日本人の微笑（小泉八雲）⑤

THE JAPANESE SMILE (Lafcadio Hearn)

　　Sec. 5　五

As I pen these lines, there returns to me the vision of a Kyoto night. While passing through some wonderfully thronged and illuminated street, of which I cannot remember the name, I had turned aside to look at a statue of Jizo, before the entrance of a very small temple. The figure was that of a kozo, an acolyte—a beautiful boy; and its smile was a bit of divine realism. As I stood gazing, a young lad, perhaps ten years old, ran up beside me, joined his little hands before the image, bowed his head and prayed for a moment in silence. He had but just left some comrades, and the joy and glow of play were still upon his face; and his unconscious smile was so strangely like the smile of the child of stone that the boy seemed the twin brother of the god. And then I thought: 'The smile of bronze or stone is not a copy only; but that which the Buddhist sculptor symbolises thereby must be the explanation of the smile of the race.'

私がこんな事を書いて居ると、或ある京都の一夜の事が幻にやうに浮んで来る。名は思出せないが、どこか不思議に人ごみのする、明るい通りを通つて居る間に、私は大層小さいお寺の入口の前の地蔵を見にわきへ曲つた。その像は美うるはしいお寺の雛僧すうそうの形であつた、そしてその微笑は神々しい写実の物であつた。私は眺めながら立つて居ると、多分十歳程の幼い少年が私のわきへ走りよつて、その像の前に小さい手を合せ、頭を下げてしばらく黙禱した。幾人かの朋友から離れて来たばかりで遊びの楽しさ面白さが未だ顔に残つてゐた、その無意識の微笑は石の雛僧の微笑と不思議に似て居るので、その小児は地蔵と双生児のやうに見えた。そこで私は考へた、『唐金や石の微笑はただの写生ではない、それによつて仏師の象徴して居るものはこの種族の微笑の意味であるに相違ない』

That was long ago; but the idea which then suggested itself still seems to me true. However foreign to Japanese soil the origin of Buddhist art, yet the smile of the people signifies the same conception as the smile of the Bosatsu—the happiness that is born of self-control and self- suppression. 'If a man conquer in battle a thousand times a thousand and another conquer himself, he who conquers himself is the greatest of conquerors.' 'Not even a god can change into defeat the victory of the man who has vanquished himself.' ^[4]

Such Buddhist texts as these—and they are many—assuredly express, though they cannot be assumed to have created, those moral tendencies which form the highest charm of the Japanese character. And the whole moral idealism of the race seems to me to have been imaged in that marvellous Buddha of Kamakura, whose countenance, 'calm like a deep, still water' ^[5] expresses, as perhaps no other work of human hands can have expressed, the eternal truth: 'There is no higher happiness than rest.' ^[6] It is toward that infinite calm that the aspirations of the Orient have been turned; and the ideal of the Supreme Self-Conquest it has made its own. Even now, though agitated at its surface by those new influences which must sooner or later move it even to its uttermost depths, the Japanese mind retains, as compared with the thought of the West, a wonderful placidity. It dwells but little, if at all, upon those ultimate abstract questions about which we most concern ourselves. Neither does it comprehend our interest in them as we desire to be comprehended. 'That you should not be indifferent to religious speculations,' a Japanese scholar once observed to me, 'is quite natural; but it is equally natural that we should never trouble ourselves about them. The philosophy of Buddhism has a profundity far exceeding that of your Western theology, and we have studied it. We have sounded the depths of speculation only to fluid that there are depths unfathomable below those depths; we have voyaged to the farthest limit that thought may sail, only to find that the horizon for ever recedes. And you, you have remained for many thousand years as children playing in a stream but ignorant of the sea. Only now you have reached its shore by another path than ours, and the vastness is for you a new wonder; and you would sail to Nowhere because you have seen the infinite over the sands of life.'

⁴ Dhammapada.

⁵ Dammikkasutta.

⁶ Dhammapada.

それは昔の事であつた、しかしその当時浮んだ考は今もやはり私には本当と思はれる。仏教美術の源は如何に日本の土地に親しみがなくとも、それでも日本人の微笑は菩薩の微笑と同じ思想、即ち、自己抑制と自己征服から生ずる幸福を表はして居る。『戦場に於て千々の敵に克かつよりは独り己に克つもの、彼こそ最上の戦勝者なれ』『天も魔王も梵天もこの常に己を御し自ら制する人の勝利を転じて敗亡となすこと能はず^註四』こんな仏教の文句は沢山ある、そしてこんな文句は日本人の性格の最高の美点である道徳的傾向を創造したと仮定する事はできぬが、たしかに表はして居る。そして日本人種の道徳的理想主義は凡て鎌倉のあの驚くべき大仏の像になつて居るやうに思はれる、その容貌は『深い静かな水のやうに落ちついて^註五』人間の手でできたどんな外ほかの作品も表はす事のできぬやうに『寂滅に勝れる楽あるなし^註六』と云ふ永久の真理を表はして居る。東洋の向上心はその無限の平静の方へ向つて居るのである、そして無上の自己征服の理想を自分の理想として居る。今日でも表面は、早晩根柢までも動かすに相違ない新影響のために動揺して居るが、日本人の心は西洋の思想と比べては驚くべき平静を保つて居る。日本人は私共が最も気にして居る究極の抽象的問題をたとへ念頭に置いて居るにしてもそれは極めて少い。なほ又私共が会得される事を望むやうに、日本人は私共のそれ等の問題に関する興味を会得しない。或ある日本の学者は一度私に云つた、『君が宗教的研究に無頓着で居られないのは、全く自然であるが、私共がそれに対して餘り心を労しないのも同じく自然である。仏教の哲学は君達の西洋の神学よりも遥かにすぐれた深さをもつてゐて、私共はそれを研究して居る。私共は思想の深さを測つて、その深い底の下に測り知られない深さのある事を見出すばかりである。私共は思想の力で達し得べき最も遠い境まで航海したが、地平線が永久に退却する事を見出すばかりである。しかし、君達は、何千年以来、海を知らないで、いつも川の中で遊んで居る子供等のやうである。只君達は今私共の途みちと違つた途でその岸に達した、そしてその渺茫べうばうたる物は、君達にとつては新しい驚異である。そして君達は、人生の砂の上の無窮を見たから、無何有之郷へ航海するであらう』

註四。Dhammapada. 法句経、この訳文は国訳大蔵経による。

註五。Dammikkasutta. 法行経。

註六。Dhammapada. 法句経、国訳大蔵経による。

Will Japan be able to assimilate Western civilisation, as she did Chinese more than ten centuries ago, and nevertheless preserve her own peculiar modes of thought and feeling? One striking fact is hopeful: that the Japanese admiration for Western material superiority is by no means extended to Western morals. Oriental thinkers do not commit the serious blunder of confounding mechanical with ethical progress, nor have any failed to perceive the moral weaknesses of our boasted civilisation. One Japanese writer has expressed his judgment of things Occidental after a fashion that deserves to be noticed by a larger circle of readers than that for which it was originally written:

千年以上の昔、日本は支那の文明を消化して、しかも、特有の思想感情の法式を保存したやうに、西洋の文明を消化する事はできるであらうか。一つ著しく有望な事実がある。それは日本人の西洋の物質的優勝に対する讃嘆は西洋の道徳までは決して及んでゐない事である。東洋の思想家は機械的の進歩と倫理上の進歩とを混同したり、私共の自慢の文明の道徳的弱点を認めなかつたりするやうな重大な誤りはしない。或日本の記者は西洋の事物に関する判断を、もとの読者よりも、もつと広い範囲の読者に読まれる価値があるやうな風に書いて居る、――

'Order or disorder in a nation does not depend upon some-thing that falls from the sky or rises from the earth. It is determined by the disposition of the people. The pivot on which the public disposition turns towards order or disorder is the point where public and private motives separate. If the people be influenced chiefly by public considerations, order is assured; if by private, disorder is inevitable. Public considerations are those that prompt the proper observance of duties; their prevalence signifies peace and prosperity in the case alike of families, communities, and nations. Private considerations are those suggested by selfish motives: when they prevail, disturbance and disorder are unavoidable. As members of a family, our duty is to look after the welfare of that family; as units of a nation, our duty is to work for the good of the nation. To regard our family affairs with all the interest due to our family and our national affairs with all the interest due to our nation—this is to fitly discharge our duty, and to be guided by public considerations. On the other hand, to regard the affairs of the nation as if they were our own family affairs—this is to be influenced by private motives and to stray from the path of duty. …

『一国民の秩序と不秩序とは空から下る物や地から出る物によるのではない。それはその人民の気質によつて定まるのである。公衆の気質が秩序と不秩序の方へ向ふその要は、他利的及び自利的動機の分れる点である。もし公衆が重おもに他利的の考慮によつて動かされる場合には、秩序は保たれるが、自利的であれば、乱雑は免れない。他利的考慮とは正しく義務を守る念を起させるやうな考慮を云ふ、それが行はれると家庭にあつても、社会にあつても、国家にあつても、平和と繁栄を来す。自利的考慮とは利己的な動機から出て来る考慮である。それが力を得ると、争乱と紛擾は避け難い。家庭の一員としては、私共の義務はその家庭の幸福を求むる事であり、国家の一員としては、国家のために働く事である。私共の家族に対してそのためになるやうにとの考を以て家族の事を考へる事、国家に対して、そのためになるやうにとの考を以て国家の事を考へる事、――これは適当に私共の義務を果し、公共的の念慮によつて導かれる事になる。それに反して、国家の事を自分の家庭の事のやうに考へる事、――これは自己的な動機に動かされて、義務の途から離れる事になる。……

'Selfishness is born in every man; to indulge it freely is to become a beast. Therefore it is that sages preach the principles of duty and propriety, justice and morality, providing restraints for private aims and encouragements for public spirit.. . . . What we know of Western civilisation is that it struggled on through long centuries in a confused condition and finally attained a state of some order; but that even this order, not being based upon such principles as those of the natural and immutable distinctions between sovereign and subject, parent and child, with all their corresponding rights and duties, is liable to constant change according to the growth of human ambitions and human aims. Admirably suited to persons whose actions are controlled by selfish ambition, the adoption of this system in Japan is naturally sought by a certain class of politicians. From a superficial point of view, the Occidental form of society is very attractive, inasmuch as, being the outcome of a free development of human desires from ancient times, it represents the very extreme of luxury and extravagance. Briefly speaking, the state of things obtaining in the West is based upon the free play of human selfishness, and can only be reached by giving full sway to that quality. Social disturbances are little heeded in the Occident; yet they are at once the evidences and the factors of the present evil state of affairs. . . . Do Japanese enamoured of Western ways propose to have their nation's history written in similar terms? Do they seriously contemplate turning their country into a new field for experiments in Western civilisation? . . .

