IV

I infiltrate the Kaneda estate once again, in the usual fashion.

　The phrase "in the usual fashion" needs no particular elaboration. It implies a frequency that is the square of "frequently." A thing done once creates the desire to do it twice; a thing attempted twice creates the desire to attempt it thrice — this insatiable curiosity is not the exclusive privilege of human beings, and I must request that the cat too be recognized as having arrived in this world endowed with this psychological entitlement. When repeated three or more times, this behavior graduates to the designation of "habit" and evolves into a necessity of daily life — which is, once again, no different from the human experience. If you demand to know why I visit the Kaneda estate with such frequency, I have a counter-question for you: why do human beings inhale tobacco smoke through the mouth and exhale it through the nose? That substance neither fills the belly nor improves the blood, and yet you imbibe and expel it without the least shame — in which case, I would prefer you not raise your voice too loudly in reproach at my comings and goings at the Kaneda estate. The Kaneda estate is my tobacco.

　To say "infiltrate" is perhaps an unfortunate choice of words — it conjures images of burglars or illicit lovers, which is unpleasant to hear. My visits to the Kaneda estate are uninvited, certainly, but I am not there to make off with slices of bonito or to conspire with that creature Chin, whose eyes and nose convulse spasmodically toward the center of his face. A detective? Perish the thought entirely. I regard the detective and the moneylender as the two lowest professions known to society. To be sure, I once transgressed against my feline conscience and observed the Kaneda household from a discreet distance, animated by an atypical surge of chivalrous feeling on Kangetsu's behalf — but that was precisely once, and since then I have engaged in no further behavior unbecoming to the dignity of a cat. Then why use the compromising word "infiltrate"? — Well, there is considerable meaning in it. According to my understanding: the sky was made to cover all things, and the earth was made to bear all things — no human, however fond of argument, can dispute this fact. Now, how much labor did they contribute to the manufacture of this sky and earth? Not so much as an inch of it, would you say? What is not of one's own making cannot properly be declared one's private property. Even if declared so, there can be no justification for prohibiting others from entering. To fence and stake off portions of this vast earth and inscribe "property of so-and-so" is like dividing the blue sky into territories and filing notice that this portion belongs to us and that portion belongs to them. If land can be sliced into parcels and sold by the tsubo, then the air we breathe might equally be measured by the cubic foot and sold by the piece. If air cannot be sold piecemeal and sky cannot be fenced, then the private ownership of land is no less unreasonable. Operating on these principles, and believing in these laws, I am prepared to enter anywhere. I avoid places I have no desire to visit, but in the direction I am drawn, east west north south make no difference — I proceed at my ease without hesitation. I have no reason to defer to something as small as the Kaneda household. — Yet the sadness of being a cat is that raw force can never match a human's. In a world where "might makes right" is practically a proverb, however valid my reasoning may be, cat arguments do not carry. If I try to enforce them, I risk the fate of the coachman's Kuro — a sudden blow from the fishmonger's carrying-pole. The logic is mine but the power is theirs — and when that is the case, rather than bending my logic and capitulating at once, or persisting openly against superior force, I prefer naturally to choose the latter: to get around the power while making my point. The carrying-pole must be avoided, therefore stealth is required. Others' properties I may freely enter, therefore enter I must. Hence I infiltrate the Kaneda estate.

　The more frequently I infiltrate, the more the affairs of the Kaneda household — though I have no intention of investigating — naturally impress themselves on eyes that don't wish to see and settle in a memory that doesn't wish to retain them. There is Mrs. Kaneko, who wipes her nose with particular care every time she washes her face; Miss Tomiko, who consumes Abe-kawa rice cakes in alarming quantities; and then the master Kaneda himself — Kaneda-san's nose, unlike his wife's, is quite flat. Not just the nose: the entire face is flat. One might wonder whether, at some point in his childhood, the local bully seized him by the scruff of the neck and pressed his face with all possible force against a mud wall, and whether that impression simply persisted for forty years to the present day — it is a strikingly level face, inoffensive, incapable of danger, but regrettably lacking in variety. Even in anger it remains flat. That same Kaneda pats his bald head with a satisfied sound while eating slices of bluefin tuna; and because his face is not just flat but his whole person is short in stature, he wears inordinately tall hats and tall wooden clogs; the coachman finds this amusing and tells the live-in student; the student says "what a keen observation," and the coachman is satisfied — and so on, endlessly.

　These days I make my approach through the kitchen entrance and across the garden, press my chin to the lawn behind the rock arrangement and take in the view, and if I confirm that the sliding doors are closed and the rooms quiet, I ease myself in without fuss. If voices are raised or there is any risk of being observed from the main room, I take the long way round the east side of the pond and slip beneath the verandah by way of the far side of the lavatory. I have done nothing to be ashamed of, and there is nothing to hide or fear — but as the human species is a lawless breed, the only recourse is to accept the risk as a species of misfortune, and even a man of the loftiest moral character would adopt the same tactics if the world were populated entirely with robbers. Kaneda is an eminent businessman and therefore unlikely to swing a three-foot staff like a common highwayman, but I am informed that he has a peculiar ailment: he does not regard other people as people. A man who does not regard people as people will hardly regard a cat as a cat. For a cat, however morally distinguished, to lower his guard within that estate would be imprudence of the first order. And yet precisely this quality of needing to be on one's guard is part of what interests me here — perhaps the entire reason I continue frequenting the Kaneda establishment is simply that I find testing this particular danger rather agreeable. I shall investigate the matter more thoroughly at some later date, and when I have completely dissected the feline mind, I shall furnish a more detailed report.

　I scan today's situation: I press my chin to the lawn behind the rock arrangement and survey what lies before me. The fifteen-mat sitting room is thrown open to the warmth of a spring afternoon in the month of Yayoi, and within it are seated Mr. and Mrs. Kaneda together with a visitor, mid-conversation. Unfortunately Mrs. Nose's nose is pointed in my direction, aimed straight across the pond at my forehead. This is the first time in my life I have been stared down by a nose. Mr. Kaneda, fortunately, has his profile to me rather than his face, which means that celebrated flat terrain is half concealed — but the location of his nose is correspondingly unclear. Only the pepper-and-salt mustache, growing in disordered abundance at some approximate level, allows the confident deduction that there are presumably two holes somewhere above it. I idly imagined what spring breezes must feel like when all one encounters are faces this smooth. As for the visitor, he is the most unremarkably featured of the three. But being unremarkable has its extreme: to ascend into the hall of utter mediocrity and enter the inner room of commonplace banality is rather pitiable. I need to go beneath the verandah to hear their conversation before I can discover who this person of such monumentally characterless physiognomy might be.

