Pathway to Japanese Literature

With a prick, a single adzuki bean-sized skin eruption appeared beneath my left breast, and upon closer inspection, small red eruptions were scattered all around it as if mist had been sprayed - yet at that time, there was no itching nor any sensation whatsoever.
Feeling resentful, I scrubbed under my breast with a towel in the bath until the skin was nearly rubbed raw.
That had been a mistake.
I returned home, sat before the dressing table, and when I exposed my chest to examine it in the mirror, it appeared repulsive.
The walk from the public bath to my home takes no more than five minutes, yet in that brief span, the area from under my breast to my stomach had turned a vivid red - ripe like a strawberry across two palm-widths of skin - and I felt as though gazing upon a hellscape painting; suddenly, everything around me grew dark.
From that moment on, I ceased to be the person I had been.
I no longer felt human myself.
Is this what they mean by losing oneself?
For a long time, I sat vacantly.
Looming darkly around me, cumulonimbus clouds of ash-gray had completely encircled my being; I found myself severed from the world I once knew, where even sounds reached me only faintly - and so began those suffocating moments in the earth's depths, each second passing like an eternity from that time onward.
After staring at my naked reflection for some time, red specks began appearing here and there like the first scattered drops of rain - around my neck, across my chest and stomach, even creeping toward my back. When I angled the hand mirror to inspect behind me, my white back now erupted with crimson hailstone-like pustules; I covered my face.

“These things have appeared...”
I showed that person.
It was the beginning of June.
That person wore a short-sleeved white shirt and short pants, appearing to have completed his day’s work as he sat vacantly smoking before his work desk; he then stood up, made me turn this way and that, frowned while scrutinizing the eruptions, and pressed here and there with his fingers.

“Does it itch?” he asked.
I answered that it didn’t itch.
“It’s absolutely nothing at all.”
That person tilted his head, then made me stand on the veranda where the blazing western sunlight fell, spun my naked body around, and continued examining me with meticulous care.
That person always paid excessively meticulous attention to matters concerning my body.
He was quite silent, but Shin always took good care of me.
I knew this full well, so even when made to stand exposed on the sunlit veranda—my embarrassing naked form turned east and west, mercilessly handled about—I instead attained a quiet, settled feeling akin to praying to God; such profound relief it brought.
I stood still with my eyes lightly closed, feeling I never wanted to open them again until I died like this.

“Can’t figure it out,” he muttered. “If it’s hives, you should be itching. Can’t possibly be measles.”

I laughed wretchedly while adjusting my kimono. “Maybe I reacted to bran? Every time I went to the bathhouse, I scrubbed my chest and neck quite vigorously.”

“Might be that,” he conceded. After we settled on this explanation, that person went to the pharmacy and returned with a tube of viscous white ointment. He silently rubbed it into my skin with his fingers until my body cooled and my spirits lifted slightly,

“I wonder if it’s contagious?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

That person may say that，but that person’s sorrowful feelings—though undoubtedly meant to grieve for me—pierced through those fingertips into my decayed chest with painful resonance，and ah，I earnestly wished to recover quickly.

That person had always been meticulously shielding my unsightly appearance；regarding the numerous laughable flaws of my face—never uttering even jocular mention of them，remaining cloudlessly serene like flawless Japanese weather in ceaseless attentiveness，

“I think it’s a nice face.”
“I love it.”

