The Setting Sun

by Osamu Dazai

  Shortly after noon, while I sat next to Mother, moistening her lips, an automobile stopped in front of our gate. My uncle Wada and my aunt had arrived from Tokyo. My uncle at once went into the sickroom and sat himself without a word by Mother’s bedside. Mother hid the lower part of her face with a handkerchief and, not taking her eyes from my uncle’s face, began to weep. But there were no tears. She made me think of a doll.

  “Where’s Naoji?” Mother asked after a while, looking at me.

  I went up to the second floor. Naoji was sprawled on a sofa reading a magazine. “Mother is calling for you,” I said.

  “What—another tragic scene? O ye of strong nerves and shallow feelings, have patience and do your duty! We who truly suffer—though indeed the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak—we by no means have the energy to sit with Mama.” He flung on his jacket and went downstairs with me.

  When we had seated ourselves side by side near Mother’s pillow, she suddenly thrust her hand out from under the covers and silently pointed first at Naoji and then at me. Turning next to my uncle, she joined her hands together in supplication.

  My uncle nodded expansively. “Yes. I understand, I understand.”

  Mother shut her eyes lightly, as if his words had relieved her. She slipped her hands back under the covers.

  I was weeping, and Naoji, his eyes down, sobbed.

  Dr. Miyake arrived at this moment and at once administered another injection. Now that Mother had been able to see my uncle, she must have felt that nothing remained for her to live for. She said, “Doctor, please put an end to my suffering soon.”

  The doctor and my uncle exchanged glances. They did not speak, but tears shone in their eyes.

  I went to the dining-room where I prepared some lunch. I took the four plates—for my uncle, the doctor, Naoji, and my aunt—to the Chinese room. I showed Mother the sandwiches my uncle had brought us as a souvenir of Tokyo and put them next to her pillow.

  “You are kept so busy,” Mother murmured.

  We chatted for a while in the Chinese room. My uncle and aunt apparently had business that night in Tokyo which necessitated their return. My uncle handed me an envelope containing some money. He decided that they would return together with Dr. Miyake, who left parting orders with the nurse about the treatment to be followed. It was assumed that Mother would last for another four or five days with the help of the injections. She was still perfectly conscious, and her heart was not too seriously affected.

  After I had shown everyone to the gate I went back to Mother’s room. She smiled in the particularly intimate way she has always reserved for me. “It must have been a terrible rush for you,” she said in a little voice scarcely more than a whisper. Her face was so full of animation, that it seemed almost to shine. She must have been happy to see Uncle, I thought.

  Those were the last words that Mother spoke.

  About three hours later she passed away … in the still autumn twilight, as her pulse was being taken by the nurse, watched over by Naoji and myself, her two children, my beautiful mother, who was the last lady in Japan.

  Her face in death was almost unaltered. When my father died his expression had suddenly changed, but Mother’s was exactly the same as in life. Only her breathing had stopped. And even that had happened so quietly that we did not know exactly when she had ceased to breathe. The swelling in her face had gone down the previous day, and her cheeks were now smooth as wax. Her pale lips were faintly curved, as though she were smiling. Mother seemed more captivating even than she was in life. The thought that she looked like Mary in a Pietà flickered across my mind.

  CHAPTER SIX

  OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES

  Outbreak of hostilities.

  I could not remain forever immersed in my grief. There is something for which I absolutely have to fight. A new ethics. No, even to use the word is hypocrisy. Love. That and nothing else. Just as Rosa Luxemburg had to depend on her new economics for her survival, I cannot go on living unless now I cling with all my force to love. The words of teaching spoken by Jesus to his twelve disciples, when he was about to send them forth to expose the hypocrisies of the scribes and Pharisees and the men of authority of this world and to proclaim to all men without the least hesitation the true love of God, are not entirely inappropriate in my case as well.

  Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses,

  Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves:

  Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

  And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

  Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

  For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

  And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

  He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

  And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

  He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

  Outbreak of hostilities.

  If because of love I were to swear to obey without fail these teachings of Jesus, to the very letter, I wonder if He would condemn me. Why is physical love bad and spiritual love good? I don’t understand. I can’t help feeling that they are the same. I would like to boast that I am she who could destroy her body and soul in Gehenna for the sake of a love, for the sake of a passion she could not understand, or for the sake of the sorrow they engendered.

  My uncle arranged for the cremation in Izu and the observances in Tokyo. Naoji and I then began our life together, on terms so bad that even when we met face to face we did not speak. Naoji sold all of Mother’s jewelry, styling it “capital” for his publishing venture. When he had exhausted himself in drinking in Tokyo, he would come staggering back, his face deathly pale, like a patient in the last stages of some terrible disease.

  One afternoon he turned up with a girl, who looked like a dancer. This made things even more awkward than was usual, and I suggested, “Would it be all right if I went to Tokyo today? I’d like to visit a friend I haven’t seen in years. I’ll spend two or three nights with her. You won’t mind looking after the house, will you? You can have the girl cook for you.”

  I did not hesitate a moment to take advantage of Naoji’s weakness. Thus, quite naturally, displaying the wisdom of the serpent, I stuffed my bag with cosmetics and food and left for Tokyo to see my lover.

