Pathway to Japanese Literature

White clouds.
Two or three advertisement balloons drifted in the sky.—Seen within the angles of Tokyo’s towering stone buildings, their glittering silver-gray sheen under the sun’s rays—people proclaimed this a modern urban landscape.
Very well.
We would descend by following the square red and blue advertisement letters lined up as "Tenkatsu’s Great Magic Show" or "So-and-So Café Opening on Such-and-Such Date." Though invisible to those walking below, beneath them hung a single rope swaying grandly in the wind.
This would guide us.
Then, we arrived unexpectedly—though of course, no one had time to ponder trivialities like where these advertisement balloons ascended from—at a grimy, weather-beaten drying platform that bore no resemblance to fashionable spheres.

West of the police box in front of Tawaramachi, behind Asakusa Park, lay a vacant lot that had once been a derelict temple. Numerous tombstones had fallen and lay buried in the earth, with bluish weeds peeking through between them—visible through gaps in a fence made from old sotoba. Shifting one’s gaze further revealed a three-story house tilting severely toward this desolate graveyard.—The balloon was tethered to this third-floor drying platform, where morning and evening, the landlord—clad in a straight-lined striped *meisen* kimono—emerged with a pallid face to perform his operations. That is to say, he would watch as the deflated balloon—swelling contentedly when filled with hydrogen gas—rose leisurely while casting a large shadow; or wind up the thick rope to haul it in as it descended, threatening to snag across the entire roof.

Needless to say, this was not the primary occupation of this man over forty.
From the Tokyo Aerial Advertising Company, he likely received a certain allowance as their local agent—this too constituting a significant portion of his income—though his official business lay elsewhere, and he operated numerous other side ventures besides.—
The three-story house of his that we saw from the graveyard faced the rear; were one to go around to the front and observe his shop, one might somehow come to understand why—despite drinking two *go* of milk daily—he sported dry, flaky skin, rabbit-like red eyes that darted restlessly, and a body reeking of grime.
To such an extent was his shop gloomy, dust-filled, and unhygienic.
Objects untouched for ages—pots and kettles, straw hats, shoes, kotos, mirrors, ornate clocks, braziers, toys, abacuses, bows, oil paintings, magazines and more—lay weathered, yellowed and greasy, rotted with mold.
Yet, the only things moving vibrantly through these cluttered tools in their narrow gaps were the landlord’s children.—The wife still tied back her reddish-brown, malnourished hair and wore a freckle-covered, weary expression, but she was terribly fertile, burdened by bearing children year after year.
Once, she had been courted by a *tekiya* and had nearly succumbed to temptation, but she restrained herself and went so far as to offer the following excuse.
She had refused him thus: “Given my constitution that gets me pregnant immediately upon relations, this affair might come to light later. When it does, I’ll be beaten until I can’t stand, driven out, and left starving—but you’re a philandering womanizer who’d never lift a finger to help me. Imagining that outcome, I simply can’t do it.”

The owner also ran mediation services, daily-interest loans, and other such side businesses.
For the latter, he placed an advertisement in the three-line notice section of the morning newspaper: "Easy Loans - Azuma Shokai." This was his chosen method—instead of getting bogged down with unrecoverable loans, he simply resorted to swindling "investigation fees."
That is to say, he collected investigation fees—one yen for local applicants, two yen for those outside the city—ostensibly for credit checks and collateral assessments, only for these investigations to invariably conclude that financing could not be arranged.
The scheme presented itself as an investigation fee designed to unearth pretexts for loan rejection.—Pretexts lay scattered everywhere: whether collateral existed, a guarantor’s creditworthiness, if the wife was officially registered, or children were present. Even when all conditions were met—if a pitiful applicant answered “six months” to “How long have you resided at your current address?”—the company would declare they only lent to those inhabiting the same location over a year. And even if it had been over a year—“No—households under two years pose difficulties,” they’d state—thus fabricating any justification to extort investigation fees.

These two side ventures alone animated his otherwise gloomy countenance, bringing vitality only to his eyes.
Though red-pupiled, whenever he rolled those eyes upward, their whites flickered with a cold gleam.
When conducting investigations—no matter how distant the location—he would ride his bicycle there, move sluggishly in grease-stained wooden clogs, and speak only in sparse, fragmented phrases.
Yet upon returning home, he became remarkably brisk—dashing between first and third floors, peering into every room, deftly engaging each person he met in conversation.—This was compelled by yet another of his side ventures; as one might already surmise, his three-story house was operated as an apartment complex.

