Spring Snow

  Kiyoaki, standing to one side, was seized by a slight shudder that he could not explain. He felt that Satoko had suddenly been transformed into a rare work of art on public display.

  Since the Prince was so close to the court of Siam, the two princes had been presented to him immediately on arrival in Japan. He now chatted with them familiarly, asking whether or not they liked their fellow students at Peers. Chao P. smiled brightly, his reply the very model of dutiful courtesy: “They all help to make things easier for us in every way; it’s as if we’d been friends for years. We lack for nothing.”

  Since the princes had hardly ever appeared at school until now and apparently had no friends at all there, except for himself, Kiyoaki found this enthusiastic testimony very funny.

  Baron Shinkawa liked to think of his sensibility as being of polished silver. Its luster shone unmarred in the congenial atmosphere of his own home, but no sooner was he plunged into the vulgar intercourse of the outside world than its carefully burnished surface began to tarnish. To suffer a single encounter such as this was enough to cast a light film over it.

  Under the direction of the Marquis, the guests now went outside, on the heels of the Prince and Princess, to see the blossoms. Being Japanese, however, the couples did not permit themselves to mingle freely; each wife remained behind her husband. Baron Shinkawa had already fallen into a fit of abstraction that was noticeable to the others. Nevertheless, as soon as he and his wife had put a suitable distance between themselves and the other guests, he roused himself to remark to her: “When the Marquis was studying in Europe, he took to foreign ways. Before that he kept his mistress in the same house as his wife, but afterwards he installed her in a rented house just outside the front gate, which is about half a mile from the house. That amounts to, say, one half-mile of Westernization. It’s what I believe is called six of one, half a dozen of the other.”

  “To be enlightened at all,” replied his wife, launching out, “one must be enlightened all the way. Half measures just won’t do. If the household is really to be run on European lines, then whether it’s a matter of replying to a formal invitation or merely going out for a short evening stroll, husband and wife should do it together as we do, regardless of what others say. Oh, look over there! See how the hill’s reflected in the pond, with two or three cherry trees and the red and white curtain? Isn’t it pretty? And do you like my kimono? Looking at what the other ladies are wearing, I’d say that mine has the most elaborate, the boldest, the most enlightened pattern here. And so how gorgeous it would look to someone on the other side who saw it reflected in the water, don’t you think? Oh, how frustrating! Why can’t I be on both sides of the pond at once? One is so frightfully limited, isn’t one, don’t you think?”

  Pairing each husband with his own wife was an exquisitely refined torture that the Baron endured with cheerful equanimity. It was, after all, one that he preferred and had, in fact, pioneered. He looked on it as the kind of ordeal that might well become general practice in advanced civilization a hundred years hence. The Baron was not the kind of man to desire a passionate rapport with life, and he was ready to welcome any form of behavior that precluded this, however unendurable or tedious it might be to lesser men; he accepted his lot with the noblesse oblige of an English sophistication.

  When the guests finally reached the top of the hill, from which they were to view the entertainment, they were greeted by the Yanagibashi geishas, already disguised as the traditional characters of the Genroku cherry blossom dances. Thus they found themselves mingling with the samurai in his padded costume, the female Robin Hood, the clown, the blind minstrel, the flower seller, the carpenter, the seller of woodcuts, the young hero, the town and the village maidens, the haiku master, and all the others. Prince Toin was gracious enough to be amused, letting the Marquis at his side see his smile of pleasure, and the Siamese princes gleefully thumped Kiyoaki on the shoulder.

  Since his father and mother were busy entertaining the Prince and Princess respectively, Kiyoaki was left more or less alone with the two Siamese boys; he had enough to do fending off the geishas who clustered around him while he looked after the princes, who were still awkward in Japanese, and had little chance to worry about Satoko.

  “Young master,” said the old geisha who played the poet, “won’t you please come and visit us soon? So many of the girls have fallen head over heels in love with you today; must they go unrequited?”

