Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

Shirai Michiya was a literary scholar.

After graduating from university eight years ago and drifting through two or three rural middle schools, he had returned nonchalantly to Tokyo last spring.
The term *nagasu* refers to being dismissed from a post, while *hyōzen* could be interpreted as not being bound by Sorai’s teachings.
Whether it was appropriate to describe Michiya’s circumstances in such terms was something even the author could not guarantee.
If one fixed their eye on just one end of a tangled thread, it appeared as nothing more than a single strand’s tip.
Behind the origin of that single strand, layer upon layer of karmic entanglements might lie intertwined.
Even wild geese departing north and swallows arriving south must have had their own valid explanations when seen from the perspective of being birds.

The first place he was assigned was somewhere in Echigo.
Echigo was a region renowned for petroleum.
A large petroleum company was located four or five blocks away from the town where the school stood.
The prosperity of the town where the school was located was maintained more than two-thirds due to this company.
For the townspeople, this petroleum company was far more appreciated than several middle schools.
Company executives were gentlemen in terms of having money.
Middle school teachers appeared inferior due to their poverty.
If this inferior teacher and these moneyed gentlemen clashed, the outcome would be clear to anyone’s eyes.
At a certain speech meeting, under the title *Monetary Power and Moral Virtue*, Michiya explained why the two did not necessarily align, implicitly admonishing both the arrogance of the company executives and the harmful tendency of young people to blindly worship gold-and-silver omnipotence without any firm convictions.

The executives said he was an impudent fellow.
The town’s newspaper declared that the incompetent teacher was spouting arrogant complaints.
Even his colleagues thought it foolish to do unnecessary things and endanger the school’s position.
The principal explained the relationship between the town and the company and admonished that recklessly stirring up trouble on calm ground was not a wise strategy.
Even the students who had placed their last hopes in Michiya, after hearing their parents’ opinions, began calling him a fool of a teacher who didn’t know his place.
Michiya left Echigo nonchalantly.

The next place he moved on to was Kyushu.
If one were to divide Kyushu and strip away the industry from its northern regions, the entirety of Kyushu would revert to a blank slate.
Those bathed in the smoke of coal mines who did not breathe blackly lacked the right to be called human.
Those who stuck their pale faces out over greasy suits and spouted unproductive rhetoric—about how society was this way, the world was that way, and future citizens were such-and-such—that could not even be converted into a single white copper coin had no right to exist.
Allowing those without rights to exist was the gracious mercy of industrialists.
Where did the monthly handful of paper money come from—the scraps that allowed chattering scholars and teachers who acted as mere substitutes for phonographs to eke out their meager existence?
If they clapped their hands, scholars, writers, and even teachers were made to lick the dregs of the dregs from the countless billions of wealth that rained down on its own, kept alive just so.

To live by the power of money yet revile it was no different than cursing the very parents who gave one life. If you dared look down on the industrialists who generated that money, then go ahead and try starving to death. When they threw him out, saying, “Let’s test whether you can die or end up surrendering because you can’t bring yourself to,” Michiya once again left Kyushu nonchalantly.

The third place to appear was a rural area near Chugoku.
The local customs there were not marked by such an intense cash-oriented ideology.
The locals wielded undue influence and referred to people from other prefectures as foreigners.
If it were merely a matter of calling them foreigners, that would be one thing, but they schemed in various ways to conquer these foreigners.
If there was a banquet, they mocked them at the banquet.
If there was a speech, they sneered at it during the speech.
Then they filled the newspapers with snide remarks.
They had the students taunt them.
And all of that served no purpose at all.
It was simply because they resented that people from other prefectures did not assimilate with them.
Assimilation is undoubtedly an element of society.
A scholar named Tarde from France even declared that society itself was imitation.
Assimilation might be important.
Even Michiya understood its significance.
It was not merely understanding—as one who had received advanced education and held a broad view of society, he recognized assimilation’s merits more than ordinary people did.
The question lay in whether to assimilate to what was elevated or what was base.
To assimilate blindly without interpreting this distinction did no good for society.
From my own perspective, not an instant of compromise could be tolerated.

One day, the former feudal lord came to observe the school.
The former feudal lord was a lord and an esteemed member of the nobility.
To the locals, he was a god.
When this god entered Michiya’s classroom, Michiya continued his lesson without paying any particular heed.
The god himself naturally offered no greeting either.
From then on, matters grew thorny.
A classroom is sacred.
A teacher standing at the lectern to impart knowledge is akin to a samurai donning armor to face the battlefield.
Michiya asserted that neither nobles nor former lords had any right to interrupt classes.
Because of this stance, Michiya once again left his post nonchalantly.
When he departed, it was said the locals derided him as an obstinate fool among themselves.
Michiya—branded an obstinate fool—departed nonchalantly, bearing their scorn upon his back.

Having nonchalantly left middle school for the third time, Michiya returned nonchalantly to Tokyo, where there was no further change in scenery.
Tokyo was the most socially harsh place in Japan.
Even receiving a salary equivalent to what he would have earned in the countryside, he could not live comfortably.
Moreover, abandoning teaching and managing with both hands kept idly in his sleeves was a method that could only be praised as a scheme to remain standing while becoming a burden—there was no other way to commend it.

Michiya had a wife.
Once there was a wife by name, an obligation to support her necessarily followed.
Even if he could resign himself to becoming a burden on himself, he could not let his wife wither away.
Long before she would wither away, his wife had already been discontent.

When he left Echigo for the first time, he told his wife everything that had happened. At that time, his wife said “That’s only proper,” and diligently began preparing their luggage. When he left Kyushu too, he explained all the circumstances to her. “This time again?” she said curtly before falling silent. By the time they left Chugoku, his wife’s words had turned into an admonishing farewell: “With stubbornness like yours, you’ll never settle anywhere.” Over seven years he wandered three times, and with each of these three wanderings his wife gradually withdrew further from his side.

Was his wife withdrawing from his side because of his wandering, or because he had abandoned his stipend? No matter how many times he wandered, what if his salary had risen with each wandering? Would his wife still have let slip those grudging words—"With someone like you…"—as she had before? Even if he became a doctor or transferred to a university professorship, would that "someone like you…" still be repeated? His wife’s reasoning could not be understood without asking her.

If he were to become a doctor or a professor and have his hollow titles hollowly praised by society—and if that echo were to resound in his wife’s heart, prompting her to abruptly change how she treated him—then this wife could not be called her husband’s true companion. A wife who altered her husband’s value morning and evening according to how society treated him day by day was, in her appraisal of him, no different from any ordinary person. Before becoming a bride and knowing his name, there had been no difference between her and anyone else. Therefore, from her husband’s perspective, she was a complete stranger. If there was no difference in how she understood her husband before and after marriage, then at least in this regard, there was nothing wifely about her. The world was filled with wives who were not wifely. Did Michiya regard his own wife as one of these same kind? If he were to realize that not only was he unwelcome everywhere but even his wife—who shared his life in all these places—did not understand him, he would surely feel desolate.

Society was said to be filled with such wives.
While society was filled with such wives, everyone lived harmoniously.
Those in favorable circumstances had no need to dissect a wife’s inner thoughts to this extent.
It was precisely when one suffered from a skin disease that the study of skin became necessary.
Looking at filthy things under a microscope despite having no illness was akin to needlessly suffering in peace and stirring up trouble where none existed.
Yet when this favorable situation suddenly reversed and they plunged headlong into the abyss of fate, even between any married couple, an awkwardness arose.
The parent-child bond snapped.
He realized that what had been beautiful was merely the thin layer of skin covering the blood.
Michiya did not know to what extent he had become aware.

Michiya's three departures were not because he willingly plunged himself into dire straits.
Nor were they meant to burden his blameless wife.
It was simply that society would not accept him—there had been no alternative.
"If society won't accept me," he wondered, "why shouldn't I strive to make it accept me?"
Because at the very moment Michiya tried to be accepted by society, he would vanish completely.
He remained confident that in moral character, he stood above the common lot.
The higher one stood above the common run, he believed, the greater one's responsibility became to take the hands of those below and guide them upward.
To cling to baseness while knowing nobility was like burying the treasure of one's lifelong education beneath floorboards.
Unless he extended his moral character to others, that painstakingly built character would prove as powerless as before its forging—rendering all his labor wasted.

Teaching English, teaching history, and at times even teaching ethics—these were acts of imparting skills accumulated alongside the cultivation of moral character.
If one were to pursue scholarship solely for these skills' sake, it would suffice merely to open books in the classroom.
Being content with opening books and eating meals differed not in theory from a tightrope walker crossing ropes while eating or a plate spinner twirling dishes while dining.
Scholarship differed from tightrope walking or plate spinning.
Acquiring skills was a matter of secondary importance.
The purpose was the forging of human beings.
The purpose was to forge a person of moral integrity who could distinguish magnitude from triviality, know weight's gradations, clearly discern preferences from aversions, grasp the boundary between good and evil, and unerringly critique wisdom against folly, truth against falsehood, right against wrong.

Michiya was thinking in this way.
Therefore, while he did not consider it disgraceful to sell his skills to make a living, he deeply regarded abandoning scholarship’s foundational standpoint as profoundly base.
The reason he found himself unwelcome everywhere lay in his comings and goings being rooted in scholarship’s very essence; thus, upon introspection, he discovered neither guilt nor any reason to deem himself cowardly.
Mockery like “stubborn fool”—even if placed upon one’s palm and scrutinized under a magnifying glass on a south-facing veranda in summer sunlight—could not be comprehended.

Having become a teacher three times and been expelled three times, he considered each expulsion a greater achievement than that of a doctor.
A doctor may be great, but it is merely a title obtained through skill.
There was little difference between wealthy individuals donating funds for warship construction and being granted the Junior Fifth Rank.
Michiya was expelled because his moral character was superior.
"The righteous man is the most precious of all that God has created"—these were the words of a Western poet.
“Those who uphold the Way are more noble than the gods”—this was the phrase Michiya repeated in his heart each time he was driven out.
However, his wife had never once heard these words from Michiya’s own mouth.
Even if she had heard them, she would not have understood.

Precisely because she did not understand, she harbored complaints against her husband even before facing starvation. Michiya was not so unfeeling as to have no pity for his complaining wife. The only difference from ordinary husbands lay in his refusal to bend the path he walked merely to gain his wife’s favor. Society merely called them people. If one married, they became a husband. If one associated with others, they became a friend. If one led by the hand, they were an elder brother; if led, a younger brother. If one took their place in society, they might even become a pioneer. If one entered a school building, they were undoubtedly a teacher. They called even a monkey simply a person. If society could be satisfied with merely calling them “people,” then it was simple. His wife had always lived in this simple world. In his wife’s world, there existed no Michiya as a scholar; there existed no Michiya as a patriot. There existed even less of a Michiya who guarded the Way and resisted the vulgar. That her husband’s reputation deteriorated wherever he went stemmed from his lack of talent—that his resigning from positions everywhere amounted to nothing but self-sought drunken revelry—so she had come to believe.

Having indulged in drunken revelry three times and come to Tokyo, Michiya declared he would no longer go to the countryside. He confessed to his wife that he would no longer work as a teacher either. Having grown weary of schools, he realized that to correct the societal conditions he had grown weary of, he must rely on the power of the pen. Until now, wherever he went, whatever profession he took up, he had believed that if only he remained upright, the crooked would break like chaff before him. Fame is not what I desire. Prestige is not what I desire. He had been utterly convinced that it would suffice to demonstrate through his own person an exemplar of discernment—using solely the power of his moral character—to open the eyes of the youth who would shape future citizens to ascension; for over six years he acted precisely as he believed, only to fail spectacularly. It was said that *the world one crosses has no demons*, so I rashly assumed that sympathy would gather where righteousness dwells, where heights are scaled, where reason’s workings are well understood—and thus, with my inexperienced self awaiting these years, repeating *“This time, this time,”* I committed the error of a lifetime. Society is not as noble as I had thought; nor is it discerning. Sympathy is nothing but a shadow that follows only the strong and the wealthy.

To have overestimated a society not yet advanced to this degree and rushed off to the countryside was like being in haste to build a sturdy house upon ground left unleveled.
No sooner did one begin to build than the troublemakers known as wind and rain arrived to tear it down.
Until one either levels the ground or subdues the wind and rain, one cannot live peacefully in this world.
To make a world where one cannot live peacefully into one where one can—this was the task of noble-minded scholars of the realm.

Those without money or power had to rely on the pen’s might to pursue endeavors worthy of noble-minded scholars. They needed to harness speech’s vigor. They must press their minds to extract wisdom for others’ sake. Brains parched, tongues festered, pens snapped by the dozen—yet if society refused to heed them, all came to naught.

But even noble-minded scholars could not labor unfed. Though he might stomach his own hunger, his wife would never consent to starve quietly. A husband who failed to sustain his wife abundantly stood condemned as a grave sinner in her eyes.

This spring, when they came out from the countryside and arrived at the cheap inn in Shiba Kotohira-cho, such a conversation arose between Michiya and his wife.

“If you resign from teaching, what do you intend to do now?”

“I don’t have any particular plans—but… well, something will work out eventually.”

“If you say ‘something will work out eventually,’ that’s just like grasping at clouds!”

“Hmm, I suppose so. It’s not very clear yet.”

“It’s a problem if you’re so carefree. Since you’re a man—that’s all well and good for you—but you could at least try to put yourself in my position a little…”

“That’s why I’ve decided—I won’t go back to the countryside, and I won’t be a teacher anymore.”

“It’s your choice to decide, but even if you do decide, if you can’t get a salary, there’s nothing to be done about it, is there?”

“Even if I can’t get a salary, as long as money can be obtained, that’s fine.”

“If money can be obtained… well, that would be splendid indeed.”

“Then that’s fine.”

“That’s fine,” you say—but will money actually be obtained, you?

“Yeah, well, I think it will manage somehow.”

“Why?”

“That’s what I’m thinking about now.”
“In that case, how could a plan be made so quickly?”

“That’s why I get worried, you know.”
“Even if you decide to stay in Tokyo, just deciding isn’t enough, is it?”

“You’re such a worrier.”

“Of course I worry—wherever you go, if things don’t work out, you end up quitting.”
“If I’m a worrier, then you’re much more of a hothead.”

“That may be true. But my temper… Well, never mind. I’ll manage to make sure we can eat in Tokyo.”

“Why not go to your brother’s place and ask for help?”

“Yeah, that’s also a good idea, but… Brother isn’t the kind of man to bother with helping others in the first place.”

“Oh, that’s exactly why it’s a problem—you go ahead and decide everything on your own. Didn’t he kindly say all sorts of things just yesterday as well?”

“Yesterday?”
“Yesterday he said all sorts of meddlesome things.”
“He said that, but…”

“Can’t I even say it?”

“You mustn’t say it.”
“It’s fine to say that… but it’s not something to rely on too much.”

“Why?”

“Why? You’ll understand eventually.”

“Then why not ask your friends and start working on it from tomorrow?”

“As for friends—it’s not like I have any to begin with.”
“All my classmates have scattered.”

“But Mr. Adachi—who sends us New Year’s cards every year—is thriving in Tokyo, isn’t he?”

“Adachi? Yeah, he’s a university professor.”

“Exactly—you carry yourself too loftily, that’s why people take against you.”
“If he can be a professor, why shouldn’t you become a university teacher?”

“Is that so.”
“Then I suppose I could go ask Adachi.”
“But if I can get money on my own, there’ll be no need to trouble Adachi after all.”

“Oh, you’re still saying such things.”
“You’re quite stubborn.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty stubborn.”

二

The autumn sun nearing noon gave the impression it might brighten even the inside of one’s skull through their hat. The park’s free benches had all been occupied in their very nature as free benches. Takayanagi had circled Hibiya Park exactly three times now, wondering if there might be an empty spot somewhere. When after three circuits he found not a single bench welcoming him as desired, he turned his heavy-seeming feet toward the main gate. Just then, from the opposite direction, a young man of similar age hurried in and called out, “Hey!”

“Hey,” Takayanagi returned a similar greeting.

“Where did you go?” the young man asked.

“I’ve been circling around trying to take a rest, but there’s nowhere to sit.”
“It’s no good—all the free benches have people already settled there.”
“They don’t miss a single spot, do they?”

“It’s because the weather is nice.”
“I see, quite a lot of people are out.—Hey, take a look at that person going around the Mōsō bamboo grove toward the fountain.”

“Let me see. That woman? Is she someone you know?”

“How should I know?”

“Then why do you need to look?”

“It’s the color of that kimono.”

“She’s wearing something rather splendid, isn’t she?”

“When taken to the edge of the bamboo grove, that color appears strikingly vivid. That color won’t stand out unless you see it illuminated on a clear autumn day like this.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“You say ‘Is that so?’ Don’t you feel the same?”

“I don’t particularly feel that way. But it is beautiful, I’ll give you that.”

“It’s a pity if it’s merely beautiful.”
“You’re going to become a writer, aren’t you?”

“I suppose.”

“Then you need keener sensibilities.”

“What—someone like that can stay dull.”
“There are plenty of other areas where I’m sharp.”

“Ha ha ha! If you’re that confident, splendid.”
“Since we’ve gone to the trouble of meeting, why not take another stroll?”

“Walking—I’ve had enough of that.”
“If I don’t get on the train right now and go home, I’ll miss lunch.”
“Why don’t I treat you to that lunch?”
“Yeah, let’s save it for next time.”
“Why? Don’t you like it?”
“I don’t dislike it—I don’t dislike it, but it’s always you treating me.”

“Ha ha ha! Are you being modest? Well, come along,” said the young man, forcibly dragging Takayanagi into the Western-style restaurant at the center of the park and securing a table on the second floor with a good view.

While waiting for their order, Takayanagi propped his hands against his pale face and gazed out at the passersby with an air of weariness.

The young man muttered to himself, “Quite spacious.”
“It seems quite prosperous,” he added.
Just as he began half-muttering “Why place a Sugatami ad in such an odd spot—” he suddenly thrust his hand into his trouser pocket and exclaimed loudly: “Damn! I forgot to buy cigarettes.”

“If you need cigarettes,” said Takayanagi as he tossed a Shikishima packet onto the white tablecloth.

Just then, the maid brought their order.
There was no time to light a cigarette.

“This is keg beer, huh.
Hey you, let’s raise a toast with this keg beer!” said the young man as he gulped down the bubbles rising from the amber depths.

“What are we toasting to?” asked Takayanagi as he took a sip, addressing the young man.

“It’s a graduation celebration.”

“A graduation celebration *now*?” said Takayanagi as he lowered his touched Western-style glass.

“Graduation only happens once in a lifetime, so it’s fine to celebrate whenever we want.”

“Since it only happens once, it’s almost better not to celebrate at all.”

“You’re the complete opposite of me.—Miss, what’s this fry? Huh?”
“Salmon?”
“Here—you, go ahead and try pouring this orange sauce on it,” said the young man as he squeezed a drop of yellow liquid from between his thumb and index finger onto the salmon’s coating.
Like a drizzle scattering across the garden’s surface, it was immediately absorbed into the oil.

“Ah, so that’s how you eat it.”
“I thought it was just part of the decoration.”

On the Sugatami Sapporo Beer advertisement booklet, the two men who had been striking exaggerated poses suddenly burst into loud, raucous laughter.
Takayanagi, still pinching the orange between his fingers, looked at them with a disgusted expression.
The men showed no sign of noticing.

“No—I’ll go.”
“I’ll go anytime.”
“Eh-heh-heh-heh!”
“Let’s go tonight.”
“You’re being too hasty.”
“Ha ha ha ha!”

“Eh-heh-heh-heh!”
“No, well, actually, I was thinking of inviting you out tonight or thereabouts. Huh? Ha ha ha ha!”
“Oh, it’s not that big a deal.”
“Ha ha ha ha!”
“There—that’s the usual one, right?”
“So, it’s just unbearable, I tell you.”
“Eh-heh-heh-heh! Ah ha ha ha ha ha!”

An ochre face like the bottom of an earthenware pot reflected in the Sugatami advertisement’s mirror—collapsing, solidifying, stretching, shrinking—swayed insolently.
Takayanagi turned a peculiar, unpleasant gaze toward the young man across from him.

“They’re merchants,” the young man said in a low voice.

“Businessmen, perhaps?” Takayanagi answered quietly, finally ceasing to squeeze the orange.

The men with earthenware-pot faces soon settled their bill, teased the maid in passing, boomed as though they’d purchased the entire second floor, and departed.

“Hey, Nakano.”

“Hmm?” The young man’s cheeks bulged with fowl meat.

“What do you suppose those fellows make of the world?”

“Why would they think anything? They just live as they always have.”

“I envy them.”
“If only I could—it’s just no good.”

“To envy that sort would be disastrous.”
“That’s why you refuse to celebrate graduation, I suppose.”
“Come now—let’s drink another round heartily!”

“It’s not them I envy—it’s having that sort of carefree position.”
“However much I’ve graduated, being worn ragged like this leaves no room for gratitude.”

“Is that so? Me—I’m happy enough to burst.”
“Our lives are just beginning!”
“There’s no point saying such dismal things now.”

“Even though our lives are just beginning, the uncertainty of what lies ahead makes me sick of it all.”

“Why? There’s no need to be so pessimistic—let’s go all out.”
“I’m ready—let’s do it together.”
“Let’s feast on Western food—look, the steak’s here!”
“This is it!”
“They say rare steak’s easy to digest.”
“How about this one?” said Nakano as he wielded his steak knife and cut through a thick slice from the center.

“Indeed, it’s red.”
“It’s red—look here!”
“The blood’s coming out!”

Takayanagi began devouring the red steak without offering any reply.
However red it might be, it seemed anything but easy to digest.

When I try to voice my grievances to others, before those grievances are fully expressed, being given half-hearted consolation by the other person is an unpleasant thing.
Whether my grievances had gotten through or not, whether he truly pitied me or was just offering polite sympathy—I couldn’t tell.
Takayanagi gazed at the redness of the steak and wondered why the other man’s emotions were so crude.
Just when I wanted to delve a little deeper, he would bring it up only to douse it with a splash—such was Nakano’s way.
If someone is unkind or cold-hearted, they make appropriate preparations from the start, so no matter how cold they are, there’s no cause for surprise.
If Nakano had been such a person, being thwarted at the outset would not have been so mortifying.
However, Nakano Kiichi, as reflected in Takayanagi’s eyes, was a beautiful, wise, and brilliant scholar who understood human emotions well and was discerning of reason.
It was hard to comprehend why this brilliant scholar occasionally displayed this habit.

They had attended the same high school, lived in the same dormitory, sat at desks by the same window, listened to lectures by the same professors in the same humanities department, and in this summer of the same year, graduated from the same school. Those who graduated in the same year were enough to count on the fingers of both hands two or three times over. Yet there had been none as close as these two.

Takayanagi-kun was a man of few words who avoided company—a cynical misanthrope, they called him.
Nakano-kun was a magnanimous, well-rounded scholar brimming with refined tastes.
After these two abruptly struck up their friendship, they grew so close that even outsiders found it peculiar.
Fate stitches together Oshima’s front and Chichibu’s back.

When there exists but one intimate soul in all the world—when beyond this one being no other kindred spirit can be found—this soul becomes both parent and sibling.
Then lover.
Takayanagi-kun did not consider Nakano-kun a mere friend.
How regrettable that Nakano-kun never fully heard out my grievances.
It was like being caught in an evening downpour halfway to my destination and forced to turn back.
Worse still—not only did he fail to listen fully, but he smothered me with his breezy consolations.
To have the boil I begged him to lance merely stroked with flimsy cotton left me itching with frustration.

However, it was unreasonable for Takayanagi-kun to think this way.
To attack Ohinasama for lacking a geisha’s scheming was the talk of those who did not understand her love.
Nakano-kun was born into an affluent, distinguished family and raised in a warm household; as for the storms of worldly hardship, he had only ever observed them through the glass doors of the veranda while warming himself at the kotatsu.
He understood yuzen patterns, grasped the brilliance of golden screens, and found the gleam of silver candles dazzling.
The beauty of living women was even more striking to the eye.
He was not so stubborn a man as to be ignorant of parental kindness, sibling affection, or the trust between friends.
However, in the hemisphere where he lived, the sun had always shone until now.
Those who dwelt in the sunlit hemisphere only realized—when planting one foot firmly on the ground and studying geography—that beneath their feet lay a pitch-dark hemisphere.
Even when walking about at times, they might notice.
However, they might imagine how dark it must be, but they would never feel a chilling dread that seeped into their very bones.
Takayanagi-kun was a person who dwelled in loneliness within this dark place.
With Nakano-kun, there was no interaction beyond the soles of their feet treading the earth facing each other.
The front of Oshima and the back of Chichibu, stitched together, were connected thanks to a thin thread that concealed its uncertain stitches.
If one were to smoothly pull out this thin thing, there would still lie hundreds of miles of mountains and rivers between Kagoshima Prefecture and Saitama Prefecture.
Rather than taking tooth pain to those who had never suffered dental problems, the quicker path lay in rushing straight to the dentist.
A patient told “You needn’t hurt so much” would never consider themselves consoled.

“You don’t need to be pessimistic—that’s just fine,” said Takayanagi-kun, having given up on the steak halfway through, as he puffed on a Shikishima cigarette and gazed at his companion’s face.
The companion, while working his mouth restlessly, shook his head and right hand from side to side—a gesture that seemed to indicate his disagreement with Takayanagi-kun.

“Do I not need to be pessimistic? If one does not need to be pessimistic, then that would mean they’re an optimistic person, wouldn’t it?”

Takayanagi involuntarily began to move his thin lips, but the faint ripple vanished before it could reach his cheeks. The other man continued speaking.

“I’ve spent three years at university and read a fair number of philosophy and literature books, haven’t I? Even if I don’t look it, I think I know just how much the world is deserving of pessimism.”

“On the pages of books, I suppose,” said Takayanagi-kun, as if peering down from a high mountain into a valley.

“On the pages of books—of course that’s true—but even in reality, this brings considerable pain and anguish.”

“But you don’t struggle with living expenses; you have ample time; you can study as much as you wish; you can pursue your writing as you please.”
“Compared to me, you are truly fortunate,” sighed Takayanagi-kun, now with palpable envy.

“But the reality isn’t so carefree.”
“Even so, I have various worries and grow weary of it all,” insisted Nakano-kun, laying claim to his anxieties.

“Is that so?” he said, not quite convinced.

“If even you start making light of things, it’ll become truly insufferable.”
“In fact, I was thinking today of visiting your place to get a proper dose of your sympathy.”

“Unless you let me hear your reasons properly, I can’t sympathize.”

“I’ll explain everything gradually.”
“I was so thoroughly fed up that I came out for this walk.”
“You could at least try to read between the lines!”

Takayanagi-kun openly smirked this time.
Even if he intended to show some understanding, there was simply nothing to understand.

“And then—why are you strolling around a park at this hour?” Nakano looked straight at Takayanagi’s face, but...

“Huh—your face looks odd.”
“The right side where the sun hits has an exceptionally healthy glow, but the shadowed side looks terribly dull.”
“How peculiar.”
“Contradictions glare at each other across the bridge of your nose.”
“It’s like a mask half tragedy and half comedy stitched together,” he declared without pausing for breath.

Upon hearing this guileless remark, Takayanagi-kun—as if his heart's secrets had been deciphered upon his face—started with a jolt and swept his right hand in a full circle from forehead to jawline. Perhaps he meant to churn together the contradictions etched across his visage.

“No matter how fine the weather may be, I have no time for something like taking a walk.”
“Today I went all the way past Shinbashi to look for a lost item, and since it was on my way back, I thought I’d take a break here before heading off,” he said, resting the hand that had been rubbing at his face beneath his chin, his expression still clouded.
Because he had blended the masks of tragedy and comedy, it should have resulted in an ordinary face; yet what had formed was something strangely muddled.

“Lost item? What did you lose?”

“I lost a manuscript draft on the train yesterday—”

“Manuscript draft?”
“That’s terrible.”
“I can’t stand worrying until a manuscript I’ve written gets published in a magazine.”
“Actually, things like manuscript drafts are more precious to us than life itself.”

“I wish I had time to write such an important manuscript draft—no such luck,” he said in a tone of self-contempt.

“Then what manuscript draft was it?”

“It’s a translation of geography teaching methods. Since it was supposed to be delivered by tomorrow, now that it’s gone I won’t get the payment and I’ll have to redo it all—it’s really getting me fed up.”

“So even after going to look for it, it didn’t turn up?”

“It didn’t turn up.”

“What could have happened?”

“The conductor probably took it home and made a duster out of it or something.”

“No way—but if it doesn’t turn up, we’d be in trouble.”

