Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

When I looked out through the Glass Door, my eyes immediately caught frost-shielded banana plants, branches of plum-like trees laden with red fruit, and telephone poles standing impertinently upright—but beyond these, scarcely anything else worth enumerating entered my field of vision.
The vista from my study was profoundly monotonous and equally constricted.

To make matters worse, having caught a cold at year’s end and scarcely ventured outdoors since—sitting day after day confined within this Glass Door—I remained utterly ignorant of worldly affairs.
Feeling unwell, I read little.
I simply sat or lay down, letting each day pass as it would.

However, my mind stirred at times.
My mood also changed somewhat.
Even in a world as narrow as this, events occurred in their own way.
Then, into this Glass Door that separated my small self from the vast world outside, people occasionally came.
Moreover, these were people I had never expected to see, and they said and did things I had never anticipated.
I even welcomed and saw off those people with eyes filled with interest.

I thought I would try to continue writing a bit about such things.
I worried how such writing must appear dull in the eyes of busy people.
I considered it one of my embarrassments to take out my newspaper on the train and spread its pages filled with such sparse text as I wrote before readers whose eyes were fixed only on the large headlines.
These people were so pressed for time that they saw no need to pick up a newspaper unless it contained incidents they deemed significant among the day-to-day events—fires, thefts, murders—or articles sharp enough to jolt their nerves.
They were so busy that while waiting for the train at the station, they bought a newspaper; while riding the train, they learned about yesterday’s societal changes; and as soon as they arrived at their office or company, they had to completely forget about the newspaper tucked in their pocket.

I now write in defiance of the contempt held by those who can only spare such severely limited time.

Since last year，a great war had been raging in Europe，and there appeared no telling when it would end．Japan too took on a small portion of that war．When that concluded，the parliament was dissolved．The upcoming general election had become a critical matter for those in politics．With rice prices plummeting and farmers left penniless，people everywhere were muttering about recession．As for seasonal events，the spring sumo tournament was nearing its start．In short，the world seethed with activity．Someone like me—motionless behind my Glass Door—could scarcely imagine my face gracing a newspaper．Were I to write，it would mean elbowing aside politicians，soldiers，businessmen，and sumo fanatics．Alone，I lacked the nerve for such audacity．I wrote these trivialities only because spring demanded words，however unrelated they might be to others．How long this would persist depended on my pen’s whims and editorial page quotas；no clear end lay within sight．

II

When summoned to the telephone, I pressed the receiver to my ear and asked about the matter, only to learn that a man from a magazine wanted my photograph and wished to know when it would be convenient to come take it.
I replied, “I’d prefer not to have my photograph taken.”

I had no connection whatsoever with this magazine.
Though I did recall having acquired an issue or two over the past three or four years.
Beyond remembering its peculiar tendency to fill pages with nothing but smiling faces, nothing about it remained in my mind now.
Yet the distasteful impression left by those many artificial grins still lingered.
Thus I attempted to decline.

The man from the magazine stated his hope that, since it was the New Year's issue for the Year of the Rabbit, he wanted to feature the faces of those born under that zodiac sign.
I was indeed born in the Year of the Rabbit, just as they had said.
So I said:
"The photo you're taking for your magazine needs to show me smiling, doesn't it?"

“No, that’s not the case at all,” the man answered promptly, as though I had until now misunderstood that magazine’s defining characteristics.

“If a normal face is acceptable, we would be grateful to have it published.”

“No, that will do perfectly well. Please proceed.”

I set a date with the man and hung up the phone.

A day later at the appointed time, the caller entered my study dressed in a fine Western suit and carrying a camera.
For a while, I conversed with him about his magazine.
Then I had two photographs taken.
One showed my usual appearance seated at the desk; the other captured my ordinary stance standing on frost in the cold garden.
As the study admitted little light, he set up his equipment and burned magnesium.
Just before the flame died out, he leaned halfway toward me and said, “As per our agreement, might I trouble you to smile a little?”

At that moment, I suddenly felt a faint sense of the comical.
But at the same time, I also felt that the man was saying something foolish.
I said, “This should suffice,” and paid no heed to his request.
When he made me stand before the grove of trees in the garden and directed his lens toward me, he repeated the same words in the same polite tone as before: “As per our agreement, if you could just…”
I found myself even less inclined to smile than before.

About four days later, he delivered my photographs by mail. However, the photograph was smiling exactly as he had instructed. At that moment, like a person whose insides had come unhinged, I stared at my own face for some time. Because to me, it looked like nothing more than something that had been retouched to make it appear as though I were smiling. Just to be sure, I took out the photograph and showed it to four or five people who came to the house. They all rendered the same verdict as I had—that it seemed to have been artificially made to smile.

From my birth until today, there have been countless instances where I showed smiles before others despite wanting none of it.
Perhaps those falsehoods had now found their vengeance through this photographer.
He sent me photographs where I wore an unpleasant forced smile - though no trace remained of that magazine which had promised their publication.

III

When I think back to the time I received Hector from Mr. H, it has already become a matter of three or four years ago without my realizing.
It all feels somewhat dreamlike.

At that time he was still just a puppy who had only recently been weaned.
Mr. H’s disciple wrapped him in a furoshiki and brought him by train to my house.
That night I put him to sleep in the corner of the back storage shed.
After spreading straw to keep him warm and making his sleeping area as comfortable as possible, I closed the shed door.
Then he began crying from early evening.
In the middle of the night he tried to claw through the shed door to get outside.
He must have been lonely sleeping alone in that dark place - he showed no sign of sleeping at all until morning came.

This anxiety continued into the following night.
The following night, it continued as well.
It took over a week until he finally began to sleep peacefully on the straw provided, and until then, I found myself constantly concerned about him every night.

My children found him novel and made him their plaything at every opportunity.
However, since there was no name, they ultimately couldn’t call him.
However, since they were dealing with a living creature, they absolutely needed to call him by name when playing.
So they began pleading with me to give the dog a name.
I finally bestowed upon these children’s companion the grand name of Hector.

That was the name of Troy’s valiant commander who appears in the Iliad.
When Troy and Greece went to war, Hector was finally struck down by Achilles.
Achilles had avenged his friend who was killed by Hector.
When Achilles, enraged, leapt forth from the Greek side, the only one who did not flee into the castle was Hector.
Hector circled the walls of Troy three times, evading Achilles’ spearhead.
Achilles also circled the walls of Troy three times and chased after him.
After doing so, he finally stabbed Hector to death with his spear.
Then he tied his corpse to his own military chariot and dragged it around Troy’s walls three more times…

I bestowed this great name upon the small dog that had been brought wrapped in a cloth bundle. Even the children in my household, who should have known nothing about such matters, at first said it was a strange name. However, they soon grew accustomed to it. Each time he was called Hector, the dog wagged his tail happily. In the end, even that grand name came to hold no more classical resonance for me than ordinary Christian names like John or George. At the same time, he gradually ceased to be valued by the household members as much as before.

Hector once had to be hospitalized due to a disease called distemper that many dogs commonly contract.
At that time, the children often went to visit him.
I also went to visit him.
When I went, he wagged his tail as if overjoyed and turned his longing eyes toward me.
I squatted down, brought my face close to his, and stroked his head with my right hand.
In return, he kept trying to lick my face all over without restraint.
At that moment, right before my eyes, he drank the small amount of milk the doctor had recommended for the first time.
Even the doctor, who had been tilting his head until then, said that with this progress, he might perhaps recover.
Hector indeed recovered.
And then he returned home and bounced around energetically.

IV

Before long, he made two or three friends.
Among them, the closest was a mischief-maker of about his own age who lived at the doctor’s house right across.
This one bore the name John, befitting a Christian, but his nature seemed far inferior to that of the heretic Hector.
He had a habit of biting people indiscriminately, so in the end, he was finally beaten to death.

He brought this bad friend into his own garden and committed wanton mischief, causing me trouble.
They eagerly dug at tree roots and took delight in creating large holes for no reason.
They deliberately lay down on the beautiful plants and flowers, mercilessly scattering blossoms and knocking down stems.

After John was killed, bored as he was, he began to indulge in nighttime and daytime escapades. When I went out for walks, I would often see him basking in the sun by the police box. Even so, as long as he stayed home, he would often bark at suspicious things. Among these, the one who received his most ferocious attacks was a child of about ten from the Honjo area—a young Kakubei Lion performer. This child would always come in saying, “Today’s a celebration.” And he had resolved on his own not to leave until he received bread crusts and a one-sen copper coin from the household members. So even though Hector barked furiously, he did not flee. On the contrary, it had become the norm for Hector himself to retreat toward the storage shed, barking all the while with his tail tucked between his legs. In short, Hector was a coward. Moreover, in terms of conduct, he had degenerated to the point where there was almost no difference between him and a stray dog. Yet he never lost the affectionate nature they all shared. Whenever our eyes met, he would unfailingly wag his tail and leap at me. Or sometimes he would rub his back unreservedly against my body. I couldn’t count how many times his muddy feet soiled my clothes and overcoat.

From last summer through autumn, I was ill and spent about a month without ever getting the chance to see Hector.
When my illness finally abated and I was able to leave my sickbed, I stood on the edge of the tearoom and first made out his form in the evening gloom.
I immediately called his name.
Yet there he crouched motionless at the hedge roots, showing no response to my affection however much I called.
He moved neither head nor tail, clinging to the hedge like a white lump.
I couldn't help feeling faint sorrow, thinking he'd already forgotten his master's voice in our mere month apart.

As it was still early autumn, it was an evening when starlight could be clearly seen from within houses whose storm shutters had yet to be closed.
On the edge of the tearoom where I stood, two or three household members were present.
But even though I called Hector’s name, they did not turn around.
Just as I had been forgotten by Hector, they too seemed to not have him in mind at all.

I returned to the tatami room in silence and lay down on the futon spread there. Having recovered from illness, I wore a meisen robe lined with black Hachijō silk at the collar—unsuitable for the season. Finding it too troublesome to remove, I lay on my back as I was, hands clasped over my chest, silently staring at the ceiling.

V

The next morning, when I stood on the edge of my study and looked out over the early autumn garden, I happened to spot his white figure on the moss again. Weary of repeating last evening’s disappointment, I deliberately refrained from calling his name. However, I couldn’t help but stand there and keep a close watch on his condition. He thrust his head into the stone basin that had been placed at the base of a tree and was lapping up the rainwater pooled there.

This stone basin—its origins unknown, having lain in a corner of the backyard—was a hexagonal structure I had ordered a gardener to relocate to its current position when I first moved in. By then it was already so overgrown with moss that the characters carved into its sides had become completely illegible. However, I distinctly remembered having read them once before moving it. And yet that memory did not remain in my mind as text, but lingered as a strange emotion that still comes and goes within my chest. There lingered the scent of temples, Buddhas, and impermanence.

Hector hung his tail listlessly and turned his back toward me. When he left the stone basin, I saw drool flowing from his mouth.

“I have to do something for him—he’s sick,” I said, turning to the nurse. At that time, I was still employing a nurse.

The next day, I caught a glimpse of him sleeping among the horsetails. And I repeated the same words to the nurse. However, Hector vanished from sight and never returned home again.

“I thought to take him to the doctor and searched everywhere, but he was nowhere to be found.”

The household member said this and looked at my face. I remained silent. But deep down, I even recalled the time when I had taken him in. When submitting the registration form, a faint amusement arose in my chest—writing “mixed-blood child” under “Breed” or jotting “red spots” beneath “Color.”

About a week after he had disappeared, a maid came from a house a block or two away.
They said that since a dog’s corpse was floating in the pond of that person’s garden, they pulled it up and examined the collar, finding my family’s name engraved there, so they had come to inform us.
The maid asked, “Shall we bury him here?”
I immediately sent a rickshaw man to have him retrieved.

I did not know where the house that had kindly sent the maid was located.
I simply assumed it must be near the old temple I had remembered since childhood.
That was the temple housing Yamaga Sokō’s grave, where an ancient zelkova tree stood before the main gate like a relic from the shogunate era—its form visible from my study’s northern edge beyond countless rooftops.

The rickshaw man returned with Hector’s corpse wrapped in a straw mat.
I deliberately kept my distance.
I had someone procure a small grave marker of plain wood and inscribed upon it: “Buried in earth where autumn winds go unheard.”
I handed it to the household members and had them plant it where Hector lay.
His grave rests northeast of the cat’s, separated by six feet. When I step onto my study’s sunless northern ledge on frigid days and gaze through the glass door at the frost-bitten garden, both markers stand clear.
Compared to the cat’s already dusky, crumbling stone, Hector’s still glows with raw newness.
Yet soon both will fade to matching hues and vanish from human notice alike.

VI

I met that woman about four or five times in total.

When she first visited, I was out.
When the intermediary instructed her to bring a letter of introduction, she reportedly said she had nowhere to obtain such a thing and left.

About a day later, the woman came directly by letter to inquire about my availability.
From the envelope of that letter, I learned that the woman lived just a stone’s throw away.
I immediately wrote back and set a meeting date for her.

The woman arrived punctually at the appointed time.
The first thing that caught my eye was the crepe silk haori she wore—gaudy in color and adorned with three oak crests.
The woman seemed to have read most of what I had written.
Thus, the conversation kept veering largely in that direction.
However, receiving nothing but praise for my works from someone encountering them for the first time was something that, while gratifying, felt profoundly awkward.
To tell the truth, I was fed up.

After a week, the woman came again.
And then she praised my works again.
But my mind rather wanted to avoid such topics.
On her third visit, the woman—apparently moved by something—took a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her tears incessantly.
And then she asked me to write down the sad history she had lived through.
However, having not yet heard her story, I could give no response.
I asked the woman, “Even if I were to write it, wouldn’t there be people who feel inconvenienced?”
The woman replied in an unexpectedly clear tone, “It would be fine as long as real names aren’t used.”
So, at any rate, I set aside time specifically to hear her story.

