The Temple of the Golden Pavilion Page 4

  The hall of the Kongo Temple was above us. When one crossed the log bridge, the three-storied pagoda lay on one's right; to the left stretched the forest with its autumn leaves, and in the depth of the trees towered the one hundred and five stone steps overgrown with moss. The steps were made of limestone and were quite slippery.

  Before crossing the log bridge, the kempei looked back and made a signal for our party to halt. It is said that in olden times a Deva gate used to stand here which had been built by the famous sculptors Unkei and Tankei. Beyond this point, the hills of the Kujuku Valley belonged to the Kongo Temple grounds.

  We held our breath.

  The kempei urged Uiko on. She crossed the log bridge by herself and after a while we followed her. The lower part of the stone steps was wrapped in shadows, but higher up they were bathed in moonlight. We hid ourselves here and there at the bottom of the steps. The leaves were beginning to assume their russet autumn tints, but they looked black in the moonlight.

  The main hall of the Kongo Temple was at the top of the steps. A gallery led from here to an empty hall, which looked as if it was designed for the performance of sacred Kagura dances. This empty hall was modeled on the stage of the Kiyomizu Temple: it projected over the hill and was supported from under the cliff by a number of inter joined pillars and crosspieces. The hall, the gallery, and the wooden frame that supported it were all washed by the wind and rain. They gleamed pure white like a skeleton. When the leaves were in their full blaze of autumn color, their red tints blended beautifully with this white skeletal structure; but at night the blanched wooden frame, dappled by the moonlight, looked mysterious and bewitching.

  The deserter was apparently hiding in the hall above the stage. The kempei intended to capture him by using Uiko as a decoy.

  We, the witnesses to the impending arrest, hid ourselves and held our breath. Though the cold air of the late October night wrapped itself about me, my cheeks were burning.

  By herself Uiko climbed the one hundred and five limestone steps. Proudly like some madwoman. The beautiful white of her profile stood out between her black dress and her black hair.

  Amid the moon and the stars, amid the clouds of the night, amid the hills which bordered on the sky with their magnificent silhouette of pointed cedars, amid the speckled patches of the moon, amid the temple buildings that emerged sparkling white out of the surrounding darkness—amid all this, I was intoxicated by the pellucid beauty of Uiko's treachery. This girl was qualified to walk alone up those white stairs, proudly throwing out her chest. Her treachery was the same as the stars and the moon and the pointed cedars. In other words, she was living in the same world as we, the witnesses; and she was accepting the nature that surrounded us all. She was walking up those steps as our representative. And I could not help thinking breathlessly: "By her betrayal she has at last accepted me too. Now she belongs to me!"

  At a certain point, what We call events disappear from within our memory. The Uiko who was walking up those one hundred and five moss-covered steps remains before my eyes. It seems to me that she is walking up those steps eternally.

  But from that point on, she became someone entirely different. Perhaps it is that the Uiko who climbed those steps betrayed me, betrayed us, once again. From that point on, she no longer rejected the world in its entirety. Nor did she entirely accept it. She surrendered herself to the order of mere passion; she lowered herself to the rank of a woman who has given herself over to one man alone.

  It is for this reason that I can only remember what follows as though it were a scene depicted in some old lithograph. Uiko walked along the gallery and called into the darkness of the temple hail. The silhouette of a man appeared. Uiko said something to him. The man pointed a revolver at the stone stairs and fired. The return fire from the kempei came from behind a nearby bush. The man was getting ready to shoot once more when Uiko turned towards the gallery and started to run. He fired one shot after another into her back. Uiko fell down. The man put the muzzle of the revolver to his temple and fired once again.

  First the kempei, then all the others, pushed their way up the steps and rushed toward the two dead bodies. I remained hidden quietly in the shadow of the autumn leaves. The white wooden frames of the temple, piled on top of each other in every direction, towered above my head. The sound of people's feet as they walked along the wooden boards of the gallery above me came fluttering down lightly. The criss-crossing light of torches passed over the railing of the gallery and reached the red-Ieaved branches of the trees.

