Pathway to Japanese Literature

Flies crawling feebly. Flies that do not flee even when a finger approaches. And just when you think they can’t fly—they do. Where on earth do they lose that summer unruliness, that detestable nimbleness? Their color dulls to a murky shade; their wings and bodies shrivel. The abdomens that once swelled with filthy viscera wither into something like twisted paper strands. There they lie—withered and shrunken—crawling across bedding we would never think to notice.

From winter to early spring, people must have seen such flies more than once. Those are winter flies.

I am now trying to write a short story about them—those who had inhabited my room this winter.

1

When winter came, I began sunbathing. Because it was a hot spring inn nestled in a mountain valley, sunlight faded easily. The valley's scenery remained clear in the shade until late morning. Finally, around ten o'clock, the sunlight that had been dammed up by the mountains across the valley began glittering through my window. When I opened the window and looked up, specks of light from horseflies and bees darted busily about in the valley’s sky. White-glowing spider threads swelled into arcs, countless strands flowing onward. (What tiny celestial maidens upon those threads! For spiders were riding there. They seemed to transport their bodies from this bank of the stream to the other in such a manner.) Insects. Insects. Even in early winter, their activity seemed to weave through the sky. The sunlight began tinging the oak treetops. Then from those treetops rose something like white water vapor. Was the frost melting? Was the melted frost evaporating? No—that too was insects. Particle-like winged insects swarmed in such a manner. Then sunlight struck there.

I exposed my half-naked body within the flung-open window and gazed at the valley’s sky—as bustling as an inner bay. Then they came. They came from the ceiling of my room. In the shade they had moved feebly, but the moment they descended into the sunlight, they sprang back to life as if revived. They landed chillingly on my shins, lifted both legs as if scratching under their armpits, rubbed their hands together, then weakly took flight only to become entangled with one another. Watching them like this, I understood all too pitifully how desperately they craved the sunlight. In any case, it was only in the sunlight that they put on such a playful display. Moreover, they did not take a single step out of the sunlight while the window remained open. They played in the shifting sunlight until it faded. Despite the horseflies and bees bustling about so vigorously in the open air outside, they never attempted to fly out, instead mimicking me—a patient—for some reason. But what a “will to live” this was! In the sunlight, they did not forget to mate. They who were likely not far from withering death!

When sunbathing, observing them by my side had become part of my daily routine. Out of faint curiosity and a certain familiarity, I did not kill them. Nor did any fierce fly-catching spiders come as they had in summer. It could be said they were safe from such external enemies. Yet about two of them would disappear each day. The reason was none other than this: The milk bottle. I would leave my half-drunk bottle sitting in the sunlight. Then without fail each day, some would get trapped inside. They would climb up the inner surface, dragging milk that clung to their bodies, but being powerless, inevitably fell midway. I would sometimes watch this, and around the time I thought, "They should fall soon," the flies too would stop moving as if thinking, "Ah, I'm about to fall." And sure enough, they fell. Watching this was not entirely free of cruelty. Yet no desire to help them arose from my weariness. They were taken away by the maid as they lay. I couldn't even manage the simple precaution of replacing the lid. When the next day came, one by one they entered and repeated the same process.

“The Man Sunbathing with Flies”

At this moment, such images must be floating before your eyes. Having written of sunbathing, I shall now proceed to write another image: "The Man Who Sunbathes While Hating the Sun."

My stay reached its second winter that year. It wasn’t as if I had come to this mountainous region by choice. I wanted to return to the city soon. Yet despite wanting to return, I ended up staying through two winters. No matter how much time passed, my "fatigue" never released me. Every time I conjured up images of the city, my "fatigue" would paint cities brimming with despair. It remained unchanged, no matter how much time passed. And the date I had initially resolved to return to the city had long since passed, leaving now not even a trace of its existence. Even when basking in the sun—no, particularly when basking in it—I could think of nothing but hating the sun. In the end, the sun that would not sustain me. Moreover, the sun that tried to deceive me with an entrancing illusion of life. Oh, my sun. I found the sun as irritating as some slovenly affection. What resembled a fur coat instead constricted me like a straitjacket. With a madman’s anguish, I tore at it, desperately desiring the freedom within the bitter cold that would kill me.

