Temple Of Dawn (43 page)

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Authors: Yukio Mishima

BOOK: Temple Of Dawn
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The second-floor guest-room windows reflecting on the surface of the water had been opened to let in the air, and the white lace curtains were fluttering. Tonight Ying Chan was expected behind that window, the one from which she had once climbed to the roof in the middle of the night and nimbly jumped down to the ground. The act made him think that she could only have sprouted wings. Had she not really flown away when he had not been watching? How could one be sure that Ying Chan astride a peacock, unobserved by him, had not freed herself from the bondage of this existence and been transformed into a being beyond time and space? He was clearly enchanted by the lack of any proof that she had not and the impossibility of ascertaining that indeed she could not. When he reached this conclusion he realized the mystical nature of his love.
The surface of the swimming pool seemed as though some fisherman had cast a net of light over it. His wife was silent, her little swollen hands so like those of a Japanese doll lay on the edge of the table half covered by the shadow of the beach umbrella.
Honda could immerse himself in his thoughts.
The reality of Ying Chan was limited by the Ying Chan he could observe. She was a girl with beautiful black hair and a constant smile and a penchant for not keeping promises, yet a very determined young woman of impenetrable emotions. It was certain that the Ying Chan one saw was not all there was. For Honda, longing for the Ying Chan he could not see, love depended on the unknown; and naturally perception was related to the known. If he drove his perceptions on and with them plundered the unknown, thereby increasing the area of the known, could his love be achieved? No, it would not work that way, because his love strove to keep Ying Chan as far away as possible from the talons of his perception.
Since youth Honda’s hunting dog of perception had always been extremely astute. Thus the Ying Chan he knew by seeing corresponded to his powers of perception. Nothing but his ability to perceive made her existence possible.
Therefore his desire to see Ying Chan in the nude, a Ying Chan unknown to anyone, became an unattainable desire divided contradictorily into perception and love. Seeing already lay within the sphere of perception, and even if Ying Chan was not aware of it, from the moment he had peeped through the luminous hole in the back of the bookcase, she had become an inhabitant of a world created by her perception. In her world, contaminated by his the moment he laid eyes on it, what he really wanted to see would never appear. His love could not be fulfilled. And yet, if he did not see, love would forever be precluded.
He wanted to see a soaring Ying Chan, but bound by his perceptions, she did not soar. As long as she remained a creature of his perceptions she could not violate the physical laws governing them. Perhaps, except in dreams, the world where Ying Chan soared naked astride a peacock lay a step beyond and did not materialize because Honda’s perception itself became a screen and was defective, an infinitesimal obstruction. Then how would it be if he got rid of the obstruction and changed the situation? That would mean the removal of Honda from the world which he shared with Ying Chan, in other words, his own death.
It now became clear that Honda’s ultimate desire, what he really, really wanted to see could exist only in a world where he did not. In order to see what he truly wished to, he must die. When a voyeur recognizes that he can realize his ends only by eliminating the basic act of watching, this means his death as such.
For the first time in his life the significance of suicide for a cognizant man carried weight in Honda’s mind.
If he denied perception as his love directed and tried to escape from perception infinitely, attempting to take Ying Chan to a territory beyond its reach, resistance by perception meant sure suicide. It would mean Honda’s exit from a world contaminated by perception, with Ying Chan left behind. But at the very moment of his departure she would stand radiantly before him; nothing was so predictable as this.
The present world was one Honda’s perceptions had created and thus Ying Chan inhabited it too. According to the precepts of the Yuishiki School, it was a world created by Honda’s
alaya
consciousness. But the reason he still could not give himself completely to this doctrine was because he was too attached to his perceptions and was unable to agree to consider their root as the eternal
alaya
consciousness that discards the world one instant without regret and renews it the next.
Rather Honda thought of death as a game and was intoxicated by its sweetness. Incited by his perceptions, he dreamed about the supreme bliss of the moment of suicide, when the Ying Chan who had been seen by no other person would appear in all her brilliant, pure amber nudity like a resplendent moon rising.
Didn’t “fulfillment of the Peacock” mean precisely this? According to the
Rules for Depicting the Peacock Wisdom King
, the
sammaya-gyo
, or the distinguishing symbol that represents the divinity’s main vow, is described as a half-moon above the Peacock’s tail; and above that a full moon is depicted. Just as the half-moon waxes into the full moon, so the learning of the Law is fully achieved.
What Honda wished might indeed be this Peacock fulfillment. If all love in the world were as incomplete as the half-moon, who would not dream of the full moon rising above the Peacock tail?
The sound of the mower stopped and a voice was heard from the distance: “Is this enough?”
Like a couple of bored parrots on their perch, the Hondas turned awkwardly to look toward the voice. Matsudo stood there in his khaki overall, and Fuji was already half hidden in the clouds behind him.
“Well, don’t you think that’s sufficient?” Rié said to her husband in a low voice.
“I suppose. We can’t ask too much of the old man,” responded Honda.
With both hands he formed a big circle of approval, and Matsudo, understanding, slowly rolled the mower back to the house. The sound of a motor came from the gate on the Hakoné side and a station wagon entered the grounds. It was the car from Tokyo bearing the chef, three waiters, and an abundant supply of food.
43
 
