Kusamakura by Natsume Sōseki Read Free Book Online

other purposes, since the recent lack of guests means the guest rooms haven’t been cleaned. Later, as she leaves after preparing the bedding, she says a gentle, slow “Good night” that has some human warmth to it. But after her footsteps have grown distant and vanished down the twisting corridor, all is hushed and still, and I am uncomfortably aware of the lack of any sense of human presence in the place.
    I have had this experience only once before. It was the time I traveled across Boshu province 1 from Tateyama and followed the coast around on foot between Kazusa and Choshi. One night I stayed at a certain place along the road—I can’t put it any more clearly, since both the name of the area and the name of the inn are now quite forgotten. In fact, I’m not even sure it was an inn where I stayed. It was a high-roofed house, containing only two women. I asked if they could put me up; the older woman said yes, and the younger invited me to follow her. We passed through a number of large, dilapidated rooms to the farthest room, on the mezzanine floor. Having mounted the three steps from the corridor, I was about to enter the room when a clump of bamboo leaning in under the eaves swayed in the evening breeze and brushed its leaves over me from shoulder to head, sending a chill down my spine. The balcony boards were rotting. I observed to the girl that in another year the bamboo shoots would penetrate the balcony and the room would become overwhelmed by bamboo, but her only response was to grin and leave.
    That night I couldn’t sleep for the rustling of the bamboo near my pillow. Opening the screen doors to the balcony, I looked out and discovered that the garden was a sea of grass. I let my eyes travel out over the scene through the bright summery moonlight; the grass flowed on into a great grassy hill beyond, without any intervening hedge or wall. Directly beyond the hill the breakers of the mighty ocean thundered in to menace the world of man. I didn’t sleep a wink until dawn, and as I lay there grimly, hour upon hour inside the eerie tent of the mosquito net, I felt I had strayed into the gothic realm of those popular romantic tales of a previous era.
    I have been on many journeys since then, but never again until this night in Nakoi have I had a similar experience.
    Lying there on my back, I happen to open my eyes and notice hanging above the sliding doors a piece of calligraphy framed in red lacquer. Even from where I lie, I can clearly read the words: “Bamboo shadows sweep the stair, but no dust moves.” 2 I can also make out that the signature seal gives the calligrapher’s name as Daitetsu. Now I am in no way a connoisseur of calligraphy, but I have always loved the style of the Obaku Zen priest Kosen. There’s a lot to be said for the calligraphy of Ingen, Sokuhi, and Mokuan as well, 3 but Kosen’s writing is the most powerful and meticulous. Looking at these seven characters before me now, both the handling of the brush and the flow of the writing hand convince me that it must be the work of Kosen. But this cannot be so, as the signature is Daitetsu. I consider the possibility that there might also have been a priest named Daitetsu in the Obaku sect at that time, but the paper looks far too new. It can surely only be a recent work.
    I turn on my side. Now my eyes take in the painting of cranes by Jakucho that hangs in the alcove. 4 Art being my line of work, I registered this as a superb piece when I first entered the room. Most of Jakuchu’s works have a quite delicate coloration, but this crane is executed with a single defiant brushstroke. The featherlight, egg-shaped body poised jauntily on its single leg has a wonderful rightness to it, and the sense of nonchalant ease continues right down to the tip of the beak. Beside the alcove is a single shelf with a cupboard beyond. What is in the cupboard I cannot tell.
    I slip into a peaceful sleep, into dream.
    The Nagara maiden in her long-sleeved