Vita Sexualis

by Ogai Mori

  "If they made as much of a fuss over us as they do Hanno, we'd head straight for Okuyama, but even though we pay to 'draw our bows,' they don't even want to talk to us. We're really a worthless lot!"

  To those fellows Hanno was an Adonis. Before long I was to have the chance to see many girls, Aphrodites and Persephones, serve this man.

  Once during that time of day when the locusts in the garden gradually become noisier and as I was idling away the hours during my father's absence, a steward called Kuriso shouted out to me:

  "Shizu, are you at home? I'm off on an errand. Come on along. I'll take you to Asakusa Kannon, to the temple dedicated to Kannon."

  My father had once brought me to see this Kannon. Joyfully I slipped into my wooden clogs and went out with him.

  We crossed Azuma Bridge, came out on a road lined with trees, and did our shopping. Then we retraced our steps and strolled leisurely along a street lined with shops on both sides. Holding many toys shaped like tortoises suspended on strings, one fellow kept calling, "Moving turtles! Take whichever one you want, whichever you want!" The neck, tail, and four legs of the toy animal quivered as they moved. Kuriso paused in front of a shop that sold prints. While I was looking at the colored prints of the Satsuma Rebellion, he picked up a book covered with a paper wrapper on display at the front of the shop. "Madam," Kuriso said to the elderly attendant, "are there still some poor souls tricked into buying this kind of thing?" And he laughed.

  "Now and then we sell some. Though what's written inside is quite dull." And she laughed too.

  "How about selling me the real thing?"

  "You're joking! These days the police are very strict."

  Printed on the cover of this volume wrapped in paper was a woman's face and above it in large letters were the words A Funny Book. In the print shops in those days were many such books that dupe the customer. Inside were short stories or something of the sort, the volume deliberately wrapped in paper to make it appear as if it contained something secret. These books were sold to those eager for erotic drawings.

  Even though I was only a child, I could roughly understand the meaning behind their words. But what attracted my attention much more than the implications behind their dialogue was the way Kuriso made free use of Tokyo expressions. I wondered why at home he used our dialect when he spoke so well with a Tokyo accent. Of course it was quite natural for people from the same province to communicate in their own dialect. But it seemed to me that Kuriso did not employ these two kinds of speech merely for that reason. I wondered if he was using our provincial speech under the pretense of showing his loyalty to his superiors. I had reached the age in which I could speculate about such matters. Sometimes I felt quite stupid, but then again in some ways I wasn't the least bit innocent.

  We climbed the steps to the temple. Eager to learn about everything, I focused my eyes on those deep dark places beyond the black lattice, almost impenetrable even by candlelight. Passing behind old men and women on bended knees, their bodies bent like lobsters as they muttered their incomprehensible prayers, we turned toward the eastern end of the temple and descended the steps, hearing behind us the occasional clink of coins tossed into the offertory boxes.

  This section of Tokyo had many beggars. Removed from them was a man displaying drawings made in sands of five colors. In a somewhat wider area a swordplayer was hemmed in by a crowd of spectators. For a while I watched with Kuriso as the man performed. A number of swords were hanging on racks. The lower the rack, the longer the sword. Though the man kept on talking about various things, he did not draw his weapon. Suddenly Kuriso moved off, and without knowing why he had, I followed him. Turning back, I noticed a man collecting money headed toward the place where we had been standing.

  We came out on a narrow street lined with archery shops. I was amazed to find in each of these shops a woman whose face was covered with white paint. My father had never taken me to this section. A strange observation occurred to me about the faces of these women. Their faces were not those of ordinary persons. Unlike the faces of women I had seen up to that time, these were a kind of stereotype. If I can express what I felt then with words I might use now, it was that the faces of these women had a congealed expression. This was how I felt as I stared at them. I wondered why their faces were so uniform. When a child is asked to look pleased, his face takes on a strange expression. These women looked exactly like a child under such circumstances. Their eyebrows had been sketched on as high as possible, sometimes even up to the borders of their hair. Their eyes were strained open as wide as possible. Even when they talked or laughed, they tried not to move that part of the face above the nose. I wondered why the faces of these women looked as if they had been prearranged. Though I didn't understand what I was witnessing at that time, I later learned that these faces were for sale. These were the faces of prostitutes.

