Thirst for Love by Thirst for Love (epub)

Author:Thirst for Love (epub)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2009-12-10T05:00:00+00:00

4

A VISION of the long-forgotten Ryosuke returned to haunt Etsuko’s days, as he had disturbed her tortured rest the night following the festival. This vision, however, was not surrounded by a sentimental halo, as was that which appeared to her immediately after his death; it was a naked, vicious, evil visitation.

In this vision her life with him became transformed into endless lessons in a disreputable school set up in a secret room. Ryosuke didn’t love Etsuko; he taught her. He didn’t teach her; he trained her. He taught her tricks, the way peddlers train deformed girls.

Those detestable, perverted, cruel hours of instruction . . . those countless forced memorizations, those whips, those beatings . . . they all taught Etsuko the lesson: “If you can deny yourself jealousy, you can stop loving.”

With all her power Etsuko strove to make this lesson her own—to no avail.

To stop loving—it was cruel tutelage, yet to conform with it Etsuko would have endured any privation. But the lesson of that tutelage and the prescription for it were made useless by the lack of some essential ingredient.

She had come to Maidemmura seeking that ingredient and, to her relief, found it—alas, a clever imitation of a useless prescription. It was false, and the thing feared, the thing worried about, happened again.

As the doctor smirked and said, “She’s pregnant,” an excruciating pain struck Etsuko’s breast. She felt the blood drain from her face; a terrible dryness in her mouth brought her close to retching. It would not do to have anyone notice! She watched the expressions of Yakichi, Kensuke, and Chieko, all alive with not simply unfeigned, but absolutely dumbfounded, expressions of surprise.

So that’s it. This time we’re surprised! I must act surprised, by all means.

“Oh, how awful. I can’t believe it,” said Chieko.

“Shocking, isn’t it?” said Yakichi, trying to lighten the tone of the discussion, “but with girls the way they are nowadays . . .” He was trying to convey to the doctor that this affair was not of his doing. (The first thing that had occurred to him was how much it would cost to hush up the doctor and the nurse.)

“Are you surprised, Etsuko?” said Chieko.

“Yes,” said Etsuko, smiling stiffly.

“Nothing surprises you, cool as you are,” said Chieko.

She was right. Etsuko wasn’t surprised. She was jealous.

Kensuke and Chieko found this affair fascinating. They had no moral bias—that was their strong point, in which they took pride. Thanks to this self-styled strong point, however, they fell into the position of bystanders, devoid of all sense of justice. Everyone likes to watch a fire; but those who watch it from a terrace are no better than those who watch from the street.

Is there such a thing as a morality without bias? Their dream of a modern, ideal world helped them somehow to bear life in the country, and the only tool they had to build that dream, to make it real, was advice, the kind counsel on which they held the patent. Advising made this fine pair feel occupied—spiritually, at least.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.