Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Tsuji Jun

The title alone was far too clever for its own good by my usual standards，but whether its content truly measured up could never be known until one had written through to the very end．Any reader who might have instantly linked this title with Dvořák would have been heartening indeed．Failing that，it amounted merely to pretentious nonsense．

I was a man trudging utterly aimlessly along the absurd path of life alone, accompanied by a most shabby yet curiously comical donkey.

My insensitive donkey, who loved to dawdle and graze along the way, occasionally let out strange cries that were both joyful and sorrowful, but when I prattled on, my tone and voice likely differed little from those of my companion.

Seriousness, plausibility, pompousness, and showiness—anyone fond of such things would be better off not reading what I write from the very start.

When people encounter various misfortunes and tragedies, they do all sorts of things—losing their minds, committing suicide, becoming heavy drinkers, suffering mental paralysis.
So instead of committing suicide, I ended up becoming this peculiar creature called a Dadaist.
As for how I might change from here on out—there was simply no knowing what lay ahead until I hit the grave.

A Dadaist—that peculiar creature—above all loathed making complaints in a Dadaist manner.
In other words, the fact that contradictory simultaneity was contained within a single breath counted as one of those conditions—but since for Dada everything ultimately came down to farce, it followed that no amount of sentimentality mattered in the least.
Just don’t go mistaking it for something mental.

In the summer of 1923, I had been cohabiting with a certain young woman since the previous year, and as a result of ××××, found both my mind and body in a state of extreme exhaustion—a degree of debilitation I had never experienced before.
And so every day I would smoke cigarettes and lie around.
I became listless, a thorough misanthrope—everything grated on my nerves so completely that even dogs started to seem endearing.
When friends happened to visit, I would act terribly rude.

Had the September 1st earthquake not occurred while I was in such a state, I might have destroyed myself in a manner akin to a forgotten clock spring grinding to a halt. Thanks to the earthquake, I believe I was able to regain the consciousness that had been nearing collapse.

Naked and frantic, I burst from the bathhouse—performed a single bizarre dance with some naked man and woman before its entrance—only to be dragged back by shame (Dada overflows with shame), then scrambling to retrieve my clothes before darting back to my nest at the dead end of an alley in K Town—throughout it all, I found myself assaulted by classic sentimentality for the first time in ages, left utterly overwhelmed.

Fortunately, my old mother, child, and woman were unharmed, but the house had been crushed into some Expressionist nightmare and taken on the shape of a Cubist monster. If the large paulownia tree and small tin-roofed house I always enjoyed gazing at from the window of my second-floor garret room on the west side had not been there, it would have undoubtedly become Dadaism. After that, I lived outdoors for about ten days and went to bathe at Tamagawa-yu. Although I did feel some attachment to my modest collection of books, I was able to retrieve the portrait and letters of the person I had presumptuously named the "Eternal Feminine," along with the dagger she had left behind, so I felt no lingering regret for anything else.

Where there’s life, there’s hope!—Unconsciously, I lived by chanting this utterly banal phrase like a mantra several times each day. If everything were to be reduced to ashes from this point onward, I even found myself genuinely contemplating how organizing a touring performance troupe with like-minded people and traveling around the country might make for an amusing diversion.

Fortunately, K Town was spared from fire, but even so, the earthquake damage was quite severe.
The sister of a model youth I knew had been crushed, and a factory girl who was a close friend had burned to death.

I was not attempting to recount the disaster out of season but merely reminiscing a bit while on the subject.

Ah, right—I had been given the title "Reminiscences of Ms. Ito Noe" by the editor of this magazine.
Without calling her Ito Noe, N-ko, or Noe-kun, I call her Ms. Noe.
For my dear Makoto-kun always calls her—that is to say, his mother Ito Noe—by that name.

This is likely the first time I have written anything about Ms. Noe.
Many times over the years I had received requests from various quarters to write something about her, but never once did I comply.
It wasn't that I was putting on airs or anything of the sort.
It was simply that no interest in writing had ever arisen.
Last year too, when Osugi-kun wrote about that Hayama Incident as a chapter of his autobiography in Kaishō, and Kamichika-kun issued a scathing rebuttal to it, there was again a request for me to write some critique mediating both sides—but being utterly incapable of such artifice, I was ultimately excused from the task.

From the very beginning of the incident, I had swiftly fled and barricaded myself in a room at a certain temple, immersing myself in absolute silence to sever all possible contact with society.
Of course I refrained from looking at even a single newspaper or magazine, and kept my whereabouts hidden from friends as well.
Therefore, from that point onward, I neither knew anything about what had transpired in Osugi-kun and the others’ lives nor had any desire to find out.
I was solely focused on my own matters.
It was around that time that rumors spread of me setting out on a wandering journey with a shakuhachi flute in hand.

Now, those ten days of living outdoors gave me a fresh and valuable lesson.
"The philosopher-poet of Superman philosophy once said, 'Love your fate,' and I too, while being made to feel something akin to that profound sentiment, found myself taking up work as a night watchman."

I had grown quite concerned about my friends' situation, but the matter of K woman's swollen belly posed an even more troublesome predicament.
I sometimes called her Fukuretarya.
Having Fukuretarya live outdoors wasn’t particularly desirable from a hygienic standpoint, but with no house to enter, there was nothing to be done.