  Naoji had once told me after a casual inquiry on my part that Mr. Uehara’s new house was about twenty minutes’ walk from the north exit of the Ogikubo Station on the Tokyo Suburban Line. A blustery autumn wind was blowing that day. It was already growing dark when I got off at Ogikubo Station. I stopped a passerby to ask where Mr. Uehara’s house was, but even after being informed I wandered aimlessly for close to an hour through the dark alleys. I felt so forlorn that the tears came. All of a sudden I tripped over a stone in the street, and the strap of my sandals snapped. As I stood there helplessly, wondering what to do, I noticed the name-plate on one of a row of houses to my right, a whitish blob in the dark. I intuitively felt certain that the name Uehara would be written on it. I hobbled over to the entrance, one foot without a sandal. I peered at the plate. Sure enough, it was inscribed “Uehara Jirō,” but the interior of the house was dark.

  I stood motionless for another moment, at a loss what to do. At length, with a kind of wild desperation, I pressed myself against the door as if about to collapse over it.

  “Excuse me,” I called, stroking the frame of the window panes with the finger tips of both hands. “Mr. Uehara,” I whispered.

/>   There was an answer. But it was a woman’s voice.

  The entrance door was opened from the inside, and a woman with a thin face, some three or four years older than I and wearing an old-fashioned scent, appeared in the dark hall. There was the flash of a smile as she asked, “Who is it please?” I could detect no malice or threat in her tone.

  “Oh, excuse me, I—” But I had missed the chance to say my name. She might have found my love dishonorable. Timidly, almost with servility, I asked, “Is Mr. Uehara at home?”

  “No.” She looked at my face with an expression of pity, adding, “But he usually goes….”

  “Far from here?”

  “No.” She put one hand to her mouth as if amused. “It’s in Ogikubo. If you go to the Shiraishi lunch stand in front of the station, they generally know where he is.”

  I could have leaped with excitement.

  “Oh, what is the matter with your sandal?” She invited me inside. I went into the hall and sat on a bench. Mrs. Uehara gave me a leather strap which I used to replace the broken one. While I busied myself repairing the sandal, she lighted a candle and brought it into the hall. “I’m sorry, but both of our electric bulbs have burned out. It’s shocking, isn’t it, how terribly dear bulbs have become nowadays and how quickly they burn out? If my husband were at home I could get him to buy another one, but he hasn’t come home for two nights running, and my daughter and I have been going to bed early without a penny in our pockets!”

  She spoke with a genuinely un-self-conscious smile. Behind her stood a thin little girl of about twelve with big eyes and a manner which suggested that she did not often take to people. I did not actually consider them my enemies, but I could be quite sure that one day this woman and child would think of me in those terms and hate me. At this thought I felt as if my love had all of a sudden chilled. I finished changing the strap on my sandal, stood up, and clapped my hands together to brush off the dirt. An unbearably intense foretaste of misery crowded in on me at that moment. I considered rushing into the darkness of the sitting-room to clutch Mrs. Uehara’s hand in mine and weep with her. I trembled violently at the thought, only to give it up in sudden dismay when I realized the hypocritical, indescribably unattractive figure I should later make.

  “I’m most grateful to you,” I said, and, making a preposterously polite bow, fled outside. The wind lacerated me. Outbreak of hostilities. I love him, I long for him. I really love him, yes, I really want him. I love him so much I can’t help it. I want him so much I can’t help it. Yes. I am quite aware that his wife is an unusually sweet person and his little girl is lovely, but I have been stood on God’s platform of judgment, and I haven’t a trace of guilty conscience. Man was born for love and revolution. There is no reason for God to punish me. I am not in the least wicked. I really love him and there’s nothing I won’t do to be with him. I’ll spend two, three nights sleeping in the fields if necessary. Yes, I will.

  I had no trouble finding the Shiraishi lunch stand in front of the station. He was not there.

  “He’s at Asagaya, I’m sure of it. You head straight for the north exit of the Asagaya Station and, let’s see, you go about one hundred fifty yards, I guess. There you’ll find a hardware shop, and you go right from there, fifty yards or so, and you’ll find a little restaurant called the Willow. Mr. Uehara is having an affair with one of the waitresses, and he spends all his time there. That’s where he’s taken his business now.”

  I went to the station, bought a ticket, and boarded a Toyko-bound train. I got off at Asagaya, left by the north exit, and followed directions until I reached the Willow. It was completely deserted.

  “He just left in a great crowd of people. They said they were going to spend the night drinking at the Chidori in Nishiogi.” The waitress was younger than I, self-possessed, refined, and friendly. I wondered if she was the girl with whom he was having his “affair.”

  “The Chidori? Where in Nishiogi is that?” I felt discouraged and on the verge of tears. I wondered suddenly if I had not gone quite insane.

  “I don’t know exactly, but I think it’s somewhere near the station, to the left. In any case I’m sure you can find out if you ask at the police box. But he’s not the kind of man to be satisfied with just one place, and he may be trapped somewhere on the way to the Chidori.”

