Kappa

Please pronounce it as Kappa.

Preface

This is a story told to anyone who will listen by Patient No. 23 at a certain mental hospital. He must be past thirty by now. Yet at first glance he looks unmistakably like a young madman. The experiences of his half-lifetime... no, never mind that. He merely sat there hugging his knees, now and then glancing out the window as he went on and on with this tale to Dr. S, the director, and to me. (Outside the barred window stood a single oak tree, not even a dead leaf left on it, its branches spread against a snowy, overcast sky.) It is not that he used no gestures. When he said, for example, "I was astonished," he would suddenly fling his face backward....

I believe I have copied his story down with considerable accuracy. If anyone is not satisfied with my transcription, he need only visit Dr. S's mental hospital in XX Village outside Tokyo. Patient No. 23, 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. And at the end... I still remember the look on his face when he finished it. No sooner will he rise from his seat than he will suddenly start swinging his fists and shouting at whoever is there: "Get out! You scoundrel! You're one of them too, aren't you? A stupid, jealous, obscene, brazen, conceited, cruel, shameless beast! Get out! You scoundrel!"

1

It was in the summer three years ago. Like any ordinary traveler, I had a rucksack on my back and set out from that hot-spring inn in Kamikochi to climb Mount Hotaka. As you know, the only way to climb Mount Hotaka is to follow the Azusa River upstream. I had climbed not only Mount Hotaka before but Yarigatake as well, so I made my way up the valley of the Azusa River without a guide, beneath the descending morning mist. Up the mist-filled valley of the Azusa River... but that mist showed no sign of clearing, no matter how long I waited. On the contrary, it only grew deeper. After walking for about an hour, I thought I might turn back to the hot-spring inn at Kamikochi. But even if I did turn back, I would still have to wait for the mist to lift first. And yet the mist only thickened with every passing moment. "To hell with it, I'll keep climbing." Thinking this, I pushed my way through the dwarf bamboo, careful not to leave the Azusa valley.

But all that met my eyes was still the same deep mist. It is true that now and then I could make out through it the thick branches of keyaki and fir trees, their blue-green leaves hanging down. And from time to time grazing horses and cattle would suddenly appear before me. But the instant I saw them, they vanished again into the swelling white 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 by the mist, had become no light burden. At last I gave in and decided to make my way down to the Azusa valley, guided by the sound of water rushing among rocks.

I sat down on a rock by the water and set about eating. Opening a can of corned beef, gathering dry twigs and lighting a fire... perhaps ten minutes passed while I busied myself with these things. In that time the malicious mist had gradually begun at last to thin and lift. As I chewed my bread, I glanced at my wristwatch. It was already past one twenty. But what startled me more than the time was that some eerie face cast a fleeting shadow over the glass of my round watch. Startled, I turned around. And there... it was at that very moment that I first saw what is called a kappa. On a rock behind me stood a kappa exactly as it appears in pictures, one hand clutching a white birch trunk, the other shading its eyes, peering down at me in obvious curiosity.

I was so dumbfounded that for a while I could not move a muscle. The kappa too seemed startled and did not even move the hand over its eyes. Then I sprang up and lunged at the kappa on the rock. At the same instant, the kappa fled. Or rather, it must have fled. In fact, the moment it seemed to twist its body lightly, it had already vanished somewhere. More astonished than ever, I looked all around among the dwarf bamboo. Then I saw the kappa again, leaning back as if ready to bolt, staring over its shoulder at me from two or three meters away. That in itself was nothing strange. What surprised me was the color of its body. The kappa that had been watching me from the rock had been gray all over. But now its whole body had changed completely to green. "Damn you!" I shouted, and once more hurled myself at it. Of course the kappa ran. And then for some thirty minutes I kept chasing it desperately, crashing through dwarf bamboo, leaping over rocks, pursuing it headlong.

A kappa, too, is swift on its feet, certainly no slower than a monkey. While I chased it in a frenzy, I nearly lost sight of it time and again. Worse still, I repeatedly slipped and fell. But when we came beneath a great horse-chestnut tree spreading its thick branches wide, fortune favored me: a grazing bull stood blocking the kappa's path. And not just any bull, but a fierce one, thick-horned and bloodshot-eyed. At the sight of this bull the kappa gave a shriek and threw itself headlong into a patch of especially tall dwarf bamboo. I thought, "Got you now," and rushed after it at once. There must have been some hole there that I had not noticed. Just as my fingertips barely touched the kappa's slick back, I suddenly toppled headfirst into a deep darkness. Yet even in such a hair's-breadth crisis, the human mind thinks of absurd things. The instant I cried out, I remembered that near the hot-spring inn in Kamikochi there was a bridge called Kappa Bridge. After that... after that I remember nothing. I only felt something like lightning flash before my eyes, and before I knew it I had lost consciousness.

2

When at last I came to, I found myself lying on my back, surrounded by a crowd of kappa. More than that, one kappa with pince-nez perched on its broad beak was kneeling beside me, a stethoscope pressed to my chest. When this kappa saw that I had opened my eyes, it gestured for me to keep still, then called out to some kappa behind it, "Quax, quax." At once two kappa came walking up from somewhere carrying a stretcher. Laid upon this stretcher, I was carried quietly for several blocks through a great throng of kappa. The streets on either side of me were no different at all from the Ginza. Beneath rows of keyaki trees, all sorts of shops stood with awnings extended, and along the road between the trees several automobiles were running.

Before long, the stretcher bearing me turned into a narrow side street and was carried into a house. As I later learned, it was the home of that pince-nez-wearing kappa, a doctor named Chak. Chak laid me on a neat little bed. Then he made me drink a glass of some clear liquid medicine. I lay there on the bed, doing whatever Chak told me. In truth, my body ached so badly in every joint that I could scarcely move anyway.

Chak came to examine me unfailingly two or three times a day. And about once every three days the kappa I had first encountered, the fisherman named Bagg, would come to visit as well. Kappa know far more about human beings than we know about kappa. That is probably because kappa capture human beings far more often than we capture kappa. Even if "capture" is not exactly the word, human beings had come to the land of the kappa many times before me. Indeed, many had lived their whole lives there. Why, you ask? Because merely by virtue of not being kappa but human, people like us can live there without working. In fact, according to Bagg, one young road worker happened to come to this country, married a female kappa, and lived there until he died. Admittedly, that female kappa was said to have been the greatest beauty in the land, and equally unsurpassed in the art of deceiving her road-worker husband.

After about a week, in accordance with the laws of that country, I was allowed to live as a "specially protected resident" next door to Chak. Though small, my house was exceedingly elegant. Of course, the civilization of that country was not so very different from the civilization of our human world, or at least from Japanese civilization. In one corner of the parlor facing the street stood a small piano, and etchings in frames hung on the walls. Only the dimensions of the house itself, and of the tables and chairs, were all suited to the stature of kappa, so in that respect it felt inconvenient, as though I had been put into a child's room.

Toward evening, I would always receive Chak and Bagg in that room and learn the kappa language. No, not only them. Since I was a specially protected resident, everyone was curious about me, and even a certain Gael, the president of a glass company, who would summon Chak all the way to his house every day just to have his blood pressure taken, used to drop in on me there. Still, during the first half month or so, the one who became closest to me was that fisherman Bagg.

One mild evening, I was sitting at the table in this room facing Bagg. Then, for some reason, Bagg suddenly fell silent. His already large eyes widened still more as he stared fixedly at me. Naturally I found this odd, so I said, "Quax, Bagg, quo quel quan?" In Japanese that would mean, "Hey, Bagg, what's the matter?" But Bagg did not answer. Instead, he abruptly rose to his feet, stuck out his tongue, and even made as if to spring at me, just like a frog leaping. Thoroughly unnerved now, I rose quietly from my chair and was about to make a dash for the doorway. At that very moment, fortunately, Dr. Chak appeared there.

"Bagg, what are you doing?"

Still wearing his pince-nez, Chak glared at Bagg as he spoke. Bagg, apparently chastened, repeatedly touched his head in apology and said this to Chak:

"I'm terribly sorry. The truth is, I found it amusing how frightened this gentleman looked, and I got carried away playing a prank. Please forgive me too, sir."

