Pathway to Japanese Literature

Dear Sir,

Please forgive this sudden approach.
Are you familiar with my name?
I think you must at least recognize it as something faintly heard.
I am a man who has written nothing but paltry novels through ten unchanging years.
Let me clarify—this is no affected humility.
Though nearing forty myself, I've yet to produce a single work that brings satisfaction or peace; lacking scholarly cultivation, being what you might call a tongue-tied provincial clod, I could never possess talent for fluid expression.
Add to this my congenital timidity—I scarcely mingle with literary circles, living instead like that old sentimental verse: on days when friends all tower above me, buying flowers to enjoy with my wife in slovenly isolation. Ah, but enough complaint.
Born to a destitute carpenter's household, raised between a timid bird-loving father and gaunt dark-skinned stepmother of sharp wit, I ultimately betrayed them to flee my hometown for Tokyo—twenty years spent gasping through unspeakable hardships follow, though even this threatens to become lamentation so I'll speak no more.
These dark memories have moreover formed my works' very themes till now, making their belated mention doubly awkward.
Yet when I declare myself still an obscure inept writer at forty's threshold, know this springs neither from groveling self-contempt nor resentful spite—no pathetic vengeance trumpeting misfortune to harass the celebrated. If you could but perceive my plain confession of inferiority as simple truth, that alone would bring profound gratitude.

Should I call you "you," or should I address you as "Master"? I am terribly conflicted.
I wish to call you "you," if it isn't disrespectful.
When I call you "Master," I can't shake the feeling that it would somehow become "the end of it."
This sense of "finality" isn’t anxiety about being distanced and discarded by you, but rather a feeling that I might lose interest and drift away from you myself.
Somehow, I feel a strange loneliness that seems poised to crystallize into clarity.
Even someone like me is occasionally called "Master" by others—when addressed as such innocently without any particular insistence, I can smile honestly and respond with a simple "Yes." But when people use "Master" with even the slightest calculation or deliberate intent, I immediately sense it and feel unbearably cast far away from them.
"What a detestable proverb 'to the extent of being called Master' is!"
Because of this single proverb, the people of Japan have lost proper expressions of respect.
I believe I revere you with solemn, unwavering sincerity devoid of any ulterior motive—and yet, Master, I find myself profoundly conflicted about addressing you as such.
I have no ulterior motives.
It’s simply that I want to keep my feelings always near you.
I have abandoned my blood relatives and have been living on.
I have no friends.
All this time, I have lived solely for your works alone.
This is intended as an honest confession.

You must certainly have been born fifteen years earlier than I.
Twenty years ago, when I had run away from home and come to Tokyo to deliver the Yamato Shinpo newspaper, your serialized novel Crane was being published in that paper, and after finishing my morning deliveries, I would literally devour it at the rickshaw pullers' gathering spot outside the newspaper office.
I was born into abject poverty with nothing beyond a higher elementary school education, while you were the head of an affluent kazoku peerage family (this term displeases me—"bourgeoisie" is even worse—and my meager vocabulary offers no suitable alternative; please understand I use it only as a modest comparison to my own destitute upbringing) who possessed such glamorous credentials as study in France. Yet despite this chasm between our circumstances, your literary works transcended all barriers to make me feel—though I've considered words like resonance, affection, conviction, fervor, joy, awe, gratitude, courage, salvation, harmony, kinship, or wonder—none satisfy me—
Once more, I painfully feel the poverty of my vocabulary.) Without any exaggeration, I felt the joy of being alive.
This way of writing—like a sweet, frolicking boy regressed twenty years—makes me break out in cold sweat even as I write.
However, I shall unapologetically proceed to state things honestly.

Though born into extreme poverty, I could never bring myself to engage with novels about farmers, instead devouring only your works that society condemned as arrogant, heartless, thoughtless, and self-righteous. This is not contempt for farmers—quite the reverse. By the hierarchy of the Four-Class System—samurai, farmers, artisans, merchants—I am but a carpenter’s son, ever beneath them in station. My quarrel lies with those “writers” who depict farmers yet show no trace of a human creator’s love or anguish in their works. Writings devoid of even faint whispers of an author’s personal torment hold no interest for me.

Your novel was serialized in the Yamato Shinpo—this when you were thirty-two or thirty-three—yet at that time society assailed you with truly ferocious criticism. You were branded an outright villain. But within your works I always glimpsed a visage of martyr-like anguish, nobler than all others—the intensity of personal guilt that marks geniuses through the ages. For you, each day’s existence seemed naught but an accrual of self-inflicted punishments; even enduring till noon appeared Herculean labor.

Since Crane I have read every work you penned without exception. Twenty years on, you now stand enshrined in Meiji-Taisho literary history as a colossus—your “dazzling talent,” “overflowing wit,” “profound erudition,” and “direct descriptive power” becoming facile praise even among literary illiterates. Yet what I’ve revered single-mindedly is none of these—only the deepening human sorrow permeating your works.

Kegon was magnificent.

Having read your short story in this month’s Literary Monthly, I could no longer remain still—thus I’ve labored to stammer out these twenty years’ worth of pent-up feelings through my pen. Though rude, I beg you not to take offense.

Approaching forty myself—balding yet resorting to schoolgirlish phrases like “pent-up feelings” when addressing one who long passed fifty—I know full well how grotesque this must seem. Even I cringe while writing it, and can imagine your displeasure upon reading—yet truly no other means of expression remained to me.

I am an uneducated writer.
For twenty years, I managed to publish only about thirty meager novels that brought me shame.
Over those twenty years, you had published three magnificent collected works while I appeared only to vanish at the fringes of Showa literary circles—not even making it into the literary histories of Meiji and Taisho eras—emerging again only to be forgotten, fretting all the while until now I found myself at another impasse, unable to write anything at all.
I had intended not to voice any complaints.
There was such resolve, but please—just hear this one complaint.
According to critics' classifications, I am categorized as a naturalistic I-novelist.
This was merely a convenient classification—no more substantial than you being dismissively labeled part of the Highbrow School—but since my novels' subject matter was always drawn from the mundane daily affairs around me, I received such a designation.
I wanted to write only "certain things".
I wanted to set down only those things I could clearly perceive with my own hands.
Anger, sadness, the regret that made me stamp the ground—
I did not write lies.
But lately, I had become completely unable to write.
Do you understand?
The fact of my being uneducated had increasingly come to feel like a fatal wound.
I could not easily write historical novels either.
The impasse in my literary works was, for a hand-to-mouth, unfashionable writer like myself, none other than an impasse in life itself.
What could I possibly do?
I want to go to the battlefield.
In search of genuine emotion.
I am serious.

If I were younger and didn't have this beriberi, I would have already volunteered.

I had reached an impasse.
I will not state the specific reasons.
I mentioned before that upon reading your Kegon and driven by that excitement, I broke through twenty years of restraint and boldly wrote you a letter—but in truth, beyond that excitement, I wanted to give voice to this impasse of mine.
For twenty years, this was the first time such significant doubts had arisen along the literary path I had trodden.
When driven to the brink of perplexity, I had secretly clung for twenty years to the hope that I might receive just a word of your guidance.
If you find even the slightest trace of pathos in this, please send your reply.
I have no intention of hawking these twenty years, but now seems the time when I must break my long-held restraint and speak out decisively.
I ask that you please forgive any discourtesy.

I have taken the liberty to send you a copy of my recent short story collection, Hechima no Hana.
Please read and discard it.

Here at the outskirts of Musashino, the midnight sound of wind through pines resembles the roar of waves. As long as this heart-rending intensity exists, literature will remain immortal—though this too may simply be the sentimental musings of an aging scholar, perhaps nothing more than a laughingstock. Master (Having unexpectedly written 'Master' here, I shall treasure it—leaving it unerased and intact.) I pray for your good health. Respectfully yours.

June 10th Kido Ichiro

Mr. Ihara Taizo

Respectfully in reply.

