Natsume Soseki - Kusamakura

“Yes, it’s close on two miles. You’re heading for the hot spring, are you, sir?â€​

“I thought I might stay there for a bit, if it’s not crowded. I’l see how I feel.â€​

“Oh no, it won’t be. Since the war began, the guests have dropped right off. It’s as good as closed now.â€​4

“That’s odd. Wel , perhaps they won’t put me up there, then.â€​

“No, they’re happy to put up anyone who asks.â€​

“There’s only one place to stay, isn’t there?â€​

“Yes, just ask for Shioda’s, and you’l have no trouble finding it. It’s hard to tel whether Mr. Shioda keeps it more as an inn or as his own country retreat.â€​

“So it wouldn’t matter to him if there weren’t any guests, then.â€​

“Is this your first visit, sir?â€​

“No, I came through once a long time ago.â€​

The conversation flags. I open up my sketchbook again and peaceful y set about sketching the chickens. Then, deep in the quietness, the soft clang of a distant horse bel begins to penetrate my ears. It sets up a rhythm inside my head that grows into a kind of tune. It’s like the dreamy feeling of being half aware, as you doze, of the soft, insistent sound of a hand mil turning next door. I pause in my sketching to jot down on the side of the page

Spring wind—

in Izen’s ears the sound

of a horse’s bel .5

I have already come across five or six horses on my way up the mountain, al of them elaborately girthed in the old style, and bel ed. They seemed scarcely to belong to the present world.

Before long the tranquil strains of a packhorse driver’s song break through my poetic reveries of an unpeopled path winding on among empty mountains into the far depths of spring. There is something carefree within the plaintive sorrow of that singing voice, and it strikes my ears as might a song from a painting.

The driver’s song

crossing Suzuka’s far pass—

spring rain fal ing.6

Having jotted these words diagonal y on the page, I realize it is not in fact my own poem.7

“Someone else has come,â€​ remarks the old woman, half to herself.

Since there is only one path across the mountains, al who come and go must pass her teahouse. Each of those five or six horses I’ve met would have come down the path, and climbed back up it again, to these same murmured words. Here in this tiny settlement, strewn blossom-deep wherever feet might tread, down the years she has counted the bel s, through the changeless springs along the hushed and lonely road, til now her hair is white with the years of counting. Turning over a page, I write

The driver’s song—

white hair untouched by color

spring draws to its end.

But the poem doesn’t manage to express al I’m feeling; it wil need some further thought. Staring at the tip of my pencil, I am pondering how I might combine the phrase “white hair†with “age-old melody†and the theme words “the driver’s song,†add a season word for spring, and put it al into a haiku’s seventeen syl ables, when a loud voice cries “Hel o there!†and in front of the shop stands the packhorse driver himself.

“Wel , wel , so it’s you, Gen. You’re off down to town again, eh?â€​

“If you have anything you want from there, just let me know and I’l bring it up for you.â€​

“Wel then, if you’re passing through the Kaji-cho area, could you bring me a Reigan Temple talisman for my daughter?â€​

“Right, I’l get one for you. Just one? Your Aki’s made a fine marriage. It’s a happy thing. Isn’t that so?â€​

“Praise be, she wants for nothing in daily life. I suppose that’s a happy thing, yes.â€​

“Of course it is! Just compare her with the Nakoi girl.â€​

“Yes, poor thing. And so good-looking too. Is she any better these days?â€​

“Nah, just the same as ever.â€​

“What a shame!â€​ The old woman heaves a sigh.

“A shame it is,â€​ Gen agrees, stroking his horse’s nose.

The rain that has streamed out of that distant sky is stil held pooled in every leaf and blossom of the luxuriantly branching cherry tree nearby, and a passing gust of wind chooses this moment to catch the tree off guard, so that it finds itself toppling the heavy drops down from their precarious home aloft, with a sudden shower of sound. Startled, the horse tosses its long mane up and down.

“Whoa there!â€​ scolds Gen, his voice combining with the clanging of the horse’s bel to break through my meditations.

“You know, Gen,†the old woman goes on, “I can stil see before my eyes the sight of her when she went off as a bride. Sitting there on the horse, in that lovely long-sleeved wedding kimono with the patterned hem, and her hair up in the takashimada style . . .â€​8

“Yes, she didn’t go down by boat, did she. We used the horse. She stopped off here on her way through, I remember.â€​

“That’s right. The horse stopped under that cherry there, and just then there was a little flurry of fal ing petals. That splendid takashimada hair was al dotted with them.â€​

I open my sketchbook again. This scene could be a painting, or a poem. I picture in my mind’s eye the figure of the bride, imagine the scene as if it were before me. Pleased with myself, I jot down

Praise be to the bride

who rides across the mountains

through blossoming spring.

The odd thing is that, although I can clearly picture her clothes and hair, and the horse and the cherry tree, I simply cannot visualize the bride’s face. I try out this one and that, until suddenly the face of Ophelia in Mil ais’s painting springs unbidden to my mind, fitting itself perfectly under the takashimada hair.9 This won’t do, I think, hastily dismantling my careful picture in order to start afresh. But though the clothes and hair, and the horse and cherry tree, al disappear instantly from the scene, the figure of Ophelia, floating, hands folded, down the stream, stil hovers dimly in the depths of consciousness, like smoke that a ragged broom cannot quite manage to dispel from the air. I have a weird sense of something like foreboding, as if I have witnessed a comet suddenly trail its light across the sky.

“Right then, if you’l excuse me, I’l be off,â€​ says Gen.

“Drop in again on your way back through. I’m afraid al that rain wil have made the Seven Bends difficult to get around.â€​

“Yes, it’s a bit hard going,â€​ Gen replies as he moves away. His horse sets off behind him. Clang, clang goes the bel .

“He’s from Nakoi, is he?â€​

“Yes, his name’s Genbei.â€​

“He once led some bride over the pass on his horse?â€​

“When Shioda’s daughter went down to the town as a bride, they put her on a white horse for the bridal procession, and she came along past here with Genbei on the lead rein. Good heavens, how time flies—it’l be five years ago this year.â€​

One who laments her white hair only when she looks in a mirror must be accounted among the happy. This old woman, who first comprehends the swiftness of the turning wheel of Time as she counts off on bent fingers the passage of five years, must then surely be closer to the unworldly mountain immortals than to us humans.