We decided to temporarily send her back to her hometown and entrusted my old mother and child to my younger sister living in B Town near K Town before setting out.

I will omit the details of the journey, but in Nagoya, after putting her on the train and remaining alone, I disembarked in Osaka two or three days later and there immediately began fundraising efforts, living there for about a week.

In the evening while walking through Dotonbori, I saw that newspaper extra edition for the first time.
A powerful shock entirely distinct from the earthquake flashed through my mind.
Then, maintaining a casual expression, I continued walking through the evening dusk enveloped in hazy consciousness while humming a verse from a folk song.

Thinking about Makoto-kun, who had been left in my sister’s care, I was at a loss.

Then I began to find looking at newspapers terribly unpleasant.
So I resolved that whenever I wanted to feel unpleasant, I would simply look at a newspaper.

In Y Port, Shikoku, Dada's Shinkichi was lying ill.
It wasn’t exactly to visit him in his illness, but having resolved to live in Y Port for a while, I came to Y Port.

In Y Port there was a monstrous dilettante called Mr. S who would indulge my whims, which is why I decided to go.

When I arrived at Y Port, a reporter from a Kyushu newspaper's branch office immediately came and asked me to share my thoughts on "Osugi and two others."

I didn't know what to say and was completely at a loss.

“I have no intention of saying anything at this juncture—but given your professional capacity in coming here, kindly write whatever you deem appropriate based on your own conjecture.”

I said.

Then came a newspaper article the next day claiming I harbored "alternating feelings of love and hatred" toward Ms. Noe.

Reading it, I found myself genuinely impressed by how skillfully reporters could weave such narratives.

Earlier still, I had seen another paper suggesting Ms. Noe must have had compelling reasons to abandon even me - left with our two children - when she fled to Osugi-kun's side.

That particular reporter struck me as quite the amateur psychologist.

Ms. Noe lived with me for nearly six years and gave birth to two children.
So in the newspapers they write about me as "Ms. Noe's former husband" or "husband," but there’s certainly no mistake in that.
But when people speak as though my raison d'être lies solely in being Ms. Noe’s former husband, or as though I was born into this life to become famous through a woman named Ito Noe and then make retreating after being cast aside my divine calling, even I occasionally found it irritating.

Speaking of things that irritate me—it's rare indeed that even the faces of people passing in the streets don't get under my skin. If I were to mind each and every one of those irritations, I'd have to spend my life making vexation my divine calling. To thoroughly pursue emotional satisfaction would mean either killing or being killed—there are likely few other outcomes.

So when I find time to get irritated after somehow becoming a Dadaist, I make it my resolve to read an extra page from a book I love or drink an extra cup of fine sake—what a magnificently convenient resolve that is, wouldn't you agree? Those ignorant fools who know nothing of the origins of my thoughts and emotions occasionally put on airs of criticism while ignoring their own affairs—it's both utterly absurd and pitiable.

I have no intention of interfering even a finger in your lives.
I don't want any unnecessary meddling.

Were I to retrace the memories from when Ms. Noe and I first became intimate—going back over ten years now—it would become quite lengthy even as a novel, but for now I shall keep it to fragments. When I considered that being in the manuscript trade was precisely why I had to write such things, truly all that preceded them was nothing but disgust.

Ms. Noe was eighteen and a fifth-year student at U Girls' School, while I, ten years her senior at twenty-eight, had already been employed there as an English teacher.

Ms. Noe was not a model student.
Therefore, her grades were average, and she seemed to hold everything taught at school in utter contempt from the very outset.
Thus she generally had a poor reputation among the female teachers and did not seem particularly popular among the students either.

Her face was not particularly beautiful, her complexion swarthy, her clothes always slightly unkempt, and her lack of even ordinary feminine grooming—from any angle she was ill-suited as a romantic partner.

However, N-kun - who was in charge of the fifth-year class at U Girls' School when he helped me get settled there - and I secretly recognized and admired her genius aspects.

If I did fall in love with Ms. Noe, it was because I was drawn to her literary talent and her wild beauty.

Love is complex and subtle—it cannot be reduced to an equation—but looking back now, our love at that time seems to have been neither particularly romantic nor pure nor natural.

Far from it—at that time, I was in love with the daughter of a sake shop owner in Y——.
And that daughter was quite in love with me too.
I found supreme joy in writing letters to her.
She embodied the quintessential Edo-bred woman—her obi tied in the iiwata style with crimson dappled patterns, black collar crisp against her kimono—a true-blue downtown girl through and through.
An avid reader of Kyōka, my romance with her carried far more romantic fervor.
To dwell on her story would eclipse Ms. Noe entirely; though regrettable, I shall save this for another occasion—but rest assured, I was indeed enamored with that woman.
Thus did we ultimately part without my ever having held her hand.
When I considered her circumstances, I found myself lacking the confidence to ensure her happiness.

It might have been more accurate to say I was the one being loved by Ms. Noe.
Though not exactly what you'd call classically handsome, a young unmarried English teacher at a girls' school tends to find himself in precarious circumstances.

By nature a feminist and Mushanokōji-esque idealist who goes barefoot through life's meadows, I am someone who inevitably gets made a fool of whenever I respect women.
Therefore, I am indeed a born romantic as well.

