I had a dream, and this is what I saw in it.
I was in some kind of restaurant. A large parlor with rice mat flooring was full to capacity with a swirl of people, all sitting down. Each person was dressed to their personal taste, in Western or Japanese-style clothes.
And they were not simply dressed. They kept looking at each other’s clothes and took the liberty of making comments about how they looked.
“Your frock coat sure is old-fashioned. It’s a relic from the days of Naturalism, isn’t it?!”1
“That Yūki fabric is a masterpiece!2 It has a human touch that is hard to express in words.”
“What’s with that haori3 you’re wearing? You look heartless, putting on something like that.
“Check out that navy-blue serge jacket over there. A completely typical petty bourgeois.”
“My goodness, I can’t believe you’re wearing the same kind of sash that comic storytellers4 do. Aren’t you ashamed?”
“When you’re wearing that splashed silk kimono,5 you look like a spoiled uptown brat.”
Those were the kind of things they said to one another.
Then I noticed that there was a strange skinny man seated at the very end of the parlor. The man wore a dubious-looking light summer kimono in an outmoded style. It was made of unbleached fabric and had a family crest printed on it in lacquer.
That kimono appeared to be the long-suffering target of merciless mishandling.
A young, long-haired gentleman sharply scolded him: “I see that you are treating your attire poorly, as usual.”
That gentleman, out of some fancy which I could not guess, was wearing a white monastic robe somewhat similar to that of a Dominican monk. I have heard that such an outfit was what Balzac used to wear when he was at work. Of course, this particular person had neither the height nor the girth of Balzac, so the hemline was substantially longer than necessary.
The skinny man grinned wryly, remaining silent.
“You constantly wear the same kimono, so you can’t talk about fashion.”
This remark was thrown at him by another young show-off, who was wearing some indistinct kimono made from either Meisen6 or splashed-pattern silk.
It looked like the show-off himself had been wearing his own kimono for a considerable length of time; his collar was dirty with grease stains.
Still, the man wearing the unbleached kimono said nothing in reply. He seemed completely spineless.
But then a third attempt was made. A man wearing a broad-shouldered and wide-striped jacket pronounced with a smirk his own half-sympathizing critique.
“Why aren’t you wearing the kimono you had on the other day? Doesn’t that amount to a retrogression? Then again, an unbleached kimono doesn’t look that bad on you, either! Gentlemen, be kind enough to remember that this man did once come here after changing his clothes. From now on, too, please take it upon yourselves to act as mentors and encourage him to dress differently.”
Among the crowd there were those who shouted “Hear, hear!” in support, and those who angrily howled, “Treat him more strictly; you shouldn’t be paying any false compliments here!”
The skinny man, scratching his head in embarrassment, hurriedly withdrew from the parlor.
He then went back to his stuffy-looking two-story house on the outskirts of town.
Inside the house, both on the upper and the lower floor, there were all kinds of clothes hanging, as if left to air out.
I thought I saw something there gleaming like snake scales, and it turned out to be sets of chain mail, samurai armor, and other types of gear used in times of war.
In the midst of those clothes the skinny man, all arrogant and puffed up, sat down with his legs crossed and nonchalantly smoked a cigarette.
I think he said something, but unfortunately, now that I am awake I cannot remember what it was.
Despite taking the trouble to write the full story of what happened in the dream, I have ended up forgetting that one utterance—something for which I am exceedingly regretful.
Translator's Notes
1 自然主義時代: The Naturalistic period in art, in the latter half of the 19th century.↩
2 A type of silk fabric named after its place of origin—the city of Yūki, Ibaraki Prefecture.↩
3 羽織 A haori is a Japanese half-coat worn over a kimono.↩
4 落語家 A rakugo artist, the traditional Japanese version of a stand-up comedian.↩
5 大島 The word here refers to a type of splashed-pattern silk kimono from the Kagoshima area.↩
6 銘仙 Meisen silk. A cheap, durable fabric used for making casual wear.↩
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