Kappa

Preface

This is a story told to anyone and everyone by a patient in a mental hospital, Number Twenty-Three. He must be over thirty by now. Yet at first glance he looks every bit a youthful madman. The experiences of his first half of life... no, that does not matter. Clasping his knees in silence, now and then turning his eyes toward the window (outside the barred window stood a single oak tree, with not even a dead leaf on it, spreading its branches against a snowy, clouded sky), he went on at great length with this story before Dr. S, the director, and myself. To be sure, he did not speak without gestures. For example, whenever he said, “I was astonished,” he would suddenly fling his head backward....

I believe I have copied his story with considerable accuracy. If anyone is not satisfied with my transcript, he may visit the S Mental Hospital in XX Village outside Tokyo. Number Twenty-Three, younger than his years, will first bow politely and point to a chair without a cushion. Then, with a melancholy smile, he will quietly repeat this story. Finally... I still remember the look on his face when he finished it. No sooner will he sit upright than he will at once start brandishing his fists and shouting at whoever is there: “Get out! You scoundrel! You too are one of those stupid, jealous, obscene, shameless, conceited, cruel, self-serving animals. Get out! You scoundrel!”

I

It was in the summer three years ago. Like any ordinary traveler, I had a rucksack on my back and was setting out from the hot-spring inn at Kamikochi to climb Mount Hotaka. As you know, the only way to climb Mount Hotaka is to follow the Azusa River upstream. I had already climbed not only Mount Hotaka but Yari-ga-take as well, so I went on up the valley of the Azusa through the morning mist without even taking a guide. Up the mist-covered valley of the Azusa... but that mist showed no sign of clearing, no matter how long I waited. On the contrary, it only grew thicker. After walking for about an hour, I began to think perhaps I should turn back to the inn at Kamikochi. But even to return to Kamikochi, I would have to wait for the fog to lift first. Yet the fog only deepened with every passing moment. “Well, I may as well keep climbing.” Thinking this, I pushed my way through the dwarf bamboo, careful not to lose the valley of the Azusa.

But all that blocked my sight was the same heavy fog. To be sure, now and then I did glimpse, through the mist, the blue-green leaves drooping from the thick branches of giant zelkovas and firs. And there were also grazing horses and cattle that suddenly thrust their faces out before me. But the moment I caught sight of them, they vanished again into the dense and billowing fog. Before long my legs grew tired, and I began to feel hungry as well. On top of that, my climbing clothes and blanket, soaked through with fog, were no ordinary weight. At last I gave in and decided to make my way down toward the Azusa valley, guided by the sound of water rushing against rocks.

I sat down on a rock at the water’s edge and set about eating. I opened a tin of corned beef, gathered dead branches, lit a fire... by the time I had done all that, about ten minutes must have passed. In the meantime the spiteful fog had gradually begun to lift. Gnawing on some bread, I glanced at my wristwatch. It was already past one twenty. But what startled me even more was that some eerie face had briefly cast its shadow across the glass of my round watch. I spun around in surprise. And then... it was at that moment that I saw a kappa for the very first time. On a rock behind me stood exactly the sort of kappa one sees in pictures: with one hand clutching the trunk of a white birch, the other shading its eyes, it peered down at me with obvious curiosity.

I was so dumbfounded that for a while I could not move. The kappa too seemed startled and did not so much as shift the hand above its eyes. Then I sprang up and leapt at the kappa on the rock. At the same instant the kappa fled. Or rather, it must have fled. In truth, no sooner had it darted lightly aside than it vanished somewhere in an instant. More astonished than ever, I looked around through the dwarf bamboo. There it was, half-turned as if about to run, staring back at me from two or three meters away. That in itself was not strange. What did surprise me was the color of its body. The kappa on the rock had been gray all over. But now its whole body had turned green. “Damn you!” I shouted, and sprang at it once more. Of course the kappa ran. For the next half hour I kept chasing it headlong, breaking through the dwarf bamboo and jumping over rocks.

The kappa was swift on its feet, certainly no worse than a monkey. Time and again, in the frenzy of the chase, I nearly lost sight of it. More than once I slipped and fell as well. But when we came beneath a great oak spreading its thick branches, luck was with me: a grazing cow stood directly in the kappa’s path. And not just any cow, but a bull with thick horns and bloodshot eyes. At the sight of it, the kappa gave some sort of shriek and tumbled headlong into a patch of especially tall bamboo grass. I thought, “Got you now!” and rushed after it. There must have been some hole there that I did not know about. For just as my fingertips barely brushed the kappa’s smooth back, I suddenly plunged headfirst into deep darkness. Yet the human mind, even in such a split-second crisis, thinks of absurd things. At the very moment I cried out, I remembered that near the Kamikochi inn there was a bridge called Kappa Bridge. After that... after that I remember nothing. I only recall something like a flash of lightning before my eyes, and at some point I lost consciousness.

II

When at last I came to, I found myself lying on my back, surrounded by a crowd of kappa. What was more, one kappa with thick beak and pince-nez was kneeling beside me with a stethoscope pressed to my chest. Seeing that my eyes were open, he signaled to me to keep quiet, then called out “Quax, quax” to some kappa behind him. At once two kappa came walking up from somewhere carrying a stretcher. Laid on this stretcher, I was borne quietly along for several blocks through a throng of kappa. The town on either side of me looked no different at all from Ginza Street. Beneath rows of giant zelkova trees all kinds of shops had their awnings out, and along the road between the rows of trees several automobiles were driving.

Before long, the stretcher bearing me turned into a narrow side street and was carried into a certain house. As I learned afterward, it was the house of that pince-nez-wearing kappa, a doctor named Chack. Chack laid me on a neat little bed, then made me drink a glass of some clear medicine. I stayed there on the bed and let him do as he pleased. In fact, every joint in my body hurt so badly that I could hardly move.

Chack came to examine me unfailingly two or three times a day. About once every three days the very first kappa I had seen, a fisherman named Bag, also came to visit. Kappa know far more about us humans than we know about them. That is probably because kappa capture humans far more often than humans capture kappa. Even if “capture” is not quite the right word, humans had often come to the land of the kappa before me. What is more, many had spent their entire lives there. Why, you ask? Simply because we are not kappa but human beings, and by virtue of that privilege we can live without working. According to Bag, there was even a young road worker who had come to that country by accident and then married a female kappa and lived there until his death. To be sure, that female kappa was said not only to be the greatest beauty in the country but also supremely skillful at deceiving her road-worker husband.

After about a week, in accordance with the laws of that country, I came to live next door to Chack as a “specially protected resident.” My house, though small, was exceedingly elegant. Of course, the civilization of that country was not very different from the civilization of our human world, or at least from that of Japan. In the corner of the parlor facing the street stood a small piano, and on the walls hung framed etchings. The only inconvenience was that the essential dimensions of the house itself, and of the tables and chairs, were all made to suit the height of kappa, so that I felt as though I had been put into a child’s room.

Toward dusk I would always receive Chack and Bag in this room and learn the language of the kappa. Or rather, not only them. Because I was a specially protected resident, everyone was curious about me, and even Gael, the president of a glass company, who would summon Chack to check his blood pressure every day, used to drop in here as well. But during those first two weeks or so, the one who became closest to me was still that fisherman, Bag.

It was evening on a muggy day. I was sitting across the table in this room from Bag the fisherman. Then, for some reason, Bag suddenly fell silent and stared fixedly at me, opening his large eyes wider than ever. Naturally I found this odd, so I said, “Quax, Bag, quo quel, quan?” In Japanese that means, “Hey, Bag, what’s the matter?” But Bag did not answer. On the contrary, he abruptly sprang to his feet, stuck out his tongue, and even made as if to leap at me like a frog. The thing became so uncanny that I quietly rose from my chair and made to dash for the doorway in a single bound. Fortunately, at that very moment, Doctor Chack appeared.

“Hey, Bag, what are you doing?”

Still wearing his pince-nez, Chack glared at Bag as he said this. Bag seemed thoroughly frightened; touching his head over and over, he apologized to Chack like this:

“I’m terribly sorry. The truth is, I found it amusing how uneasy this gentleman looked, and I got carried away playing a trick on him. Please forgive me, sir.”

III

Before I go any further, I ought to explain what kappa are. They are creatures whose very existence is still doubted. But since I myself lived among them, there can be no room for doubt. As for what sort of creatures they are: they have short hair on their heads, of course, and webs between their hands and feet, much as described in works like Notes on the Water-Tiger. Their height is a little over, or a little under, one meter. According to Doctor Chack, they weigh anywhere from twenty to thirty pounds, though he said that now and then there are giant kappa weighing fifty-odd pounds. In the middle of the head is an oval dish, and that dish seems to grow harder with age. The dish of old Bag, for instance, felt entirely different from that of the young Chack. But the strangest thing of all is probably the color of their skin. Kappa do not have a fixed skin color the way we humans do. Instead, they change to match the color around them. If they are among grass, for example, they turn green like grass; if they are on a rock, they turn gray like rock. Of course, this is not unique to kappa; chameleons do it too. Perhaps kappa have something in their skin tissue akin to the chameleon. When I discovered this fact, I remembered a folkloric record saying that kappa in western Japan are green, while those in the northeast are red. I also recalled how, when I was chasing Bag, he had suddenly disappeared from sight. What is more, they seem to have a very thick layer of fat beneath the skin, for although the temperature in this underground country is comparatively low (on average around fifty degrees Fahrenheit), they know nothing of clothing.

