I Am a Cat --- Natsume Soseki (vol 1, 2)

 Volume 1

 I

I AM A CAT. As yet I have no name. I’ve no idea where I was born. All I remember is that I was miaowing in a dampish dark place when, for the first time, I saw a human being. This human being, I heard afterwards, was a member of the most ferocious human species; a shosei, one of those students who, in return for board and lodging, perform small chores about the house. I hear that, on occasion, this species catches, boils, and eats us. However as at that time I lacked all knowledge of such creatures, I did not feel particularly frightened. I simply felt myself floating in the air as I was lifted up lightly on his palm. When I accustomed myself to that position, I looked at his face. This must have been the very first time that ever I set eyes on a human being. The impression of oddity, which I then received, still remains today. First of all, the face that should be decorated with hair is as bald as a kettle. Since that day I have met many a cat but never have I come across such deformity. The center of the face protrudes excessively and sometimes, from the holes in that protuberance, smoke comes out in little puffs. I was originally somewhat troubled by such exhalations for they made me choke, but I learnt only recently that it was the smoke of burnt tobacco which humans like to breathe.

For a little while I sat comfortably in that creature’s palm, but things soon developed at a tremendous speed. I could not tell whether the shosei was in movement or whether it was only I that moved; but anyway I began to grow quite giddy, to feel sick. And just as I was thinking that the giddiness would kill me, I heard a thud and saw a million stars. Thus far I can remember but, however hard I try, I cannot recollect anything thereafter.

When I came to myself, the creature had gone. I had at one time had a basketful of brothers, but now not one could be seen. Even my precious mother had disappeared. Moreover I now found myself in a painfully bright place most unlike that nook where once I’d sheltered. It was in fact so bright that I could hardly keep my eyes open. Sure that there was something wrong, I began to crawl about. Which proved painful. I had been snatched away from softest straw only to be pitched with violence into a prickly clump of bamboo grass.

After a struggle, I managed to scramble clear of the clump and emerged to find a wide pond stretching beyond it. I sat at the edge of the pond and wondered what to do. No helpful thought occurred. After a while it struck me that, if I cried, perhaps the shosei might come back to fetch me. I tried some feeble mewing, but no one came. Soon a light wind blew across the pond and it began to grow dark. I felt extremely hungry. I wanted to cry, but I was too weak to do so. There was nothing to be done. However, having decided that I simply must find food, I turned, very, very slowly, left around the pond. It was extremely painful going. Nevertheless, I persevered and crawled on somehow until at long last I reached a place where my nose picked up some trace of human presence. I slipped into a property through a gap in a broken bamboo fence, thinking that something might turn up once I got inside. It was sheer chance; if the bamboo fence had not been broken just at that point, I might have starved to death at the roadside. I realize now how true the adage is that what is to be will be. To this very day that gap has served as my shortcut to the neighbor’s tortoiseshell.

Well, though I had managed to creep into the property, I had no idea what to do next. Soon it got really dark. I was hungry, it was cold and rain began to fall. I could not afford to lose any more time. I had no choice but to struggle toward a place which seemed, since brighter, warmer. I did not know it then, but I was in fact already inside the house where I now had a chance to observe further specimens of humankind. The first one that I met was O-san, the servant-woman, one of a species yet more savage than the shosei. No sooner had she seen me than she grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and flung me out of the house. Accepting that I had no hope, I lay stone-still, my eyes shut tight and trusting to Providence. But the hunger and the cold were more than I could bear. Seizing a moment when O-san had relaxed her watch, I crawled up once again to flop into the kitchen. I was soon flung out again. I crawled up yet again, only to be flung out yet again. I remember that the process was several times repeated. Ever since that time, I have been utterly disgusted with this O-san person. The other day I managed at long last to rid myself of my sense of grievance, for I squared accounts by stealing her dinner of mackerel-pike. As I was about to be flung out for the last time, the master of the house appeared, complaining of the noise and demanding an explanation. The servant lifted me up, turned my face to the master and said, “This little stray kitten is being a nuisance. I keep putting it out and it keeps crawling back into the kitchen.” The master briefly studied my face, twisting the black hairs under his nostrils. Then, “In that case, let it stay,” he said; and turned and went inside. The master seemed to be a person of few words. The servant resentfully threw me down in the kitchen. And it was thus that I came to make this house my dwelling.

My master seldom comes face-to-face with me. I hear he is a schoolteacher. As soon as he comes home from school, he shuts himself up in the study for the rest of the day; and he seldom emerges. The others in the house think that he is terribly hard-working. He himself pretends to be hard-working. But actually he works less hard than any of them think. Sometimes I tiptoe to his study for a peep and find him taking a snooze. Occasionally his mouth is drooling onto some book he has begun to read. He has a weak stomach and his skin is of a pale yellowish color, inelastic and lacking in vitality. Nevertheless he is an enormous gormandiser. After eating a great deal, he takes some taka-diastase for his stomach and, after that, he opens a book. When he has read a few pages, he becomes sleepy. He drools onto the book. This is the routine religiously observed each evening. There are times when even I, a mere cat, can put two thoughts together. “Teachers have it easy. If you are born a human, it’s best to become a teacher. For if it’s possible to sleep this much and still to be a teacher, why, even a cat could teach.” However, according to the master, there’s nothing harder than a teacher’s life and every time his friends come round to see him, he grumbles on and on.

During my early days in the house, I was terribly unpopular with everyone except the master. Everywhere I was unwelcome, and no one would have anything to do with me. The fact that nobody, even to this day, has given me a name indicates quite clearly how very little they have thought about me. Resigned, I try to spend as much of my time as possible with the master, the man who had taken me in. In the morning, while he reads the newspaper, I jump to curl up on his knees. Throughout his afternoon siesta, I sit upon his back. This is not because I have any particular fondness for the master, but because I have no other choice; no one else to turn to. Additionally, and in the light of other experiments, I have decided to sleep on the boiled-rice container, which stays warm through the morning, on the quilted foot-warmer during the evening, and out on the veranda when it is fine. But what I find especially agreeable is to creep into the children’s bed and snuggle down between them. There are two children, one of five and one of three: they sleep in their own room, sharing a bed. I can always find a space between their bodies, and I manage somehow to squeeze myself quietly in. But if, by great ill-luck, one of the children wakes, then I am in trouble. For the children have nasty natures, especially the younger one. They start to cry out noisily, regardless of the time, even in the middle of the night, shouting, “Here’s the cat!”Then invariably the neurotic dyspeptic in the next room wakes and comes rushing in. Why, only the other day, my master beat my backside black and blue with a wooden ruler.

Living as I do with human beings, the more that I observe them, the more I am forced to conclude that they are selfish. Especially those children. I find my bedmates utterly unspeakable. When the fancy takes them, they hang me upside-down, they stuff my face into a paper-bag, they fling me about, they ram me into the kitchen range. Furthermore, if I do commit so much as the smallest mischief, the entire household unites to chase me around and persecute me. The other day when I happened to be sharpening my claws on some straw floor-matting, the mistress of the house became so unreasonably incensed that now it is only with the greatest reluctance that she’ll even let me enter a matted room. Though I’m shivering on the wooden floor in the kitchen, heartlessly she remains indifferent. Miss Blanche, the white cat who lives opposite and whom I much admire, tells me whenever I see her that there is no living creature quite so heartless as a human. The other day, she gave birth to four beautiful kittens. But three days later, the shosei of her house removed all four and tossed them away into the backyard pond. Miss Blanche, having given through her tears a complete account of this event, assured me that, to maintain our own parental love and to enjoy our beautiful family life, we, the cat-race, must engage in total war upon all humans. We have no choice but to exterminate them. I think it is a very reasonable proposition. And the three-colored tomcat living next door is especially indignant that human beings do not understand the nature of proprietary rights. Among our kind it is taken for granted that he who first finds something, be it the head of a dried sardine or a gray mullet’s navel, acquires thereby the right to eat it. And if this rule be flouted, one may well resort to violence. But human beings do not seem to understand the rights of property. Every time we come on something good to eat, invariably they descend and take it from us. Relying on their naked strength, they coolly rob us of things which are rightly ours to eat. Miss Blanche lives in the house of a military man, and the tomcat’s master is a lawyer. But since I live in a teacher’s house, I take matters of this sort rather more lightly than they. I feel that life is not unreasonable so long as one can scrape along from day to day. For surely even human beings will not flourish forever. I think it best to wait in patience for the Day of the Cats.

Talking of selfishness reminds me that my master once made a fool of himself by reason of this failing. I’ll tell you all about it. First you must understand that this master of mine lacks the talent to be more than average at anything at all; but nonetheless he can’t refrain from trying his hand at everything and anything. He’s always writing haiku and submitting them to Cuckoo; he sends off new-style poetry to Morning Star; he has a shot at English prose peppered with gross mistakes; he develops a passion for archery; he takes lessons in chanting No play-texts; and sometimes he devotes himself to making hideous noises with a violin. But I am sorry to say that none of these activities has led to anything whatsoever. Yet, though he is dyspeptic, he gets terribly keen once he has embarked upon a project. He once got himself nicknamed “The Maestro of the Water-closet” through chanting in the lavatory, but he remains entirely unconcerned and can still be heard there chanting “I am Taira-no-Munemori.” We all say, “There goes Munemori,” and titter at his antics. I do not know why it happened, but one fine day (a payday roughly four weeks after I’d taken up residence) this master of mine came hurrying home with a large parcel under his arm. I wondered what he’d bought. It turned out that he’d purchased watercolor paints, brushes, and some special “Whatman” paper. It looked to me as if haiku-writing, and mediaeval chanting were going to be abandoned in favor of watercolor painting. Sure enough, from the next day on and every day for some long time, he did nothing but paint pictures in his study. He even went without his afternoon siestas. However, no one could tell what he had painted by looking at the result. Possibly he himself thought little of his work; for, one day when his friend who specializes in matters of aesthetics came to visit him, I heard the following conversation.

“Do you know it’s quite difficult? When one sees someone else painting, it looks easy enough; but not till one takes a brush oneself, does one realize just how difficult it is.” So said my noble master, and it was true enough.

His friend, looking at my master over his gold-rimmed spectacles, observed, “It’s only natural that one cannot paint particularly well the moment one starts. Besides, one cannot paint a picture indoors by force of the imagination only. The Italian Master, Andrea del Sarto, remarked that if you want to paint a picture, always depict nature as she is. In the sky, there are stars. On earth, there are sparkling dews. Birds are flying. Animals are running. In a pond there are goldfish. On an old tree one sees winter crows. Nature herself is one vast living picture. D’you understand? If you want to paint a picturesque picture, why not try some preliminary sketching?”

“Oh, so Andrea del Sarto said that? I didn’t know that at all. Come to think of it, it’s quite true. Indeed, it’s very true.”The master was unduly impressed. I saw a mocking smile behind the gold-rimmed glasses.

The next day when, as always, I was having a pleasant nap on the veranda, the master emerged from his study (an act unusual in itself) and began behind my back to busy himself with something. At this point I happened to wake up and, wondering what he was up to, opened my eyes just one slit the tenth of an inch. And there he was, fairly killing himself at being Andrea del Sarto. I could not help but laugh. He’s starting to sketch me just because he’s had his leg pulled by a friend. I have already slept enough, and I’m itching to yawn. But seeing my master sketching away so earnestly, I hadn’t the heart to move: so I bore it all with resignation. Having drawn my outline, he’s started painting the face. I confess that, considering cats as works of art, I’m far from being a collector’s piece. I certainly do not think that my figure, my fur, or my features are superior to those of other cats. But however ugly I may be, there’s no conceivable resemblance between myself and that queer thing which my master is creating. First of all, the coloring is wrong. My fur, like that of a Persian, bears tortoiseshell markings on a ground of a yellowish pale grey. It is a fact beyond all argument. Yet the color which my master has employed is neither yellow nor black; neither grey nor brown; nor is it any mixture of those four distinctive colors. All one can say is that the color used is a sort of color. Furthermore, and very oddly, my face lacks eyes. The lack might be excused on the grounds that the sketch is a sketch of a sleeping cat; but, all the same, since one cannot find even a hint of an eye’s location, it is not all clear whether the sketch is of a sleeping cat or of a blind cat. Secretly I thought to myself that this would never do, even for Andrea del Sarto. However, I could not help being struck with admiration for my master’s grim determination. Had it been solely up to me, I would gladly have maintained my pose for him, but Nature has now been calling for some time. The muscles in my body are getting pins and needles. When the tingling reached a point where I couldn’t stand it another minute, I was obliged to claim my liberty. I stretched my front paws far out in front of me, pushed my neck out low and yawned cavernously. Having done all that, there’s no further point in trying to stay still. My master’s sketch is spoilt anyway, so I might as well pad round to the backyard and do my business. Moved by these thoughts, I start to crawl sluggishly away. Immediately, “You fool” came shouted in my master’s voice, a mixture of wrath and disappointment, out of the inner room. He has a fixed habit of saying, “You fool” whenever he curses anyone. He cannot help it since he knows no other swear words. But I thought it rather impertinent of him thus unjustifiably to call me “a fool.” After all, I had been very patient up to this point. Of course, had it been his custom to show even the smallest pleasure whenever I jump on his back, I would have tamely endured his imprecations: but it is a bit thick to be called “a fool” by someone who has never once with good grace done me a kindness just because I get up to go and urinate. The prime fact is that all humans are puffed up by their extreme self-satisfaction with their own brute power. Unless some creatures more powerful than humans arrive on earth to bully them, there’s just no knowing to what dire lengths their fool presumptuousness will eventually carry them.

One could put up with this degree of selfishness, but I once heard a report concerning the unworthiness of humans, which is several times more ugly and deplorable.

At the back of my house there is a small tea-plantation, perhaps some six yards square. Though certainly not large, it is a neat and pleasantly sunny spot. It is my custom to go there whenever my morale needs strengthening; when, for instance, the children are making so much noise that I cannot doze in peace, or when boredom has disrupted my digestion. One day, a day of Indian summer, at about two o’clock in the afternoon, I woke from a pleasant after-luncheon nap and strolled out to this tea-plantation by way of taking exercise. Sniffing, one after another, at the roots of the tea plants, I came to the cypress fence at the western end; and there I saw an enormous cat fast asleep on a bed of withered chrysanthemums, which his weight had flattened down. He did not seem to notice my approach. Perhaps he noticed but did not care. Anyway, there he was, stretched out at full length and snoring loudly. I was amazed at the daring courage that permitted him, a trespasser, to sleep so unconcernedly in someone else’s garden. He was a pure black cat. The sun of earliest afternoon was pouring its most brilliant rays upon him, and it seemed as if invisible flames were blazing out from his glossy fur. He had a magnificent physique; the physique, one might say, of the Emperor of Catdom. He was easily twice my size. Filled with admiration and curiosity, I quite forgot myself. I stood stock-still, entranced, all eyes in front of him. The quiet zephyrs of that Indian summer set gently nodding a branch of Sultan’s Parasol, which showed above the cypress fence, and a few leaves pattered down upon the couch of crushed chrysanthemums. The Emperor suddenly opened his huge round eyes. I remember that moment to this day. His eyes gleamed far more beautifully than that dull amber stuff which humans so inordinately value. He lay dead still. Focussing the piercing light that shone from his eyes’ interior upon my dwarfish forehead, he remarked, “And who the hell are you?”

I thought his turn of phrase a shade inelegant for an Emperor, but because the voice was deep and filled with a power that could suppress a bulldog. I remained dumb-struck with pure awe. Reflecting, however, that I might get into trouble if I failed to exchange civilities, I answered frigidly, with a false sang froid as cold as I could make it, “I, sir, am a cat. I have as yet no name.” My heart at that moment was beating a great deal faster than usual.

In a tone of enormous scorn, the Emperor observed, “You. . . a cat? Well, I’m damned. Anyway, where the devil do you hang out?” I thought this cat excessively blunt-spoken.

“I live here, in the teacher’s house.”

“Huh, I thought as much. ’Orrible scrawny aren’t you.” Like a true Emperor, he spoke with great vehemence.

Judged by his manner of speech, he could not be a cat of respectable background. On the other hand, he seemed well fed and positively prosperous, almost obese, in his oily glossiness. I had to ask him “And you, who on earth are you?”

“Me? I’m Rickshaw Blacky.” He gave his answer with spirit and some pride: for Rickshaw Blacky is well-known in the neighborhood as a real rough customer. As one would expect of those brought up in a rickshaw-garage, he’s tough but quite uneducated. Hence very few of us mix with him, and it is our common policy to “keep him at a respectful distance.” Consequently when I heard his name, I felt a trifle jittery and uneasy but at the same time a little disdainful of him. Accordingly, and in order to establish just how illiterate he was, I pursued the conversation by enquiring, “Which do you think is superior, a rickshaw-owner or a teacher?”

“Why, a rickshaw-owner, of course. He’s the stronger. Just look at your master, almost skin and bones.”

“You, being the cat of a rickshaw-owner, naturally look very tough. I can see that one eats well at your establishment.”

“Ah well, as far as I’m concerned, I never want for decent grub wherever I go. You too, instead of creeping around in a tea-plantation, why not follow along with me? Within a month, you’d get so fat nobody’d recognize you.”

“In due course I might come and ask to join you. But it seems that the teacher’s house is larger than your boss’s.”

“You dimwit! A house, however big it is, won’t help fill an empty belly.” He looked quite huffed. Savagely twitching his ears, ears as sharp as slant-sliced stems of the solid bamboo, he took off rowdily.

This was how I first made the acquaintance of Rickshaw Blacky, and since that day I’ve run across him many times. Whenever we meet he talks big, as might be expected from a rickshaw-owner’s cat; but that deplorable incident which I mentioned earlier was a tale he told me.

One day Blacky and I were lying as usual, sunning ourselves in the tea-garden. We were chatting about this and that when, having made his usual boasts as if they were all brandnew, he asked me, “How many rats have you caught so far?”

While I flatter myself that my general knowledge is wider and deeper than Blacky’s, I readily admit that my physical strength and courage are nothing compared with his. All the same, his point-blank question naturally left me feeling a bit confused. Nevertheless, a fact’s a fact, and one should face the truth. So I answered “Actually, though I’m always thinking of catching one, I’ve never yet caught any.”

Blacky laughed immoderately, quivering the long whiskers, which stuck out stiffly round his muzzle. Blacky, like all true braggarts, is somewhat weak in the head. As long as you purr and listen attentively, pretending to be impressed by his rhodomontade, he is a more or less manageable cat. Soon after getting to know him, I learnt this way to handle him. Consequently on this particular occasion I also thought it would be unwise to further weaken my position by trying to defend myself, and that it would be more prudent to dodge the issue by inducing him to brag about his own successes. So without making a fuss, I sought to lead him on by saying, “You, judging by your age, must have caught a notable number of rats?” Sure enough, he swallowed the bait with gusto.

“Well, not too many, but I must’ve caught thirty or forty,” was his triumphant answer. “I can cope,” he went on, “with a hundred or two hundred rats, any time and by myself. But a weasel, no. That I just can’t take. Once I had a hellish time with a weasel.”

“Did you really?” I innocently offered. Blacky blinked his saucer eyes but did not discontinue.

“It was last year, the day for the general housecleaning. As my master was crawling in under the floorboards with a bag of lime, suddenly a great, dirty weasel came whizzing out.”

“Really?” I make myself look impressed.

“I say to myself, ‘So what’s a weasel? Only a wee bit bigger than a rat.’ So I chase after it, feeling quite excited and finally I got it cornered in a ditch.”

“That was well done,” I applaud him.

“Not in the least. As a last resort it upped its tail and blew a filthy fart. Ugh! The smell of it! Since that time, whenever I see a weasel, I feel poorly.” At this point, he raised a front paw and stroked his muzzle two or three times as if he were still suffering from last year’s stench.

I felt rather sorry for him and, in an effort to cheer him up, said, “But when it comes to rats, I expect you just pin them down with one hypnotic glare. And I suppose that it’s because you’re such a marvelous ratter, a cat well nourished by plenty of rats, that you are so splendidly fat and have such a good complexion.” Though this speech was meant to flatter Blacky, strangely enough it had precisely the opposite effect. He looked distinctly cast down and replied with a heavy sigh.

“It’s depressing,” he said, “when you come to think of it. However hard one slaves at catching rats. . . In the whole wide world there’s no creature more brazen-faced than a human being. Every rat I catch they confiscate, and they tote them off to the nearest police-box. Since the copper can’t tell who caught the rats, he just pays up a penny a tail to anyone that brings them in. My master, for instance, has already earned about half a crown purely through my efforts, but he’s never yet stood me a decent meal. The plain fact is that humans, one and all, are merely thieves at heart.”

Though Blacky’s far from bright, one cannot fault him in this conclusion. He begins to look extremely angry and the fur on his back stands up in bristles. Somewhat disturbed by Blacky’s story and reactions, I made some vague excuse and went off home. But ever since then I’ve been determined never to catch a rat. However, I did not take up Blacky’s invitation to become his associate in prowling after dainties other than rodents. I prefer the cozy life, and it’s certainly easier to sleep than to hunt for titbits. Living in a teacher’s house, it seems that even a cat acquires the character of teachers. I’d best watch out lest, one of these days, I, too, become dyspeptic.



Talking of teachers reminds me that my master seems to have recently realized his total incapacity as a painter of watercolors; for under the date of December 1st his diary contains the following passage: At today’s gathering I met for the first time a man who shall be nameless. He is said to have led a fast life. Indeed he looks very much a man of the world. Since women like this type of person, it might be more appropriate to say that he has been forced to lead, rather than that he has led, a fast life. I hear his wife was originally a geisha. He is to be envied. For the most part, those who carp at rakes are those incapable of debauchery. Further, many of those who fancy themselves as rakehells are equally incapable of debauchery. Such folk are under no obligation to live fast lives, but do so of their own volition. So I in the matter of watercolors. Neither of us will ever make the grade. And yet this type of debauchee is calmly certain that only he is truly a man of the world. If it is to be accepted that a man can become a man of the world by drinking saké in restaurants, or by frequenting houses of assignation, then it would seem to follow that I could acquire a name as a painter of watercolors. The notion that my watercolor pictures will be better if I don’t actually paint them leads me to conclude that a boorish country-bumpkin is in fact far superior to such foolish men of the world.



His observations about men of the world strike me as somewhat unconvincing. In particular his confession of envy in respect of that wife who’d worked as a geisha is positively imbecile and unworthy of a teacher. Nevertheless his assessment of the value of his own watercolor painting is certainly just. Indeed my master is a very good judge of his own character but still manages to retain his vanity. Three days later, on December 4th, he wrote in his diary:



Last night I dreamt that someone picked up one of my watercolor paintings which I, thinking it worthless, had tossed aside. This person in my dream put the painting in a splendid frame and hung it up on a transom. Staring at my work thus framed, I realized that I have suddenly become a true artist. I feel exceedingly pleased. I spend whole days just staring at my handiwork, happy in the conviction that the picture is a masterpiece. Dawn broke and I woke up, and in the morning sunlight it was obvious that the picture was still as pitiful an object as when I painted it.



The master, even in his dreams, seems burdened with regrets about his watercolors. And men who accept the burdens of regret, whether in respect of watercolors or of anything else, are not the stuff that men of the world are made of.

The day after my master dreamt about the picture, the aesthete in the gold-rimmed spectacles paid a call upon him. He had not visited for some long time. As soon as he was seated he inquired, “And how is the painting coming along?”

My master assumed a nonchalant air and answered, “Well, I took your advice and I am now busily engaged in sketching. And I must say that when one sketches one seems to apprehend those shapes of things, those delicate changes of color, which hitherto had gone unnoticed. I take it that sketching has developed in the West to its present remarkable condition solely as the result of the emphasis which, historically, has always there been placed upon the essentiality thereof. Precisely as Andrea del Sarto once observed.” Without even so much as alluding to the passage in his diary, he speaks approvingly of Andrea del Sarto.

The aesthete scratched his head, and remarked with a laugh, “Well actually that bit about del Sarto was my own invention.”

“What was?” My master still fails to grasp that he’s been tricked into making a fool of himself.

“Why, all that stuff about Andrea del Sarto whom you so particularly admire, I made it all up. I never thought you’d take it seriously.” He laughed and laughed, enraptured with the situation.

I overheard their conversation from my place on the veranda and I could not help wondering what sort of entry would appear in the diary for today. This aesthete is the sort of man whose sole pleasure lies in bamboozling people by conversation consisting entirely of humbug. He seems not to have thought of the effect his twaddle about Andrea del Sarto must have on my master’s feelings, for he rattled on proudly, “Sometimes I cook up a little nonsense and people take it seriously, which generates an aesthetic sensation of extreme comicality which I find interesting. The other day, I told a certain undergraduate that Nicholas Nickleby had advised Gibbon to cease using French for the writing of his masterpiece, The History of the French Revolution, and had indeed persuaded Gibbon to publish it in English. Now this undergraduate was a man of almost eidetic memory, and it was especially amusing to hear him repeating what I told him, word for word and in all seriousness, to a debating session of the Japan Literary Society. And d’you know, there were nearly a hundred in his audience, and all of them sat listening to his drivel with the greatest enthusiasm! In fact, I’ve another, even better, story. The other day, when I was in the company of some men of letters, one of them happened to mention Theofano, Ainsworth’s historical novel of the Crusades. I took the occasion to remark that it was a quite outstanding romantic monograph and added the comment that the account of the heroine’s death was the epitome of the spectral. The man sitting opposite to me, one who has never uttered the three words ‘I don’t know,’ promptly responded that those particular paragraphs were indeed especially fine writing. From which observation I became aware that he, no more than I, had ever read the book.”

Wide-eyed, my poor dyspeptic master asked him, “Fair enough, but what would you do if the other party had in fact read the book?” It appears that my master is not worried about the dishonesty of the deception, merely about the possible embarrassment of being caught out in a lie. The question leaves the aesthete utterly unfazed.

“Well, if that should happen, I’d say I’d mistaken the title or something like that,” and again, quite unconcerned, he gave himself to laughter.

Though nattily tricked out in gold-rimmed spectacles, his nature is uncommonly akin to that of Rickshaw Blacky. My master said nothing, but blew out smoke rings as if in confession of his own lack of such audacity. The aesthete (the glitter of whose eyes seemed to be answering, “and no wonder; you, being you, could not even cope with watercolors”) went on aloud. “But, joking apart, painting a picture’s a difficult thing. Leonardo da Vinci is supposed to have once told his pupils to make drawings of a stain on the Cathedral wall. The words of a great teacher. In a lavatory for instance, if absorbedly one studies the pattern of the rain leaks on the wall, a staggering design, a natural creation, invariably emerges. You should keep your eyes open and try drawing from nature. I’m sure you could make something interesting.”

“Is this another of your tricks?”

“No; this one, I promise, is seriously meant. Indeed, I think that that image of the lavatory wall is really rather witty, don’t you? Quite the sort of thing da Vinci would have said.”

“Yes, it’s certainly witty,” my master somewhat reluctantly conceded. But I do not think he has so far made a drawing in a lavatory.

Rickshaw Blacky has recently gone lame. His glossy fur has thinned and gradually grown dull. His eyes, which I once praised as more beautiful than amber, are now bleared with mucus. What I notice most is his loss of all vitality and his sheer physical deterioration. When last I saw him in the tea garden and asked him how he was, the answer was depressingly precise: “I’ve had enough of being farted at by weasels and crippled with side-swipes from the fishmonger’s pole.”

The autumn leaves, arranged in two or three scarlet terraces among the pine trees, have fallen like ancient dreams. The red and white sasan-quas near the garden’s ornamental basin, dropping their petals, now a white and now a red one, are finally left bare. The wintry sun along the ten-foot length of the southwards-facing veranda goes down daily earlier than yesterday. Seldom a day goes by but a cold wind blows. So my snoozes have been painfully curtailed.

The master goes to school every day and, as soon as he returns, shuts himself up in the study. He tells all visitors that he’s tired of being a teacher. He seldom paints. He’s stopped taking his taka-diastase, saying it does no good. The children, dear little things, now trot off, day after day, to kindergarten: but on their return, they sing songs, bounce balls and sometimes hang me up by the tail.

Since I do not receive any particularly nourishing food, I have not grown particularly fat; but I struggle on from day to day keeping myself more or less fit and, so far, without getting crippled. I catch no rats. I still detest that O-san. No one has yet named me but, since it’s no use crying for the moon, I have resolved to remain for the rest of my life a nameless cat in the house of this teacher.








 II







SINCE New Year’s Day I have acquired a certain modest celebrity: so that, though only a cat, I am feeling quietly proud of myself. Which is not unpleasing.

On the morning of New Year’s Day, my master received a picture-postcard, a card of New Year greetings from a certain painter-friend of his. The upper part was painted red, the lower deep green; and right in the center was a crouching animal painted in pastel. The master, sitting in his study, looked at this picture first one way up and then the other. “What fine coloring!” he observed. Having thus expressed his admiration, I thought he had finished with the matter. But no, he continued studying it, first sideways and then longways. In order to examine the object he twists his body, then stretches out his arms like an ancient studying the Book of Divinations and then, turning to face the window, he brings it in to the tip of his nose. I wish he would soon terminate this curious performance, for the action sets his knees asway and I find it hard to keep my balance. When at long last the wobbling began to diminish, I heard him mutter in a tiny voice, “I wonder what it is.” Though full of admiration for the colors on the picture-postcard, he couldn’t identify the animal painted in its center. Which explained his extraordinary antics. Could it perhaps really be a picture more difficult to interpret than my own first glance had suggested? I half-opened my eyes and looked at the painting with an imperturbable calmness. There could be no shadow of a doubt: it was a portrait of myself. I do not suppose that the painter considered himself an Andrea del Sarto, as did my master; but, being a painter, what he had painted, both in respect of form and of color, was perfectly harmonious. Any fool could see it was a cat. And so skillfully painted that anyone with eyes in his head and the mangiest scrap of discernment would immediately recognize that it was a picture of no other cat but me. To think that anyone should need to go to such painful lengths over such a blatantly simple matter. . . I felt a little sorry for the human race. I would have liked to have let him know that the picture is of me. Even if it were too difficult for him to grasp that particularity, I would still have liked to help him see that the painting is of a cat. But since heaven has not seen fit to dower the human animal with an ability to understand cat language, I regret to say that I let the matter be.

Incidentally, I would like to take the occasion of this incident to advise my readers that the human habit of referring to me in a scornful tone of voice as some mere trifling “cat” is an extremely bad one. Humans appear to think that cows and horses are constructed from rejected human material, and that cats are constructed from cow pats and horse dung. Such thoughts, objectively regarded, are in very poor taste though they are no doubt not uncommon among teachers who, ignorant even of their ignorance, remain self-satisfied with their quaint puffed-up ideas of their own unreal importance. Even cats must not be treated roughly or taken for granted. To the casual observer it may appear that all cats are the same, facsimiles in form and substance, as indistinguishable as peas in a pod; and that no cat can lay claim to individuality. But once admitted to feline society, that casual observer would very quickly realize that things are not so simple, and that the human saying that “people are freaks” is equally true in the world of cats. Our eyes, noses, fur, paws—all of them differ. From the tilt of one’s whiskers to the set of one’s ears, down to the very hang of one’s tail, we cats are sharply differentiated. In our good looks and our poor looks, in our likes and dislikes, in our refinement and our coarsenesses, one may fairly say that cats occur in infinite variety. Despite the fact of such obvious differentiation, humans, their eyes turned up to heaven by reason of the elevation of their minds or some such other rubbish, fail to notice even obvious differences in our external features, that our characters might be characteristic is beyond their comprehension. Which is to be pitied. I understand and endorse the thought behind such sayings as, the cobbler should stick to his last, that birds of a feather flock together, that rice-cakes are for rice-cake makers. For cats, indeed, are for cats. And should you wish to learn about cats, only a cat can tell you. Humans, however advanced, can tell you nothing on this subject. And inasmuch as humans are, in fact, far less advanced than they fancy themselves, they will find it difficult even to start learning about cats. And for an unsympathetic man like my master there’s really no hope at all. He does not even understand that love can never grow unless there is at least a complete and mutual understanding. Like an ill-natured oyster, he secretes himself in his study and has never once opened his mouth to the outside world. And to see him there, looking as though he alone has truly attained enlightenment, is enough to make a cat laugh. The proof that he has not attained enlightenment is that, although he has my portrait under his nose, he shows no sign of comprehension but coolly offers such crazy comment as, “perhaps, this being the second year of the war against the Russians, it is a painting of a bear.”

As, with my eyes closed, I sat thinking these thoughts on my master’s knees, the servant-woman brought in a second picture-postcard. It is a printed picture of a line of four or five European cats all engaged in study, holding pens or reading books. One has broken away from the line to perform a simple Western dance at the corner of their common desk. Above this picture “I am a cat” is written thickly in Japanese black ink. And down the right-hand side there is even a haiku stating that “on spring days cats read books or dance.”The card is from one of the master’s old pupils and its meaning should be obvious to anyone. However my dimwitted master seems not to understand, for he looked puzzled and said to himself, “Can this be a Year of the Cat?” He just doesn’t seem to have grasped that these postcards are manifestations of my growing fame.

At that moment the servant brought in yet a third postcard. This time the postcard has no picture, but alongside the characters wishing my master a happy New Year, the correspondent has added those for, “Please be so kind as to give my best regards to the cat.” Bone-headed though he is, my master does appear to get the message when it’s written out thus unequivocally: for he glanced down at my face and, as if he really had at last comprehended the situation, said, “hmm.” And his glance, unlike his usual ones, did seem to contain a new modicum of respect. Which was quite right and proper considering the fact that it is entirely due to me that my master, hitherto a nobody, has suddenly begun to get a name and to attract attention.

Just then the gate-bell sounded: tinkle-tinkle, possibly even ting-ting. Probably a visitor. If so, the servant will answer. Since I never go out of my way to investigate callers, except the fishmonger’s errand-boy, I remained quietly on my master’s knees. The master, however, peered worriedly toward the entrance as if duns were at the door. I deduce that he just doesn’t like receiving New Year’s callers and sharing a convivial tot. What a marvellous way to be. How much further can pure bigotry go? If he doesn’t like visitors, he should have gone out himself, but he lacks even that much enterprise. The inaudacity of his clam-like character grows daily more apparent. A few moments later the servant comes in to say that Mr. Coldmoon has called. I understand that this Coldmoon person was also once a pupil of my master’s and that, after leaving school, he so rose in the world to be far better known than his teacher. I don’t know why, but this fellow often comes round for a chat. On every such visit he babbles on, with a dreadful sort of coquettishness, about being in love or not in love with somebody or other; about how much he enjoys life or how desperately he is tired of it. And then he leaves. It is quaint enough that to discuss such matters he should seek the company of a withered old nut like my master, but it’s quainter still to see my mollusk opening up to comment, now and again, on Coldmoon’s mawkish maunderings.

“I’m afraid I haven’t been round for quite some time. Actually, I’ve been as busy as, busy since the end of last year, and, though I’ve thought of going out often enough, somehow shanks’ pony has just not headed here.” Thus, twisting and untwisting the fastening-strings of his short surcoat, Coldmoon babbled on.

“Where then did shanks’ pony go?” my master enquired with a serious look as he tugged at the cuffs of his worn, black, crested surcoat. It is a cotton garment unduly short in the sleeves, and some of its nonde-script, thin, silk lining sticks out about a half an inch at the cuffs.

“As it were in various directions,” Coldmoon answered, and then laughed. I notice that one of his front teeth is missing.

“What’s happened to your teeth?” asks my master, changing the subject.

“Well, actually, at a certain place I ate mushrooms.”

“What did you say you ate?”

“A bit of mushroom. As I tried to bite off a mushroom’s umbrella with my front teeth, a tooth just broke off.”

“Breaking teeth on a mushroom sounds somewhat senile. An image possibly appropriate to a haiku but scarcely appropriate to the pursuit of love,” remarked my master as he tapped lightly on my head with the palm of his hand.

“Ah! Is that the cat? But he’s quite plump! Sturdy as that, not even Rickshaw Blacky could beat him up. He certainly is a most splendid beast.” Coldmoon offers me his homage.

“He’s grown quite big lately,” responds my master, and proudly smacks me twice upon the head. I am flattered by the compliment but my head feels slightly sore.

“The night before last, what’s more, we had a little concert,” said Coldmoon going back to his story.

“Where?”

“Surely you don’t have to know where. But it was quite interesting, three violins to a piano accompaniment. However unskilled, when there are three of them, violins sound fairly good. Two of them were women and I managed to place myself between them. And I myself, I thought, played rather well.”

“Ah, and who were the women?” enviously my master asks. At first glance my master usually looks cold and hard; but, to tell the truth, he is by no means indifferent to women. He once read in a Western novel of a man who invariably fell partially in love with practically every woman that he met. Another character in the book somewhat sarcastically observed that, as a rough calculation, that fellow fell in love with just under seven-tenths of the women he passed in the street. On reading this, my master was struck by its essential truth and remained deeply impressed. Why should a man so impressionable lead such an oysterish existence? A mere cat such as I cannot possibly understand it. Some say it is the result of a love affair that went wrong; some say it is due to his weak stomach; while others simply state that it’s because he lacks both money and audacity. Whatever the truth, it doesn’t much matter since he’s a person of insufficient importance to affect the history of his period. What is certain is that he did enquire enviously about Coldmoon’s female fiddlers. Coldmoon, looking amused, picked up a sliver of boiled fishpaste in his chopsticks and nipped at it with his remaining front teeth. I was worried lest another should fall out. But this time it was all right.

“Well, both of them are daughters of good families. You don’t know them,” Coldmoon coldly answered.

The master drawled “Is—th-a-t—,” but omitted the final “so” which he’d intended.

Coldmoon probably considered it was about time to be off, for he said, “What marvellous weather. If you’ve nothing better to do, shall we go out for a walk? As a result of the fall of Port Arthur,” he added encouragingly, “the town’s unusually lively.”

My master, looking as though he would sooner discuss the identity of the female fiddlers than the fall of Port Arthur, hesitated for a moment’s thought. But he seemed finally to reach a decision, for he stood up resolutely and said, “All right, let’s go out.” He continues to wear his black cotton crested surcoat and, thereunder, a quilted kimono of hand-woven silk which, supposedly a keep-sake of his elder brother, he has worn continuously for twenty years. Even the most strongly woven silk, cannot survive such unremitting, such preternaturally, perennial wear. The material has been worn so thin that, held against the light, one can see the patches sewn on here and there from the inner side. My master wears the same clothes throughout December and January, not bothering to observe the traditional New Year change. He makes, indeed, no distinction between workaday and Sunday clothes. When he leaves the house he saunters out in whatever dress he happens to have on. I do not know whether this is because he has no other clothes to wear or whether, having such clothes, he finds it too much of a bore to change into them. Whatever the case, I can’t conceive that these uncouth habits are in any way connected with disappointment in love.

After the two men left, I took the liberty of eating such of the boiled fishpaste as Coldmoon had not already devoured. I am, these days, no longer just a common, old cat. I consider myself at least as good as those celebrated in the tales of Momokawa Joen or as that cat of Thomas Gray’s, which trawled for goldfish. Brawlers such as Rickshaw Blacky are now beneath my notice. I don’t suppose anyone will make a fuss if I sneak a bit of fishpaste. Besides, this habit of taking secret snacks between meals is by no means a purely feline custom. O-san, for instance, is always pinching cakes and things, which she gobbles down whenever the mistress leaves the house. Nor is O-san the only offender: even the children, of whose refined upbringing the mistress is continually bragging, display the selfsame tendency. Only a few days ago that precious pair woke at some ungodly hour, and, though their parents were still sound asleep, took it upon themselves to sit down, face-to-face, at the dining-table. Now it is my master’s habit every morning to consume most of a loaf of bread, and to give the children scraps thereof which they eat with a dusting of sugar. It so happened that on this day the sugar basin was already on the table, even a spoon stuck in it. Since there was no one there to dole them out their sugar, the elder child scooped up a spoonful and dumped it on her plate. The younger followed her elder’s fine example and spooned an equal pile of sugar onto another plate. For a brief while these charming creatures just sat and glared at each other. Then the elder girl scooped a second spoonful onto her plate, and the younger one proceeded to equalize the position. The elder sister took a third spoonful and the younger, in a splendid spirit of rivalry, followed suit. And so it went on until both plates were piled high with sugar and not one single grain remained in the basin. My master thereupon emerged from his bedroom rubbing half-sleepy eyes and proceeded to return the sugar, so laboriously extracted by his daughters, back into the sugar-basin. This incident suggests that, though egotistical egalitarianism may be more highly developed among humans than among cats, cats are the wiser creatures. My advice to the children would have been to lick the sugar up quickly before it became massed into such senseless pyramids, but, because they cannot understand what I say, I merely watched them in silence from my warm, morning place on top of the container for boiled rice.

My master came home late last night from his expedition with Coldmoon. God knows where he went, but it was already past nine before he sat down at the breakfast table. From my same old place I watched his morose consumption of a typical New Year’s breakfast of rice-cakes boiled with vegetables, all served up in soup. He takes endless helpings. Though the rice-cakes are admittedly small, he must have eaten some six or seven before leaving the last one floating in the bowl. “I’ll stop now,” he remarked and laid his chopsticks down. Should anyone else behave in such a spoilt manner, he could be relied upon to put his foot down: but, vain in the exercise of his petty authority as master of the house, he seems quite unconcerned by the sight of the corpse of a scorched rice-cake drowning in turbid soup. When his wife took taka-diastase from the back of a small cupboard and put it on the table, my master said, “I won’t take it, it does me no good.”

“But they say it’s very good after eating starchy things. I think you should take some.” His wife wants him to take it.

“Starchy or not, the stuff’s no good.” He remains stubborn.

“Really, you are a most capricious man,” the mistress mutters as though to herself.

“I’m not capricious, the medicine doesn’t work.”

“But until the other day you used to say it worked very well and you used to take it every day, didn’t you?”

“Yes, it did work until that other day, but it hasn’t worked since then,” an antithetical answer.

“If you continue in these inconsistencies, taking it one day and stopping it the next, however efficacious the medicine may be, it will never do you any good. Unless you try to be a little more patient, dyspepsia, unlike other illnesses, won’t get cured, will it?” and she turns to O-san who was serving at the table.

“Quite so, madam. Unless one takes it regularly, one cannot find out whether a medicine is a good one or a bad one.” O-san readily sides with the mistress.

“I don’t care. I don’t take it because I don’t take it. How can a mere woman understand such things? Keep quiet.”

“All right. I’m merely a woman,” she says pushing the taka-diastase toward him, quite determined to make him see he is beaten. My master stands up without saying a word and goes off into his study. His wife and servant exchange looks and giggle. If on such occasions I follow him and jump up onto his knees, experience tells me that I shall pay dearly for my folly. Accordingly, I go quietly round through the garden and hop up onto the veranda outside his study. I peeped through the slit between the paper sliding doors and found my master examining a book by somebody called Epictetus. If he could actually understand what he’s reading, then he would indeed be worthy of praise. But within five or six minutes he slams the book down on the table, which is just what I’d suspected. As I sat there watching him, he took out his diary and made the following entry.



Took a stroll with Coldmoon round Nezu, Ueno, Ikenohata and Kanda. At Ikenohata, geishas in formal spring kimono were playing battledore and shuttlecock in front of a house of assignation. Their clothes beautiful, but their faces extremely plain. It occurs to me that they resemble the cat at home.



I don’t see why he should single me out as an example of plain features. If I went to a barber and had my face shaved, I wouldn’t look much different from a human. But, there you are, humans are conceited and that’s the trouble with them.



As we turned at Hotan’s corner another geisha appeared. She was slim, well-shaped and her shoulders were most beautifully sloped. The way she wore her mauve kimono gave her a genuine elegance. “Sorry about last night, Gen-chan—I was so busy. . .” She laughed and one glimpsed white teeth. Her voice was so harsh, as harsh as that of a roving crow, that her otherwise fine appearance diminished in enchantment. So much so that I didn’t even bother to turn around to see what sort of person this Gen-chan was, but sauntered on toward Onarimachi with my hands tucked inside the breast-fold of my kimono. Coldmoon, however, seemed to have become a trifle fidgety.



There is nothing more difficult than understanding human mentality. My master’s present mental state is very far from clear; is he feeling angry or lighthearted, or simply seeking solace in the scribblings of some dead philosopher? One just can’t tell whether he’s mocking the world or yearning to be accepted into its frivolous company; whether he is getting furious over some piddling little matter or holding himself aloof from worldly things. Compared with such complexities, cats are truly simple. If we want to eat, we eat; if we want to sleep, we sleep; when we are angry, we are angry utterly; when we cry, we cry with all the desperation of extreme commitment to our grief. Thus we never keep things like diaries. For what would be the point? No doubt human beings like my two-faced master find it necessary to keep diaries in order to display in a darkened room that true character so assiduously hidden from the world. But among cats both our four main occupations (walking, standing, sitting, and lying down) and such incidental activities as excreting waste are pursued quite openly. We live our diaries, and consequently have no need to keep a daily record as a means of maintaining our real characters. Had I the time to keep a diary, I’d use that time to better effect; sleeping on the veranda.



We dined somewhere in Kanda. Because I allowed myself one or two cups of saké (which I had not tasted for quite a time), my stomach this morning feels extremely well. I conclude that the best remedy for a stomach ailment is saké at suppertime. Taka-diastase just won’t do. Whatever claims are made for it, it’s just no good. That which lacks effect will continue to lack effect.



Thus with his brush he smears the good name of taka-diastase. It is as though he quarreled with himself, and in this entry one can see a last flash of this morning’s ugly mood. Such entries are perhaps most characteristic of human mores.



The other day, Mr. X claimed that going without one’s breakfast helped the stomach. So I took no breakfast for two or three days but the only effect was to make my stomach grumble. Mr. Y strongly advised me to refrain from eating pickles. According to him, all disorders of the stomach originate in pickles. His thesis was that abstinence from pickles so dessicates the sources of all stomach trouble, that a complete cure must follow. For at least a week no pickle crossed my lips, but, since that banishment produced no noticeable effect, I have resumed consuming them. According to Mr. Z, the one true remedy is ventral massage. But no ordinary massage of the stomach would suffice. It must be massage in accordance with the old-world methods of the Minagawa School. Massaged thus once, or at most twice, the stomach would be rid of every ill. The wisest scholars, such as Yasui Sokuken, and the most resourceful heroes, such as Sakamoto Ryoma, all relied upon this treatment. So off I went to Kaminegishi for an immediate massage. But the methods used were of inordinate cruelty. They told me, for instance, that no good could be hoped for unless one’s bones were massaged; that it would be difficult properly to eradicate my troubles unless, at least once, my viscera were totally inverted. At all events, a single session reduced my body to the condition of cotton-wool and I felt as though I had become a lifelong sufferer from sleeping sickness. I never went there again. Once was more than enough. Then Mr. A assured me that one shouldn’t eat solids. So I spent a whole day drinking nothing but milk. My bowels gave forth heavy plopping noises as though they had been swamped, and I could not sleep all night. Mr. B states that exercising one’s intestines by diaphragmic breathing produces a naturally healthy stomach and he counsels me to follow his advice. And I did try. For a time. But it proved no good for it made my bowels queasy. Besides, though every now and again I strive with all my heart and soul to control my breathing with the diaphragm, in five or six minutes I forget to discipline my muscles. And if I concentrate on maintaining that discipline I get so midriff-minded that I can neither read nor write. Waverhouse, my aesthete friend, once found me thus breathing in pursuit of a naturally healthy stomach and, rather unkindly, urged me, as a man, to terminate my labor-pangs. So diaphragmic breathing is now also a thing of the past. Dr. C recommends a diet of buckwheat noodles. So buckwheat noodles it was, alternately in soup and served cold after boiling. It did nothing, except loosen my bowels. I have tried every possible means to cure my ancient ailment, but all of them are useless. But those three cups of saké which I drank last night with Coldmoon have certainly done some good. From now on, I will drink two or three cups each evening.



I doubt whether this saké treatment will be kept up very long. My master’s mind exhibits the same incessant changeability as can be seen in the eyes of cats. He has no sense of perseverance. It is, moreover, idiotic that, while he fills his diary with lamentation over his stomach troubles, he does his best to present a brave face to the world; to grin and bear it.

The other day his scholar friend, Professor Whatnot, paid a visit and advanced the theory that it was at least arguable that every illness is the direct result of both ancestral and personal malefaction. He seemed to have studied the matter pretty deeply for the sequence of his logic was clear, consistent, and orderly. Altogether it was a fine theory. I am sorry to say that my master has neither the brain nor the erudition to rebut such theories. However, perhaps because he himself was actually suffering from stomach trouble, he felt obliged to make all sorts of face-saving excuses. He irrelevantly retorted, “Your theory is interesting, but are you aware that Carlyle was dyspeptic?” as if claiming that because Carlyle was dyspeptic his own dyspepsia was an intellectual honor. His friend replied,

“It does not follow that because Carlyle was a dyspeptic, all dyspeptics are Carlyles.” My master, reprimanded, held his tongue, but the incident revealed his curious vanity. It’s all the more amusing when one recalls that he would probably prefer not to be dyspeptic, for just this morning he recorded in his diary an intention to take treatment by saké as from tonight. Now that I’ve come to think of it, his inordinate consumption of rice-cakes this morning must have been the effect of last night’s saké session with Coldmoon. I could have eaten those cakes myself.

Though I am a cat, I eat practically anything. Unlike Rickshaw Blacky, I lack the energy to go off raiding fishshops up distant alleys. Further, my social status is such that I cannot expect the luxury enjoyed by Tortoiseshell whose mistress teaches the idle rich to play on the two-stringed harp. Therefore I don’t, as others can, indulge myself in likes and dislikes. I eat small bits of bread left over by the children, and I lick the jam from bean-jam cakes. Pickles taste awful, but to broaden my experience I once tried a couple of slices of pickled radish. It’s a strange thing but once I’ve tried it, almost anything turns out edible. To say, “I don’t like that” or “I don’t like this” is mere extravagant willfulness, and a cat that lives in a teacher’s house should eschew such foolish remarks.

According to my master, there was once a novelist whose name was Balzac and he lived in France. He was an extremely extravagant man. I do not mean an extravagant eater but that, being a novelist, he was extravagant in his writing. One day he was trying to find a suitable name for a character in the novel he was writing, but, for whatever reason, could not think of a name that pleased him. Just then one of his friends called by, and Balzac suggested they should go out for a walk. This friend had, of course, no idea why, still less that Balzac was determined to find the name he needed. Out on the streets, Balzac did nothing but stare at shop signboards, but still he couldn’t find a suitable name. He marched on endlessly, while his puzzled friend, still ignorant of the object of the expedition, tagged along behind him. Having fruitlessly explored Paris from morning till evening, they were on their way home when Balzac happened to notice a tailor’s signboard bearing the name “Marcus.” He clapped his hands. “This is it,” he shouted. “It just has to be this. Marcus is a good name, but with a Z in front of Marcus it becomes a perfect name. It has to be a Z. Z. Marcus is remarkably good. Names that I invent are never good. They sound unnatural however cleverly constructed. But now, at long, long last, I’ve got the name I like.” Balzac, extremely pleased with himself, was totally oblivious to the inconvenience he had caused his friend. It would seem unduly troublesome that one should have to spend a whole day trudging around Paris merely to find a name for a character in a novel. Extravagance of such enormity acquires a certain splendor, but folk like me, a cat kept by a clam-like introvert, cannot even envisage such inordinate behavior. That I should not much care what, so long as it’s edible, I eat is probably an inevitable result of my circumstances. Thus it was in no way as an expression of extravagance that I expressed just now my feeling of wishing to eat a rice-cake. I simply thought that I’d better eat while the chance offered, and I then remembered that the piece of rice-cake which my master had left in his breakfast bowl was possibly still in the kitchen. So round to the kitchen I went.

The rice-cake was stuck, just as I saw it this morning, at the bottom of the bowl and its color was still as I remembered it. I must confess that I’ve never previously tasted rice-cake. Yet, though I felt a shade uncertain, it looks quite good to eat. With a tentative front paw I rake at the green vegetables adhering to the rice-cake. My claws, having touched the outer part of the rice-cake, become sticky. I sniff at them and recognize the smell that can be smelt when rice stuck at the bottom of a cooking-pot is transferred into the boiled-rice container. I look around, wondering, “Shall I eat it, shall I not?” Fortunately, or unfortunately, there’s nobody about. O-san, with a face that shows no change between year end and the spring, is playing battledore and shuttlecock. The children in the inner room are singing something about a rabbit and a tortoise. If I am to eat this New Year speciality, now’s the moment. If I miss this chance I shall have to spend a whole, long year not knowing how a rice-cake tastes. At this point, though a mere cat, I perceived a truth: that golden opportunity makes all animals venture to do even those things they do not want to do. To tell the truth, I do not particularly want to eat the rice-cake. In fact the more I examined the thing at the bottom of the bowl the more nervous I became and the more keenly disinclined to eat it. If only O-san would open the kitchen door, or if I could hear the children’s footsteps coming toward me, I would unhesitatingly abandon the bowl; not only that, I would have put away all thought of rice-cakes for another year. But no one comes. I’ve hesitated long enough. Still no one comes. I feel as if someone were hotly urging me on, someone whispering, “Eat it, quickly!” I looked into the bowl and prayed that someone would appear. But no one did. I shall have to eat the rice-cake after all. In the end, lowering the entire weight of my body into the bottom of the bowl, I bit about an inch deep into a corner of the rice-cake.

Most things that I bite that hard come clean off in my mouth. But what a surprise! For I found when I tried to reopen my jaw that it would not budge. I try once again to bite my way free, but find I’m stuck. Too late I realize that the rice-cake is a fiend. When a man who has fallen into a marsh struggles to escape, the more he thrashes about trying to extract his legs, the deeper in he sinks. Just so, the harder I clamp my jaws, the more my mouth grows heavy and my teeth immobilized. I can feel the resistance to my teeth, but that’s all. I cannot dispose of it. Waverhouse, the aesthete, once described my master as an aliquant man and I must say it’s rather a good description. This rice-cake too, like my master, is aliquant. It looked to me that, however much I continued biting, nothing could ever result: the process could go on and on eternally like the division of ten by three. In the middle of this anguish I found my second truth: that all animals can tell by instinct what is or is not good for them. Although I have now discovered two great truths, I remain unhappy by reason of the adherent rice-cake. My teeth are being sucked into its body, and are becoming excruciatingly painful. Unless I can complete my bite and run away quickly, O-san will be on me. The children seem to have stopped singing, and I’m sure they’ll soon come running into the kitchen. In an extremity of anguish, I lashed about with my tail, but to no effect. I made my ears stand up and then lie flat, but this didn’t help either. Come to think of it, my ears and tail have nothing to do with the rice-cake. In short, I had indulged in a waste of wagging, a waste of ear-erection, and a waste of ear-flattening. So I stopped.

At long last it dawned on me that the best thing to do is to force the rice-cake down by using my two front paws. First I raised my right paw and stroked it around my mouth. Naturally, this mere stroking brought no relief whatsoever. Next, I stretched out my left paw and with it scraped quick circles around my mouth. These ineffectual passes failed to exorcize the fiend in the rice-cake. Realizing that it was essential to proceed with patience, I scraped alternatively with my right and left paws, but my teeth stayed stuck in the rice-cake. Growing impatient, I now used both front paws simultaneously. Then, only then, I found to my amazement that I could actually stand up on my hind legs. Somehow I feel un-catlike. But not caring whether I am a cat or not, I scratch away like mad at my whole face in frenzied determination to keep on scratching until the fiend in the rice-cake has been driven out. Since the movements of my front paws are so vigorous I am in danger of losing my balance and falling down. To keep my equilibrium I find myself marking time with my hind legs. I begin to tittup from one spot to another, and I finish up prancing madly all over the kitchen. It gives me great pride to realize that I can so dextrously maintain an upright position, and the revelation of a third great truth is thus vouchsafed me: that in conditions of exceptional danger one can surpass one’s normal level of achievement. This is the real meaning of Special Providence.

Sustained by Special Providence, I am fighting for dear life against that demonic rice-cake when I hear footsteps. Someone seems to be approaching. Thinking it would be fatal to be caught in this predicament, I redouble my efforts and am positively running around the kitchen. The footsteps come closer and closer. Alas, that Special Providence seems not to last forever. In the end I am discovered by the children who loudly shout, “Why look! The cat’s been eating rice-cakes and is dancing.” The first to hear their announcement was that O-san person. Abandoning her shuttlecock and battledore, she flew in through the kitchen door crying, “Gracious me!” Then the mistress, sedate in her formal silk kimono, deigns to remark, “What a naughty cat.” And my master, drawn from his study by the general hubbub, shouts, “You fool!” The children find me funniest, but by general agreement the whole household is having a good old laugh. It is annoying, it is painful, it is impossible to stop dancing. Hell and damnation! When at long last the laughter began to die down, the dear, little five-year-old piped up with an, “Oh what a comical cat,” which had the effect of renewing the tide of their ebbing laughter. They fairly split their sides. I have already heard and seen quite a lot of heartless human behavior, but never before have I felt so bitterly critical of their conduct. Special Providence having vanished into thin air, I was back in my customary position on all fours, finally at my wit’s end, and, by reason of giddiness, cutting a quite ridiculous figure. My master seems to have felt it would be perhaps a pity to let me die before his very eyes, for he said to O-san, “Help him get rid of that rice-cake.” O-san looks at the mistress as if to say, “Why not make him go on dancing?” The mistress would gladly see my minuet continued, but, since she would not go so far as wanting me to dance myself to death, says nothing. My master turned somewhat sharply to the servant and ordered, “Hurry it up, if you don’t help quickly the cat will be dead.” O-san, with a vacant look on her face, as though she had been roughly wakened from some peculiarly delicious dream, took a firm grip on the rice-cake and yanked it out of my mouth. I am not quite as feeble-fanged as Coldmoon, but I really did think my entire front toothwork was about to break off. The pain was indescribable. The teeth embedded in the rice-cake are being pitilessly wrenched. You can’t imagine what it was like. It was then that the fourth enlightenment burst upon me: that all comfort is achieved through hardship. When at last I came to myself and looked around at a world restored to normality, all the members of the household had disappeared into the inner room.

Having made such a fool of myself, I feel quite unable to face such hostile critics as O-san. It would, I think, unhinge my mind. To restore my mental tranquillity, I decided to visit Tortoiseshell, so I left the kitchen and set off through the backyard to the house of the two-stringed harp. Tortoiseshell is a celebrated beauty in our district. Though I am undoubtedly a cat, I possess a wide general knowledge of the nature of compassion and am deeply sensitive to affection, kind-heartedness, tenderness, and love. Merely to observe the bitterness in my master’s face, just to be snubbed by O-san, leaves me out of sorts. At such times I visit this fair, lady friend of mine and our conversation ranges over many things. Then, before I am aware of it, I find myself refreshed. I forget my worries, hardships, everything. I feel as if reborn. Female influence is indeed a most potent thing. Through a gap in the cedar-hedge, I peer to see if she is anywhere about. Tortoiseshell, wearing a smart new collar in celebration of the season, is sitting very neatly on her veranda. The rondure of her back is indescribably beautiful. It is the most beautiful of all curved lines. The way her tail curves, the way she folds her legs, the charmingly lazy shake of her ears—all these are quite beyond description. She looks so warm sitting there so gracefully in the very sunniest spot. Her body holds an attitude of utter stillness and correctness. And her fur, glossy as velvet that reflects the rays of spring, seems suddenly to quiver although the air is still. For a while I stood, completely enraptured, gazing at her. Then as I came to myself, I softly called, “Miss Tortoiseshell, Miss Tortoiseshell,” and beckoned with my paw.

“Why, Professor,” she greeted me as she stepped down from the veranda. A tiny bell attached to her scarlet collar made little tinkling sounds. I say to myself, “Ah, it’s for the New Year that she’s wearing a bell,” and, while I am still admiring its lively tinkle, find she has arrived beside me. “A happy NewYear, Professor,” and she waves her tail to the left; for when cats exchange greetings one first holds one’s tail upright like a pole, then twists it round to the left. In our neighborhood it is only Tortoiseshell who calls me Professor. Now, I have already mentioned that I have, as yet, no name; it is Tortoiseshell, and she alone, who pays me the respect due to one that lives in a teacher’s house. Indeed, I am not altogether displeased to be addressed as a Professor, and respond willingly to her apostrophe.

“And a happy New Year to you,” I say. “How beautifully you’re done up!”

“Yes, the mistress bought it for me at the end of last year. Isn’t it nice?” and she makes it tinkle for me.

“Yes indeed, it has a lovely sound. I’ve never seen such a wonderful thing in my life.”

“No! Everyone’s using them,” and she tinkle-tinkles. “But isn’t it a lovely sound? I’m so happy.” She tinkle-tinkle-tinkles continuously.

“I can see your mistress loves you very dearly.” Comparing my lot with hers, I hinted at my envy of a pampered life.

Tortoiseshell is a simple creature. “Yes,” she says, “that’s true; she treats me as if I were her own child.” And she laughs innocently. It is not true that cats never laugh. Human beings are mistaken in their belief that only they are capable of laughter. When I laugh my nostrils grow triangular and my Adam’s apple trembles. No wonder human beings fail to understand it.

“What is your master really like?”

“My master? That sounds strange. Mine is a mistress. A mistress of the two stringed harp.”

“I know that. But what is her background? I imagine she’s a person of high birth?”

“Ah, yes.”

A small Princess-pine

While waiting for you. . .

Beyond the sliding paper-door the mistress begins to play on her two-stringed harp.

“Isn’t that a splendid voice?” Tortoiseshell is proud of it.

“It seems extremely good, but I don’t understand what she’s singing. What’s the name of the piece?”

“That? Oh, it’s called something or other. The mistress is especially fond of it. D’you know, she’s actually sixty-two? But in excellent condition, don’t you think?”

I suppose one has to admit that she’s in excellent condition if she’s still alive at sixty-two. So I answered, “Yes.” I thought to myself that I’d given a silly answer, but I could do no other since I couldn’t think of anything brighter to say.

“You may not think so, but she used to be a person of high standing.

She always tells me so.”

“What was she originally?”

“I understand that she’s the thirteenth Shogun’s widowed wife’s private-secretary’s younger sister’s husband’s mother’s nephew’s daughter.”

“What?”

“The thirteenth Shogun’s widowed wife’s private-secretary’s younger sister’s. . .”

“Ah! But, please, not quite so fast. The thirteenth Shogun’s widowed wife’s younger sister’s private-secretary’s . . .”

“No, no, no. The thirteenth Shogun’s widowed wife’s private-secretary’s younger sister’s. . .”

“The thirteenth Shogun’s widowed wife’s. . .”

“Right.”

“Private-secretary’s. Right?”

“Right.”

“Husband’s. . .”

“No, younger sister’s husband’s.”

“Of course. How could I? Younger sister’s husband’s. . .”

“Mother’s nephew’s daughter. There you are.”

“Mother’s nephew’s daughter?”

“Yes, you’ve got it.”

“Not really. It’s so terribly involved that I still can’t get the hang of it.

What exactly is her relation to the thirteenth Shogun’s widowed wife?”

“Oh, but you are so stupid! I’ve just been telling you what she is.

She’s the thirteenth Shogun’s widowed wife’s private-secretary’s younger sister’s husband’s mother’s. . .”

“That much I’ve followed, but. . .”

“Then, you’ve got it, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” I had to give in. There are times for little white lies.

Beyond the sliding paper-door the sound of the two-stringed harp came to a sudden stop and the mistress’ voice called, “Tortoiseshell, Tortoiseshell, your lunch is ready.” Tortoiseshell looked happy and remarked, “There, she’s calling, so I must go home. I hope you’ll forgive me?” What would be the good of my saying that I mind? “Come and see me again,” she said; and she ran off through the garden tinkling her bell. But suddenly she turned and came back to ask me anxiously, “You’re looking far from well. Is anything wrong?” I couldn’t very well tell her that I’d eaten a rice-cake and gone dancing; so, “No,” I said, “nothing in particular. I did some weighty thinking, which brought on something of a headache. Indeed I called today because I fancied that just to talk with you would help me to feel better.”

