Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

Attacking others was pointless.
The true target of attack should be their gods.
It was precisely the enemy’s gods that had to be struck down.
But to strike them down, one first had to discover their gods.
People thoroughly concealed their true gods.

This might have resembled a murmur from the Frenchman Paul Valéry, but I—having suppressed my rage for ten years even when enraged—now had to write these things monthly in this magazine (Shincho), however much others might resent me for it. An “era” had arrived, independent of my own will, compelling me to seek forgiveness from all my connections or even resolve to sever ties, fully aware that this would be called grandiose or pretentious and provoke disgust from those people. In short, I intended to write my protest.

I began by invoking Valéry’s murmur—not that I lacked the sentiment of fighting poison with poison.
The majority of those I must now attack were men who had studied in Paris two decades prior or—as sole providers for mothers and children—had become celebrated authorities on French literature through such means alone: model sons and husbands who recklessly strung together French names to pose as so-called “cultural figures.” Though these individuals surely never saw themselves thusly, they were riding the wave of society’s fools welcoming them like authors of that antiquated Field Service Code.
Another thing I utterly detested was those who affirmed old things precisely as they stood.
A new order must exist.
This might involve some disorder before achieving apparent harmony.
Yet I thought it comparable to how water grows briefly turbid when one adds duckweed to a goldfish bowl.

Well then, what should I say this month?
Like that old poet—Virgil or whatever his name was (I’ve forgotten the exact one)—who appears at the beginning of Dante’s *Inferno*, my voice may have grown hoarse from too long a silence, and I might fail to write with the dazzling clarity needed to jolt you from your slumber. Yet I write on, convinced I shall gradually win your sympathy.
If that weren’t the case, I wouldn’t bother writing in this era of paper shortages—would I?

There existed a group of “old masters.”
I had never had the opportunity to meet even one of those people.
I was astounded by the sheer force of their confidence.
From where did that confidence of theirs spring?
What, then, was this so-called god of theirs?
I had finally come to realize it now.

It was family.

It was family egoism.

That was ultimately their prayer.
I believed I had been deceived by those people.
It was a vulgar way to put it, but wasn’t it just that they loved their wives and children?

I read a certain “old master’s” novel.
It amounted to nothing more than the author striking poses with expressions meticulously tailored to please their circle of patrons.
Though it epitomized superficiality, fools praised it as “splendid” and “pure-hearted,” while the worst among them even revered it as something “aristocratic.”

To deceive the world—this is what defines these people.
If it’s superficiality, then why not let it remain superficiality?
Why must they disguise their essential frivolity with other qualities and flaunt it?
I am not condemning superficiality.
I myself wonder if I might not be the most superficial man in this world.
Why must it be obscured by other qualities? To me, this remains utterly incomprehensible.

Could it be that their ultimate wish was nothing more than the comfort of family life? While crushed under their wives’ opinions, that desire to somehow win their wives’ approval—ah, how vile—such feelings festering somewhere in their works left me as helpless as if assailed by a toilet’s reeking stench.

Desolation.
That is a precious nourishment for the heart.
However, when that desolation connects solely to one’s own family, to outside eyes it appears utterly repugnant.

If they themselves were to write of that repugnance with so-called “humility,” it might even make for an interesting read. However, when they themselves write about it with such affected pretension, as if playing martyrs, and I hear there are readers who brace themselves at this hardship—I can only be utterly appalled by its absurdity.

Life—(I can state this with conviction)—is a place of suffering. (Being born is the beginning of misfortune.) But life is about conflict with others, and in our spare moments, we must eat something delicious.

It’s edifying.

So what? If we do not taste delicious things—even those not deemed so-called “edifying”—where then lies the proof that we are alive? We must taste delicious things. We must taste them. However, in the dishes offered by the so-called “old masters” up to now, I have not felt a single one to be delicious.

Though I wondered whether to list each of those “old masters” by name here, I despised them so utterly that even had I tried to name them, I might as well have claimed to have forgotten their names altogether.

They were all uneducated.
It was violence.
They knew nothing of weakness’s beauty.
That alone already rendered it unpalatable to me.

A race that could not distinguish delicious from foul was wretched.
I thought these people of Japan—and I believed even the national title “Japan” should be changed, along with immediate reform of the Hinomaru flag—were hopeless.

They seemed to lack any capacity to savor art.
Rather, it was the readers who differed.
Those posturing as cultural leaders understood nothing at all.
Prodded by readers’ support, they reluctantly muttered things like, “Well, I suppose my (Dazai’s) so-called unhealthy works might count as serious efforts after all.”

Deliciousness.
When one’s palate grows numb, flavor becomes indiscernible—only quantity or texture matters then.
Despite discarding rotten ingredients and painstakingly selecting only the finest morsels to serve them, they’d gulp it down in one swallow and demand, “This doesn’t fill our bellies! Don’t you have anything more nourishing?” A veritable depravity of appetite.
I couldn’t endure their company.

They knew nothing at all.
They did not understand.
They did not even understand the concept of kindness.
In other words, I wanted to protest this: had these seniors of ours ever spared even half—no, even a quarter—of the effort we juniors desperately exerted to care for and understand them, to consider the hardships of those who came after them?

I heard a certain "old master" disliked my works for feigning ignorance, but what of that "old master’s" own works?
Was he boasting of his honesty?
What was he boasting about?
This “old master” prided himself greatly on his masculine appearance; when I once opened his selected works, there was a splendidly framed profile photograph—and not a trace of embarrassment in sight.
I thought he was utterly insensitive.

That I gave that person the impression of feigning ignorance might stem from my ennui, but I cannot help being exasperated by their overzealousness.

To speak with fervor is proof of insensitivity—it denotes a state of completely disregarding others' sensibilities.

Delicacy (I must confess, this word feels rather embarrassing)—those lacking it may never realize how deeply they wound others, however unaware they themselves remain of it.

Literary giants who think themselves grand while dismissing this and that as worthless and finding nothing to their liking—embarrassingly enough—seemed to exist only around us, while being scarcely found overseas.

