短編小説 "A DEVIL'S SLEEVE" 第2章の2
(2-2) Chapter of The Modulation On the other hand, the girl also was walking alone on the way toward the land of the dead. She didn't know how far she walked and how long time it was. In the dark, she felt as if she stamped her feet with distress at the same place. A piece of the under-sash, which had snapped on her way, was eating tightly in her left wrist. It was twining about her wrist like a something life, and was sucking her blood like a leech. It couldn't judge to be ambiguous ether her fresh or the under-sash. As she had leaped from the cliff into the sea, her body had been pull strongly down by the man's body. Increasing her pain with her left wrist, but her had felt it to change a sweet pain in a moment of her faint. It was a just first sweet pleasure for her. She had thought the pleasure in which there was nothing any anxiety about the future, so it might well continue ever afterward… …The girl walked dragging the under-sash which she had try to untie but couldn't. Then, a little dim light came into sight ahead. The light was coming up to this way. The girl didn't know it was, however, she felt something to drip gently into her lonely heart, and she quickened her steps. They met again on the way toward the land of the dead. The girl appealed to the man how she had been in forlorn and in unease since they had parted each other in the air. Tears welled in her eyes with joy of meeting again. "Oh, it's good I had died together with you. Our love got eternity, didn't it?" said the girl in the man's chest. She flew to his neck in high glee with childish, smiled with pure eyes, and thrust her lips on him with to close her eyes. [I'm reborn. Yes, yes, I'm reborn, reborn!] She felt herself to be free for the first with the man, and she felt to start to flap of her own wings. "No, I can't die," replied the man. "I can't die together with you." He put his hand on her shoulders, and put off her like throwing away. "I don't know what to do. Even if I want to die, I may not get to die. …Looking at the river becomes to surge back, looking at that heaven was supplanted by earth, I couldn't cross over with force the bridge. …I'm not equal to the lows of nature" He talked her about his seeing and hearing. "But, believe me that I resolved to die, and threw myself into the sea from the cliff together with you." The girl lost her words, and stared the man's face with absent-mindedly. She shook her head like a child who was unwillingly. The man averted his eyes from her. "That's lie, …all things, that you said, were lie, did't you?" Her deep pupils tinged with shadow. It was as if a little crack which mar clear crystal. It made her pupils' focus to go mad. "Not lie…," said the man leaving to avert his eyes, "Not lie." His voice weakened on the way. He felt his own words to have a guilty. [I have been always so. I have always had a guilty conscience,] he thought. Although he ever had talked the girl about love of eternity, but it was quite natural that a fifty years old man didn't believe it. He had tried to stir up his imagination as being used to indulge in sensual pleasures, and as being used to his heart. So he had chosen an old little bottle from shelves of various spices, on which was inscribed 'love of eternity', it was proper for a fifteen years old girl. Dusting off the old bottle, he had tried to use it. Then, beyond his expectations, it had came into effect. [Bless me!] The man would mutter to himself. However, self-indulgent sensual pleasures have a great need of some arrangements. Since he didn't believe 'love of eternity', he pretended to believe it. Since that was quite impossible, he sought it. It's use trying to make the impossible possible. That's what fresh would have become a servant of spirit, and spirit, too, would have become a servant of fresh. Fresh and spirit would have been a whirl. And the whirl would have fallen down into the abyss of heaven with dazzling in sensual pleasures. …No, it was not so. It ought to have been done so. But the girl believed 'love of eternity' which she should not have believed such a thing, as if she had shut it up in her pure eyes. To believe that was no existence meant paradoxically a fruitless controversy. The abyss of heaven where they should fall into had closed its mouth before them, and the way for their sensual pleasures had become flatness. Getting her body under, the man could managed his business. Now their relations was only that woman gave her heart to man. He had such a thought. And it was so that, man's sincerity of love was till then. After that, woman's eagerness was sticky and only troublesome. Sooner or later truth and lie was all jumbled up with details of their secret date. And digressions of man's lie grew up fast. His words added to his lie. Even if it was lie, truth, too, become untruth. "Not lie," repeated the man. "I had thought I would die with you, so I would dive off from the cliff in the sea. You know? Trust me. Don't keep your strong gaze on me. Believe me, please!" The girl put out her left hand, which the long pice of the under-sash was cutting into, to the man. The end of the wrist was swollen in purple, and almost was tainted. The turned his face with fear. "Ah, alas!" The girl teared off her frisodé's long sleeve of grief crying. For her, meeting again was momentary happiness. "Woman, very young woman! Holding a grudge, cross over the bridge!" The voice roared from nowhere. The bridge appeared in front of the girl. The girl, as if she made sure, gazed the man 's face. In his eyes she saw herself who couldn't turn back, ever from loving for the man, now from die for empty love. She gave him a long-sleeve which was sweaty with her tears. "This frisodé which you give me, I couldn't go to anywhere with putting on it at once," said the girl. "It was hard for me but glad. Sometimes I had put on it with myself to woke up alone in the middle of the night, being startled at the sound of silken obi. I wanted to bring the matter out into the open, my class mates, so as almost opening words I was afraid of myself. As I had been thinking that someone might have opened my drawers while I was in the school, I had become to have in a daze, and I had felt hot in my body. Intending to be reading a textbook, I would have imagined to put on the frisodé. Then I would stand in front of you. You would strip my clothes one by one. I had imagined all that you had done. At that time, oh, I had understand of you to give me this frisodé. …All of those shall become hard memories for me. …However I have to be putting on this frisodé. This is my dying cloth. …I can never meet you again. As I will not be able to meet you with putting on this frisodé, at least I give back only this one sleeve. …Will you think this sleeve as myself?" Leaving that words, and wiping a piece of the under-sash in the air, the girl crossed over the bridge and disappeared into the dark. After that, there gone far voices like sound of wind blowing. It was if whether sounds of the dead crawling or voices of life, …or sounds of far waves of the sea? "…Man in the world In love and lust Born alone die alone Comes alone goes alone What intend to do Pleasure and pain land Being faced with that Never be any deputy Good and bad alternate Vicissitudes in several place The waited destiny beforehand Goes there by alone Far away another place Wise man never be Natural good and bad Where doing to live Unseen in the dark Must be going eternally The way no same Meet again no more… "(Continued: つづく)Copyright(C)YAMADA Tadami 2013. All rights reserved.