“Really? Well, take good care of yourself. Good-bye now.” She seemed a tiny bit sorry to leave me, which has completely restored me to the liveliness I’d felt before the rice-cake bit me. I now felt wonderful and decided to go home through that tea-plantation where one could have the pleasure of treading down lumps of half-melted frost. I put my face through the broken bamboo hedge, and there was Rickshaw Blacky, back again on the dry chrysanthemums, yawning his spine into a high, black arch. Nowadays I’m no longer scared of Blacky, but, since any conversation with him involves the risk of trouble, I endeavor to pass, cutting him off. But it’s not in Blacky’s nature to contain his feelings if he believes himself looked down upon. “Hey you, Mr. No-name. You’re very stuck-up these days, now aren’t you? You may be living in a teacher’s house, but don’t go giving yourself such airs. And stop, I warn you, trying to make a fool of me.” Blacky doesn’t seem to know that I am now a celebrity. I wish I could explain the situation to him, but, since he’s not the kind who can understand such things, I decide simply to offer him the briefest of greetings and then to take my leave as soon as I decently can.

“A happy New Year, Mr. Blacky. You do look well, as usual.” And I lift up my tail and twist it to the left. Blacky, keeping his tail straight up, refused to return my salutation.

“What! Happy? If the New Year’s happy, then you should be out of your tiny mind the whole year round. Now push off sharp, you back-end of a bellows.”

That turn of phrase about the back-end of a bellows sounds distinctly derogatory, but its semantic content happened to escape me. “What,” I enquired, “do you mean by the back-end of a bellows?”

“You’re being sworn at and you stand there asking its meaning. I give up! I really do! You really are a New Year’s nit.”

A New Year’s nit sounds somewhat poetic, but its meaning is even more obscure than that bit about the bellows. I would have liked to ask the meaning for my future reference, but, as it was obvious I’d get no clear answer, I just stood facing him without a word. I was actually feeling rather awkward, but just then the wife of Blacky’s master suddenly screamed out, “Where in hell is that cut of salmon I left here on the shelf? My God, I do declare that hellcat’s been here and snitched it once again! That’s the nastiest cat I’ve ever seen. See what he’ll get when he comes back!” Her raucous voice unceremoniously shakes the mild air of the season, vulgarizing its natural peacefulness. Blacky puts on an impudent look as if to say, “If you want to scream your head off, scream away,” and he jerked his square chin forward at me as if to say, “Did you hear that hullaballoo?” Up to this point I’ve been too busy talking to Blacky to notice or think about anything else; but now, glancing down, I see between his legs a mud-covered bone from the cheapest cut of salmon.

“So you’ve been at it again!” Forgetting our recent exchanges, I offered Blacky my usual flattering exclamation. But it was not enough to restore him to good humor.

“Been at it! What the hell d’you mean, you saucy blockhead? And what do you mean by saying ‘again’ when this is nothing but a skinny slice of the cheapest fish? Don’t you know who I am! I’m Rickshaw Blacky, damn you.” And, having no shirtsleeves to roll up, he lifts an aggressive right front-paw as high as his shoulder.

“I’ve always known you were Mr. Rickshaw Blacky.”

“If you knew, why the hell did you say I’d been at it again? Answer me!” And he blows out over me great gusts of oven breath. Were we humans, I would be shaken by the collar of my coat. I am somewhat taken aback and am indeed wondering how to get out of the situation, when that woman’s fearful voice is heard again.

“Hey! Mr. Westbrook. You there, Westbrook, can you hear me? Listen, I got something to say. Bring me a pound of beef, and quick. O.K.? Understand? Beef that isn’t tough. A pound of it. See?” Her beef-demanding tones shatter the peace of the whole neighborhood.

“It’s only once a year she orders beef and that’s why she shouts so loud. She wants the entire neighborhood to know about her marvellous pound of beef. What can one do with a woman like that!” asked Blacky jeeringly as he stretched all four of his legs. As I can find nothing to say in reply, I keep silent and watch.

“A miserable pound just simply will not do. But I reckon it can’t be helped. Hang on to that beef. I’ll have it later.” Blacky communes with himself as though the beef had been ordered specially for him.

“This time you’re in for a real treat. That’s wonderful!” With these words I’d hoped to pack him off to his home.

But Blacky snarled, “That’s nothing to do with you. Just shut your big mouth, you!” and using his strong hind-legs, he suddenly scrabbles up a torrent of fallen icicles which thuds down on my head. I was taken completely aback, and, while I was still busy shaking the muddy debris off my body, Blacky slid off through the hedge and disappeared. Presumably to possess himself of Westbrook’s beef.

When I get home I find the place unusually springlike and even the master is laughing gaily. Wondering why, I hopped onto the veranda, and, as I padded to sit beside the master, noticed an unfamiliar guest. His hair is parted neatly and he wears a crested cotton surcoat and a duck-cloth hakama. He looks like a student and, at that, an extremely serious one. Lying on the corner of my master’s small hand-warming brazier, right beside the lacquer cigarette-box, there’s a visiting card on which is written, “To introduce Mr. Beauchamp Blowlamp: from Coldmoon.”

Which tells me both the name of this guest and the fact that he’s a friend of Coldmoon. The conversation going on between host and guest sounds enigmatic because I missed the start of it. But I gather that it has something to do with Waverhouse, the aesthete whom I have had previous occasion to mention.

“And he urged me to come along with him because it would involve an ingenious idea, he said.” The guest is talking calmly.

“Do you mean there was some ingenious idea involved in lunching at aWestern style restaurant?” My master pours more tea for the guest and pushes the cup toward him.

“Well, at the time I did not understand what this ingenious idea could be, but, since it was his idea, I thought it bound to be something interesting and. . .”

“So you accompanied him. I see.”

“Yes, but I got a surprise.”

The master, looking as if to say, “I told you so,” gives me a whack on the head. Which hurts a little. “I expect it proved somewhat farcical. He’s rather that way inclined.” Clearly, he has suddenly remembered that business with Andrea del Sarto.

“Ah yes? Well, as he suggested we would be eating something special. . .”

“What did you have?”

“First of all, while studying the menu, he gave me all sorts of information about food.”

“Before ordering any?”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“And then, turning to a waiter, he said, ‘There doesn’t seem to be anything special on the card.’ The waiter, not to be outdone, suggested roast duck or veal chops. Whereupon Waverhouse remarked quite sharply that we hadn’t come a very considerable distance just for common or garden fare. The waiter, who didn’t understand the significance of common or garden, looked puzzled and said nothing.”

“So I would imagine.”

“Then, turning to me, Waverhouse observed that in France or in England one can obtain any amount of dishes cooked à la Tenmei or à la Manyō but that in Japan, wherever you go, the food is all so stereotyped that one doesn’t even feel tempted to enter a restaurant of the so-called Western style. And so on and so on. He was in tremendous form. But has he ever been abroad?”

“Waverhouse abroad? Of course not. He’s got the money and the time. If he wanted to, he could go off anytime. He probably just converted his future intention to travel into the past tense of widely traveled experience as a sort of joke.” The master flatters himself that he has said something witty and laughs invitingly. His guest looks largely unimpressed.

“I see. I wondered when he’d been abroad. I took everything he said quite seriously. Besides, he described such things as snail soup and stewed frogs as though he’d really seen them with his own two eyes.”

“He must have heard about them from someone. He’s adept at such terminological inexactitudes.”

“So it would seem,” and Beauchamp stares down at the narcissus in a vase. He seems a little disappointed.

“So, that then was his ingenious idea, I take it?” asks the master still in quest of certainties.

“No, that was only the beginning. The main part’s still to come.”

“Ah!”The master utters an interjection mingled with curiosity.

“Having finished his dissertation on matters gastronomical and European, he proposed ‘since it’s quite impossible to obtain snails or frogs, however much we may desire them, let’s at least have moat-bells.

What do you say?’ And without really giving the matter any thought at all, I answered, ‘Yes, that would be fine.’”

“Moat-bells sound a little odd.”

“Yes, very odd, but because Waverhouse was speaking so seriously, I didn’t then notice the oddity.” He seems to be apologizing to my master for his carelessness.

“What happened next?” asks my master quite indifferently and without any sign of sympathetic response to his guest’s implied apology.

“Well, then he told the waiter to bring moat-bells for two. The waiter said,‘Do you mean meatballs, sir?’ but Waverhouse, assuming an ever more serious expression, corrected him with gravity. ‘No, not meatballs, moat-bells.’”

“Really? But is there any such dish as moat-bells?”

“Well I thought it sounded somewhat strange, but as Waverhouse was so calmly sure and is so great an authority on all things Occidental—remember it was then my firm belief that he was widely traveled—I too joined in and explained to the waiter,‘Moat-bells, my good man, moat-bells.’”

“What did the waiter do?”

“The waiter—it’s really rather funny now one comes to think back on it—looked thoughtful for a while and then said, ‘I’m terribly sorry sir, but today, unfortunately, we have no moat-bells. Though should you care for meatballs we could serve you, sir, immediately.’ Waverhouse thereupon looked extremely put out and said, ‘So we’ve come all this long way for nothing. Couldn’t you really manage moat-bells? Please do see what can be done,’ and he slipped a small tip to the waiter. The waiter said he would ask the cook again and went off into the kitchen.”

“He must have had his mind dead set on eating moat-bells.”

“After a brief interval the waiter returned to say that if moat-bells were ordered specially they could be provided, but that it would take a long time. Waverhouse was quite composed. He said, ‘It’s the New Year and we are in no kind of hurry. So let’s wait for it?’ He drew a cigar from the inside of his Western suit and lighted up in the most leisurely manner. I felt called upon to match his cool composure so, taking the Japan News from my kimono pocket, I started reading it. The waiter retired for further consultations.”

“What a business!” My master leans forward, showing quite as much enthusiasm as he does when reading war news in the dailies.

“The waiter re-emerged with apologies and the confession that, of late, the ingredients of moat-bells were in such short supply that one could not get them at Kameya’s nor even down at No. 15 in Yokohama.

He expressed regret, but it seemed certain that the material for moat-bells would not be back in stock for some considerable time.

Waverhouse then turned to me and repeated, over and over again,

‘What a pity, and we came especially for that dish.’ I felt that I had to say something, so I joined him in saying,‘Yes, it’s a terrible shame! Really, a great, great pity!’”

“Quite so,” agrees my master, though I myself don’t follow his reasoning.

“These observations must have made the waiter feel quite sorry, for he said,‘When, one of these days, we do have the necessary ingredients, we’d be happy if you would come, sir, and sample our fare.’ But when Waverhouse proceeded to ask him what ingredients the restaurant did use, the waiter just laughed and gave no answer. Waverhouse then pressingly enquired if the key-ingredient happened to be Tochian (who, as you know, is a haiku poet of the Nihon School); and d’you know, the waiter answered,‘Yes, it is, sir, and that is precisely why none is currently available even in Yokohama. I am indeed,’ he added, ‘most regretful, sir.’”

“Ha-ha-ha! So that’s the point of the story? How very funny!” and the master, quite unlike his usual self, roars with laughter. His knees shake so much that I nearly tumble off. Paying no regard to my predicament, the master laughs and laughs. He seems suddenly deeply pleased to realize that he is not alone in being gulled by Andrea del Sarto.

“And then, as soon as we were out in the street, he said ‘You see, we’ve done well. That ploy about the moat-bells was really rather good, wasn’t it?’ and he looked as pleased as punch. I let it be known that I was lost in admiration, and so we parted. However, since by then it was well past the lunch-hour, I was nearly starving.”

“That must have been very trying for you.” My master shows, for the first time, a sympathy to which I have no objection. For a while there was a pause in the conversation and my purring could be heard by host and guest.

Mr. Beauchamp drains his cup of tea, now quite cold, in one quick gulp and with some formality remarks, “As a matter-of-fact I’ve come today to ask a favor from you.”

“Yes? And what can I do for you?” My master, too, assumes a formal face.

“As you know, I am a devotee of literature and art. . .”

“That’s a good thing,” replies my master quite encouragingly.

“Since a little while back, I and a few like-minded friends have got together and organized a reading group. The idea is to meet once a month for the purpose of continued studying in this field. In fact, we’ve already had the first meeting at the end of last year.”

“May I ask you a question? When you say, like that, a reading group, it suggests that you engage in reading poetry and prose in a singsong tone. But in what sort of manner do you, in fact, proceed?”

“Well, we are beginning with ancient works but we intend to consider the works of our fellow members.”

“When you speak of ancient works, do you mean something like Po Chu-i’s Lute Song?”

“No.”

“Perhaps things like Buson’s mixture of haiku and Chinese verse?”

“No.”

“What kinds of thing do you then do?”

“The other day, we did one of Chikamatsu’s lovers’ suicides.”

“Chikamatsu? You mean the Chikamatsu who wrote jōruri plays?”

There are not two Chikamatsus. When one says Chikamatsu, one does indeed mean Chikamatsu the playwright and could mean nobody else. I thought my master really stupid to ask so fool a question. However, oblivious to my natural reactions, he gently strokes my head. I calmly let him go on stroking me, justifying my compliance with the reflection that so small a weakness is permissible when there are those in the world who admit to thinking themselves under loving observation by persons who merely happen to be cross-eyed.

Beauchamp answers, “Yes,” and tries to read the reaction on my master’s face.

“Then is it one person who reads or do you allot parts among you?”

“We allot parts and each reads out the appropriate dialogue. The idea is to empathize with the characters in the play and, above all, to bring out their individual personalities. We do gestures as well. The main thing is to catch the essential character of the era of the play. Accordingly, the lines are read out as if spoken by each character, which may perhaps be a young lady or possibly an errand-boy.”

“In that case it must be like a play.”

“Yes, almost the only things missing are the costumes and the scenery.”

“May I ask if your reading was a success?”

“For a first attempt, I think one might claim that it was, if anything, a success.”

“And which lovers’ suicide play did you perform on the last occasion?”

“We did a scene in which a boatman takes a fare to the red light quarter of Yoshiwara.”

“You certainly picked on a most irregular incident, didn’t you?” My master, being a teacher, tilts his head a little sideways as if regarding something slightly doubtful. The cigarette smoke drifting from his nose passes up by his ear and along the side of his head.

“No, it isn’t that irregular. The characters are a passenger, a boatman, a high-class prostitute, a serving-girl, an ancient crone of a brothel-attendant, and, of course, a geisha-registrar. But that’s all.” Beauchamp seems utterly unperturbed. My master, on hearing the words “a high-class prostitute,” winces slightly but probably only because he’s not well up in the meanings of such technical terms as nakai, yarite, and kemban.

He seeks to clear the ground with a question. “Does not nakai signify something like a maid-servant in a brothel?”

“Though I have not yet given the matter my full attention, I believe that nakai signifies a serving-girl in a teahouse and that yarite is some sort of an assistant in the women’s quarters.” Although Beauchamp recently claimed that his group seeks to impersonate the actual voices of the characters in the plays, he does not seem to have fully grasped the real nature of yarite and nakai.

“I see, nakai belong to a teahouse while yarite live in a brothel. Next, are kemban human beings or is it the name of a place? If human, are they men or women?”

“Kemban, I rather think, is a male human being.”

“What is his function?”

“I’ve not yet studied that far. But I’ll make inquiries, one of these days.”

Thinking, in the light of these revelations, that the play-readings must be affairs extraordinarily ill-conducted, I glance up at my master’s face.

Surprisingly, I find him looking serious. “Apart from yourself, who were the other readers taking part?”

“A wide variety of people. Mr. K, a Bachelor of Law, played the high-class prostitute, but his delivery of that woman’s sugary dialogue through his very male mustache did, I confess, create a slightly queer impression. And then there was a scene in which this oiran was seized with spasms. . .”

“Do your readers extend their reading activities to the simulation of spasms?” asked my master anxiously.

“Yes indeed; for expression is, after all, important.” Beauchamp clearly considers himself a literary artist à l’outrance.

“Did he manage to have his spasms nicely?” My master has made a witty remark.

“The spasms were perhaps the only thing beyond our capability at such a first endeavor.” Beauchamp, too, is capable of wit.

“By the way,” asks my master, “what part did you take?”

“I was the boatman.”

“Really? You, the boatman!” My master’s tone was such as to suggest that, if Beauchamp could be a boatman, he himself could be a geisha-registrar. Switching his tone to one of simple candor, he then asks: “Was the role of the boatman too much for you?”

Beauchamp does not seem particularly offended. Maintaining the same calm voice, he replies, “As a matter of fact, it was because of this boatman that our precious gathering, though it went up like a rocket, came down like a stick. It so happened that four or five girl students are living in the boarding house next door to our meeting hall. I don’t know how, but they found out when our reading was to take place. Anyway, it appears that they came and listened to us under the window of the hall.

I was doing the boatman’s voice, and, just when I had warmed up nicely and was really getting into the swing of it—perhaps my gestures were a little over-exaggerated—the girl students, all of whom had managed to control their feelings up to that point, thereupon burst out into simultaneous cachinnations. I was of course surprised, and I was of course embarrassed: indeed, thus dampened, I could not find it in me to continue. So our meeting came to an end.”

If this were considered a success, even for a first meeting, what would failure have been like? I could not help laughing. Involuntarily, my Adam’s apple made a rumbling noise. My master, who likes what he takes to be purring, strokes my head ever more and more gently. I’m thankful to be loved just because I laugh at someone, but at the same time I feel a bit uneasy.

“What very bad luck!” My master offers condolences despite the fact that we are still in the congratulatory season of the New Year.

“As for our second meeting, we intend to make a great advance and manage things in the grand style. That, in fact, is the very reason for my call today: we’d like you to join our group and help us.”

“I can’t possibly have spasms.” My negative-minded master is already poised to refuse.

“No, you don’t have to have spasms or anything like that. Here’s a list of the patron members.” So saying, Beauchamp very carefully produced a small notebook from a purple-colour carrying-wrapper. He opened the notebook and placed it in front of my master’s knees. “Will you please sign and make your seal-mark here?” I see that the book contains the names of distinguished Doctors of Literature and Bachelors of Arts of this present day, all neatly mustered in full force.

“Well, I wouldn’t say I object to becoming a supporter, but what sort of obligations would I have to meet?” My oyster-like master displays his apprehensions. . .

“There’s hardly any obligation. We ask nothing from you except a signature expressing your approval.”

“Well, in that case, I’ll join.” As he realizes that there is no real obligation involved, he suddenly becomes lighthearted. His face assumes the expression of one who would sign even a secret commitment to engage in rebellion, provided it was clear that the signature carried no binding obligation. Besides, it is understandable that he should assent so eagerly: for to be included, even by name only, among so many names of celebrated scholars is a supreme honor for one who has never before had such an opportunity. “Excuse me,” and my master goes off to the study to fetch his seal. I am tipped to fall unceremoniously onto the matting.

Beauchamp helps himself to a slice of sponge cake from the cake-bowl and crams it into his mouth. For a while he seems to be in pain, mumbling. Just for a second I am reminded of my morning experience with the rice-cake. My master reappears with his seal just as the sponge cake settles down in Beauchamp’s bowels. My master does not seem to notice that a piece of sponge cake is missing from the cake-bowl. If he does, I shall be the first to be suspected.

Mr. Beauchamp having taken his departure, my master reenters the study where he finds on his desk a letter from friend Waverhouse.

“I wish you a very happy New Year. . .”

My master considers the letter to have started with an unusual seriousness. Letters from Waverhouse are seldom serious. The other day, for instance, he wrote: “Of late, as I am not in love with any woman, I receive no love letters from anywhere. As I am more or less alive, please set your mind at ease.” Compared with which, this New Year’s letter is exceptionally matter-of-fact:



I would like to come and see you, but I am so very extremely busy every day because, contrary to your negativism, I am planning to greet this New Year, a year unprecedented in all history, with as positive an attitude as is possible. Hoping you will understand. . .



My master quite understands, thinking that Waverhouse, being Waverhouse, must be busy having fun during the New Year season.



Yesterday, finding a minute to spare, I sought to treat Mr. Beauchamp to a dish of moat-bells. Unfortunately, due to a shortage of their ingredients, I could not carry out my intention. It was most regrettable. . .



My master smiles, thinking that the letter is falling more into the usual pattern.



Tomorrow there will be a card party at a certain Baron’s house; the day after tomorrow a New Year’s banquet at the Society of Aesthetes; and the day after that, a welcoming party for Professor Toribe; and on the day thereafter. . .



My master, finding it rather a bore, skips a few lines.



So you see, because of these incessant parties— nō song parties, haiku parties, tanka parties, even parties for New Style Poetry, and so on and so on, I am perpetually occupied for quite some time. And that is why I am obliged to send you this New Year’s letter instead of calling on you in person. I pray you will forgive me. . .



“Of course you do not have to call on me.” My master voices his answer to the letter.



Next time that you are kind enough to visit me, I would like you to stay and dine. Though there is no special delicacy in my poor larder, at least I hope to be able to offer you some moat-bells, and I am indeed looking forward to that pleasure. . .



“He’s still brandishing his moat-bells,” muttered my master, who, thinking the invitation an insult, begins to feel indignant.



However, because the ingredients necessary for the preparation of moat-bells are currently in rather short supply, it may not be possible to arrange it. In which case, I will offer you some peacocks’ tongues. . .



“Aha! So he’s got two strings to his bow,” thinks my master and cannot resist reading the rest of the letter.



As you know, the tongue meat per peacock amounts to less than half the bulk of the small finger. Therefore, in order to satisfy your gluttonous stomach. . .



“What a pack of lies,” remarks my master in a tone of resignation.



I think one needs to catch at least twenty or thirty peacocks. However, though one sees an occasional peacock, maybe two, at the zoo or at the Asakusa Amusement Center, there are none to be found at my poulterer’s, which is occasioning me pain, great pain. . .



“You’re having that pain of your own free will.” My master shows no evidence of gratitude.



The dish of peacocks’ tongues was once extremely fashionable in Rome when the Roman Empire was in the full pride of its prosperity. How I have always secretly coveted after peacocks’ tongues, that acme of gastronomical luxury and elegance, you may well imagine. . .



“I may well imagine, may I? How ridiculous.” My master is extremely cold.



From that time forward until about the sixteenth century, peacock was an indispensable delicacy at all banquets. If my memory serves me, when the Earl of Leicester invited Queen Elizabeth to Kenilworth, peacocks’ tongues were on the menu. And in one of Rembrandt’s banquet scenes, a peacock is clearly to be seen, lying in its pride upon the table. . .



My master grumbles that if Waverhouse can find time to compose a history of the eating of peacocks, he cannot really be so busy.



Anyway, if I go on eating good food as I have been doing recently, I will doubtless end up one of these days with a stomach weak as yours. . .



“‘Like yours’ is quite unnecessary. He has no need to establish me as the prototypical dyspeptic,” grumbles my master.



According to historians, the Romans held two or three banquets every day. But the consumption of so much good food, while sitting at a large table two or three times a day, must produce in any man, however sturdy his stomach, disorders in the digestive functions. Thus nature has, like you. . .



“‘Like you,’ again, what impudence!”



But they, who studied long and hard simultaneously to enjoy both luxury and exuberant health, considered it vital not only to devour disproportionately large quantities of delicacies, but also to maintain the bowels in full working order. They accordingly devised a secret formula. . .



“Really?” My master suddenly becomes enthusiastic.



They invariably took a post-prandial bath. After the bath, utilizing methods whose secret has long been lost, they proceeded to vomit up everything they had swallowed before the bath. Thus were the insides of their stomachs kept scrupulously clean. Having so cleansed their stomachs, they would sit down again at the table and there savor to the uttermost the delicacies of their choice. Then they took a bath again and vomited once more. In this way, though they gorged on their favorite dishes to their hearts’ content, none of their internal organs suffered the least damage. In my humble opinion, this was indeed a case of having one’s cake and eating it.



“They certainly seem to have killed two or more birds with one stone.” My master’s expression is one of envy.



Today, this twentieth century, quite apart from the heavy traffic and the increased number of banquets, when our nation is in the second year of a war against Russia, is indeed eventful. I, consequently, firmly believe that the time has come for us, the people of this victorious country, to bend our minds to study of the truly Roman art of bathing and vomiting. Otherwise, I am afraid that even the precious people of this mighty nation will, in the very near future, become, like you, dyspeptic. . .



“What, again like me? An annoying fellow,” thinks my master.



Now suppose that we, who are familiar with all things Occidental, by study of ancient history and legend contrive to discover the secret formula that has long been lost; then to make use of it now in our Meiji Era would be an act of virtue. It would nip potential misfortune in the bud, and, moreover, it would justify my own everyday life which has been one of constant indulgence in pleasure.



My master thinks all this a trifle odd.



Accordingly, I have now, for some time, been digging into the relevant works of Gibbon, Mommsen, and Goldwin Smith, but I am extremely sorry to report that, so far, I have gained not even the slightest clue to the secret. However, as you know, I am a man who, once set upon a course, will not abandon it until my object is achieved. Therefore my belief is that a rediscovery of the vomiting method is not far off. I will let you know when it happens. Incidentally, I would prefer postponing that feast of moat-bells and peacocks’ tongues, which I’ve mentioned above, until the discovery has actually been made. Which would not only be convenient to me, but also to you who suffer from a weak stomach.



“So, he’s been pulling my leg all along. The style of writing was so sober that I have read it all, and took the whole thing seriously.

Waverhouse must indeed be a man of leisure to play such a practical joke on me,” said my master through his laughter.

Several days then passed without any particular event. Thinking it too boring to spend one’s time just watching the narcissus in a white vase gradually wither, and the slow blossoming of a branch of the blue-stemmed plum in another vase, I have gone around twice to look for Tortoiseshell, but both times unsuccessfully. On the first occasion I thought she was just out, but on my second visit I learnt that she was ill.

Hiding myself behind the aspidistra beside a wash-basin, I heard the following conversation which took place between the mistress and her maid on the other side of the sliding paper-door.

“Is Tortoiseshell taking her meal?”

“No, madam, she’s eaten nothing this morning. I’ve let her sleep on the quilt of the foot-warmer, well wrapped up.” It does not sound as if they spoke about a cat. Tortoiseshell is being treated as if she were a human.

As I compare this situation with my own lot, I feel a little envious but at the same time I am not displeased that my beloved cat should be treated with such kindness.

“That’s bad. If she doesn’t eat she will only get weaker.”

“Yes indeed, madam. Even me, if I don’t eat for a whole day, I couldn’t work at all the next day.”

The maid answers as though she recognized the cat as an animal superior to herself. Indeed, in this particular household the cat may well be more important than the maid.

“Have you taken her to see a doctor?”

“Yes, and the doctor was really strange. When I went into his consulting room carrying Tortoiseshell in my arms, he asked me if I’d caught a cold and tried to take my pulse. I said ‘No, Doctor, it is not I who am the patient, this is the patient,’ and I placed Tortoiseshell on my knees.

The doctor grinned and said he had no knowledge of the sicknesses of cats, and that if I just left it, perhaps it would get better. Isn’t he too terrible? I was so angry that I told him,‘Then, please don’t bother to examine her, she happens to be our precious cat.’ And I snuggled Tortoiseshell back into the breast of my kimono and came straight home.”

“Truly so.”

“Truly so” is one of those elegant expressions that one would never hear in my house. One has to be the thirteenth Shogun’s widowed wife’s somebody’s something to be able to use such a phrase. I was much impressed by its refinement.

“She seems to be sniffling. . .”

“Yes, I’m sure she’s got a cold and a sore throat; whenever one has a cold, one suffers from an honorable cough.”

As might be expected from the maid of the thirteenth Shogun’s somebody’s something, she’s quick with honorifics.

“Besides, recently, there’s a thing they call consumption. . .”

“Indeed these days one cannot be too careful. What with the increase in all these new diseases like tuberculosis and the black plague.”

“Things that did not exist in the days of the Shogunate are all no good to anyone. So you be careful too!”

“Is that so, madam?”

The maid is much moved.

“I don’t see how she could have caught a cold, she hardly ever went out. . .”

“No, but you see she’s recently acquired a bad friend.”

The maid is as highly elated as if she were telling a State secret.

“A bad friend?”

“Yes, that tatty-looking tom at the teacher’s house in the main street.”

“D’you mean that teacher who makes rude noises every morning?”

“Yes, the one who makes the sounds like a goose being strangled every time he washes his face.”

The sound of a goose being strangled is a clever description. Every morning when my master gargles in the bathroom he has an odd habit of making a strange, unceremonious noise by tapping his throat with his toothbrush. When he is in a bad temper he croaks with a vengeance; when he is in a good temper, he gets so pepped up that he croaks even more vigorously. In short, whether he is in a good or a bad temper, he croaks continually and vigorously. According to his wife, until they moved to this house he never had the habit; but he’s done it every day since the day he first happened to do it. It is rather a trying habit. We cats cannot even imagine why he should persist in such behavior. Well, let that pass. But what a scathing remark that was about “a tatty-looking tom.” I continue to eavesdrop.

“What good can he do making that noise! Under the Shogunate even a lackey or a sandal-carrier knew how to behave; and in a residential quarter there was no one who washed his face in such a manner.”

“I’m sure there wasn’t, madam.”

That maid is all too easily influenced, and she uses “madam” far too often.

“With a master like that what’s to be expected from his cat? It can only be a stray. If he comes round here again, beat him.”

“Most certainly I’ll beat him. It must be all his fault that Tortoiseshell’s so poorly. I’ll take it out on him, that I will.”

How false these accusations laid against me! But judging it rash to approach too closely, I came home without seeing Tortoiseshell.

When I return, my master is in the study meditating in the middle of writing something. If I told him what they say about him in the house of the two-stringed harp, he would be very angry; but, as the saying goes, ignorance is bliss. There he sits, posing like a sacred poet, groaning.

Just then,Waverhouse, who has expressly stated in his New Year letter that he would be too busy to call for some long time, dropped in.

“Are you composing a new-style poem or something? Show it to me if it’s interesting.”

“I considered it rather impressive prose, so I thought I’d translate it,” answers my master somewhat reluctantly.

“Prose? Whose prose?”

“Don’t know whose.”

“I see, an anonymous author. Among anonymous works, there are indeed some extremely good ones. They are not to be slighted. Where did you find it?”

“The Second Reader, ” answers my master with imperturbable calmness.

“The Second Reader? What’s this got to do with the Second Reader?”

“The connection is that the beautifully written article which I’m now translating appears in the Second Reader.”

“Stop talking rubbish. I suppose this is your idea of a last minute squaring of accounts for the peacocks’ tongues?”

“I’m not a braggart like you,” says my master and twists his mustache. He is perfectly composed.

“Once when someone asked Sanyo whether he’d lately seen any fine pieces of prose, that celebrated scholar of the Chinese classics produced a dunning letter from a packhorse man and said,‘This is easily the finest piece of prose that has recently come to my attention.’ Which implies that your eye for the beautiful might, contrary to one’s expectations, actually be accurate. Read your piece aloud. I’ll review it for you,” says Waverhouse as if he were the originator of all aesthetic theories and practice. My master starts to read in the voice of a Zen priest, reading that injunction left by the Most Reverend Priest Daitō. “‘Giant Gravitation,’” he intoned.

“What on earth is giant gravitation?”

“‘Giant Gravitation’ is the title.”

“An odd title. I don’t quite understand.”

“The idea is that there’s a giant whose name is Gravitation.”

“A somewhat unreasonable idea but, since it’s a title, I’ll let that pass.

All right, carry on with the text. You have a good voice. Which makes it rather interesting.”

“Right, but no more interruptions.” My master, having laid down his prior conditions, begins to read again.



Kate looks out of the window. Children are playing ball. They throw the ball high up in the sky. The ball rises up and up. After a while the ball comes down. They throw it high again: twice, three times. Every time they throw it up, the ball comes down. Kate asks why it comes down instead of rising up and up. “It is because a giant lives in the earth,” replies her mother. “He is the Giant Gravitation. He is strong. He pulls everything toward him. He pulls the houses to the earth. If he didn’t they would fly away. Children, too, would fly away. You’ve seen the leaves fall, haven’t you? That’s because the Giant called them. Sometimes you drop a book. It’s because the Giant Gravitation asks for it. A ball goes up in the sky. The giant calls for it. Down it falls.



“Is that all?”

“Yes, isn’t it good?”

“All right, you win. I wasn’t expecting such a present in return for the moat-bells.”

“It wasn’t meant as a return present, or anything like that. I translated it because I thought it was good. Don’t you think it’s good?” My master stares deep into the gold-rimmed spectacles.

“What a surprise! To think that you of all people had this talent. . .

Well, well! I’ve certainly been taken in right and proper this time. I take my hat off to you.” He is alone in his understanding. He’s talking to himself. The situation is quite beyond my master’s grasp.

“I’ve no intention of making you doff your cap. I translated this text simply because I thought it was an interesting piece of writing.”

“Indeed, yes! Most interesting! Quite as it should be! Smashing! I feel small.”

“You don’t have to feel small. Since I recently gave up painting in watercolors, I’ve been thinking of trying my hand at writing.”

“And compared with your watercolors, which showed no sense of perspective, no appreciation of differences in tone, your writings are superb. I am lost in admiration.”

“Such encouraging words from you are making me positively enthusiastic about it,” says my master, speaking from under his continuing mis-apprehension.

Just then Mr. Coldmoon enters with the usual greeting.

“Why, hello,” responds Waverhouse, “I’ve just been listening to a terrifically fine article and the curtain has been rung down upon my moat-bells.” He speaks obliquely about something incomprehensible.

“Have you really?” The reply is equally incomprehensible. It is only my master who seems not to be in any particularly light humor.

“The other day,” he remarked, “a man called Beauchamp Blowlamp came to see me with an introduction from you.”

“Ah, did he? Beauchamp’s an uncommonly honest person, but, as he is also somewhat odd, I was afraid that he might make himself a nuisance to you. However, since he had pressed me so hard to be introduced to you. . .”

“Not especially a nuisance. . .”

“Didn’t he, during his visit, go on at length about his name?”

“No, I don’t recall him doing so.”

“No? He’s got a habit at first meeting of expatiating upon the singularity of his name.”

“What is the nature of that singularity?” butts in Waverhouse, who has been waiting for something to happen.

“He gets terribly upset if someone pronounces Beauchamp as Beecham.”

“Odd!” said Waverhouse, taking a pinch of tobacco from his gold-painted, leather tobacco pouch.

“Invariably he makes the immediate point that his name is not Beecham Blowlamp but Bo-champ Blowlamp.”

“That’s strange,” and Waverhouse inhales pricey tobacco-smoke deep into his stomach.

“It comes entirely from his craze for literature. He likes the effect and is inexplicably proud of the fact that his personal name and his family name can be made to rhyme with each other. That’s why when one pronounces Beauchamp incorrectly, he grumbles that one does not appreciate what he is trying to get across.”

“He certainly is extraordinary.” Getting more and more interested, Waverhouse hauls back the pipe smoke from the bottom of his stomach to let it loose at his nostrils. The smoke gets lost en route and seems to be snagged in his gullet. Transferring the pipe to his hand, he coughs chokingly.

“When he was here the other day, he said he’d taken the part of a boatman at a meeting of his Reading Society, and that he’d gotten himself laughed at by a gaggle of schoolgirls,” says my master with a laugh.

“Ah, that’s it, I remember.” Waverhouse taps his pipe upon his knees.

This strikes me as likely to prove dangerous, so I move a little way farther off. “That Reading Society, now. The other day when I treated him to moat-bells, he mentioned it. He said they were going to make their second meeting a grand affair by inviting well-known literary men, and he cordially invited me to attend. When I asked him if they would again try another of Chikamatsu’s dramas of popular life, he said no and that they’d decided on a fairly modern play, The Golden Demon. I asked him what role he would take and he said, ‘I’m going to play O-miya.’

Beauchamp as O-miya would certainly be worth seeing. I’m determined to attend the meeting in his support.”

“It’s going to be interesting, I think,” says Coldmoon and he laughs in an odd way.

“But he is so thoroughly sincere, which is good, and has no hint of frivolousness about him. Quite different from Waverhouse, for instance.” My master is revenged for Andrea del Sarto, for peacocks’ tongues, and for moat-bells all in one go. Waverhouse appears to take no notice of the remark.

“Ah well, when all’s said and done, I’m nothing but a chopping board at Gyōtoku.”

“Yes, that’s about it,” observes my master, although in fact he does not understand Waverhouse’s involved method of describing himself as a highly sophisticated simpleton. But not for nothing has he been so many years a schoolteacher. He is skilled in prevarication, and his long experience in the classrooms can be usefully applied at such awkward moments in his social life.

“What is a chopping board at Gyōtoku?” asks the guileless Coldmoon.

My master looks toward the alcove and pulverizes that chopping board at Gyōtoku by saying, “Those narcissi are lasting well. I bought them on my way home from the public baths toward the end of last year.”

“Which reminds me,” says Waverhouse, twirling his pipe, “that at the end of last year I had a really most extraordinary experience.”

“Tell us about it.” My master, confident that the chopping board is now safely back in Gyōtoku, heaves a sigh of relief. The extraordinary experience of Mr. Waverhouse fell thus upon our ears:

“If I remember correctly, it was on the twenty-seventh of December.

Beauchamp had said he would like to come and hear me talk upon matters literary, and had asked me to be sure to be in. Accordingly, I waited for him all the morning but he failed to turn up. I had lunch and was seated in front of the stove reading one of Pain’s humorous books, when a letter arrived from my mother in Shizuoka. She, like all old women, still thinks of me as a child. She gives me all sorts of advice; that I mustn’t go out at night when the weather’s cold; that unless the room is first well-heated by a stove, I’ll catch my death of cold every time I take a bath. We owe much to our parents. Who but a parent would think of me with such solicitude? Though normally I take things lightly and as they come, I confess that at that juncture the letter affected me deeply. For it struck me that to idle my life away, as indeed I do, was rather a waste. I felt that I must win honor for my family by producing a masterwork of literature or something like that. I felt I would like the name of Doctor Waverhouse to become renowned, that I should be acclaimed as a leading figure in Meiji literary circles, while my mother is still alive.

Continuing my perusal of the letter, I read,‘You are indeed lucky. While our young people are suffering great hardships for the country in the war against Russia, you are living in happy-go-lucky idleness as if life were one long New Year’s party organized for your particular benefit!’

Actually, I’m not as idle as my mother thinks. But she then proceeded to list the names of my classmates at elementary school who had either died or had been wounded in the present war. As, one after another, I read those names, the world grew hollow, all human life quite futile.

And she ended her letter by saying, ‘since I am getting old, perhaps this NewYear’s rice-cakes will be my last. . .’ You will understand that, as she wrote so very dishearteningly, I grew more and more depressed. I began to yearn for Beauchamp to come soon, but somehow he didn’t. And at last it was time for supper. I thought of writing in reply to my mother, and I actually wrote about a dozen lines. My mother’s letter was more than six feet long, but, unable myself to match such a prodigious performance, I usually excuse myself after writing some ten lines. As I had been sitting down for the whole of the day, my stomach felt strange and heavy. Thinking that if Beauchamp did turn up he could jolly well wait, I went out for a walk to post my letter. Instead of going toward Fujimicho, which is my usual course, I went, without my knowing it, out toward the third embankment. It was a little cloudy that evening and a dry wind was blowing across from the other side of the moat. It was terribly cold. A train coming from the direction of Kagurazaka passed with a whistle along the lower part of the bank. I felt very lonely. The end of the year, those deaths on the battlefield, senility, life’s insecurity, that time and tide wait for no man, and other thoughts of a similar nature ran around in my head. One often talks about hanging oneself.

But I was beginning to think that one could be tempted to commit suicide just at such a time as this. It so happened that at that moment I raised my head slightly, and, as I looked up to the top of the bank, I found myself standing right below that very pine tree.”

“That very pine tree? What’s that?” cuts in my master.

“The pine for hanging heads,” says Waverhouse ducking his noddle.

“Isn’t the pine for hanging heads that one at Ko-nodai?” Coldmoon amplifies the ripple.

“The pine at Kōnodai is the pine for hanging temple bells. The pine at Dotesambanchō is the one for hanging heads. The reason why it has acquired this name is that an old legend says that anyone who finds himself under this pine tree is stricken with a desire to hang himself. Though there are several dozen pine trees on the bank, every time someone hangs himself, it is invariably on this particular tree that the body is found dangling. I can assure you there are at least two or three such danglings every year. It would be unthinkable to go and dangle on any other pine. As I stared at the tree I noted that a branch stuck out conveniently toward the pavement. Ah! What an exquisitely fashioned branch. It would be a real pity to leave it as it is. I wish so much that I could arrange for some human body to be suspended there. I look around to see if anyone is coming. Unfortunately, no one comes. It can’t be helped.

Shall I hang myself? No, no, if I hang myself, I’ll lose my life. I won’t because it’s dangerous. But I’ve heard a story that an ancient Greek used to entertain banquet parties by giving demonstrations of how to hang oneself. A man would stand on a stool and the very second that he put his head through a noose, a second man would kick the stool from under him. The trick was that the first man would loosen the knot in the rope just as his stool was kicked away, and so drop down unharmed. If this story is really true, I’ve no need to be frightened. So thinking I might try the trick myself, I place my hand on the branch and find it bends in a manner precisely appropriate. Indeed the way it bends is positively aesthetic. I feel extraordinarily happy as I try to picture myself floating on this branch. I felt I simply must try it, but then I began to think that it would be inconsiderate if Beauchamp were waiting for me. Right, I would first see Beauchamp and have the chat I’d promised; thereafter I could come out again. So thinking, I went home.”

“And is that the happy ending to your story?” asks my master.

“Very interesting,” says Coldmoon with a broad grin.

“When I got home, Beauchamp had not arrived. Instead, I found a postcard from him saying that he was sorry he could not keep our appointment because of some pressing but unexpected happening, and that he was looking forward to having a long interview with me in the near future. I was relieved, and I felt happy, for now I could hang myself with an easy mind.

Accordingly, I hurry back to the same spot, and then. . .” Waverhouse, assuming a nonchalant air, gazes at Coldmoon and my master.

“And then, what happened?” My master is becoming a little impatient.

“We’ve now come to the climax,” says Coldmoon as he twists the strings of his surcoat.

“And then, somebody had beaten me to it and had already hanged himself. I’m afraid I missed the chance just by a second. I see now that I had been in the grip of the God of Death. William James, that eminent philosopher, would no doubt explain that the region of the dead in the world of one’s subliminal consciousness and the real world in which I actually exist, must have interacted in mutual response in accordance with some kind of law of cause and effect. But it really was extraordinary, wasn’t it?”Waverhouse looks quite demure.

My master, thinking that he has again been taken in, says nothing but crams his mouth with bean-jam cake and mumbles incoherently.

Coldmoon carefully rakes smooth the ashes in the brazier and casts down his eyes, grinning; eventually he opens his mouth. He speaks in an extremely quiet tone.

“It is indeed so strange that it does not seem a thing likely to happen.

On the other hand, because I myself have recently had a similar kind of experience, I can readily believe it.”

“What! Did you too want to stretch your neck?”

“No, mine wasn’t a hanging matter. It seems all the more strange in that it also happened at the end of last year, at about the same time and on the same day as the extraordinary experience of Mr. Waverhouse.”

“That’s interesting,” says Waverhouse. And he, too, stuffs his mouth with bean-jam cake.

“On that day, there was a year-end party combined with a concert given at the house of a friend of mine at Mūkōjima. I went there taking my violin with me. It was a grand affair with fifteen or sixteen young or married ladies. Everything was so perfectly arranged that one felt it was the most brilliant event of recent times. When the dinner and the concert were over, we sat and talked late, and as I was about to take my leave, the wife of a certain doctor came up to me and asked in whisper if I knew that Miss O was unwell. A few days earlier, when last I saw Miss O, she had been looking well and normal. So I was surprised to hear this news, and my immediate questions elicited the information that she had become feverish on the very evening of the day when I’d last seen her, and that she was saying all sorts of curious things in her delirium. What was worse, every now and again in that delirium, she was calling my name.”

Not only my master but even Waverhouse refrain from making any such hackneyed remark as “you lucky fellow.”They just listen in silence.

“They fetched a doctor who examined her. According to the doctor’s diagnosis, though the name of the disease was unknown, the high fever affecting the brain made her condition dangerous unless the administration of soporifics worked as effectively as was to be hoped for. As soon as I heard this news, a feeling of something awful grew within me. It was a heavy feeling, as though one were having a nightmare, and all the surrounding air seemed suddenly to be solidifying like a clamp upon my body. On my way home, moreover, I found I could think of nothing else, and it hurt. That beautiful, that gay, that so healthy Miss O. . .”

“Just a minute, please. You’ve mentioned Miss O about two times. If you’ve no objection, we’d like to know her name wouldn’t we?” asks Waverhouse turning to look at my master. The latter evades the question and says, “Hmm.”

“No, I won’t tell you her name since it might compromise the person in question.”

“Do you then propose to recount your entire story in such vague, ambiguous, equivocal, and noncommittal terms?”

“You mustn’t sneer. This is a serious story. Anyway, the thought of that young lady suffering from so odd an ailment filled my heart with mournful emotion, and my mind with sad reflections on the ephemerality of life. I felt suddenly depressed beyond all saying, as if every last ounce of my vitality had, just like that, evaporated from my body. I staggered on, tottering and wobbling, until I came to the Azuma Bridge. As I looked down, leaning on the parapet, the black waters—at neap or ebb, I don’t know which—seemed to be coagulating, only just barely moving. A rickshaw coming from the direction of Hanakawado ran over the bridge. I watched its lamp grow smaller and smaller until it disappeared at the Sapporo Beer factory. Again, I looked down at the water.

And at that moment I heard a voice from upstream calling my name. It is most improbable that anyone should be calling after me at this unlikely time of night, and, wondering whom it could possibly be, I peered down to the surface of the water, but I could see nothing in the darkness. Thinking it must have been my imagination, I had decided to go home, when I again heard the voice calling my name. I stood dead-still and listened. When I heard it calling me for the third time, though I was gripping the parapet firmly, my knees began to tremble uncontrollably.

The voice seemed to be coming either from far away or from the bottom of the river, but it was unmistakably the voice of Miss O. In spite of myself I answered, ‘Yes.’ My answer was so loud that it echoed back from the still water, and, surprised by my own voice, I looked around me in a startled manner. There was no one to be seen. No dog. No moon. Nothing. At this very second I experienced a sudden urge to immerse myself in that total darkness from which the voice had summoned me. And, once again, the voice of Miss O pierced my ears painfully, appealingly, as if begging for help. This time I cried,‘I’m coming now,’ and, leaning well out over the parapet, I looked down into the somber depths. For, it seemed to me that the summoning voice was surging powerfully up from beneath the waves. Thinking that the source of the pleading must lie in the water directly below me, I at last managed to clamber onto the parapet. I was determined that, next time the voice called out to me, I would dive straight in; and, as I stood watching the stream, once again the thin thread of that pitiful voice came floating up to me. This, I thought, is it; jumping high with all my strength, I came dropping down without regret like a pebble, or something.”

“So, you actually did dive in?” asks my master, blinking his eyes.

“I never thought you’d go as far as that,” says Waverhouse pinching the tip of his nose.

“After my dive I became unconscious, and for a while I seemed to be living in a dream. But eventually I woke up, and, though I felt cold, I was not at all wet and did not feel as if I had swallowed any water. Yet I was sure that I had dived. How very strange! Realizing that something peculiar must have taken place, I looked around me and received a real shock.

I’d meant to dive into the water but apparently I’d accidentally landed in the middle of the bridge itself. I felt abysmally regretful. Having, by sheer mistake, jumped backwards instead of forwards, I’d lost my chance to answer the summons of the voice.” Coldmoon smirks and fiddles with the strings of his surcoat as if they were in some way irksome.

“Ha-ha-ha, how very comical. It’s odd that your experience so much resembles mine. It, too, could be adduced in support of the theories of Professor James. If you were to write it up in an article entitled ‘The Human Response,’ it would astound the whole literary world. But what,” persisted Waverhouse, “became of the ailing Miss O?”

“When I called at her house a few days ago, I saw her just inside the gate playing battledore and shuttlecock with her maid. So I expect she has completely recovered from her illness.”

My master, who for some time has been deep in thought, finally opens his mouth, and, in a spirit of unnecessary rivalry, remarks, “I too have a strange experience to relate.”

“You’ve got what?” In Waverhouse’s view, my master counts for so little that he is scarcely entitled to have experiences.

“Mine also occurred at the end of last year.”

“It’s queer,” observed Coldmoon, “that all last year,” and he sniggers. A piece of bean-jam cake adheres to the corner of his chipped front tooth.

“And it took place, doubtless,” added Waverhouse, “at the very same time on the very same day.”

“No, I think the date is different: it was about the 20th. My wife had earlier asked me, as a year’s-end present to herself, to take her to hear Settsu Daijō. I’d replied that I wouldn’t say no, and asked her the nature of the program for that day. She consulted the newspapers and answered that it was one of Chikamatsu’s suicide dramas, Unagidani. ‘Let’s not go today, I don’t like Unagidani,’ said I. So we did not go that day. The next day my wife, bringing out the newspaper again, said, ‘Today he’s doing the Monkey Man at Horikawa, so, let’s go.’ I said let’s not, because Horikawa was so frivolous, just samisen-playing with no meat in it. My wife went away looking discontented. The following day, she stated almost as a demand, ‘Today’s program is The Temple With Thirty-Three Pillars. You may dislike the Temple quite as strongly as you disliked all the others, but since the treat is intended to be for me, surely you won’t object to taking me there.’ I responded,‘If you’ve set your heart on it so firmly, then we’ll go, but since the performance has been announced as Settsu’s farewell appearance on the stage, the house is bound to be packed full, and since we haven’t booked in advance, it will obviously be impossible to get in. To start with, in order to attend such performances there’s an established procedure to be observed. You have to go to the theatre-teahouse and there negotiate for seat reservations. It would be hopeless to try going about it in the wrong way. You just can’t dodge this proper procedure. So, sorry though I am, we simply cannot go today.’

My wife’s eyes glittered fiercely. ‘Since I am a mere woman, I do not understand your complicated procedures, but both Ohare’s mother and Kimiyo of the Suzuki family managed to get in without observance of any such formalities, and they heard everything very well. I realize that you are a teacher, but surely you don’t have to go through all that troublesome rigmarole just to visit a theatre? It’s too bad. . . you are so. . .’ and her voice became tearful. I gave in. ‘All right. We’ll go to the theatre even if we can’t get into it. After an early supper we’ll take the tram.’ She suddenly became quite lively. ‘If we’re going, we must be there by four o’clock, so we mustn’t dilly-dally.’When I asked her why one had to be there by four o’clock, she explained that Kimiyo had told her that, if one arrived any later, all the seats would be taken. I asked her again, to make quite sure, if it would be fruitless to turn up later than four o’clock; and she answered briskly,‘Of course it would be no good.’

Then, d’you know, at that very moment the shivering set in.”

“Do you mean your wife?” asks Coldmoon.

“Oh, no, my wife was as fit as a fiddle. It was me. I had a sudden feeling that I was shriveling like a pricked balloon. Then I grew giddy and unable even to move.”

“You were taken ill with a most remarkable suddenness,” commented Waverhouse.

“This is terrible. What shall I do? I’d like so much to grant my wife her wish, her one and only request in the whole long year. All I ever do is scold her fiercely, or not speak to her, or nag her about household expenses, or insist that she cares more carefully for the children; yet I have never rewarded her for all her efforts in the domestic field. Today, luckily, I have the time and the money available. I could easily take her on some little outing. And she very much wants to go. Just as I very much want to take her. But much indeed as I want to take her, this icy shivering and frightful giddiness make it impossible for me even to step down from the entrance of my own house, let alone to climb up into a tram. The more I think how deeply I grieve for her, the poor thing, the worse my shivering grows and the more giddy I become. I thought if I consulted a doctor and took some medicine, I might get well before four o’clock. I discussed the matter with my wife and sent for Mr. Amaki, Bachelor of Medicine. Unfortunately, he had been on night duty at the university hospital and hadn’t yet come home. However, we received every assurance that he was expected home by about two o’clock and that he would hurry round to see me the minute he returned. What a nuisance. If only I could get some sedative, I know I could be cured before four. But when luck is running against one, nothing goes well.

Here I am, just this once in a long, long time, looking forward to seeing my wife’s happy smile, and to be sharing in that happiness. My expectations seem sadly unlikely to be fulfilled. My wife, with a most reproachful look, enquires whether it really is impossible for me to go out. ‘I’ll go; certainly I’ll go. Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll be all right by four. Wash your face, get ready to go out and wait for me.’ Though I uttered all these reassurance, my mind was shaken with profound emotions. The shivering strengthens and accelerates, and my giddiness grows worse and worse. Unless I do get well by four o’clock and implement my promise, one can never tell what such a pusillanimous woman might do.

What a wretched business. What should I do? As I thought it possible that the very worst could happen, I began to consider whether perhaps it might be my duty as a husband to explain to my wife, now while I was still in possession of my faculties, the dread truths concerning mortality and the vicissitudes of life. For if the worst should happen, she would then at least be prepared and less liable to be overcome by the paroxysms of her grief. I accordingly summoned my wife to come immediately to my study. But when I began by saying,‘Though but a woman you must be aware of that Western proverb which states that there is many a slip “twixt the cup and the lip,”’ she flew into a fury.‘How should I know anything at all about such sideways-written words? You’re deliberately making a fool of me by choosing to speak English when you know perfectly well that I don’t understand a word of it. All right. So I can’t understand English. But if you’re so besotted about English, why didn’t you marry one of those girls from the mission schools? I’ve never come across anyone quite so cruel as you.’ In the face of this tirade, my kindly feelings, my husbandly anxiety to prepare her for extremities, were naturally damped down. I’d like you two to understand that it was not out of malice that I spoke in English. The words sprang solely from a sincere sentiment of love for my wife. Consequently, my wife’s malign interpretation of my motives left me feeling helpless. Besides, my brain was somewhat disturbed by reason of the cold shivering and the giddiness; on top of all that, I was understandably distraught by the effort of trying quickly to explain to her the truths of mortality and the nature of the vicissitudes of life. That was why, quite unconsciously and forgetting that my wife could not understand the tongue, I spoke in English. I immediately realized I was in the wrong. It was all entirely my fault. But as a result of my blunder, the cold shivering intensified its violence and my giddiness grew ever more viciously vertiginous. My wife, in accordance with my instructions, proceeds to the bathroom and, stripping herself to the waist, completes her make-up. Then, taking a kimono from a drawer, she puts it on. Her attitudes make it quite clear that she is now ready to go out any time, and is simply waiting for me. I begin to get nervous. Wishing that Mr. Amaki would arrive quickly, I look at my watch. It’s already three o’clock. Only one hour to go. My wife slides open the study door and putting her head in, asks, ‘Shall we go now?’ It may sound silly to praise one’s own wife, but I had never thought her quite so beautiful as she was at that moment. Her skin, thoroughly polished with soap, gleams deliciously and makes a marvelous contrast with the blackness of her silken surcoat. Her face has a kind of radiance both externally and shining from within; partly because of the soap and partly because of her intense longing to listen to Settsu Daijō. I feel I must, come what may, take her out to satisfy that yearning. All right, perhaps I will make the awful effort to go out. I was smoking and thinking along these lines when at long last Mr. Amaki arrived. Excellent. Things are turning out as one would wish. However, when I told him about my condition,Amaki examined my tongue, took my pulse, tapped my chest, stroked my back, turned my eyelids inside out, patted my skull, and thereafter sank into deep thought for quite some time. I said to him, ‘It is my impression that there may be some danger. . .’ but he replied,‘No, I don’t think there’s anything seriously wrong.’ ‘I imagine it would be perfectly all right for him to go out for a little while?’ asked my wife.

‘Let me think.’ Amaki sank back into the profundities of thought, reemerging to remark,‘Well, so long as he doesn’t feel unwell. . .’‘Oh, but I do feel unwell,’ I said. In that case I’ll give you a mild sedative and some liquid medicine. . .’‘Yes please. This is going to be something serious, isn’t it?’ ‘Oh no, there’s nothing to worry about. You mustn’t get nervous,’ said Amaki, and thereupon departed. It is now half past three.

The maid was sent to fetch the medicine. In accordance with my wife’s imperative instructions, the wretched girl not only ran the whole way there, but also the whole way back. It is now a quarter to four. Fifteen minutes still to go. Then, quite suddenly, just about that time, I began to feel sick. It came on with a quite extraordinary suddenness. All totally unexpected. My wife had poured the medicine into a teacup and placed it in front of me, but as soon as I tried to lift the teacup, some keck-keck thing stormed up from within the stomach. I am compelled to put the teacup down. ‘Drink it up quickly’ urges my wife. Yes, indeed, I must drink it quickly and go out quickly. Mustering all my courage to imbibe the potion I bring the teacup to my lips, when again that insuppressible keck-keck thing prevents my drinking it. While this process of raising the cup and putting it down is being several times repeated, the minutes crept on until the wall clock in the living room struck four o’clock.

Ting-ting-ting-ting. Four o’clock it is. I can no longer dilly-dally and I raise the teacup once again. D’you know, it really was most strange. I’d say that it was certainly the uncanniest thing I’ve ever experienced. At the fourth stroke my sickliness just vanished, and I was able to take the medicine without any trouble at all. And, by about ten past four—here I must add that I now realized for the first time how truly skilled a physician we have in Dr. Amaki—the shivering of my back and the giddiness in my head both disappeared like a dream. Up to that point I had expected that I was bound to be laid up for days, but to my great pleasure the illness proved to have been completely cured.”

“And did you two then go out to the theatre?” asks Waverhouse with the puzzled expression of one who cannot see the point of a story.

“We certainly both wanted to go, but since it had been my wife’s reiterated view that there was no hope of getting in after four o’clock, what could we do? We didn’t go. If only Amaki had arrived fifteen minutes earlier, I could have kept my promise and my wife would have been satisfied. Just that fifteen minute difference. I was indeed distressed. Even now, when I think how narrow the margin was, I am again distressed.”

My master, having told his shabby tale, contrives to look like a person who has done his duty. I imagine he feels he’s gotten even with the other two.

“How very vexing,” says Coldmoon. His laugh, as usual, displays his broken tooth.

Waverhouse, with a false naivety, remarks as if to himself. “Your wife, with a husband so thoughtful and kind-hearted, is indeed a lucky woman.” Behind the sliding paper-door, we heard the master’s wife make an harumphing noise as though clearing her throat.

I had been quietly listening to the successive stories of these three precious humans, but I was neither amused nor saddened by what I’d heard. I merely concluded that human beings were good for nothing, except for the strenuous employment of their mouths for the purpose of whiling away their time in laughter at things which are not funny, and in the enjoyment of amusements which are not amusing. I have long known of my master’s selfishness and narrowmindedness, but, because he usually has little to say, there was always something about him which I could not understand. I’d felt a certain caution, a certain fear, even a certain respect toward him on account of that aspect of his nature that I did not understand. But having heard his story, my uncertainties suddenly coalesced into a mere contempt for him. Why can’t he listen to the stories of the other two in silence? What good purpose can he serve by talking such utter rubbish just because his competitive spirit has been roused? I wonder if, in his portentous writings, Epictetus advocated any such course of action. In short, my master,Waverhouse, and Coldmoon are all like hermits in a peaceful reign. Though they adopt a nonchalant attitude, keeping themselves aloof from the crowd, segegrated like so many snake-gourds swayed lightly by the wind, in reality they, too, are shaken by just the same greed and worldly ambition as their fellow men.

The urge to compete and their anxiety to win are revealed flickeringly in their everyday conversation, and only a hair’s breadth separates them from the Philistines whom they spend their idle days denouncing. They are all animals from the same den. Which fact, from a feline viewpoint, is infinitely regrettable. Their only moderately redeeming feature is that their speech and conduct are less tediously uninventive than those of less subtle creatures.

As I thus summed up the nature of the human race, I suddenly felt the conversation of these specimens to be intolerably boring, so I went around to the garden of the mistress of the two-stringed harp to see how Tortoiseshell was getting on. Already the pine tree decorations for the New Year and that season’s sacred festoons have been taken down. It is the 10th of January. From a deep sky containing not even a single streak of cloud the glorious springtime sun shines down upon the lands and seas of the whole wide world, so that even her tiny garden seems yet more brilliantly lively than when it saw the dawn of New Year’s Day.

There is a cushion on the veranda, the sliding paper-door is closed, and there’s nobody about. Which probably means that the mistress has gone off to the public baths. I’m not at all concerned if the mistress should be out, but I do very much worry about whether Tortoiseshell is any better. Since everything’s so quiet and not a sign of a soul, I hop up onto the veranda with my muddy paws and curl up right in the middle of the cushion, which I find comfortable. A drowsiness came over me, and, forgetting all about Tortoiseshell, I was about to drop off into a doze when suddenly I heard voices beyond the paper-door.

“Ah, thanks. Was it ready?”The mistress has not gone out after all.

“Yes, madam. I’m sorry to have taken such a long time. When I got there, the man who makes Buddhist altar furniture told me he’d only just finished it.”

“Well, let me see it. Ah, but it’s beautifully done. With this, Tortoiseshell can surely rest in peace. Are you sure the gold won’t peel away?”

“Yes, I’ve made sure of it. They said that as they had used the very best quality, it would last longer than most human memorial tablets. They also said that the character for ‘honor’ in Tortoiseshell’s posthumous name would look better if written in the cursive style, so they had added the appropriate strokes.”

“Is that so? Well, let’s put Myōyoshinnyo’s tablet in the family shrine and offer incense sticks.”

Has anything happened to Tortoiseshell? Thinking something must be wrong, I stand up on the cushion. Ting! “Amen! Myōyoshinnyo. Save us, merciful Buddha! May she rest in peace.” It is the voice of the mistress.

“You, too, say prayers for her.”

Ting! “Amen! Myōyoshinnyo. Save us, merciful Buddha! May she rest in peace.” Suddenly my heart throbs violently. I stand dead-still upon the cushion, like a wooden cat; not even my eyes are moving.

“It really was a pity. It was only a cold at first.”

“Perhaps if Dr. Amaki had given her some medicine, it might have helped.”

“It was indeed Amaki’s fault. He paid too little regard to Tortoiseshell.”

“You must not speak ill of other persons. After all, everyone dies when their allotted span is over.”

It seems thatTortoiseshell was also attended by that skilled physician, Dr. Amaki.

“When all’s said and done, I believe the root cause was that the stray cat at the teacher’s in the main street took her out too often.”

“Yes, that brute.”

I would like to exculpate myself, but realizing that at this juncture it behoves me to be patient, I swallow hard and continue listening. There is a pause in the conversation.

“Life does not always turn out as one wishes. A beauty like Tortoiseshell dies young. That ugly stray remains healthy and flourishes in devilment. . .”

“It is indeed so, Madam. Even if one searched high and low for a cat as charming as Tortoiseshell, one would never find another person like her.”

She didn’t say ‘another cat,’ she said ‘another person.’The maid seems to think that cats and human beings are of one race. Which reminds me that the face of this particular maid is strangely like a cat’s.

“If only instead of our dear Tortoiseshell. . .”

“. . . that wretched stray at the teacher’s had been taken. Then, Madam, how perfectly everything would have gone. . .”

If everything had gone that perfectly, I would have been in deep trouble. Since I have not yet had the experience of being dead, I cannot say whether or not I would like it. But the other day, it happening to be unpleasantly chilly, I crept into the tub for conserving half-used charcoal and settled down upon its still-warm contents. The maid, not realizing I was in there, popped on the lid. I shudder even now at the mere thought of the agony I then suffered. According to Miss Blanche, the cat across the road, one dies if that agony continues for even a very short stretch. I wouldn’t complain if I were asked to substitute for Tortoiseshell; but if one cannot die without going through that kind of agony, I frankly would not care to die on anyone’s behalf.

“Though a cat, she had her funeral service conducted by a priest and now she’s been given a posthumous Buddhist name. I don’t think she would expect us to do more.”