When the day arrived, the woman brought another woman who wanted to meet me and said she would like to postpone that discussion until next time.
I had no intention of blaming her for breaking her promise from the outset.
I engaged in small talk with both of them before parting ways.

The last time she sat in my study was on the evening of the very next day.

She poked at the ashes in the paulownia hand warmer placed before her with brass fire tongs and said this while I sat silent before she began her sorrowful tale:
"The other day—in my agitation—I asked you to write about me, but I must withdraw that request."
"I shall simply have you listen instead... Please understand that."
To which I replied:
"Rest assured—without your explicit consent—no matter what compelling details emerge—I shall never presume to write anything."

“Since I do not have your permission, rest assured that no matter what matters I might wish to write about, I have not the slightest intention of doing so.”

Since I had given the woman sufficient assurance, she said, "In that case," and began recounting her experiences from seven or eight years prior.
I silently watched the woman’s face.
However, the woman mostly kept her eyes downcast, gazing into the hibachi.
And with pretty fingers grasping the brass fire tongs again and again, she stabbed them into the ashes.

Whenever something didn’t quite make sense, I posed a brief question to the woman.
The woman answered succinctly and in a way that satisfied me.
However, since she was mostly speaking alone, I remained still as a wooden statue.

Eventually, the woman’s cheeks grew hot and red.
Perhaps because she wasn’t wearing makeup, the color of those heated cheeks stood out strikingly to my eyes.
Because she was looking downward, her abundant black hair naturally became something that drew my attention.

VII

The woman’s confession was so filled with grief that it left me breathless as I listened.
She posed this question to me:

“If Sensei were to write a novel, how would you handle that woman’s fate?”

I was at a loss for a reply.

“Do you think it would be better for the woman to die, or would you have her live on in your writing?”

I answered that I could write it either way and tried to gauge her reaction implicitly.
The woman appeared to demand a more definitive response from me.
I had no choice but to answer like this:

“If one considers living as the central point of human existence, it would be acceptable to leave things as they are. However, if one were to evaluate humanity by taking beauty and nobility as the sole criteria, the problem might take on a different aspect.”

“Sensei, which will you choose?”

I hesitated again.
I had no choice but to remain silent and listen to what the woman was saying.

“I am unbearably afraid that this beautiful feeling I now hold will gradually fade away because of time. When I imagine a future where this memory has vanished and I’m left living aimlessly like an empty husk of a soul, it becomes so unbearably painful—so excruciatingly terrifying—I can’t stand it.”

I knew that the woman now stood utterly alone in the vast world, in a position where she could not move even an inch. And I also knew that it was such a desperate circumstance that there was nothing I could do about it with my own power. I was forced into the position of a bystander to the suffering of someone beyond help and remained still.

To time my medication, I had made it a habit to keep a pocket watch beside my zabuton cushion at all times—without hesitation even in front of guests.

“It’s already eleven o’clock—please go home,” I finally said to the woman.
The woman stood up without a hint of displeasure.
I added, “Since the night has grown late, I’ll walk you home,” and went down to the genkan entrance with her.

At that moment, a beautiful moon illuminated every corner of the remaining quiet night.
When we stepped onto the street, the sound of geta clacking against the hushed earth had all but vanished.
With hands tucked into my sleeves and no hat on my head, I followed behind her.
At the corner, she bowed slightly and said, “It’s too great an honor to have Sensei escort me.”
“There’s no need for such formality.”
“We’re both human,” I replied.

When we reached the next corner, the woman said again, “It is an honor to have Sensei escort me.”
I asked earnestly, “Do you truly consider it an honor?”
The woman answered plainly and clearly, “I do.”
“Then live without dying,” I said.
I do not know how the woman interpreted these words.
After that, I walked about a block before turning back toward my house.

Having endured that suffocatingly painful story, that night I experienced something resembling genuine human warmth for the first time in years.
And I realized this feeling matched what one might feel after reading revered literary works.
The shadow of my former self—the one who had strutted about after visits to the Yūraku-za and Imperial Theater—now struck me as wretched in some indefinable way.

VIII

Plodding through a life filled with unpleasantness, I found myself constantly contemplating death—that realm I must one day reach.
And I believed only this: that death would prove easier than life.
At times I even thought it might be the supreme state attainable to humans.

“Death is nobler than life.”

These words had lately come to course incessantly through my being.

Yet here I was now—alive in this very moment.
Because I could not cast off in my single lifetime the habits ingrained over a hundred years, two hundred years—even a thousand or ten thousand years—by my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, and all those who came before them in succession, I remained stubbornly clinging to this life.

Therefore, I thought any advice I could offer others must inevitably remain confined within life’s permissible bounds.
I believed I must face another member of humanity as one myself solely within the narrow confines of determining how to live.
For once acknowledging myself as active within life while recognizing others breathing that same air, it followed naturally that our fundamental principles—however agonizing or unsightly—must be interpreted as things anchored upon this existence.

“If living is painful, then dying would be all right.”

Such words would not be heard even from those who view the world most pitilessly.
Doctors go so far as to deliberately stick needles into patients about to slip into peaceful sleep, devising ways to prolong their suffering even a moment longer.
Even seeing such actions bordering on torture permitted under human ethics, we can understand how tenaciously we cling to the single character of “life.”
I was finally unable to recommend death to her.

That person had been wounded so deeply in her own heart that there was no hope of recovery.
At the same time, that wound had become a seed of beautiful memories unlike anything experienced by ordinary people, illuminating her countenance.

She wanted to clasp those beautiful things like jewels close to her heart forever.
Unfortunately, those beautiful things were none other than the very wound that tormented her more than death itself.
The two things were like the front and back of a sheet of paper—utterly inseparable.

I said to her, “Follow the flow of Time that heals all things.”
“If I do that,” she lamented, “this precious memory will gradually fade away.”

Impartial “Time” steals precious treasures from her grasp, but in exchange, gradually heals that wound.
While blurring the intense joys of life like a dream, it never neglects the means to remove the raw pain accompanying those very joys.

Even if I were to take away her fervent memories rooted in deep love, I tried to make time wipe away the blood dripping from her wound. Because, no matter how mundane, living was more appropriate for her than dying in my view of her situation.

Thus my hopes and advice—which always believed death to be nobler than life—ultimately could not transcend this existence filled with unpleasantness. Moreover, I could not help but see it as substantiating myself in practice as a mediocre naturalist. Even now, I gaze at my own heart with eyes half-convinced and half-doubting.

IX

When I was in high school, among the friends I associated with relatively closely, there was a person named O. From that time onward, as I didn’t have many friends to begin with, I naturally developed a tendency to associate frequently with O. I generally visited him about once a week. During one summer vacation, I would invite him every day without fail—he was lodging in Masagochō—and we went to the Ōkawa swimming area.

O was from Tohoku, so his manner of speaking had a slow, leisurely cadence different from someone like me. And that cadence seemed to perfectly represent his character. Having countless memories of arguing with him, I ultimately never got to see his face contorted in anger or agitation. Even that alone was sufficient for me to recognize him as an elder worthy of respect and affection.

Just as his nature was magnanimous, his intellect was far greater than mine. He was always pondering problems that lay beyond my comprehension at the time, all by himself. Though he had initially intended to enter the sciences, he took pleasure in poring over philosophical texts. To this day I remember borrowing from him a book titled Spencer’s First Principles.

On crisp autumn days when the sky hung perfectly clear, we would often walk together wherever our feet led us, chatting idly as we went. In such moments we frequently saw yellow-tinged leaves fluttering down from tree branches that overhung garden walls into the street below—falling soundlessly though no wind stirred them. Once when this sight chanced to catch his eye, he cried out in a low voice, “Ah! Enlightenment!” For me—who could do naught but admire the beauty of leaves trembling against autumn skies—his words rang in my ears like some cryptic cipher veiling secret truths. Even when he added afterward in his customary unhurried tone, as if musing to himself, “Enlightenment truly is a curious thing,” I found myself unable to offer any reply.

He was a poor student.
Back when he rented a room near Daikannon and lived on his own, he would often grill dried salmon and have me sit at his lonely dining table.
At times, he would buy simmered beans instead of rice cakes, and we’d poke at them together straight from the bamboo sheath.

Shortly after graduating from university, he was assigned to a provincial middle school.
I felt sorry for him about that.
However, to university professors who didn’t know him, it may have seemed only natural.
He himself was of course unperturbed.
Several years later, he was indeed hired as a teacher at a school in China on a three-year contract, but upon completing his term and returning, he immediately became a principal at a domestic middle school.
He was then transferred from Akita to Yokote and is now the principal in Karafuto.

When O visited me last year during his trip to Tokyo after a long time, I received his calling card from the servant and immediately headed to the sitting room, taking my seat before the guest arrived as was my habit. Then, as he came along the corridor to the room’s entrance and caught sight of me sitting properly on the zabuton, he immediately said, “You’re acting awfully composed.”

Before O had even finished speaking, or perhaps just as he was finishing, an “Mhm” involuntarily slipped out of my mouth.
How had this greeting—one that amounted to affirming my own criticism—passed through my throat so naturally, so effortlessly, without any resistance?
At that moment, I felt a clear and pleasant state of mind.

X

O and I, having taken seats facing each other, first and foremost looked back at one another’s faces and acknowledged that traces of our former selves still lingered there like mementos of a nostalgic dream.
But it was as though an old heart had been vaguely woven into a new mood, leaving everything dim and hazy.
Resisting the dreadful power of “Time,” to return to our former selves had become impossible for the two of us.
The two of us could not help but reflect on that strange thing called the past that lay between our parting and this meeting.

O once had cheeks as red as apples, eyes that were unusually large and round, and a face framed by softly rounded contours suited to a woman. Even now, he still possessed red cheeks, round eyes, and similarly smooth contours—yet there was something different about them compared to the past.

I showed him my mustache and sideburns.
He then stroked his own head for me to see.
Mine turned white, and his was beginning to thin slightly.

When I teased him by saying, “If you go as far as Karafuto, there’ll be nowhere left to go,” he replied, “Well, that’s how it is,” and told me various stories about Karafuto—a place I’d never seen.
But I’ve now forgotten all of them.
The only thing I remember is that it’s a very pleasant place in summer.

For the first time in years, I went out front with O.
Over his frock coat, he wore a billowy overcoat like a black kite’s wings.
Then, while hanging from a train strap, he pulled something wrapped in a handkerchief from an inner pocket and showed it to me.
I asked, “What’s that?”
He answered, “Chestnut bun.”
It was the same confection he’d served earlier at my house.
When I wondered when he’d wrapped it in his handkerchief, I felt a small shock of surprise.

“Did you bring that chestnut bun?”
“Maybe so.”

He said this in a tone ridiculing my astonished expression and promptly stowed the handkerchief-wrapped bundle back into his hidden pocket.

We went to the Imperial Theater that evening. When I mistakenly tried to head toward the south side despite the two tickets I had obtained being marked with instructions to enter from the north side, he cautioned me, “Not that way.” I paused to consider, then said, “Ah, Karafuto does have a better sense of direction,” and turned back toward the designated entrance.

He had claimed from the start that he knew the Imperial Theater. However, after finishing dinner, when he tried to return to his seat—as anyone might do—he mistook the second-floor door for the first-floor one and was laughed at by me.

From time to time he would take out gold-rimmed glasses from his hidden pocket to read the printed matter in his hand; without removing those glasses, he calmly gazed at the distant stage.

“Those are reading glasses, aren’t they? You can see faraway places well with those, huh?”

“What’s this ‘Chabuduo’?”

To me, the meaning of this *Chabuduo* remained entirely unclear. He explained it was a Chinese term meaning “no big difference.”

After parting ways with me on the train that night upon returning, he went off again to the remote, cold northern edge of Japan’s territories.

Whenever I recalled him, I would think of his name—*Tatsujin*. Then it would feel as though that name had been specially bestowed upon him by heaven. And so I would think to myself: that *Tatsujin* was still there in the snow- and ice-bound northern reaches, serving as a middle school principal.

XI

A certain madam introduced a woman to me.

“It seems she would like you to look at something she has written.”

The madam’s words set me thinking about many things.
Up until now, there had been countless people who came to me asking to have their own writings read.
Among them were voluminous works that by manuscript thickness amounted to bulk of one or two sun.
I read them as much as time permitted.
And so, being simple-minded, I remained satisfied believing that merely reading them fulfilled my requested duty.
However, it was common for them to later ask for publication in newspapers or magazines.
There were not a few among them who seemed to use having others read their work as a means while their true purpose lay in converting manuscripts into money.
I gradually grew weary of kindly reading hard-to-read manuscripts written by strangers.

Compared to when I was a teacher, there was no doubt my schedule had gained some flexibility.
Even so, when it came to my own work, my mind remained quite busy.
Even manuscripts I had promised to review out of kindness were not necessarily free from situations that dragged on without resolution.

I told the madam exactly as I had thought them out in my mind.
The madam left, having fully understood my meaning.
The promised woman came to my study and sat down on a cushion not long after that.
Gazing out through the glass door at the dark sky heavy with lonely rain threatening to pour down at any moment, I said to the woman: —

“This is not socializing.”
“If we keep exchanging nothing but socially acceptable words, no matter how much time passes, there will be no enlightenment to gain nor any benefit to receive.”
“You must resolve to be honest.”
“If only you would fully reveal yourself, then I could clearly see the reality of where you stand and which direction you face.”
“At that point, I may properly recognize that the qualification to guide you has been granted to me by you yourself.”
“Therefore, if I say something, you must never stay silent so long as you hold something in your heart demanding a response.”
“If you instead devise ways to show only an obscured version of yourself—hesitating over whether such words might invite laughter, shame, or accusations of rudeness—then no matter how earnestly I strive to benefit you, every arrow I loose will end up as nothing but empty shots.”

