Spring Snow (The Sea of Fertility #1)

by Yukio Mishima

Two members of the Matsugae family, Kiyoaki’s uncles, had been killed. His grandmother still received a pension from the government, thanks to these two sons she had lost, but she never used the money; she left the envelopes unopened on the ledge of the household shrine.

Iinuma was repelled by these frivolous words, by the absence of any sense of responsibility, by the tearful look of rapture in those eyes, by everything.

Kiyoaki and Honda were perhaps as different in their makeup as the flower and the leaf of a single plant.

His still unawakened sensuality lay dormant within him, unprotected as a puppy in a March rain, body shivering, eyes and nose pelted with water.

Honda, on the other hand, had quite early in life grasped where danger lay, choosing to shelter from all storms, whatever their attraction.

the virus of elegance.

And Kiyoaki, like an ant that senses the approaching flood, was experiencing the first intimations of his family’s rapid collapse.

His elegance was the thorn. And he was well aware that his aversion to coarseness, his delight in refinement, were futile; he was a plant without roots. Without meaning to undermine his family, without wanting to violate i...

At the moment nothing interested him. Boating? His father had thought the little green and white boat he had imported from abroad to be stylish. As far as his father was concerned the boat was culture; culture made tangible. But what of it? Who cared about a boat?

Kiyoaki smiled by way of reply. Honda was right. It was not his books that had drained him of energy but his dreams. A whole library wouldn’t have exhausted him as much as his constant dreaming night after night.

The very night before, he had dreamed of his own coffin, made of unpainted wood. It stood in the middle of an empty room with large windows, and outside, the pre-dawn darkness was shading to a deep blue; it was filled with the sound of birdsong. A young woman clung to the coffin, her long black hair trailing from her drooping head, her slender shoulders wracked with sobs. He wanted to see her face but could make out no more than her pale, graceful forehead with its delicate peak of black hair. The coffin was half covered with a leopard-skin bordered in pearls. The first muted glow of the dawn flickered on the row of jewels. Instead of funeral incense, a scent of Western perfume hung over the room with the fragrance of sun-ripened fruit. Kiyoaki seemed to be watching this from a great height, though he was convinced that his body lay inside the coffin. But sure as he was, he still felt the need to see it there by way of confirmation. However, like a mosquito in the morning light, his wings lost all power and ceased beating in mid-air; he was utterly incapable of looking inside the nailed-down coffin lid. And then, as his frustration grew more and more intense, he woke up. Kiyoaki took out his secret journal and wrote all this down.

The hot sun struck the backs of their close-shaven necks. It was a peaceful, uneventful, glorious Sunday afternoon. Yet Kiyoaki remained convinced that at the bottom of this world, which was like a leather bag filled with water, there was a little hole, and it seemed to him that he could hear time leaking from it, drop by drop.

“It’s a beautiful day. In all our lives, we may not have many like this—so perfect,” said Honda, stirred by some premonition. “Are you talking about happiness?” asked Kiyoaki. “I don’t remember saying anything about happiness.”

This instinctive rejection of anyone who showed him affection, this need to react with cold disdain, were a failing of Kiyoaki’s that no one could have known better than Honda,

doctrine of Yuishiki

“You remember that the story is set in Tang China. A man named Yuan Hsaio was on his way to the famous Mount Kaoyu to study the teachings of Buddha. When night fell, he happened to be beside a cemetery, so he lay down to sleep among the burial mounds. Then in the middle of the night he awoke with a terrible thirst. Stretching out his hand, he scooped up some water from a hole by his side. As he dozed off again, he thought to himself that never had water tasted so pure, so fresh and cold. But when morning came, he saw what he had drunk from in the dark. Incredible though it seemed, what had tasted so delicious was water that had collected in a human skull. He retched and was sick. Yet this experience taught something to Yuan Hsaio. He realized that as long as conscious desire is at work, it will permit distinctions to exist. But if one can suppress it, these distinctions dissolve and one can be as content with a skull as with anything else.

