“Let him drink it then.”
Osaki nodded as if she were swallowing and went away.
I reported to Mother, “He’s drinking at Osaki’s place.”
Mother twisted her mouth a little into a smile. “He must have given up opium. Please finish the dinner. Tonight we’ll all three sleep in this room. Put Naoji’s bedding in the middle.”
I felt as if I could weep.
Naoji returned late that night, thumping loudly through the house. The large, room-size mosquito net was spread open, and the three of us crept inside.
Lying there I asked him, “Why don’t you tell Mother something about the South Seas?”
“There’s nothing to tell. Nothing at all. I’ve forgotten. When I returned to Japan and got on the train the rice fields looked unbelievably beautiful from the train window. That’s all. Turn out the light. I can’t sleep.”
I turned out the light. The summer moonlight flooded into the mosquito netting.
The next morning Naoji, lying in bed and smoking a cigarette, looked out at the sea in the distance. “I hear your tongue hurts you.” He spoke as if he had noticed for the first time that Mother was not well.
Mother merely smiled feebly.
“I’m sure it’s psychological. You probably sleep at night with your mouth open. Very careless of you. You should wear a gauze mask. Soak some gauze in Rivanol solution and put it inside a mask.”
I exploded, “What kind of treatment do you call that?”
“It’s called the aesthetic treatment.”
“But I’m sure that Mother would hate wearing a mask.”
Mother dislikes putting anything on her face, even glasses or an eye-patch if her eyelids are inflamed, let alone a mask.
I asked, “Mother, will you wear one?”
“Yes, I will.” Her voice was earnest. I was quite taken aback. Mother was apparently resolved to believe and obey anything that Naoji said.
After breakfast I soaked some gauze in Rivanol solution, as Naoji had directed, folded it into a mask, and took it to Mother. She accepted it without a word and meekly tied the strings around her ears. She looked as she lay there pathetically like a little girl.
That afternoon Naoji announced that he would have to go to Tokyo to see his friends. He changed to a business suit and set off with 2,000 yen from Mother.
Almost ten days have gone by since his departure, and as yet there is no sign when he will return. Every day Mother wears her mask and waits for Naoji. She has told me that the medicine is very effective and that wearing the mask greatly relieves the pain in her tongue. I can’t help feeling, however, that Mother is not telling the truth. She is out of bed now, but her appetite remains poor and she seldom speaks. I am worried about her, and I wonder what can be keeping Naoji so long. No doubt he is amusing himself with that novelist Uehara and is at this moment being sucked into the frenzied whirlpool of Tokyo. The more I let my thoughts run along such lines the bitterer my life seems. It is a sure indication that I am at last losing control of myself when I burst out for no good reason with a report on the activities of the roses or mention the fact I haven’t any children—lapses I would never have believed myself capable of.
My knitting fell as I stood up with a cry of dismay. I felt at an utter loss what to do with myself. With shaking limbs, I climbed the stairs to the foreign-style room on the second floor.
This is to be Naoji’s room. Four or five days ago Mother and I settled this, and I asked Mr. Nakai to help me move in Naoji’s wardrobe and bookcases, five or six wooden crates stuffed with books and papers, and various other objects—in short, everything that had been in his room in our old house in Nishikata Street. We decided to await his return from Tokyo before we put the wardrobe and bookcases in place, not knowing where he would like them. The room was so cluttered that there was scarcely space enough to turn around. Aimlessly I picked up one of Naoji’s notebooks from an open crate. The words “Moonflower Journal” were written on the cover. The notebook seems to have been kept while Naoji was suffering from narcotic poisoning.
A sensation of burning to death. And excruciating though it is, I cannot pronounce even the simple words “it hurts.” Do not try to shrug off this portent of a hell unparalleled, unique in the history of man, bottomless!
Philosophy? Lies. Principles? Lies. Ideals? Lies. Order? Lies. Sincerity? Truth? Purity? All lies. They say the wisteria of Ushijima are a thousand years old, and the wisteria of Kumano date from centuries ago. I have heard that wisteria clusters at Ushijima attain a maximum length of nine feet, and those at Kumano of over five feet. My heart dances only in those clusters of wisteria blossom.
That too is somebody’s child. It is alive.
Logic, inevitably, is the love of logic. It is not the love for living human beings.
Money and women. Logic, intimidated, scampers off precipitously.
The courageous testimony of Dr. Faust that a maiden’s smile is more precious than history, philosophy, education, religion, law, politics, economics, and all the other branches of learning.
Learning is another name for vanity. It is the effort of human beings not to be human beings.