The third floor had been added later after overriding the wife’s objections that a Kagura third floor was inauspicious.
This fact not only spoke to the owner’s accumulated wealth but also explained why, when viewed from the graveyard side, the house appeared tilted—its windows irregularly arranged with earthen hibachi stoves, Seto-style washbasins, and occasionally withered potted plants—alongside three drying platforms of varying sizes creating an impression of being haphazardly and roughly piled together.

Though it was called an apartment—no—one ought not use that term suggesting even a hint of tidiness or well-equipped Western-style rental rooms.
The reason being that when passing by the broken sotoba fence and reaching its entrance, a wooden signboard inscribed with “Azuma Apartment” hung there—explicitly disavowing any resemblance to such accommodations.

Therefore, even if one were to say this apartment was not so different from an ordinary boarding house or cheap lodging, it would be understood without suspicion. Even so, slippers—the apartment owner called them “sureppa”—lay haphazardly discarded beside the geta box at the lower entrance, while the rooms lining both sides of the corridor had brown varnished doors that could be locked from inside or out, making some effort to approximate a quasi-Western style. However, once you entered a room, for some reason the boundaries between rooms were demarcated with fusuma sliding doors and glass shoji—though of course these had been nailed shut to prevent opening—so that their lives were half-exposed. The tatami mats, walls, and pillars—dry and constantly cracking—were all soaked with various human fluids, emitting a filthy, foul stench. Needless to say, the room would shake whenever a car honked and sped down the main street, and even the mere act of someone walking through the sticky, dust-clinging corridors or stairs would make the entire room reverberate.

The kitchen area teeming with cockroaches sat at the top of the second-floor stairs adjacent to the toilet; with its narrow sink space containing only one faucet and two gas stoves, it grew so crowded during meal times that people had to stand waiting for openings.

Despite such filth and inconvenience, most rooms appeared occupied due to the cheap rent and convenient location.
A six-tatami room cost ten yen, with gas, water, and electricity fees totaling one yen fifty sen—making eleven yen fifty sen in advance rent.
Many held jobs in Asakusa Park, but what manner of tenants were they?

They considered the rent high given the room's facilities. They believed that if possible, it should be reduced—particularly given the recent economic slump, charging the same amount as before seemed outrageous. They concluded it would be better to negotiate collectively with the apartment owner rather than individually.—One night, since many worked past midnight, they discussed from around 1 a.m. until just before 3 a.m., ultimately resolving to demand a one-yen reduction. Though the next day marked month-end, none paid, instead awaiting a response from the portly movie narrator who had undertaken negotiations. Yet early next morning, the owner went room to room rousing tenants and collecting rent. Someone must have informed him of their scheme—all paid under his furious glare as if their pact were forgotten. Still, none betrayed complicity through expression or word.—Summoned by ceaseless phone calls, the late-rising narrator found traitors already offering transparent excuses from afar: claiming they’d actually paid upon joining last night’s pact. Recognizing his impotence alone and resigned to the owner’s enmity, he too paid the fixed rate.

Given their nature, they had no training in communal living whatsoever.
A cleaning rotation existed, but even in the kitchen area and in the bath—filled every other day except during summer—they seemed intent on making things as filthy as possible.
Vegetable scraps, fish bones, and trash lay scattered about, and when two or three people used the bath, so much white scum and soap residue would float up that it clung to their skin until the water reeked of urine.
When needing to enter another room, they would throw open doors without knocking, or casually push into unlocked toilets to startle whoever happened to be crouching inside.

Of them all, the noisiest must have been the women with time to spare.
At the center of this were two Yoshiwara Wives; they would stay shut in their rooms during the day while their husbands were present, but at night—carrying confectionery bowls—they would visit each other’s rooms, gathering women to spend hours gossiping late into the night.
Outside the rooms, women’s slippers and sandals lay piled up, and their shrill laughter could be heard from every corner of the apartment.

Their recent topic of conversation appeared to be how a romantic relationship could possibly be conducted between an old man and woman over sixty.—The old woman had long been living in third-floor Room 1, but recently an elderly man of similar age had moved in there as her husband.
He was an exceedingly reserved man by nature—seemingly hyper-aware of having married into the old woman’s household—for whenever he returned home, he would always announce “Good day” or “Good evening” before entering their room.
Then the old woman said in a gentle voice,

“What’s this? Where in the world does someone say ‘Good evening’ when returning to their own home? Say ‘I’m home’ or ‘Just got back,’” her scolding voice carried all the way outside their room. In response, the old man answered happily with “Un,” setting down the food and toys he’d brought back as presents for the girl there. The child—who turned seven this April and started elementary school—was the illegitimate child of the old woman’s younger sister and had been entrusted to her care.

