Pathway to Japanese Literature

Not only Hiroshige and Buncho—most painted depictions of Fuji were sharply angled. The summit was narrow, tall, and delicate. As for Hokusai, his summit angle measured nearly thirty degrees; he even depicted a Fuji resembling the Eiffel Tower. Yet the real Mount Fuji was thoroughly obtuse—sprawling sluggishly across 124 degrees east-west and 117 degrees north-south—by no means a towering peak of exceptional height. Suppose I had been suddenly carried off by an eagle from India or some such country and plopped down on the coast near Numazu in Japan—even if I were to chance upon this mountain, I probably wouldn’t marvel at it so much. It was precisely because one already admired Nippon’s Fujiyama that it appeared wonderful; without that—if one approached it unaware of all such vulgar promotion, with a simple, pure, empty heart—one had to wonder how much it could truly appeal. When it came to that, it proved a rather unreliable mountain. It was low. Considering how widely its base spread out, it was low. If a mountain had that much of a base, it needed to be at least one and a half times taller.

From Jukkoku Pass alone did Mount Fuji appear tall. That was good. At first, clouds hid the summit; judging from the slope of its base, I marked a spot in the clouds where I thought the summit must lie. But when they parted, I saw I was wrong. Where I had marked my guess, the blue summit revealed itself at twice that height. Rather than surprise, an odd ticklishness overcame me and I burst into a guffaw. "You’ve gone and done it," I thought. When faced with utter dependability, people first seem to erupt into careless laughter. Every tendon slackened without resistance—an odd way to put it, but it felt like laughing with one’s obi cord undone. If you meet your lover and they burst into guffaws upon seeing you, celebrate this. Never take offense at their impropriety. For your lover meets you drenched head to toe in your complete dependability.

The sight of Mount Fuji from an apartment window in Tokyo was agonizing. In winter, it would appear clearly—a small, pure white triangle perched on the horizon. Nothing more than a decorative Christmas sweet. Moreover, tilting forlornly to the left, it resembled a warship gradually sinking from the stern. Three winters prior, someone had confided an unexpected truth in me, leaving me utterly lost. That night, alone in my apartment room, I guzzled sake. I drank through the night without sleeping a wink. At dawn, rising to relieve myself, I saw Fuji through the wire-meshed square window of the toilet. Small, pure white, slightly tilted left—I cannot forget that Fuji. Beneath the window, a fishmonger's bicycle raced along the asphalt road, its rider muttering, "Whoa, Fuji's damn clear this mornin', ain't it? Bitter cold though." I stood frozen in the dark toilet, stroking the wire mesh as I sniffled, swearing never to revisit such emotions again.

In the early autumn of 1938 (Shōwa 13), with the resolve to renew myself, I set out on a journey carrying nothing but a single bag.

Kōshū.

The defining characteristic of these mountains lay in the strangely hollow, gentle lines of their undulations. In Kojima Usui’s *Japanese Landscape Theory*, it was written: "Many are the mountains that defy convention, as if immortals roam this land." The mountains of Kōshū might perhaps have been the aberrations of mountains.

I was jostled by the bus from Kōfu City for an hour. I finally reached Misaka Pass. Misaka Pass, 1,300 meters above sea level. At the summit of this pass stood a small tea house called Tenka Chaya, where Mr. Ibuse Masuji had been sequestered on the second floor working since early summer. I came here knowing that. If it wouldn’t disturb Mr. Ibuse’s work, I thought I might rent the adjacent room and live there in leisurely seclusion for a while.

Mr. Ibuse was working. With Mr. Ibuse’s permission, I settled at the tea house for the time being, and from then on had to face Mount Fuji head-on every day whether I liked it or not. This pass stood at the strategic junction where the Kamakura Highway links Kōfu to the Tōkaidō, reputedly the premier viewing platform for Fuji’s northern face—the vista from here having long been counted among the Three Great Views of Fuji, so I was told—but I did not care much for it. Not only did I dislike it—I despised it. This Mount Fuji was all too contrived. At the center stood Fuji; below it Lake Kawaguchi spread out bleakly white, while nearby mountains crouched quietly at its flanks as if cradling the lake. At first glance I was flustered, my face reddening. This looked exactly like a bathhouse mural. Stage scenery. The view was so thoroughly stage-managed that I couldn’t help feeling ashamed.