The other day, I received your short story collection and letter.
I must apologize for the delay in expressing my gratitude.
I intend to peruse the short story collection at my leisure when time permits.
For now, please accept my thanks.
Respectfully,

June 18th Ihara Taizo

Mr. Kido Ichiro

At my wit's end regarding how to handle this single postcard, I placed it on the desk and tried sitting formally upright before it yet found no composure; standing with the postcard in hand, I paced restlessly around the room only to grow more bewildered; trying to look nonchalant, I shoved the troublesome thing into the corner letter rack and flopped onto the tatami with a snort of frustration, but achieving no resolution; rising again to pull the postcard from the rack, I read its overly brief message in a murmur before folding it twice with loneliness and tucking it deep into my breast pocket; having somehow regained slight composure, I now sit at my desk composing yet another impertinent letter to you.

The other day, I sent you a truly disgraceful letter, and I must apologize for my profound rudeness.
That night, having finished writing that letter, I thought if I had left it on my desk until morning, my resolve might falter and prevent me from sending it—so in the dead of night I took that letter and walked three blocks along the country path to the postbox in front of the tobacco shop. The moonlit night was unnervingly bright, with clouds floating white and fluffy like edible candy cotton in the sky—I discovered for the first time that even at midnight, white clouds still drift and flow languidly overhead—yet thrilling at such saccharine discoveries would surely never happen again—tonight is the last, the last, the last—with each step I kept muttering "the last" in my heart all the way home.
The next morning, while eating breakfast, I could do nothing but groan.
I began to deeply regret having sent that foolish letter.
I should never have sent it.
I have committed an irreparable disgrace.
Dressing up a single night's sentimentality with spine-chilling words like "twenty years of hidden feelings"—ugh!
I am a master of cloyingly ornate prose.
I cannot bring myself to laugh at the literary maiden submitting letters to the Bunsho Club’s readers’ column.
No—even worse.
In my recent letter, I had repeatedly described myself—approaching forty, approaching forty—as someone who ought to resemble a middle-aged man living with modest composure—but to state it plainly: I am thirty-eight years old—yet I was made sickeningly aware that far from being middle-aged, I remain nothing more than a youth who has only just begun to catch the scent of literature in recent days.
To speak of having reached an impasse—I was in no position to make such grandiose claims.
I had written no literary works at all.
I had not strived at all.
I have aimed at every easy gap and crevice—slipped through them—and kept walking.
The ultimate problem was that I now felt no sense of purpose in living.
When one finds no incentive in living—even suicide isn’t possible.
Suicide is—on the contrary—something done by people who feel an incentive in living.
If I were to put it in the most ordinary terms—I might be in a slump.
Should I try falling in love?

Having sent you that disgraceful letter the other day, I afterward came to acutely feel my own slovenliness and immaturity, realizing I still hadn't attained any proper form whatsoever. In this state, I supposed I must start everything over from the beginning—yet being at a complete loss about where to even begin, I glanced sidelong at my foolish wife's face with its multiplying wrinkles and freckles, and a dreadful sensation came over me.
I was appalled at myself.
And then, this morning, I received another very brief message from you, and I grew even more appalled at myself.
I came to realize that such a brief reply was indeed appropriate for that foolish letter I had sent you the other day.
I am by no means harboring resentment toward you.
It is utterly unthinkable.
Please rest assured on that point.
Through your brief postcard this morning, I was made clearly aware of my own station.
On the contrary, I feel deeply grateful.
As I write this, things are gradually becoming clear.
In short, this morning when I received your postcard and found myself at a loss regarding how to handle it—pacing restlessly about—it was simply because I had been made aware of my proper station and consequently thrown into disarray.
I suppose I still retained some shred of pride as a writer—it must have been that very pride, nowhere to direct itself, that had me pacing restlessly with that postcard in hand.
I will start over from the beginning.
I will strive to be even more sincere.

After that, I tried rereading "Kegon" slowly once again. At the beginning, there was a scene where Oteru combs her hair, rolls up the shed strands, carelessly tosses them into the garden, and stands up—but through that mere line and a half of description, both Oteru's physicality and her fate became naturally comprehensible, so I couldn't help but smile. The description of the moss in the garden seemed superfluous, but I intended to read it over once again. When I reached the part about Kegon Falls after the rain, I simply couldn't help but smile. The spray of the waterfall felt cold and painful against my cheek. I was astonished by the youthful vitality in that final line where even Oteru appeared slender. The female body appeared vividly, as if flying swiftly. The author's affection and prayers were indeed saving the readers.

Being poor, no fantasies come to mind, so for what feels like ten years passing as a single day, I've written lengthy novels about month-end budgeting and planting tomato seedlings in the garden—but lately even that has grown utterly repugnant to me, leaving me fretting anxiously while reading nothing but newspapers.
As for my beriberi, there have been no numbing episodes recently, and since it's been manageable, I've gradually started practicing drinking alcohol over the past five or six days.
When I drink alcohol, my imagination grows slightly more abundant, and it makes me happy.
I never realized alcohol could be such a blessing.
Alcohol seemed like filthy depravity, and I had never touched a cup until this age; yet to frantically start practicing drinking when domestic alcohol began growing scarce—I am truly a most astonishing latecomer.
I was always doing nothing but being late.
Might as well be late for a lap around the track and take the lead?
I would like to receive your guidance and begin training in romance.
Shall I study history?
How about philosophy?
Languages?

To confess, I had perceived the true nature of art in Chopin's melancholic pale face.
To put it in more desperate terms, I had been "yearning" for it.
Will you laugh at me?
In the rattan chair at the seaside inn, his exhausted slender frame settled in, long-lashed large eyes narrowed against the glare as he gazed at the sea.
His disheveled hair was tormented by the sea wind, about to tumble across his refined broad forehead.
The five fingers lightly supporting his right cheek were slender and sharp like a wagtail’s tail.
Behind that person stood a middle-aged woman in Akashi silk, quiet and unobtrusive.
Were you appalled?
Truly, my fantasies were so banal that even I was exasperated, but I earnestly tried to write them.
Every modern artist has, at least once, secretly yearned for such a figure or an image largely similar to it.
It is truly ridiculous.

The carpenter’s son who yearned for Chopin has only grown ever broader around the middle, fallen ill with beriberi, acquired a face as square as a crab’s shell, and instead of hair flowing in the sea breeze, now sports a balding crown. After downing a shō of evening sake, he makes his broad face glisten greasily and pesters his old wife with lecherous attentions. The writer I dreamed of becoming in my youth was certainly not this kind of person. Truly, a laughable story of "This wasn't supposed to happen." But this present I am none other than a writer. There are even times when I am called 'Master'. Shall I abandon Chopin and convert to Yamanoue no Okura? “If we’re talking about ‘Hinkyū Mondō,’ it fits my current daily life rather perfectly.” Is this what they call national consciousness?

As I kept writing, everything turned utterly futile.
I must take my leave here.
This morning was unpleasant from the start.
I wanted to think things through with a slightly calmer mind.
Somehow, everything became unsettling.
But please do not concern yourself.
I must apologize for my rudeness.

This letter requires no reply from you.
Take care.

June 20 Kido Ichiro

Mr. Ihara Taizo

Omitted opening formalities.

You say no reply is necessary, but I shall send my reply.

Having come into contact with your raw nerves, I must also state that for two or three days I felt an uncleanliness in myself (not you) that left me with a disagreeable sensation.
I have known your name for some time.
I had never read your works, but there was an occasion when the poet Kano praised your writings with considerable passion at a gathering and recommended I give them a read.
I too, having thought I should read them once, until today had no opportunity and they remained as such.
The other day, when I received your short story collection and letter, my delay in expressing gratitude was due in part to my own indolence, but I cannot simply write expressions of gratitude or replies indiscriminately to everyone.
Though I would dislike it being taken as imposing obligation, I glanced through your short story collection and found works that seemed reassuringly competent, so with my mind feeling lighter, I ventured to offer my thanks.
“Though you seem greatly dissatisfied that my words of thanks were too brief, I believe a sincere ‘Thank you’ suffices for expressing gratitude.”
“What other words could possibly be needed?”
“At that time, I had hardly read any of your works.”

"But now things are different. I have read your short story collection from beginning to end. I concluded you possess considerable talent as a writer. When the poet Kano once praised your works, I can now assent to every word he spoke then."