Even so, the next day, the old man still whispered “Good evening” as he slipped into the room, and the old woman repeated the same grievance. For quite some time now, this exchange had continued ceaselessly between them, becoming fodder for the women’s gossip and laughter—though there was truly nothing amusing about it.

They had met at Gidayū storytelling theaters. The old woman was working there as a secondhand dealer, and the old man—who frequented nightly to hear a Gidayū chanter named Takemoto Komawaka—became acquainted with her through these visits.

And so, with the fervor and resolve of a middle schooler, the old man took what little pocket money he had and rushed off from his son’s house—where he had been living until then—to come to the old woman’s side.

The reason his time at his son’s house had been painful was neither because his son and daughter-in-law abused him nor because they subjected him to material hardships.
Far from it—they cared for the old man, lavishly clothed him, and fed him well.
This was because their son was a broker—a man of such means that he possessed three telephones, including long-distance lines.
But for the old man, there was something lacking.
Wasn’t his daughter-in-law merely serving him as her husband’s father?
In that lay something rather selfish.
The son remained preoccupied with work and hounded by money.
No one considered what the old man truly wanted in life, nor did they provide it.
That was affection.

That parental affection he now found among recent acquaintances who were strangers.
He immersed himself in it, kneading loose the tangles in his heart.

The old woman was also pleased to have him. Therefore, as painful as it must be, she resolutely prohibited him from even attending the gidayū theaters he so loved, fearing that his son’s family might come searching for him there. And so she suggested he watch Japanese movies or low-budget kabuki plays with nothing but a single strip of cloth as a stage prop—but the old man deemed this reasonable enough, becoming the child’s playmate until she fell asleep, after which he would stroll through the park, drink a single bottle of sake, and return home. Then, his face—with a silver beard growing from his sideburns—turned red all the way to his neck as he meekly entered the room with a "Good evening."

After the girl began attending school, necessitating early morning wake-ups, he deliberated and purchased an alarm clock.
It was a small device that would begin singing *"Neither Smoke Nor Clouds in Sight"* at the designated time.—As he turned its alarm hand to seven o'clock, the old woman spoke while drinking tea she had brewed.
Her words carried an implication akin to a young mistress addressing her lover—imploring him never to leave them no matter what happened, but expressing her fear that his son might hire a detective to sniff out his presence among them. “That’s what worries me,” she said.

“Even if they come from home to fetch you, you won’t go back? Grandpa, you really mustn’t go back,” she said in a coquettish voice.

Then, speaking of how comfortable he now felt there, he declared he would never return home—he was resolved to have his last water given right here.
Moreover, he had recently been making an effort not let his eyes so much as touch newspaper advertisement sections.
The reason was that if ads seeking him appeared there—using clever phrases like “Father’s whereabouts known”—some demonic influence might take hold and make leaving their side not impossible after all.

These exchanges were eavesdropped on by the hysterical Yoshiwara Wives, who recounted them to everyone along with the old man’s reminiscences and the old woman’s sympathy, provoking uproarious laughter—though there was truly nothing amusing about it.

The old woman questioned the old man about his past dealings with women and such.
The old man answered plainly, saying that since being bereaved of his wife at thirty, he had had little contact with women, and thus reassured the old woman.
“My wife developed early-onset something-or-other insanity and died in madness, you see.”
“The doctor said it was because she’d had too much mental strain, but—”
“At that time, our poverty was so severe that it must have been poverty that killed her, I’m sure.”

Before these words had even finished, the old man was startled.
The Yoshiwara Wives in the neighboring room, who had been listening, also said they were surprised.
It was because the old woman had suddenly started crying.
The old woman said while crying:

“I understand, I understand.”
Then her voice trembled with sobs—“Poverty drove her mad, leading to an early death—I understand your late wife’s feelings, and your own feelings back then, very well.”

Then both fell silent.
The old man found it too troublesome to go downstairs, so he urinated into the chamber pot placed near the futon's edge.
Then, crossing his thick arms mottled with brown spots, he lay down—and remained unable to sleep for a long time.

The old man was a light sleeper who always woke before six.
Thus he truly needed no alarm clock.
Yet in the pallid morning light through the window, he waited for the hands of the clock by his pillow to reach seven.
Just as he thought it would start singing, the clock abruptly silenced its ticking and cheerfully began playing "Neither Smoke Nor Clouds in Sight."
With a relieved expression, the old man shook the girl sleeping pillowless beside him.

“Come on, Chii-chan, the clock’s singing so it’s time to get up. Chii-chan, wake up, it’s school,” he said in a hoarse, raspy voice, phlegm having gathered in his throat that morning.

