Pathway to Japanese Literature

Senjutsu Taro

Long ago in Tsugaru Province, in Kamunagi Village, there lived a village headman named Kuwagata Sosuke.
At forty-nine, he had his first child.
It was a boy.
He named him Taro.
As soon as he was born, he let out a big yawn.
Sosuke worried that this yawn was too large and felt self-conscious toward relatives who came offering congratulations.
Sosuke’s apprehensions steadily began proving correct.
Taro never actively suckled at Mother’s breasts of his own accord, remaining in her embrace with mouth lazily agape, endlessly waiting for her nipple to meet his lips.
Even when given a paper-mache tiger, he would not fiddle with it but merely gazed listlessly at its swaying head.
Even after waking mornings, he would not crawl hurriedly from bed but kept eyes closed pretending sleep for two hours.
He possessed a spirit that abhorred frivolous bodily movements.
At three years old, he caused a startling incident through which Kuwagata Taro’s name became faintly known among villagers.
Precisely because it never reached newspapers did it become all the more real.
Taro walked on and on.

It was the beginning of spring.
At night, Taro rolled out from Mother’s bosom without making a sound.
Tumbling down to the dirt floor, then rolling out into the open.
After exiting outdoors, he straightened up smartly.
Sosuke and Mother alike slept unaware.

The full moon floated right above Taro’s forehead.
The full moon’s outline was blurred.
Taro, wearing a killifish-patterned underrobe layered with an arrowhead-patterned padded vest, walked barefoot along the horse manure-covered gravel road eastward through the village.
He walked with his eyes half-closed sleepily, exhaling small breaths in quick succession.

The next morning, the village was in an uproar.
...because three-year-old Taro lay fast asleep, utterly nonchalant, in the very center of an apple orchard on Yunagayama—a full ri (approximately four kilometers) away from the village.
Yunagayama’s shape resembled a partially melted ice fragment, with three gentle undulations at its peak and a gradual slope flowing outward at its western end.
It stood about a hundred meters tall.
How Taro had reached such depths of the mountains remained unclear.
No—he must have climbed there alone.
But why he had ascended—the reason eluded understanding.

Placed into the basket of the bracken-picking girl who had found him, rocked back and forth, Taro returned to the village. The villagers who peered into the basket all furrowed their brows with dark greasy wrinkles between their eyebrows and nodded in agreement, murmuring “tengu, tengu.” Sosuke, upon seeing his child safe and sound, said, “Well, well.” He couldn’t say it was troublesome, nor could he say it was fortunate. Mother had not been particularly flustered. She picked up Taro, placed one tan of hand towel cloth into the bracken-picking girl’s basket in his stead, then brought out a large tub to the dirt floor, filled it brimming with hot water, and quietly washed Taro’s body. Taro’s body wasn’t dirty in the slightest. It was plump and white all over. Sosuke paced fiercely around the tub, eventually kicked it, profusely spilling its hot water all over the dirt floor, and was scolded by Mother. Sosuke, despite this, did not leave the tub’s side and peered at Taro’s face over Mother’s shoulder, continuing to say, “Taro, what did you see? Taro, what did you see?” Taro let out yawn after yawn before stiffly shouting, “Taanakamudaachiinaee.”

That night after retiring to bed, Sosuke finally comprehended the meaning behind those rigidly articulated words.
"The people’s hearths bustle with vigor."
Discovery!
Sosuke attempted to smack his knee while lying prone but—impeded by the heavy quilt—struck near his navel instead and grimaced in pain.
Sosuke pondered:
The village headman’s son becomes the village headman’s father.
At three years old, he already tends to the people’s hearths.
Ah! What blessed illumination!
This child must have surveyed Kamunagi Village’s morning vista from Yunagayama’s summit.
At that hour, smoke from every household’s hearth had risen fresh and thriving.
Ah! What noble transcendental aspiration!
What a heaven-sent gift this child is!
I must cherish him dutifully.
Sosuke rose quietly and reached over to meticulously straighten the quilt covering Taro—sleeping alone on adjacent bedding.
Then stretching further still, he somewhat brusquely adjusted the quilt over Mother resting beyond.
Mother slept disorderly.
Sosuke averted his gaze from her disheveled form, deliberately turning his face aside while muttering:
"This one bore Taro."
I must cherish her dutifully.

Taro’s prophecy came true.
That spring, magnificently large pale pink flowers bloomed in unison across every apple orchard in the village, their fragrance reaching even the castle town ten ri away.
In autumn, even better things occurred.
The apple fruits had grown as large as handballs, as red as coral, and clustered like paulownia pods.
When someone plucked one and brought it to their teeth—so full of moisture was the fruit’s flesh that it threatened to burst—the moment teeth touched it, it split with a loud pop, cold water gushing out enough to soak them through from nose to cheek.
On New Year’s Day of the following year, even more auspicious events occurred.
A thousand cranes came flying from the eastern sky, and while the villagers were still exclaiming “Look! Look!” in unison, the thousand cranes swam leisurely through the New Year’s Day azure before finally flying off westward.
That autumn too saw the rice plants bear ears upon ears, while the apple trees—not to be outdone by the previous year—bore fruit so densely clustered that their branches bent under the weight.
The village began to prosper.
Sosuke firmly believed in Taro’s abilities as a prophet.
However, he refrained from going around spreading that to the villagers.
Was it from a desire to avoid the mockery of being called a doting parent?
Or perhaps it might have stemmed from some more reckless ulterior motive—a desire to profit from it.