“This is my demand of you—but in return, I too will not hide anything.”
“There is no other way to teach you than by laying myself completely bare.”
“Therefore, if you discover any weakness in my thoughts—if you see through some flaw—then I would consider myself defeated by your grasp of my vulnerability.”
“It’s mistaken to believe only those receiving guidance must open themselves.”
“The teacher too must reveal their true self before the student.”
“Both of us must cast aside social masks and lay our naked truths before each other.”

“Therefore, when I examine what you’ve written from now on, I may say some rather severe things—but you mustn’t get angry.”
“I’m not saying this to injure your feelings.”
“In return, if anything strikes you as unconvincing, feel free to probe it thoroughly.”
“So long as you grasp my fundamental purpose, I shall never grow angry.”

“In short, this is something entirely different from social interactions that aim merely to maintain appearances through superficial harmony.”
“Do you understand?”

The woman said she understood and left.

XII

There were people who came to me saying, “Write poem cards!” “Write poems!”
And then they would send those poem cards and silk cloths even before I had agreed.
At first, out of pity for dashing their well-intentioned hopes—though I thought my handwriting poor—I wrote as they demanded.
Yet such goodwill proved hard to sustain, and gradually I grew more inclined to disregard the requests of many.

I sometimes even consider that all human beings are born to suffer shame day after day—so an act like sending others clumsy calligraphy isn’t necessarily beyond me if I resolve to do it.
However，when I am ill，when work keeps me busy，or when I simply don’t wish to comply，having such requests pile up one after another truly leaves me at a loss.
Many of them are complete strangers to me，and they don’t even seem to care about the trouble I go through to send back their own poem cards.

Among them, the one who displeased me most was a man named Iwasaki residing in Sakashimo, Banshū.
This man was someone I remembered who, several years prior, had often sent me postcards requesting I write haiku for him, and each time I had written as instructed and sent them off.
After that, he sent me another square, thin package.
I found even opening it bothersome, so I left it lying around in my study as it was. Then, when the maid cleaned, she slipped it between some books, making it appear neatly stored away while effectively losing it.

Around the same time as this package, a can of tea arrived from Nagoya addressed to me.
However, I couldn’t understand at all who had sent it or for what purpose.
I unhesitatingly drank that tea.
Then before long, the man from Sakashimo came demanding the return of the Mount Fuji ascent painting.
Having no recollection of ever receiving such a thing from him, I dismissed it.
However, he persisted in demanding the painting’s return three or four times.
I finally began to doubt this man’s mental state.
“He must be mad.”
Having thus resolved in my heart, I decided to ignore all further demands from him.

Two or three months passed.

I believe it was around early summer when I began to feel oppressed sitting amidst the disarray of my overly cluttered study, so I started tidying up the area by myself, bit by bit. At that time, while reorganizing the haphazardly stacked dictionaries and reference books one by one to sort out my books, I unexpectedly came across that package sent by the man from Sakashimo. I was startled to see right before my eyes something I had completely forgotten about. When I promptly opened the seal and examined the contents, there was a single small folded painting inside. Since it was a depiction of climbing Mount Fuji, I was startled once more.

Inside the package, along with this painting, there was an accompanying letter containing a request to inscribe a poetic comment on the artwork and a message stating they would send tea as a token of gratitude.
I grew increasingly startled.

However, at that time, I simply did not possess the courage to inscribe anything on a painting depicting a Mount Fuji ascent.
As my state of mind was worlds apart from such matters, I lacked the leisure to compose a haiku that might harmonize with the artwork.
Nevertheless, I felt compelled.
I wrote a courteous letter apologizing for my negligence.
Then I expressed thanks for the tea.
Finally, I returned the painting of the Mount Fuji ascent in a package.

XIII

Thinking this had settled the matter, I put all thought of that man from Sakashimo out of my mind.
Then he sent sealed poem cards again.
This time he demanded I compose a verse about loyal retainers.
I told him I would write it eventually.
Yet no suitable opportunity arose, and so it remained undone.
But this persistent man clearly had no intention of letting things lie, for he began badgering me relentlessly.
His demands arrived like clockwork—once a week, sometimes every fortnight.
They always came as postcards, each unfailingly opening with “Respectfully, though I must apologize for my impertinence…”
I found myself growing increasingly vexed by these missives.

At the same time, his demands began to take on strange characteristics I had never anticipated.
The words “Didn’t I send you tea initially?” appeared.
When I kept ignoring them, the demands shifted to insisting I return that tea.
Returning it would have been simple enough, but the hassle seemed too great—I felt like telling him to come all the way to Tokyo to retrieve it.
Yet sending such a letter to the man from Sakashimo felt beneath my dignity, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Receiving no reply only made him intensify his demands.
If I wouldn’t return the tea, he now insisted, then I should send one yen as compensation instead.
My feelings toward this man grew increasingly bitter.
In the end, I finally lost control of myself.
I drank the tea, I lost the poem cards—I wrote declaring any further postcards entirely unnecessary.
And within my heart, I tasted something intensely acrid.
For I believed this man from Sakashimo had driven me into this pit where I must make such ungentlemanly remarks.
The thought that I had to endure some degradation of dignity—of character itself—for his sake filled me with despair.

However, the man from Sakashimo remained unfazed.
He wrote another postcard saying that for me to drink the tea and lose the poem cards was going too far—that it was excessive...
And at its beginning, the phrase "Respectfully, though I must apologize for my impertinence…" was still being repeated as per formula.

At that moment, I resolved to have nothing more to do with this man.
However, my resolution was likely to have no effect whatsoever on his attitude.
He still did not cease his demands.
And this time, he proposed that if I wrote it again, he would send more tea.
And then, since it concerned loyal retainers after all, he said it would be acceptable to compose a verse.

Just when I thought the postcards had ceased for a while, this time they turned into sealed letters.
To be fair, the envelopes were extremely cheap, mouse-gray ones like those used at ward offices, but he deliberately refrained from affixing stamps to them.
Instead, he mailed them without writing his name on the back.
Because of this, I was made to pay double postage about twice.
Finally, I informed the deliveryman of his name and address and had him return it unopened to the sender.
Perhaps because he had been made to pay six sen, he finally seemed to adopt an attitude of abandoning his demands.

However, after about two months had passed and the year turned, he sent me an ordinary New Year’s card. That impressed me enough that I ended up writing a verse on a poem card and sending it. Yet this gift failed to satisfy him. He kept complaining that the poem cards were bent or soiled, ceaselessly demanding rewrites. Indeed, even this New Year—around the seventh or eighth—another request letter arrived bearing the phrase “Respectfully, though I must apologize for my impertinence…”

Encountering such a person was a first in my life.

XIV

I recently heard a relatively detailed account of the time a burglar broke into my house long ago.

Since this was from the time when both of my sisters were still unmarried—in terms of chronology, it probably coincided with the period around my birth—after all, it was that clamorous era when fierce terms like “loyalist” and “shogunate supporter” were in vogue.

One night, after my eldest sister rose in the darkness to relieve herself and slid open the low door to wash her hands, she saw—pressed against the courtyard wall with such force it seemed to buckle—the gnarled base of an ancient plum tree blazing unnaturally bright.
She shut the door before thought could take shape, yet remained standing there afterward, puzzling over that impossible radiance burned into her retinas.

The sister imprinted upon my childhood memory still floats before me whenever I will it—every detail crisp as winter air: broad forehead, dusk-kissed skin, nose small yet sharply defined, eyes wide beneath heavy lids bearing her gentle name Mizusawa.
Yet this phantom wears the blackened teeth of marriage; reconstructing her maiden form—that girl poised on the veranda’s edge, thoughts adrift like plum petals—now strains my heart’s eye to breaking.

A broad forehead, dusky skin, a small yet clearly defined nose, eyes with double lids larger than average, and the gentle name Mizusawa—I could only synthesize these elements to imagine my sister’s appearance in that moment.

As she stood there thinking for a while, apprehension struck her—could it be a fire? And so, the moment she resolutely tried to open the sliding door again to peer outside, a single gleaming blade slid silently from the darkness into the square opening of the door. My sister recoiled in surprise. In that moment, a masked man carrying a hooded lantern entered through the small sliding door, his sword still drawn. I heard there were indeed eight burglars.

Since they hadn’t come to kill anyone else, they wouldn’t harm the family as long as everyone stayed quiet—but in exchange, they pressed Father to hand over military funds.
Father refused.
However, the burglars would not comply.
They had gone into a sake shop called Kogura-ya at the corner and had been informed there, so they insisted hiding was useless and refused to budge.
Father finally laid out several koban before them with utter reluctance.
Perhaps thinking the amount too meager yet still showing no sign of leaving—at this point Mother, who had been lying in bed until now—advised: “You should hand over what’s in your wallet too.”
In that wallet there were about fifty ryō, or so the story goes.
After the burglars left, Father apparently scolded Mother: “You’re a woman who says unnecessary things.”

Ever since that incident, my family had devised a method of hollowing out pillars and hiding money inside them; however, we never accumulated enough wealth to warrant hiding, and moreover, the black-clad burglars never came again, so by the time I was growing up, we could no longer tell which pillars had been hollowed out.

When the burglars were leaving, they apparently praised, "This is a very well-secured house," but from the next day onward, Mr. Hanbei of Koguraya—who had informed them about this well-secured house—ended up with numerous scratches on his head.
This was because every time he refused, saying there was no money, the burglars would retort that such a thing couldn’t be possible and repeatedly jab the tip of their drawn blades against Mr. Hanbei’s head.
Even so, Mr. Hanbei stubbornly insisted, “There’s absolutely nothing here. The Natsume residence behind us has plenty, so go over there,” and in the end, not a single coin was taken from him.

I heard this story from my wife.
My wife had in turn heard it from my brother over tea.

XV

When I gave a lecture at Gakushuin last November, they later sent me a paper-wrapped package labeled “modest gratuity.”
Since it bore an elaborate ceremonial cord, when I removed it and looked inside, there were two five-yen bills.
I had always felt bad about that money and wondered if I should give it to a certain artist I was close to, quietly waiting for him to visit.
However, before the artist appeared, some need for a donation arose, and I ended up spending both bills.

To put it simply, this money was by no means useless to me.
According to society’s standard rates, it had no choice but to be splendidly consumed for my sake.
But from my subjective viewpoint—one that had even contemplated redirecting it elsewhere—it remained money that had not accrued much gratitude.
To speak frankly of my feelings, I felt far more invigorated when not receiving such gratitude than when I did.

When Mr. Kawaryū Kaishū came regarding the Chogyū Society lecture matter, I took advantage of the conversation to explain my reasons in full.

“In this case, I did not go there to sell my labor.”
“Since I accepted the request out of goodwill alone, I think it would suffice if they reciprocated with goodwill alone.”
“If they intended to treat it as a matter of compensation, they should have consulted me from the start about how much the payment of gratitude would be and whether I’d agree to come.”

At that moment, Mr.K made a face as though unconvinced.
Then he responded thus:

“But consider this: That ten yen isn’t meant to purchase your labor, but rather should be viewed as a means of expressing gratitude toward you. Can you not view it that way?”

“If it were a physical gift, one could clearly interpret it as such, but unfortunately, since this token of gratitude uses money typically employed in commercial transactions, it becomes open to either interpretation.”

“If it can be interpreted either way, wouldn’t it be better to interpret it as goodwill in this instance?”

I found this perfectly reasonable.
Yet I answered him thus.

“As you know, I make my clothing and food through manuscript fees, so naturally I cannot be called wealthy.”
“But somehow or other, I manage to get through today on that alone.”
“Therefore, regarding matters outside my profession, I hold the belief that I want to work for others as kindly as possible.”
“And for me, that this goodwill reaches the other party is a reward of supreme preciousness beyond all else.”
“Thus when I receive money, it feels as though this opportunity for me to work for others—and at present this opportunity is already extremely limited—this precious opportunity is being corroded.”

Mr. K still did not seem to accept what I was saying.
I was stubborn too.

“If someone were to ask a wealthy industrialist like Iwasaki or Mitsui to give a lecture, would they later bring ten yen as a token of gratitude, or would they consider it rude and simply offer their thanks? In my view, they probably wouldn’t bring money.”

“Well…” was all Mr. K said, offering no clear reply.
I still had a little more to say.

“I don’t know if this is vanity, but while my mind may not be as affluent as Mitsui or Iwasaki’s, I do believe I’m far wealthier than the average student.”

“Absolutely,” Mr. K nodded.

“If bringing a ten-yen token of gratitude to Iwasaki or Mitsui would be rude, then bringing a ten-yen token of gratitude to me must also be rude.”
“If that ten yen were to materially enrich my life, one might view this matter from another perspective, but in reality, I even considered giving it away elsewhere.”
“My current financial situation suffers almost no visible impact from these ten yen.”

“Let’s think it over,” said Mr. K as he left with a smirk.

XVI

Going down the gradual slope in front of the house, there was a bridge spanning a small stream about six feet wide, and immediately to the left across that bridge stood a small barber shop. I had gotten my hair cut there just once.

Ordinarily, a white calico curtain was hung so that the interior beyond the glass door remained hidden from the street; thus I had stood in that barber shop’s earthen-floored entryway without knowing the proprietor’s face at all until taking my seat before the mirror.

When the proprietor saw me enter, he threw down the newspaper he was holding and immediately greeted me.
At that moment, I couldn't help feeling he must be a man I had met somewhere before.
So when he moved behind me and began clicking his scissors, I took the opportunity to start a conversation.
As I had surmised, I learned that he had once run a shop next to the Teramachi post office and made his living as a barber, just as he did now.

“I received much kindness from Mr. Takada and others.”