　"...and my wife took the trouble to go round to that fellow's place in person and ask, but couldn't get anything useful out of him..." — Kaneda was speaking in his customarily overbearing manner. Overbearing, yet containing not one grain of incisiveness. His speech was as flat and ponderous as his face.

　"I see — that fellow did teach Mr. Mizushima, after all — I see, what a good notion — I see." The visitor appeared to be a man of remarkably uninflected agreement.

　"But somehow he gave nothing away."

　"Ah, Kushami — getting anything out of Kushami would be hopeless, quite — even when we lodged together in school he was entirely wishy-washy — that must have been most inconvenient for you." The visitor turned toward Mrs. Nose.

　"Inconvenient is putting it mildly — at my age I have never been treated so rudely in anyone else's house." Mrs. Nose blew her customary nasal gale.

　"Did he say something impolite? He has always been stubborn — look how he has spent ten years doing nothing but teaching that one reader. That rather speaks for itself."

　"It was beyond anything — whenever my wife asked something, she got the most frostbitten response imaginable..."

　"That is absolutely scandalous — even a little learning tends to breed conceit in a man, and if he is poor on top of it he grows even more defensive and resentful — no, there are indeed some quite unreasonable individuals in this world. They are oblivious to their own lack of merit but resent anyone with wealth, as though it were taken from them by force — it is really quite remarkable, hahaha." The visitor appeared enormously gratified.

　"It is entirely outrageous — this sort of behavior stems from a selfish ignorance of the world, and I decided he deserved a taste of medicine, so I've been giving him something of a difficult time."

　"That must have worked nicely, I imagine — it will be for his own good in the end." The visitor had already seconded Kaneda's position before hearing what this "something difficult" actually entailed.

　"But Suzuki-san, what do you say to this — the man is extraordinarily intractable. At school he apparently won't speak to either Fukuchi or Tsuki. I assumed he was cowering into silence, but just the other day he chased my houseguest with a walking stick — a man of thirty-odd years of age behaving in this idiotic fashion — he's clearly gone unhinged."

　"Whatever could have induced such violent behavior..." Even the visitor, consummate conciliator that he was, appeared mildly suspicious at this.

　"Nothing at all — someone apparently walked past him and said something, and he immediately flew out barefoot with a walking stick. Even if someone made a comment, is that any way for a grown man to behave, much less a teacher?"

　"Quite right, he is a teacher, after all." The visitor said it; Kaneda said it too. Presumably all three had reached the unspoken consensus that a teacher, however provoked, must maintain the composure of a wooden idol.

　"And that Meitei character is quite an extraordinary individual. Strings together one useless lie after another. I have never encountered anyone quite so peculiar."

　"Ah, Meitei — still blowing hot air, apparently. Did you meet him at Kushami's? That man is a total menace. He was part of our old cooking-commune too, but he carried the art of making a fool of people so far that we fought constantly."

　"Anyone would be irritated by him. Lying is one thing — there are times when you're in an awkward corner, when you have to keep up appearances — at those moments anyone might say things they don't mean. But this man does it for no reason at all, just for the fun of it — there's no dealing with him. What does he want with it? All that nonsense — I can't imagine how he says it with a straight face."

　"Quite right, it is a gratuitous lie, and therefore doubly troublesome."

　"The whole careful business of asking about Mizushima was thoroughly wrecked. I was furious — fuming — but propriety is propriety: one cannot go to someone's house to ask a favor and act as though nothing happened, so afterward I sent the coachman over with a dozen bottles of beer. And then — what do you think? He says he has no reason to accept it, take it back. The coachman said it was a gift, please accept it — and the man said, I lick jam every day, but I have never drunk something as bitter as beer — and simply walked inside. What kind of a way is that to talk? Incredibly rude."

　"That is appalling." This time the visitor appeared to mean it.

　"And that, Suzuki-kun, is why I've asked you here specially today." A silence; then Kaneda's voice resumed. "A fool like that could be dealt with by simply tormenting him from the shadows — but there's a slight complication..." He began patting his bald head with the same sound as when he eats bluefin tuna. I cannot actually see whether he is patting it from my position beneath the verandah, but I have become well acquainted with that sound recently — I can identify it as a bald head even from this position, as confidently as a nun identifies the sound of her prayer drum. "I would like to impose on you a little, if I may..."

　"Whatever I can do — indeed, it is entirely due to your generous assistance that my transfer to Tokyo has come about — please do not hesitate to ask."

　The visitor was evidently a beneficiary of Kaneda's patronage. The situation was developing in the most interesting manner. I had come without any real purpose on such fine weather, and to stumble on material like this was entirely unexpected — like visiting a temple at the equinox and being treated to mochi by the head monk. I pressed my ears against the ground beneath the verandah and listened to what Kaneda intended to request.

　"That eccentric called Kushami — heaven knows why — has been whispering in Mizushima's ear, hinting that he ought not to marry into the Kaneda family — isn't that right, Nose?"

　"Hinting is an understatement. He's been telling Kangetsu flatly — where on earth is the fool who would take a daughter of that sort? He actually says 'that sort.'"

　"'That sort' — how extraordinarily rude. He actually said that?"

　"Said it? The coachman's wife came to tell me personally."

　"What do you say to that, Suzuki-kun? Quite a nuisance, isn't it?"

　"It is a difficulty — this being rather different from other matters, it is not normally the kind of thing where outsiders ought to interfere — Kushami himself should know that much. Whatever has gotten into him?"

　"Which is precisely why, since you lodged with Kushami in your student days — you're not close now, but were in the past — I wanted to ask if you might go and speak to him, and lay out the merits and consequences of the matter clearly. He may be angry about something, but the fault lies on his side — if he behaves himself, I'll look after his interests and stop bothering him; but if he persists, then so shall I — in short, digging in his heels will only hurt the man himself."

