桜が散って、このように葉桜のころになれば、私は、きっと思い出します。――と、その老夫人は物語る。――いまから三十五年まえ、父はその頃まだ存命中でございまして、私の一家、と言いましても、母はその七年まえ私が十三のときに、もう他界なされて、あとは、父と、私と妹と三人きりの家庭でございましたが、父は、私十八、妹十六のときに島根県の日本海に沿った人口二万余りの或るお城下まちに、中学校長として赴任して来て、恰好の借家もなかったので、町はずれの、もうすぐ山に近いところに一つ離れてぽつんと建って在るお寺の、離れ座敷、二部屋拝借して、そこに、ずっと、六年目に松江の中学校に転任になるまで、住んでいました。私が結婚致しましたのは、松江に来てからのことで、二十四の秋でございますから、当時としてはずいぶん遅い結婚でございました。早くから母に死なれ、父は頑固一徹の学者気質で、世俗のことには、とんと、うとく、私がいなくなれば、一家の切りまわしが、まるで駄目になることが、わかっていましたので、私も、それまでにいくらも話があったのでございますが、家を捨ててまで、よそへお嫁に行く気が起らなかったのでございます。せめて、妹さえ丈夫でございましたならば、私も、少し気楽だったのですけれども、妹は、私に似ないで、たいへん美しく、髪も長く、とてもよくできる、可愛い子でございましたが、からだが弱く、その城下まちへ赴任して、二年目の春、私二十、妹十八で、妹は、死にました。そのころの、これは、お話でございます。妹は、もう、よほどまえから、いけなかったのでございます。
Whenever the cherry blossoms have scattered and the season of leaf-cherry comes round like this, I always remember. — so the old lady would tell it. — Thirty-five years ago now, my father was still living at the time; and my family, though I say family, my mother had already passed away seven years before that, when I was thirteen, so that afterward it was a household of just the three of us, my father, my sister, and myself. When I was eighteen and my sister sixteen, my father came out to take up his post as headmaster of a middle school in a certain castle town of some twenty thousand people along the Japan Sea coast, in Shimane Prefecture, and since there was no suitable rented house to be had, we borrowed two rooms in a detached wing of a temple that stood off by itself at the edge of town, close by the mountains, and there we went on living until, in the sixth year, he was transferred to the middle school in Matsue. I was married after we came to Matsue, in the autumn when I was twenty-four, which for those times was a rather late marriage. My mother had died early, and my father, with his stubborn, single-minded scholar's temperament, was utterly ignorant of worldly matters, so that I knew perfectly well the household would fall entirely to pieces if I were gone; and though I had had no end of proposals by then, I never felt the wish to abandon the house and go off to marry elsewhere. If only my sister had been strong, I might have felt a little easier in my mind, but my sister, unlike me, was very beautiful, with long hair, and clever at everything, a dear child — but her body was weak, and in the second spring after we came to that castle town, when I was twenty and my sister eighteen, my sister died. This is a story from that time. My sister had, in fact, already been failing for a good while before.
腎臓結核という、わるい病気でございまして、気のついたときには、両方の腎臓が、もう虫食われてしまっていたのだそうで、医者も、百日以内、とはっきり父に言いました。どうにも、手のほどこし様が無いのだそうでございます。ひとつき経ち、ふたつき経って、そろそろ百日目がちかくなって来ても、私たちはだまって見ていなければいけません。妹は、何も知らず、割に元気で、終日寝床に寝たきりなのでございますが、それでも、陽気に歌をうたったり、冗談言ったり、私に甘えたり、これがもう三、四十日経つと、死んでゆくのだ、はっきり、それにきまっているのだ、と思うと、胸が一ぱいになり、総身を縫針で突き刺されるように苦しく、私は、気が狂うようになってしまいます。三月、四月、五月、そうです。五月のなかば、私は、あの日を忘れません。
It was a bad illness called renal tuberculosis, and by the time it was noticed, both her kidneys, they said, were already eaten through, and the doctor told my father plainly: within a hundred days. There was, it seemed, simply nothing to be done. One month passed, two months passed, and as the hundredth day drew steadily nearer, we had to go on watching in silence. My sister knew nothing of it, and was fairly cheerful, lying in bed all day long, and yet she would sing gaily, make jokes, be affectionate and clinging with me — and when I thought that in another thirty or forty days she would be dead, plainly, that being already decided, my chest would fill up, and it was as painful as though my whole body were being pierced through with sewing needles, until I felt I would go mad. March, April, May — yes. In the middle of May, I have not forgotten that day.
