After some time, Prince Toin glanced at the clock and made a casual remark, as if something had just occurred to him.
“By a happy coincidence, Harunori will be coming home on leave from his regiment today. Though he’s my own son, he has the look about him of a rough sort of fellow. But please don’t be upset by it. He’s truly quite gentle beneath it all.”
Soon after he said this, the sound of servants scurrying about at the front entrance heralded the arrival of the young prince.
A few moments later, sword clattering, boots squeaking, the martial figure of His Imperial Highness Prince Harunori appeared on the porch. He greeted his father with a military salute, and the immediate impression he gave Satoko was one of empty dignity. But how obvious the paternal pride of Prince Toin was in this display of military pomp, and how evident the young prince’s conviction that he was fulfilling every detail of his father’s projected image of him. The truth was that his two older brothers were, in fact, quite different. Unusually effeminate and sickly, they had been the despair of their imperial father.
Today, however, a touch of embarrassment at being confronted for the first time with Satoko’s beauty may perhaps have had some effect on Prince Harunori’s subsequent behavior. At any rate, neither when she was presented to him nor at any time thereafter did he look at her directly.
Though the young prince was not particularly tall, he had an impressive physique. He moved briskly at all times, with an air of importance and decision that lent him a gravity extraordinary in one so young—all of which his father watched, complacent and happy, his eyes narrowed with pleasure. This paternal satisfaction, however, was giving rise to a growing impression among many that Prince Toin himself concealed a certain weakness of will beneath that grand and impressive exterior.
As for hobbies, His Imperial Highness Prince Harunori was devoted to his record collection of Western music. This seemed to be the one subject on which he had opinions of his own. When his mother asked: “Would you play something for us, Harunori?” he was quick to agree and to turn toward the reception room, where the phonograph stood.
As he did so, Satoko could not resist raising her eyes to watch him. He covered the distance to the door with long strides, his brilliantly polished black boots sparkling in the sunshine that was pouring in through the porch windows. They were so dazzling that she imagined she could even see patches of the sky itself reflected in them like fragments of blue porcelain. She closed her eyes and waited for the music to begin. She felt the first stirrings of ominous premonition, and the faint sound of the phonograph needle falling into place echoed like thunder in her ears.
Afterwards, the young prince contributed little to the casual conversation that followed the musical interlude. As evening approached, the Ayakuras took leave of their hosts.
A week later, the steward of Prince Toin’s household came to the Ayakura residence and had a long, detailed discussion with the Count. The upshot was a decision to begin the formal proceedings for obtaining the Emperor’s permission for the wedding. Satoko herself was shown the document, which read:
To His Excellency the Minister of the Imperial Household: Herein is a humble plea with reference to negotiations concerning a marriage between:
His Imperial Highness Prince Harunori Toin and Satoko, the daughter of His Excellency Count Korebumi Ayakura, Second Degree, Junior Grade; Bearer of the Order of Merit, Third Class;
That a petition as to whether such negotiations may proceed in accordance with the Imperial Pleasure may be vouchsafed to be brought before the Imperial Throne.
Offered upon this 12th Day of the Fifth Month of the Era of Taisho.
Saburo Yamauchi
Steward of the Household of
His Imperial Highness Prince Toin
Three days later a response came from the Minister of the Imperial Household:
To the Steward of the Household of
His Imperial Highness Prince Toin:
Relative to the disposition presented to the Officials of the Imperial Household concerning the marriage of His Imperial Highness Prince Harunori Toin and Satoko, the daughter of His Excellency Count Korebumi Ayakura, Second Degree, Junior Grade; Bearer of the Order of Merit, Third Class;
it is herein acknowledged that a petition destined for presentation to the Imperial Throne whereby such negotiations may proceed with the Imperial Pleasure has been duly and properly entered.
Given this 15th Day of the Fifth Month of the Era of Taisho.
The Minister of the Imperial Household
And so with the preliminary formalities observed, the petition for imperial sanction could be presented to the Emperor at any time.
