31 Days: Way of difference
Aug. 11th, 2005 06:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petronia(http://www.livejournal.com/users/petronia/tag/31days)
Late by a whole day, but people who care will see it here. ^^; I could stand to expand this, in fact, the POV's fascinating. I have to keep reminding myself that no matter how good Kotarou is with loanwords, he doesn't know terms like 'instrumentalism' or 'constructive pragmatism'. XD
I wonder if Inui Sadaharu has ninja ancestors?
***
Haruie comes to Kotarou several days later, defeat in her eyes.
"He keeps asking," she says. "Why Naoe isn't... with him. He gets angry. He—"
She shakes her head, passes a hand over her face. Kotarou watches her calmly. He places his hands over the arms of his chair, deliberately in plain sight.
"Kagetora-sama's state will not endure forever," he says. "My advice at this juncture would be to make him comfortable and not contradict or upset him, at least until he is sufficiently healed in body. Given time the shock will wear off, and his mind will recover on its own. The Fuuma are at his disposition regardless of whom he believes me to be. If he wishes to have 'Naoe' by his side, then I will take up those duties accordingly."
Haruie gives a tiny, broken laugh. Convenient for you, isn't it? She doesn't bother to say. There is no pretense in Kotarou to puncture.
"I'll kill you if anything happens to him," she says instead. "With my own hands. I promise you."
***
He spends the rest of the day examining his options.
It is, indeed, to his political advantage to play to Kagetora's delusions, to "make him comfortable". To this end there is physical deception: clothing, stance, personal habits, tenor of voice and choice of words, and the correct execution of Naoe's duties as retainer. These pose no great difficulty.
It is the mind of the man that concerns him. The case is a special one. From Naoe he immediately derived the sense of a personality pushed to extremes not often encountered, and mentally marked him for study. In due course he had opportunities enough to vivisect the man. Yet Naoe Nobutsuna remained stubbornly opaque, his motives impenetrable as his acts were unpredictable, elusive until his death. Kotarou could say with certainty that Uesugi Kagetora moved Naoe, for good or for ill, and only Uesugi Kagetora – but no more.
Hojo Ujiteru's voice resurrects in his memory, vivid with impatience:
You will never understand, Kotarou!
This is a fact. He has neither the desire nor the will to understand. In fact he doubts the "understanding" of which Ujiteru spoke is not a misnomer: how should the communication of such a pernicious, immaterial thing as emotion lead to enlightenment? How should it be communicated at all? What most men call empathy is no more than their own hopes and doubts ascribed to the behaviour of others. Thus they allow prejudice to hobble perception.
Man is not a creature commonly ruled by logic. A pragmatist would not waste time on wishing it otherwise, but instead sets himself the task of observation. Some men, such as Ujiteru himself, think as they feel and act as they think; others, such as his brother Ujimasa, the former head of the Hojo household, are influenced by emotion in an indirect manner, all the while acting as they believe rationality dictates. In all cases it is the existence of rules prescribing the final consequence – the individual's action – that is of practical import. A summary of the rules governing a particular individual suffices; there is no need to go further.
Kotarou has no internal experience that corresponds to the words love, hate, fear, sorrow, pride, anger, disgust, and the myriad nuances therein contained. To him they are abstractions of utility: names given to levers that move men, and that cause men to move the world.
Naoe went to the grave with his secrets. His only clue now is Kagetora himself.
***
When he enters Kagetora's room the next morning Nagahide looks up and his mouth twists. He spits out an obscenity, gets up and walks out. Haruie turns pale but doesn't move.
Kagetora, too, looks up. Kotarou misses nothing: the brief widening of his eyes, the minute relief in his face before it is replaced by a different, as yet unnamable tension.
"Where have you been?" Kagetora says coldly.
Kotarou lowers his eyes as he's seen Naoe do, with a kind of false restraint, and lifts them again to his lord and master's face. Henceforth he would have much greater leisure for study.
"It does not matter, Kagetora-sama," he says. "I am here now."
