Natsume Soseki - To the Spring Equinox and Beyond

Each of the four gatherers had a pair of chopsticks, one of wood, the other of bamboo, and all picked up whatever white bones each thought fit to place into the white urn. And they wept as if invited to by each other's tears, all except Sunaga, who, pale-faced, neither spoke nor sniffled. The cremator asked if they wanted any of the teeth set apart from the other bones and deftly picked a few from the jaws, which he had begun to crush. Seeing this action, Sunaga said almost to himself, "Handled this way, it no longer resembles anything human. It's like picking small pebbles out of sand." Tears fell from the maid's eyes to the concrete floor. Osen and Chiyoko laid their chopsticks aside, their handkerchiefs pressed to their faces.

When Chiyoko got into her rickshaw, she held in her arms the cedar box containing the urn and settled it on her lap. As the rickshawman began his run, a chill wind crept in through the space under the blanket covering herself and the box on her lap. The slender branches of the zelkova trees, whose tall light-brownish trunks lined both sides of the road, swayed as though they were welcoming them and seeing them off. Although the fine twigs grew out so thickly that they crossed each other high overhead, the streets the vehicles were traveling through were strangely brighter than Chiyoko thought they would be. Thinking this to be quite unusual, she raised her head again and again to look toward the distant sky.

On their arrival home Chiyoko placed the ashes in front of the Buddhist family altar. The children immediately gathered around and asked her to take off the lid to let them see what was inside, but she absolutely refused.

Soon the entire family sat down to lunch in the same room. It was Sunaga who started the conversation. "I guess it still looks like you have lots of children, but one is missing now, isn't she?"

"I don't think I made so much of the child while she was living, but now that she's gone," Matsumoto said, "it seems I've lost the most precious thing. So much so that I almost wish one of these here could take her place."

"That's not nice," Shigeko whispered to Sakiko.

"Oh please, Auntie, try to have another child just like Yoiko-san — as like as two peas — so that I can embrace it."

"A child like Yoiko wouldn't do unless it actually was Yoiko herself. It's not like making a porcelain plate or a hat. Even if I did have a new baby to take her place, we'd never forget the lost one."

"I've come to hate seeing any visitor with a letter of introduction on a rainy day."

Sunaga's Story

Ever since Keitaro had seen the figure of the woman before Sunaga's gate, he had imagined some string of destiny binding her with Sunaga. This string was as subtle as an aroma in a dream; thus, while he was actually seeing the real Sunaga and the real Chiyoko, it often disappeared somewhere and floated away. But while their existence as common mortals did not ordinarily provide any stimulus to his unaided eye, there were times when the bond linking them came into view, uniting them inseparably as though such were ordained by karma. Even after Keitaro had gained access to Taguchi's house, he heard not a word about any relationship between Sunaga and Chiyoko, nor did his direct observation offer him any kind of hint beyond their ordinary kinship as cousins. And yet his original association dominated him so insistently that somewhere in his mind he always felt inclined to regard them as a couple, as a connected man and woman. It seemed to him that a young man unaccompanied by a girl, or a young woman without a man to link arms with, was, after all, a kind of deformity — they were not being what nature intended each to be. His linking of Sunaga and Chiyoko according to his own perceptions may have arisen from his own moral demand to confer as quickly as possible on the two of them, still fluttering about in their "deformed" state, the capacities that nature had endowed them with.

We need not inquire more deeply into this thorny problem in order to argue about it on behalf of Keitaro, that is, to debate whether his thought had arisen from some moral imperative or anything else, but the fact is that when he happened to hear of late some talk about Chiyoko's marriage arrangements, he was somewhat troubled by the contradiction between the world inside his own mind and that outside. He had heard this talk from the houseboy, Saeki. Of course, houseboys are not in a position to know completely the behind-the-scenes circumstances of an affair before it is brought to a conclusion. With the muscles of his moony face more strained than usual, he had merely said, "It's been talked about a lot." The name of the man who would become Chiyoko's husband was of course unknown to the boy, but it was evident that his status was that of a businessman.

"I'd taken it for granted that Miss Chiyoko would marry Mr. Sunaga. Wasn't that the way it was supposed to be?"

"I guess not."

"Why not?"

"When you ask it like that, it's hard to give a clear answer, but if you think about it a bit, you'll see that it would just be too difficult."

"You really think so? They look like a perfectly matched couple to me, what with their relationship and their ages — five or six years' difference is just right."

"Well, if you're not in the know, they seem so. But behind it all there probably are lots of complications."

Keitaro wanted to inquire minutely into what Saeki had called "complications," but he was annoyed that the houseboy seemed to be treating him as an outsider. Moreover, it would have been a disgrace to Keitaro if it became known that he had pried into the family's affairs by pumping information from no more than a doorkeeper. Finally, there was little likelihood that Saeki could know as much as his words laid claim to, so Keitaro decided to let the matter stand. On this occasion he had gone by chance to the back room of the house to greet Taguchi's wife and to talk awhile, but since she seemed her usual self, he did not have the nerve to bring up any words of congratulation.

Keitaro had made this visit to the Taguchis a few days before he went to Sunaga's house, where he had heard from Chiyoko the misfortune of her uncle's family at Yarai. It was actually with the intention of ascertaining Sunaga's feelings about the marriage problem that he went, after so long an absence, to visit his friend. No matter which woman from whatever place Sunaga married, and no matter which man of whatever origin Chiyoko was given to in marriage, none of it obviously had anything to do with Keitaro. Yet could the destinies of these two people be so easily parted without leaving behind some lingering regret? Was not, as Keitaro imagined, some phantasmal string, some bond invisible to themselves, binding them in the darkness of the unknown? Was not a flickering glimmer of what might be described as a sash woven of dreams sometimes clearly visible to their eyes while at other times cut off from their vision so that they were left alone, separated from each other? Such was what Keitaro wished to ascertain. Of course, he was clearly conscious that this desire was no more than his own curiosity. He was equally aware, however, that as far as Sunaga was concerned, it was not improper for him to have his curiosity satisfied. More than that, he even believed it his right.

Unfortunately, Chiyoko's story that day and then Sunaga's mother's joining them prevented Keitaro from finding an opportunity to bring up this personal matter with Sunaga, although he ended up spending a considerably long time at his friend's house. When it suddenly occurred to him that the three persons who happened to be before him would certainly be well matched as son, wife, and mother-in-law, he thought on his way back home that it would be the easiest task in the world to unite them according to the formalities of the world.