But my thoughts have degenerated into mere tiresome quibbles. I haven’t come to Mirror Pool to engage in these schoolboy ramblings! I take a cigarette from the packet of Shikishima tucked in my sleeve and strike a match. Though my hand registers the rasp, no flame is visible. I apply it to the tip of the cigarette and draw, and only now, as smoke issues from my nose, can I be certain I am smoking a lit cigarette. In the short grass the discarded match sends up a little dragon curl of smoke, then expires. I now shift my seat slowly down to the shore. My grassy cushion slopes smoothly right on into the pool; I pause just at the edge, where any farther advance must bring the tepid water over my feet, and peer in.
The pool seems quite shal ow for as far out as my gaze can reach. Long, delicate stems of waterweed lie sunk there, in a deathly trance—I can think of no other way to put it. The grasses on the hil wil bend with the breeze; stems of seaweed await the wave’s tender, enticing touch. This sunken waterweed, immobile for a century and more, holds itself in constant readiness for motion; through the endless recurrence of days and nights, it waits, the tips of those long stems fraught with whole lifetimes of yearning, for that moment when it wil find itself tousled at last into action.
Yet in al this time it has never moved. Thus it lives on, unable stil to die.
I stand and pick up from the grass two handy stones. I’ve decided to perform an act of charity for this waterweed. I toss one stone into the pool directly in front of me and watch as two large bubbles come gurgling up, to vanish in an instant. Vanish in an instant, vanish in an instant, my mind repeats. Gazing into the water, I can see three long stems of waterweed like strands of hair begin to sway languidly about, but in the next instant a swirl of muddy water wel s up from the bottom to hide them from sight. I murmur a quick prayer.
The next stone I hurl with al my strength, right into the middle of the pool. There is a faint plop, but the tranquil pool refuses to be disturbed. At this, I lose the urge to throw any more stones; instead, I set off walking to the right, leaving my painting box and hat lying where they are.
The first few yards are an uphil climb. Large trees branch thickly overhead, and a sudden chil strikes me. A wild camel ia bush is blooming in deep shade on the far bank. The green of camel ia leaves seems to me altogether too dark, and there’s no cheerfulness in them even when bathed in the midday sunshine or lit by a patch of sunlight. And this particular camel ia is growing quite deep within a crevice in the rocks, huddled there in quiet seclusion, so that if it weren’t for the flowers, one would never notice it. Those flowers! They are so many that a day’s counting could not number them—though now that I’ve noticed those bril iant blooms, I feel almost tempted to try. Bright though they are, they have nothing sunny in them. They seize your attention like little sudden flares, but as you continue to gaze, you feel for some reason an uncanny shudder.
No flower is more deceptive. Every time I see a wild camel ia in flower, I think of witchery—a bewitching woman who draws people in with her black eyes, then quickly slips a smiling poison into their unsuspecting veins. By the time they realize the trap, it is too late.
When my eye fal s on the camel ia blooms on the far shore, I think to myself, Yes, better if you had not seen. The color of that flower is no mere red. In the far recesses of its dazzling gaudiness lies some inexpressible sunken darkness. The sight of a pear blossom sodden and despondent in the rain wil provoke a simple pity; a cool y enchanting aronia blossom in moonlight cal s forth only delighted affection. But the sunken darkness of the camel ia is of a different order. It has a terrifying taste of blackness, of venom. And yet, with such darkness down there at its core, it decks out its surface in most flamboyant bright display. What’s more, it does not set out to entice or even to attract the human eye. Flowers open and drop, drop and open, over the passage of how many hundred springs, while the camel ia dwel s on in tranquil ity deep in the mountain shadow, unseen by mortal eyes. A single glance, and al is over! He who once lays eyes upon her wil in no way escape this lady’s bewitchment. No, the color of that flower is no mere red. It is like the red of a slaughtered criminal’s blood, drawing the unwil ing eye and fil ing the heart with unease.
As I watch, one of these red creatures plops onto the water. In al the quietness of that spring moment, only this flower has motion. A little while later another drops. These flowers never scatter their petals when they fal . They part from the branch whole and unbroken. The parting is so clean that they may strike us as admirably resolute and unclinging, yet there’s something malignant in the sight of them lying whole where they have fal en. Another drops. If this continues, I think, the pool’s water wil grow red with them; indeed, the area surrounding these quietly floating flowers seems already tinged with crimson. There goes another. It floats there so stil that one can scarcely guess whether it has landed on solid earth or on water. Another fal s. Do they ever sink? I wonder. Perhaps the mil ion camel ia blooms that fal through the years lie steeped in water til the color leaches from them, til they rot, and final y disintegrate to mud on the bottom. Perhaps thousands of years hence and unbeknownst to men, al the fal en camel ias wil eventual y fil this ancient pool til it reverts to the flat plain it once was. And now yet another tumbles to bloody the water, like a human soul in death. And another. A little shower of them plops to the water. Endlessly, they fal .
I wander back and have another cigarette, thinking idly as I puff that this might be a scene for my painting of the beautiful floating woman.
Nami’s joking words at the inn yesterday come snaking insidiously back into my memory. My heart rocks like a plank on a high sea. I wil use that face, float it on the water beneath that camel ia bush, and have the red flowers fal on it. I want to give a sense of the flowers fal ing eternal y over the eternal y floating woman—but can I achieve this in a picture? In Lessing’s Laocoön—but no, who cares what Lessing said? It doesn’t matter whether I choose to fol ow principles, what I’m after is the feeling. Stil , remaining within the human realm, while seeking to express a sense of eternity that transcends the human, is no easy matter.
The face is the first problem. Even if I borrow her face, that expression of hers won’t do. Suffering would dominate, and that would ruin everything. On the other hand, too great a sense of ease would also destroy the effect. Perhaps I should choose a different face altogether. I count off various possibilities, but none are suitable. Yes, Nami’s face does seem to be the right one. Yet something about it isn’t quite satisfactory. This much I know, but just where the problem lies is unclear to me, and consequently I can’t simply change that face on some fanciful whim.
What would happen if I added a touch of jealousy to it? I wonder. No, jealousy has too much anxiety in it. What about hatred, then? No, too fierce.