The child prodigy of his youth fell into depravity after two or three years. Before long, Taro was given the name “slacker” by the villagers. Sosuke too began to think it couldn’t be helped that people said such things. Even when Taro turned six, then seven, he never attempted to go play in the fields, rice paddies, or riverbanks like the other children. In summer, he would lean his cheek on his hand by the room’s window and gaze at the scenery outside. In winter, he would sit by the hearth and gaze at the blazing flames of the fire. He liked riddles. One winter night, lying sprawled out in an unseemly manner by the hearth, Taro peered up through narrowed eyes at Sosuke’s face beside him and posed a riddle in his slow drawl: “What could it be that doesn’t get wet even when entering water?” Sosuke shook his head three times in thought before replying, “I don’t know.” Taro listlessly closed his eyes lightly before answering: “It’s a shadow, I suppose.” Sosuke finally began to resent Taro. He was an idiot. He must be a fool. As the villagers said, he’d truly been nothing but a slacker after all.

In the autumn when Taro turned ten, the village was struck by a great flood.
The Kamunagi River, which had been meandering along the northern edge of the village with a width of about eighteen feet, began to rage due to the month-long downpour.
The turbid waters from the source swirled with great and small whirlpools as they gradually swelled, merging six tributaries to fatten instantaneously; they raced down the mountain like a divine sprinter, snatching hundreds of timber logs along the way, uprooting and sweeping away giant oaks, firs, and white poplars from the banks. Stagnating again and again in the basin at the foothills, they then collided with the village bridge all at once—shattering it nonchalantly—breached the embankment to spread like an ocean, licking at household foundation stones, making pigs swim afloat, floating over ten thousand freshly harvested rice sheaves as they surged in undulating waves.
Then on the fifth day, the rain ceased; on the tenth day, the waters finally began to recede; and around the twentieth day, the Kamunagi River flowed gently along the village’s northern edge with a width of about eighteen feet.

The villagers gathered in clusters at different houses night after night to discuss their plight.
The conclusion of their discussions was always the same.
We don’t want to starve to death.
That conclusion always became the starting point of their discussions.
The villagers had to begin the same discussion again the following night.
And so, having once again reached the conclusion that they didn’t want to starve to death, they adjourned.
The following night, they held even more discussions.
And so the conclusion was the same.
The discussions never reached any resolution.
The village fell into disorder, and a folk hero emerged.
One day, ten-year-old Taro addressed his father Sosuke, who was cradling his head in both arms and sighing, and presented his opinion.
“I think this can be easily resolved.”
“We need only go straight to His Lordship at the castle and plead for relief.”
“I’ll go.”
Sosuke let out an absurd cheer: “Whoa!”
Then immediately, seeming to realize he had acted impulsively, he reclasped behind his head the hands he had started to undo and put on a grimacing face.
“Because you’re a child, you think so simply—but adults don’t think that way.”
“A direct appeal—if mishandled—will cost you your life.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“Stop.”

“Stop.”

That night, Taro sauntered out with his hands in his pockets and hurried off briskly toward the castle town.

No one knew.

The direct appeal succeeded.
It was because Taro was fortunate.
Not only was his life not taken—he even received a reward.
It was likely also because the then-lord had clean forgotten the laws.
Thanks to this, the village escaped total ruin and began to prosper again the following year.

The villagers nevertheless praised Taro for two or three years.
When those years had passed, they forgot entirely.
The name "Lord Fool of the Village Headman" belonged to Taro now.
Taro entered the storehouse nearly every day to read through Sosuke’s books at random.
Occasionally he found improper picture books among them.
He kept reading them with an unperturbed expression.

Before long, he found a book on hermit arts.
He devoted himself most fervently to reading this.
He pored over it from every angle.
After practicing ascetic training in the storehouse for about a year, he finally mastered the methods of becoming a rat, an eagle, and a snake.
He became a rat and scurried around the storehouse, occasionally stopping to let out squeaks.
He became an eagle, spread his wings from the storehouse window, soared up, and roamed the vast sky to his heart’s content.
Having become a snake, he sneaked beneath the storehouse floor, avoiding spider webs as he walked, parting the cool shaded grass with his belly scales again and again.
Before long, he mastered the method of becoming a mantis, but this was merely assuming its form and held no particular interest whatsoever.

Sosuke had by now despaired of his own child.
Even so, making excuses for his failure, he told Mother this.
“Well, he was just too capable.”

Taro fell in love at sixteen.
The object of his affection was the daughter of the neighboring oil merchant, skilled at flute-playing.
Taro preferred listening to her flute while maintaining rat or snake forms within the storehouse.
Alas, how I wish that girl would fancy me.
Alas, might I become Tsugaru's most splendid man.
Through hermetic arts, Taro began willing himself to transform—to become that fine man.
On the tenth day, this aspiration found fulfillment.

Taro timidly peered into the mirror and was shocked.
His complexion was white as if drained of color; his cheeks were puffy and doughy-skinned.
His eyes remained utterly narrow, and a mustache dangled limply.
His face was that of a Tenpyo-era Buddha statue, and even his genitalia had swollen in an antiquated, limp manner.
Taro was disappointed.
The hermit arts book had been too old.
It was a book from the Tenpyo era.
In this state, there’s no use.
I'll start over.
He attempted to return to the method once more, but it was futile.
When one performs methods willfully out of personal desire alone, for better or worse, they become inseparably bound to the body—utterly beyond remedy.
Taro made futile efforts for three days, even four, and on the fifth day gave up.
With this antiquated face, he probably wouldn’t be liked by women—but then again, there might just be some eccentric soul out there in the world.
Having lost his hermit arts power, Taro emerged from the storehouse with puffy cheeks and a mustache dangling limply.

