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

by J. Thomas Rimer

  THE CLAY DOLL (DORO NINGYŌ)

  Translated by Richard Torrance

  I

  Moriya Jūkichi spent the morning quietly in his rented house in one of the poorer neighborhoods in Koishikawa Ward. In the early evening, he went out, as was his custom, for a walk. It was the first week of March, but the springlike warmth made him wish he had not worn his now sweaty undershirt. His route that evening brought him to Ginza, the lively entertainment district. There he stopped to eat a light meal at a restaurant he frequented; then he continued his walk in the direction of the Yūrakuza Theater. Jūkichi could not resist the temptation to enter, and he was guided to his seat, where he began to thumb through the program. The prospect of hearing the master narrator Fujimatsu Kaga Tayū perform the musical narrative “Ranchō” and Toyotake Roshō’s performance of the “Willow” act from the puppet theater made Jūkichi’s heart beat a little faster in anticipation. Soon the curtain opened. Jūkichi’s eyes were drawn to the reader’s stand on which the chanter had placed his score. The program stated that the dark man with the dull eyes was the master Matsuo Tayū. He was narrating, with shamisen accompaniment, the ballad “Fishing for a Wife.” The notes of the shamisen, which Jūkichi had not heard in a long time, filled him with nostalgia. The music brought back memories. Eight years earlier, he had attended a performance of this same “Fishing for a Wife” by the artist Rinchū for an amateur music society. He still remembered the narrator’s red face and his high, clear voice. Jūkichi felt himself drifting into a pleasant reverie. His anxieties and frustrations seemed to dissolve. The glow of the electric lights illuminating the stage and the ethereal music made the people in the audience, most dressed in their finest clothing, seem all the more beautiful. As they listened, entranced by the music, the cares, suspicions, and avarice faded from their faces.

  With a final resonating note from the shamisen, the performance ended and the curtain closed. Jūkichi viewed his surroundings with fresh eyes. He looked with appreciation at the figures of the women who stood up—smiling women, women in profile, all sorts of women. His attention was drawn to a young lady sitting close to him. He could not be certain, but he thought he recognized her. She was turned away from him. Her full black hair, freshly done in the manner of a young wife, and the sensual curve of the nape of her neck awakened something in him. She had allowed her overcoat to slip off to reveal a silk gauze half-coat. The family crest on the half-coat signified a distinguished family lineage. She was engaged in conversation with a person who appeared to be her mother. When she turned back to the stage, he saw that her features were fine and remarkably beautiful. Her eyebrows formed a long arc over her large eyes, and her complexion was white. The longer he studied her, the more convinced he became that she was the same woman. There was no doubt. It was Kaneko, the young woman he had met a year ago, in the spring, at the Yazawas’ house. He was amazed by the ability of a woman to transform herself.

  A man, apparently her husband, arrived and took the seat next to her mother. He had a broad forehead and gentle eyes. Jūkichi imagined the wedded life of the young couple. Then he had to grin in despair at his own lack of discernment. A year ago, he had sat across a table from this young woman in a meeting to arrange a marriage between her and himself. She had been dressed in a simple maroon school uniform, with no decorations in her modestly done hair. He had been unimpressed and had brusquely refused the match. Yazawa’s wife had taken him aside and urged him to reconsider, “She has a lovely figure and well-balanced features. You won’t find much better than her.” But Jūkichi had remained unmoved. It had never occurred to him that the modest young girl might become the beautiful woman he saw before him. Now he regretted his decision. He did not see another woman in the theater who could compare with her.

  Jūkichi went out to the lobby, bought a picture postcard with a photograph of Roshō on the front, and wrote a note to Yazawa’s wife. “By chance I encountered Kaneko on the first anniversary of our marriage meeting. Among the beautiful women at the Yūrakuza, Kaneko was more radiant than any of them. I could gouge out my eyes for my stupidity!” He addressed and dropped the card in the post. He wandered around the lobby and had a cup of English tea in the Café Tōyōken. Then he entered the theater to hear the end of the ballad “Utazawa.”