It was precisely at this hour that the wives in the neighboring room had made a habit of going to bed, but every morning they ended up having their sleep disrupted by the alarm clock.
Of course, even before now, there had been things that disturbed their naps.
That was the gramophone in Room 4.

In Room 4 lived a café waitress with her lover, but the man was constantly away from home, staying overnight elsewhere.
That was because he had other women.

The woman would play several records and listen to them before leaving for work.
She seemed a true music enthusiast, yet there was no air of leisurely enjoyment in her listening.
After stopping one record about halfway through, she would try playing a noisy one next, only to abandon that partway as well and switch to another—such was her pattern.
She listened to music because she was irritated, and as a result grew even more agitated.
Therefore, when the wives with free time would say—"Look, the hysteria’s started"—it wasn’t entirely off the mark.

The man worked as a fabric auctioneer named Sakura.
A womanizer—though his pimples were slightly noticeable, he was a fair-skinned, handsome man.
It was this man who had made advances toward the apartment owner’s wife.
In that case, it had failed due to a strange reason, but it could be said that such things had hardly ever happened until now.
However, he considered it a grave misfortune in life to have learned just how fragile women were.
And while this fact depressed him, given the circumstances, he had no choice but to indulge in chasing women.
Therefore, in his case, the capacity to feel any preference or selectivity toward women had been extinguished.
If all women appear uniform, then naturally that would be the case, wouldn’t it?
This loss in life appears to increasingly reside within him, spreading ever wider.
For women harbor a kind of affectionate sentiment toward a man with an established reputation as a lothario and willingly approach him.
This was likely due primarily to their prior understanding that all pleasure was inherently irresponsible, and to the paradoxical sense of security derived from how easily the man could be obtained despite the competitive rivalry stirred among women.—

This phenomenon was also occurring among the idle wives in the apartment.
They waited to be seduced by him, yet with their mouths would say things like, "He may be the handsomest man in the apartment, but how he'll get involved with anyone at all—it's revolting! That's the flaw in the gem."

And though they were jealous of the Room 4 waitress, they remained entirely unaware of this fact and instead vociferously badmouthed her.
The waitress’s poor standing among the wives stemmed chiefly from this very point.

He who endured such losses in life shouldered yet another tragedy.
That he had come to love his mistress—the café waitress—with his whole heart.
For a man who distrusted women as a class to love one individual woman!

While entangled with other women, he would sometimes feel violent jealousy toward his mistress, the waitress.
The thought would suddenly torment him—that his mistress, being of the same fragile sex as these women, might be exhibiting such behavior toward other men.
That his own philandering should become the very spark igniting this jealousy was an inescapable truth.

Moreover, this tragedy had ended as nothing more than a tragedy—for there existed not a single action from his mistress that warranted such inverted jealousy. That she proved the most steadfast among thousands of women he'd bedded not only failed to redeem him but dragged him deeper into suspicion's labyrinth.

Once during a gang crackdown when his associate was arrested, he phoned the man's mistress—who worked at the same café as the Room 4 woman—and lured her over. The woman, harboring self-destructive tendencies, drank herself senseless and yielded to his advances. Unable to stomach her presence past midnight, he returned to Azuma Apartments. Though secretly hoping to find his mistress absent or betraying him, she lay sleeping peacefully in Room 4 and even shifted to make space when she noticed him.—When his pent-up tension snapped, he turned his fury inward before redirecting it at her. He struck her while snarling curses—"You'd cheat free as a bird if the cops took me!"—and though self-loathing gripped him mid-blow, this warped mentality persisted long after.

Recently, after losing at a gambling den, he had borrowed money from a certain man who had taken an interest in her, using his mistress as collateral.
At that time, since he was able to recover it immediately, no change occurred in their relationship; but when he returned from an all-night gambling session, his usual habit resurfaced. He began accusing her: "You must have feelings for that man—it has to be true! Otherwise, there’s no way he’d lend me money with you as collateral!" This nearly led to a bloody scene.

And so, the only outlet he had for this gloom remained ultimately women, and his dissolute daily conduct continued unabated.
Since April began, he had gone to earn money at the Kanazawa Exposition with a troupe of street showmen but sent letters to his mistress nearly every day.
Filled with semi-threatening phrases, they reflected the warped visage of lust he must have been squandering in that region.—

And the mistress in Room 4, fully aware of this, would prepare to leave for work with a look of driven impatience, haphazardly playing one record after another.
Her fondness for music seemed to grow increasingly intense, though needless to say, she herself had not yet pinpointed the reason.

In stark contrast to Sakura, the dashing fabric auctioneer, there lived in Room 7 next to the second-floor toilet a cook who—having been thrown in a shoulder toss for the sake of a single woman (the first he had ever known)—had sunk into deep melancholy and turned misogynist.

