Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

You misunderstood me.
Certainly, you did not understand most of me.
This most recent letter of yours as well—I read its expression of friendship with profound gratitude.
Despite never doubting your sincere friendship toward me—not even a fraction—the fact remained that you did not understand me.
Even as I said this, I was by no means voicing any complaint toward you or regarding this most recent letter.
Nor was I suggesting you were an obtuse person.

I thought.

The disparity between your circumstances and mine was far too vast—it seemed we could never truly understand one another. From the perspective of someone in your circumstances, someone like me’s inner self could not possibly be within reach of observation nor imagination. No matter how astute a person might be, if your circumstances and mine differed so fundamentally, I believed it would ultimately prove impossible for us to exhaustively comprehend each other’s innermost thoughts.

Of course, through my own heart, I could not fathom your innermost thoughts either. “In that letter some time ago,” you had written, “there is no question of understanding or not understanding—my heart lies open with nothing concealed.” But what I meant by not understanding was not that sort of thing. Setting aside other matters—first and foremost, how could you remain so unperturbed after being separated from your wife and children for two or three years? “Now that I mention it,” you would likely retort, “What do you mean unperturbed? You cannot fathom the loneliness of being stranded thousands of miles from home.” Yet from my perspective, there being no compelling reason forcing you to remain abroad for years on end—leaving your wife and children behind in our homeland—you rather treated that travel-induced loneliness as a sort of diverting curiosity to be toyed with. Even if that money had been obtained effortlessly as extra income, you lavished tens of thousands of yen without hesitation and comported yourself as though enduring the loneliness of solitary living—which for people like us would bring excruciating pain when separated from wife and children even ten days—all while appearing completely untroubled. That psychology of yours was something I simply could not comprehend within my own heart. Were I to consider whether you were innately cold by nature—I knew for a fact you were absolutely not such a person. I knew that when you had lost your eldest son some years prior, you had grieved as though nearly driven mad. And yet, once bedding down in foreign lands, you amused yourself with unexpected composure. Even were you to bid farewell, I could not imagine you possessing any passionate ambition. Judging by your occasional messages—plans to retire to mountain solitude after returning home or attempt farming in Korea—I could perceive in you no fervor intense enough to make you forget your wife and children.

If I said this, you would surely retort, “How can any man worthy of the name remain so attached to his wife and children?”
That was exactly it—what I could not comprehend. That was precisely where the disparity in our circumstances became so vast.

To speak frankly of my present state, my wife and children constitute the greater part of my life.
Ambition, fame—indeed all desires beyond mere survival—are governed by this fixed notion that they exist only atop life's precarious foundation.
Were my wife and children stripped from my life even temporarily, I would surely become utterly useless.
You might call this too mundane, but since it reflects reality itself, there remains nothing to be done.
That you—still young—show no concern for your wife, while I—nearing fifty—cling to mine makes for quite the peculiar tale.
Yet this appears precisely where we find each other beyond comprehension.

The reality of poor people having many children might also be interpreted through reasons akin to my current psychological state. That said, it’s not as though a couple married for twenty years—a long-married pair—are suddenly in love now. We must not dismiss such matters too shallowly with trendy notions like human naturalness or the satisfaction of sexual desire.

When parents pass from this world, even those who bore and raised us and toiled for our sake for many years eventually meet their time and die. When we thought about how we were now struggling to raise so many of our own children..., the world began to seem less grateful. A loneliness I had never known before was deeply carved into my mind. The two of us—a husband and wife—supporting seven or eight children with our own hands, navigating life in a small boat where I took the pole and my wife took the rudder. With this, you might grasp the meaning behind my saying that my wife and children were the greater part of my life—but the sporadic events and harsh realities arising from such circumstances as mine were things no one like you, sailing comfortably on a grand ship wherever the winds might blow, could ever truly imagine.

If I were to say that those whose hearts are full find it hard to feel true closeness—though there’s a risk of this being taken in a negative light—I mean it not in any venomous sense, but as a fair and critical observation: those who have attained a certain degree of satisfaction in life seem to possess far less capacity for deep affection and heartfelt longing for others than we do.
In marital and parent-child relationships as well, for the same reason, there must exist an incontestable distinction.
In marital relationships especially, must there not be the most striking difference?
Is it not among those of a class perpetually assailed by worldly anxieties that one should most often observe this phenomenon—where even in the nearly unconscious realm of spirit where husband and wife, profoundly united, feel mutual affection, there yet remains something perpetually vivid and active?

