Many of you may already have heard about Matiram Misra. Misra is a patriot from Calcutta who has always worked for Indian independence, and he is also a young magician who has studied the secrets of the famous Brahmin, Hassan Khan. I had met Misra just a month earlier on the introduction of a friend, [Note] but while we had discussed various political and economic issues, I had never been present when he used real magic. Therefore I had sent him a letter asking him to show me some magic, and now I had rushed by rikisha to the lonely outskirts of Omori where Misra lived.
Wet from the rain, I found the bell under the nameplate by the uncertain light of the rikisha puller's lantern, and pushed it. The door soon opened. The face in the entrance was that of a short, old Japanese woman who worked for Misra.
"Is Misra in?"
"Please come in. He has been waiting for you."
The old woman had a friendly manner. She showed me to Misra's room, which was next to the entrance. Misra cheerfully greated me as he turned up the wick of the oil lamp on the table.
"I'm glad that all the rain this evening didn't stop you from coming."
"No amount of rain would stop me if I could see your magic."
I sat in a chair and looked around at the shadowy room by the light of the dim oil lamp.
Misra's room was a simple, western style room with a table in the middle, a handy bookshelf on one wall, and a desk by the window. Otherwise there was nothing but the chairs we were sitting in. The chairs and desk were well worn, and even the once-bright tablecloth, embroidered with red flowers around the edge, seemed ready to fall apart at any moment.
After exchanging pleasantries we listened a moment to the rain falling on the bamboo hedge outside. Finally the old woman brought in a pot of black tea, and Misra opened a box of cigars.
"Have one."
I took one and lit it.. "Thank you. I believe the spirit you follow is called a djinn. I suppose you use the power of this djinn for the magic you are going to show me?"
Misra lit his cigar, smiled, and let out a puff of aromatic smoke. "It's been hundreds of years since anyone bothered with djinn. You're probably thinking of The Arabian Nights. The magic I learned from Hassan Khan is something even you could do if you wanted. At most it's an advanced form of hypnotism. Watch-- you just move your hand like this."
Misra raised his hand and moved it in a triangular pattern in front of my face several times.. Then he returned his hand to the table top, and picked up one of the flowers embroidered in red around the edge of the tablecloth. Surprised, I slid my chair forward and stared carefully at the flower. It was without doubt one of the flowers which until just now had been stitched into the cloth. Misra brought the flower up to my nose, and I smelled the strong scent of musk. I cried out my admiration over and over. Misra, still with a slight smile, casually dropped the flower onto the tablecloth. Once it landed, of course, it again became part of the embroidery-- it could not be picked up, nor could a single petal be moved.
"See? Simple, isn't it? Now watch the lamp."
As he spoke, he straightened up the kerosene lamp on the table, but for some reason the lamp began, at just that moment, spinning about like a top. As that continued, the lampshade began revolving around the axis of the chimney. I was alarmed and very worried that it might start a fire, but Misra sat quietly drinking his tea with no sign of concern. So I forced myself to sit still and stare at the lamp as it spun around faster and faster.
I could feel the breeze set up by the revolution of the lampshade, but the yellow flame never flickered. It was a beautiful, eerie sight. The spinning continued to grow faster and faster until there was no longer any sensation of movement at all and the flame was perfectly clear. Then suddenly the lamp was sitting on the table as before, and the chimney showed no distortion.
"Were you surprised? This sort of thing is mere child's play. But if you'd like, I'll show you one more."
Misra turned around and gazed at the bookshelf on the wall, then reached out and beckoned with his hand. One by one the books lined up on the bookshelf flew down to the table. They did this by opening up their pages to form wings, then flapping through the air like bats on a summer evening. My mouth, with the cigar still in it, gaped open in surprise-- the books flew freely through the dim light of the lamp, and then one by one stacked themselves on the table in the shape of a pyramid. When the last arrived on top of the stack, the first began to move again, and I though they would all fly back to their places on the bookshelf.