“It’s my own carelessness I have to put up with, but that damned lost-and-found clerk—utterly unhelpful, all formalities—just rattled off some boilerplate like a printed notice, and no matter what you ask, he keeps saying ‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’”
“That guy is a model figure representing twentieth-century Japanese people.”
“That company’s president must be just like that bastard too.”

“That must have been truly infuriating.”
“But since the world isn’t entirely made up of people like that lost-and-found clerk, isn’t that some consolation?”

“Are there any truly human-like people left?”

“You’re being sarcastic.”

“What do you mean? It’s the world itself that’s sarcastic.”
“Today’s society is like some merciless exhibition,” he said, flicking his half-smoked Shikishima cigarette from the second-floor railing. At that instant, a voice cried “Thank you!” as the glowing ash landed perfectly atop the Homburg hats of two men who had abruptly emerged through the gate.
The men walked off triumphantly, smoke trailing from their hats.

“Hey, that’s going too far!” said Nakano-kun.

“No mistake—those are the businessmen from earlier.”
“Who cares? Just leave them be.”

“Ah, those men from earlier.”
“Why had they been dawdling until now?”
“Maybe they were hitting balls downstairs or something.”

“They’re the same breed as that lost-and-found clerk anyway—they’d do anything.”

“Look—they’ve noticed. Taking off their hats and patting them down.”

“Hahaha! How ridiculous!” Takayanagi laughed cheerfully.

“That’s really mean of you,” said Nakano-kun.

“Indeed, it’s not good.”
“Though I call it accidental, to exact revenge in such a way is lowly.”
“If I take pleasure in such antics, then the value of a literary scholar is a sham,” said Takayanagi-kun, instantly reverting to his usual sullen expression.

“Indeed,” replied Nakano-kun in a tone that seemed both reproachful and approving.

“But a literary scholar is just a name—in reality, it’s menial copywork.”
“Even after becoming a literary scholar, if I’m stuck doing menial work translating geography teaching methods, it’s downright disheartening.”
“Even so, there are parents who kept saying ‘When you graduate…’ and waited for me.”
“It’s pitiful when you think about it.”
“Given how things are going, it’s no use no matter how long they waited.”

“You’ve only just graduated, so you can’t become famous so quickly, you know. In time, when we produce splendid works and fully demonstrate our true abilities, the world will be ours.”

“When will that ever be?”

“There’s no need to rush so much.”
“Because things will gradually renew themselves, you must keep patience and settle in for the long haul—otherwise it’s hopeless.”
“Well, society will gradually come to recognize our true worth, you know.”
“Even someone like me—if I keep writing like this constantly, I’ll at least get mentioned in conversation a little.”

“You’re lucky.”
“Because you have the leisure to write about what you like.”
“As for me—I’ve got endless things I want to write, but not a moment’s peace to settle down and produce proper works.”
“It’s truly unbearable.”
“If I had a patron and could study at ease, I’d show you some masterpieces.”
“If only I had some steady income—even sixty yen a month would do. I’ve been supporting myself since before graduation, but I never imagined things would stay this hard even after graduating.”

“If it’s that difficult, there’s no helping it.”
“When my family’s assets become freely available to me, I’d become your patron, but…”
“Please do.”
“—I’ve truly had enough.”
“You know, now that I think about it, even rural middle school teaching positions aren’t easy to come by.”

“I suppose so.”

“Take my friend who graduated from the philosophy department—it’s been three years since he finished school, and he’s still idling about.”

“Hmm, is that so?”

“When I think of that—how as a child I did such terrible things without understanding why.”
“Though of course times were different then compared to now—teaching posts may not have been as scarce as they are today.”

“What did you do?”

“In my hometown middle school, there was an English teacher named Shirai Michiya.”

“Michiya’s a strange name, isn’t it? Doesn’t it sound like something you’d find engraved on a kettle?”

“I don’t know if it’s read as ‘Michiya’ or what, but we always called him Michiya, Michiya. That Michiya-sensei—well, he was a literary scholar, you know. In the end, they all ganged up and drove him out.”

“Why?”

“Why? They just bullied him out! But he *was* a good teacher! As a kid, I couldn’t really grasp his character or anything… but he didn’t seem like a bad person…”

“So why did they drive him out?”

“Well y’see—middle school teachers? There’s some real nasty ones among ’em, I tell ya.”
“We got stirred up, see.”
“Still remember it—nighttime, fifteen-sixteen of us formed a squad, went to Michiya-sensei’s place, let out this ‘Waaah!’ battle cry and chucked two-three stones inside.”

“That’s violent, isn’t it?”
“Why on earth would they do such a foolish thing?”

“We didn’t know why.”
“We just did it for fun.”
“There was probably no one among us who knew why we did it.”

“How carefree.”

“Truly carefree,” he said. “The only one who knew was probably the teacher who incited us. He just said something like ‘Do it because he’s impertinent,’ you know.”

“What an awful man,” Nakano replied. “How could someone like that even be a teacher?”

“There sure are,” Takayanagi answered. “They probably listen because they’re dealing with kids—but yeah, they exist.”

“So what did Michiya-sensei want to do?”

“He quit.”

“How pitiable.”

“We truly did a wretched thing.”
“He must have struggled terribly to make ends meet while seeking another post.”
“When I meet him again, I mean to offer my profound apologies.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“Then there’s no telling when we’ll meet him, is there?”

“But there’s no telling when we’ll meet. He might’ve died without a teaching position.—Apparently, before resigning, Michiya-sensei came to the classroom and said something.”

“What?”

“Gentlemen, we must not live for teachers.”
“We must live for the Path.”
“The Path is a precious thing.”
“As long as you fail to grasp this logic, you cannot call yourselves full-fledged.”
“Gentlemen, strive diligently so that you may comprehend.”

“Huh.”

“We still roared with laughter inside the classroom, you know.”
“We laughed, calling him impertinent, impertinent, you know.—Who’s the impertinent one here? We couldn’t tell.”

“Country schools sure have some strange goings-on, don’t they?”

“They exist in Tokyo too.”
“It’s not just schools.”
“The world’s all like this.”
“Pointless.”

“Well, we’ve talked long enough.”
“How about it?”
“Won’t you come to Myōkaen in Shinagawa now?”

“What for?”

“To see the flowers.”

“I need to go home and translate *Geography Pedagogy*.”

“One day off wouldn’t hurt.”
“If you visit such beautiful places, you’ll feel refreshed—the translation will go smoothly.”

“Is that so.”
“Are you going out to amuse yourself?”

“As part of the excursion.”
“I plan to go there, do some sketching, and use it as material.”

“Material for what?”

“I’ll show you when it’s done.”
“I’m writing a novel.”
“In one chapter, I want to write about a woman standing in a flower garden—how she gazes so intently at a small red flower that it gradually pales until it turns pure white.”

“A fantasy novel?”

“I want to write something fantastical and mystical—something that makes you feel nostalgic for some distant past.”
“If only I can properly convey that feeling.”
“Well, do read it when it’s finished.”

“A place like Myōkaen won’t serve as any reference, you know.”
“Rather than that, you’d do better going home to look at Holman Hunt’s paintings.”
“Ah, I have things I want to write too...”
“I simply don’t have the time.”

“You fundamentally dislike nature—that’s your problem.”

“What does nature matter anyway?”
“In this agonizing twentieth century, who has room for such carefree talk?”
“If I were to write something, it wouldn’t be some dreamt-up fantasy.”
“It needn’t be beautiful or poetic—if it touches some truth within me, even painfully, that’s enough.”
“Whether it’s poetic or not means nothing.”
“I want to cut open my own flesh and write until people understand—even if the pain makes me leap up.”
“I want those complacent pleasure-seekers to know this truth buried so deep they’d never imagine it—to make them bow and say ‘We never dreamed such things existed... How humbling.’ That’s what I want.”
“Our paths diverge completely.”

“However, that sort of literature feels somehow unsettling.”
“That’s your prerogative—but how about it? Don’t you feel like going to Myōkaen?”

“If I had time to go to Myōkaen, I’d write even a single page of my argument instead. Just thinking about it makes my skin prickle with restlessness. Honestly, I can’t lounge around eating half-raw steak when things are like this.”

“Hahaha! There you go getting impatient again. What’s wrong with it? We’ve got those merchant types around too, you know.”

“Because there are people like that, I feel all the more driven to work. If I had even one-tenth of that lot’s money and time, I’d write something to show them.”

“So, you’re really against going to Myōkaen, then?”

“It’ll take too long. You’re wearing winter clothes, but I’m still in summer ones—if it gets cold on the way back, I might catch a chill.”

“Hahahaha! You’ve found quite an inventive excuse!”
“It’s already winter clothes season~.”
“Just change your outfit.”
“You’re incorrigibly lazy about everything.”

“It’s not that I’m too lazy to change clothes.”
“It’s because I don’t have any others to change into.”
“I haven’t paid a single penny for these summer clothes either.”

“I see,” said Nakano with a sympathetic expression.

The lunchtime customers had all left, and by the time the two rose from their chairs, lonely breadcrumbs lay scattered here and there across the tablecloths.

The park’s interior was even livelier than before.
Rohadai was still occupied by unknown men and women from who knows where.
The autumn sun blazed, piercing through the backs of summer clothes.

Three

Passing through the gate with its cypress door and silver-like tiles, one was made to walk diagonally some ten steps along the Mikage stone paving sprinkled with water. At the end of the paving stones, frosted glass sliding doors stood silently locked from both sides, leaving the mansion grounds in stillness as though yielding to autumn’s deepening.

When pressed, the ivory knob on the polished straight-grained pillar yielded faintly. After a moment, footsteps approached from deep within. With a clank, the key turned. The entrance door opened to both sides, revealing a mirror-like polished floor below. To the right sat a reddish-brown imitation clay basin over a foot in circumference; within it, two or three stalks of palm bamboo stood quietly unswayed by any breeze. Directly ahead, upon a golden screen four shaku high, Sanjō swordsmiths—aided by strange apparitions—struck and struck again with care at the Mikado’s blade, their hammers falling in fulfillment of a divine dream.

The one who came to answer was an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old graceful maid.
Still holding the business card that read “Shirai Michiya,” she asked, “Is it for the young master?”
the maid inquired.
Michiya-sensei tilted his head and thought for a moment.
This was his first time meeting anyone named Nakano—whether referring to the young master or head of the household.
Depending on circumstances, he might return without meeting either—such outcomes were beyond prediction.
Whether it was the young master or head of household could only be determined through meeting them.
Or perhaps he would go to his grave never knowing.
There had been countless instances where he had gone visiting—whether to elders, children, lame persons, or one-eyed individuals—only to be turned away at the gate before grasping their true nature.
So long as not turned away, distinguishing between head and heir mattered little.
But having been asked, he now had no choice but to decide.
To be forced into weighty decisions over trifles—this was the tax exacted from sages by fools.

“The one who graduated from university…” he began, but then it struck him that the old man might also have graduated from university.

“The one engaged in literary work,” he corrected himself.
The maid bowed wordlessly and withdrew.
Only the soles of the white tabi socks stood out starkly, soiled and conspicuous.

Above Michiya-sensei’s head hung a round cast-iron kana lantern.
Depicting waves and plovers in openwork, with paper pasted where the latticework was cut out.
Sensei looked up at the long chain and wondered how one could light a lamp inside this.

The maid came out again.
“Please come this way,” she said.
Michiya-sensei left his geta—with their sunken thumb rests and loosened straps—in the splendid shoe rack and followed behind the maid, his spindly, loofah-like body in motion.

The reception room was built in Western style.
Over the round table lay a pale-colored tablecloth woven with five or six abstract rose patterns, draped carelessly so that its edge spilled onto the floor like a wave both merging with and abruptly parting from a carpet of matching hue.
Before the sealed hearth stood a small two-panel folding screen placed to conceal its opening.
Though the maroon damask window curtains slightly disrupted the decorative harmony, such details failed to register in Michiya-sensei's eyes.
Michiya-sensei had never in his life entered such a splendid room.

Michiya-sensei looked up at the framed picture on the wall.
A Kyoto dancing girl in a yuzen-patterned long-sleeved kimono adjusted her tsuzumi drum.
The image showed white fingers that had just been repelled by the drum, their forms rendered distinctly down to the tips of their little fingers.
However, Michiya-sensei was not the sort to notice such details.
Michiya-sensei merely thought it was a painting lacking in refinement.
In the opposite corner stood an Art Nouveau-style bookshelf, where a portion of beautiful Western books basked their gold-lettered spines in the light seeping through gaps in the window curtains.
It was quite splendid.
However, Michiya-sensei was not in the least daunted by this.

Just then, Nakano-kun came out.
Wearing a padded tsumugi silk kimono with a crepe hyōgo obi tightly coiled around him, he peered through gold-rimmed glasses at Michiya-sensei with a squinting gaze. “Ah, my apologies for keeping you waiting,” he said as he settled into a chair.

Michiya-sensei, in a questionable meisen silk garment covered by a black cotton crested kimono, kept both hands tucked into his Kaheijibei hakama,

“I’m sorry to intrude,” he greeted.
He was utterly composed.

Nakano-kun, even after the greeting had concluded, still appeared to be squinting; however, he soon began in a resolute tone—

“So you are Shirai Michiya,” he inquired with great curiosity.
There was no need to ask—the business card should have made it clear.
The reason he asked this way was that he remained a literary scholar unaccustomed to worldly matters.

“Yes,” Michiya-sensei replied calmly.
Nakano-kun’s assumption had missed its mark.
When Nakano-kun saw the business card, he had been struck by a thought, his mind now occupied solely with the middle school teacher who had been dismissed.
Filled with pity at the sight of his bedraggled figure, he could not help wanting to ask outright: “Are you the Mr. Shirai who was bullied by students at that middle school?”
However much he pitied him, feeling sorry for someone who wasn’t Shirai would be pointless.
To properly pity him—to properly interrogate him—he had needed to begin with “So you are Shirai Michiya.”
Yet even his carefully prepared opening line had met a futile end against that composed “Yes.”
The novice literary scholar possessed neither the vigor nor the cunning to continue to the next line.
When one wishes to feel sympathy for another, if the other stands armored in composure, it makes for no drama at all.
Those who are skilled can achieve their aim even by piercing through this bastion of composure with a needle.
Nakano-kun was good-natured but lacked sufficient worldly knowledge to handle people with such skill.

“Actually, the reason I’ve come to trouble you today is that I have a small request to make,” Michiya-sensei now took the initiative to say.
A request stands as sympathy’s worthy rival.
For those without requests, there exists no arena for sympathy’s contest.

“Ah, if it’s something I can manage,” Nakano-kun agreed readily.

“The fact is, *Kōko Magazine* has planned to publish esteemed scholars’ insights under the title ‘Solutions to Modern Youth Anguish.’ Since relying solely on established authorities would lack interest, they’ve decided to visit newer voices as well—and so I was asked to come here specifically. If it’s no inconvenience, I’d like to transcribe your thoughts.”

Michiya-sensei quietly took out a notebook and pencil from his breastfold.
He had taken them out, yet showed no inclination to write nor any semblance of wishing to press conversation.
He had no intention of having such foolish problems resolved through the mouth of this young man.

“I see,” said the young man, raising eyes that shone with transient eagerness to look at Michiya-sensei. But confronted by the teacher’s face—as flat as beer left overnight—he now drew out a protracted “I suppose...” before lowering his gaze.

“How about it—might you have some esteemed views to share?” he pressed with obligatory prompting.
If he said there was nothing, he might be thinking of leaving immediately.

“Well...
“Even if I did have something to say, what someone like me has to say wouldn’t be worth publishing in a magazine.”

“No need for modesty.”

“Where on earth did you hear about me?
“It’s all so sudden—I couldn’t possibly give a coherent account.”

“I hear the publisher has occasionally seen your esteemed name in magazines.”

“Oh, not at all,” said Nakano-kun, turning his head to the side.

“Please tell me anything at all—just a little will do.”

“Well...” The young man looked out the window and hesitated.

“Since you’ve come all this way.”

“Alright, I’ll talk about something.”

“Ah, please go ahead,” said Michiya-sensei as he picked up his pencil.

“The term ‘anguish’ has become quite popular lately, but most instances are fleeting—so-called three-day wonders. Such anguish has persisted since the world began and will continue until it ends—hardly worth troubling over.”

With a “Hmph,” Michiya-sensei kept his head down and continued moving his pencil.
The sound of gliding over the paper struck the ear conspicuously.

“However, there exists one profound anguish that many young men must inevitably fall into—nay, that they are fated by nature itself to fall into.…”

The sound of a pencil could be heard.

“What is that, you ask?—It is love…”

Michiya-sensei abruptly stopped taking notes, made a peculiar expression, and looked at his interlocutor.
Nakano-kun seemed to belatedly notice this and grew momentarily crestfallen, but promptly collected himself and resumed speaking.

"When I say 'love,' it may sound peculiar to your ears."
"Moreover, though people nowadays appear reluctant to proclaim romantic love loudly, this variety of anguish remains an incontrovertible fact—and before facts, all must lower their heads, leaving us powerless to act otherwise."

Michiya-sensei raised his face again.
However, since not a single particle of his long, pale features moved, his inner thoughts were naturally impossible to discern.

“Among all the anguish we endure throughout our lives, I believe there is none more poignant, more profound, or more intense than that of love.”
“So you see—because it possesses such immense power—when we once enter these flames of anguish, we undergo a tremendous metamorphosis.”

“Metamorphosis? Is that so?”

“Yes, one undergoes a transformation.”
“Until now, one had merely been floating aimlessly.”
“When one doesn’t understand their relationship with society and has been drifting through life aimlessly, suddenly one’s own self becomes clear.”

“What do you mean by ‘oneself becomes clear’?”

“It’s about one’s existence.”
“The sensation of being alive emerges with clarity.”
“Thus, love is undoubtedly anguish from one perspective, but unless one undergoes this anguish, one cannot come to realize their own existence in this lifetime.”
“I believe that unless one has set foot in this purgatory, they can never ascend to heaven.”
“But mere optimism is futile.”
“If it’s not an optimism born of having tasted love’s bitterness and confirmed life’s meaning, then it’s a lie.”
“That is precisely why the anguish of love can never be resolved through any other means.”
“The only thing that resolves love is love itself.”
“Love torments us but also liberates us.…”

“That’s about enough there,” said Michiya-sensei, raising his face for the third time.

“There’s still a bit more…”

“I’m willing to accept your contribution, but as we plan to publish a great many opinions, it would conversely become discourteous to later remove entries.”

“I see. Then let’s leave it at that.”
“Somehow, since this is the first time I’ve spoken about such things, it must have been quite difficult to transcribe.”

“No,” said Michiya-sensei as he put the notebook into his pocket.

The young man thought the note-taker, having heard his theory, might offer a word of praise out of admiration, but the other man, as usual, calmly uttered only "No."

“Oh, I must apologize for intruding,” said the guest as he began to rise.

“Oh, do stay a while,” said Nakano-kun as he stopped the guest.
He wanted the guest to at least offer some critique of his theory before leaving.
Even without that, out of curiosity about what he had heard regarding Takayanagi-kun at Hibiya the other day, he wanted to broach the subject.
In a word, Nakano-kun was idle.

“No, though I appreciate your kindness, I’m rather pressed for time,” said the guest as he rose from his chair and stepped back from the table.
Even the idle Nakano-kun finally surrendered with a “In that case…” and bowed politely.
When he escorted him to the entrance, resolutely—

“By any chance, do you happen to know a man named Takayanagi Shūsaku?” he asked to confirm.

“Takayanagi?”
“I don’t seem to know him,” he said, lowering one foot from the geta shelf onto the tatami-floored entryway and twisting his tall frame halfway around.
“This year, he graduated from university…”
“Then I wouldn’t know him,” he said, moving both feet onto the wooden floor.

Just as Nakano-kun was about to say something more, the clattering sound of carriage wheels creaking over paving stones rang out, and the driver’s pole came to a halt before the glass door.
As Michiya-sensei opened the door, the person in the carriage nimbly dropped a pair of thick setta sandals onto the mikage stone.
He stepped out into the street with the sensation that a five-colored cloud had brushed past my eyes.

The clock was already past four.
In the sky, where pale sepia was layered over deep azure, a single kite flew indistinctly.
The wild geese still had not come.
From the opposite direction came a child who had adjusted his hakama’s crotch strap, walking cheerfully while singing a school song.
On the bamboo branch shouldered by him swayed an owl made from grass ears.
He had probably gone to Zoushigaya or somewhere like that.
In the depths of a confectionery shop with deep eaves, only persimmons were brightly visible.
As evening approached, there was a vague unseasonable chill.

When he arrived before Yakouji Temple, it was that hour when faces of passersby could no longer be clearly discerned from beneath hat brims in the dimming light.
Having passed the stone marker engraved “Thirty-Three Sites” on his right, he entered Konya Alley and proceeded half a chō westward to reach his gate; the house interior lay dark.

“Oh, welcome back,” said the wife from the kitchen.
The house was so small that there was little difference between the kitchen and the entrance.

“Has the maid gone somewhere?” he asked, passing from the two-tatami entrance to the six-tatami sitting room.

“She just went to Yanagichō on an errand,” said the wife as she returned to the kitchen.

Michiya-sensei took the lamp that had been pushed to a corner of the floor at the front, went out to the veranda, and began cleaning it himself.
With something like manuscript paper, he wiped the oil pot, wiped the chimney, and finally scraped off the blackened part of the wick roughly before crumpling the paper and tossing it into the garden.
The garden had grown dark, its state now impossible to make out at all.

Michiya-sensei sat down before the desk, struck a match, and swiftly transferred the flame to the lamp.
The room brightened at once.
To speak for Michiya-sensei’s sake, it would have been better had it not brightened at all.
There was a tokonoma alcove—but only in pretense—for no hanging scroll or anything of substance adorned it.
In its place lay heaped piles of books, manuscripts, and notebooks.
The desk was a simple affair, scarcely more than an enlarged plain wooden offering tray; aside from an inkpot and crude writing set, it held nothing else.
Whether decoration held no necessity for Michiya-sensei or whether necessity yielded no leisure for indulgence remained unclear.
Yet this much was certain: that he wielded brush and inkstone with calm resolve in this single unadorned room—a room devoid of warmth—stood as an indisputable fact to any observer.
Perhaps Michiya-sensei lived for some purpose beyond decoration altogether.
But the more one dwelled on this certainty, the more it displeased his wife.
Women are born through decoration and die through decoration.
Many women do not scruple to regard even love—that force which governs their fate—as mere ornamentation.
If love is ornamentation, then its very incarnation—the lover—is but a decorative trinket by necessity.
No—not only do they content themselves with such adornments; they brand as fools those who fail to see them likewise adorned.
Yet though multitudes of women view life thusly, none would ever admit to such a view.
When they find that things and people entwined about them fall short of decorative purpose, vague displeasure takes root within them.
And when this displeasure meets no alteration in their surroundings’ stagnant ways, they cast its reflection left and right—as though demanding: “Will even this fail to move you?”
At last comes their thorough reproach: “Is this not enough? Is this not enough?”—reflected ceaselessly on all sides.
Whether Michiya’s wife had advanced so far remained doubtful.
Yet being an ordinary woman among ordinary women, dwelling in this atmosphere stripped of adornment could only propel her naturally along such a course.

It may already be in progress.

Michiya-sensei presently took out that familiar notebook from his breast pocket and began transcribing it onto manuscript paper.
He was still wearing his hakama.
He remained formal.
Still wearing his hakama and maintaining his formal posture, he was transcribing Nakano Kiichi’s discourse on love.
Love and this room, love and this Michiya—they could never harmonize.
I wonder what Michiya is thinking as he transcribes this.
People are varied; society is varied.
In a world of many kinds, it is also a natural law that people of many kinds act.
Only those who act on a grand scale must prevail; those who act with depth must prevail.
Was Michiya, aware that his own work was smaller and shallower than that love theory espoused by the gold-rimmed bespectacled one, now recopying his notes with such care?
Behind the alcove, a cricket was chirping.

The wife slid open the fusuma with a swift motion.
Michiya did not turn around.
"Oh," she said—and with that utterance, her face withdrew from view.

It seemed the maid had returned.
The simmered beans had run out, so she said she had bought tekka miso.
She said tofu had gone up five rin.
At Senzenji Temple behind the house, they were clang-clanging through the evening service.

The wife’s face appeared again from behind the sliding door.

“You.”

Michiya-sensei had closed his notebook unnoticed and was now zealously writing something on a fresh sheet of paper.

“You,” the wife called twice.

“What is it?”

“Dinner is ready.”

“Okay, I’ll come now.”

Michiya-sensei briefly met his wife’s gaze before immediately turning back to his desk.
Her face vanished at once.
A muffled chuckle drifted from the kitchen.
Michiya-sensei likely had no intention of eating until he finished writing this passage.
Upon reaching a natural break, he laid down his brush, flipped through the stacked manuscripts beside him, and muttered, “Page two hundred thirty-one.”
He seemed to be engaged in literary work.

He stood up and entered the next room. A small oblong brazier held a flat pan from which white tofu sent up wisps of steam as it quivered tremulously.

“Tofu hotpot?”

“Well... there’s nothing else to serve, I’m afraid...”

“What—anything’s fine. As long as I can eat, anything’s fine,” he said, sitting down before the square tray that doubled as a tiered box and taking up his chopsticks.

“Oh my, you still haven’t deigned to remove your hakama? How very proper,” the wife said as she served the bowl of rice.

“Because I was busy, I forgot.”

“Since you’re so busy with your pursuits…” she trailed off, swapping out the tofu hotpot pot for the iron kettle.

“Is that how it looks?” Michiya-sensei replied, surprisingly unruffled.

“But you turn down easy money-making opportunities and stay busy with things that don’t earn a single penny—anyone would think it absurd.”

“Let them think what they will.”
“This is my principle.”

“Since it’s your principle, I suppose that’s fine for you.”
“But I…”

“Are you saying you dislike my principles?”

“It’s not about liking or disliking, but at least—like everyone else—even I…”

“As long as we can eat, isn’t that enough? If you start demanding luxuries, anyone’s wants would know no bounds.”

“I suppose that’s how it is.”
“I suppose someone like me could be in dire straits, and you still wouldn’t care, would you?”

“This tekka miso is extremely spicy.”
“Where did you buy this?”

“Where did I buy it?”

Michiya-sensei raised his head and looked at the opposite wall. On the cold mouse-gray surface, his wife’s large shadow was cast. Both the shadow and the wife herself appeared equally meaningless to Michiya’s eyes.

Next to the shadow hung a woman’s formal kimono—likely silk—on a kimono rack. Though too ostentatious for his wife’s usual tastes, he still remembered buying it for her in the countryside during more prosperous times. Back then, his way of thinking had been quite different from now. He had believed those who shared his thoughts and feelings must be exceedingly rare. Thus he’d felt no urge to take up writing himself to awaken society.

Now it was entirely the opposite. Society celebrated renowned families; society celebrated the wealthy; society even celebrated doctors and bachelors of letters. Yet when encountering a moral character—one who rendered status meaningless, money worthless, or academic achievements void—they failed to understand revering character itself. Without establishing moral character as humanity’s fundamental standard for judgment, they sought to measure everything by superficial trappings. When these trappings clashed with moral character, society invariably sided with the trappings and tried to trample other characters underfoot. Should the world lose its one truly moral character, it would forfeit its brightest light. A moral character’s value exceeded what could be compensated by a hundred aristocratic lineages, a hundred merchant princes, or a hundred learned doctors combined. I was born for no purpose other than to uphold this moral character—in human existence, I recognized no other meaning. Clothing against cold and eating against hunger were mere expedients to sustain this character. Warming brushes and grinding inkstones were simply strategies to manifest this character through another medium.—This was Michiya’s conviction now. Clinging to this conviction, Michiya could not indulge his wife’s every whim.

After gazing for a while at the kosode that hung on the wall, Michiya asked while finishing his evening meal:

“Did you go somewhere?”

“Yes,” replied his wife with two syllables.
Michiya drank his tea in silence.
Their exchange held an extreme stillness befitting late autumn’s withering season.

“I couldn’t keep hounding Sanada indefinitely,” she began unprompted this time, “and we had obligations with the landlord too. Then there’s this month’s rice and firewood payments looming—I went out seeking solutions.”

“I see. Did you go to the pawnshop or something?”

“There’s nothing left worth pawning anymore,” the wife said resentfully, looking at her husband’s face.
“Then where did you go?”

“Where else would I go? There’s nowhere else, so I went to your brother’s place.”

“My brother’s place?”
“It’s no use.”
“Even if you went there, what good would it do?”

“Yes—you dismiss everything from the start. That’s the problem.”
“However different your education may be, however mismatched your temperaments—aren’t you still brothers by blood?”

