Mandarins (5 page)

At last, with conscious timing, he entered the drawing room. No
sooner had he released the doorknob than a woman in her forties stood up from the chair on which she had been sitting. She was of a refinement that was well beyond the competence of the professor to measure. Over her blue-gray summer kimono she wore a black
haori
of silk gauze, open slightly in the front to reveal a coldly glistening, rhombic obi pin of nephrite. Though he was usually insensitive to such trivialities, he noted that her hair was arranged in
marumage
style. With her round, quintessentially Japanese face and amber complexion, she had a wise, motherly air about her. A single glance was enough to suggest to him that he might have seen her before.

“Hasegawa,” he said affably with a bow. He thought that if he greeted her in this manner, she would remind him of where, if ever, they had previously met.

“I am the mother of Nishiyama Ken'ichir
ō
,” she replied in a clear voice, and bowed politely in return.

Now he recognized the name. Nishiyama Ken'ichir
ō
was a student of his. Though specializing, he was fairly certain, in German law, he was among those who had written essays for him on Ibsen and Strindberg. Since his matriculation, he had taken an interest in philosophical trends and had often come to consult with him. Then after the young man's admission to the university hospital for peritonitis in the spring, he had gone to visit once or twice when other business took him in that direction. It was no coincidence that he seemed to recognize the woman's face, for she and that spirited youth, with his handsomely thick eyebrows, bore an amazing likeness to each other—as though, to fall back on the old saying, they were two gourds from the same row.

“Ah, yes, Nishiyama-kun's . . . I see . . .”

Half muttering as though to himself as he nodded his confirmation of this, he pointed to a chair on the other side of a small table.

The lady first apologized for the sudden visit, then, having bowed again, accepted his invitation and sat down. As she did so, she took from her sleeve pocket a white object that appeared to be a handkerchief. Seeing this, he immediately offered her a Korean fan that lay on the table and then took his own seat across from her.

“You have a most pleasant house,” she remarked, looking about the room in what appeared to be a somewhat forced manner.

“Oh, it's large enough,” he replied, accustomed to such conversational conventions. “I'm afraid we have left it quite unattended.”

At this moment, the maid brought iced tea. He had her place the glass in front of his guest and then turned without delay to the subject at hand.

“And how is Nishiyama-kun? Have you any news to report of him?”

“Yes.”

The woman fell silent for a moment as she modestly crossed her hands on her lap. She then spoke evenly and matter-of-factly.

“As it happens, it is regarding that son of mine that I am now imposing on you. I regret to say that it has all come to naught, though I thank you for all the trouble you took on his behalf while he was still studying . . .”

Thinking his visitor too reserved to drink the tea set before her and not wishing to appear an aggressive but somehow at the same time halfhearted host, he had just resolved to set an example by sipping his own rather than risk appearing importunate. The edge of the cup had not yet touched his soft mustache when her words fell upon his ears. Quite apart from his consternation at hearing of the young man's death was the momentary concern: should he or should he not now drink his tea?

He could not, however, go on holding the cup indefinitely. In a
single gulp he emptied half of the contents. Knitting his eyebrows ever so slightly, he said in a choked voice: “What a pity!”

“. . . While in the hospital he often spoke of you, and so it is that I have presumed to interrupt you in all your work to inform you of this. Again, I express my gratitude.”

“No, please . . . ,” he replied glumly, setting down his teacup and picking up the blue waxed fan. “So this was the unfortunate end to it . . . He showed such promise . . . I failed to go to the hospital again and simply assumed that he was on the mend . . . And now . . . When was it?”

“The seventh-day observance
²
was yesterday.”

“So he was still in the hospital when . . .?”

“Yes.”

“I had no idea!”

“All was done that could be done, so that there is nothing to do but accept it. Yet I cannot help lamenting that having come so far . . .”

As the professor was engaged in this exchange, he became aware of something quite extraordinary: there was nothing in her attitude or behavior that would suggest that she was speaking of the death of her own son. She spoke in a normal tone of voice, without a tear in her eyes, and the corners of her mouth even showed a trace of a smile.

To judge from her outward appearance, without hearing her words, no one would have assumed that she was engaged in anything other than everyday talk of household affairs. This he found baffling.

. . . Many years before, while he was studying in Germany, Wilhelm I, father of the present Kaiser, had died. Not being greatly affected by the news, which he heard while sitting in his favorite coffee shop, he later returned to his lodgings, his cane under his arm and a cheerful expression on his face. He had scarcely opened the door when two of the children living there threw their arms about his neck and burst
into tears. One of them, a girl of about twelve, was wearing a brown jacket; the other, a boy of about nine, was dressed in navy-blue knee breeches. The professor, who was quite fond of children, stroked their light-colored hair and earnestly tried to console them:

“What has happened?” he asked them repeatedly, but they only went on weeping, until between sniffles they exclaimed:

“They say that our beloved grandfather, His Majesty the Emperor, has died!”

The professor was amazed that sadness at the passing of the head of state should affect even children. Yet it was not merely the matter of the bond between the imperial house and the people that gave him pause to think. Since his first experience of living abroad, he had often been struck by how readily and openly Westerners manifested their emotions. Once again, as a Japanese and a firm believer in
bushid
ō
, he was astounded. He had never succeeded in putting aside the m
é
lange of suspicion and sympathy he had felt at the time. And yet he was now mystified by something quite the opposite—by this woman who did not weep.

Immediately in the wake of this first discovery came a second. The topic of their conversation had moved to details of the deceased youth's daily life and was on the verge of shifting back to general reminiscences when the professor's fan happened to slip from his hand, falling immediately to the parquet floor. The pace of their exchange naturally being not so intense as to permit no interruption, he leaned forward in his chair to retrieve it.