“I believe works such as ‘Kōin’ with its nimble touch, ‘Kobu’ with its pathos, and ‘Sarusuberi’ with its intense self-scrutiny can stand shoulder to shoulder with foreign nineteenth-century masterpieces.”
“According to your letter, you claim to be uneducated and furthermore a dreadfully dull writer, but I must ask you to cease such transparently pretentious talk.”
“If you are an uneducated, mediocre writer, then Ihara must be a scholar and an accomplished one—but I have no wish to hear such words that needlessly perplex people.”
“If you intend to begin associating with me henceforth, first cease all such unnecessary excuses entirely, and only then proceed.”
“If that is not the case, I cannot continue our association.”
“When told ‘I am uneducated and a poor writer,’ I myself end up feeling so unclean that I cannot bear it.”
“I too have times when I drink sake with my big face glistening greasily.”
“It’s not that I felt uncleanliness in your letter, but rather that it felt like having a mirror’s reflected light shone directly at me, leaving me flustered by my own ugliness.”
“I believe you understand this.”

“In your works as well, I have just one major dissatisfaction.”
“Even in my own words that claimed your works can stand shoulder to shoulder with nineteenth-century masterpieces, I included that major dissatisfaction.”
“If I were to say your works are merely minor imitations of nineteenth-century masterpieces, it would leave nothing unsaid—but since the models for your works can be easily found among nineteenth-century Russian authors or French Symbolist poets, in the end, they strike me as lacking substance.”
“The manner of sentimentality, the process of reaching resignation, and the shifts in mental state are all being formulaically structured.”
“There is always a model.”
“While everyone initially builds their skills through models, it is truly spineless when a creator cannot shed the scent of their models even after all this time.”
“To state it plainly, you are still imitating someone else’s style.”
“You seem to have set your sights there.”
“You should discard the vague decorative notion of ‘artistic’.”
“Living is not art.”
“Nature is not art either.”
“To state it even more extremely, novels are not art either.”
“I have heard it said that the corruption of novels was conceived precisely when people began considering them as art, but I too support this view.”
“In literary creation, the most fundamental effort one must exert is ‘to strive for accuracy’.”
“There is nothing else.”
“When a windmill appears as a demon, one should describe it as a demon without hesitation.”
“When a windmill still appears as nothing other than a windmill, you should simply describe it as a windmill.”
“There are foolish writers who, though a windmill in truth appears exactly as a windmill, think it wouldn’t be ‘artistic’ unless described like a demon—they affect romanticism through various transparently contrived devices—but those types will never grasp anything even if they spend their whole lives trying.”
“In writing novels, you must never aim to create an artistic atmosphere.”
“That is nothing but an utterly absurd childish game—like placing thin paper over a model drawing of an older sister and trembling while tracing it with a pencil.”

“There is not a single thing worth seeing.”
“Attempting to cultivate an atmosphere is ultimately self-defilement.”
“If you so much as consciously attempt to be ‘Chekhovian,’ you will inevitably fail mercilessly.”
“It might have gone without saying.”
“You are already a creator and presumably understand all this, but as there are certain concerns underlying your works, I have spoken without reserve.”
“Strictly refrain from recklessly ornamenting your prose, deliberately avoiding kanji, inserting unnecessary landscape descriptions, or arbitrarily listing flower names; instead, strive solely to ensure the accuracy of your impressions with earnest diligence.”
“It even appears that you still lack your own impressions.”
“In that case, no matter how much time passes, you will never be able to accurately describe a single thing.”
“Be subjective!”
“Proceed with a single strong subjective perspective.”
“Have a simple eye.”
“Complexity is, conversely, the countenance of the unthinking.”
“That is true ignorance.”
“You are not uneducated.”
“Even within your works, there exists a tenacious thought—yet you remain unaware of it.”
“Do you know the following maxim?”

“The fear of Jehovah is the foundation of knowledge.”

“It seems I got somewhat carried away and wrote some rather impertinent things.”
“However, when encountering young, exceptional talent, I believe it is a writer’s courtesy to respond with youthful passion.”
“I do not acknowledge handicaps.”
“When met with a full-bodied charge, I respond with a full-bodied charge.”

“Today I have discussed only your works.”
“Regarding the words in your letter, I intend to respond thoroughly at our next opportunity.”
“Your two letters prove markedly inferior to your literary works.”
“Had I encountered only those letters without knowing your writings, I would not have replied.”
“You wrote nothing but falsehoods.”
“I shall elaborate further when next we correspond.”
“As this grows lengthy, I shall conclude today’s missive here.”

“It seems I may gain a good friend, so I myself feel motivated for the first time in ages. When you find yourself at your limit, why not try taking a trip?”

Respectfully,

25th Ihara Taizo

Mr. Kido Ichiro

Respectfully,

"I have read your missive time and again.
For three days I could muster no reply - only sighs.
Do not imagine I pored over your words like scripture.
Here lingered dissatisfaction.
Your doctrine about novels thriving through precise impressions rang true enough,
yet my own entreaties sprang from that selfsame soil.
'I wished,' did I not declare,
'to transcribe solely what lay tangible within my palm?'
Now even this escapes me.
There lies a cause,
though unspoken.
Did I not lay this anguish bare?
Yet you let my letters rot unheeded,
plucking instead some pet theme
to hold forth with elegant musings.
A lecture? No hunger for that.
Antiquated notions!
What I seek defies such polished methods -
a conflagration demanding response.
In your next dispatch,
grapple with this inferno.
This I implore."

“Please forgive me.
Taking undue advantage of your kindness, I spoke without restraint.
You must be furious as a raging fire.
But I remain unperturbed.”

“The fear of Jehovah is the foundation of knowledge.”
This was an exceptional phrase I received.
“From this moment onward, I shall conduct myself with far greater freedom toward you.”
Having obtained this beautiful, singular mentor, my very stature has grown taller.

Now, returning to my opening words—the reason I spent these three days unable to write even a simple thank-you, doing nothing but sigh, was that I found myself utterly overwhelmed by the unexpected kindness lying at the heart of your letter.
Forgive me for saying so, but you are pure.
"You may give a wry smile, but the world you inhabit is filled with light."
That very world is artistic through and through.
It even occurred to me that your vehement rejection of 'artistic atmosphere' in literary works might stem from being utterly saturated with it in your daily life.
Given my own existence steeped in dank, miso-tinged poverty, this perception may be particularly acute in me—but I found myself astonished that a great writer past fifty could cast aside all reserve and compose such tender correspondence.
Please be angry.
"But please do not sever our connection."
To be frank, I dislike this kind, lengthy letter of yours.
Your brief postcard replies leave me desolate, yet being indulged with such casual kindness leaves me at a loss.
"My literary works don’t even have value for criticism."
"I was not seeking your thoughts on my literary works at this late stage."
"But please lend an ear solely to the plea in my letters."
"I did not write any lies at all."
“Where? How exactly are they lies?”
"Please send your reply immediately."

I am fully aware of my selfishness.
However, since making a forceful charge would allow me to receive equally forceful words from you, I have spoken in nothing but this rotten-mouthed, disrespectful manner without considering propriety.
In all the world, I trust you alone.

After receiving your reply, I find myself contemplating taking a leisurely trip.
This comes as I received royalties for *The Gourd Flower* from the bookstore yesterday.
Though I have yet to meet Mr. Kano the poet, should opportunity arise through your mediation, please convey that Kido would welcome it.
Mr. Kano hails from my own hometown in Chiba.
Respectfully.

June 30 Kido Ichiro

Mr. Ihara Taizo

In reply:

“Your letter was despicable.
To respond feels utterly absurd.
Yet I will grant you one final reply.
Because I cannot forget your works.

I stated your letters brimmed with falsehoods.
To this you vehemently protested having written no lies, demanding specifics—so I shall elucidate.
I marveled at the potency of your unconscious presumption.
The ‘you’ in your works proves a simple sentimentalist—yet such artless sentiment stirred me as though hearing David’s psalms directly from millennia past.
Reading your works awakened competitive fire I’d not felt in years.
For me, no pleasure exists save encountering exceptional creations.
Work constitutes my entirety.
Only its fruits hold meaning.
A writer’s human charms warrant no faith.
I hold fathomless contempt for poets who—bereft of worthy output—posture as solitary paragons, sulkily spouting cheap nihilism while preening charismatic airs, coaxing laughter as they wallow in mawkish self-delight.”
“Cowardice,”
“Indolence,”
he declared.
“History teems with writers scheming for love through persona rather than prose—invariably cunning idlers.
Hysterical narcissists all.
To publish means to court disgrace.
To confess before God.”

