“‘Well, what do you think of it?’ asked Miura.
“‘I think one would look in vain for such a view anywhere in Europe,’ I replied.
“‘Ah, then you apparently see no harm in enjoying a bit of the discredited past when it comes to scenery.’
“‘Yes, when it comes to scenery, I concede.’
“‘I must say that recently I have grown quite weary of all that is called modern enlightenment.’
“‘If you’re not careful, you too will be stung by Mérimée’s acerbic tongue. You must remember how that sneering rogue allegedly said to Dumas or someone, standing next to him, when a delegate from the shogunate was walking down the boulevard in Paris: “Tell me, who could have bound the Japanese to such an absurdly long sword?” ’
“‘Yes, but I prefer the story of Hé Rú Zhāng, who, during his stay in Japan as a diplomat, expressed admiration for the sleepwear he saw in a Yokohama hotel: “Here in this country are relics of the Xia and Zhou dynasties!” No, there is nothing that one may ridicule simply on the grounds that it is a thing of the past.’
“Surprised at the suddenly deepening of the darkness as the tide rose, I glanced round and saw that having greatly quickened our pace, we were now south of Ryōgoku Bridge, approaching Shubi-no-matsu, its trunk and branches appearing in the night to be of an even deeper ebony.
“Eager to broach the subject of Madame Katsumi, I quickly pursued Miura’s comment:
“‘If you yourself are so attached to older ways, what will you do about your modern wife?’ I asked, testing the waters.
“For several moments, as though he had not heard my question, Miura gazed at the still moonless sky above Otakegura. Finally, he fixed his eyes on me and said softly but firmly: ‘I shall do nothing. As of about a week ago, we are divorced.’
“Quite taken aback by this unexpected reply, I gripped the gunwales of the boat.
“‘So you knew?’ I asked in a strained voice.
“Miura continued with the same air of calm as before:
“‘So you knew it all too?’ he asked, throwing the question back at me, as though by way of confirmation.
“‘Perhaps not everything. I did hear about her ties to Madame Narayama.’
“‘And about my wife and her cousin?’
“‘I had some glimmerings of it . . .’
“‘Then surely I need say no more.’
“‘But, but . . . When did you become aware of the relationship?’
“‘Between my wife and her cousin? About three months after our marriage—just before commissioning her portrait with the painter Gozeta Hōbai.’
“This response too, as you can well imagine, was quite astonishing.
“‘But why, until now, have you tacitly accepted the outrage of it all?’
“‘I did not accept it tacitly—but rather quite openly.’
“For the third time, I was dumbfounded. For several moments I merely stared at him in stupefaction.
“‘Mind you,’ he said without the slightest trace of insistence, ‘the relationship of which I approved between my wife and her cousin was the one that I had painted in my imagination, not the one that presently exists. You will remember that I insisted on a marriage based on amour. This was not to satisfy my own egotism; it was rather the consequence of my having placed love above all things. Thus, when once we were married I came to understand that the bonds of affection between us were less than genuine, I regretted my precipitancy and at the same time felt pity for her, now that she was obliged to live with me. As you know, I have never been in the best of health. Moreover, despite my efforts to love my wife, she has been unable to love me—or perhaps it may be that my notion of amour was from the beginning such a paltry thing that it could never have inspired passion in her. If therefore there was such true affection between my wife and her cousin, who have known one another since childhood, I would gallantly sacrifice myself to their happiness. Not to do so would be, in effect, to renounce the supremacy of amour. It was for that eventuality that, in fact, I intended the portrait of my wife—to hang in my study as a replacement for her.’
“As he spoke, Miura again looked to the sky above the opposite bank. It was as though a black curtain had fallen from the sky, enveloping the towering chinquapins of the Matsuura estate in gloom, with no sign of a cloud from out of which the moon might appear. I lit a cigarette and urged him to continue: ‘And then?’
