by Naoya Shiga
He felt his exhaustion turn into a strange state of rapture. He could feel his mind and his body both gradually merging into this great nature that surrounded him. It was not nature that was visible to the eyes; rather, it was like a limitless body of air that wrapped itself around him, this tiny creature no larger than a poppy seed. To be gently drawn into it, and there be restored, was a pleasure beyond the power of words to describe. The sensation was a little like that of the moment when, tired and without a single worry, one was about to fall into a deep sleep. Indeed, a part of him already was in a state hardly distinguishable from sleep. He had experienced this feeling of being absorbed by nature before; but this was the first time that it was accompanied by such rapture. In previous instances, the feeling perhaps had been more that of being sucked in by nature than that of merging into it; and though there had been some pleasure attached to it, he had at the same time always tried instinctively to resist it, and on finding such resistance difficult, he had felt a distinct uneasiness. But this time, he had not the slightest will to resist; and contentedly, without a trace of the old uneasiness, he accepted nature’s embrace.
It was so still a night, even the night birds were silent. If there were lights in the villages below, they were quite hidden by the mist that lay over the rooftops. And all that he could see above him were the stars and the outline of the mountains, curved like the back of some huge beast. He felt as if he had just taken a step on the road to eternity. Death held no threat for him. If this means dying, he thought, I can die without regret. But to him then, this journey to eternity did not seem the same as death.
He must have slept for some time as he sat there, his elbows resting on his knees. When he opened his eyes again, the green around him had begun to show in the light of early dawn. The stars, though fewer now, were still there. The sky was soft blue—the color of kindness, he thought. The mist below had dispersed, and there were lights here and there in the villages at the foot of the mountain. He could see lights in Yonago too, and in Sakaiminato that lay on Yomigahama Point. The big light that went on and off was surely from the lighthouse at Mihonoseki. The bay, as still as a lake, remained in the shadow of the mountain, but the sea outside had already taken on a greyish hue.
All aspects of the scene changed rapidly with dawn’s hurried progress. When he turned around, he saw the mountaintop outlined against a swelling mass of orange light that became more and more intense; then the orange began to fade, and suddenly everything around him became clearer. The wild grass grew shorter here than it did down below; and in its midst were large wild asparagus, standing singly and far apart from each other, their flowers dotting the landscape near and far. There were yarrow, burnet, day lilies, and scabious, all blooming among the grass. A little bird flew out, chattering, and like a pebble tossed in the air drew a sharp arc and dropped back into the grass.
As the mountain range jutting into the water on the other side of the bay began to take on color, the outline of the white lighthouse in the straits became more clearly etched. The sun now reached Daikonjima Island, stretched out like a huge stingray across the bay. The lights in the distant villages went out, and from some of the chimneys smoke began to rise. But there was no sign of activity yet in the villages immediately below, which lay still and dark in the shadow of Daisen. Kensaku then saw for the first time the sharply delineated outline of this shadow in the distance as it retreated from the bay and crept toward him over land, allowing the town of Yonago to emerge in the light. It was like a great dragnet being pulled in; or it was like the caressing shadow of a passing cloud. And so Kensaku watched with emotion this rare sight—the shadow of the proud mountain, the greatest in central Japan, etched boldly across the land.
20
It was about ten in the morning when he finally reached the temple. He was so exhausted, he wondered how he had managed not to collapse on the way. Oyoshi was in the front hall with the baby, whom she had let loose to play about on the wooden floor. On seeing Kensaku she was so taken aback by the way he looked that instead of greeting him, she turned around and called out, “Mother! Mother!”
The priest’s wife was no less appalled. She immediately put him to bed and took his temperature. It was just over a hundred and two. When she took it again a little while later, it had reached a hundred and four. She put an ice bag on his head, then dispatched a messenger to the village at the foot of the mountain to fetch a doctor; and partly because Kensaku in his delirium had called for Naoko several times, she had the messenger take a telegram with him.
The doctor arrived a little after eight o’clock that night. Until then, Oyoshi and her mother had gone outside a great many times to see if he was coming; and after sunset, when as usual a deathly quiet fell with the darkness, the two women had become very cross, as if this particular night were to blame for the absence of human life outside. They were both kind people; but their agitation was owing also to their fear of having a dead man on their hands. So anxious were they to have the doctor—or, for that matter, a man—to relieve them of at least a part of their burden that when the messenger appeared on the path carrying a lantern and a doctor’s bag, followed by the small, aged doctor himself wearing gaiters and straw sandals, their joy was enormous.
