Pathway to Japanese Literature

To say she “must not” think of him did not mean she found it unpleasant. Rather, it meant being troubled by feelings of fondness welling up now that she could no longer see what she had cherished before her eyes. Eight years had already passed since Mr. Akawa Sōnosuke—the literary luminary who shone across our nation’s Taishō-era literary world—took his own life. Why were white plum blossoms and Mr. Akawa Sōnosuke so intertwined in Yōko’s mind? Was it because her final encounter with him had occurred en route to viewing plums in Atami? Or did his elegant, gaunt stature evoke the white plum’s image? Or perhaps some aspect of his temperament shared a crystalline purity with those blossoms? Yet though the white plum season became her threshold for remembering him, whenever Yōko contemplated Mr. Akawa most deeply, the setting in her mind unfailingly returned to Kamakura at midsummer’s peak. Yōko’s family had spent that summer at Kamakura’s Yukinoshita Hotel H alongside Mr. Akawa Sōnosuke, five years before his suicide.

On a certain day in mid-July of Taisho 12 under a blazing clear sky，Yōko walked around Kamakura’s Yukinoshita，Hase，and Ogigayatsu areas from morning onward with her husband and his friend．It was to find a summer rental for the family to stay in from late July through August．Crossing gleaming railway tracks，peering at clusters of sunflowers in front gardens of various villas，coming upon pine groves or stretches of coastline—they searched everywhere but couldn’t find a house that met their expectations．In the end，Yōko’s husband’s friend guided Yōko and her husband to one of the villas at the H Hotel．H Hotel had established Kyoto as its main branch and Tokyo as a subsidiary branch，with yet another subsidiary branch constructing a villa-like restaurant in Kamakura；however，due to poor business this year，they allocated three or four buildings—including the main house—to summer guests as rentals，with the young proprietor couple intending to manage meals through Kyoto-style light dishes．

The two-room suite with a wisteria trellis near the main house and the Kagura hall-like structure at the farthest end had already been rented out. The middle building—an extremely ordinary yet tasteful structure—was still available, so Yōko and her group decided to rent it. Every room in each building faced the same expansive lawn garden on one side, while all were connected by corridors on the other.

Having decided on the rental, Yōko and her group inquired about the tenants of the Kagura hall building as they were leaving. They were a mix of five or six bourgeois young masters—young salarymen and university students, they said—and when we then asked about the wisteria trellis side, “Mr. Akawa Sōnosuke—that literary man.” The young proprietor of Hotel H looked somewhat toward Yōko and her group—fellow professionals—as though about to say, “What fine company you keep.” “Hm.” Yōko’s husband had spoken as if unconcerned, but Yōko felt a pang in her chest and was startled.

Speaking of Akawa Sōnosuke—at that time he stood merely two or three years Yōko’s senior—yet to her he represented nothing less than a luminary of the novelist’s craft, dazzling in his mastery. That startled reaction of hers likely sprang from her youthful veneration for literature having already received what might be termed an immediate impression through encountering Mr. Akawa, though several inherent factors beyond this also existed. Yōko’s husband Sakamoto the cartoonist had originally confined himself to sketching caricatures of politicians and social figures, but the previous year—at the behest of Bungei Sekai, that bastion of pure literature—he had commenced satirizing the literary world itself. Being unversed in literary circles, Sakamoto obtained material from one Mr. Kawada—both reporter for said magazine and rising author—transmuting it through his signature blend of whimsy and incisiveness into caricatures that ran serially for nearly a year. This development struck literary society as remarkably abrupt, leaving writers agape in near-awe while readers maintained their curiosity through murmurous excitement. Among these satires, the materials deployed against Mr. Akawa skirted perilously close to recent private matters—materials that too had naturally been furnished by Mr. Kawada. Not a few would later inform Sakamoto—he who knew so little of literary affairs—that what he’d handled as no particular secret had in truth been acutely painful matters for Mr. Akawa.