　"Yes, precisely as you say — stubborn resistance serves no one's interests, I'll speak to him properly."

　"As for the daughter — there are various other inquiries, so I cannot promise outright that she will go to Mizushima — but from what I hear, his scholarship and character are both respectable, and if he were to take his doctorate before too long, perhaps something could be arranged — you may suggest as much."

　"That would give him encouragement to work harder. Certainly."

　"And then there is a rather curious matter — it is unlike Mizushima, but he calls that eccentric Kushami 'Master' and seems to follow his guidance to a considerable degree — not that this ultimately affects my position, whatever Kushami may say to obstruct things — but..."

　"Mizushima is to be pitied," Mrs. Nose interjected.

　"I have never met Mizushima, but in any case, an alliance with your family would be the happiness of his lifetime, and he himself presumably has no objection."

　"Yes, Mizushima wants very much to come — it is just that Kushami and Meitei and those eccentric types are saying various things..."

　"That is quite unfortunate — for a man of proper education to behave in such a manner. I shall go to Kushami and speak to him directly."

　"Yes, please do — I'm sorry to trouble you, but I'll appreciate it. Also, since Kushami knows Mizushima better than anyone, and my wife's visit the other day ended in the shambles you've heard about without any useful information, perhaps you could also find out properly about his character and scholarly abilities from him."

　"Understood. Today is Saturday, so if I go now, he should already be home. Where is he living these days?"

　"Turn right at the end of the street, go left for about a block, and look for a house with a crumbling black wall." Mrs. Nose supplied the directions.

　"That's just nearby, then. No problem. I'll stop in on my way back. The nameplate will identify it well enough."

　"The nameplate is sometimes there and sometimes not. He attaches his calling card to the gate with rice paste, apparently, and it falls off in the rain — then he puts up a new one on fine days. So the nameplate is not to be relied upon. Rather than such a nuisance, one would think he might hang up a wooden sign — an incomprehensibly impractical man."

　"Remarkable. But a crumbling black wall should narrow it down."

　"Yes, there's not another house in the neighborhood in such a state — it'll be immediately obvious. Oh, and in case of any doubt: look for a house with grass growing on the roof — that is an infallible guide."

　"Quite a distinctive dwelling — ha ha ha ha."

　I had to get back before Suzuki-kun arrived; it would be inconvenient to be caught. I had heard quite enough of their conversation. I followed the underside of the verandah to the lavatory, circled west past the rock arrangement, slipped out to the road, and walked quickly back to the house with grass on its roof, arriving in time to stroll around to the garden verandah as though nothing had happened.

　My master was lying prone on the sun-warmed verandah, a white wool blanket spread beneath him, basking in the mild spring sunlight on his back. The sunlight is remarkably impartial — it warms the tumbledown hovel with weeds on the roof just as cheerfully as it warms Kaneda's sitting room — but the blanket, unfortunately, contributes nothing to the spring atmosphere. It was manufactured as white, sold as white, and purchased on the understanding that it was white — but that was twelve or thirteen years ago, and the era of whiteness has long since passed, leaving it midway through an advanced discoloration into a deep ash-gray. Whether its life span will endure to the next stage of darkening is doubtful. Already universally threadbare, with the weave legible in every direction, calling it a "wool blanket" is frankly a presumption — it would be more accurate to drop the word "wool" and simply call it a "blank-t." But in my master's mind, if it lasted one year, two years, five years, ten years, it must last the rest of his life. A remarkably sanguine outlook. Lying prone on this blanket of storied provenance, his protruding chin supported in both hands, a cigarette tucked between his right-hand fingers — that is all. The interior of that dandruff-strewn head may well be turning great wheels of cosmic truth, but nothing in his outward appearance suggests it.

　The ash lengthened down the cigarette toward the filter, then an inch-long stub of burnt cinder fell softly onto the blanket, and still my master watched, absorbed, the upward drift of smoke. That smoke, rising and sinking on the spring breeze in layered spiraling rings, was drifting toward the roots of his wife's richly spreading, freshly washed black hair. — Ah, I had meant to mention the wife. I had forgotten.

　The wife was presenting her back to my master — what sort of rude wife is that? It is not rude at all. Rudeness and courtesy are both entirely matters of mutual interpretation. My master calmly rested his cheek in the vicinity of his wife's posterior, and his wife calmly settled her majestic posterior in front of her husband's face, and that is all there is to it — nothing rude about it. They are a transcendently married couple who shed the constriction of etiquette and social ceremony within less than a year of their wedding. — In any case, this wife of his, facing away from her master, apparently seized on the fine weather to wash her hair — well over a foot of thick black hair — with wheat-starch paste and raw egg, and now let it hang forward from shoulder to back in glossy cascades, silently sewing a sleeveless garment for one of the children. The actual reason she had brought the Tang-pattern cushion and the sewing box out to the verandah was to dry her washed hair in the sun, and it was this that led her to courteously present her back to my master. Or perhaps my master had arranged his face in the direction where the back happened to be. The smoke from his cigarette drifted and twined through the flowing black hair, and the whole effect, like heat shimmer on a spring day, my master watched with single-minded absorption. But smoke will not remain still — its nature is to rise — and so to follow the extraordinary spectacle of smoke entangled with hair required my master to move his eyes steadily upward. He began at the small of her back and worked gradually up the back itself, over the shoulders and neck — and when his gaze finally reached the crown of her head, he let out a sudden involuntary "oh!" — For there, right in the center of the head of the woman with whom he had pledged to grow old, was a round, perfectly spherical, extremely large bald patch, gleaming in the warm sunlight with something rather like triumph. The expression in my master's eyes in the moment of making this unexpected discovery — startled amid the glare, staring with full concentration, pupils dilated by the bright light — was one of complete and genuine surprise. The first image that rose in his mind at the sight of this bald patch was the oil-lamp dish on the family altar, which had been enshrined in the household for generations. His family were True Pure Land Buddhists, and that sect is known for sparing no expense on their altars. From boyhood he remembered a richly lacquered cabinet decorated with thick gold leaf that stood in the dim interior of the family storehouse, and inside the cabinet a brass oil-lamp dish always hung, and in the lamp a flame always burned softly even in daytime. It was the image of this lamp shining relatively clearly in the surrounding darkness that, having been impressed on him hundreds of times as a child, was now summoned up by his wife's bald patch and burst suddenly to the surface. The oil-lamp image vanished in less than a minute. He now recalled the pigeons at the Kannon temple. The Kannon pigeons and his wife's bald patch appear to have no connection whatsoever, but in my master's mind there was an intimate associative link. As a child in Asakusa he had always bought beans to throw to the pigeons. One dish of beans was two bunkyu coins, served in a small red earthenware dish. That earthenware dish — in color, in size — bore a distinct resemblance to this bald patch.