A woman who, due to her family’s poverty, had been forcibly engaged through her uncle’s mediation to the sickly son of a wealthy man—receiving tuition from his household to attend girls’ school—and was fated to marry into that family upon graduation.
A woman who was aware of her own talent yet found herself in the plight of having to bury it.
A marriage devoid of love.

Ms. Noe—who had graduated and returned home only to bolt from there before even half a month had passed—came to me to consult about what course her life should take.

Even if Ms. Noe wasn’t exactly a desperate bird in need of shelter, when a young woman brought such a matter to me, I couldn’t bring myself to vehemently reject it.

After consulting with my close friend N and Vice Principal S, I decided to temporarily entrust Ms. Noe to the vice principal’s care; however, at that time, it seemed the principal and everyone else believed some relationship had already been established between us.
And they seemed to believe that Ms. Noe's elopement had been prearranged with me.
It was reported that her parents back home had filed a missing person report and that her enraged fiancé had come up to the capital in pursuit of Ms. Noe.

The one most distressed was of course the principal, who immediately demanded that if I intended to support Ms. Noe through to the end, I should first resign from the school and then do so.
Finding this entirely reasonable, I promptly decided to resign.

To dispose of matters so easily would render them flavorless and insipid—but truth be told, I had little desire to engage in such trivial affairs.

I had been supporting my mother and younger sister on a meager salary of thirty or forty yen as an underpaid teacher at a shoddy private school; quitting would inevitably plunge me into immediate hardship.
Yet by that time, I had already grown thoroughly sick of teaching.
Though it may not show, I had endured considerable hardships since my youth.
By thirteen or fourteen, circumstances had already grown so unfavorable that my love for reading The Pillow Book drove me to embrace world-weariness.
My mind had from its very foundation been structured in an exceedingly metaphysical manner.
Had I received a proper Akamon-style education, I might have become some utterly dull professor by now.
But through thick and thin, I managed to avoid such a fate.
Instead, I have lived as a rather self-indulgent man.

From age nineteen when I was hired at a private academy until twenty when I became an elementary school specialist teacher - through those years of living thusly, my youth withered away.
Had I joined those fools calculating seniority raises at twenty-three or four, I could scarcely have borne it.
I came to a somewhat liberating private girls' school, but lasting not even a year - in the end I cast aside my so-called life for that earthy red-collared girl called Ms. Noe.

To call it reckless would be an understatement. However, I considered this to be a good time to make a clean break. Moreover, I had never once engaged in something like love with a serious attitude up to that point. And then I considered my own age. I was nearing thirty.

Everything was conscious.
The emotions that had been compressed under prolonged oppression by a foolish, monotonous, penny-pinching environment had merely erupted all at once when the moment arrived.
At that time, I tried to greedily savor the satisfaction of my emotions to my heart's content.
For that purpose, a wild woman from Kyushu descended from the Kumaso lineage was far more suitable than a refined downtown girl raised in the city.

I lived in Somei at that time.
Ever since I was a boy, I had liked Somei, so I long wanted to try living there at least once—and at that time, I put that desire into practice.
This was when the Yamanote Line was beginning to be built, and I commuted from Somei to Ueno-Sakuragi-cho.
My old man died in Somei.
Therefore, even now, his grave remains there.
It was a house with a good view, perched on a cliff in the woods.
In the rice paddies below, there were hardly any houses.
The valley stretching toward Oji from there used to be my favorite strolling spot, but now it's ruined.
Nippori too had been quite wonderful when I was seventeen or eighteen.
Everything has gone to ruin.
Who reduced everything to this state? Why did it all come to this?
I'm speaking of Tokyo's outskirts.
In Somei Woods, I lived my first romantic relationship with Ms. Noe.
We pursued it without reservation.
Day and night we immersed ourselves in passion's flames.
For the first time, I truly lived.
Had I committed love suicide then, how happy I might have been!
When I think of this, I can only thank Ms. Noe.
The very notion of trying to continue such things forever is where the fundamental error lies.

Marriage is the graveyard of love—an old adage, but how true it is. The conclusion of love can only be when a man and woman, at the very peak of passion, die in each other's arms. If I were to live in such a listless manner and a child were born, of course that would be that’s all there is to it. But unless one is born exceptionally fortunate, rarely does one experience such love in their lifetime. Far worse—those inferior breeds who die without even knowing the first thing about love are aplenty in this world.

I am fortunate to still be continuing in love.
This love will likely continue as long as I live.
Unlike the messy and unnatural circumstances seen in Ms. Noe's case, this is a love born after my thoughts and emotions had finally begun to mature—far nobler and purer in nature.
Not only that, but I am even loved by one who possesses a young and voluptuous body.
She is resolved to sacrifice her entire life for me.
When I think of that, though I remain a destitute wanderer with nothing to my name, in another sense I am quite the fortunate soul indeed.
Therefore I feel no particular urge to envy those stormy petrels of our age.
When hunger gnaws, even love loses its vigor.
Though Horace of Rome likely declared 'Without bread and wine, love grows cold,' this truth that relationships end when funds run dry applies not solely to prostitutes.

