Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! by Kenzaburō Ōe

about it—and I finally understood what they meant when they put down ‘brain separation syndrome.’”
    Two brains: that would make clear beyond any possibility of misunderstanding the meaning of the deformity my son had brought into the world with him, of that glistening, flesh-colored lump large enough to be mistaken for a second head—but it was impossible that I could have learned this from Dr. M at the time of the operation and concealed it from my wife.
    “You know that pen drawing of a brain on the wall above the desk in your study?” my wife said. “There's a single eye in the middle of it, and judging from the size of that eye, the brain seems a little smaller than normal. I wonder if that isn't a sketch of the other brain?”
    I did prize that sketch of a brain. It had been used as the frontispiece in a collection of essays that Professor W had published just after the war, On Madness and Other Matters, But, as far as I was consciously aware, I had placed the illustration in a wooden frame and hung it on the wall because I had been profoundly influenced by the following passage in that book: “There are those who say that great achievements are impossible in the absence of madness. That is untrue! Achievements enabled by madness are invariably accompanied by desolation and sacrifice. Truly great achievements are attained by humanistic individuals laboring honestly, tirelessly, humbly while acutely conscious, far more so than others, that they are susceptible to madness.”
    After the operation, when Dr. M had told me about the object like a Ping-Pong ball, I had pictured it, because of the association with a defect in the skull, as a sort of bone; now my wife seemed to suspect that my description to her, of a lump that contained bonelike material, had been intentionally misleading. As though I were under the influence of my wife's suspicion, I was having second thoughts of my own. Perhaps Dr. M had informed me about the two brains right away and I had prevented myself protectively from registering the information. And perhaps it had been my subconscious understanding that had drawn me so powerfully to Professor W's ink drawing of a brain that, based on the proportion of the single eye, was clearly smaller than normal.
    With a word of thanks spoken in the tone of a radio announcement, Eeyore emerged from the X-ray room into the corridor. Tests were a major undertaking for him: though he worked hard at following the doctor's instructions, his clumsiness was so extreme it made me wonder whether his bone structure might be abnormal. The X rays had been the last test, and as we climbed into a taxi my son said earnestly but with elation in his voice, “It was extremely painful, but I did my best! ”
    Something was troubling me. “That condition you mentioned,” I said to my wife. “Did the doctor explain it in a way that Eeyore could understand?”
    “I think so—he seemed very interested. He said, ‘Oh boy! Two of them, two brains!’ Something like that.”
    “ Exactlyl I had two brains! But now I have one. Mama, I wonder where in the world my other brain went? ”
    A laugh burst from the cabdriver, who had been listening; he flushed from his cheeks to his ears and seemed angry at himself for his gaffe. Some drivers who make hospitals the hub of their business have what might be called a mission to make a show of sympathy for patients and their families. Our driver's solicitude had backfired, and he seemed to be punishing himself. But when my son was in a good mood he enjoyed punning and word play, even now he had been mimicking a television commercial, so if anything the driver's laugh would have flattered him. Riding the wave of the moment, I said, “Eeyore, your other brain died. But there's a fine, living brain doing its very best inside your head! But you had two brains, that's really something!”
    “ You bet it is — really something! ”
    How to handle this new information, that there had