Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

Late into the wedding night, as the groom and bride were discussing their future, a rustling sound came from beyond the room's sliding door.
Startled, they timidly crawled out and slid open the door to find the Ise lobster—adorned on the ceremonial tray—still alive, gently moving its large whiskers.
After confirming the source of the sound, they looked at each other and exchanged a tender smile.
With such a wonderful memory to cherish, this couple would surely enjoy lasting happiness.
They would undoubtedly establish a fine household.

I sincerely pray that the man and woman whose circumstances I intend to narrate may obtain a smiling wedding night like this from the depths of my heart.

In the suburbs of Tokyo there lived a man known as the Baron.
He appeared thirty-two or thirty-three years old though perhaps younger still.
Having dropped out from Imperial University's economics department he now did absolutely nothing.
Thanks to sufficient monthly remittances from family in rural areas he rented an overlarge house for a bachelor—with four-and-a-half-mat six-mat and eight-mat rooms—where nightly commotions occurred.
Yet these disturbances never originated from him.
Visitors came incessantly.
They swarmed constantly.
People precisely like himself—doing naught but thinking endlessly.
All uniformly impoverished.
Each bearing society's stamp labeling them immoralists.
Complete strangers would saunter inside declaring things like"We're mere passersby but your establishment seemed so intriguing we simply had to stop by—pardon our intrusion."
When this happened cushions would be offered by some man urging"Sit sit"—not him.
Tea poured by another praising"How brave you came"—not him either.
Nor was he that gaunt man startling newcomers with"You liar your eyes betray you."
Then where sat this Baron?
In an eight-mat parlor corner shrunk small listening humbly—that man was he.
Unremarkable utterly.
Five shaku two or three sun tall slight-framed thin.
Staring intently revealed no distinctive features—swarthy oily skin stubbled chin.
Neither round nor long-faced—disquietingly indeterminate.

His hair was somewhat long—not quite disheveled enough to be called unkempt, yet showing no signs of being styled with pomade.
He wore plain wire-rimmed glasses.
He was utterly unremarkable.
Therefore, the visitors, engrossed in their debates, often forgot the Baron’s very existence.
They talked, laughed, grew weary; then suddenly noticing the Baron in the corner—"Oh! You’re still there?" someone exclaimed through a big yawn while—

“We’re out of cigarettes.”

“Ah,” the Baron smiled and stood up. “I’ve also been wanting a cigarette myself.” A lie.
The Baron did not smoke.
“I’ll go buy some.”
He left casually.

The title “Baron” was, so to speak, a nickname.
He was nothing more than the son of a northern landowner.
In his student days, this man had undertaken two or three notable endeavors.
Love affairs, alcohol, and a certain type of political activism.
He had even been imprisoned.
He had attempted suicide three times, failing on all three occasions.
In the man known as the Baron could be observed that tendency common among children raised within numerous-membered large families—assuming oneself to be a superfluous presence, disparaging oneself above all else, and frantically scrambling to find someplace to discard a worthless life.
It didn’t matter what—I wanted to be made a human sacrifice as soon as possible, to bid farewell to this world, and if possible, through that act, to become of use to a few people.
The ugliness of my own heart, the poverty of my flesh, and the shame of having been born into a landowner’s family to effortlessly obtain various rights—along with my excessive preoccupation with these matters—had mercilessly battered and trampled my ego.
It was utterly, bizarrely warped.
If this ephemeral, exhausted bubble of a life of mine can be of any use, please, I beg you, make use of it.
It resembled baseness.
But that had become the sole, if meager, slogan for action left to me.
I acted in accordance with it.
My actions—the outward appearance of those actions, at least—were somewhat splendid.

I am a companion of the weak.
I am a friend of the poor.
Acts born of desperation often closely resemble those of martyrs.
Though brief was this period, the man endured hardships indistinguishable from those of a martyr.
He defied the wind, was battered by waves, braved the rain.
These hardships alone could be trusted.
Yet fundamentally, it had always been an act of despair.
The conviction that I am a people doomed to perish never wavered.
My sole desire was to die quickly.
It was simply that he had been frantically rushing about, searching for a place to die alone.
Far from being of use to others, he couldn't even handle himself.
He had failed spectacularly.
He couldn't even manage to die properly under the glorious name of human sacrifice.
In other words, life's severity did not permit a man's solitary self-indulgent farce.
How presumptuous.
In the end, people cannot become fireworks.
Not knowing the facts, the term "conversion" should by definition imply both salvation and enlightenment.
In that case, for him, even the term "conversion" was impermissible.
He was a ruined remnant.
Bankruptcy.

