got windy
Chapter 3 The Wind Rises
Chapter 3 The Wind Rises
The train we took climbed mountains and ridges several times, flew along deep valleys, and took a long time to cross the vast highlands full of vineyards, and then gradually drove to the mountainous area.During this seemingly endless and tiresome climbing period, the sky became more and more low. Just now, it looked like a dark cloud locked in a ball. on our eyelids.The air also became bone-chilling.I turned up the collar of my blouse, and looked anxiously at Setsuko's face, whose body was completely buried in the shawl and whose eyes were closed.This face is full of fatigue, but more excited.Occasionally, she would open her eyes and stare blankly at me, and at first we would look at each other with smiling eyes.From then on, the eyes that looked at each other were tainted with anxiety, and they immediately moved away the moment they touched each other.Finally she closed her eyes tightly again.
"I always feel cold, is it snowing?"
"In April like this, will it snow?"
"Well, there is no guarantee that there will be no snow in this area."
Although it was only around three o'clock in the afternoon, it was completely dark outside the window.I looked out of the window and saw countless rows of leafless larches interspersed with dark fir trees.I noticed that the train had passed the foot of Mount Yatsugatake, but I still couldn't see the shadow of the mountain that should have appeared...
The train stopped at a little station in the foothills that looked like a storage shed.We were greeted at the station by an old handyman in overalls emblazoned with the logo "High Altitude Sanatorium."
There was an old car waiting for a long time in front of the station, I walked over with my arm supporting Setsuko.I felt her staggering in my arms, but I pretended not to notice.
"are you tired?"
"Not tired."
The few people who got out of the car with us, who seemed to be locals, whispered around us.But after we changed cars, those people got mixed up with other villagers unconsciously, became indistinguishable, and disappeared in the village.
The car we took passed through a small village connected by a row of dilapidated huts. When we arrived at the uneven slope at the foot of Mount Yatsugatake that stretched into the distance, we saw a red roof planted with miscellaneous trees behind it. , A tall building with several annexes.
"That's where it is?" I said to myself, and my body felt the car body tilting.
Setsuko raised her face slightly, stared blankly at the nursing home with slightly worried eyes.
After entering the nursing home, we were assigned to room [-] on the second floor of the ward building which is the innermost one with the miscellaneous forest behind it.After a brief examination, Setsuko received an order to lie down on the hospital bed immediately.In the ward with linoleum on the floor, all the beds, tables and chairs were painted white—other than that, there were only a few suitcases brought by the handyman just now.When there were only the two of us in the room, I couldn't calm down my anxiety for a long time, and I didn't want to go into the narrow side room specially assigned to the escort. I just frequently glanced at this room that seemed to have no cover, and approached the window many times, Keep an eye out for changes in the weather.The wind dragged the heavy clouds with difficulty, and occasionally there was a sharp sound from the weeds behind.I once pretended to be cold and went to the balcony.The balcony has no partition and leads directly to the next ward.Because no one was there, I didn't take it seriously, walked over and peeked into the wards.I happened to be counting to the fourth ward in the past, looking through the half-open window, I saw a patient who was resting.I quickly turned back.
Finally turned on the lights.Then we ate the dinner brought by the nurse face to face.It was the first time dining with just the two of us, and it seemed a little deserted.During the meal, since it was completely dark outside, I didn't pay special attention. I just felt that the surroundings suddenly became quiet, and I don't know when it was snowflakes.
I stood up, closed the half-open window until there was only a line left, put my face close to the glass, and stared at the snowflakes without moving until the glass was foggy with my breath.Then I walked away from the window, turned my head to Setsuko and said, "Hey, why are you..."
She was still lying on the bed like that, looking up at my face while hesitating to speak, and put her finger on her lips again, as if to stop herself from saying anything to me.
Located at the foot of Yatsugatake Mountain, the wide, dark brown sanatorium, which is steep to gentle, stands side by side with several annex buildings, facing south.The foothills slanted and stretched forward, and the two or three small mountain villages on it also slanted, and finally they were completely surrounded by countless black pine trees, and disappeared into the valley beyond the sight.
Looking from the south-facing balcony of the sanatorium, one can see the sloping mountain villages and the brown farming land at a glance.On the boundless pine forest that closely surrounds the village, if it is a sunny day, you can still see the Southern Alps stretching from south to west and their two or three branches, appearing and disappearing in the surging sea of clouds.
The morning after arriving at the nursing home, I awoke in the side room allotted to me.Looking out from the small window frame, the blue sky is blue, and several snow-white peaks like cockscombs seem to jump out of the atmosphere suddenly, unexpectedly, and seem to be right in front of you.The snow on the balcony and the roof that I couldn't see when I was lying on the bed, was bathed in the sudden spring sun and turned into a continuous stream of water vapor.
Maybe I overslept a little, so I hurriedly got up and went into the next ward.Setsuko was already awake at this time, wrapped in a blanket, with a shy face on her face.
"Good morning." My face was also a little hot, and I said soothingly, "Did you sleep well?"
"Yeah." She nodded to me, "I took sleeping pills last night, and I always feel a little headache."
I tried my best to make her no longer mind about those things, and energetically opened the windows and the glass door leading to the balcony.The glare of the sun blinds the eyes for a moment.After my eyes gradually adapted to the light, I saw snow-covered balconies, roofs, fields, and even light water vapor rising from the trees.
"I also had a ridiculous dream. The dream..." she said behind my back.
I realized immediately that she was trying to say the unexplainable.On such occasions, her voice is slightly hoarse.
This time it's my turn to turn around, put my finger on my lips, and signal her not to speak...
Soon the head nurse came in hurriedly with a friendly smile.The head nurse goes around the wards one by one every morning and visits the patients one by one.
"Did you rest well last night?" the head nurse asked kindly.
Setsuko nodded honestly without saying a word.
The life in this kind of sanatorium in the mountains naturally has a special humanity that ordinary people seem to be saved from a desperate situation. I began to vaguely realize that I also possess this unfamiliar humanity. It was not long after I was admitted to the hospital , When the dean asked me to go to the consultation room and show me the X-rays from Setsuko's disease department.
In order to let me see clearly, the dean took me to the window so that the sunlight could pass through the base plate of the X-ray film.He explained one by one: several white ribs on the right chest were clearly visible, but a rib too large to be seen was formed on the left chest, which was like an inconceivable black flower-like lesion.
"The lesion is unexpectedly large... I didn't expect it to become so serious... If this is the case, it is probably the second most severe disease in the nursing home..."
The dean’s words only left a buzzing in my ears, and I was like a person who lost the ability to think, only clearly sending the image of the incredible black flower I saw just now to the realm of consciousness, as if it As if it had nothing to do with those words, he left the examination room.The white-clothed nurses passing by me, the naked patients sunbathing on the surrounding balconies, the noise in the ward, and the chirping of birds all passed in front of me without any connection.
I finally stepped into the innermost ward building. When I climbed the stairs to the second floor where our ward is located, the moment my mechanical steps relaxed, a continuous dry cough came from a ward in front of the stairs. Voice.This voice came to the ear, it sounded so strange, it made people feel displeased immediately.
"Hey, there are patients here too?" I was thinking this, while staring blankly at the number on the door: NO.17.
Thus began our extraordinary love life.
Since Setsuko was admitted to the hospital, she has been asked to be quiet, so she has been lying on the bed.In this way, compared with trying to get out of bed as long as she was healthy before being hospitalized, now she looks more like a patient.However, the condition itself did not see any deterioration, and the doctors seemed to regard her as a patient who could be cured quickly. "In this way, the disease can be caught alive." The dean also joked.
During this period, the season suddenly advances rapidly, as if to make up for the slow passage of time before.Spring and summer are coming almost at the same time.Every morning, what wakes us up is the song of the yellow warbler and the cuckoo.For almost a whole day afterwards, the fresh green of the surrounding forest came from all directions, and the ward was completely dyed in such a refreshing color.In those days, even the white clouds gushing out of the mountains in the morning and returning to the mountains at dusk could be seen.
I recalled the days when we were first together, they were almost inseparable from those days when I was beside Setsuko's pillow, because of the similarity of time to each other, because of the simplicity of the charm, I found that they have become almost hard to tell who is who. who comes first.
Nevertheless, it is better to say that in the process of repeatedly living those similar days, we have completely withdrawn from time without knowing it.Therefore, in every day that is free from time, no matter how small and trivial things in our daily life, each one has a charm that is completely different from what it has been so far.There is a person next to me who exudes a warm, fragrant fragrance, the slight shortness of breath, the softness of holding my hand, the smile, and the usual ordinary conversations-if all the above things are removed , then the days will be monotonous and empty.But—the essence of our so-called human life is nothing more than this.I'm sure it's all because of the simplicity of it all, and the satisfaction I've had with this woman.
Speaking of the only incident these days, she sometimes has a fever.It would indeed debilitate her body.But we also live those days more carefully and slowly, like tasting the forbidden fruit, savoring the charm of those things that are unchanging and repeated every day.Therefore, our happiness in life, which is slightly tinged with death, was completely guaranteed at that time.
