The Sound of the Mountain

by Yasunari Kawabata

  He felt a certain lightness in her, and a lightening of his own spirits.

  It was not impossible, the thought came to him, that by even such light devices the problem might be solved, and with unexpected dispatch.

  ‘I can’t really ask you to do that.’

  ‘I’m doing it of my own free will, to pay you back for all you’ve done.’ That such a grand statement should have come from Eiko’s small lips made Shingo once again feel aware of the ticklish spot.

  And he thought of telling her not to rush into affairs that were no concern of hers.

  But Eiko seemed much affected by her own ‘decision’.

  ‘I can’t understand him, when he has such a good wife. I don’t like watching him with Kinu, but I couldn’t be jealous of his wife, I don’t care how close they might seem to be. Or is it that men are dissatisfied with women who don’t make other women jealous?’

  Shingo smiled wryly.

  ‘He was always saying what a child she is.’

  ‘To you?’ There was sharpness in the words.

  ‘Yes, and to Kinu. He said you were fond of her because she was a child.’

  ‘The fool!’ Shingo looked at her.

  ‘But he doesn’t anymore,’ said Eiko in some confusion. ‘He doesn’t talk about her anymore.’

  Shingo was almost trembling with anger.

  He sensed that Shuichi had referred to her body.

  Had he wanted to find a prostitute in his bride? There was astonishing ignorance in the fact, and Shingo felt in it too a frightening paralysis of the soul.

  Did the immodesty with which he spoke of his wife to Kinu and even to Eiko arise from that same paralysis?

  He sensed cruelty in Shuichi. And not only in him: in Kinu and Eiko too he sensed cruelty toward Kikuko.

  Did Shuichi not feel the cleanness in her?

  The pale, delicate, childlike face of Kikuko, baby of her family, floated before him.

  It was a little abnormal, Shingo could see, for him to feel a sensual resentment toward his son because of his son’s wife; but he could not help himself.

  There was an undercurrent running through his life, the abnormality that made Shingo, drawn to Yasuko’s sister, marry Yasuko, a year his senior, upon the sister’s death; was it exacerbated by Kikuko?

  When Shuichi had found another woman so remarkably early in their marriage, Kikuko had seemed at a loss to control her jealousy; and yet it seemed that, in the presence of Shuichi’s cruelty and moral paralysis, indeed because of them, she had awakened as a woman.

  He remembered that Eiko was less well developed physically than Kikuko.

  Shingo fell silent, seeking somehow to control his anger through his sadness.

  Eiko too was silent. Taking off her gloves, she smoothed her hair.

  4

  Shingo was in Atami. In the garden of the inn a cherry tree was in full bloom. It was January.

  Winter cherries, he had been told, had been blooming from before the end of the year; but he felt as if he had come upon spring in a wholly different world.

  He mistook the red plum blossoms for peaches, and wondered if the white might be apricots.

  Attracted to the cherry blossoms as they were reflected by the pond, he went over to stand on the bank. He had not yet been shown to his room.

  He crossed the bridge to the opposite bank, there to look at a plum tree shaped like an umbrella and covered with red blossoms.

  Several ducks came running out from under the tree. In their yellow bills and the slightly deeper yellow of their feet he again felt spring.

  Tomorrow the firm would be entertaining guests, and Shingo had come to make the arrangements. His business was over once he had conferred with the innkeeper.

  He sat on the veranda and looked out at the garden.

  There were also white azaleas.

  Heavy rain clouds were bearing down from Jikkoku Pass, however, and he went inside.

  On the desk were a pocket watch and a wristwatch. The wristwatch was two minutes the faster.

  It was seldom that the two were exactly together, which fact sometimes bothered him.

  ‘But if they worry you so, why don’t you just carry one?’ said Yasuko.

  She had a point, to be sure. But the habit had formed over the years.

  Already before dinner there were heavy rains and strong winds.

  The lights failed and he went to bed early.

  He awoke to the howling of a dog in the garden, and the sound of wind and rain, like a raging sea.

