The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima Read Free Book Online Page A

Shinji-san—he’s really the bashful one, isn’t he, Father?” the mistress said, laughing.
    The lone sound of her laughter echoed through the house. Neither the lighthouse-keeper nor Hatsue even smiled.
    Shinji waited for Hatsue where the path curved around Woman’s Slope.
    At that point the dusk surrounding the lighthouse gave way to the last faint light that still remained of the sunset. Even though the shadows of the pine trees had become doubly dark, the sea below them was brimming with a last afterglow. All through the day the first easterly winds of spring had been blowing in off the sea, and even now that night was falling the wind did not feel cold on the skin.
    As Shinji rounded Woman’s Slope even that small wind died away, and there was nothing left in the dusk but calm shafts of radiance pouring down between the clouds.
    Looking down, he saw the small promontory that jutted out into the sea to form the far side of Uta-jima’s harbor. From time to time its tip was shrugging its rocky shoulders swaggeringly, rending asunder the foaming waves. The vicinity of the promontory was especiallybright. Standing on the promontory’s peak there was a lone red-pine, its trunk bathed in the afterglow and vividly clear to the boy’s keen eyes. Suddenly the trunk lost the last beam of light. The clouds overhead turned black and the stars began to glitter above Mt. Higashi.
    Shinji laid his ear against a jutting rock and heard the sound of short, quick footsteps approaching along the flagstone path that led down from the stone steps at the entrance to the lighthouse residence. He was planning to hide here as a joke and give Hatsue a scare when she came by. But as those sweet-sounding footsteps came closer and closer he became shy about frightening the girl. Instead, he deliberately let her know where he was by whistling a few lines from the Ise chorus she had been singing earlier:
When the east is cloudy, they say the wind will blow;
When the west is cloudy, they say the rain will fall;
And even the largest ship …
    Hatsue rounded Woman’s Slope, but her footsteps never paused. She walked right on past as though she had no idea Shinji was there.
    “Hey! Hey!”
    But still the girl did not look back. There was nothing to do but for him to walk silently along after her.
    Entering the pine grove, the path became dark and steep. The girl was lighting her way with a small flashlight. Her steps became slower and, before she was aware of it, Shinji had taken the lead.
    Suddenly the girl gave a little scream. The beam of the flashlight soared like a startled bird from the base of the pine trees up into the treetops.
    The boy whirled around. Then he put his arms aroundthe girl, lying sprawled on the ground, and pulled her to her feet.
    As he helped Hatsue up, the boy remembered with shame how he had lain in wait for her a while ago, had given that whistled signal, had followed after her: even though his actions had been prompted by the circumstances, to him they still seemed to smack of evil. Making no move to repeat yesterday’s caress, he brushed the dirt off the girl’s clothing as gently as though he were her big brother. The soil here was mostly dry sand and the dirt brushed off easily. Luckily there was no sign of any damage.
    Hatsue stood motionless, like a child, resting her hand on Shinji’s strong shoulder while he brushed her. Then she looked around for the flashlight, which she had dropped. It was lying on the ground behind them, still throwing its faint, fan-shaped beam, showing the ground covered with pine needles. The island’s heavy twilight pressed in upon this single area of faint light.
    “Look where it landed! I must have thrown it behind me when I fell.” The girl spoke in a cheerful, laughing voice.
    “What made you so mad?” Shinji asked, looking her full in the face.
    “All that talk about you and Chiyoko-san.”
    “Stupid!”
    “Then there’s nothing to it?”
    “There’s nothing to