Now, one might casually dismiss it as inevitable—if circumstances differ, then of course states of mind will differ—but we wish to examine this a little more deeply.
Even if we cannot fully bridge the striking disparity in our circumstances through mutual understanding, we want to grasp as much shared comprehension as possible to preserve our close friendship.

In one of your past letters, you had written something to the effect of: “You’ve been writing novels with gusto lately—have you grown tired of poetry already?”
Everything is like this—even in trivial matters, the differences between you and me immediately surface.

The way you compose poems and essays—as you yourself state—is not driven by any compulsion to create, but rather amounts to a sort of peculiar fancy or transient amusement.
Given your circumstances, this approach is naturally sufficient.
When engaging in literary arts at all, I would never claim everyone must devote their entire being to it with desperate intensity.
I make no attempt to criticize your method of treating literature lightly within life's framework, following whims of inspiration to attempt creation as temporary entertainment.
Yet I maintain it's misguided to presume others share your disposition merely because you yourself do.

The reason I compose poetry and write novels stems from motivations entirely different from yours.
I do not engage in these literary pursuits as mere hobbies.
For my very survival, I feel compelled by any means necessary to create poetry and novels.
If one cannot become a politician, nor a businessman, nor even a scholar—then must he not seek survival through literature, something at least marginally suited to his innate disposition?
While this may indeed involve elements of amusement and solace, such amusement and solace must differ profoundly in nature from what you—who layer satisfaction upon satisfaction—consider amusement and solace.
However others may perceive me, in my present state I possess no mental capacity whatsoever for hobbyist indulgences.

If I were to count them, there would be no end.
The difference in our circumstances was truly a dreadful thing.
From one thing to another, absolutely every aspect of our states of mind differed.
Therefore, it became utterly impossible for us to fully understand each other.
The reason I still tried to appeal to you despite all this was simply that there remained likely no one but you who would seriously listen to my appeals.

II

Last year, the uproar of economic depression was deafening.
Whether that din ever reached ears like yours—and even if it did echo faintly, you would have heard it as one hears distant waves through a pine grove.
As for fellow dairy farmers in the prefecture, they had previously managed to avoid being swept into those turbulent waves during past economic turmoils—but in last year’s calamitous depression, none escaped the onslaught.

If sales were poor, goods remained unsold.
Since goods remained unsold in every household, prices fell.
In such times, goods that couldn’t be preserved—milk being a prime example—faced particular hardship.
However low the price might be, it was better than discarding.
So every single person tried to sell even at low prices.
Milk prices had to decrease even further.
On one hand, goods remained unsold (meaning they were abandoned), and on the other hand, prices continued to fall.
Income was decreasing at an astonishing rate.
Since it was a business that raised animals, even if income decreased, expenses did not diminish.
The month’s income was never enough to cover that month’s payments.
How did we make up for that deficit?
If we had even a modest amount of savings, it would have been manageable—but for us who were already navigating a precarious boat through everyday life, there remained no choice but to deplete our capital.
This was what’s commonly called a financial deficit—a term you all likely wouldn’t understand.

As you are generally aware, I had a large family relative to the scale of my business.
The human count stood disproportionate to our dairy cattle numbers.
Even among people, idlers outnumbered workers.
It was as if our boat carried cargo exceeding its hold’s capacity.
We found no time during ordinary days to build reserves against crises.
Since baseline existence already brimmed with anxiety, any roughening waves made foreseeing outcomes impossible—leaving only extremity of dread.

Now you—had this been when we were still a young childless couple, even had we destroyed our household, we wouldn't have struggled to devise rebuilding plans, so that anxiety wouldn't have felt so crushing. But faced with our present circumstances—a couple's four hands bearing eight children—just how much more crushing must that profound feeling become? You all can likely imagine.

Up until seven or eight years old, children were still just children.
The younger ones still did not understand their parents' hardships, spending each day absorbed in play with unclouded, lively faces brimming with delight—but those elder sisters had already come to grasp their parents' anxiety.
In their hearts, the parents wanted to spare their children from hardship as much as possible, so they strove to keep them unaware—yet since they could not hide the sudden visits of debt collectors with excuses, the truth was that even when trying to conceal it, they could not fully do so.
The children would watch their parents' expressions; though unspoken, those faces remained dull and naturally listless.
Even as children, they watched their parents' expressions and tone with tearful eyes and pricked-up ears.

When it comes to this, you see—humans become pathetically timid creatures, growing fearful of everything and endlessly jittery for no good reason.

I can’t go on like this—it’s foolish to fixate so single-mindedly.
Because economic depressions were ultimately temporary phenomena, there’d been no worry they’d last even a year or two.
If I could manage somehow, even if just month by month, there would come a time when I might catch my breath.