A proletarian teacher who quit their school would immediately starve.
Even while teaching, I couldn't provide an ordinary life for a mother and two children—let alone anything luxurious.
So I taught night classes on the side and took work as a private tutor.
—All for a handful of coins!

From childhood onward, I was fond of literature.
However,I did not possess even the slightest confidence that I had the talent to stand as a literary figure.
Not only that,but because I believed literature should not be made a profession,I regarded it merely as my own diversion.
Yet I also thought that if one could make a living through dilettantism,there would be nothing more splendid.

Starting with whatever translation work was at hand, I began groping in the dark to devise a way of making a living through literature.
My knowledge of literature at the time was sufficient, but my understanding of the literary world remained utterly nonexistent.

My initial motive was not to end the romantic relationship with Ms. Noe, but to fully educate the talent she possessed.
For someone like me engaged in a profession bearing the name of teacher, it was only natural to maintain that degree of conscientiousness.
And if I could achieve that, I had vaguely clung to the rather naive notion that my having thrown my life away might not prove entirely meaningless.

Having passed through Christianity and socialism for the time being, I—then under the influence of Schopenhauer and French Decadent poets—found myself favoring Hōmei most among Naturalism proponents, while sensing that the Subaru coterie aligned closest with my own sensibilities. Yet I knew none of them personally.

Among my acquaintances, not a single soul pursued literature. Naturally unacquainted with any eminent authors of the era—belonging neither to Waseda nor Akamon factions—I recognized no one who might be called a proper literary figure, whether through direct or indirect channels. There existed those I secretly revered, but I never penned them letters nor felt moved to pay visits.

Osugi-kun started Modern Thought, and Ms. Hiratsuka Raicho was running Bluestocking.
Through newspaper articles, I developed an interest in Ms. Hiratsuka Raicho and found Bluestocking promising when I read it.

I considered advising Ms. Noe to visit Ms. Hiratsuka Raicho.

If socialism was a group of high-class delinquent boys, then Bluestocking was the group of high-class delinquent girls.
At least through society's jaundiced eyes, that must have been how it appeared.
Naturalism, Decadence, Nihilism—none of these imported modern ideologies were any good.
But as for Japan's indigenous thought—though I don't know what form it takes as a whole—if we're talking about Hōmei-style theories, I might well support them since I did like Hōmei. Yet when it comes to ideologies in general, I can't help feeling they're all imported goods.
If we were to extract Indian and Chinese thought from Japan, I wonder what exactly would remain?
But when it comes to ideologies in general, they aren't something particularly worthy of reverence—since they all spring from human minds, arguing over which came first or which is superior is utterly foolish.
Even if something's borrowed, if it's good, you should boldly make it your own and use it without a shred of shame.
There's no need for hesitation.
The ridiculous thing is that there are fools who shamelessly flaunt things they borrowed long ago as if they were ancestral heirlooms.
And even when shown things far superior and advanced to that, they consider borrowing them as if it were a disgrace, or as if it were something terribly dangerous.
There is absolutely no difference between boasting that one won’t ride dangerous trains or automobiles because they have their two ancestral legs and such behavior.
Whether it's electricity, machinery, or chemicals—if you call them dangerous, not a single one is safe.
But if one possesses precise knowledge of them and knows how to handle them, wouldn't they pose no danger whatsoever?

Ms. Noe became a staff member of Bluestocking and worked there through Ms. Raicho’s sympathy and understanding.
I too began visiting Ms. Raicho from time to time.
And so I seemed to have caused quite a bit of trouble.
And then I also became acquainted with people like Mr. Hoji Hakuu—who was then called "Auntie" within the company—Kobayashi's Katsu-chan, Araki's Ms. Iku, and Benikichi.
The "New Woman" was introduced to society solely through rumors that had her going to Yoshiwara to purchase courtesans, drinking five-colored liquors while spewing strange vapors, engaging in battles over same-sex love affairs, and fashioning young swallows wherever she went.
It was no different from how naturalism had been represented by Debagame.
But when one considers how Christianity had once been mistaken for witchcraft and massacred, such things might indeed be nothing at all.
A recent example would be Osugi-kun, but even now there are those who think socialism means either getting into constant fights with police or being some sort of activist shaking down the rich—it’s hopeless.
While there may well exist people parading about doing nothing but such things under the banner of socialism, there’s no shortage of bastards committing atrocities behind ostentatious and respectable façades.
In this world where even the most outrageous patent medicine advertisements will be carried by first-rate newspapers as long as one pays up.

My literary debut was the translation of *The Theory of Genius*, but as you know, *The Theory of Genius* is not a literary work.
Simply because the book was interesting, I had translated parts of it while working as a teacher, but I attempted to compile those translations into something I could exchange for money.

It was only ten years ago now, but when I think back to that time, literary arts had indeed become widespread.
Or should I call it having been popularized?
It was only natural that publishers of the time did not know Lombroso’s name.
How difficult the publication of that translation work had been, and how foolishly strenuous an effort I had expended for it—as I briefly noted in the preface—yet when I consider that even now the book continues through dozens of editions and remains beloved by readers, I find some small comfort in my heart.

