忘れえぬ人々 English

Just past the Futako crossing on the Tama River, a short distance along the road, lies a post town called Mizonokuchi.

In the middle of it stands an inn called the Kameya.

It was around the beginning of March; that day the sky was overcast and a north wind blew fiercely, making this already lonesome town look all the more desolate, gloomy, and cold.

Snow that had fallen the day before still remained, and from the low southern eaves of the thatched roofs of various heights, raindrops blew and drifted down in the wind.

Even the muddy water pooled in the footprints of sandals showed faint, cold ripples.

Not long after dark, most of the shops had shut their doors.

The single row of dark houses fell utterly silent.

Being an inn, the shoji of the Kameya's front room was lit with a bright glow, but this evening there seemed to be few guests and the interior too was hushed, broken only now and then by the sound of a large-bowled pipe tapping against the rim of a brazier.

Suddenly the shoji slid open and a man came lumbering in.

Before the proprietor, who had been leaning against the long brazier absorbed in his private calculations, even had time to look up in surprise, the man strode across the wide earthen floor in about three great steps and planted himself before the proprietor's nose — a man who appeared to be not yet quite twenty-seven or twenty-eight, dressed for travel in Western clothes, gaiters, and straw sandals, wearing a hunting cap, carrying an umbrella in his right hand, and tucking a small leather bag under his left arm.

"I'd like to stay the night."

The proprietor looked the guest over without replying; just then there came the sound of clapping from the back of the inn.

"Someone's calling in room six!"

The proprietor bellowed in a voice like a bark.

"Where are you coming from, if I may ask?"

The proprietor asked while still leaning against the brazier.

The guest hunched his shoulders and briefly screwed up his face, but then immediately let a smile play about his lips.

"Me? I'm from Tokyo."

"And where might you be headed, sir?"

"I'm going to Hachioji."

With that answer the guest sat down and began untying the cords of his gaiters.

"Sir, if you're going from Tokyo to Hachioji, this road seems an odd way to go."

The proprietor looked the guest over again with a puzzled expression, his mouth moving as if he wanted to say something.

The guest caught on right away.

"Ah, I'm from Tokyo, but I didn't come from Tokyo today — I left Kawasaki late in the evening and that's why it got dark on me. Please bring me some hot water to wash my feet."

"Bring the hot water quickly, will you. Yes indeed, it must have been quite cold today — it's still very cold up around Hachioji."

Though the proprietor's words were agreeable enough, his manner overall was decidedly ungracious.

He was about sixty, and the thickly wadded short coat worn over his stout frame made his broad head seem to emerge directly from his shoulders, while the corners of his wide, full-cheeked face drooped downward.

Yet somewhere in his look there was a hint of surliness.

Still, he seems an honest old man, the guest thought at once.

Just as the guest had finished washing his feet and had not yet quite dried them, the proprietor called out,

"Show the gentleman to room seven!"

And bellowed it out.

That was all — he said not another word to the guest, nor did he turn to watch him go.

A coal-black cat came from the direction of the kitchen and quietly climbed up onto the proprietor's raised knee and curled itself into a ball.

Whether the proprietor was aware of this or not, he sat with his eyes closed.

After a moment, his right hand moved toward the tobacco box and his thick fingers began rolling a cigarette.

"When the guest in room six has finished his bath, show the guest in room seven to the bath!"

The cat on his knee gave a startled leap and jumped down.

"Fool! I wasn't talking to you."

The cat scurried in a panic back toward the kitchen.

The wall clock struck eight in slow, measured beats.

"Grandmother, isn't Yoshizo looking sleepy? Put a bed warmer in for him and get him to bed soon, poor child."

The proprietor's own voice sounded sleepy; from the kitchen direction came,

"Yoshizo is right here reviewing his lessons, isn't he?"

It sounded like the grandmother's voice.

"Is he now. Yoshizo, go to bed soon — wake up early in the morning and do your review then. Grandmother, put a bed warmer in for him quickly."

"I'll put it in right away."

In the back the maidservant and the grandmother exchanged glances and giggled.

From the front room came the sound of a large yawn.

"He's the one who's sleepy."

A small old woman who looked to be in her mid-fifties muttered this as she put charcoal into the sooty bed warmer.

The shop shoji rattled in the wind and then there came the faint sound of rain spattering against it.

"Pull the shop door to already,"

the proprietor shouted, clicked his tongue, and said,

"It's started raining again, blast it."

He muttered it as if to himself.

Indeed, the wind had grown considerably stronger and it seemed that rain had started to fall as well.