Naturally, every kappa may wear spectacles, carry a case of cigarettes, or have a purse. But since they have a pouch on their belly like a kangaroo, storing such things causes them no special inconvenience. What struck me as funny was that they did not cover even their waists. Once I asked Bag why this custom existed. Bag threw himself back and laughed uproariously for a long time. Then he answered, “I think it’s funny that you hide yours.”

IV

Little by little I learned the everyday speech of the kappa. As a result, I also came to understand their manners and customs. What seemed strangest of all was this topsy-turvy habit of theirs: what we humans regard as serious, they find laughable, while what we find laughable, they take seriously. We humans, for example, take things like justice and humanity very seriously, but the kappa burst out laughing if they hear such words. In other words, their idea of the ridiculous is based on standards entirely different from ours. Once I was discussing birth control with Doctor Chack. At that, Chack opened his mouth wide and laughed so hard his pince-nez nearly fell off. Naturally I was irritated and demanded to know what was so funny. As I recall, his reply was roughly this, though I may have some details wrong. After all, at that time I still did not fully understand the language the kappa used.

“But it’s absurd to think only of the convenience of the parents. It’s far too selfish, really.”

On the other hand, from a human point of view, nothing could be stranger than the way kappa give birth. In fact, some time later I went to Bag’s hut to watch Bag’s wife in labor. When a kappa gives birth, it is much the same as with us humans. Doctors and midwives help with the delivery. But when the time comes, the father puts his mouth to the mother’s genitals as if speaking into a telephone and asks in a loud voice, “Think it over carefully and answer whether or not you want to be born into this world.” Bag too, kneeling there, repeated this question over and over. Then he gargled with the disinfectant solution that was on the table. The child in his wife’s womb, apparently somewhat hesitant, answered in a small voice:

“I do not want to be born. To begin with, my father’s heredity is bad enough with mental illness alone. On top of that, I believe kappa existence itself is evil.”

When Bag heard this answer, he scratched his head in embarrassment. But the midwife present at once thrust a thick glass tube into his wife’s genitals and injected some sort of liquid. His wife then let out a deep breath of relief. At the same time, her once swollen belly shriveled away limply like a balloon with the hydrogen gas let out of it.

Since they are capable of making such replies, kappa children naturally begin walking and talking almost as soon as they are born. According to Chack, there was even a child that gave a lecture on the existence or nonexistence of God on the twenty-sixth day after birth. But that child, he said, died in its second month.

Since I have begun speaking of childbirth, let me mention a large poster I happened to see on a street corner in the third month after I came to that country. Beneath the poster were painted a dozen or so kappa blowing trumpets and brandishing swords. Above them the spiral letters used by kappa, resembling clock springs, were spread across the whole surface. Translated, the writing meant roughly this. Here too I may have some minor details wrong. But at any rate, I had carefully written down word for word what a kappa student named Rapp, who was walking with me, read aloud in a booming voice.

Recruit a hereditary volunteer corps!

Healthy male and female kappa!

To wipe out bad heredity,

marry unhealthy male and female kappa!

Naturally, I told Rapp then and there that such a thing did not happen among us. At this not only Rapp but every kappa near the poster burst into laughter.

“Doesn’t happen? But from what you’ve told me, I should think you do exactly the same as we do. What do you think it means when your sons fall in love with servant girls, or your daughters with chauffeurs? That is all an unconscious effort to wipe out bad heredity. And in any case, compared with the volunteer corps you humans were telling me about the other day, the kind that kill one another for possession of a single railway line, I should think our volunteer corps are far more noble.”

Rapp said this in all seriousness, though his big belly kept rippling with amusement all the while. But far from laughing, I sprang in alarm to seize a certain kappa. I had just noticed that, taking advantage of my distraction, he had stolen my fountain pen. But kappa, with their smooth skin, are not easily caught by us. That kappa too slipped away the instant I grabbed for him and fled at top speed, leaning his mosquito-thin body so far forward it looked as if he would fall.

V

This kappa Rapp took nearly as much care of me as Bag did. But among the things I cannot forget is that he introduced me to a kappa named Tokk. Tokk was a poet among the kappa. That poets wear their hair long is no different there than among us humans. From time to time I used to visit Tokk’s house to relieve my boredom. Tokk lived in an easy, carefree way, always with pots of alpine plants lined up in his narrow room, writing poetry and smoking cigarettes. In a corner of the same room there was a female kappa as well (Tokk believed in free love, so he had no such thing as a wife), knitting or doing something of the kind. Whenever Tokk saw my face, he would smile and say, as he always did, this: (Though a kappa’s smile is not very pleasant. At least at first, I found it rather uncanny.)

“Well, you’ve come. Sit down in that chair.”

Tokk often talked about the life of the kappas, or the art of the kappas. According to what Tokk believed, nothing was more idiotic than the ordinary life of kappas. Parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, all lived by making a sole pleasure of tormenting one another. The family system in particular was more than idiotic; it was idiotic beyond idiocy. One day Tokk pointed out the window and spat out, “Look. Look at that absurd spectacle!”

Out on the street beyond the window was a still-young kappa, trudging along half dead with exhaustion, carrying around his neck seven or eight male and female kappas, apparently his parents and others. But I was impressed by the young kappa’s spirit of self-sacrifice, and instead found myself praising his gallantry.

“Hmph. You’re fit to be a citizen even in this country. Tell me, are you a socialist?”

I naturally answered, “Qua” (which in the kappa language means “yes”).

“Then you must also believe that, for the sake of a hundred mediocrities, one may cheerfully sacrifice a single genius.”

“Then what are you?” I asked. “Someone told me your creed was anarchism, Mr. Tokk, but…”

“Me? I am a superman.”

Tokk declared this proudly.

Tokk had equally peculiar ideas about art. According to him, art submits to no rule whatsoever; it is art for art’s sake. Therefore an artist, before anything else, must be a superman who has gone beyond good and evil. To be sure, this was not Tokk’s opinion alone. Most of the poets among his companions seemed to think the same way. In fact, I often went with Tokk to the Superman Club. Those who gathered there were poets, novelists, playwrights, critics, painters, musicians, sculptors, and artistic amateurs. But every one of them was a superman. They would sit in a brightly lit salon, chatting cheerfully. More than that, from time to time they would smugly display just how superhuman they were.

For example, one sculptor, in between large potted ferns, had seized a young kappa and was busily amusing himself with pederasty. A certain female novelist stood up on top of a table and proceeded to drink sixty bottles of absinthe. To be sure, the moment she finished the sixtieth bottle she toppled under the table and died on the spot.

One fine moonlit night I came back from the Superman Club arm in arm with the poet Tokk. More than usual, he seemed sunk in thought and did not speak a word. As we walked, we passed a small window lit by firelight. Beyond it sat what looked like a husband and wife, two kappas, together with three kappa children at a supper table. At that Tokk sighed, then suddenly said to me:

“I think of myself as a lover in the superhuman style, and yet when I see a household like that, I still feel envy.”

“But however you look at it, don’t you think that’s a contradiction?”

Tokk, however, stood there under the moonlight with his arms folded, gazing fixedly through that little window at the supper table of those five peaceful kappas. Then after a while he replied:

“Whatever else you may say, that omelet there is more hygienic than love.”

6

In fact, the love affairs of kappas differ greatly in character from our human ones. The moment a female kappa spots a male she wants, she will stop at no means whatever to catch him. The most straightforward kind of female kappa simply charges after the male headlong. I myself have seen female kappas chasing male kappas like mad. Nor is that all. Not only the young female kappa herself, but even her parents and brothers join in the chase. It is the male kappas who are pitiable. After all, even if one runs himself ragged and by good luck avoids being caught, he will still take to bed for two or three months afterward.

One day I was at home reading a volume of Tokk’s poems when that student called Rapp came rushing in. The moment he tumbled into my house, he collapsed on the floor and gasped out in broken breaths:

“It’s awful! She finally got her arms around me!”

I instantly threw down the book and bolted the door. But when I peered through the keyhole, there was still a short female kappa wandering outside, her face smeared with sulfur powder. From that day on, Rapp lay on my bed for several weeks. And before long his beak rotted away completely and fell off.