***
Late by a whole day, but people who care will see it here. ^^; I could stand to expand this, in fact, the POV's fascinating. I have to keep reminding myself that no matter how good Kotarou is with loanwords, he doesn't know terms like 'instrumentalism' or 'constructive pragmatism'. XD
I wonder if Inui Sadaharu has ninja ancestors?
***
Haruie comes to Kotarou several days later, defeat in her eyes.
"He keeps asking," she says. "Why Naoe isn't... with him. He gets angry. He—"
She shakes her head, passes a hand over her face. Kotarou watches her calmly. He places his hands over the arms of his chair, deliberately in plain sight.
"Kagetora-sama's state will not endure forever," he says. "My advice at this juncture would be to make him comfortable and not contradict or upset him, at least until he is sufficiently healed in body. Given time the shock will wear off, and his mind will recover on its own. The Fuuma are at his disposition regardless of whom he believes me to be. If he wishes to have 'Naoe' by his side, then I will take up those duties accordingly."
Haruie gives a tiny, broken laugh. Convenient for you, isn't it? She doesn't bother to say. There is no pretense in Kotarou to puncture.
"I'll kill you if anything happens to him," she says instead. "With my own hands. I promise you."
***
He spends the rest of the day examining his options.
It is, indeed, to his political advantage to play to Kagetora's delusions, to "make him comfortable". To this end there is physical deception: clothing, stance, personal habits, tenor of voice and choice of words, and the correct execution of Naoe's duties as retainer. These pose no great difficulty.
It is the mind of the man that concerns him. The case is a special one. From Naoe he immediately derived the sense of a personality pushed to extremes not often encountered, and mentally marked him for study. In due course he had opportunities enough to vivisect the man. Yet Naoe Nobutsuna remained stubbornly opaque, his motives impenetrable as his acts were unpredictable, elusive until his death. Kotarou could say with certainty that Uesugi Kagetora moved Naoe, for good or for ill, and only Uesugi Kagetora – but no more.
Hojo Ujiteru's voice resurrects in his memory, vivid with impatience:
You will never understand, Kotarou!
This is a fact. He has neither the desire nor the will to understand. In fact he doubts the "understanding" of which Ujiteru spoke is not a misnomer: how should the communication of such a pernicious, immaterial thing as emotion lead to enlightenment? How should it be communicated at all? What most men call empathy is no more than their own hopes and doubts ascribed to the behaviour of others. Thus they allow prejudice to hobble perception.
Man is not a creature commonly ruled by logic. A pragmatist would not waste time on wishing it otherwise, but instead sets himself the task of observation. Some men, such as Ujiteru himself, think as they feel and act as they think; others, such as his brother Ujimasa, the former head of the Hojo household, are influenced by emotion in an indirect manner, all the while acting as they believe rationality dictates. In all cases it is the existence of rules prescribing the final consequence – the individual's action – that is of practical import. A summary of the rules governing a particular individual suffices; there is no need to go further.
Kotarou has no internal experience that corresponds to the words love, hate, fear, sorrow, pride, anger, disgust, and the myriad nuances therein contained. To him they are abstractions of utility: names given to levers that move men, and that cause men to move the world.
Naoe went to the grave with his secrets. His only clue now is Kagetora himself.
***
When he enters Kagetora's room the next morning Nagahide looks up and his mouth twists. He spits out an obscenity, gets up and walks out. Haruie turns pale but doesn't move.
Kagetora, too, looks up. Kotarou misses nothing: the brief widening of his eyes, the minute relief in his face before it is replaced by a different, as yet unnamable tension.
"Where have you been?" Kagetora says coldly.
Kotarou lowers his eyes as he's seen Naoe do, with a kind of false restraint, and lifts them again to his lord and master's face. Henceforth he would have much greater leisure for study.
"It does not matter, Kagetora-sama," he says. "I am here now."
***
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Date: 2005-08-12 01:25 am (UTC)To say the truth, this part was one of my fav.s in the whole MoB, with me torn between amusement and pity. ^^;;