Recalling the sort of flimsy logic anyone might conjure—letting it bring momentary comfort—had been but a brief interval between one month and the next, when in truth I’d already paid what demanded payment and postponed what could be postponed.
Income had decreased again compared to last month.
Since there were remaining payments to be made, the amount was of course greater than last month's.
The temporary borrowed vigor with which I’d distracted myself from hardship, the fleeting respite I’d stolen to briefly rest my mind—all were mercilessly shattered by the factual problem of month’s end.

As cowardice took ever deeper root, everything in the world seemed to conspire in persecuting me. When a strong wind blew and damaged even a corner of the roof, I felt as though the wind was spitefully targeting me. Heavy rains meant I had to buy an umbrella. The need to purchase tall clogs made even the rain itself seem terrifying. Fellow tradesmen were naturally enemies. All merchants appeared unkind. The rumble of steam trains and clang of streetcars—those too somehow sounded threatening. Even those with whom I usually maintained friendly relations only did so as long as they suffered no loss or inconvenience; cause them the slightest harm or trouble, and that cordial bond would snap that very day. In the end, only my wife and children remained steadfastly by my side in this world.

“You’d surely say, ‘That’s too extreme—you’re exaggerating.’”
“But this isn’t exaggeration—it’s how things truly felt.”
Those who’ve never known hardship can’t fathom its taste.
One who hasn’t been jailed can’t grasp a prisoner’s mind.

Postponement has its limits.
Overdue payments must someday be settled.
To keep sinking deeper without strategy is like dismantling your house for kindling.
Soon enough, there’d be no shelter left from storm or wind.

Since there was no special plan to speak of, I resolved to borrow money from a friend.
If it were merely a matter of borrowing money from a friend due to financial hardship, then it wouldn’t have been an issue in the first place.
However, the money borrowed to supplement the growing deficit was not something that could be easily repaid.
That I already knew.
Even though I knew it couldn’t be easily repaid, I ended up having to borrow.

And so I came to seek out new suffering myself.
No matter how close a friend may be, I cannot ask them to lend me money that I cannot easily repay.
Come to think of it, my friend probably won’t lend it either.
In the end, I would end up deceiving my friend by claiming I would repay the money by a certain time.
Deceiving a friend… I was forced to commit this grave moral sin with full awareness.
Through the friend’s kindness, one aspect of my suffering had eased somewhat, but the deep wound inflicted upon my spirit would torment me for a long time.
The pain—precisely because I was aware of my guilt—became all the more painful.
If only to escape this pain, I want to repay the borrowed money as soon as possible.
Even in the moments between sleep and waking, my heart cries out: Ah, I want to repay it.

Is it not terrifying? Once money changes hands between friends, he ceases to be the companion he once was.
The bonds of friendship and creditor relations become grotesquely entangled, that effortless familiarity we once shared vanishing like mist.
This particular agony admits no confidant.

I strain to preserve goodwill and courtesy toward his kindness.
When examined coldly, this striving reveals itself as self-deception practiced against my own conscience.
Yet he remains disturbingly unruffled.
Though I call three times for every once he might visit.
At this point I can no longer discern whether friendship's obligations ever truly existed.
Resentment coils in my gut's deepest recesses—a flimsy grudge lacking even the vigor for utterance.
This hidden tragedy of human connection.
The conviction that he must regret ever lending to a friend becomes intolerable.
However I might resist rending our bond, he withdraws further by degrees.
With all guilt rooted solely in myself, this anguish finds no outlet.

Those who tread dangerous paths can seldom walk with their feet firmly planted and their backs straightened.
The desperate measure of bending heart and wounding spirit to patch over the present moment finally led me to commit a moral sin.
What begins with falsehood must continue with falsehood.
I can never return to complete integrity.
No matter how I consider it, I am a splendid moral sinner.
A sinner who cannot voice lofty ideals among others.

From your perspective, it must surely appear pitiable—perhaps even ridiculous.
However, you—just as humans cannot easily be killed physically, neither can they be killed spiritually.

I had now accepted being a moral sinner, yet could not bring myself to acknowledge being evil in spirit.
You—do evil people commit more sins, or do good people? Evil ones sin without fail, but good ones too commit many wrongs.
As a philosopher, you must have considered such questions.

Might there not be cases where good people actually sin more?