He explained the entire situation to his parents—who stood gaping—and finally convinced them to shut their mouths.
"With this wretched appearance, I cannot remain in the village after all.
I will depart on a journey."
Having thus written his note, he left home nonchalantly that night.
A full moon hung in the sky.
Its outline blurred slightly.
Not from the weather.
From Taro’s own eyes.
Ambling along, he pondered the mystery of handsome men.
Why would a fine gentleman of yore now seem such a fool?
That couldn’t be right...
Or could this very state suffice?
Yet the riddle proved stubborn—even after passing through the neighboring village’s woods, reaching the castle town, or crossing Tsugaru’s border—it remained unresolved.

Incidentally, Taro’s secret technique of hermit arts lay in crossing his arms, leaning against a pillar or wall to stand vacantly, and repeating in a low voice—dozens, hundreds of times without end—the incantation “Not interesting, not interesting, not interesting, not interesting, not interesting,” until he finally entered a state of selflessness.

Kenka Jirobei

Long ago in the post town of Mishima along the Tokaido highway, there lived a man named Kanamaya Ippei. His family had engaged in sake brewing since his great-grandfather’s era. They say sake mirrors the brewer’s character. Kanamaya’s brew was impeccably clear yet strikingly dry. They called this sake Waterwheel. There were fourteen children—six boys and eight girls. The eldest son showed little aptitude for worldly affairs, living solely to manage the business under Ippei’s directives. Though he occasionally ventured opinions to his father, he would invariably lose conviction mid-sentence, retreating into stammered disclaimers: “Though that might be so… yet this seems entirely mistaken… I’m sure it’s incorrect… what do you think, Father? It somehow feels wrong…” Ippei would reply bluntly: “You’re wrong.”

However, when it came to the second son Jirobei, matters took a different turn altogether. Within his temperament lay a tendency to demonstrate true impartiality toward right and wrong—not the political kind of equivocation. This earned him the label of troublemaker from Mishima’s post-town residents, who regarded him as unclean. Jirobei detested mercantile sensibilities. The world wasn’t some abacus to tally up, he believed—what held no calculable value alone possessed true worth—and so he drank sake nearly every day by this conviction. Yet even when drinking, he refused to touch his household’s liquor—that brew he’d personally witnessed reaping unjust profits through greed. If ever it slipped down his throat by accident, he’d immediately force fingers down his gullet to vomit it back up. Day after day Jirobei wandered Mishima Town drinking alone, yet his father Ippei made no move to censure him—for Ippei was a clear-headed man. He’d concluded that having one fool among many children might actually lend vitality to the brood. Moreover, as Mishima’s fire brigade chief himself, Ippei nursed designs to eventually bequeath this honorable post to Jirobei—and from the distant calculation that continued wild rampages would only better qualify the youth for future fire-chiefdom, he turned a blind eye to his son’s recklessness.

In the summer of his twenty-second year, Jirobei resolved that he would absolutely master the art of fighting—and this determination arose from the following circumstances.

At Mishima Taisha, there was an annual festival on the fifteenth of August each year, where not only the people of the post town but also tens of thousands from Numazu’s fishing villages and the mountains of Izu would tuck uchiwa fans into their waistbands and come streaming toward the grand shrine in droves.
It had been decided since time immemorial that rain would surely fall on the day of Mishima Taisha’s festival.
The people of Mishima, being lovers of spectacle, would use their uchiwa fans in the rain and endure being soaked to the bone and chilled to watch the dancing floats pass by, the festival carts parade through, and fireworks shoot up into the sky.

The day of the festival when Jirobei was twenty-two years old was uncharacteristically clear.
Against the blue sky, a single kite wheeled with a peculiar trill, and after paying respects to the grand shrine, the worshippers next bowed to the azure heavens and the kite.
Shortly past noon, black clouds abruptly swelled from the northeastern corner of the sky. Within a few blinks, Mishima had already grown dim. A moisture-laden heavy wind crawled across the ground, and as if this were a signal, large droplets plopped down from the heavens. Soon—whether unable to contain itself or through some resolve—it became a downpour.
Jirobei was drinking at the pub before the grand torii gate of Mishima Taisha, watching the rain’s onslaught and the figures of women scurrying past.
Before long, he suddenly began to rise from his seat.
It was because he had spotted an acquaintance.
It was the daughter of the calligraphy teacher who lived across from his house.
Wearing a heavy-looking red floral-patterned kimono, she would run five or six steps, then walk again; run five or six steps, then walk again.
Jirobei flipped open the izakaya’s noren curtain and stepped outside. “You should take an umbrella,” he called out.
“A kimono getting wet would be troublesome.”
The girl came to a halt and slowly twisted her slender neck; upon seeing Jirobei’s figure, her soft, pale cheeks flushed.
“Wait a moment.”
After saying that, Jirobei returned to the izakaya and, while loudly scolding the proprietor, borrowed a bamboo umbrella.
“Hey, calligraphy teacher’s daughter.
“Whether it’s your father, your mother, or even you—you must all think I’m some no-good drunkard troublemaker, an utterly wicked villain.
“But what do you know?
“If I thought you pitiful, I’m precisely the sort of man who’d go through the trouble of lending an umbrella or whatnot.
“Serves you right.”
When he pushed through the curtain again and stepped outside, the girl was gone—only the intensified rain and a stream of people running past while jostling and shoving remained. From inside the izakaya came jeering voices: “Hey, hey, hey, hey.”
It was the voices of six or seven troublemakers.

