The Temple Of Dawn Part 1

The Temple of Dawn.

By Yukio Mis.h.i.+ma.

About the Author.

Yukio Mis.h.i.+ma 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 Wors.h.i.+p.

The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mis.h.i.+ma conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility 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, Mis.h.i.+ma committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of 45.

PART 1.

1.

IT WAS the rainy season in Bangkok. The air was saturated with a continuous fine drizzle, and often drops of rain would dance in a brilliant ray of sunlight. Rifts of blue were always visible here and there; and even when the clouds cl.u.s.tered most thickly round the sun, the sky at their circ.u.mference was dazzlingly blue. Before an approaching squall, it would turn ominously dark and threatening. A foreboding shade would shroud the predominantly green, low-roofed city dotted with palms.

The name of the city dates from the Ayutthaya dynasty, when it was first called bang, "town," kok, "olives," because of its many olive trees. Another ancient name is Krung Thep, or "City of Angles." The metropolis, situated less than six feet above sea level, is completely dependent on ca.n.a.ls for transportation. When roads are constructed by piling up dirt, ca.n.a.ls are inevitably created. And when ground is excavated in building a house, ponds immediately form. Such pools connect up naturally with streams; and thus these "ca.n.a.ls" run in every direction, all flowing into the mother waters of the Menam, gleaming the same brown as that of the inhabitants' skin.

In the center of the city there are European-style three-storied buildings with balconies and numerous two- and three-storied brick constructions in the foreign concession. The roadside trees, once the city's most beautiful feature, have been felled here and there in the path of highway construction, and some streets have been partially paved. Mimosa trees, intercepting the strong rays of the sun, form pools of deep shade on the roadways, covering them with black veils of mourning. After a thunder squall the leaves, shriveled in the heat, suddenly revive, and refreshed, raise their heads.

In its prosperity the town reminds one of some southern Chinese city. Numberless two-seated pedicabs ply their way with shades drawn on the sides and in back. Sometimes buffalos from the rice paddies near Bangkap are led through the streets, crows still perching on their backs. Here and there the luminous skin of a leprous beggar glows in the shade like a dark smudge. The boys run about quite naked, while the girls wear a metal pleating over their s.e.x. Exotic fruits and flowers are on sale in the morning market. In front of the Chinese banks glitter chains of pure gold suspended like bamboo jalousies.

But when evening falls, Bangkok is left to the moon and the star-filled sky. Apart from hotels with independent electric systems, only the homes of the wealthy, which are provided with generators, sparkle festively here and there. For the most part, people resort to lamps and candles. A single taper burns throughout the night at the Buddhist altars in all the low-lying houses along the river, and only the gilt of the Buddhist images gleams dimly in the depths of the bamboo-floored structures. Thick, brown incense sticks burn before the statues. Candlelight from the houses on the opposite bank glimmers in the river and is interrupted now and then by the silhouette of a pa.s.sing boat.

In 1939-last year-Siam officially changed its name to Thailand.

The reason why Bangkok is called the Venice of the East does not stem from any external resemblance between the two cities, which cannot be compared either in design or in scale. First of all, both employ a plethora of ca.n.a.ls for maritime transportation, and then both contain many holy edifices. There are seven hundred temples in Bangkok.

Buddhist paG.o.das soar up through the greenery and are the first to receive the light of dawn and the last to retain the rays of the evening sun, changing with the light into a mult.i.tude of colors.

Wat Benchamabopit, the Marble Temple, constructed by Rama V Chulalongkorn in the nineteenth century, though a modest edifice, is the newest and certainly the most sumptuous temple.

The present monarch, Rama VIII, or King Ananda Mahidol, succeeded to the throne in 1935 at the age of eleven, but he soon went to study in Lausanne; and now at the age of seventeen, he is still there devoted to his research. During his absence, the Prime Minister, Luang Phiboon, a.s.sumed totalitarian powers, and now the nominal parliament serves merely in an advisory capacity. Two regents were set up: the first, Prince Achitto Apar, was pretty much of a decoration, while the second, Prince Prude Panoma, held the real power.

Prince Achitto Apar, a devout Buddhist, often visited one or another of the sanctuaries in his spare time. One evening it was announced that he intended to go to the Marble Temple.

The edifice stood on the bank of a stream bordered by the mimosa trees of Nakhon Pathom Road.

