Pathway to Japanese Literature

Part One

I decided to try reading fifteen pages at a time, just six times over.
I keep wondering what you might think of this method.
Take these complete works of Ōgai here.
Of course I borrowed them from someone else.
I don't own any books myself.
I hold worldly scholarship in utter contempt.
Most of it amounts to nothing.
What I find particularly ludicrous is how it's always the most uneducated dolts who crave academic prestige—pursing their little mouths to spout nonsense like 'As Professor Ōgai teaches us,' endlessly repeating 'the Professor' this and 'the Professor' that as if they'd ever received his blessing to be disciples, then lowering their eyes with fake humility while declaring 'I am devoting myself to study,' striking these insufferably pious poses you see everywhere nowadays.
Disgraceful—Ōgai himself would surely blush and squirm at such displays.
'I am devoting myself to study.'
That's merchant talk.
Shopkeepers use that phrase when they mean 'selling cheap.'
Nowadays even actors have taken it up.
Soganoya Goro and some film actress or other spout it constantly.
God knows what they're actually studying—they just keep striking solemn poses with their 'I am devoting myself to study.'
Maybe that's good enough for them.
They're just getting by however they can.
No reason to blame them.
But when so-called writers start putting on airs after reading Ōgai—suddenly turning all serious-faced with their 'I am devoting myself to study' nonsense—you've got to wonder:
What exactly had they been reading before this?
It was a profoundly disquieting tale.

It was a profoundly disquieting tale.

Here lay Ōgai's complete works.
I had borrowed it from elsewhere.
Let us now read this together.
"You all would no doubt say, 'Fascinating, fascinating.'"
Ōgai was not difficult in the slightest.
It was always written simply.
Rather, Sōseki was boring.
It had been those very ones who—proclaiming Ōgai to be abstruse and profound, something the common masses must not rashly touch—who erected solemn prohibitory notices while declaring "I am devoting myself to study."
These ladies—or rather, those graduate students—who guarded their university lecture notes from Professor So-and-so like sacred relics even a decade after graduation, who hauled them out at every opportunity to mutter trivialities like "Well... beauty is not ugliness, ugliness is not beauty," who composed endlessly lengthy papers crammed with foreign names while settling into smug composure as if declaring "Without scholarship, one cannot prevail."
In the end, such people were nothing but wretched ignoramuses, yet it was strange how the world revered them as "wise individuals."

Even Ōgai mocks them.
When Ōgai went to see a play, there on the stage sat a samurai of the most pallid complexion at the room's center, who declared, "Well now, shall we engage in some scholarly reading?"—and Ōgai himself wrote of this with amusement, astonished and nonplussed by the spectacle.

You all were now reading Ōgai’s complete works with me, but there was no need to be stiff at all.
First of all, I was an uneducated person several ranks inferior to you all.
A man who had never engaged in scholarly reading or anything of the sort.
He always lay sprawled out reading haphazardly—his posture was atrocious.
Therefore, you all might as well remain lying down just as you were and read along with me.
I would have been troubled if you had sat up straight.

Here lay Ōgai’s complete works.
That this had been borrowed from elsewhere was something I had mentioned earlier.
We were to handle it with care.
Even if moved, we were to refrain from drawing red lines beside the text or such things.
Since it was a borrowed book, we had to take good care of it.
We opened Translation Volume Sixteen.
There were many good short stories.

Let’s look at the table of contents.

“Guilty of Holding a Jewel”
*HOFFMANN*

“Evil Karma” *KLEIST*

“Earthquake” *KLEIST*

Following these were about forty short stories, all with intriguing titles arrayed in a row.
Reading the commentary at the volume’s end revealed this covered Germany, Austria, and Hungary.
There were quite a lot of original authors whose names I’d never heard before.
But even when reading recklessly without concerning oneself with such things, each story proved interesting in its own way.
They all had skillful openings.
A skillful opening constituted an author’s “kindness.”
Moreover, that translator Ōgai had selected works exclusively from such kind authors itself became his kindness.
Even Ōgai’s own novels all had skillful openings, you know.
They were written to be read smoothly.
I think he remained quite kind to his readers and held genuine affection for them.

Let us pick out two or three skillful openings from this Volume Sixteen.
They are all so skillful that selecting them proves difficult.
I wanted to lay out all forty-odd openings here and now—that’s how compelling they are.
However, should you purchase Ōgai’s complete works or borrow them elsewhere as I did and read them closely, you would understand this fully on your own. Thus I deliberately restrained myself and presented only seven—no—eight examples.

“Buried Tree”
*OSSIP SCHUBIN*

When the Belgian Independence Newspaper carried the article stating, “Mr. Alphonse de Sterny will come to Brussels in November and personally conduct his new composition Devil’s Concerto,” the citizens widened their eyes in astonishment.

“Father” *WILHELM SCHAEFER*

No one outside of me knows this story.
The man who knew this—the very person involved—had died last autumn.

“The Golden Cup” *JACOB WASSERMANN*

It was near the end of 1732.
Britain was under the government of George II.
One evening, as a night watchman was making his rounds through London, near Temple Bar he found a young woman collapsed on the road.

“The Death of One”
*SCHNITZLER*

Someone knocked on the door.
It was done softly.

“One day you will return.”
ANNACROISSANT-RUST

A flock of seagulls rose right from beneath their feet and flew off unsteadily across the lake, crying out with sharp, ravenous voices as they went.

“Guilty of Holding a Jewel”
AMADEUS HOFFMANN

Around the time when Louis XIV’s favor converged solely upon Madame de Maintenon, astonishing the eyes of the world, there existed an elderly woman scholar who frequented the court named Madeleine de Scudéry.

“Labor”
KARL SCHOENHERR

Both were young and healthy.
The man was named Kaspar; the woman was named Lise.
They loved each other.

So, having randomly opened the book and haphazardly listed just the opening lines in no particular order—what do you think? They're well-crafted, aren't they? You'll want to read what comes next, won't you? If one were to create a story, one would at least want to begin from an opening like these, don't you think? Finally, one more—this one truly stands out among them.

“Earthquake” *KLEIST*
KLEIST

In the capital Santiago of the Kingdom of Chile, as the great earthquake of 1647 was about to strike, there stood a boy leaning against a prison pillar.
His name was Zerónimo Rugiera, born in Spain, but having abandoned all hope in this world, he now intended to hang himself.

How about that?
How about this cloth-rending vigor?
Truly, Kleist was a great genius, wasn't he?
From the very first line, that author's thick pillar of fiery passion reaching up to heaven could be clearly perceived even by us ordinary mortals.
The translator Ōgai too gave his all here; his rendition stood taut as a bowstring, masterfully executed.
And at the translation's end he appended an explanatory note stating: "This 'Earthquake' piece is an eternal masterpiece containing infinite mists and waves within its narrow bounds."

However, I now have something else I wish to discuss.
This single Volume Sixteen alone contains such masterpieces as those mentioned above—like a jewel box—those who have yet to read it should rush to the bookstore and buy it immediately; those who have read it once should read it again; those who have read it twice should read it thrice; if buying displeases you then borrow it—and concerning the thirteen-page vignette titled “A Woman’s Duel” contained within that Volume Sixteen, I now intend to speak.

This is truly a mysterious work.
The author is HERBERT EULENBERG. Of course, I—in my ignorance—do not know this writer.
The commentary at the end also contains no information about the author.
The commentator in question is Mr. Kojima Masajiro. As a novelist, Mr. Kojima is our senior, and I avidly read his short story collection titled The New Residence during my middle school years.
He appears to have compiled this Ōgai Complete Works with sincerity, but unfortunately seems particularly weak in German—in that regard, I must say with all due disrespect, he is little better than an ignoramus like myself.
There is no explanation at all.
It is clear that this too reflects Mr. Kojima’s humble attitude, pointedly avoiding any pretentious “scholarly diligence”—
The fact that this compiler does not adopt formal scholars’ pretentious airs is indeed one of his merits, but still, I cannot help feeling it would have been convenient for someone as unstudied as myself had he at least consulted a dictionary to convey something about the original author’s character.
In any case, the author cannot be all that renowned.
He was a nineteenth-century German writer.

That much was all one needed to remember, I supposed.
There was a friend of mine who was a professor of German literature, but when I asked him, he said he didn’t know.
He suggested it might be ALBERT EULENBERG, or perhaps a mistake for ALBRECHT EULENBERG.
No—it was definitely HERBERT, I insisted. Since he didn’t seem to be that famous a writer, I pressed my request: “Look it up in a biographical dictionary or something for me.”
He sent a letter in reply: “I must confess my ignorance—I am unfamiliar with Herbert Eulenberg and am deeply ashamed.”
“He does not appear in Meyer’s biographical dictionary,” he wrote, “and does not seem to be a famous writer.”
From a literary dictionary, he had learned the following details, he kindly wrote out a detailed bibliography of the man’s works and sent it to me—but really, there was nothing of great consequence.
The man wrote nothing but works I’d never heard of.
In other words, it came down to this:
The author of “A Woman’s Duel,” HERBERT EULENBERG, was a German writer of the latter half of the nineteenth century and not particularly famous.
Even professors of German literature in Japan could not know his name without consulting a dictionary; long ago, Mori Ōgai, who had cherished his mysterious talent, translated his short stories “The Hen on the Tower” and “A Woman’s Duel.”

That much knowledge about the author sufficed.
Even if one were to write in more detail, it would amount to nothing since it would be forgotten immediately.