Two or three days after I arrived at that pass's tea house, when Mr. Ibuse's work had reached a pause, on a certain clear afternoon, we climbed Mitsutoge. Mitsutoge, 1,700 meters above sea level. It was slightly higher than Misaka Pass. Crawling on all fours up the steep slope, we reached Mitsutoge's summit in about an hour. Pushing through tangles of vines and creepers, my figure crawling up the narrow mountain path was by no means a pleasant sight. Mr. Ibuse was properly dressed in hiking attire, presenting a sprightly figure, but having no mountain clothes of my own, I wore a workman's livery coat. The tea house's livery coat was short, leaving over a foot of my hairy shins exposed, and with the rubber-soled tabi borrowed from the tea house's elderly man, even I found my appearance unkempt. In a slight attempt at improvement, I tightened my sash and tried on an old wheat straw hat hanging on the tea house wall—this only made me look all the more peculiar. Though Mr. Ibuse was not one to scorn another's appearance, even he couldn't help making a somewhat pained expression at this sight. Muttering softly—"A man's better off not fussing over his looks"—he offered this kindness I've not forgotten. In any case we reached the summit, but suddenly thick fog came sweeping in; even standing at the edge of the cliff called Panorama Platform at the peak yielded no view. Nothing could be seen. Mr. Ibuse sat on a rock in the fog's depths, slowly smoking a cigarette as he let out a fart. He looked thoroughly bored. At Panorama Platform stood three tea shops. From among them I chose one plain shop run solely by an old man and woman, where we drank hot tea. The old woman at the tea house clucked sympathetically—"Such wretched fog! Should lift soon though"—insisting Mount Fuji was right there in plain sight. She brought out a large photograph of Fuji from the shop's rear, stood at the cliff edge and held it aloft with both hands. "Right about here," she explained fervently, "exactly like this—so big, so clear—you'd see it just this way." We sipped coarse tea while gazing at that Mount Fuji and laughed. We saw a splendid Mount Fuji. We didn't feel even a twinge of regret about the dense fog.

It was probably two days later when Mr. Ibuse prepared to leave Misaka Pass, and I accompanied him as far as Kōfu City. In Kōfu City, I was scheduled to have an arranged marriage meeting with a certain young woman. Led by Mr. Ibuse, I visited the young woman’s home on Kōfu’s outskirts. Mr. Ibuse wore unpretentious hiking clothes. I had on a stiff sash and summer haori. The young woman’s garden contained numerous rose bushes. After being welcomed by her mother into the parlor and exchanging greetings—eventually joined by the young woman herself—I avoided looking at her face. Mr. Ibuse and the mother were conversing about mundane adult matters when suddenly Mr. Ibuse—

“Oh, Mount Fuji,” he muttered, looking up at the decorative beam behind me. I too twisted my body to look up at the decorative beam behind me. An aerial photograph of Mount Fuji’s summit crater, framed, was hanging there. It resembled a pure white water lily flower. Having taken that in, and when slowly twisting my body back, I caught a glimpse of the young woman. I decided. Even if there were some difficulties, I thought I wanted to marry this person. That Mount Fuji was awe-inspiring.

Mr. Ibuse returned to Tokyo that day, and I made my way back to Misaka. From then on, until the fifteenth of November, I advanced my work little by little on the second floor of the Misaka tea house, all while holding dialogues to the point of exhaustion with this "One of the Three Views of Fuji" that I so disliked.

There was a time when I burst out laughing. A Romanticist friend of mine—some university lecturer or such—stopped by my lodging during a hike. We went out to the second-floor corridor and stood looking at Mount Fuji. “How vulgar,” he said. “Doesn’t it just reek of ‘Mister Fuji’?” “Funny—I’m the one watching, yet I’m the one who ends up embarrassed.”

Saying such cheeky things and puffing on a cigarette, when suddenly my friend—

“Oh, what on earth is that monk-like thing?” he said, jerking his chin.

There was a small man around fifty years old, clad in an ink-black tattered robe, dragging a long staff, repeatedly craning his neck to gaze up at Mount Fuji as he ascended the pass.

