gradually changed into a vision of a statue of the nude Hercules. He had been cleaning the blackboard, holding an eraser in his left hand and chalk in the other; then, still erasing, he stretched out his right hand and began writing an equation on the board. As he did so the wrinkles that gathered in the material at the back of his coat were, to my bemused eyes, the muscle-furrows of "Hercules Drawing the Bow." And at last I had committed my bad habit there in the midst of schoolwork. . . .
The signal for recess sounded. I hung my dazed head and followed the others onto the playground. The boy with whom I was then in love—this also was an unrequited love, another student who had failed his examinations—came up to me and asked:
"Hey, you, didn't you finally go to Katakura's house yesterday? How was it?"
Katakura had been a quiet classmate of ours who had died of tuberculosis. His funeral services had ended two days before. As I had heard from a friend that his face was completely changed in death and looked like the face of an evil spirit, I had waited to make my call of condolence until I was sure his body had been cremated.
I could think of no reply to my friend's sudden question and said curtly :
"There was nothing to it. But then he was already ashes." Suddenly I remembered a message which would flatter him. "Oh, yes, and Katakura's mother told me over and over again to be sure and give you her regards." I giggled meaninglessly. "She asked me to tell you by all means to come to see her, because she'll be lonesome now."
"Aw, go on!" And suddenly a blow on the chest took me by surprise. Although delivered with full force, his blow was still charged with friendliness. His cheeks had become crimson with embarrassment, as though he were still a child. I saw that his eyes were shining with an unaccustomed intimacy, seeming to regard me as his accomplice in something.
"Go on!" he said again, "haven't you become dirty minded! You and your way of laughing!"
For a moment I did not grasp his meaning. I smiled lamely and for a full thirty seconds failed to understand him. Then I caught on: Katakura's mother was a widow, still young, with a lovely slender figure.
I felt miserable. It was not so much because my slowness in comprehending could only have arisen from stupidity, but rather because the incident had revealed such an obvious difference between his focus of interest and my own. I felt the emptiness of the gulf that separated us, and was filled with mortification at having been surprised by such a belated discovery of something I ought naturally to have foreseen. I had given him the message from Katakura's mother without stopping to consider what his reaction would be, simply knowing unconsciously that here I had a chance to curry favor with him. Now I was appalled by the ugly sight of my callowness, as ugly as the streaks of dried tears on a child's face.
On this occasion I was too exhausted to ask myself the question I had asked so many thousands of times before : Why is it wrong for me to stay just the way I am now? I was fed up with myself and, for all my chastity, was ruining my body. I had thought that with "earnestness" (what a touching thought!) I too could escape from my childish state. It was as though I had not yet realized that what I was now disgusted with was my true self, was clearly a part of my true life; it was as though I believed instead that these had been years of dreaming, from which I would now turn to "real life."
I was feeling the urge to begin living. To begin living my true life? Even if it was to be pure masquerade and not my life at all, still the time had come when I must make a start, must drag my heavy feet forward.
CHAPTER THREE
Everyone says that life is a stage. But most people do not seem to become obsessed with the idea, at any rate not as early as I did. By the end of childhood I was already firmly convinced that it was so and that I was to play my part on the
The signal for recess sounded. I hung my dazed head and followed the others onto the playground. The boy with whom I was then in love—this also was an unrequited love, another student who had failed his examinations—came up to me and asked:
"Hey, you, didn't you finally go to Katakura's house yesterday? How was it?"
Katakura had been a quiet classmate of ours who had died of tuberculosis. His funeral services had ended two days before. As I had heard from a friend that his face was completely changed in death and looked like the face of an evil spirit, I had waited to make my call of condolence until I was sure his body had been cremated.
I could think of no reply to my friend's sudden question and said curtly :
"There was nothing to it. But then he was already ashes." Suddenly I remembered a message which would flatter him. "Oh, yes, and Katakura's mother told me over and over again to be sure and give you her regards." I giggled meaninglessly. "She asked me to tell you by all means to come to see her, because she'll be lonesome now."
"Aw, go on!" And suddenly a blow on the chest took me by surprise. Although delivered with full force, his blow was still charged with friendliness. His cheeks had become crimson with embarrassment, as though he were still a child. I saw that his eyes were shining with an unaccustomed intimacy, seeming to regard me as his accomplice in something.
"Go on!" he said again, "haven't you become dirty minded! You and your way of laughing!"
For a moment I did not grasp his meaning. I smiled lamely and for a full thirty seconds failed to understand him. Then I caught on: Katakura's mother was a widow, still young, with a lovely slender figure.
I felt miserable. It was not so much because my slowness in comprehending could only have arisen from stupidity, but rather because the incident had revealed such an obvious difference between his focus of interest and my own. I felt the emptiness of the gulf that separated us, and was filled with mortification at having been surprised by such a belated discovery of something I ought naturally to have foreseen. I had given him the message from Katakura's mother without stopping to consider what his reaction would be, simply knowing unconsciously that here I had a chance to curry favor with him. Now I was appalled by the ugly sight of my callowness, as ugly as the streaks of dried tears on a child's face.
On this occasion I was too exhausted to ask myself the question I had asked so many thousands of times before : Why is it wrong for me to stay just the way I am now? I was fed up with myself and, for all my chastity, was ruining my body. I had thought that with "earnestness" (what a touching thought!) I too could escape from my childish state. It was as though I had not yet realized that what I was now disgusted with was my true self, was clearly a part of my true life; it was as though I believed instead that these had been years of dreaming, from which I would now turn to "real life."
I was feeling the urge to begin living. To begin living my true life? Even if it was to be pure masquerade and not my life at all, still the time had come when I must make a start, must drag my heavy feet forward.
CHAPTER THREE
Everyone says that life is a stage. But most people do not seem to become obsessed with the idea, at any rate not as early as I did. By the end of childhood I was already firmly convinced that it was so and that I was to play my part on the
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