“Brothers are brothers.”
“I never said they aren’t.”

“Then why not sit down and talk things through?”
“At times like these, you ought to go consult him.”

“I won’t go.”

“That’s just your stubbornness.”
“It’s your habit.”
“Isn’t that disadvantageous? Willingly making yourself disliked…”

Michiya-sensei blankly watched his wife’s shadow shifting across the wall.

“So you managed to arrange something?”

“You always leap to conclusions about everything.”

“What are you talking about?”

“But before resourcefulness takes effect, one must first have intentions and make arrangements, mustn’t they?”

“I see. Then I’ll start from the beginning and ask again.”
“So you went to my brother’s place.”
“Behind my back—”

“Even if it was behind your back, wasn’t it for your sake?”

“Fine. If it’s for my sake, fine.”
“Then?”

“So I went to your brother’s place—offered apologies for our long neglect and such—and then laid out the whole situation.”
“And then?”

“Then your brother said, ‘That’s truly pitiable for you,’ and showed me great sympathy…”

“He sympathized with you.”
“Hmm.— Pass me that charcoal holder.”
“If you don’t add charcoal, the embers will die out.”

“So he said we need to settle this quickly.”
“‘In the first place,’ he said, ‘why have you left it until now?’”

“That’s a clever thing to say.”

“You still suspect your brother, don’t you? You’ll be punished.”

“So, did they lend you any money?”

“There you go leaping to conclusions again.”

Michiya-sensei—appearing slightly odd—looked down with a smirk and blew on the blackened heap of charcoal.

“Well, when he asked how much would neatly fill all our past debts—though it was terribly awkward to say—I finally resolved to…” She trailed off.
Michiya kept blowing.

“Listen, you.
“I finally resolved to… you.”
“Aren’t you listening?”

“I’m listening,” he said, raising his face that had flushed crimson.

“I finally said about a hundred yen.”

“I see.”
“My brother must have been shocked.”

“Then,
“after thinking a moment, he said a hundred yen wasn’t an amount one could easily arrange…”

“That’s exactly what my brother would say.”

“Oh do listen properly.
“There’s more—since this isn’t like other matters, he said if it’s truly unavoidable, he’d act as guarantor and borrow from someone else for us.”

“That’s suspicious.”

“Oh, do listen properly until the end.—So I managed to reach the point where we agreed to meet the person himself and hear his firm decision.”

The wife lifted her high-cheekboned face as if she had accomplished a great feat and peered at her husband.
The wife’s gaze conveyed:
The husband was spineless.
Day and night, toiling at his desk, diligently exerting himself, yet he lacked work sufficient to support himself and his wife in comfort.

“I see,” said Michiya, and with that, he showed no particular gratitude for her efforts.

“Saying ‘I see’ isn’t good enough.”
“Since I’ve managed things this far, you have to take care of the rest.”
“If you don’t handle this properly, all my painstaking efforts will be wasted.”

“It’s fine—don’t worry so much.”
“In another month or so, there’s a prospect of a hundred or two hundred yen coming in,” Michiya-sensei dismissed the matter effortlessly.

For editing *Kōyō Magazine*, twenty yen; for compiling an English-Japanese dictionary, fifteen yen—this was Michiya’s fixed income.
However, besides these, he took on any amount of work.
He wrote for newspapers; he wrote for magazines.
When it came to writing, he scarcely allowed his brush to rest day or night.
But it didn’t bring in money.
On the rare occasion when a reward of two or three yen fell into his pocket, he could only wonder at it.

In this literary labor utterly devoid of material function dwelt his life.
His spirit transformed into ink dripping drop by drop, his entire being surging through every character and stroke.
When this fragmentary work reached readers' eyes—when he envisioned an electric bolt sparking behind their pupils and their very flesh trembling instantaneously—Michiya took up his brush.
"I set forth on my path."
Vowing that "not even gods shall block this way," he faced the paper.
Sincerity erupted from his fingertips; with a sensation as though the sharp bristles radiated heat enough to scorch the page, he wove his phrases.
If ever there existed prose where blank paper became personified vitality soaring with dripping intensity—then Michiya's writing was precisely this.
Yet society belonged to nobles, merchant princes, doctors of letters, and university graduates.
A world where accessories crushed essence.
Each time Michiya's works appeared, they were ignored.
The wife called writings that earned no money dilettantish scribblings.
She called those who produced such scribblings spineless.

After hearing Michiya’s words, the wife, leaving the fire tongs stuck in the ashes,
“Do you still expect such money to come in?” she asked skeptically.

“Are you saying it’s depreciated compared to former times? Hahahaha!” Michiya-sensei boomed with laughter.
The wife sat stunned, her mouth agape.

“Well then, time to get to work,” Michiya said, standing up.
That night, he wrote up to page 250 of his *Treatise on Moral Character*.
He went to bed after two o'clock.

IV

“Where are you going?” Nakano grabbed Takayanagi.
The place was before the zoo.
From within its blackened hue, the thick cherry tree trunk reflected silvery light in the autumn sun, while blighted leaves leaving the treetops alighted on passersby’s shoulders during windless intervals.
At their feet, old leaves fallen from branches rustled here and there.

The colors were varied.
If one were to expose fresh blood to sunlight, imprint its daily transformations on a leaf’s underside over seven days, then carelessly fold it all into a single leaf—this would be its resulting hue, Takayanagi had been contemplating as he gazed.
When blood came to mind, Takayanagi felt a cold sensation seep through his undershirt from under his arms.
He released an unrestrained cough—ahem.

Their shapes were varied.
The shapes of roasted rice crackers were endlessly varied when held to the flame, yet each one curled upward eagerly.
The cherry leaves curled crisply upward and, remaining curled, were beckoned away by the blowing wind.
Things without moisture held no lingering attachments or clinging desires.
To drift carefree, entrusting their uncertain fate to the wind without concern—this might be the same mindset as those who revel in empty commotion at a festival for the dead.
The fallen leaves swirling in the wind and the wood shavings snatched away—they were a form of madness.
It was merely the madness of the dead.
When Takayanagi had embroidered death and madness into the natural world, he shrugged his gaunt shoulders and let out another hollow cough—ahem.

Takayanagi was grabbed by Nakano in that instant.
When he suddenly took notice, the world was at peace.
The sky was clear.
People in beautiful kimonos were filing past.
The other man was wrapped in a stylish light wool coat, a pearl pin glittering beneath his chin.
Takayanagi silently watched the man’s figure—and remained silent.

“Where are you going?” the young man asked again.

“I just came back from the library,” the other man finally replied.

“Not geography pedagogy again? Hahaha.”
“You’re looking rather gloomy.”
“What’s wrong?”

“Lately, I’ve mislaid my comic mask somewhere.”

“Did you go searching past Shinbashi for it and get socked?”
“How pathetic.”

“Not just Shinbashi—even if I scoured the whole world, it wouldn’t turn up.”
“I’m giving up.”

“On what?”

“I’m giving up on everything.”

“Giving up on everything? It’s best to give up for now. Give up everything and come with me.”

“Where to?”

“There’s a charity concert today—I had to buy two tickets anyway. Since there’s no one else to go with me, this works out perfectly.”
“You should come.”

“You bought tickets you don’t even need?”
“What a waste.”

“It’s social obligation—couldn’t be helped.”
“My old man bought them—he doesn’t understand Western music.”

“Then just send the extra one.”

“Actually... I meant to send it to you—”

“No.”
“Over there.”

“About that place… Yeah.”
“That place?”
“What? That’s fine.”
“I bought them myself too.”

Takayanagi did not respond and looked directly at the other man.
Nakano let slip a slightly embarrassed smile and, with his right hand still clutching the goatskin gloves, began tapping the front of his coat—tap-tap.

“What’s the point of walking around holding gloves you can’t even wear?”

“Oh, I just took them out of my inner pocket,” Nakano said as he tucked the gloves into his coat lining.
Takayanagi-kun’s irritation seemed to subside slightly at this.

Just then, a “Hee-yah!” rang out from behind as hoofbeats stirred the air while approaching.
The two men quickly stepped aside to the roadside.
The black-lacquered landau’s cover had been pushed open in the autumn day’s warmth; inside glimpsed a silk hat and a beautiful crimson parasol as it passed before them.

“Are those the sort of people going?” said Takayanagi-kun, pointing with his chin at the carriage’s receding form.

“That’s Marquis Tokugawa,” Nakano-kun explained.

“You know a lot, don’t you? Are you that marquis’s servant?”

“I’m not a servant,” Nakano-kun objected earnestly.
Takayanagi-kun felt a flicker of amusement within him.

“How about it? Shall we go?”
“We’ll be late.”

“So you’re saying if we’re late, we won’t get to meet them?”

Nakano-kun flushed slightly.
Was he angry, had his weakness been exposed, or was he embarrassed? Only Takayanagi-kun knew.

“Anyway, let’s go. You keep disliking any place where people gather or whatever, so you end up all alone.”

Those who strike shall be struck. This time it was Takayanagi-kun's turn to yield. When he heard the words "all alone," a shrill ringing filled his ears, and he felt profoundly lonely.

"You dislike it?"
"If you dislike it, there's no helping it."
"I'll take my leave."

The other man wore a sympathetic smile as he began pivoting half a step on his heel.
Takayanagi-kun was struck anew.

“Let’s go,” he conceded curtly.
This marked the first music concert he had attended in his life.

When they reached the entrance, attendants frantically directed people left and right—the crowd so dense one might lose sight of the blue ribbons pinned to their chests.
A right turn at the end meant first-class seats; left meant standard.
Lower-tier seats reportedly didn’t exist.
Nakano-kun was naturally first-class.
Glancing back at Takayanagi-kun, he said “This way” with practiced ease.
If only they’d prepared special lower-class seats today—just one where I could slip in alone—the solitary youth thought while following Nakano-kun up the stairs.
Those ascending to his right, climbing leftward, trailing behind—all seemed alien creatures deliberately encircling him, herding him inexorably into the second-floor hall only to laugh and clap afterward like some half-mocking ploy.
Looking back revealed glossy green chignons glinting below.
Cosmetically perfected skulls stretched in seven-to-three ratios.
Ten—twenty heads overlapped and pressed forward, leaving Takayanagi Shūsaku no retreat.

When he entered the concert hall entrance, his mind grew hazy like someone intoxicated by mist. When he passed through thickets that hid the sky and climbed to a summit, this was how it felt when an unexpected hundred-league vista unfolded beneath his eyes. The performance platform lay on the distant valley floor. To approach it, he had to descend from the summit he had climbed—threading straight through orderly rows of people—and draw near to the bottom of a naturally converging mortar-shaped hollow. The hollow’s base spread semicircularly toward the sky, its inner surface marked by tiered rows forming horizontal rings. After descending seven or eight steps, Takayanagi-kun turned back just to be sure and looked up at its side all the way to the ceiling; his eyes flickered as he paused briefly. “Excuse me,” said a large foreigner passing one step below as if engulfing him. Ostrich feathers swayed before his nose while an elegant fragrance wafted by. From behind came a large bald-headed man cradling a silk hat; turning sideways to follow a woman, he brushed past them both.

“Hey, there are two empty seats over there,” said Nakano-kun with practiced ease as he cut sideways across the stairs.
The people in line stood up to let the two pass.
If he were alone, Takayanagi-kun thought, no one would stand up to let him pass.

“What a crowd,” said Nakano-kun as he sat down in his chair and surveyed the hall.
When he noticed the other man’s attire, his voice suddenly dropped to a whisper,
“Hey, you have to take off your hat!”

Takayanagi-kun abruptly removed his hat and glanced around.
When he discovered that three or four pairs of eyes were fixed on his head, he thought, "It really is a coordinated attack."
Indeed, the one wearing a hat in this vast concert hall was none other than myself.
"Is it all right to keep wearing my coat?" he asked Nakano-kun.

“It’s fine to keep your coat on.
But it’s too hot—maybe I should take it off.” Nakano-kun stood up slightly, flipped back his coat collar about three inches briskly—the left sleeve slipped free smoothly—then, as he pulled out the right sleeve, he pinched near the collar, turned the coat inside out, and swiftly folded it away behind his chair.
Below, he wore a newly tailored frock coat, while a recently fashionable white slip revealed delicate lines along the vest’s open neckline.
Takayanagi-kun gazed enviously, indeed impressed by the efficient manner.
Nakano-kun did not sit down easily.
Leaning one hand on the back of the chair, he remained standing and gazed around from behind, sweeping his eyes left and right.
The gazes of many people fell upon him.
Nakano-kun was unperturbed.
Takayanagi-kun felt envious of this composure once again.

After a while, Nakano-kun—as if he had finally found what he was searching for among over a thousand arrayed faces—let a whirl of amiability rise to his plump cheeks and gave a slight nod to someone.
Takayanagi-kun could not help but turn around.
Wondering where his friend’s greeting had landed, he self-consciously craned his neck and looked diagonally upward about three rows—when suddenly his eyes caught sight.
The figure of a woman arrested his gaze—a large yellow-dominated ribbon butterfly fluttering briskly amid her black hair, her slender undulating neck now straightened upright.
A faint red tinged the rims of her eyes, and from the depths of glistening lashes, she cast toward Nakano-kun a light that seemed to draw the mortal world into dream’s abyss.
Takayanagi-kun thought to sit down.

The hakama I wore was ogura cloth.
My haori’s dye had peeled away, grime pitilessly reflecting sunlight over its murky hue.
I had last bathed five days prior.
My undershirt had gone unwashed for ages.
A music concert and I were fundamentally incompatible.
My friend and I?
——We remained incompatible.
My friend’s Western-style attire and the owner of those bewitching eyes seemed forged to connect via wireless electricity across a thousand ri.
Here in this hall where they met—breathing in opulence’s fragrance and absorbing harmonious music’s warmth—their souls would inevitably melt and flow, destined to entwine even within the koto’s slender strings.
The concert had drawn thousands—all now welcoming these two with upraised palms.
Those same thousands snapped their fingers in unison, repudiating me alone.
Takayanagi-kun thought he should never have come to such a place.
His friend could scarcely fathom such things.

“It’s time—it’s starting,” he said while looking at the letterpress-printed program.

“I see,” said Takayanagi-kun mechanically, dropping his eyes onto the letterpress.

1. Violin, Cello, and Piano Ensemble.
Takayanagi-kun did not know what a cello was.
2. Sonata…… Composed by Beethoven.
He knew only the name.
3. Adagio…… Composed by Pargial.
He did not know this one either.
When he began to read “4.,” the sound of applause suddenly erupted, shaking the beams.
The performers had already appeared on the stage.

Soon, the three-part ensemble piece began.
The entire hall was as quiet as if turned to stone.
Outside the window to the right stood a tall fir tree, half-visible with its upper half vanishing into distant skies.
Through blue curtains on the left streamed the clear autumn sun, slanting across to brightly illuminate a white wall.

The music progressed pleasantly through tranquil nature and tranquil humanity.
Nakano perceived resplendent air vibrations through his eardrums.
He felt joy at sounds having color.
Takayanagi watched a kite dance away from a fir branch.
He thought it strange how the kite flew in rhythm with the music.

Applause erupted vigorously again.
Takayanagi-kun jolted to awareness.
I remained utterly alone among creatures of another breed.
When he glanced sideways, Nakano-kun was clapping with desperate fervor.
From those kite-haunted heights above, one who had summoned me back to this suffocating ravine was none other than the friend who'd forcibly hauled me here.

The performance transitioned to its second piece.
The collective breath of a thousand souls stilled as one.
Takayanagi-kun's heart swelled anew.
Beyond the window, no kite now danced.
He tilted his head upward to study the ceiling.
Three hexagonal beams—each perhaps a foot thick—pierced vertically through the concert hall; without turning, their rearward reach stayed unknowable.
Decorative flora unfurled along their length, vines coiling about geometric edges.
Craning his neck transformed the space into some vast temple nave.
Yellow-hued voices and azure-toned murmurs cascaded downward like arabesque tracery twining about rafters.
Takayanagi-kun stood solitary in a realm forsaken.

The third round of applause arose unannounced.
The friend next to him clapped more clamorously than anyone else.
The solitary figure who had been in a desolate place suddenly became a solitary figure surrounded by hail-like applause.
The surrounding applause showed no sign of ceasing.
Just as the performers were about to push open the door and enter my room, it grew even more intense.
The performer who had warmly cradled a violin under their right arm turned toward the door and glided onto the stage, their hem pattern dappled with faint autumn leaves shifting across the platform.
When she received the bouquet of white chrysanthemums blooming wildly in the shadow of her fluttering sleeves and slightly bowed her supple upper body before the audience, Takayanagi felt—
—It was not that I had been made to listen to this woman’s music.
Though they said they would not let me listen, I secretly crept close and eavesdropped.

The performance began again before the roar of applause had subsided.
The audience all abruptly died.
Takayanagi-kun was free again.
He felt as though he were standing alone on a vast plain, and a warm sun the color of a ripe persimmon was rising abruptly from the distant horizon.
When I was a child, I often felt this way.
Why have I become so constrained now?
No matter where I looked—right or left—the people around me seemed to be rejecting me.
Even my only friend clapped his merciless hands at the crucial moment.
There’s a saying that if you have nowhere else to turn, you should flee back to your parents.
If I had those parents, none of this would have happened from the beginning.
When I was seven, my father went somewhere and never came back.
After that, my friends stopped playing with me.
When I asked my mother, she said, “He’ll be back soon, he’ll be back soon.”
Mother deceived me by saying Father would return when he never did.
His mother is still alive.
Having vacated her long-lived-in house, she now lives alone in desolate solitude three ri into the mountains from her hometown.
If I graduate and become respectable, it is my duty to take my parent to Tokyo or such.
If we fled back, both parent and child would starve to death.—Instantly, the sound of applause surged back all around.

“That was interesting.”
“That was the best one yet.”
“She conveys emotion exceptionally well—what do you think?” asked Nakano-kun.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you find it interesting?”

“I suppose.”

“If you just say ‘I suppose,’ that’s no help.—Hey, see that woman next to the Westerner wearing the intricate Yuzen kimono?—Those patterns have become fashionable lately.”
“Rather showy, I’d say.”

“Is that so?”

“You’ve no color sense.”
“Such bold kimonos work splendidly for gatherings.”
“From a distance, they don’t overwhelm.”
“They’re beautifully effective.”

“You’re wearing one just like that too.”
“Oh, really? Well… I’m only wearing it carelessly.”
“Does wearing it carelessly count as an excuse?”

Nakano-kun stopped the conversation for a moment.

To the left, a man wearing pince-nez glasses, with his sideburns mercilessly shaved off above the ears, had taken out a notebook and was writing something intently.

"Is that a man writing music reviews or something?" Takayanagi-kun asked this time.

“Let me see—that man? The one wearing black clothes.”
“Oh, that’s…”
“That’s a painter, you know.”
“He comes every time. Whenever he comes, he brings a sketchbook and draws people’s faces.”

“Without permission?”

“Well, I suppose so.”

“He’s a thief. A face thief.”

Nakano-kun chuckled quietly.
The intermission was sufficiently long.
Those heading to the corridor, those going to smoke, those leaving briefly on errands—all passed before Takayanagi-kun’s eyes.
The woman felt as she had when peeling off Toyokuni’s *Inaka Genji* prints one by one as a child.
The man resembled Yoshitoshi’s loyal retainers from his depiction of the raid night in motion.
Just thinking how I must appear in their eyes made me want to leave quickly.
All around me, people were moving.
They moved beautifully.
Yet they did not move for food or clothing.
They moved for amusement.
Like butterflies playing among flowers, like duckweed swaying in ripples, they exhibited activity beyond mere utility.
Those entering this hall must possess surplus beyond practicality.

My activities were a matter of survival—whether I ate or starved.
It was not the gentle work of warmth but the inexorable march of suppression.
Restrained by solemn providence, he toiled to atone for the sin of being granted life unconditionally.
To put it plainly—like butterflies—even if they were to seize any of these fluttering members of the public and compare them to him, he would feel not the slightest shame.
It was not that he did not say what he wanted because people would neither nod nor respect it.
It was because they dedicated all their time to life’s competition and granted him no chance to speak.
The things he wished to say but could not—the things the world wished to hear but could not—were bound by heaven’s restraints.
Because people gagged his mouth.
When one was granted vast wealth yet forbidden to spend even a penny, they could not return to their impoverished past’s peace and instead came to curse those who imposed this fate.
Must I die a cursed death?
Suddenly his throat closed up, and he broke into a hacking cough.
He took a handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped away the phlegm.
The white cloth from when he bought it had turned a strange brown.
When he raised his face, a woman—wearing a thin gold chain draped from her shoulder like those of Kanze-style costumes, her thick obi woven with crimson and gold concealing a watch—stood at the edge of the row, greeting Nakano-kun.

“Oh, you’ve come,” she said, narrowing her lovely double eyelids.

“Well, this is quite a success.”
“Mr. Fuyuta did an excellent job,” said Nakano-kun as he turned his upper body toward the woman.
“Yes, he was overjoyed…” she replied curtly before walking away.
“Do you know that woman?”
“The hell would I know?” Takayanagi-kun threw a punch.

The other man was so startled that he fell silent. At that very moment, the post-intermission performance began. It was something called "Four-Leaf Clover Flower." As the piece continued, Takayanagi-kun listened drowsily. When hands clapped with a patter, the feverish person returned to himself as if waking from a dream. After repeating this process two or three times, when he was finally roused from his last hallucination, it was at the moment when they struck the gong and blared the large trumpet in Tannhäuser’s March.

Before long, the shadows of over a thousand people began to move all at once.
The two youths were jostled out through the gate.

The sun was finally beginning to set.
The pine grove towering beside the library, faintly retaining its green hue, gradually transformed into black shadows.

“It’s gotten cold, hasn’t it?”

Takayanagi-kun’s answer was two feeble coughs.

“You’ve been coughing since earlier.”
“That’s a strange cough.”
“Why don’t you see a doctor?”

“Nah, I’m fine,” Takayanagi-kun said, shrugging his pointed shoulders two or three times.

They crossed through the pine grove and came out in front of the museum.
On the large ginkgo, crows like splatters of ink were scattered.
In the darkening sky shone countless falling leaves.
Now even the wind rose.

“A man named Shirai Michiya came by a couple of days ago.”

“Michiya-sensei?”

“I think so.”
“It’s not exactly a common name.”

“Did you ask him?”

“I meant to, but it felt too awkward to bring up.”

“Why?”

“How could I ask outright whether he’d been driven out by his students at some middle school?”

“You needn’t have asked whether he was expelled.”

“But he makes conversation difficult.”
“That man’s impossible.”
“He speaks only of practical matters and nothing else.”

“He might’ve sunk that low.”
“What business did he even have coming to your place?”

“Oh, nothing—said he was a reporter from Kōsō Magazine here to jot down my comments.”

“Your comments?”
“The world takes strange turns.”
“Money triumphs in the end, doesn’t it?”

“Why?”

“Why do you ask? —Poor thing—has he fallen so low? —What kind of clothes was Michiya-sensei wearing?”

“Yeah, not very impressive, huh?”

“Even if it wasn’t impressive, well, what sort of clothes was he wearing?”

“Yeah.
It’s hard to say exactly, but well, probably about your level.”

“Eh, about this much? Like this haori here?”

“The haori’s color was a bit better.”

“The hakama?”

“The hakama isn’t cotton, but it’s even more wrinkled.”

“So in the end, he and I are on par?”

“In short, he’s on par with you.”

“Hmm… You know, he’s a tall, lanky man.”

“A tall man with a narrow face.”

“Then it must be Michiya-sensei.”
The world was truly merciless.
“—You know his address, don’t you?”

“I didn’t ask for it.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“Yeah. But if you ask Kōsō Magazine, you’ll find out right away. He might be involved with other magazines or newspapers too. I think I’ve seen the name Shirai Michiya somewhere before.”

The carriages and cars returning from the concert were overtaking the two from behind in an unbroken stream since earlier, hurrying home through the dusk. Just as it seemed the two rickshaws that had come charging up would overtake them again, they passed by the Great Buddha and, with a shout, turned into Seiyōken. In the white haze of twilight, a garment so strikingly vivid as to repel the encroaching dusk could only belong to a woman of standing. Nakano came to an abrupt halt.

“I’ll take my leave here. I have someone waiting for me.”

“Is the appointment supposed to be at Seiyōken?”

“Yeah, well, that’s about right.”
“Well, see you,” said Nakano, starting to walk away.
Takayanagi was left standing alone in the middle of the thoroughfare.

He descended through the lonely world toward Ike-no-hata.
At that moment, Shūsaku, the lonely only child, thought to himself:
If only I had time for love, I could write of this pain and share a literary work with the world.
When he looked up, ornate gas lamps glowed on Seiyōken’s second floor.

V

He entered the milk hall.

He sat down on a single-legged chair placed near a waist-high partition with frosted glass panels at the top and bottom and a transparent one in the middle.
He bit into the toasted bread and drank the milk.
In his pocket was twenty yen and fifty sen.
He had just exchanged a forty-one-page manuscript on geography teaching methods for money.
It came to fifty sen per page.
He had been instructed not to exceed fifty sen per page and not to exceed fifty pages per month.

With this, he could somehow scrape by this month.
He had to send the nearly ten yen that came from elsewhere to his mother in his hometown.
In his hometown, it was already the season when the sweetfish descended.
Perhaps the first frost had settled on the crumbling thatched roof.
The chickens were probably scratching around the base of the chrysanthemums.
I wonder if Mother is well.

Two students occupying a table across the way were enthusiastically discussing the revenue from the chrysanthemum dolls at Dangozaka while eating Western pastries.
To the left was a student peeling a mandarin orange while letting its juice drip into his milk.
He would squeeze a segment of the mandarin, peel off a photo of a geisha from the Bungei Club, squeeze another segment, and peel off another photo.
When the geisha pictures ran out, he stirred the inside of his cup with a spoon and made a strange face.
He must have been startled because the acid had curdled the milk.

Takayanagi pulled out a magazine from under the newspapers stacked there and began looking through it.
The targeted Kōsō Magazine was folded beneath the Asahi Shimbun.
It was folded but still new.
It had been published just four or five days ago.
At the creased part was 6-point type, and all over it were red pencil marks—some kind of annotations made with colored pencils.
Under the title "My View on Love" was written "Nakano Harudai."
Harudai was, of course, Kiichi’s pen name.
Takayanagi placed the half-eaten toasted bread on the plate and continued to look at "My View on Love," but soon smirked.
At the conclusion of "My View on Love," someone had written "sex maniac※ (!!!)" in the same colored pencil.
Takayanagi turned the page.
The 6-point type was quite lengthy.
Quite a variety of people’s names appeared.
At the very beginning was written "Various Experts’ Solutions to the Anxieties of Modern Youth."
Takayanagi suddenly felt inclined to read it.
The first piece of advice was to accumulate techniques for cultivating a tranquil mind.
I have no idea how one is supposed to accumulate such techniques.
The second piece of advice says to exercise and perform cold water rubs.
It’s so simple.
The third argues that young men who neither read nor understand society have no reason to fret.
Even if you say it doesn’t exist, if it does, there’s nothing to be done.

The fourth advises that one must travel without fail every vacation.
However, there was no mention of where the travel expenses would come from.—Takayanagi-kun grew weary of reading further.
With a swift motion, he flipped it over and opened to the first page.
There was one titled "Emancipation and Obsession… Yūseishi."
Since the title seemed interesting, he decided to glance through it.

When a part of one's body is ailing, it weighs on the mind.
No matter what one does, it preoccupies them.
However, those in perfect health forget the very existence of their own bodies in every action and moment.
Because there is not even a single afflicted area that should command their attention, they can remain so at ease and robust.
To someone with a gaunt, pale face, I once asked, “Is your stomach troubling you?”
The man replied that his stomach was not troubled in the least—as proof, he said that though he had reached his current age, he still did not know where his stomach was located.
At the time, I laughed it off, but upon later reflection, I realized it was a profoundly insightful remark.
Because this person’s stomach was perfectly healthy, there was no need to obsess over it; since there was no need, it seemed he didn’t care where his stomach was located.
He drank freely, ate freely, and remained completely unfazed.
This man had attained enlightenment regarding his stomach....

Takayanagi muttered under his breath that this was a bit odd. Enlightenment about the stomach seemed strange to him.

"What can be said about the stomach can also be said about the entire body," continued the text.
"What applies to the whole body likewise applies to the spirit.
Yet in spiritual life," it noted with emphasis,
"the inability to avoid becoming equally obsessed with both gain and loss proves more vexing than bodily concerns."

