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The Emperors of Modern Japan 1st Edition Ben-Ami
Shillony Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Ben-Ami Shillony, (editor)
ISBN(s): 9789004168220, 9004168222
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 3.15 MB
Year: 2008
Language: english
The Emperors of Modern Japan
Handbook of Oriental Studies
Handbuch der Orientalistik
Section Five
Japan
Edited by
M. Blum
R. Kersten
M.F. Low
VOLUME 14
The Emperors of
Modern Japan
Edited by
Ben-Ami Shillony
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2008
Cover illustration: Japanese Imperial Palace, Tokyo Japan. Photo by Lonnie Toshio
Kishiyama, July 2006.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The emperors of modern Japan / edited by Ben-Ami Shillony.

p. cm. — (Handbook of Oriental Studies = Handbuch der Orientalistik.
Section 5, Japan, ISSN 0921-5239 ; 14)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-16822-0 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Emperors—Japan. 2. Japan—
History—1868– I. Shillony, Ben-Ami.
DS881.95.E487 2008
952.03092’2—dc22
2008026657
ISSN 0921-5239
ISBN 978 90 04 16822 0
Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission
from the publisher.
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Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to
The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910,
Danvers, MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS
Introduction ................................................................................ 1
Ben-Ami Shillony
PART ONE
GENERAL THEMES
The Strange Survival and Its Modern Significance .................. 15

Imatani Akira
The Way of Revering the Emperor: Imperial Philosophy and

Bushidō in Modern Japan ........................................................ 23
Christopher Goto-Jones
State Shinto and Emperor Veneration ....................................... 53

Shimazono Susumu
Ise Jingū and Modern Emperorship .......................................... 79

Rosemarie Bernard
The Emperor and the Left in Interwar Japan .......................... 107

Rikki Kersten
Conservative Dissatisfaction with the Modern Emperors ......... 137

Ben-Ami Shillony
Emperors and Christianity ......................................................... 163

Ben-Ami Shillony
The Unreciprocated Gaze: Emperors and Photography .......... 185

Julia Adeney Thomas
vi contents
PART TWO
INDIVIDUAL EMPERORS AND EMPRESSES
The ‘Great Emperor’ Meiji ........................................................ 213

Hara Takeshi
Taishō: An Enigmatic Emperor and his Influential Wife ......... 227

Hara Takeshi
Empress Nagako and the Family State ...................................... 241

Sally A. Hastings
Axes to Grind: The Hirohito War Guilt Controversy in

Japan ....................................................................................... 271
Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi
The Emperor in the Constitutional Debate .............................. 299

Sigal Ben-Rafael Galanti
Akihito and the Problem of Succession ..................................... 313

Takahashi Hiroshi
Contributors ................................................................................ 331
Chronology of the Japanese Emperors since the

Mid-Nineteenth Century ........................................................ 335
Recommended Books in English ................................................ 339
Index ........................................................................................... 343

INTRODUCTION
The historical role of the Japanese emperors was different from that
of kings and emperors in most other countries. On the one hand, the
dynasty was so sacred, that no one dared to overthrow it in recorded
history. As a result, the same family, which does not even possess a
name, has been reigning continuously in Japan for at least fifteen cen-
turies, making it the oldest dynasty on earth today. Although Japan
knew many periods of internal warfare and political turmoil, except
for a fifty-six-year schism between two branches of the dynasty in the
fourteenth century, the imperial family did not split into rivaling courts.
This meant that, except for those fifty-six years, there was always one
emperor recognized by the whole country. The dynasty was based on the
male line, therefore no other family, not even the aristocratic Fujiwara
clan which for about a thousand years intermarried with the imperial
family, could place one of its own sons on the throne. The possession
of such a long and unbroken dynasty provided the Japanese with pride,
and it kept the country from breaking into separate kingdoms as so
often happened in other places.
On the other hand, the emperors of Japan were weaker than royals in
other countries. The imperial court of Japan adopted the trappings of
the imperial court of China, but it never controlled the state in the way
that the Chinese monarchs did. Since the ninth century, there has hardly
been a Japanese emperor who administered the state, commanded
troops, or initiated policies. Weak royals existed in other countries too,
but in Japan this was the norm. Not expected to exercise power, the
emperors of Japan could be minors or (unlike in China) women—the
daughters of emperors—with the throne reverting to the male line after
their reign (there was only one case, in 715, when a reigning empress,
Gemmei, the daughter of an emperor and the widow of a crown prince,
was succeeded by another woman, her daughter Genshō who was born
from that prince). Unlike in other countries, where abdication of kings
was a rarity, in Japan about half of the historic emperors (not including
the mythical ones), despite their sacrosanct position, resigned out of
their own will or on the demands of the people in power. The religious
role of the emperors was to intermediate between the state and the
Shinto gods and to perform rites that only they, as descendants of the
2 introduction
sun goddess, were allowed to perform. This did not prevent them from
patronizing Buddhism, and some of them became Buddhist monks or
nuns after their retirement.
The combination of sanctity and weakness, which characterized the
Japanese emperors, enabled others—aristocrats, warlords, or former
emperors—to manipulate them for their own benefit. The imperial
aura, which preserved the dynasty, also sustained the power of the actual
rulers. Between the twelfth and the nineteenth centuries, the emperors
sanctioned the authority of the military lords, while preserving the
façade of a civilian imperial government. The success of the Tokugawa
shoguns in unifying the country and maintaining a long peace was partly
due to their ability to control the throne in an effective way.
Despite their weakness, the Japanese emperors were the only ones
who could bestow legitimacy on the actual rulers and provide them
with coveted imperial titles. The emperors legitimized the status quo,
but they could also sanction change. In the second half of the first
millennium, the imperial court was the conduit through which Chinese
culture, including Buddhism, entered Japan, and in the nineteenth
century it was instrumental in espousing western civilization.
Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the fifteen-year old emperor,
Mutsuhito (known posthumously as the Meiji Emperor), bestowed
legitimacy on the new government and its sweeping reforms. But ‘Meiji
the Great,’ as he was often called, neither initiated nor controlled these
changes. To the outside world and to his own people he was the para-
mount symbol of the rising Japanese nation. He inaugurated factories,
issued a constitution, and established a parliament, but he also declared
wars, legitimized aggression, and authorized colonies. The imperial
institution hindered democracy by sanctioning the authoritarian state,
but it also provided the stability which was needed for modernization. As
all praise was due to the sacred monarch, there was no room in Japan
for a charismatic dictator, like the ‘great leaders’ who appeared in other
modernizing societies. Throughout modern history, leadership in Japan
remained collective. The emperor legitimized what the ruling group of
politicians, military men, senior bureaucrats and imperial advisers had
agreed upon in advance. He was rarely expected to choose between
conflicting recommendations or to formulate his own policies.
The postwar constitution, imposed by the allied occupation and
embraced by the Japanese public, demoted the emperor to the status
of a symbol of the state and of the unity of the people. Although
that had, in fact, been his role throughout history, it was the first time
introduction 3
that his powerlessness was explicitly admitted and decreed. Today, the
Japanese emperor has less authority than his predecessors, because for
the first time in history he has been deprived of his central role, which
was legitimization. No longer the sovereign, he signs official documents
in the same way as presidents in other countries do, but does not sanc-
tion anything anymore.
Nonetheless, conspicuous components of his previous position have
been retained. The same family continues to occupy the throne, the
same title tennō continues to be carried by the emperors, the emperor
performs the same Shinto rites as his predecessors, and the same man,
Hirohito, who had reigned before and during the war, remained on
the throne for nearly forty-four years after the war ended. Japan is the
only modern country in the world in which the monarchy survived
defeat and still exists today. It is also the only country today that has
an emperor, despite the fact that Japan is not an empire anymore.
Of the four emperors of modern Japan, two reigned for more than
four decades, providing symbolic continuity to their long eras. These
were the Meiji Emperor (Mutsuhito), who reigned from 1867 to 1912,
a period in which Japan was transformed into a strong and modern
state; and his grandson the Shōwa Emperor (Hirohito), who reigned
from 1926 to 1989, a period of a devastating war, a humiliating defeat,
a foreign occupation, a long peace, and an unprecedented prosperity.
Western attention has not been divided equally among the modern
emperors. Dozens of books and articles have been written about the
Shōwa Emperor, because of his involvement in the Second World
War, while much less has been written in western languages about the
Meiji Emperor, who was involved in two wars: against China (1894–5),
and against Russia (1904–5). The Taishō Emperor, who reigned from
1912 to 1926 and was involved in the First World War, and the pres-
ent emperor Akihito, who has been reigning since 1989 and was not
involved in any war, have earned even less attention.
This book presents a broad picture of the four modern emperors who
reigned during the 140 years between 1867 and 2007. They descended
in a direct line from father to son, but were different in character and
behavior from one another. The book examines part of the ways in
which they acted and reacted, the role of their wives, the ideologies
that were woven around them, their religious functions and interests,
the debate over war responsibility, the mixed feelings toward them on
the Left and the Right, and the problem of imperial succession. The
essays, by scholars from different countries, present new information
4 introduction
and new interpretations. Some of them are more informative, while

others are more analytical, but in their entirety they form a handbook
of the modern emperors of Japan. The book is intended for scholars,
students, and the general public interested in Japan, its history and the
peculiar institution of its monarchy.
The book is divided into two parts. The first part deals with general
themes related to the imperial institution in modern Japan. Imatani
Akira, in his opening essay, examines the history of the imperial family
and the reasons for its long survival. He reveals that besides the orthodox
tradition of an unchanging and unbroken dynasty, there existed, until
the fourteenth century a different tradition, which predicted that the
imperial line would come to an end with the 100th emperor. On the
basis of that esoteric prophesy, the third Ashikaga shogun, Yoshimitsu,
at the end of the fourteenth century, schemed to replace Emperor
Go-Komatsu, the 100th emperor by the traditional count, with his
own descendants. He upheld the Confucian doctrine, not accepted in
Japan, which justified the periodical transfer of the mandate of heaven
from one dynasty to another. Yoshimitsu failed in carrying out his plan,
because the sanctity of the imperial family was too strong to allow it.
As Imatani shows, from that time on the status of the emperors was
constantly rising, despite the internal wars. It was improved in the Edo
era, and reached its peak in the Meiji Restoration, when the emperor
was installed as the supreme national leader. Eighty years later, the
postwar constitution returned him to his premodern status.
Christopher Goto-Jones, in his essay on imperial philosophy, shows
how bushidō, originally a feudal value system emphasizing loyalty and
self-sacrifice, was transformed, after the Meiji Restoration, into a patri-
otic code of loyalty to the emperor and the nation. Associated with
kokutai, or national polity, bushidō was inculcated into the national psyche
through education and exhortation. It was presented both as an age-old,
uniquely Japanese ethic, reaching back to Emperor Jimmu, and as a
modern ideology fitting the needs of the new Japan. Goto-Jones shows
how two modern philosophers, Inoue Tetsujirō and Watsuji Tetsurō,
differed in their interpretation of bushidō as related to the nation and the
emperor. Both praised self-sacrifice, but Inoue, following the pragmatic
Confucian tradition, regarded it as an effective means of promoting
national interests. This was also the official interpretation of bushidō
before the Pacific War, as it was reflected in the Imperial Rescript on
Education of 1890 and the Kokutai no hongi of 1937. Watsuji, follow-
ing the romantic Buddhist tradition, as it appeared in the eighteenth-
introduction 5
century samurai guidebook Hagakure, offered a different interpretation.

According to him, self-immolation, as an expression of reverence for
the emperor and as a wish to achieve self-salvation, was a noble act
for its own sake regardless of its consequences.
Shimazono Susumu explores the topic of State Shinto, as it evolved
from the emperor-centered palace rites at the beginning of the Meiji
period into a complete religion by the time of the Pacific War. He
points out the dual nature of State Shinto. On the one hand it was
presented as a non-religion, a system of civic ceremonies, expressing
loyalty to the state and to the emperor. As such, it could be practiced
by members of any religion, including Christianity. On the other hand,
it developed a rich system of beliefs, symbols and rituals that turned it
into a full-fledged religion, which competed with other religions, such
as Buddhism and Christianity. Shimazono analyzes the concept of
kokutai, according to which Japan is a family nation with the emperor
at its head. This concept, which first appeared in the late Edo period,
became the central ideology in the Meiji era, when the political leaders
propagated State Shinto and emperor veneration in order to achieve
national integration.
Rosemarie Bernard examines the links between the emperors and
Ise Shrine, where the holy mirror, the first of the three regalia of
the imperial family, is emshrined. This holiest shrine has always been
remote from the imperial palace and from the centers of power, and
until modern times no emperor, with one possible exception in the
seventh century, visited it in person. The emperors figured at Ise not
by their presence, but by their absence, as the worship on their behalf
there was conducted by imperial envoys and designated priests. In the
Edo period, mass pilgrimages to Ise took place, but the carnivalesque
atmosphere of these pilgrimages came to an end with the Meiji Res-
toration, when Ise was placed at the top of a state-sponsored Shinto
hierarchy. Breaking with tradition, the Meiji Emperor visited Ise and
worshipped there, and his successors followed him. In the early Shōwa
period, the imperial visits were accompanied by military spectacles.
Hirohito went to Ise in 1941 to report the attack on Pearl Harbor,
and in 1945 to report the defeat. After the war, State Shinto was dis-
banded and the link between state and religion was severed, but the
emperors continued to visit Ise Shrine and pray there in their private
capacity. Today, in a world no longer centered on the emperor or on
agricultural rites, Ise still attracts multitudes, as an icon of nostalgia
for a pre-modern Japanese culture.
6 introduction
Rikki Kersten examines the attitudes of Japanese Marxists toward the

imperial institution between the two world wars. The orthodox Marxist-
Leninist ideoplogy, formulated by Moscow, regarded the overthrow
of the monarchy as an essential precursor to the advent of a social
revolution. But Japanese Marxists were divided over the significance
of the emperor in this revolutionary scenario. The Kōza theorists, who
followed the line of the Japan Communist Party, argued that the Meiji
Restoration had been an incomplete revolution, which established an
absolutist Emperor System based on feudal elements. For them, the
emperor was a central ‘feudal remnant’ that had to be eliminated
before the bourgeois-democratic revolution could be carried out. The
Rōnō theorists, on the other hand, straying from the official line of the
Communist Party, maintained that the Meiji Restoration had already
established a bourgeois state, and therefore the next stage should be
a socialist revolution. For them, the emperor was an insignificant ele-
ment of the capitalist state, which could be tolerated for a while. As
a result, the police initially treated the Rōnō Marxists more leniently
than the Kōza Marxists. Kersten suggests that by marginalizing the
emperor and stressing the political and economic dynamics of modern
Japan, the Rōnō group devised a plausible theoretical opposition to the
Emperor System.
My essay, on right-wing disenchantment with the modern emperors,
looks at the phenomenon of Japanese nationalists venerating the throne,
but being critical of the man who occupies it. Such a situation already
developed in the mid-nineteenth century, when Emperor Kōmei was
resented by the patriotic samurai who wished to restore him to power.
According to one theory, which has not been refuted, he was assassinated
by the loyalists who later became the Meiji leaders. Kōmei’s son, the
Meiji Emperor, presided over a successful and victorious Japan, and
therefore was not criticized by the nationalists. The Taishō Emperor
was too close to his father and too sick to be censured. But the Shōwa
Emperor, during whose reign Japan suffered internal strife, international
humiliation, and a disastrous defeat, attracted right-wing dissatsfaction.
Until 1945, the dissatsfaction was covert, but after the war it became
overt, with open calls for Hirohito’s resignation. The writer Mishima
Yukio admired the imperial institution, but accused Hirohito of betray-
ing the 1936 rebels and the kamikaze pilots. After Hirohito’s death, right-
wing disenchantment extended to Emperor Akihito and Crown Prince
Naruhito. As a result, for the first time in modern history, nationalist
introduction 7
thinkers started to question the centrality of the imperial institution

and to suggest a ‘normal’ nationalism without the emperor.
In my second essay, on emperors and Christianity, I look at the
intricate relations between the modern emperors of Japan, ostensibly
the high priests of Shinto, and Christianity, the foreign religion of the
west. Far from being antagonistic, both sides have shown interest in
each other. Emperor Meiji and his government were friendly toward
the missionaries and were praised by them for that. In the first half
of the twentieth century, Japanese Christians embraced nationalism,
joined the emperor cult and worshipped Shinto deities. Consequently,
some of them attained senior positions in government, education, and
the imperial palace. During the allied occupation, General McArthur
wished to convert the imperial family to Christianity, on the belief
that only Christianity could prevent the spread of communism or the
return of militarism. For a while his scheme seemed to work. Hirohito
invited lecturers on Christianity to the palace, his wife and daughters
took regular Bible lessons, and his brother suggested that the emperor
should combine Christianity and Shinto, in the same way that his pre-
decessors had combined Buddhism and Shinto. Ultimately, MacArthur’s
efforts failed. Despite a continuing interest in Christianity, the imperial
family did not convert, and the Japanese people adopted democracy
and pacifism without becoming Christian.
Julia Adeney Thomas, in her essay on the imperial gaze, examines
photographs to find out how the emperors looked at the people and
how the people looked at them. The Meiji Emperor hated posing in
front of a camera and only a few photographs were taken of him. The
Taishō Emperor, himself an amateur photographer, was photographed
on many occasions. The Shōwa Emperor and Emperor Akihito were
frequently photographed. What do their photographs tell us about the
relationship between them and the people? Thomas shows that before
1945 the imperial gaze was majestic, unidirectional and paternal. The
emperor, from his sublime stand, looked down on the bowing people,
who were not allowed to stare at him when his coach passed in the
street. After the war, the gaze remained unidirectional, but the direc-
tion reversed. Now the people gaze at the emperor, out of curiosity,
while he is hardly conscious of them. Only on rare occasions was the
gaze reciprocal. Thomas describes two such cases: one in 1947, when
a photo magazine reproduced a hitherto unknown picture of Crown
Prince Hirohito in 1922; and another one in 1951, when a camera
8 introduction
magazine presented Crown Prince Akihito’s photograph on its cover.

