Modern Japanese Literature

by Donald Keene

  School had begun a few days before. Chokichi left the house early in the morning, his books wrapped together with the lunch packet his mother had prepared, but by the second or third day he lost the energy to walk all the way to Kanda. In previous years he had missed the schoolroom as the long summer vacation drew to a close, and had waited with some impatience for the beginning of classes. That boyish emotion now disappeared completely. What was the use of studying? School was not the place to give him the happiness he desired. Chokichi felt with an intuitive flash that school was something quite unrelated to his happiness.

  On the morning of the fourth day of school Chokichi left the house before seven, as usual, and walked as far as the grounds of the Kannon Temple. He sat heavily on a bench next to the main building, like an exhausted traveler on a wayside stone. No dirty scraps of paper littered the dewy gravel walks; probably they had just been swept; and instead of the usual bustle, the temple grounds seemed wondrously spacious, silent, and holy in the early morning light. Several shifty-looking men who appeared to have spent the night in the temple corridors still sat there. One of them had untied the sash of a filthy kimono and was nonchalantly adjusting his loincloth. The sky was gray with low-hanging clouds, usual at this time of year, and worm-eaten leaves, still green, kept drifting down from the trees. Calls of crows and roosters and the beating of pigeon wings sounded crisp and clear. The stone ablution basin, wet by overflowing water, already seemed somehow cold in the shadow of the fluttering cloth offerings. The men and women who came for morning worship nevertheless stopped to wash their hands in the basin before climbing the steps to the temple. Among them Chokichi noticed a young geisha with a pink handkerchief held in her mouth, who, as she washed her white hands, apparently afraid of wetting her coat, held them out so far that he could see her forearms. He heard one of the students sitting on the next bench say, “Look! A sänger.1 Not bad.”

  The slight figure with delicately sloping shoulders, the hair tied in a shimada, the round face with its firm-set mouth, her fifteen or sixteen years—everything recalled Oito so much that Chokichi nearly leapt from his bench. Oito had kept the promise she made the night the moon was so lovely. She returned home two days later to fetch her personal belongings, for she was now to reside permanently in Yoshicho. Chokichi was amazed—Oito had changed so much that she looked an entirely different person. Suddenly, in the space of a single day, the girl in a plain sash of red muslin had blossomed into a geisha, like the one he had just seen washing her hands. Already she displayed a ring on her finger, and time and time again, quite unnecessarily, she pulled her mirror and purse from her sash to powder her face or smooth a vagrant wisp of hair into place. She had kept a rickshaw waiting for her outside the door, and left after spending scarcely an hour with Chokichi, as it some extremely urgent business occupied her. Her parting words were to ask Chokichi to convey her regards to his mother. He did, it is true, hear her say in the tone he loved that she would come see him soon. Chokichi interpreted this not as a guileless promise, of the kind she had always made, but rather as the adroit flattery of an experienced woman. The girl Oito, his childhood sweetheart Oito, no longer breathed in this world. Behind her rickshaw, drawn so briskly that the dogs sleeping by the roadside were startled, lingered the scent of her face powder. It reached his nostrils with almost oppressive poignance.

  The young geisha emerged from the temple after worshiping and lightly tripped towards the Nio Gate. Chokichi’s eyes followed her, and he recalled that bitter moment when Oito’s rickshaw had pulled away. He rose from the bench in anguish, as if incapable of enduring more. Mechanically he followed the girl to the end of the row of shops, where she disappeared into a side street. The shopkeepers were busy sweeping and arranging their merchandise. Chokichi, hardly knowing what he did, walked quickly in the direction of the Thunder Gate. It was not that he was hoping to find out where the young geisha had gone: he was pursuing an image of Oito which his eyes alone could detect. He had completely forgotten about school. After much wandering he saw at last in the distance the roof of the Meiji Theatre, and soon afterwards heard the distant whistle of a river steamboat. At that moment a terrible fatigue seized him. Not only was his forehead wet with perspiration under his schoolcap, his whole body was soaked. But he could not bear to rest even for an instant, and at last he located the entrance to the street where he had been led the night of the moon.

