Pathway to Japanese Literature

This was a sacred object for anatomists—the corpse laid upon the dissection table today, destined to become material for academic research, had been the husband of a beautiful girl.
Such matters have a peculiar way of spreading like wildfire from one person to the next—and upon hearing this, every last student in the class attending the dissection found their youthful blood stirred for no particular reason.
Partly led by curiosity, the phrase “beautiful girl” struck deep chords within them.
Among them were even rowdy ones shouting “Banzai!”, creating a great uproar.

Soon the bell rang—in such circumstances, the students’ hearing had become remarkably acute. At the very first toll, before it had even finished ringing, they came clattering down the hallway, each racing to outpace the others as they charged toward the anatomy room. To call it a rush would be inadequate; a charge was more apt.

The anatomy room was an independent building separated from the schoolhouse—a Western-style wooden structure.
The chestnut-brown paint was peeling, the windowpanes were largely shattered, the tin-plated chimney rusted through—a building whose very sight exuded a desolate, dull hue.
Behind the building lay a mixed grove of elms, oaks, chestnuts—even lacquer trees among them—yet it too held neither scent nor color, a sparse thicket as though someone had planted rows of dried bones.
The space between this anatomy room and the school building formed an empty lot where only seven or eight spindly oak trees stood desolately here and there, and beneath their shadows—or in scattered patches—the snow lingered in dirty remnants.
The ground was darkened and deep, with here and there the vivid green of sprouting weeds catching the eye.
Across this empty lot diagonally flew over forty students like geese breaking formation, each kicking up clods of earth and scattering them as they went.
The more spirited ones waved their notebooks high overhead as though commanding subordinates during a drill, charging into the anatomy room with a battle cry for no apparent reason.
For these conservative medical students—who were always checking their own pulses, tapping their chests, and constantly lecturing on the imperfections of the human body—this must have been an exceedingly rare instance of vigorous activity.

Such was the tremendous commotion that they must have thought something had happened.

It was precisely at the moment when the first person at the front leapt up three steps in a single bound and reached for the entrance door.

With a creak from the opposite side, the door swung open—and there suddenly stood an old man blocking the entrance.
The student tripped over nothing and lunged forward as if to fall—then with a headbutt, he slammed into the old man’s chest with a thud.
The old man staggered slightly but braced himself with a grunt, so the student was repelled even more forcefully—this time sent flying sideways, hopping on one foot tap-tap... before crashing into the wall and collapsing in a heap.
The old man did not even cast a glance at it.
Blocking the entrance, he barked, “What do you all think you’re doing?”

he barked, eyes bulging.
It was a deep, booming voice.

Gasping for breath, the second student in line, caught off guard by the momentum, darted his eyes about and found himself stuck with one foot on the stone steps.
With this old man resisting them so fiercely, the students couldn’t take a single step into the anatomy room.

The old man went by the name of Ippei and was the anatomy room’s janitor.
Though his title was janitor, Ippei possessed specialized skills and a certain authority that allowed him to domineer in that anatomy room to the extent of surpassing even some assistants... This was because handling all preparations for placing corpses on the dissection table went without saying.
When it came to his deftness in suturing dissected corpses back to their original state, it was truly an innate talent—a feat no one could replicate.
Given that he could calmly and skillfully suture even corpses that had already been dissected, handling any kind of corpse was effortless for him—no more a hardship than a poultry vendor wringing a chicken’s neck.
When it came to his method of thoroughly washing away the grime from charity patients’ corpses transferred to the hospital’s death chamber, or wiping clean any other filth, and then placing them on the dissection table—the entire process was impeccably organized. Even this single skill alone was something other janitors could not perform with such casual ease.
It was likely that Ippei had been born into this world to serve as an attendant for corpse dissections.
Thus, in the sense of survival of the fittest, he had become one of those indispensable to this medical school—strutting about and flaunting his authority as he pleased.

Ippei’s work had changed him, and he himself had changed—first and foremost, he was strikingly short yet absurdly broad in build, with well-developed muscles in both arms and legs. His face leaned toward largeness, featuring a ruddy stepped nose and fleshy cheeks that swelled like swollen knobs. His eyes glinted fiercely with eagle-like sharpness, capped by a mischievous air.
His head sat solidly squared, with a few downy feathers of hair sparsely clinging around the crown.
Perhaps from constantly handling people who had grown cold, he himself had become stubbornly harsh—once he set his mind to something, even were his head torn off, he wouldn’t yield.
And no matter what anyone said, he would not hear it.
This Ippei stood there as ever in his blue-sleeved happi coat and blue workman’s trousers, arms crossed as always, his great belly thrust forward, glaring down at the students from under his brow with his usual intimidating stare—so they hesitated less from intimidation than from sheer exasperation.
Ippei was inwardly quite triumphant.