Oyoshi rushed to Kensaku’s bedside, leaving her mother to receive the doctor; she sat down by his pillow, so close that her face touched the mosquito net, and said excitedly, “The doctor’s here! Did you hear me? The doctor’s here!” All Kensaku did in reply was to open his eyes a little. But when the doctor came in and began asking him questions about his illness, he was able to answer with surprising clarity, though in a weak voice. Perhaps because the priest’s wife was sitting there, the doctor was not as positive as he might have been about the cause, which clearly was the sea bream. It had traveled about fifteen miles in the heat of the summer, having been grilled first; then at the temple it had been grilled again. After giving him a quick general examination, the doctor began gently pressing Kensaku’s abdomen. “Does it hurt here?” he would ask as he applied the pressure. “And what about here?” When he had finished with the probing, he gave his diagnosis: it was acute intestinal catarrh, aggravated by Kensaku’s stopping the diarrhea with herb medicine. But the fever should go down, he thought, when Kensaku’s bowels had been cleared out with castor oil and an enema. The doctor had come prepared with these things, having been told about Kensaku’s diarrhea by the messenger.
The enema had little effect. The castor oil, however, should work in two or three hours, the doctor said. He would remain in the annex until then, and examine the feces. The priest’s wife, now that she knew the doctor would be there for some time, left for the rectory to prepare some food and drink for him.
The doctor sat down cross-legged in the small room next to where Kensaku lay and took a sip of the tea now gone cold. “What does he do?” he asked Oyoshi.
“He’s a literary man.”
“I’d say he was from the east, judging by his accent.”
“He’s from Kyoto.”
“From Kyoto? Really?”
Kensaku listened to the conversation, which seemed to him to have nothing to do with himself.
“How is he?” Oyoshi asked, lowering her voice.
“He’ll be all right,” the doctor answered, also in an undertone.
Half-awake, Kensaku was having a dream. In it his two legs had detached themselves from his torso and were walking about the room, making a terrible nuisance of themselves. Not only were they visually distracting, but the noise they made—thud, thud, thud, thud —as they paced quickly and determinedly around him was excruciatingly loud. He hated them, and tried desperately to will them to go far away. Since it was all a dream—he knew that it was—he thought he could indeed do this. But they would not leave him. By “far away” he meant the mist, the black mist, and it was into this that he tried to drive away the legs. After tremendous effort on his part they would finally retreat toward the mist, becoming smaller and s
maller. Behind the black mist was total darkness. If the legs could be driven into this core of darkness, they would then disappear completely. Using his very last reserve of strength he would make one more mighty effort to be rid of them once and for all, but when only one short step away from the darkness they would suddenly fly back into the room, like a rubber string that had been stretched to the limit and then had snapped. And once again the legs would pace around him noisily—thud, thud, thud, thud. No matter how often he tried to drive them away they would invariably return, refusing to give his eyes or his ears any rest.
After that he was mostly unconscious. Surprisingly clear moments would come to him occasionally, but these were only brief intermissions. He no longer suffered. If he felt anything at all, it was that his mind and body were being purged.
The old doctor left early the next morning, and at about noon his assistant, not very young either, arrived, bringing with him a supply of saline injection and the like. By then Kensaku’s fever had gone down. But what he evacuated from his bowels was like thin gruel; his hands and feet were extremely cold; and his heart had so weakened that his pulse was hardly detectable. It was as severe as a case of intestinal catarrh in an adult could be, the doctor said; and he began to wonder if Kensaku did not have cholera. First he gave Kensaku an injection of digitalis, then proceeded to give him a saline injection. The solution was pumped into him through a thick needle stuck deep into the thigh. The flesh around the needle began to swell abominably; and the pain was such that it brought tears to Kensaku’s eyes.
Not long after this, Naoko arrived. But the priest’s wife, aware of Kensaku’s anxiety to see her, refused to let her go near him, fearful lest his sudden relief on seeing her should have an adverse effect on his precariously weakened condition. The doctor agreed with her. Kensaku’s pulse would become more steady when his body had had time to absorb the saline solution, he said; so would Naoko wait until then? Naoko was appalled. She had come imagining all kinds of unhappy possibilities; but at the same time she had hoped that his illness would prove to be not so serious after all, and had even pictured to herself Kensaku smiling and saying to her as she arrived, “The telegram scared you, didn’t it?” That he could be so ill, she had not imagined even in her most pessimistic moments.
She was easily enough persuaded to postpone her meeting with Kensaku; for she was very afraid that she herself was in no fit state to see him. The sheer physical strain of walking eight miles up the hills under the hot summer sun, and now the shock on hearing the news about her husband, had left her with little confidence in her own capacity to withstand the ordeal of seeing him in his present condition. Supposing he had changed drastically in appearance, and she were to break down as soon as she saw him?
She was herself a very sorry sight. Her face was pale and drawn from lack of sleep, and covered with a mixture of soot from the night train and sweat. The priest’s wife, making sure that her voice did not carry to the next room, pressed Naoko to have a bath, but she would not get up.
“Do have a bath and change into more comfortable clothes,” the priest’s wife said again.
“I’ll just wash my face, then. Thank you anyway.”
