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Philippe Huneman

Death
Perspectives from the Philosophy of Biology
Philippe Huneman
CNRS/ Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne, Institut d’Histoire et de
Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques, Paris, France

ISBN 978-3-031-14416-5 e-ISBN 978-3-031-14417-2

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14417-2

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2023

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in
any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: © Marina Lohrbach_shutterstock.com

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered
company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham,
Switzerland
“It is exceedingly rare to meet a learned book expertly addressing and
synthesizing three disparate fields. It is even more remarkable when
such a book also tackles a central yet secretive or suppressed topic
about who we are as humans and as living beings. The impressive
scholar Philippe Huneman has delivered such a book: an encyclopedic
volume energetically excavating and fusing the philosophy, history of
science, and evolutionary theory behind a deep and mysterious
question: ‘why death?’. This brilliant book illuminates how our best
Western philosophy and science have contemplated and researched
death, and it also suggests paths forward for future investigations. Let
go of your fears and pick up this extraordinary book!”
—Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther, Professor of Humanities, University of
California Santa Cruz, USA
“Death is such a certainty that most people never really stop to
consider why this must be so. And because there is nothing it is like to
be dead, or at least no way of knowing what it is like, many
philosophers as well have presumed that death is a topic about which
they can have nothing to say. In this very original and creative work,
Philippe Huneman shows us why both of these presumptions are
premature: he offers us nothing less than a rigorous philosophy of
death and dying. Beginning with the debates that emerge out of the
late-18th-century opposition between mechanism and vitalism,
Huneman gives the reader a sweeping tour of modern life science that
moves through the evolutionary synthesis of the 20th century and
recent research in genetics, and concludes with a profound reflection
on the ontology of death as seen from a naturalistic point of view.
Historically and scientifically informed, philosophically rich and
counterintuitive, this book is certain to carve out a new path for future
researchers in the philosophy of biology and related fields.”
—Justin E. H. Smith, University Professor of the History and
Philosophy of Science, Paris City University
“Biology offers few certainties but one of the deepest ones is that all
sexually reproducing organisms die. While evolutionary biologists have
occasionally worried about the meaning of death, mainly by studying
the evolution of ageing processes, philosophers and historians have
until now avoided talk of death. In this marvelous new book Philippe
Huneman changes all that, delving into the history of biological studies
of death and bringing the philosophical discussion up to date with the
current postgenomic age. This book will be essential reading for
philosophers of biology as well as of great interest to historians of
science and biologists.”
—Sahotra Sarkar, Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas at
Austin, USA
Acknowledgements
They say that no man is an island; I don’t know geography enough to
assess this claim, but I know for sure that no book is an island. This one
has been nurtured, nourished and fueled by many books and papers,
but above all, by many discussions with amazing scholars whose
knowledge hopefully percolated within these pages.
I am therefore grateful to:
Friends who read the manuscript and helped me with their precious
comments and suggestions, without which the result would not be of
any interest: Christophe Bouton, Eric Bapteste, Christopher Donohue,
Sébastien Dutreuil, Philippe Jarne, Alice Lebreton Mansuy, Tim Lewens,
Charles Wolfe.
Biologists who were generous enough to let me share some of their
innovative work on death and senescence: Eric Bapteste, Michael Rera,
Pierre Durand.
And the many philosophers and biologists with whom, by
discussing over the years, I have been able to understand slightly better
than I used to do the enigmas of life and death—among them, and even
though they are too numerous to be all mentioned here, let me name
André Ariew, Denis Walsh, Mark Bedau, Frédéric Bouchard, Thomas
Reydon, Hugh Desmond, Robert Richards, Phillip Sloan, Robert
Brandon, Virginie Maris, Sonia Kéfi, Annick Lesne, Alex Rosenberg,
Anya Plutynski, Francesca Merlin, Claude Romano, François Munoz,
Andy Gardner, Minus van Baalen, Régis Ferrière, Silvia De Monte,
Charles Wolfe, Laura Nuno de la Rosa Garcia, Johannes Martens,
Antonine Nicoglou, Arnaud Pocheville, Guillaume Lecointre, Thomas
Heams, Marshall Abrams, Grant Ramsey, Manuel Blouin, Isabelle
Drouet, Michel Veuille, Pierre-Henri Gouyon, Marion Vorms, Thomas
Pradeu, Ariel Lindner, Etienne Danchin, Camille Noû s, and all the
others, including the master and grad students who provided me with
invaluable and fruitful discussions along the years.
And I am not grateful to the current neoliberal research policy that
pervades the whole academic world; all of us, we can think and work
only against it, and in spite of its existence.
The first section of the book has been partly translated from a
French text by Anita Conrade. I am very grateful to her invaluable work.
It was partly based on a book I published in 1998, entitled Bichat: la vie
et la mort (Paris: Puf). Anita Conrade also language checked half of the
rest of the book, as did Hugh Desmond; I was also helped regarding
language issues by Charles Wolfe and Denis Walsh; I’m most grateful to
all of them.
The grant ANR-DFG Gendar “Generalized Darwinism” covered
expenses related to some work done in this book.
This book is dedicated to the memory of my two masters, Gérard
Lebrun and Jean Gayon. I hope that I managed in my work to grasp
some reflections of their philosophical flame, and slightly pursue their
philosophical pathways.

The disciple of a Sufi of Baghdad was sitting in the corner of an

inn one day when he heard two figures talking. From what they
said he realized that one of them was the Angel of Death.
“I have several calls to make in this city during the next three
weeks,” the Angel was saying to his companion.
Terrified, the disciple concealed himself until the two had
left. Then applying his intelligence to the problem of how to
cheat a possible call from death, he decided that if he kept away
from Baghdad he should not be touched. From this reasoning it
was but a short step to hiring the fastest horse available and
spurring it night and day towards the distant town of
Samarkand.
Meanwhile Death met the Sufi teacher and they talked about
various people. “And where is your disciple so-and-so?” asked
Death. “He should be somewhere in this city, spending this time
in contemplation, perhaps in a caravanserai,” said the teacher.
“Surprising,” said the Angel; “because he is on my list. Yes, here it
is: I have to collect him in four weeks’ time at Samarkand, of all
places.”
Tales of the Dervishes, Idries Shah