3

Before I go any further, I must explain a little about 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 do indeed have short hair on their heads, and their hands and feet are webbed, just as described in works like Notes on the Water Tiger. Their height is a little over, or a little under, one meter. According to Dr. Chak, they weigh anywhere from twenty to thirty pounds, though he said there are rare giant kappa weighing fifty-odd pounds. In the center of the head is an oval-shaped dish, and that dish seems to harden with age. In fact, the dish of the elderly Bagg feels utterly different from that of the young Chak. But the strangest thing of all is surely the color of their skin. A kappa does not have a fixed skin color as we do. Its entire body changes to match the color of its surroundings. For example, when it is in the grass, it turns green like grass; when it is on a rock, it turns gray like stone. This of course is not unique to kappa; chameleons do the same. Perhaps kappa possess something in the structure of their skin akin to a chameleon. When I discovered this fact, I recalled folkloric records saying that kappa in western Japan are green while those in the northeast are red. I also remembered how, when I was chasing Bagg, he had suddenly seemed to vanish. And kappa evidently have a very thick layer of fat beneath the skin, for although the temperature in that subterranean country is comparatively low, around fifty degrees Fahrenheit on average, they know nothing of clothing. Of course all kappa wear eyeglasses or carry cigarette cases and wallets and the like. But since they have a pouch on their bellies like a kangaroo, storing such things causes them no particular inconvenience. What amused me was that they did not even cover their loins. Once I asked Bagg why that custom existed. Bagg threw himself backward and laughed and laughed. Then he answered, "What strikes me as funny is that you hide yours."

4

Little by little I learned the everyday language the kappa used. As a result, I also came to understand their customs and habits. What struck me as strangest of all was this absurd peculiarity: kappa find laughable the very things we humans take seriously, while taking seriously the things we humans find laughable. In other words, their sense of the ridiculous is governed by standards entirely different from our own. We humans take things like justice and humanity seriously. But the kappa, when they hear such words, clutch their bellies and burst out laughing. Once I was discussing birth control with Dr. Chak. Suddenly he opened his mouth wide and laughed so hard his pince-nez nearly fell off. Naturally I was offended and demanded to know what was so funny. As I recall, Chak's reply ran roughly like this. Some details may be wrong, for at that time I still did not fully understand the kappa language.

"But it is funny to think only of the convenience of the parents. It's really too self-centered."

On the other hand, from a human point of view, nothing is quite so ridiculous as a kappa childbirth. In fact, some time later I went to watch Bagg's wife give birth in Bagg's hut. When kappa give birth, it is much the same as with us. They too rely on the assistance of doctors and midwives. But when the time comes, the father puts his mouth to the mother's reproductive organ as if speaking into a telephone and cries in a loud voice, "Think carefully before you answer whether or not you want to be born into this world." Kneeling beside her, Bagg repeated this over and over. Then he rinsed his mouth with a disinfecting liquid from the table. At last the child in his wife's womb, as if somewhat embarrassed, replied in a small voice:

"I don't want to be born. For one thing, inheriting only my father's insanity would already be bad enough. And besides, I believe existence as a kappa is evil."

When Bagg heard this answer, he scratched his head with an embarrassed look. But the midwife there immediately inserted a thick glass tube into his wife's reproductive organ and injected some sort of liquid. His wife then let out a deep breath of relief. At the same time, her belly, which had been so large, shrank limply like a balloon with the hydrogen gas let out.

Since they can give replies like that, kappa children naturally begin walking and talking the moment they are born. According to Chak, there was even a child who gave a lecture on the existence of God on the twenty-sixth day after its birth. That child, however, died in its second month.

Since I am already speaking of childbirth, let me tell you about a large poster I happened to see on a street corner in the third month after I came to that country. Beneath it were painted a dozen or so kappa, some blowing trumpets, some holding swords. Across the top ran lines of the spiral script used by the kappa, rather like watch springs. Translated, it meant roughly this. Some of the details may be wrong, but at any rate I carefully jotted down in my notebook every word read aloud by a student kappa named Rapp, who was walking with me.

Volunteers wanted for the Eugenic Corps!

Healthy male and female kappa!

In order to wipe out bad heredity,

marry unhealthy male and female kappa!

Naturally I told Rapp then and there that no such thing could ever be practiced. At this not only Rapp but all the kappa nearby burst into peals of laughter.

"Could never be practiced? But from your own stories, it seems to me that you people do exactly the same as we do. Why do you think it is that your sons fall in love with maids and your daughters with chauffeurs? All that is merely the unconscious elimination of bad heredity. And in any case, compared with the volunteer corps you humans have... the sort that kill one another over a single railroad line... don't you think our volunteer corps are far nobler?"

Rapp said this in perfect seriousness, though his huge belly kept rippling with suppressed laughter. But I was in no mood to laugh. I hurriedly tried to seize a certain kappa, having just noticed that while I was off my guard he had stolen my fountain pen. But the smooth-skinned kappa are not easily caught by us humans. That one, too, slipped slickly free the instant I grabbed for him and fled at top speed, pitching his mosquito-thin body so far forward he looked as though he might fall.

5

This kappa named Rapp took care of me almost as much as Bagg did. But what I remember best is that he introduced me to a kappa named Tokk. Tokk was a poet among the kappa. Poets wore their hair long, just as among us humans. From time to time I visited Tokk's house to relieve my boredom. In his cramped room, Tokk always kept pots of alpine plants lined up and passed his days writing poetry and smoking, living in a manner that seemed entirely carefree. In one corner of the room sat a female kappa doing some knitting or something of the sort. Tokk was a believer in free love, so he had no such thing as a wife. Whenever Tokk saw me, he would smile and say this. (Though to be sure, a kappa's smile is not a particularly pleasant thing. At least at first I found it rather uncanny.)

"Ah, you've come. Sit down in that chair."

Tokk often talked about the life of the kappa and the art of the kappa. In Tokk's view, nothing in the world was as idiotic as the ordinary life of kappa. Parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters all lived simply to torment one another, taking that as their sole pleasure. The family system in particular was more than idiotic; it was idiotic beyond measure. Once Tokk pointed out the window and spat out the words, "Look there. Look at that stupidity!" In the street outside, a young kappa was trudging along half out of breath with seven or eight male and female kappa hanging from his neck, among them what seemed to be his parents. But I was impressed by the young kappa's spirit of self-sacrifice, and instead praised his admirable devotion.

"Hmph. You would qualify as a citizen even in this country.... By the way, are you a socialist?"

Naturally I answered, "Qua" (which in the kappa language means "yes").

"Then you must not hesitate to sacrifice one genius for the sake of a hundred ordinary men."

"Then what ism do you believe in? Someone told me your creed, Mr. Tokk, was anarchism...."

"Mine? I am a superman. Literally translated, a super-kappa."

Tock declared this with lofty assurance. He also had his own distinctive ideas about art. According to what Tock believed, art must submit to the rule of nothing whatsoever; it is art for art’s sake; therefore an artist, before anything else, must be a superman beyond good and evil. To be fair, this was not Tock’s opinion alone. Most of the poets in his circle seemed to agree with him. In fact, I often went with Tock to the Superman Club. Those who gathered there were poets, novelists, dramatists, critics, painters, musicians, sculptors, and amateurs of the arts. But every last one of them was a superman. In a brightly lit salon, they were always cheerfully talking together. More than that, from time to time they would smugly display just how superhuman they were. One sculptor, for example, while pinning down a young kappa among some large potted ferns, was busily amusing himself with pederasty. A certain female novelist climbed up onto a table and drank sixty bottles of absinthe before everyone’s eyes. To be sure, as soon as she finished the sixtieth bottle she tumbled 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 Tock. Tock was unusually downcast and did not say a word. Before long we passed a small window lit by firelight. Beyond it, what looked like a husband and wife kappa, one male and one female, were seated at the dinner table with their three children. Tock sighed, then suddenly said to me:

“I think of myself as a superhuman lover, and yet when I see a family like that, I can’t help envying it.”

