Pathway to Japanese Literature

Banana Plant and Ferns

Around what time in the afternoon must he have arrived at that bungalow-style villa built deep within the mixed forest? On the way to this highland, he told his elder and younger daughters—who were passing through the area for the first time—about the time when the Usui Tunnel was constructed. That was a recollection from less than forty years ago, when he had first come to Tokyo. When he had passed through this area on foot with his friend Mr. K—who shared his literary aspirations—he now recalled how the rough visages of laborers toiling at the tunnel’s arduous construction and their Kanto dialect had startled those two naive youths fresh from the countryside. In the rugged mountains and valleys of Usui, tree buds were just beginning to sprout. A carriage carrying passengers was running along a distant mountain foothill road, sounding its horn.

“I walked all the way from Nagano through this area and then took the train from Takasaki.”
He spoke of it, yet the long past reality thereafter seemed like lies even to himself.

“Your mother also passed through here by carriage when she had to leave for Tokyo after the house became uninhabitable.”
He tried to add something but had resolved not to speak of her.

“We’ve already passed fifteen!”
The young Chōko, weary of the long train ride, said.

At the villa, there were only Mr. H and his sister—who had come to welcome them—along with their grandmother.
The six hosts and guests talked for a while at the wide entrance veranda, basking in the shade of fresh leaves.
He took off his haori jacket and felt drawn to the architecture—unrefined yet sturdy, constructed from felled mixed wood used for beams and handrails.

“This is splendid.”

“It was my brother’s design—meant only for summer use—but we leave it exposed to wind and rain year-round.”

“In this area, everyone says it’s splendid.”
“Grandmother also said so.”

Eleven-year-old Chōko had been friends all along with her fourteen-year-old sister Kyōko.
In the approximately twenty-tsubo hall—which served as dining room with a window for passing dishes from the kitchen, parlor, and game room—there stood a staircase with railings of unfinished wood.
In front of this was a tatami-matted Japanese-style room; opening the rear door revealed a toilet there, and proceeding down the corridor between the toilet and kitchen area led to a brightly lit bathroom.

“This part here was renovated later by my father.”

“Yes, this part seems to have required the most work, but if we were to build a house in the suburbs, this would be ideal.”
He soaked in the bath with drowsy lethargy and immediately conjured that scenario.

He had been considering moving to the suburbs for some time now. Lately, this longing had grown particularly strong. The urban tastes and domestic atmosphere typical of city life that had long seeped into him had become wearisome—yet despite this, he found himself unable to leave the house he had inhabited for twenty years. Instead, he tried to forcibly settle his wavering mind about residence by building new structures or reconstructing the garden destroyed during recent renovations. Yet the haphazard architecture he had tacked on and the increasingly oppressive atmosphere of his surroundings often plunged him into gloom. He would plant bamboo and apply Eizan moss brought from a friend’s place. Before coming here, the banana plant gifted by a youth from Ōmori had been unfurling one splendid blue broadleaf after another at the window of the children’s Western-style building. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to believe this place would become the anchor for his artistic life. Moreover, his household had recently been undergoing steady disintegration. Among the four children remaining at home, he was particularly troubled by how the eldest—now approaching adolescence—kept unsettling his peace of mind in some way.

“Sir, this is a hot spring.”
Mr. H told him.

“I see.
What kind of components...”

“Well, I don’t know much about that.”

The hot spring water seemed to warm up on its way to being drawn here, but only a small amount of coal needed to be burned.

When they got out of the bath, the children went upstairs and opened their suitcases.
On the second floor, there were several bedrooms furnished with a mix of single and double beds in a simple style.
There was also a tatami-matted room.

“Your room is this way, Sir.”
Mr. H guided him.
It was a room facing his own across the corridor.

He opened the window and looked out.
Beyond the mixed forest below the window came the sound of a stream.
A bush warbler sang.

“What about Mr. M’s place?”
He asked.

“It should be near △ House.”
“If you ask there, they’ll know.”
“Will you be going?”

“Let’s go see.”

“Then perhaps after we’ve eaten.”

Just as when he had come to this mountain resort with Iko last year, this year too his teeth troubled him.
Having learned from last year’s ordeal, he’d had a dentist extract his loose canine tooth the night before departure.
It was a tooth that could not be saved.
Last year too that tooth had tormented him.
Yet the extraction site still ached.
The adjacent tooth had also begun to loosen slightly.
He had prepared mouthwash, but found eating somewhat troublesome now.

