A Love Novel

A reception room at the office of a women's magazine.

Editor-in-Chief: A portly gentleman of about forty.

Horigawa Yasukichi: A man of about thirty who, by contrast with the editor's stoutness, looks thinner than thin. In a word, he is impossible to describe. One fact alone is certain: one hesitates to call him a gentleman.

Editor-in-Chief: Would you consider writing a novel for our magazine this time? Readers have become more refined lately, and they no longer seem satisfied with the conventional love story. We would like you to write a serious love novel, one rooted in a deeper understanding of human nature.

Yasukichi: Certainly, I'll write one. In fact, I already have a story in mind that I've been wanting to publish in a women's magazine.

Editor-in-Chief: Is that so? Excellent. If you do write it for us, we'll advertise it heavily in the newspapers. Something like: "A love story of infinite pathos, written by Mr. Horigawa."

Yasukichi: "Infinite pathos"? But my story is called "Love Is Supreme."

Editor-in-Chief: Then it is a celebration of love. All the better. Ever since Professor Kuriyagawa's Modern Love, the hearts of young men and women in general have been leaning toward the doctrine that love is supreme. It is, of course, a modern love story?

Yasukichi: Well, that's debatable. Modern skepticism, modern bandits, modern hair dye, those things certainly exist. But love alone, it seems to me, has not changed much since the age of Izanagi and Izanami.

Editor-in-Chief: That's only true in theory. A love triangle, for example, is one kind of modern love. At least in present-day Japan.

Yasukichi: Ah, a triangle? There is one in my story too. Shall I sketch the plot for you?

Editor-in-Chief: That would be most convenient.

Yasukichi: The heroine is a young wife. The wife of a diplomat. Naturally she lives in a house in Tokyo's uptown district. She is tall and slender, gentle in manner, and always wears her hair... What kind of hairstyle do readers want in a heroine these days?

Editor-in-Chief: An ear-covering style.

Yasukichi: Then we'll give her that. She always wears her hair over her ears. She is fair-skinned, her eyes are clear and bright, and her lips have a slightly distinctive curve. If this were a motion picture, she would be played by Sumiko Kurishima. Her diplomat husband is also a law graduate of the new age, not some stubborn fool out of a melodrama. He played baseball in his student days, and as a hobby he even reads a little fiction. He is a handsome fellow with slightly dark skin. The newlyweds live happily in their uptown house. Sometimes they go to concerts together. Sometimes they stroll along the Ginza. ...

Editor-in-Chief: This is before the Great Earthquake, of course?

Yasukichi: Yes, long before it. Sometimes they go to concerts together. Sometimes they stroll along the Ginza. Or else they sit beneath the electric light in their Western-style parlor, exchanging nothing but silent smiles. The heroine calls this parlor "our nest." Reproductions of Renoir and Cezanne hang on the walls. A piano gleams with its black body polished bright. A potted palm droops its leaves. That sounds rather tasteful, but the rent is surprisingly cheap.

Editor-in-Chief: That sort of explanation isn't necessary. At least not in the body of the novel.

Yasukichi: No, it is necessary. A young diplomat's salary can only stretch so far.

Editor-in-Chief: Then make him the son of a noble family. If he's a nobleman, make him a count or a viscount. For some reason dukes and marquises hardly ever appear in novels.

Yasukichi: Being a count's son would be fine too. At any rate, all that matters is that there is a Western-style parlor. The first chapter will be set there, or on the Ginza, or at a concert. But after Taeko, that's the heroine's name, you see, becomes close to Tatsuo, the musician, she gradually begins to feel a certain uneasiness. Tatsuo is in love with her, the heroine senses that instinctively. And this uneasiness only grows stronger day by day.

Editor-in-Chief: What sort of man is Tatsuo?

Yasukichi: Tatsuo is a musical genius. A genius as though Jean-Christophe from Rolland and Daniel Nothafft from Wassermann had been fused into one. But because he is poor and so on, no one recognizes him yet. I mean to model him on a musician friend of mine. My friend, to be sure, is handsome, but Tatsuo is not. At first glance his face resembles a gorilla's: he is a barbarian from the Northeast. But his eyes alone shine with the spark of genius. His eyes carry a constant heat, like a lump of glowing charcoal. That is the sort of eyes he has.

Editor-in-Chief: A genius is sure to go over well.

Yasukichi: But Taeko is not dissatisfied with her diplomat husband. On the contrary, she loves him even more passionately than before. He, needless to say, trusts her completely. That only intensifies her suffering.

Editor-in-Chief: That is exactly the kind of love I mean when I say modern.

Yasukichi: And every day, as soon as the lights are on, Tatsuo invariably appears in the parlor. If he only came when the husband was there, that would be one thing. But he comes even when Taeko is home alone. In such moments, she has no choice but to make him play the piano. To be sure, even when the husband is there, Tatsuo almost always ends up seated at the piano anyway.

Editor-in-Chief: And eventually they fall in love?

Yasukichi: No, not easily. But one night in February, Tatsuo suddenly begins to play Schubert's "To Sylvia." You know, that song full of passion, like flowing flame. Taeko sits quietly beneath the broad leaves of the palm, listening. Gradually she begins to feel her love for Tatsuo. At the same time she begins to sense before her the rise of a golden temptation. Another five minutes, no, another single minute, and Taeko might have thrown herself into Tatsuo's arms. At that very moment, just as the piece is nearing its end, her husband fortunately comes home.

