Transcriber’s Notes

Table of Contents added by Transcriber and placed into the Public Domain.

Misspelled words have been corrected. These are identified by ♦♠♥♣ symbols in the text and are shown immediately below the paragraph in which they appear.

Details and other notes may be found at the end of this eBook.

MASTERPIECES
OF
CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE FICTION

The Japan Times’ Series

*****

A Spring-Time Case

(OTSUYA KOROSHI)

BY

JUN-ICHIRO TANIZAKI

TRANSLATED

BY

ZENCHI IWADO

THE JAPAN TIMES

INTRODUCTION

During the eras of Meiji and Taisho (1868–1926) the literary life of Japan was enriched by a wealth of many notable productions, worthy of a place in the atheneum of the world; but strange to say, no attempt has, as yet, been made to embody them into any part of the works forming an international library. It is true, that some Japanese novels have been rendered into English, but such ventures have been few and far between, and in any case, they have been of a fragmentary nature and cannot be considered as a part of any systematic attempt.

Literature is the mirror of a living age in which is reflected the life of a people. It is through literature, more than any other medium, that students of the present and future eras may more readily gain an insight into the characteristics and life of a people. The publishers are convinced that the placing before the world, of representative Japanese writings and fictions, will render an inestimable service by bringing to it fuller and better understanding of Japan and the Japanese.

“Masterpieces of the Contemporary Japanese Fiction” comprises a few of the most representative works of the age, embodying as it does, the favourite productions of those authors, and which have been rendered into English as faithfully as it has been within the power of the translators to do so.

In this present undertaking, the publishers are not actuated by any other motive but to allow the world to understand, and to see Japan, as she really is.

THE PUBLISHERS.

Tokyo, June, 1927.

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

Junichiro ♦Tanizaki, the author of “O-Tsuya Koroshi,” presented here under the title of “A Springtime Case,” is a man just turning the age of forty. His appearance on the literary stage of Japan some eighteen years ago, made with a sensational, because so sudden, burst into fame, and his steady climb since to the pinnacle of a literary career, where he maintains himself to this day, with the unchallenged glory of Phœbus’ own orb,—will preclude argument against singling him out as one of the most popular, and even remarkable, authors of present-day Japan.

♦ “Tanisaki” replaced with “Tanizaki”

He is remarkable for a two-fold reason. First, because his popularity and fame have shown such endurance as rarely seen in this country, where the mind of the people is so fleeting and fickle as the very God of Fortune they are wont to bewail of in their life and literature. A new artist on the stage to fawn upon the smile of the public,—for a moment,—only to slink off as swiftly never to return. Not the fault, perhaps, so much of the artist himself as of the public which is riding upon a tide too fast to catch its breath or pause to scan whither it is bound. It has been swept on into an eddy that occurs where the inexorable in-flow out of the West meets against the thought-current of its own, still flowing on its course with a force out of its many centuries. Under the sway of its own mind divided betwixt a mad rush for the new and a guard over the old, it scarce knows yet where to plant its feet and cast for bearings for the course for its mind to pursue for the future. And the artist who wishes to cull his fortune amidst such existing orders of life, is left all to himself to cast about and make shift for himself the best he knows how; and his judgment proves as often in error as his effort turns out futile. The position ♦Tanizaki has held for a period of nearly two decades with unwaning power, is in itself an eloquent tribute to his own achievement, if the mass is any judge of literary quality.

♦ “Tanisaki” replaced with “Tanizaki”

He is remarkable also for the perspicuity and independence of his mind, which has absorbed the manifold light of the new age only to flash back a light, all its own, that takes in its clearness the colour of all that upon which it falls, in its sweeping flight of imagination, and exalts it with touches of exquisitely variable play and radiant depth. His achievement is the work of a mind wherein the true artist of his race rules with predominant force the domain of beauty over which he has come to hold empire; it is a voice out of the past and a voice to the new, raised in the praise of that romance which his people have treasured since their time-old days. Influence of the Western art which has been accepted by the younger writers of the country only to swamp out their own creative effort, has in his case served to broaden his outlook on life and quicken his appreciation of life, often in such aspects as had had to remain screened from his forbears.

Himself a wide reader of Western literature, a student of Poe, George Moore, Baudelaire, Gautier, Balzac, and other masters, he has always shown a capacity for range and depth; a quality excelled only by his faith in the tenets of the school of which he is the creator. Such influence as he has gleaned out of the West, appears to have been hitched to his vehicle, a servant of his work and purpose, scarcely discernible save in a happy blending with the colourings of his own.

Earlier works of ♦Tanizaki came forth when the literature of his country was passing through the most dismal period in its recent history. Against a school of writers who were desperately holding together against the inroad of new influence, there was a section of younger minds which was daubing in imbecile imitation of the worst that the canons of Continental literature had to offer. The public had turned its back upon this tribe of writers, slow to think and clumsy of hand. It was in those days of the country’s literature at its lowest ebb that ♦Tanizaki stalked forth and proclaimed to set up what he conceived to be new deities in art.

♦ “Tanisaki” replaced with “Tanizaki”

Many of the writers who find themselves to-day in the fore rank of Japan’s literary activity owe their success, directly or indirectly, to the stimulation, and even inspiration in not a few cases, given by ♦Tanizaki’s work; and some of these were amongst those who were the first to rally under the standard hoisted by the new prophet of the hour. Indeed, he is due for a large measure of credit for the new age on which the literature of Japan has now entered with a fair spurt of vigor and a supreme confidence, an age of not a few achievements of intrinsic value, with promises of even greater things for the future. This accrediting is but fair acknowledgment of the work of the writer who has been a decidedly predominant force amongst those helpful in ushering in this new age.

♦ “Tanizaki’s” replaced with “Tanizaki’s”

Beyond this, it would perhaps be difficult to go in estimating the position of the writer who is now at the zenith of his career, and has still “so many springs and autumns,” as the native phrase goes, to turn out the work of his maturing mind, as even he continues to do.

