The Sound of Waves

by Yukio Mishima

  Yukio Mishima

  THE SOUND

  OF WAVES

  TRANSLATED BY

  Meredith Weatherby

  Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Copyright

  About the Author

  By Yukio Mishima

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

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  Published by Vintage 2000

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  Copyright (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1956 Copyright renewed 1984 by Meredith Weatherby

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  Originally published in Japan as Shiosai

  Drawings by Yoshinori Kinoshita

  First published in the United States in 1956 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York.

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  THE SOUND OF WAVES

  Yukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor – the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless short stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he acted. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves; Enjo, which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion; and The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst for Love and the short-story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship.

  The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On November 25th, 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of 45.

  BY YUKIO MISHIMA

  THE SEA OF FERTILITY, A CYCLE OF FOUR NOVELS

  Spring Snow

  Runaway Horses

  The Temple of Dawn

  The Decay of the Angel

  Confessions of a Mask

  Thirst for Love

  Forbidden Colors

  The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

  After the Banquet

  The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

  Five Modern No Plays

  The Sound of Waves

  Death in Midsummer

  Acts of Worship

  1

  UTA-JIMA—Song Island—has only about fourteen hundred inhabitants and a coastline of something under three miles.

  The island has two spots with surpassingly beautiful views. One is Yashiro Shrine, which faces northwest and stands near the crest of the island. The shrine commands an uninterrupted view of the wide expanse of the Gulf of Ise, and the island lies directly in the straits connecting the gulf with the Pacific Ocean. The Chita Peninsula approaches from the north, and the Atsumi Peninsula stretches away to the northeast. To the west you can catch glimpses of the coastline between the ports of Uji-Yamada and Yokkaichi in Tsu.

  By climbing the two hundred stone steps that lead up to the shrine and looking back from the spot where there is a torii guarded by a pair of stone temple-dogs, you can see how these distant shores cradle within their arms the storied Gulf of Ise, unchanged through the centuries. Once there were two “torii” pines growing here, their branches twisted and trained into the shape of a torii, providing a curious frame for the view, but they died some years ago.

  Just now the needles of the surrounding pine trees are still dull-green from winter, but already the spring seaweeds are staining the sea red near the shore. The north-west monsoon blows steadily from the direction of Tsu, making it still too cold to enjoy the view.

  Yashiro Shrine is dedicated to Watatsumi-no-Mikoto, god of the sea. This is an island of fishermen and it is natural that the inhabitants should be devout worshippers of this god. They are forever praying for calm seas, and the very first thing they do upon being rescued from some peril of the sea is to make a votive offering at the sea-god’s shrine.

  The shrine possesses a treasure of some sixty-six bronze mirrors. One is a grape-design mirror from the eighth century. Another is an ancient copy of a Chinese mirror of the Six Dynasties period, of which there are not more than fifteen or sixteen in all Japan; the deer and squirrels carved on its back must have emerged centuries ago from some Persian forest and journeyed halfway around the earth, across wide continents and endless seas, to come finally to rest here on Uta-jima.

  The other most beautiful view on the island is from the lighthouse near the summit of Mt. Higashi, which falls in a cliff to the sea. At the foot of the cliff the current of the Irako Channel sets up an unceasing roar. On windy days these narrow straits connecting the Gulf of Ise and the Pacific are filled with whirlpools. The tip of the Atsumi Peninsula juts out from across the channel, and on its rocky and desolate shore stands the tiny, unmanned beacon of Cape Irako. Southeast from the Uta-jima lighthouse you can see the Pacific, and to the northeast, across Atsumi Bay and beyond the mountain ranges, you can sometimes see Mt. Fuji, say at dawn when the west wind is blowing strong.

  When a steamship sailing to or from Nagoya or Yokkaichi passed through the Irako Channel, threading its way among the countless fishing-boats scattered the length of the channel between the gulf and the open sea, the lighthouse watchman could easily read its name through his telescope. The Tokachi-maru, a Mitsui Line freighter of nineteen hundred tons, had just come within telescopic range. The watchman could see two sailors dressed in gray work-clothes, talking and stamping their feet on the deck. Presently an English freighter, the Talisman, sailed into the channel, bound for port. The watchman saw the sailors clearly, looking very tiny as they played quoits on the deck.