His face looked weak-willed at a glance, and his eyes blinked nervously behind his nearsighted glasses.
To leave his room, he had to pass in front of the kitchen area, but whenever the wives clustered there, he would hurry out with his gaze slightly lowered and eyes downcast, as if afraid of being watched.—The idle wives, strangely enough, did not make an issue of him.
When they caught a fleeting glimpse of his stooped back in the white cook’s uniform, only brief impressions would cross their minds—thoughts like “What a dutiful man” or “How utterly unremarkable he looks”—along with speculations that he must have saved up quite a bit in postal savings by now.
Despite being single, the fact that he never became a topic of conversation as a man must mean he lacked what’s called sexual charm.

Thus, while working in the kitchen of a cheap bar in Asakusa Park, he had never had any quarrels with women.
A shriveled man whom no one paid any mind—this man had an incident where an ill-natured woman (though she was that) came barging in shouting alongside a fixer, causing no small surprise and making the apartment residents stare wide-eyed in astonishment.

His long, peaceful life that had remained untouched by women until past thirty.
Every eighth of the month—payday at the cheap bar where he worked (a flask with appetizers for ten sen, hot pot for ten sen—utter bedlam)—was filled with women’s voices calling in customers, drunken patrons’ arguments, speeches, naniwabushi ballads, teasing banter and coquettish giggles, liquor spilling across long wooden tables, and from the back kitchen: “Order up!”
Amidst the disorderly jumble of voices calling “Order up!”—though it was payday at the cheap bar—when night deepened and the surroundings grew quiet, when the kitchen lights were turned off and his coworkers all went together to the bathhouse before heading out to enjoy themselves, he alone would become solitary, leave the late-night park, and return to the apartment.
The thirty-yen salary was then divided in various ways before him as he gripped his pencil.
He jotted down the total of his various payments on the back of a fabric store sale advertisement that had come with the newspaper.
From what remained, he would plan out how much would be his monthly allowance and how much would go into savings.
And he never attempted to break this plan.
Therefore, if something happened and he ended up using it up early, it was usual for him to go without even tobacco money for the remaining days.

The balance in his postal savings passbook had already surpassed two hundred yen. Someday, when he would establish himself independently, this would become necessary; until then, he had resolved never to touch this sum, no matter what happened, fervently wishing to grow it to at least five hundred yen.

Everyone called this rigid man an eccentric and treated him specially—a treatment that served to make him increasingly lonely and inept at social interaction—but even he possessed the passion to converse at length, provided he found a kindred spirit. Once, when one of the kitchen workers fell ill, a young man came to assist, and upon discovering they were both avid readers of Kubota Mantarō, the two passionately discussed his artistry. He was surprised to realize just how talkative he could be. And before he knew it, he grew excited, his voice rising and tears welling in the corners of his eyes as he emphatically argued how cooking itself was an art and how devising combinations to present to customers allowed one to savor artistic joy. And, despite the other’s reluctance, he simply had to treat him to beer. He himself did not take a single sip, yet urged him to drink.

However, the joy of discovering that even he could become pleasantly excited in such a way at times was offset by his regret—upon regaining his composure the next day—over having already spent that month's allowance. And for a while afterward, he brooded over it, thinking he had done something utterly trivial.

It was he who first came to know a woman—a maid working at the same establishment. Clad in matching gaudy new moss-patterned kimonos with red aprons, they bustled about attending to customers all day long. Since it was such a noisy establishment—having to shout orders to the kitchen or call out to passersby—their throats grew hoarse, further roughened by the thick tobacco smoke perpetually swirling through the shop. Thus when customers tried joking with them, they'd retort in unexpectedly deep, rasping voices that never failed to startle.

And so they moved ceaselessly all day—grasping sake bottles by their necks, balancing plates on their palms, teetering in weather clogs across the damp earthen floor as they nearly collided in their haste. They took meals in shifts at the kitchen out back. Standing with sashes still tied, they'd place side dishes on shelves and shovel down cold rice. After wolfing it down, they'd invariably pick their teeth with little wooden sticks before tossing them aside and ducking into the toilet. Then they'd return to the shop floor once more—listening to orders before barking them toward the kitchen in shrill voices.—

The woman he knew was a young woman who had been working busily among them.
He had held goodwill toward many women, but since they ignored him, he had long since lost any feelings of particularly favoring anyone and developed a habit of indifferently viewing all women as entities unrelated to himself, regarding them uniformly.
However, when the young woman approached him with an overly familiar manner, he was somewhat flustered.
And the cold feelings he had long held toward women had completely vanished on their own, to the extent that he began ardently viewing all women with affectionate regard.