This work was translated by Ōgai, but which magazine subsequently published it remains entirely unknown.
Later it surfaced in a standalone volume titled Kaeru.
The compilers of the Ōgai Complete Works appear to have been extensively questioned about this matter, but “We simply cannot determine it.
...would be most appreciated if we might receive your esteemed instruction,” they appended at the end of the volume.
It would be fascinating if I knew this information, but I cannot possibly know.
You likely don’t know either.
Don’t you dare laugh.

The mystery did not lie in such things.
The mystery lay within the work itself.
I intended to make six different attempts regarding this mere thirteen-page vignette; however, were this work by masters like HOFFMANN or KLEIST, no annotations whatsoever would have been permitted about their creations.
Since there were fifty thousand ardent admirers of those great masters in Japan as well, had I clumsily tampered with their works, I would likely have been struck down instantly.
Such things were rarely said.
If it had been Mr. Herbert’s work, I might even have been praised for unearthing a buried genius—a circumstance that made poor Herbert all the more pitiable.
This writer too must have been immensely popular in his homeland at the time.
It was simply that we remained ignorant and knew nothing of it.

In fact, according to the work itself, the precision of its descriptions, the subtlety of its psychology, its fierce gaze toward God—all were truly first-rate among the first-rate. Only a certain negligence in composition prevented him from becoming a second Shakespeare.

Anyway, let us now read this together.

A Woman’s Duel

This extraordinary, unprecedented event in history had the following brief circumstances leading up to it.

One evening, when the Russian medical student returned to her lodgings after attending some lofty lecture—on what discipline exactly mattered little—she found a letter upon her desk.
There was neither addressee nor return mark.
“Through certain chance circumstances, I have become acquainted with the man with whom you maintain relations.”
“The means matter not, so I shall omit them.”
“I am she who until this very moment believed herself to be that man’s wife.”
“Having contemplated your character, I have reached this conclusion.”
“You would never shirk responsibility for your prior deeds based on how their consequences might unfold.”
“Nor would you ever seek to escape accountability for having insulted a third party who never wronged you personally.”
“I am informed that you frequently engage in pistol practice.”
“As I have never before handled firearms, regardless of your actual proficiency, I maintain faith that your skill at pistol shooting surpasses my own.”

“Therefore, I make this demand of you: I hereby request that you come to the train station written below tomorrow at 10:00 AM, bringing a pistol with you. In making this request, I cannot claim that I hold an equal or greater advantage. As I will not be bringing any witnesses, I hope you too will refrain from bringing any. Incidentally, I believe there is no need to inform the man in question about this matter beforehand. To that man, I told some convenient lies and have made arrangements for him to depart for a distant location within the next day or two.”

Following these words was written out in detail the location where they were meant to meet.
The name was given as Konstanz, with the surname written beneath erased just enough to still be legible.

Part Two

Last time, we had reached the point stating: "The surname written beneath had been erased just enough to remain legible."
As for the psychological subtleties hinted in that single phrase—I have no desire to tediously elaborate on them. Let each reader savor them as they please.
This indeed makes for an excellent passage.
Moreover, regarding the raw hatred emanating from the full text of the opening letter—rather than compelling admiration for the original author’s artistic skill, it has been crafted to impart the visceral immediacy of reality itself.
Whether such a conceit constitutes art’s righteous path or its perversion is a matter that should naturally invite various debates; however, we shall refrain from addressing that for now and proceed to read a little further into this strange work. One cannot help but increasingly perceive that this original author is merely transcribing the uncanny event unfolding before his eyes with the cold detachment of a newspaper reporter.
Immediately following this,

The woman who had written this letter, upon sending it, immediately went into town and sought out a firearms shop.
And, as if it were a joke, she said she wanted to buy a light, good pistol.
Then, gradually talking deeper into conversation, she embellished the lies—since it was a wager—and asked him to teach her how to fire the pistol.
Then they went out to the gloomy back courtyard together with the shop owner.
At that moment, the woman made an effort to laugh as if it were a joke—just like the shop owner who followed behind carrying the pistol.

Beside the courtyard stood a printing office.
The stagnant air trapped within carried the metallic tang of lead.
Windows throughout the neighborhood were smeared brown with grime—though no figures moved behind them, to the woman’s heightened senses every pane seemed to conceal spectators leering through the glass with faces twisted in voyeuristic delight.
When her gaze sharpened, she saw that the courtyard’s far end opened into a garden of ancient trees where a target stood erected—its black bullseye gaping like an enormous pupil.
At this sight her face cycled violently between flame-red flush and ash-white pallor.
With pedantic care reminiscent of instructing a child, the shop owner demonstrated each component: trigger, chamber, barrel, sights—imparting shooting fundamentals through methodical repetition.
The chamber spun playfully after each discharge like a mechanical toy.
Only then did he place the pistol in her hands for that inaugural shot.

The woman tried to pull the trigger as the shop owner had instructed, but it wouldn’t budge.
Though she had been told to use one finger, she hooked two around it and yanked with all her strength.
Her ears roared with a deafening bang.
The bullet struck the ground three paces ahead, ricocheted, and hit a window.
The window shattered with a crash she could no longer hear.
Somewhere on the roof, a hidden flock of pigeons startled into flight, momentarily deepening the courtyard’s gloom.

With the composure of one gone deaf, the woman spent the next hour practicing her shooting, still hooking two fingers around the trigger as she pulled. Each time she fired, foul smoke billowed out, and though she fought back the urge to retch, she inhaled that stench as though it were a fragrance she adored. The woman’s fervor was so intense that even the shop owner became swept up in her zeal—the moment she had fired six rounds, he promptly loaded another six bullets and handed them to her.

Though evening had come, when night fell and the black and white rings of the target merged into a single gray, the woman at last stopped her practice.
This man whom she had never met before now seemed to her like an old friend.

The woman considered whether it would be appropriate to say to this man, as if joking, "With this much practice, I should soon be ready to go hunt humans." But she refrained from saying such a thing, fearing her voice would tremble even more than her hands.
There she paid the money, expressed her thanks, and left the shop.

Since devising that incident, she had not slept at all, so the woman—thinking she could finally rest assured she could sleep—clutched the six-shot revolver to her chest and crawled into bed.

Let us pause here for breath. Well? Anyone with even passing familiarity with novels must have noticed something distinctly abnormal about this story's descriptive style by now. In a word: "chilliness." A brusqueness verging on outright discourtesy. Discourteous toward what, you ask? Toward "the immediate facts." When descriptions grow too precise in their rendering of raw facts, they become positively distasteful to readers.

Consider how murder scenes get diagrammed in newspapers—those crude doll-like figures representing victims at the center of six-mat rooms. You know the ones I mean? Utterly repellent. They make you want to shout "Enough!" Can you not detect that same vulgar explicitness lurking within this novel's descriptions? The precision here takes one's breath away. Read it again: Beside the courtyard stands a printing office. Through my meager writerly intuition, I can confirm that printing office was indeed present—no figment of the original author's imagination. And yes, those windows truly were stained brown with grime. Inescapable reality.

That business about startled pigeons briefly darkening an already gloomy courtyard? Precisely as described—the original author stood behind the woman witnessing it all firsthand. The whole affair had acquired an uncanny quality.

When a novel's descriptions become brazenly direct, people feel both admiration and a distinct unease—a suspicion.
Too masterful.

Indulgent.
Defies God.
There are various terms.
Suspicions regarding the descriptions soon shift to suspicions about the character of the author who produced those excessively precise depictions.

Now then, from this point onward it is beginning to turn into my (Dazai) novel, so readers must proceed with caution.

I had read this short story called "A Woman’s Duel"—a mere ten pages or so—up to this point, and upon encountering its viscerally raw, inescapable descriptions that practically quivered with life, I was greatly surprised yet simultaneously felt an unbearable discomfort.
This discomfort toward the descriptions soon transformed directly into discomfort toward the original author.
I even felt the rather impertinent suspicion that when writing this work, the original author of this short piece might not have been in an especially sound state of mind.
Regarding what constituted this unsound state of mind, I could propose two hypotheses.
The first was a conjecture that the original author had been extremely fatigued when writing this novel.
When people are physically fatigued, they tend to become exceedingly disagreeable and brusque toward life and the realities of living.
What had the opening of this novel "A Woman’s Duel" been like?
I would not repeat it here, but I believed readers who had read the previous installment would recall it immediately.
It was written in what might be called a bludgeoning tone.
It had begun with hands in pockets—an opening so haughtily arrogant it seemed to say, "Shall I enlighten you?"
First of all, regarding when this incident occurred—that is to say, the year (foreign writers do seem inclined to always include dates no matter how trivial the events they narrate)—and then the location as well, had it not said nothing at all about these matters?
There had only been an unhelpful description along the lines of "A Russian medical student, one evening, engaged in some academic subject or another," and no matter which page one turned to, nothing whatsoever was written about geographical matters.
It was an utterly brusque attitude.
When physically fatigued, the author’s descriptions invariably took on a tone that seemed to reprimand—or in some cases, outright berate—the reader, while simultaneously betraying a truly merciless countenance.
Human nature might perhaps be inherently cruel and merciless.
When one’s body was exhausted and will broken, they often struck others down with a single ruthless blow—eschewing all rhetorical flourishes to cut diagonally across their defenses.
It was a sad thing.
That there existed in the descriptions of this short story titled "A Woman’s Duel" passages of mercilessness so detestable they made one gasp—this, I believed, discerning readers would have already noticed.
That the author had been fatigued and indeed displayed violent emotional expressions toward life and the modest endeavors of reality—I did not think this was entirely an overstatement on my part.