  The watchman turned to the desk in the watchhouse and, in a log
marked “Record of Shipping Movements,” entered the vessels’ names, signal marks, sailing directions, and the time. Then he tapped this information out on a telegraph key, warning cargo owners in the ports of destination to begin their preparations.

  It was afternoon and the sinking sun had been cut off by Mt. Higashi, throwing the vicinity of the lighthouse into shadow. A hawk was circling in the bright sky over the sea. High in the heavens, the hawk was dipping now one wing and then the other, as though testing them, and, just when it seemed about to plummet downward, instead it suddenly slipped backward on the air, and then soared upward again on motionless wings.

  After the sun had completely set, a young fisherman came hurrying up the mountain path leading from the village past the lighthouse. He was dangling a large fish in one hand.

  The boy was only eighteen, having finished high school just last year. He was tall and well-built beyond his years, and only his face revealed his youthfulness. Skin can be burned no darker by the sun than his was burned. He had the well-shaped nose characteristic of the people of his island, and his lips were cracked and chapped. His dark eyes were exceedingly clear, but their clarity was not that of intellectuality—it was a gift that the sea bestows upon those who make their livelihood upon it; as a matter of fact, he had made notably bad grades in school. He was still wearing the same clothes he fished in each day—a pair of trousers inherited from his dead father and a cheap jumper.

  The boy passed through the already deserted playground of the elementary school and climbed the hill beside the watermill. Mounting the flight of stone steps, he went on behind Yashiro Shrine. Peach blossoms were blooming in the shrine garden, dim and wrapped in twilight. From this point it was not more than a ten-minute climb on up to the lighthouse.

  The path to the lighthouse was dangerously steep and winding, so much so that a person unaccustomed to it would surely have lost his footing even in the daytime. But the boy could have closed his eyes, and his feet would still have picked their way unerringly among the rocks and exposed pine roots. Even now when he was deep in his own thoughts, he did not once stumble.

  A little while ago, while a few rays of daylight yet remained, the boat on which the boy worked had returned to its home port of Uta-jima. Today, as every day, the boy had gone out fishing on the Taihei-maru, a small, engine-powered boat, together with its owner and one other boy. Returning to port, they transferred their catch to the Co-operative’s boat and then pulled their own up onto the beach. Then the boy started for home, carrying the halibut he was going to take shortly to the lighthouse. As he came along the beach the twilight was still noisy with the shouts of fishermen pulling their boats up onto the sand.

  There was a girl he had never seen before. She leaned resting against a stack of heavy wooden frames lying on the sand, the kind called “abacuses” because of their shape. The fishing-boats were pulled up onto the beach stern-first by means of a winch, and these frames were placed under the keels so they went sliding smoothly over one after another. Apparently the girl had just finished helping with the work of carrying these frames and had paused here to get her breath.

  Her forehead was moist with sweat and her cheeks glowed. A cold west wind was blowing briskly, but the girl seemed to enjoy it, turning her work-flushed face into the wind and letting her hair stream out behind her. She was wearing a sleeveless, cotton-padded jacket, women’s work-pants gathered at the ankles, and a pair of soiled work-gloves. The healthy color of her skin was no different from that of the other island girls, but there was something refreshing about the cast of her eyes, something serene about her eyebrows. The girl’s eyes were turned intently toward the sky over the sea to the west. There a crimson spot of sun was sinking between piles of blackening clouds.

  The boy could not remember ever having seen this girl before. There should not have been a single face on Uta-jima that he could not recognize. At first glance he took her for an outsider. But still, the girl’s dress was not that of outsiders. Only in the way she stood apart, gazing at the sea, did she differ from the vivacious island girls.

  The boy purposely passed directly in front of the girl. In the same way that children stare at a strange object, he stopped and looked her full in the face.

  The girl drew her eyebrows together slightly. But she continued staring fixedly out to sea, never turning her eyes toward the boy.

  Finishing his silent scrutiny, he had gone quickly on his way. …

  At the time he had felt only the vague satisfaction of curiosity gratified, and it was only now, much later, while climbing the path to the lighthouse, that he realized how rude his inspection had been. The thought filled his cheeks with shame.

