Peculiar Sounds
Natsume Sōseki – 1911

Part One
Just as I'd felt I was dozing off, I found myself awake. A curious sound was emanating from the nextroom. At first, I had no idea what sort of sound it was or where exactly it came from. As I listened further,though, my ears began to make sense of it. Someone, no doubt, was using a wasabi grater to slowly scrape
down a daikon or such. I was convinced that was it. At the same time, I couldn't fathom why anyone, at
this hour, would need to be grating a daikon in the adjoining room.
I've neglected to mention that I was in a hospital. The kitchen was a good ways off and down a floor, andthat was where the cooks were. Preparation of food, of course, was not allowed in the rooms. Even sweets
were forbidden. Why would anyone, then, be grating a daikon at this odd hour? It had to be somethingelse, and my ears were deceiving me. Having reasoned thus, I was still at a loss to place or explain thesound.
Leaving it alone, I resolved to divert my thoughts to things more meaningful. This enigmatic sound,though, having once touched my ears, vexed me to no end. As long as it continued, its pulses agitating myeardrums, it demanded my attention. All else was quiet and still. The patients of this ward were by andlarge bedridden and, as if by unspoken consent, refrained from speaking. Whether they slept or were lostin thought, words were seldom spoken. Even as the nurses walked the halls, their slippers made no sound.
In the midst of such silence, this odd reverberation, of something slowly and methodically scraped away,
weighed on my mind.
I was in one half of a deluxe two-room suite that the hospital had repurposed into individual rooms. Theauxiliary room, where the brazier would have been, had as one wall a partition that blocked it off from thebedroom. Set into the eastern wall of the six-mat bedroom were several meters of shelves and cabinetry,next to which was a fusuma of fibrous weave. The fusuma, if slid open, allowed easy access from one
room to the other. Were I simply to fling it open, I'd know in an instant the goings on of the other room.
The sound reaching my ears, of course, in no way warranted such gross breach of etiquette.
The summer season was upon us, and the veranda doors were kept open to air the rooms. The veranda hadoriginally been built to run uninterrupted the full length of the wing. Later however, to afford the patientsdue privacy, hinged wooden doors had been installed, one between each pair of rooms. The doors were
elegantly crafted, with fine wooden strips set crosswise over a base plank. Each morning, when it wastime to sweep, the custodian would come up with his key and unlock these doors one by one as he worked
his way along. I rose from my bed and stood on the threshold. The sounds in question seemed to originate1ōPeculiar Sounds – S seki Projectfrom just beyond the wooden door. There was a gap at the base of the door, but not enough to reveal
anything.
From then on, this same sound was often repeated. On some occasions, it would carry to my ears for fiveor six minutes, while on other occasions it would break off after lasting but half so long. However, theopportunity to ascertain the nature of this sound never presented itself. The patient next door was a quiet
fellow. From time to time he would call out softly in the night for the nurse. The nurse, admirably
fulfilling her duty, when called once or twice would rouse herself and respond back in a gentle andcomforting voice. She would then attend to the patient.
One day, as the doctor's rounds brought him to the next room, he seemed to remain longer than usual.
After some time, a hushed conversation began. There were two or three voices, and their talk seemedsomehow weighted and slow. Finally, the doctor spoke with words that carried clearly. "You just have togive it time. A quick recovery's not in the cards." Several days later, there were furtive comings and goingsin said patient's room. They seemed to be taking great care in deference to the patient. Then the patient
himself, like a shadow, was suddenly gone. Only one day later, a new name tag, scribed in customary
white characters on a black background, adorned the door post. The patient had left the hospital, and thatcurious sound remained a mystery. By and by, I too left the hospital. My curiosity, with regard to thatsound, faded away with the passage of time.
Part TwoThree months hence I was readmitted to the same hospital. My room number differed by only one frommy prior stay. I was one room to the west. I wondered who was now on the other side of the wall, in myprior place of residence. I listened all day for some indication but heard not a sound. The room was vacant.
One room further down was the room from which that sound had emanated. I didn't know who might be inthere now. My health took a precipitous turn for the worse. I'd been reflecting of late on my life, and thosereflections now, in endless succession, assailed my mind. Wasabi graters, or other such similar things,
found no room in my thoughts. I took more interest, rather, in the experiences of fellow patients whose
fates mirrored my own. I asked the nurse how many of us were housed in these private rooms. She told me
there were only three others. I asked if their conditions were grave. It seemed they were. Over the courseof the next several days, I learned from her the nature of their ailments. One had esophageal cancer.