“A Fuji-gazing Saigyō, I’d say. “The form is impeccable.” I felt nostalgic for that monk. “He might well be a renowned holy monk.” “Don’t talk nonsense. He’s a beggar.” My friend was coldly dismissive. “No, no. “There’s something transcendent about him.” “The way he walks—isn’t it quite refined?” “Long ago, it’s said that Nōin Hōshi composed a poem praising Fuji at this pass—”

While I was speaking, my friend burst out laughing.

“Hey. Look here. He’s not cutting it.”

Nōin Hōshi was barked at by the tea house’s dog Hachi and sent scrambling in panic. The spectacle proved unbearably pitiful to behold.

“No good, huh?” “Just as I thought.” I was disappointed. The beggar’s panic turned into a wretched frenzy—darting this way and that, finally flinging away his staff, utterly flustered, until he retreated in hopeless disarray. Truly, it had not been sustained. If Mount Fuji was vulgar, then the monk was vulgar too—so it went, and even now when I recall it, it’s absurd.

A mild-mannered twenty-five-year-old youth named Shinta, who worked at the post office in Yoshida—a slender town at the base of the mountains beyond the pass—had learned through the mail that I was staying here and so came to visit the tea house at the pass. Up in my second-floor room, after we had talked for a while and finally grown somewhat acquainted, Shinta laughed and said: “To tell the truth, there were two or three others in my group who meant to come bother you together with me. But when it came down to it, they all got cold feet—Mr. Dazai, you’re written up in Mr. Sato Haruo’s novel as a terrible decadent and moral bankrupt, you see. None of us imagined you’d turn out to be such a serious, proper gentleman. So I couldn’t very well drag them all here by force.” “Next time I’ll bring them all.” “You wouldn’t mind, would you?”

“I don’t mind that, though.” I gave a wry smile. “So you mustered desperate courage to scout me out on behalf of your comrades, then.” “It was a suicide mission.” Shinta spoke frankly. “Last night I read Mr. Sato’s novel again and resolved myself thoroughly before coming.”

I was looking at Mount Fuji through the glass door of my room. Mount Fuji stood there silently, looming large. How impressive, I thought. “Nice.” “Mount Fuji still has its merits.” “You’re holding up well.” I thought nothing could rival Mount Fuji. I felt ashamed of my own love and hate that restlessly churned within me, and I thought: Mount Fuji remains impressive after all. “You’re holding up well,” I thought. “Are you holding up well?”

To Shinta, my words must have seemed amusing, for he laughed with intelligent mirth. After that, Shinta brought various youths along. They were all quiet people. They all called me Sensei. I accepted it with sincerity. I have nothing to be proud of. I have no education either. I have no talent either. My body is filthy, and my heart is impoverished. But as for anguish alone—the anguish of being called Sensei by those youths and silently accepting it—that anguish I have known. That was all there was. A straw-thin pride it was. But this pride alone—I want to hold it clearly, I think. How many people would know the hidden anguish of one who has been called a selfish, spoiled child?

Shinta and then Tanabe—a youth skilled in tanka poetry—these two were readers of Mr. Ibuse, and reassured by this, I became closest with these two. Once they took me to Yoshida. It was an astonishingly long and narrow town. It had a foothills feel. Blocked by Mount Fuji from both sun and wind, it was a town like a spindly, stretched-out stem—dark and faintly chilly. Clear water flowed along the road. This seemed to be a characteristic of foothill towns—even in Mishima, clear water gushed through the streets in just this manner. The people of that region earnestly believed that the snowmelt from Mount Fuji flowed down to them. Yoshida’s water, when compared to Mishima’s, was both insufficient in volume and dirty. While gazing at the water, I spoke.

“In Monsieur Maupassant’s novel, it’s written that some young lady swam across the river every night to meet her nobleman, but I wonder what she did with her kimono.” “Surely she wasn’t naked.” “Hmm, that’s true.” The youths also thought. “Could it be a swimsuit?”

“Did she place her kimono on top of her head, tie it down, and then swim over like that?”

The youths laughed. “Or maybe she swam in her kimono, met the nobleman soaking wet, and they dried off together by the stove?” “Then what would she do when going back?” “After finally drying her kimono, she’d have to get it drenched again swimming back.” “That’s troublesome.” “If only the nobleman would swim over from his side.” “If he’s a man, even swimming in just a loincloth wouldn’t look so shameful.” “Was the nobleman a hammer, then?”