Is their avoidance of sin not from virtue—but rather lacking courage to act?
Though self-serving, given last year's circumstances: had I clung to spiritual purity, my family would have scattered beyond recovery; the agony of willful sinning needs no retelling now.
If keeping ten souls united demands accepting sinnerhood, then accept I must.
You'll forgive this sin too.
Even should our friendship never regain its former closeness, you'll at least forgive my transgression.

You, my anguish does not end there.
My life, both internally and externally, was filled with nothing but contradictions.
As one who rejoiced in noble purity through matters of taste and savored lofty literary ideals, in daily life I had to engage in vulgar acts even ordinary people would scorn.
I must someday see my eight girls properly married off.
That marrying each off as respectable women would be no easy task went without saying.
When I thought of this heavy, heavy responsibility, a sensation came over me as though my whole body might stiffen.
Yet despite this, my innate inclination toward refinement—as you well know—made living devoid of taste utterly impossible.
Those who love will love regardless of reason’s permissions or material means.
If love could be endured merely because reason forbade it or means were lacking, that would not be true love.
Therein lies love’s sorrow.
Therein lies love’s true essence.
My tastes being akin to this is precisely why it pains me.
The fiercer the passion for my tastes, the deeper the suffering.

Even while I had yet to fully repay my friend’s loan and could not feel secure about managing my eight children’s futures, I still occasionally indulged in these unnecessary whims.

This through-and-through contradictory behavior of mine constantly tormented me with ceaseless remorse and anguish.
To be sure, my current circumstances were akin to those of a person afflicted with an incurable disease; since my daily anguish never ceased, there must also have been a natural demand that without some other interesting stimulus to distract from it, existence would have been unbearable.

I want you to understand that the reason I—unable to command even a single contradiction or chaos, ceaselessly tormented by infinite anguish—nonetheless evade spiritual annihilation and still manage to summon the courage to struggle onward, is because my fierce passions have hewn a sanctuary within my heart, inviolate by any external force, where however small a realm of my own exists.

To observe and critique the tragedy I enact myself, to savor the rugged path of my own life—this too is not without a kind of solace.

If your stubborn refusal to admit defeat is that strong, then for now, you can rest assured I won’t be dying anytime soon.
Fundamentally, humans are driven solely by the anguish and restlessness of wanting to live, wanting to live.
And so they forge ground where life might somehow take root.
I do not wish to become one whose spirit withers while their body still persists.
I’ll stop my complaining here, but my last year was not just about being tormented by poverty.

III

The fact that two contradictory things could nonchalantly coexist was a notion utterly divorced from reason, yet in my own life, this was something that played out constantly as reality.

It was a certain morning.
My wife had gotten up a little earlier.
Pulling back the three-year-old who was sprawled out of the futon and sleeping, adjusting the small pillow,

“Oh, you’re still not getting up?”

“Um, I’ll get up. What’s wrong?”

When I looked, my wife—who had been sitting on the floor with a troubled expression—turned her gaze to the child’s sleeping face and smiled faintly while,

“Oh, what a cute face she has while sleeping… When I look at her like this, I don’t feel any resentment at all…”

The single phrase “not resentful at all” struck my ears like a violent awakening.
My wife returned to her troubled expression; lying face down and staring at something, I threw off the bedding.

“Oh, you—my body’s acting up again.”

I didn't have the energy to even respond with a 'Hmm.'
My wife also didn't utter a single word after that.
Both got up and briskly put away the bedding.
Realizing this new reality struck violently within my chest.
The distasteful unease that even speaking would bring was something we understood without words.
Our mental states were already mirrored in each other's expressions.
My wife was carrying our eighth child.

"This is truly a problem."

Such words had been repeated with each pregnancy since around the fifth.
Even so, up until this sleeping child's time,

“Again…”

“Haa…”

Simultaneous with those meager words, the husband and wife exchanged a laugh that was both desolate and tepid.

“Honestly, if humans couldn’t even have children anymore, wouldn’t that be the end?”

Even such forced cheer managed to distract from the loneliness.

This morning, the two of them lacked the energy to voice complaints.
It was painful to bring up that incident.
While people would likely find it utterly absurd if they heard, it was an actual fact.
Moreover, wasn’t it absurd that just the previous night, in the flow of conversation with a visitor, I had been proudly boasting about my children?

