The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series)

by J. Thomas Rimer

  “I took every opportunity to hear about Hokkaido. Whenever any missionaries came down from Hokkaido, I went to hear all they had to say. And, oh, what nice things they had to say about it. They kept telling about nature being this or that, about the wide Ishikari River, and about forests extending as far as the eye could see. Why, it was just too much. I completely fell under its spell. From all I gathered I pictured the whole thing this way: I’d work as hard as I could clearing forests and felling trees, and then I’d plant azuki beans on the land . . .”

  Takeuchi laughed, “You’re one farmer I’d like to have seen.”

  “But I actually did it, you know. Just wait a bit; I’ll get to it. As time went on, I’d open new fields and plant mostly potatoes; I figured as long as I had potatoes I’d never have to worry about food.”

  Matsuki put in his bit again, “Ho! Here come the potatoes.”

  “Now, there in the very middle of the fields is a house. It’s crudely built, but anyone can see it’s American style, a copy of a New England colonial. The roof slopes very steeply, like this, and to one side of the house you can see a stately chimney. I was in a quandary about how many windows to put in.”

  Iyama blinked again and said, “Then you really had built a house, eh?”

  “No, that’s what I dreamed of while I was in Kyoto. When was it I thought about the windows? That’s it, I remember! It was on my way home from a walk to Nyakuō Temple.

  “And then what did you do?” asked Okamoto seriously.

  “Then I marked off a shelter belt of trees; I wanted to keep as much of the woods as possible. A small brook with clear, running water would curve out from the right side of the shelter belt and flow past the house. Ducks with purple wings and geese with pure white backs would float in the brook, over which a bridge made of a plank three inches thick would be suspended. I wondered whether to attach a railing to the bridge but finally decided not to—it’s better to leave it natural. This was the general layout I had in mind, but my imagination wasn’t satisfied yet. Now when winter comes, then . . .”

  “Excuse the interruption, but weren’t you carried away by the very sound of the word ‘winter’?” asked Okamoto.

  Kamimura looked surprised. “How did you know? That is interesting; no wonder you’re a member of the Potato Party. Yes, when I heard about winter, I was ecstatic. Somehow I felt that winter was synonymous with freedom. Besides, as you know, I was an ardent Christian then and belonged to that band of people who celebrated Christmas, and it just wasn’t Christmas without deep snow and long icicles hanging from the eaves. Rather than thinking of winter in Hokkaido, I thought of winter as Hokkaido. Whenever anybody started warning me, ‘When winter comes . . .’ my body trembled from excitement. That’s why even when I was picturing things in my mind, my house would be buried deep in snow in winter, and at night a red glimmer of light could be seen from the window. Now and then a gust of wind would come up, and the snow would fall from the treetops in the woods.”

  “You’re a poet!” someone shouted, stamping the floor. It was a tall, sinister-looking man named Kondō who had been drinking quietly alone. He had said nothing, not even when Okamoto first entered the room.

  “Don’t you think so, Okamoto?” he added. Okamoto simply nodded in agreement.

  “A poet? Yes, I really was a poet then. Remember the line ‘Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,’ from Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard’? I read it in translation, but it was my favorite poem, and I wrote things of my own, too. I suppose I could call myself one of the early modern free-verse poets.”

  “I composed some free verse myself.” It was Matsuki this time who seemed to take a more active interest in what was going on.

  “So what? Even I wrote two or three,” said Iyama seriously, not to be outdone.

  Takeuchi turned to Watanuki, “What about you?”

  “Who? Me?” Watanuki looked a little embarrassed and ran his hand through his hair. “I hate to admit it, but there was nothing of the poet in me. As you well know, I lack the gentle, feminine touch. Since rights and obligations were the two things on which my approach to life was based, I simply fulfilled my obligations, and that’s all. I guess I’m pretty much of a boor.”

  “No, I’m the one to feel embarrassed, for even I wrote some. In fact two or three of them were printed in a magazine!” Everybody burst out laughing.

  Watanuki shouted, “That means all of you have dabbled in poetry. Ha, ha, ha, ha. This is rare!”