Moreover, a certain “literary giant” seemed to be saying that Dazai knew nothing of Tokyo’s language—but I suspected that person might be clinging to the mere fact of being born and raised in Tokyo—no, rather, relying solely on that as his lifeline.

That was no different from saying that bastard couldn’t produce good literature because he lacked discernment.

Lately, I found myself utterly appalled—it seemed the so-called “old masters” were lamenting the corruption of our national language.
They were pretentious.
How self-satisfied they were.
They shut their eyes to the fact that the corruption of the national language began with the corruption of the nation itself.
Even during the war, those people had been of no use to us.
At that time, I thought I had seen their true nature.

They should just apologize. They should just say “I’m sorry” and be done with it.
They are determined to remain entrenched in the same place, unchanged until death.

The so-called “young ones” struck me as equally shiftless—did they truly lack the courage to smash these gilded tiers? Why shouldn’t you cast aside what tastes rancid on your tongue? We must transform ourselves root and branch! Though no lover of novelty myself—under this petrified hierarchy—I could declare with visceral certainty that suicide alone remained our escape hatch!

Should those moldering “old masters” still dismiss this outcry as youthful hyperbole—mere hot air—then I resolved to perform my most repugnant act yet! Not threat but testament—our agony had ripened beyond bearing!

This month’s text turned into something of a general critique—no, a seething, indiscriminate rant—but I ask you to consider it first as a demonstration of my resolve, a prelude to the peculiar things I shall henceforth address one by one to those foolish scholars and foolish literary giants.

To the readers of my novels, I say: Do not condemn this rash act of mine.

II

They speak only and do not act.
They bind heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with so much as a finger.
All their deeds are done to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the fringes of their garments, and they love the place of honor at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called Rabbi by others.
But you, do not be called Rabbi.
Nor accept the title of Teacher.

Woe unto you, hypocritical scholars! You shut the gates of heaven before others; you yourselves do not enter, nor do you permit those who would enter to do so.
Blind guides! You strain out a gnat yet swallow a camel.
Woe unto you, hypocritical scholars! You appear righteous to others, but within you are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.
“Woe unto you, hypocritical scholars! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate monuments to the righteous, saying, ‘Had we lived in our ancestors’ time, we would not have joined in shedding the prophets’ blood.’”
Thus do you yourselves testify that you are sons of those who slew the prophets.
Fill up then the measure of your ancestors.
Serpents! Brood of vipers! How can ye escape the damnation of Gehenna?

“Mr. L, I’m sorry, but it seems I may have to start speaking out against you this month.”
“So, I hear you’re a scholar now.”
“You must have studied quite hard.”
“During your university days, you didn’t seem particularly ‘academically successful,’ but I suppose it must have been your ‘effort’ that made the difference.”
“By the way, I recently had the chance to peruse your essay-like piece by happenstance. While I was greatly astonished by its pretentious air, what truly sent a chill down my spine was how you—a scholar of foreign literature (a rather peculiar term at that; one might mistake it for ‘foreign writers’)—seem to read the Bible in such a careless manner.”
Since ancient times, has there ever been a single Western literary figure who was not tormented by the Bible? Were they not tens of thousands of stars revolving around the Bible as their axis?

However, that may be my so-called naive perception—you all, even while noticing it, may be shutting your eyes to it out of fear of your own self-ruin.
The essence of scholars.
There are parts I dimly grasp myself—or so I feel.
Your so-called “god” is “beauty.”
It is pure white gloves.

I once began learning Greek out of necessity for studying the Bible, felt a strange joy and an unnatural pride akin to that induced by narcotics, and—I must clarify it was not due to my own laziness—abandoned its pursuit.
If you were to reside so nonchalantly within that unhealthy—one might say—bizarrely hollow pride spinning idly, then perhaps it would be no wonder if Jesus himself were to tell you, “You are like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside but…” and so forth.

The studying itself wasn’t bad.
It was the pride in studying that proved harmful.

“Through being permitted to read those translations that encapsulate the essence of your so-called ‘study,’ I derived immense pleasure.”
“Regarding this matter, I’ve always maintained a sense of gratitude toward you all.”
“Yet I also believe there exists nothing as miserable and impoverished as your recent essays.”

“You are—mark my words—nothing but language teachers.”
“The absurdity of drafting introductions to Baudelaire while shouting ‘hooray for sweet red bean soup’ in domestic bliss with your wives and children is one matter; the contradiction of boasting about your ‘masterful translations’ while insisting one must read the original to grasp its flavor is another—but fundamentally, you people appear to possess no comprehension whatsoever of ‘poetry.’”

“Fleeing Jesus, fleeing poetry, resentful at being called mere language teachers, yet putting on airs as ‘Rabbi’ in response to journalism’s demands—but what is the last thing you have that still holds even a shred of society’s trust? If you know this yet slyly exploit it to preserve your own ‘status,’ how disgraceful.”

Culture? You have no confidence in that. Fundamentally, you can’t even distinguish what’s delicious from what’s foul, or tell fragrance from stench. You’re just parroting that foreign “literary giants” or “geniuses” are good—and that only after a century has passed.

Elegance? You have no confidence in that. Though you long for it so pitifully, all you’re capable of achieving is a cultural life beneath red-tiled roofs.

In language studies, of course, you have no confidence.
However, you all preach to the masses in a tone like self-styled “enlighteners,” putting on airs.

Overseas study.

Might it not be that—surprisingly—it was precisely there your mutual deception with the masses had taken root?
Do not dare say “Surely not!”
The masses took an almost fearful interest in overseas study—strangely so.