There were even times when he uttered such things with blunt directness that left me flustered and at a loss.
Our marriage had taken place this very March.
Even the word “marriage” felt unbearably pretentious and frivolous to me—our union being such a frail, impoverished thing that I could scarcely bring myself to speak of it without embarrassment.
First of all—I was already twenty-eight.
With this moon face of mine keeping suitors distant—though there had indeed been two or three proposals by twenty-four or twenty-five—they would coalesce only to disintegrate time after time—for our household too held no wealth—just Mother alone with me and my sister—a fragile trio of women where favorable matches could hardly be hoped for.
That must have been a covetous delusion.
At twenty-five I steeled myself.
Even were I never to marry—I resolved to support Mother and raise my sister—making that my sole purpose—my sister being seven years my junior and turning twenty-one this year—her looks improving while her willfulness diminished—becoming quite proper—so I planned to secure her a respectable husband—then establish my own path to self-sufficiency.
Until then—I would remain home managing finances and social obligations—protecting our household.
Having thus resolved—all those swarming anxieties that had plagued me dissolved completely—the anguish and loneliness receding into distance—and while tending household duties I devoted myself to Western sewing lessons—gradually accepting orders for neighborhood children’s clothing—just as prospects for independence began emerging—came this proposal regarding him who is now my husband.
The intermediary was one bound by obligation—my late father’s benefactor—making refusal impossible—and upon hearing details—the man had only elementary schooling—no family—raised since childhood by said benefactor—owning no property—a thirty-five-year-old pattern designer of some skill—his income reaching two hundred yen monthly in good months—yet sometimes nothing—averaging seventy or eighty.
As for him—this being no first marriage—having lived six years with a lover before separating two years prior—afterward lacking education or assets with advancing age—he’d resigned himself to bachelorhood until persuaded—“People will brand you eccentric”—thus discreetly approaching us—leaving Mother and I exchanging troubled glances.
Not a single redeeming aspect graced this proposal.
However much I—a leftover moon-faced spinster faultless yet reduced to marrying thus—raged initially then sank into desolation—
Refusal remained our only course—yet bound by obligation to Father’s benefactor—Mother and I dithered over polite refusal when suddenly pity for him struck—
He must be kind—
I too had merely finished girls’ school without distinction—
No substantial dowry either—

Father had died, leaving our household vulnerable.
Moreover, being moon-faced and rather granny-like myself, I truly had no redeeming qualities.
We might make a well-matched couple after all.
I was destined for unhappiness anyway.
Rather than refuse and create awkwardness with my late father’s benefactor, my feelings gradually shifted toward acceptance—and to my shame, there even arose a faint flutter of excitement that warmed my cheeks.
Without further discussion with Mother—who still wore a worried expression as she asked, “Are you really sure about this?”—I directly gave the benefactor my clear answer.

After getting married, I was happy.
No.
No—I must still call it happiness.
It feels like a sin.
I was tenderly cared for.
That person was timid in many ways, appearing as if he'd been abandoned by his former partner, which made him all the more fidgety—lacking confidence to an exasperating degree, thin and small with a meager face.
He was diligent in his work.
What startled me was recognizing one of his designs when I glimpsed it.
What a strange twist of fate!
When I asked him and confirmed this truth, my heart fluttered then as if I'd fallen in love.
The wisteria rose pattern trademark of that famous Ginza cosmetics shop had been designed by him—not only that, but nearly all label designs for perfumes, soaps, powders, and advertisements from that shop were his creations.
For over ten years he'd worked almost exclusively for them, single-handedly crafting those distinctive wisteria rose patterns for labels and posters until even foreigners remembered those elegant intertwined vines without knowing the shop's name—anyone who'd seen them once would surely remember.
Even someone like me felt I'd known that wisteria pattern since girls' school.
Strangely drawn to it, I'd used that shop's cosmetics exclusively after graduating—in short, I'd been a devoted fan.
Yet I'd never once considered who designed those wisteria roses.
It seems terribly careless, but then no one thinks to ask about designers when admiring beautiful ads.
Pattern designers are truly like foundation stones supporting grand edifices.
Even I hadn't realized until well after becoming his bride.
When I learned this, I felt joy—

“I’ve loved this pattern since my girls’ school days.”
“You were the one who had been drawing them.”
“I’m happy.”
“I’m happy, aren’t I?”
“For over ten years now, I’ve been bound to you from afar.”
“It was decided I’d come here after all,” I said with forced cheerfulness—whereupon that person’s face turned red,

“Don’t mess around. It’s just artisan work,” he said with deep embarrassment, blinking rapidly before letting out a weak snort of laughter and assuming a sorrowful expression.