  “So, you’ve all tried your hand at it! Well, I’ll be damned; then in those days you were all potato eaters.” Kamimura looked very pleased with himself.

  Okamoto urged Kamimura on. “I’d like to hear the rest of the story.”

  “Yes, tell us the rest!” Kondō called out as though he were giving an order.

  “All right. For a whole year after I was graduated, I stuck around Tokyo not knowing what to do, but then I made up my mind to go to Hokkaido. What a wonderful feeling it was. I felt like shouting to everyone, ‘Fools! Idiots!’ I boarded the train at Ueno Station, and when the train whistle blew and the train began to pull out, I stuck my head out the window and spat in the direction of Tokyo. I felt so happy I secretly cried in my handkerchief. That’s the truth!”

  Watanuki, the man with the obligations, asked earnestly, “Just a second, friend; you mentioned something about fools and idiots. I don’t understand. What did you mean by that?”

  Kamimura answered solemnly, “I meant the miserable creatures in Tokyo. What a spectacle they make struggling after fame and gain! Fools, idiots! Just look at me! I’m different. That’s the feeling I meant.

  “I’ll skip the trip. Anyway I arrived safely in Sapporo, Hokkaido. There I was in the potato country itself. It wasn’t hard to obtain two hundred acres of land. ‘Now the real work begins,’ I said to myself. ‘I have to start working with the sweat of my brow’ and immediately set to work. Of course I had a friend who also shared my ideals—now he’s also with the same company I am. Together we started clearing the land.

  Takeuchi, you probably know him—it’s Kajiwara Shintarō . . .”

  “What! Kajiwara? So he was also a potato eater then; but look at him now; he’s as fat as a pig.” Evidently Takeuchi was also surprised.

  “That’s right. Now he would gobble up a dripping steak in two mouthfuls like a hungry devil. But from the very start he was a whole lot smarter than I. I think we were at it about two months when he suggested one day that we give up our crazy scheme. He argued that there was no need to put up with all this and become a hermit, that instead of fighting nature, why not tackle the social world? His point was that meat has more nourishment than potatoes. Oh, I argued against him; I said boldly, ‘If you want to quit, quit. I will go on alone if necessary.’ Then he said, ‘Go ahead and do what you want, you’ll see the light soon.’ In brief, he said that ideals are fantasies, a simpleton’s idle dream. He ranted on about something like that and left. Although I had put on a bold show of will, left to my own devices, I actually felt forlorn. But then I stuck it out for three more months with a couple of tenant farmers. Pretty remarkable, don’t you think ?”

  “Pretty foolish,” said Kondō, as if in rebuke.

  “Foolish? Now, that’s too much. It’s true that in retrospect l was a complete fool, but at that time I was remarkable.”

  “You were still a fool. You just weren’t the type. You were never cut out to run off to Hokkaido and eat only potatoes. What else can I call you but a fool when you put up with it for three months without realizing this fact?”

  “All right, so I was; but I gradually came to realize what you said about not being the type. I’m thankful I wasn’t cut out to be a potato eater. Anyway, summer passed and winter approached, the ‘winter’ which, as I had mentioned earlier, I was looking forward to. Autumn was its prelude, and right from the start it was worse than I had expected. Over the hush of the forests the autumn drizzle descended; the sunl
ight seemed faint and dim. There was no one to talk to, and for food there was only a meager supply of rice and, of course, potatoes. A shack with walls made of bark was all I had to sleep in.”

  Okamoto interrupted, “Surely you had anticipated all that.”

  “That’s the whole point. That’s why I now maintain that a pleasant reality is much better than any ideal. I had anticipated what my lot would be, but I must say it didn’t appeal to me when the time came. In the first place, you get thin.” Kamimura moistened his lips with some more whiskey. “I never thought I’d get thin.”

  Everybody laughed again.

  “Then I sat down and thought it over. ‘That Kajiwara was right,’ I said to myself. ‘It’s absolutely ridiculous; I’m going to quit.’ So I quit. If I had stuck it out that winter, I’d have been dead.”

  “And what, may I ask, is your present stand?” Okamoto asked, half scornfully but half in earnest.

