Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Sasaki Toshirō

1

Cities customarily develop and expand through four distinct stages.
The port city first extends its tentacles toward the coast—toward the vacant land along the shore.
Even a small rural town—if a single river flows there—spreads out toward the water, toward one riverbank after another.
And when not even a postage stamp-sized patch of vacant land remains along the water’s edge, it enters its second stage—extending its tentacles over farmland toward the suburbs.
As long as its mechanisms permit, it spreads endlessly onward and onward.
However, up to this point, it was nothing more than expansion.
When it could spread no further, true expansion began.
First, to the sky!
Every last building reaches skyward.
Upper structures rise in rows.
Sunless streets stretch on.
When the sun ceases to shine upon the streets, the fourth stage of development sees the underground city readily taking form.
Underground factories!
Underground dwellings!
And the fifth stage?
That was no longer a stage demonstrating urban expansion and development, but rather a new starting point signifying the conflict between underground and surface.

Above areas once occupied by consumers, producers first flooded in, their zones swelling outward.

Tokyo now trod this second-stage path, sprawling toward western suburbs' farmlands while spawning legions of unemployed.
Through comings and goings of those fleeing society's fateful compact, streets became gripped by flood-like congestion from dawn till midnight.
Above all, the entire stretch from Shinjuku Station to Shiochō saw its crowd-crush intensify daily.

When Uhei thought about having to rush through this throng every morning, he felt a tension that reached to the very marrow of his bones.
That human tide spewed forth like a flood from Shinjuku Station’s entrance, scattering in all directions!
And the city tram.
An olive-green municipal bus.
A water-blue municipal bus.
Countless round-roofed taxis darted and wove through the gaps like bean weevils.

Sandwiched between trucks and bicycles, jostled by the crowd as he hauled his heavy cart with shuffling steps, Uhei perceived himself as a fragment of wood caught in a torrent—tossed up and down in the whirlpools, swept helplessly onward.

Uhei pushed through this flood-like throng each morning, hauling his vegetable-laden cart to Kanda’s vegetable market.

2

The blue bus began slowing with its engine roaring.
Two or three taxis got stuck behind.
The truck halted.
Uhei caught the gust of wind and felt his heavy cart might topple.
The old man truly staggered two stumbling steps.

"What's got into this damn place!"

Dragging his cart toward the cobbled road, the old man bellowed.

Trucks, municipal buses and taxis had backed up from the intersection twenty ken ahead—about thirty-six meters.
There, the crowd stood packed tight as a pitch-black fence.

“What’s happening here?”
“Just some damn festival commotion!”

The old man shouted once more and, weaving between the stationary cars there, finally managed to push forward.
Because the vegetable market’s entry deadline was approaching, the old man couldn’t afford to be careless.

“What’s going on here? Is some big shot passing through here?”

When he finally reached the back of the crowd, Uhei grabbed one of the students standing at the very rear and demanded answers.

“That’s not it. They’ve apparently invited moving picture actors here today. So everyone’s gathered like this waiting for them to arrive.”

“Moving picture actors—you mean movie actors?”

“Yes, and they say some famous foreign movie stars might come too...”

“Either way, so it ain’t anythin’ worth fussin’ over, huh? I thought it was some big shot passin’ through… No—actors? What the hell, they’re just entertainers, ain’t they? Well then—”

The old man muttered this and tried to break through the human wall.
But that was no easy task.
The human wall had formed layer upon layer, spilling out into the street from in front of the massive department store that loomed over the intersection corner, its structure blotting out the sky.
Across the street stood an equally massive department store that had just been completed, and since its grand opening sale was today, this one was determined not to lose out in attracting customers.
The entire building was wrapped in illuminations, and in its display windows, numerous large photographs of Cinema Masters scheduled to appear had been posted.
And depending on circumstances, the fact that a certain foreign film actor currently visiting Japan was also supposed to make an appearance had become the focal point of the crowd’s rumors.
Moreover, the department stores were holding discount sales on an unprecedented scale, and on top of that had added various premiums.
The crowd had flocked to the department store’s marketing tactics like ants swarming toward a lump of sugar thrown from a window.

