dazai osamu, “the setting sun”
I like roses best. But they bloom in all four seasons. I wonder if people who like roses best have to die four times over again.
A sensation of helplessness, as if it were utterly impossible to go on living. Painful waves beat relentlessly on my heart, as after a thunderstorm the white clouds frantically scud across the sky. A terrible emotion — shall I call it an apprehension — wrings my heart only to release it, makes my pulse falter, and chokes my breath. At times everything grows misty and dark before my eyes, and I feel that the strength of my whole body is oozing away through my finger tips.
Of late a gloomy rain has been falling almost incessantly. Whatever I do depresses me.
I drink out of desperation. Life is too dreary to endure. The misery, loneliness, crampedness — they're heartbreaking. Whenever you can hear the gloomy sighs of woe from the four walls around you, you know that there's not a chance of happiness existing just for you.
Just as a man has the right to live, he ought also to have the right to die.