  “That’s why I said that I was fed up with potatoes. I’m a practical person now in everything; I earn money, eat delicious food, drink and warm myself at the stove like this with you, say whatever I please, and. when I’m hungry, I eat meat . . .”

  Watanuki shouted excitedly, “Hear, hear, that’s the way I feel, too. Loyalty, patriotism, anything can be made compatible with meat. Anyone who suggests that they are not compatible simply is incapable of making them so. It’s people like that who are fools.”

  “I can’t go along with that,” shouted Kondō, who straddled his chair with his back to the stove. There was a strange gleam in his eyes as he looked about him. “I don’t belong to the Potato Party or the Beef Party. Kamimura and the rest of you at first belonged to the Potato Party and later switched your loyalty to the Beef Party. In other words, you’re weak willed and indecisive. You are poets, I guess, degenerate dregs of poets. That’s why you go around wriggling your noses and sniffing for the smell of braised beef. How disgusting!”

  Kamimura cut in, “Hey, wait a minute. Before you start denouncing others, you ought to tell us what your convictions are. What are you the degenerate dregs of ?”

  “Degenerates? Bah. Degenerate implies falling from a high place to a low place. Because I never aspired to your heights, I don’t have to behave so disgracefully. The likes of you ate potatoes as an ‘ism,’ not because you liked them, and that’s why you got hungry for meat. Right from the start I ate meat because I liked it, and that’s why I never starved for it, I never had to be voracious about it . . .”

  Kamimura shouted, “I don’t get the point.”

  Just as Kondō was about to elaborate, a waiter came straight over to him and whispered something in his ear. Kondō thundered, “Tell them that the generosity of Kondō does not extend that far.”

  “What was that?” one of the men in the room asked in astonishment.

  “That wretch of a rickshaw man! He lost again at gambling and said he wants me to lend him a little money. . . . What do you mean, you don’t get the point? I think it’s perfectly clear. You and the rest are meat eaters; you belong to the Beef Party by principle: I’ve liked beefsteak right from the start; it has nothing to do with principles.”

  Then someone said in a calm and quiet voice, “I agree completely.”

  “Of course you’ll agree,” Kondō grinned and looked at Okamoto’s face.

  “I agree completely. I agree that principles have nothing to do with it. There’s nothing sillier in the world than ‘isms.’” Okamoto’s eyes shone brightly as he looked about him.

  Kondō jutted his chin out and said, “I’d like you to follow that up.”

  “Which are you for, meat or potatoes? Potatoes, I suppose.” Kamimura spoke as though he already knew Okamoto’s views.

  “I’m also for neither meat nor potatoes, but unlike Kondō I haven’t decided I like beef. Of course, I hate these homemade ‘isms,’ but I cannot bring myself to simply follow my likes or dislikes, either.”

  “Then where do you stand?” Iyama blinked his bleary eyes and asked seriously.

  “It’s very simple. I’ll stop using analogies and be very blunt. I cannot embrace any particular ideal, but at the same time I can’t be satisfied by just wallowing in self-gratification. I just can’t; it isn’t a question of being one way or another. I often wish, in fact, that I could decide on one or the other, but I am still unable to do so, because by a strange quirk of fate, I have been holding onto one unusual wish.”

  “Well, what is this unusual wish?” Kondō asked in his usual aggressive manner.

  “I can’t say it in a word.”

  “It couldn’t be that you want to eat a roast wolf with your drinks?”

  “It’s something like that. . . . Once I was in love with a beautiful woman.” Okamoto was serious as he began to tell his story.

  “Say, this is getting more and more interesting. Go on.” Matsuki, who was young, dragged his chair closer to the stove.

  “I know this is rather abrupt. But I ought to start about here if I’m going to tell you what my unusual wish is. That young woman was really beautiful.”

  “Woo, woo!” Matsuki almost danced with joy.

  “She had a roundish face and fair skin. Her shoulders were like a Westerner’s, fully formed and gently rounded. There was a winsome charm about her eyes, a slightly sleepy look. They weren’t what you’d call sparkling, but they gave the impression that she was lost in thought, and when she fixed them on a person, she could soften the heart of the most hardened man. I succumbed easily. I didn’t appreciate her charm when I first saw her, but once led to twice, and after about the third time I knew I was being drawn to her more and more; she began preying on my mind. I still didn’t think it was love.

