Dazai Osamu -Oblique Sun 3-1

　I felt as if I couldn't live any longer. I wondered if this was that feeling of anxiety, a painful wave lapping at my chest, clamping and loosening my heart like white clouds rushing past one after another in the sky after an evening shower. My breathing became labored, my eyes darkened, and I felt as if all the strength in my body was slipping away from the tips of my fingers, making it impossible for me to continue knitting.
　So today, I took a wicker chair to the edge of the tatami room and started to knit a saree, which I had started to knit in the spring of last year, but had not finished yet. The yarn was a fuzzy pale peony color, and I was going to add some cobalt blue yarn to it to make a seta. This pale peony-colored yarn was the yarn with which my mother knitted my neckband twenty years ago, when I was still a primary school student. The end of the neckband was used as a hood, and when I put it on and looked in the mirror, I saw that I looked like a little demon. I couldn't help but feel disgusted when I put it on and looked in the mirror, because the color was so different from the color of the other students' neckties. A friend of mine who paid a lot of taxes in the Kansai region complimented me in a mild tone of voice, saying, "You have a nice neckband," but I felt so embarrassed that I never wore this neckband again, and had abandoned it for a long time. In the spring of this year, I started to unravel it and make it my own sareta, as a way of reviving a dead item, but I didn't like the fuzzy color, so I threw it away again. But as I knitted, I realized that the pale peony yarn and the gray rainy sky blended into one, creating an indescribably soft and mild color tone. I had no idea. I didn't know the important thing that a costium should be in harmony with the color of the sky. I was somewhat surprised and dumbfounded at how beautiful and wonderful harmony is. The gray rainy sky and the pale peony-colored woolen yarn, when put together, made both look vibrant at the same time. The woolen yarn in my hands suddenly felt warm, and the damp rainy sky felt as soft as a billow. It reminds me of Monet's painting of the temple in the mist. I felt as if the color of the yarn had made me aware of the word "Gu" for the first time. Good Lord. My mother knew how beautifully this pale peony color would harmonize with the snowy winter sky, and she took the trouble to choose it for me. She never said a word about this color until I really understood its beauty, and waited for twenty years, pretending not to notice it. At the same time, I felt that she was a good mother, but at the same time, a cloud of fear and worry welled up in my heart, thinking that Naoji and I would bully her, embarrass her, weaken her, and let her die. The more I thought about it, the more horrible and bad things I could foresee, and the more anxious I became, the more I couldn't live any longer.
"Mother!
　She turned her face upward, closed her eyes, and involuntarily said, "Mother.
　She was leaning against a desk in the corner of the room, reading a book.
"Yes?
　She replied suspiciously.
　I was puzzled, and then I said in a particularly loud voice
The rose has finally bloomed. Did you know that, Mother?　I realized it now. It's finally bloomed.
　The rose was right in front of the edge of the tatami room. It was a rose that Wada's uncle had brought back once upon a time from France, England, or some other distant place I can't remember, and he had planted it in the garden of the villa a couple of months ago. I knew for sure that one of them had finally bloomed this morning, but to hide my embarrassment, I made a big deal of it as if I had just noticed it. The flower was a deep purple color, with an air of arrogance and strength.
I knew it.
　Mother said quietly.
I knew it," she said quietly, "but it seems so important to you.
Maybe so. Do you feel sorry for me?
No, I'm just saying that you have that quality about you. You like to put pictures of Luna'aru on the matchboxes in the kitchen and make handkerchiefs for your dolls. And when I listen to you talk about the roses in your garden, it's like you're talking about a living person.
"That's because I don't have children.
　The words came out of my mouth in a way I hadn't expected. I was fiddling with the knitting on my knees, feeling bad about what I had just said.
　--I was fiddling with the knitting on my knees when I heard a man say, "You're twenty-nine.
　I felt as if I could hear the man's voice clearly over the tickling bus, as if I were listening to a telephone call, and my cheeks burned with embarrassment.
　I felt my cheeks burning with embarrassment. She had been wearing a gauze mask since the other day, and perhaps that was the reason why she was so quiet these days. She has been wearing the mask according to Naoji's instructions. About ten days ago, Naoji came back from a southern island with a black and blue face.
　Without warning, at dusk in the summer, he came into the garden through the back door.
He came into the garden through the back door one summer evening without warning. It's a house of bad taste. It's Rairaiken. You should put a sign on the door saying you have siumai.
