Explore Chapter 4 of 'Sinking' with the original Chinese text, English translation, detailed Chinese vocabulary explanations, and audio of the Chinese original. Listen and improve your reading skills.
It was around the third or fourth day of the lunar month. The sky, velvety in texture, was a deep blend of blue and purple, sown thick with stars. A sliver of the new moon hung askew in the western sky like the unadorned, delicate brow of a celestial maiden. Leaning against the window of the third-class carriage, he silently counted the lamplit windows of passing homes. As the train carved its way deeper into the dark night, the myriad twinkling lights of the great metropolis gradually blurred into a haze. Suddenly, a profound sorrow welled up within his breast, and a warmth sprang to his eyes.
The crescent brow climbs willow tips anew, / Again I quit my home for lands afar. / Taverns on all sides vie in drinking bouts, / Street lamps from six roads trail the moving car. / In troubled youth, few tears are left to shed; / My meagre luggage holds but books of yore. / When night falls deep, by reed roots waters spread; / Please seek for me twin fish on southern shore.
"Lebet wohl, ihr glatten Saele, / Glatte Herren, glatte Frauen! / Auf die Berge will ich steigen, / Lachend auf euch niederschauen." From Heine's *Buch der Lieder*
The monotonous clatter of the wheels, one sound incessantly following another, flew into his ears. In less than thirty minutes, he was lulled by this hypnotic rhythm into a dreamlike trance. At five in the morning, the sky began to pale. Peering from the window, he saw only a thin ribbon of blue still swathed in darkness. Leaning out, he beheld a landscape veiled in a light mist-a perfect natural painting. He thought to himself:
Passing through the park, they came upon a narrow path threading between rice fields. He saw the sun had now risen. Dewdrops on the rice stalks hung like strings of luminous pearls. Ahead lay a copse of trees, and amidst their shade, a few scattered farmhouses were visible. Two or three chimneys protruded above the rooftops, their outlines faintly floating in the morning air. Wisps of bluish smoke drifted like incense from a brazier; he knew the farm families were preparing their morning meal.
Making inquiries at an inn near the school, he found the luggage he had dispatched a week prior had already arrived. It turned out the family had hosted Chinese students before and thus treated him with particular warmth. Settled into the inn, he felt as though many future joys lay in wait for him.
His hopeful prospects were mocked by stark reality on that very first night. His own hometown was but a small market town. In Tokyo, amidst the teeming crowds, he had often felt lonely, yet the rhythms of city life were not wholly incompatible with the habits of his youth. Here, however, in the countryside of N City, his inn stood utterly alone, with no neighbors on any side. Beyond the left-hand gate stretched a road thin as a hair; before and behind lay nothing but rice fields, while to the west was a square pond. Moreover, with the school term not yet begun and other students yet to arrive, this spacious lodging housed him as its sole guest. The daylight hours he could endure, but come nightfall, opening the window, he saw on all sides nothing but impenetrable gloom. And because the vicinity of N City was one vast plain, his gaze met the horizon unimpeded in every direction. Far off, a single light flickered capriciously, lending an eerie, spectral air. From within the ceiling came the ceaseless, rustling scuttle of insects and rodents fighting for scraps. Outside his window stood several paulownia trees; the breeze stirred their leaves, producing an endless, mournful sigh. Lodged on the second floor, the sound of those quivering leaves seemed to whisper directly into his ear. Fear gripped him, and he was near to weeping. Never had his nostalgia for the city been more acute than on that night.
School commenced, and his circle of friends gradually widened. His highly impressionable nature began to merge with the sky, the earth, the woods, and the wild waters. In less than half a year, he had become a darling of Nature, unable to bear a moment's separation from her untamed delights.