野も山も新緑で、はだかになってしまいたいほど温く、私には、新緑がまぶしく、眼にちかちか痛くって、ひとり、いろいろ考えごとをしながら帯の間に片手をそっと差しいれ、うなだれて野道を歩き、考えること、考えること、みんな苦しいことばかりで息ができなくなるくらい、私は、身悶えしながら歩きました。どおん、どおん、と春の土の底の底から、まるで十万億土から響いて来るように、幽かな、けれども、おそろしく幅のひろい、まるで地獄の底で大きな大きな太鼓でも打ち鳴らしているような、おどろおどろした物音が、絶え間なく響いて来て、私には、その恐しい物音が、なんであるか、わからず、ほんとうにもう自分が狂ってしまったのではないか、と思い、そのまま、からだが凝結して立ちすくみ、突然わあっ！ と大声が出て、立って居られずぺたんと草原に坐って、思い切って泣いてしまいました。
The fields and hills were all fresh green, warm enough to make one want to strip bare, and to me the fresh green was dazzling, stinging sharp in my eyes; alone, turning things over in my mind, I slipped one hand quietly into the fold of my sash and walked the country road with my head bowed, thinking and thinking, all of it nothing but painful thoughts, until I could scarcely breathe, and I walked on writhing in my own misery. Boom, boom — from the very bottom of the bottom of the spring earth, as though echoing up from the ten hundred thousand million lands of the Buddhist paradise, a faint yet terribly broad, ominous sound came ringing without pause, as though some enormous drum were being beaten at the bottom of hell, and I had no idea what that dreadful sound could be, and thought that surely I myself had at last gone mad, and my body stiffened where I stood, rooted, and then suddenly a loud cry — waaah! — burst out of me, and unable to stand any longer I dropped flat down onto the meadow grass and gave myself up entirely to weeping.
あとで知ったことでございますが、あの恐しい不思議な物音は、日本海大海戦、軍艦の大砲の音だったのでございます。東郷提督の命令一下で、露国のバルチック艦隊を一挙に撃滅なさるための、大激戦の最中だったのでございます。ちょうど、そのころでございますものね。海軍記念日は、ことしも、また、そろそろやってまいります。あの海岸の城下まちにも、大砲の音が、おどろおどろ聞えて来て、まちの人たちも、生きたそらが無かったのでございましょうが、私は、そんなこととは知らず、ただもう妹のことで一ぱいで、半気違いの有様だったので、何か不吉な地獄の太鼓のような気がして、ながいこと草原で、顔もあげずに泣きつづけて居りました。日が暮れかけて来たころ、私はやっと立ちあがって、死んだように、ぼんやりなってお寺へ帰ってまいりました。
It was only afterward that I learned that dreadful, mysterious sound was the great naval battle of the Japan Sea, the roar of warships' cannon. At Admiral Tōgō's single command, it was the height of the great fierce battle to annihilate the Russian Baltic Fleet in one stroke. It was just about that time, you see. Navy Day, too, will soon be coming round again this year. Even in that coastal castle town, the sound of the guns must have come booming ominously, and the townspeople too must have felt scarcely alive with fear — but I knew nothing of any of that, my mind was so entirely full of my sister, in a state half out of my senses, that it seemed to me some ill-omened drum of hell, and for a long while I went on weeping in the meadow without raising my face. By the time evening was beginning to fall, I finally got to my feet and, feeling utterly dead inside, made my way back to the temple in a daze.