I reason, we could die—

The best Vitality cannot excel Decay,
But, what of that?
Emily Dickinson.
I have seen the future my friend: it’s murder.
Leonard Cohen.
Contents
1 Introduction:​The Philosophical Riddle of Death, from a
Biological Point of View
1.​1 Philosophy and the Oblivion of Biology
1.​2 Philosophical and Biological Issues
1.​3 What Is Death and What Are Its Criteria?​
1.​4 Gradients of Death, Vital Processes, and Aging
1.​5 The Question “Why Death?​”
1.​6 Overview of the Biological Facts of Death
1.​7 This Book’s Endeavor
1.​8 Who Could Read This Book?​
1.​9 The Book’s Structure
References
Part I How Do We Die? Proximate Causes of Death and the Rise of
Experimental Physiology
2 How Late-Eighteenth-Century Physiologists Understood the
Living World and Their Task
2.​1 Physiology and Mechanism
2.​1.​1 The Mechanistic Conception
2.​1.​2 Georg-Ernest Stahl’s Vitalism:​Opposition to a
Mechanist Worldview
2.​1.​3 Physiology and Classical Natural Philosophy
2.​2 Vitalism
2.​2.​1 Haller and Bordeu
2.​2.​2 The “Animal Economy”
2.​3 Bichat’s Dilemma
References
3 Bichat’s Theories and Their Genealogy
3.​1 The Vitalist Definition of Life
3.​2 Devising Divisions
3.​3 Properties and Tissues
3.​4 Bichat’s Anatomical Method
3.​5 Bichat’s Difficulties
References
4 Physiology in Bichat’s Physiological Researches on Life and Death
4.​1 The First Part:​“Researches on Life”
4.​1.​1 The Particularities of the Animal and Organic Lives
4.​1.​2 Habits, Society, Passions
4.​1.​3 Animal Life and Its Development:​Physiology as a Part
of Natural History of Man
4.​2 Bichat as Anthropologist
References
5 Bichat’s Experimental Physiology in the Recherches (Part 2):
Death as an Epistemic Facilitator
5.​1 Conceptions of Death and Sensibility to Death:​End of a
Dualism
5.​2 Life and Experiments on Death
5.​3 Sequence-Schemata
5.​4 Organs and Functions
5.​5 Interpreting the “Recherches sur la mort”:​A New
Understanding of the Living
5.​5.​1 Physiology, Anatomy, Pathological Anatomy
5.​5.​2 Concepts and Institutions
5.​6 The Specificity of the Living According to the Nascent
Experimental Physiology
 References
6 Life and Death in Experimental Physiology After Bichat
6.​1 François Magendie and Bichat
6.​2 Claude Bernard’s Critiques
6.​2.​1 Critique of Anatomical-Clinical Medicine
6.2.2 The milieu intérieur and the Critique of Vitalism
6.​3 The Novelty of General Physiology According to Claude
Bernard
6.​4 Life and Death in Claude Bernard’s Work
6.​4.​1 The Experimental Approach
6.​4.​2 The Characterization​of Life and Its Relationship to
Death
6.​5 The Two Pathways
6.​5.​1 Creation, Evolution’s Directive
6.​5.​2 Bernard’s Hesitations and the Conflict Between
Morphology and Physiology
6.​6 Conclusion
References
Part II The Ultimate Causes: Why Do We—and All Others
Creatures—Die? And What Should the Answer Do to Philosophy?
7 A Providentialist Metaphysics and the Traditional Economics of
Death:​Mortality and Individuality
7.​1 The Providentialist Metaphysics
7.​2 Providentialist Metaphysics, Individuality, and Death in
Biology:​Darwin and Weismann
7.​2.​1 Biology, Geosciences, and Chemistry:​Using
Providentialist Schemes of Death
 7.​2.​2 Darwinizing the Scheme:​Weismann, Soma, Germen,
and Death
7.​2.​3 Death, Individuals, and the Good of the Group
7.​2.​4 Facing Difficulties of All Sorts
References
8 The Evolutionary Synthesis’ View of Death:​Peter Medawar,
George C.​Williams, and the Riddles of Senescence
8.​1 A Biologist on Selection and What Apparently Resists Its
“Paramount Power”
8.​2 Why Would We Have Sex and Die?​
8.​3 Mutation Accumulation and Antagonistic Pleiotropy:​
Framing the Evolutionary Conception
8.​4 Enters Indirect Natural Selection:​“Antagonistic Pleiotropy”
8.​5 Ecology, Evolution, and Physiology:​The Novel Territory of
the Question About Biological Death
8.​6 Conclusion:​Charting the Shadow of Selection
References
9 Epistemology of Death (1):​Goals and Evidence
9.​1 What Are the Objects of Enquiry?​The Equivocations of
“Aging” and “Death”
9.​1.​1 Senescence
9.​1.​2 Aging, Death, and the Contrast Classes
9.​1.​3 Lifespans and Life History
9.​2 How to Gather Evidence About Death and Senescence?​
9.​2.​1 Humans and Curves
9.​2.​2 Producing Evidence About Death:​Comparisons
References
10 Epistemology of Death (2):​Experiments, Tests and Mechanisms
 10.​1 Producing Evidence About Death:​Two Levels of
Laboratory Experiments (Dietary Restrictions and Genomics)
10.​1.​1 Diet
10.​1.​2 Experiments and Genomics
10.​1.​3 Experiments on Stem Cells and the Role of Intestinal
Epithelium
10.​2 Selection Experiments on Model Organisms and in the
Wild
10.​3 Mechanisms, Evolutionary Processes, Causes:​The
Evidential Structure of Evolutionary Theories of Death and
Senescence and Their Epistemic Issues
10.​3.​1 Death and Irrationality:​A Parallel
10.​3.​2 Diversity of Aging Mechanisms and the Rival
Evolutionary Hypotheses
10.​3.​3 Testing Competing Hypotheses:​The Conundrum
10.​3.​4 Undecidability?​
10.​3.​5 Epistemic Opacity of Death and Senescence
10.​4 A Somewhat Alternative Theory:​Disposable Soma Theory
10.​4.​1 Introducing DST
10.​4.​2 DST:​Trading Reproduction vs Repair vs Growth
10.​4.​3 DST and Other Evolutionary Accounts:​An Attempt at
Characterization​
10.5 Conclusion. The Pluralistic Picture
10.​5.​1 Theory Families, Explanatory Pluralism, and Singular
Developments
10.​5.​2 Being Pluralist About Explanatory Pluralism
References
11 Ontology (1):​The Modern Economics of Death and Its Trade-
Offs
 11.​1 Trade-Offs and Life History
11.​2 The Diversity of the Trade-Offs Underpinning Senescence
11.​2.​1 Trade-Offs, According to Williams
11.​2.​2 Trade-Offs in the Disposable Soma Theory
11.​3 Multiplying and Combining the Types of Trade-Offs
11.​4 What Is Traded?​Currencies, Stochasticity, and Limits of
Trade-Offs
11.​4.​1 Multiple Currencies, Multiple Weights:​Introducing
Stochasticity and Constraints
11.​4.​2 The Commensurability​Issue:​Fitness Trade-Offs and
an Incursion into Community Ecology
11.​5 Fitness as a General Equivalent?​The Roots of Trade-Offs
and Some Epistemic Undecidabilities​
11.​5.​1 Trade-Offs, Fitness, and Time
11.​5.​2 Senescence and Fitness:​Contemplating the Plurality
of Discounting Rates
11.​5.​3 The Logics of Trade-Offs:​The Limits of an Economics
of Death
References
12 Ontology (2) Death Programs and Their Discontents
12.​1 The Disputed Question:​Is There a Death Program?​
12.​2 What Is at Stake?​
12.​3 The No-Program Consensus
12.​4 Aging Programs, Reloaded (1):​Unraveling Apoptosis
12.​5 Aging Programs, Reloaded (2).​Yeast, Bacteria, and Their
Suicides
12.​5.​1 Aging Bacteria
12.​5.​2 Suicide Bacteria
Another random document with
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 “Oh, say give me another coat of soap. It is hurting again.”
“Your skin must be very soft. It is because your beard is too
tough. You must have a shave at least once in three days. If my
shave hurts you, you can’t stand it any where else.”
“I shall do so in future. Or I may have it every day.”
“You are going to stay so long? Do you know that you are running
a risk? I should say, don’t. No good will come out of it. You don’t
know what trouble you will bring upon yourself by getting tangled up
in a silly affair.”
“Why?”
“Ah, Danna, that woman is pretty to look at; but you must know
that she is not right in the head.”
“Why?”
“Why? The villagers all say she is crazy.”
“There must be some mistake about that.”
“No, we have a proof that it is not. Don’t, Danna, it is risky.”
“I am perfectly safe. What kind of proof do you have?”
“Well, it is a queer affair. Light a cigarette and take your time, and
I shall tell.... Will you have a shampoo?”
“No thanks.”
“Let me then shake off the dandruff a little.”
