Tales grotesque and curious
because he has succeeded with it, he is apt, without regard for its
suitability or unsuitability, to incline toward this means. And this is
a mannerism.”
The professor had always been indifferent to art, especially to drama.
Even Japanese plays he had seen only a few times in his life. Once the
name of “Baiko” appeared in a story by a certain student. Even this
professor, who prided himself on his encyclopaedic knowledge, did not
know what this name meant. So when he had an opportunity, he called the
student to him and asked him.
“I say, what’s ‘Baiko’?”
“Baiko? Baiko is an actor at present attached to the Imperial Theatre
at Maru-no-uchi and now taking the part of Misao in ‘Taikoki Judanme’.”
Thus politely replied this student dressed in a hakama of Kokura duck.
Hence the professor had no opinions of his own at all on the various
rules of stage presentation on which Strindberg pithily commented.
Only, he was able to take some interest in it in so far as it reminded
him of certain things he had seen in western theatres while studying
abroad. There was, so to speak, not much difference between him and a
middle school English teacher who reads Bernard Shaw’s dramas to hunt
for idioms. But interest is interest anyhow.
The still unlighted Gifu lantern hung from the ceiling of the veranda.
And Prof. Hasegawa sat in the cane chair reading Strindberg’s
“Dramaturgy.” If I write only this, I believe the reader can easily
imagine what a long early-summer afternoon it was. But by this I do
not mean at all that the professor was overcome with ennui. If anybody
should try to interpret it thus, he would be deliberately trying to
give it a cynical and perverse interpretation.
Actually he was forced to leave off in the midst of his reading even
Strindberg. For the maid suddenly interrupted his innocent amusement by
announcing a caller. Be the day as long as it might, it seemed that the
world would never stop working him to death.
The professor put down his book and glanced at the small calling card
the maid had just brought him. On the ivory paper was printed small
the name, Nishiyama Atsuko. He felt sure that she was no one he had
ever met. But all the same, as he left his chair, the widely acquainted
professor, just to make sure, ran over the name-list he kept in his
head. But still no face that seemed as if it might be hers came into
his memory. Therefore, putting the card into the book for a marker, he
laid the book down on the chair and, ill at ease, adjusted the front
of his unlined kimono of coarse silk, giving the while, another little
glance at the Gifu lantern in front of his nose. It is probably always
true in such cases that the host who keeps the visitor waiting is more
impatient than the visitor who is kept waiting. Of course I need not go
out of my way to explain that, since the professor had always been an
austere man, this would be true in this case even if his visitor had
not been such an unknown woman as had come this day.
Finally, calculating the time, the professor opened the door of his
reception room. At practically the same moment that he entered the room
and let go the knob, a lady who appeared to be about forty arose from a
chair in which she was sitting. She went beyond his ability to make her
out, being dressed in an elegant unlined garment of steel grey satin,
with, where her haori of black silk finely striped in the fabric hung
a little open at the front, a chrysoprase sash-fastener embossed in
a chaste diamond-shaped design. Even the professor, who usually took
no notice of such trifles, at once saw that her hair was done up in
the coiffure of a married woman. With the round face and amber skin
peculiar to Japanese, she seemed to be a so-called “wise mother.”
“I’m Hasegawa,” the professor said, bowing amiably. For he thought that
if he spoke thus, she would probably say something, if they had ever
met before.
“I’m Nishiyama Kenichirō’s mother,” said the lady in a clear voice,
politely returning his bow.
At the name, “Nishiyama Kenichirō,” the professor remembered. Nishiyama
was one of those students who wrote critical articles on Ibsen and
Strindberg, whose special study, he seemed to remember, was German
Law, and who, even after he entered the university, had often come
to the professor’s house with problems of thought to discuss. In the
spring, he had fallen ill of peritonitis and entered the university
hospital, and the professor had taken advantage of some opportunities
and inquired after him once or twice. It was not mere accident that the
professor thought he had seen the lady’s face somewhere. That cheerful
youth with heavy eyebrows and this woman were as surprisingly alike as
the two melons in the Japanese popular saying.
“Ah, Nishiyama Kun’s,--is that so?”
The professor, nodding to himself, pointed to a chair on the opposite
side of a small table.
“Please--take that chair.”
The lady, after first apologizing for her abrupt visit, again bowed
politely and sat down in the chair indicated. As she did so, she took
something white, which seemed to be a handkerchief, out of her sleeve.
When he saw this, the professor quickly offered her a Korean fan that
lay on the table and sat down in the chair opposite.
“This is a fine house,” said the lady, looking round the room a little
unnaturally.
“Oh, no, it’s only big, and I don’t take any care of it at all.”
The professor, who was accustomed to such greetings, having the maid
put the chilled tea she had just brought before his guest, immediately
turned the subject of conversation toward her.
“How is Nishiyama Kun? Is there any change in his condition?”
“Yes.”