Before long, the students had all gathered at the base of the stone steps, noisily clamoring.
Ippei remained coldly composed,

“No matter how much you all make a fuss,” he growled, “as long as the professor hadn’t arrived today, there’s no way I’m letting you through here.”
“What’s gotten into you all today, making such a racket? Human dissection isn’t some kind of joke.”
“Even if she was a pretty girl, what’s a corpse worth? …What absurd absurdity!” he bellowed, his voice tearing through the air.

To persist in opposition here was to injure their own dignity.
With a feeling akin to cold water being dashed on their heated heads, they began to leave—one by one, then in pairs—dispersing from the spot for the time being.
Though there were indeed those who shouted “Attack!”, the proposal ultimately failed to gain traction.
The one who suffered particularly harsh treatment was the student who had been first to leap into the anatomy room and ended up knocked down.
This student now found the exit blocked by Ippei.
While fumbling about, he was finally seized by the collar by Ippei,

“Out! Out!” he thrust with his chin, roughly herding the student outside through repeated jabs and shoves.
The student turned around—a gust of wind buffeted his nose as the door slammed shut... The crash echoed sharply across the grounds.
He gnawed his lip and clenched his fist in bitter frustration, powerless to retaliate.
Wordlessly, he trailed after his companions.

From the gray sky, pale snow began to flutter down.
A north wind occasionally blew against cheeks.
Just then, one of the young staff members—who had been craning his long neck out of the office window to watch the altercation between the students and Ippei—suddenly withdrew his face,

“Snow again,” he exclaimed as though spitting the words out.

“Is that so?” he said, turning around. “I did think today’s cold felt particularly harsh.”

He spoke in a lifeless tone while stuffing his mouth with now-cold roasted meat—this being Professor Kazahaya.
He was eating his midday meal, flipping through pages of some foreign text even as he chewed.
Behind him in the stove, coal burned fiercely with a hissing sound.
The room grew so stiflingly hot upon entry that it made one flush.

“Professor Kazahaya,” said the young staff member, stepping away from the window and approaching the stove, “lately you’ve stopped eating those apples you called your ‘blood’s nourishment,’ haven’t you?”

“Well, the apple seller I usually buy from hasn’t been coming out lately, so I’ve stopped.”

“But apples are sold at shops all over town, aren’t they?” he said sarcastically.

“Well, they’re sold,” Professor Kazahaya replied with a forlorn smile.

“I don’t need to eat them… And stopping to buy something like that—the act itself is rather bothersome.”

For the typically reticent professor, this amounted to an unusually courteous explanation. With a clatter, he tossed the meat fork and knife onto the plate, then hurriedly wiped around his mouth with a gold-brocade handkerchief.

“Is that so? A remarkably simple reason, then,” the young staff member said in a provoking tone.

“Exactly. All human beings are like that.”
“Trivial reasons can trigger splendidly grand incidents.”
“For example, even the grand Imperial Diet—over a mere twenty or thirty million yen—has a bunch of grown children raising a ruckus, doesn’t it?”

he said in a thin voice, calmly and mockingly, and cast a glance at his opponent’s face. And gave a sharp shrug of his shoulders. This was a habit he often performed when feeling triumphant. Beside him stood an anatomical model—though to call it such, it was a life-sized replica created to display muscles and blood vessels—encased in a large glass box, its body slightly tilted. Thus, the protruding eyeballs appeared to be glaring at Kazahaya. Alongside this bright red anatomical model, a bleached-white skeleton stood in a perfectly upright posture. And above the front window hung a portrait of the Medical Sage Hippocrates. The portrait, due to the way the light fell, appeared strangely lonely and eerie, as if it were a ghost. Perhaps due to the weather, the room was unpleasantly dim. The snow brushed against the window, whispering, whispering in faint sounds... a lonely resonance barely perceptible to the heart.

Professor Kazahaya felt no interest in hearing this sound, nor was he moved by any poetic sentiment.
In that hollow emptiness, he abruptly stood up and began frantically searching through the bookshelves as if suddenly remembering something.
While continuing to search, he took out a gold watch from his pocket and checked it; growing increasingly restless, he repeatedly sniffed, ran his fingertips through his hair, or let out low, forced coughs as if phlegm were stuck in his throat.
Professor Kazahaya was the professor in charge of anatomy at this medical school and the one presiding over today’s cadaver dissection.
It was said he was not yet forty by two or three years, but his head was already peppered with gray, and his face had withered beyond his years.
He was lanky in stature, with absurdly long legs.
The distinguishing features of Professor Kazahaya’s appearance were wearing an old-fashioned coat in mouse-gray or light brown; perpetually bowing his head regardless of circumstance; and walking with a slight hunch at the waist—traits that had earned him the nickname “Mosquito Dragonfly” among students.
Now, Professor Kazahaya—dull in both demeanor and countenance—was such that even those closest to him had likely never heard his laughter.
That said, it wasn’t as though Professor Kazahaya refrained from showing his white teeth out of any particular solemnity.
His entire constitution was unflourishing by nature.
His face was pallid, his nose ordinary, but slightly buck-toothed.
The most striking feature of his face was his eyes—the sheer size of Professor Kazahaya’s eyes was extraordinary!
To make matters worse, they were nearsighted.
His eyes protruded unnaturally, and some had taken to calling them “crab eyes.”
His hair had grown long, so unkempt it was impossible to tell when it had last been combed.
Because it hung down over his forehead, it looked exactly like a bird’s nest.