The barber put his ten fingers, which ended in well grown nails,
loaded with goodly deposits of dirt, upon my cranium, and set them
in motion most violently, forward and backward. The formidable nails
ploughed the root of each hair in my head like a rake in the hand of
a giant combing a field of wild grass with the power and swiftness of
a hurricane. I do not know how many hundreds of thousands of hair
there are in my head; I only felt that every one of my capillary
growth was being up-rooted, leaving the skin in wales, in addition to
making the skull and the grey matter of brains vibrate most violently.
So strongly did the man rummage my head.
“How do you feel, now? Wasn’t that good?”
“You went at it pretty lively.”
“Eh? Everybody feels clear in head after my scrub.”
“I feel as if my head is dropping away.”
“You are feeling so tired? It is the weather does it. Spring makes
you feel lazy. Have a smoke. You must feel lonesome, Danna,
stopping alone at Shiota? You must drop in to see me. The Tokyo-
born likes the Tokyo-born. Your talk won’t fall in with others. Does
the O-Jo-san come out to say nice things to you? The trouble with
her is she is all mixed up about right and wrong.”
“You were going to say something about O-Jo-san, and then you
went about scrubbing my head and I felt as it was coming off.”
“That was so. My head is so empty and I skip about so. I was
going to say that the priest fell head over ears in love with her.”
“The priest? What priest?”
“The priestling of Kaikanji, of course.”
“You haven’t said a word about a priest, full-fledged or half
fledged.”
“Haven’t I? I am so hasty, Danna. The priest, that priestling, was
good in looks, of a cast that girls like. This bozu(25) became, I tell
you, smitten by her of Shiota and at last wrote her a love letter....
Wait a bit, did he go at it himself? No, it was, he wrote.... Let me
see.... I am getting mixed up.... No, I am all right, I’ve got it ... so
was in fright and consternation.”
“Who was in fright and consternation?”
“The woman, of course.”
“By receiving the letter?”
 “That would be a saving grace if she were. But she is not of the
kind to get scared.”
“Who was it really, then, that was in fright and consternation?”
“Why, he that spoke to her of his love.”
“I thought he did not go at it personally.”
“Oh, chuck it. It is all wrong. By receiving the letter, can’t you
see?”
“Why then it must be the woman, who was in fright and
consternation.”
“No, the man.”
“If man, then it must be the priest?”
“Yes, the priest, of course.”
“But what scared him so?”
“What scared him? Why, he, the priest, was in the temple
assisting the abbot in the afternoon service. Then all of a sudden,
the woman rushed into the temple.... Lord, she must be off a great
deal.”
“Did she do anything?”
“‘If I am so dear to you, come let us make love before our all
mighty Buddha,’ she said and hugged him by the neck!”
“Ho?”
“Consternation was no word, for poor Taian, the priest. He got all
the shame he wanted by writing to a lunatic, and, disappearing that
night, he died.”
“Died?”
“At least I think he must have killed himself. He could not have
outlived the shame.”
“I don’t know about that.”
 “Maybe he is still living somewhere. Death would not have come
out so well, the other party being a mad woman.”
“Very interesting, indeed.”
“Interesting is no word for it. Why the affair set the whole village
a-roaring with laughter. But the woman, being off her mind, was all
indifference as she still is. All will be well for a man so sober like you,
Danna; but the party being what she is, you don’t know what mess
you will get into, if you try to flirt with her.”
“I have got to be careful, eh? Ha, ha, ha!”
The Spring breeze came lazily wafting from the genially warm
beach, and set the entrance curtain of the barber’s shop flapping
sleepily, and a swallow cast its flitting shadow in the mirror before
me, as it dived under the curtain with its body half turned. Under the
eve of a house on the other side of the road, a sexagenarian sat
squatting on a slightly raised seat, and was busy shelling bivalves in
silence. Every time a small knife went in between shells, a small
flabby lump fell into a basket, and the empty shells were thrown
away, two feet across the gossamer, there adding to the height of a
sparkling heap. Now and again the heap collapsed, sending the
oyster, clam, and other shells down into a small brook, to be buried
forever in its sandy bed. In no time the heap grew again under a
willow tree; but the old man was too busy to think of a life beyond
molluscs; he only went on throwing meatless shells upon gossamer.
His basket seemed to be bottomless and his Spring day endless.
The sandy stream ran under a twelve yard bridge, carrying the
warm water of Spring toward the sea shore. Down where Spring’s
water joined the tide of the sea, numberless fishing nets were drying
in the sun, hanging from erect poles of longer or shorter lengths and
were giving, one might suspect, a fish-smelling warmth to the soft
breeze wafting towards the village through their meshes. And one
saw between them the placid face of the sea, undulating slowly like
molten lead.
 No harmony was possible between this scenery and my barber. If
he were a man of strong personality, strong enough to impress me
as powerfully as the scenery around, I should have been struck with
a sense of great incongruity. Fortunately, however, my man was not
so striking a character. However Tokyo-born, however high-spiritedly
he might talk, he was no match for the all genial and all embracing
influence of nature. My barber has been essaying to break up this all
subjugating power of nature with all his caustic effervescences; but
instead he has been swallowed up and was floating in the light wave
of Spring, not leaving a trace of the loud-talking Tokyo-born barber.
Inconsistency is a phenomenon to be found between persons or
things of equal standing, but possessed of hopeless incompatibility
in strength, spirit or physique. When distance is very great between
the two, inconsistency wears out, and will, instead, assume activity
only as part of a superior power. Thus it happens that cleverness
becomes a willing servant of greatness; the unintelligent of the
clever; and horses and cattle of the unintelligent. My barber is
making a comic exhibition of himself, with the beautiful scenery of
Spring for his background. He who tries to spoil the calm Springy
feeling is only adding to the profundity of that feeling. This man of
very cheap vaporing cannot but prove after all a colour in full
harmony with the Spring afternoon, which is symbolic of
gloriousness.
My man would make rather a good picture, and poetry, too, when
studied in this light, and I stayed talking with him long after my
shave was over, when a small head of a young priest put in an
appearance, slipping in by the entrance curtain and said:
“A shave please.”(26)
The newcomer was a jolly-looking little priest in an old-fashioned
grey cotton clothes, held together by a coil of light but cotton-
wadded belt, under a mosquito-net-like cloak.
“You got a scolding, didn’t you, the other day, for loafing, Ryonen-
san?”
 “No, I was complimented.”
“Complimented for catching minnows on your way to an errand,
were you?”
“The Osho-san praised me, saying: ‘You did well Ryonen, to take
your time in play, young though you are.’”
“That accounts, eh? You have got many swellings in your head.
Too much trouble to shave a bumpy head like this; but I let you off
this time. Don’t come again with a freak of a head like this.”
“Thanks, I shall go to a better barber when my head is in good
shape.”
“Ha, ha, ha, this zig-zag thing has got a tongue to talk with to be
