If you were to stand in the middle of the street, as a street-car director does, at the approach to Tokyo’s Nihonbashi Bridge, and stop every one of the hundreds who pass by every minute and learn each one’s trials and troubles, this world of ours would seem to you an appal ingly difficult place in which to live. We humans meet and part as strangers—if this were not so, who would be wil ing to take on the job of standing there directing the mil ing streetcars? It’s a lucky thing that our unknown fisherman seeks no explanation for Kyuichi’s tearful face. When I turn back to look, he is calmly watching his float. He’l likely go on sitting there, gazing at that float, until the Russian War is over.
The river is shal ow and quite narrow; the current flows gently. Our boat slips along through the water, moving inexorably on and on through the passing spring toward some other place, a place ful of noisy people who love to col ide with one another. This young man with the brutal mark of bloodshed upon his brow is drawing us mercilessly along with him. The bonds of fate are compel ing him to a dark and fearsome land far to the north, and we whose fate is tangled with his are likewise compel ed to travel with him until the ties that bind us at last give way. When this happens, something between us wil audibly snap; he alone wil be reeled inescapably in by the hand of his own fate, while we in turn are fated to remain behind. Beg and struggle though we might, he wil be powerless to draw us with him.
It is delightful how gently the boat floats on. Those must be field horsetails covering either bank; farther up are stands of wil ows. Here and there among them a low farmhouse reveals a thatched roof and a glimpse of a sooty window; occasional y a few white geese spil forth and waddle cackling into the river.
That flash of brightness between those wil ows must be a white peach tree in bloom. A loom knocks and clatters, and from within its rhythm the sound of a woman’s plangent singing drifts across the water; the song is impossible to recognize.
“Would you do a portrait of me?†Nami suddenly says to me. Kyuichi and her brother are deep in military talk, and the old man has nodded off.
“Certainly,†I say obligingly. Taking out my sketchbook, I jot down the fol owing poem and pass it to her: That silken obi
unraveled by the breeze of spring—
what name does it bear?
She laughs. “It’s no good just dashing something off like this. You must put a bit of care into it, and do something that reveals my temperament.â€
“I’ve been wanting to do the same thing myself, but somehow that face of yours just won’t compose itself into a picture the way it is.â€
“That’s a charming answer, I must say! So what should I do to get a picture?â€
“Oh, I could do one right now. It’s just that there’s something lacking. It would be a shame to draw you without it.â€
“What do you mean, lacking? It’s the face I was born with, so there’s nothing I can do about it.â€
“The face one’s born with can change in al manner of ways.â€
“You mean I can change it?â€
“Yes.â€
“Don’t treat me like a fool just because I’m a woman.â€
“On the contrary, it’s because you’re a woman that you say foolish things like that.â€
“Wel then, let’s see you make some changes to your own face.â€
“It already changes quite enough from day to day.â€
She fal s silent and turns away. The riverbanks are now level with the water, and the flat expanse of unplanted rice fields beyond is deep in flowering milk vetch. A vast sea of flowers stretches away forever, blurred with the haze of spring so that it seems a recent rain has half-dissolved those vivid dots of red and run them al together. Looking up, I see the towering form of a steep peak half-blocking the sky, with a wisp of spring cloud spil ed out across its flank.
“That’s the mountain you crossed.†Nami extends a white hand over the side of the boat and points to the dreamlike peak.
“Is Tengu Rock around there?â€
“See that patch of purple below the dark green part?â€
“That shadowy bit?â€
“Is it shadow? It looks like a bald patch to me.â€
“Come now, it’s a hol ow. If it was bald, it would have more brown in it.â€
“Is that so? Anyway, Tengu Rock is apparently in behind that.â€
“So the Seven Bends would be a little farther to the left, then.â€
“They’re way off somewhere else, on a mountain behind that one.â€
“Ah yes, that’s true. But I’d guess they’re about where that bit of cloud is hanging.â€
“Yes, that’s the direction.â€
At this point the elbow of the old man slips from the edge of the boat where he’s propped it to doze, and he awakens with a start.
“Not there yet?â€
He stretches, chest out, right elbow drawn back, left arm thrust straight before him, then does an imitation of releasing an arrow from the bow.
Nami chuckles.
“Don’t mind me, it’s a habit of mine.â€
I too laugh. “I see you like archery,†I remark.
“I could draw a good thick bow in my youth,†he replies, patting his left shoulder, “and even now my left-hand action is stil remarkably steady.â€
Up in the bow, the talk of war is in ful swing.
At length, the boat enters a townscape. I notice a sign painted on the low paper window of a little bar, “Drinks and Snacks,†and farther on an old-fashioned tavern. We pass a lumberyard. Occasional y the sound of a rickshaw comes from the road beyond. Swal ows twist and twitter in the air; geese honk.
Now our little party leaves the boat, and we make our way to the station.
We are being dragged yet deeper into the real world, which I define as the world that contains trains. Nothing can be more quintessential y representative of twentieth-century civilization than the steam train. It roars along, packed tight with hundreds of people in the one box, merciless in its progress, and al those hundreds crammed in there must travel at the same speed, stop at the same places, and submit to a baptismal submersion in the same swirling steam. Some say that people “ride†in a train, but I would say they are thrust into it; some speak of “going†by train, but it seems to me they are transported by it. Nothing is more disdainful of individuality. Having expended al its means to develop the individual, civilization then proceeds to crush it by al possible means. Present civilization gives each person his little patch of earth and tel s him he may wake and sleep as he pleases on it—but then it throws up an iron railing around it, and threatens us with dire consequences if we should put a foot outside this barrier. Those who can act as they please in their own little patch natural y feel the urge to do the same beyond it, so the pitiful citizens of this world spend their days biting and raging at the boundary fence that hems them in. Civilization, having given individuals their freedom and turned them into wild beasts thereby, then maintains the peace by throwing these unfortunates behind bars. This isn’t real peace, it’s the peace of the zoo, where the tiger lies in his cage glaring out at the gaping sightseers. Should one bar of that cage come loose, the world would fal apart. Then we wil have our second French Revolution. Indeed, the revolution is already under way night and day among individuals; the great European playwright Ibsen has provided us with detailed examples of the conditions necessary for it to occur. I must say, whenever I see one of those fierce trains hurtling along, treating al on board indiscriminately as so much freight, and mental y balance the individuals crammed in there against the train’s utter disregard for their individuality—I can only say, Watch out, this could be nasty if you’re not careful! Modern civilization in fact reeks of such dangers. The steam train hurtling blindly into the darkness ahead is simply one of them.