While cautiously issuing various instructions, he noticed there wasn’t a single outdoor outfit among the things his elder daughter had brought.

“I did pack one at first, but…”
She too looked perplexed.

“That’s a problem.”

She had come out wearing a faded Yuzen-patterned hitoe of crepe silk, but its flimsiness proved too insubstantial for the evening cool here.

But as they approached the town, they began noticing schoolgirls in yukata among others.

"It’s not that amusing."

She wasn’t particularly pessimistic.
Ordinarily, she had never made a single request of her father.
She hadn’t even wanted to go to the summer retreat.

“She says she doesn’t want to go to the mountains or the sea.”
“She says she wants to study French while helping with this year’s futon laundry.”
The grandmother told him.

“Is it because there are no kimonos?”
He tried to read into it, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

In the town, many wild and liberated foreign ladies befitting the locale could be seen. A plump old woman with a bulldog-like face walked arm in arm with her husband. Yet this was a summer resort discovered by foreigners. And even the Japanese spending their summers here found living in their manner suited the local atmosphere. Something like a slightly refined version of camp life was considered appropriate. It would be better not to admit the bourgeoisie who built extravagant villas here. He thought this, yet he too didn't particularly care for places utterly devoid of refined bourgeois sensibility.

The bath attendant from △ House Inn guided them to Mr. M’s house.
The group followed that man along a dark path through the damp grove, chattering boisterously all the while.
Glimmers of windows could be seen scattered about.

At last, they came out before Mr. M’s house.
Passing through the tunnel woven from bean vines, even in the dimness of night, the front garden’s flowerbed caught their eye—a riot of dahlias and evening primroses blooming wildly.
Because it wasn’t a particularly clear night, the veranda shutters were already closed.
Mr. M’s figure was seen in the tearoom together with his wife and children.
Mr. M looked slightly surprised.

“Now then, everyone, please come in.”

The children hesitated.
They had apparently been released.

“We’ll take a walk around town.”
Having said this, he went up alone.

Mr. M had placed a small desk in the center of the tatami room, and the surroundings had been neatly tidied.

“Where?”

“I’m staying at Mr. H’s villa.”
“I came along with my daughter.”
“My son has been sent to the seaside, but depending on circumstances, I’m thinking of renting a place here…”

“There are still houses available here.”

“However, since my child didn’t get sick for an entire year after last summer’s seaside trip, I suppose the sea must be beneficial after all.”

“The sea is too scattered.”

“For us…”

The two men talked while nibbling local sweets and sipping bitter tea from small sencha bowls. When faced with this tea ceremony-like man, he became acutely aware of his own coarseness. Yet Mr. M too had recently shown signs of being unable to settle into any residence, much like himself. Mr. M was breaking up his Tokyo garden while creating another in his hometown on prepared land, seeking a tranquil realm. But this was not all there was to Mr. M.

“Shall we take a short walk?”

“Let’s do that.”

Mr. M prepared himself properly and left the house.

When they reached the town, they entered various shops together.
Japanese antique stores and Chinese sundry shops.
The whole area carried traces of foreign settlement.

Along their way, they met Mr.H and the children emerging from K Café.

"I'd like you to introduce me to Mr.M."

He performed introductions*, though Mr.M had already been acquainted with his daughter Kyōko-chan from prior visits to this region.

After browsing through sweater shops and similar establishments, their group separated from Mr.M.

He led them on daily walks through different locales.
Within two or three days, his elder daughter appeared wearing newly tailored Western clothes.

“Many people here make Western clothes.”
“It’s cheap because there are foreigners here.”
Having been told this by Mr. H, to remedy the inconvenience of his elder daughter’s kimono, he had it tailored at a Chinese shop.
They walked around looking at two or three shops in a group.
And after ordering one suit at Tom’s, they searched around for shoes and hats.
It took time, but everyone found something good.

That was around noon.
He grew impatient that his toothache hadn’t fully healed and, after returning home once, went to the dentist.
A Japanese assistant examined it thoroughly.
The foreign doctor also came and examined him.

Afterwards, the female clerk, holding a notebook, considered the scheduling while

“How about around noon the day after tomorrow?”

“That’s fine.”