Another hypothesis—though this is a rather romantic one—is that the author’s abnormal sense of loathing evident in this novel’s descriptions (for precision is but a variant of loathing) originates directly from an inescapable emotion toward the work’s heroine.
In other words, we can draw an intriguing hypothesis that this novel is thoroughly grounded in factual materials, and moreover, that the original author was by no means a stranger to the scandal from which those facts arose.
To lay it out even more explicitly: we can detect the scent of a horrifying secret—that Mr. Herbert Eulenberg himself, the original author of this short piece, was none other than the husband of Konstanz within the story.
If we accept this, I believe we can fully account for the author’s detestably cold-hearted—and therefore starkly precise—gaze evident in this work’s descriptions (particularly when depicting the heroine’s trembling state).

Of course, this was a lie. Mr. Herbert Eulenberg was not someone who would ever have instigated such foolish domestic troubles. I believe the source of this short piece's mysteriously precise descriptions was likely exhausted entirely by the first hypothesis. That much was certain—but the reason I deliberately established this second false hypothesis was that in this instance, I had no intention of conducting some solemn masterpiece appreciation; rather, with apologies to Mr. Herbert for requesting he turn a blind eye, I meant to use this short piece titled "A Woman's Duel" as a foundation to attempt an entirely different narrative. Though fully aware this attitude toward Mr. Herbert was utterly disrespectful, I wished to be forgiven on account of that awkward etiquette long practiced in society—the notion that "it is precisely because one respects another that one presumes upon their goodwill to act rudely."

Now then, this time I intend to read a bit further into the original work, and then—though it may seem presumptuous (indeed, it is an act of presumption)—supplement what is lacking in the original text and attempt to construct it into a somewhat intriguing romance.
In this original work—as will become clear if you read just a bit further—the descriptions focus solely on Konstanz, the wife, with almost no mention made of her husband or the Russian medical student who became the other woman in his affair.
I shall—through what I admit is a reckless endeavor—forcibly equate that husband with none other than the original author himself, thereby making myself, so to speak, Konstanz the wife’s sole ally; and as revenge for how the original author has so cruelly and coldly depicted Konstanz the wife, I intend—though my youthful inexperience may fall short—to employ as spiteful a style of description as possible from the next installment onward.
This time, I shall next copy about a page of the original author’s account, and then endeavor to present my own detailed descriptions of the husband and medical student as meticulously as possible.
Konstanz the wife slept holding a cold pistol on the eve of the duel, and now then, the following morning, this unprecedented duel between women was at last to be commenced—regarding which the original author Eulenberg, with his detestably lucid and merciless mind, has stated as follows.
I would like readers to read this portion first, and then from the next installment onward, I (Dazai) hope you will also indulge my foolish fantasies.

The wife, holding a six-shot pistol, entered the futon.

Now then, the next morning, the original text proceeds as follows.

The next morning at the appointed station, those who disembarked from the train consisted solely of two women and two farmers.
The train station was desolate, built on flat ground.
The tracks, like a line drawn with a straightedge, shone as they ran far into the distance, merging into one near the horizon.
Across the yellowish-tinged fields to the left, a village could be seen.
The train station bore the name of that village.
To the right, a grassy sandy plain spread out sleepily.

The two farmers, appearing to be returning from selling goods in town, had sat down at the restaurant attached to the station and were raising a toast.

There, only the two women began walking silently side by side.
The wife led the way.
The path crossed over the tracks and entered into the field.
The path was thickly overgrown with dark green grass that nearly concealed the soil, with two parallel lines of cartwheel tracks running across it.

It was a chilly summer morning.
The sky appeared gray.
The few trees seen along the road stood large and awkward, towering over this gloomy plain.
The forest appeared exactly as if it had sent out sentries and forgotten to withdraw them.
Here and there, low, one-winged-looking, sickly shrubs were trying to grow but couldn't.

The two women walked silently side by side.
They were like complete foreigners with no shared language.
The wife always took the lead by a step ahead.
Perhaps because of this, it seemed the student was suppressing the urge to say something or attempt a question.

The pale birch forest visible in the distance gradually drew nearer.
The small silver-gray trunks of untended trees twisted arbitrarily, crowned with branches and leaves resembling disheveled hair, and formed a cluster.
The small leaves caught the wind and whispered to each other.

III

The Russian medical student had wanted to say one thing.
“I do not love that man.
Do you truly love him?”
I had wanted to say just that.
I was unbearably angry.
Last night, returning exhausted from school—alright, I’ll drink the milk I chilled this morning—I removed my sweat-dampened jacket and placed it on the desk, only to find that ignorant, foolish letter lying pale and quiet on its surface.
She must have entered my room without permission.
Oh, this wife was insane.
After finishing the letter, I laughed at its sheer absurdity.
Having resolved to ignore it entirely, I tore the letter into two, then four, then eight pieces, letting them flutter into the wastebasket.
At that moment, that person turned unnaturally pale and suddenly entered the room.

“What’s wrong?”

"She found out. She’s figured us out."
He seemed to try forcing a smile, but only made his right cheek twitch spasmodically, his distinctive canine tooth jutting out.

I thought meanly, “Compared to you, your wife seems more resolute.”
“She’s challenged me to a duel.”
He paced restlessly around the room, muttering “I see… So that’s how it is,” then continued: “That woman’s gone and done something so reckless—tarnishing my reputation and seeking true revenge.”
“I’d thought something was off.”
“Last night she told me in an uncharacteristically gentle tone: ‘You’ve done so much work this month—why not take a restorative trip to the countryside?’”
“‘There’s plenty of extra money this month.’”
“‘Seeing your exhausted face pains me too.’”
“‘Lately I’ve begun understanding artists’ hardships myself.’”
“When she started spouting that nonsense, I thought ‘Aha! There’s something here,’ pretended to agree, then this morning faked leaving for a trip only to double back and crouch watching in our courtyard.”
“That evening she left home—who told her when and where?—came straight to your boarding house, spoke with the landlady, then headed downtown to stand transfixed before a shop window.”
“The display held stuffed wild ducks, deer antlers, weasel pelts—I watched from afar but couldn’t tell what shop it was.”
“Then she slipped inside, so I approached safely—what a shock! No, not shock… more like sudden understanding?”
“Beneath those stuffed ducks and pelts lay over a dozen hunting rifles with barrels gleaming dully.”
“Pistols too.”
I understood everything.
That life could connect directly to these black gun barrels—unthinkable normally—seeped into my hollow despair with strange lyricism.
The barrels’ black gleam felt like life’s final poem.
A pistol shot rang behind the store.
Then another.
I nearly wept.

Gently opening the store door and peering inside，he found the shop deserted with no one there.
I entered.
Guided by successive gunshots，he steadily proceeded deeper inside.
Peering through，he saw his wife and shop owner standing side by side in twilight courtyard，just as she—under his instruction—was about to fire at target.
Her pistol discharged fire.
Yet bullet struck ground three paces ahead，ricocheted，hit window.
Window glass clattered shattered，startling flock of pigeons hidden on roof into flight—their swirling forms deepened already dim courtyard’s gloom.
Again I felt tears welling.
What were those tears?
Hatred’s？Fear’s？
No—perhaps pity’s tears for wife，who knows.
At any rate now I knew.
That’s her nature.
Coldly submissive always，yet acts without worldly concern.
Ah，I’d even thought that reliability！
Skilled at simmered taro，you know.
Now dangerous.
You’ll be killed.
My life’s first lover killed.
This woman who’d become my sole lifetime’s treasure—she now tries killing her.

“I witnessed that much and rushed over to you.”
“You—”
“How dutiful of you.”
“What on earth is all this about ‘the first lover I’ve ever had’ and ‘my only treasure’?”
“After all, isn’t this just your self-satisfied delusion as an artist—you smugly reveling in it alone?”
“How affected.”
“Stop this.”
“I do not love you.”
“You were never beautiful to begin with.”
“If I hold even the slightest interest in you, it pertains solely to your peculiar profession.”
“To mock citizens while peddling art, yet live exactly like those citizens—this struck me as the behavior of some bizarre creature. I wished to investigate that phenomenon—well, that’s how I’d rationalize it—but ultimately it proved meaningless.”
“There’s nothing there at all.”
“Only chaos remains.”
“As a scientist, I’m drawn to incomprehensible things—to what I cannot grasp.”
“I feel such dread that I might perish without fully understanding it.”
“That’s why I was drawn to you.”
“I don’t comprehend art.”
“I don’t comprehend artists.”
“I thought there was something.”
“I wasn’t in love with you.”

“Now I finally comprehend what an artist is.”
“Artists are weak—utterly incompetent overgrown imbeciles.”
“Nothing more than stunted intellects, disabled beings who won’t mature no matter their age.”
“Is purity merely idiocy?”
“Innocence just perpetual weeping?”
“Ah! Why must you stare at me with that ashen face?”
“Enough.”
“Leave.”
“You’re utterly unreliable.”
“Now I see it clearly.”
“To panic, lose all composure, and wander about aimlessly—is this your artist’s vaunted purity?”
“How very obliging of you,” I spat, hurling incoherent insults even as I recognized their irrationality, bodily shoving that man through the doorway before slamming it shut with a thunderous crash and turning the lock.