『利己主義は生れつき誰にでもある、それに自由に耽る事は動物になる事である。それ故ゆゑ聖人は義務と中庸と正義と道徳の道を説いて、利己の目的を抑へる事と公共の念を励ます事を教へたのである。……私共は西洋文明について知つて居る所では、その文明は数百年の間乱雑な状態で悶えながら進んで、最後に多少の秩序ある状態に達したのであるが、この秩序と雖いへども君主と臣下、親と子の間の自然の不変の区別とそれに伴ふ権利義務の原理に基礎を置いてゐないから、人間的野心と目的の発達と共にたえざる変化に影響され易い。利己的野心によつてその人の行為が支配されるやうな人には至極適当して居るので、日本に於て或種類の政治家が、この制度を採用しようと努めたのは当然である。浅薄な見方から云へば、西洋の社会の形は非常に好もしい、即ち昔から人間の欲望の自由なる発達の結果であるから、その社会の形は奢侈と贅沢の丁度極端を表はして居る。略言すれば、西洋で到達する事物の状態は人類の利己主義を充分に発揮する事を基として居る、それでその性質を充分に発揚して始めて達せられる。社会の不穏は西洋では念頭に置かれない、しかも、それが直ちに現在の悪い社会状態の証拠であり、又要素でもある。……西洋事物を好む日本人は、同一の条件で日本の歴史を書きたいと主張するのであらうか。彼等は本気でその国を西洋文明の実験の新天地としようと考へて居るのであらうか。……

'In the Orient, from ancient times, national government has been based on benevolence, and directed to securing the welfare and happiness of the people. No political creed has ever held that intellectual strength should be cultivated for the purpose of exploiting inferiority and ignorance. . . . The inhabitants of this empire live, for the most part, by manual labour. Let them be never so industrious, they hardly earn enough to supply their daily wants. They earn on the average about twenty sen daily. There is no question with them of aspiring to wear fine clothes or to inhabit handsome houses. Neither can they hope to reach positions of fame and honour. What offence have these poor people committed that they, too, should not share the benefits of Western civilisation? . . . By some, indeed, their condition is explained on the hypothesis that their desires do not prompt them to better themselves. There is no truth in such a supposition. They have desires, but nature has limited their capacity to satisfy them; their duty as men limits it, and the amount of labour physically possible to a human being limits it. They achieve as much as their opportunities permit. The best and finest products of their labour they reserve for the wealthy; the worst and roughest they keep for their own use. Yet there is nothing in human society that does not owe its existence to labour. Now, to satisfy the desires of one luxurious man, the toil of a thousand is needed. Surely it is monstrous that those who owe to labour the pleasures suggested by their civilisation should forget what they owe to the labourer, and treat him as if he were not a fellow-being. But civilisation, according to the interpretation of the Occident, serves only to satisfy men of large desires. It is of no benefit to the masses, but is simply a system under which ambitions compete to accomplish their aims. . . . That the Occidental system is gravely disturbing to. the order and peace of a country is seen by men who have eyes, and heard by men who have ears. The future of Japan under such a system fills us with anxiety. A system based on the principle that ethics and religion are made to serve human ambition naturally accords with the wishes of selfish individuals; and such theories as those embodied in the modem formula of liberty and equality annihilate the established relations of society, and outrage decorum and propriety. . . .Absolute equality and absolute liberty being unattainable, the limits prescribed by right and duty are supposed to be set. But as each person seeks to have as much right and to be burdened with as little duty as possible, the results are endless disputes and legal contentions. The principles of liberty and equality may succeed in changing the organisation of nations, in overthrowing the lawful distinctions of social rank, in reducing all men to one nominal level; but they can never accomplish the equal distribution of wealth and property. Consider America. . . . It is plain that if the mutual rights of men and their status are made to depend on degrees of wealth, the majority of the people, being without wealth, must fail to establish their rights; whereas the minority who are wealthy will assert their rights, and, under society's sanction, will exact oppressive duties from the poor, neglecting the dictates of humanity and benevolence. The adoption of these principles of liberty and equality in Japan would vitiate the good and peaceful customs of our country, render the general disposition of the people harsh and unfeeling, and prove finally a source of calamity to the masses. . .

『東洋では昔から、その国の政府は仁を基として、人民の安寧幸福をはかる事に心を使つた。如何なる政治上の信条を有する者も、野卑無学を利用するために智力を磨くべきだと考へた者はなかつた。……この帝国の住民の大多数は手の労働で生計を営んで居る。如何に勤勉でも日々の缺乏を充たすだけの儲けは容易には得られない。彼等は平均一日に二十銭ばかりを儲ける。立派な着物を着よう、宏壮な家に住まう、と望む事は問題にならない。名誉評判の地位に達する事は望めない。これ等の貧しい人々は、さらに西洋文明の利益を享うけられない事は如何なる罪を犯したためであらうか。……彼等に欲望があつて彼等を向上させる事にならないからだと云ふ臆説で彼等の境遇を説明する者がある。こんな想像は不道理である。彼等も欲望はある、しかしそれを満足させる力に限りがある、人間としての彼等の義務はそれを制限する、そして肉体的に人間に可能な労働の分量はそれを限つて居る。機会の許す限り彼等は沢山の物を仕上げる。彼等の労働の最上最優の物は富める人々のために保留して、最劣最下の物は自らの使用として残す。しかも、人類社会に於て、労働のおかげで存在しない者はない。一人の贅沢な人の欲望を満足させるためには千人の労働を必要とする。労働のおかげで、彼等の文明から思ひついた快楽を享けて居る人々はそのおかげを忘れて、労働者を同胞人類でないやうな取扱をする事は全く奇怪千万である。しかし西洋の解釈によれば、文明はただ大きな欲望の人々を満足させる事になるだけである。それは大多数の人々のためにならない、ただ野心家がその目的を果すために競争する制度に過ぎない。……西洋の制度は国の平和や秩序をひどく乱す物である事は眼ある人に見え、耳ある人に聞える事である。こんな制度の下に日本を置く事は私共をして心配にたへざらしめる。倫理と宗教が人間の野心に副そふやうに作られる主義を基とした制度は当然利己的な人間の欲望と一致して居る。そして自由平等と云ふ近代の信条に含まれたやうな説は社会のきまつた関係を破壊し礼儀礼節を滅却する。……絶対の自由絶対の平等は得られないから、権利と義務で定めた制限を置くやうに考へられて居る。しかし銘々ができるだけ多くの権利を求めて、できるだけ少い義務を負担しようとするから、その結果はたえざる諍論と法律上の争になる。自由平等の主義は、社会階級の区別を覆くつがへして凡ての人々を一つの名ばかりの水平線にもつて行く事で、国家の組織を変へる事に成功するかも知れない、しかし、その主義は決して富と財産の平分をする事はできない。アメリカを見れば分る。……人及びその身分の権利が、富の程度によるやうに作られて居る時には、多数の人々は貧しいから、その権利を確立する事はできない、しかるに富んだ少数の人々はその権利を主張して、社会の認可の下に、仁義道徳の命を顧みないで、貧しい人々に対して圧制的な義務を要求するであらう。日本に於てこの自由平等の主義を採用する事は善良平和な風俗を害し、人民一般の気質を苛酷不人情ならしめ、結局大多数の人には不幸の源となるであらう。……

'Though at first sight Occidental civilisation presents an attractive appearance, adapted as it is to the gratification of selfish desires, yet, since its basis is the hypothesis that men' 's wishes constitute natural laws, it must ultimately end in disappointment and demoralisation. . . . Occidental nations have become what they are after passing through conflicts and vicissitudes of the most serious kind; and it is their fate to continue the struggle. Just now their motive elements are in partial equilibrium, and their social condition' is more or less ordered. But if this slight equilibrium happens to be disturbed, they will be thrown once more into confusion and change, until, after a period of renewed struggle and suffering, temporary stability is once more attained. The poor and powerless of the present may become the wealthy and strong of the future, and vice versa. Perpetual disturbance is their doom. Peaceful equality can never be attained until built up among the ruins of annihilated Western' states and the ashes of extinct Western peoples.' ^[7]

⁷ These extracts from a translation in the Japan Daily Mail, November 19, 20, 1890, of Viscount Torio's famous conservative essay do not give a fair idea of the force and logic of the whole. The essay is too long to quote entire; and any extracts from the Mail's admirable translation suffer by their isolation from the singular chains of ethical, religious, and philosophical reasoning which bind the Various parts of the composition together. The essay was furthermore remarkable as the production of a native scholar totally uninfluenced by Western thought. He correctly predicted those social and political disturbances which have occurred in Japan since the opening of the new parliament. Viscount Torio is also well known as a master of Buddhist philosophy. He holds a high rank in the Japanese army.

『利己的欲望を満足させる事に実際適して居るから一見して西洋文明は好もしく見えるが、しかしその根本は、人間の願望は自然の法則であると云ふ臆説に基して居るから、結局失望と道徳頽廃に終るに相違ない。……西洋の諸国民は、最も深刻な種類の争乱と興敗を経て、今日の状態となつて居る、そしてその争闘を続けるのがその運命である。丁度今彼等の動機となる要素は幾分平均を保つて居るので、社会状態は多少秩序を保つて居る。しかし一旦この危あやうい平均の乱れる事があれば、新しい争闘と苦悩の時期を経たのち、一時の平静がもう一度得られるまで、もう一度混乱と変動に陥るであらう。現在の貧しい人々や無力な人々は将来の富んだ人々強い人々となつて、その反対の人々はその逆になるであらう。永久の動乱は彼等の運命である。平和な平等は滅亡した西洋諸国の廃墟と絶滅した西洋の人々の屍の間に建てられるまでは決して到達される事はない^註七』

註七。これは鳥尾（小弥太、得庵）子爵の名高い保守的論文を、一八九〇（明治二十三年）十一月十九日、二十日、『ジャパン・メイル』が翻訳してのせし物の抄であるが、全体の力と論理が充分に表はれてゐない。その論文は全部引用するには長すぎる、そして、『メイル』の立派な翻訳をどう云ふ風に抜いても、その抜いたために、その文章の色々な部分を結合して居る倫理的宗教的及び哲学的推理の鎖が弱くなる。さらにこの論文は西洋思想に全然影響されない、日本の学者の発表した物として注目に値する。彼は新しい議会の開会以来日本に起つた社会上政治上の動乱を正しく豫言した。鳥尾子爵は又仏教哲学者として名高い。日本陸軍では高い位地の人である。

Surely, with perceptions like these, Japan may hope to avert some of the social perils which menace her. Yet it appears inevitable that her approaching transformation must be coincident with a moral decline. Forced into the vast industrial competition of nation's whose civilisations were never based on altruism, she must eventually develop those qualities of which the comparative absence made all the wonderful charm of her life. The national character must continue to harden, as it has begun to harden already. But it should never be forgotten that Old Japan was quite as much in advance of the nineteenth century morally as she was behind it materially. She had made morality instinctive, after having made it rational. She had realised, though within restricted limits, several among those social conditions which our ablest thinkers regard as the happiest and the highest. Throughout all the grades of her complex society she had cultivated both the comprehension and the practice of public and private duties after a manner for which it were vain to seek any Western parallel. Even her moral weakness was the result of an excess of that which all civilised religions have united in proclaiming virtue—the self-sacrifice of the individual for the sake of the family, of the community, and of the nation. It was the weakness indicated by Percival Lowell in his Soul of the Far East, a book of which the consummate genius cannot be justly estimated without some personal knowledge of the Far East. ^[8] The progress made by Japan in social morality, although greater than our own, was chiefly in the direction of mutual dependence. And it will be her coming duty to keep in view the teaching of that mighty thinker whose philosophy she has wisely accepted ^[9]—the teaching that 'the highest individuation must be joined with the greatest mutual dependence,' and that, however seemingly paradoxical the statement, 'the law of progress is at once toward complete separateness and complete union.

