My man would make rather a good picture, and poetry, too, when studied in this light, and I stayed talking with him long after my shave was over, when a small head of a young priest put in an appearance, slipping in by the entrance curtain and said:
“A shave please.”42
The newcomer was a jolly-looking little priest in an old-fashioned grey cotton clothes, held together by a coil of light but cotton-wadded belt, under a mosquito-net-like cloak.
“You got a scolding, didn’t you, the other day, for loafing, Ryonen-san?”
“No, I was complimented.”
“Complimented for catching minnows on your way to an errand, were you?”
“The Osho-san praised me, saying: ‘You did well Ryonen, to take your time in play, young though you are.’ ”
“That accounts, eh? You have got many swellings in your head. Too much trouble to shave a bumpy head like this; but I let you off this time. Don’t come again with a freak of a head like this.”
“Thanks, I shall go to a better barber when my head is in good shape.”
“Ha, ha, ha, this zigzag thing has got a tongue to talk with to be sure.”
“Poor in work, but quite up in boozing, that is what you are, arn’t you?”
“Poor in work? Say it again. …”
“Not I, but it is the Osho-san who says it. Don’t get so mad, if you know how old you are.”
“Humph, the idea! Isn’t that so Danna?”
“Ya—eh?”
“Priests, they live high above the stone steps, and have nothing much to look after. That must be what makes them so free in tongue. Even this little fellow can talk so. There lay down your head—lay down, I say, do you hear? I will cut you if you don’t do as I tell you. You understand? The red thing will run.”
“It hurts! Don’t be so rough.”
“If you can’t stand this sort of thing, how can you expect to be a priest?”
“I am one already.”
“But not full feathered yet. Oh, say, by the way, how did Taian-san die?”
“Taian-san is not dead.”
“Not dead? He must be dead.”
“Taian-san has got a new spirit and is now hard at his study at Taibaiji temple in Rikuzen. Everybody expects he will make a great priest by and by. A very good thing, indeed.”
“What is good? Priests may have their way; but it cannot be good even for them to decamp at night? You ought to be careful, you young one, it is woman who brings you trouble. Speaking of a woman, does that crazy thing still come to the Osho-san?”
“I have never heard of a woman named ‘Crazy Thing.’ ”
“You blockhead, tell me, does she come or does she not.”
“No crazy woman comes; but Mr. Shiota’s daughter comes.”
“The Osho-san may be great; but he won’t be able to make anything of the poor girl. She is possessed by her former husband.”
“That lady is a very worthy woman. The Osho-san speaks highly of her.”
“That beats all. Everything is topsy-turvy up there, above the stone steps. Whatever the Osho-san may say, the mad must be mad—Here now, all shaved. Hurry home and get another scolding.”
“No, not yet. I shall take little more time to get a good opinion of the Osho-san.”
“Do as you please, you long-tongued brat.”
“Go on, you dry rot.”
“What!”
But the clean shaved head dived under and was on the other side of the curtain, the Spring breeze softly fanning it.
VI
I sat at my desk, as the sun was going down. I had opened wide all the paper screens and doors of my room. The people of the hotel are not many, but its building is extensive. My room is far in the interior, with many turns of passage, separating it from the quarters inhabited by the not many people of the establishment, and no sound comes to disturb my thinking. It has been especially quiet today. I even fancied that the proprietor, his daughter, the young maid and the man servant had all gone away unknown to me. Had they done so, they could not, I thought, have gone to an ordinary place; they must have flown to a land of hazes, or of cloud—so far, far away that it may be reached only after floating lazily on the sea, carelessly and too lazy to steer, until drifted to where the white sail became indistinguishable from cloud or water, and indeed the sail itself could not tell whether it was the cloud or water. Otherwise they must have vanished, swallowed up in the spirit of Spring, the elements of which they are composed returning to an invisible ether, untraceable in the great expanse of space even with the help of a microscope. They might have become the lark and flown to where the evening dusk was deepening into purple, after they have sung out the golden yellow of the rape flowers. Or else they might be sweetly sleeping out the world a captive under a fallen camellia flower, failing to steal its nectar, after having served to draw out lengthily the long Spring day, by turning into a gadfly. So quiet was the day.
The Spring breeze passed freely through the empty house not necessarily as a duty to those who welcomed it, nor yet out of spite to those who resented it. It came naturally and went naturally, a reflection of the impartial universe. With my chin resting in the palms of my hands, my mind was as free and open as my room, and the breeze would, uninvited, pass in and out with perfect freedom.
You think of treading on, and you fear the earth might crack open under you. You know the sky is hanging over you, and you dread lightning might flash out and smite you. You are urged that you fail your manhood unless you assert your antagonism and the world becomes a place of endless trouble. To him that lives under