Holding the bamboo umbrella aloft in his right hand, Jirobei thought.
Ahhh.
I want to get good at fighting.
Humans—when faced with such absurd circumstances—there’s no room for logic or reason.
Touch a person and cut them down.
Touch a horse and cut it down.
That’s how it should be.
From that day onward for three years Jirobei secretly trained himself in combat.

Combat hinges on grit.
Jirobei forged courage through alcohol.
His drinking grew heavier by the day; his eyes turned cold and clouded like a dead fish's, three greasy horizontal wrinkles creased his forehead, until he somehow acquired a thoroughly insolent countenance.
Even when bringing the pipe to his lips, he would swing his arm in a grand arc from behind before cleanly taking a drag.
He appeared as a man of unshakable resolve.

Next came the manner of speech.
He thought to deliver it in a husky voice with unfathomable depth.
It was customary to utter some clever line before a fight, but Jirobei agonized over selecting those words.
Reciting formulaic phrases left them stripped of genuine emotion.
He chose these unconventional lines:
"You aren't mistaken, are you?"
"You must be joking."
"The tip of your nose swelling purple would look rather amusing."
"Mending it would take a full hundred days."
I think there's something wrong with this somehow, he reflected.
To ensure smooth recitation at any moment, each night after lying down he repeated them thirty times in a low murmur.
Moreover, he diligently practiced maintaining an almost-smiling expression while speaking—no mouth-twisting nor excessive eye-glaring—scrupulously drilling even this aspect.

The preparations were now complete.
At last came combat training.
Jirobei detested wielding weapons.
Using weapons to win didn’t make one a real man.
Unless he won through bare-handed strength, his own heart wouldn’t feel satisfied.
First, he studied how to form a fist.
If the thumb was left protruding from the fist, there was a risk of spraining it.
After extensive experimentation, Jirobei finally concealed his thumb inside the fist and aligned the backs of the first knuckles from his other four fingers tightly without gaps.
An extremely sturdy-looking fist took shape.
When he tapped his own kneecap with the neatly aligned backs of the first knuckles, his fist didn’t hurt at all; instead, his kneecap hurt so much he nearly leapt up.
This was a discovery.
Jirobei next planned to thicken and harden the skin on the backs of those first knuckles.
In the morning, upon waking, he immediately struck the tobacco tray by his pillow once with his newly devised fist.
While walking through town, he struck every earthen wall and wooden fence along the way.
He struck the izakaya table.
He struck the hearth.
He spent one year on this training.
When the tobacco tray lay shattered into pieces, earthen and wooden walls bore countless holes of varying sizes, cracks formed across izakaya tables, and the hearth’s edge became stylishly uneven, Jirobei finally gained confidence in his fist’s hardness.
During this training period, Jirobei discovered there was even a knack to how one struck.
Namely, he discovered that striking by thrusting his arm straight out from the armpit like a piston had approximately three times the effect compared to swinging it in a wide arc from the side.

He also discovered that twisting his arm inward by half a rotation midway through the straight thrust increased its effectiveness approximately fourfold.
It meant his arm bored relentlessly into the opponent’s flesh like a spiraling drill.

For the next year, he trained in the pine grove behind his house that marked the site of Kokubunji. He struck a human-shaped dried stump standing five shaku four to five sun tall (approximately 164–167 cm). Jirobei tried striking every inch of his own body and was made aware of the fact that the glabella and water strike points hurt the most. Furthermore, he had tentatively considered the traditionally cited male pressure points as well, but these ultimately felt vulgar—not something a man of lofty pride would target, he concluded. He learned that his shins were also excruciatingly painful when struck, but since this made them ideal targets for kicks, Jirobei concluded that using legs in combat felt both cowardly and dishonorable—so he resolved to focus solely on targeting the glabella and water strike points. He carved triangular marks with a small knife at the height corresponding to the glabella and water strike points on the withered stump, then struck them day after day with hollow thuds. “You aren’t mistaken, are you?” “You must be joking.” “The tip of your nose swelling up purple would look rather amusing.” “Fixing it would take a full hundred days.” I think there’s something wrong with this somehow. The moment he did, he struck the glabella with a hollow thud. His left hand targeted the water strike point.

After a year of training, the triangular marks on the withered tree had hollowed into round depressions about the depth of a bowl.
Jirobei pondered.
Now he never missed.
Yet he still couldn’t rest easy.
Opponents wouldn’t always stand silent and motionless like this stump.
They moved.
Jirobei turned his attention to the waterwheels found at nearly every corner of Mishima’s streets.
The snow at Fuji’s base melted into dozens of clear, abundant streams that flowed beneath floorboards, along verandas, and through gardens of Mishima’s houses, while moss-covered waterwheels turned slowly, steadily at key points across those many waterways.
Jirobei would conquer one waterwheel each night on his way home after drinking sake.
He would strike each of the sixteen blades on the rotating waterwheel’s vanes in sequence with hollow thud after hollow thud.
At first, he struggled to gauge the timing and rarely succeeded, but gradually he began encountering more waterwheels across Mishima resting idle with their vanes torn and dangling limply.