Still, there are also cases in which a male kappa chases a female with all his might. But the truth is that the female has maneuvered matters so that he cannot help chasing her. I have seen male kappas pursuing females like lunatics as well. As the female runs away, she will from time to time deliberately stop, or drop to all fours for display. Then, just when the moment is right, she lets herself be caught with an air of easy disappointment. The male kappa I saw fell with the female in his arms and lay there for a while. But when at last he got up, he wore such a pitiable expression, whether it was disappointment or regret or something impossible to name, that I could not help feeling sorry for him.

But that was still not the worst of it. I once saw a small male kappa chasing a female. The female was making her usual seductive flight. Then from the town up ahead a large male kappa came striding along, snorting through his nose. Catching sight of him by chance, the female suddenly screamed in a shrill voice, “Help! Help! That kappa is trying to kill me!” Naturally the large male at once seized the smaller one and twisted him down into the middle of the street. The small kappa clutched at the air two or three times with his webbed hands, and then died. But by then the female, grinning all over, had already flung herself tightly around the big kappa’s neck.

Every male kappa I knew, without exception, had been chased by females. Even Bagg, who had a wife and children, was chased all the same. Indeed, he was caught two or three times. The only exception was a philosopher named Magg, a kappa who lived next door to that poet Tokk. He had never once been caught. Partly, no doubt, because few kappas were as ugly as Magg; but partly also because Magg hardly ever showed his face in the street and stayed at home all the time. I sometimes went to visit Magg at his house and talk with him. He was always in a dim room, with a seven-colored glass lantern burning, seated at a high desk and reading nothing but thick books. One time I discussed kappa love with him.

“Why doesn’t the government clamp down more strictly on female kappas chasing the males?”

“For one thing, because there are so few female officials. Female kappas are even more jealous than males. If only the number of female officials increased, male kappas would surely be able to live with less fear of pursuit than they do now. Still, even that effect would be limited. Do you know why? Because even among officials, female kappas chase the males.”

“Then living as you do must be the happiest way.”

At that Magg rose from his chair, took both my hands in his, and said with a sigh:

“You are not one of us kappas, so naturally you cannot understand. But even I, at times, feel the urge to be chased by one of those terrifying females.”

7

I also went to concerts many times with the poet Tokk. The one I still cannot forget was the third concert I attended. The appearance of the hall itself was not very different from one in Japan. On the tiered seats sat three or four hundred male and female kappas, all holding programs and listening intently. At this third concert I was seated in the front row not only with Tokk and Tokk’s female companion, but also with the philosopher Magg.

Then, after a cello solo ended, a strangely narrow-eyed kappa came casually up onto the platform carrying a score. As the program informed us, this was the famous composer Craback. As the program informed us, yes, though I did not need the program to know it. Craback was a member of the Superman Club to which Tokk belonged, and I knew him at least by sight.

“Lied — Craback”

(The programs in that country too were usually printed in German.)

In the midst of loud applause, Craback gave us a brief bow and quietly walked to the piano. Then, still quite casually, he began to play one of his own lieder. According to Tokk, Craback was a genius without equal among all the musicians that country had ever produced. Naturally I was interested in Craback’s music, but also in his lyric poetry, which was said to be his secondary accomplishment, so I listened eagerly to the tones of the great bow-shaped piano. Tokk and Magg, if anything, may have been even more entranced than I was. Only that beautiful female kappa, beautiful at least according to the other kappas, kept a tight grip on her program and from time to time stuck out her long tongue in obvious irritation. According to Magg, she had failed to capture Craback some ten years earlier, and had hated the musician ever since.

Craback went on playing, pouring all his passion into the piano as if he were fighting it. Then suddenly there rang out through the hall like thunder the cry, “Performance prohibited!” Startled by the shout, I involuntarily turned around. The owner of the voice was unmistakably a policeman of extraordinary height seated in the very back row. When I looked back, he remained seated calmly and once more bellowed even louder than before, “Performance prohibited!”

And after that...

After that, utter confusion. “Police tyranny!” “Craback, play! Play!” “Idiot!” “Damn you!” “Get out!” “Don’t give in!” Amid all these cries, chairs overturned, programs flew through the air, and on top of that, who could say by whose hand, empty soda bottles, stones, even half-eaten cucumbers came raining down. I was dumbfounded and tried to ask Tokk the reason. But Tokk too had apparently grown excited; standing upright on his chair, he kept shouting, “Craback, play! Play!” Nor was Tokk’s female kappa any different: she too, having somehow forgotten her hostility, was yelling, “Police tyranny!” I had no choice but to turn to Magg and ask, “What is going on?”

“This? Why, this sort of thing is common enough in this country. Painting and literature, you see...”

Each time something came flying at him, Magg drew in his neck slightly, but otherwise went on explaining as calmly as ever.

“Painting and literature, after all, are things in which anyone can tell, one way or another, what is being represented. So in this country they never ban publication or exhibitions. Instead we have prohibitions on performance. Because music alone, however corrupting to public morals a piece may be, cannot be understood by kappas who have no ears.”

“But does that policeman have ears?”

“Well, that is doubtful. While listening to the melody just now, he probably remembered the beating of his heart while lying in bed with his wife.”

Even while we spoke, the uproar only grew worse. Craback remained at the piano and turned back toward us with an arrogant air. But however arrogant he may have been, he could not simply ignore the various objects flying at him. So every two or three seconds his carefully assumed posture had to change. Yet on the whole he preserved the dignity of a great musician, while his narrow eyes flashed ferociously. As for me, I too, to avoid danger, was using Tokk as a kind of small shield. Still, driven by curiosity, I went on talking intently with Magg.

“Isn’t that sort of censorship outrageous?”

“Not at all. It is more advanced than the censorship of any other country. Just look at XX. Why, only about a month ago...”

He had only just begun to say this when, unfortunately, an empty bottle struck him on the crown of the head. With a single cry of “Quack!” (which is merely an interjection), he lost consciousness completely.

8

Oddly enough, I had a liking for Gael, the president of the glass company. Gael was a capitalist among capitalists. Probably among all the kappas in that country, not one had a belly as enormous as his. Yet when he sat in an easy chair with a wife like a lychee on one side and children like cucumbers on the other, he was almost the picture of happiness itself. From time to time I went to dine at Gael’s house with the judge Pepp and the doctor Chack. And with letters of introduction from Gael I visited various factories in which Gael and his friends had some connection.

Of all those factories, the one that interested me most was the plant of a book-manufacturing company. I entered it with a young kappa engineer and, seeing the great machines powered by hydroelectricity, once again marveled at the progress of machine industry in the land of the kappas. I was told that they produced seven million books a year there. But what astonished me was not the number of books. It was how little labor was needed to make them. In that country, to manufacture books, all one had to do was pour paper, ink, and a gray powder into the funnel-shaped mouth of a machine. Once those raw materials entered the machine, in scarcely five minutes they emerged as innumerable books in all formats: kikuban, shirokuban, half-kiku, and so on.

As I watched all those different books pouring out like a waterfall, I asked the kappa engineer, who was leaning back, what that gray powder was called. The engineer, standing before the black-glossy machine, replied indifferently:

“This? It’s donkey brains. Yes, we simply dry them once and grind them roughly into powder. Current market price is two or three sen a ton.”

Of course, industrial miracles of this sort did not occur only in the book-manufacturing company. The same thing happened at painting-manufacturing companies and music-manufacturing companies as well. In fact, according to Gael, in that country seven or eight hundred new kinds of machines were invented on average every month, and production was increasingly carried out on a mass scale without waiting for human hands. As a result, no fewer than forty or fifty thousand workers were dismissed. And yet, though I read the morning papers there every day, I never once came across the word “strike.” This struck me as odd, so when I was again invited to dinner at Gael’s house with Pepp and Chack, I asked why this was.

“We simply eat them.”

Gael, a cigar in his mouth after dinner, said this with complete casualness. But I did not understand what he meant by “eat them.” Chack, who wore pince-nez, seemed to notice my perplexity, and explained from the side:

“They kill all those workers and use the meat for food. Just look at the newspaper here. This month exactly sixty-four thousand seven hundred sixty-nine workers were dismissed, so naturally the price of meat has fallen accordingly.”

“Do the workers submit quietly to being killed?”

“There’s no use making a fuss. There is a Worker Slaughter Law.”

Those were the words of Pepp, who sat behind a potted bayberry tree wearing a grim face. Naturally I felt disgusted. But not only Gael, the host, Pepp and Chack as well seemed to regard the matter as entirely natural. Indeed Chack laughed as he addressed me almost mockingly.

“In other words, the state merely saves them the trouble of starving to death or committing suicide. We only make them inhale a little poison gas, so there is not much pain.”

“But to eat their flesh...”

“Come now, don’t be absurd. If Magg heard you, he would laugh himself sick. In your country too, are not the daughters of the fourth estate turned into prostitutes? To grow indignant over eating workers’ meat is mere sentimentalism.”

As Gael listened to this exchange, he calmly offered me a plate of sandwiches from the nearby table and said placidly:

“How about it? Won’t you have one? This too is made of workers’ meat.”

