Vision in Spring
It happened in spring two or three years ago, during a stay back at my home in the country. I was on my way to a little party they were giving at my younger sister’s, in the fishing village, five miles to the east of my birthplace, where she had gone to live on her marriage. I had got a lift on the three-wheeler truck from the lemonade works, and was sitting up next to the driver. My traveling companions, who had been invited with me, were seated on chairs they had put in the back of the truck.
Our Akie, on her marriage to Jirosaku, had gone to live at his home on the hill. I visited the house once when I was a student, and they gave me a meal, killing a young chicken specially in my honour.
Jirosaku was the second son of a landowner. There were many well-off homes in the village on top of the hill, and his was one of them. From the time I was small, I had often seen Jirosaku at Akie’s home. A dandy by nature, he wore his hair parted in the modern style. They said that he never worked without protecting himself from sunburn—not only out in the fields but at home even—by wearing farmer’s mittens and tying a cloth under his chin. He was learning to sew with a sewing machine, an accomplishment rare at the time even among women. Having a taste for the popular story-tellers’ ballads, he had bought a gramophone which he imitated in practicing the melodies; sometimes, too, he would go to the beach and sing them to himself in a loud voice. He was a mild, rather incompetent-looking soul, with a feminine air about him.
After her remarriage to Jirosaku, Akie’s life was enviably easy,“Akie’s done well for herself, she has. ” my grandmother never tired of saying. Our Akie, of course, was just another grandchild to her. The land was almost all let out to tenants, so apart from the vegetable fields there was little farm-work worth speaking of, and no really hard work at all. Being a junior branch of the family with no one besides themselves to worry about, they could do just as they pleased. Their house, newly built, was cozy and comfortable. Having no children either, they had not a care in the world.
She travelled alone, a countrywoman who had never even seen a train; and the journey, first by steamer, then by train, all the way to Tokyo, was enough in itself to discourage her. On arrival, she found herself lodgings in the Kanda district. That very evening, a man who looked like a merchant of some kind—apparently thinking she had run away from home—made an unsuccessful pass at her. She was so scared, she told us afterwards, she didn’t know what to do.
At length she found a gate with the right nameplate—“Shimamura Toshii. ”With a glance up at the two-storeyed house, she stepped timorously into the entrance hall and called to announce her presence. “Is anyone at home? ” A sliding door opened, and out came cousin Umee, wearing an apron. Standing before her in the hall, she saw a countrywoman carrying in umbrella and an old fashioned hold-all.
Akie put up at the Shimamura’s for two years. Every day she donned a formal skirt and went to the sewing school at Hongo. Soon she was frantic. She could just manage, if she attended with all her might, to take in what the teacher said. Of what the teacher wrote on the blackboard, though, she could scarcely understand a letter. She copied the words down into her exercise book stroke for stroke, as the teacher wrote them, and brought them home. She had no idea of how to read them, write them, or of what they meant. It was the same with the actual sewing: in the country she could pass as a needlewoman of sorts, but now she had to start again from the beginning. One could hardly sew fine materials like crepe well when one's hands were coarse and roughened from cracks and chaps.
As soon as Akie had come home and had her meal, Eiko would seat her, without a moment’s breather, before her desk. First she was tested to see what she had learnt at school that day. Racking her brains, she would give the gist of the day’s lessons. Eiko would sit motionless, listening to her painfully laboured account. Whenever something did not make sense, or was inconsistent, she would question her in the minutest detail, tirelessly drumming the right answer into her head. Then Akie had to open her exercise book. Its pages were always covered with an untidy scrawl. However carefully she felt she had written in the classroom, when she finally got home and opened her book one could scarcely make out what she had written.
Some nights this kind of thing happened two or three times over. Sometimes her sleepiness was just too much for her, and she came close to tears. In the dreams she had when she dozed off, she was always back at home—setting off, hoe on shoulder, to work in the fields, or weaving at her loom. Often she would follow up these fleeting dreams in her mind after waking, reflecting ruefully on what she had done. If she had known it would be so hard, she would have done better not to come to Tokyo. How much nicer it would be working at home in the fields, or weaving! But the next moment she would reproach herself for her weakness, clench her teeth, and pull herself together.
It must have been in the spring of 1919 that our Akie, her two years’ studies completed, came home to her husband. Throughout her long absence, he had regularly sent money, waiting patiently alone, his one concern that his wife should acquire education.
Akie looked for a teaching post in some school, and after a year or two’s wait someone found her a job at a primary school in a lonely coastal village round to the cast of Cape Muroto. Though she had a diploma from the sewing school, it was only for the first grade, nor did she have any formal education. Because of this, she could not even become an assistant teacher, but had to be content to act as emergency teacher. For Akie, though, even this was a remarkable rise in the world.
