The Izu Dancer and Other Stories: The Counterfeiter, Obasute, The Full Moon

by Inoue Yasushi

  I leaned against the railing and gazed out at Oshima until the southern tip of the Izu Peninsula was out of sight. It seemed a long while before that I had said good-by to the little dancer. I went inside and on to my stateroom. The sea was so rough that it was hard even to sit up. A crewman came around to pass out metal basins for the seasick. I lay down with my book sack for a pillow, my mind clear and empty. I was no longer conscious of the passage of time. I wept silently, and when my cheek began to feel chilly I turned my book sack over. A young boy lay beside me. He was the son of an Izu factory owner, he explained, and he was going to Tokyo to get ready for highschool entrance examinations. My school cap had attracted him.

  "Is something wrong?" he asked after a time.

  "No, I've just said good-by to someone." I saw no need to disguise the truth, and I was quite unashamed of my tears. I thought of nothing. It was as though I were slumbering in a sort of quiet fulfillment. I did not know when evening came, but there were lights on when we passed Atami. I was hungry and a little chilly. The boy opened his lunch and I ate as though it were mine. Afterwards I covered myself with part of his cape. I floated in a beautiful emptiness, and it seemed natural that I should take advantage of his kindness. Everything sank into an enfolding harmony.

  The lights went out, the smell of the sea and of the fish in the hold grew stronger. In the darkness, warmed by the boy beside me, I gave myself up to my tears. It was as though my head had turned to clear water, it was falling pleasantly away drop by drop; soon nothing would remain.

  THE COUNTERFEITER, OBASUTE,

  AND THE FULL MOON

  by Yasushi Inoue

  translated by Leon Picon

  INTRODUCTION

  HUMAN pathos and suffering, loneliness and isolation, Oriental fatalism and Buddhistic concepts of predestination form dominant strands in the fabric of virtually all of the writings of Yasushi Inoue. Probably his own separation from his parents when he was a child set the pattern for the basic framework of these moods, particularly that of loneliness. Here, it is perhaps interesting to note that the usual Japanese word for loneliness, kodoku, is made up of two Chinese characters—ko, "orphan" and doku, "alone." And Yasushi Inoue as a child was an "orphan alone" in almost every sense except the legal one.

  Born in 1907 the son of an Army physician in Hokkaido, the northernmost of the four major islands that comprise Japan, Yasushi Inoue was taken during his infancy to live with his grandmother in a small village on the Izu Peninsula, some hundred and thirty-five miles south of Tokyo. This area is obviously dear to him; he calls it "my native Izu Peninsula" in The Counterfeiter and opens Obasute with references to his childhood there. One cannot help but feel that his delicate sensitivity to all natural beauty harks back to that time when separation from his family and personal loneliness led him, even as a child, to seek solace in Nature, which surrounded him in that mountain village. While separation and isolation strike gloomy chords throughout Inoue's works, it is to natural and other visual beauty that he inevitably turns for release, comfort, and meditation. It is one of the characteristics of his style to ease his readers down to earth again after the more dramatic sections of his stories by some gentle description of natural beauty.

  This sensitivity to beauty appears to have been highly developed in the young Yasushi by the time he entered college and probably much before that. Although according to the dictates of filial duty he should have followed in his father's footsteps and become a doctor, science held no interest for him and he majored instead in aesthetics during his collegiate years at Kyoto University. It was probably during these years that the three persistent themes of the writings of Yasushi Inoue developed: a deep and abiding interest in Chinese history, stemming from his studies of Oriental art and particularly its Chinese antecedents; an ever-present consciousness of art and artists (many of his stories deal with artists and their works); and an involvement with social problems, present and past.

  Inoue, who is one of Japan's most prolific writers today, started relatively late as a novelist. He was forty-two when he published in 1949 his first works, the two novelettes Ryoju* and The Bull Fight, which the following year won for him the top literary prize in Japan, the Akutagawa Prize. His longer Tiles of the Tempyo Era (1957) deals both with art and ancient China; Lou-Lan** and The Flood*** are short historical novels of China. Whether he is writing full novels, novelettes, or short stories, however, Inoue's penchant for detailed, exhaustive research and historical accuracy give his stories a flavor of authenticity. Even the characters in his stories can often be traced back to historical individuals. In the spring of 1964, Inoue went to the United States to start his research on what he personally believes will be his magnum opus, a multi-volume treatment of first, second, and third generation Japanese abroad, particularly in the United States.

  Prior to his emergence as one of Japan's most prominent literary figures, Yasushi Inoue worked as a reporter for the Mainichi Shimbun in Osaka. In two of the stories in this book there are specific references to his employment as a newspaper man. One wonders if the dissatisfaction with newspaper work which he attributes to his brother in Obasute is not really autobiographical, for Yasushi did, as he relates in The Counterfeiter, resign from the Mainichi Shimbun and move to Tokyo shortly after his initial successes in literature with Ryoju and The Bull Fight. During the war, he did in fact move his family to Tottori Prefecture, the main setting for The Counterfeiter. There are a myriad of other authentic autobiographical references to himself, his childhood, career, and character in all three of the stories in this book. He attributes to Toyama in The Full Moon some of his own attitudes toward human destiny, attitudes shaped in both cases by separation from parents at an early age.

