Seven

I have recently taken up exercise. Anyone inclined to mock this — "A cat, of all things, talking about exercise!" — permit me a word in return. Were not those very people, until quite recently, entirely ignorant of what exercise was, living as if their sacred duty were to eat and sleep? They used to pride themselves on what they called "tranquillity is nobility," sitting on their cushions with their hands tucked inside their kimonos, regarding it as the mark of a gentleman never to unstick their rotting backsides from their zabuton. The subsequent fashion for exercise, milk-drinking, cold-water bathing, plunging into the sea, and retreating to the mountains to subsist on morning mist — all this is simply a recent contagion imported from the West, much the same class of ailment as bubonic plague, tuberculosis, and neurasthenia. I myself was born only last year and am but one year old, so I have no personal memory of the period when humans first fell prey to this fashion; but a year in the life of a cat is equivalent to ten in that of a human. Our lifespan is two or three times shorter than a human's, yet a cat's development is fully accomplished within that brief span — which means it is a serious error to reckon human years and feline ages by the same measure. The very fact that I, barely a year old, possess the discernment I do should make this plain enough. My master's third daughter is, by reckoning, all of three years old; but in terms of intellectual development, well, she is remarkably dull. She knows nothing beyond crying, wetting herself, and nursing at the breast. Compared to one such as I, who grieves for the age and rages against the times, she is a thoroughly feckless creature. There is therefore nothing whatsoever surprising about my having the entire history of exercise, sea bathing, and change-of-air cures packed within my modest frame. Should anyone be surprised by this, such a person is invariably one of those two-legged dullards called human beings. Humans have been dullards from time immemorial; which is precisely why it is only in recent times that they have begun noisily advertising the virtues of exercise and chattering at length about the benefits of sea bathing, as if these were great discoveries. Creatures such as I have known all of this since before we were born. For why sea water should be medicinal — why, one need only visit the seashore to understand in an instant. Those vast waters contain fish beyond counting, yet not a single one has ever fallen ill and gone to a doctor. Every last one swims vigorously. When a creature sickens, its body fails; when it dies, it must float to the surface. Which is why a fish's death is called "turning belly-up," a bird's demise is described as "falling," and a human's extinction is called "passing on." Ask anyone who has crossed the Indian Ocean whether they have ever seen a fish die — the answer is invariably no. And small wonder: however many crossings one makes, nobody has ever encountered a single fish floating at the surface with the breath just gone out of it — or rather, the tide just gone out of it, since we are speaking of fish. From this it may be firmly concluded that fish are exceptionally robust creatures. And why should this be? The reason is immediately apparent. They drink saltwater and engage in sea bathing all day long. The efficacy of sea bathing is thus strikingly demonstrated in fish. If it is so striking in fish, it must equally be so in humans. When Dr. Richard Russell advertised in Brighton in 1750 that plunging into seawater would instantly cure any of the four hundred and four ailments, one may laugh at how long that took — but cats too, when the proper moment arrives, intend to make for somewhere like Kamakura. Only not yet. Everything has its season. For now, let us proceed with exercise alone.

　Not to exercise in this twentieth century of ours seems positively impoverished, and a disgrace. The forms of exercise I have selected are what might be called the sort that cost nothing and require no apparatus. Among the new forms, there are several of considerable interest. The first is **praying mantis hunting**. Mantis hunting is not as strenuous as rat catching, but it carries proportionately less risk. As a pastime for late summer into early autumn it is quite without equal. The method is as follows: first, go out into the garden and locate one mantis. In good season, one or two are easily found. Having found the mantis, rush toward it with a rush of wind. It immediately takes up a fighting stance, raising its scythe-head. The mantis has its own courage — not knowing the opponent's strength, it intends to resist, which is rather entertaining. I give the raised scythe-head a light tap with my right forepaw; the head, being soft, folds over sideways. The expression on the mantis's face at this moment is particularly interesting. There is a distinct air of "Oh!" about it. Then in one leap I go around behind and lightly scratch its wings from the rear. Those wings are normally folded tidily away; if the scratching is vigorous, they fan open with a flash to reveal a thin, pale undergarment like yoshino tissue paper beneath — the creature wears two layers even in summer, with a kind of elegance. At this moment its long neck invariably twists backwards; sometimes it charges at me, but in most cases it simply stands erect, waiting for me to strike first. If the opponent keeps up this posture too long, the exercise goes nowhere, so after a while I give it another light tap. Any mantis with sense will retreat at this point; those that come charging straight back are simply uneducated barbarians. Against such a barbarian, I wait until it has committed to its charge, then deal it as hard a smack as I can — generally it goes flying two or three feet. If the opponent retreats properly, I take pity and race around the garden trees a few times to give it a head start. The mantis has barely advanced five or six inches. Knowing my measure now, it has lost the heart for resistance and simply bolts in all directions; but as I give chase equally in all directions, eventually it falls into desperation and attempts a grand battle by spreading its wings. Those wings, proportioned to its slender body, are equally slender and long — by all accounts purely ornamental, quite as useless in practice as human knowledge of English, French, or German. So this "grand battle" by means of useless appendages cannot do much against me. What is called a flight is in fact nothing more than dragging along the ground. I feel slightly sorry at this point, but this is exercise, so there is no help for it. I step over it in one bound, and since the mantis cannot turn sharply by its own momentum, it must continue forward into my striking paw, which connects with its nose. At this the mantis invariably topples over with wings spread. I press it down with my forepaw and rest for a moment. Then I release it. And press it down again. Release and press, in the seven-captures-seven-releases strategy of Zhuge Liang. After repeating this cycle for approximately thirty minutes, when it can no longer stir, I pick it up in my jaws and shake it, then spit it out again. Now it lies still on the ground; I poke it with a paw, and as it lurches upward I press it down again. When this too grows tiresome, the final measure: I crunch it up and eat it. I may mention, for those who have never eaten a praying mantis, that the mantis is not particularly delicious. And the nutritional value appears to be surprisingly modest.