One time, I left my translation text—namely the English version of *Man of Genius*—at Ikubundō in Hongō and went to listen to rakugo.
At that time—a period when I had sold off nearly all my bookcases and collection to live with just a dictionary or two and that text I was translating at my side—why, despite being that destitute, did I feel compelled to go listen to rakugo?

From Sōmei’s woods, I scraped together what little money I could muster with great effort and set out for the cheap seats at Kanda’s Tachibanatei.

There was a trio performance by Baguraku, Enba, and Kosen.
These three later became quite famous through Mr. Yoshii Isamu, though only Enba among them remained active thereafter—the other two becoming figures of the past.
That moment marked Baguraku's finale.
Some might not recognize the name Enba now, but the current Kinparatei Baishō was none other than that very Enba of those days.
The "Akubi," "Iseya," and "Mawashi" I heard then still rise vividly in my memory.
The thorough preparations I made to attend had been worth it.
And no doubt I had immersed myself in listening just as thoroughly.

For a long time after that, I made a living by taking on various cheap translation jobs.
I also helped with Hōmei's work.
Even now, it seems almost strange how I managed to keep living.

Ms. Noe later became famous for writing a long novel titled *Yōdō*.
When my eldest son was in her womb, I wrote about my falling out with Kimura Shōta, and Shōta-kun at that time wrote a long novel titled *Sakuin*.
Shōta-kun was breathing fire with such vigor back then that within that fervor, I found myself utterly despised from the start.
At that time too, I had said we could separate out of respect for Ms. Noe's feelings, but since she refused, I abandoned the idea.

In Nakazato along Takinogawa River—not far from Sōmei—there lived a woman named Fukuda Eiko. She had been involved with Ōi Kentarō in some capacity and seemed favorably disposed toward *Bluestocking* through her own identity as a former "New Woman." Around that time, a Chinese man who claimed to have studied in France and come to research Japan's social issues requested through Ms. Eiko to meet with new women's movement activists, leading them to arrange a gathering one day at Fukuda Eiko's Nakazato residence. Since he didn't understand Japanese well and they wanted someone who knew English to accompany him, I wound up going along.

It was then that I first met Mr. Watanabe Seitaro.
Watanabe-kun is now deceased, but he had been close friends with Hisaita-kun who froze to death in those mountains of Izu, and was quite well-regarded among the old socialists.
Watanabe-kun had been called something like the "Hakusan Saint" before his death—a man of such virtue—but I became extremely close with him from that time onward.

At that time, Watanabe-kun was radical—in other words, an anarchist—in his ideology. I didn’t care what ideology Watanabe-kun subscribed to.
I liked Watanabe-kun and respected him.

Afterward, it was again Watanabe-kun who introduced Osugi-kun to us.

Watanabe-kun doted on my child with greater affection than we ourselves possessed.
My dear Makoto-kun still remembers this vividly and misses that uncle.

It was also Watanabe-kun who introduced me to Eto Tekirei-kun, the author of A Certain Peasant Household.

Though I have had no communication with Mr. Tekirei for some time now, I secretly find strength in knowing that people like Eto-kun exist.
As I believe in Mr. Tekirei, I firmly believe that he too surely continues to believe in me.
I sometimes become a terrible misanthrope, but at such times I always find myself remembering Eto-kun and Watanabe-kun.

Ms. Noe went on to translate Emma Goldman’s *The Tragedy of Women’s Liberation* and other essays, becoming so deeply influenced by Goldman’s ideas that she herself came to demonstrate a fervor strong enough to aspire to become Japan’s Goldman.
The child born between Osugi-kun and her, little Emma, was indeed named after Goldman’s Emma.

If Ms. Hiratsuka Raicho was Ellen Key, then Ms. Noe was Goldman.

Ms. Noe came to edit *Bluestocking* on her own, and I was living in Sasugaya-cho, Koishikawa.

Ms. Noe had grown utterly renowned, while I kept living an unproductive life, barely scraping by.
Particularly, there even emerged someone like Nakamura Kogetsu-kun—called nothing less than a "warden of New Women"—who came to worship Ms. Noe.

Public opinion had somehow formed around us that it was utterly unpardonable for a genius like Ms. Noe to cohabit with a man like me and be unable to fully develop her talent.

At that time, everyone was eager to grow.
“That person has grown considerably” or “I’m immersing myself to grow” — such peculiar phrases had become fashionable.

Ms. Noe had grown by leaps and bounds.

The atmosphere for us to part had been fully formed.
At that moment, Osugi-kun appeared.
A stormy petrel of his generation had appeared.
This was utterly unbearable.

The other day when I glanced at Chūō Kōron, Haruo had brought me up in his writing.
He had written it imagining how I felt when I translated a passage from Laforgue or someone and had him listen, but that certainly remains in my memory.
As the astute Haruo had conjectured, that work of Osugi-kun’s, From the Ashes, had indeed changed my previous feelings toward him.
In that work, Osugi-kun was indeed trampling me from the start.
It was immediately clear that he was writing with full awareness of his superiority.
Despite this, whenever I am cited, I am portrayed as praising Osugi-kun behind his back.
But that leaves quite a nasty aftertaste.
I have never particularly made a point of formally praising Osugi-kun.
I had merely refrained from speaking ill of him to that degree.
Even a Dadaist like myself possesses an appropriate vanity.
However, that vanity was not only directed toward society but existed solely toward myself.
I am always gazing at myself and loving myself; I possess a vanity toward myself that prevents me from doing anything that would shame me.
That alone.
If I had any morality, then again, that alone.
To the extent of arguing with society as my judge, I have never once despised myself.