He was met not with a cross of glory, but with gray oblivion.
It was not a dignified sight.
He resembled an actor who strikes a grand pose at his performance's climax yet remains stranded in bewilderment as the curtain never falls.
Having no recourse, he laid himself upon the stage and played dead.
A desperate clown.
Was this then the sole duty of a wastrel?
Even having fallen to such depths, he still could not fully abandon that lingering "for the sake of."
"If any part within me remains worth consuming," he lay there murmuring, "please—help yourselves."
Consumable parts indeed remained.
He was after all a landowner's son, never wanting for monthly sustenance.
Those equally defeated by some worldly predisposition—branded wastrels and immoralists—swarmed about him like water seeking low ground.
Thus they bestowed upon this man the nickname "Baron," that derisive endearment, making his dwelling their sole sanctuary.
The Baron blankly cooked rice for these visitors in his kitchen, peeling potato skins with a forlorn air.

He was such a man.
One of the visitors had begun working at a film studio and appeared proud of it, evidently wanting someone to observe their work; however, when the other visitors snorted derisively and paid no heed, the Baron took pity and found himself pleading, "Please, you must show me."
The Baron was fundamentally a man devoid of hobbies.
Though he had attained first dan in archery, whether this qualified as a hobby remained debatable.
He didn't properly understand even rock-paper-scissors.
He erroneously believed scissors defeated rock.
Given such circumstances, he possessed scant knowledge of cinema.
Every single day from dawn till dusk he busied himself entertaining visitors—some staying overnight—leaving no leisure for outings. Even on rare guestless days, he would embark on thorough house cleanings or make rounds offering excuses to liquor merchants and rice dealers about overdue payments, leaving him no opportunity to visit movie theaters.
Though he desperately concealed it from his visitors, the strain of forced hospitality had left him struggling with payments to various creditors.
This lack of interests might have originated not from temporal or dispositional causes, but rather from his financial circumstances.

That day, after being jostled on the train for nearly two hours, the Baron arrived at the film studio town. It was a remote countryside area, but he did not let his guard down. Even as he felt certain that gorgeously attired Cossack cavalry might leap from the broom thickets at any moment—and even as he mentally fancied himself armored in cherry-blossom-patterned steel with undignified fervor for his age—the sight of his own shabby shadow cast upon the road by spring's pale sun left him no recourse but a wry smile. After walking a short distance from the station along the rice field path stood the film studio's main gate. White concrete gateposts had ivy buds creeping up them, exuding a cultured air. Directly across from the main gate stood a shop with a thatched roof resembling an izakaya; this was the promised Milk Hall. He had been told to wait there. He struggled to pry open the glass door of the eatery. It clattered stubbornly, refusing to open. Assuming a pose as if prying open the heavenly rock door, he strained with a grunt—whereupon the glass door clattered loudly and slid open over six feet—leaving the Baron stumbling forward in an ungainly sprawl from his excess momentum. Barely managing to stop himself, he slipped into the store stealthily drenched in what felt like three gallons of cold sweat. The dust was terrible. Six or seven chairs and three tables were all white with dust. Without hesitation, he sat down in a corner chair near the entrance. The corner always felt comfortable to the Baron. There he was made to wait for quite some time. Not a single customer entered. At first he had been quite tense thinking actors might still come in, but the sheer desolation eventually left even the Baron aghast—and before long the strain took its toll leaving him utterly drained. After drinking three glasses of milk long past the promised two o'clock and nearing four—when the glass door had begun taking on a faint reddish tint from the setting sun—with a terrible clattering roar came a man shooting in like a bullet.

“Hey!”
“My bad, my bad!”
“Got any cigarettes?”

The Baron stood up with a beaming smile and produced two cigarettes from his pocket,

"I only just arrived myself. I'm terribly late," he said with an awkward apology.

"Ah, it’s fine."
The other man brushed it off casually.
"I’ve been running around like crazy myself since Ikuta-gumi started filming today."
As he spoke, he restlessly waved his hands and stamped his feet, putting on a show of frantic antics.

The Baron grew serious, gazed at the man’s frantic antics, and with a certain admiration—

“You’re really going all out, aren’t you?”
Having carelessly uttered those words, he felt a chill.
He worried whether his own such worldly remark might wound the pride of the other party as an artist.
“The artistic creative impulse and—”
He trailed off slightly.
He secretly rearranged the remaining words in his mind, finally organizing them, then quietly rehearsed them once more in his mouth before speaking out.
“It is considered quite rare for one to perfectly align their artistic creative impulse with their drive for daily life and proceed accordingly, but you appear to be accomplishing this splendidly.”
“It’s a beautiful thing.”
“I am unbearably envious.”
It was an extreme piece of flattery.
Having finished speaking, the Baron gently wiped the sweat from his neck with a handkerchief.

“It’s not that big a deal.”
The man said this and gave a self-deprecating laugh.
“Do you want to see our film studio?”

The Baron no longer wanted to see it.
“By all means,” he found himself pressing earnestly.
He felt like dying.

“All right!”
He shouted in an absurdly loud voice, “Come on!” Then with another ridiculous shout, he bolted out of the eatery.
He had no choice but to trudge along after him.