Professor Kazahaya’s face and demeanor lacked vitality, and his actions lacked it as well.
Even when standing at the lectern—though his voice was thin—whether wiping his chalk-dusted hands on his coat or rambling on obliviously as time slipped by, his lectures were quite passionate, yet for all that, the students did not take to them.
To be fair, Professor Kazahaya had a somewhat arrogant streak; whenever he expounded on a slightly troublesome—and slightly self-satisfying—theory, he would invariably ask, “Do you understand?” in a strangely belittling manner and sweep his gaze across the students’ faces.
He swept his gaze over them, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “But if you can’t even grasp something this basic, your heads are nonsense.”
This greatly provoked the students’ ire.
Thus, while they respected his lectures, they regarded the man himself with cold sidelong glances.
Nevertheless, Professor Kazahaya’s scholarly dedication was not merely known within this small medical school but had spread widely throughout the medical community. Had he possessed even a modicum of scruples regarding reputation and academic standing, he would have swiftly obtained his doctorate.
Of course, the school too had repeatedly urged him to submit his doctoral thesis, but Professor Kazahaya would say things like, “Who’d even read a doctoral thesis if I wrote one?” and refused to engage with the matter intellectually.
From the standpoint of monist philosophy, Professor Kazahaya was an extreme extinctionist and exclusively advocated the Neo-Darwinian school’s theories.
While the general public referred to him as an anatomist, Professor Kazahaya himself asserted that so-called anatomy belonged to a category of technique rather than academic study, and that he was conducting research in biology.
In fact, that may indeed be the case.
Professor Kazahaya studied all animals—creatures... though to call them that—with great interest, from humans at the top down to earthworms.
He did not merely conduct scientific experiments.
He also engaged in philosophical contemplation.
In short, he strove to explore the essence of nature from both the physical and metaphysical realms, seeking to elucidate the meaning of human existence.
As such, Professor Kazahaya, as a natural philosopher, was known for having numerous theories.
His research was also profound.
Though Professor Kazahaya had not yet become what Mr. Haeckel termed a “ripe fruit,” he did not even publish fragments of his accumulated knowledge to the world.
He was, for the time being, a man who held himself aloof and contemplated in silence.
And when it came to both his actions and his words, it was an indisputable fact that he was a man of cold intellect.

As an anatomist, he had dissected nearly a hundred corpses thus far. If all those he had dissected were gathered together at once, they would form a splendid miniature of life—a small society, a tiny nation—where we humans might have comprehended nearly all that our ancestors bequeathed to us: hopes, desires, habits, torments, doubts, ultimate purposes, and even fate itself. Even placed upon the dissection table, it did not mean humans were reborn as something different. Just as when we left our mother’s womb, we were born with some hope and amidst a measure of joy—a lively birth. Thus their end was, just as our predecessors had done, a lonely and pitiful tragedy devoid of meaning or satisfaction. Among them were beauties who burned with love and met untimely ends; old women parched with desire who navigated a cruel world; young women who had never suckled an infant; plain-faced women who perished while flames of wrath burned in their breasts. Of course there must have been businessmen who became protagonists of grand tragedies from minor stumbles and collapsed, and kindly old men robbed of their homes by a cold world and forced into wandering lives. There must have been energetic laborers who, in their lively days, drank daily and picked fights, and young men who writhed in fanciful ambitions, clutching grand hopes and aspirations only to meet pitiful human ends by the roadside in vain. There must have been a profligate son who perished trembling from hunger and disease while recalling past glories of squandering a fortune in a single night, and a patriot who died in fury, writhing as he glared at the world with bitter eyes after being expelled from society for the ideals he upheld. Among them too were religious figures who held firm beliefs and attained serene liberation, and beggars who perished quietly like unresponsive stray dogs once their vitality ran out. These humans, each with distinct natures, circumstances, and fates, uniformly transformed into entities called “corpses” and were placed upon the dissection table as biological specimens—cold and stripped bare. To reiterate: these people were by no means transformed humans or anything of the sort. They were undoubtedly of the same species as us—humans thoroughly cunning, dreadfully pedantic, and arrogantly self-important—and had they succeeded, every last one would have donned gold-braided ceremonial robes and deemed themselves qualified to abuse horses while riding them.