  There were drops of perspiration on his forehead. The room had a heaviness about it, like the beginning of a spring storm beside the sea. The air was tepid, and seemed to press down upon his chest.

  Taking a deep breath, he felt a surge of disquiet, as if he were about to spit blood.

  ‘It’s not in my chest,’ he muttered to himself. He was only having an attack of nausea.

  An unpleasant tightness in his ears moved through his temples to gather at his forehead. He rubbed his forehead and throat.

  The sound like a raging sea was a mountain downpour and above it the sharp rasp of the wind came nearer.

  In the depths of the storm there was a roaring.

  A train was passing through the Tanna Tunnel, he thought. Such was no doubt the case. A whistle blew as the train emerged.

  Shingo was suddenly afraid; he was now wide awake.

  The roaring had gone on and on. The tunnel being some five miles long, the train would have taken perhaps seven or eight minutes to pass through. His impression was that he had heard it entering the far mouth, beyond Kannami. But was it possible that, a half mile from the Atami exit, he could have heard it at such a distance?

  He had somehow felt the presence of the train in the tunnel as if it were inside his head. He had felt it all the way to the near mouth, and heaved a sigh of relief as it came out.

  But he was perplexed. He would make inquiries of the inn people the next morning, he decided, and he would telephone the station.

  For a time he was unable to sleep.

  ‘Shingo-o-oh! Shingo-o-oh!’ Half asleep and half awake, he heard someone calling him.

  The only person who called with that particular lilt was Yasuko’s sister.

  For Shingo it was a piercingly sweet awakening.

  ‘Shingo-o-oh! Shingo-o-oh! Shingo-o-oh!’

  The voice had stolen into the back garden and was calling from under the window.

  Shingo was awake. The sound of the brook behind the inn had become a roar. There were children’s voices.

  He got up and opened the back shutters.

  The morning sun was bright. It had the warm brightness of a winter sun that was damp with the rain of spring.

  On the path beyond the brook seven or eight children had gathered, on their way to grammar school.

  Had he then heard them calling one another?

  But Shingo leaned out of the window and searched through the bamboo thickets on the near side of the stream.

  Water in the Morning

  1

  Told by his son on New Year’s Day that his hair was getting white, Shingo had replied that at his age a person had more white hairs every day, indeed that he could see hairs growing white before his eyes. He had remembered Kitamoto.

  His schoolmates were now in their sixties. Among them were considerable numbers whose luck, from the middle of the war on into the defeat, had not been good. Since they were already then in their late fifties, the fall was cruel and recovery difficult. And they were of an age to lose sons in the war.

  Kitamoto had lost three sons. When his company turned to war production, he was a technician whose services were no longer needed.

  ‘They say it happened while he was sitting in front of a mirror pulling out white hairs,’ said an old friend who, visiting Shingo’s office, told him of Kitamoto. ‘He was at home with nothing to do, and at first his family didn’t take it too seriously. They thought he was just pulling out white hairs
to keep himself busy. It was nothing to be all that worried about. But every day he would squat in front of the mirror. Where he thought he had pulled them all out the day before there would be white hairs again. I imagine there were actually too many for him to get them all. Every day he would spend more time in front of the mirror. They would wonder where he was, and there he would be in front of the mirror pulling out hair. He’d be nervous and jumpy if he was away from the mirror for even a minute, and rush back to it again. Finally he was spending all his time there.’

  ‘It’s a wonder he didn’t lose all his hair.’ Shingo was on the point of laughter.

  ‘It’s no laughing matter. He did. He pulled out every last hair.’

  This time Shingo laughed openly.

  ‘But it’s no lie,’ said the friend, looking into Shingo’s face. ‘They say that even while he was pulling out white hair his hair would get whiter. He’d pull out one white hair, and two or three hairs next to it would be white. He would look at himself in the mirror with a sort of desperate expression on his face, and he would be getting whiter as he pulled out white hairs. His hair got thinner and thinner.’

  Shingo restrained his laughter. ‘And his wife let him go on pulling?’

