Some Prefer Nettles

Author: Junichiro Tanizaki

• Like all natives of Tokyo, he had always viewed Osaka with a mixture of amusement and contempt. The Osakan was a penny-grabbing bumpkin who had not learned the fine Japanese art of concealing his emotions; and the Osakan seemed insensitive to the exhilarating succession of foreign influences that was sweeping the country. He was cloddishly behind the times.

• His first major post-earthquake novel, A Fool’s Love, is a disquieting study of what can happen when one cuts oneself off from one’s past. The hero, a young man who will live in the new way, finds a little bar girl who reminds him of Mary Pickford, and he proceeds to groom her so that he need not be ashamed of her in front of the golden-haired foreigners. At the end he is living a comfortless life in Yokohama while his fashionable wife takes foreign lovers.

• Indeed, whenever they had to decide whether or not to go out together, each of them became passive, watchful, hoping to take a position according to the other’s manner.

• “Isn’t he clever?—he seems to have guessed when no one else has,” Misako once said. Kaname laughed. “Of course he has. Any child would, and only a mother would be surprised at it.”

• If they were to be happy once they had parted, everything considered, it seemed wise for the moment at least to maintain the pretense of a marriage and to work quietly toward an understanding that would alienate no one. To keep the world from looking in on them, they gradually narrowed their circle of associations. There were still occasions, however, when they had to put on their disguises and act their parts, and Kaname always felt guilty and unhappy when they came up.

• She leaned to pour for him, and a suggestion of something like cloves seemed to come from her high, upswept hair as it touched against his cheek. He stared down into the cup at the gold-embossed Fuji, now shining through the sake, at the tiny village below it, done in the quick style of the color prints, and at the characters indicating which was the roadside station represented. “It makes me a little uncomfortable to drink out of anything so elegant.”

• The old man, when he discoursed on the puppet theater, liked to compare Japanese Bunraku puppets with Occidental string puppets. The latter could indeed be very active with their hands and feet, but the fact that they were suspended and worked from above made it impossible to suggest the line of the hips and the movement of the torso. There was in them none of the force and urgency of living flesh, one could find nothing that told of a live, warm human being. The Bunraku puppets, on the other hand, were worked from inside, so that the surge of life was actually presen’ sensible, under the clothes. Their strongest points perhaps derived from the good use made in them of the Japanese kimono.

• The old man, when he discoursed on the puppet theater, liked to compare Japanese Bunraku puppets with Occidental string puppets. The latter could indeed be very active with their hands and feet, but the fact that they were suspended and worked from above made it impossible to suggest the line of the hips and the movement of the torso. There was in them none of the force and urgency of living flesh, one could find nothing that told of a live, warm human being. The Bunraku puppets, on the other hand, were worked from inside, so that the surge of life was actually presen’ sensible, under the clothes.

• The reason for their decision to separate, after all, was that they did not want to grow old, that they wanted to be free to live their youth again.

• “Why am I left so alone? Do I nourish in my breast a serpent, a demon?” the narrator chanted for O-san, and to Kaname the line expressed, with grace and circumspection but with an acuteness that tightened his chest, the innermost secret of a marriage from which sexual passion had disappeared.

• Kaname began to wonder whether, in its place and done properly, the Osaka style of singing was really as coarse and noisy as he had always taken it to be. Or perhaps its very noisiness heightened the mood of tragedy.

• The typical native of Tokyo has a natural reserve. Quite foreign to him is the openness of the Osakan, who strikes up a conversation with a stranger on the streetcar and proceeds—in an extreme case, it must be admitted—to ask how much his clothes cost and where he bought them.

• The old man’s arguments were full of references to “young people today.” Any taste for things Occidental was found to have the same shallowness and lack of body as Occidental string puppets.

• It was not enough that something should be touching, charming, graceful; it had to have about it a certain radiance, the power to inspire veneration. One had to feel forced to one’s knees before it, or lifted by it to the skies.

• The tradition of woman-worship in the West is a long one, and the Occidental sees in the woman he loves the figure of a Greek goddess, the image of the Virgin Mother. The attitude so pervades the customs and traditions of the West that it automatically finds expression in art and literature. Kaname had an intense feeling of loneliness and deprivation when he thought of the emotional life of the Japanese, so lacking in this particular feeling of worshipfulness. Ancient Japanese court literature and the drama of the feudal ages, with Buddhism a strong and living force behind it, had in its classical dignity something of what he sought, but with the Edo shogunate and the decline of Buddhism even that disappeared.

• While the dramatists and novelists of the Edo period were able to create soft, lovely women, women who were likely to dissolve in tears on a man’s knee, they were quite unable to create the sort of woman a man would feel compelled to kneel before.

• The truth of the matter was that Kaname had awaited the visit of this cousin with a mixture of eagerness and dread.

• The truth of the matter was that Kaname had awaited the visit of this cousin with a mixture of eagerness and dread. He was disgusted with his own indecision, his tendency to postpone action from day to week to month until it had become clear that he would not be able to speak out until a final crisis forced him to.