The reddish brown portals of the Marble Temple, protected by a pair of stone horses with mandorlas like white crystal flames in the ancient Khmer style, stood open. On either side of the straight flagstone walk leading from the entrance to the main building set in glistening emerald-green gra.s.s, stood a pair of pavilions in cla.s.sic Javanese style with upturned roofs. The mimosa trees on the green-sward were cut in round shapes and blossoming; frolicking white lions on the eaves of the pavilions trampled flames underfoot.

The white columns of Indian marble directly in front of the main building, the pair of guardian marble lions, the low European-type bal.u.s.trade, and the facade, also of marble, reflected the dazzling rays of the westering sun and formed a pure white canvas that served to bring out the rich decorative patterns of gold and vermilion. The inner frames of the pointed-arch windows were limned in scarlet and encircled by ornate golden flames that rose, engulfing them. Even the white columns of the facade were decorated in brilliant gold with coiled naga-serpents that sprang abruptly from the capitals. Rows of golden snakes with raised heads edged the upsweeping roofs, composed of tier upon tier of red Chinese tiles, and the tips of each subordinate roof were formed of thin, golden serpent tails, like the spike heels of a woman's shoe, thrusting upward, as if in compet.i.tion, to the blue sky, to the very heavens. All this gold shone rather darkly in the sun, enhancing the white of the pigeons that idled along the gables.

But when the white birds, startled, suddenly flew up into the gradually darkening sky, they were as black as particles of soot. The soot from the golden flames, repeated in the ornaments of the temple, became birds.

In the garden the towering palms seemed petrified in amazement, arboreal fountains like bows, shooting their greenery farther and farther skyward.

Plants, animals, metal, stone, and Indian red, mingling in harmony, frolicked in the light. Even the marble heads of the white lions guarding the entrance appeared to be for all the world like sunflowers. Serrated seedlike teeth lined their gaping mouths; their lion faces were angry white sunflowers.

Prince Achitto Apar's Rolls Royce drew up in front of the gate. The Young Men's Military Band, dressed in red uniforms, had lined up on the lawn by the pavilions and were playing their instruments, brown cheeks puffing. The polished mouths of the horns reflected minutely the figures of the youths in their bright uniforms. Under the tropical sun no instrument was more appropriate.

A servant clad in a white coat and red sash followed the Prince, holding a gra.s.s-colored parasol over the royal head. The Prince, wearing decorations on his white military jacket, entered the temple escorted by a chamberlain in a blue sash, holding offerings, and ten royal guardsmen.

His visits usually lasted some twenty minutes. During this period spectators waited on the gra.s.s, roasting in the sun. At length came the sound of a Chinese viol in the inner precincts, mingled with delicate chimes, and the footman bearing the parasol moved to the entrance. He raised the umbrella, to the tip of which was attached a delicate golden paG.o.da, to his shoulder, and four guardsmen wearing monk-like hats with flaps hanging down over the napes of their necks lined up on the stone steps. The interior, hidden from view, was so dark that one could barely glimpse the flickering of the candles inside. Voices chanting a sutra rose rapidly to a crescendo, then stopped at the sound of a single bell.

The servant opened the green umbrella, respectfully holding it over the departing Prince, and the guardsmen saluted by hoisting their swords. The-Prince pa.s.sed quickly through the gate and entered his Rolls Royce.

After a while the spectators who had watched the departure scattered, the military band left, and the quiet of evening gently settled over the temple. Some of the saffron-garbed priests strolled out to the riverbank; some read books, others conversed. Withered red flowers and dead fruit floated in the water that reflected the mimosa on the opposite bank and the beautiful clouds in the evening sky. The sun sank behind the temple, and the gra.s.s darkened. At length only the marble pillars, the lions, and the facade of the temple retained a fading evening whiteness.

Wat Po.

There one must push one's way through the crowds streaming among the late-eighteenth-century paG.o.das and the central hall constructed under Rama I.

Blazing sun. Azure sky. Still the great white columns of the gallery in the main temple are stained like the legs of a white elephant.

The paG.o.da is decorated with small fragments of porcelain, whose smooth glaze reflects the sun. In the purple Great PaG.o.da are chiseled tiers of blue mosaic, and innumerable pieces of ceramic, on which are painted countless flowers with petals of yellow, red, and white on a bluish purple ground: a ceramic Persian carpet towering high in the sky.