  The women called out in loud voices, most of them saying, "Hey, Master!" Some clearly enunciated, "I say there!" but most only shouted, "Hey!" There were even some who cried out, "Oh, Master in the dark blue tabi!" Kuriso wore socks this color.

  "Good heavens! It's Mr. Kuriso!"

  A remarkably high-pitched voice yelled these words. Kuriso entered the woman's shop and sat down. Since I merely stood where I was, a look of disgust on my face, Kuriso waved me in to take a seat. The woman was round-faced. From between her thin lips when she talked, I could see patches where the blackened dye on her teeth, applied for cosmetic effect, had faded somewhat. She lit the tobacco in the bowl of a long-stemmed metal pipe, and wiping the mouthpiece with her kimono sleeve and without moving that part of her face above her nose, she offered the pipe to Kuriso.

  "Why did you wipe it?"

  "Well, I didn't want to be rude."

  "You don't offer it to anyone except Hanno without wiping it, do you?"

  "Oh, even for Master Hanno, I always wipe it in offering it to him."

  "That so? You really do wipe it for him and give it to him?"

  They spoke in this way. Their words had two kinds of meaning. Kuriso never considered I would be able to conceive the second meaning behind their words. The woman also treated me as if I were nonexistent. Not that I was complaining however. I found her quite disagreeable. I didn't want to have her talking to me.

  Kuriso suggested I try drawing a bow, but I told him I didn't want to.

  Before long he left the shop with me. Then passing through Saruwakacho, we crossed the river by ferryboat and returned to the estate at Mukojima.

  What follows happened about that time. Among the acquaintances of our stewards was an acupuncturist by the name of Ginbayashi, and sometimes he visited their quarters to talk to them. Though he came to give medical treatment to our master, he was not a native of our province. He was a real Tokyoite. Almost all our stewards were in their thirties, but this man was past forty. In comparison to the stewards he was, I thought, much more intelligent.

  One day Ginbayashi offered to take me to the Ginza since he was going there. Finishing his business, he took me to the storyteller's hall near Kyobashi.

  Since it was a matinee, there weren't many spectators. In addition to the few elegant wives of merchants who brought their daughters with them, most of the audience consisted of journeymen.

  The storyteller was on the stage giving his recital. A lad by the name of Tokusaburo had gone out to play chess. After returning home late at night, he found himself locked out. A girl in the neighborhood was also locked out of her house. She began talking to the boy. When he told her there was nothing for him to do but go to his uncle's house and ask for shelter, the girl pleaded with him to take her along. Paying no attention to her request, the boy walked off without a moment's delay, but the girl followed. The uncle of the boy was a "man about town." It seemed to me that a "man about town" was someone lax in morals. The uncle jumped to the conclusion that his nephew had brought a sweetheart along with him. The uncle presumed the boy was justifying himself in whatever he did because he had been
embarrassed. And as for the girl, who was falling in love with the boy, she was thinking everything that had happened was quite providential. That was why the two young persons let themselves be forced upstairs by the uncle. There was bedding on the floor for only one person. Vertically placing along the center of the bed the obi the girl had unbound from her waist and as if dividing in two the territory of Saghalien (though my metaphor is by now an anachronism since I am writing this account long after that historical event), the two persons went to sleep. Opening their eyes after sleeping in one bed, and so on and so on . . .1 was not yet accustomed to the language of Tokyo, so it seemed to me the storyteller was speaking quite rapidly. I had been listening with undivided attention in the same way I had first heard the lecture of a foreigner long after this event, but I happened to notice Ginbayashi watching me, smiling at me.

