Pathway to Japanese Literature

I append a note that this work came into being through the goodwill of Mr. Satō Otoji, Warden of Nagoya Prison.

--1923, July 6--

I

If someone were to ask me, "Is what I am about to write down fact or fantasy? Which is it?" I could not definitively say either way.
As for myself—this problem, this incident—over ten years I would at times suddenly think, "So I too experienced something terrifying," and at other times wonder, "But isn't this merely my fantasy? Just a feeling I've convinced myself of? Otherwise..." In this way, not knowing which was true even to me, this strange memory grew increasingly vivid and precise until it was carved into my very being.
But let me be clear—I'm not making excuses—the world holds far more wonders that cannot be put to paper than those that can.
For instance, how many secret strange events has each and every human being taken to their grave—or let slip from memory—without ever speaking or writing of them?
In fact, even I had encountered numerous "events" a hundred times more mysterious and unimaginable than what I try to write here now.
And those events were far more intriguing and contained "something" besides, but no matter how I strained, I simply couldn't write them down.
Even if I didn't care at all about whether it would pass censorship or not—since I couldn't even write it secretly myself—there was nothing to be done.
But what a pointless preamble I've gone and written at length.

But I went on at length with this pointless preamble.

I was still a wayward youth.
The regulation navy blue work clothes sailors wore—those same clothes were indeed my only garments.
I had just returned a little over half a month prior from Furanten's Europe route.
The ship was in dock.

I had been drinking quite a bit.
The time was a sweltering, dusty late July evening—yes, I recall it being around 1912.

O reader!
This isn't a preliminary investigation report, so please don't interrogate me too closely.

I was walking along that sweltering plane-tree promenade thick with humidity.
After all, this was Yokohama's Meriken Hatoba—where great numbers of rather oddly dressed people affected airs as they loitered about.
At that moment, I had completely forgotten such matters as what class I belonged to—Tamihei being my nickname—and whether that name itself might be considered rude as I walked.

Truly they were foreigners—wearing crisp, pleasant-looking clothes as they walked about in great numbers—and along this splendid promenade filled with Japanese girls who remained utterly unapproachable no matter how pridefully I assessed myself or mustered courage, a promenade like the inside of a shop window to put it briefly, I walked with head held high and hands in pockets—no, shameful to admit—as if wanting someone to see my matching navy blue work clothes, sauntering along all the same.

Now, had I been clearly conscious of myself at this moment, I would never have deliberately played the clown.
I must indeed have been thinking "something," but the subject of those thoughts—even if I had suddenly realized at that moment, "What on earth was I just thinking about?" and tried to recall—was likely what might be called "swift thoughts," akin to a propeller in flight, so fleeting they were already beyond retrieval.
But apparently, I didn’t even think “Hah” at that time.

Objectively speaking, I apparently walked with a brazenness that invited hatred, my strides steady and purposeful.
Moreover, he apparently paced back and forth across the same spot time and again, like a first-class passenger sauntering along the salon deck.

The lights came on.
And then it grew slightly dimmer.

I reached the T-junction of the single-track tram line where one side was a park and the other became Chinatown.
If there hadn't been someone who startled me so terribly there, I would never have noticed that I was at the T-junction corner.
However, there came someone who shattered my conviction—the conviction I'd held until this very moment that In this whole world, there isn't a single soul who'd ever engage with someone like me—by abruptly confronting me.
"Hey, kid," groaned a man who had materialized so abruptly from nowhere that we nearly collided, his voice a throttled whisper as he planted himself alarmingly close.

“Got coin? Clink-clink?”

I stood frozen in blank astonishment there.
I was so taken aback that I stared at the man’s face as if to bore holes through it.
The man had a small, slug-like face.
I couldn’t understand what the man intended to do to me.
No matter how you looked at him, he wasn’t a woman after all.

“What the hell?” I suddenly barked.
Then, simultaneous with my shout—as if waiters had come scrambling—two men rushed out and seized both my arms.
There are three of them now, I calculated automatically.
This could get messy.
Which one to kick first? Mishandle this and I lose. Make a battle plan first—got that, Tamihei? I stood planted like dock pilings, working it out.