  One side of the street was lit by the morning sun, and Chokichi could now see the whole block from one end to the other. It did not consist entirely of little houses with latticework fronts; when seen by day there was also a quite surprising number of tall storehouses, and a board fence surmounted by spikes, above which pine branches were visible. He could also see the lime-sprinkled entrance of a public lavatory, boxes of rubbish neatly stacked for disposal, and cats wandering around the area. There was an unusually large number of people in the street, twisting away from one another as they passed on the narrow wooden sidewalks. A sound of talking intermingled with samisen practice, and he could also hear the splash of water from somebody’s laundering. A short woman in a red undergarment with the skirt hitched up was sweeping the sidewalk with a grass broom, and another woman was energetically polishing the latticework in a door, spoke by spoke. Chokichi was taken aback by all these people and asked himself for the first time what he would do when once he had ventured into the street. He had thought of stealing by in front of the Matsubaya, and attempting to get a glimpse of Oito through the fence, but the spot was too exposed for him to escape notice. In that case, he wondered, should he continue to stand at the entrance to the street in the hope that Oito might go out on some errand? But this too was difficult—Chokichi felt as if the shopkeepers were all watching him, and he could not remain there even five minutes more. Just then an old peddler emerged from a side street, beating wooden clappers and trailed by the children of the neighborhood. Chokichi walked into the street from which the man had come. He needed some time to think.

  Chokichi followed the street along its meandering course to the river. One thing was clear to him: it was most unlikely that he would meet Oito, no matter how long he waited. And it was too late now for him to go to school. If, on the other hand, he decided to take the day off, there was the problem of how and where to spend the time until three in the afternoon. His mother knew the school schedule by heart, and if Chokichi were to return an hour early or late, she would worry and immediately ask him bothersome questions. Chokichi was sure, of course, that he could easily talk his way out of the situation, but he found it extremely distasteful to suffer the pangs of conscience for such a minor offense. He was approaching the river now and could see the wooden bathhouses at the swimming place being dismantled and people fishing in the shade of the willow trees. Four or five passers-by had stopped and were idly watching the fishermen. Chokichi, thinking this was very opportune, went up to the men and pretended to be watching too. He squatted down, lacking even the strength to stand, his back against the prop of a willow tree.

  The sky had almost entirely cleared, and the humid autumn sun, shining with glaring brightness on the broad river, seemed intense enough to scorch the skin, despite the wind. There seemed to be a wonderful coolness to the shade from the thick cluster of branches that hung over the earthen wall along one side of the street, and an old man who sold sweet wine put down his gaily painted box and rested there. The tiled roofs of the rows of houses across the river, and everything else in the landscape, seemed depressingly dirty, no doubt because of the harsh intensity of the light. The rows of clouds hung motionless in layers, lower than the factory chimneys pouring forth volumes of smoke. The clock struck eleven in the little hut to the rear where they sold fishing equipment. As Chokichi counted the strokes he realized to his surprise how long a time he had spent walking. He felt relieved: at this rate it would not be difficult to pass the time until three o’clock. He noticed that one of the fishermen had begun to eat his lunch, and Chokichi opened his own pa
cket. But he felt uneasy after he had opened it, as if someone were watching him. Fortunately, now that it was almost noon, no strollers remained on the river bank. Chokichi swallowed down the rice, the vegetables, and the rest as quickly as possible. The fishermen were silent as statues, and the man who sold wine dozed where he sat. In the hour after noon the riverside was stiller than ever. Even dogs ceased to stir. Why, Chokichi wondered, should he feel so bad and be such a coward? It seemed so ridiculous.

  After taking a turn between Ryogoku Bridge and the New Bridge, Chokichi made up his mind finally to go back to Asakusa. He again approached the entrance to Yoshicho, drawn by a “perhaps” into which he put his whole heart. He was relieved to see that not so many people were in the street as in the morning, and, all fear and trembling, he steeled himself to walk by the Matsubaya. The interior of the house was extremely dark, and he could not even hear voices or the sound of a samisen. But simply having passed in front of his sweetheart’s house, Chokichi felt such satisfaction at this almost unprecedented act that he ceased to regret the fatigue and suffering that all his wanderings had brought him.