Broad of sympathy and versatile of mind, ♦Tanizaki has turned his hand to more than one form of literary work. Scarcely less successful in drama than in novels or tales of smaller scope, it would probably be best to turn to his dramatic work to seek for his expression on life. However, it is in his briefer stories that his artistic self seems more congenial with itself, and certainly more enticingly attractive. The subject of the present ♠translation, chosen from such a point of view, may not be precisely typical of his mind, but typical certainly is it of his art.

♦ “Tanisaki” replaced with “Tanizaki”
♠ “translatin” replaced with “translation”

A work of a dozen years ago, “O-Tsuya Koroshi” has been followed by products where the author has excelled himself at his own method, where his artist hand created characters of more compelling force, where his imagination has woven tapestries of finer colours,—works of deeper feelings and more polished craftsmanship; yet, amongst such an array of brilliant records, does the present story stand out, for the artistry of its own no less than for the sustaining power of popularity it has displayed. A happier selection of the subject may have been possible for the introduction of the present author abroad; but scarce none, I am almost convinced, wherein to show to better advantage the artist ♦Tanizaki. The plot of the story develops under circumstances that must be those of strange unfamiliarity to the Western reader, and the characters are sometimes concerned with problems that must be of no less peculiarity, if not lacking in a quaint appeal of their own. These are, however, details slightly to be treated, certain not to be an obstruction in following the thread of the narrative, making almost negligible demand on the imagination of the reader.

♦ “Tanisaki” replaced with “Tanizaki”

For the translation itself, many apologies are due, no doubt; but less explanation will be necessary, I trust. If it has not been done with the deftness of one “to the manner born,” of which I am more than convinced, it has at least been kept faithful, so much so as to present the process of thought and the mode of expression in the order it was originally conceived and expressed by the author. The translation in itself is an acknowledged defeat in its purpose, for it falls below the artistic heights attained in the original.

Departures from the original text, which are not so many, have been made only where the translator deemed such to be necessary as inevitable considerations for a right, if not an exact, presentation of the tone conveyed in the Japanese, or where,—and these are few indeed, —a literal translation would result in such ludicrous incongruities as never meant by the author.

In the face of such obvious difficulties, the present undertaking has been pursued, and perhaps, with more or less the proverbial courage of one who treads where the angel dreads, in the conviction that modern Japan, which has forced itself into a worldly recognition in the armed profession, should be weighed for achievement of its mind along some different path, where its passion of a more peaceful sort, though no less strong, and where aspirations of its living mind, are concerned; where its people feel its true honour to be weighing in the balance.

And it is my prayer to the Eight Million Deities that are told to guard over the shores of Japan, that the present work may speed on its way overseas, and, though seen through a filmy screen brought on its face of beauty in the process of recasting in a strange language, may meet with such reception as it merits in those countries where the people have shown themselves so ready with their sympathy in the cases of Hiroshige and Hokusai, of whom ♦Tanizaki, different as the mode may be, chosen for the expression of his artistic soul, is certainly a disciple of no mean distinction.

♦ “Tanisaki” replaced with “Tanizaki”

♦ZENCHI IWADO.

♦ “ZENCH” replaced with “ZENCHI”

Kamakura, May, 1927.

AN INTRODUCTION

The scenes of the present story are laid in the town of Tokyo which in those days was still known as “Yeddo”—a name to-day seldom mentioned save in connection with that period of some two hundred years leading close up to the dawn of the Modern Age of Japan, generally known as the Restoration, when the fine arts and literature of the country, with their centre at Yeddo, reached a state of splendid activity, with few parallels in the history of the country. It were not going too far, in fact, to say that the name of “Yeddo” to-day conjures up a period of peace, with the whole nation glorying in a free and full enjoyment of life, following the dictates of their own hearts and minds, in a complete deliverance of spirit from the black reign of the War God. The nation which had returned to peace some eighty years since, and claimed the rightful heritage of life which had been denied them under war-like conditions prevailing throughout a period of some three hundred years, had by this time developed a civilization quite unique for its romantic fervour. Not a civilization to be considered in terms of “steam whistles and bicycles,” to be sure; but a state of artistic emancipation where the soul of man was honoured and the aspirations of mind exalted. Under the administration of the Shogun Government, the country fared well, and even waxed rich in so far as the welfare of the people was concerned. The piper piped; the people danced. The blade hitherto kept whetted sharp was now allowed to rest rusting in its sheath. The hand hardened in war-like training had now turned to the plough or to the brush and the chisel. Art grew rich and literature advanced. In the age of the Genroku, the new spirit of the country had reached a state of ripened mellowness; its name carries to this day visions of vivid colours and brilliant freedom.

It is back to those times of the “Yeddo” period, deep into the life of that age, that ♦Tanizaki takes us in his present story. If he has treated the subject with a modern touch in some aspects, his canvas is nevertheless done true to the tradition which masters of the age have left in their supreme understanding of colour and line. ♦Tanizaki consistently displays himself an unerring judge of the tools at his service, and is ever sure of the effect to be attained. His colours are striking, if often bold; his lines always forceful, because simple.

♦ “Tanisaki” replaced with “Tanizaki”

The story concerns a great deal with one particular side of Japanese life, as it existed in those days of old, and even continues to this day with but slight changes in certain aspects. It is just the side where the impassive mask of the Japanese stoic is thrust aside in a true enjoyment of life; where the best and sweetest in the Japanese woman is brought forth for the benefit of man. It is a world of the “geisha” which is generally translated as “singing girls,” an epithet so misleading, because whatever vocal talent they may be called upon to display is given not on the stage or in the public, as it suggests, but is given for the entertainment of men who have elected to confine themselves in their private company. Not a community where licensed vice is ♦trafficked; but an institution where the woman’s artistic attainments and wits, no less than her personality, are thrown in direct touch with men within encompassed society,—a system born out of a moral notion that disfavoured open association between men and women.

