Evening,” composed about the same time, was also praised by my teacher. I began this sketch by mentioning a headache I got from studying, and then went on to describe how I went out on the veranda and looked at the garden. I gazed entranced upon the quiet scene, the moon shining brightly, the goldfish and the carp swimming about in the pond. When a burst of laughter came from a nearby room where my mother and some other people were gathered, I snapped out of the reverie and my headache was suddenly gone—that’s how the sketch ended.
There wasn’t a word of truth to this. I took the description of the garden from my older sister’s composition notebook. Above all, I don’t remember studying enough to get a headache. I hated school and never read a textbook. I only read entertaining books. My family thought I was studying as long as I was reading something or other.
But when I put down the truth, things always went wrong. When I wrote that Father and Mother didn’t love me, the assistant disciplinarian called me into the teachers’ room for a scolding. Assigned the topic, “What If a War Breaks Out?” I wrote how frightening war could be—worse even than an earthquake, lightning, fire, or one’s own father.4 That’s why I said that I would flee to the hills, at the same time urging my teacher to join me. After all, my teacher was only human, and war would scare him just like it would me.
This time the assistant disciplinarian and the school principal both questioned me. When asked what prompted these words, I took a gamble and said I was only joking. The assistant disciplinarian made a note in his book—Full of mischief! Then a brief battle of wits ensued between the two of us. Did I believe, he asked, that all men were equal? After all, the assistant disciplinarian went on, I had written that my teacher was only human too. I hesitated before replying that, Yes, I thought so. Really, I was slow with my tongue.
If, the assistant disciplinarian continued, he himself was equal to the principal, why didn’t they get the same salary? I thought about that awhile and said, Isn’t it because your work is different?
His thin face set off by the wire frames of his spectacles, the assistant disciplinarian immediately recorded my answer in his book. And then this man whom I had long admired asked whether or not he and I were equal to my own father. That one I just couldn’t answer.
A busy man, my father was seldom at home. Even when he was, he usually didn’t bother about his children. I once wanted a fountain pen like his, but was too afraid to ask for one. After wrestling with the problem, I fell back on pretending to talk in my sleep. Lying in bed one evening, I kept murmuring, Fountain pen ... fountain pen ... Father was talking with a guest in the next room, and my words were meant for him. Needless to say, they never reached his ear, let alone his heart.
Once my younger brother and I were playing in the large family storehouse piled high with sacks of rice when Father planted himself in the doorway and shouted, Get out of here! Get out, you monkeys! With the sunlight at his back, father loomed there like a dark shadow. My stomach turns even yet when I recall how frightened I was.
I didn’t feel close to Mother, either. I was first raised by a nursemaid, then by my aunt. Until the second or third year of grade school, I didn’t really get to know my mother. Some years later, as she lay in her bedding next to mine, Mother noticed how my blanket was moving about. What was I up to? she asked suspiciously. Well, two of the manservants had taught me something, and Mother’s question put me on the spot. I managed to say that my hip was sore, however, and that I was rubbing it. You needn’t be so rough about it, Mother replied. Her voice sounded drowsy. I massaged my hip awhile, without saying anything.
My memories of Mother are mostly dismal ones. There was the time I got my older brother’s suit from the storehouse and put it on. Then, strolling among the flower beds in the garden out back, I hummed a mournful tune that I had made up and then shed a few tears besides. Suddenly I felt that, while wearing this particular outfit, I might try fooling around with the student who did our household accounts. So I sent a maid to call him. He didn’t come, though, even though I waited a long time. In my anxiety I ran the tip of my shoe along the bamboo fence. Finally my patience gave way and, with both fists thrust into my pockets, I let out a wail. When Mother found me, she got me out of that suit and, for some reason or other, gave me a good spanking. I felt utterly ashamed.
Even as a child I wanted to be well dressed. My shirts had to be made of white flannel, and I wouldn’t even wear one unless it had buttons on the cuffs. My undershirt collar must be white too, for I let it show an inch or two above my shirt collar. During the Full Moon Festival5 the students in the village all dressed up in their Sunday best for school. I always chose my flannel kimono with the wide brown stripes for this occasion. Arriving at school, I would glide along the corridor with tiny steps, just like a girl. I made sure no one was around, since I didn’t want people knowing what a fop I was.
Everyone kept saying that I was the ugliest boy in the family. And if they had known how fussy I was about clothes, they would surely have had a good laugh at my expense. I pretended not to care about my appearance, and this seemed to do the trick. I gave the impression of being dull and uncouth, no doubt about it. At mealtime my brothers and I sat on the floor, a tray before each of us. Grandmother and Mother were also present. It was awful hearing them remark over and over how ugly I was.
Actually I was quite proud of myself. I’d go down to the maids’ quarters and ask offhandedly who was the best boy in the family. The girls usually said that my oldest brother was. Then they added that Shūcha—that’s me—was second best. I resented being second, but blushed to hear it all the same. Indeed, I wanted them to say I was better than my oldest brother.
It wasn’t just my looks that displeased Grand-mother. I was clumsy as well. At every meal she cautioned me about holding my chopsticks properly. She even said that the way I bowed made my rump stick out indecently. I had to sit properly in front of her and make one bow after another. No matter how often I tried, she never once complimented me.
Grandmother was a headache for me in other ways too. When a theater troupe came from Tokyo to celebrate the opening of our village playhouse, I went to every performance without fail. My father had built the playhouse, so I always had a good seat for nothing. Each day when I got home from school, I hurriedly changed into a soft kimono. Then I ran off to the playhouse, a narrow chain dangling from my sash with a pencil attached to the end. That’s how I first got to know about Kabuki. While watching the performances, I would shed one tear after another.
Even before this time I had been something of a performer myself. I really enjoyed calling the manservants and maids together and telling old stories or else showing films and slides. After the Tokyo troupe had left, I rounded up my younger brother and my cousins to put on my own show. I arranged three Kyogen pieces for the program—Yamanaka Shikanosuke, The House of the Dove, and a comic dance known as Kappore. The first had a teahouse scene set in a valley, during which Shikanosuke gains a follower named Hayakawa Ayunosuke. Adapting the scene from a text in a young peoples’ magazine, I took infinite pains to cast the words in Kabuki rhythms: “Your humble servant/A man known to the world as/Shikanosuke.” From The House of the Dove, a long novel that I had read over and over (and never without crying), I selected an especially pathetic section to render as a two-act play. Since the Tokyo troupe always ended its program with the entire cast performing Kappore, I decided to include the dance as well.
With five or six days of rehearsing over, we scheduled our first performance for that evening. We had set up the stage on the wide veranda before the library-storehouse, with a small curtain suspended in front. It was still broad daylight when Grandmother came by, but she didn’t notice the wire. When her jaw got caught on it, she cried out, You pack of river bums!6 Stop it! That wire could’ve killed me.
Despite this incident, we gathered ten or so manservants and maids for the evening performance. The memory of Grandmother’s words weighed heavily upon me. While performing