Jirobei would often bathe in the stream.
There were times he dove deep to the bottom and stayed motionless.
He had considered the scenario of slipping and falling into a stream during a fight.
Since streams ran throughout the town, such instances might well occur.
He tightened the bleached cotton belly band even more forcefully.
This was a precaution against letting too much alcohol enter the belly.
If he got drunk, his legs might stagger and lead to unexpected blunders.

Three years passed.
The grand shrine festival came three times and passed three times.
The training ended.

Jirobei’s appearance grew increasingly solid and ponderous.
Even twisting his neck to the left or right took a full minute.

Blood relatives are perceptive by virtue of their shared blood.
Ippei, his father, had discerned Jirobei’s training.
Though he didn’t know what exactly he’d trained in, Ippei sensed his son had become something significant.
Ippei executed the scheme he had long planned.
He had Jirobei inherit the honorary position of fire brigade chief.
Jirobei gained the trust of many firefighters through his inexplicably imposing demeanor.
He was only ever revered as “Chief, Chief,” but opportunities for fights completely vanished.
Perhaps he might go through life without ever fighting again and die like this—the young Chief felt dreary at the thought.
His arms, thoroughly tempered from relentless training, grew unbearably itchy each night, and with a desolate heart he would scratch them vigorously.
With no outlet for his strength after writhing in agony, he finally conjured a reckless mischievous impulse and covered his entire back with a tattoo.
The pattern depicted a crimson rose about five sun in diameter, with five slender mackerel-like fish—each sporting pointed beaks—pecking at it from all sides.
Across his back and chest, blue ripples rippled endlessly.
Because of this tattoo, Jirobei became a man of unmatched renown along the Tokaido—not only revered by firefighters but even awed by post-town ruffians—and with that, any hope of picking fights vanished entirely.
Jirobei thought this unbearable.

But the opportunity arrived unexpectedly.
At that time in Mishima’s post town, there lived a wealthy man named Jinshuya Joroku who competed fiercely alongside Kamaya in sake brewing.
Their sake was somewhat cloying on the tongue and had a rich hue.
Joroku, much like his sake, already kept four concubines yet remained unsatisfied, devising various schemes to acquire a fifth.
The eagle’s white-feathered arrow passed over Jirobei’s roof and plunged straight through the shepherd’s purse weeds blanketing the calligraphy teacher’s house across the street—the very house where she lived in seclusion to atone.
The calligraphy teacher did not readily respond.
She had attempted seppuku twice, only to be discovered by her family and foiled each time.
Jirobei heard that rumor and felt his arms twitch with anticipation.
He had set his sights on the opportunity.

In the third month, the opportunity arrived.
In early December, an unusually heavy snow fell in Mishima.

From dusk, snowflakes began fluttering down, soon transforming into large peony snowflakes that had accumulated about three inches deep when all six alarm bells in the post town rang out simultaneously.
A fire.
Jirobei left the house slowly and leisurely.
The tatami shop next to Jinshuya was pitifully engulfed in flames.
Thousands of fireball imps formed a frenzied procession across the tatami shop’s roof, their sparks erupting like pine pollen—spreading, swelling, scattering far into the night sky in all directions.
Occasionally, black smoke would lumber forth like a sea demon, shrouding the entire roof.
The cascading peony snowflakes, tinted by the flames, appeared even more weighty and wasteful.
The firefighters began arguing with Jinshuya.
Jinshuya insisted that he absolutely refused to have water poured on his own house and ordered them to quickly knock down the neighboring tatami shop’s ridgepole to suppress the fire.
The firefighters refuted this, saying it violated firefighting protocols.
There, Jirobei appeared.
“Mr. Jinshuya.”
Jirobei began speaking in as low a voice as possible, with what was almost a smile.
“You’re not mistaken, are you?”
“This is no joke.”
Jinshuya abruptly interjected.
This was Kamaya’s young master—heh-heh—just a joke, entirely drunken whimsy; come now, douse it thoroughly with water.
A fight did not break out.
Jirobei resignedly watched the fire.
Although it didn’t come to blows, through this incident Jirobei once again proved his mettle.

Illuminated by the fire’s glow as he admonished Jinshuya, Jirobei’s crimson cheeks bore over ten peony snowflakes that clung without melting—their divine yet dreadful appearance became a tale recounted by firefighters for years to come.

On a fine day in February of the following year, Jirobei built a new residence on the outskirts of the post town.
In addition to a six-tatami room, a four-and-a-half-tatami room, a three-tatami room, and a three-ken space, there was an eight-tatami back second floor from which Mount Fuji could be viewed straight on.
On an even finer day in March, the calligraphy teacher’s daughter was welcomed as a bride into this new residence.
That night, the firefighters packed tightly into Jirobei’s new residence to drink in celebration; each took turns performing secret talents as the night wore on until finally, come morning, the last one executed a two-plate trick that deceived everyone’s drunken, slumbering eyes and was met with scattered applause from one corner—thus the celebratory banquet came to an end.

