Tokyo, December 13, 1986

  Dear Shirley,

  Your Christmas letter was so good that I cannot resist answering it, even though a soft voice within me keeps whispering that even reading a letter will take you from your work.

  I enjoyed the picture of the Pantheon, recalling one of my whirlwind morning tours of Rome under your aegis. I had forgotten the obelisk in front. Either I am losing my memory or I am plain unobservant: I had forgotten the statue of Beethoven at the music conservatory next to San Pietro a Maiella. My memory of the church itself, however, is absolutely clear. No, not clear—how could it be in semi-darkness?—but whole. The long shadows, the sound of the priest’s voice, the echoing of our own footsteps—quite unforgettable. Perhaps (I am trying to defend my memory) we didn’t actually go into the music school. [. . .]

  The situation in America, seem from this distance, is appalling. Probably it is worse closer to the events. The thought of (1) selling arms to the Iranians and (2) using the proceeds for the enemies of the régime we recognize in Nicaragua is more than I can understand. Perhaps the people who are actually involved think of it as some kind of game, with extra points awarded for absolutely baffling actions. Reagan’s popularity, even with people who suffer from the effects of his policies, is equally baffling. What has taken the place of self-interest, I wonder? The strangest thing of all is that in a country with 200 million people it is not possible to find a better president.

  I’m reading some wonderful diaries now, kept by a man who in the 1850s and 1860s travelled extensively in the northern island of Hokkaidō. His account of the Ainu, the aboriginal inhabitants, in some ways recalls the accounts of Indians in America and perhaps the aborigines in Australia. But the fascinating thing is that this man goes out of his way to report every instance known to him of injustice dealt the Ainu by the Japanese. It is extraordinary that anyone at that time could have adopted a viewpoint that seems much more typical of the 1960s or later. I’m thinking of the films now being made in which the Indians are the victims and perhaps the heroes too. I’ve become quite excited about this man, whose name was unknown to me until less than a month ago.

  I look forward to seeing you and Francis again. [. . .]

  Yours, Donald

  2

  1987–1996

  Tokyo, July 10, 1987

  Dear Shirley,

  What a long time it has been since we were last in touch! I have often thought of writing, but I feared that my letter might interrupt you just when the end of the novel was in sight or something equally dramatic was about to occur. I still have these feelings, knowing that you would write if you were not in the midst of important work or (perish the thought!) if you were not being besieged by visitors.

  The answer to this letter can be very brief. In fact it can be in one word, if that is all you have time for. I believe I mentioned to you that I gave three lectures at the New York Public Library last year. I gave another at the Metropolitan Museum this past spring. An editor from Columbia University Press heard one or more of these talks and asked to see the manuscript. I’ve now been informed that (for reasons I do not understand) they are giving this book special priority and rushing it into print. This is very gratifying, but I’m a little nervous. The book is really not anything startlingly new but rather in the nature of musings on different aspects of traditional Japanese literature. [. . .] I thought I would like to dedicate the book to you and Francis. May I have your permission? (Needless to say, you are under no obligation to read it, even if you graciously give consent!)

  My plans for travel aren’t yet clear, but I expect to go to Paris about the 20th of September for a conference to be held between French and American scholars of East Asia. I should probably go to Belgium after that. The Japanese friend is now the ambassador there, and he said he would try to arrange a lecture for me at Louvain. I will then go back to Japan because I have a lecture engagement there that I cannot break. Then to Venice about October 12 for a three-day session. If you will be in southern Italy at this time, and if you have the time to spare, I would be happy to visit you for a short time. There are two other possibilities of going to Europe. One is to visit various institutions where Japanese culture is taught, the other is to attend a meeting to be held at the former Japanese Embassy in Berlin, which after forty years as a bomb-scarred shell has been rebuilt as a center of Japanese culture. Finally, my friend in Milan has indirectly let me know that he is arranging lectures for me in Italy in late March.

  This is a great deal of travelling at a time when I really should be consecrating myself to completing my history. I’m not sure that I will in fact be doing all of the above.

