Neko or I Am a Cat

1. Title

Neko is not the original title of this novel but 'Soseki's Neko (Cat)' means this novel. The original Japanese title is Wagahai wa Neko de Aru （吾輩は猫である ）, which is long while the English title I Am a Cat is simple, short and neutral. Wagahai wa Neko de Aru （吾輩は猫である ）and I Am a Cat are not identical though the basic meanings are almost the same but the connotations differ much. The trouble is that we have many Japanese words for ' I '.

watashi （わたし、私） - the most general for both male and female
watakushi （わたくし、私） - a little politer than watashi
boku （ぼく、僕） -　male only, general, used by boys, students, young men though older people can use. Derived from Chinese.
ore （おれ、俺） -　male only, a little rude, may derived from ' ware'' （われ = also means ' I ', an old form.

and many more.

Wagahai （吾輩) can be divided to waga（吾) and hai （輩). Waga（吾) means an adjective ' my ' and ' hai ' （輩) means a person, usually male. So 'wagahai ' （吾輩)　literally means ' my person '. Wagahai （吾輩) shows more dignity than the general watashi （わたし、私）like Your Highness (Majesty) shows more dignity than simple ' You '. Also the last ' de Aru ' shows some dignity than more general ' de su ' , which means ' am ' (or is, are). Putting these altogether with ' a Cat ' which is not a human but a mere small animal makes the title Wagahai wa Neko de Aru （吾輩は猫である）comical sense than  I Am a Cat.


2. Story structure

I Am a Cat has no distinctive novel-like plot and roughly random assembles of small stories of the cat and the stories of the humans, which are major. The stories of both cat and humans are told thorough the eyes of the main character male cat, which name is not given to him. This nameless cat is the narrator of the whole story until his death (the end of the story).


3. Some highlights

The cats struggles to eat rice cake.

Chapter 2

何でもいい、食えさえすれば、という気になるのも境遇のしからしむるところであろう。だから今雑煮（ぞうに）が食いたくなったのも決して贅沢の結果ではない、何でも食える時に食っておこうという考から、主人の食い剰（あま）した雑煮がもしや台所に残っていはすまいかと思い出したからである。……台所へ廻って見る。
 　今朝見た通りの餅が、今朝見た通りの色で椀の底に膠着（こうちゃく）している。白状するが餅というものは今まで一辺（ぺん）も口に入れた事がない。見るとうまそうにもあるし、また少しは気味（きび）がわるくもある。前足で上にかかっている菜っ葉を掻（か）き寄せる。爪を見ると餅の上皮（うわかわ）が引き掛ってねばねばする。嗅（か）いで見ると釜の底の飯を御櫃（おはち）へ移す時のような香（におい）がする。食おうかな、やめようかな、とあたりを見廻す。幸か不幸か誰もいない。御三（おさん）は暮も春も同じような顔をして羽根をついている。小供は奥座敷で「何とおっしゃる兎さん」を歌っている。食うとすれば今だ。もしこの機をはずすと来年までは餅というものの味を知らずに暮してしまわねばならぬ。吾輩はこの刹那（せつな）に猫ながら一の真理を感得した。「得難き機会はすべての動物をして、好まざる事をも敢てせしむ」吾輩は実を云うとそんなに雑煮を食いたくはないのである。否椀底（わんてい）の様子を熟視すればするほど気味（きび）が悪くなって、食うのが厭になったのである。この時もし御三でも勝手口を開けたなら、奥の小供の足音がこちらへ近付くのを聞き得たなら、吾輩は惜気（おしげ）もなく椀を見棄てたろう、しかも雑煮の事は来年まで念頭に浮ばなかったろう。ところが誰も来ない、いくら躇（ちゅうちょ）していても誰も来ない。早く食わぬか食わぬかと催促されるような心持がする。吾輩は椀の中を覗（のぞ）き込みながら、早く誰か来てくれればいいと念じた。やはり誰も来てくれない。吾輩はとうとう雑煮を食わなければならぬ。最後にからだ全体の重量を椀の底へ落すようにして、あぐりと餅の角を一寸（いっすん）ばかり食い込んだ。このくらい力を込めて食い付いたのだから、大抵なものなら噛（か）み切れる訳だが、驚いた！　もうよかろうと思って歯を引こうとすると引けない。もう一辺（ぺん）噛み直そうとすると動きがとれない。餅は魔物だなと疳（かん）づいた時はすでに遅かった。沼へでも落ちた人が足を抜こうと焦慮（あせ）る たびにぶくぶく深く沈むように、噛めば噛むほど口が重くなる、歯が動かなくなる。歯答えはあるが、歯答えがあるだけでどうしても始末をつける事が出来な い。美学者迷亭先生がかつて吾輩の主人を評して君は割り切れない男だといった事があるが、なるほどうまい事をいったものだ。この餅も主人と同じようにどう しても割り切れない。噛んでも噛んでも、三で十を割るごとく尽未来際方（じんみらいざいかた）のつく期（ご）はあるまいと思われた。この煩悶（はんもん）の際吾輩は覚えず第二の真理に逢着（ほうちゃく）した。「すべての動物は直覚的に事物の適不適を予知す」真理はすでに二つまで発明したが、餅がくっ付いているので毫（ごう）も愉快を感じない。歯が餅の肉に吸収されて、抜けるように痛い。早く食い切って逃げないと御三（おさん）が来る。小供の唱歌もやんだようだ、きっと台所へ馳（か）け出して来るに相違ない。煩悶の極（きょく）尻尾（しっぽ）をぐるぐる振って見たが何等の功能もない、耳を立てたり寝かしたりしたが駄目である。考えて見ると耳と尻尾（しっぽ）は餅と何等の関係もない。要するに振り損の、立て損の、寝かし損であると気が付いたからやめにした。ようやくの事これは前足の助けを借りて餅を払い落すに限ると考え付いた。まず右の方をあげて口の周囲を撫（な）で廻す。撫（な）でたくらいで割り切れる訳のものではない。今度は左（ひだ）りの方を伸（のば）して口を中心として急劇に円を劃（かく）して見る。そんな呪（まじな）いで魔は落ちない。辛防（しんぼう）が肝心（かんじん）だと思って左右交（かわ）る交（がわ）るに動かしたがやはり依然として歯は餅の中にぶら下っている。ええ面倒だと両足を一度に使う。すると不思議な事にこの時だけは後足（あとあし）二本で立つ事が出来た。何だか猫でないような感じがする。猫であろうが、あるまいがこうなった日にゃあ構うものか、何でも餅の魔が落ちるまでやるべしという意気込みで無茶苦茶に顔中引っ掻（か）き廻す。前足の運動が猛烈なのでややともすると中心を失って倒れかかる。倒れかかるたびに後足で調子をとらなくてはならぬから、一つ所にいる訳にも行かんので、台所中あちら、こちらと飛んで廻る。我ながらよくこんなに器用に起（た）っていられたものだと思う。第三の真理が驀地（ばくち）に現前（げんぜん）する。「危きに臨（のぞ）めば平常なし能（あた）わざるところのものを為（な）し能う。之（これ）を天祐（てんゆう）という」幸（さいわい）に天祐を享（う）けたる吾輩が一生懸命餅の魔と戦っていると、何だか足音がして奥より人が来るような気合（けわい）である。ここで人に来られては大変だと思って、いよいよ躍起（やっき）となって台所をかけ廻る。足音はだんだん近付いてくる。ああ残念だが天祐が少し足りない。とうとう小供に見付けられた。「あら猫が御雑煮を食べて踊を踊っている」と大きな声をする。この声を第一に聞きつけたのが御三である。羽根も羽子板も打ち遣（や）って勝手から「あらまあ」と飛込んで来る。細君は縮緬（ちりめん）の 紋付で「いやな猫ねえ」と仰せられる。主人さえ書斎から出て来て「この馬鹿野郎」といった。面白い面白いと云うのは小供ばかりである。そうしてみんな申し 合せたようにげらげら笑っている。腹は立つ、苦しくはある、踊はやめる訳にゆかぬ、弱った。ようやく笑いがやみそうになったら、五つになる女の子が「御か あ様、猫も随分ね」といったので狂瀾（きょうらん）を既倒（きとう）に何とかするという勢でまた大変笑われた。人間の同情に乏しい実行も大分（だいぶ）見聞（けんもん）したが、この時ほど恨（うら）めしく感じた事はなかった。ついに天祐もどっかへ消え失（う）せて、在来の通り四（よ）つ這（ばい）に なって、眼を白黒するの醜態を演ずるまでに閉口した。さすが見殺しにするのも気の毒と見えて「まあ餅をとってやれ」と主人が御三に命ずる。御三はもっと踊 らせようじゃありませんかという眼付で細君を見る。細君は踊は見たいが、殺してまで見る気はないのでだまっている。「取ってやらんと死んでしまう、早く とってやれ」と主人は再び下女を顧（かえり）みる。御三（おさん）は御馳走を半分食べかけて夢から起された時のように、気のない顔をして餅をつかんでぐいと引く。寒月（かんげつ）君じゃないが前歯がみんな折れるかと思った。どうも痛いの痛くないのって、餅の中へ堅く食い込んでいる歯を情（なさ）け容赦もなく引張るのだからたまらない。吾輩が「すべての安楽は困苦を通過せざるべからず」と云う第四の真理を経験して、けろけろとあたりを見廻した時には、家人はすでに奥座敷へ這入（はい）ってしまっておった。