  The impact of his own separation from his parents is a constantly recurrent subject to which he alludes directly or indirectly, for it had a powerful influence on his personal reflections and on his reactions to all mankind. In the beginning of Obasute, when speaking of his childhood, Inoue writes, "... but what I do recall in my faint memory is that my grandmother—or was it my mother? anyhow, a member of my family ..." came out onto a porch to comfort him. "Just a few words" of comfort, he writes, and one is impressed that the neglect he felt as a child has stayed with him, a haunting reminder of his isolation and loneliness. In all three of the stories in this volume, separation occurs: a husband from his wife, a child from a parent, a sister from a brother, a mother from her two children. These are sorrows which in Inoue's case are felt with deep intensity. They are coupled with cold and gloomy darkness, slag heaps, and shadows "like spilled ink"—an expression he uses in both Obasute and The Full Moon.

  Inoue's training in aesthetics and his experience as a reporter would seem to have had marked influences on his style as a writer. Just as his work as a newspaper reporter was probably responsible for his lengthy research into detailed data before writing his stories, his exposure to Oriental art shows through in his descriptive powers. Like a sumie - painter who suggests forms with subtle brushstrokes, Inoue has a highly developed skill of portrayal through the least suggestion. His economy of language enables him to present intense drama and complex human involvement even in his shortest stories. But, even more, his characters ring true and are made real and vivid through just the slightest possible descriptive statements.

  He wastes little or no time on the physical characteristics of the figures in his stories, and even his references to their personalities are generally encompassed in a single sentence, a phrase or a word. Of course, this sometimes has engendered the criticism that he tends to deal in stereotypes. Yet, even if he evokes stereotypic images, this technique in itself adds further credence and reliability to the authentic situations with which he deals. Inoue is one of the most precise writers in contemporary Japan. Given the lack of precision in the Japanese language itself, the precision in his choice of words is quite astounding. Stylistically, two main currents are constantly at work in his writings: a tendency toward long, invo
lved descriptive sentences, with a host of modifying clauses and phrases each of which has its clearly directed purpose of elaboration of detail, and a tendency toward the compactness of individual phrases characteristic of Japanese poetry. Inoue, in fact, had aspirations of becoming a poet before his success as a prose writer, but he freely admits to failure as a poet. Be that as it may, if economy of words is one of the prerequisites for good poetry, in that respect much that is contained in Inoue's fiction is poetry of the highest order, but unhampered by the tyranny of form that pervades so much of Japanese culture.

  The three stories assembled here reveal yet another facet of Yasushi Inoue—his great compassion for his fellow human being. The tragic Hosen Hara in The Counterfeiter and the pathetic Kagebayashi of The Full Moon are not particularly pleasant people by any standards, Oriental or Western, but the sympathetic compassion with which Inoue handles them provides a real insight into the nature of the author. It therefore seems rather surprising to find in Obasute that Inoue harbors a fear that "misanthropic blood" possibly flows through his veins.

  Finally, a word or two about these translations and the subject of translation itself. For some years a battle has been raging among the critics of translations regarding the functions of the translator and the liberties he may take with the language of the author's original work. On one side of this argument, there are those who challenge even slight deviations from the original and condemn the translator who departs at all from a literal rendition of the author's lines. On the other side, there is the group of translators themselves, and a few critics who support them, who wander rather far afield in trying to render the author's thoughts, his language, and his imagery in a more palatable form for the Western reader. This argument is not unique to the translation of Japanese literature, nor is it an argument that belongs only to modern times. One need only recall the various approaches to the translation of the Bible to realize how eternal this controversy is. The translations in this volume lie somewhere between the extremes of the two schools of thought. If anything, they tend toward literal renditions, and a purposeful attempt has been made to adhere as closely as possible to Inoue's originals. Some liberties have admittedly been taken, however; some of Inoue's long involved sentences have been broken up into two, three, or sometimes even more, sentences. An attempt has also been made to keep footnotes to a minimum because of a fear that they may detract from the flow of Inoue's language. As a result, it has at times been necessary to induce some descriptive language and circumlocutions to help the Westerner with words or situations that are peculiarly Japanese. In general, however, a conscientious effort has been made to present Inoue's stories in their original form, preserving their inherently Japanese character and tone with a minimum of departures from the original flavor. With the exception of these few explanatory departures, where deviations from the originals may have crept in, they should be blamed on the translator's misinterpretation of the text rather than purposeful distortions.

  LEON PICON

  THE COUNTERFEITER

  (Aru Gisakka no Shogai)

  I

  ALMOST ten years have elapsed since I was commissioned by the family of the Japanese artist Keigaku Onuki to undertake the job of compiling Keigaku's biography, but I still have not fulfilled the contract. This spring I received from his family in Kyoto one of those printed announcements, with reply-postcard attached, inviting me to attend memorial services at a certain Zen temple commemorating the thirteenth anniversary of Keigaku's death. Frankly, I found it a bit difficult to face Onuki's people at that time. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I couldn't attend the services because of my work. But, the fact of the matter is that I was rather relieved that I actually could not attend.