• It’s a mistake for an outsider to get mixed up in a divorce, no matter how good a friend he may be, but with you two it’s a matter of getting you to make up your own minds.”

• Quite unable to take action, sunk in daydreams of what it would be like once action was finally taken, he found that Takanatsu’s visits stimulated the daydreams to

• Quite unable to take action, sunk in daydreams of what it would be like once action was finally taken, he found that Takanatsu’s visits stimulated the daydreams to a pleasant new liveliness, an immediacy, as though they were about to become realities.

• He had nothing against his wife. They simply did not excite each other. Everything else—their tastes, their ways of thinking—matched perfectly.

• The real trouble is that Misako and I have no resentment against each other. If we did, it would be easier, but each of us thinks the other is perfectly right, and that makes everything impossible.”

• “It’s probably like your seasons. There’s no type of woman it’s easier to leave than any other type.”

• He had told himself, however, that though he could not love her, he could at least treat her with respect.

• “You are being very demanding indeed. Where, I wonder, will we find the woman to satisfy you? You really should have stayed single—all woman-worshippers should be single. They never find the woman who answers all the requirements.” “One try at it has been enough. I’ll not get married again—for a while at least—maybe for the rest of my life.” “You’ll marry again and make a mess of it again. All woman-worshippers do.”

• If she let everything upset her, there would be no end to her wretchedness.

• “You have to follow the Chinese and eat lots of garlic. Then you don’t catch Chinese diseases.”

• “On the contrary, you amaze me. Put on these gay robes and you’ll look like a loose woman.” “Oh, but I am a loose woman.” Takanatsu regretted his remark as soon as he had made it, but Misako’s show of candor turned it off smoothly.

• I’ll have to ask you to tell me what Kaname thinks. When the two of us are alone face to face, we simply are not able to say what we would like to. We go on well enough to a point, but beyond that one or the other of us is sure to break down in tears.”

• “Do you really think so?… I think myself that most of the sympathy is going to collect around Kaname. On the surface at least it will be as though I am abandoning him, and people will blame me for it. I wonder if Hiroshi won’t be bitter against me too when he starts hearing rumors.”

• Handing people things on your own fork—really, that is a little like a loose woman.”

• “But you never used to have such bad manners. You used to be so quiet and ladylike.”

• “I’m afraid you’d have to call it a sort of show. You don’t want people to see that you’re not loved by your husband—or am I saying more than I should?” “It makes no difference. Please say exactly what comes to you.”

• “But I’m so unnatural when he’s around. Haven’t you noticed a difference in me when I’m with him and when I’m not?” “I’d say you seem less under control when you’re away from him.”

• “It’s remarkable, though, how often women do change after they’re married. Right now you’re playing a game.”

• “It’s remarkable, though, how often women do change after they’re married. Right now you’re playing a game.” “And it’s not possible for marriage to be a game?” “It’s splendid if it can be.” “I intend mine to be. I think people take marriage much too seriously.” “And then when you’re tired of him you get another divorce?” “That’s a reasonable conclusion, I suppose.”

• But this is the first time he’s been in love, and no matter what his intentions are, he can’t know how his feelings might change. No matter how much he may intend now never to change, he can’t really be sure what will happen. He says it would be meaningless to promise something he can’t be sure of, and he says he doesn’t like telling lies.”

• No matter how much he may intend now never to change, he can’t really be sure what will happen. He says

• He says the marriage will have much more chance of lasting if he can go into it without tying his feelings up in promises.”

• “But you’re being much too reckless. Leaving your husband when you have no real guarantee for your future.” Takanatsu, trying to control a rising sharpness in his tone, stopped for a moment as he noticed that Misako was blinking rapidly, her hands folded tightly in her lap.

• I shouldn’t say so, I know, but I’d have expected you to be calmer, more sober. After all, you’re discarding a husband.”

• “And so you should have thought everything over more carefully before you let yourself come to this impasse.” “What good would it have done? You don’t know how hard it is for me to stay on here now that we’re not really married…”

• “You have your nature, others have theirs. No matter how well matched two people seem to be, the time comes when they get tired of each other, and there’s a great deal of merit in saying that you can’t make promises about the future.

• “Getting tired of each other and separating are different matters. When the first love begins to fade, a sort of domestic affection takes its place. Isn’t that what most marriages are built on, as a matter of fact?”

• Actually, though, I put my faith more in Misako. She’s no child, and she can surely tell the difference between a decent man and a scoundrel. If Misako is sure of him, that’s enough to satisfy me.”

• Women may seem clever enough, but they’re fools.” “I’d rather you wouldn’t talk that way.

• You are a strange one. It’s exactly because you leave problems like this unsettled that you haven’t been able to work yourself into a decision on the divorce itself.”

• Kaname came back from the city one day to find Misako on the veranda talking to a strange man. “Mr. Aso,” she said shortly. Since they had in the course of time come to build up their own independent friendships, Kaname did not find any further explanation necessary.