  My only feeling was that all this was taking place in the distant past. Insensitive people are only upset when they actually see the blood. Yet, by the time that blood has been shed, the tragedy is already completed. I dozed off. When I awoke, I saw that everyone had left. They had evidently forgotten all about me. The air was full of the twittering of birds, and the morning sun shone directly through the leaves of the surrounding trees. The skeletal buildings above me seemed to revive as the sun illuminated them from below. Quietly and proudly the temple thrust forth its empty hall into the red-leaved valley.

  I stood up, shivered, and rubbed myself to stimulate my circulation. The chill alone remained in my body. All that remained was the chill.

  During the spring holidays of the following year, Father visited my uncle's house. Over a wartime civilian uniform he wore his robe. He said that he would take me to Kyoto for a few days. Father's old illness had become much worse and I was shocked to sec how he had declined. Not only I, but my uncle and aunt all tried to dissuade Father from the trip, but he would not listen to us. When I thought about it afterwards, I realized that Father wanted while he was still alive to introduce me to the Superior of the Golden Temple.

  To visit the Golden Temple had of course been my dream for many a long year, but I did not enjoy the idea of going on a journey with Father, who, for all his stouthearted efforts, was bound to impress anyone who saw him as being extremely ill. As the time approached for me to come face to face with the Golden Temple, which I had never yet seen, a certain hesitation grew within me. Whatever happened, it was essential that the Golden Temple be beautiful. I therefore staked everything not so much on the objective beauty of the temple itself as on my own power to imagine its beauty.

  I was thoroughly versed concerning the Golden Temple, in so far as it was possible for a boy of my age to understand it. In an art book, I had read the following perfunctory account of the history of the temple.

  “Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408) took over the Kitayama Mansion of the Saionji family and turned it into a large-scale villa. The main buildings consist of Buddhist structures, such as the Reliquary, the Hall of the Sacred Fire, the Confessional Hall, and the Hosui-in; and residential apartments, such as the Shinden, the Hall of the Lords, the Assembly Hall, the Tenkyo Tower, the Kohoku Turret, the Izumi Hall, and the Kansetsu Pavilion. The Reliquary was the most carefully constructed of all these buildings, and later came to be called the Golden Temple. It is difficult to determine exactly when it first acquired the name of the Golden Temple, but it would appear to have been subsequent to the Ojin War (1467-77), In the Bummei Period (1469-87) the name was in current use.

  "The Golden Temple is a three-storied tower structure overlooking a pond in a garden (the Kyoko Pond). It was probably completed in about the fifth year of Oei (1398). The first two stories were built in the shinden-zukuri style of domestic arehitecture and equipped with folding-shutters, but the third story consists of an eighteen-foot-square apartment built in pure Zen style. The roof, which is covered with cypress bark, is in the hokei-zukuri style, and is surmounted with a copper-gold phoenix. The Tsuri Hall with its gable roof jutted out facing the pond and broke the monotony of the surrounding arehitecture. The roof of the Golden Temple is gently sloped, and made of fine-grained wood. The structure is both light and elegant. This is a masterpiece of garden arehitecture, in which the residential style has been made to harmonize with the Buddhist style. Thus the temple expresses t
he taste of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, who so wholeheartedly adopted the culture of the Imperial Court, and it perfectly conveys the atmosphere of the period.

  "After Yoshimitsu's death, the Kitayama Hall was made into a Zen temple, according to Yoshimitsu's wishes, and was known as the Rokuonji. Later, these structures were transferred elsewhere or allowed to fall into dilapidation. By good fortune, the Golden Temple itself remains,..”

  Like a moon that hangs in the night sky, the Golden Temple had been built as a symbol of the dark ages. Therefore it was necessary for the Golden Temple of my dreams to have darkness bearing down on it from all sides. In this darkness, the beautiful, slender pillars of the building rested quietly and steadily, emitting a faint light from inside. Whatever words people might speak to the Golden Temple, it must continue to stand there silently, displaying its delicate structure to the eyes of the world and enduring the darkness that surrounded it.

