Thirty-four to thirty-six

by Natsume Sōseki

I left the teacher's house after ten o'clock that night. Since I was scheduled to return to my country within a few days, I said just a few farewell words before departing.

"I won't be able to see you for a while."

"You'll be out in September, right?"

Since I had already graduated, there was no need for me to be out in September. However, I had no intention of coming all the way to Tokyo in the hot month of August to hold a farewell party. I needed precious time for my future.

"Well, it should be around September."

"I see. We might go somewhere this summer too. It looks really hot. If we do, I'll send you a postcard again."

"Where are you planning to go? If you go, that is."

The teacher was listening to this exchange with a grin.

"I haven't decided whether to go or not yet."

Just as I was about to leave, the teacher suddenly called me back and asked, "By the way, how is your father's illness?" I hardly knew anything about my father's health. Since he hadn't said anything, I thought it couldn't be that bad.

"It's not a disease you can think about so lightly. Once uremia sets in, it's already too late."

I couldn't understand the term uremia or its meaning. When I met a doctor in my country during the last winter break, I had never heard such technical terms.

"You really need to take good care of him," the wife said. "Once the poison starts affecting the brain, that's it. It's no laughing matter."

Ignorant as I was, I felt uneasy but still smiled.

"Since it's a disease that can't be cured anyway, worrying about it won't change anything."

"If you think about it that way, then that's all there is to it."

The wife, perhaps reminded of her own mother who had died from the same illness, looked down and said this in a somber tone. I too felt truly sorry for my father's fate.

Then, the teacher suddenly turned to the wife and said.

"Shizuka, do you think you'll die before me?"

"Why?"

"It's not about why, I'm just asking. Or will I be the one to go first? Usually, in society, it's normal for the husband to die first and the wife to be left behind."

"That's not always the case. But since men are generally older, it tends to happen that way."

"So that's the reasoning behind dying first? Then, I guess I have to go to the afterlife before you."

"You are special."

"Am I?"

"Well, you're healthy. You hardly ever get sick, do you? So, I will go first."

"Will you?"

"Yes, I'm sure I will."

The teacher looked at my face. I smiled.

"But if I were to go first, what would you do?"

"What would I do...?"

The wife hesitated at that point. The thought of the teacher's death seemed to weigh a little on her heart. However, when she looked up again, she had already changed her mood.

"What would I do? There's nothing I can do, right? After all, it's said that age is unpredictable."

The wife looked particularly at me and said jokingly.

I lowered my waist again and continued to engage with the two until the conversation ended.

"What do you think?" the teacher asked.

It wasn't a question I could judge whether the teacher would die first or the wife would pass away sooner. I could only laugh.

"I don't know about lifespan. Not even for myself."

"This really comes down to lifespan. It's predetermined when you're born, so there's nothing you can do about it. Your father and mother also passed away around the same time."

"On the same day they passed away?"

"Not exactly on the same day, but pretty close. Well, it's the same in a way. They passed away one after another."

This knowledge was new to me, and I found it intriguing.

“Why did so many people die at once?”

The wife tried to answer my question, but the teacher interrupted her.

“Let's stop talking about that. It's boring.”

The teacher deliberately waved the fan he was holding. Then he looked at the wife again.

“Shizuka, if I die, I'll give this house to you.”

The wife started to laugh.

“In that case, please give me the land too.”

“The land is a different matter, so it can't be helped. Instead, I'll give you everything I have.”

“Thank you very much. But it wouldn't do me any good to receive books in foreign languages.”

“I'll sell them at a secondhand bookstore.”

“How much will they sell for?”

The teacher didn't mention an amount. However, his talk easily stayed away from the distant issue of his own death. And it was assumed that this death would inevitably occur before the wife. At first, the wife seemed to be responding with trivial banter on purpose, but before long, it weighed heavily on her sentimental heart.

“You keep saying, ‘If I die, if I die,’ over and over. Please, enough already. Stop saying ‘if I die.’ It's bad luck. If you die, I'll do whatever you want, so isn't that good enough?”