• One night as she lay in bed with the covers pulled up to her forehead, he heard her sobbing quietly; long into the night he lay staring into the darkness of the room, listening. It was not the first time he had been assailed by this sobbing in the night.

• And now, after years of respite, it had started again. Kaname at first doubted his ears, then asked himself how to account for this extraordinary development. Why should she have started again? What case could she be pleading now? Had she never resigned herself at all, only waited for the day when his affection for her would return, and now, after years of waiting, had she found it impossible to wait any longer? What a fool the woman was, he thought; and, as years before, he let the tears pass in silence. But night after night they continued. Quite unable to find an explanation, he finally told her she was making a nuisance of herself.

• And now, after years of respite, it had started again. Kaname at first doubted his ears, then asked himself how to account for this extraordinary development. Why should she have started again? What case could she be pleading now? Had she never resigned herself at all, only waited for the day when his affection for her would return, and now, after years of waiting, had she found it impossible to wait any longer? What a fool the woman was, he thought; and, as years before, he let the tears pass in silence. But night after night they continued. Quite unable to find an explanation, he finally told her she was making a nuisance of herself. At that Misako broke into open and unrestrained sobbing. “Forgive me. There’s something I’ve kept from you,” she said softly, her voice choked with tears.

• Kaname could not have denied that he was a little shocked at the words, but more than that he felt as though the shackles had opened, as though a heavy weight had suddenly and unexpectedly been lifted from his shoulders. He could go out into the wide fields again and breathe freely of the clean air—and as if to prove it, he took in a long breath to the bottom of his lungs as he lay there face-up in bed.

• Misako said that the affair had gone no farther than a declaration of affection, and he saw no reason to doubt her. Even so, her confession seemed enough to cancel out the debt he had been carrying. Had he in fact turned her, pushed her to another man, he wondered—if he had, then he could only be revolted at his own baseness.

• Misako said that the affair had gone no farther than a declaration of affection, and he saw no reason to doubt her.

• Misako said that the affair had gone no farther than a declaration of affection, and he saw no reason to doubt her. Even so, her confession seemed enough to cancel out the debt he had been carrying. Had he in fact turned her, pushed her to another man, he wondered—if he had, then he could only be revolted at his own baseness. But in all honesty he had simply held a secret hope that something like this might happen.

• In an excess of pain at being unable to love her as a husband should, he had only nursed a prayer, almost a dream, that someone might come along to give the luckless woman what he himself could not. But Misako’s character being what it was, he had never thought the prospects very good.

• “And have you found someone too?” she asked after she had told him of Aso. It was clear that she had nursed a hope not too different from his.

• For Kaname a woman had to be either a goddess or a plaything. Possibly the real reason for his failure with Misako was that she could be neither. Had she not been his wife he might have been able to look on her as a plaything, and the fact that she was his wife made it impossible for him to find her interesting.

• “I’ve kept this much respect for you, I think,” he said later that same night. “I may not have been able to love you, but I’ve been careful not to use you for my own pleasure.”

• “I’ve kept this much respect for you, I think,” he said later that same night. “I may not have been able to love you, but I’ve been careful not to use you for my own pleasure.” At that Misako broke into violent sobbing. “I understand that—I’m even almost grateful for it. But I’ve wanted to be loved more than I have

• “I’ve kept this much respect for you, I think,” he said later that same night. “I may not have been able to love you, but I’ve been careful not to use you for my own pleasure.” At that Misako broke into violent sobbing. “I understand that—I’m even almost grateful for it. But I’ve wanted to be loved more than I have been, even if it meant being used.”

• Even after Misako’s confession, Kaname made no effort to urge her into Aso’s arms. He said only enough to show that he claimed no right to pronounce her love affair improper and that he could not object, whatever it might develop into. And yet almost certainly his very refusal to call it improper had the indirect effect of sending her on to Aso.

• her into Aso’s arms. He said only enough to show that he claimed no right to pronounce

• “I don’t know myself what to do. I’m terribly mixed up,” she said. “If you tell me I should, I can still back out.” She would probably have been overjoyed had he said imperiously: “This foolishness must stop.” And even had he called her affair not illicit but only unwise, she would probably still have been able to leave Aso. That was what she wanted. Deep in her heart she no longer hoped for any love from the husband who had withdrawn so from her; but she did hope that he would somehow bring this new love of hers under control, put an end to

• “I don’t know myself what to do. I’m terribly mixed up,” she said. “If you tell me I should, I can still back out.” She would probably have been overjoyed had he said imperiously: “This foolishness must stop.” And even had he called her affair not illicit but only unwise, she would probably still have been able to leave Aso. That was what she wanted. Deep in her heart she no longer hoped for any love from the husband who had withdrawn so from her; but she did hope that he would somehow bring this new love of hers under control, put an end to it.