Though the first stirrings of spring, a cold, cold wind mixed with sleet raged across the wide expanse of Musashino all through the night, howling madly over the pitch-dark town of Mizonokuchi.

In the room numbered seven, a lamp burned brightly even past midnight.

The only souls awake in the Kameya were the two guests seated face to face in the middle of that room, deep in conversation.

Outside, the sound of wind and rain was fierce, and the shutters rattled ceaselessly.

"At this rate, you won't be able to leave tomorrow morning."

One of them said, looking at the other's face.

This was the guest from room six.

"Oh, I'm not in any particular hurry — spending an extra day here would be fine."

Both of their faces were flushed, their noses gleaming.

On the serving tray beside them stood three flasks of warm sake, and sake remained in the cups.

Both men were relaxed and comfortable, sitting cross-legged with a brazier between them as they smoked; the guest from room six had pushed his padded sleeve up to the elbow, baring a white arm, and was tapping the ash from his rolled cigarette before drawing on it again.

Their manner of speaking was perfectly frank, yet no doubt they had first met at this inn that very evening, and from some opening remark or other had begun to exchange a few words through the fusuma, and then, driven by the loneliness of the night, the guest from room six had pushed his way in; after exchanging calling cards and ordering sake, as the conversation grew more animated, they had gradually fallen into mixing polite and informal speech together.

On the calling card of the guest in room seven was printed the name Otsu Benjiro, with no title or affiliation of any kind.

On the calling card of the guest in room six was printed Akiyama Matsunosuke, likewise with no title.

Otsu was, in short, the man in Western clothes who had arrived after dark.

He was lean, slender, and fair — altogether different from the other man, Akiyama.

Akiyama looked to be about twenty-five or twenty-six, round-faced and ruddy, with a friendly look about his eyes, and the air of a man who was always smiling.

Otsu was a writer of no renown, and Akiyama was a painter of no renown — and by a curious chance these two kindred young men had found each other at this country inn.

"Shall we sleep soon? It seems we've said just about everything there is to say, all of it uncharitable."

Ranging freely from art to literature to religion, the two had spoken quite at will, and had been mercilessly critiquing the great names among contemporary writers and painters when they realized with a start that eleven o'clock had struck.

"No, it's fine. We're stuck here tomorrow anyway, so we might as well talk through the night."

The painter Akiyama said this with his usual smile.

"But what time is it?"

Otsu picked up the watch he had set aside and looked at it,

"Why, it's already past eleven."

"Then we'll stay up all night."

Akiyama was entirely unconcerned.

Gazing at his cup,

"Though if you're sleepy, feel free to sleep."

"I'm not the least bit sleepy — I just thought you might be tired. I only walked about three and a half ri from Kawasaki late this evening, so I'm perfectly fine."

"Oh, I'm perfectly fine too — I only said that because if you were going to sleep, I thought I'd borrow this and read it."

Akiyama picked up something that looked like a manuscript of about ten sheets of Japanese paper.

On the cover was written: "People I Cannot Forget"

— that was what it said.

"That won't do you any good, really — for you it'd be the same as reading a sketch done in pencil; another person simply can't understand it."

Even so, Otsu made no move to take the manuscript back from Akiyama's hands.

Akiyama turned over a page or two and read here and there,

"Sketches have their own kind of interest — I'd like to have a look."

"Here, let me borrow it a moment."

Otsu took the manuscript from Akiyama's hands and turned to various pages, and for a while both men were silent.

The sound of the wind and rain outside entered the ears of both men as if heard for the first time.

Otsu sat staring at his own manuscript, listening intently, and fell into a kind of waking dream.

"A night like this is your domain, isn't it."

Akiyama's voice did not seem to reach Otsu's ears.

He gave no reply.

Whether he was listening to the wind and rain, or looking at the manuscript, or thinking of someone a hundred leagues away, Akiyama thought to himself that Otsu's face right now, his expression right now, was indeed the painter's domain.

"It would be better for me to talk about this subject rather than having you read it. Would you listen? The manuscript is just a rough outline jotted down — reading it wouldn't make much sense anyway."

Otsu turned his gaze toward Akiyama with an expression like a man waking from a dream.

"If you'll tell it in detail, all the better."

As Akiyama looked into Otsu's eyes, he saw that they were slightly moist with tears and glowing with a peculiar light.

"I'll tell it as fully as I can — if you find it dull, please tell me so without hesitation. In return I'll speak without holding back either. It's strange, isn't it — I find myself wanting to be listened to."

Akiyama added charcoal to the brazier and thrust the flask of cooled sake into the iron kettle.

"'Those we cannot forget are not necessarily those we must not forget' — look, this sentence is the very first line written in this manuscript."