That person always belittled himself—fretting over his lack of education, his second marriage, his meager appearance—even though I didn’t mind any of it. If that’s how things were, what on earth should someone like me—this moon-faced woman—do?
We were both devoid of confidence, anxiously on edge—our faces etched with what one might call wrinkles of shame. That person seemed to want me, at times, to act sweetly and cling to him without reserve. But I too was a twenty-eight-year-old granny of sorts, and what’s more, this moon-faced woman found his self-deprecating lack of confidence contagious, making our interactions increasingly awkward. Try as I might, I couldn’t innocently play the adorable wife—though my heart yearned for him, I instead gave earnest, chilly replies. This would make him prickly, and because I understood his feelings all too well, I grew even more flustered until we became utterly formal with one another.
That person too seemed to keenly perceive my lack of confidence, occasionally blurting out clumsy compliments about my face or kimono patterns—but understanding his solicitude only filled my chest to bursting with a sorrowful urge to weep, bringing me no joy whatsoever.
That person was a good person.
He had never breathed even a whiff about that woman from his past.
Thanks to that, I was always able to forget about it.
After all, we had newly rented this house after marrying, and prior to that he had lived alone in an Akasaka apartment—surely out of a desire to leave no bad memories behind and perhaps also thoughtful consideration toward me—having sold off every last piece of his previous household belongings, moving to this Tsukiji home with only his work tools. Then, using the small sum I received from Mother along with gradual joint purchases, we assembled our domestic necessities—the bedding and chest being what I brought from my Hongō family home—so completely had all trace of that former woman vanished that I could scarcely believe now he ever spent six years with another woman besides myself.
If only that person had ceased this unnecessary self-deprecation—if only he had shouted at me more roughly, manhandled me without restraint—then I too could have likely sung innocently and depended on him in every way, surely making ours a brighter household. But as it was, both of us remained awkwardly conscious of our ugliness—myself aside, why should that person have had any reason for belittlement?
Even if he had only completed elementary school, in terms of education there was not the slightest difference from a university graduate.
He collected records of excellent taste, read with fervor during breaks from work the works of foreign novelists whose names I’d never once heard, and then there was that world-renowned wisteria rose pattern.
Though he occasionally mocked his own poverty, lately he’d had so much work that substantial sums—hundred yen, two hundred yen—had been coming in, even taking me to the hot springs in Izu just recently. Yet he still fixated on how Mother bought our bedding, chests, and other furnishings. His dwelling on it made me feel ashamed, as if I’d done something wrong—even though they were all cheap things—leaving me desolate enough to weep. That marrying out of sympathy and pity had been a mistake, that perhaps I should have remained alone—terrifying thoughts I entertained one night.
There had even been times when an abominable unfaithfulness craving something stronger reared its head, making me a villain.
After marrying, I felt with biting intensity—so sharp it made me want to clamp my teeth on my tongue—both the beauty of youth and the bitter regret of having let mine fade into grayness. Wanting to compensate somehow while there was still time, I once ended up sniveling over my rice bowl during a quiet dinner with that person, chopsticks trembling in my hand as desolation overwhelmed me.

This must all stem from my selfish desires.
For someone like me—this moon-faced woman—to speak of youth is absurd.
It would only make me a laughingstock.
I am already exceedingly fortunate as I am now with just this much.
I must think that way.
In my carelessness, selfishness emerges—and that is why I am now afflicted with these unsettling skin eruptions.
Perhaps because he had applied the ointment for me, the skin eruptions did not spread any further. Secretly praying to God that they might heal by tomorrow, that night I allowed myself to go to bed early.

Lying in bed, I pondered deeply and found myself feeling strangely puzzled. I do not fear any illness, but skin disease—that I absolutely cannot bear. No matter what hardships I endured or poverty I suffered, I had always resolved never to succumb to skin disease. Even losing a leg or arm would be preferable to contracting such an affliction. During physiology class at girls' school, when taught about skin disease pathogens, my entire body had prickled with itchiness—I'd wanted to tear out those textbook pages showing photos of insects and bacteria. Thus I cursed the teacher's insensitivity—though no, even he wasn't teaching this calmly. Bound by duty, he must have suppressed his revulsion while feigning normalcy—precisely this realization made his shamelessness seem more despicable, leaving me writhing in agony.

After that physiology class ended, I argued with friends: which among pain, ticklishness, and itchiness caused greatest suffering? When this debate arose, I staunchly asserted itchiness as most dreadful—isn't that so? Both pain and ticklishness naturally reach perceptual limits. Beaten, cut, or tickled beyond endurance—one would surely faint. Unconsciousness brings dreamscapes—blissful ascension—a clean escape from suffering. Wouldn't death itself be preferable? Yet itchiness undulates like ocean swells—surge and collapse without end—dully serpentine squirming that never culminates in merciful unconsciousness or death itself—leaving one condemned to eternal tepid torment.

No suffering surpasses itchiness. Were I tortured in Edo's interrogation grounds—cut or beaten or tickled—I'd never confess.