His school lay outside N City. As noted, the surroundings were a great plain, so the horizon stretched boundlessly on every side. Industry in Japan was not yet highly developed then, nor had the population swelled to its present numbers; thus, the area around the school remained mostly wooded tracts, empty land, small knolls, and gentle slopes. Aside from a few stationers' shops and eateries catering to students, there were scarcely any residents nearby. In the midst of this wilderness, a handful of student lodgings were scattered like the fading stars of dawn across the wheat fields and melon patches. After supper, draping a black woolen cloak about his shoulders and taking a beloved book, he would stroll at leisure in the lingering sunset-a profound delight. It was likely during these idyllic wanderings that his taste for the pastoral life was formed.
In an era when the struggle for existence was not overly fierce, and one could live as carefreely as in medieval times; in a place of unsullied customs, removed from the petty townsfolk, tranquil and refined-to live was like dreaming. In what seemed a mere blink of an eye, over half a year had passed since his arrival in N City.
The balmy spring breeze blew day and night, and the grasses steadily greened. The wheat ears in the fields near the inn grew taller by the inch. Plants, trees, insects, and fish all burgeoned with life, and the ancestral melancholy passed down to him swelled day by day. Each morning, the sin he committed beneath his bedcovers was repeated, time and again.
He was by nature a man who cherished nobility and cleanliness. Yet whenever these wicked thoughts arose, his intellect failed him, his conscience grew numb, and the sacred injunction he had revered since childhood-"our bodies, to every hair and bit of skin, are received by us from our parents, and we must not presume to injure or wound them"-was cast aside. After each transgression, he would fall into deep remorse, swearing through clenched teeth never to repeat it. But when the next day's hour arrived, all manner of fantasies would dance vividly before his eyes. The descendants of Eve he observed in daily life seemed to appear before him, naked and enticing. In his mind, the figures of matrons past their prime stirred his passions more potently than any maiden. After a bout of anguish and a fierce inner struggle, he would inevitably become their captive. Once led to twice, and twice soon hardened into habit. Following his fall, he would seek out medical texts in the library, all of which unanimously declared this particular vice most injurious to health. From then on, his fear mounted daily. One day, he gleaned from some source-perhaps a book-that Gogol, the founder of modern Russian literature, had also been afflicted with this malady and had never reformed it before his death. The thought of Gogol brought a slight easing of his heart, for the author of *Dead Souls* was a man like himself. Yet this was but a fleeting self-consolation; a peculiar anxiety took permanent residence in his breast.
Because of his deep-seated love of cleanliness, he bathed daily without fail. Because he cherished his physical well-being, he consumed several raw eggs and a quantity of milk each day. Yet whenever he performed these ablutions or partook of these nourishments, he was seized by intense shame, for they stood as tangible proof of his sin.
He felt his body weakening day by day, his memory deteriorating. Gradually, he developed a dread of meeting people, a discomfort that grew acute in the presence of women. The school textbooks he came to detest more and more, while the novels of the French Naturalists and those infamous Chinese works of licentiousness he read and reread until they were nearly committed to memory.
Occasionally he would suddenly produce a fine poem, and he would rejoice exceedingly, believing his mental faculties remained intact. At such moments, he would vow solemnly to himself:
"My mind still functions; I can yet compose such verse. Henceforth, I shall sin no more. What is past cannot be undone, but from now on, I will not transgress. If I can but reform, my intellectual powers are still quite sound."
Every Thursday or Friday, or around the twenty-sixth or twenty-seventh of the month, he would abandon himself to indulgence. He would tell himself that come next Monday, or the first of the following month, he would surely cease. Sometimes, on a Saturday or the eve of month's end, he would have his hair cut and take a bath, treating this as a token of repentance and renewal. But within a few days, he found himself compelled to consume eggs and milk once more.
His self-reproach and fear allowed him not a single day of peace, and his melancholy grew ever more severe. This state persisted for a month or two until the summer vacation commenced. During those two months of holiday, the anguish he suffered surpassed even his usual torment. By the time school reopened, the cheekbones on his pallid face stood out more sharply, his greyish eye sockets had deepened, and the once-lively pupils of his eyes had taken on the dull, glazed stare of a dead fish.