四十八

Counting the days, it was already more than two days since my wife had spoken to K. During that time K had shown not the slightest change in his manner toward me from before, so I had been completely unaware of it. I thought his detached attitude, even if it were only on the surface, was worthy of admiration. When I placed him and myself side by side in my mind, he appeared far the finer man. The feeling that “though I won by strategy, I was beaten as a human being” welled up and swirled in my breast. I thought then how he must surely be despising me, and I blushed alone in shame. But to go before K now and be made to eat my humiliation was, for my self-respect, a great pain.

It was on Saturday evening that I, wondering whether to advance or hold back, decided at any rate to wait until the next day. Yet that very night, K took his own life and died. Even now, when I recall the scene, I am seized with a shudder. I, who always sleep with my head to the east, happened on that one night to lay my bedding with my head to the west—perhaps some working of fate. I was roused by the cold wind blowing in from beside my pillow. Looking, I saw the sliding door partitioning K’s room from mine, which is always kept shut, standing open about as wide as on that previous night. But unlike that night, K’s black figure was not standing there. As if under a spell, I propped myself on my elbows upon the bedding and rose, gazing fixedly into K’s room. The oil lamp burned dimly. His bedding was laid out. But the quilt was thrown back, heaped toward the foot. And K himself lay face down, sprawled forward.

“Oi,” I called out. But there was no answer. “Oi, what’s the matter?” I called to K again. Yet K’s body did not stir in the least. I got up at once and went to the threshold. From there I looked about his room by the dim lamplight.

The first impression I received then was almost the same as when K had suddenly confessed his love to me. The moment my eyes fell upon his room, they lost all power to move, as if they were glass eyes. I stood rooted, frozen. After that passed through me like a violent gust, I thought again, “Ah, I have blundered.” A black light, that all could not be undone, pierced my future, and in an instant horribly illuminated the whole life that lay before me. And I began to tremble violently.

Yet even so, I could not in the end forget myself. My eyes at once fell upon a letter lying on the desk. As expected, it was addressed to me. I tore it open in a frenzy. But inside, nothing was written such as I had expected. I had anticipated that it would be filled with words bitterly painful to me. And I had feared that if it met the eyes of my wife or the young lady, how utterly they might despise me. Having glanced through it, I thought at first, “I am saved.” (Of course, saved only in terms of appearances; but in this case, those appearances seemed to me a matter of grave consequence.)

The letter’s contents were simple. And rather abstract. It merely said that, being weak of will and unable to hope for any future, he would kill himself. Then, in very curt words, thanks for all my care up to now were added. There was also a line asking, since I had cared for him, to see to the arrangements after death. A phrase begging me to apologize to my wife for the trouble he caused. A request that I inform his family at home. All necessary matters were written one by one, yet the young lady’s name appeared nowhere. Having read to the end, I immediately realized K had deliberately avoided it. But what struck me most keenly was the sentence at the close, seemingly added with the last drops of ink: that he should have died sooner—why had he lived until now?

With trembling hands, I rolled the letter up and put it back in its envelope. I deliberately left it on the desk as before, where all might see. Then, turning, I saw for the first time the blood spattered upon the sliding door.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”