[. . .]

  Much to ask, much to exchange. We look forward to all that. Meantime—[. . .] warmest friendship and affection from us both—Shirley.

  Tokyo, December 17, 1983

  Dear Shirley,

  I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself for not having answered your fine letter, but I have already received my punishment by not having been favored by another letter since then. How to explain my silence, given the fact that I enjoy writing letters and am normally a good correspondent? I suppose it is because I have felt that when writing to you I had to maintain a certain standard of literacy which is not expected by most other correspondents. So I put off writing until I had time to think, my mind was fresh, etc. The problem is that I have really been very busy, and the choice has always been between sending a poor letter and no letter at all, and I am afraid that I have chosen the latter. Today I shall choose the former!

  My busyness has come from an unexpected quarter. In July I was asked by the Asahi Shimbun to write a serial on Japanese diaries. I have been very much interested in Japanese diaries ever since my wartime experiences. For about a year I did nothing but read diaries taken from the bodies of Japanese soldiers killed in various parts of the Pacific area. I developed a skill at reading difficult or just plain bad handwriting that is still useful, but I also first became aware of Japanese as people in a specially intimate sense. One might say that the first Japanese people I ever knew well were all dead before I made their acquaintance through their diaries. Most diaries began (before the soldier or sailor left Japan) with stereotyped expressions of fervent patriotism. I later learned that diaries were regularly inspected by petty officers to make sure that the writers held the approved sentiments. But once the writer was alone or in a small unit surrounded by the enemy, he dropped all pretenses and expressed exactly what he actually felt. Or, at any rate, this happened often enough to make reading the diaries an intermittently absorbing experience.

  So, when I accepted this assignment of writing five episodes a week on Japanese diaries I did it without much apprehension of possible difficulties. But as I started to write I realized that I could only do this kind of work with my entire energies. It could not be something I dashed off, though a light conversational series would probably have been more to the taste of the public than what I have actually been writing. I started with the first literary diaries, from the ninth century, and I have steadily ploughed my way through most of the literary diaries until 1600. This has meant reading many minor works whose existence I never suspected. I have always been able to find something, no matter how unpromising the diary at first seemed to be. I have now written 131 episodes. [. . .]

  It has been something of an education, but it has taken me away from what should be my main task, completing my history of Japanese literature. Work on the first volume (the early history) stopped in its tracks in July, and although I can use some of the diary material, I have really been prodigal with a limited amount of time at my disposal.

  The two modern volumes of the history are scheduled to appear in April. The original publication date was May 1983, but the size of the books seems to have stunned everyone. The two books will amount to some 2000 pages. I shudder when I think of what the publication price is likely to be. The British publisher (Secker) said that he would import only 250 copies for Great Britain. How sad to think that only 250 people or institutions will want my book! But I shall at least have the great satisfaction of feeling that the book contains what I want it to contain, and some people will surely find it useful.

  [. . .]

  As ever,

  Donald

  New York, April 3, 1984

  Dear Shirley,

  [. . .]

  It seems like a long time since you left for Italy. Last week we had the worst storms of the winter, & today the full warmth of spring with only tattered piles of black snow here and there to remind us that there was a last week.

  The term is going along slowly but not unpleasantly. A colleague has put the idea in my head of a brief sojourn in northern Italy towards the middle of May. I haven’t been in France or Italy in almost twenty years. I have written to a friend at the University of Venice, where Japanese is taught, asking if they would like a lecture. This is not because I have anything special I wish to communicate to the Venetians about Japanese literature, but because I now feel embarrassed to be too recognizably a tourist.

  Publication date of Dawn to the West has been set for April 30th. No doubt the publishers felt that it was a sense essential to give reviewers sufficient time to read the bulky volumes, but it means that I will not be here very long after publication. You have told me when you and Francis will return, but I can only remember that it is in April. I wish that New York had things to tempt you from Capri!