“‘I learned soon thereafter that the love between my wife and her cousin was something impure. To put it bluntly, I discovered that he also had a liaison with Madame Narayama. I am sure that you will not have any particular desire to know how I acquired such knowledge, and I myself do not wish to elaborate. Suffice it to say that it was by pure chance that I found them together.’
“I let the ashes of my cigarette fall over the gunwale as I vividly recalled the memory of the rainy evening at the Ikuine. Miura immediately continued: ‘That was the first blow. Having largely lost whatever grounds I had for approving of their relationship, I naturally found it impossible to maintain my previous air of benignity. That must have been about the time you returned from Korea. I was daily tormented by the question of how to separate my wife from her cousin. However false might be his love for her, there was no doubt in my mind that her feelings for him were sincere . . . Such was what I believed. At the same time, for the sake of her happiness as well, I thought it necessary for me to act as a negotiator. But when they—or at least she—perceived my state of mind, she seemed to have reasoned that I had just become aware of their relationship and was now overcome with jealousy. She thus began to keep a wary and hostile watch over me; perhaps she even exercised the same wariness toward you.’
“‘Now that you say that,’ I replied, ‘she was standing outside your study, listening to our conversation.’
“‘Yes,’ he remarked in return, ‘she is the sort of woman who is quite capable of that.’ For several moments we remained silent, staring at the dark surface of the water. Our boat had already passed under what was then Oumayabashi, leaving a faint wake in the night water as we edged toward tree-lined Komakata.
“Miura spoke in a subdued voice: ‘Even then I did not doubt my wife’s sincerity. Thus, the knowledge that she did not grasp my true feelings or rather that I had only earned her hatred caused me all the more anguish. From the day I met you at Shinbashi until today, I have constantly been in the throes of that distress. But then about a week ago, a maid or one of the other servants carelessly allowed a letter that should have gone to my wife to find its way to my desk. I immediately thought of her cousin . . . Well, I eventually opened the letter and found to my astonishment that it was a love missive from yet another man. In a word, her love for her cousin was no less impure. Needless to say, this second blow was of vastly more terrible intensity than the first. All my ideals had been ground to dust. At the same time, I was sadly comforted by the abrupt lessening of responsibility.’
“Miura ceased speaking, and now from above the rows of grain storehouses along the opposite bank we saw just beginning to rise the immense, eerily red globe of the autumn moon. When just a few minutes ago I saw Yoshitoshi’s ukiyoé of Kikugorō in Western dress and was reminded of Miura, it was particularly because that red moon was so similar to the lantern moon mounted on the stage.
“Miura, with his thin, pale face and his long hair parted in the middle, gazed at the rising of the moon and then suddenly sighed, remarking sadly even as he smiled: ‘Once, some time ago, you dismissed as a childish dream the cause of the Jinpūren rebels and their willingness to fight to the death. Well, perhaps in your eyes my married life too . . .’
“‘Indeed, perhaps so. But then it may also well be that in one hundred years our goal of achieving modern enlightenment will likewise seem no less a childish dream.’ ”
Just as the viscount had finished speaking these words, an attendant appeared to inform us that the museum was about to close. We stood up slowly and, giving o
ne last look at the ukiyoé and copperplate prints all around us, silently walked out of the darkened display hall, quite as though we ourselves had emerged from those glass cases as phantoms from the past.
AUTUMN
1
From the time she began her studies, it was well known that Nobuko was a gifted young writer. There was scarcely anyone who doubted that sooner or later she would make her way into the literary world. It was even widely reported that while yet a student at her women’s university she had written more than three hundred pages of an autobiographical novel. Upon graduation, however, she found herself in circumstances sufficiently strained as to leave no room for idle self-indulgence: with her widowed mother resolved not to remarry and her sister, Teruko, still attending a girls’ school, she was obliged, in conformity to social custom, to set aside her creative endeavors and seek a marriage partner.