“Hey kid, don’tcha wanna buy yourself some young man’s fun for twenty sen?”

The Slug said this while stepping down one stair.

“What the hell is this with you bastards?”
“First off—I can’t make heads or tails of what you’re even on about! When people start talking to someone, they oughta speak in a way that lets the other person actually respond!”
“If it’s a fight then fight! If it’s robbery then rob!”

“Course ya don’t get it—course ya wouldn’t—the matter ain’t even been laid out proper yet. But ya got twenty sen on ya, don’tcha?”

I pulled out all the money from my pocket and showed it.

Since I’d thought I couldn’t drink any more and left the bar, I probably had around seventy or eighty sen in a mix of silver and copper coins.

“Yeah, more than enough.”
“Here’s your train fare.”

There, I was left with only one ten-sen silver coin and had been completely robbed.

“So, you coming?”
The Slug asked.

“I already paid the viewing fee, didn’t I?” I answered.
The man who had been gripping my right arm said, “This way,” and took the lead.

I was thoroughly on guard.
What in the world could these three guys possibly be trying to show me for a viewing fee of fifty sen or so?
They’d taken payment upfront—if I were naive enough to think I’d actually get to see something, there might’ve been sparks flying between our eyes.
Even before I met the Slugs, from some time unknown to me—(they might have been tailing me all along)—

But regardless of whether I kept my guard up or not, I would naturally get to see something worth every sen I'd paid.
No fire came from my eyes.
The two entered toward Chinatown.
Old brick houses, apparently built soon after Japan began foreign trade, lined the street.
The same air that filled the foreign quarters of Hong Kong and Calcutta reeked here as well.
Altogether, it was constructed in such a way that one couldn't tell whether it was a residence or a warehouse.
The two turned several corners and, after passing a house at the crossroads—another one of those indistinguishable whether occupied or abandoned—entered the neighboring building.
Judging by the direction and number of steps taken, it seemed to correspond to the area behind the coastal avenue where I had been strolling like a soiled peacock earlier.

The gate we had entered was rusted halfway up its height, with only half remaining open just wide enough for a single person to pass through.
As soon as we passed through the gate, a mountain of dust lay piled directly before us.
I couldn't tell whether it had been brought from outside the gate or carried here from somewhere within.
Beneath the dust lay a dustbin - crushed flat and broken, left in its collapsed state.
The upper layer consisted of bare dust.
Moreover, the moment I passed through the gate, I suddenly realized - this gate lacked the crucial house it was meant to serve.
From a dust-choked vacant lot of about six and a half square meters, three mine shaft-like alleyways ran outward.

One ran straight ahead, another directly to the left—both serving as back alleys mediating main and side streets—while the third path ran straight right for about five ken before angling forty-five degrees to cling diagonally, like a bat stealthily pressed against a wall, to a vault-like building unconnected to any main thoroughfare. If I had seen this in daylight, I would've thought it nothing more than an emergency staircase attached to a warehouse and paid it little mind—but as it was, I felt a shudder against my chest as though pressed by the belly of a scalpel.

I had a premonition.
When I climbed this twisted staircase, I would enter the warehouse.
Once inside, it had been rigged as a mechanism from which you could never escape—a manufacturing plant for Rokushingan pills with China as their homeland.
I was certain they would extract my living gallbladder there as raw material for those pills.

I looked up to see whether a power line was being drawn into the building from somewhere.
They probably applied just enough current to keep them alive while extracting their still-twitching gallbladders.
Otherwise, the completed Rokushingan pills would have little efficacy—but (I continued thinking as I climbed those stairs) this life-saving miracle drug called Rokushingan, from the very beginning of its manufacture, nonchalantly betrayed its greatest and sole raison d'être—the restoration or preservation of life—and could paradoxically only be realized through slaughtering it instead.
If that were the case, then—“What does Rokushingan itself even resemble?” and “For what purpose is it needed?”
It was exactly like the current social structure.
Wasn’t this precisely the same as how the bourgeoisie needed to have the lives of the proletariat taken from them in order to live?