Having said that，he hired a rickshaw from the street.
On the way，he encountered Tom speeding by on his bicycle.
After passing by，he realized that the man who had greeted him was he who had brought the basted fitting.

When he came down to the hall the next morning，the Western clothes had already arrived.

“The Chinese tailor works hard，doesn’t he?”

He couldn’t help but think：What a multitude of smooth-talking idlers Japanese people were!

“Why don’t you try it on?”

The pattern of vermilion and chalk-white stripes，along with the style，made her figure adorable.

“That’s nice, isn’t it?”

He gazed with an amused smile. Lately, it had become one of his hobbies to occasionally select kimono patterns for this daughter, even if just one at a time. He knew well the loneliness of having no mother to tend to their kimonos. When Chōko grew up, who would take on that role? He sometimes wondered. But Chōko preferred practicality.

Last night too, sitting on the bed until late at night, he and Mr. H had become engrossed in a lengthy discussion about the temperaments, studies, and futures of their four children. He had been made painfully aware through his four younger siblings that his two older brothers had become nothing but trouble and were of no help.

He, Mr. H, the three children, along with his eldest son and Mr. H’s close friend Mr. T, once again descended upon Mr. M’s tranquil household one day.
He sat on a chair that had been brought out under the maple tree.
Mr. M also came there.

“Come in, come in!”
His daughters lined up on the veranda called out to Mr. M’s adorable children.
They tried hard to coax the children closer, but they would not approach.

Finally led by Grandma, they came out there.
Mr. M was gazing at the two children with such a happy look.

"If you imagine your childhood face as this boy’s face, there’s no mistake."
He pointed to the face of the smaller boy—the one with soft white skin, puffy eyes, like a poet in the making.

“Goodness!
If I had been such a beautiful child…”
Rather than humbling himself, Mr. M instead offered honest praise of his beloved child.
And indeed, both were children deserving of praise.

Local rice crackers were brought out there along with the can.

“Ah, celebratory rice crackers.”
“This is tasty, so please try a piece.”
He urged Mr. H.

“Right.
“Well then, I’ll try one.”

Everyone had moon-sized rice crackers in their hands.
Among them were some that were chipped.
Mr. M loved his hometown so deeply that he had most of his groceries sent from there, yet he himself could never become as subjective as Mr. M to find beauty in everything.

“What became of the bamboo?”

It concerned the arrow bamboo he had received along with the Eizan moss.
The bamboo had been well cultivated by Mr. M.

“It seems they were planted on both sides of the entrance.”
That too had been an appropriate arrangement, but no one could tell where the roughly fifteen clumps of arrow bamboo brought by the gardener had ended up scattered.

“Gardeners are the sort who end up hiding away things that have been here since long ago, you know.”

“Exactly!”
He smiled wryly. “There’s nothing here but larches and maples for trees, but the maples are lovely.”

“Come this way...”
Mr. M guided him to a solitary maple at the entrance.
This one was called Shōjō or something like that.

Then they went to see ferns in Ōya’s field.
Beneath young maples of various kinds—their pliant branches and leaves clashing with the wind—grew splendid ferns cultivated like vegetables, each nearly two shaku in diameter.

“How about taking one of the maples?”
“Too much trouble.”
“The ferns are nice too.”
“What splendid ferns.”
“You can take this.”
“Well.”

The two of them returned to where everyone was.

“M, why don’t we visit H Sanbō?”
He said to Mr. M.

“That’s right.
“I also feel it’s awkward to visit alone for some reason.”

He thought instead of introducing Mr. T to Mr. M and Mr. H.
Mr. T was a rare, composed literary researcher.
To put it another way, he had a philosopher-like maturity, but also seemed to possess a refined appreciation for art.

“What does everyone think?”

The children remained silent.
Kyōko had called him “sake and sword,” but since he had taken the children to that mountain villa a day or two before, it had become clear that Mr. M and Mr. H were not liked by the children.

“Uncle Mountain doesn’t talk to us kids, so he’s awful.”
Mr. H said.

“Didn’t Mrs. H welcome everyone so warmly and treat them all?”
He said.

“Hmm, but…”
Someone muttered.

*Uncle Mountain the eccentric*

*No matter who comes, he won’t speak a word.*

Someone hummed again.

Everyone laughed.

“Kids are such natural little ironists, aren’t they?”
He also laughed.

