Taking his perfunctory reply in his stride, Honda went on: “All right, then, just imagine this if you can. In a few decades, people will see you and the people you despise as one and the same, a single entity. Your slow-witted friends—with their sentimentality, their vicious narrow-mindedness that condemns as effeminate anyone who’ is not like themselves, their harassment of the underclassmen, their fanatical worship of General Nogi, the frame of mind that lets them draw such incredible satisfaction from sweeping the ground every morning around the sakaki planted by the Meiji Emperor—you with all your sensitivity will be seen cheek-by-jowl with these people when they stop to think about our times in years to come. You see, this is the easiest way to establish the essence of our era—to take the lowest common denominator. Once the churning water has settled to a calm surface, you can see the rainbow oil slick floating there. And that’s the way it will be. After we’re all dead, it will be easy to analyze us and isolate our basic elements for everyone to see. And of course this essence, the thought that is the foundation of our era, will be considered quite benighted a hundred years from now. And you and I have no way of escaping the verdict, no way to prove that we didn’t share the discredited views of our contemporaries. And what standard will history apply to that outlook? What do you think? The thoughts of the geniuses of our age? Of great men? Not at all. Those who come after us and decide what was in our minds will adopt the criterion of the uncritical thought patterns of your friends on the kendo team. In other words, they’ll seize upon the most primitive and popular credos of our day. You see every era has always been characterized solely in terms of such idiocies.”
Kiyoaki was not sure where this was taking Honda, but as he listened, a germ of thought began to grow in his mind. By now several of their classmates were to be seen at the open windows of their second-floor classroom. The windows of the other rooms were shut, reflecting the glare of the morning sun and the brilliant blue of the sky. A familiar morning scene. When he thought of the events of the previous day, the morning of the snowstorm, he felt as if he had been drawn unwillingly from a dark world of sensuous excitement into the clear, bright courts of reason.
“Well, that’s history,” he said. He was embarrassed by the immaturity of his remarks in contrast to Honda’s, but he was finally making an effort to come to grips with the other’s thought. “In other words, no matter what we think, or hope for, or feel—all that has not the slightest bearing on the course of history? Is that what you mean?”
“That’s it exactly. Europeans believe that a man like Napoleon can impose his will on history. We Japanese think the same of the men like your grandfather and his contemporaries who brought about the Meiji Restoration. But is that really true? Does history ever obey the will of men? Looking at you always makes me ponder that question. You’re not a great man and you’re not a genius either. But, nonetheless, you have one characteristic that sets you quite apart: you have no trace whatever of willpower. And so I am always fascinated to think of you in relation to history.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“No, not a bit. I’m thinking in terms of unconscious participation in history. For example, let’s say that I have will-power—”
“You certainly have.”
“Say that I want to alter the course of history. I devote all my energies and resources to this end. I use every ounce of strength I possess to bend history to my will. Say I possess the prestige and authority so necessary to bring this about. None of this would ensure that history proceeded according to my wishes. Then, on the other hand, perhaps a hundred, two hundred, even three hundred years later, history might veer abruptly to take a course that was consonant with my vision and ideals—and this without my having had anything whatever to do with it. Perhaps society would assume a form that was the exact replica of my dreams of a hundred or two hundred years before; history, enjoying the new glory that had been my vision, would smile at me with cool condescension and mock my ambition. And people would say: ‘Well, that’s history.’”
“But there is such a thing as the time being ripe for everything, isn’t there?” asked Kiyoaki. “Your vision’s time would finally have come, that’s all. Maybe it wouldn’t even take as long as a hundred years; maybe thirty or fifty. That sort of thing often happens. And perhaps even after your death, your will would serve as an invisible guideline, unknown to anyone, that would help bring about what you wanted to accomplish in your lifetime. Maybe if someone like you had never lived, history would never have taken such a turn, no matter how long it lasted.”
Even though such cold, uncongenial abstractions were a struggle for him, Kiyoaki felt stirred by a certain warmth, an excitement that he knew he had Honda to thank for. He was reluctant to acknowledge satisfaction from such a source. But as he looked around the white-carpeted school grounds, with the bare branches of the trees casting shadows over the snow-covered flowerbeds, and the clear sound of trickling water in his ears, he knew he was happy that Honda had started this discussion. Even though he must have known that he was still engrossed in the memory of the happiness and fascination of the day before, Honda had chosen to ignore it, a decision that seemed appropriate to the purity of the snow around them. At that moment, some of it slid off the roof, baring a few square feet of wet tile, gleaming black.
“And so,” continued Honda, “if society turned out as I wanted it to after a hundred years, you’d call that an accomplishment?”
“It must be.”
“Whose accomplishment?”
“That of your will.”
“You’re joking. I’d be dead. As I just told you, all this came about without my having had anything to do with it.”
“Well, can’t you say that it’s the accomplishment of the will of history then?”
“So history has a will, eh? It’s always dangerous to try to personify history. As far as I’m concerned, history has no will of its own and, furthermore, it hasn’t the least concern for mine either. So if there is no will whatever involved in the process, you can’t talk about accomplishments. And all the socalled accomplishments of history prove it. They’re no sooner achieved than they begin to crumble away. History is a record of destruction. One must always make room for the next ephemeral crystal. For history, to build and to destroy are one and the same thing.
