A sensation of helplessness, as if it were utterly impossible to go on living. Painful waves beatrelentlessly on my heart, as after a thunderstorm the white clouds frantically scud across the sky. Aterrible emotion - shall I call it an apprehension - wrings my heart only to release it, makes my pulsefalter, and chokes my breath. At times everything grows misty and dark before my eyes, and I feel that thestrength of my whole body is oozing away through my finger tips.
Of late a gloomy rain has been falling almost incessantly. Whatever I do depresses me. Today I took awicker chair out onto the porch, intending to work again on the sweater which I began to knit this spring.The wool is of a somewhat faded rose, and I am eking it out with cobalt-blue yarn to make a sweater. Thepale rose wool originally came from a scarf that Mother knitted for me twenty years ago, when I was stillin elementary school. The end of the scarf was formed into a kind of skullcap, and when I put it on andlooked at myself in the mirror, a little imp stared back at me. The scarf was very different in color fromthe scarves my school friends wore, and that fact alone sufficed to make me loathe it with an unreasoningfury. I felt so ashamed to be seen in it that I had refused to wear it again, and for years it had lain hiddenaway in a drawer somewhere. This spring it came to light, and I unraveled it. I decided to make it into asweater for myself, in the pious intention of resuscitating a dead possession. But somehow the faded colorfailed to interest me, and I had put the yarn aside again. Today, having nothing else to do, I took it out onthe spur of the moment and idly began to knit. It was only while I was knitting that I realized the pale roseof the wool and the grey of the overcast sky were blending into one, making a harmony of colors so softand mild that no words could describe it. I had never suspected that the important thing was to considerthe match a costume makes with the color of the sky. What a beautiful, wonderful thing color harmony is, Ithought to myself, rather surprised. It is amazing how when one unites the grey of the sky with the palerose of the wool, both colors at once come alive. The wool I held in my hands became vibrant withwarmth, and the cold rainy sky was soft as velvet. I remembered a Monet painting of a cathedral in themist, and I felt as if, thanks to the wool, I had for the first time understood what good taste is. Good taste.Mother had chosen the pale rose wool because she knew just how lovely it would look against the snowywinter sky, but in my foolishness I had disliked it. I had had my own way, for Mother never attempted toforce anything on me. During all this time Mother had not said a word of explanation but had waited thesetwenty years until I was able to appreciate the beauty of the color myself. I thought what a wonderfulMother I had. At the same moment clouds of dread and apprehension suddenly welled up within my breastas I wondered whether Naoji and I between us had not tortured and weakened Mother to the point ofkilling her. The more I reflected the more certain it seemed that the future had in store for us only horrible,evil things. The thought filled me with such nameless fears that I felt almost incapable of going on living.The strength left my fingers, and I dropped my knitting needles on my lap. A great sigh shook me. With myeyes still shut, I lifted my head. Before I knew what I was doing, I had cried, "Mother!"
"Yes?" Mother, leaning over a desk in a corner of the room, reading a book, answered with a note ofdoubt in her voice.
I was confused. In an unnecessarily loud voice I declared, "The roses have bloomed at last. Did youknow it, Mother? I just noticed it now. They've bloomed at last."
The roses in front of the porch had been brought back long ago by Uncle Wada from France - or wasit England? at any rate some distant country - and had now been transplanted here from our house inNishikata Street. I had been fully aware this morning that one of them had bloomed, but to cover myembarrassinent I pretended with exaggerated enthusiasm just to have discovered the fact. The flowers, ofa dark purple, had a sombre pride and strength.
"Yes, I knew," Mother said gently, adding, "Such things seem very important to you."
"Perhaps. Are you sorry for me?"
YOU ARE READING
The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai
Short StoryThe post-war period in Japan was one of immense social change as Japanese society adjusted to the shock of defeat and to the occupation of Japan by American forces and their allies. Osamu Dazai's The Setting Sun takes this milieu as its background t...
