Autumn Halo
Oda Sakunosuke
Original title: 秋の暈 (Aki no Kasa)Date of publication: April 25th 1976
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I think whoever took the word for autumn [秋] and added a heart [心] to make the meaning sorrow [愁] was a genius. I believe that people who really think deeply about things can sense the changing of seasons, especially that which we call the signs of autumn, much better and more intensely than the average person. I, too, am one of those who feel the signs of autumn sooner than others. However, that is not because I think about things. To tell the truth, it’s because I stay up all night, every night.
My vigils started at age 19 and stayed for ten years, and especially when I was busy with work I would stay up almost every night. Therefore one could say I saw every sunrise, but the most beautiful one was in autumn, or rather the one when summer turned into autumn.
At five shaku and eight sun1 and 13 kan2 I was very thin, which means I was good with heat, so I spent hardly any night nude and would always wear my yukata3 sitting at my desk, but during August nights I was already cold in it. When other people were tossing in their sleep due to the heat, I was feeling the chilly wind on my skin. The sound of the wind-bell4 was also unexpectedly clear. I did not hear the sound of cicadas at one point, I thought the bugs that were lost in my room were summer bugs, and when I slapped one of them with my fan, it died with a sad chirping sound. It was probably a bell cricket. On August eighth, the beginning of autumn, I do not even have to look at a calendar to say ah, I guess it’s autumn already. Sooner than anyone else...
Four, five years ago in August, I happened to go to Shinano-Oiwake5.
Oiwake, Karuizawa and Kutsukake were called the three lodgings of Asama Negoshi, Oiwake was a popular guest house with many writers but has burned down, however the oil shop here was left the same as when it was a lodging; Hori Tatsuo, Murou Saisei, Satou Haruo and many other authors liked to stay at this oil shop, especially Hori Tatsuo would spend a large part of the year in one of those rooms, just like the spa at Yugashima in Izu6.
We left Ueno7 at around ten o’clock. I fell asleep around Takasaki8, but a sudden burst of cold air woke me up. We had reached Usui Pass9. I could see a grove of white birches in the moonlight. The ears of pampas grass were whisking past the train window and the burnets were blooming. The bluish moonlight almost made you think it was dawn. However, night had yet to end.
Finally we reached Karuizawa station, passed Kutsukake, and then arrived at Oiwake.
When we got off at the dimly lit station, the station employee shouted:
“Shinano-Oiwake! Shinano-Oiwake!”
He announced the station name with a drawn-out voice like the quivering flame of a candle. The train we came in left the station, we crossed the tracks and reached the road to Oiwake. Mount Asama was shrouded in an eerie black, its shape coming to mind the more one looked at it. Soon, night would dawn.
As we walked down this solitary road with no one else around, we reached a forest immediately. Naked lightbulbs were hanging on the white birches in the front. Around that dim light, the loneliness of autumnal dawns gathered like a halo. It was a profoundly distant view. Autumn flowers in lovely colors were growing on the mist-covered nocturnal roadside. I felt autumn deep inside my heart. Even though the calendar still said it was summer...
There had been a time of extreme solitude in my life. One night, I was walking a dark path while listening to the lonely sound of my geta10 on the ground, when I suddenly I noticed the faint fragrance of osmanthus. And before I knew it, a warm sensation rose in my chest. The rain had just stopped.
I put a twig of sweet osmanthus in my apartment room for two, three days. Its aroma comforted me in my loneliness. I feared the fading of this smell, so I kept my curtains closed. Yet a cold wind sneaked in through the crevices. And it quietly blew right through my lonely heart. It made me sad.
After a week, the smell of the osmanthus had faded. Yellow petals were scattered on the floor. I listened to Chopin’s “Raindrop”. And when I dragged on my cigarette, the cold air mingled with the smoke in my mouth. It was all inexplicably somber.