“That must have been hard for him.” “Mr. Kawada’s also a bit contrary—maybe he was venting some of his own frustrations toward his seniors.” With psychological criticism toward Mr. Kawada—who had brought those materials—interwoven, Sakamoto gave a wry smile. After switching from tanka to novels, Yōko requested that Mr. Kikui, a friend of Mr. Akawa, take a look at her debut work for the first time. However, as Mr. Kikui was at that time in the midst of planning a certain literary project, he recommended to Yōko that she have his friend Akawa Sōnosuke look at it instead.

Yōko promptly wrote a letter to Mr. Akawa, but his reply never came no matter how long she waited. Yōko had never before sent someone a letter requiring a response without receiving one, so she had grown somewhat disheartened and was nurturing a slightly resentful mood when someone remarked about it: “He might think the material for Mr. Sakamoto’s caricatures came from you.” “And being cautious by nature, he may have started keeping his distance to guard his privacy.”

“He might think that the material for Mr. Sakamoto’s caricatures came from you,” someone said to Yōko. When told this, it stood to reason that Yōko was closer to the literary world than Sakamoto. But Yōko, who was no literary socialite, could hardly have possessed the kind of incisive material someone like Mr. Kawada—a literary magazine reporter and up-and-coming novelist—might provide. Yōko grew increasingly disheartened, but if Mr. Akawa was indeed being that cautious, it seemed only natural; with one thing leading to another, her desire to have anyone read her novel had long since vanished.

Yōko was a woman who could at times be intensely tenacious and driven by personal sentiment, yet at other times possessed an impartial, dispassionate nature as though she were an entirely different person. Once Yōko came to understand the circumstances surrounding Mr. Akawa, they were cleanly severed in her heart.

However, a short while later, Yōko caught sight of Mr. Akawa from a completely different angle. It was one night when a crowded gathering of literati had been held on the second floor of a certain Western-style restaurant, and Mr. Akawa was present among them. A somber gold-brocade haori fit his frame impeccably, and together with his black hair—falling across an intelligent brow that accentuated his crisp, scholar-like demeanor—the very air around him grew dense with nobility. Amidst the many rough, slovenly literary figures, seeing Mr. Akawa in such a state filled Yōko’s heart with refreshing clarity—when suddenly, she noticed Madam X coquettishly positioned beside him. And as she casually observed Mr. Akawa’s attitude toward Madam X, Yōko gradually grew increasingly displeased. Mr. Akawa began directing toward Madam X the sort of attitude a customer would take with a geisha. Yōko’s displeasure did not stem from any moral criticism of a married man’s insincere attitude toward a certain madam. (Moreover, Madam X had long been a woman of leisure who spread a certain air of revelry through literary gatherings and such.) (She was a decent woman for whom Yōko rather held goodwill, but had never considered her someone worth regretting if teased.) For Yōko felt a vexation—born of her regard for Mr. Akawa—that through his elegant prose, distinguished bearing, and drippingly fresh brilliance, he was misapprehending beauty itself. However, the Madam X now before her eyes was undeniably beautiful even to Yōko. Madam X—her delicate facial structure complemented by shallow waves in her hair, her supple shoulders harmonizing a finely textured crepe-silk kimono and haori, her slender, elongated eyebrows slightly raised in coquettish poise—but Yōko knew how Madam X had looked just days prior. Yellowish skin, thin downward-sloping eyebrows—even now, with her original eyebrows shaved off and replaced by ones beautifully drawn in ink beneath slightly puffy eyelids that lent a dewy allure, back when those brows were in their natural state, she had merely commonplace droopy eyes. Though now concealed by wavy bangs, the receding landlady-like forehead that had been fully exposed until recently must still lurk beneath—for Yōko, having long observed Madam X until just days prior, found that even when confronted with the beauty the woman had crafted through her drastically altered makeup, the true visage of Madam X from so recently past would emerge like an overlay painting, interfering with the aesthetic pleasure of beholding her present form. Nevertheless, despite Yōko’s absence from the previous gathering where Mr. Akawa had encountered the transformed Madam X before she could—and perhaps because this marked their first meeting—he had lavishly praised the woman’s beauty, a fact now clamored about in certain literary circles. Indeed, those around Yōko’s ears were even whispering that Mr. Akawa had come to today’s gathering solely to see this very woman. Yōko’s naive hero-worship as a woman had turned to displeasure through the vexation of seeing the artist she respected—a figure she couldn’t fully reconcile with—mistaken in his aesthetic judgment. Even so, no matter how many times she looked back at her, the current Madam X was undeniably beautiful. A strange vexation. While Yōko and Mr. Akawa were together praising Madam X’s beauty, she found her mood peculiarly adrift in an ambiguous vexation—as though delighting in some counterfeit, feeling an urge to mock both herself and Mr. Akawa, yet finding herself unable to dismiss them outright.