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

Yet Tock, standing there with his arms folded in the moonlight, kept gazing through that little window at the peaceful supper table of the five kappas. After a while he answered:

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

Six

In fact, kappa love differs a great deal in character from love among us human beings. The moment a female kappa spots a male she wants, she stops at nothing to catch him. The most straightforward kind of female kappa simply chases the male with blind desperation. I myself once saw a female kappa pursuing a male like a mad creature. And not only that. Not just the young female kappa, but even her parents and brothers joined in the chase. It is the male kappas who are pitiable. After all, even if one of them runs for his life and is lucky enough not to be caught, he still ends up bedridden for two or three months. One day I was at home reading a volume of Tock’s poems. Suddenly that student named Rapp came rushing in. As soon as he tumbled into my house, he collapsed on the floor and gasped out:

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

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

Of course, now and then there are also male kappas who pursue female kappas with all their might. But in truth, the female is the one who maneuvers things so that he cannot help chasing her. I too saw a male kappa running after a female as if he were out of his mind. Even as she fled, the female would deliberately stop from time to time, or drop to all fours for him to see. Then, when the moment was just right, she would let herself be caught with an air of complete discouragement. The male kappa I saw held the female in his arms and lay there with her for a while. But when at last he got up, his face wore an expression of disappointment, or regret, or something else entirely beyond description, so pitiful that I could not help feeling sorry for him. Still, that was one of the better cases. In another scene I witnessed, a small male kappa was chasing a female. As usual, the female was making her seductive escape. Just then, from the opposite street, a large male kappa came walking along, snorting loudly. The female happened to glance at him, and suddenly shrieked, “Help! Help! That kappa is trying to kill me!” Naturally, the big male at once seized the little one and pinned him down in the middle of the road. The small kappa clawed at the air two or three times with his webbed hands, then died. But by then the female, grinning to herself, had already clung tightly around the big kappa’s neck.

Every male kappa I knew, without exception, was pursued by female kappas. Even Bagg, who had a wife and children, was chased all the same. More than that, he was caught two or three times. The only exception was the philosopher Magg, who lived next door to the poet Tock. He had never been caught even once. Partly, I suppose, because there were few kappas as ugly as Magg; but partly too because he hardly ever showed his face in the streets and stayed indoors all the time. I sometimes went to visit Magg at home. He would always be sitting in a dim room lit by a lantern made of stained glass in seven colors, reading nothing but thick books at a tall desk. Once, while talking with him, I brought up the subject of love among kappas.

“Why doesn’t the government crack down more severely on female kappas chasing male kappas?”

“For one thing,” he said, “there are too few female officials. Female kappas are even more jealous than males. If only the number of female officials increased, male kappas would certainly be able to live with less pursuit than they do now. Still, even that would have only limited effect. Why? Because female officials would chase male officials too.”

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

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

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

Seven

I often went to concerts with the poet Tock as well. The one I still cannot forget is the third concert I attended. The appearance of the hall itself was not very different from halls in Japan. On the seats rising tier upon tier sat three or four hundred male and female kappas, all holding programs in their hands and listening intently. At this third concert I was sitting in the very front row with Tock, Tock’s female companion, and the philosopher Magg. After a cello solo ended, a kappa with strangely narrow eyes came casually onto the stage carrying a score under his arm. As the program indicated, this was the famous composer Craback. As the program indicated, that is to say, though there was really no need to look: Craback belonged to the same Superman Club as Tock, so I at least knew him by sight.

“Lied — Craback”

(The programs in that country, like most things there, were usually printed in German.)

Amid vigorous applause, Craback gave us a slight bow and quietly walked to the piano. Then, with the same casual air, he began to play one of his own songs. According to Tock, Craback was a genius without equal before or since among all the musicians produced by that country. I was interested not only in Craback’s music but in his lyric poetry as well, which he wrote as a sideline, so I listened intently to the sound of the great bow-shaped piano. Tock and Magg may well have been even more entranced than I was. But that beautiful female kappa, beautiful at least according to what the kappas said, sat clutching her program tightly and now and then thrust out her long tongue in obvious irritation. According to Magg, she had failed to catch Craback some ten years earlier and still regarded the musician as a mortal enemy.

Craback kept playing the piano as though in battle, pouring his whole body into it. Then suddenly, like a clap of thunder ringing through the hall, came the shout: “Performance forbidden!” Startled, I involuntarily turned around. The shout had come unmistakably from an exceptionally tall policeman seated in the very back row. When I turned, he was still sitting there at his ease; then once more, even louder than before, he roared, “Performance forbidden!” And then...

What followed was utter chaos. “Police brutality!” “Craback, play! Play!” “Idiot!” “Damn you!” “Get out!” “Don’t give in!” Amid the uproar, chairs toppled over, programs flew through the air, and on top of that, whoever was throwing them sent empty cider bottles, stones, even half-chewed cucumbers raining down upon us. I was so dumbfounded that I tried to ask Tock the reason for it. But Tock, apparently carried away himself, had stood up on his chair and was shouting, “Craback, play! Play!” Nor was Tock’s female companion any different; perhaps she had forgotten her hostility for the moment, for she too was yelling, “Police brutality!” Left with no other choice, I turned to Magg and asked, “What is happening?”

“This? Why, this is common enough in our country. Paintings and literature, you see...”

Each time something flew at him Magg shrank his neck a little, but otherwise he explained calmly, just as before.

“Paintings and literature at least present something that anyone can see, whether or not they understand it properly, so in this country they are never prohibited from publication or exhibition. Instead, what we have is prohibition of performance. Music alone, no matter how corrupting a piece may be to public morals, cannot be understood by kappas who have no ears.”

“But does that policeman have ears?”

“Well, that is open to question. Probably while listening to the melody just now he was reminded of the beating of his heart when he lay in bed beside his wife.”

Even as we spoke, the commotion only grew fiercer. Craback remained at the piano, turning back toward us with an air of arrogant defiance. But no matter how defiant he might be, he could not very well avoid dodging the various objects flying at him. As a result, his carefully assumed pose changed every few seconds. Still, taken as a whole, he preserved the dignity of a great musician while his narrow eyes blazed with a terrible light. As for me, I was of course using Tock as a sort of small shield against danger. Yet curiosity drove me on, and I kept talking eagerly with Magg.

“Isn’t that kind of censorship outrageous?”

“Not at all. In some ways it is more advanced than the censorship of any other country. Take Japan, for instance. Why, only about a month ago...”

At that very instant, unfortunately, an empty bottle came down on the crown of Magg’s head. He gave a single cry of “quack!” which was merely an interjection, and promptly lost consciousness.

Eight

For some reason, I felt a liking for Gael, the president of the glass company. Gael was a capitalist among capitalists. Very likely there was not another kappa in the whole country with a belly as enormous as Gael’s. Yet when he sat in his easy chair with a wife like a lychee on one side and children like cucumbers on the other, he seemed happiness itself. From time to time I was taken to dinners at the Gael household by Pepp the judge or Chack the doctor. And carrying letters of introduction from Gael, I also went around looking at various factories with which Gael and his friends had some connection. Of all those factories, the one that interested me most was the factory of a book-manufacturing company. When I entered it with a young kappa engineer and looked at the huge machines driven by hydroelectric power, I was struck anew by the progress of mechanical industry in the land of the kappas. I was told that they produced seven million books a year there. But it was not the number of books that astonished me. What amazed me was how little labor was involved in producing them. In that country, all one had to do to make books 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 would come out as countless books in large-format, standard-format, half-format, and so on. While watching all sorts of books pour down like a waterfall, I asked the engineer, who stood there arching his back, what that gray powder was called. Remaining beside the gleaming black machine, he answered indifferently:

“This? It’s donkey brains. Yes, simply dried once and then ground into powder. Market price is only two or three sen a ton.”

Naturally, such industrial miracles were not confined to the book-manufacturing company alone. The same thing occurred in painting-manufacturing companies and music-manufacturing companies as well. Indeed, according to Gael, seven or eight hundred new kinds of machines were invented every month in that country, and more and more mass production was being carried out with almost no need for human labor. Accordingly, no fewer than forty or fifty thousand workers were dismissed every month. And yet, though I read the morning paper there every day, I never once came across the word strike. This struck me as strange, so when I was again invited to dine at Gael’s house together with Pepp and Chack, I asked why that was.

“They just eat them,” said Gael casually, a cigar in his mouth after dinner.

But I had no idea what he meant by “eat them.” Chack, wearing pince-nez, seemed to sense my puzzlement and added an explanation from the side.

“They kill all the workers and use the meat for food. Look at this newspaper here. This month exactly sixty-four thousand seven hundred sixty-nine workers were dismissed, so naturally the price of meat has fallen by that amount.”

“The workers submit quietly to being killed?”

“There is no point in making a fuss. There is a Laborer Slaughter Law.”

That was Pepp speaking, with a bitter expression on his face, a potted bayberry behind him. Naturally, I was disgusted. Yet Gael himself, of course, and Pepp and Chack as well, all seemed to regard such a thing as perfectly natural. Indeed Chack laughed and said to me mockingly:

“In other words, the state simply saves them the trouble of starving to death or committing suicide. They are merely made to inhale a little poison gas, so there is no great suffering.”

“But to eat their flesh...”

