Natsume Soseki - Light and dark

Silverleafs were growing on top of the cliff. Unfortunately the morning sun wasn’t shining there, and the hard sheen of the flowers as they swayed occasionally in the wind made them appear icy cold. Camellias were also visible from the tub as they dropped from the bush and scattered. But the scenery was fragmented. Outside the two feet of view permitted by the glass, Tsuda could see nothing above or below. The vista unknown to him was bound to be ordinary. And yet for some reason it piqued his curiosity. A bird had suddenly begun to warble, a bulbul judging by its melodic song, and hearing it just outside at the cliff but unable to see it, Tsuda felt somehow dissatisfied.

But this dissatisfaction was a mere afterthought. The truth was, from the moment he had come downstairs to the bath, he had been playing over in his mind the incident from the previous night and was as a consequence submerged in a far deeper sense of dissatisfaction. Finding the sunlit bathing room deserted, he had stood in the desolate hallway of the bathing area and just to be sure, as if he were within his rights to do exactly as he pleased, had opened each of the doors to the small tubs lined up on both sides. Possibly he had been prompted to try this by the pair of slippers that had been left in front of one of the doors. But when he came finally to the tightly closed door with the slippers in front of it, he hesitated. He wasn’t unaware of what he was about. He was moreover disinclined to be rude. At a loss for what to do, he strained to hear from outside the door, and the silence inside empowered his hand to turn the handle and push it boldly open. Encountering a private tub as empty as all the others, he experienced relief and disappointment at the same time.

Naked now and soaking in the tub, he had been left in the aftermath of his experiment with an incessant sense of anticipation. With a mirthless smile, he tried comparing himself before and after the change he had undergone since the previous evening. Last night, until the woman with the upswept hair had walked in on him, he had been, if anything, innocent. This morning, before anyone had appeared, he felt a kind of tension that came from lying in wait.

Perhaps the unidentified slippers had incited him to this transgression. But if the slippers had churned him, it was because on arising he had overheard talk of Kiyoko in the banter between the woman from Yokohama and the hostler. She was still in bed. Or at least she hadn’t taken her bath yet. If she were intending to bathe, she would have to be bathing now or on her way here, one or the other.

Tsuda’s keen hearing detected abruptly the sound of someone coming down the stairs. He stopped splashing water on himself. Whereupon the footsteps stopped. Perhaps he was imagining things; it seemed to him that when they resumed a second later they were moving in the opposite direction, back up the stairs. He thought he could imagine why. He wondered if the problem mightn’t be that he had left his slippers outside the door as he had seen others do. Why hadn’t he worn them inside? he asked himself regretfully.

A minute later he was surprised to hear footsteps again, this time outside the building. Both sets of footsteps were immediately connected in his imagination. It came to him easily that the person who had avoided the bath had subsequently gone outside on purpose. Just then he heard a woman’s voice. But this issued from an entirely different direction. From what he could see outside looking up from below, the cliff leveled off at the top, and it appeared that an annex facing the baths had been built on this patch of level ground. At any rate, the voice was coming from that direction. It belonged unmistakably to the woman who had been discussing Kiyoko with the hostler a while ago on her way back from a walk.

The glass transom beneath the eaves that had been ajar last evening to let steam escape was tightly closed this morning, and as a result the woman’s words reached Tsuda indistinctly. But judging from the way she was lifting her voice, one thing was certain: she was standing on the top of the cliff calling out to someone below. In the order of things, some sort of acknowledgment was to be expected from the base of the cliff. Strangely enough, there was no response; the alternating remarks of a normal conversation did not occur. The only talking came from the top of the cliff.

But this time the footsteps did not stop as they had before. Tsuda heard the sound of garden clogs treading irregular stone steps as a woman, unmistakably a woman, ascended the path. About the time she should have been nearing the top, a portion of her skirt appeared in the upper part of the glass transom. It was gone at once. The momentary impression Tsuda retained was the fluttering of a beautiful pattern. In that pattern as it moved out of sight he had the impression he recognized colors he had seen from the bottom of the stairs the night before.

RETURNING TO his room, he sat down to his breakfast and engaged the maid who was serving him in conversation.

“Are those guests from Yokohama staying on top of the cliff I can see from the new bath?”

“Yes, did you have a look?”

“No, I just thought they might be.”

“You guessed right. Why not drop in? They’re both charming, Mr. and Missus.”

“They’ve been here a while?”

“Just ten days.”

“And they’re the ones who sing?”

“You seem to know everything. Have you heard them?”

“Not yet. Katsu-san told me.”

The maid provided answers unhesitatingly to whatever Tsuda asked, but she understood boundaries. When he touched the quick of the matter she deflected his question.

“What’s the story with that woman?”

“She’s his wife.”

“His real wife?”

“I imagine so.” The maid laughed. “I don’t guess she’s an imitation wife; why do you ask?”

“Isn’t she a bit saucy for a housewife?”

Instead of replying, the maid abruptly offered Kiyoko as a comparison.

“The lady staying in the back is more refined.”

The layout of the rooms was such that Kiyoko was behind him. The man and woman from Yokohama were staying in what amounted to the front.

“So I’m midway between the two,” Tsuda said, finally realizing.

Even so, since his room was slightly recessed it wasn’t on the way for either of them.

“Is that lady friends with the couple?”

“They’re on good terms.”

“From before?”

“I wonder — I wouldn’t know that. But most likely they became acquainted after they came here. They’re back and forth all day long; they don’t have much to do. Just yesterday they went to the park together.”

Tsuda reeled the conversation in.

“I wonder why that lady is here alone.”

“She needs to recover a bit.”

“What about her husband?”

“They came together, but he left right away.”

“He abandoned her? That wasn’t very nice. He hasn’t been back since?”

“There was something about coming back right away — I don’t know what happened.”

“She must be bored — the wife.”

“Why don’t you drop in on her for a chat?”

“Would that be all right? Ask her when you get a chance.”

“I could do that.” The maid grinned, not taking him seriously. Tsuda inquired again.

“What does she do with herself?”

“Well, she takes her baths, she walks, she listens to them singing — sometimes she does some flower arranging, and at night she often practices her calligraphy.”

“I see — does she read?”

“I suppose she does,” the maid responded carelessly and broke out laughing at the bothersome detail of Tsuda’s questions. Tsuda realized he was being obvious and hastily changed the subject as though a little flustered.