The Youth of Things: Life and Death in the Age of Kajii Motojiro

The Story of the Bamboo Pipe

212 The Story of the Bamboo Pipe Ihadthepickoftworouteswhengoingoutforawalk. One was the road that followed the valley. The other was a mountain path you entered from the roadside when you crossed the suspension bridge over the valley. The road had a view, but by its very nature it led to all sorts of distractions. In contrast, the mountain path was gloomy but calmed the mind. My choice was determined by my particular mood on the day. But this story of mine dictates that I take the quiet mountain path. As soon as you crossed the suspension bridge, the path was in a cedar wood. Treetops blocked out the sun, and there was always something cold and damp about this path. You could feel stillness and solitude pressing in tightly, as if you were stealing into a Gothic structure. My eyes looked spontaneously downward. On the side of the path grew various kinds of seedlings, mosses, and ferns. Their dwarfish natural forms were vaguely familiar; as if, appearing from some fairy tale, they were engaged in shady conversations. The path was also fringed with exposed patches of red clay that had been beaten by raindrops, so that some places were weathered into the exact semblance of fossilized rocks. Small stones were perched on top of each of their chiseled peaks. But this isn’t to say the sun didn’t come through at all. Sunshine spilled down through gaps in the treetops to form weak dapples here and there on the path and on tree trunks, as if by 213 candlelight illumination. Walking along, I’d catch the shadow of my head, and then of my shoulders, emerging and disappearing. Some of the light tainted the blades of grass so faintly I hardly believed it possible. When I experimented by raising my stick, even the fine splits clearly showed up. Once I came to know about this path, I found myself getting really caught up in the anticipation of taking quiet strolls along it, which I did many times. I aimed for the spot where the air, so cold it could have come from a refrigerated room, passed through the cedar woods and crossed over the path. An antiquated bamboo water pipe came down out from the dusky depths. When I listened very carefully with my ears, I could make out a faint murmuring sound inside. It was the sound of this water that I looked forward to. What was it that drew my heart to such a thing? On days when my mind was particularly calm, the sound that my ears picked up made me suddenly aware how it contained a mysterious charm. I came to realize this only later, but, when I listened to the beautiful sound of that water, I sensed something strangely out of joint with the surrounding landscape. There were just a few bearded orchids growing about, unscented and with meager blooms, while the cedar trees were all dark and damp at their roots. Even the bamboo pipe just happened to be lying among things moldering on the surrounding patch of ground. My reasoning mind left no doubt that the water’s limpid sound came from inside the pipe. But when I listened intently for a while, the unity of my senses of sight and sound soon diverged. Not only did things feel strangely out of joint, my heart was also totally captivated in an unsettling way. Sometimes I experience a very similar feeling when I catch sight of the spiderwort with its blue flowers. There’s something strangely seductive about that blueness, so easily confused with the green of common grasses. I’m more than happy to put the confusion down to the color that the spiderwort shares with the blue sky and the sea. The enchantment woven by the invisible sound of water was rather similar to this. I felt on edge, like a little bird flitting nimbly from branch to branch, and this unsettled me. A miragelike evanescence made it hard to breathe. And things gradually turned even more mysterious. In the gloomy surroundings where I found myself, I began to hear a ringing sound, as if I were hallucinating. Momentary glints of light brought a radiance to my life. Each time it left me speechless with wonder. But this wasn’t because The Story of the Bamboo Pipe 214 Kajii Motojirō I’d been dazzled by infinite life. Rather, I’d...