Before long, I would surely lose consciousness; if this were repeated two or three times, I would die.
Confess? Never! I’d stake my life to protect the loyalists’ hideout.
But if they brought a bamboo tube filled with fleas, lice, or scabies mites and threatened to dump them on my back, I’d tremble with every hair standing on end—my heroic pretense crumbling as I clasped my hands and begged, “Please save me!”
Even imagining it made me leap up in disgust.
When I shared this during recess, my friends all nodded in earnest agreement.
Once our teacher took the whole class to Ueno’s Science Museum—in the third-floor specimen room, I shrieked and wept bitter tears.
They’d enlarged skin parasites to crab size, lining them up on display—morons!
I wanted to scream and smash them with a club.
For three days afterward I slept fitfully, itched inexplicably, and tasted nothing in my meals.
I detest even chrysanthemums.
Their tiny petals swarming like...
Even gnarled tree trunks make me shudder and itch.
How people eat salmon roe baffles me.
Oyster shells.
Pumpkin rind.
Gravel roads.
Insect-eaten leaves.
Cockscombs.
Sesame seeds.
Tie-dye patterns.

Octopus legs.
Tea dregs.
Shrimp.
Wasp nests.
Strawberry.
Ants.
Lotus seeds.
Flies.
Scales.
I hate everything.
I even hate ruby text.
Small kana squirm like lice.
Silverberry fruits, mulberries—I hate them both.
There was a time I saw an enlarged photograph of the moon and nearly vomited.
Even with embroidery, some patterns become utterly unbearable.
This visceral hatred of skin ailments had made me naturally cautious—until now, I’d scarcely known a single eruption.
Then came marriage: daily baths where I scrubbed myself raw with rice bran—too vigorously, no doubt.
To erupt like this everywhere—how bitterly, how resentfully it fills me.
What sin could I possibly have committed?
[He] shoots too cruelly true—this God who loads me with my deepest loathing while sparing me no other illness, as if piercing a tiny golden bullseye to drop me straight into the pit of my greatest terror.

He had bestowed upon me the very thing I loathed most—not that other illnesses were lacking—and with the precision of an arrow piercing through a tiny golden target, plunged me into the exact abyss I most feared. I found myself profoundly mystified by this.

The next morning, she rose at dawn and quietly faced her dressing table—only to let out a moaning *Ah—*.
I am a ghost.
This is not my form.
My entire body resembles crushed tomatoes. On my neck, chest, and stomach—everywhere—hideous pustules as large as beans have erupted without respite, covering every inch as though horns sprout across my flesh or mushrooms colonize my skin. I want to laugh—a choked, airless sound.
By now they have spread even to both legs.
A demon.
A devil.
I am no longer human.
Please let me die like this.
I mustn’t cry.
Even if I were to become this grotesque body and snivel with tear-streaked cheeks, it would not only lack any trace of endearment but instead transform into something ludicrous—like a ripe persimmon smashed to pulp—wretched and pitiful beyond remedy.
I mustn’t cry.
I’ll hide it away.
That person still doesn’t know.
I don't want to show it to him.
Originally ugly as I am, having turned into this rotten flesh—now I am utterly worthless.
Trash.
Garbage dump.
Now that it’s come to this, even that person must have no words left to comfort me.
I don’t want to be comforted.

If he still pities this body of mine, I will gladly despise him. No. I wish to part like this. He mustn't pity me. He mustn’t look at me. He mustn’t stay by my side either. Oh, I want a much, much bigger house. I want to live all my life in a room far removed. I wish I hadn’t gotten married. I wish I hadn’t lived until twenty-eight. In the winter when I was nineteen, when I contracted pneumonia—that was when I should have died without recovering. If I had died then, I wouldn’t have to see such agonizing, shameful, wretched suffering now. I sat motionless with my eyes clenched tightly shut, only my breathing ragged, until I sensed even my heart threatening to turn demonic—the world fell utterly silent, and I had truly ceased to be the self of yesterday. I stood up fumblingly like a beast and put on a kimono. I truly realized how grateful I was for kimonos. No matter how terrifying a torso, it can be properly hidden away like this indeed. I cheered myself up, went up to the laundry area, stared fiercely at the sun, and unintentionally let out a deep sigh. The radio calisthenics commands could be heard. I began doing exercises alone forlornly, voicing a small “One, two” to feign energy, but suddenly found myself unbearably pitiful and could no longer continue—tears threatened to spill out. Perhaps from moving my body so abruptly now, a dull ache began in the lymph nodes of my neck and armpits. When I gingerly touched them, they were all hardened and swollen. Upon realizing this, I could no longer remain standing and collapsed to sit down with a thud. Because I am ugly—because I've lived so modestly until now, choosing shadows, enduring and enduring—why must you torment me? A scorching rage, vast enough to char flesh, seethed within toward no one in particular, and just then, behind me—

“Oh, so here you’ve been.”
“Don’tcha be so down,” said that person gently, “How’s it? Any better?”