  Last week I saw one such “thing”—a truly splendid performance of Don Carlo. It so rarely happens in the opera house that everything goes right, but this was one such occasion.

  This weekend I shall be going to Dallas to give a talk at the new museum, when there is a large show of Japanese art at present.

  [. . .]

  I envy you the Italian spring. Here the sky is blue and the air is warm but there is hardly a bud to be detected. But come back soon, anyway! Yours, Donald

  Postcard, Kathmandu, May 31, 1984

  Dear Shirley and Francis,

  It seems like months, not just ten days ago, since we spoke on the telephone. Thank you for your “buon viaggio” message. From Venice we drove to Vienna, where I spent four absolutely delightful days trying, more or less in vain, to recall memories of the city which I last visited when I was nine. Only the bloodstained uniform of the archduke Franz Ferdinand had lingered in my memory. From Vienna, by a devious route to Kathmandu, where I have time on my hands despite the oriental and occidental (hippies) exoticism.

  All my best, Donald

  Postcard, Naples, June 26, 1984

  Thank you so much, dear Donald, for your astonishing card. Where will you be next, for heavens sake? (We hope “New York” is the answer to that question.) We are in full—& magnif.—summer here now, and rather appalled to be leaving—next week, for Florence & Siena; then NYC mid-July; then (for me) Australia, 1 Aug. (These lectures8 are killing me.) Back in NYC around 24 Aug at latest. Italy in early Sept. sounds very jet-age (& quite frightening). We trust all well with you—I shan’t even mention “work”—With love—Shirley.

  Tokyo, July 9, 1984

  Dear Shirley,

  Thank you for your postcard with the Roman mural (and the big postage stamp with the Modigliani). I can imagine that leaving Capri for New York in July must be quite a wrench.

  The book Francis asked me to have bound is ready, or almost. It has been bound in Japanese style, which means that it is rather like a box, rather than a leather binding. I hope that is what he meant. The title and the name of the author, which one expects that a binder in other countries would automatically supply, has been left blank. I asked the binder to write in the characters, but he refused, saying that he was unworthy of such a task. His father, who alas is dead, used to perform this service, but he himself had no such confidence in his calligraphy. I pointed out the unlikelihood that you or Francis would find fault with his calligraphy, but nothing I could say was of any use. So, I shall have to write the characters myself. I fear that you will be able to detect that something is not quite what it should be. If you find my writing objectionable it will be easy to paste another slip of paper over it and get someone with real calligraphic skills to oblige.

  I have been waiting, with no results so far, for an invitation from the Editor-in-Chief to have a little chat about my journey to Europe this autumn. A comparative study of Vesuvius and Fuji. I have met the man in the hall and he promised that we would have a meeting someday, but it may be that he is not as enthusiastic about sending me abroad as I had been led to suppose. In any case, I shall be keeping my fingers crossed. I have been in Tokyo for over a month. I feel rather frustrated on several scores. First I have been having trouble adjusting to the very different kind of scholarship involved in reading ninth century poetry, after having spent so long on literature of the last hundred years. Second, for various unrelated reasons, I have been seeing much less of my Japanese friends than in the past. I dare not even phone them for fear my call will be interpreted as a reproach for not having kept in touch with me. (This may sound exaggerated, but Japanese tend to look behind every action for the real motives.) Third, my time seems to be eaten up by minor chores. After all these years I still have not learned how to say no.

  You are obviously much more conscientious about preparing lectures than I. I hope that your audiences will be responsive. I enjoyed giving lectures in Australia except in Melbourne, where I had to start while the dessert and coffee were being served, and where I was told to shorten my lecture from 60 minutes to 30. But your lectures will no doubt be in a proper hall. I’m sure that they will create something of a sensation—but that will not be new for you.

  All my best to you and Francis.