“But what interests me is this: once Yuan Hsaio had been thus enlightened, could he drink that water again, secure in the knowledge that it was pure and delicious? And don’t you think that the same would hold true for chastity? If a boy is naïve, of course, he can worship a prostitute in all innocence. But once he realizes that his woman is a slut, and that he has been living an illusion that merely serves to reflect the image of his own purity, will he be able to love this woman in the same way again? If he can, don’t you think that would be marvelous? To take your own ideal and bend the world to it like that. Wouldn’t that be a remarkable force? It would be like holding the secret key to life right there in your hand, wouldn’t it?”

The fundamental doctrine of Hosso Buddhism: all existence is based on subjective awareness.

That rim of blond Cyprus wood had become a frontier where this world ended and another began. Since this ceremony during his fifteenth year was to determine his lifetime fortune, Kiyoaki felt as though his very soul, naked, had been set there on the wet grass.

But still he felt a certain dread. He could not bring himself to look up into the sky at the moon itself, the origin of the image in the water. Rather he kept looking down into the basin and into the water contained by its curved sides, the reflection of his innermost self, into which the moon, like a golden shell, had sunk so deep. For at that moment he had captured the celestial. It sparkled like a golden butterfly trapped in the meshes of his soul.

Yet, he thought, were these meshes fine enough to hold it? Once caught, would the butterfly not slip out soon and fly away? Even at fifteen he feared its loss. His character was already formed, and each of his triumphs would bring this fear in its wake. Having gained the moon, how much then would he dread life in a world without it. The oppression of such fear! Even if this moon aroused nothing but hatred in him.

his father still behaved with the ostentation of a man eager to seem at home abroad, so he was the only one who ate naturally and at ease.

The Marquis and Marquise Matsugae, however, were still looking at one another across the table, their insensitivity blinding them even to something as obvious as their son’s sudden rush of happiness.

The Marquis confronted the classic melancholy of his wife’s face, and she, in turn, the coarseness of his. Features proper to a man of action had become blurred by the ravages of indolent living that spread beneath his skin.

As they walked through the bleak, wintry night, his father was anticipating the moist warmth and intimacy of the rosy flesh that awaited him, while his son’s thoughts turned toward death.

As the Marquis went along elated by the wine and scattering pebbles with the tip of his walking stick, he suddenly turned to Kiyoaki: “You’re not much of one for having a good time, are you? I couldn’t tell you how many women I’d had at your age. Look here, suppose I take you with me next time? I’ll see that there are plenty of geishas there and for once you can kick up your heels. And bring along some friends of yours from school if you want.” “No, thank you.” Kiyoaki shuddered as he blurted this out.

Kiyoaki uneasy. Realizing that the phenomenon was caused by a stray shaft of moonlight coming in through the window, he pulled the curtain all the way open in an abrupt movement. The moon was high in the sky, and its light spilled over the bed. It was dazzling enough to suggest frivolity rather than solemnity. He thought of the cold gleaming silk of Satoko’s kimono. With unearthly clarity he saw her eyes there in the moon, those splendid large eyes which he had seen so disconcertingly close to his own. The wind had died. The burning heat of Kiyoaki’s body could not be explained by the mere warmth of the room, and something like fever seemed to tingle in his earlobes. He threw off the blanket and opened the collar of his nightgown. The fire still burned and seethed under his skin, and he felt that he would find no relief until he took off his nightgown and bared his body to the cold moonlight. Finally, wearied by his thoughts, he rolled over on his stomach and lay with his face buried in his pillow, his naked back to the moon and the hot blood still throbbing in his temples. And so he lay, the moonlight washing over the incomparable smooth white of his back, its brilliance highlighting the graceful lines of his body to reveal the subtle but pervasive hint of firm masculinity that made it clear that this was the flesh not of a woman but of a still immature young man. The moon shone with dazzling brightness on Kiyoaki’s left side, where the pale flesh pulsed softly in rhythm ...