“Don’t be absurd. If Magg heard you, he would laugh himself sick. In your country too, aren’t the daughters of the fourth class turned into prostitutes? To get indignant over eating the flesh of workers is mere sentimentalism.”

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

“Well? Why not have one? These are made of worker meat too.”

Naturally I was appalled. Not only that: leaving behind the laughter of Pepp and Chack, I fled from the Gael household’s drawing room. It was a wild night, with not even starlight visible over the roofs. As I made my way home through the darkness, I vomited continuously, again and again, vomiting pale stuff that showed whitely even in the night.

Nine

Still, Gael, the president of the glass company, must have been an ingratiating kappa. I often went with him to the club to which he belonged and spent pleasant evenings there. Partly this was because his club was far more comfortable than the Superman Club to which Tock belonged. But also, though Gael’s talk lacked the depth of the philosopher Magg’s, it opened before me an entirely new world, a broad world, and let me peer into it. Stirring his coffee cup with his usual spoon of pure gold, Gael would cheerfully talk about all sorts of things.

One foggy night, I remember, I was listening to Gael talk with a vase of winter roses between us. If I remember correctly, the whole room, the chairs, and the table alike, were white, edged with thin gold in a Secession style. Gael, looking more triumphant than usual, his face overflowing with smiles, spoke of the Quorax Party cabinet then in power. The word “Quorax” was itself only a meaningless interjection, so perhaps the nearest translation would be something like “Oh!” At any rate, it was a political party that claimed above all to stand for “the interests of the kappas as a whole.”

“The man who controls the Quorax Party is the famous statesman Roppe. ‘Honesty is the best diplomacy’ was something Bismarck said, was it not? Well, Roppe extends honesty to domestic politics as well...”

“But Roppe’s speeches...” I began.

“Now, now, listen to what I’m saying. Those speeches are of course entirely ... But since everyone knows that ..., in the end it comes to the same thing as honesty, does it not? To call it simply ... is merely a prejudice peculiar to people like you. We kappas are not like you people... But never mind that. What I want to talk about is Roppe. Roppe controls the Quorax Party, and the one who controls Roppe in turn is Kuikui, the president of the Pou-Fou newspaper. This ‘Pou-Fou’ too is only a meaningless interjection; if one insisted on translating it, there would be nothing for it but something like ‘Ah!’ But Kuikui, for all that, cannot exactly be said to be his own master. The one who controls Kuikui is Gael, who stands before you now.”

“But... forgive me if this is rude, but isn’t the Pou-Fou newspaper supposed to be on the side of labor? To say that its president Kuikui is under your control...”

“The reporters at Pou-Fou are certainly on the side of labor. But the one who controls the reporters is Kuikui, is he not? And Kuikui cannot do without the backing of this Gael.”

Gael went on smiling just as before, toying with the spoon of pure gold. Looking at him like that, I found myself sympathizing less with Gael himself than with the reporters of the Pou-Fou newspaper. Gael must have sensed that sympathy at once in my silence, for swelling out his great belly, he said:

“Oh, not all the reporters at Pou-Fou are entirely on the side of labor. We kappas, at least, stand first on our own side before taking anyone else’s. ... But what is even more troublesome is that this Gael himself is still under someone else’s control. Who do you think that is? Why, my wife. Beautiful Mrs. Gael.”

Gael burst into loud laughter.

“That ought rather to be considered a blessing.”

“At any rate, I am satisfied. But it is only before you, only before someone who is not a kappa, that I can boast of it so openly.”

“So in the end it is Mrs. Gael who controls the Quorax cabinet?”

“Well, perhaps you could put it that way. ... At any rate, the war seven years ago was certainly begun because of a certain female kappa.”

“A war? Has there been war in this country too?”

“Indeed there has. And who knows when there may be another in the future? So long as there are neighboring countries...”

For the first time, I realized then that the land of the kappa was not isolated in national terms either. According to Gael’s explanation, the kappa always treated the otters as a hypothetical enemy. And the otters, he said, possessed military strength no less formidable than the kappa’s. I found myself deeply 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 A Brief Study of the Water Tiger, but even to Kunio Yanagita, the author of Tales of Mountain and Island Folk.)

“Before that war broke out, both countries were of course on guard, each watching the other closely. That was because both sides were equally afraid of the other. Then one otter living in this country paid a visit to a certain married kappa couple. Now the female kappa in that pair was planning to kill her husband. He was a wastrel, you see. And the fact that he had a life insurance policy may also have been something of a temptation.”

“Did you know that couple?”

“Yes... no, I only knew the male kappa. My wife talks about him as if he were some villain. But if you ask me, he’s less a villain than a paranoid madman, terrified of falling into the clutches of female kappa. ... Well, that female kappa put potassium cyanide into her husband’s cup of cocoa. But somehow she mixed things up and served it to the otter guest instead. Naturally the otter died. And after that...”

“And then it became war?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, that otter happened to have a medal.”

“Which side won the war?”

“Of course this country did. Three hundred sixty-nine thousand five hundred kappa died gallantly in battle for the cause. But compared to the losses on the enemy side, that was nothing at all. Nearly every fur in this country is otter fur. During that war, besides manufacturing glass, I also sent coal cinders to the front.”

“What were coal cinders used for?”

“As food, of course. We kappa will eat anything once we’re hungry enough.”

“That... please don’t be offended. For kappa at the front, that would be... in our country, a scandal.”

“It would be a scandal in this country too. But if I myself say so openly, nobody treats it as one. Doesn’t the philosopher Magg say as much? ‘Speak your own evil yourself; then evil will vanish of itself.’ ... Besides, I was burning not only with the desire for profit, but with patriotism as well.”

At that very moment, a waiter from the club came in. After bowing to Gael, the waiter said in a tone as formal as if he were reciting something aloud:

“There is a fire next door to your house.”

“Fi... fire!”

Gael sprang up in alarm. Naturally I stood up too. But the waiter remained perfectly calm and added:

“But it has already been put out.”

Watching the waiter leave, Gael wore an expression very close to laughing through tears. Seeing that face, I realized that at one time I had hated this president of the glass company. But Gael was no longer a great capitalist now, merely a kappa standing before me. I pulled a winter rose from the vase and handed it to him.

“Still, even if the fire’s out, your wife must have had a terrible fright. Here, take this home with you.”

“Thank you.”

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

“The place next door is one of my rental properties. At least I’ll collect the fire insurance.”

I still remember vividly the smile Gael wore at that moment, a smile I could neither despise nor hate.

10

“What’s the matter? You’re looking unusually downcast again today.”

It was the day after the fire. With a cigarette in my mouth, I said this to the student Rapp, who had dropped into a chair in my sitting room. Indeed, Rapp sat there with his left leg crossed over his right, staring blankly at the floor so fixedly that even his rotten beak was hardly visible.

“Rapp, what do you mean, what’s the matter?”

“No, it’s nothing, really. Something trivial...”

At last Rapp lifted his head and spoke in a mournful nasal voice.

“This morning I happened to glance out the window and muttered, without thinking, ‘Oh, the butterwort has bloomed.’ At once my sister’s face changed color and she flew into a rage, saying, ‘So I’m a butterwort, am I?’ On top of that, my mother always takes my sister’s side, so she started attacking me too.”

“But why would saying that the butterwort had bloomed upset your sister?”

“Well, I suppose she took it to mean she was trying to catch a male kappa. Then my aunt, who never gets along with my mother, joined the quarrel, and the whole thing became an even bigger uproar. To make matters worse, my father, who’s drunk all year round, heard the fight and started hitting everyone in sight, without distinction. And as if that weren’t enough trouble already, my younger brother took advantage of the confusion to steal my mother’s wallet and run off to see a movie or something. I... I really, truly...”

Rapp buried his face in both hands and burst into tears without another word. Naturally I felt sorry for him. And naturally I also remembered the poet Tokk’s contempt for the family system. I patted Rapp on the shoulder and tried my best to comfort him.

“That sort of thing happens anywhere. Come on, be brave.”

“But... but if only my beak weren’t rotten...”

“There’s nothing to do about that except resign yourself. Come on, let’s go over to Tokk’s house.”

“Mr. Tokk despises me. I can’t cast off my family as boldly as he can.”

“Then let’s go to Kraback’s house.”