In the bathroom Naoko washed quickly, then in front of the small mirror combed the loose hair back into the bun. Just as she was about to step out of the bathroom she saw the doctor and the priest’s wife sitting on opposite sides of the fireplace in the rectory, talking in an undertone. They stopped abruptly when they heard her coming out.
“Will you please come here for a minute?” said the doctor. Frightened, Naoko went into the room and sat down. “His pulse is much better now,” the doctor said. “He’s asleep, but I suggest you see him when he wakes up. You must try not to excite him, of course.”
“Is his condition very serious?”
“I can’t say with any certainty. It is without doubt intestinal catarrh. With children and adults in poor health, it could be very serious, but normally it’s not such a frightening thing to get. I don’t think you have much reason to worry. I was talking to madame here about this, but there’s a good man I know—he’s the head doctor of a hospital in Yonago—and I was wondering if you would like him to come and have a look at your husband.”
“Yes, please,” Naoko said quickly. “Please ask him as soon as possible. My husband has an elder brother living in Kamakura, and he’s got to be told if it’s really serious.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think your husband’s condition has reached that point. Let’s send for the doctor right away, then, either by telephone or by telegram. Of course, he couldn’t possibly get here today, but he should be here by tomorrow afternoon.”
“And could you arrange to have a nurse come too?”
Oyoshi came in. She looked around at all three and said in a surprised tone, “He knows, he knows madame’s here.”
“Really?” said the doctor, cocking his head somewhat ostentatiously to show disbelief. “He’s dreaming, I’m sure.”
“Not at all. He even knows that mother kept madame from seeing him.”
Naoko, already half-standing, looked at the doctor expectantly. He responded by asking Oyoshi, “And does he want madame to go to him?”
“Yes, sir, he does.”
The doctor picked up a piece of charcoal with the tongs to light a cigarette. He inhaled deeply once, then said, “All right, but please don’t excite him by crying or anything like that.” Naoko gave a little bow, then went away toward the annex with Oyoshi.
“What do you think?” the priest’s wife asked the doctor when they had gone, her brow creased in consternation. It was a question she must already have asked him several times.
“Well, I don’t know what my senior said, but I certainly can’t give a definite answer. For a while I thought it might be cholera, but I don’t think so any more. I’m inclined to think that if we keep his belly and bottom warm, and give him digitalis, he’ll be all right so long as no complications develop.”
“My husband isn’t here, as you know, and I’d hate to have anything awkward happen during his absence.”
“Well, his wife is here now, so surely you don’t have to feel too apprehensive.”
“True enough, but he does look very bad.”
“His heart is terribly weak, I admit, and to be honest, I don’t know what his chances are.”
“Yes, he does look bad,” she said, and gave a deep, theatrical sigh. The doctor smoked his cigarette in silence.
Naoko went into Kensaku’s room trying desperately to hide the fear that she felt, but it showed in her wide-open eyes and in her tensely controlled face. Kensaku lay still on his back, only his eyes following Naoko as she came in. She looked at his ashen face, his sunken eyes and cheeks, at his body that seemed so small under the cover, and felt a deep pain in her breast. Silently she sat down beside his pillow and bowed. In a hoarse, almost inaudible voice he said, “Did you come alone?” Naoko nodded. He said again, “Did you not bring our baby?”
“I left her at home.”
With effort he proffered his open hand, placing it in her lap. She held it tight with both hers. It was strangely cold and dry.
Without saying anything Kensaku looked at her. His gaze was like a caress. She thought she had never seen such gentleness, such love, in anyone’s eyes before. She was about to say, “Everything is all right now,” but she refrained, for in the presence of such contentment and quiet, the words seemed hollow.
“I gather your letter arrived yesterday,” he said, “but I had a fever, and they wouldn’t show it to me.”
Afraid that she would cry if she tried to say anything, she merely nodded. Kensaku continued to gaze at her.
After a while he said, “You know, I feel very good right now.” Naoko at that moment lost control and said violently, “I don’t want you to say that.” Then more softly she added, “The doctor says there’s nothing to worry about.”
Kensaku seemed too tired to say any more. His hand still in hers, he
closed his eyes. She had never seen him look so tranquil. Perhaps, she thought, he is not going to live through this. But the thought somehow did not sadden her very much. As she sat there looking at him, she felt herself becoming an inseparable part of him; and she kept on thinking, “Whether he lives or not, I shall never leave him, I shall go wherever he goes.”
{1}See, for example, “Han’s Crime,” translated by Ivan Morris, in Modern Japanese Literature'. An Anthology, edited by Donald Keene, New York, 1956; “Seibei’s Gourds,” translated by Ivan Morris, in Modern Japanese Stories: An Anthology, edited by Ivan Morris, Rutland, Vermont, and Tokyo, 1962; and “The Razor,” translated by Francis Mathy, in Monumenta Nipponica, vol. Xi, no. 3-4.
{2}See Edward Seidensticker’s translation in Modern Japanese Literature, op. cit.
{3} Dokusan. ed.