One evening, from the balcony, and Kyoko from the bed, I gazed at the sunset that was about to sink into the shade of the mountains, and the afterglow sprinkled on us without distinction.The peaks, hills, pine forests, and mountain fields in this area are half colored with bright red, while the other half is slowly eroded by uncertain gray.As if thinking of the forest by accident, the birds would suddenly fly in a parabolic trajectory towards the top of the forest. ——I have long been accustomed to the scenery of the area that can be produced in an instant in the early summer evening.We ourselves dare not hope that, except for this moment, we can have such a full sense of happiness.I imagine that, after a long, long time, whenever I see such a beautiful twilight again and revive my memory at this time, I will definitely find that this is the complete picture of our happiness.
"What are you thinking?" Setsuko behind me finally spoke.
"I was thinking how wonderful it would be to recall our lives in the far future."
"Perhaps it is!" she agreed with me, responding with great pleasure.
Then we were speechless again, looking at the same scenery again.At this moment, I suddenly felt that I was looking at the scenery so engrossed, but it seemed that I was not myself.A strange and boundless confusion, almost irresistible, and at the same time, I don't know why it hurts.At this time, I felt something like a deep sigh came from behind, but the sigh seemed to be my own.To be sure, I turned to her.
"Then now..." She looked straight back at me and said in a slightly hoarse voice.
But as soon as she said this, she hesitated again.Then, suddenly, in a decidedly different tone from what she had hitherto, she added, "It would be great to live like this forever!"
"You're talking like that again!" I yelled in a low, anxious voice.
"I'm sorry." She replied curtly, turning her face away from me.
The emotions that had been unknown until just now seemed to be gradually turning into a kind of harshness.I turned my gaze to the direction of the mountain again, but the unique beauty that was born on the scenery at that moment has disappeared at this moment.
She called me that evening as I was going to bed in the adjoining side room.
"I'm really sorry just now."
"It doesn't matter anymore."
"I, I planned to talk about other things at that time, but... I didn't pay attention, but I said something like that."
"So, what are you going to say at that time?"
"...You once said that only in the eyes of the dying can you truly feel the beauty of nature... I, at that time, remembered this sentence. The beautiful scenery at that time made me have such thoughts..." As she spoke, she stared at my face, as if she wanted to say something.
Maybe this sentence hurt my heart, and I couldn't help closing my eyes.A thought popped into my head suddenly.Immediately afterwards, the feeling that made me anxious and uncertain from the beginning finally emerged clearly in my heart...
"Yeah, why didn't I notice it? I did say something about the beauty of nature back then, but it was 'we' who said it. Oh, to be precise, it was just Setsuko's soul passing through my eyes , and then I saw the illusion in my style... In this way, Setsuko didn't know that what he was imagining was the last moment of his own life, and I was self-righteous in dreaming that we would all live forever..."
Unknowingly, I hesitated at this thought, and when I raised my eyes, she was still staring at me as before.Avoiding that look, I leaned over her and kissed her lightly on the forehead.I feel ashamed from the bottom of my heart.
Finally summer came.It seems to be hotter on flat ground.It was as if something was burning in the miscellaneous forest behind, and the sound of cicadas continued to sing all day long.The smell of resin wafted in through the open windows.At dusk, many patients pull their beds to the balcony in order to breathe easily outdoors.It was only when we saw them that we became aware for the first time that the number of patients in the nursing home had increased dramatically recently.But we don't care about it, and we still ignore others and continue to live in a world where there are only two of us.
These days, due to the intolerable heat, Setsuko has completely lost her appetite, and she can't sleep well at night.In order to let her take a good nap, I paid more attention than ever to the sound of footsteps in the corridor, as well as the bees and horseflies flying from the window.And I also noticed the sound of my breathing getting thicker unconsciously due to the heat, and I was worried about it.
Just holding my breath beside the patient's pillow and guarding her sleep, to me, it can be regarded as a state similar to sleep.I clearly felt the discomfort caused by her rapid and slow breathing in her sleep.My and her hearts were beating together, and the slight difficulty in breathing seemed to bother her sometimes.At that time, her hand was raised convulsively, stretched out to her throat, and made a movement as if she was going to grab her throat—I guess, did she have a nightmare?When I hesitated whether to wake her up, her painful condition disappeared immediately, and her whole expression relaxed.In this way, I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, so that I felt a kind of pleasure in her calm breathing at the moment. ——After she woke up, I kissed her hair softly, and she looked at me with tired eyes.
"You've been here all this time?"
"Ah, I squinted here for a while too."
In those nights, whenever I couldn't fall asleep anyway, I seemed to have become a long-standing habit. I always stretched my hand close to my throat in an unconscious state, imitating the movement of trying to choke it.After I suddenly realized it, I finally felt really hard to breathe.But it was quite a pleasant experience for me.
"Why do you always feel that your face is ugly recently?" One day, she looked at me more carefully and said, "Did something happen?"
"It's nothing." I'm glad she asked that. "I've always been like this, haven't I?"
"Don't stay by my patient's side all the time, it's better to take a walk for a while."
"If it's a hot day, you can avoid taking a walk... At night, it's pitch black... Besides, I walk around frequently in the nursing home every day."
In order to prevent this kind of conversation from continuing, from time to time, I used the things I met other patients in the corridor or other places every day as a topic of conversation: I often gathered in the corner of the balcony, regarded the sky as a racetrack, and imagined the flowing clouds as various Juvenile patients with animal-like shapes; patients who are always leaning on the arm of the accompanying nurse, wandering aimlessly in the corridors, patients with severe neurasthenia, who are so tall that they are frighteningly tall... and so on. listen to her.However, there is only one thing, that is, the patient in ward 17 who has never met before, and every time I pass by that ward, I will hear the chilling cough, which makes people feel uncomfortable from the bottom of my heart. I try my best to avoid it.I'm afraid that in this sanatorium, the most seriously ill patients live there... I think so.
The end of August is approaching, but the inability to sleep at night still persists.One sleepless night, we couldn't sleep (it was well past nine o'clock bedtime...).The ward building on the opposite side became noisy for some reason, and from time to time, the sound of trotting footsteps in the corridor, the nurse's deliberately lowered calls, and the sharp impact of equipment could be heard.I listened anxiously for a while.When I thought that the noise had finally quieted down, almost at the same time, the same silent noise came from each ward building, and finally there was a noise directly below us.
I have a rough idea of what is going on like a storm in the sanatorium right now.During that time, how many times have I pricked up my ears to listen to the movement of Setsuko in the next room where the lights have just been turned off, but I may not be able to sleep.Setsuko didn't seem to turn over, just lying there motionless.I also held my breath in silence, waiting for the storm to subside slowly.
In the middle of the night, it looked like the storm had finally subsided.I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, closed my eyes and took a nap for a while, but was suddenly woken up by the nervous cough that Setsuko had been trying to suppress until now in the next room, two or three times, and the cough was getting worse and worse.The coughing stopped soon, but I couldn't rest assured, so I quietly walked into the next room.In the darkness, Setsuko looked in my direction with her eyes wide open, as if frightened by being alone.Without saying a word, I approached her.
"I'm fine." She tried to smile back, speaking in a low voice that was between what I could hear and what I couldn't hear.I sat down on the edge of the bed in silence.
"Please stay here." Setsuko said to me timidly.She is not usually like this.We stayed up all night like this until dawn.
Two or three days after this incident, the summer passed quickly.
Through September, stormy showers that stop and go on and on almost without a break cause the leaves to rot before they turn yellow.Every room in the nursing home has its windows closed all day long, making it dark and gloomy.The wind often slammed the door, and there was a monotonous and heavy sound from time to time in the miscellaneous forest behind.On days when there is no wind, we listen to the sound of rain falling from the roof to the balcony all day long.On a morning when the rain curtain was like a mist, I looked at the long and narrow atrium facing the balcony from the window in confusion, and the atrium gradually became brighter.At that time, I saw a nurse walking over from the opposite side of the atrium, picking wild chrysanthemums and cosmoses blooming everywhere in the mist and light rain.I recognized her as the accompanying nurse in Ward 17.
"Ah, that patient who always had an unpleasant cough may be dying soon." I thought suddenly.Staring at the nurse who seemed to be a little excited and kept picking flowers even though she was drenched by the rain, I suddenly felt something tighten my heart. "Isn't that the most seriously ill patient here? If that guy dies, who will it be next?... Ah, it would be great if the dean didn't tell me those things."
When the nurse disappeared into the shadow of the balcony with a large bouquet of flowers in her arms, I woke up and pressed my face to the window glass.
"What are you looking at there?" Setsuko asked me on the bed.
"In this rain, a nurse has been picking flowers since just now. Who is that?"
I muttered to myself like this, and finally left from the window.
However, during that whole day, for some reason, I never looked at Setsuko's face.I can feel that Setsuko has seen all this, but deliberately pretends to be ignorant, just watching me all the time.This made my pain even deeper.