The man was serving as an assistant to the film director.
He carried buckets of water, toted the director’s chair around, and performed various menial tasks.
And with an air of pride, as if wanting to show off himself engaged in such work for hours on end, the Baron too, sensing this sentiment, stood dumbfounded like an idiot, observing the filming proceedings in which he had no interest whatsoever.
Before the Baron's eyes, trivial matters were unfolding.
It was a scene where a dignified bearded man stuffed himself by eating six bowls of rice.
It was presumably meant to be a comedic scene of uproarious laughter, but to the Baron, it wasn't the least bit amusing.
The man ate rice.
The serving young lady gasped in astonishment.
They were testing this very scene by repeating it over twenty times.
It simply wasn’t funny.
Far from laughing uproariously, the Baron even became bitterly disgusted.
Japanese comedies invariably feature set pieces like scenes where someone wolfs down enormous meals, stuffs ten manju buns until their eyes roll back, or two people scramble after a single bill blown away by the wind—audiences roar with laughter at these tropes, but to the Baron, none of it held the slightest humor.
He only felt gloom.
Above all, he found this bearded man scene appalling.
The phrase "insult to humanity" even came to mind.
Before long, the director hit upon a brilliant idea.
The idea was to attach a grain of rice to the tip of the bearded man’s beard as he ate.
It was deemed a brilliant idea.
The distinguished actor playing the bearded man faced the mirror held out by his young apprentice, frantically trying to attach the grain of rice to his beard's tip. But the grain had gone cold, losing its stickiness, and refused to adhere.
Everyone was at a loss.

The enthusiastic assistant director stepped forward at that moment,

“Well then, you could crush another grain of rice into paste and use that as glue to attach another grain.”

The Baron's body grew heavy with lethargy from the sheer absurdity of it all. Suddenly, the corners of his eyes grew hot, and for reasons he couldn't fathom, he felt like crying. He wanted to let out a loud "Waaah!" and scream at the top of his lungs. But he couldn't just leave. That would be rude. Putting on an air of solemn admiration, he nodded and had no choice but to keep watching.

When the filming had somehow come to a pause, the Baron felt as though he were being resuscitated.
He stumbled out of the sweltering studio and let out a long sigh of relief.

Night had fully fallen, and the stars were dimly shining.

“Shin-yan.” When called from behind in a low voice, he turned to find the smile of that petite young lady—who had been serving the bearded man through twenty-odd takes of astonished gasps—floating yellow in the dark.
“Shin-yan. You haven’t changed a bit.”
“I knew it was you the moment I saw you earlier.”
“But you were in the middle of filming, so I kept quiet. Forgive me.”
She said it all in one breath before suddenly stiffening her manner. “It truly has been a long time.”
“Is everyone back home doing well?”

The Baron finally remembered.

“Ah, Tomi. It is you, Tomi.”
A hint of country accent slipped out—such was the Baron’s fluster.
Ten years prior, Tomi had worked as a maid at the Baron’s rural estate.
When he had first entered high school and returned for summer break, there she was—a scrawny sixteen- or seventeen-year-old maid with frizzy hair and piercing eyes. Her excessive eagerness to attend to his every need instead grated on him, provoking spiteful mistreatment at every turn.
He had even ordered her to pick every last flea from his beloved dog.
Had she remained in his household some two years?
When she vanished abruptly, the Baron merely noted her absence before dismissing it from mind.
This was that same Tomi.
The Baron shuddered with guilt.
Though his hair didn’t stand on end, his entire body tingled unnervingly.
It was unmistakably dread.
Life’s cruel jests—the potential for miracles, the fulfillment of stern vengeance—pressed upon his skin like the primal essence of mountain depths.
Flustered into incoherence, his voice turned hoarse—

“You came.” He muttered something utterly devoid of meaning—a phrase that might have become habitual for someone perpetually besieged by visitors.

The woman too seemed somewhat agitated. Paying no mind to the Baron’s idiotic muttering,

“Shin-yan, you’re the one who’s come all this way.
I’d love to talk properly, but I’m terribly busy right now—oh! Let’s meet at nine in front of Shinbashi Station.
It’ll only take a moment, really—please, I beg of you.
You must find this bothersome, but truly...” While keeping wary of their surroundings, she rapid-fired this plea in hushed tones—her manner utterly earnest.

This was no Baron who could refuse when entreated.

“Ah, sure.”
“Sure thing.”

After leaving the film studio and being rocked by the train, the Baron felt intensely uncomfortable.
The notion of meeting his former maid at Shinbashi Station struck him as disgustingly vulgar.
He deemed it indecent.
He even judged it adulterous.
To go or not to go—he agonized.
He resolved to go.
The Baron lacked the fortitude to casually break promises.

At nine o'clock at Shinbashi Station, having located the petite Tomi, the Baron marched briskly ahead without speaking.
Tomi nearly broke into a run keeping pace, peering at his face from both sides as she unleashed an endless barrage of questions.
They primarily concerned his hometown.
The Baron hadn't returned home in over eight years and knew nothing of it.
He endured with evasive replies of "well..." and "or something...", but eventually grew too irritated. His responses dissolved into chaos, English phrases like "As you see" erupting forth until he yearned to escape immediately.
Soon Tomi began uttering peculiar statements.

