The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

by Yukio Mishima

  My heart was throbbing violently when I finished speaking. Mariko, however, burst out laughing. She laughed so hard that her breasts shook; then she glanced at me and tried to restrain herself by biting her sleeve, but once more she was convulsed with laughter so that her whole body shook. I felt sure that Mariko herself would be unable to explain why she was so amused, She noticed my expression and stopped laughing.

  ‘‘What is so fanny?" I asked. It was a stupid question.

  "You're a real liar, aren't you? Oh, it's really too funny! What a terrible liar you are!”

  ‘I'm not telling any lies.”

  "Oh, you must stop!" said Mariko, bursting into laughter once again. "I'il die if I go on laughing like this. You're killing me! It's all a pack of lies. And you can keep a perfectly straight face the whole time"

  I looked at her laughing. Perhaps what amused her was simply the fact that I had stuttered so strangely when I made my emphatic remarks about the future. The fact remained that she did not believe a word I had said.

  Mariko was devoid of belief. If there had been an earthquake directly before her eyes, she would not have believed it. If the entire world were to collapse, this girl alone would probably be spared. For Mariko believed only in things that happened according to her own private logic. This logic did not allow for any collapse of the world and accordingly nothing could possibly provide an opportunity for Mariko to think of such a thing. In this way she resembled Kashiwagi. Mariko was a female Kashiwagi, a Kashiwagi who did not think.

  As the conversation had come to an end, Mariko sat up in bed with her breasts still naked and began humming. Her humming blended with the buzzing of a fly that was flying round her head. After a while the fly happened to settle on one of her breasts.

  “Oh, it's tickling!” she said but made no effort to chase it away.

  Once the fly had alighted on her breast, it stuck there closely. To my surprise, Mariko did not seem to find it altogether unpleasant to be caressed in this way by an insect.

  I could hear the rain on the caves. It sounded as if it were only raining on this particular spot. To my ears the rain seemed petrified with fear, as though it had wandered astray in this particular part of the town and had utterly lost its way. The sound of the rain was cut off from the vast night, just as I was; it was a sound that belonged to a circumscribed world, like the little world that was illuminated by the dim light of the bed lamp.

  Inasmuch as flies love putrefaction, had Mariko begun to putrefy? Did the girl's total absence of belief connote putrefaction? Was it because she inhabited an absolute world of her own that the fly had visited her? It was hard for me to understand.

  Then I noticed that all of a sudden Mariko had fallen asleep. She lay there like a corpse and on the roundness of her bosom, which was illuminated by the bed lamp, the fly, too, was motionless and had evidently dozed off.

  I never returned to the Otaki. I had accomplished what I had to do. All that remained now was for the Superior to realize how I had used my university fee and to expel me from the temple.

  Nevertheless, I did not give the Superior any hint about what I had done with the money. It was not necessary for me to confess; the Superior must ferret out my action for me without any confession on my part.

  It was hard for me to explain to myself why I wanted to go to this length in relying, as it were, on the Superior's strength. Why should I want to borrow this strength of his? Why should I allow my final decision to depend on being expelled by the Superior? For, as I have already said, I had for a long time been aware of the Superior's essential powerlessness.

  A few days after my second visit to the brotnel, I had an opportunity to observe this particular aspect of the Superior's nature. Early that morning, before the grounds were open, the Superior went for a walk round the temple. This was a most unusual thing for him to do. He came up to me and the other young priests who were sweeping the grounds and made some conventional remark to thank us for our efforts. Then in his cool-looking white robes he walked up the stone steps that led to the Yukatei. Evidently he was going to sit up there by himself preparing some tea and clearing his mind.

  The sky bore the traces of a violent sunrise. Here and there clouds, still reflecting a red glow, moved across the blue background. It was as though the clouds had not yet been able to get over their shyness.

  When We had finished our sweeping, the other members of my group returned to the main building. I alone took the path that led past the Yukatei to the rear of the Great Library. It was my duty to sweep the grounds behind the Library. I picked up my broom and climbed the stone steps, which were bordered by a bamboo fence. The steps led to a point next to the Yukatei teahouse. The trees were still wet from the rain that had been falling until the previous evening. The morning glow was reflected on the dewdrops which were abundantly speckled on the surrounding shrubs and it looked as though red berries had started to grow there out of season. The cob-webs that stretched from one dewdrop to the next were also slightly red and I noticed that they were quivering.

  As I gazed at it all, I was filled with a sort of wonder at the thought that the objects on this earth could so sensitively reflect the colors of the heavens. Even the moisture of the rain which shrouded the compound of the temple derived its quality entirely from the sky above. Everything was dripping wet, as if it had received some bounteous blessing from heaven, and it was exuding a smell in which putrefaction was blended with freshness. For the objects on this earth did not know the means of rejecting anything.

  Next to the Yukatei Pavilion stood the famous Tower of the North Star, whose name originated from the passage: "The North Star bideth in this place and all the myriad stars do render service unto it." The present Tower of the North Star, however, was not the same as that which had stood here when Yoshimitsu held power. It had been reconstructed some one hundred years before in the round shape favored for teahouses. Since the Superior was not to be seen in the Yukatei, he must be in the Tower of the North Star.