Naturally I was horrified. More than that, leaving the laughter of Pepp and Chack behind me, I bolted from the drawing room of Gael’s house. It was a stormy night without even starlight in the sky above the houses. As I made my way home through that darkness, I vomited continuously, without pause, streams of vomit pale even in the night.

9

And yet Gael, president of the glass company, must truly have been an affable kappa. I often went with him to the club to which he belonged and spent very pleasant evenings there. One reason was that his club was far more comfortable than the Superman Club to which Tokk belonged. Another was that, if Gael’s conversation lacked the depth of the philosopher Magg’s, it opened before me an entirely new world, a broad world. Gael, always stirring his coffee cup with a spoon of pure gold, talked cheerfully about many things.

One foggy evening, I remember, I was listening to Gael with a vase of winter roses between us. If memory serves, the whole room, including the chairs and tables, was done in a Secession style, white throughout with fine gold edging. Gael, looking more self-satisfied than usual and smiling all over his face, began talking about the Quorax Party cabinet, which at that time held power throughout the land. The word “Quorax” is itself only a meaningless interjection, so the closest translation would be something like “Oh!” At any rate, it was a party that proclaimed above all else “the interests of the kappas as a whole.”

“The famous statesman Loppe is the one who controls the Quorax Party. ‘Honesty is the best diplomacy’ was Bismarck’s saying, was it not? Well, Loppe has extended honesty into domestic government as well...”

“But Loppe’s speeches...”

"Now then, listen to what I have to say. That speech was, of course, entirely —. But everyone knows it was —, so in the end it is hardly different from honesty. To call it simply — is just prejudice on your part. We kappa are not like you humans... however, that does not matter. What I want to speak about is Roppe. Roppe controls the Quorax Party, and the one who in turn controls Roppe is Kuikui, the president of the newspaper Pou-Fou. (This word 'Pou-Fou' too is merely a meaningless interjection. If one insisted on translating it, one could only render it as something like 'Ah.') But Kuikui is not exactly his own master either. The one who controls Kuikui is Geer, who is standing before you."

"And yet—this may be rude of me to say—but the Pou-Fou is a newspaper that takes the workers' side, isn't it? So for its president Kuikui to be under your control..."

"The reporters at the Pou-Fou certainly do take the workers' side. But what controls the reporters, if not Kuikui? And Kuikui cannot do without the patronage of this Geer here."

Geer, still smiling as before, was toying with a spoon of pure gold. Looking at him, I felt less hatred for Geer himself than sympathy for the reporters of the Pou-Fou. Geer seemed to sense that unspoken sympathy at once, for he puffed out his great belly and said:

"Why, the reporters of the Pou-Fou are not all on the workers' side either. We kappa, at least, always take our own side before taking anyone else's. ... But what is even more troublesome is that even this Geer himself is under another person's control. Can you guess who that is? My wife. The beautiful Madame Geer."

Geer laughed aloud.

"Surely that is rather a happiness than otherwise."

"At any rate, I am satisfied. But it is only in front of you—only in front of someone who is not a kappa—that I can boast of it so unreservedly."

"Then in other words, it is Madame Geer who controls the Quorax cabinet?"

"Well, perhaps you could say that... In any case, the war seven years ago was certainly started because of a certain female kappa."

"A war? Has this country had wars too?"

"Certainly. And who knows when there may be another? As long as there is a neighboring country..."

It was only then that I learned, for the first time, that the land of the kappa was not nationally isolated. According to Geer's explanation, the kappa always treated the otters as a provisional enemy, and the otters possessed armaments no less formidable than theirs. I was greatly interested in hearing about a war the kappa had fought against these otters. (After all, the fact that the kappa had such a powerful enemy as the otter was a new discovery apparently unknown not only to the author of Notes on the Water Tiger but even to Mr. Kunio Yanagita, author of Tales of Mountain and Island Folk.)

"Before that war broke out, both countries, of course, stayed on guard and watched each other closely. The reason was that both feared the other equally. Then one otter who happened to be in this country paid a visit to a certain married kappa couple. The female kappa, as it happened, intended to kill her husband. Her husband was a wastrel, you see. And the fact that he had a life-insurance policy may also have been a temptation."

"Did you know the couple?"

"Yes—or rather, I knew only the male kappa. My wife calls him a villain. But if you ask me, he was not so much a villain as a madman full of persecution mania, terrified of being caught by a female kappa. ... So this female kappa put potassium cyanide into her husband's bowl of cocoa. But by some mistake or other, she gave it to the visiting otter to drink. The otter died, naturally. And then..."

"And then it became war?"

"Yes. Unfortunately that otter happened to have a decoration."

"Which side won the war?"

"Naturally, this country won. Three hundred sixty-nine thousand five hundred kappa bravely fell in battle for the cause. But compared with the enemy nation's losses, that was nothing at all. Most of the fur in this country is otter fur. During that war I not only manufactured glass, I also shipped coal cinders to the front."

"What were coal cinders used for?"

"Food, of course. We kappa, when we are hungry enough, will eat anything."

"That is—please do not be offended. For the kappa at the front, that would be... in our country, a scandal."

"In this country too it would certainly be a scandal. But if I myself say so, no one will make a scandal of it. The philosopher Magg says as much, does he not? 'Speak your own evil yourself, and evil will vanish of itself.' ... Besides, I was aflame not only with profit, but with patriotism as well."

Just then the steward of the club came in. After bowing to Geer, he said in a voice like someone reciting aloud:

"There is a fire next door to your residence."

"A f-fire!"

Geer jumped to his feet in alarm. I too, of course, stood up. But the steward, perfectly calm, added:

"However, it has already been extinguished."

As he watched the steward go, Geer's face took on an expression close to laughing and crying at once. Seeing such a face, I realized that once I had hated this president of the glass company. But now Geer was standing there as no great capitalist at all, merely a kappa. I pulled a winter rose from the vase and placed it in his hand.

"Even if the fire has been put out, your wife must have been terribly frightened. Here—take this home with you."

"Thank you."

Geer grasped my hand. Then suddenly he grinned and said to me in a low voice:

"The house next door is one of my rental properties, you know. At least I shall collect the fire insurance."

I can still vividly remember Geer's smile at that moment—a smile I could neither despise nor hate.

10

"What is the matter? You're looking strangely depressed again today."

It was the day after the fire. With a cigarette in my mouth, I said this to the student Rapp, who had seated himself in an armchair in my drawing room. In fact, Rapp sat there with his left leg crossed over his right, staring vaguely at the floor so blankly that even his rotten beak was hardly visible.

"Rapp, what is it?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing, really. It is something trivial..."

At last Rapp raised his head and answered in a sad nasal voice.

"This morning, looking out the window, I happened to murmur, 'Oh, the butterwort has bloomed.' At once my sister turned pale and flew into a rage, saying, 'So I'm a butterwort, am I?' And as if that were not enough, my mother dotes on her, so she pounced on me too."

"Why should saying that the butterwort had bloomed offend your sister?"

"Well, perhaps she took it to mean that she catches male kappa. Then an aunt who is always on bad terms with my mother joined the quarrel, and it became an even greater uproar. And my father, who is drunk all year round, heard the fight and started hitting everyone indiscriminately. As if that were not already beyond remedy, my younger brother took the chance to steal my mother's purse and ran off to see a movie or something. I... honestly, I really..."

Rapp buried his face in both hands and burst into tears without another word. Naturally I sympathized with him. At the same time I naturally recalled the poet Tokk's contempt for the family system. I patted Rapp on the shoulder and tried my best to comfort him.

"Things like that happen anywhere. Come, take heart."

"But... but if only my beak were not rotten..."

"That is something you will just have to resign yourself to. Come now, let us go to Tokk's house."

"Mr. Tokk despises me. I cannot cast off my family boldly as he does."

"Then let us go to Clabbak's house."

Since that concert, I too had become friends with Clabbak, so I decided to take Rapp to the home of the great musician. Clabbak lived far more luxuriously than Tokk. I do not mean that he lived like a capitalist such as Geer. Rather, in a room filled with antiques—Tanagra figurines and Persian pottery—he had installed a Turkish divan, and beneath a portrait of himself he was always playing with his children. But today, for some reason, he sat with his arms folded across his chest, wearing a bitter expression. Worse still, scraps of paper were scattered all over the floor at his feet. Rapp too had often met Clabbak together with the poet Tokk. But he seemed intimidated by Clabbak's appearance today; after making an unusually polite bow, he sat down silently in the corner of the room.

"What is the matter, Clabbak?"

I asked the great musician this almost in place of a greeting.

"What is the matter, indeed? That fool of a critic! He says my lyric poetry cannot compare with Tokk's lyric poetry."

"But you are a musician, and..."

"If that were all, I could endure it. But he goes on to say that compared with Rock, I do not even deserve the name of musician!"