“I know everything, you know.”
“About Shin-yan—I’ve heard everything there is to know.”
“Shin-yan, you haven’t done anything wrong at all.”
“You’re amazing.”
“I’ve always believed in you.”
“Shin-yan is a good person.”
“You’ve suffered so much, haven’t you?”
“I’ve heard from all sorts of people—everyone knows.”
“But Shin-yan, have courage! You haven’t lost.”
“If you lost, you only lost to God.”
“Because Shin-yan tried to play God.”
“You mustn’t do that.”
“I’ve had my share of hardships too.”
“I understand your feelings perfectly, Shin-yan.”
“There was a moment when you endured the greatest suffering any human could bear.”
“You should be proud of that.”
“I believe in you.”
“We’re only human—everyone has flaws.”
“Shin-yan, you’ve done truly admirable things.”
“Don’t be shy about it.”

“You may demand due thanks with confidence.”
“Why, Shin-yan—you’re truly splendid.”
“Since I dwell in this filthy world, I understand that all too well.”

The Baron was as if dreaming.
"What does a woman know?" he thought, straining to reject Tomi's strange whisper.
A bottomless sense of defeat rendered this man a wretched incompetent even amid such faint joys of love.
Love impotence.
Tamed servility.
It was as if he had become an imbecile.
A twentieth-century monster.
He was a grotesque infant with blue beard stubble.

Pushed on the back by Tomi, he staggered into Shiseido.
When they sat facing each other in the booth, other customers kept stealing glances at the Baron.
They weren't looking at the Baron.
There was no pleasure in staring at such a shabby young man's appearance.
They were looking at Tomi.
She was quite a famous actress.
The Baron, being a man without interests, knew nothing of that.
He grew angry at people's brazen stares and pulled a sullen face.

“Look at that.”
“It’s because you’re wearing that ridiculous hat with bird feathers that everyone’s laughing.”
“You look ridiculous.”
“I like women in silk crepe kimonos best.”

Tomi was laughing.

“What’s so funny? You’ve gotten strangely impertinent. Just now too, when I stayed silent and listened, you got carried away and started spouting pretentious nonsense like something you’d just read in a women’s magazine. I don’t want comfort from someone like you. Women ought to act more like women. Disgusting. I’m leaving now. There’s nothing else to talk about anyway, right?” As he spoke, he began to feel an inexplicable, terrible sense of humiliation. Rude bastard. She’s trying to make me part of her little play group. How could I let myself be relied upon by someone like you? He stood up smoothly and briskly left Shiseido alone. Tomi calmly watched his retreating figure with a motherly smile.

II

The Baron left Shiseido and went straight back to the suburban house.
Stepping off at the small suburban station, he finally regained his human composure.
He was saved.
First, he felt relieved at having emerged unscathed.
Secretly praising his own courageous attitude and growing slightly intoxicated with himself, he then purchased ten bats for visitors from the tobacco shop in front of the station.
Such a man would submit to and serve those who openly reviled him, act haughtily and drive away those who showed him tender care—thereby preserving his equilibrium.
Yet that night, even the Baron found himself recalling his hometown as he tossed restlessly in bed.

I remain proud of my upbringing. While uttering some pretext, I boast about my household. It is a solemn family. If I now possessed a commemorative photograph of my entire family, I would want to display it in this room's alcove. People would surely envy me when they saw it. How triumphant I would feel in that instant! I would undoubtedly continue expounding endlessly about each member of that great family's magnificence, beauty, sincerity, and modesty—mixing in modest exaggerations all the while—persisting even as I mistook the tears welling in my listener's eyes (born of stifled yawns) for tears of admiration.

However, the listener finally could no longer endure,

“So you’re happy after all,” [the listener] interjected with a compliment that resembled a scream, cutting off my boasting, then asked a single question. “But you’re not in this photo.” “What’s wrong?”

To that, I responded.

“That’s only natural. Because I did a few bad things, I don’t deserve to be in this commemorative photo. That’s only natural. I truly don't deserve that privilege.”

Currently I remained like this—and since my family members were selfish liars without discipline—I decided to let them endure even greater hardships. Even if painful, we would all keep watching silently. That child wasn’t fundamentally inferior; they’d surely awaken soon enough. Believing this, I waited for that day. Knowing this truth sustained me through nights when death seemed preferable—desperately repeating “morning follows night” until I persevered.

In three years I would surely stand in that photo’s corner. But with my poor health, I might die before earning inclusion. Then my family would enshrine my smiling face—wreathed in white—at the commemorative photo’s upper right.