⁸ In expressing my earnest admiration of this wonderful book, I must, however, declare that several of its conclusions, and especially the final ones, represent the extreme reverse of my own beliefs on the subject. I do not think the Japanese without individuality; but their individuality is less superficially apparent, and reveals itself much less quickly, than that of Western people. I am also convinced that much of what we call 'personality' and 'force of character' in the West represents only the survival and recognition of primitive aggressive tendencies, more or less disguised by culture. What Mr. Spencer calls the highest individuation surely does not include extraordinary development of powers adapted to merely aggressive ends; and yet it is rather through these than through any others that Western individuality most commonly and readily manifests itself. Now there is, as yet, a remarkable scarcity in Japan, of domineering, brutal, aggressive, or morbid individuality. What does impress one as an apparent weakness in Japanese intellectual circles is the comparative absence of spontaneity, creative thought, original perceptivity of the highest order. Perhaps this seeming deficiency is racial: the peoples of the Far East seem to have been throughout their history receptive rather than creative. At all events I cannot believe Buddhism—originally the faith of an Aryan race—can be proven responsible. The total exclusion of Buddhist influence from public education would not seem to have been stimulating; for the masters of the old Buddhist philosophy still show a far higher capacity for thinking in relations than that of the average graduate of the Imperial University. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that an intellectual revival of Buddhism—a harmonising of its loftier truths with the best and broadest teachings of modern science—would have the most important results for Japan.

⁹ Herbert Spencer. A native scholar, Mr. Inouye Enryo, has actually founded at Tokyo with this noble object in view, a college of philosophy which seems likely, at the present writing, to become an influential institution. 

たしかに、このやうな知覚を以て、日本は自分を嚇おびやかす社会的危険を幾分避けられるであらう。しかし日本に将まさに来らんとする変化は、道徳的衰亡を来す事は避けられないやうに思はれる。その文明が愛他主義に基づいてゐない諸国民と、大きな産業上の競争をせねばならなくなつたので、日本は、これまでそれが比較的少い事が全く日本生活の不思議な美点となつてゐた凡ての悪徳を、結局養成して行かねばならない。国民性はもう悪化しかけて来たが、引続き悪化せねばならない。しかし古い日本は、物質的には十九世紀の日本よりも劣つてゐたが、道徳的には餘程進んでゐた事を忘れてはならない。日本は道徳を合理的にしたあとで、それを本能的にしてゐた。日本は私共の思想家が最も幸福な最も高尚な社会状態と考へる物を色々、狭い範囲に於てであるが、実現してゐた。複雑な社会の凡ての階級を通じて、日本は公の及び私の義務を会得して実行する事を養成して来たが、その風は西洋ではその比を見出す事はできない。日本の道徳的弱点でも、凡ての進んだ宗教が一致して美徳と賞讃して居る物――即ち家族、国体、及び国家のために一身を犠牲にする事――が極端に進んだ結果であつた。それはパーシヴァル・ロウヱルが、その『極東の魂』――極東の多少の^註八実際的智識がなければ、その完全な天才が充分に評価ができないその書物――に示してある弱点であつた。日本が社会道徳の方面でなした進歩は、私共自身の進歩より大きいけれども、重おもに相互にたより合ふと云ふ方面であつた。それで日本の将来の義務は、その人の哲学を日本が賢くも採用したその偉大なる思想家^註九の教を忘れない事である――その教は、『最も高い独居は最も大きな相互依存と伴はれねばならない』と云ふ事、それから一見如何にも相反するやうに見える文句ではあるが、『進歩の法則は完全なる別居と同時に完全なる協同の方へ向ふ』と云ふ事である。

註八。この名著に対しては私は熱心なる賞讃を表はすけれども、その結論の多くの物殊に最終の物は、その問題に対する私自身の信ずる事と極端に反して居る事を私は公言せねばならない。私は日本人は個性をもたないとは思はない。ただ日本人の個性は西洋人の個性程表面的に現はれない、又現はれ方も遥かに遅い。私は又私共が西洋で『人格』及び『品性の力』と云つて居る物の多くは、多少修養で変装された原始的な攻撃的傾向の残存と承認を表はすに過ぎないと信じて居る。スペンサー氏の所謂最高の独居は単に攻撃的目的に応用された力の異常な発達を含んでゐない、しかし西洋の個性が最も普通に容易に表はれるのは、他の方法よりはむしろこの方法によるのである。見たところ、日本の智力界の弱点と人に思はせる物は、自発、創造的思想、最高種類の認識力の比較的に缺乏して居る事である。恐らくさう見える缺点は人種的である。極東の人々は、歴史を通じて、創造的でなくて、感受的であつたらしい。とにかく私は仏教――元来アリヤン種族の信仰――はそれに対して責任があるとは証明されないと思ふ。普通教育から仏教の勢力を全然除外する事は奨励すべきではなかつたらう、古い仏教哲学者の方がやはり、帝国大学の普通の卒業者の才能よりも広く考へる方の遥かに優れた才能を示して居る。実際私は仏教の智力的復活――近代科学の最良最広の教とその高い方の信仰とを調和した物――は日本に取つて最も重大な結果を及ぼすであらうと信ずる。井上円了氏と云ふ日本の学者は東京に、全くこの目的で哲学の専門学校（哲学録、現在の東洋大学の前身）を創立した、その学校は今のところ有力な学校となるらしい。

註九。ハーバート・スペンサー。

Yet to that past which her younger generation now affect to despise Japan will certainly one day look back, even as we ourselves look back to the old Greek civilisation. She will learn to regret the forgotten capacity for simple pleasures, the lost sense of the pure joy of life, the old loving divine intimacy with nature, the marvellous dead art which reflected it. She will remember how much more luminous and beautiful the world then seemed. She will mourn for many things—the old-fashioned patience and self-sacrifice, the ancient courtesy, the deep human poetry of the ancient faith. She will wonder at many things; but she will regret. Perhaps she will wonder most of all at the faces of the ancient gods, because their smile was once the likeness of her own.

日本の青年は今軽蔑の風を示して居るその過去に対して、日本はいつかは必ず回顧する事、丁度私共自身が古いギリシヤの文明を回顧するやうであらう。簡易な楽しみに対する才能の忘れられた事、人生の純な喜びに対する感性のなくなつた事、自然との古い愛すべき聖い親密な交際、それを反映して居る今はない驚くべき藝術、を惜むやうになるであらう。その当時世界が如何に遥かにもつと輝いて美しく見えたかを想ひ出すであらう。古風な忍耐と、犠牲、古い礼譲、古い信仰の深い人間の詩、――日本は悔むべき物が沢山あらう。日本は多くの物を見て驚くであらうが、又残念に思ふであらう。恐らく最も驚く物は昔の神々の顔であらう、何故なればその微笑は一度は自分の微笑であつたのだから。

ラフカディオ・ハーン「知られぬ日本の面影」『小泉八雲全集　第三巻』、第一書房、大正１５年

日本人の微笑（小泉八雲）④

THE JAPANESE SMILE (Lafcadio Hearn)

　　Sec. 4　四

But the Japanese smile must not be imagined as a kind of sourire figé, worn perpetually as a soul-mask. Like other matters of deportment, it is regulated by an etiquette which varies in different classes of society. As a rule, the old samurai were not given to smiling upon all occasions; they reserved their amiability for superiors and intimates, and would seem to have maintained toward inferiors an austere reserve. The dignity of the Shinto priesthood has become proverbial; and for centuries the gravity of the Confucian code was mirrored in the decorum of magistrates and officials. From ancient times the nobility affected a still loftier reserve; and the solemnity of rank deepened through all the hierarchies up to that awful state surrounding the Tenshi-Sama, upon whose face no living man might look. But in private life the demeanour of the highest had its amiable relaxation; and even to-day, with some hopelessly modernised exceptions, the noble, the judge, the high priest, the august minister, the military officer, will resume at home, in the intervals of duty, the charming habits of the antique courtesy.

