliking her more and more. I tried earnestly to fight such evil thoughts and at the same time made every effort to hide my change of heart from her. But apparently all was in vain. Although she never said anything or betrayed anything by her manners, her downcast eyes seemed to have noticed. I soon came to fear her and tried to keep out of her sight as much as possible. But, lo and behold, she seemed to see through all this and began shutting herself up in her room so as to make herself as scarce as possible. I didn’t know what to say. I just felt like crying.
“On the other hand, I could not simply leave things like that. I told myself that, since I had chosen her as my wife, I had to care for her no matter what; but the more I struggled to get rid of my revulsion toward h
er, and I was really desperate, the more aggravated the situation grew, and in the end I felt as if I were losing my mind. One night, I lay asleep but was shaken awake when I thought I heard some sound. I sensed her presence, dressed in her snow-white nurse’s uniform, somehow come to sit by my bedside; but then I thought I heard a voice somewhere, reading from the Bible. The voice sounded indescribably gloomy and spooky. Instinctively, I jumped out of bed, groped for a match by my bedside, and lit the light at once. But, of course, nobody was there; it was still the middle of a quiet, quiet night.
“From that moment on, almost every night I could hear the gloomy voice reading the Bible, and I was no longer able to sleep peacefully. I said to myself, What would happen if I slept beside her, as I used to do when we were first married? I tried this, but it made matters even worse. As the night wore on, I became all the more wide awake. Her body lying beside me felt as cold as stone, and it was as if my own body gradually lost its heat. If I slept by her even for this one night, I thought, I might never regain the senses that had taken such pleasure in looking at beautiful flowers and had appreciated the sweet taste of warm wine, so that, instead of my senses responding delicately to such sensations, they might steadily disappear. I tried to rub my body with my palm as hard as I could in order to regain some heat, but it was all in vain. If I closed my eyes and fell asleep now, I felt, I was sure to die. I would never be able to see the warm sun the following morning shining over the flowers in the garden or hear the birds beginning their songs. Such thoughts thoroughly frightened me, and I was unable to close my eyes.
“Then, as the night wore on, I became conscious of her threadlike breathing as she lay asleep. At times her breathing would seem to die away, but then it would come back, and I felt as if the soul inhabiting her body were gradually ascending toward heaven, the heaven she was constantly dreaming about, even as the night intensified its stillness. Unconsciously, I furtively put my hand on her chest. But she lay on her back, with her hands tightly clasped over it, and did not stir at all. . . . All of a sudden, I felt something ice cold. I instinctively withdrew my hand, but when I finally groped for that object again, I discovered that it was a cross she always kept on herself.
“So from then on, I could not sleep at all at night, and I grew physically exhausted, my only fleeting moments of rest taking the form of brief afternoon naps. I resolved that in order to preserve my life I had no choice but to take myself away from her. Since nothing was going to work so long as I lived with her under the same roof, I was forced to the conclusion that I should travel, and decided that I should go abroad.
“So without delay, I told my wife that I was going to the United States, ostensibly to study. My wife, as usual, appeared to understand perfectly what was on my mind and raised no objection, agreeing to my plans and telling me that she would in the meantime resume her life as a nurse. I gave her, much as she protested, one third of my fortune for her living expenses, and came to this country without much purpose.
“I don’t have to tell you much about what has happened since then. As you know, the United States is a country where you can see both the best and the worst in society, so that it is possible for a person to go in either direction, following his inclination. So it is perfectly possible to indulge in an opium-induced dream, resting one’s head on the shoulder of a naked beauty under crimson lights in a perpetually darkened room of a clandestine club, or to experience a religious life in the country, far from worldly glories, listening morning and night to the tolling of church bells echoing throughout a peaceful meadow.
“I have seen most of the United States, at least superficially, and have no need to remain here any longer. I can go back to Japan anytime to engage in whatever business activities I choose with even more flair than before. But I still have a question. That is: Will I not again feel nostalgic about worldly pleasures? Will I be able to go back to my country and live happily with my icy cold wife? . . . Of course, all people, in varying degrees, have some self-control, so that it will not be impossible for me to do so. But I won’t be satisfied just with that. Instead of opening the Bible in the morning and using the same hand to raise a wine glass secretively in the evening, I would rather hold the glass alone (even if it is possible for me to refrain from doing so). Self-control has no meaning other than demonstrating your rather strong will. Convicts in jail are the greatest saints in this regard, since they do nothing wrong so long as they are imprisoned.