“No, I think it’s because she—the young lady—was deeply in love.” Shinta was serious. “Maybe so.” “The young ladies in foreign stories are brave and lovely, aren’t they?” “Because if they love someone, they’ll even swim across a river to meet them.” “In Japan, things don’t work that way.” “There’s that play—what’s it called?—isn’t there?” “In the middle flows a river, and on both banks a man and princess lament in the play.” “In times like that, there’s no need for the princess to lament.” “What if she just swam across?” “When you see it in a play, it’s such a narrow river.” “If she went splashing across, what do you think would happen?” “That kind of grieving is pointless, don’t you think?” “I don’t sympathize.” “As for Asagao’s Oi River—well, that was a flood, and besides, Asagao was blind, so I do feel some sympathy for her—but even so, it’s not like she couldn’t have swum across.” “Clinging to the stake in the Oi River and resenting the heavens—that’s pointless.” “Ah, there is one.” “In Japan too, there was one brave fellow!” “That one’s incredible.” “Do you know?”

"Is there such an example?" The youths' eyes sparkled. "Kiyohime. She pursued Anchin across the Hidaka River. Swam her heart out. That girl was something else—according to old tales she was just fourteen then."

Walking along the road while engaging in foolish talk, we arrived at a hushed old inn on the outskirts of town that appeared to be acquainted with Tanabe.

We drank there, and Fuji that night was splendid. Around ten at night, the youths left me alone at the inn and each returned to their homes.

I couldn’t sleep and went outside in my workman’s coat. It was an awfully bright moonlit night. Mount Fuji was splendid. Bathed in moonlight, it appeared translucent blue, and I felt as though I were being bewitched by a fox. Mount Fuji was a dripping blue. It had a phosphorescent glow, as if will-o’-the-wisps were burning. Will-o’-the-wisps. Foxfire. Fireflies. Pampas grass. Kudzu leaves. I walked straight along the night road with a feeling as if I had no legs. Only the sound of my geta clogs—as if they weren’t my own, like some other living creature—clack-clonk clack-clonk, rang out with crystalline clarity. When I turned around gently, there was Mount Fuji. Burning blue, it floated in the sky. I let out a sigh. Restoration patriot. Kurama Tengu. I thought of myself as that. I put on a bit of an air and walked with my hands in my pockets.

I must have seemed like quite a dashing fellow. I walked quite a distance. I dropped my wallet. Because there were about twenty fifty-sen silver coins inside, they were too heavy, which must have caused them to slip out of my pocket in one swift motion. I was strangely unperturbed. If I had no money, I could simply walk back to Misaka. I just kept walking. Suddenly, it occurred to me that if I retraced my steps along the path I had just come, my wallet would be there. With my hands still in my pockets, I sauntered back. Mount Fuji. Moonlit night. A Restoration patriot. I dropped my wallet. I thought it a rather intriguing romance. The wallet was glinting in the middle of the road. It was certain to be there. I picked it up, returned to the inn, and slept.

I had been bewitched by Mount Fuji. I was a fool that night. I was completely devoid of will. Even now, when I recall that night, I feel strangely weary. After spending one night in Yoshida and returning to Misaka the following day, the tea house proprietress smirked knowingly while the fifteen-year-old daughter was sulking. I wanted to subtly convey that I hadn't done anything unclean and, though no one had asked, proceeded to explain in minute detail everything I'd done the previous day. I told them everything: the name of the inn where I'd stayed, the taste of Yoshida's sake, the moonlit Fuji, dropping my wallet. The young miss's mood improved.

“Guest! Wake up and look!”

One morning, when the young miss let out a shrill scream outside the tea house, I reluctantly got up and went out to the corridor to see. The young miss was excited, her cheeks flushed. She silently pointed at the sky. When I looked—snow. First snow, I thought. Snow had fallen on Mount Fuji. The summit was pure white, shining brilliantly. I realized that even the Fuji of Misaka couldn’t be underestimated. “Lovely.” When I praised her, the young miss looked pleased, “Isn’t it wonderful?” she said, putting on airs with fancy words, then squatted down to add: “Even the Fuji of Misaka—this still won’t do?” Since I had long been instructing her that this Fuji was vulgar and worthless, she may have been privately disheartened.