♦ “trafficed” replaced with “trafficked”

Here one particular class of girls and women enjoying social freedom in much the same sense as we understand it to-day. So different from their sisters, more honoured but more unfortunate in many points, the geisha are trained in full consciousness of social opportunities, developing such qualities as make their personalties attractively pleasing, and often make possible their own advancement in life marrying into fortune or position. If the men of the country, warped in their view of womanhood by the dictates of certain moral schools, have failed to appreciate their women more fully than they have done in the past, they have here, at least, developed a society of unique arrangement to do more justice to their women, limited though they are in number, and offer them such opportunity as is denied to the ordinary woman. Nor would it be too sweeping a statement to say that much of the best in Japanese womanhood has been brought out only in the girls and women of the geisha class, who are, at the least, the real moving spirit of social life of the country.

Those are ♦generalities; not an attempt to deny the existence of two sides to anything. There are geisha who cheapen or even disgrace their profession, beside those who grace it, make it dear not only to the hearts of men, but even of women. If wine flows too freely where geisha are present, it is not so much their fault as the men’s. If there are paramour loves where they are concerned, those things are but incidents, for which the geisha should no more be censured than the men.

♦ “generalties” replaced with “generalities”

Brief reference to what is generally known as “tea-house,” “ryori-ya” or restaurant, and “geisha house,” will not be out of place here, though not exactly essential to the intelligent following of events in the story. The geisha are almost in all cases brought together to live within some particular parts of town. This is more for the reason of convenience than from any other consideration. It is necessary for them to be within a circumscribed area so as to keep themselves within easy reach of the “kem-ban,” or the call station which receives the calls for geisha from “tea-houses”, or restaurants, and transfers them to the geisha houses.

Girls of the profession, as a rule, live or register themselves at the houses which are officially known and approved of as places for the conducting of such business. It is often a case that a house of this description advances money to a girl just entering on her professional career, an event involving considerable outlay mostly in lines of dresses and personal ornaments. The house which charges a certain rate for the girl’s registration, and often for board, too, takes for itself a certain percentage on her earnings, toward liquidation of such advanced accounts as there are.

The geisha herself is paid by the hour while she is present at any social party where her attendance is called, and such gatherings take place at tea-houses or restaurants. Whatever she may receive from guests, or her particular patron, as often the case, through her own charm, is accounted to her house which also shares in the benefit. When she has paid off her account to her house, she is financially free either to establish herself in the trade on her own account, or remain under the same registration to dispense with time and care to be claimed as mistress of such place, or quit the profession if she be so disposed. It is no rare occurrence that a geisha, smiled upon by fortune, ingratiates herself into sufficient capitalistic support to maintain her own house with several younger ones working under her. It is this kind of house that Tsuya, the heroine of the story, begins to manage, after she has gone a little way along her career in the geisha business which she espouses under the sway of her impelling heart as much as through certain circumstances thrust upon her life.

The party to which a geisha is called in takes place at such a restaurant, when not at a “tea-house,” as has special working arrangements with the “kem-ban,” or the call station. A “tea-house” which in many respects partakes of the character of a restaurant, is a name as vague as it is misleading; for it is a place for the sole purpose of holding geisha parties, and what is taken there is of more vigorous power than the green leaves beverage.

In addition to receiving and dispatching calls for geisha, the duties of the “kem-ban” include that of keeping track of their movements, from one place to another, and the work connected with keeping straight all their accounts receivable from tea-houses and restaurants. It sends out a man attendant to escort a geisha on her way to and back from tea-houses and restaurants. It is the character of such a man escort that ♦_Shinsuké_, the hero of the present story, assumes in going out to the country villa of the military officer.

♦ “Shinsuke” replaced with “Shinsuké”

The liking that Tsuya seems to display for the geisha profession, even while living in comfort and apparent happiness under her father’s roof, is but an instance of the sentiment shared by so many of her sex. Always originators or forerunners in fashion, freely adored by men, independent of thought and aloof from cumbersome considerations of the conventions, it is no marvel that the geisha should appeal to so many tender hearts of the country. Tsuya’s partiality for the gay profession is in no wise to be accounted as a weakness arising from that particular side of her nature which is brought out in such glaring colours later in her life. Hers was decidedly a romantic temperament. Once placed in that life, which had ever held out to her alluring promises, she was drunk with her own brilliant success. In the mad whirl of joy and happiness, she allowed herself to be carried off until she lost sight of her own soul at some moments. She was too young and ♦too inexperienced to fight against the temptations besetting her path. She was even pathetic in her impetuosity to pursue what she fancied to be the rightful guerdon of beauty and wit.

♦ “two” replaced with “too”

Her cup of joy was poisoned, and she knew it not. Blinded by her own brilliance, flattered by the homage so willingly offered at the alter of her beauty, she chose what she took to be a road of spring and glory, but to be deceived. For the way led not to a queen’s garden, but strayed off and trailed into a mist, such as oft seen across the face of the sky at the time of the cherry blossoms. Her own life is a song of the cherry,—beautiful, but for its beauty doth God grant it a spring of but a few fleeting days of glory.

