Natsume Soseki - To the Spring Equinox and Beyond

Sōseki Natsume(1867–1916) is widely considered the foremost novelist of the Meiji period (1868–1914). After graduating from Tokyo Imperial University in 1893, he taught high school before spending two years in England on a Japanese government scholarship. He returned to lecture in English literature at the university. Numerous nervous disorders forced him to give up teaching in 1908 and he became a full-time writer for the Asahi Shimbun. His nine major novels of which this was the sixth, thus appeared first in the columns of the Asahi. Today, Sōseki's novels still enjoy immense popularity in Japan, and contemporary Japanese writers continue to be affected by his work.

Sanford Goldstein,Professor Emeritus of Purdue University, USA, and Professor Emeritus of Keiwa College in Japan, holds a Ph.D from the University of Winconsin. He spent most of his working life at Purdue University, but also held positions at Niigata University and Nagasaki University. After his retirement from Purdue in 1992, he spent 11 years at Keiwa College. He is currently a visiting researcher at Keiwa Liberal Arts Research Institute. Professor Goldstein is a gifted tanka poet and founding editor of Five Lines Down, the influential American tanka magazine, and has had two recent anthologies dedicated to him. He has translated several classics of modem Japanese literature.

The late Professor Kingo Ochiaiwas a graduate of Tokyo University. He worked for many years at Niigata University in the Department of English, where he retired Professor Emeritus. While colleagues at Niigata, Goldstein and Ochiai collaborated on several translations, including The Wild Geese and To the Spring Equinox and Beyond.

To the Spring Equinox and Beyond (Higan-sugi made) first appeared in serial form in the Asahi Shimbun from January to April, 1912. Like most of Soseki Natsume's works, this novel is still in print in various forms in Japan today. The subdivisions of the titled sections of the novel, separated in this translation by asterisks, represent the installments in the original serialization.

After a Bath

For some days past Keitaro had been wearing himself out running around in search of a job without finding anything promising. If it had simply been a matter of scurrying here and there, he knew his strong physique could have easily carried him through. But as he was baffled time and again by opportunities that had seemed favorable, yet which suddenly became entangled and were brought to a standstill or which somehow slipped away just as he was stretching out his hand to unravel the situation, he found his mind failing him sooner than his body.

One night at supper, half out of spite, he drank several bottles of beer even though he didn't really want to, merely hoping to induce in himself as much pleasure as he could. But no amount of beer could dispel the consciousness that he was attempting to be cheerful, as it were, in another's apparel, so he called in the maid to have the supper things removed.

"Tagawa-san!" she cried out, glancing at his face, this followed by "Oh, heavens, Tagawa-san!"

Passing his hand over his face, Keitaro said, "Red, isn't it? It's too precious a color to keep this long under an electric lamp. I'd better get to bed. Please make it up for me." Warding off another remark from the maid, he went out into the hallway. After washing up, he slid into bed, muttering to himself that he would rest a few days.

He woke twice during the night, once from thirst, once from a dream. When he opened his eyes a third time, the day was dawning. As soon as he was aware of the world being astir, he said to himself, "Rest, rest," and again dozed off. He was next awakened by the boarding-house clock rudely striking the hour into his ear. To sleep after that was impossible no matter how hard he tried. Giving up, he smoked until the ashes of the half-finished cigarette dropped onto his white pillowcase. Still he resolved not to leave his bed. But the bright sun came through the eastern window, the rays giving him a slight headache. At last he yielded, got up, and went over to the public bathhouse, a toothbrush in his mouth, a towel in his hand.

It was just after ten by the bathhouse clock. All the wooden buckets in the bath area were piled on one side. No one was there except a man whose profile could be seen in the tub. He was idly dabbing his hands in the water as he looked at the sunlight coming through the windowpanes. It turned out to be Morimoto, who lived in Keitaro's boardinghouse. Keitaro's "Good morning" was returned, the other adding, "Say, you've got a toothbrush in your mouth at this late hour. That accounts for there being no light in your room last night, doesn't it?"

"My light was on all evening. Mine's a clean life— unlike yours. You know very well I seldom go out on the town at night."

"Right. You're a man of exemplary conduct, so much so I envy you."

Keitaro felt slightly embarrassed by this. Morimoto, his body below the midriff immersed in the bath, still kept dabbing at the water, his face rather serious.

Keitaro, looking at each drenched hair of the man's moustache drooping down on his carefree face, said, "Let's forget about me. What's wrong with you? Aren't you going to work today?"

"It's a holiday," Morimoto answered, his elbows languidly on the rim of the tub, his forehead down on them as if he were suffering from a headache.

"What for?"

"Oh, for nothing in particular. One I'm taking on my own."

Keitaro felt as if unexpectedly he had found someone of his own sort. He cried out, "So you're taking a day off too!"

"That's right," Morimoto replied, still leaning over the rim of the tub.

Not until Keitaro stood before a wooden bucket and the bathman began washing his back did Morimoto emerge from the water, his body so red that steam rose from it. He squatted on the floor, an expression of exquisite comfort on his face. Looking in admiration at Keitaro's muscular body, he said, "That's quite a physique you've got!"

"It's gotten worse lately."

"Hardly. If you call yours worse, mine's. ." Morimoto drew Keitaro's attention to his stomach, slapping it with his hand. His belly had so caved in that it seemed drawn toward his back. "My job, you know," he observed, "makes it worse and worse. Though I've aggravated it by a good deal of intemperance." He then burst into a laugh as though he had suddenly remembered something.

"How about one of your old stories?" Keitaro suggested, his voice attuned to the other's laugh. "It's been quite a while since I've heard one. I have lots of free time today."

"Certainly," Morimoto replied, but while he showed briskness in response, he was quite slow to move. Or rather, it was a temporary suspension of activity caused by the boiling of his muscles in the hot water.

While Keitaro rubbed his soaped head, the soles of his feet, and the roots of his toes, Morimoto remained seated on the floor, showing no sign of washing any part of his anatomy. At last he flung his emaciated body into the heated water again, and at about the same time as Keitaro, he got up to dry off.