The Sound of Waves

by Yukio Mishima

Shinji looked up at the star-filled sky and breathed deeply. Then he thought: “But mightn’t the gods punish me for such a selfish prayer?”

So the two of them simply stood there, startled, like animals that come suddenly face to face in the forest, looking into each other’s eyes, their emotions wavering between caution and curiosity.

Nice and also realistic presentation of a first meeting.

It was as though the sun had come shining through rain.

He was left with nothing but a keen sense of regret, a feeling that there was something he had utterly failed to do.

Read the previous paragraph for a little more context.

They were sails that would never again be filled with wind, sails that, too long unused and heavily drooping, had been turned into stone just as they were. The boats’ anchors had been thrust so deeply into the dark earth that they could never again be raised.

“They say Yasuo Kawamoto’s to marry Hatsue.” At the sound of those words Shinji’s spirits became pitch-black.

It was doubtless because nature itself satisfied his need that Shinji felt no particular lack of music in his everyday life.

The sea—it only brings the good and right things that the island needs … and keeps the good and right things we already have here.…

she was always wishing that she could have a man look at her at least once with eyes saying “I love you” instead of “You love me.” But she had decided she would never have such an experience in all her life.

And as part of his emotion there was the feeling, forever and ever, of pure and holy happiness.

And it was a happy girl who was left standing at the water’s edge.

Hatsue smiled, and Shinji’s mother told herself how wise her son had been in his choice of a bride.… And it was in this same fashion that the politics of the island were always conducted.

When Shinji heard this, his heart was filled with anxiety, pain, and then, at the same time, hope.

Here he was, a young man born and bred on that island, loving it more than anything else in the world, and yet he was now eager to leave it.

This was probably the first deliberate lie Shinji had ever told in his life.

The Korean war had come to an end for the time being,

Rough time period

On a childish impulse, he held his five big-knuckled fingers out toward the sea to the east, already thick with the shadows of evening clouds.…

If her mother would act as a go-between and persuade Terukichi to let them get married … This was the condition she set for her return to the island.

Key to the resolution of the problem

“The only thing that really counts in a man is his get-up-and-go. If he’s got get-up-and-go he’s a real man, and those are the kind of men we need here on Uta-jima. Family and money are all secondary. Don’t you think so, Mistress Lighthouse-Keeper? And that’s what he’s got—Shinji—get-up-and-go.”

Key characterization of Shinji

The dusk in the earthen-floored room became lighter when Hatsue entered.

In his heart the boy reminded himself again of his happiness—the gods had indeed given him everything he had prayed for.

He knew it had been his own strength that had tided him through that perilous night.