"A person skilled in one ability fixates on that ability; an artist devoted to their craft fixates on that art—each tormenting themselves.
While artistic talents may be swiftly forgotten depending on one's mindset,
emancipation from my own flaws cannot be so easily achieved."

"When a woman wearing an obi costing one or two hundred yen attends a concert, this obi becomes strangely preoccupying, and the music fails to register."
This is because one becomes fixated on the obi.
However, this is an example of pride.
The aspect of pride, as previously stated, is easy to avoid being cursed by.
However, the shameful aspect stubbornly haunts one.
Once, when I was introduced to a guest at a certain place, we exchanged bows while seated in chairs, and both lowered our heads.
While lowering my head, I looked at the man’s feet and saw that parts of his tabi socks under his shoes were torn, revealing his big toenail.
Just as I lowered my head, he raised his intact foot and placed it over the torn tabi socks.
"This person was obsessing over the hole in his tabi socks.……"

I’m obsessing too.
"My body is full of holes," Takayanagi-kun thought as he pressed onward.

“Obsession is suffering.
It must be avoided.
Pain itself may be an unavoidable reality of this world.
However, the suffering born of obsession is that which prolongs pain meant to last a single day into five or seven.
It is unnecessary pain.
It must be avoided.

"One becomes obsessed because they believe others are focusing their attention on them—in other words, because others are obsessed.……”

Takayanagi-kun recalled the concert.

“Therefore, there are two methods to emancipate oneself from obsession.”
No matter how much others may obsess over things, not obsessing oneself constitutes one method of emancipation.
Even if people glare fiercely, prick up their ears in scrutiny, offer cold criticism, or hurl abuse—oneself alone must remain unperturbed and briskly carry matters forward.
“Ōkubo Hikozaemon once presented himself at the castle carrying a washing basin.……”

Takayanagi-kun grew envious of Hikozaemon.

"When splendid attire is put on a horse groom, the groom immediately becomes obsessed."
"In this regard, the kazoku nobility and daimyo have attained emancipation."
"If one were to make the kazoku nobility and daimyo wear a groom's work apron, they would immediately become obsessed."
"Shakyamuni and Confucius have mastered emancipation in this regard."
"Those who do not place weight on the material world have no need to obsess over it because..."

Takayanagi-kun gulped down the lukewarm milk and let out a groan.

"The second method of emancipation is that meant for ordinary people."
"The emancipation method for ordinary people does not free them from obsession; rather, it involves avoiding positions where they would be forced to obsess."
"From the outset, they take precautions to prevent attracting others’ attention—and thus avoid having pain rebound upon themselves."
"Therefore, success requires pandering to vulgar trends from the beginning and possessing a heart that conforms to worldly ways."
"Edo-period townspeople understood this method of emancipation."
"Geisha patrons understood this method of emancipation."
“Western so-called gentlemen are those who have most thoroughly mastered this method of emancipation.……”

Amused by the pairing of a geisha and a gentleman, the young man took another piece of toast and bit a semicircular chunk from its edge. He wiped the butter clinging to his thumb onto the knee of his hakama.

“From the perspective of geishas, gentlemen, and connoisseurs,” came the text, “Jesus, Confucius, and Shakyamuni appear as nothing but madmen.” From the sages’ viewpoint, however, “geishas, gentlemen, and connoisseurs remain mired in obsession.” The passage concluded: “They pride themselves on escaping obsession through obsession itself. The emancipation of these two groups can never align in their fundamental principles...”

Takayanagi-kun had never before considered the two characters for "emancipation." Standing in the literary world, he wanted to become someone—wanted to but couldn't; it wasn't that he couldn't—he had no money, no time; society converged to torment him; he could only think of it as regrettable and infuriating. He felt like reading the rest.

“Emancipation is nothing more than an expedient.”
It is an expedient for those who stand in this degraded world to uphold their truth, advocate their good, and proclaim their beauty—avoiding the mire of hesitation, fortifying their resolve for fierce devotion, and thereby casting aside the painful persecutions inflicted by the lesser-capacity masses of modernity.
When one fails to attain this expedient, even the brilliant heirs of heroic spirits will ultimately plummet into demonic caverns and shamelessly perform the folly of measuring gains and losses against those he calls geisha, gentlemen, and connoisseurs.
This is a tragedy for our nation.

“Emancipation is an expedient.”
The right and wrong of actions, conduct, and words emerging through this expedient gate do not concern Emancipation itself.
Therefore, before mastering Emancipation, we must cultivate an aesthetic sensibility that strikes true.
To spread base tastes unrestrainedly throughout one’s generation is a scholar’s disgrace.
That they devote their precious ten or twenty years to toiling among piles of old documents is not for clothing or food, nor fame or reputation—nor titles, stipends, or treasures.
Within faint ink traces, they seek to kindle a single torch of light, then bear that flame through emancipation’s expedient gate to illuminate the entire dark world.

“Therefore, morality is defined as sweeping away the vexations of obsession for those with genuine self-realized insights, thereby bringing them as close as possible to the first type of emancipation.”
Morality is but another name for the freedom we grant to enable virtuous individuals to walk the path.
Those who do not understand this great morality are called common people.

“The majority of the world are common people.”
They cannot understand this great morality because they cling to their positions.
They cannot understand this great morality because they cling to their wealth.
The base ones cannot understand this great morality because they cling to their wine and their women.

“Light is the forerunner of aesthetic sensibility.”
Aesthetic sensibility is the lubricant of society.
A society without lubricant cannot be established.
A society that operates on contaminated lubricant decays.
Those gentlemen, connoisseurs, and geisha followers are ones who slide upon contaminated oil into the grave.
The nobility, the high-ranking, the wealthy merchants—they seek to invert the world through oil of pedigree, oil of influence, oil of gold and silver.

“True oil is not within their knowledge.”
They have not expended the slightest ingenuity on this oil since the day they were born.
Those who do not expend any ingenuity are forgiven for failing to comprehend this great morality.
When it comes to oppressing the disciples of light, they transcend the realm of common people and enter the ranks of sinners.

“It takes five or six years even to learn the shamisen.”
Even discerning skillful from clumsy playing cannot be achieved through a single month of training.
It is a mistake to think that cultivating aesthetic sensibility is easier than shamisen training.
Those who study tea ceremony spend their precious time on unnecessary ceremonies and follow their teacher’s every word.
Aesthetic sensibility is far more difficult than the tea ceremony.
If one possesses the humility to bow to tea servers, then the ideas of scholars, as the originators of aesthetic sensibility, must be all the more heeded.

"Aesthetic sensibility is of great importance to humanity."
Those who destroy musical instruments are sinners in that they deprive society of music.
Those who burn books are sinners in that they deprive society of learning.
Those who destroy aesthetic sensibility are greater sinners than criminals under criminal law in that they overturn society itself.
Even without music, we can live; even without learning, we can live.
We may still be able to live without aesthetic sensibility.
However, aesthetic sensibility is a fundamental element of society that permeates every aspect of life.
To attempt to live without this is no different from entering the wilderness and trying to live alongside tigers.

“There is a person here.” When, under the sole cause that this person does not conform to their expectations, the majority ceaselessly harasses them day and night until years later—having degraded their character and lured them into base tastes—they commit a crime heavier than murder. If one kills, one is killed. Those killed vanish from society. They leave no aftermath. Those with degraded aesthetic sensibilities still exist. As long as they exist, they must spread their corrupted tastes. They are a plague. Those who manufacture this plague are criminals.

“Those who create a plague in the realm of aesthetic sensibility and are punished for it are no different from those who commit murder and are punished for it.” Those in high positions are most prone to commit this crime. By virtue of their social standing, they occupy positions that afford them ample opportunity to exert influence on others. Those who possess the means to exert influence yet do not know the proper way to do so are dangerous.

“They cannot match specialized scholars in aesthetic sensibility.” Moreover, they possess an ability to exert influence on others that surpasses even that of scholars. Ability is not a right. Some of them do not even understand this distinction. They even seize the literary scholars who have emerged into this world to educate their tastes and attempt to invert them according to their own will. Not only have they forgotten great morality, but they are also committing great immorality and shamelessly running rampant through society.

“If there are scholars who conform to their will, they are scholars unaware of their true vocation. If there are scholars who cannot educate them, they are spineless scholars. Scholars must embody light. Scholars must actualize the aesthetic sensibility that flows from light. And thus, in order to actualize this, scholars must refrain from obsession. ‘Scholars must seek emancipation in order to refrain from obsession.’”

Takayanagi-kun kept the magazine open and blankly raised his eyes. The octagonal clock hanging on the front pillar bonged once. The young woman who had been sitting absently on the chair beneath the pillar stood up at the sound of the clock. On the round table sat a cheap Kyo-yaki vase into which a narcissus had been carelessly thrust, its leaf tips yellowed; it seemed no one had watered it for ages. The young woman lightly touched the narcissus flower and picked up the newspaper lying beside the vase. Just when one thought she would read it, she folded it into quarters and set it aside. This woman had stood up for no reason at all. Out of sheer boredom, she had mechanically risen upon hearing the bong. Takayanagi-kun immediately thought her an enviable woman.

It seemed the discussion regarding the chrysanthemum dolls’ income had been settled, for the two students were puffing on tobacco and watching the passersby.

“Oh, Tomita’s passing by,” said one of them.
“Where?” asked the other.
Tomita had slipped through the glass door that was open about three inches.
“He’s a guy who sure eats a lot.”

“Eats, eats,” came the reply, making clear he truly ate voraciously.

“People don’t get fat in proportion to how much they eat.”
“That guy eats so much yet stays thin as a rail.”

“He reads stacks of books but might as well be someone who never amounts to anything.”

“Exactly,” interjected the young woman. “We’d both do better to study as little as possible.”

“Ha ha ha ha.”
“That’s not what I meant when I said it.”

“That’s how I decided to put it.”

“Tomita doesn’t get fat, but he’s quite agile.”
“After all, there’s a reason he eats so much.”

“Agile? Don’t make me laugh.”

“Well, the other day when I was passing through the fourth block, someone suddenly called out from behind me—and when I turned around, it was Tomita.”
“He had his hair half-cut and was wrapped in something like a large bedsheet over his shoulders.”

“What on earth happened?”

“He came flying out of the barbershop.”

“Why?”

“Apparently, when he was getting his hair cut and saw his own reflection in the mirror, he immediately bolted.”

“Ha ha ha ha! That must have been a shock!”

“I was surprised too. Then he strong-armed the Shoshikai donation out of me and went back to the barbershop!”

“Ha ha ha ha! He really is agile! Let’s both eat as much as we can then. If we don’t stay nimble, we’ll be stuck after graduation.”

“Exactly. What’s the point of being born human if you just huddle in some twenty-yen boarding house like a Bachelor of Letters?”

Takayanagi-kun settled his bill and stood up.
At the maid’s voice saying “Thank you,” the student who had been lying prostrate upstairs in the Literary Club dulled his red eyes and glared at Takayanagi-kun.
He must have been poisoned by the acid in cow’s milk.

VI

“I am Takayanagi Shūsaku...” he said politely, bowing his head.
There had been many times before when Takayanagi-kun had bowed politely.
However, he had never bowed as pleasantly as he did at this time.
Whether visiting professors’ homes, meeting people who requested translations, or facing other seniors, he would always bow politely.
When he was introduced to Nakano’s father the other day, he bowed even more politely.
However, he always felt oppressed while bowing.
Status, seniority, clothing, and residence glared down at him, urging whether he would bow or not, until he had no choice but to prostrate himself.
Toward Mr. Michiya, however, it was entirely different in nature.
Mr. Michiya’s attire was, as Nakano-kun had described, on par with his own.
Mr. Michiya’s study was similar to his own room in that it also served as a tatami room.
Mr. Michiya’s desk was similar to his own in being of plain wood, in being utterly bare, and in being most artlessly square.
Mr. Michiya’s face was similar to his own in being pale and in being emaciated.
In all these respects, though their relationship was such that they could be neither as younger nor elder brothers to one another, his polite bow was not one made out of compulsion or reluctant obligation.
Despite there being a reason, he lowered his head out of his own goodwill.
It was a true act of reverence, born from a sense of compassion toward his own kind.
While inwardly thinking that this bastard was responsible for societal bows, Takayanagi-kun bowed his head with such exaggerated politeness that he nearly wanted to declare it a false bow inversely proportional to his true feelings.
Whether Mr. Michiya realized this or not was unclear.

“Ah, so that’s it. I am Shirai Michiya...” he said without pretense.
Takayanagi-kun liked this manner of greeting.
The two men remained silent for a while.
Since Michiya did not understand the visitor’s purpose, he considered it only natural to wait for the other to speak first.
Takayanagi-kun wanted to lay bare all remnants of their past relationship and establish a bond of mutual compassion between kindred spirits as quickly as possible.
However, because it was all too abrupt, he found it difficult to broach the subject.
Moreover, though it was a matter from some time ago, when he thought that the teacher they had bullied and driven out might have been reduced to such a state because of it, he somehow felt too hesitant to speak plainly.
Takayanagi-kun was exceedingly lacking in courage in such situations.
He had come with the intention to apologize and inquire, but when the moment arrived, he found himself too frightened to make amends.
He had tried out various openings in his mind, but each one felt awkward.

“It’s getting colder by the day, isn’t it?” said Mr. Michiya, unaware of the other’s intentions as he offered this detached seasonal remark.

“Yes, it does seem to have gotten quite cold…”

The opening Takayanagi-kun had prepared in his mind was utterly shattered by this exchange. He felt he might as well save his confession for next time. Yet somehow he still wanted to keep talking.

“Are you busy, Mr. Michiya…?”

“Yes… I’m quite swamped—it’s exhausting.”
“Poverty leaves no time for idleness.”

Takayanagi-kun thought he had messed up his approach.
He would have to start afresh.

“I came up hoping to hear a bit of your talk, but…”

“Oh—are you planning to publish something in a magazine?”

It either hit the mark or missed entirely.
When it became clear that his own attitude remained utterly incomprehensible to him after all, the young man felt a faint pang of disappointment within.

“No—that’s not why I... I mean—forgive my bluntness...
“If I’m intruding, I could return at a better time...”

“No, it’s no bother.”
“Since you mentioned a discussion, I thought I’d listen.”
“No one comes to my place seeking talks.”

“No,” the young man refuted Mr. Michiya’s remark with an odd turn of phrase.

“What academic field do you pursue?”

“Literature—I just graduated from university this year.”

“Ah, I see.”
“So you intend to undertake something now?”

“If I could do it, I would want to—but I have no time…”

“There’s no time, is there.”
“I’m troubled by the lack of time too.”
“However, it might be better not to have free time after all.”
“Well...”
“There seem to be quite a few people who have free time, but hardly any of them seem to be doing anything, don’t you think?”

“Doesn’t that depend on the person?” said Takayanagi-kun, implicitly hinting at his own unspoken thought: If only I had the time.

“It probably depends on the person as well.”
“But today’s rich people are...” Michiya said, cutting his sentence halfway as he looked at the desk.
On the desk lay a manuscript about two inches thick.
On the shoji screen, the shadow of washed tabi socks fell.

“Rich people are no good. Those who are troubled by having no money…”

“Those who are troubled by having no money should just do as best they can in their hardship,” said Mr. Michiya with unwarranted composure, despite being troubled himself.
Takayanagi-kun was somewhat dissatisfied.

“But when one’s energy gets consumed by securing food and clothing…”

“That’s fine.”
“If your energy gets consumed, then it’s perfectly acceptable not to do anything else.”

The young man stared at Michiya in stunned silence.
Michiya was as earnest as Confucius himself.
Takayanagi-kun thought he couldn’t stand being made a fool of.
Takayanagi-kun was a man who tended to interpret most things as if he were being mocked.

“If it’s you, Mr. Michiya, maybe it’s all right,” he blurted out effortlessly, then looked down, startled at having overstepped.
Michiya was unfazed.

“Of course I’m fine. You’d be fine too,” he said, casually attempting to draw even the other man into his logic.

“Why is that?” he asked, retreating two or three steps like a fox pausing mid-turn to test the ground.

“But you were told you studied literature, weren’t you? Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, I did,” he asserted forcefully.
In all other matters, Takayanagi-kun lacked the standing to give decisive replies, but within his own realm of expertise, he was determined never to waver before anyone.

“Then that settles it.”
“Then that settles it then. That settles it then,” repeated Mr. Michiya.
Takayanagi-kun had no inkling what this meant.
Moreover, pressing further with a “Why?” felt like stepping into an ambush—something he found intolerable.
Finding himself at a loss, he fell silent and studied the man’s face.
As he kept looking, he willed him wordlessly to resolve this somehow, his gaze laden with implicit demand.

“Did you understand?” said Mr. Michiya. Looking at his face proved utterly futile.

“I suppose so,” he conceded reluctantly.

“But isn’t that right? Literature differs from other fields of study,” declared Mr. Michiya with austere conviction.

“Ah,” Takayanagi-kun replied reflexively.

“Other fields of study, you know.”
“The enemy is whatever obstructs both that scholarship and its research.”
“For instance—poverty, busyness, oppression, misfortune, bitter circumstances, discord, quarrels—you understand.”
“When these exist, scholarship becomes impossible.”
“Therefore, they strive to avoid such things as much as possible to gain temporal and mental respite.”
“Until now, literary scholars too have operated under that same mindset.”
“But that mindset misses the mark entirely.”
“Among all academic disciplines, it was believed literary scholars required the most carefree idle days.”
“The absurdity lay in how even they themselves believed this.”
“However, that is erroneous.”
“Literature is life itself.”
“Be it pain, hardship, or anguish—whatever one encounters along life’s path constitutes literature, and those who have truly tasted these experiences are literary scholars.”
“A literary scholar is no idle soul seated before manuscript paper, consulting a dictionary of compound phrases while tilting their head in puzzlement.”
“It denotes those of us who surpass the ordinary—embodying mature and profound aesthetic sensibility, handling all human affairs without compunction and perceiving them with depth.”
“Committing those methods of handling and depths of perception to paper produces literary works; thus, even without reading books, one who engages directly with such matters becomes a splendid literary scholar.”
“Therefore, while other fields of study avoid research-hindering elements as much as possible and thereby gradually withdraw from human affairs, literary scholars willingly plunge headlong into these very obstacles.”

“I see,” said Takayanagi-kun with a peculiar look.

“Don’t you think so?”

Whether he considered it or dismissed it, this was a theory he was encountering for the first time in his life.
A critical response typically came only when one was prepared.
If one could respond to a surprise attack, then it was not a surprise attack.

"Hmm," said Takayanagi-kun, lowering his head.
Literature was one’s true calling.
If one expounded a theory about their own true calling that others could not even respond to, then that true calling was not a very solid one.
If even Mr. Michiya lived in such a shabby house and wore such grimy clothes, then I thought my monthly salary of twenty yen and fifty sen was more than enough.
I felt as though I had suddenly been pulled into a vast world.

“It seems you’re quite busy, Mr. Michiya…”

“Yes.”
“I actively plunge into busyness and take on what others see as whimsical hardships.”
“Hahaha,” he laughed.
“In that case, hardship doesn’t feel like hardship.”

“If I may ask, what exactly are you doing now…”

“Now? Yes, I do various things.”
“Because I’m trying to do both—the business of eating and my true calling—it’s quite taxing.”
“Lately, I’ve been asked to go around to various places to transcribe talks, you know.”

“That must be quite a hassle.”

“If you call it troublesome—well, it *is* troublesome, but…”
“Rather than calling it troublesome, it’s more absurd.”
“Well, I do manage to write in a slapdash way, though.”

“There must be some quite interesting things said,” he remarked, subtly trying to draw out the matter of Nakano Harudai.

“You think that’s interesting? Wait till you hear this—the other day, I was subjected to a whole explanation about ‘yum-yum’!”

“Yum-yum, you say?”

“Yes, that child would say ‘yum-yum’ about food.”
“That’s the origin of it, you see.”
“According to that person’s theory, once a child’s tongue becomes able to articulate, the first pronunciation to emerge is ‘yum-yum.’”
“So during that period, they say children would call everything ‘yum-yum’ whether they saw it or not—meaning they didn’t need to attach it to anything specific. But since what matters most to children is food, in the end, ‘yum-yum’ became monopolized by food.”
“So adults retained that habit and came to call delicious things ‘umai.’”
“Therefore, they say that all of life’s troubles ultimately circle back and reduce to the two characters ‘yum-yum.’”
“Don’t you feel like we’ve wandered into a vaudeville show or something?”

“You’re belittling it.”

“Yes—I generally attend precisely to be ridiculed.”

“But voicing such trifling matters—that’s downright impertinent of you.”

“Ah, let them call it impertinent! They’ll never grasp it regardless.”
“Yet consider this—”
“They display such earnestness while remaining thoroughly eccentric, I tell you.”
“Just the other day, I endured a most vehement disquisition on romantic love.”
“Though he’s but a youth, mind you.”

“Surely that refers to Nakano?”

“Do you know?”
“He was quite earnest, I tell you.”

“He’s my classmate.”

“Ah, I see.”
“A person called Nakano Harudai or something like that, right?”
“He must have considerable leisure time.”
“Given how seriously he contemplates such matters—”

“He’s wealthy.”

“Yeah, he lives in a splendid house, doesn’t he? Are you close with that man?”

“Yes, we were once extremely close. But it just doesn’t work anymore. Lately—well—it seems he’s gotten himself a future wife or something, so he doesn’t associate with me much anymore.”

“That’s fine. Even if you don’t associate with him. It doesn’t seem like you’ll lose anything. Hahahaha.”

“Somehow, though—like this—I feel like a lonely only child, and I just can’t bear it.”

“It’s perfectly fine to be a lonely only child,” Michiya-sensei declared, trotting out his “perfectly fine” once more.
Takayanagi-kun no longer had the courage to interject with, “If it’s you, Sensei, then I suppose it’s fine.”

“Since ancient times, those who wish to accomplish something must become lonely only children.”
“If you rely on just one friend like that, you’ll achieve nothing.”
“You may even fall out with your relatives.”
“There are times when my own wife mocks me.”
“In the end, even the maid teases me.”

“If I were reduced to that state,” he said, “I don’t think I could bear to live—it would be too wretched.”

“Then you’ll never become a literary scholar.”

Takayanagi silently looked down.

“When I was your age, I never imagined things would come to this.”
“Yet the hard truths of society do indeed reach this point.”
“It’s no lie.”
“It wasn’t only Jesus and Confucius who suffered—those of us literary scholars who think it’s enough to praise their suffering with the tips of our pens while living comfortably ourselves are mere frauds.”
“Such people have no right to praise Jesus or Confucius.”

Takayanagi-kun was suffering now, but amid his hardship he clung to a hope as thin as a silk thread—a hope that if he could endure just a little longer, there might come a season when he would rise to lofty trees. That silk thread had frayed halfway through, and any prospect of climbing out from the dark valley no longer seemed likely to come within his lifetime.

“Mr. Takayanagi.”

“Yes.”

“The world is a harsh place, I tell you.”

“I’m suffering.”

“Do you know?” Michiya-sensei laughed forlornly.

“I think I know, but if things stay this painful forever…”

“Can you not endure it? Are your parents still with you?”

“Only my mother remains in the countryside.”

“Only your mother?”

“Yes.”

“Having even just your mother is a blessing.”

“It’s not much of a blessing at all.—If I don’t do something for her soon, she’s already getting on in years. I thought that once I graduated, I’d somehow be able to manage…”

“Indeed, with there being so many graduates these days, it’s become quite difficult to find work.—How about it—have you considered going to teach at a school in the countryside?”

“At times, I do think about going back to the countryside, but…”

“You’ll grow tired of it again, won’t you?—Well, I can’t really recommend it much.”
“I’ve had quite a bit of experience with rural schools myself, but…”

“Sensei…” he started to say, but found it difficult to bring up old matters again.

“Huh?” Michiya said, feigning ignorance.

“Sensei… um… I’ve heard that you’re undertaking the editorship of *Gangō Magazine*—is that truly the case?”

“Yes, I’ve been handling it since the other day.”

“In this month’s editorial, there was one titled ‘Emancipation and Obsession,’ but that Yūseishi…”

“That’s me.”
“Did you read it?”

“Yes, I found it very interesting to read.”
“I know it’s rude to put it this way,” he said, “but that piece took what I wanted to say and elevated it five or six levels—it felt both enlightening and cathartic to experience.”

“That’s generous of you.”
“Then you are my confidant.”
“You might well be the sole confidant in all the world.”
“Ha ha ha.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Mr. Takayanagi said with measured earnestness.

“Is that so? Then all the better.”
“Yet until now, not one person has read my work and praised it.”
“You alone have done so.”

“From now on, everyone will praise it.”

“Ha ha ha ha. If there were at least a hundred people like that, I’d be content—but there are some truly absurd things that happen. The other day, some strange man came to visit me, you know…”

“What happened?”

“Oh, nothing—he’s a merchant, you see. Where he heard this from, I don’t know, but he said to me, ‘I hear you run a magazine, so I suppose you must write articles.’”

“Huh.”

“Well, I told him I do write. Then, you see, that man says, ‘Please write me an eye medicine advertisement.’”

“What a fool.”

“In return, he said he’d place an eye medicine advertisement in the magazine and insisted I write one—something called Tenmeisui, I believe…”

“They’ve given it such a strange name—.”
“Did you write it?”

“No, I refused in the end.”
“And there’s something even more absurd about it.”
“He claimed that on the sale day, that drugstore would fly a large balloon.”

“Is it for a celebration?”

“No, it’s still for the advertisement. But since the balloon flies high in the sky without making a sound—though anyone could see it if they looked up—you have to make them look up, don’t you?”

“Huh, I see now.”

“So he wanted me to take on that role—the one who makes people look up.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, he said it didn’t matter whether I was walking the streets or riding a train—whenever I spotted the balloon, I should shout, ‘Oh! A balloon! Look, a balloon! That must be an ad for Tenmeisui!’ over and over.”

“Ha! That’s quite a request—treating people like fools, isn’t it?”

“It’s both ridiculous and absurd, but there’s no reason it had to be me doing such a thing.”
“So I asked him, ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler to just hire a rickshaw puller?’”
“But then the man says—”
“‘No, rickshaw pullers alone won’t inspire credibility.’”
“‘You need someone with a beard and a respectable face to make people fall for it,’ he insisted.”

“What an utterly impudent fellow.”
“What on earth kind of person is he?”

“What is he? Just an ordinary man.”
“He came to hire someone to deceive society.”
“What a carefree soul! Ha ha ha ha.”

“I’m utterly staggered.”
“If it were me, I’d thrash him.”

“If you begin thrashing such people, you’d have to thrash every last one.”
“You rage so fiercely, yet today’s world consists entirely of such men.”

Takayanagi-kun was taken aback.
The shadow of the tabi socks inserted into the shoji vanished unnoticed, and through the gap of the single opened panel could be seen the edge of a shoe brush.
The engawa was caked with mud.
In a corner of the palm-sized garden stood a single chrysanthemum plant illuminating Mr. Shirai’s poverty with its purity.
Even Takayanagi-kun—who considered nature inconsequential—felt this chrysanthemum alone was beautiful.
Beyond the cedar fence loomed a large persimmon tree; its vivid red glowed in the sky like clustered coral beads embedded into heaven.
Scarecrow clappers clattered sharply as crows burst into flight.

“Your residence is quite serene, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” replied Shirai. “The monk of Tako Temple is chasing crows. Every day he clatters about, doing nothing but chase those birds. A life like his must be rather peaceful.”

“There are an extraordinary number of persimmons growing here,” observed Takayanagi.

“They’re astringent persimmons,” said Shirai. “What could that monk possibly cherish enough to guard such bitter fruit? —You’ve been coughing strangely at times. Are you well? You’ve grown terribly thin. You mustn’t let yourself waste away like this. Your body is your greatest capital.”

“But Professor, haven’t you gotten quite thin yourself?”

“Me?”
“I am thin.”
“I am thin, but I’m fine.”

Seven

White butterfly, upon white flower,

Small butterfly, upon small flower,

Scatter, scatter they do.

Long sorrows, upon long hair,

Dark sorrows, upon dark hair,

Scatter, scatter they do.

Futilely, blows the autumn storm’s—

Futilely, to dwell in this fleeting world—
The white butterflies, the black tresses—
Scatter, scatter they do.

The woman finished singing.
Had one filled a silver bowl with pearls and shaken it with slender fingers, such a voice would have emerged—so the man had discerned.

“You sang beautifully.”
“With a bit more practice to fully project your voice, it would surely sound splendid even in a large venue.”
“Why not give it a try at the next concert?”

“I don’t want to—calling it a trial?”

“Then let’s make it official.”

“I couldn’t possibly do it officially either.”

“So does that mean you’re giving up?”