 H
ONDA HAD NOT YET
invited the older inhabitants in the neighboring houses despite the fact that he was the newest comer to the View-on-Fuji Villas at Ninooka. The older inhabitants had kept away from their villas, frightened by rumors that public morals had been corrupted by the bars that had opened for the American soldiers near Gotemba. These establishments had brought in their wake call girls and pimps and low-class prostitutes who wandered about the training grounds armed with Army blankets. This summer the owners had begun to trickle back, and Honda had invited some on the occasion of the opening of the pool.
The oldest villa owners were Prince and Princess Kaori and the aged widow of Kanzaemon Mashiba, founder of the Mashiba Bank. Mrs. Mashiba had announced that she would bring along her three grandchildren. There were several other guests from the area. In addition to Keiko and Ying Chan, Imanishi and Mrs. Tsubakihara were expected from Tokyo. Makiko had replied quite early that she would be traveling abroad. Under ordinary circumstances Makiko would have been accompanied by Mrs. Tsubakihara on her trip, but this time she had chosen another disciple as her companion.
Once a servant became a permanent employee, Honda was amused to note, Rié could drive her rather mercilessly, though she never gave up her sweet smile for outside help such as the chef and the waiters. She spoke politely and showed consideration in everything, anxious to prove to herself and others that she was beloved by one and all.
“Madame. What are we to do about the arbor? Shall I prepare drinks there too?” asked one of the waiters, already dressed in his white uniform.
“Please do.”
“But it will be difficult for just the three of us to cover so much ground. Would it be satisfactory if we just left ice in the thermos bucket and requested the guests to help themselves?”
“Surely. The ones who stray as far as the arbor will probably be young couples anyway, and it might be just as well not to disturb them. Be doubly sure not to forget the mosquito repellent when it starts to get dark.”
Honda was truly shocked to hear his wife speaking in such a manner. Her voice was pitched unnaturally high and her words floated on the air. The frivolity she had presumably despised more than anything in the world over the years now so infused her voice and words that he suspected her of sarcasm.
The alert movements of the waiters in their white uniforms seemed to have charged the household with straight lines. Their well-starched jackets, their youthful efficiency of movement, their apparent respectfulness, and their professional polish turned the household into a strange and refreshing world. All private matters were swept aside, and arrangements, consultation, commands, and orders flew about as if they were indeed the butterflies in whose shape the white napkins had been folded.
A buffet had been set up beside the pool to permit the guests to eat in their swimming suits. The familiar appearance of the house had instantly changed. Honda’s treasured desk, covered with a white tablecloth, now served as an outdoor bar. Although he himself had directed the alterations, once underway they turned into a kind of violent transformation.
Driven back by the gradually intensifying sunlight, he watched everything in amazement. Who had planned all this? And to what end? To spend money? to invite impressive guests? to play the role of the complacent bourgeois? to boast of the completed swimming pool? As a matter of fact, this was the first private pool in Ninooka either before or since the war. There are many generous people in this world who will forgive another’s wealth if only they are invited to his house.
“Dear, please put these on,” said Rié, bringing him a pair of dark-brown summer worsted trousers, a white shirt, and a bow tie with tiny brown polka dots. She placed them on the table under the beach umbrella.
“You want me to change here?”
“Why not? There are only the waiters. Besides I’m going to ask them to take an early lunch break now.”
He took up the bow tie, the extremities of which were shaped like gourds. Holding one end between two fingers, he playfully held it up to the light of the swimming pool. It was an informal, miserable, limp strip of fabric. It reminded him of the procedure of the “summary order” of a police court. “Notification of summary procedure and demur of the accused.” It was Honda himself who most detested the approaching party . . . except for one ultimate kernel, one scintillating point of hopelessness.
Old Mrs. Mashiba was the first to arrive with her three grandchildren. These consisted of an unmarried girl and her two extremely ordinary, bespectacled, and studious-looking younger brothers, one a senior and the other a sophomore in college. The three immediately retired to the dressing rooms where they changed into swimming suits. The grandmother, wearing a kimono, remained under the umbrella.
“While my husband was alive, especially after the war, we fought at every election. I always voted Communist just to spite him. And then I was a great admirer of Kyuichi Tokuda.”
The old widow adjusted her kimono collars incessantly or nervously tugged at her sleeves like a grasshopper ducking its head and rubbing its wings. She was reputed to be a completely unconventional and entertaining person; hidden behind mauve glasses, sparkled prying eyes, relentlessly speculating on the finances of one and all. Exposed to her cold gaze, everyone felt as if he were her dependent.
The three young people who returned dressed for swimming possessed bodies typical of good families, modest and sleek-limbed. One after the other they jumped into the water and in a relaxed way began swimming. Honda regretted above all that Ying Chan was not to be the first to enter the water in his pool.
Soon Rié came from the house escorting Prince and Princess Kaori, who were already in their bathing suits. Honda apologized for having been unaware of their arrival and for not having come up to greet them. He scolded Rié for not warning him; but the Prince merely shook hands, dismissing the whole matter, and went into the water. Mrs. Mashiba watched this exchange with a bemused look as though she were observing boorish people. After the Prince had circled the pool once and climbed up on the edge, she spoke to him from where she was in her shrill voice: “How young and manly you are, Prince! Ten years ago I should have challenged you to a race.”

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