The Miner

by Sōseki Natsume

  A chill of desolation ran through me as I watched him go. He climbed like a monkey. There was no sign that he would be taking it easy for me. Afraid that I’d be abandoned again if I didn’t follow quickly, I forced myself up. Two or three steps were all it took for me to appreciate the truth of Hatsu’s warning. The climb was very tough. And not just because I was exhausted. On the way down, you leaned a little forward, which allowed the ladder to support some of the weight of your upper body. Climbing up, however, it was just the opposite. You tended to lean back. Since you had to support the extra weight entirely with your hands, each rung took its toll on the upper arms and shoulders, the sum total falling upon the hands and fingers. As I mentioned earlier, the rungs were slippery. Climbing up even one ladder was no mean feat. And there were fifteen of them. Hatsu had disappeared long before. All I had to do was let go, and I would tumble headfirst through the pitch darkness. If I hung on with all my might, my arms would simply pull out of their sockets. Midway up the seventh ladder, I was breathing flames and feeling the immense hardships of manual labor. My eyes were full of hot tears.

  I tried bringing my upper and lower eyelids together two or three times, but my vision remained blurred. I couldn’t even manage a clear view of the rock wall, less than six inches from my face. I thought of rubbing my eyes with the backs of my hands, but unfortunately both were occupied at the time. I became angry and frustrated. How had I ever sunk so low as to be playing these monkey games, I wondered. Resisting the backward pull, I slumped against the ladder as best I could and let it take as much of my weight as possible. In this position, I began to think. (Or to rest, it might be more accurate to say.) Maybe I just stopped climbing. In any case, I didn’t move. I couldn’t move. I stood there, rigid. I was unaware of the hissing of the lantern or the seeping of water into my sandals. I had no sense of how many minutes passed by. Then my eyes filled again with hot tears. Unusually clear though my mind was, my eyes were clouded over. No amount of blinking seemed to help. It was as if my eyes were wide open in hot water. A sodden gloom had come over me, which rose to frustration and then to rage, increasing in fury but incapable of being translated into action. Gritting my teeth, I gave the rung I was holding several shakes. Or tried to. It didn’t move, of course. Maybe I should let go, I thought. The best thing would be to end this quickly—plunge down headfirst and smash myself to bits. The urge to die was overwhelming. The very same person who, at the bottom of the ladders, had been determined to avoid death at all cost, now, halfway up, was ready to die without question. Of all the psychological shifts I have experienced in my life, this one was the most memorable. Since I’m not a psychologist, I don’t know how best to explain this kind of change, but it seems to me that the psychologists are the very ones who are short on practical experience, so I’d just like to set down my own humble view of the matter, with all its inaccuracies, for what it’s worth.

  When I had first sat down to rest on my seat-pad, my only thought had been just that—to rest. My mind had been at ease. Stimuli were at a minimum. As I remained leaning against the tunnel wall in such a state, that state had progressed smoothly, and in the natural course of things, my consciousness had begun to drift away. My soul had begun to sink. The course of mental activity in such cases is fixed. Normally, it will take off from the positive and proceed gradually toward the negative. When this normal course has been exhausted, however, and the soul is on the verge of reaching a dead end, it can function in one of two ways. The first is to raise its sail into the wind and slip straight into the depths. That’s it: you die. The second is to leap back before the final curtain. Having advanced toward the negative, the soul suddenly reverses itself and returns toward the positive. Then your grasp on life becomes suddenly firm. What I had experienced beneath the ladders was this second possibility. Having approached the nearer shore of the Three-Channeled River19 unperturbed by the nearness of death, my soul had eliminated the bother of retracing its steps by leaping directly into the midst of the real world. I call this the Experience of Turning from Death and Returning to Life.