「ねえさん。」と妹が呼んでおります。妹も、そのころは、痩せ衰えて、ちから無く、自分でも、うすうす、もうそんなに永くないことを知って来ている様子で、以前のように、あまり何かと私に無理難題いいつけて甘ったれるようなことが、なくなってしまって、私には、それがまた一そうつらいのでございます。
"Sister." My sister was calling out. By that time my sister too had grown thin and wasted, without strength, and it seemed as though she herself had come to sense, dimly, that she did not have much longer, so that she had stopped, as she used to before, making unreasonable demands of me here and there and clinging to me like a spoiled child — and to me that, too, was harder to bear still.
「ねえさん、この手紙、いつ来たの？」
"Sister, when did this letter come?"
私は、はっと、むねを突かれ、顔の血の気が無くなったのを自分ではっきり意識いたしました。
I felt, with a start, as though struck in the chest, and I was distinctly aware myself of the blood draining from my face.
「いつ来たの？」妹は、無心のようでございます。私は、気を取り直して、
"When did it come?" My sister seemed quite innocent about it. I collected myself, and
「ついさっき。あなたが眠っていらっしゃる間に。あなた、笑いながら眠っていたわ。あたし、こっそりあなたの枕もとに置いといたの。知らなかったでしょう？」
"Just now. While you were sleeping. You were sleeping with a smile on your face. I slipped it quietly by your pillow. You didn't know, did you?"
「ああ、知らなかった。」妹は、夕闇の迫った薄暗い部屋の中で、白く美しく笑って、「ねえさん、あたし、この手紙読んだの。おかしいわ。あたしの知らないひとなのよ。」
"No, I didn't know." My sister, in the dim room where the evening dusk was closing in, laughed, white and beautiful, and said, "Sister, I read this letter. It's strange. It's from someone I don't know."
知らないことがあるものか。私は、その手紙の差出人のＭ・Ｔという男のひとを知っております。ちゃんと知っていたのでございます。いいえ、お逢いしたことは無いのでございますが、私が、その五、六日まえ、妹の箪笥をそっと整理して、その折に、ひとつの引き出しの奥底に、一束の手紙が、緑のリボンできっちり結ばれて隠されて在るのを発見いたし、いけないことでしょうけれども、リボンをほどいて、見てしまったのでございます。およそ三十通ほどの手紙、全部がそのＭ・Ｔさんからのお手紙だったのでございます。もっとも手紙のおもてには、Ｍ・Ｔさんのお名前は書かれておりませぬ。手紙の中にちゃんと書かれてあるのでございます。そうして、手紙のおもてには、差出人としていろいろの女のひとの名前が記されてあって、それがみんな、実在の、妹のお友達のお名前でございましたので、私も父も、こんなにどっさり男のひとと文通しているなど、夢にも気附かなかったのでございます。
As if she didn't know. I knew the man who had sent that letter, this M.T. I knew him perfectly well. No, I had never met him, but five or six days before, while quietly tidying my sister's chest of drawers, I had discovered, deep at the bottom of one drawer, a bundle of letters tied up tightly with a green ribbon and hidden away, and — wrong of me though it surely was — I had untied the ribbon and looked. Some thirty letters or so, every one of them from this Mr. M.T. Though, to be sure, Mr. M.T.'s name was not written on the outside of the letters. It was written properly inside, in the letters themselves. And on the outside of the letters, as the sender, were written the names of various girls, all of them the real names of my sister's friends, so that neither my father nor I had ever dreamed she was corresponding with a man so extensively.