Those who don’t raise children are a burden on society.
They’re ingrates to society.
There is no acceptable reason for the state to feign ignorance toward those of us raising many children like ourselves.
There is no acceptable reason for those who don’t raise children to reap the benefits of their indolence.
It is absolutely imperative that the state establish some system related to childcare to correct this unfairness.
It is the responsibility of those in the present society to leave their successors in the next generation.
Therefore, from those who do not raise children, the state should collect taxes from the childless as an obligation—at least one successor per person, with each couple producing two successors.
And it is only natural to protect those who raise extra children.
We are indeed great benefactors to the next society.
My wife’s parents are also healthy and long-lived.
My parents were also healthy and long-lived.
Neither my wife nor I have any recollection of unclean diseases from our parents’ generation.
It is unreasonable that society shows no respect whatsoever toward us who are raising as many as eight sound and pure successors of society.
However, even if society shows us no respect whatsoever, given that we are in fact nurturing many successors of society, we ought to be able to act quite proudly…

Even I—who had been spewing hot air the previous night and thoroughly deflated our guest before going to bed in high spirits—found myself feeling as if all warmth had suddenly drained from my blood at this morning’s unexpected words: “My body’s acting up again.”
Even washing my head with a toothpick as usual felt like something done in a dream.

When I stood at the entrance, the north-east wind carried a chill, and the sky hung heavy with imminent rain. From the great smokestack of Nisshin Spinning, black smoke belatedly swelled forth, shrouding Fukagawa’s sky and streaming straight across. It was undeniably a grand sight, yet it left an unpleasant taste.

Producing many successors for society might align with the highest ideal, but it remains a biological truth that parents with many children grow gaunt. I returned to the kitchen, turning these thoughts over in my mind.

The dining table surrounded by nine family members was simply chaotic, with no semblance of order or arrangement.
There was no distinction of whose bowl or whose chopsticks.
The older children took care of the younger ones.
Those near the pot and rice container served the soup and rice.
It could also be called natural and free.
While the wife busied herself looking after everyone around her, her face still bore the unquiet waves that had stirred her chest earlier.
The dining table wasn’t as lively as usual because the parents weren’t making it lively.

The koto rehearsal was scheduled for the second of next month.
Since it was a major event held once every seven years by our teacher’s own master—and because the teacher had told us that at least two out of three from our household should attend—Umeko hesitantly raised the question of what to do.
Understanding her parents’ unspoken concerns all too well, Umeko didn’t express any personal desire to go, merely repeating the teacher’s request.
For a while, no one spoke.
Neither my wife nor I could avoid holding a particular thought.

The father proposed that if they could manage with just the haori, two might go.
Before the children, he still kept up some semblance of dignity.
Not only that—having never given them any proper satisfaction before—even while thinking it impossible in this case, he couldn't bring himself to outright refuse and thus made that suggestion.

A mother cannot voice what doesn't truly dwell in her heart.
Yet finding it too pitiful to forbid from the start, she stayed silent, unable to intervene.

“In that case，if you wear my haori，it’ll be fine，” said the eldest daughter.
Umeko—
“I don’t want to go so far as to borrow someone else’s kimono.”
“I.”
“Then we’ll just have Aoko，who has a kimono，go alone.”

The matter was settled with no apparent resentment from the children—to their parents' aching hearts—and reached its conclusion. Afterwards, talk turned for a time to rumors about a renowned koto player. Trying to dispel the unease that had sat in my chest since morning, I made an effort to engage with the children's conversation as I spoke. Yet neither my spirits nor my wife's countenance fully cleared.

The young workers finished their tasks in the barn and came in for breakfast. They came in saying that a yearling heifer had lain down and would not get up no matter what, so please come take a look. I felt as though a needle had pierced my chest again.

What happens twice will happen three times. It's truly strange—this above all is strange. I muttered to myself and immediately went to check the barn. It seemed to have a fever. Its rump trembled, its coat had dulled severely, and its eyes glistened with tears. I thought at a glance there was no hope.

I immediately showed it to a veterinarian, but his diagnosis was ambiguous.
By the third day, it didn't make it.
Misfortune never strikes just once.
The next month we lost a heifer, and the month after that, another cow.
This blow—coming as we were already suffering terribly from the economic depression—was like a wound inflicted on an already sick body.

After handing over the third dead cow to the rendering plant laborers, my wife wore a look of unbearable anxiety,

“What does it mean that nothing but such ill luck keeps happening? When I say that, you immediately laugh—couldn’t it be that our house’s orientation is inauspicious?”

“How could that be? Every household has its times of good and ill luck.”

Having said this, I still couldn't bring myself to have our house's orientation checked, yet I couldn't suppress a secret dread that in such an unlucky year, yet another misfortune might befall us.

IV

At the end of May, a baby was born effortlessly, though no one had been waiting for it.

“It’s bound to be a girl.”

When my wife said that irritably, the midwife laughed softly,

“Why, it’s a young lady we have here.”

