Seven Japanese Tales Page 3

  Shunkin's mother, though surprised to hear the music, paid no great attention to it and went back to bed. But she heard it again several times after that when she got up in the night; and others in the family said they had heard it too, and wondered where the sound could be coming from — surely this was no ghost! Thus the discussion went on, quite unknown to the clerks and apprentices.

  All would have been well if Sasuke had continued to practice in the closet, but the fact that no one seemed to know what he was doing had made him bolder. Since he stole the night hours for his music he was bothered by loss of sleep, and being shut up in that airless closet soon made him drowsy. Toward the end of autumn, therefore, he had begun slipping out to the rooftop drying-platform to do his nightly practice in the open air. He always went to bed at ten o'clock along with the other shop employees, and would wake up at about three a.m., tuck his samisen under his arm, and go out on the platform, where, in the exhilarating cold, he would play on and on until the eastern sky began turning gray. It was during these hours of practice that Shunkin's mother heard him. Since the drying-platform was on the shop roof, directly over the attic where the apprentices slept, the sound carried over to the family quarters across the inner garden.

  All the employees were questioned, and at last Sasuke's secret was out. The head clerk summoned him, scolded him severely, warning him never to do such a thing again, and took away his samisen. But then a helping hand was extended to him, most unexpectedly: Shunkin suggested that it might be interesting to hear what he could do.

  Sasuke had felt sure that Shunkin would be offended if she learned of his practicing. She would think it presumptuous of him, a mere apprentice who ought to be contented fulfilling his duty as her guide. Whether she pitied or scorned him, he would be in for trouble. And he became all the more alarmed when he was told that she wished to hear him perform. I'd be so happy if she really cared, he thought. But he could only suppose that she was trying to make a laughingstock of him. Besides, he lacked the confidence to play and sing for others.

  However, Shunkin insisted on hearing him, and by now her mother and sisters were curious too. Finally Sasuke was summoned to the family's private quarters and had to demonstrate how much he had managed to teach himself. It was a painfully formal debut.

  By that time he could get through five or six pieces fairly well. Asked to play everything he knew, he screwed up his courage and did what he was told, playing and singing as if his life depended on it. Of course he had picked up all the tunes by ear, from the elementary “Black Hair” to the difficult “Teapickers' Song,” and had learned his jumbled repertoire in a completely unsystematic way. Perhaps Shunkin and her family intended to make a laughingstock of him, as he suspected; but when they heard him perform they realized that for someone who had studied without a teacher, and only such a short time, both his instrumental technique and his voice were excellent. All of them were filled with admiration.

  The Life of Shunkin says:

  Thereupon, Shunkin began to sympathize with Sasuke in his ambition, and said to him: “In reward for your hard work I shall teach you myself from now on. Regard me as your teacher, and practice all you can in your spare time.” At length Shunkin's father, Yasuzaemon, gave his consent to this arrangement, and Sasuke felt as if he had soared up to Heaven. Every day a fixed time was set aside during which he was freed from his duties as an apprentice and allowed to receive instruction. Thus there was the happy result that the ten-year-old girl and fourteen-year-old boy, besides being mistress and servant, formed the new and closer relationship of teacher and pupil.

  But why did a difficult, temperamental girl like Shunkin suddenly begin to show such consideration for Sasuke? Some said that it was not really her idea, that those around her had persuaded her to act as she did. I suppose the blind little girl was often so lonely and melancholy, in spite of her happy home life, that even the maidservants (to say nothing of her parents) were at their wits' end, racking their brains to think of some way to amuse or divert her. And then they learned that Sasuke shared her taste for music. No doubt the servants, who had suffered bitterly from Shunkin's waywardness, wanted to lighten their own duties by having Sasuke spend more time with her. Might they not have appealed to her vanity by praising Sasuke and saying how wonderful it would be if she went to the trouble of teaching him, how gratefully he would receive such a favor? But since clumsy flattery only annoyed Shunkin it is not at all certain that she was responding to the influence of others. Perhaps she had at last begun to care for him, and to feel a strange new emotion stirring in her heart.

