J: The incontestable dominance of your European reason is thought to be confirmed by the successes of that rationality which technical advances set before us at every turn.
I: This delusion is growing, so that we are no longer able to see how the Europeanization of man and of the earth attacks at the source everything that is of an essential nature. It seems that these sources are to dry up.
J: A striking example for what you have in mind is the inter· nationally known film Rashomon. Perhaps you have seen it.
I: Fortunately yes; unfortunately, only once. I believed that I was experiencing the enchantment of the Japanese world, the enchantment that carries us away into the mysterious. And so I do not understand why you offer just this film as an example of an all-consuming Europeanization.
J: We Japanese consider the presentation frequently too realistic, for example in the dueling scenes.
I: But arc there not also subdued gestures?
J: Inconspicuities o£ this kind flow abundantly and hardly noticeable to a European observer. I recall a hand resting on another person, in which there is concentrated a contact that remains infinitely remote from any touch, something that may not even be called gesture any longer in the sense in which I understand your usage. For this hand is suffused and borne by a call calling from afar and calling still farther onward, because stillness has brought it.
I: But in view of such gestures, which differ from our gestures. I fail even more to understand how vou can mention this film as an example of Europeanization.
J: Indeed it cannot be understood, because I am still expressing myself inadequately. And yet, for an adequate expression I need precisely your language
I: And at this point you do not heed the dangerr