sure.”
“Poor in work, but quite up in boozing, that is what you are, arn’t
you?”
“Poor in work? Say it again....”
“Not I, but it is the Osho-san who says it. Don’t get so mad, if you
know how old you are.”
“Humph, the idea! Isn’t that so Danna?”
“Ya—eh?”
“Priests, they live high above the stone steps, and have nothing
much to look after. That must be what makes them so free in
tongue. Even this little fellow can talk so. There lay down your head
—lay down, I say, do you hear? I will cut you if you don’t do as I tell
you. You understand? The red thing will run.”
“It hurts! Don’t be so rough.”
“If you can’t stand this sort of thing, how can you expect to be a
priest?”
“I am one already.”
 “But not full feathered yet. Oh, say, by the way, how did Taian-
san die?”
“Taian-san is not dead.”
“Not dead? He must be dead.”
“Taian-san has got a new spirit and is now hard at his study at
Taibaiji temple in Rikuzen. Everybody expects he will make a great
priest by and by. A very good thing, indeed.”
“What is good? Priests may have their way; but it cannot be good
even for them to decamp at night? You ought to be careful, you
young one, it is woman who brings you trouble. Speaking of a
woman, does that crazy thing still come to the Osho-san?”
“I have never heard of a woman named ‘Crazy Thing’.”
“You blockhead, tell me, does she come or does she not.”
“No crazy woman comes; but Mr. Shiota’s daughter comes.”
“The Osho-san may be great; but he won’t be able to make
anything of the poor girl. She is possessed by her former husband.”
“That lady is a very worthy woman. The Osho-san speaks highly
of her.”
“That beats all. Everything is topsy-turvy up there, above the
stone steps. Whatever the Osho-san may say, the mad must be mad
—Here now, all shaved. Hurry home and get another scolding.”
“No, not yet. I shall take little more time to get a good opinion of
the Osho-san.”
“Do as you please, you long-tongued brat.”
“Go on, you dry rot.”
“What!”
But the clean shaved head dived under and was on the other side
of the curtain, the Spring breeze softly fanning it.
 CHAPTER VI.
I sat at my desk, as the sun was going down. I had opened wide
all the paper screens and doors of my room. The people of the hotel
are not many, but its building is extensive. My room is far in the
interior, with many turns of passage, separating it from the quarters
inhabited by the not many people of the establishment, and no
sound comes to disturb my thinking. It has been especially quiet
today. I even fancied that the proprietor, his daughter, the young
maid and the man servant had all gone away unknown to me. Had
they done so, they could not, I thought, have gone to an ordinary
place; they must have flown to a land of hazes, or of cloud—so far,
far away that it may be reached only after floating lazily on the sea,
carelessly and too lazy to steer, until drifted to where the white sail
became indistinguishable from cloud or water, and indeed the sail
itself could not tell whether it was the cloud or water. Otherwise they
must have vanished, swallowed up in the spirit of Spring, the
elements of which they are composed returning to an invisible ether,
untraceable in the great expanse of space even with the help of a
microscope. They might have become the lark and flown to where
the evening dusk was deepening into purple, after they have sung
out the golden yellow of the rape flowers. Or else they might be
sweetly sleeping out the world a captive under a fallen camellia
flower, failing to steal its nectar, after having served to draw out
lengthily the long Spring day, by turning into a gad-fly. So quiet was
the day.
The Spring breeze passed freely through the empty house not
necessarily as a duty to those who welcomed it, nor yet out of spite
to those who resented it. It came naturally and went naturally, a
reflection of the impartial universe. With my chin resting in the
palms of my hands, my mind was as free and open as my room, and
the breeze would, uninvited, pass in and out with perfect freedom.
 You think of treading on, and you fear the earth might crack open
under you. You know the sky is hanging over you, and you dread
lightning might flash out and smite you. You are urged that you fail
your manhood unless you assert your antagonism and the world
becomes a place of endless trouble. To him that lives under the
firmament that has its East and West and has to walk on the rope of
interests, true love is one’s enemy and visible wealth dirt. A name
made and honour won may be likened unto honey which wise bees
leave behind by forgoing their sting, after making it appear that they
were manufacturing and sweetening it. The so-called pleasures all
come from love for things and contain in them all kinds of pain.
However, the world happens to have its poet and artist, who feed on
the essence of this world of relativity, and knows the absolute
principle of purity. They dine on heaven’s haze and quench their
thirst with dew. They talk of purple and discuss crimson, and no
regret detains them when death comes for them. Their pleasures are
not to become attached to things, but to become themselves part of
things. When they have become things themselves, they find no
room for their ego though they may explore the remotest confines of
the earth. They rise above worldly dirt and drink full of the
boundless air of purity. These things are said not merely to scare
those saturated with the odor of the lucre of the city, and alone to
pose loftily, but to convey the gospel contained in them and to invite
their brother beings to share in its blessings. To tell the truth, art
and poetry are principles all men are born with. Most people, who,
having counted their summers, are now living their grey winter, will
be able to reawaken their past with its joys of seeing light shining in
them. He who is unable to recall such a memory is one who has
lived a life not worth living.
I do not say that the poet’s joys consist in giving oneself
exclusively over to one thing, or surrendering ourselves solely to
another. He may, at one time enter and become a solitary flower, or
turn into a butterfly at another. Or like Wordsworth become a field of
daffodils, with his heart thrown into confusion by the wind.
Sometimes again he becomes lost in a scene and is unable clearly to
tell what is it that has captured his heart. Some people may call this
being possessed by nature. Others may describe it as the heart
listening to a music of an unstringed harp. Still others may see in it a
lingering in boundless regions or wandering in a limitless expanse,
being unable to know or to understand. Say what they like, they are
perfectly free to do so. I was precisely in this state of mind as I sat
resting half of my weight on my bent elbow that rested on my desk,
with my head perfectly vacant otherwise.
It was unmistakably clear that I was thinking nothing, looking at
nothing. I could not be said to have become or turned into anything,
as there was nothing of striking colours moving within my world of
consciousness. Nevertheless I was in motion. I might not be moving
in the world; but I was anyhow in motion. Not moved by a flower,
not moved by birds, not moved against humanity, still moving as in a
spell.
If I must explain this state of being somehow less oracularly, I
should say that my soul was moving with the Spring. I should say
that an etherial essence, obtained by compounding all the colours,
forces, substances and sounds of Spring into an esoteric electuary,
then by melting it in dews gathered in the land of immortals, and by
finally evaporating it in the sunshine of fairyland, found its way into
my pores before I became aware, and put me into my present state.
