The Woman in the Dunes - Machi Abe [71]
And so, one bit one’s nails, unable to find contentment in the simple beating of one’s heart … one smoked, unable to be satisfied with the rhythm of one’s brain … one had the shakes, unable to find satisfaction in sex alone. Breathing, walking, bowel movements, daily schedules, Sundays coming every seven days, final exams after every four months, far from quieting him, had had the effect rather of pushing him toward a new repetition of them. Soon his cigarette smoking had increased, and he had had terrible nightmares in which he was looking for a hiding place away from the eyes of people with a woman who had dirty fingernails, and when finally he noticed that he was beginning to show toxic symptoms, he suddenly awoke to the heavens governed by an extremely simple elliptic cycle, and the sand dunes ruled by the 1/8-mm. wavelengths.
Even though he felt a certain gentle contentment in the handwork which he performed daily and in the repeated battle with the sand, his reaction was not quite masochistic. He would not find it strange if such a cure really existed.
But one morning, along with the regular deliveries, he was presented with a cartoon magazine. The magazine was nothing in itself. The cover was worn and greasy with fingerprints; it must have been something they had gotten from a junkman. Yet, except for the fact that it was dirty, it was the kind of thoughtfulness the villagers were likely to display. What puzzled him was that he had rolled over in laughter at it, beating the floor and writhing as if he were having convulsions.
The cartoons were exceedingly stupid. They were meaningless, vulgar sketches that had been dashed off, and had he been asked, he would never have been able to explain why they were so amusing. One was so very funny only because of the expression on the face of a horse that had fallen down, its legs broken under the weight of the big bruiser who had mounted it. How could he laugh so when he was in such a position? Shame on him! There was a limit to how far he should accommodate himself to his present plight. He had intended this accommodation to be a means, never a goal. It sounded all right to talk of hibernating, but had he changed into a mole and lost all desire to show his face in the sunlight again for the rest of his life?
When he thought about it, he realized there was absolutely no way of knowing when and in what way an opportunity for escape would come. It was possible to conceive of simply becoming accustomed to waiting, with no particular goal in mind, and when his hibernation was at last over, he would be dazzled by the light, unable to come out. Three days a beggar, always a beggar, they say. Such internal rot apparently comes on unexpectedly fast. He was thinking seriously about this, but the moment he recalled the expression on the horse’s face he was again seized with moronic laughter. In the lamplight the woman, concentrating as usual on the fine work of stringing beads, raised her head and smiled back at him innocently. He could not bear his own deception, and, tossing the magazine away, he went out.
A milky mist billowed and swirled above the cliff. Spaces of shadow, speckled with the remains of night … spaces that sparkled as if with glowing wire … spaces flowing with particles of shining vapor. The combination of shadows was filled with fantasies and stirred limitless reveries in him. He would never tire of looking at the sight. Every moment overflowed with new discoveries. Everything was there, actual shapes confounded with fantastic forms he had never seen before.
He turned toward the swirling mass and appealed to it involuntarily.
—Your Honor, I request to be told the substance of the prosecution. I request to be told the reason for my sentence. You see the defendant before you,