THE TRANSLATOR.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE INTRODUCTION TRANSLATOR’S NOTE i AN INTRODUCTION ix PART I 3 PART II 27 PART III 67 PART IV 117 PART V 135 A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Transcriber’s Notes

Part I

PART I

It was around the tolling of the fifth hour in the early evening that a fish monger, of the next street, in a flush of drink and a rush of self-imposed urgency, sped into the pawn-broking shop of Suruga-ya on one of his visits, which were more regular than his financial programme ever seemed to be. He jingled money in his breast pocket, singled forth two silver pieces, quite bright and new, just given him, as he explained, by an officer living in the Ginza way, and asked back such of his dress things as he was evidently to need for the New Year’s holidays,—livery coat, outer gown, and so forth, now neglected for three months in pledge. After he left, the business part of the Suruga-ya, usually so lively, was again to remain quiet without a single more caller to break the stillness, a thing probably accountable by the bad weather that evening. Shinsuké who had been buried in reading, his face between his hands, just behind the counter railing, literature served in a yellow paper cover of no more importance than its author, now remembered the little brazier under his nose and, trying to stir up the fire, well-nigh gone out, muttered to himself, “What a cold evening!” Then, reaching out his hand to the apprentice boy, sitting two or three feet off, dozing away in an undisturbed nap, Shinsuké pulled his ear.

“Shota, wake up for a moment. Sorry to send you out in this sleeting miserable weather, but I want you to run over like a good boy to the macaroni house, on the Muramatsu-cho[1], and tell them to bring two bowls of hot boiled macaroni with fried fish for me,—and take for yourself whatever you like, too; it’s our bargain.”

“That’s fine! Now that I’m awake, I feel cold and a little hungry. Before the Master comes back, I’ll let you treat me to something warm and nice.”

The youngster bestirred himself, tucking up the lower part of his clothes and, snatching down a broad-brimmed rain hat hung near the entrance, sailed out into the sleet and cold.

In the meantime, Shinsuké straightened up the things on the counter, put the padlock on the store-house, and closed the main entrance door on the street. “We shall be late coming home to-night, may even have to stay over till to-morrow morning;—see carefully that the doors are all fastened, and everything is in order”: said his master in the early evening, when he was leaving with his wife, on their visit to a relative over in Yotsuya, just gone into mourning. Remembering this parting order, Shinsuké, a lantern in hand, set out looking carefully around, from the kitchen door to the back entrance gate, up the flight of steps leading from the maids’ quarters, to the doors on the balcony perched on the roof for clothes line, making sure of bars and bolts everywhere. As he retraced his way down the steps, his lantern threw its dim light bringing out of the darkness the faces of two servant maids, slumbering away so comfortably under heavy bed-clothes.

“Are you already asleep, O-Tami don[2]?” His query, though voiced in a tone raised above the ordinary, received no response. Softening his footfalls even more carefully, through the hallway, whose wood floor was so cold for his bare feet to hug, he came round to look over a train of sliding panels that screened the verandah from a space of inner garden.

The verandah led to one of the best rooms of the house, where a bed-room lantern shed an elfish light upon the paper doors. It was generally used by the master and mistress for their living room, fitted as it was, with the family mortuary shrine, a large sized brazier, a tea cupboard, and other articles of household ♦paraphernalia. To-night, Tsuya, the young mistress, had evidently taken it for herself and gone to bed there.

♦ “paraphanalia” replaced with “paraphernalia”

“Ah, how warm and snug it must be in that room there!” As the thought flashed through his mind, suddenly he seemed to find himself face to face with the miseries of his own wretched self, of the life meted out to a man in menial servitude; his eyes, aglow with envy, lingered on the soft glow on the paper.

He had now for a full year nursed a deep love for Tsuya whose feeling toward him was as tender and enduring. However madly they might love one another, his master’s daughter was out of his reach. Had he been born to a family of name and means, he would claim this beautiful Tsuya as his own. It was his wont thus to lament his own misfortunes in life.

It must have been close upon midnight. The cold air relentlessly oozed its way into the house. While at a pause in the verandah hall, Shinsuké shivered as he had to feel the cold draughts coming in between the sliding doors. Out of the warm depths of his bosom, he pulled out his hand to take the lantern and relieve his right hand, which was now chilled to the aching point, and on which he kept blowing his warm breath. He could feel his thighs so bare and chilly in their touch against each other, as if they were not his own. His shivers, however, may not have been accountable by the cold only.

“Is that you. Shin don?” hailed Tsuya, just as he was going past outside the sleeping room. She either awoke just then, or had been awake throughout. Then, she apparently opened the shade over the globe-shaped lantern to turn it toward the hall, for the glow on the paper outside was thrown into a brighter light.

“Yes, it is myself. The master’s late, and I thought I should go around to make sure about the doors.”

“You’re ready to turn in, now?”

“No, I shall just stay up all night until the Master comes home.”

As he spoke those words, he lowered himself on his knees outside the room, placing his hands down, correctly putting himself in an attitude of respect due to the daughter of the family. Almost at the same instant, the screen doors were pushed back, opening about a foot wide.

“It is cold out there; come in and shut the doors behind.” Combing back her stray hair, she sat up amidst the silk quilts, her long-lashed eyes fixed, in open adoration, on the face of the man, which, even in a subdued light, appeared so white and handsome.

“They have all gone to bed, I suppose?”

“No, young mistress, I expect Shota back from his errand every second. As soon as he comes, he shall be sent to bed, and until then—”

“Oh, patience and more patience until I shall have no more!— When we have got to-night such a chance as we can ever hope for! Now, listen, Shin don, I hope you, after all this time, are ready to-night, with your mind made up?”

Tsuya, covered only by her under-robe of bright red dappled crepe which clung close to the lines of her form, sat unmindful of her white feet peeking out, in their dainty arrangement, from under the quilts, as she put her hands together, as in the manner of prayer offering.

“Whatever do you mean by being ready and so forth, my young mistress?”

Overcome by the force of the beauty before him, a force that seemed to sweep away his soul, the man lifted his eyes in a stare almost too frank and childlike for his twenty years, and waited for the very answer he was afraid to give to himself.

“Run away with me to Fukagawa, to-night. That’s all I’m going to say. See how I pray you!”