  The young geishas and even the ones who took masculine roles wore a light touch of rouge around the eyes, which gave their laughing faces a slightly drunken cast. Though the growing chill in the air told Kiyoaki that evening was drawing on, he nevertheless had the feeling of being sheltered from the real night wind, surrounded by a folding screen of silk, embroidery, and white powdered skin.

  He wondered how these women could laugh and play as happily as if they were bathing in water warmed to their liking. He observed them closely—the way they gestured as they told stories, the way they all nodded alike, as though each had a finely wrought gold hinge in her smooth white neck, the way they allowed themselves to be teased, letting mock anger flash for an instant in their eyes without ceasing to smile, the way they instantly assumed a grave expression to complement a guest’s sudden sententious turn, their fleeting air of cold detachment as they adjusted their hair with a touch of the hand—and of all these many devices, the one that interested him most was their manner of letting their eyes rove incessantly. Without being aware of what he was doing, he was comparing it with Satoko’s characteristic habit of casting sidelong glances. The geishas’ eyes were certainly cheerful and alive, their only expression of independence, but Kiyoaki found them distasteful nevertheless. They darted here and there as aimlessly as buzzing flies, quite in contrast with their expressions. They had none of Satoko’s delicate coordination, a gift that comes only with a sure sense of elegance.

  Now as she stood talking with the Prince, Kiyoaki watched her profile. Her face was lit with a faint glow from the setting sun, and as he looked on from the other side of the group, he thought of a crystal sparkling far away, the faint note of a koto, a distant mountain valley—all alike imbued with that peculiar charm of the inaccessible. As the background of trees and sky gradually darkened, moreover, her profile became still more brightly etched, like Mount Fuji’s silhouette, caught by the setting sun.

  In the meantime, Baron Shinkawa and Count Ayakura were exchanging laconic observations quite unhindered by the attendant geisha whose ministrations they accepted with cool indifference. The lawn beneath their feet was thickly scattered with blossoms, and one of these petals, to the fascination of the Baron, was clinging to the polished toe of one of the Count’s shoes as they gleamed in the rays of the setting sun. They were small enough to be women’s shoes, he thought. And indeed, as the Count stood there holding a glass of saké, his hand seemed so small and white as to be doll-like. The Baron, faced with such manifest evidence of noble breeding in elegant decline, experienced a pang of jealousy. However, the Baron was convinced that the interplay of his own carefully nurtured “English” absentmindedness with what was a natural condition of beaming abstraction in the Count imparted a quality to their conversation that no other pair could possibly match.

  “As to animals,” said the Count unexpectedly, “whatever one says, I maintain that the rodent family has a certain charm about it.”

  “The rodent family . . .?” replied the Baron, not getting the drift at all.

  “Rabbits, marmots, squirrels, and the like.”

  “You have pets of that sort, sir?”

  “No, sir, not at all. Too much of an odor. It would be all over the house.”

  “Ah, I see. Very charming, but you wouldn’t have them in the house, is that it?”

  “Well, sir, in the first place, they seem to have been ignored by the poets, d’you see. And what has no place in a poem has no place in my house. That’s my family rule.”

  “I see.”

 
“No, I don’t keep them as pets. But they’re such fuzzy, timid little creatures that I can’t help thinking there’s no more charming animal.”

  “Yes, Count, I quite agree.”

  “Actually, sir, every charming creature, no matter what sort, seems to have a strong odor.”

  “Yes, indeed, sir. I believe one might say so.”

  “They tell me, Baron, that you spent a good deal of time in London.”

  “Yes, and in London at tea time the hostess makes a great point of asking everyone: ‘Milk or tea first?’ Though it all comes to the same in the end, tea and milk mixed together in the cup, the English place enormous importance on one’s preference as to which should be poured in first. With them it seems to be an affair of greater gravity than the latest government crisis.”

  “Very interesting. Very interesting indeed, sir.”

  They gave the geisha no chance to contribute a single word, nor, despite the day’s theme, did they seem to have the slightest interest in cherry blossoms.

