Kusamakura

prayer, one would use that same voice in hallooing, to call, even forcibly back, the soul that has put one step in the other world. To one passing away in sleep, it may be hard to have the soul called back, pulled back, as it were, by the bond of worries of life that would otherwise break, and that one may feel like saying: “Don’t call me back; let me sleep.” Nevertheless those around would wish to call aloud. I thought I might call that woman in the verandah the next time she came into view, to wake her up from her waking sleep. But my tongue lost its power of speech no sooner had she passed the opening like a dream. Without fail, the next time, I thought. But again she passed and disappeared before I could utter a word. I was asking myself how this could be, when again she passed, and appeared not to care a rap that she was being watched by one who was in a frenzied state of mind about her. She passed and repassed in a manner that told that one like me had never at all entered her mind. As I was repeating my “next time” in my mind, the dark cloud above let down, as if no longer able to hold back, a screen of fine, soft rain, dismally shutting out the shadow of the woman.

VII

Chilly! With a towel in hand I went downstairs for a warm dip. Leaving my clothes in a small chamber, four more steps downward brought me into the bath room which was about eight mats in size. Stones appeared plentiful, in these parts, the floor of the room being paved with fine granite, as was also the tank and its walls. The reservoir which the tank really was, was a hollow in the centre of the floor, about four feet deep and about as many feet square. This was a hot spring which contained, no doubt, various mineral ingredients; but the water in the basin was perfectly clear and transparent, and tasteless and without odour as well, as some finding its way into the mouth testified. The spring is said to possess medical virtues, but I did not know for what kind of ailments, as I have not taken the trouble to find out. Nor was I subject to any chronic disease, and this phase of the matter had never occurred to me. Only a line of poetry that comes to me, every time I take a dip is that of the Chinese poet Pai Le-tien:

“Soft and warm the water of the spring,
All impurities are cleansed away.”

A mention of a spring awakens in me the pleasant feeling which this couplet expresses, and I hold that no hot spring deserves to be called by that name unless it makes one feel that way. This is an ideal, apart from which I have no demand to make of any hot spring.

Clear up to a little under my chin the pleasant warm water in the tank reached and was indeed overflowing beautifully on all sides, without making it known where it was welling up from.

Resting my head, with face upward, on the back of my hands which held on to the slightly raised side of the tank, I let my body rise up to the point of least resistance and I felt my soul float buoyantly like the jellyfish. Life is easy in this state of existence. You unlock the door of prudence and cast all desires to the Four Winds, and become part of the hot water, leaving it completely to the hot water to make what it likes of you. The more floating, the less is the pain to live for that which floats. There will be more blessings than to have become a disciple of Jesus Christ, for one who lets even one’s soul float. At this rate, even drowning is not without its picturesqueness. I have forgotten what piece, but I think I remember reading Swinburne, where the poet depicts a woman rejoicing in her eternal peaceful rest. Millais’ Ophelia, which has ever been a source of sentimental uneasiness to me, offers also something aesthetic, when viewed in this light. Why he should have chosen so unpleasant a scene has always been a puzzle to me; but now I saw that it made an artistic production. A form, a figure, a look, floating in sweet painlessness, as it were, whether on the surface, or under water or floating and sinking, is indisputably aesthetic. With wild flowers judiciously sprinkled on the banks and the water, the floating one, and the floating one’s dress, making a harmonious and well arranged ensemble of colours, it will without fail make a picture. But if the floating one’s expression were nothing but peace itself, the picture would almost make only a mythology or an allegory, while convulsive pain will, on the other hand, destroy the whole effect. The expression of a naive and care-unknown face will not bring out human sentiments. What kind of a face should it be to be a success? Millais’ Ophelia may be a success; but I doubt that he is one with me in spirit. However, Millais is Millais and I am I; and I feel like painting a person drowned. But I fancied that the face that I wanted would not easily come to me.

Buoying myself in the bath, I next tried to make poetry of the appreciation of the drowned:

“Will get wet in rain,
Will be cold in frost,
Will be dark underground,
On the wave when floating,
Under the wave when sunk,
Will be painless in warm Spring water.”

It was raining outside, the soft, quiet, warm rain of Spring. The plaintive twang, twang of a samisen heard at a distance on a night like this is a peculiarly appealing sound, and it was catching my ear, as I was humming my extempore song of the drowned.