  Roshō began her performance, but by the time the first ballad sequence had ended, Jūkichi was growing tired of the sound of the shamisen and Roshō’s masterful, earthy voice. He longed to feel cool air against his skin. Still, a certain inertia kept him in his seat. He leaned back and observed the performer’s cool eyes and slightly coquettish mouth. Roshō appeared to tire as the long narrative continued. Rather than the story line, Jūkichi became interested in the fatigue and even the pain that appeared on her face. Recently, he had found himself incapable of concentrating on music for any length of time. When he was walking on the street and heard a melody from a bamboo flute or shamisen drifting from the window of a second-floor room where someone was practicing, he would be transported into an innocent dream, like an infant hearing its mother’s lullaby. But in a theater hall, conscious that he was listening to a great performance by a master, he was overwhelmed by associations, and his emotions rose to a point that left him exhausted.

  Jūkichi was one of the last people to emerge from the theater. He breathed in deeply the cool air. The skill of the chanters and musicians had not remained in his memory. He remembered only the sad emptiness the music inspired in him. For the past several years, Jūkichi had been unable to escape a sense of bitter nihilism that often seemed to overwhelm him. Song and poetry, even notes of such classical Japanese instruments as the Satsuma biwa or gekkin, and the ballad narratives “Chikumagawa” and “Kuramayama” only reminded him of the lack of purpose in his own existence.

  He arrived in the Hibiya district and walked along the moat of the Imperial Palace. He reached the hill at Kyūdanzaka and suddenly realized that he could have taken a streetcar. The shutters of the houses on either side of him were closed. Only a few more streetcars would run after the one that had just clattered off into the night. He let several more cars pass without boarding. He did not wish to return home.

  II

  In part because he wished to tell someone about his meeting with Kaneko, Jūkichi visited the Yazawas’ home in a middle-class neighborhood in Ushigome Ward. The Yazawas were old friends. He had grown particularly close to the couple during the summer of last year. It was the only family with whom he was on close terms in all of Tokyo, or at least the only cosmopolitan home where he felt comfortable joking and relaxing. Still, he was careful to present a sincere demeanor and not to offend his friends. He could speak frankly with them about his current circumstances, plans for the future, and the situation of his family back in the provinces. After days of dissipation and disturbing fantasies, Jūkichi longed to speak with someone who would take him seriously. He also was grateful to have friends who cared enough to urge him to marry and lead an ordinary, respectable life. Jūkichi sometimes daydreamed about his marriage to an innocent young girl and their happy life together in a home all their own. “I hear you saw Kaneko,” Mrs. Yazawa said with a smile as she welcomed Jūkichi.

  “That’s right. I don’t know whether she recognized me, but she gave no indication she did. Whom did she marry?”

  “He’s the son of a printing factory owner. They’re quite wealthy. Kaneko has her own personal rickshaw and rickshaw boy.”

  “I’d be proud to take her anywhere. I was stupid to turn down the match. She’s the finest woman you’ve introduced to me.”

  He remembered the five or six previous occasions Yazawa had tried to arrange a marriage for him. He had a particularly vivid memory of a young student he had met seven years ago. They had gone to view chrysanthemums together at Dangozaka.

  “All your hard work over the years will have been in vain if you don’t marry me off to somebody. Were I to marry through another intermediary or remain a bachelor, you’d have failed at a
major project. I’m afraid prospects don’t look good for success, though,” Jūkichi said.

  “I feel like a fool! Your marriage problems have worn me out. But I’ve come this far. Now it’s a point of honor to find you a wife. Once I’ve accomplished that, I’m finished with the matchmaking business forever,” Mrs. Yazawa replied.

  “All the women you’ve found have been very pretty.”

  “I do have a good eye, don’t I,” she replied cheerfully, pleased by the compliment. “You’re the problem! I never know whether you’re serious or not. I’m getting discouraged.”

  “Of course I don’t take it as a joke. I wonder, though, whether I’m not meant for marriage. If I’d married Oyae, the girl you arranged for me to meet seven years ago, I’m certain I’d be living in domestic bliss today. What happened to her? Is she still teaching school in Echigo?”

  “Yes, still there. She’s the mother of two children.”