　After mantis hunting comes the exercise called **cicada catching**. Not all cicadas are alike: just as people come in the oleaginous variety, the droning variety, and the "tsuku-tsuku" variety, so cicadas come in oil-cicadas, droning cicadas, and "tsuku-tsuku" cicadas. The oil-cicada is cloying and disagreeable; the droning cicada is arrogant and irksome; the only one worth hunting is the tsuku-tsuku cicada. This species does not appear until late summer, and it is at its most vigorous just when the first autumn breeze is slipping unbidden inside one's collar. To hear one is to understand that its entire purpose in existence is to sing and to be caught by cats. In early autumn, this is the one I hunt. I should note, for the benefit of the learned reader, that these tsuku-tsuku cicadas do not sit on the ground. Creatures lying on the ground invariably have ants on them. What I catch is the sort that perches on high branches singing at full pitch. I would also like to enquire of the reader with some knowledge of the matter: does the tsuku-tsuku cicada sing "oshi-i tsuku-tsuku" or "tsuku-tsuku oshi-i"? The answer bears no small significance for cicada research. For hunting purposes the distinction matters little; one simply climbs the tree following the sound and claps it down while it is absorbed in its singing. It sounds simple but it is rather taxing. I have four legs and feel I need not concede to other creatures in crossing ground, but in climbing trees there are several who surpass me. Monkeys apart, even the monkeys' remote descendants — humans — include some not to be underestimated. It is admittedly a counter-gravitational enterprise and no disgrace to find it difficult, but it does put one at something of a disadvantage for cicada hunting. Fortunately I have claws, and manage to get up somehow; but it is not as easy as it looks from outside. Moreover, cicadas fly. Unlike the mantis, once a cicada has flown, all the tree-climbing in the world is as nothing. And there is the additional hazard of being urinated upon in mid-flight — the thing seems to aim straight for the eyes. Fleeing is unavoidable; one can only request that cicadas refrain, at least, from that particular discharge. What psychological state produces this physiological response at the moment of flight? Perhaps sheer extremity. Or perhaps it is a ruse to surprise the enemy and buy time to escape — which would put it in the same category as the squid's ink, the tattooist's flexing arms, and the master's flourishing of his Latin. This too is a matter of no small significance in cicadology, and would furnish adequate material for a doctoral thesis if thoroughly investigated. But that is beside the point; back to the subject. The place where cicadas most concentrate is the Chinese parasol tree — the paulownia, as it is called in Chinese. The paulownia has a prodigious number of leaves, each as large as a fan, and when they grow thickly overlapping the branches are entirely hidden. This is a serious inconvenience for cicada hunting. "Heard but never seen" — that folk saying might have been composed expressly for my situation. There is nothing for it but to follow the voice upward. About one ken from the ground the tree forks, conveniently, at just the right place to rest and search for the cicada's position from beneath the leaves. Though on the way up, making a rustling noise may alarm the hasty ones who fly off at once; once one flies, the rest follow in succession — in following the crowd, cicadas are at least the equal of humans in stupidity. By the time one reaches the fork, sometimes the whole tree has gone silent. There was once occasion when I climbed this far and could detect not the slightest trace of cicada anywhere, and finding it tiresome to climb down and start over, settled into the fork to wait for a second chance — and fell asleep without noticing, and woke to find myself tumbled from my sweet arboreal dreams onto the garden stepping stones. In general, however, one brings back something on each climb. The only slight disappointment is that one must catch the cicada in one's mouth up there, so by the time one brings it down and spits it out, it is usually already dead, and no amount of teasing will produce a reliable response. The true pleasure of cicada hunting lies in that instant when one has crept up silently and the poor creature is pouring its whole soul into singing, rearing and lowering its abdomen — and one slaps a forepaw down over it with a rush. At that moment it cries out and beats its thin transparent wings with a frantic and extraordinary speed and beauty, a performance that truly ranks as one of the great spectacles of the cicada world. Every time I press one down, I request it to give me this artistic performance, and when I have seen enough, I pop it in my mouth. Some cicadas continue performing even after they are inside.