“I told Kri about this dream and said that the temple seemed to be following us to Japan. But he laughed at me and said that what was following me to Japan was not the temple but the memory of something else. He made me angry at the time, but now I’m inclined to agree with him. For everything sacred has the substance of dreams and memories, and so we experience the miracle of what is separated from us by time or distance suddenly being made tangible. Dreams, memories, the sacred—they are all alike in that they are beyond our grasp. Once we are even marginally separated from what we can touch, the object is sanctified; it acquires the beauty of the unattainable, the quality of the miraculous. Everything, really, has this quality of sacredness, but we can desecrate it at a touch. How strange man is! His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles.”

Unlike dreams, reality was not so easy to manipulate.

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.

This tranquil old lady knew that nothing in human affairs could be counted on to turn out precisely as intended.

Iinuma’s eyes glittered like those of a spy caught in a trap; he hung on Kiyoaki’s every word, afraid to utter a sound. When he tried to penetrate the substance of Kiyoaki’s words, he seemed to release in himself a surging flood of anxieties. On the other hand, when he sat there passively, Kiyoaki’s words seemed to bore into his very soul.

Perhaps this unwillingness to acknowledge specific meanings in dreams, and this compulsion for exact description pointed to some deep misgivings of Kiyoaki’s concerning life itself. Compared to the emotional instability he experienced when awake, his dream world seemed far more authentic.

He could never be certain that these day-to-day emotions were part of his true self, but he knew that the Kiyoaki of his dreams, at least, was real.

Kiyoaki’s desk had been empty all morning. Looking at it, Honda experienced the sense of dread of a man whose worst fears are confirmed. The old desk, with its scars under the new varnish, reflected the direct glare of the snow through the window. It made him think of an upright coffin draped in white, the kind used to bury ancient warriors in a sitting position.

“You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about personality lately. Take the times we live in, this school, this society—I feel alien to them all. At least I would like

the matter, all our ideas will be lumped together under the heading, ‘The Thought of the Age.’ Take the history of art, for example: it proves my point irrefutably, whether you like it or not. Each period has its own style, and no artist living in a particular era can completely transcend that era’s style, whatever his individual outlook.” “Does our age have its style too?” “I think I’d be more inclined to say that the style of the Meiji era is still dying. But how would I know? To live in the midst of an era is to be oblivious to its style. You and I, you see, must be immersed in some style of living or other, but we’re like goldfish swimming around in a bowl without ever noticing it. Take yourself: yours is a world of feeling. You appear different from most people. And you yourself are quite sure that you have never allowed your personality to be compromised. However, there is absolutely no way of proving that. The testimony of your contemporaries has no value whatever. Who knows? It may just be that your world of feeling represents the style of this era in its purest form. But then again, there’s no way of knowing.” “Well, then, who does decide?” “Time. Time is what matters. As time goes by, you and I will be carried inexorably into the mainstream of our period, even though we’re unaware of what it is. And later, when they say that young men in the early Taisho era thought, dressed, talked, in such and such a way, they’ll be talking about you and me. We’ll all be lumped...

“So history has a will, eh? It’s always dangerous to try to personify history. As far as I’m concerned, history has no will of its own and, furthermore, it hasn’t the least concern for mine either. So if there is no will whatever involved in the process, you can’t talk about accomplishments. And all the so-called accomplishments of history prove it. They’re no sooner achieved than they begin to crumble away. History is a record of destruction. One must always make room for the next ephemeral crystal. For history, to build and to destroy are one and the same thing.

“But in the long run, all human will is doomed to frustration. It’s a matter of course that things turn out contrary to your intentions. And what conclusion does a Westerner draw from this? He says: ‘My will was the sole rational force involved. Failure came about by chance.’ “To speak of chance is to negate the possibility of any law of cause and effect. Chance is the one final irrationality acceptable to the free will.