• Even afterwards he sometimes heard her sobbing in the night, no doubt from an excess of wretchedness at being turned away by this stone of a husband and yet unable to throw herself decisively into the world of her new love.

• something to talk to you about,” he said. There were early daffodils on the table, he remembered,

• “There’s something I’ve been thinking for a long time I’d like to talk over,” he said, trying to sound light and pleasant, as though perhaps he were inviting her out for a picnic.

• It presently became clear that the two of them had reached very much the same conclusions by the same route. Kaname said that it was impossible for them to love each other now, and that, though they might with their recognition of each other’s good points and their knowledge of each other’s weaknesses find themselves happily mated ten, twenty years hence, on the edge of old age, there was no point in relying on anything as indefinite as that; and Misako said she agreed.

• It presently became clear that the two of them had reached very much the same conclusions by the same route. Kaname said that it was impossible for them to love each other now, and that, though they might with their recognition of each other’s good points and their knowledge of each other’s weaknesses find themselves happily mated ten, twenty years hence, on the edge of old age, there was no point in relying on anything as indefinite as that; and Misako said she agreed. They had both concluded too that, while they were held together by affection for Hiroshi, it would be foolish to make fossils of themselves for no better reason than that. But when Kaname asked: “Would you like to separate, then?” Misako answered: “Would you?” They knew that divorce was the solution, and yet neither had the courage to propose it, each was left face to face with his own weakness.

• Since Misako had someone to marry and he had no one, he hoped that she would make the decision. But for Misako the fact that she had a lover and Kaname had none, that she alone of the two would be happy, only made it the more difficult to take the first step.

• True, she was not loved by her husband. She could not say, though, that she had been cruelly mistreated. If one was always looking for something better, then of course there was no end to one’s demands; but the world was full of unfortunate wives, and Misako, unloved but with little else to complain of, could not find it in her to make that alone the reason for abandoning her husband and child.

• But why, since they were presumably adults, did they find themselves so paralyzed at the task before them? Why were they so afraid to do what reason told them must be done? Was it simply that they were incapable of turning away from the past? Others had evidently found that time softened the pain (though certainly there was pain), once a separation was complete.

• At the end of the conversation Kaname came to his proposal. “We’ll have to arrange,” he said by way of preface, “so that we’ll be drifting into a divorce and hardly knowing it.” The ancients would perhaps have called it girlish sentimentality, this inability to face up squarely to the sorrow of a farewell. Nowadays, however, one is counted clever if one can reach a goal without tasting the sorrow, however slight it may be, that seems to lie along the way. Kaname and Misako were cowardly, and there was no point in being ashamed of it. They could only accommodate themselves to their cowardice and follow its peculiar way to happiness.

• The ancients would perhaps have called it girlish sentimentality, this inability to

• As Kaname finished speaking, he saw Misako’s face light up bright as this winter morning. “Thank you,” she said simply. There were happy tears in her eyes, as though for the first time in years the turmoil in her heart had quieted, as though she could finally look up untroubled into the open sky. Kaname, as he watched her, felt that his chains too had snapped. In all the years they had been together they had been tormented by an irritant like a fragment lodged between two back teeth. Now, ironically, they felt it dissolve, they felt a coming together without restraint, when for the first time they spoke openly of separation.

• Indeed, Kaname took special pains, when he explained the proposal, to point out its risks. “There are probably countries in the West where no one would raise an eyebrow at this sort of thing. But Japan hasn’t yet come that far, and if we are to carry it off I’m afraid we’re going to have to be extremely careful. The most important thing of course is for us to trust each other. And no matter what good intentions we may have, it will be easy enough to make mistakes. We shall all of us be in a difficult position, and we shall have to be careful not to hurt any feelings and not to cause any unnecessary emharassment. You will keep all of this in mind, I’m sure.”

• But the end of the experiment, the day when a decision would have to be made, loomed ever more fearsome. No matter how he tried to glide along, there was still the moment of parting to be faced. It could not be avoided.

• “On the one hand you say it’s hard to leave her, and on the other you pamper yourself with this wild unsteadiness. I couldn’t tolerate it myself,” Takanatsu said. “My unsteadiness is nothing new. Anyway, it seems to me that ethics have to be modified a little to suit the individual. Everyone has to build his own scheme and try to apply it.”

• “True, I suppose. And in your scheme unsteadiness is a virtue?” “I don’t say it’s exactly a virtue, but I do say it’s wrong for someone who was born indecisive to go against his nature and force himself into decisions. If he does, he generally adds to his losses and in the end he is worse off than ever. Indecisive people have to choose a course that suits them. To take my case: the final goal is a divorce, and if I reach that goal eventually, it doesn’t matter how many evasions and detours I go through on the way. I don’t think it would matter if I were even more unsteady —as you call it—than I am.”

• They say that in the West adultery is a common thing, at least among the upper classes. Most often it’s not the kind where the husband and wife are deceiving each other, but the kind where each one recognizes and ignores it—very much like my own case. I often think that if society in this country would only allow it, I could be content with some such arrangement as that for the rest of my life.”