　After cicada catching comes **pine sliding**. There is no need to go into great detail, so I shall be brief. The name may suggest sliding down a pine, but it is actually another form of tree climbing: the difference from cicada catching is that there one climbs to catch cicadas, while here the climbing is the purpose in itself. Pine trees have always been rough and knobbly; accordingly, no trunk provides better purchase for the claws, better footholds, better — in short — claw-holds. One rushes straight up a trunk providing such excellent claw-purchase in one sustained sprint. Then rushes back down. There are two methods of coming down. The first is to descend head-first, face toward the ground. The second is to maintain the posture one climbed in and descend tail-first. I ask the reader which is the more difficult. The shallow human understanding will suppose that since one is coming down in both cases, coming down face-first is the easier. That is wrong. You know that Yoshitsune descended the cliff at Hiyodorigoe facing downward, and you assume that since even Yoshitsune came down head-first, a mere cat surely needs only the same. Do not be so condescending. Consider: which way do a cat's claws face? They all curve backward. Hence they can hook things and pull them toward the body like a grappling iron, but they cannot push outward in the opposite direction. Now, if I have climbed smartly up the pine tree, then since I am by nature a creature of the earth, the natural tendency will not long permit me to remain at the top of the pine — leave it to itself and I will inevitably fall. But falling freely is too fast. So some means must be employed to moderate this natural tendency somewhat. This is what coming down means. Falling and coming down may seem vastly different but in fact they amount to much the same thing: slow falling is coming down, fast coming down is falling. The difference is only a matter of degree. Since I do not wish to fall off the pine tree, I must slow the falling and thus come down. That is, I must resist the pull of gravity with something. My claws, as previously noted, all face backward; hence if I keep my head uppermost and plant my claws, their force is wholly directed against gravity and of use. Falling thus becomes coming down. The principle is perfectly transparent. If instead I invert myself Yoshitsune-fashion and attempt to descend head-first, the claws are there but useless; they slip and cannot bear the body's weight, and what was intended as a descent becomes a fall. Hiyodorigoe is precisely as difficult as this. I suspect few cats possess this skill — which is why I call this exercise pine sliding.

　Finally, a word on **fence walking**. My master's garden is enclosed in a square of bamboo fencing; the side parallel to the veranda runs some eight or nine ken; the two perpendicular sides are each about four. The exercise I call fence walking consists of completing a circuit along the top of this fence without falling. Mishaps occur, but when it goes well the accomplishment is satisfying, and the round posts sunk at various points provide convenient resting places. Today's performance was good; I attempted it three times from morning to noon, growing more skilled with each attempt and finding it more enjoyable accordingly. When I finally completed a fourth circuit and was about halfway around, three crows flew over from the neighbours' rooftop and settled in a row about one ken ahead. Impertinent creatures! To obstruct someone else's exercise — moreover, birds with no particular connection to the neighbourhood, landing on someone else's fence as if they owned it. I spoke up: "Move along, won't you — kindly shift." The foremost crow grinned at me sideways. The middle one surveyed my master's garden. The third was wiping its beak on the bamboo fence — it must have just eaten something. I granted them three minutes to respond and stood waiting on the fence. Crows are commonly called Kanzaemon; and indeed, Kanzaemon they were — no greeting, no movement. Nothing for it but to start walking. The first Kanzaemon spread his wings slightly — I thought for a moment he was finally frightened enough to flee — but he had merely turned from facing right to facing left. The impudence! On flat ground I would not let this pass, but here on this perilous path there is no margin to spare on Kanzaemon-wrangling, and waiting for three crows to withdraw of their own accord is equally unappealing. I have now made three circuits already and am considerably fatigued; and this tightrope-walking enterprise is taxing enough without black-robed obstructions crowding the path three at a time. When all is considered, withdrawal is the safer course — one does not want to lose one's footing and fall, which would be all the more humiliating. I had reached this conclusion when the crow that had turned leftward called out: "Idiot!" The next one imitated it: "Idiot!" The last one, with what I can only describe as punctilious courtesy, called twice: "Idiot! Idiot!" Even the most temperate of individuals cannot let this pass. First, to be insulted by crows of all creatures on one's own property reflects on one's standing — one has no name, true, but one has dignity. Retreat is out of the question. As the proverb says, "crows in a mob" — three of them may not be as formidable as they appear. Summoning courage, I started slowly forward again. The crows paid no attention to me, apparently conversing among themselves. Most infuriating of all. Having advanced to within five or six inches of the foremost crow, almost there — the crow suddenly beat its wings and rose a foot or two into the air. The rush of wind hit my face without warning; I felt a start — and missed my footing, and dropped with a thud. Glancing up from below the fence, all three were still in their places, beaks levelled downward at me. What a brazen lot. I glared; entirely ineffective. I arched my back and growled somewhat; equally useless. Just as the philistine cannot comprehend a metaphysical poem, so the signs of anger I displayed to them produced no reaction whatever. On reflection, this is not unreasonable. I had been treating them as I would treat cats. That was my error. Against cats, this approach would certainly produce results; but the opponents were crows. With crow Kanzaemon as adversary, there is nothing to be done. It is like the businessman trying to crush my master Kushami, like presenting the poet Saigyo with a silver cat statuette, like Kanzaemon the crow defecating on Saigo Takamori's bronze head — a perceptive creature such as I recognised this as hopeless and withdrew cleanly to the veranda. It is nearly dinner time. Exercise is all very well but excess is harmful, and my whole body feels vaguely unstrung and slack. Furthermore, the early autumn sun has heated my fur through during the exercise until it is uncomfortably warm; the sweat from my pores, instead of flowing freely, clings like oil at the roots of my fur, and my back itches intolerably. Fleabite itch and sweat itch can be told apart. Places within reach of my mouth can be bitten; places within reach of my paws can be scratched; but that central line running along the spine is beyond my own capacities. In such circumstances, one must either find a human to rub against at random, or apply friction with pine bark — one or the other, or there will be no peaceful sleep. As for pine bark, pine trees have resin, and that resin, once it has attached itself to the tip of a single hair, will not release it through thunder or the destruction of the Baltic fleet. Worse, it spreads from five hairs to thirty before one has noticed. I am a tea-minded cat who values simplicity; I have no patience with anything this tenacious, malicious, and sticky. As for humans, the fleas in my fur have lately made them inclined to grab me and throw me away — so that avenue is also closed. Nothing for it but to endure the itch. Since neither method is available, it is decidedly uncomfortable. Then it occurred to me: my master sometimes takes his towel and soap and saunters off somewhere, returning thirty or forty minutes later with his ordinarily murky complexion somewhat enlivened and cleared. If it has this effect on someone as grubby as my master, it should work even more strongly on me. Though I already possess these fine looks and have no particular need to become more handsome, if I were to fall ill and die in obscurity at a year or so old, it would leave something to be explained to the world at large. I am told this too is one of those human contrivances for passing time called "the public bath." Since it is a human invention it cannot be a very refined thing, but given the circumstances I may as well try it. If it proves useless I can stop. The question is whether a bathing establishment set up for human use has the magnanimity to admit an anomalous cat. If my master can stroll in without ceremony, they can hardly refuse me — but if I were met with an embarrassing refusal, that would reflect poorly. Better to go and assess the situation first; once satisfied, I can take my towel and dive in. Having settled on this plan, I set off at an ambling pace.