  I also used to think of the copper-gold phoenix, which crowned the roof of the Golden Temple and which had remained there year after year exposed to the elements. This mysterious golden bird never crowed at the break of dawn, never flapped its wings-indeed, it had itself no doubt completely forgotten that it was a bird. Yet it would be untrue to say that this bird did not look as if it were flying. Other birds fly through the air, but this golden phoenix was flying eternally through time on its snining wings. Time struck those wings. Time struck those wings and floated backwards. In order to fly, the phoenix remained motionless, with a look of anger in its eyes, holding its wings aloft, fluttering the feathers of its tail, bravely stretching its majestic golden legs.

  When my thoughts moved in such directions, the Golden Temple would seem to me like some beautiful ship crossing the sea of time. The art book spoke of "draughty buildings with insufficient walls," and this too brought to my imagination the form of a ship. The pond, which this complex, three-storied pleasure boat overlooked, could be regarded as a symbol of the sea. The Golden Temple had made its way through an immense night. A crossing whose end one could still not foresee. In the daytime, this strange ship lowered its anchor with a look of innocence and submitted to being viewed by crowds of people; but when night came, the surrounding darkness lent the ship a new force and it floated away, with its roof billowing like a great sail.

  It is no exaggeration to say that the first real problem I faced in my life was that of beauty. My father was only a simple country priest, deficient in vocabulary, and he taught me that "there is nothing on this earth so beautiful as the Golden Temple." At the thought that beauty should already have come into this world unknown to me, I could not help feeling a certain uneasiness and irritation. If beauty really did exist there, it meant that my own existence was a thing estranged from beauty.

  But for me the Golden Temple was never simply an idea. The mountains blocked it from my sight, yet, if I should want to see it, the temple was always there for me to go and see. Beauty was thus an object that one could touch with one's fingers, that could be clearly reflected in one's eyes. I knew and I believed that, amid all the changes of the world, the Golden Temple remained there safe and immutable.

  There were times when I thought of the Golden Temple as being like a small, delicate piece of workmanship that I could put in my hands; there were times, also, when I thought of it as a huge, monstrous cathedral that soared up endlessly into the sky. Being a young boy, I could not think of beauty as being neither small nor large, but a thing of moderation. So when I saw small, dew-drenched summer flowers that seemed to emit a vague light, they seemed to me as beautiful as the Golden Temple. Again, when the gloomy, thunder-packed clouds stood boldly on the other side of the hills, with only the edges shining in gold, their magnificence reminded me of the Golden Temple. Finally it came about that even when I saw a beautiful face, the simile would spring into my mind: "lovely as the Golden Temple.”

  It was a sad journey. The Maizuru-line trains went from West Maizuru to Kyoto by way of Ayabe and stopped at all the small stations like Makura and Uesugi. The carriage was dirty, and when we reached the Hozu Ravine and began to go through one tunnel after another, the smoke poured in mercilessly and made Father cough again and again.

  Most of the passengers were connected in one way or another with the Navy. The third-class carriages were full of relatives who were on their way back from visiting petty officers, sailors, marines, and arsenal workers stationed in Maizuru.

  I looked out of the window at the cloudy, leaden spring sky. I looked at the robe that Father wore over his civilian uniform, and at the breast of a ruddy young petty officer, which seemed to leap up along his row of gilt buttons. I felt as if I were situated between the two men. Soon, when I reached the proper age, I would be called into the forces. Yet I was not sure that even when I was called up, I would be able to live faithfully by my duty, like that petty officer in front of me. In any case, for the present I was situated squarely between two worlds. Although I was still so young, I was conscious, under my ugly, stubborn forehead, that the world of death which my father ruled and the world of life occupied by young people were being brought together by the mediation of war. I myself would probably become an intermediary. When I was killed in the war, it would be clear that it had not made the slightest difference which path I had chosen of the two that now lay before my eyes.

