After the Banquet by Yukio Mishima Read Free Book Online

but the beautician’s usual words of flattery were untrue: the face was definitely not young.
    The funeral service at the Tsukiji Honganji Temple was fairly elaborate. The line of mourners filed past the wreaths. Kazu joined the line after handing to the receptionist her packet of 100,000 yen. She noticed two or three customers of the Setsugoan and nodded to them deferentially. Incense rose in the early winter sunlight with a refreshing fragrance. Most of the mourners were old men, the one directly in front of Kazu giving off a mechanical noise caused by the incessant clattering of his false teeth.
    As the line edged forward it occurred to Kazu that the moment was drawing near when she would see Noguchi, and the thought so unsettled her that she could not keep her mind on anything. Soon afterward the bereaved Mrs. Tamaki came into sight. Her eyes looked forbidding rather than sad, and her gaze, when she lifted her head between deep, polite bows, always seemed to revert to the same fixed point in space, as if it had been jerked back there by a string.
    At last Kazu spied Noguchi. He wore a suit of too tightly fitting formal clothes, a piece of black crepe wrapped around the arm. His chin was raised a little, and his face maintained a supreme impassivity.
    After all the mourners had offered incense Kazu went up to Noguchi and looked squarely into his eyes. He did not so much as blink; he looked at Kazu with no trace of emotion and respectfully inclined his head.
    It cannot be said that these moments at the incense-offering were entirely a disappointment. By a truly absurd process of reasoning Kazu persuaded herself the instant she encountered Noguchi’s expressionless eyes that she was in love with him.
    Immediately on returning to the Setsugoan, Kazu sat down with a brush and old-fashioned Japanese paper, and wrote the following letter.
    Dear Mr. Noguchi,
    I had only a glimpse of you today, but I was pleased to see you looking so well. I shall never forget the lunch to which you so kindly invited me the other day, nor the walk around the pond before it. It has been a long time since I have enjoyed such delightful hospitality. You may wonder perhaps if this is merely the joy that someone who normally entertains other people experiences when she herself for a change is entertained, but I should like very much for you to know how happy your thoughtfulness made me.
    I have, however, one thing to reproach you for. I read in the newspaper about the death of Mr. Tamaki, and was shocked to learn of it, but at the same time I was unable to understand why you failed to telephone me even once. If you will permit me to express myself frankly, you can hardly imagine how impatiently I have been waiting until this day for the sound of your voice. If you had vouchsafed me even one word, to let me know what had happened, it would have served also to show that you had been thinking of me. I cannot tell you how much your silence disappointed me.
    It is not my intent to bore you with tedious complaints, and I hope you will please dismiss this letter as merely an outpouring of impatience from a heart excessively attached to you. I can hardly wait to see you again. It is my reason for living.
    Kazu
    The next day Kazu, present because of social obligations at a dance recital given by some pupils, burst into tears at the opening refrain of Yasuna , “Love, oh love, leave me not in mid-air, love.”
    A little before noon on the day after, she had a telephone call from Noguchi. He spoke quite casually and made not the slightest allusion to the matter about which he had been reprimanded in Kazu’s letter. His voice on the telephone was solemnity itself and completely devoid of humor, but the conversation, though broken by pauses, continued for quite a long time. They promised to meet again. Finally Kazu, unable to restrain herself any longer, asked with a note of asperity, “Why didn’t you yourself let me know what had happened?”
    Noguchi was