However, the old man absolutely had to break through there.
And if he went around to the very back of the crowd, there was a way through after all.

“Hey, hey, make way a bit there!”

The old man said this and tried to push people aside with his cart’s shaft.

“Hey! Watch out! You senile old fool!”

“What kind of idiot brings a cart through here?!”

Even while hurling abuse, the crowd gradually made way for the old man. He was desperate. No matter what insults were thrown his way, he didn’t respond, steering his cart toward every thinning gap in the human wall.

“Hey you! You can’t drag that cart through here! Can’t you see this?”

A police officer with a pale-striped armband barked. The intersection’s GO-STOP signal now showed its STOP panel, blocking all traffic.

“Don’t you realize you’re causing trouble for others?”

But Uhei couldn’t simply stop there.
To stop now would mean stopping his entire livelihood.
If he arrived late today and failed to enter the vegetable market, that alone would wipe out what little capital he had left.
The old man grew frantic.
Yet he couldn’t tell how long this STOP signal would last for the crowd waiting patiently for movie stars.
Moreover, having come this far, there wasn’t a single detour left around the obstruction.
Even without this delay, time was already running short.
The old man resolved to push through.
He had no leisure to ponder what consequences awaited him.
Trying to slip past the officer’s notice, he broke into a run still hauling his cart.

“Hey! Hey!”

“Brave warrior! Hang in there!”

The crowd erupted in shouts.
Then a section of the crowd gave way.
The crowd roared with laughter!
They jeered!
They screamed!

“Hey, you!
Stop!”

The police officer rushed over and grabbed the old man’s arm.

“Don’t you understand when I say it’s forbidden?”
“Come here!”

“Sir!
“The time to enter the market is running out…”

“I said get over here!”
“Get over here!”

And, making him keep pulling the cart, the police officer dragged the old man into the side street.
The crowd surged after them like an avalanche.

3

The cart and the vegetables loaded on it were Uhei’s entire capital.
At the same time, it could well be said to be the old man’s entire fortune.
Today, if he could not haul those vegetables to Kanda Vegetable Market, Uhei’s entire capital would be wiped out.
At the same time, the old man’s livelihood was also completely severed there.

As the city expanded, the ownership value of suburban agricultural areas soared so violently that suburban landowners seized those lands from tenant farmers and offered them to city dwellers as residential areas.
And thus, Uhei was cast into the ranks of the rural unemployed through the disparity between cultivation value and ownership value.
Until then, Uhei had farmed a small tenant plot while hiring himself out to farmers within the settlement, but as croplands turned into housing districts, those who would employ him gradually dwindled.
The tenant plots were confiscated, leaving Uhei completely stripped of any means to sustain his livelihood.

What Uhei came up with was sending his only daughter, Tsuru, into service.
That was the only idea Uhei and his daughter Tsuru could come up with to keep both of them from starving.
Uhei’s idea—this notion of sending his daughter into service—had come to him as if recalling the one remaining item left unsold: Tsuru herself.
Uhei obtained an advance payment and sent Tsuru to work as a maid at a boarding house in Tokyo.
And so, he scrounged for day labor jobs, supplementing the remittances from his daughter to barely eke out a living.

However, his daughter Tsuru ended up returning in just over half a year.
Uhei was terribly shocked.
Tsuru had been pregnant.
Uhei found himself utterly at a loss regarding their life.
But she had received a modest sum of money from the man involved as consolation for the pregnancy.
Uhei had to use that money as capital and rouse himself once more for his and his daughter’s livelihood.

The money Tsuru had brought was just enough for purchasing a single cart and the vegetables required to fully load it. Uhei bought an old cart, gathered vegetables from nearby farmers, and resolved to haul them to Kanda Vegetable Market every morning. If they allocated that day’s earnings to the next day’s vegetable costs and living expenses—then from the subsequent day’s earnings set aside funds for the following purchase and expenses, repeating this cycle—their lives would somehow be maintained for the time being.