しかし日本人の微笑を、永久に魂の仮面としてついて居る『冷笑』の一種と想像してはならない。行状に関するその他の事と同じく、社会の種々の階級と共に変化する作法によつてこの微笑も加減されて居る。一般に、昔の武士は凡すべての場合に微笑して居ると云ふわけには行かなかつた、長上及び近親に対するために愛嬌を保留して置いた、そして目下に対しては、厳しき無口を守つてゐたやうに思はれる。神官のいかめしい事は誰も知つて居る、それから数百年間孔子の教の厳粛なる事は種々の役人の儀容礼節によく見えてゐた。昔から貴族は更に一層の無口を装ふてゐた。そして位に伴ふいかめしさは次第に階級の上位に達する程濃厚になつて、遂に、何人も見てはならない天子様の畏れ多い周囲の処まで達してゐた。しかし私的生活に於ては如何に高位の人の行状にもそれぞれ愛想のよいくつろぎがあつた、そして今日でも、お話しにならぬ程近代化して居る人の多少の例外はあるが、貴族、判事、高僧、尊い大臣、将校、何れも勤めの合間に、家では古いにしへの丁寧な愛すべき風習に帰るのである。

The smile which illuminates conversation is in itself but a small detail of that courtesy; but the sentiment which it symbolises certainly comprises the larger part. If you happen to have a cultivated Japanese friend who has remained in all things truly Japanese, whose character has remained untouched by the new egotism and by foreign influences, you will probably be able to study in him the particular social traits of the whole people—traits in his case exquisitely accentuated and polished. You will observe that, as a rule, he never speaks of himself, and that, in reply to searching personal questions, he will answer as vaguely and briefly as possible, with a polite bow of thanks. But, on the other hand, he will ask many questions about yourself: your opinions, your ideas, even trifling details of your daily life, appear to have deep interest for him; and you will probably have occasion to note that he never forgets anything which he has learned concerning you. Yet there are certain rigid limits to his kindly curiosity, and perhaps even to his observation: he will never refer to any disagreeable or painful matter, and he will seem to remain blind to eccentricities or small weaknesses, if you have any. To your face he will never praise you; but he will never laugh at you nor criticise you. Indeed, you will find that he never criticises persons, but only actions in their results. As a private adviser, he will not even directly criticise a plan of which he disapproves, but is apt to suggest a new one in some such guarded language as: 'Perhaps it might be more to your immediate interest to do thus and so.' When obliged to speak of others, he will refer to them in a curious indirect fashion, by citing and combining a number of incidents sufficiently characteristic to form a picture. But in that event the incidents narrated will almost certainly be of a nature to awaken interest, and to create a favourable impression. This indirect way of conveying information is essentially Confucian. 'Even when you have no doubts,' says the Li-Ki, 'do not let what you say appear as your own view.' And it is quite probable that you will notice many other traits in your friend requiring some knowledge of the Chinese classics to understand. But no such knowledge necessary to convince you of his exquisite consideration for others, and his studied suppression of self. Among no other civilised people is the secret of happy living so thoroughly comprehended as among the Japanese; by no other race is the truth so widely understood that our pleasure in life must depend upon the happiness of those about us, and consequently upon the cultivation in ourselves of unselfishness and of patience. For which reason, in Japanese society, sarcasm irony, cruel wit, are not indulged. I might almost say that they have no existence in refined life. A personal failing is not made the subject of ridicule or reproach; an eccentricity is not commented upon; an involuntary mistake excites no laughter.

会話を明るくする微笑は、それ自身ではその丁寧な礼儀の一箇条に過ぎない、しかしその微笑が表はして居る精神はたしかにその大部分をなして居る。読者がもし凡ての点に於て真に日本人であり、又その性格は新しい利己主義と外国の影響とに感化されないで居る教養ある日本人の友人をもつてゐたら、読者は多分その友人から全日本の社会的特性、その友人の場合に於て美妙に強くなり又磨かれた特性、を学ぶ事を得よう。読者はその友人は、きまつて、自分の事は決して云はない事、そして細かい個人的質問に対して、感謝の丁寧なお辞儀と共にできるだけ曖昧に、できるだけ簡単に答へる事を認めよう。しかし、それに反して、君については沢山の質問をするであらう、君の意見、君の考、君の日常生活の些細なる話までも、その友人に取つては深い興味があるやうに見える、そして君はその友人が君に関して聞いた事は何事も忘れない事に気のつく場合が多分あらう。しかし彼の親切な好奇心にも又彼の注意にさへも、或ある厳重な境がある、彼は不快な、或あるいは痛ましい事に決して云ひ及ぶ事はない、そしてもし君に風変りな処や或は一寸した弱点などあれば、そんな事は見ないふりをするであらう。君の前で君を賞ほめる事は決してしない、しかし嘲つたり批評がましい事は決してしない。実際君は彼が決して人を批評する事はしない、只結果に表はれた行為だけを批評する事が分る。個人的助言者として、彼は自分の賛成しない計画を直接に批評する事さへしない、ただ何かこんなやうな用心深い言葉で新しい計画を云つて見る方である、『こんな風にする方が或は君の直接の利益にかへつてなりはしないだらうか』他人の事を餘儀なく云ふ時は、彼はその人の事を一枚の絵をつくる程に充分に特色のある事件を引出して結び合せて、不思議にもつて廻つた風に云ひ及ぶ。しかしその場合に、話された事件は殆んど必ず人の興味をひいて好もしい印象を起す性質の物である。話を伝へるこの間接の方法は真に孔子の方法である。『たとへ信じて疑はなくとも、自分の云ふ事を自分の意見らしく見えないやうにせよ』と礼記^訳者註二に出て居る。それから君はその友人に、それを理解するには支那の古代文学の多少の智識を要するやうなその外ほか沢山社会的特性のあるのに気がつく事は充分ありさうである。しかし彼の他人に対する丁寧なる思慮を念入りに自我を征服して居る事を君が知るためには別にそんな知識も必要でない。他の如何なる文明人種の間にも、日本人の間に於ける程、人生の幸福の祕訣がそれ程充分に会得されて居る処はない、人生に於ける私共の幸福は私共の周囲の人々の幸福如何によらねばならない、随つて私共の心に無我と忍耐の修養如何によらねばならないと云ふ真理が如何なる人種に於てもそれ程博く理解されて居る処はない。その理由によつて、日本の社会には、諷刺、反語、残酷な機智を弄すると云ふ事はない。上品な社会にはそれ等は存在しないと云ふ事も大方できよう。個人的失敗は嘲りや非難の目的とはされない、風変りは悪口のたねとされない、無意識のまちがひは笑を招かない。

訳者註二。『直而勿有』をJames Leggeがかく訳した。

Stiffened somewhat by the Chinese conservatism of the old conditions, it is true that this ethical system was maintained the extreme of giving fixity to ideas, and at the cost of individuality. And yet, if regulated by a broader comprehension social requirements, if expanded by scientific understanding of the freedom essential to intellectual evolution, the very same moral policy is that through which the highest and happiest results may be obtained. But as actually practised it was not favourable to originality; it rather tended to enforce the amiable mediocrity of opinion and imagination which still prevails. Wherefore a foreign dweller in the interior cannot but long sometimes for the sharp, erratic inequalities Western life, with its larger joys and pains and its more comprehensive sympathies. But sometimes only, for the intellectual loss is really more than compensated by the social charm; and there can remain no doubt in the mind of one who even partly understands the Japanese, that they are still the best people in the world to live among.

古風の支那の保守主義によつて幾分固くなつたために、この倫理系統は人の思想を固定させると云ふ極端まで行つて、しかも個性を犠牲にして支へられて居る事は事実である。それでも、もし社会的必要の一層博大なる理解によつて調節されたら、もし智力的進化に必要なる自由を学術的に了解する事によつて拡げられたら、正しくこの道徳方針はそれによつて最も高き又最も幸福な効果の得らるべき方針である。しかし実際行はれた処ではそれは独創力のためにはならなかつた、むしろ今も行はれて居るが意見や想像の温良なる平凡と云ふ事を強くする傾向があつた。それ故内地に住んで居る外国人は時々西洋生活のもつと大きな楽しみと苦しみ、それからもつと博大な同情のある鋭い、常規を逸した不平等を望まざるを得ない。しかしこれは只時々である、それは智力上の損失は社会的美点によつて全く十二分に償はれるからである。そして日本人を幾分しか了解しない人の心にも日本人はその間に入つて生活するにはやはり世界最良の人種であるとの考が疑もなく残るのである。

ラフカディオ・ハーン「知られぬ日本の面影」『小泉八雲全集　第三巻』、第一書房、大正１５年

日本人の微笑（小泉八雲）③

THE JAPANESE SMILE (Lafcadio Hearn)

　　Sec. 3　三

To comprehend the Japanese smile, one must be able to enter a little into the ancient, natural, and popular life of Japan. From the modernised upper classes nothing is to be learned. The deeper signification of race differences is being daily more and more illustrated in the effects of the higher education. Instead of creating any community of feeling, it appears only to widen the distance between the Occidental and the Oriental. Some foreign observers have declared that it does this by enormously developing certain latent peculiarities —among others an inherent materialism little perceptible among fife common people. This explanation is one I cannot quite agree with; but it is at least undeniable that, the more highly he is cultivated, according to Western methods, the farther is the Japanese psychologically removed from us. Under the new education, his character seems to crystallise into something of singular hardness, and to Western observation, at least, of singular opacity. Emotionally, the Japanese child appears incomparably closer to us than the Japanese mathematician, the peasant than the statesman. Between the most elevated class of thoroughly modernised Japanese and the Western thinker anything akin to intellectual sympathy is non-existent: it is replaced on the native side by a cold and faultless politeness. Those influences which in other lands appear most potent to develop the higher emotions seem here to have the extraordinary effect of suppressing them. We are accustomed abroad to associate emotional sensibility with intellectual expansion: it would be a grievous error to apply this rule in Japan. Even the foreign teacher in an ordinary school can feel, year by year, his pupils drifting farther away from him, as they pass from class to class; in various higher educational institutions, the separation widens yet more rapidly, so that, prior to graduation, students may become to their professor little more than casual acquaintances. The enigma is perhaps, to some extent, a physiological one, requiring scientific explanation; but its solution must first be sought in ancestral habits of life and of imagination. It can be fully discussed only when its natural causes are understood; and these, we may be sure, are not simple. By some observers it is asserted that because the higher education in Japan has not yet had the effect of stimulating the higher emotions to the Occidental pitch, its developing power cannot have been exerted uniformly and wisely, but in special directions only, at the cost of character. Yet this theory involves the unwarrantable assumption that character can be created by education; and it ignores the fact that the best results are obtained by affording opportunity for the exercise of pre-existing inclination rather than by any system of teaching.