　"Well I never — there is a resemblance." My master spoke with genuine admiration. "A resemblance to what?" his wife answered without looking up.

　"What I mean is — you have quite a large bald patch on the top of your head. Did you know?"

　"Yes." His wife continued working, betraying no alarm whatsoever at being found out. A wife of exemplary serenity.

　"Was it there when you were married, or did it come afterward?" my master asked. He was thinking, though he did not say so: if it was there before the wedding, I was deceived.

　"I can't remember when it appeared — what does a bald patch matter?" A response of magnificent equanimity.

　"What do you mean, what does it matter — it's your own head." My master was slightly irritated.

　"It's my own head, so it doesn't matter." That said, she seemed a little curious after all — she raised her right hand, rested it on her head, and patted the bald patch in slow circles. "My goodness, it's gotten quite large — I thought it was smaller than this." Apparently she had at last perceived that the patch was rather more extensive than befitting a woman of her years.

　"Women pull their hair into a chignon, and it puts tension on the scalp — everyone gets a little bald that way."

　"At that rate, everyone would be completely bald by forty, and we'd have nothing but bald heads everywhere. That must be a medical condition. It may be contagious. You'd better see Dr. Amagi about it soon." My master stroked his own head repeatedly.

　"You criticize me, but you've got white hairs growing in your nostrils. If baldness is contagious, so is white hair."

　"White hairs in the nose can't be seen, so they're harmless — but on the crown of the head, especially a young woman's crown — it's unsightly. A deformity."

　"If it's a deformity, why did you marry me? You took me of your own free will and now call me deformed..."

　"Because I didn't know. I honestly didn't know until today. If you're going to act so proud about it, why didn't you show me your head when you came to be married?"

　"What an absurdity! What country has ever required a head examination before marriage?"

　"The baldness I can manage to bear — but you are also extraordinarily short. That is really quite unsightly."

　"My height is visible at a glance — you knew perfectly well I was short when you married me, didn't you?"

　"I knew, certainly, but I thought you might still grow. That's why I took you."

　"At twenty years of age expecting someone to grow taller — you really do put people down astonishingly." His wife dropped the sleeveless garment and turned to face my master. Her expression suggested that depending on his next answer, the matter would not end there.

　"There's no rule that says a person of twenty can't grow taller. I thought that if I fed you properly, you might gain a little height." He was delivering this peculiar logic with a completely straight face when the gate bell rang vigorously and a voice called out from the entrance. Suzuki-kun had apparently found the dragon's lair of Kushami-sensei, using the grass-roofed house as his landmark.

　His wife postponed the argument to another day and scrambled inside with the sewing box and the sleeveless garment. My master rolled the gray blanket into a ball and tossed it into his study. Presently the maid brought a calling card, which made my master look faintly startled; he said "show him in," and walked into the lavatory with the name card still in his hand. Quite why he felt an urgent need to visit the lavatory at this precise moment is entirely unclear, and why he brought Suzuki Tōjūrō-kun's calling card along with him is still more inexplicable. At any rate, the unfortunate party here is the name card, condemned to accompany its bearer into that malodorous cell.

　The maid straightened a printed cotton cushion in front of the alcove and withdrew with a "please, this way." Suzuki-kun surveyed the room — examined in due order the forgery of Mok'an's calligraphy reading "Flowers bloom, ten thousand nations greet the spring," and the sprig of higan cherry in the cheap celadon vase — and then his gaze fell on the cushion the maid had just prepared, on which, he now noticed, a cat had settled with full propriety. Needless to say, that cat was I. In that instant a tremor passed through Suzuki-kun's breast, too faint to reach the surface of his face. There was no doubt whatsoever that this cushion had been placed there for Suzuki-kun. Before he himself could sit on a cushion placed for him, a peculiar animal had already installed itself there without permission. This was the first condition for the disruption of Suzuki-kun's psychological equilibrium. Had the cushion remained unclaimed and open to the spring breeze when he entered, he might have made a show of modesty and remained on the bare tatami until his host said "please, sit." But here was the cushion that ought eventually to have been his, and someone had already occupied it without so much as a by-your-leave. If it were a person, he might yield — but a cat? That made it a degree more disagreeable. That the occupier was a cat was the second condition for the disruption. And finally, the cat's attitude was the most irritating element of all. Not so much as a look of apology, enthroned on a cushion that was not its to occupy, blinking its round, charmless eyes in a manner that said without words: "and who are you?" — aimed directly at Suzuki-kun's face. That was the third and decisive condition. If he found it so objectionable, he could simply seize me by the scruff and drag me off — yet Suzuki-kun merely watched. That a dignified human being would be too intimidated to act against a cat seems impossible — yet why did he not promptly dispose of me and express his displeasure? The answer, I perceived, was his sense of personal dignity: his need as a human being to maintain the propriety appropriate to his position. If he resorted to force, any three-year-old could handle a cat — but for a man who values propriety, even Suzuki Tōjūrō, pillar of the Kaneda establishment, could do nothing against this cat deity presiding in the center of those two square feet. Even where no one can see, to be known to have disputed a seat with a cat would be something of a blow to human dignity. To argue straight-facedly with a cat about rights and wrongs would be childish and ridiculous. To avoid this disgrace requires tolerating a certain inconvenience. But the more inconvenience is tolerated, the greater the resentment of the cat — and so Suzuki-kun kept looking at me with a pained expression. Since I found Suzuki-kun's pained expression entertaining, I suppressed my amusement and maintained an air of complete indifference.