At that time, Yōko wrote of these feelings in “Recent Reflections,” an essay solicited by a certain magazine. Of course, she never wrote the parties’ names, instead clearly detailing the circumstances as material to describe a somewhat peculiar psychology of her own. (Whether Mr. Akawa had read it or not was something Yōko hadn’t concerned herself with at the time, but through her interactions with him during their month-long stay together at H Hotel, she came to realize he had indeed read it.)

In any case, as matters reached their peak, all such premises were swept from Yōko’s heart, leaving only the sudden fact of being lodged together with Mr.Akawa Sōnosuke—the literary figure she revered—to loom starkly before her. As the sequence for narrating subsequent events, I excerpted portions from Yōko’s Kamakura diary that frequently mentioned Mr.Akawa.

One day.—Mr. Akawa arrived from Tokyo last night, three or four days after we did. Since early this morning, Mr. Akawa—wearing an indigo-patterned wide-sleeved yukata reminiscent of Chinese sarasa (whether such a thing exists or not, though this association stems from his trip to China the year before last)—had been going in and out of his room. Both the kimono and obi fit perfectly on his slender, tall frame. Around the time Mr. Akawa arrived from Tokyo, a small, dull bluish-tinged vase seemed to have been placed in the alcove of the adjacent room (or was that my imagination?). Was it placed by the innkeeper or brought by him? There were no flowers in it now, and I doubted any would ever be placed.

One day.—Mr. Akawa’s thick bass voice laughed frequently. Being in the neighboring building, I could feel the trembling of Mr. Akawa’s Adam’s apple. Thick, bass—a voice like a river where sharp nerve fibers were bundled into a raft and sent surging forth.

One day.—Because my husband had come from Tokyo, Mr. Akawa came to our room to greet us. Across the lawn extending from the garden, he led a man who resembled either a young master or an inn clerk, stepping carefully in sandals one measured pace at a time. On the shallow damp veranda, Mr. Akawa placed both hands flat and bowed with perfect courtesy—a childlike bow of impeccable breeding. With each rhythmic inclination, his long hair swept across his forehead only to be brushed back anew each time by his own hand. I observed in silence this first meeting between men who had each mastered their craft—a meeting tinged with unspoken complexities—as though witnessing legendary actors face each other onstage.

One day.—In the morning, I encountered Mr. Akawa at the washstand. “I had a dream about sunflowers last night. I kept watching them until dawn broke,” Mr. Akawa said to me while scrubbing his face vigorously with hands dipped in cold water. “So don’t you have a headache this morning?” For some reason, I ended up asking Mr. Akawa such a thing. “Oh? It’s just like a Van Gogh dialogue.” Mr. Akawa said this, finished wiping his face with a towel, and looked directly at me. His eyes were slightly bloodshot. Mr. Akawa gave a curt “Ha,” then said, “Well then, this afternoon… Before noon, I’ll be writing my manuscript.” With a polite bow, he retreated into his room.