日本人の微笑を会得するためには、少し日本の古い、自然の、民衆生活に入る事ができなければならない。近代化した上流社会からは学ぶべき物は何にもない。高等教育の結果によつて人種的相違の深い意義は毎日一層深く説明されるのである。高等教育は感情の融和にはならないで、かへつて東西洋の間の疎隔を一層深くするだけのやうに思はれる。外人の中には、高等教育は或ある潜伏した特色――殊に一般人民の間には殆んど認められない隠れた唯物主義――を非常に拡大する事になるので、さうなると云ふ人もある。この説明には私は充分同意できないが、とにかくこの事だけは否定できない。即ち西洋風に高い教育を受ければ受ける程、その日本人は心理的に私共と遠ざかつて行くと云ふ事である。新しい教育を受けると、その性格は妙に冷酷な物に、そして西洋事物の観察はとにかく妙に不透明な物に、結晶するらしい。情緒的には、日本の子供の方が日本の数学者よりも、農夫の方が政治家よりも、はるかに私共に近いやうである。全く近代化した日本人の最も高い階級と西洋の思想家との間には智力的同情らしい物は成立しない、日本人側ではただ冷たいそして完全な礼儀となつて居る。外ほかの国々では高尚な情緒を発達させるために最も有力な物と思はれる物は、ここではそれを抑圧するのに非常な効果のある物らしい。外国では私共は情緒的敏感と智力的博大とを聯想する事に慣れて居るが、この規則を日本に応用する事は悲しむべき誤であらう。普通の学校に於ける外国教師でも、年々、その生徒が、級から級へと進む毎に、自分から離れて行く事を感ずる、色々の高い程度の学校では、この離れ方は一層早くなつて、卒業に近い学生は教授に取つてはただ偶然の知り合ひ同様になる。この謎は、或あるいは幾分は、科学的説明を要する心理上の問題である。しかしその解決は第一に人生及び想像に関する祖先以来の習慣に求められねばならない。その自然の原因が理解される時に始めて、この問題が充分に論ぜられるが、これは、簡単ではないと思はれる。或人は論じて、日本の高等教育は、高尚なる情緒を西洋の程度に刺激する力が未だないから、その開発力は一様に又賢明に発揮されてゐないで、ただ、特別の方向にのみ向けられるから、性格の方面で損失を免れないと云ふ。しかしこの論には性格は教育によつて造り出されると云ふ許容し難い仮設が入つて居る、そして如何なる制度の教育によるよりも、以前から存する性癖嗜好を利用する機会を与へた方が最良の結果を得られると云ふ事実を無視して居る。

The causes of the phenomenon must be looked for in the race character; and whatever the higher education may accomplish in the remote future, it can scarcely be expected to transform nature. But does it at present atrophy certain finer tendencies? I think that it unavoidably does, for the simple reason that, under existing conditions, the moral and mental powers are overtasked by its requirements. All that wonderful national spirit of duty, of patience, of self-sacrifice, anciently directed to social, moral, or religious idealism, must, under the discipline of the higher training, be concentrated upon an end which not only demands, but exhausts its fullest exercise. For that end, to be accomplished at all, must be accomplished in the face of difficulties that the Western student rarely encounters, and could scarcely be made even to understand. All those moral qualities which made the old Japanese character admirable are certainly the same which make the modern Japanese student the most indefatigable, the most docile, the most ambitious in the world. But they are also qualities which urge him to efforts in excess of his natural powers, with the frequent result of mental and moral enervation. The nation has entered upon a period of intellectual overstrain. Consciously or unconsciously, in obedience to sudden necessity, Japan has undertaken nothing less than the tremendous task of forcing mental expansion up to the highest existing standard; and this means forcing the development of the nervous system. For the desired intellectual change, to be accomplished within a few generations, must involve a physiological change never to be effected without terrible cost. In other words, Japan has attempted too much; yet under the circumstances she could not have attempted less. Happily, even among the poorest of her poor the educational policy of the Government is seconded with an astonishing zeal; the entire nation has plunged into study with a fervour of which it is utterly impossible to convey any adequate conception in this little essay. Yet I may cite a touching example. Immediately after the frightful earthquake of 1891, the children of the ruined cities of Gifu and Aichi, crouching among the ashes of their homes, cold and hungry and shelterless, surrounded by horror and misery unspeakable, still continued their small studies, using tiles of their own burnt dwellings in lieu of slates, and bits of lime for chalk, even while the earth still trembled beneath them. ^[2] What future miracles may justly be expected from the amazing power of purpose such a fact reveals!

² The shocks continued, though with lessening frequency and violence, for more than six months after the cataclysm.

この現象の原因は、人種性格に求められねばならない、そして高等教育が遠き将来に於て如何なる結果を生ずるにしても、元来の性質を改造する物とは期待されない。しかし現在に於て或よい方の傾向を萎縮させる事になつてゐないだらうか。私は必ずさうなつて居ると思ふ、その単なる理由は、現在の状況では高等教育の要求によつて道徳的精神的の力が過重の負担を課されるからである。古への社会的道徳的、或は宗教的精神主義の方へ向けられた義務、忍耐、犠牲の驚くべき国民性は悉ことごとく、高等教育の訓練のために、その全部の活動を要求するのみならず、さらに疲労させる或目的の方へ集中されねばならない。その目的通りを苟いやしくも果すためには、西洋の学生が滅多に出逢はないそして容易に理解のできないやうな困難に面してから、漸くその目的は果されるのである。古い日本人の性格を感嘆すべき物としたそれ等の徳性は、今日の日本学生をして、世界に於て最も堅忍不抜な、最も従順な、最も大望のある者とならしめた物とたしかに同一の徳性である。しかしその徳性は、同時に日本学生をして本来の力以上の努力をさせて、その結果往々精神的道徳的衰弱を来たさせる。この国民は過度の智力的緊張の時期に蹈み込んで居る。意識してか或は無意識にか、不意の必要に迫られて、日本は精神的膨脹を現在の最高標準まで無理に押上げると云ふ恐ろしい仕事を正にやり出した、そしてこれは神経系統を無理に発達させようとする事になる。僅か数代のうちに、望み通りの智力的変化を仕遂げようとする事は、恐るべき損害なしには決して行はれない生理的変化を必ず起させる。換言すれば、日本の計画は多大に過ぎる、しかし現在の事情では、それよりも小さい計画をする事はできなかつたらう。幸にして日本の貧困者中の最も貧困者の間にでも、政府の教育方針は驚くべき熱心を以て助けられて居る、国民全体は学問に熱中して居る、その熱心の程度はこの小さい論文でこの適当な概念を伝へる事はできない程である。それでも私は一つ感動すべき例を書かう。一八九一（明治二十四年）の恐ろしい地震のすぐあとで、岐阜愛知の破壊された都市の児童は、名状のできない恐怖と災禍に取巻かれて、寒い、飢ゑた、家もない時でも、石板の代りに彼自身の燃えた家の瓦を使ひ、石筆の代りに針金のちぎれを使つて、大地が未だ足の下で動いて居る間^註二でも、やはり彼等の小さい勉学を続けた。こんな事実が表はす意志の驚くべき力から将来どんな奇蹟が正しく期待される事であらう。

註二。次第に回数と強さを減じたのではあるが、この地震は、その大災害ののち六ヶ月続いた。

But it is true that as yet the results of the higher training have not been altogether happy. Among the Japanese of the old regime one encounters a courtesy, an unselfishness, a grace of pure goodness, impossible to overpraise. Among the modernised of the new generation these have almost disappeared. One meets a class of young men who ridicule the old times and the old ways without having been able to elevate themselves above the vulgarism of imitation and the commonplaces of shallow scepticism. What has become of the noble and charming qualities they must have inherited from their fathers? Is it not possible that the best of those qualities have been transmuted into mere effort,—an effort so excessive as to have exhausted character, leaving it without weight or balance?

しかし高等教育の結果は今の処全然好結果を来してゐない事は事実である。古風の日本人の間には、如何に感嘆しても及ばない程の礼儀と、無私と、純粋なる善良から来る品位とを見る。新時代の現代化した人々のうちにはこれ等のものは殆んど見られない。浅薄な懐疑の平凡と模倣の野卑以上に脱する事もできないで、古い時代と古い習慣を罵倒する青年の一階級を人はよく見る。彼等が祖先から遺伝した筈の高尚な、そして愛すべき性質はどうなつたのであらう。その性質の最上の物は形を変へてただの努力、――性格を消耗しつくして、重さもなく釣合も取れない物にしてしまつた程、そんなに法外な努力だけになつた事はあり得べき事であらうか。

It is to the still fluid, mobile, natural existence of the common people that one must look for the meaning of some apparent differences in the race feeling and emotional expression of the West and the Far East. With those gentle, kindly, sweet-hearted folk, who smile at life, love, and death alike, it is possible to enjoy community of feeling in simple, natural things; and by familiarity and sympathy we can learn why they smile.

西洋と東洋の人種的感情及び情緒的表情に於ける或ある外面的相違の意味をさがさねばならぬところは、未だ流れ動く自然の平民社会の状態に存するのである。生、愛、及び死に対して同じく微笑するそれ等の温和な、親切な、心のやさしい人々と、単純な自然物に対して感情の交りを楽しむ事ができるのである、そして親しみと同情とによつて彼等の微笑の理由を知る事ができる。

引用者註、こゝを読んで思ひ出したのは、上皇陛下の御製であつた。これは「戦後七十年にあたり、北原尾きたはらお、千振ちふり、大日向おおひなたの開拓地を訪とふ」と題された御製である。

開拓の日々いかばかり難かたかりしを面おも穏やかに人らの語る（平成二十七年）

また次のものは「満蒙開拓平和祈念館にて」と題されてゐる。

戦の終りし後のちの難き日々を面おもおだやかに開拓者語る（平成二十八年）

どちらも戦後の苦しい日々を実に穏やかに語る元引揚者らの温和で親切で心やさしい姿を彷彿とさせるのである。

The Japanese child is born with this happy tendency, which is fostered through all the period of home education. But it is cultivated with the same exquisiteness that is shown in the cultivation of the natural tendencies of a garden plant. The smile is taught like the bow; like the prostration; like that little sibilant sucking-in of the breath which follows, as a token of pleasure, the salutation to a superior; like all the elaborate and beautiful etiquette of the old courtesy. Laughter is not encouraged, for obvious reasons. But the smile is to be used upon all pleasant occasions, when speaking to a superior or to an equal, and even upon occasions which are not pleasant; it is a part of deportment. The most agreeable face is the smiling face; and to present always the most agreeable face possible to parents, relatives, teachers, friends, well-wishers, is a rule of life. And furthermore, it is a rule of life to turn constantly to the outer world a mien of happiness, to convey to others as far as possible a pleasant impression. Even though the heart is breaking, it is a social duty to smile bravely. On the other hand, to look serious or unhappy is rude, because this may cause anxiety or pain to those who love us; it is likewise foolish, since it may excite unkindly curiosity on the part of those who love us not. Cultivated from childhood as a duty, the smile soon becomes instinctive. In the mind of the poorest peasant lives the conviction that to exhibit the expression of one's personal sorrow or pain or anger is rarely useful, and always unkind. Hence, although natural grief must have, in Japan as elsewhere, its natural issue, an uncontrollable burst of tears in the presence of superiors or guests is an impoliteness; and the first words of even the most unlettered countrywoman, after the nerves give way in such a circumstance, are invariably: 'Pardon my selfishness in that I have been so rude!' The reasons for the smile, be it also observed, are not only moral; they are to some extent aesthetic they partly represent the same idea which regulated the expression of suffering in Greek art. But they are much more moral than aesthetic, as we shall presently observe.