Rock was a composer often compared with Clabbak. Unfortunately, since he was not a member of the Superhuman Club, I had never once spoken with him. Still, I had often seen photographs of his peculiar face, with its upturned beak.

"Rock is certainly a genius. But Rock's music does not possess the modern passion that overflows in yours."

"Do you really think so?"

"I do indeed."

At once Clabbak sprang up, seized one of the Tanagra figurines, and smashed it to the floor. Rapp was so startled that he almost cried out and ran. But after signaling with a gesture to Rapp and me not to be alarmed, Clabbak said coolly:

"That is only because, like a philistine, you have no ears. I am afraid of Rock..."

"You? Stop pretending to be modest."

"Who is pretending to be modest? If I were going to put on airs for anyone, I would put them on before the critics. I—Clabbak am a genius. In that respect I am not afraid of Rock."

"Then what are you afraid of?"

"Of something whose nature I do not know—if you like, of the star that governs Rock."

"I confess I do not quite follow you."

"Then let me put it this way. Rock is not influenced by me. But I, before I know it, come under Rock's influence."

"That is because of your sensitivity..."

"No, listen. It is not a question of sensitivity. Rock is always calm, doing the work that he alone can do. But I am restless. In Rock's eyes it may be no more than a difference of a single step. Yet to me it is ten miles."

"But your Heroic Symphony, sir..."

Clabbak narrowed his thin eyes still further and glared at Rapp with exasperation.

"Be quiet. What can the likes of you understand? I know Rock. I know Rock better than the curs who grovel before him."

"Try to calm yourself a little."

"If only I could remain calm... I am always thinking this: something unknown to us all has set Rock before me in order to mock me—to mock Clabbak. The philosopher Magg understands everything of this sort. Even though all he ever does is sit beneath that colored-glass lantern reading shabby old books."

"Why do you say that?"

"Take a look at a book Magg has written recently, called The Sayings of a Fool..."

Clabbak handed me a book—or rather, threw it at me. Then, with his arms folded once more, he brusquely said:

"Now be so good as to leave me."

So Rapp and I, both thoroughly dispirited, went back out into the street. The busy thoroughfare, as before, was lined with all manner of shops in the shade of rows of furry zelkova trees. We walked on in silence, without any particular destination. Then we happened to meet the long-haired poet Tokk. At the sight of our faces, Tokk pulled a handkerchief from the pouch on his belly and wiped his forehead again and again.

"Ah, I haven't seen you for some time. Today I was thinking of visiting Clabbak for the first time in a while, but..."

Not wishing these artists to quarrel, I told Tokk in gentle terms how extremely bad-tempered Clabbak had seemed.

"I see. Then I had better not go. Clabbak is neurasthenic, after all... I too have been suffering these past two or three weeks from being unable to sleep."

"Why not take a walk with us?"

"No, not today. Ah!"

No sooner had Tokk cried this out than he seized my arm tightly. What is more, a cold sweat had already broken out all over his body.

"What is it?"

"What is the matter?"

"From the window of that automobile just now, I thought I saw a green monkey stick its head out."

I grew somewhat concerned and advised him, at any rate, to have that doctor Chack examine him. But Tokk would not agree to it, no matter what I said. Indeed, while comparing our faces with a suspicious look, he even began saying things like this:

"I am not an anarchist, I assure you. Please be certain not to forget that. Well then, good-bye. As for Chack, I want nothing whatever to do with him."

We stood there blankly, watching Tokk's retreating figure. We—no, not "we." The student Rapp, before I noticed it, had spread his legs in the middle of the street and was peering at the endless stream of cars and passersby upside down between them. I thought this kappa too had gone mad, and in alarm I pulled him upright.

"This is no joke. What are you doing?"

But Rapp, rubbing his eyes, replied with unexpected calm:

"Nothing. I was so melancholy that I tried looking at the world upside down. But it is the same after all."

11

These are several passages from The Sayings of a Fool, written by the philosopher Magg:

x

A fool always believes that everyone but himself is a fool.

x

We love nature partly because nature neither hates nor envies us.

x

The wisest way to live is to despise the customs of one's age, and yet to live without breaking those customs in the least.

x

The things of which we are proudest are only those we do not possess.

x

No one objects to the destruction of idols. At the same time, no one objects to becoming an idol. But the one who can sit at ease upon an idol's pedestal is the one most blessed by the gods—a fool, a villain, or a hero. (Clabbak had left nail marks above this passage.)

x

It may be that all the ideas necessary to our life were exhausted three thousand years ago. We merely add new flames to old firewood.

x

Our distinguishing traits generally transcend our own awareness.

x

If happiness is attended by pain, and peace by ennui—then what?

x

To defend oneself is harder than to defend another. Let anyone in doubt look at a lawyer.

x

Pride, lust, suspicion—all sins for the last three thousand years have sprung from these three. And perhaps all virtues as well.

x

To reduce material desires does not necessarily bring peace. If we are to gain peace, we must reduce spiritual desires too. (Clabbak had left nail marks above this passage as well.)

x

We are more unfortunate than human beings. Human beings are not as highly evolved as kappa. (When I read this passage, I could not help laughing.)

x

To do is to be able to do, and to be able to do is to do. In the end, our life can never escape this kind of circular logic—that is, it begins and ends in absurdity.

x

After becoming an idiot, Baudelaire expressed his view of life in a single word—the word "cunt." Yet what speaks for Baudelaire himself is not necessarily that. Rather, it is that, trusting in his genius—in the poetic genius sufficient to sustain his life—he forgot the word "stomach." (Here too Clabbak's nail marks remained.)

x

If we were to remain faithful to reason throughout, we would naturally have to deny our own existence. That Voltaire, who made reason his god, ended his life in happiness shows precisely that human beings are less evolved than kappa.

12

It was a rather chilly afternoon. Having grown tired of reading The Sayings of a Fool, I set out to visit the philosopher Magg. At the corner of a lonely street, I found a kappa as thin as a mosquito standing absentmindedly against a wall. And it was unmistakably the very kappa who had once stolen my fountain pen. Thinking this my chance, I stopped a sturdy policeman who happened to be passing.

"Please question that kappa over there. About a month ago he stole my fountain pen."

The policeman raised the stick in his right hand. (The policemen in this country carry clubs of water pine instead of swords.) "Hey, you," he called to the kappa. I thought the fellow might try to run away. But instead he walked up quite calmly to the policeman. What is more, with arms folded, he stared insolently at me and at the policeman. The policeman, however, showed no anger. Taking a notebook from the pouch on his belly, he began the interrogation at once.

"Your name?"

"Gluck."

"Occupation?"

"Until two or three days ago I was a postman."

"Very well. According to this gentleman's complaint, you stole his fountain pen."

"Yes, I stole it about a month ago."

"For what purpose?"

"I meant to make it a toy for my child."

"And the child?"

For the first time the policeman fixed the kappa with a sharp look.

"It died a week ago."

"Do you have a death certificate?"

The thin kappa drew a single sheet of paper from the pouch on his belly. After glancing over it, the policeman suddenly smiled and patted the fellow on the shoulder.

"Very good. Thank you for your trouble."

I could only stare blankly at the policeman's face. Meanwhile the thin kappa, muttering something under his breath, turned his back on us and walked away. At last recovering myself, I asked the policeman:

"Why don't you arrest that kappa?"

"That kappa is innocent."

"But he stole my fountain pen..."

"I suppose it was meant as a toy for the child. But the child is dead. If you have any doubts, look up Article 1,285 of the criminal code."

With that, the policeman abruptly left me and hurried off somewhere. I had no choice, so repeating "Article 1,285 of the criminal code" under my breath, I hurried to Magg's house.

The philosopher Magg loved visitors. Sure enough, in his dim room that day, Judge Pepp, Doctor Chack, and Gael, president of the glass company, were gathered beneath a lantern of seven-colored stained glass, sending cigarette smoke drifting upward. It was especially fortunate for me that Judge Pepp was there. No sooner had I sat down than, instead of looking up Article 1,285 for myself, I at once put the question to Pepp.

"Pepp, forgive me for asking, but don't you punish criminals in this country?"

Pepp first blew out a leisurely plume of smoke from his gold-tipped cigarette, then answered in a thoroughly bored tone.

"Of course we punish them. We even carry out executions."

"But about a month ago, I..."

After telling the whole story, I asked him about that Article 1,285.

"Hm, it says this: 'No matter what crime has been committed, once the circumstances that caused that crime have ceased to exist, the offender may no longer be punished for it.' In your case, that kappa was once a parent, but now it is no longer a parent. So the crime naturally ceases to exist as well."

"That seems terribly irrational to me."

"Don't be ridiculous. It would be irrational to regard a kappa who was a parent and a kappa who is a parent as one and the same. Ah yes, under Japanese law, they are treated as the same person, aren't they? That seems quite absurd to us. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh."

As Pepp tossed away his cigarette, he let out a faint, listless laugh. The next to speak was Chack, who had little to do with the law. Adjusting his pince-nez, he asked me:

"Do you have the death penalty in Japan too?"