While beginning preparations for a meager dinner, I felt intensely dreary. The carefree expressions of men grated on me from the pit of my stomach. What in the world was this supposed to be? I occasionally received money from that man. I even had him buy me winter gloves. I even had him buy more embarrassing personal items. But what did that even amount to? I was a poor medical student. Why should it be wrong that I found a patron to support my research? I had no father, no mother. But my lineage was of noble blood. When my aunt died, I would receive an inheritance. I had my pride. I did not love that man. Wasn’t love something altogether different—a distinct emotion encompassing even a mother’s affection, evoking a sense of blood connection? I did not love that man. Though I believed I had walked my path as a scientist alone from the very beginning, why must I now suddenly face such impertinent things—these vile duel challenges and a respectable man over forty sniveling as he came rushing into my room—as if I alone were being treated like some terrible criminal? I didn’t understand.

Because I ate a meager meal alone, I drank two glasses of wine.
Post-meal lethargy makes people sink into that defiant mood of "Do whatever you please."
The duel somehow came to seem like a light activity—no more significant than post-dinner exercise.
Maybe I should try it.
I couldn't possibly be killed.

According to that man’s account, wasn’t it said that the woman on the other side was practicing with a pistol for the first time today?
Wasn’t I always the top marksman at the student club?
Even on horseback, I could hit nine out of ten shots.
I’ll kill her. I’ve been insulted.
In this town, I had heard that if a duel was legitimate, the punishment from officials would be extremely light, and it wouldn’t particularly damage one’s honor.
If even a single bothersome caterpillar crawls onto the path I walk, it’s only natural that I remove it with my cane.
I am young and beautiful.
No—I may not be beautiful, but a young woman striving to live on her own must surely be more beautiful than one who clings pathetically to that worthless artist and thrusts half-mad duel challenges at me.
Exactly—it’s a matter of the eyes.
No—truly, I had developed quite an extraordinary sense of arrogance.

Well, I’ll go take a walk in the park.
Behind my boarding house was a small park where a turtle-shaped monstrosity spouted a single high jet of water toward the sky, its fountain surrounded by a pond where Oriental goldfish swam.
Peter I had bestowed these small parks upon towns across the country to celebrate Princess Anne’s marriage.
These Oriental goldfish too were said to have been Princess Anne’s cherished playthings.
I was fond of this small park.
A single large moth clung to the gas lamp as if pinned there.
When I glanced up, that man sat on the bench.
He must have known my walking habits and lain in wait here.
I approached him with newfound ease. “Forgive me for earlier. You great imbecile.” Affectionate terms like “darling” were beyond me.
“Come watch the duel tomorrow.
“I’ll kill your wife for you.
“If you refuse, stay hidden in your house and wait for your wife’s return.
“If you don’t come watch, I’ll send your wife back safely.”
When I said this, how did that man respond?
His face brimming with a grin of utter vileness, he suddenly wiped it away and feigned innocence. “Huh? What’d you say? You’re spouting nonsense.”
With those words he turned and left.
I knew.
That man wanted me to kill his own wife.
Yet he wished to never voice it himself—wanted to keep it as though he’d never heard it from my lips.
This would forever serve as means to preserve his honor.

Contested by two women, he remained completely unaware as his wife was killed and the mistress survived.
Ah, what an event to satisfy that artist’s idiotic vanity!
That man wanted to position himself as extending a compassionate hand to me—the survivor and now a criminal.
It was transparent.
For a spineless, servile layabout like that, such a scandal must be his greatest pride.
He would scowl, clutch his hair, and strike poses of confession before friends.
"Ah, I am suffering," he'd say.
Watching that man’s thin back disappear into the night mist, I shrugged both shoulders turned sharply on my heel, and returned to my boarding house.
I felt inexplicably sad.
When pushed to the breaking point, do women ultimately find themselves wanting to embrace one another and weep?
I didn’t consider myself pitiable.
But I suddenly felt pity for that man’s wife.
Shouldn’t we be in a relationship where we support each other?
Waves of sympathy, pity, compassion—for the wife I’d never seen—beat against my chest like the wings of some great bird.
I threw open the window and drank five or six glasses of wine while gazing at the starry sky.
My vision whirled dizzily—ah, it was as if stars were falling.
That’s right.
That man would surely come to watch the duel.
He would follow behind us.
If he came to watch, then I would kill his wife for him—since I’d said I would.

That man must be hiding behind a tree trunk watching.
He might even clear his throat lightly, intending it as a signal that he’s there observing.
I’ll fire suddenly at the man behind that trunk.
Let the wretched fool die.
That settles it.
I thudded down onto the bed as though collapsing.
Good night, Konstanz.
(Konstanz was the name of the wife.)

The next day, the two women walked huddled close together under a gloomy gray sky.
They walked silently side by side.
The medical student had wanted to ask a single question for some time now.
Do you love that man?
Do you really love him?
However, the wife—like a sturdy mare—flared her nostrils, exhaled ragged breaths, and strode briskly onward as though shaking off the medical student clinging to her, doing nothing but hasten her pace.
As she stared at the angular legs protruding from beneath the wife’s skirt, a nauseating disgust welled up within the medical student.
Disgusting.
Why does the figure of a woman who’s lost her reason reek so much of animal?
Disgusting.
Lowly creature.
Worm.
I won't save her.
Before shooting that man, I will settle the outcome with this woman through hatred.
Whether that man had come here or not—I didn’t know.
He didn’t seem to be here.
It didn’t matter.
"The only thing that matters now is this fleeting, disheveled, lowly mare before me."
The two women walked briskly in silence.
No matter how quickly the medical student hurried her steps, the wife always remained one step ahead.

The birch forest visible in the distance gradually drew near.
That forest was the appointed spot.
(以上 DAZAI)

Immediately continuing, the original work:

“Just beyond this forest, the wife suddenly came to a halt.”
Her manner, which until now had been that of someone being pursued, now appeared to confront the person who had resolved to chase her.

“Let us each fire six shots, shall we? You should fire first.”

“Very well.”

This was the entirety of the conversation between the two women.

The medical student walked twelve steps while counting in a clear voice.
And then, following the wife’s example, she lined up at the outermost birch trunk and stood facing her opponent.

The surrounding grassland lay hushed in slumber.
From the train station came the sharp clang-clang of bells.
It sounded exactly like the ticking of a clock's second hand.
What became of seconds or time no longer concerned these two.
To the right of where the medical student stood lay a shallow puddle reflecting the white sky.
It resembled milk spilled across the grassland.
The birch trees pressed close together as if intent on witnessing the extraordinary event about to unfold, craning their necks in silent observation—but they weren't the only watchers.
Like a shadow of the two women crouched that lowly artist, unnoticed in the shade of birch trunks.

Let us take a break there.
The last line was one I added.

Terribly awkward and blushing, I nevertheless attempted to write a little from the perspectives of both the medical student and the husband.
I am fully aware that this is highly conceptual and cloyingly sentimental, egregiously defiling Mr. Eulenberg’s tightly-woven realism.
However, immediately following its previous conclusion, the original work continues: "Just beyond this forest, the wife suddenly came to a halt.
"...and so on." However, by inserting my clumsy embellishments into this interstice, I thought perhaps this novel A Woman’s Duel might acquire an entirely different kind of twentieth-century rawness—which is why I boldly adopted only the coarsest commonplace language in my attempt.
Twentieth-century realism may perhaps lie in the embodiment of concepts, and I think it would be misguided to categorically reject sentimental, exaggerated adjectives.
People may commit suicide over worldly debts, and there are also those who take their own lives out of an intangible dread born from concepts.

I will describe the particulars of the duel in the next installment.

Part Four

Before informing you of the duel’s outcome, I wished to consider the heart of that lowly artist crouching in the shade of birch trunks, watching this pitifully tragic yet bizarre spectacle of two women standing pistol in hand, poised to face each other.
I was now provisionally calling this man a lowly artist—not that I meant to single him out as such, but rather because all artists were inherently base by nature. Thus, as punishment for dabbling in some form of writing, he had been forcibly enlisted into their lowly ranks.
This man might have been rather noble among artists.
First and foremost, this man was a gentleman.
He was impeccably dressed, greeted others with ordinary courtesy, and his timid smile was charming.
He kept his hair neatly trimmed, had presumably mastered that scholarly air and nihilistic leisurely gait, and above all—since he never drank to the point of drunkenness—these qualities decisively placed this man within the category of refined gentlemen.
However, alas, if this man too was engaged in writing, one could not afford to let down one’s guard by focusing solely on his external refinement.
For artists were endowed with two pitiful vices, almost without exception.
The first was the impulse of lust.
This man, having already passed the age of forty and enjoying some literary renown, had crafted innocent love stories that enchanted the women of the town—appearing as a man of unsullied purity—yet his inner self had been far from such.
Have you gentlemen ever paused to consider the ferocity of lustful impulses in a man nearing the prime of life?
He had attained a certain status—even gained some measure of fame—yet upon obtaining these, found them trivial; utterly insignificant. Acquired wealth sufficient to avoid daily hardship; come to understand the limits of his own capabilities. Well—was this all there had been?
When he realized that even if he forced himself to strive further, it would amount to little—that he was simply growing older day by day—wasn’t it natural for a person to yearn for at least one final adventure?
Faust seemed to be trembling in his study, soliloquizing about these subtleties of human emotion.
And particularly in the case of artists, this yearning had to be nothing less than frenzied agitation—stomping the earth amidst billowing black smoke.
Since artists were innately lustful individuals without exception, one could not help but seriously consider that their cravings must be of the most extreme nature.
Moreover, this man was a Westerner.
The Westerner's "I love you" appeared to contain a certain direct emotionality beyond Japanese imagination. While the phrase "I love you" was considered something beautifully spiritual precisely within Japan, among Westerners it seemed to be employed with far more desperate urgency.
Utterly unrestrained and intense.
A man of a certain age, seemingly prudent, might in truth indulge in the sentimental effusions of a middle schooler; drawn to nothing more than a cheeky schoolgirl's impertinence, he might cast aside home and status to assume postures of frenzy.