Since that Takada was my cousin, I too was surprised.

“Oh, you know Takada?”

“Far from merely knowing him. He was always going on about ‘virtue this, virtue that’ while showing me such favor.”

His manner of speech was rather polite for an artisan of his sort.

When I said, “Takada’s dead too,” he exclaimed “Heh!” in a startled tone.

“He was a fine gentleman—what a shame.”
“When did he pass away?”

“Oh, just recently.”
“It’s been about two weeks today—maybe not even that long yet.”

He then told me various things he remembered about this deceased cousin before concluding, “Time flies, doesn’t it, sir? Feels like yesterday to me, yet it’s been nearly thirty years already.”

“In that alley by Kyūyūtei, you know…” the proprietor added, continuing his story.

“Yeah, that house with the second floor, right?”

“Ah yes—there was indeed a second floor now you mention it.”
“When he moved there we had such commotion—congratulatory gifts pouring in from every quarter.”
“Then later—wasn’t it after that?—he relocated within Gyōganji Temple’s precincts?”

This question was one I couldn’t answer either.
The truth was, as it was such an old matter, I had ended up forgetting it altogether.

“That temple grounds seems to have changed quite a lot now. Since I had no business there, I’ve never actually gone in since then, but—”

“Changed or not changed—why, now it’s nothing but teahouses, I tell you.”

Whenever I passed through Sakana-machi, I knew of the many square lanterns haphazardly clustered at the entrance of the narrow alley leading into the temple grounds by the tabi shop’s corner. However, I lacked the whimsy to count their number, so I had remained unaware of what the proprietor had mentioned.

“Now that you mention it, I do believe signs like *Dare ga Sode* are visible from the street.”

“Oh yes, they’ve built so many now.”
“Well, it’s only natural things would change, when you think about it.”
“After all, it’ll soon be thirty years now.”
“As you well know, sir, back then there was just one geisha house in the whole temple grounds.”
“Tōka, you know.”
“It was right across from Mr. Takada’s place, wasn’t it—where Tōka’s sacred lantern used to hang?”

XVII

I remembered Tōka well. Since Tōka was right across from my cousin’s house, the people from both households were on such terms that they would exchange greetings whenever their paths crossed.

At that time, my second brother was loafing around at my cousin’s house. This brother was a notorious libertine who would steal hanging scrolls and swords from the residence and sell them off for a pittance—a wretched habit of his. I hadn’t understood back then why he had ended up staying at our cousin’s place, though now it occurs to me he might have been temporarily expelled from home due to such brutish behavior. Alongside this brother there was also a man named Mr. Shō—another maternal cousin of mine—idling about the premises.

Whenever this crowd gathered in one spot—lounging about, sitting on verandas, spouting whatever nonsense they pleased—voices would occasionally call out greetings like “Good day” from the bamboo lattice windows of the geisha house across the way. As if lying in wait for this very opportunity, they would call out things like, “Hey, come over here! We’ve got something good,” trying to beckon the women over. Since geishas too had free time during the day, they would come playfully once out of every three times. That was the rhythm of things.

I was likely seventeen or eighteen at the time, and being terribly shy by nature, even when finding myself in such places, I would keep silent and withdraw to a corner without saying a word. But even so, on one occasion I ended up going with these people to that geisha house and playing cards.
Since the loser had to treat everyone to something, I ended up eating quite a bit of sushi and sweets that others bought.

About a week later, I was taken by this idle brother of mine to visit the same house again, and when I went, Mr. Shō was also present, and the conversation grew quite lively.
At that moment, a young geisha named Sakimatsu looked at my face and said, “Let’s play cards again.”

I was cutting a formal figure in my Kokura hakama trousers, but there wasn’t even a single sen in my pockets for pocket money.

“I don’t want to because I don’t have any money.”

“It’s fine—I’ll cover it.”

This woman must have had an eye ailment at the time; as she said this, she kept rubbing her faintly reddened double eyelids with the sleeve of her beautiful underkimono.

Afterward at my cousin’s house I heard the rumor that Osaku had been taken in by a good patron. In my cousin’s household they never called this woman Sakimatsu but always referred to her as Osaku, Osaku. When I heard this story I thought to myself I would likely never get another chance to meet Osaku.

However, a long time after that, when I went with that master to the Kangōjō in Shiba Yamauchi, there I suddenly encountered Osaku again.
In contrast to my student-like attire, she had already transformed into a refined lady.
Her husband was also by her side...

I suddenly recalled all these old facts lurking behind the name Tōka—the geisha house that had come from the barber shop owner’s lips.

“Do you know a woman named Osaku who used to be there?” I asked the barber shop owner.

“Know her? Why, she was my niece, I tell you.”

“Is that so?”

I was startled.

“So where is she now?”

“Osaku died, sir.”

I was startled again.

“When?”

“When? Well, it’s already a thing of the past.”
“I believe that was when she was twenty-three.”
“Huh.”
“Moreover, she died in Vladivostok.”
“Since her husband had connections to the consulate, she went there with him.”
“And not long after that—she died.”

I returned and sat inside the glass door, feeling as though the only ones left alive were myself and that barber shop owner.

XVIII

A certain young woman who had been shown into my study asked, “I’m terribly troubled that my surroundings never stay properly ordered—what should I do about this?”

Since this woman was staying at a relative’s house—a place I assumed to be cramped and teeming with noisy children—my answer was exceedingly simple.

“Why not look for a tidy house somewhere and take up lodgings?”

“No, it’s not about the room—I’m troubled because my mind won’t stay ordered.”

I became aware of my misunderstanding, and at the same time, the woman’s meaning became unclear to me again. Even so, I asked her for a slightly more detailed explanation.

“Everything from outside comes into my mind, but none of it aligns with the core of my heart.”

“What exactly is this ‘core of the heart’ you speak of?”

“What kind of thing, you ask? It’s a straight line.”

I knew this woman was passionate about mathematics.
But of course, the notion that the heart’s core was a straight line made no sense to me.
Moreover, what exactly “center” meant remained nearly incomprehensible.
The woman said this.

“Everything must have a center.”

“That’s about objects you can see with your eyes and measure with a ruler.”
“Does the mind have a shape?”
“Then show me that center here.”

The woman, without saying whether she could produce it or not, looked toward the garden and was rubbing her hands on her lap.

“Isn’t this ‘straight line’ of yours a metaphor? If it’s a metaphor, then whether you call it a circle or a square, it would amount to the same thing, wouldn’t it?”

“That may be so, but even as forms and colors keep changing, there must inevitably be something that doesn’t change at all.”

“If we suppose that what changes and what doesn’t change are separate entities, then it would mean there are two minds—is that acceptable? What changes must inherently be what doesn’t change—isn’t that how it should be?”

Having said this, I turned back to face the woman, returning the issue to its starting point.

“There’s probably no one whose mind can immediately organize every external thing that enters it into orderly arrangements or clear divisions. Given your age, education, and learning—if you’ll pardon my frankness—it’s impossible for you to keep things so neatly sorted. If you don’t mean it in that sense and wish to settle things thoroughly without relying on academic methods, then coming to someone like me won’t do any good. You should go see a priest instead.”

Then the woman looked at my face.

“When I first looked up at you, Sensei, I thought your mind was more orderly than most people’s in that regard.”
“There’s no way that’s true.”
“But that’s how it appeared to me.”
“I could only think that even the placement of your internal organs was perfectly ordered.”

“If my internal organs were so well-regulated, I wouldn’t be constantly falling ill like this.”

“I don’t get sick,” the woman suddenly said of herself at that moment.

“That is proof you are greater than I,” I replied.

The woman slid off the futon.
Then she said, “Please take good care of yourself,” and departed.

XIX

My old house stood in a town called Baba-shita, four or five chō further inland from where I now reside.
Though designated a town, to my childhood eyes it appeared scarcely more than a desolate post station—utterly bleak and lonely.
Baba-shita literally meant “below Takada’s horse grounds,” so even on Edo-period maps it must have occupied some remote fringe where one couldn’t discern whether it fell within or beyond the red-lined districts.

Even so, there must have been three or four storehouse-style houses in that narrow town. When ascending the slope, the medicine shop called Omiya Denbei visible on the right side was one such example. At the bottom of the slope, there was also a sake shop called Kokuraya with a wide frontage. However, this one was not storehouse-style, though it boasted a historical pedigree—Horibe Yasubei had stopped here to drink a masu of sake on his way to strike down his enemy at Takada’s horse grounds. I had known that story since childhood, but I never once saw the masu that Yasubei was said to have drunk from—the one rumored to be stored there. Instead, I heard Ms. Okita’s nagauta ballads countless times. As a child, I couldn’t tell whether they were good or bad, but whenever I stood on the stepping stones leading from my house’s entrance to the street—about to go out—Ms. Okita’s voice would often reach me from there. On spring afternoons, I would often stand dazedly leaning against the white wall of my family’s storehouse, my soul enveloped in beautiful light, neither listening nor not listening to Ms. Okita’s singing practice. Thanks to that, I ended up unintentionally memorizing phrases like “The traveler’s robe is of shino grass” before I knew it.

Apart from these, there was one pole shop.
There was also one blacksmith shop.
A little closer to Hachiman-zaka stood a covered auction house with a wide earthen floor enclosed beneath its roof.
The people of my household referred to its proprietor as Wholesaler Mr. Sentarō.
I had heard Mr. Sentarō was somehow distantly related to my father, but in practice they were practically strangers.
Their acquaintance seemed limited to exchanging greetings like “Fine weather today” whenever they chanced upon each other in the street.
Through others’ accounts I knew of the uproar when Mr. Sentarō’s only daughter became entangled with the storyteller Teisui—all that talk of life and death—but no clear memory of it remains in my mind now.
To my childhood self, far more fascinating was the sight of Mr. Sentarō perched on his high platform, writing set and ledger in hand, surveying the crowd below with a booming “What’s your bid?”
From beneath him twenty or thirty hands would shoot up simultaneously, all turned his way as voices barked bidding calls—“Ronji!” “Ganeda!”—while baskets of ginger, eggplants and pumpkins were hauled away by those thick-knuckled hands in urgent thuds—a spectacle that never failed to thrill me.

Of course there was a tofu shop of the sort commonly found in any rural area. The tofu shop had a rope curtain steeped in oil odors hanging at its entrance, where the water flowing through the gutter remained as clean as if channeled from Kyoto. Turning past that tofu shop, one could see the gate of Saikanji Temple slightly elevated about half a chō ahead. Behind the red-lacquered gate lay a deep bamboo thicket that completely obscured any view of what lay within from the street, yet even now the sound of morning and evening service bells from its depths lingers in my ears. From autumn's fog-laden days to winter's withering winds, the clanging of Saikanji Temple's bells would drive something cold and sorrowful into my heart, chilling my youthful spirit as if hammering frost into my very being.

XX

I still remember, as if in a dream, that there was a vaudeville hall next to this tofu shop.
The notion that such an establishment could exist in this backwater must be what clouds my memory; each time I recall it, I am struck by peculiarity, widening my eyes in wonder as I habitually peer back into my distant past.

The proprietor of that vaudeville hall was the town’s construction chief, who would often stroll about wearing a striped workman’s apron and a crested haori coat with red accents, his feet clad in slip-on straw sandals or similar footwear.
There was also a girl named Miss Mifuji there, and I still retain clear memory of how her looks were frequently discussed by my household.
Later they adopted a son—an imposing man with a mustache—which rather startled me.
Miss Mifuji’s family also boasted quite proudly of this adopted son, but when I later made inquiries, I heard he was supposedly a clerk at some ward office.

By the time this adopted son arrived, they had already discontinued the vaudeville hall and turned it into a secondhand store, but back when a dim sign still hung forlornly under the eaves of that house, I would often receive pocket money from my mother and go there to listen to storytelling.
The storyteller’s name was Nanrin, if I recall correctly.
Strangely enough, it seemed no one but Nanrin ever performed at this vaudeville hall.
I don’t know where this man lived, but no matter which direction he came from, given today’s paved roads and orderly housefronts, his commute must have been quite an undertaking.
With audiences always numbering just fifteen or twenty people at most, however vividly one might imagine it now, it could only feel like a dream.
That peculiar phrase—“‘Hey there, courtesan!’ called out, and when she replied ‘Yatsuhashi at your service,’ the moment she turned around—the glint of a slashing blade”—whether I learned it from Nanrin back then or later picked it up from rakugo performers imitating storytellers—now lies jumbled in my mind beyond clear recollection.

At that time, to go from my house to what could be called a proper town, I inevitably had to pass through deserted tea fields, bamboo groves, or long rice paddy paths. Shopping that could be called proper shopping usually required going all the way to Kagurazaka, so for me—accustomed to such necessities—it was hardly a hardship. Yet when it came to that single path of five or six *chō* leading up Yarai Slope, past Sakai’s fire watchtower toward Teramachi, even at noon it felt gloomy, perpetually dim as though the sky itself were overcast.

Large trees—each two or three arm spans around—lined the embankment there, their gaps filled by towering bamboo thickets, so that in truth, not a single hour of daylight could have pierced through in all the day. If you thought of going downtown and tried to go out wearing weather clogs, you were certain to meet with a cruel fate. The thawing frost there has seeped into my mind as something more dreadful than rain or snow.

Even in such an inconvenient place, it seems there was still a risk of fire, for a tall ladder stood at the town’s corner as usual. And atop it hung an old fire bell, as was customary. I often recall these unvarnished old days. The small one-dish restaurant that once stood right beneath that fire bell also naturally comes to mind. I cannot forget the scene—the warm aroma of simmered dishes flowing out through gaps in the rope curtain along with smoke into the street, blending into the evening haze. The haiku I composed while Shiki was still alive—“A fire bell and tall winter trees stand side by side—ah”—was in truth created to commemorate this very fire bell.

