∗
The rainy season had begun. Kiyoaki, like a recuperating invalid who cannot resist endangering his health despite his fears, began to test his emotional stability by deliberately provoking memories of Satoko. He would open his album to look at the old pictures. He saw himself as an infant, standing next to Satoko beneath the pagoda tree on the Ayakura estate. Both of them were wrapped in children’s white pinafores, but he took satisfaction in having been taller than she even at that early age. Count Ayakura, who was a superb calligrapher, had taken great pains to instruct the two children according to Tadamichi Fujuwara’s Hossho Temple school of writing. Sometimes, when they tired of their usual exercises, he had rekindled their interest by letting them take turns copying verses from the Okura One Hundred Poets card game onto a scroll.
Kiyoaki had written a verse by Shigeyuki Minamoto:
I feel the wind’s keen force
As waves break over rocks
Worn down by loneliness
I dream of days gone by.
Below it Satoko had written a verse by Yoshinobu Onakatomi:
When day gives way to night
And guards kindle fires
The thoughts of other times
Come alive within me.
The childishness of his handwriting was apparent at a glance. But Satoko’s was flowing and precise, so much so that the brush hardly seemed to have been wielded by a little girl. In fact he rarely opened this scroll simply because he did not relish being confronted with the unhappy evidence of how much Satoko, two years older than he, had surpassed him even then. Now, however, as he studied the writing with a measure of objectivity, he felt that his own scrawl had a boyish vigor that made a pleasing contrast with the refined elegance of Satoko’s smooth, flowing script.
But there was more to it than that. The very thought of himself that day boldly setting down the tips of his writing brushes, heavy with ink, against the fine, gold-flecked paper of the scroll, was enough to evoke the entire scene with the force of vivid immediacy. At that time, Satoko’s long, thick black hair was cut straight across at the brow. As she bent over the scroll, she kept the handle of the writing brush tight in her slim, delicate fingers, concentrating with such passion that she was oblivious to the mass of hair that poured down her shoulders in a jet-black cascade, nearly flooding the scroll itself. Her small, white teeth bit ruthlessly into her lower lip, and although she was just a little girl, her nose was already well formed in her profile that stood out with sweet determination against the torrent of falling hair. Kiyoaki watched as if in a dream. Then there was the ink that smelled dark and solemn, and the sound made by the tip of the brush as it raced over the surface of the scroll, like the wind rustling through bamboo grass. And finally, there was the sea—the well of the inkstone was the sea, and above it rose the hill with the strange name. This sea fell away so sharply from its shore that it gave not so much as a glimpse of its shallow bed. The still black sea, without a single wave, a sea spangled with gold powder fallen from the ink stick, always made him think of the rays of the moon fragmented on the night sea of eternity.
“I can even enjoy memories of my past and it doesn’t bother me at all,” he thought in silent boast.
Satoko did not even appear in his dreams. If he caught a glimpse of a figure in his sleep that seemed to resemble her, the woman quickly turned her back and disappeared. But then the scene was most often a broad crossroads at midday, totally deserted.
∗
One day at school, Prince Pattanadid asked Kiyoaki a favor. Would he please return the ring that Marquis Matsugae had put in a deposit box for him?
General rumor had it that the two princes had not made a very favorable impression at school. The language barrier presented an understandable obstacle to their studies, but more than that, there could be nothing resembling friendly banter between them and their fellow students, who became impatient with the princes and as a result kept them at a respectful distance. Furthermore, being simple and boorish, their classmates were apparently quite put off by the smiles that the princes produced on all occasions.
It had been the foreign minister’s idea that they live in the student dormitory, a decision, Kiyoaki heard, that had created considerable anxiety for the dormitory prefect since his was the responsibility for deciding upon the specific arrangements made for them. He gave them their own room, furnished with the best beds available, as befitted royalty. Then he made every effort to promote good relations between them and the other students, but as the days went by, the princes tended to isolate themselves more and more in their own little castle, frequently missing exercises like reveille and group calisthenics. The estrangement between them and the others thus grew still more pronounced.
There was good reason for this. The preparatory period of less than six months following their arrival was inadequate for the princes to have learned Japanese, even if they had applied themselves far more seriously than they had done. And then, even in the English classes, where their ability should have shown to advantage, the system of translating from English into Japanese and from Japanese into English thoroughly confused them.
Since Marquis Matsugae had arranged to have Pattanadid’s ring placed in his personal vault at the Itsu Bank, Kiyoaki had to return home to get his father’s seal before going to the bank to reclaim the ring. It was nearly evening before he returned to Peers and went to the princes’ room.
It was a typical “dry” day in the midst of the rainy season, overcast and humid, a day that was perfectly attuned to the frustration of the two princes, who were longing for the sparkling summer weather that was still beyond reach, though it seemed close enough. The dormitory itself, a rough-frame one-story building surrounded by trees, seemed to be sealed in a gloom all its own.
The shouts coming from the direction of the athletics field indicated that rugby practice was still in full swing. Kiyoaki hated the idealistic cries that rose from those young throats. His classmates’ rough-and-ready relationships, their untried humanism, their constant jokes and puns, their never-faltering reverence for the talent of Rodin and the perfection of Cézanne—they were no more than the modern equivalent of the old traditional shouts of
kendo.
And so, hoarse in voice and reeking of youth like green paulownia leaves, they went about wearing their arrogance much as the ancient courtiers wore their tall caps.
Life for the two princes was extremely difficult, having to swim in the midst of this riptide of old and new. When Kiyoaki thought about this, he rose above his own preoccupations and now was able, out of a new generosity, to sympathize with them. He walked down a dark, rough-finished corridor of the dormitory toward the princes’ room at the end of it, selected with such care. Stopping in front of a battered old door, on which hung a wooden rectangle with their names on it, he knocked lightly.
