Light and Dark

by Natsume Soseki

  “There are all kinds of people, that’s for sure. Just five or six of us are already such an assortment, it must be a madhouse here in the summer and at New Year’s.”

  “When we’re full we have 130 or 140 people.”

  Having missed Tsuda’s point, the maid reported the number of guests likely to show up at the busiest seasons of the year.

  [ 181 ]

  AFTER SUPPER Tsuda sat at the low desk next to his mattress and wrote some of the picture postcards he had asked the maid to bring him, one line only on the back and the address on the front. He finished those he had to send, one to O-Nobu, one to his uncle Fujii, and one to Madam Yoshikawa, and a pile of empty cards remained. Still holding his fountain pen, he gazed vacantly at regional scenes with odd titles that seemed unsuited to a mountain village—Fudō Falls in Yugawara, Lunar Park in Asakusa, and others. Then he began scribbling again. In no time he wrote one to O-Hide’s husband and another to his parents in Kyoto. Now that he had begun in earnest he might as well continue; he even felt that leaving any of the postcards blank would amount to a dereliction of duty. There was Okamoto, whom he hadn’t even considered at first, and Okamoto’s son, Hajime, who put him in mind of his schoolmate, his own nephew, Makoto, and a host of others. There was one name only that had occurred to him from the beginning to whom he didn’t write. Other reasons aside, Tsuda didn’t want Kobayashi to see a postmark because he was afraid he would track him down. He was due to leave for Korea any day. Since he was leaving of his own accord with nothing to constrain him, he might be rattling along on a train even now, resolved to embark. Undisciplined as he was, however, there was no guarantee that he would leave on the day he had announced as his departure. Who could declare with any certainty that, seeing the postcard (assuming Tsuda sent him one), he wouldn’t make his way here at once? Thinking about this impossible friend who was like doing battle with unstable weather, about this enemy it were better to say, Tsuda hunched his shoulders involuntarily. Whereupon the scene he had launched in his imagination began to play. Pulling him along, it progressed unstoppably. Right before his eyes he conjured an image of Kobayashi pulling up in a rickshaw at the entrance and storming into his room shouting at the top of his lungs.

  “Why are you here?”

  “There’s no why, my man, I came to distress you.”

  “For what reason?”

  “Who needs a stinking reason? As long as you reject me, I’ll follow you forever no matter where you go.”

  “Villain!”

  Making a fist abruptly, Tsuda would punch Kobayashi in the face. Instead of resisting, Kobayashi would instantly fall in a backward sprawl to the floor.

  “You punched me, you rat. Fine, do your worst.”

  A scene of violence such as could be seen only on a stage would ensue. The entire inn would be aware and feel threatened. Kiyoko would naturally be involved. Everything would be dashed to bits forever.

  Having painted in his mind in spite of himself an imaginary scene more vivid than reality, Tsuda came abruptly to his senses with a shudder. He wondered what he would do if that kind of preposterous brawl were to materialize in his real life. He was aware of feeling shame and humiliation distantly. He could feel the inside of his cheeks begin to burn as if to symbolize his feelings.

  But he was unable to develop his critique beyond this. To disgrace himself in the eyes of others was more than he could contemplate. Saving face was the fundament of his ethics. His only thought was that appearances must be preserved, scandal above all avoided. By that token, the villain of the piece was Kobayashi.

  If only that scoundrel were out of my life, I’d have nothing to fret about!

  Tsuda’s assault was directed against the Kobayashi who had taken the stage in his imaginary play. He placed full responsibility for his own dishonor on Kobayashi’s shoulders.

  Having sentenced this phantom perpetrator, Tsuda’s mood shifted, and he took from his wallet a calling card. Writing on the back with his fountain pen, “I arrived last night to convalesce,” he paused to reflect, then added, “I heard that you were here this morning” and paused again.

  This is too artificial. I must mention seeing her last night.

  But touching on that tactfully wasn’t easy. And the more complicated the message became, the more words it required, until it would no longer fit on a single card. He wanted this to be sweet and simple. A letter and envelope would be overdoing it.

  Glancing at the dresser, he saw Madam Yoshikawa’s gift on top of it, untouched since the night before when it had been carefully placed there, and quickly took it down. Writing on another card, “I hope you are recovering quickly. This is a get-well gift from Yoshikawa-san’s wife,” he slipped it under the lid of the fruit basket and summoned the maid.

  “I think someone named Seki-san is staying here?”

  The maid laughed.

  “Seki-san is the lady we were talking about.”

  “Is that so? Good, please take this to her. And mention that I’d like to see her briefly if she doesn’t mind.”

  “Very well.”

  The maid stepped into the hall carrying the basket of fruit.

  [ 182 ]

  WAITING FOR a reply, Tsuda might have been tipped as easily as a vessel with uneven legs. When the maid failed to return as quickly as he had expected, he grew even more agitated.

  I can’t believe she’d turn me down.