Ordinarily an absorption is accompanied by a stimulus, which will
make the process pleasant. In my case, how I came to it was quite
hazy no stimulation accompanying it. Because of this absence of
stimulation, there was something indescribably profound in my joy,
which was quite different from those that are transparent and noisy,
and occasion superficial excitement. Mine might be likened unto a
great expanse of ocean, moving from its unseen fathomless depth
from continent to continent, except that there was not quite as
much active vitality. But I was the more fortunate because of this
deficiency, as the manifestation of great vitality must needs
anticipate its exhaustion some day. There is no such worry in the
normality of things. My mind was presently in a state more airy than
normal and I was not only free from all anxiety that strong activity
might wear out, but I was above the common level of indifferent
normality. By airiness I mean simply elusiveness, and do not imply
any idea of over-weakness. Poets speak of melting airiness or downy
lightness, and the phrase exactly fits the condition I am describing.
I wondered next, how it would work to make a picture of my
fancy. I doubted not for a moment that it would not make an
ordinary picture. An every-day painting is a mere reproduction, on a
piece of silk or canvas of what one sees around, as it is, or else after
filtering it through an æsthetic eye. A picture has done its part,
when a flower looks the flower it is, the water as it reflects in the
eye, and human characters animate as in life. If one is to rise above
this common level, one must let live on the canvas one’s theme, with
touches that utter sentiments exactly as one feels about it. Since the
artists of this order aim at working the special impressions they have
received into the phenomena they have caught, they may not be
said to have produced a picture, unless their brush speaks, at its
every sweep, of those impressions. Their work must bear out their
claim that their manner of perceiving this way and feeling that way
has in no way been influenced by or borrowed from old traditions or
those going before them, but that nevertheless theirs is the most
correct and beautiful. Otherwise they are not entitled to call the
work their own.
Workers of the two classes are one in waiting for definite outside
impulses before they take up their brush, whatever differences there
may be in their depth and in the manner they treat their subjects.
But in my case, the subject I wished to treat was not so clearly
defined. I roused my senses to the highest pitch of wakefulness; but
I looked in vain for a shape, colour, shade, and lines thick and thin,
in the objects without me, to suit my fancy. My feelings had not
come from without; but even if they had, I could not raise my finger
and point at their cause as such distinctly, as they formed no definite
object of perception. All that there were, were only feelings, and the
question was how those feelings might be depicted to make a
picture, nay how I might give them expression so that others might,
by looking at my production, feel as I was feeling as nearly as
possible.
An ordinary picture requires no feeling, but only the object to
reproduce. A picture of a higher order necessitates there existing the
object and feeling; one of the class still higher has nothing for its life
but feelings, and an object that will fit in with such feelings must be
caught to make a picture. But such an object is not easily
forthcoming, and even if it came, it would be no easy work to
arrange it appropriately. Even if arranged successfully, its
presentation would take such a form as would sometimes make it
appear totally different from anything in nature, so much so that it
would make no picture at all for ordinary people. The artist himself
would not recognise that his production represented anything in
existence, but that his was only an attempt to convey, however
fractionally, his feelings at the very moment when his fancy was
aroused. He would consider it a most creditable achievement if he,
after scouring the length and breadth of the country, with not a
moment of forgetfulness, comes suddenly, at the cross roads upon
his lost child and folds it in his arms, not giving time even for
lightning to flash, saying, “Why you were here, my child.” But that is
where the rub comes in. If I can only work out this tone, I shall not
care what others may say of my picture. I shall, with the least
concern, let them say it is not a picture at all. If my combination of
colours, gave expression to my feelings even in part; if the straight
and curve of the lines spoke for a fraction of this spirit; if the general
disposition of the picture conveyed any of the superprosaic thoughts,
I shall not mind if the thing to assume a shape in the picture should
happen to be a horse, or a cow or something neither a horse nor a
cow. No, I shall not mind; but the trouble was nothing would come
forth to fit my fancy. I laid my sketch book open on my desk and
looked down upon it until my eyes almost fell through it. It was
useless.
I laid my pencil aside and thought; thought it was a mistake, to
begin with, that I should have tried to make a picture of abstract
feelings. Men are not so different from one another and there must
have been some who have had the same touch of thought as I have
and must have tried to perpetuate such feelings by some means or
other. By what means I wondered.
Music! The word flashed across my mind. Yes, music must be the
voice of nature, born under such necessity, under such
circumstances. It occurred, for the first time, to me, then, that music
is something that must be listened to and that must be learned.
Unfortunately, I am a perfect stranger to music.
I wondered next if my fancy would not make poetry, and
ventured to step into the third dominion. In my memory, it was an
individual named Lessing, who arguing that the province of poetry
are events that occur conditioned on the passing of time, established
the fundamental principle that poetry and painting are not one but
two different arts. Seen in this light, poetry seems to give little
promise of making anything out of the situation of things, to which I
have been struggling to give expression. The physical condition of
my feeling of joy may have in it the element of time, but does not
consist of an event that progressively developed in the flow of time.
My joy is joyous not because No. 1 goes away and No. 2 comes in its
place, and not because No. 3 is born as No. 2 vanishes. I am joyful
because my joy is felt deeply and retained from the beginning. Say
this in an every-day language, and there will be no need of making a
factor of time. Poetry, like painting, will come of things arranged
separately. Only what scene and sentiment to bring into the poetry,
to portray this expansive and abandoned condition is the question.
Poetry should be forthcoming, in spite of Lessing, so soon as these
factors are caught. Homer and Virgil may be let alone. If poetry be
fit to give voice to a mood, that mood may be painted in words
without being under time restrictions and unaided by an event that
progresses in an orderly manner, as long as the simple spatial
requirements of painting are fulfilled.
The point of my pencil began to move slowly, very slowly at first,
then with more speed on my sketch book and in half an hour I got
these lines:
 “Spring two or three months old,
Sadness is long as sweet young plants.
Flowers fall on the empty garden,
In the soulless hall lies a plain harp.
Immobile the spider in its maze hangs
Winding travels blue smoke up the bamboo beams.”