  “I was attracted by her melancholy expression. She’s probably changed completely,” he said, recalling the girl’s narrow eyes and beautiful fine skin. “For better or worse, I should have married that girl,” he repeated with a sigh. “After all, not much good has happened during the past seven years. I’ve had experiences that your husband will never have, but I feel these have somehow sullied my soul. I thought I could keep my innocence and remain honest. Instead I’ve turned into a warped human being. I want a peaceful, normal life. I don’t care how hard I have to work so long as I can find mental peace. Today, I sat at my desk the whole day. I couldn’t concentrate. My mind would not stay still.”

  “It’s not too late.” Mrs. Yazawa was convinced that marriage would save Jūkichi from his darkness. Marriage was the only way he could become a new man. A wife would force him to leave behind his reputation for dissolute conduct, would cure his frequent depressions, so evident in his behavior, and would put an end to his pitiful bachelor existence with only a one-eyed housekeeper for companionship. She even believed that marriage would enable him to cut down on his heavy smoking.

  “I think the woman who marries you will be quite fortunate. She won’t be persecuted by a mother-in-law because she isn’t the perfect wife. No money worries with all that property of yours in the country.” She repeated her litany of characteristics that made him a good marriage prospect.

  “I don’t know. If I had a sister, I wouldn’t let her marry someone like me,” he replied in all honesty. “Perhaps seven years ago it might have been another story, but now I’m not certain I could truly love a wife. More than money or an absent mother-in-law, a young woman needs a husband’s love.” Jūkichi made this mundane observation with great gravity.

  “That’s true. But after you marry, love will naturally blossom between you,” she replied, ignoring his solemn pronouncement.

  Taking advantage of this conversation, Yazawa’s wife said she had a certain prospect in mind, a young woman she had suggested to Jūkichi before. She would contact a woman she knew and be in touch with Jūkichi in a couple of days. Jūkichi did not object, but neither was he particularly enthusiastic. He had little expectation of good news.

  “I wonder if I’ll marry even if she agrees,” he thought, doubting his own intentions. Several days later, he received a postcard from Mrs. Yazawa requesting that he pay her a visit. There was something she wished to discuss with him. Good news or bad, Jūkichi was curious to hear the result of her inquiries. He hired a rickshaw to take him to the Yazawas’ house that evening. The reply was that the young woman had become engaged to marry about two months ago. Moreover, the prospective groom was an acquaintance of the Yazawas.

  “I made inquires of the Onoses. If the prospective groom weren’t somebody we knew, perhaps we could take further measures. I wish I’d paid attention sooner!” Now that Jūkichi was showing real interest, she seemed to regret all the more the failure of the match.

  “I heard the young woman preferred you. Isn’t there something we can do?” her husband chimed in.

  “I’ve no objections,” Jūkichi said, laughing.

  “I disagree!” Mrs. Yazawa declared emphatically, as if thoroughly sick of talk about the young woman.

  “But in January, you urged me to consider the girl. Now I’m becoming enthusiastic about her and you want me to give up. Maybe I should be willing to sacrifice my life to win her.”

  “Don’t be melodramatic,” Mrs. Yazawa snorted. She told him that Onose’s wife was determined to find him a bride, even if she had to walk the city until she dropped.

  “I’m not destined to marry. This last failure is proof. I hate to impose on you further. Let’s give up!”

  “I won’t be defeated!” Yazawa’s wife declared. She turned to her husband and whispered conspiratorially, “Shall we show Moriya the new one?” Yazawa nodded. His wife returned from the next room with a framed photograph she kept covered with her sleeve.

  “The girl’s a distant relative of Onose’s. She’s from the provinces. Graduated first in her class at a women’s college, but she’s accomplished at lots of things, not just schoolwork. She’s twenty. But you can see from the photo that she’s as innocent as a child,” she said and placed the photograph on the table. Even before he glanced at it, Jūkichi had a general idea of what the girl would look like from Mrs. Yazawa’s description.

  The lamp shone down on a countrified-looking young woman, without a hint of erotic appeal. As is usual in these situations, the three began uninhibited assessments of the young woman.