But we took our places on the stage.

II

It was a grotesque room.
It was a room that felt like the interior of a sardine can.
A bare, damp, musty space with nothing beyond its low ceiling, floorboards, and enclosing walls.
From its center hung a single light bulb—dim as a dead leaf snared in cobwebs.
Linoleum clung to sections of floorboards like medicinal plasters.
No tables or chairs broke the emptiness.
Sweltering heat pressed until sweat oozed from his body like pus from a tumorous mass, yet somewhere within him lingered an inexplicable chill.
Beyond mold’s reek came waves of nauseating stench assaulting his nostrils.
The odor seemed veiled in mist-like shadows.

The room—large enough to lay out a hundred tatami mats—was darker than a prison cell under the dim glow of what seemed to be a five-candlepower lamp.
I stood at the entrance, but gradually my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness.
In a corner of the room that had seemed empty, there was a solid mass of something.
It appeared to be propped up by something like a beer crate lid.
From that lid, a portion that couldn’t be fully covered seemed to protrude two or three shaku in one direction.
But I couldn’t quite make it out clearly.
After all, there was considerable distance, and it was dark—but I focused every nerve in my body into my eyes and stared at that mass.

I began trembling violently. I could no longer remain standing. I slumped back against the wall. Forcing myself not to collapse into a seated position, I braced my rattling legs. As my eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness, I realized what protruded from beneath the covering was a naked human lower body—the discarded remnants after extracting what they needed for Rokushingan pills!

A self-destructive energy surged through me. I felt compelled to destroy the man who’d brought me here. This went beyond obligation—it became an unavoidable imperative. Inside my jacket pocket, I silently gripped the switchblade while monitoring the thug standing nearby. The bastard had been watching me all along when he suddenly barked out.

“Go over there and take a look.”
“And do whatever you want—I’ll be keeping watch here.”
The scoundrel spat these words and descended the stairs.

I felt violently drunk.
My heart raced faster than my body.
My head and joints throbbed as if I’d been savagely beaten.

I edged closer.
With each step, the stench grew more suffocating.
It was indeed a corpse.
A faint sigh seemed to linger in the air.
Impossible.
A corpse breathing—yet unmistakably breath-like.
Faint wheezes—so weak I tried blaming my ears or nerves—but the thought crystallized: “The corpse is sighing.” Simultaneously, my guts twisted as if every organ were surging up my throat.
But,

But now everything lay before my eyes.
There, an utterly cruel scene had been laid out.

In the shadow of a beer crate lid lay a young woman in her early twenties, completely naked and sprawled on her back.
She lay on a single rotten tatami mat.
And each sigh was squeezed from her shoulders as though it were the final drop.

From around her shoulders toward where a pillow might have been lay vomit—likely from when she could still keep some food down—messily scattered with black bloodstains.
Her hair was matted with it.
And something [twelve characters illegible] clung to her.
From her head came an acidic stench of rancidity, while from her limbs wafted the distinctive foul odor of cancerous tumors.
It seemed doubtful whether human lungs could endure such a bizarre stench.
Her eyes were wide open.
And those eyes seemed to be watching me.
But they probably weren’t seeing anything at all.
Of course, she seemed unaware that I stood there before her completely naked body.
I stood at the woman’s feet, entranced by the scene before me.
I remained rooted to the spot, my head filled with parallel thoughts that never intersected.

A pitiful human is here.

A pitiful woman is there.

My eyes, like two fixed projectors, were hurled at the corpse and remained motionless.
It would be more appropriate to call it a corpse.

I confess.
It’s truly agonizing, but I confess.
—If what lay here were not a naked woman but a naked man, would I have lingered so long in this place? Would I have felt such turmoil in my heart?—

I was at the peak of an indescribable frenzy.
I was paying “two rin” to see this spectacle as “what young men enjoy.”
“And do whatever you like—no—” that man said before stepping away.