Their cousin Shunkichi, enrolled in the literature department of his own university, appeared to have likewise set his sights on a writer’s career. Nobuko had long been on friendly terms with him, and now their common interest in literary topics made for even closer ties. He did not, however, share her unbridled enthusiasm for Tolstoyism, then very much in vogue. He was forever making ironic comments à la française or speaking in aphorisms. His sardonic manner sometimes angered the intensely earnest Nobuko, but despite herself she was unable to be entirely contemptuous of his manner. Thus, even while still in university, they would not infrequently attend exhibits and concerts together, usually in the company of Teruko.
In their comings and goings, the three laughed and chattered freely. When, as they strolled along, the talk turned to matters beyond her ken, Teruko would peer childlike into the show windows at the parasols and silk shawls, without appearing to feel in the slightest neglected. Whenever Nobuko noticed this, she never failed to change the subject and to bring her sister immediately back into the conversation. Yet it was she herself who was the first to forget her sister. Shunkichi appeared to be oblivious to it all, tossing off clever comments as he swung his way slowly through the pell-mell of pedestrian traffic . . .
In the eyes of everyone, needless to say, the relationship between Nobuko and her cousin gave more than enough reason to suppose that the two would wed. Her classmates were filled with envy and spite at her prospects, and, as foolish as it may sound, it must be said that it was among those who knew Shunkichi the least that such emotions were the most intense. For her part, Nobuko denied—and yet by insinuation deliberately encouraged—the speculation. Thus, for as long as they were still in school, the image lingered in their minds, as clear as a wedding photograph, of Nobuko and Shunkichi as bride and groom.
Nobuko had scarcely completed her studies when she confounded the expectations of all by marrying a young commercial high school graduate. Within two or three days of the nuptials, they had gone to live Ōsaka, where he had recently joined a trading company. The well-wishers who saw them off at Tōkyō’s central railway station later said that Nobuko was her usual cheerful self, ever with a smile on her face, even as she tried to console her lachrymose sister, Teruko.
In their bewilderment and amazement, Nobuko’s classmates found themselves filled with ambivalent feelings: a strange sense of contentment on the one hand, a new and entirely different sense of envy on the other. Those with full confidence in her attributed the decision to her mother’s wishes; other, less trusting, souls let it be known that she had simply had a change of heart. Yet all of this, as the tongue-waggers themselves were well aware, was mere conjecture.
Why had not Nobuko married Shunkichi? For some time thereafter, such was the inevitable focus of conversation. Then two months went by; Nobuko was quite forgotten, to say nothing of any novel she had been rumored to be writing.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Ōsaka, she set about the task of becoming a new and presumably happy homemaker. The couple’s two-story rental house was situated in what even for the locality was a particularly quiet neighborhood, surrounded by a pinewood. Sometimes on lonely afternoons, amidst the smell of resin, the light of the sun, and the overpowering stillness that reigned whenever her husband was out, Nobuko, for no apparent reason, would find her spirits sinking. It was then that she invariably reached into a drawer of her sewing box to take out a letter lying folded up at the bottom. Written on pink stationery, it read:
My Dear Elder Sister,
. . . Even as I write, the thought that after today we shall no longer be together fills my eyes with an endless flood of tears. I beg you for forgiveness. As I contemplate the sacrifice that you have made for me, your unworthy sister, Teruko, words quite fail me.
You have accepted this marriage proposal for my sake, and though you have denied it, I know very well that such is true. The other evening, when we were together at the Imperial Theater, you asked whether I held a special place in my heart for Shun-san, saying that if I did, you would spare no effort on my behalf to see that we were married.
You must have read the letter that I intended to send to him. I confess that at the time of its disappearance, I felt terribly resentful. (Forgive me. Again, I scarcely realize myself just how inexcusable my conduct has been.) When I heard your kind offer of assistance, I could only understand it as ironically intended. You will not, of course, forget that I angrily responded by hardly responding at all. When several days later you suddenly agreed to be married, I should happily have died, so great was my desire to make amends.
