Dazai Osamu -Oblique Sun 7-2

　I was already taking money and goods out of my house, making my mom and you sad, and I myself wasn't having any fun at all. Even when I planned to start a publishing business, it was just for show, and I didn't really mean it at all. I'm not sure what to do, but I'm sure I'll be able to do it.
　Sister.
　We're poor now. While I was alive, I wanted to give food to others, but now I have to give food to others to survive.
　Sister.
　Why do I have to live anymore?　I can't do it anymore. I'm going to die. I have a medicine that will make it easier for me to die. I got it when I was in the army.
　My sister is beautiful (I was proud of my beautiful mother and sister) and wise, so I'm not worried about her at all. I don't even have the right to be worried. It's like a thief caring for his victim, and it makes me blush. I'm sure that you will get married, have children, and depend on your husband to survive.
　Sister.
　There's one secret I'd like to share with you.
　I have kept this secret for a long time, and even when I was in the war zone, I thought about that person, dreamed about him, woke up and cried many times.
　I can't tell anyone the name of that person even if I wanted to. I thought that since I was dying now, I should at least tell my sister, but I was too frightened to tell her the name.
　But I can't help but feel that if I were to die in absolute secrecy, never revealing the secret to anyone in this world, and keeping it deep in my heart, even if my body were cremated, only the back of my heart would be left with a foul smell. I'll leave it to you. I'm sure my sister will soon realize who it is. It's not fiction, it's just a deception using kana.
　Do you know her?
　I'm sure you know her, but you've probably never met her. She is a little older than my sister. He has single eyelids, with the corners of his eyes hanging up, he has never had permanent hair, and always wears his hair in a very simple and strong bun. He was always neatly dressed and clean. She was the wife of a middle-aged Western-style painter who had suddenly become famous after the war for producing a succession of paintings with a fresh touch, and although the painter's behavior was extremely violent and depraved, the wife was always smiling kindly and unaffected.
　I stood up and said
I stood up and said, "Well, I'll be going now.
　The man also stood up, walked up to me without warning, looked up at me, and asked, "Why?
"Why?
　He looked up at me, said "Why?" in a normal voice, tilted his head slightly as if he was really suspicious, and continued to look me in the eye for a while. There was nothing evil or pretentious in her eyes, and although I tend to wince and avert my gaze when I meet a woman's, this was the only time I didn't feel the slightest bit of embarrassment. And then I smiled.
"But, ……
I'll be home soon.
　I'll be home soon," he said, still with a serious face.
　It occurred to me that honesty could be described as this kind of expression. I wondered if the original virtue expressed by the word "honesty" wasn't something cute like this, instead of the brutal virtue of a shugyo textbook.
"I'll be back.
"Yes.
　From the beginning to the end, it was all an ordinary conversation. When I went to the painter's apartment one summer afternoon, he was not there, but he would be back soon.　He was not there, but he was expected back soon, so why don't you come in and wait?
　Noble, I guess you could call it. I can assure you that none of the aristocrats around me, or my mother for that matter, had such an unguarded, "honest" look in their eyes.
　Then, one winter evening, I was struck by the profile of a man. I was forced to stay with a Western-style painter in his apartment, where we sat in a kotatsu (a table over a table top heater), drank sake from morning, and laughed and laughed with the painter about the so-called cultural figures of Japan. As I lay there dozing off, a blanket was pulled over me, and I opened my eyes to see that the winter evening sky over Tokyo was clear and light blue, and the wife was sitting on the window ledge of her apartment with her daughter in her arms, looking as if nothing had happened. The kindness with which he gently draped the blanket over me was not in any way sexual or greedy, and I wondered if humanity was a word that could be revived and used in such a situation, as a natural and wretched human consideration. He was gazing into the distance with a quiet presence that was almost unconscious, just like the painting.
　I closed my eyes and longed for her, and felt as if I were going crazy. Tears welled up from behind my eyelids, and I pulled the blanket over my head.
　I pulled the blanket over my head.
　The reason why I went to visit the painter was because I was initially intoxicated by the unique touch of his works and the fervent passion hidden beneath them. However, as I got to know him more and more, I became more and more amused by his illiteracy, bullshit, and unseemliness, and in proportion to that, I was attracted by the beauty of his wife's feelings.
　If there was even a hint of the noble smell of art in the painter's work, I now thought that it might be a reflection of his wife's kind heart.
　The Western-style painter, I can now say exactly what I feel, is just a clever merchant who drinks heavily and likes to play. He just wants money to play with, so he smears paint on canvas haphazardly, rides the wave of fashion, and sells it at a high price. All he has is the brazenness of a country bumpkin, his foolish confidence, and his cunning business acumen.