Of course, this woman couldn’t possibly offer any resistance.
Prostitutes are legally deprived of resistance, but in this case she’d been physiologically stripped of it.
And even for her—when it came to satisfying desires—this beat necrophilia.
After all, she still had body warmth.
What troubled me most was being a sailor and young besides—my throat forever growling.
So I could “do as I pleased.” And there must’ve been more than one or two young men brought here like me before.
Who knows if they [four characters illegible]—can’t say they all backed off.
No—in this line of work, brakes don’t hold.

But simultaneously, I was pursuing other lines of thought parallel to this.

She was emaciated like a candle rolled across a hot iron plate.
Her black hair, which at her age should still have been abundant, was matted with filth and blood like a discarded palm fiber broom.
She had literally wasted away to the point of resembling a stick.

The woman who had fought through all life’s miseries since childhood must have sold even the last dregs of her labor power, until finally she had been forced to sell the chastity she should never have sold just to survive.

She, like Rokushingan pills that must kill to save lives, and just as every last proletarian had done, had gnawed off her arms, genitals, and even nerves to fill her stomach.
She had destroyed herself to survive.
There was no other way.

She must have thought such things herself at some point.

“Ahh... I want to work.
But there’s no one who’ll take me on.
I got this lung sickness from breathing too much dry air and high heat and cotton dust at the factory.
When the consumption made me useless for work, they threw me out.
Nowhere left that’ll have me.
If I don’t work, even my old mother can’t go on living with me.”

And so she must have wandered the city for several days, seeking work from factory to factory.
Even so, she must have found no work.
"I'll sell my chastity."
Could it be that in doing so she had drained the last drop of her vitality?
And there too, she had finally become unable to work.
And so, having been reduced to this state and abandoned even the hope of living, she must be waiting for death.

III

I wanted to know whether she could still speak.
Shameful as it is to admit, I could no longer suppress the desire to ask, "Do you still want to live?"
In other words, I wanted to know what thoughts a human holds when they reach such a state.

Summoning my resolve, I resolutely approached the woman and crouched near her feet.
Throughout this movement, I never once let my gaze stray from her eyes and body.
Yet her eyes too followed my motions precisely.
I was startled.
Then—in a moment of absurd self-consciousness—my face flushed crimson.
After deliberating, I concluded this eye movement must be mere subjective perception, and so—like physicians testing those near death—I waved my hand before her eyes.

She blinked.
She had been watching.
And her breathing was also quite regular.

I felt as if the strength had suddenly drained from my body, so I crouched down near her feet.

“Please don’t do anything too terrible,” the woman said.
Her voice was weak and halting, though not quite a death rattle.
Her eyes seemed to say, “Just... please be gentle with whatever you do.”

I felt righteous indignation.
I resolved to crush those three slugs exploiting a woman in this state as their resource.

“Did someone do something terrible? Were you bullied by someone?”
I asked, glancing briefly toward the entrance.

Outside had already grown completely dark.
This vast, crushed room resembled the sooty chimney of a lamp.

“How long have you been here like this?”
I asked, straining to maintain composure.
Because I had now crouched at her feet, she stopped looking in my direction and turned her eyes upward.

I was terribly afraid that she would see where my eyes were directed.
To tell the truth, at that time I was actually a heroic, humanitarian, and ascetic young man.
Both body and soul were exactly that.
That’s why I didn’t want her to know that I was staring at her ×× with eyes that burned with my entire being.
Why couldn’t I conquer just my eyes?

If she were to look into my eyes, she would undoubtedly think, “This person is just like the other men after all.”
If that happened, I feared my current heroic, humanitarian actions and rationality would be brittlely severed all at once.
I was ashamed.

I hadn’t been aroused by even the slightest sexual excitement toward this woman.
Even thinking such things was wrong.
That—I was looking at it.
Looking at it—so what?
——I made excuses to myself.

Given that she was a woman, it was only natural that I might experience such impulses.
But that couldn’t be allowed in these circumstances.
This woman had been reduced to nothing but skin and bones.
And she was preparing to rest forever.
Regarding this pitiful comrade of mine, I sought to learn what cruel things those who had entered this room before now had done—what despicable, shameful acts they’d committed.
By denouncing how those actions deserved condemnation, I wanted to display my virtuous nature and make her proud of me.