That I should not much care what, so long as it’s edible, I eat is probably an inevitable result of my circumstances. Thus it was in no way as an expression of extravagance that I expressed just now my feeling of wishing to eat a rice-cake. I simply thought that I’d better eat while the chance offered, and I then remembered that the piece of rice-cake which my master had left in his breakfast bowl was possibly still in the kitchen. So round to the kitchen I went.
The rice-cake was stuck, just as I saw it this morning, at the bottom of the bowl and its color was still as I remembered it. I must confess that I’ve never previously tasted rice-cake. Yet, though I felt a shade uncertain, it looks quite good to eat. With a tentative front paw I rake at the green vegetables adhering to the rice-cake. My claws, having touched the outer part of the rice-cake, become sticky. I sniff at them and recognize the smell that can be smelt when rice stuck at the bottom of a cooking-pot is transferred into the boiled-rice container. I look around, wondering, “Shall I eat it, shall I not?” Fortunately, or unfortunately, there’s nobody about. O-san, with a face that shows no change between year end and the spring, is playing battledore and shuttlecock. The children in the inner room are singing something about a rabbit and a tortoise. If I am to eat this New Year speciality, now’s the moment. If I miss this chance I shall have to spend a whole, long year not knowing how a rice-cake tastes. At this point, though a mere cat, I perceived a truth: that golden opportunity makes all animals venture to do even those things they do not want to do. To tell the truth, I do not particularly want to eat the rice-cake. In fact the more I examined the thing at the bottom of the bowl the more nervous I became and the more keenly disinclined to eat it. If only O-san would open the kitchen door, or if I could hear the children’s footsteps coming toward me, I would unhesitatingly abandon the bowl; not only that, I would have put away all thought of rice-cakes for another year. But no one comes. I’ve hesitated long enough. Still no one comes. I feel as if someone were hotly urging me on, someone whispering, “Eat it, quickly!” I looked into the bowl and prayed that someone would appear. But no one did. I shall have to eat the rice-cake after all. In the end, lowering the entire weight of my body into the bottom of the bowl, I bit about an inch deep into a corner of the rice-cake.
Most things that I bite that hard come clean off in my mouth. But what a surprise! For I found when I tried to reopen my jaw that it would not budge. I try once again to bite my way free, but find I’m stuck. Too late I realize that the rice-cake is a fiend. When a man who has fallen into a marsh struggles to escape, the more he thrashes about trying to extract his legs, the deeper in he sinks. Just so, the harder I clamp my jaws, the more my mouth grows heavy and my teeth immobilized. I can feel the resistance to my teeth, but that’s all. I cannot dispose of it. Waverhouse, the aesthete, once described my master as an aliquant man and I must say it’s rather a good description. This rice-cake too, like my master, is aliquant. It looked to me that, however much I continued biting, nothing could ever result: the process could go on and on eternally like the division of ten by three. In the middle of this anguish I found my second truth: that all animals can tell by instinct what is or is not good for them. Although I have now discovered two great truths, I remain unhappy by reason of the adherent rice-cake. My teeth are being sucked into its body, and are becoming excruciatingly painful. Unless I can complete my bite and run away quickly, O-san will be on me. The children seem to have stopped singing, and I’m sure they’ll soon come running into the kitchen. In an extremity of anguish, I lashed about with my tail, but to no effect. I made my ears stand up and then lie flat, but this didn’t help either. Come to think of it, my ears and tail have nothing to do with the rice-cake. In short, I had indulged in a waste of wagging, a waste of ear-erection, and a waste of ear-flattening. So I stopped.
At long last it dawned on me that the best thing to do is to force the rice-cake down by using my two front paws. First I raised my right paw and stroked it around my mouth. Naturally, this mere stroking brought no relief whatsoever. Next, I stretched out my left paw and with it scraped quick circles around my mouth. These ineffectual passes failed to exorcize the fiend in the rice-cake. Realizing that it was essential to proceed with patience, I scraped alternatively with my right and left paws, but my teeth stayed stuck in the rice-cake. Growing impatient, I now used both front paws simultaneously. Then, only then, I found to my amazement that I could actually stand up on my hind legs. Somehow I feel un-catlike. But not caring whether I am a cat or not, I scratch away like mad at my whole face in frenzied determination to keep on scratching until the fiend in the rice-cake has been driven out. Since the movements of my front paws are so vigorous I am in danger of losing my balance and falling down. To keep my equilibrium I find myself marking time with my hind legs. I begin to tittup from one spot to another, and I finish up prancing madly all over the kitchen. It gives me great pride to realize that I can so dextrously maintain an upright position, and the revelation of a third great truth is thus vouchsafed me: that in conditions of exceptional danger one can surpass one’s normal level of achievement. This is the real meaning of Special Providence.
Sustained by Special Providence, I am fighting for dear life against that demonic rice-cake when I hear footsteps. Someone seems to be approaching. Thinking it would be fatal to be caught in this predicament, I redouble my efforts and am positively running around the kitchen. The footsteps come closer and closer. Alas, that Special Providence seems not to last forever. In the end I am discovered by the children who loudly shout, “Why look! The cat’s been eating rice-cakes and is dancing.” The first to hear their announcement was that O-san person. Abandoning her shuttlecock and battledore, she flew in through the kitchen door crying, “Gracious me!” Then the mistress, sedate in her formal silk kimono, deigns to remark, “What a naughty cat.” And my master, drawn from his study by the general hubbub, shouts, “You fool!” The children find me funniest, but by general agreement the whole household is having a good old laugh. It is annoying, it is painful, it is impossible to stop dancing. Hell and damnation! When at long last the laughter began to die down, the dear, little five-year-old piped up with an, “Oh what a comical cat,” which had the effect of renewing the tide of their ebbing laughter. They fairly split their sides. I have already heard and seen quite a lot of heartless human behavior, but never before have I felt so bitterly critical of their conduct. Special Providence having vanished into thin air, I was back in my customary position on all fours, finally at my wit’s end, and, by reason of giddiness, cutting a quite ridiculous figure. My master seems to have felt it would be perhaps a pity to let me die before his very eyes, for he said to O-san, “Help him get rid of that rice-cake.” O-san looks at the mistress as if to say, “Why not make him go on dancing?” The mistress would gladly see my minuet continued, but, since she would not go so far as wanting me to dance myself to death, says nothing. My master turned somewhat sharply to the servant and ordered, “Hurry it up, if you don’t help quickly the cat will be dead.” O-san, with a vacant look on her face, as though she had been roughly wakened from some peculiarly delicious dream, took a firm grip on the rice-cake and yanked it out of my mouth. I am not quite as feeble-fanged as Coldmoon, but I really did think my entire front toothwork was about to break off. The pain was indescribable. The teeth embedded in the rice-cake are being pitilessly wrenched. You can’t imagine what it was like. It was then that the fourth enlightenment burst upon me: that all comfort is achieved through hardship. When at last I came to myself and looked around at a world restored to normality, all the members of the household had disappeared into the inner room.

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My Note -1

Very good translation
Note for those who have not read this novel before.

O-san - a house made of the master of the cat
Waverhouse, an aesthete - a friend of the master since they were students at the same university
Coldmoon -  a postgraduate of physics, formerly a student of the master


Chapter 4

極楽主義 (Gokuraku Shugi or Elysian principle)

迷亭一流の喩（たとえ）をもって寒月君を評すれば彼は活動図書館である。智識をもって捏（こ）ね上げたる二十八珊（サンチ）の弾丸である。この弾丸が一たび時機を得て学界に爆発するなら、――もし爆発して見給え――爆発するだろう――」迷亭はここに至って迷亭一流と自称する形容詞が思うように出て来ないので俗に云う竜頭蛇尾（りゅうとうだび）の感に多少ひるんで見えたがたちまち「活動切手などは何千万枚あったって粉（こ）な微塵（みじん）になってしまうさ。それだから寒月には、あんな釣り合わない女性（にょしょう）は駄目だ。僕が不承知だ、百獣の中（うち）でもっとも聡明なる大象と、もっとも貪婪（たんらん）なる小豚と結婚するようなものだ。そうだろう苦沙弥君」と云って退（の）けると、主人はまた黙って菓子皿を叩き出す。鈴木君は少し凹（へこ）んだ気味で
「そんな事も無かろう」と術（じゅつ）なげに答える。さっきまで迷亭の悪口を随分ついた揚句ここで無暗（むやみ）な事を云うと、主人のような無法者はどんな事を素（す）っ破抜（ぱぬ）くか知れない。なるべくここは好（いい）加減に迷亭の鋭鋒をあしらって無事に切り抜けるのが上分別なのである。
鈴木君は利口者である。いらざる抵抗は避けらるるだけ避けるのが当世で、無要の口論は封建時代の遺物と心得ている。人生の目的は口舌（こうぜつ）ではない実行にある。自己の思い通りに着々事件が進捗（しんちょく）すれば、それで人生の目的は達せられたのである。苦労と心配と争論とがなくて事件が進捗すれば人生の目的は極楽流（ごくらくりゅう）に達せられるのである。鈴木君は卒業後この極楽主義によって成功し、この極楽主義によって金時計をぶら下げ、この極楽主義で金田夫婦の依頼をうけ、同じくこの極楽主義でまんまと首尾よく苦沙弥君を説き落して当該（とうがい）事件が十中八九まで成就（じょうじゅ）したところへ、迷亭なる常規をもって律すべからざる、普通の人間以外の心理作用を有するかと怪まるる風来坊（ふうらいぼう）が飛び込んで来たので少々その突然なるに面喰（めんくら）っているところである。極楽主義を発明したものは明治の紳士で、極楽主義を実行するものは鈴木藤十郎君で、今この極楽主義で困却しつつあるものもまた鈴木藤十郎君である。

If I may adapt to Coldmoon’s case one of my own earlier turns of phrase, I should describe him as a circulating library. He is a high-explosive shell, perhaps only a twenty-eight centimeter, but compactly charged with knowledge. And when at the properly chosen time this projectile makes its impact upon the world of learning, then, if it detonates, detonate it will.”
Waverhouse, unbelievably, seems to have run out of steam. Confused by his own jumble of metaphors, he almost flinches, and his flow of language peters pointlessly out. As the saying goes, the dragon’s head of his opening remarks has dwindled down to a snake’s tail of an ending.
However, though Waverhouse may falter, he’s unlikely to shut up. In a matter of seconds he’s off again.
“In that inevitable explosion things like promissory notes, though there be thousands of them, will all be blasted into dust. It follows that, for Coldmoon, such a female simply will not do. I cannot consent to so ill-suited an alliance. It would be as though an elephant, that wisest and most noble of all animals, were to marry the greediest piglet of a greedy farrow.” With a final burst of speed Waverhouse bre**asts the tape. “That’s so, isn’t it, Sneaze?” My master, silent, resumed his melancholy tapping on the cake-dish.
Looking a bit depressed and obviously at his wit’s end for a suitable answer, Suzuki mumbles something about not being able to entirely agree.
His position is, indeed, delicate. His hands, as it were, are still wet with blood from his verbal as**sassination, barely a half-hour back, of Waverhouse’s character, and a man as outrageously tactless as my master might, at any moment, come straight out with anything. Suzuki’s soundest tactic is to receive, and if possible smother, the Waverhouse attack, and then, in the general confusion, to wriggle away to safety as quickly as he can. Suzuki’s clever.Very much a man cast in the modern mold, he seeks to avoid head-on collisions and considers it positively medieval to enter into arguments that, of their nature, can have no practical result. In his opinion the purpose of life is not to talk, but to act. If events develop as one wishes, then life, its purpose thus fulfilled, is good. But if events not only develop as one wishes but do so without difficulties, fret, or altercation, then life, its purpose slitheringly fulfilled, is paradisal. Suzuki’s unwavering devotion to this Elysian principle of slithering had brought him great success in the business world he’d entered after graduating from the university. It had brought him a watch of eighteen-carat gold. It had brought him a request from the Goldfields that he should do them a small favor.
It had even enabled him to maneuver Sneaze nine-tenths of the way toward doing what the Goldfields wished. Then Waverhouse descends upon the scene. Out of the ordinary, careless of all conventions, totally eccentric, he manifests himself as an incarnation of capriciousness operating in accordance with a psychological pattern never previously observed in the human creature. No wonder that Suzuki feels a bit bewildered. Though Suzuki’s principle was invented by a variety of clever gentlemen seeking success in Meiji circumstances, its prime practitioner is Suzuki Tōjūrō himself, and it is consequently he who is most signally stumped when the principle proves inapplicable.

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My Note -2

Sneaze -  the name of the master of the cat
Mr Suzuki (Tojuro) - a friend of the master since their were students at the same university but as explained in this chapter Mr Suzuki has lead a different life from the master and Waverhouse and he is an incarnation of 極楽主義 （Gokuraku Shugi).
the Goldfields - a rich neighbor (new rich)

Waverhouse is rather serious here like the master, which is exceptional. The key word of this part or this chapter is 極楽主義 （Gokuraku Shugi）in Japanese, which is translated as 'Elysian principle. The word 極楽主義 is used eight times (no pronoun is used unlike the English translation) while Elysian principle (including the pronoun) is used four times and Suzuki’s principle and the principle in the last sentence are regarded as Elysian principle. 極楽主義 is used to describe not only Mr Suzuki but the Meiji era as well. 極楽主義 and Elysian principle are not the same. Literally 極楽（Gokuraku）means 'Paradise' and 主義（Shugi）means 'principle. But 'Gokuraku Shugi ' is not 'Paradise principle' at all. Probably nobody knew or knows what 極楽主義（Gokuraku Shugi）here is. And I suppose that a very few people may know what Elysian principle is either. 極楽主義（Gokuraku Shugi）was Soseki's invention created here in this novel, not equal to Elysian principle or Paradise principle.

I have checked 'Elysian principle' and found

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition

adjective

1. of or relating to Elysium

2. (literary) delightful; glorious; blissful

Elysium

From Wiki

Elysium or the Elysian Fields (Ancient Greek: Ἠλύσιον πεδίον, Ēlýsion pedíon) is a conception of the afterlife that developed over time and was maintained by certain Greek religious and philosophical sects and cults. Initially separate from the realm of Hades, admission was reserved for mortals related to the gods and other heroes. Later, it expanded to include those chosen by the gods, the righteous, and the heroic, where they would remain after death, to live a blessed and happy life, and indulging in whatever employment they had enjoyed in life.

Soseki's 極楽主義（Gokuraku Shugi）is defined or used as follows:

鈴木君は利口者である。-  Suzuki’s clever.

(Clever does not always convey a good meaning or rather quite often has a bad connotation.)

いらざる抵抗は避けらるるだけ避けるのが当世で、無要の口論は封建時代の遺物と心得ている。-  he (Mr Suzuki) seeks to avoid head-on collisions and considers it positively medieval to enter into arguments.

人生の目的は口舌（こうぜつ）ではない実行にある。 - (In his opinion) the purpose of life is not to talk, but to act.

自己の思い通りに着々事件が進捗（しんちょく）すれば、それで人生の目的は達せられたのである。苦労と心配と争論とがなくて事件が進捗すれば人生の目的は極楽流（ごくらくりゅう）に達せられるのである。 -  If events develop as one wishes, then life, its purpose thus fulfilled, is good. But if events not only develop as one wishes but do so without difficulties, fret, or altercation, then life, its purpose slitheringly fulfilled, is paradisal.

