Beauty and Sadness

from the film version of Beauty and Sadness

[What follows are all quotes from the English translation of Yasunari Kawabata's Beauty and Sadness.  I am putting this out there as a marker and a goal post so that I can try to exceed this ... in dreaming.]

But what, for example, was the relation between the Otoko in his novel and the real Otoko? It was hard to say.

Of all his novels, the one that had had the longest life, and was still widely read, was the one that told the story of his love affair with her.  The publication of that novel had caused her further injury, eventually turning the eyes of the curious on her.  Yet why had she now, decades later, gained the affection of so many readers?

Perhaps one should say that the Otoko in his novel, rather than the girl who was the model for the character, had gained the affection of his readers.  It was not Otoko's own story, it was something he had written.  He had added imaginative and fictional touches of his own, and a certain idealization.  Leaving that aside, who could say which was the real Otoko -- the one he had described, or the one she might have created in telling her own story?

Still, the girl in his novel was Otoko.  The novel could not have existed without their love affair.  And it was because of her that it continued to be so widely read.  If he had never met her he would never have known such a love.  To find a love like that, at thirty, might be taken as good luck or bad, he could not say which, but there was no doubt that it had given him a fortunate debut as an author.

she once startled him by saying "You're the kind who's always worrying about what other people think, aren't you.  You ought to be bolder."  

"It's everything -- you ought to be more yourself."

Two years after he parted from her the novel was published.

"I ought to have let you go," she said, paling. "I wonder why I didn't. Everyone who reads it will sympathize with Otoko."

"I didn't want to write about you."

"I know I can't be compared with your ideal woman."

"That's not what I meant."

"I was hideously jealous."

"Otoko is gone.  You and I will be living together for a long, long time.  But a lot of the Otoko in that book is pure fiction.  For instance, I have no idea what she was like while she was in the hospital."

"That kind of fiction comes from love."

"I couldn't have written without it," said Oki abruptly.

"Thanks to your novel I've come to understand Otoko very well. As much as I've suffered from it, I can see that meeting her was a good thing for you."

Two lives were buried in darkness with this novel.

Otoko, as model for the novel's heroine, had received no compensation.  Nor had a word of complaint come either from her or from her mother. Unlike the painter or sculptor of a realistic portrait, he was able to enter his model's thoughts and feelings, to change her appearance as he pleased, to invent and to idealize out of his own imagination.  Yet the girl was beyond doubt Otoko. He had freely poured out his youthful passion, without thinking of her predicament, or of the troubles that might lie ahead for an unmarried girl.  No doubt it was his passion that had attracted readers, but possibly it had also become an obstacle to her marriage.

When Oki was tired of writing, or when a novel was going badly, he would lie down on the couch in the open corridor beside his study.  In the afternoon he would often fall asleep there for an hour or two.  Only in the past few years had he got into the habit of taking such naps.

When he stretched out on it his difficulties vanished from his mind.  It was uncanny. While he was writing a novel, he tended to sleep poorly at night and to dream about his work.

Only rarely did he feel, as he used to when he worked at night, that fatigue stimulated his imagination.

My naps must be a sign of age, Oki thought. But the couch was magical.

Whenever he rested on it he fell asleep and awakened refreshed.  Not infrequently he could find a new pathway through the difficulties that had brought his writing to a standstill. A magic couch.

How could he possibly write about her, except to borrow her beauty for one of his characters?

But a model has to be another live human being.  Novels need human beings too, no matter how much you write about landscapes.

"Anyway, being a novelist's model is different.  It's an unrewarded sacrifice."

If he had not written about it, perhaps that vision of herself would not have remained alive for so many years.

"You're more than I deserve. It's a love I never dreamed I'd find.  Happiness like this is worth dying for..."

Was that another time when she missed a chance to die?

This suddenly vanishing beauty could be recaptured by a writer and made into a moving work of art--

"And your inspiration comes from this tomb?"

"My inspiration? I don't know ---" At that moment Keiko let herself topple against himm.

"Right in front of your precious tombstone... Why don't you give me some fond memories of it?  This stone is where your heart is.  That's all it means."

"It's true there comes a time when a tombstone loses its meaning."

"I'll always remember being in your arms in front of an old tomb on a morning like this.  It seems strange for a tomb to create a memory."

He could not see Keiko until she was standing on the low diving board, poised to dive.  Keiko's taut body was silhouetted against Lake Biwa and the distant mountains.  The mountains were veiled in mist.  A faint, elusive pink tinged the darkening waters of the lake.  By now the yacht sails reflected the tranquil color of the evening. Keiko dived in, sending up a cloud of spray.

"I want us to cut through our fate and drift along on the waves.  Tomorrow always escapes us."