  "How about it? Do you understand it?"

  "Well, for the most part."

  "That's quite enough if you got most of it!"

  When the storyteller who has been performing stands up, bows to the audience, and leaves from the side of the stage, the next performer makes his appearance on the platform. He humbly says, "It's my turn, but I'm a poor substitute." Immediately he leaps into his subject: the pastime of gentlemen is whoring. Then the storyteller proceeds to recite the tale of an artisan who leads his innocent friend to Yoshiwara. It's a lecture which might be entitled "A Yoshiwara Primer." I listened with wide-eyed admiration, feeling Tokyo was the most convenient spot in the world in which to acquire knowledge on any subject. At that time I committed to memory a strange phrase, "favored with cuntie." However, having never again encountered this expression anywhere else except at storytelling halls, I found it one of those phrases which imposed a useless burden on my memory.

  ***

  Around October of that same year I entered a private school located at Ikizaka in Hongo where German was taught. That was because my father thought he would let me specialize in mining.

  Since the school was too far for me to commute to from Mukojima, my father had me lodge in the home of the famous Professor Azuma, who lived in Ogawacho in Kanda, and from this house I went off to school everyday.

  Having just returned from abroad, the professor was very particular about his diet, but with the exception of having plenty of meat at mealtimes, he was not especially extravagant. Only in drinking did he let himself go. It was after he returned from his office and had completed his translating at ten or eleven at night that he drank. His wife seemed to me to be heroic. Now that I think about it, it's rare among high public officials these days to see a family governed by such domestic bliss. It was wonderful that my father had placed me in a fine home.

  During the time I lived at Professor Azuma's, I was never pressured by sexual desires. If I force myself to trace back those memories, I can recall only this event: My study was located between the parlor and the kitchen. One day the maid had not yet come in to light my lamp even though it was already dark outside. I suddenly stood up and went toward the kitchen. There I discovered the houseboy and maid talking. He was explaining to her something like the following: A woman's machinery can be put to use at any time. It can go into operation without any relation to feelings. A man's machinery is at times serviceable, at times not. If a man takes a fancy to something, his machinery springs forward. If he feels something distasteful, it gives a poor showing. The maid was listening with crimson ears. Disgusted, I returned to my room.

  My lessons at school did not seem very difficult. Since I had studied English under my father's instruction, I had been using a dictionary by a man named Adler. It was in two volumes, one German-English, the other English-German. Whenever I was bored, I would amuse myself by looking up such a word as member and then finding its equivalent Zeugungslied or by looking up the word pudenda and finding Scham. But it was not because such words were interesting enough to have any effect on my sexual desires that I amused myself in this way. I found myself fascinated by such words simply as hidden expressions which could not be used in public. That is why I remember looking up the word Furz at the same time I had looked up the word fart. One day our teacher, a German, was instructing us in introductory chemistry and demonstrating how to make hydrogen sulfide. He asked us if we knew any substance which contained this gas. One of the students answered, "faule Eier." Certainly rotten eggs do have this same sort of smell. He asked us if we knew any others. Standing up, I shouted out, "Furz!"

  "Was? Bitte, noch einmal!"

  "Furz!"

  Finally our teacher understood, his face turning red. He was kind enough to instruct me not to use this type of word.