This held true in both Japan and the West, though among Westerners particularly, it appeared especially pronounced.
Due to this pitiful weakness that somehow invited sympathy, this man had now followed the two women here, concealed himself in the shade of birch trunks, held his breath, and found himself compelled to watch the duel's progression.
Another unavoidable weakness common to artists—namely curiosity, or to rephrase, the vanity of wanting to know what none others knew, and the ambition to magnificently express that rare thing—seemed to have dragged this man listlessly to this duel's scene.
There inevitably exists one creature that will not die.
While themselves driven mad by carnal lust yet striving to depict even that very madness—this formed the inescapable fate of such artists.
It is instinct.

Gentlemen, are you familiar with the story called Fujijūrō’s Love?
It is said that Sakata Fujijūrō feigned love toward a married woman to perfect his art, but whether all that courtship was truly false—that remains unknowable, I believe.
One could interpret it thus: even as he whispered genuine love, his artist’s worm gradually reared its head—the pleasure of that worm swelling until visions of roaring applause flickered before his eyes, until at last even his passion waned.
Truly, an artist’s greed for expression, vanity, and thirst for acclaim prove pitifully intractable.
The psychological state of this man now crouching in birch shade with his whole body tensed like a stalking black cat—I believe it ultimately stems from a conflict between middle-aged cloying indecisive "affection" and that internal worm: the "vanity" of being an artist.

Ah, stop the duel.
Throw down the pistol with a clatter and laugh together.
If stopped, it would amount to nothing.
It would remain as nothing more than a memory of a minor squabble.
It would remain undiscovered by anyone.
I love both of them.
I love them equally.
They’re adorable.
They mustn't get hurt.
He wanted them to stop, but alas, this man lacked the resolve to leap from the shade of the trunk and throw himself between them.
I want to see how things develop a bit longer.
The man continued to think.

Even if shots were fired, it didn't necessarily mean one of them would die.
Not only might they not die—it was even possible both could escape without a single scratch.
That's generally how these things go.
Dying was no ordinary matter.
Why did I always dwell on the worst possible outcome?
Ah, this morning even my wife looked beautiful.
What a pitiful creature.
She had trusted me too completely.
I too was at fault.
I had deceived my wife too thoroughly.
There had been no alternative but deception.
Family happiness couldn't be sustained except through mutual lies.
Until now I had believed that.
I had believed a wife was essentially a household tool.
Having to confess every truth would have been unbearable.
I had always deceived.
That's why my wife had always favored me.
Truth was the enemy of domesticity.
I had believed lies were the very flower of household happiness.
Could this conviction be mistaken?

Could it be that I had been terribly mistaken? Could there not have been some solemn fact I had remained unaware of until now? My wife was undoubtedly a tool—but perhaps to her, I was the tool. She might have stayed by my side with even more touching, desperate devotion. My wife had not been deceiving me. I was wrong. But that’s all there is to it. What response should I give to my wife? I do not love you. But feigning ignorance of that truth, I was resolved to never part from you for my entire life. I was certain we could live peacefully together, but now, perhaps it’s no longer possible. What a senselessly foolish thing I conceived—this duel! Stop this! The man took a step out from behind the birch trees and nearly cried out—but when he looked, the two women were just then gradually raising their pistol-holding hands into position an instant before firing, so he gasped and choked back his voice. Of course, this man was no ordinary man. He was a then-popular writer. To put it another way, he was a man of razor-sharp wit. Unlike your typical good-natured soul, he would never disgrace himself with ugly panic or disarray. He steeled his goddamn resolve—If you’re going to do it, do it—then pressed himself flat against the shade of the birch trees once more and stared unblinkingly at how events would unfold.

If you're going to do it, do it.
It’s none of my concern.
Now that it’s come to this, whichever one dies amounts to the same thing.
If both die, that’s even better.
Ah, that girl will be killed.
My dear, strange little creature.
I love you a thousand times more than my wife.
I beg you, kill my wife!
That woman is in the way!
The wise wife.
Let her die as the wise wife.
Ah, I don’t care anymore.
It’s none of my concern.

“Do it as splendidly as you can,” he thought, having now cast aside all morality as he stared raptly at the bizarre and horrifying spectacle before him.
I am now witnessing something no one has ever seen—this pride of mine.
The bliss of being able to soon depict this in perfect fidelity.
Ah, this man seemed to feel not fear but joy—an intense joy that numbed his entire body.
This arrogance fearing no God—this delusion, this selfishness, this insult to humanity.
Does art truly demand such madness-tinged cruelty?
The man transformed into a dispassionate photographer.
The artist is, after all, not human.
Within his chest dwelled a strange, foul-smelling worm.
People call that worm Satan.

The shots were fired.
Now only the despicable artist’s vulgar eyes moved.
The man’s eyes witnessed the duel’s entire course to its conclusion.
And later, with great pride, he described what he had witnessed without error.

What follows is the original text.

Indeed, it was a masterful depiction for the ages.
Please do not forget the man’s greedy observing eyes behind them as you read slowly.

The Russian Medical Student fired first.
With an air of one who had placed full confidence in her own skill—as though deliberating some weighty matter—she fired calmly and slowly.
The bullet grazed the trunk of the birch tree on the side where the wife stood, lost momentum, fell to earth, and vanished somewhere among the grasses.

Next the wife fired, but again failed to hit.

Then the two took turns firing earnestly at each other.
The gunshots continued resounding like tree spirits.
Before long, the Russian Medical Student became the first to grow flustered.
And then the bullets began flying only toward high places ceaselessly.

The wife's mind too grew hazy, and she felt as though she had already fired a hundred shots.
In her eyes appeared the Russian Medical Student's white collar in the distance.
She aimed at it exactly as she had aimed at yesterday's target and fired.
Beyond that white collar, nothing remained visible to the eye.
It seemed to have vanished.
She could no longer tell whether the ground beneath her feet even existed.

Suddenly—without knowing whether she had fired or not—the white collar she'd seen before her fell to the earth.
And she heard someone speak a single phrase in a foreign tongue.

In that instant, everything around her merged into a single mass.
The gray, utterly still expanse of sky stretched over a dark grassland, then white puddles, then the spindly birch trees at the edge.
The birch leaves, as if frightened by this event, began to whisper as they caught the wind.

The wife, as if waking from a dream, threw the stiff pistol to the ground, hiked up the hem of her kimono, and fled the scene.

The wife was running frantically through the unpopulated grassland.
She was merely trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and the place where the Russian Medical Student she had killed lay.
Behind her, in the middle of the grassland, as if a crimson spring had gushed forth, lay the Russian Medical Student’s body, bleeding out.

The wife ran until she could run no more and collapsed onto the grass at the edge of the grassland, utterly exhausted.
Because she had run so much, every pulse in her body throbbed violently.
Strange whispers reached her ears.
“Now that all the blood has flowed out,” came a voice.

As she dwelled on these thoughts, the wife gradually—though with great difficulty—began to regain her composure.
At the same time, the joy she had felt while running madly through the grassland—the joy of having successfully accomplished her revenge—gradually turned hollow.
Just as blood flowed from the Russian Medical Student’s neck wound across the way, the joy that had filled her chest drained away.
The joy she had felt when thinking “I’ve slain my enemy now,” as she raced across the grassland like a beast driven to despair by unseen pursuers—that joy had vanished without trace, replaced by a cold wind sweeping over her unlike anything she had ever known.
Somehow, from where the Russian Medical Student now lay dead, a cold breath seemed to pass through her, chilling her to the bone.
The wife’s temples—which had burned so fiercely red that a wild bee flying unsteadily through the grassland might have singed its wings had it paused there moments before—turned cold as marble.
Having performed this great deed, even from her small hands that had burned with fervor, all blood had fled somewhere.

"Is revenge truly this bitter?" wondered Konstanz as she lay collapsed on the ground.
Unconsciously moving her lips, she pursed them tight like someone tasting gall.
Yet rising now—going to check on that fallen girl or tend her wounds—was utterly unthinkable.
Bound flesh and soul by these events like pinned limbs turned stone-cold marble heart waited time out.
All blood must drain dry now from that other woman's corpse while she waited—this much seemed certain.

When evening came, the wife rose in the grassland.
Every joint in her body felt deranged, as though bone refused to interlock with bone.
In her utterly exhausted mind, pistol shots still rang without cease.
Within the cramped confines of her skull, the duel seemed to repeat itself anew.
The scenery surrounding her appeared dyed black from low grasses to tall trees.
As she watched with these thoughts, her shadow suddenly tore free from her body as though taking flight—a woman walking before her eyes came into view.
Clad in a black kimono, with brown hair and a pallid glowing face, she walked.
Seeing this vision of herself, the wife—exactly as one might pity a stranger—pitied her own shadow and burst into loud sobs.