Reading the six lines over, I thought each of them might make a
picture and wondered why I had not set about drawing from the
first. I discussed with myself why it is easier to poetise than to paint.
Having come so far, I felt the rest ought not to be so very difficult to
follow, though a desire seized me that I should now sing a sentiment
that defied colour and brush. The squeezing my head this way and
that way yielded more lines:

“Not a word uttered sitting alone,

But a small light I see in the heart.
Unwontedly troublesome are human affairs.
Who shall forget this state?
Enjoying one day’s quiet
I know now how I passed hundreds of busy years.
My yearning, where shall I communicate?
Far, far away, in the land of white clouds.”

I read the whole piece over again. It was not so very poor; but as
a depiction of ethereal conditions I had just experienced, I felt
something still wanting. I might try to compose one more piece, and
with the pencil still between my fingers, I happened to look out of
the opened door way of my room to see at beautiful vision flitting
across the three feet space. What could it have been?
I now turned my eyes fully toward the doorway and the vision
had half disappeared behind the screen that stood pushed to one
side. It had apparently been moving before it caught my eyes, and
had now gone out of sight altogether as I stared in amazement
toward it. I stopped composing poetry, and instead I now kept my
eyes fixed on the open space in the doorway.
 The clock had not ticked a full second when the vision returned
from the opposite direction to that which it had disappeared. It was
that of a slim woman in a wedding gown with long sleeves, walking
gracefully along the upstairs verandah of the wing of the hotel,
flanking my room. I did not know why, but the pencil fell from my
fingers, and the breath I was inhaling through my nose stopped of
its own accord. The sky was darkening, as if forewarning one of the
cherry season showers, to hasten the evening dusk; but the gowned
figure kept on appearing and disappearing in the heavily-charged
atmosphere, walking with benign gentleness along the verandah,
twelve yards away from me, overlooking an inner court.
The woman said nothing, nor looked either way. She was walking
so softly that the rustling of her silk gown seemed scarcely to catch
her ears. Some figures—I could not tell what from the distance—
adorned the skirt of her dress, and the figured and unfigured parts
shaded into each other like day into night. And the woman was
indeed, walking in the borderland of night and day.
What mystified me was what made her go so persistently to and
from along the verandah, dressed in her long-sleeved gown. Nor had
I any idea of how long she had been at this strange exercise in her
strange attire. There was, of course, no telling of her purpose. This
figure of a woman, appearing and disappearing across the open
doorway, repeating the incomprehensible movements, could not help
arousing a singular feeling in me. Could it be that she was moved by
her regret for the departing Spring, or how could she be so
absorbed? If so absorbed, why should she be dressed in such finery?
That resplendent obi, that stood out so strikingly in the hue of
departing Spring, lingering at the threshold of gathering dusk, could
it be gold brocade? I fancied the bright ornament, moving backward
and forward, enshrouded in the gray of approaching night, was like
glittering stars in the early dawn of a Spring day; that every second
went out one by one, in this distant depth and then in that of the
vast vault of heavens, vanishing gradually into the deepening purple.
 Another fancy struck me as the door of night was gradually
opening to swallow into its darkness this flowery vision. Super-
nature! this sight of fading away from the world of colours, with not
a sign of regret, nor of struggle, instead of shining an object of
admiration in the midst of golden screens and silver lights. But there
she was with the shadow of darkness closing in on her, pacing up
and down rhythmically, the very picture of composure, and betraying
no disposition to hurry or dismay, but calmly going over the same
ground again and again. If it be that she knew not the blackness
falling upon her, she must be a creature of extreme innocence. If
she knew but did not mind it as blackness, then, there must be
something uncanny about her. Black must be her native home, and
thus may she be resignedly surrendering her visionary existence to
return to her realm of darkness, walking so leisurely between the
seen and unseen worlds. The inevitable blackness into which the
figures adorning her long-sleeves shaded seemed to hint where she
had come from.
My imagination took another turn, bringing before me a vision of
a beautiful person, beautifully sleeping. Sleeping, alive she breathes
herself away into death, without ever awakening. This must break
the heart of those watching anxiously around the bed. If struggling
in pain and agony, the dear ones attending might think it merciful
that death came at once, to say nothing of the wish of the patient to
whom life had become not worth living. But what fault could the
innocent child have been guilty of that she should be snatched away
in a peaceful sleep? To be carried away to Hades while in sleep is
like being betrayed into a surprise and having life taken before the
mind is made up. If death it must be, the dying should be made to
resign to Fate, and one should like to say a prayer or two, yielding to
the inevitable. But if the fact of death alone was made clear, before
its conditions had been fulfilled, and if one had a voice to say a
prayer, one would use that same voice in hallooing, to call, even
forcibly back, the soul that has put one step in the other world. To
one passing away in sleep, it may be hard to have the soul called
back, pulled back, as it were, by the bond of worries of life that
would otherwise break, and that one may feel like saying: “Don’t call
me back; let me sleep.” Nevertheless those around would wish to
call aloud. I thought I might call that woman in the verandah the
next time she came into view, to wake her up from her waking
sleep. But my tongue lost its power of speech no sooner had she
passed the opening like a dream. Without fail, the next time, I
thought. But again she passed and disappeared before I could utter
a word. I was asking myself how this could be, when again she
passed, and appeared not to care a rap that she was being watched
by one who was in a frenzied state of mind about her. She passed
and repassed in a manner that told that one like me had never at all
entered her mind. As I was repeating my “next time” in my mind,
the dark cloud above let down, as if no longer able to hold back, a
screen of fine, soft rain, dismally shutting out the shadow of the
woman.
 CHAPTER VII.
Chilly! With a towel in hand I went down stairs for a warm dip.
Leaving my clothes in a small chamber, four more steps downward
brought me into the bath room which was about eight mats in size.
Stones appeared plentiful, in these parts, the floor of the room being
paved with fine granite, as was also the tank and its walls. The
reservoir which the tank really was, was a hollow in the centre of the
floor, about four feet deep and about as many feet square. This was
a hot spring which contained, no doubt, various mineral ingredients;
but the water in the basin was perfectly clear and transparent, and
tasteless and without odour as well, as some finding its way into the
mouth testified. The spring is said to possess medical virtues, but I
did not know for what kind of ailments, as I have not taken the
trouble to find out. Nor was I subject to any chronic disease, and
this phase of the matter had never occurred to me. Only a line of
poetry that comes to me, every time I take a dip is that of the
Chinese poet Pai Le-tien:

“Soft and warm the water of the spring,

All impurities are cleansed away.”

A mention of a spring awakens in me the pleasant feeling which

this couplet expresses, and I hold that no hot spring deserves to be
called by that name unless it makes one feel that way. This is an
ideal, apart from which I have no demand to make of any hot
spring.
Clear up to a little under my chin the pleasant warm water in the
tank reached and was indeed overflowing beautifully on all sides,
without making it known where it was welling up from.
Resting my head, with face upward, on the back of my hands
which held on to the slightly raised side of the tank, I let my body
rise up to the point of least resistance and I felt my soul float
buoyantly like the jelly-fish. Life is easy in this state of existence. You
unlock the door of prudence and cast all desires to the Four Winds,
and become part of the hot water, leaving it completely to the hot
water to make what it likes of you. The more floating, the less is the
pain to live for that which floats. There will be more blessings than
to have become a disciple of Jesus Christ, for one who lets even
one’s soul float. At this rate, even drowning is not without its
picturesqueness. I have forgotten what piece, but I think I
remember reading Swinburne, where the poet depicts a woman
rejoicing in her eternal peaceful rest. Millais’ “Ophelia,” which has
ever been a source of sentimental uneasiness to me, offers also
something æsthetic, when viewed in this light. Why he should have
chosen so unpleasant a scene has always been a puzzle to me; but
now I saw that it made an artistic production. A form, a figure, a
look, floating in sweet painlessness, as it were, whether on the
surface, or under water or floating and sinking, is indisputably
æsthetic. With wild flowers judiciously sprinkled on the banks and
the water, the floating one, and the floating one’s dress, making a
harmonious and well arranged ensemble of colours, it will without
fail make a picture. But if the floating one’s expression were nothing
but peace itself, the picture would almost make only a mythology or
an allegory, while convulsive pain will, on the other hand, destroy
the whole effect. The expression of a naive and care-unknown face
will not bring out human sentiments. What kind of a face should it
be to be a success? Millais’ “Ophelia” may be a success; but I doubt
that he is one with me in spirit. However, Millais is Millais and I am I;
and I feel like painting a person drowned. But I fancied that the face
that I wanted would not easily come to me.
Buoying myself in the bath, I next tried to make poetry of the
appreciation of the drowned:

