Temple Of Dawn (27 page)
Authors: Yukio Mishima
The party had come to a close near midnight. Only the overnight guests still remained, gathered in a small circle. Gradually they withdrew to their assigned bedrooms. After the two guest rooms upstairs, came Honda’s study, which in turn adjoined the master bedroom. Once she had seen the guests off, exhaustion had settled in, numbing Rié’s body to the very tips of her swollen fingers. She had retired to her bedroom after bidding her husband good night. Alone in the study, Honda still saw the backs of his wife’s hands which were so swollen they gave off a dull sheen. Rié had triumphantly shown them to him.
The malice spreading inside had pushed outward, swelling her skin, erasing the angularity of her hands, which had taken on a strangely puffy, childish appearance that stayed with him a long time. He had suggested a private celebration in their bedroom on the occasion of the house-warming, but he had been turned down. If his suggestion had not been vetoed, what would have happened? Something desolate must flow under that nauseous subcutaneous fat of kindness and sympathy.
Honda looked about his Western study, with its pretentious bright window and its clean desk. When he really worked hard, the study was never like this. Then it had an unmanageable disorderliness, like that of living itself, and it smelled like a chicken roost. Now, on the arty desk fashioned from a single zelkova plank an English writing set of Moroccan leather had been placed. In the pen plate were several pencils neatly sharpened, all in a line, embossed letters freshly shining like the insignia on cadets’ collars. There was also his bronze alligator paperweight—inherited from his father—and an empty letter box of meshed bamboo.
He rose frequently and crossed over to wipe the panes in the bay window with its curtains still open, for the moon shining through the glass was clouded and distorted by the heat in the room. He was certain that unless the moon were permitted to stay clear, the emptiness and disgust that flooded his heart would expand and expand, and the dark turmoil would be transformed into sexual desire. It astonished him to discover that it was just such a landscape that awaited him at the end of his life’s journey. The dog’s mournful bark sounded again, and the fragile cypress trees creaked in the wind.
It was some time since his wife had gone to sleep in the next room. Honda switched off the light in the study and walked over to the bookcases that flanked the wall of the guest room. Quietly he took down a number of Western books and piled them on the floor. What he had himself labeled the “disease of objectivity” now overcame him. The minute he surrendered to it he would be forced to antagonize all society which until now had been on his side.
But why? he wondered. This too was a part of the varied aspects of human behavior which he had objectively observed from the bench or from the lawyer’s seat for so many years. How could it be that observing from those vantage points was perfectly legal, but looking as he would now a violation of the law? Observation in that manner had made him the object of approval by society, while watching like this was subject to reproach and contempt. If this were a crime, it was probably because he derived so much pleasure from it. Yet his experience as judge had taught him the pleasure to be found in a clear mind, devoid of private desire. And if that enjoyment was noble because it was not accompanied by any quickening of the pulse, could it be that the essence of criminality lay in the palpitation of the heart? This innermost response of a human being, this palpitation in the face of pleasure—could that be the most significant ingredient in any violation of the law?
All this was sophistry. As he pulled the books from the bookcase, Honda felt a throbbing in his heart similar to that of a young boy, and he was made sharply aware how weak and vulnerable his very existence was vis-à-vis society. He was alone and helpless. The forces that had held him high as on a scaffolding had now been removed. Like the sand trickling in an hourglass, the inexorable endless descent had started. In that case, law and society were already his enemies. Had he possessed a little more courage and were this not his own study but some corner of a park where young grass grew or perhaps a dark byroad speckled with the lights of houses, he would then in reality become a most shameful criminal. People would jeer: “The judge became attorney, and the attorney a criminal!” They would say that here was a man who had never stopped loving the court throughout his life!
Once the books were removed, a small hole appeared before him in the wall. The dusty, dark space was just large enough for his face. The dusty smell suddenly filled Honda’s heart with keen memories of youth, striking the meager red sparks of the secret pleasures of childhood. He remembered the texture of the dark-blue velvet coverlet mixed with the odor of the toilet. The first obscene word he had discovered in a dictionary. All the melancholic, foul odors of boyhood. He discovered in his throbbing heart the faintest caricature of the noble passion that had urged Kiyoaki toward final catastrophe. Whatever it was, it was a single dark passage that connected the nineteen-year-old Kiyoaki and the fifty-seven-year-old Honda. As he closed his eyes, an illusion sprang up, in the darkness of the bookcase, of scattered particles of red flesh flying about like a cluster of mosquitoes.
The guest room next to his study was occupied by Makiko and Mrs. Tsubakihara. Imanishi occupied the chamber beyond. Honda had definitely sensed some sort of communication between the two rooms; he had heard doors opening surreptitiously and then the sound of muffled voices, scolding whispers, similar to spatterings on the surface of water. The noise stopped and then began again. Something was being precipitated on the plane that inclined into the depth of night, as though an ivory die were cast and was rolling down a tilted board.
He had an idea of what was taking place. But what met his eyes was more than he had imagined.
In the adjacent guest room twin beds had been placed parallel to the wall with the secret opening. The bed directly below the hole was almost completely out of his view, but the other was entirely visible. The night lamp was on, but the bed itself was veiled in shadow.
Honda was startled to see in the pale light a pair of wide-open eyes staring into his. They belonged to none other than Makiko.