  But the friend went on as if the question needed no answer. ‘Finally he had almost no hair left, and what was left was white.’

  ‘It must have hurt.’

  ‘When he was pulling it out? No, it didn’t hurt. He didn’t want to lose any black hair, and he was careful to pull out the white hairs one by one. But when he had finished, the skin was drawn and shriveled. It hurt when you ran your hand over it, the doctor said. It didn’t bleed, but it was raw and red. Finally he was put in a mental hospital. They say it was in the hospital that he pulled out what little was left. But think of the will-power and the concentration. They almost scare you. He didn’t want to be old, he wanted to be young again. No one seems to know whether he started pulling it out because he had lost his mind, or he lost his mind because he pulled out too much.’

  ‘But I suppose he’s better?’

  ‘Yes. And there was a miracle. A fine crop of black hair came out on his naked head.’

  ‘You can’t mean it!’ Shingo was laughing again.

  ‘But it’s true,’ said the friend, unsmiling. ‘Lunatics have no age. If we were crazy, you and I, we might be a great deal younger.’ He looked at Shingo’s hair. ‘There’s still hope for you. For me it’s too late.’

  The friend had lost most of his hair.

  ‘Shall I pull out one of my own?’ muttered Shingo.

  ‘Have a try at it. But I doubt if you have the will-power to pull them all out.’

  ‘I doubt it too. And white hair doesn’t worry me. I have no mad desire for black hair.’

  ‘You’ve had security. You calmly swam through while everyone else was going under.’

  ‘You make it seem so easy. You might as well have said to Kitamoto that he would save himself trouble by dyeing his hair.’

  ‘Dyeing is cheating. If we’re going to let ourselves think of cheating, then I doubt if we can hope for miracles like Kitamoto’s.’

  ‘But isn’t Kitamoto dead? Even though there was a miracle.’

  ‘Did you go to the funeral?’

  ‘I didn’t know of it at the time. I didn’t hear of it till the war was over and things had settled down a little. I doubt if I would have gone into Tokyo anyway. It was during the air raids.’

  ‘You can’t hold on to miracles for very long. Kitamoto may have pulled out his white hair and fought against the years, but life goes its own way. You don’t live longer just because your hair goes dark again. It might even be the opposite. It might be that he used up all his energy growing that crop of dark hair, and his life was actually shortened. But don’t think the struggle means nothing to you and me.’ He nodded to emphasize this conclusion. Hair was combed across his bald crown like the strips of a blind.

  ‘Everyone I meet these days has white hair,’ said Shingo. ‘It wasn’t so bad with me during the war, but I’ve gotten whiter and whiter since.’

  Shingo did not believe all the details of the story. He suspected embroidering.

  That Kitamoto had died was a fact, however. He had learned of it from someone else.

  As Shingo turned the story over in his mind, his thoughts took a strange turn. If it was true that Kitamoto was dead, then it must also be true that his white hair had grown out black. If it was true that he had lost his mind, then it must also be true that he had pulled out all his hair. If it was true that he had pulled out his hair, then it must also be true that it had grown white as he sat before the mirror. Was not the whole of the story true? Shingo was surprised at his own conclusion.

  ‘I forgot to ask whether Kitamoto’s hair was white or black when he died,’ he said, laughing. But neither the words nor the laughter were audible. They were for him alone.

  Even if the story he had heard was true and without embroidery, there had probably been an element of parody in the manner of its telling. One old man had told of the death of another old man with derision and not without cruelty. The taste left by the encounter was not pleasant.

  Among the friends of his student days, Kitamoto and Mizuta had been the ones to die strange deaths. Mizuta had died suddenly at a hot-spring resort. He had gone there with a young girl. Shingo had been importuned late the year before to buy his No masks. It had been because of Kitamoto that he had hired Tanizaki Eiko.

  Mizuta having died since the war, Shingo had been able to go to the funeral. He did not hear until later of Kitamoto’s death, which occurred during the air raids; and when Tanizaki Eiko came with her introduction, Kitamoto’s wife and children were still in Gifu Prefecture, where they had taken refuge from the raids.