Another had stomach cancer, and the final one stomach ulcers. None seemed long for this world, the nurse
stated, lumping their fates in a single prognosis.
I passed time gazing at the delicate flowers of the begonia plant on my veranda. The intent was to buy achrysanthemum, the fellow who brought me the begonia had explained. The vendor had wanted sixteen
kan, and he'd offered him five. Five was out of the question, so he'd upped his offer to six, but still nodoing. It was a bad year for chrysanthemums, on account of the rain, so prices were high. As I2ōPeculiar Sounds – S seki Projectremembered this story, I saw my mind's eye the temple fair, the boulevard packed with vendors, and thebustle of evening crowds.
In the end, the fellow with esophageal cancer was discharged. The fellow with stomach cancer, saying he'dmade his peace and was ready to die, passed away with utmost grace. The fellow with ulcers grew worseover time. On some nights, as I lay awake, I could hear his attendant crushing ice at the east end of thehall. The patient died, and the sound of the ice was heard no more. I entered the following in my diary. -"Of the three of us, two are now gone. With respect to the two who have passed, to live on seems, in somesense, an affront. The one had been nauseous and wretched continually. The sound had carried from one
end of the hall to the other. These last several days he'd gone silent, and I'd imagined perhaps his nauseahad subsided. In fact, as it turned out, he was simply too weak to produce any sound."Thereafter, various patients came and went in turn. With the passing of days, my own condition improved.
By and by, I began to stroll the wide hallways in slippered feet. As it happened, I came to be on speaking
terms with a certain attendant nurse. One warm afternoon, to take some exercise after lunch, I took apotted daffodil to the sink to freshen its water. As I ran the spigot, the nurse approached, carrying teacups
from her rooms that she'd come to wash. She greeted me in the usual manner, looked for a moment at thepot in my hands and the large bulb root that crowded its center, then lifted her gaze to view my face inprofile. "Your complexion looks much better now than the last time." She was contrasting my appearanceof three months ago with my appearance at present.
"By 'last time,' you mean you were attendant here then too?""Yes, just next door. I was caring for your neighbor at that time. You may not have known it."This neighbor was the man in the room adjoining my own to the east, the source of that curious sound. I
looked at the nurse. It was she who, when called to in the middle of the night, responded in that gentle
voice and woke to attend her patient. I never would have guessed it. Though that sound had piqued myinterest to no end at the time, I was not inclined now to ask after its nature. "I see." I replied simply andwiped the outside of my pot. As I was doing so, she suddenly broached a new subject, shifting her tone abit.
"During those days, on occasion, we heard a peculiar sound from your room ..."
Feeling suddenly blindsided, I turned her way. She elaborated further.
"It was early mornings. Around six, I believe."3ōPeculiar Sounds – S seki Project"Ah, that," I replied heartily, realizing now what she meant. "That was my Auto-Strop. I shave eachmorning. I have a safety razor, and I strop the blade to keep it sharp. I'm doing it even still. You'rewelcome to come and see for yourself."
The nurse simply voiced her surprise. As it turned out, the patient next door had taken great interest in thesound of that strop. He'd asked his nurse, on numerous occasions, what it could be. When she'd said she
didn't know, he'd surmised that his neighbor, in better physical health than himself, was exercising eachmorning. He'd decided it was some sort of fitness contraption, and more than once had expressed his envy.
"Be that as it may, what was that sound from your side?""That sound from our side?""Yes. There was often this sound, like someone grating daikon, was there not?""Ah, that. That was cucumber. The patient complained of a burning sensation in his legs. He asked me tosoothe them with cucumber juice, so I was often in there with cucumber and grater.""So I wasn't entirely wrong, imagining the grating of daikon.""True.""It all fits now. -- Tell me, what was the patient's affliction?""Rectal cancer.""Then his prospects were not at all good.""I'm afraid not. He was taken back home, but he passed away shortly thereafter."
I returned silently to my own room. In my mind, I thought through the contrast between one man, now
deceased, who'd vexed his neighbor with the sound of grated cucumber, and another man, now
convalesced, who'd made his neighbor envious with the sound of his leather strop.

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