“After all, Fuji is worthless without snow.” Putting on a solemn face, I offered this correction. Wearing my workman’s livery coat, I roamed the mountainsides, gathered a palmful of evening primrose seeds, and sowed them behind the tea house. “Listen—these are my evening primroses. I’ll return next year to see them, so don’t you go dumping laundry water here.” The young miss nodded.

The reason I specifically chose evening primroses was that circumstances had convinced me they suit Mount Fuji perfectly.

The tea house at Misaka Pass was, so to speak, a solitary house in the mountains; thus, mail was not delivered. From the pass’s summit, after being jostled by bus for about thirty minutes to reach Kawaguchi Village—a literal backwater at Mount Fuji’s base by Kawaguchi Lake—my mail would be held at that village’s post office, requiring me to make the trip to collect it roughly once every three days. I would go on days when the weather was good.

The bus conductress here didn’t provide any special commentary on the scenery for sightseers. Even so, from time to time, as if suddenly remembering, she would offer explanations in an utterly prosaic tone—"That’s Mitsutoge over there, across is Kawaguchi Lake; we have smelt fish here"—in a listless murmur that barely resembled commentary.

After collecting my mail from Kawaguchi Post Office and being jostled back toward the Misaka Pass tea house by bus, I found seated primly beside me an elderly woman around sixty years old—pale-complexioned with refined features, wearing a dark brown haori—who resembled my mother. The bus conductress suddenly exclaimed as if struck by inspiration, "Everyone, you can see Fuji quite well today!"—a statement neither fully explanatory nor purely personal admiration. At this, young salarymen with rucksacks and geisha-like women sporting traditional coiffures—their mouths fastidiously veiled by handkerchiefs and bodies wrapped in silk—contorted themselves to thrust their heads from the windows. They gazed at that unremarkable triangular mountain as though seeing it anew, uttering foolish exclamations of "Oh!" and "Ah!" until the cabin buzzed with commotion. However, my elderly neighbor—perhaps bearing some deep anguish in her heart—unlike the other sightseers did not grant Fuji even a glance, but rather stared fixedly at the cliff along the mountain path opposite Fuji. To me, her demeanor felt so refreshing it made my body tingle, and I too wished to show this elderly woman my noble nihilistic sentiment—that I had no desire to look upon such a vulgar mountain as Fuji. Though unasked for, wanting to display gestures of empathy—"I understand all your suffering and loneliness"—I quietly drew near her as if seeking affection, adopting her same posture to gaze vacantly at the cliffside.

The elderly woman must have felt somewhat reassured by me, for she absently murmured—

“Oh, evening primroses.” Having said that, she pointed to a spot by the roadside with her slender finger. The bus swiftly passed by, and in my eyes remained a single golden evening primrose flower I had glimpsed momentarily, its petals still vividly lingering. That evening primrose—standing resolutely upright without the slightest quiver as it magnificently confronted the 3,778-meter Mount Fuji, so valiant one might call it an indomitable plant—was splendid. Evening primroses suit Mount Fuji well.

Even after mid-October had passed, my work was making no progress. I missed people. Crimson sunset clouds like the bellies of wild geese—on the second-floor corridor, smoking alone, deliberately paying no heed to Mount Fuji, I fixated instead on the vivid crimson autumn leaves of the mountains, so intensely red they seemed to drip blood. I called out to the tea house proprietress, who was gathering fallen leaves in front of the tea house. “Auntie! The weather’s nice tomorrow.” Even I was startled by how forcedly cheerful I sounded—a voice nearly akin to a shout of joy. Auntie stopped sweeping, raised her face, and furrowed her brows quizzically,

“Do you have plans tomorrow?” When asked this, I was at a loss. “Nothing.” The proprietress laughed. “You must be lonely.” “Why not try climbing a mountain?” “Climbing mountains is futile—you ascend only to descend again.” “Whichever peak I scale, it’s just the same Mount Fuji staring back. The thought weighs on me.” My words must have sounded peculiar. Auntie gave an ambiguous nod and resumed sweeping dead leaves.