  When the contract for compiling Keigaku's biography was first negotiated by Onuki's heir, Takuhiko—I think that was around 1942—the original understanding was that there was no particular hurry about completing it. On the other hand, he had implied that he would like to distribute copies, as an offering to the spirit of the departed, to those who attended the seventh memorial services, so he wanted to have the work completed in time for publication prior to that occasion. The seventh anniversary was to be commemorated in April 1945, the year the war ended, and the feverish pace of life toward the end of the war was confused enough for both the Onuki family and me, even without Keigaku's biography. Consequently, my work on the biography reached a state of temporary suspension while I was still in the process of collecting material, and although I hadn't actually abandoned the project, my contract came to a natural dissolution. As it happened, the contract was renegotiated by the Onuki family after the war. They said that now that normalcy was returning, they couldn't wait and wanted me to complete the biography as soon as possible. So ever since then I have been getting postcards from Takuhiko, roughly once a year, asking about the status of my progress on the biography and hinting pointedly at the desirability of speed. At such times, in desperation, I have been forced to fabricate excuses in order to placate him.

  Originally, I had been selected for the onerous task of doing Keigaku's biography for a variety of reasons. At that time I was a fine-arts reporter for one of the Osaka newspapers, and in the course of my work I had met with the late artist on many occasions. It seems also that the late Keigaku had held me in higher esteem than he held the reporters of other papers. There were all sorts of factors like that. Additionally, I was selected by the Onuki family and by Keigaku's disciples because they felt that since I was the most competent person to undertake the biography, it would be relatively easy for me to collect material. Also, as a fine-arts reporter with somewhat of a store of knowledge of the artistic world, my point of view was likely to be bought.

  When I was first approached, I had jumped at the opportunity of taking on this arduous task. I was very fond not only of Keigaku's work but also of Keigaku as an individual. Besides, compiling a biography of Keigaku would be more than just writing a history of Kyoto's art circles with him at the core; it would be like writing a history of Japan's art world. I thought it would not be a bad idea at all to seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me, a reporter, to do a study of the transition and change in Japan's art world from the Meiji period* on.

  On taking a second hard look at the job, however, I found that it was not going to be as simple as I had thought. In the first place, one had to start from the beginning by drawing up a chronology. Before constructing the magnificent Kyoto mansion in which he lived in his declining years, Keigaku had changed his residence in and around Kyoto more than ten times—as his mood suited him. And, also as his mood suited him, for half of each year he was in a state of constant travel. Thus it was difficult to ascertain when, where, and at which ateliers his works, so publicized throughout the world, had been produced. Moreover, as I started to trace the course of his actions during a career of more than sixty years and tried to reconcile the contradictory stories of him told by all sorts of artists, disciples, art dealers, and exhibitors, the job turned out to be not so simple as it had appeared from the outside.

  Another thing:

  When Keigaku was fifty years old, he buried the wife who had been with him through thick and thin over the years. Thereafter, he lived with an aged housemaid who survived him by two years. He also always had one or another student staying with him, but these students were constantly shifting, unable to tolerate Keigaku very long because of his volatile personality. The one person who should have known the late artist's movements and actions best, his heir, Takuhiko, had lived in France for a long time and had only returned to Japan five years before Keigaku died. But he kept a separate house in Tokyo, and since he was a sort of eccentric egotist, as might be expected, he had almost no contact with Keigaku's way of life. Thus, it might be said that there was practically no one who possessed a detailed knowledge of Keigaku's private life. To all this, one more thing must be added—and this follows from the nature of Keigaku's independent, extravagant, and rustic character—he
always frowned upon what we call The Art Circles and lived consistently isolated from the artistic world. Because of this, I encountered tremendous difficulties and obstacles when I reached the point of collecting the materials for his biography.

  For all of these reasons, I was unable to proceed with any expedition even as far as a draft of the chronology, which I consider basic to any biography. After visiting town after town on the Inland Sea coast near his birthplace, where his earliest work was done, and after going to see the small cottage-industry villages of Hokuriku, where, curiously, Keigaku enthusiasts were concentrated and had assembled those masterpieces of his later years that he had produced for sale, I was scarcely able to fill two or three notebooks with notes. Then, as the war increased in intensity, I had to drop my work on the biography while I was still in the midst of the basic research.

  After the war, this backbreaking but delicate and tantalizing job again stared me in the face. Whenever I began to feel that I really had to get started on what I had committed myself to, the mere knowledge of the peculiar delicacy of this job kept me from feeling that I would now be able to apply myself to the task with ease. Besides—and this was a matter of some fundamental importance to me personally—I unexpectedly quit the newspaper after the war, went up to Tokyo, and turned my attention to literature. Completely immersed in this new kind of work, and with the chronology incomplete and full of gaps, I kept procrastinating, with the inevitable result that my work on Keigaku's biography simply remained in the form of those two or three tablets of notes.