The lady paused for a moment modestly, putting her hands, one on the
other, on her knees, and then spoke quietly. Her tone continued to be
calm and smooth.
“In truth it was about my son that I came to-day; finally nothing could
be done for him. While he was alive, you were very kind to him and--”
The professor, who had taken it for reserve in her that the lady did
not touch her tea, was at this moment just going to put his cup to his
lips. For he thought it would be better to set an example by sipping
his own tea than to urge her repeatedly and importunately to take hers.
But before the cup had reached his soft mustache, her words suddenly
smote his ears. Should he drink or should he not? This question,
entirely independent of the youth’s death, plagued him for a moment.
But he could not go on holding the cup where it was forever. So he
resolutely swallowed half his tea and, knitting his brows the least
bit, said in a choked voice, “That’s too bad.”
“He often spoke of you while he was in the hospital, so though I felt
that you must be busy, thinking that, by way of letting you know, I’d
express my thanks,--”
“Oh, not at all.”
The professor put the cup down and, taking up a green waxed fan, said
in a daze,
“So finally nothing could be done for him, you say. He was just at the
promising age, but,--not having visited the hospital for some time, I
never imagined anything but that probably he was just about well. Then
when was it--his death?”
“The first seventh-day was just yesterday.”
“And at the hospital--?”
“Yes.”
“Indeed, this is a surprise to me.”
“Anyway, as we did everything that could be done, there’s nothing to do
but be resigned, but nevertheless, when I think how we raised him, I
can’t keep myself from fits of complaining.”
While conversing thus, the professor became aware of a surprising fact.
It was the fact that in neither her attitude nor her demeanor did she
seem in the least to be talking about her own son’s death. She had no
tears in her eyes. Her voice was natural. Besides, a smile played about
the corners of her mouth. So if anybody had simply seen her outward
appearance without hearing her words, he surely could have thought
nothing but that she was talking of ordinary everyday affairs. To the
professor, this was surprising.
Once long before when he was studying in Berlin, it happened that
Wilhelm I, the father of the present Kaiser, died. He heard of it
at a café he usually frequented, and of course experienced no more
than an ordinary impression. Then with a cheerful face and his stick
under his arm, he returned to the boarding house as usual, but as
soon as he opened the door, the two children who lived there suddenly
threw themselves on his neck and burst out crying together. One was a
girl of twelve in a brown jacket and the other a boy of nine in dark
blue knickers. As the professor, who was fond of children, did not
understand, he consoled them, patting their shining hair and eagerly
asking them over and over what was the matter. But they simply would
not stop crying. Then swallowing their tears, they sobbed, “Our grandpa
Emperor is dead.”
The professor thought it strange that the death of the emperor of a
country should bring so much sorrow even to the children. It was not
only of the question of the relation existing between the imperial
house and the people that he was made to think. The impulsive
expression of their emotions by occidentals, which had impressed him
ever since he came to the West, now surprised, as if it were something
new, this professor, a Japanese and a believer in Bushidō. He had never
forgotten the feeling, seemingly compounded of suspicion and sympathy,
that he experienced at that time. Conversely, he now felt precisely
the same degree of surprise at this lady’s not weeping. But a second
discovery followed on the heels of the first. It was just as their
conversation, after having gone from reminiscences of the dead youth
into details of his daily life, was about to turn back again to more
reminiscences. The Korean fan chanced to slip from the professor’s
hand and fell of a sudden on the marquetry floor. The conversation, of
course, was not so urgent as not to permit of a momentary interruption.
So, bending forward from his chair and looking down, he stretched out
his hand toward the floor. The fan was lying beneath the little table
just beside the lady’s white tabi concealed in her slippers.
Then he chanced to notice the lady’s knees. On them, rested her hands
holding the handkerchief. Of course this alone was no discovery. But at
the same instant he realized that her hands were trembling fearfully.
And he noticed that, probably due to her endeavor to suppress the
agitation of her emotions, her hands, as they trembled, grasped the
handkerchief on her knees so hard that they all but tore it in two.
Finally he perceived that the embroidered edge of the wrinkled silk
handkerchief moved between her delicate fingers as if stirred by a
light breeze. The lady smiled with her face, indeed, but the truth was
that she had been weeping with her whole body from the first.
When the professor had picked up the fan and raised his face, there
was an expression on it which had not been there before. It was a very
complicated expression, as if a reverent feeling at having seen what
he should not have seen and a certain satisfaction arising from the
consciousness of that feeling had been exaggerated by more or less
theatricality.
“Ah, even I who have no children can understand your grief perfectly,”
said the professor in a low voice full of feeling, tilting his head
back a little as if dazzled by something.
“Thank you. But, whatever we say, it’s beyond help now, so--”
The lady lowered her head the least little bit. A bright smile beamed
from her unclouded face as before.
* * * * *
It was two hours later. The professor had taken a bath, finished his
supper, eaten some cherries for dessert and settled down comfortably in
the cane chair on the veranda.
The twilight of the long summer evening lingered on and, in the large