About six years after we began living together, our married life became extremely lax. Moreover, I became a selfish and incompetent man utterly unqualified to be the head of a household. I gradually came to know the taste of alcohol. I went so far as to fall for Ms. Noe's cousin. The cousin, on the grounds that Ms. Noe was cold toward me, took pity on me and looked after my daily needs. Ms. Noe was always out and busy at that time.

Discussions of separation arose frequently.
There was even an incident where Ms. Noe caught wind of my relationship with that cousin, sparking a conflict.
Ms. Noe promptly wrote it into a novel.
Ms. Noe was terribly prone to jealousy.

During the several years we lived together, I had stayed out overnight just once—it now seems almost unbelievable when I think back. Until we parted, we had hardly ever quarreled or argued. However, there was just one time when I threw a sake bottle at her forehead. Furthermore, upon learning about a week before our parting that she had clearly deceived me, I kicked her down and threw her to the ground. In total, there were only two such instances. On the day we parted, we remained quiet and bid farewell while praying for each other's happiness. Ms. Noe, true to her nature as a woman, had eyes brimming with tears. At the time, Makoto-kun was three years old.

Osugi-kun must have certainly written about this in *From the Ashes*, but it seems one reason Ms. Noe ran to Osugi-kun was that someone had written somewhere—dissatisfied with my lack of passion for social movements—calling me an egotist and cold.
The villagers' attachment to the mining-poisoned land along the Watarase River—their resolve to stay rooted there awaiting starvation—was something Watanabe-kun once recounted in a mournful tone, and Ms. Noe who heard this had been profoundly moved by it.
I later laughed at her because Ms. Noe's demeanor had struck me as peculiar at the time, but this sorely displeased her—dealing a significant blow to her pride.
I had respected Watanabe-kun, so when he spoke of such matters I listened with quiet reverence; moreover, his accounts were so thoroughly steeped in genuine feeling and sincerity that mockery was unthinkable—yet seeing a woman who lacked any knowledge of such things and couldn't properly care for her own child grow similarly impassioned struck me as absurd.
However, Watanabe-kun's earnest manner of speaking at that time may have stirred her to the depths of her heart.
If that were truly the case, then I would have been mocking the spirit of humanity dwelling within human hearts—and I can only bow my head in shame at having proven myself both a consummate egotist and a shallow man.

At that time, I was in no position to concern myself with social issues.
I couldn't even manage my own affairs; due to my own thoughtlessness, I lived causing worry and trouble to my mother, children, sister, and others—yet alongside this, a distinct posture toward my life had begun to take shape.
Those who can consider society both as their personal concern and as a matter for all humanity, then devote themselves to its reform and improvement, are truly great people.

I am such an unfortunate man that while I have often been made into a model for novels or exploited as material, I have yet to receive modeling fees even once.

People who want to know about Ms. Noe—or rather about me and such matters—would find it far more interesting to read those splendid artistic works than to read my trivial tales like this.

Shungetsu Ikuta's *Converging Souls*, Sukeshi Miyazaki's *The Lovesick*, Ms. Yaeko Nogami's *A Certain Woman*, Osugi-kun's *From the Ashes*, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's *The Shark Man*—and there remain various others still.

My life is truly adrift; by my own reckoning, I’ve yet to contribute anything to society or humanity since birth—I might as well be a germ. Yet my raison d’être seems to hold some semblance of significance through having supplied those masterpieces.
Moreover, in supplying tabloid fodder that relieves the world's boredom for a time, my existence doesn't seem entirely meaningless either.
Just because one is born in the Empire of Great Japan doesn’t mean there’s any obligation to spend every waking moment getting worked up, ranting and raving over pointless arguments that contribute nothing to production.
Even if society occasionally lets a single troublesome individual like me eat idle meals, it won’t cause any significant harm to the nation.

I am but an idle layabout of absolute non-learning and non-action, merely wandering aimlessly without carrying a single bomb in my pocket—so you officers of the law need not trouble yourselves with concern. If on top of that I were to be sweet-talked by someone, well, that would truly be the end of me.

Society's nerves are too frayed. Their paranoia runs too deep—encounter savages who comprehend neither jest nor humor, and there's no hope of salvation. Culture has regressed three thousand years. Were they primal beings driven purely by instinct, one might deal with them as one does lions or tigers, but the true nuisance lies in this glut of half-baked education and such.

There's the saying about casting pearls before swine, but there's also the one about giving blades to barbarians.
I don't know how noble socialism may be as an ideology, but those who wield it aren't necessarily noble themselves.
The same goes for Buddhist or Christian doctrines.
Just look at the history of Buddhism and Christianity.
How many barbarians have committed murder under the guise of God?

I have nothing to say about Ms. Noe and Osugi-kun's deaths—though I hear they came by my house in K-town that day, but that was likely just because Osugi-kun's brother lived there, so they stopped by while in the area.