And what holds greater significance is that through such confession, one does not receive forgiveness from God but rather incurs His punishment. For me, only the work itself has ever mattered. I utterly reject any notion of a writer's personal charm. I maintain that all humans are trivial and base creatures. Salvation lies solely in one's literary output. "There exists no alternative but to labor." "Your recent letters make patently clear your profound moral descent." "This is sheer irresponsibility." "You scuttle about like a weasel sniffing for convenient escape routes." "Utterly repulsive." "You seek to replace artistic integrity with human sincerity." "'I wish to be virtuous even if never an author'—how noble this sounds!" "Yet this evasion reeks of vile calculation." "Do you genuinely imagine yourself capable of virtue at this late hour?" "Do you comprehend what constitutes a sincere human?" "Only those who love others as themselves merit that title." "Can you claim this?" "Cease your irresponsible prattling." "You dwell eternally on self-interest." "Your affections extend no further than yourself, your family, and a few convenient benefactors."

“Shall I say more?”
“You’re making that pitiful face.”
“Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men, to be seen of them.”
“How does that strike you?”
“I want you to consider this thoroughly.”
“Can you manage it?”
“There appear to have been these appalling female authors who airily profess wanting to be ‘at least sincere humans’—posing it as some humble, defeated aspiration—but what exactly constitutes this ‘at least’?”
“Is that not an endeavor so formidable that none but consummate geniuses could attain it?”
“If one were to declare, ‘Since I could never fully become an upright person, I’ll atone by devoting my life to writing fiction,’ that might approach honesty.”
“I maintain that all writers without exception are fundamentally contemptible creatures.”
“Among my contemporaries past fifty, some affect saintly visages—pathetic fools.”
“It amounts to nothing more than abstaining from drink.”
“‘When ye pray, be not as the hypocrites;”
“‘They love to pray standing in synagogues and street corners, that they may be seen of men.’”
“This has been expressly noted.”

“Your letters are no different. You seem to be trying to flaunt your own ‘frail’ goodness with reckless abandon—it’s truly unbecoming. Are you truly so ‘frail’ and good? You abandoned your parents to come to Tokyo, wrote novels with reckless abandon, and finally established yourself as a novelist. This isn’t something a weak-willed, fundamentally good person could ever accomplish. Remove this sign of defeat. You’re indeed telling nothing but lies. You write nothing but meager, emaciated novels; you surface briefly at the margins of the Showa literary world only to vanish, reappear only to be forgotten; you’ve now reached a complete impasse, muttering about beginning language studies or re-researching Japanese history—but this is all sheer lies. You’re using those self-deprecating words to indulge others’ sympathy while merely trying to conceal your own laziness and arrogance. While you may appear somewhat plain, there are few men with as strong an ego as you. You even appear to be a man of terrifying vengefulness. The impression I receive from your letters is this: while proclaiming yourself a bad man, a hopeless man, you make no effort whatsoever to change your position—indeed would prefer to remain exactly as you are—but since such self-serving thinking becomes too conspicuous and awkward, you merely groan about being at an impasse or desperately perplexed, grimacing excessively like a feigned illness with pained expressions, all while somewhere deep inside you stick out a red tongue and whisper in a small voice, ‘But I am great—my works will endure.’ You blame solely on the times your own physical fatigue, mental laxity, and loss of passion—craftily rationalizing your laziness while trying to gain people’s sympathy. You’ve reached an impasse yet declare you won’t state the reason—what a pretentiously feeble way of speaking that is. You claim to be under terrible oppression yet with noble restraint declare you won’t speak of it—but who exactly is oppressing you so? Who exactly? Everyone is taking good care of you, aren’t they? You’re greedy. If given a single brush and sheet of paper, can’t a writer create a kingdom there? You’re afraid of your own shadow.”

“You are merely conjuring up non-existent oppression and thrashing about wildly.”
“You present a ridiculous figure.”
“The claim that you want to write but cannot is a lie—the truth is you currently have nothing at all that you wish to write.”
“If you lose what you want to write, there’s no reasoning left—that’s the end.”
“Writers have perished.”
“There is no method of rescue.”
“Upon reading your letters, I saw your essential crisis.”
“This is no time for telling jokes, laughing, and covering things up.”
“Could it be that you’re somewhat satisfied with your work? You’ve completed what needed to be done.”
“If you think you can no longer write anything beyond this and that this will suffice for now, that’s utterly preposterous.”
“You have only just managed to skillfully imitate models.”
“While one can find nineteenth-century perfection in your works, the truth of the twentieth century has not been embodied in them in the slightest.”
“The truth of the twentieth century—to rephrase it as today’s romance or what we might call modern art—has not yet been clearly embodied in anyone’s works in the world, not just yours.”
“All those who have attempted have mercilessly failed, leaping up only to crash back down, labeled by society as swindlers and derided like da Vinci’s flying machines.”
“But I believe.”
“True modern art will one day be magnificently created by a group of geniuses.”
“It is something that had never before existed in the world.”
“Art, completely liberated from models and majestically welling up from twentieth-century nature.”
“It will undoubtedly be realized.”
“And I believe that this new art will blossom forth most magnificently in this land of Japan more than in any country in the world.”

“I believe you and your juniors will be the ones to create it.”
“In Japan, since Meiji countless writers have emerged, yet one might say not a single true creation has appeared.”
“I don’t know who coined the term ‘creation,’ but I find it truly splendid.”
“Most treat this word as mere synonym for novels—casually using it so—but I maintain no genuine creation has yet manifested in Japan since Meiji.”
“Somewhere lingers always the odor of models.”
“There was an era when this passed for charm, but now foreign thinkers and artists teach us nothing of our path.”
“Those living without defeat’s awareness—clinging however faintly to hope in their work—today these may exist nowhere but among Japan’s artists.”
“How fortunate.”
“Japan may yet prove a nation of art.”

“Everything lies ahead. I shall continue writing novels until I die. Even should the journalism of that era—overly mindful of government policy—refuse to publish my works, I would still write on in silence. Unpublished though they may remain, I intend to leave them written down. I am unequivocally a man of the nineteenth century. I lack all qualifications to partake in this new twentieth-century artistic movement. Yet I wish to plant one seed with certainty. I mean to clearly record that such a man once existed.”

“You are undisciplined.”
“I hear you’re planning to travel—very well.”
“What you lack most now is neither learning nor money.”
“It is courage.”
“You have become trapped in your own goodness.”
“This is undisciplined talk.”
“Every writer without exception harbors a small demon.”
“It’s too late to start pretending virtue now.”

“I pray this will not become my final letter to you.”

Respectfully yours.

July 3 Ihara Taizo

Mr. Kido Ichiro

Respected Sir,

I fled the capital.
Do you recognize this phrase?
If you did, you should have burst out laughing.
These words come from a certain pitifully obese female writer.
Yet this single line possesses startling immediacy.
Well then—I too have fled the capital.
Fifty yen nestled in my pocket.

Why do I always end up like this? When driven to the uttermost limits of anxiety and pain, frivolous words would suddenly spill out. At a dying person’s bedside, I’d feel the impulse to blurt something obscene and collapse laughing. I mean it seriously. Even as my heart stiffened with unbearable solemnity, I’d abruptly crack a joke. That business about “escaping the capital” was nothing but my agony-driven clowning. My conduct is utterly absurd. For one thing, it’s disrespectful toward that female author. Yet I cannot refrain from spouting nonsense now.

After receiving your long letter, driven by sheer desperation thinking "This won't do," I packed my bag with pens, ink, manuscript paper, a dictionary, the Bible and such, stuffed fifty yen in my pocket—though I still checked the number of banknotes twice—nodded to myself alone, flusteredly rushed into Ueno Station, stammering "Sh-Sh... Shibukawa!" as I shouted to buy a ticket, and after boarding the train, found myself smirking for some reason.
After all, there’s something frivolous about this way of writing.
It’s desperation-fueled buffoonery.
I humbly beg your forbearance.

Three days had passed since coming to this dreary mountain hot spring resort, yet I had gained nothing at all. With strange, foolish thoughts, I simply wandered about. It all came to nothing. I hadn't produced a single page of work. Anxious about lodging fees, I kept scrawling calculations in manuscript margins only to tear them out, then flopping down to lie around. What was I thinking coming here? Truly, I'd done something utterly pointless. For someone raised in poverty like myself, this was practically my first hot spring trip—yet clearly I remained unworthy of leisurely working at such resorts. I couldn't stop fretting over the lodging fees.

