spiral mounds; when these were crushed by the blunt impact of Iinuma’s wooden clogs, they shattered into pure, glittering fragments. The morning sun, lying bright and gauzy over the withered brown and green leaves that still clung to the cypresses, shone on his frosty breath rising in the winter air. He felt utterly purified. Incessant birdsong filled the pale blue morning sky. However, despite the stimulation of the cold air briskly striking his bare skin under his open-necked kimono, something wrung his heart with bitter regret: “If only the young master would come with me, just once!”
He had never succeeded in communicating this vigorous, masculine sense of well-being to Kiyoaki. No one could hold him responsible for this failure. To force the boy to accompany him on these morning walks was out of the question, yet Iinuma continued to blame himself. In six years he had not been able to persuade Kiyoaki to participate even once in this “virtuous practice.”
On the flat crest of the small hill, trees gave way to a fairly broad clearing of grass, now brown and dry, through which a gravel path led to the shrine. As Iinuma gazed at it and the full force of the morning sun struck the granite torii in front of it and the two cannon shells to either side of its stone steps, a feeling of self-possession came over him. Here in the dawn, he found a bracing air of purity, free from the stifling luxury penetrating the Matsugae household. He felt as if he were breathing in a new coffin of fresh white wood. Since early childhood, all that he had been taught to revere as honorable and beautiful was to be found, as far as the Matsugaes were concerned, in the proximity of death.
After Iinuma had climbed the steps and taken up his position before the shrine, he saw a small bird, a glimpse of dark red breast, as it hopped about the branches of a sakaki, rustling the gleaming leaves. Then, with a piercing cry, it flew away. A flycatcher, he thought.
He pressed his palms together and, as always, invoked Kiyoaki’s grandfather as “Reverend Ancestor.” Then in silence he began to pray: “Why is our era one of decadence? Why does the world despise vigor and youth and worthy ambitions and single-mindedness? You once cut men down with your sword, you were wounded by the swords of others, you endured the most terrible dangers—all to found a new Japan. And finally, having achieved high office and esteemed by everyone, you died, the greatest hero in a heroic age. Why can we not recapture the glory of your era? How long must this age of the effete and the contemptible endure? Or is the worst still to come? Men think only of money and women. Men have forgotten everything that should be becoming to a man. That great and shining age of gods and heroes passed away with the Meiji Emperor. Will we ever see its like again? A time when the strength of youth will unstintingly give of itself once more?
“In the present day—when places called cafés are springing up everywhere, drawing in thousands of idle people with money to squander, when male and female students behave so shockingly in streetcars that it has become necessary to segregate them—men have lost all trace of that fervor that drove their ancestors to accept the most frightening challenges. Now they are good for nothing but to flutter their effeminate hands like dry, fragile leaves shaken by the merest puff of air.
“Why all this? How did such an age come about, an age which has defiled everything that once was sacred. Alas, Reverend Ancestor, your own grandson, whom I serve, is in every way a child of this decadent era, and I am powerless to do anything about it. Should I die to atone for my failure? Or have things taken their course according to some great design of yours?”
Oblivious to the cold in the fervor of his devotions, Iinuma stood there, a virile figure with his matted chest showing through his open kimono. In truth, he secretly regretted that his body did not
He had never succeeded in communicating this vigorous, masculine sense of well-being to Kiyoaki. No one could hold him responsible for this failure. To force the boy to accompany him on these morning walks was out of the question, yet Iinuma continued to blame himself. In six years he had not been able to persuade Kiyoaki to participate even once in this “virtuous practice.”
On the flat crest of the small hill, trees gave way to a fairly broad clearing of grass, now brown and dry, through which a gravel path led to the shrine. As Iinuma gazed at it and the full force of the morning sun struck the granite torii in front of it and the two cannon shells to either side of its stone steps, a feeling of self-possession came over him. Here in the dawn, he found a bracing air of purity, free from the stifling luxury penetrating the Matsugae household. He felt as if he were breathing in a new coffin of fresh white wood. Since early childhood, all that he had been taught to revere as honorable and beautiful was to be found, as far as the Matsugaes were concerned, in the proximity of death.
After Iinuma had climbed the steps and taken up his position before the shrine, he saw a small bird, a glimpse of dark red breast, as it hopped about the branches of a sakaki, rustling the gleaming leaves. Then, with a piercing cry, it flew away. A flycatcher, he thought.
He pressed his palms together and, as always, invoked Kiyoaki’s grandfather as “Reverend Ancestor.” Then in silence he began to pray: “Why is our era one of decadence? Why does the world despise vigor and youth and worthy ambitions and single-mindedness? You once cut men down with your sword, you were wounded by the swords of others, you endured the most terrible dangers—all to found a new Japan. And finally, having achieved high office and esteemed by everyone, you died, the greatest hero in a heroic age. Why can we not recapture the glory of your era? How long must this age of the effete and the contemptible endure? Or is the worst still to come? Men think only of money and women. Men have forgotten everything that should be becoming to a man. That great and shining age of gods and heroes passed away with the Meiji Emperor. Will we ever see its like again? A time when the strength of youth will unstintingly give of itself once more?
“In the present day—when places called cafés are springing up everywhere, drawing in thousands of idle people with money to squander, when male and female students behave so shockingly in streetcars that it has become necessary to segregate them—men have lost all trace of that fervor that drove their ancestors to accept the most frightening challenges. Now they are good for nothing but to flutter their effeminate hands like dry, fragile leaves shaken by the merest puff of air.
“Why all this? How did such an age come about, an age which has defiled everything that once was sacred. Alas, Reverend Ancestor, your own grandson, whom I serve, is in every way a child of this decadent era, and I am powerless to do anything about it. Should I die to atone for my failure? Or have things taken their course according to some great design of yours?”
Oblivious to the cold in the fervor of his devotions, Iinuma stood there, a virile figure with his matted chest showing through his open kimono. In truth, he secretly regretted that his body did not
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