Natsume Soseki - To the Spring Equinox and Beyond

"Your father would never be able to study the plantain all his life like an idler."

"I wouldn't want to either — to study that. But you're so much more learned than my father. I truly admire you for it."

"Don't be fresh!"

"I'm telling the truth! No matter what I ask, you never fail to give me an answer."

As they were talking, the maid entered to hand Matsumoto something that looked like a letter of introduction. "A gentleman has just come with this," she said.

Matsumoto stood up laughing. "Wait here, Chiyoko. I have something interesting to tell you."

"Not if it's that horrible stuff you told me the other day — asking me to learn a ridiculous number of foreign tobacco brand-names!"

Without responding, Matsumoto went out toward the drawing room. Chiyoko returned to the living room. Someone had already put on the electric lamps, since the daylight coming through the heavy downpour was now scant. Blue flames from the gas burning busily on two portable stoves in the kitchen indicated that supper preparations had begun. Soon the children sat down facing one another on either side of the large table. It was customary for Yoiko to be fed by a maid apart from the family, but Chiyoko took the maid's role that evening. Carrying a tray with a petite vermilion-lacquered bowl of rice porridge and a plate of cooked fish on it, she led the child into the small six-mat room used mainly for changing clothes, a room just off the living room. Two chests of drawers stood against the wall as did a full-length mirror, in front of which Chiyoko placed the tray containing the toy-like bowl and the porcelain dish.

"All right, Yoiko-san, here's your supper, what you've been waiting for."

With each spoonful of rice porridge that Chiyoko put into Yoiko's mouth, the child was pressed into saying things like "Umm-mm!" and "More, more!" Finally she insisted on feeding herself and took the spoon from Chiyoko, who carefully taught her how to hold it. Yoiko, who could of course pronounce only the simplest short words, inclined her flattish ricecake-like head and asked, "So? Like so?" each time she was told she was holding the spoon wrong. Amused over how she said it, Chiyoko made her repeat the words again and again.

As the child began to say the phrase yet another time, her big eyes looking slightly sideways at Chiyoko, she suddenly let her spoon fall and dropped face down in front of Chiyoko's knees.

"What are you doing?" Unaware that anything was wrong, Chiyoko lifted the child in her arms. But she felt the body go limp, like that of a sleeping child, and cried aloud, "Yoiko-san! Yoiko-san!"

Yoiko lay propped on Chiyoko's lap with her eyes half-closed and her mouth half-open as though she had dozed off. Chiyoko patted her on the back a few times, but it produced no effect.

"Auntie, come quickly! Something awful has happened!"

The child's mother flung aside her chopsticks and rice bowl and ran noisily into the room. "What is it?" she cried, turning Yoiko's face directly up under the electric bulb. Already the lips were purplish. She held her palm over the child's mouth but felt no breathing. In a choked, agonized voice, she had the maid fetch a damp towel. Placing it on Yoiko's forehead, she asked Chiyoko whether there was any pulse.

Chiyoko instantly clasped the tiny wrist but did not know where to feel for the pulse. Pale and beginning to cry, she said, "Auntie, what can we do?"

The mother ordered the other children, who were standing there stunned, to hurry and call their father. All four ran to the drawing room. Soon after their footsteps ceased at the end of the hallway, Matsumoto came in, a baffled look on his face.

"What happened?" he said, leaning over his wife and Chiyoko and peering down at Yoiko. A single glance at the child was enough to make him frown.

"The doctor. ."

He wasted no time in arriving. "There's something strange about the symptoms," he said, immediately giving the child an injection. But there was no change.

"Is it hopeless?" This painfully strained question passed the father's tightly closed lips.

The eyes of the three, filled with extraordinary light as if hoping against hope, were fixed on the doctor. He had been looking into the child's eyes with a speculum and now, when asked this question, began rolling up Yoiko's kimono to examine her further.

"There's nothing I can do. The pupils and anus are dilated. I'm very sorry."

In spite of his words, he injected another drug into the region of the child's heart. As he had expected, it did nothing for her. When Matsumoto saw the needle pierce his tiny daughter's almost transparently clear skin, he knitted his brows in spite of himself.

Chiyoko's eyes welled with tears, which fell to her lap.

"What caused it?" asked Matsumoto.

"It's strange, very strange. No matter how I analyze it," said the doctor, meditating.

"How about a mustard bath?" said Matsumoto, offering a layman's suggestion.

"I have no objection." The doctor's response was immediate, but his face showed no sign of encouragement.

Soon a washtub filled with steaming water was brought in, and a bag of mustard was emptied into it. The mother and Chiyoko silently removed Yoiko's kimono. The doctor, patting his hand onto the hot water, cautioned, "Pour in a little more cold so she doesn't get scalded."

The doctor held Yoiko in his arms and placed her into the bath for several minutes. In breathless suspense the three others watched the color of the child's soft skin. "This is enough. If it's too long. ." he said and lifted the child from the tub.

The mother took the infant in her hands, drying her carefully with a towel before putting her clothing back on. But she remained as limp as ever, showing no sign of change. "Let's leave her lying as she is for a while," the mother said, casting a sad glance at her husband.

Saying simply "All right," Matsumoto returned to the drawing room and saw his visitor off at the entrance.

Presently a small pillow and bedding were taken from the closet. Seeing the child lying there as though she had fallen asleep as peacefully as she usually did at night, Chiyoko broke down, sobbing hysterically. "Oh, what have I done!"

"It's not your fault, Chiyo-chan."

"But I was the one feeding her. I must beg forgiveness from my aunt and uncle!"

In faltering words Chiyoko related again and again how the child looked her usual self just a while ago when she had been helping her eat.

"And still, it's so odd," Matsumoto said, his arms folded. "Come, Osen," he urged, "it's too sad leaving her lying here. Let's carry her into the drawing room."

Chiyoko helped move the bedding.

Gently they laid the infant in bed with her head to the north, as custom demanded. The place in the room was suitable, though open to view, as they did not have the proper folding screen for the occasion. Osen brought in from the living room a balloon Yoiko had been playing with in the morning and placed it beside the pillow. A bleached cotton cloth was put over Yoiko's face. Often Chiyoko uncovered it to observe the child, and often she cried.

"Just look," Osen sobbed, her nose clogged as she glanced back to her husband. "Her face is as lovely as a Kannon-sama's."

"Mm," Matsumoto said, peering at the child's face without moving from his seat.

Soon a plain wooden desk was set down, and a twig of anise, an incense burner, and white dumplings were arranged on it. When they saw the feeble light from the candles, the three adults were struck for the first time with the lonely feeling that a great distance now separated them from Yoiko, who would never awaken. Each in turn lit an incense stick. The odor from the burning incense stimulated the nostrils of the three, drawn into a quite different world from the one they had been in two hours ago. The children had been sent to bed early as usual except that the eldest, Sakiko, would not leave the spot where the incense was burning.