XXI

My memories of my family home are, on the whole, rustic in this manner.
And they harbor somewhere a faintly chilly, pitiful shadow.
Therefore, when I heard just the other day from my brother who is still alive now about the circumstances of when my sisters went to the theater, I was surprised.
When I think that there was once a time when they led such extravagant lives, I can only feel as though I am in a dream.

In those days, all the theaters were in Saruwaka-chō.
In an era without trains or rickshaws, attempting to reach beyond Asakusa Kannon from below Takadanobaba early in the morning must have been no ordinary undertaking.
My sisters all rose at midnight to prepare.
As the journey was considered perilous, they say a manservant always accompanied them for safety.

They would descend Tsukudo, emerge from Kakinoki Yokochō to Ageba, and board the roofed boat they had commissioned in advance from the boat house there.
I imagine how they were rowed slowly past the Artillery Factory through Ochanomizu to Yanagibashi, their hearts brimming with anticipation.
Moreover, since their travels could never truly conclude there, those bygone days unbound by time constraints became all the more fertile ground for reminiscence.

The boat that had entered the Ōkawa River was said to have rowed upstream through Azuma Bridge and arrived near the Ariake-ro in Imado.
They climbed up from there, walked to the theater tea house, and were then escorted to the theater hut to finally take their reserved seats.
The reserved seats were always limited to the raised earthen-floor section.
This was because their attire, faces, and hair ornaments were highly visible in this advantageous location that drew everyone’s eyes, making it a spot that ostentatious people competed to obtain.

During intermission, a man accompanying the actors would come to guide them, saying, “Please come visit the dressing room.”
Then my sisters would follow this man—wearing a hakama over his crepe-patterned kimono—to the dressing rooms of their favored actors like Tanosuke or Tossho, where they would have them draw pictures on folding fans before returning home.
This must have been their vanity.
And such vanity could not be purchased without the power of money.

On the return trip, they would row back to Ageba in the same boat along the route they had come.
Deeming it safe, the manservant would go to meet them with a lit lantern again.
They would likely arrive home around twelve o’clock by today’s clocks.
So it took them from midnight to midnight to finally see the play.…

When I heard such a splendid story, I began to doubt whether it had truly happened at my own house.
I also felt as though I’d been told some tale of a wealthy downtown merchant house from days gone by.

However, my family was not of the samurai class.
They were town headmen—commoners obliged to maintain ostentatious social engagements.
The father I knew was a bald old man, but they say that in his youth, he studied Ichiyū-bushi and even had crepe silk bedding made for a woman he was involved with.
I heard there were rice fields in Aoyama whose yield alone sufficed to feed our household.
In fact, my third brother—still alive today—claims he constantly heard that rice being pounded.
According to my memory, the townspeople all called our house “Genkan Genkan.”
At that time I didn’t understand why, but now I suppose it was because ours was the only home in town with an imposing entrance featuring a stepping-platform.
I still remember how arresting poles, sleeve-catchers, barbed hooks, and even an antiquated horseback lantern once hung at the top of that platform in days gone by.

XXII

For the past two or three years, I generally fell ill about once a year.
And from the time I took to bed until I rose again, I ended up wasting nearly a month’s worth of days.

Speaking of my illness, it was always a fixed stomach ailment, so when it came to a crisis, there remained no recourse but fasting therapy.
Not only the doctor’s orders but the very nature of my illness itself compelled me to this fasting.
Therefore, when heading into recovery rather than at the onset of illness, I became even more emaciated and unsteady on my feet.
The fact that it took over a month seemed attributable mainly to being plagued by this weakness.

When I regained freedom of movement, black-bordered obituary notices were occasionally placed on my desk. Like one who smiles wryly at fate, I donned a silk hat and stood among funeral processions; I dashed to funeral halls by rickshaw. Among the dead were grandfathers and grandmothers, but there were also those younger than I—individuals who had always boasted of their health—mingled in their ranks.

I returned home and sat at my desk to ponder how truly mysterious human lifespans are.
As someone chronically ill，I found myself questioning why I remained alive.
Why had that person died before me? I wondered.

For one such as myself，it must be said that indulging in such meditations comes rather naturally.
Yet as someone prone to forgetting my own position，body，and talents—indeed every aspect defining my proper place—I often lived convinced my survival was only natural.
Even during sutra chants or incense offerings，I maintained composure，never finding it strange—this skeletal form persisting beyond those who’d become Buddhas through death.

Someone once told me, "It seems natural for others to die, but I simply cannot imagine myself dying."
When I asked a man who had been to war, “How can you maintain the belief that you alone won’t die while watching your comrades fall one after another?” he replied: “You can.”
“People don’t think they’ll die until they actually do,” he added.
Then when hearing about airplanes from someone affiliated with the university’s science department—this same Q&A comes back to me.

“If they keep crashing and dying like that, those who come after would be scared, wouldn’t they? You’d think people would feel ‘Now it’s my turn,’ but they don’t, don’t you think?”

“However, it appears that isn’t the case.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because they apparently become dominated by a completely opposite psychological state. When someone crashes and dies, others start thinking, ‘But I’ll be fine,’ you see.”

I too was likely able to remain relatively unperturbed through this same psychological mechanism.
That too was only natural.
After all, everyone remains alive until they die.

Strangely enough, black-bordered notices hardly ever arrived while I was asleep.
Last autumn as well, after my illness had healed, I attended three or four funerals.
Among those three or four was Mr. Satō from the company.
I remembered how Mr. Satō had brought a silver cup he had received from the company to a banquet and had offered me sake.
I still remember the strange dance he had performed at that time.
Having attended the funeral of this vigorous, unyielding man, I often found nothing particularly strange in the fact that he had died while I remained alive.
Yet when I considered it at times, I began to feel as though my continued existence itself seemed unnatural.
And I began to suspect that fate might be deliberately mocking me.

XXIII

Near where I now live, there was a town called Kikui-chō.
Since this was the place where I was born, I knew it better than others.
But when I left home and wandered far and wide before returning, Kikui-chō had expanded considerably, stretching all the way to Negoro before I knew it.

The name of this town, so deeply connected to me—perhaps because I had grown too accustomed to hearing it—failed to evoke even a whisper of nostalgia that might summon my past.
Yet when I sat alone in my study, propping my cheek as I let my mind wander freely like a boat drifting downstream, there were times when my associations would abruptly encounter the four characters of Kikui-chō and begin to linger there for a while.

This town likely did not exist in the days when it was called Edo.
Whether it was when Edo was renamed Tokyo or much later—the exact era remains unclear—but it was undoubtedly my father who established it.

The story goes that since my family’s crest was a chrysanthemum within a well curb, they used kiku (chrysanthemum) and i (well) to create Kikui-chō—whether I heard this directly from my father’s own mouth or learned it from others, in any case, it still rings in my ears.
After the position of town headman was abolished, my father served for a time as district chief, so perhaps he had such authority; but when I now consider his vanity in taking pride in this, any unpleasant feelings have long since vanished, leaving only a desire to smile.

Moreover, my father had given the long slope that one must inevitably climb when heading south from our house the name of our family surname: Natsume-zaka.
Unfortunately, this did not become as famous as Kikui-chō and remained merely as a slope.
However, the other day someone came and told me that when they checked a map of this area, there was a place called Natsume-zaka, so perhaps the name my father gave was still in use after all.

When I returned to Waseda, how many years had it been since I left Tokyo? Before moving to my current residence—whether while house-hunting or returning from an outing—after a long absence I happened to come beside my old house. Catching a glimpse of second-story roof tiles from the front then, I briefly wondered if they still survived before simply walking past.

After moving to Waseda, I again passed by its front gate. Peering from the front, it somehow seemed unchanged yet bore an unexpected boarding house sign on the gatepost. I had wanted to see Waseda's old rice fields. But that place had already become a town. I had wanted to glimpse Negoro's tea fields and bamboo grove. Yet no trace of them could be found anywhere. My conjecture—that this was probably the area—remained unclear whether accurate or mistaken.

I stood bewildered. Why did only my house remain like a relic of the past? In my heart, I wished it would collapse soon.

"Time" was a force. Last year when I happened to pass by while taking a stroll toward Takada, my house had been neatly demolished, and a new boarding house was being built in its place. Beside it, a pawnshop had also been established. In front of the pawnshop, a sparse fence had been set up with a few garden trees planted inside. The three pine trees—their branches so severely pruned they retained no semblance of their former selves, reduced almost to deformed children—nonetheless stirred in me a peculiar sense of familiarity. As I made my way home, I wondered whether the line I once composed—"shadows of three pines, uneven on a moonlit night"—might not have been about these very trees.

XXIV

“Given where you grew up, it’s remarkable you’ve managed to stay unscathed until today.”

“Well, I’ve managed to come through unscathed, one way or another.”

The term "unscathed" that we used referred to the absence of romantic turmoil between men and women—in other words, it pointed to the opposite of a love affair—but my inquisitive mind could not be satisfied with this simple answer.

“You know how people say that even a man with the biggest sweet tooth will grow sick of sweets if he works at a confectionery? If you saw them making ohagi rice cakes for the equinox festival at home, you’d understand—they look utterly sick of it just from packing those ohagi into tiered boxes.”
“In your case, is it the same way?”

“It doesn’t seem to be quite like that.”
“At any rate, I was unperturbed until just past twenty.”

In a certain sense, that person was a fine man.

“Even if you remain unperturbed, that doesn’t necessarily mean the other party isn’t.”
“In such cases, it’s only natural they’d tend to get drawn in, don’t you think?”

“Looking back now, I realize various things—how I acted with certain intentions then or spoke particular words—and there’s no lack of such realizations.”

“So you were completely unaware back then?”

“Well, I suppose so. And then there was one thing I noticed on my part. But no matter what, my heart simply could not be drawn to that person.”

I thought that was the end of the story. Before us was set a New Year’s feast. The guest didn’t drink a drop of sake, and I barely touched my cup either, so there was no exchange of toasts whatsoever.

“So you’ve managed to get by until today just on that?” I asked, sipping my soup to confirm. Then the guest suddenly began to tell me this story.

“Back when I was still a servant, I had a relationship with a woman for about two years.”
“She was no amateur herself.”
“But that woman is no longer here.”
“She hanged herself and died.”
“She was nineteen years old.”
“She died after we hadn’t seen each other for about ten days.”
“That woman—she had two patrons who, out of sheer stubbornness, started bidding up the price for her services.”
“And both sides enlisted old prostitutes as allies, pressuring her with obligations—‘Come here,’ ‘Don’t go there.’……”

“Weren’t you able to save her?”

“At that time, I was like an apprentice with just a bit of fuzz on my chin—there was absolutely nothing I could do.”

“But didn’t that geisha die because of you?”

“Well… It might have been because she couldn’t fulfill her obligations to both patrons at once…… But there must have been a promise between us two not to go anywhere else.”

“Then it might mean that you indirectly caused that woman’s death.”

“That might be the case.”

“Doesn’t your sleep sit uneasy?”
“It truly rests ill with me.”

On New Year’s Day, my parlor was crowded; by the second day, it had grown quiet enough to feel desolate.
It was amidst these desolate springtime pine decorations of the New Year that I heard this pitiful tale from that New Year’s guest.
The guest was a serious and honest man; thus, even in recounting it, he used scarcely any amorous language.

XXV

This story dates back to when I was still living in Sendagi; counting the years, it has become quite an old tale by now.

One day, on my way back from a walk toward Kiridoshi, instead of coming out at the corner of Hongo 4-chome, I turned north onto a narrow street one block earlier.
At that bend in the road where a cow shed once stood back then, a vaudeville theater sign always hung nearby.

As it was a rainy day, I naturally had my umbrella open. It was an iron-gray umbrella with eight ribs and a deep curve, droplets leaking from above beginning to trickle down the natural-wooden handle and wet my hand. This little-traveled alleyway—as though all its mud had been washed away by the rain—held almost no filth to catch on geta teeth. Even so, looking up showed darkness; looking down showed desolation. Perhaps because I frequented this path so often, there was nothing around me that caught my eye. And so my heart resembled this weather and these surroundings exactly. Within me there always existed an unpleasant mass that corroded my heart. With a gloomy expression, I walked absently through the falling rain.

When I reached the front of the vaudeville theater in Hikage-cho, I suddenly encountered a covered rickshaw.
Since there was nothing between me and the rickshaw, I could tell from a distance that the person riding inside was a woman.
Since this was before the time of celluloid windows, the person in the rickshaw showed me her pale face from afar.

In my eyes, that pale face appeared extremely beautiful. I walked through the rain, gazing intently at that person’s figure. At the same time, the conjecture that this must be a geisha took hold in my heart almost as fact. When the rickshaw came to about six feet in front of me, suddenly the beautiful person I had been watching gave me a polite bow and passed by. Along with the greeting accompanied by a smile, I realized for the first time that the other person was Ms. Otsuka Kusuo.

The next time we met—perhaps several days later—Ms. Kusuo said to me, “I must apologize for my behavior the other day,” which made me feel compelled to speak candidly.

“To be honest, I kept watching you while wondering which distinguished lady you might be.”
“I even considered whether you could be a geisha.”

I didn't remember exactly how Ms. Kusuo responded at that moment, but she didn't blush in the slightest.
Nor did she show any unpleasant expression.
It seemed she had taken my words simply at face value.

A long time after that, there came a day when Ms. Kusuo specially visited me in Waseda.
However, as ill luck would have it, I was quarreling with my wife.
I remained sitting in my study with a displeased look on my face.
Ms. Kusuo spoke with my wife for about ten minutes before leaving.

That day ended without further incident, but not long after, I went to Nishikata-cho to apologize.

“The truth is, we were quarreling. My wife must have been rather unfriendly as well. I also thought showing a bitter face would be rude, so I deliberately kept out of sight.”

