Quicksand

Table of Contents

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Epub ISBN: 9781407073903

Version 1.0

  

Published by Vintage 1994

6 8 10 9 7

Copyright © Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1993

This translation is based on the ChuoKoron Sha, Inc.

edition of
Manji
, published in Japan in 1947.
Manji
was serialized in
Kaizo
in 1928–30.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published in the United States of America by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and simultaneously in Canada by

Random House of Canada Limited in 1994

Vintage

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780099485612

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

A VINTAGE FIRST EDITION

About the Author

Junichir
ō
Tanizaki was born in 1886 in Tokyo, where his family owned a printing establishment. He studied Japanese literature at Tokyo Imperial University, and his first published work, a one-act play, appeared in 1910 in a literary magazine he helped to found. Tanizaki lived in the cosmopolitan Tokyo area until the earthquake of 1923, when he moved to the gentler and more cultivated Kyoto-Osaka region, the scene of his great novel
The Makioka Sisters
(1943–1948). There he became absorbed in the Japanese past and abandoned his superficial Westernization. All his most important works were written after 1923, among them
Naomi
(1924),
Some Prefer Nettles
(1929),
Arrowroot
(1931),
Ashikari (The Reed Cutter)
(1932),
A Portrait of Shunkin
(1932),
The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi
(1935), several modern versions of
The Tale of Genji
(1941, 1954 and 1965),
The Makioka Sisters, Captain Shigemoto's Mother
(1949),
The Key
(1956), and
Diary of a Mad Old Man
(1961). By 1930 he had gained such renown that an edition of his complete works was published, and he received the Imperial Prize in Literature in 1949. Tanizaki died in 1965.

Howard Hibbett, the translator, is Victor S. Thomas Professor of Japanese Literature, Emeritus, at Harvard University. He has also translated Tanizaki's
Diary of a Mad Old Man
and
The Key
. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts.

the scene of his great novel
The Makioka Sisters

written after 1923. Among them
Naomi (
1924
), Some

Prefer Nettles (
1929
), Arrowroot
(1931)
, Ashikari

(The Reed Cutter)
(1932)
, A Portrait of Shunkin

(1933)
, The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi

(1935), several modern versions of
The Tale of

Genji
(1941, 1954, and 1965)
, The Makioka Sisters,

Captain Shigemoto's Mother
(1949)
, The Key

(1956), and
Diary of a Mad Old Man
(1961). By 1930

died in 1965
.

Diary of a Mad Old Man
and
The Key.
He is

Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies.
He lives in

DO FORGIVE ME
for bothering you again, but I simply
had
to see you today—I want you to hear my side of the story, from beginning to end. Are you sure you don't mind? I know how busy you are with your own writing, and if I go into every last detail it might take forever! Really, I only wish I could put it all down on paper, like one of your novels, and ask you to read it. . . . The truth is, the other day I tried to start writing, but what happened is so
complicated
I didn't know where to begin. So I thought I'd just have to talk it out, and that's why I'm here. But then, I hate to let you waste your precious time for my sake. Are you quite sure it's all right? You've always been so sweet to me I'm afraid I'm taking advantage of your kindness, and after everything you've put up with . . . I can't thank you enough.

Well, I suppose I ought to start with that man I used to talk so much about. As I told you before, what you said made me think the whole thing over, and I finally broke off with him. Still, I must have felt a strong attachment. Even at home I'd get almost hysterical when anything brought him to mind. But before long it began to dawn on me that the man was worthless. . . . My husband noticed I'd changed completely since I began consulting you. Instead of always rushing off, telling him I was going to a concert or something, I would stay in all day painting or practicing the piano.

“You're being more feminine lately,” he used to say. I could see he was pleased by your concern.

But I have to admit I never said a word to him about the other man. “It isn't healthy to hide your past mistakes from your husband,” you warned me, “and since you tell me you haven't already gone too far up till now, why not make a clean breast of it?” And yet . . . I suppose even my husband may have had an inkling about what was going on, but somehow it was hard for me to confess. I told myself I'd just try not to make the same mistake over again, and I kept that love affair a secret hidden deep in my heart. So he didn't really know what we were talking about, you see; he thought you were simply giving me a lot of good advice. It's made a wonderful change in your attitude, he said.

For a while I spent my time quietly at home. Perhaps because he felt relieved, the way things were going, he said he'd better get a little more serious himself, so he rented an office in the Imabashi Building in downtown Osaka and opened a law practice. That was early last year; it must have been around February.

. . . Yes, that's right: he studied German law at the university and could have become a lawyer anytime he liked. But it seems he wanted to be a professor, and he was in graduate school at the time I was involved with that other man. There was no special reason why he decided to go into practice. Probably he was ashamed of depending on my parents and felt he couldn't hold his head up before me. He'd had such a splendid record as a student that my parents considered him a prize catch. When we were married, they took him into the family like an adopted son. They trusted him right from the start and settled some property on us so he needn't be in any hurry about making a living. Since he wanted to be a legal scholar, let him keep on studying and be one. And we could go abroad together for two or three years, if we cared to.