“I am fully aware of all this. Although I understand it, I cannot be like you and stop being a man of determination. I suppose it’s probably a compulsion in my character. No one can say for certain, but I will say this much: any will has as its essence the desire to influence history. I’m not saying that human desires affect history, only that they try to. Then, too, some forms of will are bound up with destiny, even though this concept is anathema to the will.
“But in the long run, all human will is doomed to frustration. It’s a matter of course that things turn out contrary to your intentions. And what conclusion does a Westerner draw from this? He says: ‘My will was the sole rational force involved. Failure came about by chance.’
“To speak of chance is to negate the possibility of any law of cause and effect. Chance is the one final irrationality acceptable to the free will.
“Without the concept of chance, you see, the Western philosophy of free will could never have arisen. Chance is the crucial refuge of the will. And without it the very thought of gambling would be inconceivable, just as the Westerner has no other way of rationalizing the repeated setbacks and frustrations that he must endure. I think that this concept of chance, of a gamble, is the very substance of the God of Europeans, and so they have a deity whose characteristics are derived from that refuge so vital to free will, namely chance—the only sort of God who would inspire the freedom of human will.
“But what would happen if we were to deny the existence of chance completely? What would happen if—no matter what the victory or the defeat—you had to exclude utterly all possible role of chance in it? In that case, you’d be destroying all refuge of free will. Do away wi
th chance and you undermine the props under the concept of the will.
“Picture a scene like this: it’s a square at midday. The will is standing there all alone. He pretends that he is remaining upright by virtue of his own strength, and hence he goes on deceiving himself. The sun beats down. No trees, no grass. Nothing whatever in the huge square to keep him company but his own shadow. At that moment, a thundering voice comes down from the cloudless sky above: ‘Chance is dead. There’s no such thing as chance. Hear me, Will: you have lost your advocate forever.’ And with that, the Will feels his substance begin to crumble and dissolve. His flesh rots and falls away. In an instant his skeleton is laid bare, a thin liquid spurts from it, and the bones themselves lose their solidity and begin to disintegrate. The Will still stands with his feet planted firmly on the ground, but this final effort is futile. For at that very moment, the bright, glaring sky is rent apart with a terrible roar, and the God of Inevitability stares down through the chasm.
“But I cannot help trying to conjure up an odious face for this dreadful God, and this weakness is doubtless due to my own bent toward voluntarism. For if Chance ceases to exist, then Will becomes meaningless—no more significant than a speck of rust on the huge chain of cause and effect that we only glimpse from time to time. Then there’s only one way to participate in history, and that’s to have no will at all—to function solely as a shining, beautiful atom, eternal and unchanging. No one should look for any other meaning in human existence.
“You are not likely to see things this way. I wouldn’t expect you to subscribe to such a philosophy. The only things you do put any faith in—and that without much thought—are your own good looks, your changing moods, your individuality and—not your fixed character, but on the contrary, your very lack of it. Am I right?”
Kiyoaki could not manage an answer. For want of anything better, he smiled, knowing that Honda was not trying to insult him.
“And that for me is the greatest riddle,” said Honda, sighing so earnestly that it seemed almost comical. His breath became a frosty cloud that hovered for a second in the clear morning air, and seemed to Kiyoaki to be a secret manifestation of Honda’s concern for him. Deep down inside him, his sense of happiness intensified.
The bell rang to announce the beginning of classes, and the two young men stood up. Just then, someone scooped up some of the snow piled on the second floor window ledges and threw down a snowball. It struck the path at their feet, in a burst of sparkling fragments.
14
KIYOAKI’S FATHER had entrusted him with the key to the library. This was in a corner of the north side of the main house, and it was one room of the Matsugaes that received scant attention. The Marquis was not the man to devote much time to books. But here were gathered the Chinese classics that had belonged to Kiyoaki’s grandfather, the Western books that the Marquis had ordered from Maruzen out of the desire to appear intellectual, and many others received as gifts. When Kiyoaki started high school, his father had handed over the key with the pomposity of one conferring the guardianship of a treasure trove of wisdom. Thus he alone was privileged to go there whenever he liked. Among the books in the library least likely to excite the Marquis’s interest were many collections of Japanese classics and children’s books. Prior to publication, each of their publishers had requested a brief recommendation from the Marquis together with a photograph of him in formal dress, and then in exchange for this privilege to print “Recommended by His Excellency Marquis Matsugae” in gilt letters on the binding of each book, they presented him with the collections.
Kiyoaki himself was not inclined to make frequent use of the library. He preferred his own reveries to books. For Iinuma, however, who was given the key once a month by Kiyoaki so that he could clean the room, the library was the most hallowed place in the house, sanctified as it was by the Chinese classics dear to Kiyoaki’s grandfather. When he spoke of it, he never referred to it merely as the library. It was always “His Late Excellency’s Library,” and when he pronounced those words, his voice was choked with emotion.
