Forty-two to forty-three

by Natsume Sōseki

I was walking alongside K, waiting in my heart for his next words. In a sense, it could be called an ambush. At that moment, I thought I wouldn't mind deceiving K. However, I also had a conscience. If someone had come to me and said even a single word, "You're cowardly," I might have come to my senses at that moment. If that person had been K, I would probably have blushed in front of him. But K was too honest, too simple, and had a good character to scold me. Blinded, I forgot my respect for him and instead tried to take advantage of his purity.

After a while, K called my name and looked at me. I naturally stopped in my tracks. Then, K stopped too. At that moment, I was finally able to look straight into K's eyes. K was a taller man than me, so I had to look up at his face. In that attitude, I felt as if I were a wolf approaching an innocent sheep.

“Let’s stop talking about that,” he said. There was a somehow painful resonance in his eyes and words. I couldn't even manage a brief greeting. Then K said, “Please stop,” this time rephrasing it as a request. At that moment, I gave him a cruel reply. Just like a wolf seizing the opportunity to bite the sheep's throat.

“You say to stop, but it wasn't me who brought it up; it was you who originally mentioned it. But if you want to stop, you can, but just stopping with words means nothing. If you don't have the resolve in your heart to stop it, what exactly do you plan to do?”

When I said this, the tall man naturally shrank in front of me, feeling small. He was a very stubborn man, as he always talked, but on the other hand, he was exceptionally honest, so when his contradictions were harshly criticized, it was in his nature to never remain unfazed. Seeing his demeanor, I finally felt relieved. Then he suddenly asked, "Are you ready?" And before I could answer anything, he added, "Ready, well, it's not that I'm not ready." His tone was like a monologue, as if it were words from a dream.

The two of them wrapped up their conversation and headed towards the inn in Koishikawa. It was a relatively calm and warm day, but since it was winter, the park felt desolate. Especially when I looked back at the cedar trees, which had lost their green due to the frost, standing in the dim sky, I felt a chill creeping into my back. We hurried through the dusk of Hongō-dai and descended into the Koishikawa valley to climb up the hill on the other side. By that time, I finally began to feel the warmth of my body under my coat.

Perhaps because we were in a hurry, we hardly spoke on the way back. When we got home and sat down at the dining table, my wife asked why we were so late. I replied that I had gone to Ueno at K's invitation. My wife showed surprise at this cold weather. My daughter wanted to know what had happened in Ueno, but I replied that there was nothing, just a walk. K, who was usually taciturn, was even quieter than usual. Even when my wife spoke to him or my daughter laughed, he hardly offered any greetings. Then he gulped down his food and retreated to his room before I had even left my seat.

At that time, words like awakening and new life did not yet exist. However, it was not because K lacked the modern person's mindset that he did not easily discard his old self and run decisively in a new direction. He had a precious past that he could not abandon. One could say that he had lived until today for that reason. Therefore, just because K does not charge straight towards the goal of love does not prove that his love is lukewarm. No matter how intense his emotions burned, he could not act recklessly. Unless given the opportunity for an impulse that would make him forget everything else, K inevitably had to pause and reflect on his past. In doing so, he had to continue walking the path indicated by his past as before. Moreover, he possessed a stubbornness and patience that modern people do not have. I believed I could see his heart well in these two respects.

The night after returning from Ueno was relatively quiet for me. I followed K after he went up to his room and sat down next to his desk. I deliberately engaged him in trivial small talk. He seemed annoyed. In my eyes, there was probably a glimmer of victory, and my voice certainly had a triumphant tone. After warming my hands over the same brazier as K for a while, I returned to my room. Regarding outside matters, I had never been able to match him, but at that moment, I felt a sense of fearlessness towards him.

I soon fell into a gentle sleep. However, suddenly, I woke up to the sound of my name being called. Looking, I saw that the sliding door was opened about two shaku, and there stood K's dark shadow. And in his room, the street lights were still lit at night. Suddenly, with the world having changed, I was unable to speak for a while and stared blankly at the scene.

At that moment, K asked if I was already asleep. K was a man who always stayed up late. I asked back towards K, who looked like a dark shadow, if he needed something. K replied that it was nothing important, just that he wondered if I was already asleep or still awake, and he asked while going to the bathroom. Since K was receiving the light of the gas lamp on his back, I couldn't discern his complexion or expression at all. However, his voice felt calmer than usual.

K quietly closed the sliding door, and my room was once again enveloped in darkness. I closed my eyes, trying to see a quiet dream in that darkness. I don't remember anything after that. However, when I recalled the events of the previous night the next morning, I felt somewhat strange. I wondered if perhaps it had all been a dream.

While having breakfast, I asked K about that. He confirmed that he had indeed opened the sliding door and called my name. When I asked why he did such a thing, he did not give a clear answer. After a while, K asked me in return if I had been able to sleep well recently. His words made me feel something strange.

That day, since the lecture was scheduled to start at the same time, the two of them left the house together. I was worried about what happened last night, so I pressed K about it again along the way. However, K still did not provide an answer that would satisfy me. I tried to emphasize whether he intended to talk about that incident at all, but K firmly stated, "That's not the case," in a strong tone. It sounded as if he was warning me, saying, "Didn’t I tell you yesterday in Ueno to stop talking about that?" K is a man with a very strong sense of pride in that regard.

At that moment, I recalled the word "resolve" that he had used. Those two characters, which I had not paid any attention to until then, began to exert a strange force, pressing down on my mind.