Ever since that concert, I had become friends with Kraback too, so at any rate I decided to take Rapp to the great musician’s home. Compared with Tokk, Kraback lived in far greater luxury. I do not mean that he lived like the capitalist Gael. I mean simply that he had all sorts of antiques, Tanagra figurines and Persian pottery, filling the room from end to end, and set among them a Turkish-style divan, on which he was always playing with his children beneath a portrait of himself. But for some reason that day he was sitting there with both arms folded across his chest, wearing a bitter expression. What was more, scraps of paper were scattered all over the floor at his feet. Rapp too had surely met Kraback many times together with the poet Tokk. Yet perhaps intimidated by this mood, he only bowed politely today and sat down silently in a corner of the room.

“What’s wrong, Kraback?”

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

“What’s wrong, you ask? That idiot of a critic! He says my lyric poetry can’t even be compared with Tokk’s lyric poetry.”

“But you’re a musician, and...”

“If that were all, I could bear it. But he says that compared to Rock, I’m not worthy of being called a musician.”

Rock was a musician often compared to Kraback. 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 face, with its upturned beak and some odd, difficult quality to it.

“Rock is certainly a genius too. But Rock’s music doesn’t possess the modern passion overflowing in yours.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I do.”

No sooner had Kraback risen than he snatched up a Tanagra figurine and smashed it onto the floor. Rapp was so startled he seemed ready to cry out and run away. But Kraback gestured quickly to Rapp and me not to be alarmed, then said coolly:

“That only proves you too, like ordinary people, have no ears. I’m afraid of Rock. ...”

“You? Stop pretending to be modest.”

“Who’s pretending to be modest? If I were going to put on an act for anyone, I’d do it in front of the critics. I, Kraback, am a genius. In that respect, I do not fear Rock.”

“Then what do you fear?”

“Something unidentifiable... if you like, the star that rules over Rock.”

“I can’t say that makes much sense to me.”

“Then let me put it this way. Rock is not influenced by me. But before I know it, I have been influenced by Rock.”

“That’s because of your sensitivity...”

“No, listen. It’s not a question of sensitivity. Rock is always calm, doing the work that only he can do. But I become irritated. From Rock’s point of view, it may be only a single step’s difference. But to me, it’s ten miles.”

“But your Heroic Symphony, sir...”

Kraback narrowed his thin eyes still further and glared at Rapp with obvious annoyance.

“Be quiet. What could you possibly understand? I know Rock. I know Rock better than the dogs who grovel before him.”

“Come now, calm yourself a little.”

“If I could calm myself... I always think this: some unknown force, something beyond our understanding, set Rock before me in order to mock me, to mock Kraback. The philosopher Magg understands all of this, every bit of it, even though he does nothing but sit under that colored-glass lantern reading tattered old books.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Take a look at a book Magg wrote recently called The Words of a Fool.”

Kraback handed me a book, or rather threw it at me. Then, still with his arms folded, he said brusquely:

“Well then, forgive me for today.”

With dejected Rapp beside me, I decided to head back out into the street. The busy avenue, as always, was lined with all sorts of shops in the shade of the sawtooth zelkovas. We walked along in silence, aimlessly. Then the long-haired poet Tokk happened to pass by. When Tokk saw our faces, he pulled a hand towel from the pouch on his belly and wiped his forehead over and over.

“Ah, I haven’t seen you in a while. Today I was thinking of visiting Kraback for the first time in ages, but...”

Not wanting these artists to get into a quarrel, I told Tokk, tactfully, how ill-tempered Kraback had seemed.

“I see. Then I’ll leave it for another time. After all, Kraback is neurasthenic. ... I myself have been in trouble these past two or three weeks because I can’t sleep.”

“How about taking a walk with us?”

“No, not today. Oh!”

No sooner had Tokk cried out than he seized my arm tightly. Cold sweat was running all over his body.

“What is it?”

“What’s wrong?”

“For a moment, from the window of that automobile, I thought I saw a green monkey stick its head out.”

I grew somewhat worried and urged him, at any rate, to have that doctor, Chack, examine him. But whatever I said, Tokk showed no sign of agreeing. On the contrary, comparing our faces with a suspicious look, he even said this:

“I am absolutely not an anarchist. Be sure not to forget that. ... Well then, goodbye. I want nothing to do with Chack.”

We stood there blankly, watching Tokk’s retreating figure. We... no, not “we.” The student Rapp had somehow moved into the middle of the street, planted his legs apart, and was peering upside down between them at the endless traffic of automobiles and passersby. Thinking this kappa too had gone mad, I pulled him upright in alarm.

“This is no joke. What are you doing?”

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

“No, I was feeling so depressed that I tried looking at the world upside down. But it’s still the same.”

11

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

×

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

×

Part of the reason we love nature may be that nature neither hates us nor envies us.

×

The wisest way to live is to despise the customs of one’s age and yet live without violating them in the least.

×

The things we most wish to be proud of are only those we do not possess.

×

No one objects to destroying 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 favored by the gods: a fool, a villain, or a hero. (Kraback had left claw marks over this passage.)

×

The ideas necessary for our life may have been exhausted three thousand years ago. We may do nothing more than add new flames to old firewood.

×

Our distinctive traits generally transcend our own consciousness.

×

If happiness is accompanied by pain, and peace by boredom, then...?

×

To defend oneself is harder than to defend another. Let anyone who doubts it look at a lawyer.

×

Pride, lust, suspicion: all sins have arisen from these three for three thousand years. And very likely all virtues as well.

×

Reducing material desires does not necessarily bring peace. To gain peace, we must reduce our spiritual desires as well. (Kraback had left claw marks over this passage too.)

×

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.)

×

To do is to be able to do, and to be able to do is to do. In the end, our lives cannot escape such circular reasoning. That is to say, they are irrational from beginning to end.

×

After becoming an imbecile, Baudelaire expressed his view of life in a single word: cunt. But what speaks of him is not necessarily that. Rather, it is the fact that, trusting in his genius, in the poetic genius sufficient to support his life, he forgot the word stomach. (Here too there were Kraback’s claw marks.)

×

If we were to remain consistent with reason, 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 Words of a Fool, I set out to visit the philosopher Magg. At a lonely street corner I found a skinny kappa, thin as a mosquito, absentmindedly leaning against a wall. And unmistakably, it was the very kappa who had once stolen my fountain pen. Thinking this was my chance, I stopped a sturdy policeman who happened to be passing by.

“Please investigate that kappa over there. About a month ago, he stole my fountain pen.”

The policeman raised the baton in his right hand. (In this country, policemen carry clubs of water pine instead of swords.) “Hey, you,” he called to the kappa. I half expected the kappa might run away. But instead he walked calmly up to the policeman. More than that, with his arms folded, he stared insolently from face to face, first at me, then at the policeman. Yet the policeman showed no anger. Taking a notebook from the pouch on his belly, he immediately began his questioning.

“What’s your name?”

“Gluck.”

“Occupation?”

“Until two or three days ago, I was a mail carrier.”

“Very good. Now then, according to this gentleman’s statement, you stole his fountain pen.”

“Yes, I stole it about a month ago.”

“For what purpose?”

“I meant to use it as a toy for my child.”

“And where is that child?”

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

“He died a week ago.”

“Do you have a death certificate?”

The skinny kappa took out a sheet of paper from the pouch on his belly. After glancing through it, the policeman suddenly grinned and patted him on the shoulder.

“All right. Thank you for your trouble.”

I stared at the policeman, dumbfounded. Meanwhile the skinny kappa, muttering something under his breath, turned his back on us and went away. At last recovering myself, I asked the policeman:

“Why aren’t you arresting that kappa?”

“That kappa is innocent.”

“But he stole my fountain pen...”

“He did it for his child’s toy, didn’t he? But that child is dead. If you have any doubts, look up Penal Code Article 1285.”

With that, the policeman briskly went off somewhere. Since there was nothing else I could do, I repeated “Article 1285” to myself and hurried on to Magg’s house. The philosopher Magg loved company. Sure enough, in his dim room that day there had gathered the judge Pepp, the doctor Chack, the president of the glass company Gael, and others, all sending cigarette smoke curling upward beneath a seven-colored glass lantern. The presence of Judge Pepp there suited me perfectly. No sooner had I sat down than, instead of looking up Article 1285, I at once put the question to Pepp.

“Pepp, forgive the rudeness, but do you not punish criminals in this country?”

Pepp first blew a leisurely plume of smoke from his gold-tipped cigarette, then answered in an exceedingly bored tone:

“Of course we punish them. We even carry out the death penalty.”

“But about a month ago, I...”

After telling the whole story, I asked him about that Article 1285.