Embracing the uneasiness and fear that I couldn't tell each other, I thought over and over again, and realized that it was absolutely impossible for the two of us to keep thinking differently like this.So I tried my best to make myself forget what happened as soon as possible, but unconsciously, those things came back to my mind.In the end, I even suddenly remembered the ominous dream that Setsuko didn't tell me about that night when we first arrived at the nursing home, but because of my persistence, I suddenly remembered.Although I have been trying my best to forget about this dream, it suddenly jumped out.
——In that incredible dream, Setsuko was already a corpse, lying in a coffin.People carried the coffin across the wilderness and into the forest.She was dead, but in the coffin she could clearly see the black fir trees on the withered land in winter, and heard the quiet wind blowing through the trees... Even after waking up from the dream, she still clearly felt the So cold, still filled with the rustle of the fir trees...
After the foggy drizzle has been falling for several days, the season has completely changed.The same is true in the nursing home. If you observe carefully, you will find that the original large number of patients are leaving one by two, and only the critically ill patients who must stay in the hospital for the winter are still there.As a result, the sanatorium was once again as quiet as it was before the summer.The death of the patient in Ward 17 underscored this all the more rapidly.
One morning at the end of September, I inadvertently took a look at the misty woods behind through the window on the north side of the corridor, and saw some people that I had never seen before coming in and out in the misty woods, which made me Surprised.I tentatively asked the nurses, and they also showed a look of ignorance.So I forgot about it too.Early the next morning, however, two or three more laborers came, flickering through the mist, and felled what appeared to be chestnut trees on the edge of the hill.
On that day, I accidentally inquired about something that had not been known among the patients the day before.I heard that the emotionally unstable and neurasthenic patient hanged himself in the woods.It was only after I said this that I realized that the tall man who I saw several times a day, who was supported by the accompanying nurse and walked back and forth in the corridor, had suddenly disappeared since yesterday.
"Is it that man's turn..."
I, who had become neurotic due to the death of the patient in Ward No. 17, couldn't help but sigh inwardly because of the unexpected deaths that happened one after another in less than a week.Such a tragic death, of course, made me feel very uncomfortable, so that I deliberately didn't feel the sadness that I should have originally.
"Even if her condition is second only to the patient who died, she may not necessarily die." I said to myself pretending to be relaxed.
Only two or three chestnut trees in the rear woods were felled, and the middle part of the felled site was dug up for no apparent reason.The small laborers worked non-stop, began to dig the edge of the hill, transported the soil to the open space on the north side of the ward building that sloped rapidly and steeply from there, and filled up the slope in that area.There someone is working on remodeling the flower beds.
"Your father has sent a letter."
I took out a letter from the stack of letters sent by the nurse and handed it to Setsuko.She was still lying on the bed, and after receiving the letter, her eyes immediately shone with the unique light of a girl, and her eyes moved on the letter.
"Oh, Dad is going to come here."
Setsuko's father, who is traveling, will drop by the nursing home on his way home.This is the content of the letter he sent.
It was a clear but windy day in October.Setsuko, who has lost her appetite recently due to constant bed rest, has lost a lot of weight.From that day on, she tried her best to eat, sometimes got up from the bed, and sometimes sat down for a while.A smile appeared on her face from time to time, as if she was thinking of something happy.This kind of girl's smile, I realized that it would only appear in front of my father.I let her laugh like that to keep her that way.
A few days later, one afternoon, her father came.
His appearance looked a lot older than before, the most obvious thing was that his back was more hunched.That appearance made me feel that it was the atmosphere of the hospital that made him fearful.After entering the ward, he sat next to Setsuko's pillow, which was always the place where I used to sit.Probably because of the frequent physical activities in recent days, Jiezi had a slight fever since yesterday evening. Under the doctor's order, her inner expectations fell through, and she had to obey the order and keep quiet since morning.
It was assumed that the patient was almost cured, but seeing that she was still bedridden, Setsuko's father couldn't help showing a disturbed expression.Afterwards, as if he wanted to find the reason, he carefully looked around in the ward, paying attention to every movement of the nurses, and then went to the balcony to check, everything seemed to satisfy him.During this period, he saw that the patient's cheeks were as red as a rose, but he didn't know that it was caused by fever rather than excitement, so he repeatedly emphasized: "But his face is still very good." The daughter believes that her condition has improved a lot.
I excused myself by saying that I had something to do later, and walked out of the ward, leaving the two of them alone.Not long after, I entered the ward again, only to see Setsuko standing up on the bed.The quilt she covered was covered with snack boxes and other paper packages brought by her father.Those were the things she liked as a girl and what her father thought she would still like now.When she saw me, she immediately blushed like a girl who was caught playing a prank. She tidied up the boxes and paper bags and put them aside.
I felt a little cautious, so I sat on a chair by the window a little far away from them.The two of them continued talking about the topic that seemed to be interrupted by me in a lower voice than before.Most of the people and things mentioned in the conversation were unfamiliar to me.There was something in it that seemed to have touched her slightly, but this touch was beyond my comprehension.
I imagined the very pleasant conversation between the two of them as a painting to appreciate.I thus saw that extreme girlish brilliance reappeared in the expression she showed her father in the dialogue and the cadence of her tone of voice.And her happy appearance like a child makes me fantasize about her girlhood that I don't know...
After a while, when it was just the two of us, I approached her and whispered softly as if playing, "I don't know why, today you are like a rose-colored girl I don't know."
"That's not the case!" She buried her cheeks in her hands like a little girl.
Setsuko's father stayed for two days and then left.
Before setting off, Setsuko's father asked me to lead the way and walked around the nursing home a few times.However, the purpose of doing this is actually to facilitate the two of us to talk in private.It was a cloudless and clear day, and I pointed to Mt. Yatsugatake, whose brown ridge had become extremely clear, but Setsuko’s father just raised his eyes and continued to babble endlessly:
"Her body may not be able to adapt to the environment here, right? Although she has been recuperating for more than half a year, it seems that it will take time to get better..."
"Well... the weather in every place this summer seems to be bad. And I heard that the sanatorium in the mountains is best to wait until winter..."
"If she can make it through winter, maybe it's okay...but from the looks of it, she might not be able to make it through winter..."
"But she herself had hope for winter." I was anxious because I didn't know how to make Setsuko's father understand that the loneliness of this mountain gave birth to our happiness.However, considering how many sacrifices he has made for us, I really have something to say but can't say it, so I have to continue the conversation between each other. "Well...it's not easy for you to come to the mountains, why don't you stay for a while longer?"
"...But, will you stay with her until winter?"
"Of course. Needless to say, I will definitely accompany her."
"That's really embarrassing... Are you still working?"
"No……"
"Then you can't keep thinking about taking care of the patients. A little work is still necessary."
"Well, I will do something more or less in the future..." I said evasively.
—You're right, I haven't thought about my work for quite a long time.Now, no matter what, I have to start working as much as possible.
As soon as I thought about it, my emotions became high.After that we were silent, standing on the hill, looking up at the sky.Countless scaly clouds have spread from the western sky to the center of the sky at some point.
After a while, we walked back to the hospital from the rear through the miscellaneous forest where the leaves had all turned yellow.There were still two or three small workers digging the mound that day. When we passed by, I said calmly, "It is said that a flower bed is going to be built here."
At dusk, I took Setsuko's father all the way to the parking lot.When she came back, she saw the patient lying on her side on the bed, and the violent cough made it difficult for her to breathe.Coughing so violently has never happened before.When the cough subsided slightly, I asked her:
"what happened?"
"It doesn't matter...it will be fine in a while." The patient can only answer me simply, "Please give me a glass of water."
I poured the water from the long-necked water bottle into the cup and brought it to Setsuko's mouth.She drank all the water in one breath and temporarily calmed down.But this kind of calm only lasted for a while, and the cough was more violent than before, attacking her again.I saw her body trembling in pain, almost falling out of the bed, but I had no choice but to keep asking:
"Shall I call the nurse?"
"..."
In the moment of peace after coughing, she still kept her body trembling due to pain, covered her face with her hands, and nodded in agreement.
I hurried to call the nurse.The nurse ran ahead and left me behind.When I followed behind and entered the ward, the nurse was holding Setsuko from behind with both hands, adjusting her body to a slightly relaxed posture.However, Setsuko didn't seem to notice it, her eyes were wide open in a daze, and the coughing attack should have stopped temporarily.
The nurse slowly and gradually let go of her hand.
"The cough has stopped... Please stay in the current state and don't move around." The nurse said, tidying up the messed up blanket. "I'm asking someone to give you an injection."
As the nurse walked out of the ward, facing me who didn't know where to stand and finally stood by the door, she whispered softly, "I coughed up some bloody sputum."
At this time, I was close to her pillow.
She opened her eyes numbly, but it looked like she was asleep.As I helped her straighten up the curly hair like small swirls scattered on her pale forehead, I stroked her cold sweaty forehead with my hand.As if she finally felt my warm presence, a charming smile appeared on her lips.
The days of absolute silence continued.
The windows of the ward were all covered by the yellow pergola, and the room became dark.The nurses could only walk slowly on tiptoe as much as possible.I was almost glued to the patient's pillow, and I even took care of the night care by myself.Sometimes Setsuko would face me, as if she had something to say.But in order not to let her speak, I immediately put my finger on my mouth.