“Impossible,” he said; but he was really troubled to think how he might steel himself against what seemed to tempt him with a stupendous force of voluptuous bewitchery. Since he came into the service here, as a young lad of fourteen, he had got on so well that his master had come to repose in him so much confidence as he would do in few young men. A year or two more of patience and good work, and his master would set him up in business and, if he could not have the happiness of marrying the lovely Tsuya, he would be on his way to whatever fortune and name he might desire. What, then, would be the happiness of his old parents who were living only in hopes of such time? The idea of taking advantage of a girl still too young, the daughter of his own master, was preposterous; he could not—he should not do it; repeatedly he told himself.

“So, Shin don, you’ve forgotten what you promised me the other day, have you? Yes, now I see it all through. It was only a plaything you meant to make of me. And when it came to that, you would throw me away. It is as plain as I would ever care to see it.”

“It is nothing of the sort that—”

He was about to extend his comforting hands to Tsuya who was heaving her shoulders with half-stifled sobs, when there came a loud and persistent knocking on the front door. Taken aback by the youngster’s announcement of himself, Shinsuké suddenly sprang to his feet, lantern in hand, a picture of consternation.

“Later, then, I shall be sure to come when Shota has been sent to bed, and we shall talk it over, as you please. If you are of so strong a mind as you say, I will think once again, and—”

It was after some moments of a tender struggle that he could ♦detach himself from Tsuya’s clinging hands. Returning to the front part of the house, again fully composed, he hastened to open the small side-door.

♦ “detatch” replaced with “detach”

“Oh, I’m frozen!” cried the boy, as he darted in, almost head over heels.

“It’s turned to snow. Shin don,” he reported, brushing off the snow on the broad hat. “It looks sure like going to pile up thick to-night.”

* * * * *

It was about an hour later that the young apprentice, having done justice to his share of the mid-night repast, crawled into bed and fell asleep. The wind seemed to have blown itself out; but the snow was evidently going on, for a dead stillness had settled outside on the streets whence all life had been driven off to slumber. Shinsuké came back with a few lumps of charcoal which he had taken out of the trap in the kitchen floor. When they were fed to the fire in his brazier, he crouched down because he knew no better, a helpless, lone figure in a corner of the shop. Even as he remained at such a pause, his thoughts went out to the back quarters of the house where the young mistress must be awaiting him, with no thought of sleep. With those things racing through his mind, he felt himself besieged by the force of his own fate—a fate that seemed to come on and over him now to determine the course of his life for all time. If only his master would come back soon, this dreadful temptation would of itself pass away; his thoughts would, in some moments, take on such complexion.

There was in back a faint noise of screens being slid, to be followed by what seemed to be a stealthy tread in the verandah hall. Shinsuké suddenly leapt to his feet and stole his way toward the room where he had left her. It was done out of his fear lest the young mistress, petulant as she was, should make a scene that was to be averted at all costs. The two found each other where the hall had a turn.

“Are you all ready, Shin don? I have brought with me enough money to carry us on for some time. I’ll let you take care of this purse and everything.”

Tsuya pulled her hands back into her sleeves, and, ♦bulging out the black satin trimmings across her breast, took out of the depths of her bosom a purse of yellow cloth which was almost thrust into his hands. Its weight could not be of less than ten large gold pieces[3].

♦ “buldging” replaced with “bulging”

“To take not only you away, but even my master’s money;—God’s vengeance would be heavy!” His protest, however, went no farther; for he was easily to succumb to her wishes.

“But it seems to be snowing, unfortunately—I shouldn’t mind; but you would be frozen to death, if you were to walk all the way out to Fukagawa, in this terrible weather. So, I say, Tsu chan[4], why not some other time as well?—and a chance there sure will be yet!”

In speaking of Fukagawa, they had in mind the home of a certain boatman living in that part of Fukagawa which is called Takabashi. Seiji, the boatman in case, had been patronized by the Suruga-ya family for ten long years. What with clam-gathering picnics to the sand-bars around the forts of Shinagawa and the customary parties at the river festivity of Ryogoku, he had made himself familiar with Tsuya and Shinsuké. In addition to the calls he was in custom to make at the time of the “Bon”[5] holidays and just before the New Year, he would occasionally pay his respects to the Suruga-ya. It was his wont as much as his privilege to seat himself, on such occasions, in a corner of the kitchen over a treat of drinks, and plunge into an open admiration of the beautiful daughter of the house.

“Talk of a picture of prettiness, I’ve seen nothing to beat our young lady here,” he would glibly start off. “I don’t care what people say, I say there isn’t anybody in this big town to match with this beautiful thing here. Asking for pardon for me saying this, if she were a geisha girl, I would never stay behind, such as I am, yet not without a stretch of time ahead of me to be as old as fifty.”

As he would harp away in his droll fashion, he would sometimes even allow himself so much liberty as to lay his hold on Tsuya’s sleeve, saying: “Be good, O-Tsu chan, and grant me the wish of my life,—bless me with a cupful from your own hands. Not for a long time—just one cupful, and never more than that—”

And the folk would laugh at what they looked on as a good natured mimicry of one who might make bold to advance on her attention.[6]

A man trading on river traffic, running wherries to carry fares going up to and coming from Yanagibashi, Fukagawa, Sanya, Yoshiwara, the gay quarters clustered along and about the only watercourse of the town, and living mostly within the pale of a world where wine flowed and folks feared not to talk of sins, the boathouse master Seiji was a man of enough understanding, and he may well have sensed, for some time now, the love that had secretly been growing between the young lady of the family and the young man. However, he breathed never a word about it, in any way, if he did know, strangely enough of a man who enjoyed so much to talk. The first time that he ever came out with his knowledge of the affair was about a month ago when he paid one of his casual visits, after what he said had been a trip to Yanagibashi, and gave airing to what had lain in the back of his head. For that day, the family had planned a theatre party, from which Tsuya excused herself under a feigned pretext of illness; for a chance to be alone in the company of Shinsuké was too precious. Not to disappoint the whole family on her sole account, her parents took their two maids instead, and went out to the theatre in the early morning.[7] The shop had been left in charge of the little Shota alone, while Shinsuké had been spending most of his time at the bedside of Tsuya, charged with what was termed as nursing the ill young lady. It was just at one of such times that the boatman Seiji tripped in, his face florid and jolly, as usual, from drinking. He ahemed, smirked, and went straight in to slap the young man on the shoulder.