I think whoever took the word for autumn [秋] and added a heart [心] to make the meaning sorrow [愁] was a genius. I believe that people who really think deeply about things can sense the changing of seasons, especially that which we call the signs of autumn, much better and more intensely than the average person. I, too, am one of those who feel the signs of autumn sooner than others. However, that is not because I think about things. To tell the truth, it’s because I stay up all night, every night.
My vigils started at age 19 and stayed for ten years, and especially when I was busy with work I would stay up almost every night. Therefore one could say I saw every sunrise, but the most beautiful one was in autumn, or rather the one when summer turned into autumn.
At five shaku and eight sun1 and 13 kan2 I was very thin, which means I was good with heat, so I spent hardly any night nude and would always wear my yukata3 sitting at my desk, but during August nights I was already cold in it. When other people were tossing in their sleep due to the heat, I was feeling the chilly wind on my skin. The sound of the wind-bell4 was also unexpectedly clear. I did not hear the sound of cicadas at one point, I thought the bugs that were lost in my room were summer bugs, and when I slapped one of them with my fan, it died with a sad chirping sound. It was probably a bell cricket. On August eighth, the beginning of autumn, I do not even have to look at a calendar to say ah, I guess it’s autumn already. Sooner than anyone else...
Four, five years ago in August, I happened to go to Shinano-Oiwake5.
Oiwake, Karuizawa and Kutsukake were called the three lodgings of Asama Negoshi, Oiwake was a popular guest house with many writers but has burned down, however the oil shop here was left the same as when it was a lodging; Hori Tatsuo, Murou Saisei, Satou Haruo and many other authors liked to stay at this oil shop, especially Hori Tatsuo would spend a large part of the year in one of those rooms, just like the spa at Yugashima in Izu6.
We left Ueno7 at around ten o’clock. I fell asleep around Takasaki8, but a sudden burst of cold air woke me up. We had reached Usui Pass9. I could see a grove of white birches in the moonlight. The ears of pampas grass were whisking past the train window and the burnets were blooming. The bluish moonlight almost made you think it was dawn. However, night had yet to end.
Finally we reached Karuizawa station, passed Kutsukake, and then arrived at Oiwake.
When we got off at the dimly lit station, the station employee shouted:
“Shinano-Oiwake! Shinano-Oiwake!”
He announced the station name with a drawn-out voice like the quivering flame of a candle. The train we came in left the station, we crossed the tracks and reached the road to Oiwake. Mount Asama was shrouded in an eerie black, its shape coming to mind the more one looked at it. Soon, night would dawn.
As we walked down this solitary road with no one else around, we reached a forest immediately. Naked lightbulbs were hanging on the white birches in the front. Around that dim light, the loneliness of autumnal dawns gathered like a halo. It was a profoundly distant view. Autumn flowers in lovely colors were growing on the mist-covered nocturnal roadside. I felt autumn deep inside my heart. Even though the calendar still said it was summer...
There had been a time of extreme solitude in my life. One night, I was walking a dark path while listening to the lonely sound of my geta10 on the ground, when I suddenly I noticed the faint fragrance of osmanthus. And before I knew it, a warm sensation rose in my chest. The rain had just stopped.
I put a twig of sweet osmanthus in my apartment room for two, three days. Its aroma comforted me in my loneliness. I feared the fading of this smell, so I kept my curtains closed. Yet a cold wind sneaked in through the crevices. And it quietly blew right through my lonely heart. It made me sad.
After a week, the smell of the osmanthus had faded. Yellow petals were scattered on the floor. I listened to Chopin’s “Raindrop”. And when I dragged on my cigarette, the cold air mingled with the smoke in my mouth. It was all inexplicably somber.
1. ~176cm/5.9ft↩
2. ~49kg/108lbs↩
3. A light kimono for summer↩
4. Japanese people perceive the sound of a high-pitched bell as cooling↩
5. A railway station in Karuizawa, Nagano↩
6. A place in Shizuoka↩
7. A part of Tokyo↩
8. A city in Eastern Kanto↩
9. Pass between Nagano and Gunma↩
10. Traditional Japanese shoes made from wood↩
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