I Am A Cat. Natsume Soseki

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СКАЧАТЬ only a few lines. It said that Mr. Sneaze’s prose was like a cloud that passes in the sky, like water flowing in a stream.”

      “Is that,” she asks smiling, “all that it said?”

      “Well, it also said ‘it vanishes as soon as it appears and, when it vanishes, it is forever forgetful to return.’”

      The lady of the house looks puzzled and asks anxiously “Was that praise?”

      “Well, yes, praise of a sort,” says Waverhouse coolly as he jiggles his handkerchief in front of me.

      “Since books are essential to his work, I suppose one shouldn’t complain, but his eccentricity is so pronounced that. . .”

      Waverhouse assumes that she’s adopting a new line of attack. “True,” he interrupts, “he is a little eccentric, but any man who pursues learning tends to get like that.” His answer, excellently noncommittal, contrives to combine ingratiation and special pleading.

      “The other day, when he had to go somewhere soon after he got home from school, he found it too troublesome to change his clothes.

      So do you know, he sat down on his low desk without even taking off his overcoat and ate his dinner just as he was. He had his tray put on the footwarmer while I sat on the floor holding the rice container. It was really very funny. . .”

      “It sounds like the old-time custom when generals sat down to identify the severed heads of enemies killed in battle. But that would be quite typical of Mr. Sneaze. At any rate he’s never boringly conventional.”

      Waverhouse offers a somewhat strained compliment.

      “A woman cannot say what’s conventional or unconventional, but I do think his conduct is often unduly odd.”

      “Still, that’s better than being conventional.” As Waverhouse moves firmly to the support of my master, her dissatisfaction deepens.

      “People are always saying this or that is conventional, but would you please tell what makes a thing conventional?” Adopting a defiant attitude, she demands a definition of conventionality.

      “Conventional? When one says something is conventional. . . It’s a bit difficult to explain. . .”

      “If it’s so vague a thing, surely there’s nothing wrong with being conventional.” She begins to corner Waverhouse with typically feminine logic.

      “No, it isn’t vague, it’s perfectly clear-cut. But it’s hard to explain.”

      “I expect you call everything you don’t like conventional.” Though totally uncalculated, her words land smack on target. Waverhouse is now indeed cornered and can no longer dodge defining the conventional.

      “I’ll give you an example. A conventional man is one who would yearn after a girl of sixteen or eighteen but, sunk in silence, never do anything about it; a man who, whenever the weather’s fine, would do no more than stroll along the banks of the Sumida taking, of course, a flask of saké with him.”

      “Are there really such people?” Since she cannot make heads or tails of the twaddle vouchsafed by Waverhouse, she begins to abandon her position, which she finally surrenders by saying, “It’s all so complicated that it’s really quite beyond me.”

      “You think that complicated? Imagine fitting the head of Major Pendennis onto Bakin’s torso, wrapping it up and leaving it all for one or two years exposed to European air.”

      “Would that produce a conventional man?” Waverhouse offers no reply but merely laughs.

      “In fact it could be produced without going to quite so much trouble. If you added a shop assistant from a leading store to any middle school student and divided that sum by two, then indeed you’d have a fine example of a conventional man.”

      “Do you really think so?” She looks puzzled but certainly unconvinced.

      “Are you still here?” My master sits himself down on the floor beside Waverhouse. We had not noticed his return.

      “ ‘Still here’ is a bit hard. You said you wouldn’t be long and you yourself invited me to wait for you.”

      “You see, he’s always like that,” remarks the lady of the house leaning toward Waverhouse.

      “While you were away I heard all sorts of tales about you.”

      “The trouble with women is that they talk too much. It would be good if human beings would keep as silent as this cat.” And the master strokes my head.

      “I hear you’ve been cramming grated radish into the baby.”

      “Hum,” says my master and laughs. He then added “Talking of the baby, modern babies are quite intelligent. Since that time when I gave our baby grated radish, if you ask him ‘where is the hot place?’ he invariably sticks out his tongue. Isn’t it strange?”

      “You sound as if you were teaching tricks to a dog. It’s positively cruel. By the way, Coldmoon ought to have arrived by now.”

      “Is Coldmoon coming?” asks my master in a puzzled voice.

      “Yes. I sent him a postcard telling him to be here not later than one o’clock.”

      “How very like you! Without even asking us if it happened to be convenient. What’s the idea of asking Coldmoon here?”

      “It’s not really my idea, but Coldmoon’s own request. It seems he is going to give a lecture to the Society of Physical Science. He said he needed to rehearse his speech and asked me to listen to it. Well, I thought it would be obliging to let you hear it, too. Accordingly, I suggested he should come to your house. Which should be quite convenient since you are a man of leisure. I know you never have any engagements. You’d do well to listen.” Waverhouse thinks he knows how to handle the situation.

      “I wouldn’t understand a lecture on physical science,” says my master in a voice betraying his vexation at his friend’s high-handed action.

      “On the contrary, his subject is no such dry-as-dust matter as, for example, the magnetized nozzle. The transcendentally extraordinary subject of his discourse is ‘The Mechanics of Hanging.’Which should be worth listening to.”

      “Inasmuch as you once only just failed to hang yourself, I can understand your interest in the subject, but I’m. . .”

      “. . . The man who got cold shivers over going to the theatre, so you cannot expect not to listen to it.” Waverhouse interjects one of his usual flippant remarks and Mrs. Sneaze laughs. Glancing back at her husband, she goes off into the next room. My master, keeping silent, strokes my head. This time, for once, he stroked me with delicious gentleness.

      Some seven minutes later in comes the anticipated Coldmoon. Since he’s due to give his lecture this same evening, he is not wearing his usual get-up. In a fine frock-coat and with a high and exceedingly white clean collar, he looks twenty per cent more handsome than himself. “Sorry to be late.” He greets his two seated friends with perfect composure.

      “It’s ages that we’ve now been waiting for you. So we’d like СКАЧАТЬ