Before going to bed, I quietly opened the room’s curtains and looked at Mount Fuji through the glass window. On moonlit nights, Mount Fuji appeared pale blue-white, standing like a water spirit. I let out a sigh. Ah, I could see Mount Fuji. The stars were large. The thought that tomorrow would be fine weather—this faint glimmer of joy in being alive—led me to quietly close the curtains and go to bed. Yet when I realized that even with clear skies, there was nothing in particular awaiting me, I found myself grinning bitterly alone under the covers. It was anguish. My work—no, not the suffering of purely the physical act of writing; indeed, the physical act was even my pleasure—but rather my worldview, what was called art, what was called tomorrow’s literature, in other words, novelty: over these things I still agonized with muddled indecision, and without exaggeration, writhed in agony.

Simple, natural things—and thus concise and vivid things—to capture them in a single swift motion and transfer them directly onto paper: there was no other way, I thought. And when I thought this way, the appearance of Mount Fuji before my eyes took on a different meaning. This form—this expression—might after all embody the beauty of what I called "single-expression," I began to concede slightly to Mount Fuji, yet somewhere within me recoiled at its overly pillar-like simplicity. If this sufficed, then even a Hotei-sama figurine should suffice—but I could not abide such figurines; those things could never be good expressions. This form of Fuji too must be flawed somewhere; this was wrong—and so I found myself bewildered once more.

Morning and evening while gazing at Mount Fuji, I spent my days in gloom. At October's end came a group of courtesans from Yoshida town at the mountain's base to Misaka Pass—likely their annual day of liberty—riding divided among five automobiles. I watched the scene from upstairs. Unloaded from the vehicles like homing pigeons spilled from a basket, these women in motley hues at first wandered directionless—huddled together jostling silently—until gradually that strange tension dissolved and each began drifting apart. Some demurely selected picture postcards displayed at the tea house entrance; others stood gazing at Mount Fuji—a bleak and pitiful scene unbearable to watch. Even a man's unstinting sympathy from upstairs contributed nothing to these courtesans' happiness. I simply had to keep watching. Let those who suffer suffer. Let those who fall fall. It concerned me not. That's how this world works. Maintaining this forced icy pretense while looking down upon them left me in considerable anguish.

I'll leave it to Fuji. The thought struck me suddenly. "Hey—look after these folks," I mentally projected upward, where Fuji stood stark against the wintry sky—in that moment resembling nothing so much as a crime boss in a workman's coat, hands thrust deep in pockets and radiating arrogance. Having made this appeal to the mountain, I felt unburdened enough to grab the teahouse boy and a shaggy mutt named Hachi, abandoning the courtesans to head for the tunnel near the pass. At the tunnel mouth, a gaunt courtesan of about thirty silently gathered worthless wildflowers. She kept plucking blossoms intently even as we passed by. "I'll leave this one in your care too," I added mentally to Fuji before taking the child's hand and scurrying into the tunnel. Cold groundwater dripped down my cheeks and neck as I strode purposefully forward, thinking This isn't my concern.

Around that time, my marriage negotiations too had reached an impasse. It had become clear that no assistance whatsoever would come from my hometown, leaving me at my wits' end. I had clung to the self-serving assumption that I might receive at least a hundred yen in support, planning to use it for a modest yet proper wedding ceremony while intending to earn our household expenses through my work afterward. Yet after exchanging two or three letters, it grew evident that no help would be forthcoming from home, and I found myself utterly adrift. Resigned to the possibility of having the proposal rejected under these circumstances, I resolved at any rate to lay bare the situation to them directly. Alone, I descended the pass and called upon the home of the young lady in Kōfu. Fortunately, she happened to be present. Shown into the parlor where both the young lady and her mother sat before me, I laid out every last detail of my circumstances. At times I slipped into a lecturing tone, much to my own chagrin. Still, it seemed I had managed to speak with reasonable candor. The young lady calmly...

“So, would your family be opposed?” she inquired, tilting her head toward me.

“No, it’s not that they’re opposed,” I gently pressed my right palm against the table. “They seem to be saying, ‘You can handle it alone.’” “That’s quite all right.” Her mother smiled gracefully and said, “As you can see, we are not wealthy people ourselves, and ostentatious ceremonies would only prove burdensome. If you alone possess both affection and dedication to your vocation, then that is quite sufficient for us.”

I forgot even to bow and for a time gazed vacantly at the garden. I became aware of the heat in my eyes. I resolved to show filial devotion to this mother.

On the way back, the young lady escorted me to the bus stop. While walking, I said, “How about it? Shall we try spending a little more time together?”

I had said something pretentious. “No.” “That’s quite enough.” The young lady was laughing.

