by Nagai Kafu
“Listening to this, I could not help but heave a deep sigh and closed my eyes.
“Ah! what must have gone through the Minnesinger’s heart as he awoke from his long dream of pleasure and lamented his sins. From his aria, from his music, I suddenly recalled my own forgotten dissolute life before my marriage, my own dreams of pleasure that had vanished for a while. It seemed as if Tannhäuser on stage was a satire of my past ecstasy, anguish, and shame, and Venus, the beautiful heathen goddess, the goddess of pleasure, could only be Marianne, the young actress who was once my mistress.
“Ah! Is there anything more delicious in the world than a forbidden fruit? The fear of sins, the apprehension of poison, these merely enhance its magical power. I shall tell you everything now. . . . (The learned man cast down his eyes slightly, as if embarrassed.)
“All men seem entranced at least once by the attractive make-up of this type of woman, yet I daresay few have been as bewitched as I. For some reason (let’s just say it was my inborn nature), I always found attractive and desirable comediennes or actresses in beautiful costumes, dancing or singing with affected looks and gestures in front of footlights on a stage, or the type of woman one meets in restaurants, theaters, dance halls, even in the streets and in carriages, whose particular air and appearance draw people’s attention. Dumas [fils] described this kind of woman as ‘neither a duchess nor a virgin,’ and indeed she possesses an indescribable beauty, a magical power. Even if she is not the type of beauty an artist dreams of, there is an irresistibly seductive power in such a woman’s cloudy, drowsy eyes, her unhealthy, thin fingertips, or even in her sometimes awfully vulgar-looking mouth. That is to say, her eyes suggest that she is ready to fling herself at your mercy, yet her mouth seems to sneer and pout, as if to say, watch out, or you’ll pay dearly.
“Once a man’s fancy is tickled by such mysterious, magical power, soon to his enchanted eyes cultured and virtuous wives and young women begin to look like cold puppets of morality; he becomes intoxicated with the unrestrained poetic sentiment of the song, ‘Love is a vagabond, a child of Bohemia,’ losing all sense of family or country and enslaving himself to fervent desires with little thought of the future.
“Even before I finished my education, I would often imagine silly things and wonder, while smoking a cigar at the window of my study on a peaceful spring day, whether I would ever in my life be loved by a woman of that kind.
“Ah! What a silly, vulgar dream. After all, I was better educated than most and was also well read. I knew such desires were vulgar and foolish, yet no matter how hard I tried, I could not suppress them. I would often read French and Russian novels of the naturalist school—depicting a gentleman of fine character ruining himself for the sake of such a despicable woman—and be moved to tears like a hysterical female, thinking of my own situation, and throw myself into an abyss of self-doubt, wondering if such was to be my fate.
“In this way, the more reason and wisdom berated me, the stronger my desires grew. As soon as I graduated from school, I joined a club consisting entirely of playboys and spent evenings wherever there were brilliant lights and perfumed women, from theaters to dance halls, from billiard parlors to restaurants; when I look back on those days, I can only say I was insane. To be sure, during the day, while the sun was shining, I retained proper judgment and trusted my own willpower, but once the mist rose in the evening and streetlights began to flicker, that was it. The streetlights turned my conscience, sense of shame, and hope to ashes, while the women who went to and fro under those same lights appeared to me to be nothing but symbols of pleasure.
“I still remember the scene at Broadway around midnight during a snowstorm, when shows were concluding at various theaters. At that time and in that place it is impossible to feel the cold even during a winter evening in the hustle and bustle of numerous people and carriages. Brightly lit with colorful streetlights, the city is like a dream in an enchanted world as far as one can see. Inside the glass doors of hotels’ grand halls and restaurants standing side by side, bright lights shine on many couples, with women baring white shoulders and men with neatly smoothed-down hair, while at the tall second-floor windows here and there, you can see silhouettes of men holding billiard cues in one hand as they tirelessly play their late-night games; in the meantime, women constantly enter and exit the painted doors of nearby bars and saloons, trying to seduce men. As I intently watched the scene from the vantage point of an intersection, I would often wonder if there was anything more precious in life, in which any enterprise, any genius, is fated to perish, than such frenzied joys of youth.
“It was while I was leading such a life that I came to know the vaudeville actress named Marianne.
“One evening, after the show was over, two fellow libertines and I entered a restaurant that was frequented by female night birds, and as we looked around with hungry bachelors’ eyes, two women at a table recognized one of our group and hailed him.
“We seized the good chance and sat at the women’s table and indulged in our usual merrymaking, engaging in silly conversation. At times, however, I would unconsciously shudder at some shockingly vulgar talk, producing within me both swelling self-disgust at my failings and, at the same time, a pervasive sense of emptiness, with the result that I alone would tend to lapse into silence.
“Marianne noticed all this and apparently concluded that I was a novice at pleasure-seeking.
“ ‘Why are you so gloomy? You should laugh more heartily,’ she would say from time to time, as if feeling sorry for me.
“Our merrymaking lasted till past two o’clock at night, and then it was decided that we should take the two women to their homes, as we usually did, but by the time we got out to the street to catch a carriage, by chance my two friends became a threesome with the woman named Nelly, while Marianne and I got on another carriage, just the two of us.