At last the catastrophe occurred. It was two or three months after I had stayed at their house. They were preparing for the autumn sports day at school, and every afternoon there was practice instead of lessons. Akie was one of those in charge of games for the girls. She was doubly keen in teaching them, since it was a fine chance to show the people at home the games she had learnt in Tokyo.
In no time, the three-wheeler in which I sat and left the road up the hill shining in the spring sun, and had entered the part of the village that bordered the highway. Passing beyond the village, we drove along by the shore, where the waves lapped gently on the beach. The hill itself had vanished, yet the vision of the man and woman who climbed it still persisted in my brain. On and on they climbed, never halting. They moved, yet they never reached the top of the slope. Like two puppets manipulated by invisible strings, they went through the motions of climbing, again and again, for ever....
Translated by John Bester
Kanbayashi Akatsuki (1902-1980 ) began writing novels while editor of the review Kaizo. He first won recognition with The Man Who Stole the Rose(Bara Nusuhito), a lyrical work portraying the world of boys. Leaving Kaizo he devoted himself to writing, and gradually gained a reputation as a writer of watakushi-shosetsu, or “I-novels ”—a peculiarly Japanese form describing in detail the author’s own experiences and emotions. The characters in his works are, accordingly, confined to real persons about him—his family, relatives, friends in the literary world, girls in his favorite bars, and so on. His output is small but unique, and he has a faithful if limited following. Other important works are About Father and Mother(Chichi Haha no Ki, 1939), At St. John's Hospital(Sei Yohane Byoin Nite 1946), and Diary of Late Spring (Banshu Nikki, 1946). “At St. John’s Hospital, ” an especially powerful work, deals with the madness and death of his wife.
Vision in Spring (Haru no Saka )made its debut in the author’s anthology Vision in Spring published in 1958 by Chikuma Shobo Publishing Co., Ltd. The following year it received Select Art Award from Ministry of Education. This was his first work after partial paralysis of his body due to his first stroke. One can observe a mature couple lit by a spring sun walking up along a yellow-color flavored hill. Fantasy in the author’s mind gathered the threads of a story of their broken married life. It etched an impressive work reminiscing over a faded sepia photograph. Vision in Spring was translated into English by Japan Pen Club and published in July 1958 (From The Japan P.E.N. News No.3, 1-7, 1958)
**************************************** The Japan P.E.N. Club, in order to preserve them in an archive of modern Japanese culture, is digitizing the English translations of literary works as they appeared in The Japan P.E.N. News (irregular publication dates, July 1958-September 1971) and will publish them at irregular dates online in the Digital Library - International Edition. ****************************************
Our Akie, on her marriage to Jirosaku, had gone to live at his home on the hill. I visited the house once when I was a student, and they gave me a meal, killing a young chicken specially in my honour.
Jirosaku was the second son of a landowner. There were many well-off homes in the village on top of the hill, and his was one of them. From the time I was small, I had often seen Jirosaku at Akie’s home. A dandy by nature, he wore his hair parted in the modern style. They said that he never worked without protecting himself from sunburn—not only out in the fields but at home even—by wearing farmer’s mittens and tying a cloth under his chin. He was learning to sew with a sewing machine, an accomplishment rare at the time even among women. Having a taste for the popular story-tellers’ ballads, he had bought a gramophone which he imitated in practicing the melodies; sometimes, too, he would go to the beach and sing them to himself in a loud voice. He was a mild, rather incompetent-looking soul, with a feminine air about him.
After her remarriage to Jirosaku, Akie’s life was enviably easy,“Akie’s done well for herself, she has. ” my grandmother never tired of saying. Our Akie, of course, was just another grandchild to her. The land was almost all let out to tenants, so apart from the vegetable fields there was little farm-work worth speaking of, and no really hard work at all. Being a junior branch of the family with no one besides themselves to worry about, they could do just as they pleased. Their house, newly built, was cozy and comfortable. Having no children either, they had not a care in the world.
She travelled alone, a countrywoman who had never even seen a train; and the journey, first by steamer, then by train, all the way to Tokyo, was enough in itself to discourage her. On arrival, she found herself lodgings in the Kanda district. That very evening, a man who looked like a merchant of some kind—apparently thinking she had run away from home—made an unsuccessful pass at her. She was so scared, she told us afterwards, she didn’t know what to do.
At length she found a gate with the right nameplate—“Shimamura Toshii. ”With a glance up at the two-storeyed house, she stepped timorously into the entrance hall and called to announce her presence. “Is anyone at home? ” A sliding door opened, and out came cousin Umee, wearing an apron. Standing before her in the hall, she saw a countrywoman carrying in umbrella and an old fashioned hold-all.
