A spring-time case

by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

The boatman had taken this evening a fare to a restaurant on the Daionji-mae, Asakusa. Taking chance of this trip, he called on Shinsuké’s parents at their home, not far from there, and got his father to come out here, which had given him as good opportunity as he could hope for. He went over the ground again with the old man, and had the thing thrashed out, well and proper. It would be hard to forgive the boy who had seduced his master’s daughter, said the father, but if the pair should stay away in disgrace, it would mean even adding to the wrongs done to the house of Suruga-ya, which he would not like to see. Should the young ones kill themselves in despair, the master’s family would lose its only heiress and go out of existence, even if the father were not to take his own sorrow into reckoning. When he thought of that side of the affair, he did not wish to hold out too strongly against them, though he realized that it would not be befitting that he should give his consent, or say one way or the other before the master of the Suruga-ya should have his say about it, as it properly should be. Therefore, the father would presume only so much as to say this, that if the Suruga-ya folk meant to forgive and forget about the thing, he was ready to let his son marry into their family, even though his own family would thereby pass out; for, he felt he should place the master’s interest before his own. In fact, if he had not had to consider Seiji’s good offices and ideas about the affair, the father said that he would surely, according to the boatman’s account, ferret out his son, if he had to go to the farthest ends of the world, and tear him to pieces. “Feel for my old heart,”—the father was quoted to have said, before he had it out in a man’s cry, no longer able to check his bitter heart. Whereupon, Seiji tried to appease him by making him see things from some other angle than where he was dead set.

“Forgive whatever wrong your son has done,—for my sake,—just to save my face,” Seiji’s appeal followed, according to himself. “If you have brought yourself round so far in the matter, your forgiveness is the only thing now in the way of settling, for I have practically got the Suruga-ya people to the point of giving theirs.”

When the talk had at length come to be closed over a drink of peace, Seiji said, he manoeuvred to make suggestion that the young man be brought over here that the father and son might be happy to see each other. It would give the old man a chance to give his boy a talk so he should do no more misconduct. “Not right or in order that I should do so now and here,” the father was said to have insistently remarked, in turning down the suggested idea, until he had finally to give way, almost in spite of himself, to the boatman’s wish. So, he had waited, and waited pretty long; but, because Shinsuké was late and because the father who was a busy man always, had so much on hand just now, with the year-end close at hand, felt he could afford to sit here and while away no more time. So, he had gone, it was said, only a minute before Shinsuké came, despite repeated entreaty on the part of the boatman.

“See, such is the heart of a father!” Seiji commented. And those words seemed to quicken the young man to a keener sense of the wrongs of which he was guilty and of the old heart that was almost too good—a revelation, as he was led to feel. He drooped his head, bent himself low upon his hands placed down in front, in an attitude of humble gratitude; tears trickled down on his bent knees.

“Now, come to think of it, we’ve quite forgotten our drinks while we were at this thing,” remembered the boatman. “Let us hope for the best, now; and, in the meantime, celebrate the success we are headed for. We’ll drink hearty and proper! To be right, we should have geishas, but, you being too handsome a boy, I shouldn’t put any more pitfalls in your way!”

Seiji pressed drinks on him with an insistence that was matched only by his generous spirit; and the young man drank much. He was not of the sort that may be described to relish the taste of saké, but was of that sort that could keep his wits or his head up, however much he might drink, thanks perhaps to his hardy physique. In spite of his reluctant mind, he accepted each and all of the cups offered him in quick succession, and drank it with grace, out of his respect for the spirit of the occasion.

Then, Santa’s prediction began to prove true. The sky had been completely overcast, before they were aware. The falling off of the winds was soon followed by big drops of rain that came pattering upon the eaves. In no time, it grew into a torrent and began to pour down, as if the sky and the river had been turned into one sheet of water. Whilst their voices were oft deadened amidst the fury that went on with such violence as to make them marvel that their little room was not shaken up, the three men went on with their drinking, for some time yet. There were no signs of slackening in rain.

“It must be getting on the fourth hour,[11]” Seiji was impatient. “I have yet another piece of business to go as far as Koume. But what am I going to do in this sort of weather?” He gave way to his vexed mind, and, there was even a trace of viciousness in his gesture as he clapped his hands to summon the attendant maid.

“Shin don, you will excuse me, as I have but little more time unless I go in the palanquin. But no rushing for you,—may as well take more drinks and stay with Santa as long as you wish.”

On this line of parting words, he took his leave.