  On my way up the ladders, however, I encountered precisely the opposite phenomenon. I had to climb in pursuit of Hatsu, but he had long since disappeared. My head urged me upward, my heart screamed danger, and my hands would not let go. I was lower than a monkey. Miserable. In pain. The whole thing was torture. The intensity of my self-awareness was gradually approaching fever pitch. In this case, the course of mental activity was to rise from negative to positive. When such a state goes on to develop to the fullest intensity, again you have two functions as a result, one of which I find especially interesting—namely, that miraculous somersault taken by the soul from the zenith of the positive to the nadir of the negative. What I’m talking about here, to put it more plainly, is that phenomenon of resolving to discard one’s life at the very moment it reaches its greatest clarity. I call this the Function of Entering Death through Life. This may sound like a contradiction, but in actual practice, as an inherent function of the soul, it occurs with surprising naturalness. Enough theory, here’s proof. Those who die in a burst of passion go cleanly to their deaths, but those who cower in the face of death never seem to accept it fully. Nor do I have to look to others for a good example. There’s me. When, on the ladder, I was feeling angry and ready to die, I was not the least bit afraid of releasing my grip. And no, of course the usual pang of fear did not occur. But the moment I was about to let go and die, I became aware of yet another strange psychological phenomenon.

  By nature, I’m not the sort of person you’d encounter in a novel, but I was still young back then, and whenever the thought of suicide popped into my head, it was always as a kind of spectacle to be staged for others. I would use a pistol or dagger and die magnificently, in a manner that would elicit praise. I often thought of taking the famous suicide leap at Kegon Falls. But quietly hanging myself in a toilet or storage shed? No, this I rejected as beneath me. As I stood on the ladder, this same old vanity suddenly poked its head out. Don’t ask me where it poked its head out from, but it did—probably because there was room enough for it to do so. Which means that, as solemn as my determination may have been, it was still not all that urgent. On the other hand, if my vanity could put in an appearance at the very moment of firmest resolve, when my hands were beginning to leave the rungs, it must have had pretty deep roots. Not that there was such a great difference between my vanity and the desire to be memorialized in bronze after death. It was not so amazing as to set me apart from ordinary human beings. Given the particular time and place, however, it does seem to have been something of a luxury. Thanks to this little extravagance, to this weakness that surfaced at the decisive moment, I abandoned my impulsive rush to death and have prolonged my life (such as it is) to this day.

  Here, then, is how it went. Having decided to die, I let my body drop back slightly and was loosening my grip when it occurred to me that, as long as I was going to die anyway, I could do better than to die in this place. A command (which sounds funny, but it was just like a command) echoed in my head: “Wait! Wait! Get out of here and go to Kegon Falls!” My loosening grip tightened. My clouded eyes grew suddenly clear. My lantern was burning. Above me, the mud-smeared ladders continued up into the darkness. I had to climb them. If I failed partway up, my death would be pointless. To tumble down like a piece of ore in the dark hole, where there was not another creature, shut off from the light of day, never to be missed (not even by my guide, Hatsu), or, if found, to be reviled by those half-beast-half-human miners—no, I could not let that happen! I must complete the climb! My lantern was burning. The ladders continued up. Beyond the ladders were the long tunnels of the mine. Beyond the mine, the sun was shining. Open fields; high mountains; and, beyond them, Kegon Falls. I had to climb, no matter what!

  I stretched my left hand out above my head, gripping the slimy rung so hard my fingers left their imprint on it. I straightened my soggy torso and, simultaneously, lifted my right foot. The light o
f the lantern began to move upward through the dark shaft, illuminating layer after layer. Each rung my feet left behind slowly fell away into the darkness. Each breath I expelled struck the black wall in front of me. My breath was hot, and at times it shone white. I clamped my mouth shut, and the air rushed noisily through my nostrils. Still the ladders did not end. Water dripped down from the lip above. I would give the lantern a shake, and as an arc of light grazed the cliff wall, the flame would hiss and flicker, sending up a ribbon of smoke once again when the lantern came to rest. Again I would shake it, and again the light would move at an angle, falling on the blank wall beside the foot-wide ladder. The sight of its emptiness sent a shiver through me. My eyes spun. I closed them and climbed. No flame, no wall to be seen—just darkness. Hands and legs moving. Moving hands and moving legs invisible. Groping to live. Living to climb. To live was to climb, to climb was to live. And still the ladders were there above me.