The woman said she had something she wanted to discuss with him.
He lost his composure and abandoned all mental preparedness to the point of immediately agreeing to anything presented.
Moreover，it was also true that he developed a sweet determination to do anything for her.

He heard the woman’s story and became strangely，utterly agitated.
A woman was before him，being sold off to some rural Daruma teahouse—if he wanted to save her，it wasn’t impossible；rescuing a single woman from such a cruel fate would be a monumental act—these thoughts looped through his mind.
He impulsively asked how much money had plunged the woman into such adversity；at that moment，he was driven by the urge to immediately produce it for her.

The woman answered through tears.—He lamented whether a woman’s entire life could be spared from ruin with merely two hundred yen.
And after declaring that if it was only that amount of money, he would do something about it, he added in an affected manner—though it was by no means out of some strange ambition, but simply because he couldn’t bear to watch.
Of course, he did not realize that a woman’s coquetry—something he had rarely encountered before—was what had driven him into such a frenzy.

That this justification had been a lie became clear when one recorded here the three distinct thoughts that arose in his mind as he withdrew his savings: first, profound regret at depleting this money accumulated through years of toil; second, a fleeting cloud-like humanitarian fervor that negated that regret—the conviction that he could now rescue a woman from the mire; and third, nestled between these two thoughts, a sweet expectation—how grateful she must feel toward me after all I’ve done—alternating feverishly in his brain with the aimless relentlessness of delirious ravings.

When he handed the money to the woman, he suddenly felt tired; it seemed slightly regrettable that no one knew he had so freely parted with such a large sum.

Indeed, the woman repaid his kindness.
But for him, novelty had taken precedence, leaving him merely in a giddy state of mind.
However, there was a dream—he was envisioning running a household.

The result ended terribly.
What an ill-natured woman she was!
She came with her lover and threatened him.
He looked down with a face on the verge of tears as they hurled words like adultery, abduction, and chastity.
Then in a trembling voice, he began defending himself—insisting he'd meant no harm—but grew so flustered he couldn't speak coherently.
They declared this threat to his life proved their serious intent.
At that, he lost all means to argue his innocence and could only apologize, admitting wrongdoing.
He kept begging forgiveness.
His pitiful display left him weeping so loudly after their departure that eavesdropping apartment residents heard every sob.

The lover came time and again and demanded a break-up fee.
He had demanded a hundred yen, but when it came to money, he found the courage to desperately negotiate.
And so, it was finally settled that he would pay fifty yen in monthly installments of five yen each, and he was forced to sign the peculiar document bearing purple revenue stamps that the lover had brought.

Because of this incident, he was occupied until late every night, and as his sleepless nights continued, the bone beneath his glasses became prominent.
He had developed an even gloomier, more listless face.

Without any joy, he hauled his hunched body to the kitchen each day.
The women’s voices echoed noisily through the shop, but that terrifying man had already gone off somewhere.

——

On the eighth of every month when payday came, that woman's father would come from Tsurumi to collect the five-yen monthly installment from him.
The old man had been a peasant farmer but seemed to believe his daughter had advanced money to the cook and that he was now collecting repayments himself.
The wicked woman must have told him this and granted her father rights to five yen each month.

The cook couldn't endure even brief conversation with this unpleasant visitor.
Yet the obtuse old man would leisurely smoke tobacco, request tea, settle in comfortably, and launch into various trivial topics.
Then he began speaking about his daughter like this:

“Since she’s no longer a respectable woman anyway, I just hope she’ll find some fool with money to deceive and squeeze a little support out of him—but as it stands now, she just spends whatever she gets right away and doesn’t send a single yen my way.”

The cook was seething with bitterness.
He had resolved with a sour heart to have nothing more to do with women and had become a complete misogynist, but such a good-natured man might well become overjoyed if someone were to show him kindness again.

The movie narrator living in neighboring Room 8 also looked like a genuinely good-natured man.
He was on the shorter side and quite plump, with thick stubby fingers and a handsome beard.
He always wore white tabi socks and a haori, keeping himself impeccably groomed.
Since he appeared sociable, attentive, and eager to help—and with the idle wives making such a commotion—he had even been selected as their representative during the rent reduction demand movement.
Of course, this was also because everyone assumed that as a narrator, he must be eloquent and would likely handle negotiations smoothly.

However, this man was ill-natured despite his appearance and played petty tricks.

For example, this time, as his wife’s due date approached, he had her return to her parents’ home to give birth.