Ms. Kusuo’s response to this has now become part of the distant past, sunk so deep into the recesses of memory that it can no longer be retrieved.

The news that Ms. Kusuo had died arrived, I believe, during the time I was in the gastrointestinal hospital.
I still remember being contacted by telephone to ask whether it was permissible to include my name in the death notice.
While in the hospital, I composed a memorial haiku for Ms. Kusuo: “A measure of chrysanthemums—toss them into the coffin.”
That a certain man who loved haiku was delighted by this, went out of his way to ask me to write it on a poem card and take it away—even that had now become a thing of the past.

XXVI

I couldn’t understand why Masu-san had fallen so low.
After all, the Masu-san I knew was a postal carrier.
Masu-san’s younger brother Shō-san had also lost his house and ended up as a dependent at my place, but his social standing was still higher than Masu’s.
When he was a child working at a sardine shop in Honmachi, a foreigner at the harbor took a liking to him and offered to take him abroad. He would often say how regrettable it now seemed that he had refused.

Both men being cousins on my mother’s side, Masu-san would often visit—bringing bags of rice crackers as gifts—to see his younger brother and pay respects to my father, making the monthly trip deep into Ushigome. At that time, Masu-san apparently maintained a household either on Shiba’s outskirts or near Shinagawa while living a carefree solitary life, so whenever he came to our house, he would frequently stay over. On the rare occasions he tried to return home, my brothers would crowd around him threatening, “We won’t let you go back!”

At that time, my second and third brothers were still attending Nankō (now the Higher Commercial School). Nankō—located where the Higher Commercial School stands today—apparently had a system where graduating from it allowed one to enter Kaisei School, which is now the university. At night, they would line up paulownia desks in the entranceway and do their preparatory reading for the next day. As for preparatory reading, it was quite different from what students do today. They would read a book like Goodrich’s History of England one section at a time, then lay it facedown on the desk and recite from memory exactly what they had just read.

Once their preparatory reading was done, they gradually began needing Masu-san. Before long, Shō-san too would appear there. My eldest brother, when in a good mood, would come all the way from the inner rooms to the entranceway. Then they all gathered together and began teasing Masu-san.

"Masu-san, you must sometimes deliver letters to Westerners' homes, right?"

"It's my job—I can't very well refuse. I deliver them."

"Can you speak English, Masu-san?"

“If I could speak English, I wouldn’t be doing this kind of work.”
“But you still have to shout ‘Postal service!’ or something at the top of your lungs, don’t you?”

“That can be handled with Japanese.”
“Even Westerners understand Japanese these days.”

“Oh? So they say something over there too?”

“They certainly do.
“Mrs. Perori, for instance, even greets you properly in Japanese with ‘Anata yoroshii, arigatō.’”

Everyone had lured Masu-san this far only to burst into laughter.
Then they would ask again and again, “What does that lady say, Masu-san?” scheming to turn this single matter into a running joke that would last forever.
In the end, even Masu-san forced a wry smile and finally stopped using “you’re welcome.”
“Now then, Masu-san,” one of them called out, “why don’t you perform *The Lone Cedar in the Field* for us?”

“Even if you tell me to do it, I can’t just perform something like that on command.”

“Oh, come on, just do it already. Now then, when we finally arrive at the lone cedar in the field…”

Even so, Masu-san just smirked and didn’t comply. In the end, I never got to hear Masu-san’s “Lone Cedar in the Field.” Now that I think about it, I can’t help but wonder if that was simply a passage from some oral storytelling or a sentimental tale.

By the time I reached adulthood, Masu-san had already stopped coming to our house. He must have died, I suppose. If he were alive, there should be some word of him. However, even if he did die, I do not know when it happened.

XXVII

I was not particularly familiar with the theater.
Traditional theater especially eluded my understanding.
This, I thought, was both because I lacked knowledge of the performative conventions that had developed in that realm since antiquity, and because I was deficient in the ability to assimilate into the singular world unfurling upon the stage.
However, that was not all.
What struck me as most peculiar when watching traditional theater was how the actors wandered indecisively between the natural and the unnatural.
That this evoked in me a restless state of mind—akin to being caught in a half-crouched posture—was perhaps only natural.

However, when children come onto the stage and say something pitiful in high-pitched voices, even someone like me finds tears welling up in my eyes before I realize it. And then immediately, I’d regret it—ah, I’ve been deceived. Why did I shed such shallow tears, I wonder.

“No matter how I think about it, I hate being deceived into crying,” I told someone.

“That must be Sensei’s normal state,” countered my theater-loving opponent. “Isn’t your usual restraint with tears actually just your public facade?”

I remained unconvinced by this argument, and as I tried persuading him from various angles, our discussion gradually drifted toward painting. That man had been extremely delighted by Jakuchū’s revered work, which had recently been exhibited as a reference piece at the Art Association, and there were rumors he intended to publish a critique of it in some magazine. I also disliked that painting of chickens immensely, so another argument similar to our theater debate arose between us.

"You have no right to discuss painting," I finally berated him.
With this remark taking root, he began advocating for art monism.
To summarize his main argument: since all arts spring from the same source, if one thoroughly internalizes even a single one of them, the others can naturally be comprehended—that was his logic.
Among those present, there were quite a few who agreed with him.

“Then if you write novels, will you naturally become skilled at judo too?” I said half-jokingly.

“Judo isn’t an art,” he answered with a laugh.

Art does not depart from egalitarian principles.
Even should it start there, only through entering differentiation does it bloom; were we to return this to its primordial origin, paintings, sculptures, and literature alike would vanish entirely.
How could any commonality exist there?
Even if it did, it would hold no practical value.
There could be no discovery of concrete elements shared between opposing realms.

This had been the substance of my argument at that time.
Yet this line of reasoning was by no means complete.
There remained ample room to incorporate more of their positions and develop a more considered interpretation.

However, at that moment, one person present suddenly took up my argument and confronted my opponent, so I, finding it troublesome, ended up leaving it at that. But the man who took my place was quite drunk. He kept arguing about art this and literature that, yet failed to make any coherent points. His speech was slurred. Those who had initially found it amusing and laughed eventually fell silent.

“Then let’s break off relations,” the drunken man finally declared.
I warned, “If you want to break off relations, do it outside. It’s a nuisance here.”
“Then shall we go outside and break off relations?” proposed the drunken man to his opponent, but when the other man didn’t move, things ended right there.

This occurred on this year's New Year's Day.
The drunken man came around occasionally after that, but never spoke a word about that quarrel.

XXVIII

When someone saw my house cat and asked, "Is this your second-generation cat?" I casually answered, "Yes, the second," but upon later reflection realized I had already passed the second generation—it had in fact become the third.

The first generation, despite being a stray, became quite famous in a certain sense, but in contrast, the second generation’s life was so short-lived that even its owner nearly forgot about it.
I do not really know who brought it from where.
However, I still remember those days when he crawled about everywhere, so small he could fit in the palm of one’s hand.
This endearing creature was accidentally stepped on and killed from above one morning when a household member was lifting the floorboards.
When he let out a faint cry, they immediately pulled him out from under the futon and administered treatment, but it was already too late.
He finally died a day or two later.
The one that came after that was none other than the jet-black cat we have now.

I neither loved nor hated this black cat.
As for the cat, it merely shuffled around the house and had never shown any particular inclination to approach me.

One time he crawled into the kitchen cupboard and fell into a pot.
Since the pot was filled with sesame oil, his body began to glisten as if coated with cosmetic oil.
Because he lay on my manuscript with his glistening body, the oil seeped all the way through to the bottom, causing me considerable trouble.

Last year, just before I fell ill, he suddenly developed a skin disease.
From his face to his forehead, his fur began to fall out gradually.
Because he kept scratching it with his claws, the scabs flaked off, leaving the scars exposed.
One day during a meal, I looked at this unsightly appearance and made a disgusted face.

“Ah, it’s shedding scabs. Since there’s a risk of infecting even the children, take it to the hospital and have it treated properly,” I told the household members, though privately I suspected this illness might never fully heal given its nature.
I vividly remembered how a Westerner I once knew—after receiving a fine dog from a count and doting on it—had eventually asked a doctor to put the animal down out of pity when it developed this same skin disease.

"It would probably be less painful and even happier to kill it with chloroform or something."

I repeated those words three or four times, but before the cat could act as I wished, I myself fell gravely ill and took to bed. During that time, I never had the chance to see him. Perhaps because my own suffering had taken such direct hold of me, I found myself without even the capacity to consider his illness.

When October came, I finally rose. And there he was as always - his familiar black form. Then something strange occurred: his ugly, bare skin had begun growing back its original black fur.

“Oh, I wonder if it’s healing.”

I kept my bored, post-illness eyes fixed on him.
As my weakness gradually recovered, his fur also gradually thickened.
When that returned to its usual state, this time he began to grow fatter than before.

I compared the course of my illness with the course of his illness and at times sensed an implication of some karmic connection there.
And then, immediately afterward, I would think it was ridiculous and smile.
As for the cat, he merely purred away, so I had no idea what he was feeling.

XXIX

I was what people called a youngest child born during my parents' declining years.
The story goes that when she bore me, my mother said she felt ashamed to be pregnant at her age—a tale still recounted from time to time even now.
Though not solely for that reason, my parents sent me away to foster care almost immediately after my birth.
Of course I retain no memory of those foster parents, but upon making inquiries as an adult, I learned they were apparently a poor couple who made their living dealing in old furnishings.

I was placed in a small bamboo basket alongside the secondhand shop's odds and ends and put on display every night at the night stalls along Yotsuya's main street. One evening, when my sister happened to pass by there on some errand, she discovered this. Perhaps out of pity, she tucked me into her kimono and brought me home, but I apparently couldn't fall asleep at all that night and cried nonstop until morning. For this, my sister was severely scolded by our father.

I don’t know when I was taken back from that foster home. However, I was soon adopted out to another household. I seem to recall that was certainly when I was four years old. I grew up there until I was eight or nine years old and had gained some awareness of the world, but when some strange trouble arose in my foster home, I ended up returning to my birth family once again.

After being moved from Asakusa to Ushigome, I returned to the house where I was born without realizing it and continued to think of my parents only as my grandparents. And so I continued to call them Grandpa and Grandma without finding it the least bit strange. Perhaps they too thought it strange to suddenly alter their long-standing habit, for they kept straight faces even as I called them that.

I was never doted on by my parents like an ordinary youngest child.
This had come from various causes—partly because my disposition was unyielding, partly because I had long been kept apart from my parents.
In particular, my mind still retains memories of being treated rather harshly by my father.
Yet when I was moved from Asakusa to Ushigome at that time, I felt inexplicably overjoyed.
And that joy manifested itself so conspicuously outward that it became noticeable to everyone.

Foolish me, convinced that my real parents were only my grandfather and grandmother—how many months or years had I lived in such ignorance? If asked, I couldn’t say for sure, but one night this happened.

When I lay alone in the room, something by my pillow began making small sounds and repeatedly called my name.
I awoke startled, but with the surroundings pitch-dark, couldn’t discern who crouched there.
Yet being a child, I stayed motionless and simply listened to what the speaker said.
As I listened, I recognized this as the voice of our family’s housemaid.
The housemaid whispered to me through the darkness like this: ――

“The people you think are Grandpa and Grandma are actually your father and mother.”
“Earlier tonight, I overheard them talking—saying how strange it was that you probably love this house so much because of that—so I’m secretly telling you now.”
“You mustn’t tell anyone.”
“Do you understand?”

“I won’t tell anyone,” was all I said then, but in my heart I felt intensely happy.
Yet this happiness came not from learning the truth, but simply because the housemaid had shown me kindness.
Strangely enough, I’ve completely forgotten both the name and face of that housemaid who made me so happy.
What remains is only the memory of her kindness.

XXX

When I sat in my study like this, many visitors would ask me, “Have you fully recovered from your illness?”
Though asked the same question repeatedly, I repeatedly hesitated to respond.
Eventually I came to repeat the same words every time.
It amounted to nothing but this peculiar greeting: “Well, I’m somehow managing to stay alive.”

Somehow managing to live.—I had used this phrase for a long time. However, each time I used it, I felt ill at ease, and though I actually wished I could stop using it myself, I simply couldn’t find any other suitable words to describe my health condition.

One day when Mr. T visited, I told him about this dilemma—how I could neither claim to be cured nor assert that I remained unwell, leaving me at a loss for how to respond—whereupon Mr. T immediately replied like this:

“It can’t be said you’ve recovered.”
“Seems to flare up now and then.”
“Well, it must be a continuation of your original illness.”

When I heard the word “continuation,” I felt I’d been granted a revelation.
From then on, I abandoned the greeting “I’m somehow clinging to life” and rephrased it as “My illness remains ongoing.”
And whenever explaining this continuation, I invariably drew parallels to Europe’s Great War.

“I am waging war against my illness just as Germany wages war against the Allied Forces. That I can sit here facing you now isn’t because peace has come to the world—it’s because I’ve entered the trenches and am locked in a staring contest with my illness. My body is a time of war. There’s no telling when some upheaval might occur.”

Someone listened to my explanation and chuckled in amusement. Someone remained silent. Another person made a pitiful face.

After the guest left, I thought again.—What was ongoing was likely not limited to my illness alone. Those who heard my explanation and laughed, thinking it a jest; those who stayed silent in incomprehension; those driven by sympathy to put on pitying faces—deep within all these people’s hearts, might there not lurk any number of ongoing things unknown to me, unnoticed even by themselves? If all those ongoing things were to burst at once with a deafening roar that shook their very beings, what would they truly feel? Their memories would no longer tell them anything at that point. The awareness of their past would have already vanished entirely. When they, unable to recognize any causal connection between the present, the past, and the past beyond that, fall into such a state, how would they attempt to interpret themselves? After all, are we not each carrying explosive bombs we ourselves manufactured in our dreams, walking one and all toward that distant place called death while chatting and laughing? It’s just that neither others nor oneself knows what they’re carrying, so they must be fortunate.