The life she had lived until today had been abruptly severed, now bearing no relation to herself whatsoever—it had transformed into something like an unpainted wooden plank floating up from behind her. And she could neither ride upon it nor pick it up. And imagining how she might continue living from this point onward, when the state of existence being constructed before her eyes took on a form utterly different from anything before, the wife trembled in fear at the sight of it. It was as if emigrants aboard a ship departing their homeland’s port had suddenly grown terrified of foreign lands, finding themselves dragged toward an unknown new realm—and in that moment, resolved to cast themselves into the silence of this sea instead.

So the wife resolved to die, stood up energetically, threw back her head, and set out walking toward the nearest village.

The wife walked straight into the village office and spoke as follows.
“Excuse me, please arrest me; I have fought a duel and killed someone.”

Chapter Five

The details of the duel had already been fully described in the previous chapter.
However, the story did not end there.

Even if a fire burns itself out in a single night, the commotion of its aftermath does not end in a single night—no, the suspicions, slanders, desperate scrambles, and scheming between people entangle and linger long afterward, irrevocably distorting human hearts beyond repair over a lifetime.
This unprecedented duel between women had, at any rate, concluded.
Unexpectedly, the wife had won, and the Russian Medical Student had been killed.
The cunning, immoral artist had witnessed every last detail of that spectacle, crafted an exact depiction, and achieved success, being acclaimed as a master of realism.

Now then—what became of the incident?
First, let us examine the original text.
The original text too loses momentum from this point onward, seeming to lack the taut intensity of its duel scene depiction.
This has its reasons.
Until now, that fashionable artist had trailed his wife's footsteps like a starving wolf—running when she ran, crouching when she halted—fixating on her posture, complexion, and mental fluctuations until his descriptions acquired startling visceral power. But with the duel concluded and his wife marching straight into the village office, his means of observation vanished.
Should he clumsily loiter about the government building, he risked being seen—an awkward prospect indeed.
For this artist feared human judgment more than divine retribution, lacking all courage to follow his wife inside and confess his heart's truths.
He cherished reputation over justice.
Perhaps this was unavoidable.
Maybe it shouldn't be condemned.
Humans are inherently such paltry creatures.
This clever artist too paused upon seeing his wife enter the office—then pivoted sharply on his heel from perfectly sensible reluctance toward foolish acts—retreated briskly along his original path—boarded a train—returned home wearing innocence like a mask—and collapsed onto his sofa.
Thereafter through various informants he learned his wife's subsequent condition as follows.
What follows isn't of course the artist's firsthand account but explanatory prose—a tapestry woven from others' fragmentary reports and his own cunningly arranged imaginings.
It scarcely qualifies as descriptive writing.
To wit: The wife entered the village office and confessed, "I have killed a person."

Upon hearing this, the two village office clerks—since it was an incident unlike anything they had ever heard of before—looked at the wife’s face and smiled.
Though she was somewhat disheveled, they thought this woman who appeared to be an upper-class lady was saying something peculiar.
The clerks likely concluded this must be some madwoman who had escaped from an asylum.

The wife insisted they absolutely must bind her and gave a meticulous account of the location where she had killed her opponent.

When they dispatched investigators, it appeared the Russian Medical Student had died approximately one hour earlier from hemorrhaging caused by a gunshot wound to the neck.
Then, beneath two birch trees in a desolate area, they discovered two pistols discarded like silent witnesses.
Both firearms had discharged all their loaded bullets.
From this evidence, it seemed the final bullet from the wife’s pistol—capriciously determined to strike her opponent’s body—had stubbornly persisted until achieving its fatal trajectory.

The wife absolutely requested to remain detained as she was.
Though at the village office they explained that if this duel were deemed legitimate, her punishment would amount only to imprisonment—not something that would dishonor her—the wife obstinately continued demanding to be kept confined.

The wife did not seem to intend to preserve her own honor.
Though she had staked her very life on that honor until mere moments ago, the life associated with that honor now seemed to have been shoved away into some airless space—a realm where one could neither dwell nor breathe.
Just as those who have died and become unnecessary forget everything they had painstakingly learned, from language onward, so too did the wife seem to have forgotten her past life.

The wife was escorted to the city and underwent preliminary hearings.
After being placed in the detention cell, she repeatedly and earnestly pleaded with the warden, judges, police physicians, and priests until securing an arrangement to avoid encountering the man who had been her husband.
That wasn’t all.
She obtained their assurance that man would not visit.
Then she alternated between making what seemed like secret confessions and deliberately contradictory statements, dragging out the preliminary hearing by two or three weeks.
It was later discovered these confessions had been intentional.

One evening, the wife collapsed and died on the floor of her cell.
Noticing this, the female guard picked her up and laid her on the bed.
At that moment, she was shocked to find that the wife’s body weighed no more than her kimono.
The wife died in her kimono, just as a bird dies with its feathers still intact.
When they investigated afterward and questioned those around her, it became clear that the wife had starved herself to death after being placed in the detention cell.
Fearing that they might think she wasn’t eating the food provided or that they might try to force-feed her, she would sometimes swallow it in front of others only to immediately spit it out.
Just as the Russian Medical Student had withered and died from bleeding out through the wound in her neck, she starved herself, gradually withering her body until she died.

The wife had also died.

Having apparently challenged the Russian Medical Student to a duel with the intention of dying from the very beginning, we shall reserve a detailed examination of this aspect of the wife’s pitiable yet single-minded psychology for our next installment. For now, we shall focus exclusively on relating what became of the wife’s husband—that cowardly artist who authored this concise yet precise "A Woman’s Duel."
The Russian Medical Student cried out something in a foreign language and died.
The wife, too, departed from this world in a manner almost equivalent to suicide.
However, only this artist—the most deeply guilty of the three—did not die but took up his pen, beautifully describing his wife’s wretched death as if it were another’s: “She died in her kimono, just as a bird dies with its feathers still intact.” He felt satisfied having shown charity by tossing a single bouquet into her coffin.
This was truly mysterious.
Are artists truly so callous—transformed into mere cameras down to the depths of their hearts?
I wish to answer "No," but for now, I shall endeavor to ponder this difficult problem a while longer together with you all.

This immoral artist was, of course, summoned to the city court at the same time as his wife’s interrogation and must have undergone the investigating prosecutor’s sarcasm-laden questioning.

“What an extraordinary misfortune this has been for you.”
(The prosecutor offered the artist a chair and said:) “Your wife’s statements follow no coherent logic whatsoever—we’re at our wits’ end.”
“You do know what lay behind this duel, don’t you?”

“I do not know.”

*Perhaps my wording was clumsy.*
“I apologize for my rudience.”
“You must have some idea.”

“An idea?”

“You are acquainted with the opposing medical student, aren’t you?”

“The opponent’s…?”

“No, your wife’s opponent.”
“I apologize for my rudeness.”
“Your wife’s opponent in the duel.”
“We are both gentlemen, after all.”

“I am aware.”

“Huh? What exactly do you know?”
“Would you care for a cigarette?”
“You seem rather fond of smoking.”
“They say tobacco gives wings to thought.”
“My wife and daughter are fighting over your works.”
“That novel called ‘The Monk’s Marriage’.”
“I mean to read it myself eventually—how enviable to possess such genius.”
“This room feels rather stuffy.”
“I’ve always detested this room.”
“Shall we open the window?”
“This must be equally unpleasant for you.”

What am I supposed to say?

“No, that’s not how it is.”
“I am not thinking anything so disrespectful.”
“When we reach this age, doesn’t the world start to look utterly absurd?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“We’re both weaklings, after all.”
“It’s absurd.”
“I commuted between this courthouse and my home, walking back and forth along that tree-lined avenue, when suddenly I realized twenty years had passed.”
“I once wanted an adventure.”
“No, it’s not about you.”
“There have been so many things, haven’t there?”
“Oh, you can hear it.”
“It’s the prisoners’ song, you know.”
“‘Daughter of Zion…’”

“Declare it!”

“To my beloved lord.”

“I’ve even forgotten the hymns.”

“No, I didn’t mean it as some sort of riddle.”

“I have no intention of asking anything from you.”

“Please don’t overthink it.”

“I must say, I’ve grown rather weary of all this today.”

“Shall we stop here?”

“If I could ask that…”

“Hmph.”
“Because there exists no law to punish you, I’ve grown thoroughly sick of this.”

"You may go home now."

"I am most grateful."

“Ah, wait,”
“I have just one question to ask.”
“If your wife were killed and the student won, what would happen?”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference either way.”
“That one would have used the remaining bullets to shoot me dead as well.”

“You know.”
“Then your wife becomes your life’s savior, does she not?”

“My wife is a charmless woman.”
“She willingly became a sacrifice.”
“She is an egoist.”

“I have one more question to ask.”
“Which death did you desire?”
“You were watching from hiding.”
“Your claim that you were traveling was a lie, wasn’t it?”
“On that previous night as well, you went to visit the medical student’s lodging, didn’t you?”
“Which death were you hoping for?”
“It was your wife, wasn’t it?”

“No,” (the artist said in a dignified voice,) “I was hoping for both of them to live.”

“That’s right.”
“That will suffice.”
“I will trust only these words you’ve just spoken.”
(The Prosecutor smiled, showing white teeth for the first time, and gently tapped the artist’s shoulder.) “Otherwise, I would have had every intention of sending you straight to the detention cell at this very moment.”
“There exists a splendid charge called aiding and abetting murder.”

The above constituted the question-and-answer exchange between that artist and the loathsomely shrewd prosecutor, but with just this alone, neither I nor any of you could be satisfied.