23
KIYOAKI WAS NOW in his senior year at Peers. He was to begin his university studies in the coming fall, and there were those in his class who had been busy preparing for the entrance examinations for more than eighteen months. Honda, however, betrayed no such concern, a fact which pleased Kiyoaki.
The spirit of General Nogi lived on in the compulsory dormitory regime at Peers, but its harsh rules did, nonetheless, contain allowances for those whose health was not up to the demands made on them. Students such as Honda and Kiyoaki, whose families kept them out of the dormitories as a matter of policy, were provided with suitable medical certificates from their doctors. Honda’s convenient ailment was put down as valvular heart disease and Kiyoaki’s as chronic bronchial catarrh. Their nonexistent illnesses were the source of much amusement, with Honda pretending to be choking for breath and Kiyoaki putting on a hacking cough.
There was no real need for pretense, because no one believed they were sick. However, the noncommissioned officers in the military science department, all veterans of the Russo-Japanese War, vented their hostility by making a point of treating them like invalids. Then during drill period, the sergeants were fond of interspersing their rhetoric with oblique digs at the shirkers, asking what use they would be in the service of their country if they were too feeble to live under the dormitory regime, and other such questions.
Kiyoaki felt deep sympathy for the Siamese princes when he heard that they were to be put in the dormitory. He often visited them in their quarters and brought small presents. They felt very close to him, and so they took turns pouring out their complaints, lamenting in particular the restrictions on their freedom of movement. The other dormitory students, moreover, being rowdy and insensitive, were not the sort to make friends with them.
Though Honda had been neglected by Kiyoaki for quite some time, he welcomed him nonchalantly when he came dancing back to him, bold as a sparrow. It was as if he had completely forgotten his recent disregard of Honda. With the start of the new school term, he seemed to have changed character, now full of forced gaiety, or so it appeared to Honda. Naturally, he made no comment on this, and Kiyoaki himself, just as naturally, provided no explanation.
Kiyoaki was able to congratulate himself for at least one piece of wisdom—he had never let his friend know his innermost feelings. This now spared him any worry that he might appear to have let a woman manipulate him like a foolish child. He realized that this made him feel secure enough to behave with carefree good humor toward Honda. To him, the ultimate proof of his friendship was his desire to avoid disillusioning Honda and to feel easy and unconcerned in his presence—and this desire should more than make up for his countless moments of reserve.
He was so cheerful, in fact, that he surprised even himself. At about this time, his parents had begun to talk quite openly and matter-of-factly about the course of negotiations between the Ayakuras and Toinnomiyas. They seemed to take great amusement in recounting incidents such as how “even that headstrong girl” became so tense that she could not say a word during the carefully arranged meeting with the young prince. Kiyoaki, of course, had no reason to suspect what grief the incident had caused Satoko. Those who lack imagination have no choice but to base their conclusions on the reality they see around them. But on the other hand, those w
ho are imaginative have a tendency to build fortified castles they have designed themselves, and to seal off every window in them. And so it was with Kiyoaki.
“Well, once the imperial sanction is received, that should settle everything,” said his mother.
Somehow he was moved by her words, especially the phrase “imperial sanction.” It made him think of a darkened corridor, long and wide, and at the end a door fastened with a small but impregnable padlock of solid gold. And suddenly, with a noise like the grinding of teeth, it opened of its own accord, a metallic rasp echoing clearly in his ears.
He was full of self-satisfaction that he could remain so calm while his mother and father discussed such matters. He had triumphed over his own rage and despair and so was relishing a sense of immortality. “I never dreamed that I could be so resilient,” he thought, never more confident in his life.
Once he had been convinced that his parents’ unfeeling coarseness was something totally alien to him, but now he took pleasure in the thought that he had not escaped his origins after all. He belonged not among the victims but among the victors.
