Natsume Soseki - Light and dark

“Someone forgot their slippers outside one of the private baths this morning. At first I thought it must be occupied and didn’t want to barge in, but when I tried opening the door there was no one inside.”

“Goodness! It must have been that sensei again.”

The sensei was a calligrapher. Tsuda remembered having seen his seal here and there on framed and mounted scrolls.

“He must be pretty old.”

“He’s an old man. With a white beard down to here.”

The maid placed a hand on her chest to indicate the length of the calligrapher’s beard.

“You don’t say. Does he practice?”

“He’s working on something huge, a little bit every day; he says it’s going to be inscribed on his tombstone.”

Tsuda was surprised and impressed to hear from the maid that the calligrapher had traveled all this way expressly to work on his own epitaph.

“Can it really take so much effort to create something like that? An amateur would think it could be done in half a day.”

This observation elicited no response from the maid. And it was only a fraction of what Tsuda was thinking but didn’t say. He was comparing this aging sensei ’s mission and his own. Alongside the sensei he installed the couple from Yokohama with nothing to do but rehearse old songs. He added Kiyoko to the same line-up, Kiyoko who apparently practiced flower arrangement and calligraphy for no particular reason. Finally, when he heard the maid describe the sole remaining guest as a man who neither spoke nor moved but only sat the livelong day gazing at the mountains, Tsuda said what he was thinking.

“There are all kinds of people, that’s for sure. Just five or six of us are already such an assortment, it must be a madhouse here in the summer and at New Year’s.”

“When we’re full we have 130 or 140 people.”

Having missed Tsuda’s point, the maid reported the number of guests likely to show up at the busiest seasons of the year.

AFTER SUPPER Tsuda sat at the low desk next to his mattress and wrote some of the picture postcards he had asked the maid to bring him, one line only on the back and the address on the front. He finished those he had to send, one to O-Nobu, one to his uncle Fujii, and one to Madam Yoshikawa, and a pile of empty cards remained. Still holding his fountain pen, he gazed vacantly at regional scenes with odd titles that seemed unsuited to a mountain village — Fudō Falls in Yugawara, Lunar Park in Asakusa, and others. Then he began scribbling again. In no time he wrote one to O-Hide’s husband and another to his parents in Kyoto. Now that he had begun in earnest he might as well continue; he even felt that leaving any of the postcards blank would amount to a dereliction of duty. There was Okamoto, whom he hadn’t even considered at first, and Okamoto’s son, Hajime, who put him in mind of his schoolmate, his own nephew, Makoto, and a host of others. There was one name only that had occurred to him from the beginning to whom he didn’t write. Other reasons aside, Tsuda didn’t want Kobayashi to see a postmark because he was afraid he would track him down. He was due to leave for Korea any day. Since he was leaving of his own accord with nothing to constrain him, he might be rattling along on a train even now, resolved to embark. Undisciplined as he was, however, there was no guarantee that he would leave on the day he had announced as his departure. Who could declare with any certainty that, seeing the postcard (assuming Tsuda sent him one), he wouldn’t make his way here at once? Thinking about this impossible friend who was like doing battle with unstable weather, about this enemy it were better to say, Tsuda hunched his shoulders involuntarily. Whereupon the scene he had launched in his imagination began to play. Pulling him along, it progressed unstoppably. Right before his eyes he conjured an image of Kobayashi pulling up in a rickshaw at the entrance and storming into his room shouting at the top of his lungs.

“Why are you here?”

“There’s no why, my man, I came to distress you.”

“For what reason?”

“Who needs a stinking reason? As long as you reject me, I’ll follow you forever no matter where you go.”

“Villain!”

Making a fist abruptly, Tsuda would punch Kobayashi in the face. Instead of resisting, Kobayashi would instantly fall in a backward sprawl to the floor.

“You punched me, you rat. Fine, do your worst.”

A scene of violence such as could be seen only on a stage would ensue. The entire inn would be aware and feel threatened. Kiyoko would naturally be involved. Everything would be dashed to bits forever.

Having painted in his mind in spite of himself an imaginary scene more vivid than reality, Tsuda came abruptly to his senses with a shudder. He wondered what he would do if that kind of preposterous brawl were to materialize in his real life. He was aware of feeling shame and humiliation distantly. He could feel the inside of his cheeks begin to burn as if to symbolize his feelings.

But he was unable to develop his critique beyond this. To disgrace himself in the eyes of others was more than he could contemplate. Saving face was the fundament of his ethics. His only thought was that appearances must be preserved, scandal above all avoided. By that token, the villain of the piece was Kobayashi.

If only that scoundrel were out of my life, I’d have nothing to fret about!

Tsuda’s assault was directed against the Kobayashi who had taken the stage in his imaginary play. He placed full responsibility for his own dishonor on Kobayashi’s shoulders.

Having sentenced this phantom perpetrator, Tsuda’s mood shifted, and he took from his wallet a calling card. Writing on the back with his fountain pen, “I arrived last night to convalesce,” he paused to reflect, then added, “I heard that you were here this morning” and paused again.

This is too artificial. I must mention seeing her last night .

But touching on that tactfully wasn’t easy. And the more complicated the message became, the more words it required, until it would no longer fit on a single card. He wanted this to be sweet and simple. A letter and envelope would be overdoing it.

Glancing at the dresser, he saw Madam Yoshikawa’s gift on top of it, untouched since the night before when it had been carefully placed there, and quickly took it down. Writing on another card, “I hope you are recovering quickly. This is a get-well gift from Yoshikawa-san’s wife,” he slipped it under the lid of the fruit basket and summoned the maid.

“I think someone named Seki-san is staying here?”

The maid laughed.

“Seki-san is the lady we were talking about.”

“Is that so? Good, please take this to her. And mention that I’d like to see her briefly if she doesn’t mind.”

“Very well.”

The maid stepped into the hall carrying the basket of fruit.

WAITING FOR a reply, Tsuda might have been tipped as easily as a vessel with uneven legs. When the maid failed to return as quickly as he had expected, he grew even more agitated.

I can’t believe she’d turn me down .

He had used Madam Yoshikawa’s name because he was already considering that unlikely possibility. The get-well gift in Madam’s name ought to release Kiyoko from whatever constraint she might be feeling toward him. Even assuming her principal desire was avoiding the unpleasantness of a meeting or the suspicion that might arise as a result, it seemed only natural that she should want to thank the bearer of the fruit basket in person. Believing that he had devised what anyone could see was an inspired and altogether natural strategy, and unable to avoid feeling for that reason the more troubled by the maid’s tardiness, Tsuda flicked away the cigarette he had begun to smoke, stepped out to the engawa , gazed vacantly at the red and orange koi swimming silently in the pond, and petted the nuzzle of the dog sleeping beneath the eaves. By the time he heard the sound of the maid’s slippers turn the corner of the hall, he was so worked up he felt the need of collecting himself sufficiently to display some degree of composure on the surface.