The apartment owner always claimed that those who slept together here would surely conceive a child soon—and indeed, this held true for the movie narrator too, perhaps influenced by that ever-pregnant freckled wife of his.
Of course, the movie narrator had been there all along, while it was the wife who had pressed her way into his life.
And truth be told, she had already been three months pregnant at that time—a fact known to none.

Around this time, a labor dispute erupted at the movie theater where the narrator worked.
Having transitioned to talkies, dismissals of narrators and accompanists along with severance disputes had ballooned into a full-scale conflict involving technicians, stagehands, and even errand boys.
—And since this portly narrator held executive status, he naturally assumed a leadership role in the strike committee; yet he proceeded to deliver a rousing speech to the union members.

“Gentlemen, yesterday I sent my wife back to her parents’ home in Ibaraki Prefecture.”
“I had no choice but to do so in order to become unencumbered and fight bravely.”
“Gentlemen! To protect our lifeline, I implore you to steel your resolve and fight to the bitter end!”

This tendency to exploit everything for his own purposes was his defining characteristic.

Even in this labor dispute, that held true.
He had absolutely no need to fight desperately like the many other narrators and musicians.
After all—he was slated to be rehired as a clerk at that very permanent theater following his dismissal.

Yet he needed to participate in the labor dispute in an entirely different sense from his fellow employees.
No matter what happened, this issue would see the workers initiate a struggle.
As a company, they had to steer the union toward defeat as much as possible—a task requiring heavy reliance on compromised executives within their ranks.
One role involved serving as a safety valve to prevent escalation; the other necessity stemmed purely from personal motives—since he clashed with the theater’s sales manager, launching the dispute here would likely get the manager dismissed or transferred due to professional accountability.
This became his precise objective.

And so, the struggle erupted without even awaiting superficial instigation from the weak-willed executives.
Yet the portly movie narrator in white tabi socks foolishly believed this mass uprising had been orchestrated by a mere flick of their own fingers—a gross overestimation of their influence.

The labor union occupied the dressing room and barricaded themselves inside.
At the theater, management blocked the passage between dressing room and stage, then after closing time deployed gangsters into the auditorium to face off against them.

Meanwhile, the seven negotiation committee members met with the company executives.
The three committee members there—the moment they opened their mouths to say “We...”—were arrested.
And then, the other four went out with the executives to the teahouse.
The executives said that if they would resolve this quickly, they would show their gratitude to them all with dispute funds.
“And since talkies had reached an impasse in America too, this current dispute would likely become meaningless. Though you’re demanding two years’ worth of severance pay, I believe that within six months, things would return to silent films, and narrators and musicians could resume their work,” they said.
The leader in white tabi socks, deeming this reasonable, resolved that he must popularize the opinion.

And at the employee assembly the following night, he presented the executives’ opinion exactly as it was.

Then someone yelled, “Don’t spout nonsense! Talkies are inevitable! But what we’re fighting against are the capitalists who’ve been exploiting us all this time and now want to drive us out with a pittance!”

He became utterly depressed.
However, with his inherent affable attitude, he took in the heckling,

“That’s right—in any case, this battle is one that governs our very survival. Let’s fight to the bitter end!” he declared, descending from the podium.

They argued that unless they scaled back their demands as much as possible, the company would never agree to them in this Depression era—but just then, news arrived that four permanent theaters in Koto had all entered into sympathy strikes at once.
Thereupon, the employees’ morale revived, and the prevailing voice became one of fighting to uphold their current demands no matter what.

A messenger came to the leader in white tabi socks.
When he slipped out of the labor union headquarters to investigate, it was the company manager.

If things continued this way, he said, a general strike might engulf all of Asakusa—before that happened, he wanted them to bend every effort toward resolution.

The leader smiled amiably as he explained that this would require treating the dressing room occupation as criminal trespass—arresting the ringleaders and driving out the rest.
They could either enlist police assistance, he elaborated, or spread rumors of gangster raids to terrify the stagehands and waitresses, have key figures placed in protective custody, then launch a surprise attack.

——
The manager crossed his arms and pondered, then grunted.
“Well then, I’ll count on your continued efforts.”
“I’ll take my leave for today—you must be busy too,” he said, withdrawing and leaving behind the leader in white tabi socks who still seemed poised to speak.

The leader noted how alarmingly pale the manager had looked.
He must be losing sleep over how large this dispute has grown, he thought.
Then anxiety crept in—perhaps their inadequate efforts had offended the manager.
If so, even that promised clerical position might slip through his fingers.

Just as matters reached this critical juncture, a report arrived that two more permanent theaters had begun to waver.
The leader was thrown into a panic.