  After that, I was all but in a trance. Whether I managed to climb on my own or through some divine assistance, I can’t really say. When I suddenly realized that I had climbed as far as I could and there were no more rungs for me to grasp, I plopped down on the tunnel floor.

  Hatsu, who had been nervously awaiting my arrival, welcomed me joyfully. “What happened? You made it! You took so long, I thought maybe you got killed. I was thinkin’ about goin’ to check, but it woulda been too creepy alone. Anyhow, you made it. Good boy!” He seemed to have been pretty worried, waiting up here.

  “I felt a little sick, so I rested halfway up,” was all I said.

  “Sick? You musta had a tough time. Whaddya mean, ‘halfway up?’ Halfway up the ladders?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Well, I guess you can’t work tomorrow.”

  When I heard that, I thought to myself: “To hell with you! I’m finished crawling through mole holes. I may not look it, but beautiful girls have fallen in love with me. When I get out of this place, I’m going straight to Kegon Falls. And I’ll die like a hero. I can’t stand to spend another minute with an animal like you!”

  But when I spoke to Hatsu, I said simply, “If you’re ready, let’s go.”

  He looked at me suspiciously. “Go?” he said. “You’re feelin’ spunky!”

  “What the hell do you think I am, a stupid animal like you?” I wanted to say, but all that came out was, “Yes, I am.”

  Hatsu continued to dawdle about. And he did it in a way that implied more contempt for me than surprise.

  “You sure you’re OK?” he asked. “This is nothin’ to joke about. You look pale.”

  “All right, then,” I said, “I’ll go first.” And I started off in a huff.

  “Hey, wait up, you can’t do that!” he cried. “You come after me!”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Sure, you know what I mean, wise guy. I’m guiding you. You don’t go ahead of me.”

  All but pushing me aside, he took the lead. As soon as he was in front, he sped up. Bending at the waist, crawling on all fours, twisting sideways, ducking just his head—the shape of the tunnel had him moving every which way. And he did it with tremendous speed, as if he had been born in the earth and educated in a copper vein. Not to be outdone, I took off after him, cursing him to myself for charging ahead in such a fit of temper, but mere determination was not enough. I clattered along after him, left, right, up, down, but after five or six bends in the tunnel, I lost sight of him. Then he started singing some kind of song, but all I could catch was “Da da da da da.” The man himself was nowhere to be seen, but his voice reverberated throughout the tunnel, bouncing back as if trapped in the earth. “He’s just doing it out of spite,” I thought. “I’ll show him! I’ll catch up with him!” I gave it all I had at first, stooping and crawling along, but Hatsu’s song drew farther and farther away. I gave up any hope of catching him and decided, instead, to continue on with the “Da da da da da” as my guide. That worked fairly well at first, but I began to lose track of the song, too, and by the time it faded out completely, I was, of course, lost. Had there been only one path to follow, I would have damn well found my own way to the sunlight without Hatsu, but they’d been scraping this mine out of the earth for so many years now it had tunnels opening every which way like some ground-spider’s stronghold. All I had to do was walk into the wrong one and I’d be up to my waist in water again or come out to the hanging planks. I had to be careful.

