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  “Aren’t there times when one fails because of sincerity and devotion?”

  “No, never.”

  A frame enclosing the words “Sincerity is the way of Heaven”* hung conspicuously above the old man’s head. He had had it done by the former lord of his clan and prized it greatly. Daisuke hated it ardently. First of all, he disliked the hand. Secondly, the sentiment did not suit him. After the words “Sincerity is the way of Heaven,” he would like to have added, “and not the way of man.”

  * From the Chung Yung (the Doctrine of the Mean), one of the four books compiled during the Sung dynasty (960–1279), thought to embody the heart of Confucian teaching.

  Long ago, when the clan finances had deteriorated beyond repair, it was Daisuke’s father who had taken the responsibility of putting things in order. He had gathered two or three merchants who had close ties with the clan lord, and removing his sword and bowing to the ground, had begged for temporary loans. Since he had no way of knowing if they could be repaid, he had honestly admitted as much, and was successful on this account. It was then that he had asked his lord to write out these words. Since then, Nagai had hung the frame in his living room and gazed at it night and day. Daisuke could not count the number of times he had been made to listen to this story.

  Then, fifteen or sixteen years ago, monthly expenditures began to accumulate in the old lord’s household, threatening the finances so painstakingly revived. Once again, on the basis of proven ability, Nagai was entrusted with their restoration. This time he tried heating the bath himself and discovered a discrepancy between the amount he spent on firewood and the figure indicated in the books. Beginning with a thorough investigation of this point, he dedicated his soul night and day for an entire month to this problem until finally, he arrived at the perfect technique for heating the bathtub. Since then, the old lord had lived in relative comfort.

  Given this past history, and given that he had not ventured to carry his thinking one step beyond this past, Nagai continued to proclaim the twin virtues of sincerity and devotion.

  “I don’t know why, but it seems that you are lacking in sincerity and devotion. That won’t do. That’s why you can’t do anything.”

  “I am both sincere and devoted. It’s just that I can’t apply these qualities to human affairs.”

  “And why is that?”

  Daisuke was again at a loss for a reply. Sincerity and devotion were not ready-made commodities that one kept stored in the heart. Like the sparks produced by rubbing iron and stone, they were phenomena that arose from a genuine encounter between two human beings. They were not so much qualities to be possessed as they were by-products of a spiritual exchange. Hence, without the right individuals, they could not come into being.

  “Father, the words of the Analects or Wang Yang-ming are like gold plate, and you’ve swallowed them whole. That must be why you talk the way you do.”

  “Gold plate?”

  Daisuke was silent for a moment. “The words are still gold plate when they come out of your mouth.” Although his curiosity was aroused, Nagai would not venture to grapple with this bookish, eccentric, naive youth’s epigrammatic words.

  Some forty minutes later, the old man changed into street clothes and took the ricksha somewhere. Daisuke saw him to the entranceway, then returned and opened the door to the living room. This room, a recent addition to the house, was Western in style, and many of its furnishings had been executed by professionals according to Daisuke’s design. Of particular interest to Daisuke was the decorative painting around the transom, the result of lengthy discussion with a certain artist acquaintance. Daisuke stood up and examined the colors unfolding like a picture scroll, and was pained to discover that they were not nearly as pleasing as the last time he had seen the painting. Disturbed, he began to scrutinize each section when suddenly, his sister-in-law entered.

  “Oh, here you are,” she said, adding immediately, “Have you seen my comb anywhere?” It turned out to be at the foot of the sofa. She had loaned it the day before to Nuiko, who had misplaced it. As if supporting her head in both hands, she began to thrust the comb into her hair, which was done in Western style; meanwhile, she looked up at Daisuke and teased, “Standing around, looking blank as usual.”

  “I got another lecture from Father.”

  “Again? You do get scolded a lot. How tactless of him, to get going as soon as he’s home. But you haven’t been very good either. You don’t do a thing your father wants you to.”

  “I never argue with him. I always restrain myself and listen to everything.”

  “That’s what makes it worse. Whenever he says something, you say yes, yes, but you don’t do it.”

  Daisuke gave a wry smile and was silent. Umeko sat down facing him. She was a slender, dark-complexioned woman with clear eyebrows and thin lips. “Come, have a seat. I’ll keep you company for a while.”

  But Daisuke remained standing, studying his sister-in-law’s appearance. “That’s a funny collar you’re wearing today.”

  “This?” Umeko drew in her chin and knit her brows, trying to see her collar. “Oh, I bought this the other day.”

  “It’s a nice color.”

  “Never mind that, just sit down.”

  Daisuke took a seat directly opposite hers. “I’m seated.” “What did you get a scolding about today?”

  “I’m not really sure. But I was a little surprised by Father’s ‘service to society and country.’ It seems that he’s been serving without a moment’s rest since he was eighteen.”

  “That’s how he’s gotten where he has.”

  “If serving society and country earns you as much money as it has Father, I wouldn’t mind doing it either.”

  “So why don’t you get serious and start doing something? You think you can make money lying down.”

  “I’ve never yet tried to make money.”