　Turning left out of the side street, a tall stovepipe stands in the distance ahead, letting a thin thread of smoke from its tip. That is the public bath. I slipped quietly in through the back entrance. They say entering through the back is cowardly and unsporting; this is the resentful muttering of people who can only go in through the front. Clever people have always made their approach by the back door. The second volume, first chapter, fifth page of the Manual for the Cultivation of Gentlemen states so explicitly; the following page declares "the back door is the gentleman's testament and the gate through which one attains virtue for oneself." I am a cat of the twentieth century and have received this education — kindly do not underestimate me.

　Slipping inside, I found to my left a mountain of split pine sticks about eight inches long, and beyond them a hill of coal. On the far side, an entrance of about one ken stood open to the air; inside it was perfectly still, and from somewhere beyond came a continuous noise of human voices. I concluded that what is called the bath must be in the direction of those voices, and threading through the valley between the pine wood and the coal heap, turning left, I came upon a glass window on my right, outside which small wooden buckets were stacked in a triangle like a pyramid. A round object being stacked in a triangular formation must be against its inclinations, I privately sympathised with the bucket assembly. To the south of the buckets, a board extended four or five feet — positively as if set there to receive me. The height from the ground was about one metre, just the right distance for a jump. "Right then," I said, and with a light spring, what is known as the public bath lay spread out before my very nose, beneath my eyes, directly in front of my face. There is nothing more enjoyable in the whole world than eating what one has never eaten and seeing what one has never seen. If you are like my master, going three times a week for thirty to forty minutes to the world of the public bath, all well and good; but if, like me, you have never laid eyes on a bath, you ought to go and see one soon. You need not be at your parents' deathbeds, but this you really must witness in person. Wide as the world is, I doubt there is a spectacle to match it.

　What spectacle? A spectacle of which I hesitate to speak aloud. Every single human milling and clamoring within this glass window is stark naked. They are the aboriginal peoples of Taiwan. They are the Adams of the twentieth century. To unfold the history of clothing — it is too long, so I will leave the unfolding to Herr Teufelsdröckh and confine myself to the conclusion — human beings are entirely sustained by their clothing. In the eighteenth century, when Beau Nash promulgated strict regulations at the spa resort of Bath in England, men and women alike were required to cover themselves from shoulders to feet with clothing even inside the bathing establishment. About sixty years ago, in a certain English city, a school of design was established. Being a design school, it purchased nudes and nude sculptures for use as models and displayed them here and there — this was all very well, but when the moment came to hold the opening ceremony, the administrators and faculty found themselves in severe difficulty. An opening ceremony required inviting the ladies of the city. But in the view of the ladies of that era, human beings are clothed animals — not descendants of fur-wearing primates. For a human being to appear without clothing was like an elephant without its trunk, a school without its students, a soldier without his courage — a complete loss of essential being. Having lost its essential being, the thing was no longer admissible as human; it was a beast. Even if only in the form of models and copies, to mingle with beast-humans would offend the ladies' dignity — and so they declined to attend. The faculty thought them unreasonable, but women are a species of ornament in both East and West; useless for pounding rice or volunteering for the army, yet indispensable as decorative appointments at opening ceremonies. And so, unavoidably, they went to a draper, bought thirty-five tan and some fraction of black cloth, and draped it over every one of those beast-humans, going to the lengths of covering the faces as well to be quite sure no offence was given, and so contrived to get through the ceremony after all. Such is the importance of clothing to human beings.

　Yet the community of humans I now surveyed from above had taken every one of these cats'-stocks and羽織 and hakama that may not be removed, and hung them on pegs without a moment's ceremony, exposing their primordial wild condition to the full gaze of the assembled company, chatting and laughing with perfect composure. What I called "a great spectacle" earlier — this was it. Let me now have the honour of offering to the civilised world a survey of the scene.

