What Do I Read Next?
Akio feels oppressed by Masako's tears, for they represent his inability to shake her free. Despite his claims at being able to simply end the relationship, he feels an obligation to her. Even after he tells her his news, he still spends the afternoon with her, for it is raining and Masako has no umbrella of her own. The sense of freedom he had hoped to achieve through his actions cannot come as long as she is crying. He feels ' 'absolute frustration... at the rain, the tears, the leaden sky that hung like a barrier before him." Angry at the usurpation of his superiority, "the boy gave in to a simple desire to hurt." Bringing Masako into confrontation with the fountains only ends in Akio's fascination with the fountains.
He even finds greater truths there, though he hides them from himself, unwilling to face what they reveal about him. His wonderment as he gazes at the fountains reveals a sublimated sexual desire for both men and women. Akio had earlier denied any true sexuality, claiming ' 'that he had made love to Masako" even though he "had always been free from the dominance of desire," but his perception of the fountains utterly disproves that claim. The columns with water that "shot upward" and "spouted vertically and undisturbed" represent the male sexual organ, while the "jets from the big central fountain" with the "untiring rushing" arcs of water represent the female sexual organ. Although Akio begins his contemplation by focusing on the columns, he still is ' 'less taken with three main columns of water than with the water that shot out in radiating curves all around." At this point, he forces himself to be drawn to the representation of a woman's sexuality. As he watches the arcs of water surrounding the columns, his mind is "taken over by the water, carried away on its rushing, cast far away. . . ."
Akio's rapture can be likened to one that would emerge from a sexual encounter. He feels the same way, however, while watching the central column. He is fascinated by the "furious speed" of the water climbing within it, "steadily filling a slender cycle of space from base to summit, replacing each moment what had been lost the moment before, in a kind of perpetual replenishment." Here Akio describes his fantasy of the ultimate, ongoing orgasm. Although he seems to take pleasure in this idea, as he has done previously, he counters what he has said by adding, "It was plain that at heaven's height it would be finally frustrated; yet the unwaning power that supported unceasing failure was magnificent." Here Akio unconsciously expresses his own image of himself as a sexually frustrated creature, yet one who longs to achieve true fulfillment.
As abruptly as Akio falls into this sexual reverie, he is brought out of it: "suddenly, fountains in the rain seemed to represent no more than the endless repetition of a stupid and pointless process." With this perception, Akio again denies his sexuality, casting himself back into that person he claimed to be at the beginning of the story—one who has complete control over himself. The reader, however, knows this to be untrue. Not only does Akio have true sexual desires, he has them for men as well as women. His subconscious understanding of this is demonstrated when he starts to walk away from the fountains, having completely forgotten Masako; she is no longer important to his maintenance of the belief that he can control others, for he knows that he cannot even control himself.
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