She concludes that it was easier for emperors to exchange glances with
the public when they were still crown princes, and it became more dif-
ficult for them to do so after they had ascended the throne.
The second part of the book focuses on individual emperors. Hara
Takeshi portrays the Meiji Emperor as a shy and taciturn man, who
seldom smiled and who spoke very little even to his closest friends and
relatives. The emperor expressed his emotions through the means of
the thirty-one-syllable waka poems, which he composed on a daily, and
sometimes hourly, basis. The emperor’s advisers differed over his role
in the modern state. The Confucianists, led by Motoda Nagazane,
wanted him to be an authoritarian and benevolent father figure, on
the model of the ancient Chinese emperors. The modernists, led by
Iwakura Tomomi and Itō Hirobumi, wanted him to be a constitu-
tional monarch on the model of the European kings of that time.
The issue was decided not by the emperor, but by the outcome of the
political contest within the ruling elite, in which the modernists won.
Nevertheless, the Confucian influence remained in several areas, such
as education. Although the imperial palace played an important role
in the establishment of State Shinto as the national ideology, Hara
reveals that the Meiji Emperor himself showed little interest in Shinto
and often avoided the palace rites.
In his essay on the Taishō Emperor, Hara describes him as an intel-
ligent and friendly crown prince, more outgoing and warm than his
aloof father. Hara dismisses the widely held notion that Taishō was
mentally deranged. He points out that Taishō’s intellectual sophistica-
tion and artistic talents were evident in his elegant calligraphy and the
fine Chinese poetry which he composed. The Taishō Emperor, like
his father, disliked the Shinto rites and often avoided them. His major
problem was his deteriorating health, the result of a childhood disease
which ultimately affected his brain. Hara emphasizes the important role
that Taishō’s wife, Empress Sadako, played in the palace. After genera-
tions of childless imperial consorts, she bore him four robust sons, a
fact which enabled her to put an end to the time-honored institution
of imperial concubines. Because of her husband’s poor health and
her own strong personality, Sadako became the dominant figure in the
palace maintaining close ties with politicians. After Taishō’s death, she
continued to exert influence on her son Hirohito. Unlike her husband,
she was deeply religious, first as a devout Nichiren Buddhist, and later
as a devout Shintoist. She showed also interest in Christianity.
introduction 9
Sally A. Hastings, in her essay on Hirohito’s wife Empress Nagako,

examines the place of the emperor’s family in the prewar and wartime
drive to bolster patriotism. She shows how the visual presentation of the
empress and her children bolstered the myth of an organic family state.
Hastings points out that Japanese nationalism in the 1930s and 1940s
was based not only on the abstract, male-oriented, kokutai, but also on
the specific, female-oriented, immediate family of the emperor. The
Japanese were interested in the human aspects of the imperial family
no less than in its religious and national ones. They prayed for imperial
births, celebrated them, and watched the royal children grow. Through
his wife and children, the emperor appeared less remote than is usually
assumed. The government encouraged public interest in the imperial
family, by disclosing its human, mortal and reproductive aspects. The
rituals surrounding the births of the emperor’s children and other fam-
ily events bound the nation around the throne. Like similar events in
other countries, these festive occasions, independent of the theory of
the unbroken imperial line, constituted an important and less known
form of Japanese nationalism.
Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi analyzes the debate over Hirohito’s war
responsibility that has been going on since the end of the Second World
War. He notes that while in Germany the issue was war crimes, in Japan
it was war guilt. Wakabayashi presents the arguments of both sides of
the debate with equal conviction. The accusers (‘Indictors’) of Hirohito,
representing anti-establishment circles, base their case on the emperor’s
wide legal powers as commander-in-chief and on his sacred position
which made his orders absolute. They argue that in the same way that
Hirohito managed to block reckless moves of the military before the
war, he could and should have used his prerogatives to prevent the war,
or at least to shorten it. Their conclusion is that Hirohito was more
concerned about protecting kokutai and the regalia than about the lives
of his people. The defenders (‘Absolvers’), representing establishment
circles, argue that Hirohito was a constitutional monarch who acted
within strict legal limits, which did not allow him to reverse the deci-
sions of the military and the cabinet. They point out that, thanks to
him, there was no communist revolution in Japan after the war. While
the accusers blame the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal for not indicting
the emperor, the defenders question the very legality of that tribunal.
Wakabayashi shows that both accusers and defenders harbored political
agendas. The accusers wished to use Hirohito’s war guilt to abolish the
imperial institution altogether, while the defenders wanted to use his
10 introduction
innocence to restore the emperor’s position as head of state. Both sides

failed to achieve their covert goals. The postwar constitution preserved
the emperor, but demoted him to the status of a symbol.
Sigal Ben-Rafael Galanti examines the parliamentary debates in 1946
over the emperor’s constitutional status. She shows that on the issue of
the emperor, the position of the politicians within the Diet was more
moderate than the pronouncements of their parties outside the Diet.
In the parliamentary debates and votings on the new constitution, the
Diet members showed a remarkable degree of consensus. Although
belonging to opposing parties and groups, almost all of them agreed to
retain the imperial institution, to keep Hirohito on the throne, and to
change his status to that of a symbol. The conservatives and nationalists
were satisfied that the monarchy had been preserved and that Hirohito
was left intact. They could claim that under the new constitution, the
emperor shared sovereignty with the people, by being one of them,
and therefore kokutai had been preserved. The socialists and commu-
nists were glad that the emperor had been stripped of all sovereignty
and divinity and that, by becoming a mere symbol, he was not even
the head of state. Ben-Rafael Galanti maintains that this was a rare
moment in Japanese political history, when almost all Diet members
endorsed the reform out of a shared sense of responsibility.
Takahashi Hiroshi approaches the subject of dynastic succession from
the standpoint of an observer who has been writing on the imperial
family for many years, as well as from the standpoint of an expert who
has been involved in suggesting new succession rules. He describes the
perennial difficulty of ensuring the continuity of the imperial family, and
shows how on several occasions in the past that family barely avoided
extinction. Takahashi claims that the birth of Prince Hisahito in 2006
did not solve the problem, because the continuity of the dynasty still
depends on the health of this prince and on his future capacity to pro-
duce a male heir. He opposes the idea of reviving the collateral princely
houses, which had been set up to produce imperial heirs when the main
line failed to do so. He argues that these houses, which were abolished
after the war, are too remote from the main line, have been embroiled
in scandals, were associated with militarism, and have been commoners
for too long to be reinstated into the imperial family. Takahashi supports
the recommendation of the advisory council to abolish the exclusive
male line and to base imperial succession on primogeniture, regardless
of gender. This would allow women to ascend the throne, to marry
commoners, and to have the children of these marriages succeed them.
introduction 11
He argues that the tradition of the male line is not immutable and can
be changed, in the same way that other traditions were changed in
the past. According to Takahashi, the quality which has sustained the
imperial dynasty throughout the ages was not its rigidity, but rather its
flexibility and adaptability to changing circumstances.
Some of the essays in this book were presented as papers at a confer-
ence organized by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the spring
of 2007 on the occasion of my retirement. This conference enabled
scholars from various countries to discuss the topic of the Japanese
emperors, as well as other subjects of Japanese history. I thank the
Hebrew University and its Japan Culture Fund for providing this
opportunity, and the Japan Foundation for supporting it. I am grateful
to Albert Hoffstaedt, senior acquisition editor of Brill, for suggesting
the topic; to Lucy North for translating four essays from Japanese;
to Estherlee Kanon for editing the volume; and to my wife Lena for
inspiring and assisting me all along the way.
Ben-Ami Shillony
Jerusalem, 2008
PART ONE
GENERAL THEMES
THE STRANGE SURVIVAL AND ITS
MODERN SIGNIFICANCE
Imatani Akira
When Did the Present Dynasty Start?
Most scholars agree that the traditional account, according to which

the imperial dynasty was founded in 660 BC by Emperor Jimmu, is a
myth, and that the first nine emperors on the official list are legendary
figures. Even so, the imperial family of Japan is the longest reigning
dynasty in the world, as it has been on the throne for either 1,500 or
1,700 years. The reason for the two different figures is that we are
uncertain whether the lineage broke in the early sixth century between
Emperor Buretsu and Emperor Keitai. If, as some scholars claim,1
Keitai started a new line in the sixth century, then the present dynasty
is about 1,500 years old; on the other hand, if there was a genealogi-
cal link between Buretsu and Keitai, then the dynasty started about
1,700 years ago in the fourth century. In the latter case, its founder
was probably Mimaki Iri Biko, known as Emperor Sujin, whose title
Hatsukuni Shirasu Sumera Mikoto (‘The Emperor who First Ruled
the Land’) suggests this.
Archaeological research into the kofun, the burial mounds of the fourth
to the seventh centuries, has made great advances in recent years. It
is now the prevailing view that the Hashihaka burial mound in Nara
Prefecture may be the tomb of the person referred to as Himiko in the
Wei zhi woren zhuan, or the ‘Account of the People of Wa,’ in the Annals
of the Kingdom of Wei. Some historians believe that the second son
of Queen Toyo, who is mentioned in the Annals of the Kingdom of
Wei, is Emperor Sujin, and that the Nishitonozuka burial mound is his
tomb.2 Sujin’s reign was followed by the reigns of the ‘Five Kings of
Wa,’ who are reported in the Annals of the Liu-Song Dynasty to have
1
Mizutani Chiaki, Nazo no ōkimi: keitai tennō (Tokyo: Bunshun Shinsho, 2001).
2
Wada Shigeru, Yamato ōken no seiritsu (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 2003).
16 imatani akira
sent envoys to China. By the time of Emperor Yūryaku (King Bu of

the Annals) in the mid-fifth century, there was a more or less consoli-
dated domain reaching from Kyushu to Kanto. Iron swords bearing
the inscription Waka-Takeru Ōkimi (‘Great Ruler Waka-Takeru,’ pos-
sibly Emperor Yūryaku, whose given name was Ō Hatsuse Waka-take
no Mikoto) have been unearthed from both the Etafunayama burial
mound in Kumamoto Prefecture and the Inariyama burial mound in
Saitama Prefecture. However, four reigns after Yūryaku, the imperial
line probably petered out, since Emperor Buretsu had killed every single
other potential candidate to the throne. In this case, Sujin’s dynasty
ended with Emperor Buretsu’s death in 507, and the present dynasty
started with his successor Ō-odo Ōkimi, later known as Emperor Keitai
(r. 507–531). Keitai seems to have hailed from the Okinaga clan in Ōmi
(present day Shiga Prefecture) and he was chosen as ōkimi, or great ruler,
by powerful families in the Kinai region (around present-day Kyoto).3
The imperial dynasty of Japan has not changed since then, and acces-
sion to the throne has been by genealogically related descendents.
In the sixth and seventh centuries, the Soga clan, who provided
consorts to the emperors, dominated the throne. However, the Soga
were destroyed in 645 by Prince Naka no Ōe (later Emperor Tenji,
r. 661–672), who restored the power of the throne for about a century.
The Jinshin Disturbance of 672, over a succession dispute, ended in
the victory of Emperor Temmu. During the reigns of Temmu and his
wife and successor Empress Jitō in the seventh century, imperial power
was consolidated. This is evidenced by the Manyōshū poem, praising
Empress Jitō:
Our Lord
A very god
Builds her lodge
Above the thunder
By the heavenly clouds.4
Since Temmu won his victory without the assistance of the powerful
clans, he did not award them ministerial posts, instituting instead what
may be called an imperial-family government. The line of Emperor
3
Nihongi (tr. W.G. Aston. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1972), II, pp. 1–3.
4
Gary L. Ebersole, Ritual Poetry and the Politics of Death in Early Japan (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 43.
the strange survival and its modern significance 17
Temmu continued until Empress Kōken in the eighth century. How-