　It is all such a muddle I scarcely know where to begin. Monsters have no order to their proceedings, and orderly exposition presents some difficulty. Let me start with the bathtub. Whether it is a bathtub or something else I cannot be certain, but I take it to be a bathtub. It is about three feet wide, about one and a half ken long, divided in two. One half contains white water — called medicinal water, apparently, opaque and turbid as if lime had been dissolved in it; not merely turbid but greasily, heavily turbid. No wonder it looks rotten — it seems the water is changed only once a week. The adjoining half contains ordinary hot water, though this too cannot in honesty be described as transparent or crystalline; the colour is approximately that of a stirred rain barrel.

　The description of the monsters begins here. In the rain-barrel half, two young fellows stand upright, facing each other, pouring hot water splashing over each other's bellies. An entertaining pastime. Both are as thoroughly developed in blackness of complexion as one could wish. Quite robust specimens of monster, I thought, when one of them rubbed his chest with a washcloth and said: "Jin, something in here's been aching — what d'you reckon it is?" Jin sagely replied: "That'd be the stomach. The stomach can take your life, gotta watch it." "But it's on the left side," pointing to where the left lung is. "That's where the stomach is — left's the stomach, right's the lung." "Oh, I always thought the stomach was over here," patting his waist. "That'd be a hernia," said Jin. At this point a man of about twenty-five or -six, with a sparse beard, flung himself in with a splash, whereupon the soap still clinging to him floated up along with the grime, glittering as if through water with iron in it. Next to him an old bald man had cornered a fellow with a cropped head and was holding forth; only their heads were visible above the water. "Getting old, it's no good. Once a man's past his prime he can't keep up with the young ones. But the water — even now, if it isn't scalding I don't feel right." "A man like yourself is perfectly fit, sir; that much vigour is something to be proud of." "Not vigour — I just don't get sick. A man doesn't do wrong things, he can live to a hundred and twenty." "Is that so — really that long?" "Of course, a hundred and twenty is guaranteed. Before the Restoration there was a hatamoto in Ushigome called Magaribuchi, and one of his manservants lived to be a hundred and thirty." "That is a long life." "Yes indeed, he lived so long he forgot his own age. Up to a hundred he remembered, but after that he lost track, he said. I knew him when he was a hundred and thirty, and he hadn't died yet. What became of him afterwards I don't know — he may still be alive." So saying he climbed out of the tub. The man with the beard was smiling vacantly to himself, surrounded by something that glittered like flakes of mica — soap scum and grime, presumably. The next man to plunge in was remarkable, unlike the common run of monsters, for having a painted design on his back: it appeared to depict Iwami Jūtarō flourishing his great sword at a giant serpent. Unfortunately the work was not yet complete, the serpent being nowhere in evidence, so the hero Jūtarō looked somewhat deflated. Coming in, he exclaimed: "Damn, this is lukewarm!" Another man followed immediately: "Really, could do with a bit more heat," grimacing while enduring the hotness anyway; he saw the tattooed man and said "Hey, boss!" The tattooed man returned "Hey," then presently asked: "Whatever happened to Min?" "He loves the gambling dens." "Not just that..." "That fellow is touchy, and — somehow people just don't take to him — somehow — they don't trust him. A craftsman shouldn't be like that." "Exactly. Min isn't low in the waist, he's high in the head. That's why people can't trust him." "True. And he thinks himself quite a craftsman, which — ends up being his own loss." "Shirakanecho has lost its old people too, now the only old hands left are barrel-shop Moto, the foreman at the brickyard, and a master or two like yourself. I'm local-born and bred but Min — nobody knows where he came from." "That's true. Still, he's done pretty well for himself." "But somehow people don't take to him. They don't socialise with him." — A thorough demolition of Min from every angle.

　Enough of the rain barrel; looking at the white medicinal tub, it is so crowded that rather than saying people are in the water, one might more accurately say the water is in the people. Moreover, those going in keep going in, and not a single person has come out. Looking carefully into the far corner of the tub, I see my master, crammed into the left corner, bright red and hunched in apparent discomfort. Poor man — one wishes someone would make way and let him out, but no one shows signs of moving, nor does my master show any inclination to leave. He just hunches there, reddening. This is presumably his spirit of getting full value from his two-and-a-half-sen entry fee. Looking from the window shelf, I was rather worried he might get overcome by the steam. Then the man next to my master, one space over, frowned and said: "This is a bit too strong — there's a hot thing coming up from behind, sizzling." Someone replied proudly: "This is exactly right. Medicinal water has to be this temperature to work. Back home the water we bathe in is twice as hot." "What is this bath supposed to cure?" asked a man covering his bumpy head with his washcloth. "Everything — it's good for everything — pretty remarkable," said a man whose complexion had the colour and shape of a yellow cucumber — for someone who availed himself of its powers so regularly, one might expect him to look rather more robust. "Three or four days after the medicine is changed is just right — today is perfect," opined a puffed-up man who was probably just fat from old grime. "Does it work if you drink it?" came a thin voice from somewhere unidentifiable. "After a chill, drink a cup before bed — strangely, you won't need to get up in the night; give it a try," answered a voice whose face could not be determined.