Such silence dragged each of us into our own thoughts.However, what the other is thinking, we can feel very painfully and clearly with each other.As I contemplated the transformation of the part of Setsuko's sacrifice for me into something visible to the naked eye in this incident, I clearly sensed that Setsuko had broken me in a flash because of herself. Regret what the two have cultivated carefully and carefully so far.
However, this kind of feeling that I don't regard my own sacrifice as a sacrifice, but only blames my own rashness, makes me very worried.I regard this kind of sacrifice as the price that the patient should pay for it. Just on the hospital bed that will become the bed of death at some point, I will taste the joy of life with the patient - we firmly believe that there is nothing else that can give us more happiness Something—is it really something that satisfies us?Is not what we now consider to be happiness more fleeting and more capricious than we believe it to be?
Staying with me all night made me quite tired, and I tossed and turned in my thoughts beside the sleeping patient.Something seemed to threaten our happiness, I felt uncomfortably.
But that crisis dissipated after only a week.
One morning, the nurse finally removed the awning from the ward, opened the windows, and left.The autumn sun shines in dazzlingly. "It's so comfortable!" Setsuko said on the bed after waking up.
I was flipping through the newspaper beside her pillow, thinking to myself: The things that had a great impact on life disappeared without a trace, as if they had nothing to do with me at all.While looking at her like this, he couldn't help but say in a mocking tone:
"It's better to be so excited when your father comes."
Her face flushed slightly, and she accepted my teasing frankly.
"Next time my father plans to come, I will pretend to be ignorant."
"You can do it..."
We were joking with each other, we comforted each other's feelings, and together we were like children, pushing all the responsibilities to her father.
Then, without deliberation, we take everything that happened this week, with a relaxed mind, as nothing more than a mistake, and until just now, the crisis that is not only invading our body, but also invading our spirit, They were all thrown away without incident.At least that's how we see it.
One night, I read a book next to her.Suddenly, I closed the book and walked to the window, thinking for a while.Then he came back to her again, picked up the book and started reading again.
"What's wrong?" She looked up at me.
"Nothing." I replied casually.For about a few seconds, my attention was attracted by the book, but finally I opened my mouth and said:
"I haven't done much work since I got here. So I think I'll have to find some work."
"Yes, work is necessary. Father is also worried about it." She said solemnly, "Please don't just worry about my business."
"No, you need to think more about your affairs." While sorting out the vague outline of a certain novel that came to my mind at that time, I seemed to mutter to myself:
"I'm going to write a novel about you. As for other things, I don't think about it at the moment. We give each other happiness in this way-the joy of rebirth that begins from this place that everyone thinks ends- Make this difficult for others to understand, only what we have, and transform it into something more real and slightly formed, understand?"
"Understood." She followed my thoughts as if she followed her own, and replied without thinking.But then he curled his lips and said with a smile:
"Write my words, just let go and write." These words seemed a little perfunctory.
But I still accept this statement bluntly.
"Ah, of course I will let go and write... But this work must rely on your strong cooperation."
"How can I help?"
"Well, you, I hope you can be happy from head to toe during my work, otherwise..."
Compared to thinking alone in a daze, the way two people think together makes my mind and inspiration more active.I was like a spring of literary thinking after being suppressed, and I kept pacing back and forth in the ward.
"Staying by the patient's side all the time will make you lose energy... Do you want to go out for a walk?"
"Well, I'm going to work!" I replied with sparkling eyes and energy. "Naturally a walk is also necessary."
I get out of that forest.Going around the forest separated by the swamp on the opposite side, the area around the foot of Mt. Yatsugatake stretched out endlessly before my eyes.Ahead, close to the edge of the forest, lay a long and narrow village with sloping cultivated land.The buildings of the sanatorium are located in one part of it, with several red roofs spread out like the wings of a bird.Although it has become very small, it is still clear at a glance.
Since the early morning, I don't know where I have gone or how I have walked. I just let my feet go forward, immersing myself in my own thinking, wandering from this forest to that forest.But now, under the clear and clear autumn sky, the small shadow of the sanatorium suddenly broke into my field of vision unexpectedly.At that moment, I felt as if I suddenly woke up from the blur attached to myself. I was able to get rid of the strangeness of being in that building, surrounded by countless patients, and spending every day doing nothing. Get out and think for yourself.The creative desire that has been rushing in my body since just now is constantly urging me.So I turned the wonderful days we spent here into a very sad and peaceful story. "...Setsuko, until now, I don't think two people can love like this. And I also..."
My dream, over the various things we have experienced, sometimes flies quickly, sometimes stops motionless in a certain place, and is always hovering.Although I was far away from Setsuko, during this period of time I still had a heart-to-heart conversation with her and heard her answer.Our stories with these, like the essence of life, are endless.Then before I knew it, that story would come to life in its own right, away from me, to develop at its own will.I, who always stagnate somewhere, will be left where I am.As if the story itself expected such an outcome, the sad death of the heroine who was seriously ill was fabricated—a girl who had a premonition that her body would be annihilated, but still tried her best to make people happy, and lived a noble life—was held in the arms of her lover In the corner, the girl who grieved for the grief of the living, while she herself passed away happily——the image of this girl, as if drawn in the sky, clearly emerged...
"In order to make their love more pure, the man persuaded the sick girl to go to the sanatorium in the mountains. But death gradually threatened them, and the man gradually doubted the happiness they wanted, even if it was completely obtained, But is it really something that can satisfy themselves?——But the girl, in the pain of death, was grateful to the man for protecting her until the end, so she died of illness contentedly. Because the man helped such a noble person, he was finally able to Believe in each other's little happiness..."
The ending of this story seems to be lurking somewhere, waiting for me.Suddenly, however, the image of the dying girl hit me with unexpected intensity.Waking up as if from a nightmare, I was overwhelmed by unspeakable terror and shame.In order to free my body from this dream, I immediately stood up from the bare roots of the beech on which I had been sitting.
The sun has risen high in the sky.Mountains, forests, villages, fields—all of these are peacefully presented in the autumn sunlight.Even in the sanatorium buildings that look small from a distance, everything is repeating habitually day after day.Suddenly, among those unfamiliar people, the lonely figure of Setsuko, who had been abandoned from her usual habits and listlessly waited for me, came to my mind.I was suddenly worried about her, and hurried down the mountain road.
I made my way back to the nursing home through the woods behind.Then detour to the balcony and come to the innermost ward.Setsuko didn't notice me at all, lying on the bed as usual, combing her hair with her fingers, while looking at the sky with sad eyes.I was about to knock on the window with my finger, but gave up immediately and just stared at her intently, motionless.
Her expression seemed to be threatened by some kind but she tried her best to tolerate it.That look made one feel that even she herself was not aware of the dull expression she was showing... Looking at this expression that I had never seen before, I felt my heart being tightly grasped...Suddenly, her His face brightened, he raised his face, and even smiled.She found me.
I walked into the ward from the balcony and approached her.
"What do you think?"
"Nothing..." she replied in a voice that didn't sound like her.
Then I said nothing more, and remained silent in a gloomy mood.In an intimate voice that seemed to have found her usual self, she said:
"Where have you been? It's been a long time."
"Opposite." I casually pointed to the distant forest directly opposite the balcony.
"Ah, going to a place like that...how is your job?"
"Well, well..." After I replied very coldly, I returned to the previous silence for quite a while.Then I suddenly asked her with a slightly raised voice, "Are you satisfied with your current life?"
She hesitated a little at such an abrupt question.Then he turned his head and stared at me, as if wanting to convince me, nodded and asked:
"Why would you ask me such a question?"
"I have always felt that my current life is the result of my willfulness. Such things must be taken seriously. In this way, you also..."
"That kind of talk really annoys me!" she interrupted eagerly. "It's capricious to say that."
However, I still looked like I couldn't be satisfied with these words.She stared shyly at my depression for a long time, and finally, as if she couldn't bear it anymore, she opened her mouth and said:
"I'm so satisfied because I'm here, don't you understand? No matter how poor my body is, I never once thought of going home at that time. If you disappear from my side, I really I really don’t know what will become of me... Just like just now, when you were away for a while, I thought at first that the later you came back, the greater the joy you would bring me, so I could barely hold on. But—— When I thought you would come back, you still didn't come back, which made me extremely uneasy. So, this room with you is always there, and I don't know why it is full of strangeness. I am so scared that I even want to escape Leaving this room... However, after thinking about the words you said, I gradually calmed down. You once said this to me——waiting for a long time in the future, if I recall our current life, there should be something How wonderful."
She finished the sentence in a gradually hoarse voice, and then looked at me with the corner of her mouth curled up in a manner that could not be regarded as a smile.
As I listened to her words, I couldn't help but feel sad.But I was worried about being touched by her, so I walked lightly to the balcony.Then, on the balcony, I gazed at the surrounding scenery seriously.Similar to the early summer evenings that I once thought described our bliss thoroughly—but very different from the autumn morning sun, with a colder, deeper glow.It was very similar to the sense of happiness at that time, but what I could feel more was an indescribable feeling that was becoming more and more heart-wrenching, filling my whole body...