As much as you may seek to conceal it, I know that you too care very much for Shun-san. Had you not been concerned for me, you would surely have married him. Now, having told me again and again that you had no such feelings, you have wed a man who is not of your heart.
My beloved elder sister, do you remember that I held the chicken in my arms and told her to bid you farewell? I wanted even that hen to join me in seeking your pardon. Our mother too, though she knows nothing of this, could only weep.
So tomorrow you will depart for Ōsaka. I implore you not to abandon Teruko, who every morning as she feeds her hen, out of sight and hearing of all, will be shedding tears as she thinks of you.
Whenever she read this girlish letter, Nobuko too would weep. Particularly on recalling how Teruko had quietly handed it to her as she was boarding the train at Tōkyō’s central station, she was moved beyond words, even if, at the same time, she also wondered whether her marriage had really been entirely the sacrificial act that Teruko imagined it to be. When her tears had dried, the suspicion weighed heavily upon her. For the most part, to dispel the gloom, she would will herself to bask in pleasant reverie, as she watched the sunlight falling on the pines beyond her window slowly turn to evening gold.
2
Three months went by. Nobuko and her husband spent their days contentedly, as is the wont of newlyweds. There was a hint of feminine reserve in his taciturn manner. On his return from the office, they would sit together for some time after supper. As she knitted, Nobuko would describe a recent novel or play that had become the talk of the town, her comments sometimes evoking an outlook on life colored by the Christian background of her university. His cheeks red with the sake he had drunk, the evening newspaper he had just begun to read spread out on his lap, he would listen without comment or opinion, a look of bemused curiosity on his face.
On Sundays they would generally go off on a sightseeing jaunt to Ōsaka or the vicinity. Whenever they rode the train or streetcar, Nobuko was struck by the vulgarity of her compatriots in western Japan, eating and drinking even on public conveyances without constraint. In that regard she was pleased at how remarkably refined her husband was. From his hat to his suit to his red-leather lace-ups, his clean-cut appearance, as though he might smell faintly of bathing soap, made for a refreshing contrast. Particularly during the summer holidays, when on a trip to Maiko they encountered his colleagues in a teahouse, she could not help feeling all the more proud of her husband, though she also noted that he seemed to be on oddly intimate terms with
his crude companions.
It was during this time that Nobuko returned to the writing she had long since put aside, spending an hour or two in front of her desk when her husband was away. Hearing of this, he remarked with a slight smirk on his lips: “Well now, you’re to be an authoress after all.”
To her surprise, the ink did not flow. She would catch herself, chin in hand, staring out at the wood, ablaze in the sunlight, listening quite unconsciously to the whine of the cicadas.
The lingering heat of late summer gave way to early autumn. One morning as Nobuko’s husband was preparing to leave for work, he sought to change his sweat-stained collar, only to find unhappily that all the others had been sent to the laundry. Fastidious as he was, a look of displeasure clouded his face. As he drew up his suspenders, he said in an unusually biting tone: “We can’t have you spending all your time writing fiction.” Nobuko lowered her eyes and brushed the dust from his jacket.
Several days later, he looked up from reading a newspaper article about current food problems and remarked that Nobuko might think about ways to economize from month to month, adding: “You’re not going to be a college girl forever, you know.”
Nobuko made a halfhearted reply as she embroidered the gauze for her husband’s collar. “Rather than bother with all that needlework,” he nagged at her with uncharacteristic persistence, “it would be less expensive simply to buy ornamented collars.” Nobuko fell silent, eventually picked up a trade journal and, with an air of ennui, began to read it. Later that evening, as she switched off the electric lamp in their bedroom, Nobuko turned her back to him and whispered: “I shan’t be writing anymore.” He did not reply. A few moments later, she repeated the same words, more softly still; soon there was the sound of muffled weeping. Her husband tersely scolded her, but though she went on sobbing, she found that before she knew it she was tightly clinging to him.