Crackling Mountain and Other Stories. Osamu Dazai

in the task each time.

      I figured it was now up to Miyo—except that the right moment didn’t come. Every so often I would slip out of the shed where we were studying and go back to the main house. Catching a glimpse of her flailing away with her broom, I would bite my lip.

      The summer vacation finally came to an end, obliging me to leave home along with my younger brother and my friends. If only I could instill a small memory in Miyo, something to remember me by until the next vacation. But nothing ever happened.

      When the day came to leave, we all piled into the family carriage with its dark hood. Miyo was at the front door for the leavetaking, along with the other members of the household. She kept her eyes on the ground without looking at my brother or me. The light green cord that usually held up the sleeves of her kimono was untied; she kept fumbling it like a rosary, even as the carriage pulled away. I left home on that occasion filled with regret.

      In the autumn I went with my younger brother to a hot-spring village on the coast, a trip that took about thirty minutes by train from the school town. Our youngest sister had been ill and she had come to this village to take the waters. I lived there awhile, in a house Mother was renting, just to prepare for my college entrance exam. Since there was no escaping my reputation as a bright student, I had to demonstrate that I could graduate from high school and go on to college. I came to hate school more and more, but something drove me to study with all my might.

      I would stay overnight with my mother and sister at the rented house, commuting back and forth to school each day by train. My friends came to the village every Sunday for a visit. By then, Miyo was only a distant memory to all of us. We would go out for a picnic, selecting a large flat rock by the sea upon which to have our beef stew and wine. My brother had a beautiful voice and knew lots of new songS. He would teach us some of them, and we’d sing together. When we finally got tired of this, we would lie down on the rock and take a nap. By the time we awoke, the tide would be in, cutting off the rock from the shore. For a moment we seemed to be dreaming yet.

      I saw these friends during the week too. I’d get depressed if even a day went by without them.

      One autumn day when a brisk wind was blowing, one of my teachers struck me on both cheeks in class. It was an arbitrary punishment for some gallant deed of mine, and my friends were livid. After school, the entire fourth-year class gathered in the natural history room and talked about getting the teacher fired. There were even students who clamored, Strike! A strike! I was quite upset by all this. If you’re going on strike just for my saké, please stop it, I begged. I don’t hate the teacher. It’s not important, not really. I went among them making this plea.

      Coward! Egotist!—that’s what my friends called me. Gasping for breath, I hurried from the room and went all the way back to our rented house. When I arrived, I headed straight for the bathhouse. There was a plantain tree in a corner of the garden just outside the window. The wind had stripped it bare, except for a few leaves that remained to cast a greenish shadow onto the bath water. I sat on the edge of the pool, sinking into a reverie like someone already half-dead.

      When haunted by a shameful memory, I would try to get rid of it by going off alone and mumbling, Oh well . . . I pictured myself wandering among the students and murmuring, It’s not important, not really. I scooped water from the pool and let it trickle back over and over. And I kept repeating the words, Oh well . . . Oh well . . .

      The next day the teacher apologized to the class. The strike never occurred, then, and things were patched up between the students and me. Nonetheless, the mishap cast a pall over my life. Miyo was often in my thoughts after that. Without her, I might well go to pieces.

      My sister’s treatment had ended, and she was supposed to depart with Mother on Saturday. I decided to go along, on the pretext of seeing them safely home. I kept the trip secret from my friends, and I didn’t tell my brother why I was really going home. I thought he would know anyhow.

      I set out from the village with my mother, sister, and brother, the latter accompanying us only as far as the school town. There we all paid a courtesy visit to the people at the dry-goods store who were helping my brother and me, then headed for the station and the trip home. As the train for home was about to pull out of the station, my brother stood on the platform and pressed his pale forehead with its widow’s peak to the window. Don’t give up!—that’s all he said. Not on your life, I blithely replied. I was certainly in a good humor.