“But in front of so many people—I’d be too embarrassed to even make a sound.”

“That new-style poem is quite good, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I love it.”

“Shall I take a photo of you singing like that?”

“A photo?”

“Oh? Do you dislike the idea?”

“I don’t dislike it. But you’ll show it to people, won’t you?”

“If showing it would be disagreeable, I’ll simply look at it alone.”

The woman said nothing and turned her gaze aside. At the center of scattered plum blossoms swept across a half-collar’s surface, a hairpin glimmered with such brilliance it might be mistaken for the Morning Star, its light piercing the man’s eyes.

Where her gaze now fell stood a three-foot platform divided into two tiers. Below lay a rectangular Cochin pot where a slender orchid swayed as though awaiting incense smoke to curl upward. On the upper tier rested a replica of Melos’ God of Love, placed in the dim corner as if conjured from a dream. The woman’s eyes unwittingly came to rest upon this nude statue.

“What about that statue?” he asked.

“Of course it’s a replica.”
“The original is said to be in the Louvre in Paris.”
“However, even as a replica, it’s splendid.”
“The slight curve from the waist up and the direction of both legs are perfectly balanced.—If the entire body were intact, it would be truly magnificent, but unfortunately, the hands are missing.”

“Is the original also missing parts?”

“Yes, because the original is missing parts, the replica is also missing them.”

“What kind of statue is this?”

“Venus.”
“It’s the goddess of love,” the man said, deliberately stressing the word “love.”

“Venus!”

From the depths of her deep eyelashes, Venus was gazed at as though she might melt away.
As though the cold plaster might warm, as though one might doubt whether the rounded nipple quivered faintly with each breath, the woman stared intently.
The woman herself was a radiant Venus.

“I see,” the woman said after a moment, her voice faint.

“If you stare too long, Venus might start moving.”

“Is this what they call the god of love?” the woman finally turned her head.

He had been about to say, “You seem more like the god of love,” but when their eyes met, he hesitated.
To speak would shatter her expression.
To actively destroy even momentarily this look in her deep eyes—questioning, pleading, entrusting—would be as grave a sin as breaking the arms of the Venus de Milo.

“Too noble…” The woman tilted her head in frustration at the man’s inability to respond supportively, then deliberately altered her expression.
The man thought he had blundered.

“Yes, it’s somewhat too rigid.
The sense of love isn’t very apparent.”

“Somehow it gives me a cold feeling.”

“Exactly.
‘Cold’ is the perfect description.
I felt something was amiss but couldn’t find the right words.
Cold—yes, cold—that’s precisely it.”

“Why did they make it so elaborately?”

“Well, it’s because of the Phidian style—that’s why it’s so rigorous.”

“You are fond of this sort of thing.”

The woman, even comparing herself to the stone statue, tried to discern her lover’s heart.
There was a worry that those who loved Venus would not love her.
The woman had forgotten that Venus was a deity.

“What’s wrong with liking it? It’s a masterpiece for the ages.”

The woman’s critique was intuitive.
Men’s tastes were half-rooted in legend.
Due to his half-baked exposure to aesthetics, the man had lost the courage to readily agree with the woman.
Scholarship seemed unaware that it deceives its own practitioner.
While himself deceived by scholarship, he saw only that the woman’s undeceived judgment was needlessly mistaken.

“It’s a masterpiece of all ages,” he repeated once more, partly to educate her aesthetic sensibility.

“I see,” the woman had merely said.
In the fleeting instant of a spark’s flash, the impression struck with immediacy was not something to be dismissed by a scholar’s mere assertion.

“Originally, Venus has always given me unpleasant associations.”

“What kind of associations?” the woman asked meekly, resting both hands upright on her knees.
From the wrists onward, about two inches appeared white, while the rest was hidden within the supple garment.
The garment was pale red with stripes resembling silver rain falling thickly and thinly in patches.

The back of the uppermost hand—the five-branched tips gradually tapering yet rounded, covered with glossy nails—gave a pleasing impression.
The fingers had to be slender and long, with soft flesh that did not disrupt their graceful form.
The composed form of each of the five had to differ.
The five distinct fingers had to gather into one and create a harmonious tone.
People with beautiful hands were fewer than those with beautiful faces.
Those with beautiful hands required noble adornments.

The woman wore something brilliant upon her slender finger.

“I don’t recognize that ring.”

“This?” Her folded hands came apart, and she toyed with the glittering object on her right finger.

“Father bought this for me recently.”

“Is it a diamond?”

“I should think so.”
“It’s from Tenshodo.”

“You shouldn’t torment your father too much.”

“Oh, no! That’s not it at all.”
“Father bought it for me himself.”

“That’s quite an unusual occurrence.”

“Hohoho, it’s true.”
“You know perfectly well why.”

“How should I know? I’m not a detective.”

“That’s precisely why I said you wouldn’t know.”

“That’s precisely why I don’t know.”

“Shall I tell you?”

“Yes, please tell me.”

“I’ll tell you, but you mustn’t laugh!”

“I won’t laugh. I’m being perfectly serious, you see.”

“The other day, there was a horse race at Ikegami, right? At that time, Father went there, you know. And then…”
“And then what happened? Did he pick it up?”
“Oh, how rude! You’re being rude.”
“But even if I wait, you won’t tell me the rest, you see.”
“I was just getting to that part. And then he placed a bet, you see.”
“Well, this is a surprise! Your Father does that too?”
“No, he doesn’t usually do it, but he tried it out this time.”

“So he did do it after all?”

“He did do it.
So he received about five hundred yen.”

“Hmm.
So he bought it for you with that?”

“Well, yes.”

“Let me take a look,” he said, reaching out his hand.
The man gently pressed the glittering object.

The ring is a fiend.
Shakespeare wrought many a drama around a ring.
What binds a young man and a young woman with invisible threads in the void is love.
The thing that captures love as it is in one’s hand is a ring.

The gem rested serenely, piercing through the swelling center where threefold undulating golden waves met the ring—*Don’t move*—its brilliance shot through all under heaven, yet this fate, unseizable from the waves unless shattered, became you as my existence and I as yours by necessity.
The man stared at the ring alongside the white finger.

“I hadn’t realized this was what the ring looked like,” the man said.
The woman drew close, dividing the same bench between them.

“Long ago, a certain connoisseur unearthed a bronze statue of Venus and placed it where the scent of olives wafted thickly—to enhance the view of his garden, or so they say.”

“Is that the story?”
“How sudden.”

“And then one day, when he was playing tennis…”

“Oh, I don’t understand at all.”
“Who is playing tennis?”
“Is it the person who dug up the statue?”

“The ones who excavated the statue were laborers, and the one who played tennis was the master who had them dig it up.”
“What difference does it make either way?”
“It’s a bit problematic to equate the master with the laborers.”
“No, no—after all, it’s the ones who dug it up who played tennis, right?”

“If you insist on being so stubborn, then very well.
“Then the ones who dug it up play tennis…”

“I’m not being stubborn, you know. So it’s the one who had the statue excavated that plays tennis, right? That’s fine, isn’t it?”

“It makes no difference either way.”

“Oh, are you angry? So even the one who had it excavated is at fault, aren’t they?”

“Ha ha ha, there’s no need to apologize. So while he was playing tennis, you see. The ring got in the way—he couldn’t swing the racket properly. So he took it off and tried to put it somewhere, but since it’s so small, he was bound to lose it if he set it down. It’s an important ring, you know—a betrothal ring.”

“Who are you marrying?”

“With whom? Well—it’s with a certain young lady.”

“Oh, surely you can speak of it?”

“It’s not that I’m hiding it, but…”

“Then please do tell.”
“Come now, it’s perfectly fine.”
“And who might that be?”

“This presents quite a dilemma.”
“The truth is, I’ve entirely forgotten.”

“How utterly underhanded!”

“But having lent out Mérimée’s book, I’ve no means of verifying it at present.”

“After all, you must have lent it out.”
“How splendid.”

“What a predicament. At such a crucial moment, I forgot the name, so I couldn’t proceed.—Well then, let’s call it a day for today and resume our story once I’ve looked up that young lady’s name next time, shall we?”

“No, I won’t have it—to stop now, after all this!”

“But I don’t know the name, you see.”

“So please tell me the rest.”

“Is it all right if there’s no name?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I see—then he should have done it sooner.—So after thinking it over, he finally hit upon the idea and slipped it onto Venus’s little finger.”

“You found just the right spot, didn’t you.”
“Isn’t that poetic?”

“However, after finishing the tennis match, he completely forgot about it and only realized after taking that young lady on a trip to the countryside.”
“But since he couldn’t do anything about it now, he settled for buying his future wife a modest ready-made ring for the betrothal.”

“You’re impossible.”
“How heartless!”

“But I forgot—there’s nothing to be done about it.”
“To forget something like that… how heartless!”

“I wouldn’t have forgotten—but being a foreigner, I’ve gone and forgotten.”

“Hohoho—‘a foreigner,’ you say?”

“After the betrothal was smoothly concluded and they returned home, finally on the wedding night—” he deliberately paused mid-sentence.

“What happened on the wedding night?”

“On the wedding night—the Venus from the garden came stomping up through the entrance…”

“Oh! How dreadful!”

“Stomping up to the second floor…”

“How terrifying!”

“Venus opened the bedroom door.”
“That’s creepy!”
“If it’s creeping you out, let’s leave it at that.”

“But what happens in the end?”

“So, stomp, stomp—Venus opened the bedroom door.”

“Please skip that part.”
“But still, what happens in the end?”

“Then let’s skip ahead.—When they looked the next day, the man had turned cold and died, it’s said.”
“They say only where Venus clung to him had turned purple.”

“Oh, how dreadful,” she frowned, knitting her brows.
The alluring person’s knitted brows were like vinegar poured over charm.
The man who had drunk too deeply of love’s sweetness would occasionally click his tongue at this sourness.

Under the thickly gathering new moon, with their heads mutually raised beneath the undulations, the man intently guarded the faintly visible glow of affection’s waves.

“What happened to the wife?”

Those who pity women are women themselves.

“The wife becomes ill and enters the hospital.”
“Does she recover?”

“Yeah.”
“I don’t remember that far.”
“What was it again?”

“There’s no way she wouldn’t recover.”
“She’s done nothing wrong at all.”

Her lower lip, thin yet full, quivered faintly.
The man did not consider the woman’s complaint foolish; rather, he found her compassion intriguing.
The world of two was a world of love.
Love is the most serious of games.
Being a game, it inevitably vanishes from sight in direst extremity.
Those who possess the leisure to sport with love are supremely fortunate.

Love was serious.
Because it was serious, it was deep.
At the same time, love was a game.
Because it was a game, it floated.
The things that were deep yet floating were the algae at the water's bottom and the love of youth.

"Hahaha, there's no need to worry. The wife will surely recover," the man declared without consulting Mérimée.

Love is delusion.
It is also enlightenment.
Love absorbs all creation into itself and grants it an extraordinary life in an instant.
Therefore, it is delusion.
When Love casts its gaze, the entire universe transforms into gold.
The universe reflected in Love’s heart is a universe of deep compassion.
Therefore, Love is enlightenment.
And those who breathe the air of Love know neither delusion nor enlightenment.
Naturally draws people in and are drawn themselves in turn.
Nature abhors a vacuum; Love detests isolation.

“I truly feel sorry for her.”
“When I think about what I would do if I were to end up like that...”

Love holds a profound sympathy for itself.
Because it is so profound, only when pleasure brings satisfaction can one extend beyond oneself to show others sympathy exceeding ordinary measure.
Because it is so profound, when love fails, one extends beyond oneself to cast upon others resentment exceeding ordinary measure.
Those who succeed in love always consider themselves good people.
Those who fail in love also always consider themselves good people.
Whether it succeeds or fails matters not—love moves straight ahead.
All things are measured solely by love’s yardstick.
Successful love becomes a draft horse hauling sympathy.
Failed love becomes a draft horse hauling resentment.
Love is the most willful thing of all.

The two most selfish good people were performing a serious game in a beautifully decorated room.

Outside the room lay a world of desolate autumn.
The autumn of the world tormented many a Michiya-sensei.
The autumn of the world left many a Takayanagi-kun forlorn.
Yet these two remained resolutely good people.

“At the recent concert, you were with Mr. Takayanagi, weren’t you?”

“Yes, we hadn’t made any prior arrangement, but I happened to meet him along the way and invited him.”
“He was standing sadly before the zoo, gazing at the fallen cherry leaves.”
“I felt pity for him.”

“How kind of you to have invited him.”
“It’s not as though he’s ill.”

“He did seem to be coughing slightly.”
“It can’t be anything serious.”

“His complexion looked dreadfully poor.”

“That man is so high-strung he manufactures his own illnesses.”
“Yet when you try to console him, he answers with sarcasm instead.”
“Somehow he appears to grow ever stranger these days.”

“How unfortunate.”
“What could have happened to him?”
“No matter what you do, he insists on becoming a lonely only child and views the whole world as his enemy—there’s simply no way to handle him.”
“Is it a broken heart?”

“I’ve never heard anything like that.”
“Maybe he should just get a wife to look after him.”

“Perhaps you should look after him.”

“If you make such a fuss about looking after him, it’s no good.”
“The wife is pitiable.”

“But… If he had someone, he might recover.”

“He might recover somewhat, but it’s his fundamental nature.”
“He has a habit of pessimism.”
“He’s contracted a pessimism sickness.”

“Ohoho, how did such an illness emerge?”

“Why do you think?”
“It may be heredity.”
“Or perhaps something happened during his childhood.”

“Haven’t you heard anything?”

“No—I rather dislike asking such things myself—and besides, that man never confides anything at all.”
“If only he’d state his thoughts more plainly, there might be some way to console him...”

“He’s not in any trouble, is he?”

“With his livelihood? Yes, he’s struggling there. But if someone were to thoughtlessly offer him money, he’d hurl it right back.”

“But shouldn’t he himself be able to earn money, being a Bachelor of Letters?”

“He certainly can. But he’d do well to wait a little longer—he’s just so impatient, expecting to become a splendid creator, gain fame, and live comfortably starting the very day after graduation. It’s rather difficult.”

“Where exactly is your hometown?”

“My hometown is Niigata Prefecture.”

“It’s a faraway place, isn’t it.”
“Niigata Prefecture grows rice, doesn’t it?”
“So your family are farmers after all?”

“Farmers, I suppose.—Ah, speaking of Niigata Prefecture, I just remembered—”
“The other day when you went out, there was a man who passed by you on his way out, wasn’t there?”

“Yes, the one with the long face and beard.”
“What on earth? I was shocked when I saw his wooden sandals!”
“They’re quite flimsy.”
“They’re just like straw sandals!”

“And yet he remains perfectly composed.”
“And he’s a man utterly devoid of charm, you know.”
“Even if I try to talk to him, he doesn’t respond at all.”

“So what did he come here for?”

“He said he was a reporter for Kōgo Magazine and came to take down a conversation.”

“Your?”
“Did you have a conversation with him?”

“Yes, since they’ve been sending that magazine over, I’ll show it to you later.”
“And so, there’s an odd story about that man.”
“When Takayanagi was at his hometown’s middle school, he was taught by that man—and that man is a Bachelor of Letters.”

“Him? A Bachelor of Letters?”
“Oh my!”

“But Takayanagi played all sorts of pranks, tormented him, and ended up driving him out.”

“Him?”
“That’s a terrible thing to do.”

“So now that Takayanagi himself is struggling in life, he’s come to regret it and says that Mr. Shirai must have faced hardships after being driven out because of him—he told me he’d apologize if they ever meet.”

“Is it truly because he was driven out that he has fallen into such ruin?”
“In that case, how pitiable!”

“And then they discovered he was a reporter for Kōgo Magazine recently.”
“So I told him on our way back from the concert.”

“Has Mr. Takayanagi left?”

“He may have gone.”

“If you drove him out, you should make proper amends without delay.”

The conversation of the good people hereby came to a pause.

“How about we go over there and mingle with everyone a bit? You don’t want to?”

“Have you given up on photography?”

“Ah, I’d completely forgotten. Please do let me take your photograph. With this camera, I take quite artistic ones. You see, the ones businessmen take are inferior—photography has advanced remarkably these past five or six years. It’s now a proper art form. Ordinary photos would look the same no matter who took them. These days, the style varies entirely based on each person’s aesthetic sensibility—removing unnecessary elements, softening the overall tone, capturing daring lighting effects across the whole scene. Why, there are already specialists in landscapes and portraits these days.”

“You are a portrait specialist, aren’t you?”

“Me? I—well—intend to become your exclusive specialist.”

“How disagreeable of you!”

The diamond flashed briefly, and from within the slackened pale crimson sleeve, a slender arm descended toward the man’s knee.
Only the fingertips brushed lightly against it.

The conversation of good people ended in photography.

VIII

Autumn steadily advances.
The sound of insects gradually thins out.

Mr. Michiya, who poured his very life into brush and inkstone, was solely fixated on the great karmic matter of life and thus had no leisure to attend to anything else—unaware of the chill of deepening autumn, unaware of the thinning chorus of insects, unaware of the world’s indifference toward him, unaware of the grime accumulating beneath his nails, and of course unaware that the persimmons at Tako Temple had fallen.
To move the society that must be moved through his own power—this was Mr. Michiya’s vocation.
To move even a single step toward something lofty, noble, and public—this was Mr. Michiya’s mission.
Mr. Michiya was unaware of the rest.

Takayanagi-kun would find no such peace.
In stark contrast to Mr. Michiya’s obliviousness, he knew everything.
He knew the gazes of passersby.
He knew the keen edge of the chill wind.
He knew the number of hoarse-voiced geese crossing overhead.
He knew beautiful women.
He knew gold’s preciousness.
He knew his own ephemeral self—treated like wood shavings—and knew evenings when worldly suffering gnawed his bones.
He knew, of course, that his boarding house served naught but wretched potatoes.
To know too much was his habit; to have this habit inflamed was his disease.
The world held more people than one could ever kill.
Yet not one soul existed to cure this disease.
Unless they cured it, millions might as well be none.
He became a lonely only child.
No carefree lonely only child—self-sufficient, awaiting none.
A lonely only child starving for sympathy, parched for human bonds—achingly futile.
"Nakano-kun claims illness; I too think myself ill."
"But what made me this lonely only child’s sickness was society."
"The society that made me this lonely only child’s sickness smirks while gripping a dying patient."
"Society won’t rest content with having made me ill."

They would not cease until they killed the half-dead patient.
Takayanagi-kun could not help but curse society.

From Mr. Michiya’s perspective, the world was one that existed for others.
From Takayanagi-kun’s perspective, the world was one that existed for himself.
Because it was a world existing for others’ sake, he did not resent having no hands reach out to care for him.
Because it was a world existing for his own sake, he found cruel the society that paid him no heed.

Those born to care for others and those born to be cared for differed this much.
Those who guided others and those who relied on others differed this much.
Though both were lonely only children, they differed this much.
Takayanagi-kun did not understand this difference.

Having indifferently spread out a grimy futon, Takayanagi-kun lay his head—its five-day buzz cut grown out to about a week’s length—on a slightly soiled pillow when he suddenly raised his eyes to gaze at the paulownia tree in the front garden.
Whenever Takayanagi-kun’s eyes grew weary from literary work, he would invariably look at this paulownia tree.
When translating Methods of Teaching Geography grew stifling, he would invariably look at this paulownia tree.
Even when he reached an impasse while writing letters, he would surely look at this paulownia tree.
He was bound to look.
In the roughly three-tsubo wild garden—about ten square meters—there existed nothing worth seeing except a solitary paulownia tree.

Lately, he was feeling unwell and lacked the energy to work, so he would lean his cheek against the rickety desk and spend his mornings and evenings gazing at the paulownia tree, drifting in and out of drowsiness.

The phrase “a leaf falls” was timeworn.
The sorrowful autumn always begins its work with the paulownia.
When they clung thickly to the fence like a lined kimono, one might carelessly assume such a sight would hardly stir the heart—only for them to fall again with a rustle the next morning.
As he hurriedly closed the storm shutters against the unseasonable chill, another rustling sound came from outside.
The leaves were finally beginning to yellow.

As the green hues gradually waned from beneath, what surfaced was the thinly spread color of sap.
The sap endured each cold night, growing ever thicker.
The thriving life drew near its twilight.

The wind blew.
A wind of unknown origin blew softly.
The yellowed treetop showed no sign of movement, yet one or two leaves fluttered down from its unseen tips.
The rest were spared—for now.

The sap grew gradually thicker with each night’s autumn frost.
Black veins formed within the sap.
If struck with a broom, it made a sound like snapping a rice cracker.
The black veins spread outward, scorching left and right.
It was now precarious.

The wind came.
It blew in through gaps in the fence, from beneath the eaves.
What was precarious fell.
They fell incessantly.
They left the treetops to such an extent that even the thought of their precariousness vanished.
When the clear moon shone, the branches’ skeletal forms were laid so starkly bare that one could count every limb.

Insects gnawed at the few remaining leaves.
In the deep dull brown, a small hole opened.
A hole opened in the next one; in its neighbor too, holes opened sporadically.
The leaves became riddled with holes.
The withered leaves whispered, “We’re forlorn.”
A person watching said, “How forlorn they must be.”
Then the wind blew in.
The leaves were all blown away.

When Takayanagi-kun suddenly raised his eyes, the paulownia tree had already passed through all these stages and become completely bare.
At the tip of a branch near the window, stretched diagonally, clung a single leaf riddled with insect holes.

“I’m a lonely only child,” Takayanagi-kun muttered under his breath.

Takayanagi-kun had been having a strange cough since around last month.
At first, he had paid it no mind.
Gradually, a deep, unrelenting cough began racking him.
It wasn’t just the cough.
He also had a fever.
It would come on only to subside.
Just when he thought it had subsided and he could work, it would flare up again.
Takayanagi-kun tilted his head.

He thought about going to see a doctor, but to resolve to have himself examined would mean acknowledging his own illness. To acknowledge his own illness was akin to acknowledging his own sin. Until one’s sins received judgment, it was human nature to defend them within one’s heart. Takayanagi-kun defended his own body before it could be subjected to a doctor’s diagnosis. He insisted it was nerves. Takayanagi-kun did not know that nerves and facts were siblings.

At night, he would sometimes break into night sweats.
Sometimes he would wake from the sweat.
He would wake in total darkness.
He wished this utter darkness would last forever.
When dawn came and human voices arose, the realization that society still existed was agony.

To make the darkness darker still, he closed his eyes and buried his head beneath the bedding, never wanting to show his face to the world again.
As he fell asleep, he thought it would be a fine thing to pass into the next world before waking from his slumber.

When the next day came, the sun shone mercilessly and brilliantly through the window.

He would take out his pocket watch and check his pulse countless times a day.
No matter how many times he checked, his pulse was not normal.
It beat too quickly.
It beat too irregularly.
It simply refused to beat normally.
Every time he spat phlegm, he stared with saucer-like eyes.
The fact that he couldn’t see anything red was at least a small consolation.

Those who find consolation in the absence of blood in their phlegm must, when blood appears, find consolation merely in being alive.
Takayanagi-kun, who may have been approaching a fate that found solace merely in being alive, was a man who loathed merely being alive.
People in many cases confront this contradiction.
They aim to live happily.
To live happily, one cannot avoid acknowledging the necessity of life itself—that very life which ought to enjoy happiness.
Though mere life is not their purpose, as an essential condition for attaining happiness, they must sustain it through all suffering.
When they wander through the mundane world despite this contradiction, they find themselves unable to die even as they wish for death, yet each day grow more aware of being drawn toward it.
It is no different from taking on new debts month after month with the purpose of repaying them.
This is what is called bitter anguish.

Takayanagi-kun crawled out from his bedding.
Over his padded kasuri-patterned rayon undergarment, he put on a black cotton haori.
He sat down at the desk.
After all, he had resolved to translate.
On the desk left untouched for four or five days, a thin layer of sand blown through a torn shoji screen had settled lightly across its surface.
The inkstone’s interior appeared white.
Takayanagi-kun—apparently finding it too troublesome—poured water from above without blowing away the dust.
It was not water from the water container.
It was water poured into the inkstone’s reservoir by tilting a small glass bottle that held five or six sprigs of dwarf chrysanthemums, flowers and all.
When he vigorously rubbed the old Kobai-en inkstick worn down at its edges, it grated with a gritty rasp.
Takayanagi-kun furrowed his brows in displeasure.
To avoid expending effort removing displeasure before it arose, only to bite his lip when it occurred—such was this man’s way.
He was too acutely sensitive to endure unpleasantness.
And yet too reckless in preparing for it beforehand.

He spread out manuscript paper on the desk and groaned for about an hour before finally managing to blacken two or three sheets, then laid down his brush as though abandoning it altogether.
Outside the window lingered a lone paulownia leaf that had failed to fall.
"I’m a lonely only child," Takayanagi-kun murmured once more under his breath.

As he watched, the leaf swayed slightly upward, then downward again.
It was finally going to fall. But just as he thought that, the wind abruptly died down.

Takayanagi-kun took out a roll of paper and began to write a letter to his mother back home.
"In this season of growing cold, I trust you are keeping well."
"I trust you remain in good health as ever."
He had written as far as "All is well with me too," and paused to think for a while, but soon tore up these five or six lines.
He put the torn scrap into his mouth and chewed it noisily, then spat out something black into the garden.

The lonely only child's leaf swayed again.
This time, he shook his head two or three times to the right and left.
Just as he thought the shaking had finally subsided, there was a sharp rustle, and the withered leaf fell with a sodden thud.

“It fell.”
“It fell,” Takayanagi-kun said, as though it had indeed fallen.

Soon he opened the three-foot closet and took out a brown fedora.
When he stepped out to the entranceway and looked up at the sky, something heavy enveloped the departing autumn from above.

“Granny! Granny!”

“Right away,” the elderly woman stopped wringing the cloth and came out.

“Please get the umbrella.
It’s on the veranda of my room.”

If it rained, he intended to walk without even using an umbrella.
He had no particular destination in mind but simply intended to walk.
The train runs because it is a train that runs, but even the train itself likely does not understand why it runs.
Takayanagi-kun knew only that he was walking.
But as for why he walked, like a train, it was unconscious.
To force someone to walk without purpose, without destination, and without even the desire to walk was cruel.
Since they cruelly forced one to walk, the enemy could not be confronted.
If the enemy was to be confronted, one had no choice but to face the instigator who created the cruelty.
The instigator who manufactured cruelty was society.
Takayanagi-kun walked alone through the midst of enemies.
No matter how much he walked, he was still a lonely only child.

The rain fell sporadically, drop by drop.
It must have been what they called the first autumn rain.
Under the eaves of the tofu shop, bean curd residue was piled up in a bucket like a mountain.
The mountain's peak had been cleanly notched away, and smoke rose from all sides.
Carried by the wind, the smoke drifted into the street.
At the salted goods shop, salmon slices displayed their dull red hue as they lay arranged.
Next to them, clusters of dried whitebait curled back stiffly pale.
The apprentice at the bonito flakes shop polished Tosa-style flakes with a bamboo brush, working intently.
They glinted sharply under his efforts.
In the back, a wedding pine added deep green vitality to the scene.
At the tea shop, another apprentice slowly ground matcha in a mortar.
The clerk drank tea while glaring at the street—"Hey! Watch it!"—as Takayanagi-kun was shoved aside.

A splendid gentleman in a black crested haori and top hat went dashing off in a rickshaw.
Those who rode in carriages had all the momentum.
Pedestrians could not help being shoved aside.
Even if someone shouted “Hey, watch it!” after being struck with a fist blow, they had no choice but to stay silent.
Takayanagi-kun was walking like a ghost.

He passed through the bronze torii.
On the paving stones, five or six pigeons flitted about in the intermittent autumn rain.
A young apprentice geisha with her hair in a Chinese-style topknot stood watching the pigeons, her dark snake-eye-patterned umbrella held aloft.
The figure of a young woman stood wearing a long, coarse Hachijō haori, her bare feet slipped into geta sandals, while from the second-floor window of a boarding house, two students leaned out their faces, critiquing her appearance.
Her back—having clapped her hands, rung the bell, and thrown in an offering—turned back this way while being watched.
As a spirited geisha in black crepe adorned with three oak-leaf crests passed by, she cast a flirtatious glance toward Takayanagi-kun.
Takayanagi-kun felt a heaviness in his heart as if weighed down by lead.

He descended thirty-six stone steps.
The train roared past.
Iwasaki’s wall towered relentlessly.
He thought about smashing his head against that wall to break it.
The autumn rain had ceased at some point, and five or six people were waiting at the tram stop.
A tall man in a black crested kimono folded his Western-style umbrella and looked up at the sky.