But that might take three years—no, no—perhaps five or ten years.
Since I must be a man with a rather bad reputation back home, even if everyone in my family wants to forgive me, there may well be situations where it simply isn't possible.
What if I suddenly had to return home still bearing that disgrace?
Never mind me—but how painful that would be for my family.
Last autumn my sister died without any notice from home.
Considering it only natural, I bore no grudge whatsoever.
But if—though it's outrageous and utterly irreverent to even imagine—if Mother were to pass away, what then?
Perhaps I might receive word.
Even if no notice comes, I must endure it.
I'm prepared for that.
I hold no resentment.
But—it seems even I have my wishful moments—I find myself thinking perhaps I might be notified after all.
Then comes my summons home.
It has been nearly ten years since I last saw my hometown.
Even if I tried sneaking back for a look, I wouldn't be permitted.
Only natural.
But regarding Mother—if I were summoned back home—what would happen then?

I want to think about that.

A telegram arrived.
I was at a loss.
I paced restlessly around the room.
I was in serious trouble.
I might have groaned from being so terribly distressed.
I had no money.
I couldn’t make any progress.
My visitors were all poorer than I was and living difficult lives, so even in this situation, I couldn’t possibly ask them for help.
Even informing them was painful for me.
Even in such an emergency, my visitors must have been suffering even more than I was over their inability to help.
I didn’t want to make them feel needless shame.
That would instead have become far more painful for me.
I suddenly thought of dying.
This differed from all other matters.
Confronting my mother’s grave affairs while remaining this dissolute—I truly lacked any qualification as a human being.
Just as I thought it was all over, a telegraphic money order arrived.
It was from my sister-in-law.
Of course it was.
Thirty yen.
At that moment, I had wanted fifty yen.

But that was greed.
Fifty yen meant a fortune.
With fifty yen, some family of five could live smiling through an entire month in comfort.
It might even fully cure some girl's severe eye condition verging on blindness.
My sister-in-law likely wanted to send more if possible, but she herself couldn't manage such sums—this must have been her absolute limit. Even had she been able to send a larger amount, there were many relatives to consider and various painful obligations involved, so for me to find thirty yen lacking would be outrageous.
I would surely revere that thirty yen transfer.

I wrestled with concerns about my attire.
Kurume kasuri paired with a serge hakama was my ideal.
The attire of a proper student would put my family most at ease.
If not, a very plain suit would do.
Colored shirts and red ties—in this situation, I had to strenuously avoid them.
The clothes I currently possessed were just those baggy pants and that gray jumper.
That was all there was.
I didn’t even have a hat.
Dressed like some impoverished painter or house painter, I had tea in Ginza again that night—if I were to appear in my hometown wearing these clothes, my family would surely be overcome with shame.
I was in distress over my clothing.
And so I made a strange resolution.
Borrowed clothes.
Being slightly shorter than average, I found myself inconvenienced in various ways even in such situations.
There was only one person in Japan—this might sound strange—who was about the same height as me.
That person wasn’t one of my visitors, but rather the sole truthful adviser of my dissolute ways; however, this close friend was also far worse off than I—while he did own one suit of Western clothes, it usually wasn’t in his possession.
He had it stored elsewhere.
I took thirty yen and rushed to that friend’s place, briefly explained the situation, used ten yen to retrieve the stored items from where they were kept, then borrowed from him everything down to a shirt, tie, hat, and socks—and thus somehow managed to assemble a proper outfit.
Whether it suited me or not didn’t matter—if I could just manage ordinary clothing, I would be grateful.
Since my head was large, the gray soft hat perched precariously on top, looking utterly wretched.
The suit was solid navy, the tie black—well, ordinary attire, I supposed.

I hurried in a fluster to Ueno Station.
I’ll forgo buying souvenirs.
There are many nieces, nephews, and cousins, but since they’re all accustomed to extravagant souvenirs, even if I were to surreptitiously present a single picture book, they would simply feel sorry for me; moreover, should their mothers feel compelled by some sense of obligation to return it to me, saying “We cannot accept this item,” things would become truly troublesome.
I’ll forgo buying souvenirs.
I bought a ticket and boarded the train.

Arriving in my hometown and seeing the rural sights after almost ten years, I might cry as I walk.
Regaining my composure, I entered the house.

I found myself helplessly frustrated by my own figure, not carrying a single trunk.
Inside the house was dim and silent.
My sister-in-law would undoubtedly be the first to spot me.
I was already in the torment of a bed of needles.
I must have worn an expressionless face like a fool’s.
I just stood there stiffly.
On my sister-in-law’s face appeared a look of terror.
Was this man standing here—this dingy middle-aged man—truly my brother-in-law?
Could this be that lanky high school student who used to shrewdly cling to me with his “Sis, sis”?
Disgusting. Repulsive.
Eyes yellow and clouded, hair thinning, forehead ruddy and vulgar with an oily sheen—lips, cheeks, nose—the sister-in-law trembled violently from overwhelming terror.

Mother’s sickroom.
Ah, this really was a problem.
It had been utterly beyond my imagination.
My fantasies invariably met with cruel accuracy.
It was terrifying.
This was not something to dwell on.
I had to avoid this place.