But then-- and this surprised me most of all-- one thin paperback, with its pages still spread as wings, lightly stroked its way up and circled over the table, then suddenly closed itself and dropped down into my lap. I reached for it, wondering what could be happening, and saw that it was a new French novel I had loaned to Misra the week before.
"I'm so grateful for the book."
Misra's smile was still evident as he thanked me. By then the other books had all returned to the bookshelf. For a moment I was too entranced even to say he was welcome. But I was able to remember that a little earlier he had said his magic was "something even you could do if you wanted."
"Really, I have heard so much about you, but I hadn't realized your magic would be so amazing. Of course you were joking when you said it wouldn't be out of the reach of a person like me, weren't you?"
"You could do it. Anyone could do it with ease. Except that . . ."
Misra paused and gazed fixedly into my eyes, then went on in a serious tone I hadn't heard from him before. "Except that a greedy person cannot. If you want to learn the magic of Hassan Khan, you must first abandon greed. Can you do that?"
"I think so." somehow I felt uncomfortable as I answered, and I immediately added, "if you will just teach me your magic."
Misra still looked skeptical, but perhaps he felt it would be rude to push further. Finally he sighed.
"I'll teach you then. but though I said you could do it with ease, it will still take some time to learn. You'll have to stay here tonight."
"I'm so grateful that you'd take the trouble."
I kept thanking Misra for teaching me magic, but he sat quietly in his chair without seeming to notice. Then he called out to his servant, "Granny! Granny! Our guest will be staying tonight-- please get a bed ready!"
With my heart pounding, and forgetting to knock the growing ash from my cigar, I sat staring up at the soft face of Misra, bathed in the light of the kerosene lamp.
About a month went by after I learned magic from Misra. It was another rainy night, but this time I was sitting in a room of a club on the Ginza, chatting with five or six friends in front of the warm stove.
Although we were in the heart of Tokyo, the rain falling outside the window and soaking the autos and carriages that were always passing by had the same lonely sound as that falling on the bamboo hedge in Omori.
Of course the genial atmosphere on our side of the window, evident in the bright light of the lamps, the large morocco armchairs and the polished parquet floor, could not be compared in appearance or mood with a room like Misra's.
We were sitting in a haze of cigar smoke telling stories of hunting or horse racing, when one of my friends threw the butt of his cigar into the stove and turned toward me.
"They say you do magic now. How about it? Will you show us?"
"All right," I said patronizingly while leaning my head back in the armchair, looking like some famous magician. "Since you ask, I'll show you something really strange, something a mere trickster couldn't attempt."
My friends all approved and slid their chairs around to watch, urging me on with their looks. Slowly I stood up.
"Please watch closely. There are no tricks or gimmicks."
As I said this, I rolled up my cuffs and casually scooped up in my palms some of the coals burning away in the stove. The friends who were crowded around me jumped back in fright. As I looked at the face of each, he would edge away, afraid that I would come too close and burn him.
I remained completely composed. After briefly holding the flaming coals before their eyes, I flung them down. As the pieces scattered across the parquet floor they had the sound of a rain shower, which briefly covered the sound of the rain falling outside the window. This was because the moment the red coals left my hands, they turned to innumerable, beautiful gold coins which fell like raindrops to the floor.
My friends all stood entranced, too dazed even to applaud.
"Well, that's all." With a proud smile I dropped quietly back into my armchair.
About five minutes passed before one of my dumbfounded friends finally asked me, "Is that real money?"
"They are real coins. If you think they're fake, pick one up and take a look."
"They won't burn me?" One friend cautiously picked a coin up from the floor. "They're real all right. Hey, porter! Get a broom and dustpan, and gather these up for us."
The porter, as he was instructed, swept all the coins together and piled them in a heap on the table next to us. My friends all crowded around the table.
"There must be 200,000 yen here!"
