CHAPTER 85
In those days I was in the habit of using the adjective human. K maintained that this favorite expression of mine was actually a cover for all my personal weaknesses. Thinking back on it now, I can see his point. But I had originally begun to use the word out of resistance to K, in order to convince him of his lack of human feelings, so I was not in a position to consider the question objectively. I stuck to my guns and reiterated my argument.
K then demanded to know just what it was in him that I believed lacked this quality. “You’re perfectly human, indeed you’re even too human” was my response. “It’s just that when you talk, the things you say lack humanity. And the same goes for your behavior.” K offered no refutation, except to say that if he appeared that way, it was because he had not yet attained a sufficient level of spiritual discipline.
This did not so much take the wind out of my sails as arouse my pity. I immediately stopped arguing, and he too soon grew calmer.
If only I shared his knowledge of the lives of the ancients, he remarked mournfully, I wouldn’t be attacking him in this way. When K spoke of “the ancients,” of course, he was not referring to men of legendary daring and courage. His heroes were the fierce ascetics of old, those mortifiers of the flesh who lashed themselves for the sake of spiritual attainment. He was sorry, K declared, that I had no understanding of what anguish he suffered from his own shortcomings.
With this, we both went to sleep. The following morning we returned to business as usual and set off again to plod on our sweaty way. But my mind kept going back over the previous night’s events. I burned with regret—why had I passed up the perfect opportunity to say at last what was on my mind? Rather than employ an abstraction such as human, I should have made a clean and direct confession to K.
And truly it was my feelings for Ojōsan that had prompted me to start using this word in the first place, so it would have been more to the point to reveal to K the facts that lay behind my argument rather than belabor him with its theoretical distillation. Our relationship was so firmly defined by lofty scholarly exchange, I must admit, that I lacked the courage to break through it. I could explain this failing as that of affectation, or as the result of vanity, although what I mean by these words is not quite their normal interpretation. I only hope you will understand what I am saying here.
We arrived back in Tokyo burned black by the sun. By this time I was in yet another frame of mind. Concepts such as “human” and other futile abstractions had all but vanished from my head. K, for his part, showed no more traces of the religious ascetic; he too, I am sure, was no longer troubling himself with the question of the spirit and the flesh.
We gaped about us at the swirling life of Tokyo, like two visitors from another world. Then we set off for the Ryōkoku district,1 where we had a chicken dinner. So fortified, K suggested we walk back home to Koishikawa. I was physically the stronger, so I readily agreed.
Okusan was taken aback at our appearance when we arrived. Not only were we black from the sun, we were gaunt from the long, exhausting walk. She nevertheless congratulated us on looking so much stronger, and Ojōsan laughed at her inconsistency. No doubt it was the combination of the circumstance and the pleasure of hearing her laughter again, but in that moment I was happy, freed of the anger that had plagued me before the trip.