Underlined by sptt.

slithering
 move smoothly over a surface with a twisting or oscillating motion.


鈴木君は卒業後この極楽主義によって成功し、この極楽主義によって金時計をぶら下げ、この極楽主義で金田夫婦の依頼をうけ、同じくこの極楽主義でまんまと首尾よく苦沙弥君を説き落して当該（とうがい）事件が十中八九まで成就（じょうじゅ）したところへ、

"
Suzuki’s unwavering devotion to this Elysian principle of slithering had brought him great success in the business world he’d entered after graduating from the university. It (Elysian principle) had brought him a watch of eighteen-carat gold. It (Elysian principle ) had brought him a request from the Goldfields that he should do them a small favor. It (Elysian principle) had even enabled him to maneuver Sneaze nine-tenths of the way toward doing what the Goldfields wished.

"

Underlined by sptt.

The English part may be difficult to understand. A reader must read this part as the definitions of  極楽主義（Gokuraku Shugi）by Soseki. 極楽主義（Gokuraku Shugi） has made Mr Suzuki.

It （極楽主義, Gokuraku Shugi） had brought him a request from the Goldfields (that he should do them a small favor - this part does not exist in the original).

This sentence should be ＜It （極楽主義, Gokuraku Shugi）had brought him a request from the Goldfields (who, Mr Suzuki expects, would do him a small favor (later)＞.

極楽主義（Gokuraku Shugi） means 'worldly', 'behaving worldly', or how Mr Suzuki talks and behaves in this chapter, which Soseki criticized as a modern way of life as contrasting 'Samurai principle'.

One analogy - Hard and Soft Magnets

From wiki (partly deleted for brevity) :

"
In materials science, the coercivity, also called the magnetic coercivity is a measure of the ability of a ferromagnetic material to withstand an external magnetic field without becoming demagnetized.
For ferromagnetic material the coercivity is the intensity of the applied magnetic field required to reduce the magnetization of that material to zero after the magnetization of the sample has been driven to saturation. Thus coercivity measures the resistance of a ferromagnetic material to becoming demagnetized. Coercivity is usually measured in oersted or ampere/meter units and is denoted H_C.
Ferromagnetic materials with high coercivity are called magnetically hard materials, and are used to make permanent magnets. Materials with low coercivity are said to be magnetically soft. The latter are used in transformer and inductor cores, recording heads, microwave devices, and magnetic shielding.

"

Hard magnet is stubborn while soft magnet changes its property easily.


Chapter 8

極楽主義（Gokuraku Shugi） -  continued

Soseki refers to 極楽主義（Gokuraku Shugi） again in Chapter 8 but without using the word 極楽主義（Gokuraku Shugi）.


鈴木君はあいかわらず調子のいい男である。

The cat or the master or the writer describes Mr Suzuki as

"
Suzuki proves as smooth and slippery as ever.

"

「仕方がないと云えばそれまでだが、そう頑固（がんこ）にしていないでもよかろう。人間は角（かど）があると世の中を転（ころ）がって行くのが骨が折れて損だよ。丸いものはごろごろどこへでも苦（く）な しに行けるが四角なものはころがるに骨が折れるばかりじゃない、転がるたびに角がすれて痛いものだ。どうせ自分一人の世の中じゃなし、そう自分の思うよう に人はならないさ。まあ何だね。どうしても金のあるものに、たてを突いちゃ損だね。ただ神経ばかり痛めて、からだは悪くなる、人は褒（ほ）めてくれず。向うは平気なものさ。坐って人を使いさえすればすむんだから。多勢（たぜい）に無勢（ぶぜい）どうせ、叶（かな）わないのは知れているさ。頑固もいいが、立て通すつもりでいるうちに、自分の勉強に障ったり、毎日の業務に煩（はん）を及ぼしたり、とどのつまりが骨折り損の草臥儲（くたびれもう）けだからね」

Mr Suzuki says and describes his own principle = 極楽主義(Gokuraku Shugi).

"
“Well, if you say you can’t help it, I suppose you can’t. But why get so tense and stiff-necked about it? A man with jagged edges is permanently handicapped: he can never roll smoothly along in this rough world. Anything rounded and easy going can easily go anywhere, but angular things not only find it hard to roll but, when they do roll, get their corners snagged and chipped and blunted, which hurts. You see, old chap, the world’s not made simply and solely for you. You can’t always have things your way. In a nutshell, it doesn’t pay to defy the wealthy. All you’ll achieve are strained nerves, damaged health, and an ill name from everyone. Whatever you do and however much you suffer, those with money won’t care a damn. All they have to do is to sit back and hire others to work for them, including whatever dirty work they happen to want done. It’s obvious that you can’t stand up to people like that. Dogged adherence to high moral principle is all very well in its way, but it seems to me that the price you might have to pay, indeed the price you are apparently paying, is a total disruption of both your private studies and your daily employment. You’ll finish up completely worn out for no gain whatsoever.

”

Chapter 9

Reality

主人は何に寄らずわからぬものをありがたがる癖を有している。これはあながち主人に限った事でもなかろう。分らぬところには馬鹿に出来ないものが潜伏して、測るべからざる辺には何だか気高（けだか）い心持が起るものだ。それだから俗人はわからぬ事をわかったように吹聴（ふいちょう）するにも係（かかわ）らず、学者はわかった事をわからぬように講釈する。大学の講義でもわからん事を喋舌（しゃべ）る人は評判がよくってわかる事を説明する者は人望がないのでもよく知れる。

"
Habitually he values whatever he does not understand, but he is by no means alone in that behavior. Something unignorable lurks in whatever passes our understanding, and there is something inherently noble in that which we cannot measure. For which reason laymen are loud in their praises of matters they do not understand and scholars lecture unintelligibly on points as clear as day. This lesson is daily demonstrated in our universities, where incomprehensible lectures are both deeply respected and popular, while those whose words are easily understood are shunned as shallow thinkers.

"

My Note - 3

<he> is the master.

<laymen are loud in their praises of matters they do not understand and scholars lecture unintelligibly on points as clear as day.>

This part should be <laymen tend to pretend and declare that they understand the matters they do not understand while scholars lecture unintelligibly the matters as clear as day.


Chapter 10

One of the short stories

「昔ある辻（つじ）の真中に大きな石地蔵があったんですってね。ところがそこがあいにく馬や車が通る大変賑（にぎ）やかな場所だもんだから邪魔になって仕様がないんでね、町内のものが大勢寄って、相談をして、どうしてこの石地蔵を隅の方へ片づけたらよかろうって考えたんですって」
「そりゃ本当にあった話なの？」
「どうですか、そんな事は何ともおっしゃらなくってよ。――でみんながいろいろ相談をしたら、その町内で一番強い男が、そりゃ訳はありません、わたしがきっと片づけて見せますって、一人でその辻へ行って、両肌（もろはだ）を抜いで汗を流して引っ張ったけれども、どうしても動かないんですって」
「よっぽど重い石地蔵なのね」
「ええ、それでその男が疲れてしまって、うちへ帰って寝てしまったから、町内のものはまた相談をしたんですね。すると今度は町内で一番利口な男が、私（わたし）に任せて御覧なさい、一番やって見ますからって、重箱のなかへ牡丹餅（ぼたもち）を一杯入れて、地蔵の前へ来て、『ここまでおいで』と云いながら牡丹餅を見せびらかしたんだって、地蔵だって食意地（くいいじ）が張ってるから牡丹餅で釣れるだろうと思ったら、少しも動かないんだって。利口な男はこれではいけないと思ってね。今度は瓢箪（ひょうたん）へお酒を入れて、その瓢箪を片手へぶら下げて、片手へ猪口（ちょこ）を持ってまた地蔵さんの前へ来て、さあ飲みたくはないかね、飲みたければここまでおいでと三時間ばかり、からかって見たがやはり動かないんですって」
「雪江さん、地蔵様は御腹（おなか）が減（へ）らないの」ととん子がきくと「牡丹餅が食べたいな」とすん子が云った。
「利口な人は二度共しくじったから、その次には贋札（にせさつ）を沢山こしらえて、さあ欲しいだろう、欲しければ取りにおいでと札を出したり引っ込ましたりしたがこれもまるで益（やく）に立たないんですって。よっぽど頑固（がんこ）な地蔵様なのよ」
「そうね。すこし叔父さんに似ているわ」
「ええまるで叔父さんよ、しまいに利口な人も愛想（あいそ）をつかしてやめてしまったんですとさ。それでそのあとからね、大きな法螺（ほら）を吹く人が出て、私（わたし）ならきっと片づけて見せますからご安心なさいとさも容易（たやす）い事のように受合ったそうです」
「その法螺を吹く人は何をしたんです」
「それが面白いのよ。最初にはね巡査の服をきて、付（つ）け髯（ひげ）をして、地蔵様の前へきて、こらこら、動かんとその方のためにならんぞ、警察で棄てておかんぞと威張って見せたんですとさ。今の世に警察の仮声（こわいろ）なんか使ったって誰も聞きゃしないわね」
「本当ね、それで地蔵様は動いたの？」
「動くもんですか、叔父さんですもの」
「でも叔父さんは警察には大変恐れ入っているのよ」
「あらそう、あんな顔をして？　それじゃ、そんなに怖（こわ）い事はないわね。けれども地蔵様は動かないんですって、平気でいるんですとさ。それで法螺吹は大変怒（おこ）って、巡査の服を脱いで、付け髯を紙屑籠（かみくずかご）へ抛（ほう）り込んで、今度は大金持ちの服装（なり）をして出て来たそうです。今の世で云うと岩崎男爵のような顔をするんですとさ。おかしいわね」
「岩崎のような顔ってどんな顔なの？」
「ただ大きな顔をするんでしょう。そうして何もしないで、また何も云わないで地蔵の周（まわ）りを、大きな巻煙草（まきたばこ）をふかしながら歩行（ある）いているんですとさ」
「それが何になるの？」
「地蔵様を煙（けむ）に捲（ま）くんです」
「まるで噺（はな）し家（か）の洒落（しゃれ）のようね。首尾よく煙（けむ）に捲（ま）いたの？」
「駄目ですわ、相手が石ですもの。ごまかしもたいていにすればいいのに、今度は殿下さまに化けて来たんだって。馬鹿ね」
「へえ、その時分にも殿下さまがあるの？」
「有るんでしょう。八木先生はそうおっしゃってよ。たしかに殿下様に化けたんだって、恐れ多い事だが化けて来たって――第一不敬じゃありませんか、法螺吹（ほらふ）きの分際（ぶんざい）で」
「殿下って、どの殿下さまなの」
「どの殿下さまですか、どの殿下さまだって不敬ですわ」
「そうね」
「殿下さまでも利（き）かないでしょう。法螺吹きもしようがないから、とても私（わたし）の手際（てぎわ）では、あの地蔵はどうする事も出来ませんと降参をしたそうです」
「いい気味ね」
「ええ、ついでに懲役（ちょうえき）にやればいいのに。――でも町内のものは大層気を揉（も）んで、また相談を開いたんですが、もう誰も引き受けるものがないんで弱ったそうです」
「それでおしまい？」
「まだあるのよ。一番しまいに車屋とゴロツキを大勢雇って、地蔵様の周（まわ）りをわいわい騒いであるいたんです。ただ地蔵様をいじめて、いたたまれないようにすればいいと云って、夜昼交替（こうたい）で騒ぐんだって」
「御苦労様ですこと」
「それでも取り合わないんですとさ。地蔵様の方も随分強情ね」
「それから、どうして？」ととん子が熱心に聞く。
「それからね、いくら毎日毎日騒いでも験（げん）が見えないので、大分（だいぶ）みんなが厭（いや）になって来たんですが、車夫やゴロツキは幾日（いくんち）でも日当（にっとう）になる事だから喜んで騒いでいましたとさ」
「雪江さん、日当ってなに？」とすん子が質問をする。
「日当と云うのはね、御金の事なの」
「御金をもらって何にするの？」
「御金を貰ってね。……ホホホホいやなすん子さんだ。――それで叔母さん、毎日毎晩から騒ぎをしていますとね。その時町内に馬鹿竹（ばかたけ）と云って、何（なんに）も知らない、誰も相手にしない馬鹿がいたんですってね。その馬鹿がこの騒ぎを見て御前方（おまえがた）は何でそんなに騒ぐんだ、何年かかっても地蔵一つ動かす事が出来ないのか、可哀想（かわいそう）なものだ、と云ったそうですって――」
「馬鹿の癖にえらいのね」
「なかなかえらい馬鹿なのよ。みんなが馬鹿竹（ばかたけ）の云う事を聞いて、物はためしだ、どうせ駄目だろうが、まあ竹にやらして見ようじゃないかとそれから竹に頼むと、竹は一も二もなく引き受けたが、そんな邪魔な騒ぎをしないでまあ静かにしろと車引やゴロツキを引き込まして飄然（ひょうぜん）と地蔵様の前へ出て来ました」
「雪江さん飄然て、馬鹿竹のお友達？」ととん子が肝心（かんじん）なところで奇問を放ったので、細君と雪江さんはどっと笑い出した。
「いいえお友達じゃないのよ」
「じゃ、なに？」
「飄然と云うのはね。――云いようがないわ」
「飄然て、云いようがないの？」
「そうじゃないのよ、飄然と云うのはね――」
「ええ」
「そら多々良三平（たたらさんぺい）さんを知ってるでしょう」
「ええ、山の芋をくれてよ」
「あの多々良さん見たようなを云うのよ」
「多々良さんは飄然なの？」
「ええ、まあそうよ。――それで馬鹿竹が地蔵様の前へ来て懐手（ふところで）をして、地蔵様、町内のものが、あなたに動いてくれと云うから動いてやんなさいと云ったら、地蔵様はたちまちそうか、そんなら早くそう云えばいいのに、とのこのこ動き出したそうです」
「妙な地蔵様ね」
「それからが演説よ」
「まだあるの？」
「ええ、それから八木先生がね、今日（こんにち）は御婦人の会でありますが、私がかような御話をわざわざ致したのは少々考があるので、こう申すと失礼かも知れませんが、婦人というものはとかく物をするのに正面から近道を通って行かないで、かえって遠方から廻りくどい手段をとる弊（へい）がある。もっともこれは御婦人に限った事でない。明治の代（よ）は男子といえども、文明の弊を受けて多少女性的になっているから、よくいらざる手数（てすう）と労力を費（つい）やして、これが本筋である、紳士のやるべき方針であると誤解しているものが多いようだが、これ等は開化の業に束縛された畸形児（きけいじ）である。別に論ずるに及ばん。ただ御婦人に在（あ）ってはなるべくただいま申した昔話を御記憶になって、いざと云う場合にはどうか馬鹿竹のような正直な了見で物事を処理していただきたい。あなた方が馬鹿竹になれば夫婦の間、嫁姑（よめしゅうと）の間に起る忌（いま）わしき葛藤（かっとう）の三分一（さんぶいち）はたしかに減ぜられるに相違ない。人間は魂胆（こんたん）があればあるほど、その魂胆が祟（たた）って不幸の源（みなもと）をなすので、多くの婦人が平均男子より不幸なのは、全くこの魂胆があり過ぎるからである。どうか馬鹿竹になって下さい、と云う演説なの」