These emotions undoubtedly stemmed from the physiological changes undergone by the body during sunbathing—the heightened blood circulation, the consequent numbing of the brain—all harbored within such phenomena. The pleasure that softened sharp sorrow and warmed the heart with its glowing comfort was simultaneously an oppressive discomfort. This discomfort—with its indescribable nihilistic fatigue following sunbathing—overwhelmed me as a patient. Perhaps it was from this aversion that my hatred had been conceived.

However, my hatred was not only rooted in that; it was also formed upon the effects the sun imparted to the scenery—the effects perceived through vision.

When I was last in the city—it was shortly after the winter solstice—I felt boundless affection for the shadows that daily receded from the view outside my window. I gazed at the shadows encroaching upon the scenery with emotions of regret and irritation welling up like ink. And driven by the anguish of trying to see the sunset, I wandered frantically through the impenetrable city. In my present self, there was no longer any such affection. I am not denying the happy feelings symbolized by sunlit scenery. That happiness now wounds me. I hate that.

On the other side of the valley, a cedar forest covered the mountainside. I always felt the deceit of the sun’s rays in that cedar forest. When the daytime sun shone upon it, it appeared merely as a disorderly accumulation of cedar treetops. When evening came and the light transformed into reflected rays from the sky, it began to separate into clear foreground and background. Each tree began to exude an inviolable dignity, stood solemnly in rows, and grew still. And regions that went unnoticed during the day began to take shape here and there among the cedar treetops. On the valley side, among evergreen oaks and chinquapins, stood a single deciduous tree, its bare branches hanging with crimson fruits. That color appeared weary during the day, as if dusted with white powder. When evening came, that sharpened into an eye-gripping vividness. It is not that a single color is inherently assigned to each object by nature. Therefore, I do not call even that a deception. However, direct sunlight has a bias, disrupting the color of an object from the proper gradation with its surroundings. But that was not all. There is total reflection. The shade, in contrast to the sunlit surface, became like darkness. What a chaotic muddle this was! And all these things are what create the sunlit scenery. There is a relaxation of emotions, a numbing of nerves, and a deception of reason. This is the substance of the happiness it symbolizes. As if the happiness of the world is conditioned upon those things.

I had come to await evenings that coldly settled the valley—the solemn ordinance of twilight that tarried but briefly on earth. It was reflected light descending from the sky after the sun had quit the land, bleaching white the puddles on the road. Though people might find no happiness there, here was a landscape that cleansed my eyes and pierced my mind through.

“Vulgar sun! Disappear already— No matter how much you lavish affection on the scenery and revive those winter flies, you’ll never make a fool of me! I spit on your disciples—those plein-airists! Next time I see that doctor, I’ll lodge my protest!”

While basking in the sun, my hatred gradually intensified. But what a 'will to live' this was. In the sunlit patches, they never relinquished their revelry. The ones inside the bottle eternally climbed only to fall, climbed only to fall. Before long, the sun began to dim. It hid behind the tall chinquapin tree. The direct rays shifted into unwelcoming diffracted light. Their shadows and the shadow of my shin alike took on a strange vividness. And I would put on my padded robe and set about closing the glass window.

In the afternoons, I would make it a point to read. They came there again. They would cling to the book I was reading, and whenever I turned a page, their bodies would get caught. To such an extent were they slow to escape. If their sluggishness in escaping were the only issue, it might have been tolerable, but under the slight weight of the paper, they would end up on their backs and have to flail about as if pinned by a roof beam. I had no will to kill them. And so at such times—especially during meals—their sluggishness became a nuisance instead. When they came to land on the food on the dining tray, I had to move my chasing chopsticks with deliberate slowness. Otherwise, there was no telling whether they might end up messily crushed by the tips of my chopsticks. But even so, there were still some that would get flicked by them and fall into the soup.