The princes were overjoyed to see him, as though he had come as a savior. He had always felt much closer to the serious and somewhat dreamy Pattanadid—Chao P.—but in recent months Kridsada too, once so frivolous and carefree, had become subdued. The two of them now spent much of their time here in their room, whispering to each other in their native language.
The room, bare of all decoration, was furnished austerely with two beds, two desks, and two cupboards for their clothing. The building itself was redolent of the barracks atmosphere so prized by General Nogi. The blank white expanse of wall above the paneling, however, was relieved by a small shelf holding a golden Buddha, before which the princes performed their worship morning and evening. The altar lent a hint of the exotic to the room. Wrinkled, rain-spotted muslin curtains hung at the window.
Now with the approach of darkness, the smiling princes’ teeth gleamed white against their dark skin and deep tans. They offered Kiyoaki a seat on the edge of one of the beds and then eagerly asked to see the ring.
Its brilliant green emerald, guarded on either side by the fierce beasts’ heads of the yaksha, glowed richly in complete contrast to the atmosphere of the room.
With an exclamation of happiness, Chao P. took the ring and slipped it onto his dark, slender finger. Thin and supple, on a hand that seemed created for caresses, it made Kiyoaki think of a warm tropical moonbeam stretching a slender finger through a crack in the door and striking a mosaic floor.
“Now Ying Chan has finally returned to my touch,” Chao P. said, heaving a melancholy sigh.
In months gone by, such a reaction would have provoked Prince Kridsada to make fun of his cousin, but now he searched through the drawer of his clothes cupboard and took out a picture of his sister which he had carefully hidden between layers of shirts.
“In this school,” he said, nearly in tears, “even if you tell them it’s a picture of your own sister, they make jokes about you if you put it out on your desk. That’s why we hide Ying Chan’s picture in here.”
Chao P. was soon able to explain to Kiyoaki that no letter from Princess Ying Chan had come for more than two months. He had made inquiries about this at the Siamese legation but had not yet received a satisfactory answer. Moreover, the princess’s brother Prince Kridsada himself had had no word about her. If something had happened to her, if she had fallen ill, he would normally have been informed by telegram. Chao P.’s imagination was exacerbated by the thought of what her family might be hiding even from her brother. It might well be that she was being pushed into another marriage, one that held greater political advantage. The very idea was enough to plunge him into gloom. Tomorrow, he thought, there might be a letter, but even if there were, what unhappiness might it not contain? With such thoughts preying on his mind, he was in no state to study. Since he had no other consolation, all he could think of was the return of the ring that had been a parting present from the princess, and all his intensity of longing became focused on its emerald, which shone with the brilliant green of the jungle at first light.
It now seemed that Choa P. had become oblivious to Kiyoaki as he stretched out his finger that bore the emerald ring and rested it on the desk beside the picture of Ying Chan that Prince Kridsada had placed there. He seemed to be about to make an effort of will that would not only dissolve the barriers of time and space but merge two separate lives into one.
When Prince Kridsada turned on the light that hung from the ceiling, the picture glass caught the reflection of the emerald on Chao P.’s finger, and a square of vivid green glowed on the white lace of the princess’s bodice.
“Look at that—how does it strike you?” Chao P. asked in English, in a bemused tone of voice. “Doesn’t it seem as though her heart were a green flame? Perhaps it’s the cold green heart of a small green snake, with a minute flaw in it, the kind of small green snake that slithers from branch to branch in the jungle, passing itself off as a vine. What’s more, perhaps when she gave me the ring with such a gentle, loving expression, she wanted me to draw such a meaning from it some day.”
“No, Chao P. That’s utter nonsense,” Prince Kridsada cut in sharply.
“Don’t be angry, Kri. I don’t mean to insult your sister for a moment. All I’m trying to do is find words for the strangeness of a lover’s existence. Let me put it this way: although she is here in this picture, it shows her only as she was at a certain moment in the past. But I feel that here in this emerald she gave me when we parted is her soul, just as she is now at this moment. In my mind, the emerald and the picture—her body and her soul—were separated. But look now: the two are reunited.
“Even when we’re with someone we love, we’re foolish enough to think of her body and soul as being separate. Although I am apart from her now, I may be in a much better position than I was to appreciate the structure of the single crystal that is Ying Chan. Separation is painful, but so is its opposite. And if being together brings joy, then it is only proper that separation should do the same in its own way.
“But what do you think, Matsugae? As for me, I’ve always wanted to know the secret that enables love to evade the bonds of time and space as if by magic. To stand before the person we love is not the same as loving her true self, for we are only apt to regard her physical beauty as the indispensable mode of her existence. When time and space intervene, it is possible to be deceived by both, but on the other hand, it is equally possible to draw twice as close to her real self.”
Kiyoaki had no idea how profound the prince’s philosophizing was intended to be, but he listened intently. Many of his words did, in fact, strike home. As for Satoko, Kiyoaki believed that he had now indeed drawn that much closer to her real self. He saw quite clearly that what he had loved had not been the real Satoko. But what proof did he have of that? Wasn’t he liable to be deceived twice over? And wasn’t the Satoko he loved once again the real Satoko after all? He shook his head slightly, almost unconsciously. Then suddenly he remembered the dream in which the face of a strangely beautiful girl had suddenly appeared in Chao P.’s emerald ring. Who was that woman? Satoko? Ying Chan, whom he had never seen? Someone else perhaps?
“Well anyway, will it ever be summer?” Prince Kridsada said sadly, gazing out of the window at the grove of trees surrounding the dormitory.