Your long letter set me pacing restlessly.
To be perfectly honest, not all of your words struck me as piercing revelations, nor did your loud reprimands send tremors through my entire being.
I am by no means saying this out of sour grapes.
Everything you stated in your letter was something I had already known in full detail long ago.
You were merely declaring that with less doubt than we possessed, asserting it loudly with authority.
However, I have not forgotten that it is precisely your manner of expression that holds such value.
I still thought you were admirable.
Not limited to you alone, among people of your era, thought and its expression unfold almost without a hair's breadth between them, leaving us utterly dumbfounded.
Between thought and its verbal expression, there is not even a trace of slight hesitation or negotiation.
Could it be that you all have been engaging in thought solely through words?
Could it be that you’ve studied by keeping the training of thought and the training of words running perfectly in parallel?
Wasn't it established that those who are inarticulate, write poorly, or stammer lack any real thought?
Therefore, you all state everything clearly and leave nothing unsaid.
Even when stating childish, utterly obvious things, they proclaim them with smug satisfaction.
That very fact becomes an immense source of fascination for us, which is precisely why it’s so vexing.
We—how should I put this—"sense thought," or perhaps I should say, our thoughts race ahead leaving words behind.
And so words remain perpetually bewildered.
I do understand.
The words are unbearably clamorous.
That makes sense—another valid point—and with such a half-hearted mindset, I listen to people’s lectures.

Words felt a thousand miles behind my senses, so sluggish it was unbearable.
The act of organizing one’s subjectivity through words and establishing it as a unique ideological system seemed both grand and orthodox—I too had once yearned for such things. But I found myself utterly defeated by the word "philosophy," as images of bespectacled female college students and skulls immediately flooded my mind, leaving me completely overwhelmed.
When I read your letter, I marvelously felt how what you conceived stood perfectly united with your words without the slightest gap, and whether this resulted from training thought through words or conversely training words through thought, I could not erase the impression of witnessing a mysterious ability born from long practice.
When you wrote that you thought that was a mistake, I sensed that you were able to declare it a mistake without a single cloud of doubt in the depths of your heart.
We are different.
That he was an insufferable fellow—though I actually liked him immensely—yet so often deliberately rephrasing it that way made it utterly unbearable.
Between thought and words, there were three or four small gears.
But please believe that these gears were also subtle and precise.
Our words might have sounded like nothing but nonsensical ravings at first hearing, but should you have examined them closely, you’d have found the gears were always properly interlocked.
It might be a difference in lifestyle.
This kind of excuse is pretentious.
I grew sad.
Let’s leave it at that.
That I marveled at your letter's nearly violent, indeed utterly unvarnished and artless expressions remained an undeniable fact, but it was equally true that I found not a single enlightening element in the opinions thus expressed.
I thought, What the hell are you going on about now?
Who in the world was it that pressed us into these bizarre molds and rendered us immobile?
That was what you call seniors.
No maturity of spirit, inaccurate draftsmanship, sentimentalism, self-righteousness, crude prose, coarse texture, no lived experience, filthiness, insolence, lack of cultivation, muddled ideology, vulgar ambition, counterfeit nature, excessive exaggeration, frivolous mentality, mere self-intoxication, pedantry, scatterbrained tendencies, affectation, boastfulness, careless nonchalance—the moment I tried writing a work with even slight boldness, they immediately swarmed in and pummeled it to pieces. Even when I desperately asked "Then what should I do?", they gave not a word of guidance. They literally kicked away my clinging hands, strode off triumphantly, and apparently made me into a laughingstock among their fellow seniors at drinking parties with remarks like "That guy's a fool after all." It was utterly deplorable.
The juniors too had become utterly spineless, completely cowed into timidity; their works grew ever more plain and impoverished as they suppressed every last spark of their leaping creative talents. With downcast eyes they huddled in corners, convinced that only groveling sincerity would suffice, obsessively gauging their seniors’ moods to play the role of meek, obedient good children. They diligently studied models like the Four Gentlemen, Hotei figures, cranes in morning sunrises, and Mount Fuji vistas from Tagono-ura, sighing with false humility about still being hopelessly inadequate—all while striving above all to avoid any major transgressions.
Now, I believe.

I believe young talent should run wild in every direction, like celestial steeds galloping across the heavens.
The techniques I wish to attempt must be employed to their absolute limit.
There exists no such thing as excessive writing.
Art was flamboyant by its very nature.
Yet I appear to have arrived too late.
My bones had already ossified.
I'd overwritten Hotei-sama and sunrise cranes beyond measure.
This was precisely why, upon reading your letter, I thought: What the hell are you lecturing me about now?
If only you'd declared this clearly twenty years sooner!
But this reeks of petty complaint.
Even were someone to exhort me at full volume—"Destroy the models! Twentieth-century art lies within your grasp!"—I would merely contort my face in anguish and laugh. I shall state only this fact and suppress further grievances of that ilk.
I too, it seems, belong among nineteenth-century writers like yourself.

Though I have said nothing but rude things to you, it remains true that I found not a single enlightening element in your letter's contents—yet still I was thrown into disarray. I wandered about clutching your letter. In the end I fled the capital. Driven by the conviction that this simply wouldn't do, I stuffed my satchel with pen, ink, and manuscript paper. Why? I had been defeated by your letter's sheer length. That foolish passion of yours—wasting such lengthy, meaningless correspondence on someone like me—left me utterly confounded. I even entertained this vulgar thought: had you written all this on proper manuscript paper, what an exorbitant fee you might claim! The suspicion that you might be composing these interminable letters not just to me but to anyone at all left me increasingly perturbed. It seems I love you rather profoundly. The realization that you squander your precious passion on such mundane correspondence became unbearable—I love you more than I love myself. This brought me anguish. And so I concluded you were both hopeless and fundamentally decent. There exists a term—"great fool"—that suits you perfectly. You possess an absolute lack of restraint. Ultimately I recognized you as a figure of singular distinction. Let this be enough—henceforth spare both me and others these interminable letters. I can endure no more.

I understand now.
I will write works.
I will write.
With the feeling that this was too much to bear, I stuffed my bag with a pen, ink, manuscript paper, the Bible, and such.

Thinking back, it was a foolish trip.
Not a single good thing happened.
By tonight, it will have been three nights here, but I haven’t produced a single page of work.
It was a huge failure from the very first night.
I shall inform you of that.
I had not a single concrete plan for my work.
If possible, I wanted to try writing one love romance (you’re probably laughing)—it seems there was a faint ache of that desire lingering in some corner of my heart.
The thought had fleetingly occurred to me at this age—might literature fundamentally concern itself with writing about love affairs?—and so there were nights when I harbored absurd wishes like wanting to break through my recent creative impasse by loving a woman, coupled with clichéd middle schooler-style fantasies that if I could just obtain some hint during this trip, it would be a godsend.
Since travel was such a rare experience for me, there must have been a part of me that felt somewhat buoyant as a result.
What a pitiful story this is.
In my craving for youthful, florid inspiration, I committed a monumental blunder.
On the first evening, the maid who came to serve dinner was a twenty-seven- or twenty-eight-year-old woman who walked with her feet splayed outward and had a broad, stocky build.
Her eyes were narrow and small, her cheeks bright red like an Okame mask.
She was someone whose thoughts and true nature remained unclear.
I forced myself to ask nothing but obligatory, polite questions I had no real interest in—"Does the inn get many guests?", "Which month is busiest?", "Oh I see", "Are you from this area, miss?", "Is that so?"—nodding along even before the maid could answer.
The maid answered only what was asked in clear, single phrases and said nothing beyond that.
She was a brusque maid.
I grew bored.
I completely ran out of things to talk about.
I grew heavy with discomfort.

When I started on the second sake flask—by what strange wind’s whim I know not—the thought of Sakata Tojuro suddenly arose within me. Having reached an impasse in my craft, I resolved to stage a night’s feigned romance and thereby grasp inspiration. Though wicked, for art’s sake it must be endured. I too would attempt this gambit. At once I sharply raised my brows and called out in altered tones, “Miss!” Uttering cringeworthy lines like “I’ve fallen for you” that even appalled myself, when I tried gently taking the maid’s hand, disaster struck.