In the afternoon, a young woman with a raucous voice seemed to visit Mr. Akawa’s room. That evening, I noticed a stylishly dressed woman of average height leaving Mr. Akawa’s room and walking across the lawn to depart. Her profile carried a crude quality, yet showed contours reminiscent of a Western film actress. “She’s the sister of Mr. Ōkawa Sōzaburō’s wife—[Author’s note: Mr. Ōkawa was Mr. Akawa’s senior, then called both a renowned aestheticism writer and a decadent writer.]” “Kakuko’s quite the tomboy,” Mr. Akawa remarked beneath the wisteria trellis.

A young man who looked like an inn clerk was observing my face from the veranda. Old Okoma, the longtime maid of H Hotel who had brought the cleaned tobacco tray into the parlor, said in her booming voice, “Well now, is that Mr. Ōkawa’s much-touted sister?” Mr. Akawa smiled bitterly and said, “It’s not exactly something to boast about, but she’s a woman I can take anywhere more readily than my wife.” “Your wife has a quiet, Japanese-style beauty, but your sister-in-law is quite different,” I said. Mr. Akawa’s clerk said, “I like beauties like your wife as well as those like Ms. Kakuko.” Mr. Akawa: “In other words, bow to Buddha, bow to Christ…” “And who will become Muhammad… I wonder,” said Mr. Akawa’s clerk. “Fool. He himself is utterly solemn!”

One day.—Two or three days prior, painter Mr. K had come from Tokyo and joined the group in Mr. Akawa’s room. According to rumor, just as Mr. Natsume Sōseki had considered Mr. Seifu Tsuda both mentor and friend, so too were Mr. K and Mr. Akawa said to share an affectionate bond. Mr. K was a stocky man who had just entered middle age, his head closely cropped; he spoke haltingly and sparingly, often keeping lowered eyes that suggested an Eastern romanticist. A single leg—yet even this disability now seemed to have settled into a somewhat self-satisfied resignation, harmonized with a lifestyle where Mr. K himself tended his poetic sensibilities and melancholy. Still, one could vaguely sense an aura of escapism surrounding Mr. K. From this, it became clear that Mr. Akawa’s temperament and preferences were growing ever more inclined toward Mr. K. After spending more time together, one discerned that within Mr. K’s thick-set physique—somewhere—lay composed yet exquisitely delicate nerves taking root. Perhaps Mr. Akawa, reassured by the tactile solidity of Mr. K’s external form—which spared the frayed edges of his own taut nerves—found himself growing fonder still of Mr. K through this very compatibility that allowed contact with those delicate inner fibers.

One day.

――It seemed Ōkawa Kakuko had temporarily separated from her brother Mr. Ōkawa, secured lodgings nearby, and settled in Kamakura for a while; today she began modeling for Mr. K. From before noon, there was a great commotion in Mr. Akawa’s room. The presence of that sort of girl enlivened the monotonous air of the summer resort. “Sō-chan!” the girl called out, and Mr. Akawa too was making a great commotion. Okoma the maid came to my room and, pointing to a small pavilion beyond the lawn amid the trees, said to us with polite restraint: “Before Mr. Akawa arrived, he insisted on holing up there to write, so we turned away other guests and lent it to him—yet now that Ms. Kakuko has come, he’s thrown everything aside as you see….” Even as she spoke deferentially, she went on criticizing Mr. Akawa as a “smooth-talker” and “overly attentive for a man.” This old woman was quite fault-finding and left an unpleasant impression—though Mr. Akawa did give some basis for such remarks.

The thudding clamor of Kakuko and Mr. Akawa apparently starting a mock sumo match mingled with the raucous uproar of two or three visitors from Tokyo who had come to see him. As I listened intently from this room, Mr. Akawa’s merriment alone began reverberating distinctly in my ears—a mirth tinged with something somber. There was an inherently shadowed quality that relentlessly dragged down his metropolitan exuberance, that vigor which strained ever upward. Before my eyes materialized the hallucination of a thick wire… With a dull crash, cast down to earth, its metallic surface alone glittering fiercely in the sunlight….