“Hm. It says this: ‘No matter what crime may have been committed, once the circumstances that caused the crime have disappeared, the criminal may no longer be punished.’ In your case, that kappa was once a parent, but is no longer a parent, and therefore the crime naturally disappears as well.”

“That seems highly irrational.”

“Don’t be absurd. It is precisely treating the kappa who was a parent and the kappa who is a parent as one and the same that is irrational. Ah yes, in Japanese law they are considered the same, aren’t they? That seems ridiculous to us. Ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha.”

As he flicked away his cigarette, Pepp let out a lifeless little laugh. The one who next joined in was Chack, who had little to do with the law. Adjusting his pince-nez, Chack asked me:

“Is there a death penalty in Japan too?”

“There is. In Japan it is hanging.”

Because I had begun to feel somewhat antagonistic toward the coolly self-possessed Pepp, I seized the chance to needle him.

“Then I suppose the death penalty in this country is carried out more civilly than in Japan?”

“It is, of course, more civilized.”

Pepp remained perfectly calm.

“We do not use hanging in this country. Occasionally electricity is used. But in most cases electricity is not used either. We merely tell the criminal the name of his crime.”

“And that alone kills a kappa?”

“It does indeed. The workings of our kappa nerves are subtler than yours.”

“It’s not only for executions. Sometimes the same method is used for murder too...”

President Gael, his whole face dyed purple by the colored glass light, gave a warm, ingratiating smile.

“Only the other day, when a certain socialist said to me, ‘You thief,’ I nearly suffered heart failure.”

“That seems to happen rather often. A certain lawyer I knew actually died because of it.”

I turned toward the kappa who had spoken, the philosopher Magg. Magg, as always, wore his ironic smile and went on talking without looking at anyone’s face.

“That kappa was told by someone that he was a frog. Of course, as you already know, in this country being called a frog means you are a subhuman creature. And so, wondering every day, ‘Am I a frog? Am I not a frog?’ he finally died.”

“So in other words, that was suicide.”

“Though in fact the one who called him a frog meant to kill him by saying it. From your point of view, I suppose that too would still be called suicide...”

It was just as Magg had said that. Suddenly, from beyond the wall of that room there rang out a single sharp pistol shot from the poet Tokk's house, cracking through the air.

13

We rushed to Tokk's house. Tokk was lying on his back among pots of alpine plants, a pistol gripped in his right hand, blood flowing from the dish atop his head. Beside him a female kappa had buried her face in his chest and was wailing aloud. As I helped her up (to tell the truth, I do not much like touching the slick skin of kappa), I asked, "What happened?"

"I don't know what happened. He was just writing something, and then all at once he shot himself in the head. Oh, what am I to do? qur-r-r-r-r, qur-r-r-r-r." (That is the sound of a kappa weeping.)

"Tokk was headstrong, after all."

Gael, president of the glass company, said this to the judge Pep, shaking his head sorrowfully. Pep, however, said nothing, merely lighting a gold-tipped cigarette. Then Chakk, who had been kneeling and examining Tokk's wound, announced to the five of us in the manner of a physician. (In fact, it was one human and four kappa.)

"It's no use now. Tokk had always suffered from stomach trouble, and that alone made him prone to melancholy."

"You say he was writing something?"

The philosopher Magg, murmuring this as if in excuse to himself, picked up the paper on the desk. We all craned our necks (except, of course, for me), and peered over Magg's broad shoulders at the single sheet.

"Come then, let us rise and go, To the valley that parts us from this world of suffering. There the rocks stand cold, And the mountain stream runs clear, And the medicinal flowers are sweet with bloom."

Turning to us, Magg said with a faint bitter smile, "This is plagiarism from Goethe's 'Mignon's Song.' So Tokk must have been worn out not only as a living being, but as a poet as well."

At that moment, by chance, the musician Krabakk drove up in his car. When he saw the scene, he stood for a while in the doorway. Then he came over to us and spoke to Magg almost as if shouting at him.

"Is that Tokk's suicide note?"

"No, the poem he was writing at the end."

"A poem?"

Still perfectly calm, Magg handed Tokk's manuscript to Krabakk, whose hair was bristling upright. Krabakk, without even glancing around him, began reading it with intense concentration. He scarcely seemed to hear Magg at all.

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

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

"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 world of suffering... Only Tokk, unhappily... the rocks stand cold..."

"Unhappily?"

"And the mountain stream runs clear... You people are fortunate... the rocks stand cold..."

I felt sorry for the female kappa, who still had not stopped crying, so I put an arm gently around her shoulders and led her to a sofa in the corner of the room. There sat a kappa child of two or three, laughing without any understanding of what had happened. In the female's place I tried to amuse the child. Before I knew it, I felt tears welling in my own eyes. During the entire time I lived in the land of the kappa, that was the one and only time I shed tears.

"Still, one has to pity the family left behind by such a willful kappa."

"He never thought about what would happen afterward."

Judge Pep, as impassively as ever, was answering the capitalist Gael while lighting a fresh cigarette. Then the one who startled us was the musician Krabakk, crying out at the top of his voice. Clutching the manuscript, he called out to no one in particular:

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

With his narrow eyes blazing, Krabakk gripped Magg's hand for an instant, then suddenly dashed for the doorway. By then a large crowd of neighboring kappa had gathered at Tokk's door, peering in with curious looks. But Krabakk shoved them aside right and left with reckless force, sprang lightly into his automobile, and in the same instant it roared away and vanished somewhere.

"Hey now, hey now, none of that peeking."

After shoving back the crowd of kappa in place of a policeman, Judge Pep shut Tokk's door. Because of that, the room suddenly fell very still. In that silence, amid the scent of alpine flowers mingled with the smell of Tokk's blood, we discussed practical matters and what should be done next. Only the philosopher Magg stood gazing blankly at Tokk's corpse, sunk in thought. I tapped him on the shoulder and asked, "What are you thinking about?"

"The life of the kappa."

"What about the life of the kappa?"

"However you look at it, for us kappa to live out a complete kappa life..."

Magg added in a rather embarrassed whisper:

"At any rate, we must believe in the power of something other than ourselves kappa."

14

It was Magg's remark that brought religion to my mind. I was, of course, a materialist, and no doubt had never once seriously thought about religion. But at that moment, affected as I was by Tokk's death, I began wondering what the religion of the kappa might be. I at once put the question to the student Rapp.

"They have Christianity, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, fire worship, and so on. But the most influential by far is what they call Modernism. They also call it the Religion of Life." (The translation "Religion of Life" may not be exact. The original word is Quemoocha. The suffix cha probably corresponds to the English "-ism." As for quemoo, from quemal, it means not simply "to live" but more specifically "to eat meals, drink liquor, and copulate.")

"Then there must be churches and temples in this country too?"

"Don't be absurd. The great temple of Modernism is the largest building in the country. How about it? Shall we go have a look?"

One mild and cloudy afternoon, Rapp proudly took me with him to this great temple. It was indeed an immense structure, ten times the size of Nikolai Cathedral. More than that, it was a gigantic construction combining every imaginable architectural style into one. When I stood before it and looked up at its lofty towers and domes, I felt something almost uncanny. They truly seemed like countless tentacles stretching up toward heaven. We stood before the entrance (and compared even with that entrance, how tiny we were!) and for some time gazed up, not so much at a building as at a prodigious monster of a temple.

The interior of the great temple was just as vast. Worshipers moved about among Corinthian columns, yet they too looked as tiny as we did. Before long we came upon an elderly, stooped kappa. Rapp bowed his head slightly to him and addressed him politely.

"Elder, it is good to see you in good health."

The other kappa, after returning the greeting, replied with equal politeness.

"Why, if it isn't Mr. Rapp. You too, as always..." He broke off for a moment, no doubt because he had only then noticed the rotting beak of Rapp. "Ah, well, at any rate, you seem to be keeping well. But what brings you here today...?"

"I have come accompanying this gentleman. As you probably know..."

Thereupon Rapp launched into a fluent account of me. It also seemed, somehow, to serve as an excuse for how rarely he himself ever came to this temple.

"So if you would be kind enough to guide this gentleman, I would be most grateful."

The elder smiled magnanimously, first greeted me, and then quietly pointed toward the main altar.

"Guide you? There is little of use I can do. What we believers worship is the Tree of Life there on the main altar. As you can see, the Tree of Life bears fruits of gold and green. That golden fruit is called the Fruit of Good; that green fruit, the Fruit of Evil..."

Even as he explained, I had already begun to feel bored. His words sounded to me like an old, worn-out allegory. Of course I pretended to listen attentively. But from time to time I did not forget to glance around the interior of the temple.