“Sensei,” called Takayanagi-kun, the lonely only child.

“Well, fancy meeting you in such a strange place. Out for a stroll, are you?”

“Yes,” answered Takayanagi-kun.

“You do take walks often despite the bad weather.”
“Going around Iwasaki’s wall three times makes for a fine stroll.”
“Hahaha.”

Takayanagi-kun felt a bit better.

“And you, Sensei?”

“As for me? I hardly have time for walks.”
“I’m still quite busy, you see.”
“Today I went to Ueno Library to do some research.”

Whenever Takayanagi-kun met Michiya-sensei, he somehow felt invigorated.
Though he himself was a lonely only child, the mere thought that there existed in the world a Sensei who remained so composed seemed to lend him some measure of courage.

“Sensei, won’t you take a little longer walk?”

“Well, if it’s just a short while, I don’t mind.”
“Which way?”
“Let’s skip Ueno.”
“I’ve just come from there.”

“I don’t mind either way.”

“Then let’s go up the hill toward Hongō. I have to head back that way.”

The two began walking along the tram tracks. Takayanagi-kun felt as though his lonely only-child existence had suddenly become two. When he thought this, even the sky seemed vaster. He even convinced himself he no longer needed to worry about being shoved aside by carriages.

“Sensei.”

“What is it?”

“Earlier, I was shoved by a carriage driver.”

“That was dangerous. You weren’t injured, were you?”

“No, I wasn’t injured, but I got angry.”

“I see. But getting angry won’t help matters.—Though I suppose it depends on how one gets angry. Long ago, Watanabe Kazan carelessly collided with Lord Matsudaira’s retinue and suffered terribly. Kazan wrote about that incident.—‘His Lordship’s High-Handedness’—is how he puts it. Don’t you find these three characters—‘High-Handedness’—utterly fascinating? He respectfully adds the honorific ‘go-’ to ‘high-handedness,’ but beneath it lies a splendid spirit of rebellion. He had mettle. You should also write ‘Tug-of-War High-Handedness’ in your diary!”

“Who is this Lord Matsudaira?”

“There’s no telling who he was.”
“If they could be identified so easily, they wouldn’t merit being called ‘His Lordship’s High-Handedness.’”
“Watanabe Kazan—who raged against that injustice—still lives on through his writings today, while this so-called Lord Matsudaira remains nobody at all.”

“Thinking that way brings some satisfaction—yet whenever I see Iwasaki’s walls looming before me, I want to smash my skull against them until they crumble.”

“If skull-smashing could topple walls, others would have shattered theirs long before yours.”
“Instead of such brutish fantasies, devote yourself to literary creation with dignity. That alone will make your name outlast every Iwasaki in this land.”

“They won’t let me pursue that literary creation.”

“Who would?”

“It’s not about anyone specific—I simply can’t do it.”

“Is something wrong with you physically?” Michiya-sensei peered in from the side.
Takayanagi-kun’s cheeks were flushed with heat, glowing red beneath their pallor.
Michiya tilted his head.

“When you go up slopes, your breathing grows labored—isn’t something amiss?”

To have what he’d tried so hard to hide—even from himself—laid bare before him; to have it laid bare so thoroughly that he despaired at how glaringly obvious it must have been.
Having had it laid bare, Takayanagi-kun fell into a dark hole.
People remained oblivious; many showed no compunction in offering such merciless sympathy.

“Sensei,” said Takayanagi-kun, stopping in the street.

“What is it?”

“Do I look ill?”

“Well… yes—your complexion does look a bit pale.”

“Is it definitely tuberculosis?”

“Tuberculosis?
“There’s no such thing.”

“No, please don’t hold back—tell me plainly.”

“Is there something wrong with your lungs?”

“It’s hereditary. My father died of tuberculosis.”

“That is…” said Sensei, but he was at a loss for a reply.

If you fill a bladder until it’s about to burst with water and let it leak through a needle-sized hole, the needle-sized hole will soon become as large as white copper.
Takayanagi-kun, as though deaf to Michiya’s reply, began to speak.

“Sensei, will you listen to my story?”

“Yes, I’ll certainly listen.”

“My father was a post office official in town.”
“I was arrested at the age of seven.”

Michiya-sensei, remaining silent, walked slowly along with the speaker.

“I later heard he had embezzled public funds—though at the time, I knew nothing of it. When I asked Mother, she kept saying, ‘Father will come home soon, he’ll come home soon.’ But he never returned. Of course he never returned. He contracted tuberculosis and died in prison. I only learned that much later too. Mother closed up our house and withdrew to the village……”

From the opposite direction came a spirited automobile carrying two bob-haired women. The two stepped aside slightly. The conversation broke off.

“Sensei.”
“What is it?”
“That’s why I have a hereditary predisposition to tuberculosis. It’s hopeless.”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“To the doctor—I haven’t shown myself. Whether I show it or not, it makes no difference.”

“That won’t do. Even tuberculosis isn’t necessarily incurable.”

Takayanagi-kun let out an eerie laugh.
Autumn rain pattered down.
On the gate doors of Karakatidera Temple, a sign posted about a lecture on the Blue Cliff Record stood out starkly white.
From the girls' school, students came streaming out.
Reds, purples, and maroons scattered across the street.

“Sensei, does sin also get passed down through heredity?” asked Takayanagi-kun as he wove through the schoolgirls while moving forward.

“How could such a thing exist?”

“Even if it isn’t hereditary through bloodlines，I am a criminal’s child.”
“The anguish consumes me.”

“That anguish must indeed consume you.”
“Yet you must cast it aside.”

From the police station emerged two handcuffed prisoners, escorted by police officers.
Autumn rain fell on the prisoners’ hair.

“Even if I forget, I remember right away.”

Michiya-sensei raised his voice slightly.

“But does your life lie in the past or in the future? You are someone about to blossom from now on, you know.”

“I’ll wither before I can bloom.”

“You must do your work before you wither.”

Takayanagi-kun remained silent.
To look back on the past is sin.
To hope for the future is illness.
The present is menial writing for the sake of bread.

Michiya-sensei brought his mouth close to Takayanagi-kun’s ear and said.

“You may think you’re the only lonely only child, but I’m a lonely only child too.”
“A lonely only child is a sublime thing.”
Takayanagi-kun did not understand the meaning of these words.

“Did you understand?” asked Michiya-sensei.

“Sublime—why…”

“If you don’t understand that, you can’t possibly live as a lonely only child.—You’re a lonely only child because, while confident that you’re on a higher plane than others, people refuse to acknowledge that plane.”
“However, if it’s a plane that people would acknowledge, then it’s a plane that people can ascend to.”
“A personality that can be comprehended by geisha and rickshaw pullers is certainly low.”
“Because geisha and rickshaw pullers convince themselves they’re on the same level as you, you get angry or agonize when they look down on you.”
“If you’re on the same level as those people, then even if you create something, you’ll only produce works equal to theirs.”
“It is precisely through not being equal that works demonstrating noble character can be produced.”
“If you cannot produce works that demonstrate noble character, then it’s only natural they would look down on you.”

“Geisha and rickshaw pullers are irrelevant, but…”

“The principle holds true regardless of whom we take as examples.”
“Even those who graduated from the same school in identical fashion are no exception.”
“To assume graduates must resemble one another simply because they share an alma mater is a flawed argument—it conflates similarity in educational form with similarity in educational substance.”
“If university graduates were truly equal in caliber, they must all either leave their names to posterity or collectively vanish into obscurity.”
“If you yourself strive to etch your name into posterity, you must operate under the assumption that others from your alma mater will not endure.”
“By holding that assumption, have you not already admitted there exists an immense disparity between yourself and others who hold identical degrees?”
“It is contradictory to pride yourself on this great disparity while lamenting that others fail to comprehend you.”

“So, Sensei, are you planning to leave your name to posterity by doing this?”

“Mine is slightly different.”
“The current argument is one I constructed with you as its basis.”
“Since it seems your esteemed hope is to produce excellent works and pass them down to posterity, I proceeded with this discussion.”

“If Sensei would be willing to accept, could you perhaps teach me?”

“I don’t care about unreliable things like names.” “I work for the world simply to gain my own satisfaction.” “Whether it brings infamy, notoriety, or drives me mad—it can’t be helped.” “It’s simply that I must work because I cannot be satisfied without working this way.” “When I consider that I cannot be satisfied without working this way, this is undoubtedly my path.” “Humans have no choice but to follow their path.” “Because humans are creatures of the path, I believe following it is the noblest act.” “Those who follow the path must avoid even god.” “Iwasaki’s hedge is nothing.” “Ha ha ha ha!”

Wearing a fraying bowler hat like Amida and holding a silk-lined bat umbrella, a halo radiated from the slender face of the lonely only child carrying his box lunch.
Takayanagi-kun was struck by a thought.

People on the street went to the right and left.
The shops on the street welcomed customers and bade them farewell.
The tram ran east and west, carrying as many people as possible.
In a city as tightly woven as fabric, the two who walked like stray dogs would likely have appeared to others as a recently dismissed subordinate official and a degenerate student.
There was no helping how they appeared.
Michiya thought that was enough.
Shūsaku thought that would not do.
The two parted ways at the corner of the fourth block.

Nine

On a late autumn day, they opened the small enclosed world of their villa—warmed once more—to hold their wedding celebration.

Love disdains narrow-mindedness and abhors possession.
The two who loved offered up their overflowing affection between them, widely nourishing all sentient beings.
They cast aside their abundant wealth to gather many distinguished guests.
Those who did not come were akin to wildfowl that, shunning the wind waving the fan of harmonious music, departed for cold snowy skies.

Perfect love renders all it touches perfect.
The couple’s love rendered even the often-cloudy drizzling sky perfect.
――It was a day when the sun shone directly overhead.
Everyone knows it shines, but it was a day that shone so brightly no one needed to shade their eyes to look up.
For those who are triumphant, there is nothing unpleasant about a bright day.
Guests came driving from all directions.

Selecting the green of cedar leaves, adorning thick round pillars, and bending two of them flat from left and right at a height of ten feet overhead to join them together—this was called an arch.
The verdure of the cedar leaves was excessively austere.
Those who enter the village of love must not merely pass through a solemn gate.
The green elements must be softened with warm colors.

When split, its citrus taste smoldered unknown; its color alone was warm in hue.
The color of late autumn was yellow.
Through cedar leaf shadows dotted with beads, the abundant southern sea wind flowed.
Impatient for the night to surrender to purple, the rising sun abruptly emerged, shooting from hill to hill; from Kii Province, where myriad yellow jewels glittered all at once, came a scent that seemed stolen away.
Those who passed beneath this had to become intoxicated before being permitted to leave—such was the rule.

Beneath the Green Gate stood the newlywed couple.
All married couples had to be new.
The new couple had to be beautiful.
The new and beautiful couple had to be happy.
They stood beneath this Green Gate, giving a portion of their happiness to the guests they had welcomed and a portion to the friends they had sent off, so that they could indulge in the remaining happiness until their hair turned white together in the long years to come—they were new, and they were beautiful.

The man wore a black jacket and striped Western-style trousers.
At times, a white hand towel that could deceive snow drifted near the black chest.
The woman wore a kimono adorned with a formal family crest.
As if emerging from the vibrant patterns coloring her hem, her upper body slipped out smoothly and gracefully.
Venus was born from the waves.
This woman was born from the hem patterns.

The sun fell clearly upon the woman’s nape, and the smooth curve of her throat became a faint white shadow.
When viewed from the side, that shadow grew faint as though vanishing, ending in a clearly defined gentle outline.
Above this, a swirling mass of purple—though bundling a tuft of dark hair—was lifted to float at her forehead.
An Art Nouveau-style hairpin with a gold base inlaid with crimson cloisonné revealed only its face from the purple shadow.

Love detested rigidity.
It would not rest until melting all hardness.
The light that glittered in the woman’s eyes was light itself in molten form.
Having drifted from an unfathomable divine realm into the depths of her pupils, it made all existence within her gaze wander through a realm of ecstasy.
The welcomed guests entered the garden in a state of blissful absorption.

“Do you think Mr. Takayanagi will come?” the woman asked in a small voice.

“Huh?” The man brought his ear closer.
Inside the garden, the band was playing Echigo-jishi.
More than half of the guests had gathered.
The couple had to go inside and attend to their guests.

“Right,” the man said. “I’d forgotten.”

“Since a good number of guests have already arrived, it would be rude if we don’t go over there.”

“Right.
“We should probably go now.”
“But it’d be a shame if Takayanagi comes.”

“Does he need to be here?”

“Yeah.
“That man will come to the gate and turn back if he doesn’t see me here.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because he’s never been to a place like this—he’s a man who’ll end up all alone by himself—so we can’t rest easy unless we get him through the Arch.”

“He will come, I suppose?”

“He’ll come. Since I went out of my way to ask him—and he’s the kind of man who can’t help but come once he’s promised—he’ll definitely come.”

“Does he find it unpleasant?”

“Dislike? It’s not that there’s anything particularly unpleasant—it’s just awkward for him.”

“Hohohoho! How strange!”

Awkwardness stems from a lack of confidence.
The reason one lacks confidence is that one thinks people will mock them.
Nakano-kun asserted it was simply because he felt awkward.
The wife simply thought it was strange.
This couple forgot to feel self-conscious about their own formalities.
A person at the boundary of this couple—no matter how prone to feeling awkward—could live out their life without ever feeling awkward.

“If he is coming, it would be better for us to stay here.”

“I assure you he’ll come—it’s fine; the old man and others are already inside.”

Love is a good person.
A good person does not hesitate to sacrifice their own inconvenience for the sake of their friends.

The married couple waited beneath the Arch for Takayanagi-kun.
Takayanagi-kun had to come.

Among the passengers of carriages and vehicles, Takayanagi-kun alone came staggering into enemy territory.
This garden party—overflowing with harmonious warmth like an ocean, where guests grew intoxicated on waves of smiles rippling across the newlyweds’ faces and unwittingly partook in happiness’s assimilation; this garden party—that briefly turned the departing year back to spring, where one should forget winter’s gloom lingering at the edges of tranquil sunlight—was enemy territory for Takayanagi-kun.

Any place where wealth, power, pride, and satisfaction ran rampant—spanning the entire globe—was enemy territory for Takayanagi-kun.
Takayanagi-kun saw the newlywed couple standing beneath the Arch ten paces away and could not believe they were his friends.
When Takayanagi-kun’s figure fleetingly appeared in the eyes of the married couple who had waited for him even at the cost of some inconvenience, despite having waited, neither of them thought he was a guest worth waiting for.
One-third of friendship is borne by one’s attire.
The friends one imagines in one’s head and the friends who appear before one’s eyes are quite different.
Takayanagi-kun’s attire was the most pitiable among all the guests that day.
Love is a luxury.
It recognizes no value other than beauty.
The woman recognizes even less value.

When the couple exchanged glances with Takayanagi-kun, they both thought, *This is…*.
When Takayanagi-kun exchanged glances with the couple, he similarly thought, *This is…*.

In this world, once you think *This is...*, there is no turning back.
Takayanagi-kun came staggering forward.
The *This is...* that had flashed in the couple’s hearts quickly concealed its form in the light of love.

“Oh, you made it. You were so late that we were starting to worry something had happened.” It was an undeniable fact. They had merely omitted the fact that they had thought, *This is…*

“I meant to come earlier, but I got caught up with something…” This, too, was a fact. But still, the *This is…* had been omitted. In human interactions, *This is…* is always omitted. When omitted instances of *This is…* accumulate, it leads to a fallout without a quarrel. Close couples and intimate friends, through the unvoiced *This is… this is…* in their hearts, bit by bit wear out their goodwill toward one another.

“This is my wife,” he introduced.
Introducing a beautiful wife to a lonely only child was a sin born of goodwill rather than kindness.
Those bathed in love’s light found delight running rampant and paid no heed to such matters.

The wife, without saying a word, bowed her head gracefully.
Takayanagi-kun stood dazedly.

“Come on, let’s head over there—I’ll go with you,” he began to walk.
After walking about ten ken, the couple were immediately surrounded by Salt-and-Pepper Old Man.

“Oh my, what a splendid garden you have.
“I didn’t think it would be this spacious—no, this is my first time.”
“Your father occasionally invited me, but I always had inconvenient obligations—though I must say, the maintenance here is truly impeccable...”

Salt-and-Pepper Old Man kept talking nonstop and would not budge.
At that moment, two or three more people arrived.

“Splendid!”
“How many tsubo is it?”
“I’ve also been focusing on this area for years,” they swarmed around the Newlywed Couple.
Takayanagi-kun stood disgruntled, away from the center.

Then, from across the way, a woman with her sash tied back came running over and abruptly grabbed Shiosawa by his five-crested formal kimono.

“Come on, you’re coming with me!”

“Even if you tell me to come, I’ve already been treated elsewhere.”

“That’s unfair of you, making others run around so much elsewhere.”

“There’s not even any good food here.”

“There is some, you know.
Oh, never mind that—just come along!” she insisted, pulling him insistently.
Shiosawa, careful of his haori as he was pulled along, suddenly collided with Takayanagi-kun.
Up until the moment Shiosawa turned around in surprise, his face had borne an apologetic look for his carelessness, but the instant he saw Takayanagi-kun’s face and attire, his expression changed abruptly.

“Well, well,” he said scornfully, looking down, yet stood watching.

“Do come.”
“Just come on already!”
“Never mind that—just come along!” said the woman, casting a backward glance at Takayanagi-kun as she kept pulling Shiosawa away.

Takayanagi-kun began walking in fits and starts.

The Newlywed Couple, cut off far over there, could not be together. A long awning had been stretched out across the middle of the lawn. When he peered inside, large chrysanthemum pots had been arranged in a shadowy space. To think there were still chrysanthemums like this at this time of year. There were some with white, elongated petals that stretched out hundreds of pieces from their centers in all directions—and from those fully stretched tips curled back freely as they put on the most extravagant display of wild antics imaginable. There were also those with straight-backed yellow petals that drew inward and embraced each other as if guarding something precious at their core, rounded into dense clusters. He could also see pine pots. Apples heaped on a glass plate gleamed vividly against the white tablecloth. The apples’ blushed surfaces glowed even in the dimness. There was also a large plate heaped with mandarin oranges. A high-pitched laugh sounded nearby. When he turned around in surprise, two young men in white hats stood there, both grinning broadly.

“Weird.”
“Absolutely,” said one.

“Would you look at this.”
“Total country bumpkins,” said the other.

Takayanagi-kun stared at them.
One was narrow-chested, wearing a patterned vest with his right thumb hooked in the pocket and elbow jutting out. The other leaned affectately on a thin cane, driving his rubber-soled toe vertically into the ground while balancing his lanky frame on his left leg alone.

“Positively waiter-like,” sneered the cane-leaning man.

Takayanagi-kun wondered if they were talking about him. Then the one in the colored vest chimed in: “Really, though. Coming to a garden party in a tailcoat—even if you haven’t been abroad, you’d think they’d know better.” When he looked over there, sure enough, there was a tailcoat. Moreover, two men had gathered and were talking about something. It must be a case of like gathering with like. Takayanagi-kun finally realized they were laughing at that. Yet why a tailcoat was unsuitable for a garden party remained beyond his comprehension.

At the end of the lawn stood a reed-screened dance stage where some performance was busily underway.
The front was enclosed by red-and-white curtains around the eaves, while at the rear stood a long platform spread with crimson felt.
Upon it were lined up three women holding shamisens and two without instruments.
They had divided their roles between players and singers.
At center stage, a woman wearing a gold-paper eboshi hat with her face painted pure white held then dropped a pole-like object, opened then closed a dance fan, raised then lowered her long crimson sleeves—engaging ceaselessly in all manner of gestures.
Seeing "Asazumafune" written in jet-black ink on hanshi paper posted nearby, Takayanagi-kun watched for some time from the back, making himself small as he assumed this must be the Asazumafune performance.

If one turned left from the stage, there was Mikage Bridge.
Beyond the bridge, beside the artificial hill, stood many pine trees.
Through gaps between the pines flickered glimpses of what resembled a curtain.
Inside came women's clear laughter.
Takayanagi-kun, who had begun crossing the bridge, turned back once more.
The band suddenly erupted, agitating the garden's entire atmosphere.

He slowly made his way back to the awning area.
This time, he refrained from peering inside.
Inside, a large crowd was bustling noisily.
When he went around to the entrance, it was packed with people, and the clatter of dishes was incessant.
The newlywed couple were nowhere to be seen.

After watching for a while, suddenly a voice shouted *“Banzai!”*
The band’s sound was drowned out.
From beyond the stone bridge came a responding cry of *“Banzai!”*
This was a stray cheer.
Takayanagi-kun entered the awning like a quarrelsome guest dragging his feet.

A figure came through the crowd holding a plate aloft.

“Here, please take this.”
“There’s more still, but it’s too crowded to reach easily.”
Takayanagi-kun thought they were offering it to him but noticed their gaze was slightly off—then a cool voice from behind said, “Thank you.”
A young lady of seventeen or eighteen stood holding the plate, dressed in a pink crepe kimono with family crests.

A gentleman who was nearby brought a single chair from the corner of the awning and,

“Please have a seat here,” he said, setting it down before the young lady.
Takayanagi-kun moved about one ken to the left.

Leaning against the awning’s pillar, a man in Western clothes and a man in Japanese clothes were smoking tobacco.

“Did you quit cigars?”

“Yeah, they say it’s bad for the head—but once you get used to those, regular cigarettes just don’t cut it.”
“Even the best ones are no good.”

“Well, that’s just a matter of price—thirty sen per stick and three sen aren’t even comparable.”

“What are you smoking?”

“Try this one,” said the man in Western clothes, taking out a thick cigarette from his crocodile-skin cigarette case.

“Ah, Egyptian cigarettes.”
“These must cost five or six yen per hundred sticks.”
“They’re decent for the price.”
“I see—maybe I’ll switch to cigarettes too.”
“At this rate, even smoking twenty a day would only amount to about twenty yen.”

Twenty yen was Takayanagi-kun’s entire income.
This gentleman intended to turn Takayanagi-kun’s entire income into smoke.

Takayanagi-kun moved about four feet further to the left.
A few people were talking.

“The other day, Nozoe was starting that artificial fertilizer company, so…” said a bald-headed man with a low nose and gold teeth.

“Yeah.”
“That hit the mark, didn’t it?”
“We pulled it off well,” said the square-faced man, his dark complexion resembling the clasp of a tobacco case.

“Your name was listed among the supporters too, wasn’t it?” said the salt-and-pepper-headed old man who had earlier intercepted Nakano mid-conversation.

“That’s right,” replied the bald man when his turn came.
“Nozoe said, ‘How about taking some shares?’ so I told him, ‘I’ll pass this time.’”
“But then he insisted, ‘Oh come now—at least take five hundred! Truth is, I’ve already registered them under your name.’ It was such a nuisance that I gave a vague reply… Then off he went to Kyushu straight away.”
“Two weeks later when I visited the office, the clerk told me Mr. Nozoe’s shares had skyrocketed.”
“The fifty-yen shares jumped to sixty-five yen.”
“He said the total came to thirty-two thousand five hundred yen.”

“That’s extravagant! Actually, I was thinking of getting a few myself,” said the Square-Faced Man.

“That was truly unexpected. I never thought they’d climb so steadily like that,” said Salt-and-Pepper, scratching his salt-and-pepper head repeatedly.

“I should’ve committed more thoroughly and put more under my name,” lamented the bald man, his regret extending beyond just the thirty-two thousand five hundred yen.

Takayanagi-kun timidly slipped past the three men.
Wanting to greet the newlywed couple and leave quickly, he scanned the area only to find them at the farthest end, encircled by black frock coats and sleeves of many hues—utterly unapproachable.

The dining table had finally thinned in numbers.
However, hardly any food remained.

“Do you go out much these days?” came a voice.
A man in his thirties, dragging his Sendai-hira silk along the ground, slightly revealed his white tabi socks and setta sandals with mouse-gray thongs.

“Yesterday, I was invited to the Taneda family’s villa in Susaki and went duck hunting,” answered the dark-complexioned man with a crew cut.

“It’s probably still too early for ducks.”

“It’s fine,” he said.
“I caught around ten ducks.”
“I got ten, Ōtani seven, and Kase and Yamauchi eight each.”

“So you were the top?”
“No—Saitō got fifteen.”

“Wow,” said the man in Sendai-hira silk, impressed.

Among the many graduates of their year, only five or six were visible—and even those were not particularly close acquaintances. Takayanagi-kun had merely exchanged greetings without further conversation, yet now felt an unexpected nostalgia. He scanned the area but saw no trace of them; perhaps they had already left. I should leave, he thought.

Subject and object are one. Without subject there is no object; without object there is no subject. We establish this division between self and world—this clear demarcation—as a matter of survival's convenience. Just as we forcibly separate form from color where neither can exist independently, or temporarily treat concept and technique as distinct though inseparable entities, so too do we create this division. Once made, we enter a labyrinth. Yet because survival itself is life's purpose, this convenient maze grows ever deeper to enter and harder to escape. Only by casting off the desire to survive, if but for an instant, can one break free.

Takayanagi-kun could not shed this desire even momentarily. Thus he remained incapable of unifying subject and object within himself. With subject forever subject and object forever object—inextricably bound yet eternally divided—the overwhelming presence of dominant objects made him feel assailed by invisible blades from all directions. At this garden party, Takayanagi-kun had become a lone army encircled on every side.

Takayanagi-kun staggered through the arch only to stagger back out again.
When he turned to look from afar, he saw a small tent nestled deep within a ring of blue cedars; clusters of vibrant kimonos streamed out from beneath its canopy.
The young couple must have been mingling among them.

Meanwhile, those very newlyweds were searching for Takayanagi.

“Where could Takayanagi be?”
“Have you seen him since then?”

“No. Have you?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Do you suppose he’s already left?”

“Perhaps—but if he meant to leave, you’d think he’d at least come say a word before going.”

“Why won’t he come out to where everyone is?”

“What a waste, that sort of man.”
“To be alone like that—it must be wretched.”
“If it’s so wretched, he should emerge—yet he withdraws further.”
“A pitiful creature.”

“We went to all this trouble to cheer him up by inviting him, and yet…”

“He seemed particularly unwell today.”

“He must be ill.”

“It’s because he’s a lonely only child—that’s why his complexion looks so poor.”

Takayanagi-kun was walking along the thoroughfare when a sudden chill racked his body.

X

Mr. Michiya sat with his long face drawn even longer, embracing a round hibachi encircled with smoked bamboo.
Outside, the winter wind blew.

“You,” called his wife as she emerged from the adjoining room.
The collar of the *tsumugi* haori was not folded.

“What?” he said, turning toward her. While sitting at his desk, he appeared as though he had been exposed to the winter wind all day long.

“Has the book sold?”

“It still hasn’t sold.”

“Didn’t you say that once another month passes, a hundred or two hundred yen would come in?”

“Yeah, I said it. I did say that, but it’s not selling.”

“This is a problem, isn’t it?”

“It’s a problem. I’m more troubled than you are. Because it’s a problem, I’m thinking about it now.”

“But you worked so hard and even managed to write three hundred pages—”

“It’s not three hundred pages—it’s four hundred thirty-five.”

“So why isn’t it selling?”

“It’s probably just the economic slump.”

“That’s not good enough.”
“Can’t you do something about it?”

“When I took it to Nannaidō, they said it would be good to have a preface from a famous person. Then, since Adachi is a university professor, I thought he’d be suitable and asked him.”
“A book is just like a debt—you need a guarantor.”

“When you take out a loan, you need a guarantor, but—” His wife scratched her head vigorously with her index finger.
Her bun swayed.
Michiya was looking at that head.

“Books these days are like debt,” he said. “Those without credit can’t publish unless they have joint liability.”

“It’s truly pointless, isn’t it? After staying up so late into the night…”
“That’s none of the bookstore’s concern.”

“The bookstore wouldn’t know about that,” she said. “But you must know about it.”

“Hahaha! I know that already,” he replied. “You know it too, don’t you?”

“That’s precisely why I’m saying it.”

“Even if you vouch for me, there’s no trust—so it can’t be helped.”

“Then what will you do?”

“That’s why I took it to Adachi.”

“Mr. Adachi said he’d write it for you.”

“Yeah—he said he’d write it, so I left it with him. Then later he came back refusing to do it.”

“Why do you suppose that is?”

“I don’t know why. He must not like it.”

“So you’re just going to leave it like that?”

“Yeah, there’s no need to force him to write it if he doesn’t want to.”

“But if that’s how it is, then we’re the ones who’ll be in trouble.”
“And the money we borrowed the other day with your brother’s seal has already reached its deadline.”