"
“Once upon a time a big stone image of the guardian god of children stood smack in the middle of the place where two roads crossed.
Unfortunately, it was a very busy place with lots of carts and horses moving along the roads. So this big stone Jizō, interfering with the flow of traffic, was really an awful nuisance. The people who lived in that district therefore got together and decided that the best thing to do would be to move the big stone image to one corner of the crossroads.”
“Is this a story of something that actually happened?” asks Mrs. Sneaze.
“I don’t know. The Professor did not mention whether the tale was real or not. Anyway, it seems that the people then began to discuss how the statue could in fact be moved. The strongest man amongst them told them not to worry, for he could easily do the job. So off he went to the crossroads, stripped himself to the waist and pushed and pulled at the big stone image until the sweat poured down his body. But the Jizō did not move.”
“It must have been made of terribly heavy stone.”
“Indeed it was. So terribly heavy that in the end that strongest man of them all was totally exhausted and trudged back home to sleep. So the people had another meeting and talked it over again. This time it was the smartest man amongst them who said, ‘Let me have a go at it,’ so they let him have a go. He filled a box with sweet dumplings and put it down on the ground a little way in front of the Jizō. ‘Jizō,’ he said, pointing to the dumpling box,‘come along here.’ For he reckoned that the big stone fellow would be greedy enough to be lured forward in order to get at the goodies. But the Jizō did not move. Though the clever man could see no flaw in his style of approach, he calculated that he must have misjudged the appetites of Jizō. So he went away and filled a gourd with saké and then came back to the crossroads with the drink-filled gourd in one hand and a saké  cup in the other. For about three hours he tried to tease the Jizō into moving.‘Don’t you want this lovely saké?’ he kept shouting.
‘If you want it, come and get it! Come and drink this lovely saké. Just a step and the gourd’s all yours.’ But the Jizō did not move.”
“Yukie,” asks the eldest daughter, “doesn’t Mr. Jizō ever get hungry?”
“I’d do almost anything,” observed her younger sister, “for a boxful of sweet dumplings.”
“For the second time the clever man got nowhere. So he went away again and made hundreds and hundreds of imitation banknotes. Standing in front of the big stone god, he flashed his fancy money in and out of his pocket.‘I’ll bet you’d like a fistful of these bank notes,’ he remarked,
‘so why not come and get them?’ But even the flashing of bank notes did no good. The Jizō did not move. He must, I think, have been quite an obstinate Jizō.”
“Rather like your uncle,” said Mrs. Sneaze with a sniff.
“Indeed so, the very image of my uncle. Well, in the end the clever man also gave up in disgust. At which point along came a braggart who as**sured the people that their problem was the simplest thing in the world and that he would certainly settle it for them.”
“So what did the braggart do?”
“Well, it was all very amusing. First, he rigged himself out in a policeman’s uniform and a false moustache. Then he marched up to the big stone image and addressed it in a loud and pompous voice. ‘You there,’ he bellowed,‘move along now, quietly. If you don’t move on, you’ll find yourself in trouble. The authorities will certainly purpose the matter with the utmost rigor.’ This must all have happened long ago,” said Yukie by way of comment, “for I doubt whether nowadays you could impress anyone by pretending to be a policeman.”
“Quite. But did that old-time Jizō move?”
“Of course it didn’t. It was just like Uncle.”
“But your uncle stands very much in awe of the police.”
“Really? Well, if the Jizō wasn’t scared by the braggart’s threatenings, they couldn’t have been particularly frightening. Anyway, the Jizō was unimpressed and stayed where it was. The braggart then grew deucedly angry. He stormed off home, took off his copper’s uniform, pitched his false moustache into a rubbish bin and reappeared at the crossroads got up to look like an extremely wealthy man. Indeed, he contorted his face to resemble the features of Baron Iwasaki. Can you imagine anything quite so potty?”
“What sort of face is Baron Iwasaki’s?”
“Well, probably very proud. Toffee-nosed, you know. Anyway, saying nothing more, but puffing a vast cigar, the braggart took no further action but to walk around and around the Jizō.”
“Whatever for?”
“The idea was to make the Jizō dizzy with tobacco smoke.”
“It all sounds like some storyteller’s joke! Did he succeed in dizzying the Jizō?”
“No, the idea didn’t work. After all, he was puffing against stone.
Then, instead of just abandoning his pantomimes, he next appeared disguised as a prince. What about that?”
“As a prince? Did they have princes even in those days?”
“They must have, for Professor Kidd said so. He said that, blasphemous as it was, this braggart actually appeared in the trappings of a prince. I really think such conduct most irreverent. And the man nothing but a boastful twerp!”
“You say he appeared as a prince, but as which prince?”
“I don’t know. Whichever prince it was, the act remains irreverent.”
“How right you are.”
“Well, even princely power proved useless. So, finally stumped, the braggart threw his hand in and admitted he could do nothing with the Jizō.”
“Served him right!”
“Yes indeed, and, what’s more, he ought to have been jailed for his impudence. Anyway, the people in the town were now really worried, but though they got together for a further pow-wow, no one could be persuaded to take another crack at the problem.”
“Is that how it all finished?”
“No, there’s more to come. In the end, they paid whole gangs of rickshawmen and other riff-raff to mill around the Jizō with as much hullaballoo as possible. The idea was to make things so unbearably unpleasant that the Jizō would move on. So, taking it in turns, they managed to keep up an incredible din by day and night.”
“What a painful business!”
“But even such desperate measures brought no joy, for the Jizō, too, was stubborn.”
“So what happened?” asks Tonko eagerly.
“Well, by now everyone was getting pretty fed up because, though they kept the racket going for days and nights on end, the din had no effect. Only the riff-raff and the rickshawmen enjoyed the row they made, and they of course were happy because they were getting wages for making themselves a nuisance.”
“What,” asked Sunko, “are wages?”
“Wages are money.”
“What would they do with money?”
Yukie was flummoxed. “Well, when they have money. . .” she began and then dodged the question first by a loud false laugh and then by telling Sunko how naughty she was. “Anyway,” she continued, “the people just went on making their silly noises all through the day and all through the night. Now it so happened that at that time there was an idiot boy in the district whom they all called Daft Bamboo. He was, as the saying goes, simple. He knew nothing, and nobody had anything to do with him. Eventually, even this simpleton noticed the terrible racket. ‘Why,’ he asked ‘are you making all that noise?’ When someone explained the situation, the idiot boy remarked, ‘What idiots you are, trying for all these years to shift a single Jizō with such idiotic tricks.’”
“A remarkable speech from an idiot.’”
“He was indeed a rather remarkable fool. Of course nobody thought he could do any good but, since no one else had done better, why not, they said, why not let him have a go at it? So Daft Bamboo was asked to help. He immediately agreed.‘Stop that horrible noise,’ he said,‘and just keep quiet.’ The riff-raff and the rickshawmen were packed off somewhere out of sight, and Daft Bamboo, as vacuous as ever, then walked up to the Jizō with utter aimlessness.”

(“Was Utter Aimlessness a special friend of Daft Bamboo?”
Mrs. Sneaze and Yukie burst into laughter at Tonko’s curious question.
“No, not a friend.”
“Then, what?”
“Well, utter aimlessness is. . . impossible to describe.”
“‘Utter aimlessness’ means ‘impossible to describe’?”
“No, that’s not it. Utter aimlessness means. . .”
“Yes?”
“You know Mr. Sampei, don’t you?”
“Yes, he’s the one who gave us yams.”
“Well, utter aimlessness means someone like Mr. Sampei.”
“Is Mr. Sampei an utter aimlessness?”
“Yes, more or less. . . )

 (you can skip the above italic part to follow the main story.)

Now, Daft Bamboo ambled up to the Jizō with his hands in his pockets and said, ‘Mr. Jizō, the people in this town would like you to move. Would you be so kind as to do so?’ And the Jizō promptly replied,‘Of course I’ll do so. Why ever didn’t they come and ask before?’With that he slowly moved away to a corner of the crossroads.”
“What a peculiar statue!”
“Then the lecture started.”
“Oh! Is there more to come?”
“Most certainly. Professor Kidd went on to say that he had opened his address to the women’s meeting with that particular story because it illustrated a point he had in mind.‘If I may take the liberty of saying so,’
he said, ‘whenever women do something, they are prone to tackle it in a roundabout way instead of coming straight to the point. Admittedly, it is not solely women who beat about the bush. In these so-called enlightened days, debilitated by the poisons of Western civilization, even men have become somewhat effeminate. There are, alas, all too many now devoting their time and effort to an imitation of Western customs in the totally mistaken conviction that aping foreigners is the proper occupation of a gentleman. Such persons are, of course, deformed, for, by their efforts to conform with alien ways, they deform themselves. They deserve no further comment. However, I would wish you ladies to reflect upon the tale I’ve told today so that, as occasion may arise, you, too, will act with the same clear-hearted honesty as was shown by Daft Bamboo. For if all ladies did so act, there can be no doubt that one-third of the abominable discords between husbands and wives and between wives and their mothers-in-law would simply disappear. Human beings are, alas, so made that the more they indulge in secret schemes, schemes whose very secrecy breeds evil, the deeper they drive the wellsprings of their own unhappiness. And the specific reason why so many ladies are so much less happy than the average man is precisely because ladies over indulge themselves in secret schemes. Please,’ he begged us as his lecture ended, ‘turn yourselves into Daft Bamboos.’”