きっと、そのＭ・Ｔという人は、用心深く、妹からお友達の名前をたくさん聞いて置いて、つぎつぎとその数ある名前を用いて手紙を寄こしていたのでございましょう。私は、それにきめてしまって、若い人たちの大胆さに、ひそかに舌を巻き、あの厳格な父に知れたら、どんなことになるだろう、と身震いするほどおそろしく、けれども、一通ずつ日附にしたがって読んでゆくにつれて、私まで、なんだか楽しく浮き浮きして来て、ときどきは、あまりの他愛なさに、ひとりでくすくす笑ってしまって、おしまいには自分自身にさえ、広い大きな世界がひらけて来るような気がいたしました。
Surely this M.T. person, being cautious, had asked my sister beforehand for a good many of her friends' names, and had gone on sending his letters using that whole string of names one after another. I settled on that as the explanation, and secretly marveled at the boldness of young people; I was frightened enough to shudder at the thought of what would happen if my strict father ever found out — and yet, as I went on reading the letters one by one in order of their dates, even I found myself, somehow, growing cheerful and light-hearted, and now and then, at their sheer artlessness, I would giggle to myself alone, until at last it seemed to me that even for me myself, a wide, great world was opening up.
私も、まだそのころは二十になったばかりで、若い女としての口には言えぬ苦しみも、いろいろあったのでございます。三十通あまりの、その手紙を、まるで谷川が流れ走るような感じで、ぐんぐん読んでいって、去年の秋の、最後の一通の手紙を、読みかけて、思わず立ちあがってしまいました。雷電に打たれたときの気持って、あんなものかも知れませぬ。のけぞるほどに、ぎょっと致しました。妹たちの恋愛は、心だけのものではなかったのです。もっと醜くすすんでいたのでございます。私は、手紙を焼きました。一通のこらず焼きました。Ｍ・Ｔは、その城下まちに住む、まずしい歌人の様子で、卑怯なことには、妹の病気を知るとともに、妹を捨て、もうお互い忘れてしまいましょう、など残酷なこと平気でその手紙にも書いてあり、それっきり、一通の手紙も寄こさないらしい具合でございましたから、これは、私さえ黙って一生ひとに語らなければ、妹は、きれいな少女のままで死んでゆける。誰も、ごぞんじ無いのだ、と私は苦しさを胸一つにおさめて、けれども、その事実を知ってしまってからは、なおのこと妹が可哀そうで、いろいろ奇怪な空想も浮んで、私自身、胸がうずくような、甘酸っぱい、それは、いやな切ない思いで、あのような苦しみは、年ごろの女のひとでなければ、わからない、生地獄でございます。まるで、私が自身で、そんな憂き目に逢ったかのように、私は、ひとりで苦しんでおりました。あのころは、私自身も、ほんとに、少し、おかしかったのでございます。
I myself, at that time, had only just turned twenty, and I too had various sufferings, of the kind a young woman cannot put into words. Reading through those thirty-odd letters, one after another, with a feeling like a mountain stream running swiftly along, I came at last to the very last letter, from the autumn of the year before, and had begun reading it when I found myself, without meaning to, on my feet. What it feels like to be struck by lightning — perhaps it is something like that. I was so startled I nearly fell backward. My sister's love affair had not been a matter of the heart alone. It had gone forward into something far uglier. I burned the letters. I burned every single one, without leaving a one. This M.T., it seemed, was some poor tanka poet living in that castle town, and — cowardly of him — the moment he learned of my sister's illness he had abandoned her, writing in his letters, without the least compunction, cruel things like let us simply forget each other now; and after that, it appeared, he never sent another letter. So that, I thought, if only I myself kept silent and told no one for the rest of my life, my sister could die as the pure girl she had always been. No one need ever know — and with that I shut the pain up alone within my own breast; and yet, once I had learned that fact, my sister seemed all the more pitiable to me, and all sorts of strange fancies rose up in my mind, until I myself felt a kind of aching, bittersweet, unpleasant, and painful longing in my chest — the sort of suffering that only a young woman of a certain age could understand, a living hell. Quite as though I myself had met with such a misfortune, I suffered on, alone. In those days, I myself, truly, was a little strange too.
「姉さん、読んでごらんなさい。なんのことやら、あたしには、ちっともわからない。」
"Sister, do read it. I haven't the faintest idea what it's about."
私は、妹の不正直をしんから憎く思いました。
I felt, from the bottom of my heart, a hatred for my sister's dishonesty.
