I Can Speak

AIN: a night of submission, a morning of resignation. Is this life a mere effort at resignation? An endurance of wretchedness? Day after day, my youth is thus gnawed away; and happiness-I have found it in wretched quarters. My song having lost its voice, I lived in idleness in Tokyo for a while, and then, quietly, I began to write something-not a song, but as it were a 'murmur of life'; thus I was little by little led by my work to realize how my writing should proceed. 'Guess this is about the sort of thing. . .'-in this way I picked up a little something like confidence, and got started on the novel I had planned long ago. Last year, in September, I rented the second floor of a resting-house called 'Tenkajaya' on the top of Misaka Pass in Yamanashi Prefecture. From then on my work moved steadily ahead, finally coming to almost a hundred pages. The results didn't seem too bad even when I read them over. I gathered new strength. And one day when a strong wintry wind was blowing, I impetuously swore to myself that, no matter what, I would not return to Tokyo till I finished it. It was a stupid pledge. September, October, November came, and the cold weather at Misaka became unbearable. During those months, the lonely, depressing nights followed one after another. How I was tempted! Having so impetuously made a promise to myself, I couldn't go back on it now at this stage. Even though I wanted to run off to Tokyo, it would have been like breaking one of the Commandments. Atop the pass, I vacillated between two courses. I thought of -going down to Kofu. As Kofu was even milder than Tokyo, I thought maybe I could last through the winter. Down to Kofu I went. It did me good. My bad cough left me. I rented a sunny room in a lodging house on the outskirts of town, and tried the feel of sitting at

Contemporary Literature and Criticism · History · Themes in Literature Analysis