The Setting Sun

One morning I noticed something frightening. Mother’s hand was swollen. This was just about the time when Mother, who had always enjoyed breakfast most of any meal, would only sit up in bed to eat a little rice gruel. She could not swallow anything with a strong odor. On that day she seemed to find distasteful even the smell of the mushrooms in the soup I had made. She lifted the bowl to her lips but returned it untouched to the tray. It was then that I noticed to my astonishment that Mother’s right hand was swollen.

“Mother! What’s happened to your hand?”

Her face also seemed rather pale and puffy. “It isn’t anything. This much of a swelling doesn’t mean anything.”

“How long has it been that way?”

Mother remained silent, a dazed expression on her face. I wanted to weep aloud. That distorted hand did not belong to my mother. It was some other woman’s hand. Mother’s hand is smaller and more delicate. A hand I know well. A gentle hand. A lovable hand. Had that hand, I wondered, vanished forever? The left hand as yet was not so swollen. But it was too painful for me to go on looking at Mother. I turned away my eyes and glared at a basket of flowers in a corner of the room.

I felt the tears coming. Unable to bear more, I got up abruptly and fled to the kitchen. There I found Naoji eating a soft-boiled egg. On the rare occasions when he was at home, he was certain to spend the night carousing at Osaki’s place. The morning after I would find him in the kitchen morosely eating soft-boiled eggs, the only nourishment he would take. Then he would make his way back to the second floor, where he would spend his day in and out of bed.

“Mother’s hand is swollen,” I said, my eyes on the floor. I couldn’t go on. I was weeping convulsively.

Naoji did not reply.

I lifted my head. “It’s hopeless now. Haven’t you noticed? When there’s a swelling like that, there’s no hope.” My hands were clenched on the end of the table.

Naoji’s face also took on a gloomy expression.

“It won’t be long. Damn. What a disgusting thing to happen.”

“I want to bring her back to health again. I want somehow to save her,” I said, wringing my hands. Suddenly Naoji burst into tears. “Don’t you see there’s nothing we can do? We can’t do a thing.” He rubbed his eyes furiously with his fists.

That day Naoji went to Tokyo to inform Uncle Wada of Mother’s condition and to get instructions for the future. Almost every minute I was not actually by Mother’s side, I spent in weeping. When I went out in the morning fog to fetch the milk, when I smoothed my hair before the mirror, when I put on lipstick, it was always with tears. Happy days I had spent with Mother, this event and that, flashed like pictures before my eyes. There was no limit—and no use—to my tears. That evening when it grew dark I went out on the veranda of the Chinese room and sat sobbing for a long time. The stars were sparkling in the autumn sky, and at my feet a cat, I don’t know whose, was curled, motionless.

The next day the swelling in Mother’s hand was even worse. She did not eat anything at mealtimes. She could not even drink orange juice, she said, because her throat was so rough and painful.

“Mother, how would it be if you put on again that mask Naoji recommended?” I had intended to soften my words with a smile, but even as I spoke I broke into a wail of anguish.

Mother said gently, “You must be worn out from the strain every day. Please hire a nurse for me.” I realized that she was more worried about my health than her own, and this made me feel all the more miserable.

A little after noon Naoji arrived with Dr. Miyake and a nurse. The old doctor, who normally gave forth nothing but jokes, rushed this time into the sickroom in a kind of rage and at once began his examination. This concluded, he muttered to no one in particular, “She’s grown weaker.” He gave Mother a camphor injection.

“Have you a place to stay, doctor?” Mother asked in a delirium.

“At Nagaoka again. I have a reservation, so there’s nothing for you to worry about. Instead of fretting about other people, you must think more of yourself and eat a great deal of whatever you like, anything and everything. If you take nourishment you’ll get better. I’ll be back tomorrow. I’m leaving my nurse behind, and please make good use of her.” The doctor addressed his words in a loud voice to Mother’s sickbed, then gave a signal with his eyes to Naoji. Naoji went by himself to show the doctor to the gate. When he returned a few minutes later the expression on his face betrayed that he was holding back his tears. We tiptoed out of the sickroom and went to the dining-room.

“Is it hopeless? What did he say?”

Naoji twisted his mouth into a smile. “Disgusting. Her weakness seems to have grown much more pronounced. The doctor said that the end might come in a day or two.” His eyes filled with tears as he spoke.

“I wonder if we shouldn’t send telegrams to everyone,” I said. I was surprisingly self-possessed.

“I discussed that with Uncle Wada, but he said that as we are now we can’t afford such a big gathering. Even supposing people would come, the house is so small that we couldn’t very well ask them to stay here, and there are no decent hotels in the neighborhood. In other words, he says that we are poor now and haven’t the means to send for all the grands seigneurs in our family. Uncle Wada is supposed to come here immediately, but he’s always been such a miser that we can’t depend on him to help us. Even last night, of all times, he forgot Mama’s illness long enough to give me a severe lecture. Never in all the course of world history has anyone ever seen the light as the result of being preached to by a miser. There’s all the difference between him and us, let alone Mama. He makes me sick.”

“But after all, I, or at any rate you, will now be dependent on him.”

“Nothing doing. I’d rather become a beggar. You, my dear sister, will be the one who will have to depend on his favors.”

“I—” the tears came, “I have somewhere to go.”

“A marriage? Is it settled?”

“No.”

“Self-support? The working woman! Don’t make me laugh!”

“No, not self-support. I will become a revolutionary.”