He drew an exquisite pleasure from the thought that day by day Satoko’s existence would recede further and further from his mind until it would finally pass beyond recall. Those who set a votive lantern afloat on the evening tide stand on the shore and watch its light growing fainter over the dark surface of the water as they pray that their offering may travel as far as possible and so attain the maximum grace for the dead. In the same way, Kiyoaki looked upon the receding memory of Satoko as the surest vindication of his own strength.
Now there was nobody left in the world who was privy to his innermost feelings. No further obstacle would prevent him from disguising his emotions. The devoted servants, ever at his elbow, with their customary words: “Please leave everything to us. We know just how the young master feels,” had been removed. Not only was he happy to be free of that master conspirator, Tadeshina, but also of Iinuma, whose loyalty had become so intense as to threaten him with suffocation. The last of his irritants was gone.
As for his father’s dismissal of Iinuma, however kindly done, he rationalized his own indifference with the argument that Iinuma had brought it upon himself. He made his self-satisfaction complete with the vow, faithfully kept, thanks to Tadeshina, never to mention to his father what had happened. And so he had brought everything to a successful conclusion out of his acuity and coldness of heart.
The day came for Iinuma’s departure. When he went to Kiyoaki’s room for his formal farewell, he was crying. Kiyoaki could not accept even such grief for what it was. The thought that Iinuma was emphasizing his fervently exclusive loyalty to him gave him no pleasure.
Inarticulate as ever, Iinuma merely stood there crying. By his very silence he was trying to tell Kiyoaki something. Their relationship had lasted some seven years, beginning in the spring when Kiyoaki was twelve. Since his recollection of his thoughts and feelings at that age were rather vague, he had the general impression that Iinuma had always been there beside him. If his boyhood and youth cast a shadow, that shadow was Iinuma, in his sweaty, dark blue, splashed-patterned kimono. The relentlessness of his discontent, his rancor, his negative attitude to life, had all weighed heavily on Kiyoaki, try as he might to feign immunity. On the other hand, however, the dark woe in Iinuma’s eyes had served to warn him against those very same attitudes in himself, although they were normal enough in youth. Iinuma’s particular demons had tormented him with manifest violence, and the more he wanted his young master to emulate him, the more Kiyoaki had shied off in the opposite direction, a predictable turn of events.
Psychologically, Kiyoaki had probably taken the first step toward today’s parting when he had broken the power that had dominated him for so long and turned Iinuma into his confidant. Their mutual understanding was probably too deep for master and retainer.
As Iinuma stood before him with bowed head, the chest hair escaping from the neck of his blue kimono glistened faintly, caught in a ray of the evening sun. Kiyoaki stared gloomily at this matted tangle, depressed at the realization of what a distastefully coarse and heavy vessel Iinuma’s flesh made for his overpowering spirit of loyalty. It was, in fact, a direct physical affront. Even the glow on Iinuma’s rough-skinned, pimpled cheeks, mottled and unhealthy as it was, had something shameless about it that seemed to taunt Kiyoaki with Miné’s devotion—Miné who was leaving with Iinuma, ready to share his fate. Nothing could be more insulting: the young master betrayed by a woman and left to grieve; the retainer believing in a woman’s fidelity and going off triumphant. Iinuma, moreover, was quite secure in the conviction that today’s farewell had come about in the line of duty—a presumption that Kiyoaki found galling.
However, deciding that noblesse oblige was the best course, he spoke humanely, if curtly.
“So then, once you’re on your own, I presume you’ll marry Miné?”
“Yes, sir. Since your father was gracious enough to suggest it, that’s exactly what I shall do.”
“Well, let me know the date. I must send you a present.”
“Thank you very much, sir.”
“Once you have a permanent home, send me a note with your address. Who knows, perhaps I might come and see you some time.”
“I cannot imagine anything that would give me greater pleasure than a visit from the young master. But wherever I live, it will be too small and dirty to be a fit place to receive you.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“How gracious of you to say so . . .”