  4

  Somehow or other Chokichi managed during the rest of the week to attend school, but the following Monday on his way there he suddenly got off the streetcar. He had not succeeded in solving a single one of the algebra problems which the teacher assigned. Nor had he prepared his Chinese classics or his English. Worst of all, and this was why he left the streetcar, today there was to be gymnastics, the thing which he loathed and dreaded most in the whole world. Such stunts as hanging upside down from an iron bar or leaping from a ledge higher than himself were quite impossible for Chokichi, however much the instructor, an ex-army sergeant, bullied him, however much the whole class mocked. Chokichi could not keep up with the other students in sports, whatever the variety, and he was compelled to endure their derisive hoots. Nobody in his class could approach Chokichi when it came to drawing or calligraphy, but he was by temperament inclined in a quite different direction from the world of parallel bars, jujitsu, and Japanese spirit. Ever since he was a small child he had loved to hear the samisen his mother played all day long to make her living, and he learned, without having studied how, to tune the strings. It was enough for him to hear a popular song once for him to memorize it. His uncle had been quick to recognize that the boy possessed the qualities necessary for becoming a master of the samisen, and had suggested to Otoyo that Chokichi be sent to study with some first-rate teacher. She had not only flatly refused, but vehemently prohibited Chokichi from ever touching a samisen again.

  Had Chokichi been allowed to study the samisen, as his uncle Ragetsu had suggested, by now he certainly would have attained at least average proficiency, and he would have been spared the painful experience he was now undergoing. What had happened was truly irreparable. Chokichi felt that his whole life had been pointed in the wrong direction. Suddenly he felt a wave of hatred for his mother, and as his resentment for her mounted, he felt a longing for his uncle so strong that he would have liked to cling to him. Now that Chokichi had tasted the sufferings of love, he began to be able to interpret with a new meaning the stories which he had so often heard—and always with complete indifference—from his mother and even from his uncle himself about his uncle’s career of debauchery. Chokichi recalled that his aunt, then a great courtesan had asked his uncle’s help when the women of the Yoshiwara houses were released after the Meiji Restoration. His aunt had also been extremely fond of Chokichi when he was a little boy, but his mother did not seem to like her; Otoyo sometimes betrayed only too plainly that even to exchange greetings twice a year was a distasteful obligation. This recollection stirred up more unpleasant and resentful thoughts about his mother. Chokichi felt an unbearable constraint in a mother’s love which seemed to keep such close watch over his every action. Once his aunt had said to Oito and himself in a voice filled with the warmest tenderness, “You must always stay friends.” If only his mother were like her, she would quickly guess why he was suffering and show him sympathy. She would not force on him a kind of happiness which he did not in the least desire. Chokichi found himself comparing the attitudes of a respectable woman like his mother with those of a woman with a past like his aunt. He then compared his schoolteacher with his uncle Ragetsu.

  These were the thoughts that filled Chokichi’s head as he lay sprawled out in the park. Afterwards he took out the novel which he had hidden in his lunch packet and immersed himself in it. The thought occurred to him that he must somehow steal his mother’s seal to affix to the excuse for absence he would have to offer at school the following day.

  5

  Weeks of virtually uninterrupted rain were followed by a few days of blue skies unmarked by a single cloud. When the clouds returned they were accompanied by a wind that would suddenly whirl through the dust on the streets. The wind and the cold grew sharper each day, and the doors and windows, shut tight now, began their incessant, gloomy rattling. Chokichi had to get up every morning by six at the latest in order to arrive on time at school, which began at seven. His six o’clock rising was in murkier darkness every day, and finally he had to use a lamp, just as if it were the middle of the night. The mere sight of the dull yellow flame of the lamp on an early winter’s morning sufficed to infuse Chokichi with a sense of melancholy. His mother always got up earlier than Chokichi, apparently as a means of encouraging him, and shivering in her night clothes would prepare a hot breakfast. Chokichi appreciated her kindness, but it did not lessen his craving for more sleep. And if he attempted to linger an extra moment by the stove, his mother, who had eyes for nothing but the clock, would nag at him until he went grumbling out into the cold streets whipped by the river wind. Sometimes her excessive solicitude irritated him. He would deliberately untie his muffler because she had cautioned him about it, even if it meant catching a cold.

