Iida Dakotsu

One Thursday evening, when I had gone to visit Soseki-sensei, Akagi Kippei happened, for one reason or another, to begin praising Dakotsu over and over. At the time, I was not the sort of person who had ever lined up seventeen syllables in my life. Of course I did not even know Dakotsu’s name. Still, I disliked the idea of not knowing someone so eminent, so I asked for two or three examples of poems by this Iida Dakotsu. Akagi at once rattled off one strange verse after another from memory. But unlike Akagi, I did not think them good at all. To be honest, I even said, “They’re dull.” Whereupon Akagi, who was apt to become heated about anything, instantly crushed me with, “You simply don’t understand haiku.”

At about that same time, I happened to glance through Hototogisu, and there too Kyoshi-sensei was pouring out respect for Dakotsu. A number of his verses were quoted. Even then my opinion of Dakotsu remained negative. I especially disliked the poems that took his wife’s hysteria or something of that sort as their subject. I remember thinking that incidents like that ought to be made into fiction rather than haiku. After that, I forgot all about Dakotsu for a long time.

Before long I too began writing haiku. Then one day, in a saijiki, I came across this verse by Dakotsu:

“Stricken with a fatal illness, how beautiful the nails by the brazier.”

That one poem had the power to transform my whole estimate of Dakotsu. I began paying attention whenever Dakotsu’s name appeared in the miscellaneous verse section of Hototogisu. Naturally, I even plagiarized his manner. Under Dakotsu’s influence I produced things like:

“How lovely the consumptive’s cheeks beneath a winter cap.”

and

“The bride’s white fingers too looked like scallions.”

What was amusing, meanwhile, was that once, after sparring with Akagi about haiku, I casually praised Dakotsu, and Akagi immediately sneered, “So even you have finally acknowledged Dakotsu, have you?” I barely managed to toss the sneer back at him: “Don’t be ridiculous. The one who led me into error was really your recitation.” What I meant was this: when Akagi, whose learning and memory were supposed to be immense, praised Dakotsu, he had, through some lapse of mind, recited the poem

“Taro-leaf dew— the mountain range sets its shadow straight”

incorrectly to me as

“Taro-leaf dew— the mountain range makes its shadows even.”

A year or two later, however, I again drifted away from Hototogisu. Even so, I kept an eye on Dakotsu. Once, when I met a young man who wrote haiku, he told me he had seen Dakotsu at some poetry gathering. At the same time he said, “That fellow Dakotsu is an awfully arrogant man.” Hearing Dakotsu spoken ill of gave me a deeply reassuring feeling. Perhaps that was partly because I myself am perfectly content to be arrogant, and so felt a kinship with him. But there was more to it than that. For various reasons, I had somehow come to feel that haikai poets were, unexpectedly enough, sly creatures very skilled in the arts of getting on in the world. They did not seem like the sort of people who would ever be criticized as “an awfully arrogant man.” For that very reason, it seemed to me that Dakotsu, who was spoken ill of in that way, must be superior to all those who were not.

Now, after several more years have passed, I have suddenly come to exchange letters with Iida Dakotsu — no, not the Dakotsu of old. He is now Mr. Iida Dakotsu. As I had imagined, his handwriting carries an air of brilliance and vigor. Indeed, with a hand like that, he may well be called “an awfully arrogant man” by childish people. Reading Dakotsu’s letters, I felt that same reassuring confidence anew.

“Spring rain — amid it, snow still lies on the mountains of Kai.”

This is one of my recent verses. At the next opportunity I should like to dedicate it to Mr. Dakotsu in Kai Province. Lately, too, I have taken to trying my hand at haiku from time to time, as though remembering an old habit. But the curse of having once drifted away from verse is that I immediately fall into agonized struggling. It seems that the excitement I once felt, when men like Dakotsu spurred me on, will not return. In the end, it appears there is no place for a poor hand like mine to settle except in simply enjoying the making of haiku for its own sake.

“At my own poor house, even the flowers have bloomed — what a pot of bancha tea.”

If I might receive the indulgent smile of my senior, Mr. Dakotsu, I would count myself fortunate.