“Do you have any questions?” More than ever, I was a fool.

“Yes, I do.”

I had resolved to answer truthfully no matter what I was asked.

“Has snow already fallen on Mount Fuji?”

I was taken aback by that question. “It had fallen,” I started to say—“at the peak—” but when I suddenly looked ahead，there stood Mount Fuji visible before me. I felt strange.

“What the.” “Even from Kōfu, you can see Mount Fuji, can’t you?” “Making a fool of me.” “That was a foolish question,” I snapped in a thug-like voice. “Making a fool of me.”

The young lady looked down and giggled softly,

"But since you are staying at Misaka Pass, I thought it would be improper not to ask about Mount Fuji." I thought her a most charming young lady.

When I returned from Kōfu, I noticed that my shoulders were once again so stiff I could hardly breathe.

“It’s nice here, Auntie. Still, Misaka’s good. I even feel as if I’ve returned to my own home indeed.”

After dinner, the proprietress and her daughter took turns tapping my shoulders. The proprietress’s fist was hard and sharp. The daughter’s fists were soft, not very effective. When I urged her to hit harder, harder still, the daughter brought out a piece of firewood and used it to tap rhythmically on my shoulders. Such was the extent needed—so greatly had I strained myself in Kōfu and exerted myself with single-minded determination—that unless they pounded me thusly, my stiff shoulders would not loosen. Having returned from Kōfu, for two or three days I remained in such a daze that no will to work arose within me. Sitting before my desk making aimless practice strokes with my brush while smoking seven or eight boxes of Bat cigarettes, then lying down to sing repeatedly that schoolyard tune—"A diamond unpolished..."—I found myself utterly unable to advance my novel by even a single page.

“Guest.” “You’ve gotten worse since going to Kōfu, haven’t you?”

One morning, as I sat at my desk with my cheek propped on my hand, eyes closed and thinking about various matters, the fifteen-year-old daughter—who was cleaning the alcove behind me—spoke in a tone tinged with genuine vexation and a certain sharpness. I didn’t turn around, “Is that so? Have I gotten worse?” The daughter continued dusting without pause, “Ah, you’ve gotten worse. You haven’t made any progress with your work these past few days at all. Every morning, I really enjoy arranging your scattered manuscript pages in numerical order. If you were to write a great deal, I would be delighted. Did you know I came up to the second floor last night too to check on you quietly? Guest, you had the futon pulled clear over your head and were fast asleep, didn’t you?”

I thought it was a blessing. To put it grandiosely, this was pure encouragement for humanity's efforts to endure. She expected no reward. I thought the young lady was beautiful.

By late October, the mountain's autumn leaves had darkened and became unsightly, then suddenly a night storm struck, and in no time the mountains transformed into pitch-black winter-bare trees. Sightseers too were now scarce enough to count on one's fingers. The tea house too had become desolate. Now and then the proprietress would take her six-year-old boy and go shopping down to Funatsu and Yoshida at the pass's foot, leaving only the young lady behind—with no sightseers about—so that she and I would spend entire days alone together atop the pass, living in hushed quiet. I grew bored upstairs, wandered outside, and approached the young lady doing laundry behind the tea house,

“I’m bored.” When I declared this loudly and suddenly tried to laugh at her, the young lady looked down. Peering at her face, I was struck. She was making a tearful expression. It was unmistakably an expression of terror. “I see,” I muttered with bitter frustration, spun sharply around, and strode roughly down the narrow mountain path carpeted with fallen leaves, in a thoroughly unpleasant mood.

From then on, I was careful. When the young lady was alone, I endeavored as much as possible not to emerge from the second-floor room. When customers came to the tea house—partly to protect the young lady—I would clomp down from upstairs, settle in a corner of the shop, and leisurely drink tea. Once there came a bride accompanied by two old men in family-crested kimono, arriving by car to rest at this mountain pass teahouse. At that time too, only the young lady was minding the shop. I again descended from upstairs, sat in a corner chair, and lit a cigarette. The bride wore a long kimono with patterned hemline, bore a brocade obi across her back, and wore the traditional white headdress—resplendent in full ceremonial attire. Being such extraordinary guests, the young lady seemed at a loss how to serve them; after merely pouring tea for the bride and two elders, she stood silent behind me as if hiding herself, watching the bride's every move. On what should be her life's most glorious day—likely journeying from beyond the pass to wed in Funatsu or Yoshida town opposite—this act of pausing at the summit to gaze upon Fuji struck even an observer as excruciatingly romantic. Presently the bride slipped quietly from the teahouse, took position at the cliff edge before the shop, and slowly contemplated Fuji. She stood with legs crossed in X-formation—a daring pose indeed. "What composure," I mused while admiring both Fuji and bride, bride and Fuji—when suddenly she turned toward the mountain and unleashed an enormous yawn.