ever, after her abdication and the accession of Emperor Kōnin, the
grandson of Emperor Tenji in 758, the throne returned to the Tenji
line. Emperor Kōnin’s son Kammu (r. 781–806) was born to a Korean
mother and during his reign the foreign Confucian model of a strong
monarchy was adopted, together with Korean court ceremonies.5
However, the large-scale projects, in which Kammu engaged, such as
the wars against barbarian tribes in the north and several attempts at
building capital cities, exhausted the coffers of the early Heian state.
This led to the rise of the northern branch (‘Hokke’) of the Fujiwara
clan, who came to exert control over the emperors through matrimonial
ties with the imperial family. The enthronement of the eight-year-old
Emperor Seiwa in 858, and the appointment of his maternal grand-
father Fujiwara no Yoshifusa as his regent, was a turning point in the
history of the imperial institution, because thereafter the throne could
be occupied by minors. As a result, members of the northern branch
of the Fujiwara clan, acting as sesshō (regent to a child emperor) and
kampaku (regent to an adult emperor), held the reins of power, while
the emperors became ceremonial figures.6 This was the beginning of
the ‘symbol emperor’ system of Japan. In 810 ex-emperor Heizei,
supported by his Fujiwara wife Kusuko, tried to regain the throne by
force (the Kusuko Disturbance), but failed and entered a monastery.
Since that time, members of the imperial family who rebelled against
the government and failed were allowed to take holy orders.
The Warriors Rule, But Do Not Reign
In the middle of the eleventh century, with the rise of the bushi (war-
rior) and sōhei (armed monk) classes, the situation started to change.
As the existing political system, based on the ritsuryō code, became
ineffective, the necessity arose for a more powerful kind of kingship. In
1086, ex-emperor Shirakawa instituted the system of insei (‘Cloistered
Government’), by which the retired emperor wielded power. Whereas
in the Fujiwara regent system the head of the maternal family of the
emperor ran the state, in the insei system the head of the paternal family
5
Imatani Akira, “Chūsei no tennō,” GYROS, vol. 4, 2004.
6
Yoshida Takashi, Kodai kokka no ayumi (Tokyo: Shōgakkan Library, 1992).
18 imatani akira
of the emperor wielded power. One can regard this development toward
retired emperors regaining control over civilian and military affairs as
a kind of imperial restoration. However, the retired emperors only
held power for a brief period. In the Hōgen Disturbance of 1156 and
the Heiji Disturbance of 1159, the warriors made great advances and
became the ruling elite. The process culminated in the dictatorship of
Taira no Kiyomori in the middle of the twelfth century and, later in
the same century, in the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate by
Minamoto no Yoritomo.
Taira no Kiyomori had sufficient power to put the retired emperor
Go-Shirakawa under house arrest, but he never tried to assume the
throne for himself and was satisfied with the rank of dajō daijin (Grand
Minister of State). Minamoto no Yoritomo, in addition to being a sei-i
tai shōgun (Barbarian Subduing Generalissimo), was content with the
imperial title u-taishō (Commander of the Right), a mere official of the
emperor. We see a somewhat similar example in the barbarian kings
of Italy, Odoacer and Theodoric, in the sixth century, who, despite
being German kings, contented themselves with the title ‘patricius,’ or
imperial magistrate, in their dealings with the Romans. The military
leaders who succeeded Yoritomo showed an attitude similar to his. In
1221, when the retired emperor Go-Toba attacked the shogunate, in
what was known as the Jōkyū Disturbance, the warrior commander
Hōjō Yoshitoki sent him and two other retired emperors into exile.
Thereafter, the emperors were mere puppets, but none of the Hōjō
rulers tried to grasp the imperial title and they remained satisfied with
the relatively lowly title of shikken, or shogunal regent.
Why did strong military men, like Kiyomori, Yoritomo, and the Hōjō
regents, not attempt to overthrow the emperor? Why were they content
with the subordinate positions of daijin, shōgun, and shikken? One reason
must have been the traditional belief that the emperors were direct
descendents of the sun goddess Amaterasu Ōmikami. At the end of
the Nara period, the Buddhist priest Dōkyō, who had won the favor
of Empress Shōtoku, tried to gain imperial status on the grounds that
the god Usa Hachiman had ordered him to do so. However, Dōkyō
was unable to claim imperial lineage, and therefore had to give up his
ambitions for the throne. The Fujiwara clan, the proverbial ‘power
behind the throne’ in the Heian period, claimed to be descendants of
the deity Ame-no-koyane no mikoto, but this deity belonged to a differ-
ent line of gods from that of Amaterasu, and therefore Fujiwara made
no attempt to seize the throne. From the ninth century onwards, there
were regular lectures at the court on the Nihon shoki that emphasized
the importance of lineage to the court nobles.
Yoshimitsu and the Theory of the Hundred Emperors
The civil wars of the Namboku-chō (Northern and Southern Courts)

period (1336–1392) strengthened the warrior families and caused an
additional decline in the status of the emperors and the court nobility.
The man who took advantage of this situation was the third Ashikaga
shogun, Yoshimitsu. Inspired by the theory of the Chinese philosopher
Mencius about the transfer of the mandate of heaven, he tried to assume
the position of emperor. In 1394, Yoshimitsu acquired the title dajō
daijin, or Grand Minister of State, as Kiyomori had done before him.
A year later, he relinquished the title of shōgun to his son Yoshimochi,
and took holy orders to become a monk. Although he detached himself
from the ritsuryō system of official ranks and positions, he continued to
wield great power, instituting what was in effect a new insei, or ‘cloistered
government,’ this time by a retired shogun. In 1401 Yoshimitsu accepted
the title of Nihon koku-ō, or ‘King of Japan,’ from the Chinese Emperor
Jian Wen and entered into tributary relations with Ming China. His
intention was to acquire the throne using the prestige of the emperor
of China. In 1392 he put an end to the dynastic schism, by making the
Northern Court emperor Go-Komatsu the sole emperor of Japan. His
plan was to have his second son Yoshitsugu succeed Go-Komatsu, but
he died in 1408, before he could realize this plan.7 After Yoshimitsu’s
failure to usurp the throne, no such attempt was made by any one of
the military leaders of Japan. Moreover, from that point on the impe-
rial institution started to recover its fortunes.
There was, however, also a contrary tradition. From the middle of
the Heian period, a secret theory, known as hyakuō-setsu (Theory of a
Hundred Kings), circulated among the people. According to this theory,
after the reign of one hundred emperors, the dynasty would come to an
end and be replaced by a new dynasty. During the Kamakura period,
the Hundred Kings theory, together with the Buddhist concept of mappō
7
Akira Imatani and Kōzō Yamamura, “Not for Lack of Will or Wile; Yoshimitsu’s
Failure to Supplant the Imperial Lineage,” Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 18, No. 1
(Winter 1992), pp. 45–78. See also Imatani Akira, Muromachi no ōken (Tokyo: Chūkō
Shinsho, 1990).
20 imatani akira
(‘Latter Day’), spread in Japan and contributed to the malaise of the

time. The historian Jien (1155–1225) and the Buddhist priest Nichiren
(1222–1282) both allude to this theory in their sermons and texts. The
myth of the divine imperial lineage propounded by the court and the
nobility was thus challenged by the Hundred Kings theory as well as
by the social unrest of the time. Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, in his attempt to
seize the throne, relied on the mandate-transfer theory of Mencius as
well as on the Hundred Kings theory. Go-Komatsu was, according to
the official count, the hundredth emperor, and according to that theory
should have been the last monarch in the dynasty.
The Slow Rise of Imperial Prestige
The sengoku (Warring States) period (1467–1568) witnessed a slow rise

in the prestige of the emperor. The daimyō, or local lords, who were
the effective power holders of that time, placed a higher value on court
ranks bestowed by the emperor than on feudal appointments to the
position of shugo (provincial constables) issued by the shogun. While
shoguns sometimes fled the capital, the emperor never set foot out of
Kyoto. In this way, the emperor became a symbol of the unity of the
state. Some daimyō provided the money needed for the imperial acces-
sion ceremonies or for the repair of the palace buildings. The warriors’
respect for the emperor was reflected in the attitudes of the three great
unifiers of Japan in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
Oda Nobunaga did not get on well with Emperor Ōgimachi, but his
wish was to become the emperor’s shogun. Toyotomi Hideyoshi did
not want to become shogun, but assumed instead the court titles of
kampaku and later taikō, or regent and supreme officer of the emperor.
After his victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, Tokugawa Ieyasu became
shogun and, like the Ashikaga, set up a bakufu, or ‘tent government’.
After decimating the Toyotomi clan in 1615, he set out to consolidate
power to a degree never seen before. However, he never tried to call
himself koku-ō, or king. Later, Tokugawa shoguns used the title Nihon
koku taikun, Great Lord of Japan, but even so the imperial family con-
tinued to survive and only the emperor could appoint the head of the
Tokugawa clan as shogun. Why did the Tokugawa shoguns not attempt
to become emperors themselves? Horigome Yōzō, a Japanese scholar
of European history, claims that Japanese society from the Kamakura
to the Edo period remained feudal, and this was the reason it did not
develop an autocratic government but retained the old ritsuryō system,

in which the emperor was the axis.8 This explanation is questionable,
however, because the Tokugawa state was not exactly feudal and it
possessed many of the elements of an autocratic state.
From Sovereign to Symbol
The Meiji Restoration was Japan’s reaction to the encroachment of

western powers. The Japanese, having seen the Qing Empire of China
humiliated in the Opium Wars, decided to build a strong nation-state
around the throne. However, after more than a thousand years in
which the emperor had been nothing but a ceremonial figure, it was
difficult to turn back the clock and to revive direct imperial rule. It was
also highly problematic to have the emperor serve as commander of
the armed forces after 700 years in which the emperors had entrusted
military affairs to the warriors. The postwar constitution instituted the
‘symbol emperor’ system, but this was not, as some people think, a
humiliating alien concept imposed on Japan by the allied occupation.
Considering the 1,500-year history of the imperial family, after the
Second World War the role of the emperor simply reverted to what it
had been before the Meiji Restoration. The Shōwa Emperor spent the
first part of his reign as a monarch who (according to Article 4 of the
Meiji Constitution) ‘is the head of the Empire, combining in Himself
the rights of sovereignty.’ Therefore, it might have presented consid-
erable difficulties for him to play the role of a symbol, or ceremonial
figure. In fact, however, he performed his new duties with relative ease.
Since then, the ‘symbol emperor’ system has gained a firm hold in
Japan, and surveys of public opinion indicate that nearly 90 percent
of the people support it.
Many Japanese intellectuals, scholars and historians consider the
imperial system to be an anachronism, an institution bequeathed by
the feudal past. They predict that it will not be long before Japan
makes the transition to a republic. I wonder whether they are right.
Voter turnout in the national elections in recent years in Japan barely
breaks 50 percent, but every year nearly everyone participates in the
hatsu-mōde, or pilgrimages to shrines at New Year. Although it is still not
8
Horigome Tsunezō, “Hōkensei saihyōka e no shiron,” Tembō, No. 85 (1969).
22 imatani akira
clear whether democracy has truly taken a firm hold in postwar Japan,
an overwhelming proportion of the population, as seen in the opinion
polls and the hatsu-mōde, support the institution of the emperor. Unless
the situation changes drastically, this institution is likely to continue.
Somebody once predicted that the only kings that would remain in
the modern world would be the four kings in a pack of cards and the
King of England. Indeed, the people who drafted the 1947 constitution
believed that they were modeling it on the constitutional monarchy of
Great Britain. However, the prospects for the Japanese emperors may
be even better than those of the British kings and queens. After all,
the English monarchy was once disrupted by the Puritan revolution,
while no such break occurred in Japan. The present system, in which
the emperor is a symbol of the state and the unity of the people, has
existed for many centuries, withstood several considerable crises, and
stands every chance of surviving well into the future.
(Translated by Lucy North)

THE WAY OF REVERING THE EMPEROR:
IMPERIAL PHILOSOPHY AND BUSHIDŌ IN
MODERN JAPAN
Christopher Goto-Jones
Bushidō can be seen as expressing the most remarkable feature of our

national morality . . . To embrace life and death as one, to fulfill the Way
of Loyalty [to the Emperor], that is our bushidō.1
Introduction
In many aspects, the tumultuous wartime years of the 1930s and 1940s
represented the breaking of various waves of intellectual and political
culture that had been stirred up by the arrival of Commodore Perry
and the Meiji Restoration in the second half of the nineteenth century.
For many Japanese thinkers during this period, the massive influx of
‘Western’ philosophy and culture, accompanied by the menacing pres-
ence of potentially overwhelming military forces, challenged the very
existence of Japan and its so-called ‘Japanese spirit.’ However, whilst
the integrity of a territorial and legal ‘Japan’ was relatively simple to
define, and hence to defend, the parameters and meaning of the entity
called the ‘Japanese spirit’ proved to be much more elusive. Hence,
the problem of how to defend the Japanese spirit actually began with
the more fundamental problem of what this Nihon seishin ( Japan spirit)
might be.2
A diverse constellation of features and forces were marshaled in
the ensuing debates and battles about the dimensions of the so-called
essence of Japan. The various fields of contestation included military
affairs and national defense, political reform and constitutional gov-
ernance, economic reform and distribution of wealth, social reforms
and welfare, educational reforms, national identity and spiritual health.
1
Itō Enkichi, Kokutai no hongi (Tokyo: Mombushō, 1937), pp. 110–111.
2
For some critics on the left, it was precisely this concern for establishing a meaning-
ful conception of the Japanese spirit that led inexorably to Japanese ultranationalism.
See, for example, Tosaka Jun, Nihon ideorogi-ron, 1935, reprinted in volume II of the
Tosaka Jun zenshū, 6 vols. (Tokyo: Keisō Shobō, 1966–79, hereafter TJZ).
24 christopher goto-jones
Given a context in which every aspect of society was vulnerable to

challenge and change, one of the key problems for the various would-
be reformers was the ability to define a constant, or series of constants,
to which the idea of ‘Japaneseness’ could be tied, lest the very idea of
‘being Japanese’ simply collapse under wholesale reform. What was
needed, it seemed, was a beacon of stability amidst the roiling tides
of change.3
The first such beacon to appear in the intellectual and political land-
scape was the figure of the emperor, who was quickly recovered as not
only a symbol of national unity but also as the rightful sovereign of the
nation. Indeed, in various contexts, the emperor became coterminous
with the concept of kokutai (national polity) itself.4 In the years between
the demise of the Tokugawa shogunate (1867) and the inauguration of
the Constitution of the Great Empire of Japan—the so-called Meiji
Constitution (1890)5—intellectuals debated various legal and political
strategies to achieve kummin dōchi (the unity of the monarchy and the
people) in order to accomplish a recognizably ‘Japanese’ and successfully
modern state. In other words, the figure of the emperor (even if not the
person of Mutsuhito himself) appeared to be the key to harmonizing
the dynamically shifting and frequently conflicting interests of Japanese
society. In the words of Kevin Doak, the emperor “quickly became
a testing ground for whether the new government could construct a
sense of public that would serve the interests of political stability and
the privileged positions of those already in power.”6
However, even if some level of agreement could be reached on
at least the theoretical centrality of the figure of the emperor in the
emerging, modern Japanese polity, this was only half of the problem. A
parallel discourse was concerned with the significance of the emperor
to the conduct and morality of the Japanese people themselves. In
other words: what implications should the existence of the emperor
have for the everyday behavior of the people; what should be the
3
The origins of this culturally-defensive quest for the parameters of ‘Japaneseness’
can be seen in what Harry Harootunian has called the ‘nativist’ (kokugaku) discourse in
Tokugawa Japan. See Harry Harootunian, Things Seen and Unseen: Discourse and Ideology
in Tokugawa Japan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
4
This argument is persuasively made by Kevin Doak, A History of Nationalism in Modern
Japan: Placing the People (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007), see especially chapter 3.
5
The constitution was promulgated on 11 February 1889, but did not come into
effect until 29 November 1890.
6
Kevin Doak, A History of Nationalism in Modern Japan, p. 89.
revering the emperor: imperial philosophy and BUSHIDŌ 25
Way of Revering the Emperor in modern Japan? It is this question