  He had used Madam Yoshikawa’s name because he was already considering that unlikely possibility. The get-well gift in Madam’s name ought to release Kiyoko from whatever constraint she might be feeling toward him. Even assuming her principal desire was avoiding the unpleasantness of a meeting or the suspicion that might arise as a result, it seemed only natural that she should want to thank the bearer of the fruit basket in person. Believing that he had devised what anyone could see was an inspired and altogether natural strategy, and unable to avoid feeling for that reason the more troubled by the maid’s tardiness, Tsuda flicked away the cigarette he had begun to smoke, stepped out to the engawa, gazed vacantly at the red and orange koi swimming silently in the pond, and petted the nuzzle of the dog sleeping beneath the eaves. By the time he heard the sound of the maid’s slippers turn the corner of the hall, he was so worked up he felt the need of collecting himself sufficiently to display some degree of composure on the surface.

  “Where were you?”

  “I’m sorry I took so long.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “I was making myself useful.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I tidied up the room. And I did the lady’s hair. So I wasn’t that long.”

  Tsuda didn’t think a woman’s hair could be done up so easily.

  “Chignon? Butterfly?”

  The maid merely laughed.

  “Go and see for yourself.”

  “See for myself? Will that be all right? I’ve been waiting here for an answer since you left.”

  “Gracious, I’m so sorry, I’ve forgotten the most important part—she says please feel free.”

  Relieved, Tsuda made certain half in jest as he stood up.

  “She said that? It won’t be a bother? I don’t want to get over there and feel bad for having imposed.”

  “Are you always so distrustful? If you are, Madam must be—”

  “Who do you mean? Madam Seki or my wife?”

  “You must know.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Honestly?”

  Tsuda retied his obi, and as he was on his way out the maid, who had circled around behind him, draped his kimono jacket over his shoulders.

  “This way?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  The maid led the way. As they came to the familiar mirror, the memory of having wandered these halls as a sleepwalker the night before flickered in Tsuda’s mind.

  “So this is where it is!”

  The words escaped him on their own. Ignorant of the circumstances, the maid’s inquiry
was innocent.

  “Where what is?”

  Tsuda essayed a deception.

  “I’m saying this is where I ran into a ghost last night.”

  The maid winced.

  “What a thing to say! As if we had ghosts here! You really shouldn’t—”

  Tsuda, understanding that his joke about an establishment in the guest business had been in poor taste, glanced up at the second floor knowingly.

  “Seki-san’s room must be up there.”

  “How in the world did you know?”

  “I know things.”

  “Magic eyes?”

  “A magic nose—I nose things out.”

  “Like a dog.”

  This exchange, begun halfway up the stairs, was already in earshot of Kiyoko’s room, the nearest to the landing. Tsuda was aware of this.

  “While I’m at it, I’ll nose out Seki-san’s room—watch closely.”

  The light slap of his slippers stopped at the door to Kiyoko’s room.

  “This is it.”

  Peering up at Tsuda askance, the maid burst out laughing.

  “I told you.”

  “You have some nose, all right. Keener than a hunting dog’s.”

  The maid was laughing heartily, but no response to her hilarity issued from inside the room. It was impossible to tell whether anyone was there; the interior was quiet as before.

  “Your visitor is here, Ma’am.”

  Calling in to Kiyoko, the maid slid the well-seated shoji all the way back.

  “May I come in?”

  Stepping into the room as he spoke, Tsuda halted in surprise. He had been prepared to come face to face with Kiyoko, but the room appeared to be empty.

  [ 183 ]

  THERE WERE actually two adjoining rooms. Tsuda had entered an antechamber with no alcove for hanging a scroll or exhibiting flowers. Thick, cross-hatched pillows in front of a rectangular mirror edged in black on a black wooden stand and the small brazier of paulownia wood alongside it evoked, on a small scale, the atmosphere of a sitting room in a normal Japanese house. There was a black lacquer kimono rack in a corner. The bright colors of the striped garments tossed over it and their silkiness, as if they would be smooth to the touch, evoked the fairer sex.

  The heavy paper door to the adjoining room had been left open. Tsuda saw an arrangement of fresh-cut chrysanthemums in the alcove there. Two cushions had been placed face to face in front of it. Tea-brown silk with a round whiteness in the center, a single peony perhaps, the elegant cushions seemed excessively formal as a preparation for receiving a casual visitor. Even before he had seated himself, Tsuda had intuited something.

  Everything is too proper. This must represent the distance that separates the destinies of the two people about to face each other.

  Recognizing this all of a sudden, Tsuda was on the verge of regretting having come.

  But what produced this distance? On reflection it seemed inevitable it should be there. Tsuda had merely forgotten. But how could he have forgotten? Perhaps forgetting was also inevitable.

  It was just then, as he was standing in the anteroom lost in thought, gazing at the cushions inside without moving to them or taking a seat, that Kiyoko stepped into view from the far corner of the engawa. What she had been doing there until now Tsuda couldn’t imagine. Nor could he understand why she would have chosen to step outside. Perhaps, waiting for him after straightening the room, she had been gazing at the terraced layers of autumn foliage on the mountain, leaning against a corner of the railing. In any event, her manner seemed odd. To be precise, her behavior at that moment would have been more appropriate to running into an unexpected guest than welcoming someone she had invited.