“She said she lived in an apartment near the Hudson River, so we drove up north on Broadway for nearly half an hour, away from the center of the city; the loneliness one felt past midnight was almost frightening, the sound of the horse’s hooves echoed in the distant sky, and the night gleam slanting into the carriage window cast a pale, dim light on the woman’s powdered face.
“By now Marianne was helplessly resting her head against the backrest, perhaps because she was exhausted from keeping late hours every night; she occasionally opened her heavy eyelids with an effort and glanced sideways at me, forcing a smile on her rouged lips. But she had apparently no energy left even to make an attempt at small talk.
“I remained silent and gazed intently at her profile, deeply inhaling the scent of her face lotion.
“She was perhaps twenty-one or -two years old. She was of a small build, with a long neck, a round face with a pert, pointed chin and large round eyes, and small, firmly set lips that suggested some mocking, ironical air—she was by no means a beauty, not a model for a large oil painting, but she reminded one of a cartoon drawing done in one stroke. Such ‘imperfection’ or ‘incompleteness’ is sometimes much more attractive than ‘perfection’!
“I lightly pressed my lips on those of the woman, who was dozing off with her head almost tilted back. Her soft, warm breath immediately penetrated my body.
“Marianne opened her large eyes even wider and looked at me for a moment, but she dozed off again. I saw from the carriage window the silhouettes of the trees lining the street as they moved backward and heard the sound of winds blowing in the faraway sky, but my mind was already wandering in a dreamy state, and once again I brought my face close to hers—when suddenly the sound of the hooves stopped, and the carriage halted in front of a brightly lit entrance.
“ ‘Marianne!’
“At my voice, she seemed to wake up, as if for the first time; rubbing her eyes with her white muff made of mouse [sic] fur, which had been lying on her lap, she said, ‘I was having a nice dream . . . but was it you who kissed me?’
“Ashamed of my impulsive behavior, I looked
down without responding, but Marianne laughed merrily and hopped down through the carriage door as the driver just then opened it.
“I saw her to her fifth-floor room, but did not stay there even for five minutes that night and, taking my leave right away, returned home.
“Then the following afternoon, a letter was brought to me by a messenger boy; opening it, I found—oh, what a fragrant whispering of love!—these words:
I have moved to a hotel on — Street to be near you; the other place uptown was inconvenient for love’s secret talk. I fell in love with you at first sight. Our love is just like this, and please do not ask why. Ah, until we meet again this evening—Au revoir (the ending was written in French). From your loving M.
“My dream of all these years had finally become a reality! My resolution must have been even quicker than hers. Without a moment’s delay I rushed to the designated hotel that evening, where we were to live for about a year and a half as if in a dream.
“Determined to savor as many pleasures as are available to humans, sometimes we would kiss each other without interruption except for bringing water and bread to our mouths just to stave off hunger, as if any food or drink might diminish the flavor of our sweet kisses; at other times, we would even embrace each other throughout a wintry night with the windows open, in order to savor the warmth of our youthful blood.
“Yet in this life, even the most fragrant of dreams or the deepest of intoxications in time fades away. Ah, when I recall those times, it is still a mystery, and I cannot explain why I decided to part with her, when we had loved each other so much. It may well be that my educated intellect had gradually awakened me from my bewitched senses, or that the search for fame that is innate in men steadily grew stronger than the dreams of love, or that, just like in the Tannhäuser story, I became weary of the magical charms of the land of pleasure and longed for the purity and lightness of green mountains and streams, or that, having been intoxicated by the heavy scent of a warm room, I wanted once again to feel the crisp coldness of the fresh air outside. . . . Whatever the explanation, I rejoined the world, abandoning Marianne, who begged me to stay.
“I vowed that I would never again indulge in the foolish dreams of my youth, convincing myself that there was something nobler and more permanent in our human destiny than wallowing in pleasure that would vanish with our earthly lives. I must first become a good citizen by starting a proper family! Fortunately, I was from a family well known in America and possessed not a little inheritance from my father, so when I went out among polite society, the world being both small and large, no one knew of my past, and soon I married Josephine, the daughter of a certain judge.
“Thus it was that we spent our honeymoon in Europe and listened together to an opera. . . . I was trying to suppress the tears of sweet memory deep in my heart listening to the Minnesinger Tannhäuser on stage, whose song of lamentation was also my own, while Josephine, who had no way of being aware of it, appeared to be listening attentively in an artificially cultivated attitude of art appreciation without any viewpoint, which is common among women of the upper classes.
“But as you are already aware yourself, the music of the great genius, Wagner (here he glanced at me for a moment), is different from all other music in that it has a mysterious power that never fails to make a strong impact upon its listener.
“Thus it was that as the first act was followed by the large Hall of Song scene of the second act, then by the return of the pilgrims in the third act . . . as we heard all three acts of the opera, I could see that my wife had fallen into a rather pensive mood, as if trying to collect some tangible impressions from her disturbed imagination.
“On my part, I was preoccupied with my own thoughts, so we left the theater, before we knew it, without talking much, and as we did not feel like going to the usual late-night café, we got into a carriage right away and returned to our hotel.