To one side stands a green paG.o.da. A pregnant b.i.t.c.h, black-spotted pink teats hanging pendulously, staggers down the flagstone walk as if crushed by the hammer of the sun.

In the Nirvana Hall a great gilded statue of Shakyamuni reclining rests its ma.s.s of golden curls on a box-pillow of blue, white, green, and yellow mosaic. His golden arm is stretched far out to support his head, and at the other end of the somber hall gleam his golden heels.

The soles of his feet are inlaid with fine mother-of-pearl; and in each segment, against a finely wrought black background in gleaming iridescent sh.e.l.lwork, are depictions of the Buddha's life, all decorated with peonies, sh.e.l.ls, altar accessories, rocky crags, lotus flowers rising from swamps, dancers, strange birds, lions, white elephants, dragons, horses, cranes, peac.o.c.ks, s.h.i.+ps with three sails, tigers, and phoenixes.

The open windows s.h.i.+ne like polished bra.s.s panels. Under the lime trees a group of priests pa.s.ses by in s.h.i.+mmering orange robes, their brown right shoulders bare.

Outside, the air itself seems stricken with some tropical fever. Over the stagnant pond between the paG.o.das, glistening green mangrove trees let fall their ma.s.s of aerial roots. Pigeons while away the time on a center island with rocks painted blue. An immense b.u.t.terfly is depicted on the rocky facade, and at the crest stands a small, inauspicious black paG.o.da.

And Wat Phra Keo, guardian temple of the royal palace, famed for its princ.i.p.al statue-an emerald Buddha.

It has never been damaged since its construction in 1785.

A golden garuda, half woman, half bird, flanked on either side by gilded spires, glistens in the rain at the top of the marble stairs. The green-bordered tiles of Chinese red sparkle more brilliantly than ever in the luminous rain.

The gallery walls of the Mahamandapa are covered with a series of murals ill.u.s.trating episodes in the Ramayana.

Rather than the virtuous Rama himself, the monkey G.o.d, Hanuman, the flamboyant son of the wind G.o.d, appears throughout the painted story. The golden beauty, Sita, with teeth of jasmine flowers, is being kidnapped by the fearful rakshasa king. Rama fights his many battles with fixed, bright eyes.

Colorful palaces, monkey G.o.ds, and battles of monsters appear against mountains painted in the manner of the southern Chinese school or in that of the somber early Venetian landscapes. Above the tenebrous paysage soars a G.o.d in the seven colors of the rainbow, mounted on a phoenix. A man in golden robes whips a clothed horse that sits motionless. A monstrous fish, rearing its head far above the sea, is about to attack some soldiers standing on a bridge. There is a faint blue lake in the distance; and Hanuman, sword unsheathed, lurks in a bush as he stalks a white horse with a golden saddle that paces silently through the dark forest.

"Do you know the real name for Bangkok?"

"No, I don't."

"It's Krung thep phra mahanakorn amon latanakosin mahintara s.h.i.+ayutthaya mafma pop noppala rachatthani prilom."

"What does all that mean?"

"It's almost impossible to translate. Thai names are like the temple decorations, unnecessarily pompous and flowery, ornate purely for the sake of ornateness.

"Well, Krung thep means roughly 'capital,' and pop noppala is 'a nine-colored diamond'; rachatthani is 'a large city'; and prilom means something like 'pleasant.' They choose exaggerated and ostentatious nouns and adjectives and string them together like beads on a necklace.

"In answering a simple 'yes' to the king, protocol of the country demands that you say: phrapout chao ka kollap promkan saikrao sai klamon, which roughly translates as: 'Your humble and obedient servant makes reverent obeisance to Your Majesty.'"

Honda, ensconced in a rattan chair, listened to His.h.i.+kawa's words with detached amus.e.m.e.nt.

Itsui Products Limited had sent this encyclopedic but somewhat strange and seedy character-doubtless a onetime artist-to serve as interpreter and guide for Honda. Already at forty-six, the latter considered it a kind of courtesy to himself to leave things to others, especially in such a sweltering country as this.