"

My Note - 4

Very good translation
Note for those who have not read this novel before

Yukie - a niece of the master
Professor Kidd - a friend of the Master, philosopher
Tonko, Sunko - daughters (still small children) of the master


Chapter 11

Chapter 11 is the last chapter and has several highlights in it.

1) Individualism

We find a long argument on Individualism here. I think that the writer (Soseki) 's opinion is not one-sided though it looks like Anti-individualism. The following is a part of the argument.

「それ見たまえ。昔と今とは人間がそれだけ変ってる。昔は御上（おかみ）の御威光なら何でも出来た時代です。その次には御上の御威光でも出来ないものが出来てくる時代です。今の世はいかに殿下でも閣下でも、ある程度以上に個人の人格の上にのしかかる事が出来ない世の中です。はげしく云えば先方に権力があればあるほど、のしかかられるものの方では不愉快を感じて反抗する世の中です。だから今の世は昔（むか）しと違って、御上の御威光だから出 来ないのだと云う新現象のあらわれる時代です、昔しのものから考えると、ほとんど考えられないくらいな事柄が道理で通る世の中です。世態人情の変遷と云う ものは実に不思議なもので、迷亭君の未来記も冗談だと云えば冗談に過ぎないのだが、その辺の消息を説明したものとすれば、なかなか味（あじわい）があるじゃないですか」
「そう云う知己（ちき）が出てくると是非未来記の続きが述べたくなるね。独仙君の御説のごとく今の世に御上の御威光を笠（かさ）にきたり、竹槍の二三百本を恃（たのみ）にして無理を押し通そうとするのは、ちょうどカゴへ乗って何でも蚊（か）でも汽車と競争しようとあせる、時代後れの頑物（がんぶつ）――まあわからずやの張本（ちょうほん）、烏金（からすがね）の長範先生（ちょうはんせんせい）くらいのものだから、黙って御手際（おてぎわ）を拝見していればいいが――僕の未来記はそんな当座間に合せの小問題じゃない。人間全体の運命に関する社会的現象だからね。つらつら目下文明の傾向を達観して、遠き将来の趨勢（すうせい）を卜（ぼく）すると結婚が不可能の事になる。驚ろくなかれ、結婚の不可能。訳はこうさ。前（ぜん）申 す通り今の世は個性中心の世である。一家を主人が代表し、一郡を代官が代表し、一国を領主が代表した時分には、代表者以外の人間には人格はまるでなかっ た。あっても認められなかった。それががらりと変ると、あらゆる生存者がことごとく個性を主張し出して、だれを見ても君は君、僕は僕だよと云わぬばかりの 風をするようになる。ふたりの人が途中で逢えばうぬが人間なら、おれも人間だぞと心の中（うち）で喧嘩（けんか）を買いながら行き違う。それだけ個人が強くなった。個人が平等に強くなったから、個人が平等に弱くなった訳になる。人がおのれを害する事が出来にくくなった点において、たしかに自分は強くなったのだが、滅多（めった）に人の身の上に手出しがならなくなった点においては、明かに昔より弱くなったんだろう。強くなるのは嬉しいが、弱くなるのは誰もありがたくないから、人から一毫（いちごう）も犯（おか）されまいと、強い点をあくまで固守すると同時に、せめて半毛（はんもう）でも人を侵（おか）してやろうと、弱いところは無理にも拡（ひろ）げ たくなる。こうなると人と人の間に空間がなくなって、生きてるのが窮屈になる。出来るだけ自分を張りつめて、はち切れるばかりにふくれ返って苦しがって生 存している。苦しいから色々の方法で個人と個人との間に余裕を求める。かくのごとく人間が自業自得で苦しんで、その苦し紛（まぎ）れに案出した第一の方案は親子別居の制さ。日本でも山の中へ這入って見給え。一家一門（いっけいちもん）ことごとく一軒のうちにごろごろしている。主張すべき個性もなく、あっても主張しないから、あれで済むのだが文明の民はたとい親子の間でもお互に我儘（わがまま）を張れるだけ張らなければ損になるから勢（いきお）い両者の安全を保持するためには別居しなければならない。欧洲は文明が進んでいるから日本より早くこの制度が行われている。たまたま親子同居するものがあっても、息子（むすこ）がおやじから利息のつく金を借りたり、他人のように下宿料を払ったりする。親が息子の個性を認めてこれに尊敬を払えばこそ、こんな美風が成立するのだ。この風は早晩日本へも是非輸入しなければならん。親類はとくに離れ、親子は今日（こんにち）に 離れて、やっと我慢しているようなものの個性の発展と、発展につれてこれに対する尊敬の念は無制限にのびて行くから、まだ離れなくては楽が出来ない。しか し親子兄弟の離れたる今日、もう離れるものはない訳だから、最後の方案として夫婦が分れる事になる。今の人の考ではいっしょにいるから夫婦だと思ってる。 それが大きな了見違いさ。いっしょにいるためにはいっしょにいるに充分なるだけ個性が合わなければならないだろう。昔しなら文句はないさ、異体同心とか 云って、目には夫婦二人に見えるが、内実は一人前（いちにんまえ）なんだからね。それだから偕老同穴（かいろうどうけつ）とか号して、死んでも一つ穴の狸に化ける。野蛮なものさ。今はそうは行かないやね。夫はあくまでも夫で妻はどうしたって妻だからね。その妻が女学校で行灯袴（あんどんばかま）を穿（は）いて牢乎（ろうこ）たる個性を鍛（きた）え上げて、束髪姿で乗り込んでくるんだから、とても夫の思う通りになる訳がない。また夫の思い通りになるような妻なら妻じゃない人形だからね。賢夫人になればなるほど個性は凄（すご）いほど発達する。発達すればするほど夫と合わなくなる。合わなければ自然の勢（いきおい）夫と衝突する。だから賢妻と名がつく以上は朝から晩まで夫と衝突している。まことに結構な事だが、賢妻を迎えれば迎えるほど双方共苦しみの程度が増してくる。水と油のように夫婦の間には截然（せつぜん）たるしきりがあって、それも落ちついて、しきりが水平線を保っていればまだしもだが、水と油が双方から働らきかけるのだから家のなかは大地震のように上がったり下がったりする。ここにおいて夫婦雑居はお互の損だと云う事が次第に人間に分ってくる。……」
「それで夫婦がわかれるんですか。心配だな」と寒月君が云った。
「わかれる。きっとわかれる。天下の夫婦はみんな分れる。今まではいっしょにいたのが夫婦であったが、これからは同棲（どうせい）しているものは夫婦の資格がないように世間から目（もく）されてくる」
「すると私なぞは資格のない組へ編入される訳ですね」と寒月君は際（きわ）どいところでのろけを云った。
「明治の御代（みよ）に生れて幸さ。僕などは未来記を作るだけあって、頭脳が時勢より一二歩ずつ前へ出ているからちゃんと今から独身でいるんだよ。人は失恋の結果だなどと騒ぐが、近眼者の視（み）るところは実に憐れなほど浅薄なものだ。それはとにかく、未来記の続きを話すとこうさ。その時一人の哲学者が天降（あまくだ）って破天荒（はてんこう）の真理を唱道する。その説に曰（いわ）くさ。人間は個性の動物である。個性を滅すれば人間を滅すると同結果に陥（おちい）る。いやしくも人間の意義を完（まった）からしめんためには、いかなる価（あたい）を払うとも構わないからこの個性を保持すると同時に発達せしめなければならん。かの陋習（ろうしゅう）に縛せられて、いやいやながら結婚を執行するのは人間自然の傾向に反した蛮風であって、個性の発達せざる蒙昧（もうまい）の時代はいざ知らず、文明の今日（こんにち）なおこの弊竇（へいとう）に陥（おちい）って恬（てん）として顧（かえり）みないのははなはだしき謬見（びゅうけん）である。開化の高潮度に達せる今代（きんだい）において二個の個性が普通以上に親密の程度をもって連結され得べき理由のあるべきはずがない。この覩易（みやす）き理由はあるにも関らず無教育の青年男女が一時の劣情に駆られて、漫（みだり）に合（ごうきん）の式を挙ぐるは悖徳没倫（はいとくぼつりん）のはなはだしき所為である。吾人は人道のため、文明のため、彼等青年男女の個性保護のため、全力を挙げこの蛮風に抵抗せざるべからず……」
「先生私はその説には全然反対です」と東風君はこの時思い切った調子でぴたりと平手（ひらて）で膝頭（ひざがしら）を叩いた。「私の考では世の中に何が尊（たっと）いと云って愛と美ほど尊いものはないと思います。吾々を慰藉（いしゃ）し、 吾々を完全にし、吾々を幸福にするのは全く両者の御蔭であります。吾人の情操を優美にし、品性を高潔にし、同情を洗錬するのは全く両者の御蔭であります。 だから吾人はいつの世いずくに生れてもこの二つのものを忘れることが出来ないです。この二つの者が現実世界にあらわれると、愛は夫婦と云う関係になりま す。美は詩歌（しいか）、音楽の形式に分れます。それだからいやしくも人類の地球の表面に存在する限りは夫婦と芸術は決して滅する事はなかろうと思います」
「なければ結構だが、今哲学者が云った通りちゃんと滅してしまうから仕方がないと、あきらめるさ。なに芸術だ？　芸術だって夫婦と同じ運命に帰着するの さ。個性の発展というのは個性の自由と云う意味だろう。個性の自由と云う意味はおれはおれ、人は人と云う意味だろう。その芸術なんか存在出来る訳がない じゃないか。芸術が繁昌するのは芸術家と享受者（きょうじゅしゃ）の間に個性の一致があるからだろう。君がいくら新体詩家だって踏張（ふんば）っても、君の詩を読んで面白いと云うものが一人もなくっちゃ、君の新体詩も御気の毒だが君よりほかに読み手はなくなる訳だろう。鴛鴦歌（えんおうか）をいく篇作ったって始まらないやね。幸いに明治の今日（こんにち）に生れたから、天下が挙（こぞ）って愛読するのだろうが……」
「いえそれほどでもありません」
「今でさえそれほどでなければ、人文（じんぶん）の発達した未来即（すなわ）ち例の一大哲学者が出て非結婚論を主張する時分には誰もよみ手はなくなるぜ。いや君のだから読まないのじゃない。人々個々（にんにんここ）おのおの特別の個性をもってるから、人の作った詩文などは一向（いっこう）面白くないのさ。現に今でも英国などではこの傾向がちゃんとあらわれている。現今英国の小説家中でもっとも個性のいちじるしい作品にあらわれた、メレジスを見給え、ジェームスを見給え。読み手は極（きわ）めて少ないじゃないか。少ない訳（わけ）さ。あんな作品はあんな個性のある人でなければ読んで面白くないんだから仕方がない。この傾向がだんだん発達して婚姻が不道徳になる時分には芸術も完（まった）く滅亡さ。そうだろう君のかいたものは僕にわからなくなる、僕のかいたものは君にわからなくなった日にゃ、君と僕の間には芸術も糞もないじゃないか」
「そりゃそうですけれども私はどうも直覚的にそう思われないんです」
「君が直覚的にそう思われなければ、僕は曲覚的（きょっかくてき）にそう思うまでさ」
「曲覚的かも知れないが」と今度は独仙君が口を出す。「とにかく人間に個性の自由を許せば許すほど御互の間が窮屈になるに相違ないよ。ニーチェが超人なんか担（かつ）ぎ出すのも全くこの窮屈のやりどころがなくなって仕方なしにあんな哲学に変形したものだね。ちょっと見るとあれがあの男の理想のように見えるが、ありゃ理想じゃない、不平さ。個性の発展した十九世紀にすくんで、隣りの人には心置なく滅多（めった）に寝返りも打てないから、大将少しやけになってあんな乱暴をかき散らしたのだね。あれを読むと壮快と云うよりむしろ気の毒になる。あの声は勇猛精進（ゆうもうしょうじん）の声じゃない、どうしても怨恨痛憤（えんこんつうふん）の音（おん）だ。それもそのはずさ昔は一人えらい人があれば天下翕然（きゅうぜん）と してその旗下にあつまるのだから、愉快なものさ。こんな愉快が事実に出てくれば何もニーチェ見たように筆と紙の力でこれを書物の上にあらわす必要がない。 だからホーマーでもチェヴィ・チェーズでも同じく超人的な性格を写しても感じがまるで違うからね。陽気ださ。愉快にかいてある。愉快な事実があって、この 愉快な事実を紙に写しかえたのだから、苦味（にがみ）はないはずだ。ニーチェの時代はそうは行かないよ。英雄なんか一人も出やしない。出たって誰も英雄と立てやしない。昔は孔子（こうし）がたった一人だったから、孔子も幅を利（き）かしたのだが、今は孔子が幾人もいる。ことによると天下がことごとく孔子かも知れない。だからおれは孔子だよと威張っても圧（おし）が 利かない。利かないから不平だ。不平だから超人などを書物の上だけで振り廻すのさ。吾人は自由を欲して自由を得た。自由を得た結果不自由を感じて困ってい る。それだから西洋の文明などはちょっといいようでもつまり駄目なものさ。これに反して東洋じゃ昔しから心の修行をした。その方が正しいのさ。見給え個性 発展の結果みんな神経衰弱を起して、始末がつかなくなった時、王者（おうしゃ）の民（たみ）蕩々（とうとう）たりと云う句の価値を始めて発見するから。無為（むい）にして化（か）すと云う語の馬鹿に出来ない事を悟るから。しかし悟ったってその時はもうしようがない。アルコール中毒に罹（かか）って、ああ酒を飲まなければよかったと考えるようなものさ」