When I realized my illness was a continuation, I considered that Europe's war too must likely be a continuation from some bygone era. Yet when it comes to understanding where and how it began or through what convolutions it developed, being utterly ignorant myself, I find I actually envy those ordinary people who don't comprehend this word 'continuation' at all.

Thirty-One

When I was still attending elementary school, there was a close friend named Kii-chan.
Since Kii-chan was living at his uncle’s house in Nakamachi back then, and my place wasn’t exactly close by, it wasn’t feasible for me to go see him every day.
I mainly refrained from going out myself and waited at home for Kii-chan to come.
Even if I didn’t go visit him myself, Kii-chan was certain to come from his side.
And the place he came to was Matsu-san’s residence—Matsu-san, who rented the row house on our property and sold paper and brushes.

Kii-chan seemed to have no parents, but as a child, this never struck me as odd in the slightest.
I probably never even tried to ask.
Therefore, I did not even know why Kii-chan came to Matsu-san’s place.
This is a story I heard much later: Kii-chan’s father, who had once been an official in Ginza or some such position, was accused of counterfeiting money and died in prison.
Thus the wife left behind abandoned Kii-chan at her former husband’s house and remarried Matsu-san, making it only natural that Kii-chan would occasionally visit his biological mother.

Since I was completely unaware of everything—so much that even when I later learned these circumstances, I felt nothing particularly strange—it followed that during the time I played roughhouse with Kii-chan, I never once considered his situation.

Both Kii-chan and I were fond of Chinese classics, so despite not really understanding them, we often amused ourselves debating passages.
He would frequently come up with names of difficult Chinese texts—whether he had heard them somewhere or looked them up himself—and often surprise me.

One day he climbed up into the entrance hall that had become like my room and showed me a two-volume book he took out from his pocket.
It was indeed a manuscript copy.
Moreover, I believe it was written in classical Chinese.
I took the manuscript from Kii-chan and was flipping through it aimlessly here and there.
The truth was I had absolutely no idea what any of it was about.
However, Kii-chan was not the type to bluntly ask whether I understood it.

“This is Ōta Nanpo’s autograph, you know.”
“A friend of mine wants to sell this, so I came to show it to you. Why don’t you buy it?”

I did not know the person called Ōta Nanpo.

“What on earth is Ōta Nanpo?”

“It’s Shokusanjin.”
“He’s the famous Shokusanjin.”

Being uneducated, I did not yet even know the name Shokusanjin.
However, when Kii-chan told me this, I somehow felt it must be a valuable book.

“How much do you want for it?” I asked.

“He says he wants to sell it for fifty sen...”
“What do you think?”

I thought.
And so it occurred to me that the wisest course was to try to haggle down the price.

“If it’s twenty-five sen, I’ll buy it.”

“In that case, even twenty-five sen will do. Go ahead and buy it.”

As Kii-chan said this, he took the twenty-five sen from me and went on earnestly extolling the merits of the book.
Since I naturally couldn’t understand the book, I wasn’t particularly happy about it, but I did feel a certain satisfaction in knowing that at least I wouldn’t be losing out.
That night, I placed *Nanpo Yūgen*—I believe that was its name, though my memory is uncertain—on my desk and went to sleep.

Thirty-Two

The next day, Kii-chan wandered over again.

"About that book you bought yesterday..."

Kii-chan said just that and lingered while looking at my face.
I gazed at the book that had been placed on the desk.

“That book?”
“Did something happen to that book?”

“Actually, the grandfather at that house found out about it and got furious.”
“He begged me to come get it back.”
“I hated coming again after already giving it to you, but there was no choice.”

“You came to retrieve the book?”

“Not exactly to take it back, but if it’s no trouble, could you return it?”
“He insists twenty-five sen is far too cheap.”

That final phrase made me clearly recognize the discomfort that had been vaguely lurking beneath my satisfaction at having acquired it so cheaply—a discomfort born of unethical conduct.
Now I felt anger toward my own cunning while simultaneously resenting the party who had sold it for twenty-five sen.
How could one appease these twin angers simultaneously?
I pulled a bitter face and remained silent.

This psychological state of mine—being something my present self can dissect through retrospection of my childhood self—was delineated with relative clarity; yet I scarcely comprehended it at that time. Since even I remained conscious only of having made a bitter face, Kii-chan naturally could grasp nothing beyond that. Perhaps this ought to be parenthetical: even now in my advanced age, such phenomena still frequently arise within me. Hence I am often misunderstood by others.

Kii-chan looked at my face and said, “He says twenty-five sen is really too cheap.”

I abruptly took the book that had been placed on the desk and thrust it out in front of Kii-chan.

“Then I’ll return it.”

“I’m terribly sorry about this. After all, it’s not something Ankou owns, so there’s nothing to be done. It’s something that’s been at Grandfather’s house forever, and he was trying to quietly sell it off for some pocket money, you see.”

I sulked and did not answer at all. Kii-chan took out twenty-five sen from his sleeve and tried to place it before me, but I made no move to touch it.

“I won’t take that money.”

“Why?”

“Because I won’t take it.”

“I see.”
“But isn’t it meaningless to just return the book?”
“If you’re giving back the book, you should take the twenty-five sen too.”

I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“The book is mine. Once bought, it’s clearly mine—that’s how it works.”

“That must be so. But their household is in difficulties too.”

“That’s precisely why I said I’d return it. Yet there’s no cause for me to take money.”

“Rather than speak such contradictions, you might as well accept this.”

“I’m giving it freely. Though it’s my book now—if you want it back, I say take it. Since I offer it freely, why not simply take the book and go?”

“I see. In that case, let’s do that.”

Kii-chan finally took only the book and went home.
And thus, for no reason at all, I had my twenty-five sen of pocket money taken from me.

Thirty-Three

As one human being living in this world, I cannot exist in complete isolation.
Naturally, the necessity of interacting with others arises from somewhere.
Seasonal greetings, practical discussions, and even more complicated negotiations—escaping these proves difficult even for someone like me leading such an austere life.

Should I take everything others say at face value and interpret all their words and actions straightforwardly?
If I were to entrust myself to this simple disposition I was born with and pay no heed, I might occasionally be deceived by unscrupulous individuals.
As a result, I would either be ridiculed behind my back or coldly criticized.
In extreme cases, there is no guarantee that I might not receive unbearable insults even to my face.

If I were to assume all others were merely cunning liars—refusing from the start to lend an ear to their words or incline my heart toward them, sometimes storing in my chest only the opposite meanings that seemed to lurk beneath their surfaces—could I then critique myself as a wise person and find in this a place of settled refuge? In that case, I could not say I would never misunderstand people. Moreover, I had to assume from the very start the resolve to commit a terrible error and brace myself for it. At times, as an inevitable consequence, I had to prepare myself with the audacity to insult innocent others; otherwise, things became difficult.

If I tried to settle my attitude into either of these two extremes, a kind of anguish would arise in my heart. I did not want to believe in wicked people. Nor did I wish to harm good people even slightly. Yet those who appeared before me were neither complete villains nor entirely virtuous souls. Thus my attitude had to shift in varied ways depending on the other party.

I supposed this adjustment was necessary for everyone and that all practiced it, but were they truly walking without misstep along that exquisitely precise and singular path that aligned perfectly with their counterpart? My great question perpetually coiled about this point.

Setting aside my resentment, I have bitter memories of having been ridiculed by many people in the past.
At the same time, I wonder if I have not also had many experiences where, rather than deliberately taking others’ words and deeds at face value, I interpreted them in a way that implicitly brought shame upon their character.

My attitude toward others first came from my past experiences. It then arose from the context of interactions and the surrounding circumstances. Finally—though it is an ambiguous term—my intuition, bestowed by heaven, worked to some extent. And so, I was sometimes ridiculed by others, sometimes ridiculed them myself, and on rare occasions treated them with due consideration.

However, what we call past experience may seem broad, but in reality proves exceedingly narrow. In one part of society, experiences repeated countless times often became entirely inapplicable when carried to another part. When it came to contextual relations or surrounding circumstances—existing in endless variations—not only was their scope of application limited, but one truly had to exercise consideration tailored to each variation for them to be of use. Moreover, in many cases neither the time nor materials needed to exercise such consideration were sufficiently provided.

Therefore I found myself wanting to judge others primarily through my own intuition—something extremely vague and uncertain whether it had any basis in fact. And so whether my intuition proved correct or not，I often lacked the opportunity to confirm it through objective facts. There my doubts perpetually hung like mist，tormenting my heart.

If there existed an omniscient and omnipotent God in this world，I would kneel before that deity and pray to be granted intuition so clear that not a shred of doubt could intrude，thereby freeing me from this torment. Otherwise，I prayed that all who came before this uncertain me might be transformed into transparently honest beings，and that I might be granted the happiness of our souls fitting perfectly together. As I was then，I felt there were only two possibilities：either I remained a fool deceived by others，or I became so suspicious that I could accept no one. It was filled with anxiety，opacity，and unpleasantness. If this were to continue through life，how wretched a thing is human existence？

Thirty-Four

A certain literary graduate whom I had taught during my university days came and said, "I hear you gave a lecture at the Higher Technical School recently." When I replied, "Yes, I did," the man informed me, "Apparently no one understood any of it."

Until then, I had never harbored any concerns regarding that aspect of what I had said. Yet upon hearing his words, I was struck by an equally unexpected sensation.

“How do you know such a thing?”

His explanation for this question was simple.
Whether they were relatives or acquaintances—I couldn’t say—but in any case, a young man connected to him had attended that school and, after listening to my lecture that day, reported back that he hadn’t understood a word of it.

“What exactly did you lecture about?”

I repeated the outline of that lecture for him then and there.

“It shouldn’t be anything particularly difficult, you know. Why on earth don’t they understand it?”

“They wouldn’t understand.”
“They wouldn’t understand anyway.”

To me, this decisive reply sounded utterly strange. But what struck me even more powerfully was the regret that I should have declined from the start. To confess, I had been invited countless times by this school to lecture and had refused just as many times. Therefore, when I finally accepted that last invitation, there lay within me the hope that I might somehow provide substantial benefit to the assembled audience. When I saw that hope completely shattered by his simple remark of "They wouldn’t understand anyway," I couldn’t help concluding there had been no need for me to make that special trip to Asakusa.

This was an old story from a year or two prior, but when I found myself obliged last autumn to give another lecture at a certain school to avoid discourtesy and finally went there, I suddenly recalled that previous year which had filled me with regret. Moreover, since the topic I had discussed on that occasion contained elements prone to misunderstanding by young listeners, I spoke these words just as I was stepping down from the lectern:

“While I believe there are likely no misunderstandings, should any unclear points remain in what I have just explained, please do come to my residence.”
“I intend to explain matters as thoroughly as possible until you are all satisfied.”

I think I had almost no anticipation at the time of how my words would be received.
However, it is a fact that three young men entered my study four or five days later.
Two of them had called to check my availability.
One wrote a polite letter requesting that I arrange a meeting time.

I cordially received those young men.
And I ascertained their purpose for coming.
One of them, as I had expected, posed structured questions about my lecture; however, the remaining two unexpectedly sought to ask me about doubts regarding the course of action their friend should take toward his family.
Therefore, they had brought before me the pressing problem of how to apply my lecture to real society.

I believe I said what I needed to say and explained what required explanation for these three individuals.
As for how much benefit that gave them, even I cannot tell from the results.
However, even if that is all, I was satisfied.
I was far more satisfied than when I had been told, "Your lecture was incomprehensible, I hear."

Two or three days after this manuscript appeared in the newspaper, I received four or five letters from students at the Higher Technical School. All of them had attended my lecture, and each wrote to present facts that negated the disappointment I had expressed there as counterarguments. Therefore, those letters were all filled with goodwill. There was not a single accusatory question about why I had hastily taken one student's words as representing the entire audience's opinion. Thus, I add these words here to apologize for my ignorance and publicly express gratitude toward those who kindly corrected my misunderstanding.

Thirty-Five

When I was a child, I often went to listen to storytelling performances at a vaudeville theater called Isehon in Setomono-cho, Nihonbashi.
Across from what is now Mitsukoshi, there always hung a signboard for daytime shows, and turning that corner, the theater stood just a short half-block away on the right-hand side.

This theater only staged variety acts at night, so I had never entered it except during daylight hours; yet in terms of attendance frequency, it seems to have been the place I frequented most.
The house I lived in at the time was naturally not in Takadanobaba.
But however geographically convenient it may have been, how did I ever find so much time to attend those lectures? Looking back now, it strikes me as rather puzzling.

This may also owe to gazing back now at that distant past, but the vaudeville theater had been designed to evoke an elegant mood in its patrons. On the right side of the stage stood partitions resembling a cashier’s lattice erected on both sides, within which seats for regular patrons were arranged. Behind the stage lay a veranda, beyond which spread a garden. An aged plum tree slanted over a well curb in that garden, while a sky vast enough to avoid any cramped feeling encompassed sufficient open ground that one could gaze upward from the veranda. Facing east toward this garden stood a building resembling a detached guest room.

The people inside the cashier’s lattice, being affluent individuals with time to spare, all dressed appropriately and would occasionally take out tweezers from their sleeves with leisurely composure, patiently plucking their nose hairs. On such serene days, I even felt as though a warbler might come to sing in the plum tree in the garden.