However, Professor Kazahaya had never given any thought to such matters.
No matter who they might have been or what sort of people they were, neither impulse nor sensation stirred within his heart.
Naturally, he never indulged in imagining their fates, statuses, circumstances, or personal histories.
Even had it been the corpse of a noble or that of some lowborn rustic woman, he would have drawn no more distinction than between a black dog and a spotted one.
In short, they were all human corpses—he considered them destined to vanish from existence after serving as material for his dissections.
He felt neither particular transience toward those being dissected nor grief over death's misfortune.
His perception of human extinction carried no more significance than leaves falling from trees.

Now, let us assume that a certain pale student once posed such a question to Professor Kazahaya.

“Now really, these so-called anatomists commit terrible insults against humanity, don’t they? Trampling on the dignity of the dead—acting like chemists analyzing reagents or zoologists fiddling with insects.”

At this, Professor Kazahaya laughed coldly.

“That’s delusion born from Human Primate Religion and soul immortality doctrines. In those superstitious ‘truths’ of religions our ancestors spread far and wide, we humans get preached as exalted beings—so you lot imagine human spirituality or dead men’s dignity make dissection some grave insult...to the individual being dissected? But that’s mere sentiment, not reasoned thought.”
“I show corpses no particular reverence—nor do I insult them.”
“I always aim to extract maximally useful material through maximally considerate dissection.”
“That being the wielder’s obligation.”
“But suppose it were insulting the dead.”
“Then what of Christ—who indoctrinated you with human primate superstitions?...Doesn’t he call living people ‘children of sin’?”
“‘Children of sin’—plainly speaking means ‘wicked creatures’...Yet you rejoice in that grand insult while raging over an anatomist’s non-insult?”

Thereupon, one party grew agitated,

“Since Christ is the savior, he would have the right to make such insults.”

“If that’s the case, then anatomists—researchers of the universe—should have just as much right to… well, to what isn’t even an insult in the first place.”

In this manner, Professor Kazahaya would endlessly expound on the essence of humanity and assert that dissection by no means lacks propriety toward the deceased.

As for Professor Kazahaya’s attitude toward corpses placed on the dissection table, it was coldly indifferent; whether they were a well-fleshed young woman or a wrinkled old man, he showed not the slightest concern for such matters.
In his eyes, the corpse was nothing more than the form of a higher animal—a vertebrate, a true quadruped, a true mammal, and a true placental.
Just as a fishmonger cuts bonito and sea bream on a chopping board, he would bring down his scalpel upon the corpse on the dissection table.
As for his technique, it was truly splendid; with methodical precision, he would lower the scalpel above the navel.
Human blood coagulates completely once the heart ceases its activity, so not a single drop flows out.
First cutting open the abdomen, then proceeding to the thoracic cavity to expose the entirety of the viscera… Whether intestines or stomach, kidneys or bladder, lungs or heart; arteries or veins; muscles or bones; nerves or ligaments—he deftly extracted and demonstrated each part before providing necessary explanations.
Even if one argues that no blood flows out, our human internal organs are not particularly pleasant in either color or form… One understands this upon mere imagination.
Human muscles display a vivid crimson hue of beautiful coloration, yet they inherently lack any quality to impart aesthetic pleasure to us humans.
Setting logic aside—though human desires possess an animal nature that relishes beef—human emotions shudder at even a single strip of a fellow’s muscle.
Moreover, when seeing muscles intermingled with white bones in their raw state—arteries and veins exposed alongside the stomach’s substance and intestines’ squirming mess—even the most stouthearted cannot help but be struck by revulsion.
Thus those witnessing an experimental dissection for the first time generally abstain from food two or three times.
Yet Professor Kazahaya remained utterly composed—handling and extracting organs as casually as a child at play—before dissecting those very organs for demonstration.
He showed not the slightest sign of finding anything eerie nor dirty.
It was a truly astonishing skill verging on divine—through this alone could nature’s secrets be comprehended.
No matter how fervently one might argue with heated conviction about souls’ existence, when confronted with that state before their eyes, they would have no choice but to feel the Primate Religion’s counterweight grow exceedingly light.