(End of this chapter)
The train we took climbed mountains and ridges several times, flew along deep valleys, and took a long time to cross the vast highlands full of vineyards, and then gradually drove to the mountainous area.During this seemingly endless and tiresome climbing period, the sky became more and more low. Just now, it looked like a dark cloud locked in a ball. on our eyelids.The air also became bone-chilling.I turned up the collar of my blouse, and looked anxiously at Setsuko's face, whose body was completely buried in the shawl and whose eyes were closed.This face is full of fatigue, but more excited.Occasionally, she would open her eyes and stare blankly at me, and at first we would look at each other with smiling eyes.From then on, the eyes that looked at each other were tainted with anxiety, and they immediately moved away the moment they touched each other.Finally she closed her eyes tightly again.
"I always feel cold, is it snowing?"
"In April like this, will it snow?"
"Well, there is no guarantee that there will be no snow in this area."
Although it was only around three o'clock in the afternoon, it was completely dark outside the window.I looked out of the window and saw countless rows of leafless larches interspersed with dark fir trees.I noticed that the train had passed the foot of Mount Yatsugatake, but I still couldn't see the shadow of the mountain that should have appeared...
The train stopped at a little station in the foothills that looked like a storage shed.We were greeted at the station by an old handyman in overalls emblazoned with the logo "High Altitude Sanatorium."
There was an old car waiting for a long time in front of the station, I walked over with my arm supporting Setsuko.I felt her staggering in my arms, but I pretended not to notice.
"are you tired?"
"Not tired."
The few people who got out of the car with us, who seemed to be locals, whispered around us.But after we changed cars, those people got mixed up with other villagers unconsciously, became indistinguishable, and disappeared in the village.
The car we took passed through a small village connected by a row of dilapidated huts. When we arrived at the uneven slope at the foot of Mount Yatsugatake that stretched into the distance, we saw a red roof planted with miscellaneous trees behind it. , A tall building with several annexes.
"That's where it is?" I said to myself, and my body felt the car body tilting.
Setsuko raised her face slightly, stared blankly at the nursing home with slightly worried eyes.
After entering the nursing home, we were assigned to room [-] on the second floor of the ward building which is the innermost one with the miscellaneous forest behind it.After a brief examination, Setsuko received an order to lie down on the hospital bed immediately.In the ward with linoleum on the floor, all the beds, tables and chairs were painted white—other than that, there were only a few suitcases brought by the handyman just now.When there were only the two of us in the room, I couldn't calm down my anxiety for a long time, and I didn't want to go into the narrow side room specially assigned to the escort. I just frequently glanced at this room that seemed to have no cover, and approached the window many times, Keep an eye out for changes in the weather.The wind dragged the heavy clouds with difficulty, and occasionally there was a sharp sound from the weeds behind.I once pretended to be cold and went to the balcony.The balcony has no partition and leads directly to the next ward.Because no one was there, I didn't take it seriously, walked over and peeked into the wards.I happened to be counting to the fourth ward in the past, looking through the half-open window, I saw a patient who was resting.I quickly turned back.
Finally turned on the lights.Then we ate the dinner brought by the nurse face to face.It was the first time dining with just the two of us, and it seemed a little deserted.During the meal, since it was completely dark outside, I didn't pay special attention. I just felt that the surroundings suddenly became quiet, and I don't know when it was snowflakes.
I stood up, closed the half-open window until there was only a line left, put my face close to the glass, and stared at the snowflakes without moving until the glass was foggy with my breath.Then I walked away from the window, turned my head to Setsuko and said, "Hey, why are you..."
She was still lying on the bed like that, looking up at my face while hesitating to speak, and put her finger on her lips again, as if to stop herself from saying anything to me.
Located at the foot of Yatsugatake Mountain, the wide, dark brown sanatorium, which is steep to gentle, stands side by side with several annex buildings, facing south.The foothills slanted and stretched forward, and the two or three small mountain villages on it also slanted, and finally they were completely surrounded by countless black pine trees, and disappeared into the valley beyond the sight.
Looking from the south-facing balcony of the sanatorium, one can see the sloping mountain villages and the brown farming land at a glance.On the boundless pine forest that closely surrounds the village, if it is a sunny day, you can still see the Southern Alps stretching from south to west and their two or three branches, appearing and disappearing in the surging sea of clouds.
The morning after arriving at the nursing home, I awoke in the side room allotted to me.Looking out from the small window frame, the blue sky is blue, and several snow-white peaks like cockscombs seem to jump out of the atmosphere suddenly, unexpectedly, and seem to be right in front of you.The snow on the balcony and the roof that I couldn't see when I was lying on the bed, was bathed in the sudden spring sun and turned into a continuous stream of water vapor.
Maybe I overslept a little, so I hurriedly got up and went into the next ward.Setsuko was already awake at this time, wrapped in a blanket, with a shy face on her face.
"Good morning." My face was also a little hot, and I said soothingly, "Did you sleep well?"
"Yeah." She nodded to me, "I took sleeping pills last night, and I always feel a little headache."
I tried my best to make her no longer mind about those things, and energetically opened the windows and the glass door leading to the balcony.The glare of the sun blinds the eyes for a moment.After my eyes gradually adapted to the light, I saw snow-covered balconies, roofs, fields, and even light water vapor rising from the trees.
"I also had a ridiculous dream. The dream..." she said behind my back.
I realized immediately that she was trying to say the unexplainable.On such occasions, her voice is slightly hoarse.
This time it's my turn to turn around, put my finger on my lips, and signal her not to speak...
Soon the head nurse came in hurriedly with a friendly smile.The head nurse goes around the wards one by one every morning and visits the patients one by one.
"Did you rest well last night?" the head nurse asked kindly.
Setsuko nodded honestly without saying a word.
The life in this kind of sanatorium in the mountains naturally has a special humanity that ordinary people seem to be saved from a desperate situation. I began to vaguely realize that I also possess this unfamiliar humanity. It was not long after I was admitted to the hospital , When the dean asked me to go to the consultation room and show me the X-rays from Setsuko's disease department.
In order to let me see clearly, the dean took me to the window so that the sunlight could pass through the base plate of the X-ray film.He explained one by one: several white ribs on the right chest were clearly visible, but a rib too large to be seen was formed on the left chest, which was like an inconceivable black flower-like lesion.
"The lesion is unexpectedly large... I didn't expect it to become so serious... If this is the case, it is probably the second most severe disease in the nursing home..."
The dean’s words only left a buzzing in my ears, and I was like a person who lost the ability to think, only clearly sending the image of the incredible black flower I saw just now to the realm of consciousness, as if it As if it had nothing to do with those words, he left the examination room.The white-clothed nurses passing by me, the naked patients sunbathing on the surrounding balconies, the noise in the ward, and the chirping of birds all passed in front of me without any connection.
I finally stepped into the innermost ward building. When I climbed the stairs to the second floor where our ward is located, the moment my mechanical steps relaxed, a continuous dry cough came from a ward in front of the stairs. Voice.This voice came to the ear, it sounded so strange, it made people feel displeased immediately.
"Hey, there are patients here too?" I was thinking this, while staring blankly at the number on the door: NO.17.
Thus began our extraordinary love life.
Since Setsuko was admitted to the hospital, she has been asked to be quiet, so she has been lying on the bed.In this way, compared with trying to get out of bed as long as she was healthy before being hospitalized, now she looks more like a patient.However, the condition itself did not see any deterioration, and the doctors seemed to regard her as a patient who could be cured quickly. "In this way, the disease can be caught alive." The dean also joked.
During this period, the season suddenly advances rapidly, as if to make up for the slow passage of time before.Spring and summer are coming almost at the same time.Every morning, what wakes us up is the song of the yellow warbler and the cuckoo.For almost a whole day afterwards, the fresh green of the surrounding forest came from all directions, and the ward was completely dyed in such a refreshing color.In those days, even the white clouds gushing out of the mountains in the morning and returning to the mountains at dusk could be seen.
I recalled the days when we were first together, they were almost inseparable from those days when I was beside Setsuko's pillow, because of the similarity of time to each other, because of the simplicity of the charm, I found that they have become almost hard to tell who is who. who comes first.
Nevertheless, it is better to say that in the process of repeatedly living those similar days, we have completely withdrawn from time without knowing it.Therefore, in every day that is free from time, no matter how small and trivial things in our daily life, each one has a charm that is completely different from what it has been so far.There is a person next to me who exudes a warm, fragrant fragrance, the slight shortness of breath, the softness of holding my hand, the smile, and the usual ordinary conversations-if all the above things are removed , then the days will be monotonous and empty.But—the essence of our so-called human life is nothing more than this.I'm sure it's all because of the simplicity of it all, and the satisfaction I've had with this woman.
Speaking of the only incident these days, she sometimes has a fever.It would indeed debilitate her body.But we also live those days more carefully and slowly, like tasting the forbidden fruit, savoring the charm of those things that are unchanging and repeated every day.Therefore, our happiness in life, which is slightly tinged with death, was completely guaranteed at that time.