“Of course not, madam. She is indeed thrice blessed. The only comment that one might make is that the funeral service read by the priest was, perhaps, a little wanting in gravity.”

“Yes, and I thought it rather too brief. But when I remarked to the priest from the Gekkei Temple ‘you’ve finished very quickly, haven’t you?’ he answered ‘I’ve done sufficient of the effective parts, quite enough to get a kitty into Paradise.’”

“Dear me! But if the cat in question were that unpleasant stray. . .”

I have pointed out often enough that I have no name, but this maid keeps calling me “that stray.” She is a vulgar creature.

“So very sinful a creature. Madam, would never be able to rest in peace, however many edifying texts were read for its salvation.”

I do not know how many hundreds of times I was thereafter stigmatized as a stray. I stopped listening to their endless babble while it was still only half-run, and, slipping down from the cushion, I jumped off the veranda. Then,simultaneously erecting every single one of my eighty-eight thousand, eight hundred, eighty hairs, I shook my whole body.

Since that day I have not ventured near the mistress of the two-stringed harp. No doubt by now she herself is having texts of inadequate gravity read on her behalf by the priest from the Gekkei Temple.

Nowadays I haven’t even energy to go out. Somehow life seems weary. I have become as indolent a cat as my master is an indolent human. I have come to understand that it is only natural that people should so often explain my master’s self-immurement in his study as the result of a love affair gone wrong.

As I have never caught a rat, that O-san person once proposed that I should be expelled; but my master knows that I’m no ordinary common or garden cat, and that is why I continue to lead an idle existence in this house. For that understanding I am deeply grateful to my master. What’s more, I take every opportunity to show the respect due to his perspicacity. I do not get particularly angry with O-san’s ill-treatment of me, for she does not understand why I am as I now am. But when, one of these days, some master sculptor, some regular Hidari Jingorō, comes and carves my image on a temple gate; when some Japanese equivalent of the French master portraitist, Steinlein, immortalizes my features on a canvas, then at last will the silly purblind beings in shame regret their lack of insight.







 III







TORTOISESHELL is dead,one cannot consort with Rickshaw Blacky, and I feel a little lonely. Luckily I have made acquaintances among humankind so I do not suffer from any real sense of boredom. Someone wrote recently asking my master to have my photograph taken and the picture sent to him. And then the other day somebody else presented some millet dumplings, that speciality of Okayama, specifically addressed to me. The more that humans show me sympathy, the more I am inclined to forget that I am a cat. Feeling that I am now closer to humans than to cats, the idea of rallying my own race in an effort to wrest supremacy from the bipeds no longer has the least appeal. Moreover, I have developed, indeed evolved, to such an extent that there are now times when I think of myself as just another human in the human world; which I find very encouraging. It is not that I look down on my own race, but it is no more than natural to feel most at ease among those whose attitudes are similar to one’s own. I would consequently feel somewhat piqued if my growing penchant for mankind were stigmatized as fickleness or flippancy or treachery. It is precisely those who sling such words about in slanderous attacks on others who are usually both drearily straight-laced and born unlucky. Having thus graduated from felinity to humanity, I find myself no longer able to confine my interests to the world of Tortoiseshell and Blacky. With a haughtiness not less prideful than that of human beings, I, too, now like to judge and criticize their thoughts and words and deeds. This, surely, is equally natural. Yet, though I have become thus proudly conscious of my own dignity, my master still regards me as a cat only slightly superior to any other common or garden moggy. For, as if they were his own and without so much as a by-your-leave to me, he has eaten all the millet dumplings; which is, I find, regrettable. Nor does he seem yet to have dispatched my photograph. I suppose I would be justified if I made this fact a cause for grumbling, but after all, if our opinions—my master’s and mine—are naturally at difference, the consequences of that difference cannot be helped. Since I am seeking to behave with total humanity, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to write about the activities of cats with whom I no longer associate. I must accordingly seek the indulgence of my readers if I now confine my writing to reports about such respected figures as Waverhouse and Coldmoon.

Today is a Sunday and the weather fine. The master has therefore crept out of his study, and, placing a brush, an ink stone, and a writing pad in a row before him, he now lies flat on his belly beside me, and is groaning hard. I watch him, thinking that he is perhaps making this peculiar noise in the birth pangs of some literary effort. After a while, and in thick black strokes, he wrote, “Burn incense.” Is it going to be a poem or a haiku? Just when I was thinking that the phrase was rather too witty for my master, he abandons it, and, his brush running quickly over the paper, writes an entirely new line: “Now for some little time I have been thinking of writing an article about Mr. the-late-and-sainted Natural Man.” At this point the brush stops dead. My master, brush in hand, racks his brains, but no bright notions seem to emerge for he now starts licking the head of his brush. I watched his lips acquire a curious inkiness. Then, underneath what he had just written, he drew a circle, put in two dots as eyes, added a nostrilled nose in the center, and finally drew a single sideways line for a mouth. One could not call such creations either haiku or prose. Even my master must have been disgusted with himself, for he quickly smeared away the face. He then starts a new line. He seems to have some vague notion that, provided he himself produces a new line, maybe some kind of a Chinese poem will evolve itself.

After further moonings, he suddenly started writing briskly in the colloquial style. “Mr. the-late-and-sainted Natural Man is one who studies Infinity, reads the Analects of Confucius, eats baked yams, and has a runny nose.” A somewhat muddled phrase. He thereupon read the phrase aloud in a declamatory manner and, quite unlike his usual self, laughed. “Ha-ha-ha. Interesting! But that ‘runny nose’ is a shade cruel, so I’ll cross it out,” and he proceeds to draw lines across that phrase.

“Though a single line would clearly have sufficed, he draws two lines and then three lines. He goes on drawing more and more lines regardless of their crowding into the neighboring line of writing. When he has drawn eight such obliterations, he seems unable to think of anything to add to his opening outburst. So he takes to twirling his mustache, determined to wring some telling sentence from his whiskers. He is still twisting them up and twirling them down when his wife appears from the living room, and sitting herself down immediately before my master’s nose, remarks, “My dear.”

“What is it?” My master’s voice sounds dully like a gong struck under water. His wife seems not to like the answer, for she starts all over again.

“My dear!” she says.

“Well, what is it?”

This time, cramming a thumb and index finger into a nostril, he yanks out nostril hairs.

“We are a bit short this month. . .”

“Couldn’t possibly be short. We’ve settled the doctor’s fee and we paid off the bookshop’s bill last month. So this month, there ought in fact to be something left over.” He coolly examines his uprooted nostril hairs as though they were some wonder of the world.

“But because you, instead of eating rice, have taken to bread and jam. . .”

“Well, how many tins of jam have I gone through?”

“This month, eight tins were emptied.”

“Eight? I certainly haven’t eaten that much.”

“It wasn’t only you. The children also lick it.”

“However much one licks, one couldn’t lick more than two or three shillings worth.” My master calmly plants his nostril hairs, one by one, on the writing pad. The sticky-rooted bristles stand upright on the paper like a little copse of needles. My master seems impressed by this unexpected discovery and he blows upon them. Being so sticky, they do not fly away.

“Aren’t they obstinate?” he says and blows upon them frantically.

“It is not only the jam. There’s other things we have to buy.” The lady of the house expresses her extreme dissatisfaction by pouting sulkily.

“Maybe.” Again inserting his thumb and finger, he extracts some hairs with a jerk. Among these hairs of various hue, red ones and black ones, there is a single pure white bristle. My master who, with a look of great surprise, has been staring at this object, proceeds to show it to his wife, holding it up between his fingers right in front of her face.

“No, don’t.” She pushes his hand away with a grimace of distaste.

“Look at it! A white hair from the nostrils.” My master seems to be immensely impressed. His wife, resigned, went back into the living room with a laugh. She seems to have given up hope of getting any answer to her problems of domestic economy. My master resumes his consideration of the problems of Natural Man.

Having succeeded in driving off his wife with his scourge of nostril hair, he appears to feel relieved, and, while continuing that depilation, struggles to get on with his article. But his brush remains unmoving.

“That ‘eats baked yams’ is also superfluous. Out with it.” He deletes the phrase. “And ‘incense burns’ is somewhat over-abrupt, so let’s cross that out too.” His exuberant self-criticism leaves nothing on the paper but the single sentence “Mr. the-late-and-sainted Natural Man is one who studies Infinity and reads the Analects of Confucius.” My master thinks this statement a trifle over-simplified. “Ah well, let’s not be bothered: let’s abandon prose and just make it an inscription.” Brandishing the brush crosswise, he paints vigorously on the writing pad in that watercolor style so common among literary men and produces a very poor study of an orchid. Thus all his precious efforts to write an article have come down to this mere nothing. Turning the sheet, he writes something that makes no sense. “Born in Infinity, studied Infinity, and died into Infinity.

Mr. the-late-and-sainted Natural Man. Infinity.” At this moment Waverhouse drifts into the room in his usual casual fashion. He appears to make no distinction between his own and other people’s houses; unannounced and unceremoniously, he enters any house and, what’s more, will sometimes float in unexpectedly through a kitchen door. He is one of those who, from the moment of their birth, discaul themselves of all such tiresome things as worry, reserve, scruple, and concern.

“‘Giant Gravitation again?’” asks Waverhouse still standing.

“How could I be always writing only about ‘Giant Gravitation?’ I’m trying to compose an epitaph for the tombstone of Mr. the-late-and-sainted Natural Man,” replied my master with considerable exaggeration.

“Is that some sort of posthumous Buddhist name like Accidental Child?” inquires Waverhouse in his usual irrelevant style.

“Is there then someone called Accidental Child?”

“No, of course there isn’t, but I take it that you’re working on something like that.”

“I don’t think Accidental Child is anyone I know. But Mr. the-late-and-sainted Natural Man is a person of your own acquaintance.”

“Who on earth could get a name like that?”

“It’s Sorosaki. After he graduated from the University, he took a post-graduate course involving study of the ‘theory of infinity.’ But he over-worked, got peritonitis, and died of it. Sorosaki happened to be a very close friend of mine.”

“All right, so he was your very close friend. I’m far from criticizing that fact. But who was responsible for converting Sorosaki into Mr. the-late-and-sainted Natural Man?”

“Me. I created that name. For there is really nothing more philistine than the posthumous names conferred by Buddhist priests.” My master boasts as if his nomination of Natural Man were a feat of artistry.

“Anyway, let’s see the epitaph,” says Waverhouse laughingly. He picks up my master’s manuscript and reads it out aloud. “Eh . . .‘Born into infinity, studied infinity, and died into infinity. Mr. the-late-and-sainted Natural Man. Infinity.’ I see. This is fine. Quite appropriate for poor old Sorosaki.”

“Good, isn’t it?” says my master obviously very pleased.

“You should have this epitaph engraved on a weight-stone for pickles and then leave it at the back of the main hall of some temple for the practice-benefit of passing weight lifters. It’s good. It’s most artistic. Mr. the-late-and-sainted may now well rest in peace.”

“Actually, I’m thinking of doing just that,” answers my master quite seriously. “But you’ll have to excuse me,” he went on, “I won’t be long.

Just play with the cat. Don’t go away.” And my master departed like the wind without even waiting for Waverhouse to answer.

Being thus unexpectedly required to entertain the culture-vulture Waverhouse, I cannot very well maintain my sour attitude. Accordingly, I mew at him encouragingly and sidle up on to his knees. “Hello,” says Waverhouse, “you’ve grown distinctly chubby. Let’s take a look at you.”

Grabbing me impolitely by the scruff of my neck he hangs me up in midair. “Cats like you that let their hind legs dangle are cats that catch no mice. . . Tell me,” he said, turning to my master’s wife in the next room, “has he ever caught anything?”

“Far from catching so much as a single mouse, he eats rice-cakes and then dances.” The lady of the house unexpectedly probes my old wound, which embarrassed me. Especially when Waverhouse still held me in midair like a circus-performer.

“Indeed, with such a face, it’s not surprising that he dances. Do you know, this cat possesses a truly insidious physionomy. He looks like one of those goblin-cats illustrated in the old storybooks.” Waverhouse, babbling whatever comes into his head, tries to make conversation with the mistress. She reluctantly interrupts her sewing and comes into the room.

“I do apologize. You must be bored. He won’t be long now.” And she poured fresh tea for him.

“I wonder where he’s gone.”

“Heaven only knows. He never explains where he’s going. Probably to see his doctor.”

“You mean Dr. Amaki? What a misfortune for Amaki to be involved with such a patient.”

Perhaps finding this comment difficult to answer, she answers briefly:

“Well, yes.”

Waverhouse takes not the slightest notice, but goes on to ask, “How is he lately? Is his weak stomach any better?”

“It’s impossible to say whether it’s better or worse. However carefully Dr. Amaki may look after him, I don’t see how his health can ever improve if he continues to consume such vast quantities of jam.” She thus works off on Waverhouse her earlier grumblings to my master.

“Does he eat all that much jam? It sounds like a child.”

“And not just jam. He’s recently taken to guzzling grated radish on the grounds that it’s a sovereign cure for dyspepsia.”

“You surprise me,” marvels Waverhouse.

“It all began when he read in some rag that grated radish contains diastase.”

“I see. I suppose he reckons that grated radish will repair the ravages of jam. It’s certainly an ingenious equation.” Waverhouse seems vastly diverted by her recital of complaint.

“Then only the other day he forced some on the baby.”

“He made the baby eat jam?”

“No, grated radish! Would you believe it? He said, ‘Come here, my little babykin, father’ll give you something good. . .’Whenever, once in a rare while, he shows affection for the children, he always does remarkably silly things. A few days ago he put our second daughter on top of a chest of drawers.”

“What ingenious scheme was that?” Waverhouse looks to discover ingenuities in everything.

“There was no question of any ingenious scheme. He just wanted the child to make the jump when it’s quite obvious that a little girl of three or four is incapable of such tomboy feats.”

“I see. Yes, that proposal does indeed seem somewhat lacking in ingenuity. Still, he’s a good man without an ill wish in his heart.”

“Do you think that I could bear it if, on top of everything else, he were ill-natured?” She seems in uncommonly high spirits.

“Surely you don’t have cause for such vehement complaint? To be as comfortably off as you are is, after all, the best way to be. Your husband neither leads the fast life nor squanders money on dandified clothing.

He’s a born family man of quiet taste.”Waverhouse fairly lets himself go in unaccustomed laud of an unknown way of life.

“On the contrary, he’s not at all like that. . .”

“Indeed? So he has secret vices? Well, one cannot be too careful in this world.” Waverhouse offers a nonchalantly fluffy comment.

“He has no secret vices, but he is totally abandoned in the way he buys book after book, never to read a single one. I wouldn’t mind if he used his head and bought in moderation, but no. Whenever the mood takes him, he ambles off to the biggest bookshop in the city and brings back home as many books as chance to catch his fancy. Then, at the end of the month, he adopts an attitude of complete detachment. At the end of last year, for instance, I had a terrible time coping with the bill that had been accumulating month after month.”

“It doesn’t matter that he should bring home however many books he may like. If, when the bill collector comes, you just say that you’ll pay some other time, he’ll go away.”

“But one cannot put things off indefinitely.” She looks cast down.

“Then you should explain the matter to your husband and ask him to cut down expenditure on books.”

“And do you really believe he would listen to me? Why, only the other day, he said,‘You are so unlike a scholar’s wife: you lack the least understanding of the value of books. Listen carefully to this story from ancient Rome. It will give you beneficial guidance for your future conduct.’”

“That sounds interesting. What sort of story was it?” Waverhouse becomes enthusiastic, though he appears less sympathetic to her predicament than prompted by sheer curiosity.

“It seems there was in ancient Rome a king named Tarukin.”

“Tarukin? That sounds odd in Japanese.”

“I can never remember the names of foreigners. It’s all too difficult. Maybe he was a barrel of gold. He was, at any rate, the seventh king of Rome.”

“Really? The seventh barrel of gold certainly sounds queer. But, tell me, what then happened to this seventh Tarukin.”

“You mustn’t tease me like that. You quite embarrass me. If you know this king’s true name, you should teach me it. Your attitude,” she snaps at him, “is really most unkind.”

“I tease you? I wouldn’t dream of doing such an unkind thing. It was simply that the seventh barrel of gold sounded so wonderful. Let’s see.

. . a Roman, the seventh king. . . I can’t be absolutely certain but I rather think it must have been Tarquinius Superbus,Tarquin the Proud. Well, it doesn’t really matter who it was. What did this monarch do?”

“I understand that some woman, Sibyl by name, went to this king with nine books and invited him to buy them.”

“I see.”

“When the king asked her how much she wanted, she stated a very high price, so high that the king asked for a modest reduction. Whereupon the woman threw three of the nine books into the fire where they were quickly burnt to ashes.”

“What a pity!”

“The books were said to contain prophecies, predictions, things like that of which there was no other record anywhere.”

“Really?”

“The king, believing that six books were bound to be cheaper than nine, asked the price of the remaining volumes. The price proved to be exactly the same; not one penny less. When the king complained of this outrageous development, the women threw another three books into the fire. The king apparently still hankered for the books and he accordingly asked the price of the last three left. The woman again demanded the same price as she had asked for the original nine. Nine books had shrunk to six, and then to three, but the price remained unaltered even by a farthing.

Suspecting that any attempt to bargain would merely lead the woman to pitch the last three volumes into the flames, the king bought them at the original staggering price. My husband appeared confident that, having heard this story, I would begin to appreciate the value of books, but I don’t at all see what it is that I’m supposed to have learnt to appreciate.”

Having thus stated her own position, she as good as challenges Waverhouse to contravert her. Even the resourceful Waverhouse seems to be at a loss. He draws a handkerchief from the sleeve of his kimono and tempts me to play with it. Then, in a loud voice as if an idea had suddenly struck him, he remarked, “But you know, Mrs. Sneaze, it is precisely because your husband buys so many books and fills his head with wild notions that he is occasionally mentioned as a scholar, or something of that sort. Only the other day a comment on your husband appeared in a literary magazine.”

“Really?” She turns around. After all, it’s only natural that his wife should feel anxiety about comments on my master.

“What did it say?”

“Oh, only a few lines. It said that Mr. Sneaze’s prose was like a cloud that passes in the sky, like water flowing in a stream.”

“Is that,” she asks smiling, “all that it said?”

“Well, it also said ‘it vanishes as soon as it appears and, when it vanishes, it is forever forgetful to return.’”

The lady of the house looks puzzled and asks anxiously “Was that praise?”

“Well, yes, praise of a sort,” says Waverhouse coolly as he jiggles his handkerchief in front of me.

“Since books are essential to his work, I suppose one shouldn’t complain, but his eccentricity is so pronounced that. . .”

Waverhouse assumes that she’s adopting a new line of attack. “True,” he interrupts, “he is a little eccentric, but any man who pursues learning tends to get like that.” His answer, excellently noncommittal, contrives to combine ingratiation and special pleading.

“The other day, when he had to go somewhere soon after he got home from school, he found it too troublesome to change his clothes.

So do you know, he sat down on his low desk without even taking off his overcoat and ate his dinner just as he was. He had his tray put on the footwarmer while I sat on the floor holding the rice container. It was really very funny. . .”

“It sounds like the old-time custom when generals sat down to identify the severed heads of enemies killed in battle. But that would be quite typical of Mr. Sneaze. At any rate he’s never boringly conventional.”

Waverhouse offers a somewhat strained compliment.

“A woman cannot say what’s conventional or unconventional, but I do think his conduct is often unduly odd.”

“Still, that’s better than being conventional.” As Waverhouse moves firmly to the support of my master, her dissatisfaction deepens.

“People are always saying this or that is conventional, but would you please tell what makes a thing conventional?” Adopting a defiant attitude, she demands a definition of conventionality.

“Conventional? When one says something is conventional. . . It’s a bit difficult to explain. . .”

“If it’s so vague a thing, surely there’s nothing wrong with being conventional.” She begins to corner Waverhouse with typically feminine logic.

“No, it isn’t vague, it’s perfectly clear-cut. But it’s hard to explain.”

“I expect you call everything you don’t like conventional.” Though totally uncalculated, her words land smack on target. Waverhouse is now indeed cornered and can no longer dodge defining the conventional.

“I’ll give you an example. A conventional man is one who would yearn after a girl of sixteen or eighteen but, sunk in silence, never do anything about it; a man who, whenever the weather’s fine, would do no more than stroll along the banks of the Sumida taking, of course, a flask of saké with him.”

“Are there really such people?” Since she cannot make heads or tails of the twaddle vouchsafed by Waverhouse, she begins to abandon her position, which she finally surrenders by saying, “It’s all so complicated that it’s really quite beyond me.”

“You think that complicated? Imagine fitting the head of Major Pendennis onto Bakin’s torso, wrapping it up and leaving it all for one or two years exposed to European air.”

“Would that produce a conventional man?” Waverhouse offers no reply but merely laughs.

“In fact it could be produced without going to quite so much trouble.

If you added a shop assistant from a leading store to any middle school student and divided that sum by two, then indeed you’d have a fine example of a conventional man.”

“Do you really think so?” She looks puzzled but certainly unconvinced.

“Are you still here?” My master sits himself down on the floor beside Waverhouse. We had not noticed his return.

“ ‘Still here’ is a bit hard. You said you wouldn’t be long and you yourself invited me to wait for you.”

“You see, he’s always like that,” remarks the lady of the house leaning toward Waverhouse.

“While you were away I heard all sorts of tales about you.”

“The trouble with women is that they talk too much. It would be good if human beings would keep as silent as this cat.” And the master strokes my head.

“I hear you’ve been cramming grated radish into the baby.”

“Hum,” says my master and laughs. He then added “Talking of the baby, modern babies are quite intelligent. Since that time when I gave our baby grated radish, if you ask him ‘where is the hot place?’ he invariably sticks out his tongue. Isn’t it strange?”

“You sound as if you were teaching tricks to a dog. It’s positively cruel. By the way, Coldmoon ought to have arrived by now.”

“Is Coldmoon coming?” asks my master in a puzzled voice.

“Yes. I sent him a postcard telling him to be here not later than one o’clock.”

“How very like you! Without even asking us if it happened to be convenient. What’s the idea of asking Coldmoon here?”

“It’s not really my idea, but Coldmoon’s own request. It seems he is going to give a lecture to the Society of Physical Science. He said he needed to rehearse his speech and asked me to listen to it. Well, I thought it would be obliging to let you hear it, too. Accordingly, I suggested he should come to your house. Which should be quite convenient since you are a man of leisure. I know you never have any engagements.

You’d do well to listen.” Waverhouse thinks he knows how to handle the situation.

“I wouldn’t understand a lecture on physical science,” says my master in a voice betraying his vexation at his friend’s high-handed action.

“On the contrary, his subject is no such dry-as-dust matter as, for example, the magnetized nozzle. The transcendentally extraordinary subject of his discourse is ‘The Mechanics of Hanging.’Which should be worth listening to.”

“Inasmuch as you once only just failed to hang yourself, I can understand your interest in the subject, but I’m. . .”

“. . . The man who got cold shivers over going to the theatre, so you cannot expect not to listen to it.” Waverhouse interjects one of his usual flippant remarks and Mrs. Sneaze laughs. Glancing back at her husband, she goes off into the next room. My master, keeping silent, strokes my head. This time, for once, he stroked me with delicious gentleness.

Some seven minutes later in comes the anticipated Coldmoon. Since he’s due to give his lecture this same evening, he is not wearing his usual get-up. In a fine frock-coat and with a high and exceedingly white clean collar, he looks twenty per cent more handsome than himself. “Sorry to be late.” He greets his two seated friends with perfect composure.

“It’s ages that we’ve now been waiting for you. So we’d like you to start right away. Wouldn’t we?” says Waverhouse, turning to look at my master. The latter, thus forced to respond, somewhat reluctantly says,

“Hmm.” But Coldmoon’s in no hurry. He remarks, “I think I’ll have a glass of water, please.”

“I see you are going to do it in real style. You’ll be calling next for a round of applause.” Waverhouse, but he alone, seems to be enjoying himself.

Coldmoon produced his text from an inside pocket and observed,

“Since it is the established practice, may I say I would welcome criticism.”That invitation made, he at last begins to deliver his lecture.

“Hanging as a death penalty appears to have originated among the Anglo-Saxons. Previously, in ancient times, hanging was mainly a method of committing suicide. I understand that among the Hebrews it was customary to execute criminals by stoning them to death. Study of the Old Testament reveals that the word ‘hanging’ is there used to mean ‘suspending a criminal’s body after death for wild beasts and birds of prey to devour it.’According to Herodotus, it would seem that the Jews, even before they departed from Egypt, abominated the mere thought that their dead bodies might be left exposed at night. The Egyptians used to behead a criminal, nail the torso to a cross and leave it exposed during the night. The Persians. . .”

“Steady on, Coldmoon,” Waverhouse interrupts. “You seem to be drifting farther and farther away from the subject of hanging. Do you think that wise?”

“Please be patient. I am just coming to the main subject. Now, with respect to the Persians. They, too, seemed to have used crucifixion as a method of criminal execution. However, whether the nailing took place while the criminal was alive or simply after his death is not incontrovertibly established.”

“Who cares? Such details are really of little importance,” yawned my master as from boredom.

“There are still many matters of which I’d like to inform you but, as it will perhaps prove tedious for you . . .”

“ ‘As it might prove’ would sound better than ‘as it will perhaps prove.’ What d’you think, Sneaze?” Waverhouse starts carping again but my master answers coldly, “What difference could it make?”

“I have now come to the main subject, and will accordingly recite my piece.”

“A storyteller ‘recites a piece.’An orator should use more elegant diction.”Waverhouse again interrupts.

“If to ‘recite my piece’ sounds vulgar, what words should I use?” asks Coldmoon in a voice that showed he was somewhat nettled.

“It is never clear, when one is dealing with Waverhouse, whether he’s listening or interrupting. Pay no attention to his heckling, Coldmoon, just keep going.” My master seeks to find a way through the difficulty as quickly as possible.

“So, having made your indignant recitation, now I suppose you’ve found the willow tree?” With a pun on a little known haiku, Waverhouse, as usual, comes up with something odd. Coldmoon, in spite of himself, broke into laughter.

“My researches reveal that the first account of the employment of hanging as a deliberate means of execution occurs in the Odyssey, volume twenty-two. The relevant passage records how Telemachus arranged the execution by hanging of Penelope’s twelve ladies-in-waiting. I could read the passage aloud in its original Greek, but, since such an act might be regarded as an affectation, I will refrain from doing so. You will, however, find the passage between lines 465 and 473.”

“You’d better cut out all that Hellenic stuff. It sounds as if you are just showing off your knowledge of Greek. What do you think, Sneaze?”

“On that point, I agree with you. It would be more modest, altogether an improvement, to avoid such ostentation.” Quite unusually my master immediately sides with Waverhouse. The reason is, of course, that neither can read a word of Greek.

“Very well, I will this evening omit those references. And now I will recite. . . that is to say, I will now continue. Let us consider, then, how a hanging is actually carried out. One can envisage two methods. The first method is that adopted by Telemachus who, with the help of Eumaeus and Philoetios, tied one end of a rope to the top of a pillar: next, having made several loose loops in the rope, he forced a woman’s head through each such loop, and finally hauled up hard on the other end of the rope.”

“In short, he had the women dangling in a row like shirts hung out at a laundry. Right?”

“Exactly. Now the second method is, as in the first case, to tie one end of a rope to the top of a pillar and similarly to secure the other end of the rope somewhere high up on the ceiling. Thereafter, several other short ropes are attached to the main rope, and in each of these subsidiary ropes a slip-knot is then tied. The women’s heads are then inserted in the slipknots. The idea is that at the crucial moment you remove the stools on which the women have been stood.”

“They would then look something like those ball-shaped paper-lanterns one sometimes sees suspended from the end-tips of rope curtains, wouldn’t they?” hazarded Waverhouse.

“That I cannot say,” answered Coldmoon cautiously. “I have never seen any such ball as a paper-lantern-ball, but if such balls exist, the resemblance may be just. Now, the first method as described in the Odyssey is, in fact, mechanically impossible; and I shall proceed, for your benefit, to substantiate that statement.”

“How interesting,” says Waverhouse.

“Indeed, most interesting,” adds my master.

“Let us suppose that the women are to be hanged at intervals of an equal distance, and that the rope between the two women nearest the ground stretches out horizontally, right? Now α1, α2 up to α6 become the angles between the rope and the horizon. T1, T2, and so on up to T6 represent the force exerted on each section of the rope, so that T7 = X is the force exerted on the lowest part of the rope. W is, of course, the weight of the women. So far so good. Are you with me?”

My master and Waverhouse exchange glances and say, “Yes, more or less.” I need hardly point out that the value of this “more or less” is singular to Waverhouse and my master. It could possibly have a different value for other people.

“Well, in accordance with the theory of averages as applied to the polygon, a theory with which you must of course be well acquainted, the following twelve equations can, in this particular case, be established:

T1 cos αl=T2 cos α2......(1)

T2 cos α2=T3 cos α3......(2)”

“I think that’s enough of the equations,” my master irresponsibly remarks.

“But these equations are the very essence of my lecture.” Coldmoon really seems reluctant to be parted from them.

“In that case, let’s hear those particular parts of its very essence at some other time.” Waverhouse, too, seems out of his depth.

“But if I omit the full detail of the equations, it becomes impossible to substantiate the mechanical studies to which I have devoted so much effort. . .”

“Oh, never mind that. Cut them all out,” came the cold-blooded comment of my master.

“That’s most unreasonable. However, since you insist, I will omit them.”

“That’s good,” says Waverhouse, unexpectedly clapping his hands.

“Now we come to England where, in Beowulf, we find the word ‘gallows’: that is to say ‘galga.’ It follows that hanging as a penalty must have been in use as early as the period with which the book is concerned.

According to Blackstone, a convicted person who is not killed at his first hanging by reason of some fault in the rope should simply be hanged again. But, oddly enough, one finds it stated in The Vision of Piers Plowman that even a murderer should not be strung up twice. I do not know which statement is correct, but there are many melancholy instances of victims failing to be killed outright. In 1786 the authorities attempted to hang a notorious villain named Fitzgerald, but when the stool was removed, by some strange chance the rope broke. At the next attempt the rope proved so long that his legs touched ground and he again survived. In the end, at the third attempt, he was enabled to die with the help of the spectators.”

“Well, well,” says Waverhouse becoming, as was only to be expected, re-enlivened.

“A true thanatophile.” Even my master shows signs of jollity.

“There is one other interesting fact. A hanged person grows taller by about an inch. This is perfectly true. Doctors have measured it.”

“That’s a novel notion. How about it, Sneaze?” says Waverhouse turning to my master. “Try getting hanged. If you were an inch taller, you might acquire the appearance of an ordinary human being.” The reply, however, was delivered with an unexpected gravity.

“Tell me, Coldmoon, is there any chance of surviving that process of extension by one inch?”

“Absolutely none. The point is that it is the spinal cord which gets stretched in hanging. It’s more a matter of breaking than of growing taller.”

“In that case, I won’t try.” My master abandons hope.

There was still a good deal of the lecture left to deliver and Coldmoon had clearly been anxious to deal with the question of the physiological function of hanging. But Waverhouse made so many and such capriciously-phrased interjections and my master yawned so rudely and so frequently that Coldmoon finally broke off his rehearsal in mid-flow and took his leave. I cannot tell you what oratorical triumphs he achieved, still less what gestures he employed that evening, because the lecture took place miles away from me.

A few days passed uneventfully by. Then, one day about two in the afternoon, Waverhouse dropped in with his usual casual manners and looking as totally uninhibited as his own concept of the “Accidental Child.” The minute he sat down he asked abruptly, “Have you heard about Beauchamp Blowlamp and the Takanawa Incident?” He spoke excitedly, in a tone of voice appropriate to an announcement of the fall of Port Arthur.

“No, I haven’t seen him lately.” My master is his usual cheerless self.

“I’ve come today, although I’m busy, especially to inform you of the frightful blunder which Beauchamp has committed.”

“You’re exaggerating again. Indeed you’re quite impossible.”

“Impossible, never: improbable, perhaps. I must ask you to make a distinction on this point, for it affects my honor.”

“It’s the same thing,” replied my master assuming an air of provoking indifference. He is the very image of a Mr. the-late-and-sainted Natural Man.

“Last Sunday, Beauchamp went to the Sengaku Temple at Takanawa, which was silly in this cold weather, especially when to make such a visit nowadays stamps one as a country bumpkin out to see the sights.”

“But Beauchamp’s his own master. You’ve no right to stop him going.”

“True, I haven’t got the right, so let’s not bother about that. The point is that the temple yard contains a showroom displaying relics of the forty-seven ronin. Do you know it?”

“N-no.”

“You don’t? But surely you’ve been to the Temple?”

“No.”

“Well, I am surprised. No wonder you so ardently defended Beauchamp. But it’s positively shameful that a citizen of Tokyo should never have visited the Sengaku Temple.”

“One can contrive to teach without trailing out to the ends of the city.” My master grows more and more like his blessed Natural Man.

“All right. Anyway, Beauchamp was examining the relics when a married couple, Germans as it happened, entered the showroom. They began by asking him questions in Japanese, but, as you know, Beauchamp is always aching to practice his German so he naturally responded by rattling off a few words in that language. Apparently he did it rather well.

Indeed, when one thinks back over the whole deplorable incident, his very fluency was the root cause of the trouble.”

“Well, what happened?” My master finally succumbs.

“The Germans pointed out a gold-lacquered pill-box which had belonged to Otaka Gengo and, saying they wished to buy it, asked Beauchamp if the object were for sale. Beauchamp’s reply was not uninteresting. He said such a purchase would be quite impossible because all Japanese people were true gentlemen of the sternest integrity. Up to that point he was doing fine. However, the Germans, thinking that they’d found a useful interpreter, thereupon deluged him with questions.”

“About what?”

“That’s just it. If he had understood their questions, there would have been no trouble. But you see he was subjected to floods of such questions, all delivered in rapid German, and he simply couldn’t make head or tail of what was being asked. When at last he chanced to understand part of their outpourings, it was something about a fireman’s axe or a mallet—some word he couldn’t translate—so again, naturally, he was completely at a loss how to reply.”

“That I can well imagine,” sympathizes my master, thinking of his own difficulties as a teacher.

“Idle onlookers soon began to gather around and eventually Beauchamp and the Germans were totally surrounded by staring eyes.

In his confusion Beauchamp fell to blushing. In contrast to his earlier self-confidence he was now at his wit’s end.”

“How did it all turn out?”

“In the end Beauchamp could stand it no longer, shouted sainara in Japanese and came rushing home. I pointed out to him that sainara was an odd phrase to use and inquired whether, in his home-district, people used sainara rather than sayonara. He replied they would say sayonara but, since he was talking to Europeans, he had used sainara in order to maintain harmony. I must say I was much impressed to find him a man mindful of harmony even when in difficulties.”

“So that’s the bit about sainara. What did the Europeans do?”

“I hear that the Europeans looked utterly flabbergasted.” And Waverhouse gave vent to laughter. “Interesting, eh?”

“Frankly, no. I really can’t find anything particularly interesting in your story. But that you should have come here specially to tell me the tale, that I do find much more interesting.” My master taps his cigarette’s ash into the brazier. Just at that moment the bell on the lattice door at the entrance rang with an alarming loudness, and a piercing woman’s voice declared, “Excuse me.” Waverhouse and my master look at each other in silence.

Even while I am thinking that it is unusual for my master’s house to have a female visitor, the owner of that piercing voice enters the room.

She is wearing two layers of silk crepe kimono, and looks to be a little over forty. Her forelock towers up above the bald expanse of her brow like the wall of a dyke and sticks out toward heaven for easily one half the length of her face. Her eyes, set at an angle like a road cut through a mountain, slant up symmetrically in straight lines. I speak, of course, metaphorically. Her eyes, in fact, are even narrower than those of a whale. But her nose is exceedingly large. It gives the impression that it has been stolen from someone else and thereafter fastened in the center of her face. It is as if a large, stone lantern from some major shrine had been moved to a tiny ten-square-meter garden.

It certainly asserts its own importance, but yet looks out of place. It could almost be termed hooked: it begins by jutting sharply out, but then, halfway along its length, it suddenly turns shy so that its tip, bereft of the original vigour, hangs limply down to peer into the mouth below.

Her nose is such that, when she speaks, it is the nose rather than the mouth which seems to be in action. Indeed, in homage to the enormity of that organ, I shall refer hence forward to its owner as Madam Conk.

When the ceremonials of her self-introduction had been completed, she glared around the room and remarked, “What a nice house.”

“What a liar,” says my master to himself, and concentrates upon his smoking. Waverhouse studies the ceiling. “Tell me,” he says, “is that odd pattern the result of a rain leak or is it inherent in the grain of the wood?”

“Rain leak, naturally” replies my master. To which Waverhouse coolly answers, “Wonderful.”

Madam Conk clearly regards them as unsociable persons and boils quietly with suppressed annoyance. For a time the three of them just sit there in a triangle without saying a word.

“I’ve come to ask you about a certain matter.” Madam Conk starts up again.

“Ah.” My master’s response lacks warmth.

Madam Conk, dissatisfied with this development, bestirs herself again. “I live nearby. In fact, at the residence on the corner of the block across the road.”

“That large house in the European style, the one with a godown? Ah, yes. Of course. Have I not seen ‘Goldfield’ on the nameplate of that dwelling?” My master, at last, seems ready to take cognizance of Goldfield’s European house and his incorporated godown, but his attitude toward Madam Conk displays no deepening of respect.

“Of course my husband should call upon you and seek your valued advice, but he is always so busy with his company affairs.” She puts on a “that ought to shift them” face, but my master remains entirely unimpressed. He is, in fact, displeased by her manner of speaking, finding it too direct in a woman met for the first time. “And not of just one company either. He is connected with two or three of them and is a director of them all, as I expect you already know.” She looks as if saying to herself, “Now surely he should feel small.” In point of fact, the master of this house behaves most humbly toward anyone who happens to be a doctor or a professor, but, oddly enough, he offers scant respect toward businessmen. He considers a middle school teacher to be a more elevated person than any businessman. Even if he doesn’t really believe this, he is quite resigned, being of an unadaptable nature, to the fact that he can never hope to be smiled upon by businessmen or millionaires.

For he feels nothing but indifference toward any person, no matter how rich or influential, from whom he has ceased to hope for benefits. He consequently pays not the faintest attention to anything extraneous to the society of scholars, and is almost actively disinterested in the goings-on of the business world. Had he even the vaguest knowledge of the activities of businessmen, he still could never muster the slightest feeling of awe or respect for such abysmal persons. While, for her part, Madam Conk could never stretch her imagination to the point of considering that any being so eccentric as my master could actually exist, that any corner of the world might harbor such an oddity. Her experience has included meetings with many people and invariably, as soon as she declares that she is wife to Goldfield, their attitude towards her never fails immediately to alter. At any party whatsoever and no matter how lofty the social standing of any man before whom she happens to find herself, she has always found that Mrs. Goldfield is eminently acceptable. How then could she fail to impress such an obscure old teacher? She had expected that the mere mention of the fact that her house was the corner residence of the opposite block would startle my master even before she added information about Mr. Goldfield’s notable activities in the world of business.

“Do you know anyone called Goldfield?” my master inquires of Waverhouse with the utmost nonchalance.

“Of course I know him. He’s a friend of my uncle. Only the other day he was present at our garden party.” Waverhouse answers in a serious manner.

“Really?” said my master. “And who, may I ask, is your uncle?”

“Baron Makiyama,” replied Waverhouse in even graver tones. My master is obviously about to say something, but before he can bring himself to words, Madam Conk turns abruptly toward Waverhouse and subjects him to a piercing stare. Waverhouse, secure in a kimono of the finest silk, remains entirely unperturbed.

“Oh, you are Baron Makiyama’s. . . That I didn’t know. I hope you’ll excuse me. . . I’ve heard so much about Baron Makiyama from my husband. He tells me that the Baron has always been so helpful. . .” Madam Conk’s manner of speech has suddenly become polite. She even bows.

“Ah yes,” observes Waverhouse who is inwardly laughing. My master, quite astonished, watches the two in silence.

“I understand he has even troubled the Baron about our daughter’s marriage. . .”

“Has he indeed?” exclaims Waverhouse as if surprised. Even Waverhouse seems somewhat taken aback by this unexpected development.

“We are, in fact, receiving proposal after proposal in respect of marriage to our daughter. They flood in from all over the place. You will appreciate that, having to think seriously of our social position, we cannot rashly marry off our daughter to just anyone. . .”

“Quite so.” Waverhouse feels relieved.

“I have, in point of fact, made this visit precisely to raise with you a question about this marriage matter.” Madam Conk turns back to my master and reverts to her earlier vulgar style of speech. “I hear that a certain Avalon Coldmoon pays you frequent visits. What sort of a man is he?”

“Why do you want to know about Coldmoon?” replies my master in a manner revealing his displeasure.

“Perhaps it is in connection with your daughter’s marriage that you wish to know something about the character of Coldmoon,” puts in Waverhouse tactfully.

“If you could tell me about his character, it would indeed be helpful.”

“Then is it that you want to give your daughter in marriage to Coldmoon?”

“It’s not a question of my wanting to give her.” Madam Conk immediately squashes my master. “Since there will be innumerable proposals, we couldn’t care less if he doesn’t marry her.”

“In that case, you don’t need any information about Coldmoon,” my master replies with matching heat.

“But you’ve no reason to withhold information.” Madam Conk adopts an almost defiant attitude.

Waverhouse, sitting between the two and holding his silver pipe as if it were an umpire’s instrument of office, is secretly beside himself with glee. His gloating heart urges them on to yet more extravagant exchanges.

“Tell me, did Coldmoon actually say he wanted to marry her?” My master fires a broadside pointblank.

“He didn’t actually say he wanted to, but. . .”

“You just think it likely that he might want to?” My master seems to have realized that broadsides are best in dealing with this woman.

“The matter is not yet so far advanced, but. . . well, I don’t think Mr.

Coldmoon is wholly averse to the idea.” Madam Conk rallies well in her extremity.

“Is there any concrete evidence whatsoever that Coldmoon is enamored of this daughter of yours?” My master, as if to say, “now answer me if you can,” sticks out his chest belligerently.

“Well, more or less, yes.” This time my master’s militance has failed in its effect. Waverhouse has hitherto been so delighted with his self-appointed role of umpire that he has simply sat and watched the scrap, but now his curiosity seems suddenly to have been aroused. He puts down the pipe and leans forward. “Has Coldmoon sent your daughter a love letter? What fun! One more new event since the New Year and, at that, a splendid subject for debate.” Waverhouse alone is pleased.

“Not a love letter. Something much more ardent than that. Are you two really so much in the dark?” Madam Conk adopts a disbelieving attitude.

“Are you aware of anything?” My master, looking nonplussed, addresses himself to Waverhouse.

Waverhouse takes refuge in banter. “I know nothing. If anyone should know, it would be you.” His reaction is disappointingly modest.

“But the two of you know all about it,” Madam Conk triumphs over both of them.

“Oh!”The sound expressed their simultaneous astonishment.

“In case you’ve forgotten, let me remind you of what happened. At the end of last year Mr. Coldmoon went to a concert at the Abe residence in Mukōjima, right? That evening, on his way home, something happened at Azuma Bridge. You remember? l won’t repeat the details since that might compromise the person in question, but what I’ve said is surely proof enough. What do you think?” She sits bolt-upright with her diamond-ringed fingers in her lap. Her magnificent nose looks more resplendent than ever, so much so that Waverhouse and my master seem practically obliterated.

My master, naturally, but Waverhouse also, appear dumbfounded by this surprise attack. For a while they just sit there in bewilderment, like patients whose fits of ague have suddenly ceased. But as the first shock of their astonishment subsides and they come slowly back to normality, their sense of humor irrepressibly asserts itself and they burst into gales of laughter. Madam Conk, baulked in her expectations and, ill-prepared for this reaction of rude laughing, glares at both of them.

“Was that your daughter? Isn’t it wonderful! You’re quite right.

Indeed Coldmoon must be mad about her. I say, Sneaze, there’s no point now in trying to keep it secret. Let’s make a clean breast of everything.”

My master just says “Hum.”

“There’s certainly no point in your trying to keep it secret. The cat’s already out of the bag.” Madam Conk is once more cock-a-hoop.

“Yes, indeed, we’re cornered. We’ll have to make a true statement on everything concerning Coldmoon for this lady’s information. Sneaze! you’re the host here. Pull yourself together, man. Stop grinning like that or we’ll never get this business sorted out. It’s extraordinary.

Secretiveness is a most mysterious matter. However well one guards a secret, sooner or later it’s bound to come out. Indeed, when you come to think of it, it really is most extraordinary. Tell us, Mrs. Goldfield, how did you ever discover this secret? I am truly amazed.” Waverhouse rattles on.

“I’ve a nose for these things.” Madam Conk declares with some self-satisfaction.

“You must indeed be very well informed. Who on earth has told you about this matter?”

“The wife of the rickshawman who lives just there at the back.”

“Do you mean that man who owns that vile black cat?” My master is wide-eyed.

“Yes, your Mr. Coldmoon has cost me a pretty penny. Every time he comes here I want to know what he talks about, so I’ve arranged for the wife of the rickshawman to learn what happens and to report it all to me.”

“But that’s terrible!” My master raises his voice.

“Don’t worry, I don’t give a damn what you do or say. I’m not in the least concerned with you, only with Mr. Coldmoon.”

“Whether with Coldmoon or with anyone else. . . Really, that rickshaw woman is a quite disgusting creature.” My master begins to get angry.

“But surely she is free to stand outside your hedge. If you don’t want your conversations overheard, you should either talk less loudly or live in a larger house.” Madam Conk is clearly not the least ashamed of herself. “And that’s not my only source. I’ve also heard a deal of stuff from the Mistress of the two-stringed harp.”

“You mean about Coldmoon?”

“Not solely about Coldmoon.” This sounds menacing but, far from retreating in embarrassment, my master retorts. “That woman gives herself such airs. Acting as though she and she alone were the only person of any standing in this neighborhood. A vain, an idiotic fellow. . .”

“Pardon me! It’s a woman you’re describing. A fellow, did you say?

Believe me, you’re talking out of the back of your neck.” Her language more and more betrays her vulgar origin. Indeed, it now appears as if she has only come in order to pick a quarrel. But Waverhouse, typically, just sits listening to the quarrel as if it were being conducted for his amusement. Indeed, he looks like a Chinese sage at a cockfight: cool and above it all.

My master at last realizes that he can never match Madam Conk in the exchange of scurrilities, and he lapses into a forced silence. But eventually a bright idea occurs to him.

“You’ve been speaking as though it were Coldmoon who was besotted with your daughter, but from what I’ve heard, the situation is quite different. Isn’t that so,Waverhouse?”

“Certainly. As we heard it, your daughter fell ill and then, we understand, began babbling in delirium.”

“No. You’ve got it all wrong.” Madam Conk gives the lie direct.

“But Coldmoon undoubtedly said that that was what he had been told by Dr. O’s wife.”

“That was our trap. We’d asked the Doctor’s wife to play that trick on Coldmoon precisely in order to see how he’d react.”

“Did the doctor’s wife agree to this deception in full knowledge that it was a trick?”

“Yes. Of course we couldn’t expect her to help us purely for affection’s sake. As I’ve said, we’ve had to lay out a very pretty penny on one thing and another.”

“You are quite determined to impose yourself upon us and quiz us in detail about Coldmoon, eh?” Even Waverhouse seems to be getting annoyed for he uses some sharpish turns of phrase quite unlike his usual manner.

“Ah well, Sneaze,” he continues, “what do we lose if we talk? Let’s tell her everything. Now, Mrs. Goldfield, both Sneaze and I will tell you anything within reason about Coldmoon. But it would be more convenient for us if you’d present your questions one at a time.”

Madam Conk was thus at last brought to see reason. And when she began to pose her questions, her style of speech, only recently so coarsely violent, acquired a certain civil polish, at least when she spoke to Waverhouse. “I understand,” she opens, “that Mr. Coldmoon is a bachelor of science. Now please tell me in what sort of subject has he specialized?”

“In his post-graduate course, he’s studying terrestrial magnetism,” answers my master seriously.

Unfortunately, Madam Conk does not understand this answer.

Therefore, though she says, “Ah,” she looks dubious and asks: “If one studies that, could one obtain a doctor’s degree?”

“Are you seriously suggesting that you wouldn’t allow your daughter to marry him unless he held a doctorate?” The tone of my master’s inquiry discloses his deep displeasure.

“That’s right. After all, if it’s just a bachelor’s degree, there are so many of them!” Madam Conk replies with complete unconcern.

My master’s glance at Waverhouse reveals a deepening disgust.

“Since we cannot be sure whether or not he’ll gain a doctorate, you’ll have to ask us something else.”Waverhouse seems equally displeased.

“Is he still just studying that terrestrial something?”

“A few days ago,” my master quite innocently offers, “he made a speech on the results of his investigation of the mechanics of hanging.”

“Hanging? How dreadful! He must be peculiar. I don’t suppose he could ever become a doctor by devoting himself to hanging.”

“It would of course be difficult for him to gain a doctorate if he actually hanged himself, but it is not impossible to become a doctor through study of the mechanics of hanging.”

“Is that so?” she answers, trying to read my master’s expression. It’s a sad, sad thing but, since she does not know what mechanics are, she cannot help feeling uneasy. She probably thinks that to ask the meaning of such a trifling matter might involve her in loss of face. Like a fortuneteller, she tries to guess the truth from facial expressions. My master’s face is glum. “Is he studying anything else, something more easy to understand?”

“He once wrote a treatise entitled ‘A Discussion of the Stability of Acorns in Relation to the Movements of Heavenly Bodies.’”

“Does one really study such things as acorns at a university?”

“Not being a member of any university, I cannot answer your question with complete certainty, but since Coldmoon is engaged in such studies, the subject must undoubtedly be worth studying.” With a dead-pan face,Waverhouse makes fun of her.

Madam Conk seems to have realized that her questions about matters of scholarship have carried her out of her depth, for she changes the subject. “By the way,” she says, “I hear that he broke two of his front teeth when eating mushrooms during the New Year season.”

“True, and a rice-cake became fixed on the broken part.”

Waverhouse, feeling that this question is indeed up his street, suddenly becomes light-hearted.

“How unromantic! I wonder why he doesn’t use a toothpick!”

“Next time I see him, I’ll pass on your sage advice,” says my master with a chuckle.

“If his teeth can be snapped on mushrooms, they must be in very poor condition. What do you think?”

“One could hardly say such teeth were good. Could one, Waverhouse?”

“Of course they can’t be good, but they do provide a certain humor.

It’s odd that he hasn’t had them filled. It really is an extraordinary sight when a man just leaves his teeth to become mere hooks for snagging rice-cakes.”

“Is it because he lacks the money to get them filled or because he’s just so odd that he leaves them unattended to?”

“Ah, you needn’t worry. I don’t suppose he will continue as Mr.

Broken Front Tooth for any long time.” Waverhouse is evidently regaining his usual bouyancy.

Madam Conk again changes the subject. “If you should have some letter or anything which he’s written, I’d like to see it.”

“I have masses of postcards from him. Please have a look at them,” and my master produces some thirty or forty postcards from his study.

“Oh, I don’t have to look at so many of them. . . perhaps two or three would do. . .”

“Let me choose some for you,” offers Waverhouse, adding as he selects a picture postcard, “Here’s an interesting one.”

“Gracious! So he paints pictures as well? Rather clever that,” she exclaims. But after examining the picture she remarks “How very silly!

It’s a badger! Why on earth does he have to paint a badger of all things!

Strange. But it does indeed look like a badger.” She is, albeit reluctantly, mildly impressed.

“Read what he’s written beside it,” suggests my master with a laugh.

Madam Conk begins to read aloud like a servant-girl deciphering a newspaper.

“On New Year’s Eve, as calculated under the ancient calendar, the mountain badgers hold a garden party at which they dance excessively.

Their song says, ‘This evening, being New Year’s Eve, no mountain hikers will come this way.’ And bom-bom-bom they thump upon their bellies. What is he writing about? Is he not being a trifle frivolous?” Madam Conk seems seriously dissatisfied.

“Doesn’t this heavenly maiden please you?” Waverhouse picks out another card on which a kind of angel in celestial raiment is depicted as playing upon a lute.

“The nose of this heavenly maiden seems rather too small.”

“Oh no, that’s about the average size for an angel. But forget the nose for the moment and read what it says,” urges Waverhouse.

“It says ‘Once upon a time there was an astronomer. One night he went as was his wont high up into his observatory, and, as he was intently watching the stars, a beautiful heavenly maiden appeared in the sky and began to play some music; music too delicate ever to be heard on earth. The astronomer was so entranced by the music that he quite forgot the dark night’s bitter cold. Next morning the dead body of the astronomer was found covered with pure white frost. An old man, a liar, told me that this story was all true.’ What the hell is this? It makes no sense, no nothing. Can Coldmoon really be a bachelor of science?

Perhaps he should read a few literary magazines.”Thus mercilessly does Madam Conk lambaste the defenseless Coldmoon.

Waverhouse for fun selects a third postcard and says, “Well then, what about this one?” The card has a sailing boat printed on it and, as usual, there is something scribbled underneath the picture.



Last night a tiny whore of sixteen summers

Declared she had no parents.

Like a plover on a reefy coast,

She wept on waking in the early morning.

Her parents, sailors both, lie at the bottom of the sea.



“Oh, that’s good. How very clever! He’s got real feeling,” erupted Madam Conk.

“Feeling?” says Waverhouse.

“Oh yes,” says Madam Conk. “That would go well on a samisen.

“If it could be played on the samisen, then it’s the real McCoy. Well, how about these?” asks Waverhouse picking out postcard after postcard.

“Thank you, but I’ve seen enough. For now, at least I know that Coldmoon’s not a straight-laced prude.” She thinks she has achieved some real understanding and appears to have no more queries about Coldmoon, for she remarks, “I’m sorry to have troubled you. Please do not report my visit to Mr. Coldmoon.” Her request reflects her selfish nature in that she seems to feel entitled to make a thorough investigation of Coldmoon whilst expecting that none of her activities should be revealed to him. Both Waverhouse and my master concede a half-hearted “Y-es,” but as Madam Conk gets up to leave, she consolidates their assent by saying, “I shall, of course, at some later date repay you for your services.”

The two men showed her out and, as they resumed their seats, Waverhouse exclaimed, “What on earth is that?” At the very same moment my master also ejaculated, “Whatever’s that?” I suppose my master’s wife could not restrain her laughter any longer, for we heard her gurgling in the inner-room.

Waverhouse thereupon addressed her in a loud voice through the sliding door. “That, Mrs. Sneaze, was a remarkable specimen of all that is conventional, of all that is ‘common or garden.’ But when such characteristics become developed to that incredible degree the result is positively staggering. Such quintessence of the common approximates to the unique. Don’t seek to restrain yourself. Laugh to your heart’s content.”

With evident disgust my master speaks in tones of the deepest revulsion. “To begin with,” he says, “her face is unattractive.”

Waverhouse immediately takes the cue. “And that nose, squatting, as it were, in the middle of that phiz, seems affectedly unreal.”

“Not only that, it’s crooked.”

“Hunchbacked, one might say. A hunchbacked nose! Quite extraordinary.” And Waverhouse laughs in genuine delight.

“It is the face of a woman who keeps her husband under her bottom.”

My master still looks resentful.

“It is a sort of physiognomy that, left unsold in the nineteenth century, becomes in the twentieth shop-soiled.”Waverhouse produces another of his invariably bizarre remarks. At which juncture my master’s wife emerges from the inner-room and, being a woman and thus aware of the ways of women, quietly warns them, “If you talk such scandal, the rickshaw-owner’s wife will snitch on you again.”

“But, Mrs. Sneaze, to hear such tattle will do that Goldfield woman no end of good.”

“But it’s self-demeaning to calumniate a person’s face. No one sports that sort of nose as a matter of choice. Besides, she is a woman. You’re going a little too far.” Her defense of the nose of Madam Conk is simultaneously an indirect defense of her own indifferent looks.

“We’re not unkind at all. That creature isn’t a woman. She’s just an oaf. Waverhouse, am I not right?”

“Maybe an oaf, but a formidable character nonetheless. She gave you quite a tousling, didn’t she just?”

“What does she take a teacher for, anyway?”

“She ranks a teacher on roughly the same level as a rickshaw-owner.

To earn the respect of such viragoes one needs to have at least a doctor’s degree. You were ill-advised not to have taken your doctorate. Don’t you agree, Mrs. Sneaze?”Waverhouse looks at her with a smile.

“A doctorate? Quite impossible.” Even his wife despairs of my master.

“You never know. I might become one, one of these days. You mustn’t always doubt my worth. You may well be ignorant of the fact, but in ancient times a certain Greek, lsocrates, produced major literary works at the age of ninety-four. Similarly, Sophocles was almost a centenarian when he shook the world with his masterpiece. Simonides was writing wonderful poetry in his eighties. I, too. . .”

“Don’t be silly. How can you possibly expect, you with your stomach troubles, to live that long.” Mrs. Sneaze has already determined my master’s span of life.

“How dare you! Just go and talk to Dr. Amaki. Anyway, it’s all your fault. It’s because you make me wear this crumpled black cotton surcoat and this patched-up kimono that I am despised by women like Mrs.

Goldfield.Very well then. From tomorrow I shall rig myself out in such fineries as Waverhouse is wearing. So get them ready.”

“You may well say ‘get them ready,’ but we don’t possess any such elegant clothes. Anyway, Mrs. Goldfield only grew civil to Waverhouse after he’d mentioned his uncle’s name. Her attitude was in no way conditioned by the ill-condition of your kimono.” Mrs. Sneaze has neatly dodged the charge against her.

The mention of that uncle appears to trigger my master’s memory, for he turns to Waverhouse and says, “That was the first I ever heard of your uncle. You never spoke of him before. Does he, in fact, exist?”

Waverhouse has obviously been expecting this question, and he jumps to answer it. “Yes, that uncle of mine, a remarkably stubborn man. He, too, is a survival from the nineteenth century.” He looks at husband and wife.

“You do say the quaintest things. Where does this uncle live?” asks Mr.

Sneaze with a titter.

“In Shizuoka. But he doesn’t just live. He lives with a top-knot still on his head. Can you beat it? When we suggest he should wear a hat, he proudly answers that he has never found the weather cold enough to don such gear. And when we hint that he might be wise to stay abed when the weather’s freezing, he replies that four hour’s sleep is sufficient for any man. He is convinced that to sleep more than four hours is sheer extravagance, so he gets up while it’s still pitch-dark. It is his boast that it took many long years of training so to minimize his sleeping hours. ‘When I was young,’ he says,‘it was indeed hard because I felt sleepy, but recently I have at last achieved that wonderful condition where I can sleep or wake, anywhere, anytime, just as I happen to wish.’ It is of course natural that a man of sixty-seven should need less sleep. It has nothing to do with early training, but my uncle is happy in the belief that he has succeeded in attaining his present condition entirely as a result of rigorous self-discipline. And when he goes out, he always carries an iron fan.”

“Whatever for?” asks my master.

“l haven’t the faintest idea. He just carries it. Perhaps he prefers a fan to a walking stick. As a matter of fact an odd thing happened only the other day.”Waverhouse speaks to Mrs. Sneaze.

“Ah yes?” she noncommittally responds.

“In the spring this year he wrote to me out of the blue with a request that I should send him a bowler hat and a frock-coat. I was somewhat surprised and wrote back asking for further clarification. I received an answer stating that the old man himself intended to wear both items on the occasion of the Shizuoka celebration of the war victory, and that I should therefore send them quickly. It was an order. But the quaintness of his letter was that it enjoined me ‘to choose a hat of suitable size and, as for the suit, to go and order one from Daimaru of whatever size you think appropriate.’”

“Can one get suits made at Daimaru?”

“No. I think he’d got confused and meant to say at Shirokiya’s.”

“Isn’t it a little unhelpful to say ‘of whatever size you think appropriate’?”

“That’s just my uncle all over.”

“What did you do?”

“What could I do? I ordered a suit which I thought appropriate and sent it to him.”

“How very irresponsible! And did it fit?”

“More or less, I think. For I later noticed in my home-town newspaper that the venerable Mr. Makiyama had created something of a sensation by appearing at the said celebration in a frock coat carrying, as usual, his famous iron fan.”

“It seems difficult to part him from that object.”

“When he’s buried, I shall ensure that the fan is placed within the coffin.”

“Still it was fortunate that the coat and bowler fitted him.”

“But they didn’t. Just when I was congratulating myself that everything had gone off smoothly, a parcel came from Shizuoka. I opened it expecting some token of his gratitude, but it proved only to contain the bowler. An accompanying letter stated, ‘Though you have taken the trouble of making this purchase for me, I find the hat too large. Please be so kind as to take it back to the hatter’s and have it shrunk. I will of course defray your consequent expenses by postal order.’”

“Peculiar, one must admit.” My master seems greatly pleased to discover that there is someone even more peculiar than himself. “So what did you do?” he asks.

“What did I do? I could do nothing. I’m wearing the hat myself.”

“And is that the very hat?” says my master with a smirk.

“And he’s a Baron?” asks my master’s wife from her mystification.

“Is who?”

“Your uncle with the iron fan.”

“Oh, no. He’s a scholar of the Chinese classics. When he was young he studied at that shrine dedicated to Confucius in Yushima and became so absorbed in the teachings of Chu-Tzu that, most reverentially, he continues to wear a top-knot in these days of the electric light. There’s nothing one can do about it.” Waverhouse rubs his chin.

“But I have the impression that in speaking just now to that awful woman you mentioned a Baron Makiyama.”

“Indeed you did. I heard you quite distinctly, even in the other room.”

Mrs. Sneaze for once supports her husband.

“Oh, did I?” Waverhouse permits himself a snigger. “Fancy that. Well, it wasn’t true. Had I a Baron for an uncle I would by now be a senior civil servant.”Waverhouse is not in the least embarrassed.

“I thought it was somehow queer,” says my master with an expression half-pleased, half-worried.

“It’s astonishing how calmly you can lie. I must say you’re a past master at the game.” Mrs. Sneaze is deeply impressed.

“You flatter me. That woman quite outclasses me.”

“I don’t think she could match you.”

“But, Mrs. Sneaze, my lies are merely tarrydiddles. That woman’s lies, every one of them, have hooks inside them. They’re tricky lies. Lies loaded with malice aforethought. They are the spawn of craftiness.

Please never confuse such calculated monkey-minded wickedness with my heaven-sent taste for the comicality of things. Should such confusion prevail, the God of Comedy would have no choice but to weep for mankind’s lack of perspicacity.”

“I wonder,” says my master, lowering his eyes, while Mrs. Sneaze, still laughing, remarks that it all comes down to the same thing in the end.

Up until now I have never so much as crossed the road to investigate the block opposite. I have never clapped eyes on the Goldfield’s corner residence so I naturally have no idea what it looks like. Indeed today is the first time that I’ve even heard of its existence. No one in this house has ever previously talked about a businessman and consequently I, who am my master’s cat, have shared his total disinterest in the world of business and his equally total indifference to businessmen. However, having just been present during the colloquy with Madam Conk, having overheard her talk, having imagined her daughter’s beauty and charm, and also having given some thought to that family’s wealth and power, I have come to realize that, though no more than a cat, I should not idle all my days away lying on the veranda. Nor only that, I cannot help but feel deep sympathy with Coldmoon. His opponent has already bribed a doctor’s wife, bribed the wife of the rickshaw-owner, bribed even that high-falutin mistress of the two-stringed harp. She has so spied upon poor Coldmoon that even his broken teeth have been disclosed, while he has done no more than fiddle with the fastenings of his surcoat and, on occasion, grin. He is guileless even for a bachelor of science just out of the university. And it’s not just anyone who can cope with a woman equipped with such a jut of nose. My master not only lacks the heart for dealing with matters of this sort, but he lacks the money, too.