“Will get wet in rain,

Will be cold in frost,
Will be dark underground,
 On the wave when floating,
Under the wave when sunk,
Will be painless in warm Spring water.”
It was raining outside, the soft, quiet, warm rain of Spring. The
plaintive “twang,” “twang” of a samisen heard at a distance on a
night like this is a peculiarly appealing sound, and it was catching my
ear, as I was humming my extempore song of the drowned. Not that
I pretend to know anything about this particular instrument of string
music; in fact I am rather dubious about my ear being able to tell
any difference of a higher or lower pitch of the second or third
string. Nevertheless, with a gentle mercy-like rain putting me in this
fame of mind, and even my soul lazily sporting in a delightfully
pleasant warm bath, it gladdened my heart to hear floating music,
with not a shadow of care within or without me.
The samisen awoke in me the long-forgotten memories of my
boyhood days, when I used to go out into my father’s garden and sit
under three pine trees, to listen to O-Kura-san, the fair daughter of a
saké shop on the other side of the street, sing and play a samisen
on calm Spring afternoons.
I was lost in living over again the long past, when the door of the
bath room opened. I thought somebody was coming in. Leaving my
body buoyant, I turned my eyes only toward the entrance. I had my
head resting on that part of the tank which was farthest from the
entrance door, so that my eyes covered obliquely the steps leading
downward, about seven yards away from me. Nothing as yet
appeared before my uplifted eyes: my ears caught only the sound of
the rain dropping from the eaves. The plaintive samisen had stopped
I did not know when. Presently something appeared at the head of
the steps. There was in the room a solitary small hanging oil lamp,
which, even at its best, shed but scanty light, to make things clear in
their colour; but what, with the rain outside shutting in the vapours,
and the whole place filled with a cloud of mist, there could be no
telling who it was coming down.
 The dim figure carried its foot a step down; but one might have
fancied that the step stone was velvety smooth and its stepping so
noiseless that it could not have moved at all. The figure became
clearer in outline, and an artist as I am, my perception of the build
of a body is more accurate than you might have thought, so that,
the moment it came a step down, I knew that I was alone with a
woman in the bath room. The woman came fully in view before me
as I was debating with myself whether I should or should not take
any notice of her. The next moment I was lost to all but a beautiful
vision. The figure gracefully straightened itself to its full height, with
the soft light of the lamp playing about the warm light pink of the
upper regions, over which hung a cloud of dark hair. The sight swept
away from me all thoughts of formality, decorum and propriety, my
only consciousness then being that I had before me a superbly
beautiful theme.
Be the ancient Greek sculpture what it is, every time I see a nude
picture, which modern French painters make their life of, I miss
something in its unuttered power of impression, because of the
voluptuous extremes to which effort is made in order to bring out
the beauty of the flesh. This feeling has always been a source of
mental uneasiness to me, as I could not answer myself exactly why,
pictures of this class looked low in taste, as I think they do.
Cover the flesh, its beauty disappears; but uncovering makes it
base. The modern art of painting the nude does not stop at the
baseness of uncovering; but not content with merely reproducing
the figure stripped of its clothing, would make the nude shoulder its
way into the world of decorum and ceremony. Forgetting that being
wrapped in clothes is the normal state of human life, they are trying
to give the nude all the rights. They are striving to bring out strongly
the fact of being stark-naked, emphasizing the point excessively,
indeed, over-excessively beyond fullness. Art carried to this extreme
debases itself, in proportion as it coerces one who looks at it. The
beautiful begins, as a rule, to look the less beautiful, the more
beautiful it is struggled to make it appear. This is precisely what, in
human affairs, gives life to the proverb, “fullness is the beginning of
waning.”
Care-freeness and innocence generally present something
comfortably in reserve, which latter is an indispensable condition in
paintings as in literature. The great failing of modern art is its
labouring in the mud, which the so-called tide of civilization is
depositing everywhere. The painting of the nude is a good example
of it. In Japanese cities are what are called the geisha, who traffic in
their own beauty. These demi-mondes know not how to express
themselves, but are concerned about how they may look in the eyes
of those who come for their company. The yearly salon catalogues
are full of pictures of the nude, who are like these geisha. They are
not only unable to forget that they are naked, but they are bringing
every muscle of their bodies into full play to show that they are
nude.
Not a trace of all that pertains to this vulgar atmosphere was
about the exquisitely beautiful vision before me. To say “being
stripped of clothes” would be descending to the human level; but
the vision before me was as natural as one called into life in a world
of snow in the age of gods, when there was no clothes to wear, nor
any sleeves to put hands through.
Cloud after cloud of vapour rolled and tumbled in the half
transparent light, and a world of trembling rainbows hung in the
midst of which rose a snow white form, shading upward into mistily
black hair. Oh, that dreamy figure!
The two lines that inwardly met at the neck, slanted gracefully
downward over the shoulders, and bent roundly ending in five
tapering fingers. The plump chest heaving and unheaving sent its
slow undulations downward and a pair of well-shaped feet, that
supported the legs carrying the whole weight of the body, easily
solved the complex problem of equipoise and gravitation, presenting
a unity so natural, so gentle, and so free from constraint that the like
could nowhere else be found.
 Withal this figure stood before me, not thrust to view like the
ordinary nude, but enveloped in an atmosphere that lends mystery
to everything in it; only suggesting, so to speak, the profound
loveliness of its beauty behind a thin veil. A few scales in a spread of
inky cloud, make one see in fancy the horned monster of a dragon
behind the canvas; such is the power of art and spirit behind it. The
vision before me, was perfect, as art would have it in its
atmosphere, geniality and phantasmality. If it be true that painting
carefully six times six, thirty-six scales of a dragon can only end in a
ludicrousness, there is a psychic charm in gazing not too clearly at
the stark nakedness of a body. When the figure appeared before my
eyes I fancied to see in it a heavenly maiden, fled from the moon,
standing hesitatingly, being hard pressed by the chasing aurora.
The figure gradually rose out of the water, and I feared that a
step more would make it a thing of this fallen world. But just in the
nick of time, the black hair shook like a magician’s wand calling for
wind, and the snowy vision swept through the whirling cloud of
steam and flew up the steps to the door-way. A moment later a
woman’s ringing chuckle sounded on the other side of the door,
leaving dying echoes behind in the still quiet of the bath room. The
agitated water of the tank washing over my face, I stood on my feet,
and its waves beat me about my chest. The water overflowed from
the bath with a noise.
 CHAPTER VIII.
I had tea, with a priest named Daitetsu, the abbot of Kaikanji
temple, and a lay-youth of about twenty-four years, as my fellow-
guests, and Nami-san’s father, of course as mine host, in his own
room. Nami-san is the name of the O-Jo-san of Shiota.
The room was one of about six mats, but looked rather small and
narrow, with a large square short-legged rose-wood table in the
centre. The table stood partly on a Chinese rug and partly on a tiger
skin, which together nearly filled the floor of the room. The youth
and I squatted cross-legged on the rug, and the priest and the host
on the skin. There was something undeniably continental in the rug,
with a crazy sort of appearance in its figures, as is the case with
most things Chinese. But that is where their value resides. You gaze
at Chinese furniture and ornaments. You think they are dull or
grotesque; but presently you become conscious that there is in that
dullness or grotesqueness something that has a power of fascinating
you irresistibly, and that is what makes them precious. Japan
produces her art goods with the attitude of a pickpocket; and the
West is large in scale and fine in execution, but inalterably worldly
and practical. A train of thought of some such trend was coursing in
me as I sat down, with the youth sharing the rug.
The tiger skin, on which the priest sat, had its tail stretched out
near my knees, and its head under mine host, who seemed to have
had all his grey hair pulled out of his head and planted in his cheeks
and chin. Whiskers and beard were growing rampantly in a striking
