Home Categories foreign novel setting sun
setting sun

setting sun

太宰治

  • foreign novel

    Category
  • 1970-01-01Published
  • 3072

    Completed
© www.3gbook.com

Chapter 1 "The Setting Sun"--Chapter Seven: Naoji's Suicide Note (excerpt)

setting sun 太宰治 3072Words 2018-03-21
elder sister: Irreversible, I'm leaving first. I don't understand at all why I have to live. Only those who want to live should live. People have the right to live, but they should also have the right to die. There is nothing new in my thinking, it's just that people are afraid to say such ordinary and basic things outright. Those who want to live should live tenaciously no matter what they do.This is a great thing, and there must be a so-called human honor in it.But I don't think death is a sin either. I, the grass, cannot live in the sun and air of this world.It seems that there is still something missing to live, and it is not enough.I've done my best to be alive.

After entering high school, for the first time, I interacted with friends from a class that was completely different from the class that raised me. They were strong, thriving grass.In order not to be overwhelmed by their aura, I used anesthetics and resisted like crazy.After enlisting, I continued to use opium as a last resort in the army.My sister probably won't understand my mood! I want to be a vulgar and lowly person.I want to be tough, no, rough.I think this is the only way to be a so-called friend of the people.You can't do it with wine alone.A sense of dizziness must be maintained at all times.For this, there is no other way but anesthesia.I had to forget my family, I had to rebel against my father's blood, I had to reject my mother's tenderness, and I had to be indifferent to my sister.Otherwise, I don't think it would be possible to get a ticket to the people's room.

I became rough and used rough language.But half of it, no, sixty percent of it, was my pathetic faux pas, a poor trick.To the public, I'm still a poseur, weird and prim, and they don't engage with me honestly.I almost vomit at the vulgar so-called nobility of the upper-class salons, and I can't bear it for a moment; I'll get out right away.I cannot return to the world I have abandoned, and the people have only given me a polite but malicious gallery. No matter which era, a grass with poor living ability and defects like me may be destined to die naturally without any shit thoughts.But I still have something to say, I feel that there is a situation that makes it difficult for me to live anyway.

People are all the same. Is this thought or not?The person who invented this incredible saying, I think he is neither a religionist nor a philosopher nor an artist.This phrase originated in the taverns of the people.I don't know when or who said it first, but it kept gushing out like maggots, covering the whole world, making people in the world not harmonious. This incredible statement has absolutely nothing to do with democracy and Marxism.It must have been a word that the ugly man in the tavern scolded the handsome man.It was just anger, jealousy, not thought. But this envious roar in the tavern was strangely colored with thought, and spread among the people.A sentence that should have nothing to do with democracy and Marxism has somehow become entangled with this kind of political and economic thinking, which strangely creates a bad situation.I am afraid that even Mephistopheles (the name of the devil in "Faust") will feel the condemnation of his conscience and hesitate to take this kind of trick of turning unreasonable nonsense into ideas.

People are all the same. What a humble word!This is a sentence that despises others while despising oneself, making people give up all efforts without self-respect.Although Marxism advocates the superiority of workers, it does not say that all people are the same.Democracy advocates the dignity of the individual, and it does not say that all people are the same.Only a brothel recruiter would say: "Hey, no matter how you put on airs, aren't people all the same?" Why do you say they are the same?Why not say superior?This is slavery's revenge. In fact, this sentence is both obscene and creepy. It makes people fear each other, all thoughts are stained, all efforts are ridiculed, happiness is denied, beauty is trampled, and honor is insulted.I think the so-called "restlessness of the century" is all caused by this incredible sentence.