Waverhouse has sufficient money, but is such an inconsequential being that he’d never go out of his way merely to help Coldmoon. How isolated, then, is that unfortunate person who lectures on the mechanics of hanging. It would be less than fair if I failed at least to try and insinuate myself into the enemy fortress and, for Coldmoon’s sake, pick up news of their activities. Though but a cat, I am not quite as other cats. I differ from the general run of idiot cats and stupid cats. I am a cat that lodges in the house of a scholar who, having read it, can bang down any book by Epictetus on his desk. Concentrated in the tip of my tail there is sufficient of the spirit of chivalry for me to take it upon myself to venture upon knight-errantry. It is not that I am in any way beholden to poor Coldmoon, nor am I engaging in foolhardy action for the sake of any single individual. If I may be allowed to blow my own trumpet, I am proposing to take magnificent unself-interested action simply in order to realize the will of Heaven that smiles upon impartiality and blesses the happy medium. Since Madam Conk makes impermissible use of such things as the happenings at Azuma Bridge; since she hires underlings to spy and eavesdrop on us; since she triumphantly retails to all and sundry the products of her espionage; since by the employment of rickshaw-folk, mere grooms, plain rogues, student riff-raff, crone daily-help, midwives, witches, masseurs, and other trouble-makers she seeks to trouble a man of talent; for all these reasons even a cat must do what can be done to prevent her getting away with it.

The weather, fortunately, is fine. The thaw is something of nuisance, but one must be prepared to sacrifice one’s life in the cause of justice. If my feet get muddy and stamp plum blossom patterns on the veranda, OSan may be narked but that won’t worry me. For I have come to the superlatively courageous, firm decision that I will not put off until tomorrow what needs to be done today. Accordingly, I whisk off around to the kitchen, but, having arrived there, pause for further thought.

“Softly, softly,” I say to myself. It’s not simply that I’ve attained the highest degree of evolution that can occur in cats, but I make bold to believe my brain is as well-developed as that of any boy in his third year at a middle school. Nevertheless, alas, the construction of my throat is still only that of a cat, and I cannot therefore speak the babbles of mankind. Thus, even if I succeed in sneaking into the Goldfield’s citadel and there discovering matters of moment, I shall remain unable to communicate my discoveries to that Coldmoon who so needs them. Neither shall I be able to communicate my gleanings to my master or to Waverhouse. Such incommunicable knowledge would, like a buried diamond, be denied its brilliance and my hard-won wisdom would all be won for nothing.

Which would be stupid. Perhaps I should scrap my plan. So thinking, I hesitated on the very doorstep.

But to abandon a project halfway through breeds a kind of regret, that sense of unfulfillment which one feels when the slower one had so confidently expected drifts away under inky clouds into some other part of the countryside. Of course, to persist when one is in the wrong is an altogether different matter, but to press on for the sake of so-called justice and humanity, even at the risk of death uncrowned by success, that, for a man who knows his duty, can be a source of the deepest satisfaction. Accordingly, to engage in fruitless effort and to muddy one’s paws on a fool’s errand would seem about right for a cat. Since it is my misfortune to have been born a cat, I cannot by turns of the tip of my tail convey, as I can to cats, my thinking to such scholars as Coldmoon, Sneaze, and Waverhouse. However, by virtue of felinity, I can, better than all such bookmen, make myself invisible. To do what no one else can do is, of itself, delightful. That I alone should know the inner workings of the Goldfield household is better than if nobody should know.

Though I cannot pass my knowledge on, it is still cause for delight that I may make the Goldfields conscious that someone knows their secrets.

In the light of this succession of delights, I boldly make to believe my brain is as delightful as well. All right then. I will go.

Coming to the side street in the opposite block, there, sure enough, I find a Western-style house dominating the crossroads as if it owned the whole area. Thinking that the master of such a house must be no less stuck up than his building, I slide past the gate and examine the edifice. Its construction has no merit. Its two stories rear up into the air for no purpose whatever but to impress, even to coerce, the passersby. This, I suppose, is what Waverhouse means when he calls things common or garden. I slink through some bushes, take note of the main entrance to my right, and so find my way round to the kitchen. As might be expected, the kitchen is large—at least ten times as large as that in my master’s dwelling.

Everything is in such apple pie order, all so clean and shining, that it cannot be less splendid than that fabulous kitchen of Count Okuma so ful-somely described in a recent product of the national press. I tell myself, as I slip inside on silent muddy paws, that this must be “a model kitchen.”

On the plastered part of its floor the wife of the rickshaw-owner is standing in earnest discussion with a kitchen-maid and a rickshaw-runner.

Realizing the dangers of this situation, I hide behind a water-tub.

“That teacher, doesn’t he really even know our master’s name?” the kitchen-maid demands.

“Of course he knows it. Anyone in this district who doesn’t know the Goldfield residence must be a deaf cripple without eyes,” snaps the man who pulls the Goldfield’s private rickshaw.

“Well, you never know. That teacher’s one of those cranks who know nothing at all except what it says in books. If he knew even the least little thing about Mr. Goldfield he might be scared out of his wits. But he hasn’t the wits to be scared out of. Why,” snorts Blacky’s bloody-minded mistress, “he doesn’t even know the ages of his own mis-managed children.”

“So he’s not afraid of our Mr. Goldfield! What a cussed clot he is!

There’s no call to show him the least consideration. Let’s go around and give him something to be scared about.”

“Good idea! He says such dreadful things. He was telling his crackpot cronies that, since Madam’s nose is far too big for her face, he finds her unattractive. No doubt he thinks himself a proper picture, but his mug’s the spitting image of a terra-cotta badger. What can be done, I ask you, with such an animal?”

“And it isn’t only his face. The way he saunters down to the public bathhouse carrying a hand towel is far too high and mighty. He thinks he’s the cat’s whiskers.” My master Sneaze seems notably unpopular, even with this kitchen-maid.

“Let’s all go and call him names as loud as we can from just outside his hedge.”

“That’ll bring him down a peg.”

“But we mustn’t let ourselves be seen. We must spoil his studying just with shouting, getting him riled as much as we can. Those are Madam’s latest orders.”

“I know all that,” says the rickshaw wife in a voice that makes it clear that she’s only too ready to undertake one-third of their scurrilous assignment. Thinking to myself, “So that’s the gang who’re going to ridicule my master,” I drift quietly past the noisesome trio and penetrate yet further into the enemy fortress.

Cat’s paws are as if they do not exist. Wheresoever they may go, they never make clumsy noises. Cats walk as if on air, as if they trod the clouds, as quietly as a stone going light-tapped under water, as an ancient Chinese harp touched in a sunken cave. The walking of a cat is the instinctive realization of all that is most delicate. For such as I am concerned, this vulgar Western house simply is not there. Nor do I take cognizance of the rickshaw-woman, manservant, kitchen-maids, the daughter of the house, Madam Conk, her parlor-maids or even her ghastly husband. For me they do not exist. I go where I like and I listen to whatever talk it interests me to hear. Thereafter, sticking out my tongue and frisking my tail, I walk home self-composedly with my whiskers proudly stiff. In this particular field of endeavor there’s not a cat in all Japan so gifted as am I. Indeed, I sometimes think I really must be blood-kin to that monster cat one sees in ancient picture books. They say that every toad carries in its forehead a gem that in the darkness utters light, but packed within my tail I carry not only the power of God, Buddha, Confucius, Love, and even Death, but also an infallible panacea for all ills that could bewitch the entire human race. I can as easily move unnoticed through the corridors of Goldfield’s awful mansion as a giant god of stone could squash a milk-blancmange.

At this point, I become so impressed by my own powers and so conscious of the reverence I consequently owe to my own most precious tail that I feel unable to withhold immediate recognition of its divinity. I desire to pray for success in war by worshiping my honored Great Tail Gracious Deity, so I lower my head a little, only to find I am not facing in the right direction. When I make the three appropriate obeisances I should, of course, as far as it is possible, be facing toward my tail. But as I turn my body to fulfill that requirement, my tail moves away from me.

In an effort to catch up with myself, I twist my neck. But still my tail eludes me. Being a thing so sacred, containing as it does the entire universe in its three-inch length, my tail is inevitably beyond my power to control. I spun round in pursuit of it seven and a half times but, feeling quite exhausted, I finally gave up. I feel a trifle giddy. For a moment I lose all sense of where I am and, deciding that my whereabouts are totally unimportant, I start to walk about at random. Then I hear the voice of Madam Conk. It comes from the far side of a paper-window. My ears prick up in sharp diagonals and, once more fully alert, I hold my breath.

This is the place which I set out to find.

“He’s far too cocky for a penny-pinching usher,” she’s screaming in that parrot’s voice.

“Sure, he’s a cocky fellow. I’ll have a bit of the bounce taken out of him, just to teach him a lesson. There are one or two fellows I know, fellows from my own province, teaching at his school.”

“What fellows are those?”

“Well, there’s Tsuki Pinsuke and Fukuchi Kishago for a start. I’ll arrange with them for him to be ragged in class.”

I don’t know from what province old man Goldfield comes, but I’m rather surprised to find it stiff with such outlandish names.

“Is he a teacher of English?” her husband asks.

“Yes. According to the wife of the rickshaw-owner, his teaching specializes in an English Reader or something like that.”

“In any case, he’s gotta be a rotten teacher.”

I’m also struck by the vulgarity of that “gotta be” phraseology.

“When I saw Pinsuke the other day he mentioned that there was some crackpot at his school. When asked the English word for bancha, this fathead answered that the English called it, not ‘coarse tea’ as they actually do, but ‘savage tea.’ He’s now the laughing stock of all his teaching colleagues. Pinsuke added that all the other teachers suffer for this one’s follies.Very likely it’s the self-same loon.”

“It’s bound to be. He’s got the face you’d expect on a fool who thinks that tea can be savage. And to think he has the nerve to sport such a dashing mustache!”

“Saucy bastard.”

If whiskers establish sauciness, every cat is impudent.

“As for that man Waverhouse—Staggering Drunk I’d call him—he’s an obstreperous freak if ever I saw one. Baron Makiyama, his uncle indeed! I was sure that no one with a face like his could have a baron for an uncle.”

“You, too, are at fault for believing anything which a man of such dubious origins might say.”

“Maybe I was at fault. But really there’s a limit and he’s gone much too far.” Madam Conk sounds singularly vexed. The odd thing is that neither mentions Coldmoon. I wonder if they concluded their discussion about him before I sneaked up on them or whether perhaps they had earlier decided to block his marriage suit and had therefore already forgotten all about him. I remain disturbed about this question, but there’s nothing I can do about it. For a little while I lay crouched down in silence but then I heard a bell ring at the far end of the corridor. What’s up down there? Determined this time not to be late on the scene, I set out smartly in the direction of the sound.

I arrived to find some female yattering away by herself in a loud unpleasant voice. Since her tones resemble those of Madam Conk, I deduce that this must be that darling daughter, that delicious charmer for whose sake Coldmoon has already risked death by drowning.

Unfortunately, the paper-windows between us make it impossible for me to observe her beauty and I cannot therefore be sure whether she, too, has a massive nose plonked down in the center of her face. But I infer from her mannerisms, such as the way she sounds to be turning up her nose when she talks, that that organ is unlikely to be an inconspicuous pug-nose. Though she talks continuously, nobody seems to be answering, and I deduce that she must be using one of those modern telephones.

“Is that the Yamato? I want to reserve, for tomorrow, the third box in the lower gallery. All right? Got it? What’s that? You can’t? But you must.

Why should I be joking? Don’t be such a fool. Who the devil are you?

Chōkichi? Well, Chōkichi, you’re not doing very well. Ask the proprietress to come to the phone. What’s that? Did you say you were able to cope with any possible inquiries? How dare you speak to me like that?

D’you know who I am? This is Miss Goldfield speaking. Oh, you’re well aware of that, are you? You really are a fathead. Don’t you understand, this is the Goldfield. Again? You thank us for being regular patrons? I don’t want your stupid thanks. I want the third box in the lower gallery.

Don’t laugh, you idiot. You must be terribly stupid. You are, you say? If you don’t stop being insolent, I shall just ring off. You understand? I can promise you you’ll be sorry. Hello. Are you still there? Hello, hello.

Speak up. Answer me. Hello, hello, hello.” Chōkichi seems to have hung up, for no answer is forthcoming. The girl is now in something of a tizzy and she grinds away at the telephone handle as though she’s gone off her head. A lapdog somewhere around her feet suddenly starts to yap, and, realizing I’d better keep my wits about me, I quickly hop off the veranda and creep in under the house.

Just then I hear approaching footsteps and the sound of a paper-door being slid aside. I tilt my head to listen.

“Your father and mother are asking for you, Miss.” It sounds like a parlor-maid.

“So who cares?” was the vulgar answer.

“They sent me to fetch you because they’ve something they want to tell you.”

“You’re being a nuisance. I said I just don’t care.” She snubs the maid once more.

“They said it’s something to do with Mr. Coldmoon.” The maid tries tactfully to put this young vixen into a better humor.

“I couldn’t care less if they want to talk about Coldmoon or Piddlemoon. I abominate that man with his daft face looking like a bewildered gourd.” Her third sour outburst is directed at the absent Coldmoon. “Hello,” she suddenly goes on, “when did you start dressing your hair in the Western style?”

The parlor-maid gulps and then replies as briefly as she can “Today.”

“What sauce. A mere parlor-maid, what’s more.” Her fourth attack comes in from a different direction. “And isn’t that a brand new collar you’ve got on?”

“Yes, it’s the one you gave me recently. I’ve been keeping it in my box because it seemed too good for the likes of me, but my other collar became so grubby I thought I’d make the change.”

“When did I give it you?”

“It was January you bought it. At Shirokiya’s. It’s got the ranks of sumō wrestlers set out as decoration on the greeny-brown material. You said it was too somber for your style. So you gave it me.”

“Did I? Well, it certainly looks nice on you. How very provoking!”

“I’m much obliged!”

“I didn’t intend a compliment. I’m very much put out.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“Why did you accept something which so very much becomes you without letting me know that it would?”

“But Miss. . .”

“Since it looks that nice on you, it couldn’t fail, could it, to look more nice on me?”

“I’m sure it would have looked delightful on you.”

“Then why didn’t you say so? Instead of that, you just stand there wearing it when you know I’d like it back. You little beast.” Her vituperations seem to have no end. I was wondering what would happen when, from the room at the other end of the house, old man Goldfield himself suddenly roared out for his daughter. “Opula,” he bellowed.

“Opula, come here.” She had no choice but to obey and mooched sulkily out of the room containing the telephone. Her lapdog, slightly bigger than myself with its eyes and mouth all bunched together in the middle of its revolting mug, slopped along behind her.

Thereupon, with my usual stealthy steps, I tiptoed back to the kitchen and, through the kitchen-door, found my way to the street, and so back home. My expedition has been notably successful.

Coming thus suddenly from a beautiful mansion to our dirty little dwelling, I felt as though I had descended from a sunlit mountaintop to some dark dismal grot. Whilst on my spying mission. I’d been far too busy to take any notice of the ornaments in the rooms, of the decoration of the sliding-doors and paper-windows or of any similar features, but as soon as I returned and became conscious of the shabbiness of home, I found myself yearning for what Waverhouse claims to despise. I am inclined to think that, after all, there’s a good deal more to a businessman than there is to a teacher. Uncertain of the soundness of this thinking, I consult my infallible tail. The oracle confirms that my thinking is correct.

I am surprised to find Waverhouse still sitting in my master’s room.

His cigarette stubs, stuffed into the brazier, make it look like a beehive.

Comfortably cross-legged on the floor, he is, as usual, talking. It appears, moreover, that during my absence Coldmoon has dropped in.

My master, his head pillowed on his arms, lies flat on his back rapt in contemplation of the pattern of the rainmarks on the ceiling. It is another of those meetings of hermits in a peaceful reign.

“Coldmoon, my dear fellow, I seem to remember that you insisted upon maintaining as the darkest of dark secrets the name of that young lady who called your name from the depths of her delirium. But surely the time has now come when you could reveal her identity?”

Waverhouse begins to niggle Coldmoon.

“Were it just solely my concern, I wouldn’t mind telling you, but since any such disclosure might compromise the other party. . .”

“So you still won’t tell?”

“Besides, I promised the Doctor’s wife. . .”

“Promised never to tell anyone?”

“Yes,” says Coldmoon back at his usual fiddling with the strings of his surcoat. The strings are a bright purple, objects of a color one could never nowadays find in any shop.

“The color of those strings is early nineteenth century” remarks my supine master. He is genuinely quite indifferent to anything that concerns the Goldfields.

“Quite. It couldn’t possibly belong to these times of the Russo-Japanese War. That kind of string would be appropriate only to the garments worn by the rank and file of soldiers under the Shogunate. It is said that on the occasion of his marriage, nearly four hundred years ago, Oda Nobunaga dressed his hair back in the fashion of a tea whisk, and I have no doubt his projecting top-knot was bound with precisely such a string.” Waverhouse goes, as usual, all around the houses to make his little point.

“As a matter of fact, my grandfather wore these strings at the time, not forty years back, when the Tokugawa were putting down the last rebellion before the restoration of the Emperor.” Coldmoon takes it all dead seriously.

“Isn’t it then about time you presented those strings to a museum?

For that well-known lecturer on the mechanics of hanging, that leading bachelor of science, Mr. Avalon Coldmoon to go around looking like a relic of mediaevalism would scarcely help his reputation.”

“I myself would be only too ready to follow your advice. However, there’s a certain person who says that these strings do specially become me. . .”

“Who on earth could have made such an imperceptive comment?”

asks my master in a loud voice as he rolls over onto his side.

“A person not of your acquaintance.”

“Never mind that. Who was it?”

“A certain lady.”

“Gracious me, what delicacy! Shall I guess who it is? I think it’s the lady who whimpered for you from the bottom of the Sumida River. Why don’t you tie up your surcoat with those nice purple strings and go on out and get drowned again?” Waverhouse offers a helpful suggestion.

Coldmoon laughs at the sally. “As a matter of fact she no longer calls me from the riverbed. She is now, as it were, in the Pure Land, a little northwest from here. . .”

“Don’t hope for too much purity. That ghastly nose looks singularly unwholesome.”

“Eh?” says Coldmoon, looking puzzled.

“The Archnose from over the way has just been round to see us. Yes, right here. I can tell you we had quite a surprise. Hadn’t we, Sneaze?”

“We had,” replies my master still lying on his side but now sipping tea.

“Whom do you mean by the Archnose?”

“We mean the honorable mother of your ever-darling lady.”

“Oh!”

“A woman calling herself Mrs. Goldfield came round here asking all sorts of questions about you.” My master, clarifying the situation, speaks quite seriously.

I watch poor Coldmoon, wondering if he will be surprised or pleased or embarrassed, but in fact he looks exactly as he always does. And in his accustomed quiet tones he comments “I suppose she’s asking if I’ll marry the daughter? Was that it?” and he goes on twisting and untwisting his purple strings.

“Far from it! That mother happens to own the most enormous nose. . .” But before Waverhouse could finish his sentence my master interrupted him with a sudden irrelevance.

“Listen,” he chirps, “I’ve been trying to compose a new-style haiku on that snout of hers.” Mrs. Sneaze begins to giggle in the next room.

“You’re taking it all extremely lightly! And have you composed your poem?”

“I’ve made a start. The first line goes ‘A Conker Festival takes place in this face.’”

“And then?”

“‘At which one offers sacred wine.’”

“And the concluding line?”

“I’ve not yet got to that.”

“Interesting,” says Coldmoon with a grin.

“How about this for the missing line?” improvises Waverhouse. “‘Two orifices dim.’”

Whereupon Coldmoon offers, “‘So deep no hairs appear.’”

They were thus thoroughly enjoying themselves by proposing wilder and wilder lines when from the street beyond the hedge came the voices of several people shouting “Where’s that terra-cotta badger? Come on out, you terra-cotta badger. Terra-cotta badger! Yah!”

Both my master and Waverhouse look somewhat startled and they peer out through the hedge. Loud hoots of derisive laughter are followed by the sound of footsteps running away.

“Whatever can they mean by a terra-cotta badger?”Waverhouse asks in puzzled tones.

“I’ve no idea,” replies my master.

“An unusual occurrence,” says Coldmoon.

Waverhouse suddenly gets to his feet as if he had remembered something. “For some several lustra,” he declaims in parody of the style of public lecturers, “I have devoted myself to the study of aesthetic nasofrontology and I would accordingly now like to trespass on your time and patience in order to present certain interim conclusions at which I have arrived.” His initiative has been so suddenly taken that my master just stares up at him in silent blank amazement.

Coldmoon’s tiniest voice observes, “I’d love to hear your interim conclusions.”

“Though I have made a thorough study of this matter, the origin of the nose remains, alas, still deeply obfuscated. The first question that arises reflects the assumption that the nose is intended for use. The functional approach. If that premise is valid, would not two mere vent-holes meet the case? There is no obvious need either for such arrogant profusion or for the nasal arrogation of a median position in the human physiognomy. Why then should the nasal organ thus,” and he paused to pinch his own, “thrust itself forward?”

“Yours doesn’t stick out much,” cuts in my master rather rudely.

“At any rate it has no indentations, no incurvations; still less could it be described as countersunk or infundibular. I draw your attention to these facts because if you fail to make the necessary distinction between having two holes in the medio-frontal area of the face and having two such holes in some form of protuberance, you will inevitably be unable to follow the quintessential drift of my dissertation. Now, it is at least my own, albeit humble, opinion that it is by an accumulation of human actions trifling in themselves, for who could attach major importance to the blowing of one’s nose, that the organ in question has developed into its present phenomenal form.”

“How very humbly you do hold your humble views,” interjects my master.

“As you will know, the act of blowing the nose involves the coarctation of that organ. Such stenosis of the nose, such astrictive and, one might even venture to say, pleonastic stimulation of so localized an area results, by response to that stimulus and in accordance with the well-established principles of Lamarckian evolutionary theory, in the development of that specific area to a degree disproportionate to the development of other areas. The epidermis of the affected area inevitably indurates and the subcutaneous material so coagulates as eventually to ossify.”

“That’s a bit extreme. Surely you can’t turn flesh to bone just by blowing your nose.” Coldmoon, as behoves a bachelor of science, lodges a protest. Waverhouse continues to deliver his speech with the utmost nonchalance.

“I can well appreciate your natural dubieties, but the proof of the pudding is the eating. For, behold, there is bone there, and that bone has demonstrably been molded. Nevertheless, and despite that bone, one snivels. If one snivels one has to blow the nose, and in the course of that action both sides of the bone get worn away until the nose itself acquires the shape of a high and narrow bulge. It is indeed a terrifying process.

But just as little taps of dropping water will eventually bore through granite, so has the high, straight ridge of the nasal organ been smithied by incessant nose-blows. Thus painfully was fangled the hard straight line on one’s face.”

“But yours is flabby.”

“I deliberately refrain from any discussion of this particular feature as it may be observed in the physiognomy of the lecturer himself; for such a purely personal approach involves the dangers of self-exculpation, the temptation to gloss over, even to defend, one’s individual defects or deficiencies. But the nose of the honorable Mrs. Goldfield is such that I would wish to bring it to your attention as the most highly developed of its kind, the most egregiously rare object, in the world.”

Coldmoon cries out in spontaneous admiration. “Hear, hear.”

“But anything whatever that develops to an extreme degree becomes thereby intimidating. Even terrifying. Spectacular it may be, but simultaneously awesome, unapproachable. Thus the bridge of that lady’s nose, though certainly magnificent, appears to me unduly rigid, unacceptably steep. If one pauses to consider the nature of the noses of the ancients, it seems probable that those of Socrates, Oliver Goldsmith, and William Thackeray were strikingly imperfect from the structural point of view, but those very imperfections had their own peculiar charms. This is, no doubt, the intellection behind the saying that a nose, like a mountain, is not significant because it is high but because it is odd. Similarly, the popular catch-phrase that ‘dumplings are better than nosegays’ is no doubt a corruption of some yet more ancient adage to the effect that dumplings are better than noses. From which it follows that, viewed aesthetically, the nose of Citizen Waverhouse is just about right.”

Coldmoon and my master greet this fantastication with peals of appreciative laughter, and even Waverhouse joins in.

“Now, the piece I have just been reciting. . .”

“Distinguished speaker, I must object to your use of the phrase ‘reciting a piece’: a somewhat vulgar word one would only expect from a storyteller.” Coldmoon, catching Waverhouse in the use of language which only recently Waverhouse had criticized, feels himself revenged.

“In which case, sir, and having with your gracious permission purged myself of error, I would now like to touch upon the matter of the proper proportion between the nose and its associated face. If I were simply to discuss noses in disregard of their relation to other entities, then I would declare without fear of contradiction that the nose of Mrs.

Goldfield is superb, superlative, and, though possibly supervacaneous, one well-placed to win first prize at any exhibition of nasal development which might be organized by the long-nosed goblins on Mount Kurama.

But alas! And even alack! That nose appears to have been formed, fashioned, dare I say fabricated, without any regard for the configuration of such other major items as the eyes and mouth. Julius Caesar was undoubtedly dowered with a very fine nose. But what do you think would be the result if one scissored off that Julian beak and fixed it on the face of this cat here? Cats’ foreheads are proverbially diminutive. To raise the tower of Caesar’s boned proboscis on such a tiny site would be like plonking down on a chessboard the giant image of Buddha now to be seen at Nara. The juxtaposing of disproportionate elements destroys aesthetic value. Mrs. Goldfield’s nose, like that of Caesar’s, is, as a thing in itself, a most dignified and majestic protuberance. But how does it appear in relation to its surroundings? Of course those circumjacent areas are not quite so barren of aesthetic merit as the face of this cat.

Nevertheless, it is a bloated face, the face of an epileptic skivvy whose eyebrows meet in a sharp-pitched gable above thin tilted eyes.

Gentlemen, I ask you, what sort of nose could ever survive so lamentable a face?”

As Waverhouse paused, a voice could be heard from the back of the house. “He’s still going on about noses. What a spiteful bore he is.”

“That’s the wife of the rickshaw-owner,” my master explains to Waverhouse.

Waverhouse resumes. “It is a great, if unexpected, honor for this present lecturer to discover at, as it were, the back of the hall an interested listener of the gentle sex. I am especially gratified that a gleam of charm should be added to my arid lecture by the bell-sweet voice of this new participant. It is, indeed, a happiness unlooked for, a serendipity. To be worthy of our beautiful lady’s patronage I would gladly alter the academic style of this discourse into a more popular mode, but, as I am just about to discuss a problem in mechanics, the unavoidably technical terminology may prove a trifle difficult for the ladies to comprehend. I must therefore beg them to be patient.”

Coldmoon responds to the mention of mechanics with his usual grin.

“The point I wish to establish is that such a nose and such a face will never harmonize. In brief, they cannot conform to Zeising’s rule of the Golden Section, a fact which I propose to prove by use of a mechanical formula. We should first designate H as the height of the nose, and α as the angle between the nose and the level surface of the face. Please note that W is, of course, the weight of the nose. Are you with me thus far?”

“Hardly,” breathes my master.

“Coldmoon, what about you?”

“I, too, am slightly at a loss.”

“You distress me, Coldmoon. Sneaze doesn’t matter, but I’m shocked that you, a bachelor of science, should fail to understand. This formula is a key part of my lecture. To abandon this portion of my argument must render the whole endeavor pointless. However, such things can’t be helped. I’ll omit the formula and merely deliver the peroration.”

“Is there a peroration?” asks my master in genuine curiosity.

“Why, naturally! A lecture without a peroration is like a Western dinner shorn of the dessert. Now, listen, both of you, carefully. I am launching on my peroration. Gentlemen, if one reflects upon the theory which I have advanced on this occasion and gives due weight to the related theories of Virchow and of Wisemen, one is bound also to take appropriate account of the problem of the heredity of congenital form.

Furthermore, though there is a substantial body of evidence to support the contention that acquired characteristics are not hereditarily transmissible, one cannot lightly dismiss the view that the mental conditions associated with hereditarily transmissible forms are themselves also transmissible. It is consequently reasonable to assume that a child born to the possessor of a nose of such enormity will have an abnormal nose.

Because Coldmoon is still young, he has not noticed any particular abnormality in the structure of Miss Goldfield’s nasal organ. But the genes lurk. The products of heredity take long to incubate. One never knows. Perhaps it would need no more than a sharp change of climate for the daughter’s snout suddenly to germinate and, in a mere instant, to tumesce into a replica of that of her most honorable mother. In sum, I believe that in the light of my theoretical demonstration, it would seem prudent to forswear any idea of this marriage. Now, while it is still possible to do so. I would go so far as to claim that, quite apart from the master of this house, even his monstrous cat asleep among us, would not dissent my conclusions.”

My master sits up at last. “Of course,” he says “no one in his senses would ever marry a daughter of that creature! Really, my dear Coldmoon,” he insists in real earnest, “you simply must not marry her.”

I seek in my own humble way to second all these sentiments by mewing twice. Coldmoon, however, does not seem to be particularly alarmed. “If you two sages share that opinion, I would be prepared to give her up, but it would be cruel if the consequent distress brought the person in question into poor health.”

“That,” burbled Waverhouse happily, “might even be regarded as a sort of sex crime.”

Only my master continues to take the matter seriously. “Don’t joke about such things. That girl wouldn’t wither away, not if she’s the daughter of that forward and presumptuous creature who strove to humiliate me from the moment she set an uninvited foot in my house.” My master again works himself up into a great huff.

At which point there is a further outbreak of laughter from, by the sound of it, three or four people on the far side of the hedge. A voice says, “You’re a stuck-up blockhead.” Another jeers, “I bet you’d like to live in a bigger house.”A third loud voice announces, “Ain’t it a pity! You swagger around but you’re only a silly old windbag.”

My master goes out on to the veranda and shouts with matching violence, “Hold your tongues. What do you think you’re doing making this sort of disturbance so close to my property?”

The laughter gets even louder. “Hark at him. It’s silly old Savage Tea.

Savage Tea. Savage Tea.”They set up an abusive chant.

My master, looking furious, turns abruptly, snatches up his stick and rushes out into the street.

Waverhouse claps his hands in pure delight. “Up guards and at ’em” he shouts, urging my master on.

Coldmoon sits and grins, twisting his purple fastening-strings.

I follow my master and, as I crawl out through a gap in the hedge, find him standing in the middle of the street with his stick held awkwardly in his hand. Apart from him, the street is empty. I cannot help but feel that he’s been made to make a ninny of himself.


Volume 2

 I

IT HAS become my usual practice to I sneak into the Goldfields’ mansion. I won’t expand upon the meaning of my use of “usual,” which is merely a word expressing the square of “often.” What one does once, one wants to do again, and things tried twice invite a third experience. This sense of enquiry is not confined to humanity, and I must ask you to accept that every cat born into this world is endowed with this psychological peculiarity. Just as in the human case, so with cats: once we’ve done a thing more than three times over, the act becomes a habit and its performance a necessity of our daily life. If you should happen to wonder why I so often visit the Goldfield place, let me first address a modest enquiry to mankind. Why do human beings breathe smoke in through the mouth and then expel it through the nose? Since such shameless inhalation and exhalation can do little to ease the belly’s hunger and less to cure giddiness, I do not see why a race of habitual smokers should dare to offer criticism of my calls on the Goldfields. That house is my tobacco.

To say that I “sneak in” gives a misleading impression: it sounds vaguely reprehensible, a term to be used for the self-insinuations of thieves and clandestine lovers. Though it is true that I am not an invited guest, I do not go to the Goldfields’ in order to snitch a slice of bonito or for a cozy chat with that disgusting lapdog whose eyes and nose are convulsively agglomerated in the center of its face. Hardly! Or are you suggesting that I visit there for the sheer love of snooping? Me, a detective?

You must be out of your mind! Among the several most degrading occupations in this world, there are, in my opinion, none more grubby than those of the detective and the money-lender. It is true that once, for Coldmoon’s sake, I displayed a chivalrous spirit unbecoming in a cat and kept an indirectly watchful eye on the Goldfields’ goings on. It was but once that I acted with such ill-placed kind-heartedness, and since that isolated occasion I have done nothing whatsoever that could bring a twinge to the conscience of the most pernickety cat. In which case, you may ask, why did I describe my own actions with such an unpleasantly suggestive phrase as “to sneak in?” I have my own good reasons, but their explanation involves analysis in depth.

In the first place it is my opinion that the sky was made to shelter all creation, and that the earth was made so that all things created that were able to stand might have something to stand on. Even those human beings who love argument for the arguing’s sake could surely not deny this fact. Next we may ask to what extent did human effort contribute to the creation of heaven and earth, and the answer is that it contributed nothing. What right, then, do human beings hold to decide that things not of their own creation nevertheless belong to them? Of course the absence of right need not prevent such creatures from making that decision, but surely there can be no possible justification for them prohibiting others from innocent passage in and out of so-called human property. If it be accepted that Mr. So-and-so may set up stakes, fence off sections of this boundless earth, and register that area as his own, what is to prevent such persons from roping off blue sky, from staking claims on heaven, an enclosure of the air? If natural law permitted proprietorial parceling-out of the land and its sale and purchase at so much the square foot, then it would also permit partition of the air we breathe at so much the cubic unit and its three-dimensional sale. If, however, it is not proper to trade in sky, if enclosure of the empyrean is not regarded as just in natural law, then surely it must follow that all land-ownership is unnatural and irrational. That, in fact, is my conviction, therefore I enter wherever I like. Naturally, I do not go anywhere where I do not want to go: but, provided they are in the direction I fancy, all places are alike to me. I slope along as it suits me, and feel no inhibition about entering the properties of people like the Goldfields if I happen to want to. However, the sad fact is that, being no more than a cat, I cannot match mankind in the crude matter of simple physical strength. In this real world the saying that “might is right” has very real force; so much so that no matter how sound my arguments may be, the logic of cats will not command respect. Were I to press the argument too far, I should be answered, like Rickshaw Blacky, with a swipe from a fishmonger’s pole. In situations where reason and brute force are opposed and one may choose either to submit by a perversion of reason or to achieve one’s reasonable ends by outwitting the opposition, I would, of course, adopt the latter course. If one is not to be maimed with bamboo poles, one must put up with things: one must press on. Thus, since the concept of trespass is irrational, and since “sneaking in” is only a form of “pressing on,” I am prepared to describe my visits as sneaking in.

Though I have no wish whatsoever to spy upon the Goldfields, inevitably, as the number of my visits mount, I get to know things about that family which I’d rather not have known and I see happenings which, willy-nilly, I cannot purge from my memory. I am, for instance, regretfully aware that when Madam Conk dabs water on her face she wipes her nose with inordinate care; that Miss Opula persistently gluts herself on rice-cakes dusted with bean-flour; and that old man Goldfield, in striking contrast with his wife, has a nose as flat as a pancake. Indeed, not just his nose, but his whole face is flat. It is a face so leveled one suspects that when he was a lad he must have got into a fight with the strong boy of some children’s gang who, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck, rammed his face so hard against a plaster wall that even now, forty years on, his squashed and crumpled features are a living memento of that unlucky day. Though it is certainly an extremely peaceful, even a harmless, face, it is somewhat lacking in variety. However much that face becomes infuriated, still it stays flat. I came to learn, moreover, that old man Goldfield likes tuna fish, sliced and raw, and that whenever he eats that delicacy, he pats himself on his own bald pate with a plashy, pattering sound. Further, because his body is as squat as his face is flat, he affects tall hats and high-stepped wooden clogs; facts which his personal rickshawman finds so vastly entertaining that he’s always yattering on about them to the houseboy who, for his part, finds such sharp accuracy of observation impressively remarkable. I could go on forever with such details of the Goldfields’ goings-on.

It has become my practice to enter the garden by the back-gate and to survey the lie of the land from the cover of a small artificial mound helpfully constructed there for decorative purposes. Having made sure that everything is quiet and that all the paper-windows are slid shut, I gingerly creep forward and hop up onto the veranda. But if I hear lively voices or consider there’s a risk that I might be seen from within, I mosey off eastward around the pond, nip past the lavatory and finish up, safe and unobserved, under the veranda. My conscience is in no way troubled, I’ve nothing to hide and no reason to be scared of anything whatsoever, but I’ve learnt what to expect if one should have the vile ill-luck to run up against one of those lawless and disorderly bipeds. Were the human world cram-jammed with robber-toughs as violent as that long-departed villain, Kumasaka Chōhan, then even the most illustrious and virtuous of men would act as cautiously as I do. Inasmuch, as old man Goldfield is a dignified sort of businessman, I wouldn’t expect him to come after me with any such dirty great sword, five feet, three inches of it they tell me, as Kumasaka was wont to brandish. However, from what I’ve seen and heard, Goldfield has his own unpleasant quirks and is certainly not disposed to accept that a man’s a man for a’ that. If Goldfield is overbearing with his fellowmen, how would he treat a cat? A cat, as I keep on saying, is also a cat for a’ that, but given Goldfield’s nature, even a feline of the most upright virtues would be wise to adopt a low posture and a very cautious attitude once inside the Goldfield premises.

This very need to be constantly on the qui vive is, I find, delightful, and my taste for danger explains why I make these frequent risky visits. I will give further and careful thought to this fascinating point and, when I have completed my analysis of cat-mentality, I will publish the results.

What’s up today, I wonder, as I settle my chin against the grass on top of the garden-hillock and survey the prospect spread below me. The doors of their ample drawing room are open wide to the full spring day and I can see, inside, the Goldfields busily engaged in conversation with a guest. I am somewhat daunted by the fact that Madam Conk’s proboscis is pointed directly in my direction: it glares across the pond straight at my unprotected forehead. This is my first experience of being glared at by a nose. Facing his guest, old man Goldfield presents himself to my gaze in full profile. My eyes are spared one half of his flattened features but, for the same profilic reason, the location of his nose is indeterminable, and it is only because one can see where his grayish-white moustache sprouts raggedly from the flesh that one can deduce that the vent-holes of his nostrils must be gaping closely thereabove. I amuse myself with the reflection that the light spring breeze might well blow on forever if it encountered no more formidable obstruction than that jutless physiognomy. Of the three, the Goldfields’ guest has the most normal features but, precisely because of their regularity, there’s no facial peculiarity I see reason to point out. For anything to be regular suggests that the thing’s all right, but regularity can be so utterly regular as to become, by its very ulteriority, mediocre and of no account, which is extremely pitiable.

I wonder who he is, this unfortunate fellow fated to be born in this glorious reign behind so meaningless a phiz. My curiosity can’t be satisfied unless I crawl more close and, in my accustomed manner, establish myself underneath the veranda and listen to what is said. So under it I go.

“. . .and my wife actually took the trouble to call on the man to ask for information.”As usual, old man Goldfield speaks in an arrogant manner. The manner is certainly prideful, but his voice contains no hint of sharpness. It gives, like his face, an impression of massive flatness.

“I see. So he’s the fellow who used to teach your Mr. Avalon Coldmoon. I see, I see. Yes, yours is a good idea. . . Indeed, I see.” This guest is positively overflowing with “I see’s.”

“But somehow my wife’s approaches all proved pretty pointless.”

“No wonder. Sneaze is not strong on point. Even in the days when he and I shared digs and looked after ourselves, his lack of point, his lack of resolution, were painfully extreme. You must,” he said, turning to Madam Conk, “have had a difficult time.”

“Difficult! That’s hardly the word. Never in my life have I made a visit and been so badly treated.” As is her ugly custom, Madam Conk snorts storm-winds down her snout.

“Did he say anything rude to you? He’s always been obstinate, a real old stick-in-the-mud. He’s been teaching that English Reader for years without a break, so you can imagine. . .” With what charm and tact this guest is making himself agreeable.

“He is beyond help. I understand that every time my wife asked a question, she received a blunt rebuff.”

“What impudence! As I see it, persons of some small education tend to grow conceited and, if they happen also to be poor, their characters become as bitter as sour grapes. Indeed, some people in that condition turn truly quite absurd. For no reason at all, they flare up at persons of wealth as if unconscious of their own total ineffectiveness. It’s quite astonishing how they behave; as if the rich had robbed them personally of things they never owned.”The guest’s laughter rang out affectedly, but he certainly seems delighted with himself.

“Scandalous behavior! It’s because they know nothing of the world that they carry on so outrageously. So I thought I’d have him taken down a peg or two. It’s time he learned how many beans make six.”

“I see. Splendid. That should have shaken him up a bit. Done him no end of good.” Goldfield is smothered in his guest’s congratulations, even though that sycophant still lacks the least idea of the kind of rod which Goldfield’s put in pickle for poor Sneeze.

“But really, Mr. Suzuki, Sneaze is impossible. D’you know,” said Madam Conk, “down at his school he won’t exchange two words with our friend, Mr. Fukuchi? Nor, come to think of it, with Mr. Tsuki either.

We’d thought he’d learnt his lesson and was keeping quiet because he knew he’s been sat on, but, would you believe it, only the other day we heard he’d been chasing after our harmless houseboy with a walking stick!

Just imagine that. He’s a man of thirty. No sane grown-up could act in such a way. Perhaps,” she ended hopefully, “despair has driven him dotty.”

“But what can have driven him to such an act of violence?”Their guest seems mystified that Sneaze could act so firmly.

“Nothing much really. It seems that our houseboy happened to be passing Sneaze’s place, made some innocent remark, and, before you could say Jack Robinson, Sneaze came rushing out in his bare feet and began lashing around with his stick. Whatever the houseboy may have said, he is, after all, no more than a boy. But Sneaze is a bearded man and, what’s more, supposed to be a teacher.”

“Some teacher,” says the guest.

“Some teacher,” echoed Goldfield.

It would seem that this precious trio has reached complete agreement that, if one happens to be a teacher, one should, like some wooden statue, grin and bear whatever insults anyone cares to offer.

“And then,” said Madam Conk, “there’s that fibbing crank called Waverhouse. I’ve never heard a man tell such a stream of whoppers. All quite pointless, but all f lat lies. Really, I’ve never clapped eyes on such a loony in my life.”

“Waverhouse? Yes, he seems to be bragging on as usual. Was he also there when you called on Sneaze? He, too, can be a tricky customer. He was another of our group in digs. I remember I was always having rows with him on account of his incessant, ill-judged mockery and his warped sense of humor.”

“A man like that would rile a saint. We all, of course, tell lies, sometimes out of loyalty, sometimes by demand of the occasion, and in such circumstances anyone may fairly bend the truth. But that man Waverhouse tells his lies for no good reason at all. What can one do with a man like that? I just can’t see how he brings himself to rattle off such reams of barefaced balderdash. What does he expect to gain by it?”

“You’ve hit the nail on the head. There’s nothing one can do when a man tells lies for a hobby.”

“I made a special visit to that miserable house to ask no more than the normal questions about Avalon that any mother would, but all my efforts came to nothing; they vexed me and they put me down. But all the same, I felt obliged to do the decent thing, so afterward I sent our rickshawman around with a dozen bottles of beer. Can you imagine what happened? That saucy usher Sneaze had the cheek to order our man to take the bottles away because, so he said, he saw no reason why he should accept them. Our fellow pressed him to take the bottles as a token of our appreciation. So then Sneaze said that he liked jam but reckoned beer too bitter. Then he just shut the door and went off back to his room. Now can you beat that? How damned rude can one get?”

“That’s terrible.” The guest seems, this time genuinely, to think it’s really terrible.

After a brief pause I hear the voice of old man Goldfield. “And that’s, in fact, precisely why we’ve asked you here today. It’s something, of course, to make fun of that fool Sneaze behind his back, but that sort of thing doesn’t entirely suit our present purpose. . .” Splash, spatter; spatter, spatter, splash. He’s patting his pate as though he’s just been eating sliced, raw tuna fish. Of course, being tucked away underneath the veranda, I cannot actually see him beating that wet tattoo on the skin of his hairless head, but I’ve seen so much of him lately that, just as a priestess in a temple gets to recognize the sound of each particular wooden gong, so I can tell, from the quality of the sound, even though I’m under the floor, when old man Goldfield takes to drumming on his skull.

“And it occurred to me to ask for your assistance in this matter. . .”

“If I can be of any service, please don’t hesitate to ask me. After all, it’s entirely due to your kind influence that I have had the great good fortune to be transferred to the Tokyo office.” Their guest is so obviously anxious to oblige that he must be another of those many persons under obligation to return some form of help to Goldfield. Well, well, so the plot thickens. I wandered out today simply because the weather was so wonderful, and I certainly had not expected to stumble upon such exciting news of planned skulduggery. It is as though one had gone to the family temple dutifully intending to feed the Hungry Dead, only to find oneself invited to a right old lash-up of rice-cake dumplings and bean-paste jam in the private room of a priest. Wondering what kind of assistance will be sought from this client-guest, I prick my ears to listen.

“Don’t ask me to explain it, but that nitwitted teacher keeps planting crazy notions in the head of young Coldmoon: like, for instance, hinting that he shouldn’t marry any daughter of mine.” He turned to his wife.

“That’s what he hinted, didn’t he?”

“Hinting’s not the word. He said flat out ‘No one in his senses would ever marry a daughter of that creature. Coldmoon,’ he said,‘you simply mustn’t marry her.’”

“Well, blow me down. Did he really have, the brazen cheek to speak of me as a creature? Did he really pitch it as strong as that?”

“Not half he didn’t. The wife of the rickshaw-man came around double-quick just to be sure I knew.”

“Well, there you are, Suzuki. That man Sneaze is getting to be a nuisance, wouldn’t you agree?”

“How extremely irritating. Marriage negotiations are not matters in which to meddle lightly. Surely even a dunderhead like Sneaze ought to have the common sense to know that. Really, the whole thing’s beyond my comprehension.”

“In your undergraduate days you lived in the same boarding-house as Sneaze, and, though things may have changed by now, I understand that you two then used to be pretty pally. Now, what I want you to do is to go and see Sneaze and try to talk some reason into him. He may be feeling offended, but if he is, it’s really all his own fool fault. If he plays ball, I’d be willing to give him generous help with his personal affairs, and we would, of course, lay off annoying him. But if he keeps on gumming things up the way he’s so far done, it will only be natural if I find ways of my own to settle his meddlesome hash. In short, it just won’t pay him to go on acting obstinate.”

“How very right you are. Continued resistance on his part would be idiotic. It could bring him no possible profit and could well cause him loss. I’ll do my best to make him understand.”

“One more thing. Since there are many other suitors for our daughter, I can’t make any firm promise of giving her to Coldmoon, but you could usefully go so far as to hint that, if he studies hard and gets his degree in the near future, he stands a chance of winning her.”

“That should encourage him to buckle down to study. All right, I’ll do as you wish.”

“One last thing. It may sound odd, but what especially sticks in my gullet is the way that Coldmoon, who’s supposed to be so smart, laps up everything that Sneaze lets drop, and even goes around addressing that crack-brained ninny as though he were some kind of sage professor.

Of course, since Coldmoon’s not the only man we are considering for Opula, such unbecoming conduct is not of vast importance.

Nevertheless. . .”

“You see,” squawked Madam Conk, butting in on her husband’s careful sentence, “it’s just that we’re sorry for Coldmoon.”

“I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting the gentleman, but, since to marry into your distinguished family would be to ensure a lifetime’s happiness, I’m quite convinced that he himself could not possibly wish other than the marriage.”

“You’re absolutely right,” said Madam Conk. “Coldmoon’s keen to marry her. It’s only that numbskull Sneaze and his crackpot crony Waverhouse who keep throwing spanners in the works.”

“Most reprehensible. Not the style of behavior one expects from any reasonable, well-educated person. I’ll go and talk with Sneaze.”

“Please do, we’d be most grateful. Remember, too, that Sneaze knows better than anyone else what Coldmoon’s really like. As you know, during her recent call my wife failed to dig out anything much worth knowing. If in addition to ascertaining details of his scholastic talent and all that stuff, you could also find out more about Coldmoon’s character and conduct, I’d be particularly obliged.”

“Certainly. Since it’s Saturday today, Sneaze must be home by now.

Where does he live, I wonder,” says Suzuki.

“You turn right from our place, then turn left at the end of the road.

About one block along, you’ll see a house with a tumbled down black fence. That,” said Madam Conk, “is it.”

“So it’s right here in this neighborhood! Then it should be easy. I’ll go and see him on my way home. It will be simple to identify the house by the name plate.”

“You may, or you may not, find his name plate on display. I understand he uses one or two grains of cooked rice to stick his visiting card on his wooden gate. When it rains, of course, the cardboard comes unstuck. Then on some convenient sunny day he’ll paste another card in place. So you can’t be sure that his name plate will be up. It’s hard to see why he keeps to such a trouble some routine when the obvious thing to do is to hang up a wooden name board. But that,” sighed Madam Conk, “is just another example of his general cussedness.”

“Astonishing,” remarked Suzuki, “but I’ll find the place in any case by asking for the house with the black fence in a state of disrepair.”

“Oh yes, you’ll find it easily enough. There’s not another house in the whole neighborhood quite so filthy-looking. Wait a minute! I’ve just remembered something else. Look for a house with weeds growing out of the roof. It’s impossible to miss.”

“In fact, a quite distinguished residence,” said Suzuki and, laughing, took his leave.

It would not suit my book to have Suzuki beat me home. I’ve already overheard as much as I need to know; so, still concealed beneath the veranda, I retrace my steps to the lavatory where, turning west, I briefly break cover to get back behind the hillock and, under its concealment, regain the safety of the street. A brisk cattrot soon brings me to the house with the weed-grown roof where, with the utmost nonchalance, I hopped up onto our own veranda.

My master had spread a white woolen blanket on the wooden boards and was lying there, face down, with the sunshine of this warm spring day soaking into his back. Sunshine, unlike other things, is distributed fairly. It falls impartially upon the rich and the poor. It makes a squalid hut, whose only distinctions are the tufts of shepherd’s purse sprouting from its roof, no less gaily warm than, for all its solid comfort, the Goldfields’ mansion. I am, however, obliged to confess that that blanket jars with the day’s spring feeling. No doubt its manufacturer meant that it should be white. No doubt, too, it was sold as white by some haberdasher specializing in goods imported from abroad. No less certainly, my master must have asked for a white blanket at the time he bought it. But all that happened twelve or thirteen years ago, and since that far-off Age of White, the blanket has declined into a Dark Age where its present color is a somber gray. No doubt the passage of time will eventually turn it black, but I’d be surprised if the thing survived that long. It is already so badly worn that one can easily count the individual threads of its warp and woof. Its wooliness is gone and it would be an exaggeration, even a presumption, to describe this scrawny half-eroded object as a blanket. A “blan,” possibly; even a “ket,” but a full-blown “blanket,” no. However, my master holds, or at least appears to hold, that anything which one has kept for a year, two years, five years, and eventually for a decade, must then be kept for the rest of one’s natural life. One would think he were a gypsy. Anyway, what’s he doing, sprawled belly-down on that remnant of the past? He lies with his chin stuck out, its jut supported on a crotch of hands, with a lighted cigarette projecting from his right-hand fingers.

And that is all he’s doing. Of course inside his skull, deep below the dandruff, universal truths may be spinning around in a shower of fiery sparks like so many Catherine Wheels. It’s possible but, judging from his external appearance, not likely even in one’s wildest imaginings.

The cigarette’s lit tip is steadily burning down and an inch of ash, like some gray caddis-case, plopped down onto the blanket. My master, ignoring that declension, stares intently at the rising smoke. Stirred by the light spring breeze, the smoke floats up in loops and vortices, finally to gather in a kind of clinging haze around the ends of his wife’s just-washed black hair. Gentle reader, please accept my apologies. I had completely forgotten to mention that lady’s presence.

Mrs. Sneaze is sitting so that her bottom presents itself before her husband’s face. You think that impolite? Speaking for myself I would not call it so. Both courtesy and discourtesy depend on one’s point of view.

My master is lying perfectly at ease with his cupped face in close proximity to his wife’s bottom: he is neither disturbed by its proximity nor concerned at his own conduct. His wife is equally composed to position her majestic bum bang in her husband’s face. There is neither the slightest hint nor intention of discourtesy. They are simply a much-married couple who, in less than a year of wedlock, sensibly disengaged themselves from the cramps of etiquette. Mrs. Sneaze seems to have taken advantage of the exceptionally fine weather to give her pitch-black hair a really thorough wash with a concoction made from raw eggs and some special kind of seaweed. Somewhat ostentatiously, she has let her long straight hair hang loose around her shoulders and all the way down her back, and sits, busy and silent, sewing a child’s sleeveless jacket. In point of fact, I believe it is purely because she wants to dry her hair that she’s brought both her sewing-box and a flattish cushion made from some all-woolen muslin out here. It is similarly to present her hair at the best angle to the sun that, deferentially, she presents her bottom to her spouse. That’s my belief, but it may, of course, be that my master moved to intrude his face where her bum already was.

Now, to return to that business of the cigarette smoke, my master lay watching with fascinated absorption the way in which the smoke, floating upward through his wife’s abundant and now loosened hair, was itself combed into an appearance of filaments of blue-gray air. However, it is in the nature of smoke to go on rising, so that my master’s fascination with this singular spectacle of hair-entangled smoke compels him, lest he miss any phase of its development, steadily to lift his gaze. His eyes, first leveled on her hips, move up her back, over her shoulders, and along her neck. And it was after his concentrated stare had completed the ascent of her neck and was focused on the very crown of her head that he suddenly let out an involuntary gasp of surprise.

For there, on the very summit of the lady whom he had promised to love and cherish till death did them part, was a large round patch of baldness. That unexpected nakedness, catching the clear spring sunshine, threw back the light and shone with an almost braggart self-confidence. My master’s eyes remain fixed open in surprise at this dazzling discovery and, disregarding the danger of such brightness to his own uncovered retinal tissue, he continues to goggle at her skin’s bright mirror. The image that then immediately shot into my master’s mind was of that dish on which stood the taper set before the altar in the household shrine handed down in his family for untold generations. My master’s family belongs to the Shin sect of Buddhism, a sect in which it is the established custom to lay out substantial sums, more indeed than most of its adherents can afford, on household shrines. My master suddenly remembers how, when he was a very small boy, he first saw the shrine in the family safe-room. It was a miniature shrine, somber though thickly gilded, in which a brass taper-dish was hanging. From the burning taper a faint light shone, even in the day time, on the rounded dish.

Bright against the shrine’s general darkness, that image of the shining dish, seen in his childhood time and time again, leapt back into his mind as he gaped at his wife’s bald patch. But that first remembrance quickly vanished, to be replaced by memories of the pigeons at the Kannon Temple in Asakusa. There seems no obvious connection between temple doves and Mrs. Sneaze’s gleaming scalp, but in my master’s mind the association of images is clear and very close. It, again, is an association deriving from his early childhood. Whenever then he was taken to that temple, he would buy peas for the pigeons. The peas cost less than a farthing a saucer. The saucers, made of an unglazed reddish clay, were remarkably similar, both in size and color, to his wife’s bare patch.

“Astonishingly similar.” The words escape from his lips in tones of an awed wonder.

“What is?” says his wife without even turning toward him.

“What is? There’s a big bald patch on the crown of your head. Did you know?”

“Yes,” she answers, still not interrupting her sewing. She seems not the least embarrassed by his discovery. A model wife, at least in point of imperturbability.

“Was it there before we married or did it crop up later?”Though my master does not come out with an open accusation, he clearly sounds as if he would regard himself as having been tricked into marriage if the bald patch was, in fact, present in her maidenhood.

“I don’t remember when I got it. Not that it matters. Whatever difference could a bald patch make?” Quite the philosopher, isn’t she just.

“Not that it matters! But it’s your own hair that we’re talking about.”

My master speaks with a certain sharpness.

“It’s just because it is my own hair that it doesn’t matter.” An effective answer, but she may have been feeling slightly self-conscious for she lifted her right hand gently to stroke the spot. “Oh dear,” she said, “it’s got much bigger. I hadn’t realized that.” Her tone conceded that the patch was larger than would be normal at her age and, now driven onto the defensive, she added, “Once one starts doing one’s hair in the married style, the strands at the crown come under a very real strain. All married women lose hair from the top of the head.”

“If all married women lost hair at your rate, by the time they were forty they’d be bald as kettles. You must have caught some kind of disease. Maybe it’s contagious. You’d better go round and have it looked at by Dr. Amaki before things go too far,” says my master, carefully stroking his own head.

“That’s all very well, but what about you? White hairs in your nostrils! If baldness is contagious, white hairs will be catching.” Mrs. Sneaze begins to go over to the attack.

“A single, white hair in the nostrils is obviously harmless, and it doesn’t even show. But fox-mange on the crown of the head cannot be ignored. It is, especially in the case of a young woman, positively unsightly. It’s a deformity.”

“If you think I’m deformed, why did you marry me? It was you who wanted the marriage, yet now you call me deformed. . .”

“For the simple reason that I didn’t know. Indeed, I was unaware of your condition until this very day. If you want to make an issue of it, why didn’t you reveal your naked scalp to me before we got married?”

“What a silly thing to say! Where in the world would you find a place where girls had to have their scalps examined before they could get married?”

“Well, the baldness might be tolerable but you’re also uncommonly dumpy, and that is certainly unsightly.”

“There’s never been anything hidden about my height. You knew perfectly well when you married me that I’m slightly on the short side.”

“Of course I knew, but I’d thought you might extend a bit, and that’s why I married you.”

“How could anyone grow taller after the age of twenty? Are you trying to make a fool of me? Eh?” She drops the sleeveless jacket and, twisting around to face her husband, gives him a threatening look as if to say,

“Now watch your step, you go too far, and you’ll be sorry.”

“There is surely no law forbidding people from growing taller after the age of twenty. I cherished a faint hope that, if I fed you up on decent food, you might prolong yourself.” With every appearance of meaning what he said, my master was about to develop his curious reasoning, when he was cut off by a sharp ringing of the doorbell followed by a loud shout of “Hello.” Snuffling after the scent of that shepherd’s purse on the roof, the dogged Suzuki seems at last to have tracked down Sneaze’s den.

My master’s wife, temporarily postponing their domestic row, snatches up the jacket and her sewing-box and vanishes into an inner room. My master scrabbles his gray blanket up into a ball and slings it into the study. The maid brings in the visitor’s card and gives it to my master, who, having read it, looks a little surprised. Then, having told the maid to show the visitor in, he goes off into the lavatory with the card still clasped in his hand. If it is beyond one’s comprehension that he should thus suddenly take to the loo, it is even more difficult to explain why he should have taken with him the visiting-card of Suzuki Tōjūrō. It is, in any case, very hard luck on the soul of that visiting-card that it should have to accompany him to that noisome place.

The maid deposits a printed, cotton cushion on the floor in front of the alcove-recess, invites the guest to be seated in that place of honor, and then removes herself. Suzuki first inspects the room. He begins by examining the scroll displayed in the alcove: its Chinese characters, allegedly written by Mokuan, that master calligrapher of the Zen sect, are, of course, faked, but they state that flowers are in bloom and that spring is come to all the world. He next tarns his attention to some early-flowering cherry-blossoms arranged in one of those celadon vases which they turn out cheap in Kyoto. Then, when his roving glance chances to fall upon the cushion provided for his particular convenience, what should he find but, planted serenely smack in its center, a squatting cat. I need hardly add that the cat in question is my lordly self.

It was at this point that the first quick tremor of tension, a ripple so small it did not show on his face, quaked in Suzuki’s mind. That cushion had undoubtedly been provided for himself but before he could sit down on it, some strange animal, without so much as a by-your-leave, had dispossessed him of the seat of honor and now lay crouched upon it with an air of firm self-confidence. This was the first consideration to disturb the composure of his mind. In point of fact, had the cushion remained unoccupied, Suzuki would probably have sought to demonstrate his modesty by resting his rump on the hard matfloor until such time as my master himself invited its transfer to the comfort of the cushion. So who the hell is this that has so blithely appropriated the cushion which was destined, sooner or later, to have eased Suzuki buttocks? Had the interloper been a human being, he might well have given way. But to be pre-empted by a mere cat, that is intolerable. It is also a little unpleasant.

This minor animality of his dissedation was the second consideration to disturb the composure of Suzuki’s mind. There was, moreover, something singularly irritating about the very attitude of the cat. Without the least small twitch-sign of apology, the cat sits arrogantly on the cushion it has filched and, with a cold glitter in its unamiable eyes, stares up into Suzuki’s face as if to say, “And who the hell are you?” This is the third consideration to ruffle Suzuki’s composure. Of course if he’s really irked, he ought to jerk me off the cushion by the scruff of my neck. But he doesn’t. He just watches me in silence. It is inconceivable that any creature as massive and muscular as man could be so afraid of a cat as not to dare to bring crude force to bear in any clash of wills. So why doesn’t Suzuki express his dislike by turfing me off the cushion with summary dispatch? The reason is, I think, that Suzuki is inhibited by his own conception of the conduct proper to a man. When it comes to the use of force any child three feet tall can, and will, fling me about quite easily. But a full-grown man, even Suzuki Tōjūrō, Goldfield’s right-hand man, cannot bring himself to raise a finger against this Supreme Cat Deity ensconced upon the holy ground of a cotton cushion two feet square. Even though there were no witnesses, a man would regard it as beneath his dignity to scuffle with a cat for possession of a cushion. One would make oneself ridiculous, even a figure of farce, if one degraded oneself to the level of arguing with a cat. For Suzuki, the price of this human estimate of human dignity is to endure a certain amount of discomfort in the nates, but precisely because he feels he must endure it, his hatred of the cat is proportionately increased. When, every now and again he looks at me, his face exudes distaste. Since I find it amusing to see such wry distortion of his features, I do my best myself to maintain an air of innocence and resist the temptation to laugh.

While this pantomime was still going on, my master left the lavatory and, having tidied himself up, came in and sat down. “Hello,” he said.

Since the visiting card is no longer in his hand, the name of Suzuki Tōjūrō must have been condemned to penal servitude for life in that evil-smelling place. Almost before I could feel sorry for the visiting card’s ill-luck, my master, saying, “Oh, you!” grabs me by the scruff of my neck and hurls me out to land with a bang on the veranda.

“Do take this cushion. You’re quite a stranger. When did you come up to Tokyo?” My master offers the cushion to his old friend, and Suzuki, having turned it catside-down, dumps himself upon it.

“As I’ve been so busy I haven’t let you know, but I was recently transferred back to our main office in Tokyo.”

“That’s splendid. We haven’t seen each other for quite a long while.

This must be the first time since you went off to the provinces?”

“Yes, nearly ten years ago. Actually, I did sometimes come up to Tokyo, but as I was always flooded with business commitments, I simply couldn’t manage to get round to see you. I do hope you won’t think too badly of me. But, unlike your own profession, a business firm is honestly very busy.”

“Ten years make big changes,” observes my master, looking Suzuki up and down. His hair is neatly parted. He wears an English-made tweed suit enlivened by a gaudy tie. A bright gold watch chain glitters from his waistcoat. All these sartorial touches make it hard to credit that this can really be one of Sneaze’s friends.

“Well, one gets on. Indeed, I’m now virtually obliged to sport such things as this. . .” Suzuki seems a little self-conscious about the vulgarly fashionable display of his watch chain.

“Is that thing real?” My master poses his question with the minimum of tact.

“Solid gold. Eighteen carat,” Suzuki answers, smilingly smug. “You, too,” he continued, “seem to have aged. Am I right in thinking you’ve children now? One? Am I right?”

“No.”

“Two?”

“No.”

“What, more? Three, then, is it?”

“Yes, I have three children now, and I don’t know how many more to come in the future.”

“Still as whimsical as ever. How old is your eldest? Quite big, I suppose.”

“Yes, I’m not quite sure how old, but probably six or seven.”

Suzuki laughed. “It must be pleasant to be a teacher, everything so free and easy. I wish I too had taken up teaching.”

“Just you try. You’d be sorry in three days.”

“I don’t know. It seems a good kind of life: refined and not too stressful, plenty of spare time, and the opportunity to really study one’s own special interest. Being a businessman is not bad, either, though at my present level things aren’t particularly satisfactory. If one becomes a businessman, one has to get to the top. Anywhere lower on the ladder, you have to go around spouting idiotic flatteries and drinking saké with the boss when there’s nothing you want less. Altogether, it’s a stupid way of life.”