Let us consider the matter of country people moving to the capital.
Even if all someone did was see some exhibition in Ueno twenty years ago and eat beef sukiyaki on Hirokoji, upon returning to the countryside, that alone would add considerable prestige to their standing.
The masses paid heed to this—how could they not find it unbearable?
Let alone someone who studied law in Tokyo for three years through hardship (though one could complete such studies through correspondence courses as well)—if they had such credentials, they would inevitably be thrust into becoming one of the village leaders, whether they liked it or not.
For country people, the shortcut to success lay in moving to the capital.
Moreover, those country people always returned home at some half-hearted point.
That was the secret.
Those who quarreled with their family and fled the countryside as if driven out—who had never seen the Exhibition, Nijubashi Bridge, or the Grave of the Forty-Seven Ronin (or had no desire to see them)—such people moving to the capital were our allies. But how many among Japan’s so-called “those who studied abroad” had ever boarded ships with the intent to escape Japan?

Going abroad was bothersome, but if you endured three years of it, you could become a university professor and make your mother proud—so those around you blessed you and performed send-off rituals like “Kashimade.” Wasn’t this true for most of you who studied abroad? Since this had been the tradition of Japan’s overseas scholars, it was no wonder no decent academics emerged. What I found utterly perplexing was how these so-called scholars’ so-called “reminiscences of foreign study” all appeared strangely cheerful when I read them. I was convinced there could be no joy in it. Japan as a nation had long existed beyond foreign masses’ concern. (Since starting that reckless war, it seemed to have gained some notoriety—or rather, infamy.) I had long felt something tragic in those groups of country middle school girls touring Tokyo, but I knew that were I myself to go abroad, I would inevitably become exactly like those figures.

Ugly-faced Orientals.
Stingy struggling students.
Red woolen blankets.
“Hey, nice work there!”
Dirty teeth.
“Does Japan even have trains?”
Constant anxiety over delayed remittances.
That melancholy, humiliation, and loneliness—which of those “who studied abroad” ever wrote about them?

In the end, they were simply happy.
It was the Ueno Exhibition.
The beef at Hirokoji was delicious.
What progress was there?

“Strange to say, you ‘those who studied abroad’ try to hide the misery of your lives overseas.”
“No—you’re not hiding it; you simply don’t notice it. If that’s truly the case, then this conversation is pointless.”
“Mr. L, I refuse to associate with you.”

“By the way—you ‘those who studied abroad’ dispense flattery with peculiar ease.”
“At drinking parties, even the most foolish writers refrain from such antics, yet you lot spout things like ‘Ah! Mr. Dazai! I’ve longed to meet you—your work *××* left me awestruck—let’s shake hands!’ And just as I begin to take you seriously,”
“that very same individual later eviscerates my work in newspaper critiques or roundtables with such venom it reeks of personal spite.”
“I suspect this too stems from some affectation acquired during your overseas sojourns.”
“Courtesy and vengeance.”
“Culture-mangled apes.”

You've lived a wretched life.
And now you stand as wretched creatures.
"Quit hiding it."

This is personal, but there is something I recall.
In the spring when I entered university, my brother came up to Tokyo—(our father had died, and my brother, while still young, had inherited a considerable portion of his estate; one intended use of that inheritance seemed to be what you might call a world tour)—and at a soba shop near my boarding house in Takadanobaba,

“Won’t you come along too? How about it?”
“I intend to make a round trip, but you can stay in France or wherever along the way and study French literature if you like—do as you please.”
“Which would be more convenient for study: going to France after graduating from the French literature department of the university, or entering the university after returning from France?”

I answered almost immediately.

“It would still be better to first study the basics at university.”

“Do you think so?”

My brother wore a sullen expression. It seems he had also wanted to take me along as an interpreter, but since I refused, he appeared to reconsider and thereafter stopped bringing up the subject of going abroad.

In fact, at that time, I had told a blatant lie. At that time, there was a woman I loved. Simply because I didn’t want to part with her, I concocted a flimsy excuse and refused the overseas study. Regarding this woman, I later faced terrible hardships. However, I do not regret any of those things now. For I have even come to believe that struggling with a poor, foolish woman is both more difficult and more honorable as a human endeavor than studying abroad.

There was nothing that rang as hollow as the souvenir tales of those who studied abroad. They bore a striking resemblance to country bumpkins’ stories about their Tokyo sightseeing trips. Picture postcards of famous landmarks. Not a single whiff of citizens’ actual lives lingered there.

To put it in terms of academic writing, they amounted to those utterly vulgar yet vacuous essays in women’s magazines—titled pretentious things like “New Woman’s Path”—that nonetheless put on airs of affected refinement.

If you are secretly entertaining the thought that no matter how hollow, base, or hypocritical I may be—since this world swarms with such comrades—there’s no need to writhe in agony and spout destructive harassment; just climb the ladder, seize that professorial title—then what more could I possibly say?

However, scholars these days had strangely begun making all sorts of comments about my work.
People had told me, “They’re fools anyway—there have always been such idiots in every era—so pay them no mind,” but I was neither magnanimous enough to laugh off those filthy fools’ words (villains would be more apt), nor some detached sage wholly indifferent to criticism (I guarantee no such sage has ever existed across all ages and nations), nor could I claim my work was so unshakably robust that no slander could ever taint it. Thus against those whose words and deeds had long sickened me—now I attempted this act of self-defense: a protest.

I once read a so-called review of my novel *Villon’s Wife* by a certain “foreign literature scholar” in some literary magazine, but I was so dumbfounded by its sheer lack of intelligence that I genuinely wondered if the man might be suffering from chronic sinusitis. Though university professors are nothing special, I shuddered at the heinousness of the crime that such people were teaching literature at universities.

This fellow writes:
(Though I’ve heard François Villon was not such a man as this) What twisted vanity!
It doesn’t even qualify as wit or jest.
It doesn’t even rise to sarcasm.
These university professors secretly gratify themselves through such acts; this seems to me the very expression of that pathetic self-importance common among so-called scholars.
Moreover, when that fool of a professor claims—(the author is snickering behind this work)—I find myself so absurdly ridiculous that my pen-hand trembles.
What a poverty of imagination.
The one snickering “hee-hee-hee” is none other than the professor himself.
That snickering laughter suits the professor perfectly.