"
(Singleman says)
“There, you see how times have changed. Not so long ago the power of those in authority was unlimited. Then came a time when there were certain things which even they could not demand. But nowadays there are strict limits upon the power of peers and even ministers to compel the individual. To put the matter bluntly, we are witnessing a period when, the greater the power of the authorities, the greater the resistance they’ll encounter. Our fathers would be astonished to see how things which the authorities clearly want done, and have ordered should be done, nevertheless remain undone. This era takes for granted any number of things which elderly people would once have thought unthinkable. It is quiet extraordinary how quickly and how totally both men and their concept of society can change. So, though you may of course laugh as much as you like at Waverhouse’s version of the future, you would be wise not to laugh so hard that you fail to consider how much of it might prove true.”
(Waverhouse says)
“Flattered as I am to have found so appreciative a friend, I feel that much more obliged to continue with my forecast of the future. First I would emphasize, as Singleman has already indicated, that anyone nowadays who proudly thinks himself powerful by reason of delegated authority, or who seeks to maintain an outdated power by marching around with a troop of a hundred henchmen brandishing bamboo spears, can only be compared to that antiquated bigot who imagined that his spanking palanquin could travel faster than a railway train. I fancy that the best local example of such a fathead might actually be that usurer Goldfield, whom I consider the master fathead of them all. So perhaps we should simply relax and leave time to slide over him.
Anyway, my forecast of the future is not so much concerned with such minor transitional matters as with a particular social phenomenon that will determine the long-term destiny of the entire human race. My friends, if you will take a long-term view of the trends already obvious in the development of our civilization, you will have no choice but to share my view that marriage has had it. Are you surprised? That the sacred institution of marriage should be so summarily written off? Well, the grounds for my forecast have already been stated and, I think, accepted: that modern society is centered, to the exclusion of all else, upon the idea of individuality. When the family was represented by its head, the district by its magistrate and the province by its feudal lord, then those who were not representatives possessed no personalities whatsoever. Even if exceptionally, they actually did have personalities, those characteristics, being inappropriate to their place in society, were never recognized as such. Suddenly everything changed. We were all discovered to possess personalities, and every individual began to as**sert his newfound individuality. Whenever two persons chanced to meet, their attitudes betrayed a disposition to quarrel, an underlying determination to insist that ‘I am I, and you are you,’ and that no human being was any more human than any other. Obviously, each individual grew a little stronger by reason of this new individuality. But, of course, precisely because everyone had grown stronger, everyone had also grown proportionately weaker than their fellow-individuals. Because it’s now harder for people to oppress you, certainly you’re stronger; but because it’s now a lot more difficult for you to meddle in other folk’s affairs, you’re clearly that much weaker. Everyone, naturally, likes to be strong, and no one, naturally, likes to be weak. Consequently, we all vigorously defend the strong points in our position in society, scrapping like fiends over the merest trifles, and at the same time, in an unremitting effort to undermine the position of our fellows, we lever away at their weakest points at every opportunity. It follows that men have no genuine living space left between them which is not occupied by siege engines and counterworks. Too cramped to live at ease, the constant pressure to expand one’s individual sphere has brought mankind to a painful bursting point and, having arrived by their own machinations at such an unpleasant state of affairs, men thereupon devised a means to relieve the unbearable pressure: they developed that system under which parents and their married offspring live separately. In the more backward parts of Japan, among the wilder mountains, you can still find entire families, including their lesser cousinage, all living together, perfectly contentedly, in one single house. That lifestyle was only viable because, apart from the head of the family, no member of the group possessed any individuality to as**sert; while any member who, exceptionally, happened to possess it, took good care never to let it show. However, in more up-to-date and civilized communities the individual members of families are struggling amongst themselves, no less fiercely than do other and totally unrelated members of modern society, both to guard their own positions and to undermine those of their so-called nearest and dearest.
There is, therefore, little real choice but to live separately.
“In Europe, where the modernization of society has proceeded much further than has yet happened in Japan, this necessary disintegration of the multi-generation family unit has long been common. If by chance European parents and sons do live in the same house, the sons pay, as they would elsewhere, for board and lodging. Similarly, if sons borrow money from their father, they pay it back with interest as they would if they had borrowed from a bank. This sort of laudable arrangement is only possible when fathers recognize and pay proper respect to sons’ individualities. Sooner or later such customs must be adopted in Japan.
It is many years now since uncles, aunts, and cousins moved out of the family unit to establish their separate lives: the time is now coming for fathers and sons to separate, but the development of individuality and of a feeling of respect toward individuality will go on growing endlessly.
We shall never be at peace unless we move farther apart and give each other room for that growth. But when parents, sons, brothers, and sisters have all so eased apart, what further easement can be sought? Only the separation of husband and wife. Some people today still persist in the mistaken view that a husband and wife are a husband and wife because they live together. The point is that they can only live together if their separate individualities are sufficiently harmonious. No question of disharmony arose in the old days because, being in the Confucian phrase ‘two bodies but one spirit,’ husband-and-wife was a single person. Even after death they remained inseparable, haunting the world as two badgers from a single sett. That barbarous state of affairs is now all changed. A husband now is simply a man who happens to be married, a wife a woman in the same lamentable condition. This wife person went to a girls’ school from which, after an excellent education designed to strengthen her individuality, she comes marching out in a Western hairstyle to be a bride. No wonder the man she marries cannot make her do what he likes. If such a woman did, in fact, accommodate herself to her husband’s beck and call, people would say she’s not a wife but a doll. The harder she works to become an intelligent helpmate, the greater the space demanded by her individuality and the less her husband can abide her. Quarreling begins. The brighter the wife, the more bitter and incessant are the quarrels, and there’s no sense in boasting of intelligence in a wife if all it produces is misery for both of you. Now within this marriage a boundary is established, a boundary as distinct as that between oil and water. Even that would not be too awful if only it were steady, but in practice the line of marital friction bounces up and down so that the whole domestic scene is in a constant condition of earthquake. By such experiences the human race has come to accept that it is unprofitable to both parties that married couples should live together.”
“So what do they do?” asks Coldmoon. “Divorce on the scale you imply is a worrying prospect.”
“Yes, they part. What else can they do? It’s clear to me that, eventually, all married couples will get divorced. As things still stand, those who live together are husband and wife, but in the future those who live together will be generally considered to have disqualified themselves from being a normal married couple.”
“I suppose that a man like myself will be one of the disqualified. . .”
Coldmoon misses no chance to remind us of his recent marriage.
“You are lucky to have been born in the days of the Emperor Meiji when traditional ways are still observed. Being a gifted prophet of things to come, I am inevitably two or three stops ahead of my contemporaries in all matters of any importance; that, of course, is why I am already a bachelor. I know there are people who go around saying that I remain unmarried because of some early disappointment in love, but one can only pity such persons for their shallow minds and their inability to see further than the ends of their snooping noses.” Waverhouse paused for breath. “But to return to my farsighted vision of the future. . . A philosopher will descend from heaven. He will preach the unprecedented truth that all members of mankind, both men and women, are essentially individuals. Impairment of their individuality can only lead to the destruction of the human race. The purpose of human life is to maintain and develop individuality, and, to attain that end, no sacrifice is too great. It is thus contrary to the nature and needs of mankind that the ancient, evil, barbarous practice of marriage should continue. Such primitive rites were, perhaps, understandable before the sacrosanctity of individuality was recognized, but to allow the continuation of these dreadful customs into our own civilized era is quite unthinkable. The deplorable habit of marriage must be broken. In our developed culture there is no reason whatsoever why two individuals should be bound to each other in the highly abnormal intimacy of the traditional marriage relationship.
Once the revelations of the heaven sent philosopher have been clearly understood, it will be regarded as extremely immoral of young uneducated men and women to allow themselves to be so carried away by base and fleeting passions that they even stoop to low indulgence in wedding ceremonies. Even today we must do our best to get such tribal customs discontinued.”
“Sir,” said Beauchamp so very firmly that he even slapped his kneecap,
“I totally reject your vile prognostication. In my opinion, nothing in this world is more precious than love and beauty. It is entirely thanks to these two things that we can be consoled, be made perfect, and be happy. Again, it is entirely due to them that our feelings can be gracefully expressed, our characters made noble, and our sympathies refined.
Therefore, no matter where or when one is born, here or in Timbuktu, now or in the future, love and beauty remain the eternal guidestars of mankind. When they manifest themselves in the actual world, love is seen in the relationship between husband and wife, while beauty shines forth either as poetry or music. These are the expressions, at its highest level, of the very humanity of the human race; I do not believe, so long as our kind exists upon the surface of this planet, that either the arts or our current ideal of the married couple will perish therefrom.”
“It would be well, perhaps, if it were so. But, for the reasons which the heaven sent philosopher has just given for his forecast, both love and beauty are bound to perish. You will just have to accept the inevitable.
You spoke of the imperishable glories of art, but they will go the same way as the married couple: into oblivion. The irreversible development of individuality will bring ever greater demands by individuals for recognition of their singular identity. In a world where I and you both insist that ‘I am I, and you are you,’ how can any art perdure? Surely the arts now flourish by reason of a harmony between the individualities of the artist and of each appreciative member of his public. That harmony is already being crushed to death. You may protest until the cows come home that you are a new-style poet, but if no one shares your conviction of the worth of your poems, I’m afraid you’ll never be read. However many epithalamia you compose, your work will be dying as you write it.
It is thus especially gratifying that, writing as you do in Meiji times, the whole world may still rejoice in its excellence.”
“I’m not all that well-known.”
“If already today your splendid efforts are not all that well-known, what do you imagine will be their fate in the future when civilization has advanced yet further and that heaven sent philosopher has knocked the stuffing out of marriage? No one at all will read your poems. Not because the poems are yours and you are a bad poet, but because individuality has intensified to such an extent that anything written by other people holds no interest for anyone. This stage of the literary future is already evidenced in England where two of their leading novelists, Henry James and George Meredith, have personalities so strong and so strongly reflected in their novels that very few people care to read them.
And no wonder. Only readers with personalities of matching force could find such works of any interest. That trend will accelerate and, by the time that marriage is finally recognized as immoral, all art will have disappeared. Surely you can see that, when anything that either of us might write has become quite meaningless to the other, then there will be nothing, let alone art, which we can share. We shall all be excommunicated from each other.”
“I suppose you’re right; but somehow, intuitively, I cannot believe the fearful picture you have painted.”
“If you can’t grasp it intuitively, then try it discursively.”
“Discursive or intuitive,” Singleman blurts out, “what’s it matter? The point is that it’s true. It’s quite obvious that the greater the freedom of the individuality permitted to human beings, the less free their interrelations must become. I consider that all Nietzsche’s glorification of a Superman is nothing but a philosophical attempt to talk a way out of the dead-end facing mankind. You might at first sight think that Nietzsche was enunciating some cherished ideal, but on reflection you’ll recognize that he’s simply voicing his bitter discontent. Twisting about in his bed, niggled by his neighbors, worried by their developing individualities, Nietzsche funked even the nineteenth century. Pouring out such jeremiads, he must have lived in an agony of despair. Reading his works, one does not feel inspired, merely sorry for their wretched author. That voice of his is not the voice of intrepidity and determination; it is nothing more than the whine of grievance and the screams of indignation. It was, perhaps, an understandable reaction in a rejected philosopher.
When in ancient times a truly great man appeared, all the whole world flocked to gather under his banner. Which was no doubt very gratifying, certainly sufficiently gratifying for the great man in question to feel no need to resort to pen and paper with all that virulence one finds in Nietzsche. The superhuman characters portrayed in Homer’s epics and in the Ballad of Chevy Chase  are not demon-driven. Unlike Nietzsche’s Superman, they are alive with life, with gaiety and just plain fun. Their times were truly merry and the merriment is recreated in the writing.
Naturally, in days like that there was no trace of Nietzsche’s atrabilious venom. But in Nietzsche’s period things were sadly different. No hero shone on his horizons and, even if a hero had appeared, no one would have honored, respected, or even noticed him. When, in a much earlier period, Confucius made his appearance, it was relatively easy for him to as**sert his importance because he had no equals as competitors. Today they’re ten a penny and possibly the whole wide world is packed with them. Certainly no one nowadays would be impressed if you claimed to be a new Confucius, and you, because you had failed to impress, would become waspish in your discontent, in precisely the sort of discontent which leads to books which brandish Superman about our ears. We sought freedom and now we suffer from the inconveniences that freedom can but bring. Does it not follow that, though Western civilization seems splendid at first glance, at the end of the day it proves itself a bane? In sharp contrast, we in the East have always, since long, long, long ago, devoted ourselves not to material progress but to development of the mind. That Way was the right way. Now that the pressures of individuality are bringing on all sorts of nervous disorders, we are at last able to grasp the meaning of the ancient tag that ‘people are carefree under firm rule.’ And it won’t be long before Lao Tzu’s doctrine of the activating effect of inactivity grows to seem less of a paradox. By then, of course, it will be too late to do anything more than recognize our likeness to addicted alcoholics who wish they’d never touched the stuff.”