Jirobei spent his days in a state of bewilderment, half-convinced that this new reality must somehow be acceptable. His father Ippei too would mutter “This settles things” while briskly tapping his pipe Tsugetsuho. Yet even Ippei’s keen mind had failed to foresee the tragedy that unfolded. One evening two months into their marriage, as Jirobei drank sake poured by his bride, he declared “I’m strong in fights—see? To fight—” he swung his right fist demonstratively “—you hit the glabella like this—” then his left “—and strike the waterfall point like so.” What began as playful demonstration ended with the bride collapsing dead—the strikes having landed all too perfectly. Charged with grave crimes, Jirobei was imprisoned—a punishment for excessive mastery. Even behind bars, his composed demeanor spared him officials’ mockery while fellow inmates revered him as cell boss. Seated higher than others, he hummed his self-composed tune—neither folk song nor prayer—in mournful melody.

I whisper to the rock

Cheeks flushing,

I am strong.

The rock did not answer.

Uso no Saburo

Long ago in Edo’s Fukagawa district, there lived a widowed scholar named Haramiya Kōson.
He was deeply knowledgeable about Chinese religions.
He had one child, who was called Saburo.
The neighbors gossiped that naming one’s only son “Saburo”—literally “third son”—was truly a scholar-like twist.
No one could understand why this counted as a scholar-like twist.
That very point had become proof of his scholarly nature.
In the neighborhood, Kōson’s reputation wasn’t very good.
He was considered extremely stingy.
There was even a rumor that after eating his rice, he would always return exactly half of it and use that to make paste.

Saburo's flower of lies germinated from Kōson's stinginess. Until he turned eight years old, he was not given a single sen in pocket money and was forced only to memorize the words of Chinese sages. Saburo muttered those Chinese sages' words while sniffling back his runny nose, walking room to room to pull nails from pillars and walls with soft pops. When ten nails had accumulated, he took them to a nearby junk dealer and sold them for one or two sen. He would buy sugar-coated crackers. Later, he learned from the junk dealer that his father's books could fetch about ten times better value, and began taking them out one by one—only to be caught by his father on the sixth book. His father tearfully disciplined this thieving child. He struck Saburo's head three times in rapid succession with his fist, then said: "Any more discipline would only make us both needlessly hungry—you no less than me." "Therefore," he continued, "I'll stop here." "Sit there." Saburo was tearfully made to swear repentance. For Saburo, this marked the beginning of his life of lies.

That summer, Saburo killed the neighboring family’s beloved dog.
The beloved dog was a Chin.
At night, the Chin dog barked shrilly.
It raised a clamor with a mix of long howls, frantic yelps like kyan-kyan cries, exaggerated groans as if in unbearable pain, and all manner of other sounds.
About an hour into the incessant barking, Father Kōson spoke to Saburo lying beside him.
“Go check.”
Saburo had been lifting his head and blinking his eyes while straining his ears since earlier.
He got up, slid open the shutters, and saw the Chin dog tied to the neighboring house’s bamboo fence writhing as it rubbed its body against the ground.
“Don’t make such noise!” Saburo scolded.
The Chin dog noticed Saburo and rolled ostentatiously in dirt while gnawing at bamboo fence slats before putting on another frenzied display accompanied by even shriller kyan-kyan yelps.
Saburo felt sickening disgust toward its cloying spirit.
After repeating “Quiet! Quiet!” in breathless tones he jumped into garden grabbed pebble hurled it with whizzing force.
It struck Chin dog’s head.
Following sharp kyan cry its small white body spun top-like before collapsing with thud.
Dead.
After closing shutters returning bed Father asked sleepily:
“What happened?”
Saburo answered muffled under futon:
“Stopped barking.”
“Seems sickly.”
“Might die tomorrow.”

“It might die by tomorrow.”

That autumn, Saburo killed a person. He pushed a playmate from Kototoi Bridge into the Sumida River. There was no direct reason. He had been seized by an impulse strikingly similar to the urge to fire a pistol into his own ear. The tofu seller’s youngest child, who had been pushed off, moved his slender legs three times in the air like a duck paddling gently as he fell, then hit the water’s surface with a splash. The ripples moved about six feet downstream with the current, then a single hand suddenly popped up at their center. The fist was tightly clenched. It immediately retracted. The ripples crumbled as they flowed. After Saburo witnessed that, he let out a loud wail. People gathered and, seeing the spot Saburo tearfully pointed at, realized what had transpired.

“You did well to inform us.”
“Was it your friend who fell in?”
“Don’t cry—I’ll save them right away.”
“You did well to inform us.”

A quick-witted man said this and lightly tapped Saburo’s shoulder. Soon, three men from the crowd who were confident swimmers competed to jump into the great river, each beginning to search for the tofu seller’s youngest child while proudly displaying their swimming forms. All three became so preoccupied with their swimming postures that they neglected the search; what they finally found was nothing but a lifeless corpse.

Saburo was unharmed.
He attended the tofu seller’s funeral together with his father Kōson.
As he turned ten and eleven years old, the memories of these crimes unknown to anyone began to torment Saburo.
These crimes caused Saburo’s flower of lies to bloom ever more magnificently.
He lied to others, lied to himself, striving single-mindedly to erase his crimes from the world and to expunge them from his own heart, until with time he became naught but a mass of lies.

At twenty years old, Saburo had become a meek and introverted youth. Whenever Obon came around, he would sigh while recounting memories of his deceased mother to others, garnering sympathy throughout the neighborhood. Saburo had never known his mother—she had died the moment he was born. He had never once even attempted to think of her. His mastery of lies had reached its peak. He wrote letters for the few students who came to study under Kōson, excelling particularly at composing requests for remittances to their parents. A typical example went like this: After opening with “With humble reverence” and remarks about distant scenery, he would politely inquire after the recipient’s health before briskly stating his business. Beginning with effusive flattery only to abruptly demand money proved clumsy—the initial compliments would crumble under that single pragmatic line, rendering the whole affair tawdry and grasping. Thus he resolved to address matters swiftly and resolutely from the outset. Brevity served best.