Ha

“Without the concept of chance, you see, the Western philosophy of free will could never have arisen. Chance is the crucial refuge of the will. And without it the very thought of gambling would be inconceivable, just as the Westerner has no other way of rationalizing the repeated setbacks and frustrations that he must endure. I think that this concept of chance, of a gamble, is the very substance of the God of Europeans, and so they have a deity whose characteristics are derived from that refuge so vital to free will, namely chance—the only sort of God who would inspire the freedom of human will.

“But what would happen if we were to deny the existence of chance completely? What would happen if—no matter what the victory or the defeat—you had to exclude utterly all possible role of chance in it? In that case, you’d be destroying all refuge of free will. Do away...

“Picture a scene like this: it’s a square at midday. The will is standing there all alone. He pretends that he is remaining upright by virtue of his own strength, and hence he goes on deceiving himself. The sun beats down. No trees, no grass. Nothing whatever in the huge square to keep him company but his own shadow. At that moment, a thundering voice comes down from the cloudless sky above: ‘Chance is dead. There’s no such thing as chance. Hear me, Will: you have lost your advocate forever.’ And with that, the Will feels his substance begin to crumble and dissolve. His flesh rots and falls away. In an instant his skeleton is laid bare, a thin liquid spurts from it, and the bones themselves lose their solidity and begin to disintegrate. The Will still stands with his feet plante...

“But I cannot help trying to conjure up an odious face for this dreadful God, and this weakness is doubtless due to my own bent toward voluntarism. For if Chance ceases to exist, then Will becomes meaningless—no more significant than a speck of rust on the huge chain of cause and effect that we only glimpse from time to time. Then there’s only one way to participate in history, and that’s to have no will at all—to function solely a...

Though now I sweep a little room I will not do so forever Can Kyushu hold my ambition? Can flocks of chattering sparrows Share the eagle’s solitary path?

Ever since Iinuma had lost himself to a woman, Kiyoaki’s power over him had grown immensely. Furthermore—and to Iinuma the injustice of it was baffling—the world would always accept Kiyoaki’s pleasures as charming and natural, whereas it would condemn his own with unflagging severity as sordid, not to say sinful. As he brooded over this, Iinuma’s self-loathing steadily deepened.

Ever since the death of his grandfather, his grandmother, with her masculine shoulders and no-nonsense face, had turned her back on the world completely, and ate little but a handful of rice a day, as though living in anticipation of the death she hoped was soon to come. As it turned out, however, she thrived on this diet.

He liked the word “decline.”

able to show it openly? At this moment he could tell himself without a qualm: “I love her. I’m madly in love with her.” Six years before, he had had all too brief a glimpse of the Imperial Princess Kasuga’s beautiful profile as she turned to glance back at him; it had filled his heart with a hopeless and lingering yearning, but now as Satoko left the pond, she turned her face toward the main house with a graceful movement of the head, and although she was not looking directly at his window, Kiyoaki suddenly felt liberated from that former obsession. In one moment, he had experienced something that surpassed it. Six years later, he now felt that he had recaptured a fragment of time, sparkling and crystalline, from a different perspective. As he watched Satoko walking in the pale watery spring sunshine, she suddenly laughed, and as she did so, he saw her raise her arm in a fluid movement, hiding her mouth behind the graceful curve of her white hand. Her slim body seemed to vibrate like a superb stringed instrument.

“Yes, indeed, sir. I believe one might say so.” “They tell me, Baron, that you spent a good deal of time in London.” “Yes, and in London at tea time the hostess makes a great point of asking everyone: ‘Milk or tea first?’ Though it all comes to the same in the end, tea and milk mixed together in the cup, the English place enormous importance on one’s preference as to which should be poured in first. With them it seems to be an affair of greater gravity than the latest government crisis.”

“My, what a vigorous sort of fellow!” said the Count with a smile. To Satoko, this remark smacked of a vulgar humor uncharacteristic of her father.