　While this silent drama unfolded between Suzuki-kun and myself, my master adjusted his clothing, emerged from the lavatory with a "good afternoon," and took his seat — but no trace remained of the calling card in his hand. Suzuki Tōjūrō-kun's name, it appeared, had been sentenced to perpetual exile in that malodorous cell. I was still pondering the fate of that poor calling card when my master grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and with a grunt of effort tossed me onto the verandah.

　"Please, sit down. What a surprise. When did you get back to Tokyo?" My master invited his old friend to the cushion. Suzuki-kun flipped it over briefly, then sat.

　"I've been rather busy, so I didn't send word — in fact, I've been transferred back to the Tokyo head office just these past few days..."

　"Excellent. It's been quite a while. Our first meeting since you went to the country, isn't it?"

　"Just about ten years, yes. I've come to Tokyo occasionally since then, but always too busy to call — I apologize for the neglect. A company position isn't like yours — quite frantically busy, you know."

　"Ten years makes quite a difference." My master looked Suzuki-kun up and down. He wore his hair impeccably parted and was dressed in English-tailored tweed with a bright cravat and a gold watch chain gleaming on his chest — quite impossible to take for an old acquaintance of Kushami's.

　"Yes, I'm at the point where I must wear such things." Suzuki-kun drew attention to the gold chain with studied self-consciousness.

　"Is that real?" my master asked, with his characteristic lack of tact.

　"Eighteen-karat." Suzuki-kun laughed. "But you've aged quite a bit yourself. You have children, I believe — one?"

　"No."

　"Two?"

　"No."

　"Still more? Three?"

　"Yes, three. Heaven knows how many more there will be."

　"Still so casual. How old is the oldest? Must be getting on by now."

　"Mm — I don't really know — perhaps six or seven."

　"Ha ha ha — a teacher's life is carefree. I wish I'd become a teacher."

　"Try it for three days and you'll be sick of it."

　"Is that so? It seems elegant, relaxed, with free time for one's own studies — doesn't sound bad at all. Business is fine, but at our level it's hopeless. You have to be much further up for it to work. At the lower levels you spend your time dropping flattery and attending dinners you'd rather not attend — rather stupid, really."

　"I have loathed businessmen since my student days. They'll do anything for money — in the old days we'd have called them merchants of the lowest class." He delivered this verdict in front of a businessman.

　"Well, it's not entirely like that — there are certain indelicate aspects, I agree. The fact is, you have to make a kind of pact of death-by-love with money to stay the course — and this money is itself a rather treacherous thing. Just now, at a certain businessman's, I heard it said that making money requires what they call the 'triangle technique' — shortchange your obligations, shortchange your feelings, shortchange your shame: those are the three sides. Rather amusing, isn't it? Ha ha ha ha."

　"And who is this fool?"

　"Not a fool at all — rather a clever man, actually, quite well-known in the business world. You may not know him — he's just around the corner, in fact..."

　"Kaneda? What's he worth, that type?"

　"My, you're quick to take offense. Come now — that's all in jest, a figure of speech for what it takes to accumulate money. You're too earnest to take it literally."

　"Three-angle techniques are all very well, but what about that man's wife's nose? You've been there — you must have seen it — that nose."

　"The wife? The wife is quite an open-minded sort."

　"The nose, man — I'm talking about the large nose. The other day I composed a haiku-style poem about that nose."

　"What is a haiku-style poem?"

　"You don't know haiku-style poems? You're remarkably behind the times."

　"Ah well, as busy as I am, literature is quite beyond me. And I was never especially inclined that way."

　"Do you know the shape of Charlemagne's nose?"

　"Ha ha ha — the leisure of it all. No, I don't."

　"Ellington was nicknamed 'Nose' by his subordinates. Did you know?"

　"You're terribly preoccupied with noses. What of it? A round nose, a pointed nose — what does it matter?"

　"It matters considerably. Do you know Pascal?"

　"Another 'do you know' — this is like an examination. What about Pascal?"

　"Pascal said this —"

　"Said what?"

　"'Had Cleopatra's nose been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been changed.'"

　"Well, there it is."

　"Which is why you ought not to dismiss noses so casually."

　"All right, all right, I'll take them seriously from now on. But setting that aside — I came today because I have something to ask you — that person you used to teach, Mizushima — um, Mizushima, let me think — the one who keeps coming to your place."

　"Kangetsu?"

　"Yes, yes, Kangetsu. I have something I'd like to ask about him."

　"Is it about the marriage business?"

　"Well, something in that general neighborhood. I went to the Kanedas' today..."

　"The Nose herself came here the other day."

　"Did she? Yes, the wife mentioned it. She said she wanted to consult you, but Meitei happened to be there and muddled everything..."

　"Coming with a nose like that was the problem."

　"No, I'm not talking about you — with Meitei there, she couldn't very well ask anything direct, and it was a pity, so she asked me to go once more and get to the bottom of things — I don't normally undertake this sort of intermediary work, but if both parties genuinely want it, there's nothing wrong with helping things along — and so here I am."

　"How kind of you." My master answered coolly, but inwardly, hearing the phrase "both parties," he was, for reasons he couldn't quite explain, slightly moved. Like a thread of cool air slipping through a sleeve on a steamy summer night. This master of ours, manufactured on the principles of bluntness, rigidity, and a decided preference for non-shine, is nonetheless something quite different from the cold and inhuman products of modern civilization. The very violence of his reactions to things he dislikes reveals the presence of feeling beneath. His quarrel with Mrs. Nose the other day was because he disliked Mrs. Nose — nothing to do with the daughter. He dislikes businessmen, and consequently dislikes a certain Kaneda, but that too is nothing to do with the daughter personally. He has no reason to favor or resent the daughter, and Kangetsu is a student he loves as a younger brother. If, as Suzuki-kun says, both parties genuinely want each other, to obstruct them would be unworthy of a gentleman — and Kushami-sensei considers himself a gentleman. If both parties genuinely want each other — but that is the question. Before altering his position on this matter, he had first to confirm the truth of it.

　"Does the daughter want to come to Kangetsu? Never mind Kaneda and the Nose — what is the daughter's own feeling?"

