I DECIDE TO COMMIT SUICIDE
With such fruitless task day after day I was much discouraged, and
moreover I was so disappointed with this false and faithless world. One
morning I quite decided to commit suicide, if that day’s task were
fruitless again. Though I was such a quite worthless little man, and it
would make no difference whatever to the world whether I died or lived,
it was something for me to die. It could not be a joke to me, I was in
such a serious mood. Even now I cannot forget that feeling. Let me write
down all my impressions at that moment.
As I am a Japanese I could not believe that suicide was a crime. If
there is crime in a suicide case, the crime does not belong to the one
who commits suicide, but to those who so cruelly drived suicider into
such decision. They deserve the name “manslaughterer,” if not
“murderer.”
I have a most pathetic story, which I want to tell to the English
readers. Some years ago there was a most innocent and sacred little
girl, like an angel, in Japan. By some misfortune she was captured by
some American blackmails. The poor girl found out that she was going to
be sold as a prostitute in America. There was no way for this helpless
creature to escape her future doom. She committed suicide, leaving a
poetry which is even now repeated incessantly by every Japanese mouth.
It ran thus:
“Tsuyu who dani ito-o Yamato no Ominameshi, furu America
in Sode wa nura saji.”
“Even a drop of dew is dreaded by a little meadow flower of Japan.
How could she bear to make her sleeves wet amid the pouring rain?”
(_Ame_ is _rain_ in Japanese language, so she used _America_ as
_rain_ with double meaning.)
Indeed she was too pure to be ruined by those barbarous Americans. The
Japanese judge had sense enough not to pass the sentence of “unsounded
mind” on her. But we all worship her as the sacred mirror of the highest
ethics.
There is always something higher and nobler than our life. That is
human dignity. For this higher and nobler dignity that innocent yet most
graceful girl gave up her life. Not only for her own dignity, but for
the dignity of her country, the daughter of Japan killed herself. But
she is immortalized forever!
We, each individual, have each our own bodies, but our conscience is
only one conscience, common to all of us. Therefore it is most selfish
to kill the sacred conscience, which is common to others, for the sake
to save our own life.
Look at those Early Christians! Thousands of them met their death
because they refused to give up their faith.
Of course they did not kill themselves, other peoples did that. But what
is the difference--killing themselves by their own hand or by the other
peoples’ hands? I call them “suicides” all the same. Jesus Christ
Himself knew those Jews would kill Him, yet He gave up Himself to them.
It was, in a manner, suicide. Why then do the English judges not condemn
Christ? Why do they not call Jesus Christ “unsounded mind”? Of course
there are many who are really “unsounded mind.”
I myself was not a coward to be afraid to face these difficulties. There
was something, which I shall not write here to avoid the trouble of any
libel action. But, truly, I hated some faithlessness and I could not
sell my dignity for that. Oh, let the judges call me “unsounded mind” if
they like. But I would call those faithless fellows “unsounded mind” by
return. It is not myself alone, I am sure. How many innocent souls in
this world are being driven into this state every year--nay, every week,
or even every day? The one who drives them this way must have the same
crime with the one who pierced the spear into the side of Jesus Christ,
or as Judas Iscariot.
Even at this moment I was not absolutely pessimistic with the whole
world. How could I forget those pathetic, sweet, English women in those
lodgings. Besides, I recollected some little sweet story which my
brother told me when I was a boy: “One summer morning, when the dawn
came, Miss Morning Glory said, ‘I shall blossom when my little Master
Dew comes to me!’ Little Master Dew said, ‘I shall go to see Miss
Morning Glory when she blossoms!’ While they were waiting each other,
the cruel hot summer sun came and perished both Miss Morning Glory and
Little Master Dew.”
In this wide world there are plenty friends in the same opinion, only it
is always one’s fate that one does not meet with them. My Art was my
Miss Morning Glory. Surely there must be many Master Dews? But they did
not come to me, so my Art was going to be perished by some faithless
ones, without blossoming.
But what does it make different to this world whether my Art blossoms or
not? We all must die some day sooner or later. I could not help without
being jealous with those soldiers and sailors. If they die on the
battlefield, their names shall be celebrated by the whole nation. If
they come back alive, they shall be fully decorated as the triumphers!
It was quite different in my case. If I die I must die like a dog. If I
live, I must meet all insults. And the cruelty in peace time is greater
torture than bullets and swords on the battlefield. The hardship on the
battlefield is all flowers. The difficulty in peace time is nothing but
dust. Oh, why did I not become a soldier or a sailor? I shut my eyes and
saw a mental vision. Some dirty deceivers were sneering at me. My
sister and brother were weeping besides. My dead mother and father were
beckoning me from above the sky in misty clouds and so vividly I saw all
my friends’ faces. In the far distance I heard my own voice faintly. It
was that poetry I sang at Yokohama wharf just before I sailed:
“When the son of Samurai decides to step out from the threshold,
He would sooner die than come back before his Ambition is fulfilled.
Why should he worry where to bury his bones?
Wherever he goes, there is a green hill.”
I opened my eyes and wondered if my expression was changed. I looked at
my glass and I found no change. I could show a jolly smile. Ah, that is
all right.
I left no note. I was intending to hide my corpse by drowning. I did not
want to trouble anybody, neither I wanted the judgment of that
ridiculous “temporary insanity.” I looked back to my old room again and
again, and recollected all my history there.
The first place I tried on this day was _The Magazine of Art_. I had
never tried this magazine before because it was such a high art
magazine, and I was told that art magazines never pay to artists. But at
the time I had such a great question to answer--Death or Life? I got
courage to try it.