Free The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima Page A

faced each other then, separated by the flames.
    The boy moved slightly to the right. The girl retreated a little to the right also. And there the fire was, between them, forever.
    “What are you running away for?”
    “Why, because I’m ashamed.”
    The boy did not say: “Then why don’t you put your clothes on?” If only for a little longer, he wanted to look at her. Then, feeling he must say something, he burst out with a childish question:
    “What would make you quit being ashamed?”
    To this the girl gave a truly naive answer, though a startling one:
    “If you took your clothes off too, then I wouldn’t be ashamed.”
    Now Shinji was at a complete loss. But after an instant’s hesitation he began taking off his crew-neck sweater, saying not a word. Struck by the thought that Hatsue might run away while he was undressing, he kept a lookout that was scarcely broken even during the instant when the sweater passed over his face. Then hisnimble hands had the sweater off and thrown aside, and there stood the naked figure of a young man—far handsomer than when dressed—wearing only a narrow loincloth, his thoughts turned so ardently upon the girl opposite him that for the moment his body had completely lost its sense of shame.
    “Now you’re not ashamed any more, are you?” He flung the question at her as though cross-examining a witness.
    Without realizing the enormity of what she was saying, the girl gave an amazing explanation:
    “Yes …”
    “Why?”
    “You—you still haven’t taken everything off.”
    Now the sense of shame returned, and in the firelight the boy’s body flushed crimson. He started to speak—and choked on the words. Then, drawing so near the fire that his fingertips were all but burned, and staring at the girl’s chemise, which the flames set swaying with shadows, Shinji finally managed to speak:
    “If—if you’ll take that away—I will too.”
    Hatsue broke into a spontaneous smile. But neither she nor Shinji had the slightest idea what the meaning of her smile might be.
    The white chemise in the girl’s hands had been half covering her body, from breast to thigh. Now she flung it away behind her.
    The boy saw her, and then, standing just as he was, like some piece of heroic sculpture, never taking his eyes from the girl’s, he untied his loincloth.
    At this moment the storm suddenly planted its feet wide and firmly outside the windows. All along, thewind and rain had been raging madly around the ruins with the same force as now, but in this instant the boy and girl realized the certainty of the storm’s existence, realized that directly beneath the high windows the wide Pacific was shaking with everlasting frenzy.
    The girl took a few steps backward.… There was no way out. The sooty concrete wall touched her back.
    “Hatsue!” the boy cried.
    “Jump across the fire to me. Come on! If you’ll jump across the fire to me …” The girl was breathing hard, but her voice came clearly, firmly.
    The naked boy did not hesitate an instant. He sprang from tiptoe and his body, shining in the flames, came flying at full speed into the fire. In the next instant he was directly in front of the girl. His chest lightly touched her breasts.
    “Firm softness—this is the firm softness that I imagined the other day under that red sweater,” he thought in a turmoil.
    They were in each other’s arms. The girl was the first to sink limply to the floor, pulling the boy after her.
    “Pine needles—they hurt,” the girl said.
    The boy reached out for the white chemise and tried to pull it under the girl’s body.
    She stopped him. Her arms were no longer embracing him. She drew her knees up, crushed the chemise into a ball in her hands, thrust it down below her waist, and exactly like a child who has just thrown cupped hands over an insect in the bushes, doggedly protected her body with it.
    The words which Hatsue spoke next were weighted with virtue:
    “It’s bad. It’s