a€?Real y shook a€™im up, it did. Goes and sends a letter to a loony, and now just look at the shame shea €™s caused him. So that night away he creeps, and puts an end to a€™imself.a€?
a€?He died?a€?
a€?Musta€™ve. How could he live after a thing like that?a€?
a€?How bizarre.a€?
a€?Darn right. Stil , if the other partya€™s a loony, youa€™d be pretty depressed if youa€™d put an end to yerself, so maybe hea€™s stil alive, who knows?a€?
a€?Ita€™s a fascinating story.a€?
a€?Fascinating? Why, the whole vil age was laughina€™ fit to bust. But as for her, shea€™s crazy of course, so she just went about calm as you please, didna€™t turn a hair. Wel , a fine sensible gentleman like yerself, sir, therea€™d be no trouble of that sort, but beina€™ who she is, youa€™d only have to tease her a bit, say, and who knows what mightna€™t happen.a€?
a€?Perhaps Ia€™l tread a bit careful y, then,a€? I say with a laugh.
A salty spring breeze wafts up from the warm shore, and the barbershop curtain over the door flaps drowsily. The reflection of a swal ow flashes across the mirror as the slanting shape comes diving in beneath the curtain to its nest under the eaves. An old man of sixty or so is squatting under the eaves of the house across the road, quietly shucking shel fish. Each click of his knife against a shel sends another red sliver of flesh tumbling into the depths of the bamboo basket, fol owed by a sudden glitter as another empty shel flies across a shimmering band of light to land two feet or so away. Is it oysters, or surf clams, or perhaps razor clams, lying there in that high mound of empty shel s? Here and there the midden has col apsed, and some of its shel s have slipped down to lie on the floor of the sandy stream behind, carried out of the transient world to a burial in the realm of darkness. No sooner is a shel a€™s burial completed than a fresh one is added to the pile beneath the wil ow. The old man works on, tossing shel after shel through the shimmering sunlight, never pausing to ponder their fate. His basket seems bottomless, his spring day an endless tranquil expanse of time.
The sandy stream runs beneath a little bridge a bare twelve feet or so long and bears its waters on toward the shore. Out there where its spring flow joins the shining spring sea, fathoms of fishing nets are looped up to dry in an uneven jumble of lengths. Perhaps it is these that impart to the soft breeze, blowing in through the nets to the vil age, a warm, pungent smel of fish. That sluggish silver visible beyond the nets, like a dul sword melted to a shimmering swim of molten metal, is the sea.
This scene is utterly at odds with the barber beside me. If his character were more forceful, able to hold its own in my mind against the bril iance of the scene that lies al about him, I would be overwhelmed by the wild incongruity between the two. Fortunately, however, the barber is not so strikingly impressive. However overflowing he is with the old Tokyoitea€™s bravado, no matter how he might bluster and swagger, the man is no match for the vast and harmonious serenity of the circumambient air. This barber, who does his best to shatter the prevailing atmosphere with his display of self-satisfied garrulousness, has swiftly become no more than a tiny particle floating deep in the far reaches of the felicitous spring sunlight. A contradiction, after al , cannot arise where the relative strength, substance, or indeed spirit and body of the two elements are irreconcilable; it can be felt only when two things or people are on a similar level. If the discrepancy between them is too vast, al contradictory relationship may wel final y evaporate and vanish, and the two instead come to play a single part in the great life force. For this reason the man of talent can act in the service of the great, the fool can be an assistant to the man of talent, and the ox and horse can support the fool. My barber is simply enacting a farce against the backdrop of the spring scenea€™s infinity. Far from destroying the tranquil ity of spring, he is in fact achingly augmenting the sensation of it. I find myself savoring my chance encounter with such a happy-go-lucky pantomime buffoon on this vernal day. This ebul ient braggart, al puff and no substance, provides in fact the perfect touch to set off the daya€™s deep serenity.
In this state of mind, it strikes me that my barber is a fine subject for a picture or a poem, so I remain squatting there companionably, chatting about this and that, long past the time I should have left. Then suddenly a little priesta€™s shaved head slips in between the shop curtains.
a€?Excuse me, could you do me a shave?a€ he says, and in he comes. Hea€™s a very jol y-looking little priest, in a white cotton gown with a padded rope belt and a black priesta€™s robe of coarse gauze draped over it.
a€?RyA?nen! Howa€™s it going? Ia€™l bet the abbot told you off the other day for dawdling, huh?a€?
a€?Not a bit of it. He gave me a pat on the back.a€?
a€?Pat on the back because you went off on an errand and managed to pul out a fish while you were at it, huh?a€?
a€?He said he was pleased Ia€™d given myself such a good time; it goes to show Ia€™m wiser than my years.a€?
a€?No wonder yer heada€™s al swel ed up like that. Just look at those lumps. Dreadful business to shave such a badly behaved noggin. Wel , Ia€™l let you off this time. But you just mold it into better shape before you bring it here again.a€?
a€?If I have to remold it to suit you, ita€™s easier to take it to a better barber.a€?
The barber laughs. a€?Heada€™s shaped funny, but you sure got a quick tongue.a€?
a€?As for you, your hands are hopeless at shaving, but they sure know how to lift a sake cup.a€?
a€?Whaddya mean a€?hopeless at shaving,a€™ goddamn you!a€?
a€?I didna€™t say it, the abbot did. No need to lose your cool. Come on now, act your age.a€?
a€?Hrrmph. No jokea€”isna€™t that right, mister?a€?
a€?What?a€?
a€?These priest types, they al live the easy life perched up there in their temples. No wonder their tongues get so quick off the mark. Even this young fel er, hea€™s forever shootina€™ his mouth offa€”oops, head to the side a bita€”to the side, I said, dammita€”Ia€™l give ya a cut if ya dona€™t do as yer told, got that? Therea€™l be blood, Ia€™m warnina€™ ya.a€?
a€?Hey, that hurts! Dona€™t be so rough!a€?
