“I was born in May. It’s my birthstone,” Prince Pattanadid explained, slightly embarrassed again. “Ying Chan gave it to me as a farewell present.”
“But if you wore something as magnificent as that at Peers, I’m afraid they’d order you to stop,” warned Kiyoaki.
Taken aback by this, the two princes began to confer earnestly in their native language, but quickly realizing their inadvertent rudeness, they switched back to English for Kiyoaki’s sake. Kiyoaki told them that he would speak to his father about making arrangements for them to have a safety deposit at the bank. After this had been settled and the atmosphere had warmed still further, Prince Kridsada brought out a small photograph of his own sweetheart. And then both princes urged Kiyoaki to do the same.
“In Japan we are not accustomed to exchanging pictures,” he said hastily, under the spur of youthful vanity. “But I’ll certainly introduce her to you very soon.” He did not have the courage to show them the pictures of Satoko that filled the album he had kept from early childhood.
It suddenly dawned on Kiyoaki that although his good looks had excited praise and admiration all his life, he had nearly reached the age of eighteen in the gloomy confines of the family estate without a single female friend other than Satoko.
And Satoko was as much an enemy as anything else; she was far from being the ideal of womanhood, sweetness and affection incarnate, that the two princes would admire. Kiyoaki felt his anger rising against the many frustrations that hemmed him in. What his somewhat tipsy father had said to him on that “evening stroll”—though his tone had been very kind—now seemed in retrospect to contain a veiled scorn.
The very things that his sense of dignity had made him ignore up to now had suddenly gained the power to humiliate him. Everything about these lively young princes from the tropics—their brown skin, the flashing virility in their eyes, their long, slender, amber fingers, already so experienced in caresses—all this seemed to taunt Kiyoaki: “What? At your age, not even a single love affair?”
Feeling his poise evaporating, Kiyoaki, with his last reserves of aloofness and elegance, hurriedly said, “I’ll introduce her to you very soon.” But how was he to arrange matters? How to show off Satoko’s beauty before his foreign friends? For the very day before, after a long hesitation, Kiyoaki had finally sent a wildly insulting letter to Satoko.
Every phrase in that letter, a letter whose premeditated insults he had worked and reworked with the most painstaking care, was still vivid in his mind. He had begun by writing: “I am very sorry to say that your effrontery toward me compels me to write this letter.” And from that curt opening, he had gone on:
When I think how often you have presented me with these senseless riddles, withholding any clues in order to make them seem more serious than they really are, numbness strikes this hand of mine holding its writing brush until it withers me. I have no doubt that your emotional whims have driven you to do this to me. There has been no gentleness in your method, obviously no affection whatever, not a trace of friendship. There are deep-seated motivations in your despicable behavior to which you are blind, but which are driving you toward a goal that is only too obvious. But decency forbids me to say anything further.
But all your efforts and schemes have now become a mere froth on the waves. For I, unhappy though I once was, I have now passed one of life’s milestones, a transition for which I owe you some debt of gratitude, however indirect. My father invited me to go with him on one of his excursions to the Gay Quarters, and now I’ve crossed a barrier that every man must cross. To put it bluntly, I spent the night with a geisha my father had chosen for me. Nothing but one of those exercises in pleasure that society sanctions for men.
Fortunately enough, a single night was sufficient to bring about a complete change in me. My previous concepts of women were shattered. I learned to see a girl as nothing but a plump, lascivious little animal, a contemptible playmate. This is the wonderful revelation to be found in my father’s kind of society. And having had no sympathy for his attitude toward women until that night, I now endorse it completely. Every fiber in my body tells me that I am my father’s son.