“Ever since my school days I’ve always taken a scunner to businessmen. They’ll do anything for money. They are, after all, what they used to be called in the good old days: the very dregs of society.” My master, with a businessman right there in front of him, indulges in tactlessness.

“Oh, have a heart. They aren’t always like that. Admittedly, there’s a certain coarseness about them; for there’s no point in even trying to be a businessman unless your love for money is so absolute that you’re ready to accompany it on the walk to a double suicide. For money, believe you me, is a hard mistress and none of her lovers are let off lightly. As a matter of fact, I’ve just been visiting a businessman and, according to him, the only way to succeed is to practice the ‘triangled technique’: try to escape your obligations, annihilate your kindly feelings, and geld yourself of the sense of shame. Try-an-geld. You get it? Jolly clever, don’t you think?”

“What awful fathead told you that?”

“He’s no fathead. Smart as a whip, in fact. And increasingly respected in business circles. I rather fancy you know him. He lives up a side street just around the corner.”

“You mean that frightful Goldfield?”

“Goodness me, but you’re really getting worked up. He only meant it, you know, as a kind of joke. It’s simply a way of summarizing the fact that to make money one must go through hell. So please don’t take a joke too seriously.”

“His ‘triangled technique’ may, I grant, be a joke: let’s say it’s screamingly funny. But what about his wife and her nauseating nose? If you’ve been to their house you could hardly have avoided colliding with that beak.”

“Ah, Mrs. Goldfield. She seems a sensible woman of broad understanding.”

“Damn her understanding. I’m talking about her nose. Her nose, Suzuki, it’s a positive monstrosity. Only the other day I composed a haitai poem about it.”

“What the dickens is a haitai poem?”

“Do you mean to say you’ve never heard of the current experiments in the composition of extended haiku?You do seem cut off from what’s going on in the world.”

“True. When one is as busy as I am, it’s absolutely impossible to keep up with things like literature. Anyway, even when a lad, I never liked it much.”

“Are you aware of the shape of Charlemagne’s nose?”

“You are indeed in a whimsical mood.” Suzuki laughed quite naturally. “Of course I haven’t the faintest idea of the shape of Charlemagne’s nose.”

“Well, what about Wellington then? His troops used to call him Nosey. Did you know that?”

“Why on earth are you so batty about noses? Surely it doesn’t matter if a nose happens to be round or pointed.”

“On the contrary, it matters very much. D’you know about Pascal?”

“Questions, questions! Am I supposed to be taking an exam or something? No, I don’t know about Pascal. What did he do?”

“He had this to say.”

“What to say?”

“‘Had Cleopatra’s nose been a little bit shorter, the history of the world would have been changed.’”

“Did he now!”

“Perhaps now you see why one can’t afford to underestimate the importance of noses.”

“All right, I’ll be more careful in future. By the way, I dropped in today because there’s something I’d like to ask you. It’s about a chap you used to teach. Avalon something or other. I can’t remember his other name, but I understand that you and he see a lot of each other.”

“You mean Coldmoon?”

“That’s it, Coldmoon. Well, I’ve really come to make enquiries about him.”

“About a matrimonial matter?”

“One might say that. You see, I called in earlier on the Goldfields. . .”

“The Nose herself came sniffing round here only the other day.”

“Did she? Well, as a matter of fact she mentioned that she’d called. She said she’d paid a visit in order to present her respects to Mr. Sneaze and to entreat his assistance in a matter of information, but that Waverhouse was present and made so many and such frivolous interruptions that she just got muddled.”

“It was all her own fault. Coming round here with a nose like that.”

“She spoke of you with the deepest respect. She’s just regretful that the performance put on by Waverhouse made it impossible to ask you certain personal questions about Coldmoon, and she has therefore asked me to speak on her behalf. For what it’s worth, I’ve never before played the part of an honest broker in matters of this sort, but if the two parties most directly concerned are not against the idea, it’s not a bad thing to serve as a go-between and so bring about a marriage. Indeed, that’s the reason for my present visit.”

“How kind of you to call,” commented my master somewhat acidly.

But, though he could not explain his feeling, he was inwardly a little moved by that phrase about “the two parties most directly concerned.”

Its slightly sentimental appeal made him feel as though a wraith of cool air had drifted through his sleeves on a hot and humid summer’s night.

It is true that my master’s character is based on so firm an inborn bedrock of cold reserve and obstinacy that he is, by nature, one of this world’s wet blankets. Nevertheless, his nature is of a completely different type from that of the vicious, heartless products of modern civilization. The antique mold of his nature is clearly evidenced in the way in which he flares up at the slightest provocation. The sole reason for his barney with Madam Conk was that he could not stand her modern-day approach. But his flat dislike of the mother was no fault of her daughter.

Similarly, because he abominates all businessmen, he finds Goldfield acutely distasteful: yet here again, no blame can be laid on the daughter.

Sneaze bears no real ill-will toward her, and Coldmoon is his favorite pupil and he loves that lad more deeply than he would a brother. If Suzuki is correct in his statement that the two parties most directly concerned do, in fact, love each other, then it would be an act unworthy of a gentleman even indirectly to hinder true love’s course. Sneaze is quite convinced that he himself is a gentleman, so his only remaining question is whether Coldmoon and Miss Goldfield are in love. He must, if he is to amend his attitude, first be sure of the facts.

“Tell me, does that girl really want to marry Coldmoon? I don’t care what Goldfield or the Nose feel about the matter, but what are the girl’s own feelings?”

“Well, you see. . . that is, I understand. . . well, yes, I suppose she does.” Suzuki’s answer is not exactly clear-cut. Thinking that all he had to do was to find out more about Coldmoon, he came unbriefed on Opula’s view of the match; so even this slippery lad now finds himself in a bit of a jam.

“The word ‘suppose’ implies some measure of uncertainty.” My master, tactless as ever and not a man to be put off, goes in again like a bull at a gate.

“True enough. Perhaps I should have expressed myself more clearly.

Now, the daughter certainly has a certain inclination. Indeed, that’s true.

What? Oh yes, Mrs. Goldfield told me so herself, though I gather she sometimes says some awful things about Coldmoon.”

“Who does? D’you mean the daughter?”

“Yes.”

“What impudence! That snip of a girl disparaging Coldmoon! Well, it can hardly mean that she cares for him.”

“But that’s just it. Odd you may think it, but sometimes people do run down precisely those they love.”

“I can’t conceive that anyone could be so deranged as to behave like that.” Such intricate convolutions of human nature are quite beyond my master’s blunt and simple mind.

“In fact the world is full of such people. Certainly that’s how Mrs.

Goldfield interprets her daughter’s comments. She said to me ‘My daughter must be quite taken with that young Coldmoon, for I’ve even heard her say he looks like a bewildered gourd.’”

These revelations of the strangeness of the human heart leave my master dumbstruck. Wide-eyed and wordless, he stares in astonishment at Suzuki as though he were some soothsayer wandered in from the street. Suzuki seems to have the mind to sense the danger implicit in my master’s unbelief and, fearful lest further discussion should wreck his whole approach, quickly changes the subject to aspects of the matter which even my master cannot fail to understand.

“Consider these facts,” he said. “With her good looks and money that girl can marry almost where she chooses. Now Coldmoon may be a splendid fellow, but comparing their relative social positions. . . No, such comparisons are always odious and could be taken as offensive. So let me put it this way: that, in terms of personal means, the couple are obviously ill-matched. Surely then, you can see that if the Goldfields are so worried that they ask me to come round here and talk to you, that very fact indicates the strength and nature of their daughter’s yearnings?” One can’t deny Suzuki’s clever. He is relieved to notice that my master seems impressed by his latest line of argument, but realizing that the question of the degree of bleeding in Miss Goldfield’s heart is likely to be re-opened if he allows the conversation to loiter on her feelings about Coldmoon, he concludes that the best way to complete his mission is to drive the discussion forward as quickly as possible.

“So, you see, as I’ve just explained, the Goldfields aren’t expecting money or property; what they’d like instead is that Coldmoon should have some status of his own, and by status they mean the public recognition of qualification that is symbolized in a senior degree. It’s not that they’re so stuck-up as to say that they’ll only consider giving him their daughter if he holds a doctorate. You mustn’t misunderstand them.

Things got jumbled up the other day when Mrs. Goldfield called on you purely because Waverhouse chose to amuse himself with his usual display of verbal fireworks and distorting mirrors. No, no, please don’t protest. I know it was none of your fault. Mrs. Goldfield spoke in admiration of you as a frank and honest man. I’m certain that the blame and any awkwardness that may have arisen must be laid at Waverhouse’s door. Anyway, you see, the nub of the matter is this: if Coldmoon can get a doctorate, he would have independent status. People would naturally look up to Dr. Coldmoon, and the Goldfields would be proud of such a son-in-law. So what are the chances of Coldmoon’s making an early submission of his thesis and receiving his doctorate? You see, so far as the Goldfields themselves are concerned, they’d be the last to demand a doctor’s degree, they wouldn’t even ask for a bachelor’s. But they have to consider what the world and his wife will say, and when dealing with the world one simply cannot be too careful.”

So presented, the Goldfields’ request for a doctorate seems not altogether unreasonable, and anything he deems not altogether unreasonable qualifies for my master’s support. He feels inclined to act as Suzuki suggests. Suzuki, it is clear, can twiddle my master around his artful little finger. I recognize my master as indeed a simple, honest man.

“Well, in that case, next time Coldmoon drops around, I’ll urge him to get on with his thesis. However, I feel that I must first question him closely to ascertain whether or not he really wants to marry that Goldfield girl.”

“Question him closely! If you act with such meticulous formality, the business will never get settled. The quickest way to a happy ending is to sound his mind, casually, in the course of an ordinary conversation.”

“To sound his mind?”

“Yes, but perhaps the word ‘sound’ is not quite right since it can be thought to smack of indirection. Of course I’m not suggesting deception of any kind. What I mean is that you would understand the drift of his mind in this matter from simply talking with him about generalities.”

“You might understand, but I wouldn’t unless I ask him point-blank.”

“Ah well, I suppose that’s up to you. But I don’t think it would be reasonable to ruin a romance by slinging cold water on it, quite unnecessarily and even for fun, like Waverhouse. Perhaps one doesn’t need actually to jostle them into marriage, but surely in matters of this sort, the two parties most directly concerned should be left undistracted by irrelevant outside influences to settle their future for themselves. So next time Coldmoon calls, try, please, not to interfere. Of course I don’t mean you yourself. I’m referring to Waverhouse; nobody emerges scatheless whom Waverhouse discusses.” Since Suzuki could not very well speak ill of my master, he spoke thus bitterly against Waverhouse, when, talk of the devil, who should come floating unexpectedly in on a spring breeze through the kitchen but Waverhouse himself.

“Hello,” he said, throwing the accent onto the second syllable, “a visitor from the past! I haven’t seen you in years. You know,” he rattled on,

“Sneaze treats intimate friends like me with scant ceremony. Shocking behavior! One ought to visit him roughly once a decade. Those sweets, for instance, you wouldn’t get those if you called here often.” Scanting all ceremony,Waverhouse reaches over and crams his mouth with a large piece of red-bean sugar-paste confection from the well-known Fujimura shop. Suzuki fidgets. My master grins. Waverhouse munches. As from the veranda I watched this interlude, I realized that good theater need not depend upon speech, that high dramatic effect can be achieved with mime. The Zen sect practices instantaneous mental communication of truth from mind to mind in dialogues of silence. The dumb show going on within the room is, no doubt, a version of that practice; and the dialogue, though brief is pretty sharply worded. It was, of course, Waverhouse who broke the silence.

“I’d thought, Suzuki, that you’d become a bird of permanent passage, always coming or going somewhere, but I see you’ve landed back. The longer one lives, the greater the chance that something odd will turn up.” Waverhouse babbles away to Suzuki with that same complete absence of reserve which characterizes his conversations with my master. Though they lodged together in their student days, still it would be normal for a man to address someone whom he hasn’t seen for at least ten years with a little more formality. Except when that man is Waverhouse. That he pays not the least regard to the requirements of convention marks him out as either a superior soul or a rightdown job-bernowl. But which one cannot say.

“That’s a little hard. Aren’t you being a trifle pessimistic,” commented Suzuki noncommittally, but his way of fingering his watch-chain betrayed a continuing unease.

“Tell me, have you ever ridden on a tram?” My master shot this sudden and peculiar enquiry at Suzuki.

“It seems that I’ve come here today simply to provide you two city-wits with a laughingstock on which to hone your singular sense of humor. Though it’s true that I’m very much up from the provinces, I actually happen to own some sixty shares in the Tram Company of your precious city.”

“Well, that’s not to be sneezed at! I myself once used to own eight hundred and eighty-eight and a half of them. But I’m sorry to say that the vast majority have now been eaten by insects, so that I’ve nothing but one single half-share left. If you’d come up to Tokyo a little bit earlier, I would gladly have given you some ten shares that, until very recently, the moths had not yet got at. What a sad misfortune.”

“I see you haven’t changed your personal style of ridicule. But joking apart, you’re bound to do well if you just hang on to stocks of that quality. They cannot fail, year after year, to climb in value.”

“Quite right. Even half a share, provided one holds it for roughly a thousand years, will end up making you so rich you’ll need three stron-grooms. You and I, razor-minded fellows with our senses keyed to the economic inwardness of these stirring times, are, of course, keenly conscious of the significance of stocks. But what about poor Sneaze? Just look at him. To him,” said Waverhouse, conferring on my master a look of withering pity, “stocks are no more than some vague kind of gillyflower.” He helped himself to another piece of confectionery. His appetite is contagious, for my master, too, stretches out his arm toward the sweet dish. It is in the immutable nature of the human world that positivity should triumph, that initiative be aped.

“I do not care two hoots about stocks or shares, but I do wish poor old Sorosaki had lived to ride, if only once, on a tram.” With morose concentration my master studies the pattern cut by his teeth in his half-eaten sweet.

“Had Sorosaki ever got into a tram, sure as egg is egg, he’d have finished up at the end of the line in Shinagawa. He was an absent-minded man. He’s better off where he is now, engraved upon a weight-stone as Mr. the-late-and-sainted Natural Man. At least he knows where he is.”

“I’d heard that Sorosaki had died. I’m sorry. He was a brainy chap,” says Suzuki.

“Brainy, all right,”Waverhouse chipped in, “but when it came to cooking rice he was a positive imbecile. Every time it came round to Sorosaki’s turn to do the cooking, I contrived to keep body and soul together by eating out on noodles.”

“True, Sorosaki’s rice had the peculiar characteristics of smelling burnt yet being undercooked. I, too, used to suffer. What’s more, he had an odd way with the accompanying bean-curds. Uncooked and so cold that one could not eat them.” Suzuki dredges up a grievance ten years old.

“Even in those days Sneaze was Sorosaki’s closest friend. They used to trot off together every evening to gulp down rice-cakes swamped in red-bean soup, and, as a proper and inevitable result, Sneaze is now a martyr to dyspepsia. As a matter of fact, since it was Sneaze who always guzzled most, he should by rights have predeceased his crony.”

“What extraordinary chains of logic do run around in your contraption of a mind. Anyway,” remarked my master, “there was nothing particularly reprehensible about my going out for sweet-bean soup. As I remember it, your own evening expeditions took the form of haunting a graveyard in order to beat up tombstones with a bamboo stick. You called it physical exercise, but that didn’t save you from a right old rap on the knuckles when the priest came out and caught you.” In this exchange of student reminiscence I thought my master’s counter-swipe with the tombstones far more telling than that dribble of soup from Waverhouse. Indeed, by his laughter,Waverhouse himself acknowledged the defeat.

“Indeed,” he said, “I well remember that priest. He told me I was thumping on the noddles of the dear departed, which would disturb their sleep. So, would I please desist. All I did was to make some practice passes with a bamboo wand, but General Suzuki here, training his body with wrestlers’ drills, engaged those stones in violent personal combat. I recall that on one occasion he wrestled loose and overthrew three monuments of assorted sizes.”

“That did annoy the priest. He got quite fierce about it, insisting I restore my victims to their original positions. I asked him to hold his horses for a moment while I went and hired some navvies for the job, but he wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Navvies,’ he said, ‘won’t do. Only your own hands can purge the evil they have done. The dead will accept no penitence but yours.’”

“And what a sight you were! Moaning and groaning through those muddy puddles in a calico shirt and a loincloth tied with string. . .”

“And I remember you, with a coldly serious face you stood and sketched me as I struggled with those goddam stones. Such utter heartlessness. I’m very slow to anger, but at that time, from the bottom of my heart, I ached to kill you for your insultingly dispassionate detachment.

I can still remember what you said that day. Can you, I wonder?”

“How could anyone remember what was said ten years ago. I do, however, recall the words engraved on one of the stones: Returning Fountain Hall, Lord Yellow Crane the Great Deceased, January 1776.

The stone, moreover, was antique and elegant. I was tempted to make off with it. Its general style was Gothic and chimed entrancingly with those aesthetic principles I cherish.” Waverhouse is off again, flaunting his gimcrack knowledge of aesthetics. Whoever heard of Japanese Gothic from 1776. . .

“That’s as may be, but listen to what you said. These are your very words. ‘Since I propose to devote my days to the study of aesthetics, I must, for future reference, grasp each and every opportunity to set down upon paper any event of interest in this universe which comes before my eyes.’What’s more, you were kind enough to dispassionately add ‘A man such as I, one totally and exclusively committed to the pursuit of learning, cannot permit himself the luxury of such personal feelings as those of pity or compassion.’ I could have done you in for such nonchalance. But all I did, in fact, was to grab your sketchbook with my muddied hands and rip the thing to ribbons.”

“And it was from precisely that moment that my talent as a creative artist, up until then widely accepted as remarkably promising, was nipped in the bud, never to bloom again. I have my own whole skeleton of bones still to pick with you.”

“Don’t be so daft. If anyone’s entitled to a grudge, it’s me.”

“Waverhouse, from as far back as my mind can reach, has always been a windbag.” My master, having munched his sweet to extinction, rejoins the conversation. “He never means what he says and has never been known to keep a promise. Pressed hard for an explanation, he never apologizes but trots out endless pretexts and prevarications. Once when the myrtles were in bloom in the temple yard, he told me that he would complete a treatise he was writing, on those same old cherished principles of aesthetics, before the flowers fell. ‘Impossible,’ I said. Can you guess his answer? He claimed, despite appearances, to be of iron will.‘If you doubt my word,’ he said, ‘just name your bet.’ I took him up on it and we agreed that the loser should stand a dinner at a Western restaurant over in Kanda. I took the bet because I was certain that he’d never get his writing done in time, but I confess that, not in fact having the cash to pay for the dinner if I lost, I remained a little nervous that he still might work a miracle. Anyway, he showed no signs of getting down to work. A week went by, three weeks went by, and still he hadn’t written a single page. At last the flowers of the myrtle fell, and, though the tree stood empty, Waverhouse stood calm. Looking forward to my Western meal, I pressed our friend to meet his obligation. Not to put too fine a point upon his answer, he told me to get lost.”

“No doubt,” chimed in Suzuki, “he offered this, that and the other reason?”

“Indeed he did, the barefaced rogue. You can’t imagine how obstinate he was. ‘Say what you will,’ he said, ‘about my other flaws and faults. I admit them all, and readily. But the fact remains that in strength of will I’m stronger than the pack of you.’”

“Do you mean,” asked Waverhouse himself, “that, having written nothing, I still claimed not to have lost the bet?”

“Of course you did. You said the bet was not about finishing the treatise but about your iron will. And in respect of that iron quality, so you most willfully informed me, you would yield to none. You conceded that your memory might be poor; so poor indeed that you had next day forgotten that you intended to write a paper on the principles of aesthetics; but you maintained that your will to write it remained ferric to the core. The fault lay in your memory, not in your will. So, though the myrtle flowers were fallen and the treatise still unwritten, you made it painfully clear that you saw no reason why you should come across with my dinner.”

“Now that’s very interesting. And so very typical of Waverhouse.” I can’t see what in that rather tedious story should so particularly interest Suzuki, but the tone of his comments is markedly different from that which he used before Waverhouse came in. Perhaps such variousness is a sign of a clever man.

“Not in the least interesting.” My master interjects a sharpish contradiction.

“It distresses me that you should still be feeling so put out about it, but is it not for that very reason that I’ve had men out with lanterns searching high and low for those peacocks’ tongues I promised you?

Don’t be so huffy, Sneaze. Just wait a while and all shall be made up.

Incidentally, this talk about writing a treatise reminds me that I’ve called today with some especially odd news.”

“Since you bring round odd news every time you visit, I’ll take that statement with a pinch of salt.”

“But today’s odd news truly is sensational. Cross my heart and hope to die, it’s stunning. Coldmoon’s started writing his thesis. What about that? Since in his own quaint way Coldmoon has a fairly elevated opinion of himself, I wouldn’t have expected him to engage in such a mundane, tasteless chore as getting a thesis actually written, but it appears that he, too, is tainted with wordly ambition. Now don’t you think that odd? You’d better let that Goldfield woman know that she may now start dreaming of decking her family tree with a full-blown doctor of acorns.”

At the first mention of Coldmoon’s name, Suzuki begins jerking his chin and twitching his eyes at my master in silent pleas that nothing should be said of their recent conversation. My master fails to notice these entreating galvanisms. A short while back, under the suasion of Suzuki’s moral lecture, he had felt sufficiently sorry for the love-lorn daughter not to indulge his unabated antipathy toward her mother. But as soon as Waverhouse referred to Madam Conk, his recollection of his recent row with that virago came flooding back in full spate. That the row had had its comic aspects did not make it any the less provoking. But the news that Coldmoon had started to write his thesis, that was really marvelous. He was grateful to Waverhouse, who had more than fulfilled his boast of having something startling to say, for bringing such a welcome present. It was, indeed, a stunning piece of news; stunning but singularly pleasant. It doesn’t greatly matter, one way or the other, whether Coldmoon marries the girl, but it is certainly an excellent thing for the lad to get his doctorate. In surprising ways my master knows himself, and would with absolute humility accept that not a tear need fall if a botched wooden statue is left undecorated to rot away in some dark back-corner of a sculptor’s shop. But when a statue is superbly carved, when its basic quality is noble, then no effort should be spared and no time wasted in ensuring that it be given gilding of appropriate splendor.

“Are you really telling me that Coldmoon’s started writing?” my master enquires eagerly and paying no attention at all to the jittering Suzuki.

“What a suspicious mind you’ve got! Don’t you ever believe what I tell you? Yes, he’s started, but I regret I cannot tell you whether his thesis will be concerned with the stability of acorns or with the mechanics of hanging. Whatever the subject, a Coldmoon thesis must be a glorious snub for the Nose.”

Suzuki has been getting more and more restive as Waverhouse repeats and develops his discourteous references to Madam Conk;Waverhouse, not noticing, sails unconcernedly on.

“I have,” he said, “carried out some further research into noses and am happy to advise you of an interesting treatment of the subject in the Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Had Sterne but known of that mountain of relevant material, how greatly it would have helped him. The sadness of chronology! To think that that staggering organ, eminently qualified as it is to gain immortal nose-fame, should be born, like many another nosegay, to blush unseen! One’s heart is filled with an immense compassion. When next it thrusts itself upon us, I shall sketch that vast promontory of flesh for my future reference in the study of aesthetics.” There’s no restraining Waverhouse.

“But I hear that the Goldfield girl is yearning to be Coldmoon’s bride.” My master makes a fair summary of Suzuki’s representations, while the latter, annoyance twitching from every feature on his face and electric messages flashing from his eyes, signals desperately for disengagement. My master, like some nonconducting substance, remains immune to these distraught discharges.

“How bizarre. It strains the mind to think that the daughter of such a man might fall in love. . . Not, I would imagine, that it could be love of any quality, just rubbing noses.”

“Whatever its nature,” my master commented, “let’s hope that Coldmoon marries her.”

“What’s that?” said Waverhouse. “Who’s now hoping Coldmoon marries her? Only the other day you were dead against such a disastrous match. Have you gone soft or something?”

“It’s not a matter of going soft. I never go soft, but. . .”

“But something’s happened? That’s it, isn’t it? Now look here, Suzuki, since you’re some kind of lower life-form in the business jungle, let me give a piece of advice to guide your future slitherings. It’s with reference to that grunting Goldfield and his piglet daughter. The idea that reasonable persons might be called upon to treat that creature with the respect due to the wife of Mr. Avalon Coldmoon, that talented national figure, why, man, the thing’s impossible. They’d no more balance each other than would a paper-lantern and a big bronze bell. No one who calls himself a friend to Coldmoon could stand by and not speak against the folly of such a misalliance. Surely, Suzuki, even you, looking at it as a businessman, can see the sense in what I’m saying.”

“What a kerfuffle you do still manage to kick up! Always something stirring, eh? You haven’t changed one little bit in all of these ten years.

Really, it’s remarkable.” Suzuki tries to slither round the question.

“Since you compliment me as being remarkable, let me display some more remarkable dollops of learning appropriate to this case. The ancient Greeks set very high store by physical prowess and encouraged its pursuit by awarding valuable prizes to the winners of all sorts of athletic contests. But, strangely enough, there is no record that they ever offered prizes for intellectual prowess. Until recently this curious circumstance incessantly puzzled me.”

“I see,” says Suzuki still trying to make himself agreeable. “That does seem odd.”

“However, just the other day, I chanced, in the course of my researches into aesthetics, to light upon the explanation. Years of accumulated worrying fell instantly away from me and, in that blessed trice, as though disburdened of all errors and earthly delusions, I found myself transported to that pure realm of infinite enlightenment where my soul rejoiced in its transcendence of the world and its attainment of pansophic self-awareness.”Waverhouse departs on such a flight of gongoristic drivel that even the toadying Suzuki allows his face to slip into the lineaments of having had enough. “He’s at it again” may be read in my master’s resigned expression as, with eyes cast down, he sits there tapping, kan-kan-kan, on the rim of the cake-dish with his ivory chopsticks.

Nowise disconcerted,Waverhouse blathers on.

“And to whom do you think we are indebted for that brilliant logical analysis, which, by its simple explanation of this seeming anomaly, has rescued us forever from the dark abyss of doubt? It was that famous Greek philosopher, the greatest of all scholars since scholarship began, the renowned founder of the Peripatetic School, Aristotle himself. His explanation—I say, Sneaze, please stop flogging that cake-dish and pay a little more attention—may be summarized thus. The prizes awarded at Greek contests were worth more than the performances that earned them, for the prizes were intended not only to stimulate effort but to reward achievement. Consequently, if one were to give a prize for intellectual prowess, for knowledge itself, one would have to find something to award which was more valuable than knowledge. But knowledge already is the rarest gem in the world. The Greeks, unwilling to debase the value of knowledge, piled up chests all crammed with gold to the height of Mount Olympus. They gathered in the wealth of Croesus, and wealth beyond that wealth, but in the end they recognized that the value of knowledge cannot be matched, let alone exceeded. So, masters of reason that they were, they decided that the prize should be nothing at all. From this, Suzuki, I trust you will have learnt that, whatever the color of your money, it is worthless stuff compared with learning. Let us accordingly apply this revealed truth, this fundamental principle, to the particular problem that has arisen today. Surely you’re bound to see that Goldfield’s merely a paper man, a bill of exchange with eyes and a nose scrawled onto it. If I may put it epigrammatically, the man’s no more than an animated banknote. And if he’s money in motion, currency one might say, his daughter’s nothing but a circulating promissory note. In contrast, now, let us consider Coldmoon. With consummate ease he graduated with the best degree of his year from the highest seat of learning in our land. On leaving the Imperial University, he showed no sign of slackening of effort. On the contrary, fiddling with the antique fastening-strings of his short surcoat, he devotes himself both day and night to intensive study of the thorny problem of the stability of acorns. And in addition to all that, this indefatigable servant of learning is just about to publish a thesis which, unquestionably, will embody intellectual concepts beside whose depth, originality, and scope those adumbrated by the great Lord Kelvin must pale into insignificance. It is true he was concerned in an abortive attempt at suicide, but that was no more than a passing fancy of a kind common among lads of spirit. Certainly the incident can cast no serious doubt upon his reputation as a vast repository of learning and intelligence. If I may adapt to Coldmoon’s case one of my own earlier turns of phrase, I should describe him as a circulating library. He is a high-explosive shell, perhaps only a twenty-eight centimeter, but compactly charged with knowledge.

And when at the properly chosen time this projectile makes its impact upon the world of learning, then, if it detonates, detonate it will.”

Waverhouse, unbelievably, seems to have run out of steam. Confused by his own jumble of metaphors, he almost flinches, and his flow of language peters pointlessly out. As the saying goes, the dragon’s head of his opening remarks has dwindled down to a snake’s tail of an ending.

However, though Waverhouse may falter, he’s unlikely to shut up. In a matter of seconds he’s off again.

“In that inevitable explosion things like promissory notes, though there be thousands of them, will all be blasted into dust. It follows that, for Coldmoon, such a female simply will not do. I cannot consent to so ill-suited an alliance. It would be as though an elephant, that wisest and most noble of all animals, were to marry the greediest piglet of a greedy farrow.” With a final burst of speed Waverhouse breasts the tape. “That’s so, isn’t it, Sneaze?” My master, silent, resumed his melancholy tapping on the cake-dish.

Looking a bit depressed and obviously at his wit’s end for a suitable answer, Suzuki mumbles something about not being able to entirely agree.

His position is, indeed, delicate. His hands, as it were, are still wet with blood from his verbal assassination, barely a half-hour back, of Waverhouse’s character, and a man as outrageously tactless as my master might, at any moment, come straight out with anything. Suzuki’s soundest tactic is to receive, and if possible smother, the Waverhouse attack, and then, in the general confusion, to wriggle away to safety as quickly as he can. Suzuki’s clever.Very much a man cast in the modern mold, he seeks to avoid head-on collisions and considers it positively medieval to enter into arguments that, of their nature, can have no practical result. In his opinion the purpose of life is not to talk, but to act. If events develop as one wishes, then life, its purpose thus fulfilled, is good. But if events not only develop as one wishes but do so without difficulties, fret, or altercation, then life, its purpose slitheringly fulfilled, is paradisal. Suzuki’s unwavering devotion to this Elysian principle of slithering had brought him great success in the business world he’d entered after graduating from the university. It had brought him a watch of eighteen-carat gold. It had brought him a request from the Goldfields that he should do them a small favor.

It had even enabled him to maneuver Sneaze nine-tenths of the way toward doing what the Goldfields wished. Then Waverhouse descends upon the scene. Out of the ordinary, careless of all conventions, totally eccentric, he manifests himself as an incarnation of capriciousness operating in accordance with a psychological pattern never previously observed in the human creature. No wonder that Suzuki feels a bit bewildered. Though Suzuki’s principle was invented by a variety of clever gentlemen seeking success in Meiji circumstances, its prime practitioner is Suzuki Tōjūrō himself, and it is consequently he who is most signally stumped when the principle proves inapplicable.

“It’s only because you’re out of your depth,”Waverhouse pressed on,

“that you sit there looking supercilious and offer no more useful contribution than the cool comment that you can’t entirely agree. But if you’d been here the other day when that Nose came throwing her weight around, even you, businessman to the backbone though you are, even you would have felt like throwing up. It’s true, Sneaze, isn’t it? Go on, tell him. I thought you handled the situation magnificently.”

“But I’m told,” my master almost smirked, “that my conduct on that occasion created a more favorable impression than did yours.”

The answering laugh was a mixture of pity and scorn. “What incredible self-confidence! I begin to understand how you manage to sail along at school unperturbed by the mockery of your colleagues and your pupils’ shouts of Savage Tea. In matters of willpower I’m a match for anyone, but when it comes to sheer nerve, I’m just not even in your class. I humble myself in the presence of such staggering self-confidence.”

“Why on earth should I be moved by such puerile carryings-on? Their grumbles don’t scare me. Though Sainte-Beuve was perhaps the greatest of all critics, his lectures at the Sorbonne proved so unpopular that, whenever he walked in the streets, he was obliged to carry a dagger up his sleeve to defend himself against attacks from students. Similarly, when Brunetière’s lectures attacked the novels of Zola. . .”

“Come off it, Sneaze. You’re not a professor or a university lecturer.

For a mere teacher of the English Reader to start comparing himself with world-famous professors is like a minnow demanding to be treated as a whale. If you keep on saying things like that, you’re bound to be laughed at.”

“That’s just your opinion. As I see it, Sainte-Beuve and I, considered as scholars, are of roughly the same standard.”

“What fantastic self-esteem! But if I were you, I’d give up any idea of going around with a dagger. You might cut yourself. Of course, if university professors do go armed with dirks, it might be reasonable for a teacher of the English Reader to carry a folding penknife. But even so, any edged tool is dangerous. What you ought to do is to toddle along to the Nakamise arcade down in Asakusa and get yourself a toy pop-gun.

You could carry it slung from your shoulder. You’d make a charming picture. What d’you think, Suzuki?”

Suzuki’s feeling better. Relieved that the conversation has at long last veered away from the subject of the Goldfields, he feels it safe to venture a few, and preferably flattering, sentences.

“As it always was, it’s been great fun to take part again in such a lively but good-natured discussion. Not having seen you two for a full ten years, I feel as though I had just walked back into a spacious sunny landscape out of some dark and narrow alley. As you’ll understand, conversations among business associates tend to be pretty tricky. One has to watch one’s step, constantly minding one’s p’s and q’s, and ever alert for a stab in the back. The never-ending worry and strain is genuinely painful. But I myself enjoy frank and open conversation, and it’s marvelous to be talking again with one’s student-chums in the same old style of uninhibited honesty. I’m delighted that my visit brought me the added and unexpected pleasure of running into Waverhouse. Well,” he concluded, “I must leave you now. I’ve got a man to meet.”

Having delivered himself of these slithery sentences, Suzuki was beginning to lever himself loose from my cushion, when Waverhouse remarked, “I’ll come along, too. They’re waiting for me at the Entertainment Temperance Union over in Nihombashi. Let’s run along together.”

“Fine,” said Suzuki. “Part of the way we’ll be going in the same direction.” So, arm in arm, they left.







 II







TO WRITE down every event that takes place during a period of twenty-four hours, and then to read that record would, I think, occupy at least another twenty-four hours. Though I am all in favor of realistically descriptive literature, I must confess that to make a literal record of all that happened in a day and a night would be a tour de force quite beyond the capacities of a cat. Therefore, however much my master’s paradoxical words and eccentric acts may merit being sketched from life at length and in exhaustive detail, I regret that I have neither the talent nor the energy to set them all down for my readers. Regrettable as it is, it simply can’t be helped. Even a cat needs rest.

After Suzuki and Waverhouse had taken their departure, it became as quiet as a night when winter’s icy wind suddenly drops and the snow falls soundlessly. My master, as usual, shuts himself up in his study. In their six-mat sleeping-room, side-by-side in a bumpy row, the children lie asleep. Mrs. Sneaze in the adjoining room, a room that faces south, lies in bed giving suck to Menko, her one-year-old baby daughter. It has been a hazy day of the type we often get in springtime, and dusk has fallen early. The sound of wooden clogs passing in front of the house can be heard quite distinctly in the living room and the sound of a Chinese flute, played in random snatches by someone in the boarding-house on the next street, falls lullingly in broken drifts upon my sleepy ears.

Outside it must still be hazy. Having filled my stomach with that dinner of rice with fish gravy which O-san had provided in my abalone-shell, I feel that a little shut-eye is precisely what I need.

It has come to my ears that haiku poets have taken to using the phrase “cat’s love” as a means of indicating that a poem is concerned with the season of spring. Indeed, I have myself observed that there are nights in early spring when my fellow cats in this neighborhood set up such a cat-erwauling that sleep is well-nigh impossible. As it happens, I personally have not yet experienced such a derangement of my senses.

Nevertheless, love is a universal stimulant. It is the way of all things, from Olympian Zeus right down to the very humblest of the earth-worms and mole-crickets that chirrup on this earth, to wear themselves out in this exhausting field of endeavor. It is, therefore, only natural that cats, too, dreamily joyful, should indulge themselves in the risk-fraught search for love. Indeed, on looking back, I remember that I myself once pined away for love of Tortoiseshell. I hear that even Opula, that gormandizer of rice-cakes dusted with bean-flour, that daughterly extension of the very baseline of the triangled technique, old man Goldfield, I hear that even she is smitten with love for the unlikely person of Coldmoon. I, consequently, would not dream of sneering at those tomcats and their lady consorts who, throughout the whole wide world, are so inspired by the ineffable magic of these evenings of the spring that they run amuck under the excruciations of their lusts and loneliness.

However, and to my infinite regret, even when invited to participate, I just don’t have the urge. In my present condition all that I need is rest.

I am so utterly sleepy that I simply couldn’t perform. Accordingly, I sidle sluggishly around the children’s bedding, set paw on that forbidden territory at the end where their own feet lie and, finding a suitable space, curl up comfortably and drop off into slumber.

I happen to open my eyes and, looking round, find that my master is lying asleep inside the bedding spread beside his wife’s. When he goes to bed, it is his invariable habit to bring along some small Western book from his collection, but I’ve never seen him actually read so much as two consecutive pages. Sometimes he just brings the book, places it beside his pillow, and makes no faintest attempt to read it. Though it seems peculiarly unnecessary to bring a book of which not one line will be read, such actions are quite typical of my master. However much his wife laughs at him, however suasively she begs him to give up this stupid habit, still he persists. Every evening he makes a point of going to bed with a book which he does not read. Sometimes he makes a positive beast of himself and shuffles in with three or four books tucked under his arms. For several days until a little while ago, it was his nightly practice to tote in Webster’s whacking great dictionary. I suppose this behavior reflects some kind of psychological ailment. Just as some men of peculiarly extravagant taste can only get to sleep to the gentle simmering singing of one of Ryūbundō’s special iron kettles, so too, perhaps, my master cannot sleep without a book beside his pillow. It would seem that for my master a book is not a thing to be read, but a device to bring on slumber: a typographical sleeping-pill, a paginated security-blanket.

I take a peep to see what he’s brought tonight and find that he’s fallen asleep with a slim, red volume lying half-open on his chin, with its top edge almost brushing his moustache. Judging by the fact that his left-hand thumb is sandwiched between the pages, he must tonight have made a praiseworthy improvement on his usual performance to the extent of reading at least a line or two. Beside the bed, in its accustomed place, its cold, gray surface a dull reflection of this warm spring night, his nickel watch lies gleaming.

My master’s wife, the nursling baby tumbled about a foot away from her, lies open-mouthed and snoring. Her head has slipped down from the pillow. In my opinion, there is nothing more unbecoming in the human type than its indecent habit of sleeping with the mouth left open.

Never in a lifetime would a cat be caught in such degenerate conduct.

The mouth and the nose have their separate functions: the former is provided for the making of sounds and the latter for respiratory purposes.

However, in northern lands the human creature has grown slothful and opens its mouth as seldom and as little as possible. One obvious result of this muscular parsimony is that northern style of tight-lipped speech in which the words would seem to be enunciated through the nostrils.

That is bad, but it’s even worse when the nose is kept closed and the mouth assumes the respiratory function. The result is not only unsightly, but could indeed, when rat shit drops from the rafters, involve real risk to health.

As for the children, they too, small-scale reproductions of the indignities of their parents, lie sprawled about on their bedding. Tonko, the elder daughter, as if to demonstrate the monstrous regiment of elder sisters, lies with her right arm stretched out full so that her fist is firmly planted against her sister’s ear. In a kind of sleeping counterattack, Sunko lies flat on her back with one leg flung across her elder’s stomach. Both have managed to revolve through ninety degrees since, properly positioned, they drifted off to sleep. But, perfectly at ease in their unnatural dispositions, they slumber deeply on.

There is something peculiarly moving about the faint illumination of a night-lamp in the dark hours of the spring. Over the unpretentious, but sadly inelegant interior-scene of our dwelling, it casts a flickering radiance so sweet and gentle that it seems to be inviting our gladdest marvelment at the beauty of this night. Wondering what the time is, I look around the room. Dead silence reigns, broken only by the ticking of the wall clock, the snores of Mrs. Sneaze, and, despite the distance, the relentless grinding of the servant’s teeth. Whenever they tell that Osan woman of her grinding ways, she swears it isn’t true. Obstinately, flatly, she takes her oath that, never from the day since she was born, not that many babies turn up tusked, has she ever ground a tooth. She neither apologizes nor attempts to break the habit, just stubbornly insists that she doesn’t remember ever having done such a thing. Since she does it in her sleep, it’s probably true that she doesn’t remember doing it. But facts, remembered or not, are all, alas, still facts. There are persons in this world who, having perpetrated villainies, remain assured of their own absolute saintliness. They really do convince themselves that they’re pure of any guilt. Such utter self-deception is, I dare say, a form of simple-mindedness, but however genuine the self-deception, if the actuality is objectionable to other people it should be put down. As I lay there thinking that there’s no real difference between our grinding skivvy and those evil-doing gentlefolk who think themselves so righteous, the night wore peacefully on.

Suddenly I hear a light double-tapping on the wooden shutters of the kitchen entrance. Odd. People would hardly come visiting at this time of the night. It must be one of those damnable rats. So let it bump. As I mentioned earlier, I long ago decided never to catch rats. Then, once again, I heard a double-tapping. Somehow it doesn’t sound like a rat. If it is a rat, it must be an extremely cautious one. For the rats in my master’s house, like the students at his school, devote their entire energies, both day and night, to the practice of riotous behavior and seem to believe that they were only brought into this world to disrupt as violently as possible the dopey dreamings of that pitiable man. No rat of ours would make such modest noises. No, it is not a rat. Far too timid.

The other night we had a rat come boldly into my master’s bedroom, nip off a snippet from the tip of his already stunted nose and then depart in squeaking triumph. It just can’t be a rat. As if to confirm my suspicions, the next sound that I hear is the scraping creak of the wooden shutter being lifted from its groove, and then I hear the sliding screen being eased sideways as quietly as possible. Beyond all doubt, it’s not a rat. It can then but be human. Even Waverhouse or Suzuki would hesitate at this late hour to lift the latch and walk in unannounced, and neither, I think would go so far as to dismantle a wooden shutter. Could it, I wonder, be one of those gentleman-burglars of whom I’ve heard so much? If it really is a burglar, I’d like to see what he looks like.

As far as I can judge, two steps with muddy feet have so far been taken across the kitchen floor. The third step must have been planted on one of the removable floorboards for there was a sharp thwacking sound loud enough to echo through the silence of the night. I feel as if the fur on my back were being rubbed in the wrong direction with a boot brush. For a while there was no further sound, not even the stealthiest footstep. Mrs. Sneaze snores gently on, sucking in and blowing out through her gaping gob the beneficent air of this peaceful era. My master is probably dreaming some dream in which his thumb is trapped in a scarlet book. After a while, there comes the sound of a match being struck in the kitchen. Even a gentleman-thief cannot, as I can, see in the dark. It must be very inconvenient for him.

At this point I crouched well down and tried to work out what moves the intruder would next make. Will he proceed hither from the kitchen by way of the living room, or will he, turning left through the hall, make his way to the study? I hear the sound of a sliding door, and then footsteps on the veranda. He’s gone to the study. Dead silence followed.

It then occurred to me that it would be kind, while there was still time, to wake my master and his wife. But how? A few impractical notions spin around inside my skull like water-wheels, but I am not visited with any sensible ideas. It struck me that I might possibly rouse them by tugging at the bedcovers. Two or three times I tried, worrying away at the lower end of the material, but my efforts had no effect. I then thought I might do better if I rubbed my wet cold nose against my master’s cheek. I accordingly put my muzzle to his face, but all I got for my trouble was a sharp smack in the snoot. He didn’t even wake but, lifting his arm in his sleep, rapped me hard on the nose. The nose, even in cats, is a vulnerable area and I suffered agonies. Nevertheless, I persisted. Since I could think of nothing else, I tried miaowing at them.

Indeed I tried. At least twice, but somehow my throat just failed to function and no sound emerged. When at long last, and by enormous self-discipline I did manage to emit a single feeble mew, I was quickly shocked back into silence. For, though my master continued just to lie there like a log, suddenly I heard the interloper once more on the move.

I hear the little creakings of his inexorable approach along the veranda.

This, I think, is it. There’s nothing more I can do. So, slipping in between the sliding door and a wickerwork trunk, I get myself into a position suitable at least for this stage of the proceedings: a hidey-hole from which, in the safety of concealment, I can spy upon a criminal at work.

The footsteps advance along the veranda until they are immediately outside the paper-door of my master’s bedroom. There they stop dead.

I dare not even breathe. My every nerve is at full stretch as I hunch down waiting for the thief’s next move. I realized later that my feelings at that time were precisely those which I could expect to feel if I ever hunted rats. It was as though my very soul were about to pounce from my eyes.

I am indebted to this thief that, though long ago I resolved never to turn ratter, nevertheless I have been enlightened, this once in my lifetime, as to the nature of the hunting thrill.

The next moment a tiny area in the very middle of the third frame of the paper-door began to change color, to darken as though it had been struck by a raindrop. As I stare at that dampened spot, I can see behind its darkening an object of pale scarlet. Suddenly the paper gives and through it pokes the bare length of a wet red tongue. The tongue seems just to pulse there for a second, and then it vanishes into the darkness. In its place a shining thing, something menacingly glittery, appears in the tongue-licked hole. The eye of a thief. Strangely enough, that gleaming eye seems to disregard all other objects in the room and to be concentrating its gaze directly upon the place where I lurk behind the wickerwork trunk. Though that terrifying inspection cannot have lasted for even so much as a minute, I have never endured a stare so baleful or intense.

So to be stared at burns away whole stretches of one’s life-expectancy.

The scorching of that eye became intolerable, and I had just made up my mind to jump out from behind the trunk when the paper-door slid gently sideways and the thief was at last disclosed to my fascinated sight.

Though at this point it would be normal, in accordance with the established customs of the storyteller’s art, to offer a description of this rare and unexpected visitor, I must beg the reader’s indulgence for a small digression of which the point and pertinence will, in due course, become clear. My digression takes the form of a statement of my humble views upon the nature of omnipotence and omniscience, both human and divine; views upon which I would invite the discerning comment of all my honored readers.

From time immemorial God has been worshiped as omniscient and omnipotent. In particular, the Christian God, at least up until the twentieth century, was honored for his alleged possession of those qualities.

However, that alleged omniscience and omnipotence could well be regarded by the ordinary man in the street as, in fact, their precise opposites: nescience and impotence. I believe that, not since the world was first created, has anyone preceded me in identifying this extraordinary paradox. It is consequently unavoidable that I should feel a certain pride of self-discovery, pride in this revelation that I am indeed no ordinary cat. It is accordingly to drive home to numbskull human beings the unwisdom of sneering at cats that I offer the following analysis of the paradox which, if I had a name, would be named after its inimitable discoverer. I am informed that God created all things in this universe, from which it must follow that God created men. In fact, I am advised that this proposition is specifically stated as a fundamental truth in some fat book which human beings call the Bible. Now, mankind has been engaged for several thousands of years in the accumulation of human observations about the facts of humanity. From which mass of data one particular fact has emerged which not only causes human beings to wonder at and admire themselves, but also inclines them to acquire ever-deepening credence in the omniscience and omnipotence of God. The particular fact in question is the fact that, although mankind now teems upon this earth, no two human creatures have identical faces. The constituents of the human face are, of course, fixed: two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth. Further, the general dimensions of those constituent items are, more or less, the same. Nevertheless, though the myriads of human faces are thus all constructed from the same basic materials, all the final products differ from each other. The human reaction to this state of affairs is not only to rejoice in how bloody marvelous it is that each and every one of them commands an individuality of appearance, but also to admire the miraculous skill of the Creator who, using such simple and uniform materials, has yet produced such an infinite variety of result. For surely only a power of infinite originality of imagination could have created such almost incredible diversity. Even the greatest of painters cannot produce, however strenuously he exerts himself in pursuit of variety, more than twelve or thirteen individual masterpieces. So it is natural that mankind should marvel at God’s astonishing and sin-glehanded achievement in the production of people. Since such a pro-tean creativity cannot be matched by men as themselves creators, inevitably they regard the process as a manifestation of divinity and, in particular, of divine omnipotence. For which reasons human beings stand in endless awe of God, and, of course, considered from the human viewpoint, it is entirely understandable that they should.

However, considered from the feline viewpoint, the same facts lead to the opposite conclusion: that God, if not entirely impotent, is at least of limited ability, even incompetent. Certainly of no greater creative capability than muddle-headed man. God is supposed to have created, of intent, as many faces as there are people. But surely one cannot just dismiss the possibility that, in fact, he lacked sureness of touch; that, though he originally intended to create every man-jack of mankind with the same face, he found the task impossible, and that he consequently produced so long a string of botched appearances as to end up with the present disorderly state of the human physiognomy. Thus the variformity of the human face can equally well be regarded either as a demonstration of God’s success or as evidence of his failure. Lacking knowledge of his original creative intent, one can only say that the evidence of the human face argues no more strongly for God’s omnipotence than it does for his incompetence.

Consider human eyes. They are embedded in pairs within a flat surface and their owners, therefore, cannot simultaneously see to both their left and right. It is regrettable, but only one side of any object can, at any one time, enter their field of vision. Being thus incapable of seeing in the round, even the daily happenings of life in his own society, it is perhaps not surprising that man should get so excited about certain one-sided aspects of his limited view of reality, and, in particular, should allow himself to fall into awe of God. Any creature capable of seeing things whole must recognize that, if it is difficult to create infinite variation, it is equally difficult to create absolute similitude. Had Raphael ever been asked to paint two absolutely identical portraits of the Madonna, he would have found it no less irksome than to be pressed for two pictures of that subject in which every single detail was totally different. Indeed, it is probable that the painting of identical portraits would prove the harder task. Kōbō Daishi was not only the Great Teacher but also a master calligrapher. But had he been asked one morning to inscribe the two characters of his own name in exactly the same style as he had done the day before, he would have found it more difficult than to write them differently. Consider, too, the nature of language-learning. Human beings learn their various tongues purely by imitation. They reproduce, without any display of initiative or inventiveness, the noises made by the daily mouthings of their mothers, nurses, and whomsoever else they may happen to hear. To the best of their ability, they imitate. Nevertheless, in the course of one or two decades, the languages thus produced by imitation show distinct changes in pronunciation. Which amply demonstrates the human inability to make perfect imitations. Exact imitation is extremely difficult to achieve.

Now if God had shown himself able to create human beings indistinguishable from each other, that would have been impressive. If every single one of them appeared with the self-same features, like so many mold-cast masks of a fat-faced woman, then indeed would God’s omnipotence have been tellingly demonstrated. But the actual state of affairs, a situation in which God has let loose under the sun all manner of different faces, could well be taken to prove the limited competence of his creative power.

I must confess that I have now forgotten why I embarked upon this digression. However, since similar forgetfulness is common among mankind, I trust such a lapse will be found pardonable in a cat. The fact is that the foregoing thoughts leapt naturally to my mind the moment that the paper-door slid open and I at last clapped eyes upon the thief.

Why so? you may ask. Why should the sudden appearance of a thief upon the threshold prompt this closely reasoned, this irrefutable critique of divine omnipotence? As I said, I have forgotten why. But if I may have a moment to recollect my train of thought, I’m sure I can find the reason.

Ah yes, I have it.

When I looked at the thief’s calm face, I was so struck by one peculiarity that my long-held theories about God’s incompetence as a face-creator seemed in that instant to he crumbling down to nothing. For the peculiarity was that the thief’s face was the spitting image of the handsome face of our much-loved Avalon Coldmoon. Naturally, I lack acquaintances among the burglaring fraternity, but, basing my judgment on their outrageous behaviors, I had formed my own private picture of a burglar’s face. But the face of this particular burglar did not match my image. I had always assumed that a burglar’s nostrils would be widely splayed to left and right, that his eyes would be as big and round as copper coins, and that his hair would be close-cropped. But there’s a vast difference between the fancied and the fact, so vast one should always be wary of giving free rein to one’s imagination. This thief is tall and slimly built, with a charmingly darkish complexion and straight, level eyebrows: altogether a very modish sort of burglar. He seems, again like Coldmoon, to be about twenty-six or twenty-seven. Indeed a God so deft as to be able to produce this startling likeness cannot possibly be regarded as incompetent. To tell the truth, the resemblance is so close that my immediate and astonished reaction was to wonder whether, bursting in like this in the middle of the night, Coldmoon had gone mad.

It was only when I noticed the absence of any sign of a budding moustache that I realized that the intruder could not possibly be Coldmoon.

Coldmoon is both masculine and handsome. He has been manufactured by God with such especial care that it is proper he should so easily besot that walking credit card, Miss Opula Goldfield. Yet, to judge from his appearance, this thief’s power to attract women can be no less strong than Coldmoon’s. If that Goldfield girl is besotted by Coldmoon’s eyes and mouth, it would be no more than a matter of courtesy that she should go into similarly ardent raptures over those of this burglar. Quite apart from the question of courtesy, it would be contrary to logic if she failed to love him. Being so naturally quick-minded and intelligent, she would, of course, immediately grasp the point, and it would follow that, if she were offered the burglar as a substitute for Coldmoon, she would, body and soul, adore him and live with him in conjugal felicity till death did them part. Even if Coldmoon so succumbs to the wiles of Waverhouse that this very rare and excellent match is broken off, still, so long as the burglar remains alive and well, there is no real cause for concern. Having thus projected the possible train of future events, I felt, purely for Miss Goldfield’s sake, relieved and reassured. That this noble burglar exists as a husband-in-reserve is, I think, likely to be important to her happiness in life.

The thief is carrying something under his arm. Peering, I discover that it’s that decrepit blanket which, a little earlier on, my master had pitched away into his study. The thief is dressed in a short coat of cotton drawn tight below his bottom with a sash of blue-gray silk. His pallid legs are bare from the knees down. Gently he extends one foot from the veranda and sets it softly on the bedroom matting. At which moment my dozing master, no doubt still dreaming that his finger is being savaged by a scarlet book, turns over in his sleep and, as he slumps with a heavy thud into a new position, suddenly shouts, “It’s Coldmoon!” The burglar drops the blanket and whips back as though he’d trodden on a scorpion.

Through the flimsy paper of the sliding door, I see the silhouette of two long legs a-tremble. My master grunts in his sleep, mumbles something meaningless and knocks his red book sideways. He then begins a noisy scratching of his dark-skinned arm as though he’d caught the scurvy. He suddenly goes quiet, and lies there fast asleep with his head off the pillow. His shout of Coldmoon-recognition relates, not to reality, but to some incident of dream. Nevertheless, for quite a little while the burglar stood silent on the veranda watching the room for any further liveliness. Satisfied at last that my master and his wife are safely deep in sleep, he reintrudes one cautious foot. There is, this time, no commentary on Coldmoon. Almost at once the second foot appears.

The glow of the night lamp, which hitherto had bathed the whole of this six-mat bedroom, is now sharply segmented by the shadow of the thief. An utter darkness has fallen upon the wickerwork trunk and reaches halfway up the wall behind it. I turn my head and see the shadow of the intruder’s skull drifting about the wall some two-thirds of the way up to the ceiling. Though the man is certainly handsome, the misshapen shadow of his head, like some deformed potato, is positively ludicrous. For a while he stood there staring down at Mrs. Sneaze’s face and then, suddenly and for goodness knows what reason, broke into a grin. I was surprised to find that even in such aimless grinning he was a twin to Coldmoon. Lying close to Mrs. Sneaze’s pillow there is an oblong box, perhaps fifteen inches long and some four inches broad. The lid is nailed down fast and the box itself so placed as to suggest that its contents must be precious. It is in fact that box of yams which, just the other day, Mr. Tatara Sampei presented to the Sneazes on his return from holiday at his family’s country place in Karatsu. It is, one must admit, rather unusual to go to sleep with yams to decorate one’s bedside, but Mrs. Sneaze is a lady little troubled by notions of propriety of placement. She keeps high-quality cooking sugar in her chest of drawers, so the presence in her bedroom of pickles, let alone of yams, would hardly even ruffle her placid unconcern. But the burglar, a non-participant in the alleged omniscience of God, could hardly be expected to have such knowledge of her nature and it is consequently understandable that he should jump to the conclusion that a box so carefully kept within hand’s reach of a sleeping woman is certain to be worth removing. He lifts and hefts the box. Finding its weight matches his expectations, he nods in satisfaction. It suddenly struck me as extremely funny that this gentleman-thief this very prepossessing burglar, was about to waste his expert skills in vegetable furacity. However, since it could be dangerous to make my presence heard, I hold back the laughter bursting to escape.

The burglar wraps the yam box carefully in the blanket and looks round the room for something with which to tie the bundle. His eye lights upon the sash that my master threw down on the floor when he was undressing for bed. The burglar ties and knots the sash around the yam box and hoists it smoothly onto his back. I doubt if women would be attracted to the figure he now presents. He proceeds to stuff two of the children’s sleeveless jackets into my master’s knitted underpants.

Each of the leg parts looks like a snake that has swallowed a frog. Perhaps their swollen ugliness could be better compared to the shape of some pregnant serpent. At all events the shape produced was odd and rather ugly. If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself. The thief then tied the pant legs round his neck, leaving his hands free for further rummage.

Wondering what he’ll nobble next, I watch him closely. He spreads out my master’s silk kimono on the floor and neatly, quickly, piles upon it Mrs. Sneaze’s obi, my master’s haori, and his remaining underwear together with various bits and bobs which he finds about the room. I am deeply impressed by the sheer professionalism of his larceny, the technical polish of his packaging and parcel work. First he fashions a long silk cord by knotting Mrs. Sneaze’s obi-string to her waistband-fastener.

With this cord he ties his loot into a tidy package, and lifts the lot with one hand. Taking a last look round, he spots a packet of cheap gaspers lying beside my master’s head. He shoves the packet into his sleeve but, on second thought, takes it out again and, carefully selecting a cigarette, bends to light it at the flame of the night lamp. He inhales deeply, like a man content with a job well done. Before the exhaled smoke had thinned to nothingness around the milky glass of the night lamp’s chimney, the sound of the burglar’s footfalls had faded away into silent distance. Husband and wife remain deep-sunk in slumber. Contrary even to their own idea of themselves, human beings are a careless and unwary lot. I myself feel quite worn out by the night’s excitements and, if I now continue this account of them, I shall have some kind of break-down. . .

I slept both deep and late, so that, when I finally awoke, the sun was already bright in the blue spring sky. My master and his wife were talking to a policeman at the kitchen entrance.

“I see. You reckon he entered here and then worked round toward the bedroom? And you two were asleep and noticed nothing at all?”

“That’s right.” My master seems a bit embarrassed.

“And about what time did this burglary take place?” The policeman asks the usual silly question. If one could he in a position to state the hour of such an offense, the chances are that no offense would have occurred.

My master and his wife seem not to realize this point and take the question in real earnest.

“I wonder whenabouts it was.”

“Well now, let me think,” says Mrs. Sneaze. She seems to imagine that by taking thought one can fix the time of events that took place when one was unconscious. “What was the time,” she asks her husband, “when you went to bed?”

“It was after you that I went to bed.”

“Yes,” she agrees, “I went to bed before you did.”

“I wonder what time I woke up.”

“I think it was at half past seven.”

“So what time would that make it when the thief broke in?”

“It must, I suppose, have been sometime in the dead of night.”

“Of course it was sometime in the dead of night. But what I’m asking you about is the particular time.”

“Well, that I can’t just say for certain. Not until I’ve had a good think.” She’s still committed to her thinking ways.

The policeman had only asked his potty question as a matter of form, and he is in fact totally indifferent as to the precise time at which the burglar broke in. All he wants is that my master and his wife should give some kind of an answer: any answer, never mind whether true or not, would do. But the victims engage in such pointless and protracted dialogue that the policeman shows signs of irritation. Eventually he snaps at them.

“Right then. So the time of the burglary is not known. Is that correct?”

“I suppose it does come down to that,” my master answers in his usual drily pedagogic manner.

The policeman was not amused. He plodded stolidly on in accordance with his own routine of police procedure.

“In that case you should send in a written statement of complaint to the effect that on such and such a date in this the thirty-eighth year of the Meiji Era, you, having fastened the entrances to your dwelling, retired to bed, and that subsequently a burglar, having removed such and such a sliding wooden shutter, sneaked into such and such a room or rooms and there stole such and such items of property. Remember, this paper is not just a statement of lost goods but constitutes a formal complaint which may later be used as an accusation. You’d be advised not to address it to anyone in particular.”

“Do we have to identify every single item that’s been stolen?”

“Yes. Set it all out in a detailed list. Coats, for instance, set down how many have gone, and the value of each one taken. No,” he went on in answer to my master’s next suggestion, “I don’t think it would help much if I stepped inside. The burglary has already taken place.” With which unhelpful comment he took himself off.

My master, having planted himself with his writing brush and ink-stone in the very center of the room, calls his wife to come and sit beside him. Then, almost in belligerence, he announces, “I shall now compose a written statement of complaint. Tell me what’s been stolen. Item by item. Sharp, if you please.”

“What cheek! Who d’you think you are to tell me to look sharp? If you talk to me in that dictatorial manner, I shall tell you nothing.” Her toilet incomplete, she plonks herself down sulkily beside him.

“Just look at yourself! You might be some cheap tart at a post-town inn. Why aren’t you wearing an obi?”

“If you don’t like how I look, buy me decent clothes. A post-town tart, indeed! How can I dress correctly when half my stuff’s been stolen?”

“He took your obi? What a despicable thing to do! All right then, we’ll start with that. What kind of obi was it?”

“What d’you mean? What kind? How many obi do you think I’ve got?

It was my black satin with the crêpe lining.”

“One obi of black satin lined with crêpe. . . And what would you say it cost?”

“About six yen, I think.”

“Six yen! That’s far too expensive. You know we can’t afford to fling our money about on fripperies. Don’t spend more than one yen fifty sen on the replacement.”

“And where do you think you’d find a decent obi at that price? As I always say, you’re totally heartless. You couldn’t care less how wretchedly your wife may be dressed, so long as you yourself look reasonably turned out.”

“All right. We’ll drop the matter. Now, what’s next?”

“A surcoat woven with thrown silk. It was given to me as a keepsake of Aunt Kōno. You won’t find surcoats these days of that quality.”

“I didn’t ask for a lecture on the decline of textiles. What would it cost?”

“Not less than fifteen yen.”

“You mean you’ve been going around in a surcoat worth not less than fifteen yen? That’s real extravagance. A standard of living miles beyond our means.”

“Oh, what does it matter? You didn’t even buy it.”

“What’s the next item?”

“One pair of black foot-gloves.”

“Yours?”

“Don’t be silly. Whoever heard of a woman wearing black ones?

They’re yours, of course. And the price, twenty-seven sen.”

“Next?”

“One box of yams.”

“Did he even filch the yams? I wonder how he’ll eat them. Stewed, d’you think? Or in some kind of soup?”

“How the devil should I know? You’d better run along and ask him.”

“What were they worth?”

“I wouldn’t know the price of yams.”

“In that case, let’s say twelve yen fifty sen.”

“That’s ridiculous. How could a box of yams, even ones grown down in Kyushu and then transported here, cost as much as that?”

“You said you didn’t know what they would cost.”

“I did, and I don’t. But twelve yen fifty sen would be plain absurd.

Far, far too much.”

“How can you say in one and the same breath that you don’t know their price but that twelve yen fifty sen is absurd? It makes no sense at all. Except to prove that you’re an Otanchin Palaeologus.”

“That I’m a what?”

“That you’re an Otanchin Palaeologus.”

“What’s that?”

One can hardly blame the lady. Though long experience has given me a certain facility in decoding my master’s thoughts as expressed in vile puns and twisted references to Japanese provincial slang and the mustier tracts of Western scholarship, this particular demonstration of his skills is both sillier and more obscure than usual. I’m still not sure that I understand his full intention, but I suspect he meant no more than that he thought his wife a blockhead. Why then didn’t he just leave it at “Otanchin?” Because, despite his temerarious attack on her balding pate, he lacks the guts to risk a head-on clash, and he’s not entirely certain that she’s never heard that slang-term for a fool. So what does he do? He sees a similarity of sound between “Otanchin” and “Konstantin,” the name of the last Palaeologue Emperor of Byzantium. Not that the sounds are sufficiently similar to justify a pun. Not that Constantine the Eleventh has any remote connection with the price of yams. Not that such truths would sway my master. He simply wants to call his wife a blockhead without having to cope with the consequences of doing so. No wonder Mrs. Sneaze is foxed and no wonder she presses for an explanation.