　"That — well — as to that — she, yes, she does want to, I believe?" Suzuki-kun's reply was slightly equivocal. He had actually only prepared himself to report on Kangetsu, and had neglected to confirm the young lady's personal feelings — and so even the smooth-tongued Suzuki-kun appeared a little thrown.

　"'Believe' is a vague word." My master, whatever the subject, cannot resist delivering a direct challenge.

　"No, no, my phrasing was poor. The young lady on her side has definitely a certain inclination — yes, definitely — the wife told me so. Apparently she sometimes speaks ill of Kangetsu."

　"She does? The daughter?"

　"Yes."

　"Outrageous — speaking ill of him means she has no feeling for him."

　"And there's the subtlety of it — the world works strangely that way; sometimes people say the worst of the very person they're most attached to."

　"What idiocy — what kind of person behaves like that?"

　"Rather a lot of people do, as it turns out. Mrs. Kaneda herself interprets it that way: she sometimes says unkind things about Kangetsu — which shows she's quite deeply attached."

　My master received this impenetrable interpretation and stared at Suzuki-kun with wide round eyes and no reply, gazing at him as a street fortune-teller gazes at a customer. Suzuki-kun, sensing that this could get away from him, shifted the topic toward territory the master was more likely to follow.

　"Think about it — with that level of wealth and that level of circumstances, she could marry into a perfectly respectable family anywhere. Kangetsu may be remarkable, but in terms of financial standing — well, financial standing is perhaps the wrong word — in terms of means, I think most people would agree the match is unequal. And the fact that I am personally going to the trouble of appearing here suggests that her parents are greatly concerned — which means there must be a genuine feeling on the girl's part, doesn't it?" This was well-reasoned enough for my master to see the point, and Suzuki-kun felt some relief — but sensing that lingering here risked further frontal assault, decided to advance the conversation to its conclusion as swiftly as possible.

　"So — as I've just explained — what their side is saying is: no money or property is required, but we do need the qualification that attaches to a man's name — qualification meaning, well, a title — not that we're arrogantly demanding a doctorate before we'll agree — don't misunderstand. The last time my wife came, Meitei was there and said all manner of odd things — no, I'm not referring to you. The wife spoke well of you as a straightforward, honest person. It was entirely Meitei's fault — so what they're saying is: if he could take his doctorate before long, it would give their family standing in the world, and allow them to hold their heads up — what do you think? Would it be possible for Mizushima-kun to submit his doctoral thesis and receive his doctorate in the near future? Of course — just between Kaneda and ourselves, a doctorate or bachelor's degree is not strictly necessary — but with the world watching, one can't be too casual about these things."

　Hearing this, the Kaneda family's request for a doctorate seemed not entirely unreasonable. If not unreasonable, he found himself inclined to accede to Suzuki-kun's request. His master could be managed or ruined entirely at Suzuki-kun's discretion. Yes — the master is a simple and honest man.

　"Very well, then — next time Kangetsu comes I'll encourage him to write his doctoral thesis. But I'll need to first ask him directly whether he actually intends to marry Kaneda's daughter."

　"'Ask directly' — you can't square these things with such formal approaches. Far better to draw him out naturally in the course of ordinary conversation."

　"Draw him out?"

　"Yes — well, 'draw out' may not be the right phrase — actually, you don't need to draw him out at all. These things become clear in conversation."

　"They may become clear to you, but I need to ask plainly to understand."

　"If you can't understand that way, never mind. But please avoid the sort of gratuitous interference that Meitei does — upsetting everything wholesale. Even if you don't encourage it, this sort of matter should be left entirely to the individuals concerned. Next time Kangetsu comes, please try not to stand in the way — not you, I mean Meitei. Once that man gets started, there's no hope for anything."

　As he was speaking ill of Meitei in Meitei's absence, true to the old saying about speaking of someone, Meitei-sensei appeared in the usual fashion, drifting in through the kitchen entrance on the spring breeze.

　"Ah — a rare guest indeed! Being an habitual visitor like myself, Kushami tends to take me for granted — the less often one comes to Kushami's, the better. Once a decade is ideal. These sweets are better than usual, aren't they?" He shoved a large piece of Fujimura yokan into his mouth without ceremony. Suzuki-kun fidgeted; my master wore a vague smile; Meitei churned his jaws. I observed this scene from the verandah and concluded that a silent play is thoroughly possible as a dramatic form. If the Zen school's wordless debates are communication of mind to mind, then this wordless performance is transparently a curtain of mind-to-mind transmission. Extremely brief, and extremely pointed.

　"I thought you'd be a wandering crow for the rest of your life — who knew you'd come drifting back. Long life has its uses — you never know what luck may come your way." Meitei addressed Suzuki-kun with the same complete absence of restraint he showed to everyone. Even old cooking-commune companions, after ten years apart, tend to feel some awkwardness — yet Meitei showed none of it. Whether this is admirable or simply the behavior of an idiot was impossible to determine.

　"Well, it could be worse." Suzuki-kun answered without giving offense or taking it, though one hand fidgeted nervously with the gold chain.

　"Have you ridden the electric trams?" my master asked Suzuki-kun suddenly, out of nowhere.

　"I've been getting teased by both of you today and called a provincial, but as it happens, I own sixty shares of the city railway."

　"That's not to be sneezed at. I held eight hundred and eighty-eight and a half shares myself — unfortunately most of them were devoured by insects, so now I have only half a share. If you'd come back to Tokyo a little sooner I could have given you ten untouched shares — what a pity."

　"Still the sharp tongue. But jokes aside, those shares are worth holding — they go up every year."

　"True — even half a share, if you hold it for a thousand years, will build three storehouses. You and I are both gentlemen of the age, neither wanting in that department — but Kushami here, now he's a sorry case. He considers stocks to be a sort of botanical cousin of the white radish." He reached for another piece of yokan and glanced at my master, whose appetite had apparently been infected by Meitei's; his hand moved involuntarily toward the sweet dish. In this world, it is always the active and enthusiastic who earn the right to be imitated.

　"Stocks aside, I would have liked to see Sorozaki ride the electric tram just once." My master gazed rather disconsolately at the bite-mark in his piece of yokan.

　"If Sorozaki rode the tram, he'd end up in Shinagawa every single time — better he stayed as the Natural Hermit carved into a pickled-radish stone."