As I slipped quietly out of my mother’s sickroom, my immediate sister who had married into another family also followed me out on tiptoe,

“You came…”
She said in a low, low voice.

I would helplessly burst into sobs.

This sister alone did not fear me and seemed likely to wait quietly in the hallway, standing there until I finished crying.

“Sis, am I an unfilial child?”

Having thought that far, the Baron pulled the futon over his head from top to bottom.
He shed tears after a long interval.

He had been changing little by little.
To put it another way, he was gradually transforming into a dark-reddish, prosaic vulgarian.
This was not a change brought about by human will.
Nor was it a transformation that occurred suddenly upon waking one morning and witnessing some chance incident.
The sun of nature, the winds of five and ten years, the rains—these had little by little fattened his form.
He resembled a single-stemmed plant.
It was exactly like those natural phenomena where flowers bloom in spring and leaves turn crimson in autumn.
One cannot compete with nature.
At times he would mutter this and smile an ugly, bitter smile.
Yet there were moments—when he honestly acknowledged having been utterly defeated by everything—that he strangely sensed a fresh vitality around him.
Humanity begins here, he thought vaguely—though for now, he had no concrete leads whatsoever.

Lately, even he had begun to feel overwhelmed by hosting the visitors.
He would obediently listen to their nightly conversations, but there were moments when he simply couldn’t bear it.
He felt no desire to condemn the visitors’ egoism—distorted by servility—or their momentary, peculiar vanity.
I interpreted everything as stemming from weakness.
All these people are overwhelmed by the depth of their own affection, and being socially inept and awkward, they have nowhere else to go—that’s why they come to me. I can’t help but pity them.
At the very least, I thought, I alone must show them kindness and hospitality.
However, lately, a certain doubt had abruptly arisen within him.
Why don’t these people work?
It was an exceedingly simple doubt.
If one cannot obtain work even when seeking it, then purely unpaid actions would suffice.
Isn’t it right to make efforts, even if clumsy?
Isn’t the world such a harsh place that one cannot survive without doing that?
At life’s foundation lie such simple propositions—all thinking, aesthetic pursuits, even social niceties are built upon them—so isn’t it utterly foolish, blindly arrogant, and wretched that night after night they sprawl here exchanging nothing but vain pleasantries in the same stale manner?
Even those with nobler souls and greater intellect and beauty than the people who gather there dedicate their entire lives to modest, small tasks, wearing themselves to the bone.
That film studio assistant was still the most proper among this group.
That everyone mocked this and even I had become exasperated by that person’s enthusiastic efforts—this was not good.
The term "enthusiastic efforts" was not vulgar in itself.
It was not comical.
The people who gather there are all poor and weak.
However, the zeitgeist of an era had allowed this type of people to act spoiled in an odd manner, making them unpleasant.

Do I truly possess enough margin in my present circumstances to hospitably receive these people?
I too am now equally impoverished and feeble.
Is there truly no distinction whatsoever?
Moreover, in these times, since the vices of bourgeois ideology persist solely among those so-called "bourgeois Schippel" who were coddled and raised by bygone societal currents, might not the perishing bourgeoisie—having discarded their decadent consciousness—be gradually reforming themselves?
Does not modernity consequently assume an increasingly complex and subtle countenance?
That they are weak and poor does not necessarily mean God loves them.
For Satan too dwells among their number.
Goodness resides even within strength.
God rather loves this.

Though he thought this way, he remained a worthless man.
He lacked confidence.
He couldn't refuse the visitors.
He was terrified.
They say "Kill a monk and you'll be cursed for three generations," but he felt that rejecting those weak, poor people even once would make his fingertips fester from their very tips and bring hauntings lasting seven generations.
In the end, dragged along helplessly, he kept waiting for something.

III

A letter arrived from Tomi.

Three days ago, we came to the sea in Numazu for location shooting.
When I stare at the spray from the waves, I always end up wanting to drink lemon soda.
When I look at Mount Fuji, I always end up wanting to eat yōkan.
I am so tormented that I must utter these insincere jests.
I am already twenty-six.
It has already been ten years since then.
I have studied a great deal.
But it has come to nothing.
Today a mist-like fine rain is falling, and since filming is canceled, everyone in the neighboring room is cheerfully making a racket.
I might not be suited to being an actress.
As I wish to see you, I have taken leave on the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth, so please come on whichever day suits you best, Lord Shinsuke.
How delighted I would be if you could come to my shabby home instead.
I have drawn a rough map to my home on a separate sheet.
Saying such rude things, I feel utterly ashamed and flustered.
"My handwriting is messy, and I’m painfully aware of it."
It is a matter of lifelong importance.
I earnestly wish to consult you, and since I have no other relatives to rely upon, I make this request while fully aware of my impertinence.

Lord Sakai Shinsuke.

Tomi.

I have also been hearing rumors lately from Assistant Director S.
They call you by the nickname of Baron.
That's funny.