Perhaps at this point you may feel that I am to be congratulated on having finally outgrown the dead old-fashioned views of the Meiji era in favor of more enlightened ones. And perhaps you are smiling contemptuously, secure in the knowledge that my lust for paid women will only serve to enhance my esteem for pure ladies like yourself. No! Let me disabuse you of any such notion. Since that night (enlightenment being exactly what it says) I have broken through all these standards into territory where there are no restraints. Geisha or princess, virgin or prostitute, factory girl or artist—there is no distinction whatever. Every woman without exception is a liar and “nothing but a plump, lascivious little animal.” All the rest is makeup and costumes. And I must say that I see you as being just like all the others. Please believe that gentle Kiyo, whom you considered so sweet, so innocent, so malleable, is gone forever.
The two princes must have been somewhat taken aback when Kiyoaki said an abrupt good night and hurried out of their room fairly early in the evening, although he smilingly observed all the usual proprieties expected of a gentleman, such as checking that their bedding was correctly laid out, inquiring after any further needs, and finally withdrawing with the ritual courtesies.
“Why is it that at times like this, there is never anyone to rely on,” Kiyoaki muttered to himself as he fled through the long corridor that led back to the main house from the Western one. He thought of Honda, but his exacting standards of friendship made him dismiss that possibility.
The night wind howled at the windows of the passageway with its line of dim lanterns stretching into the distance. Suddenly afraid that someone might see him and wonder at his running and being out of breath like this, he stopped, and as he rested his elbows on the ornamental window frame and pretended to stare out into the garden, he tried desperately to put his thoughts in order. Unlike dreams, reality was not so easy to manipulate. He had to conceive a plan. It could not be anything vague and uncertain; it had to be as firmly compact as a pill, and with as sure and immediate a result. He was oppressed by a sense of his own weakness, and after the warmth of the room he had just left, the cold corridor made him shiver.
He pressed his forehead to the wind-buffeted glass and peered out into the garden. There was no moon tonight. The island and the maple hill beyond formed one mass in the darkness. In the faint glow of the corridor lamps he could make out the surface of the pond ruffled by the wind. He suddenly imagined that the snapping turtles had reared their heads out of the water and were looking toward him. The thought made him shudder.
As he returned to the main house and was about to climb the stairs to his room, he encountered his tutor Iinuma, and looked at him very coldly.
“Have Their Highnesses already retired for the night, sir?”
“Yes.”
“The young master is about to retire too?”
“I have some studying to do.”
Iinuma was twenty-three and in his final year of night school. In fact, he had probably just returned from class since he was carrying some books under one arm. To be young and in his prime seemed to have no other effect on him than to deepen his look of characteristic melancholy. His huge dark bulk unnerved Kiyoaki.
When the boy returned to his room, he did not bother to light the stove, but began to pace about anxiously, tossing up plan after plan after plan.
“Whatever I do, I must do it quickly,” he thought. “Is it too late already? Somehow, in the very near future I have to introduce a girl to the princes as being on the fondest terms with me, when I have just sent her this letter. And furthermore, I have to do it in a way that won’t cause gossip.”
The evening paper, which he had no time to read, lay on the chair. For no good reason, Kiyoaki picked it up and opened it. An announcement for a Kabuki play at the Imperial Theater caught his eye, and suddenly his heart
began to thump.
“That’s it. I’ll take the princes to the Imperial Theater. And as for that letter, it can’t have arrived already since I sent it only yesterday. There’s still hope. My parents won’t allow Satoko to go to a play with me, but if we met by accident, there’d be nothing wrong with that.”
Kiyoaki rushed out of the room and down the stairs to the room beside the front entrance where the telephone was. Before he went in, however, he looked cautiously in the direction of Iinuma’s room, which was emitting streaks of light. He must be studying.
Kiyoaki picked up the receiver and gave the operator the number. His heart was pounding; his customary ennui had been swept away.
“Hello, is this the Ayakura residence? Please may I speak to Miss Satoko?” Kiyoaki asked, after the familiar voice of an old woman had answered. From distant Azabu, her voice expressed a certain displeasure, though remaining agonizingly polite.
“It’s young Master Matsugae, I believe? I’m terribly sorry, but it’s so late, I’m afraid.”