“Thinking like this, I have already spent nearly three years in this lonely Illinois country, but I still am not totally sure of myself. I am going to experience life in the city one more time and to see the bright lights in the city streets. And then I shall make a final decision as to my future.
“I am going to say good-bye to you tomorrow, but I make this promise. In order to let you know what I have decided upon, I shall send you one of three [sic] pictures. If I prove successful in totally eliminating my longing for pleasure, as I hope I shall, then you will receive my wedding picture with the nurse. Otherwise, I shall send you . . . well, some picture of an irresistibly seductive danseuse, let’s say from France. That way, you will be able to guess what sort of life I am leading.”
(March 1904)
The Inebriated Beauty
In the summer of 1904 I had a most ideal guide with whom to visit the World’s Fair that was being held in St. Louis.
He was an American named S—, an artist with whom I had earlier stayed at the same boarding house outside Chicago, and we had become quite friendly as a result. He told me that his work was being exhibited at the Fair and so, knowing that he lived in a village in Missouri called Highland, which was not far from St. Louis, I first sent him a telegram and then boarded a train from Michigan up north. The trip would take fifteen or sixteen hours, and for scenery along the way, as is so frequently the case on this American continent, there was little else than vast cornfields, an occasional brook where cattle would come to drink water, or a hill with two or three farmers’ houses with clumps of trees that appeared to be orchards. But I did not grow too weary and crossed the state of Illinois agreeably daydreaming all alone. Before long, the train crossed the famous East Bridge built from East St. Louis across the great Mississippi River.
By the time roofs in the outskirts of St. Louis begin to come into view, innumerable tracks carrying trains from all over the new North American continent can be seen converging like a spiderweb onto this midwestern city, their terminus. Amid whirling dust and coal fumes, our train enters the railway compound that is filled with all kinds of noise, combining into a roar. Many huge, mountainlike locomotives go back and forth, emitting black smoke, in the middle of which two rows of cars, perhaps heading east, cross our train, while along faraway tracks, a train is seen moving in the same direction as ours. Trains belonging to just about every railway company in the United States arrive at the platforms in this great central station.
I got off the train and walked with the crowd to the very end of the long platform. When we went out through the exit with a tall iron railing, there was a sea of men’s and women’s hats in a cement-paved square under a tall roof. But Americans are quite used to this sort of confusion, and my friend S— quickly spotted me and came running over. With a cheerful “How do you do?”—the standard Western greeting—he shook my hand.
Dispensing with formalities, I asked him what artwork he was exhibiting, and he answered, “Thank you,” twice, as if very pleased. But he said we would talk about it at greater leisure later; as the city’s hotels were too crowded and unbearable in this heat, he suggested that I come to Highland anyway. I let him lead me out of the spacious, stone-built station, under the glaring summer sun, and we walked for about two blocks on streets that were crowded with carriages and people. “We take that blue car for one hour, and then it will stop at a corner in Highland, just across from my house,” S— said, waving at a streetcar about to overtake us. I jumped on with him, and thus we gradually left behind the crowded streets
of St. Louis.
Passing the outskirts of the city—as everywhere, filled with shabby shacks, saloons, and cheap lodging places that mingle with large brick factories—we soon come to woods of maple and oak trees above bright green wild grass, appearing on both sides of the car tracks without interruption. How lovely are the sunlight penetrating layers of tiny leaves and the color of the blue sky that can be seen from time to time through tree branches! How gentle, friendly are these woods of Missouri, in contrast to the dark, damp, vast, deep forests that occupy the Cascades, the Rockies, and the entire Northwest Coast of North America, evoking only fear in men.
“I just love these woods!” I cried out, and S— looked very happy, saying, “I live in a small village in the middle of one of these maple woods. It has nothing besides bright green grass, ribbonlike streams, and a perpetually blue sky. But my landlady has nice cows and sheep, and I am sure she will treat you to delicious homemade ice cream.”