The last time I saw them was at night, when I got into bed. They were all stuck to the ceiling. Motionless, they clung as if dead. Even when these frail creatures frolicked in sunlight, there lingered a sense that dead flies had resurrected themselves to play. Flies that had been dead for days—their innards dried out—would often lie covered in dust, yet such beings would lumber back to life and resume their antics. No—indeed, such imaginings that "this might actually be possible" were fully justified by their very appearance. And now those same creatures perched motionless on the ceiling. They truly appeared dead.

As I gazed down from my pillow at these illusion-resembling creatures before sleep, a desolate midnight atmosphere would always seep into my chest.

The inn in the winter-stripped valley had nights when no other guests stayed besides me. All such rooms had their lights turned off. And as night deepened, it summoned a sensation of lodging in ruins. My eyes conjured a single scene of terrifying vividness within those desolate imaginings. That was the streamside bath which, late into the night, emitted the scent of the sea while causing clear water to overflow. And that scene increasingly heightened my sense of dwelling in ruins.—Gazing at them on the ceiling, my heart perceived such late-night hours. My heart spread out into midnight’s depths. And within that void—my room, the only one still awake.—My room, where they clung to the ceiling in deathlike stillness, returned to me bearing solitary emotion.

The fire in the brazier began to wane, and the steam that had been moistening the glass window gradually faded from the top down. I watched melancholy patterns resembling fish roe emerge from within it—patterns formed by water vapor from that first winter which had similarly vanished long ago. In the corner of the tokonoma alcove lay several empty medicine bottles thinly dusted with grime. What weariness there was! What stagnation! Was my sickly gloom not even sustaining these winter flies—creatures that likely inhabited no other rooms? When would anyone ever take notice of such things?

When my mind got caught on such things, I was always plagued by insomnia. When sleep eluded me, I would conjure images of warship launchings. Next, I would recall each poem from the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu one by one and would ponder their meanings. And finally, I would fantasize about every conceivable cruel method of suicide, attempting through their accumulation to lure myself into sleep.

In the desolate room of an inn in the mountain stream valley. In the desolate room of an inn in the mountain stream valley where they clung to the ceiling, stuck motionless as if dead. ——

2

The day was clear and warm. In the afternoon, I went to the village post office to mail a letter. I was tired. Then, having descended to the valley, the thought of returning to my inn—still requiring a walk of three or four blocks—was utterly tedious. Just then, a shared taxi passed by. When I saw that, I abruptly raised my hand. And so I boarded it.

The taxi declared itself through distinctive features that set it apart even among its fellow vehicles traversing the village road. The dark canopy under which all passengers’ eyes uniformly stared ahead; the mudguard; the luggage spilling even onto the steps, bound to the vehicle with hemp ropes—through such conspicuous features, one could tell at a glance that this was a car destined to traverse a three-ri ascent and three-ri descent over the mountain pass, journeying eleven ri to the port at the southern tip of the peninsula. I ended up boarding it. And yet, what an incongruous passenger I must have been. I was nothing more than a person who had merely come to the village post office and grown tired.

The sun had already sunk low. I felt nothing. There was only the soothing sway of the taxi gradually dispersing my fatigue. Around the time when villagers were returning from the mountains carrying their nets, familiar faces repeatedly steered clear of the automobile. Each time this happened, I gradually began taking interest in this "suspended will." And this in turn transformed my fatigue into something altogether different. Eventually I ceased encountering those villagers altogether. The natural forest wheeled past. The setting sun emerged. The sound of the stream grew distant. Ancient cedar colonnades stretched onward. Cold mountain air seeped inward. Like a witch straddling her broomstick, the car bore me into lofty skies. Where on earth was this journey heading?

When I emerged from the mountain pass tunnel, I was already in the southern part of the peninsula. To return to my village or go to the next hot spring meant a three-ri downhill path either way. When I arrived there, I finally stopped the taxi. And I descended into the twilight-clad mountains. What for? My fatigue knew why. I felt a satisfying sneer at having abandoned my spineless self in those remote mountains.