  In any case, everyone was delighted when she proposed to take Sasuke as her pupil. No one asked whether a ten-year-old girl, however great a prodigy, was actually qualified to teach: it was enough that her boredom could be relieved in this way, and those around her spared. And so she was given this new game of “playing school,” and Sasuke was ordered to be her pupil. Thus, the plan was intended for Shunkin's benefit, rather than Sasuke's; but as things turned out it was he who profited most.

  According to the Life: “Every day a fixed time was set aside during which he was freed from his duties as an apprentice.” But he was already spending at least several hours a day as her guide, so that being called regularly to her room for music lessons must have left him scarcely time to think of his work in the shop. Probably Yasuzaemon felt guilty toward Sasuke's parents for having made their son, whom he was supposed to be training to become a merchant, into a companion for his daughter. But keeping Shunkin in a good humor would have meant more to him than the future of one of his apprentices, and Sasuke himself was eager to do it. Apparently Yasuzaemon gave his tacit approval to the arrangement, feeling that it would do no harm to let matters take their course for the present.

  This was when Sasuke began to call Shunkin “Madam,” one of the formalities which she required of him during his lessons. She began to speak to him more brusquely, treating him precisely as her master Shunsho treated his own pupils and exacting the strictest obedience and respect. Thus they went on with their innocent “playing school,” just as the adults had planned, and Shunkin found it highly diverting. But as the months went by the two showed no sign of abandoning their game. After two or three years had passed, both teacher and pupil had become so serious about it that there was no question of its being merely an amusement.

  It was Shunkin's daily routine to set out for her teacher's house in Utsubo at about two o'clock in the afternoon, take a lesson which lasted half an hour to an hour, and then go home to spend the rest of the day practicing. After supper, if she happened to feel so inclined, she would summon Sasuke up to her room and give him a lesson. Eventually she taught him every day, without fail, sometimes not excusing him until nine or ten o'clock at night. Often the servants below were startled to hear the violent scoldings she would give him: “Sasuke! Is that what I taught you?” or “No, that won't do! Go over it till you can play it, even if it takes all night!” It was not unusual for the little girl to drive her pupil to tears, rapping him on the head with her plectrum and shouting: “Idiot! Why can't you learn?”

  As is well known, teachers of the arts used to drill their pupils with brutal harshness, often inflicting physical punishment on them. For example, the famous chanter of puppet dramas Koshiji-dayu II had a large crescent-shaped scar between his eyebrows — a memento, so they say, of the time when his teacher cried “When will you ever learn?” and knocked him down with a blow of his heavy plectrum. Then there is the case of Yoshida Tamajiro of the Bunraku Theater. Once, during his apprenticeship, while he was helping his master Tamazo manipulate a puppet hero in rehearsing a climactic capture scene, he was unable to perfect a certain movement of the legs for which he was responsible. Suddenly his angry teacher shouted “Fool!” and, snatching up a puppet sword (one with a real blade), gave him a sharp blow on the back of the head. To this day he bears the scar of it. And Tamazo himself, who struck Tamajiro, once had his head split open when his own teache
r struck him with a puppet. He begged his teacher for the broken-off, splintered legs of the puppet, which were crimson with his blood, and then wrapped them in silk floss and stored them away in a plain wooden box, such as is used for the ashes of the dead. Now and then he took the legs out and paid obeisance to them, as if he were worshipping the spirit of his dead mother. “Except for that beating,” he would say with tears in his eyes, “I might have spent my whole life as a run-of-the-mill performer.”