“Shin don, I wish you all the luck and pleasure! You thought I knew nothing about this, didn’t you? It’s a long time, believe me, since I smelt a rat. People are blind, but mighty hard to pull the wool over my eyes. Not that I mean to speak to our master about it. So, you might as well own up to it, now. And, why couldn’t I be of some help to you, some time? Only natural, I say, that it should come to this, when a beautiful young lady is living in the same house as a boy as handsome as those we see only on the stage. And me,—a funny thing,—for, if I see a young pair like yourselves, madly in love with each other and in trouble, I want to do something just to help them out,—somehow,—I don’t care how much trouble it means,—so I may see them happy together, always. It’s some queer thing in me that does it, I suppose.”

Taken quite off their guard, the young pair helplessly looked at one another, as they felt cold shudders run down their backs. Seiji, however, framed himself in an air of so knowing assurance and worked himself up into voluble exuberance, for the reason he seemed to know the best.

“A man who means to love must never be so weak-kneed. Might as well come out with the whole thing, and why not? You shouldn’t keep such a thing in your young hearts and suffer. It would be a far sight better—a short cut, too, if I were to take the whole thing up with the master and reason him into allowing you both to marry. No flattery, but Shin don ought to be a good enough man, what of his handsomeness, clean mind, and cleverness. I should be surprised if our master wouldn’t agree to it.”

“If that were possible, we should ask him ourselves, without giving you the trouble.”

The young Shinsuké was inveigled, in spite of himself, into giving a full account of the situation they were in. Tsuya was the sole heiress of the family, and he was the only child his old parents had; each was bound to remain in his or her own family. However much they might think, there was no way in which to make their marriage possible.[8]

“I would kill myself, if we couldn’t be together!”

Tsuya broke down on this, after she had followed the rueful account of her beloved one; she sobbed as one no longer able to fight down her rising emotion.

“Calm yourself, young lady, calm yourself,” consoled the boatman. “Now, I know what I could do. Listen to me. You will run away from here and come to my place. It will be just a way to get round the trouble, and I know what I talk about. You can leave the rest to me. I will see the old folks of both sides, and, depend on it, I shall reason it out with them and get them to agree to it!”

In fact, the young lovers had talked of eloping earlier in the very same evening. Seiji’s suggestion came to prompt Tsuya in her ready decision, right then and there. Shinsuké, however, had not been able to see his way quite so clear in his decision to this day, and even to this moment.

“Do you mean to back out, now?”

As she spoke, she clasped the wrists of the man who still lingered in a pensive attitude, his hands folded and his head drooped low. With her form bent over, like a bamboo bough under a heavy weight, she leaned herself against him. She fidgeted, fretted, and shook him, threatening with “I’ll kill myself, if you don’t come.”

“I give way! I can’t be firm! And let things take care of themselves, for I go with you, as you say.”

Shinsuké quickly went back to the shop, and pulled his own wicker box out of the deep recess of the closet. He took out of it a heavy cotton dress and changed it for the one he had on. It was a gift out of his father’s old wardrobe and the only piece of clothing that had not been given him during these years of service. He felt he could not go off in any of these clothes without his thanks to his master. Then, going to the case at the side entrance, he noiselessly picked out Tsuya’s lacquered pair of rain-clogs which he hugged tightly under his arm, as if he treasured them, in retracing his way to the verandah.

The sight of the girl at a pause there. He was almost aghast to think that she meant to go out in this bitterly cold weather in such attire; her hair bared to be seen in its freshly made coiffure, silk checker dress of bright gold and black, heavy sash of brocaded satin girt just below the breast,—and nothing to cover her feet.[9] She who had always shown, with a woman’s instinct, a partiality for the piquant manner of the geisha, would assert her taste even before such a venture.

“Come, here is our way,” said Shinsuké, as he dropped into the garden, by pushing the doors open two or three feet at the end of the verandah. The snow which had been going on without stir or noise, had already lain to a depth of a few inches. Wattle-fence, shrub-beds, and the ♦wainscoted walls round the verandah corner were all covered with an alabaster mantle. He felt for the feet of the girl who sat over the edge of the verandah. In the faintest half-light of the snow, he managed to place the soft, but icy, soles of her feet over the bottom of clogs. And it was with tremulous hearts that they measured each step that made a slish-slash as it sank into the snow. At last, they made their way as far as the little gate in the back-side wall. Through this and crossing a line of board-walk over a sewer passage, cautious of any noise, they stole out into the open street.

♦ “wainscoated” replaced with “wainscoted”

The sky was overcast, but the snow, partly spent out, fluttered down in large, occasional flakes. It was warmer than they had expected. Under one umbrella spread over them, the girl held the handle and the young man’s hand closed over hers. By way of the Tachibana-cho, they directed their way to the Hama-cho.

The soft lines of Shinsuké’s appearance belied his strength, for he was a youth of good height, muscular, with a stock of sinewy power above the average. As he felt his nerves gripped by surging emotions, he would oft tighten his clasping hand with such a convulsive force that Tsuya felt as if her right hand, so small and frail and now chilled to freezing point, were about to be crushed out. And she would as oft give a little cry of pain. “Nothing the matter with you, I hope, Shin don?” she would ask at such times, with concern in her voice, lifting her searching eyes into his. And her long-slit eyes glistened even in the dark with a glow, as of a strong mind.

When they had crossed the New Great Bridge, there came eight strokes of midnight. The clanging note of the bell, floating out and far in its resonant roar, seemed to summon to its wild shriek the soul of the water, now swelled to its full on a flow of sea tide, with its bosom bared to the falling snow, moved on with a chill and stillness of death.