Editor-in-Chief: And then?

Yasukichi: About a week later, Taeko can no longer bear the anguish and decides to kill herself. But because she happens to be pregnant, she lacks the courage to carry it through. So instead she confesses everything to her husband, that Tatsuo is in love with her. Though in order not to hurt him, she does not confess that she too loves Tatsuo.

Editor-in-Chief: Does it end in a duel or something?

Yasukichi: No. The husband merely coolly refuses Tatsuo entrance when he comes to call. Tatsuo stands there with his lips bitten tight, staring only at the piano. Taeko, standing outside the door, struggles silently to suppress her sobs. Then, less than two months later, the husband suddenly receives official orders assigning him to the consulate in Hankou, China.

Editor-in-Chief: Does Taeko go with him?

Yasukichi: Of course she does. But before leaving, Taeko sends Tatsuo a letter. "I sympathize with your feelings, but there is nothing I can do. Let us resign ourselves and call it fate." That is roughly what it says. From then until the present, Taeko does not see Tatsuo again.

Editor-in-Chief: Then that is the end of the novel.

Yasukichi: No, there is a little more. Even after going to Hankou, Taeko thinks of Tatsuo from time to time. More than that, in the end she comes to think that she truly loved Tatsuo more than her husband. Do you see? Taeko is surrounded by the lonely scenery of Hankou, scenery once sung by Cui Hao of the Tang:

"In the clear river-land stand out the trees of Hanyang, And lush and thick the fragrant grasses of Parrot Isle."

At last, about a year later, she writes Tatsuo once more. "I loved you. I love you even now. Please pity me, who deceived myself." That is the sense of the letter. And when Tatsuo receives it...

Editor-in-Chief: He immediately sets out for China, no doubt.

Yasukichi: That would be impossible. After all, Tatsuo earns his meals by playing the piano at a motion-picture theater in Asakusa.

Editor-in-Chief: That is a little bleak.

Yasukichi: Bleak or not, it cannot be helped. Tatsuo opens Taeko's letter at a table in a shabby cafe on the outskirts. Outside the window the sky has turned to rain. Tatsuo sits staring blankly at the letter. Somehow he feels he can see Taeko's Western-style parlor between the lines. He feels he can see "our nest," with the electric lamp reflected on the piano lid. ...

Editor-in-Chief: It feels a little unsatisfying, perhaps, but in any case it would be a masterpiece of our time. Please do write it.

Yasukichi: Actually, there is a little more.

Editor-in-Chief: What, it still isn't over?

Yasukichi: No. After a while, Tatsuo bursts out laughing. And then, as if disgusted, he starts shouting, "Damn it!"

Editor-in-Chief: Aha, so he goes mad.

Yasukichi: Not at all. He is simply fed up with the whole absurd business. And no wonder. The truth is, Tatsuo never loved Taeko in the slightest. ...

Editor-in-Chief: But then...?

Yasukichi: Tatsuo only went to Taeko's house because he wanted to play the piano. You could say he loved nothing but the piano. Poor as he was, he had no money to buy one himself.

Editor-in-Chief: Even so, Mr. Horigawa...

Yasukichi: Still, back when he could at least play at the picture house, Tatsuo was happier than he is now. Ever since the earthquake, he has been a policeman. During the constitutional protection movement and the like, he has even been beaten up by worthy citizens of Tokyo. Only when, on patrol in the uptown district, he occasionally hears the sound of a piano, he stands outside the house dreaming of a fragile happiness.

Editor-in-Chief: Then your carefully built novel...

Yasukichi: Just listen. All the while, Taeko goes on thinking of Tatsuo in her home in Hankou just as before. No, not only in Hankou. Whenever her diplomat husband is transferred and she moves her temporary home to Shanghai, or Beijing, or Tianjin, she continues to think of Tatsuo exactly as before. By the time of the earthquake, of course, she has become the mother of many children. Let me see, she bore twins after her first child, so that makes four children in all. And on top of that, her husband has somehow become a heavy drinker. Even so, Taeko, grown fat as a pig, believes that the only man who truly loved her was Tatsuo. Love really is supreme, isn't it? Otherwise Taeko could never possibly be so happy. At the very least, she would not be able to keep from hating the muddy mire of life. So, what do you think of a novel like that?

Editor-in-Chief: Mr. Horigawa, are you serious?

Yasukichi: Yes, perfectly serious. Just look at the love stories in the world. Their heroines are either the Virgin Mary or Cleopatra, are they not? But the heroine of real life is not necessarily a virtuous woman, and at the same time not necessarily a harlot either. Suppose even one gullible reader, man or woman, were to take such stories literally. If their love should happen to end happily, that is another matter. But if they should suffer heartbreak, they will inevitably commit some ridiculous act of self-sacrifice, or else display an even more ridiculous spirit of revenge. And they do it while smugly imagining it to be something heroic. My love story, however, has not the slightest tendency to spread that kind of harmful influence. And besides, its ending celebrates the heroine's happiness.

Editor-in-Chief: You must be joking. In any case, there is absolutely no way our magazine could publish such a thing.

Yasukichi: Is that so? Then I'll have someone else publish it. In this wide world there must be at least one women's magazine willing to accept what I have to say.

Proof that Yasukichi's prediction was not mistaken lies in the fact that this dialogue has appeared here.

(March, 1924)