Natsume Soseki - Light and dark

“You went pale last night, didn’t you, at the top of the stairs?”

“I suppose so. I couldn’t see my own face so I don’t know, but if you say I did, I must have.”

“Really? So I’m still not a total liar in your eyes? I’m grateful for that. So you’ll accept the facts as I perceive them?”

“Whether I accept them or not, if I truly went pale what can I say?”

“Exactly — and I think you also tensed.”

“Yes, I could feel that myself. It was so bad I felt I might collapse if I stood there any longer.”

“In other words, you were shocked.”

“Yes, I was utterly surprised.”

“Which is why—” Interrupting himself, Tsuda looked down at Kiyoko’s hands as, bending slightly forward, she carefully peeled an apple. The transformation, the lusciously colored skin curling under the knife and dropping to reveal gradually the pale, juicy whiteness of the fruit, recalled for Tsuda a time that was already more than a year in the past.

Can this be the woman who used to peel an apple for me just this way, in this same posture, in those days?

The way she held the knife and moved her fingers, her elbows almost touching her knees and her long kimono sleeves flaring open, everything was a replica of how it had been except for a single difference he noticed right away. A beautiful twin-stone ring adorned her finger. Nothing separated them so incontrovertibly as the glittering brilliance of those small gems. Gazing at the pliant movement of her fingers, Tsuda was lulled into a reminiscence like a dream in the midst of which, rapt as he was, he couldn’t avoid acknowledging the bright flash of a warning.

He quickly looked away from Kiyoko’s hands and glanced at her hair. The hairstyle the maid had alleged to have helped her with that morning was the conventional “eaves,” hair gathered in a bun on either side of her head. There was nothing unusual about her darkly lustrous hair except that it retained the regular, vertical furrows left by the teeth of the comb.

Resolved, Tsuda began again where he had left off.

“Which is why I’m wondering—”

Kiyoko didn’t look up. Tsuda continued anyway, undaunted.

“I’m wondering, since you were shocked last night, how you’re able to be so composed this morning.”

Kiyoko responded without lifting her eyes.

“Why? Why does that matter?”

“I ask because I don’t understand what’s going on psychologically.”

Once again, Kiyoko replied without looking at Tsuda.

“I wouldn’t know about psychologically. Last night was last night, this morning is now. That’s all there is to it.”

“That’s the only explanation?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Tsuda felt inclined to heave a sigh at this point, but he lacked the courage to protest in this manner, and he was further impeded by his sense that theatrics would avail him nothing with this woman.

“But isn’t it true that you didn’t get up at your usual time today?”

“Goodness! How do you know that?”

“A little bird told me.”

Kiyoko glanced at Tsuda and quickly lowered her eyes again. As she spoke, she cut into slices the apple she had beautifully pared.

“Is it that magic nose of yours? It appears to be very keen after all.”

There was no telling whether this remark was intended mockingly or in earnest, and it made Tsuda wince.

Kiyoko finished slicing the apple and moved the plate toward him.

“Have some, Yoshio-san — apples are your favorite.”

TSUDA DIDN’T reach for the apple she had peeled for him.

“Help yourself. After all, Madam Yoshikawa sent this along especially for you.”

“And you came all this way to bring it to me. Not having any would feel like ignoring your kindness.”

Kiyoko took a piece of the apple from the plate between them. But before she lifted it to her mouth, she spoke again.

“But it’s odd when I think about it; how in the world could this have happened?

“What?”

“I wasn’t expecting a gift from Mrs. Yoshikawa. And I certainly wasn’t expecting you to deliver it to me.”

Of course you weren’t. Even if I hadn’t thought of it .

Kiyoko peered intently at Tsuda’s face and her eyes were lit with her anticipation of a clear answer. He recalled special memories of that light.

Aah, I know those eyes .

Scenes from the past endlessly repeated between them appeared vividly before Tsuda’s eyes. In those days Kiyoko had believed in a man whose name was Tsuda. She had looked to him for all her knowledge. And for the resolution of all her doubts. Lifting her unknown future in her hands, she appeared to place it at his disposal. That explained the quietness in her eyes even when they moved. The light of trust and of peace shone in her questions to him. He had had the feeling he had been born with the unique right to be illuminated by that light. It had even occurred to him that those eyes of hers existed because he was there.

In the end they had separated. And now they had met again. Feeling as though he had been given to see that Kiyoko’s eyes since she had left him were after all the same eyes as he had known in the past, albeit in a different sense, he had been deeply moved.

That’s what’s beautiful about you. But must your beauty serve now only to break my heart? Speak to me!

Tsuda’s uncertainties and Kiyoko’s met briefly in the look they exchanged; Kiyoko was the first to avert her eyes. Tsuda, observing the manner in which she withdrew, recognized a different degree of eagerness between them. Kiyoko made no effort to advance. Looking elsewhere as if she were indifferent, she rested her gaze on the chrysanthemums arranged in a vase on the shelf in the alcove.

Since her eyes had fled, Tsuda was obliged to pursue her with words.

“I trust you’re not thinking the only reason I’m here is on an errand for Madam Yoshikawa.”

“Of course not, and that’s what’s odd.”

“There’s nothing odd about it! I was planning to come down independently when I met her and she told me you were already here, and that’s when she asked me to bring a gift for you.”

“I see. That’s how it must have been — otherwise it’s odd no matter how you think about it.”

“You keep saying odd, but things do happen accidentally in life. Maybe not in your—”

“But I’m not thinking it’s odd anymore. Everything has a reason, and once you hear it, it makes sense.”

Tsuda was on the verge of saying That’s why I’m here myself, to learn the reason . But Kiyoko, who appeared unconcerned with the past, asked an honest question.

“Are you convalescing?”

In just a few words, Tsuda described the course of his illness. Kiyoko spoke.

“How fortunate for you, Yoshio-san, that you can arrange to be away from the company at a time like that. If only Seki could be so lucky; he slaves away from morning to night.”

“Seki-kun gets carried away, so it can’t be helped.”

“That isn’t kind. And it isn’t true!”

“I didn’t mean carried away in a bad way. I meant he’s industrious.”

“Always the smooth talker!”

At that moment footsteps could be heard hastening up the stairs; about to say something, Tsuda thought better of it and decided to observe in silence. The maid who peeked into the room was different from the one before.

“The guests from Yokohama told me to ask Madam if she would like to come for a walk to the falls with them around noon.”

“Certainly.”