She eventually answered in a small voice.

“Do you want to hear various things from me?”
“It’s painful for me to speak now, but if you won’t do anything else—I might be able to tell you a little.”

I turned bright red.
Damn it!
She had seen right through me completely.
Once again, a hot shudder raced through my entire body.

What in the world had I wanted to know by making her talk? It was already perfectly clear, wasn't it? And even if there were something I didn't understand, what difference would it make to hear her voice gasping in agony?

But I resolved to rescue her.

But could saving someone even be done? To save someone—was [four-character phrase missing] not the only means? If one lifted a burden too heavy for their own strength to bear and then dropped it again, wouldn't that only ensure its ultimate destruction?

But no matter what I did, I was ultimately fated to hear only ten words from the woman.

IV

The man who had guided me there earlier appeared quietly at the entrance like a shadow.
Then gesturing with his hand, he said, “It’s time, I tell ya.”

I panicked.
If the man came close enough to hear my words, I would no longer be able to do anything that might aid her fate.

“I’ll do whatever you ask.”
“What do you want most right now?” I asked.

“The thing I want to ask for…”
“Just... leave things as they are... quietly... That’s all I ask.”
“I don’t want anything else.”

The protagonist of the tragedy betrayed my expectations.

For instance, I had expected her to say something like helping her escape from the three thugs or going to the police immediately.
And I had thought that would be the final attempt for her diminishing life.
I had thought it was a single straw to grasp.

Poor thing, this woman had been crushed under the burden of misfortune.
She must have become too afraid to even hold onto hope anymore, I thought.

She was cursing everything in the world.
Everyone had ganged up and driven her into today’s abyss.
That was why she didn’t trust even me.
Could there possibly have been such depths of despair?

"But if you keep going on like this, your life won’t last long."
"That’s why I’m asking about crucial matters like taking you to a doctor or bringing you back to your home!"

The woman answered this with the following.

“Well naturally a special hospital room or some seaside villa would be better.”

“So you see,
“That’s why I can’t get you out of here…”

“Hey! This woman’s stark naked, I tell ya.”
“Hey you! And her consumption’s gotten real bad now, I tell ya.”
“You can’t keep enjoyin’ yourself forever with just a couple coppers, I tell ya.”

Before I knew it, one of the slug-like men had come to my side, stood shadow-like, and whispered in my ear.

“You bastards stripped her naked, didn’t you?”
“You son of a bitch!”

I lunged while shouting.

“Wait,” the man groaned, grabbing both my hands.
I shook off his hands and punched the bastard’s cheek.
But before my fist could reach the bastard’s cheek, a deafening crash exploded in my ears. I staggered.

“Alright, you bastards, I’ll keep at it till I die!”
As I shouted this, I thrust upward from below with my clenched fist, driving my whole body into the bastard’s nose.
I was struck on the head at the same time, but this time my assault succeeded.
The man was left crouching there, blood streaming from his nose.

I was drenched in sweat as if scrubbed raw.
And I became short of breath.
But now that matters had progressed this far, I had no choice but to escape with the woman in my arms before the remaining two arrived.

“Come on, let’s get out of here quick!”
“And we need to get to a hospital!”
I told her.

“Young man, you’re such a fool.”
“You didn’t kill him, did you?”
“That man, along with two or three others, has been keeping me alive until now. How troublesome.”

She grew excited by the two men’s struggle, tears even welling up in her eyes.

I couldn’t make sense of anything.

“What do you mean kill? But what’s this?”
“So this man’s been keeping you alive all this time?”

“That’s right. They’ve been keeping me alive all this time.”

“As payment for your flesh? You idiots!”

“Young man,
“These people never actually violated me.
“You’ll come to understand when you’re a bit older.”

I plummeted from hero to clown in an instant.
The three thugs who had drained this pitiable woman to her last drop had become utter enigmas alongside her.