Ms. Noe, shortly before she was killed, sent Makoto-kun a copy of Fabre's Natural Science that she had co-translated with Osugi-kun and which was published by Arusu.
That became Ms. Noe’s final gift to Makoto-kun and thus a memento.

I became what might be called a full-fledged bohemian these past several years—since parting with Ms. Noe, or rather since being liberated from her. With a complete change of heart, I returned to myself and lived as I pleased. Yet whenever something arose, what was always cited remained this debt I could never shake—a lingering presence refusing to fade. I would likely be cited time and again until my death—and even beyond. Muhōan had recently left another farewell note, pontificating about turning his favorite karmic bonds into grand principles, but this obsession with predestined connections truly left one no recourse—resignation indeed being the only recourse.

I had entrusted my mother and Makoto-kun to my younger siblings and had been wandering, staying away from home even then. At that very moment, I had drifted to Shikoku Port and was thinking about where to go next—which was why, during my absences, Ms. Noe had apparently come to see Makoto-kun frequently. Moreover, there was this peculiar anecdote from when I was in Shitaya—during our cohabitation, Ms. Noe would come over accompanied by an attendant to review the shamisen she had learned a bit from my mother. Even my mother, brother, and sister—they all seemed to like Ms. Noe. Only Makoto-kun did not seem to like Ms. Noe very much.

It seems senior colleagues have written here and there about Osugi-kun’s fondness for children, and Makoto-kun was apparently often taken to Kamakura, Hayama, Odawara, and various other places by Uncle Osugi-ya—as Makoto-kun always called him.
However, fortunately this time alone—since my house had collapsed and we moved—Makoto-kun wasn't taken by Uncle Osugi-ya, with poor Sōichi-kun becoming something of a substitute instead. When I consider this, though I don't know Sōichi-kun myself, I find myself associating him with Makoto-kun without any distinction whatsoever, which consequently makes me think of Sōichi-kun's mother, then of Ms. Noe—until before I know it, I unconsciously give my poor donkey companion's rump a good smack for slight consolation, though I also find myself contemplating Tristram Tzara of Romania who did literature with a pistol in his pocket.

In this life where flowerpots may indeed never fall from balconies onto one's head, while Hans Arp who meditates pointlessly in his boardinghouse attic about having not a single sen to tip the café waitress tonight is quite the fool, an old man like myself who writes this foolish manuscript while needlessly thinking of dear Makoto-kun and Ryuji-kun on the Kazusa coast is equally an odd duck.

Ryuji-kun was Makoto-kun’s brother two years younger, and Ms. Noe had once eloped with Osugi-kun, only to end up abandoning the infant Ryuji-kun on the coast of Kazusa in her utter desperation.

The fortunate Ryuji-kun was currently undergoing an apprenticeship in proletarian life under the kind care of his uneducated foster parents, but even I occasionally found myself at a loss when confronted with the thick Kazusa dialect and its peculiar accent. However, Ryuji-kun was being immensely doted upon. He was being raised with utter indulgence—to expect anything beyond that would be wrong for someone like me to demand. Ryuji-kun, may you become a splendid Dada!

I fastened my stiff men's sash while Ms. Noe adorned her married woman's topknot with crimson cords and donned black-collared garments, plucking shamisen strings as we sang eerie melodies—but she who then leapt to prominence as a women's liberation activist, became an anarchist, and met a tragic end amidst that generation's stormy figures and a rare natural disaster was truly a pitiable figure.
It was regrettable.
It was even more terrifying.
It was an unspeakable event.
It was so absurd it left one's mouth agape.

Even among soldiers, there existed those like Nelson and Moltke, then those resembling General Nogi—yet conversely, one also found soldiers of the Amakasu or Mamekasu stripe. If Jiraiya counted as a thief, then Ishikawa Goemon too qualified as such. Nezumi Kozō and Ikake no Matsu-kun stood numbered among thieves as well. Napoleon was said to have been a grand looter amidst conflagrations. Conversely, rumor told of thieves who stuffed stones into canned goods destined for wartime troops. Even among thieves, there flourished remarkable variety. Thus when bundled together indiscriminately, no human could endure such categorization. If Koreans meant arsonists, socialism meant bombs, Bolsheviks meant propaganda leaflets, anarchism meant assassinations, capitalists meant exploitation, the proletariat meant honesty, historical materialism meant Marx, evolution meant apes, Omoto-kyo meant divine revelations, and what should embody righteousness turned out to mean great earthquakes—then all became as insufferably absurd as dubbing a crucian carp "Gengoro" or a hair cord "Bunshichi."

It is said that Jesus pissed without washing his hands, drank wine, associated with prostitutes, and befriended fishermen; but as for me, truly having friends throughout the realm, if they're people I take a liking to, I become friends with them regardless of their circumstances, profession, ideology, personality, talent, beauty or ugliness, wisdom or folly, wealth or poverty, et cetera.
Therefore, the range of my social connections is truly boundless; though my official occupation in society appears to be that of a literary man, beyond writers and artists my circle includes artisans, actors, speculators, rakugo storytellers, prostitutes, socialists, sailors, anarchists, monks, factory girls, geishas—and so on and so forth.

Whether they be writers, artists, scholars, or socialists—whatever they may be—I detest those I can't stand.
It seems there are those who detest people merely because their spiritual lives share my hue—detesting them through envy.