　On the washing floor, everywhere one looked: Adams unfit for any painting, each in his own posture, washing his own particular part. The most astonishing were the one lying face-up gazing at the high skylight, and the one lying face-down peering into the drain — a pair of truly leisured Adams. A shaved-headed man crouched facing the stone wall while a young apprentice tirelessly scrubbed his back — evidently standing in for the regular bath attendant Sansuke. The real Sansuke was also present, apparently nursing a cold, in a padded jacket despite the heat, pouring water from an oval bucket over a patron's shoulders, with a piece of old cloth pinched between the toes of his right foot. On this side, a man hoarding three small buckets at once was urging his neighbour to use soap and holding forth at great length. Listening to what he was saying: "Guns came from overseas. In the old days it was all sword fighting. Overseas people are cunning so they came up with that sort of thing. Doesn't seem Chinese — more like foreign. In Watakunai's time there weren't any. Watakunai was of the Seiwa Genji lineage, you see. Apparently when Yoshitsune crossed from Ezo to Manchuria, a very learned man from Ezo went along. Then Yoshitsune's son attacked the Ming dynasty, but the Ming had no choice, so they sent a messenger to the Third Shogun asking to borrow three thousand soldiers, and the Third Shogun kept that messenger and wouldn't send him back — what was he called — some kind of messenger with a name — and kept him for two years, and in the end showed him the brothels in Nagasaki — and the child born to a brothel girl there was Watakunai. Then when he went back home the Ming dynasty had been destroyed by traitors..." No comprehending it at all. Behind this man, a gloomy-looking man of about twenty-five or twenty-six sat vacantly simmering the area of his groin in white water — evidently suffering from some kind of sore or abscess. Beside him a young man of seventeen or eighteen was holding forth pretentiously with "you" and "I" and "one" — presumably a student from the neighbourhood. Next to him appeared a peculiar back: the spine jutted out at each vertebra as plainly as the nodes of a cold-weather bamboo, and on either side there were four formations resembling the sixteen-square board game, neatly arrayed; some of these sixteen-squares were red and festered with pus around the edges. To continue cataloguing in this vein would never end; even the best efforts of one such as I cannot convey more than a fraction of it. I was beginning to feel somewhat overwhelmed when, at the entrance, there appeared a bald man of about seventy, wearing a light blue cotton kimono. He bowed respectfully to this assembly of unclothed monsters and, in fluent uninterrupted speech, announced: "Well, all you familiar faces — thank you as always for your daily patronage. Today being a little cool, please take your time and stay as long as you like. The white water tub is there for going in and out at will — warm yourselves thoroughly. — Attendant, please keep an eye on the water temperature." The attendant replied: "Right!" Watakunai warmly praised the old man: "What a genial fellow — you can't run a business without that sort of manner." I was somewhat taken aback by this odd old man's sudden appearance, and for a while pushed aside the other descriptions in favour of exclusive observation of the old man. The old man presently noticed a small boy of about four who had just emerged from the tub and extended his hand: "Come here, little one." The boy apparently found this old man, who looked like a trampled rice cake, quite alarming, and let out a wail. The old man was somewhat put out: "Crying, are we? What? Scared of the old man? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear." There was nothing for it, so he swiftly changed target and turned to the boy's parent. "Ah, Gen-san. Bit cold today, isn't it. The burglar who got into Omiya's last night — what a stupid fellow. He cut a square hole in the planks around the side door, and then apparently didn't take anything and ran off. Must have spotted a policeman or a night watchman." He greatly mocked the burglar's recklessness, then turned to another man: "Well well, cold weather, isn't it. You being young, perhaps you don't feel it so much," said the old man, the one person there who was actually cold.

　I had been so absorbed in the old man that I had quite forgotten the other monsters — even my master, crouched miserably in the tub — when suddenly from the boundary between the washing floor and the wooden dressing area a great voice rang out. It was unmistakably my master Kushami. My master's voice is abnormally large and unpleasantly husky — this is nothing new — but given the setting I was quite startled. My immediate diagnosis was that prolonged immersion in scalding water had caused a rush of blood to the head. Nor was it a mere pathological episode; he was entirely in possession of his faculties, as will be apparent when I explain what provoked this enormous bellow. He had taken it upon himself, most ungallantly, to pick a quarrel with an impertinent young student. "Move along — your bucket is splashing water into mine!" — this roar was unquestionably my master's. The student turned and replied civilly: "But I've been here from the beginning." A perfectly reasonable answer, indicating only that he was not moving; but as my master had expected acquiescence, the tone and manner of the reply, while not warlike enough to warrant being shouted back at in kind, left him unsatisfied. Indeed my master's anger was not really directed at the student's position in the first place — having been subjected to that pair of youngsters' insufferably knowing and superior chatter for some time, it was precisely this that had infuriated him. So when the student answered pleasantly he still didn't move from the floor to the wooden area but instead bellowed: "What! Idiot! Who splashes filthy water into another man's bucket!" I myself thought the young fellow rather irritating, and at this moment felt a brief surge of satisfaction; yet as the conduct of a schoolteacher it seems somewhat intemperate. My master is generally too rigid. He is like coal ash — dry and unaccountably hard. Long ago, when Hannibal was crossing the Alps, a great rock blocked the path and obstructed the passage of his army; Hannibal poured vinegar on the great rock, lit a fire, softened it, and sawed it to pieces like a kamaboko fish cake, proceeding without further impediment. My master, the kind of man who cannot be softened even by immersion in a famous medicinal bath — the only remedy is to pour vinegar on him and roast him over the fire; otherwise, no number of students over any number of decades will cure his stubbornness.

