Thirty-four to thirty-five

by Natsume Sōseki

I asked K, "Did you go out with the young lady?" K replied, "No." He explained that they had coincidentally met in Masago-cho and had returned together. I had to refrain from asking any further questions. However, during the meal, I felt the urge to pose the same question to the young lady again. At that moment, she gave me a laugh that I disliked and finally said, "Try to guess where I went." At that time, I was still quite temperamental, so I felt irritated when a young woman treated me in such a frivolous manner. However, only the wife, who was at the same table, seemed to notice this. K remained rather calm. There was something about the young lady's attitude that made it hard to distinguish whether she was doing it knowingly or innocently. She was a thoughtful young woman, but at the same time, I felt she shared traits with the young women I disliked. That disliked aspect first caught my attention after K came to the house. I hesitated a bit on whether to attribute it to jealousy towards K or to consider it a skill of the young lady. Even now, I have no intention of dispelling that jealousy I felt at the time. As I have repeated many times, I was clearly aware of this emotional dynamic behind love. From the perspective of those around me, this emotion tends to rear its head over trivial matters that are hardly worth mentioning. This is a side note, but isn't such jealousy a facet of love? After getting married, I became aware of this feeling gradually fading away, but in exchange, the affection was never as intense as it had been before.

I began to consider throwing my hesitant heart into the chest of the other person without reservation. My counterpart is not a young lady, but rather a wife. I thought about negotiating clearly with the wife to give me the young lady. However, even while making that decision, I kept postponing the day of action. Saying this might make me seem like a wishy-washy man, but the reason I couldn't proceed was not due to a lack of willpower. Until K arrived, my reluctance to be involved with someone else restrained me, making it impossible for me to take a single step. After K came, the constant suspicion that the young lady might have feelings for K kept me in check. I had resolved that if the young lady leaned towards K more than me, this love was not worth speaking about. It was somewhat different from simply being embarrassed. No matter how much I felt, if she was secretly looking at someone else with love, I did not want to be with such a woman. There are people in the world who happily marry the woman they like without any choice, but I thought at that time that such behavior belonged to men who were much more worldly than us or to those who were insensitive and unable to understand the psychology of love. I was so passionate about the philosophy that once you get married, things will somehow settle down that I could not accept it. In other words, I was an extremely noble theorist of love and at the same time, the most indirect practitioner of love.

There were times when I had the opportunity to directly confess my feelings to the important young lady, as we spent a long time together, but I deliberately avoided it. I was strongly aware at that time that such things were not permitted according to Japanese customs. However, that was not the only thing that bound me. I anticipated that Japanese people, especially young Japanese women, lack the courage to freely express their thoughts without hesitation in such situations.

“For this reason, I was unable to move in either direction and stood frozen. When you take a nap while feeling unwell, sometimes your eyes wake up and you can see everything around you clearly, but you just can't move your arms and legs. I occasionally felt that kind of suffering in silence.”

Before long, the year came to an end and spring arrived. One day, the wife said to K, "Let's play karuta, why don't you bring a friend?" K immediately replied, "I don't have a single friend." The wife was taken aback. Indeed, K did not have anyone who could be called a friend. There were a few people he would greet when they met on the street, but those relationships were certainly not the kind that would play karuta together. The wife rephrased, saying, "Then how about calling someone I know?" However, I too regrettably was not in the mood for such a cheerful game, and I gave a vague response and let it slide. But by evening, K and I were finally dragged into playing by the young lady. Since no guests were coming, it was a very quiet game of karuta meant for just a small number of us. Moreover, K, who was not accustomed to such games, seemed as if he were standing with his hands in his pockets. I asked K, "Do you even know the poems of Hyakunin Isshu?" K replied, "Not really." The young lady, hearing my words, probably thought I was looking down on K. After that, she visibly began to side with K. Eventually, the two of them almost teamed up against me. Depending on the opponent, they might have even started a fight. Fortunately, K's attitude did not change at all from the beginning. Noticing that he showed no signs of being proud, I was able to wrap up the situation safely.

It was around two or three days later that the incident occurred. The wife and daughter said they were going to visit relatives in Ichigaya and left the house. Since K and I were still in a period before school started, we were left to keep watch at home. I had no desire to read a book, and going out for a walk seemed bothersome, so I simply leaned my elbows on the edge of the hibachi, supporting my chin and lost in thought. K, who was in the next room, made no sound at all. It was so quiet that we couldn’t tell if each other was there or not. This situation was not unusual in our relationship, so I didn’t pay it much mind.

Around ten o'clock, K suddenly opened the sliding door and made eye contact with me. He stood on the threshold and asked what I was thinking about. Of course, I wasn’t thinking about anything. If I had been thinking of something, it might have been about the daughter, as usual. The wife was also involved with that daughter, but recently K himself had been swirling around in my head, complicating the matter further. Looking into K's eyes, I had felt him to be somewhat of an intruder until now, but I couldn’t say that clearly. I simply stared at his face in silence.

Then, K entered my room and sat down in front of the hibachi where I was sitting. I quickly pulled my elbows away from the edge of the hibachi and pushed it slightly towards K.

K started a different kind of conversation than usual. "I wonder where the wife and daughter went in Ichigaya?" he said. I replied, "They probably went to my aunt's place." Then K asked again, "Who is that aunt?" I explained, "She is the wife of a military man." K then questioned, "Since a woman's New Year usually comes after the fifteenth, why did they leave so early?" I didn’t know the reason, so I could only say, "I don’t know why."