I’d meant to say I was better, but carefully removing that person’s right hand from where it rested lightly on my shoulder, I stood up,

"I'm going home."
Those words had slipped out, and I no longer understood myself. I could no longer take responsibility for what I might do or say next. I couldn’t believe in myself, in the universe—in anything at all.

“Let me see.”
That person’s voice—perplexed and muffled—reached me as if from afar,

“No—” I pulled away, pressing both hands to my armpits. “Hard lumps here—in such a place—” Then I cried messily, unrestrained, a choked “Ahhn” escaping me. Even knowing that a twenty-eight-year-old puffy-faced woman weeping like a spoiled child held no pathos—that this was utmost ugliness—tears kept boiling up uncontrollably, saliva dribbling out too, until there remained not one redeeming quality in me.

“There. Don’t cry!”
“I’ll take you to the doctor.”
That person’s voice resounded more strongly and resolutely than I had ever heard before.

That day, that person took time off work, checked newspaper advertisements, and we decided on having me examined by a famous dermatologist whose name I had heard once or twice before. As I changed into my best kimono,

“Must I show my body—all of it—?”

“That’s right.”
That person smiled with refined elegance and answered.
“Don’t think of the doctor as a man.”

I blushed.
I felt a faint glimmer of happiness.

When I stepped outside, the sunlight was dazzling, and I thought of myself as an ugly caterpillar.
I wanted to plunge the world into pitch-black midnight until this illness healed.

“The train—no.”
For the first time since our marriage, I voiced such an indulgent whim.
The eruptions had now spread even to the backs of my hands. Once, I had seen a woman with such dreadful hands on a train; ever since, even gripping the overhead straps had seemed unclean—I’d feared contagion with visceral disgust. Now I became that very woman from long ago, and never before had the vulgar phrase “misfortune of one’s lot” pierced me so utterly to the bone.

“I know.”
That person answered with a bright face and had me board the car.
From Tsukiji to Nihonbashi and the hospital behind Takashimaya was but a short distance, yet throughout that time I felt as though riding in a funeral carriage.
Only my eyes remained alive, staring blankly at the townspeople’s early summer finery—it seemed incomprehensible that none of these passing women and men bore skin eruptions like mine.

When I arrived at the hospital and entered the waiting room with that person, I found here a landscape utterly divorced from the ordinary world, abruptly recalling the stage set of *The Lower Depths* I had seen long ago at the Tsukiji Small Theatre. Outside was deep green and had been so dazzlingly bright, yet here—why was it like this?—despite sunlight’s presence it remained dim, with a chill dampness clinging thickly and an acrid smell stinging the nose; listless figures drooped and swarmed about like shadows. Though they weren’t blind, there was something maimed about them, and I was startled by how many elderly men and women there were. I sat down on the edge of a bench near the entrance, slumped like a corpse, and closed my eyes. Suddenly, it struck me that among this multitude of patients, I might have the most severe skin disease. Startled, I opened my eyes, lifted my face, and stealthily observed each patient one by one—yet indeed, not a single person had skin eruptions as exposed as mine. At the hospital entrance’s signboard, I first learned it specialized in two fields: dermatology and another—a disease with a name I couldn’t bring myself to utter aloud. Then I thought: that young man sitting over there, who looked like a handsome movie actor—no trace of skin eruptions anywhere—must have come for that other disease, not dermatology. And once that thought took hold, all these afflicted souls slumped on benches in the waiting room—every last one—seemed to share that same unnameable blight.

“Please go take a walk.”
“It’s stifling here.”

“Still seems like it’ll be a while.”
That person stood idly by my side, seemingly at a loss.

“Yes.
My turn seems to be around noon.”
“It’s filthy here.”
“You shouldn’t stay.”
Even I was startled by how harsh my voice sounded, and that person seemed to accept it without protest, nodding slowly,

“Why don’t you come out too?”