  And yet, curiously enough, this was less offensive to him than the cushions stiffly awaiting them to take their seats or the oblong brazier that had been positioned between the cushions to create what appeared to be an intentional obstruction. Doubtless that was because this attitude was not so distant as to be incompatible with the Kiyoko he had been painting in his imagination.

  The Kiyoko whom Tsuda knew was by no means a restless, fussy woman. On the contrary, she was inveterately unperturbed. It might even have been said that a distinguishing feature of her temperament, and of the actions that derived from her temperament, was a certain languor. He had always counted on that quality of hers. He had placed inordinate faith in it, and as a result his faith had been betrayed. Such at least was his interpretation. Even so, notwithstanding his interpretation, the faith he had established at the time, though he wasn’t conscious of it, had remained intact inside him. Her marriage to Seki may have occurred as swiftly as the darting of a swallow, but that was an inconsistency and nothing more. Since his turmoil began only when he strove to connect these two realities without contradiction, he preferred to consider them separately: just as a was a fact, so then must b also be true.

  Why did that languorous woman leap into an airplane? Why did she fly loop-the-loops?

  It was precisely here that serious doubt lingered. Facts, however, were in the end facts, no matter how they might be doubted, and would not disappear by themselves.

  On this head, Kiyoko the rebel was more fortunate than faithful O-Nobu. If, when Tsuda had entered the room, it had been O-Nobu instead of Kiyoko who had thrown him off his pace with an oddly timed entrance from the far end of the engawa, what would his response have been?

  She’s up to something again.

  Certainly this is what he would have thought. But coming from Kiyoko, this same behavior had an entirely different effect.

  She’s as languid as ever.

  Having persuaded himself, Tsuda had no choice but to assess her behavior as languid even though she had knocked his legs from under him with a move of dizzying speed.

  It wasn’t simply that she had thrown his timing off. She had appeared from the far end of the engawa carrying in both hands the large basket of fruit he had presented her in Madam Yoshikawa’s name. Whatever her intention, it seemed clear the nuisance the gift may have created for her until now couldn’t be taken as a measure of her indifference to Tsuda. Even so, this behavior had to be accounted odd, the more so if she had kept the basket with her on the balcony until now, even more so assuming she had put it down once and picked it up again. At the very least, it was awkward. And juvenile somehow. Nonetheless Tsuda, who knew her normal behavior as if by heart, couldn’t help discerning in this something unmistakably like her.

  It’s funny. It’s funny in a way that’s just like you. And you’re not the slightest bit aware of what’s comical about it.

  As he watched Kiyoko appear to struggle with the basket as though it were heavy for her, this is what Tsuda would have liked to say.

  [ 184 ]

  AT THAT point Kiyoko held the basket out to the maid. Not knowing what she was to do with it, the maid extended her hand mechanically and took it, saying nothing. While this simple interaction occurred between them, Tsuda had to stand where he was. But instead of the awkwardness that such a moment would normally have created, he felt at ease, untroubled in any way. He interpreted what he saw as merely a continuation of the languid behavior that was consonant with the Kiyoko he knew. Accordingly the confusion he was feeling about what he remembered of the night before doubled in intensity. Why had this imperturbable woman paled? Why had she gone rigid? No matter how he thought about it, there was no reconciling the extremity of her surprise then and her composure now. He felt like a person who has awakened for the first time in his life to the difference between night and day.

  Without waiting to be asked, he sat down on the cushion that had been provided. He then turned his gaze on Kiyoko who, still on her feet, was instructing the maid to arrange the fruit on a plate.

  “Thank you for the lovely gift.”

  These were her first words to him. The subject shifted perforce from the bearer of the gift to the kindness of the person who had provided it. Having resolved to lie from the moment he used Madam Yoshikaw
a’s name, Tsuda was no longer even conscious that he was misrepresenting.

  “I almost gave the tangerines to an old fellow I met along the way.”

  “For heaven’s sake, why?”

  It mattered little to Tsuda how he replied.

  “The basket was a nuisance, heavy as a piece of luggage.”

  “You were carrying it the whole way?”

  To Tsuda, this sounded like the brand of naiveté that was typical of Kiyoko.

  “Don’t be silly. Unlike you, I’d hardly go to the trouble of lugging something like that out to the engawa and back again and the devil knows where else.”

  Kiyoko merely smiled. Her smile offered no justification. In fact, it conveyed a certain nonchalance. Tsuda, having begun with a lie, felt increasingly unconstrained.

  “As usual, you look as though you haven’t a care in the world. How wonderful!”

  “Thank you.”

  “You haven’t changed one bit.”

  “Of course not—I’m the same person.”

  Hearing this, Tsuda abruptly wanted to say something ironic. Just then the maid, who had been transferring the tangerines to a plate, laughed aloud.

  “Why do you laugh?”

  “I can’t help it—what Missus said is funny.” Seeing the serious expression on Tsuda’s face, she felt obliged to add a more concrete explanation.

  “It just tickled me to think that’s really how it is—everyone stays the same person while they’re alive, and unless they’re reborn, no one changes into anyone else.”

  “You’re wrong about that. There are any number of people who are reborn even while they’re still alive.”