Beautiful Town: Stories and Essays

Unbearably Forlorn

Unbearably Forlorn Wabishi-sugiru, 1922 I Seikichi’s younger brother’s wife, Kuniko—his wife until recently, that is—had qualified as a geisha. Yurika was her professional name. II This woman, earlier a geisha in the same district, had overreached herself to become Seikichi’s brother’s wife. True, she was hardly eighteen at the time. Now, five years later, Seikichi’s brother had abandoned her —you’d have to put it that way. Although they separated by mutual consent, the brother does not seem to have confided fully about his intentions. Immediately on leaving his wife, he left for Korea with another woman. He spoke of his notion of taking an unsuitable job, but his real reason for going to Korea may have been the woman. . . . Kuniko seems to have said as much to Sumiè. Seikichi heard it from Sumiè. The women friends exchanged letters. Yoshizò had a woman? Now that you’d heard it, that was not so surprising. But that brother divorced his wife because he had a woman, Seikichi didn’t suspect that. . . . If he had known, there was nothing he could have done. That is, when it came time for them to split, although Seikichi lived in the same house with them, he was consulted Unbearably Forlorn 167 by neither. Maybe they failed to consult because Seikichi for his part avoided consultation. Kuniko’s people actually said to Yoshizò, “How about consulting older brother at least once, because he’s there.” Yoshizò had replied, “Yes, but I know what he will say. An individual thinks for himself and does what’s most reasonable for himself. There’s no other way, is there? . . . That is how he talks, and I’ll get the same answer. He’ll just ignore it.” Yoshizò may have spoken like that because it was difficult to bring up the subject with his older brother. Still, he was not necessarily wrong in saying that about Seikichi. Although Seikichi was their brother, he never said anything to them about what was happening before his eyes. He could not. He had become that kind of person. To have an opinion that might be expressed to others, you have to cherish strong ideals of your own. Or else you have to be a person who settles for shallow views. There were only these two ways. Seikichi no longer held any ideals, and yet he wasn’t so shallow as to raise opinions that were clearly of a superficial nature—especially about man–woman relationships . Seikichi himself knew about husband-wife separation, indeed he had experienced it twice. Not only that, only a year and a half ago he had been dragged into the middle of the marital breakup of a friend closer to him than his brother. It was a terrible experience for him. Recalling the event, he thought often of the words “Made to drink boiling lead.” As a result, he became the laughingstock of his colleagues ; the story was exaggerated; he felt he could never meet that friend again; the wife’s feelings were hard to forget. Somehow, in the two years since he was involved in the event, incredibly, when he looked at himself in the mirror, the hair on his temples was showing white, and a dozen white hairs could be counted in his moustache. . . . Not only the self that was reflected in the mirror. He looked into his heart to see if there at last he hadn’t brought a little order into the confusion , and indeed he did become calm. Before he knew it, though, the feelings became negative, self-complacent, self-centered, irresolute. In his thinking at least, he was determined never, even unconsciously, to blend the lives of others with his own. When he could not fathom his own feelings, how could he understand those of another? He could not speak casually when he was not convinced it was worth the cost of his 168 Stories life. But if he would not give up his life for himself, why should he throw it away for another? To show sympathy for another without committing yourself from the start to life’s greatest sacrifice, that is the origin of error. Sacrifice was out of the question. We can only watch intently as the someone else we are watching either dies or she lives. Thus did Seikichi resolve his stubborn feelings. Because he was like that, he...