“No.”
“I’m fine here.”
I smiled. “Staying here is easiest for me.”

Having pushed that person out of the waiting room, I calmed somewhat, sat back down on the bench, and squeezed my eyes shut as if against something sour. To an observer, I must look like some pretentious 'Granny Madam' lost in absurd contemplation, but truly, staying like this brought me the most ease. Playing dead. Recalling such words, I found it rather amusing. But gradually, worry crept over me. Everyone has their secret. I felt as if those vile words had been whispered directly into my ear, a restless agitation rising within me. Could these eruptions too—? With hair-raising terror I wondered if even his kindness, his lack of confidence might stem from that source. No, impossible. I—absurd though it was—had truly realized for the first time then that I hadn't been his first, finding myself unable to sit still or remain standing. Deceived! Marriage fraud. Abruptly those terrible words returned, making me want to chase after him and strike. What a fool I was. Though I'd come to him fully aware from the start, now—suddenly—the knowledge that I wasn't his first overwhelmed me with unbearable bitterness and resentment, an irrevocable truth. His former woman pressed vividly against my heart; for the first true time I found myself terrified of her, loathing her—while my own naivety in never having spared her a thought until now struck me as so regrettable that tears boiled forth. This pain—was this what they called jealousy? If so, then jealousy was a hopeless frenzy, purely of the flesh. The ultimate grotesquerie without a shred of beauty? This world still held so many unknown hells for me to discover. Living became unbearable. Wretchedly, I fumbled with the furoshiki bundle on my lap, pulled out the novel, flipped pages at random, and began reading heedlessly.

Madame Bovary.
Emma’s painful life always consoles me.
This path of descent Emma treads strikes me as womanhood’s most natural course.
Like water seeking low ground, I feel a docility that weighs my limbs.
Women are like this.
We harbor unspeakable secrets.
For it is our “inborn nature,” you see.
Each of us surely carries her own mire.
This much we can declare.
For women, each day contains eternity.
We differ from men.
We never ponder the afterlife.
We lack contemplation.
Each fleeting moment exists solely to perfect beauty.
I adore life itself—the very sensation of living.
When women cherish teacups or kimono patterns, it’s because these alone constitute our true raison d'être.
The purpose of existence lies in these transient motions.
What more could one require?
If lofty realism were to firmly suppress and ruthlessly expose this feminine unruliness and drift, perhaps our bodies might settle into unimaginable ease—yet this bottomless “demon” within womanhood remains untouched, willfully ignored, breeding countless tragedies.
Perhaps only profound, towering realism can truly deliver us.

To speak without falsehood—a woman’s heart can calmly consider other men even the day after marriage, you know. The human heart never allows negligence. The old teaching about separating boys and girls after seven suddenly pierced my heart with terrifying reality, making me gasp aloud. Japanese ethics, I realized through dizzying shock, were almost muscularly realistic. Everything lies exposed before all eyes.

When I considered how these muddy swamps had been clearly gouged out since antiquity and left bare, my heart grew oddly refreshed—so much that even in this eruption-riddled body, I felt composed enough to mock myself as a still-strangely-alluring crone before resuming my book.

Rodolphe was now quietly sidling closer to Emma while whispering rapid sweet nothings—yet reading this, I found myself pondering something entirely different and strange until an involuntary smirk escaped me.

A bizarre fantasy surfaced: What if Emma had skin eruptions at this moment? No—this was a crucial Idee! My manner turned grave.

Emma must have rejected Rodolphe’s advances without fail—thereby transforming her life into something wholly different beyond doubt—she must have absolutely refused him—for there was simply no alternative with such a body.

Thus begins no comedy—a woman’s life becomes relentlessly determined by transient hairstyles and kimono patterns—by drowsiness or trivial bodily states—there was even that nursemaid who twisted an annoying child on her back to death from sheer sleepiness—and particularly with such eruptions—who could fathom how they might overturn feminine destinies or distort romances?

Suppose on one’s wedding eve these eruptions suddenly appeared—pustules bursting forth before spreading across chest and limbs faster than one could exclaim “Oh dear”—what then? I find this entirely plausible.

Skin eruptions alone truly defy ordinary precautions—they seem ordained by some divine will—I sense celestial malice.