　"Speaking of Sorozaki — I hear he's passed away. How sad — what a fine mind he had. Such a loss." Suzuki-kun said, and Meitei immediately took it up:

　"Fine mind, yes — but cooking rice was his great incompetence. On Sorozaki's turn at the stove I always went out for soba."

　"Honestly, Sorozaki's rice was burnt and hard all the way through — I suffered too. And the side dish was invariably cold raw tofu — not edible." Suzuki-kun too dug up his decade-old grievances.

　"Kushami was Sorozaki's closest friend, going out for shiruko together every night, and that sin is why he now suffers from chronic dyspepsia. To be fair, Kushami ate more shiruko than Sorozaki — he really ought to have died first by those rights."

　"Where's the logic in that? And what about you — going out every evening in the name of 'exercise' to practice kendo against the old grave markers in the temple yard, until the monk caught you and gave you a piece of his mind?"

　"Haha — yes, the monk said striking the Buddha's head disturbed his peaceful slumber and must stop. But I only used a bamboo sword — this General Suzuki here resorted to brute force and toppled three full grave markers."

　"The monk was furious — absolutely insisted we put them all back. I said we'd hire laborers to do it, and the monk said absolutely not: we had to right them personally to show our repentance before the Buddha, otherwise it wouldn't count."

　"The figure you cut at that moment was something to behold — calico undershirt, loincloth, the whole ensemble, groaning in the rainwater puddles..."

　"And you stood there calmly sketching. Cruel. I am not a man who loses his temper easily, but that time I genuinely found it unforgivable. I still remember what you said. Do you remember?"

　"Who remembers anything from ten years ago? Though I do still remember that the tombstone was inscribed 'Kissenin-dono Kōkaku Daikoji, Anei 5, Year of the Dragon, First Month' — I recall that exactly. That was a handsomely made tombstone. I nearly wanted to steal it when we moved out. A truly fine tombstone from a Gothic sensibility perspective." Meitei waved about more of his improvised aesthetics.

　"Never mind the tombstone — I'm talking about what you said at the time. This is exactly it — 'As I intend to specialize in aesthetics, I must sketch all interesting incidents in the world for future reference; terms like pity or sympathy are private feelings unbecoming to a man of my devotion to scholarship' — perfectly composed while saying it. I was so disgusted I grabbed your sketchbook with my mud-covered hands and tore it to pieces."

　"And that is when my promising artistic talent was dealt a fatal blow from which it never recovered. You broke my momentum. I bear you a genuine grievance."

　"The grievance is more plausibly mine."

　"Meitei was a windbag even back then." My master, having finished his yokan, re-entered the conversation. "Never followed through on a promise. Never apologized when challenged on it. Said all manner of things. When the crape myrtle was blooming in that temple garden, he declared he would complete a treatise on aesthetic theory before the flowers fell. I said it was impossible, he would never do it. Meitei's response was that whatever he looked like, he was a man of iron will, and if I doubted him we should make a wager — so I seriously accepted, and we bet — Western dinner at some Kanda restaurant or something. I agreed to the wager because I was fairly confident he would never write a thing — but inwardly I was a little nervous, since I had no money for Western dinners. And then he showed not the slightest sign of beginning. Seven days passed, twenty days passed, not a page. When the crape myrtle finally dropped its last flower, he was still perfectly content — so I thought: at last, the Western dinner is mine, and I pressed him to honor the agreement. Meitei refused to take any notice of it."

　"And what did he say to excuse it this time?" Suzuki-kun put in.

　"Extraordinary effrontery — said he had no great talent in other areas, but in matters of will he would yield to no one whatsoever, and held to that position."

　"With not a single page written?" Meitei himself asked.

　"Of course. He said at the time — 'In the matter of will, I do not yield a single step to any person. However — and this is unfortunate — my memory is weaker than average. I had every intention of writing the treatise on aesthetics, but the day after I announced the intention to you, I forgot it entirely. The fact that the crape myrtle fell and the book was not written is the fault of memory, not of will. As it is not the fault of will, there is no reason for me to pay for your Western dinner.' And he said it with perfect confidence."

　"That is admirably Meitei — his finest form on display. Very amusing." Suzuki-kun appeared genuinely entertained — a marked contrast to the language he had used about Meitei when the latter was not present. Perhaps this is the characteristic of an intelligent person.

　"What is amusing about it." My master was still prickly.

　"Well, that's why he is always out searching so laboriously for peacock's tongues to make it up to you. Don't be so irritated — just wait. But speaking of literary work — I have brought genuinely exceptional news today."

　"Every time you come you bring exceptional news, which makes it rather hard to take seriously."

　"But today's news is truly exceptional. Full-price exceptional, no discounts. Did you know that Kangetsu has begun drafting his doctoral thesis? He always seemed the sort — that airily superior stance of his — to regard doctoral theses as vulgar drudgery beneath him, but apparently he has his ambitions like anyone else, and isn't that amusing? You ought to notify the Nose immediately — perhaps she has been dreaming of an Acorn Doctor lately."

　Suzuki-kun, hearing Kangetsu's name, began giving urgent signals with his jaw and eyes — don't say it, don't say it. My master understood nothing. Earlier, when Suzuki-kun lectured him, he had been moved to sympathy for Kaneda's daughter; but now, with Meitei saying "Nose, Nose" again, he recalled the recent quarrel, which was both amusing in retrospect and faintly disagreeable in equal measure. But Kangetsu's having begun the doctoral thesis was the most welcome news of all — truly, as Meitei had self-congratulatingly claimed, a genuine recent rarity of a report. And not merely rare, but gratifying. Whether Kangetsu married Kaneda's daughter was really of secondary importance. The point was that Kangetsu becoming a doctor was a fine thing. He himself was like a failed wooden image, and he had no objection to remaining unfinished and unvarnished in the corner of the carver's studio until the worms came for him — but a sculpture he considered truly well-made, he wanted to see gilded at the earliest opportunity.

　"He's really begun writing the thesis?" Ignoring Suzuki-kun's signals completely, he asked with feeling.

　"Still doubting people, are we. — Though I can't say for certain whether the topic is the acorn or the mechanics of hanging. In any case, given that it's Kangetsu, it will be the kind of thing that makes the Nose blush."