Professor Kazahaya was not merely skilled in the art of cadaver dissection.
He was also skilled in the art of vivisection, whether due to the necessity of comparative anatomy or other requirements.
However, the state had prohibited human vivisection by law.
Therefore, the subjects for vivisection were mostly small animals—rabbits, cats, dogs, chickens, pigs, monkeys, and the like.
In this sense, it must be said that Professor Kazahaya also possessed the qualifications of a slaughterer.
Now, when someone criticized this cruel act,

“Indeed, this may be a contradictory act.”
“As for our act of attacking Christ and Christians who despise and abuse non-human animals, it may indeed be a contradictory act.”
“Though we are not Puritans, I want you to understand this.”
“Since I am human, and since humans are full of contradictions, I deliberately engage in contradictory acts.”
“However, if vivisection is cruel, then aren’t all people who eat meat cruel?”
“Moreover, was it not precisely because our predecessors made good use of living creatures through comparative anatomy that they discovered a monumental event in the universe—that human women at maturity have menstruation, and so too do female monkeys?”

he retorts.

In short, it was not only that Professor Kazahaya’s work had changed.
He as a person had changed quite remarkably and was what society would call an eccentric.
Thus he still had not taken a wife, devotedly striving to contribute to natural philosophy.
From one perspective, it must be said that he led a tasteless, dry, and utterly uninteresting life.
The house he lived in was quite spacious yet an extremely gloomy and lonely place, bearing unpleasant rumors that someone had once hanged themselves there.
There he dwelled with only a frail old cook, neither finding it lonely nor eerie.
And upon returning home, he would immediately shut himself away in his study—strewn with numerous original books—where he would read or contemplate, never wasting even five minutes idly.
To others, it was a lonely, monotonous existence.

This tasteless eccentric had unexpectedly come to perform a single act of refined taste.
This began at the start of last winter, when northern skies had already turned bitterly oppressive—from around the time when the rattle of hail became a daily occurrence.
Professor Kazahaya would carry an apple in his pocket each day and, without fail, peel and eat it during lunch.
On days of particularly biting cold, there were times he warmed it by the hearth before eating.
To say he was merely eating would hold no particular significance and be unsurprising, yet that act seemed so thoroughly pleasurable—as he ate, his entire being appeared to dissolve into a state of blissful abandon.
He was no child; for anyone else, merely savoring the taste on their tongue wouldn’t allow them to mimic such behavior.
Thereupon, this incident became known in the staff room as the “Apple Mystery.”

The biologist who probed nature’s mysteries found himself being probed by his colleagues over the “Apple Mystery.” Now, this mystery stemmed from external stimuli received by Professor Kazahaya—stimuli that wrought tremendous internal change within him. To tell the truth, since arriving in this town, Professor Kazahaya had found nothing to stir his heart: neither its biting cold nor solemn nature; neither its hundred thousand townsfolk perpetually wearing thoughtful expressions nor its houses, trees, or rivers. His heart remained neither characteristically lonely nor particularly animated. Thus reading and contemplation became his companions, sparing him any acute sense of tedium.

And then came a morning shrouded in thick fog.
Professor Kazahaya turned up his coat collar, hunched his shoulders, and left home—his long legs sheathed in boots as white breath plumed from his lips.
As was his custom, musing thoughts like *How incoherent human endeavors and contemplations tend to be*, he squelched through muddy lanes—from the sparsely traversed Yashikimachi district with its crumbling earthen walls enclosing fallow fields—through Yokocho alleyway until reaching Oodoori Avenue.
Emerging onto the main thoroughfare, the morning whistle from Yamanote’s silk mill sounded as always, unleashing the street’s peak bustle.
The clatter of vegetable carts racing to market blended with packhorse bells from nearby villages burdened with charcoal and firewood; shrill cries of fishmonger women balancing baskets on heads merged with rickshaw horns and indistinct shouts—a wretched symphony of livelihoods flooding his ears.
Simultaneously materializing through the mist—laborers, artisans, merchants, farmers, factory girls, teachers, clerks, students, even young pupils—all spectral figures with haggard faces and anxious gaits swarmed before his eyes.
Every visage showed neither vacancy nor mirth—either lost in thought or consumed by earnest striving or self-importance—each adhering to this pattern so completely that all must have harbored solemn purpose.
Through these grave processions threaded a gaunt dog sniffing the earth—pausing intermittently to peer at faces as it minced through mire—or else a grimy horse straining under crude cartloads, belly heaving like troubled waters.
Such comprised his usual morning vista along the avenue.
Yet this was humanity’s existence distilled.