The Baron read it in bed.
At first, he simply laughed.
It struck him as profoundly strange.
That Tomi too wrote letters with peculiar phrasing like some modern city girl struck him as bizarrely novel, and he couldn’t stop laughing.
But suddenly, he turned solemn.
They could firmly refuse what was given to them, yet never say no when asked for something—such was the fate of this type of person.
The Baron looked at the attached rough diagram.
From the station in the town where the film studio was located, he was supposed to get off two stops further.
He had to go.
The Baron, sinking into gloom, reluctantly got up.
Today was the sixteenth; he thought he would go out right away and get it over with.
It seems that the lazier one is, the more they desire to settle their pressing matters at the soonest possible moment.

Getting off the train, he saw that this was an even more desolate countryside than the town with the film studio. An expanse of wheat fields stretched before him; the wheat had grown about five or six sun in height, its soft green color melting into the surroundings—This must be what they call emerald green, thought the tasteless Baron. After walking five or six minutes, he quickly found the house. The house was quite modern in structure, which came as quite a shock to the Baron. He pressed the doorbell. The maid appeared. What a fool, the Baron thought contemptuously. Just because you've become an actor doesn't mean you need to put on such airs.

“Sakai here.”

The maid with gaudy attire, shaved eyebrows, and a pallid face gave a nod of recognition, then smirked knowingly as she obsequiously ushered him in. Almost simultaneously, Tomi appeared in the entrance wearing Meisen silk.
The Baron seemed not to notice the Meisen silk either and spoke in an irritated tone.

“What’s this ‘matter’?”
“You shouldn’t send letters like that.”
“I’m actually quite busy myself, you know.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” Tomi bowed respectfully, “that you’ve come all this way.” Even deep emotion showed on her face.

The Baron answered with a tilt of his chin,

“Not a bad house at all.
“Oh, and the garden’s quite spacious too.
“This must cost a fortune in rent.”

The famous actress was nowhere to be found in some rented house.
This was the house Tomi had built through her own work.

“Vanity, huh?
“Hmph.
“Don’t push yourself too hard.”
The Baron said with a serious expression.

Having been shown to the parlor, he received a consultation from Tomi regarding that matter of lifelong importance.
When autumn came this year, Tomi’s contract with her current company would expire; having turned twenty-six already, she thought of quitting acting at this opportunity.
Her elderly parents in the countryside had long since given up on her, and no matter how much she urged them to come live with her in Tokyo, they remained attached to their meager fields and absolutely refused to leave.
She had a younger brother; this guy had defied their parents’ objections and come rushing to his sister six years earlier, and was now attending a private university.
What should she do?
That was the matter at hand.

The Baron was appalled.
He wondered if Tomi wasn’t a fool.

“Cease this foolishness at once.”
Due to the sheer absurdity of it all, the Baron even grew wary and adopted a somewhat formal tone.
“What part of this is supposed to be a matter of lifelong importance?"
“A fine position you’re in.”
“I went out of my way to come all this distance, you know.”
“How on earth am I supposed to approach this?”
“If your country folks have given up on you and cut off all contact, then that’s just fine as it is, isn’t it?”
“No matter what happens to your brother, he’s a man.”
“He’ll manage somehow.”
“You’re not responsible.”
“The rest is your freedom, isn’t it?”
“This is ridiculous.”

He was in a thoroughly foul mood.

"Well, about that—"
She smiled forlornly and hesitated for a moment, then suddenly looked up. "I've been thinking... perhaps I should get married."

"Fine. It's none of my business."

“Ah…” Tomi shrank back fearfully.
“Um, about that—”

“Just spit it out.
What do you take me for?
You’ve always had this habit of pestering me with every little thing since forever.
It’s not good.
All I can think is you’re mocking me.”
He felt unreasonably furious.

“No—absolutely not,” she desperately denied. “I have a request… Could you perhaps talk some sense into my brother—”

“Me?”
“What should I persuade him about?”

Tomi gazed silently at the leafed-out cherry tree outside the window like someone at a loss.
The Baron also followed suit and gazed at the leafed-out cherry tree.
He wore a face as if he had bitten into something bitter.
Tomi gave a slight shrug and said in a tone that was now resigned and utterly devoid of emotion—
"My brother keeps coming up with all sorts of logical arguments and won’t approve of my marriage.
He attends a private university’s preparatory course but acts rather delinquent; just the other day, he caused trouble with the police over mahjong gambling.
The man I’m marrying is a very serious, respectable person, and if later on my brother were to do something violent toward him, I wouldn’t be able to go on living."

“That’s your selfishness.
“Egoism!” the Baron shouted loudly, cutting Tomi off mid-sentence.
The woman’s blatant selfishness seemed vulgar; he found himself strangely pitying her brother and even felt righteous indignation.
“You’re being presumptuous.
“You fool.”
“You utter fool.”
“What the hell do you take me for?”
The Baron had never been this angry in recent times.
As he continued shouting, he even felt a strange power within his body, as if he had grown a foot taller.