Under what star were these bastards born, and what twist of fate had brought them here? But had I alone arbitrarily constructed this fact to suit my own whims?

The man who had fallen slowly rose to his feet.

“You greenhorn brat!”
“How dare you pull that shit!”
“Alright, come at me properly this time!”

“Hey brother, I ain’t lookin’ to fight you.”
“I was mistaken.”
“My bad.”

“What!
“A misunderstanding.”
“Ain’t fucking funny.”
“What exactly did you misunderstand?”

“You three intimidated me and brought me here, didn’t you?”
“And then you showed me this woman, didn’t you?”
“I thought you bastards had made a plaything of her and were still trying to squeeze every last drop from her.”
“I thought you were fat bastards who’d keep squeezing her dry till she died!”

“Ah, never mind.”
“That’s what you call a misunderstanding,” the man said, slackening his intensity like a deflating balloon.

“But why the hell do you keep this woman lying around naked in a place like this? And why the hell do you put her on display like some sideshow?” I wanted to say.

According to what the woman had said, they weren’t in the wrong, but even so, this was clearly excessive.

"How on earth long are these bastards going to keep this up?" I wondered.

I had begun to find some room for self-reflection. Then I began to feel an intense heat. It was a nauseatingly sweltering heat where each exhaled breath seemed to solidify only to be immediately inhaled back with the next gasp. The stenches of vomit and what seemed to be secretions from cancerous tumors still pierced my nostrils. My body felt unnaturally heavy, unbearable. I must have overexerted my mind on all these overwhelming events until now. I found myself growing oblivious to speaking or taking in anything more. I wanted to lie down anywhere and sleep soundly.

“Anyway, let’s decide to go back. Hey, I’m getting out of here.”

I stood up, resentfully aware that I’d somehow ended up sitting near the woman’s feet.

“You all live here together?”

Halfway out the door, I turned back and asked.

“That’s right. This here’s our base,” the man answered bluntly.

I descended the stairs just like that and emerged onto the street.
At the gate, I turned to look back at where I’d just emerged from.
The staircase couldn’t be seen from there.
There, only a warehouse that gave the impression of a prison’s high brick wall had its back turned.
The place was so utterly desolate and completely decayed—to the point where one could scarcely imagine people coming and going there—that merely looking at it made one sense the smell of mold.

When I emerged onto the street, I walked off whistling without glancing around.

As I walked toward Bōren, I found myself flushing and paling by turns, alone.

V

I borrowed money at Bōren.
And then drank again at a bar catering to foreigners—a brothel where even foreigners couldn’t enter—drank again.

Past midnight, I was walking across the park. Arc lights pierced through the green thicket, weaving intricate patterns across the ground. The beer sweat left me sticky, as though swaddled in a damp wafer.

I was spinning through aimless thoughts like a whirlwind.

—Could it be that I'm starving? And didn't I get excited—but I overcame. Hmph, how noble. Tamihei, but—I nearly tried to think in a capitalist-like way. It's not like I did anything to make this woman end up like this. So then. But I really was strong. But I was weak. Huh, doesn't matter which. Anyway, I'm not going to succeed. That's no way to take the bait dangling right under my nose. I'm no gentleman, am I? Even though gentlemen do it, there's no reason for me to hold back. Hold on, but maybe I can't become a gentleman because I'm too damn considerate. Ah, whatever.—

I was drawn back to that accursed place.
It was midnight of the same night.

The gate made of iron boats was closed. However, when pushed, it opened immediately. I climbed the stairs. I placed my hand on the door. And pulled. But it didn’t open. Damn it! I panicked. If it opens this way, I’ll get thrown down onto the paving stones below. I pushed. When I eased off my strength as it began to open slightly, it shut again just as before.

“Oh?” I thought. Someone’s keeping watch.

“Hey, it’s me. Open up.” I pressed my mouth to the door and whispered in a small voice. But the door remained shut. This time I tried pushing with all my strength, but it didn’t budge an inch.

Damn it!
"They’ve gone and latched it."
I spat and descended the stairs to leave through the gate.

