XII

It was Oscar Wilde, if I remember right, who said that Jesus of Nazareth was highly possessed of an artist’s gifts. I do not know much about Christ; but I shall not hesitate to pronounce that the priest, Daitetsu of Kaikanji, is full well-qualified for an appreciation of this kind. Not that he takes much interest in art, nor that he is well versed in such things. He is enviably content with a production which can hardly be called a picture, and is innocent enough to think that there should be the Doctor of Painting! Nevertheless, he is well-qualified to be an artist. He is like a bag without a bottom: everything passes through him freely. No impurities stagnate within him. Only give him a touch of humour, and he shall be at home with everything he comes across, everywhere he goes, and will thus make a perfect artist.

As for myself, I shall never be a true artist as long as I cannot get over my annoyance with being sniffed at by detectives. I may sit before my easel and take up my palette, but that will not make me an artist. I can assume myself to be a real artist only when I come to a mountainous countryside like Nakoi and drink full of the joys of Spring. Once in this state of emancipation, all the beauties of nature become mine and I have made myself a first-class artist, even though I may not paint the smallest picture. I may not equal Michelangelo in art and take my hat off to Raphael in skill; but I acknowledge no inferiority in me by the side of the great masters of the past and present in the personality of an artist. I have not painted a single picture since I came here. I may look to have brought with me my colour-box, merely to satisfy a whim, and people may laugh at me as an imitation. Let them laugh; I am none the less a real artist, a sterling artist. It is not that one on this psychological height necessarily produces great works; but I hold that an artist who can turn out a worthy painting must have passed through that stage.

Thus I thought as I drew at a cigarette after breakfast. The sun had mounted high above the haze, and I saw the green of the trees standing out in relief with uncommon clearness in the back mountain when I opened the shoji.

The relations of air, and objects with colour are to me always the most interesting study in this universe. Work out atmosphere by giving first importance to colour, or let air be subordinate to the object, or weave colour and objects into atmosphere, all kinds of tune may be given to a picture, each depending upon a delicate variation in treatment. It goes without saying that this tune shows differently according to the particular tastes and fancies of individual artists, just as it is natural that it is influenced by time and place. There was never, for instance, a bright picture of scenery, painted by an Englishman. It may be that they are not fond of bright pictures; but even if they are, they cannot do anything with the atmosphere they have in England. Goodall is an Englishman; but the tune of colour is quite different in his productions. He never took any scenery in his own country for his theme. He chose for his picture the scenery of Egypt or Persia, where the atmosphere is much clearer than in England. Those who see his paintings for the first time wonder how an Englishman could bring out colours so clearly; so brightly are they all finished.

As for individual taste, there can be no help for it. However, if it be our object to paint Japanese scenery, we must work out a colour and atmosphere peculiar to Japan. French paintings are good; but you cannot call it a picture of Japanese scenery which is produced by simply copying their colours. You must come in contact with nature on the spot, studying, morning and evening, the shape and colour of the clouds, the shade of haze, etc., being ever prepared to go out with your tripod, the moment you see a colour which you think just right. Colour in nature is to be seen but momentarily, and once missed the same colour will not be easily caught again. The mountain I was looking at was full of a colour which was a rare good fortune for an artist to come across. I could not afford to miss it, and I started to go into the mountain to make a copy of it.

I left my room through a side fusuma way and stepped out into the verandah. The same moment my eyes caught the figure of Nami-san, leaning against the verandah railing, a little distance from me. Just as I began to call to her a word of greeting, she allowed her left hand to drop. No sooner had this happened when I saw something flash in her right hand and travel quickly two or three times over her chest, and then disappear as suddenly with a clap. The next instant she raised her left hand with a sheathed dagger in it. The show was over and phantom vanished behind a shoji. I wended my way to my sketching, thinking I had been given a morning treat in a theatrical rehearsal.

I walked upward slowly and as I did so the thought of Nami-san again possessed me. The first thing that occurred to me was that she would make a fine star if she went on the stage. Most actors and actresses assume visiting manners when before the footlights; but with Nami-san, her home is her stage and she is always acting, without knowing it. With her acting is natural. It may be that hers is what may be called an aesthetic life. Indeed life would be unbearable, with its constant surprises and alarms, if one did not accept hers as theatrical acting. She would soon make you dislike her, with her impulsive excesses, if you were to study her from the ordinary viewpoint of the novelist, with the commonplace background of duty, humanity, etc.

Suppose entangling relations of some sort grew up between her and myself; my mental agony would, I fancied, be then indescribable. I had come out on my present sojourn, I told myself, to be away from the “madding crowd,” and to make of myself a confirmed artist. Everything that came to me through my two windows must, therefore, be seen as a picture. I must not set my eyes on any woman but that I saw in her a figure or character in a Noh play, a drama, or poetry. Seen through this psychological glass, I must say that of all the women I had ever met, Nami-san was the one who acted most beautifully. Precisely because her actions were all perfectly unintentional, with absolutely no idea of showing off a beautiful performance, hers was always far more fascinating than stage acting.