Even if that work had five thousand readers, I believed there would likely be none—save for that “noble” professor alone—who perceived the phrase “hee-hee-hee” as some vulgar term.
O honored one.
Thou art one among five thousand.
Feel at least some shame.

Fundamentally, the relationship between author, critic, and reader might have been likened to the vertices of an equilateral triangle—(though if each had sat at positions like △, facing outward, it would have been utterly pointless; they must instead sit facing inward, with the author speaking, the reader listening, and the critic either chiming in with agreement, voicing doubts, or requesting pauses on the reader’s behalf)—but lately these foolish professors had been crawling out in droves. If we imagined two points on a straight line representing author and reader, these professors wedged themselves into that very line’s midpoint and abruptly went “hee-hee-hee.”
Both the author in the midst of the narrative and the reader could only find themselves utterly bewildered and perplexed.

Frankly, I’d rather not say this much—but while writing my works, though I have memories of agonizing efforts that felt like dying, I have not once recalled any “hee-hee-hee.” No—isn’t that so obvious it’s almost banal? Even as I write this, I grow utterly disgusted by your idiocy; my pen grows heavy and my face twists into a scowl.

As was stated in the Biblical passage I cited earlier: *Woe unto you, hypocritical scholars! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate monuments to the righteous, then declare, “Had we lived in our ancestors’ time, we would not have partaken in shedding the prophets’ blood.”*

If it’s the work of some labeled literary master from a hundred, two hundred, or even three hundred years ago, you’ll prostrate yourselves in worship without complaint and strain to promote them—yet when faced with a writer right beside you, all you can do is snicker “hee-hee-hee.” For all your vaunted literary studies, one can only call them suspect.
Even Jesus would recoil at this.

Another foreign literature scholar critiqued my short story “Father,” saying, “It was truly enjoyable to read, but nothing remained the next morning.”
What this person sought was a hangover.
That it was enjoyable to read in the moment—this constituted their very sense of happiness.
The greedy, lascivious, stubborn creature who couldn’t bear letting that happiness fade by morning—this too proved to be one of those great fools of a professor.
(Let me make myself clear:
When you lot hear such things—especially from someone like me branded as public enemy number one—you put on that affectedly refined smirk and deflect with remarks like, “Ah yes, according to Mr. Dazai’s theories, I’m apparently one of those greedy, lecherous, obstinate great fools of a professor,” but I’ll have you stop that.
I mean every word.
That’s precisely why you need to grow a shred of seriousness.
“Hate me, and think.”) A condition where satisfaction hinges on hangovers—that’s true “unhealthiness.”
Why must you all wallow in such shameless, reputation-be-damned craving?

“In literature,” I declared, “the most important thing is ‘wholehearted devotion.’”
“Though I say ‘wholehearted devotion,’ you people likely wouldn’t grasp it.”
“Yet calling it mere ‘kindness’ would gut its essence.”
Heartfelt intent?
Ardent spirit?
Considerate care?
Even these fell short of the mark—a blade too dull to pierce your complacency.
“No,” I concluded bitterly. “It can only be ‘wholehearted devotion.’”
Only when that devotion bled from author to reader did literature’s eternal flame ignite—its precious glow kindling joy where none had burned before.

I think I mentioned last month that food isn’t merely about filling one’s stomach—but furthermore, the true joy of cooking lies neither in quantity nor even in whether it tastes good or bad.
The cook’s “wholehearted devotion”—
That is what brings delight.
A dish made with sincerity—do you even grasp such a concept?
Doesn’t it taste sublime?
That alone suffices.
To crave a hangover is vulgar.
You ought to quit it.
By the way, that Maugham—your pet author—is precisely the sort of writer who leaves you nursing a slight hangover, no doubt perfectly suited to your palate.
But you might at least acknowledge that this Dazai fellow right beside you possesses more refinement than that decrepit old man, don’t you agree?

Despite understanding nothing, you spewed all these high-minded claims—so I found myself compelled to write such matters myself. Just stick to translations. Through your translations, I too had supposedly received great benefit—or so I’d like to think. “You keep cranking out these idiotic essays, and lately it seems neither you nor that snickering professor have been applying yourselves to your language studies, have you?” “If you neglect your language studies, you’ll be your own undoing.”

Know your place.
I repeat: you are nothing more than language teachers.
You can’t even become so-called “thinkers.”
Enlighteners?
Pfft! Do they know the suffering of Voltaire and Rousseau?
At best, they can only be filial.

Those who embody Baudelaire’s melancholy and are bathed in Proust’s ennui will not emerge from your circles—not from yours.

(That’s absolutely right.
Go all out, Dazai.
Those professors are downright impudent.
If anything, I’m still being too lenient.
I too had long been irritated by this.)

I heard such voices behind me.
I swiftly turned around and answered that man.

“What the hell are you saying?
“Compared to you—no matter how you spin it—those old masters remain superior.”
“You lot were fundamentally incapable from the very start.”
“‘Can’t-do’ types lie beyond consideration.”
“Still—if you insist—I might deign to address you all next month... though you reek of vulgarity.”
“Being utterly unlettered myself—I’ll strike where literature holds no sway.”
“Take kendo matches—proper strikes target men(head), dō(torso), kote(forearms). Yet you muddle sport with life itself—smacking forbidden zones like upper arms and shins at full force.”
“To claim victory through such foul play—how base you’ve become.”

III

There was the word “rebellion.”
There were also the terms “government forces” and “rebel forces.”
In foreign countries, words that perfectly matched that feeling did not seem to be used very much.
Betrayal, coup d’état—it seemed such words were primarily used instead.
“It is rebellion.”
Such clamoring of “It is rebellion” appeared confined to areas like Honno-ji in Japan alone.
Then the so-called government forces would rally their morale by singing “All of you are nothing but a motley crowd!” at their rebel counterparts.
Rebellion stood condemned as the vilest vice; so-called rebel forces were deemed utterly defiled—such had Japanese society irrevocably decreed these matters through its judgments over time!
We had been indoctrinated that even victorious rebels would enjoy but a fleeting three-day reign before inevitable ruin—a notion laying bare at last that festering feudal ideology beneath our modern veneer!

