I am wandering in this realm between sleep and waking, when the door from the corridor slides smoothly open, and suddenly in the doorway appears, like a phantom, the shape of a woman. I am not surprised, nor am I afraid. I simply gaze at it with pleasure. The word “gaze†is perhaps a little strong. Rather say that the phantom slips easily in under my closed eyelids. It comes gliding into the room, traveling soundlessly over the matting like a spirit lady walking on water. Since I’m watching from beneath closed eyelids, I cannot be sure, but she seems pale, long-necked, and possessed of a luxuriance of hair. The effect is rather like the blurred photographs that people produce these days, held up to view against lamplight.
The phantom pauses before the cupboard. It opens, and a white arm emerges smoothly from the sleeve, glimmering softly in the darkness. The cupboard closes again. The waters of the matting float the phantom back across them to the door. The sliding door closes of its own accord.
Gradual y I slip down into a rich, deep sleep, a state that I imagine must resemble that in which you have died to your human form but have not yet taken on the horse or ox form that is to be yours in your next life.
How long I lie there, hovering in that realm between human and animal form, I cannot tel . I awaken with the soft chuckle of a woman’s laughter sounding at my ear. The curtain of night has long since been drawn back; the world that meets my eyes is flooded with light. As I lie there taking in the sight of the sweet spring sunlight pouring bril iantly in, shadowing the bamboo latticework in the round window by the alcove, I feel convinced that nothing eerie could lurk in this bright world. Mystery has crossed back over the river of the dead and retreated once more to the limbo realm beyond.
I take myself off to the bathhouse in my night robe and dreamily float there with my face barely above the water for five minutes or so, feeling inclined neither to wash nor to leave. Why did I find myself in such a strange state last night? How extraordinary that the world should tumble head over heels like that between day and night!
Drying myself is too much of an effort, so I leave it at that and go back to the dressing room stil dripping. But when I slide open the bathhouse door from within, another shock greets me.
“Good morning. I hope you slept wel .†The words are almost simultaneous with my opening the door. I had no idea anyone was there, so this sudden greeting takes me completely by surprise, and before I can produce any response, the voice continues, “Here, put this on.†The owner of the voice steps around behind me, and a soft kimono is slipped over my shoulders. At last I manage “Why, thank you . . . ,†turning as I speak, and as I do so the woman takes two or three steps back.
The supreme effort that goes into describing the features of a hero or heroine has long been a determiner of a novel’s worth. Were one to enumerate al the words, in every language of East and West from classical times until today, that writers have devoted to evaluating the qualities of beautiful women, the list may wel rival in length the complete canon of the Buddhist sutras. How many words would it take, I wonder, if I were to select from among this truly dismaying assemblage of adjectives those that might best describe the woman now standing three paces away, twisting her body diagonal y to look at me out of the corner of her eye, comfortably taking in my astonishment and bewilderment?
In my thirty-some years I have never until this moment seen such an expression as is on her face. The ideal of classical Greek sculpture, I understand, can be summed up in the phrase “poised containment,†which seems to signify the energy of the human form held poised for action. The resonance of such a figure subtly inheres in that moment before the figure moves and changes into unguessable energies, swirling cloud or echoing thunder, which is surely why the significance of that form stil reaches us across the centuries. Al the dignity and solemnity to be found in the world lies hidden beneath this quality of poised containment. Once the figure moves, what is implicit becomes revealed, and revelation inevitably brings some resolution into one thing or another. Any resolution, of course, wil always contain its own particular power, but once the movement has begun, matters wil soon degenerate into mere sludge and squalor, and there wil be no going back to the harmonious serenity of the original form. For this reason, whatever has motion is always final y vulgar. The fierce sculptures of the temple guardians that Unkei created, or the lively cartoon figures of Hokusai, both ultimately fail for this simple reason.9 Should we depict motion or stil ness?—this is the great problem that governs the fate of us artists. The majority of the words used down the centuries to describe beautiful women can surely also be placed in either one of these two great categories.
But when I look at the expression of the woman before me, I am at a loss to decide to which category it belongs. The mouth is stil , a single line.
The eyes, on the other hand, dart constantly about, as if intent on missing nothing. The face is the classic beauty’s pale oval, a little plump at the chin, replete with a calm serenity, yet the cramped and narrow forehead has a somehow vulgar “Mount Fuji†widow’s-peak hairline. The eyebrows tend inward, moreover, and the brow twitches with nervous irritability; but the nose has neither the sharpness of a frivolous nature nor the roundness of a dul one—it would be beautiful painted. Al these various elements come pressing incoherently in upon my eyes, each one with its own idiosyncratic character. Who can wonder that I feel bewildered?
Imagine that a fault appears in the earth where once stil ness has reigned, and the whole begins to move. Aware that movement is contrary to its original nature, it strives to return to its original immobility; yet once unbalanced, momentum compels it to continue its motion, so that now we see a form that from sheer despair chooses to flaunt the movement enforced on it. Were such a form to exist, it would serve precisely to describe the woman before me.
Thus, beneath the derision evident in her features, I sense the urge to reach out and cling. From within the superficial mockery glimmers a prudent wisdom. For al the bravado that suggests her wit and spirit would be more than a match for a hundred men, a tender compassion wel s in its depths. Her expression simply has no consistency; in the appearance she presents, enlightenment and confusion dwel together, quarreling, beneath the one roof. The singular lack of any impression of unity in this woman’s face is proof of an equivalent lack of unity in her heart, which is surely owing to a lack of unity in her world. It is the face of one compel ed into misfortune, who is struggling to defeat that misfortune.
Unquestionably she is an unhappy woman.
Bowing slightly, I repeat my thanks.
In reply, she laughs briefly. “Your room has been cleaned.
Go and see. I’l cal on you later.†No sooner has she spoken than she twists swiftly about and lightly runs off down the corridor. I watch her go.