Jays burst forth from nearby again and again, startling me. The road wound through dim valley folds; no vista opened no matter how far I went. If night fell like this—the thought filled my heart with desolation. The jays kept erupting from cover, creeping along leafless zelkova and oak branches as they crossed, looming large and threatening when seen up close. At last the valley revealed itself. A distant gorge where cedars clustered thick as cells! What a monstrous chasm it was! In far haze hung a tiny motionless waterfall—soundless, waterless. At the vertiginous bottom lay a log-built sled road gleaming cold and stark. The sun had settled behind the opposite ridge. A silence like slapped water now ruled this valley. Nothing stirred, nothing sounded. That hush made the view—already dreamlike enough to doubt one’s eyes—seem more mirage than earth.

"What an extravagant desolation it would be to sit here like this until nightfall," I thought. "At the inn, preparations for dinner waited unaware. "And I don't know what will become of me tonight."

I pictured the gloomy room I had abandoned. There, I would invariably suffer from fever come evening. I crawled into bed, clothes and all. And yet I was still cold. Trembling with chills, my autumn-chilled mind repeatedly conjured images of the bathtub. "How good it would feel to soak there." And I became myself walking down the stairs toward the bathtub. But in that imagined scene, I never removed my clothes. I ended up entering it clothes and all. Within my body—there was no support. I sank down bubbling and sprawled at the bottom of the tub like a drowned corpse. It was always that same vision, without fail. And I lay in bed waiting for the chills to recede like the tide.—

The surroundings gradually darkened. Leaving behind a watery light after sunset, stars sharpened into clarity within the purified sky. Between my frozen fingers, the cigarette's glow began coloring itself in dusk's embrace. This fire's hue stood utterly solitary amidst desolate expanses—not another lamp visible as the valley surrendered to twilight's advance. Cold seeped through my body, invading recesses untouched by ordinary chill; hands buried in pockets proved useless against its conquests. Yet through this darkness and frost, I sensed new courage awakening. Without conscious intent, I'd committed myself to walk three ri toward distant hot springs. Something akin to despair—crowding, insistent—nurtured cruel desires within my heart. Once fatigue transformed thus, I became its eternal victim until the bitter end. When full darkness fell and I finally rose, emotions wholly unlike those from sunlit hours now armored me.

I started walking through the frozen mountain air, parting the darkness. My body didn’t warm up in the slightest. At times, even so, I could feel air lightly brushing past my cheeks. At first, I thought it was due to my fever, or perhaps a physical disturbance arising from the extreme cold. However, as I walked on, I gradually came to understand that this was likely because the lingering warmth of the daytime sun still remained patchily upon the path. Then, within the frozen darkness, I began to perceive the daytime sunlight with vivid clarity. Even the darkness—utterly devoid of any lamp—stirred a peculiar emotion within me. That it was a light being lit—or under the light’s glow—was sufficient to make us civilized beings believe that we only come to understand night through such means. Despite the pitch-dark darkness, I felt as though it were the same as daytime. The starry sky was a deep blue. The way I discerned the path was no different from how I did so in daylight. The lingering warmth of daytime suffusing the path only intensified that sensation.

Suddenly, a wind-like sound arose from behind me. Into the swiftly streaming light, the pebbles on the road cast tooth-like shadows. A single automobile drove past without paying me the slightest heed as I moved aside. For a while, I remained dazed. The automobile eventually reappeared on the road beyond after rounding the valley's folds. Yet it seemed less like a vehicle in motion than some great darkness crowned with headlights surging forward endlessly. When it vanished like a dream, the surroundings were again enveloped in frigid darkness, and I—now hungry—trod the path overflowing with dark passion.

"What a bitterly despairing landscape this was," I walked through surroundings that embodied my very fate. This was the true form of my heart—here I felt none of the falsehood I experienced beneath sunlight’s glare. My nerves strained toward the dark path ahead; now I sensed resolute will coursing through me. What exquisite pleasure this brought! Darkness like divine retribution—cold so fierce it split the skin— and within its embrace alone did my fatigue grow taut with pleasure, birthing fresh tremors through my being: Walk. Walk. Walk until you collapse.

I lashed myself with cruel intensity. Walk. Walk. Walk yourself to death.