　The people in the bath — washing floor and all — are a community of monsters who have divested themselves of the clothing that civilisation requires, and cannot be judged by ordinary social standards. Anything goes. Left is the stomach, Watakunai is of the Seiwa Genji, and Min is not trusted — none of that matters. But once one steps off the washing floor and onto the wooden area, one is no longer a monster. One has returned to the everyday world inhabited by ordinary humanity, one puts on the clothing that civilisation requires, and one is expected to behave like a human being. What my master is currently standing on is the threshold — the threshold between the washing floor and the wooden area — and he is on the point of returning to the world of pleasant words, good cheer, smooth social manners. Even at this very threshold he is this rigid; which means this rigidity is for him a deep-rooted, incorrigible affliction. And an affliction is not easily corrected. In my humble estimation, the one remedy is to have the headmaster dismiss him. Once dismissed, a man as inflexible as my master will inevitably find himself at a loss and ultimately die in the gutter. In other words, dismissal is the ultimate, if distant, cause of my master's death. My master likes being ill, but has a thorough aversion to death — he wishes to enjoy the luxury of illness only within the range that does not entail dying. Therefore, if threatened with "carry on like this and you will die," the timid master will tremble from head to foot, and perhaps the affliction will clean fall away in that moment of trembling. If not, then there is no more to be done.

　However foolish or afflicted, the master is still the master. There is a poet who wrote "a single meal creates loyalty like a lord's"; and a cat too cannot be altogether unconcerned about his master's welfare. I was so full of sympathy for him that my attention had drifted entirely toward him and I had neglected to observe the washing floor any further, when suddenly an uproar rose toward the white medicinal tub, voices crying out on all sides. Turning to look, the narrow entrance to the tub section was packed so tight with monsters that there was not an inch of space, hairy shins and smooth thighs tangled in confusion. Early autumn sunlight was nearly gone; steam billowed from floor to ceiling throughout the washing area; through this vapour the heaving mass of monsters loomed dimly. "Hot! Hot!" — the cries pierced my ears and tumbled about inside my skull. There were yellow cries and blue cries and red cries and black cries, all heaped upon one another, filling the bath with an indescribable commotion — a sound suited only to conveying confusion and chaos, useful for nothing else. I stood transfixed, staring at the scene in a kind of stupor. Gradually, the tumult reached an extreme; just as it seemed it could not intensify one degree further — then, without warning, from within the churning, jostling mob, one great tall figure rose up. His stature, measured against the others, was easily three inches higher; moreover his face was so red and so thoroughly bearded that it was unclear whether the face was in the beard or the beard was in the face; he tilted his head back and in a voice like a cracked temple bell on a summer noon bellowed: "COOL IT DOWN! HOT! HOT!" His voice and his face alone stood far above the tumultuous crowd; in that instant the whole bathing establishment seemed to have contracted into this single man. A superman! Nietzsche's Übermensch! The demon king! The chieftain of the monsters! As I stood staring, from behind the bathing tub came a responding shout. I glanced that way; in the darkness, barely visible, the jacketed figure of Sansuke swung his arm and flung a great lump of coal into the furnace. As the lump slid in under the lid with a crackling explosion, one half of Sansuke's face was illuminated; and simultaneously, the brick wall behind him blazed through the darkness as if on fire. A chill came over me; I leapt down from the window at once and went straight home. As I walked home I reflected: even when all clothing is removed, when羽織 and猿股 and袴 are all stripped away and they try to be equal — out of their naked company rises a naked giant to overwhelm all the rest. Equality is not achieved by nakedness, however much one undresses.

　On returning home, the world was tranquil enough; my master had come back from his bath, face gleaming, and was eating his dinner. He noticed me coming in from the veranda and said: "What a carefree cat — where has it been until now." On the table I could see two or three dishes despite the family's modest means. Among them was one grilled fish — some variety caught yesterday, presumably, somewhere off Odaiba. Fish are said to be robust creatures, but to be grilled and stewed like this is an unhappy end; staying alive with chronic illness would be rather preferable. So thinking, I sat near the table and pretended to look without looking, waiting for an opportunity to receive a portion. Anyone who does not know this art of pretending will never get the good fish. My master poked at the fish briefly, made a face suggesting it was not good, and put down his chopsticks. His wife sitting opposite was using her chopsticks silently up and down, carefully studying the movements of my master's two jaws.

　"I say, hit the cat on the head, will you," my master suddenly requested.

　"What for?"

　"Never mind what for, just give it a hit."

　"Like this?" His wife gave my head a light smack with her palm. Not painful in the slightest.

　"It didn't cry."

　"No."

　"Try again."

　"Hitting it again and again won't change anything," said his wife, and gave another flat smack. I remained perfectly still, as before. The purpose of all this, however, was entirely beyond my understanding. If I understood, I could respond accordingly; but the command is merely "hit it," so the wife hitting is baffled and the cat being hit is equally baffled. Having failed twice, my master showed slight impatience and said: "Hit it so it cries."