Rumors of clashes with gangsters spread, and the police ordered protective custody and commanded an end to the barricaded occupation.
Amid the chaos, the negotiation committee—now composed solely of weak-willed executives—hurriedly pushed through a resolution.

Needless to say, the labor dispute ended in a crushing defeat.
No severance pay was provided; instead, as dispute funds, they gave a lump sum, with service allowances set at two months per year of service, and beyond that, one month for each additional year—such was the state of affairs.
The weak-willed executives gave tragic speeches.

The leader in white tabi socks, having declared that he had deeply resolved himself, sat with a pallid face—unlike his usual demeanor.

――That night, the leader met with his usual drinking companion—a newspaper reporter.
And then he said jokingly.

“If I kill myself, how many columns would you skip in covering it?”

Then he told him that in truth, he felt responsible to the union members for the crushing defeat of the labor dispute and intended to take sleeping pills.

The news reporter stared fixedly at his eyes—the glint in them seemed to flicker slyly.
At that, he too smirked slyly,

“When are you going to do it?”

“Tomorrow noon—right after the disbandment ceremony—I’ll carry it out.”

“That’s no good,” said the news reporter.

“Then it won’t make my special feature.”
“How about after two in the morning?”
“After the morning edition deadline passes—that’d suit everyone better.”
“You’re doing it at your apartment, right? —So an article like this: ‘Talkie Dispute Leader Attempts Suicide Over Responsibility.’ Hmm?”
“To spell it out: A certain individual attempted suicide by swallowing Veronal early this morning but was fortuitously discovered writhing in agony due to taking a small dose and received treatment.”
“His life is expected to be preserved.”
“Regarding causation, a suicide note addressed to the union was found, which attributes this act to the leader’s acute sense of responsibility over today’s Talkie Dispute ending in catastrophic failure and rendering employees destitute.”
“Furthermore, intimates have stated he recently exhibited mild neurasthenia from sleepless overwork.”
It might be better not to add anything beyond this.

“I’ll send this article before you take the Veronal—thanks to this, I can get a drink with the special feature fee.”

The leader in white tabi socks then wrote two suicide notes.
One was addressed to the labor union, as the news reporter had already turned into an article; the other was mailed—that one was addressed to the company manager and executives.
In the latter as well, it stated that he had come to atone through death as a result of keenly feeling responsibility—responsibility for prolonging the dispute and allowing sparks to fly elsewhere.

With this, his charming face would now be presented to both sides.
Thereupon, he thought he must thoroughly research Veronal’s lethal dose this time and calculate it carefully—even if treatment were delayed—to ensure he wouldn’t die.

Then he grew reluctant to give his drinking buddy—the news reporter—exclusive rights to a special feature.
"I want to be splashed across every newspaper," he thought.
Though he couldn't outright mention dying, he told the reporters gathering the labor union's final story that he'd made a momentous decision.
To make the evening edition, he reasoned noon remained optimal.

In Room Five across from his, a Yasugi-bushi performer had lived with two disciples until their poor rent payments prompted the red-eyed landlord to evict them.
The perpetually feuding disciples bickered even while moving—"You're too stiff onstage! No wonder you're unpopular!"/"Hah! You think I'll simper like some whore? I charm customers through Yasugi-bushi alone!"—as they hauled belongings downstairs.

After that, the antidote-peddling girls who had come from Echigo moved in and were carrying in the cooking utensils and business tools that had been specially sent over.
Since they were ten in total, it was decided they would also lodge in the adjacent room to the leader in white tabi socks—Room 9.

These sunburned girls—after they bathed in the bath there, the water would take on a sunny smell and become briny—were largely the same faces as last year, but about three familiar ones were missing.
They had likely already married.
Instead, a girl who had just graduated from elementary school had newly joined them.

They found the day excessively warm and had stripped down to just their undergarments and waistcloths, tying a merino obi sash over them as they organized their belongings in the place they would live for the next two or three months. At that moment, someone’s anguished groan could be heard, but it seemed drowned out by their cheerful, almost careless chatter and the clamor of their activities.

In the evening, the landlord climbed up to the clothes-drying platform to lower the advertisement balloon. The platform had rotted black from rain and wind, groaning with a creak each time he stepped on it. He first cast his eyes toward the advertisement balloon being blown eastward by the wind, then gazed at the movie theater where yesterday’s labor dispute had unfolded. He spat toward the derelict cemetery below—the space beneath the platform corresponded to the leader’s room, though he had remained asleep since before noon and still showed no signs of waking.

The evening edition’s deadline had long since passed, and deliveries were already complete. Yet there seemed to be no particularly unusual articles anyway. In the end, the amiable leader in white tabi socks would likely continue sleeping forever without anyone rousing him.

(June 1932)