“Never mind about that. What’s next on the list? You haven’t yet mentioned my own kimono.”

“Never mind about what’s next. Just tell me what ‘Otanchin Palaeologus’ means.”

“It hasn’t got any meaning.”

“You’re so excessively clever that I’m sure you could explain what it means if you wanted to. What kind of a fool do you take me for? I bet you’ve just been calling me names by taking advantage of the fact that I can’t speak English.”

“Stop talking nonsense and get on with the rest of the list. If we aren’t quick in lodging this complaint, we’ll never get our property returned.”

“It’s already too late to make an effective complaint. I’d rather you told me something more about Otanchin Palaeologus.”

“You really are making a nuisance of yourself. As I said before, it has no meaning whatsoever. There’s nothing more to be said.”

“Well, if that’s how you feel, I’ve nothing more to say about the list.”

“What pigheadedness! Have it your own way. I won’t then write out this complaint for you.”

“Suit yourself. But don’t come bothering me for details of what’s missing. It’s you, not me, who’s lodging the complaint. I just don’t care two hoots whether you write it or you don’t.”

“Then let’s forget it,” snaps my master. In his usual abrupt manner he gets up and stalks off into his study. Mrs. Sneaze retires to the living room and dumps herself down in front of her sewing-box. For some ten minutes, this precious pair sit glaring in silence at the paper-door between them.

That was the situation when Mr. Tatara Sampei, donor of yams, came bustling gaily in through the front door. This Tatara was once the Sneazes’ houseboy, but nowadays, having received his degree in law, he works in the mining department of some big company or other. Like, but junior to, the slippery Suzuki, he’s another budding businessman.

Nevertheless, because of his former connection with the family, he still occasionally visits the humble dwelling of his erstwhile benefactor. Indeed, having once been almost one of that family, he sometimes spends whole Sundays in the house.

“What wonderful weather, Mrs. Sneaze.” He sits on the floor in front of her, with his trousered knees drawn up, and speaks as ever in his own Karatsu dialect.

“Why, hello, Mr. Tatara.”

“Is the master out?”

“No, he’s in the study.”

“It’s bad for the health to study as hard as he does. Today’s a Sunday, and Sundays don’t come every day of the week. Now do they?”

“There’s no point in telling me. Go and say it to my husband.”

“Yes, but. . .” He looks around the room and then half-asks his hostess, “The girls, now, they’re not in?” But the words are hardly out of his mouth when Tonko and Sunko both run in from the next room.

“Mr. Tatara, have you brought the goodies?” Tonko, the elder daughter, wastes no time in reminding him of a recent promise.

Tatara scratches his head. “What a memory you’ve got! I’m sorry I forgot them, but really, next time, I promise to remember.”

“What a shame,” says Tonko, and her younger sister immediately echoes “What a shame.” Mrs. Sneaze, in a modest revival of her natural good humor, smiles slightly.

“I confess I forgot the raw fish goodies, but I did bring around some yams. Have you two girls yet tried them?”

“What’s a yam?” asks Tonko, and little Miss Echo pipes up with,

“What’s a yam?”

“Ah, so you’ve not yet eaten them. Ask your mother to cook you some at once. Karatsu yams are especially delicious, quite different from those you get in Tokyo.” As Tatara tootles away on his provincial trumpet, Mrs. Sneaze remembers to thank him again for his kindness.

“It really was kind of you, Mr. Tatara, to bring us yams the other day.

And so many of them. Such a generous thought.”

“Well, have you eaten them? I had the box I made specially so that they wouldn’t get broken. I hope you found them undamaged and in their full length.”

“I’m sure we would have. But I’m sorry to say that, only last night, the whole lot were stolen by a burglar.”

“You’ve been burgled for yams? What a peculiar criminal. I’d never have dreamt that the passion for yams, even Karatsu yams, could be carried so far.”Tatara is enormously impressed.

“Mother,” says Tonko, “Was there a burglar here last night?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Sneaze answers lightly.

“A burglar? Here? A real, real burglar?” Sunko voices wonderment, but immediately goes on to ask, “What sort of face did he have?”

Mrs. Sneaze, stumped by this curious question, finds something suitable to say, “He had,” she says, looking over at Tatara for sympathetic understanding, “a most fear-some face.”

“Do you mean,” asks the tactless Tonko, “that he looked like Mr. Tatara?”

“Really,Tonko, that’s very rude of you.”

“Dear, oh dear,” laughs the visitor, “is my face as fearsome as all that?”

He once more scratches his head. There’s a bald patch, about an inch across, on the back of his head. It began to appear not much more than a month ago and, though he’s taken it round to the quack, it shows no sign of improvement. It is, of course,Tonko who draws attention to the patch.

“Why look,” she says, “Mr. Tatara’s head is shiny just like mother’s.”

“Tonko, behave yourself. I told you to be quiet.”

“Was the thief’s head shiny, too?” Sunko innocently asks. In spite of themselves, the adults burst out laughing. Still, the children’s chatter so interrupts all conversation that Mrs. Sneaze decides to pack them off.

“Run along now and play in the garden. Be good girls and later on I’ll find you both some sweeties.”

After the girls had gone, Mrs. Sneaze turned to Tatara and with all the gravity of a fellow-sufferer enquired, “Mr. Tatara, what has happened to your head?”

“Some kind of skin-infection. Not exactly moth, but a bug of some sort which takes ages to clear up. Are you having the same trouble?”

“Ugh! don’t talk about bugs. In my case the trouble’s the usual female problem of the hair thinning because it’s drawn so tight in the married woman’s hairstyle.”

“All baldness is caused by bacteria.”

“Well, mine’s not.”

“Come, come, Mrs. Sneaze, you’re being obstinate. One cannot fly in the face of the Scientific facts.”

“Say what you like, it’s not bacteria. But tell me, what’s the English word for baldness?”

Tatara said he wasn’t sure, but he answered her correctly.

“No, no,” she said, “Not that, it’s a very much longer word.”

“Why not ask your husband? He could tell you straight off.”

“I’m asking you precisely because he refuses to help.”

“Well, all I know is ‘baldness.’ You say the word you want’s much longer. Can you give me an idea of its sound?”

“‘Otanchin Palaeologus.’ I have an idea that ‘Otanchin’ means bald and ‘Palaeologus’ head.”

“Possibly. I’ll pop into the master’s study a little later and look it up for you in Webster’s Dictionary. By the way, the master is eccentric, isn’t he? Fancy staying indoors and doing nothing on such a lovely day! No wonder his stomach-troubles never get better. Why don’t you persuade him to go and view the flowers at Ueno?”

“Please, you ask him. He never listens to what a woman says.”

“Is he still licking jam?”

“Yes, as always.”

“The other day he was complaining that you’re always telling him he overdoes it. ‘But she’s wrong,’ he said, ‘I really don’t eat all that much.’

So I told him the obvious answer was that you and the girls are also fond of jam. . .”

“Mr. Tatara, how could you say such a thing!”

“But, Mrs. Sneaze, you’ve got a jam-licker’s face.”

“How can you tell a thing like that by looking at someone’s face?”

“I can’t, of course. But, honestly, Mrs. Sneaze, don’t you ever take any?”

“Well, naturally I sometimes take a little. And why shouldn’t I? After all, it’s ours.”

Tatara laughed right out. “I thought that was the answer. But seriously,” he said, adopting a more sober tone, “that really was bad luck about the burglar. Was it only yams that he filched?”

“If it were only yams, we wouldn’t be so upset. But he’s taken all of our everyday clothing.”

“Then you really are in trouble. Will you have to borrow money again? If only this thing here were a dog, not just an idle cat. . . What a difference that might have made. Honestly, you ought to keep a dog, a big sturdy dog. Cats are practically useless. All they do is eat. This cat, for instance, has it ever even caught a rat?”

“Not a single one. It’s a very lazy and impudent cat.”

“Ah! that’s terrible. You must get rid of it at once. Shall I take it along with me? Boiled, you know, they’re really quite good eating.”

“Don’t tell me you eat cats!”

“Yes, indeed, every now and again. They taste delicious,”

“You must have a remarkably strong stomach.”

I have heard that among these degraded houseboys there are some so close to outright barbarism that they do, in fact, eat cats: but not until now had I ever dreamt that our Tatara, a person with whom I’d long been on terms of quite some coziness, could be so base a creature. Of course he’s not our houseboy any longer. Far from it. Though barely out of university, he is now not only a distinguished Bachelor of Law but also a rising executive in that well-known limited company, Mutsui Products. I was, therefore, more than surprised. The proverb says, “When you see a man, take him for a felon;” the truth of that adage has been well-demonstrated by the thieving conduct of last night’s pseudo-Coldmoon. Thanks now to Tatara, I have just invented another proverb: “When you see a man, take him for a felophage.” The longer one lives in this wicked world, the more one learns. It is always good to learn, but as one accumulates knowledge of the world’s wickedness, one grows ever the more cautious, ever the more prepared for the worst. Artfulness, uncharitableness, self-defensive wariness: these are the fruits of worldly learning. The penalty of age is this rather ugly knowingness. Which would seem to explain why one never finds among the old a single decent person. They know too much to see things straight, to feel things cleanly, to act without compromise.

Thinking that there might then be some merit in departing this world while still in my prime, I was making myself small in a corner lest such a departure should be forced upon me in the company of onions stewing in Tatara’s pot, when my master, drawn from his study by the sound of Tatara’s voice, slouched back into the living room.

“I hear, sir, you’ve been burgled. What a stupid thing to have happen.”

Tatara opens the conversation somewhat bluntly.

“That yam-purloiner was certainly stupid.” My master has no doubt whatsoever of his own profound intelligence.

“Indeed, the thief was stupid, but his victim wasn’t exactly clever.”

“Perhaps those with nothing worth stealing, people like Mr. Tatara, are the cleverest of all.” Rather surprisingly Mrs. Sneaze comes out on her husband’s side.

“Anyway, one thing’s clear. That this cat’s totally useless. Really, one can’t imagine what it thinks it’s for. It catches no rats. It sits calmly by while a burglar breaks in. It serves no purpose whatsoever. How about letting me take it?”

“Well,” says My master, “maybe I will. What would you do with it?”

“Cook it and eat it.”

On hearing that ferocious proposition, my master gave vent to a minister wail of dyspeptic laughter, but he answered neither yes nor no.

This, to my mingled surprise and glad relief, seemed to satisfy Tatara for he pressed no further with his disgusting proposal. After a brief pause, my master, changing the subject, remarks, “The cat doesn’t matter, but I do object most strongly to anyone stealing my clothes. I feel so cold.”

He looks indeed dispirited, and no wonder he feels cold. Until yesterday he was wearing two quilted kimonos: but today, wearing only a single lined-kimono and a short-sleeved shirt, he’s been sitting about since morning and has taken no exercise. What little blood he has is totally engaged in keeping his miserable stomach going, so naturally it doesn’t get round to his arms and legs.

“It’s hopeless being a teacher. Your world gets turned upside-down by a mere burglar. It’s still not too late to make a change. Why not come into the business world?”

“Since my scholarly spouse just doesn’t care for businessmen, it’s a waste of time even to suggest the idea.” Mrs. Sneaze, of course, would be delighted to see him go into business.

“How many years is it,”Tatara asks, “since you took your degree?”

“Eight years, I think,” answers Mrs. Sneaze looking toward her husband. My master neither confirms nor denies the period.

“Eight years and your pay’s the same as on the day you started.

However hard you study, no one appreciates your merits.‘All by himself the master is, and lonely.’” For Mrs. Sneaze’s benefit Tatara quotes a scrap of Chinese poetry remembered from his days in middle school.

Since she fails to understand him she makes no answer.

“Of course I don’t like teaching, but I dislike commerce even more.” My master seems to be a bit uncertain in his own mind what it is he does like.

“He dislikes everything,” says Mrs. Sneaze.

“Well, anyway I’m sure he doesn’t dislike his wife.” Tatara makes an unexpected sally.

“I dislike her most of all.” My master’s comment is extremely terse.

Mrs. Sneaze turns slightly away and her face stiffens, but she then looks back at her husband and says, as if she thought she were getting a good dig in at him, “I suppose you’ll be saying next that you dislike living.”

“True,” came his off-hand answer, taking the wind clean out of her sails, “I don’t like living much.” He’s way past praying for.

“You should go for a brisk walk every now and again. Staying indoors all day must be ruining your health. And what’s more, you really should become a businessman. Making money is simple as pie.”

“Look who’s talking. You yourself aren’t exactly rolling in it.”

“Ah, well. But I only joined the company last year. Even so, I’ve more saved up than you have.”

“How much have you saved?” Inevitably, Mrs. Sneaze rises to such bait, and puts her question with real earnestness.

“Fifty yen, already.”

“And how much is your salary?” Again it’s Mrs. Sneaze who asks the question.

“Thirty yen a month. The company retains five yen and saves it up for me. In an emergency, I can draw on the accumulated capital. Really, why don’t you buy some tramway shares with your pin-money? Their value will double within three or four months. Indeed anyone with a bit of capital could double, even triple, his money in next to no time.”

“If I had any pin-money,” Mrs. Sneaze somewhat sourly observes, “I wouldn’t now be up a gum tree all on account of some petty theft.”

“That’s why I keep saying your husband should go into business. For instance, if he’d studied law and then joined a company or a bank, he would by now be earning three or four hundred yen a month. It seems a shame he didn’t. By the way, sir, do you happen to know a man called Suzuki Tōjūrō who got his degree in engineering?”

“Yes, he called here only yesterday.”

“So you’ve seen him then. I ran into him a few days back at a party and your name cropped up. I said I’d once been a member of your household, and he replied that he and you had once shared lodgings at some temple in Koishikawa.‘Next time you see him,’ he said,‘please give him my kindest regards and say I’ll be looking him up one of these days.’”

“I gather he’s recently been transferred back to Tokyo.”

“That’s right. Until the other day he was pining away somewhere down in Kyushu, but he’s just been moved up to the head office here in Tokyo. He’s a smooth lad, that one.

Smooth as a keg of lacquer. He even takes the trouble to speak engagingly to me. . . Have you any idea how much he earns?”

“Not the foggiest.”

“Well, on top of his basic monthly pay of 250 yen, he’ll be getting bonuses twice a year, in July and December, so that his overall income can’t be less than four or five hundred yen each month. To think that a man like that can be coining the stuff while you, a teacher of the English Reader, can scarcely make ends meet. It’s a lunatic state of affairs.”

“Lunatic’s the word.” Even a man as snooty and superior as my master is no different from the herd of his fellow men when it comes to matters of money. Indeed, the very fact that he’s skint the whole year long makes him rather more keen than most to get his claws on a copper. However, having spoken at such length on the marvels of making money, Tatara has now exhausted his stock of slogans about the beatitudes of the business life: so he turns to Mrs. Sneaze on a totally different tack.

“Does a man called Coldmoon come visiting your husband?”

“Yes, often.”

“What sort of fellow is he?”

“I’m told he’s a brilliant scholar.”

“Handsome, would you say?”

Mrs. Sneaze permits herself an unbecoming titter. “I’d say that in looks he’s just about as good looking as you,”

“Is that so? About as good-looking as me. . . ”

“How do you come to be interested in Coldmoon?” enquires my master.

“The other day someone asked me to ask around about him. Is he a man worth making enquiries about?” Even before he gets an answer, Tatara shows by his condescending tone that he doesn’t think much of Coldmoon.

“As a man,” says my master,“he’s a great deal more impressive than you.”

“Is he, now? More impressive than me?” Characteristically,Tatara neither smiles nor seems offended. A sensitive man of the utmost self-control? A dense unfeeling dullard? Need one ask? He eats cats, doesn’t he?

“But tell me, will this Coldmoon fellow be getting a doctorate one of these days?”

“I’m told he’s writing a thesis now.”

“So he’s a fool after all. . . Writing a thesis for a doctorate indeed! I’d expected him to be brighter than that.”

“You don’t half fancy yourself,” says Mrs. Sneaze with a laugh. “You always did reckon yourself the bee’s knees and the cat’s whiskers. But what’s so foolish about being well educated?”

“Someone told me that once this Coldmoon gets his doctorate, then he’ll be given someone’s daughter. Something like that. So of course I said, ‘A man’s a fool who works for a doctorate just to marry a girl.

Someone should not marry someone’s daughter to anyone so foolish.

Better for,’ I said, ‘someone’s daughter to marry me.’”

My master wobbled his head. “To whom did you say all that?”

“To the Man who asked me to ask around about Coldmoon.”

“Suzuki?”

“Golly, no. I wouldn’t be bandying words with a big shot like that on such a delicate matter. At least, not yet I wouldn’t.”

“A lion at home, a wood louse in the open!” says Mrs. Sneaze. “You talk big, Mr. Tatara, when you’re here with us, but I bet you curl up small and quiet when you talk to Mr. Suzuki.”

“Of course I do. It would be foolhardy to do anything else. One wrong word and I could be out on my ear.”

“Tatara,” my master suddenly breaks in, “let’s go out for a walk.”

Sitting there in the scanty remnants of his wardrobe he’s grown to feel downright frozen, and the thought has just filtered through that the exercise of walking might warm him up a bit. There can be no other explanation for such an unprecedented suggestion.

Tatara, that unpetrine person, that seaweed in the tide-flows of the world, that reed which bends to its lightest wind, doesn’t even hesitate.

“Yes, indeed, let’s go. How about Ueno? Let’s go try some of Imozaka’s famous dumplings. Have you ever tried those dumplings? You, too, Mrs.

Sneaze, sometime you really ought, if only just once, to try them.

They’re beautifully soft and even more beautifully cheap. They serve saké as well.” Tatara was still babbling away about dumplings when my master, his hat on his head, was ready on the doorstone waiting to leave. . .

Myself, I need rest. There’s no conceivable reason why I should keep watch upon, still less record, how my master and Tatara behaved at Ueno Park, how many plates of dumplings they consumed, and what other pointless happenings transpired. In any case, I lack the energy to trail along after them. I shall therefore skip all mention of their afternoon doings and, instead, relax. All created things are entitled to demand of their Creator some rest for recreation. We are born with an obligation to keep going while we can, and if, like maggots wriggling in the fabric of this world, we are to keep on thrashing about down here, we do need rest to do it. If the Creator should take the line that I am born to work and not to sleep, I would agree that I am indeed born to work but I would also make the unanswerable point that I cannot work unless I also rest. Even my master, that timid but complaining crank in the grinding mechanism of our national education, sometimes though it costs him money, takes a weekday off. I am no human cog. I am a cat, a being sensitive to the most subtle shades of thought and feeling. Naturally, I tire more quickly than my master. Naturally, I need more sleep. But I confess I’m a little worried by Tatara’s recent travesty of my case, his wicked misrepresentation of my natural need for sleep as evidence of my practical uselessness. Philistines such as he, creatures responsive only to the crudest material phenomena, cannot appreciate anything deeper than the surface appearances recorded by their five coarse senses. Unless one is rigged out in a navvy’s clobber and the sweat can be seen and smelt as it pours from one’s brow and armpits, such persons can’t conceive that one is working. I have heard there was a Zen priest called, I fancy, Bodhidharma, who remained so long immobilized in spiritual meditation that his legs just rotted away. That he made no move, even when ivies crept through the wall and their spreading suckers sealed his eyes and mouth, did not mean that the priest was sleeping or dead. On the contrary, his mind was very much alive. Legless in the bonds of dusty vegetation, Bodhidharma came to grasp such brilliantly stylish truths as the notion that, since Zen is of itself so vast and so illumining, there can be no appreciable distinction between saints and mediocrities. What’s more, I understand that the followers of Confucius also practice forms of meditation though not perhaps to the extent of self-immurement and of training their flesh to crippledom by idleness.

All such meditants have powers burning in the brain that are a lot more fierce than anything non-meditants could possibly conceive. But because the outward appearance of these spiritual giants is so solemn, calm, unutterably serene, the fathead nincompoops who come and stare at them can see nothing more than ordinary persons in states of coma, catatonia, or even simple syncope. Such mediocrities slander their betters as drones and layabouts. But the fault lies in the very ordinariness of the eyes of ordinary people, for, in truth, their eyesight is defective in that their glances merely slither over external appearances, never pierce through to spiritual inwardness. Now it is understandable that a man like Tatara Sampei, that personification of all things superficial, would only see shit on a shovel if, undergoing the Zen test of a man’s ability to find purity among impurities, he were so shown a shitten shovel. But it grieves me to the core to find that my master who, after all, has read fairly widely and ought to be able to see some little way beyond the mere surface of things, should nevertheless so readily concur in the flip-pertigibbet fancies of his shallow houseboy; at least to the extent of failing to raise objections to his casserole of cat.

However, when I think things over and see them in perspective, I can understand that it’s not altogether unreasonable that my master and his houseboy should thus look down on me. Two relevant sayings by ancient Chinese sages occur to my mind. “Elevated and noble music cannot penetrate the ears of the worldly wise” and “Everyone sings street-songs but very few can join in singing such learned airs as ‘Shining Spring’ and ‘White Snow.’” It’s a waste of effort to try and force those incapable of seeing more than outer forms to understand the inner brilliance of their own souls. It is like pressing a shaven priest to do his hair in a bun, like asking a tunny-fish to deliver a lecture, like urging a tram to abandon its rails, like advising my master to change his job, like telling Tatara to think no more about money. In short, it is exorbitant to expect men to be other than they are. Now the cat is a social animal and, as such, however highly he may rate his own true worth, he must contrive to remain, at least to some extent, in harmony with society as a whole. It is indeed a matter for regret that my master and his wife, even such creatures as O-san and Tatara, do not treat me with that degree of respect which I properly deserve, but nothing can be done about it. That’s the way things are, and it would be very much worse, indeed fatal, if in their ignorance they went so far as to kill me, flay me, serve up my butchered flesh at Tatara’s dinner table, and sell my emptied skin to a maker of cat-banjos.

Since I am a truly unusual cat, one born into this world with a mission demanding purely mental activity, I am responsible for safeguarding the inestimable worth of my own rarity. As the proverb says, “The rich man’s son is never seated at the edge of the raised hall.” I, too, am far too precious to be exposed to the danger of a tumble into calamity. If sheer vainglory led me to run such risks, I would not only be inviting personal disaster but flouting the evident will of Heaven. However, even the fiercest tiger, once installed in a zoo, settles down resignedly next to some filthy pig. Even the largest of wild geese, once in the poulterer’s hands, must finish up on the selfsame chopping board as the scrawniest chickling. Consequently, for as long as I consort with ordinary men, I must conduct myself as if I were an ordinary cat. Ordinary cats catch rats. This long but faultless chain of logic leads to but one conclusion. I have finally decided to catch a rat.

I understand that, now for some time, Japan has been at war with Russia. Being a Japanese cat, I naturally side with Japan. I have even been cherishing a vague ambition to organize some kind of Cats Brigade which, if only a scratch formation, could still inflict claw-damage on the Russian horde. Being thus magnificently militant, why should I dither over a miserable rat or two? So long as the will to catch them burns within me, why, I could rake them in with my eyes shut. Long ago, when someone asked a well-known Zen priest of that ancient time how to attain enlightenment, the priest replied “You should proceed like a cat stalking a rat.” Indeed, such utter concentration on one’s objective is always certain to bring success. There is, of course, that other proverb which warns against over-cleverness. The over-clever woman may well have failed to sell her cow, but I’ve never heard it suggested that an over-clever cat might fail to catch a rat. Thus a cat of my outstanding qualities should have no trouble in catching any rat around. Indeed, I cannot see how I could fail to catch one. The fact that up until now I’ve not caught any, reflects no more than my erstwhile disinclination to do so. Nothing more than that.

Just as yesterday, the spring sun sets and flurries of falling cherry-blossoms, whirled on occasional gusts of the evening wind, burst in through the broken kitchen door. Floating on the water in a kitchen pail, they glimmer whitely in the dim light of a kitchen lamp. Now that I have decided to surprise the entire household with the feat of arms which I purpose to achieve during the coming night, I realize that some preliminary reconnaissance of the battlefield is needed to ensure my proper grasp of the topography of the ground. The field of maneuver is not particularly large, covering perhaps an area of four mats. Of that area a full eighth is occupied by the sink, while another eighth consists of that unfloored space where roundsmen from the wine shop and the green-grocer’s stand to wait for the day’s order. The stove is unexpectedly grand for a poor man’s kitchen and it even boasts a brilliantly shiny copper kettle. Behind the stove, on a strip of wooden boarding about two feet wide, stands the abalone-shell in which I am served my meals. Close to the living room there is a cupboard for plates and bowls, which, being six feet long, severely reduces the already limited space. Beside the cupboard and reaching roughly up to the level of its top, shelves extend along the wall, and on one of two lower shelves there is an earthenware mortar with a small pail placed inside it upside-down. A wooden pestle and a radish-grater hang side-by-side from hooks, and ranged beside them there’s a dreary-looking pot for extinguishing live charcoal. From the point where the blackened rafters cross, a pot-hook is suspended, and on that hook a large flat basket floats in midair. Every now and again, under the pressure of the kitchen’s drafts, the basket moves with a certain magnanimity. When I was a newcomer to this house, I simply could not understand why this basket hung where it did, but, learning later that it was so placed specifically to prevent cats getting at the food which it contained, I realized once again how thoroughly mean, how preternaturally bloody-minded, are the hearts and heads of humankind.

The reconnaissance completed, one must plan a campaign appropriate to the site. But a battle with rats can only take place where rats are available to be fought. However brilliantly one may position one’s forces, they can achieve nothing if they are alone upon the field. It was thus obviously vital to determine the rats were most likely to appear.

Standing in the middle of the kitchen, I look around and wonder from what direction they would probably emerge. I feel as Admiral Tōgō must have done as he pondered the likeliest course of the Russian fleet.

That awful O-san went off to a bathhouse a little while ago and she hasn’t yet come back. Long ago the children went to sleep. My master ate dumplings at Imozaka, came home and has now vanished into his study. His wife, I don’t know what she’s doing but I would guess she’s dozing somewhere deep in yammy dreams. An occasional rickshaw can be heard passing along the street in front of the house: each subsequent silence makes the night more deep, its desolation lonelier. My decision to take action, my sense of resolute high spirit, the waiting kitchen-battlefield, the all-pervading feeling of loneliness: it is the perfect setting and atmosphere for deeds of high renown. There’s no doubt about it. I am the Admiral Tōgō of the cats. Anyone so placed must feel, however terrifying the situation, a certain wild exhilaration, but I confess that, underneath that pleasurable excitement, I was persistently nagged by one disquieting consideration. I have decided to do battle with rats, so I care nothing for the mere number of the rats to be fought, but I do find it worryingly inconvenient not to know from which direction or directions the rats will make their appearance. I have collated and analyzed the results of my recent reconnaissance, and have concluded that there are three lines of advance by which these robber riffraff might debouch upon the field. If they are gutter rats, they’ll come sneaking up the drainpipe to the sink and thence nip round behind the stove. In which case, my correct tactic is to be in hiding behind the charcoal extinguisher and thence interdict their line of retreat. Alternatively, such villains might slide in through the hole cut at the base of the washroom’s plaster-wall for the escape of dirty water into the outside drain: if they adopt that point of entry, they could then sneak across the washroom and so pop out into the kitchen. In which case, my best tactic is to station myself on the lid of the rice-cooker from which position, as the filthy brutes glide past below me, I could drop upon them from the sky.

Finally, my visual check of the terrain has revealed, at the bottom right-hand corner of the cupboard, a gnawed halfmoon of a hole which looks suspiciously convenient for raiding rats. Putting my nose to the place, I sniff the ground. It smells a little ratty. If a rat comes dashing out to battle from that curved sally-port, my best tactic is to lurk behind the pillar and pounce upon him from the side as he scuttles by.

A further thought then struck me. Suppose the rats should find some line of advance along unexpectedly higher ground. I look up and the soot-black ceiling gleams evilly in the glow of the lamp. It looks like hell hung upside-down. It is plain that with my limited strength and skills I could neither climb up there, still less climb down. Either because if I can’t, rats can’t, or because if I can’t, rats wouldn’t, I decide that there’s no likelihood that they will descend from those infernal altitudes, and I accordingly abandon any attempt to make plans to cope with that threat.

Even so, there’s danger of being simultaneously attacked from three directions. If they come from only a single direction, with one eye shut I could wipe the whole lot out. If from two directions, still I’d be able to cope. But if they come from three directions, however confident I may be of my instinctive aptitude for catching rats, the situation would be distinctly dicey. It would be an affront to my own dignity to go beg help from such as Rickshaw Blacky. What on earth shall I do? When, having wondered what on earth to do, one still can’t think of anything, it is, I’ve found, the shortest way to peace of mind to decide that what one fears won’t happen. In point of fact, everyone chooses to assume that the insupportable will never occur. Look around at the world. Today’s delighted bride holds no guarantee against death tomorrow, but the bridegroom, happily chanting auspicious texts, displays no sign of worry. The fact that he doesn’t worry is not because there’s nothing to be worried about. The reason is that, however much he worries, it will not make the slightest difference. So, too, in my case. I’ve no reason whatsoever to assert that simultaneous triple-pronged attacks will certainly never be launched, but to decide that they won’t sorts best with my self-assurance. All things need assurance. Not least myself. I have, consequently, reached the firm conclusion that attacks from three directions will not happen.

Even so I still feel tweaks of doubt. I pondered the cause of this continuing uneasiness and worried away at the problem until at last I understood the source of my disquiet. It is the agony of not being able to find a single clear-cut answer to a problem: in my case, to the problem of deciding which of three strategies will prove most profitable. If rats emerge from the cupboard, I have a plan to deal with the situation. If they appear from the bathroom, I have another scheme to cope with that. And if they come sneaking up through the sink, I have yet another wheeze worked out to settle their slithery hash. But to choose one of these three courses of action and then stick firmly to my choice, that I find excruciatingly difficult. I hear that Admiral Tōgō was similarly excruciated as he pondered whether the Russian Baltic Fleet would pass through the Straits of Tsushima, or would steer a more easterly course for the Straits of Tsugaru, or would take the longest way around by heading out into the Pacific and then swinging back through the Straits of La Pérouse between Hokkaido and Sakhalin. My own predicament enabled me fully to appreciate just how worried the noble Admiral must have been. Not only am I placed in a similar situation, but I share his agony of choice.

While I was thus absorbed in contriving a solution to my problem of major strategy, the damaged paper-door was suddenly slid open, and the ugly face of O-san loomed into view. I do not intend that turn of phrase to imply that that creature lacks arms and legs; simply that the remainder of her carcass was so indistinguishable from the background darkness that only her face, hectically bright and savagely colored, struck upon my eyes. She has just returned from the public bathhouse, and her normally red cheeks look positively scarlet. Even though it is still quite early, she proceeds, probably in belated wisdom learnt from last night’s happenings, carefully to fasten up the kitchen door. From the study comes my master’s voice enjoining her to place his walking stick at hand’s reach by his bedside. Really, I fail to see why such a man should want to decorate his bedside with a walking stick. Can it be that he’s started to fancy himself in the role of that heroic assassin who, so the classics tell us, attacked the first of the Chinese Emperors? Can it be that he sees his walking stick as that tomb-treasure sword which, at a robber’s touch, roared like a tiger, growled like a dragon, and then flew upward into the sky? Surely not even my perplexed master could harbor such daft delusions. But yesterday it was the yams. Now it’s a walking stick. What will it be tomorrow?

The night is still young. The rats are not likely to appear for some time yet. I need repose before the coming battle.

There are no windows in my master’s kitchen. Instead, just below the level of the ceiling there’s a sort of transom about one foot wide, which, left open all the year round, serves as a skylight. I was brought suddenly out of my sleep by a flurry of blossoms from the early-flowering cherries blown through that opening on a gust of wind. A hazy moonlight slants into the kitchen and casts a shadow of the stove sidelong across the wooden floor. Wondering if I have overslept, I shake my ears two or three times and then look carefully around to see if anything’s developed. Dead silence reigns, through which, as was the case last night, the clock ticks steadily on. It’s high time that the rats came out. I wonder where they will appear. It’s not long before gentle noises start-up inside the cupboard. It sounds as though rats are trying to get at something on a plate and are scrabbling at the plate’s edge with their horny claws. In the expectation that these cupboard rats will eventually emerge from the gnawed half-moon at the bottom of its door, I hunker down to wait beside that opening. The rats seem in no hurry to come out. Eventually the plate noise stopped, but was soon succeeded by sounds of rat feet on some sort of bowl or basin. Every now and again there were heavy humpings on the other side of the cupboard door, only a bare three inches distant from the tip of my waiting nose. Sometimes the sounds come even closer to the hole, but then they scamper away again and not one single rat so much as shows its face. Just beyond that door the foe is rampaging through the cupboard, but all I can do is lurk here quietly at the half-moon exit. Which calls for patience; very great patience. The rats, like the Russians in the basin of Port Arthur, seem to be having a rare old shindig in their bowl. I wish that that fool O-san had the mind to leave the cupboard door at least sufficiently ajar to allow me to slip through, but what can one expect from so thick-skulled a country bumpkin.

From behind the stove my abalone-shell emits a sound of gentle rocking. Aha! The enemy is also coming from that direction.Very well, then.

I creep forward on the stealthiest of paws but catch only a glimpse of a tail among the buckets before it whisks away below the sink. A short while later I hear the clink of my master’s gargling glass against the metal of the wash-basin. So! Now they are behind me. As I turn to face this new danger, a whopping great rat, at least six inches long, adroitly tips a small bag of tooth-powder off the shelf above the basin, and then itself goes skittering away to safety under the floorboards. Determined not to let him escape, I spring down after him, but even before I’d landed, the filthy beast had vanished. Catching rats, I find, is trickier than I’d thought. Perhaps I am congenitally inculpable of catching them.

When I advance upon the bathroom, rats pop out of the cupboard.

When I take post by the cupboard, rats erupt from the sink. And when I plant myself firmly in the center of the kitchen, rats shoot racketing up on all three fronts together. Never have I seen such impudent bravado combined with such poltroonery! Their skittering evasion of fair fight brands them unworthy adversaries for a gentleman. Fifteen, maybe sixteen times I darted hither and thither until, all to no purpose, I had exhausted myself both physically and mentally. I am ashamed to confess my failure, but against such mean-souled adversaries even the resourceful Admiral Tōgō would have found himself stumped. I had launched upon this venture with high courage, a determination to subdue the foe, and even a certain elevated sense of the spiritual beauty of my undertaking, but now, tired out and downright sleepy, I find it merely fatuous and irksome. I cease to rush around and squat down right in the center of the kitchen. But, though utterly motionless, if I maintain a sharp lookout all around me, the enemy, being such miserable dastards, will never dare to try on anything serious. When, unexpectedly, one’s enemy turns out to be so pettily paltry, the sense of war as an honorable activity cannot be sustained and one is left with nothing but a feeling of naked hatred. When that acrid animosity dulls, one becomes downhearted and even absent-minded. And after that general dimness fades away, one just feels sleepy. So deep is the lethargy of complete disdain that one feels prepared to let one’s foes do anything they like. For what of any possible significance, so one asks oneself, are beings so debased capable of doing? Having myself gone through all those stages, I, too, eventually grew sleepy, and dozed off. All that lives must rest, even in the midst of enemies.

I woke to find a violent wind blowing around me. Again, a gust was pitching handfuls of petals through the open transom running along below the eaves. At the very moment of my waking, something, shooting out from the cupboard like a bullet from a gun, sliced across the blowing wind and, quick as a flash, fastened its snapping teeth into my left ear. I’d barely time to realize what was happening before another black shadow flickered around behind me and closed its jaws upon my tail. This all took place within the batting of an eye. Taking no thought whatsoever, by simple reflex action I spring to my feet. Converting all my strength into a shuddering paroxysm of my skin, I try to shake these monsters off. The demon anchored to my ear, yanked off his feet as I sprang to mine, dangles down beside my face. The end of his tail, spongily soft like a rubber tube, falls unexpectedly into my mouth. I take a firm grip on the beastly object and, teeth clamped fast upon it, I waggle my head from side-to-side as hard as I can go. The tail came off in my jaws, while the jactitated body, slung first against the wall plastered with old newspapers, bounced off onto the floor-boards. While the rat still struggles to regain his balance, quick to seize my chance I pounce upon him, but, like some rebounding ball, he whizzes up past my descending muzzle and lands surprisingly high on one of the upper shelves. Tucking in his legs, he stares down at me over the edge of his shelf. I stare up at him from the wooden floor. The distance between us is about five feet. Clean across that distance, the moonlight slants from the transom like a woman’s broad white sash stretched out along the air.

Concentrating all my strength in my legs, I leapt up at the shelf. My front paws grasp its edge but, weighted down by the rat still riveted to my tail, my hindlegs are left scrabbling in midair. I am in danger. I try to clamber upward by judicious adjustment of the positions of my paws, but each such effort, by reason of the rat weight on my tail, merely results in a weakening of my pawhold. If my paws slip just one further quarter of an inch I shall be lost. I am really in great danger. My claws scrape noisily along the wooden ledge. In a last effort, I try to advance my left paw, but its claws fail to gain purchase in the smooth wood surface and I finish up hanging by a single claw of my right paw. My body, dragged fully out under its own and the rear rat’s weight, begins both to swing and to rotate. The monster on the shelf, which has hitherto been content to sit motionless and glare at me, now hops down onto my forehead. My last claw loses hold.

Melded into one black lump, the three bodies plummet downward through the slanted moonlight. Objects on the shelf below, the earthenware mortar, the small pail standing inside it, and an empty tin, swell the falling lump which, further swollen by the dislodgement of a charcoal extinguisher, finally splits in two. Half the ugly mass falls straight into a water jar, while the rest disintegrates into bodies wildly rolling across the kitchen floor. In the dead quiet of night the noise was truly appalling.

Even my own already frantic soul was further shaken by the din.

“Burglars!” Hoarsely bellowing, my master comes rushing out from the bedroom. He carries a lamp in one hand and a walking stick in the other. From his sleepy eyes there flashes as much of the light of battle as such a man could be expected ever to muster. I crouch down silently beside my abalone-shell. The two rat-monsters vanish into the cupboard. “What’s going on here? Who made all that hideous noise?” My master, looking vaguely sheepish, shouts in his angriest voice questions that no one’s there to answer.

The westering moon sank steadily lower and lower, and its broad white sash of light across the kitchen narrowed and narrowed as it sank.







 III







THIS HEAT is quite unbearable,especially for a cat. An English clergyman, a certain Sydney Smith, once remarked that the weather was so intolerably hot that there was nothing left for it but to take off his skin and sit about in his bones. Though to be reduced to a skeleton might be going too far, I would at least be glad to slip out of my fur of spotted, palish gray and send it to be washed or even popped temporarily into pawn. To human eyes, the feline way of life may seem both extremely simple and extremely inexpensive, for a cat’s face looks the same all the year round and we wear the same old only suit through each of the four seasons. But cats, I can assure you, just like anyone else, feel the heat and feel the cold. There are times when I consider that I really wouldn’t mind, just that once, soaking myself in a bath, but if I got hot water all over my fur, it would take ages to get dry again and that is why I grin and bear the stink of my own sweat and have never in all my life yet passed through the entrance of a public bathhouse. Every now and again I think about using a fan but, since I cannot hold one in my paws, the thought’s not worth pursuing.

Compared with our simplistic style, human manners are indeed extravagant. Some things should be eaten either raw or as they are, but humans go quite unnecessarily out of their way to waste both time and energy on boiling them, grilling them, pickling them in vinegar, and smarming them over with bean-paste. The horrible results of all these processes appear to tickle them to death. In matters of dress they are similarly absurd. Inasmuch as they are born imperfect, it might be asking too much if one expected them to wear, as is the custom of cats, the same clothes all year long but, surely to goodness, they cannot need to swaddle their skins in such a heterogeneity of sheer clobber. Since it seems not to shame them to be indebted to sheep, to be dependent on silkworms, and even to accept the charity of cotton shrubs, one could almost assert that their extravagance is an admission of incompetence.

Even if one overlooks their oddity and allows them their perversities in matters of food and clothing, I completely fail to see why they have to exhibit this same crass idiosyncrasy in matters that have no bearing whatsoever on their continuing existence. Take, for instance, their hair. Since, willy-nilly, it grows, I would have thought it simplest and best for any creature just to leave it alone. But no. Not for humans. Totally unnecessarily, they trick themselves out in every conceivable sort and kind of hair-do. And even take pride in their idiot variations. Those who call themselves priests keep their heads clean-shaven blue: blue in summer, winter blue. Yet when it’s hot they put on sunhats, and when it’s cold they hood themselves in bits of blanket. Given all this hatting and hooding, why do they shave their heads? It’s absolutely senseless. Again, there are some who, using a sawlike instrument called a comb, part their hair down the middle and look as pleased as punch with the result. Others rake out an artificial separation of the hair three-sevenths of the way across their cranial bones, and some of these extend that scraped division right over the top of their skulls so that the hair flops out at the back like false banana-leaves. Some have the hair on their crowns shorn flat but cut the hair at the sides, both left and right, to hang down straight. This creation of a square frame for a round head makes them look, if they can be said to look like anything, as though they were staring out on the world through a cedar hedge just trimmed by a maniac gardener. In addition to these styles there are those based on cutting every hair to a standard length: the five-inch cut, the three-inch cut, and even the one-inch cut.

Who knows, if such close cropping is continued, they’ll finish up with a cut inside their skulls. Maybe the minus-one-inch cut, even a minus-three-inch cut will be the ultimate fashion. In any event, I cannot understand why mankind becomes enslaved to such fool fads.

Why, for instance, do they use two legs when they all have four available? Such waste of natural resources! If they used four legs to get about, they’d all be a great deal nippier; nevertheless, they persist in the folly of using only two and leave the other pair just hanging from their shoulders like a couple of dried codfish that someone brought around as a present. One can only deduce that human beings, having so very much more spare time than do cats, lighten their natural boredom by putting their minds to thinking up such nonsenses. The odd thing is not simply that these creatures of endless leisure assure each other, whenever two of them get together, of just how busy they are, but that their faces do in fact look busy. Indeed they look so fussed that one wonders just how many men get eaten by their business. I sometimes hear them say, when they have the good fortune to make my acquaintance, how nice and easy life could be if one lived it like a cat. If they really want their lives to be nice and easy, it’s already in their own good power to make them so.

Nothing stands in the way. Nobody insists that they should fuss about as they do. It is entirely of their own free will that they make more engagements than they can possibly keep and then complain about being so horribly busy. Men who build themselves red-hot fires shouldn’t complain of the heat. Even we cats, if we had to think up twenty different ways of scissoring our fur, would not for long remain as carefree as we are. Anyone who wants to be carefree must train himself to be, like me, able to wear a fur coat in the summer. Still. . . I must admit it is a little hot. Really, it is too hot, a fur coat in the summer.

In this appalling heat I can’t even get that afternoon nap which is my sole and special pleasure. How then shall I while the time away? Since I have long neglected my study of human society, I thought I might usefully devote a few hours to watching them toiling and moiling away in their usual freakish fashions. Unfortunately, my master’s character, at least in the matter of napping, is more than a little aluroid. He takes his afternoon siestas no less seriously than I do and, since the summer holidays began, he has not done a stroke of what humans would call work.

Thus, however closely I may observe him, I should learn nothing new about the human condition. If only someone like Waverhouse would drop in, then there’d be some chance of a twitch in my master’s depressingly dyspeptic skin, some hope of him stirring from his catlike languor.

Just is I was thinking it is indeed about time that Waverhouse dropped by, I hear the sound of somebody splashing water in the bathroom. And it’s not just splashing water that I hear, for the splasher punctuates his aquatics with loud expressions of his appreciation. “Perfect. How wonderfully refreshing. One more bucketful, if you please!” The voice rings brashly through the house. There’s only one man in the world who would speak so loudly and who would make himself, unbidden, so very much at home in my master’s dwelling. It must, thank God, be Waverhouse.

I was just thinking, “Well, at least today I shall be eased of half the long day’s tedium,” when the man himself walks straight into the living room. His shoulders recovered beneath kimono sleeves, he’s wiping sweat from his face as, without any ceremony at all, he pitches his hat down on the matting and calls out, “Hello there. Tell me, Mrs. Sneaze, how’s your husband bearing up today?” Mrs. Sneaze had been comfortably asleep in the next room. Hunkered down on her knees with her gormless face bent over onto her sewing-box, she was shocked awake as Waverhouse’s yelpings pierced deep into her ears. When, trying to lever her sleepy eyes wide open, she came into the room,Waverhouse, already seated in his fine linen kimono, was happily fanning himself.

“Good afternoon,” she says and, still looking somewhat confused, almost shyly adds, “I’d no idea you were here.” As she bowed in greeting a bead of sweat glissades to gather at the tip of her nose.

“I’ve only this minute arrived. With your servant’s kind assistance I’ve just been having a most splendid shower in the bathroom. As a result I now feel greatly refreshed. Hot, though, isn’t it?”

“Very hot. These last few days one’s been perspiring even when sitting still. . . But you look as well as ever.” Mrs. Sneaze has not yet wiped the sweat-drop from her nose.

“Thank you, yes I am. Our usual spells of heat hardly affect me at all, but this recent weather has been something special. One can’t help feeling sluggish.”

“How very true. I’ve never before felt need of a nap but in this weather, being so very hot. . .”

“You had a nap? That’s good. If one could only sleep during the daytime and then still sleep at night. . . why, nothing could be more wonderful.” As always, he rattles along as the mood of the moment takes him. He seems, however, this time faintly dissatisfied with what’s popped out of his mouth, for he hurries to add, “Take me, for example.

By nature I need no sleep. Consequently, when I see a man like Sneaze who is invariably sleeping whenever I call, I feet distinctly envious. Well, I expect such heat is pretty rough on a dyspeptic. On days like this even a healthy person feels too tired to balance his head on his shoulders.

However, since one’s head is fixed tight, one can’t just wrench it off.”

Rather unusually,Waverhouse seems uncertain what to do with his head.

“Now you, Mrs. Sneaze, with all that hair on your head, don’t you find it hard even to sit up? The weight of your chignon alone must leave you aching to lie down.”

Mrs. Sneaze, thinking that Waverhouse is referring again to her nap by drawing attention to her disordered hair, giggles with embarrassment.

Touching her hand to her hair, she mumbles “How unkind you are!”

Waverhouse, totally unconscious of her reaction, goes off at a tangent. “D’you know,” he says, “yesterday I tried to fry an egg on the roof.”

“How’s that?”

“The roof tiles were so marvelously baking-hot that I thought it a pity not to make practical use of them. So I buttered a tile and broke an egg onto it.”

“Gracious me!”

“But the sun, you know, let me down. Even though I waited for ages, the egg was barely half-done. So I went downstairs to read the newspapers. Then a friend dropped in, and somehow I forgot about the egg. It was only this morning that I suddenly remembered and, thinking it must be done by now, went up to took at it.”

“How was it?”

“Far from being ready to eat, it had gone completely runny. In fact, it had run away, all down the side of the house.”

“Oh dear.” Mrs. Sneaze frowned to show she was impressed.

“But isn’t it strange that all through the hot season the weather was so cool and then it should turn so hot now.”

“Yes, indeed. Right up until recently we’ve been shivering in our summer clothes and then, quite suddenly, the day before yesterday, this awful heat began.”

“Crabs walk sideways but this year’s weather walks backward. Maybe it’s trying to teach us the truth of that Chinese saying that sometimes it is reasonable to act contrary to reason.”

“Come again,” says Mrs. Sneaze who’s not much up on Chinese proverbs.

“It was nothing. The fact is that the way this weather is retrogressing is really just like Hercules’ bull.” Carried away on the tide of his crankiness, Waverhouse starts making ever more odd remarks. Inevitably, my master’s wife, marooned in ignorance, is left behind as Waverhouse drifts off beyond the horizons of her comprehension. However, having so recently burnt her fingers over that bit of unreasonable Chinese reason, she was not out looking for a further scorching. So, “Oh,” she says, and sits silent. Which doesn’t, of course, suit Waverhouse. He hasn’t gone to the trouble of dragging in Hercules’ bull not to be asked about it.

“Mrs. Sneaze,” he says, driven to the direct question, “do you know about ‘Hercules’ bull’?”

“No,” she says, “I don’t.”

“Ah, well if you don’t, shall I tell you about it?”

Since she can hardly ask him to shut up, “Please do,” she answers.

“One day in ancient times Hercules was leading a bull along.”

“This Hercules, was he some sort of cowherd?”

“Oh no, not a cowherd. Indeed he was neither a cowherd nor yet the owner of a chain of butcher-shops. In those far days there were, in fact, no butcher-shops in Greece.”

“Ah! So it’s a Greek story? You should’ve told me so at the start. . . ”

At least Mrs. Sneaze has shown that she knows that Greece is the name of a country.

“But I mentioned Hercules, didn’t I?”

“Is Hercules another name for Greece?”

“Well, Hercules was a Greek hero.”

“No wonder I didn’t know his name! Well, what did he do?”

“Like you, dear lady, he felt sleepy. And in fact he fell asleep. . . ”

“Really! Mr. Waverhouse!”

“And while he slept, along came Vulcan’s son.”

“Now who’s this Vulcan fellow?”

“Vulcan was a blacksmith, and his son stole Hercules’ bull, but in a rather special way. Can you guess what he did? He dragged the bull off by its tail. Well, when Hercules woke up he began searching for his bull and bellowing, ‘Bull, where are you?’ But he couldn’t find it and he couldn’t track it down because, you see, the beast had been hauled off backward so there weren’t any hoofmarks pointing to where it had gone. Pretty smart, don’t you agree? For a blacksmith’s son?” Dragged off track by his own tale, Waverhouse has already forgotten that he had been discussing the unseasonable heat.

“By the way,” he rattled on, “what’s your husband doing? Taking his usual nap? When such noddings-off are mentioned in Chinese poetry they sound refined, even romantic, but when, as in your husband’s case, they happen day in, day out, the whole concept becomes vulgarized. He has reduced an eternal elegance of life to a daily form of fragmentary death. Forgive my asking you,” he brings his speech to a sudden conclusion, “but please do go and wake him up.”

Mrs. Sneaze seems to agree with the Waverhouse view of naps as a form of piecemeal perishing for, as she gets to her feet, she says, “Indeed he’s pretty far gone. Of course it’s bad for his health. Especially right on top of his lunch.”

“Talking of lunch, the fact is I’ve not had mine yet.” Waverhouse drops broad hints composedly, magnanimously, as though they were pearls of wisdom.

“Oh, I am sorry. I never thought of it. It’s lunchtime, of course. . .

Well, would you perhaps like some rice, pickles, seaweed, things like that, and a little hot tea?”

“No thanks. I can manage without them.”

“Well, as we hadn’t realized you would be honoring us today, we’ve nothing special we can offer you.” Not unnaturally, Mrs. Sneaze responds with an edge of sarcasm, which is all quite wasted on Waverhouse.

“No and indeed no,” he imperturbably replies, “neither with hot tea nor with heated water. On my way here, I ordered a lunch to be sent to your house and that’s what I’m going to eat.” In his most matter-of-fact manner Waverhouse states his quite outrageous actions.

Mrs. Sneaze said, “Oh!” But in that one gasped sound three separate “oh’s” were mingled: her “oh” of blank surprise, her “oh” of piqued annoyance, and her “oh” of gratified relief. At which moment my master comes tottering in from the study. He had just begun to doze off into sleep when it became so unusually noisy that he was hauled back into consciousness, like something being scraped against its natural grain.

“You’re a rowdy fellow,” he grumbles sourly through his yawns. “Always the same. Just when I was getting off to sleep, feeling so pleasant and relaxed. . .”

“Aha! So you’re awake! I’m extremely sorry to have disturbed your heavenly repose, but missing it just once in a while may even do you good. Please come and be seated.”Waverhouse makes himself an agreeable host to my master in my master’s house. My master sits down without a word, and, taking a cigarette from a box of wooden crazy-work, begins to puff at it. Then, happening to notice the hat which Waverhouse had tossed away into a corner, he observes, “I see you’ve bought a hat.”

“What d’you think of it?” Waverhouse fetches it and holds it proudly out for the Sneazes to inspect.

“Oh, how pretty. It’s very closely woven. And so soft.” Mrs. Sneaze strokes it almost greedily.

“This hat, dear lady, is a handy hat. And as obedient as a man could wish. Look.” He clenched his hand into a knobbly fist and drove it sharply into the side of his precious panama. A fist-shaped dent remained, but before Mrs. Sneaze could finish her gasp of surprise, Waverhouse whipped his hand inside the hat, gave it a sharpish shove, and the hat popped back into shape. He then grasped the hat by opposite sides of its brim and squashed it flat as dough beneath a rolling pin. Next he rolled it up, as one might roll a light straw mat. Finally, saying, “Didn’t I say it was handy,” be tucked it away into the breast-fold of his kimono.

“How extraordinary!” Mrs. Sneaze marvels as if she were watching that master magician Kitensai Shoichi performing one of his most dazzling sleights of hand. Waverhouse himself appears to be bitten by the spirit of his own act for, producing from his left-hand sleeve the tube of hat he’d thrust into the breast of his kimono, he announces, “Not a scratch upon it.” He then bats the hat back into its original shape and, sticking his forefinger into its crown, spins it around like a conjuror’s plate. I thought the act was over, but Waverhouse proceeded neatly to flip his whirling headgear over his head and onto the floor behind him, where, as the climax of his performance, he sat down squarely on it with a heavy solid whump.

“You’re sure it’s all right?” Even my master looks somewhat concerned. Mrs. Sneaze, genuinely anxious, squeaks, “Please, you’d better stop. It would be terrible to spoil so fine a hat.”

Only its owner wants to keep going. “But it can’t be spoiled. That’s the wonder of it.” He heaves the crumpled object out from under his bottom and jams it on his head. It sprang back into shape.

“Indeed it’s a very strong hat. Isn’t it extraordinary? Quite amazing.”

Mrs. Sneaze is more and more impressed.

“Oh, there’s nothing extraordinary about it. It’s just that kind of hat,” says Waverhouse smirking out from under its brim.

A moment later Mrs. Sneaze turns to her husband. “I think you, too, had better buy a hat like that.”

“But he’s already got a splendid boater.”

“Just the other day the children trampled on it and it’s all squashed out of shape.” Mrs. Sneaze persists.

“Oh dear. That was a pity.”

“That’s why I think he should buy a hat like yours, strong and splendiferous.” She has no idea what panama hats can cost, so nothing moderates the urgency of her proddings. “Really, my dear, you must get one, just like this. . . ”

At this point Waverhouse produces from his right sleeve a pair of scissors in a scarlet sheath. “Mrs. Sneaze,” he says, “forget the hat for a moment and take a look at these scissors. They, too, are fantastically handy. You can use them in fourteen different ways.” If it hadn’t been for those scissors my master would have succumbed to wifely pressure in the matter of the hat. He was extremely lucky that the inborn female sense of curiosity diverted his wife’s attention. It crossed my mind that Waverhouse had acted of intent, helpfully and tactfully, but after careful consideration I’ve concluded that it was pure good luck that saved my master from painful outlay on a panama hat.

No sooner has Mrs. Sneaze responded with a, “What are the fourteen ways?” than Waverhouse is off again in triumphantly full flow. “I shall explain each of them, so listen carefully. All right? You see here a crescent-shaped opening? One sticks one’s cigar in here to nip its lip-end before smoking. This gadget down here by the handle can cut through wire as though it were mere noodle. Now if you put the scissors flat down upon paper, there’s a ruler for you. Here, on the back-edge of this blade, there’s a scale engraved so the scissors can be used as a measure.

Over here there’s a file for one’s fingernails. Right? Now then, if you push this blade-tip out, you can twist it around and around to drive screws. Thus, it serves as a hammer. And you can use this blade-tip to lever open with the greatest of case even the most carefully nailed lid.

Furthermore, the end of this other blade, being ground to so fine a point, makes an excellent gimlet. With this thing you can scrape out any mistakes in your writing. And finally, if you take the whole thing to pieces, you get a perfectly good knife. Now, Mrs. Sneaze, there’s actually one more especially interesting feature. Here in the handle there’s a tiny ball about the size of a fly. You see it? Well, take a peep right into it.”

“No. I’d rather not. I’m sure you’re going to make fun of me again.”

“I’m grieved that you should have so little confidence in me. But, just this once, take me at my word and have a little look. No? Oh, please, just one quick squint.” He handed her the scissors.

Mrs. Sneaze takes them very gingerly and, setting her eyeball close to the magic spot, does her best to see into it.

“Well?”

“Nothing. It’s all black.”

“All black? That won’t do. Turn a little toward the paper-window and look against the light. Don’t tilt the scissors like that. Right, that’s it.

Now you can see, can’t you?”

“Oh, my! It’s a photograph, isn’t it? How can a tiny photograph be fixed in here?”

“That’s what’s so remarkable.” Mrs. Sneaze and Waverhouse are now absorbed in their conversation. My master, silent now for some time but intrigued by the idea of the photograph, seems suddenly possessed by an urge to see it. He asks his wife to let him but she, her eye still glued to the scissors, just babbles on. “How very lovely. What a beautiful study of the nude.” She won’t be parted from the scissors.

“Come on, let me see it.”

“You wait. What lovely tresses, all the way down to her hips. How movingly her face is lifted. Rather a tall girl, I’d say, but indeed a beauty!”

“Damn it, let me see.” My master, now distinctly marked, flares up at his wife.

“There you are then. Gawp away to your heart’s content.” As she was handing the scissors over, the servant trundles in from the kitchen with an announcement that Waverhouse’s meal has been delivered. Indeed she carries with her two lidded bamboo plates loaded with cold buckwheat noodles.

“Aha,” says Waverhouse, “so here, Mrs. Sneaze, is the lunch I bought myself. With your permission, I propose to eat it now.” He bows respectfully. As he seems to have spoken half in earnest and half in jest, Mrs.

Sneaze is at a loss how best to answer, so she just says lightly, “Please do,” and settles back to watch.

At long last my master drags his eyes away from the photograph and remarks, “In weather as hot as this, noodles are bad for one’s health.”

“No danger. What one likes seldom upsets one. In fact I’ve heard,” says Waverhouse, lifting one of the lids, “that a little of what you fancy does you good.” He appears satisfied by what he’s seen on the plate for he goes straight on to observe, “In my opinion noodles that have been left to stand are, like heavily bearded men, never to be relied upon.” He adds green horseradish to his dish of soy sauce and stirs away like mad.

“Steady on,” says my master in genuinely anxious tones, “if you put in that much spice it’ll be too hot to eat.”

“Noodles must be eaten with soy sauce and green horse-radish. I bet you don’t even like noodles.”

“I do indeed. The normal kind.”

“That’s the stuff for pack-horse drivers. A man insensitive to cold buckwheat noodles spiced like this is a man to be devoutly pitied.” So saying, Waverhouse digs his cedar-wood chopsticks deep into the mass of noodles, scoops up a hefty helping and lifts it some two inches. “Did you know, Mrs. Sneaze, that there are several styles for eating noodles?

Raw beginners always use too much sauce and then they munch this delicacy like so many cattle chewing the cud. That way, the exquisite savor of the noodles is inevitably lost. The correct procedure is to scoop them up like this. . . ” Waverhouse raises his chopsticks above the bamboo plate until a foot-long curtain of noodles dangles in the air. He looks down at the plate to check that he’s lifted his lading clear of the plate but finds a dozen or so of the tail-ends still lying coiled within it.

“What very long noodles! Look, Mrs. Sneaze, aren’t they the longest that you ever saw?” Waverhouse demands that his audience should participate, if only by interjections.

“Indeed, they are lengthy!” she answers, as if impressed by his dissertation.

“Now, you dip just one-third of these long strands in the sauce, then swallow them in a single gulp. You mustn’t chew them. Mastication destroys their unique flavor. The whole point of noodles is in the way they slither down one’s throat.” He thereupon raises his chopsticks to a dramatic height and the ends of the longest strands at last swing clear of the plate. Then, as he starts to lower his arm again, the tail-ends of the noodles slowly start submerging into the sauce dish held in his left hand.

Which, in accordance with Archimedes’ Law, causes the sauce slowly to rise in the dish as its volume is displaced by noodles. However, since the dish was originally eight-tenths full of sauce, the level of the liquid reached its brim before Waverhouse could get even one-quarter, let alone the connoisseur’s one-third, of the length of his wriggling noodles into the sauce.

The chopsticks appear paralyzed about five inches above the dish and so remain for an awkward pause while Waverhouse considers his dilemma. If he lowers the noodles one more fraction of an inch, the sauce must overflow, but if he does not lower them, he must fail to conform with the standards he has established for the proper style of stuffing oneself with noodles. No wonder he looks moithered and half-hesitates. Then, suddenly, jerking his head and neck forward and downward like a striking snake, he jabbed his mouth at the chopsticks,There was a slushy slurping sound, his throttle surged and receded once or twice and the noodles were all gone.

A few tears oozed from the corners of his eyes. To this day I am not sure whether those tear drops were a tribute to the strength of the green horseradish or evidence of the painful effort such gurgitation must involve.

“What an extraordinary performance! How on earth,” enquires my flabbergasted master, “do you contrive to gulp down such a mass of vermicelli in one consuming go?”

“Amazing, isn’t he!” Mrs. Sneaze is equally lost in admiration.

Waverhouse says nothing, puts down the chopsticks, and pats his chest an easing couple of times. “Well, Mrs. Sneaze,” he eventually answers, “a plate of noodles should be consumed in three and a half, at most in four, mouthfuls. If you drag out the process longer than that, the noodles will not taste their best.” He wipes his face with a handkerchief and sits back to take a well-earned breather.

At this point who should walk in but Coldmoon. His feet are soiled with summer dust but, for no reason I can offer, despite the broiling heat he’s wearing a winter hat.

“Hello! Here comes our handsome hero! However, since I’m still in the middle of eating, you must excuse me.” Waverhouse, totally unabashed, settles down to finishing off the noodles. This time, rather sensibly, he makes no effort to give a repeat performance as a vermicelli virtuoso, and is consequently spared the indignities of needing support from handkerchiefs and breathers between mouthfuls. Eating normally he empties both the bamboo plates in a matter of minutes.

“Coldmoon,” says my master, “how’s your thesis coming along?” And Waverhouse adds, “Since the delectable Miss Goldfield is yearning to be yours, you should in common kindness submit the finished text as fast as possible.”

Coldmoon breaks as usual into his disconcertingly idiot grin.

“Inasmuch as waiting is a cruelty to her, I’d like indeed to finish it quickly,” he replies, “but the nature of its subject is such that a great deal of drudging research is unavoidable.” He spoke with measured seriousness of things he couldn’t possibly himself be taking seriously.

“Quite so,” says Waverhouse adopting Coldmoon’s style with contra-puntal skill. “The subject being what it is, naturally it cannot be handled just as Coldmoon wishes. Nevertheless, that nasality her mother being the snorter that she is, naturally it would be prudent to trim one’s sails to the way she blows.”

The only relatively sensible comment comes from my master. “What did you say was the subject of your thesis?”

“It is entitled ‘The Effects of Ultraviolet Rays upon Galvanic Action in the Eyeball of the Frog.’”

“Remarkable. Just what one might expect from Coldmoon. I like both the rhythm and the substantial originality of that last bit, the electrifying shock in that ‘eyeball of the frog.’ How about it, Sneaze? Ought we not to inform the Goldfields of at least the title before our scholar finishes his paper?”

My master, disregarding these waggeries from Waverhouse, asks Coldmoon, “Can such a subject really involve much drudgery of research?”

