Kusamakura

Not that I particularly want to eat it, but that velvety, dense texture, with its semitranslucent glow, makes it a work of art by any standards. I especial y enjoy the sight of yokan that has a slightly blue-green sheen, like a mixture of gemstones and alabaster—and this bluish yokan piled on the plate glistens as if it has just this moment been born from within the celadon, so that my hand almost twitches with the urge to reach out and stroke it. No Western sweet gives this degree of pleasure. The color of cream is quite soft, I grant you, but it’s rather oppressive. Jel y looks at first sight like a jewel, but it trembles and lacks the weightiness of yokan. And as for those tiered pagodas of white sugar and milk, they’re simply execrable.

“Mmm, that looks splendid.â€

“Genbei has just brought it back from town. I imagine you’d be happy to eat something like this.â€

Genbei appears to have spent the night in town. I make no reply but simply continue to gaze at the yokan. I have no interest in who has brought it or from where—I’m more than happy simply to be registering a beautiful thing as beautiful.

“This celadon plate has a very fine shape. A wonderful color too. It’s scarcely inferior to the yokan,†I remark.

She titters, and a faint, contemptuous smirk plays for a moment on her lips. She must have interpreted my words as intended to be clever.

Considered thus, my remark does indeed deserve to be despised—it’s exactly the kind of thing a stupid man wil come out with in a misguided attempt to sound sophisticated.

“Is it Chinese?â€

“What?†She isn’t aware of the plate at al .

“It certainly looks like it to me,†I say, lifting the plate to examine the inscription on its base.

“If you like this sort of thing, I can show you more.â€

“Yes, please do.â€

“My father loves antiques, so there are a lot of such things here. I’l tel him you’re interested, and you can have tea together sometime so he can show you.â€

I shrink a little at the mention of tea. No one is more tediously pompous than a tea ceremony master, who wil fancy himself the quintessence of elegant refinement. Your typical tea master is deeply conceited, not to mention affected and fastidious to a fault. He ostentatiously clings to the cramped little territory he’s marked out for himself within the wide world of sensibility, savoring his bowl of foam and bubbles with a quite ridiculous reverence. If that abominably complex set of rules and regulations that makes up the tea ceremony contains any refinement, then a crack army corps must positively reek of elegant sophistication! Al those “right about turn! quick march!†fel ows must to a man be the equivalent of the great tea masters. The art of the tea ceremony is something that the common merchant and townsman, lacking any education in the finer matters of taste, dreamed up through their ignorance of how refinement real y works, by mindlessly swal owing whole and in mechanical fashion the rules that were invented after Rikyu’s day.7 Their pitiful conviction that it constitutes the height of refinement only makes a mockery of true sensibility.

“When you say tea, you mean the ceremonial sort?â€

“No, there’s no ceremony about it at al . It’s the kind of tea you don’t have to drink if you don’t want to.â€

“Wel then, I’d be more than happy to have a cup while I’m there.â€

She titters again. “My father loves to have someone to show his col ection to. . . .â€

“Does that mean I have to praise his things?â€

“He’s an old man, so he’d be thril ed if you did.â€

“Al right, I’l give them a bit of praise, then.â€

“Oh, come on, why not make it a discount and praise them lots?â€

It’s my turn to laugh. “By the way,†I remark, “you don’t use the language of a country girl, do you?â€

“You mean, even though I have the character of one?â€

“As to character, country people are better than city folk.â€

“Wel then, I’ve got the upper hand there.â€

“But you must have spent time in Tokyo, surely?â€

“Yes, and in Kyoto too. I’m a wanderer, so I’ve been al over the place.â€

“Which do you prefer, this vil age or Tokyo?â€

“There’s no difference.â€

“Doesn’t life feel easier in a quiet place like this?â€

“Easy, difficult—you can make it whatever you want, depending on your state of mind. There’s no point in moving to the land of mosquitoes because you’re sick of the land of fleas.â€

“You could go to a land of neither fleas nor mosquitoes.â€

“If you know such a place, go ahead and show me. Go on,†she persists, leaning closer, “show me!â€

“I’l show you if you want,†I say, picking up my sketchbook, and I draw—not a picture, since it’s done quite on impulse—just a hasty sketch of a woman on horseback looking at a mountain cherry tree. “Here,†I say, thrusting it under her nose, “come inside this world. There are no fleas or mosquitoes here.†Wil she register surprise? Embarrassment? I watch her, certain that she won’t be upset.

She evades the problem by dismissing it. “What a cramped little world it is!†she exclaims. “It has only length and breadth. You like this sort of two-dimensional world? A crab is what you are.â€

I burst out laughing. The bush warbler that has just begun to cal by the eave breaks off his song at the sound and flies away to a farther branch.

We both pause in our talk and listen intently for a while, but once interrupted that voice wil not easily begin again.

“You met Genbei on the mountain yesterday, didn’t you?â€

“Yes.â€

“And did you visit the grave of the Nagara maiden on your way here?â€

“I did.â€

“‘As the autumn’s dew that lies a moment on the tips of the seeding grass so do I know that I too must fade and be gone from this brief world,’†she recites swiftly, without any modulation to her voice. I can’t guess what has prompted her.

“Yes, I heard that poem at the teahouse yesterday.â€

“The old lady told you, did she? She came as a servant to our house original y, you know, before I went off as a . . .†she begins, then casts me a quick glance to see how I’l react. I feign ignorance.

“It was while I was stil young. Every time she came I’d tel her the story of the Nagara maiden. She could never remember the poem, but eventual y she heard it so often that she did manage to memorize it al .â€

“Aha, so that’s it. I must say I wondered how she came to know something so difficult. But it’s a touching poem, isn’t it?â€

“Is it touching? I wouldn’t compose a poem like that, myself. To begin with, how sil y to go throwing yourself into a pool.â€

“Yes, I suppose it is, now that you mention it. What would you do?â€

“There’s no question what I’d do. The only thing to do is to have the two men as your paramours.â€