Otsu briefly held the manuscript out before Akiyama.

"You see. I want to explain this sentence first — then the theme of the piece will naturally become clear. Though I imagine you already understand it in broad terms."

"Don't say that — just go straight ahead. I'll listen as if I were an ordinary reader. Excuse me, I'll lie down to listen."

Akiyama took a cigarette in his mouth and lay down.

Supporting his head with his right hand and watching Otsu's face, he wore a smile about his eyes.

"Parents and children, or close friends and intimates, or teachers and seniors who have cared for one — these cannot simply be called people one cannot forget; they must be called people one must not forget. Now, apart from these — people to whom one owes no debt of love or duty, complete strangers with whom one has no obligation of either affection or propriety, and yet people whom one ultimately cannot forget — such people exist. I do not say that everyone in the world has such people, but at least I do. And in all likelihood, so do you."

Akiyama nodded in silence.

"I believe it was around the middle of spring when I was nineteen — my health was not good and I had withdrawn from my school in Tokyo intending to rest and recuperate at home, and this was on the journey home. I boarded one of the usual steamers that ply the Seto Inland Sea from Osaka and sailed the calm spring waters of that inner sea; but as it was nearly a decade ago, I have no memory at all of what the other passengers were like, what sort of man the captain was, what the face of the boy who brought round the tea looked like — none of that. In all likelihood there were passengers who poured my tea for me, and people who talked with me on the deck in various ways, but none of it has stayed in my memory.

"In those days I was not in good health, so no doubt I was not in high spirits and was rather sunk in thought. I do remember that I was continually going up on deck, imagining dreams of the future and turning over in my mind the circumstances of human life in this world. Of course it is a young man's habit and no surprise. And so I stood watching the islands as they came and went — islands wrapped in spring haze, the ship's prow making a pleasant sound as it cut through the water, across a sea smooth as oil where scarcely a ripple stirred, as the gentle light of spring dissolved into the surface. The islands, quilted with rapeseed flowers and green barley shoots, seemed to float deep within the haze. Presently the ship passed close by a small island on the starboard side, within perhaps ten cho of its shore, and I leaned against the rail and gazed at it without any particular thought. At the foot of the hills, here and there, low pine trees formed small groves, but to look at, there were no fields and nothing resembling a house was visible. Silent and lonely, the tideline left by the ebbing sea gleamed in the sunlight, and what appeared to be small waves toying with the water's edge sent long streaks flashing and fading like drawn blades. That it was not a desert island I knew from the faint sound of a skylark singing higher than the mountain above. 'From the skyward lark one knows the island has its fields' — this is a verse by my father, and I thought there must be people living beyond the mountain. Then, on the gleaming tideline, I noticed a single figure. Certainly a man, and not a child. He appeared to be picking something up repeatedly and putting it into a basket or bucket. Taking two or three steps he would squat down, then pick something up again. I stood and watched this man gathering along the lonely little beach tucked in the shadow of the island. As the ship moved on, the figure shrank to a black speck; then the beach, the mountain, the whole island faded into the haze and vanished. From that day to this, in nearly ten years, how many times have I thought of this man whose face I do not know, working that island shore? He is one of my 'people I cannot forget.'

"The next one was about five years ago — I had celebrated New Year's Day at my parents' side and then immediately set out on a journey through Kyushu, crossing the island from Kumamoto to Oita.

"My younger brother and I set out from Kumamoto in the morning in good spirits, in traveling clothes with gaiters and straw sandals. That day we walked while the sun was still high and stayed overnight at a post town called Tateno. The next morning, before the sun had risen, we left Tateno — it was a long-held wish of mine — and made for the white smoke of Mount Aso, treading frost, crossing plank bridges, losing the path and finding it again, until at around midday we had climbed nearly to the summit, and it must have been past one o'clock when we reached the crater. The Kumamoto region is warm, and besides it was a clear, windless day, so even at six thousand feet in the middle of winter it was not as cold as one might expect. The very peak of Takatake was white where the steam from the crater had condensed, but otherwise the mountain was almost entirely without snow — only the withered grass swayed pale in the wind, and the scorched earth, now red, now black, bore the traces of old craters here and there in jagged cliffs, and that desolate, awesome scene is beyond the power of brush or tongue to capture — I think depicting it falls squarely in your domain.

"We climbed once to the rim of the crater and for a while stood peering down into that terrifying hole or gazing freely at the vast panorama on all sides, but the summit wind was unbearably cold, so we descended a little from the rim, where there was a small hut beside the Aso shrine that served at least a rough tea; we fled into that hut, gnawed on rice balls to restore our strength, and then climbed back up to the crater again.