One day.—For the first time, I had something resembling a literary discussion with Mr. Akawa. I said, “If Japanese naturalism is said to have derived from Maupassant and Flaubert, I must object.” “I feel Japanese naturalism has only imitated a portion of foreign naturalist writers.” “Whether Maupassant or Flaubert, they never advocated solely for physical naturalism.” “I rather sense a spiritual poetic fragrance from foreign naturalist writers.” Mr. Akawa responded: “Precisely. Japanese writers are exceedingly impatient in imitating the West.” “Moreover, they lack comprehensive robustness in both physical and mental strength.” “Thus they merely imitate fragments conceptually.” Having said this, Mr. Akawa gazed at the lawn where the midday sun glittered, with a somewhat weary air. Beyond the fence came the clatter of wooden clogs—the voices of Mr. Akawa’s acquaintances approaching Hase. I left his room and rested awhile in my own—the dimness, mosquitoes around my napping pillow—composing such “verses” while thinking of Mr. Akawa’s lonely eyes.

One day.—Mr. Akawa and I were complete opposites in physique, appearance, and certain aspects of disposition, yet we shared considerable similarities in the texture of our nerves, aesthetic sensibilities, and inclinations. Perhaps he too had sensed this, for opportunities to grow close—as people say—and exchange earnest confidences multiplied daily. Yet even as I increasingly perceived his admirable qualities, an ineffably perplexing version of him began gradually materializing before me—one bearing no resemblance to his better self, at times seeming wholly disconnected from it altogether. I encountered an aspect neither fully childish nor maliciously intended—pathological, unseeing, at moments verging on unforgivably discourteous—that defied simple categorization.

One day.—Today, Mr. Akawa appeared to be writing all day in a small pavilion among the chinquapin trees. When we went to the coast briefly and returned, husband took a nap; cousin did her sewing; and I spent my time doing nothing but reading. In the evening, the younger brother of Mr. T—who had been introduced at the coast days prior—came to visit my room. A twenty-five-year-old member of *The Sower*, this sickly youth had left W University due to ill health—small-statured yet speaking with an oddly shrill vigor. He continued near-bellowing about Marx and Lenin, ultimately denouncing the current literary world as petit bourgeois and half-dead snakes. Around ten o'clock, the young man returned to his brother's house wearing a vividly sickly expression. As he left, making a theatrical face, he said with a bitter smile: “Oh damn—Asa, Sō was next door all along.”

While I was trying to sleep, my cousin, who had gone to the main house to play, came back. Granny Okoma was also with her.

“You see, after dinner tonight, Mr. Akawa brought a chair outside his room against the wall and sat motionless there the entire time we had guests here.” “Do you think he was eavesdropping on us or something?” she tattled. “Is that so,” was all my husband said. I felt an unpleasant feeling toward both the gossiping old woman and Mr. Akawa, but after commenting, “That guest was talking so loudly after all,” I also felt somewhat sorry for Mr. Akawa.

One day.—Early in the morning, my husband departed for Osaka on company business.

When I passed by Mr. Akawa’s room, he made his usual exquisitely polite bow. Then he accompanied me to H Hotel’s main gate to see my husband off, delivering another meticulously courteous farewell address. From behind, I observed his always likable urbane manners—his tall frame clad in a black hemp summer kimono whose hem fluttered in the morning breeze like a whip wielded with cold intellect. Painter Mr. K had returned to Tokyo days earlier, and no visitors yet occupied Mr. Akawa’s room in the early hours. He told me to approach. I settled on the veranda edge of his room. As I gazed through sleep-deprived eyes at wisteria pods swaying on their trellis in the dawn wind, Mr. Akawa crouched in the dim alcove far behind me. He stayed silent awhile. I too kept quiet. A pure white dog crossed before my vision. It glanced back repeatedly as it squeezed through a fence gap. From behind me, Mr. Akawa growled in his thick voice: “You must understand—I’ve not ascended to rationalist heights.” “Nor do I consider myself sufficiently decayed to be labeled a mere stylist……” “Ah—you mean what that *Sower* fellow said last night?” I’d let intuition slip into words. “What *The Sower* says matters not.” “I certainly shan’t lag behind others in attending to Marx and Lenin.” “In taste I remain wholly traditional, but in mental fortitude—there I rather align myself with Marx and Lenin.”