And Iinuma began to cry again. He pulled a piece of coarse tissue paper from his kimono and blew his nose.
During this exchange Kiyoaki had chosen his every word with care and an eye to its suitability for the occasion before smoothly giving voice to it. He made it patently clear that in a situation such as this, the emptiest words were those that aroused the strongest emotions. He professed to live for sentiment alone, but circumstances now compelled him to learn the politics of the intellect. This was an education that he would apply to his own life with profit from time to time. He was learning to use sentiment as a protective armor and how best to polish it.
Devoid of worry or annoyance, free of all anxiety, Kiyoaki at nineteen liked to see himself as a cold and supremely capable young man. He felt that he was now past some watershed in the course of his life.
After Iinuma had gone, he stood at the open window gazing down at the beautiful reflection of the maple hill, with its fresh green mantle of new leaves, as it floated on the water of the pond. Close to the window itself, the foliage of the zelkova was so thick that he had to lean out in order to see the place at the bottom of the hill where the last of the nine waterfalls plunged into its pool. All around the edge of the pond, the surface was covered with clusters of pale green water shields. The yellow water lilies had not yet flowered, but in the angles of the stone bridge that zigzagged a path close to the main reception room, irises were pushing their purple and white blossoms out from sharp-pointed clusters of green leaves.
His eye was caught by the iridescent back of a beetle that had been standing on the windowsill but was now advancing steadily into his room. Two reddish purple stripes ran the length of its brilliant oval shell of green and gold. Now it waved its antennae cautiously as it began to inch its way forward on its tiny hacksaw legs, which reminded Kiyoaki of minuscule jeweler’s blades. In the midst of time’s dissolving whirlpool, how absurd that this tiny dot of richly concentrated brilliance should endure in a secure world of its own. As he watched, he gradually became fascinated. Little by little the beetle kept edging its glittering body closer to him as if its pointless progress were a lesson that when traversing a world of unceasing flux, the only thing of importance was to radiate beauty. Suppose he were to assess his protective armor of sentiment in such terms. Was it aesthetically as naturally striking as that of this beetle? And was it tough enough to be as good a shield as the beetle’s?
At that moment, he almost persuaded himself that all its surroundings—leafy trees, blue sky, clouds, tiled roofs—were there purely to serve this beetle which in itself was the very hub, the very nucleus of the universe.
∗
The atmosphere of the Omiyasama festival was not the same as in previous years. For one thing, Iinuma was gone; every year, long before the day of the festival, he had thrown himself into the task of cleaning up and had done the arranging of the altar and chairs all by himself. Now it had all fallen to Yamada, and was the more unwelcome for being without precedent. Furthermore, it was work more befitting a younger man.
In addition, Satoko had not been invited. There was thus the sense that someone was missing from the group of relatives customarily present, but more significant than that—for Satoko was not really a relative after all—none of the women there was remotely as beautiful as she.
The gods themselves seemed to view the altered circumstances with displeasure. Midway through the ceremony, the sky darkened and thunder rumbled in the distance. The women, who had been following the priest’s prayers, were thrown into a fluster, worried that they might be caught in a shower. Fortunately, however, when the time came for the young priestesses in their scarlet hakama to distribute the sacred offerings of wine to everyone, the sky lightened again. As the women bowed their heads, the bright sunshine on the napes of their necks drew beads of sweat despite the heavy coating of white powder. At that moment, the clusters of wisteria blossoms on the trellis cast deep shadows that fell like a benediction on those in the back rows.
Had Iinuma been present, the atmosphere of this year’s festival would doubtless have angered him, since each year brought less reverence and mourning for Kiyoaki’s grandfather. He now seemed to have been relegated to a vanished era, especially since the death of the Meiji Emperor himself. And so he had become a distant god who had no connection at all with the modern world. True, his widow, Kiyoaki’s grandmother, took part in the ceremony, as did a number of other old people; their tears, however, seemed to have dried up long ago.