However, the vegetable market had strictly regulated entry times. Missing them meant disaster—it would force him to abandon his entire cartload of vegetables. This wasn’t merely about disrupting cash flow; it meant their complete annihilation. Seasoned vendors had therefore prepared multiple alternate routes. If traffic blocked the first path, they switched to the second; should accidents obstruct even that, they moved to the third. Through such flexible adaptations, they had devised strategies to never miss the market’s unforgiving deadline.

But Uhei had made no such preparations yet.
The old man could only rely on sheer effort to push forward.
It was because he had just begun and knew nothing.
Moreover, his situation was far more dire than others'.
If traffic obstructions made him late this time, his livelihood would be smashed flat.

4

When Uhei was released from police custody the following day, the vegetables on his cart had been completely wilted by the scorching late summer sun.
However, the old man couldn’t bring himself to simply discard them.
The old man hauled the rust-browned vegetables with feeble strength and returned to his home.

The next day, it rained.
However, Uhei hauled those rust-colored vegetables and set out for the vegetable market.
But due to the recession persisting since summer, fresh produce overflowed at the vegetable market.
There was no chance Uhei’s vegetables—sun-baked for two days and rusted through—would sell.
The old man gave up.
Clutching coins that didn’t even cover his day’s labor, Uhei had to return home.

“Haul a whole cartload there… doesn’t even pay for the work…”

However, there was nothing he could do about it.
Moreover, though Uhei had only been detained for a single night, getting caught in the rain immediately afterward had severely damaged his health.
Moreover, even if his health had not been damaged, the old man had no choice but to lie down.
Now that the single cartload of vegetables that had been his only capital had all rotted away, he could no longer do anything about procuring the next batch.

Uhei lived out his days lying in the dim hut.
At first it had been a slight fever resembling a cold; with nothing else to do but rest, he had burrowed into bed.
This condition gradually worsened.
Meanwhile, Tsuru's belly had swollen terribly.
In their cellar-like hut, the ailing father and daughter reached a point where they could do nothing more.
The money from selling that single cart barely sustained their lives.

5

However, Uhei’s condition continued to worsen relentlessly.
The old man felt the urge to defecate repeatedly.
And he kept groaning beneath the tattered bedding.
At first he had been able to make it to the toilet himself, but now even that became impossible.
Tsuru had to clean up after him each time.

“Tsuru!”
“Ain’t right… ain’t right…”

Uhei kept groaning those words.

“Ain’t no use sayin’ you’re sorry—won’t change a damn thing.”

Tsuru said this not from any desire to encourage, but with a feeling of shutting her eyes.

“Father! Should I try to get a doctor somehow? Or maybe I could ask someone to have you admitted to an isolation hospital instead? What do you think?”

“I’m sufferin’ so bad—can’t even get to no isolation hospital or nothin’. Just give me a cup of water instead.”

Uhei, her father, said this and continued to groan.

Just as her father Uhei was suffering in such agony, Tsuru was struck by violent abdominal pain. Labor pains.

“Father! My stomach’s startin’ to hurt too. Ugh—it’s really hurtin’ now. Might’ve caught your sickness or somethin’.”

But the old man kept groaning and gave no answer.

“Father!
“It hurts.”
“Ugh, it hurts.”

She screamed and thrashed about.
Vision began to blur.
Consciousness grew unclear.
She felt herself falling into a deep abyss.

“Come here!
Come here!”

From far, far away, she felt as though such a voice was reaching her.
However, she soon lost consciousness entirely.

It was the next morning when Tsuru awoke from her deep sleep.
At her feet, the baby was crying incessantly.
Perhaps because of that, she couldn’t hear Father’s groans.
She tried to move toward the baby but found herself unable to do even that.

“Father!”

She tried to call out to her father as loudly as possible, but with no strength in her abdomen, no voice came out.

Tsuru had no choice but to remain still.
She tried to listen for her father’s groans.
Yet there was only the baby’s incessant crying.
As she kept thinking how annoying, how utterly annoying the wailing was, she began drifting in and out of consciousness again.

It was the following day when she discovered that her father was dead.