One evening, from the balcony, and Kyoko from the bed, I gazed at the sunset that was about to sink into the shade of the mountains, and the afterglow sprinkled on us without distinction.The peaks, hills, pine forests, and mountain fields in this area are half colored with bright red, while the other half is slowly eroded by uncertain gray.As if thinking of the forest by accident, the birds would suddenly fly in a parabolic trajectory towards the top of the forest. ——I have long been accustomed to the scenery of the area that can be produced in an instant in the early summer evening.We ourselves dare not hope that, except for this moment, we can have such a full sense of happiness.I imagine that, after a long, long time, whenever I see such a beautiful twilight again and revive my memory at this time, I will definitely find that this is the complete picture of our happiness.
"What are you thinking?" Setsuko behind me finally spoke.
"I was thinking how wonderful it would be to recall our lives in the far future."
"Perhaps it is!" she agreed with me, responding with great pleasure.
Then we were speechless again, looking at the same scenery again.At this moment, I suddenly felt that I was looking at the scenery so engrossed, but it seemed that I was not myself.A strange and boundless confusion, almost irresistible, and at the same time, I don't know why it hurts.At this time, I felt something like a deep sigh came from behind, but the sigh seemed to be my own.To be sure, I turned to her.
"Then now..." She looked straight back at me and said in a slightly hoarse voice.
But as soon as she said this, she hesitated again.Then, suddenly, in a decidedly different tone from what she had hitherto, she added, "It would be great to live like this forever!"
"You're talking like that again!" I yelled in a low, anxious voice.
"I'm sorry." She replied curtly, turning her face away from me.
The emotions that had been unknown until just now seemed to be gradually turning into a kind of harshness.I turned my gaze to the direction of the mountain again, but the unique beauty that was born on the scenery at that moment has disappeared at this moment.
She called me that evening as I was going to bed in the adjoining side room.
"I'm really sorry just now."
"It doesn't matter anymore."
"I, I planned to talk about other things at that time, but... I didn't pay attention, but I said something like that."
"So, what are you going to say at that time?"
"...You once said that only in the eyes of the dying can you truly feel the beauty of nature... I, at that time, remembered this sentence. The beautiful scenery at that time made me have such thoughts..." As she spoke, she stared at my face, as if she wanted to say something.
Maybe this sentence hurt my heart, and I couldn't help closing my eyes.A thought popped into my head suddenly.Immediately afterwards, the feeling that made me anxious and uncertain from the beginning finally emerged clearly in my heart...
"Yeah, why didn't I notice it? I did say something about the beauty of nature back then, but it was 'we' who said it. Oh, to be precise, it was just Setsuko's soul passing through my eyes , and then I saw the illusion in my style... In this way, Setsuko didn't know that what he was imagining was the last moment of his own life, and I was self-righteous in dreaming that we would all live forever..."
Unknowingly, I hesitated at this thought, and when I raised my eyes, she was still staring at me as before.Avoiding that look, I leaned over her and kissed her lightly on the forehead.I feel ashamed from the bottom of my heart.
Finally summer came.It seems to be hotter on flat ground.It was as if something was burning in the miscellaneous forest behind, and the sound of cicadas continued to sing all day long.The smell of resin wafted in through the open windows.At dusk, many patients pull their beds to the balcony in order to breathe easily outdoors.It was only when we saw them that we became aware for the first time that the number of patients in the nursing home had increased dramatically recently.But we don't care about it, and we still ignore others and continue to live in a world where there are only two of us.
These days, due to the intolerable heat, Setsuko has completely lost her appetite, and she can't sleep well at night.In order to let her take a good nap, I paid more attention than ever to the sound of footsteps in the corridor, as well as the bees and horseflies flying from the window.And I also noticed the sound of my breathing getting thicker unconsciously due to the heat, and I was worried about it.
Just holding my breath beside the patient's pillow and guarding her sleep, to me, it can be regarded as a state similar to sleep.I clearly felt the discomfort caused by her rapid and slow breathing in her sleep.My and her hearts were beating together, and the slight difficulty in breathing seemed to bother her sometimes.At that time, her hand was raised convulsively, stretched out to her throat, and made a movement as if she was going to grab her throat—I guess, did she have a nightmare?When I hesitated whether to wake her up, her painful condition disappeared immediately, and her whole expression relaxed.In this way, I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, so that I felt a kind of pleasure in her calm breathing at the moment. ——After she woke up, I kissed her hair softly, and she looked at me with tired eyes.
"You've been here all this time?"
"Ah, I squinted here for a while too."
In those nights, whenever I couldn't fall asleep anyway, I seemed to have become a long-standing habit. I always stretched my hand close to my throat in an unconscious state, imitating the movement of trying to choke it.After I suddenly realized it, I finally felt really hard to breathe.But it was quite a pleasant experience for me.
"Why do you always feel that your face is ugly recently?" One day, she looked at me more carefully and said, "Did something happen?"
"It's nothing." I'm glad she asked that. "I've always been like this, haven't I?"
"Don't stay by my patient's side all the time, it's better to take a walk for a while."
"If it's a hot day, you can avoid taking a walk... At night, it's pitch black... Besides, I walk around frequently in the nursing home every day."
In order to prevent this kind of conversation from continuing, from time to time, I used the things I met other patients in the corridor or other places every day as a topic of conversation: I often gathered in the corner of the balcony, regarded the sky as a racetrack, and imagined the flowing clouds as various Juvenile patients with animal-like shapes; patients who are always leaning on the arm of the accompanying nurse, wandering aimlessly in the corridors, patients with severe neurasthenia, who are so tall that they are frighteningly tall... and so on. listen to her.However, there is only one thing, that is, the patient in ward 17 who has never met before, and every time I pass by that ward, I will hear the chilling cough, which makes people feel uncomfortable from the bottom of my heart. I try my best to avoid it.I'm afraid that in this sanatorium, the most seriously ill patients live there... I think so.
The end of August is approaching, but the inability to sleep at night still persists.One sleepless night, we couldn't sleep (it was well past nine o'clock bedtime...).The ward building on the opposite side became noisy for some reason, and from time to time, the sound of trotting footsteps in the corridor, the nurse's deliberately lowered calls, and the sharp impact of equipment could be heard.I listened anxiously for a while.When I thought that the noise had finally quieted down, almost at the same time, the same silent noise came from each ward building, and finally there was a noise directly below us.
I have a rough idea of what is going on like a storm in the sanatorium right now.During that time, how many times have I pricked up my ears to listen to the movement of Setsuko in the next room where the lights have just been turned off, but I may not be able to sleep.Setsuko didn't seem to turn over, just lying there motionless.I also held my breath in silence, waiting for the storm to subside slowly.
In the middle of the night, it looked like the storm had finally subsided.I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, closed my eyes and took a nap for a while, but was suddenly woken up by the nervous cough that Setsuko had been trying to suppress until now in the next room, two or three times, and the cough was getting worse and worse.The coughing stopped soon, but I couldn't rest assured, so I quietly walked into the next room.In the darkness, Setsuko looked in my direction with her eyes wide open, as if frightened by being alone.Without saying a word, I approached her.
"I'm fine." She tried to smile back, speaking in a low voice that was between what I could hear and what I couldn't hear.I sat down on the edge of the bed in silence.
"Please stay here." Setsuko said to me timidly.She is not usually like this.We stayed up all night like this until dawn.
Two or three days after this incident, the summer passed quickly.
Through September, stormy showers that stop and go on and on almost without a break cause the leaves to rot before they turn yellow.Every room in the nursing home has its windows closed all day long, making it dark and gloomy.The wind often slammed the door, and there was a monotonous and heavy sound from time to time in the miscellaneous forest behind.On days when there is no wind, we listen to the sound of rain falling from the roof to the balcony all day long.On a morning when the rain curtain was like a mist, I looked at the long and narrow atrium facing the balcony from the window in confusion, and the atrium gradually became brighter.At that time, I saw a nurse walking over from the opposite side of the atrium, picking wild chrysanthemums and cosmoses blooming everywhere in the mist and light rain.I recognized her as the accompanying nurse in Ward 17.
"Ah, that patient who always had an unpleasant cough may be dying soon." I thought suddenly.Staring at the nurse who seemed to be a little excited and kept picking flowers even though she was drenched by the rain, I suddenly felt something tighten my heart. "Isn't that the most seriously ill patient here? If that guy dies, who will it be next?... Ah, it would be great if the dean didn't tell me those things."
When the nurse disappeared into the shadow of the balcony with a large bouquet of flowers in her arms, I woke up and pressed my face to the window glass.
"What are you looking at there?" Setsuko asked me on the bed.
"In this rain, a nurse has been picking flowers since just now. Who is that?"
I muttered to myself like this, and finally left from the window.
However, during that whole day, for some reason, I never looked at Setsuko's face.I can feel that Setsuko has seen all this, but deliberately pretends to be ignorant, just watching me all the time.This made my pain even deeper.
Embracing the uneasiness and fear that I couldn't tell each other, I thought over and over again, and realized that it was absolutely impossible for the two of us to keep thinking differently like this.So I tried my best to make myself forget what happened as soon as possible, but unconsciously, those things came back to my mind.In the end, I even suddenly remembered the ominous dream that Setsuko didn't tell me about that night when we first arrived at the nursing home, but because of my persistence, I suddenly remembered.Although I have been trying my best to forget about this dream, it suddenly jumped out.