“Oh!”

From behind me came a small cry. The young lady too seemed to have quickly noticed that yawn. Eventually, the bridal party boarded the waiting car and descended the pass, but later, the bride ended up in quite a state.

“She’s gotten used to this.” “That one’s definitely on her second—no, probably third time around.” “Even though the groom’s probably waiting below the pass—for a first-time bride to get out of the car and gaze at Fuji? There’s no way she could be that brazen.”

“She did yawn!” The young lady also vigorously expressed her agreement. “Opening her mouth so wide to yawn like that—how shameless. Guest, you mustn’t marry a bride like that.” I turned red in the face, childishly for my age. My marriage negotiations had gradually taken a turn for the better, and I had come to rely entirely on a certain senior. The wedding ceremony too came to be held at that senior’s residence—solemnly even if impoverished—with only two or three close relatives asked to attend, and I found myself stirred by human kindness like a boy.

When November arrived, the cold of Misaka had already become unbearable. The tea house had prepared a stove.

“Guest, the second floor must be cold for you. When you’re working, why don’t you sit by the stove?” said the proprietress, but I declined, being the sort who cannot work in front of others. The proprietress, worried, went to Yoshida at the foot of the pass and bought a kotatsu. I burrowed under it in my second-floor room and wanted to express heartfelt gratitude for the tea house people’s kindness—yet as I gazed at Mount Fuji’s form now crowned with snow across about two-thirds of its full expanse, and confronted the desolate winter trees of nearby mountains, enduring this skin-piercing cold any longer at the pass seemed meaningless, and I resolved to descend from the mountains.

On the day before descending the mountain, I sat on a chair at the tea house wearing two layers of my workman’s livery coat and sipping hot bancha when two young intellectual-looking women—typists perhaps—in winter coats came walking from the tunnel direction, giggling about something. Suddenly spotting the pure white Mount Fuji before them, they stopped as if struck, then appeared to confer in whispers until one of them—a fair-skinned girl with glasses—approached me with a beaming smile.

“Pardon me.” “Please press the shutter.” I faltered. I was not particularly knowledgeable about mechanical matters, had no interest in photography whatsoever, and what’s more—clad in two layers of my workman’s livery coat—presented such a shabby appearance that even the tea house people laughed about how I looked like a bandit. Being suddenly asked by those glamorous Tokyo girls for this frivolous favor, I found myself internally panicked. But then I reconsidered—even in this disheveled state, perhaps to discerning eyes I still carried some hint of elegance, maybe even looked like a man who could deftly handle something as simple as a camera shutter. Buoyed by this faintly elated feeling, I pretended composure, accepted the camera the young lady held out, casually inquired about how to press the shutter with feigned nonchalance, then peered through the lens with trembling hands. In the center stood the great Mount Fuji, and below it, two small poppy flowers. The two of them were wearing matching red coats. The two pressed tightly together as if embracing and suddenly assumed serious expressions. I couldn’t help finding it comical. The hand holding the camera trembled uncontrollably. Suppressing my laughter, I peered through the lens to find the poppies had grown ever more composed, stiffening rigidly. No matter how I tried to aim properly, I ended up banishing their figures from the lens—capturing only Mount Fuji to fill the frame completely. Fuji—goodbye—and thank you for everything. Click.

“Yes, it’s taken.” “Thank you.”

The two thanked me in unison. They would be surprised when they got home and developed it. Only Mount Fuji stood captured large, their figures nowhere to be seen.

The next day, I descended the mountain. First, I stayed one night at a cheap inn in Kōfu. The next morning, leaning against the dirty railing in the inn’s corridor to look at Fuji, Mount Fuji as seen from Kōfu was peeking out about one-third from behind the mountains. It resembled a lantern plant.

(February–March 1939)