  I tried to look after my father when he coughed. Now and then I caught sight of the Hozu River outside the window. It was a dark-blue, almost heavy color, like the copper sulfate used in chemistry experiments. Each time that the train emerged from a tunnel, the Hozu Ravine would appear either some considerable distance from the tracks or unexpectedly close at hand. Surrounded by the smooth rocks, it turned its dark-blue lathe round and round.

  Father had some pure white rice balls in his lunch box and he felt ashamed of opening it in front of the other people in the carriage.

  "It's not black-market rice," he announced. "It comes from the good hearts of my parishioners. I can eat it with joy and gratitude."

  He spoke so that everyone in the carriage could hear him, but when he actually began eating, he was barely able to fihish one rather small rice ball.

  I did not feel that this ancient sooty train was really bound for the city. I felt that it was headed for the station of death. Once this thought had come into my mind, the smoke that filled our carriage each time that we passed through a tunnel had the smell of the crematorium.

  Despite it all, when finally I stood before the Somon Gate of the Rokuonji, my heart was throbbing. Now I was to see one of the most beautiful things in the world.

  The sun was beginning to go down and the hills were veiled in mist. Several other visitors were passing through the gate at about the same time as Father and I. On the left of the gate stood the belfry, surrounded by a cluster of plum trees, which were still in bloom.

  A great oak tree grew in front of the Main Hall. Father stood in the entrance and asked for admission. The Superior sent a message that he was busy with a visitor and asked us if we would wait for a while.

  "Let's use this time to go round and look at the Golden Temple,” said Father.

  Father evidently wanted to show me that he exerted some influence in this place and he tried to go through the visitors' entrance without paying the admission fee. But both the man who sold tickets and religious charms and the ticket collector at the gate had changed since the time, some ten years earlier, when Father used to come often to the temple.

  "Next time I come,” said Father with a chilly expression, “I suppose they'll have changed again."

  But I felt that Father no longer really believed in this "next time"

  I hurried ahead of Father, almost running. I was deliberately acting like a cheerful young boy. (It was only at such times-only when I put on a deliberate performance-that there was anything boyish about me.) Then the Golden Temple, about which I had dreamed so much, displayed its entire form to me most disappointingly.

  I stood by the edge of the Kyok
o Pond, and on the other side of the water the Golden Temple revealed its fagade in the declining sun. The Sosei was half hidden farther to the left. The Golden Temple cast a perfect shadow on the surface of the pond, where the duckweed and the leaves from water plants were floating. The shadow was more beautiful than the building itself. The setting sun was making the reflection of the water wave to and fro on the back of the eaves of all three stories. Compared to the surrounding light, the reflection of the back of the eaves was too dazzling and clear; the Golden Temple gave me the impression that it was proudly bending itself back.

  "Well, what do you think?" said Father. "It's beautiful, isn't it? The first story is called the Hosui-in, the second is the Choondo, and the third is the Kukyocho.” Father placed his ill, emaciated hand on my shoulder.

  I changed my angle of vision a few times and bent my head in various directions. But the temple aroused no emotion within me. It was merely a small, dark, old, three-storied building. The phoenix on top of the roof looked like a crow that had alighted there for a rest. Not only did the building fail to strike me as beautiful, but I even had a sense of disharmony and restlessness. Could beauty, I wondered, be as unbeautiful a thing as this.

  If I had been a modest, studious boy, I should have regretted my own deficiency in aesthetic appreciation before becoming so quickly discouraged as I did. But the pain of having been deceived by something of which I had expected so much robbed me of all other considerations.

  It occurred to me that the Golden Temple might have adopted some disguise to hide its true beauty. Was it not possible that, in order to protect itself from people, the beauty deceived those who observed it? I had to approach the Golden Temple closer; I had to remove the obstacles that seemed ugly to my eyes; I had to examine it all, detail by detail, and with these eyes of mine perceive the essence of its beauty. Inasmuch as I believed only in the beauty that one can see with one's eyes, my attitude at the time was quite natural.