An Artist of the Floating World Read Online Free

realising it. "Many things have changed since the old days, Shintaro," I pointed out the other night down at Mrs Kawakami's. "I"m retired now, I don't have so many connections." But then, for all I know, Shintaro may not be so wrong in his assumptions. It may be that if I chose to put it to the test, I would again be surprised by the extent of my influence. As I say, I have never had a keen awareness of my own standing. In any case, even if Shintaro may at times display na�t�bout certain things, this is nothing to be disparaged, it being no easy thing now to come across someone so untainted by the cynicism and bitterness of our day. There is something reassuring about going into Mrs Kawakami's and finding Shintaro sitting up there at the bar, just as one may have found him on any evening for the past seventeen or so years, absent-mindedly turning his cap round and round on the counter in that old way of his. It really is as though nothing has changed for Shintaro. He will greet me very politely, as though he were still my pupil, and throughout the evening, however drunk he may get, he will continue to address me as "Sensei" and maintain his most respectful manner towards me. Sometimes he will even ask me questions relating to technique or style with all the eagerness of a young apprentice --though the truth is, of course, Shintaro has long ceased to be concerned with any real art. For some years now, he has devoted his time to his book illustrations, and his present speciality, I gather, is fire engines. He will work day after day up in that attic room of his, sketching out fire engine after fire engine. But I suppose in the evenings, after a few drinks, Shintaro likes to believe he is still the idealistic young artist I first took under my supervision. This childlike aspect of Shintaro has frequently been a source of entertainment for Mrs Kawakami, who has a somewhat wicked side to her. One night recently, for instance, during a rainstorm, Shintaro had come running into the little bar and begun squeezing his cap out over the doormat. Really, Shintaro-san!" Mrs Kawakami had shouted at him. "What terrible manners!" At this, Shintaro had looked up in great distress, as though indeed he had committed an outrageous offence. He had then begun to apologise profusely, thus leading Mrs Kawakami on further. "I"ve never seen such manners, Shintaro-san. You seem to have no respect for me at all." "Now stop this, Obasan," I had appealed to her after a while. "That's enough, tell him you"re just joking." "Joking? I"m hardly joking. The height of bad manners." And so it had gone on, until Shintaro had become quite pitiful to watch. But then again, on other occasions, Shintaro will be convinced he is being teased when in fact he is being spoken to quite earnestly. There was the time he had put Mrs Kawakami in difficulties by declaring cheerfully of a general who had just been executed as a war criminal: "I"ve always admired that man since I was a boy. I wonder what he's up to now. Retired, no doubt." Some new customers had been present that night and had looked at him disapprovingly. When Mrs Kawakami, concerned for her trade, had gone to him and told him quietly of the general's fate, Shintaro had burst out laughing. "Really, Obasan," he had said loudly. "Some of your jokes are quite extreme." Shintaro's ignorance of such matters is often remarkable, but as I say, it is not something to disparage. One should be thankful there are still those uncontaminated by the current cynicism. In fact, it is probably this very quality of Shintaro's--this sense that he has remained somehow unscathed by things--which has led me to enjoy his company more and more over these recent years. As for Mrs Kawakami, although she will do her best not to allow the current mood to affect her, there is no denying she has been greatly aged by the war years. Before the war, she may still have passed for a "young woman", but since then something inside her seems to