It appeared the prosecutor, trusting the statement “No, I was hoping for both of them to live,” had decided to acquit this man. However, the little prosecutor residing within our hearts remained deeply suspicious and found it impossible to let him off so easily.

Could it be that this man had deceived the Preliminary Hearing Prosecutor?

Was that not a lie—“I was hoping for both of them to live”?

This man, during that duel, had hidden in the shade of a birch tree—Ah, may both of you die!

Both of you die! No—no, just the wife die!

Had there not been a moment when he was fervently wishing—dripping with greasy sweat across his entire body—“Kill my wife for me”?

It had certainly existed.

Had this man forgotten that?

Or perhaps he did remember full well yet—out of that brazenness unique to seasoned adults, that worldly mindset one might call social polish—feigned complete forgetfulness and lied unflinchingly; meanwhile, the prosecutor interrogating him had also seen through this yet abandoned further inquiry as unbecoming of maturity, reasoning that so long as the story’s logic held together, bureaucratic paperwork would face no hindrance, his own duties would incur no grave fault, and above justice or truth, his career’s undisturbed stability took precedence. Here, between artist and prosecutor, a tacit backdoor understanding had formed among worldly adults—and thus came forth: “I was hoping for both of them to live.”

“Very well, let us place our trust”—had it not come to be settled thus?

However, that suspicion was mistaken.

I must now—though presumptuously—instruct you all regarding this matter.
The man's testimony at that time was correct.
Moreover,the prosecutor's attitude of trusting that single statement and acquitting him was also correct.
It was absolutely not a case of mutual compromise.
During that duel,the man had wished:"Kill my wife!"
At the same moment—"Stop this duel!"
"Throw down your pistols with a clang and laugh together," he had nearly cried out.
One must never regard all fleeting mental images as truth.
There appeared to exist countless timid souls who mistakenly believed certain base thoughts—not even their own—to be their innate nature,tormenting themselves endlessly.
Base desires flashing through one's heart—this happens to everyone.
Moment by moment,various thoughts of beauty and ugliness surface and vanish,surface and vanish—this being how people live.
To believe only in ugliness as true nature while forgetting humanity's capacity for beautiful aspirations constitutes an error.
Though all transient mental images may exist as 'facts',to declare them 'truth' remains mistaken.
Does truth not always stand singular?
All else need not be believed.
All else may be forgotten.
From among countless drifting facts,the artist had plucked one truth and answered with authority.
The prosecutor too had believed it.
Both must have been splendid individuals who loved truth and possessed sufficient stature to grasp it.

That pitiable, servile man too appeared little by little to regain his human standing as he gradually thought things through in this manner.
There was nothing more delightful than seeing someone you had thought bad gradually become better.
In the course of defending him, let us briefly consider this man's inherent flaw—the cruelty of being an "artist."
Not limited to this man alone—though I had previously condemned artists in both my last work and the one before as those who carry within their bellies an indestructible worm that lets them calmly observe even the greatest tragedies with cold eyes—I now found myself wanting to retract that very condemnation.
This was nothing more than an act of helping others.
Charity might indeed be my true nature.
"It is a mistake," Dr. D teaches us, "to believe only ugliness constitutes essential truth while forgetting that beautiful wishes too exist within humans."
It seemed best to interpret everything about oneself favorably.
Now—against my previous hypothesis that artists possess inhuman elements and that their true nature is Satan—I held another opposing position.
I shall now inform you of this.

—Lucienne, I knew a certain vocalist.
As he attended his fiancée's deathbed and witnessed her final moments—listening to her sister shuddering beside them and sobbing convulsively with raised voice—he grieved his fiancée's death from the depths of his heart while simultaneously noticing a defect in vocal technique within the sister's weeping, suddenly thinking: might this lamentation not require moderate training to add proper forcefulness?
And yet this vocalist, unable to bear the grief of parting with his fiancée, died soon thereafter; meanwhile, the fiancée's sister, following society's conventions, removed her mourning clothes without reservation once the mourning period had concluded.

This is not my writing.
Translated by Professor Takashi Tatsuno, this is a short anecdote by the Frenchman Mr. Rire Adam.
Please read this brief true story once again.
Please read it slowly.
Heartlessness abounds most among those in society who weep readily.
Artists rarely shed tears, yet secretly suffer heartbreak.
When confronted with human tragedy, their eyes grow cold, their ears turn deaf, their hands remain steady—yet within their breasts rages blood so turbulent it can never return to its former state.
Artists are not Satan.
When viewed through this lens, even that despicable husband of the wife no longer appears wholly deserving of censure.
Though his eyes stayed cold as he surveyed his wife's murder scene, though his hand calmly recorded every detail—might there not have lingered in his heart something truly soul-rending?
I shall relate everything in the next installment.

Part Six

This marks our final installment.
I find myself feeling as though I've spent half a year writing nothing but trifles across fifteen-page installments.
For me—throughout this period—there existed various memories and personal reflections that I secretly channeled into the story's depths so readers wouldn't plainly discern them; thus I believe this work will remain dear to me personally for years to come.
Though readers may have found little enjoyment in it, I sense within myself that I attempted something new through this endeavor; parting with you all through this concluding chapter fills me with profound reluctance.
Ultimately—though mere authorial sentimentality—it remains undeniable that these past few days have seen me persistently followed by silent phantoms: the slain medical student's specter behind my shoulder; my wife's gaunt death-mask from self-imposed starvation; and my immoral husband's tormented shadow—all clinging like tenacious silhouettes.

Now then, this time, let us read through the original text in its entirety to the end.
I will provide the explanation afterward.

――They examined the effects, but there were no books to be found.
There was no letter bidding farewell to the man who had been her husband, nor any letters taking leave of the children.
There was a single unfinished short letter addressed to the Pastor who had come to her prison cell just once.
Whether the Pastor had come sincerely intending to save the wife’s spirit or had come merely out of curiosity remained unclear, but in any case, he had come once.
It appears she began writing this letter with the intention of ensuring the Pastor would not come again—in other words, to avoid him.
The words faintly illuminated the anguished heart of the woman who had begun writing this letter.

“By the name of Jesus Christ—whom you spoke of with such reverent devotion during your recent visit—I implore you.”
“Please do not come to see me again.”
“Please believe what I say.”
“In my judgment, if Jesus were still alive and present, He would prevent you from coming to see me.”
“Just like that angel who once stood guard at Heaven’s gates, I believe Jesus now holds a flaming sword in His hand and will bar anyone attempting to enter this prison cell where I dwell.”
“I do not wish to return from this cell to the original heaven from which I fled.”
“Even if an angel were to wrap a rose-hued rope around my body and try to drag me back, I have no intention of returning.”
“For the blood I shed there can no more return to its source than the blood that flowed from the wound of that medical student I killed in our duel.”
“I am no longer anyone’s wife or mother.”
“I can never become those things again.”
“Never for all eternity.”
“Truly, I would be pleased if any among you could understand and revere these two characters—‘eternity’—drenched as they are in tears.”

“When I entered that gloomy courtyard and, for the first time in my life, fired what is called a pistol—resolved to die—I simultaneously realized that the target I was aiming at was none other than my own heart. And then, with each shot I fired, I savored a pleasure akin to tearing myself apart. This heart originally spent its time acting as a second beside my husband and children. It has now been pierced by countless bullets. How could this heart, now in such a state, ever be returned to its original place? Even if you were the Lord Himself, you could not possibly return me to my former state. Not even God could command me to become a bird or an insect. Not even after first taking that bird’s life could you possibly utter such words. By the same token, you could not possibly make me return to my original path while alive. No matter how great you may be, you could not possibly think such a thing achievable through the words of man.”

“I proceeded according to my own will as much as your teachings forbid, and I did not even look back.”
"I am well aware of that."
“However, no one could possibly command me to love differently simply because your way of loving differs.”
"Your heart will not fit into my chest."
"Nor could mine possibly fit into yours."
“You may call me an arrogant creature devoid of humility, but by that same right, I can declare you a narrow-minded and servile individual.”
“You cannot measure me by your standards and then declare me beyond measure simply because those standards fall short.”
“An equal duel cannot exist between you and me.”
"The weapons we each hold are different."
"Please do not come to me any longer."
"I earnestly entreat you."

“For me, my love was exactly like the skin wrapping my body.”
“If even the slightest stain formed on that skin, or the smallest wound appeared, I could not rest until I had healed it.”
“When I realized my love had been gravely wounded, I resolved that rather than rotting away through prolonged illness, I would die consciously—standing straight.”
“I resolved to have myself killed by the medical student’s hand.”
“And thus, I determined to have my love honorably surrendered and openly taken by the other woman.”

“When things turned out contrary and I emerged victorious, I realized I had only saved my honor but failed to save my love. Just as with all incurable wounds, love’s wound will not heal unless it dies. For when any love is wounded, the god of love is insulted and demands sacrifice in retribution. Though the duel’s outcome differed from my expectations, I take pride in this alone: that in transferring my love to the other woman, I sought to surrender it with honor—not through bowing down or being compelled—but through my own volition.”

“Please revere the laurel wreath upon the brow of the victorious with the same reverence you hold for the halos of saints.”
“Please take care of my heart.”
“In the same manner as the God you revere, please allow me to die boldly and grandly.”
“I intend to bring the deeds I have committed before God alone.”
“I intend to bring them as an honorable wife.”
“I am nailed to my love as if to a cross, bleeding from countless wounds.”
“Was this love—this love existing in this world, for married women in this world—ever legitimate? When we enter the third phase of life hereafter, I believe that truth will become clear.”
“In the first and second phases of life that I experienced—before being born into this world and after being born—this truth was never imparted to me.”

