Mandarins (6 page)

I again nodded my head, remarking that the plan of the Tsukiji settlement interested me both as an etching and for the heightened sense of nostalgia it evoked, recalling “modern enlightenment”: two-seat rickshaws, decorated with a Chinese lion and a peony, competing with glass-plate photographs of geishas . . . Viscount Honda smiled as he listened but even now was stepping quietly from the display and slowly moving on to the next:
ukiyo
é
by Taiso Yoshitoshi.

“Well then, look at this: Kikugor
ō
in Western dress and Hanshir
ō
wearing a ginkgo-leaf-shaped wig, just as they are about to perform a tragic last scene beneath the light of a lantern moon. It recalls the times all the more . . . It appears, does it not, with such vividness, Edo
and T
ō
ky
ō
indistinguishably blended, as though night and day had formed a single era!”

Whatever his current aversion to further social intercourse, I was aware that Viscount Honda, having been sent abroad for study, had earned an oft-lauded reputation, both within the halls of power and among the people, as a man of great talent. As I now stood listening to him in this nearly deserted exhibition room, surrounded by those glass-encased prints and etchings, I was thus struck by how fitting his words were—indeed, all too fitting. At the same time, this very feeling engendered within me something of a counter-sentiment, so that I hoped he would end his remarks and allow us to move our discussion from times past to the general development of
ukiyo
é
. But with that same silver knob on his cane he continued to point to one print after another, commenting as ever in a low voice:

“When I find myself looking at such prints, that era of three or four decades ago appears before me as if it were yesterday. It is as if I might open the newspaper and find an article about a ball held at the Rokumeikan. To tell you the truth, ever since entering this display room, I have had the feeling that all of those from that time have come to life again and, though invisible to us, are here walking to and fro . . . And those phantoms sometimes put their mouths to our ears and whisper of days gone by . . . That queer idea continues to haunt me. Particularly as I see Kikugor
ō
in Western clothes, I almost have the impulse to apologize for my long silence, for, you see, he closely resembles a friend of mine. It is a nostalgia mixed with a sense of the macabre. How would it be? . . . If you would not mind terribly, I should like to tell you something about him.”

Viscount Honda spoke in an agitated tone, deliberately looking away from me, as though uncertain of my response. At that moment I remembered that on first meeting him some days before, the
acquaintance who had gone to the trouble of introducing us had said, “He is a writer. If you have any sort of interesting story, please relate it to him.”

Even if that had not transpired, I was now so caught up in the viscount's sighs of longing for things past that I had already wished it possible to ride a horse-drawn carriage with him into lively avenues lined with stylish red-brick buildings, enshrouded in the mists of lost time. I bowed my head and happily agreed to his proposal.

“Ah, well then, let us go over there . . .”

Complying with his suggestion, I followed him to a bench in the middle of the room, where we sat down. We were alone, surrounded only by the glass cases and the rows of antiquated copper-block etchings and
ukiyo
é
, all looking rather forlorn in the cold light of the cloudy sky. The viscount rested his chin on the knob of his cane and gazed about the room, as though surveying a catalog of his own memories. At last, however, he turned toward me and began to speak in a subdued voice.

“My friend's name was Miura Naoki; I happened to make his acquaintance on the ship that brought me back from France. We were the same age, twenty-five years old at the time. Like Yoshitoshi's Kikugor
ō
, he was fair-complexioned and slender-faced, his long hair parted in the middle. He was indeed the epitome of early Meiji culture. Over the course of the long voyage we found ourselves on quite friendly terms, and on our return to Japan the bond had become such that we would hardly let a week go by without one of us visiting the other.

“Miura's parents, it seems, had been large-scale landowners in the Shitaya area. When they died, one after the other, just as he was on his way to France, he would, as their only son, have already become a man of considerable means. By the time I knew him, he was favorably situated, performing a few nominal duties at a certain bank but
otherwise enjoying an unbroken life of idle pleasure. Thus, from the moment he returned to Japan, he lived in the mansion he had inherited, located near Hyappongui in Ry
ō
goku, where, having built an elegant new Western-style study, he basked in luxury.

“Even as I speak, I have that room as vividly before my eyes as one of the etchings over there. The French windows overlooking the Great River, the white ceiling with its gold fringe, the red chairs and sofa covered in morocco, the portrait of Napoleon on the wall, the large, engraved ebony bookcase, and the marble fireplace, on which stood a mirror and his late father's beloved pine bonsai . . . There was a sense of antique newness about it all, an almost sepulchral splendor. Or, to describe it in another way, it was like a musical instrument that is out of tune—and so very much a library of its time. And when I tell you how Miura was ensconced under the portrait of Napoleon, wearing a kimono suit made of Y
Å«
ki silk, with double collars and reading Victor Hugo's
Orientales
, you will see how the scene was all the more from the copperplate etchings there across the room. Hmm . . . Now that I think of it, I believe I even remember sometimes looking out on passing white sails so immense that they filled the French windows.

“Though Miura lived extravagantly, he was, in contrast to other young men of his age, not the least inclined to venture into the licensed quarters of Shinbashi or Yanagibashi, preferring to shut himself up every day in his newly constructed library, absorbed in reading more suitable to a young retiree than to, let us say, a banker. Of course, such was in part the consequence of his frail health, which permitted no deviation from regular and wholesome habits. It was also, however, a reflection of his character, which, in direct opposition to the materialism of the times, naturally inclined him, with abnormal intensity, toward pure idealism and thus to the acceptance of his solitary existence. Indeed, Miura, otherwise the model of the modern, enlightened
gentleman, differed from the mood of the age only in his idealistic disposition, and in that he somewhat resembled the political dreamers of a generation before.