Tsuya who had remained sparing of words till now broke the silence: “That bell is so fascinating,—it’s so much like what we see on the stage!”

“Well, your nerves are stronger than mine,” Shinsuké retorted, showing a grin that was mirthless, and even bitter. They returned to silence after this, and remained so until they reached the boatman’s house, perched on the side of the Onagigawa stream.

Part II

♦PART II

To settle the thing right and proper, you shouldn’t be too hasty, you know. Ten days or so of patience. In the meantime, you had better stay away from people as much as possible. Our rooms upstairs shall be at your disposal—just keep your happy selves in there, and I wish you all pleasure!

♦ “PART II” added

So said Seiji, as he received the young pair. His wife and all the menial hands were properly instructed and warned. Their friendliness was excelled only by their hospitable eagerness to serve their wants. However, ten days had gone by, and even a month had passed, without any tangible good news from the boatman.

“Seiji san[10] is a busy man and, because things didn’t turn out just as he had hoped, he might be staying back, though he wouldn’t like to disappoint us as yet.”

It was a piece of suspicion that had begun to dawn upon Shinsuké’s mind. Tsuya, however, would take the situation in a more philosophical vein.

“Why worry yourself like that, dear?” she would say. “Now that we’ve run away together, what difference if we were never taken back by our folks? We might just as well take up a home for us two only. Why, we might be better off that way, after all, and who knows? I’ve never felt so happy in all my life, as I do now. Little care, let me tell you, if I never went home to them!”

Since coming to this new abode, Tsuya had completely changed; she was more buoyant, jolly and bold. Their window looked down, almost straight below, upon a stone built bank which rose sharp over a narrow canal running into the Sumida river. Hither would daily be brought a swarm of roofed wherries to take on parties of men and geisha who had brought with them the spirit of the gay quarters in Fukagawa and up the river. Nor was it a rare happening that some of these parties should take up rooms partitioned from the young pair’s room only by the doors of paper screen, and plunge into a free and open jollity, as careless as it was annoying. It was not long before Tsuya began to pick many ways and manners from these people she saw or heard. Her hair which was done in a maiden style when she left her home soon had to be changed. On the fourth day after she came here, she had her hair washed and combed back into an easy knot at the back of her head, with only a single comb stuck in side-wise, a style of comfort at the expense of decorum. Donning a dressing gown of garish pattern that the boatman’s wife offered her against the cold and the frequent practice of smoking crowned her attempt to imitate what was thought to be the “at home” manners of a geisha. When she picked up some words from the vernacular of the prostitute class and unwittingly used them a couple or so times, Shinsuké thought he should step in and call a halt.

“What language for you to speak?” he said, with his brow knit with displeasure. “Why should you have to take to the ways of those wretches? I am even too proud to speak of them.” He fought for his and their dignity of mind. It was not difficult to imagine that, but for his Tsuya, he might have remained true to the accepted idea of the regular life of a man.

It was small heed, however, that the young woman would give to his ideas on such lines. She had been completely carried away by her own happiness and her satisfaction with the new life, and made it a life of frivolous laughter, from morn till night. And just to feel the fulness of her heart, she would even rhapsodize her whims and fancies at meals, ordering this dish and that to indulge in epicurean luxury. She would grow generous every third day or so and declare a wholesale treat to the entire family, remembering even the hired boatmen. Through the thoughtfulness of Seiji there were always bottles of drink at dinner in the evening. When she held out her cup to be filled, it was done with a gesture of one still unused, but drink she would with an eagerness to assimilate the ways of the hardy sex. Some nights when she was too heavily affected by drinking, her face would glow with such a passion as possible only of a frenzied rage. She would writhe and wallow, her body a veritable flame, giving him no sleep through the night. They were swept and dragged into a whirling eddy of pleasure which seemed to threaten to choke out their very lives.

So time wore on. The busy year-end was fast pressing on. The market day of the Hachiman shrine on the fifteenth of December was past. Still there was no news they had so anxiously awaited.

“I’m just now talking to your folks, in the thick of my fight. Four or five days’ more of patience!” Such was the refrain the boatman would harp on, with a drawn look of sincere sorrow, whenever he saw the pair and was asked to explain. And they would invariably feel that they should not press him beyond that point.

“Seiji san, what’s been done has been done, though I must ask a thousand pardons of my master, and if we are not to hope to go back there, we must have it so. We have prepared our minds for the worst, and, therefore, ready to set us up in a home of our own, if it has to come to that. There will be no disappointment or sorrow to drive us to anything extreme or rash, I assure you. So, tell us, I pray you, how you have fared with them and how you stand now; for we must know. We can’t let it go on much longer, just living off your goodness!” Shinsuké’s earnest appeal, however, would always meet with a response more benevolent than it was ever satisfactory.

“No worrying on my account,” the boatman would answer. “Of course, if I saw that things weren’t going on right, I’d have given it up and be done with it. The fact is, I’ve been up there half a dozen times now and have given them about as good talkings as I knew how, and the old folks, both sides, seem to begin to see things in my way. ‘If the young ones are so madly in love as to run away,’ I always tell them, ‘they should be made man and wife. If not, it means their parents are not quite fair and refuse to see things as they ought to.’ ‘Very well,’ I tell them then, ‘if you don’t want to take them back, I will take them in until you are ready to change your minds. And while they are with me, you may depend on me for good care!’” “Now, you see,” he said, in dismissing the subject with a touch of flippant humour, “there is nothing for you to worry about!”

No matter how perplexing and difficult the question may have become, old folks would certainly detest the idea of dragging it on into New Year, the time of all times, and let it darken their life when they were particularly anxious to call in happy auspices. Everything would, therefore, be settled, they reasoned, before the year would be over, at the latest. Shinsuké hugged such hopes and anxiously awaited the dawn of the year which seemed to hold forth so many promises.