He had come to Bangkok at the request of Itsui Products. If a business transaction based on j.a.panese law has been closed in j.a.pan and a dispute with a buyer arises abroad, even though the suit is brought before a foreign court, it is settled according to international civil law. Furthermore, foreign lawyers are invariably ignorant of j.a.panese law. In such cases, some eminent j.a.panese counselor is invited to explain j.a.panese legal intricacies to the native lawyers and thus to help settle the suit.

Itsui Products had exported one hundred thousand cases of Calos antifever pills to Thailand in January. Of them thirty thousand had been damaged by damp and had been discolored, thereby losing their effectiveness. The cases were dated, indicating a reduction in potency after a given time limit, but that served no purpose now that they were spoiled. Such civil problems should have been solved by reference to the law concerning default of obligation, but the buyers had brought charges of criminal fraud. According to article 715 of the Civil Code, Itsui Products should, of course, have a.s.sumed responsibility for indemnifying a non-negligence default for any flaw in merchandise issued by a subcontracting drug company. But they could do nothing without the a.s.sistance of a capable j.a.panese lawyer like Honda in matters of this nature which involved international civil law.

Honda had been a.s.signed a room in the Oriental Hotel-the natives p.r.o.nounced it Orienten Hoten-with a lovely view of the Menam River. The room was ventilated by a large white ceiling fan, but at nightfall it was better to go out to the garden along the river and enjoy the slightly cooler breezes there. As he sipped his aperitif with His.h.i.+kawa, who had come to guide him for the evening, he let his companion take over the conversation. Honda was overcome with weariness; even the spoon felt too heavy for his fingers to raise, and conversing was even more burdensome than a silverplated spoon.

On the opposite bank, the sun was sinking behind Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn. An all-pervading evening glow filled the vast sky over the flat vista of the Thon Buri jungle, broken only by two or three spires silhouetted against the horizon. Like cotton the green of the forest absorbed the glow, changing it to a truly emerald hue. Sampans pa.s.sed by, crows gathered in great numbers, and a soiled rose color lingered in the river water.

"All art is like the evening glow," said His.h.i.+kawa, watching as he always did when he was preparing to express an opinion, for the effect his words would have on his listener. Honda felt annoyed by these points of silence even more than by His.h.i.+kawa's continuous chatter.

His.h.i.+kawa's profile with its cheeks of Siamese swarthiness and the non-Siamese pasty, taut skin gleamed in the last rays of the sun that came from the opposite bank.

"Art is a colossal evening glow," he repeated. "It's the burnt offering of all the best things of an era. Even the clearest logic that has long thrived in daylight is completely destroyed by the meaningless lavish explosion of color in the evening sky; even history, apparently destined to endure forever, is abruptly made aware of its own end. Beauty stands before everyone; it renders human endeavor completely futile. Before the brilliance of evening, before the surging evening clouds, all rot about some 'better future' immediately fades away. The present moment is all; the air is filled with a poison of color. What's beginning? Nothing. Everything is ending.

"There's nothing of substance in it. Of course, night has its own intrinsic nature: the cosmic essence of death and inorganic existence. Day too has its own ent.i.ty; everything human belongs to the day.

"But there's no substance in the evening glow. It's nothing but a joke, a meaningless, but impressive joke of form and light and color. Look . . . look at the purple clouds. Nature seldom offers a banquet of such a lavish color as purple. Evening clouds are an insult to anything symmetric, but such destruction of order is closely connected with the breakup of something much more fundamental. If the serene white daytime cloud may be compared to moral exaltation, then these riotous colors have nothing to do with morality.

"The arts predict the greatest vision of the end; before anything else they prepare for and embody the end. Gourmets and good wines, beautiful forms and sumptuous clothes-every extravagance human beings can dream up in one era is crammed into the arts. All such things have been awaiting form. Some form with which to pillage and destroy in the shortest time all of human living. And that is the evening glow. And to what purpose? Indeed, for nothing.

"The most delicate thing, the most fastidious aesthetic judgment of the minutest detail-I refer to the indescribably subtle contours of one of those orange-colored clouds-is related to the universality of the vast firmament; its innermost aspects are expressed in color, and uniting with external aspects, they become the evening glow.

"In other words, evening glow is expression. And expression alone is the function of the evening glow.