As one of my feet stepped outside the gate while the other remained inside, something tapped my shoulder.
I leapt up.

“No need to be startled. It’s me.”
“How’d it go?”
“Was it fun?”
“Did you enjoy yourself?”
There stood the slug-like men.
“If that woman ended up like that for your sake, we’d be half-dead.”

I grew heated and answered like this.

“So what?
“Do you want to know who that woman suffered like that for?”
“If you want to know, I can tell you.”
“That’s the so-called rich folks.”
“Get it?”

The slug-like men said that and looked at me with pitying eyes.

“How about it? Want to go again?”

“I just went, but it wouldn’t open.”

“Of course it wouldn’t. I’m the one who latched it.”

“You did this!
And where the hell did you crawl out from?”

I was shocked.
That room shouldn't have had any exterior entrance or exit.

"There's no call for surprise.
I just came down each step right behind you on those stairs you took."

These slug bastards are scheming something again.
I thought.
They're not ghosts—no matter how quietly they'd crept down step by step at my heels, there was no way they wouldn't have made some sound.

There was no "need" for me to visit her again.
I still had one yen left, but with that one yen, I couldn’t bring myself to "buy" her once more.
But I thought—just five minutes—
Visiting her would be acceptable, I decided.
For some reason, I desperately wanted to see her again.

I ascended the stairs.
The slug-like men followed.

I pushed the door.
Sure enough, this time it opened without resistance.
As I stepped one foot into the room, the stench and sweltering, heavy air hung thick as before.

For reasons I couldn't grasp, I'd convinced myself this time the room's condition would be completely transformed, but my intuition proved wrong.

Everything remained exactly as it had been.
Behind the beer crates lay the woman, with only myself and the slug-like men beyond them.

“Where’d your partner from earlier go?”

“They all went home.”

“What?! So that story about everyone living here was a lie?”

“That does happen sometimes.”

“So what’s the relationship between that woman and you bastards?”
At last, I broached the subject.

“That woman is our friend.”

“Then why strip your friend naked? Deny medicine to someone sick? Let strangers use her as their plaything?”

“We don’t want this. But without it—no medicine for her. No eggs either.”

“She takes medicine? Don’t fuck with me.”
“You dose her up then strip her bare—that zeros out any good! Feed her eggs just so men can trample her—that leaves you in the red!”
“No law bends to your fucked-up math!”

“That can’t be helped.”
“It’s not just that woman who’s sick.”
“It’s that everyone is sick.”
“And we’re all the dregs left after being squeezed dry.”
“We all worked ourselves to the bone.”
“We worked to eat, but that work ended up grinding down our own lives in a rush.”
“That woman’s got tuberculosis and uterine cancer, and I’m the wreck you see here.”

“So you make this woman prostitute herself, and you’re all living off that?”

“We don’t make this woman engage in prostitution.”
“There are those who do such things, but we keep proper watch and end up throwing those bastards out.”
“And it’s not like we bring them here indiscriminately either.”
“I followed you because you were walking around wearing those navy work clothes, putting on a minister’s face among bourgeois crowds without an ounce of shame. If you’d tried hitting on anyone, you’d have gotten caught right then and there.”

“What do you think? You must think it’s strange why we don’t just die—living like maggots in some hole must seem so pointless. It’s utterly pointless—the height of futility—but hey, there must be some use for us who are alive. The vain hope that someday some opportunity will come along—that’s what keeps us going.”

I had completely misunderstood.
And what a shameless wretch I had been.

I went to the other side of the beer crate partition.
There she lay, just as she had been before.
Now there was a yukata draped over her body.
She must be asleep.
Her eyes were closed.
I saw a martyr where there had been a prostitute.
She appeared to embody the entire fate of the exploited class.

My eyes filled with tears.
I walked softly to avoid making noise and handed one yen to the slug-like men standing by the door.
When handing it over, I gripped the slug-like men’s withered hand with all my strength.
And I stepped outside.
As I stepped down onto the first stair, the tears that had pooled in my eyes spilled out with a plop.

(November 1925 [Taishō 14])