A Hell of Solitude
I heard this story from my mother. She said she heard it from her grand-uncle. I do not know the veracity of this story. But judging from the conduct of her grand-uncle, I simply think that this sort of this is largely possible.
My great-grand-uncle was a man of the so-called artistic establishment, and towards the end of Tokugawa rule he had many acquaintances among the geisha and the writers, among them Kawatake Mokuami, Ryūkatei Tanekazu, Zenzai An’eiki, Tōei, Kudaime Danjūrō, Uji Shibun, Miyako Senchū, and Kenkonbō Ryōsai. Mokuami, in writing the character Kinokuni “Kibun” Bunzaemon in “The Cherry Blossom Princess of Edo,” decided to pattern him after my great-grand-uncle. Upon his death, round about fifty years ago, he acquired the nickname “Today’s Kibun,” and so there may be people even today who have only heard his name: his family name is Saiki, his personal name was Tōjiro, his pen name for poetry was Kaui, and he commonly went by Yamashirogashi-no-Tsutō.
At some point this Tsutō, at a jeweler’s in Yoshiwara, made the acquaintance of a single priest. This was the head priest of a Zen temple in Tsutō’s neighborhood, who went by the name Zenchō. As you would expect he was a frequenter of the red-light district, and he was intimately familiar with a prostitute of the jeweler’s, Nishikigi. Of course, this being a time when meat and marriage were forbidden to men of the cloth, he did not in the least appear to be of the priesthood. He wore black silk bearing his family crest over a yellow checkered kimono, which led people to take him for a doctor. Then he became an unexpected acquaintance.
The unexpected part is that one night, after the lanterns had been lit, Tsutō was returning from the toilet on the second floor of the jeweler’s. While going down the hallway, the priest was leaned against the railing admiring the moon. His head was shaved, if you had to pick you would say he was short, and he was rather thin. Tsutō, in the moonlight, had taken him for the everyday quack Chikunai. So, passing him, he reached out his hand and gave his ear a little tug. He thought he would turn around in surprise and give him a smile.
However, when he saw the face that turned around, Tsutō was the one who was surprised. Save for the shaved head, nothing about him resembled Chikunai. The area between his companion’s eyebrows on his comparatively wide forehead was grim and narrow. That he could mostly see must have been because the flesh had fallen from his face. The dark mole on his left check could be clearly seen even at that moment. And in addition he was possessed of high cheekbones. This much of the shape of the face intermittently entered Tsutō’s eyes.
“What is your business?” asked the priest angrily. He seemed a little bit tipsy.
I neglected to mention it earlier, but at this time Tsutō was accompanied by a single geisha and a single comedian. Those sorts had misled Tsutō, and it was impossible for them to stand there silently. So the comedian, in place of Tsutō, delivered a careless apology. During that, Tsutō, accompanied by the geisha, hurried back to his own room. No matter how much the artist it appeared to be an unlucky encounter. The priest, upon hearing the comedian’s mistaken circumstances, was apparently put back into good spirits and rewarded him with a large smile. Saying that this priest was called Zenchō does not quite capture it.
Afterwards, Tsutō had gone over with a tray of pastries to apologize. Unfortunately, the priest had gone out of his way to go and thank Tsutō. And then the friendship of the two men was sealed. Though it is quite right to say it was sealed, they had only met on the second floor of the jeweler’s and run into each other on the way to the other. Though Tsutō did not touch the stuff, Zenchō was a heavy drinker. And then, somehow, Zenchō had spared no expense in his belongings. And finally Zenchō had been known to fall hard for women. Tsutō wondered which one of them had truly taken the cloth: the portly, unattractive Tsutō, a talisman on a silver chain around his shaggy hair, was a man who, in the past, had always willingly worn a rough sash over plain blue clothes.
One day, when Tsutō met Zenchō, Zenchō, dressed in clothes patterned after the burning bush, was playing the shamisen. He was usually a man of poor color, but today he was especially pallid. His eyes were bloodshot. His leathery skin occasionally convulsed at the mouth. Tsutō must have immediately worried that something was the matter. Say anything; I’ll listen: he tried dropping this sort of frank speech, but it appeared that it was nothing which could be spoken frankly of. But words came more scarcely than usual, and they were apt to lose the topic of conversation. So Tsutō saw it as the ennui of someone who partook all too easily in the pleasures to be had in the red-light districts. The ennui of men consumed by wine and women could not be healed by wine and women. From this situation, the two had an unusually solemn conversation. Then, Zenchō looked as though he had suddenly remembered something, and said this:
“According to the Buddha, there are many different hells, but they can basically be divided into three types: original hells, ancillary hells, and hells of solitude. And in addition there are the words, “More than five hundred reaches below the realm of mortal man, there exists a place called hell,” so in general for a very long time they must have been beneath the earth. But of those only the hells of solitude can sudden become apparent in any place: deep in the mountains, in far-off desolate plains, under the trees, or in the air. Just like that, the border of a bitter hell can appear before your very eyes. Two or three years ago, I fell into this hell. I haven’t a lasting interest in a single thing. So I live constantly crossing over one border into another. Naturally, I still cannot escape hell. But still, to remain without crossing the border is painful, I think. So as you would expect I engage in everyday activities so that I might forget the daily suffering of constant motion. However, if it happens that that is also followed by suffering, there is nothing outside of death. Though long have I suffered, I find death distasteful. And now…”
The final words did not reach Tsutō’s ears. Zenchō, again matching the rhythm of the shamisen, had spoken in a low voice. Ever since then, Zenchō had not come to the jeweler’s. Nobody knows what became of that priest who loved wine and women. But that day, beneath the burning bush, Zenchō had forgotten a volume of annotated excerpts of the Diamond Sutra. One of the books Tsutō always kept on his desk in his later years, after his financial difficulties and his seclusion in the town of Samukawa in Shimousa country, was this volume. Tsutō had added his own verse, “It was forty years / Before violets in full bloom / And dew did I see!” to the inside cover. That book is no more. There is also likely no one who remembers the poem.
This is a tale of the Ansei era, in the 1850s. My mother’s interest in the word hell springs from her remembering this story, apparently.
I spend most of the day in my study, and from a lifestyle perspective, I live in a world that my great-uncle and this priest would have no connection to. And even from a position of interest, I am not a man who has the faintest interest in the art or the hack novels of the Tokugawa era. Furthermore, some feeling inside me, through the medium of the phrase “hell of isolation,” attempts to direct my sympathies towards their lives. But I do not think that is refused. If you wonder why, it is because by some definitions, I am also suffering in a hell of solitude.
(February 1916)