  In his youth the late Osumi-dayu used to be called a plodder, since he often seemed slow to learn. His teacher was Toyozawa Dambei, known as “the Great Dambei.” One sweltering night in midsummer while Osumi was taking a lesson at Dambei's house he stumbled over a few lines in the scene he was chanting. Again and again he repeated the passage, but as hard as he tried he could not satisfy Dambei, who prudently put up a mosquito net and retired within it to listen. While the mosquitoes fed on him, Osumi went on repeating it, hundreds and hundreds of times, till the early summer dawn began to light up the room, and even his teacher seemed to have tired and fallen asleep. Nevertheless, with the persistence of a true plodder, Osumi kept on chanting the passage as vigorously as ever, determined not to stop until it had been approved. Finally Dambei's voice came from the mosquito net: “You have it.” He had listened intently all night long.

  Anecdotes of this kind are not uncommon, nor are they confined to stories of puppet-theater chanters and manipulators. Similar incidents occurred in the teaching of the samisen and the koto. Moreover, these masters were usually blind men, many of whom had the stubbornness — and the streak of cruelty — so often found among persons with a physical handicap. Shunkin's master Shunsho was such a man.

  Shunsho had long been known for the severity of his teaching methods. He often shouted curses at his pupils (many of whom were also blind) or even laid hands on them: whenever he scolded or lashed out at them they would back away a little — until sometimes a blind child, still clutching his samisen, would tumble over backward and fall clattering down the stairs. In later years, when Shunkin became a professional teacher, she was notorious for her strictness, which of course reflected Shunsho's influence. But she was already behaving that way as a child. What began as a little girl's game with Sasuke had gradually developed into the real thing.

  One often hears of cruel teachers, but there can have been few women like Shunkin who went so far as to strike their male pupils. It has been suggested that she had sadistic tendencies, and that her teaching was only a pretext for enjoying a kind of perverse sexual pleasure. After all these years, we can hardly say whether that was true or not. Still, when children play house they always imitate grownups. Though Shunkin was her master's favorite and was never punished, she was aware of his usual method, and must have felt in her childish mind that that was how a master ought to behave. Inevitably she began to imitate him when she was playing with Sasuke. And the habit grew on her, until it became second nature.

  Perhaps Sasuke cried easily, but they say that whenever Shunkin struck him he began to sob. And he sounded so wretched that everyone who heard him frowned, thinking: Shunkin is punishing him again! Her parents, who had only wanted to provide her with a new diversion, were extremely troubled by this state of affairs. Disturbing as it was to hear the samisen or the koto until far into the night, it was still worse when Shunkin gave him an angry scolding, as she often did, and when Sasuke's crying rang painfully in one's ears. Sometimes the maids felt so sorry for him — and so worried about the effect on Shunkin herself — that they would rush in to interrupt the lesson.

  “What on earth are you doing?” they would say, trying to pacify Shunkin. “You're being terribly hard on the poor boy, and not at all ladylike!”

  But Shunkin would draw herself up haughtily and retort: “Go away! You don't know anything about this. I'm not just playing a game. I'm really teaching him — it's all for his own good. Teaching is teaching, no matter how mad I get or how hard I treat him. Can't you understand that?”

  This is how the Life of Shunkin puts it:

  “Do you look down on me because of my youth?” Shunkin would ask. “And do you dare to violate the sanctity of art? Young or old, anyone who sets out to teach ought to behave like a teacher. Giving lessons to Sasuke has never been merely a game with me. I think it is too bad that in spite of his love of music he has no chance to study under an expert; that is why I am doing my best to substitute for a teacher. I want to do all I can to help him fulfill his ambition. You couldn't possibly understand. Leave the room at once!” This firm declaration was delivered with such startling eloquence and such an awesome air of dignity that the intruders, much chastened, would make a hasty retreat.

  One can easily imagine how spirited Shunkin's manner must have been. Although Sasuke was often brought to tears by her, he felt immense gratitude whenever he heard her talk like that. His tears were in part tears of gratitude for being spurred on so vehemently by the girl who was at once his mistress and his teacher. That is why he never fled from her maltreatment: even while weeping, he kept on with his lesson until she told him he could stop.

