I Am A Cat. Natsume Soseki
books he may like. If, when the bill collector comes, you just say that you’ll pay some other time, he’ll go away.”
“But one cannot put things off indefinitely.” She looks cast down.
“Then you should explain the matter to your husband and ask him to cut down expenditure on books.”
“And do you really believe he would listen to me? Why, only the other day, he said,‘You are so unlike a scholar’s wife: you lack the least understanding of the value of books. Listen carefully to this story from ancient Rome. It will give you beneficial guidance for your future conduct.’”
“That sounds interesting. What sort of story was it?” Waverhouse becomes enthusiastic, though he appears less sympathetic to her predicament than prompted by sheer curiosity.
“It seems there was in ancient Rome a king named Tarukin.”
“Tarukin? That sounds odd in Japanese.”
“I can never remember the names of foreigners. It’s all too difficult. Maybe he was a barrel of gold. He was, at any rate, the seventh king of Rome.”
“Really? The seventh barrel of gold certainly sounds queer. But, tell me, what then happened to this seventh Tarukin.”
“You mustn’t tease me like that. You quite embarrass me. If you know this king’s true name, you should teach me it. Your attitude,” she snaps at him, “is really most unkind.”
“I tease you? I wouldn’t dream of doing such an unkind thing. It was simply that the seventh barrel of gold sounded so wonderful. Let’s see. . . a Roman, the seventh king. . . I can’t be absolutely certain but I rather think it must have been Tarquinius Superbus, Tarquin the Proud. Well, it doesn’t really matter who it was. What did this monarch do?”
“I understand that some woman, Sibyl by name, went to this king with nine books and invited him to buy them.”
“I see.”
“When the king asked her how much she wanted, she stated a very high price, so high that the king asked for a modest reduction. Whereupon the woman threw three of the nine books into the fire where they were quickly burnt to ashes.”
“What a pity!”
“The books were said to contain prophecies, predictions, things like that of which there was no other record anywhere.”
“Really?”
“The king, believing that six books were bound to be cheaper than nine, asked the price of the remaining volumes. The price proved to be exactly the same; not one penny less. When the king complained of this outrageous development, the women threw another three books into the fire. The king apparently still hankered for the books and he accordingly asked the price of the last three left. The woman again demanded the same price as she had asked for the original nine. Nine books had shrunk to six, and then to three, but the price remained unaltered even by a farthing. Suspecting that any attempt to bargain would merely lead the woman to pitch the last three volumes into the flames, the king bought them at the original staggering price. My husband appeared confident that, having heard this story, I would begin to appreciate the value of books, but I don’t at all see what it is that I’m supposed to have learnt to appreciate.”
Having thus stated her own position, she as good as challenges Waverhouse to contravert her. Even the resourceful Waverhouse seems to be at a loss. He draws a handkerchief from the sleeve of his kimono and tempts me to play with it. Then, in a loud voice as if an idea had suddenly struck him, he remarked, “But you know, Mrs. Sneaze, it is precisely because your husband buys so many books and fills his head with wild notions that he is occasionally mentioned as a scholar, or something of that sort. Only the other day a comment on your husband appeared in a literary magazine.”
“Really?” She turns around. After all, it’s only natural that his wife should feel anxiety about comments on my master.
“What did it say?”
“Oh, only a few lines. It said that Mr. Sneaze’s prose was like a cloud that passes in the sky, like water flowing in a stream.”
“Is that,” she asks smiling, “all that it said?”
“Well, it also said ‘it vanishes as soon as it appears and, when it vanishes, it is forever forgetful to return.’”
The lady of the house looks puzzled and asks anxiously “Was that praise?”
“Well, yes, praise of a sort,” says Waverhouse coolly as he jiggles his handkerchief in front of me.
“Since books are essential to his work, I suppose one shouldn’t complain, but his eccentricity is so pronounced that. . .”
Waverhouse assumes that she’s adopting a new line of attack. “True,” he interrupts, “he is a little eccentric, but any man who pursues learning tends to get like that.” His answer, excellently noncommittal, contrives to combine ingratiation and special pleading.
“The other day, when he had to go somewhere soon after he got home from school, he found it too troublesome to change his clothes.
So do you know, he sat down on his low desk without even taking off his overcoat and ate his dinner just as he was. He had his tray put on the footwarmer while I sat on the floor holding the rice container. It was really very funny. . .”
“It sounds like the old-time custom when generals sat down to identify the severed heads of enemies killed in battle. But that would be quite typical of Mr. Sneaze. At any rate he’s never boringly conventional.”
Waverhouse offers a somewhat strained compliment.
“A woman cannot say what’s conventional or unconventional, but I do think his conduct is often unduly odd.”
“Still, that’s better than being conventional.” As Waverhouse moves firmly to the support of my master, her dissatisfaction deepens.
“People are always saying this or that is conventional, but would you please tell what makes a thing conventional?” Adopting a defiant attitude, she demands a definition of conventionality.
“Conventional? When one says something is conventional. . . It’s a bit difficult to explain. . .”
“If it’s so vague a thing, surely there’s nothing wrong with being conventional.” She begins to corner Waverhouse with typically feminine logic.
“No, it isn’t vague, it’s perfectly clear-cut. But it’s hard to explain.”
“I expect you call everything you don’t like conventional.” Though totally uncalculated, her words land smack on target. Waverhouse is now indeed cornered and can no longer dodge defining the conventional.
“I’ll give you an example. A conventional man is one who would yearn after a girl of sixteen or eighteen but, sunk in silence, never do anything about it; a man who, whenever the weather’s fine, would do no more than stroll along the banks of the Sumida taking, of course, a flask of saké with him.”
“Are there really such people?” Since she cannot make heads or tails of the twaddle vouchsafed by Waverhouse, she begins to abandon her position, which she finally surrenders by saying, “It’s all so complicated that it’s really quite beyond me.”
“You think that complicated? Imagine fitting the head of Major Pendennis onto Bakin’s torso, wrapping it up and leaving it all for one or two years exposed to European air.”
“Would that produce a conventional man?” Waverhouse offers no reply but merely laughs.
“In fact it could be produced without going to quite so much trouble. If you added a shop assistant from a leading store to any middle school student and divided that sum by two, then indeed you’d have a fine example of a conventional man.”
“Do you really think so?” She looks puzzled but certainly unconvinced.
“Are