However, she still could not get up and go outside. Moreover, her house was the only one in the thicket. And from her house to the nearest farmhouse, it was three or four chō (one chō being about 109 meters).

It was three or four days later that she went to inform the nearest farmhouse from her home of her father’s death.

6

Uhei’s corpse was to be handled by the village office.
Because there was suspicion that the cause of death was likely an infectious disease.
Because what appeared to be a large amount of bloody stool had been discarded in that toilet, it was concluded that it must have been dysentery.

However, the village had no crematorium.
Since transporting corpses of infectious disease patients to distant crematoriums was impractical, it became customary for a police officer from the local substation and a clerk from the village office to witness primitive cremations conducted in a clearing under a large oak tree beside the cemetery.

In Uhei’s case—having never received a medical diagnosis until that day, and consequently undergoing no disinfection procedures—all rags surrounding his corpse were likewise ordered burned alongside the body.

At the same time, Uhei’s hut was thoroughly disinfected.
And a red rope was strung around the house, and Tsuru was absolutely prohibited from entering or exiting.
For if she carried her father’s germs, then both the cremation and disinfection would have been rendered meaningless.

Uhei’s corpse was set alight that evening.
Straw and firewood were piled atop the corpse, then several cans of oil were poured over it and set alight with a match—that was all it took.
The police officer from the local substation and the village clerk stayed by the fire for about thirty minutes after ignition and then left.
Afterward, two laborers remained and stayed up all night tending to it.

However, when dawn came, the two laborers dozed off drowsily beside it.

“Hey!”
“Hey! Are you asleep?”
“This is bad!”

It was after the sun had risen that the monk came around and, saying this, shook the two awake.
The two were taken aback and looked quizzically at the monk’s face.

“It seems there are remains here for two people.”

The monk tilted his head and said.
The two laborers stood up in surprise.
“Two people?”

“It does seem to be two people’s worth.”

The monk tilted his head once more and turned back toward the cremation site.

The cremation site had turned into white ash covering about one tsubo.
And from there, a thin wisp of smoke was still rising.
In the midst of it lay the old man’s white remains, slightly hunched like a rain-beaten dead tree.—As for the other set of remains, these were remarkably small.
They were not even the size of one arm from Uhei’s bones.
If one were to think of them as rabbit bones, they were exactly that size.
They could have been mistaken for cat bones.
However, the skeletal structure left no room for doubt that these were human remains, despite being so small.
It could almost be called a miniature replica of Uhei’s remains.
Moreover, if those were not human remains but bones of an animal like a cat or dog, there should surely have been tail bones remaining in the ashes, shaped like fish bones.

“Doesn’t this look like human bones?”

The monk repeated once more.

“Well, Venerable Monk, these do look like human bones.”

“Didn’t you take a proper look before burning them?”

“Well, since they said it was an infectious disease, we just burned all them rags the daughter over there handed over along with the corpse without even lookin’ at ’em.”

The elderly laborer answered.

“That is where you erred.”
“That is precisely the root of the mistake.”
“This has become a proper mess.”

“Venerable Monk! Wouldn’t it be all right if we just threw away this small one somewhere?”
The younger laborer said with a perplexed look, his eyes fixed on the monk.

“Out of the question! If you do such a thing to human remains, that’s precisely when divine punishment strikes, I tell you.”

“Well then, what should we do?”

“In any case, since the police substation must witness this, we need to notify them immediately.”

“Hey! You go do it. Make sure you properly explain the situation to the sir.”

“Anyway, tell them to come see for themselves—go call them!”

The young laborer said this and ran through the cemetery.

7

A considerable time passed before the police officer stationed there arrived.
The police officer stationed there had first reported verbatim over the phone to the main station what he heard from the young laborer, then came to the scene.

“Was there no small child at Mr. Uhei’s place?”

The police officer stationed there approached and said loudly.

“There was only an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old daughter there—no small child.”
“After all, it’s been nearly ten years since that girl’s mother died.”

The elderly laborer said while bowing.

“Well then, what on earth could have happened here?”