Having written this far, the sinful artist threw down his brush.
As he copied each of the intense words from his wife’s suicide note, he was struck by an uncanny terror.
He felt as though his spine had been struck by lightning.
He had been confronted with the violent seriousness of real life so clearly that it left him disillusioned.
That wife—whom he had treated with some contempt, thinking she’s just a woman—had lived with such terrifying, downright reckless burning fervor. This was something he could never have imagined.
For women, that earthly love could be so single-mindedly scorching—he could scarcely comprehend it.
He had now, for the first time, come to clearly perceive the figure of a woman living in near-madness—one who needed neither life nor God, praying solely for the consummation of her love for a single man.
He was, from the beginning, a misogynist.
He believed he had thoroughly understood the contemptible nature of women.
Women live to be caressed by men.
They live to be praised.
Selfishness.
Lewdness.
Ignorance.
Vanity.
Writhe in delusional fantasies until death.
Greed.
Thoughtlessness.
Self-righteousness.
Unconscious cruelty.

Shameless audacity. Stinginess. Calculation. Indiscriminate coquetry. Foolish self-conceit. Beyond these, he believed he had grasped every vice inherent to women. That there existed feelings only women could understand—such things were impossible. Absurd. Women held no mystery whatsoever. He knew this with absolute certainty. That's what they were. Cats. This artist harbored such unshakable convictions deep within while maintaining a pleasant, noncommittal demeanor toward his wife and other women—a facade of obliviousness. Moreover, this wretched artist refused to acknowledge the very concept of female artists. Whenever the saccharine critics of that era praised works by women writers—exalting their uniquely feminine sensibilities, expressions achievable only by women, psychological depths unfathomable to men—he would inwardly scoff. Aren't they all just aping men? When women saw the feminine ideals male authors had conjured from imagination—This is our true form!—they would foolishly obsess, desperately contorting themselves to fit those false molds. Yet pitifully, their torsos stretched too long, their legs fell too short. Their bodies brimmed with superfluous fat. Oblivious to their own grotesquerie, they minced along in preposterous parodies of femininity.

The female characters created by male writers were ultimately nothing but those authors' peculiar cross-dressed forms. They were not women. Somewhere within them resided a male "spirit." Yet women themselves yearned for these unnatural cross-dressed figures, imitating those hairy-legged females. It represented the height of absurdity. Though inherently female, they discarded their natural forms and voices, deliberately adopting men's rough mannerisms, studying their deep voices and prose, then mimicking men's imitation of feminine tones—forcing out hoarse declarations of "I am a woman" until everything became so contemptibly convoluted that all coherence vanished. Despite being women, they grew mustaches and twirled them while proclaiming "Fundamentally, women are—", rendering everything so turbid and foul it became unbearable to witness. The so-called sensations unique to women contained nothing substantial. There existed no expressions only women could produce. Of course there could be no psychological depths men couldn't fathom. They had been imitating men from the very beginning. That women were ultimately hopeless creatures—this had been the unshakable conviction of this middle-aged artist. Yet now, as he copied his wife's foolish yet blazingly intense proclamations of love—words that seemed to breathe fire—he felt he'd glimpsed in raw nakedness something he'd never known before: what might better be termed female physiology rather than psychology—a crude yet delicate single-minded devotion stripped bare. He hadn't known. Was this how women lived—through such desperate invocations? Foolish without doubt—yet within this fanatical single-minded yearning lay something beyond mockery. Something terrifying existed here. Women weren't toys, asparagus stalks, flower gardens—such facile comparisons. This obstinate strength stood equal to God Himself. That there existed something inhuman within her—this truth left him genuinely thunderstruck.

Discarding his brush, he lay down on the sofa and haphazardly flickered through memories of his life with his wife thus far and the circumstances of the duel.
Ah, ah—each realization fell into place.
I had thought of my wife as a tool, but to her, I was not one.
That he had been the entire purpose of her existence—this began to feel unmistakably clear through his wife’s demeanor and silent actions at each passing moment.
Women are foolish.
But somehow, they are earnest.
They’re so nakedly earnest that it defies romanticization.
Women’s truth—this simply cannot be made into a novel.
It must not be written.
An insult to God.
It makes sense—the convoluted method female artists adopt, first disguising themselves as men only to then disguise themselves again as women and perform femininity—is only natural.
If one were to lay bare a woman’s unvarnished reality without deception, there would be no art or anything else—just a foolish, desperate insect.
A person can only hold their breath and gaze upon it.
There is no love, no joy—only feigned innocence and utter disillusionment.
In this short story, I endeavored to capture women’s reality without error, but I shall stop.
I failed spectacularly.
Women’s reality cannot be made into a novel.
It must not be written.
No—there are things I cannot bear to write.
I'll stop.

This novel is a failure.
I had not known women were such foolish, blind, half-mad, pitiable creatures.
They are entirely different.
Women are all—no, I won’t say it.
Ah, how utterly disillusioning truth is.
The man abruptly thought of wanting to die.
He stood without emotion, sat at his desk, and absentmindedly jotted two or three lines of verse recalling Scottish landscapes from his travels that had resurfaced in memory. After finishing pages of a new book unread, he muttered "This unease," took the pistol from the drawer, settled on the sofa, pressed the muzzle to his chest, and pulled the trigger.
To call this the immoral husband’s end would mirror Mr. Ril Adam’s famed short story conclusion, emitting romantic fragrance—yet reality refuses such neat resolution. Having witnessed this powerfully disillusioning truth, the artist rose, staggered outside, wandered briefly, returned home, shut himself in, sprawled on the sofa gazing absently at corner irises, slowly watered them, then—unchanged—continued his ostensibly tranquil writer’s life next day and beyond.
Feigning composure, he soon published the failed short story "A Woman’s Duel" in a newspaper.
Critics praised its raw descriptions while noting structural flaws.
It settled as a commendable work.
Yet the artist remained vacant, indifferent to criticism.
Then astonishingly, he wrote only trivial popular fiction.
An artist glimpsing repulsive reality might deepen life observations, works gaining inner glow—but reality disobeys. Losing anger, longing, joy, choosing vacant existence, he thence wrote solely sodden shallow fiction.
Those once-lauded precise descriptions vanished from his novels’ margins.
Gradually his wealth grew, weight near doubled, gathered townsfolk’s respect, mingled equally with governors politicians generals, died peacefully at sixty-eight.
His funeral’s grandeur remained town talk five years.
He never remarried.

Such is the entirety of my (DAZAI) novel—though needless to say, this constitutes unforgivable blasphemy against Mr. Herbert Eulenberg's original work. The original author Mr. Eulenberg is by no means the immoral artist I have described here. I believe I already tediously clarified this beforehand. I firmly maintain he was an exemplary husband and father from a fine household who lived modestly as a citizen while dedicating his life to rigorous artistic discipline. As previously stated, I now seek forgiveness through the utterly self-indulgent excuse of this obscure and impoverished Japanese writer: "It is precisely through reverence that one presumes to impose." Even in jest, the sin of using another's work as a stepping stone while fabricating scandals damaging to the author's character cannot be taken lightly. Yet it was precisely because my subject was a great foreign writer born in 1876—a figure from bygone eras—that I felt emboldened to attempt this; such liberties would never be permissible with contemporary Japanese authors. Moreover, as elaborated in Part Two, this original work—perhaps due to the author's physical exhaustion—contains many perfunctory elements that feel like raw material carelessly tossed aside, remaining far removed from what I consider a true "novel." Admittedly, Japan now sees works presenting unprocessed material as "novels" gaining great popularity, but whenever I read such pieces, I invariably think: What a waste. It may sound presumptuous, but I sometimes feel that given such material, I could craft an excellent novel. Material is not a novel. Material merely props up imagination. The reason I have strained myself six times thus far—clumsily and blushing all the while—was to demonstrate these foolish convictions of mine to readers. Am I mistaken?

This was an exceedingly convoluted novel.
I had endeavored to make it so deliberately.
For that purpose, I had prepared various devices—leisurely readers might wish to examine them at their ease.
I had even considered making it impossible to discern where the true author resided, but those who grow overconfident while brandishing shallow talent meet with terrible consequences.
They would be punished by God.
I believe I maintained moderation in that regard.
In any case, should you find yourself viscerally empathizing—more intimately and rawly than in the original work—with the wife, the medical student, and the husband upon reading my *A Woman’s Duel*, then I succeeded.
Whether I had truly succeeded was something I left for each of you readers to decide for yourselves.

Among my acquaintances was a forty-year-old Pastor. He was a gentle person by nature and appeared to have considerable depth in his study of the Bible. He did not take God’s name in vain, frequently visited even a sinner like me, and never rebuked me when I drank heavily and became intoxicated in his presence. I disliked church, but I often attended this person’s sermons. One day, that Pastor brought over a large number of strawberry seedlings and promptly planted them himself in the narrow garden of my house. Afterward, I had him read the wife’s suicide note and demanded to know his thoughts.

“If it were you, how would you respond to this wife?”
“This Pastor seems to be utterly despised and defeated—but is this acceptable as it is?”
“What do you think of this suicide note?”

The Pastor blushed and laughed, then composed himself and looked directly at me with clear eyes,

“When a woman falls in love, that’s it.
We can only watch.”

We smiled awkwardly.

We smiled awkwardly.