Imagine her—hastening to Yokohama’s pier five years later—heart fluttering as she awaits her husband’s return—only for purple swellings to erupt across her face’s crucial planes while waiting—until through anxious picking—that joyous young wife transforms into an Oiwa-san beyond human recognition.

Such tragedies too could occur.

Men seem unfazed by skin eruptions, but women live by their skin alone, you know.
A woman who denies this is a liar.
As for Flaubert and such, I am not well acquainted, but he appears to be quite a meticulous realist; when Charles tries to kiss Emma’s shoulder—("Stop! You’ll wrinkle my kimono—")—there is a scene where she refuses him thus—
There is a scene where she refuses him by saying, “You’ll wrinkle my kimono—”, yet despite possessing such meticulously observant eyes, why did he never write about the suffering of women’s skin diseases?
Is this suffering something men could never comprehend?
Or perhaps someone of Monsieur Flaubert’s stature did properly discern it, but finding it too unsightly and utterly incompatible with romance, has chosen to feign ignorance and keep his distance?
But avoidance—how cowardly, how utterly cowardly.
Were one to be afflicted by grotesque skin eruptions on the night before one’s wedding, or in the moments before reuniting with a longed-for person after five years, I would die.
I’ll run away from home and plunge into depravity.
I’ll commit suicide.
Women live by each and every moment’s joy of beauty alone, you know.
Whatever happens tomorrow—the door opened quietly, and he poked out his squirrel-like small face to ask, “Not yet?”
When he wordlessly inquired with his eyes, I flippantly beckoned him over with a quick gesture,

“You know,”
Because my voice had sounded vulgar and shrill with forced cheerfulness, I shrugged my shoulders, then made my voice as low as possible this time: “You know—don’t you think a woman shows her truest femininity when she resigns herself that tomorrow can go to hell?”

“What?”
That person was flustered, so I laughed.

“I’m bad at explaining—you don’t understand.”
“Never mind.”
I seem to have changed again after sitting here for a while.
Being in such depths seems to be harmful.
I’m weak—that’s why I’m so easily swayed by my surroundings and end up conforming, I suppose.
I’ve become vulgar.
“My heart was rapidly becoming trivial and depraved—as if I were already—” I started to say, then tightly clamped my mouth shut.
Prostitute—that’s what I was going to say.
Words that women must never utter for eternity.
And words that must inevitably torment one with their memory at least once.
When a woman has completely lost her pride, she inevitably thinks of it.
I realized dimly that these skin eruptions had turned even my heart into a demon—that all this time I had played the role of lacking confidence in everything by calling myself “Otafuku,” yet despite that, I had secretly cherished my skin alone as my sole pride—now recognizing that my vaunted humility, modesty, and endurance were unexpectedly unreliable counterfeits, and that in truth, I too had been a pitiful woman living like a blind creature through mere sensory joys and sorrows—realizing that however acute one’s perceptions and sensations may be, they are animalistic things having nothing whatsoever to do with wisdom.
I came to know myself clearly: I was nothing but a foolish imbecile.

I was mistaken.
Had I not, even in this state, mistaken the delicacy of my own perceptions for something noble, secretly pampering myself by conflating it with intelligence?
In the end, I am but a foolish, slow-witted woman.

“I thought about all sorts of things.”
“I’m a fool.”
“I was utterly mad from within.”

“Ain’t no helping it. I get it.”
That person answered with a knowing smile as if he truly understood. “Hey—it’s our turn now.”

Summoned by the nurse, I entered the examination room, undid my obi, stripped naked in one resolute motion, glanced at my breasts, and saw what looked like a pomegranate. Being seen by the nurse standing behind me was many times as painful as by the doctor sitting before my eyes. As for the doctor, I thought he still didn’t feel human. Even the impression of his face remained unclear to me. The doctor too did not treat me as human, twisting me this way and that—

“It’s poisoning. You must have eaten something bad.”
He said this in a calm voice.

“Will it heal?”

That person asked on my behalf,

“It will heal.”

I was listening absently, as if I were in a different room.

“Because she’s sniveling all by herself like that, I can’t stand watching.”

“It’ll clear up soon.”
“We’ll administer an injection.”

The doctor stood up.

“Is it… a simple case?” that person asked.

“That it is.”

After receiving the injection, we left the hospital.

“The ones on your hands have already healed.”

I held up both hands to the sunlight many times and gazed at them.

“Are you happy?”

When he said that, I felt embarrassed.