When intermission arrived, it was customary at this theater for a man selling tea to walk among the patrons distributing sweets still in their boxes. The boxes were shallow rectangular ones, each conveniently placed within reach of anyone who wanted them—as if to say, “Take one.” I think there were about ten sweets per box, and it was an unspoken rule that you could eat as many as you wanted and then later put the payment into the box. At that time, I used to watch this custom with fascination as if it were something rare, but looking back now, when I think that such an easygoing and carefree atmosphere can no longer be found at any gathering place, it somehow feels nostalgic.

In such a calm and lonely atmosphere, I listened to antiquated storytelling from various people.
Among them was a man who used strange words like "sutotoko," "nonnon," and "zuizui."
This was Tanabe Minryū—it was said he had originally worked as an attendant in charge of footwear somewhere.
These sutotoko, nonnon, and zuizui were exceedingly famous, yet not a single person understood their meaning.
He seemed to use them merely as adjectives describing troops surging forward.

This Minryū had died long ago. Most of the others had also died. As I had no knowledge of what happened afterward, I truly could not tell how many of those who had brought me joy during that time were still alive. However, when I once looked at the program during Bion-kai’s year-end party, among the listed items like the farces of Yoshiwara jesters and such, I discovered a single old friend from that time. I went to Shinbashi Engeijo and saw that person. I heard that voice again. And I was astonished that his face and throat had not changed at all from how they were in the past. His storytelling was exactly as it had been in the past. He had not made progress, but neither had he regressed. Acutely conscious of the rapid changes of the twentieth century within myself and my surroundings, I sat before him, constantly comparing him and myself in my heart, absorbed in a kind of meditation.

The "he" in question was Bakin. Back when he performed as Minryū's intermission act at Isehon, he had been a young talent known as Kotoryū.

Thirty-Six

My eldest brother had been attending Kaisei School before it became a university, but contracted a lung disease and dropped out midway. Given our considerable age difference, rather than fraternal closeness, an adult-to-child dynamic became deeply ingrained in my mind—a feeling that particularly intensified when he scolded me.

He was a fair-skinned man with a straight nose and handsome features. Yet whether in facial structure or expression, he carried an air of severity that made others feel constrained, as if approaching him carelessly were forbidden.

During my eldest brother’s time at school—when provincial scholarship students still came from rural regions—remnants of an atmosphere unimaginable to today’s youth seem to have lingered here and there on campus.
My eldest brother once told me that an upperclassman had sent him a love letter.
That upperclassman seems to have been a man considerably older than my brother.
Having grown up in Tokyo where such customs were not practiced, how on earth did he dispose of that letter?
My brother said that afterward, every time he encountered that man in the school bath, he felt awkward and troubled.

Around the time he left school, he maintained such rigid formality that even my parents seemed somewhat guarded around him. His illness likely contributing, he constantly wore a gloomy expression and withdrew into the house.

When that stiffness gradually melted away and his demeanor naturally softened, he began frequently wearing old imported Chinese silk kimonos with stiff obis and venturing out from evening onward. Purple fans from Kamekiyo printed entirely with tortoiseshell patterns began appearing tossed about the tearoom.

That alone would have been acceptable, but he started habitually applying cosmetics while seated before the long brazier. Yet the household showed no particular concern about it. As for me, I remained unperturbed.

Alongside cosmetics came Tōhachiken practice. This required a partner though, so it didn’t occur nightly—still, he would earnestly drill those oddly clumsy arm movements up and down.

The third brother mainly served as his partner. With solemn expression, I merely watched from the sidelines.

This brother ultimately died of lung disease.
I believe he died in the twentieth year of Meiji.
Then, once the funeral and wake were over, and just as things were settling down, a woman came to visit.
When the third brother went out to receive her, the woman asked him this.

“Your brother never took a wife before his passing, did he?”

My eldest brother never married due to his illness.

“No, he remained single until his passing.”

“Hearing that finally put my mind at ease. A woman like me can’t go on living without a patron, so there’s no help for it, but…”

This woman—who had come all the way from Kōshū only to be told the name of the temple where my eldest brother’s remains were interred before departing—was someone I then learned had been involved with him during her days as a Yanagibashi geisha.

I sometimes felt the desire to meet this woman and tell her about my brother.
Yet I imagined that if we met, she must have become an old woman with a face utterly changed from her former self.
And I imagined her heart too had wrinkled like that face, parched and withered.
If that were so, her meeting me now—her brother’s younger brother—might instead prove a bitter sorrow for her.

Thirty-Seven

I want to write something here in memory of my mother, but unfortunately, the mother I knew did not leave me with substantial material in my mind.

My mother’s name was Chie.
I still count this word “Chie” among things I find nostalgic.
Therefore, to me, that is solely my mother’s name—it feels as though it must never belong to any other woman.
Fortunately, I have yet to encounter a woman named Chie other than my mother.

My mother died when I was thirteen or fourteen, but even now when I summon her phantom from afar, no matter how far back I trace the threads of memory, she appears as an old woman. Having been born late in her life, I was never granted the privilege of retaining a vivid image of my mother in her prime.

The mother I knew was always wearing large glasses as she sewed. Those glasses were old-fashioned with metal rims, their lenses seeming over two inches in diameter. She would often gaze at me like this—glasses perched on her nose while slightly drawing her chin toward her collar—but to my younger self, unaware of what presbyopia was, this appeared merely as an odd habit. Alongside these glasses, I always recall the sliding doors of that single room that formed her backdrop. Within the faded decorative cloth panels, stone rubbings inscribed with phrases like "Life and death are paramount; impermanence is swift" still rise vividly before my eyes.

In summer, Mother always wore an unpatterned dark blue sheer silk unlined summer kimono and tied a narrow black satin obi.
Strangely enough, the image of my mother that remains in my memory always appears in my mind wearing this midsummer attire; if I strip away the unpatterned dark blue sheer silk kimono and narrow black satin obi from that image, what remains afterward is nothing but her face.
The image of Mother once going out to the engawa and playing Go with my brother is the sole memento I hold in my heart as a combined portrait of the two of them, but even there she sits wearing the same unlined summer kimono and tied with the same narrow obi.

I was never taken to Mother’s hometown, so for many years I lived without knowing where she had come from as a bride.
I never possessed any curiosity that might drive me to inquire on my own.
Thus that aspect too remains shrouded in haze for me—though I had indeed heard she was born in Yotsuya Ōbanchō.
The house there apparently served as a pawnshop.
I seem to recall being told there were several storehouses or something of the sort—but having never once visited this Ōbanchō even at my current age—such details have completely slipped my mind.
Even were this true—no storehouse buildings ever materialize within my memories of Mother.
The business must have already closed by then.

I dimly recall hearing that Mother had served in a noble household before marrying Father, but to my present self—who does not even fully grasp the nature of such service—it remains an almost intangible fact, like incense leaving behind a faint fragrance before vanishing entirely. Which daimyo's residence she entered, how long she remained there—these details elude me completely.

However, now that I mention it, I once saw a gorgeous, fully patterned kimono—like those worn by palace ladies depicted in ukiyo-e prints—in the storehouse of our house.
The surface of that kimono with its crimson silk lining was entirely dyed with what might have been cherry or plum blossoms, interspersed here and there with embroidery in gold and silver thread.
This was probably what they called a hitoe from that time.
However, even now when I try to imagine it, the figure of Mother wearing that hitoe does not come to mind at all.
The mother I knew was always an elderly woman wearing large reading glasses, after all.

Not only that, but I also saw that this beautiful hitoe was later altered into a short night robe and placed over a patient who had appeared in our household around that time.

Thirty-Eight

It is now a distant memory that when a certain Westerner I had studied under at university was leaving Japan, I thought to give him a farewell gift and retrieved from our family storehouse a beautiful writing box adorned with scarlet tassels in takamakie lacquer. At the time I received it before Father through another's mediation, I paid no particular heed, but now as I take up my brush, I cannot help feeling this writing box—much like the hitoe with its crimson silk lining altered into a night robe—seems to hold the vivid visage of Mother from her younger days. They say Mother never once had Father make her a kimono in all her life, but I wonder—did she truly come prepared with enough clothing to manage without ever needing his help? Could that unpatterned dark blue ro summer kimono imprinted in my mind and narrow black satin obi have already been in the chest from the time she came as a bride? I want to meet my mother again and ask her every single thing directly.

Mischievous and stubborn, I was never treated sweetly by Mother like the youngest child in other families.
Yet within my memories of Mother there always lingered a strong sense of affection—the belief that she had been the one in our house who doted on me most.
Even setting aside love and hate, Mother was undoubtedly a woman of dignified refinement.
And in everyone's eyes she appeared wiser than Father.
My stern brother too reserved his reverence for Mother alone.

“Mother doesn’t say anything, but there’s something frightening about her.”

I can still retrieve this statement my brother made about Mother from dark recesses of memory. Yet it remains but a fragile fragment—like water-damaged characters painstakingly restored yet never regaining their original form. Beyond this, my mother exists for me as pure dreamstuff. However diligently I gather scattered traces of her features, I cannot reconstruct her whole image. Even these fractured remnants have faded beyond half-recognition, leaving nothing I might hold fast.

Once, I went up to the second floor and took a nap all by myself.
At that time, when I took naps, I was often attacked by strange things.
My thumb would swell before my eyes, continuing to grow without ever stopping; or the ceiling I gazed up at would gradually descend from above to press against my chest; or though I kept my eyes open to my ordinary surroundings unchanged before me, my body alone would become sleep's captive—no matter how I struggled, I couldn't move my limbs—leaving me afterward in frequent states of confusion, unable to discern whether it was dream or waking reality.
And at that time too, I was attacked by these strange things.

I didn’t know when or where I had committed this sin, but in any case, I had spent a large sum of money that wasn’t mine.
Though unclear even to me what purpose or thing it had been spent on, as a child I could never repay it, so my anxious self began suffering terribly while lying there.
In the end, I called out loudly to Mother downstairs.

The staircase to the second floor stood immediately behind the sliding door covered in decorative cloth with a stone rubbing that read “Life and death are paramount; impermanence is swift”—a door inseparable from Mother’s large glasses. Hearing my voice, she came up at once.
Standing there, I told Mother—who was gazing at me—of my anguish and begged her to help.
Mother smiled and said, “You needn’t worry.
“I’ll give you all the money you need,” she told me.

I was overjoyed.
And so, feeling relieved, I fell soundly asleep again.

I still doubt whether this event was entirely a dream or only half real.
However, I can only think that I truly did call out loudly to Mother for help, and that Mother in turn truly appeared before me to offer words of comfort.
And at that time, Mother’s attire was, just as it always appeared to my eyes, the same unpatterned dark blue ro summer kimono with a narrow black satin obi.

Thirty-Nine

Since today was Sunday and the children weren’t going to school, the maid—apparently having relaxed her usual vigilance—seemed to have risen later than normal.
Even so, I didn’t leave my bed until after seven fifteen.
After washing my face and eating my usual breakfast of toasted bread, milk, and a soft-boiled egg, I tried to go to the toilet—but finding the night soil collector had come at this inopportune time, I diverted my steps to the backyard where I hadn’t ventured for some while.
There I discovered the gardener tidying something in the shed.
Around vigorous flames rising beneath a stack of discarded charcoal sacks, three girls sat contentedly warming themselves—a sight that drew my attention.

“If you stand that close to the bonfire, your face will turn completely black,” I said. The youngest child replied, “Nuh-uh!”

From atop the stone wall, I gazed at the distant roof tiles wet with melting frost glistening in the morning sun, then turned back into the house.

Waiting for the relative’s child who had come to clean to finish tidying the study, I carried my desk out to the veranda.
There I leaned against the sunlit railing, propped my cheek in thought, and at times sat motionless for a while, simply letting my soul wander freely.

A light wind occasionally stirred the long leaves of the potted nine-flower orchid.
Among the garden trees, a warbler intermittently sang its unpracticed melody.
Every day I sat within the glass doors, still thinking it was winter, when before I knew it, spring had begun to sway my heart.

No matter how long I sat, my meditation did not crystallize. When I took up my brush to write, I felt as though there was an inexhaustible wellspring of material, yet when I began wavering between this topic and that, a carefree thought arose that nothing I wrote would hold any interest. As I stood there awhile, what I had written up to now began to seem utterly meaningless. The contradiction of why I had written such things began to mock me. Thankfully, my nerves remained calm. Riding upon this self-mockery, floating up into meditation's lofty realm became intensely pleasurable to me. Wanting to look down from the clouds and laugh at my own foolish nature—swayed by this self-contemptuous mood—I became nothing more than a child sleeping in a cradle.

Up until now, I had jumbled together others' affairs and my own.
When writing of others' matters, there had been a care to avoid causing them trouble as much as possible.
When speaking of my own circumstances, I could instead breathe comparatively freer air.
Even so, I had still not reached the point where I could fully rid myself of affectation toward myself.
Though lacking the pretentiousness to lie and deceive the world outright, I still ended up failing to reveal my baser aspects—my worse traits, those flaws that would bring shame.
The confessions of Saint Augustine, of Rousseau, of the Opium-Eater—no matter how thoroughly one traces through them, someone once said that true facts cannot be narrated by human power.
Moreover, what I have written is no confession.
My sins—if they can even be called sins—were likely depicted solely from the brightest angles.
There, someone might feel a certain discomfort.
Yet I myself now straddle that discomfort, smiling as I survey all humanity.
Even the self who had written such trivial things up to now—surveying him with the same gaze while harboring the sensation he might be another—I still smile.

A warbler still occasionally sang in the garden.
The spring breeze came now and then，as if remembering，to shake the leaves of nine-flower orchid.
The cat lay with its painfully chewed ear exposed to sun and slept there looking cozy.

The children who until just now had been raising rubber balloons and making noise in the garden all went off together to the moving pictures. In the stillness of both house and heart, I threw open the glass door and, enveloped in the quiet spring light, brought this manuscript to completion in a trance. After that, I intended to rest my head on my arm and take a nap on this veranda.

(February 14)