  “One day when I went to her house, both her parents were out; only the maid, the girl, and her twelve-year-old sister were home. The maid told me the girl was depressed and wasn’t feeling well. She was sitting alone in an inner room lost in her own thoughts, but I could hear her singing softly from where I sat on the veranda.

  “‘When I hear you sing like that, Oei, it makes me unbearably sad.’ Without thinking, the words came out of my mouth. “‘Oh, I don’t know why I’m living in a world like this.’ She sounded completely alone and helpless. To me her words were more real than any philosophical treatise on pessimism—even if I don’t go into great detail, I know you’ll understand.

  “In no time the two of us became slaves of love. Then for the first time, I knew the happiness and misery of love. Two months passed as if in a dream. I might tell you one or two things that happened during that time. Yes, there was one that went like this:

  “Around five o’clock in the evening I attended a farewell party for a friend and his wife who were going abroad. My love was also there with her mother. It was quite a gala occasion; there was even a count’s daughter among the guests. The party broke up around ten o’clock, and because there was such a fine moon, I decided to walk back with the girl and her mother as far as their house in Shiba sannai. As we walked along slowly the mother talked about the couple who were going abroad. She praised them lavishly and sounded very envious. It seemed obvious in what she said that she regretted the tendency in her daughter to remain aloof from worldly matters, and she even broadly hinted that this was due to the kind of company she kept. My love was walking close to me, and at this she clasped my hand tightly and I clasped hers in return. This was her vain protest against her mother.

  “Then we entered a grove. The pale moonlight filtered through the trees and added all the more to the effect. Her mother was walking about five steps ahead of us. It was very quiet all around, for it was late at night and hardly anyone was passing by. Only the click of my shoes and the clop-clop of the wooden clogs broke the silence, creating a weird echo. Both the girl and I walked in silence, for her mother’s words had made a deep impression on us. Her mother also walked in glum silence.

  “By and by we came to a place where the shadows of the trees blocked off the moonlight. Suddenly the girl
clung to me tightly and whispered, ‘You mustn’t take seriously what mother said; you mustn’t forsake me.’ She placed her hand on my shoulder; instantly, I felt something hot graze my left cheek and I breathed an aroma sweeter than flowers.

  “Suddenly we came out into the moonlight, and I saw that her eyes were filled with tears and her face horribly pale. I thought it was partly due to the flood of moonlight, but as I looked at her, a chill came over me. I couldn’t quite describe it; it was partly fear and partly sorrow and perhaps something else. I felt as though a lead weight was pressing down on my heart.

  “That night I went as far as the gate. Her mother invited me in for tea, but I declined and set out for my home. But things kept preying on my mind. I felt as though someone had given me a difficult puzzle, and by solving it I would come to fully understand the bitterness of my fate. This is no figure of speech; it’s exactly how I felt, and I couldn’t help myself.

  “Instead of going straight home, therefore, I sought out the lonely spots in the area and walked aimlessly about. Before I realized it I had reached the top of Maruyama. I sat down on a bench and for some time gazed at the sky off Shinagawa.

  “‘Is it possible that my love may soon die?’ The idea flashed like lightning in the dark recesses of my heart. I jumped to my feet and walked frantically back and forth with my eyes riveted on the ground. ‘That will never happen, it just will not!’ I shouted this as though to rebuke the devil that put the idea in my mind, but the devil would not depart. Occasionally I stopped and stared fixedly at the ground. Then the pallid face of the girl would appear vividly before me. How clearly the color of her face indicated she was not something of this world!

  “Finally, I managed to calm myself down. I decided that I’d better get a good night’s sleep, that I was suffering from a delusion. I started down the hill, but then I ran into something that threw me into further confusion. I hadn’t even noticed it on the way up. A body was hanging from a branch of a tree beside the road. I was shocked. I felt as if someone had poured ice water over my head. I stood rooted to the spot.