——In that incredible dream, Setsuko was already a corpse, lying in a coffin.People carried the coffin across the wilderness and into the forest.She was dead, but in the coffin she could clearly see the black fir trees on the withered land in winter, and heard the quiet wind blowing through the trees... Even after waking up from the dream, she still clearly felt the So cold, still filled with the rustle of the fir trees...
After the foggy drizzle has been falling for several days, the season has completely changed.The same is true in the nursing home. If you observe carefully, you will find that the original large number of patients are leaving one by two, and only the critically ill patients who must stay in the hospital for the winter are still there.As a result, the sanatorium was once again as quiet as it was before the summer.The death of the patient in Ward 17 underscored this all the more rapidly.
One morning at the end of September, I inadvertently took a look at the misty woods behind through the window on the north side of the corridor, and saw some people that I had never seen before coming in and out in the misty woods, which made me Surprised.I tentatively asked the nurses, and they also showed a look of ignorance.So I forgot about it too.Early the next morning, however, two or three more laborers came, flickering through the mist, and felled what appeared to be chestnut trees on the edge of the hill.
On that day, I accidentally inquired about something that had not been known among the patients the day before.I heard that the emotionally unstable and neurasthenic patient hanged himself in the woods.It was only after I said this that I realized that the tall man who I saw several times a day, who was supported by the accompanying nurse and walked back and forth in the corridor, had suddenly disappeared since yesterday.
"Is it that man's turn..."
I, who had become neurotic due to the death of the patient in Ward No. 17, couldn't help but sigh inwardly because of the unexpected deaths that happened one after another in less than a week.Such a tragic death, of course, made me feel very uncomfortable, so that I deliberately didn't feel the sadness that I should have originally.
"Even if her condition is second only to the patient who died, she may not necessarily die." I said to myself pretending to be relaxed.
Only two or three chestnut trees in the rear woods were felled, and the middle part of the felled site was dug up for no apparent reason.The small laborers worked non-stop, began to dig the edge of the hill, transported the soil to the open space on the north side of the ward building that sloped rapidly and steeply from there, and filled up the slope in that area.There someone is working on remodeling the flower beds.
"Your father has sent a letter."
I took out a letter from the stack of letters sent by the nurse and handed it to Setsuko.She was still lying on the bed, and after receiving the letter, her eyes immediately shone with the unique light of a girl, and her eyes moved on the letter.
"Oh, Dad is going to come here."
Setsuko's father, who is traveling, will drop by the nursing home on his way home.This is the content of the letter he sent.
It was a clear but windy day in October.Setsuko, who has lost her appetite recently due to constant bed rest, has lost a lot of weight.From that day on, she tried her best to eat, sometimes got up from the bed, and sometimes sat down for a while.A smile appeared on her face from time to time, as if she was thinking of something happy.This kind of girl's smile, I realized that it would only appear in front of my father.I let her laugh like that to keep her that way.
A few days later, one afternoon, her father came.
His appearance looked a lot older than before, the most obvious thing was that his back was more hunched.That appearance made me feel that it was the atmosphere of the hospital that made him fearful.After entering the ward, he sat next to Setsuko's pillow, which was always the place where I used to sit.Probably because of the frequent physical activities in recent days, Jiezi had a slight fever since yesterday evening. Under the doctor's order, her inner expectations fell through, and she had to obey the order and keep quiet since morning.
It was assumed that the patient was almost cured, but seeing that she was still bedridden, Setsuko's father couldn't help showing a disturbed expression.Afterwards, as if he wanted to find the reason, he carefully looked around in the ward, paying attention to every movement of the nurses, and then went to the balcony to check, everything seemed to satisfy him.During this period, he saw that the patient's cheeks were as red as a rose, but he didn't know that it was caused by fever rather than excitement, so he repeatedly emphasized: "But his face is still very good." The daughter believes that her condition has improved a lot.
I excused myself by saying that I had something to do later, and walked out of the ward, leaving the two of them alone.Not long after, I entered the ward again, only to see Setsuko standing up on the bed.The quilt she covered was covered with snack boxes and other paper packages brought by her father.Those were the things she liked as a girl and what her father thought she would still like now.When she saw me, she immediately blushed like a girl who was caught playing a prank. She tidied up the boxes and paper bags and put them aside.
I felt a little cautious, so I sat on a chair by the window a little far away from them.The two of them continued talking about the topic that seemed to be interrupted by me in a lower voice than before.Most of the people and things mentioned in the conversation were unfamiliar to me.There was something in it that seemed to have touched her slightly, but this touch was beyond my comprehension.
I imagined the very pleasant conversation between the two of them as a painting to appreciate.I thus saw that extreme girlish brilliance reappeared in the expression she showed her father in the dialogue and the cadence of her tone of voice.And her happy appearance like a child makes me fantasize about her girlhood that I don't know...
After a while, when it was just the two of us, I approached her and whispered softly as if playing, "I don't know why, today you are like a rose-colored girl I don't know."
"That's not the case!" She buried her cheeks in her hands like a little girl.
Setsuko's father stayed for two days and then left.
Before setting off, Setsuko's father asked me to lead the way and walked around the nursing home a few times.However, the purpose of doing this is actually to facilitate the two of us to talk in private.It was a cloudless and clear day, and I pointed to Mt. Yatsugatake, whose brown ridge had become extremely clear, but Setsuko’s father just raised his eyes and continued to babble endlessly:
"Her body may not be able to adapt to the environment here, right? Although she has been recuperating for more than half a year, it seems that it will take time to get better..."
"Well... the weather in every place this summer seems to be bad. And I heard that the sanatorium in the mountains is best to wait until winter..."
"If she can make it through winter, maybe it's okay...but from the looks of it, she might not be able to make it through winter..."
"But she herself had hope for winter." I was anxious because I didn't know how to make Setsuko's father understand that the loneliness of this mountain gave birth to our happiness.However, considering how many sacrifices he has made for us, I really have something to say but can't say it, so I have to continue the conversation between each other. "Well...it's not easy for you to come to the mountains, why don't you stay for a while longer?"
"...But, will you stay with her until winter?"
"Of course. Needless to say, I will definitely accompany her."
"That's really embarrassing... Are you still working?"
"No……"
"Then you can't keep thinking about taking care of the patients. A little work is still necessary."
"Well, I will do something more or less in the future..." I said evasively.
—You're right, I haven't thought about my work for quite a long time.Now, no matter what, I have to start working as much as possible.
As soon as I thought about it, my emotions became high.After that we were silent, standing on the hill, looking up at the sky.Countless scaly clouds have spread from the western sky to the center of the sky at some point.
After a while, we walked back to the hospital from the rear through the miscellaneous forest where the leaves had all turned yellow.There were still two or three small workers digging the mound that day. When we passed by, I said calmly, "It is said that a flower bed is going to be built here."
At dusk, I took Setsuko's father all the way to the parking lot.When she came back, she saw the patient lying on her side on the bed, and the violent cough made it difficult for her to breathe.Coughing so violently has never happened before.When the cough subsided slightly, I asked her:
"what happened?"
"It doesn't matter...it will be fine in a while." The patient can only answer me simply, "Please give me a glass of water."
I poured the water from the long-necked water bottle into the cup and brought it to Setsuko's mouth.She drank all the water in one breath and temporarily calmed down.But this kind of calm only lasted for a while, and the cough was more violent than before, attacking her again.I saw her body trembling in pain, almost falling out of the bed, but I had no choice but to keep asking:
"Shall I call the nurse?"
"..."
In the moment of peace after coughing, she still kept her body trembling due to pain, covered her face with her hands, and nodded in agreement.
I hurried to call the nurse.The nurse ran ahead and left me behind.When I followed behind and entered the ward, the nurse was holding Setsuko from behind with both hands, adjusting her body to a slightly relaxed posture.However, Setsuko didn't seem to notice it, her eyes were wide open in a daze, and the coughing attack should have stopped temporarily.
The nurse slowly and gradually let go of her hand.
"The cough has stopped... Please stay in the current state and don't move around." The nurse said, tidying up the messed up blanket. "I'm asking someone to give you an injection."
As the nurse walked out of the ward, facing me who didn't know where to stand and finally stood by the door, she whispered softly, "I coughed up some bloody sputum."
At this time, I was close to her pillow.
She opened her eyes numbly, but it looked like she was asleep.As I helped her straighten up the curly hair like small swirls scattered on her pale forehead, I stroked her cold sweaty forehead with my hand.As if she finally felt my warm presence, a charming smile appeared on her lips.
The days of absolute silence continued.
The windows of the ward were all covered by the yellow pergola, and the room became dark.The nurses could only walk slowly on tiptoe as much as possible.I was almost glued to the patient's pillow, and I even took care of the night care by myself.Sometimes Setsuko would face me, as if she had something to say.But in order not to let her speak, I immediately put my finger on my mouth.
