And Then. Soseki Natsume

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СКАЧАТЬ his father were either primitives with undeveloped nervous systems or fools who persisted in deceiving themselves.

      Now Daisuke sat face to face with his father. The small room had extended eaves, so that as one looked out upon the garden while seated, the edge of the eaves seemed to cut off the view. At least, the sky did not look very wide from this room. But it was a quiet room, where one could settle down.

      His father was smoking cut tobacco and had drawn a longhandled brazier close to him. From time to time he tapped off the ashes and the sound echoed pleasantly in the quiet garden. Daisuke arranged four or five gold cigarette holders in the hand brazier; he had tired of blowing the smoke through his nostrils, so he sat with folded arms, studying his father’s face. For all the years, there was a considerable amount of flesh left to that face. Yet the cheeks were sunken and the skin on the eyes sagged beneath the heavy brows. The hair was yellow rather than snowy white. When he addressed someone, he had a habit of distributing his glances equally between the listener’s face and his knees. These eye movements made the whites flash from time to time, producing a peculiar sensation in his listener.

      The old man was holding forth: “Man must not think of himself alone. There’s society. There’s country. Without doing a few things for others, one doesn’t feel right. Take you, for instance, you can’t possibly feel very good just loafing around. Of course, it would be different with an uneducated, lower-class sort, but there’s no reason why a man who has received the highest education should be able to enjoy doing nothing. What one has learned becomes interesting only when applied to actual practice.’’

      “Yes, that’s right,” Daisuke had been answering. Being hard pressed to respond to his father’s sermons, Daisuke had made it his practice to give vague, perfunctory answers. As far as he was concerned, his father’s ideas were always but half thought out. Having resolved a given question to his liking, he would launch out from that point; thus there was not an ounce of significance to what he said. Furthermore, though he might seem to be arguing for altruism as the guiding principle one minute, he would switch to the protection of self-interest the next. His words flowed abundantly, with an air of great importance, but their content was worth hardly a moment of their listener’s reflection. To attack his logic at its foundations and bring it tumbling down would have been an enormously difficult task, and what was more, an impossible one; Daisuke had concluded it was preferable to leave it untouched altogether. His father, however, starting from the premise that Daisuke belonged to his solar system, assumed that it was his right to determine every inch of his son’s orbit. Hence, Daisuke had no choice but to revolve politely around the sun that was his father.

      “If you don’t like business, that’s that. Making money is surely not the only way to serve Japan. I won’t object if you don’t earn any money. I can understand that you wouldn’t take it well if I meddled in your affairs merely for the sake of money. As far as money is concerned, I will continue to support you as I always have. I don’t know how many years are left me, and I can’t take it with me when I die. Your monthly allowance is no problem. So stand up and do something. Do your duty as a citizen. You’re thirty now, aren’t you?”

      “Yes.”

      “It is unseemly to be idle and unemployed at thirty.” Daisuke had never considered himself idle. He simply regarded himself as one of those higher beings who disposed of a large number of hours unsullied by an occupation. Whenever his father started in this vein, Daisuke felt sorry for him. The crystallization of heightened intellectual and esthetic sentiments—the fruit of all those days and months spent in meaningful pursuits—none of this would register on his father’s infantile mind. Since there was nothing else to be said, Daisuke answered seriously, “Yes, it is a problem.” The old man could not for a moment cease to regard Daisuke as a child, and since in fact his responses invariably had a childlike air about them, being simple and unworldly, the old man was scornful, and complained that little gentlemen were useless even when they grew up. If, on the other hand, Daisuke’s tone was cool, restrained, unabashed, and totally nonchalant, he became annoyed that perhaps this son had gone beyond his reach.

      “You’re in good health?”

      “I haven’t caught a cold in the past two or three years.”

      “You don’t seem to be on the stupid side, either. Didn’t you have a fairly strong record at school?’’

      “Well, yes.”

      “Then it’s a shame to play around like this. What was his name— you know, the fellow who used to come over to talk with you? I saw him two or three times myself.”

      “Do you mean Hiraoka?”

      “That’s the one, Hiraoka. Now, he didn’t have much, but didn’t he go somewhere right after graduation?”

      “But he blundered and came back.”

      The old man could not suppress a sardonic smile. “Why?” “Why? Probably because he works to eat.”

      The old man could not understand Daisuke’s meaning. “I wonder if he didn’t do something unpleasant.”

      “He probably does the right thing for each particular set of circumstances, but the right thing, in the end, probably turns out to be a blunder.”

      “Oh,” was the doubtful answer. Then, changing his tone, he launched out: “When young people ‘blunder,’ it’s because they are lacking in sincerity and devotion. I’ve tried a lot of things over the years, and judging from all my experiences, success is impossible without these two qualities.”

      “Aren’t there times when one fails because of sincerity and devotion?”

      “No, never.”

A frame enclosing the words “Sincerity is the way of Heaven”* hung conspicuously above the old man’s head. He had had it done by the former lord of his clan and prized it greatly. Daisuke hated it ardently. First of all, he disliked the hand. Secondly, the sentiment did not suit him. After the words “Sincerity is the way of Heaven,” he would like to have added, “and not the way of man.”

      Long ago, when the clan finances had deteriorated beyond repair, it was Daisuke’s father who had taken the responsibility of putting things in order. He had gathered two or three merchants who had close ties with the clan lord, and removing his sword and bowing to the ground, had begged for temporary loans. Since he had no way of knowing if they could be repaid, he had honestly admitted as much, and was successful on this account. It was then that he had asked his lord to write out these words. Since then, Nagai had hung the frame in his living room and gazed at it night and day. Daisuke could not count the number of times he had been made to listen to this story.

      Then, fifteen or sixteen years ago, monthly expenditures began to accumulate in the old lord’s household, threatening the finances so painstakingly revived. Once again, on the basis of proven ability, Nagai was entrusted with their restoration. This time he tried heating the bath himself and discovered a discrepancy between the amount he spent on firewood and the figure indicated in the books. Beginning with a thorough investigation of this point, he dedicated his soul night and day for an entire month to this problem until finally, he arrived at the perfect technique for heating the bathtub. Since then, the old lord had lived in relative comfort.

      Given this past history, and given that he had not ventured to carry his thinking one step beyond this past, Nagai continued to proclaim the twin virtues of sincerity and devotion.

      “I don’t know why, but it seems that you are lacking in sincerity and devotion. СКАЧАТЬ