Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [260]
If they wanted to pick wild greens, why not wait until it was warmer and more people were around? There would be lots of flowers and fresh green plants then. And if they wanted to enjoy a tea ceremony, why go to the trouble of lugging the kettle and tea bowls all the way out here? A well-known, prosperous family like theirs would surely have an elegant tea room in their house.
Was it to sketch?
Staring at Kōetsu’s back, he found that by twisting a little to the side he could see the moving brush. Drawing nothing but the lines of flowing water, the artist kept his eyes on the narrow brook wending its way through the dry grass. He concentrated solely on the movement of the water, again and again trying to capture the flowing motion, but the exact feel seemed to elude him. Undeterred, he went on drawing the lines over and over.
“Urn,” thought Musashi, “drawing’s not as easy as it looks, I guess.” His ennui receding for the moment, he watched Kōetsu’s brush strokes with fascination. Kōetsu, he thought, must feel very much as he himself did when he faced an enemy swordpoint to swordpoint. At some stage he would rise above himself and sense that he had become one with nature—no, not “sense,” because all sensation would be obliterated at that moment when his sword cut through his opponent. That magic instant of transcendence was all.
“Kōetsu’s still looking at the water as an enemy,” he mused. “That’s why he can’t draw it. He has to become one with it before he’ll succeed.”
With nothing to do, he was sliding from boredom into lethargy and this worried him. He must not let himself go slack, even for a moment. He had to get away from here.
“I’m sorry I disturbed you,” he said brusquely, and started retying his sandals.
“Oh, are you leaving so soon?” asked Myōshū.
Kōetsu turned around quietly and said, “Can’t you stay a little longer? Mother is going to make the tea now. I gather you’re the one who had a bout with the master of the House of Yoshioka this morning. A little tea after a fight does you good, or at least that’s what Lord Maeda says. Ieyasu, too. Tea is good for the spirit. I doubt whether there’s anything better. In my opinion, action is born of quiet. Stay and talk. I’ll join you.”
So Kōetsu knew about the fight! But maybe that was not so strange; the Rendaiji wasn’t far away, only the next field over. A more interesting question was why he had said nothing about it so far. Was it simply that he regarded such matters as belonging to a world different from his own? Musashi took a second look at mother and son, then sat down again.
“If you insist,” he said.
“We haven’t much to offer, but we enjoy having you with us,” said Kōetsu. He put the cover on his ink box and placed it on his sketches to keep them from blowing away. In his hands, the lid glittered like fireflies. It seemed to be sheathed in thick gold, with silver and mother-of-pearl inlay.
Musashi leaned forward to inspect it. Now that it was resting on the carpet, it no longer gleamed so brightly. He could see that there was nothing at all gaudy about it; its beauty was that of the gold-leaf and color paintings in Momoyama castles, reduced many times in size. There was also a hint of something very ancient about it, a dull patina suggestive of faded glories. Musashi stared intently. There was something comforting about the box.
“I made that myself,” said Kōetsu modestly. “Do you like it?”
“Oh, can you make lacquerware too?”
Kōetsu merely smiled. As he looked at this youth, who seemed to admire the artifice of man more than the beauty of nature, he was thinking with amusement: