In The Sea of Fertility, Penguin, 1987, 196 p. Translated from the Japanese 曉の寺 (Akatsuki no Tera) by E Dale Saunders and Cecilia Segawa Seigle.  First published 1970.

This instalment of Mishima’s tetralogy starts in 1940 and follows on from Runaway Horses by featuring now retired judge Shikeguni Honda, still convinced that Isao Iinuma was a reincarnation of Kiyaoki Matsugae, the doomed lover in Spring Snow; a belief mainly due to the presence of three moles on their left sides.

As part of his legal consultancy work protecting Japanese exporters’ interests Honda travels to India via Thailand. He meets a six-year-old Thai princess, Ying Chan, who is convinced she is Japanese but her assertions are, of course, treated by her family and attendants as mental aberrations. Honda believes her and tries unsuccessfully to see if she also has three moles.

On to Benares in India where Honda has an epiphany while Mishima takes the opportunity to impart to us a lengthy treatise on various ideas of reincarnation from around the world. At a waterfall in the Antaji caves Honda also recognises a scene which Matsugae had predicted he would encounter.

The Second World War comes and goes off-stage and the story undergoes a shift in tone when it restarts in occupied Japan where Ying Chan has come to study. Honda becomes obsessed by the idea of seeing her naked to confirm his reincarnation belief. He invites her to his house (but several times she does not turn up on time.) He tries to get the nephew of his neighbour to seduce Ying Chan, on whose intended room he can spy via a peephole, but this plan fails. (I note the recurrence of this peephole scenario in Mishima’s later novel The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea.)

Honda becomes even more of a voyeur before the novel’s climax during one of his houseparties and there is an odd, almost detached, final chapter set in 1967 where he discovers Ying Chan’s destiny.

Mishima’s unease at Japan’s loss of identity under Western influence is less to the fore here than in the previous two volumes. It is almost as if this instalment is from a different story sequence, despite the reincarnation connection.

Pedant’s corner:- “voices chanting a sutra rose rapidly to a crescendo” (No. The crescendo is the rise, not its culmination,) “plusses and minuses” (pluses and minuses?) “the aureoles around the nipples” (the areolae.)

Pocket, 1973, 376 p. Translated from the Japanese, 春の雪 (Haru no Yuki,) by Michael Gallagher.

I suppose any tale of star-cross’d lovers invites comparisons to Romeo and Juliet. I doubt, though, that most of them will contain references to the Russo-Japanese War, which is still in the recent memory of this novel’s protagonist, Kiyoaki Matsugae. That the book starts with his recollection of a photograph of the memorial services for the war dead is an indicator that the outcome of the novel is not likely to be joyful.

Kiyoaki had been entrusted by his father Marquis Matsugae to be raised in the noble but now relatively impoverished Ayakura family so as to acquire a touch of elegance and hope of advancement. The Ayakuras’ daughter, Satoko, had lavished affection on him and at the book’s start Kiyoaki knows she is in love with him but he is for the most part indifferent  hence it takes a while for the love story to gather momentum. Early parts of the book deal with Kiyoaki’s relationship with his friend Shikeguni Honda and two Siamese princes who are on a diplomatic visit of sorts and attend their school.

An exchange of letters between Satoko and Kiyoaki in which she reveals her feelings for him become central to the plot but his request for Satoko not to read his last one (where he eventually acknowledges his for her) comes too late. At first he does not know this and when he finds out she did read it he is angered and cuts off contact.

In the meantime Satoko, at twenty years old getting close to being on the shelf, is all but forced by her family into a betrothal to Prince Harunori of the Imperial family. Kiyoaki expresses to his father indifference to the engagement but, threatening to expose Satoko’s last letter to him, demands a meeting with her through the agency of her maid Tadeshina. This leads to the consummation of their relationship and further clandestine meetings. An odd aspect of the story is that Count Ayakura had years before instructed Tadeshina that Satoko should lose her virginity before any bridegroom chosen by the Marquis should touch her. Revelation of the affair would therefore reflect badly on him. Satoko’s resultant pregnancy presages disaster. Drastic attempts to avert it are not entirely availing.

While not absolutely following the template of Romeo and Juliet the parallels are unavoidable. Star-cross’d love is a universal theme, in Japan as elsewhere.

Pedant’s corner:- “wracked with sobs” (racked,) “cyprus wood” (cypress wood,) “wracked by her feelings” (racked,) “his amusement was tingled with disgust” (tinged is the usual verb here,) “the lay of the land” (the lie of the land.) “Count Ayakura was a hopeless coward in the face to the Countess at once, and when she in turn handed it quite a disturbance on the morning that Tadeshina did not get up.” (Make of those two sentences what you will. I confess I couldn’t.) There was over to her husband, he opened it at fingertips’ length, as if it were germ-ridden” (needs clarifying,) “from lack to sleep” (lack of sleep,) “the Masugaes” (Matsugaes.)