"We do. In Japan execution is by hanging."

Since I had begun to resent Pepp's chilly composure, I took the opportunity to throw in a sarcastic remark.

"I suppose the death penalty in this country is carried out in a more civilized way than in Japan?"

"Naturally it is more civilized."

Pepp remained perfectly calm.

"In this country we don't use hanging. Occasionally electricity is used, but usually not even that. We simply tell the criminal the name of his crime."

"And that alone kills a kappa?"

"Certainly. The workings of our nervous systems are subtler than yours."

"And it isn't only for executions. There are murders committed the same way too..."

Gael, the company president, his whole face dyed purple by the colored glass light, gave a friendly smile.

"Only the other day, a socialist called me a thief, and I nearly went into heart failure."

"It seems to happen rather often. A lawyer I knew actually died from that very thing."

As I added this, I turned toward the kappa philosopher Magg. With his usual ironic smile still on his face, he went on speaking without looking at anyone.

"Someone told that kappa he was a frog. And as you no doubt know, in this country to call someone a frog means he is beneath contempt. He kept thinking every day, 'Am I a frog? Am I not a frog?' until in the end he died."

"Then that was suicide."

"Though, to be fair, the one who called him a frog said it with the intention of killing him. From your point of view, I suppose even that would still be called suicide..."

It was just as Magg said this that, from beyond the wall of the room, unmistakably from the house of the poet Tokk, there came the sharp crack of a pistol shot, ringing through the air.

13

We all rushed to Tokk's house. Tokk lay on his back among pots of alpine plants, a pistol in his right hand and blood flowing from the dish on his head. Beside him a female kappa had buried her face in his chest and was wailing loudly. As I helped her up—though in truth I have never much liked touching the slick skin of kappa—I asked, "What happened?"

"I don't know what happened. He was writing something, and then all at once he shot himself in the head with the pistol. Ah, whatever am I to do? Qur-r-r-r-r, qur-r-r-r-r!"

(That is how kappa cry.)

"Tokk was always so self-indulgent, after all."

Gael, president of the glass company, sadly shaking his head, said this to Judge Pepp. But Pepp said nothing; he merely lit another gold-tipped cigarette. Meanwhile Chack, who had been kneeling and examining Tokk's wound, announced to the five of us in a properly medical tone—actually, one man and four kappas:

"It's no use. Tokk is gone. He'd always had stomach trouble, and that alone made him prone to depression."

"You say he was writing something."

Magg, as if excusing himself, murmured this half to himself as he picked up the sheet of paper on the desk. All of us craned our necks—except, of course, for me—and peered over Magg's broad shoulder at the page.

"Come, let us rise and go, To the valley that parts us from this sorrowful world.

Where the rocks stand chill, and the mountain streams run clear,

To the valley where the flowers of healing herbs are fragrant."

Turning back to us, Magg said with a bitter smile:

"This is plagiarized from Goethe's 'Mignon's Song.' Then Tokk must have been exhausted even as a poet when he killed himself."

Just then, by chance, that musician Kraback drove up in his automobile. At the sight before him he stood for a while in the doorway. Then, walking over to us, he spoke to Magg almost in a shout.

"Is that Tokk's suicide note?"

"No, it's the poem he was writing at the end."

"A poem?"

Still entirely unruffled, Magg handed Tokk's manuscript to Kraback, whose hair stood on end. Kraback, without so much as glancing around, began reading it intently. He scarcely even responded to what Magg had said.

"What do you make of Tokk's death?"

"Come, let us rise... I don't know when I myself may die... To the valley that parts us from this sorrowful world..."

"But you were one of Tokk's closest friends, weren't you?"

"Closest friend? Tokk was always alone... To the valley that parts us from this sorrowful world... Only Tokk, unhappily... where the rocks stand chill..."

"Unhappily?"

"And the mountain streams run clear... You people are fortunate... where the rocks stand chill..."

I felt sorry for the female kappa, who still had not stopped crying, so I gently put an arm around her shoulders and led her to a long bench in the corner of the room. There, a small kappa child of two or three was smiling, knowing nothing. I tried to soothe the child in place of its mother. And before long I felt tears welling up in my own eyes. During all the time I lived in the land of the kappas, this was the only time I ever shed tears.

"But the family left behind by such a selfish kappa is truly pitiful."

"After all, he never thought about what would happen afterward."

Judge Pepp, as ever, was replying to the capitalist Gael while lighting a fresh cigarette. What startled all of us then was the loud voice of the musician Kraback. Clutching the manuscript, he called out to no one in particular:

"I've got it! I'll make a magnificent funeral march out of this."

His narrow eyes shining, Kraback seized Magg's hand for a moment and then suddenly dashed for the doorway. By then a crowd of neighboring kappas had gathered at Tokk's entrance, peering curiously inside. But Kraback shoved them right and left without hesitation and sprang into his car. In the same instant the automobile roared off and was gone.

"There now, you mustn't stand there gawking."

After driving away the crowd of kappas in place of the policeman, Judge Pepp shut the door of Tokk's house. The room became strangely still. In that silence—in the scent of Tokk's blood mingled with the fragrance of the alpine flowers—we discussed practical matters, what should be done next. Only the philosopher Magg, gazing at Tokk's corpse, seemed lost in thought. I tapped him on the shoulder and asked, "What are you thinking about?"

"About the life of kappas."

"What about the life of kappas?"

"Whatever else may be said, for us kappas to carry life through to the end..."

Magg added in a somewhat embarrassed undertone:

"...we have to believe in some power other than ourselves, at any rate."

14

It was those words of Magg's that made me think of religion. I am, of course, a materialist, and I had probably never once seriously considered religion. But at that moment, stirred by Tokk's death, I began to wonder what the religion of the kappas might be. So I immediately put the question to the student Rapp.

"There are Christianity, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, fire worship, and so on. But the most powerful of all is what they call Modernism. Or the Religion of Life." (The translation "Religion of Life" may not be quite exact. The original word is Quemoocha. Cha probably corresponds to the English suffix "-ism." As for quemoo, from quemal, it means not simply "to live" but rather "to eat, drink, and copulate.")

"Then this country must have churches and temples too, I suppose?"

"Don't be absurd. The great cathedral of Modernism is the grandest building in the whole country. Shall we go and take a look?"

One warm, overcast afternoon, Rapp proudly took me there. It was indeed a huge structure, ten times the size of Nikolai Cathedral. More than that, it was a vast building that seemed to combine every architectural style into one. Standing before it and looking up at its high towers and domes, I found it almost sinister. They really looked like countless tentacles stretching up toward the sky. We stood before the entrance—though compared even with that entrance, how tiny we were!—and for some time gazed up at that extraordinary temple, which was less like a building than some monstrous creature.

The inside was equally immense. Worshippers walked here and there among Corinthian columns, but they all looked as tiny as we did. Before long we came upon a bent old kappa. Rapp bowed slightly to him and spoke with great politeness.

"Elder, I am glad to see you are keeping well."

The other kappa returned the greeting and answered just as courteously.

"Why, if it isn't Rapp. You too seem to be just the same as ever..." He had begun to say more, but paused, no doubt only then noticing that Rapp's beak was rotting. "...ah, well, in any case, you look healthy enough. But what brings you here today?"

"I have come as companion to this gentleman. As you probably know..."

Rapp then launched into a long explanation about me. It sounded somehow as if he were also excusing himself for the fact that he almost never visited the great temple.

"And so I would be very grateful if you would show this gentleman around."

Smiling broadly, the elder first greeted me, then quietly pointed to the main altar in front of us.

"There is not much to explain, really. What we believers worship is the Tree of Life on the main altar. As you can see, the Tree of Life bears golden fruit and green fruit. The golden fruit is called the Fruit of Good, the green fruit the Fruit of Evil..."

Even during this explanation I had already begun to feel bored. The elder's words struck me like worn-out metaphor. Naturally, I pretended to listen intently. But from time to time I did not fail to cast a furtive glance around the interior of the great temple.

Corinthian columns, Gothic vaulting, a floor in an almost Arabic checker pattern, prayer desks in a kind of imitation Secession style—the harmony produced by all these had a strangely barbaric beauty. But what caught my eye most were the marble busts set into the niches on either side. I had the feeling I recognized them. That was not really surprising. When the stooped old kappa had finished explaining the Tree of Life, he led Rapp and me to the niche on the right and began to explain the bust there.

"This is one of our saints, the saint Strindberg, who rebelled against everything. It is said that after suffering greatly he was saved by the philosophy of Swedenborg. But in fact he was not saved. This saint merely believed in the Religion of Life, as we do—or rather, perhaps he had no choice but to believe in it. Read the book he left us, called Legends. The saint himself confessed that he, too, had attempted suicide."

I grew a little melancholy and turned my eyes to the next niche. There stood the bust of a German with a heavy mustache.