日本の子供は生れながらにしてこの傾向をもつて居る、そしてこの傾向は家庭教育の凡ての時期を通じて養成される。しかしそれは庭樹の自然の傾向を養成して行く時に示されると同じ程度の綿密さで養成される。微笑はお辞儀と同じく、平身低頭と同じく、長上に対する挨拶のつぎに喜悦のしるしとして息を少しすつと吸ひ込む事と同じく、凡て古いにしへの礼儀の細密なそして美うるはしい作法と同じく、教へられる。明かな道理で高笑は奨励されない。しかし微笑は長上に或あるいは同輩に話しかける時、凡て愉快な場合に用ひられる、そして愉快でない場合にも用ひられる、それは行儀の一部分である。最も愉快な顔はにこにこした顔である、そしてできるだけ最も愉快な顔を両親、親戚、教師、友人、好意を有せる人々に示すのは生活の法則である。そしてその上たえず外界に幸福の態度を表はし、他人にできる限りの愉快な印象を与へるのは、生活の法則である。たとへ胸の張り裂ける場合でも、勇敢に微笑するのは社会的義務である。それに反してしかつべらしく不機嫌な顔をするのは無礼である、これは私共を愛する人々に心配や苦痛を与へる事になるから、同時に又愚おろかな事である、私共を愛しない人々の方で不親切な好奇心を起させる事になるから。幼年時代から義務として養成されて居るから微笑はやがて本能的になる。最も貧しい農夫の心にも、自分だけの悲しみ苦しみ或は怒りを表はす事は餘り役に立たない。そしていつても不親切であると云ふ自信が生きて居る。それ故他の国に於けると同じく日本に於ても自然の悲歎に自然の出口がなければならないが、長上や客の面前に於て抑制なしに涙を流す事は無礼である、そして如何に無学な田舎女でも、そんな場合に神経が負けてしまつたあとでいつもきまつて始めに云ふ言葉は「実に我儘わがまゝ勝手で失礼致しました、お赦し下さい」である。その微笑の理由はただ道徳的であるだけではない事も又注意すべきである、それは或程度まで美的である、ギリシヤ美術に於て苦痛の表情を調整したと同じ思想を幾分表はして居る。しかし美的であるよりも道徳的である方が遥かに多い、それについてやがて述べる。

From this primary etiquette of the smile there has been developed a secondary etiquette, the observance of which has frequently impelled foreigners to form the most cruel misjudgements as to Japanese sensibility. It is the native custom that whenever a painful or shocking fact must be told, the announcement should be made, by the sufferer, with a smile. ^[3] The graver the subject, the more accentuated the smile; and when the matter is very unpleasant to the person speaking of it, the smile often changes to a low, soft laugh. However bitterly the mother who has lost her first-born may have wept at the funeral, it is probable that, if in your service, she will tell of her bereavement with a smile: like the Preacher, she holds that there is a time to weep and a time to laugh. It was long before I myself could understand how it was possible for those whom I believed to have loved a person recently dead to announce to me that death with a laugh. Yet the laugh was politeness carried to the utmost point of self-abnegation. It signified: 'This you might honourably think to be an unhappy event; pray do not suffer Your Superiority to feel concern about so inferior a matter, and pardon the necessity which causes us to outrage politeness by speaking about such an affair at all.'.

3 Of course the converse is the rule in condoling with the sufferer.

この微笑の第一の作法から第二の作法が発達して来て居る、それを守る事が外国人をして屢〻しばしば日本人の感受性に関して最も残酷な誤解を抱かしむるやうになつたのである。痛ましき又は恐るべき事を云ふべき場合に、その話はその苦しみ恐ろしさを受けた人によつて微笑^註三しながら話されるのが日本の習慣である。その問題が重大であればある程その微笑は重大になる、そしてその事がそれを話す人に甚だ不快な時にはその微笑はよく低い穏やかな笑ひ声に変る。初生児を失つた母が葬式の時どれ程烈しく泣いたとしても、奉公に出て居る場合ならその不幸を話す時には多分微笑をもつてするであらう、伝道者^訳者註一のやうに泣く時あり笑ふ時ありと彼女は思ふて居る。人々が愛してゐたと信ぜられる者のこの頃歿なくなつた事を、その人々が私に笑つて話す事のできる事が私自身にも中々了解できなかつた。しかしその笑は克己の極端まで進んだ礼儀であつた。かう云ふ意味である、『これはあなたは不幸な事件とお考になるでせうが、どうかそんなつまらない事に御心を悩まさないで下さい、そして一体止むを得ずこんな事を云つて、礼儀を破る事になつた事をお赦し下さい』

註三。勿論同情する方からは、その反対になるのがきまりである。即ちこちらは悲しい表情で対せねばならない。

訳者註一。旧約聖書（伝道の書）（ダビデの子、エルサレムの王、伝道者の言）第三章第四章の文句。 

The key to the mystery of the most unaccountable smiles is Japanese politeness. The servant sentenced to dismissal for a fault prostrates himself, and asks for pardon with a smile. That smile indicates the very reverse of callousness or insolence: 'Be assured that I am satisfied with the great justice of your honourable sentence, and that I am now aware of the gravity of my fault. Yet my sorrow and my necessity have caused me to indulge the unreasonable hope that I may be forgiven for my great rudeness in asking pardon.' The youth or girl beyond the age of childish tears, when punished for some error, receives the punishment with a smile which means: 'No evil feeling arises in my heart; much worse than this my fault has deserved.' And the kurumaya cut by the whip of my Yokohama friend smiled for a similar reason, as my friend must have intuitively felt, since the smile at once disarmed him: 'I was very wrong, and you are right to be angry: I deserve to be struck, and therefore feel no resentment.'

最も理解のできない微笑の祕密の鍵は日本人の礼儀正しさである。過失のために解雇を宣告された従者は平伏してそして微笑して容赦を願ふ。その微笑は無感覚や無礼の正反対である、『はい、たしかに御宣告の正しい事に私満足して居ります、そして私の過失の大きい事が今よく分りました。しかし私の悲しみと必要から無理な我儘な御願を申し上げて実に失礼とは存じますが御勘辨(かんべん)を御願する事を御赦し頂きたい』子供らしい涙を流す年齢以上に達した少年少女は何かの過失のために罰せられた時には微笑してその罰を受ける、その微笑はこんな意味である『私の心に何の悪感情も起りません、私の過失はもつとひどい罰を受ける価値があります』そして私の横濱の友人の鞭で打たれた車夫は同じ道理で微笑したのであつた、それを私の友人が直覚したに相違ない、その微笑は直ちに彼を和らげたから。『私は大層悪かつた、それであなたの怒りは当然です、私は打たれる価値があります、それだから悪感情は抱きません』

But it should be understood that the poorest and humblest Japanese is rarely submissive under injustice. His apparent docility is due chiefly to his moral sense. The foreigner who strikes a native for sport may have reason to find that he has made a serious mistake. The Japanese are not to be trifled with; and brutal attempts to trifle with them have cost several worthless lives.

しかし如何に貧しい身分の卑しい日本人でも無理の前には従順でない事も理解して置くべきである。彼の表面の柔順性は重に彼の道徳観念から起つて居る。戯れに日本人をなぐつて見る外国人は当然重大なる過失をした事に気がつくだらう。日本人は愚弄さるべきでない、そして日本人を愚弄しようと乱暴にも試みた人で、そのつまらない生命をなくした者は幾人もある。

Even after the foregoing explanations, the incident of the Japanese nurse may still seem incomprehensible; but this, I feel quite sure, is because the narrator either suppressed or overlooked certain facts in the case. In the first half of the story, all is perfectly clear. When announcing her husband's death, the young servant smiled, in accordance with the native formality already referred to. What is quite incredible is that, of her own accord, she should have invited the attention of her mistress to the contents of the vase, or funeral urn. If she knew enough of Japanese politeness to smile in announcing her husband's death, she must certainly have known enough to prevent her from perpetrating such an error. She could have shown the vase and its contents only in obedience to some real or fancied command; and when so doing, it is more than possible she may have uttered the low, soft laugh which accompanies either the unavoidable performance of a painful duty, or the enforced utterance of a painful statement. My own opinion is that she was obliged to gratify a wanton curiosity. Her smile or laugh would then have signified: 'Do not suffer your honourable feelings to be shocked upon my unworthy account; it is indeed very rude of me, even at your honourable request, to mention so contemptible a thing as my sorrow.'

以上の説明をしたあとでも、日本の乳母の事件は未だ不可解に見えるやうだ、しかしこれは話した人がこの場合或ある事実を削除したか、或あるいは見逃したからだと私は信ずる。その話の前半は完全によく分る。夫の死を報告する時その若い召使はすでに云つた日本の形式に随つて微笑した。全く信じ難い事は、彼女が自ら進んでその瓶即ち骨壺にある物を彼女の女主人に見せようとしたなどと云ふ事である。彼女の夫の死を報告するのに微笑を以てする程日本の礼儀を心得て居るのなら、こんな過ちを犯すに到らないだけの心得がたしかにあつた筈である。実際の命令であつたか、命ぜられたと想像したか、それに随つて始めてその骨壺とその中にある物とを示したのであらう、そしてさうする時彼女は苦しい義務を止むを得ず行ふ時か、或は苦しい陳述をせん方なく発言する時、それに伴ふ低い柔かな笑を発した事は如何にもありさうである。私自身の意見では彼女は徒らな好奇心を満足させねばならなくなつたのであらう。彼女の微笑或は笑はこんな意味であつたらう『つまらぬ私のために御心を痛めないで下さい、たとへ御求めであつても、私の悲しみのやうなそんなつまらぬ事を申し上げるのは本当に甚だ失礼でございます』

ラフカディオ・ハーン「知られぬ日本の面影」『小泉八雲全集　第三巻』、第一書房、大正１５年

日本人の微笑（小泉八雲）②

THE JAPANESE SMILE (Lafcadio Hearn)

　　Sec. 2　二

Miscomprehension of the Japanese smile has more than once led to extremely unpleasant results, as happened in the case of T—a Yokohama merchant of former days. T—had employed in some capacity (I think partly as a teacher of Japanese) a nice old samurai, who wore, according to the fashion of the era, a queue and two swords. The English and the Japanese do not understand each other very well now; but at the period in question they understood each other much less. The Japanese servants at first acted in foreign employ precisely as they would have acted in the service of distinguished Japanese; ^[1] and this innocent mistake provoked a good deal of abuse and cruelty. Finally the discovery was made that to treat Japanese like West Indian negroes might be very dangerous. A certain number of foreigners were killed, with good moral consequences.

¹ The reader will find it well worth his while to consult the chapter entitled 'Domestic Service,' in Miss Bacon's Japanese Girls and Women, for an interesting and just presentation of the practical side of the subject, as relating to servants of both sexes. The poetical side, however, is not treated of—perhaps because intimately connected with religious beliefs which one writing from the Christian standpoint could not be expected to consider sympathetically. Domestic service in ancient Japan was both transfigured and regulated by religion; and the force of the religious sentiment concerning it may be divined from the Buddhist saying, still current: 

Oya-ko wa is-se, Fufu wa ni-se, Shuju wa san-se.