At the intensity of his rage, even Tomi’s lips turned ashen, and she quietly rose to her feet,

“Um. Anyway.
“To my brother...”

She said in a voice too low to hear, her words fragmented, then whirled around and fled the room.

“Hey, Tomi!”
The commanding tone he had used to summon her ten years prior inadvertently slipped out—“I wash my hands of this!”—igniting a tremendous commotion.

The door opened without a sound, the face of a dark-complexioned young man with large eyes peered cautiously into the room, which the Baron swiftly detected,

“Hey, you.”
“Who are you?”
It was not like the Baron to speak so harshly to a stranger.

The young man entered the room quietly without any trace of embarrassment, his face serious.

“Are you Mr. Sakai?”
“I once had the honor of meeting you in your hometown.”
“I imagine you’ve forgotten.”
“Ah, you’re Tomi’s brother, aren’t you.”

“Yes, that’s right.”
“I hear you have something to discuss with me?”

The Baron steeled himself.

“Yes, I do. There certainly is. Let me make this clear—I’m extremely displeased right now. I’m truly… utterly… disgusted. Your sister—that one’s a fool. I’m on your side. I’m the type who can’t keep things to myself, so I’ll just come out with it—your sister says she wants to get married soon. The man she’s marrying is apparently quite impressive. No, that part’s fine. That’s a good thing. That’s none of my business. But what comes after is where it goes wrong. It’s despicable. It’s nothing but this—she’s treating you as a nuisance. I believe in you. At a glance, I can tell. You students—no, or rather, even I’m no different—have merely lost sight of your aims in striving. No—it’s merely that we’ve lost the means to express it. Don’t we have nowhere to direct our academic pursuits? It’s simply that the world refuses to understand the sincerity buried within your hearts.”

“If your sister abandons you, come to me.”
“Let’s work through this together.”
“Well, I don’t intend to wander around aimlessly forever either.”
I had never suffered such a pointless insult.
Being made to do a maid’s errands—how could I stand that?
First of all, that man she’s involved with is just sloppy, isn’t he?
“If he can’t even support his wife’s younger brother, what good is he?”

“No.”
“I...”

The young man remained standing and declared firmly. “I have no intention of being supported by you. It’s just that this mentality—treating me like something unclean and trying to push me away—is unbearable. I have my ideals too.”

“Exactly. That’s right. Anyway, he’s no decent man.” Having blurted it out, he became flustered. “In any case, it’s none of my business. Go tell Tomi she can do as she pleases. I am extremely displeased. I’m leaving. What do you take me for? No, I’m leaving. If she finds your brother so unbearable, tell her I’ll take him in.”

“Excuse me,”
The young man stepped in front of the Baron, who was trying to leave, and said in a low voice.
“The issues of supporting and taking someone in—I think that’s outdated.”
“In the first place—do you have the means to support even a single person?”

The Baron was stunned.
He involuntarily looked at the young man’s face anew.
“Isn’t being resolved in your own actions the most pressing issue right now?”
“Rather than concerning yourself with others, first save yourself.”
“Then show us.”
“Even if it’s something inconspicuous, we will respect it.”
“No matter how small, I believe in individual efforts—in their strength.”
“To rebuild—simply, purely, robustly—the self-consciousness we once dismantled piece by piece and sank into the abyss of chaos has become our newest ideal.”
“People who still go on about excessive self-consciousness and nihilism as if they’re noble pursuits are truly ignorant.”

“Oh!”
The Baron let out a cry akin to a cheer.
“You—you really believe that?”

“It’s not just me.”
“Within ourselves exist obstacles more treacherous than the Alps’ peaks—we strive to conquer them.”
“We call those who accomplish this ‘individual heroes’ and respect them more than Napoleon.”

It came.
What he had been waiting for had come.
The new, entirely new next generation began appearing bit by bit.
The Baron’s chest swelled, and for a while he found himself unable to speak.

“Thank you.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“It’s a good thing.”
“I had been waiting for your emergence.”
“Even when they called me a good person and laughed, called me a fool and ostracized me, called me a wastrel and scorned me—I endured it all in silence and waited.”
“How long… how long I’ve waited.”

As he spoke, tears threatened to spill over, so he hurriedly rushed out of the room.

After the Baron fled as if escaping from Tomi’s house, the young man plopped down on the parlor sofa and chuckled to himself.
Tomi quietly opened the door and entered.

“The strategy has hit its mark.”
The delinquent youth blew smoke rings toward the ceiling.
“He’s quite a good person, isn’t he.
I like him too.
You can get married, Sis.
You’ve struggled enough.
A decade of love has been rewarded.”

Tomi had tears in her eyes and pressed her hands together in a small gesture toward her brother.

The Baron, knowing nothing, returned home terribly eager, and finding himself with nothing else to do, after much deliberation, put up a "busy hours - no visitors" notice on his front door.
The start of life's journey is always sweet.

First, try.
After catastrophe too, spring comes.
Is there no way to reclaim the cherry orchard?