  Eiko was a schoolfriend of Kitamoto’s daughter. But it seemed altogether too unceremonious that he should be asked this favor by the daughter. He had not met her, and Eiko said that she had not seen her since the war. It seemed too precipitous on the part of both girls. If Kitamoto’s widow, at the daughter’s prompting, had remembered Shingo, then she should have written herself.

  Shingo felt no obligation toward the daughter and her letter of introduction.

  As for Eiko, who brought it, she seemed slight in body and frivolous in mind.

  Yet he hired her, and took her into his own office. She had been working there for three years.

  The three years had gone by swiftly, but it seemed odd, now, that she had lasted so long. It was perhaps not surprising that she had, in the course of the three years, gone dancing with Shuichi, but she had even been in the house of Shuichi’s woman. And Shingo himself, under her guidance, had gone to see it.

  Eiko seemed to feel intimidated by these events. She had come to dislike her work.

  Shingo had not spoken to Eiko of Kitamoto. Probably she did not know that he had lost his mind. She and the daughter were probably not such close friends as to frequent each other’s houses.

  He had thought her frivolous, but now that she had quit work he sensed certain traces of conscience and benevolence in her. And with them a purity, for she was not yet married.

  2

  ‘You’re up early, Father.’ Pouring out the water with which she was about to wash her face, Kikuko drew water for him.

  Drops of blood fell into it, and spread and thinned.

  Remembering how he himself had coughed up a small amount of blood, and thinking how much cleaner was Kikuko’s, he was afraid that she too might be spitting up blood; but it was a nosebleed.

  She held a cloth to her nose. The blood traced a line from her wrist down to her elbow.

  ‘Look up, look up.’ He put his arm over her shoulders. She fell slightly forward, as if avoiding him. He pulled her back by the shoulders, and, taking her forehead, made her look up.

  ‘I’m all right, Father. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Keep quiet and kneel down. Lie down.’

  Supported by Shingo, Kikuko leaned ag
ainst the wall.

  ‘Lie down,’ he said again.

  But she remained in the same position, her eyes closed. On her face, white as if she had fainted, there was an innocent quality, as of a child who has quit resisting. He saw the small scar on her forehead.

  ‘Has it stopped? If it has, go in and lie down.’

  ‘Yes. I’m all right.’ She wiped her nose with the cloth. ‘The basin is dirty. I’ll wash it for you.’

  ‘Please don’t bother.’

  Shingo poured out the water in some haste. Faintly, melting away, there were traces of blood at the bottom of the basin.

  Shingo did not use it. He washed his face directly from the faucet.

  He thought of rousing Yasuko and sending her to help.

  But then he decided not to. Kikuko might not want to reveal her discomfort to her mother-in-law.

  The blood had fallen as from a bursting pod. To him it had been as if pain itself were bursting forth.

  Kikuko passed while he was combing his hair.

  ‘Kikuko.’

  ‘Yes?’ She looked over her shoulder at him, but went on to the kitchen. She came back with charcoal in a firepan. He saw it send off sparks. She had lighted charcoal for the kotatsu over the kitchen gas.

  Shingo was startled at himself. He had quite forgotten that his own daughter, Fusako, had come home. The breakfast room was dark because Fusako and her two children were asleep in the next room. The shutters had not yet been opened.

  Rather than his old wife, he could have roused Fusako to help Kikuko. It was odd that Fusako had not come into his mind when he had thought to call Yasuko.

  At the kotatsu, Kikuko poured tea for him.

  ‘Are you dizzy?’

  ‘Just a little.’

  ‘It’s still early. Why don’t you rest this morning?’

  ‘It’s time I was up and around.’ Kikuko spoke as of a triviality. ‘The cold wind was good for me when I went to get the paper. And I’ve always been told that a woman’s nosebleed is nothing to worry about. Why are you up so early yourself? It’s cold again this morning.’