“I also intended to cover that, but—it doesn’t sell, so there’s nothing to be done.”

“How absurd. I don’t even know what all that effort was for.”

Mr. Michiya poked at the charcoal briquettes in the hibachi with fire tongs and said, “From your perspective, it must seem absurd.”
His wife fell silent.
The winter wind howled outside.
The torn shoji paper at the entrance fluttered like a groaning kite string.

“How much longer do you intend to keep living like this?” his wife asked helplessly.

“I haven’t considered any timeframe,” he replied.
“As long as I can eat—what does it matter how long this continues?”

“You keep repeating ‘as long as I can eat’ every other breath! We’re barely scraping by now—if we stubbornly persist like this, we’ll soon reach starvation!”

“Are you that worried?”

His wife looked sullen.

“But you’re being rather thoughtless yourself, aren’t you? You’ve turned down all the comfortable teaching positions and then stubbornly insist on making a living by your pen.”

“That’s right. I intend to make a living by my pen. You should resign yourself to that as well.”

“As long as there’s food to eat, I’d be willing to go along with that. As I’m your wife, I won’t meddle by nitpicking about what you choose to do.”

“Well then, that’s just fine, isn’t it?”

“But we can’t eat!”

“We can eat.”

“You’re really something else, you know.”
“When you were actually teaching, it was easier—isn’t your current situation far more difficult?”
“You are still better suited as a teacher.”
“Writing doesn’t agree with your nature.”

“How can you possibly understand such a thing?”

His wife looked down, took a tissue from her sleeve, and softly blew her nose.

“It’s not just me.”
“Even your brother says so, doesn’t he?”

“Do you really trust what your brother says that much?”

“It’s fine to trust him—he’s your brother, and he’s doing so splendidly.”

“I see,” said Mr. Michiya as he carefully smoothed the ashes in the hibachi.
A two-inch nail emerged from within, covered in ash.
Mr. Michiya, while pinching the two-inch nail with bent brass fire tongs, slid open the shoji with one hand and lightly tossed it into the front garden.

There was nothing in the garden.
The banana plant hung in tatters, its browned remnants stubbornly clinging upright.
The ground had shed its skin, curling backward like a half-rolled rush mat.
Mr. Michiya gazed across the garden's expanse as

"It blows fiercely," he murmured to the empty air.

“Why don’t you try asking Mr. Adachi one more time?”

“There’s no point relying on someone I dislike.”

“That’s exactly why you’re impossible.”
“After all—someone that eminent would never readily agree to write something for us...”

“Such an esteemed person—you mean Adachi?”

“Well, you’re certainly impressive yourself—but regardless, he *is* a university professor. It wouldn’t hurt to humble yourself before him.”

“I see. Then I’ll follow your suggestion and try asking one more time.—By the way, what time is it? Oh, this is bad—I have to go to the office right away and take care of the proofreading. Get out my hakama.”

Mr. Michiya, as usual, donned his thousand-lined tea-colored kahōji to let it flutter in the winter wind and drifted out with an air of nonchalance.

The pillar clock in the living room boomed twice.

There was a verse that went, “A charcoal fire where thoughts pile up only to crumble,” but his wife likely did not know it. His wife came before Mr. Michiya’s round hibachi and smoothed the ashes inside in a circular motion. Because it was a round hibachi, she smoothed them in a circle. Had it been square, she would have smoothed them into corners. Women consider what is given to them as right. Within that framework, they deem living without immediate troubles to be the highest good. Even if given a hexagonal hibachi or an octagonal hibachi, women will smooth the ashes into hexagons and octagons respectively. They possess no insight beyond that.

Neither standing nor sitting, his wife’s hips hovered in midair, her knees pressed against the rim of the hibachi.
She could find no place to sit, and standing made it impossible to think.
His wife’s posture was halfway, and her heart was halfway as well.

When I think about it, coming here as a bride was a mistake.
Who knows how much more carefree and enjoyable my days as a daughter were.
If only someone had told me that being someone’s wife was like this, I would have quit before coming.
Even my parents had shown me such kindness; assured that a husband bound by vows and laws spanning two lifetimes would cherish me doubly or triply—nay, would surely cherish me—I left the home I had long lived in, never to return after that day.
The home I left that day, never to return.
Even if I wanted to return, both Father and Mother have passed away.
My purpose of being loved has gone unfulfilled, and there is no one left in this world who would love me.

His wife peeled off the ash crust from a red charcoal briquette and began poking at it with the tip of fire tongs.
Charcoal fire could be broken down and piled up again.
Once poked apart, the briquette would never regain its original round form.
Did his wife grasp this principle?
She kept poking at it incessantly.

Looking back now, the resolve I had when marrying into this household had been misguided.
I had come here as a bride for my own sake.
Not once had I considered doing it for my husband.
I had even raised the wedding cup solely because I wanted my own happiness.
Father and Mother must have listened to Takasago with that same intent.
All my expectations had gone awry.
Were I to tell Father and Mother of my present circumstances, Michiya would surely rage about how improper it was.
She seethed with anger deep within.

Michiya seemed to complacently regard taking care of her husband as a wife’s duty.
That’s exactly what I want to say.
Women are weak creatures, immature in years, and thus should be cared for by their husbands.
A wife should be cared for by her husband even more than she cares for him.
That’s why she tells her husband to do as she says.
Her husband had never once heeded her.
The life of a household is rather the life of a wife.
Michiya seemed to complacently regard it as the husband’s lifetime.
That’s why it never settles.
I wonder if all husbands in the world are like Michiya.
If all husbands are like Michiya, then in the future, the number of women who marry will gradually decrease.
If you consider that it isn’t decreasing, other husbands must be acting as proper husbands should.
To realize that in this vast world I alone am having such thoughts is a lifetime’s misfortune.
Since I’ve come here as a bride, I can’t very well leave now.
However, with a husband like this accompanying her, she cannot feel like a true wife even until her dying day.
I must do something about this.
I must somehow make my husband into the husband I envision—there’s no point in living otherwise.—His wife continued to fiddle with the hibachi as she pondered this.
The wind howled with enough force to blow down the withered banana plants.

There was a notice at the entrance.
When she peered through the entrance’s shoji screen with a face that looked cold, Shirai Michiya’s older brother stood there.
His wife said, “Oh.”

Shirai Michiya’s older brother was a company executive.
The president of that company was Nakano-kun’s father.
He removed his long undergarment at the entrance and entered the parlor.

“It’s blowing quite hard,” he said, sitting down on the thin chintz and stroking his receding hairline backward.

“It’s so cold, yet you’ve come all this way.”

“Yes, well, the company let out early today, so…”

“Are you on your way home now?”

“No, I first went home.
Then I came back out again properly.
You see, sitting in Western clothes feels so cramped…”

The brother wore a silk crepe underkimono and an iron-gray Hakata-style haori coat.

"Is he—out today?"

"Ah, he just left moments ago."
"He should return shortly."
"Please make yourself comfortable," she said, producing the familiar hibachi.

"Don't trouble yourself—it's bitterly cold," he replied, waving a hand.

"As year-end approaches, you must be exceedingly busy to come all this way."

"Oh, thank you."
"Every December brings these dreadful headaches—ha ha ha!" he laughed.
People don't only laugh when something's amusing.

“But being so busy must be a good thing…”

“Well… we’re managing somehow or other.”
“By the way—is Michiya still as stubborn as ever?”

“Thank you.”
“He’s just endlessly busy…”

“Isn’t that splendid?
“Ha ha ha ha.”
“He’s quite a troublesome man, isn’t he, Omasa-san?”
“Though I never imagined he’d become this unreasonable…”

“I’m always making you worry—though I do bring up all sorts of things, he thinks of it as mere woman’s talk and pays no heed whatsoever, so I’m truly at my wit’s end.”

“That’s right—he doesn’t even listen to what I say.”
“When I’m nearby, I can’t help feeling concerned—it makes me want to intervene in everything.”

“You’re absolutely correct.”
“Everyone only says these things for his benefit…”

“If he were in the countryside, that would be one thing, but being here like this—whether he likes it or not—it’s still my duty as his older brother.”
“I just can’t help wanting to say something—but then he doesn’t come near at all.”
“He’s a complete eccentric, isn’t he?”
“If he had just stayed put and kept teaching quietly, that would’ve been one thing—but wherever he goes, he ends up clashing with everyone…”

“That is truly worrying, and I myself have gone through so much hardship for his sake.”

“That’s certainly right.”
“I’m well aware of that myself.”

“Thank you very much.”
“I’ve only been burdening you with trouble.”

“Even after coming to Tokyo, he could manage just fine without these pointless pursuits, I tell you.”
“When I make the effort to advise him, he outright ignores it.”
“He doesn’t need to listen—just handle things properly on his own.”

“I say the same myself, but…”

“When push comes to shove, he’ll still end up asking someone to bail him out, won’t he?”

“I’m truly sorry for the trouble…”

“No, I don’t mean to say anything to you, Omasa-san.
“It’s him, you see.
“He’s utterly reckless.
“What kind of man spends seven or eight years after university graduation making his living as a scribe?
“That friend of his—Adachi—has become a university professor and is doing splendidly, hasn’t he?”

“He himself, despite all that, still fancies himself quite the great man.”

“Ha ha ha ha—‘fancies himself great,’ you say?
“No matter how grandly he postures alone, it amounts to nothing if people won’t engage with him.”

“Lately, I think he might be a bit off.”

“It’s hard to say.—I hear he’s constantly attacking rich people or something like that, isn’t he? What a fool he is. What’s so amusing about doing such things? He doesn’t earn a single penny and gets ostracized by others. In other words, he’s just becoming deadweight on himself, I tell you.”

“I wish he would listen to what others have to say even a little.”

“In the end, he’ll even cause trouble for others.—Actually, today at the company, I was made to blush. The section chief called me in and asked if he was my brother—that man Shirai Michiya or whatever his name is keeps recklessly making inflammatory statements attacking wealthy people. That’s not good. The section chief said you should give him a little warning—and then I was severely scolded.”

“Oh my.”
“How did such matters come to be known?”

“Well, companies have their own detectives reporting to them, you see.”

“Oh.”

“No matter what Michiya writes, society won’t pay attention to someone of his lowly standing—but when the section chief says such things, I can’t just leave it alone.”

“You’re absolutely right.”

“So actually, I came today to discuss something with you.”

“Unfortunately, he’s out.”

“Well, it’s actually better that he isn’t here.”
“I just need to consult with you.”
“So—I’ve been thinking it over on my way here—what should we do?”
“If you were to offer your frank counsel, and if he were to take up a teaching post again—how would that be?”

“That would certainly be good. You’d find happiness, and I’d have peace of mind—but he’s not the sort to meekly obey advice.”

“That’s true, isn’t it? Given how things stand, I suppose there’s no hope at all?”

“By my reckoning, none whatsoever.—So here’s a plan: what if we make *him* want to quit magazines and newspapers and take up teaching on his own?”

“If that were to happen, I would be truly grateful—but how can we bring about such a favorable outcome?”

“What became of that book he was so diligently writing all this time?”

“It still remains as it is.”

“Hasn’t it sold yet?”

“Far from selling.
All the bookstores are turning it down, I hear.”

“I see.
“If it doesn’t sell, that’s all the better.”

“What?”

“It’s better that it doesn’t sell.”
“And the deadline for that hundred yen I facilitated recently is approaching, isn’t it?”

“I believe it’s indeed the fifteenth of this month.”

“Today being the eleventh...”
“Twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth—that makes four more days.”

“Yes.”

“We’ll have that party press him harshly for repayment. The truth is—and I’m confiding this in you now because it’s you—while it officially bears my seal, I’m actually the one who provided it. If we don’t do that, he won’t be able to rest easy. So we’ll pressure that party as I’ve just said—do you have any other means of managing this?”

“No, there isn’t anything at all.”

“Then it’s settled—we’ll gradually pressure that party through this method. No, I’ll stay silent and watch.”
“The lender named on the promissory note will come to demand repayment.”
“You must handle this properly too.—No matter what he says, you must remain cold and dismissive.”
“We must never utter a single word from our side.”
“Then no matter how stubborn he is, when things get unbearable, he’ll come bowing his head to me again.”
“He has no choice but to come.”
“When he comes bowing his head—that’s when we seize him and pin him down.”
“Is that clear?”
“If he comes crawling back like that, he’d better do as I say.”
“If he refuses to listen, I won’t lift a finger for him anymore. But once I say that much, he can’t possibly refuse.”
“So there I’ll be—pointing out how even you’ve been struggling so much for his sake.”
“All that hot air he blows in magazines gets him nowhere—he needs to change his ways from now on and take up some steady profession that doesn’t harm society. If he’s serious about teaching again, I’ll run around making connections for him—that’s what I’ll propose.”
“If we do this, everything will surely go exactly as we intend—what do you think?”

“If that were to happen, I cannot tell you how relieved I would be.”

“Shall we try it?”

“I leave it entirely in your hands.”

“Then that’s settled. Now there’s another matter. Today on my way back from the office through Kanda, I saw a large advertisement in front of the Seikikan—it gave me quite a shock.”

“What kind of advertisement was it?”

“It’s an advertisement for a lecture—the advertisement itself is fine, but Michiya is giving the lecture!”

“Oh, I had no idea at all.”

“The title is absurdly grandiose—he calls it ‘A Proclamation to the Youth of Today.’ What could he possibly mean? It’s not as if any young people would bother listening to someone like him. But this is dangerous. When a man’s driven to desperation, there’s no telling what he might say. After being warned by the section chief myself, I immediately phoned the office to handle it—but ideally, I’d prefer to stop him altogether.”

“What kind of speech could he possibly intend to give? If he does such a thing, it will cause trouble for others again.”

“He’ll just spout something radical again anyway. If it goes smoothly, fine—but if he spouts nonsense, there’ll be no taking it back.—We must stop him no matter what.”

“How could we possibly make him stop?”

“Even if you tell him to quit, he’s too stubborn to listen. I suppose there’s no choice but to deceive him.”

“How should we deceive him?”

“Exactly. Shall we try sending a messenger tomorrow at the appointed time, saying that I have urgent business and wish to meet?”

“That seems right. If he comes to you, that would be ideal, but…”
“He might not listen.”
“If he doesn’t listen, then that’s the end of it.”

The early winter day was already beginning to grow dark.
Mr. Michiya returned through the wind.

Eleven

Today, too, the wind blew.
It blew as if intent on turning every drop of moisture into dried salmon.

“A messenger from your brother’s place,” said Shirai’s Wife as she held out a sealed letter.
Michiya remained seated, leaned back, and took it.

“Is he waiting?”

“Yes.”

Michiya cut open the seal and read through the letter.
Before long, he rolled it back from the end and returned it to the envelope.
He said nothing.

“Is there some urgent matter?”

Michiya said “Mm” while grinding ink and scratching out a reply.

“What is the matter?”

“Huh? Wait a moment. Let me just finish writing it.”

The reply was merely five or six lines. He wrote the address and handed it over, saying, “This.” The wife called the maid and handed it over. He did not move.

“What is the matter?”

“I don’t know what it’s about. It just says that since there’s business, I should come right away.”

“You will go, won’t you?”

“I can’t go. Then you go and see for yourself.”

“Me? I can’t possibly go.”

“Why?”
“But I’m a woman.”

"Even if you're a woman, going would still be better than not going at all."

"But... It clearly says you should come."

"I can't go."

“Why?”

“I’ve got to go out now.”

“If it’s for the magazine work, you could take a day off.”

“If it were editing, that would be fine, but today I have to give a speech.”

“A speech?”
“You’re giving it?”

“Yes, I’m giving it.”
“It’s nothing to be so surprised about.”

“But with this wind howling—if only you’d handle things properly…”

“Ha ha ha! If it were a speech one cancels over wind, I’d never have begun it in the first place.”

“Still, it would be wiser not to act recklessly.”

“Recklessly? What do you mean by that?”

“I only mean it would be more advantageous for you to avoid giving too many speeches.”

“What advantage could there possibly be?”

“I’m saying it may lead to trouble later.”

“You spout nonsense. Did someone say I shouldn’t give speeches? Who said that?”

“Who would ever say such a thing? I’m not saying that, but since your brother has sent a messenger about urgent business, it would be improper not to go.”
“Then I have to call off the speech.”

“You could just say an urgent matter came up and decline.”

“How could I possibly do something so discourteous now?”

“Then are you saying it’s acceptable to be discourteous toward your brother?”

“I’m not saying it’s acceptable.”
“But the lecture event was arranged beforehand—and today’s speech isn’t merely a speech.”
“It’s a speech to save people.”

“To save people—who exactly are you saving?”

“There are company men who were arrested on suspicion of instigating the recent train incident.”
“Their families have fallen into such pitiful circumstances that it’s unbearable to witness, so we plan to hold this lecture and redirect its proceeds to them.”

“Saving those people’s families may be commendable, but if you’re mistaken for a socialist, it will cause trouble later…”

“Even if they mistake me, I couldn’t care less.”
“There’s no such thing as nationalism or socialism—only the right path is worth following.”

“But just imagine if you became like those people.”
“I would still suffer terribly, just like their wives do.”
“It’s all very well to save others, but you must think a little about me too—this is simply too much.”

Professor Michiya was silent for a while, but then, standing up from his desk, said, “That’s not the case at all. There’s no such foolishness! It’s not the Tokugawa government era anymore.”

Slipping into his usual hakama, he had finished preparing in less than a minute.

He went to the entrance.
Outside, the wind still blew fiercely.
Professor Michiya’s figure vanished into the wind.

The lecture event at Seikikan was held amidst this wind.

There were four speakers; the audience numbered fewer than three hundred.
There were many students.
Among them was Takayanagi Shūsaku, Bachelor of Letters.
He came through this wind, his face wrapped in a scarf, coughing all the while.
After paying the ten-sen admission fee and ascending to the second floor, he found the spacious hall sparsely filled with seats, exuding a rather desolate atmosphere.
He took a seat in a spot on the south side that seemed as warm as possible.
The speech had already begun.

“...Protection for writers is something said by writers who lack independence.”
“Protection is a term that belongs to aristocratic eras—to speak of it in an age of individual equality is utter disgrace.”
“Rather than retreating to receive protection, one should demand that society pay an appropriate levy directly to oneself,” he declared before abruptly withdrawing.
The audience applauded.
Beside him sat a student in a Satsuma kasuri haori, chatting away.

“Was that Kuroda Tōyō?”

“Yeah.”

“What a strange face. I thought he’d look more like someone who could speak well.”
“If he gets some patronage, maybe his face will start looking like a proper one.”

Takayanagi-kun looked at the two.
The two also looked at Takayanagi-kun.

“Hey.”
“What?”
“He’s really glaring at us, isn’t he?”
“That’s creepy.”

“Who’s up next? —Look! Look—he’s coming out!”

“He’s really lanky.”
“How did he even show up in this wind?”

The lanky Professor Michiya appeared on the platform still wearing his cotton garments.
He had walked through this wind as rigidly upright as an iron nail.
Exposed to the parching wind, he resembled a desiccated old gourd.
The audience clapped all at once.
Clapping does not always signify applause.
Only Takayanagi-kun sat solemnly upright, straightening his collar.

“The self is a chain of past and future.”

Professor Michiya’s opening came abruptly.
The audience was momentarily caught off guard.
There was no way to begin a speech like this.

“Those who send the past into the future are called the old school, and those who rescue the future from the past are called the new school.”

The audience grew all the more perplexed.
Among the three hundred listeners were those who had entered with the sole purpose of heckling Professor Michiya.
If given even the slightest opening, he would have to be ridiculed to death on that platform.
Sumo wrestling is breathing.
If they failed to time their jeers with that rhythm, they would only end up hurling themselves out.
They coiled like snakes, hoods raised as they lay in wait.
In Professor Michiya’s eyes burned the single character for ‘the Way’.

“To say one has no past within oneself is like saying one has no parents; to say one has no future within oneself is like saying one lacks the capacity to bear children—this is generally the case.”
“My position here is unequivocal.”
“Do we exist for our parents? For our children? Or to establish ourselves? The meaning of human existence cannot escape being one of these three.”

The audience remained silent.
Or perhaps they had been shrouded in smoke.
Takayanagi-kun listened with an air of understanding.

“The Literary Renaissance was, in a grand sense, a great epoch that existed for the sake of parents.”
“The Gothic Revival of the late eighteenth century was also, in a grand sense, a lesser epoch that existed for the sake of parents.”
“At the same time, it was a period that existed to give rise to the Romantic school of Scott’s faction.”
“In other words, it was a period that existed for the sake of descendants.”
“A prime example of a period that existed to establish the self is Elizabethan literature.”
“Speaking of individuals—Ibsen.”
“Meredith.”
“Nietzsche.”
“Browning.”
“Christians exist for Christ.”
“Christ is a man of antiquity.”
“Therefore, Christians exist for their fathers.”
“Confucian scholars live for Confucius.”
“Confucius is also a man of antiquity.”
“Therefore, Confucian scholars live for their fathers.…”

There was someone who shouted, “I get it already!”

“It’s rather difficult to grasp,” Professor Michiya said.
The audience burst into laughter.

“Does the lined garment exist for the sake of the unlined, for the sake of the padded,” he said, sweeping his gaze over the audience, “or does it exist for its own sake?”
It was too bizarre to laugh at—too startling.
Too flippant to be met with restraint.
The audience were perplexed.

“It’s a difficult problem—even I don’t understand,” he said with a composed look.
The audience laughed again.

“That is something you need not understand.”
“But for what purpose do we exist?”
“This is something we must know.”
“Meiji has lasted forty years.”
“Forty years is not short.”
“The undertakings of Meiji have hereby reached a stopping point…”

There was someone who said, “No, no.”

“A voice somewhere says, ‘No, no.’ I agree with that person. I had been waiting, expecting there would be someone like that.”

The audience laughed again.

“No, I truly had been waiting for it.”

The audience raised their war cry for the third time.

“I stated that forty years is not a short span of time. Admittedly, when you live through it, it feels long. But would it still seem long when viewed by those outside the Meiji era? The eyepiece of a telescope is an inch in diameter. However, when viewed from Atagoyama, the offing of Shinagawa fits entirely within this single inch. To call forty years of Meiji long is something said by those mired within Meiji. When viewed from posterity, it will seem greatly diminished. When viewed from a much farther distance, it would not even pass in the snap of a finger. What can be accomplished in the snap of a finger?” Michiya rapped lightly on the table.

The audience was slightly surprised.

“Politicians believe they have accomplished a great undertaking.
“Scholars also believe they have accomplished a great undertaking.
“Businessmen and military men all believe they have accomplished a great undertaking.
“They believe they have accomplished something, but that is merely their own perception.
“Because they are immersed in the world of Meiji 40, they come to believe they have done so.
“What can be accomplished in the snap of a finger?”

This time, no one laughed.

“People of the world are saying:
‘Meiji has reached forty years, yet no Shakespeare has emerged, no Goethe has emerged.’
Precisely because they consider forty years long do such complaints arise.
What can emerge in the snap of a finger?”

There was someone who shouted, “They’re about to appear now!”

“They may emerge soon.
However, it is certain that they have not yet emerged.”
“To put it in a word—” he paused.

The entire hall fell silent.

“The time of Meiji 40 marks the dawn of Meiji civilization.
To rephrase this—we today inhabit a civilization devoid of legacy.
Therefore, we were not born to transmit the past.—Time flows unceasingly through day and night.
There exists no era without a past.—You must not misunderstand.
We undeniably possess a past.
Yet that past is either senile or infantile.
There remains no past worthy of emulation.
The forty years of Meiji are forty years without precedent.”

Among the audience, there were those who wore expressions that seemed to say, “Is that so?”

“There is nothing as free as those born into a society without precedent. I deeply congratulate you all on being born into this unprecedented society.”

Voices murmuring “Hm, hm” arose here and there.

“I would be troubled if you were to concur so readily,” he continued. “Those born into a society without precedent must forge precedents themselves. Those who relish unfettered freedom are already shackled by that very freedom. How you wield this liberty is both your right and your solemn duty. You must understand—the freedom of one who lacks a grand ideal is mere decadence.”

Having delivered this declaration, Mr. Michiya rested both hands upon the lectern and swept his gaze across the assembly. The air crackled with the tension of a gathering storm.

“Even when discussing individuals, this holds true. Those who dwell on the past are silver-haired elders. The young should have no past worth recalling. Those embracing grand hopes for the future need not cling fondly to bygone days—the era we inhabit today is one of youth. This is not an age so decrepit that it gazes backward. This is not an era in politics to look back to Marquis Ito or Marquis Yamagata. This is not an era in business to look back to Baron Shibusawa or Baron Iwasaki....”

“Grandiose bluster,” commented the man in Satsuma kasuri sitting next to Takayanagi.
Takayanagi scowled.

“This is not an era in literature to look back to Mr. Kōyō or Ms. Ichiyō.”
“These individuals did not live to serve as your precedents.”
“They lived to give birth to you all.”
“If we use the earlier words, these people lived for the future.”
“They existed for the sake of future generations.”
“And thus, you all exist for your own sake—in any era, those of the early period must resolve to live for their children.”
“Those of the mid-period must resolve to live for their own sake.”
“Those of the late period must come to terms with living for their fathers.”
“Meiji has reached forty years.”
“We may safely regard this as the early period.”
“Therefore, as modern youths, you all must greatly develop yourselves to form the mid-period.”
“You who stand in a position where you need not look back, nor worry about what lies ahead, but can develop your self as you wish—it is you who will attain life’s greatest pleasure.”

The entire hall stirred with an indistinct murmur.

“Why do those of the early period not serve as precedents?
The early period is the most disorderly era.
It is an era where chance runs rampant.
An era where happenstance gains momentum.
Those who gained fame, established households, accumulated wealth, or undertook enterprises in this early era—we cannot say they necessarily succeeded through their own abilities.
To succeed without relying on one’s own abilities is what a gentleman considers most disgraceful.
In this regard, those of the mid-period are far happier than people of the early period.
They are happy precisely because accomplishing things is difficult.
Happy because despite the difficulties, there are few chances for fortuitous success.
Happy because even with hardships, they have enough leeway to advance as their abilities allow—because there remains a path for development.
When reaching the late period, they grow rigid.
They can do nothing but parrot the previous era.
When movement becomes impossible and humans rot—that is when turmoil arises again.
If it does not arise, they have no choice but to fossilize.
And because they detest fossilizing, they themselves stir up turmoil.
This is what we call revolution.”

“What I have stated above explains your position within the realm of Meiji.”
“You who stand in such an advantageous position must cultivate an ideal commensurate with this advantage.”

There, Mr. Michiya delivered a decisive shift in his rhetoric.
The audience no longer seemed inclined to jeer.
They remained silent.

“The ideal is the soul.”
“Since the soul has no form, it cannot be grasped.”
“One can only glimpse it faintly by observing where human souls manifest in deeds.”
“Alas, today’s youth cannot even glimpse this.”
“It cannot be sought in the past—nor found in the present, least of all.”
“Can you regard your own parents as ideals within your households?”

Some made dissatisfied faces.
However, they remained silent.

“Can you, within schools, hold teachers up as ideals?”

“No! No!”

“Can you, within society, hold gentlemen up as ideals?”

“No, no.”

“In fact, you have no ideals.
“At home you despise your parents, at school you despise your teachers, and in society you despise gentlemen.”
“To despise these things requires discernment.”
“However, to despise these things, you must possess a greater ideal within yourselves.”
“To despise others without any ideal of one’s own is corruption.”
“The modern youth are day by day falling into ceaseless decay.”

The audience stirred slightly.
Someone muttered, “How insolent...”
Mr. Michiya stood proudly glaring down at the audience from the podium.

“There are those who advocate British-style customs without hesitation.”
“It is a pitiable state.”
“They lay bare their own lack of ideals.”
“Though Japanese youth decay ceaselessly, they still believe they have not fallen this far.”
“All ideals are the soul of oneself.”
“They must emerge from within.”
“Grand ideals cannot dwell in the minds of slaves.”
“The Japanese—dazzled and overwhelmed by Western ideals—are all slaves to some degree.”
“How could any ideal ferment in the brains of those not merely content to be slaves, but who vie to become slaves?”

“Gentlemen.”
“Ideals must well up from within you.”
“When your scholarship and discernment become your blood and flesh, and finally your soul, your ideals will take form.”
“Half-baked measures are worthless.”

Mr. Michiya stood with one clenched fist planted on the table, as though daring anyone to jeer at him now. The threadbare hakama no longer stood out so starkly against his soiled black cotton haori. The wind howled outside.

“Those who hold ideals know their path,” he declared. “Those who embrace great ideals walk a great road. They are no lost children.” His voice hardened. “They must walk this way without cease—they cannot stray even if they wished it. For their souls cry out incessantly to guide them.”