  Chokichi dully compared this year’s winter with last year’s, and last year’s with that of the year before. As he went back over the years, it came to him with startling clarity how much of happiness he had lost by growing up. When he was still a child, before he went to school, he could stay in bed as long as he wanted on cold mornings. Besides, he did not feel the cold so much. As a matter of fact, he used to jump out of bed joyfully when there was a cold wind or rain. But now that he was grown up, how disagreeable he found it to walk across Imado Bridge early in the morning when there was still white frost on the ground, and how sad the harsh red of the sun seemed as the sun sank early on winter afternoons behind old trees where the wind was always howling. What new sufferings would each year to come inflict on him? Never had the quick passing of the days seemed so melancholy as this December. The annual fair had already started at the Kannon Temple, and the bags of sugar which his mother’s pupils brought her as New Year presents were stacking up. The mid-term examination was over, and a note from his teacher concerning Chokichi’s bad marks had already reached his mother.

  Chokichi had been resigned all along to receiving bad marks. He listened in silence, his head drooping, as his mother lectured him. It was her usual sentimental speech, the one she delivered apropos of anything at all: she and Chokichi had no one in the world to depend on but each other. It was the time of day when she had the most leisure for such lectures; the little girls who came for morning lessons had left, and there would be no other pupils until three in the afternoon, when girls returning from school would call. Along the windless streets the winter sun glittered on every window. They sat in silence. A girl’s voice called from outside the lattice door in lively tones, “Good afternoon.” Chokichi’s mother stood in surprise. Almost at once the words came from the hall, “It’s me. I’ve come to apologize for having neglected you so.”

  Chokichi trembled. It was Oito. She came in, unfastening her beautiful serge coat.

  “Oh, Chokichi, you’re here too. Today must be a holiday at school.” She laughed, enchanted at the idea. Next she bowed politely to Otoyo, and murmured, “How have yo
u been? It is really so difficult for me to get out nowadays. Otherwise I would never have been so neglectful.”

  Oito produced a box of cakes wrapped in a piece of silk. Chokichi stared dumbly at Oito, stupefied. His mother thanked Oito for the present in somewhat embarrassed tones, adding, “You’ve become so pretty. I hardly recognize you.”

  “I’ve aged terribly. Everybody says so.” Oito gave a charming smile, and took from her sash a velvet cigarette case. “I smoke cigarettes now. Shocking of me, isn’t it?” This time she laughed a little loudly.

  “Come over next to me. It’s cold,” Otoyo said, taking the iron kettle off the brazier and putting in some tea. “When do you become a full-fledged geisha?”

  “Not yet. Not till after I’ve been there quite a while.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be popular. You’re pretty and you’ve had good training.”

  “Thanks to you,” Oito said. “They’re very pleased with me. Some girls, even much bigger than I, don’t know anything about music.”

  Otoyo took a cake dish from the cupboard, as if she had suddenly recalled something. “I’m sorry I haven’t anything better to offer you, but these cakes are rather unusual.” She picked one up with her chopsticks and offered it to Oito.

  “Good afternoon, teacher,” two little girls piped in a high-pitched monotone at the door.

  “Please don’t bother about me,” said Oito.

  Chokichi felt curiously ill at ease, and kept his eyes averted, but Oito whispered, as if nothing had changed between them, “Did you get my letter?”

  In the next room the two little girls were singing something about the cherry blossoms of Omuro. Chokichi nodded and fidgeted in his place. Oito had sent him a letter a few weeks before, to say that she couldn’t manage to leave the house. Chokichi had replied at once with a letter describing in detail everything that had happened to him since they parted. The kind of answer he had hoped for from Oito never came.