"In it, the slightest human shyness, joy, anger, displeasure is expressed on a heavenly scale. In this great operation the colors of human intestines, ordinarily invisible, are externalized and spread over the entire sky. The most subtle tenderness and gallantry are joined with Weltschmerz, and ultimately affliction is transformed into a short-lived orgy. The numerous bits of logic which people have so stubbornly cherished during the day are all drawn into the vast emotional explosion of the heavens and the spectacular release of pa.s.sions, and people realize the futility of all systems. In other words, everything is expressed for at most ten or fifteen minutes and then it's all over.

"The evening glow is swift and possesses the characteristics of flight. It const.i.tutes perhaps the wings of the world. Like the wings of a hummingbird which change into rainbow colors as it flutters about sucking the honey from flowers, the world shows us a brief glimpse of its potentiality for soaring; all things in the evening glow fly rapturous and ecstatic . . . and then in the end fall to the ground and die."

As Honda listened desultorily to His.h.i.+kawa's words, the sky above the opposite bank was already slowly sinking into dusk, leaving a faint gleam on the horizon.

Had he claimed that all art was evening glow? Yet there stood the Temple of Dawn!

Honda had crossed over to the other bank on a hired boat early the previous morning and visited the Temple of Dawn.

He had done this precisely at sunrise, a most fitting time. It was still darkish, and only the very tip of the paG.o.da caught the first rays of the rising sun. The Thon Buri jungle beyond was filled with the piercing cries of birds.

As he approached, he realized that the paG.o.da was all inlaid with countless fragments of Chinese porcelain of either red or blue glaze. Each tier was marked by a bal.u.s.trade; the one on the first story was brown, on the second green, and on the third a purplish blue. Countless porcelain dishes that had been placed there formed flowers: yellow ones represented the cores from which extended petals of plates. Some had a core of inverted lavender wine cups and here colorful golden dishes formed the petals. Chains of such flowers ascended to the summit. The leaves were all tile; and from the top, four white elephant trunks hung down at the four cardinal points.

The repet.i.tiveness and the sumptuousness of the paG.o.da were almost suffocating. The tower with its color and brilliance, adorned in many layers and graduated toward the peak, gave one the impression of so many strata of dream sequences hovering overhead. The plinths of the extremely steep stairs were also heavily festooned and each tier was supported by a bas-relief of birds with human faces. They formed a multicolored paG.o.da whose every level was crushed with layers of dreams, expectations, prayers, each being further weighted down with still other stories, pyramid-like, progressing skyward.

With the first rays of dawn over the Menam River, the tens of thousands of porcelain fragments turned into so many tiny mirrors that captured the light. A great structure of mother-of-pearl sparkling riotously.

The paG.o.da had long served as a morning bell tolled by its rich hues, resonant colors responding to the dawn. They were created so as to evoke a beauty, a power, an explosiveness like the dawn itself.

In the eerie, yellowish brown morning light reflecting ruddily in the Menam River, the paG.o.da cast its s.h.i.+ning reflection, presaging the coming of still another sweltering day.

"I'm sure you've had enough of temples. Tonight I'll take you someplace amusing," said His.h.i.+kawa. Honda was gazing absently at the Temple of Dawn, now completely enveloped in darkness.

"You've seen Wat Po and Wat Phra Keo. And when you went to the Marble Temple, you were lucky enough to see the Regent's visit. And yesterday morning you saw the Temple of Dawn. There's no end to temple-visiting if you've got a mind for it, but I think you've had enough."

"Hm. I suppose I have," Honda replied vaguely, reluctant to let the thoughts in which he was so deeply absorbed be interrupted.

He had been musing about Kiyoaki's old Dream Diary, which he had not glanced at for so long, but which he had brought along in the bottom of his suitcase, thinking he might read it again to help pa.s.s time during his journey. Because of the intolerable heat and his weariness, he had not had the opportunity to do so until now. But the brilliant tropical colors in the description of a dream about which he had read long ago were still vivid in his mind.

Indeed, being so busy, Honda had not accepted the trip to Thailand for purely business reasons. In his school days, at a most sensitive age, he had, through Kiyoaki, become acquainted with two Siamese princes and had witnessed the pathetic end of Chantrapa's love story and the loss of Prince Pattanadid's emerald ring. Because of the overwhelming realization that he was destined to be an observer, the hazy picture in his memory had been ultimately preserved in a strong and solid frame. Long ago he had firmly resolved that he must visit Siam one day.

