558 Hesse, Hermann
a man whose face was all raw from a burn.” After a
while, these people start to smell, but Sasaki—whose
leg becomes “swollen and putrid”—is too injured
to move away from them. She is at last rescued by
friends, who bring news that Sasaki’s parents and
baby brother are dead, adding more emotional suf-
fering to her ordeal. Doctors at the Red Cross Hos-
pital manage to save her leg, but she is permanently
disabled.
Outside medical assistance is slow to arrive
in Hiroshima. Only six doctors at the Red Cross
Hospital can work, including Dr. Terfumi Sasaki
(unrelated to Miss Sasaki). Nurses and medical
supplies are scarce. In the dreadful days that follow
the bombing, 10,000 injured people make their way
to the 600-bed hospital. Confronted with so much
suffering, Dr. Sasaki becomes robot-like, “mechani-
cally wiping, daubing, winding, wiping, daubing,
winding” the bomb victims. He secretly rests after
19 hours of treating raw flesh and dangling limbs.
But an hour later, the wounded find him and chide
him for not doing his job. In total, Sasaki works
three straight days with one hour of rest. The suf-
fering—his own and everyone else’s—is a night-
mare he will long remember.
In the years following the attack, the immediate
suffering subsides. But the survivors continue to
encounter new forms of suffering they never imag-
ined possible. Miss Sasaki’s fiancé, who was not
in Hiroshima during the bombing, abandons her
because she is crippled. Like most survivors, Sasaki
also suffers from radiation sickness as well as social
and economic ostracism. These people are called
hibakusha, meaning “explosion-affected person.”
Non-hibakusha often scorn hibakusha and believe
hibakusha can cause disease and bear deformed
offspring. On a bright note, the hibakusha receive
special health services and monthly allowances
if they are unable to work. Moreover, thanks to
Reverend Tanimoto, some female hibakusha with
facial deformities (keloids) are selected to travel
to the United States for plastic surgery. One
hibakusha dies from the procedure, but the rest—
now dubbed Maidens—are remarkably improved.
Unfortunately, when they return to Japan, they
become “not only objects of public curiosity but
also of envy and spite.”
Despite this negative response to the Maidens,
what is remarkable are the relatively few instances
in the book when people complain about their suf-
fering or condemn the Americans for causing it.
The Reverend Tanimoto comments in a letter to an
American friend that he “never heard anyone cried
[sic] in the disorder, even though they suffered in
great agony. They died in silence, with no grudge,
setting their teeth to bear it. All for the country.”
His observation does not mean that no one in
Hiroshima complained or condemned the Ameri-
cans for destroying a beautiful city. It may, however,
cause readers to question their preconceived notions
of what suffering is and their public and private
responses to it.
Elizabeth CornellHESSE, HErmann Siddhartha
(1922)
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) began writing Sid-
dhartha in 1919 and it was first published in 1922.
His life and numerous works, including this novel,
were influenced by his parents, who both lived in
India before meeting in Germany, as well as by a
trip he took to Southeast Asia in 1911. Based on the
dates that the Buddha is thought to have lived, this
story takes place from approximately 540 to 480 b.c.
Siddhartha leaves his family as a young man with
his childhood friend, Govinda, because they are in
search of enlightenment. Both decide to become
samanas (wandering ascetic monks), and during this
time they hear about Gotama, who is said to be the
Buddha. Govinda decides to follow Gotama’s teach-
ings, while Siddhartha continues his journey and
reenters the world. He subsequently meets Kamala,
a courtesan, and through her Kamaswami, a wealthy
merchant, both of whom teach Siddhartha their
trades. Feeling unhappy and unfulfilled after becom-
ing a gambler, Siddhartha employs the ferryman
Vasudeva, with whom he remains. After many years
he sees Kamala, who dies from a snake bite shortly
thereafter, and he discovers that she has given him
a son. Siddhartha tries to raise his son, but quickly
realizes that the son too must leave his father and go
out on his own. In the final chapter Siddhartha once
again sees Govinda; through a kiss on Siddhartha’s