  “I’ll go to the Chidori and see. Good-bye.”

  Again the train, this time in the opposite direction. I got off at Nishiogi and wandered about in the gale until I found the police box. They told me the way to the Chidori, and I hurried along the dark streets, almost running. I spied the blue lantern of the Chidori and without hesitation slid open the door. In a small smoke-filled room, ten or so people were sitting around a large table, carrying on a rowdy drinking party. Three of them were girls, somewhat younger than I, drinking and smoking like the men.

  I stepped inside, cast a glance around the room, and saw him. I felt as if I were dreaming. He was different. Six years. He had become an entirely different person.

  Was he my rainbow, M.C., my reason for living? Six years. His hair was as unkempt as before, but it had now become sadly lusterless and thin. His face was bloated and sallow, and the rims of his eyes, a harsh red. Some of his front teeth were missing, and his mouth was continually mumbling. He gave me the feeling of an old monkey squatting with its back hunched over in the corner of a room.

  One of the girls noticed me and flashed a signal with her eyes to Mr. Uehara. Still seated, he stuck out his long neck in my direction and expressionlessly motioned me in with his chin. The other members of the party went on with their loud merry-making, seemingly indifferent to me, although they did in fact move a little closer, to make room for me next to Mr. Uehara.

  I sat down without saying anything. Mr. Uehara filled my glass with sake to the brim. He then filled his own and muttered hoarsely, “Drink up!”

  Our glasses weakly touched and made a sad little clink.

  “Guillotine, guillotine, shooshooshoo,” shouted someone, and the chant was taken up by another man, “Guillotine, guillotine, shooshooshoo.” They banged their glasses together with a loud clanging and gulped down more sake. Group after group took up this meaningless refrain, and again and again they banged their glasses and drained them. It was as if that imbecilic rhythm were furnishing them with the impetus to pour the liquor wildly down their throats.

  No sooner did one of their number lurch off, mumbling his excuses, than a new guest would straggle in and, with a bare nod to Mr. Uehara, wedge his way into the party.

  “Mr. Uehara, you know, over there is a place called Ahahah. How would you best pronounce it? Is it Ah-ah-ah or Ahah-ah?” The man leaning forward to ask this question was the actor, Fujita, whom I distinctly remembered having seen on the stage.

  “It’s Ahah-ah. You should say, Ahah-ah, the liquor at Chidori is not cheap.” This from Mr. Uehara.

  One of the girls: “The only thing you talk about is money.”

  A young gentleman: “Is ‘two swallows for a farthing’ expensive or cheap?”

  Another gentleman: “It says in the Bible that you have to pay the last farthing. One man got five talents, another got two talents, and another one—what a horribly long-winded parable that is! Christ’s bookkeeping was remarkably detailed.”

  Another gentleman: “What’s more he was a drinker. It’s funny how many parables about liquor you find in the Bible. The Bible criticizes people who like wine, but you note it doesn’t say a word about the man who drinks liquor, only about the man who is fond of it. That proves Christ was quite a drinker. I’ll bet he could have put away two quarts at one sitting.”

  “That’s enough, enough. Ye who are frightened by virtue are trying to use Jesus as an excuse.—Let’s drink! Guillotine, guillotine, shooshooshoo.” Mr. Uehara violently banged his glass against the glass of the youngest and prettiest of the girls and took a deep gulp. The liquor dribbled from the corners of his mouth down to his chin, which he savagely wiped with h
is palm. Then he gave out with five or six enormous sneezes.

  I stood up quietly and went to the next room. I asked the madam, a pale thin woman who looked unwell, for the lavatory. When I crossed through the room on the way back to the party, Chie, the pretty young girl I had noticed before, was standing there, apparently waiting for me.

  “Aren’t you at all hungry?” she asked with a friendly smile.

  “No. I have some bread with me.”

  “We haven’t much to offer, but please take what there is,” said the sick-looking madam, leaning wearily over the heater. “Please have a bite in here. If you stay with those drunkards, you won’t get a thing to eat all night. Please sit down, here, next to Chie.”

  “Hey, Kinu, we’re out of liquor,” shouted a gentleman in the next room.

  “Coming!” the maid named Kinu cried as she emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray of ten saké bottles.

  “Just a minute,” the madam stopped her, “Let’s have two bottles over here.” She added with a smile, “And Kinu, I’m sorry to bother you, but please go to Suzuya’s and get two bowls of noodles as quick as you can.”

  I sat next to Chie by the heater and warmed my hands.

  “Do sit more comfortably. Here, on a cushion. Hasn’t it turned cold! Aren’t you drinking anything?” The madam poured some sake from the bottle into her cup and then filled our two cups.

  The three of us drank in silence.

  “You both can hold your liquor, I see!” the madam said in a curiously intimate tone.

  There was a rattle as the front door was opened. “I’ve brought it, Mr. Uehara,” a young man’s voice said. “The owner’s so tight I barely managed to get ten thousand yen even after holding out for twenty thousand.”

  “A check?” Mr. Uehara’s hoarse voice barked.

  “No, it’s in cash. I’m sorry.”