  The boy looked down at the sea between the pine trees along the path. The incoming tide was roaring, and the sea was quite black now before the moon rose. Turning the bend around what was known as Woman’s Slope—the ghost of a tall woman was said sometimes to appear here—he caught sight for the first time of the brightly lighted windows of the lighthouse, still high above him. The brightness blinded him for a moment: the village generator had been out of order for a long time and he was accustomed only to the dim light of oil lamps in the village.

  The boy often brought fish in this way to the lighthouse, feeling a debt of gratitude toward the lighthouse-keeper. He had flunked his final examinations last year, and it had seemed his graduation would have to be postponed a year. But his mother, on her frequent trips past the lighthouse to gather firewood on the mountain beyond, had struck up an acquaintance with the mistress of the lighthouse, to whom she now appealed. She explained that she simply couldn’t support her family any longer if her son’s graduation were postponed.

  So the lighthouse-keeper’s wife spoke to her husband, and he went to see his good friend the school principal. Thanks to this friendly intervention, the boy had finally been able to graduate on schedule.

  The boy had become a fisherman as soon as he finished school. And since then he had made it a point to take part of the day’s catch to the lighthouse from time to time. He also performed other small errands for them and had become a favorite of both the lighthouse-keeper and his wife.

  The residence provided the lighthouse-keeper was just to the side of a flight of concrete steps leading up to the lighthouse itself and had its own small vegetable garden. As the boy approached, he could see the wife’s shadow moving about on the glass door of the kitchen. She was evidently preparing supper.

  He announced himself by calling from outside and the wife opened the door.

  “Oh, it’s you, Shinji-san,” she said.

  The boy held the fish out without a word.

  The woman took it from him and called out loudly over her shoulder, this time using the boy’s family name:

  “Father, Kubo-san has brought us a fish.”

  From another room the good-natured voice of the lighthouse-keeper answered familiarly:

  “Thank you, thank you. Come on in, Shinji boy.”

  The boy was still standing hesitantly at the kitchen door. The halibut had already been placed on a white enamelware platter, where it lay faintly gasping, blood oozing from its gills, streaking its smooth white skin.

  2

  NEXT MORNING Shinji boarded his master’s boat as usual and they set out for the day’s fishing. The overcast sky of daybreak was mirrored in a calm sea. It would take about an hour to reach the fishing grounds.

  Shinji was wearing a black rubber apron reaching from the breast of his jumper to the tops of his knee-length rubber boots, and a pair of long rubber gloves. Standing in the bow of the boat and gazing ahead to their destination in the Pacific, far ahead under the ashen morning sky, Shinji was remembering the night before, the time between his leaving the lighthouse and going to bed.

  Shinji’s mother and brother had been awaiting his return in the small room lit by a dim lamp hanging over the cookstove. The brother was only twelve. As for the mother, ever since the last year of the war, when her husband had be
en killed in a strafing attack, until Shinji had become old enough to go to work, she had supported the family all alone on her earnings as a diving woman.

  “Was the lighthouse-keeper pleased?”

  “Yes. He said: ‘Come in, come in,’ and then asked me to have something they called cocoa.”

  “What was it, this cocoa?”

  “Some sort of foreign bean soup is what it seemed like.”

  The mother knew nothing about cooking. She served their fish either in raw slices—sometimes vinegared—or else simply grilled or boiled—head, tail, bones, and all. And as she never washed the fish properly, they often found their teeth chewing on sand and grit as well as fish.

  Shinji waited hopefully during their meal for his mother to say something about the strange girl. But if his mother was not one for complaining, neither was she given to idle gossip.

  After supper Shinji and his brother went to the public bath. Here again he hoped to hear something about the girl. As the hour was late, the place was almost empty and die water was dirty. The head of the fishermen’s Co-operative and the postmaster were arguing politics as they soaked in the pool, their booming voices echoing pompously off the ceiling. The brothers nodded to them silently and then went to a far corner to dip hot water from the pool.

  No matter how Shinji waited and strained his ears, the men simply would not move on from their politics to talk of the girl. Meanwhile his brother had finished bathing with unusual haste and had gone outside.

  Shinji followed him out and asked, the reason for all his hurry. Hiroshi, the brother, explained that he and his friends had been playing at war today, and that he had made the son of the head of the Co-operative cry by hitting him over the head with his wooden sword.

  Shinji always went to sleep easily, but last night he had had the strange experience of lying long awake. Unable to remember a day of sickness in his life, the boy had lain wondering, afraid this might be what people meant by being sick. …