that brings the contested ethical tradition of bushidō (the way of the
samurai) into focus.
One of the difficulties in talking about bushidō, at least outside Japan,
is provoked by the relative dearth of scholarly literature that attempts
to tackle the subject.7 In the English language literature, we are accus-
tomed to being told that bushidō is an invented tradition of the modern
period that either bears little relation to the actual conduct of histori-
cal samurai8 or, even worse, that it was one of the militaristic codes
of conduct that facilitated some of the atrocities perpetrated by the
Japanese imperial army during the Pacific War.9 Part of the problem
appears to be the assumed centrality of Nitobe Inazō’s 1899 book,
Bushido: The Soul of Japan, which was originally written in English and,
for a long time, was the only source of insight into bushidō available to
Western commentators who were unable to read Japanese.10 Indeed,
even though Hurst takes care to explain that Nitobe knew very little
about Japanese history and ethics and hence that his ideas about bushidō
were unreliable, he does go so far as to suggest that Nitobe’s book
and the conception of bushidō that emerges from it lay the conceptual
7
In recent years, the Japanese have been treated to a boom in interest in bushidō,
and there have been a series of monographs published, albeit of varying academic
interest.
8
Important articles in this tradition are Cameron Hurst III, “Death, Honor, and
Loyalty: The Bushidō Ideal”, in Philosophy East & West, 40:4 (1990), pp. 511–527; Karl
Friday, “Bushidō or Bull? A Medieval Historian’s Perspective on the Imperial Army and
the Japanese Warrior Tradition”, in The History Teacher, 27:3 (1994), pp. 339–349. Both
Hurst and Friday point out that Nitobe Inazō thought he was coining the term ‘bushidō’
in 1899; and both cite Basil Hall Chamberlain’s famous, contemporaneous charge that
bushidō was an example of the ‘invention of a religion.’ Friday, in particular, takes great
pains to point out that the ideals of bushidō are not reflected by the conduct of samurai
in the historical record. However, the fact that warriors did not perform according
to these ideals does not in itself invalidate the existence of ideals themselves. Norms
are not transparent in this way, and hence the intellectual history of bushidō need not
be identical to a history of the deeds of the samurai. For a sustained account along
these lines, see Chris Goto-Jones, Warrior Ethics in Japan: Bushidō as Intellectual History
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
9
Famous statements along these lines come from Lord Russell of Liverpool, The
Knights of Bushido: A Shocking History of Japanese War Atrocities (New York: EP Dutton,
1958); Yuki Tanaka, Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II (Oxford: West-
view Press, 1996).
10
Inazo Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan (Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 1969). Thank-
fully, there are now many other ‘primary sources’ concerned with bushidō available
in European translations, although many of them have not been produced with an
academic audience in mind, but rather with a view toward a popular and business
oriented market.
foundations for bushidō in the twentieth century, arguing that “Nitobe’s

bushido was ultimately linked by the ultranationalists to the movement
for ‘national purity’ (kokusui shugi).”11 However, whilst the importance of
Nitobe in bringing the word ‘bushidō’ into common parlance, both in
Japan and in the world outside, is beyond question, it seems relatively
clear that Nitobe was almost entirely peripheral to the intellectual and
philosophical project of codifying its meaning and central problemat-
ics in early twentieth century Japan. Indeed, the real philosophers of
bushidō, such as Inoue Tetsujirō, criticized Nitobe severely for his lack of
scholarship and systematic thought, accusing him of failing to provide
any constitutional or textual basis for his assertions about ‘the soul of
Japan,’ and hence of intellectually emasculating this ethical tradition.12
Far from being rooted in Nitobe’s work, Inoue’s genealogy of bushidō
makes no reference to his work at all. Nitobe, it seems, is a straw man
from the perspective of intellectual history. In fact, as we shall see,
bushidō in modern Japan represents a field of discourse concerned
with the ideal type of ethical behavior for the Japanese subjects; it is
characterized by a series of sophisticated debates about the meaning
of and obligations entailed by loyalty and filial piety, and about the
priority of practice versus metaphysical realization.
This essay represents an attempt to elaborate some of the ways in
which bushidō became assimilated into the wider intellectual discourse
of the so-called imperial philosophy, especially in the 1930s and 1940s.
In particular, I am interested in exploring the ways in which currents
of thought about the symbolic and political function of the emperor
in the modern state intermingled with the process of (re)inventing the
quasi-feudal ethical standpoints of bushidō into their ostensibly modern
forms. The key thinkers within this veritable philosophical whirlpool
11
Cameron Hurst III, “Death, Honor, and Loyalty”, p. 512.
12
Hurst (p. 512) suggests that only Basil Hall Chamberlain had ‘courage enough
to challenge [Nitobe] at the time’ and implies that Inoue’s projects were in line with
Nitobe’s ideas. In fact, Chamberlain’s critique was limited to identifying bushidō as an
invented tradition, whereas Inoue refuted Nitobe’s vision of the meaning of the term
as vacuous and actually damaging, criticizing him severely for his assertions that: ‘it
is not a written code; at best it consists of a few maxims handed down from mouth
to mouth’ (Nitobe, Bushido, p. 5). In particular, Inoue claimed that Nitobe ignored the
historical record and especially the importance of Yamaga Sokō in codifying bushidō.
By the early 1930s, it was Nitobe that had moved toward Inoue, rather than the
other way around, when he praised Sokō as a vital, patriotic link in the development
of bushidō in Japan, in his book Japan: Some Phases of Her Problems and Development (New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1931).
included members of the Kyoto School of philosophy13 as well as

other professional philosophers from Tokyo, such as Inoue Tetsujirō
(1855–1944) and Watsuji Tetsurō (1889–1960, whose own relationship
with the Kyoto School is contested). In various ways, the development
of an imperial philosophy and a theoretical realm of bushidō reflect
a consciousness, on the part of Japanese intellectuals, that models
of kokutai in the modern state had to be as domestically inclusive as
possible, whilst maintaining exclusivity toward the rest of the world.
Like the figure of the emperor, one of the conceptual challenges for
bushidō was to reformulate itself as a national ethic, liberated from its
samurai-focused, class-based elitism in the feudal period, to become a
national ideology.14
Imperial Philosophy
The accelerated decrepitude of the Tokugawa regime in the first half

of the nineteenth century was both sparked and fueled by a gather-
ing sense of crisis regarding the integrity and security of the domain,
which appeared to be challenged from within and without at the same
time. Although finding its roots in the seventeenth century, the Mito
School (a syncretic school that brought together elements of Confu-
cian and Shinto intellectual traditions) became extremely influential in
its so-called ‘late phase,’ following the publication of Seimeiron (On the
Rectification of Names) by Fujita Yūkoku in 1791 and, in particular,
following the publication of Shinron (New Treatise) by Aizawa Seishisai
in 1825.15 It was with these publications that a new swell of interest
13
The dimensions and meaning of this school are treated even-handedly by James
Heisig, Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School (Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press, 2001).
14
For critics of the whole quest for a ‘Japanese spirit,’ such as Tosaka Jun, philoso-
phers like Watsuji Tetsurō and Inoue Tetsujirō were both essentially involved in the same
ideological enterprise of constructing a Japanese ideology. Tosaka labeled them both as
‘Japanists’ in his essay (which formed part of his 1935 book, Nihon ideorogii-ron), “Gendai
Nihon no shisōjō no shomondai: Nihonshugi, jiyūshugi, yuibutsuron,” in TJZ, II: 227–235.
15
In general, the early phase of the Mito School was marked by a greater interest
in historiographical issues. In the guise of the Shōkōkan (which was endorsed by the
shogun and established by order from the local daimyo Tokugawa Mitsukuni), scholars
of the Mito domain worked on the Dai Nihon-shi (Great History of Japan) for about
60 years, from the creation of the research institute in 1657. However, it was not until
the 1790s that the Mito School became more interested in ideological questions and
political activism. There are a number of excellent works about the Mito School in
arose in sonnō shisō (thought about revering the emperor, or imperial

philosophy). The first to grasp the power of this tide was Fujita’s son,
Fujita Tōko, who coined the now infamous term sonnō jōi (revere the
emperor and expel the barbarians) as a gloss on the thrust of Aizawa’s
Shinron. To begin with, this phrase was designed to encourage loyalty to
the shogun as the defender of the emperor at a time of foreign menace,
and indeed the slogan was endorsed by the Mito daimyo Tokugawa
Nariaki in 1838. However, following the perceived failure of the shogun
to prevent the opening of Japan in 1854, the slogan was quickly co-
opted by the anti-shogunate (i.e., the restorationist) forces in the years
preceding the Meiji Restoration and in the bloody Boshin civil war of
1868–9, a conflict much romanticized in later literature about bushidō.16
This rapid and profound political reversal of the ideological function
of the imperial throne—from conservative to revolutionary—was an
early indicator of the volatility and power of sonnō shisō.
Indeed, one of the immediate problems for the revolutionary Meiji
government, after it had seized power, was how to reclaim the conserva-
tive or, at least, the stabilizing force of the figure of the emperor. This
meant seeking a theoretical and philosophical apparatus that could pre-
vent the disenfranchised from using the restorationists’ own arguments
(under the flag of sonnō jōi) to overthrow the restoration government
itself.17 The official result of this engagement with sonnō shisō over the
next twenty years was the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution, which
sought to resolve the volatile ambiguity of the relationships between the
emperor, the state, the nation, and the people of Japan by legislation
in the name of the emperor himself.18
Unfortunately, the Meiji Constitution did not resolve all of the theo-
retical dilemmas of sonnō shisō. Indeed, in some aspects, its promulga-
English: Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern

Japan: The New Theses of 1825 (Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1986);
J. Victor Koschmann, The Mito Ideology: Discourse, Reform, and Insurrection in Late Tokugawa
Japan, 1790–1864 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).
16
The romantic views of icons such as Yoshida Shōin and Saigo Takamori stem
from their actions during this period. The popularity of this romantic view is reflected
in Edward Zwick’s Hollywood film, The Last Samurai (2003).
17
An interesting discussion of this dilemma is Bernard Silberman, “The Bureau-
cratic State in Japan: The problem of authority and legitimacy”, in Tetsuo Najita &
J. Victor Koschmann (eds.), Conflict in Modern Japan: The Neglected Tradition (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1982).
18
From the turn of the century through the 1940s, there was considerable conceptual
and linguistic confusion about the parameters of these various terms.
tion marked the beginning of a new phase of thinking about what it

should mean to revere the emperor and to be a good subject in modern
Japan. The ensuing intellectual and political discourse was characterized
by the use of new theoretical tools, as currents of legal, moral, and
political philosophy flowed rapidly into Japan from Europe throughout
the Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa periods. It is in these periods that
we can begin to talk about imperial philosophy in a more technical
sense,19 although engagement with ‘philosophy’ (tetsugaku) in this sense
will become politically volatile by the early 1940s.20
(Re)signifying the Modern Emperor
One of the crucial issues that were resolved, at least theoretically, by

the proclamation of the Meiji Constitution was that of the conceptual
locus of sovereignty. In the years since the Restoration, there had been
much debate about whether sovereignty lay with the state (kokken) or
with the people (minken), and hence which of these entities constituted
the so-called kokutai and was most proximal to the emperor. The con-
stitution resolved this dispute by declaring unambiguously that the
“emperor is the head of the empire, and combines in himself the rights
of sovereignty.”21 Hence, sovereignty lay neither with the people nor
the state. Indeed, the people immediately became imperial subjects
(shimmin), and the state was effectively reduced to a vaguely structured
group of advisors to the throne.22
19
The term ‘philosophy’ (tetsugaku) was coined by Nishi Amane in 1874 with the
express purpose of distinguishing this new, foreign import from Confucianism and
Buddhism.
20
Nishida Kitarō and other members of the Kyoto School were severely criticized
during the 1930s and early 1940s for being too sympathetic to the west because they
engaged in ‘philosophy.’
21
Dai Nihon teikoku kempō (1889), article 4. The preamble to the constitution also states:
“The right of sovereignty of the State, We have inherited from Our Ancestors and We
shall bequeath them to Our descendants.” The entire first chapter of the constitution
(17 articles) is devoted to the powers and prerogatives of the emperor, which include
the full range of sovereign powers: sanctioning laws, convoking parliament, command-
ing the military, controlling foreign policy, declaring war etc.
22
Chapter 4 (articles 55 and 56) set out the functions of the ministers of state. Article
55 states: “The respective Ministers of State shall give their advice to the Emperor,
and be responsible for it.” Likewise (article 56), privy councillors will “deliberate upon
important matters of State, when they have been consulted by the Emperor.”
Although the priority of the emperor over both the state and the
people was stated very clearly, at least two very important, adjacent
issues remained unresolved: firstly, what was the nature of the relation-
ship between the emperor and the still underspecified and contested
kokutai (and how did this relate to the people and the state); and sec-
ondly, on what grounds should the people accept the sovereignty of
the emperor?
The Meiji Constitution and the accompanying rescript (kempō happu
chokugo) answer these questions through recourse to faith rather than
theory. There is no appeal to popular sovereignty, representation, or
even power. Instead, these documents attempt legitimation through a
synthesis of the moral and political realms (saisei itchi, literally: unity
of religion and government), asserting that the emperor’s authority
is inherited directly from his ancestors and that this ancestral line is
sacred and divine.23 Indeed, the rescript takes a further step and claims
that all subjects are descended from previous generations of imperial
subjects who had pledged their loyalty to previous incarnations of the
sacred emperor.24
23
An interesting interpretive variation on this theory was voiced by Orikuchi Shi-
nobu just before the enthronement of the Shōwa Emperor in 1928. In a very influen-
tial thesis (Daijōsai no hongi, The Fundamental Principles of the Great Enthronement
Ritual), he argued that “the power and dignity of the monarch was not derived from
his constitutional position as supreme sovereign, nor from his symbolic power as the
cultural unifying principle of the Japanese nation. Rather, the source of his majesty
and authority came from the physical incarnation of this spirit of the gods that takes
place in the divine enthronement ceremony of the Daijōsai.” (Kevin Doak, A History
of Nationalism in Modern Japan, p. 110).
24
The text of the rescript, which is often omitted from the English literature, is
worth quoting here in full (this is the official translation by Itō Miyoji, which originally
appeared in the accompanying commentary on the constitution by Itō Hirobumi, one
of the original architects of the constitution itself, in 1889. Miyoji was an influential
thinker in Hirobumi’s so-called ‘brain trust’):
Whereas We make it the joy and glory of Our heart to behold the prosperity
of Our country, and the welfare of Our subjects, We do hereby, in virtue of
the Supreme power We inherit from Our Imperial Ancestors, promulgate the
present immutable fundamental law, for the sake of Our present subjects and
their descendants.
The Imperial Founder of Our House and Our other Imperial ancestors, by
the help and support of the forefathers of Our subjects, laid the foundation of
Our Empire upon a basis, which is to last forever. That this brilliant achievement
embellishes the annals of Our country, is due to the glorious virtues of Our
Sacred Imperial ancestors, and to the loyalty and bravery of Our subjects, their
love of their country and their public spirit. Considering that Our subjects are the
descendants of the loyal and good subjects of Our Imperial Ancestors, We doubt
not but that Our subjects will be guided by Our views, and will sympathize with
Prima facie, this resembles a typical feudal model. However, the Impe-
rial Rescript on Education (kyōiku chokugo) of 1890 makes it clear that
the constitutional regime affected a deliberate conflation of Confucian
filial piety with Shinto ideas about loyalty to the imperial throne (coeval
with heaven and earth). Hence, various ethical and political bonds
between the people and the emperor were asserted simultaneously:
firstly, loyalty was naturally owed to the sacred emperor; secondly, the
Confucian rules of filial piety should be extended to encompass piety
toward the emperor as the father of the nation; thirdly, because the
emperors had ruled Japan for ‘ages eternal,’ the strictures of filial piety
meant that serving the emperor in the present was effectively coincident
with demonstrating piety to the ancestors who had devoted themselves
to the emperor in the past (a ‘historical fact’ that could be copiously
and imaginatively documented in the national histories). This confla-
tion of filial piety and loyalty to the emperor will be one of the central
problems in the (re)theorization of bushidō in the twentieth century.25
Rather than resolving all the ambiguities of the significance of the
emperor in modern Japan, the Meiji Constitution sparked a new round
of interpretive debates. Chief amongst these, concerned the allegedly
divine origins of the person of the emperor himself and thus the
apparent emptiness of constitutional guarantees of religious freedom
(article 28).26 If religious freedom was guaranteed to the extent that it did
not interfere with the public welfare, and if kokutai was in some way coinci-
dent with a divine emperor, then any religious faith that conflicted with
belief in the divine and eternal quality of the imperial throne would
be heresy. Whilst there is evidence to suggest that this kind of ‘nativ-
ist’ interpretation was not what was intended by Itō Hirobumi and the
all Our endeavors, and that, harmoniously cooperating together, they will share
with Us Our hope of making manifest the glory of Our country, both at home
and abroad, and of securing forever the stability of the work bequeathed to Us
by Our Imperial Ancestors.
25
This confusion of obligations was not new to the modern period, but rather was
a characteristic dilemma in Confucian thought in Japanese history. For some, it is one
of the distinguishing features of Japanese Confucianism that it emphasized loyalty to
one’s lord over piety to one’s father (e.g., Robert Bellah, Tokugawa Religion: The Values
of Pre-Industrial Japan (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1957), especially p. 18). However,
McMullen provides an excellent analysis of the complexities of the discourse that sur-
rounded this dilemma during the Tokugawa period: I.J. McMullen, “Rulers or Fathers?
A Casuistical Problem in Early Modern Japanese Thought,” in Past and Present, 116
(1987), pp. 56–97.
26
“Japanese subjects shall, within limits not prejudicial to peace and order, and not
antagonistic to their duties as subjects, enjoy freedom of religious belief.”
other architects of the constitution, political developments and discourse

