Free Mandarins by Ryûnosuke Akutagawa Page A

hundred pages of an autobiographical novel. Upon graduation, however, she found herself in circumstances sufficiently strained as to leave no room for idle self-indulgence: with her widowed mother resolved not to remarry and her sister, Teruko, still attending a girls’ school, she was obliged, in conformity to social custom, to set aside her creative endeavors and seek a marriage partner.
    Their cousin Shunkichi, enrolled in the literature department of his own university, appeared to have likewise set his sights on a writer’s career. Nobuko had long been on friendly terms with him, and nowtheir common interest in literary topics made for even closer ties. He did not, however, share her unbridled enthusiasm for Tolstoyism, then very much in vogue. He was forever making ironic comments à la française or speaking in aphorisms. His sardonic manner sometimes angered the intensely earnest Nobuko, but despite herself she was unable to be entirely contemptuous of his manner. Thus, even while still in university, they would not infrequently attend exhibits and concerts together, usually in the company of Teruko.
    In their comings and goings, the three laughed and chattered freely. When, as they strolled along, the talk turned to matters beyond her ken, Teruko would peer childlike into the show windows at the parasols and silk shawls, without appearing to feel in the slightest neglected. Whenever Nobuko noticed this, she never failed to change the subject and to bring her sister immediately back into the conversation. Yet it was she herself who was the first to forget her sister. Shunkichi appeared to be oblivious to it all, tossing off clever comments as he swung his way slowly through the pell-mell of pedestrian traffic . . .
    In the eyes of everyone, needless to say, the relationship between Nobuko and her cousin gave more than enough reason to suppose that the two would wed. Her classmates were filled with envy and spite at her prospects, and, as foolish as it may sound, it must be said that it was among those who knew Shunkichi the least that such emotions were the most intense. For her part, Nobuko denied—and yet by insinuation deliberately encouraged—the speculation. Thus, for as long as they were still in school, the image lingered in their minds, as clear as a wedding photograph, of Nobuko and Shunkichi as bride and groom.
    Nobuko had scarcely completed her studies when she confounded the expectations of all by marrying a young commercial high schoolgraduate. Within two or three days of the nuptials, they had gone to live Ō saka, where he had recently joined a trading company. The well-wishers who saw them off at T ō ky ō ’s central railway station later said that Nobuko was her usual cheerful self, ever with a smile on her face, even as she tried to console her lachrymose sister, Teruko.
    In their bewilderment and amazement, Nobuko’s classmates found themselves filled with ambivalent feelings: a strange sense of contentment on the one hand, a new and entirely different sense of envy on the other. Those with full confidence in her attributed the decision to her mother’s wishes; other, less trusting, souls let it be known that she had simply had a change of heart. Yet all of this, as the tongue-waggers themselves were well aware, was mere conjecture.
    Why had not Nobuko married Shunkichi? For some time thereafter, such was the inevitable focus of conversation. Then two months went by; Nobuko was quite forgotten, to say nothing of any novel she had been rumored to be writing.
    Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Ō saka, she set about the task of becoming a new and presumably happy homemaker. The couple’s two-story rental house was situated in what even for the locality was a particularly quiet neighborhood, surrounded by a pinewood. Sometimes on lonely afternoons, amidst the smell of resin, the light of the sun, and the overpowering stillness that reigned whenever her husband