"More than that! The weight would break a less sturdy table!"
"He's learned some strong magic, anyway. Turning flaming coals into coins that way."
"At this rate he'll be richer than Iwasaki or Mitsui in a week."
As they all admired my magic, I just sat back in my chair and calmly blew out cigar smoke. Finally I spoke. "No, if this magic of mine were to give rise to greed, I would no longer be able to use it. So when you're through looking at these coins, I plan to throw them right back into the stove."
At this my friends began to chorus their objections. To put such a fortune into the stove would be senseless, they said. But I stubbornly resisted, telling them that because of my promise to Misra, I would be sure to throw them into the stove. Then one of my friends who is known as the most cunning stepped up and laughed scornfully in my face.
"You say you want to put the money back in the stove. We say you shouldn't. Naturally we could go on forever like this and not get anywhere. Here's my idea. Why don't you play cards with us, using these coins as the stakes? If you win you can turn them into coals or whatever you want. But if we win you turn the money over to us. That way both sides' arguments will hold, and we'll all be satisfied."
Still I shook my head and wouldn't accept his proposition. He laughed all the more mockingly, and glanced back and forth from me to the coins on the table.
"Of course the reason you won't play cards with us is that you don't want us to get your money. If that's the case, I doubt that you're really resolved to abandon greed to be able to do your magic."
"No, if I wanted to keep the coins I wouldn't turn them back to coals."
"Then why not play cards?"
After repeating this sort of exchange several times, I finally decided I had no choice but to play cards using the coins on the table as the stakes, as my friend said. My friends, of course, were all overjoyed. They called for a deck and went over to a card table in a corner of the room, where they urged me, still hesitating, to quickly join them.
With no other choice, I went over and grudgingly began to play cards with my friends. But for some reason that night, I, who am ordinarily not a particularly good player, won with incredible regularity. And though I had not felt like playing at first, I gradually became strangely excited. Within ten minutes I had forgotten everything and started drawing my cards with great enthusiasm..
Of course my friends had begun the game with the idea that they would take every last coin from me, and they played with impatience evident even in their faces, completely possessed by the dream of winning. But it seemed that desperately as some of them played, I was unable to lose, and I gradually won from them a sum nearly equal to the value of the gold coins. Then the perverse friend who had suggested the game lost control completely, and stood holding the cards in front of me.
"We'll draw for high card. I'll wager all my property. My land, my buildings, my horses, my cars, everything I own! You put up those gold coins and what you've just won. Now draw!"
I felt desire at that moment. The mountain of coins heaped on the table and the money I had managed to win could be lost in a moment of bad luck, but I couldn't let it be taken by my friends. And if I did win, all that property would be mine! What was the use of the trouble I had taken to learn magic if I couldn't use it at a time like this? With this idea in my head, nothing could stop me from using my magic win.
"All right. But you draw first."
"Nine"
"King!"
As I shouted out my victory, I held the card I had drawn before my pale opponent's dyes. But the face beneath the crown on the king I had drawn suddenly raised up off the card as if a demon had entered it and, still holding his sword staidly, smiled unpleasantly and called out in a familiar voice.
"Granny! Granny! Our guest has decided to return home. You don't need to get the bed ready."
The rain falling outside the window again sounded like it was splashing on that bamboo hedge in Omori. As I looked around I found myself seated facing Misra, who was bathed in the dim light of the oil lamp and wearing the faint smile of the king on the card.
The ash of the cigar between my fingers had not fallen yet. The month I had just spent had been a dream, barely three minutes long. But in that two or three minutes it had become clear, both to myself and to Misra, that I was not a person qualified to learn the magic of Hassan Khan. I hung my head in embarrassment, unable to speak.
With a look of pity in his eyes, Misra rested his elbows on the tablecloth embroidered with red flowers, and reproved me quietly.
"If you want to learn my magic, you must first abandon greed. You have not had that much training."
(October 1922)