  Our school had its own dormitory. After classes were over, I dropped in to look around. It was there that I first heard about sodomy. My classmate, Kagenokoji, who came to school everyday on horseback, was the object of the tender passions of dormitory students who could not have girls they could love. He was not able to do well in his lessons at school. He was a handsome boy with a plump, pale reddish face. That the word "boy" had the meaning of being an object for sodomy was something I had not known before. The student who had asked me to drop into the dorm on my way back home was also looking upon me as a "boy." The first two or three times I stopped, he offered me some refreshment and apparently wanted only to talk in a friendly way. He treated me to parched beans and baked sweet potatoes, called respectively at that time by the students "confetti" and "jellied bean paste." From the beginning, though, I felt his kindness was a little too tenacious, so I didn't like it, yet fearing to be impolite to a senior, I merely tolerated our association. Before long he was grabbing my hand. He even pressed his cheek against mine. It was annoying, unbearable. I had no genius as an Urning, as a sodomite. Yet even though I found it unpleasant to stop in on my way home, I had to out of force of habit due to our acquaintance. One day when I called on him, I discovered the bed prepared. His behavior was much more importunate than it had ever been before. The blood rushed to his head, his face turned red. Finally he said to me, "Please get in bed and sleep with me if only for a second!"

  "I don't want to."

  "You shouldn't talk that way. Come on!"

  He grabbed my hand. The more passionate he became, the greater became my dislike and fear.

  "I don't want to. I'm going home."

  While we were arguing in this way, a voice called out from the room next door.

  "Is it hopeless?"

  "Yes."

  "Then I'll help you."

  He rushed out from his room into the corridor. Clattering open the tattered sliding door to the room, he burst in. He was a rough guy, and from the first I had not wanted to associate with him. At least, though, he acted the way he looked; the one who had lured me into that room was the real hypocrite.

  "If he won't listen to what an upperclassman tells him, let's teach him a lesson by blanketing him!"

  His hands moved simultaneously with these words. My head was covered with the bedding. I was desperately trying to push it aside. They were pinning me down from above. Because of the row we were making, a few students came to have a look. I heard someone say, "Cut it out! Stop it!" The hands pressing down on me slackened a bit. Finally I managed to spring up and flee from the room. At that moment, though, I made off with a bundle of books and a bottle of ink, flattering myself I had been quick and shrewd. After that I never went into the dorm.

  In those days every Saturday I would leave Professor Azuma's house to spend the night with my father at Mukojima, returning Sunday evening. At the time, my father was a minor official in one of the ministries. I told him what had happened at the dorm. I expected he would be quite surprised, but he wasn't in the least.

  "Yes. There are fellows like that. From now on be careful."

  My father was very calm as he said these words. So I realized this was one of the hardships I had to undergo in life.

  ***

  When I was thirteen . . .

  The previous year my mother came over
from our district and joined us.

  I gave up German, which I had been studying since the first of the year, and entered the Tokyo English Academy. The change was due partly to the revision of the educational system by the Ministry of Education, partly to my having pleaded with my father to let me study philosophy. Though I felt I had wasted time and energy in studying German for the short interval after my arrival in Tokyo, I found it quite helpful afterwards.

  I lived in the school dormitory. Though the youngest students were about sixteen or seventeen, most were in their twenties. Almost all the students wore the hakama, the formal skirt made of duck cloth, and they also wore dark blue tabi. Unless they tucked up their kimono sleeves to their shoulders, they were thought effeminate.

  Permission was granted to the owner of a lending library to trade in the dormitory. I was one of his regular customers. I read Bakin. I read Kyoden. When I found someone had taken out Shunsui and was reading him, I even borrowed that book "secondhand" from him and read it. As I was reading Umegoyomi, I experienced for the first time in my life an impression of how good it would feel if I had been the hero Tanjiro and someone like Ocho had loved and respected me. At the same time I felt I would never be loved by a woman, for I was ugly, and even among those students who wore such plain, inexpensive clothing as the duck-cloth hakama and dark blue socks were boys with white complexions and fine-cut features. Ever since those days I have secretly been obsessed with this awareness about myself, and I've never been able to feel sufficiently proud of myself. Furthermore, handicapped by being younger, I was always overwhelmed by the tyranny of my fellow students, no matter what I tried to do, so my behavior became one of submitting openly while secretly resisting. Clausewitz, the military strategist, once said passive resistance ought to be the tactic resorted to by weak nations. Congenitally I was a person who was to be disappointed in love, a weak creature molded by circumstance.