The Third Night

by Natsume Sōseki

I had a dream like this.

I was carrying my six-year-old child on my back. It was certainly my own child. But strangely, at some point, the child's eyes had been gouged out, and they looked like a pale, shaven-headed monk. When I asked, "When did your eyes get gouged out?" the child replied, "It's always been like this." The voice was certainly a child's, but the way of speaking was like an adult's. And it was as if we were talking as equals.

Around us were lush green rice paddies, and the path continued narrowly. Occasionally, the shadow of a heron would cut through the darkness.

"We've entered the rice paddies," a voice said from my back.

"How do you know?" I asked, turning my head to look, and the child replied, "Because the herons are crying, aren't they?"

Then, indeed, two herons cried out.

I became a little scared, even though it was my own child. Carrying something like this, I didn't know what would happen next. Looking ahead for somewhere to go, I saw a large forest in the darkness. Just as I began to think, "If only I could go there," I heard a "Heh-heh" laugh from my back.

"What are you laughing at?"

The child didn't answer. They just asked, "Father, am I heavy?"

"You're not heavy," I replied, and the child said, "You'll get heavy soon."

I silently began to walk towards the forest. The path through the rice paddies twisted irregularly, making it difficult to move as I wished. After a while, the path forked. I stood at the fork and decided to rest for a bit.

"There should be a stone standing there," the little boy said.

Indeed, an eight-inch square stone stood about waist-high. On its face were written "Left: Higakubo" and "Right: Hottabara." The red characters were clearly visible even in the darkness. The red characters were the color of a newt's belly.

"Left would be good," the little boy said, as if giving an order. Looking to the left, the forest from earlier cast a dark shadow over our heads from the high sky. I hesitated a little.

“Don’t hold back,” the boy said again. Reluctantly, I started walking towards the forest. In my heart, I thought, 'He's blind, yet he knows everything,' and as I approached the forest along a single path, he said from my back, "It's a shame to be blind and helpless."

“So it’s fine if I carry you, isn’t it?”

“I apologize for making you carry me, but I really can’t stand being made fun of by people. I can’t bear being made fun of even by my parents.”

I somehow grew to dislike it. I thought I should hurry to the forest and abandon him, so I quickened my pace.

“You’ll understand a little further on. —It was just a night like this,” he said from my back, as if to himself.

“What?” I asked, my voice on edge.

“What do you mean, you know, don’t you?” the child replied mockingly. Then, I felt as if I did know something. However, I couldn't quite grasp it clearly. It just seemed like a night like this. And I felt like I would understand if I went a little further. Since it would be terrible if I understood, I felt I had to quickly abandon him before I understood and then feel relieved. I quickened my pace even more.

The rain had been falling continuously for a while. The path grew darker and darker. I was almost in a trance. There was just a small boy clinging to my back, and that boy shone like a mirror, illuminating all of my past, present, and future, not missing a single fact. And what's more, he was my child, and he was blind. I couldn't bear it any longer.

“Here it is, here it is. It’s right at the root of that cedar tree.”

The boy’s voice was clearly audible in the rain. I stopped without thinking. I had entered the forest at some point. The dark object about two yards ahead certainly looked like a cedar tree, just as the boy said.

“Father, it was at the root of that cedar tree, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s right,” I answered without thinking.

“It was Bunka 5, the year of the Dragon, wasn’t it?”

Indeed, it seemed like Bunka 5, the year of the Dragon.

"You killed me exactly one hundred years ago from today."

The moment I heard those words, the realization that I had killed a blind man at the root of this cedar tree on such a dark night, in the year of the Dragon, the fifth year of the Bunka era, exactly one hundred years ago, suddenly surfaced in my mind. The instant I first realized I had killed someone, the child on my back suddenly became as heavy as a stone.