In the past too there were those who did such things—mere stunts driven by lust for power or popularity—and if left unchallenged they would self-destruct; yet it seems some seniors fret over Dazai, thinking “Is this the end for him? We must advise him,” but even so might not the very significance of democratic revolution lie precisely in the fact that these so-called rebels—whom it had always been assumed would lose—do not necessarily lose this time?

The essence of democracy—people may define it in various ways—but I believe it originates from the idea that “humans do not submit to humans,” or “humans cannot conquer humans; that is, they cannot make them into servants.”

There was such a thing as seniors.
And thus, these seniors seemed “eternally” superior to us.
Their very handicap of “seniority” was nearly as brutal as outright violence.
For example, this figure of me writing slander about the so-called seniors resembled not the downward slope of Hyoudorigoe but rather its upward slope.
I clung to rocks, vines, and clumps of earth, climbing up alone; but the seniors, assembled atop the mountain, puffed on their cigarettes as they looked down upon my pitiful figure, calling me a fool, a wretch, a crowd-pleaser, a hothead—and then, when I tried to climb a little higher, they nonchalantly kicked loose a pebble from under their feet and sent it tumbling down.
It was unbearable!
With a shriek of disgrace, I fell.
The seniors atop the mountain roared with laughter—no, laughing was still the better option—kicking others down while feigning ignorance, gathering around mahjong tables and such.

No matter how much we shouted ourselves hoarse, the so-called society remained skeptical.
But a single word from the seniors—“That’s no good”—carried the effect of an imperial edict from days past.
They led truly slovenly lives, yet maintained a lifestyle that garnered so-called social credibility.
And thus, they were without fail exploiting that society’s trust.

Forever, we were worse than they were.
Even our most earnest works had not been read compared to theirs.
They exploited society’s trust to declare, “That’s no good,” and people readily agreed, thinking, “Ah, so that’s how it is,” until if those so-called seniors were so inclined, they could even have had us committed to a mental hospital.

Slave mentality.

They leaned with full weight on that slave mentality, whether consciously or not.

Their egoism, coldness, and conceit aligned perfectly with their readers’ slave mentality.
A certain critic kowtowed repeatedly before an old master’s work and proclaimed, “That master’s greatness lies precisely in his lack of servility.
“Dazai and his kind merely entertain readers...”

This slave mentality had reached its limit, I thought.
In other words, they cherished writers who neither challenged nor shamed them.
Critics teemed with these so-called “dilettantes”—it sickened me.
Did they believe ignorance of ink paintings’ beauty meant one couldn’t grasp true art?
Did they deem Kōrin’s vibrant colors unworthy of high artistry?
Even Watanabe Kazan’s works—weren’t these all just refined obsequiousness?

Obstinacy.
Anger.
Coldness.
Health.
Self-centeredness.
There seemed to be those who revered such things as the very traits of outstanding artists.
Those traits all appeared perceived as overwhelmingly masculine, yet that was rather the very essence of femininity.
Men—like women—did not easily grow angry and remained gentle.
Stubbornness amounted to nothing more than a lowly trait found in uneducated housewives.
Seniors—why not cease bullying the weak even slightly?
This stood farthest from so-called "civilization."
That constituted nothing but brute force.
Were you to hear housewives gossiping at the wellside—you would surely notice something.

We had been taught sickeningly much about juniors’ deference to seniors, students’ deference to teachers, children’s deference to parents—and we had even endeavored to uphold it to some extent—but regarding seniors’ deference to juniors, teachers’ deference to students, parents’ deference to children, we were never taught a single word.

Democratic revolution.

I keenly feel its necessity.
The act of driving so-called capable young women into crude destructive ideologies stems from you seniors' stubbornness—you who remain indifferent to democratic revolution.

Listen to what the young have to say!
And consider it!
The reason I have composed this clumsy text titled *Thus Have I Heard* is neither madness nor arrogance, neither having been flattered by others nor—least of all—seeking popularity.
I am sincere.
Do not dismiss it lightly with remarks like, "In the past, so-and-so did such things too—in short, that's all it is."
Abandon your smug presumption that because something existed before, there must now be things following the same fate.

Is it a sin to stake one’s life on action?
And is it virtue to do work that cuts corners and deceives while pursuing an easy family life?
Have you ever spared even a passing thought for our anguish?

After all, will this memoir of mine be dismissed as a fool’s errand?
It has been fifteen years since I first sold my writings.
Yet my words still seem to carry no authority whatsoever.
To have them taken seriously would likely require another twenty years.
Twenty years.
Even producing slipshod, deceptive works—anything at all—just clinging doggedly to journalism for two decades, showing perfect deference to my seniors and behaving meekly might finally earn me their so-called “trust.” But truthfully, I lack the confidence in my own endurance to persist that long.

It’s as if those people have no anguish.
What I find most intolerable about Japan’s seniors is their utter incomprehension of anguish itself.

Where does this “Dark Night” even lie?
Aren’t you yourself just scrambling about, fussing over whether to forgive people or not?
Do you truly believe you hold such an audacious right—to forgive or withhold forgiveness?
What of your own self?
You have no standing to judge others.

There was a writer named Shiga Naoya.
He was an amateur.
It was the Six University League.
If novels were paintings, what he produced would be calligraphy—or so an acquaintance once remarked—but that “grandeur” of his amounted to nothing more than self-delusion.
It stemmed solely from faith in brute strength.
In his works, I detected only an essential “delinquency” or “hedonism.”
Nobility is weakness.
It stammers and blushes.
In the end, he was merely a nouveau riche.

There exists what we call an *okera*. It denotes a swarm of creatures who desperately sweat to preserve their precarious social standing—respecting and shielding their chosen idol while reviling and beating those who speak against them. They rank among the vilest of beings. Most wallow in self-satisfaction, mistaking this for manly “justice.” One suspects the influence of those Kunisada Chūji films.