  “Even if you don’t try to make money, you spend it, so I don’t see the difference.”

  “Did my brother say something?”

  “Your brother was shocked by your behavior long ago; he doesn’t say anything anymore.”

  “That’s pretty stiff. But anyway, I think he’s more admirable than Father.”

  “Why? Oh, you awful thing, trying to flatter me. That’s what’s wrong with you. You put on a serious face and then make fun of people.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Is that right, indeed! As if we were talking about someone else! You ought to do some thinking once in a while.”

  “Every time I come here, I end up feeling like Kadono.” “What’s kadono?”

  “Oh, the houseboy at my place. If you ask him anything, he always answers, ‘Is that the way it is’ or ‘Is that right’.”

  “He says that? He must be terribly strange.”

  Daisuke paused for a moment and looked over Umeko’s shoulder between the curtains at the beautiful sky. Far in the distance there stood a tall tree. It had sprouted light brown shoots all over, and the soft tips of its branches melted into the sky, as if blurred by a drizzle.

  “The weather has turned nice, hasn’t it? Shall we go cherry-blossom viewing somewhere?”

  “Yes, let’s. I’ll go. So tell me.” “Tell you what?”

  “What Father said.”

  “He said a lot of things, but I don’t think I could repeat them so that they would make any sense; I’m not smart enough.”

  “There you go again, playing the fool. I know all about it.” “Then let me hear about it.”

  Umeko drew herself up a little primly. “You’ve become rather free with your tongue these days.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing you can’t handle. Anyway, it’s terribly quiet here today. Where are the children?”

  “The children are at school.”

  A young c
hambermaid, sixteen or seventeen years old, opened the door and poked her head in to deliver the message that the master was on the phone and wished to speak to the mistress. She stood waiting for an answer. Umeko got up immediately. Daisuke also got up. As he started to follow her out of the room, Umeko turned and said, “You stay here. I want to talk to you about something.”

  Daisuke was always amused when his sister-in-law assumed this commanding stance with him. “Please take your time,” he said, and began to study the painting again. After some time, the colors no longer seemed to be painted upon the wall at all, but were leaping from his pupils and flying out to the wall, where they became glued. Soon, by controlling the colors that flew from his eyes, Daisuke was able to correct all the places that had displeased him, and finally, having achieved the most beautiful hues that his imagination could conjure, he sat in a state of rapture. Just then, Umeko came in and Daisuke was brought back to his usual self.

  As he listened politely to what she had to say, Daisuke understood that she was raising the marriage issue again. Even before he had finished school, Daisuke had been presented with a variety of prospective brides, both through pictures and in person, thanks to Umeko’s efforts. At first, he had made his escape in conventionally acceptable objections, but in the past two years or so, he had become brazen. His complaints were curious: this one’s mouth was set at the wrong angle with her cheeks; that one’s eyes were disproportionate to the width of her face; another had misplaced ears. Since they were never the normal excuses, Umeko herself began to wonder. She concluded that she had exerted herself too much, that that was why Daisuke had begun to abuse her kindness and behave so irresponsibly, and that the best thing would be to abandon him to his own resources until he came begging for help. Having settled upon this, Umeko did not utter a word about marriage. But Daisuke had not seemed troubled in the least and had remained an unfathomable entity.

  But now their father had returned from his trip with a new candidate, whose family was deeply involved with the Nagais. Umeko had been told the story two or three days before and had therefore assumed that today’s interview would concern this topic. Daisuke, however, had heard nothing of the matter. Perhaps the old man had indeed summoned him with the intention of discussing it, but observing Daisuke’s attitude, had chosen silence as the wiser course for the day and deliberately avoided the topic.

  Daisuke had a peculiar relationship with this candidate. He knew her family name but not her first name. He knew nothing of her age, looks, education, or character. As for why she had been selected, he knew only too well.

  Daisuke’s father had had one older brother, named Naoki. He was but one year older and was of smaller build than Daisuke’s father, with similar features; people who did not know often took them for twins. Daisuke’s father did not go by the name of Toku in those days, but rather by the childhood name of Seinoshin.

  Just as Naoki and Seinoshin resembled each other in appearance, so were they brothers by temperament. As far as possible, they contrived to be in the same place doing the same thing. They came and went from their lessons at the same time. Indeed, at night, they read by the light of a single lamp.

  It was the autumn of Naoki’s eighteenth year. The two had been sent on an errand to Tōgakuji Temple on the outskirts of the castle town. Tōgakuji was the family temple of the lord of the clan. A priest there named Sōsui was a friend of the family, and the boys had been sent to deliver a letter to him. It was just an invitation to a game of go and required no answer, but Sōsui had kept the boys to talk about this and that, and by the time they left, it was only an hour before sunset.

  There was a festival that day and the town was bustling. The two hurried through the crowds, but just as they were about to turn a corner, they ran into a fellow named Hōguri. Hōguri and the brothers had never been on good terms. That evening Hōguri appeared to be quite drunk, and after shouting two or three words, lunged out at Naoki, sword in hand. Naoki had no choice but to draw his sword and stand up to him. His opponent had a formidable reputation for violence and was powerful in spite of his intoxicated condition. Left alone, Naoki was sure to lose. So the younger brother drew his sword, and together the two cut Hōguri to pieces.