“Has Miss Satoko gone to bed?”
“Well, no, I don’t believe she has retired yet.”
After Kiyoaki persisted, Satoko finally came to the phone. The sound of her warm, clear voice cheered him immensely.
“Kiyo, what in the world do you want at this time of night?”
“Well, to tell the truth, I sent you a letter yesterday. Now I must ask you something. When it comes, please, whatever you do, don’t open it. Please promise me that you’ll throw it right into the fire.”
“Well really, Kiyo, I don’t know what you’re talking about . . .” Something in Satoko’s apparently calm voice told Kiyoaki that she had started to weave her usual net of ambiguities. And her voice on this cold winter night was as warm and ripe as an apricot in June. He said impatiently, “I know you don’t. So just please listen and promise. When my letter comes, throw it in the fire right away without opening it, please?”
“I see.”
“Do you promise?”
“Very well.”
“And now there’s something else I want to ask you . . .”
“This certainly seems to be the night for requests, doesn’t it, Kiyo?”
“Could you do this for me: get tickets to the play at the Imperial Theater for the day after tomorrow for yourself and your maid.”
“A play . . . !”
The abrupt silence at the other end made Kiyoaki afraid that Satoko might refuse, but then he realized that, in his haste, there was something he had forgotten. Given the Ayakuras’ present circumstances, the price of a pair of tickets, at two yen fifty sen apiece, would represent quite an extravagance.
“No, wait, excuse me. I’ll have the tickets sent to you. If your seats are next to ours, people might talk, but I’ll arrange it so that they are somewhere nearby. I’m going with the two princes from Siam, by the way.”
“How kind of you, Kiyo! Tadeshina will be delighted, I’m sure. I’d love to go,” said Satoko, making no effort to conceal her pleasure.
7
THE NEXT DAY AT SCHOOL, Kiyoaki asked Honda to join him and the Siamese princes at the Imperial Theater the following night; Honda was pleased, and accepted at once, although not without a vague sense of awkwardness. Kiyoaki, of course, did not choose to tell his friend the part of the plan that provided for the chance encounter with Satoko.
At home that evening during dinner, Honda told his parents about Kiyoaki’s invitation. His father had some reservations about the theater, but felt that he should not restrict the freedom of an eighteen-year-old in matters of this sort.
His father was a justice of the Supreme Court. He saw to it that an atmosphere of decorum reigned in his household. The family lived in a large mansion in Hongo with many rooms, some of which were decorated in the oppressive Western style popular in the Meiji era. Among his servants were a number of students, and books were to be found everywhere. They filled the library and study and even lined the hallways, in an expanse of brown leather and gold lettering.
His mother, too, was the opposite of frivolous. She held office in the Women’s Patriotic League, and she was rather pained that her son should have struck up a close friendship with the son of Marquise Matsugae, a lady who had no taste for such worthwhile activities. Aside from this, however, Shigekuni Honda’s school record, his diligence, his health, and his unfailing good manners were a source of constant pride to his mother, and she never tired of singing his praises to other people.
Everything in the Honda household, down to the most trivial utensil, had to meet exacting standards. Starting with the bonsai in the front entrance, the screen behind it with the painted Chinese ideogram for harmony, the cigarette case and ashtrays laid out in the drawing room, the tasseled tablecloth, and ending with the rice bin in the kitchen, the towel rack in the toilet, the pen holders in the study, and even the various paperweights in the study—each item was perfection of its kind.
And this same care extended to the conversation of the household. In the homes of Honda’s friends, one or two old people could always be counted on to come up with absurd stories. In all seriousness, for example, they might recall the night when two moons had appeared at the window, one of them a badger in disguise who immediately resumed his normal shape on being roundly abused, and lumbered away. And there would always be an appreciative audience. But in his own home, a severe glance from his father would make it clear even to the oldest of the maids that to indulge in such ignorant nonsense was out of the question.
