Spring Snow (39 page)
Authors: Yukio Mishima
Although Honda was well aware that a man in love has no room in his heart for anything but his feelings and loses even his ability to sympathize with the sorrows of others, he could imagine no heart more naturally suited than Kiyoaki’s to be such a vessel of pure passion, cold and tough as tempered glass.
∗
A week later, the two princes began their homeward journey on an English ship, and Kiyoaki and Honda went to Yokohama to see them off. Since it was in the middle of the summer vacation, none of the princes’ other classmates were on hand. In deference to his close ties with Siam, however, Prince Toin sent his steward to represent him. Kiyoaki greeted the man coolly, exchanging no more than a word or two.
As the huge cargo-passenger liner pulled away from the pier, the trailing streamers parted and were carried away by the wind. The two princes stood on the fantail to one side of the Union Jack snapping in the breeze, and waved their handkerchiefs unceasingly.
Long after the ship was far out into the channel and all the other well-wishers had gone, Kiyoaki stayed on, despite the torrid heat of the afternoon sun that beat down on the pier, until Honda could not help urging him to leave. Kiyoaki was not parting with the two princes from Siam. He felt, rather, that it was his youth, or the most glorious part of it, that was about to vanish below the horizon.
36
WHEN AUTUMN CAME
, classes started once more, and meetings between Kiyoaki and Satoko became more and more restricted. Tadeshina had to take the most extreme precautions to enable them to go walking together in the early evening without being discovered.
They had to be careful to avoid even the lamplighters who still made their rounds in that one part of Toriizaka. With their tight-collared uniforms they carried long poles which they thrust under the protective mantle of each streetlight into the gas jet below. By the time this hurried ceremony was completed daily at dusk, the streets of the neighborhood were emptied of passersby. It was therefore a time when Kiyoaki and Satoko could walk through the crooked back lanes in comparative security. The chorus of insects grew louder at this hour, but the lights in the windows were not unduly bright. Many houses had no gates to separate them from the street, and the two of them could even hear the footsteps of a returning husband and then the noise of a door being shut.
“Everything will be over in a month or two. The Toinnomiyas will certainly not be willing to delay the betrothal ceremony longer than that,” Satoko said rather mildly, as if she were talking about someone else. “Every night when I go to bed, I think: it will end tomorrow, something irrevocable will happen tomorrow. And then, strangely enough, I sleep peacefully. That’s just what we’re doing now—something that can’t be undone.”
“Well, suppose even after the engagement ceremony . . .”
“Kiyo, what are you saying? If we increase our sins any more than we have, your gentle spirit will be crushed. Instead of thinking of things like that, I would rather keep counting how many times I will still be able to see you.”
“You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you? In due course, you’re going to forget everything, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Though I don’t yet know just how I’ll be able to do it. The path we’re taking is not a road, Kiyo, it’s a pier, and it ends someplace where the sea begins. It can’t be helped.”
That was indeed the first time they had talked about the end. And confronted by it, they felt no more responsibility than a pair of children. They had no plans in mind, nothing to fall back on, no solution, no plan of action—and they felt that all this testified to the purity of their intentions. Still, once they had mentioned the final separation, the idea clung to their minds like rust.
Had they embarked on all this without considering the end? Or had they begun their affair precisely because they had thought about its end? Kiyoaki did not know. He thought that if the two of them were suddenly charred to ashes by a bolt of lightning, well and good. But what was he to do if no dreadful punishment fell from the skies and things remained as they were? It made him uneasy. “If that were the case,” he wondered, “would I be able to go on loving Satoko just as passionately as I do now?”
It was the first time that he had experienced an anxiety of this sort. It made him take Satoko by the hand. But when she linked her fingers with his in response, he was irritated and tightened his grip with almost paralyzing force. She did not let out the smallest cry of pain. He maintained his hold with the same force, and when the light of a stray beam from a distant second-story window showed him a trace of tears in her eyes, he felt a black satisfaction.
This, he knew, was further proof of the hidden, savage essence of the elegance he had cultivated for so long. Surely the simplest solution was for them to die together, but he felt that something far more agonizing was called for. The taboo that they were violating even now with every fleeting moment of this secret meeting, and that was growing more formidable with each violation, fascinated Kiyoaki and drove him on, like the peal of a distant, forever unattainable golden bell. The more he sinned, the more the sense of sin eluded him. And the end? How could things end otherwise than in a gross deception, he thought with a shudder.
“It seems that you don’t much enjoy walking with me like this,” she said in her usual clear and untroubled tones. “I am drinking in every passing moment of happiness, but . . . you seem to have had enough of it.”
“It’s just that I’ve come to love you too much. And happiness is something I’ve left far behind me,” he answered gravely. Even as he uttered this rationalization, he realized that he need no longer worry about any trace of childishness in the way he spoke.
The lane they were in was now approaching Roppongi and its clustered shops. A faded flag bearing the character for ice hung in front of an ice house with closed shutters, a forlorn sight on this street echoing with the cries of insects. When they had gone a little farther, they came to a window that spilled light into their path. The shop belonged to a dealer in musical instruments named Tabé, who, according to his sign, was accredited to the band of the Azabu Regiment. He was apparently working late on some sort of urgent order.