quickly indicated that this would become the orthodoxy. The fukei jiken
(heresy incident), which saw Uchimura Kanzō denounced as a traitor
and a disloyal subject when he refused to bow before a portrait of the
emperor in 1891, was only the first of many anti-Christian outbursts
that rooted themselves in the terms of the new constitution.27 One of
the chief ideologues of this kind of reaction was the first Japanese
professor of philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University, Inoue Tetsujirō,
whose commentary on the Imperial Rescript (chokugo engi) in 1891
famously declared that Christianity was incompatible with kokutai, and
hence illegal and heretical.
In a series of influential publications in the subsequent years, Inoue
probably did more to philosophize a Confucian-Shinto synthesis
than any other contemporaneous thinker.28 Despite sophisticated and
genuinely philosophical opposition from Buddhist-influenced thinkers,
such as Kiyozawa Manshi (1863–1903), Inoue Enryō (1859–1919),
and Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945),29 the Christian philosopher Ōnishi
27
Uchimura Kanzō was a Christian teacher at the First Imperial Higher School in
Tokyo; he refused to engage in what he perceived of as idolatry by showing religious
deference to the image of the emperor. The plight of Japanese Christians at this time
is well documented in Gonoi Takashi, Nihon kirisutokyō-shi (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan,
1990). A substantial and recent biography of Uchimura in English is John Howes, Japan’s
Modern Prophet: Uchimura Kanzō, 1861–1930 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005).
28
In his early career, Inoue was centrally concerned with establishing the credentials
of Confucianism as an indigenous intellectual and ethical tradition that could confront
Western philosophy in terms of its power and sophistication. He attempted this in a
trilogy of influential works at the turn of the century: Nihon yōmei gaku-ha no tetsugaku
(Tokyo: Fuzambō, 1897/1900). In this work, Inoue contrasts idealist Confucians such
as Nakae Tōju and Kumazawa Banzan with the utilitarian ethics of ‘modern, western
philosophy.’ Nihon shūshi gaku-ha no tetsugaku (Tokyo: Fuzambō, 1902/1945), and Nihon
kogaku-ha no tetsugaku (Tokyo: Fuzambō, 1905/1918). In these two volumes, Inoue
tackles the Confucian rationalists, such as Hayashi Razan and the Mito School, and
the historicists, such Ogyū Sorai, Itō Jinsai, and Yamaga Sokō. Toward the end of the
Taishō period, Inoue published another series of monographs, in which he explicitly
sought to conflate the Confucian way of heaven with a Shinto-oriented imperial way
(kōdō). Waga kokutai to kokumin dōtoku (Tokyo: Kōbundō, 1925); Nihon seishin no honshitsu
(Tokyo: Kōbundō, 1934/1941).
29
Kiyozawa Manshi and Inoue Enryō did much to recover the intellectual respect-
ability of Buddhism at the turn of the twentieth century, as they attempted to show
that Buddhism, rather than Confucianism, was the real source of Japan’s intellectual
vitality and power. Enryō’s work on Hegel and Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932, a Ger-
man scientist and philosopher who won the 1909 Nobel Prize for Chemistry) was very
influential on Nishida Kitarō, whose own system of ethical thought would underlie the
development of the most sophisticated and original school of philosophy in modern
Japan, the so-called Kyoto School. In his earliest work, Zen no kenkyū (Tokyo: Iwanami
Hajime (1864–1900),30 and modernizers such as Fukuzawa Yukichi

(1835–1901),31 Inoue Tetsujirō’s synthesis effectively established this
quasi-nativist interpretation of the signification of the emperor as the
orthodoxy by the start of the Shōwa period. In this orthodoxy, the shim-
min no michi (the Way of the Subjects) was premised emphatically on the
significance of the emperor as the unification of obligations engendered
by filial piety and sacred loyalty, legitimated by the divine lineage of
the imperial throne. In a number of contemporaneous works, Inoue
recognizes bushidō as the exemplary incarnation of shimmin no michi.32
Shoten, 1911/1991), Nishida explicitly rejects the heteronomous ethics implied by Inoue
Tetsujirō. See Christopher Goto-Jones, Political Philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto School
and Co-Prosperity (London & New York: Routledge, 2005), especially chapter 3.
30
Ōnishi’s Christian and Kantian critique of Inoue Tetsujirō’s Confucian stance
and Inoue Enryō’s Buddhist standpoint was scholarly and powerful. He was one of
the first Japanese philosophers to draw a crisp, theoretical distinction between ethics
(rinri), which were universal and ineffable, and morality (tokkō ), which was basically a
system of norms in a specific society. He argued that Inoue Tetsujirō’s approach failed
to differentiate between the two, and that his theory of the god-emperor was (at most)
simply an example of a local morality. An interesting discussion of Ōnishi in English
is: Sharon H. Nolte, “National Morality and Universal Ethics: Ōnishi Hajime and
the Imperial Rescript on Education”, in Monumenta Nipponica, 38:3 (Autumn, 1983),
pp. 283–294.
31
Strongly influenced by Herbert Spencer and the Social Darwinists, Fukuzawa
famously referred to Shinto beliefs and Confucian ritual as idealistic relics of Japan’s
barbaric past, both of which should be abandoned in favor of individualism. He was
severely critical of the Imperial Rescript on Education, having already dealt his killer
blow to Confucianism in the first line of his influential 1872 bestseller, Gakumon no susume
(The Advancement of Learning): ‘Heaven makes no man above any other and no man
below any other.’ Fukuzawa’s position shifted somewhat in his later years. In Teishitsu-ron
(On the Imperial Household, 1882) and Sonnō-ron (On Revering the Emperor, 1887), he
was clear that the Japanese should be loyal to the emperor, in order to keep the nation
unified. He wrote that at a time of political dispute and external threat, the symbol
of the emperor was vital to the survival of the nation, since all Japanese could rally
behind it. Nonetheless, Fukuzawa is very clear that the emperor’s role should not be
confused with a political position. If his symbolic, unifying role is to function properly,
the emperor must remain above and outside of politics. The emperor does not rule,
he reigns (this distinction is actually common to feudal Japan, when the shogun or
a regent in Edo would typically rule in the name of an emperor cloistered away in
Kyoto). Fukuzawa notes that the conduct of modern warriors relies upon this premise:
soldiers should not return from war expecting to be rewarded by their lord (as they did
in feudal times), but rather they should fight in the name of Japan and the emperor,
expecting their service to be its own reward. He admires the conduct of the bushi of
the Satsuma Rebellion (1877) in this respect. This appears to be as close as Fukuzawa
comes to linking the significance of the emperor to bushidō. See Fukuzawa Yukichi,
Nihon teishitsu-ron (Tokyo: Shimizu Shobō, 1987).
32
Inoue Tetsujirō’s interest in bushidō coincides almost perfectly with his elaboration
of the Confucian-Shinto foundations of the way of the subjects. He spent a number
of years around the turn of the century compiling and annotating three volumes of
Just as was the case with his synthetic Confucian-Shinto position on