contrast to the shiny smoothness of his uppermost regions. He, the
host, lay on the table tea things, not the paraphernalia for stiff
ceremonial powdered tea drinking, but just for sipping clear green
tea.
 “We have a guest in the house—we haven’t had one for quite a
while—and I thought, we should have a quiet tea party....” said the
old man turning toward the priest.
“Thank you for your invitation. I have not called on you for
weeks, and was thinking I should come down to see you today.” The
priest looked about sixty years old, with a rotund face, that would do
credit to a picture of Bodhidharma in a congenial mood. He seemed
to be a friend of mine host of long standing.
“Is this gentleman your guest?”
Nodding his head in acknowledgment, the old gentleman took up
a kyusu tea-pot and poured—no—permitted a few drops of yellowish
green liquid to trickle, in turns, into four tea cups, producing faint
echoes of pure sweet flavour on my olfactory organ.
“You must feel lonesome, alone in a country place like this?” The
priest began to speak to me.
“Haa,” I answered in a most equivocal sort of way; for a “yes”
would have told a lie; but if I said “no,” it would have required a long
string of explanations.
“No, Osho-san,” interposed my host “this gentleman has come out
here for painting. He is even keeping himself busy.”
“Oh, so, that is good. Of the Nanso school?”
“No, Osho-san,” I replied this time. I thought he would not
understand, if I said oil painting, and I did not say so.
“No”, the old one again took it upon himself to complete
information, “his is that oil painting.”
“Ah, I see, the Western painting, which Kyuichi-san, here works
at? I saw the kind, for the first time, in his production; it was very
beautifully done.”
The young one opened his mouth at length and most diffidently
asserted that “It was a poor affair.”
 “You showed some of your stuff to Osho-san?” asked the old
man. Judging by the tone in which this was said and the attitude
assumed by the old one towards the young, they would seem to be
relatives.
“No, it was only that I was caught painting by the Osho-sama at
Kagamiga Ike pond, the other day.”
“Hum, is that so? Well, here is a cup of tea for you,” said the host,
placing a cup each before his guests. There were a few drops of tea
in, though the cups were quite large. They were dark grey in colour
outside, with a yellowish picture or design on them, delightfully
tasteful, but the name of their maker was quite undecipherable.
“It is Mokubey’s,” briefly explained the old gentleman.
“This is very interesting,” I complimented briefly also.
“There are many imitations in Mokubeys. These have the
inscription; look at the base,” says the host.
I took up my cup and held it towards the semi-transparent shoji.
On the screen was seen a potted “haran” plant casting its shadow
warmly. I looked into the base twisting my head, and saw there
“Mokubey” burnt in diminutively. Inscriptions are not indispensables
for real connoisseurs; but amateurs seem, generally, very sensitively
particular about them. I brought the cup to my lips, instead of
putting it back on the table. Leisurely lovers of real good tea rise to
the seventh heaven, when, drop, drop, they let the correctly drawn
aromatic liquid roll on the tip of their tongues. Ordinarily, people
think that tea is to be drunk; but that is not correct. A drop on your
tongue; something refreshing spreads over it, you have practically
nothing more to send down your throat, except that a delightfully
soothing flavour travels down the alimentary canal into the stomach.
It is vulgar to bring the teeth to service; but pure fresh water is too
light. “Gyokuro” tea is thicker than water, but not heavy enough for
the molar action. It is a fine beverage. If the objection be that tea
robs one of sleep, then I should say “better be without sleep than be
without tea.” In the midst of my usual philosophical musing, the
priest spoke to me again.
“Can you paint in oil on fusuma?(27) If you can, I should like to
have some painted.”
If the priest would have me do it, I may not refuse; but that it
would please him was not at all certain, and I should hate to retire
crestfallen, by having it declared that an oil painting is no good, after
I had spared no labour for its execution.
“I do not think oil paintings will go well on a fusuma.”
“You do not think so? You are probably right. What I have seen of
Kyuichi-san’s production will make me think that it will look perhaps
too gay on a fusuma.”
“Mine is no good. It was an idle piece of work,” says the youth
with a stress on his words, apologetically and abashedly.
“Where is that what-do-you-call-it pond?” I asked the youth for
my information.
“In the hollow of valley just in the rear of Kaikanji temple. It is a
quiet lonely place. That picture.... I took lessons in school ... I just
tried it to while away the time.”
“And that Kaikanji?”
“Kaikanji is the name of a temple in my charge. It is a fine place,
with the sea stretching from right under you. You must come and
see me, while you are here. It is not more than a mile from here.
From that verandah ... there you can see its stone steps.”
“Won’t I make myself unwelcome by calling on you any time to
please myself?”
“Decidedly not; you will always find me in. O-Jo-san of this house
pays me visits quite often. Speaking of the O-Jo-san, O-Nami-san
does not seem to be around, today. Anything the matter with her,
Shiota-san?”
 “Has she gone out? Has she been your way, Kyuichi?”
“No, uncle; we haven’t seen her around.”
“Out on one of her solitary walks, again, perhaps. Ha, ha, ha. O-
Nami-san is pretty strong-legged. A clerical business took me down
to Tonami the other day. About Sugatami bridge I thought I saw one
very like her, and it was she. She almost sprang on me, taking me by
surprise, with one of her outbursts: ‘Why are you dragging along, so,
Osho-san? Where are you going?’ She was in her pair of straw
sandals, with her skirt tucked up. ‘Where have you been in that
attire?’ I asked her. ‘I have been picking marsh-parsley; you shall
have some.’ Saying this, she took out a handful of unwashed mud-
covered plants and pushed it down my sleeve. Ha, ha, ha.”
“That girl did!” said that girl’s father with one of the grimmest of
smiles, and seized the first opportunity to change the topic, by
taking down from rose-wood book case something heavy looking in
a damask silk bag. He informed us that the bag contained an ink-
stone, that once belonged to Rai Sanyo, as one of desk stationeries
most treasured by that famous poet-historian and scholar-
calligrapher of generations ago. This naturally led to a critical
discussion of autographs of Shunsui, Kyohei, Sanyo, Sorai, etc. The
ink-stone brought to view at last drew forth admiration from the
priest, who was infatuated with the “eyes” and the irridescent colour
of the stone. It went without saying that the ink-stone was originally
imported from China.
“A stone like this must be rare even in China, Shiota-san?”
“Yes.”
“I should like to have one like this. May I ask you to get me one,
Kyuichi-san?” ventured the abbot.
“He, he, he, I might be killed before I found one,” retorted the
youth.
“Hoi, I am forgetting, it is no time to talk of getting an ink-stone
and things of that kind. By-the-by, when do you start?”
 “I leave here in a few days, Osho-sama.”
“You should go down to Yoshida, to see him off, old man.”
“I am getting on in years and ordinarily I should excuse myself.
But this time we may part never to meet again, and I am resolved to
go down to see him off.”
“No, uncle, you must not take trouble to go down to Yoshida for
me.”
I now felt sure that the youth was really a nephew of mine host. I
even saw some resemblance between them.
“You must not say so. You should let your uncle see you off. A
river-boat will take him down there in no time. Isn’t that so Shiota-
san?”
“Yes. Crossing the mountain will be some job, but by taking a
boat, though a little detour....”
The youth did not decline this time; but remained silent.
“Are you going to China?” I ventured to ask.
“Yes.”
The monosyllable left me musing that he might not be the worse
for a few more; but I felt no particular necessity to dig, and I held
my peace. I noticed that the shadow of “haran” had changed its
position.
“Well, gentleman, you see the present war—he was formerly with
the colours in one year service—and he has been called out to join
his old regiment.”
My old host volunteered in his nephew’s place to let me
understand that the youth was destined to leave for Manchuria in a
day or two. I had thought that there was only feathered songsters to
listen to, only flowers to see fall, only hot spring to warble forth in
this dreamy land of poetry in a mountain bosom, in peaceful Spring.
Alas, the living world had come crossing the sea and mountain and
oozing into this home of a forgotten tribe, and the time may come
when a small fraction of blood making a crimson sea of bleak
Manchuria may flow from this youth’s arteries. This very youth is
sitting next to an artist who sees nothing worth seeing in human life
but dreaming. He sits so near that the artist may hear his heart
throb. In that throb may be resounding even now, the tide rolling
high in a plain hundreds of miles away. Fate has accidentally brought
these two together in a room, but tells nothing else, nor gives the
reason why.