Natsume Soseki - Light and dark

“It’s pouring. If this keeps up, the tracks on the narrow gauge might loosen up again.”

He had no choice but to speak in a voice so loud that Tsuda could hear him, too.

“I wouldn’t worry any. Mebbe it’s narrow gauge, but it’s not a damn toy you can’t use in the rain — how’d that be for a blessed catastrophe!”

The speaker was an older man, sixty or so perhaps, in a long, woolen Japanese coat. On his head he wore an odd hat without a brim, an exotic article that looked as though it must have been special-ordered at the sort of shop that displayed in its window an artful array of tobacco pouches, Madras fragments, and antique batiks; its owner, judging by the evidence offered mistakably by his speech, had been born and bred in Tokyo. The elder’s vitality belied his outfit, surprising Tsuda, who also found his language, close to the “cockney” argot of downtown workers, unexpected.

The term “narrow gauge,” which had come up in passing, held special significance for Tsuda. He was a convalescent who would be spending a number of hours that afternoon lurching along on the narrow gauge. Thinking that these two might well be heading in the same direction on a vacation, he began eavesdropping. Since there was no room to change seats and they were obliged to lean forward uncomfortably and speak in loud voices, he heard every word.

“I didn’t imagine the weather would turn this bad. It would have been easier if we’d postponed for a day.”

The self-possessed man in the fedora and camel-hair coat had this to say, to which the elder replied at once.

“What’s a dribble of rain? So long as you’re prepared to get wet, it don’t mean a thing.”

“But the luggage is a problem. I hate to think of it on the narrow gauge, outside on the baggage car.”

“Then how about we stay out in the rain and have them put the luggage in our seats?”

They both laughed aloud. Then the elder spoke again.

“Course there was that ruckus a while back. When the boiler blew and we got stuck — talk about this old heart sinking.”

“I forget what happened — how’d you manage to get out?”

“We waited in the mountains for a train a-coming the other way.

Then we used their boiler to pull us up and over.”

“What about the train they pulled the boiler out of?”

“What about it? It wasn’t going nowhere, that’s what.”

“That’s what I’m asking — I can’t imagine they left it there to rust after it rescued you?”

“Now I think about it, I know what you’re saying. At the time we couldn’t be thinking about that other train. It was getting dark, and cold as a blessed knife. I was shivering.”

Gradually a detailed picture formed in Tsuda’s mind. He was even able to predict that the men would be visiting one or another of the three hot springs on the left and right of the narrow-gauge tracks. In the event, if the train he was about to ride for two hours or possibly three was the unreliable hazard they were describing, there was no guarantee, in this rain, that some sort of calamity wouldn’t occur. On the other hand, their account was likely to be colored by the exaggeration that was bred into all Tokyoites. On the verge of inquiring whether the train was the disaster they made it out to be, he remembered this and, with a wry smile, saved himself the trouble of asking a question. Thoughts about the train led him abruptly to Kiyoko. Thinking Even a woman can travel there and back by herself , he paid no further heed to the aimless conversation.

SHORTLY BEFORE the train arrived at their station, as the weather that had been a concern to all of them was beginning to clear, the rain on the verge of abating, Tsuda gazed up at the sky and beheld a bank of clouds sailing across it. On they came like a stampede passing the train overhead from the opposite direction. They bore down with no space separating one from the next as if they were in mutual pursuit. Presently patches within the moving bank that appeared wispier than the rest gradually expanded. One corner in particular appeared to be breaking up in the wind and about to allow a pale light to shine through.

Thankful that the weather appeared to be more kindly disposed toward him than he had anticipated, Tsuda got off the train and onto a streetcar just steps away, where he encountered again the two travelers from before. Seeing that, as he had imagined, they were after all traveling in the same direction as he and using the same transportation, he looked carefully at their hand luggage. But he saw nothing either large or bulky enough to have occasioned concern about getting wet in the rain. The elder at any rate appeared to have forgotten what he had said before.

“Looks like we’re in luck. That’s why I always say when you feel like leaving get up and go. Imagine how miserable we’d be if we’d of stayed home thinking if only we’d of known and feeling sorry for ourselves.”

“Exactly. But I wonder if the weather in Tokyo is as good as this right now?”

“No telling without you go back and have a look. We could always phone and ask. But I’ll wager it is — wherever you go in Japan, the weather’s about the same.”

Tsuda was amused. Just then the old man addressed him.

“I reckon you’re heading for the hot springs. I thought so the minute I saw you.”

“Is that so?”

“Yessir. When a man’s on his way to a spa, you can tell just by looking at him. Right?”

He turned to his companion sitting next to him.

“Exactly,” the fedora replied as if he had no choice.

Unable to suppress an uncomfortable smile at this display of clairvoyance, Tsuda tried to terminate the conversation, but the expansive elder wasn’t about to turn him loose.

“Seriously, though, traveling is so handy anymore. No matter where you’re going, you don’t need to bring nothing along but just yourself. It’s made to order for an impatient old geezer like me. Take this trip; except for my pouch here and that bag of the General’s, all I brought along is me own hide. Isn’t that so, General?”

Once again, the man who had been addressed as “General” had nothing more to say than “Exactly.” If this single piece of hand luggage couldn’t be brought aboard and had to be loaded on a baggage car to soak in the rain, the so-called narrow gauge would have to be either jammed with passengers or poorly designed beyond imagining. Tsuda considered inquiring but decided there was no point in asking now and remained silent.

After alighting from the streetcar, he lost sight of the two men. In the teahouse in front of the station, gazing at the assortment of color posters and gravures on the wall advertising one spa after the other as appealingly as possible, he took lunch. It was more than an hour past his usual lunchtime, and he attacked his tray hungrily. But his departure time was approaching. By the time he had put aside his chopsticks, it was time to board the narrow gauge.

The station at the beginning of the line was directly in front of the teahouse. Tsuda received his change from the waitress with his eye on the train, which appeared to be smaller than the trolley, and went outside at once. There was scarcely any distance between the ticket taker and the platform. A few strides carried him to the steps. Inside the car he encountered his fellow travelers yet again.

“Well met. Have a seat.”

The elder slid over for Tsuda, making room for him to spread out the lap blanket he carried over his arm.

“It’s nice and empty today.”

Describing with gusto and his usual effusiveness the milling crowd that rode this line to the hot springs at New Year’s and again in July and August to escape the heat, he turned to his companion.