“We were both tired and sank into the chairs in front of the fireplace; after a while my wife looked up at me and asked, with her cheek resting on her hand, ‘Really, what was the meaning of that opera?’
“We were in one of the rooms of a large old hotel, where only a lamp with a green shade was lit on a small table at the corner, and not a sound could be heard outside the window. To us Americans, it seemed as if, in this quiet night in an Old World city, we could hear the voices of all sorts of people from the past centuries coming out of nowhere; I looked around in amazement and felt a chill, as if from the walls of an old cathedral, noticing the heavy, dark velvet curtains hanging over the windows and the doorway, matching the dark decorations of the walls and the ceiling and silently draping over the silk carpet.
“I stood up and tried to turn on the beautiful electric light hanging from the ceiling, but my wife stopped me, waving her hand. Perhaps she thought it would be better to keep the room dimly lit in order to have an intimate conversation. As I returned reluctantly to my chair, my wife asked in a melancholy voice, ‘Dear, it really doesn’t make sense. I can understand Tannhäuser’s feelings as he parts with Venus and returns to his homeland, but why is it that after returning home he should recall his affair with Venus, which he has already repented, and right in front of Elizabeth, the lord’s daughter who loves him? I don’t understand that kind of feeling.’
“All of a sudden, Tannhäuser’s fierce aria, ‘Goddess of love, Venus, only to you I speak of love’ (Die gottin der liebe [sic]), began to sound in my ears, and simultaneously, Marianne’s face appeared deep down in my heart. I looked up at the dark corner of the ceiling beyond the reach of the light and answered as if engaging in a monologue in a dream.
“ ‘That’s what life is. No matter how hard we try to forget, we never can. Knowing it is all foolish, we still yield to temptation and agonize over it. In all situations, life would be so much happier but for such contradictions, such irrationalities as the agony of reason versus emotion, or, going a step further, the struggle between body and spirit, the collision between reality and ideals. . . . But this is an unattainable dream, and it seems to me that such agony is life’s inescapable, miserable fate.’
“While talking, I felt as if not just my own weak self but the fate of every human being living on earth were so fragile, and I almost wanted to cry aloud like a child.
“ ‘Isn’t that why we turn to God . . . to rely on religion?’
“The voice of my wife sounded as if it came not from a living woman, but from somewhere far away. I answered in a quavering voice, ‘But there are times when neither religion nor faith can give us any consolation. . . . For instance, take that Tannhäuser; he goes on a pilgrimage to Rome barefoot, persuaded by the saintly maiden Elizabeth, but he is not forgiven by the Pope and so determines once again to go to the mountain of the heathen goddess Venus. . . . Doesn’t that passage satirize religion, which has failed to give hope to someone who has twice erred? Yet in the end, even Tannhäuser, who has been led astray by love in the world of evil, faints in agony at the sight of the chaste maiden Elizabeth’s lifeless body, and at that very moment a song announcing his salvation resounds far away. . . . It was Elizabeth’s love, the love of a chaste maiden, that redeemed Tannhäuser’s soul from Hell.’
“Having finished, I gazed at my wife’s face. She was wearing an eggshell-colored evening gown, in décolletage, revealing her white shoulders and broad chest, so that her still figure, looking as if it were floating in the dark room against the pale green light, gave the impression that some noble glow of feminine virtue was going to emit from her.
“Carried away momentarily by a deep emotion, I flung myself at her feet, held her hands with all my might, and shed warm tears on her lap as I exclaimed, ‘It is the love of a chaste maiden that redeems us from eternal damnation. Josephine, you are my Elizabeth!’
“To which my wife responded, with a slightly puzzled look and casting her eyes down on my upturned face, ‘You mean you too, like Tannhäuser. . . .’
“Ah! Like a Catholic Christian who
kneels down in front of the confessional, I felt driven by a suffocating need to confess, and, without thinking of the consequences, confided everything to her about my past.
“And what was the result? Did my wife possess as noble a love as Elizabeth? No way! As soon as she heard my story, her eyes flushed with flames of violent jealousy, a sharp light of rebuke, like a bolt of lightning. . . . Alas, that terrifying glance!
“I came to myself immediately and regretted my rashness in revealing my unsavory secrets on the spur of the moment; I apologized, consoled, and did everything I could, but none of this was sincere, merely an artificial device to cover up my failings, and so the situation grew worse.
“ ‘How could you have deceived me like this until now?’ With these last words, my wife shook off my clinging hands and went into the next room.
“Our honeymoon, life’s happiest occasion, now became a most miserable one. The following day we left Vienna for Germany and immediately departed for home from the port of Hamburg, but all through the trip, whether at the dinner table, by a train window, or on the deck of the ship, my wife would not utter a word to me.
“Nevertheless, I continued to entertain the faintest hope, with all my courage and patience, that someday my sincere feelings would get through to my wife and induce her to dissolve her anger. But a woman’s heart, once closed, will never open again. Day by day, her face became gaunter and her eyes began to glitter almost frighteningly, so that by the time we reached New York several days later, she looked a totally different person from the Josephine with whom I had set out on our journey.