The relation of parent and child endures for the space of one life only; that of husband and wife for the space of two lives; but the relation between msater and servant continues for the period of three existences.

日本人の微笑を誤解した事が度々甚だしく不快な結果を来して居る、たとへば以前横濱の商人であつたＴ＿＿の場合に起つたやうな。Ｔ＿＿は何かの資格で（幾分日本語の教師としてと私は思ふ）立派な老さむらひを雇入れた、その人はその時代の習慣としてまげを結ふて大小をさしてゐた。今日でも英人と日本人とは、相互に甚だよく理解して居るとは云へない、しかし今話した時代には一層理解が少かつた。初めのうち日本の召使は丁度えらい日本人に使へるやうな^註一やり方をした、そしてこの無邪気な誤りは沢山の侮辱と残忍を招くに到つた。最後に日本人を西印度の黒奴のやうに待遇する事は甚だ危険である事が発見された。幾人かの外国人は殺されて、よい道徳上の効果があつた。

註一。読者はミス・ベーコンの『日本の少女と婦人』のうち、『奉公』と題する一章を参考されるとよい、それには男女の召使に関するこの問題の面白い、又正しい説明がある。しかし詞的方面は取扱つてない、――クリスト教的見地から書いて居る人は同情しては書けないやうな宗教的信仰と非常に関係して居るからであらう。昔の奉公は宗教によつて形を変へると共に調節された、それに関する宗教的情操の力は、今もなほ行はれて居る仏教の諺からも推しはかられる、――親子は一世、夫婦は二世、主従は三世。

But I am digressing. T—was rather pleased with his old samurai, though quite unable to understand his Oriental politeness, his prostrations or the meaning of the small gifts which he presented occasionally, with an exquisite courtesy entirely wasted upon T—. One day he came to ask a favour. (I think it was the eve of the Japanese New Year, when everybody needs money, for reasons not here to be dwelt upon.) The favour was that T—would lend him a little money upon one of his swords, the long one. It was a very beautiful weapon, and the merchant saw that it was also very valuable, and lent the money without hesitation. Some weeks later the old man was able to redeem his sword.

しかしこれは脇道である。Ｔ＿＿はこの老さむらひが中々気に入つた、もつともその東洋風の礼儀、その平身低頭、それから全くＴ＿＿にはちんぷんかんである微妙な丁寧さで時々もつて来てくれる小さい贈物の意味は全く分らなかつた。或日あるひ老人はお願があると云つて来た。（私はその日は大晦日の晩であつたと思ふ、その日にはここに書いて居られない理由で誰でも金が要る時だから）その願は老人の大小のうち大の方を抵当にして金を少し貸して貰ひたいと云ふのであつた。それは甚だ綺麗な武器であつた、そしてその商人にもやはり甚だ貴重である事が分つたので直ちにそれだけの金を貸した。数週後に老人はその刀を取り戻す事ができた。

What caused the beginning of the subsequent unpleasantness nobody now remembers Perhaps T—'s nerves got out of order. At all events, one day he became very angry with the old man, who submitted to the expression of his wrath with bows and smiles. This made him still more angry, and he used some extremely bad language; but the old man still bowed and smiled; wherefore he was ordered to leave the house. But the old man continued to smile, at which T—losing all self-control struck him. And then T—suddenly became afraid, for the long sword instantly leaped from its sheath, and swirled above him; and the old man ceased to seem old. Now, in the grasp of anyone who knows how to use it, the razor-edged blade of a Japanese sword wielded with both hands can take a head off with extreme facility. But, to T—'s astonishment, the old samurai, almost in the same moment, returned the blade to its sheath with the skill of a practised swordsman, turned upon his heel, and withdrew.

それから起つた不快の初まりは何であつたか今誰も覚えてゐない。多分Ｔ＿＿の神経は狂つたのであらう。とにかく或日彼は老人に対して非常に怒り出した、老人は彼の憤怒の表情に対してお辞儀と微笑を以て服してゐた。これが彼をして一層怒らせた、そして彼は極端な罵倒を浴せた、しかし老人はやはりお辞儀をして、微笑してゐた、それで老人はその家を去る事を命ぜられた。しかし老人は引続いて微笑してゐた、そこでＴ＿＿はすつかり自省の力を失つて老人をなぐつた。そしてその時Ｔ＿＿は突然恐ろしくなつた、と云ふのは長い刀は不意に鞘を離れて、自分の頭上を渦巻いて、そして老人は老人とは思はれなくなつたからであつた。ところで、その使用法を知つて居る人の手にかかつたら、両手で扱はれる剃刀のやうな日本刀の刃は、極めて無造作に人の頭をはねる事ができる。しかしＴ＿＿の驚いた事には、その老さむらひは殆んど同時に熟練なる剣士の素早さでその刀身を鞘に納めて、踵をかへして、退いた。

Then T— wondered and sat down to think. He began to remember some nice things about the old man—the many kindnesses unasked and unpaid, the curious little gifts, the impeccable honesty. T— began to feel ashamed. He tried to console himself with the thought: 'Well, it was his own fault; he had no right to laugh at me when he knew I was angry.' Indeed, T— even resolved to make amends when an opportunity should offer.

それからＴ＿＿は不思議に思つて、坐り込んで考へた。彼は老人に関する色々の良い事、頼みもしないのにしてくれたが返礼もしてやらなかつた沢山の親切な行為、珍らしい小さい贈物、非難の餘地なき正直さ、を思ひ出して来た。Ｔ＿＿は恥づかしくなつて来た。彼はかう考へて自分で慰めようとした、『まあいゝ、あれが悪いんだ、おれが怒つて居る事を知つてゐておれを笑ふやつがあるものか』実際Ｔ＿＿は機会のあり次第埋合せをしようとさへ決心してゐた。

But no opportunity ever came, because on the same evening the old man performed hara-kiri, after the manner of a samurai. He left a very beautifully written letter explaining his reasons. For a samurai to receive an unjust blow without avenging it was a shame not to be borne, He had received such a blow. Under any other circumstances he might have avenged it. But the circumstances were, in this instance, of a very peculiar kind, His code of honour forbade him to use his sword upon the man to whom he had pledged it once for money, in an hour of need. And being thus unable to use his sword, there remained for him only the alternative of an honourable suicide.

しかしその機会は決して来なかつた、何故なれば丁度その晩老人はさむらひ風に切腹をしたから。老人はその理由を説明した甚だ見事に書いた手紙を遺した。さむらひとしては無法な打擲を受けて復讐しない事は忍ぶべからざる屈辱である。彼はそんな打擲を受けた。外ほかの場合ならそれに対して復讐する事もできたらう。しかし今度の場合では事情は餘程奇態な物であつた。老人の名誉に関する道徳法は、一度必要に迫られて金銭のためにその刀を抵当にしたその人に対して、それを使用する事を許さない。そこでその理由から刀を使用する事ができないとすれば、老人にとつては二つのうち、ただ名誉ある自殺の一法が残つて居るだけであつた。

In order to render this story less disagreeable, the reader may suppose that T—was really very sorry, and behaved generously to the family of the old man. What he must not suppose is that T—was ever able to imagine why the old man had smiled the smile which led to the outrage and the tragedy.

この話を餘り不快な物としないために、読者は、Ｔ＿＿は甚だ遺憾に思つて、老人の遺族に対し金銭上の助力を充分にした事を想像してもよい。しかし何故老人は侮辱と悲劇の原因となつたあの微笑をしたか、その理由をＴ＿＿が考へる事ができたと読者は想像してはならない。

ラフカディオ・ハーン「知られぬ日本の面影」『小泉八雲全集　第三巻』、第一書房、大正１５年

日本人の微笑（小泉八雲）①

THE JAPANESE SMILE (Lafcadio Hearn)

　　Sec. 1　一

THOSE whose ideas of the world and its wonders have been formed chiefly by novels and romance still indulge a vague belief that the East is more serious than the West. Those who judge things from a higher standpoint argue, on the contrary, that, under present conditions, the West must be more serious than the East; and also that gravity, or even something resembling its converse, may exist only as a fashion. But the fact is that in this, as in all other questions, no rule susceptible of application to either half of humanity can be accurately framed. Scientifically, we can do no more just now than study certain contrasts in a general way, without hoping to explain satisfactorily the highly complex causes which produced them. One such contrast, of particular interest, is that afforded by the English and the Japanese.

世界及びその珍奇な事に関する考かんがへを重おもに小説や伝奇で定める人々は、今でも、東洋は西洋よりも真面目であると云ふ信仰を何となしに抱いて居る。もう少し高い立脚地から物事を判断する人々はそれに反して、現在の状況では、西洋は東洋よりも真面目である筈だと云ふ、それから真面目くさつて居る事でも、又その反対らしい事でも、ただ流行として存し得る物だと云ふ。しかし事実は、この事に関して、凡て外ほかの問題に於けると同じく、人類のどちらの半分にも応用のできるやうな正確な規則は作られない。科学的には、今の処どうしてそんな物が出て来るか、その非常に複雑な原因を満足に説明しようと思はないでただ一般にその対照をなせる結果だけを研究するより外はない。特別に興味のあるこんな対照を示せる一事は英人と日本人とによつて提供された物である。

It is a commonplace to say that the English are a serious people—not superficially serious, but serious all the way down to the bed-rock of the race character. It is almost equally safe to say that the Japanese are not very serious, either above or below the surface, even as compared with races much less serious than our own. And in the same proportion, at least, that they are less serious, they are more happy: they still, perhaps, remain the happiest people in the civilised world. We serious folk of the West cannot call ourselves very happy. Indeed, we do not yet fully know how serious we are; and it would probably frighten us to learn how much more serious we are likely to become under the ever-swelling pressure of industrial life. It is, possibly, by long sojourn among a people less gravely disposed that we can best learn our own temperament. This conviction came to me very strongly when, after having lived for nearly three years in the interior of Japan, I returned to English life for a few days at the open port of Kobe. To hear English once more spoken by Englishmen touched me more than I could have believed possible; but this feeling lasted only for a moment. My object was to make some necessary purchases. Accompanying me was a Japanese friend, to whom all that foreign life was utterly new and wonderful, and who asked me this curious question: 'Why is it that the foreigners never smile? You smile and bow when you speak to them; but they never smile. Why?'

