a€?Genbei has just brought it back from town. I imagine youa€™d be happy to eat something like this.a€?
Genbei appears to have spent the night in town. I make no reply but simply continue to gaze at the
a€?This celadon plate has a very fine shape. A wonderful color too. Ita€™s scarcely inferior to the
She titters, and a faint, contemptuous smirk plays for a moment on her lips. She must have interpreted my words as intended to be clever.
Considered thus, my remark does indeed deserve to be despiseda€”ita€™s exactly the kind of thing a stupid man wil come out with in a misguided attempt to sound sophisticated.
a€?Is it Chinese?a€?
a€?What?a€? She isna€™t aware of the plate at al .
a€?It certainly looks like it to me,a€? I say, lifting the plate to examine the inscription on its base.
a€?If you like this sort of thing, I can show you more.a€?
a€?Yes, please do.a€?
a€?My father loves antiques, so there are a lot of such things here. Ia€™l tel him youa€™re interested, and you can have tea together sometime so he can show you.a€?
I shrink a little at the mention of tea. No one is more tediously pompous than a tea ceremony master, who wil fancy himself the quintessence of elegant refinement. Your typical tea master is deeply conceited, not to mention affected and fastidious to a fault. He ostentatiously clings to the cramped little territory hea€™s marked out for himself within the wide world of sensibility, savoring his bowl of foam and bubbles with a quite ridiculous reverence. If that abominably complex set of rules and regulations that makes up the tea ceremony contains any refinement, then a crack army corps must positively reek of elegant sophistication! Al those a€?right about turn! quick march!a€ fel ows must to a man be the equivalent of the great tea masters. The art of the tea ceremony is something that the common merchant and townsman, lacking any education in the finer matters of taste, dreamed up through their ignorance of how refinement real y works, by mindlessly swal owing whole and in mechanical fashion the rules that were invented after Rikyua€™s day.7 Their pitiful conviction that it constitutes the height of refinement only makes a mockery of true sensibility.
a€?When you say tea, you mean the ceremonial sort?a€?
a€?No, therea€™s no ceremony about it at al . Ita€™s the kind of tea you dona€™t have to drink if you dona €™t want to.a€?
a€?Wel then, Ia€™d be more than happy to have a cup while Ia€™m there.a€?
She titters again. a€?My father loves to have someone to show his col ection to. . . .a€?
a€?Does that mean I have to praise his things?a€?
a€?Hea€™s an old man, so hea€™d be thril ed if you did.a€?
a€?Al right, Ia€™l give them a bit of praise, then.a€?
a€?Oh, come on, why not make it a discount and praise them lots?a€?
Ita€™s my turn to laugh. a€?By the way,a€? I remark, a€?you dona€™t use the language of a country girl, do you?a€?
a€?You mean, even though I have the character of one?a€?
a€?As to character, country people are better than city folk.a€?
a€?Wel then, Ia€™ve got the upper hand there.a€?
a€?But you must have spent time in Tokyo, surely?a€?
a€?Yes, and in Kyoto too. Ia€™m a wanderer, so Ia€™ve been al over the place.a€?
a€?Which do you prefer, this vil age or Tokyo?a€?
a€?Therea€™s no difference.a€?
a€?Doesna€™t life feel easier in a quiet place like this?a€?
a€?Easy, difficulta€”you can make it whatever you want, depending on your state of mind. Therea €™s no point in moving to the land of mosquitoes because youa€™re sick of the land of fleas.a€?
a€?You could go to a land of neither fleas nor mosquitoes.a€?
a€?If you know such a place, go ahead and show me. Go on,a€? she persists, leaning closer, a€?show me!a€?
a€?Ia€™l show you if you want,a€ I say, picking up my sketchbook, and I drawa€”not a picture, since ita€™s done quite on impulsea€”just a hasty sketch of a woman on horseback looking at a mountain cherry tree. a €?Here,a€ I say, thrusting it under her nose, a€?come inside this world. There are no fleas or mosquitoes here.a€? Wil she register surprise? Embarrassment? I watch her, certain that she wona€™t be upset.
She evades the problem by dismissing it. a€?What a cramped little world it is!a€ she exclaims. a€?It has only length and breadth. You like this sort of two-dimensional world? A crab is what you are.a€?
I burst out laughing. The bush warbler that has just begun to cal by the eave breaks off his song at the sound and flies away to a farther branch.
We both pause in our talk and listen intently for a while, but once interrupted that voice wil not easily begin again.