The fan lay under the table, next to the lady's split-toed socks, hidden in the house slippers she now wore. And now by chance the professor's eye caught the handkerchief clutched in the hands that were still resting on her knees. This by itself was, of course, without significance. But in that same instant he also saw that her hands were
violently trembling and that, perhaps in a desperate effort to suppress this turbulent manifestation of her inner feelings, she was pulling at the handkerchief so tightly that she seemed close to tearing it. The embroidered edge of this wrinkled piece of silk cloth pinched between her lithe fingers was shaking as though stirred by a light wind. Despite the smile on her face, her entire frame had from the beginning been convulsed with weeping.

The professor picked up the fan and raised his head, but his face bore a very different and most complex expression. Somewhat theatrically overplayed, it reflected pious circumspection at a sight he ought not to have witnessed, mixed with satisfaction at his own awareness of the same.

“I have no children of my own, but I can well understand your anguish.” He said this in a low, emotion-filled voice, throwing his head back with an exaggerated flourish, as though he had just experienced a blinding flash of light.

“I am grateful for your words,” she replied, “but there is nothing that can bring back what has gone.”

She bowed her head slightly, her buoyant face still radiating the same abundant smile.

Two hours later, having taken a bath, finished his evening meal, and nibbled on some after-dinner cherries, the professor settled comfortably into his rattan chair. The drifting twilight of the long summer evening lingered; the glass doors of the broad veranda had been left open, with no sign of falling night. The professor had been reclining there for some time, his legs crossed and his head leaned back against the chair, absently staring in the dim light at the red tassel of the Gifu lantern. In his hand he held the book by Strindberg, but he seemed not to have read another single page of it . . . And such was no wonder:
his mind was still preoccupied with the nobility displayed by Madame Nishiyama Atsuko.

Over dinner he had told his wife the entire story and praised the mother of Nishiyama-kun as an exponent of Japanese
bushid
ō
among women. His wife, with her great love for Japan and the Japanese people, no doubt lent a sympathetic ear. The professor himself was pleased to note how ardently she was listening. His wife, Madame Nishiyama, and the Gifu lantern . . . It now occurred to him that the three formed a sort of moral and ethical backdrop.

The professor had been immersed in such pleasant retrospection for some indeterminate time when he remembered that he had been asked to write an article for a magazine soliciting contributions to a series entitled “Thoughts for Today's Youth”; the topic was general morality, the writers being prominent figures from all over Japan. He resolved to respond immediately that he would relate his experience of today.

He paused to scratch his head, using the hand that had held the book he had been neglecting. He now opened it again and looked at the page he had been reading, marked by the woman's calling card. At that moment the maid came in to light the lantern, so that he had little difficulty making out the finely printed letters. Though no longer in a mood to read, his eye happened to fall on one particular passage. Strindberg had written:

The professor laid the book down on his knee. Between the pages, Madame Nishiyama Atsuko's visiting card was still there, but his thoughts were no longer on her; for that matter, they were no longer
on his wife or on Japanese civilization. Something beyond his ken had threatened the tranquil harmony of those three elements. Needless to say, Strindberg's critical comment on theatrical performance was distinct from the issues of practical morality. There were nonetheless implications in what he had just read that impinged on his
après-bain
serenity.
Bushid
ō
and its
Manier
. . .

The professor shook his head several times, as though displeased. Then, without raising his head, he once more looked upward to gaze at the bright Gifu lantern and the grasses of autumn painted upon it.

When was it now? On a cloudy afternoon, I had gone to a museum in Ueno to see an exhibition of early Meiji-era culture. I moved methodically from room to room until I came to the final display: engravings dating back to the period. In front of glass-enclosed shelves stood an elderly gentleman looking at worn copper-block etchings. Slender, with an air of fragile elegance about him, he was dressed entirely in black, with neatly creased trousers and a stylish bowler. I immediately recognized him as Viscount Honda, to whom I had been introduced at a gathering some four or five days earlier. I started to approach him but then momentarily hesitated, unable to decide whether to greet him, for I had known from before that his was a personality disinclined to social relations. Then, however, as though having heard my footsteps, he slowly turned toward me, a smile flitting briefly across lips draped with a half-white mustache. “Well, well,” he said gently, slightly lifting his hat. Feeling somewhat relieved, I wordlessly acknowledged the salutation and timidly made my way to him.

In his hollow cheeks there lingered, like the last glimmerings of evening light, traces of the handsome features that had been his in the prime of youth. At the same time, it was a face over which a pensive shadow fell, a reflection, unusual for a man of the aristocracy, of inner suffering. I remembered staring on the day of our first encounter, just as I was doing now, at his large pearl tiepin, a dismal light shining out of a sea of black, as though it were the heart of the viscount himself.

“What do you think of this etching? It is a map of the Tsukiji settlement, is it not? A brilliantly done sketch, wouldn't you say? The contrast between light and shadow is quite extraordinary.”

He spoke in a soft voice, gesturing with the silver knob of his slender cane toward the enclosed prints. I nodded my head.

T
ō
ky
ō
Bay engraved with micaceous waves; flag-waving steamships; foreigners, men and women, walking the streets; pine trees à la Hiroshige, their branches reaching toward the sky beyond Occidental-style buildings . . . This eclectic blend of East and West, in both subject and technique, exemplified the beautiful harmony that characterized the art of the early Meiji era, a harmony now forever lost, not only from our art but from everyday life in the capital.