Corinthian columns, Gothic vaulting, a checkered floor with an Arabian flavor, prayer desks in a pseudo-Sezession style: the harmony produced by these things possessed a strangely barbaric beauty. But what attracted me most were the marble busts set within niches on both sides. I felt as though I knew them. Nor was that surprising. When the stooped kappa had finished explaining the Tree of Life, he led Rapp and me to a niche on the right and began to explain the bust within it.

"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 truth he was not saved. He 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 confesses there that he too once attempted suicide."

I felt a little depressed and turned my eyes to the next niche. The bust there was of a German with a heavy moustache.

"This is Nietzsche, the poet of Zarathustra. That saint sought salvation in the Superman he himself had created. But he was not saved either, and in the end he went mad. Had he not gone mad, perhaps he might not even have been counted among the saints..."

After a brief silence the elder led us to the third niche.

"The third is Tolstoy. This saint practiced austerity more than anyone. Since he was by birth an aristocrat, he hated exposing his suffering to the curiosity of the public. He strove to believe in Christ, who in fact could not be believed in. Indeed, there were times when he even publicly declared that he did believe. But at last, in his old age, he could no longer endure the tragic masquerade. It is well known that this saint sometimes felt terror at the beam in his study. Still, since he is numbered among the saints, of course he did not commit suicide."

The bust in the fourth niche was that of one of us Japanese. When I saw the face, I naturally felt a pang of homesickness.

"This is Kunikida Doppo, the poet who knew exactly what passed through the mind of a laborer run over and killed. But any further explanation is surely unnecessary for you. Now, please look into the fifth niche."

"Isn't that Wagner?"

"Indeed. A revolutionary who was a king's friend. In his later years Saint Wagner even said grace before meals. But naturally he too was one of the faithful of the Religion of Life rather than of Christianity. According to the letters he left behind, the sufferings of this world drove him to the brink of death more times than one can count."

By then we were standing before the sixth niche.

"This was a friend of Saint Strindberg. A French painter, formerly a businessman, who married a Tahitian girl of thirteen or fourteen instead of a wife with many children. In his thick blood vessels ran the blood of a sailor. But look at the lips; traces remain of arsenic or something of the sort. As for the seventh niche... but you must be tired by now. Please, come this way instead."

I really was tired, so I followed the elder with Rapp along a corridor fragrant with incense into a room. In one corner of that small chamber, beneath a statue of a black Venus, a cluster of wild grapes had been offered up. Since I had imagined an austere monk's cell with no ornament at all, I found this a little unexpected. The elder, seeming to sense my reaction, explained half apologetically before offering us chairs.

"Please do not forget that ours is the Religion of Life. The teaching of our god, the Tree of Life, is: 'Live vigorously.'... Mr. Rapp, have you shown this gentleman our holy book?"

"No... the truth is, I myself have hardly ever read it."

Scratching the dish atop his head, Rapp answered honestly. But the elder went on speaking with the same quiet smile.

"Then you cannot really understand. Our god created this world in a single day. (Though it is called the Tree of Life, there is nothing it cannot do.) Moreover, he created the female kappa. Then, out of boredom, the female kappa desired the male. Our god took pity on this lament and, taking a portion of the female kappa's brain, created the male kappa. To these two kappa our god gave his blessing: 'Eat, copulate, live vigorously.'..."

As the elder spoke, I thought of the poet Tokk. Unfortunately, Tokk was an atheist, like myself. Since I was not a kappa, it was no wonder I had known nothing of the Religion of Life. But Tokk, born in the land of the kappa, must surely have known the Tree of Life. Pitying the end of Tokk, who had failed to follow this teaching, I interrupted the elder and began to speak of him.

"Ah yes, that unfortunate poet."

Hearing me, the elder let out a deep sigh.

"The things that determine our fate are only faith, circumstances, and chance. (Though of course you people would add heredity as well.) Tokk, unfortunately, had no faith."

"Tokk must have envied you. No, I envy you myself. Rapp here is young, after all, and..."

"If only my beak had been sound, I might perhaps have been an optimist too."

At these words from us, the elder sighed deeply once again. And all the while his eyes, brimming with tears, remained fixed on the black Venus.

"As for me too, in truth... this is my secret, so please do not tell anyone... in truth I too cannot bring myself to believe in our god. And yet somehow my prayers..."

It was just as the elder said this. Suddenly the door flew open, and a large female kappa sprang straight at him. Naturally we tried to seize hold of her. But in the briefest instant she had thrown the elder flat onto the floor.

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

About ten minutes later, we left the elder and his wife behind us and came down the steps of the great temple, scarcely short of running away.

"No wonder that elder doesn't believe in the Tree of Life."

After we had walked on in silence for a while, Rapp said this to me. But instead of replying, I found myself turning back toward the great temple. Against the leaden cloudy sky it still stretched its towers and domes like countless tentacles, carrying the same uncanny air as a mirage seen over a desert...

15

About a week after that, I happened to hear a curious story from the doctor Chakk. It was the story that a ghost had appeared in Tokk's house. By then the female kappa had gone off somewhere, and the house of our friend the poet had been turned into a photographer's studio. According to Chakk, whenever anyone had a photograph taken there, Tokk's figure would somehow always appear dimly in the background behind the customer. Chakk, to be sure, was a materialist and did not believe in life after death. In fact, even as he told the story he wore a malicious smile and added, in the manner of a footnote, something like: "It seems souls, too, must be material existences." I myself differed little from Chakk in my disbelief in ghosts. Yet I had felt an attachment to the poet Tokk, and so I immediately ran to the bookstore and bought newspapers and magazines containing articles about Tokk's ghost and photographs of it. Sure enough, in those photographs there appeared, dimly behind kappa young and old, male and female, a single kappa that somehow resembled Tokk. But what astonished me even more than the photographs were the articles about Tokk's ghost, especially the report of the Society for Psychical Research concerning it. Since I translated that report almost word for word, I shall reproduce its gist below. The notes in parentheses, however, are my own additions.

Report Concerning the Ghost of the Poet Tokk. (Published in issue no. 8,274 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research)

Our Society for Psychical Research recently convened a special inquiry at no. 251, Second Street, the former residence of the poet Tokk, deceased by suicide, now the studio of photographer XX. The members in attendance were as follows. (Names omitted.)

On September 17 at 10:30 a.m., seventeen of us, together with the president of the Society, Mr. Peck, and accompanied by Mrs. Hopp, the medium in whom we place the greatest trust, assembled in a room of the said studio. No sooner had Mrs. Hopp entered the studio than she felt the psychic atmosphere already present there, and while suffering convulsions throughout her body, vomited several times. According to Mrs. Hopp, this was because the poet Tokk had so passionately loved strong tobacco that even his psychic atmosphere contained nicotine.

We, the members, sat in silence around a round table together with Mrs. Hopp. After three minutes and twenty-five seconds, Mrs. Hopp entered a state of extremely sudden somnambulism and became possessed by the spirit of the poet Tokk. In order of age, we members then began the following exchange with the spirit of Tokk speaking through Mrs. Hopp.

Question: Why do you appear as a ghost?

Answer: In order to learn the extent of my posthumous fame.

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

Answer: At least I cannot help desiring it. Yet a certain Japanese poet whom I encountered despised posthumous fame.

Question: Do you know that poet's name?

Answer: Unfortunately I have forgotten it. I remember only one stanza of a seventeen-syllable poem he liked to compose.

Question: What was the poem?

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

Question: Do you consider that poem a fine work?

Answer: I do not necessarily consider it a bad one. But if one were to replace the frog with a kappa, it would be still more dazzling in effect.

Question: And why is that?

Answer: Because we kappa ardently seek kappa in every form of art.

At this point President Peck cautioned the seventeen members present that this was an extraordinary investigative session of the Society for Psychical Research and not a literary criticism meeting.

Question: What is the life of spirits like?

Answer: It differs in no way from your own life.

Question: Then do you regret your own suicide?

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

Question: Is making an end of oneself easy or not?

To this question Tokk's spirit answered with another question. For those who knew Tokk, such a reply must have seemed perfectly natural.

Answer: Is suicide easy or not?

Question: Is the life of spirits eternal?

Answer: Regarding our life, opinions are so various that none can be trusted. Do not forget that among us too there are many religions, such as Christianity, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, fire worship, and so forth.

Question: What do you yourself believe?

Answer: I have always been a skeptic.

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

Answer: I cannot be as certain of it as you are.

Question: How extensive is your circle of acquaintances?

