After the Banquet

Table of Contents

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Epub ISBN: 9781407053103

Version 1.0

 

Published by Vintage 2001

4 6 8 10 9 7 5

Copyright © 1963, copyright renewed 1991 by

Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

Originally published in Japanese by

Shinchosha as
Utage No Ato
.

Copyright © 1960 by Yukio Mishima

This translation first published in the United States by

Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 1963

Vintage

Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,

London SW1V 2SA

Random House Australia (Pty) Limited

20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney,

New South Wales 2061, Australia

Random House New Zealand Limited

18 Poland Road, Glenfield,

Auckland 10, New Zealand

Random House South Africa (Pty) Limited

Isle of Houghton, Corner of Boundary Road & Carse O’Gowrie,

Houghton 2198, South Africa

The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780099282785

Papers used by Random House are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests.

The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor – the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless short stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he acted. Several films have been made from his novels, including
The Sound of Waves
;
Enjo
, which was based on
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
; and
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
. Among his other works are the novels
Confessions of a Mask
and
Thirst for Love
and the short-story collections
Death in Midsummer
and
Acts of Worship
.

After Mishima conceived the idea of
The Sea of Fertility
tetralogy in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On November 25th, 1970, the day he completed
The Decay of the Angel
, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed
seppuku
(ritual suicide) at the age of 45.

The Setsugoan—the After-the-Snow Retreat—stood on high ground in a hilly part of the Koishikawa district of Tokyo. It had fortunately escaped unharmed during the war; nothing had been damaged either in the magnificent garden, a noted example of the Kobori Enshū style covering over a hundred thousand square feet, or in the buildings: a central gate moved here from a certain famous temple in Kyoto, an entrance and visitors’ pavilion lifted bodily from some ancient temple of Nara, and a banqueting hall of more recent construction.

At the height of the upheaval caused by the capital levy after the war, the Setsugoan had passed from the hands of its former owner, an industrialist who dabbled as a tea master, to those of a beautiful, vivacious woman. Under her management the Setsugoan quickly developed into a distinguished restaurant.

The proprietress of the Setsugoan was called Kazu Fukuzawa. A streak of rustic simplicity in Kazu’s plump, attractive figure, always bursting with energy and enthusiasm, made people with complicated motives who came before her feel ashamed of their complexity. People with drooping spirits, when they saw Kazu, were either considerably heartened or else completely overpowered. Some curious blessing of heaven had joined in one body a man’s resolution with a woman’s reckless enthusiasm. This combination carried Kazu to heights no man could reach.

Kazu radiated open good nature, and her absolutely unyielding disposition had assumed a form both simple and beautiful. Ever since she was a child she had preferred to love rather than be loved. Her air of innocent rusticity concealed a considerable determination to have her own way, and various underhanded acts by petty individuals around her had only served to nurture her infinitely direct and outgoing disposition.

Kazu had for many years enjoyed the company of a number of male friends with whom she had no romantic connections. Genki Nagayama, a politician who worked behind the scenes in the Conservative Party, was a comparatively new friend, but he loved Kazu, twenty years his junior, as he might a younger sister. “You won’t find many women like her,” he would always say. “One of these days she’s going to do something sensational. It wouldn’t be too much for Kazu if you told her to stand Japan on its head. Any man with her ability would rank as a child of destiny, but the most you can say about Kazu, since she’s a woman, is that she’s got plenty of natural endowments. When the day comes that a man coaxes some honest-to-goodness love out of her, she’ll really explode.”

Nagayama’s comments did not upset Kazu when they were relayed to her, but a few days later, sitting beside him, she said, “You’ll never coax any romance out of me, Genki. I don’t respond when a man comes charging at me bursting with confidence. You’re clever enough when it comes to sizing up people, but you’re no good at persuasion.”

“I’ve no intention of trying to persuade you. If ever I tried courting you, that would be the end of me!” There was malice in the old politician’s tone.

The maintenance of the garden of the Setsugoan was all that its popularity demanded. The focal point of the garden, especially at moon-viewing parties, was a pond directly south of what had been the visitors’ pavilion of a Nara temple. Trees of an age and grandeur rarely encountered nowadays in Tokyo surrounded the garden, and each pine, chestnut, nettle tree, and oak rose majestically into a blue sky untroubled by the face of any incongruous modern construction. A pair of kites had for years been accustomed to build their nest at the top of one of the trees, a conspicuously tall pine. Every variety of bird visited this garden at its appointed time of year, but nothing could compare to the numbers and din in the migration season, when flocks of birds swooped down from the sky to peck at the nandin fruits or the insects in the broad expanse of lawn.

Every morning Kazu took a stroll through the garden. She never failed to give instructions of one sort or another to the gardener. Sometimes her suggestions were appropriate, but as often they missed the mark. In any case, giving instructions had become part of Kazu’s daily routine and her good humor. The head gardener, though an expert at his trade, consequently never dared oppose her.

Kazu walked in her garden. This walk was the sum of her pleasure in being unmarried and the occasion for unhampered reveries. Almost her entire day was spent chatting with her guests or singing for them; she was never alone. Entertaining guests, however familiar a part of her life it had become, never ceased to exhaust her. Kazu’s morning promenade was in fact evidence of the serenity of a heart unlikely ever again to fall seriously in love.

Love no longer disturbed her private life . . . This certainty enraptured Kazu, even as she watched the sunlight shine majestically through the haze-enshrouded trees and glitter magically on the green moss of the path ahead. It had been a long time since she and love had parted company. Her last affair was already a distant memory, and she was unshakably convinced that she was proof against all manner of dangerous sentiments.

This morning stroll was the poem of Kazu’s security. She was over fifty, but no one seeing this carefully groomed woman, whose complexion and sparkling eyes had lost none of their loveliness, as she sauntered through the huge garden could help but be struck and moved to romantic conjectures. But, as Kazu herself realized better than anyone, for her romantic stories were a thing of the past, her poem was dead. Kazu naturally sensed the latent strength within her, but she was well aware at the same time that this strength had been bent and curbed, and would never cast off its shackles and break loose.