Women I Like
by Yukio Mishima
Women who seem eccentric1 have charm. You don’t know what they’re thinking. That’s the kind of charm that most touches my weak points. You don’t know what they’re thinking, and that often also means that they aren’t thinking anything and as a habit do not think at all. And to us mental laborers, there is surely nothing that seems as mysterious as a human being that does not think at all.
For the most part, there are no toys of which one does not tire, because their mechanisms are fixed. In that respect, there is no toy of which one tires less than the human. The bodily mechanism differs clearly between man and woman, and as the conditions are assembled for each to be a toy of which one does not tire for the other, the mechanism of the spirit has given rise to a wide variety of complicated and incomprehensible types corresponding to the body of each. The various types are mutually incomprehensible, but there are also types that do not bother to be concerned about that incomprehensibility. Bonds between such types are unproblematic and peaceful, and misfortune always arises from types with a mania for knowledge2 that tend to bring their great thirst for knowledge into even romantic relationships. I clearly belong to this type. The characteristic of such types is less [that they act] in order to satisfy their thirst for knowledge and more that that thirst is not satisfied with simple things. In order to, if possible, get along with it being eternally unsatisfied, they search out ever more incomprehensible types. These are also types that, troubled by the excessive simplicity of the mechanism of their object, often play a one-man show out of overthinking, and, on the other hand, enjoy this unrewarded anguish.
Such types of men are losers, but they also at times feel a desire to try becoming winners. They search out an appropriate woman, and for a while their illusory happiness continues. But it does not last for long. That a woman kneels before and does as they will means that the wall of incomprehensibility has collapsed. That it is said that a geisha must until the very end never express her love for her husband, and, having acquired a paramour, must deny it, even unto death, even if she is discovered lying with him by her husband, takes advantage of the blind spot of the thirst for knowledge of men in general. Because, when blindly in love, the thirst for knowledge is always faithful to this blind will, even if he sees a woman lying with another man before his eyes, the different knowledge that she might be receiving a massage emerges, and a wonderful logic emerges from that knowledge. At such extremes, doubt and belief are united.
Thus, the type of woman that I like is close to idiotic3, but the mechanism of complete idiots is uninteresting because too clearly visible. To be idiotic enough to ask whether tenor is the lowest male voice is charming and good. What are called intellectual women are in fact nothing like intellectual in the true meaning of the word, and that they hold no charm for me is surely because they are generally not beautiful and because, for all the sterile knowledge crammed into their heads, they are exceedingly poor at deciphering humor, and because they are essentially complete idiots.
However, the exceptions among sophisticated and intelligent women who attract me are women who abandon themselves entirely to luxury and play and give absolutely no hint of the knowledge in their heads. If with such women, a battle takes place. A game that requires much intelligence begins.
In fact such women, on account of their their inborn pride and their lifestyle accustomed to luxury, rarely feel joy, but similar in this respect are women who, despite their standard of living being by no means high, are by nature indifferent and hinge their confidence entirely on their looks and their bod.ies There is no woman as motivating to men as a dull woman, and the characteristic of not feeling joy is one that women who want to be loved must possess, and the men who love such women are generally born to love the unsociable cat more than the loyal dog. As Mérimée4 so cleverly put it, “women and cats do not come when called and come when not called.”
There are great depths5 in the allure of coldness and frigidity.
Although physically only fire sets things ablaze, psychologically it is none but ice that sets things ablaze. And in this type of coldness lurks a power that mysteriously overturns the values of human life, and, when standing before it, all values are sneered at, and, what is more, on the side that is sneered at, there is no room to objectively examine whether or not the other person really posseses such a conceited right.
Because this irritating charm does not however give the heart rest, in fact it lasts less long the greater the pride of its possessor6. Ultimately I always return to the question of my own pride and fall into the condition of dealing to a greater or lesser degree with its demands.