  Yours, Donald

  New York, July 14, 1984

  Dear Donald—

  A week ago today—today being le quatorze—we went on a lustral visit (it is, rather, a yearly or two-yearly one; but the purifying ritual is analogous) to an ancient deserted monastery in woods just outside Siena, a place reached only through a path overgrown with Sleeping Beauty vines and wild white roses. I knew it first nearly thirty years ago, when the “bestie” were still in the refectory, and the mangers & stalls obscured, perhaps not inappropriately, the holy frescoes—frescoes by Giovanni di Paolo. In the church there are frescoes by Lippo Vanni & other 14th c. Sienese. These have been restored, and the place put in ‘order’ about twenty years ago. There is a farmer who tends the place and acts as custode. So, in that silence—silence with birds and the hummings of the earth, of course—we arrived up the little slope to the church. Coming face to face with a woman in a mask, who asked us in American “What are you doing here? Are you just tourists?” in no cordial tones. Whereupon, a bevy or covy or platoon appeared out of a huge hole they had dug in the ground (searching for a mediaeval cistern; when it is found, they will fill it in again with earth and, thank God, go their ways). Villanova University. What was intimidating was their complete lack of interest in the natural and aesthetic meaning of the place, & their proprietary and indeed superior air. Only one spoke any Italian at all. Counterbalancing this, the contadino now acting as custodian, and his brother, turned out to be the farm-workers from my ancient Sienese days at a villa in the Chianti on the other side of Siena where I spent some part of each year for eight years—all now dead, sold, transformed etc. We recognised each other with joy, and leant on a stone wall in the sun talking about “the past”, so beautiful, while figures in masks scurried past us. And, yes, at that villa of the past there actually was a cherry orchard; and it is now a swimming pool, I suppose.

  I’m now getting ready, if that’s the word, for Australia . . . Your letter gives hope that “They” will ask me to shorten my lectures from 60 mins to 30. Please press firmly on the Fuji-Vesuvio idea, we count on it. And don’t forget the twin-city arrangement that exists between Kagashima and Naples (& the alternative Japanese menu at the Hotel Excelsior in Naples, a fruitful object of study).

  I learn this (from Edgar Johnson’s life of Dickens): that Ch. Dickens, aged eight, was occasionally taken to Theatre Royal near Chatham “and was inspired to compose a tragedy entitled MISNAR THE SULTAN OF INDIA (founded on one of the Tales of the Genii).” What are these Tales, I wonder?

  So much to say. We miss your presence, recovered in your letter even if briefly. Shall keep in touch, & “report” on Aust . . .

  With all affection—Shirley.

  PS: As to not learning to say No—I agree that No is essential, & greatly suffer from inability to form that syllable. However, I just read an interview in VOGUE (USA) with a youngish woman novelist, M. Robinson, who teaches at Harvard, & says she urges her students not to squander their talents by being amusing in conversation, writing interesting letters or even postcards etc. God forbid one should find oneself at dinner with her. How mini-minded the world has become.

  Usami, August 15, 1984

  Dear Shirley and Francis,

  Thank you for your letter of le quatorze juillet. I have chosen another historic date for my reply. The 30th anniversary of the Japanese surrender. I’m writing this letter from my place on the Izu coast. It is a beautiful, hot summer day with great woolly cumulus clouds lazily drifting in a blue sky. Mishima loved these clouds, and I somehow have the feeling, certainly not received from him, that on the day of his death in November these summer clouds were in the sky. My penultimate sight of Mishima in 1970 was in this vicinity, in Shimoda, the town at the end of the Izu peninsula. (He came to the airport to see me off when I left for New York in September.) I keep thinking about him, about the kinds of books he might have written. I miss Mishima and Ivan most of all the people I have known who have died.

  Thinking back to August 15, 1945, I recall the headquarters tent in Guam where I stood with three or four Japanese prisoners-of-war listening to the broadcast by the emperor announcing the end of the war. I could hardly understand anything of his high-pitched words. He was speaking in a remote, classical Japanese that I had never even studied. But when the prisoners burst into tears I knew what I had guessed, that the war, which I thought would never end, was in fact over. And now I write these lines looking out over a Bay with green hills on three sides, a little island and a big Island in the distance. I even own a couple of square meters of Japan, though I thought during the war it might evaporate at first touch. Outside a constant trilling of cicadas and in the sky two or three kites coasting in the air. I really have been very lucky.