"

My note - 5

Singleman -  same as Professor Kidd - a friend of the Master, philosopher
Beauchamp - a friend of the master, poet of new style poems


2) Feminism or Anti-feminism

This social issue is closely connected with the above individualism as the story goes. I think also that the writer (Soseki) 's opinion is not one-sided though it looks like Anti-feminism.

東風君と寒月君はヴァイオリンの隠（かく）れ家（が）についてかくのごとく問答をしているうちに、主人と迷亭君も何かしきりに話している。
「こりゃ何と読むのだい」と主人が聞く。
「どれ」
「この二行さ」
「何だって？　Quid aliud est mulier nisi amiciti［＃「amiciti」は底本では「amiticiae」］ inimica……こりゃ君羅甸語（ラテンご）じゃないか」
「羅甸語は分ってるが、何と読むのだい」
「だって君は平生羅甸語が読めると云ってるじゃないか」と迷亭君も危険だと見て取って、ちょっと逃げた。
「無論読めるさ。読める事は読めるが、こりゃ何だい」
「読める事は読めるが、こりゃ何だは手ひどいね」
「何でもいいからちょっと英語に訳して見ろ」
「見ろは烈しいね。まるで従卒のようだね」
「従卒でもいいから何だ」
「まあ羅甸語などはあとにして、ちょっと寒月君のご高話を拝聴仕（つかまつ）ろうじゃないか。今大変なところだよ。いよいよ露見するか、しないか危機一髪と云う安宅（あたか）の関（せき）へかかってるんだ。――ねえ寒月君それからどうしたい」と急に乗気になって、またヴァイオリンの仲間入りをする。主人は情（なさ）けなくも取り残された。

"
While Beauchamp and Coldmoon continue with their guessing game, my master and Waverhouse become engrossed in a totally separate conversation. “How do you read these lines?” my master asked.
“Which lines?”
“These two lines here.”
“What’s this then? Quid aliud est mulier nisi amicitie inimica. . . But it’s Latin.”
“I know it’s Latin. But how do you read it?”
“Come off it, Sneaze,” says Waverhouse evasively as his sensitive nose scents danger, “you’re always bragging about your knowledge of dead languages. Can’t you read it yourself?”
“Of course I can. Quite easily. But I’m asking you for your reading of this particular text.”
“You know how to read it, and yet you ask me what it means. That’s a bit thick, you know.”
“Never mind if it’s thick or thin. Just translate the Latin into English.”
“Tut-tut. Such giving of orders, such military ways. D’you take me for your batman or something?”
“Don’t slide away from the question behind a military smoke screen.
Just be so good as to let me hear your version of these two lines.”
“Let’s leave your Latin problems for the moment. I’m keen—aren’t you?—to keep up with developments in Coldmoon’s extraordinary story. He’s just coming to a crisis point, trembling between discovery and the successful caching of his treasure. Am I not right, Coldmoon?
Well, how then did you cope with your dilemma?” Waverhouse evinces a sudden new enthusiasm for Coldmoon’s fantasy on a violin and moves over to rejoin the fiddle group. My wretched master, I regret to say, is left alone with his text.

"

My Note - 6

Quid aliud est mulier nisi amicitie inimica

Hint:
Quid (what) aliud (other, else)  est mulier (woman) nisi (if not) amiticiæ inimica (hostile)

Soseki's translation - 　女子とは何ぞ。友愛の敵にあらずや。 What is a woman ? Isn't it an enemy of friendship ?  Translation ----＞ She is an enemy to friendship?  (See below)


「先生方は大分（だいぶ）厭世的な御説のようだが、私は妙ですね。いろいろ伺っても何とも感じません。どう云うものでしょう」と寒月君が云う。
「そりゃ妻君を持ち立てだからさ」と迷亭君がすぐ解釈した。すると主人が突然こんな事を云い出した。
「妻（さい）を持って、女はいいものだなどと思うと飛んだ間違になる。参考のためだから、おれが面白い物を読んで聞かせる。よく聴くがいい」と最前（さいぜん）書斎から持って来た古い本を取り上げて「この本は古い本だが、この時代から女のわるい事は歴然と分ってる」と云うと、寒月君が
「少し驚きましたな。元来いつ頃の本ですか」と聞く。「タマス・ナッシと云って十六世紀の著書だ」
「いよいよ驚ろいた。その時分すでに私の妻（さい）の悪口を云ったものがあるんですか」
「いろいろ女の悪口があるが、その内には是非君の妻（さい）も這入る訳だから聞くがいい」
「ええ聞きますよ。ありがたい事になりましたね」
「まず古来の賢哲が女性観を紹介すべしと書いてある。いいかね。聞いてるかね」
「みんな聞いてるよ。独身の僕まで聞いてるよ」
「アリストートル曰（いわ）く女はどうせ碌（ろく）でなしなれば、嫁をとるなら、大きな嫁より小さな嫁をとるべし。大きな碌でなしより、小さな碌でなしの方が災（わざわい）少なし……」
「寒月君の妻君は大きいかい、小さいかい」
「大きな碌でなしの部ですよ」
「ハハハハ、こりゃ面白い本だ。さああとを読んだ」
「或る人問う、いかなるかこれ最大奇蹟（さいだいきせき）。賢者答えて曰く、貞婦……」
「賢者ってだれですか」
「名前は書いてない」
「どうせ振られた賢者に相違ないね」
「次にはダイオジニスが出ている。或る人問う、妻を娶（めと）るいずれの時においてすべきか。ダイオジニス答えて曰く青年は未（いま）だし、老年はすでに遅し。とある」
「先生樽（たる）の中で考えたね」
「ピサゴラス曰（いわ）く天下に三の恐るべきものあり曰く火、曰く水、曰く女」
「希臘（ギリシャ）の哲学者などは存外迂濶（うかつ）な事を云うものだね。僕に云わせると天下に恐るべきものなし。火に入（い）って焼けず、水に入って溺れず……」だけで独仙君ちょっと行き詰る。
「女に逢ってとろけずだろう」と迷亭先生が援兵に出る。主人はさっさとあとを読む。
「ソクラチスは婦女子を御（ぎょ）するは人間の最大難事と云えり。デモスセニス曰く人もしその敵を苦しめんとせば、わが女を敵に与うるより策の得たるはあらず。家庭の風波に日となく夜（よ）となく彼を困憊（こんぱい）起つあたわざるに至らしむるを得ればなりと。セネカは婦女と無学をもって世界における二大厄とし、マーカス・オーレリアスは女子は制御し難き点において船舶に似たりと云い、プロータスは女子が綺羅（きら）を飾るの性癖をもってその天稟（てんぴん）の醜を蔽（おお）うの陋策（ろうさく）にもとづくものとせり。ヴァレリアスかつて書をその友某におくって告げて曰く天下に何事も女子の忍んでなし得ざるものあらず。願わくは皇天憐（あわれみ）を垂れて、君をして彼等の術中に陥（おちい）らしむるなかれと。彼また曰く女子とは何ぞ。友愛の敵にあらずや。避くべからざる苦しみにあらずや、必然の害にあらずや、自然の誘惑にあらずや、蜜（みつ）に似たる毒にあらずや。もし女子を棄つるが不徳ならば、彼等を棄てざるは一層の呵責（かしゃく）と云わざるべからず。……」
「もう沢山です、先生。そのくらい愚妻のわる口を拝聴すれば申し分はありません」
「まだ四五ページあるから、ついでに聞いたらどうだ」
「もうたいていにするがいい。もう奥方の御帰りの刻限だろう」と迷亭先生がからかい掛けると、茶の間の方で
「清や、清や」と細君が下女を呼ぶ声がする。
「こいつは大変だ。奥方はちゃんといるぜ、君」
「ウフフフフ」と主人は笑いながら「構うものか」と云った。
「奥さん、奥さん。いつの間（ま）に御帰りですか」
　茶の間ではしんとして答がない。
「奥さん、今のを聞いたんですか。え？」
　答はまだない。
「今のはね、御主人の御考ではないですよ。十六世紀のナッシ君の説ですから御安心なさい」
「存じません」と妻君は遠くで簡単な返事をした。寒月君はくすくすと笑った。

"