  I may have told you that I joined a new institute for Japanese culture. I am officially a Japanese civil servant! I was so intrigued by the possibility that I did not stop to consider the possible disagreeable aspects of this new role. The people at the institute are all very kind, but the government officials, who know every regulation and precedent by heart, have made me regret this step. It is only for a year, if I can survive the repeated pinpricks that long.

  [. . .]

  I will be pleased to hear from you, if only on the matter of the dedication.

  Yours, Donald

  New York, August 22, 1987

  Dear Donald—

  We greatly hope that by now you have our cable, sent in response to your post card received yesterday. We are honoured and delighted to accept your dedication, and only hope to deserve it. Of course we had not had your letter to Capri (and I really don’t understand why it was not “forwarded back” to New York. [. . .] The Italian mails are now virtually closed down in August—as, to an increasing extent, are those in the USA. However it may be, we had much pleasure in receiving your card, and only regretted you’d been so long without our response to this friendliest of gestures.

  [. . .]

  It has been a summer of some losses—including that of our Neapolitan friend Roberto Pane, who suddenly died at the end of July. He was ninety years old, but so hyper-active, and so full of work and planned volumes, that his end was utterly unexpected. He died after a peculiarly strenuous day passed in crisscrossing the gulf of Naples (for various undertakings) in heat of 100°. He was formidable, irreplaceable—and of course is now receiving in the press the tributes withheld from him in life. His immense body of revelatory work is his monument; but his personality too was of a kind, and quality, that one now rather thinks of as extinct—fearless, polymathic, hugely energetic, and entirely without hypocrisy. In an interview earlier this year, on his ninetieth birthday, he was asked his own choice of his most important quality, and gave the answer: “Coerenza”—which, in the Italian sense, means consistency and a sort of integrity of persistence (as well as having our own sense, clarity). He also said, of his life’s dedication to the art and architecture not only of South Italy but of, in a way, all the world, “I will defend with my last breath the memory of the human past.”

  [. . .] We have had many beautiful days and weeks this spring and summer; although July and August have been months of particularly ferocious heat on both sides of the Atlantic. Capri is never intolerably hot, because of the surrounding sea in the cool evenings; and even on the Posillipo we could be cool when the sun went down. But NY has been pretty relentless.

  [. . .]

  A short piece of my novel in progress, dealing with unnamed Hong Kong in those years, appeared some weeks ago in The New Yorker. It is a portion of a subplot, but made a fairly coherent short story. When we meet I’ll press a copy on you, if I may, as I’d be interested to know what you feel about such representations of oriental existence. I’m also restraining myself from asking a few more “Japanese” questions. Perhaps it will be a relief to you to hear that my characters will soon leave Japan for western lands, where their destinies will I trust be resolved.

  [. . .] I’m sending this off so that written thanks at least will reach you soon. Can we know what the work will be that is to be dedicated to what—with no Japanese flourishes—we may call your unworthy but admiring friends Francis and Shirley?

  Capri, November 4, 1987

  Dear Donald—

  A word to be in touch, give you our news, and hope you’re well and that your travels were all joyful and successful. We received news from you that you were heading for the low countries too late to send word to Japan; and, not having your European address, hoped we might have a call from you while you were on your first or second trip. [. . .] We have had a somewhat disconnected and swift-moving autumn in Italy, very hot at first; then magnificent, warm, clear, broken only by a few days of colossal storm. Today, with the Tramonta blowing, is the first day with chill in the air—air, that is, on Capri, crystalline and itself like some experience of a past time. “Keen, fitful gusts are whispering here and there” and, at evening “the stars look very cold about the sky.” Yet today we lunched together—with one other table—at the Arco Naturale outdoors, I not wearing stockings (which I have scarcely put on all autumn) and with sweaters merely hung on our shoulders. The island is silent, with a good emptiness.