As they were about to leave，the rain began to drizzle down.
He encountered rain almost daily when going out，but even the light mountain showers held their own appeal.
The morning atmosphere of Mikasa’s mixed forest was especially pleasant.
The birds’ music brightened his spirits.
Cuckoos，bush warblers，and voices as clear as silver bells could be heard.
Cuckoos and mountain doves continued their gentle accompaniment in the distance.
Along the way，he parted with Mr.H and the children and went into town.
And he got into the automobile at the garage.
Rain struck the windowpanes like beads of mercury.

“Where is your residence?”
“In this area?”
Mr. M asked Mr. T.

“It’s near M Hotel.”

“You can tell immediately by the calls of geese and turkeys.”

“At your place?”

“No, it’s the Westerner next door who keeps them, but by mid-September, not a single bird remains.”
“I feel rather odd about it, but Westerners are truly thorough in such matters.”
“Though I suppose being sentimental is what bothers us about it.”

“It’s unbearable.”
“When we encounter those foreign women with their thick bare arms and hulking figures, we’re utterly overwhelmed.”
“I can’t bring myself to go abroad or anything like that.”

“If you had gone, how would it have been?”
“But I have children.”
“Yet Mr. S entrusted the young ones to others and stayed abroad for two or three years straight—don’t you think?”

The rain grew slightly stronger.

M and H Villa was next to Kohansky’s.
Down below, he got out of the automobile and led the way.
The lady of the house, wearing a plain summer kimono that looked cool, welcomed them with a kindly expression.
In contrast to her husband, the mistress always seemed to brim with amiability.
The package from Matsuya containing the white mosquito net lay beside the mantlepiece made of stones set in cement.
Of course, this building too was more than a bungalow.

“Bourgeois, huh?”

“I detest that word ‘bourgeois’—I’ll just put it away over here.”

When the three of them took their seats, Mr. M and Mr. H soon came down from the second floor with expressionless faces, having apparently been completely absorbed in some writing.
Because it was situated high up, the rain and wind lashed fiercely against the glass-paned doors on three sides.
The plants at the cliff’s edge were battling.
The area lay desolate.
Here, M and H, spending the summer, seemed like ascetics.

“Why don’t we light a fire in the stove?”
Mr. M said in a chilly tone.

Before long, a fire brazier heaped with charcoal, resembling a large rice bowl, was placed between him and Mr. M by the mistress.

A lively conversation had developed between Mr. M and Mr. H, the two of them.
The wildly popular mass literature, the puppet theater that came to Tokyo this summer, the haiku of Natsume Sōseki and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, then film, Marx, and finally revolution………

“If △△△△ were discontinued, everyone would be in trouble.”
Mr. M and Mr. H said.

“You can’t make a living through art.”
“Even so, it’s acceptable.”
“Anyway, we couldn’t make a living from the start.”
He said this, but once alone, he had stopped considering matters of livelihood altogether.

“If we truly can’t make a living anymore, I’ll have no choice but to take the lead.”
Mr. M’s voice carried faint excitement.

“Right, right.
If we can’t make a living… that’s the fundamental truth.”
Mr. M and Mr. H settled back into calm.

Borrowing umbrellas, the three left the villa.
The mistress brought out brand-new, high-quality geta for him as he stood wearing zōri.

“Mr. S, shall I come work as your housekeeper?”
The mistress made this jest as they prepared to depart.

“By all means.
Since we’re poor, you can handle the money too.”
Having said that, he went outside.

“He’s quite the utilitarian but clear-cut, isn’t he?”

At the point where they descended the narrow slope, Mr. H said.

“Isn’t this recent paper of yours overshadowing the entire era?”
Mr. M exclaimed.

“Yes.
“I don’t read it myself, though…”

The rain grew increasingly heavier.
Muddy water soaked through the felt and damply seeped into the soles of his tabi.

“If we put just this one tree in Mr. S’s garden, we won’t need anything else outside.”
“It’ll fill the garden completely.”
Mr. M laughed while gazing up at a large fir tree with splendid foliage by the roadside.

After reaching town, they stopped at K Café to rest their fatigue. And from there, after hiring a rickshaw, when he returned to the house in the woods, the children were absorbed in carrom in the hall.

On a day of fierce wind and rain, he was seen off by Mr. H and Kyoko, and boarded the train with his two daughters.