True justice is recognized in a form where there is no boss, no subordinates, and where one—weak and confined to some corner—exists.
I may repeat myself, but in art, it seems to me there are neither bosses nor subordinates, nor even friends.

I write with every secret laid bare, yet this act of publishing what society deems a fool’s manifesto under the title *Thus Have I Heard* attacks no “individual”—it wages war against what opposes Christ.

When Christ was mentioned, they would immediately let out a scornful wry smile and seemed to feel something akin to relief—as if muttering “Oh, just Christians?”—but I could say nearly all my anguish hinged on that impossible commandment from Jesus: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

To put it plainly: you lacked the capacity to love to the same degree that you lacked the capacity for anguish.
You might caress, but you did not love.

The morality you possess does not extend a single step beyond the preservation of yourselves or your families.

I pose the question once more.
Even if driven out from society—so be it—is it a sin to act with one’s life on the line?

I am not writing for my own benefit.
They will not believe it.

Finally, I posed the question.
Weakness, anguish—are these sins?

When I finished writing this, I happened to read the transcript of a roundtable discussion in a certain magazine.
According to it, a man named Shiga Naoya was quoted as saying, “I read something called *Criminal* by Mr. Dazai two or three days ago, but I found it utterly dull.”
“‘Since you can tell how it’ll end from the start, there’s no need to read to the conclusion…’” he remarked—or rather, is said to have stated—(though transcripts of roundtable discussions or interviews often contain things the person themselves don’t recall).
Given its carelessness, I hesitate to address it—but this is not a rebuttal against Shiga as an individual, only against such remarks.) Ending a work by throwing your reader in its final line can hardly be called good taste.
Those old masters who consider it extraordinary talent to desperately conceal the so-called “punchline” only to suddenly spring it out—how pitiable they are! Art is not a contest.
It is service.
It is a service that seeks not to wound those who read.
However, since there seem to be many perverts who delight in being wounded, it’s no use.
Even if the transcript of that roundtable discussion does not capture Shiga Naoya’s exact words, if he did say anything resembling that, it would amount to that old man’s self-bankruptcy.
He’s so full of himself.
“It seems you too have a mirror for your vanity at home.”
“Haven’t you been the one avoiding the ‘punchline,’ yet writing through implication and provocation all this time?”

As for those despicably emaciated hack writers who sycophantically flattered that old man like tea-serving pages, spouting things like “Yes, my lord, it’s just like a popular novel”—they were beyond consideration.

IV

When I read the transcript of a roundtable discussion in a certain magazine and found Shiga Naoya strangely badmouthing me, I couldn’t help but fume. In a short essay in last month’s issue of that magazine, I fired back with equally vile language in what amounted to a postscript—but even after all that, I still felt I hadn’t said enough.
What on earth compels him to adopt such an arrogant way of speaking?
If ordinary novels are shogi, then that guy’s writings are checkmate puzzles.
Check after check—a shogi game that’s inevitably headed for checkmate.
It is the quintessence of dilettante art.
There isn’t a shred of trembling anxiety over winning or losing.
And the fact that he seems so proud of that mechanical sequence—I’m simply in awe.

After all, this writer’s thinking was crude, his education nonexistent—he amounted to nothing but brute force, so unbearably smug with himself that even while languishing in some obscure corner of the literary world, beloved only by a handful of eccentrics at best, he’d somehow managed to borrow shelter under another’s eaves only to brazenly occupy the main house, striking the pose of a grand master. One couldn’t help but scoff.

This month, I intend to expose this man without holding back.

One had to be cautious of writers who received praise for things like solitary nobility, integrity, and fastidiousness.
They were almost entirely those who possessed a duplicitous nature.
Things like fastidiousness were nothing but selfishness, stubbornness, and—what’s more—calculating self-satisfaction.
They wanted to win—even if it meant being cowardly or resorting to anything.
A desire to make people into servants—should this have been called a fascist-like spirit?

These writers seemed to be brimming with what one might call a military mindset.
I had said earlier I wouldn’t hold back, but even I found myself reluctant to reproduce the full text of this writer’s *The Fall of Singapore* here.
It was the writing of a fool.
Even Tojo wouldn’t have written something this insensitive.
Something exceedingly strange had been written.
From around this point onward, this writer apparently had gone to waste.

There was no end to what I could say.

This person despised human weakness.
He boasted of having money himself.
"There seems to be a short story called *Kozō no Kamisama*," I thought, "but does he realize his own cruelty toward the poor in it?"
Making people eat was more painful than giving up a train seat.
What god?
His nerve reeked of nouveau riche pretension.

At another roundtable discussion—“Why do you keep paying so much attention to me? How disgraceful.”—he apparently said something like “I did read Dazai-kun’s *Shayō* or whatever it’s called, but I was at a loss.” Yet it was I who found myself appalled by his use of such servile phrasing as “I was at a loss.”

“I’m at a loss—utterly defeated by that.” Such phrasing reeked of a hysterical, uneducated dilettante pointlessly inflating himself.
When I read the transcript of another roundtable discussion, that obtuse writer had remarked something like “I suppose he ought to take matters more seriously,” leaving me speechless.
Can’t you reform yourself even slightly?

In that very discussion, you condemned how “a nobleman’s daughter speaks like some provincial maid”—yet your own *Usagi* contains lines like “Father, would you condescend to slaughter rabbits?” I found this truly perplexing.
“Slaughter.” How elegant.
No shame at all?

“Do you actually think you’re an aristocrat? You’re not even bourgeois, are you? When it comes to your own brother, you can’t write a single word about how you treated him—for better or worse—can you? Writing as if the whole household catching the flu is some grand crisis—your horse-face that believes without doubt this is the true path of a writer is disgraceful.”

Being strong and having confidence—these were by no means important qualifications for being a writer.

Once I saw a photograph of that writer from his high school days—posed unnaturally beside a cherry tree trunk—and thought, *What an unpleasant student*. Not a trace of artistic weakness lingered there. He was simply striking a pose, utterly devoid of sensitivity—a powdered athlete bullying the weak. An egoist who looked physically robust. When I later saw photos from his old age, he resembled nothing so much as a nurseryman. A workman’s apron and bowl would have suited him perfectly.