“Certainly, you have a certain vigorous edge about you.” “And what did you discuss with *The Sower*?” “I was mostly just listening.” “Generally speaking, I can’t say anything definitive since I haven’t even read *Das Kapital* yet.” “Well, I did mention something that might have seemed utterly trivial.” “No matter how much material equality is achieved, humans’ innate intelligence and disparities in physical appearance can’t be regulated by artificial systems.” “Suppose there are two people here: one born with intelligence and beauty but lacking material goods compared to the other.” “At that point, the other—though lacking those qualities—finds their discontent somewhat assuaged by material wealth.” “If we were to strip that wealth from the latter and equalize them with the former, what remains for the latter is only the glaring inequity of lacking both intellect and beauty compared to the former. Don’t you see?” “What would you do about this?” “I posed this sort of question to our friend from *The Sower*.” “But his response remained unclear to me.” “Haha… A rather childish inquiry, yet undeniably true. Even for us, reckless demands for material equality pose their own dilemmas. Yet when new ideologies or human desires emerge—whether absolute truths or not—the very act of societal shift carries its own justification. There’s no resisting it.” “Take naturalism rising against the Ken'yūsha—superficial as it was—or aestheticism’s mere wordplay that followed. The progression itself holds an inexorable truth we must accept.” Having said this, Mr. Akawa leaned forward slightly. His lips trembled faintly as his eyes took on an anxious cast. “But this Marxist literary surge appears far more potent than previous movements.” As Mr. Akawa’s agitation grew palpable, I felt compelled to interject. “You know,” “Dante preferred composing *Inferno* over *Paradiso*, didn’t he?”

What an abrupt thing I had blurted out—I was dismayed at myself—but Mr. Akawa, to my surprise, gave a straightforward reply. “Indeed.” “From time immemorial, humanity has held paradise as its ideal while in actuality being rather attached to and familiar with hell.” “Even Dante…” Mr. Akawa, while saying this, took out a melon that had been lying out of my sight in the back of the alcove, skillfully placed it on a plate, and cut it with a knife. And baring his teeth in a laugh, he continued, “We ought to be shattered like this by the new era.” “Ha ha….” “But,” he said again, poking at the seeds spilling from the melon with the tip of his knife, “but you know, even within us, such seeds swarm.” “These will burrow deep into the earth’s core and steadily sprout in some era yet to come—a most troublesome affair indeed.”

A white dog returned from somewhere. Once more, it lumbered heavily into my line of sight and stood there, looking up at me and Mr. Akawa. I was already silently eating the melon.

One day.

When I went to throw watermelon rinds outside the back gate, there on the gravel path inside stood Mr. Akawa—hatless, crouched and staring fixedly at the ground in the opposite direction. “What are you doing?” I asked as I approached with quiet footsteps. Mr. Akawa replied with an utterly ordinary expression: “In this blazing sky’s subterranean layer—mightn’t we say tiny people are swarming about, trying to sprout forth?” “Huh?” I stared curiously at Mr. Akawa, whose face streamed with sweat. “Ahaha… Anyone might have such delusions now and then.” “...” At the feet of Mr. Akawa—who had now risen—lay numerous large black ants, crushed dead. With his sweat-soaked hair plastered to his forehead, he stood there cackling. I sensed something spectral haunting the midday air. A chill ran through me. “There’s still half a watermelon left—please come have some later.” I offered this, but Mr. Akawa circled past the well without responding and disappeared up the corridor.

In the evening, a reporter from P Publishing who came to my place took a photograph that included my family members in the room along with Mr. Akawa. After being photographed, Mr. Akawa began to worry intensely about how frequently his face appeared ghastly in photographs lately. And I also asked P Publishing to refrain from publishing it in any magazines if Mr. Akawa appeared ghastly in the photo. After the P Publishing reporter accepted this and returned to Tokyo, I had my cousin cut the remaining half of the afternoon watermelon and entertained Mr. Akawa on the veranda of my room. “Well, you do treat me to quite the feast. Thanks to you, it’s like I’m barely keeping body and soul together.” My cousin burst into open laughter.