They skirted the pool of light, but even so a dazzling glare of brass from the window lit up the corners of their eyes for a moment. A line of new bugles hung there, and they flashed with a brilliance more suited to a midsummer parade ground under the extravagance of the lights above them. From inside the shop came the sudden, melancholy note of a bugle, a single, experimental blast that ceased as soon as it was heard. It struck Kiyoaki’s ears like the prelude of doom.
“Please turn back. There’ll be too many people up ahead,” Tadeshina whispered to Kiyoaki. She had slipped up close behind them unnoticed.
37
THE
T
OINNOMIYAS
made no attempt to intrude on the course of Satoko’s life. Prince Harunori was taken up with his military duties, and no one else among those concerned troubled to arrange a meeting between the Prince and Satoko, nor did Prince Harunori himself give any sign that he wanted one. All this, however, by no means implied that the Toinnomiyas were treating her coolly. In terms of the progression of such betrothals, everything was going smoothly. Those around the Prince believed that frequent meetings between the two young people whose marriage was a foregone conclusion could yield no profit and might well engender some mishap.
In the meantime, there were those accomplishments expected of a young lady who was about to become a princess. Had she been the daughter of a family whose quality might be even slightly in question, she would have had to undergo a varied course of training that conceded little to any previous education. But the tradition of good breeding maintained in Count Ayakura’s household was so strong that a daughter of his could rise with ease to the status of princess. Such elegance had become so much a part of Satoko that she could, whenever she wished, compose poems worthy of a princess, write in a hand suitable for a princess, arrange flowers as befitted a princess. There would have been no obstacle to her becoming a princess at any time after her twelfth birthday.
Count Ayakura and his wife, however, were both concerned about three accomplishments that so far had not been featured in her education. They were therefore anxious that she should familiarize herself with them as soon as possible. These were singing
nagauta
and playing mahjong, of which Princess Toin was so fond, and listening to European records, the favorite diversion of Prince Harunori himself. After the Count had explained the situation to him, Marquis Matsugae immediately arranged to have a
nagauta
master come and give lessons to Satoko, and he also had a German gramophone delivered to the Ayakuras, together with all the available records. Finding an instructor for something like mahjong, however, presented him with a harder task. Though he himself was an avid player of English-style billiards, he was nevertheless scandalized that a noble family of such exalted rank could take pleasure in so plebeian a game as mahjong.
nagauta
and playing mahjong, of which Princess Toin was so fond, and listening to European records, the favorite diversion of Prince Harunori himself. After the Count had explained the situation to him, Marquis Matsugae immediately arranged to have a
nagauta
master come and give lessons to Satoko, and he also had a German gramophone delivered to the Ayakuras, together with all the available records. Finding an instructor for something like mahjong, however, presented him with a harder task. Though he himself was an avid player of English-style billiards, he was nevertheless scandalized that a noble family of such exalted rank could take pleasure in so plebeian a game as mahjong.
It so happened that the proprietress of the geisha house in Yanagibashi and her oldest geisha were both skilled mahjong players. And so the Marquis arranged for them to pay frequent visits to the Ayakura residence and make a foursome with Tadeshina to introduce Satoko to the game. He himself, of course, paid the extra fee for the trips they made.
One would expect that this foursome, including two professionals, would have brought an unaccustomed touch of frivolity to the austere atmosphere of the Ayakura household. Tadeshina, however, was immovable in her opposition. She pretended that it was an affront to her dignity, but she was in fact terrified that the keen eyes of these two women of the world would uncover Satoko’s secret. And even if this did not happen, these mahjong games would nevertheless offer the occasion for Marquis Matsugae to plant paid spies in the Ayakura residence.
The proprietress and the old geisha lost no time in interpreting Tadeshina’s unyielding arrogance as a calculated insult, and their reaction took less than three days to reach the ears of the Marquis. He bided his time, and at the first favorable opportunity, gently reproved Count Ayakura.
“Indeed it’s most admirable that a faithful old servant of yours should value your family dignity so highly, but surely in this case the whole object is to cater to the pleasure of the Prince’s family, so some degree of forbearance may be in order. And then these Yanagibashi women look upon this as a glorious opportunity to be of service, and so, busy as they are, they’re willing to take the time to come.”
The Count conveyed all this to Tadeshina, putting her in an extremely awkward position.
Satoko and the two women had in fact met before. On the day of the cherry blossom garden party, the proprietress had been in charge behind the scenes and the old geisha had played the part of the haiku master. When they had come for the first mahjong session, the proprietress had delivered a speech of congratulation to the Count and Countess on the engagement and had also brought an extravagant present:
“What a beautiful lady your daughter is! And as she is possessed of the gracious dignity of a born princess, how pleased you must be at this betrothal. The memory of your permitting us to be associated with it will remain with us forever, and we will pass it on from generation to generation—in the utmost secrecy of course.”
After this commendable expression of their esteem, however, the proprietress and her companion had not been quite up to maintaining the proper veneer when they retired to another room and sat down at the mahjong table with Tadeshina and Satoko. The eyes so overflowing with damp devotion to Satoko would, from time to time, run dry, exposing the shoals of criticism beneath. Tadeshina was distastefully conscious of the same look turned upon her and her old-fashioned silver obi clip. But still more disturbing than that was an incident that occurred at the very beginning.
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