Such were my ideas, I must not be misunderstood, and it would be the height of injustice to me to be censured as unfit to be a member of society. A man is sometimes laughed at for acting theatrically. This is all very well, when one derides the folly of undergoing unnecessary self-sacrifices, in order merely to vindicate one’s taste; but it is wholly unpardonable for curs, with no idea of what tastes are, to scoff at others by judging things from their own low level. Years ago a youth sought and met Death by leaping over a five hundred foot waterfall. I have an idea that he gave his life that must not be lost, all for the word “aesthetic beauty.” Death is heroic in itself; but there is something mysterious in the motives that prompt it. However, it is out of the question for anyone unable to appreciate the heroism of death to laugh at the self-destruction of Fujimura, the youth. Not gifted with the power of grasping the true significance of the heroic ending of life, such a person is bound to fail to resort to the heroic deed, even when circumstances make it most proper, and I conclude, in this sense, that such a one has no right to laugh at Fujimura’s tragic death. I am an artist given over wholly to tastes and sentiments, and mingling with others in this mundane world as I may, I am loftier than my vulgar and prosaic neighbours. As a member of society I hold a position from which I may well teach others. I can act more beautifully than those who have no poetry, no painting, no artistic culture. In this man’s world a beautiful act is right, just and upright, and he who translates justice, righteousness and uprightness into his doings is a model citizen.

I had walked half a mile upward and came upon a tableland, with trees weaving out the beautiful green of Spring on the North, probably the same which I saw from my room in the Shiota hotel, and which so fascinated me as to bring me out here with my painting kit. I went about this way and that, beating the grass, in search of a place of vantage. I awoke in no time to the fact that the charming scenery I saw from the verandah was, after all, not so easy to take on to a canvas, and besides the colour and atmosphere were changing. The desire to paint slipped away from me, I knew not where. With that ambition gone, it made no difference to me where or how I sat. At random I lay me down on the young grass, the roots of which the Spring sun was bathing with his warm rays, and I thought I was crushing the unseen gossamer.

Presently I lay on my back, with wild dwarf quince blooming all around me. Everything was so transporting that I felt I must write a piece of poetry. I took out my sketch book and wrote down in it, line after line, as they slowly came to me until I had eighteen of them to round it up:

I left home full of thoughts within me.
Spring breezes played about my clothes as I came along.
Sweet is the young grass growing in the wheel tracks.
Neglected paths run into haze are faintly visible.
I plant my stick in the ground and look around.
Nature is in her robe of clear brightness.
Gentle yellow songsters are hopping to the tune of their lovely melody.
Seeing plum blossoms falling like snow.
I walk across the wild field, which is far and wide.
Coming upon an old temple, I write a poem on its door.
With sorrowful eyes I look up to the cloud,
And see the wild geese homing across the sky.
My heart, why so softly quiet?
The past is far back, I forget good or bad.
At thirty I am getting old.
But Spring is lingering.
Strolling about I adapt myself to things around.
At other times I drink full of sweet fragrance.

I read and reread the lines, pleased that they gave expression, rather well, to my feelings as I lay among the vermilion flowers, in sweet oblivion to the cares and worries of the world. Just then, came “hem,” the sound of somebody clearing the throat, and it took me by surprise, as I least expected any living soul in my fairyland. I turned round and saw a man coming out of the wood screening the brow of the mountain yonder. He was wearing a felt hat, which shaded his eyes, that I imagined to be looking restlessly about. His indifferent kimono and bare feet almost forced a conclusion that he must be of the fraternity, the members of which are popularly known as tramps. I thought, he might be going down the craggy path I had come up; but no, he retraced his footsteps towards the wood. He did not re-enter the wood, but returned towards the path. In short, he was going backwards and forwards, as if in a walk; but his general appearance told against the latter theory. He was shaking his head now and again, and seemed to be thinking something, now halting, now looking round. Possibly he was expecting somebody, it occurred to me; how should I know?

I could not remove my eyes from the suspicious-looking man, although he aroused no sense of fear or alarm in me. Nor was I seized with any idea of making a picture of him. Nevertheless my eyes were glued to him, in spite of myself. As I was following his every movement, another figure came into the corner of my eye, as the man came to a halt. The two seemed to recognise each other, and my field of vision narrowed as they walked up toward each other, until it became a single point. They stood face to face with a verdant mountain rising on one side, and the out-stretching sea on the other.

One of the pair was, of course, the tramp, and the other a woman. It was Nami-san!

So soon as I recognised Nami-san, I remembered the dagger I saw in her hand that morning. It was possible, even, probable, that she had it with her now, as she stood before the ungainly man. The thought chilled me, unhuman as I was.

The two stood perfectly still, maintaining the same posture as when they first faced each other. They might be talking but I could not hear a word. Presently the man dropped his head forward and Nami-san turned her face toward the mountain. A warbler was singing in that direction, and she seemed to be listening, for all I saw. A few moments later the man straightened himself up, now carrying his head erect, and made a motion as if to walk away. The same moment Nami-san changed her pose and turned her face towards the sea. Something was just visible in the voluminous folds of her obi, it might be the dagger. The man pulled himself up proudly and started to go. Nami-san followed him two or three steps. The man stopped. Did she, perchance, ask him to? In the same moment he turned round, Nami-san thrust her hand into her obi. Mercy! But it was not the dagger it took out, but a purse, the dangling string of which swung gently to and fro in the breeze as the fair hand held it out to the man. One foot planted firmly on the ground and the other a little forward, the upper half of her body slightly thrown backward, and the purple of the purse making a strong contrast with the well shaped hand, the picture was truly worth preserving. But the vision evaporated the moment the man took the purse and disappeared into the wood.