On the evening after Kiyoaki had become reconciled with Honda, he called his tutor to his room just as Iinuma was about to leave for his night classes, and dropped the library key into his hand without a word. There was a set day for the monthly cleaning. Furthermore, this was a job that Iinuma never did at night. What, he wondered, was the reason for giving him the key now, on the wrong day and in the evening at that? It lay on the palm of his thick, blunt hand, blue and metallic like a dragonfly with its wings torn off.
Afterwards Iinuma would recall this moment time and again. How torn and naked the key seemed, like a ravaged body as it lay in his palm. He stood for some time trying to decide what it meant, but he could not. When Kiyoaki finally did explain, he seethed with anger directed not so much at his master as at himself for being at his mercy.
“Yesterday morning I didn’t go to school and you stood by me. Tonight it’s my turn to help you. Go out just as if you were leaving for school. Then go round to the back and come in by the door opposite the library. That key will open the room and you can wait inside. But don’t turn on the light. And the safest course would be to lock the door from the inside.
“Tadeshina has given Miné full instructions. She’ll telephone here with a message for her, asking when Miss Satoko’s sachet will be finished. That will be the signal. Miné is skilled at such delicate work and people are always asking her to do something like this. Miss Satoko herself asked her to make a gold brocade sachet. So such a phone call won’t arouse the least suspicion.
“Once Miné receives the message, she’ll wait for the time when you’re supposed to leave for school and then she’ll go to the library and knock lightly on the door, hoping that you’ll open it for her. And since it’ll be just after dinner, when everyone is bustling around, no one will miss her for thirty or forty minutes.
“Tadeshina believes that for you two to meet outside instead would be too dangerous and hard to arrange. There would have to be all sorts of pretexts for a maid to go out alone without everyone having something to say about it.
“At any rate, I took the liberty of deciding the matter without consulting you. Tadeshina is going to call Miné tonight. And so you must go to the library. If you don’t, Miné will be terribly upset.”
As he stood listening, a bear at bay, Iinuma’s hand shook so violently that he almost dropped the key.
∗
The library was very cold. The heavy curtains of gold thread let in a little light from the lanterns burning in the garden behind the house, but not enough to allow one to decipher the titles of the books. The room was filled with the smell of mildew, like the odor hanging over the banks of a clogged canal in winter.
The darkness was no obstacle to Iinuma. He had memorized the place of almost every book in the library. Works such as the writings of Han Fei-tzu, The Testimony of Seiken, and The Eighteen Histories lined the shelves, including a Japanese-bound edition of the Commentaries on the Four Classics which had lost its protective cover. This was a book that Kiyoaki’s grandfather had thumbed so often that its binding was worn out.
One day when Iinuma was turning over the pages of one of the books he was dusting, a poem by Kayo Honen had caught his eye. It was in a collection of famous Japanese and Chinese works, and Iinuma had carefully memorized the place. The title was “Song of a Noble Heart.” One verse of it was particularly consoling as he performed his duties of cleaning the library:
Though now I sweep a little room
I will not do so forever
Can Kyushu hold my ambition?
Can flocks of chattering sparrows
Share the eagle’s solitary path?
Iinuma now understood. Knowing his deep reverence for “His Late Excellency’s Library,” Kiyoaki had deliberately chosen it for this tryst. There could be no doubt about it. When he had been explaining the plan that he had so considerately arranged, the cold satisfaction in his manner was proof en
ough that he grasped all its implications. He wanted events to take their course so that Iinuma himself would commit sacrilege in the place he worshipped.
When he thought about it, there had been a silent menace in Kiyoaki ever since he had been a beautiful child. A delight in sacrilege. And when Iinuma had thus defiled what was so precious to him, Kiyoaki would be as delighted as if he had taken a piece of raw meat and rolled it up in a sacred Shinto pendant. In legendary times, the savage god Susano, the brother of the Sun Goddess, had found satisfaction in the same way.
Ever since Iinuma had lost himself to a woman, Kiyoaki’s power over him had grown immensely. Furthermore—and to Iinuma the injustice of it was baffling—the world would always accept Kiyoaki’s pleasures as charming and natural, whereas it would condemn his own with unflagging severity as sordid, not to say sinful. As he brooded over this, Iinuma’s self-loathing steadily deepened.
From the ceiling of the library came the rustle of scurrying rats, and an occasional muffled squeal. When he had done the cleaning the previous month, he had spread plenty of poisoned chestnuts up there, but apparently to no avail. Suddenly he shuddered, remembering what he most wanted to forget.
Every time he saw Mine’s face, no matter how he tried to suppress it, the same evil thought stirred in his mind. Even now, as her warm body was coming to meet him in the evening darkness, this thought stood between them. It concerned something that Kiyoaki probably knew already, but since he had never mentioned it to him, Iinuma himself, without forgetting about it for a moment, had kept quiet about it. Actually, it was a rather open secret, which made Iinuma’s distress increasingly hard to bear. He was tormented by it, as if a pack of rats were swarming over him in all their filth. The Marquis had slept with Miné and still occasionally did. His imagination was triggered by the rats above—their bloodshot eyes, their loathsome bodies. . . .