In his youth, his father had spent some years studying law in Germany, and he revered the German respect for logic.
When Shigekuni Honda compared his own home with Kiyoaki’s, one aspect of the contrast particularly amused him. Although the Matsugaes seemed to lead a Westernized life and although their house was filled with objects from abroad, the atmosphere of their home was strikingly and traditionally Japanese. In his own household, on the other hand, the day-today life-style might be Japanese, but the atmosphere had much that was Western in spirit. And then his father’s regard for the education of his student houseboys was in marked contrast to Marquis Matsugae’s attitude toward his.
As usual, once he had finished his homework, which tonight was French, his second foreign language, Honda turned to some law digests. These were written in German, French, and English, and he had had to order them through the Maruzen bookstore. He read these every night in anticipation of the future demands of college work, and also, more significantly, because he had a natural bent to trace everything to its source. Lately, he had begun to lose interest in the European natural law that had exercised such a fascination on him. From the day of the Abbess of Gesshu’s sermon, he had become more and more aware of such a system’s inadequacies.
He realized, however, that although natural law had been comparatively neglected in recent years, no other system of thought displayed such a capacity for survival: it had flourished in different forms suited to each of the many epochs in two thousand years of history—from its apparent origins in Socrates and its powerful influence on the formulation of law in the Roman era through the medium of Aristotle’s writings, to its intricate development and codification during the Christian Middle Ages and its renewed popularity in the Renaissance; this indeed reached such a peak that the period could be called the Age of Natural Law. In all probability, it was this recurrent philosophy that preserved the traditional European faith in the power of reason. Still, Honda could not help thinking that despite its tenacity, two thousand years of its strong, bright, Apollonian humanism had barely sufficed to hold off the assaults of darkness and barbarism.
Nor was the assault limited to these forces. Another, more blinding light had also threatened it, since natural law had to rigidly exclude the very possibility of a concept of existence based on romantic and irrational nationalism.
However that might be, Honda did not necessarily cling to the historical school of law, which was influenced by nineteenth-century ro
manticism, nor to the ethnic school. The Japan of the Meiji era, indeed, needed a nationalistic type of law, one that had its roots in the philosophy of the historical school. But Honda’s concerns were quite different. He had first been intent on isolating the essential principle behind all law, a principle which he felt must exist. And this was why the concept of natural law had fascinated him for a time. But now he was more concerned to define the outer limits of natural law, which were inadvertently pointed up by its claims to universality. He enjoyed giving his imagination free rein in this direction. If the law, he thought, was to do away with the restrictions that natural law and philosophy had imposed upon man’s vision of the world since ancient times, and break through to a more universal principle (granted that such exists) would it not reach a stage where the law itself, as we know it, would cease to exist?
This was, of course, the kind of dangerous thinking that appealed to youth. And given Honda’s circumstances, with the geometrical structure of Roman law towering so formidably in the background to cast its shadow over the modern operative law that he was now studying, it was no wonder that he found its orthodoxy rather tedious; from time to time, he therefore put aside the legal codes of Meiji Japan, so scrupulously based on Western models, and turned his eyes in another direction—to the broader and more ancient legal traditions of Asia.
In his present skeptical mood, a French translation by Delongchamps of the Laws of Manu, which had arrived from Maruzen at an opportune moment, contained much that he found strongly appealing.
The Laws of Manu, probably compiled over the period from 200 B.C. to 200 A.D., were the foundation of Indian law. And among faithful Hindus, it maintained its authority as a legal code right up to the present. Within its twelve chapters and 2,684 articles were gathered an immense body of precepts drawn from religion, custom, ethics, and law. It ranged from the origin of the cosmos to the penalties for robbery and the rules for dividing an inheritance. It was imbued with an Asian philosophy in which all things were somehow one, in remarkable contrast to the natural law and world view of Christianity, with its passion for making distinctions based on a neatly corresponding macrocosm and microcosm.