Nami-san gave not a look back to the vanishing man; but she turned right round and walked briskly toward where I lay buried in the flowering quince. “Sensei! Sensei!” She called twice, as soon as she came right in front of me. Wondering when she detected me, I responded:

“What is it, O-Nami-san?”

I held up my head above the quince; my hat had dropped among the grass.

“What can you be doing there, Sensei?”

“I was lying asleep, after a little poetising.”

“Now, now, no story-telling, Sensei. You must have seen the show just now?”

“Yes, I took the liberty to see just a little bit of it.”

“Ho, ho, ho. Not just a little bit of it, but you should have seen a good deal of it.”

“To tell the truth, I saw a good deal of it.”

“There you are! Just come out of there, Sensei. Come out of the quince, Sensei.”

I meekly obeyed the order.

“Have you got anything more to do in the quince bed?”

“No, nothing more. I was thinking of going home.”

“Well, then, we will go home together, Sensei.”

I again demonstrated my docility, by going back among the quince, by picking up my hat, by gathering up my kits, and then walking homeward with Nami-san.

“Have you painted anything, Sensei?”

“No, I gave it up.”

“You have not painted a single picture since you came to us?”

“No, but don’t you see, O-Nami-san, I fled from Tokyo, and having come to a place like this, I must have everything ‘go as you like.’ ”

“Speaking of ‘go as you like,’ Sensei, life would not be worth living, unless you had it that way, wherever you happen to be. For my part, I am so unconcerned about things that I do not feel ashamed to have a scene like that seen by others.”

“No, I do not think you need be ashamed.”

“Perhaps, you are right, Sensei; but who do you think that man was?”

“Well, I should imagine he is not a very rich man.”

“Ho, ho, ho, you say right, Sensei. You are a good judge. He is in such a pinch that he can no longer remain in Japan, and he came to me for some money.”

“Is that so, O-Nami-san? Where did he come from?”

“From the town.”

“From so far away? Where is he going, now, O-Nami-san?”

“He told me he was going to Manchuria.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know, I am sure. He may be going there to make money, or he may be going there to die, for all I know.”

I raised my eyes at this point, and looked into my companion’s face and there I saw a smile dying away, the meaning of which I did not comprehend.

“He is my husband.”

The woman said it with the swiftness of lightning, catching me entirely unguarded. I had not had the faintest idea of trying to get such information out of her. Nor did I expect that she would go the length of telling me all that. She continued:

“Well, Sensei, has it shocked you?”

“Yes, you astonished me somewhat.”

“He is not my husband at present. He is my husband from whom I have been divorced.”

“Is that so? Well?”

“That is all.”

“Well, well. By the by, I saw a fine white house by an orange orchard, which I saw on coming up here. Do you know whose residence that is?”

“It is my brother’s. We will stop there on our way home.”

“You have some business there?”

“Yes. I must do some errand there.”

We came to the craggy path; but instead of going down it, my fair guide led me by turning to the right. After a slow climb of about one hundred yards, we came to a gate. Nami-san waiving the etiquette of knocking at the front door, took me straight into the inner court, which was laid out into a fine garden fronting the main hall of the house. The garden was fenced by a mud walk beyond which extended an orange orchard sloping downward.

“Look, Sensei, isn’t this a fine view?”

“Yes, it is fine.”

As we sat on the verandah, I espied no sign of anything living in the hall behind us, which was closed from view by paper screens. Nami-san made no attempt to make our presence known to the people of the house, but sat on the verandah, looking down on the orchard with perfect unconcern. This struck me as very strange, and I could not help wondering if she really had any business here. We found no subject to talk about, and sat in silence with our eyes wandering over the orange trees. The sun had almost reached the meridian and the warm sunshine was bathing the whole mountain, while the dark green of the innumerable orange trees below glowed intensely. Presently a loud cock-a-doodle-doo came from the direction of the barn.

“Why, it is noon! I have quite forgotten my errand. Kyuichi-san! Kyuichi-san!”

Nami-san stood up, and, bending forward over the verandah, reached out her hand and slid open a screen. The ten-mat room was empty of any living soul and a pair of hanging pictures by an artist of Kano school lonesomely occupied the tokonoma niche.

“Kyuichi-san!”

A voice coming from somewhere near the barn answered the call, at last, and presently footsteps were heard. They stopped just behind the inner screen. The fusuma opened and at the same moment a plain sheathed dagger went rolling across the matted floor. Nami-san did it so quickly that I did not even see her put her hand in between the folds of her obi and take out the warlike thing. As it was, the dagger stopped just at the foot of Kyuichi-san who had come out of the opening.

“There, that is for you from your uncle as a present for your going to Manchuria.”