  I did not want to confront the Superior alone. I walked silently along the hedge, bending my body so that I could not be seen from the other side.

  The Tower of the North Star was open. In the alcove I could see the usual scroll of Maruyama Okyo. The alcove also contained the small, delicately wrought Buddhist shrine, which was made of sandalwood, but which had turned black during the hundreds of years since it had been brought over from India. On the left I could see the Rikyu-style shelf made of mulberry wood; I also noticed the painting on the sliding-door. Everything was there as I had expected, except for the figure of the Superior. Instinctively I raised my head over the hedge and looked round.

  In a dark part of the room next to the pillar I saw something that looked like a large white packet. When I looked carefully, I saw that it was the Superior. His white-robed figure was bent to the utmost possible extent and he crouched there with his head between his knees and his face covered with bis long sleeves.

  The Superior remained in the same position. He was utterly immobile. But I who stood there watching him was attacked by a surge of shifting feelings.

  My first thought was that the Superior had suddenly fallen ill and was having some sort of a paroxysm. I should go up at once and offer him my help. No sooner had this occurred to me, however, than something held me back. I felt not the slightest love for the Superior, and any day now I should be carrying out my intention to set fire to the Golden Temple. To offer him my help under such circumstances would be sheer hypocrisy. Moreover, there was the danger that, if I did help him, I might become the object of his gratitude and love and that as a result my resolution might weaken.

  Now that I observed the Superior carefully, he did not appear to be ill. Whatever may have happened to him, his figure as he crouched there in the little teahouse was utterly devoid of pride and dignity. There was something ignoble about it, like the figure of a sleeping animal. I noticed that his sleeves were quivering slightly and it was as if some invisible wei
ght was pressing against his back.

  What could it be-this invisible weight? Was it suffering? Or again, was it the Superior's unbearable knowledge of his own powerlessness?

  As I became accustomed to the quiet, I realized that the Superior was murmuring something in a very subdued voice. It sounded like a sutra, but I could not recognize it. Suddenly I was struck by a thought which shattered my pride—the thought that our Superior possessed a dark spiritual life of which we knew nothing and that, compared with this life, the little evils and sins and negligences that I had so assiduously attempted were trivial beyond words.

  And then I realized it. The Superior's present crouching position was precisely like that of the "garden waiting," that is, of the itinerant priest whose request to enter the temple has been refused and who sits on his sack all day long by the entrance with his head bowed. If a prelate as high-ranking as our Superior was really imitating the religious discipline practised by a newly arrived traveling priest, he must be endowed with a fantastic degree of modesty. But to what was this modesty of his directed? Just as the modesty of the blades of grass, of the leaf tips on the trees, of the dew that lodged on the spider's web was directed towards the morning glow in the heavens, so perhaps the Superior was directing his modesty towards the original evils and offences of the world, which did not belong to himself; perhaps he was allowing these things to be reflected naturally on his person as he sat there crouched like an animal.

  But no, his modesty was not directed at any such universal force. It was to me, I suddenly perceived, that he was displaying this humble attitude. There could be no doubt about it. He had known that I was going to pass this place and he had adopted this posture for my benefit. The Superior had fully perceived his own powerlessness and he had finally hit upon this fantastically ironical method of admohishing me, of silently tearing my heart to pieces, of awakening pity in me, of making me bend my knees in prayer.

  While I watched the Superior crouching there in what I had taken to be an attitude of humility, I only narrowly escaped being attacked by emotion. Although I was trying to reject it with all my strength, the fact was that I was on the verge of succumbing to affection for him. But the thought that he had adopted this posture for my special benefit turned everything into reverse and made my heart even harder than it had been before.

  It was at this moment that I resolved to go ahead with my plans without depending on any preliminary condition such as being expelled by the Superior. The Superior and I had become the inhabitants of two different worlds and no longer had any influence on each other. I was free from all trammels. Now I could carry out my decision how I liked and when I liked, without expecting anything from an outside power.

  The morning glow faded from the sky; at the same time the clouds gathered and the clear sunlight withdrew from the Tower of the North Star. The Superior stayed there in his crouched position. I hurriedly left the place.

  On June 25 the Korean War broke out. My premonition that the world was going to rack and ruin had come true. I had to hurry.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ON THE DAY after my visit to Gobancho I had already carried out an experiment. I had pulled out a couple of nails, which were about two inches long, from the wooden door at the back of the Golden Temple.

  There are two entrances to the Hosui-in on the ground floor of the Golden Temple. Both are folding-doors, one to the east, the other to the west. The old guide used to go up to the Golden Temple every night. First he would close the west door from the inside, then he would close the east door from outside and lock it. I knew, however, that I could enter the Golden Temple without a key. For there was an old wooden door at the back which was no longer in use. This door could easily be removed if one took out about half a dozen nails from the top and bottom. The nails were all loose and it was quite simple to pull them out with one's fingers. I had therefore taken out a couple of the nails as an experiment. I had wrapped them in a piece of paper and placed them carefully in the back of my drawer. A few days went by. No one seemed to have noticed. A week passed. There was still no sign that anyone had observed that the nails were missing. On the evening of the twenty-eighth I stealthily entered the temple and put them back in their former place.