“What devilry is this?!” she bellowed, rising with bestial ugliness twisting her features as she glared. “No trustworthiness! These are emergency times!” she declared.

My liver near shriveled from shock before curdling into disgust. “Don’t flatter yourself,” I shot back, wholly shifting demeanor. “Who’d truly love the likes of you? Merely testing a theory.”

As I began explaining—“There was once a great actor called Sakata Tojuro who—” she roared anew: “Enough lies!”

“Don’t approach! Don’t approach!” she shrieked, clutching breasts and convulsing solo—a supremely graceless spectacle.

Sobered thoroughly, I turned earnest: “None would approach you regardless. Sit properly. My error.” Attempting salvage through praise—“Homefront women must all prove stalwart as yourself”—the maid snorted contemptuously, straightened her collar, and exited with frosty composure.

I gulped remaining liquor and served myself rice alone—sheer idiocy incarnate. That Tojuro should meet such wretched fortune surpassed all anticipation.

After all, things never go according to old legends.
"I was shocked by her 'What the hell do you think you're doing?!'"
There was no inspiration or anything of the sort.
In this situation, Sakata Tojuro himself would have been so mortified and ashamed he couldn’t maintain his composure that he’d have no choice but to hang himself.
That night, neither the person who came to clear away the meal tray nor the one who came to lay out the futon was that splay-footed woman.
She was a maid around forty—thin with dirty skin and a fox-like face.
Even this maid seemed strangely wary of me, and I grew utterly sick and tired.
That splay-footed woman must have spread the word to everyone.
That night I lay bitterly mortified until dawn, scarcely able to sleep, yet by morning my shame had faded enough to laugh lightly and say to her when she came to clean my room, “My apologies for last night.”
After all, when a man nears forty, his sense of shame grows numb and he turns brazen.
Ten years ago I’d have fled halfway through that night in semi-madness.
I might even have killed myself.
When I apologized, the splay-footed woman frowned sourly and gave a curt nod.
She put on tremendous airs.
I resolved never to exchange another word with this woman.
It was utterly trivial.
Yesterday I spent all day lying about reading the Bible.
That night too I drank no alcohol.
Alone in the rock bath by the mountain stream, I tried murmuring “Blessed are the poor in spirit” repeatedly until my voice rose unbidden: “Do good work! Do good work, you idiot!”
Then softer—“Let me produce good work”—gazing up at the pitch-black sky before whispering faintest of all: “Please let me do good work.”

The sound of the mountain stream alone was overwhelming—and speaking of mountain streams, I immediately recalled today's midday failure and cringed.
In truth, I had failed again at midday.
That morning, I went to wash my face at the Western-style modern bath rather than the rock bath, and when I glanced outside from the changing room window, there stood the inn's large storehouse right before my nose—its door left wide open so I could see deep into the dim interior. Through the storehouse window, blue shadows of paulownia leaves filtered inside, creating a cool-looking effect.
A woman was sitting there.
In the back lay two tatami mats where a young woman in plain clothes sat properly sewing.
Not bad at all, I thought.
She had a round face that wasn't particularly beautiful, but there was a maidenly grace in her solitary figure as she diligently worked on her needlework with green leaf shadows cast upon her back.
Strange as it was, I found myself preoccupied, and during breakfast asked the fox-faced maid who came to serve me, "Who is that young lady?"
The fox-faced maid didn't so much as smile. "That's a farmer's daughter from the neighborhood who mends the inn's yukata and futons there every day," she said tonelessly. "Seems lonesome lately since someone decent got drafted." She stared straight at my face before blurting out disrespectfully, "Have you set your sights on her now?" I bristled.
I nearly retorted, "At least she's better than you lot," but held back and forced a bitter smile instead.
Around noon, as I sat in the corridor's rattan chair gazing down at the valley stream, I suddenly noticed a woman squatting near Kamaga-fuchi—a small waterfall about ten feet high—and upon closer inspection realized she must be that storehouse woman, making me unbearably restless.
When I see someone who looks lonely, even while knowing full well I can do nothing, I grow flustered wanting to help.
I simply couldn't stay still anymore.
I stood up, straightened my yukata properly, wiped facial oil away with a handkerchief, then took my wallet from my bag and slipped it into my pocket.
I couldn't stop worrying about my wallet—perhaps because I'm unaccustomed to traveling.
When leaving my room—whether for the toilet, bath, or walk—I always pocketed it first.
It wasn't about grudging money but hating the commotion if lost.
I went down to the rock bath and from there strolled nonchalantly toward Kamaga-fuchi still in slippers.
The crudest phrase—chasing after women's behinds—came to mind, but feeling this differed somehow, I didn't sense divine wrath.
I desperately wanted to offer some comforting word.

The woman glanced briefly in my direction and stood up.
Seizing the moment, I smiled and said, “It must be hard for you every day.”
“Huh?”
As if asking me to repeat myself, she tilted her small neck and looked my way, then smiled faintly with a perplexed expression.
It was inaudible.
The rapids howled and roared, boiling white as they surged in tumultuous rush, so unless one shouted at the top of their lungs, nothing could be heard.
I shouted at the top of my lungs, “It must be hard for you every day!”
But even so, my words were still tossed about and drowned out by the roaring rapids’ clamor.
The woman blinked her eyes rapidly in growing bewilderment and smiled.
In desperation, I howled out once more, “It must be hard for you every day!” but she still only said, “Huh?”
As if asking me to repeat myself, she stared at my face.
I was completely dejected.
The phrase “It must be hard for you every day” itself began to seem utterly nonsensical—absurd beyond comprehension—and I even grew irritated.
I gave up and gazed for a while at the water spray shattering against the rocks and leaping, then returned.
After returning to my room, I noticed my wallet wasn’t in my pocket and panicked.
I must have dropped it around Kamaga-fuchi.
And then—for some reason—it glimmered through my mind like a flash of lightning that she must have picked it up.
Surely she had a thieving habit and was pretending not to know even if she’d picked it up.
A woman who looked so lonely would unexpectedly have a thieving habit.
Yet as I thought, “I’ll forgive her,” regaining a touch of romantic excitement and left my room to descend toward the rock bath again, I discovered that wallet had slipped around to the back of my yukata, and smiled a bitter smile from the depths of my heart.

I am giving up on romantic pursuits.
I think I will write a novel of poverty titled "Fifty Yen."
I think I will write a novel about a poor, timid man who set out on a journey with fifty yen—truthfully reporting every expenditure from train fares and tram tickets to tea money and Mentholatum ointment, down to the last sen spent.

I wrote nothing but foolish things.
Today, a letter came from my wife.
When she wrote "Please take care of yourself," I was utterly dismayed.
Shizuko (my only daughter—
she is five years old) has been quietly looking after the house, it was also written.
No matter what, I feel that unless I write a single novel here, I cannot return home with any honor.
If I go on with these slovenly ways every day like this, there will be no managing anything.

It seems tonight’s letter has also turned into a jumbled mess (or in your words, a pack of lies). Flies kept coming into the room one after another, and I simply couldn’t settle down to write. This room appeared to be the lowest-class one in this inn. The fusuma paintings were completely inept. There was a painting of six bush warblers lined up on a single plum branch. Looking at it made my anger grow. It was a terrible painting.

I have done nothing but write self-indulgent drivel.
Should you have graciously read through each entry, I am utterly ashamed.
But please refrain from anger hereafter.
You mustn't fly into such quick tempers.
Those interminably grand epistles of yours—I simply cannot endure them any longer.

Do you know?
I am truly happy that I can exchange letters like this with you.
I have become twenty years younger.

With humble respects,

July 7th, late at night.

Kido Ichiro

Mr. Ihara Taizo

Kido.

“I still think I’m one step ahead of you as a strategist,” I mused.
“You may have made all sorts of excuses, but haven’t you resolved to start working regardless?”
“That long letter of mine wasn’t entirely wasted, you see.”
A writer must work.
I myself might well embark on a journey within these next two or three days.
When that happens, I should like to visit your inn too.
It’s quite an intriguing establishment.
Sotohachimonji might harbor unexpected feelings toward you.
“Why not attempt speaking to her once more?”