“So we were just saying—maybe it’s cat bones or something like that?”

“No—this has to be human bones after all.”

The police officer said this and squatted down there.

“...Wasn’t that girl pregnant?”

“When she came back from Tokyo, there were some such rumors, sure—but after that, she kept saying her health was poor and seemed to just lie abed all day.”
“Never laid eyes on any sign of it myself, nor heard any talk of it either...”

“Might be this here’s that girl’s brat, I reckon.”
“Either she aborted it and stashed it away, or snuffed it out right after birth.”

No one answered that.
It was something that could be considered if one thought about it in that way—and because there also seemed to be something particularly mysterious at play there.
“Ah well—the doctor from headquarters’ll be here any minute now. With solid evidence like this, we’ll know soon enough.”

The police officer said this and, while brushing the ash from his hands, stood up.

8

It was some time later that the police sergeant and the police doctor arrived by car from the police station.

The police doctor determined the small remains to be the skeletal structure of an infant.

“So, with women who’ve given birth—up to how many days can you tell whether this woman recently had a child or not? If it’s recent, you can tell, right?”

The police officer asked the police doctor those questions.

“Well, of course it can be determined. But even without going that far—since women are generally quite sensitive—if you bring the corpse or remains before their eyes, you can tell immediately from their expression or reaction.”

“Hmm, I suppose that’s how it works.”

The police officer said this and then took a couple of steps toward the Police Chief.

“Chief!”
“I’ve established a general lead.”

The police officer stationed there said in a slightly lowered voice.

"The daughter of the man we cremated seems to have been pregnant."
"Since she shows no signs of it now, this must undoubtedly be that girl's child."

"Then are there witnesses who can confirm she was indeed pregnant?"

"Well, there ought to be."

Just then, a laborer brought tea from the temple.

When they had all gathered under the oak tree and taken tea in hand, an automobile horn sounded nearby.
The Police Chief and a young prosecutor from the district court came to inspect the scene, accompanied by a clerk.

However, the remaining question was why Tsuru had killed that infant.
That was what remained.
As for the fact that she had killed the infant she had given birth to, no one held any doubt anymore.

The prosecutor was still very young.
He had just graduated from university and taken up his post.
Under normal circumstances, he should not yet have come to inspect such a scene.
It was simply that these three coincidences—the court’s convenience, his own curiosity, and the fact that the case wasn’t considered serious enough—had brought him there to inspect the scene.
However, he still had to conduct an initial investigation.
And he also had to consider the motive behind the crime.

“I can’t help but think there’s a paramour behind this crime.”

After listening to everyone’s observations and opinions, the young prosecutor synthesized them and made this conclusion.

“...If it’s indeed true that the girl killed her own child...”

“That is almost certainly beyond doubt.”
“After all, since she was pregnant but now her body shows no signs of it, I think she must have killed it shortly after giving birth and stuffed it into her father’s bedding.”
“Or perhaps the father died first.”
“No one has any idea when the father died or when the child was born, after all.”

The police officer repeated the explanation once again.

"So, there weren't any strange rumors between the father and daughter, were there?"

"There don't seem to have been any."

"Then there must indeed be a paramour behind this. Whether it's a case where the man who impregnated the girl incited her to kill out of shame toward society, or a scenario where—though not necessarily the impregnator—a man who would marry her but disliked the prospect of a child being involved... In any case, a paramour must be behind this. When examining past preliminary investigation reports and court precedents, it's exceedingly common to find that behind a man's crime there is a woman, and behind a woman's crime there is a man. Generally speaking, in cases like infanticide by young women, there's almost always a paramour involved in some capacity."

The young prosecutor thus presented his observations to the police chief.
The Police Chief kept nodding while stroking his mustache in response.

“Well then, if the girl’s house is nearby, shall we have her brought here?
We should conduct a preliminary investigation at the scene first…”

“Since that girl is currently under quarantine… since a dysentery patient came from that house… and since we have an automobile… shall we request to proceed to that house?”

The Police Chief put his weight into the sword he was using as a cane and said while leaning against it.