“Oh yes, it’s a complicated question. For one thing, the structure of the lens in the eyeball of the frog is by no means simple. Hundreds, even thousands, of experiments will have to be carried out. For a start I’m planning to construct a round glass ball.”

“A glass ball? Surely, you could find one quite easily in a glass shop?”

“Oh, no, far from it,” says Coldmoon, throwing out his chest a little.

“To begin with, things like circles and straight lines are pure geometrical concepts, and neither actual circles nor actual straight lines can, in this imperfect world, ever realize such idealities.”

“If they can never exist, hadn’t you better abandon the attempt to create them?” butts in Waverhouse.

“Well, I thought I’d begin by making a ball suitable for my experiments and, in fact, I started on it the other day.”

“And have you finished it?” asks my master as if the task were an easy matter.

“How could I?” says Coldmoon, but then, realizing perhaps that he’s getting close to self-contradiction, hurries on to explain. “It’s really frightfully difficult. After I’ve filed it for some time, I notice that the radius on one side is too long, so I grind it fractionally shorter, but this leads on to trouble, because now I find the radius on the other side excessive. When, with great effort I grind that excess off, the entire ball becomes misshapen. After I’ve at last corrected that distortion, I discover that the diametrical dimensions have, somehow or other, once more gone agley. The glass ball, originally the size of an apple, soon becomes a strawberry and, as I patiently struggle for perfection, it rapidly shrinks to no more than a bean. Even then, it’s not a perfect sphere. Believe me, I have striven. . . I have dedicated my whole life to the grinding of glass balls.

Since New Year’s Day no less than six of them, admittedly of differing sizes, have melted away to nothing in these hands. . .” He speaks with such rare passion that no one could say whether or not he’s telling the truth.

“Where do you do this grinding?”

“In the university laboratory of course. I start grinding in the morning. I take a short rest for lunch, and then continue grinding until the light fails. It’s not an easy job.”

“D’you mean to say that you go down to the university day after day, including Sundays, simply to grind glass balls? Is that what keeps you, as you’re always telling us, so inexorably busy?”

“That’s correct. At this stage in my studies I have no choice but to grind glass balls morning, noon, and night.”

“I seem to recall,” says Waverhouse, now very much in his element, “a Kabuki play in which one character gains his ends by disguising himself as a gardener.” He strikes an attitude and quotes, “‘As I was luckily brought up among civilian non-officials, no one knows my face: so I enter as a cultivator of chrysanthemums.’ You, Coldmoon, seem bent on gaining your ends disguised as a cultivator of crystals. For I’m sure that when the mother of all noses learns of your ardor, your single-minded dedication to your work, your selfless devotion to the grinding of glass balls, she cannot fail to warm toward you.

Incidentally, the other day I had some work to do in the university library and, as I was leaving, I chanced to bump into an old colleague, Knarle-Damson, at the door. Thinking it peculiar that, years after his graduation, he should still be using the library, I said to him, ‘Knarle-Damson,’ I said, ‘I’m most impressed, Knarle-Damson, to find you still imbibing at the fount of learning.’ He gave me a very odd look and explained that, far from wanting to consult a book, he’d been caught short as he passed the university and had just popped in for a pee. A curious use for a seat of learning. However, it’s just occurred to me that you and Knarle-Damson both exemplify, though in contrasting styles, how to misuse a university. You will, of course, have read that Chinese classic which is constructed from pairs of parallel anecdotes, one ancient and one modern, about famous men. I am proposing to bring out a new selection along similar lines and, with your permission, will include therein a short section on glass balls and urinals.”

My master, however, took a more serious view of the matter. “It’s all very well,” he said, “to pass your days frotting away at glass but when do you expect to finish your thesis and get your doctorate?”

“At my present rate of progress, maybe in ten years.” Coldmoon seems far less concerned than my master about the doctorate.

“Ten years, eh? I think you’d better bring your grinding to a halt rather sooner than that.”

“Ten years is an optimistic estimate. It could well take me twenty.”

“That’s terrible. You can’t, then, hope for a doctorate for a long time.”

“No. Of course I’d be only too happy to get it quickly, and so set the young lady’s mind at rest, but until I’ve got the glass ball properly ground, I can’t even launch out on my first experiment.” Coldmoon’s voice trailed off into silence as though his mind were staring into the lens of a frog’s eyeball but, after a brief pause, he continued. “There’s no need, you know, to get so worried about it. The Goldfields are fully aware that I do nothing but grind away at these glass balls. As a matter of fact, I gave them a fairly detailed explanation when I saw them just a few days back.” He smiled in quiet complacence.

Mrs. Sneaze who, though hardly understanding a word of it, has been listening to the three men’s conversation, interjects in a puzzled voice,

“But the whole Goldfield family has been away at the seaside, out at Oiso, since last month.”

This flummoxes even Coldmoon, but he maintains a pretense of innocence. “How very odd,” he says, “I can’t understand it.”

There are occasions when Waverhouse fulfills a useful social function.

When a conversation flags, when one is embarrassed, when one becomes sleepy, when one is troubled, then, as on all other occasions, Waverhouse can be relied upon to have something immediate and diverting to say. “To have met someone a few days back in Tokyo who had gone to Oiso last month is engagingly mysterious. It is an example, is it not, of the exchange of souls. Such a phenomenon is likely to occur when the sentiment of requited love is particularly poignant. When one hears of such a happening, it sounds like a dream, but, even if it is a dream, it is a dream more actual than reality. For someone like you, Mrs. Sneaze, who were married to Sneaze not because you loved him or because he loved you, life has never given an opportunity for you to understand the extraordinary nature of love: so it is only natural that you should find odd the disparities you mentioned. . .”

“I don’t know why you should say such nasty things. Why are you always getting at me like this?” Mrs. Sneaze rounds snappishly on Waverhouse.

“What’s more, you yourself don’t look like a man who has any experience of the pangs of love.” My master brings up reinforcements in surprising support of the frontline position manned by his wife.

“Well, since all my love affairs were over long before the nine days back that might have made them wonders, you doubtless don’t remember them. But it remains a fact that it was a disappointment in love that has made me, to this day, a lonely bachelor.” Waverhouse leveled a steady look upon each of his listeners, one after the other.

It was Mrs. Sneaze who laughed, though she added, “But how interesting.”

My master said, “Bosh,” and turned to stare off into the garden.

Coldmoon, though he grinned, said politely, “I would like, for my own future benefit, to hear the story of your ancient love.”

“My story, too, contains elements of the mysterious. So much so that, if he were not lamentably dead, it must have moved the interest of the late Lafcadio Hearn. I am, I must confess, a little reluctant to tell this painful tale but, since you insist, I’ll confide in you all on the sole condition that you listen carefully to the very end.” They promised, and he starts.

“As well as I can recollect. . . it was. . . hum. . . how many years ago was it, I wonder. . . Never mind, let’s say it was maybe fifteen or sixteen years ago.”

“Incorrigible,” snorts my master.

“You do have a very poor memory, don’t you, Mr. Waverhouse?” Mrs.

Sneaze puts in a jabbing oar.

Coldmoon is the only person who, keeping the promise, says nothing but wears the expression of a man eagerly waiting for the remainder of a story.

“Anyway, it was in the winter, some years back. Having passed through the Valley of the Bamboo Shoots at Kambara in Echigo, I was climbing up through the Pass of the Octopus Trap on my way to the Aizu territory.”

“What odd-named places!” My master interrupts again.

“Oh, do keep quiet and listen. This is getting interesting.” Mrs. Sneaze reins back her husband.

“Unfortunately, it was getting dark. I lost my way. I was hungry. So, in the end, I was obliged to knock at the door of a hut way up in the middle of the Pass. Explaining my predicament, I begged for a night’s lodging. And do you know, the minute that I saw the face of the girl who, thrusting a lit candle out toward me, answered, ‘Of course, please enter,’ my whole body began to tremble. Since that moment I’ve been very acutely conscious of the supernatural power of that blind force we call love.”

“Fancy that,” says Mrs. Sneaze. “Are there really, I wonder, many beautiful girls living up there in those godforsaken mountains?”

“It hardly matters that I found her in the mountains. It might just as well have been beside the seaside. But, oh Mrs. Sneaze, would that you could have seen her, if only for a glance. . . She wore her hair in the high-dressed fashion of a marriageable girl. . .”

Mrs. Sneaze, rendered speechless by the wonder of it all, gives vent to a long-drawn sigh.

“On entering the hut, I found a big fireplace sunk in the center of an eight-mat room, and soon the four of us—the girl, her grandfather, her grandmother, and myself—were sitting comfortably around it. They said I must be very hungry. And I was. Very. So I asked for some food, anything, no matter what, so long as I might have it quickly. The old man said,‘It’s seldom we have visitors, so let’s prepare snake-rice in honor of our guest.’ Now then, this is where I come to the story of my disappointment in love, so listen carefully.”

“Of course we’ll listen carefully,” says Coldmoon, “but I find it hard to believe that even out in the wilds of Echigo there are snakes around in the winter.”

“Well, that’s a fair observation. But in a romantic story such as this, one shouldn’t be too scrupulous over the logic of its details. Why, in one of Kyoka’s novels, you’ll find a crab crawling out of the snow.”

“I see,” said Coldmoon who thereupon resumed his serious attitude of listening.

“In those days I was outstandingly capable, really in the champion class, of eating ugly foods, but, being more or less wearied of locusts, slugs, red frogs, and such like, I thought snake-rice sounded like a welcome change. So I told the old man I’d be delighted. He then set a pot on the fire and put some rice inside it. Slowly it began to cook. The only oddity was that there were about ten holes of various sizes in the lid of the pot. Through these holes, the steam came fuffing up. I was really fascinated by the effect and I remember thinking how ingenious these country people were. Just then, the old man suddenly stood up and went out of the hut. A while later, he came back with a large basket under his arm and, when he put it casually down beside the hearth, I took a look inside. Well, there they were. Snakes, and all of them long ones, coiled up tight, as Coldmoon will appreciate, in their winter torpor.”

“Please stop talking about such nasty things. It’s quite revolting,” says Mrs. Sneaze with a girlish shudder.

“Oh I can’t possibly stop, for all these matters lie at the bottom of my broken-heartedness. Well, by and by, the old man lifted the pot’s lid with his left hand while with his other he nimbly grabbed up a wad of snakes from the basket. He threw them into the pot and popped the lid back on. And I must admit that, though I’m neither squeamish nor particularly scared of snakes, the old man’s nonchalant action did, at that moment, leave me gasping.”

“Oh, please do stop. I can’t stand gruesome stories.” Mrs. Sneaze is actually quite frightened.

“Very soon now I’ll be coming to the broken-hearted bit, so please just do be patient. Well, barely a minute had passed when, to my great surprise, a snake’s head popped out of a hole in the lid. I’d barely realized what it was before another one popped its face out from a neighboring hole, and I’d barely registered that second head before another and another and another erupted into view until the whole lid was studded with snakes’ faces.”

“Why did they stick their heads out?” asks my master.

“Because, in agony, they were trying to crawl away from the heat building up inside the pot. After a while the old man said, speaking, naturally, in his local dialect, something like, ‘Right then, give ’em the old heave-ho.’ His wife said, ‘Aye’ and the girl said, ‘Yes’ and each of them, grasping a snake’s head firmly, gave it a savage yank. While the flesh remained in the pot, the head and a length of bones came waggling free in their hands.”

“What you might call boned snake?” asks Coldmoon with a laugh.

“Yes, indeed. Boned, or even spineless. But wasn’t it all exceedingly clever? They lifted the lid, took a ladle, stirred the rice and the snake-flesh into one great wonderful mishmash and then invited me to tuck in.”

“Did you actually eat it?” asks my master in a slightly edgy sort of voice.

His wife makes a sour face and grumblingly complains. “I do so wish you’d all stop talking about it. I’m feeling sick right down to my stomach, and I shan’t dare eat for days.”

“You only say that, Mrs. Sneaze, because you’ve never had the luck to taste snake-rice. If you but tried it once, you’d never forget its exquisite flavor.”

“Never. Nothing on earth could induce me to touch the nasty stuff.”

“Anyway, I dined well. I forgot the bitter cold. I studied the girl’s face to my heart’s content and, though I could happily have stared at her forever, when they suggested I should go to sleep, I remembered that I was in fact dog tired from my traveling. So I took their advice and laid down, and before long everything blurred and I was fast asleep.”

“And what happened then?” This time it’s Mrs. Sneaze who urges him to continue.

“When I woke up next morning, heartache had set in.”

“Did anything happen to you?” asks Mrs. Sneaze.

“No, nothing special happened to me. I just woke up and, while I was smoking a cigarette, I chanced to look out through the back window, and there I saw, washing its face in the water flowing from a bamboo-pipe, someone as bald as a kettle.”

“The old man,” asks my master, “or the old woman?”

“At first I couldn’t tell. I sat there watching it in vague distaste for quite some time and, when at last the kettle turned towards me, I got the shock of my life. For it was the girl to whom I had already lost my heart.”

“But you said earlier that she wore her hair in the style of a marriageable girl,” my master promptly objects.

“The night before, unmitigated beauty: in the morning, unmitigated kettle.”

“Really! What balderdash will you trot out next.” As is usual when he feels put out, my master stares at the ceiling.

“Naturally, I was most deeply shocked, even a little frightened, but, making myself inconspicuous, I continued to watch. At long last the kettle finished washing its face, featly donned the wig waiting on a nearby stone and then came tripping primly back to the hut. I understood everything. But though I understood, I have from that moment been a man incurably wretched, a man with a broken heart.”

“The silliest broken heart that ever was. Observe, my dear Coldmoon, how gay and lively he contrives to be despite his broken heart.”Turning toward Coldmoon, my master registers his low opinion of his friend’s disastrous love affair.

“But,” says Coldmoon, “if the girl had not been bald, and if Waverhouse had brought her back with him to Tokyo, he might now be livelier than he is. The fact remains that it is infinitely pitiable that the young lady happened to be bald. But tell me, Waverhouse, how did it come about that a girl so young should have lost her hair?”

“Well, naturally I’ve thought about that too, and I’m certain now that the depilation must be due entirely to over-indulgence in snake-rice. It goes to the head, you know. It drives the blood upward, damaging the capillaries in the follicles of the scalp.”

“I’m so glad nothing so terrible happened to you,” says Mrs. Sneaze with an undertone of sarcasm.

“It is true that I was spared the affliction of going bald, but instead, as you can see, I have become a presbyope.” Taking off his goldrimmed spectacles, he polishes them carefully with his pocket handkerchief.

There was a short silence. To be a presbyope sounded so awful that none dared ask for an explanation. But my master, possibly being made of sterner stuff, possibly because he knows that nearsightedness is more often caused by the passing of the years than by one night’s meal of snake-rice, was not yet done.

“I seem to remember,” he eventually said,“that you mentioned some mystery that would have moved the interest of Lafcadio Hearn. What mystery?”

“Did she buy the wig or simply pick it up, and, if she picked it up, where? That,” said Waverhouse, replacing his spectacles on his nose, “is the mystery. To this day I cannot work it out.”

“It’s just like listening to a comic storyteller,” says Mrs. Sneaze.

As Waverhouse’s improbable tale had come to its conclusion, I thought he might shut-up. But no. He appears by nature incapable of keeping quiet unless actually gagged. For he’s at it again already.

“My disappointment in love was, of course, a bitter experience: but had I married that heavenly girl in ignorance of kettledom, the matter would have remained a lifelong cause of friction. One has to be careful.

In matters like marriage, one tends only to discover at the very last moment hidden defects in unexpected places. I therefore advise you, Coldmoon, not to waste your youth in futile yearnings or in pointless despair but to keep on grinding away at your balls of glass with an easy mind and heart.”

“I’d be happy,” answers Coldmoon, “to do nothing more. However, the Goldfield ladies, to my considerable botheration, do keep on at me.”

He grimaces in exaggerated annoyance.

“True. You are, in your case, somewhat put upon. But there are many comic cases of people thrusting themselves forward to invite disquiet.

Take, for example, the case of Knarle-Damson, that well-known piddler upon seats of learning. His was extremely odd.”

“What did he do?” asks my master, entering into the swing of the conversation.

“Well, it was like this. Once upon a long, long time ago, he stayed at the East-West Inn in Shizuoka. Just for one night, mind you, but that same evening he offered marriage to one of the servants working there.

I myself am pretty easy-going, but I would not find it easy to go as far as that. The fact was, that in those days one of the maids at that Inn, they called her Summer, was a raving beauty, and it just so happened that she looked after Knarle-Damson’s room, so he could not help but meet her.”

“The meeting was no doubt fated, just like yours in that something-or-other pass,” observes my master.

“Yes, there is some resemblance between the cases. Indeed, there are obvious similarities between Knarle-Damson and myself. Anyway, he proposed to this Summer girl but, before she gave her answer, he felt a need for watermelon.”

“Huh?” My master looks puzzled. And not only he, for both his wife and Coldmoon cock their heads sideways as they try to see the connection. Waverhouse disregards them all and proceeds blithely with his story.

“He summoned the girl and asked her if one could get a watermelon in Shizuoka. She replied that, though the town was not as up-to-date as Tokyo, even in Shizuoka watermelons could be had, and almost immediately she brought him a tray heaped high with slices of the fruit. So, while waiting for her answer, Knarle-Damson scoffed the lot. But before she gave her answer, Knarle-Damson got the gripes. He groaned away like mad but, since that didn’t help, he summoned the girl again and this time asked if there was a doctor available. The girl replied that, though the town was not as up-to-date as Tokyo, still, even in Shizuoka, doctors were available, and in a matter of minutes she ushered one in to his room. The doctor, incidentally, had a very odd name, something like Heaven-and-Earth, anyway something obviously cribbed, for effect, from the Chinese classics. Well, next morning when Knarle-Damson woke up, he was to find his gut-ache gone, and, some fifteen minutes before he was due to leave, he again summoned the Summer girl and asked for her answer to his proposal of marriage. The girl replied with laughter. She then said that down in Shizuoka it is possible to find doctors and watermelons at very short notice but that, even in Shizuoka, few find brides in a single night. She turned, went out of the room and that was the last he saw of her. And ever since that day, Knarle-Damson has remained, like me, a man scarred by a disappointment in love.

Almost a recluse, he’ll only go to a library when pressed there by his bladder. Which all goes to show the wickedness and cruelty of women.”

My master, most unusually, comes out this time in strong support of Waverhouse’s theme. “How right you are,” he says, “how very right. Just the other day I was reading one of de Musset’s plays in which some character quoted Ovid to the effect that, lighter than a feather is dust; than dust, wind; than wind, woman; but than woman, nothing. A very penetrating observation, isn’t it? Women are indeed the dreaded end.” My master adopts an exceedingly cavalier attitude, but his wife, of course, is not going to let these flourishes pass unchallenged.

“You complain about women being light, but I can’t see any particular merit in the fact that men are heavy.”

“What do you mean by heavy?”

“Heavy is just heavy. Like you.”

“Why d’you say I’m heavy?”

“Because you are heavy.Very heavy.”

They’re off on one of their crazy arguments again. For a time Waverhouse just sits there, listening with amusement to their increasingly bitter bickering, but eventually he opens his mouth.

“The way you two go on at each other, hammering away until you’re red in the face, is perhaps the clearest possible demonstration that you truly are husband and wife. I’m inclined to think that marriage in the old days was a less meaningful thing than it is today.” None of his listeners could tell whether he was teasing or complimenting his host and hostess but, since their bickering was halted, he could with profit have just stopped there. But that’s not the way of a Waverhouse, who always has more to say.

“I hear that in the old days no woman would have dreamt of answering back to her husband. From the man’s point of view it must have been like marriage to a deaf-mute. I wouldn’t have liked that. Not one little bit. I certainly prefer women who, like you, Mrs. Sneaze, have the spirit to retort,‘Because you are heavy,’ or something else in the same vein.

If one is to be married, it would be insupportably boring never to have the liveliness of an occasional spat. My mother, for instance, spent her whole life saying,‘Yes’ and ‘You’re right’ to my frequently foolish father.

She lived with him for twenty or so assenting years, and in all that stretch she never set foot outside the house except to go to a temple.

Really, it’s too pitiful. There were, of course, advantages. Thus my mother has the enormous satisfaction of knowing that she knows by heart the full posthumous names of all my family’s ancestors. This hideous sort of relationship did not exist simply between man and wife but extended to cover the whole range of relations between the sexes. When I was a lad it was quite out of the question for a young man and a young woman even to play music together. There was no such thing as a lovers’ meeting. They couldn’t even meet in the world of the spirit, like Coldmoon here, by a long range swap of souls.”

“It must have been awful,” says Coldmoon with a sort of shrinking bow.

“Indeed it was. One weeps for one’s ancestors. Still, women in those days were not necessarily any better behaved than the women of today.

You know, Mrs. Sneaze, people talk down their noses about the depraved conduct of modern, girl students, but the truth is that things were very much worse in those so-called good old days.”

“Really?” Mrs. Sneaze is serious.

“Of course. I’m not just making it up. I can prove what I say. You, Sneaze, will probably remember that when we were maybe five or six there were men going about in the streets with two panniers hanging down from each end of their shoulder-poles, and in the panniers, like so many pumpkins, they had little girls for sale. You remember?”

“I don’t remember anything of the sort.”

“I don’t know how things were in your part of the country, but that’s most certainly the way it was in Shizuoka.”

“Surely not,” murmurs Mrs. Sneaze.

“Do you mean that for a fact?” asks Coldmoon in a tone of voice that shows he can’t quite credit it.

“For an absolute, rock hard fact. I can even remember how once my father haggled over the price of one. I must then have been about six. As my father and I were coming out of a side street into the main thoroughfare, we saw a man approaching us who was bawling out,‘Girls for sale! Girls for sale! Anyone want a baby girl?’When we reached the corner of the second block in the street, we came face-to-face with this hawker, just in front of the draper’s. Isegen’s it was. Isegen is quite the biggest draper in Shizuoka with a sixty-foot frontage and five warehouses. Have a look at it the next time you’re down there. It’s just the same today as it was then. Quite unaltered. A fine building. The chief clerk’s name is Jimbei, and he sits at his counter with the invariable expression of a man who’s lost his mother only three days back. Sitting right beside Jimbei you’ll find a young man of twenty-four, maybe twenty-five, whose name is Hatsu. Hatsu’s very pale. He looks like one of those novices who, in demonstration of their devotion to the thirty-third priest-prince of the Shingon Sect, take nothing but buckwheat-water for twenty-one days at a stretch. And next to Hatsu there’s Chodon.

Chodon’s the one who’s hunched dejectedly above his abacus as though but yesterday he lost his home in a fire. And next to Chodon. . .”

“Come off it,Waverhouse,” snaps my master. “Is this a chanting of the genealogy of your draper or is it a tale about the maiden-mongers of Shizuoka?”

“Ah yes. I was telling you the story of the maiden-mongers. As a matter of fact, there’s an extremely strange story I was going to tell you about that draper’s, but I’ll cut it out and concentrate on the sellers of little girls.”

“Why not cut that too?” suggests my master.

“Oh no! I wouldn’t feel right if I abandoned that story. For it provides exceedingly valuable data by which to compare the characters of modern women with those of their predecessors in the early Meiji Era. Now, as I was saying, when my father and I arrived in front of Isegen, the maiden-monger addressed my father in these terms: ‘’ow about one of these ’ere little leftovers? Take a toddler, sir, and I’ll make ’er special cheap.’ He’s put his shoulder-pole down on the ground and is wiping sweat from his brow. In each of the two dumped panniers there’s a little girl about two-years-old. My father says,‘If they’re really cheap, I might, but is this all you’ve got?’ The man replies respectfully, ‘Yes, sir, I’m afraid so. Today I’ve sold I ’em all, ’cept for these two little ’uns. Take your choice.’ He holds the little girls up in his hands like, as I told you, pumpkins, and he pushes them under my father’s nose. My father taps on their heads as one might rap a melon and says,‘Yes, they sound quite good.’ The negotiations then begin in earnest and, after a great deal of chaffering, my father finally says,‘That’s all very well, but can you guarantee their quality?’ ‘Yes,’ says the man. ‘That ’un in the leading basket, I can take me oath is sound, ’cos I’ve ’ad ’er all day long right in front of me own two peepers, but t’other in the back-side basket could be a wee mite cracked. I’ve not got eyes in the back of me ’ead, so I won’t go making no promises. Tell you what, just for you, I’ll knock a bit more off for that ’un.’ To this day I can clearly remember every word of their dickering and, though only a nipper myself, I did then learn how insidiously cracked a little girl can be. However, in this thirty-eighth year of the Emperor’s reign there’s none so foolish now as to go trotting through the streets with little girls for sale. So one no longer hears people saying how those at the back, those that one can’t keep one’s own sharp watchful eye on, are liable to be damaged. It is consequently my opinion that, thanks to the beneficent influx of Western civilization, the conduct of women has in fact improved. What do you think, Coldmoon?”

Coldmoon hesitated, cleared his throat and then gave his opinion in a low and measured tone. “Women today, on their way to and from schools, at concerts, at charity parties and at garden parties, are, in effect, already selling themselves. Their light behavior is tantamount to such statements as, ‘Hey, how about buying me?’ or ‘Oh, so you’re not much interested!’There is accordingly no contemporary need for hawkers or other middlemen selling on commission, and the street cries of our modern cities are of course the poorer by the disappearance of maiden-mongers shouting their wares. Such changes are bound to follow from the introduction and dissemination of modern ideas of the individual’s independence. The older generation get unnecessarily worked up and moan and groan as though the world were coming to its end, but that’s the trend of modern civilization and I, for one, welcome and encourage these changes. For instance, there’s no need nowadays for anyone to go tapping poor tots on the skull to see if they’re good enough to buy. In any case, no one ever gets anywhere in this hard world by being unduly choosey. That way, one can easily end up husbandless and, even after fifty or sixty years of assiduous search, still not be a bride.”

Coldmoon, very much a bright young man of this twentieth century, spoke for his generation and, having so spoken, blew cigarette smoke into Waverhouse’s face. But Waverhouse is not a man to flinch from a mere residue of burnt tobacco. “As you say,” he responded, “among schoolgirls and young ladies, nowadays their very flesh and bones are permeated with, if not actually manufactured out of, self-esteem and self-confidence, and it is indeed admirable that they should prove themselves a match for men in every possible field. Take, for instance, the girls at the high school near my house. They’re terrific. Togged out in trousers, they hang themselves upside-down from iron wall-bars. Truly, it’s wonderful. Every time that I look down from my upstairs window and see them catapulting about at their gymnastics, I am reminded of ancient Grecian ladies pursuing strength and beauty through the patterns of calisthenics.”

“Oh, no. Not the Greeks again,” says my master with something like a sneer.

“It’s unavoidable. lt just so happens that almost everything aesthetically beautiful seems to have originated in Greece. Aesthetics and the Greeks: you speak of one and you are speaking of the other. When I see those dark-skinned girls putting their whole hearts into their gymnastics, into my mind, invariably, leaps the story of Agnodice.” He’s wearing his font-of-all-wisdom face as he babbles on and on.

“So you’ve managed to find another of those awkward names,” says Coldmoon with his usual, witless grin.

“Agnodice was a wonderful woman. When I look back at her across the gulf of centuries, still I am impressed. In those far days the Laws of Athens forbade women to be midwives. It was most inconvenient. One can easily see why Agnodice thought it unreasonable.”

“What’s that? What’s that word?”

“Agnodice. A woman. It’s a woman’s name. Now this woman said to herself, ‘It’s really lamentable that women cannot be midwives, inconvenient, too. I wish to God I could become a midwife. Isn’t there any way I can?’ So she thought and thought, doing nothing else for three straight days and nights, and just at dawn on the third day, as she heard the yowling of a babe newborn next door, the solution flashed upon her.

She immediately cut off her long hair, dressed herself as a man, and took to attending the lectures on childbirth then being given by the eminent Hierophilus. She learnt all that he could teach and, feeling her time had come, set up as a midwife. D’you know, Mrs. Sneaze, she was a great success. Here, there, and everywhere yowling babies put in their appearance, and, since they were all assisted by Agnodice, she made a fortune. However, the ways of Heaven are proverbially inscrutable. For seven ups there are eight downs. And it never rains but it pours. Her secret was discovered. She was hauled before the courts. And she stood in danger of the direst punishment for breaking the laws of Athens.”

“You sound just like a professional storyteller,” says Mrs. Sneaze.

“Aren’t I good? Well then, at that point all the women of Athens got together and signed such an enormous round robin in support of Agnodice that the magistrates felt unable to ignore it. In the end she was let off, and the laws were changed to allow women to become midwives, and they all lived happily ever after.”

“You do know about so many things. It’s wonderful,” sighs Mrs. Sneaze.

“True. I know almost everything about almost everything. Perhaps the only thing I don’t know all about is the real extent of my own foolishness. But even on that, I can make a pretty good guess.”

“You do say such funny things. . .” Mrs. Sneaze was still chortling away when the front doorbell, its tone unchanged since the day it was first installed, began to tinkle.

“What! another visitor!” squeaked Mrs. Sneaze and scuttled off into the living room.

And who should it be but our old friend Beauchamp Blowlamp. With his arrival the entire cast of the eccentrics who haunt my master’s house was gathered upon stage. Lest that should sound ungracious, perhaps I could better emphasize that sufficient eccentrics are gathered to keep a cat amused, and it would indeed be ungracious if I were not satisfied with that. Had I had the misfortune to dwell in some other household, I might have lived nine lives and never known that such remarkable scholars, that even one such remarkable scholar, could be found among mankind. I count myself fortunate to be sitting here, his adopted cat-child, beside my noble master. It is, moreover, a rare privilege to be numbered among the disciples of Professor Sneaze: for only thus am I enabled, comfortably lying down, to observe the manners and actions not only of my master but of such heroic figures, such matchless warriors, as Waverhouse, Coldmoon, and the bold Sir Beauchamp. Even in this vast city, such personages are rare, and I take it as the highest accolade that I am accepted by them as one of their company. It is only the consciousness of that honor that enables me to forget the hardship of being condemned to endure this heat in a fur bag. And I am especially grateful thus to be kept amused for a whole half-day. Whenever the four of them get together like this, something entertaining is bound to transpire, so I watch them respectfully from that draft-cooled place by the door to which I have retired.

“I’m afraid I haven’t been around to see you for quite some time,” says Beauchamp with a modest bow. His head, I notice, shines as brightly as it did the other day. Judged by his head alone, he might be taken for a second-rate actor, but the ceremonious manner in which he wears his very stiff white cotton hakama makes him look like nothing so much as a student-swordsman from the fencing-school of Sakakibara Kenkichi.

Indeed, the only part of Beauchamp’s body which looks in the least bit normal is the section between his hips and his shoulders.

“Well, how nice of you to call. In this hot weather, too. Come right in.”Waverhouse, as usual, plays the host in someone else’s home.

“I haven’t seen you for a long time, sir,” Beauchamp says to him.

“Quite so. Not, I believe, since that Reading Party last spring. Are you still active in that line? Have you again performed the part of a high-class prostitute? You did it very well. I applauded you like mad. Did you notice?”

“Yes, I was much encouraged. Your kind appreciation gave me the strength to carry on until the end.”

“When are you having your next meeting?” interjects my master.

“We rest during July and August but we hope to be livening up again in September. Can you suggest anything interesting we might tackle?”

“Well,” my master answers half-heartedly.

“Look here, Beauchamp,” says Coldmoon suddenly, “Why don’t you try my piece?”

“If it’s yours, it must be interesting, but what’s this piece you’ve written?”

“A drama,” says Coldmoon with all the brass-faced equanimity he could muster. His three companions are dumbfounded, and stare upon him with looks of unanimous wonder.

“A drama! Good for you! A comedy or tragedy?” Beauchamp was the first to recover and find his tongue. With the utmost composure.

Coldmoon gives his reply.

“It’s neither a comedy nor a tragedy. Since people these days are always fussing about whether a play should be old-style drama or new-style drama, I decided to invent a totally new type and have accordingly written what I call a haiku-play.”

“What on earth’s a haiku-play?”

“A play imbued with the spirit of haiku.” My master and Waverhouse, apparently dazed by the concept of an essentially tiny poem blown out to the length of a play, say nothing, but Beauchamp presses on.

“How do you implement that interesting idea?”

“Well, since the work is of the haiku mode, I decided it should not be too lengthy or too viciously clear-cut. It is accordingly a one act play, in fact a single scene.”

“I understand.”

“Let me first describe the setting. It must, of course, be very simple.

I envisage one big willow in the center of the stage. From its trunk a single branch extends stage-right. And on that branch there’s a crow.”

“Won’t the crow fly off?” says my master worriedly, as if talking to himself.

“That’s no problem. One just ties the crow’s leg to the branch with a stoutish bit of string. Now, underneath the branch there’s a wooden bathtub. And in the bathtub, sitting sideways, there’s a beautiful woman washing herself with a cotton towel.”

“That’s a bit decadent. Besides, who could you get to play the woman?” asks Waverhouse.

“Again, no problem. Just hire a model from an art school.”

“The Metropolitan Police Bureau will undoubtedly prove sticky.” My master’s worriment is not allayed.

“But it ought to be all right so long as one doesn’t present this work of art as some form of show. If this were the sort of thing that the police get sticky about, it would be impossible ever to draw from the nude.”

“But nude models are provided for students to study, not just to stare at.”

“If you scholars, the intellectual cream of Japan, remain so straight-laced in your ancient bigotry, there’s no real hope for the future of Japan. What’s the distinction between painting and drama? Are they not both arts?” Coldmoon, very evidently enjoying himself, lashes out at the prudery of his listeners.

“Well, let’s leave all that for the moment,” says Beauchamp, “but tell us how your play proceeds.” He may not intend to use the play, but he clearly wants to know how that promising opening scene will be developed.

“Enter the haiku-poet Takahama Kyoshi. He advances along the ramp leading to the stage carrying a walking stick and wearing a white pith-helmet. Under his silk-gauze surcoat, his white kimono, patterned with colored splashes, is tucked up at the back, and he wears shoes in the Western style. He is thus costumed to look like a contractor of Army supplies but, being a haiku-poet, he must walk in a leisurely manner looking as though deeply absorbed in the composition of a poem. When he reaches the main stage, he notices first the willow tree and then the light-skinned lady in her bath. Startled, he looks up and sees the crow peering down at her from its long branch. At this point the poet strikes a pose, which should be held for at least fifty seconds, to indicate how deeply he is moved by the refined haiku-like effect of the scene before him. Then in a deep resonant voice he declaims:



“A crow

Is in love

With a woman in a bath”



As soon as the last word has been spoken, the clappers are cracked and the curtain falls. Well now, what do you think of it? Don’t you like it? I need hardly say that any sensible man would rather play the part of a haiku-poet than that of a high-class tart.”

Beauchamp, however, looks undecided and comments with a serious face, “It seems too short. I think it needs a little more action, something that will add real human interest.”

Waverhouse, who has so far been keeping comparatively quiet, can hardly be expected indefinitely to pass up such a splendid opportunity for the display of his peculiar talents. “So that wee bit of a thing is what you call a haiku-play? Quite awful! Ueda Bin is constantly pointing out in his essays and articles that the spirit of haiku, as also indeed the comic spirit, lacks constructive positivism. He argues that they undermine the morals and hence the morale of the Japanese nation. And, as one would expect, whatever Bin points out is very much to the point. He’d have you laughed out of town if you dared risk staging such an artsy-craftsy bit of rubbish. In any case, it’s all so uncleancut that no one could tell whether it’s meant to be straight theater or burlesque. A thing so indeterminate could, in fact, be anything. Forgive me that I take the liberty of saying so, my dear Coldmoon, but I really do think you’d do better to stay in your laboratory and limit your creativity to the grinding of glass balls. You could, I’m sure, write hundreds of such plays but, since they could achieve nothing but the ruin of our nation, what would be the point?”

Coldmoon looks slightly huffed. “Do you think its effect is as demoralizing as all that? Myself, I think it’s constructive, positivist, definitely yea-saying.” He is seeking to vindicate something too unimportant to merit vindication. “The point is that Kyoshi actually makes the crow fall in love with the woman. His lines having that effect are, I consider, an affirmation of life, and that, I think, is very positivist.”

“Now that,” says Waverhouse, “is a totally new approach. A novel concept casting fresh light upon dramatic theory. We must listen with the deepest attention.”

“As a bachelor of science, such an idea as that of a crow falling in love with a woman strikes me as illogical.”

“Quite so.”

“But this illogicality is expressed with such consummate artistry that it does not seem in the least illogical to the audience. The effect of great dramatic artistry is, in fact, to impose upon the listener a willing suspension of disbelief.”

“I doubt it,” says my master in tones of the deepest dubiety, but Coldmoon pays him no heed.

“You ask why the unreasonable should not sound unreasonable? Well, when I have given the psychological explanation, you will understand why. Of course, the emotion of being in love, or of not being in love can only be experienced by the poet. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the crow. Similarly, the concept of a crow in love is not a concept likely to cross the mind of a crow. In short, it is the poet himself who is in love with the woman. The moment Kyoshi clapped eyes on her he must have fallen head over heels in love. He then sees the crow sitting immobile on the branch and staring down at her. Being himself smitten with love for the lady, he assumes that the crow is similarly moved. He is, of course, mistaken, but nevertheless, indeed for that very reason, the basic idea of the play is not simply literary, but positivist as well. I would in particular suggest that the manner in which the poet, while still contriving himself to appear objective and heart-free, transposes his own sentiments to become crow-sentiments is indisputably yea-saying and positivist. I ask you, gentlemen, am I not right?”

“It’s a well-turned argument,” says Waverhouse, “but I bet it would leave Kyoshi, if he ever heard it, distinctly taken aback. I accept that your exposition of the play is positivist but, if the play were to be staged, the audience reaction would undoubtedly be negative. Don’t you agree, Beauchamp?”

“Yes, I confess I think it’s a little too negative.” Beauchamp confesses with due critical gravity.

My master seems to think things have gone far enough and, to ease the pressure upon his favorite disciple, he seeks to lead the conversation away from Coldmoon’s ill-received venture into the literary field. “But tell me, Beauchamp,” he says, “have you perhaps written any new masterpieces recently?”

“Nothing really worth showing you, but I am, in fact, thinking of publishing a collection of them. Luckily, I chance to have the manuscript with me, and I’d welcome your opinion of these trifles I’ve composed.” He thereupon produced from his breast a package wrapped in a cloth of purple crepe. Loosening the material, he carefully extracted a notebook some fifty or sixty pages thick which he proceeded to deposit, reverently, before my master. My master assumes his most magisterial mien and then, with a grave “Allow me,” opens the book. There, on the first page, stands an inscription:



Dedicated

To the frail Opula



My master stared at the page, wordless and with an enigmatic expression on his face, for such a long time that Waverhouse peered across from beside him.

“What have we here? New-style poetry? Aha! Already dedicated!

How splendid of you, Beauchamp,” he says with all the enthusiasm of a hound on the scent, “to come out bang with so bold a dedication. To, if my eyes do not deceive me, a certain Opula?”

My master, now looking more puzzled than enigmatic, turns to the poet. “My dear Beauchamp,” he says, “this Opula, is she a real person?”

“Oh yes indeed. She’s one of the young ladies whom I invited to our last Reading Party, the one where Waverhouse so generously applauded me. She lives, in fact, in this neighborhood. Actually, I called at her home on my way here but learnt, to my sorrow, that she’s been away since last month. I gather that the whole family is spending the summer at Oiso.”

Beauchamp looks peculiarly solemn as, with corroborative detail, he affirms the reality of his dedication.

“Come now, Sneaze, don’t go pulling a long face like that. This is the twentieth century and you’d best get used to it. Let’s get down to considering the masterpiece. First of all, Beauchamp, this dedication seems a bit of a bosh shot. What do you mean by ‘frail’?”

“Well, I meant ‘frail’ in the romantic sense, to convey the idea of a person infinitely delicate, infinitely refined and ethereal.”

“Did you now. Well, the word can, of course, be so used but it does have other, coarser connotations. Especially if it were read as an adjectival noun, you could be thought to be calling her some sort of franion.

So if I were you, I’d rephrase it.”

“Could you suggest how? I’d like it to be unmisinterpretably poetic.”

“Well, I think I’d say something like ‘Dedicated to all that’s frail beneath the nares of Opula.’ It wouldn’t involve much change in wording, but yet it makes an enormous difference in the feeling.”

“I see,” says Beauchamp. While it is quite clear that he doesn’t understand the balderdash proposed by Waverhouse, he is trying hard to look as though he had grasped, considered, and accepted it.

My master, who has been sitting silently, turns the first page and begins to read aloud from the opening section.



“In the fragrance of that incense which I burn.

When I am weary, seemingly

Your soul trails in the smoky twist and turn

Of love requited. Woe, ah woe is me,

Who in a world as bitter as is this

Must in a mist of useless yearning yearn

For the sweet fire of your impassioned kiss.



“This, I’m afraid,” he says with a sigh, “is a bit beyond me,” and he passes the notebook along to Waverhouse.

“The effect is strained, the imagery too heightened,” says Waverhouse passing it on to Coldmoon.

“I . . . s . . . e . . . e,” says Coldmoon, and returns it to the author.

“It’s only natural that you should fail to understand it.” Beauchamp leaps to his own defense. “In the last ten years the world of poetry has advanced and altered out of all recognition. Modern poetry is not easy.

You can’t understand it if you do no more than glance through it in bed or while you’re waiting at a railway station. More often than not, modern poets are unable to answer even the simplest questions about their own work. Such poets write by direct inspiration, and are not to be held responsible for more than the writing. Annotation, critical commentary, and exegesis, all these may be left to the scholars. We poets are not to be bothered with such trivia. Only the other day some fellow with a name like Sōseki published a short story entitled ‘A Single Night.’ But it’s so vague that no one could make head or tail of it. I eventually got hold of the man and questioned him very seriously about the real meaning of his story. He not only refused to give any explanation, but even implied that, if the story happened in fact to have any meaning at all, he couldn’t care less. His attitude was, I think, typical of a modern poet.”

“He may be a poet, but he sounds, doesn’t he, downright odd,” observes my master.

“He’s a fool.”Waverhouse demolishes this Sōseki in one curt breath.

Beauchamp, however, has by no means finished defending the merits of his own daft poem. “Nobody in our poetry group is in any way associated with this Sōseki fellow, and it would be unreasonable if you gentlemen were to condemn my poems by reason of some such imagined association. I took great pains with the construction of this work, and I would like in particular to draw your attention to my telling contrast of this bitter world with the sweetness of a kiss.”

“The pains you must have taken,” says my master somewhat ambiguously, “have not gone unremarked.”

“Indeed,” says Waverhouse, “the skill with which you have made ‘bitter’ and ‘sweet’ reflect each other is as interesting as if you had spiced each syllable of a haiku with seventeen different peppery tastes. The saying speaks of only seven such peppery tangs but, so tasteful, Beauchamp, is the concoction you’ve cooked up, that no saying is sufficient to say how inimitable it is, and how totally lost I am in admiration of your art.”

Rather unkindly, Waverhouse diverts himself at the expense of an honest man. Possibly for that reason, my master suddenly got to his feet and went off into his study. Possibly not, for he quickly re-emerged with a piece of paper in his hand.

“Now that we’ve considered Coldmoon’s play and Beauchamp’s poem, perhaps you will grant me the boon of your expert comments on this little thing here that I’ve written.” My master looks as if he means what he says to be taken seriously. If so, he is to be immediately disappointed.

“If it’s that epitaph thing for Mr. the-late and-sainted Natural Man, I’ve heard it twice already. If not thrice,” says Waverhouse dismissingly.

“For heaven’s sake,Waverhouse, why don’t you just pipe down. Now, Beauchamp, I’d like you to understand that this is not an example of my best and serious work. I wrote it just for fun, so I’m not especially proud of it. But let’s just see if you like it.”

“I’d be delighted to hear it.”

“You too, Coldmoon. Since you’re here, you might as well listen.”

“Of course, but it’s not long, is it?”

“Very short. I doubt,” says my master quite untruthfully, “whether it contains as many as three score words and ten,” whereupon, giving no opportunity for further interruptions, he launches out upon a recital of his homespun master-work.



“‘The Spirit of Japan,’ cries Japanese man;

‘Long may it live,’ cries he

But his cry breaks off in that kind of cough

Which comes from the soul’s T.B.”



“What a magnificient opening,” burbles Coldmoon with real enthusiasm. “The theme rises before one, immediate, undodgeable, and imposing, like a mountain!”



“‘The Spirit of Japan,’ scream the papers,

Pickpockets scream it too:

In one great jump the Japanese Spirit

Crosses the ocean blue

And is lectured upon in England,

While a play on this staggering theme

Is a huge success on the German stage.

A huge success? A scream!”



“Splendid,” says Waverhouse, letting his head fall backwards in token of his approbation. “It’s even better than that epiphanic epitaph.”



“Admiral Tōgō has the Japanese Spirit,

So has the man in the street:

Fish shop managers, swindlers, murderers,

None would be complete,

None would be the men they are,

None would be a man

If he wasn’t wrapped up like a tuppenny cup

In the Spirit of Japan”



“Please,” breathes Coldmoon, “please do mention that Coldmoon has it too.”



“But if you ask what this Spirit is

They give that cough and say

‘The Spirit of Japan is the Japanese Spirit,’

Then they walk away

And when they’ve walked ten yards or so

They clear their throats of phlegm,

And that clearing sound is the Japanese Spirit Manifest in them.”



“Oh I like that,” says Waverhouse, “that’s a very well-turned phrase. Sneaze, you’ve got talent, real literary talent. And the next stanza?”



“Is the Spirit of Japan triangular?

Is it, do you think, a square?

Why no indeed! As the words themselves

Explicitly declare,

It’s an airy, fairy, spiritual thing

And things that close to God

Can’t be defined in a formula

Or measured with a measuring-rod.”



“It’s certainly an interesting composition and most unusual in that, defying tradition, it has a strong didactic element. But don’t you think it contains too many Spirits of Japan. One can have,” says Beauchamp mildly, “too much of the best of things.”

“A good point. I agree.”Waverhouse chips in yet again with two-pen-nyworth of tar.



“There’s not one man in the whole of Japan

Who has not used the phrase,

But I have not met one user yet

Who knows what it conveys.

The Spirit of Japan, the Japanese Spirit,

Could it conceivably be

Nothing but another of those long-nosed goblins Only the mad can see?”



My master comes to the end of his poem and, believing it pregnant with eminently debatable material, sits back in expectation of an ava-lanche of comment. However, though the piece is undoubtedly that masterpiece for which the anthologists have been waiting, its endless Western form and its lack of clear meaning have resulted in the present audience not realizing that the recitation is over. They, accordingly, just sit there. For a long time. Eventually, no more verses being vouchsafed them, Coldmoon ventures “Is that all?”

My master answers with a noncommittal, I thought falsely carefree, kind of throaty grunt.

Very much contrary to my own expectations, Waverhouse failed to rise to the occasion with one of his usual flights of fantastication.

Instead, after a brief interval, he turned to my master and said, “How about collecting some of your shorter pieces into a book? Then you, too, could dedicate it to someone.”

“How about to you?” my master flippantly suggests.

“Not on your life,” says Waverhouse very firmly. He takes out the scissors which he had earlier analyzed for the benefit of Mrs. Sneaze and begins clipping away at his fingernails.

Coldmoon turns to Beauchamp and, somewhat cautiously, enquires,

“Are you closely acquainted with Miss Opula Goldfield?”

“After I invited her to our Reading Party last spring, we became friends and we now see quite a lot of each other. Whenever I’m with her I feel, as it were, inspired, and even after we’ve parted, I still feel, at least for quite a time, such a flame alight within me that poems, both in the traditional forms and in the modern style, come singing up like steam from a kettle. I believe that this little collection contains so high a proportion of love poems precisely because I am so deeply stirred by women and, in particular, by her. The only way I know by which to express my sincere gratitude is by dedicating this book to the source of its inspiration. I stand at the end of a long tradition inasmuch as, since time immemorial, no poet wrote fine poetry save under the inspiration of some deeply cherished woman.”

“Is that indeed so?” says Coldmoon as though he had just learnt a fact of imponderable gravity. But deep behind the sober skin of his face I could see him laughing at the folly of his friend.

Even this gathering of gasbags cannot wheeze on forever, and the pressure of their conversation is now fast whimpering down toward exhaustion. Being under no obligation to listen all day long to their endless blather, their carping and flapdoodle, I excused myself and went out into the garden in search of a praying mantis.

The sun is going down. Its reddened light, filtered through the green foliage of a sultan’s parasol, flecks the ground in patches. High up on the trunk of the tree, cicadas are singing their hearts out. Tonight, perhaps, a little rain may fall.







 IV







I HAVE,of late,taken to taking exercise. To those who may sneer at me saying, “What sauce, a mere cat taking exercise indeed!” I would like to address you with the few following words. It was not until recently that human beings, previously content to regard eating and sleeping as their only purposes in life, began to grasp the point of taking exercise. Let all mankind remember in what self-complacent idleness they used to pass their days; how passionately they once believed that impassivity of mind and body were the signs of a noble soul, and that the honor of a nobleman resided in his ability to do nothing more strenuous than to plant his bum on a cushion that there it might, in comfort, rot away. It is only recently that, like some infectious disease brought from the West to this pure land of the gods, a stream of silly injunctions has been sprayed upon us to take exercise, to gulp milk, to shower ourselves with freezing water, to plonk ourselves in the sea, and, in the summertime, to sequester ourselves in the mountains on a diet, allegedly healthy, of nothing more solid than mist. Such importations seem to me about as salubrious as the black plague, tuberculosis, and that very Western malady, neurasthenia. However, since I am only one year old, born as I was last year, I cannot personally testify as to the state of affairs when human beings here first began to suffer from these sicknesses. It happened at a time before I came to float along in this vale of tears. Nevertheless, one may fairly equate a cat’s one year, with ten for human beings: and though our span of life is two or three times shorter than theirs, a cat may still therein achieve full feline self-development. It follows that any evaluation of a cat’s life and a man’s life by reference to a common time-scale must result in grievous error.

That point is surely proven by the fact that I, who am but a year and a few months old, possess the discernment to make such an analysis. In contrast, the third daughter of my master, whom I understand to be already in her third year, is lamentably backward, a laggard in all learning, a slow-coach in development. Her accomplishments are limited.

She yowls, she mucks her bed and she sucks milk from her mother.

Compared with someone like myself who am distressed by the state of the world and deplore the degeneracy of the age, that girl is truly infantile. It is consequently not in the least surprising that I should have stored away, deep within my mind, the entire history of taking exercise, of sea-bathing, and of going away for a change of air. If there should be anyone surprised at a thing so trifling as this vast extent of my knowledge, it could only be another of those handicapped humans, those stumbling creatures whom heaven has retarded with the gift of no more than a measly couple of legs. From time immemorial man has been a slow-coach, so it is only very recently that such inveterate sluggards have begun to recommend the virtues of exercise, and, as if the notion were their own incredible discovery, to babble endlessly of the benefits of bobbing about in the sea. Per contra, I was aware of such things in my pre-natal condition, and to fully realize the benisons of brine one needs but walk on a beach.

Precisely how many fish are frolicking about in so vast a volume of water, I would not care to guess; however it is certain that not a single specimen has ever fallen so sick as to need the attentions of a doctor.

There they all are, swimming about in the best of health. When a fish does catch some illness, its body first becomes helpless. But let it be remembered that the death of a fish is described in Japanese as an ascen-sion. Birds, we say, drop dead, become mere fallen things. Men are simply said to have kicked the bucket. But fish, I stress, ascend. Now, just ask anyone who’s journeyed overseas, anyone who’s crossed the Indian Ocean, whether they’ve seen a dying fish. Of course they haven’t. And no wonder. However often you might plow back and forth across that endless waste of water, never would you see afloat upon its waves one single fish that had just given up its last breath. Given up, I should perhaps fish-pertinently say, its last seawater gulp. Had you assiduously searched since time began, were you now to go on steaming day and night up and down that wide and boundless expanse of water, not one solitary fish would ever be seen to ascend. Since fish do not ascend, their undying strength, their hardihood, indeed their deathlessness, is easily deduced.

How comes it, then, that fish should be so death defyingly hardy?

Here once again, mankind can give no answer. But the answer, as I shortly shall disclose, is simplicity itself. The answer is that fish are hardy because they incessantly bathe in the sea, because they swill saltwater.

It’s as simple as that. Now, since the benefits of sea bathing are so evidenced by fish, surely it must follow that the practice would be beneficial to mankind. Lo and behold, in 1750 a certain Dr. Richard Russell came out with the humanly exaggerated pronouncement that anyone who jumped into the sea at Brighton would find that all his various diseases would be cured on the spot. Is it not laughable that it took mankind so long to arrive at so simple a conclusion? Even we cats, when the time is ripe, intend to go down to the seaside, to some place like Kaniakura. But now is not the time. There is always a right time for everything. Just as the Japanese people before the Restoration of the Emperor, both lived and died without benefit of sea bathing, so cats today have not yet reached the appropriate stage for leaping naked into the briny deep. Timing is all important, and a hurried job is a job half-botched. Consequently, since no cat taken today to be drowned in some shrine’s canal will ever come home safely, it would be most imprudent indeed for me to go plunging in. Until by the laws of evolution we cats have developed the characteristics needed to resist the rage of overwhelming waves; until, in fact, a dead cat can be said not to have died but, like fish, to have ascended, until that happy day, I won’t go near the water.

Postponing my sea bathing to some later date, I have anyway decided to make a start on some sort of exercise. In this enlightened twentieth century, any failure to take exercise is likely to be interpreted as a sign of pauperdom. Which would be bad for one’s reputation. If you don’t take exercise, you will be judged incapable of taking it by reason of an inability to afford either the time or the expense, or both. It is thus no longer a simple question of not taking exercise. In olden times those who did take physical exercise, persons such as the riffraff of male servants in an upper-class household, were regarded with a proper scorn.

But nowadays it is precisely those who do not take some form of physical exercise at whom the world turns up its nose. The world’s evalua-tions of an individual’s social worth, like the slits in my eyeballs, change with time and circumstance. In point of fact my pupil-slits vary but modestly between broad and narrow, but mankind’s value judgements turn somersaults and cartwheels for no conceivable reason. Still, now that I come to think of it, there may perhaps be sense in such peculiar topsy-turvydom. For just as there are two ends to every string, there are two sides to every question. Perhaps in its extreme adaptability mankind has found a way to make apparent opposites come out with identical meanings. Thus, if one takes the symbols meaning “idea” and turns them upside-down, one finds oneself with the symbols meaning “plan.”

Charming, isn’t it? A similar conception can be seen at work in the Japanese practice of viewing the so-called Bridge of Heaven by bending down and peering backward between one’s parted legs. Seen thus, the sea and its reflection of the pine-trees on the sandbar appear like true pines reared into the sky, whereas the true pines and the sky appear as trees reflected upon the water. It is indeed a remarkable effect. Even the works of Shakespeare might be more thoroughly appreciated if they were re-examined from unorthodox positions. Someone, once in a while, should take a good long look at Hamlet through his legs.

Presented upside-down, that tragedy might earn the bald remark “Ye Gods, this play is bad.” How else, except by standing on their heads, can the critics in our literary world make any progress?

Considered against that background, it is hardly surprising that those who once spoke ill of physical exercise should suddenly go crazy about sports, that even women should walk about on the streets with tennis rackets clutched in their hands. So far as I’m concerned, I have no criticisms to offer on any of these matters provided no misguided human being has the effrontery to criticize a cat for the sauciness of its interest in taking physical exercise. That said, perhaps I ought to satisfy your probable curiosity, to offer some explanation of the exercise I take.

As you are aware, it is my misfortune that my paws cannot grasp any kind of implement. I am consequently unable to pick up balls or to grip such things as bats and bloody rackets. Moreover, even could I handle them, I cannot buy them for I don’t have any money. For these two reasons, I have chosen such kinds of exercise as cost nothing and need no special equipment. I suppose you might consequently assume that my idea of exercise must be limited to merely walking about, or to running away like Rickshaw Blacky with a slice of stolen tuna fish jammed in my jaws. But to swagger about on the ground by the mere mechanical movement of four legs and in strict obedience to the laws of gravity, that is all too simple; simple and therefore totally uninteresting. There is indeed one kind of exercise called “movements” in which my master occasionally indulges. But it is, in fact, no more than its name suggests, a matter of mere mechanical movements. Which, to my mind, is a des-ecration of the sanctity of exercise. Of course, if some true incentive is involved, I do not always scorn the simplicities of mere movement. For example, I get real pleasure from racing for dried bonito and from going on salmon hunts. But those activities are related to specific objectives. If the incentives are removed, the activities become mere waste of spirit, ashes in the mouth.

When there is no prize to provide the needed stimulus, then my preference is for exercises that demand some kind of genuine skill. I have devised a variety of exercises satisfying that requirement. One is jumping from the kitchen-eaves up and onto the main roof of the house.

Another is standing with all four legs together on the plum-blossom shape of the narrow tile at the very top of the roof. An especially difficult feat is walking along the laundry pole, which usually proves a failure because my claws can’t penetrate the hard and slippery surface of bamboo. Perhaps my most interesting exercise is jumping suddenly from behind onto the children’s backs. However, unless I am extremely careful about the method and timing of such exploits, the penalties involved can be uncommonly painful. Indeed, I derive so very little pleasure from having my head stuffed deep in a paperbag that I only risk this splendid exercise three times, at most, in a month. One must also recognize the disadvantage that any success in this form of exercise depends entirely, and unsatisfactorily, upon the availability of some human partner. Yet another form of exercise is clawing the covers of books. In this case two kinds of snags arise. First, there is the invariable drubbing administered by my master whenever he catches me at it.

Secondly, though the exercise undoubtedly develops a certain dexterity of finger, it does nothing at all for the remaining muscles of my body.

I have so far only described those comparatively crude activities which I would choose to call old-fashioned exercises. However, my newfangled sports include a few of the most exquisite refinement. First among such sports comes hunting the praying mantis, which is only less noble than hunting rats by the lesser degree of its dangers. The open season, with the quarry in superb condition, runs from high mid-summer until early in the autumn. The hunting rules are as follows. First one goes to the garden to flush one’s quarry out. Given the proper weather, one may expect to find at least a brace of them browsing in the open.

Next, having chosen one particular mantis, a sudden dash, a regular windslicer, is made towards the quarry. The mantis, thus alerted to its danger, rears its head and readies for the fray. For all its puniness, the mantis, at least until it realizes the hopelessness of any further resistance, is a plucky little beast, and its fatuous readiness to make a fight of it adds zest to the fun. I, accordingly, open by patting him lightly on the head with the flat of my right, front paw. The head is soft and is generally cocked to one side. At this point, the expression on the quarry’s face adds singular edge to my pleasure. The beast is clearly puzzled. I immediately spring around behind him and, from that new position, lightly claw at his wings. These wings are normally folded carefully close but, if clawed with exactly the right degree of scratchiness, they can be har-rowed loose, and from beneath the beast a disheveled flurry of underwear, a yellowish tatter of stuff like thin transparent paper, droops flimsy into view. Oh, what an elegant fellow! Tricked out in double lined clothing even at the height of summer! And may it bring him luck!

Invariably, at this moment the mantis twists his long, green neck around to face me. Then, turning his whole body in the same direction, sometimes he defiantly advances and sometimes simply stands there like some dwarf-annoyed giraffe. If he remains transfixed in that latter attitude I shall be cheated of my exercise. Accordingly, having given him every chance to take the initiative, I then give him a stimulating smack.

If the mantis happens to have the least intelligence, he will now attempt escape, but some, ill-schooled and of a barbarous ferocity, will persevere in derring-do, even to the point of launching an attack. When dealing with such savages, I carefully calculate the precisely proper moment to strike back and then, suddenly, deliver a really heavy blow as he advances at me. I would say that on such occasions the beast is usually batted sideways for a distance of between two and three feet. However, if my quarry displays a civilized recognition of its plight and drags away in pitiful retreat, then I am moved to pity. Off I go, racing along like a flying bird, two or three times around a convenient tree in the garden.

Yet, when I return I rarely find that the mantis has managed to crawl away more than five or six inches. Now conscious of my power, he has no stomach for continued battle. He staggers away, tottering first left and then right in dazed attempts to escape me. Matching his movements, this way and that, I harry him back and forth. Sometimes in his ultimate despair, he makes the ultimate effort of fluttering his wings. It is the nature of the wings, as of the neck, of a praying mantis to be exceedingly long and exceedingly slender. Indeed, I understand that these wings are entirely ornamental and are of no more practical use to a praying mantis than are, to a human being, the English, French, and German languages. It follows that, however ultimate his effort, however grand his pitiful remonstrance, no fluttering of those ineffectual wings can have on me the very least effect. One speaks of his effort but, in reality, there’s nothing so purposeful about it. One should not use a word so energetic to describe the shambling totter, torn wings a-drag along the ground, of this pathetic creature. For I confess that I really do feel a wee mite sorry for my miserable antagonist. However, my need for physical exercise outweighs all other considerations, and into every life, even that of a mantis, a little rain must fall. My conscience salved, I dart beyond him from behind, twist, and so confront him. In his condition, having committed himself to forward movement, he has no choice but to keep coming. Equally and naturally, faced with such aggression, I have no choice but to give him a whack on the nose. My foe collapses, falls down flat with his wings spread out on either side. Extending a front paw, I hold him down in that squashed-face position whilst I take a little breather. Myself at ease again, I let the wretched perisher get up and struggle on. Then, again, I catch him. My strategy is based, of course, on the classic Chinese methods of Kung Ming, that military marvel of the Shu Kingdom in the third century, who, seven times in succession, first caught, then freed, his enemy. For maybe thirty minutes I pursue that classic alternation. Eventually, the mantis abandons hope and, even when free to drag himself away, lies there motionless. I lift him lightly in my mouth and spit him out again. Since, even then, he just lies loafing on the ground, I prod him with my paw. Under that stimulus the mantis hauls himself erect and makes a kind of clumsy leap for freedom. So once again, down comes my quick immobilizing paw. In the end, bored by the repetitions, I conclude my exercise by eating him.

Incidentally, for the benefit of those who’ve never munched mantis, I would report that the taste is rather unpleasant and I have been led to understand that the nutrimental value is negligible.

Next to mantis hunting, my favorite sport is cricketing. In exactly the same way as, among the varieties of man, one can find oily creatures, cheeky chaps, and chatterboxes, so among the species of cicada there are oily cicadas, pert cicadas, and chatterboxes, too. The oily ones are not much fun, being in fact too greasily importunate. The cheeky chaps annoy one, being a sight too uppity. And I am consequently most interested in silencing the chatterboxes. They do not appear until the end of summer. There comes a day when, unexpectedly, the first cool wind of autumn blows through the gaps torn in the sleeves of one’s kimono, making one feel a sniffling cold is surely on its way. Just about then the chatterboxes, tails cocked up behind them, start their singing din. And a deal of din they make. So much noise, in fact, one could almost believe they have no purposes in life except to chatter at the top of their rowdy voices and to be caught by cats. It is in early autumn that I catch them, and cricketing is what I call this form of taking exercise. I must first emphasize that in hunting for live chatterboxes there’s no point in quest-ing on the ground. Any that are on the ground will invariably be found half-buried under ants. Those which I stalk are not the perished relics at the mercy of the pismires, but those alive and chattering away in the branches of tall trees. Whilst I am on this general subject, it occurs to me to query whether these noisy creatures are shouting o-shi-i-tsuku-tsuku or tsuku-tsuku-o-shi-i. I suspect there could be real significance in the difference, a difference no doubt capable of casting much-needed light on the whole field of cicada studies. It is a topic that cries out for the exercise of the particular gifts of humankind. Indeed, man’s natural proclivity for this kind of investigation is the sole characteristic by which he is superior to a cat. Which is, of course, precisely the reason that human beings, proud of their singularity, attach so much importance to such pettifogging points. Consequently, if men can’t offer an immediate answer, I suggest that for all our sakes they think the matter over very carefully. Of course, so far as my cricketing is concerned, the outcome of their ponderings, whatever that may be, could hardly matter less.