At times, he was not entirely immune to being struck by slightly altered things or altered events.
A sallow-faced young man at a poultry shop twisting the neck of a flapping chicken as if to snap it off; a skinned pig hung upside down on a hook at a butcher’s stall; beef slightly dirtier than human muscles piled high on a massive chopping block in that same shop; about two still-living creatures dragging a large stone loaded onto a single large cart, followed by a crowd of laborers clamoring noisily; a rat’s corpse crushed flat as a board by a rickshaw in the street; crows cawing on rooftops; workers dangling from utility poles like monkeys to do their jobs; onlookers watching them with faces of apparent admiration—doubtless descendants of apes themselves; then dogfights and human quarrels.
A shackled prisoner; policemen flashing swords to escort him; a regimental commander astride a stout horse; grooms trailing at the horse’s rear; a monkey riding a dog; a monkey handler driving the dog onward; then a rickshaw driver wildly lashing his emaciated horse with a whip; a platoon of soldiers in tattered boots kicking up mud; an officious-looking officer herding those soldiers; a brat egging on dogs while sprinting ahead of them; wayfarers stricken with illness; wandering pilgrims; mendicant monks; leprosy patients; venereal disease carriers; madmen; snot-nosed children; squint-eyed folk; the lame; the limping; geishas; stunning beauties; ducks… To summarize: all these varied people, animals, and events flashed and flickered before his eyes and then vanished.

However, not a single one of those things stirred any response in Professor Kazahaya’s heart.
With the same detachment as one might feel watching a banner flutter in the wind or a bird soar through the sky, he coldly disregarded it all.

That morning was no exception.

The fog was thick, but the sky stretched clear; sunlight blazed brilliantly, mingling with mist to cast a resplendent glow.
He looked up at the sky several times, yet felt only winter's bite—neither the radiant light nor water vapor's ever-shifting splendor stirred his heart.
He simply noted such sights were common on mornings after early winter rains.
Before long, he found himself upon the bridge arching over the S... River that flowed through the city's eastern quarter.
This bridge's environs had grown into one of the city's vital hubs, its commotion reaching feverish intensity.
From nowhere came a fishy, ditch-mud stench—that singularly offensive odor—faintly stinging nostrils... Professor Kazahaya had once pronounced this smell humanity's fermenting miasma.

He began to cross the bridge while smelling this stench.
The current filled with cold mist gurgled and echoed... a faint sound.
Drowned out by the footsteps of many people clattering on bridge planks, it did not reach most ears.
Though leisurely yet unceasing in force, it overcame human suppression—its subtle resonance whispered against eardrums.
Professor Kazahaya unexpectedly noticed this faint resonance and wordlessly listened.
Then equally wordlessly peered at the river's surface.
The current struck bridge piers and foamed like tangled raw silk.
There too sunlight shone—pale golden light flickered faintly.
It was a clear pure stream.

Sandbars dotted the river’s surface here and there.
On them, withered reeds cast desolate shadows of decay while dust and debris had clustered together in drifts.
Two or three crows pecked at the refuse, their shadows blurred by the mist into faint floating smudges.
Along stretches of the current, dazzling light would intermittently flare… The mist hung like pale clouds crawling over the water’s surface… On the opposite bank, a young woman had descended to the water’s edge to wash clothes; facing squarely into the sunlight, droplets squeezed from her kimono glittered like crystal.
Her shadow stretched long and sharply defined upon the flowing water.
The white plaster of houses and storehouses lining both banks lay dim on one side while glaring brightly on the other, with surrounding mountains largely mantled in snow.

This radiant morning scenery too held neither meaning nor value for Professor Kazahaya.
So he mechanically swept his gaze across the vicinity and briskly completed crossing the bridge.

In any city, at the approaches to bridges, one would typically find willow trees and street lamps.
At this bridge approach too, they were present.
The willow tree had not a single leaf remaining.
Under that willow tree, a girl of fifteen or sixteen was selling apples.
The apples were arranged on planks laid over a back-basket.

It was a chance occurrence, but Professor Kazahaya unexpectedly noticed this girl.
The girl had a physique slightly stooped—as was often seen in girls from the northern regions—but was fair-skinned with thick hair and a round-faced countenance.
Slender beautiful eyebrows gave her a gentle appearance; her nose—what one might call Greek-style—was finely shaped; lips like flower petals were red; and her chin tapered like a baby’s.
Her eyes were wide with distinct double eyelids, their pupils seeming to shine with innocent hope and joy.

Professor Kazahaya found himself strangely drawn to this girl.
With his protruding eyes, he stared at the girl’s face with an almost eerie intensity as he was about to pass by, then suddenly came to a halt.
He came to a halt, frantically fumbling in his pockets as he swiftly pivoted on his heel and strode briskly to stand before the apple-selling girl.
And then,

“How about an apple?” he called out.

The girl pulled her hands out from the sleeves of her navy-blue work jacket and asked, “How many?”

she asked plainly.

“How many...” Professor Kazahaya fumbled momentarily, “One will do.”

“Just one?” she asked with an unperturbed expression, gazing at the Professor’s face. “Would you like a large one, or would you prefer a small one?”

“Give me a large one… the very largest one there is.”

“Please choose whichever you like!”

She tossed out the words, then smiled gently.
A dimple formed on one cheek.

“Well, just give me any one that looks good,” he said.

“Is that so?” the girl said, looking over the apples, then suddenly grabbed one. “These here are, well, the good ones.”