  I stood still in the darkness, thinking, and staring at the lantern flame. I had gone all the way down to Tunnel 8; to get back I’d have to climb up to where the electric train ran. Any tunnel would be all right, I assumed, as long as it went up. I would turn back if I entered one that went down. And if I wandered around, I’d eventually come to one of the work sites. Then I’d ask a miner the way. Having decided this much, I went stumbling along at random, unable to tell north from south, east from west. In my frenzy, I grew short of breath, but at least, with all the rushing around, my legs were no longer cold. Still, I couldn’t find my way out. I seemed to be tracing the same route back and forth. In my frustration, I felt like smashing my head against the wall and splitting it wide open. Which “it” would split—my head or the wall? My head, of course, but I was in such a rage that I think the wall might have split open a little, too. The more I walked, the more the ceiling became a pain. The walls on either side of me were a pain. The terraces beneath my straw sandals were a pain. The greatest pain of all was this whole damn mine that had me trapped and wouldn’t let me go. I’d slam my head against one part of this great pain and at least put a crack in it. And though I didn’t actually do it, I kept thinking about doing it because I wanted to go to Kegon Falls as quickly as possible. I was still in the midst of these gyrations when a lone digger appeared up ahead. He was holding one of those straw winnowing baskets in his arms and tottering in my direction, lantern swaying, apparently on his way to the pit with chunks of ore. My heart leapt with joy when I saw his light. Certain now that I’d be all right, I approached him with new courage—not that I had to go very far to approach him, since he was also moving toward me. When our two lanterns came within six feet of each other, I looked at the digger in anticipation. He was an absolute paleface—extreme even down here in the mine, let alone if you got him up in the light. I refused to speak to him. To think that a person like this might try to rib me or embarrass me, I could never accept the idea of asking him the way. I’d get out of here alone if it killed me. I passed him by, declaring to him deep in my guts, “I haven’t fallen so low that I’d talk to the likes of you!” Unaware of all this, of course, he passed me by in silence. The way ahead became dark now that there was only one lantern. My frustration mounted, but that didn’t help me find the way. I was surrounded by paths that led only to more paths. Left, right, straight ahead: I tried them all without success. I was ready to give up any hope of ever finding my way out when, just ahead of me, I heard clanging. Half a dozen paces later the tunnel ran into a wall and turned left. There I found a small work site with a single miner hammering away at his chisel. Each blow brought a shower of ore from the wall. Beside him stood a bale. It was the same size as the one I had seen earlier being thrown into the pit, and it was crammed full of ore, ready for a digger to come and lug it off. I was not going to miss this chance to ask the way, I decided, but the man was completely absorbed in his hammering, and I couldn’t really see his face. This seemed like a good chance for a rest, and the bale would make a perfect stool. I dropped down onto it, seat-pad first. Suddenly the hammering stopped. The miner’s shadow grew long and tall. He was still holding the chisel in place.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  His penetrating voice echoed through the tunnel and slammed into my ears. The tall shadow came toward me with great strides.

  He was a long-legged, barrel-chested, solidly built man. His face was small in proportion to his height. At a point where I could make him out fairly clearly, he came to a halt, looking down at me, his jaw set, his
large eyes staring at me from beneath double-folded lids. He had a strong, straight nose and a dark, ruddy complexion. This was no ordinary miner. His words shot out at me.

  “You’re a new one.”

  “That’s right.”

  By the time I spoke, my buttocks had risen from the bale. The closer he came, the more he frightened me. Until this moment, I had been despising the whole ten-thousand-plus of them as a pack of animals; I had sworn an oath to myself to die and leave the world behind. Nevertheless, I was frightened when his long strides brought this miner up to me. When he spoke to me again, though, it reassured me somewhat.

  “What’re you doing wandering around here? You lost?”

  I could tell from his tone of voice that he had looked me over and knew I had not intended anything by sitting on his bale of ore.

  “Well, actually, I arrived yesterday and I’m down here looking at the mine.”

  “Alone?”

  “No, the boss sent somebody with me …”

  “I thought so. You can’t get in here alone. Where is he, this guide of yours?”

  “He went out ahead of me.”

  “Just like that? He left you by yourself?”

  “Well, I guess so.”

  “That’s a hell of a thing to do to somebody! Anyway, don’t worry, I’ll show you how to get out of here. Just wait.”

  With that, he started clanging the hammer and chisel again. I did as I was told and waited. Having met this man, I no longer felt like finding the way out by myself. My determination to show them I could get out alone if it killed me had suddenly evaporated. I was aware of the change, but I didn’t feel particularly ashamed. It didn’t matter, I thought, because I had never announced my intention to anyone. Since then, I have always done things that I need not have done or should not have done simply because I have announced my intention of doing them to others. There’s a big difference between saying and not saying what you’re going to do. After a while the clanging stopped. The miner came over to me and sat down cross-legged.