"This is Nietzsche, poet of Zarathustra. That saint sought salvation in the Superman he himself created. But he was not saved either, and in the end he went mad. Had he not gone mad, perhaps he would never have entered the ranks of the saints..."

After a brief silence, the elder guided us to the third niche.

"The third is Tolstoy. This saint practiced austerities more than anyone. Because he had originally been an aristocrat, he disliked displaying his suffering before the curious public. He strove to believe in a Christ who in reality could not be believed in. Indeed, there were times when he even declared publicly that he did believe. But in the end, in his later years, he could no longer bear the tragic fate that was his. It is well known that this saint would sometimes feel terror at the sight of the beam in his study. Still, since he entered the ranks of the saints, of course he did not commit suicide."

The bust in the fourth niche was one of my fellow Japanese. When I saw his face, I could not help feeling a pang of homesickness.

"This is Doppo Kunikida, the poet who knew exactly what a laborer felt at the moment he was run over and killed. But I need not explain more than that to you. Now please look at the fifth niche..."

"Isn't that Wagner?"

"Yes. A revolutionary who was a friend of kings. In his later years Saint Wagner even said grace before meals. But of course he, too, was one of the faithful of the Religion of Life rather than of Christianity. If we judge from the letters he left behind, there is no knowing how many times the sufferings of this world drove him to the brink of death."

By then we were already standing before the sixth niche.

"This is a friend of Saint Strindberg's: a French painter, once a businessman, who married a girl of thirteen or fourteen from Tahiti instead of a wife with many children. In his thick veins there ran the blood of a sailor. But look at his lips. The traces of arsenic or something like it still remain. As for the seventh niche... but you must be tired by now. Please, this way."

I truly was tired, so with Rapp I followed the elder into a room opening off a corridor fragrant with incense. In the corner of that small room, beneath a black statue of Venus, a bunch of wild grapes had been placed as an offering. Since I had imagined a monk's cell bare of any decoration, this struck me as rather unexpected. The elder seemed to sense my reaction, and before offering us chairs he explained with an almost apologetic air:

"Please do not forget that ours is a religion of life. The teaching of our god, the Tree of Life, is 'Live vigorously'... Tell me, Rapp, have you shown this gentleman our scriptures?"

"No... in fact, I myself have hardly read them."

Scratching the dish on his head, Rapp answered this with honest embarrassment. But the elder, still smiling quietly, went on:

"Then no wonder you do not understand. Our god created this world in a single day. The Tree of Life, though a tree, is capable of anything. And he created the female kappa. Then, out of sheer boredom, the female kappa desired the male. Our god took pity on this lament and, taking the brain of the female kappa, created the male kappa. Upon these two kappas our god bestowed this blessing: 'Eat, copulate, and live vigorously.'..."

In the midst of the elder's words I remembered the poet Tokk. The unhappy Tokk was, like me, an atheist. Since I was not a kappa, it was only natural that I had known nothing of the Religion of Life. But Tokk, born in the land of the kappas, must certainly have known the Tree of Life. Feeling pity for the end of Tokk, who had failed to follow this teaching, I interrupted the elder and began to speak of him.

"Ah, that poor poet."

Hearing me out, the elder gave a deep sigh.

"The things that determine our fate are only faith, circumstance, and chance." He added, "Though of course you people would probably include heredity as well. Tokk, unhappily, had no faith."

"Tokk must have envied you. No, I envy you too. Rapp is still young, and..."

"If only my beak were sound, perhaps I too might have been optimistic."

At these words from the two of us, the elder sighed once more. His eyes had filled with tears, and he was staring fixedly at the black Venus.

"The truth is... this is my secret, so please do not tell anyone... the truth is that I too cannot quite believe in our god. And yet sometimes, when I pray..."

It was just as the elder said this that the door to the room suddenly flew open, and a large female kappa rushed straight at him. Naturally we tried to seize her. But in an instant she had thrown the elder to the floor.

"You old wretch! So you stole money from my purse again today to buy yourself a drink!"

About ten minutes later, we left the old couple behind, in a state just short of actual flight, and went down the steps from the entrance of the great temple.

"No wonder that old priest doesn't believe in the Tree of Life after that."

After we had walked on in silence for a while, Rapp said this to me. But instead of answering him, I instinctively turned and looked back at the great temple. Against the heavily overcast sky, the great temple still stretched its tall towers and domes upward like countless tentacles, all the while giving off the eerie air of a mirage seen in a desert sky. ...

15

About a week after that, I happened to hear a strange story from the doctor, Chack. It was said that a ghost had begun appearing in Tock's house. By then the female kappa had already gone off somewhere else, and our friend the poet's house had been turned into a photographer's studio. According to Chack, whenever anyone had a photograph taken in that studio, Tock's figure would somehow always show up dimly behind the customer. Chack, of course, was a materialist and did not believe in any life after death. In fact, when he told me the story, he added with a malicious smile, in a tone of mock annotation, that "the soul too, it seems, must be a material existence." I myself differ little from Chack in not believing in ghosts. But I had felt close to the poet Tock, so I hurried at once to the bookshop and bought newspapers and magazines carrying articles about Tock's ghost and photographs of it. And indeed, when I looked at those photographs, there was a kappa that did somehow resemble Tock, vaguely appearing behind kappa men and women of every age. But what surprised me was not the photographs of Tock's ghost so much as the articles about it, above all the report issued by the Psychical Research Society. Since I translated that report almost word for word, I shall give its outline below. What appears in parentheses, however, consists of notes added by myself. --

Report Concerning the Ghost of Mr. Tock, Poet. (Published in No. 8,274 of the Journal of the Psychical Research Society)

Our Psychical Research Society recently held a special investigation at No. 251, Block Two, XX Street, formerly the residence of the poet Mr. Tock, who committed suicide some time ago, and now the studio of photographer XX. The members in attendance were as follows. (Names omitted.)

We seventeen members, together with Mr. Peck, president of the Psychical Research Society, assembled at 10:30 in the morning on September 17 in a room of the said studio, accompanied by Mrs. Hop, the medium in whom we place the greatest confidence. The instant Mrs. Hop entered the studio, she sensed a spiritual atmosphere already present there, suffered convulsions all over her body, and vomited several times. According to Mrs. Hop, this was because the poet Mr. Tock had loved strong tobacco so intensely that the spiritual atmosphere itself also contained nicotine.

We members sat in silence around a round table together with Mrs. Hop. After three minutes and twenty-five seconds, she fell into an extremely abrupt somnambulistic state and became possessed by the spirit of the poet Mr. Tock. We members, proceeding in order of age, then began the following exchange with the spirit of Mr. Tock, which had taken possession of Mrs. Hop.

Question: Why do you appear as a ghost?

Answer: In order to learn of my posthumous fame.

Question: Do you, or spirits in general, still desire fame after death?

Answer: At least I cannot help desiring it. Yet there are poets, such as one Japanese poet whom I encountered, who despised posthumous fame.

Question: Do you know that poet's name?

Answer: Unhappily, I have forgotten it. I remember only one stanza of a seventeen-syllable poem he was fond of composing.

Question: What poem was that?

Answer: "An old pond -- / a frog jumps in -- / the sound of water."

Question: Do you consider that poem a good one?

Answer: I do not necessarily consider it a bad one. Still, if one were to change "frog" to "kappa," it would be still more dazzling and brilliant.

Question: And why is that?

Answer: Because we kappa are keenly desirous of finding kappa in every art.

At this point President Peck reminded us seventeen members that this was a special investigative meeting of the Psychical Research Society, not a critical symposium.

Question: What is life like for spirits?

Answer: It is no different from your own life.

Question: Then do you regret your own suicide?

Answer: I do not necessarily regret it. If I should grow weary of spiritual life, I shall simply take up a pistol and support myself again.

Question: Is supporting oneself easy or not?

To this question the spirit of Mr. Tock replied with a question in turn. To those who knew Mr. Tock, this must seem a very natural exchange.

Answer: Is suicide easy or not?

Question: Is your life eternal?

Answer: As for our life, there are so many conflicting theories that none can be believed. Do not forget that even among us there are various religions, such as Christianity, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Zoroastrianism, and so on.

Question: What do you yourself believe?

Answer: I have always been a skeptic.

Question: Yet surely you do not at least doubt the existence of spirits?

Answer: I cannot feel as certain of it as you do.

Question: How extensive is your acquaintance?

Answer: My acquaintances extend across all ages and all lands, and must number no fewer than three hundred. Among the more famous are Kleist, Mainlander, Weininger ...

Question: Are your acquaintances all suicides?

Answer: Not necessarily. Montaigne, for example, who defended suicide, is one of my most respected friends. But I do not associate with pessimists who did not kill themselves -- people of Schopenhauer's sort.

Question: Is Schopenhauer still well?

Answer: At present he is establishing a spiritual pessimism and debating whether one ought to support oneself. Yet, having learned that cholera too was a germ disease, he appears greatly relieved.