　Each time Meitei said "Nose, Nose" with total abandon, Suzuki-kun winced with apprehension. Meitei didn't notice and remained thoroughly at ease.

　"I've been doing further research on noses of late, and not long ago I discovered there is a Nasal Discourse in Tristram Shandy. What a pity Sterne couldn't have seen Kaneda's nose — what material it would have made. That nose has ample credentials to echo down the centuries, and to think it will simply rot away unrecorded — a tragic waste. The next time she comes, I'll sketch it in the cause of aesthetic research." He rambled on, improvising as he went.

　"But I hear the daughter wants to come to Kangetsu." My master reported exactly what he had learned from Suzuki-kun just now. Suzuki-kun made frantic expression at the master — don't, don't — but the master remained entirely inert to these signals.

　"Rather charming — even children of those sorts fall in love — though it can't be much of a love. It's probably what you might call 'nasal love' at best."

　"Nasal love or otherwise, it would be fine if Kangetsu married her."

　"Would be fine? You were strongly opposed just the other day. You're being remarkably soft today."

　"I am not soft. I absolutely refuse to be soft — but..."

　"'But' what? Come on, Suzuki — as someone who occupies the lower ranks of the business world, I'll offer you something for reference. This so-called Kaneda. This individual is nothing more than a banknote with eyes and a nose glued on. In terms that capture his essence: he is a single animated banknote. His daughter would accordingly be an animated postage stamp. Now turn the lens on Kangetsu-kun. He has honored us by graduating first in his class from the nation's highest institution of learning, and without flagging for an instant, he hangs the sash from the Chōshū expedition about his person and devotes his days and nights to studying the stability of the acorn, and even this does not satisfy him — at this very moment he is preparing to publish a great paper that will eclipse Lord Kelvin. He did once botch a suicide attempt off Azuma Bridge, but that was a merely impulsive act common to ardent young men, and need not trouble his credentials as the foremost depository of knowledge in the land. To describe Kangetsu-kun in my own inimitable idiom: he is an animated library. He is a twenty-eight-centimeter shell assembled from pure intellect. If this shell should once detonate on the academic world — when it detonates — it will detonate, surely —" At this point the distinctive Meitei-style adjective he was reaching for failed to materialize, and there was a brief subsidence into something like anticlimax; but he recovered quickly with: "— animated postage stamps, however many billion of them, will be blown to dust. Therefore Kangetsu ought not to involve himself with a woman so wholly unsuited to him. I refuse to sanction it. The wisest of animals consorting with the most rapacious of pigs. Don't you agree, Kushami-kun?" My master went back to tapping the sweet dish with his ivory chopsticks. Suzuki-kun, somewhat deflated, said:

　"I don't know that it's quite like that." His answer was helpless. He had been saying quite a lot against Meitei when Meitei wasn't there — but if my master, who can never resist revealing exactly what he thinks, were to volunteer it now, there was no telling what might happen. The safest strategy here was to deal with Meitei's attacks with pliant deflection and pass through unscathed. Suzuki-kun is a clever man. He avoids all unnecessary resistance that can be avoided — he regards pointless argument as a feudal relic. The purpose of life is not words but action. If events advance according to one's intentions, the purpose of life is fulfilled. If events advance without toil, anxiety, or argument, the purpose of life is fulfilled in the Paradise Style. Suzuki-kun had succeeded through this Paradise Principle, had acquired a gold watch through this Paradise Principle, had accepted the Kanedas' commission through this Paradise Principle, and by the same Paradise Principle had smoothly persuaded Kushami-kun and brought the matter nine-tenths of the way to resolution — only to have this wandering eccentric called Meitei suddenly blow in, of abnormal psychological constitution, possibly outside the range of ordinary human experience altogether, and Suzuki-kun was mildly unsettled by his abruptness. The Paradise Principle was invented by the Meiji gentleman; the one who put it into practice is Suzuki Tōjūrō; and the one currently suffering under it is also Suzuki Tōjūrō.

　"You know nothing about it, so you say 'I don't know that it's quite like that' with great dignity and uncharacteristic brevity — but if you had seen how that Nose person carried on the other day, even you, dedicated as you are to the business world's interests, would have been thoroughly put out. Isn't that right, Kushami-kun? You put up quite a fight."

　"But I hear my reputation is better than yours, apparently."

　"Ha ha ha — tremendous self-confidence. Which is how one continues going to school with equanimity while staff and students mock you as 'Savage Tea.' My will is second to no one's either, I'm sure — but I couldn't carry that off with such composure. My profound admiration."

　"What do I care if a few students and teachers mutter? Sainte-Beuve was the foremost literary critic of all time, but when he lectured at the University of Paris he was fiercely unpopular — he used to carry a dagger in his sleeve when he went out to defend himself against student attack. When Brunetière attacked Zola's novels at the same institution..."

　"But you're not a university professor — you're only an English primer teacher. Quoting such giants of literature to justify your situation is like a small fish comparing itself to a whale. That kind of talk will only get you mocked even more."

　"Be quiet. Sainte-Beuve and I are equivalent scholars."

　"Extraordinary claims. Though carrying a dagger about is a bit dangerous, so you'd probably better not emulate that part. If a university professor carries a dagger, an English primer teacher would rate perhaps a penknife. But even that is risky — you'd do better to buy a toy air gun at Nakamise and carry that around. Quite charming, isn't it? Don't you think, Suzuki-kun?"

　Suzuki-kun, gratified that the topic had at last moved away from the Kaneda affair, let out a long breath: "Still so uninhibited and entertaining. Seeing you two after ten years, I feel like I've walked out of a cramped alley into an open field. Our conversations in business are so relentlessly guarded — every word must be weighed — exhausting and constricting. A conversation without ulterior motives is the best thing. Talking with old friends from school days, nothing withheld. Today's unexpected encounter with Meitei-kun was truly a pleasure. But I have a little business to attend to, so I'll take my leave now." He began to rise, and Meitei said: "I'll come too — I have to get to the Arts Moral Reform Society at Nihonbashi — let's walk together that far." "Excellent — let's take a walk together for old times' sake." And the two of them departed together.