  This reminds me that in Rome last week we went to Keats’ grave, at the beautiful Cimitero Acattolico beside the pyramid of Caius Cestius. . . . a heavenly place that reconciles one to cemeteries and their implications. The corner where Keats is buried is particularly lovely. The other day a young man—probably American—came with a book (I think it was “The Waning of the Middle Ages”) to sit in the sun on a bench that is placed near the grave, and told us he often comes there to read. We had spent part of the previous morning reading in the cloister of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte (that orange grove near Piazza di Spagna, unvisited by tourism). As we sat, we heard first a male voice singing an aria, somewhere nearby; then a soprano. Obviously “live”, as they hesitated, sang the same phrase over, and so on. Opening a door we found a singing lesson in progress—a piano, a teacher, a beautiful Italian girl & a delicate young oriental tenor. Much inviting of us to enter, which we did on that and a subsequent occasion. Always some humane experiences of the kind in this land.

  In addition to my groans over my real work, I am trying to complete that article on Naples for the Encycl. Britannica [. . .]. Fortunately, the man I deal with by phone at Chicago HQ is extremely civilised, and—although he cannot change the conditions—sympathetic to my complaints about lack of space, lack of a map (preposterous!), the quality of the preceding article on Naples—although the old one, in the great edition, was long and excellent. As “Naples” lies in the Encyc. between Napoleon and Nanking, they cannot see cutting out any of the contiguous pages—yet a proper bibliography alone should take up half the space they are allotting me.

  We’re thinking of going to Siena—always important to me—next week to see an exhibition of late mediaeval and Renaiss. wooden sculptures, very beautiful. Then we will be near our departure. Our neighbour’s place has come on a lot, but is still beset by works eternally reinvented by our landlords. The beauty of the sea there in this season is indescribable; and we now have a full view of the Vesuvius, as we persuaded the tree surgeons at Villa Roseberry next door to do away with a sick ilex (we had out the evil eye on it previously) and some overgrown conifers that obstructed our panorama.

  Now we look forward to seeing you in NY, with the hope that your “extra” visit is confirmed. [. . .] it will be good to hear how you fared on European visits, and how your trip to Venice went. Just a year ago we were there; wonderful stay, which seems a moment ago.

  Good work, good things, much affection from us both—Shirley

  Tokyo, November 7, 1987

  Dear Shirley,

  It seems like a very long time since I last heard from you. [. . .]

  I visited Europe twice in September-October. It was rather exhausting, especially the flight from Paris to Tokyo last week, from which I am only now recovering. But it was worth it! The first occasion was a gathering of orientalists from France and the US (with a scattering of other nationalities). The subject of the conference was the possibility of greater cooperation between European & American scholars of East Asia. I’m all in favor of cooperation, especially if it means a trip to Paris, but I still cling to the old fashioned notion of scholarship as a process effected all by oneself with as little interference (or cooperation) as possible. I am clearly in the minority.

  The second journey was occasioned by a conference in Venice called “Rethinking Japan”. I’m not sure how much rethinking was done, but Venice was wonderful and the other people were extremely agreeable. Best of all was my first opera at La Fenice, Beatrice di Tenda by Bellini. I had never previously seen the opera though I have Sutherland’s recording. The theatre is exquisite, & the performance was worthy. We were all invited to a chamber music concert held in the Scuola di San Rocco. You can easily imagine the effect of music heard in such magnificent surroundings.

  Yesterday I had a telephone call that makes it seem likely I will be invited to Italy in April. My itinerary will include ten days in Naples, plus lectures in Rome, Milan, and perhaps elsewhere. It sounds ideal. The only thing that could make that month even better would be the presence of you and Francis in Italy at that time.

  [. . .]

  My best to you & Francis. Yours, Donald

  New York, February 4, 1988

  Dear Donald—

  Thank you very much for your so welcome letter.

  [. . .]