Regarding my novel *Criminal*, he said, “I read it.”
“That’s appalling.”
“The ending was obvious from the very start.”
“You think I don’t realize what you’re up to—writing desperately while pretending this author doesn’t know what I already know,” he went on, but that was pure nonsense. From the beginning, everything was clear, yet he acted as if his own supposed brilliance alone had seen through it—the man was borderline senile.
“That isn’t a detective novel.”
“If anything, isn’t the ‘twist’ in your *Amagaeru* the childish one?”

Why on earth does he carry himself with such self-importance? Have you never once reflected that you yourself might be washed up? “Stop putting on airs.” “You’ve got a nasty mug.”

Furthermore, though I will speak ill of this writer once more, having read a single line from what is touted as his recent masterpiece or whatever, I found it utterly perplexing.

“When I stood in the roofless corridor of Tokyo Station, there was no wind, but it was chillingly cold, and the single-layer coat I had on was just right.” Ridiculous.

It was chillingly cold—you’d think he’d be shivering—yet the single-layer coat he wore was just right. What was that supposed to mean? It was complete nonsense. In this work, not a shred of sympathy for this young laborer was evident. He seemed to be employing the old, vulgar technique of bluntly trying to evoke affection, but it was a failure. Moreover, when it came to the final line—“This occurred on October 16, 1945”—it was nothing short of farcical. The deception no longer worked.

What I still find unbearably comical is that the author of *Singapore’s Fall* ("Let’s drop the pretenses.
"You ended up realizing 'one hundred million hearts as one' without even trying."
"In Japan today, there can be no such thing as pro-Anglo-American thought."
("Our spirits have brightened and grown remarkably calm," or so he said.) After the war, the name Uchimura Kanzou suddenly popped up, and in some magazine interview, he claimed that the sole reason he never succumbed to militarism and maintained his integrity all this time was due to the teachings of his revered teacher Uchimura Kanzou. Interviews are unreliable things, but even taking it at half-value, such carelessness is laughable.

Why on earth is this writer so specially revered? I couldn’t understand it in the slightest.
What sort of work had he been doing all this time?
All he seemed to do was cobble together books with large print.
“I read something called *Banreki Akae* too—it was utterly absurd.”
It reeked of complacency, I thought.
Even if I wrote about myself passing gas, once typeset in large print for readers to peruse while straightening their collars, there’d be no difference in the nonsense.
Writers might be unhinged, but readers were no better.

In the end, they were foxes squatting cross-legged in the main house under borrowed eaves.
There was nothing.

Here, one might have expected to find that writer’s collected works neatly arranged—each volume ready to be identified—but oddly enough, even after my wife and I combed every corner of the bookshelf, not a single one remained. I remarked that we must share no connection. Though the hour was late, I then went to a friend’s house and demanded, “Lend me anything by Shiga Naoya,” securing *Early Spring*, *Dark Night’s Passing*, and the magazine issue containing *Gray Moon*.

*Dark Night’s Passing*

What an absurdly grandiose title he’d given it. He routinely dismissed others’ works as bluster—let him recognize his own. That work was nearly all bluster. That’s what they call a checkmate puzzle. Where in this work was there any dark night? There was only the ferocity of self-aggrandizement.

Where was the skill in that? Wasn’t it just self-delusion? Catching colds, developing ear infections—was that supposed to constitute a Dark Night? It proved utterly baffling. Was this not precisely like some composition-class example or boys’ adventure tale? Before anyone noticed, they’d borrowed the eaves and settled into the main house—uneducated yet shameless—planting themselves imposingly without a flicker of unease.

However, writing about Shiga Naoya and the like filled me with considerable oppressiveness. Why did I feel this way? He was what they called a model family man—seemingly blessed with modest wealth, a good wife at his side, children who were healthy and surely respected their father. He resided in a scenic locale untouched by war damage if rumors held true, likely clad in fine handwoven silk garments. To crown it all, he probably suffered no ominous ailments like tuberculosis. His visitors were all refined souls who addressed him as "Mr." this and "Mr." that, hanging on his every word in an atmosphere thick with congeniality. "Lately that arrogant fool Dazai seems to be spouting nonsense at you—but he's a filthy wretch. Best not engage," they said amid laughter. Yet despite all this, that despicable forty-year-old writer—(Naoya himself had remarked, "I can't find a single redeeming quality in him")—strove without exaggeration, even coughing up blood when necessary, to write mainstream novels. His efforts only earned universal disdain. Burdened with three sickly young children and a marriage devoid of shared laughter, he inhabited a fifty-yen rental house where the latticework of shoji screens lay shattered and fusuma door backings hung in tatters. Having endured war damage twice over, this man who once aspired to wear fine clothes now donned too-short trousers and clogs to run grocery errands in place of his wife swamped with childcare.

And because I had protested against Shiga Naoya and his ilk, all my former senior colleagues and friends grew estranged from me.

Even so, I had to speak.

Because those imposters of raccoon dogs or foxes sat there complacently, smugly declaring themselves "at a loss" over my masterwork.

It was said that Shiga Naoya’s works possessed severity or some such quality, but this was a lie—saccharine family life, protagonists whose dispositions amounted to spoiled selfishness; in short, their charm appeared to lie in depicting an effortless, carefree existence.

He might have been nothing more than a nouveau riche, but regardless—with his wealth, born and raised in Tokyo (a pride that struck us as pure nonsense and absurdity, though the depth of contempt they harbored when uttering “country bumpkin” likely surpassed readers’ imaginings)—a hedonist, no, someone tinged with delinquency: sturdy build, broad face, thick brows, stripping naked to wrestle while boasting of his brute strength, declaring “Winning’s all that matters!” while spouting insolent platitudes like “I found it disagreeable” as universal truths. Confronted with this, any poor soul from the provinces would at least initially have their courage drained.