"By that time the sun had already tilted considerably and the haze shrouding the Higo plain had burned to red, stained the same color as the cliffs of the old crater visible just there. The high moors at the foot of Kukonomi Peak, which rose in a perfect cone above all the surrounding heights, were covered for several leagues with withered grass all bathed in the slanting sunset, and the air was so clear as water that one could almost make out horses and travelers moving in the distance. Heaven and earth stretched boundless and vast, while underfoot the volcano roared and great columns of white smoke rolled upward, shot straight into the sky, then suddenly bent and swept past Takatake and vanished into one corner of the heavens. Sublime, one might say, or beautiful, or terrible — we stood silent as stone statues for some time without uttering a single word. It seems only natural that at such a moment feelings of the eternal vastness of heaven and earth, and a sense of wonder at human existence itself, should well up from the depths of one's heart.

"But what struck our imagination most powerfully was the great depression that lay between Kukonomi Peak and Mount Aso. I had heard beforehand that this was the site of what was once the world's largest crater, and indeed, looking down, one could clearly see how the high moor of Kukonomi Peak dropped abruptly away and a cliff face stretching for several leagues curved around the western rim of this hollow. The crater of Nantaisan has become the beautiful and secluded Lake Chuzenji, but this great crater had long since been transformed into thousands of acres of fertile farmland, and the trees around the hamlets and the barley fields of several villages were now bathed quietly in the slanting afternoon light. The post station called Miyaji, where we were to sleep that night and stretch our weary legs and enjoy our innocent dreams, also lay in this hollow.

"The idea of spending the night in the mountain hut to see the crater by night was raised between us, but as we were pressed for time we decided to descend after all and made our way down toward Miyaji. The descent was far more gradual than the climb, and we hurried along a path that wound like a snake through the dried grass of ridges and valleys; as we neared the village we passed several horses loaded with dried grass. Looking around, we could count any number of people and horses returning toward the foot of the mountain along the small paths over the ridges in every direction, all the horses carrying dried grass, all heading home in the gentle sound of bells burnished by the setting sun. The foot of the mountain looked close, yet we could not easily reach the village, and as darkness was coming on we hurried in great haste and finally ran down.

"When we reached the village it was already dark, the faint gloom of early evening. The bustle of a village at dusk had a special quality — grown men and women were busy with the last tasks of the day, and children gathered in the shadowy corners of fences or under eaves lit by the glow of kitchen fires, laughing, singing, crying — this is the same everywhere in the country, but never have I been so struck by such scenes as when I came tumbling down from the desolate grassy plains of Aso and suddenly found myself thrown into this human world. The two of us dragged our tired feet, feeling the distance of the road stretching before us in the dark, yet with a warm and fond feeling in our hearts, making our way toward Miyaji as our destination for the night.

"Leaving the village behind, we walked for a while through woods and fields, and night had fully fallen, our shadows now sharply printed on the ground. Turning to look up at the western sky, above the right shoulder of one of Aso's satellite peaks hung a new moon, casting its clear bluish-white light with an air of possession over all the villages of this hollow. The two of us looked up and there above our heads we could see that the volcanic smoke which during the day had risen pure white was now dyed ash-grey in the moonlight, thrusting up into the deep blue expanse of sky — a sight both awesome and beautiful. We came upon a bridge longer than it was wide, and taking advantage of this we leaned against its railing and rested our utterly exhausted legs while watching the smoke shift and change its shapes, half-hearing the distant voices of the village carrying to our ears. Then, from the direction we had come, the sound of what seemed an empty cart began to resound and echo off the trees around, ringing out into the void, growing gradually nearer, as clear as if it were in our hands.

"After a while a bright, clear voice came singing a packhorse driver's song, flowing and unhurried, growing nearer and nearer with the sound of the empty cart. I kept my gaze on the volcanic smoke and listened with my ear turned toward it, waiting without quite waiting for that voice to draw close.

"When the figure came into view, still singing — 'Miyaji is a fine place, at the foot of Aso' — drawing the song out long until just before the bridge where we stood, the feeling of the song's words and the mournful power of that voice moved me profoundly. A sturdy young man of perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five, holding the reins, passed by without glancing our way, and I watched him steadily. The evening moon was at his back, so his profile was not clearly visible, but the dark outline of that powerful frame remains to this day in the depths of my eyes.

"I watched the young man's retreating figure, and then looked up at the smoke of Aso. One of my 'people I cannot forget' is this young man.