Perhaps thanks to the horseface I inherited from my parents, it seems that I am fated to be attracted to round faces. The women who I am more or less compelled to be attracted to generally have round faces and by no means give the impression of being top-heavy7. In this respect, I may have at some time or another soaked up part of the fashions of the time.
Affectations of wifeliness to the point of being an unwelcome favor occasionally tickle the hearts of men. In such women, no matter how much knowledge and experience they accumulate, there resides a fundamental ignorance that they can by no means overcome by themselves, and because that ignorance absolutely does not confer the teachings of moderation, they are always floundering in their own excess of emotion.
To call it pity would be too strong, but in the hearts of men who look at such women there always lurks the easy curiosity of the experimental scientist. Because such women force their entire existence without calculation on others, they dig their own graves for such trivial reasons as their breath stinking during a casual morning kiss or their toenails being poorly-trimmed, but as long as there are no such occurrences, their excess of emotion has the mysterious power to bring our hearts repose. Men always deal with it with a silent, wry smile, but what one sometimes gazes at in wonder is that the words of love that they repeat a thousand times a day are in fact inseparably tied to their immeasurable vanity.
It is by no means uncommon for unrestrained devotion to be tied to unrestrained vanity in love. But women who are locked in the middle of excess emotion of immeasurably astronomical figures do not annoy men as much as it may seem to the observer.
They place men into an excessive cradle and rock them pleasantly, shut their eyes from the doubtful and other various things of this world, and put them to sleep with loud snores.
Sometimes I like such hypnotic8 women.
This may seem to contradict my earlier argument, but on the other hand, one can surely say that the stronger the thirst for knowledge in a man, the stronger his tendency to use and the greater the necessity of hypnotics.
There are a variety of types of charm9 in this world, but it is surely difficult to pour enduring love into something without charm10. The artificial and calculated charm of women who are called beautiful fails11 in most instances. Indeed, beauty is in direct proportion to the capacity12 for miscalculation.
When we win a beauty, we necessarily target and take advantage of those miscalculations, but the same miscalculations one day cause us to become fed up with them.
At that point it surely becomes a question of whether or not we are magnanimous enough to discover charm in these miscalculations. Unfortunately, I lack that magnanimity.
In the end, charm is in-born and naïve.
And it is worth it to lose if it is against such things.
Everyone engages in tiny acts of care, like taking lint from the collar of one’s suit13, but skill always shows its true colors in such trivial things.
I am an unfortunate person who cannot but surmise a dark and incomprehensible unconscious psychology even within the emotions of a woman who loves small birds, but occasionally (at times depending on the climate), I discover an irreplaceable naïveté on such occasions.
What appeals to our desire to protect is surely not what is pitiable, but what makes us feel that there is a danger of it being sullied if not protected. But on the other hand there is also a purity and naïveté that does not make us feel any danger at all. Because such things on the contrary fill me with fear, they are strange.
August of the Twenty-Ninth Year of the Shōwa Era (1954)
Hitokuse arige 一癖ありげ. Also connotes being difficult to deal with.
Ninshikigurui 認識狂い.
Hakuchi 白痴. Also means “retarded.”
Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870). French Romantic novelist, archaeologist, and historian.
Shin’en 深淵.
Gohonzon 御本尊. Mainly refers to the principal deity worshipped in a Buddhist temple, but is also used figuratively, as here, to refer mockingly to the person in question in a conversation or text.
Atamadekkachi 頭でっかち. Literally “huge-headed.” Refers to having a physically big head, but can also refer to someone who engages in much theorizing and little action.
Suiminzaiteki 睡眠剤的. “Hypnotic” here refers to the class of medication normally called sleeping pills.
Airashisa 愛らしさ. Also means “loveableness.”
Kawaige 可愛気.
Zasetsu suru 挫折する.
Nōryoku 能力.
Yōfuku 洋服. Can refer to Western formal attire, i.e. suits and dresses, or Western-style clothing in general. Because the homogenization of the world has meant the homogenization of dress, it can also refer to clothing more generally.