“Alright,” he nodded, and Professor Kazahaya purchased one apple.
And through this girl, he received an exceedingly strong external stimulus.

From that morning onward, the bridge approach ceased to be a meaningless place for Kazahaya.
And beginning with that morning, Kazahaya purchased the girl’s apples every day.
For some reason, the number was fixed at one.
From then on, whenever Kazahaya began to cross that bridge each morning, a soft smile would rise to his cheeks.
His spirit and mind suddenly grew restless; he began to feel as though even the murmur of the stream and the birdsong held some meaning, and it seemed as though a strangely warm breath was flowing through his cold heart.
Thus, for about three months thereafter, whenever the weather was fair, Kazahaya would see the face of the apple-selling girl there.
It wasn’t merely that seeing her face unsettled his heart; over time, as they came to exchange words, Kazahaya also learned that this girl was an unfortunate child living with her mother on the outskirts of the city.

However, starting about a week prior, the figure of this girl had unexpectedly vanished from the bridge approach.
Professor Kazahaya’s disappointment was no isolated incident; he had reverted to his former gloomy self, his heart tormented by an anguish known to none.
He regarded this torment as a kind of hereditary fever passed down from his ancestors and, steeling his will, strove to exterminate its bacillus—writhed in the effort.

＊ ＊ ＊

The time to enter the anatomy room had long since come, but Professor Kazahaya, having something to check, lingered in the staff room for a short while.
As if suddenly struck by an idea, he deftly donned his dissection gown, hurriedly exited the staff room, crossed the open area, and made for the anatomy room.
When they caught sight of his figure, the students who had been waiting erupted into even greater commotion and followed after Professor Kazahaya, noisily clamoring as they went.

The snow had cleared, the gray sky breaking with clouds as a cold sunlight shone thinly.
When it came to the snowmelt season in the northern regions, everything within sight took on the appearance of a prisoner who had been thrown into a dungeon for years suddenly being released into a liberated body.
The surroundings there were not so much desolate as bleak—not so much bleak as ghastly—exuding a kind of oppressive, gloomy power that weighed upon people.
Nature, having broken free from the gloomy winter, resembled—for instance—a post-battle army that had emerged victorious from a gruesome struggle.
There was no glory there—everything had been destroyed, left abandoned, scattered about in chaos, and still remained utterly untended.
It was a pitifully desolate scene at a glance.
To put it plainly, while the transformation of snow—this water vapor—holds beauty only when it wholly cloaks all things in nature in pure white, when it lingers unevenly on mountain ridges and rooftops or clings like bandages to the shadows of objects and behind houses, it evokes the sensation of an unsightly woman’s powder flaking off.
In short, during the snowmelt season, all of nature in the northern regions lies bandaged.
Just as a post-battle army has its wounded, disabled veterans, and fallen soldiers, so too does nature in snowmelt bear its casualties—fences lay collapsed, hedges torn apart, tree branches split and trunks snapped and toppled, chimneys crumbled, sheds and small storerooms crushed… And seeing groves and woods rendered skeletal and silent, one could not help but associate them with the remains of soldiers fallen on a battlefield.
Those groves and woods had groaned and wailed all through the night of winter’s tempests, becoming shadows of death… though the battle had ended.
The eternal force was now poised to reclaim its dominion.
And amidst the desolation, the vital force of all things sprouting seethed tumultuously within the earth’s crust.

Professor Kazahaya gazed upon those dimly lit objects and shadows and was struck by an unbearable sense of sorrow... Though even he himself could not discern the cause of this feeling, its keenness pierced deep into his chest. He yearned for a certain flower of fantasy and impulsively chased its shadow. And yet his heart was desolate! And everything that met his eyes held meaning, doubts arose, and his spirit churned restlessly.

“Haven’t I been reborn?” he shook his head and thought.

The doubt “What in the world am I?” arose… And then my feverish head suddenly felt as though it had cooled. Then, as if startled, he looked around keenly while flustered—as though he’d encountered some major incident—and his mind began churning wildly.

“What’s this?
What’s this? Why am I thinking such things... Humans are nothing but animals with no meaning or value beyond knowledge.
Human life is pure suffering—utterly hollow—yet knowledge fills that void and shatters every bond.
And so I sought knowledge relentlessly, aiming to become a being just slightly wiser than a horse; I’d made that my sole purpose and pleasure—” He stomped the bellows in vexation as—

“Why? …Why do I want to eat an apple?”
“That apple is blood’s nourishment!”
“It’s indeed blood’s nourishment—but won’t this very blood flowing through vessels soon heighten human torment?”

