CHAPTER 56
I then began to write this letter. Being unaccustomed to writing, I have agonized over the difficulty of describing my thoughts and experiences precisely as I wanted. Time and again I almost reached the point of giving up and abandoning the effort to fulfill my promise to you. But it was useless to put down the pen and decide to stop. Within an hour, the urge to write would return. You may well attribute this simply to my nature, as someone who is meticulous about promises and obligations. I don’t deny it. Being, as you know, quite isolated from human intercourse, I have not a single truly binding obligation in my life. Whether intentionally or by nature, I have lived so as to keep such ties to an absolute minimum. Not that I am indifferent to obligation. No, I spend my days so passively because of my very sensitivity to such things—I lack the energy to withstand the toll they take on my nerves. And so once I make a promise, it distresses me deeply if I do not fulfill it. It is partly in order to avoid being distressed on account of you that I must keep taking up the pen.
Besides, I want to write. I want to write about my past, quite aside from the obligation involved. My past is my own experience—one might call it my personal property. And perhaps, being property, it could be thought a pity not to pass it on to someone else before I die. This is certainly more or less how I feel about it. But I would rather that my experience be buried with me than be passed to someone incapable of receiving it. In truth, if you did not exist, my past would have remained just that and would not become someone else’s knowledge even at second hand. Among the many millions of Japanese, it is to you alone that I want to tell the story of my past. Because you are sincere. You are serious in your desire to learn real lessons from life.
I will not hesitate to cast upon you the shadow thrown by the darkness of human life. But do not be afraid. Gaze steadfastly into this darkness, and find there the things that will be of use to you. The darkness of which I speak is a moral darkness. I was born a moral man and raised as one. My morality is probably very different from that of young people today. But different though it may be, it is my own. It is not some rented clothing I have borrowed to suit the moment. This is why I believe it will be of some use to you, a young man just starting out in life.
You and I have often argued over questions of modern thought, as I’m sure you remember. You well understand my own position on such things, I’m sure. I never felt outright contempt for your opinions, yet I could not bring myself to actually respect them. Nothing lay behind your ideas. You were too young to have had your own experience. Sometimes I smiled. At times I glimpsed dissatisfaction on your face. Meanwhile you were also pressing me to unroll my past before you like some painted scroll. This was the first time I actually privately respected you. You revealed a shameless determination to seize something really alive from within my very being. You were prepared to rip open my heart and drink at its warm fountain of blood. I was still alive then. I did not want to die. And so I evaded your urgings and promised to do as you asked another day. Now I will wrench open my heart and pour its blood over you. I will be satisfied if, when my own heart has ceased to beat, your breast houses new life.