This time, a lecture on the Classic of Poetry would commence at our academy, but this textbook cost twenty-two yen if procured from local booksellers.
However, Professor Kōson, taking into account the students' financial means, had arranged to place orders directly with China.
The actual cost came to fifteen yen and eighty sen.
If I missed this opportunity I would incur a small loss; therefore I intended to apply immediately.
The gist became a hurried request to please send fifteen yen and eighty sen without delay.
Next he would recount his own recent circumstances—trivial everyday matters at that.
He would leisurely write about matters such as how yesterday, while gazing out my window, I witnessed many crows battling a solitary kite—a truly valiant spectacle—or how, the day before that during a stroll along Sumida embankment, I discovered a peculiar wildflower whose petals resembled morning glories yet were small, like peas yet large, their hue suggesting red yet appearing white—such a rarity that I uprooted it entirely and transplanted it into a pot in my room—all composed with such nonchalance as though having completely forgotten about any remittance request.
Upon receiving this letter, his father would reflect on his child’s serene state of mind, feel ashamed of his own fretful heart, and send the money with a smile.
Saburo’s letters succeeded precisely as intended.
The students eagerly clamored for Saburo to write letters on their behalf or take dictation.
When the money arrived, the students would invite Saburo out to play and spend every last penny without exception.
Kōson’s academy began gradually prospering.
Students in Edo who had heard the rumors earnestly sought instruction from Kōson, driven by their desire to secretly learn letter-writing methods from the young instructor.

Saburo pondered.
Writing letters on behalf of or taking dictation for dozens of people every day was more than he could endure.
He might as well publish it.
He considered how one might get their parents to send large sums of money and decided to compile this into a book for publication.
However，he noticed there was one obstacle when it came to publishing this.
If their parents were to purchase and thoroughly read that book，what would happen?
He could foresee a vaguely sin-laden outcome.
Saburo had to abandon the publication of this book.
This was also due to the students’ desperate opposition.
Nevertheless，Saburo refused to abandon his resolve to write.
Around that time，he decided to publish a popular satirical book in Edo.
With a soft chuckle and openings like “With utmost reverence，” he wrote as much mischief and deceit as possible—a style that fit Saburo’s character perfectly.
When he was twenty-two years old，the two or three satirical books he published under the penname Suidokura Mechakucha Sensei sold surprisingly well.
One day，Saburo saw that one volume of his satirical book masterpiece *Human Affairs：Lies Are Truth* had been mixed into his father’s collection of books，and nonchalantly asked Kōson：
“Is Suidokura Mechakucha Sensei’s book a good one?”
Kōson answered bitterly：
“No good.”
Saburo laughed and told him：
“That is my pseudonym.”
Kōson，trying not to show his panic，gave two or three loud coughs，then asked in a low voice that seemed wary of their surroundings：

“How much did you make from it?”

The summary of the masterpiece *Human Affairs: Lies Are Truth* narrated how Professor Ken’en—a young social misfit—traversed the world in absurdly comedic fashion; for instance, when frequenting pleasure quarters, he might pose as an actor, affect airs as a wealthy patron, or impersonate an incognito nobleman.

These deceptions were so ingeniously crafted—nearly indistinguishable from reality—that even geisha circles never doubted them; indeed, he himself harbored no suspicions. Far from fantasy, this was his tangible reality: becoming an overnight millionaire, then awakening one morning as a peerless actor whose life concluded in absurdly comedic fashion.

The moment he died, it was written that he reverted to being the penniless Professor Ken’en of old.

This was, in essence, Saburo’s autobiographical novel.

By the time Saburo turned twenty-two, his lies had attained divine mastery—whenever he fabricated thus, everything transformed into golden truth.

Before Kōson, he remained an introverted filial son; before academy students, a fearsome know-it-all; in pleasure quarters—Danjūrō, a certain lord, some gang boss—and in all guises, there lingered not the slightest unnaturalness or falsehood.

In that following year, father Kōson died.
Kōson’s will contained matters conveying the following meaning.
I am a liar.
A hypocrite.
The more my heart distanced itself from Chinese religion, the more I became devoted to it.
Even so, what allowed me to go on living must have been love for my motherless child.
I failed, but I wanted to make this child succeed—yet this child too seems likely to fail.
I shall leave to this child, without exception, all five hundred mon in small coins that I painstakingly saved over sixty years.
After reading the will, Saburo turned pale, curled a sardonic smile, and tore it in two.
He tore it into four pieces.
He tore it into eight pieces.
Kōson—who restrained from disciplining his child to stave off hunger, who fretted over royalties more than his child’s renown, whom neighbors whispered had hidden a jar brimming with gold beneath the floorboards—left a five-hundred-mon legacy and departed this world in serene oblivion.
This is the end of lies.
Saburo felt as though he had caught the unbearable stench of lies’ final fart.

