Natsume Soseki's "Koto no sorane" in English: Beginning
A few words from the translator
The following is my translation of the beginning passage of a short novel 琴のそら音(1905) by the renowned Japanese author 夏目漱石. I do this largely for fun or as an exercise of translation but shall try and make it convey the content of the original fairly well.
The Japanese original is found for instance in Aozora Bunko:
My translation is (in fact like the Aozora Bunko text) based on the text found in:
1987, Chikuma Shobo, Chikuma Bunko Natsume Soseki Zenshu Vol. 2, Koto no sorane, pp. 91-131
A brief Internet search showed that an English translation (titled Hearing Things) is found in the following book:
Tuttle Publishing, Natsume Sōseki, Akito Ito (Translator) , Graeme Wilson (Translator), Ten Nights Of Dream, Hearing Things, and The Heredity of Taste, ISBN: 9780804811361
Absent koto sound
Natsume Soseki
"What a pleasant surprise! It's so long since you came last, isn't it?," asked my fellow Tsuda as he narrowed down the tongue of lamp flame which had been going too strong.
When I heard him so say, I kept a cup of sōma-yaki ware (as such, handleless and featuring a galloping horse)*1 going round and round on the tips of my three fingers twisting it by the bottom rim, over my trousers dangerously tight at the folded knees on each side threatening to burst out*2 as I reflected. It was long indeed, since we had met this January in the atmosphere of New Year celebration. My first visit ever since to Tsuda-kun here at his lodgings might reasonably be surprising to him today in the season of cherry blossoms in their best.
"I have meant to come over all along but been kept so busy ..."
"You surely are busy, very unlike when you were a student. A huge difference, no doubt about it. Do you still work until six p.m. nowadays?"
"That's about right, yes. I just go home, eat, and then turn in. No study ... or bath even, as is easily the case," said I as setting the cup down on the tatami mat and made face to show as if I had blamed and regretted the graduation.
The last remark seemed to have earned me a little sympathy from Tsuda-kun, for he observed, "Now I notice you look somewhat thinner than before. You must be suffering so much." To me, the speaker himself seemed somewhat bigger around than before he earned his bachelor's degree, which fact whether just imagined or not, was annoying me. On the desk lay a book looking interesting, whose open pages bore a penciled note early up on the right-hand leaf.*3 It did not only make me jealous to see that he enjoyed such liberty of time, but felt abominable and at the same time made me start to hate and blame myself.
"And you on the other hand, can still enjoy studying to your heart's content. What's that book you are now reading about? You obviously are looking into it closely as seen by how you insert your own note."
"You mean this? Why, it's just about ghosts," answered Tsuda-kun matter-of-factly. In this busy world, to enjoy reading a book about ghosts neither fashionable nor practical at all, was something I believed beyond easygoing but well in the range of luxury.
TO CONTINUE
Translated by me AKA Aono Maruka
*1:The handlelessness and hurrying horse motif are a natural assumption that goes with sōma-yaki. Cup because I assume its function here is a tea cup rather than a rice bowl. I took liberty and made all these explict in the translation.
*2:Yes, I suggest that this person is sitting crossed-legged as the original does so only more implicitly.
*3:I say "early" to suggest that the book is bound on the right. That is probably the case, though not explicitly written in the original.