• “It’s out of style even in the West. Marriages aren’t held together any more by religion.”

• find deep down the sound of the River Yodo. “Held back by the winter wind, By the clinging ‘willow branches, I walk, untrained to walk- How many times now, Up and back?— This strand to Hachikenya. Pressed close together all the night We lie. What is it wakes us? The crows at Amijima? The bells at Kanzanji?” Through the open second-floor window they could see the harbor in the gathering dusk, separated from them by only the waterfront road. A straits ferry, one would guess from its name, was preparing to put out to sea. It was a tiny ship, of no more than four or five hundred tons, and yet its stern almost brushed against the dock as its prow came round, so narrow was the harbor. Kaname sat on the veranda and looked out

• Kaname sat on the veranda and looked out at the concrete breakwater, small and dainty as a piece of rock candy. At the end of it was an equally diminutive lighthouse, its light already burning even though the sea was still a pale evening gold. Two or three men were fishing at its base. The scene was hardly striking, but it had about it a certain air of the south that one does

• Kaname sat on the veranda and looked out at the concrete breakwater, small and dainty as a piece of rock candy. At the end of it was an equally diminutive lighthouse, its light already burning even though the sea was still a pale evening gold. Two or three men were fishing at its base. The scene was hardly striking, but it had about it a certain air of the south that one does not find in the provinces around Tokyo.

• Though he felt a certain envy when he saw a happily married couple and drew a comparison with himself and Misako, still he was generally conscious of a vicarious pleasure mixed in with it.

• The sea, clear into the distance, was so bright a blue that it turned black as one stared at it. Even the smoke from the ships seemed motionless. Now and then, with the faintest breath of a breeze, the leaflet stirred very slightly and a tear in the paper door rustled like a kite.

• “No, I’ve seen it. They leave the inn, you remember, and Miyuki is stopped at the ford after Komazawa has crossed? Well, in the last scene she’s got across and is hurrying down Tōkaidō Highway after him.” “She’s alone?” “Someone, a young fellow—what’s his name?—has been sent by her family to take care of her,” the old man explained. “His name is Sekrisuke,” O-hisa added. The reflection flashed across the wall again. She went out to the veranda with the basin of hot water she

• O-hisa did not agree. While they waited in the entrance she took out the cream she had slipped into the bottom of her bag and applied it with soft little pats to her face, neck, wrists, even her ankles. The pains this Kyoto lady took with her fair complexion struck Kaname as at the same time charming and ridiculous.

• This little harbor, for instance: it had its electric wires and poles, its painted billboards, and here and there a display window, but one could ignore them and find on every side townsmen’s houses that might have come from an illustration to a seventeenth-century novel.

• But with the new age and its pressures, even this proud art is dying. The old dolls deteriorate until they can no longer be used, and there is almost no one who can replace them.

• Although the roof and sides were covered with straw mats, irregular chinks where they met admitted rays of sunlight to the pit and the seats around it. Here and there a patch of blue sky showed, or a stretch of waving, rustling grass down toward the river. Where another theater would have been dark with tobacco smoke, this one was fresh as the out-of-doors, and a spring breeze came in over meadows bright with dandelions and the mauve of clover.

• The audience was mostly in the pit, gathered here and there in little knots, each knot beginning its own celebration.

• Indeed, now that he thought of it, the lacquer did go well with the theater lunch, with the pale tones of its omelets and rice balls. There were lively reds and whites throughout the theater, and somehow the food was more appetizing by virtue of the color effect.

• Japanese food is meant to be looked at and not eaten, people sometimes say. Perhaps they are right if they are making fun of the formal banquet carefully laid out on its trays. But here the colors were more than only pleasant to look at; they worked on the appetite, made even the unremarkable rice and pickles seem a little more exciting.

• She had walked past the restaurants and found them all a little hard to go into, not the sort of restaurants she liked, and she had found herself at the inn and had hired a rickshaw to bring her back. She wondered what the other young women did (the old women, of course, were up to anything), whether they really managed with those open buckets.

• Meanwhile, unaffected by the confusion, the play took its course and singers came and went. Perhaps a little heady from sake taken so early in the day and from the conversation buzzing so violently around him, Kaname saw it only as a succession of flickering images quite detached from any narrative. Not that he was bored or annoyed. The sensation was rather the pleasant one of pickling in a warm bath, or perhaps of sleeping fitfully on a warm morning, a sweet, unhurried, languorous sensation.

• Perhaps a little heady from sake taken so early in the day and from the conversation buzzing so violently around him, Kaname saw it only as a succession of flickering images quite detached from any narrative. Not that he was bored or annoyed. The sensation was rather the pleasant one of pickling in a warm bath, or perhaps of sleeping fitfully on a warm morning, a sweet, unhurried, languorous sensation.

• To conform to a type, to be the captive of a form, means the decadence of an art, it is sometimes said.

