三十一

At that time I kept using the phrase “human-like.” K said that within this word “human-like” I was hiding all of my own weaknesses. Looking back on it later, indeed K was right. But since I had begun using that word to make K understand the meaning of “not human-like,” my starting point was already one of resistance, and so I had no leisure to reflect upon it. I only insisted all the more upon my own view. Then K asked me just where and what about him I was grabbing onto in calling him “not human-like.” I told him: —You are human-like. Or perhaps you are all too human-like. But with your mouth alone you say things as if you were not human-like. And you try to behave as if you were not human-like.

When I said this, he only answered that perhaps because his own self-discipline was insufficient, to others it might look that way, and he made not the slightest attempt to refute me. Rather than feeling let down for lack of a match, I instead felt sorry for him. I immediately broke off the argument then and there. His tone gradually grew depressed as well. He said with a look of chagrin that if I had known the men of old as he knew them, I would not have made such attacks. The men of old that K spoke of were of course neither heroes nor great warriors. He meant those so-called ascetics who tormented the flesh for the sake of the spirit, or scourged the body for the sake of the Way. K plainly stated that it was truly a pity I could not understand how much he suffered for that very reason.

K and I then went straight to sleep. And starting the next day we returned to the manner of ordinary peddlers, and set out walking while streaming with sweat. But on the road I kept faintly recalling that night. The thought burned in me with regret: such a supreme opportunity had been given to me, yet why had I pretended ignorance and let it pass? I thought I should have spoken to K more directly and simply, instead of using the abstract word “human-like.” To tell the truth, the foundation of that word I had invented was my own feeling toward the young lady; so rather than pouring into K’s ear a theory distilled from the facts, it would surely have been to my advantage to lay bare before his eyes the raw form of the original. That I could not do it — I confess here it was because a certain inertia existed in the intimacy between two men whose fellowship was based on scholarship, and I lacked the courage to decisively break through it. Whether you call it being too pretentious or say it was my vanity that cursed me, it is much the same; but my meaning of “pretentious” or “vanity” is a little different from the ordinary. If only that much conveys to you, I am satisfied.

We returned to Tokyo burned pitch black. By the time we returned, my mood had changed again. The petty reasoning of “human-like” or “not human-like” was almost entirely gone from my head. Nor did K show any appearance of a religious man. Probably in no corner of his heart at that time did any question of spirit this or flesh that dwell. The two of us, with faces like men of a different race, gazed round and round at busy-looking Tokyo. Then we came to Ryōgoku and ate chicken even in the heat. K, carried away by the mood, said he would walk home to Koishikawa. As for physical strength, I was the stronger of the two, so I readily agreed.

When we arrived home, the mistress was startled at the sight of us two. Not only had we turned black, but from walking so relentlessly we had grown terribly thin. Even so, the mistress praised us, saying we looked healthier. The young lady found the mistress’s contradiction funny and laughed again. Even I, who had often been irritated before the trip, felt cheerful at that moment alone. It was probably because of the occasion, and because it had been so long since I had heard it.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”