Before he knew it, he had somehow strayed slightly from the entrance of the anatomy room toward the side—walking dazedly in the direction that would lead into a mixed grove of oak and zelkova if continued straight ahead—as though he were someone who had lost all spirit.
Ippei, thrusting his peculiar face out from the anatomy room window, gazed curiously at Professor Kazahaya’s figure.
The students, generally paying little heed to such matters, entered the anatomy room indifferently.

In places untouched by human feet, snow lingered longest in melting away.
Professor Kazahaya had unwittingly reached an area where thinning snow still clung in patches.
He stepped into it without hesitation—when his foot sank down, a desolate crunching sound arose…… Abruptly, he pricked up his ears and listened intently.
A gust of wind swept up, making the forest quiver as if startled—rustling and shuddering…… Though called an east wind, it still carried the taste of snow, striking Kazahaya’s cheek like a frigid hand slapping him.
Professor Kazahaya instinctively hunched his neck and snapped back to awareness.
He tried to turn back in haste, pivoting forcefully on his heel… then, as if startled by something, leapt up slightly before scrambling aside in alarm and whirling around.

There lay the corpse of a tabby cat.
Its eyes were wide open, legs braced and teeth bared, but its fur and skin had already turned sticky and were half-rotted.
It appeared to have been buried under the snow since last year, with a straw rope entangled around its neck.

At a single glance, Professor Kazahaya stiffened in shock.
And he thought.

“Even this cat was once loved by someone—pounced on a mouse and growled… hm hm hm,” he laughed coldly and meaninglessly,

"But by some mere chance, it ended up like this... That's just coincidence."
"No—it must absolutely be coincidence."
"The rise and fall of all living things are ruled by coincidence, weaving countless destinies... That I'm thinking such strange thoughts is coincidence too—even this chance to come to think them is coincidence."
"Even if I dropped dead here right now—that too would be coincidence!..."

Having thought this through, he suddenly looked toward the anatomy room.
Cold sunlight pierced the broken glass panes, casting a dull coppery gleam.
Ippei still leaned out the window, staring at Professor Kazahaya with an ironic smile hovering on his lips.

Kazahaya saw this and muttered, “Ippei?”
No—what a brutal bastard.
If you paid him enough, he’d even dissect his own wife.
But for academia, such creatures are necessary.
“As an individual he’s an unthinking beast driven by instinct—yet his work excels… At minimum, he’s indispensable to this school.”

And so he entered the anatomy room.

How cold the anatomy room’s air was!
The dissection table—it was shaped like a large rectangular tea tray with rounded corners, smooth and glossy.
With a mirror-like black lacquer finish, its height precisely that of a table.
On the dissection table lay all the instruments and chemicals necessary for the procedure: bottles of alcohol and carbolic acid, tweezers, saws, scissors, scalpels, and more.
On the dissection table lay the corpse of the girl to be dissected, still covered with a white cloth.
The students stood surrounding the dissection table; the two assistants had finished their preparations and were leaning against chairs, catching their breath.

Into this scene, Professor Kazahaya slowly entered.

He immediately stood by the dissection table.
Ippei stepped closer and removed the white cloth…… The sunlight streaming through the ceiling skylight brightly illuminated the girl’s corpse…… Just the sight of that pure white skin!
Full breasts, taut shoulders and hips—how beautifully formed the flesh must have been.
The girl had died after suffering from peritonitis for about a week, so there had been no extreme emaciation.
The flesh had not wasted away either.
Thick, beautiful hair was neatly arranged, and the eyes were tightly closed.
The eyelids, hairline, and area around the nose bore the so-called hue of death—slightly bluish—and though the lips had lost their color, that beautiful face seemed to sleep in lonely repose.
The slightly exposed teeth strangely pierced one’s heart, yet even this bore no mark of sorrow or hardship.
Both legs stretched perfectly straight, one hand half-clenched upon the chest, the other open and fallen at the side.
Had one suddenly caught sight of this corpse, none could have thought it anything but resting peacefully and serenely.

The room had fallen utterly silent.

The moment Professor Kazahaya saw the corpse’s face, his complexion changed—eyes widening, breath catching—neither speaking nor moving a muscle.
With one hand’s fingertips still resting on the corpse’s abdomen, he stood rigid as stone.
Several minutes passed thus.
The wind blew ceaselessly inward; glass doors clattered like something convulsing… His fingertips began trembling.
Then he abruptly stepped back from the dissection table, staggering.
Wildly pressing his hands to his head, shaking it again and again, he wandered unsteadily about the space.
……Just when it seemed—

“I… for some reason, my head has become unwell…”

Having declared this with a deathly pale face, he cast one sweeping glance around the room and briskly exited the anatomy room.
The corpse of the girl laid upon the dissection table was that of the apple-selling girl.

The assistants and students were taken aback, exchanging glances with each other as they conjectured that he had probably suffered an attack of cerebral anemia.

(March 1907 [Meiji 40], *Chūō Kōron*)