Authors: Yukio Mishima

Temple Of Dawn (13 page)

BOOK: Temple Of Dawn

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“My ugliness is special,” he thought, clinging to the confidence which he quickly retrieved, as he descended the red-carpeted steps between the elevator and the lobby. “At any rate, I’m a recidivist of justice; I’m not like those tradesmen.”

That night, after a few cups of wine had been downed at a Cantonese restaurant, in front of Hishikawa, the manager said in a loud voice to Honda: “Hishikawa here is terribly worried about having caused you so much trouble and hurt your feelings. He seems overly sensitive about it, and after you left he told me every day how wrong he had been, how he had been at fault. He’s almost neurotic about it. I know he has his weaknesses, but I assigned him to you because he’s very useful. I feel responsible for causing you any unpleasantness. You will be leaving in only four or five days—we’ve booked a seat in an Army plane—and Hishikawa has done a lot of soul-searching. He says he will do his best to please. I’m going to ask you, Mr. Honda, to be generous enough to forgive him and accept his services for the rest of your stay.”

Hishikawa immediately spoke up from the other side of the table, as though beseeching Honda: “Sir, please take me to task as much as you will. I was wrong.” He bowed his head almost to the table.

The situation was extremely depressing for Honda.

The manager’s words could be interpreted that he still believed he had chosen a good guide for Honda; but that, judging from Hishikawa’s attitude, Honda must have been extremely hard to please, that if he changed guides, Hishikawa would lose face. Therefore, there was nothing to do but to let Hishikawa swallow the humiliation and continue to work for the rest of the time until his departure. To achieve this, it was best to pretend that everything had been Hishikawa’s fault. Thus, Honda would not be disgraced.

Honda felt a momentary surge of anger, but in the next instant he realized that it would not be to his advantage to reject the manager’s suggestion. Hishikawa could not himself have confessed actual instances of his being at fault. Furthermore, Hishikawa was congenitally incapable of realizing why he was disliked. However, he must have sensed that he was and, having thought it over in his own limited way, must have decided to do something to ease his lot. He must have got the manager on his side for him to say such insensitive things.

Honda could forgive the obese manager’s lack of sensitivity, but he could not pardon Hishikawa’s impudent, hypersensitive play-acting which he had quickly thought up on sensing Honda’s antipathy.

Suddenly he wanted to go back home the very next day. But a change of schedule at this point would obviously be interpreted as a childish plan for revenge because of his dislike for Hishikawa, and he realized he had no other choice. By showing generosity in the beginning, he was forced to be even more generous now.

Well, the only thing he could do was to treat Hishikawa like a machine. He protested smilingly that the manager’s apology was quite unnecessary and that for the next few days he would have to depend totally on Hishikawa to help him purchase gifts, go book-hunting, and make arrangements for visiting the Rosette Palace to say goodbye. At least he felt satisfaction with his excellent deception in skill-fully concealing his true emotions from the manager.

Hishikawa’s attitude did change.

First he took Honda to a bookstore where, as at a poorly stocked vegetable vendor’s, crudely printed paperbacks in English or Thai were sparsely arranged on a display board. Before, Hishikawa would have contemptuously discussed the level of Thai culture, but he let Honda make his choice without a word.

He could not find any books on Thai Theravada Buddhism, much less any in English concerning samsara and reincarnation. But he was attracted by a thin pamphlet of poetry, apparently a private publication printed on poor-quality paper, its white cover browned by the sun and its corners curled by handling. He read the English preface and realized that it was a collection of poems written shortly after the bloodless revolution of June, 1932, by a young man who seemed to have participated in it. The poet expressed the disillusionment that followed the revolution for which he had been so ready to give his life. By coincidence the collection was published the year after Isao’s death. As Honda turned the pages, he saw in the faded print that the poet’s English was immature.

Who would have known?
From the sacrifice of youth dedicated to the future
Only the vermin of corruption come forth.
Who would have known?
In debris-strewn fields that once promised rebirth
Only plants of venom and thorn are burgeoning.
The vermin will soon stretch their golden wings,
And the wind passing over the grasses will spread pestilence.
In my heart the love I bear my land
Is redder than mimosa flowers in the rain;
Suddenly after the storm, on eaves, pillars, balustrades
The white mildew of despotism reaches out.
Yesterday’s wisdom is beclouded in luxurious baths of profit,
And yesterday’s activist is ensconced in a palanquin of embroidered brocade.
There would be nothing better
In the regions of Kabin and Patani,
Where the flowering pear and rosewood and the
manifan
’s luxuriant foliage,
The creeping ivy and the thorny rose and the pinks mark the byways;
Where the sun and the rain fall upon deep jungles;
Where rhinoceros, tapirs, and buffalos dwell;
If, at times, a herd of elephants in quest of water
Would trample my bones underfoot.
There would be nothing better than
To rip with my own hands the red crescent of my throat
Shining in the dewy underbrush.
Who would know?
Who would know?
I sing my song of sorrow.