the signification of the emperor, Inoue’s interpretation of bushidō would
also be challenged from various sides, especially from the standpoint
of Buddhism (but also by Christians and others).33
The idea of saisei itchi, that is the unity of moral and political realms,
contained within this orthodoxy, was contested from numerous stand-
points in the political discourse of the early twentieth century, as well
as in the postwar period.34 It was contested especially, though not only,
by the political left, particularly after the Hibiya Riots of 1905, which
provided a vivid demonstration of the importance of the hitherto
neglected voice of the Japanese people themselves in the composition
of the Japanese polity.35 However, the fledgling political left was itself
not united, and its representatives ranged from the complete rejection
of the emperor as a feudal residue that should be abolished (or even
assassinated), to those, such as Kita Ikki (1883–1937), who rejected the
idea that the state was a tool of the capitalist classes and claimed that
the polity was the Japanese people themselves and hence the legitimacy
of the state and of the emperor rested upon their representation of
collected works: Bushidō sōsho (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1905), and later an even larger
(thirteen volumes) Bushidō zenshū, together with an extended commentary: Bushidō no
honshitsu (1942).
33
This chapter will focus on the differences between the Buddhist infl uenced
Watsuji Tetsurō and the orthodox Shinto-Confucian view of bushidō during the war
years. However, it should be recalled that some of the key thinkers in the discourse
about bushidō were actually Christians: Uchimura Kanzō himself was very interested
in exploring the intersections between Christianity and bushidō. An interesting account
of this is: Ōuchi Saburō, “Kirisutokyō to bushidō,” in Furukawa Tesshi and Ishida Ichiro,
eds., Nihon shisō-shi kōza, vol. 8, (Tokyo: Yusankaku, 1977). It is, of course, well-known
that the author of perhaps the most influential modern text on bushidō, Nitobe Inazō,
was a committed Quaker.
34
Maruyama Masao made a famous postwar critique of this aspect of the theory
and psychology of Japanese ultranationalism. See Maruyama Masao, Gendai seiji no
shisō to kōdō (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1964).
35
The Hibiya Riots (Hibiya yakiuchi jiken, so-called because they were triggered when
police refused demonstrators entry to Hibiya Park in central Tokyo), were sparked by
popular discontent at the apparently humiliating terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth
that ended the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5. For some commentators, the Hibiya
Riots marked the beginning of a period of minshū sōjō (popular violence), in which the
people of Japan strove to negotiate their social, political and ethical status within the
Japanese state through direct action. One key figure in this movement was the Marx-
ist activist, Kōtoku Shūsui (1871–1911), who called for marches of resistance against
the imperial state, which he saw as a tool of the capitalist classes who operated the
emperor like a puppet. Kōtoku was eventually arrested in 1910, for allegedly plotting
to assassinate the emperor; he was executed in 1911 with his alleged accomplices. The
Meiji emperor died in 1912.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
faisaient des taches miroitantes, comme des plastrons de cuirasses dans le
clair-obscur du cortège.
Toute cette belle ordonnance ne s’était pas établie, cela va sans dire, sans
à-coups, rumeurs et perte de temps; et il était tout à fait nuit lorsque nous
nous mîmes définitivement en route.
Immédiatement derrière le Père, marchaient des joueurs de trompette qui
commencèrent à tirer de leurs instruments des sons prolongés, graves et
monotones, comme des glas.
Oui, c’était un étrange cortège et je suis sûr que Georgie n’en aurait pas
détesté le spectacle pittoresque. Malheureusement je n’avais pour voisin
que ce pauvre Lanier, qui ne cessait de geindre et de s’éponger. Il me parut
insupportablement nerveux, et, comme je lui demandais des nouvelles de
Fagui, tout ce qu’il trouva à me répondre, c’est quelque chose comme:
«Mon cher, si cela continue, dans quelques jours nous serons tous plus fous
qu’elle.»
Arrivés au bois de trams, nous nous entassâmes tant bien que mal sur la
rive ferme, et laissâmes le Père entonner les prières et purifier le marais
d’eau bénite, dans la direction de l’endroit...
Toute la foule des coolies chantait, à son signal, le Dies iræ avec une
prononciation des mots latins à la française et une justesse d’émission des
notes du plain-chant stupéfiantes. J’observais curieusement ces faces
placides essayant de se terrifier chrétiennement à l’évocation des
tribulations redoutables par lesquelles doivent passer les vénérés ancêtres...
Et jusqu’à quel point le Père était parvenu à opérer cette transmutation des
cervelles, c’est ce que je ne voudrais guère approfondir. Mais je sais qu’en
revanche, pour nous autres, une transmutation contraire n’était pas loin
d’être réalisée, et que cette prose funèbre nous semblait aussi peu de saison
qu’un vêtement noir, par exemple.
Nous étions là, nous le sentions bien, pour rendre hommage à notre
camarade, ouvrier de l’œuvre, et, par-dessus l’ouvrier, à l’œuvre elle-même,
et, par-dessus l’œuvre, à Celui qui, comme avait dit Moutier, a qualité pour
ramasser tous ces hommages, comme le bonze son riz... Et notre âme était
sereine et joyeuse, je le jure!
Il n’y avait une toute petite exception peut-être que pour ce malheureux
Lanier qui, visiblement, ne gouvernait plus ses nerfs. Et lorsqu’au moment
du Tuba mirum spargens sonum, les trompettes crurent bon de scander le
chant de quelques meuglements qui se répercutaient sur l’eau lourde
comme un miroir de bronze, voici le pauvre homme qui se met à pleurer,
comme si c’était sa jeunesse et sa joie qu’on jetait à l’abîme.
Cependant, quand ils eurent fini de faire monter le chant terrible vers le
Dieu de l’Universelle Vengeance, les choristes passèrent à quelques cris
plus nationaux, à destination spéciale du ma-koui de Chang-préah; et ce
faisant, brandissaient les oiseaux de papier et de feu vers le ciel écrasant. Et
juste, à cet instant, la lune se leva, ronde et cuivrée comme un gong, et sa
lumière fut vite assez abondante pour qu’au retour on pût éteindre les
lanternes, par économie, sur l’ordre du Père.
VIII
Il y a quelque chose de plus au fond du marais, et que le Père n’ira pas
bénir! Quelque chose que le docteur et moi avons jeté hier soir, et qui, Dieu
nous entende! ne remontera pas des tréfonds...
J’avais employé la sieste à inventorier la succession de Lully. Point
n’était matière à gros travail: des papiers, une montre, des bibelots
personnels, les hardes du défunt, comme disent les formules officielles... Du
tout, avec l’aide du boy, j’avais empli quelques caisses, bien assaisonnées
de poivre du pays, que Battambang se chargerait de faire parvenir à qui de
droit. La moitié de l’argent, quatre cents piastres environ, devait prendre
dans une enveloppe cachetée le même chemin. L’autre moitié de l’argent et
les meubles restaient, jusqu’à nouvel ordre, la propriété de madame
Françoise-Marguerite Dumont. Tout ce mobilier, y compris le piano à table
mécanique, valait, d’ailleurs, sans plus, les frais de son transport. Quant à
ces meubles spéciaux que représentaient les oiseaux empaillés, nous avions
décidé, Moutier et moi, M. Vallery assistant à la délibération, qu’ils étaient
censément passés au feu des enchères et adjugés, sous astreinte de rester
momentanément sur leurs perchoirs; à savoir, à Moutier, le lot des rapaces,
à Tourange, celui des échassiers et des palmipèdes. Ce qui permit de joindre
quatre billets de cent piastres à chacune des bourses de la communauté.
Il ne me restait plus qu’à pénétrer dans une petite pièce que Lully
appelait son atelier, sans que j’eusse jamais su au juste à quels travaux il s’y
livrait: peinture, photographie, menuiserie. A vrai dire nous le
soupçonnions plutôt de manigances artistiques, mais il était, sur ce chapitre,
d’une réserve qui tantôt vous présentait les voiles d’une timidité virginale et
tantôt les verrouillements inquiétants d’un arcane d’alchimiste. La chaleur
était très dure, et le peu de mouvement que je m’étais donné avait suffi à
procurer à mon épiderme la tonicité d’une vieille serviette de bain. En
ouvrant la porte que je franchissais pour la première fois, j’éprouvai une
sensation marquée de fraîcheur, que je m’expliquai d’abord par l’orientation
de la pièce, mais je flairai en même temps une odeur bizarre et fade, dont je
n’analysai exactement la désagréable fadeur, qu’après avoir vivement
poussé le volet de bois plein de l’unique fenêtre.
C’était l’odeur même du sommeil du marais, du limon des couches
profondes... Et, en effet, au milieu de la pièce, un grand baquet débordait
d’une glaise gluante et rougeâtre. A sa couleur, j’en reconnus l’origine; elle
provenait à coup sûr du banc argileux qui venait affleurer la rive, au sud de
la digue. Une ancienne tradition locale attribuait à cette argile des propriétés
plastiques et céramiques égales à celles des meilleures terres de Cay-may en
Cochinchine, encore que son exploitation demeurât englobée dans
l’anathème général jeté sur le domaine du Gong. Mais Georgie bravait
l’anathème!
Outre le baquet, il n’y avait dans la chambre qu’une façon de sellette de
sculpteur et, sur une alignée de planches en étagère, tout ce qui, modelé par
les doigts de Georgie, était passé de cette sellette sur les planches. Mes
nerfs sautèrent à la révélation de ce musée des horreurs, complément
inattendu du beau cabinet.
Toutes les bêtes gluantes, toute cette faune grouillante, innommable et
répulsive des eaux épaisses comme le sang, tout le cauchemar flasque,
gélatineux, visqueux, pustuleux, écailleux du marais, chéloniens, sauriens,
et batraciens, têtards, tritons et salamandres, escargots géants, sangsues
gonflées comme des outres, tortues à têtes de crapauds, ignames à la langue
de serpent, serpents à la peau de poisson, défilait là. Par surcroît, la fantaisie
tératologique de l’artiste avait enchéri sur celle de la nature. Une ingéniosité
abominable, amalgamant le démesuré et le disproportionné, greffant le
biscornu sur l’amorphe, avait trouvé moyen d’épanouir, jusqu’à la
splendeur, la monstruosité.
Des yeux, comme des bulles délétères, étaient sur le point de crever, des
ventres, pareils à des sacs à glandes, tenaient des conciles, des pattes
proposaient leurs membranes tendues, semblables à des ailes de vampires...
Et tout cela dégageait, comme la sienne propre, l’horrible odeur fade du
limon originel, en dépit de l’enduit de couleurs glauques ou jaunâtres, dont
il était comme huilé, et dont les poudres—sans doute, quelque héritage du
vieil An-Hoan,—emplissaient encore, à même le plancher, des fonds de
frêles coquilles.
Fasciné et écœuré tout à la fois, je ne bougeais pas du milieu de la pièce,
n’arrivant ni à secouer le malaise, ni à briser le charme qui immobilisait
mes regards devant ces démences.
A la longue, la découverte d’un papier, cloué comme une étiquette, au
rebord d’une des planches, me décida à faire quelques pas en avant. Sur le
rectangle blanc, simple feuillet détaché d’un carnet, je lus alors ces mots
inscrits de la main même de Lully—je reconnus, sans hésitation, la grande
écriture pointue et déversée de Georgie, aussi bien que l’encre très noire
dont il avait coutume de se servir, et qui semblait encore toute fraîche sur la
pâleur du papier:
Ne pas toucher en cas de malheur, briser sur place et rejeter les débris
au marais.
Ce qui suivit, je ne saurais prétendre que je m’y sois résolu, ayant
consciencieusement délibéré, m’étant soucié de soupeser mes
responsabilités contradictoires d’exécuteur testamentaire.
Non, ce fut un geste, une détente de nerfs, l’acte impulsif d’un fiévreux,
d’un mauvais dormeur peut-être... ou d’un homme à l’œil trop sain, je ne
sais plus... Je sais que je bondis dans la pièce voisine, et que là, ce fut un T,
un T d’ingénieur, en bois de fer et lourd comme un marteau, qui me tomba
sous la main. Je sais qu’armé de mon T, je revins dans l’atelier et
commençai de frapper.
—Ah çà! Vous avez l’air d’un moine abattant les idoles à coups de
croix...
C’était le docteur qui apparaissait sur le seuil, les yeux arrondis derrière
ses verres.
—J’ai oui ce vacarme de vases brisés; je ne m’attendais guère à vous
trouver dans ces fonctions d’iconoclaste.
Ces quelques mots me calmèrent, ou plutôt transformèrent ma frénésie
en résolution non moins sauvage, mais froide. Je montrai du doigt au
docteur le papier toujours cloué sur sa planche, puis, les deux ou trois
monstres encore entiers, et méthodiquement, comme une cuisinière passe
un lapin au hachoir, je fracassai une grenouille à bec de garudda.
Le docteur avait lu le papier et m’avait regardé faire.
Il ajusta son binocle et prit sa tête de retour du congrès de neurologie.
—Georges Lully portait l’étoile de la folie sur le mont de Jupiter de sa
main de saturnien, dit-il sans broncher, et, c’est trop tard pour y rien
changer, mais, pour vous, mon bon Tourange, il est encore temps, et vous
allez me promettre de passer vos siestes à l’ombre de votre toit et, si
possible, sous l’éventail de votre boy.
Je lui tendis mon poignet à tâter, en souriant.
C’était vraiment la crème des garçons que notre docteur, et je ne pouvais
lui faire un reproche de penser, par profession, un peu plus aux vivants
qu’aux défunts.
—Docteur, dis-je, je vous promets cela. Mais, en revanche, vous me
promettez, vous, de ne souffler mot à quiconque de ce que vous avez vu
dans cette chambre?
Il parut réfléchir un instant, puis répondit avec lenteur, scandant ses
paroles d’un hochement de haut en bas.
—Oui, moi aussi, je crois que cela vaut mieux... Seulement, ajouta-t-il,
en promenant ses regards sur les débris épars dans tous les coins, qu’allez-
vous faire de toute cette poterie?
—Ce qui est écrit sur le papier; la jeter au marais, dès la nuit venue.
Le docteur s’approcha d’un tas de décombres particulièrement
volumineux et l’éparpilla du pied.
—Ma foi! proposa-t-il, je vous y aiderai bien volontiers.
La proposition me fit plaisir, et, en même temps un peu honte, et je
tâchai de lire sur son visage s’il avait présumé que j’aurais eu peur, oui,
peur, ou tout au moins ennui à aller tout seul au marais avec cela. Mais il
redressait son binocle de l’air le plus bonasse du monde, et me prit par le
bras pour sortir de la chambre, dont j’emportai la clef.
Vers sept heures, à la nuit noire, nous y revenions comme des voleurs et
nous hâtions de déménager les ruines du musée des horreurs dans de vieux
sacs à paddi, où elles se heurtaient avec un bruit d’ossements.
Nous avions décidé de les jeter à la pointe du nord-est, le plus loin
possible de Georgie, «afin, dit le docteur, que la bénédiction du Père ne
s’égarât pas sur leurs peinturlurages hérétiques, au cas où ce saint homme
viendrait à récidiver du côté des trams». Mais, nous n’avions pas songé que
le bas niveau des eaux rendrait impossible à notre sampan le passage au-
dessus du seuil; si bien qu’arrêtés, nous ne trouvâmes rien de mieux,
comme solution, que de lancer les sacs, de toute la force dont nous étions
capables, contre les piles d’une arche. Nous entendîmes un dernier «ploc»
d’émiettement, au contact de la dure muraille bétonnée; puis, la lourde
surface, vaguement rougeoyante des reflets de nos lanternes, s’entrouvrit
sans éclaboussures, à hauteur à peu près de l’hectomètre 7 du kilomètre 83.
Cette petite expédition m’avait mis quelque peu en retard pour le dîner.
Mais Moutier m’attendait sans impatience, la jambe allongée sur un
fauteuil, une cigarette aux lèvres. Je lui rendis compte de mon inventaire,
passant toutefois sous silence ma découverte de l’atelier.
—Vous n’avez rien trouvé d’extraordinaire?
Je m’imaginai presque qu’il avait dans la voix une intonation
préméditée, quasi anxieuse, à tout le moins plus marquée que ne le voulait
la banalité de la question. J’esquissai néanmoins un geste évasif.
—Tous les paquets, éludai-je, doivent aller, je crois, de Battambang chez
mademoiselle Adrienne Lully, directrice d’institution à Lons-le-Saulnier,
Jura, car c’est à cette adresse, n’est-ce pas? que Georgie envoyait ses lettres
et ses chèques. Ne serait-ce pas une photographie de cette personne que j’ai
recueillie dans un tiroir de table à écrire?—Et, tirant mon portefeuille, je me
mis en devoir d’en extraire une photographie du format carte de visite, que
je tendis à Moutier. C’était, avec le nom de la petite ville jurassienne dans le
bas, le portrait d’une femme ayant passé la jeunesse et qu’on devinait,
quelle que pût être la date de l’épreuve, coiffée hors la mode et vêtue de
même.
Quels pouvaient être ses rapports de parenté avec Georgie? Tante?
Cousine? Sœur aux fonctions maternelles, peut-être? Elle avait de Lully je
ne sais quel air tendre et modeste, sous la révolte d’un front trop
somptueusement modelé.
Moutier avait pris de mes doigts le gris carton glacé et, machinalement,
en tâtait le grain, sans détacher ses yeux de l’épreuve.
—Êtes-vous physionomiste? me demanda-t-il tout à coup.
Et sans attendre ma réponse, il ouvrit son veston et y glissa l’image.
—Je la garde, dit-il. Si je rentre en France, j’irai à Lons-le-Saulnier
rendre visite à la personne en question. Si je reste ici, ma foi, vous saurez
où retrouver son portrait, et à quelle adresse lui en faire retour.
IX
—Je t’interdis de continuer cette intimité déplacée avec madame
Vallery...
Au ton dont ce benêt de Lanier a proféré cette injonction maritale, je
prévois une vive réplique de sa jeune épouse, puis quelqu’un de ces
intermèdes de la vie conjugale, médiocrement divertissants pour qui,
comme moi, sous couleur d’invitation à déjeuner, s’y trouve convié. Mais,
contrairement à mon attente, cette fine abeille a pris son air le plus candide.
Ses sourcils s’arrondissent au-dessus de ses yeux tout clairs, de ces yeux où
il y a toujours de la poudre d’or pour sécher les mauvaises larmes.
—Pourquoi donc? soupire-t-elle ingénument. N’est-elle pas la femme de
ton chef?
—D’abord elle n’est pas sa femme.
—Bon! A Battambang c’est toi-même qui m’as expliqué gentiment
qu’ici il ne fallait pas se montrer trop exigeant sur les actes de mariage...
lequel d’ailleurs, en l’espèce, peut très bien exister... est-ce qu’on sait
jamais, avec les facilités que donne la loi anglaise? Il peut parfaitement se
faire que cette pauvre Hetty ait été calomniée par de méchantes langues! Tu
sais bien qu’il y en a partout... Est-ce qu’on n’a pas raconté que je me
polissais les cheveux avec des tampons d’herbes de sorcière ramassées par
ma congaïe?
Et l’épouse légitime soulève avec la main, comme un fardeau accablant,
le trésor de cette chevelure au brillant naturel, qui écrase son jeune front en
moiteur.
—Se peut que j’aie dit cela à Battambang, réplique Lanier brutalement,
mais ici, c’est une autre affaire...
Il s’arrête un instant, et soudain ses yeux commencent à fureter, à droite
et à gauche, dans les coins de la pièce. Ah çà! qu’a-t-il donc aujourd’hui?
Le soleil lui a-t-il tapé sur le crâne?
—Ce que je ne veux pas—il crie presque et, ma parole, ses dents
grincent,—ce que je ne veux pas, répète-t-il...
Et il lance le geste de frapper violemment sur une table; mais comme
celle qui se trouve là, sous sa main, est une fragile table de rotin, où il n’y a
pas place pour une paume, attendu que la tasse à café, le cendrier et la boîte
d’allumettes suffisent à l’encombrer, Lanier reste soudain tout coi, les
doigts arrêtés dans leur élan, et achève d’un ton radouci, presque geignard:
—Ce que je ne veux pas, c’est qu’elle passe son temps à te conseiller de
déserter!
Ho! Ho! déserter! le vilain mot que voilà, M. Lanier! Savez-vous que
vous n’êtes qu’un triste butor! Savez-vous que vous ne jouez pas ici la
même partie, vous et celle-là qui eut l’extrême douceur de vous y suivre?
Savez-vous que, lorsque vous aurez rapporté en France, à peu près au
complet, votre tête,—peu de chose,—votre foie et vos quatre membres, le
problème sera superlativement résolu pour vous, et, qu’au pis aller, les litres
de lait et de Vichy que vous ingurgiterez pendant quelque temps
représenteront tout au juste les mois de biberon de l’enfant que vos
respectables parents mirent en nourrice au Siam-Cambodge, avec l’espoir
d’en voir revenir un homme; mais que pour l’enfant qui est là à vos côtés, il
s’agit de renoncement à sa fraîcheur, à sa beauté, à la fleur de sa jeunesse,
c’est-à-dire à sa raison même d’exister; et, que l’expérience qu’elle aura
acquise à Chang-préah des anémies, des hépatites, des jaunes de l’œil et des
bistres de l’épiderme, lui vaudra tout au juste l’avantage d’avoir l’air d’une
sauvagesse au milieu de ses compagnes, et que c’est vous alors, imbécile,
qui la rendrez responsable de l’admirable erreur de sacrifice qu’elle vous
aura consenti?
Mais je n’ai pas le temps de manifester mon sentiment très vif sur la
question, et pas davantage celui de prendre la défense de madame Vallery,
de rappeler à Lanier que, sans même parler de l’histoire de Fagui, j’ai vu
Hetty Dibson à l’œuvre, au chevet de la congaïe de Dumoulin, mon
contremaître, et, du même coup, à la présidence d’une tablée de cinq gnôs,
dont la mère avait de bonnes raisons pour avoir oublié de mettre la ké-bat à
riz sur le feu. Je n’ai pas le temps de déclarer que je tiens pour une chose
valuable l’amitié d’Hetty Dibson, car voilà madame Lanier qui s’est levée,
s’est approchée de la chaise de son mari, a jeté ses bras, par derrière, autour
du cou de ce dernier, et commence mille chatteries... Tant que le nigaud
remonte le coin de ses lèvres et se déride, et que moi-même, dont la partie
de mesures pour rien ne semble pas indispensable à ce duo, suis sur le point
de prétexter les exigences de la sieste pour me retirer, lorsque les yeux
sablés d’or jugent à propos de me prendre plus directement à témoin.
—Imaginez que mon mari a peur que je le quitte! Il sait pourtant bien...
—ici un petit mouvement de volte vers cet époux inquiet et un peser tendre
de la main gauche sur cette tête tracassée—il sait pourtant bien ce que je lui
ai dit: «Tant que cette bague tiendra à mon doigt...»—cette bague qu’on
m’indique d’un avancé du menton, c’est l’anneau jaune d’une alliance, qui,
pour l’instant, brille parmi les boucles d’une orageuse chevelure brune...—
Et, voyez, monsieur, je l’ai gardée, malgré la chaleur, et on ne se doute pas
comme c’est lourd, un vrai fer de forçat!... Mais tant que cette bague
tiendra, ne glissera pas toute seule, c’est signe que je n’aurai pas assez
maigri pour être obligée de m’en aller!
Ça, c’est gentil, et mon homme, tout à fait calmé, sourit d’un air de
béatitude un peu niaise. Mais ô femme, ô énigme, ô aiguillon, ô buveuse
d’illogisme, ô fille d’or des vents capricieux, pourquoi, quelques minutes
plus tard, quand je prends malgré tout congé, pourquoi, bondissante et vive,
les cheveux en essaim de guêpes, le rire prêt à strider, s’arrête-t-elle devant
ce bahut de Canton aux lourdes sculptures funèbres? Il est couvert d’une
bien belle plaque de marbre rouge, ce bahut, d’une plaque de ce marbre de
Soui-Tchang, qui a la somptueuse couleur d’un sang coagulé!... Pourquoi
s’arrête-t-elle? Pourquoi ce coup d’œil aigu lancé à la glace voisine, et
pourquoi cette main qui s’immobilise, pendante, l’annulaire bien à l’aplomb
de la plaque rouge? Et pourquoi décocher avec un sourire terrible, en
secouant cette petite menotte:
—Là! vous voyez bien qu’il ne tombe pas encore! Mais, par exemple, le
jour où ça fera tin-tin sur le marbre, adieu Chang-préah! Adieu Siam-
Cambodge! Ce sera la clochette du départ...
Ce n’est plus du tout l’expression de la bonne petite épouse aux
dorlotements de chattemite, que mes regards vont rejoindre au fond des
prunelles mal balayées de leur poussière précieuse, mais quelque chose de
plus pervers, de plus ambigu, où il y a du poison, du défi, et aussi de
l’étincelant à quoi je ne sais pas donner de nom...
Pour cette fois, c’est Lanier qui courbe la tête. Il tortillonne un sourire
humble et tâche de faire bonne contenance. Mais, à la seconde même, le
boy en train de desservir ayant laissé tomber une cuiller à café, je le vois au
bruit, au tin-tin, mimer impulsivement une grimace affreuse.
Et je m’en vais, un peu rêveur, sous la lumière omnipotente, la lumière
qui pèse aux visages comme un masque de plomb, que les frêles visages
féminins ne peuvent porter longtemps, sans cruels stigmates... A cette
heure, le cerveau suit mal le fil d’une idée; il est vite conduit à la caverne du
sommeil. Une seule préoccupation émeut le mien: gagner, par le plus court,
le grand chapeau d’ombre de la chambre que Vallery met à ma disposition
pour la sieste.
Mais, au réveil, avant de repartir pour le marais, les incidents du
déjeuner me reviennent, malgré que j’en aie, en mémoire. Oui, je constate
chez Lanier une nervosité qui devient inquiétante; et je ne veux pas quitter