Akie put up at the Shimamura’s for two years. Every day she donned a formal skirt and went to the sewing school at Hongo. Soon she was frantic. She could just manage, if she attended with all her might, to take in what the teacher said. Of what the teacher wrote on the blackboard, though, she could scarcely understand a letter. She copied the words down into her exercise book stroke for stroke, as the teacher wrote them, and brought them home. She had no idea of how to read them, write them, or of what they meant. It was the same with the actual sewing: in the country she could pass as a needlewoman of sorts, but now she had to start again from the beginning. One could hardly sew fine materials like crepe well when one's hands were coarse and roughened from cracks and chaps.
As soon as Akie had come home and had her meal, Eiko would seat her, without a moment’s breather, before her desk. First she was tested to see what she had learnt at school that day. Racking her brains, she would give the gist of the day’s lessons. Eiko would sit motionless, listening to her painfully laboured account. Whenever something did not make sense, or was inconsistent, she would question her in the minutest detail, tirelessly drumming the right answer into her head. Then Akie had to open her exercise book. Its pages were always covered with an untidy scrawl. However carefully she felt she had written in the classroom, when she finally got home and opened her book one could scarcely make out what she had written.
Some nights this kind of thing happened two or three times over. Sometimes her sleepiness was just too much for her, and she came close to tears. In the dreams she had when she dozed off, she was always back at home—setting off, hoe on shoulder, to work in the fields, or weaving at her loom. Often she would follow up these fleeting dreams in her mind after waking, reflecting ruefully on what she had done. If she had known it would be so hard, she would have done better not to come to Tokyo. How much nicer it would be working at home in the fields, or weaving! But the next moment she would reproach herself for her weakness, clench her teeth, and pull herself together.
It must have been in the spring of 1919 that our Akie, her two years’ studies completed, came home to her husband. Throughout her long absence, he had regularly sent money, waiting patiently alone, his one concern that his wife should acquire education.
Akie looked for a teaching post in some school, and after a year or two’s wait someone found her a job at a primary school in a lonely coastal village round to the cast of Cape Muroto. Though she had a diploma from the sewing school, it was only for the first grade, nor did she have any formal education. Because of this, she could not even become an assistant teacher, but had to be content to act as emergency teacher. For Akie, though, even this was a remarkable rise in the world.
At last the catastrophe occurred. It was two or three months after I had stayed at their house. They were preparing for the autumn sports day at school, and every afternoon there was practice instead of lessons. Akie was one of those in charge of games for the girls. She was doubly keen in teaching them, since it was a fine chance to show the people at home the games she had learnt in Tokyo.
In no time, the three-wheeler in which I sat and left the road up the hill shining in the spring sun, and had entered the part of the village that bordered the highway. Passing beyond the village, we drove along by the shore, where the waves lapped gently on the beach. The hill itself had vanished, yet the vision of the man and woman who climbed it still persisted in my brain. On and on they climbed, never halting. They moved, yet they never reached the top of the slope. Like two puppets manipulated by invisible strings, they went through the motions of climbing, again and again, for ever....
Translated by John Bester
Kanbayashi Akatsuki (1902-1980 ) began writing novels while editor of the review Kaizo. He first won recognition with The Man Who Stole the Rose(Bara Nusuhito), a lyrical work portraying the world of boys. Leaving Kaizo he devoted himself to writing, and gradually gained a reputation as a writer of watakushi-shosetsu, or “I-novels ”—a peculiarly Japanese form describing in detail the author’s own experiences and emotions. The characters in his works are, accordingly, confined to real persons about him—his family, relatives, friends in the literary world, girls in his favorite bars, and so on. His output is small but unique, and he has a faithful if limited following. Other important works are About Father and Mother(Chichi Haha no Ki, 1939), At St. John's Hospital(Sei Yohane Byoin Nite 1946), and Diary of Late Spring (Banshu Nikki, 1946). “At St. John’s Hospital, ” an especially powerful work, deals with the madness and death of his wife.
Vision in Spring (Haru no Saka )made its debut in the author’s anthology Vision in Spring published in 1958 by Chikuma Shobo Publishing Co., Ltd. The following year it received Select Art Award from Ministry of Education. This was his first work after partial paralysis of his body due to his first stroke. One can observe a mature couple lit by a spring sun walking up along a yellow-color flavored hill. Fantasy in the author’s mind gathered the threads of a story of their broken married life. It etched an impressive work reminiscing over a faded sepia photograph. Vision in Spring was translated into English by Japan Pen Club and published in July 1958 (From The Japan P.E.N. News No.3, 1-7, 1958)
**************************************** The Japan P.E.N. Club, in order to preserve them in an archive of modern Japanese culture, is digitizing the English translations of literary works as they appeared in The Japan P.E.N. News (irregular publication dates, July 1958-September 1971) and will publish them at irregular dates online in the Digital Library - International Edition. ****************************************
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