Late that night, I stood my exhausted body before the wharf at the southern tip of the peninsula. I was drinking alcohol. But my heart remained heavy, and I wasn’t the least bit drunk. Mingling with the strong scent of the tide, the smell of asphalt and oil hung thickly in the air. The mooring ropes creaked like a ship’s slumbering breath, while the quiet lapping of waves against the hull—as if to lull them to sleep—could be heard across the dark water surface.

“Is Mr. XX here?”

A woman’s coquettish voice had been calling out from the shore for some time, rupturing the quiet air. From the direction of a hundred-ton steamship that drowsily bore a dim lamplight, an unseen voice responded indistinctly. It was an imposing bus.

“So he’s not here, huh... As for Mr. XX...” That seemed like a woman who plied her charms with seamen at this port. I strained my ears toward the bus’s response as though it were someone else’s affair, but only the same vague words kept reverberating in that dull tone, until at last the woman appeared to resign herself and vanished.

While facing the quiet, sleeping harbor, I recalled that eventful night. The mountain path that refused to end no matter how far I walked—though I was certain I'd covered three ri long ago; the power plant that first appeared in the valley; the two or three lanterns that later came into view winding along the valley floor, exchanging quiet nocturnal greetings; my conviction that these must be villagers' lights heading to the hot spring, which surely lay just ahead—a belief that revived my spirits only to be splendidly betrayed; the peculiar relief when I finally reached the hot spring and warmed my frozen, exhausted limbs in the communal bath crowded with villagers—truly, these experiences were so abundant for a single night's recollection that they deserved to be called reminiscences. And that wasn't all. Having barely filled my stomach with no regard for others' feelings, my unfulfilled cruel desire once again commanded me to take to the night road. I had to walk another two ri to a hot spring whose very name was unfamiliar to me, guided by nothing but uncertain conjecture. On that road I finally became lost; when I crouched in despair within the darkness, a late-night automobile happened to pass by, and with great difficulty I managed to hail it, changing my plans to come to this port town. Then where did I go? As if guided by some instinct for such places, I found myself emerging into the row of brothels lining the canal. Boatmen who looked draped in seaweed had gathered in numbers and were staggering about while teasing a woman with white-painted makeup. I circled the same path twice before finally entering one house. I poured hot alcohol into my weary body. Yet I didn't get drunk. The woman who came to serve drinks talked about mackerel boats. She was a sturdy, healthy-looking woman whose robustness matched that of a sailor. One of them propositioned me for sex. I paid the money, asked about the port's location, and went outside.

While gazing at the slowly flickering light of the rotating lighthouse offshore nearby, I felt the end of a night as long as a picture scroll. The sound of hulls brushing against each other, the creak of taut mooring ropes, the drowsy-looking ship lights—all lay dark and quiet and intimate, inviting a tender melancholy. Should I search for lodging somewhere, or should I return to the woman now? Whichever it might be, my heart filled with violent hatred exhausted itself at this port’s wharf. For a long time I stood there. I had been staring into the dark of the quiet sea until something like an unwelcome drowsiness began to lure my mind.—

I extended my return by three days at hot springs near that port, centering myself around it. The bright southern sea’s colors and smells struck me as harsh and crude. What’s more, the vulgar, dingy plain’s vista soon exhausted me. I came to understand how my village’s scenery—where mountains and valleys jostled without room for rest or tranquil hopes—had ingrained itself into my very being. And three days later, I returned to my village to seal my heart anew.

3

For days on end, I had to keep my ailing body in bed. I myself harbored no particular regret, but I could think only of how gloomy and offended each of my acquaintances would surely become upon hearing of such things.

Then one day, I suddenly noticed there wasn’t a single fly left in my room. This shocked me thoroughly. I thought: During my absence, perhaps no one had opened the windows to let sunlight in or lit fires to warm the room while they died from the cold. That seemed entirely plausible. They had lived by making my quiet life’s residual virtue their survival condition. And during the time I fled my stifling room and tormented myself, they had truly perished from cold and starvation. I felt a lingering melancholy over this. This wasn’t because I mourned their deaths, but because I sensed I too was bound by some capricious condition that sustained my life yet would someday destroy it. I imagined seeing its broad back. This was a new fantasy—one that wounded my self-esteem. And through this fantasy, I felt my life growing ever more gloomy.