When he passed gas versus when some provincial lackey passed gas—the implications seemed entirely different.

“It depends on the person,” he would say.

Dim-witted and insensitive, obsessed solely with himself from dawn till dusk, wanting only to be number one—and what’s more, through underhanded methods like borrowing eaves to seize the main house. Not scrupling about means to achieve ends was characteristic of these strong-arm types. Flying into a rage now, suppressing his need to piss, crouching halfway down, he scribbled haphazardly across his manuscript before having those around him transcribe it neatly.

This was unmistakably evident in his writing style.

He was a brutal writer.

I wanted to repeat it any number of times.

He was an outdated, brutal writer.

With his antiquated literary views, he refused to budge an inch.

Stubborn.

He seemed to regard this as a virtue.

This was cunning.

He was merely thinking, “If the opportunity arises…”

He must have had all sorts of calculations.

That was why it became so detestable.

I believed they had to be overthrown.

When a single stubborn old man existed, all his family members inevitably heaved sighs of misfortune.

“Drop the act.”

“He would say things like, ‘There’s something unpleasant about his posturing—I can’t find a single redeeming quality,’ but that was due to your own idiotic pose, already fixed like a plaster cast.”

Be a little weaker.
If you are a literary figure, be weaker.
Be flexible.
Make an effort to understand things outside your methods—no, rather, the pain of them.
If you still don’t understand, then shut up.
Don’t recklessly attend roundtable discussions and expose your shame.
Those uneducated fools—clinging only to utterly useless things like intuition and whatnot—listening to others’ gossip day after year while laughing smugly—even I find them insufferable.
To win, they employ truly underhanded means.
And thus they succeed in being called “good men” by society—“pure and splendid people.”
They are near-villains.

What you gained—(however many years you spent in this so-called literary world)—was nothing but societal trust.
To say “I’m an avid reader of Shiga Naoya” supposedly proved you were a docile person of good taste—aren’t you ashamed?
During that writer’s lifetime, did you know what kind of writers aligned with “good morals and customs”?

You should have run for the Diet instead.
Such audacity and self-affirmation made you perfectly suited for a Diet member or the like.
You, in that wretched piece “Singapore’s Fall” (a testament to your astonishing conscience, attempting to gloss over even that drivel), used the word “humility” as abruptly as grafting bamboo onto a tree—precisely the virtue you lacked most.
The only thing that filled your ill-shaped head was arrogance.
Upon reading this roundtable discussion article in *Bungei*, you became quite full of yourself in front of the young people, acting smugly, while they too spouted nonsense to flatter you—but I had no intention of speaking ill of the young.
Because I knew that having anything said about me would only needlessly confound those people’s desperate journey.

Your remark—“Since I’m older than Dazai here”—might have been interpreted to mean that seniority granted you the right to speak ill of others, but in my case, it was the opposite: “Since I was the older one here,” I wished to refrain from making malicious remarks about young people.
Moreover，in that roundtable discussion article，there was a passage where he said，“It’s rather awkward that I’ve ended up badmouthing someone so well-regarded，”and I thought，*What an ugly and base person he was*.
Could it be that this person was unexpectedly sensitive to reputation?
In that case，perhaps it would have been better to put it this way.
“Since you’re apparently well-regarded these days，I’d like to offer some harsh words.”
“At least this way there’s affection.”
His words were nothing but warped bravado，devoid of any affection.
Look here—he himself，without a hint of embarrassment，boasted about his *Kuniko* and *The Story of Kidnapping a Child*，expounding on their merits and virtues.
I couldn’t help but burst out laughing at his senility.
Once a writer reached this state，they were done for.

They kept ranting about “fabrications, fabrications,” but that very literary criticism of theirs was as mold-ridden as if twenty years had been a single day.
How much more laborious fabrications were compared to those diary-like novels of everyday life—and yet how they still failed to please the so-called critics—was something you should have learned from works like Claudius’s Diary.
Thus it was only the lazybones who skimped on effort—in other words, those self-conceited about their daily lives—who wrote those diary-like things.
If one were to say “Otherwise we cannot face our readers” and thus devise so-called fabrications—was it not precisely there that a writer’s true suffering had lain?
Ultimately you were lazy and merely cunning deceivers.
That was why they spoke ill of writers who staked their lives on their work and even went so far as to commit acts akin to pulling the legs of those hanging themselves.
It was always so—the ones meaninglessly tormenting me were none other than you all.

There was another thing about you that repulsed me utterly—your complete failure to grasp Akutagawa’s anguish.

The agony of outcasts.

Weakness.

The Bible.

The terror of living.

Prayer of the defeated.

You all understand nothing, and you even take pride in your own ignorance.
Could there possibly be such artists?
What they know is only worldly wisdom; they are utterly clueless about ideas or anything else.
This is what it means to be left gaping in disbelief.
They attempt to judge people solely by their demeanor.
That is what vulgarity is.
Your literature has no tradition whatsoever from its very foundation.
Chekhov?
“Cut the jokes.”
“You haven’t read a damn thing, have you?”
The fact that someone does not read books is proof that that person is not lonely.

While maintaining the appearance of a hermit, it would have been fortunate had his surroundings not been perpetually bustling. That literature did not seem to have broken with tradition; rather, it struck one as the work of someone who—at his age—wrote children's stories with grandiose pretensions and had gotten carried away with himself. Yet there appeared not a single "work of genius" comparable to Andersen's *The Ugly Duckling*. And so he merely put on airs—a bully relying on brute strength, a self-styled king of the hill, a General Nogi wannabe.

He was going on and on about nobles—(how baffling how everyone gets all worked up at the mere mention of nobility!)—when in some newspaper roundtable, His Highness stated, “I’m devoted to *The Setting Sun*—it pierces me to my core.”
So what? Isn’t that splendid?
It’s beyond the ken of you nouveau riche scum.
Petty envy.
How disgraceful at your advanced age.
“Could Your Excellency even muster the resolve to kill poor Dazai?”
Tit for tat—I’ll write until my brush runs dry.