Such silence dragged each of us into our own thoughts.However, what the other is thinking, we can feel very painfully and clearly with each other.As I contemplated the transformation of the part of Setsuko's sacrifice for me into something visible to the naked eye in this incident, I clearly sensed that Setsuko had broken me in a flash because of herself. Regret what the two have cultivated carefully and carefully so far.
However, this kind of feeling that I don't regard my own sacrifice as a sacrifice, but only blames my own rashness, makes me very worried.I regard this kind of sacrifice as the price that the patient should pay for it. Just on the hospital bed that will become the bed of death at some point, I will taste the joy of life with the patient - we firmly believe that there is nothing else that can give us more happiness Something—is it really something that satisfies us?Is not what we now consider to be happiness more fleeting and more capricious than we believe it to be?
Staying with me all night made me quite tired, and I tossed and turned in my thoughts beside the sleeping patient.Something seemed to threaten our happiness, I felt uncomfortably.
But that crisis dissipated after only a week.
One morning, the nurse finally removed the awning from the ward, opened the windows, and left.The autumn sun shines in dazzlingly. "It's so comfortable!" Setsuko said on the bed after waking up.
I was flipping through the newspaper beside her pillow, thinking to myself: The things that had a great impact on life disappeared without a trace, as if they had nothing to do with me at all.While looking at her like this, he couldn't help but say in a mocking tone:
"It's better to be so excited when your father comes."
Her face flushed slightly, and she accepted my teasing frankly.
"Next time my father plans to come, I will pretend to be ignorant."
"You can do it..."
We were joking with each other, we comforted each other's feelings, and together we were like children, pushing all the responsibilities to her father.
Then, without deliberation, we take everything that happened this week, with a relaxed mind, as nothing more than a mistake, and until just now, the crisis that is not only invading our body, but also invading our spirit, They were all thrown away without incident.At least that's how we see it.
One night, I read a book next to her.Suddenly, I closed the book and walked to the window, thinking for a while.Then he came back to her again, picked up the book and started reading again.
"What's wrong?" She looked up at me.
"Nothing." I replied casually.For about a few seconds, my attention was attracted by the book, but finally I opened my mouth and said:
"I haven't done much work since I got here. So I think I'll have to find some work."
"Yes, work is necessary. Father is also worried about it." She said solemnly, "Please don't just worry about my business."
"No, you need to think more about your affairs." While sorting out the vague outline of a certain novel that came to my mind at that time, I seemed to mutter to myself:
"I'm going to write a novel about you. As for other things, I don't think about it at the moment. We give each other happiness in this way-the joy of rebirth that begins from this place that everyone thinks ends- Make this difficult for others to understand, only what we have, and transform it into something more real and slightly formed, understand?"
"Understood." She followed my thoughts as if she followed her own, and replied without thinking.But then he curled his lips and said with a smile:
"Write my words, just let go and write." These words seemed a little perfunctory.
But I still accept this statement bluntly.
"Ah, of course I will let go and write... But this work must rely on your strong cooperation."
"How can I help?"
"Well, you, I hope you can be happy from head to toe during my work, otherwise..."
Compared to thinking alone in a daze, the way two people think together makes my mind and inspiration more active.I was like a spring of literary thinking after being suppressed, and I kept pacing back and forth in the ward.
"Staying by the patient's side all the time will make you lose energy... Do you want to go out for a walk?"
"Well, I'm going to work!" I replied with sparkling eyes and energy. "Naturally a walk is also necessary."
I get out of that forest.Going around the forest separated by the swamp on the opposite side, the area around the foot of Mt. Yatsugatake stretched out endlessly before my eyes.Ahead, close to the edge of the forest, lay a long and narrow village with sloping cultivated land.The buildings of the sanatorium are located in one part of it, with several red roofs spread out like the wings of a bird.Although it has become very small, it is still clear at a glance.
Since the early morning, I don't know where I have gone or how I have walked. I just let my feet go forward, immersing myself in my own thinking, wandering from this forest to that forest.But now, under the clear and clear autumn sky, the small shadow of the sanatorium suddenly broke into my field of vision unexpectedly.At that moment, I felt as if I suddenly woke up from the blur attached to myself. I was able to get rid of the strangeness of being in that building, surrounded by countless patients, and spending every day doing nothing. Get out and think for yourself.The creative desire that has been rushing in my body since just now is constantly urging me.So I turned the wonderful days we spent here into a very sad and peaceful story. "...Setsuko, until now, I don't think two people can love like this. And I also..."
My dream, over the various things we have experienced, sometimes flies quickly, sometimes stops motionless in a certain place, and is always hovering.Although I was far away from Setsuko, during this period of time I still had a heart-to-heart conversation with her and heard her answer.Our stories with these, like the essence of life, are endless.Then before I knew it, that story would come to life in its own right, away from me, to develop at its own will.I, who always stagnate somewhere, will be left where I am.As if the story itself expected such an outcome, the sad death of the heroine who was seriously ill was fabricated—a girl who had a premonition that her body would be annihilated, but still tried her best to make people happy, and lived a noble life—was held in the arms of her lover In the corner, the girl who grieved for the grief of the living, while she herself passed away happily——the image of this girl, as if drawn in the sky, clearly emerged...
"In order to make their love more pure, the man persuaded the sick girl to go to the sanatorium in the mountains. But death gradually threatened them, and the man gradually doubted the happiness they wanted, even if it was completely obtained, But is it really something that can satisfy themselves?——But the girl, in the pain of death, was grateful to the man for protecting her until the end, so she died of illness contentedly. Because the man helped such a noble person, he was finally able to Believe in each other's little happiness..."
The ending of this story seems to be lurking somewhere, waiting for me.Suddenly, however, the image of the dying girl hit me with unexpected intensity.Waking up as if from a nightmare, I was overwhelmed by unspeakable terror and shame.In order to free my body from this dream, I immediately stood up from the bare roots of the beech on which I had been sitting.
The sun has risen high in the sky.Mountains, forests, villages, fields—all of these are peacefully presented in the autumn sunlight.Even in the sanatorium buildings that look small from a distance, everything is repeating habitually day after day.Suddenly, among those unfamiliar people, the lonely figure of Setsuko, who had been abandoned from her usual habits and listlessly waited for me, came to my mind.I was suddenly worried about her, and hurried down the mountain road.
I made my way back to the nursing home through the woods behind.Then detour to the balcony and come to the innermost ward.Setsuko didn't notice me at all, lying on the bed as usual, combing her hair with her fingers, while looking at the sky with sad eyes.I was about to knock on the window with my finger, but gave up immediately and just stared at her intently, motionless.
Her expression seemed to be threatened by some kind but she tried her best to tolerate it.That look made one feel that even she herself was not aware of the dull expression she was showing... Looking at this expression that I had never seen before, I felt my heart being tightly grasped...Suddenly, her His face brightened, he raised his face, and even smiled.She found me.
I walked into the ward from the balcony and approached her.
"What do you think?"
"Nothing..." she replied in a voice that didn't sound like her.
Then I said nothing more, and remained silent in a gloomy mood.In an intimate voice that seemed to have found her usual self, she said:
"Where have you been? It's been a long time."
"Opposite." I casually pointed to the distant forest directly opposite the balcony.
"Ah, going to a place like that...how is your job?"
"Well, well..." After I replied very coldly, I returned to the previous silence for quite a while.Then I suddenly asked her with a slightly raised voice, "Are you satisfied with your current life?"
She hesitated a little at such an abrupt question.Then he turned his head and stared at me, as if wanting to convince me, nodded and asked:
"Why would you ask me such a question?"
"I have always felt that my current life is the result of my willfulness. Such things must be taken seriously. In this way, you also..."
"That kind of talk really annoys me!" she interrupted eagerly. "It's capricious to say that."
However, I still looked like I couldn't be satisfied with these words.She stared shyly at my depression for a long time, and finally, as if she couldn't bear it anymore, she opened her mouth and said:
"I'm so satisfied because I'm here, don't you understand? No matter how poor my body is, I never once thought of going home at that time. If you disappear from my side, I really I really don’t know what will become of me... Just like just now, when you were away for a while, I thought at first that the later you came back, the greater the joy you would bring me, so I could barely hold on. But—— When I thought you would come back, you still didn't come back, which made me extremely uneasy. So, this room with you is always there, and I don't know why it is full of strangeness. I am so scared that I even want to escape Leaving this room... However, after thinking about the words you said, I gradually calmed down. You once said this to me——waiting for a long time in the future, if I recall our current life, there should be something How wonderful."
She finished the sentence in a gradually hoarse voice, and then looked at me with the corner of her mouth curled up in a manner that could not be regarded as a smile.
As I listened to her words, I couldn't help but feel sad.But I was worried about being touched by her, so I walked lightly to the balcony.Then, on the balcony, I gazed at the surrounding scenery seriously.Similar to the early summer evenings that I once thought described our bliss thoroughly—but very different from the autumn morning sun, with a colder, deeper glow.It was very similar to the sense of happiness at that time, but what I could feel more was an indescribable feeling that was becoming more and more heart-wrenching, filling my whole body...
(End of this chapter)
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