“All you fellows,” said Coldmoon, “seem hideously pessimistic about the future, but none of your moans and groans depress me in the least.
I wonder why.”
“That’s because you’ve just got married,” said Waverhouse hastening to explain away the mildest manifestation of hope.
Then, suddenly, my master began to talk. “If my dear Coldmoon, you’re thinking yourself fortunate to have found a wife, you’re making a big mistake. For your particular information, I shall now read out something of pertinent interest.” Opening that antique of a book which he’d brought from his study a short time back, my master then continued. “As you can see, this is an old book but it was perfectly clear, even in those early days, that women were terrible.”
“Sir, you surprise me. But may I ask when the book was written?” said Coldmoon.
“In the sixteenth century, by a man called Thomas Nashe.”
“I’m even more surprised. You mean to say that even in those early days someone spoke ill of my wife?”
“The book contains a wide variety of complaints about women, some of which will certainly apply to your wife. So you’d better listen carefully.”
“All right. I am listening.Very honored, too.”
“The book begins by saying that all men must heed the views of womanhood propounded down the ages by recognized sages. You follow me?
Are you listening?”
“We are all listening. Even I, a bachelor, am listening.”
“Aristotle says that, since all women are good-for-nothings anyway, it is best, if you must get married, to choose a small bride, because a small good-for-nothing is less disastrous than a large one.”
“Coldmoon, is this wife of yours hefty or petite?”
“She’s one of the heftier good-for-nothings.”
They all laughed, more at the suddenness with which Coldmoon had rejoined the eternal conspiracy of males than at anything inherently funny in his answer.
“Well,” said Waverhouse, “that’s an interesting book, I must say. Read us some more.”
“A man once asked what might be a miracle, and the sage replied, ‘A chaste woman.’”
“Who, sir, is this sage?”
“The book doesn’t give his name.”
“I’ll bet he was a sage who had been jilted.”
“Next comes Diogenes who, when asked at what age it was best to take a wife, replied,‘For a young man, not yet; for the old man, never.’”
“No doubt that miserable fellow thought that up in his barrel,” observed Waverhouse.
“Pythagoras says that there are three evils not to be suffered: fire, water, and a woman.”
“I didn’t know,” said Singleman, “that any Greek philosopher was responsible for such an ill-considered apothegm. If you ask me, none of them are evil: one can enter fire and not be burnt, enter water and not be drowned, enter. . .” Here he got stuck until Waverhouse helped him out by adding, “And entertain a woman without being bewitched, eh?”
Paying no regard to his friends interjections, my master went on with his reading. “Socrates says that a man’s most difficult task is to try to control women and children. Demosthenes says that the greatest torment a man can invent for his enemy’s vexation is to give him his own daughter in marriage ‘as a domestical Furie to disquiet him night and day’ until he dies of it. The eminent Seneca says that there be two especial troubles in this world: a wife and ignorance. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius compares women to ships because ‘to keep them well in order, there is always somewhat wanting.’ Plautus claims that women ‘deck themselves so gorgeously and lace themselves so nicely’ because, and I paraphrase, such a mean trick disguises their natural ugliness. Valerius Maximus in a letter to one of his friends advises him that almost nothing is impossible for a woman, and goes on to entreat God Almighty that ‘his sweet friend be not entrapped by woman’s treacherie.’ It was this same Valerius Maximus who answered his own question about the nature of woman by saying,‘She is an enemy to friendship, an inevitable pain, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desired calamity, a honey-seeming poison.’ He also remarked that, if it is a sin to put a woman away, it is surely a much greater torment to keep her still.”
“Please, sir,” pleaded Coldmoon, “that’s enough. I cannot bear to hear any more awful things about my wife.”
“There are still several more pages. How about listening to the end?”
“Oh, have a heart,” said Waverhouse, “and anyway isn’t it about time for your own good lady to come home?” He had hardly started his usual style of teasing when from the direction of the other room there came the sound of Mrs. Sneaze calling sharply for the maid.
“I say, that’s torn it,” Waverhouse whispered. “Had you realized she was back?”
My master permitted himself a spasm of muffled laughter. “What’s it matter if she is?”
But Waverhouse was not to be dissuaded. “Oh, Mrs. Sneaze,” he called, “how long have you been home?”
Answer, as the poets put it, came there none.
“Did you happen to hear what your noble spouse was just telling us, Mrs. Sneaze?”
Still no answer.
“I hope you understand he wasn’t speaking his own thoughts. Just reading out the opinions of a Mr. Nashe from the sixteenth century.
Nothing personal. Please don’t take it to heart.”
“It hardly matters to me,” came the curt response in a voice so faint and distant that Mrs. Sneaze might well have been away in the sixteenth century pursuing the issue with Mr. Nashe himself. Coldmoon giggled nervously.

"

3) Death of the cat

The cat ends his short life by drowning in  a big clay jar after drunken by drinking some leftover beer in the kitchen. And this is the end of I Am a Cat.


　吾輩は我慢に我慢を重ねて、ようやく一杯のビールを飲み干した時、妙な現象が起った。始めは舌がぴりぴりして、口中が外部から圧迫されるように苦しかったのが、飲むに従ってようやく楽（らく）になって、一杯目を片付ける時分には別段骨も折れなくなった。もう大丈夫と二杯目は難なくやっつけた。ついでに盆の上にこぼれたのも拭（ぬぐ）うがごとく腹内（ふくない）に収めた。
　それからしばらくの間は自分で自分の動静を伺うため、じっとすくんでいた。次第にからだが暖かになる。眼のふちがぽうっとする。耳がほてる。歌がうたいたくなる。猫じゃ猫じゃが踊りたくなる。主人も迷亭も独仙も糞を食（くら）えと云う気になる。金田のじいさんを引掻（ひっか）いてやりたくなる。妻君の鼻を食い欠きたくなる。いろいろになる。最後にふらふらと立ちたくなる。起（た）ったらよたよたあるきたくなる。こいつは面白いとそとへ出たくなる。出ると御月様今晩はと挨拶したくなる。どうも愉快だ。
　陶然とはこんな事を云うのだろうと思いながら、あてもなく、そこかしこと散歩するような、しないような心持でしまりのない足をいい加減に運ばせてゆくと、何だかしきりに眠い。寝ているのだか、あるいてるのだか判然しない。眼はあけるつもりだが重い事夥（おびただ）しい。こうなればそれまでだ。海だろうが、山だろうが驚ろかないんだと、前足をぐにゃりと前へ出したと思う途端ぼちゃんと音がして、はっと云ううち、――やられた。どうやられたのか考える間（ま）がない。ただやられたなと気がつくか、つかないのにあとは滅茶苦茶になってしまった。
　我に帰ったときは水の上に浮いている。苦しいから爪でもって矢鱈（やたら）に掻（か）いたが、掻けるものは水ばかりで、掻くとすぐもぐってしまう。仕方がないから後足（あとあし）で飛び上っておいて、前足で掻いたら、がりりと音がしてわずかに手応（てごたえ）があった。ようやく頭だけ浮くからどこだろうと見廻わすと、吾輩は大きな甕（かめ）の中に落ちている。この甕（かめ）は夏まで水葵（みずあおい）と称する水草（みずくさ）が茂っていたがその後烏の勘公が来て葵を食い尽した上に行水（ぎょうずい）を使う。行水を使えば水が減る。減れば来なくなる。近来は大分（だいぶ）減って烏が見えないなと先刻（さっき）思ったが、吾輩自身が烏の代りにこんな所で行水を使おうなどとは思いも寄らなかった。
　水から縁（ふち）までは四寸余（よ）もある。足をのばしても届かない。飛び上っても出られない。呑気（のんき）にしていれば沈むばかりだ。もがけばがりがりと甕に爪があたるのみで、あたった時は、少し浮く気味だが、すべればたちまちぐっともぐる。もぐれば苦しいから、すぐがりがりをやる。そのうちからだが疲れてくる。気は焦（あせ）るが、足はさほど利（き）かなくなる。ついにはもぐるために甕を掻くのか、掻くためにもぐるのか、自分でも分りにくくなった。
　その時苦しいながら、こう考えた。こんな呵責（かしゃく）に逢うのはつまり甕から上へあがりたいばかりの願である。あがりたいのは山々であるが上がれないのは知れ切っている。吾輩の足は三寸に足らぬ。よし水の面（おもて）にからだが浮いて、浮いた所から思う存分前足をのばしたって五寸にあまる甕の縁に爪のかかりようがない。甕のふちに爪のかかりようがなければいくらも掻（が）いても、あせっても、百年の間身を粉（こ）にしても出られっこない。出られないと分り切っているものを出ようとするのは無理だ。無理を通そうとするから苦しいのだ。つまらない。自（みずか）ら求めて苦しんで、自ら好んで拷問（ごうもん）に罹（かか）っているのは馬鹿気ている。
「もうよそう。勝手にするがいい。がりがりはこれぎりご免蒙（めんこうむ）るよ」と、前足も、後足も、頭も尾も自然の力に任せて抵抗しない事にした。
　次第に楽になってくる。苦しいのだかありがたいのだか見当がつかない。水の中にいるのだか、座敷の上にいるのだか、判然しない。どこにどうしていても差支（さしつか）えはない。ただ楽である。否（いな）楽そのものすらも感じ得ない。日月（じつげつ）を切り落し、天地を粉韲（ふんせい）して不可思議の太平に入る。吾輩は死ぬ。死んでこの太平を得る。太平は死ななければ得られぬ。南無阿弥陀仏（なむあみだぶつ）南無阿弥陀仏。ありがたいありがたい。

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When, by sheer strength of will and tigerlike perseverance, I’d lapped away the beer-lees in the first glass, a strange phenomenon occurred. The initial agony of my needled tongue began to ease off and the ghastly feeling in my mouth, a feeling as if some hand were squeezing my cheeks together from the outside, was pleasurably relieved. By the time I’d dealt with the first glass, beer swilling was no longer much of a problem. I finished off the second glass so painlessly that, while I was about it, I even lapped up all the spill on the tray and slurped the whole lot down into my stomach.
That done, in order to study my body’s reactions, I crouched down quietly for a while. My body is gradually growing warm. I feel hot around my eyes and my ears are burning. I feel like singing a song. I feel like dancing the Cat’s High Links. I feel like telling my master, Waverhouse, and Singleman that they can all go to hell. I feel like scratching old man Goldfield. I feel like biting his wife’s vast nose off. I feel like doing lots of things. And in the end I felt I’d like to wobble to my feet. As I stood up, I felt I’d like to walk. Highly pleased with myself I felt like going out. And as I staggered out, I felt like shouting, “Moon, old man, how goes it?” So I did. Oh, but I felt wonderful!
So this, I thought, is how it feels to be gloriously drunk. Radiant with glory, I persevered in setting my unsteady feet one in front of each other in the correct order. Which is very difficult when you have four feet. I made no effort to travel in any particular direction but just kept going in long, slow wayward totter. I’m beginning to feel extremely sleepy, and indeed I hardly know if I’m still walking or already sunk in sleep. I try to open my eyes, but their lids have grown unliftably heavy. Ah, well, it can’t be helped. Confidently telling myself that nothing in this world, neither seas nor mountains nor anything else, could now impede my cat-imperial progress, I put a front paw forward when suddenly I hear a loud, sloppy splash. . . As I come to my senses, I know that I’m done for.
I had no time to work out how I’d been done for because, in the very moment that I realized the fact of it, everything went haywire.
When I again came to myself I found I was floating in water. Because I was also in pain I clawed at what seemed its cause, but scratching water had no effect except to result in my immediate submersion. I struck out desperately for the surface by kicking with my hind-legs and scrabbling with my fore-paws. This action eventually produced a sort of scraping sound and, as I managed to thrust my head just clear of the water, I saw that I’d fallen into a big clay jar against whose side my claws had scraped.
All through the summer this jar had contained a thick growth of water-hollyhocks, but in the early autumn the crows had descended first to eat the plants and then to bathe in the water. In the end their splashing about and the heat of the sun had so lowered the water level that the crows found it difficult either to bathe or to drink, and they had stopped coming. I remember that only the other day I was thinking that the water must have gone down because I’d seen no birds about. Little did I then dream that I myself would be the next to splash about in that jar.
From the water’s surface to the lip of the jar, it measures some five inches. However much I stretch my paws I cannot reach the lip. And the water gives no purchase for a jump. If I do nothing, I just sink. If I flounder around, my claws scrabble on the clay sides but the only result is that scraping sound. It’s true that when I claw at the jar I do seem to rise a little in the water but, as soon as my claws scrape down the clay, I slide back deep below the surface. This is so painful that I immediately start scrabbling again until I break surface and can breathe. But it’s a very tiring business, and my strength is going. I become impatient with my ill success, but my legs are growing sluggish. In the end I can hardly tell whether I am scratching the jar in order to sink or am sinking to induce more scratching.
While this was going on and despite the constant pain, I found myself reasoning that I’m only in agony because I want to escape from the jar.
Now, much as I’d like to get out, it’s obvious that I can’t: my extended front leg is scarcely three inches long and even if I could hoist my body with its outstretched fore-paws up above the surface, I still could never hook my claws over the rim. Accordingly, since it’s blindingly clear that I can’t get out, it’s equally clear that it’s senseless to persist in my efforts to do so. Only my own senseless persistence is causing my ghastly suffering. How very stupid. How very, very stupid deliberately to prolong the agonies of this torture.
“I’d better stop. I just don’t care what happens next. I’ve had quite enough, thank you, of this clutching, clawing, scratching, scraping, scrabbling, senseless struggle against nature.” The decision made, I give up and relax: first my fore-paws, then my hind-legs, then my head and tail.
Gradually I begin to feel at ease. I can no longer tell whether I’m suffering or feeling grateful. It isn’t even clear whether I’m drowning in water or lolling in some comfy room. And it really doesn’t matter. It does not matter where I am or what I’m doing. I simply feel increasingly at ease. No, I can’t actually say that I feel at ease, either. I feel that I’ve cut away the sun and moon, they pull at me no longer; I’ve pulverized both Heaven and Earth, and I’m drifting off and away into some unknown endlessness of peace. I am dying, Egypt, dying. Through death I’m drifting slowly into peace. Only by dying can this divine quiescence be attained. May one rest in peace! I am thankful, I am thankful. Thankful, thankful, thankful. 

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