• O-hisa laughed softly, her dark front teeth showing under her deep cone-shaped sunshade. “Give my best to Misako,” she said.

• The pious Buddhist aphorism written in large characters on the sections of O-hisa’s sunshade (part of her pilgrim’s equipment) gradually faded away: “For the benighted the illusions of the world. For the enlightened the knowledge that all is vanity. In the beginning there was no east and west. Where then is there a north and south?”

• A sensitive woman, a woman with ideas, can only get more troublesome and less likable with the years. Surely, then, one does better to fall in love with the sort of woman one can cherish as a doll.

• Kaname had no illusions about his ability to imitate the old man; but still, when he thought of his own family affairs, of that perpetual knowing countenance and of the endless disagreements, the old man’s life—off to Awaji appointed like a doll on the stage, accompanied by a doll, in search of an old doll to buy—seemed to suggest a profound spiritual peace reached without training and without effort.

• Waves danced and shimmered across the ceiling, the serenity of spring on the Inland Sea reflected blue into the softly lighted room. Now and then, as the shadow of an island passed, a smell compounded of flowers and the tide seemed to press stealthily in on him.

• Kaname had heard that foreign women tend to weep, but this was the first time he had actually seen one of them weeping.

• Kaname had heard that foreign women tend to weep, but this was the first time he had

• She had the dignity that went with her position, she had a lively personality, and she still preserved something of the charm of her youth.

• In the old days she would buttonhole a customer and boast of some foreign count who had slipped into one of her places the evening before, or, an English-language newspaper spread in front of her, she would launch forth on the subject of England’s Far Eastern policies, mystifying her customers with deep and subtle questions. The old bluff had disappeared, however, and only a propensity for lies remained. It had become a disease, almost too obvious and easily detected a disease.

• There is a type of old and unwanted geisha, found often at country teahouses, who will seize a customer she barely knows and pour out all her misfortunes for him, who intoxicates herself with the cheapest sentimentality. The Madam here, one had to admit, was of the type.

• Or possibly English was especially suited for sad occasions? In Japanese he had never spoken half so sweetly and softly to his wife or his dead mother.

• Going home in the daylight took away the unpleasantness of the aftertaste and made it possible to pass the adventure off in the spirit of an afternoon walk.

• Only one thing bothered him: the smell of Louise’s powder, a particularly strong and stubborn smell. It seemed to sink deep into his skin, it permeated his clothes, it even spread through the taxi when he left and overwhelmed the room when he got home.

• Kaname at first treated her advances as of no more consequence than those pleasantries a man will embark on when he is trying to be attractive to women, but presently it began to seem that Louise took them more seriously.

• In the days when he still believed what she told him, the idea of her Western birth—and in that he was no different from most young Japanese men —had drawn him to her with a special fascination. Louise’s best points, one might say, were that she was fully aware of the attraction and took great care not to show her real color, and that, given this need to deceive, her body and skin and features made it possible for her to carry the deceit off.

• He rather admired men who could turn from their wives with decision and find consolation in more satisfactory women, and he thought sometimes that if he had been capable of following their example things could somehow have been patched up between him and Misako. He neither boasted of this particular quirk of his nor apologized for it. He sometimes interpreted it to himself, however, less as a hard sense of duty than as a pandering to his own laziness and a fussy prudishness. To keep for a lifetime companion a woman with whom he did not feel half—not a quarter—the delight he felt when he embraced a woman of a different nation and a different race, a woman whom he encountered, so to speak, only at scattered points along the way—surely that was an intolerable dislocation. Notes

• He rather admired men who could turn from their wives with decision and find consolation in more satisfactory women, and he thought sometimes that if he had been capable of following their example things could somehow have been patched up between him and Misako.

• To keep for a lifetime companion a woman with whom he did not feel half—not a quarter—the delight he felt when he embraced a woman of a different nation and a different race, a woman whom he encountered, so to speak, only at scattered points along the way—surely that was an intolerable dislocation.

• Misako had argued that the news must be broken face to face, that if one tried to explain through a letter, mistakes were sure to arise.

• Misako had argued that the news must be broken face to face, that if one tried to explain through a letter, mistakes were sure to arise. Kaname had not been able to answer the argument very successfully, but there were reasons why he had felt he must first send off a warning, and

• Misako had argued that the news must be broken face to face, that if one tried to explain through a letter, mistakes were sure to arise. Kaname had not been able to answer the argument very successfully, but there were reasons why he had felt he must first send off a warning, and after a few days go for a conference.

• He wanted to lessen the shock as much as he could, and he knew that, after those pleasant days on Awaji when he had not so much as hinted that anything was amiss, he would not be able to bring the matter up without having sent off a preliminary explanation.

• Surely one could have expected the old man to be a little more understanding, in view of his own hardly puritanical past.

• He liked to let it be known that he was an uncompromising gentleman of the old school. That, however, was an affectation, a hobby of sorts, common enough with men his age, and when it came to practical and immediate matters he ought really to be a little more up with the times.