The child was born with the destiny to be born.
Whether it was a seventh daughter or an eighth, there was nothing I could do.
The midwife performed her duties methodically and left.
The baby cried unreservedly for a while, then fell asleep with a Buddha-like face.
Her features were more beautiful than those of her sisters.

“If only she’d gone and been born somewhere they’d cherish her.”

From below where she had just spoken those words, my wife reached out and adjusted the baby’s clothes that had ridden up over her face. In the father’s muttered “You little troublemaker,” there now resonated parental tenderness. Even as voices around them criticized harshly, their hands showed no neglect in their care.

“Just wait and see—this troublemaker will have both parents and sisters at her beck and call.”

“That’s exactly why she’s even more of a troublemaker.”

Every day when washed, she was told what a beautiful child she was.
The sense of her being a burden faded with each passing day.

In the blink of an eye—had we been cursed by some demon god even in that fleeting moment?—on the very day we registered our eighth daughter’s birth, our three-year-old seventh daughter fell into the pond and died.
I had already informed you of this matter at the time, and as I cannot bear to write of it, I will not.
We, husband and wife, forgot our own lives and wept bitterly in regret for having even momentarily thought our child a burden.

Though we already had many children—whenever another was on the way, we would heave sighs of despair—now, bereft by our child’s death, we wept as though life itself were being torn from us.

Contradictions and inconsistencies… A life without faith, being like a ship without an anchor, felt profound shame over its eternal lack of peace.

V

July turned to August, and as the milk season approached, the relentless waves of economic depression finally began to subside, but the family’s pain at losing their young daughter would not easily heal.
The couple were mentally fatigued and easily startled by things, frequently awakening even during sleep at night.

In the dim light of a summer dawn’s end, there was someone hurriedly knocking on the front door.
The visitor explained that an elder brother’s wife in the neighborhood was in critical condition after childbirth and requested that he immediately summon Dr. So-and-so.

There was no time to process the shock.
I had my wife rush there with the messenger and immediately dashed out of the house to request Dr.—’s assistance; after going two or three blocks from home—the town was already bathed in dawn light.
There were quite a few people on the street.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get a rickshaw, so I hurried my weary body, drenched in sweat.
Even when I reached the tramway, there was still no streetcar.
The people on the street were all hurriedly darting right and left.

If people saw me, what would they think? Even as some remained behind closed doors, those rushing about at that hour were each driven by their own urgent matters in life. Just as I looked at people, they must have looked at me and wondered what urgent affair had me hurrying. Just as I was rushing down the road concerned with a single human's life and death, people were each running toward their own crucial events.

Or perhaps there were people holding feelings even more acutely intense than mine, their feet barely touching the ground. Or perhaps there were people whose hearts leapt with unexpected fortune, proceeding without knowing how far the road stretched. There must have also been those who reluctantly ventured out due to unavoidable circumstances, their feet heavy.

As I half-consciously pondered these things, an uneasy sense of my sister-in-law’s dwindling hope kept stirring in my aching heart—the doctor was the director of a certain hospital in Surugadai.
I immediately turned back after obtaining the doctor’s consent, but though there were no rickshaws or trams, my mind raced while my body dragged heavily.
Even as I hurried until sweat soaked my eyebrows, the road stretched endlessly before me.

When I imagined how desperately the patient must be waiting while her life ebbed away, such anguish overwhelmed me that my vision darkened.
Just as I glimpsed the patient’s gate, the doctor arrived from behind in a two-man rickshaw.
I ran alongside him and burst into my brother’s house.
But upon entering the gate, I froze at the unnatural stillness within.
We were too late.
She had drawn her last breath thirty minutes prior.
The doctor explained how postpartum hemorrhage permitted no delay in treatment before departing.
Those gathered could only exchange hollow glances and sigh.

My sister-in-law was forty-two.
She had been working until dusk yesterday.
Around one o'clock at night she had given birth smoothly, and the baby was healthier than average.

I could not bear to look at her altered form, yet I couldn't endure staying away without seeing her—so acute was fate's cruelty.
I entered a room thick with death's stench and met someone already separated by the boundary between life and death.
Around the chest area, the lingering warmth of life seemed not to have faded yet.

In life she had been a ruddy-complexioned woman with healthy luster; now—perhaps from losing all her blood—the sallow-yellowed face bore almost no resemblance to the woman she once was.
When my sister-in-law appeared gravely ill,

“It’s meaningless if I die like this...”