「読んでいいの？」そう小声で尋ねて、妹から手紙を受け取る私の指先は、当惑するほど震えていました。ひらいて読むまでもなく、私は、この手紙の文句を知っております。けれども私は、何くわぬ顔してそれを読まなければいけません。手紙には、こう書かれてあるのです。私は、手紙をろくろく見ずに、声立てて読みました。
"May I read it?" I asked in a low voice, and the fingers with which I took the letter from my sister were trembling so as to embarrass me. There was no need to open and read it — I already knew the words of that letter. And yet I had to read it wearing a face that betrayed nothing. This is what was written in the letter. I read it aloud, scarcely even looking at it.
――きょうは、あなたにおわびを申し上げます。僕がきょうまで、がまんしてあなたにお手紙差し上げなかったわけは、すべて僕の自信の無さからであります。僕は、貧しく、無能であります。あなたひとりを、どうしてあげることもできないのです。ただ言葉で、その言葉には、みじんも嘘が無いのでありますが、ただ言葉で、あなたへの愛の証明をするよりほかには、何ひとつできぬ僕自身の無力が、いやになったのです。あなたを、一日も、いや夢にさえ、忘れたことはないのです。けれども、僕は、あなたを、どうしてあげることもできない。それが、つらさに、僕は、あなたと、おわかれしようと思ったのです。あなたの不幸が大きくなればなるほど、そうして僕の愛情が深くなればなるほど、僕はあなたに近づきにくくなるのです。おわかりでしょうか。僕は、決して、ごまかしを言っているのではありません。僕は、それを僕自身の正義の責任感からと解していました。けれども、それは、僕のまちがい。僕は、はっきり間違って居りました。おわびを申し上げます。僕は、あなたに対して完璧の人間になろうと、我慾を張っていただけのことだったのです。僕たち、さびしく無力なのだから、他になんにもできないのだから、せめて言葉だけでも、誠実こめてお贈りするのが、まことの、謙譲の美しい生きかたである、と僕はいまでは信じています。つねに、自身にできる限りの範囲で、それを為し遂げるように努力すべきだと思います。どんなに小さいことでもよい。タンポポの花一輪の贈りものでも、決して恥じずに差し出すのが、最も勇気ある、男らしい態度であると信じます。僕は、もう逃げません。
— Today, I must beg your pardon. The reason that until today I held back and did not write to you is entirely because of my own lack of confidence in myself. I am poor, and useless. There is nothing at all I can do even for you alone. It was only that using nothing but words — words which are not, in the slightest, a lie — to prove my love for you, and being able to do nothing else, this powerlessness of mine, that I had come to hate. I have not forgotten you for a single day — no, not even in my dreams. And yet, there is nothing at all I can do for you. It was the pain of that which made me think I ought to part from you. The greater your unhappiness grows, and the deeper my love for you grows along with it, the harder it becomes for me to draw near you. Do you understand? I am not, in the least, saying this to deceive you. I had understood it as coming from my own sense of justice and responsibility. But that was my mistake. I was plainly, simply wrong. I beg your pardon. I had only been indulging my own selfish wish to become, in your eyes, a perfect human being. Since we are lonely and powerless, since there is nothing else we can do, I believe now that to offer up even mere words, but with sincerity poured into them, is the true and beautiful way of humility to live by. I think one ought always to strive, within whatever limits one is able, to carry that out to the end. However small a thing it may be. Even the gift of a single dandelion blossom, offered without the least shame — that, I believe, is the most courageous, the most manly attitude of all. I will not run away anymore.