I thought it was a nasty remark, and I was threatened by it, and I shuddered with fear.No matter what I want to do, I am embarrassed, always in a state of anxiety, my heart is pounding, and I don't even have a place to stay.So I used the dizziness caused by alcohol and drugs to obtain instant stability, but in the end it was a mess and out of control. Probably cowardly?Probably a grass with some serious flaw?Although I cite these small reasons, the brothel recruiters may still laugh at me: What are you talking about, you are a playful person, a slacker, a pervert, or a self-serving hedonist .When people said that about me in the past, I just nodded embarrassingly noncommittal, but before I died, I still wanted to say something protesting.

elder sister. Please trust me. Though I am having fun, I am not happy.This is probably happy "impotence".I just wanted to get rid of the shadow of my nobleman, so I was crazy and gave up on myself. elder sister. Have we ever sinned?Is it our sin to be born into nobility?Just because we were born into this family, we have to live forever in confusion, apology, and guilt like Judah's relatives. I should have died earlier, only because of my mother's love, and the thought of my mother's love makes me unable to die.People have the right to live freely, but also have the right to die at any time.But I feel that the right to die must be preserved while the "mother" is still alive.Because it also kills the mother.

Now that I am dead, no one will be so sad that they will damage their own body.No, sister, I know how much you will grieve if you lose me.No, put aside the false sentimentality.You will cry knowing I am dead, but your sorrow will fade away when you think of the pain I suffered while I was alive and the joy of being completely freed from that loathsome life. The person who blames my suicide, says I should live to the end, but does not give me any help, but only verbally criticizes me triumphantly, must be a person who can nonchalantly persuade His Majesty to open a fruit shop. elder sister.

I'd better die.I don't have the so-called ability to live, and I don't have the ability to compete with others for money. I don't even know how to bludgeon.When playing with Mr. Uehara, I always pay my own bill.Mr. Uehara said that this was the narrow-minded self-esteem of the nobles, and he seemed very displeased.In fact, I didn't pay because of my self-esteem, but I didn't dare to use the money Mr. Uehara earned from work to eat, drink, and play with women.Even if I simply say it's because I respect Uehara-san's work, that's a lie, and I don't even know it myself.It's just a horrible thing to feel being treated to.Especially the fact that he invited me with the money he earned with his own hands made me feel even more uncomfortable and uneasy.

In this way, I have to take money and things from home, make mother and you sad, and I have no happiness at all.The plan to start a publishing business is just a facade, and it is not serious at all.A person who dare not even accept a treat will never make money.No matter how stupid, I still understand this. elder sister. We have grown poor, and I would have lived to entertain others, but now I cannot live without being entertained. elder sister. If so, why must I live?There is no hope, I am going to die.I have a medicine for a painless death, which I got when I was a soldier. ………… Yesterday, I arrived at the villa with a dancing girl (a woman who is inherently stupid) that I didn't like at all.I didn't come back to die.I do have plans to die in the near future.But I brought that woman to the villa yesterday because she begged me to take her on a trip.And I was also tired from playing in Tokyo, although it would be nice to come to the villa with this ignorant woman to rest for two or three days, although it would be a bit inconvenient for my sister, but in the end we came together.Unexpectedly, my sister was going to a friend in Tokyo. At that moment, I suddenly had a thought: If you want to die, now is the time.

I used to want to die in the back room of that house in Nishikatacho. In any case, I didn't want to die on the street or in the field, and let my body be turned around by those watching.But the house in Nishikatacho has already belonged to someone else, and now there is no other way but to die in this villa.But thinking of my sister who was the first to find out that I committed suicide, how shocked and terrified you would be at that time, I feel heavy in my heart.No matter what, I couldn't kill myself at night when I was only with my sister. Ah, this time is a rare opportunity!My sister wasn't home and it was the rather retarded dancing girl who found out about my suicide. The two of us drank together last night, and then I let her sleep in a western-style room on the second floor, and I laid out the bedding by myself in the room where my mother died downstairs, and started writing this tragic note. elder sister. I've given up all hope. Goodbye. In the final analysis, my death was a natural death.Man cannot die just because of thought. Also, I have another very embarrassing request.The linen dress in my mother's belongings is the one that my sister changed for me when she asked Naoji to wear it next summer. Please put that dress in my coffin, I really want to wear it. It will be dawn, and you will have to work hard for a long time. Goodbye. All drunk last night.I want to die without being drunk. Farewell to you again, goodbye! elder sister. I am an aristocrat.
Press "Left Key ←" to return to the previous chapter; Press "Right Key →" to enter the next chapter; Press "Space Bar" to scroll down.
Chapters
Chapters
Setting
Setting
Add
Return
Book