“There may be those among you who ask how far you intend to walk.”
That much was obvious.
Life meant going as far as one could go.
No one knew their own lifespan.
A lifespan unknowable to oneself remained even less knowable to others.
Even specialists who practiced medicine could not calculate a human lifespan.
How long one would live was something that should only be stated after having lived.
The fact of having lived to eighty needed substantiation through the very act of living to eighty.
Even with confidence in reaching eighty years old—even if such confidence seemed certain—without the actual fact of having lived, no one would believe it.
Therefore, it was not something to be spoken of.
To walk the path one should walk after receiving ideals’ revelation followed this same logic.
To what extent the self could realize its own ideals could not even be measured by the self itself.
To speculate that because the past had been thus, the future would also be thus resembled hastily concluding that because one had lived until now, one would continue living henceforth—
It was a form of speculation.
“All those who stand in life’s arena aiming for success are speculators.”

The man in Satsuma kasuri next to Takayanagi made a strange face.

"Society is a battlefield."
"Civilized society is a bloodless battlefield."
"Forty years ago, patriots risked life and death to achieve the great undertaking of the Restoration."
"The perils you must face may be more dreadful than theirs."
"A bloodless battlefield is more profound and more tragic than a battlefield of cannon roars and sword glints."
"Gentlemen, you must steel yourselves."
"You must prepare yourselves with greater resolve than the imperial loyalists."
"You must be prepared to fall."
"Those who rest assured in a peaceful realm and idly hope for success are far more lacking in human value than the failed ones who stumble on the path they should take and meet an unjust death."

“You must pursue those who block your path in order to walk it. It is only when fighting them that one can find within one’s inner vitality more anguish and tragedy than even the imperial loyalists dared to endure—today, the wind blows.”

The wind blew yesterday as well.
The weather these days was unsettled.
“However, the unrest within one’s breast is not like this.”

Mr. Michiya looked through the rattling glass window toward the street.
Just then, a gust of wind brusquely swept up the sand from the street, struck against the roof ridge, and fled high into the void.

“Gentlemen.”
“How robust you gentlemen are, I cannot know.”
“You yourselves cannot know either.”
“Only the world and future generations will substantiate it.”
“It is only at the moment when one has walked the grand path of ideals to its end and fallen along the way that one can condense their entire past into a single glance and finally comprehend it fully.”
“You must be conveyed through your endeavors themselves.”
“Merely seeking to be conveyed through your names alone is frivolous.”

Takayanagi felt somehow awkward.
It seemed to him that Michiya’s shining eyes were directed toward himself.

“Ideals differ from person to person.”
“We engage in scholarship.”
“What, then, should be the ideal of those who engage in scholarship?”

The audience remained silent; there was no one to respond.

“Whatever the ideal of those who engage in scholarship may be—the one thing that is certain is that it is not money.”

Laughter arose in five or six places.
The fact that Mr. Michiya was not wealthy was an undeniable reality in the minds of those who saw his attire.
Mr. Michiya, pulling on the sleeves of his haori with both hands, first slowly looked at his right sleeve.
Next, he turned his gaze and slowly looked at his left sleeve.
In the weave of the black cotton fabric, sand was packed full.

“Quite filthy，” he said calmly．

Laughter arose throughout the hall．
This was not mocking laughter．
Mr．Michiya crushed any derisive chuckles with good-natured mirth．

“Recently，a scholar came to me—he’d taken a wife and had a child．From now on，he must save money．He must start saving now so that at least his child can receive an excellent education．But then he asked， ‘How can I manage to save？’”

“There is nothing more foolish than asking how one can make money through scholarship.”
“Scholarship is meant to produce scholars.”
“It is not something that yields money.”
“Thinking of ways to make money through scholarship is like going to the Arctic to hunt tigers.”

The entire hall buzzed slightly once more.

“The general public harbors a grave fallacy regarding the relationship between labor and money. They believe that pursuing commensurate scholarship will yield commensurate financial returns. Such logic cannot possibly hold true. Scholarship is an instrument that drives one away from money. If you desire wealth, you should become a businessman or merchant who makes it their objective. Scholars and townspeople are fundamentally different breeds of men; for a scholar to pursue scholarship while expecting monetary gain would be like a townsman taking up an apprenticeship with scholarship as his aim.”

“Hmm, really?” came an abrupt voice from someone.
The audience burst into laughter.
Mr. Michiya calmly waited for the laughter to subside.

“Therefore, matters of scholarship must be asked of scholars.”
“If you want money, there’s no other way than taking it to the townspeople.”

“I want money!” someone interjected.
It was unclear who it was.
Mr. Michiya said “You do want it, don’t you?” and pressed on.

“Scholarship—that is, understanding the principles of things—and financial freedom—that is, having money—are not merely unrelated but rather diametrically opposed.”
“It is precisely because one is a scholar that one has no money.”
“Because they pursue money, they cannot become scholars.”
“In exchange for having no money, scholars understand the principles of things; townspeople make money instead because they lack understanding of logic.”

Thinking someone would say something, Mr. Michiya fell silent and was waiting for about twenty seconds.
No one said anything.

“To understand this yet believe that where there is money there must also be logic is the height of folly.”
“Moreover, society at large labors under this very misconception.”
“They reason thus: since that person is wealthy and respected by society, they must surely understand logic and possess culture—this is how they think.”
“Yet in truth, it is precisely because they lacked the time to acquire culture that they found time to amass wealth.”
“Nature is impartial; she does not show such favor as to let a man both make money and receive culture at once.”
“Without grasping this plain truth, those rich people grow self-conceited...”

“Hyaa, hyaa!”
“Don’t get fired up!”
“Shh, shh!”
The commotion grew quite lively.

“Since we occupy society’s upper strata and receive universal respect, there exists no one in this world more versed in logic than ourselves.”
“The very notion that scholars or anyone else must bow to me is pitiable enough—but their entertaining such ideas itself proves their lack of culture.”

Takayanagi’s eyes shone. Blood rose to his cheeks.

“Even if we accept that their self-conceit is ultimately beyond redemption, when society at large goes so far as to approve their delusions as justified, it must be called a lack of discernment that exhausts all patience. It’s often said that since that man occupies such a social position and possesses a commensurate amount of wealth, there’s no way he could be so utterly incomprehensible. How could one expect that in some cases, it is precisely because they have attained such social standing and possess considerable wealth that they become incomprehensible?”

Takayanagi forgot the pain in his chest and clapped his hands anxiously.
The man in the Satsuma kasuri kimono next to him let out a mockingly derisive “ahem.”

“What determines social standing—there are various factors.”
“First, there are cases where it is determined by culture.”
“Second, there are cases where it is determined by family lineage.”
“Third, there are cases where it is determined by artistic talent.”
“Finally, there are cases where it is determined by money.”
“And this is the most common.”
“In this way, they conflate these various criteria and assume that a man whose standing is determined by money can be interchangeable with one whose standing is determined by scholarship.”
“They are practically blind.”

Voices saying “Ahem, ahem” sprang up scattered in five or six places.
Takayanagi pressed his lips together, his breath coming raggedly through his nose.

“A man whose standing is determined by money should have no room for maneuver outside of it.”
“Money may be valuable in a certain sense.”
“Because they possess it, they receive society’s respect.”
“Very well.”
“No one would dispute that much.”
“But in realms beyond money, they cannot wield influence—those who gain status through other standards cannot join their ranks.”
“If that were possible, scholars too could storm into the wealthy’s domain and swagger about in money-centric spheres.”
“They will not permit it.”
“Yet they alone forget to stay meekly within their own territory and try to overreach into others’ domains.”
“That is clear proof of their ignorance.”

Takayanagi-kun half-rose from his seat and clapped.
People are fond of imitation.
Prompted by Takayanagi-kun, the sound of clapping arose from all directions.
The sneering faction, recognizing the futility of their momentum, fell silent.

“Money is the reward for labor.”
“Therefore, if one exerts more labor, one can obtain more money.”
“Up to this point, society is fair.”
“(No—even this contains unfairness; speculators seize money without labor.) However, let us advance a step further.”
“Does high-level labor come with high-level rewards?—What do you think, gentlemen?—If there is no answer, I must explain.”
“Reward is determined solely by circumstances that most affect immediate interests.”
“Therefore, even in today’s world, the rewards for teachers are less than those for small merchants.”
“Those who expend their labor on distant and lofty endeavors beyond immediate concerns—no matter how much it may benefit the future, the nation, or humanity—will find their reward increasingly diminish.”
“Therefore, the amount of reward is not determined by the level of labor.”
“The distribution of money is not governed.”
“Therefore, those who have money do not necessarily engage in noble labor.”
“To rephrase: One cannot claim that having money makes one noble.”
“You cannot use money as a yardstick to determine a person’s worth.”

Having spoken at length, Michiya paused here to survey the room’s atmosphere.
A typeset speech lacks vitality.
Michiya intended to adjust his approach depending on his audience.
The crowd was quieter than anticipated.

“To boast recklessly merely because you have money is misguided.”
“To believe you’re entitled to quarrel with scholars is equally misguided.”
“To presume you can make refined people bow their heads—that too is misguided.—You ought to consider this.”
“However much money you possess, illness will force you to submit to doctors.”
“You cannot brew gold coins into medicine...”

The humor was so earnest that three or four people burst out laughing despite themselves.
Mr. Michiya noticed.

“You see—even if you boiled gold coins, it wouldn’t stop diarrhea.”
“Therefore—they must bow to doctors.”
“In return, doctors—bow to money.”

Mr. Michiya smirked slyly.
The audience laughed quietly in turn.

"That is acceptable.
It’s permissible to bow to money—but the wealthy must not be tolerated.
Though they know to lower their heads before doctors, when it comes to matters of taste, preferences, refinement, or character, they remain ignorant of bowing to learned individuals who grasp noble logic.
Not only that—they even attempt to force those heads down through monetary power.
‘A blind man fears no snakes’—how aptly put."

That his tone had suddenly turned conversational was no accident.

“Learned people—those who understand reason—bestow happiness upon society through their scholarship and comprehension in precisely the same sense that the wealthy use monetary power to confer benefits upon the world.”
“Thus, though their positions may differ, they have firmly entrenched themselves in a status that can never be challenged.”

“If scholars involve themselves in monetary matters, abandoning their true calling and entering another’s domain, it is only natural that they bow to the wealthy.”
“At the same time, when it comes to matters beyond money—such as taste, literature, life, and society—it is the wealthy who must defer to scholars.”
“Now, suppose a conflict arises between scholars and the wealthy.”
“If it is merely a monetary issue, scholars are incapable from the start.”
“However, as long as these are matters of life, morality, or society, the wealthy must resolve themselves to having no right to speak from the outset and absolutely submit before scholars.”
“Iwasaki may overwhelm the scholars of the realm in lining up villas, but when it comes to social and life issues, they are no different from children.”
“To think that building villas of a hundred thousand *tsubo* in every direction of the city has cowed the scholars of the realm is akin to believing that constructing the Ryōunkaku would make immortals bow in awe…”

The audience, captivated by Michiya’s vigor and the startling originality of his final phrase, remained silent.
Alone, Takayanagi-kun, seemingly unable to contain himself, let out a loud voice and applauded.

“When merchants use money to earn money, it is a matter of their profession, and no one may interfere.”
“However, when they wield that power not in commerce but in human affairs, they must consult those who understand reason.”
“If they do not do so, there are times when they themselves brew societal ills yet remain unperturbed.”
“A certain portion of today’s wealthy’s money is constantly being used for this purpose.”
“This is because they themselves are masters only of money—not of other virtues or arts.”
“This is because they do not know to respect scholars.”
“This is because no matter how much they are taught, they cannot comprehend what others say.”
“Disaster will inevitably rebound upon themselves.”
“They must inevitably reach a time when they have no choice but to lend an ear to what scholars and literary figures say.”
“If they do not listen, a time will come when they cannot maintain their social status.”

The audience all at once raised a thunderous cheer.
Despite his tuberculosis, Takayanagi-kun raised the loudest cheer.
For the first time in his life, he had experienced such an exhilarating feeling.
Wrapping half his face in a scarf and braving the wind to come here had been worth it, he thought.

Mr. Michiya stood on the podium like a prophet, majestic and unyielding.
The raging winter wind shook the house and departed.

Twelve

“Are you feeling any better?” he asked, sitting down at the bedside.

The six-tatami room had loose tatami mats; if one were to stomp, even at night, dust would likely be visible.
A Miyajima-made round tray held a medicine bottle and a clinical thermometer together.

After hearing the speech and returning home, Takayanagi-kun finally coughed up blood.

“I’m feeling much better today,” he said, sitting up in bed and pulling the quilted robe halfway up his back.

Nakano started to take out a Russian leather tobacco pouch from his Ōshima tsumugi sleeve but,

“Yeah, smoking would’ve been bad,” he said, dropping it back into his sleeve.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not like a little tobacco is going to cure me anyway,” he said sullenly.

“That’s not it. The start is crucial. You have to focus on recuperating now. I went to the doctor yesterday and asked—there’s nothing to worry about. Did the doctor come?”

“He came this morning. He told me to stay warm.”

“Yeah. You should stay warm. This room’s rather cold, isn’t it?” Nakano said, looking around desolately.

“You ought to have the inn maid replace those shoji screens. The wind must be getting through.”

“But even if we fix the shoji…”

“Why not try relocating for your health?”

“The doctor said that too…”

“Then you should go. Did he mention it this morning?”

“Yeah.”

“And how did you respond?”

“What could I say? There was nothing to answer…”

“Why don’t you go?”

“It might be good for you to go, but I can’t just send you off like that.”

Takayanagi-kun made a listless face and lowered his eyes to his own knees.
From the edge of the twin gas heaters protruded about two inches of mouse-gray flannel.
They had likely been tailored separately without taking measurements.

“There’s no need to worry about that.
I’ll handle it.”

Takayanagi-kun shifted his dry eyes from his knees and looked at Nakano-kun’s cheerful face.
His answer depended entirely on that face.

“I’ll take care of it.”
“What’s with that look?”

Takayanagi-kun suddenly realized his own heart was peering out through his eyes.

“Am I borrowing money from you?”

“You don’t have to borrow it…”

“Are you giving it to me?”

“It doesn’t matter.
There’s no need to worry about such things.”

“I don’t want to borrow it.”

“Then don’t borrow it.”

“But I can’t accept it either.”

“You’re such a difficult man. Why must you make such a fuss? Back in our school days, didn’t you constantly badger me to lend you money and treat you to Western meals?”

“When I was in school, I wasn’t ill like this.”

“If you were like this even when well, then being sick makes it all the more reason. When someone’s ill, it’s only natural for friends to care for them—no one would find that odd.”

“That’s how it must seem from the caregiver’s perspective.”

“Then do you have some grievance against me?”

“I have no grievances—if anything, I’m grateful.”

“Then you should accept what I’m saying willingly.”
“There’s no need to view the world through gloomy lenses and make even us who see you feel just as unpleasant.”

Takayanagi did not reply for some time.
I might indeed exist to make the world unpleasant.
No matter where I went, I had never been liked.
Since I would die anyway, feeling indebted to others’ half-hearted kindness only pained my conscience.
If I were someone who made the world unpleasant, then making Nakano alone happy would be fifty steps versus a hundred—no real difference.
If I were someone who made the world unpleasant, it would be better to die as soon as possible.

“I feel bad for rendering your kindness futile, but I don’t want to relocate or anything, so please spare me that.”

“There you go again with that stubbornness. The early stages are crucial with this kind of illness, you know. If you miss the timing, there’ll be no going back, I tell you.”

“It’s already long past saving,” he said, as though leaping off a mountaintop.

“That’s the illness, I tell you.”
“It’s because of the illness that you’re so pessimistic.”

“To speak of pessimism—when there’s no hope, being pessimistic is only natural.”
“You don’t feel pessimistic because you have no need to.”

“What a hopeless man you are,” he said, resigning himself for a moment before smoothly rising and sliding open the shoji screen.
The usual paulownia tree stretched its bald branches straight up toward the sky.

“What a lonely garden,” he said. “The paulownia stands there bare.”

“Until just the other day they still had their leaves—how quickly they’ve fallen. Have you ever seen moonlight striking a bare paulownia? It’s a breathtaking sight.”

“I suppose so—but it’s not good for you to stay up late in this cold.”
“I hate the winter moon.”
“The moon is best in summer.”
“On a fine summer moonlit night, wouldn’t it be fun to ride a roofed boat from the Sumida River toward Ayase, rowing along and floating silver fans on the water to play?”

“You make it sound so simple.”
“What’ll you do with floating silver fans?”

“Load the boat with many silver-painted fans and toss them toward the moon.”
“They’d sparkle and look beautiful.”

“Your invention?”

“It is said that the connoisseurs of old amused themselves with such elegant pastimes.”

“Extravagant fellows.”

“You have a manuscript on your desk.”
“Is it still that geography teaching methods thing after all?”

“I’ve given up on geography teaching methods. After getting sick, how could I possibly do something so trivial?”

“Then what is it?”

“I began writing it long ago and left it as it was.”

“That novel?”
“Your life’s great work?”
“So you’re finally going to finish it?”

“When I fall ill, I want to write all the more.”
“Until now I thought I’d do it when time allowed, but I can’t wait any longer.”
“I must complete it before I die—I won’t rest otherwise.”

“‘Before I die’—what an extreme way to put it,” said Nakano.
“I support your writing efforts,
but obsessing over it will only worsen your condition.”

Takayanagi responded bleakly:
“If worsening health still let me write,
I wouldn’t mind.
But this inability—it gnaws at me unbearably.
Last night,
I dreamed of completing thirty more pages.”

“You seem terribly eager to write.”

“I want to write.”
“If I don’t even write this, I don’t know why I was born.”
“Once it’s settled that I can’t write it, I’m just a worthless idler, I tell you.”
“So there’s no point in becoming a burden to you and moving somewhere else, I tell you.”

“So you dislike the idea of a change of climate?”

“Well, I suppose so.”

“I see. Then I understand.”
“Hmm, so that’s your intention?” Nakano thought for a while, then
“Since you dislike becoming a burden on others for no reason, why don’t we give that some meaning?”

“What will you do?”

“Your current objective is to complete the literary work you’ve long had in mind, I suppose.”
“So let’s make that a condition and have me take charge of the expenses for your change of climate.”
“Go to Zushi, Kamakura, Atami—wherever you like—and recuperate at your leisure.”
“Just using someone else’s money to recuperate at your leisure wouldn’t sit right with you.”
“So while recuperating, you can write the continuation whenever you feel inclined.”
“Once your health improves and your work is completed, you can return.”
“In return for my taking charge of the expenses, I’ll have you present a great masterpiece to the world.”
“How about it?”
“Then my plan will take shape, and your wish will be fulfilled.”
“Wouldn’t that be killing two birds with one stone?”

Takayanagi stared at his knees and thought.

“If I bring my work to you, then my responsibility to you will be fulfilled, right?”

“That’s right. At the same time, you’d fulfill part of your duty to society.”

“Then I’ll take the money. I might die without repaying you—no—well, I’ll try writing till I die—if I write till then, there’s no way I can’t finish it.”

“Writing till death would be too harsh. Go relax in warm Sagami and write a page or two when you feel like it—there’s no deadline on my terms, you know.”

“Yeah, alright. I’ll definitely write it and bring it along. I can’t just idly use your money and be done with it.”

“You shouldn’t keep worrying about whether it’s settled or not.”

“Yeah, alright. I get it.”
“Anyway, I’ll move somewhere else.”
“I’ll go starting tomorrow.”

“That’s pretty sudden.”
“Sooner’s better, I guess.”
“Doesn’t matter how soon you leave.”
“Everything’s ready,” he said, pulling out a tri-fold wallet with a nanako pattern from his pocket and extracting a bundle of bills.

“Here’s 100 yen.”
“I’ll send the rest later.”
“This should do for now.”

“Do I really need this much?”

“Just take it.”
“Truth is, this was my wife’s idea.”
“Consider it her kindness and take it.”

“Well then, I’ll just take the hundred yen.”

“Take it by all means.”
“I did wrap it up specially.”

“Then leave it here.”

“Well then, I’ll set off tomorrow.”
“The location?”
“Any location will do.”
“Wherever you prefer would be best.”
“Just send me a letter once you arrive—you’re not ill enough to warrant an escort, so I won’t trouble myself to come to the station—was there anything else?”
“—I’m rather pressed for time.”
“Actually, I’ve promised to take my wife to visit relatives today, and since they’re waiting, I really must be going.”

“So you’re leaving already? Well then, please give my regards to your wife.”

Nakano left cheerfully.
Takayanagi-kun stood up and changed his kimono.

He had heard of 100 yen.
He had seen it for the first time.
Using it was naturally his first time as well.
For a long time, he had wanted to write something—a work that could truly represent himself.
There were times when I took up my brush to write a page or two amidst the hardships of life, but whenever inspiration struck, hunger and cold would mercilessly pursue me to the point where I had to stop immediately.
Given this state of affairs, it seemed unlikely I’d be able to do any proper work for the time being.
If all I did was translate geography teaching methods to sustain my bare existence, it was no different from a draft horse eating fodder and running around all day.
I have myself.
It would be a waste to die idly without ever expressing this self of mine.
Not only did I have no face to show my parents—I had none to show society either.
The reason people shunned me like some ancient clay figure was that I had no chance to express this self of mine—instead, I spent my days on menial translation tasks even those with dull minds could perform splendidly.
I simply couldn’t bear this frustration.
Just as I thought I would gnash my teeth on a stone, I heard Michiya’s lecture and went to bed.
The doctor boldly declared it to be the early stages of tuberculosis.
If it was truly tuberculosis, there’d be no saving me.
While I still had life, I tried to face my old manuscript again, but twisting a rope was slow work, and a fleeing thief was fast.
The thought of vanishing without leaving a single memento behind only made my fever burn all the fiercer.
If I could just complete this one thing, even in death I’d have my justification.

To establish a justification that would stand, I had to make arrangements as well.
The hundred yen I now possessed was more precious than ten thousand yen in the days ahead.

With 100 yen in his pocket, he circled the room two or three times.
His spirits were refreshed and his heart clear.
He resolutely took off his hat and rushed out into the December market.
As he climbed Kagurazaka in the twilight, it was already nearing five o'clock.
In shops quick to prepare, they had already lit the gas lamps.

Was Bishamon's lantern not meant to be replaced before year's end? Its colors had faded as it swayed dimly in the dark.
At a stall before the gate, a craftsman with a hand towel tied over one shoulder was busily shaping sushi.
The three horses at the street stall gleamed with cold coloration.
Black tabi socks were lined up along the roadway; there stood someone with head wrapped and hands tucked into sleeves.
Would those tabi socks even sell?
Imagawayaki were three for a sen, made by the old woman herself.
A fountain pen priced at six sen and five rin seemed too cheap.

The world was full of variety—I who was passing through here now would fly fifty or sixty *ri* ahead by morningbreak. This was something neither sushi chef nor imagawayaki granny could fathom.
Then when I used up this hundred yen,I would return to Tokyo bearing something more precious than gold itself.
None could imagine such things.
The world overflowed with diversity.

If I meet Professor Michiya and tell him everything, he would likely smile and say, “Is that so?” If I told him I’m leaving tomorrow, he might be surprised. If I said I intended to return after completing my life’s work, he would surely be delighted. ——Fantasies beget fantasies. Takayanagi-kun, having implanted in his mind something of immense generative power, forgot his sickly condition and before he knew it found himself standing at his teacher’s gate.

It seemed there was already a visitor, but brushing aside his hesitation at having come all this way, he called out, “I need to ask a favor.”
“Who is it?” came from within—it was Professor Shirai himself.

“It’s me. Takayanagi…”
“Takayanagi…”

“Ah, do come in,” he said, yet there was no sight of him emerging.

Takayanagi-kun went from the entrance to the parlor.
As expected, there was already a visitor.
He wore a haori from Ichiura and a faded striped garment, with only the Hakata-patterned crest on his obi standing out conspicuously.
He had a narrow forehead, high cheekbones, and eyes like dull chestnuts.
Takayanagi-kun finished greeting the professor; afterward, he silently bowed to Donkuri.

“What’s the matter?
You’ve come quite late.
Do you have some business…?”

“No, it’s just—actually, I have come to take my leave.”

“Taking your leave?”
“Are you being transferred to a rural middle school or something?”

Sliding open the partition door, the wife came out with tea.
She exchanged bows with Takayanagi-kun and retreated to the living room.

“No, I was thinking of relocating for a change of climate.”

“So your health has been poor, then.”

“I don’t think it’s anything serious, but there are those who keep urging me to go.”

“Yeah. If it’s bad, then by all means go. When? Tomorrow? I see. Then take your time and speak slowly—I’ll just finish up this discussion here,” said Professor Michiya, turning toward Donkuri.

“So then—I do apologize—but given these circumstances I’ve laid out before you tonight—could you not grant us a little more time?”

“That I would indeed like to accommodate you. But I have my own circumstances to consider.”

“So why not simply raise the interest rate? Could you not collect just the interest now and defer repayment of the principal until spring?”

“As I have paid the interest without fail thus far—if you would be satisfied with that as sufficient compensation—I would ask you to keep providing the loan indefinitely…”

“I’m afraid that won’t do.”

“Given your earnest request, I would naturally wish to oblige if possible…”

“Is that not acceptable?”

“I’m terribly sorry…”

“Is it absolutely impossible?”

“You absolutely must produce one hundred yen tonight.”

“By tonight?”

“Well, yes, that’s right. Yesterday was the deadline, wasn’t it?”

“I am aware that the deadline has passed.”
“I’m not the sort to forget such things.”
“That’s why I tried every means possible, but since I couldn’t manage it, I went out of my way to send a messenger to you.”

“Yes, I did receive your letter. It stated you had some writings and requested a deferment until you could sell them to a publisher.”

“Indeed.”

“However—regarding the nature of this money—since it wasn’t merely intended to generate interest—I even went so far as to confirm with my elder brother that it was absolutely necessary by year-end.”
“But my elder brother said, ‘No—that’s perfectly fine. I can’t speak for others, but when it comes to my younger brother, there’s absolutely no chance of such inconvenience occurring.’”
“He agreed to take responsibility—so I felt secure in providing the loan—but now that you’re breaching the agreement, this is most inconvenient.”

Professor Michiya remained silent.
Donkuri took rapid puffs of tobacco.

“Professor,” Takayanagi-kun suddenly interjected from the side.

“Yes,” said Professor Michiya, turning toward him.
He showed no sign of blushing.
Had he been prone to such displays, he would have refused the meeting outright by claiming to be occupied with negotiations.

“I apologize for interrupting your discussion.”
“Might I ask something briefly?”

“Yes, go ahead.”
“What is it?”

“Professor, I understand you’ve recently completed a work. If I may be so bold—might I be permitted to see the manuscript?”

“If you want to see it, please take a look. While waiting—do you intend to read it?”

Takayanagi remained silent.
Professor Michiya stood up and retrieved a manuscript roughly three inches thick from among the books piled in the alcove before handing it to the young man.

“Please take a look,” he said.
On the cover was written “Treatise on Personality” in block letters.

“Thank you,” said the young man as he received it with both hands. For some time, he stared fixedly at the three characters of “Treatise on Personality,” then finally lifted his gaze to look at Donkuri.

“Wouldn’t you consider buying this manuscript for a hundred yen?”

“Heh heh heh.”
“I’m not a bookseller.”

“So you refuse to purchase it?”

“Heh heh heh. You’re joking.”

“Professor.”

“What is it?”

“Please entrust this manuscript to me for 100 yen.”

“That manuscript?…”

“It’s too cheap, isn’t it?”
“I know even tens of thousands of yen would be too cheap.”
“But since I am your disciple—please lower it to 100 yen and entrust it to me.”

Professor Michiya blankly watched the young man’s face.

“Please entrust it to me—I have the money—I’m carrying it right here—there’s exactly 100 yen.”

Takayanagi-kun took out the money bundle from his breast pocket—still in the state he had received it—and placed it between the two of them.

“You—for me to take such money from you…” Professor Michiya tried to push it back.

“No, it’s all right.
“Please take it—no, I misspoke.
“Please entrust this manuscript to me.
“Professor—I am your disciple—one of those disciples who bullied and drove you out in Takada, Echigo.
“Therefore, please entrust it to me.”

Leaving behind a stunned Professor Michiya, Takayanagi-kun vanished into the dark night.
Instead of returning from his retreat with a work that might represent himself, he carried within his breast an even greater Treatise on Personality, intending to deliver it to his friend Nakano-kun and repay the kindness shown by Nakano-kun and his wife.