英国人は真面目な人種、表面ばかり真面目でなく、人種性格の根柢まで真面目であると云ふのが普通である。それと同じく、英国人程ほど真面目でない人種と比べても、日本人は表面からも根柢からも甚だ真面目とは云へないと云ふ事も殆んど間違ひはない。それから少くとも真面目でないと同じ程度に、日本人はもつと気楽である、日本人は恐らくやはり文明世界に於て、最も気楽な人種である。私共西洋の真面目な者は自分で気楽だとは云へない。実際私共はどれ程真面目だか充分知らない、そして産業生活のたえず増大する圧迫のために、どれ程益々真面目になりさうだか分つて見れば、恐らく驚かずには居られないだらう。私共の気分を最もよく知る事のできるのは私共程しかつめらしくない人種の間に長く生活するに限るやうだ。私は日本内地に三年近く住んだあとで開港場の神戸で数日間英国流の生活に帰つた時、この確信が甚だ強く私に起つた。もう一度英国人の話す英語を聞いてとてもありさうにない程の感動を受けた、しかしこの感情はほんの暫しばらく続いただけであつた。私の目的は或ある必要な買物をする事であつた。私のつれの日本の友人があつた、その人に取つては凡すべて外国風の生活は、全く新しい不思議な物であつた、そしてその人は私にこんな奇妙な質問をした、『どうしてあの外国人は笑はないのでせう。あなたはあの人達に物を云ふ時、にこにこしてお辞儀をなさるが、あの人達はにこつともしない。何故でせう』

The fact was, I had fallen altogether into Japanese habits and ways, and had got out of touch with Western life; and my companion's question first made me aware that I had been acting somewhat curiously. It also seemed to me a fair illustration of the difficulty of mutual comprehension between the two races—each quite naturally, though quite erroneously, estimating the manners and motives of the other by its own. If the Japanese are puzzled by English gravity, the English are, to say the least, equally puzzled by Japanese levity. The Japanese speak of the 'angry faces' of the foreigners. The foreigners speak with strong contempt of the Japanese smile: they suspect it to signify insincerity; indeed, some declare it cannot possibly signify anything else. Only a few of the more observant have recognised it as an enigma worth studying. One of my Yokohama friends—a thoroughly lovable man, who had passed more than half his life in the open ports of the East—said to me, just before my departure for the interior: 'Since you are going to study Japanese life, perhaps you will be able to find out something for me. I can't understand the Japanese smile. Let me tell you one experience out of many. One day, as I was driving down from the Bluff, I saw an empty kuruma coming up on the wrong side of the curve. I could not have pulled up in time if I had tried; but I didn't try, because I didn't think there was any particular danger. I only yelled to the man in Japanese to get to the other side of the road; instead of which he simply backed his kuruma against a wall on the lower side of the curve, with the shafts outwards. At the rate I was going, there wasn't room even to swerve; and the next minute one of the shafts of that kuruma was in my horse's shoulder. The man wasn't hurt at all. When I saw the way my horse was bleeding, I quite lost my temper, and struck the man over the head with the butt of my whip. He looked right into my face and smiled, and then bowed. I can see that smile now. I felt as if I had been knocked down. The smile utterly nonplussed me—killed all my anger instantly. Mind you, it was a polite smile. But what did it mean? Why the devil did the man smile? I can't understand it.'

実際私は全く日本人の風俗習慣になつてしまつて、西洋風と離れてゐたのであつた、そして私の友人の質問によつて始めて私はよほど妙な事をやつて居る事に気がついた。それが又二つの人種の間の相互の了解の困難な事のよい例だと思はれた、銘々が他の人種の習慣や動機を自分の習慣や動機で判断するのは如何にも自然だが又如何にも誤り易いから。日本人は英国人のしかつべらしい事で困れば、英国人も又とにかく日本人の軽薄な事で困るのである。日本人は外国人の『顔が怒つて』居る事を云ふ。外国人は日本人のにこにこ顔をひどく軽蔑して云ふ、彼等はそれが不真面目を表はして居ると疑ふ、実際不真面目以外の意味はないと公言する者もある。只少数のもつと注意深い人は研究の価値ある謎であると認めて居る。私の横濱の友人の一人は、極めて愛すべき人で、東洋の各開港場で半生以上をすごした人だが、私の内地に出発する丁度前に私に云つた、『君は日本人の生活を研究するのだから、多分僕のために一つ発見する事ができよう。僕は日本人のにこにこ顔が分らない。沢山経験はあるが一つ云つて見よう。僕が或日あるひ山の手から馬に乗つて下りて来た時、僕はその曲り道の間違つた側から登つて来る空車を見た。馬を引き止めようとしても丁度間に合はなかつたらう、しかし大した危険もないと思つて止めて見もしなかつた。僕はただあちら側へ行くやうにと日本語でその車夫にどなつた、ところがその車夫はさうはしないで只曲り道の低い方にある塀に車をよせて梶棒を外側へむけた。僕の乗つて居る速さでは横道によける間がなかつた、それで直ぐそのつぎに車の梶棒が一つ馬の肩にあたつた。車夫は少しも怪我はしなかつた。僕は馬が出血して居る様子を見てムラムラとして、僕の鞭の太い方の端でその男の頭の上からなぐりつけた。その男は僕の顔を真面目に見てにつこり笑つて、それからお辞儀をした。そのにつこりが今でも見える。僕はたたきつけられたやうな気がした。そのにこにこで僕はすつかり参つてしまつて、怒りがすぐに飛んで行つてしまつた。全く、それは丁寧なにこにこであつた。しかし何の意味だつたらう。一体全体あの男はどんなわけで笑つたのだらう。それが分らない』

Neither, at that time, could I; but the meaning of much more mysterious smiles has since been revealed to me. A Japanese can smile in the teeth of death, and usually does. But he then smiles for the same reason that he smiles at other times. There is neither defiance nor hypocrisy in the smile; nor is it to be confounded with that smile of sickly resignation which we are apt to associate with weakness of character. It is an elaborate and long-cultivated etiquette. It is also a silent language. But any effort to interpret it according to Western notions of physiognomical expression would be just about as successful as an attempt to interpret Chinese ideographs by their real or fancied resemblance to shapes of familiar things.

私もその当時分らなかつた、しかしその後もつと遥かに分らない微笑の意味が私に分つて来た。日本人は死に面して微笑する事ができる。そして事実いつも微笑する。しかしその時微笑するのも、その外ほかの場合に微笑するのも同じ理由である。その微笑には軽侮や偽善はない、又弱い性格と聯想されがちの病的あきらめの微笑と混雑してはならない。それは念入りの、長い間に養成された礼法である。それは沈黙の言語である。しかし人相上の表情に関する西洋風の考からそれを解釈しようと試みるのは、漢字を普通の事物の形に実際似て居る、又は似て居ると想像する事で解釈しようとするのと殆んど同じく成功しさうにない。

First impressions, being largely instinctive, are scientifically recognised as partly trustworthy; and the very first impression produced by the Japanese smile is not far from the truth The stranger cannot fail to notice the generally happy and smiling character of the native faces; and this first impression is, in most cases, wonderfully pleasant. The Japanese smile at first charms. It is only at a later day, when one has observed the same smile under extraordinary circumstances—in moments of pain, shame, disappointment—that one becomes suspicious of it. Its apparent inopportuneness may even, on certain occasions, cause violent anger. Indeed, many of the difficulties between foreign residents and their native servants have been due to the smile. Any man who believes in the British tradition that a good servant must be solemn is not likely to endure with patience the smile of his 'boy.' At present, however, this particular phase of Western eccentricity is becoming more fully recognised by the Japanese; they are beginning to learn that the average English-speaking foreigner hates smiling, and is apt to consider it insulting; wherefore Japanese employees at the open ports have generally ceased to smile, and have assumed an air of sullenness.

第一印象は重おもに本能的であるから学術的に幾分信ずべき物と認められて居る、そして日本人の微笑によつて起される第一印象それ自身は事実大してまちがつてゐない。外国人は日本人の顔の大概嬉しさうな、にこにこした特色に気がつかない事はない。そしてこの第一印象は大概非常に愉快である。日本人の微笑は初めのうちは人を喜ばせる。人が始めて疑ふやうになるのはもつとあとの事で、各段な場合、即ち苦痛、恥辱、失望の場合に、それと同じ微笑を見るに到つた時である。その微笑の一見不適当な事が時として烈しい怒りを起させる事になる。実際外国の居留民と日本人の従者との間の悶着の多数は、この微笑の故である。よい従者は真面目くさつて居るべきだと云ふ英国の伝説を信じて居る人は、皆彼の『ボーイ』のこの微笑を辛抱して居られさうにはない。しかし現今西洋の風変りなこの特別の点は追々日本人にもよく認められるやうになつて来た、そして普通の英語を話す外国人は微笑を好まないで、とかくそれを侮辱的だと考へ勝ちである事を知るやうになつて来た、それだから開港場に於ける日本の使用人は大概微笑しなくなつた、そして不愛想な風を装ふて居る。

At this moment there comes to me the recollection of a queer story told by a lady of Yokohama about one of her Japanese servants. 'My Japanese nurse came to me the other day, smiling as if something very pleasant had happened, and said that her husband was dead, and that she wanted permission to attend his funeral. I told her she could go. It seems they burned the man's body. Well, in the evening she returned, and showed me a vase containing some ashes of bones (I saw a tooth among them); and she said: "That is my husband." And she actually laughed as she said it! Did you ever hear of such disgusting creatures?'

今ここで横濱の或ある婦人がその日本の女中の一人について物語つた妙な話を思ひ出した。『私の日本人の乳母が先日何か大変面白い事でもあつたやうににこにこしながら私の処へ来て、夫が死んで葬式に行きたいから許してくれと云つて来ました。私は行つてお出でと云ひました。火葬にしたやうです。ところで晩になつて帰つて来て、遺骨の入つた瓶を見せました、（そのうちに歯が一本見えました）、そして「これが私の夫ですよ」と云ひました。そしてさう云つた時実際声を上げて笑ひました。こんな厭な人間をあなた聞いた事ありますか』

It would have been quite impossible to convince the narrator of this incident that the demeanour of her servant, instead of being heartless, might have been heroic, and capable of a very touching interpretation. Even one not a Philistine might be deceived in such a case by appearances. But quite a number of the foreign residents of the open ports are pure Philistines, and never try to look below the surface of the life around them, except as hostile critics. My Yokohama friend who told me the story about the kurumaya was quite differently disposed: he recognised the error of judging by appearances.

彼女の召使の態度は不人情であるどころでなく、烈女的であつたのかも知れない、そして甚だ感動すべき説明ができたのかも知れない事を、この話をした婦人に納得させる事は全く不可能であつたらう。浅薄皮相でない人でもこんな場合には表面だけで誤られ易い。しかし開港場の外国居留者の多数は全く浅薄皮相の徒である、そして敵となつて批評する以外には彼等の周囲の人生の表面を離れて見ようとは少しもしない。私に車夫の話をした横濱の友人の考はそれと違つて居る、この人は表面で物を判断する事の誤りを認めた。

ラフカディオ・ハーン「知られぬ日本の面影」『小泉八雲全集　第三巻』、第一書房、大正１５年