Shibumi

by Trevanian

On their last day, they remained among the cherry trees later than usual, walking slowly along the broad avenue until evening. As light drained from the sky, an eerie gloaming seemed to rise from the ground, illuminating the trees from beneath and accenting the pink snowfall of petals. The General spoke quietly, as much to himself as to Nicholai. “We have been fortunate. We have enjoyed the three best days of the cherry blossoms. The day of promise, when they are not yet perfect. The perfect day of enchantment. And today they are already past their prime. So this is the day of memory. The saddest day of the three . . . but the richest. There is a kind of—solace? . . . no . . . perhaps comfort—in all that. And once again I am struck by what a tawdry magician’s trick Time is after all. I am sixty-six years old, Nikko. Viewed from your coign of vantage—facing toward the future—sixty-six years is a great deal of time. It is all of the experience of your life more than three times over. But, viewed from my coign of vantage—facing toward the past—this sixty-six years was the fluttering down of a cherry petal. I feel that my life was a picture hastily sketched but never filled in . . . for lack of time. Time. Only yesterday—but more than fifty years ago—I walked along this river with my father. There were no embankments then; no cherry trees. It was only yesterday . . . but another century. Our victory over the Russian navy was still ten years in the future. Our fighting on the s...