Free The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata, Edward G. Seidensticker Page B

dimples.’
    ‘Oh?’ Shingo held the mask at arm’s length. ‘Tanizaki. My glasses, there, please.’
    ‘No, you have it right as it is. They say you’re supposed to hold a No mask a little above eye level with your arms stretched out. It’s actually better for old men like us. And turn it down a little to cloud it.’
    ‘It looks like someone I know. Very realistic.’
    Turning a No mask slightly downward is known as ‘clouding’, explained Suzumoto, because the mask takes on a melancholy aspect; and turning it up is known as ‘shining’ because the expression becomes bright and happy. Turning it to the left or the right, he added, is known as ‘using’ or ‘cutting’ or something of the sort.
    ‘It looks like someone I know,’ said Shingo again. ‘It’s hard to think of it as a child. More like a young man.’
    ‘Children were precocious in those days. And a real child’s face would be wrong for the No. But look at it carefully. It’s a boy. I’m told that the jido is a sprite of some sort. Probably a symbol of eternal youth.’
    Shingo turned the jido mask this way and that as Suzumoto directed. The hair was in childish bangs.
    ‘Why not keep them company?’ said Suzumoto.
    Shingo put the mask on the table. ‘You buy them. You were the one she asked.’
    ‘She actually had five. I bought two women’s masks, and forced one on Unno. I thought you might take the others.’
    ‘So I get the leftovers? You took good care of yourself, buying the women’s masks first.’
    ‘You’d rather have the women’s?’
    ‘What does it matter, now that they’re gone?’
    ‘I can bring them if you want. I’ll save money if you take them. It’s just that I felt sorry for her because of the way Mizuta died, and couldn’t refuse. But she said that these are better made than the women’s masks. And don’t you like the idea of eternal youth?’
    ‘Mizuta is dead, and Toriyama – he looked at them for such a long time at Mizuta’s – Toriyama is dead too. Your masks don’t make a person feel very comfortable.’
    ‘But the jido mask is a symbol of eternal youth. Don’t you like the idea?’
    ‘Did you go to Toriyama’s funeral?’
    ‘I don’t remember why, but I couldn’t.’ Suzumoto stood up. ‘Well, I’ll leave them with you. Take a good look at them. If you don’t like them, find someone who does.’
    ‘Whether I like them or not is beside the point. They are nothing to me. I don’t doubt that they’re good masks, and doesn’t it mean that if I cut them off from the No, I’ll be killing them when I die?’
    ‘You needn’t worry.’
    ‘Are they expensive?’ Shingo asked, as if chasing after him.
    ‘Yes. I was afraid I might forget, and had her write it down. There on the cord. It seems to be about what they’re worth, but I’m sure you can bargain.’
    Shingo put on his glasses and started to untwist the cord; and the moment he could see them clearly the hair and lips of the jido mask struck him as so beautiful that he wanted to cry out in surprise.
    When Suzumoto had left, Eiko came to his desk.
    ‘Isn’t it beautiful.’
    Eiko nodded silently.
    ‘Put it on for a minute.’
    ‘But that would be all wrong. Here I am in foreign clothes.’ When Shingo handed her the mask, however, she put it on and tied the cord.
    ‘Move your head, very gently.’
    Standing before him. Eiko moved her head this way and that.
    ‘Good. Very good.’ The words came of their own accord. Even with so little movement, the mask quite came to life. Eiko had on a russet dress, and her hair sent waves cascading at the sides of the mask, but she had taken on a charm that held him captive.
    ‘Is that enough?’
    ‘Yes.’ Shingo immediately sent Eiko out to buy a reference work on No masks.

3
    The masks carried the names of the makers. The reference book reported that they did not fall into the category of ‘old masks’, from the Muromachi Period, but they were the work of masters of the next age.