  Shunkin's moods varied dramatically from day to day. When she burst out with a noisy scolding she was in one of her relatively good moods; but sometimes she only frowned and gave the third string of her samisen a loud twang, or had Sasuke go on playing as she sat listening without a word of criticism. It was on her silent days that he cried most.

  One evening, when he was working on a samisen interlude from the “Teapickers' Song,” Sasuke was being unusually dull-witted. Time and again he repeated the same mistake. Losing patience with him, Shunkin put her own instrument down and began beating time by slapping her knee briskly with her right hand as she sang out the notes: Chiri-chiri-gan, chiri-gan. . . Finally she gave up and sat there in stony silence.

  Sasuke was helpless. Yet he had to go on somehow or other, doing his best to get through it. But as hard as he tried, Shunkin would not relent. Flushed and dizzy, he began making more mistakes than ever; his whole body was bathed in a cold sweat as he played on and on, quite at random. Shunkin remained silent, only tightening her lips a little more and deepening her frown. After some two hours of this Shunkin's mother came upstairs in her night kimono and stopped the lesson. “You mustn't be too eager,” she told her daughter soothingly. “Going to extremes is bad for your health.”

  The next day Shunkin was summoned by her parents. “It's good of you to want to teach Sasuke how to play,” they told her; “but shouting at pupils, or striking them, is only for an acknowledged master. After all, you're still taking lessons yourself. If you go on behaving like this it's bound to make you conceited — and conceited people don't become great artists. Furthermore, it's unladylike to hit a boy, or call him an idiot. Please don't do anything of that sort again! And from now on, set a time and stop at a decent hour. Sasuke's wailing gets on our nerves and none of us can sleep.”

  All this was put in such a gentle, kindly way by her parents, who had never been known to scold her, that even Shunkin seemed ready to listen to reason. But that was only on the surface. Actually, their words had no real effect on her.

  “You're such a weakling!” she told Sasuke scornfully. “You're a boy, and yet you can't stand the least thing. It's all because of your crying that they blame me and think I'm being cruel to you. If you really want to become an artist you've got to grit your teeth and bear it, no matter how much it hurts. If you can't, I won't be your teacher.”

  After that, however badly she abused him, Sasuke never cried.

  It seems to have worried Shunkin's parents that their daughter, whose blindness had already warped her character, had come to behave quite rudely now that she was teaching Sasuke. Having him as her companion was a mixed blessing. As grateful as they were to him for keeping her in a good humor, it distressed them to think that his habit of yielding to her every whim might gradually make her even more of a problem.

  When Sasuke was seventeen his master arrange
d for him to take lessons from Shunsho himself, instead of from Shunkin; no doubt her parents felt that imitating her teacher had had an unhealthy influence on her. And the change decided Sasuke's future career. From then on he was freed from all his shop duties and went to Shunsho's house regularly both as Shunkin's guide and as a fellow pupil.

  Nothing could have pleased Sasuke more; and it may be gathered that Yasuzaemon, on his part, worked very hard to persuade Sasuke's parents to consent to the arrangement, assuring them that, having caused their son to abandon his trade, he would guarantee the boy's future. I suppose Yasuzaemon and his wife were already beginning to think that Sasuke would make a good husband for Shunkin. In view of her handicap, they could scarcely hope to marry her to someone of equal social position. Sasuke might be the best possible match for her.

  Two years later (when Shunkin was fifteen and Sasuke nineteen) her parents suggested that she consider such a marriage. To their surprise, she flatly refused. “I don't intend to marry as long as I live,” she announced, looking much displeased; “and I wouldn't dream of having a man like Sasuke.”

  However, about another year later her mother noticed a curious change in Shunkin's figure. Surely not! she told herself; but the longer she watched, the more her suspicions seemed to be confirmed. The servants will begin to talk, she thought; we must act quickly if we are to save the situation. But when she asked her daughter about it one day as discreetly as possible, the girl told her she hadn't the faintest idea what she was talking about. Finding it awkward to pursue the matter further, Shunkin's mother let it go for a month or two. By then her daughter's condition was obvious.