  In those days, the understanding was that if one samurai killed another, the aggressor had to commit seppuku. The brothers went home fully resigned to their fate. Their father, too, was prepared to line them up and assist in the rite. Unfortunately, however, their mother had been invited to an acquaintance’s house for the festival and was away. Their father, out of the very human desire to let them see their mother just once more, sent for her immediately. While awaiting her return, he stalled for time by admonishing the boys and supervising their preparations of the room for the rite.

  Now it happened that their mother was visiting a distant relation named Takagi. Takagi was a man of considerable influence, a convenience in those days when the world was just beginning to stir and the samurai code was not enforced as strictly as it had once been. Moreover, the victim was a villainous youth of ill repute. So Takagi returned with the boys’ mother and persuaded their father to take no action until official instructions were handed down.

  Takagi set out to exert his good offices. He won over the chief retainer, and through him, convinced the lord himself. The victim’s father, unexpectedly enough, turned out to be a man of reason who not only deplored his son’s misconduct, but once it was established that it was he who had dealt the first blow and created the disturbance, made no move to protest the lenient treatment being sought for the boys. The brothers closeted themselves in a single room for some time as a sign of penitence. Then they slipped away without anyone’s notice.

  Three years later the older brother was killed in Kyoto by a roaming samurai. On the fourth year after the incident, the Meiji Era dawned, and five or six years after that, Seinoshin brought his parents over to Tokyo. He found a wife and changed his name to the single character one of Toku. By then, Takagi, who had saved his life, was dead, and his adopted son-in-law headed the family. Nagai tried to persuade this man to come to Tokyo, perhaps to lecture on the procedures of government service, but he refused. The man had two children. The son went to Kyoto and entered Dōshisha University. Upon graduation, he had reportedly spent several years in America, but now he was in business in Kobe, a man of considerable means. The daughter had been married to a man who ranked among the largest taxpayers in the prefecture. It was their daughter who was now being considered for Daisuke.

  “What a complicated story! I couldn’t believe it,” said Umeko to Daisuke.

  “We’ve heard it so many times from Father.”

  “Well, there’s never been any talk of marriage up to now so I didn’t pay much attention.”

  “So Sagawa had a daughter. I didn’t know at all.” “Why don’t you accept her?”

  “You’re for it?”

  “Of course I’m for it. It was fated.”

  “It might be easier to marry a girl fated by my own doings than one fated by my ancestors’.”

  “Is there such a thing?”

  Daisuke smiled ironically and did not answer.

  CHAPTER IV

  DAISUKE SAT BLANK, his head propped on both hands, the thin Western book he had just finished still open on his desk. His head was brimming with the last scene. . . . Far in the distance, behind trees that stood cold, two small square lamps swayed noiselessly. There the gallows had been erected. The condemned men stood in the dark. One of them complained that he had lost a shoe, that he was cold. Another asked, what? The first repeated that he had lost a shoe and was cold. Someone asked where M was. Another voice answered, here. Something large, whitish, and flat showed from between the trees. A damp wind came from its direction. It’s the ocean, said G. Presently, the lamps lit up the letter containing the sentence and the white hand—an ungloved hand—that held it. You don’t have to read it out l
oud, do you, someone said. His voice trembled. Soon the lamps went out. Now I’m all alone, said K. He heaved a sigh. S was dead. W was dead. M was dead. He was all alone. . . .

  The sun came up from over the ocean. They piled the bodies onto a cart. And began to pull. The stretched necks, the popped eyes, the tongues dampened by a froth of blood like a horrible flower—they piled them on and went back to the road. . . .

  Daisuke mentally reviewed the last scene from Andreev’s The Seven That Were Hanged up to this point, then drew in his shoulders and shuddered. At such times, he was overcome by intense anxiety as to what he should do if ever confronted with such a situation. When he thought about it, he knew he could not die. But still, he would be killed against his will—how cruel that was! He imagined his tortured self, trapped between the cravings of life and the oppressions of death, and as he sat picturing the agony of his wandering from one to the other, he began to feel every hair on his back stir until it was unendurable.

  His own father often told how, at the age of seventeen, he had killed a fellow clansman and had to resign himself to committing seppuku. His plan had been to serve as Daisuke’s uncle’s second and to ask Daisuke’s grandfather to be his own second when his turn came. How could he have thought of going through with such a gruesome affair! Every time his father recounted the past, Daisuke found him more distasteful than admirable. Or else he thought of him as a liar. Somehow, it would seem much more appropriate if it should turn out that his father was a liar.

  It was not just his father. There was a story like this about his grandfather also. When he was young, a fellow fencing pupil was so skilled that he had incurred someone’s envy, and one night, as he made his way through the rice fields back to the castle town, he was cut down. Daisuke’s grandfather was the first to rush to the scene, lantern in his left hand and drawn sword in his right, and beating the corpse with the sword, he was said to have shouted, Take courage, Gumpei, the wound is slight!