僕は、あなたを愛しています。毎日、毎日、歌をつくってお送りします。それから、毎日、毎日、あなたのお庭の塀のそとで、口笛吹いて、お聞かせしましょう。あしたの晩の六時には、さっそく口笛、軍艦マアチ吹いてあげます。僕の口笛は、うまいですよ。いまのところ、それだけが、僕の力で、わけなくできる奉仕です。お笑いになっては、いけません。いや、お笑いになって下さい。元気でいて下さい。神さまは、きっとどこかで見ています。僕は、それを信じています。あなたも、僕も、ともに神の寵児です。きっと、美しい結婚できます。
I love you. Every day, every day, I will make a poem and send it to you. And then, every day, every day, outside the wall of your garden, I will whistle, and let you hear it. Tomorrow evening at six o'clock, I will at once whistle the Warship March for you. My whistling is good, you know. For the moment, that alone is the service I am able to render, easily, with what strength I have. Do not laugh at me. No — please, do laugh. Keep well. God is surely watching, somewhere. I believe that. You and I, both of us, are children beloved of God. Surely we can have a beautiful marriage.
待ち待ちて ことし咲きけり 桃の花 白と聞きつつ 花は紅なり
Waiting, ever waiting — this year at last they have bloomed, the peach blossoms; and though I had heard they were white, the flowers are crimson red.
僕は勉強しています。すべては、うまくいっています。では、また、明日。Ｍ・Ｔ。
I am studying hard. Everything is going well. Well then — until tomorrow. M.T.
「姉さん、あたし知っているのよ。」妹は、澄んだ声でそう呟き、「ありがとう、姉さん、これ、姉さんが書いたのね。」
"Sister, I know." My sister murmured this in a clear voice, and then, "Thank you, sister. You wrote this, didn't you."
私は、あまりの恥ずかしさに、その手紙、千々に引き裂いて、自分の髪をくしゃくしゃ引き毟ってしまいたく思いました。いても立ってもおられぬ、とはあんな思いを指して言うのでしょう。私が書いたのだ。妹の苦しみを見かねて、私が、これから毎日、Ｍ・Ｔの筆蹟を真似て、妹の死ぬる日まで、手紙を書き、下手な和歌を、苦心してつくり、それから晩の六時には、こっそり塀の外へ出て、口笛吹こうと思っていたのです。
I was so overcome with shame that I wanted to tear that letter into a thousand pieces and tear my own hair into a wild, tangled mess. To be unable to sit still or stand still — that, surely, is what such a feeling is called. I was the one who had written it. Unable to bear watching my sister's suffering, I had meant, from then on, every day, to imitate M.T.'s handwriting, to go on writing letters until the day my sister died, laboring to compose clumsy little waka, and then, at six in the evening, to slip outside the wall in secret and whistle.
恥かしかった。下手な歌みたいなものまで書いて、恥ずかしゅうございました。身も世も、あらぬ思いで、私は、すぐには返事も、できませんでした。
I was ashamed. I had even gone so far as to write those clumsy things that passed for poems, and I was ashamed of it. I felt as though I could no longer bear either myself or the world, and I could not, for a moment, even answer her.
「姉さん、心配なさらなくても、いいのよ。」妹は、不思議にも落ちついて、崇高なくらいに美しく微笑していました。「姉さん、あの緑のリボンで結んであった手紙を見たのでしょう？ あれは、ウソ。あたし、あんまり淋しいから、おととしの秋から、ひとりであんな手紙書いて、あたしに宛てて投函していたの。姉さん、ばかにしないでね。青春というものは、ずいぶん大事なものなのよ。あたし、病気になってから、それが、はっきりわかって来たの。ひとりで、自分あての手紙なんか書いてるなんて、汚い。あさましい。ばかだ。あたしは、ほんとうに男のかたと、大胆に遊べば、よかった。あたしのからだを、しっかり抱いてもらいたかった。姉さん、あたしは今までいちども、恋人どころか、よその男のかたと話してみたこともなかった。姉さんだって、そうなのね。姉さん、あたしたち間違っていた。お悧巧すぎた。ああ、死ぬなんて、いやだ。あたしの手が、指先が、髪が、可哀そう。死ぬなんて、いやだ。いやだ。」
"Sister, you needn't worry." My sister, strangely calm, was smiling, beautiful almost to the point of holiness. "Sister, you saw those letters tied up with the green ribbon, didn't you? Those were a lie. I was so terribly lonely that, from the autumn before last, I wrote those letters all by myself and posted them addressed to myself. Sister, don't laugh at me for it. Youth is a very precious thing, you know. Since I fell ill, I've come to understand that clearly. Writing letters to oneself, all alone like that — it's filthy. It's pathetic. It's foolish. I wish I had really played boldly with some man. I wanted someone to hold my body tight in his arms. Sister, up to now I have never once, let alone had a lover, even talked with some man from outside our family. And you're the same, aren't you, sister. Sister, we were both mistaken. We were too clever for our own good. Oh, I don't want to die. My hands, my fingertips, my hair — how pitiful they are. I don't want to die. I don't want to."
