Read Online Thirst for Love by Yukio Mishima - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Yukio Mishima
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preparations. When Etsuko finished packing the sushi lunches, she looked through the lattice window at Asako’s daughter, who was playing on the flagstone floor of the entranceway. She was dressed, in accordance with her mother’s terrible taste, in a bright yellow sweater the color of mustard flowers. What was she doing—this squatting girl of eight, eyes fixed on the ground? There on the flagstones was an iron teakettle, steam rising from it. Nobuko was staring intently at something moving between the edge of the stone floor and the dirt in which it was laid.
It was a swarm of ants, floating about in the hot water that had been poured into their nest. Countless ants writhing in the boiling water that welled from the aperture of the nest. And that eight-year-old child, her bobbed head thrust deep between her knees, was watching them silently and intently. She held both hands against her face, oblivious to the hair that slanted down over her cheeks.
As she watched this, Etsuko felt refreshed. Until the mother noticed that the kettle was gone and called to her daughter through the kitchen door, Etsuko watched Nobuko’s small back with its taut yellow sweater as if it were her own at some earlier time. From this time on she felt something slightly like a mother’s love toward this child ugly with her mother’s features.
Just before they left, there was a little flurry as to who would stay at home. In the end, however, Miyo bowed to Etsuko’s sensible suggestion that she remain. Etsuko was amazed that her rather offhand expression of opinion on the subject was followed. There was, however, nothing very complicated about it. Yakichi simply did what she wished.
As the family fell into single file on the path that led from their property to the village nearby, Etsuko was again rudely shaken by awareness that the family seemed to be unconsciously guided by an annoyingly sharp sense of social stratification. It was an acute, animal instinct, like that by which one worker ant knows simply by feel or smell another worker ant from a different nest, or the queen ant knows a worker ant, or, in turn, the worker knows the queen. They couldn’t have found out . . . There was as yet no evidence by which they might . . . In the line the household group formed, however, all unwittingly, Yakichi came first, then Etsuko, then Kensuke, Chieko, Asako, Nobuko (her younger brother Natsuo, age five, had been left with Miyo) in order down to Saburo, carrying on his shoulder a great arabesque-pattern furoshiki filled with provisions.
They crossed an outlying section in the back of their property; it was the area now largely fallen into disuse in which Yakichi had cultivated grapes before the war. It was a patch about one fourth of an acre in size, of which about a third was taken up by small peach trees in full bloom. The rest of it was occupied by three toppling greenhouses, their glass almost all destroyed by typhoons, oil drums filled with stagnant rainwater, grapevines returned to the wild . . . sunbeams falling on dry straw.
“This is terrible, isn’t it,” said Yakichi, pushing one of the posts holding up a greenhouse with his thick rattan stick. “The next time we get some money we’ll fix it up.”
“You’re always saying that, Father,” said Kensuke, “but these greenhouses will probably be like this forever.”
“We never get any money; is that what you mean?”
“Not at all,” said Kensuke, his voice picking up tone. “When you get any money, Father, it’s always too much or too little to use for repairs.”
“Now, is that so? You mean it’s either too much or too little to give you as part of your allowance.”
As they talked, they arrived at the top of a hill covered by pines in which four or five mountain cherries were mingled. There were no cherry trees of the famous blossoming varieties hereabout, so they had no choice but to spread their decorated mats under the mountain cherries, unsuitable
It was a swarm of ants, floating about in the hot water that had been poured into their nest. Countless ants writhing in the boiling water that welled from the aperture of the nest. And that eight-year-old child, her bobbed head thrust deep between her knees, was watching them silently and intently. She held both hands against her face, oblivious to the hair that slanted down over her cheeks.
As she watched this, Etsuko felt refreshed. Until the mother noticed that the kettle was gone and called to her daughter through the kitchen door, Etsuko watched Nobuko’s small back with its taut yellow sweater as if it were her own at some earlier time. From this time on she felt something slightly like a mother’s love toward this child ugly with her mother’s features.
Just before they left, there was a little flurry as to who would stay at home. In the end, however, Miyo bowed to Etsuko’s sensible suggestion that she remain. Etsuko was amazed that her rather offhand expression of opinion on the subject was followed. There was, however, nothing very complicated about it. Yakichi simply did what she wished.
As the family fell into single file on the path that led from their property to the village nearby, Etsuko was again rudely shaken by awareness that the family seemed to be unconsciously guided by an annoyingly sharp sense of social stratification. It was an acute, animal instinct, like that by which one worker ant knows simply by feel or smell another worker ant from a different nest, or the queen ant knows a worker ant, or, in turn, the worker knows the queen. They couldn’t have found out . . . There was as yet no evidence by which they might . . . In the line the household group formed, however, all unwittingly, Yakichi came first, then Etsuko, then Kensuke, Chieko, Asako, Nobuko (her younger brother Natsuo, age five, had been left with Miyo) in order down to Saburo, carrying on his shoulder a great arabesque-pattern furoshiki filled with provisions.
They crossed an outlying section in the back of their property; it was the area now largely fallen into disuse in which Yakichi had cultivated grapes before the war. It was a patch about one fourth of an acre in size, of which about a third was taken up by small peach trees in full bloom. The rest of it was occupied by three toppling greenhouses, their glass almost all destroyed by typhoons, oil drums filled with stagnant rainwater, grapevines returned to the wild . . . sunbeams falling on dry straw.
“This is terrible, isn’t it,” said Yakichi, pushing one of the posts holding up a greenhouse with his thick rattan stick. “The next time we get some money we’ll fix it up.”
“You’re always saying that, Father,” said Kensuke, “but these greenhouses will probably be like this forever.”
“We never get any money; is that what you mean?”
“Not at all,” said Kensuke, his voice picking up tone. “When you get any money, Father, it’s always too much or too little to use for repairs.”
“Now, is that so? You mean it’s either too much or too little to give you as part of your allowance.”
As they talked, they arrived at the top of a hill covered by pines in which four or five mountain cherries were mingled. There were no cherry trees of the famous blossoming varieties hereabout, so they had no choice but to spread their decorated mats under the mountain cherries, unsuitable
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