  Marquise Matsugae was talking with Princess Toin, who was extremely fond of nagauta and also played the samisen with great skill. Beside them stood the old geisha who was the best singer in Yanagibashi, contributing her share to the conversation. The Marquise was telling them how, some time before, at a relative’s engagement party, she had played “The Green of the Pines” on the piano to the accompaniment of a koto and samisen, an ensemble, she said, that all the guests found charming. The Princess followed the story with keen interest and exclaimed how much she regretted not having been there to take part herself.

  Marquis Matsugae’s loud laugh rang out frequently. Prince Toin, on the other hand, was pleased to laugh now and then, but he did so with due moderation, putting a hand to his handsomely trimmed moustache. The old geisha who played the blind minstrel whispered something in the Marquis’s ear, and he immediately called out to his guests in his hearty voice. “Well now, it’s time for the cherry blossom dances. Will you please be kind enough to move over close to the stage.”

  This sort of announcement, in fact, belonged to the steward Yamada’s sphere of authority. Shocked at having his master snatch his role from him without warning, the old man now blinked rapidly behind his spectacles. This reaction, which he concealed from everyone, was customary when he had to put up with the unexpected.

  Yamada would never lay a finger on anything belonging to the Marquis, and he expected his master to show a like discretion toward him in return. There was, for example, an incident that had occurred the previous fall. The children of the foreigners who lived in the houses outside the gate had gathered some acorns while playing on the grounds of the estate. Yamada’s children had come out to join them, but when the foreign children had offered them a share of the acorns, they had refused in horror. Their father had warned them severely against touching anything that belonged to the master. The foreign children misunderstood their reaction, however, and later the father of one of them came to Yamada to complain. When he thus learned what had happened, he summoned his solemn, pinch-faced children with their mouths turned down in perpetual obsequious respect and praised them highly for their behavior.

  As he thought about this, he rushed forward with pathetic determination into the midst of the guests, the skirts of his hakama flapping about his unsteady legs, and directed them feverishly toward the stage.

  Just at this moment, from behind the red and white curtain that was stretched in a semicircle at the back of the stage, there came the sharp crack of the two sounding sticks that announced the start of the program; the report cut through the evening air and seemed to make the fresh sawdust that was scattered over the boards dance for an instant.

  19

  KIYOAKI AND SATOKO had no chance to be alone until there was a brief interval after the dance, just as darkness was finally beginning to settle. This was the time allotted for the guests to move toward the Western-style house where the banquet was to be held. The geishas mingled with the guests once more to hear high praise for their performance while everyone drank freely. It was that strange moment, poised on the edge of evening, when lights are still unnecessary, when even in the midst of a convivial gathering, one may be caught by a vague intimation of precariousness.

  Kiyoaki deliberately glanced back in Satoko’s direction and saw that she was being careful to follow him at a discreet distance. At a point where the path leading down from the hill came to a fork—one branch leading toward the pond, the other toward the front gate—there was an opening in the red and white curtain. A big cherry tree stood here, its trunk thick enough to give some protection from prying eyes. Kiyoaki stepped through the curtain and waited behind the tree. Before Satoko could join him, however, she was caught up in a group of court ladies, Princess Toin’s attendants, as they came from the pond on their way back from a tour of the maple hill. Since Kiyoaki could not come out of hiding at this moment, there was nothing for him to do but wait in the shelter of the tree until Satoko was able to find a pretext for escape.

  Left to himself, Kiyoaki looked up at the tree above him and for the first time that day gave some thought to the cherry blossoms. They hung in huge clusters from the black austerity of the branches like a mass of white seashells spread over a reef. The evening wind made the curtains billow along the path, and when it caught the tips of the branches, they bent gracefully in a rustle of blossoms. Then the great, widespread branches themselves began to sway with an easy grandeur under their weight of white. The pallor of the flowers was tinged here and there by pink clusters of buds. And with almost invisible subtlety, the star-shaped center of each blossom was marked with pink in tiny, sharp strokes, like the stitches holding a button in place.