She was sitting on the far bed clad in a white night kimono. The collar of the robe was primly closed, and her silvery hair shone dimly in the light that came from one side. She had cleansed her face of cosmetics, and its whiteness of former days had not changed. It still was clear and cold. Her age was revealed in the round shoulders where the plump flesh had drooped, but for the most part her confidence in the imperviousness of her being, never threatened through the long years, was obvious in the regular breathing of her breast. It was as if the essence of night were seated there, clad in white. Honda felt as though he were looking at Mount Fuji on a moonlit night. The gentle slope at the foot of the mountain was covered in the flowing creases of the blue-lined blanket. Makiko’s lap was half hidden under the coverlet on which she languidly leaned her arm.
Her eyes, that appeared at first to have caught Honda’s peeping gaze, were not really turned toward the hole. They were lowered and were gazing at the bed placed against the wall.
Seeing only her eyes, one would be convinced that Makiko was concentrating on the creation of a poem as she gazed into some river which happened to lie just beneath. It was that time of night when the human spirit could grasp a certain vivid turmoil in the air and would struggle to crystallize it. In making the effort, one’s eyes would become like those of a hunter about to shoot. Seeing only her eyes, one could but feel the sublimity of her soul.
Makiko was not looking at a river or a fish, but at human forms writhing on the shadowy bed. Honda elevated his head until he struck the top of the bookcase in an effort to see down through the small peephole. He could in this way observe what was taking place on the bed beyond the wall. A man’s thin, pale thighs were twined about those of a woman. Immediately below him were two heaps of withered flesh hardly bursting with vigor, swaying slowly like aquatic animals as they made contact. They gleamed damply in the faint light; the devourer was unmistakably being devoured; obvious trickery was going hand in hand with sincere tremors. Two mounds of moist pubic hair touched and separated; and a white patch where the light struck the woman’s belly, as if a piece of white tissue had been inserted between the two bodies, pierced Honda’s awestricken eyes.
Whatever the situation, Imanishi had shamelessly exposed the pitiful thighs of an intellectual in heat. True to his theories, the cheerless, rippling oscillation of his flat buttocks, between which appeared a wasted coccyx, was merely a momentary illusion. His obvious lack of sincerity angered Honda.
Compared to him, Mrs. Tsubakihara was earnestness itself; he could see her hands stretched out like those of a drowning woman, her fingers desperately grasping at Imanishi’s hair. At last, she called her son’s name. It was a suppressed, faint cry:
“Akio, Akio. Forgive me . . .” Her words were muffled in sobs, but Imanishi was not affected in the least.
Honda, suddenly recognizing the solemnity and loathsomeness of the situation, bit his lips. It was now clear. Whether Makiko had ordered her to perform or not, it was obviously not the first time that Mrs. Tsubakihara had been involved in this sort of exhibition for Makiko and probably only for her. This was the very essence of the teacher-student relationship between Makiko and Mrs. Tsubakihara, their contempt and dedication.
Honda looked at Makiko again. She was looking down serenely, her silvery hair shining and floating over her head. They were of a different sex, but Honda realized that Makiko was his exact counterpart.
28
THE NEXT DAY
was beautiful and sunny. The Hondas had invited their three overnight guests and Keiko to drive in two separate cars to the Sengen Shrine at Fuji-Yoshida. Except for Keiko, they all planned to depart for Tokyo from there, and Honda had locked up before leaving the villa. Just as he was closing the door, he had the sudden premonition that Ying Chan would come during his absence; but that was most unlikely.
Honda had just been reading the
Honcho monzui
, “Compositions of Elegance Composed in Japan,” which Imanishi had brought for him. Of course, he had wished to read the “Essays on Mount Fuji” by Yoshika no Miyako and had asked Imanishi to get him a copy.
Honcho monzui
, “Compositions of Elegance Composed in Japan,” which Imanishi had brought for him. Of course, he had wished to read the “Essays on Mount Fuji” by Yoshika no Miyako and had asked Imanishi to get him a copy.
“Mount Fuji is located in the province of Suruga; its peak, as if sharpened, towers high into the heavens.” Such descriptions held little interest, but then a passage followed that struck Honda so strongly that it had long remained in his memory; he had not had the chance of reading it again since then.
An old man recounted: On the fifth day of the eleventh month in the seventeenth year of Jokan (
A
.
D
. 875), officials and people gathered to hold a celebration in accordance with tradition. The sun emerged around noon, and the sky was extremely beautiful and clear. As the spectators looked up to the summit of the mountain, they saw two beautiful women in white garments dancing together. Both were floating more than a foot above the peak. All the inhabitants of the land saw them.
It was not strange that such optical illusions should occur on a fine day at Mount Fuji, for it often produced various chimera. Frequently a quiet wind at the sloping foot of the mountain would develop into a strong gale at the top, carrying a mist of snow into the blue sky. It was probably this snow dust that had appeared in the form of two beautiful women to the inhabitants’ eyes.
Fuji was cold and self-assured, but through its confident coldness and whiteness it permitted all possible fantasies. In ultimate frigidity is vertigo, just as delirium characterizes the extreme of reason. Fuji was a mysterious ultimate of perfection and its beauty verged on a vague lyricism. It was at once infinite and finite. It was quite possible that two beautiful women in white garments had danced there.
In addition, Honda was charmed by the fact that the spirit enshrined at the Sengen Shrine was a goddess called Konohana Sakuya.
Mrs. Tsubakihara, Makiko, and Imanishi rode in Mrs. Tsubakihara’s car, and the Hondas and Keiko took the limousine Honda had engaged for his return to Tokyo. This was a natural arrangement, but Honda had vaguely wanted to be in the same car as Makiko and experienced a pang of regret. He had wanted to sit next to her and look into the intense eyes he had seen the night before, the eyes of a huntress ready to launch her arrow.
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