The teacher laughed while facing the garden. However, after that, he stopped saying things that the wife disliked. I also thought it wasn't good to linger too long, so I quickly got up from my seat. The teacher and the wife saw me off to the entrance.

“Take care of the patient,” the wife said.

“See you in September,” the teacher said.

I greeted and stepped outside the lattice. A bush of sweet osmanthus, located between the entrance and the gate, spread its branches in the darkness of the night as if to block my path. As I took a few steps, I looked at the tips covered with dark leaves and imagined the flowers and fragrance of the coming autumn. I had always remembered the teacher's house and this osmanthus together in my heart as if they were inseparable. Standing in front of that tree by chance, I envisioned the next autumn when I would once again cross the entrance of this house, when suddenly the porch light that had been shining through the lattice went out. It seemed that the teacher and his wife had gone inside since then. I stepped out into the dark alone.

I did not return to my lodging immediately. I had to do some shopping before going back to my country, and I also needed to give my stomach, filled with a lavish meal, a little rest, so I walked towards the lively town. The town was still in the early evening, and men and women who seemed to have no particular business were moving about in groups. Among them, I encountered a friend who graduated with me today. He forcibly dragged me into a certain tavern. There, I was told about his feelings, which were like the foam of beer. By the time I returned to my lodging, it was already past midnight.

The next day, I did not succumb to the heat and walked around to gather the items I had been asked to buy. Ordering by letter seemed easy, but when it came to actually purchasing, I suddenly became timid. Wiping the sweat in the train, I found myself resenting the country folks who did not care about other times or efforts.

I had no intention of wasting this summer. Since I had already made plans for after returning to my country, I also needed to obtain the necessary books to carry them out. I was prepared to spend half a day on the second floor of Maruzen. Standing in front of the bookshelf that was deeply related to me, I checked each book one by one from corner to corner.

The item that troubled me the most while shopping was the women's haneri. If I asked the shopkeeper, they would offer me any price, but when it came to actually making a purchase, I was simply at a loss as to which one to choose. On top of that, the prices were extremely unstable. When I thought it was cheap and asked, it turned out to be surprisingly expensive, and when I thought it was expensive and didn’t ask, it could be very cheap instead. No matter what I compared, I had no idea where the price differences came from, and I was completely at my wit's end. I regretted in my heart why I hadn’t relied on the teacher's wife.

I bought a bag. Of course, it was nothing more than a low-quality Japanese product, but it still had shiny metal fittings that were enough to intimidate country folk. Buying this bag was a request from my mother. She had specifically written in a letter that after graduating, I should buy a new bag and put all my souvenirs in it to bring back home. When I read that line, I couldn’t help but laugh. It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t understand my mother’s thinking, but rather that her words conveyed a sense of absurdity.

When I took my leave, as I had told the teacher and his wife, I left Tokyo on a train three days later and returned home. Since this winter, I had received various warnings from the teacher about my father's illness, and I was in a position where I had to worry the most, but for some reason, it didn’t bother me much. Rather, I felt pity imagining my mother after my father was gone. Thinking that way, perhaps I had already resigned myself to the idea that my father should have passed away somewhere. In a letter I sent to my brother in Kyushu, I mentioned that there was no hope for my father to regain his health. I wrote that, while there might be work-related reasons, if possible, I should return home just to see his face this summer. Moreover, I even used sentimental phrases like it must be lonely for the two elderly people to be in the countryside, and that we, as children, felt sorry about it. In reality, I wrote whatever came to mind, but my feelings after writing were completely different from when I was writing.

I thought about that contradiction on the train. As I pondered, I began to feel like a whimsical and frivolous person. I became uncomfortable. I also remembered the couple, the teachers. In particular, I recalled the conversation from a few nights ago when I was invited to dinner.

“Which one of us will die first?”

I repeated the question that arose between the teacher and his wife that night, alone. I thought that no one could confidently answer this question. However, if it were clear who would die first, what would the teacher do? What would his wife do? I thought that both the teacher and his wife would have no choice but to maintain their current attitude. (Just as I could do nothing while my father, who is nearing death, remains in the country). I felt humanity to be a powerless existence. I was gazing at the unavoidable frivolity of humanity as something powerless.