“Let me tell you, for example, of going with him one day to the theater to see a dramatic presentation of the Jinp
Å«
ren Rebellion. As I recall, the curtain had closed
Ō
no Teppei's ritual suicide, when Miura suddenly turned to me and asked, a serious expression on his face: ‘Can you feel sympathy for them?'

“As a proper returnee from study abroad, I was inclined at the time to loathe anything smacking of the discredited past and so icily responded: ‘No, I cannot. It seems to me a matter of course that those who fomented insurrection all because of an ordinance forbidding the wearing of swords should have brought about their own destruction.'

“Miura shook his head with an air of dissatisfaction: ‘Their cause may have been mistaken, but their willingness to die for it deserves sympathy—and more.'

“To this I retorted with a laugh: ‘Well then, would you not begrudge throwing away your one life on the childish dream of turning the Meiji generation back to the Divine Age?'

“Even so, his own reply was both serious and decisive: ‘I could wish for nothing more than to die for a childish dream in which I truly believed.'

“At the time, I paid little heed to his words, taking them to be no more than fragments of ephemeral conversation. I now know on reflection that in them lay, coiled like hidden smoke, the shadow of the piteous fate that awaited him down the years. But I must proceed step-by-step, in the natural sequence of the story.

“In any case, Miura was a man who clung to his principles, even in the matter of marriage. He had no qualms about declining even the most promising offers that came his way, having made clear that
he would not wed without
amour
. Moreover, his was no common understanding of the term, so that even when he met an eligible young lady who quite struck his fancy, it never led to any talk of eventual matrimony, as he would remark to the effect: ‘My feelings are somehow still muddled.'

“Even from my vantage point as a disinterested third party, I found it quite vexing and so for his own good would occasionally resort to meddling: ‘To examine the nooks and crannies of one's heart, as you do, should make it all but impossible to live a normal life. You must simply resign yourself to a world that does not conform to your ideals and content yourself with a less than perfect match.'

“But Miura would only give me a pitying look and say quite dismissively: ‘If that were so, I should not have endured so many years as a bachelor.'

“Yet though able to ignore a friend's admonitions, he had also to contend with his relatives, who, mindful of his frail health, could not help being concerned that he might not produce an heir. They had apparently gone so far as to encourage him at the very least to take a concubine.
¹
Needless to say, Miura was not inclined to give heed to such advice. Indeed, the very word disgusted him, and he would often catch my ear to remark derisively: ‘For all our talk about modern enlightenment, Japan is still quite openly a land of kept women.'

“Thus, for the first two or three years after his return from France, he devoted himself to reading, with Napoleon as his sole companion. Not even those of us who were his friends could speculate concerning his prospects for a
mariage d'amour
.

“Meanwhile, I had been dispatched to spend some time on government matters in Korea. I had not been there a month, having just become accustomed to my new quarters in Keij
ō
, when, lo and behold, I received a marriage announcement from Miura.

“You can well imagine my astonishment. Yet I could not but be amused as well as surprised at the thought that he had at last found his heart's desire.

“The content of the message could not have been simpler: nuptial arrangements had been concluded between Miura Naoki and one Fujii Katsumi, the daughter of a purveyor to the imperial household. According to the letter that followed, he had taken a walk to Hagidera in Yanagishima when he happened to meet an antiquarian who had frequented Miura's mansion on business. With him on his visit to the temple were a father and daughter. As the four were strolling through the precincts, Miura and the young woman had quite spontaneously fallen in love.

“The gate of the temple in those days still had its straw-thatched roof, and in the middle of the bush clover is even now a stone monument on which Bash
ō
's famous verse is inscribed:

“Such elegant surroundings were undoubtedly the perfect setting for this juxtaposition of intelligence and beauty. Nevertheless, the idea of Miura having been so smitten—the self-professed epitome of the modern gentleman, who never went out without donning his tailor-made Parisian suit—suggested much too conventional a pattern. Reading the announcement alone had brought a smile to my lips, as though I had been subjected to a veritable tickling.

“As you may readily suppose, it was the antiquarian who managed all the arrangements. Fortunately, someone was found to act as a pro forma matchmaker for this sudden fait accompli, and with that, all proceeded smoothly to their marriage in autumn of that year.

“I hardly need to tell you that the newlyweds lived happily. What particularly amused me, even as I felt a twinge of envy, was the buoyancy and cheerfulness emanating, to judge from subsequent letters informing me of his latest news, from a man nearly entirely transformed from the dispassionate, deskbound scholar he had been.

“I have kept all of those letters, and whenever I read them one by one, it is as though I see his smiling face before me. With a childlike joy, he persevered in his missives, telling in great detail of his daily life. The morning glories he had attempted to cultivate that year had died . . . He had been requested to make a donation to a Ueno orphanage . . . Most of his library had mildewed during the rainy season . . . His rickshaw puller had suffered an infection . . . He had gone to see a performance of Occidental jugglers and sleight-of-hand artists at the Miyakoza Theater . . . There had been a fire in Kuramae. One could go on endlessly . . . Yet, in all of this, he seemed to have found the greatest joy in commissioning the artist Gozeta H
ō
bai to paint a portrait of his wife. This he put on the wall to replace Napoleon, and I myself later saw it.

“Madame Katsumi had been portrayed in profile, standing in front of a full-length mirror; with her hair swept back in a Western-style bun, she was wearing a black kimono embroidered in gold thread and holding a bouquet of roses in her hand. Yet though I did indeed see that portrait, I was never to see the buoyant and cheerful Miura . . .”