  On the day that I had seen the Superior crouching in the teahouse and had finally decided that I was not going to depend on anyone else's strength, I had gone to a pharmacy near the Nishijin police station in Chimoto Imaidegawa and bought some arsenic. First I was given a small bottle which could not have contained more than thirty pills. I asked for a larger size and finally paid one hundred yen for a bottle of a hundred pills. Then I went to an ironmonger's south of the police station and bought a pocketknife, which had a blade about four inches long. Together with the case it cost me ninety yen.

  I walked back and forth in front of the Nisnijin police station. It was evening and several of the windows were brightly lit. I noticed a police-detective hurrying into the building. He was wearing an open-neck shirt and was carrying a briefcase. No one paid any attention to me. No one had paid any attention to me during the past twenty years and under present conditions this was bound to continue. Under present conditions I was still a person of no importance. In this country of Japan there were people by the million, by the tens of millions, who were tucked away in corners and to whom no one paid any attention. I still belonged to their ranks. The world felt not the slightest concern as to whether these people lived or died and for this reason there was something reassuring about them. The police-detective was therefore reassured and did not bother to give me a second look. The red, smoky light of the lamp illuminated the stone sign of the Nishijin Police Station, the character for jin had fallen out and no one had bothered to replace it.

  On my way back to the temple I thought about the purchases which I had made that evening. They were exciting purchases. Although I had bought the drugs and the knife for the remote eventuality of having to die, I was so pleased with them that I could not help wondering whether this was not how a man must feel who has acquired a new house and who is making plans for his future life. Even after I had returned to the temple I did not tire of looking at my two acquisitions. I took the pocketknife out of its case and licked the blade. The steel immediately clouded over and the clear coolness against my tongue was followed by a remote suggestion of sweetness. The sweetness was faintly reflected on my tongue from within the thin steel, from within the unattainable essence of the steel. The clarity of form, the luster of iron like the indigo color of the deep sea—it was they that carried this limpid sweetness which coiled itself securely round the tip of my tongue together with my saliva. Finally the sweetness receded from me. Happily I imagined the day when my flesh would be intoxicated by a great outburst of that sweetness. Death's sky was bright and seemed to me like the sky of life. My gloomy thoughts all left me. This world was now devoid of agony.

  After the war an automatic fire alarm of the latest model had been installed in the Golden Temple. It was so designed that when the temperature inside the temple reached a certain point, the warning-bell would ring in the corridor of the building where we lived. On the evening of June 29 something went wrong with the alarm. It was the old guide who discovered the fault. I happened to be in the kitchen at the time and I heard the old man report the matter to the deacon's office. I felt that I was listening to an encouragement from heaven.

  On the following morning, however, the deacon telephoned the factory that had installed the equipment and asked them to send a repairman. The good-natured guide went out of his way to inform me of this development. I bit my lip. Last night had been the golden opportunity for carrying out my decision and I had missed it.

  In the evening the repairman came. We all stood round curiously watching him at work. It took a long time to carry out the repairs. The man inclined his head to one side with a vague air of discouragement and his audience began to leave one by one. In due course I also left. Now I had to wait for the repairs to be completed
and for that signal of despair when the alarm bell would ring out loudly through the temple buildings as the man tested it. I waited. The night pushed its way up the Golden Temple like a rising tide, and I could see the repairman's little light flickering inside the dark building. There was no sound of an alarm. The repairman gave up and said that he would return on the following day to fihish the job.

  He broke his word, however, and railed to come on July 1. The temple authorities were aware of no particular reason to speed up the repairs.

  On June 30 I went once again to Chimoto Imaidegawa and bought some sweet bread and some bean-jam wafers. Since we were never given anything to eat between meals at the temple, I had occasionally come to this place and bought a few sweets out of my meager pocket money.

  But my purchases on the thirtieth were not inspired by hunger. Nor did I buy the bread to help me swallow the arsenic. If I must give a reason, I should say that uneasiness caused me to buy that food.

  The relationship between me and that full paper bag which I carried in my hand. The relationship between that perfect and isolated deed that I was about to undertake and the shabby bread in my bag. The sun oozed out from the cloudy sky and shrouded the old houses along the street like a sweltering mist. The perspiration began to run stealthily down my back as if a cold thread had suddenly been pulled along it. I was terribly tired.

  The relationship between me and the sweet bread. What could it be? I imagined that when the time came and I was face to face with the deed, my spirit would be buoyed up by the tension and concentration of the moment, but that my stomach, which would be left in its usual state of isolation, would still demand some guaranty of this isolation. I felt that my internal organs were like some shabby dog of mine that could never be properly trained. I knew. I knew that however much my spirit might be enlivened, my stomach and my intestines—those dull, stolid organs lodged within my body—would insist on having their own way and would start dreaming some banal dream of everyday life.