la troisième rivière, sans m’être ouvert de mes inquiétudes à Hetty Dibson,
femme de bon conseil et de solide raison. Après la cagna de Dumoulin,
c’est la chambre de Fagui qui nous a servi de terrain de rapprochement, et
j’ai eu ainsi une double épreuve pour apprécier celle qu’on accusait tout à
l’heure de prêcher la désertion. Je ne peux oublier que c’est elle qui s’est
occupée de faire entrer petit à petit dans la chambre d’ici le mobilier que
j’apportais en vrac de là-bas; elle qui a placé la psyché dans le jour
favorable, qui a disposé de ses mains, sur la table à coiffer, les brosses, les
ciseaux, tous ces menus engins de l’arsenal d’une femme, par la vertu
desquels Fagui, d’abord atone et muette, s’est peu à peu refamiliarisée avec
la vie... En vérité, j’ai beaucoup de gratitude à Hetty Dibson, beaucoup
d’estime pour sa tête froide.
Elle me reçoit allongée sur sa chaise longue, toute la chirurgie d’un
onglier dans le creux de sa robe, et, cependant que sa congaïe l’évente,
studieusement occupée à faire briller à facettes, à la pâte rose, l’extrémité
de ses phalanges. Ce qui justifie, au skake-hand, l’exhibition de cinq
capsules vermillonnées par le polissoir, au bout de cinq longues tiges de cire
blanche, les doigts nus. Nus, car il fait si chaud, n’est-ce pas, que le
moindre bijou pèse comme un fer de forçat!
Et Hetty Dibson, elle, n’a pas d’alliance à préserver de la glissade! Nus
comme le cou, comme les poignets... et, certes ce serait, à brève échéance,
la déconfiture de l’orfèvre Foung-li, si l’on ne faisait venir maintenant, par
son intermédiaire, au lieu de ces insupportables plaques de métal chaud,
quelque jeu de ces belles boules de pierre translucide et fraîche qu’il est si
agréable de rouler dans les paumes, pour tromper la fièvre.
Au premier mot que je hasarde sur le ménage Lanier, madame
«l’ingénieur en chef» s’emporte. Lanier n’est qu’un imbécile, un
monstrueux égoïste, et en outre un intolérable caractère, un coléreux... Il
devrait être à genoux devant sa femme au lieu de la tarabuster... C’est un
misérable! Est-ce que tous les gens qui sont là-bas, à travailler sur le marais,
ne se passent pas de leur femme?
—Sans doute, sans doute...—je bats devant mon visage, de l’éventail-
écran que la congaïe pitoyable m’a tendu—malheureusement, par le temps
qui cuit, il n’y a ni imbéciles, ni monstres, ni égoïstes... il n’y a que des
malades!
Mais Hetty Dibson, malade de chaleur elle-même, continue à s’en
prendre véhémentement à l’égoïsme mâle en général et à le charger de tous
les méfaits, ce qui peut être légitime, appliqué au cas Lanier, mais
discutable pour le cas Vallery.
X
Je restai quelques jours sans retourner à la troisième rivière. Jours
pénibles, lourds aux épaules, oppression d’une atmosphère en mystérieux
travail.
Vers le soir, des boules de vapeurs blanchâtres commençaient
d’apparaître sur le marais, s’enflaient, s’épaississaient, se soudaient,
enfouissaient la digue sous leur avalanche cotonneuse, puis roulaient en
vagues molles, qui gagnaient les bords, s’accrochaient aux pointes des
arbres, et déferlaient sur tout le camp, noyant les feux d’herbes aromatiques
allumés par les coolies contre les noirs zanzaris. Le pis était qu’une fois
entré là-dedans, vous aviez l’exacte sensation de serviettes mouillées d’eau
chaude, appliquées sur votre peau et que, ce nonobstant, vous frissonniez et
claquiez des dents...
Et cela durait ainsi jusque vers deux ou trois heures du matin, où peu à
peu la couche stagnante éclaircie, baissée de niveau, semblait se perdre par
la terre, comme à travers un vase poreux.
Mon travail m’occupait, à ce moment, assez loin de la rive, dans
l’intérieur de la forêt, et le retour, dans cette brume étrange, était si
désagréable, qu’à la troisième expérience, je décidai de passer la nuit sur
place, dans le camp de mes défricheurs, en un point où cette marée funèbre
n’arrivait pas et où la flamme des feux montait, rose et brillante, comme
une tente de soie.
Mal m’en prit, d’ailleurs, car le cinquième soir, c’est d’un accès
classique de fièvre des bois que je claquais des dents. Dans le cauchemar
qui s’ensuivit, j’étais obsédé d’hallucinations dont la plus tenace était celle
d’une main suspendue, comme un fruit, au-dessus d’un lac de sang durci.
Une main, comme un fruit très blanc... et, tout d’un coup, quelque chose
comme un pépin d’or en tombait avec un fracas de gong, et le sang se
mettait à se moirer d’ondes plus claires, à tourner au jaune, à prendre
couleur d’eau de marais...
Au matin, réconforté par un peu de thé, je regagnai Chang-préah, et
rentrai chez moi pour renouveler ma provision de quinine et dormir deux ou
trois heures sur un lit à sommier. Mais à peine avais-je refermé ma porte
qu’elle se rouvrait derrière moi et que Moutier, la mine quasi plus défaite
que la mienne, tombait sur un fauteuil.
—A-ka-thor avait raison, dit-il entre ses dents, l’endroit est maudit!
Sans hésitation je prononçai:
—Lanier?
Il fit oui, silencieusement, d’une inclination de tête.
—Racontez-moi le drame.
Derechef, j’avais lancé le mot sans balancer.
J’étais sûr—qui dira par quelle prescience?—que, cette fois, ce n’était ni
de paludisme, ni de soleil, ni de dysenterie qu’il était question.
Et Moutier me raconta le drame: comment les gens de la rivière avaient
entendu, vers neuf heures du soir, un hurlement épouvantable parti de la
sala Lanier; comment on était accouru, Vallery en tête, et comment ils
avaient trouvé Lanier accroupi dans un angle du salon, comme un singe
dans le coin de sa cage, un coupe-coupe de défricheur dégouttant à la main
et à trois pas de lui, au pied du bahut de Canton, le corps de sa femme
inondé de rouge. Sur quoi, le vieux Vallery avait fait, sans tergiverser, le
seul geste qui convînt, lequel était d’épauler son fusil et de presser la
détente...
—Heureusement, conclut Moutier, que Fagui n’a rien vu ni entendu de
tout cela! La congaïe a l’ordre de l’empêcher de quitter sa chambre, jusqu’à
ce que tout soit remis en ordre.
Moutier est le chef, puisqu’en somme Vallery n’est ici qu’à titre
officieux. Moutier a charge de nos âmes et de nos corps...
Mais, au fond, Moutier nous donnerait tous, nous, notre sang, nos os, nos
bagages, pour un grain de la poussière de ce qui a touché à Lully.
Je demandai, la gorge sèche:
—Quelles blessures portait le corps de madame Lanier?
Moutier me répondit, sans remarquer mon émoi:
—Deux affreuses entailles de coupe-coupe, dont l’une avait sectionné la
carotide et dont l’autre avait fait sauter l’annulaire de la main gauche. Nous
avons ramassé la bague d’alliance dans une flaque de sang.
Eh bien! Hetty Dibson, pensez-vous maintenant qu’il est quelquefois
prudent de soigner les malades?
—Il paraît, ajouta Moutier, qu’un geste de la malheureuse s’amusant à
faire glisser sa bague le long du doigt, comme sur la tringle d’un
baguenaudier, exaspérait depuis longtemps la folie naissante de son mari.
Je baisse la tête. Qui pèsera jamais les responsabilités par omission?
N’aurais-je pas pu?... N’aurais-je pas dû, en dépit de l’inconsciente Hetty?...
—C’est vous, reprend Moutier, qui aurez encore la corvée de
l’inventaire, mon pauvre ami... Vous demanderez l’alliance à Vallery.
J’ai demandé l’alliance à Vallery, et voici dans mes mains le frêle anneau
de métal... le cercle si lourd! C’est ce que les bijoutiers appellent un demi-
jonc, et, dans l’intérieur, sont inscrits, comme à l’ordinaire, les deux
prénoms, Jean-Madeleine et une date: 8 ju... Tiens, quel est ce mois: juet?
Et au fait ce n’est pas Madeleine qui est gravé, c’est Madeine; et à regarder
de très près, il y a là, semble-t-il, deux défauts dans le métal, deux
minuscules ébarbages... Et soudain une lueur fulgurante zigzague dans mon
cerveau.
—Foung-li! Foung-li!
Me voici courant sans casque, sous le soleil fou, vers la boutique de
l’orfèvre, la belle boutique pavoisée de frissonnantes bannières funèbres.
—Foung-li! tu connais cette bague?... Tu l’as travaillée?
Le vieux Foung-li prend l’objet sans hâte, le regarde par-dessus, puis
par-dessous ses lunettes, et ainsi de moi-même, et, les yeux obliques, dans
son français le plus appliqué:
—Oui, monsieur, madame Lanier a porté deux fois cette bague dans ma
maison pour la faire resserrer.
J’essuie mon front plein de sueur, et j’emprunte au maître orfèvre un dais
d’enterrement, en guise de parasol, pour regagner la sala Lanier, où je vais
dresser un inventaire: un bahut de Canton avec marbre rouge, une glace
usagée et une douzaine de petites cuillers qui font tin-tin...
—Allons! j’aurai toujours appris au Siam-Cambodge de merveilleuses
bottes de cette escrime féminine à la parisienne qui passe la portée des
coups de poing d’Hetty Dibson... et aussi, j’imagine, quelque notion du
respect dû à ce qu’il y a d’étincelant, parfois, au fond des jeunes yeux clairs,
où glisse un peu de sable d’or.
XI
Trois femmes, moins une... et une qui déserta!
Il ne reste que Fagui, Fagui la démente, redevenue riveraine du marais,
sous la garde de Moutier. Folie douce, comme l’annonça le docteur, et dont
le détraquement se révélerait à peine, n’étaient d’obstinés silences, déchirés
du cri qui fait mal... Elle sort et erre à sa guise. Elle contemple volontiers le
travail des coolies sur la digue, de loin, car le vacarme l’effarouche. Mais,
surtout, elle aime à se promener sur la ligne parachevée et relativement
déserte, entre la rivière et la borne du kilomètre 82. Il semble qu’elle
éprouve un contentement de sécurité à sentir, sous ses pieds, le dur lit du
ballast. Elle affectionne aussi les particularités de la voie, les aiguilles, les
bretelles, les contre-cœurs; elle les examine longuement, et, quand les rails
brillent, on la voit s’accroupir, dessiner le geste de les caresser. Le docteur
dit que le séjour ici vaut, après tout, autant et mieux pour elle qu’un
internement à Saïgon, et Moutier ne veut entendre parler de confier à
d’autres qu’à lui-même le soin de son rapatriement.
Celle qui déserta, c’est Hetty Dibson.
Le surlendemain du drame de la sala Lanier, elle a déclaré tout net à
Vallery qu’elle repartait pour Hong-Kong, qu’il savait bien, lui, Philippe,
que ce n’était pas pour sa barbiche grise qu’elle était venue à Chang-préah,
mais seulement pour défendre cette pauvre petite Lanier, qu’à nous tous
nous avions trouvé moyen de laisser massacrer, et que, maintenant, elle
n’avait plus qu’à s’en aller...
Et Pip ne put faire moins que de donner des ordres pour qu’un train
spécial soit chauffé en gare de Chang-préah, et pour qu’une demi-douzaine
d’agents de navigation maritime ou fluviale, tenant bureau entre le 14° et le
21° degré de latitude nord, soient avisés, par télégraphe d’avoir à aménager
leur meilleure cabine de pont.
Il faut rendre cette justice à Pip qu’il n’insinua pas une seconde qu’on
pourrait retourner s’installer sous les pamplemousses fleuris de
Battambang. Je crois que le contact du fusil chaud entre les doigts lui avait
suggéré quelques réflexions... C’était une tête grise, et dans son genre, un
vieux dur à cuire; ce n’était pas un barbon. Le nettoyage du camp de la
troisième rivière achevé, il a paru même tout ragaillardi à l’idée de venir
prendre sa place au milieu de nous, sur le front de bandière. Le voilà
devenu riverain du marais, lui aussi, et commensal de la popote. Pour éviter
des conflits d’attributions avec Moutier, il a pris la direction des travaux
d’infrastructure au delà de la borne 84, sur le segment de ligne dont je
poursuis, en forêt, l’exploitation. Nous avons ainsi l’occasion de nous
rencontrer à l’ombre d’un velum de lianes, propice aux causeries. Il me
parle volontiers de ses campagnes antérieures, des plaines de Syrie, où les
trombes, venues des gorges du Liban, emportaient ses tas de ballast, comme
des poignées de grains; des marais de Thessalie, dont l’asséchement, après
des gentillesses paludéennes dignes de Chang-préah, avait, morts les
moustiques, attiré des légions d’archéologues sur les débris d’un barrage
non point khmer, mais pélasgique: des gisements de pyrites de la côte du
Pacifique où, sur un sol couleur de cuivre, sans une goutte d’eau, sans une
touffe d’herbe à vingt lieues à la ronde, il avait fallu édifier, en quinze jours,
une ville de bois démontable pour six mille mineurs...
De son aventure avec la Dibson, il ne garde ni rancune, ni honte. La
seule allusion à ce passé qui tomba de ses lèvres eut pour origine le
croisement du petit tilbury noir, délaissé de ses brillantes habituées et
devenu le véhicule d’invalide d’André Moutier, duquel la jambe,
décidément, reste à la traîne... Et l’allusion se borna à une phrase,
prononcée avec un joli sourire de papa, tandis que nous regardions filer les
roues légères, une phrase qui disait quelque chose comme: «Cette folie
avait assez duré!... C’est la pension de mes fils qui bénéficiera de ma
sagesse!»
Ses fils! Deux jeunes hommes de jolie tournure et de mise élégante, à en
juger par les photographies qu’il m’a montrées avec orgueil. L’un rêve à sa
licence en droit, l’autre se sent du goût pour la peinture... Deux jeunes
hommes aux mains soignées, aux maxillaires un peu flous... Et, ma foi,
reluquant cette jeunesse au poil lustré, et surprenant, un quart d’heure après,
la vieille tête grise suant à se chipoter avec les doigts jaunes de ses
dessinateurs, sous la paillote d’un méchant bureau, je crois bien que ce n’est
pas pour la tête chenue que j’ai eu honte, même coiffée d’Hetty Dibson!
Ce qui m’enchante chez Vallery, c’est sa bonhomie devant le bilan de
nos pertes. Il en a vu bien d’autres, quoique, concède-t-il, «si cela continue
un mois ou deux, nous sommes en bonne posture pour le record, record du
pourcentage, bien entendu, car nous ne saurions, pour les chiffres absolus,
mettre notre modeste performance à côté des grandes batailles comme Suez
et Panama. Mais, pour une simple escarmouche de partisans, le condottiere
Vanelli a le droit d’être content.»
A l’heure qu’il est, voici le tableau: trois mille moins sept cent soixante,
à la colonne «Asiatiques.» A la colonne «Européens», quinze moins six,
resterait neuf; il faut compter les deux hommes de remplacement, savoir
Vallery lui-même et Bob Findlay. Findlay est un petit Anglais, rose et court
de bras, comme une poupée, et qu’à première apparence une pichenette
renverserait, mais qui se soutient admirablement avec du whisky, du ginger-
ale et des fantaisies françaises à base d’eau, telles que le pernod, le
vermouth, la menthe et le picon... Au demeurant, le meilleur fils d’Albion.
On nous l’a fait venir de Rangoon, où il jouait au polo sur le recreation
ground, à l’heure du tiffin, ce qui constitue une garantie appréciable
d’entraînement pour le jeu que nous jouons ici. L’idée que, si les ma-kouis
s’y prêtent seulement un peu, nous avons chance de dégringoler le record
français, lui est très exciting. Il s’est fait donner les chiffres: 38 pour 100—
traversée de la vallée du Nam-ti par le chemin de fer de Laokay à
Yunnansen,—record professionnel, s’entend, car pour le record amateur,—
route militaire de Majunga à Tananarive,—les chiffres n’ont jamais pu être
officiellement homologués. Il s’est fait donner les chiffres, et tient
soigneusement un score journalier; et, pour un rien, je le soupçonnerais de
regarder d’un œil sans tendresse notre docteur qui s’efforce de son mieux à
compromettre un si glorieux résultat.
Mais, les ma-kouis s’y prêteront-ils? Avec Moutier nous venons d’établir
des pronostics... Il faudrait avoir franchi le marais avant la saison des
pluies, six semaines environ. Cela sera-t-il? Il nous est permis de l’espérer.
Nous commençons à coffrer les derniers bétonnages; les traverses et le
ballast sont à pied d’œuvre, nos équipages de bourreurs ont fait leurs
preuves... Oui, dans six semaines, nous aurons mis la bride au vieux ma-
koui fangeux, la sourdine définitive au Gong de malheur...
Quand Moutier prononce ce mot: terminus, une flamme rose monte à ses
joues blêmes. Go on, Moutier, go on! Je sais que la mort de Lully, son
camarade, son frère, lui a porté un coup dur, un de ces coups sourds, comme
les boxeurs en connaissent, dont l’effet se prolonge et s’accroît avec le
nombre des rounds. Mais, à personne, je le sais aussi, il ne lui conviendrait
de montrer sa blessure secrète, pas plus qu’il ne lui plaît d’exhiber l’ulcère
de sa jambe, que le docteur a toutes les peines du monde à visiter. Et
pourtant, je perçois en lui, je devine sous l’écorce toujours grise de sa
réserve, je ne sais quel travail mystérieux des vitalités profondes... Dans nos
entretiens journaliers, je surprends, au tournant d’une phrase, d’une
réflexion, l’éclair d’une sensibilité inattendue, je ne sais quel
enrichissement d’émotion de sa droiture un peu raide, un peu sèche... Et je
songe, malgré moi, à ces floraisons d’arbres qui sont la gloire de la forêt, à
ces jardins merveilleux, soudainement portés par les troncs ligneux, les
beaux troncs austères et solides comme des colonnes de temple.
XII
Hier, nous revenions ensemble, à cheval, du camp des coolies. C’était
l’heure où, le travail fini, ils prennent le riz, le bol aux mains, accroupis sur
les talons, au seuil des huttes de nattes qui leur servent de demeures. Une
heure très brève de repos, de calme, de clarté quasi sereine. A travers les
touffes assombries de la berge, on aperçoit des morceaux éclatants de
marais, des carrés d’eau chinés de bleu, de rouge et de violet, et beaux
comme des tapis de prières. Sur le sol, nous pouvions admirer tout un
grillage de dessins à la chaux, destinés à barrer le passage aux ma-kouis des
épidémies,—interprétation ingénieuse des sévères consignes du docteur,
relatives à l’emploi des désinfectants. Toute une marmaille demi-nue
utilisait ces lignes blanches pour jouer à la marelle, avec des cris volant et
s’entre-croisant, comme des martinets, devant l’arche dorée du crépuscule.
Un de ces marmots retint notre attention. Il jouait son jeu tout seul, sous
la dignité d’une fastueuse calotte de soie mauve, emboîtant son crâne plein
d’éminences. Et son jeu consistait à jeter une digue de glaise et de cailloux
au travers d’un marais de Chang-préah miniature, une magnifique flaque
jaune du bord de la route. Mais, plus heureux que les gens du kilomètre 83,
il avait atteint l’autre rive, lui, et, pour célébrer son succès et glorifier, je
pense, son œuvre, il avait planté au centre même de celle-ci un long rameau
rouge d’érythryne, qu’il se hâta d’arracher à notre approche, et de serrer
contre lui, comme un trésor.
Moutier s’arrêta, sourit au bambin et lui tendit une pièce de dix
centimes, vers laquelle s’allongea prudemment la menotte fleurie.
Se retournant vers moi, mon compagnon me dit pensivement:
—Vous rappelez-vous, Tourange, ce que nous prédisait notre vieux
compagnon de route du Vaïco, qu’un jour viendrait pour nous le temps de la
pitié, de la pitié pour ceux-là—il pivota sur sa selle et, de la main, désigna
le camp des huttes—pour ceux-là, nos semblables, nos frères!
A ces derniers mots, j’eus un haut-le-corps si vif qu’il se prit à rire.
—Vous refusez l’expression? Diable! Tourange, je ne vous savais pas si
endurci dans le préjugé de couleur.
Je secouai la tête, en énergique dénégation.
—Ce n’est point contre la fraternité d’épiderme que je m’insurge, mais
contre la confusion des titres. Je suis un aristocrate, mon cher, j’ai rang
d’ouvrier, et ceux-là, non.
—Et que sont-ils donc?
—Des coolies. Il importe de respecter les hiérarchies essentielles. N’est
ouvrier que celui qui travaille la matière, selon l’ordre d’une pensée!... Si
cette pensée est la sienne propre, il gagne un grade, il devient artiste.
—Vanelli, par exemple?
—Parfaitement. Vanelli est un artiste, une façon de sculpteur à sculpter
le monde... Il peut avoir les plus horribles défauts et perpétrer des chefs-
d’œuvre. Il peut aussi signer des infamies, des commandes officielles...
Mais, quand l’inspiration y est, quand sa pensée est enflée, quoi qu’il en ait,
d’un prodigieux concours de forces vivantes, alors, la colombe descend, le
rayon luit!... Nous verrons cela, je l’espère,—ajoutai-je en riant à mon tour
—au Siam-Cambodge, lorsque ce sera notre jour de planter nos rameaux de
pourpre sur ce chef-d’œuvre de kilomètre 83!...
Nous remîmes nos montures en marche et, comme le souci d’éviter à la
jambe blessée des secousses douloureuses nous astreignait à une vitesse des
plus modérées, le soir achevait de tomber au moment où nous arrivions
devant la porte de Moutier. Là, comme je me disposais à le quitter, il me
pria tout à coup d’entrer un instant avec lui.
—Georges Lully était un artiste, me dit-il à brûle-pourpoint, tandis que
le boy allumait les lampes et que le gnô mettait le pankah en branle.
—Ah! fis-je, en montrant un visage neutre.
—Oui, il s’était occupé de sculptures assez bizarres, à en juger par ses
propos, car je ne les ai jamais vues... Je suppose qu’il les a détruites.
Moutier avait dit cela très simplement. Certainement il ne se doutait
pas... Je le regardai dans les yeux. Je tâtai, pour ainsi dire, leur expression
posée, ferme, leur solidité un peu mystérieuse de serrures.
—Non, dis-je résolument, c’est moi qui les ai détruites... et voici dans
quelles conditions.
Et-je racontai ma découverte de l’atelier, mon émotion, mon expédition
avec le docteur.
—Si j’ai eu tort ou raison, je ne le sais, ajoutai-je, car je n’ai pas pesé le
pour et le contre de mes actes, j’ai agi sous l’impulsion d’une fièvre... Mais
je crois qu’en telles circonstances, la même fièvre encore me reprendrait, et
que je recommencerais.
—Je le crois aussi, dit-il, et de même pour moi...
Il s’était levé, et tournait la clef d’un tiroir de bureau. Il revint portant
sous le bras une chemise de carton souple, du format écolier, gonflée de
papiers... Au centre de la pièce, traînait un de ces vaisseaux de terre en
forme de mortier, dans lesquels, le soir venu, on allume du bois de santal
pour éloigner les moustiques. Sans me fournir d’explications, Moutier se
dirigea vers ce point, s’accroupit, vida la chemise, éparpilla les papiers, les
roula en boules, et, frottant une allumette, en approcha la flamme.
Il y eut une flambée fumeuse, puis, ce qui restait dans le mortier apparut,
se gonflant et s’arquant comme un grouillement d’ailes de chauve-souris,
ocellé de pourpre, vermiculé d’or. Du bout de sa canne, Moutier le remua,
en fit sortir une exhalaison de feu... Alors, seulement, il se retourna vers
moi.
—Ceci, dit-il en montrant le petit tas noirâtre, ceci fut l’œuvre de
l’artiste Lully... ceci, et ce qui est retourné à son argile. Et, toutes réflexions
faites, je crois qu’il vaut mieux que seule subsiste la mémoire de l’ouvrier
Lully, de l’ingénieur Lully, bon ouvrier au Siam-Cambodge. Oui, cela vaut
mieux... surtout pour «celle-là»...
Moutier, entr’ouvrant son veston, en tirait son portefeuille et le jetait sur
la table. D’une poche glissait à demi une photographie, la photographie
réclamée de moi après l’inventaire, la photographie de «celle-là»,
mademoiselle Adrienne Lully, directrice d’institution à Lons-le-Saulnier.
—Voyez-vous, reprit-il, les yeux sur le carton gris, moi, je ne puis me
décider par coup de fièvre... et peut-être ai-je tort... je perds du temps à
calculer, à soupeser... Après la fin de Georgie, j’ai mis en délibéré le sort de
ces papiers. Il me les avait apportés lui-même, quelques jours auparavant; il
n’en était pas très content, mais il hésitait à les détruire.—Moutier acheva
de tirer l’épreuve photographique de la poche de cuir, la posa bien devant
lui, sous la clarté de la lampe.—J’ai longuement examiné cette tête. Voici le
front tourmenté de Georgie, mais, par-dessus ce bosselage inquiétant, quelle
discipline stricte des cheveux serrés! Et, dans tout le reste du visage, ce qui
était, chez Georgie, modestie et gentillesse, devient ici effacement,
insignifiance, presque humilité. Alors?... Si les papiers n’étaient pas
détruits, c’est à celle-là qu’ils iraient.
Celle-là, quelle était son énigme? Celle-là, aux lèvres étroites de
maîtresse d’école, fallait-il qu’elle apprît avec horreur que son enfant, son
brave garçon, mort en terre maudite, avait reçu de cette terre on ne sait quel
mystérieux envoûtement... que ces yeux à jamais clos, que ce cerveau
façonné pieusement, avait chéri, avant d’en mourir, la lèpre d’or de cette
lumière dévorante? Ou, au contraire, si elle était de sa race, si le front
tumultueux ne mentait pas, fallait-il faire entendre cet appel terrible aux
pauvres oreilles lointaines, fallait-il faire miroiter cette atroce couronne
barbare et ce grand éblouissement accablant à celle dont le destin se
consumait dans ses sages grisailles?
—J’ai longtemps hésité, Tourange. Vos paroles et votre récit m’ont
décidé.
D’un geste spontané, je pris sa main et la serrai.
—Hé oui, lui dis-je, nous avons bien fait!
Il me rendit mon étreinte.
Et puis, reprit-il, d’une voix un peu basse, vous ne pouvez imaginer
comme il m’était pénible d’attacher au dernier souvenir de Lully le paillon
de je ne sais quel misérable «Qualis artifex pereo!»
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The emperors of modern Japan / edited by Ben-Ami Shillony.

Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated,

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by

printed in the netherlands

The Strange Survival and Its Modern Significance .................. 15

The Way of Revering the Emperor: Imperial Philosophy and

State Shinto and Emperor Veneration ....................................... 53

Ise Jingū and Modern Emperorship .......................................... 79

The Emperor and the Left in Interwar Japan .......................... 107

Conservative Dissatisfaction with the Modern Emperors ......... 137

Emperors and Christianity ......................................................... 163

The Unreciprocated Gaze: Emperors and Photography .......... 185

INDIVIDUAL EMPERORS AND EMPRESSES

The ‘Great Emperor’ Meiji ........................................................ 213

Taishō: An Enigmatic Emperor and his Influential Wife ......... 227

Empress Nagako and the Family State ...................................... 241

Axes to Grind: The Hirohito War Guilt Controversy in

The Emperor in the Constitutional Debate .............................. 299

Akihito and the Problem of Succession ..................................... 313

Contributors ................................................................................ 331

Chronology of the Japanese Emperors since the

Recommended Books in English ................................................ 339

Index ........................................................................................... 343

and new interpretations. Some of them are more informative, while

century samurai guidebook Hagakure, offered a different interpretation.

Rikki Kersten examines the attitudes of Japanese Marxists toward the

thinkers started to question the centrality of the imperial institution

magazine presented Crown Prince Akihito’s photograph on its cover.

Sally A. Hastings, in her essay on Hirohito’s wife Empress Nagako,

innocence to restore the emperor’s position as head of state. Both sides

When Did the Present Dynasty Start?

Most scholars agree that the traditional account, according to which

sent envoys to China. By the time of Emperor Yūryaku (King Bu of

Temmu continued until Empress Kōken in the eighth century. How-

The Warriors Rule, But Do Not Reign

Yoshimitsu and the Theory of the Hundred Emperors

The civil wars of the Namboku-chō (Northern and Southern Courts)

(‘Latter Day’), spread in Japan and contributed to the malaise of the

The Slow Rise of Imperial Prestige

The sengoku (Warring States) period (1467–1568) witnessed a slow rise

develop an autocratic government but retained the old ritsuryō system,

From Sovereign to Symbol

The Meiji Restoration was Japan’s reaction to the encroachment of

(Translated by Lucy North)

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