  As Mrs. Yazawa foresaw, Jūkichi was not inclined to entertain the match. “If they’re coming up to Tokyo anyway, I suppose I could meet her if they want,” he offered, not refusing the match outright. Since he held a faint hope that wedded bliss might still be in store for him, he hesitated to break off talk of marriage altogether. If one prospective bride did not work out, he would move on to the next. This attitude provided him with some consolation.

  “Next month when they come up to view the flowers, we’ll all get together for a meal at Mitsukoshi Department Store or someplace like that,” Mrs. Yazawa proposed. Clearly, she thought that Jūkichi might beat a cowardly retreat at the last moment, and she would set up the meeting prepared to spare the feelings of the young woman if he did not show up.

  III

  For Jūkichi, who had lost his job the year before, Sundays and holidays were no different from other days. The were no externally imposed restrictions on him, day or night. The result of this freedom was that his life grew more chaotic every day. When he read the newspaper, he would skip to the arts and culture page to look over the reviews for plays, literature, and music. Naturally enough, he would then go to see the exhibitions and performances that had been written about. The day after he visited the Yazawas, he left his house in the afternoon and wandered through the Hama district until he found himself once again in front of the Meijiza Theater. He entered in the middle of the day’s program. The “Mitoya” act of the play The Ritual Disembowelment of the Butterfly Woman was just beginning. Ichikawa Enjaku in the role of Ohana, costumed in extravagant kimono from the Genroku period [1688–1704], was seated in a sexually provocative pose in front of a shop. She was chattering away in the low dialect of the prostitutes’ quarter. Perhaps it is a characteristic of all of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s plays, but the impression from the stage was too detached, as if the actors were somehow missing a beat. Jūkichi attention was not focused solely on the stage. For more than ten years, he had been addicted to the theater. When the plays changed at even small vaudeville halls, he would attend. But he could not sit still for the whole performance. After the first or second act, he would go out to the lobby to smoke and savor the atmosphere of the theater. Much of the actual performance bored him. He loved the smell of the crowds in theaters. The applause and shouts of encouragement from the audience filled him with nostalgia. He vaguely remembered the now deceased actor Onoe Kikugorō V in the role of Igami no Kenta. That was more than ten years ago. Who was popular in those days? He remembe
red Ichikawa Sadanji in such roles as Ono Kojima, Chūbei, or Baba Saburobei drunkenly staggering across the stage in a sort of graceful dance. “I was raised by the canal like the wild ducks and geese . . .” This cheap, melodramatic line, with Sadanji stretching out the last syllables for dramatic effect, continued to resonate in Jūkichi’s mind in a way that the classical lines of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s masterpieces did not.

  Jūkichi went up to the gallery. It was fairly empty, so he could move about and view the stage from a variety of perspectives. A man in Western-style clothing who was leaning on the balustrade happened to glance over his shoulder as Jūkichi passed. He seemed surprised and called out to Jūkichi by name. It was Kisui, the pen name of a fellow theater critic. Jūkichi knew him when he himself had been a theater critic for a newspaper some six or seven years ago. They had become acquainted when seated together in the section of a theater reserved for critics.

  “It’s odd to find you here,” Kisui said.

  “I look in from time to time. It’s as dull as always.”

  The two went to the back of the gallery and crouched beneath the window. They exchanged news and caught up on gossip. Kisui, knowledgeable about the traditional forms of theater, was unsparing in his criticism of contemporary theater. “Even the audience is incompetent. They applaud in all the wrong places.”

  “I think the plays and performances are becoming more entertaining. When I was a student, I’d pack some bread and spend all day at the theater. It didn’t matter whether the performance was interesting or not. I couldn’t judge anyway. I enjoyed everything. But after I’d been a critic for a couple of years, I stopped enjoying the theater altogether. Today, for example, while I was relaxed and casually watching the play, it was fine. But when I started viewing it like a critic, it spoiled it for me. I used to get irritated when people disparaged things just to show off their superior knowledge of the theater. Now I do the same thing. You, my friend, have a terminal case of the disease. Everyone else is here to be entertained by the beautiful costumes and dancing. You and I are the only ones caught in this critical prison.”