Yet on the other hand, Honda at forty-six had become most wary of his slightest emotions; unconsciously he had fallen into the habit of detecting deceit and exaggeration in them. He mused that his last pa.s.sion had been for saving Isao, the boy whom he had discovered to be the reincarnation of Kiyoaki. He had even given up his judges.h.i.+p. It had led to naught, and he had experienced only a shattering failure that had borne home to him the total futility of altruism.

Having abandoned altruistic ideals, he had become a much better lawyer. No longer having any pa.s.sions, he was successful in saving others in one case after the other. He accepted no a.s.signment unless the client was wealthy, no matter whether the case was civil or criminal. The Honda family prospered far more than in his father's time.

Poor lawyers who acted as though they were the natural representatives of social justice and advertised themselves as such were ludicrous. Honda was well aware of the limitations of law as far as saving people was concerned. To put it candidly, those who could not afford to engage lawyers were not qualified to break the law, but most people made mistakes and violated the law out of sheer necessity or stupidity.

There were times when it seemed to Honda that giving legal standards to the vast majority of people was probably the most arrogant game mankind had thought up. If crimes were often committed out of necessity or stupidity, could one not perhaps claim that the mores and customs upon which such laws were based were also idiotic?

After the incident with the League of the Divine Wind in the Showa period that ended in Isao's death, many similar events had taken place, but internal turmoil in j.a.pan had stopped with the events of February 26, 1936. The China Incident, which had begun shortly thereafter, remained inconclusive even after five years of fighting. And now the pact binding j.a.pan, Germany, and Italy had provided a strong stimulus; and the danger of war between j.a.pan and the United States had become a frequent topic of discussion.

But as Honda was no longer interested in the pa.s.sage of time, political battles, or the imminence of war, he no longer felt any emotion about them. Something had collapsed in the innermost recess of his heart. He knew that he was powerless to arrest events which went storming on like rain squalls, drenching every insignificant person, beating indiscriminately upon the individual pebbles of fortune. But it was not clear to him whether all fortunes were ultimately pathetic. It was history's wont to progress by granting the wishes of some and by denying those of others. No matter how distressing the future might prove to be, it did not necessarily disappoint everyone.

However, one must not suppose that Honda had become a complete nihilist and cynic. Compared to the past he was quite cheerful and gay. His manner of speech, which he had been so careful of throughout the period of his judges.h.i.+p, had changed considerably; and his taste in clothes was more liberal. He even wore a checkered hound's-tooth sports jacket and had begun telling jokes and acting more magnanimously. But since he had come to this sweltering country pleasantries no longer came readily to his lips.

His face now displayed a grave dignity suited to his years. He had long since lost the clean-cut profile of his youth, and his skin, once as plain as washed-out cotton, having known the taste of luxury, had taken on the texture of satin damask. As he was well aware that he had never been handsome, he was not altogether displeased with the opaque veil age had imposed.

Furthermore, he now possessed his future much more surely than any youth could. The reason why young men patter on about the future so was simply that they didn't yet have it. Possessing by letting go of things was a secret of owners.h.i.+p unknown to youth.

Just as Kiyoaki had not influenced the times in which he had lived, Honda too did not affect his. In place of the era when Kiyoaki had perished on the battlefield of romantic emotions, a new period was coming when young men would die on real battlefields. Its forerunner was the death of Isao. In other words, Kiyoaki and his reincarnation, Isao, had died contrasting deaths on contrasting battlefields.

And Honda? There was no sign of death in him! He had never desired death pa.s.sionately, nor had he ever tried to evade its onslaught. However, now that he had suddenly become the target of the fiery shafts of the tropical sun that poured down on him the livelong day, the beautiful, dense, luxuriant greenery all about seemed possibly the stunning luxuriance of death itself. "A long time ago, perhaps twenty-seven or twenty-eight years, when two Siamese princes came to j.a.pan to study, I was privileged to know them for some time. One was the younger brother of Rama VI, Prince Pattanadid; and the other was Prince Kridsada, his cousin, a grandson of Rama IV. I wonder what they're doing now. I had hoped to see them when I got to Bangkok, but it seems presumptuous to impose myself on people who have surely forgotten me."

"Why didn't you tell me before?" said the omniscient His.h.i.+kawa, hastening to reproach Honda's reserve. "Whatever you ask, I can find a solution."

"Well, then, do you think I might be able to see the two princes?"