Free Kusamakura by Natsume Sōseki Page B

over the place.”
    “Which do you prefer, this village or Tokyo?”
    “There’s no difference.”
    “Doesn’t life feel easier in a quiet place like this?”
    “Easy, difficult—you can make it whatever you want, depending on your state of mind. There’s no point in moving to the land of mosquitoes because you’re sick of the land of fleas.”
    “You could go to a land of neither fleas nor mosquitoes.”
    “If you know such a place, go ahead and show me. Go on,” she persists, leaning closer, “show me!”
    “I’ll show you if you want,” I say, picking up my sketchbook, and I draw—not a picture, since it’s done quite on impulse—just a hasty sketch of a woman on horseback looking at a mountain cherry tree. “Here,” I say, thrusting it under her nose, “come inside this world. There are no fleas or mosquitoes here.” Will she register surprise? Embarrassment? I watch her, certain that she won’t be upset.
    She evades the problem by dismissing it. “What a cramped little world it is!” she exclaims. “It has only length and breadth. You like this sort of two-dimensional world? A crab is what you are.”
    I burst out laughing. The bush warbler that has just begun to call by the eave breaks off his song at the sound and flies away to a farther branch. We both pause in our talk and listen intently for a while, but once interrupted that voice will not easily begin again.
    “You met Genbei on the mountain yesterday, didn’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    “And did you visit the grave of the Nagara maiden on your way here?”
    “I did.”
    “‘As the autumn’s dew that lies a moment on the tips of the seeding grass so do I know that I too must fade and be gone from this brief world,’” she recites swiftly, without any modulation to her voice. I can’t guess what has prompted her.
    “Yes, I heard that poem at the teahouse yesterday.”
    “The old lady told you, did she? She came as a servant to our house originally, you know, before I went off as a . . .” she begins, then casts me a quick glance to see how I’ll react. I feign ignorance.
    “It was while I was still young. Every time she came I’d tell her the story of the Nagara maiden. She could never remember the poem, but eventually she heard it so often that she did manage to memorize it all.”
    “Aha, so that’s it. I must say I wondered how she came to know something so difficult. But it’s a touching poem, isn’t it?”
    “Is it touching? I wouldn’t compose a poem like that, myself. To begin with, how silly to go throwing yourself into a pool.”
    “Yes, I suppose it is, now that you mention it. What would you do?”
    “There’s no question what I’d do. The only thing to do is to have the two men as your paramours.”
    “Both of them?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’re amazing.”
    “There’s nothing amazing about it. It’s perfectly obvious.”
    “Yes, I see—in that case you wouldn’t have to commit yourself to either the flea world or the mosquito world, would you?”
    “One can get by in life without having to think like a crab, after all.”
    At this moment the half-forgotten bush warbler, its full energy restored, bursts out with a startlingly splendid high-pitched call. Hooo-hoKEkyo! Once revitalized, the lilting calls begin to flow forth again seemingly of their own accord. “Body flung upside down,” as the famous haiku has it. 8 The base of its swelling throat atremble, its “small mouth” almost split open with the fullness of its song, as the bird calls again and again.
    Hoo-hoKEkyoo! Hooo-hoKEkkyoo!
    “Now that is real poetry,” she says firmly.

CHAPTER 5
    “Pardon my asking, but I’m guessing you’re from Tokyo, are you, sir?”
    “I look like a Tokyo man, do I?”
    “Look like it? Why, a single glance . . . First off, I can tell just from hearin’ you speak.”
    “Can you tell whereabouts in Tokyo?”
    “Yees, well, Tokyo’s awful big, ain’t it. But I’d make a stab it’s not the downtown