We members, one after another, asked after the state of the spirits of Napoleon, Confucius, Dostoevsky, Darwin, Cleopatra, Shakyamuni, Demosthenes, Dante, Sen no Rikyu, and others. But unhappily Mr. Tock did not answer in detail; instead, he asked various items of gossip concerning himself.

Question: How is my posthumous fame?

Answer: One critic has called you "one among the swarm of minor poets."

Question: He must be one of those bearing resentment because I never presented him with a copy of my poems. Has my complete works been published?

Answer: Your complete works has been published, but its sales seem to be extremely poor.

Question: Three hundred years from now -- that is, after the copyright has expired -- my complete works will be bought by all the world. How is the woman with whom I lived?

Answer: She has become the wife of Mr. Rack, the bookseller.

Question: She is no doubt still unfortunate enough not to know that Rack has a glass eye. And my child?

Answer: I hear the child is in the National Orphanage.

After a short silence, Mr. Tock began questioning us anew.

Question: What has become of my house?

Answer: It has become a certain photographer's studio.

Question: And what has become of my desk?

Answer: No one knows what has become of it.

Question: In the drawer of my desk I kept a bundle of letters I treasured -- however, fortunately, that is of no concern to you busy people. Now our spirit world is slowly sinking into twilight. I must take my leave of you. Farewell, gentlemen. Farewell, my good gentlemen.

With these final words Mrs. Hop abruptly came to herself once more. We seventeen members swear before the God above that this exchange was true in every particular. (Furthermore, the remuneration paid to our trusted Mrs. Hop was disbursed in accordance with the daily fee she received when she had been an actress.)

16

After reading an article like that, I gradually began to feel melancholy even about remaining in that country, and I decided that somehow I wanted to return to our own human world. But no matter how I searched, I could not find the hole through which I had fallen. Then I heard from that fisherman kappa Bag that somewhere on the outskirts of that country there lived an aged kappa, reading books, playing the flute, and passing his days in quiet. I thought that if I asked this kappa, perhaps I might learn some way of escaping from the country, so I set off at once for the outskirts of town. But when I got there, instead of any aged kappa, in a very small house there sat a kappa of only twelve or thirteen, with the plate on his head not even hardened yet, serenely playing the flute. Naturally I thought I must have entered the wrong house. But when, just to make sure, I asked his name, he proved to be none other than the old kappa Bag had told me about.

"But you look like a child ..."

"You still don't know? By what fate I cannot say, but when I came out of my mother's womb my hair was already white. Then little by little I grew younger, and now I've become a child like this. But if you count my age, making sixty for the time before I was born, I may be a hundred and fifteen or sixteen by now."

I looked around the room. Perhaps it was only my imagination, but among the plain chairs and table there seemed to drift some pure happiness.

"You seem to live more happily than the other kappa."

"Well, perhaps that is so. When I was young, I was old; now that I am old, I have become young. Accordingly, I am not thirsty for greed like the old, nor drowned in lust like the young. At any rate, whether my life has been happy or not, it must certainly have been peaceful."

"Yes, I can see that it would be peaceful."

"No, that alone would not be enough to make it peaceful. I was healthy too, and I had enough property to keep me fed all my life. But what made me happiest, after all, I think, was having been old when I was born."

For a while I spoke with this kappa about the suicide of Tock and about Gehl, who was seeing a doctor every day. But for some reason the aged kappa looked as though my stories did not interest him much.

"Then unlike the other kappa, you are not particularly attached to being alive?"

The aged kappa looked at my face and quietly replied:

"Like the other kappa, before leaving my mother's womb I too was asked once by my father whether I wished to be born into this country."

"But I happened to tumble into this country by chance. Please tell me the road by which I can leave it."

"There is only one road by which you can leave."

"And that is?"

"The road by which you came here."

When I heard that answer, for some reason my hair stood on end.

"The trouble is, I can't find that road."

The aged kappa fixed his fresh young eyes steadily on my face. At last he rose, walked over to the corner of the room, and pulled a rope hanging there from the ceiling. Then a skylight I had not noticed until then opened above us. Beyond that round skylight, past the spreading branches of pine and cypress, the broad sky stretched blue and clear. Yes, and the peak of Mount Yari, like a great arrowhead, towered there as well. I literally leapt for joy like a child who has just seen an airplane.

"There, you may go out that way."

So saying, the aged kappa pointed to the rope he had just pulled. What I had taken until then for a mere rope was in fact a rope ladder.

"Then I'll go out there."

"But let me tell you beforehand: don't regret it after you've gone out."

"It's all right. I won't regret it."

No sooner had I replied than I was already climbing up the rope ladder, with the dish on the old kappa's head far below me.

17

After I returned from the land of the kappa, for some time I could hardly bear the smell of our human skin. Compared with us humans, kappa are astonishingly clean. Nor was that all: after seeing nothing but kappa for so long, human heads struck me as positively uncanny. You may perhaps not understand this. But quite apart from the eyes and mouth, there is something peculiarly terrifying about the nose. Naturally I arranged things so as to meet as few people as possible. But it seems I gradually got used again to human beings as well, and after about half a year I was going out anywhere. Even so, one difficulty remained: while talking, I would carelessly let slip words from the language of the kappa country.

"Will you be at home tomorrow?"

"Qua."

"What did you say?"

"Oh, I mean yes, I will be."

That was more or less how it went.

However, about a year after I returned from the land of the kappa, because of the failure of a certain enterprise ... (At this point Dr. S, when he heard him say this, warned him, "You had better leave that story alone." According to the doctor, whenever he speaks of it, he grows so violent that even the attendants cannot manage him.)

So let us leave that story aside. But because of the failure of a certain enterprise, I began to want to go back to the land of the kappa. Yes, not merely to "go" there. I found myself wanting to "go back." For at that time the land of the kappa felt to me like my native home.

I slipped quietly out of the house and tried to board a train on the Chuo Line. Unfortunately a policeman caught me, and in the end I was put into the hospital. Even when I had first entered this hospital, I went on thinking of the land of the kappa. What was the doctor Chack doing now? Perhaps the philosopher Magg, too, was still thinking about something under his lantern of seven-colored glass. Above all, my close friend Rapp, the student with the rotting beak -- it was on a cloudy afternoon like today. Lost in memories like these, I was just about to cry out, when I saw that somehow, without my noticing when he had come in, there stood before me a fisherman kappa named Bag, repeatedly bowing his head. Once I had recovered myself -- I do not remember whether I laughed or cried -- one thing is certain: I was deeply moved to be using again, after so long, the language of the land of the kappa.

"Bag, how did you get here?"

"Well, sir, I came to pay you a visit. I heard you were ill."

"How did you know that?"

"I heard it on the radio news."

Bag grinned proudly.

"Even so, you got here well enough."

"Why, it was no trouble at all. To kappa, the rivers and canals of Tokyo are just the same as roads."

Only then did it occur to me afresh that kappa, like frogs, were amphibious creatures.

"But there's no river around here."

"No, sir, I came up this way through the water pipes. Then I just opened a fire hydrant for a moment ..."

"Opened a fire hydrant?"

"Have you forgotten, sir? That there are mechanics among kappa too?"

After that, every two or three days I received visits from various kappa. According to Dr. S, my illness is dementia praecox. But that doctor Chack says -- and this must surely be very rude even to you -- that I am not the dementia praecox patient at all, that Dr. S first of all, and you people yourselves, are the dementia praecox patients. Since even doctor Chack comes to see me, it goes without saying that the student Rapp and the philosopher Magg have visited me too. But apart from that fisherman Bag, no one comes during the daytime. Especially when two or three of them come together, it is always at night -- and a night with moonlight. Only last night too, in the moonlight, I spoke with Gehl, president of the glass company, and with the philosopher Magg. Not only that, I had the musician Kraback play a piece on the violin for me. There, you see that bouquet of black lilies on the desk over there, don't you? Kraback brought it last night as a gift. ...

(I turned and looked behind me. But of course there was no bouquet on the desk, nor anything else.)

And this book too was brought to me, with some effort, by the philosopher Magg. Go on, just read the first poem. No, of course you couldn't know the language of the kappa country. Then let me read it instead. This is one volume of Tock's complete works, recently published. --

(He opened an old telephone directory and began reading aloud a poem like this.)

-- Among palm blossoms and bamboo

Buddha has long since fallen asleep.

Together with the withered fig by the roadside

Christ too seems already dead.

But we must take our rest

Even before the painted backdrop of a play.

(And if one looks behind that backdrop, is it not nothing but patched-up canvas?) --

Yet I am not as pessimistic as that poet. So long as the kappa keep coming to see me now and then -- ah, I had forgotten this. You remember Pepp, the judge who was my friend. After losing his post, that kappa really did go mad. I hear he is now in the lunatic asylum in the land of the kappa. If only Dr. S would permit it, I should like to go visit him ...

(February 11, 1927)