　His wife frowned and asked "What do you want it to cry for?" as she delivered another thwack. Now the objective was clear — give one cry and the master would be satisfied. What a simpleton the master is. If he wants it to cry, he could simply say so from the start; there would have been no need for two or three extra strikes, and I would not have needed to go through the same thing repeatedly. The command "just hit it" should be reserved for cases where hitting itself is the purpose. Hitting is on their side; crying is on mine. To include my independent act of crying implicitly within the command "hit it" is grossly inconsiderate. One should respect the personhood — even of a cat. My master detests Kaneda, but this sort of thing is exactly what Kaneda would do; for my master, who prides himself on straightforwardness, it is decidedly undignified. Though in truth my master is not such a petty man at heart; this command arose not from cunning but simply from insufficient intelligence — it is the sort of thing that sprouts from intellectual shallowness, like mosquito larvae. He ate a meal therefore his stomach is full; he cut therefore blood flows; he killed therefore it died — therefore he struck therefore it must cry. A slight error in logic. By the same reasoning, falling into a river means certain death, eating tempura means certain diarrhoea, receiving a salary means certain attendance at work, reading books means certain edification. That would create difficulties for certain people. If being struck must produce crying, I have grievances against this. I am not to be equated with the Mejiro morning bell. Having thus defeated the master thoroughly in my heart, I then gave the requested "meow" on demand.

　My master thereupon turned to his wife and asked: "That 'meow' it just made — was that an interjection, or an adverb, or what? Do you know?"

　His wife was so taken aback by the sudden question that she said nothing. To be honest, even I thought this might be residual effects of the bathhouse rush of blood to the head. My master is notorious throughout the neighbourhood as an eccentric; some have actually declared outright that he is neurotic. But his self-confidence is extraordinary — not I who am neurotic, he insists, but the whole world that is neurotic. When neighbours call him a "silly dog," my master calls them "silly pigs" for the sake of maintaining impartiality. My master genuinely seems to feel that impartiality must be upheld. Exasperating. For a man of this kind, to spring such an eccentric question on his wife was probably a small matter before breakfast; but to the listener it sounds like something only a person approaching neuroticism would say. So his wife, bemused, said nothing. I naturally had no answer to offer. Then my master suddenly shouted:

　"I say!"

　His wife jumped: "Yes?"

　"That 'yes' — is it an interjection or an adverb? Which?"

　"Which — really, what nonsense, does it matter?"

　"How can it not matter? This is the great problem currently occupying the minds of Japanese linguists."

　"My goodness — a cat's meow? How unpleasant. And isn't a cat's meow not really Japanese anyway?"

　"That's just it — that's what makes it a difficult problem. Comparative linguistics, you see."

　"I see," said his wife sensibly, declining to engage further with such a foolish problem. "So — have you worked it out, which it is?"

　"It's too important a question to settle in a hurry." He resumed crunching the fish, then ate the pork and taro simmered beside it. "This is pork, is it?" "Yes, pork." "Hm," he swallowed it in a tone of thoroughgoing contempt. "I'll have another cup of sake."

　"You've been drinking quite a lot tonight. You're already quite red."

　"I'll drink — do you know the longest word in the world?"

　"Yes, surely it's Former Regent Grand Chancellor."

　"That's a title. The longest word."

　"A word — a foreign word?"

　"Yes."

　"I don't know — that's enough sake, let's have rice, shall we?"

　"No, I'll drink more. Let me tell you the longest word."

　"All right. Tell me and then we'll have rice."

　"Archaiomelesidonophrunicherata. That's the word."

　"That must be made up."

　"Made up? It's Greek."

　"What does it mean in Japanese?"

　"The meaning I don't know. I just know the spelling. Written out it stretches about six and a third inches."

　Anyone else would speak such things only in their cups; my master says them stone cold sober — which is what makes it such a remarkable spectacle. And yet tonight he is drinking without restraint. Normally he limits himself to two cups; he has already had four. Two cups is enough to make him quite red; double that, and his face glows like a red-hot poker, looking all the worse for it, yet he still does not stop. "One more cup." His wife, quite out of patience, said: "That's enough now, isn't it? You're only making yourself miserable."

　"No — even if it's miserable I mean to start practising a little. Ōmachi Keigetsu told me to drink."

　"Keigetsu — who is that?" Even the celebrated Keigetsu is worth not a penny in his wife's estimation.

　"Keigetsu is the foremost critic of the age. If he says drink, that settles it."

　"Nonsense. Keigetsu or Baikitsu or whoever — to tell people to make themselves miserable drinking is uncalled for."

　"Not just drinking — he said to socialise, and pursue hobbies, and travel."

　"That's even worse. A critic of the first order recommends that? Extraordinary. To encourage a man with a wife and family to pursue hobbies..."

　"Hobbies are all very well — even without Keigetsu's encouragement, I might take them up if I had money."

　"Thank goodness we have none. For you to take up hobbies now would be terrible."

　"If you object so strongly, then never mind hobbies — but in exchange, take better care of your husband and feed him a better dinner of an evening."

　"This is the very best I can do."

　"Is that so. Well then — let hobbies wait until money arrives, and leave it at that for tonight." He pushed out his rice bowl. Three bowls of tea-on-rice it seemed he ate. I received that night three pieces of pork and the head of a salted grilled fish.