Though I'd only met Taira-kō of Takao—the one who was killed—two or three times, I attended his funeral because he was someone I quite liked.
I never once discussed socialism with him.
As for what he was—Bol or Ana or whatever—I still haven't the faintest idea.
There's no need to know.
I simply liked the human being called Taira-kō.

Then there was someone like Kurose Haruyoshi of Pantorai—a decade-long friend from my Asakusa wandering days—who certain ideologues claimed was a spy; but whether he was a spy or just a sweet talker, I'd never bothered to taste-test him myself. Still, I sometimes worried that guy might have been crushed to death in this earthquake.
The name Pantorai was also one I had bestowed, and just like the Heitai Tiger who had lived in Senzoku-cho—they remained precious friends to me.
That the young prostitute who saved De Quincey from starvation in London was the very one readers of my celebrated translation of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater would already know well—but during my wandering days in Senzoku-cho, those who gave me drinks and meals and pocket money had likewise been private prostitutes and gamblers and other mysterious figures of uncertain origin.

Among my relatives were those connected to the Iwasaki family and even some possessing tens of thousands in assets, but when such times came, they proved absolutely useless.

But given that Japan had become quite cultured by now, you'd think two or three eccentric rich people who respected the ideas and art of Scholar Gypsies like myself would have emerged by now, willing to send me off to France or some such place.
I had absolutely no intention of holding back or refusing, so you could rest assured.

Since I am a Dadaist and neither a socialist nor an anarchist nor anything of the sort, rest assured on this point as well—I won't go inciting the proletariat or anything like that in return for being allowed to study abroad.

Ms. Noe had been educated as a daughter of a respectable family in her childhood; had she been raised more honestly and harmoniously without being bullied, she might have been able to develop her talents more fully.
She might have studied more calmly.
Unfortunately having led an irregular life, becoming notoriously unconventional, falling victim to shallow vanity, being flattered into recklessness.
Stubborn, prone to tears, grudge-bearing, jealous, undisciplined, lacking financial sense, and wild—Ms. Noe.

But I liked Ms. Noe.
The child Ms. Noe bore, Makoto-kun, I liked even more than Ms. Noe herself.
Whatever faults Ms. Noe may have had, I loved her essence.
Mr. Baba Kocho, my senior, had said of Osugi-kun that he "was a good person," and I too would say of her that she "was a good person."
I want to say Ms. Noe.
I had no right to speak ill of Ms. Noe.

Osugi-kun was rather stylish himself, though Ms. Noe had also become quite fashionable before I knew it.
She might have been that way by nature, but when we first got together, she hadn't seemed to be.
But perhaps it is only proper that women are inherently meant to be stylish.
However, she wasn't particularly skilled at applying makeup.

My mother meddled and imposed her peculiar tastes on Ms. Noe, who became oddly refined and began playing the shamisen, but I didn’t realize this might have laid the groundwork for her stylish upbringing.

But civilization and culture are merely other names for stylishness.
Civilization could not exist without this instinct for stylishness.
I too consider myself quite mentally stylish and extravagant.
The French decadents were all much the same.

Whether it's bourgeois culture or some other culture—I don't know—but human evolution amounts to nothing more than becoming stylish.
Even proletarian culture opposing bourgeois culture can't just be about everyone strutting in blue work clothes.
Isn't it rather that all people—every human—must uniformly lead luxurious, cultured lives?

Those styling themselves modern capitalists strike me as mere barbarians clutching financial power.
Inferior beasts obsessed with gilded trash; among them you'll scarcely find one who understands art or scholarship.
Just look at the cities they've built—how pathetically grubby like garbage heaps, how bleak like some American town's outskirts!

It wasn't that I wandered by choice.
It was simply that there existed no pleasant place to settle my rear end.
Perhaps nowhere—no matter where I went—could satisfy an extravagant and self-indulgent man like me.

Stiff and stingy in their peculiar rigidity, never knowing how to savor life from the depths of their hearts, lacking even a single song to fully entrust their emotions, butting heads within their narrow boxes while making exaggerated fusses, recklessly producing feeble-minded children, having no talent beyond boasting of financial might and physical strength, meddling wantonly in others' lives without any personal philosophy, tormenting the weak through ignorance, shamelessness, and crudity—to enumerate it all would be truly beyond words.

The feelings that drove Mr. Nomura Kuihan and Mr. Arishima Takeo to their double suicide were all too easy to imagine.
Having no partner for a tragic love suicide, I'd sullenly become a Dadaist instead, putting on airs without an ounce of shame.
I didn't know whether my way of living was good or bad, but at present I knew no other means of survival besides this.

I had intended to write about Ms. Noe but ended up writing little.
I hadn't been particularly motivated from the start.
Moreover, I was terribly unskilled at the kind of storytelling that meticulously details things from the very beginning like some country bumpkin.
What's more, I strove to forget the paths that brought me here whenever possible.
The habit of drinking alcohol made me forget without any effort.
If it had been a pleasant past, I might have made an effort to recall it.

I won't put on airs and claim there were no lingering attachments.
But had our circumstances been slightly more settled back then, perhaps we all might have spared ourselves such bitter feelings and avoided squandering those trivial emotions.

(November 1923, Shikoku Y Port)