Saburo held his father’s funeral at a nearby Nichiren Buddhist temple.
At first glance, the priest’s drumming—a wild pounding that struck the ear as barbaric rhythm—seemed nothing more. But listening intently, one could discern within that rhythm an inescapable fury, a gnawing anxiety, and a desperate buffoonery mocking it all into absurdity.
Dressed in a crested kimono and holding prayer beads, Saburo sat hunched among over ten students at the center, staring at the edge of the tatami mat three shaku ahead as he thought.
Lies are silent farts emitted from crime.
My own lies began with childhood killings.
Father’s lies were squeezed from the great crime of making others believe a religion he himself couldn’t embrace.
I tell lies to make this suffocating reality slightly cooler, but lies—like alcohol—gradually demand stronger doses.
By spouting ever-denser falsehoods, honed through trial, they finally emit truth’s radiance.
This seems not limited to me alone.
In all human affairs, lies are truth.
Suddenly that phrase clung thickly to his skin as he recalled it now for the first time, and he smiled bitterly.
Ah—this is absurdity’s pinnacle.

After carefully burying Kōson’s bones, Saburo resolved to begin living without lies from that day forth.
Everyone harbors secret crimes.
There’s no need to flinch.
There’s no need to feel guilt.

A life without lies.
That statement itself was already a lie.
Calling beautiful things beautiful and bad things bad.
That too was a lie.
In the first place, could there be any lie in the heart that declares beautiful things as beautiful?
"This is filthy, that is filthy"—night after night, Saburo suffered sleepless torment.
Saburo eventually found an attitude.
It was an attitude of vacant apathy—mindless and devoid of will.
It was to live like the wind.
Saburo entrusted all his daily actions to the calendar.
He entrusted his decisions to the calendar’s divinations.
His sole pleasure lay in dreaming every night.
There were scenes of verdant grass, and there were maidens who set his heart aflutter.

One morning, while eating breakfast alone, Saburo suddenly shook his head in thought, then clacked his chopsticks down on the tray. He stood up, circled the room three times, then went outside with hands tucked into his sleeves. His will-less and emotionless attitude had grown suspect. This is indeed the innermost depths of the hell of lies. How could this deliberately cultivated stupor not be a lie? The more I strive, the more I keep layering lies. To hell with it.

The realm of the unconscious.
Saburo set out for the izakaya first thing in the morning.

When he parted the noren curtain and stepped inside, even at this early hour, there were already two prior customers. Astonishingly, they were none other than Senjutsu Taro and Kenka Jirobei. Taro sat at the southeast corner of the table, his puffy dough-like cheeks faintly flushed from drink as he twirled his drooping mustache between sips of sake. Jirobei had positioned himself diagonally opposite at the northwest corner, his swollen face glistening with oil while his left hand—clutching a cup—slowly arced from behind his back to his mouth in a practiced motion; he would take a sip, then hold the cup at eye level and stare blankly into space. Saburo settled between them and began drinking sake. The three had never been acquainted before this moment.

Taro half-closed his narrow eyes while observing the others; Jirobei spent a full minute leisurely craning his neck; Saburo darted restless fox-like glances about—each surreptitiously studying his companions through different methods. As their intoxication gradually intensified, they unconsciously drew closer together. When their long-contained drunkenness finally erupted in unison, Saburo broke the silence first: “I suppose there must be some fate at work for us to share morning drinks like this.” “They say Edo’s so crowded that walking half a block feels like entering another town—yet here we’ve coincidentally gathered in this cramped izakaya on the same day at the same hour. It’s rather miraculous when you think about it.”

Taro let out a big yawn, then answered slowly.
"I drink because I like sake."
"Quit staring at my face."
Having said that, he covered his face with a hand towel.
Jirobei thumped the table, creating a depression about three inches across and one inch deep before answering.
"That's right."
"If you call it fate, then fate it is."
"I just got out of prison."
Saburo asked,
"Why did you go to prison?"
"That's how it was."
Jirobei began recounting his life story in a dry, husky voice that seemed dredged from unfathomable depths.
After finishing his tale, he let a single tear fall into his sake cup and gulped it down.
Hearing this, Saburo pondered awhile before prefacing his remarks by saying he somehow felt like an elder brother, then painstakingly began recounting his own life story in fragments—taking excruciating care to avoid falsehoods, or rather, to prevent them from becoming lies.
As he listened for some time, Jirobei declared "I can't make heads or tails of this," and began drowsily dozing off.
But Taro—who until then had been yawning listlessly—now opened his narrow eyes wide and started listening attentively.
When the story ended, Taro wearily removed the cloth from his cheeks and said something like "Saburo," adding "I understand your feelings well."
"I'm Taro from Tsugaru."
"For two years now I've been drifting around Edo like this."
"Will you listen?" he asked in that same sleepy tone, then launched into an exhaustive account of his own history.

Suddenly, Saburo shouted. “I understand! I understand!” Jirobei had been woken by that shout. He opened his clouded eyes dazedly and asked Saburo, “What is it?” Saburo noticed his own ecstatic state and felt ashamed. Ecstasy was indeed the crystallization of lies—he tried desperately to restrain himself, but the drink wouldn’t allow it. Saburo’s half-hearted restraint instead rebounded back upon himself until he grew thoroughly desperate and spat out a grand, reckless lie: “We are artists!” After uttering such a lie, the lies began to intensify all the more. We three are brothers. Since we’ve met here today, we shall not part even in death. Surely before long, our reign will come. I am an artist. I’ll write up the life stories of Mr. Senjutsu Taro, Mr. Kenka Jirobei, and—presumptuous as it may be—my own, presenting these three exemplary ways of living to the world. Who cares? Uso no Saburo’s flames of lies reached their peak from this point onward. We are artists. Even kings and princes hold no fear for us. Money too is as light as dead leaves to us.