...she reportedly said.
The hearts of those who die young must mostly be distilled into that single phrase.
In those ordinary words resides, on the contrary, infinite resentment.
The person who had been working until dusk yesterday saw their life already extinguished by the break of that very night.
Leaving behind her many children and husband of many years in the bright world, her parents unable to arrive in time, she sank into eternal darkness without even a moment to lament her end.

“It’s meaningless if I die like this.”

A final mournful sound, too feeble even to struggle, seeped into the ears of those who heard it, never to fade throughout their lives. I returned home with my wife and simply sighed without understanding why. Involuntarily, I looked around at my wife’s face, my children’s faces. Surely there couldn’t be someone who would die suddenly—or so I thought.

That baby didn’t last much longer. Then my nephew’s daughter died; a friend of mine died, So-and-so died, and another So-and-so died. Having finally attended seven funerals in the latter half of last year, I came to deeply consider that life’s problems are problems of death. The problems of living are also problems of death. Both business and economic depression are problems of death. Literature too is a problem of death. I spent my days and nights thinking about such things. And so last year came to an end.

Misfortune surely couldn’t continue endlessly like this.
I had hoped things might find closure with the year’s end, but before I could even catch my breath, my ailing elder sister from the countryside arrived in Tokyo at the very dawn of the new year.
And so she too soon died at a certain hospital.
My sister was sixty-three; since her illness had been grave, we had long steeled ourselves for this.

“I’d thought if I could just live another three years or so, it’d be better—but even if I die now, I’ve got no lingering regrets…”

Even though I had said this myself, until those final hours when she lost all consciousness, she kept diligently taking her medicine and food.
She would properly receive the medicine offered on the spoon into her lips and draw it in completely.
It seems that until humans breathe their last, the will to live never disappears.

VI

"You may find this somewhat tedious, but I must now recount one more episode to you. This spring, a cattle plague suddenly broke out in Tokyo. It then fiercely ravaged my fellow dairy farmers. In two months, 1,200 head were slaughtered. Fortunately, none were nearby in my vicinity, so there was less to worry about, but every day without fail, two or three postcards of reports arrived. Last night, twenty head at a certain place were slaughtered; this morning, forty head at another—such reports came through. Seventy head at a certain place, ninety head at another—the tragic scenes were vividly apparent. Within the prefecture, all movement of cloven-hoofed animals was strictly prohibited, and in each household, interactions with the outside world were blocked as much as possible. It could be said that martial law had been declared in the animal kingdom. I was somewhat fortunately removed from a dangerous position, yet I felt as though surrounded by a great enemy. Of course, one could not maintain the mindset of a spectator idly watching another’s fire."

Among peers in the same industry, a longstanding agreement had long been established.
In cases where someone among peers in the same industry had unfortunately contracted cattle plague, it was established that no one could refuse a request to serve as a slaughter evaluator.
And so, I finally met with the misfortune of having to become an evaluator.

Through a notice from Fukagawa Police Station, I was assigned to go on duty as an evaluator for the cattle plague slaughter of a certain acquaintance in Sendagimachi.
As someone inexperienced with cattle plague—seeing it for the first time—my spirits were exceedingly low, but there was no alternative.
Moreover, since my role as an evaluator would also benefit a certain acquaintance of mine, I mustered my courage and set out.

When I arrived at the acquaintance’s gate in the deepening dusk, police officers stationed there were challenging everyone coming and going. At the gate, about forty carts and an equivalent number of laborers were swarming noisily. When I entered through the gate, the master—who had been drinking tea with three police inspectors—quickly noticed me. The words of regret I uttered did not even enter ears.

“Oh what a terrible inconvenience… We finally went and did it… HAHAHAHA!”

He laughed nonchalantly, but the hand holding the teacup trembled.
The women and children were nowhere to be seen.
Fourteen or fifteen police officers, slaughterers, and disinfecting laborers—some forty people in total—were making preparations with practiced efficiency.
The cattle exercise yard lay buried under such quantities of spread lime that it resembled nothing so much as a snowy night.

Under the master’s guidance, I conducted a preliminary inspection of the cattle.
A police officer naturally followed along.
Cattle afflicted with the plague proved to be black-haired dairy cows with red-and-white spots.
To my eye they appeared somewhat listless, though one wouldn’t recognize this as the dreaded cattle plague without being told—not through an amateur’s observation.
The remaining thirty-odd head showed no change from their usual state, each vying to devour their feed.

“When I think that all these here will be slaughtered in just a little while, tears well up regardless of profit or loss.”