Now, with respect to the practice of cricketing, all I have to do is to climb toward the source of noise and catch the so-called singer while he is totally absorbed in his so-called act of singing. Superficially the simplest of all exercises, it is in fact quite difficult. Since I have four legs, I do not regard myself as inferior to any other animal in the matter of moving about on the surface of this planet. Indeed, by mathematical deduction of comparative mobility by reference to the number of legs involved, the average cat would seem to be at least twice as nimble as the average man. But when it comes to climbing trees, there are many animals more dexterous than the cat. Apart from monkeys, those absolute professionals, one is bound to concede that men, descended as they are from tree-conditioned apes, sometimes display a truly formidable skill at climbing trees. I hasten to add that, since climbing trees is unnatural, being a direct defiance of the laws of gravity, I cannot consider a failure to shine in such unreasonable activity as in any way shameful. But it is a disadvantage to a cricketer. Luckily, I happen to possess this useful set of claws which makes it possible for me, however clumsily, to get up trees, but it’s not as easy as you might think. What’s more, a chatterbox, unlike the pitiable mantis, really can fly. And once it takes to the wing, all my painful climbing profits me nothing. Indeed a dismal outcome. It has, moreover, the dangerous and ugly habit of pissing in one’s eye. One can’t complain of its taking flight, but such filthy micturition is hardly playing the game. What psychological pressure induces this incontinence at the moment immediately prior to an act of aviation? Is it, perhaps, that the thought of flying is too unbearable to bear? Or is it simply that a pissed-on prowler is so shockedly surprised that his intended prey gains ample time to escape? If that latter hypothesis is correct, this urinating insect falls into a common category with the ink-ejecting squid, with the tattoo-flashing brawler in the alleyways of Tokyo, and with my poor old idiot master spouting clouds of protective Latin. Again, I would stress that this question of urination at take-off is no mere piddling matter, but an issue of possibly fundamental relevance to the study of cicadas. The problem certainly merits the detailed study of a doctoral dissertation.

But I digress too far. Let us return to the practicalities of cricketing.

The spot where the cicadas most thickly concentrate (if you object to my use in this context of the word “concentrate,” then I was originally prepared to substitute the word “assemble,” but I find that latter word so banal that I have decided to stick to “concentrate”) is the green paulownia, the so-called Sultan’s Parasol which, I am reliably informed, is known to the Chinese as the Chinese Parasol. Now, the green paulownia is densely foliaged and each of its leaves is as big as a big, round fan.

It is consequently hard to see the branches where my quarry lurks; a fact which constitutes another hazard for the keen cricketer. I sometimes think that it was with my predicament in mind that the author of that popular song wrote those words of yearning for “one, though heard, invisible.” In any event, the best I can do is to work my way toward that place from which the song appears to emanate.

About six feet up from the ground, the trunks of all green paulownias fork conveniently into two. Within that crotch I rest from the exer-tion of my initial climb and, peering upward between the backs of the leaves, try to see where the chatterboxes are. Sometimes, however, before I even get to the crotch, one or two of my potential victims grow alarmed and, with a curious rustling sound, impatiently take flight. Then I’ve really had it. For, judging them by their readiness to be led, and their mindless passion for conformity of conduct, these chatterboxes are no less imbecile than men. As soon as the first one flies away, all the others follow. There are occasions, therefore, when by the time I’ve reached the fork, the whole tree stands deserted in a dead dispiriting silence. On one such day I’d climbed up to the fork only to find, however hard I peered and however much I pricked my ears, no faintest sign or sound of a chatterbox. Deciding it would be too much of a bore to start all over again in some other tree, I concluded that the sensible thing would be to stay where I was, enjoy the relaxation and wait for a second chance when the refugees returned. Before long I grew sleepy, and soon was happily far away in the pleasant land of Nod. My awakening was unpleasant, for I’d fallen thuddingly down onto a flagstone in the garden.

Nevertheless, I usually manage to catch one chatterbox for every tree I climb. It is, alas, an unavoidable characteristic of this sport, one which sadly reduces my interest in it, that, so long as I’m up in the tree, I have to hold my captive in my mouth; for, by the time I’ve descended and can spit him out on the ground, he is usually dead. However hard I may thereafter play with him and scratch him, he offers no response. The most exquisite moment in cricketing occurs when, after sneaking quietly upon a chatterbox whose whole vibrating being is concentrated upon song, upon the soul-absorbing business of scraping his tail parts in and out of the main shell of his body, suddenly I pounce and my paws clamp down upon him. How piercingly he shrieks, with what a threshing ecstasy of terror he shakes his thin transparent wings in efforts to escape. The sheer speed and intensity of these happenings creates an aesthetic experience impossible to describe. One can only say that the magnificence of its death-throes is the supreme achievement of a cicada’s life. Every time I catch a chatterbox I ask, in suitably pressing terms, for a demonstration of his thrilling artistry.

When tired of his performance, I beg his pardon for the interruption and pop him into my mouth. Occasional virtuosi have been known to continue with their act even after my mouth has closed behind them.

After cricketing, my next most favored form of physical exercise is pine sliding. A detailed explanation would be too much, so I’ll offer only the minimum of comment needed for an understanding of this sport. Its name suggests that it is sliding down pine trees, but, in fact, it doesn’t.

It is, indeed, another form of climbing trees. But whereas when cricketing I climb to catch a chatterbox, when pine sliding I climb purely for the climbing. Ever since Genzaemon warmed the room for laypriest Saimyoji, that one-time Regent at Kamakura, by burning those trees to which Genzaemon in his own happier days had been particularly attached, the pine tree has been not only, as the song about that incident assures us, naturally an evergreen, but also most unnaturally rough-barked to one’s touch. Whatever the explanation, there is certainly no tree less slippery than the pine, and no trunk in the world affords a better climbing surface either for hands or for feet. Clearly, when it comes to claws, nothing is more clawable and I can consequently run up a pine trunk in one breath.

Having run up, I run down. Now there are two styles of downward running. One way is to descend, effectively upside-down, with one’s head facing the ground; the other is to descend tail-first in the normal attitude for an ascending climb. And which, I would ask you know-it-all human beings, would you suppose is the more difficult style of the two?

Being but shallow brained, you probably think that one would find it easier to position one’s head so as to lead in the direction of desired movement; you’d be wrong. When you heard me speak of running downward, no doubt you thought immediately of Yoshitsune’s headlong horse charge down the cliff at Hiyodori-goe. And I can imagine you thinking to yourself that anything good enough for a human hero like Yoshitsune must be more than sufficient for some unnamed, unknown cat. But such disdain would be entirely misplaced. Just to begin with, do you know how cats’ claws grow, their directional positioning in accordance with their function? They are, in fact, retrorsely curved so that, like firemen’s hooks, they are peculiarly suited to catching hold of things and drawing them chestward. They are virtually useless for pushing things away. Now, since I am a terrestrial creature, it would be a breach of natural law if, having dashed up a pine tree trunk, I were to remain indefinitely and unsupported at the swaying top of the tree. I would certainly fall down. And, if that fall were nowise checked, the rate of my descent could well prove lethal. Thus, when I take measures to mitigate the potentially disastrous effects of the laws of gravity and nature, I call the consequent process of descent “descending.”Though there may seem to be a substantial difference between descending and free falling, it isn’t as great as one might fondly imagine; indeed, no more than a single letter’s worth. Since I do not care to free all out of a pine tree top, I must find some means to check the natural acceleration of my body. And that’s where my claws come in; or rather, out. Being retrorsely curved, all my twenty claws, appropriately extended from my heaven-facing body, provide a gripping power and frictional resistance sufficient to transform the hazards of free fall into the relative safety of descent.

Simple, isn’t it? But you just try to come down from a pine tree like a wolf on the fold in the headlong Yoshitsune style, and that’s not simple at all. Claws are useless. Nothing retards the slithering acceleration of your body’s weight, and those who’d hoped thus safely to descend, finish up by plummeting earthward like boulders dropped by rocs. You will, accordingly, appreciate that the headlong descent of Hiyodori-goe was an exceptionally difficult feat, one which only a veritable hero could successfully accomplish. Among cats, probably only I, the Yoshitsune of my kind, can pull it off. I accordingly feel I have earned my right to give a name to this particular sport, and I have chosen “pine sliding.”

I cannot conclude these few words on the subject of sport without at least some mention of “going around the fence.” My master’s garden, rectangular in shape, is on all sides separated from neighboring properties by a bamboo fence about three feet high. The section running parallel to the veranda is some fifty feet long, and the two side-sections are each about half that length. The object of the aforementioned sport is to walk right around the whole property without falling off the thin top edge of the fence. There are times, I confess, when I do topple off, but, when successful, I find such tours of the horizon eminently gratifying.

Really, great fun. The fence is supported here and there, and particularly at the corners, by sturdy cedar stakes, fire hardened at each end, on the tops of which I can conveniently take breathers in the course of my circumambulation. I found myself today in really rather good form.

Before lunch I managed three successful tours, and on each occasion my performance improved. Naturally, every improvement adds to the fun.

I was just about halfway home on my fourth time around when three crows, gliding down from the next-door roof, settled on the fence-top, side-by- side, some six short feet ahead of me. Cheeky bastards! Quite apart from the fact that they’re interrupting my exercise, such low-born, ill-bred, rain-guttersnipes have no right whatsoever to come trespassing, indeed seemingly to start squatting, on my fence-property. So I told them, in terms of hissing clarity, to get lost. The nearest crow, turning its head toward me, appears to be grinning like a half-wit. The next one unconcernedly studies my master’s garden. And the third continues wiping his filthy beak on a projecting splinter of the fence bamboo. He had all too evidently just finished eating something rather nasty. I stood there balanced on the fence, giving them a civilized three minutes grace to shove off. I’ve heard that these birds are commonly called Crowmagnons, and they certainly look as daft and primitively barbarous as their uncouth nickname would suggest. Despite my courteous waiting, they neither greeted me nor flew away. Becoming at last inpatient, I began slowly to advance; whereupon the nearest Crowmagnon tentatively stirred his wings. I thought he was at last backing off in face of my power, but all he did was to shift his posture so as to present his arse, rather than his head, toward me. Outright insolence! Conduct unbecoming even a Crow-magnon. Were we on the ground, I would call him to immediate account, but, alas, being as I am engaged upon a passage both strenuous and perilous, I really can’t be bothered to be diverted from my purpose by such aboriginal naiseries. On the other hand, I do not greatly care for the idea of being stuck here while a trey of brainless birds waits for whatever impulse will lift them into the air. For one thing, there’s my poor tired feet. Those feathered lightweights are used to standing around in such precarious places so that, if my fence-top happens to please them, they might perch here forever. I, on the other hand, am already exhausted. This is my fourth time around today, and this particular exercise is anyway no less tricky than tightrope-walking.

At the best of times, each teetering step I take could throw me clean off-balance, which makes it all the more unpardonable that these three blackamoors should loaf here blocking the way. If it comes to the worst, I shall just have to abandon today’s exercises and hop down from the fence. It’s a bore, of course, but perhaps I might as well hop down now.

After all, I am heavily outnumbered by the enemy. Besides, the poor simple things do seem to be strangers in these parts. Their beaks, I notice, are almost affectedly pointed, the sort of savage, stabbing snout that, found amongst his sons, would make its foul possessor the most sharply favored member of a long-nosed goblin’s brood. The signs are unmistakable that these Crow-magnon louts will be equally ill-natured.

If I start a fight and then, by sheer mischance, happen to lose my foot-ing, the loss of face will be much greater than if I just chose to disengage. Consequently, thinking that it might be prudent to avoid a showdown, I had just decided to hop down when the arse-presenting savage offered me a rudery. “Arseholes,” he observed. His immediate neighbor repeated this coarse remark, while the last one of the trio took the trouble to say it twice. I simply could not overlook behavior so offensive.

First and foremost, to allow myself to be grossly insulted in my own garden by these mere crows would reflect adversely upon my good name.

Should you object that I do not have a name to be reflected upon, I will amend that sentence to refer to reflections upon my honor. When my honor is involved, cost what it may, I cannot retreat. At this point it occurred to me that a disorderly rabble is often described as a “flock of crows;” so it is just possible that, though they outnumber me three to one, when it comes to the crunch they’ll prove more weak than they look. Thus comforted, thus grimly resolute, I began slowly to advance.

The crows, oblivious to my action, seem to be talking among themselves. They are exasperating! If only the fence were wider by five or six inches, I’d really give them hell. But as things are, however vehemently vexed I may feel, I can only tiptoe slowly forward to avenge my injured honor. Eventually, I reached a point a bare half-foot away from the nearest bird and was urging myself onward to one last final effort when, all together and as though by prearrangement, the three brutes suddenly flapped their wings and lumbered up to hang a couple of feet above me in the air. The down-draught gusted into my face. Unsportingly surprised, I lost my balance and fell off sideways into the garden.

Kicking myself for permitting such a shameful mishap to occur, I looked up from the ground to find all three marauders safely landed back again where they had perched before. Their three sharp beaks in parallel alignment, they peer down superciliously into my angry eyes.

The bloody nerve of them! I responded with a glowering scowl. Which left them quite unmoved. So next I snarled and arched my back. Equally ineffective. Just as the subtlety of symbolic poetry is lost on a material-ist, so were the symbols of my anger quite meaningless to the crows.

Which, now that I reflect upon the matter, is perfectly understandable.

Hitherto, and wrongly, I have been seeking to cope with crows as if they had been cats. Had that been the case, they would by now, most certainly, have reacted. But crows are crows, and what but crow behavior can anyone expect of them? My efforts have, in fact, all been as pointless as the increasingly short-tempered arguments of a businessman trying to budge my master; as pointless as Yoritomo’s gift of a solid silver cat to the unworldly Saigyo; as pointless as the bird shit that these fools and their fool cousins fly over to Ueno to deposit on the statue of poor Sai-o Takamori. Once I have conceived a thought, I waste no time before I act upon it. It were better to give up than to persist in a dialogue with dunces, so I abandoned my endeavors and withdrew to the veranda.

It was time for dinner anyway.

Exercise has merits, but one mustn’t overdo it. My whole body felt limp and almost slovenly. What’s more I feel horribly hot. We are now at the beginning of autumn, and during my exercise my fur seems to have become saturated with afternoon sunshine. The sweat which oozes from the pores in my skin refuses to drop away, but clings in greasy clots around the roots of every separate hair. My back itches. One can clearly distinguish between itches caused by perspiration and itches caused by creeping fleas. If the site of the itch lies within reach of my mouth, I can bite the cause, and if within reach of my feet, I know precisely how to scratch it. But if the irritation is at the midpoint of my spine, I simply can’t get at it. In such a case, one must either frot oneself on the first available human being or scrape one’s back against a pine tree’s bark.

Since men are both vain and stupid, I approach them in a suitably ingratiating manner using, as they would say, “tones that would wheedle a cat.” Such are the tones men sometimes use to me, but, seen from my position, the phrase should be “tones by which a cat may be wheedled.”

Not that it matters. Anyway, human beings being the nitwits that they are, a purring approach to any of them, either male or female, is usually interpreted as proof that I love them, and they consequently let me do as I like, and on occasions, poor dumb creatures, they even stroke my head. Of late, however, just because some kind of parasitic insect, fleas, in fact, have taken to breeding in my fur, even my most tentative approaches to a human being evoke a gross response. I am grabbed by the scruff of the neck and pitched clean out of the room. It seems that this sudden aversion stems from human disgust with those barely visible and totally insignificant insects which I harbor. A heartless and most callous attitude! How can such inconsiderate behavior possibly be justified by the presence in my coat of one or two thousand footling fleas? The answer is, of course, that Article One of those Laws of Love (by which all human creatures regulate their lives) specifically enjoins that “ye shall love one another for so long as it serves thine individual interest.”

Now that the human attitude towards me has so completely changed, I cannot exploit manpower to ease my itching, however virulent it may become. I therefore have no choice but to resort to the alternative method of finding relief in scraping myself on pine bark. To that end I was just going down the veranda steps when I realized that even this alternative solution was a silly idea and would not work. The point is that pines secrete an extremely sticky resin which, once it has gummed the ends of my fur together, cannot be loosened even if struck by lightning, or fired upon by the whole Russian Baltic Fleet. What’s more, as soon as five hairs stick together, then ten, then thirty hairs get inextri-cably stuck. I am a dainty cat of candid temperament, and any creature as clinging, poisonous, and vindictive as this tenacious resin is an anath-ema to me. I cannot stand persons of that kind, and even if one such particular person were the most beautiful cat in the world, let alone a creature loathsome as resin, still I’d be revolted. It is outrageous that my charmingly pale gray coat can be ruined by a substance whose social and evolutionary status is no higher than that of the gummy muck which streams in the cold north wind from the corners of Rickshaw Blacky’s eyes. Resin ought to realize the impropriety of its nature, but will, of course, do no such thing. Indeed, the very moment my back makes contact with a pine tree, great clots of resin gather on my fur. To have anything to do with so insensitive, so inconsiderate a creature would not only be beneath my personal dignity, but would be a defilement to anyone in my coat and lineage. I conclude that, however fleasome I may feel, I have no choice but to grin and bear it. Nonetheless, it is extremely disheartening to find that the two standard means of alleviating my discomfort are both unavailable. Unless I can quickly find some other solution, the irritation in my skin, and the thought of gumminess in my mind, will bring me to a nervous breakdown.

Sinking down upon my hind-legs into a thinking posture, I had scarcely begun my search for bright ideas when an illuminating memory flashed upon me. Every so often my scruffy master saunters off out of the house with a cake of soap and a hand towel. When he returns some thirty or forty minutes later, his normally dull complexion, while not exactly glowing, has nevertheless acquired a certain modest liveliness. If such expeditions can confer a sheen of vitality upon that shabby sloven, what wonders they might work upon myself. It is, of course, true that I am already so extremely handsome that improvements, if possible, are hardly necessary, but if by some misfortune I were to fall sick and perish at this very tender age of one year and a few odd months, I could never forgive myself for allowing so irremediable a loss to be inflicted upon the populace of the world. I believe that the object of my master’s sorties is one of those devices invented by mankind as a means of easing the tedium of its existence. Inasmuch as the public bath is an invention of mankind, it can hardly be much use to anyone but, clutching as I am at straws, I might as well investigate the matter. If it’s as pointless as I anticipate, nothing would be simpler than to drop my enquiries; but I remain unsure whether human beings are sufficiently broadminded to give a cat, a member of another species, even a chance to investigate the efficacy of an institution devised for human purposes.

I cannot imagine that I could be refused entry when nobody dreams of questioning the casual comings and goings of my master, but it would be socially most embarrassing to find myself turned from the door.

Prudence suggests the wisdom of reconnaissance and, if I like the look of the place, then I can hop in with a hand towel in my mouth. My plan of action formed, I set off for the public bath at a properly leisurely pace.

As one turns left around the corner from our side street, one may observe a little further up the road an object like an upended bamboo waterpipe puffing thin smoke-fumes straight up into the sky. That fum-ing finger marks the site of the public bathhouse. I stole in through its back entrance. That style of entry is usually looked down upon as mean-spirited or cowardly, but such criticisms are merely the tedious grumbles spiced with jealousy which one must expect from persons only capable of gaining access by front doors. It is abundantly clear from the records of history that persons of high intelligence invariably launch attacks both suddenly and from the rear. Furthermore, I note from my study of The Making of a Gentleman (volume two, chapter one, pages five and six) that a backdoor, like a gentleman’s last will and testament, provides the means whereby an individual establishes his true moral excellence. Being a truly twentieth-century cat, I have had included in my education, more than sufficient of such weighty learning, to make it inappropriate for anyone to sneer at my selected mode of entry. Anyway, once I was inside, I found on my immediate left a positive mountain of pine logs cut into eight-inch lengths and, next to it, a heaped-up hill of coal. Some of my readers may wonder what the subtle significance of my careful distinction between a mountain of logs and a mere hill of coal is.

There is, in fact, no subtle significance whatsoever. I simply used the two words, “hill” and “mountain,” as they should correctly be used. Far from having time to think about literary niceties, I am overwhelmed with pity for the human race which, having regularly dieted on such revolting objects as rice, birds, fish, and even animals, is now apparently reduced to munching lumps of coal. Right in front of me I see an open entrance about six feet wide. I peep through and find everything dead quiet but, from somewhere beyond, there comes a lively buzz of human voices and I deduce that the bath must be where the sound originates. I move forward between the woodpile and the coal heap, turn left and find a glazed window to my right. On the ledge below, a considerable number of small round tubs is piled up into a pyramid. My heart goes out to them, for it must be painfully contrary to a round thing’s concept of reality to be constricted within a triangular world. To the south of these piles the sill juts out for a few feet with, as if to welcome me, wooden boarding on it. Since the board is roughly three feet up from the ground, it is, from my point of view, at an ideal hopping height. “All right,” I said to myself, and, as I flew up nimbly to the board, the public bath, like something dangled, suddenly appeared beneath my very nose.

There is nothing in the world more pleasant than to eat something one has never yet eaten, or to see something one has never seen before.

If my readers, like my master, spend thirty or forty minutes on three days of every passing week in the world of the public bath, then of course that world can offer them few surprises: but if, like me, they have never seen that spectacle, they should make immediate arrangements to do so. Don’t worry about the deathbed of your parents, but at all costs do not miss the grand show of the public bath. The world is wide, but in my opinion it has no sight more startlingly remarkable to offer.

Wherein, you ask, resides its crass spectacularity? Well, it is so variously spectacular that I hesitate to particularize. First of all, the human beings vociferously swarming about beyond the window-glass are all stark naked. As totally unclothed as Formosan aborigines. Primeval Adams still prancing about in this twentieth century. I am moved by so much nudity to preface my comments with a history of clothing, but it would take so long that I will spare my readers any rehash of the learned observations of Herr Doktor Diogenes Teufelsdrockh in his monumental study on this subject ( Die Kleider, Werden und Wizken) and simply refer them to a slightly less learned commentary on that work, Mr. Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus. The essential fact remains that the clothes are the man, that the ungarbed man is nothing. Skipping centuries of sartorial civilization, indeed a tautological phrase, I would remind my readers that Beau Nash, in the heyday of his social regulation of eighteenth-century Bath, a royally patronized hotsprings spa in the west of England, established the inflexible rule that men and women submerging themselves in those salutary waters should, nevertheless, be clothed from their shoulders down to their feet. A further relevant incident occurred, again in a certain English city, just after the mid-point of the nineteenth century. It so happened that this city then founded a School of Art and, quite naturally, the school’s function involved the presence and display of various studies, drawings, paintings, models, and statues of the naked human figure. But the inauguration of this school placed both its own staff and the city fathers in a deeply embarrassing situation. There could be no question but that the leading ladies of the city must be invited to the opening ceremony. Unfortunately, all civilized females of that era were unshakably sure that human beings are clothes-animals having no relationship whatsoever, let alone blood-kinship, with the skin-clad apes.

A man without his clothes, they knew it for a fact, was like an elephant shorn of its trunk, a school without its students, soldiers devoid of courage. Anyone without the other of these pairs would be so totally decharacterized as to become, if not a complete nonentity, at least an entity of a basely tran-substantiated nature, and a man so transubstanti-ated would be, at best, a beast. The ladies, as the saying is, laid it on the line. “For us to consort with such beast-humans, even though those bestialities were only present in the form of drawings and statues, would compromise our honor. If they are to be present at the ceremony, we will not attend.”The school authorities thought the ladies were all being a little silly but, in the West as in the East, women, however physically unfit for the hard slog of pounding rice or of slashing about on the battlefield, are indispensably ornamental features of any opening ceremony.

What, then, could be done? The school authorities took themselves off to a draper’s shop, bought thirty-five and seven-eighths rolls of suitable black material and clothed their beastly prints, their less-than-human statues, in a hundred yards of humanizing huckaback. Lest any lady’s modesty might be outraged accidentally, they even masked the faces of their statues in swathes of sable stuffs. European marble and Hellenic plaster thus yashmaked out of the animal kingdom, I am happy to record that the ceremony went off to the complete satisfaction of all concerned.

From those remarkable accounts the importance of clothes to mankind may be deduced. But, very recently, there has been a swing in the opposite direction and people may now be found who go about incessantly advocating nudity, praising nude pictures and generally making a naked menace of themselves. I think they are in error. Indeed, since I have remained decently clothed from the moment of my birth, how could I think otherwise? The craze for the nude began when, at the Renaissance, the traditional customs of the ancient Greeks and Romans were repopularized, for their own lewd ends, by the Italianate promot-ers of that cultural rebirth. The ancient Greeks and Romans were culturally accustomed to nudity, and it is highly unlikely that they recognized any connection between nakedness and public morality. But in northern Europe the prevailing climate is cold. Even in Japan there is a saying that “one cannot travel naked,” so that, by natural law, in Germany or England, a naked man is very soon a dead one. Since dying is daft, northerners wear clothes. And when everyone wears clothes, human beings become clothes-animals. And having once become clothes-animals, they are unable to conceive that any naked animal whom they may happen to run across could possibly also be human. Its absence of clobber immediately identifies its brutish nature. Consequently, it is understandable that Europeans, especially northern Europeans, might regard nude pictures and nude statues as essentially bestial. In other words, Europeans and Japanese have the good sense to recognize nudes and representations of nudity as life-forms inferior to cats. But nudes are beautiful, you say? What of it? Beasts, though beautiful, are beasts. Some of my more knowledgeable readers, seeking to catch me in an inconsistency, may possibly ask whether I’ve ever seen a European lady in evening dress? Inevitably, being only a cat, I’ve never had that honor. But I am reliably advised that Western ladies in formal evening wear do in fact expose their shoulders, arms, and even breasts, which is, of course, disgusting. Before Renaissance times, women’s dress styles did not sink to such scandalous levels, to such ridiculous decolletages. Instead, at all times women wore the clothes one would normally expect on any human being. Why, then, have they transformed themselves to look like vulgar acrobats? It would be far too wearisome to set down all the dreary history of that decadence. Let it suffice that those who know the reasons, know them, and that those who don’t, don’t need to. In any event, whatever the historical background, the fact remains that modern women, each and every night, trick themselves out in virtual undress and evince the deepest self-satisfaction with their bizarre appearances.

However, it would seem that somewhere under that beastly brazenness, they retain some spark of human feeling, because, as soon as the sun comes up, they cover their shoulders, sleeve their arms, and tuck away their breasts. It is all the more odd in that, not only do they sheathe themselves by day to the point of near invisibility, but they carry their lunacy to the extreme of considering it extremely disgraceful to expose so much as a single day-lit toenail to the public view. Such inane contra-riety surely proves that women’s evening dresses are the brainchild of some gibbering conference of brain-damaged freaks. If women resent that logic, why don’t they try walking about in the daytime with bared shoulders, arms, and breasts? The same type of enquiry should also be addressed to nudists. If they are so besotted with the nude, why don’t they strip their daughters? And why, while they’re about it, don’t they and their families stroll around Ueno Park in no more than that nakedness they so affect to love? It can’t be done, they say? But of course it can. The only reason why they hesitate is not, I bet, because it can’t be done, but simply because Europeans don’t do it. The proof of my point is in their dusk behavior. There they are, swaggering down to the lmpe-rial Hotel, all dolled-up in those crazy evening dresses. What origin and history do such cockeyed costumes have? Nothing indigenous. Our bird-brained ladies flaunt themselves in goose-skinned flesh and feathers solely because that is the mode in Europe. Europeans are powerful, so it matters not how ridiculous or daft their goings on, everyone must imitate even their daftest designs. Yield to the long, and be trimmed down; yield to the powerful, and be humbled; yield to the weighty, and be squashed. Prudence demands a due degree of yielding, but surely only dullards yield all along the line, surely only chimpanzees ape everything they see. If my readers answer that they can’t help being dullards, can’t help being born without ability to discriminate in imitation, then of course I pardon them. But in that case, they must abandon all pretense that the Japanese are a great nation. I might add that all my foregoing comments apply with equal force in the field of academic studies, but, since I am here only concerned with questions of clothing, I will not now press the scholastic parallels.

I think I have established the importance of their clothes to human beings. Indeed, their clothing is so demonstrably all-important to them that one may reasonably wonder whether human beings are clothes, or clothes are the current acme of the evolutionary process. I am tempted to suggest that human history is not the history of flesh and bone and blood, but a mere chronicle of costumes. Things have indeed come to a pretty pass when a naked man is seen, not as a man, but as a monster. If by mutual agreement all men were to become monsters, obviously none would see anything monstrous in the others. Which would be a happy situation, were it not that men would be unhappy with it. When mankind first appeared upon the earth, a benign nature manufactured them to standard specifications, and all, equally naked, were pitched forth into the world. Had mankind been created with an inborn readiness to be content with equality, I cannot see why, born naked, they should have been discontent to live and die unclothed. However, one of these primeval nudists seems to have communed with himself along the following lines. “Since I and all my fellowman are indistinguishably alike, what is the point of effort? However hard I strive, I cannot of myself climb beyond the common rut. So, since I yearn to be conspicuous, I think I’ll drape myself in something that will draw the eyes and blow the minds of all these clones around me.” I would guess that he thought and thought for at least ten years before he came up with a stupendous idea, that glory of man’s inventiveness, pants. He put them on at once and, puffed up with pride and all primordial pompousness, paraded about among his startled fellows. From him descend today’s quaintclouted rickshawmen. It seems a little strange to have taken ten long years to think up something as simple, and as brief, as shorts, but the strangeness is only a kind of optical illusion created by time’s immensely long perspective. In the days of man’s remote antiquity, no such breathtaking invention as pants had ever been achieved. I’ve heard that it took Descartes, no intellectual slouch, a full ten years to arrive at his famous conclusion, obvious surely to any three-year-old, that I think and therefore I am. Since original thought is thus demonstrably difficult, perhaps one should concede that it was an intellectual feat, even if it took ten years, for the wits of proto-rickshawman to formulate the notion of knickers. In any event, ennobled by their knickers, the breed of rickshawmen became lords of creation and stalked the highways of the world with such overweening pride that some of the more spirited among the cloutless monsters were provoked into competition. Judging by its uselessness, I would guess that they spent a mere six years in planning their particular invention, the good-for-nothing surcoat. The knickers’ glory faded and the golden age of surcoats shone upon the world, and from those innovators are descended all the green-grocers, chemists, drapers, and haberdashers of today. When twilight fell, first upon knickers and then upon surcoats, there came the dawn of Japanese skirted-trousers. These were designed by monsters peeved by the surcoat boom, and the descendants of their inventors include both the warriors of medieval times and all contemporary government officials. The plain, if regrettable, fact is that all the originally naked monsters strove vaingloriously to outdo each other in the novelty and weirdness of their gear. The ultimate grotesquerie has only recently appeared in swallow-tailed jackets. Yet if one ponders the history of these quaint manifestations, one recognizes that there is nothing random in their occurrence.

The development was neither haphazard nor aimless. On the contrary, it is man’s deathless eagerness to compete, the driving stretch of his intrepid spirit, his resolute determination to outdo all other members of his species, which has guided the production of successive styles of clothing. A member of this species does not go around shouting aloud that he or she differs in himself (or herself) from others of the species: instead each one goes about wearing different clothes. From this observed behavior a major psychological truth about this race of forked destroyers may be deduced: that, just as nature abhors a vacuum,

“mankind abhors equality.” Being thus psychologically determined, they now have no choice whatsoever but to continue enveloping themselves in clothes and would regard a deprivation thereof with as much alarm as they would face a cutting off of flesh or the removal of a bone. To them it would be absolute madness to cast their various clouts, a ripping away of their essential human substance, and as unthinkable to attempt a return to their original condition of equality. Even if they could bear the shame of being accounted lunatics, it would not be feasible to return to a state of nature in which, by all civilized standards, they would automatically become not merely lunatics but monsters. Even if all the billions of human inhabitants of this globe could be rehabilitated as monsters, even if they were purged of their shame by total reassurance that, since all were monsters, none were monsters, believe you me, it still would do no good. The very next day after the reign of equality among monsters had been re-established, the monsters would be at it once again. If they can’t compete with their clothes on, then they will compete as monsters. With every man-jack stark-staring naked, they would begin to differentiate between degrees of staring starkness. For which reason alone, it would, I think, be best if clothes were not abandoned.

It is consequently incredible that the assorted human creatures now displayed before my very eyes should have taken off their clothes.

Surcoats, skirted trousers, even their smallest smalls, things from which their owners would as soon be parted as from their guts and bladders, are all stacked up on shelves while the recreated monsters are, with complete composure, even chatting, scandalously exposing their archetypal nudity to the public view. Are you surprised then, gentle readers, that some time back I described this scene as genuinely spectacular? Shocked as I was, and am, it will be my honor to record for the benefit of all truly civilized gentlemen as much as I can of this extraordinary sight.

I must start by confessing that, faced by such mind-boggling chaos, I don’t know how to start describing it. The monsters show no method in their madness, and it consequently is difficult to systematize analysis thereof. Of course, I can’t be sure that it actually is a bath, but I make the wild surmise that it can’t be anything else. It is about three feet wide and nine feet long, and is divided by an upright board into two sections.

One section contains white-colored bathwater. I understand that this is what they call a medicated bath: it has a turbid look, as though lime had been dissolved in it. Actually, it looks not only turbid with lime, but also heavily charged and scummed with grease. It’s hardly a wonder that it looks so whitely stale, for I’m told that the water is changed but once a week. The other section comprises the ordinary bath, but, here again, by no stretch of the imagination could its water be described as crystal clear or pellucid. It has the peculiarly repulsive color of stirred rainwater which, against the danger of fire, has stood for months in a rain tank on a public street. Next, though the effort kills me, I will describe the monsters themselves. I see two youngsters standing beside that tank of dirty water. They stand facing each other and are pouring pail after pail of hot water over each other’s bellies. Which certainly seems a worthwhile occupation. The two men are faultlessly developed, so far as the sun-burnt blackness of their skin is concerned. As I watch them, thinking that these monsters have remarkably sturdy figures, one of them, pawing at his chest with a hand towel, suddenly speaks to the other.

“Kin, old man, I’ve got a pain right here. I wonder what it is.”

“That’s your stomach. Stomach pains can kill you. You’d better watch it carefully,” is Kin’s most earnest advice.

“But it’s here, on my left,” says the first one, pointing at his left lung.

“Sure, that there’s your stomach. On the left, the stomach, and on the right, the lung.”

“Really? I thought the stomach was about here,” and this time he taps himself lightly on the hip.

“Don’t be silly, that’s the lumbago,” Kin mockingly replies.

At this point, a man of about twenty-five or twenty-six and sporting a thin moustache jumped into the bath with a plop. Next minute, the soap and loosened dirt upon his body rose to the surface, and the water glinted richly as if it might be mined for mineral wealth. Right beside him a bald-headed old man is talking to some close-cropped crony. Only their heads are visible above the water.

“Nothing’s much fun anymore when you get to be old like me. Once one gets decrepit, one can’t keep up with the youngsters. But when it comes to a hot bath, even though they say that only lads can take real heat, that, for me, must still be really hot. Otherwise,” the old man boastfully observed, “I don’t feel right.”

“But you, sir, are in spanking health. Not bad at all to be as energetic as you are.”

“I’m not all that energetic, you know. I only manage to keep free from illness. A man, they say, should live to be a hundred and twenty provided he does nothing bad.”

“What! Does one live as long as that?”

“Of course. I guarantee it up to a hundred and twenty. In the days before the Restoration there was a family called Magaribuchi-they were personal retainers of the Shogun—they used to live up here in Tokyo at Ushigome—and one of their male servants lived to a hundred and thirty.”

“That’s a remarkable age.”

“Yes, indeed. He was in fact so old that he’d clean forgotten his age.

He told me he could remember it until he turned a hundred, but then he just lost count. Anyway, when I knew him he was a hundred and thirty and still going strong. I don’t know what’s become of him. For all I know, he may be out there still, still alive and kicking.” So saying, he emerged from the bath. His whiskered friend remained in the water, grinning to himself and scattering all around him suds that glittered like small flecks of mica. The man who thereupon got into the bath was certainly no ordinary monster; for all across his back was spread a vast tattoo. It seemed to represent that legendary hero, lwami Jutaro-, about to decapitate a python with a huge high-brandished sword. For some sad reason, the tattoo has not yet been completed and the python must be guessed at. The great Jutaro- looks a mite discomfited. As this illustrated man jumped into the water, “Much too tepid,” he remarked. The man entering immediately behind him seems disposed to agree. “Oh dear,” he says, “they ought to heat it up a bit.” Just the same his features crack into a strained grimace, as though the water were in fact too hot for him.

Finding himself right next to the tattooed monster, “Hello, chief,” he greets him.

The tattooed monster nodded and, after a while, enquired “And how is Mr. Tami?”

“Couldn’t say. He’s gone so potty about gambling. . . ”

“Not just gambling. . . ”

“So? There’s something wrong with that one. He’s always bloody-minded. I don’t know, but no one really likes him. Can’t quite put a finger on it. Somehow one can’t quite trust him. A man with a trade just shouldn’t be like that.”

“Exactly. Mr. Tami is rather too pleased with himself. Too damn stuck up, I’d say. That’s why folk don’t trust him. Wouldn’t you say?”

“You’re right. He thinks he’s in a class by himself. Which never pays.”

“All the old craftsmen around here are dying off. The only ones left are you, Mr. Moto the cooper, the master brickmaker, and that’s about it. Of course, as you know, I too was born in these parts. But just take Mr. Tami. Nobody knows where he sprang from.”

“True. It’s a wonder that he’s come as far as he has.”

“Indeed it is. Somehow nobody likes him. Nobody even wants to pass the time of day with such an awkward bastard.” Poor old Mr. Tami is getting it in the neck from all and sundry.

Shifting my gaze away from the section filled with filthy rainwater, I now concentrate upon the section filled with limey goo. It proves to be packed with people. Indeed, it would be more exact to describe it as containing hot water between men rather than as containing men in its hot water. All the creatures here are, moreover, quite remarkably lethargic.

For quite some time now, men have been climbing in but none has yet climbed out. One cannot wonder that the water gets fouled when so many people use it and a whole week trundles by before the water’s changed. Duly impressed by the turmoil in that tub, I peered more deeply among its tight-squeezed monsters and there I found my wretched master cowering in the left-hand corner, squashed and par-boiled poppy-red. Poor old thing! Someone ought to make a gap and let him scramble out. But no one seems willing to budge an inch, and indeed my master himself appears perfectly happy to stay where he is.

He simply stands there motionless as his skin climbs through the gradu-ations of red to a vile vermilion. What a ghastly ordeal! I guess his readiness to suffer such dire reddening reflects a determination to extract his full two farthings worth in return for the bathhouse fee. But, devoted as I am to that dim monster of mine, I cannot sit here comfy on my ledge without worrying lest, dizzied by steam and medicating chemicals, he drown if he dallies longer. As these thoughts drifted through my mind, the fellow floating next to my master frowns and then remarks, “All the same, this is a bit too strong. It’s boiling up, really scorching, from somewhere here behind me.” I deduce that, reluctant to come out with a flat complaint which might impugn his manliness, he is trying indirectly to rouse the sympathy of his boiling fellow-monsters.

“Oh no, this is just about right. Any cooler, and a medicinal bath has no effect at all. Back where I come from we take them twice as hot as this.” Some braggart speaks from the depths of swirling steam.

“Anyway, what the hell kind of good can these baths do?” enquires another monster who has covered his knobbly head with a neatly folded hand towel.

“It’s good for all sorts of things. They say it’s good for everything. In fact, it’s terrific,” replies a man with a face one could mistake, as much by reason of its color as of its shape, for a haggard cucumber. I thought to myself that if these limey waves are truly so effective, he ought to at least look a little more plump, a little more firm on the vine.

“I always say that the first day, when they put the medicine in, is not the best for results. One needs to wait until the third day, even the fourth. Today, for instance, everything’s just about right.” This knowing comment, accompanied by an equally knowing look, came from a fat-tish man. Perhaps his chubbiness is really no more than layers of dirt deposited by the water.

“Would it, d’you think, be good to drink?” asks a high-pitched queru-lous voice which quavers up from somewhere unidentifiable.

“If you feel a cold coming on, down a mugful just before going to bed. If you do that, you won’t need to wake up in the night to go for a pee. It’s quite extraordinary. You ought to try it.” Again, I cannot tell from which of the steam-wreathed faces this wisdom bubbled out.

Turning my gaze from the baths, I stare down at the duckboards on the bathhouse floor where rows of naked men are sitting and sprawling in ugly disarray. Each adopts the posture that best suits him for scrub-bing away at whichsoever portion of his body occupies his attention.

Among these seriously contorted nudists, two attract my most astonished stare. One, flat on his back gawping up at the skylight; the other, flat on his stomach, is peering down the drainhole in the floor. Their utter self-abandonment, the totality of their idleness, is somehow deeply impressive. In another part of the forest, as Shakespeare pleasantly put it, a man with a shaven head squats down with his face to the stone of the wall while a younger, smaller man, also shaven-pated, stands behind him pounding away at his shoulders. They seem to have some kind of master-pupil relationship, and the pupil-type is busy playing the part of an unpaid bath attendant. There is, of course, a genuine bath attendant also somewhere on the scene. He is, in fact, not giving anyone a massage but merely tilting heated water out of an oblong pail over the shoulders of a seated patron. He looks as though he must have caught a cold because, despite the fearful hotness of the place, he’s wearing a sort of padded sleeveless vest. I notice that, by a crooking of his right big toe, his foot is gripped on a camlet rag.

My glance drifts away to light upon a selfish monster hoarding no less than three wash pails for himself. Oddly enough, he keeps pressing his neighbor to make use of his soap; perhaps in order to inflict upon that defenseless creature a long and slightly loony flow of talk. I strain my ears to catch the conversation, which is, in truth, a monologue. “A gun is an imported thing. Something foreign, not something Japanese. In the good old days it was all a matter of sword against sword. But foreigners are cowards, so they dreamt up something dastardly like guns. They don’t come from China, though. Long-range fighting with guns is what you’d expect from one of those Western countries. There weren’t any guns in the days of Coxinga who, for all his Chinese name, was descended from the Emperor Seiwa through the Minamoto line. Yoshitsune, the best of the Minamotos, was not killed when they say he was. No, indeed. Instead he fled from Hokkaido to Manchuria, taking with him a Hokkaido man especially good at giving advice. Then Yoshitsune’s son, calling himself a Manchurian, attacked the Emperor of China and the Great Ming was flat flummoxed. So what did he do? He sent a messenger to the third Tokugawa Shogun begging for the loan of three thousand soldiers. But the Shogun kept the messenger waiting in Japan for two whole years. I can’t remember the messenger’s name, but he had some name or other. In the end the Shogun sent him down to Nagasaki where he got mixed up with a prostitute. She then had a son. And that son was Coxinga. Of course, when the messenger at last got home to China, he found that the Emperor of the Ming had been destroyed by traitors. . .”

I can’t make heads or tails of this amazing rigmarole. It sounds so totally barmy, so crazed a mixture of garbled legends and historical untruths, that my attention again drifts away to focus on a gloomy looking fellow, maybe twenty-five or twenty-six years old, who appears to be steaming his crotch in the medicated water. He wears a vacant expression and seems to be suffering from a swelling or something. The very young man of seventeen or eighteen who sits beside him, talking in an affected manner, is presumably some houseboy from the neighborhood. Next to this mincing youth I see an odd looking back. Each joint in its spine sticks jaggedly out as though a knotted, bamboo rod had been rammed up under the skin from somewhere down between the buttocks. On either side of the spine, perfectly aligned, are four black marks like peg holes on a piquet board. All eight places are inflamed, some of them oozing pus.

Though I’ve tried to describe each thing as it appeared before my eyes, I now realize that there’s still so much to write about that, with my limited skill, I can never set down more than a fraction of the totality. I was quietly flinching from the consequences of my own rash undertak-ing to describe in every detail the more spectacular features of a bathhouse when a bald-skulled oldster, maybe seventy years old and dressed in a light-blue, cotton kimono, suddenly appeared at the entrance. This hairless apparition bowed reverentially to his drove of naked monsters and then addressed them with the greatest fluency. “Good sirs,” he says,

“I thank you for your regular and daily visits to my humble establishment. Today it is, beyond these friendly walls, more than a little chilly; so please, I beg of you, take your time, both within and without my spotless baths, to warm yourselves at comfortable leisure. Hey, you there you in charge of the baths, make quite sure that the water is kept at precisely the proper temperature.”

To which the bath attendant briefly answers, “Right.”

“Now there’s an amiable fellow,” says the cracked historian of the doings of Coxinga, speaking admiringly of the aged proprietor. “To run this kind of business, you have to have his knack for it.”

I was so struck by the sudden appearance of this strange old man that I decided to discontinue my overall surveillance of the bathhouse scene while I concentrated upon a more particularized scanning of so rum an individual. As I watched him, the old man, catching sight of a child some four years old who has just finished bathing, extends a mottled hand and, in that wheedling voice with which the old present their false advances to the young, calls out, “Come over here, my master.” The child, frightened by that trampled pudding of a face which the gaffer bent upon him, promptly began to scream. The old man looked surprised. “Why! you’re crying! What’s the matter? Frightened of the old man? Well, I never!” His voice showed that he was genuinely astonished but, soon giving up this coaxing as a bad job, he quickly switched his attentions to the child’s father. “Hello, Gen-san! How are you? A bit cold today, eh? And what about that burglar who broke into the big shop round the corner? Must have been a fathead. He cut a square hole in the wooden side-gate but then, can you believe it, took off without nicking a thing. Must have seen a copper or a watchman, I suppose. But what a waste of effort, eh!” Still grinning at the idea of the burglar’s rash stupidity, he turns to someone else. “Isn’t it cold, though! Perhaps, being young, you don’t yet feel how it bites.” It seems to me that, unique in his antiquity, he’s the only person in the building who feels the cold at all.

Having been thus absorbed for several minutes in studying the old man’s antics, I had virtually forgotten about all the other monsters, including my own master who was presumably still wedged in his boiling corner. I was jerked from my absorption by a sudden loud shouting in the middle of the room. And who should be the source of it but Mr.

Sneaze himself. That my master’s voice should be overloud and dis-agreeably indistinct is nothing new, but I was a little surprised to hear it raised in this particular place. I guessed in a flash that his raucous yaw-ping had been caused by a rush of blood to his noddle in consequence of his unwisely protracted immersion in water heated up to cure all ills.

Naturally, no one would object to such a hullaballoo, however raspingly unpleasant, if it were brought on by physical distress: but, as grew obvious soon enough, my beloved master, far from being geyser-dizzied out of his normal senses, was in fact being very much his own true self when he started bawling in that thickly violent voice. For the cause of the nasty uproar was a childishly idiotic squabble which he had started with some conceited pup, some totally insignificant houseboy.

“Get away from here! Go on, further off! You’re splashing water into my pail.” His shouting scraped one’s eardrums. One’s attitude to such outbursts depends, of course, upon one’s point of view. One could, for instance, as I had done, conclude he had just gone potty with the heat.

Another, perhaps one generous-minded person in ten thousand, might see a parallel with that courageous tongue lashing which Takayama Hikokuro dared to inflict upon a bandit. For all I know, that may have been precisely how my master saw himself. But since the houseboy clearly does not see himself in the bandit’s role, we are unlikely to witness a successful repetition of that historic encounter.

“I was sitting here long before you came and plumped yourself down.” The boy’s reply, calmly delivered over his shoulder, was not unreasonable. But, since that answer made it clear that the lad was not prepared to budge, it did not please my master. My master, even though his blood was up, must have realized that neither the words nor the style of their delivery could really be picked upon as those of a bandit, but his howling outburst was not in fact occasioned by the boy’s propinquity or any splashing of water. The truth was that, for some considerable time, the boy and his equally young companion had been swapping remarks in a pertly unpleasing manner utterly inappropriate to their age. My master had endured their prattle for as long as he could but, more and more exasperated, had finally blown up. Consequently, even though he had been perfectly civilly answered, the real cause of his fury remained unsoothed and he could not bring himself to leave the place without a last explosion of his heart. “Hobbledehoys,” he shouted. “Damned young idiots. Splashing your dirty water in other people’s pails.”

In my own heart of hearts I felt considerable sympathy for my master, because I, too, had found the boys’ behavior actively distasteful.

Nevertheless, I was bound to regard my master’s behavior during the incident as conduct unbecoming in a teacher. The trouble is that he is, by nature, something of a dry, old stick. Far too strict and far too rigid.

Not only is he as rough and dessicated as a lump of coke, but he’s also cinder-hard. I’m told that years ago when Hannibal was crossing the Alps, the advance of his army was impeded by a gigantic rock inconveniently blocking the mountain path. Hannibal is said to have soused the stone with vinegar and then to have lit a bonfire underneath it. The rock thus softened, he sawed it into segments, like someone slicing fish-paste, and so passed all his army safely on its way. A man like my master, on whom no effect whatsoever is produced by hours of steady boiling in a medicated bath, ought perhaps to be soused with vinegar and then grilled on an open fire. Failing some such treatment, his granitic obstinacy will not be softened though hordes of houseboys niggle away at the igneous rock of his nature for a hundred thousand years.

The objects floating in the bath and lazing about on the bathroom’s floor are all monsters, teratoids dehumanized by the husking of their clothes; as such, they cannot be judged by normal civilized standards. In their teratical world anyone can do what he likes, anything can happen.

A stomach can resite itself in a pulmonary location; Coxinga can be blood-kin to the Seiwa Minamotos; and that Mr. Tami, much maligned, may well be unreliable. But as soon as those naked objects emerge from their bathhouse into the normal world, they garb themselves in obedience to the requirements of civilization and, once robed, they resume the nature and behavior patterns of human beings. My master stands on the threshold between two worlds. Standing as he does between the bathroom and the changing room, he is poised at the verge of his return to worldliness, to the sad mundanities of man, to the suavities of compromise, the specious words, and the accommodating practices of his species in society. If, on the verge of returning to that world, he yet maintains so brute an obstinacy, surely his mokelike stubbornness must be a deep-rooted disease; a disease, indeed, so very firmly rooted as to be virtually ineradicable.

In my humble opinion, there is only one cure for his condition, and that would be to get the principal of his school to give him the sack. My master, being unable to adapt himself to any change of circumstances, would, if sacked, undoubtedly end up on the streets, and, if thus turned adrift, would equally certainly die in the gutter. In short, to sack him would be to kill him. My master loves being ill, but he would very much hate to die. He welters in hypochondriacal orgies of self-pity, but lacks the strength of soul to seriously look on death. Consequently, if anyone scares him with the news that some continued illness must Iead to his demise, my craven master will immediately be both terrified out of his wits and, as I see it, terrified also into the best of health. Only the terror of death by dismissal can shrivel the roots of his almost ineradicable stubbornness. And if dismissal doesn’t do the trick, well then, that, I’m afraid, is that, and the poor old perisher will perish. Still, in all, that foolish, fond old man, sick or well, remains my master. It was he who in my kittenhood took me in and fed me. I recall the tale of the Chinese poet who, given a meal when starving, later repaid that debt by saving his benefactor’s life, and I consider it should not be impossible for a cat at least to be moved by his master’s fate.

My soul brims full with pity and I become so preoccupied with the internal spectacle of the generous workings of my own deep-feeling heart that, once again, my attention wandered from the scene sprawled out below me. I was sharply brought back to reality by a hubbub of abuse coming from the medicinal bath. Thinking that maybe another squabble has broken out, I shift my gaze to find the throng of monsters all shoving and shouting as they struggle to get out of the narrow cleft of the adit to the bath. Horribly hairy legs and horrible hairless things are juxtaposed and tangled in a horrible squirm to escape. It is the early evening of an autumn day, and a red-gold flattish light burns here and there upon the boiling steam which rises up to the ceiling. Through the hot, foggy veils whose swirlings fill the room I catch appalling glimpses of wild stampeding monsters. Their shrieks and bellows pierce my ears, and from all sides their agonized shouting that the bloody water’s boiling, mix in my skull as one loud howl of anguish. The shouts were mul-ticolored: some yellow with sheer fear, some a despairing blue, some furiously scarlet, some a revengeful black. They spilt across each other, filling the bathroom with crashing columns of indescribable noise, the din of pandemonium, such sounds as have no context but Hell and the public bathhouse. Fascinated by this truly awful sight, I just stood there as though riveted to my ledge. The hideous roar climbed to a sort of blubbering climax where the pressure of mindless sound seemed just about to burst the walls apart when, from the swaying mass of turnbling naked bodies, a veritable giant lifted into view. He stands a good three inches taller than the tallest of his fellows. Not only that, but his radish-colored face is thickly bearded. The effect is so remarkable that one daren’t affirm that the beard is actually growing on that face. It might be that the face has somehow got entangled in that beard. This apparition emits a booming sound like a large, cracked temple bell struck in the heat of noon. “Pour in cold water. Quick,” he thundered. “This bath is on the boil.” Both voice and face towered above the squawking rabble around him, and for a moment a sort of silence reigned. The giant had become the only person in the room. A superman; a living embodiment of Nietzsche’s vision of Uebermensch; the Demon King among his swarm of devils; the master-monster; Tyrannosaurus Rex. As I stood goggling at him, someone beyond the bath answered through the sudden calm with a grunting cry of, “Yah.” Assent? Derision? I shall never know.

All I can say is that when I peered through the dark haze to identify the source of that ambiguous response, I could just make out the figure of the bathhouse attendant, padded still in his sleeveless vest, using all his strength to heave a whacking great lump of coal into the opened lid of the furnace. The coal made cracking sounds, and the attendant’s profile came radiantly alight. Behind his body the brick wall gleamed with fire and the reflected glare burned at me through the darkness.

Thoroughly alarmed, I reared back from the window and, with one turning spring, hopped down and ran off home. But as I ran I pondered what I’d seen and the conclusions were clear. Although the human creatures in that bathhouse had been seeking a monstrous equality by stripping off their clothes, even from that leveling stark-nakedness a hero had emerged to tower above his fellows. I did not know what had happened to that hero, but I was certainly sure that equality is unachievable, however stark things may become.

On reaching home, I find that all is peaceful. My master, his face still glowing from the bath, is quietly eating supper: but, catching sight of me as I jump up onto the veranda, he breaks his silence to remark, “What a happy-go-lucky cat! I wonder what he’s been up to, coming home as late as this.”

My master has little money, but I note that on the table tonight there are laden dishes for a three-course meal. Grilled fish will be one of them. I don’t know what the fish is called, but I guess it was probably caught in the sea off Shinagawa sometime yesterday. I have already expatiated at length upon the natural healthiness of fish as fostered by their salt environment; however, once a fish has been caught and boiled or, like this one, grilled, questions of environmental advantage are just no longer relevant. This fish would have done much better to stay alive in the sea, even if, in the course of time, it had eventually to suffer such ills as all fish-flesh is heir to. So thinking, I sat myself down beside the table.

I pretended not to look while looking; looking, in particular, for a chance to snatch a piece of anything edible. Those who do not know how to look while not looking must give up any hope of ever eating good fish. My master pecked in silence at the fish, but soon put down his chopsticks as if to say that he didn’t much like the taste. His wife, seated directly opposite him in matching silence, is anxiously watching how his chopsticks move up and down and whether my master’s jaws are opening and closing.

“I say,” he suddenly asked her, “give that cat a whack on the head.”

“What happens if I whack it?”

“Never you mind what happens: just whack it.”

“Like this?” asks his wife, tapping my head with the palm of her hand.

It didn’t hurt at all.

“Well, look at that! It didn’t give the least miaow.”

“No,” she says, “it didn’t.”

“Then whack it again.”

“It’ll be just the same, however often I try.” She gave me another tap on the head.

Since I still felt nothing, I naturally kept quiet. But what could be the point of these peculiar orders? As a prudent and intelligent cat, I find my master’s behavior utterly incomprehensible. Any person who could understand what he’s driving at, would then know how to react, but it’s not that easy. His wife is simply told to “whack it,” but she, the whack-er, is self-statedly at a loss to know why she should whack; I, the unfortunate whackee, am no less lost to understand what it’s all about. My master is becoming a little edgily impatient, for twice already his instructions have failed to produce the result which he only knows that he desires. It is therefore almost sharply that he says, “Whack it so that it miaows.”

His wife assumed a resigned sort of expression and wearily asking,

“Why on earth should you want to make the wretched thing miaow?”

gave me another, slightly harder, slap. Now that I know what he wants, it’s all absurdly easy. I can satisfy my master with a mere miaow, but it’s really rather depressing, not just to witness but actually to participate in, yet another demonstration of his addlepated conduct. If he wanted me to miaow, he should have said so. His wife would have been spared two or three totally unnecessary efforts, and I would not have needed to endure more than a single whack. An order to whack should only be given when only a whack is wanted, but in this case what was wanted was simply a miaow. Now whacking may indeed fall within his sphere of responsibility, but miaowing lies in mine. It’s a damned impertinence that he should dare to assume that an instruction to whack includes, or implies, an instruction to miaow, which is a matter totally within my discretion. If he is taking my miaows for granted, indeed he presumes too far. Such failure to respect another person’s personality, a deadly insult to any cat, is the sort of crude insensitivity which one must expect from creatures like my master’s own particular pet aversion, the nauseous Mr.

Goldfield. But the same behavior on the part of my master, a man so confident of his open-heartedness that he struts about stark-naked, can only be seen as an act of unwonted weakness. Yet, as I know, my master is not mean. From which it follows that his venture into whacking was not motivated by any deviousness or malice. In my opinion, his orders were hatched in a brain as guileless and dim as that of a mosquito larva.

If one gobbles rice, one’s stomach becomes full. If one is cut, one bleeds.

If one is killed, one dies. Therefore, such reasoning runs, if one is whacked, one must perforce miaow. Though I have done my best to justify my master’s ways toward me, I regret to be bound to point out the clottish absurdity of such a style of logic. For if one were to concur in that logic, it would follow that if one falls in a river, one is required to drown; that if one eats fried fish, one must then get the squatters; that if one gets a salary, one must turn up for work; and that if one studies books, one cannot fail to make oneself a great name in the world. If that were the way things worked, there’d be some a bit embarrassed. I, for instance, would find it annoying to be obliged to miaow when whacked.

What, I ask, would be the point of being born a cat if, like the bell-clock at Mejiro, one is expected to give off sounds every time one’s struck?

Having thus mentally reprimanded my presumptuous master, then and then only I obliged him with a mew.

As soon as I miaowed, my master turned to his wife. “Hear that?” he said. “Now tell me, is a miaow an interjection or an adverb?”

The question was so abrupt that Mrs. Sneaze said nothing. To tell the truth, my own immediate reaction was to think that, after all, he really had been driven out of his mind by his experiences in the bathhouse. He is, of course, well-known in the neighborhood for his eccentricities. I’ve even heard him called a clear case of neurosis. However, my master’s self-conceit is so unshakable that he insists that, far from being a neurotic himself, it is his detractors in whom neurotic tendencies are clear. When his neighbors call him a dog, he calls them, in mere fairness, so he puts it, filthy pigs. He seems, indeed, besotted with maintaining his ideas of fairness: to the point of being a positive public nuisance. He really sees nothing odd in asking questions as ludicrous as that last enquiry to his wife about the proper parsing of a cat’s miaow, but to the general run of his listeners his questions do suggest a certain mental instability. In any event, his wife, understandably mystified, makes no attempt to answer him. For obvious reasons, I too can offer nothing in reply.

My master waited for a moment and then, in a loud voice, suddenly shouted out, “Hey!”

His wife looked up in surprise and answered, “Yes?”

“Is that ‘yes’ an interjection or an adverb? Tell me now, which is it?”

“Whichever it is, it surely doesn’t matter. What a silly thing to ask!”

“On the contrary, it matters a very great deal. That grammatical problem is an issue currently preoccupying the best brains among leading authorities on linguistics in Japan.”

“Gracious me! You mean that our leading authorities are bending their brains to a cat’s miaow? What a dreadful state of affairs. Anyway, cats don’t speak in Japanese. Surely, a miaow is a word from the language of cats.”

“That’s precisely the point. The problem is a hard one in the very difficult field of comparative linguistics.”

“Is that indeed so?” It is clear that she is sufficiently intelligent to be disinterested in such silly matters. “And have these leading authorities yet discovered what part of speech compares with a cat’s miaow?”

“It’s so serious a problem that it can’t immediately be resolved.” He munches away at that fish, and then proceeds to tuck into the next course of stewed pork and potatoes.

“This will be pork, won’t it?”

“Yes, it’s pork.”

“Huh,” he grunted in tones of deep disdain. “Huh,” and then guzzled it down. Thereafter, holding out a saké cup, “I’ll have another cup.”

“You’re drinking rather a lot today. Already you look quite red.”

“Certainly I’m drinking,” he began, but broke off to veer away on a new mad tack. “Do you know,” he demanded, “the longest word in the world?”

“I think I’ve heard it somewhere. Let me think now. Yes. Isn’t it ‘Hoshoji-no-Nyudo-Saki-no-Kampaku-dajodaijin?’”

“No, I don’t mean a title like that ‘Former Chief Adviser to the Emperor and Prime Minister.’ I mean a true, long word.”

“Do you mean one of those crab-written sideways words from the West?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, no. That I wouldn’t know. But I do know that you’ve had quite enough saké. You’ll have some rice now, won’t you? Right?”

“Wrong. First I’ll drink some more. Would you like to know that longest word?”

“All right. But after, you’ll have some rice?”

“The word is ‘Archaiomelesidonophrunicherata.’”

“You made it up.”

“Of course I didn’t. It’s Greek.”

“What does it mean in Japanese?”

“I don’t know what it means. I only know its spelling. Even if written sparingly it will cover about six and a quarter inches.”

It is my master’s singularity that he makes this sort of statement, which most men would vouchsafe in their cups, in dead cold sobriety.

All the same, it’s certainly true that he’s drinking far too much tonight.

He normally limits himself to no more than a couple of cups of saké, and he’s already tossed back four. His normal dosage turns his face quite red, so the double dosage has inevitably flushed his features to the color of red-hot tongs. He looks to be in some distress, but he keeps on knocking them back. He extends the cup again. “One more,” he says.

His wife, finding this really too much, makes a wry face. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough? You’ll only get a pain.”

“Never mind the pain. From now on, I’m going to train myself into a steady drinker. Oinachi Keigetsu has recommended that I devote myself to drink.”

“And who may this Keigetsu be?” Great and famous though he is, in the eyes of Mrs. Sneaze he isn’t worth a ha’penny.

“Keigetsu is a literary colleague, a first-rate critic of these present times. He has advised me to spend less time at home communing with a cat, to get out and about, and to drink on all occasions. Since he’s almost a doctor, albeit one of literature, it would seem all right to drink on doctor’s orders.”

“Don’t be so ridiculous! I don’t care what he’s called or who he is.

It’s none of his business to urge other people to drink; especially people who happen to have weak stomachs.”

“He didn’t just recommend drinking. He also said I ought to be more sociable and take a fling at the fast life: wine, women, song, even travel.”

“Are you actually trying to tell me that a so-called first-class critic has been making such outrageous suggestions? What kind of a man can he be? Truly, I’m shocked to learn that presumably responsible literary figures would recommend that a married man should go out on the loose.”

“There’s nothing wrong with living it up. If I had the money, I wouldn’t need Keigetsu’s encouragement before giving it a try.”

“Well then, I’m very glad that you don’t have the money. It would be quite awful if a man your age started gallivanting about with wanton girls and drunken half-wit critics.”

“Since the idea seems to shock you, I’ll scrap my plans for kicking over the traces. However, in consideration of that connubial self-sacrifice, you’ll have to take better care of your husband and, in particular, serve him better dinners.”

“I’m already doing the best I can on what you give me.”

“Really? Well in that case, I’ll postpone my investigation of the fast life until I can afford it, and, for tonight, I won’t take any more saké.”

With what might just pass for a smile, he held out his rice bowl for his wife to fill from the container. As I remember it, he thereupon got through three great bowlfuls of mixed rice and tea.

My meal that night consisted of three slices of pork and the grilled head of that nameless fish.