Read Online The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Yukio Mishima
Ads: Link
with contrition.
Quickly tidying her clothing, she bowed before her husband’s memorial tablet.
The path the boy followed up to the lighthouse had been turned into a mountain torrent by the rain, washing away his footprints. The tops of the pine trees howled. His rubber boots made walking difficult and, as he carried no umbrella, he could feel the rain running down his close-cropped hair and into his collar. But he kept on climbing, his face to the storm. He was not defying the storm; instead, in exactly the same way that he felt a quiet happiness when surrounded by the quietness of nature, his feelings now were in complete concord with nature’s present fury.
He looked down through the pine thicket at the sea, where countless whitecaps were tearing in. From time to time even the high rocks at the tip of the promontory were covered by the waves.
Passing Woman’s Slope, Shinji could see the one-storiedlighthouse residence kneeling in the storm, all its windows closed, its curtains drawn fast. He climbed on up the stone steps toward the lighthouse.
There was no sign of a watchman within the fast-shut watchhouse. Inside the glass doors, which streamed with driven rain and rattled ceaselessly, there stood the telescope, turned blankly toward the closed windows. There were papers scattered from the desk by the drafts, a pipe, a regulation Coast Guard cap, the calendar of a steamship company showing a gaudy painting of a new ship, and on the same wall with the calendar a pair of drafting triangles hanging nonchalantly from a nail.
Shinji arrived at the observation tower drenched to the skin. The storm was all the more fearful at such a deserted place. Here, almost at the summit of the island, with nothing to intervene between naked sky and earth, the storm could be seen reigning in supreme dominion.
The ruined building, its windows gaping wide in three directions, gave not the slightest protection against the wind. Rather, it seemed as though the tower were inviting the tempest into its rooms, and there abandoning it to the revel. The immense view of the Pacific from the second-floor windows was reduced in sweep by the rain clouds, but the way the waves, raging and ripping out their white linings on every hand, faded off into the encircling black clouds made the turbulent expanse seem instead to be boundless.
The boy went back down the outside staircase and peered into the room on the ground floor where he had come before to get his mother’s firewood. It had apparently been used originally as a storehouse, and its windows were so tiny that only one of them had been broken.He saw that it offered ideal shelter. The mountain of pine needles that had been there before had apparently been carried away bale by bale until now only four or five bales remained in a far corner.
“It’s like a jail,” Shinji thought, noticing the moldy odor.
No sooner had he taken shelter from the storm than he was suddenly conscious of a wet-cold feeling. He sneezed hugely. Taking off his raincoat, he felt in the pockets of his trousers for the matches that life at sea had taught him always to carry with him.
Before he found the matches his fingers touched the shell he had picked up on the beach that morning. He took it out now and held it up toward the light of a window. The pink shell was gleaming lustrously, as though it might have been still wet with sea water. Satisfied, the boy returned the shell to his pocket.
He gathered dried pine needles and brushwood from a broken bale, heaped them on the cement floor, and with much difficulty succeeded in lighting one of the damp matches. Then for a time the room was completely filled with smoke, until at last the dismal smoldering broke into a tiny flame and began to flicker.
The boy took off his sodden trousers and hung them near the fire to dry. Then he sat down before the fire and clasped his knees. Now there was nothing to do but wait.…
Shinji waited. Without the slightest uneasiness
Quickly tidying her clothing, she bowed before her husband’s memorial tablet.
The path the boy followed up to the lighthouse had been turned into a mountain torrent by the rain, washing away his footprints. The tops of the pine trees howled. His rubber boots made walking difficult and, as he carried no umbrella, he could feel the rain running down his close-cropped hair and into his collar. But he kept on climbing, his face to the storm. He was not defying the storm; instead, in exactly the same way that he felt a quiet happiness when surrounded by the quietness of nature, his feelings now were in complete concord with nature’s present fury.
He looked down through the pine thicket at the sea, where countless whitecaps were tearing in. From time to time even the high rocks at the tip of the promontory were covered by the waves.
Passing Woman’s Slope, Shinji could see the one-storiedlighthouse residence kneeling in the storm, all its windows closed, its curtains drawn fast. He climbed on up the stone steps toward the lighthouse.
There was no sign of a watchman within the fast-shut watchhouse. Inside the glass doors, which streamed with driven rain and rattled ceaselessly, there stood the telescope, turned blankly toward the closed windows. There were papers scattered from the desk by the drafts, a pipe, a regulation Coast Guard cap, the calendar of a steamship company showing a gaudy painting of a new ship, and on the same wall with the calendar a pair of drafting triangles hanging nonchalantly from a nail.
Shinji arrived at the observation tower drenched to the skin. The storm was all the more fearful at such a deserted place. Here, almost at the summit of the island, with nothing to intervene between naked sky and earth, the storm could be seen reigning in supreme dominion.
The ruined building, its windows gaping wide in three directions, gave not the slightest protection against the wind. Rather, it seemed as though the tower were inviting the tempest into its rooms, and there abandoning it to the revel. The immense view of the Pacific from the second-floor windows was reduced in sweep by the rain clouds, but the way the waves, raging and ripping out their white linings on every hand, faded off into the encircling black clouds made the turbulent expanse seem instead to be boundless.
The boy went back down the outside staircase and peered into the room on the ground floor where he had come before to get his mother’s firewood. It had apparently been used originally as a storehouse, and its windows were so tiny that only one of them had been broken.He saw that it offered ideal shelter. The mountain of pine needles that had been there before had apparently been carried away bale by bale until now only four or five bales remained in a far corner.
“It’s like a jail,” Shinji thought, noticing the moldy odor.
No sooner had he taken shelter from the storm than he was suddenly conscious of a wet-cold feeling. He sneezed hugely. Taking off his raincoat, he felt in the pockets of his trousers for the matches that life at sea had taught him always to carry with him.
Before he found the matches his fingers touched the shell he had picked up on the beach that morning. He took it out now and held it up toward the light of a window. The pink shell was gleaming lustrously, as though it might have been still wet with sea water. Satisfied, the boy returned the shell to his pocket.
He gathered dried pine needles and brushwood from a broken bale, heaped them on the cement floor, and with much difficulty succeeded in lighting one of the damp matches. Then for a time the room was completely filled with smoke, until at last the dismal smoldering broke into a tiny flame and began to flicker.
The boy took off his sodden trousers and hung them near the fire to dry. Then he sat down before the fire and clasped his knees. Now there was nothing to do but wait.…
Shinji waited. Without the slightest uneasiness
Similar Books