“Well then…”

“You! Lead the way.”

The Police Chief said this and jerked his chin at the police officer.
And then, they left the two laborers there and walked toward where the automobile was waiting.

9

Tsuru stood in the garden with a pale face.
In the small garden, she seemed to have been basking in the sunlight.
She turned a look of utter shock toward them.

However, the one who was even more shocked than Tsuru was the Young Prosecutor.

The young prosecutor knew Tsuru well.
She too knew him well.
He had been nearing graduation at that time but was still commuting to university from a certain boarding house.
And she had been working as a maid at that boarding house.
The young prosecutor could not help but recall several scenes from when they had been together during that period.
He was also the one who had given her a modest sum of money and made her return from that boarding house to her own home.

The young prosecutor found himself at a loss for what to do.
The paramour behind her crime!
Wasn't that none other than himself?
When he realized he had been the one to insist there must be a paramour behind her crime, he became terribly confused.
Why had he asserted such an idiotic thing?
Why hadn't he recalled her then?

However, the young prosecutor could no longer retract his opinion.
He had to assert from his position as prosecutor the observations he had presented to the police chief and others at the crematorium.
He felt as though his chest were being torn open by this predicament of first drinking the poison he himself had served others.
Stand in sin!
He tried to shut his eyes to everything.
Then from that moment, his pure-heartedness surged up with vigor.
Stand in sin with her!

The police officer said something to Tsuru and brought her before the young prosecutor.
The accompanying clerk opened his notebook.
The Police Chief also took out a notebook from his pocket.

“You were pregnant? Is that true?”

The young prosecutor deliberately used the respectful “you” form as he spoke.
Then he closed his eyes,
fearing some dreadful response might return.
But she remained silent.

“You must answer everything I ask honestly—it’s in your own interest. … Is it true that you were pregnant?”

“Yes, it is true.”

That was her answer.
He snapped his eyes open as if startled.
He thought: You should know that yourself, shouldn’t you?
He had been waiting for her words with his eyes tightly shut.

“And then?”
“What did you do about the pregnancy then?”
“Did you give birth to that child?”

“I gave birth.”
“What about the child you gave birth to?”

He felt as though his vision were blurring.
Staggering as if about to collapse, he barely managed to hold his ground with every ounce of strength.

“And the child you bore?”

“...”

While staring at his face, she bit down on her lips and trembled violently throughout her entire body.
He squeezed his eyes shut and repeated once more.

"What about the child?"

"I killed it right after giving birth.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry."

Tsuru said this in a low voice that verged on shouting, then covered her face with both hands and began to cry.

“You don’t have to cry.”
“You don’t have to cry.”
“…………”

“So—isn’t it that someone advised you killing it would be better?”

“That isn’t the case.
I killed it of my own accord.”

The young prosecutor could not help but sense her affection toward him.
Precisely because she loves me!
That’s what he thought.
Stand in sin with her!

“But if the man who got you pregnant had provided enough to support the child, I think you wouldn’t have killed it—would you?”

“That might have been so.
But I didn’t kill it for that reason.”

“Then you claim not to hate the man who got you pregnant?”

“I do hate him.
“I hate that very deeply.
“But when I think about it, getting pregnant was partly my own doing—so there’s no helping it.
“And my killing the child has nothing to do with him.”

“Then why did you kill it?”

“I don’t think anyone is to blame for that.
“I think it’s because society is built that way now.
“If Father hadn’t lost his job… If Father hadn’t lost his job…”

Having said that, Tsuru began to cry again.
And then, sobbing, she told of how her father Uhei had lost his job.

“...So this time, I had no choice but to sell my own body for my own sake—because if I had a child, I couldn’t work, and even if the child lived, it would only be more miserable…”

“So you’re saying you killed the child not for anyone’s sake, but because society—the one that made your father lose his job like that—is to blame?”

“But since society today is that sort of society… I don’t know who’s to blame.”
“Put me in prison… put me in prison… so I won’t have to struggle to live.”

Tsuru exclaimed those words and collapsed to the ground, breaking into violent sobs once more.