Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [262]
Yagyū Sekishūsai, he recalled, was devoting his old age to the Way of Tea, and Takuan also had spoken of its virtues. Looking down at the tea bowl and the cloth beneath it, he suddenly envisioned the white peony from Sekishūsai’s garden and felt again the thrill it had given him. Now, inexplicably, the tea bowl struck him in the same forceful way. He wondered for a moment if he had gasped out loud.
He reached out, picked up the bowl lovingly and placed it on his knee. His eyes shone as he examined it; he felt an excitement he had never experienced before. As he studied the bottom of the vessel and the traces of the potter’s spatula, he realized that the lines had the same keenness as Sekishūsai’s slicing of the peony stem. This unpretentious bowl, too, had been made by a genius. It revealed the touch of the spirit, the mysterious insight.
He could hardly breathe. Why, he knew not, but he sensed the strength of the master craftsman. It came to him silently but unmistakably, for he was far more sensitive to the latent force that resided here than most people would have been. He rubbed the bowl, unwilling to lose physical contact with it.
“Kōetsu,” he said, “I don’t know any more about the utensils than I know about tea, but I would guess that this vessel was made by a very skillful potter.”
“Why do you say that?” The artist’s words were as gentle as his face, with its sympathetic eyes and well-formed mouth. The corners of his eyes turned down a bit, giving him an air of gravity, but there were teasing wrinkles around the edges.
“I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel it.”
“Exactly what do you feel? Tell me.”
Musashi thought for a moment and said, “Well, I can’t express it very clearly, but there’s something superhuman about this sharp cut in the clay….”
“Hmm.” Kōetsu had the attitude of the true artist. He did not suppose for a moment that other people knew much about his own art, and was reasonably certain Musashi was no exception. His lips tightened. “What about the cut, Musashi?”
“It’s extremely clean.”
“Is that all?”
“No, no … it’s more complicated than that. There’s something big and daring about the man who made this.”
“Anything else?”
“The potter himself was as sharp as a sword from Sagami. Yet he enveloped the whole thing in beauty. This tea bowl looks very simple, but there’s a certain haughtiness about it, something regal and arrogant, as though he didn’t regard other people as being quite human.”
“Mm.”
“As a person, the man who made this would be difficult to fathom, I think. But whoever he is, I’d bet he’s famous. Won’t you tell me who it was?” Kōetsu’s heavy lips broke into a laugh. “His name is Kōetsu. But this is just something I made for fun.”
Musashi, not knowing he had been undergoing a test, was genuinely surprised and impressed to hear that Kōetsu was able to make his own ceramics. What affected him more than the man’s artistic versatility, however, was the human profundity concealed within this ostensibly plain tea bowl. It disturbed him a little to recognize the depth of Kōetsu’s spiritual resources. Accustomed to measuring men in terms of their swordsmanship, he suddenly decided that his yardstick was too short. The thought humbled him; here was yet another man before whom he must admit defeat. For all his splendid victory of the morning, he was now no more than a bashful youth.
“You like ceramics too, don’t you?” Kōetsu said. “You seem to have a good eye for pottery.”
“I doubt whether that’s true,” Musashi replied modestly. “I was only saying what came into my head. Please forgive me if I said something foolish.”
“Well, of course, you couldn’t be expected to know a great deal about the subject, because to make a single good tea bowl involves