  Could I bother you with a couple of Occupation (of Japan) questions again? I think I told you that I visited, in 1947, the military hospital of the Australian and British occupation troops on the island of Ita Jima near Kure. However, there was a large central American Occupation at Tokyo, I think? Could you tell me where the main American hospital (for troops and their families) was, and whether it had been a Japanese hospital previously? (On Ita Jima, the hospital had been previously the naval academy, if I’m right?) Whereabouts in Tokyo (if in Tokyo the main hospital was) would the American hospital have been? Do you remember if it was well regarded? Did it take any Japanese patients?—ie, Japanese presumably working for the US forces. (However, this last question is not important.)

  In those times, we (at least) needed a pass from the US forces for travel by train. I do not remember how long the train journey from Tokyo to Kure was. Could you make an approximate guess? There were various domestic air routes, but these too were under MacArthur’s control of course; and I don’t remember if there was any flight between Kure and Tokyo.

  My last question (I trust): What library was there in English for the Occupation forces? This I never knew anything about, but now I wonder and for my writing would like to know whether some central library was set up for the Occupation forces or whether small library services were dispersed through the sites of army headquarters. Could there have been anything good of this kind? Were Japanese libraries accessible (ie free of control) to scholars like yourself at that time?

  Please forgive such troublesome questions—and please disregard if they seem too complicated. My hope is that they can be answered readily and without preliminary enquiries—ie, from your memory. The questions about travel might be a nuisance, and can be forgotten if so. These matters amount to few words in the “Japanese” chapters (three only) of my novel, yet you of all people will know how one wants to get such things right.

  Buon divertimento, buon lavore, buon ritorno. We’ll telephone you after the 16th in New York—with all affectionate greetings meantime from us both—Shirley

  Tokyo, March 23, 1988

  Dear Shirley,

  [. . .]

  I was really very happy to see you and Francis again. Of course, I think of you both very often, but it was especially on seeing you again that I realized how important your friendship is. To think that for years I assumed that once I reached the university retiring age I would head for Japan and never return!

  I have been busy, as usual. Two weeks ago there was a large scale gathering of Japanologists from many countries. The opening address was given by Claude Levi-Strauss. I was impressed by his vitality & his readiness to investigate Japanese culture, though in almost every respect it is quite different from his previous studies. Of course, he does not pretend to be an expert on Japan, but he clearly has read what is available in translation. I gave a talk later that day on Japanese literature in the world. Usually, when Japanese discuss this subject they confine themselves to lists of foreign translations of Japanese works of literature, but I tried to show that Japanese writers have always been “in the world”, even if not translated, to the degree that they were receptive to & influenced by foreign literature. So much attention has been given of late to the seeming recrudescence of Japanese nationalism, but the cosmopolitanism of the Japanese, who for many centuries accepted a rather humble place within the orbit of Chinese civilization, and during the past century, of western civilization, is either ignored or derided as “imitation”. I took the occasion to express my growing disenchantment with Lafcadio Hearn. Hearn is not taken seriously in the West any longer, but in Japan he is revered. He is known by the Japanese name he adopted, & there is even a Shinto shrine in his honor, meaning that he has been accepted into the pantheon of Japanese gods. I approve of this example of cosmopolitanism, but not of his insistence on how much better the Japanese were before the blight of western civilization affected them. I’m more and more convinced that “rootless cosmopolitanism” (so often attacked & rarely defended) is the only way we can avoid the madness of nationalism.

  I am to leave for Italy on the 4th of April. I asked for the Excelsior & they agreed! It will come out of my pocket, but that’s all right—I hadn’t expected to earn any money. The one unpleasant feature is the strong request of the people at the Oriental Institute of the University of Naples for two-hour lectures every day except Saturday & Sunday. Only one lecture will be for the general public (in a cinema!), but two hours a day is more teaching than I have ever done before. I suppose I can get them to lighten the load a bit, but the desire for instruction must originate in the fact that they haven’t had anyone to teach Japanese literature for some years. It is flattering to think that perhaps they really want me to teach them. It will be a new experience, in any case. I have been surprised too by the unusually academic nature of the lectures requested. “Research perspectives in the history of Japanese literature”.