“I want to go back to Tokyo too.”
Mr. H lamented the parting.

“Please do visit the coast as well.”
“I thought they might be lonely.”

“Oh, I’ll go. I’ll return for roll call on the ninth anyway.”
“I’ll start working from today too.”
“We’ve had our fill of fun.”
“When my brother comes—he’s such a socialite—people will start visiting and we won’t be able to study.”

“Please give my regards to your grandmother.”
“Kyoko will feel lonely too, won’t she?”

“But friends will come.”

“I might come again myself, depending on how things go.”

“By all means.”
“The weather was bad this time, I’m afraid.”

The departure whistle blew, and the train began to move.
The figures of Mr. H and his sister gradually grew more distant.
And then they vanished completely.

“We had our fun, didn’t we.”
He said to distract Chōko,“We’ll be going to the seaside again now.”
“Your brothers are waiting.”

Chōko stifled a laugh.

Because the windows were closed，the train car had gone stale.
The loneliness of children returning from a journey with no one waiting—whatever they themselves might feel—struck him as somehow nostalgic.

He drank weak tea prepared daily by his nephew who came from the countryside，gazing at gardens where rain fell endlessly day after day.
His nephew was a lacquerware artisan visiting Tokyo on business，staying upstairs.

“When you were departing, Uncle, I saw you getting into the automobile at the main gate, but I didn’t realize it was for a trip.”

When he returned, the nephew greeted him with those words.

Treating guests felt utterly incompatible with his current mood of life.
Everything was a jumble of mismatches.
His mind was a jumble of round things and angular things, long things and short things, hard things and soft things, old things and new things, beautiful things and ugly things all mixed together.
Contradictions clashed complexly against contradictions.
Organizing them was difficult.
He didn’t know where to begin.
He felt as though he could accomplish anything if he set his mind to it, yet at the same time felt as though he could do nothing at all.
At times, he had even lost the sense of whether he was old or young.

He hadn’t been particularly warm toward his nephew, but as days passed and they conversed over tea, he gradually began to feel a growing sense of familiarity and kindness. He encouraged his nephew, who was passive in business.

When the tea sweets he had brought ran out, he would go into town to buy something he thought might please him, arrange it on the confectionery tray he had brought with him, and bring it to his side,

“How about some tea?”

“I’ll have some.”

The nephew prepared tea with the composure characteristic of a tea practitioner from his hometown.

“Tea has its merits.”
“When things aren’t universal to humanity, they feel like futile efforts or games—but tea isn’t so bad.”
“It seems wasteful to keep it merely as a rich man’s diversion.”
“I wonder if someone might establish a proper school for it.”

Even as he said this, he harbored no intention of performing such formalities himself—the precise folding of silk cloths and other ceremonial gestures.

Eventually, days without tea left him feeling unfulfilled.
After sending his daughters to the coast with their grandmother, he lived together with Mr. S and his nephew as a trio.

“He’s quite good, isn’t he.”
Even Mr. S, who had initially remained aloof, came to understand the fine character of this tea practitioner.

“He’s not of this modern age.”

He addressed packages to M at H’s mountain villa in Karuizawa and to Mr. M’s cottage—which resembled a badger’s den—sending them grilled fish paste, kelp with sansho pepper preserves, while also writing two letters.

……Tokyo remains stifling every day.
With this much rain, I think I should have brought at least one clump of fern.

This was an excerpt from the sly letter addressed to Mr. M.
He had come to want ferns.

Not long after Mr. M’s reply had arrived, one morning, five splendid fern clumps were delivered.
He got up from bed, and the three of them—Mr. S, his nephew, and himself—unpacked the parcel in the corner of the garden.
The grand fern leaves battled the morning breeze in the tree shade.

“These are often used in maki-e designs.”
As he spoke, the nephew gently disentangled the overlapping leaves one by one.

During the four or five days he had been away on his trip, even the banana plant by the Western-style building’s window had unfurled several new leaves, their surfaces rippling.

And that afternoon, a thank-you note from Mr.M and Mr. and Mrs.H also arrived from the mountain villa.
The letter from Mr.M and Mr.H differed from his old correspondence—direct and lacking in warmth—but Mrs.H’s portion carried an elegant charm in both penmanship and prose, reminiscent of poets of old.

(October 1928 [Shōwa 3], *Chūō Kōron*)