• Kaname had taken great pains to phrase his letter in terms that could arouse neither accusations nor apologies. But perhaps the old man’s letter, full as it was of formal rhetorical flights, was to be taken as no more than a gesture demanded

• Kaname had taken great pains to phrase his letter in terms that could arouse neither accusations nor apologies. But perhaps the old man’s letter, full as it was of formal rhetorical flights, was to be taken as no more than a gesture demanded by his standards of good form.

• “What am I going to do?” “Are you going to Kyoto with me?” “I couldn’t bear to.” It was clear from the way she threw out the words that she really couldn’t.

• To hide her self-consciousness she flung her words at him with a certain harshness, blowing smoke rings from a gold-ripped cigarette all the while.

• Though she was probably not aware of it, her speech and her facial expressions were changing. Perhaps it was Aso’s influence. Perhaps she was taking over his mannerisms.

• Though she was probably not aware of it, her speech and her facial expressions were changing. Perhaps it was Aso’s influence. Perhaps she was taking over his mannerisms. It was at times like this that Kaname was most painfully aware of how far from him his wife had gone.

• The Misako he saw here—was she not an entirely new person? She had—who knows when?— slipped free of her past and the destiny it had carried with it.

• The Misako he saw here—was she not an entirely new person? She had—who knows when?— slipped free of her past and the destiny it had carried with it. Kaname found that sad, but the sadness seemed rather different from regret. And so, perhaps, the final crisis

• The Misako he saw here—was she not an entirely new person? She had—who knows when?— slipped free of her past and the destiny it had carried with it. Kaname found that sad, but the sadness seemed rather different from regret. And so, perhaps, the final crisis that he so dreaded had already passed…

• Misako was determined, of course, and yet her very hardness was somehow brittle and fragile, and under the surface she seemed consumed by the strongest doubts.

• Misako was determined, of course, and yet her very hardness was somehow brittle and fragile, and under the surface she seemed consumed by the strongest doubts. It would take very little, Kaname thought, to make her collapse in tears. Both of them dreaded such a crisis and both of them were constantly on guard to avoid it, but even now as they talked to each other it seemed as though the workings of an instant could cancel out the distance they had come and put them back again at the beginning.

• “If you’ll excuse me, then—” The prospect of further discussion apparently too much for her, Misako glanced at the clock as though to signal that the usual hour for her to go out had come, and got up with a rather harried look to change her clothes.

• He would have liked some tea, but the maids were evidently shut in their rooms and no one answered. Hiroshi was not yet back from school. Kaname felt lonely and abandoned in the quiet house. Ought he perhaps to go to see Louise again? Always at times like this the urge came upon him, but today for some reason he pitied himself more than usual.

• The sliding doors, the alcove decorations, the trees outside, were all in place and unchanged, and yet the whole seemed stark and gaping.

• Lying on the matted floor, Kaname looked with new interest at the mellowed woodwork, at the stand in the alcove and the trailing branch of bright yellow flowers, at the polished wood in the hall reflecting the light from outside like water. For all the excitement of her love affair, Misako still changed the decorations in the Japanese rooms now and then, the hangings and the flowers, to harmonize with the changing of the seasons.

• Lying on the matted floor, Kaname looked with new interest at the mellowed woodwork, at the stand in the alcove and the trailing branch of bright yellow flowers, at the polished wood in the hall reflecting the light from outside like water. For all the excitement of her love affair, Misako still changed the decorations in the Japanese rooms now and then, the hangings and the flowers, to harmonize with the changing of the seasons. No doubt she did it from inertia and habit. Still, when Kaname thought of the day when the flowers would disappear, he knew that even this lifeless marriage, like the sheen of woodwork seen and remembered morning and evening and morning again, was something so near

• Lying on the matted floor, Kaname looked with new interest at the mellowed woodwork, at the stand in the alcove and the trailing branch of bright yellow flowers, at the polished wood in the hall reflecting the light from outside like water. For all the excitement of her love affair, Misako still changed the decorations in the Japanese rooms now and then, the hangings and the flowers, to harmonize with the changing of the seasons. No doubt she did it from inertia and habit. Still, when Kaname thought of the day when the flowers would disappear, he knew that even this lifeless marriage, like the sheen of woodwork seen and remembered morning and evening and morning again, was something so near and so familiar that it would continue to pull at him even after it was gone.

• As he started to push it out of sight under the lining of the dresser drawer, his hand brushed against something. Misako had hidden Takanatsu’s letter in the same drawer. “I wonder if I ought to read it.” He hesitated before he took it from the envelope. She had hidden it carefully and could hardly have forgotten where. He could see now how little she had wanted to show it to him—indeed, her harried manner had said as much. But she was not given to hiding things from him. The contents must be particularly unpleasant, he thought.

• “He gave me too much freedom,” you say, or “I wish I had never met Aso.” If you could say only a fraction of that directly to Kaname—if there were only that much frankness between you two as husband and wife— but I shall say no more.

