Modern Japanese Stories/The Camellia

Tsubaki

The Camellia^[1]

by Satomi Ton

She was past thirty and still unmarried. She lay facing left, and she was reading a magazine romance by the light of a lamp with a low scarlet shade. The night was still and cold, there was not a suggestion of wind. One would guess that it was not yet midnight, though the sounds of the last passers-by in the street had faded as the night wore on. The very lack of noise struck the ear with a special sharpness.

As she turned a page, she glanced over at her twenty-year-old niece. Their beds were perhaps six inches apart, and the girl lay facing her. The sleeping face was remarkably beautiful. Only the nose and forehead were visible, clean above the velvet border of the quilt. The aunt gazed as though she were seeing the face for the first time.

“Aren’t you calm, though.” She wanted to tease the girl, to laugh with her. But the girl was like a thing modelled, so quiet that not even her breathing was audible. The aunt laughed silently. The floor matting, freshly changed just before they had moved in, rustled a little as she shifted her weight, and a wave of warm air rose over her neck and face.

For a time she thought of nothing but the progress of the story. Unfortunately she was not sleepy.

A steam whistle blew a short blast far away. The night was really too quiet. She could not remember such quiet. She thought of waking the maid and having her move them upstairs so that the three could sleep together. But it would be a nuisance to get up. She went on reading.

The relations of the hero and heroine approached a crisis, and nothing happened. The men were unexciting … she was not likely to remember any of them. Her mind taking in almost nothing, she read on.

Slap.

It was by her pillow. Nothing before and nothing after, only the one sound. Something had fallen on the matting, that much was clear. What would it be? She could not bring herself to look. Laying the magazine down softly on the bed, she pulled her left hand in and clasped her two hands to her breast. The icy cold of the left hand sank into the other.

Her niece was staring over with narrowed eyes.

“What is it?” The aunt started up. “What is it, Setchan?”

“No!” The girl jumped up quilt and all, and buried her head on her aunt’s knee.

“I asked you to tell me what was the matter. What is it, Setchan?”

Setchan raised her head a little. “Don’t!”

The older woman threw the weight from her knee and resolutely looked beyond the head of the bed. In the alcove, several feet farther away than she would have guessed, a large crimson camellia had fallen. It lay on the matting like a turned-down bowl. They had hated to leave the camellias in their old garden and had had the agent break off an armful, which they had brought with them. The celadon vase in the alcove was full of week-old camellias.

“Behave yourself, Setchan.” There was relief in her voice. The girl too raised herself from the bed.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“I’m the one who should be asking that.”

“But you …”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Didn’t do anything. You screamed at me.”

“The way you stared. And your eyes were half closed.”

“You were already terrified,” said the girl. “You stopped reading and pulled your hand under the quilt. Don’t deny it.”

“You saw me, did you?”

“I thought we had robbers.”

“Don’t be silly. But what woke you up?”

“You called me.”

“I did not. Why should I call you?”

“You didn’t?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then I must have been dreaming.”

“It was a camellia. A camellia fell.”

“Don’t!” Again the girl threw herself on her aunt. “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t say such things.”

“Setchan, please. I’m surprised at you.”

“But why do you say such things?”

“What did I say to upset you? Look for yourself.”

“No, no, no.”

“Don’t be foolish, child. One of the camellias fell, and that’s what woke you up.”

“Oh?” At length the girl pulled her face away and looked timidly over her aunt’s shoulder toward the alcove. “Isn’t it awful? Bright red.”

“Red or white, it falls when its time comes. What if it is bright red?”

“It’s repulsive.”

“Suppose you throw it away, then.”

“I can’t. You throw it away.”

“It’s doing no harm. We can leave it till morning.”

“Swollen with blood.”

“Stop it, Setchan.” A frown wrinkled the beautiful eyebrows. The rebuke was in earnest. “You’re talking nonsense. I’m going to sleep.”

She pushed her niece away, turned over, and pulled the quilt up over her face.

“You’re cheating.” The girl lay where the force of the push had left her. Bundled from head to foot in the quilt, she held her breath and listened.

Silence.

She lay still for a time. Finding it hard to breathe, she timidly pulled her head up. Her aunt lay facing left, the quilt as always tight around her shoulders. “Isn’t she nasty!” The girl rolled away. The lampshade sent a violet light into the far corners of the room and planted a seal of death upon the face of the familiar seventeenth-century beauty on the screen.

“How awful.” The girl rolled over again. Her aunt in front of her was laughing convulsively. It was so unlike her … she laughed so little. But now she laughed, the bright quilt pulled hastily over her nose. Her body shook from shoulders to hips, her eyes were closed, she laughed on. At first the girl did not see. Then she saw as in a mirror, and she too was laughing helplessly. She laughed, she laughed. She could not say a word, she only rolled over laughing. The night was dead quiet. They had to control their voices, and the effort made it so much funnier. It was so funny, it was so funny. The more she thought of it the funnier it was. What could she do, it was so funny.

Satomi Ton (b. 1888)
This story was first published in 1923
Translated by Edward Seidensticker
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1. The Japanese have a superstitious fear of the camellia, whose blossoms fall, not petal by petal, but whole, like severed human heads.