  The sky had darkened, and the outline of the clouds began to blur as they merged into it, and the blossoms themselves, already turned into a single mass, began to lose their distinctive coloring for a shade that was almost indistinguishable from that of the evening sky. As he watched, the black of the tree trunk and branches seemed to grow steadily heavier and more somber.

  With every minute, every second that passed, the cherry blossoms sank into deeper, darker intimacy with the evening sky. Kiyoaki was plunged into feelings of foreboding.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the curtain swell once more in the wind, but it was Satoko brushing against it as she slipped through the opening. He took her hand, cold to his touch from the chill of the night breeze.

  She resisted him and glanced anxiously about when he tried to kiss her, but since she was also trying to protect her kimono from the dust-streaked moss on the tree trunk, he was able to embrace her with ease.

  “This is breaking my heart. Please let me go, Kiyo.”

  Satoko kept her voice low, afraid that others might hear. Kiyoaki was angered by her self-control, for he had set his heart on nothing less than an ecstatic, supreme consummation at that moment, there beneath the blossoms. The rising moan of the night wind had made him more and more uneasy, and now he was driven in desperation to seize one sure moment of happiness for them both, to the exclusion of all else. Hence his frustration when he discovered that her thoughts were obviously turned elsewhere. He was like a husband so jealous that he insists his wife have the very dreams he has.

  Satoko had never looked more beautiful than now as she closed her eyes, still struggling in his arms. But although there was no feature, no contour that marred the delicacy of her face, it was nonetheless imprinted with a subtle, fleeting cast of willfulness. The corners of her lips were slightly up-turned. He anxiously tried to make out whether she was smiling or crying, but her face was already deep in shadow, an omen of the darkness almost upon them. He looked down at her ear, half-hidden by her hair. With its tinge of pink and its fine curve, the wonder of it made him think of a delicate coral recess that might appear in a dream, containing a tiny, beautifully carved Buddha. There was something mysterious about the hollow of her ear, now fading in the darkness. Was it there that her heart was hidd
en, he wondered, or was it concealed behind her slightly thin lips and sparkling teeth.

  With a sense of nagging frustration, he wondered how he could ever penetrate Satoko’s defenses. Then suddenly, as though she could no longer bear his look, she thrust her face forward and kissed him. One of his arms was around her waist. He felt a warmth that insinuated itself through his fingertips resting on her hip and that reminded him somehow of the sweet, sultry atmosphere of a greenhouse whose flowers were dying.

  There was a scent to it that struck his nostrils and gave him a delightful sensation of being smothered in it. Although she had not said a word, he was in the grip of his own images, and was quite convinced that he was on the verge of a moment of peerless beauty.

  She pulled her mouth away, but this left the huge mass of her hair pressed against the front of his uniform jacket. Gazing over her head at the cherry trees some distance beyond the curtain as they became edged with silver, his head reeled from the perfume of her hair oil, which became indistinguishable from the scent of the blossoms themselves; they stood out against the last light of the sun like thick, shaggy white wool, but their powdery color, shading almost to silver-gray, could not altogether blot out a faint, and to Kiyoaki ill-omened, pink. It made him think of an undertaker’s cosmetics.

  In the midst of this, he suddenly realized that tears were pouring down her cheeks. Afflicted by the spirit of pure research, he was prompted to try to identify these as tears either of joy or of grief, but she was too quick for him.

  She shook herself free, and then without even pausing to wipe her eyes, she glared at him, her manner completely changed, and lashed out with stinging words that held no trace of compassion: “You’re just a child, Kiyo! A mere child! You don’t understand a thing. You don’t even try to understand. Why did I hold back so much? How I wish I had taught you what you know about love. You’ve got such a high opinion of yourself, don’t you? But the truth is, Kiyo, you’re no more than a baby. Oh, if only I had realized it! If only I had tried harder to help you! Now it’s too late.”