"The next was when I stayed one night at Mitsu-ga-hama in Shikoku, waiting for a steamer connection. I believe it was the beginning of summer — I left the inn early in the morning and, having heard the steamer would not arrive until afternoon, wandered along the harbor and through the town. With Matsuyama at its back, this port had a particular vitality, and the fish market near the waterfront was especially crowded in the morning bustle. The sky was cloudlessly clear, the morning sun shone brilliantly, casting reflections on anything that gleamed and adding luster to anything that had color, making the already lively scene all the more vibrant. Shouting, calling out, laughter rising here with a merry cry, cheers and angry voices tangling there — those who sold and those who bought, old and young, men and women, all looked busy, all looked amused, all looked pleased as they ran and chased one another. Stalls stood in a row waiting for customers who ate on the spot. The goods for sale need not be described, and the people eating were, as one might expect, mostly sailors and boatmen. Sea bream, flounder, conger eel, octopus were tossed out here and there. The raw, fishy smell, fanned by the sleeves and skirts of the milling crowd, struck the nostrils.

"I was a complete stranger, with no connection or acquaintance in this place, no familiar face, no bald head I recognized. And so these scenes around me gave rise to a peculiar feeling, as if I could see the ways of the world more vividly than usual. I nearly forgot myself as I wandered through the throng and came out at a quieter edge of the street.

"What immediately reached my ears was the sound of a biwa. Standing before a shop there was a biwa monk. He looked to be in his mid-forties — a short, stout man with a broad, square face. The color of his face, the light in his eyes, were perfectly suited to the sorrowful sound of the biwa, and the voice that sang along with those choking, throbing strings was low and murky and slow. Not a single person in the street took any notice of this monk; no one in any of the houses showed any sign of lending an ear to his biwa. The morning sun was bright; the floating world was busy.

"But I stood and watched this biwa monk intently, my ear turned toward the sound of his instrument. The scene of this narrow street with its uneven eaves, so full of bustle, seemed at first to be at odds with this monk and his biwa, yet I felt there was somewhere a deep accord between them. Listening as the sobbing sound of the biwa drifted from eave to eave along the street, mingling with the vigorous cries of vendors and the clatter of the blacksmith's anvil — like a clear spring threading its way silently through turbid waters — I felt that the strings of the heart beneath the cheerful, lively, amused, busy faces of the people in the street were playing their own natural melody. One of my 'people I cannot forget' is this biwa monk.'"

Having told the story up to this point, Otsu quietly set the manuscript down and sat thinking for a while.

Outside, the sound of wind and rain did not abate in the least.

Akiyama sat up and said,

"And then?"

"Let's stop here — it's getting too late. There's still quite a bit more. The miner in Utashina in Hokkaido, the young fisherman at the harbor of Dairen, the hunchbacked boatman on the Bansho River — if I were to tell each one in as much detail as is in this manuscript, the night would be over. In any case, the reason I cannot forget these people — it is because I recall them. And why do I recall them? That is what I want to explain to you.

"In short, I am a wretched man, constantly tormented by the questions of human life and at the same time crushed under the weight of my own great ambitions for the future.

"And so, on a night like tonight, sitting alone late at night before a lamp, I feel the solitude of this existence and an almost unbearable sadness rises in me. At that moment the sharp corner of my self-centeredness snaps off clean, and I am seized by a longing for the company of others. I begin to think of various things from the past, and of those who were friends. And what wells up in my heart at such moments — it is precisely these people. Or rather: it is these people as they stood within the surrounding scene at the moment I saw them. What difference is there between myself and others? Are we not all alike — receiving this life in one corner of the heavens, one angle of the earth, treading a vast unhurried road together, and together returning to the infinite sky? — feelings of this sort rise from the depths of my heart, and without my knowing it, tears sometimes course down my cheeks. In those moments there is truly no 'self' and no 'other' — all are dear to me, all are close to my heart.

"Never do I feel such peace of mind as in those moments; never do I feel such freedom; never does the petty desire for fame and advantage fall away so completely, and never is my sympathy for all things so deep.

"Somehow I want to write about this subject to my heart's content. I believe there must be many throughout the world who feel as I do.'"

Two years passed.

For his own reasons, Otsu had come to live in a certain district in the northeast.

His acquaintance with Akiyama, first formed at the Mizonokuchi inn, had entirely ceased.

It was the same season as when Otsu had stayed in Mizonokuchi, and it was a night of rain.

Otsu sat alone at his desk, sunk in meditation.

On the desk lay the same manuscript — "People I Cannot Forget" — that he had shown Akiyama two years before,

and the last name added at the end was "the proprietor of the Kameya"

— it was.

"Akiyama"

it was not.