Without presumption, a brief postcard.
With humble regards.

July 9th Ihara Taizo

Respectfully,

It had been some time since I last wrote to you.
I had thought to properly convey both my gratitude and apologies once I reached a stopping point in my work, which led me to postpone writing until today.
Please forgive me.
First among difficult matters to address: thank you for assisting with that hot spring inn's payment.
I recalled having borrowed twenty yen from you; having enclosed a postal money order for the amount, I humbly request your understanding.
I too had just received royalties for The Gourd Flower and found myself temporarily solvent.
Please accept this without taking offense.
When poor, one grows strangely stubborn—resisting financial dependence on anyone however close.
That presumptuous claim of having wronged none may stand as my sole remaining pride.
This pride alone sustained me.
I beg you receive this without anger.

When the maid informed me that you had come to that trivial hot spring inn in the mountains, I involuntarily gasped! I let out a strange cry of “Hyaah!” I thought you were quite an absurd person. Though it had been written in your postcard, I thought it impossible and hadn’t counted on it in the slightest. “Writers of your generation are oddly childlike in their honesty, aren’t they?” I stood up in dismay, and then you said in a youthful, almost student-like tone, “What a dump of a room,” before lumbering into my quarters. He was smaller than I had imagined and quite a trim old man. Showing a glimpse of white teeth in a smile, he said, “So this is the fusuma with six bush warblers?” “Indeed, there are six.” “Change your room,” he said hurriedly. “You were feeling embarrassed at that time, weren’t you?” “Could it be that you mentioned the fusuma painting to hide your embarrassment?” When I meaninglessly said “Ah” and bowed, you too stiffened into seriousness and declared in that strong, clear tone matching your writing style for the first time: “I am Ihara. It seems I’ve interrupted your work.”

“Not at all—quite the opposite.”
I was thrown into a frantic flurry.
Then—heh-heh—I apparently let out a truly servile, obsequious laugh.
Truly, far from interrupting my work, I felt so dizzy I wanted to suddenly turn a somersault right then and there.
That day, I had already been contemplating returning to Tokyo.
After staying a full week without writing a single page—with lodging fees at five yen per night now amounting to fifty yen that left me anxious about payment—and thinking I must settle accounts today before wiring home for more funds if short, this absurd predicament had me thoroughly despairing at my own fecklessness and growing utterly disgusted when, like a thunderclap, you materialized. That instant truly felt like “a bird taking flight from beneath my feet”—a ticklish shock so intense I nearly fell back on my rear end.

For two days living together with you at that inn, I existed in constant astonishment.
"What an extraordinarily capable old man," I marveled.
Yet I never once felt discomfort.
I sensed a luminous richness.
Sotohachimonji and Kitsune would blush like virgins in your presence—lowering their eyes and giggling as if overcome with joy—making me secretly admire your prowess.
You remained unmistakably urban, still carrying traces of a wayward young master about you.
But rather than disillusioning me, this filled me with mournful nostalgia and even a sense of purity.
You played without hesitation.
You played heedless of others' calculations—stomping through with thunderous footsteps.
You stood prepared to accept both play's responsibilities and its punishments, neither fleeing nor hiding but maintaining perfect composure.
You offered no excuses.
Thus your bold play appeared unsullied and clean.
We forever cower—repeating cowardly self-interrogations in our hearts, forging preposterous alibies from desperation to evade duty and avoid play's retributions—so even our smallest diversions turn repulsive, vulgar, and miserly.
That you at over fifty appeared far more youthful and vigorous than my thirty-eight-year-old self struck me as miraculous.
This difference between us sprang not from wealth versus poverty's divide, but from your having survived countless mortal crises.
You fight with your entire being.
You play with your entire being.
And you properly endure solitude.
I envy you.

There are things that can never be attained, no matter how hard I strive.
Just as boars and bears are entirely different creatures, I believe there are many cases where even among humans, we are completely different beings.
A boar longing for the blackness of a bear's fur can never become a bear no matter how desperately it thrashes about.
I resigned myself.
Having been permitted to stay by your side for two days, I grew increasingly uneasy about burdening you with lodging expenses, and thus took the liberty of returning alone to Tokyo ahead of you. Though you mentioned afterward that you would be touring through Shinshu, as the weather has now grown cooler, I presume you must have returned to the capital by this time.

I feel as though it were a dream.
For twenty years, not a single day passed without me thinking of you; I read every one of your articles without exception, always striving toward you alone as my goal—but driven by a night’s excitement, I finally sent you a letter, and afterward clung to you recklessly as if in a frenzy. Even when scolded and struck, I yapped and clung tighter still, until I attained the unexpected happiness of playing together with you at a hot spring inn. Now looking back, it all feels like a sorrowful dream.
I might have been out of my mind.
I feel as though I sent you quite rude letters.
When I think of Master’s affection and sincerity in taking the time to write lengthy replies to each of my half-mad letters, my eyes grow hot.
Even when I call you Master now, it no longer feels forced in my heart.
Perhaps my heart has already drifted far from you, like a receding wave.
After returning from my journey and gradually resuming my work, I realized that the fervent, almost unpleasant longing I had harbored toward you for twenty years had been completely washed away.
My chest feels as cool as an empty glass bottle.
I still consider your works, unchanged from the past, to be precious.
But that preciousness is like a star shining beautifully in the far distance, faintly, as if not of this world.
It has moved away from me.
I believe I can now call you Master without reservation.
You are an important person.
Is this what they call respect—such a desolate feeling?
I have become unable to act familiarly with you, no matter what.
You were a born 'writer'.
As for me, the tail of a boorish commoner remains stubbornly attached, making it utterly impossible to purify myself into that angelic being called a 'writer'.

My current work is to complete a novel of about a hundred pages based on a portion of the Old Testament's Book of Exodus.
For me, this marks my first novel that isn't an I-novel—yet still I find myself incapable of writing about others.
I write only of my immediate surroundings.
Having grown weary of hitting dead ends with previous literary forms, I finally resolved to attempt this adventurous new style; today I somehow managed to struggle through two-thirds of the story while finding my rhythm, leaving me somewhat relieved.
A glimpse of blue sky came into view.
Having reached an impasse at the brink—for without such suffering I might never have glimpsed that azure expanse—I now find myself absurdly grateful for yesterday's stagnation, indulging in these saccharine reflections.
Though uneducated and truly knowing nothing, I've opened the Bible during trying times ever since my newspaper delivery days.
I had forgotten it for a time, but when you taught me that proverb from Proverbs—"The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge"—I was struck with awe.
Feeling I'd neglected Scripture for ages left me so flustered that during my travels I read nothing else.
When painfully conscious of my own disgrace, no book but the Bible remains legible.
Then each tiny printed character begins sparkling like jewels—a most mysterious phenomenon.
At that hot spring inn I'd felt I'd squandered my time wandering about without writing a single page—yet now reflecting on how daily Bible reading alone made it an invaluable journey.
That you reminded me of Scripture and urged this travel—all stems from you.
Perhaps it was right after all that I voiced my anguish to you.
You saved me.
Now at last I can no longer presume familiarity with you.
Is true respect this—eradicating mutual intimacy to gaze desolately across vast distances?
For the first time since birth, I am lonely.