　That was Naoji's greeting when he first met me.
　A couple of days before that, my mother had been sleeping with a tongue disorder. She said that the tip of her tongue hurt when she moved it, even though it looked the same on the outside.　I told her to see a doctor, but she just shook her head.
I told him to see a doctor, but he just shook his head and said, "They'll laugh at me.
　I told her to see a doctor, but she shook her head and said, "They would laugh at me. I applied Lugol's solution, but it didn't seem to help at all, and I was feeling strangely irritated.
　Just then, Naoji came home.
　He sat at his mother's bedside, bowed and said, "I'm home," then stood up and looked around the small house.
How is she?　Has your mother changed?
"She's changed, she's changed. "She's changed. I hope she dies soon. I hope she dies soon, because I don't think she can survive in this world. I'm so miserable, I can't stand to look at her.
What about me?
"I'm sick. You look like you've got two or three guys. You want a drink?　I'm drinking tonight.
　I went to the only inn in the tribe and asked the proprietress, Osaki-san, for some sake, since my brother had returned, but she said she was out of sake, so I went home and told Naoji. When I returned home and told Naoji that, he looked at me like I was a stranger he had never seen before and said, "Well, that's because I'm a bad negotiator. I cooked up some of Naoji's favorite baked apples and eggs, replaced the light bulb in the dining room with a brighter one, and waited for a long time.
"Hello, hello. Is everything all right? I'm having some shochu.
　I'm having shochu," she said in a low voice as if it were a big deal, her round eyes like the eyes of a carp.
"Shochu? Is it methyl?
No, it's not methyl.
It doesn't make you sick, does it?
Yes, but it's …….
Let him have it.
　Osaki-san nodded as she swallowed her spit and left.
　I went over to her mother's place.
I went to her and told her that I was drinking at her place.
　When I told her that I was drinking at her place, she laughed a little and said, "Yes.
She said, "Yes. I wonder if she's done with the opium. You go and finish your dinner. Then the three of us will sleep in this room tonight. Take Naoji's futon and put it in the middle of the room.
　I felt as if I wanted to cry.
　Towards the end of the night, Naoji came home with rough footsteps. The three of us slept together in the tatami room under a mosquito net.
"Why don't you tell your mother some stories about the South?
　I said as I slept.
"There's nothing. Nothing. I've forgotten. When I arrived in Japan and got on the train, I saw the beautiful rice paddies from the train window. That's all. Turn off the lights. I won't be able to sleep.
　I turned off the light. The summer moonlight filled the mosquito net like a flood.
　The next morning, Naoharu lay on his stomach on his bed, smoking a cigarette and looking out toward the ocean.
"Your tongue hurts?
　He asked, as if he had just noticed that his mother was sick for the first time.
　She just laughed faintly.
She just smiled faintly and said, "It must be psychological. He probably goes to bed at night with his mouth open. He's sloppy. Put on a mask. You should put some Rivanol on a piece of gauze and put it inside the mask.
　When I heard this, I erupted.
"What kind of therapy is that?
"It's called aesthetic therapy.
But I'm sure your mother hates masks.
　"But I'm sure your mother hates masks," she said, "not just masks, but eye patches, glasses, and anything else you put on your face.
"Hey, mother. Do you wear a mask?
　I asked her.
"Yes, I do.
　When I asked her if she would wear a mask, she replied seriously and lowly, "Yes. I was surprised when she replied in a serious and low tone, "I will." She seemed to believe and follow whatever Naoji said.
　After breakfast, I made a mask by moistening gauze with Rivanol solution, as Naoharu had said earlier, and brought it to her mother.
　A little after noon, Naoji said he had to see his friends in Tokyo and his teacher in literature, so he changed into a suit, got 2,000 yen from his mother, and left for Tokyo. It had been almost ten days since then, but Naoji had not returned. It has been almost ten days since then, but Naoji has not returned.
Rivanol is a good medicine," she said. When I wear this mask, the pain in my tongue disappears.
　She said with a laugh, but I couldn't help but feel that she was lying to me. I wondered what Naoji was doing in Tokyo, playing around all over the city with the novelist Uehara-san, and wondering about the madness of Tokyo. I wondered what Naoji was doing in Tokyo.
"Oh.
　Now, with nowhere else to go, she wandered up the stairs and entered the western room on the second floor.