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

Question: Are your acquaintances all suicides?

Answer: Not necessarily. Montaigne, for example, who defended suicide, is one of my intimate friends. I do not, however, associate with pessimists who did not kill themselves, such as Schopenhauer and his kind.

Question: Is Schopenhauer still alive?

Answer: At present he is establishing a spiritual pessimism and debating whether one should earn one’s own living. However, having learned that cholera too was a germ disease, he seems considerably relieved.

One after another, we members asked about the condition of the spirits of Napoleon, Confucius, Dostoevsky, Darwin, Cleopatra, Shakyamuni, Demosthenes, Dante, Sen no Rikyu, and others. Yet, unfortunately, Mr. Tokk would not answer in detail, and instead began asking various items of gossip concerning Mr. Tokk himself.

Question: What has become of my reputation after death?

Answer: One critic has called you “one of the lesser poets.”

Question: He must be one of those who bear me a grudge because I did not present him with a copy of my poems. Has my complete works been published?

Answer: Your complete works has been published, but it seems sales are extremely poor.

Question: Three hundred years from now, when the copyright on my works has expired, everyone will be buying it. And what of the woman with whom I lived?

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

Question: She probably still does not know, poor thing, that Rack has a glass eye. And my child?

Answer: I hear the child is in the national orphanage.

After remaining silent for a while, Mr. Tokk began asking questions again.

Question: And my house?

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

Question: What became of my desk?

Answer: No one knows what became of it.

Question: In the drawer of my desk I had hidden a bundle of letters that I treasured... However, fortunately, that is of no concern to you busy gentlemen. Now the world of spirits is gradually sinking into twilight. I must take my leave of you. Farewell, gentlemen. Farewell, my good gentlemen.

With these final words, Mrs. Hop suddenly awoke once more. We, the seventeen members, are prepared to swear before the God above that this exchange was true. (Moreover, the remuneration we paid the trustworthy Mrs. Hop was calculated according to the daily rate she received when she was an actress.)

16

After reading such an account, I gradually came to find remaining in that country depressing, and I began to wish, somehow, to return to our human world. But no matter how much I searched, I could not find the hole through which I had fallen. Then, in the story told by that fisherman kappa Bagg, I heard that on the outskirts of the city in that country there lived an elderly kappa, all alone, passing his days quietly reading books and playing the flute. I thought that if I asked this kappa, perhaps he might know some way of escaping from that country, so I immediately set out for the edge of town. But when I got there, far from finding an old kappa, I found in a tiny house a kappa of barely twelve or thirteen, with even the dish on his head not yet hardened, leisurely playing the flute. Naturally, I thought I must have entered the wrong house. But, just to make sure, I asked his name, and he was indeed the very old kappa Bagg had told me about.

“But you look like a child...”

“You still don’t know? By some odd twist of fate, when I came out of my mother’s womb my head was already white with age. After that I gradually grew younger, and now I’ve become a child like this. But if you count my years, and reckon sixty for the time before I was born, I may be a hundred and fifteen or so by now.”

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

“You seem to live more happily than the other kappa.”

“Well, perhaps that is so. When I was young, I was old, and when I became old, I turned young. So I have not thirsted after greed like an old man, nor drowned in lust like the young. At any rate, even if my life has not been a happy one, it has certainly been a peaceful one.”

“I can see that. Then of course it would be peaceful.”

“No, that alone would not make it peaceful. I also had a strong constitution, and enough property that I never once had to worry about food all my life. But what made me happiest, after all, was that I was old when I was born.”

For a while I talked with this old kappa about Tokk, who had killed himself, and about Gael, who was seeing a doctor every day. But for some reason the old kappa seemed not very interested in what I had to say.

“Then, unlike the other kappa, you are not especially attached to being alive?”

The old kappa looked at my face and quietly replied:

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

“But I happened, by mere chance, to tumble into this country. Please tell me how I can get out of it.”

“There is only one way out.”

“And that is?”

“The way by which you came here.”

When I heard this answer, for some reason the hair on my body stood on end.

“The trouble is, I can’t find that way.”

The old kappa fixed his fresh young eyes steadily on my face. Then at last he got up, walked over to the corner of the room, and pulled a rope hanging down from the ceiling. At once a skylight, which I had not noticed until then, opened overhead. Through the round opening I could see, beyond the spreading branches of pines and cypresses, the broad blue sky shining clear. No, and there too rose the peak of Mount Yarigatake, towering like a great arrowhead. I literally leaped for joy like a child who has seen an airplane.

“There now. Go out through there.”

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

“Then I shall go out that way.”

“I’ll tell you beforehand, though: take care you don’t regret it after you leave.”

“I’ll be all right. I shan’t regret it.”

I had scarcely answered before I was already climbing the rope ladder, gazing far down below at the dish on the old kappa’s head.

17

After I returned from the land of the kappa, for a while I could hardly bear the smell of human skin. Compared with us humans, the kappa are extraordinarily clean. Not only that, but after seeing nothing but kappa for so long, human heads themselves looked somehow ghastly to me. Perhaps you may not understand this. But setting aside the eyes and mouth, there is something peculiarly terrifying about the nose. Of course, I arranged matters so as to meet as few people as possible. Yet little by little, I must have grown accustomed again to human beings, for after about half a year I had begun 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 was that?”

“I mean yes, I’ll be there.”

That was more or less how it went.

However, about a year after I had returned from the land of the kappa, because of the failure of a certain enterprise...

(When he said this, Dr. S warned him, “Please don’t tell that story.” According to the doctor, whenever he told it, he became so violent that even the attendants could not manage him.)

Then let us leave that story aside. But because of the failure of a certain enterprise, I found myself wanting to return to the land of the kappa once more. Yes, not that I wanted to “go” there. I felt I wanted to “go back.” For by that time the land of the kappa had come to feel like home to me.

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 brought to this hospital. When I had only just entered the hospital, I went on thinking constantly about the land of the kappa. What had become of Chak, the doctor? Perhaps Magg, the philosopher, was still thinking away beneath his seven-colored glass lantern. And above all, my close friend Rapp, the student with the rotting beak... It was one cloudy afternoon like today. Lost in such memories, I was just about to cry out when I realized that, without my noticing when he had entered, the fisherman kappa Bagg was standing before me, bowing over and over again. After pulling myself together, I... I do not remember whether I laughed or cried. But in any case I know I was deeply moved to be using the language of the kappa again after so long.

“Hey, Bagg, how did you come here?”

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

“How did you know such a thing?”

“I heard it on the radio news.”

Bagg smiled with evident self-satisfaction.

“Even so, you did well to come.”

“Oh, it was nothing. To a kappa, the rivers and canals of Tokyo are just like roads.”

Only then did it strike me again that the kappa, like frogs, were creatures equally at home on land and in water.

“But there’s no river around here.”

“No, to come up this way I passed through the water pipes. Then I just opened a fire hydrant...”

“You opened a fire hydrant?”

“Have you forgotten, sir? That there are mechanics among the 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 Chak said instead, and no doubt this will strike even you as exceedingly rude, that I am not a dementia praecox patient at all; rather, Dr. S first of all, and all of you yourselves, are the dementia praecox patients. Since even doctor Chak came, of course the student Rapp and the philosopher Magg came to visit me as well. But aside from that fisherman Bagg, none of them comes by day. Especially when two or three come together, it is always at night, and always on nights with a moon. Only last night in the moonlight I talked with Gael, the president of the glass company, and with Magg the philosopher. Not only that, but the musician Kraback played a piece for me on the violin. There, you can see the bouquet of black lilies on the desk over there, can’t you? Kraback brought them last night as a gift...

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

And this book too was brought to me specially by Magg the philosopher. Just look at the first poem. No, of course you cannot know the language of the kappa country. Then I shall read it in its place. This is one volume from the complete works of Tokk, published quite recently.

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

“Among coconut blossoms and bamboo

The Buddha has long since fallen asleep.

Together with the withered fig by the roadside,

Christ too seems already dead.

Yet we must rest,

Even if only before a painted stage backdrop.

(And if one looks behind that very backdrop,

There is nothing there but patched-up canvas!)”

But I am not as weary of the world as this poet. So long as the kappa continue to come and see me now and then... Ah, I had forgotten to mention this. You remember Pepp, the judge who was a friend of mine. After losing his position, that kappa truly went mad. I hear he is now in a lunatic asylum in the land of the kappa. If only Dr. S would permit it, I should like to go visit him...

(February 11, Showa 2 [1927])