Honda was deeply moved by this political poem of despair and thought that he could find nothing better with which to comfort Isao’s spirit. Was it not true? Isao had died without bringing about the revolution he had dreamed of for so long, but there was no doubt that he would have experienced even greater disillusionment if one had taken place. Death in success, death in failure—death was the basis of Isao’s acts. But the unfortunate human lot is that one cannot take oneself out of time and dispassionately compare two deaths at two different points for the purpose of choosing one or the other. One cannot choose by giving equal priority to a death after experiencing disillusionment in the aftermath of revolution and to one before experiencing it. If one died before experiencing disillusionment, dying afterward would be impossible; and conversely, if one died after experiencing disillusionment, dying before would be out of the question. Therefore, all that one could do was to project oneself into the two deaths in the future and select the one one’s intuition commanded. Isao had chosen death before disillusionment could set in. His prophetic choice showed the unclouded youthful wisdom of one who had never wielded the slightest political power.

But the feeling of disillusion and despair—as if one had seen the other side of the moon—which overtakes the successful revolutionary makes death merely an escape from a wilderness worse than death itself. Therefore, however sincere the poet’s death was, it must surely be regarded as a pathological suicide that took place in the weary afternoon of revolution.

For this reason Honda wanted to dedicate this political poem to Isao. At least Isao had died dreaming of the sun, but the morning in this poem had opened a festering wound under a cracked orb. However, an endless thread stretched between Isao’s brave death and the despair of this political poem, both by chance occurring during the same period. The very best, the very worst, the most beautiful and the most ugly illusions about the future for which people sacrificed their lives were probably to be found in the same place and, what was even more frightening, were probably the same thing. What Isao had dreamed of and had been willing to give his life for had to be the despair expressed in this poem, for the shrewder his foresight, the purer his death.

Honda knew full well that he tended to see things in this way because India had cast its spell on him. India imposed on his thinking a many-layered structure, like lotus petals, and no longer let him think in a direct and simple way. The time he willingly put aside his judgeship in order to help Isao—although he was strongly motivated by remorse for not having been able to help Kiyoaki—was probably the first and last occasion in his life that he had been so altruistic and dedicated. Yet despite his efforts, he had not been able to prevent Isao’s futile death, and after that nothing remained but for him to reverse his ideas on reincarnation and see his future outside samsara. And it was India, terrifying India, that had dropped the final hint to Honda, who found it increasingly difficult to entertain “human” emotions.

Whether in success or in failure, sooner or later time must lead to disillusionment; and if foresight of this disillusionment remains only that, it is mere pessimism. The important thing is to act on this foresight even by dying. Isao had achieved that magnificently. Only by action can one see through the glass walls erected at various points in time—glass walls insurmountable by human effort, but which can be seen through equally from both sides. In eager desire, in aspiration, in dreams, in ideals, the past and future become equal in value and in quality: they are coordinate.

Whether or not Isao had glimpsed such a world at the moment of his death was a question Honda could not put off now that he was growing older, if he would discover what he should have to face at the moment of his own death. At least it was certain that at that instant the existing Isao and the Isao to be had looked directly into each other’s eyes. By his foresight the existing Isao had grasped the splendor of the unseen on the other side and his eyes there saw through to this side with craving. It was certain that the existing Isao had foreseen the glory of the future Isao, and the eyes of the Isao to come had looked back yearningly at the innocent being that had not yet experienced this glory. By passing through two unrelivable existences the two Isaos were connected through the glass wall. Isao and the political poet suggested the eternal link between the poet who, having passed through life, yearned for death, and the youth who, rejecting the passing, died. If that were true, what had become of that which they had so ardently desired, each in his own way. Honda’s theory, unchanged since his youth, was that history could not be advanced by human volition, but that the intrinsic nature of human will was to become involved in history.

How, he wondered, could he dedicate these poems, a most suitable gift, to Isao’s soul?

Would it be best to take the book back to Japan and offer it at his grave? No, Honda knew all too well that Isao’s tomb was empty.

Surely the best way would be to dedicate it to the little Princess who openly claimed herself to be Isao’s reincarnation. She would be the fastest and most dependable messenger. Honda now became the fleet-footed courier easily passing through the wall of time.

But no matter how intelligent, could a girl of six understand the despair of such poems? Besides, as Isao’s reincarnation had taken such an obvious form this time, Honda had experienced a twinge of suspicion. And then, he had not been able to see the three little moles on the Princess’s lovely, dusky body even in the bright sunlight.

Having decided to take as gifts an Indian sari of excellent quality and the book of poems, Honda asked Hishikawa to contact the Rosette Palace. He was informed that the Princess would grant an audience in the Hall of Queens at the Chakri Palace, which she would have opened especially for him, as it had been closed for some time because of the King’s absence.

However, one strict condition was imposed by the ladies-in-waiting. During his trip to India, the Princess had been anxiously waiting for Honda’s return to Thailand, insisting that she was going to accompany him to Japan when he returned. She had complained that her attendants had done nothing in preparation for the trip, and they had soothed her by pretending to make arrangements. Therefore, they desired that at the time of the audience Honda make no mention of his departure, much less of the date, and that he pretend that he was staying on in Thailand.