When I read the Book of Exodus, I was overwhelmed by Moses' efforts, and my heart swelled.
Though they were a sacred people who had forgotten their pride—content to live as slaves in Egyptian cities while passing days in slum clamor and indolence—he desperately preached the great exodus enterprise to these million brethren with his "heavy-mouthed and leaden-tongued" stammering oratory, only to become a nuisance to all. Yet through scolding them harshly and shouting commands through clenched teeth after failed coaxing attempts—he somehow succeeded in leading them out of Egypt only for those very million brethren who followed him into forty years of wilderness wandering—not one soul offering thanks but instead muttering curses like this: “This mess happened because that meddling fool stuck his nose where it didn’t belong! What good came from escaping? Ahh—Egypt was better! Who cares about being slaves? We stuffed ourselves with bread! Duck and leeks bubbled in meat pots till we couldn’t take it! And hey—daytime drinking on tap! Public baths open at dawn! Even our loincloths were pure cotton back then!”
“Would that we had died by Jehovah’s hand in Egypt!” they wailed—those who perished then were lucky ones tricked by that Moses-swindler into leaving only to face endless misery! Not one damn good thing came of it!
“You led us into this wilderness to starve us all!”—what stormed through Moses’ heart when subjected to such vulgar ignorant complaints?
The forty-year wilderness tale brims with these slave grievances.
Yet Moses never despaired.
His iron-forged righteous heart stood unshaken; rebuking and commanding them until he led them at last to freedom’s promised land.
Moses climbed Mount Pisgah’s peak—pointed toward Jordan River’s basin declaring it their beautiful homeland—then died exhausted.
For forty years I wrote of ceaseless slave complaints identical day after day—their rebellions and ignorance against Moses’ anguished struggles.
By all means I must write this through to completion.
Though I cannot properly explain why—with desperate resolve—I feel compelled to record this.
I feel ashamed recalling how I once frivolously declared from that hot spring inn plans for a novel titled Fifty Yen.
If I kept indulging such themes forever—I’d truly become one among those slaves.
Lolling beside meat pots savoring “slave’s peace”—the feeling wasn’t wholly unpleasant—this poor man understands too well—yet when imagining Moses’ righteous fervor and burning urgency—even this sluggard must heave his leaden rear upright.

I seemed to have become slightly overexcited.
From this morning, I found myself in an unusually refreshed state of mind—devoid of desires or gains, resenting no one and loving no one—a serene mental state akin to spiritual detachment through mind-emptying. Yet as I kept speaking to you through this letter, the edges of my heart began tangling like hemp; your clear eyes and powerful voice seemed poised to erase the very sentences of this letter itself. With one hand desperately brushing away your gaze and words while refusing to be outdone, I poured strength into each character I wrote—only to realize I had been writing in great excitement all along.

My current novel is by no means written as a lesson for the people of this era.
That’s preposterous.
I have no qualifications whatsoever to teach others or issue commands.
No—it’s that I lack the ability.
I always write only about the emotions I have physically sensed.
I may simply be a man of simple passions.
No matter how small the emotion, whenever I found one, I would feel compelled to write a novel—but lately, with not a shred of feeling left in my surroundings, I had become completely unable to write even a single character. It was the Bible that saved me.
I understand nothing at all.
I cannot see through the ways of the world.
I am a poor commoner.
However, when it comes to the presence or absence of my own emotions alone, I wish to always express them honestly.
I revere Jehovah.

I find it unbearably embarrassing to say things that sound impressive.
If one possesses Moses' ironclad righteous heart and forty years of responsibility—that’s one matter—but my emotional exaltation seems so greatly governed by factors like that day’s weather conditions that it proves utterly unreliable.
I would start declaring things loudly only to become flustered.
From late July onward，the rain continued until mold grew even in my ink bottle—an unsettling sight—but at last we’ve had good weather for the first time in ages.
Yet with this cool wind，I can tell autumn now creeps near.
Today I plan to tend my garden plot.
Last night’s torrential rain knocked down all my cornstalks.

Perhaps because the prolonged rains persisted, my legs seemed to have swollen slightly again, and recently I had given up drinking alcohol altogether.
Hot springs appear rather ill-suited for those afflicted with beriberi.
I wish to recover swiftly so I might drink two or three measures of sake once more.
When I abstain from drink, nights become unbearable with loneliness after retiring.
From the earth's depths comes faint yet unmistakable weeping—someone's desperate cries—leaving me terrified.

Other than that, there were no changes in my daily life.
Everything remained as it had been.
Though my heart was always in motion.

I believe this may be the last time I send such a long letter to you.
I continue to hold an unbroken thread of respect for you, but I can no longer love you or presume upon your indulgence.
I cannot fathom why this has become impossible.
It seems I have begun walking a path diverging clearly from yours.
You remain a writer of exquisite beauty.
Beautiful as water lilies.
That beauty shall never fade from my memory.
Yet I find myself drifting gradually from the pond where those lilies bloom.
I walk with face bowed low like some wretched beast.
I possess no aesthetics.
Only life’s raw pathos.
From now on, I suspect I shall write nothing but uncouth works.
Somehow this fills me with profound despair.

The letters I received from you I will cherish for life, never part from them, and keep stored away.

Please forgive me abundantly.

Respectfully.

August 16 Kido Ichiro

Mr. Ihara Taizo

Dear Sir,

“I received a letter that makes no sense whatsoever.”
“I did indeed receive the twenty yen.”
“I myself never entertained such rude notions as giving you money.”
“I had meant for you to return it.”
“Moreover, since I’m no tycoon drowning in wealth with nowhere to put it, your returning the money came as a relief.”
“You lot might not know real hardship, but my household still carries old debts—making ends meet each month is no small feat.”
“There’s no telling which of us plays the pauper better.”
“You drone on about poverty at every turn with that tragic air of yours—let’s pray it’s not just self-serving posturing.”
“You boast about never wronging others being your sole virtue, but doesn’t that mask some miserly reluctance to engage in troublesome relationships?”
“I despise this poverty-stricken mentality.”
“Cowering and perpetually gauging people’s moods.”
“I never wanted your respect.”
“We simply wished to converse without these barriers.”
“That’s all.”

“You are a person who does not understand love. You’re always fidgeting restlessly, trying to gain some advantage—I can’t stand that mentality. Writing letters to people, traveling, reading the Bible, amusing yourself with women, exchanging jokes with Ihara—you’re frantically contriving all these things to directly benefit your work, so I can’t stand it. Do you want to write a ‘masterpiece’ that badly? You want to write a masterpiece and play the saint a bit, don’t you? You fool!”

“I believe I have repeatedly advised you that ‘a writer must work.’”
“That was by no means meant to say, ‘Write a single masterpiece.’”
“If someone could just write that one thing and then die content—such a masterpiece doesn’t exist.”
“I meant to say that writers must work at all times, just as one walks.”
“At the same speed as life, in the same rhythm as breathing, one must keep walking without cease.”
“The notion that you can take a break once you’ve gone some distance or that writing this one piece will let you swagger about idly for a while—that’s as absurd as cramming for school exams.”
“You’re taking it too lightly.”
“You’re not writing works to obtain titles or qualifications either.”
“One must advance one’s work ceaselessly, neither rushing nor slacking, at the same pace as living.”
“Whether something is an inferior work, a masterpiece, or a mediocre work is something later people decide based on their individual preferences.”
“The scene of writers retreating to participate in that evaluation is a strange one.”
“Writers need only keep walking calmly.”
“For fifty years, sixty years, they must keep walking until they die.”
“Those who strain themselves to produce at least one ‘masterpiece’—they are people preparing to escape.”
“They want to write it and take a rest.”
“Among writers who take their own lives, there seem to be many victims of this ‘masterpiece complex.’”

The fact that you had recently begun working again was a great encouragement to me as well.
One must continue working without cease.
However, if you think that single Moses story could overcome your entire crisis, you’re mistaken.
“Discard this notion of settling everything with one novel.”
“We aren’t heroes crossing the Rubicon.”
This new novel of yours seems interesting.
The forty-year wilderness consciousness is indeed richly present.
“Write expansively, guided by your own inspiration.”
For a writer of your standing, novels have neither success nor failure.

“From what I observed, the maids at that hot spring inn seemed quite fond of you.”
“However, according to your letter, you were subjected to utter humiliation.”
“You are telling nothing but lies.”
“You seem to take particular pleasure in deliberately portraying yourself as miserable.”
“Stop it.”
“It’s the same state of mind as hiding a savings account book under the floorboards.”
“I hear you were taking walks every night with that girl in the storehouse too, weren’t you?”
“The maids were saying that, I tell you.”
“You must have at least kissed her, didn’t you?”
“I see. Your antics are lewd.”

I hear you've decided to stop sending me letters, but I think nothing of it.
Friendship is no obligation.
If you ever wish to send letters again, you may do so.

“In short, I’ve decided not to trust anything you say.”
“I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“To put it bluntly, I found spending time with you at that hot spring inn extremely tedious.”
“You still look down your nose at being a writer.”
“And you were always weighing Ihara and Kido on a scale, comparing us.”
“Tedious.”

“If I speak too ill, you might become unable to write novels again, so I’ll include just one final word to please you.”

“Geniuses are people who always consider themselves failures.”

“I laughed.”
“In haste.”

August 19, 1941 Ihara Taizo

Mr. Kido Ichiro