私は、かなしいやら、こわいやら、うれしいやら、はずかしいやら、胸が一ぱいになり、わからなくなってしまいまして、妹の痩せた頬に、私の頬をぴったり押しつけ、ただもう涙が出て来て、そっと妹を抱いてあげました。そのとき、ああ、聞えるのです。低く幽かに、でも、たしかに、軍艦マアチの口笛でございます。妹も、耳をすましました。ああ、時計を見ると六時なのです。私たち、言い知れぬ恐怖に、強く強く抱き合ったまま、身じろぎもせず、そのお庭の葉桜の奥から聞えて来る不思議なマアチに耳をすまして居りました。
I was sad, and frightened, and glad, and ashamed, all at once, my chest filled up until I no longer knew what I felt, and I pressed my cheek tight against my sister's thin cheek, and the tears simply came, and I quietly held my sister in my arms. And then — ah, I could hear it. Low and faint, but unmistakably, the whistling of the Warship March. My sister listened too, straining her ears. And ah — I looked at the clock, and it was six o'clock. Gripped by an indescribable terror, we clung to each other tightly, tightly, without stirring, straining our ears toward that strange march sound coming from deep within the leaf-cherry trees of the garden.
神さまは、在る。きっと、いる。私は、それを信じました。妹は、それから三日目に死にました。医者は、首をかしげておりました。あまりに静かに、早く息をひきとったからでございましょう。けれども、私は、そのとき驚かなかった。何もかも神さまの、おぼしめしと信じていました。
God exists. Surely, He is there. I believed that. My sister died three days after that. The doctor tilted his head, puzzled — no doubt because she had breathed her last so quietly, so quickly. But I, at that time, was not surprised. I believed it was all, every bit of it, God's will.
いまは、――年とって、もろもろの物慾が出て来て、お恥かしゅうございます。信仰とやらも少し薄らいでまいったのでございましょうか、あの口笛も、ひょっとしたら、父の仕業ではなかったろうかと、なんだかそんな疑いを持つこともございます。学校のおつとめからお帰りになって、隣りのお部屋で、私たちの話を立聞きして、ふびんに思い、厳酷の父としては一世一代の狂言したのではなかろうか、と思うことも、ございますが、まさか、そんなこともないでしょうね。父が在世中なれば、問いただすこともできるのですが、父がなくなって、もう、かれこれ十五年にもなりますものね。いや、やっぱり神さまのお恵みでございましょう。
Now — I have grown older, and all sorts of worldly desires have come creeping in, and I am ashamed to say so. Perhaps my faith, too, such as it was, has grown a little thin, for I sometimes find myself entertaining the doubt that that whistling might, perhaps, have been my father's own doing after all. I do sometimes think that he, coming home from his duties at the school, might have overheard our talk from the next room, and, moved to pity, might have staged, for once in his life, some sort of performance — stern and severe a father as he was. But no, surely that could not have been so. If my father were still alive, I could simply ask him and be done with it, but my father has been gone now for something like fifteen years. No — after all, it must have been God's own grace.
私は、そう信じて安心しておりたいのでございますけれども、どうも、年とって来ると、物慾が起り、信仰も薄らいでまいって、いけないと存じます。
I would like to go on believing that, and rest easy in it, but somehow, as one grows older, worldly desires rise up, and faith grows thin, and I know that is not as it should be.