• Presumptuous though it may seem, I should like you to know that I want to do what little I can, as a relative and as the friend who knows them best, to help both Kaname and Hiroshi. I believe that both of them can stand a shock. The way through life is not always smooth, and it is good for a boy to have his troubles. Indeed, Kaname himself has had all too few. A really serious blow might teach him to pamper himself a little less.

• As Kaname had expected, the old man showed none of the dismay his letter had suggested. He was calm and amiable as ever, quite ignoring Misako, who sat glumly outside the conversation.

• “You can stay tonight, can’t you?” the old man asked. “We could, yes… We came without deciding definitely, though.” Kaname glanced for the first time at his wife. “I’m going back,” she said almost defiantly. “Can’t you have your talk and be finished early?”

• “I’m afraid we can’t. I tried to cover everything in my letter… There must be parts of it you will want explained, though.” “No, no—I understand in a general way. But, Kaname, if you want my opinion in a word, I say you’re in the wrong.” Startled at the directness, Kaname opened his mouth to answer. The old man cut him off and continued: “I suppose that is a little too strong. But don’t you think you put too much faith in what you call being reasonable? The times are what they are, and I can’t keep you from treating your wife as if she were another man of the world, I suppose. You shouldn’t be surprised, though, if you find it doesn’t work as you think it ought to.

• You had Misako choose another husband on a trial basis because you didn’t have the qualifications yourself, you say. That’s not very realistic. You talk about being modern, but there are some things you simply can’t do in that free, open way of yours.”

• The world has come to be a much more complicated place, when you think about it… But if you send a woman away, even for a trial, and she discovers halfway through that she’s made a mistake, then she’s in the predicament of not being able to come back, no matter how much she may want to.

• “I’ll never tell her you said so, Kaname, but leaving the problem of Misako to me, would it be possible for you yourself to reconsider? I won’t argue with you, maybe because old people want peace at any price. If the two of you aren’t suited for each other, though, if you think you’re not compatible, don’t worry too much about it. Time will pass and you’ll find that you are very much suited for each other after all.

• O-hisa’s far younger than I, and we aren’t what you could call well matched, but when two people live together, an affection does develop, and somehow they get by while they’re waiting for it to. Can’t you say after all that that’s what a marriage is?

• There lay behind the words a father’s sorrow that Kaname felt he had to respect. “I could have done better in many ways, I suppose,” he began finally. “I sometimes tell myself it would have been better if I had done this or that. But it’s all past now, and the main thing is that Misako has definitely made up her mind.”

• “I’m sure it will do you no good. As a matter of fact, she dreaded having to talk to you—that’s the real reason we’re so late. We would have come sooner, but time went by while we argued. It really was something of a battle to get her to come even this late. Finally she agreed, but said that her mind was made up and that I’d have to do all the talking, and the listening if you had anything to say.”

• “So I kept telling her. Anyway, she’s excited and upset and would rather not quarrel with you, and she wants me to act as her agent somehow and get your blessing—that I’m sure is how she feels.

• Kaname could not guess what the decisive arguments might have been, but they were perhaps not too different from the ones he had used himself on the way up from Osaka: “If you cross him, you may find your last chance gone for getting through this safely.”

• He had developed his private scatological philosophy, something like this: “A pure white bath or toilet is a piece of Western foolishness. It matters little, you may say, because no one is around to see, but a device that sets your own sewage out in front of your eyes is highly offensive to good taste. How much more proper to dispose of it modestly in as dark and out-of-the-way a corner as you can find.”

• “You can hear cuckoos in my garden,” the old man was fond of boasting, and Kaname strained his ears to pick up a cuckoo’s call even now. All he could hear, however, was a frog in some distant paddy prophesying rain, and the steady humming of the mosquitoes.

• “All old people are that way.” Kaname laughed again. “That reminds me. I noticed the bran bag. You still use it?” “That’s right. He uses soap himself, but he won’t let me. He says women mustn’t ruin their skin with soap.”

• “All old people are that way.” Kaname laughed again. “That reminds me. I noticed the bran bag. You still use it?” “That’s right. He uses soap himself, but he won’t let me. He says women mustn’t ruin their skin with soap.” “And the nightingale dung?” “I go on with that too. But it hasn’t made my skin a bit whiter.”

• There had of course been those two or three nights—their first alone in he did not know how many years— when Hiroshi was in Tokyo with Takanatsu; but they had been able then to lie down side by side and go off to sleep as unconcernedly as two strangers at an inn, so deadened had their marital nerves become.

• “Hasn’t it grown heavy?” said Kaname. “Not a breath of air.” He looked out to the veranda. The incense, on the point of going out, sent a column of smoke straight and unwavering into the air.

• Above the motionless leaves a star here and there broke through the clouds. For a moment he thought he could hear, as with a sixth sense, Misako’s voice fighting back the old man; and he knew that almost unconsciously he had come to a point where he could support his wife’s decision with an even stronger one of his own.