The master now spoke as if something were lodged in his chest.
The white cow that had given birth that morning kept licking her black-and-white spotted calf from head to back to muzzle—a pitiful sight indeed.
Bulls lowed and calves cried out in mingled cacophony.
Every last one of them nuzzled at their feed buckets—this final meal provided them—making busy rustling sounds as they licked.
The master turned to his employee and said,

“This is their last feed. Let them lick it all up.”
“The buckets will be burned too.”
“Let them gnaw away…”

The master’s voice sounded choked.
I had no way to comfort him and could only encourage him by saying something recklessly bold.

The Metropolitan Police Department’s veterinarian had arrived and the three evaluators had gathered as per regulations, so without delay they began the appraisal.
The evaluation took about an hour and forty minutes, and by its conclusion full night had fallen.
Police officers stood holding lanterns, one per person.
Disinfecting laborers carried out all items from leftover feed to every implement in the barn, divided into three groups, and set fires.
They vigorously poured kerosene and stirred it up.
By those flames’ light they prepared to commence slaughter.

The cowherds claimed they couldn’t bear to assist unless fueled by drink.
The master had no choice but to provide not only alcohol but also physical effort, finally convincing the cowherds.
The police officers shouted to start quickly because night was deepening.
The slaughterers had been hired from the slaughterhouse.
No preparations were needed for the slaughter.
The slaughterers stood ready with iron hammers resembling small axes as the cowherds led the cattle toward them.

The first one led out was a red-haired, fat cow.
When they reached the designated position, the slaughterers in shirts and vests—men of utmost skill—struck with a thud. In the next instant, the cow showed no sign of thrashing, merely shaking its head briefly before buckling both knees and crouching its body, collapsing sideways all at once.
The disinfecting laborers immediately sealed the wound and took measures to prevent leakage of bodily fluids from all other orifices—mouth, nose, anus, and so forth.
The three cowherds led them out one after another and positioned them appropriately.
In less than thirty minutes, they had slaughtered fifteen or sixteen head.
Unaware that their sibling cows lay dead in rows, the cattle were ploddingly led out.
The mother cow looked back at her calf and kept crying out.
The slaughterers, without a word of complaint, disposed of that cow first.
The mother cow started to cry out but collapsed halfway through her voice.
The one that gave them the most trouble was a large bull.
Even when two cowherds finally managed to lead it out, the bull—apparently sensing something amiss in its surroundings—would occasionally start to thrash about, dragging the cowherds around.
The slaughterers stepped forward to position themselves appropriately and swiftly delivered a blow.
The large bull that had been threatening to thrash until now collapsed like a toppled embankment.
It seemed that the police officers, laborers, and those who had often carried out such tasks didn’t think anything of slaughtering cattle.
They made idle conversation without even pretending to watch.

I found the horrific scene unbearable and had tried to leave early on, but I couldn’t bring myself to take my leave from the master, so I ended up watching the entire slaughter through hesitant eyes.
The evaluation had taken one hour and forty minutes, but the slaughter concluded in one hour and twenty.
The brusque slaughterers took their fee and left without a word, hurrying off.
The police officers made a commotion, declaring their real work was about to begin.
The cattle were all fully disinfected and transported to the crematorium.
The cowshed naturally required extensive disinfection.

Seeing how the barn, which until now had been filled with chaotic noise and animal warmth, had suddenly turned silent and desolate, I felt myself being pulled into that emptiness and could no longer bear staying there another moment.

I changed into the fresh clothes I had prepared, left the outfit worn when entering the cowshed with the ward office disinfection staff, and departed. Of course I couldn’t return home right away—that very night I went to Kouzu to cleanse myself for what was supposed to be a week.

At the inn, I felt no urge to eat or drink. Though I glanced at newspapers and took out the book I’d brought, my nerves remained abnormally keyed up, making it impossible to focus my thoughts. The shapes of those cattle kept flashing through my mind in every conceivable form, inescapable.

In the end I forced down a swallow of sake and resolved to sleep.

Even though I had intended to stay seven days, I couldn’t last that long and returned home after three.
The affairs of others’ households stirred the heart as if they were scarcely another’s business.
I seemed quite mentally exhausted.

When I consider how quietly time has passed, I find myself unable to resist this urge to return to farming—exactly as you once suggested.
Though I don’t fully grasp what you mean by wanting to practice agriculture in Korea, my own desire stems purely from wishing to attain some mental tranquility, however brief, with thoughts of returning to farm life recurring intermittently.
Yet this conviction that farming might bring me peace could well be nothing more than a transient whim born of momentary torment.

In any case, through the various encounters from last year into this year, I was made acutely aware of my lack of cultivation.

By this, if you could unravel some parts of me that you have not understood until now, I would be satisfied.