  I was delighted that you liked the “binding” of the Isadora Duncan book. Please let this be a present. [. . .]

  I can’t remember just when Shirley is to leave for Australia, but if she hasn’t left yet, my best wishes for a pleasant journey & a wildly successful tour.

  I have not had any encouragement concerning a trip to Europe in the autumn, but am still hoping.

  Yours, Donald.

  Tokyo, October 18, 1984

  Dear Shirley,

  It was delightful to talk with you on the phone the other night (day?). I had tried so many times before I finally got through to your landlady (?). She suggested that I telephone at 8:00 pm, but that would be 4:00 am by my time, and I doubted that I would wake before then. I discovered that my Italian, limited at the best of times, was inadequate for what I wanted to say, but no sooner had I hung up that the words “domani a la stessa ora” flashed into my mind. I may have told you, I learned what Italian I know by listening to the Italian-speaking radio station in New York, and at the end of serials they always invited one to listen the next day at the same time. (I recall the opera hour especially. It was always introduced by the first part of Rosa Ponselle’s recording of Pace pace mio dio, followed by the message from the sponsor, Pace pace mio dio olive oil.)

  [. . .]

  I plan to go from Rome to Capri after my arrival on November first. I probably will be tired, but not absolutely exhausted, and it will be restoring to see you, Francis and Elizabeth.

  [. . .]

  I look forward very much to seeing you again.

  Yours, Donald

  Tokyo, November 18, 1984

  Dear Shirley and Francis,

  It has been just a week since I returned to Tokyo. The day after my return I delivered a lecture in Gifu, a place about three hours journey from here, and yesterday I delivered a lecture in Yamagata, somewhat further away, on a totally unrelated subject. Tomorrow another lecture, and still another on Thursday, and then I shall have finished with lectures for the year. But rather than wait for that happy event, I want to write and thank you for a most delightful visit. It could not have been more enjoyable. [. . .]

  The trip to Rome went smoothly. At the station a man standing by a yellow taxi invited me aboard his vehicle, but said, with hilarious honesty, that it would probably cost 25,000 lire to reach my hotel because of the heavy traffic. I realized then that there are yellow taxis and yellow taxis, and I noticed for the first time a long line of people waiting for the authentic yellow taxis. The hotel room was delightful, with a balcony. I wrote a note to the Meanas and delivered it with the aid of an Austrian who was studying yoga in the same building. I found my way to Papyrus and bought a box, had a splendid dinner at Otello, bought a chunk of Gorgonzola—in fact accomplished everything as planned and so carefully noted in Shirley’s map.

  I arrived the next day at the airport about two hours before the flight. I was informed that I was on a stand-by basis. I pointed out that I had a confirmed reservation and had reconfirmed. They admitted this was the case, but shrugged their shoulders when it came to doing something about it. I waited for an hour and began to get nervous. If I could not get aboard that particular flight I would miss my lecture in Gifu. Other people who were also on stand-by status began to be called, but my name did not come up. By now there was only half an hour until departure time. I providentially noticed at this point a Japanese employee of Alitalia and poured out my griefs to him. He fortunately had heard of me, and he did everything conceivable to get me aboard. Ten minutes before departure time he appeared with a ticket and I trampled several people under foot in my eagerness to get on the bus. The seat was in business class, much nicer than my usual economy class, but it took several hours before the agitation subsided.

  [. . .]

  The radio is playing Cosi Fan Tutte in the background. It is terrible to have such glorious music in one’s ears and not to listen properly, but I simply cannot put off writing you another day to say thank you once again for a truly wonderful ten days. Yours always, Donald