The indulgent way of life they pursued daily told on the fund of ten gold pieces that Tsuya had brought from home, and there remained now less than a half of the amount. “You can’t greet New Year with the cheer that five paltry gold pieces can give,” she explained, as she called in the aid of her hair dressing woman, who was secretly charged to trade for money a pair of silver fringed prong-pins wherewith Tsuya had once decked her maidenly hair. And her generosity was maintained; for on the night of the seventeenth, the farm fair, one of the last events of the year, she handed out a present of three small gold pieces to be distributed among the hired hands, as her remembrance of the season.

It was three days after this, at an early hour of the evening, Shinsuké and Tsuya were about to sit at table, when Santa, one of the hired boatmen, came clattering up the stairs. “I have brought good news for you,” he told to Shinsuké. “I have just got a word from our Boss. He is now with your father at the restaurant Kawacho, up the Yanagibashi way. It is going on nicely, he says, and thinks the thing is likely to be settled. So he tells me to get you in a boat and come over there straight away. But he thinks, if two of you came, it might be a bit awkward to carry on the talk. Sorry for the young lady, he says, but he will ask her to stay here.” “A bit of a rest up for your dear man, I say,” he turned to Tsuya. “Evening off once in a blessed while won’t be anybody’s heart-break.”

“But I fear something,—somehow,” Tsuya said, as a sudden change came over her look, sinking in a depressed mood. It was good news, to be true, yet who was to know but things might not take just such a turn that her Shinsuké’s going should be for all time, that he might not be taken away back to his father’s home. Fear seized her; and there were fears that pressed on her mind. Nor was Shinsuké in any better condition of mind. It was for this very moment that he had so longed for, to be sure; yet, brought face to face with it, he felt himself helpless against a series of fears that loomed to cast grim shadows over his mind. What appeared to him the most misgiving part of it all in prospect, was the idea of brazenly dragging himself before his father to ask for his grace, without having obtained the forgiveness of his master against whom he had perpetrated such wrongs as he shuddered to think of. Insistently pressed on by Santa who kept saying, “Hurry, as fast as we can make it!”, the young man but briefly fitted himself up and went down the stairs concealing within him a leaden heart.

Almost in the same moment, Tsuya was in his tracks and at his heels, for what reason she knew best. Just as the two men were about to step into the boat, she caught them by their sleeves.

“Santa san,” she spoke to the boatman, “no offence to you, I assure you, but I can’t feel—somehow—things are just right. Take me along, too, I pray you. You will never get into trouble on my account—I’ll see you don’t!”

“Aha, ha! What should I hear but this stuff and nonsense, young lady?” Santa, who had regardlessly sprung into the wherry, guffawed, even as he began to untie the fastening rope. “You’re at the tricks of a spoilt child,—but you sure don’t mean it! No trouble for me or anything, I tell you; but what is all this fuss for? As if somebody were going to gobble him up! Just leave it to my Boss, and everything will be all right. You ought to see—I know, you do see—that your going there would simply mean poking a stick in the wheel—when it’s going on famously, too!”

“If it has to be that way, I could keep myself in some other room and wait while the talking goes on. So, don’t go without me, for goodness’ sake! I don’t know why, but I do feel that I shouldn’t let him go alone, to-night.”—She nimbly took a small gold piece out of her sash folds.

“It’s not every day that I ask you to do such a thing for me, Santa san,” Tsuya said, furtively offering the money up to the boatman’s palm. “Once in a while, you might do me a good turn,—now!”

“It’s only the other day you gave me a good piece,—no, you’re too free of giving, and my Boss wouldn’t like it.” After a moment of his unwonted indecision in such matter, he handed the proffered money back to her. To this young boatman, seemingly the most important one amongst Seiji’s hired hands, Tsuya had been most generous; of him she had been most considerate. What seemed to be his stony attitude just when she stood so badly in need of his help, was, therefore, all the more wounding.

“I can appreciate the way you feel about me,” said Shinsuké, “but, if your coming is just what Seiji san thought wasn’t the thing to do, I’d hate to do so in face of the wish of the man who is giving himself all this trouble on our account,—perhaps, a thing I should never forgive myself for, afterward.” His apparent attempt to soothe her perturbed mind and to console her into a new point of view, was however scarcely more successful with her than it was with himself. For, as he paused at the water’s edge in the half-light of the dusk fast closing in, his face was washed with an uncanny pallor, and his shoulders continued to tremble.

“Well, then, whatever trouble may come up after you have a talk there, you will be sure,—won’t you?—to come back to me before you do anything.”

“You may depend on me—,” replied Shinsuké, giving an emphatic nod. “Not that I fear anything like that, though.” Night of all nights, with the wish of his long yearning heart about to be granted!—he might well have been pleased and happy, what time he really wanted to cry from a sinking heart. Why could he not take Tsuya right here and now and run away again, he even asked himself; for, he felt, whereby his mind might be relieved of its weight.

There had been on that day, as rarely in winter, a wind from the south, since early in the day, bearing on its wings an air of stagnant warmth. Tsuya, what of a headache of which she had complained since the morning, putting cure plaster on her temples, and of her emotions stifled the while tears welled to her eyes during her harangue with the boatman Santa, found herself now sunk in a weary helplessness and languor of a half-sickness. Her tear-swelled eyes, however, were strained in a fixed gaze, as she leaned against the sash of her upstairs window and followed the boat outward bent. It was still too early for the moon of the last quarter. A grim monstrosity of cloud, heaving beyond the fire tower at the “New Great Bridge,” outspreading swift and low in its menacing advance, had soon over-run across half the face of the ebony sky; the drapery of black night was lowered over the world of man. Santa’s boat, light of movement, had sped on bearing away its torch fire which was soon lost in the depths of river mists.