“Is it funny?” “She always says your wit is amusing,” I said. But I felt a different kind of strange amusement in my gut at how Mr. Akawa—who had been so neurotic about the photograph until just moments ago—had now switched to clowning around, unlike my cousin’s reaction. From within the distant twilight came a whistle. It was T’s younger brother entering through H House’s gate. Then Mr. Akawa suddenly stiffened his face and stood up, saying, “Oh—The Sower has come.”

One day.—Late at night, when I went to the main house to check the clock, Mr. Akawa sat alone in the parlor, reclining in a rattan chair while reading a newspaper. As I was with my aunt who had just arrived from Tokyo, I bowed to Mr. Akawa and tried to return to my room immediately, but he forcibly detained me and seated me in a chair. My petite aunt had taken a small chair by the window some distance away and was gazing outside. "The Sower hasn't visited lately." "Yes—I hear he's gone off to Tōhoku." "Ah, but you've had quite an influx of guests at your place these past two days." "Though Kamakura lies near Tokyo, its novelty draws visitors even without specific business—I host more guests here than during my Tokyo days." "What categories would you say these guests broadly fall into?" "............" "Well now—not that I've any right to inquire about others' visitors..." "The regulars would likely be that X designer from last week, Poet X, and Philosophy Department's Mr. X." "That designer X appears rather at an impasse himself." "Yes—it seems previous methodologies grow increasingly eclipsed by neoclassicism's recent ascendancy." "So Europe's cultural currents finally lap at Japan's shores too." "Poet X remains youthfully vibrant—a true colorist." "But his verbosity borders on absurdity at times... As for Philosophy..." "That one's my intellectual nemesis!"

Aunt spun around from the window to face this way. “How about a cigarette?” Mr. Akawa produced a case toward Aunt, but since she did not smoke, she merely bowed in response. “Your place also has quite a lot of guests, doesn’t it.” “Both the □ guy and the △ guy are such annoying fellows.” “But you have quite a number of admirers.” “Hah,” Mr. Akawa said with a somewhat smug look as he gazed at the lampshade. Beneath the direct overhead light, thick shadows like rivers appeared one by one on Mr. Akawa’s gaunt cheeks. “Encountering such fanatical worshippers makes me feel dangerously uneasy from where I stand.” “□ is on the verge of squandering even the great family fortune of N City.” “He’s a decent fellow, but rather a naive ambitious type.” “With all this literature and art business, he’s likely to end up in complete disarray.” “The monaka at Mr. △’s shop are delicious.” “If only that Mr. △ would just keep making monaka, but once he starts worshipping the likes of us, his business is sure to go under.” “Mr. X and Mr. XXX were here until just moments ago, weren’t they.” “X here is an aspiring novelist, but he’s quite skilled at dancing.” “Why don’t you learn dancing from X at the Kamakura Hotel’s dance hall?” “Since he’s still young, he remains quite innocent.” Aunt interjected. “I’d rather not.” “This one’s barely keeping afloat as it is—they can’t manage something so agile.”

So Aunt, aiming to have me practice vocal exercises, brought a shamisen and explained her plan to have me rehearse Tsuru Kame starting tomorrow. Just as the two of us tried to leave the parlor, Mr. Akawa called out to stop me again. And then, with utmost seriousness: “A great many people from Tokyo will still be coming to your place, won’t they.” “Approximately how many people are still planning to come?” “I don’t know.” “If all those people go home with me on their minds each time, I can’t bear it….”

Aunt said as we walked through the dark corridor.

“What a strange person that Mr. Akawa is.” “......” “Why on earth does he go to such lengths to investigate and fret over the number of guests coming to someone’s place?” Even as she returned to the room and laid out the bedding, Aunt muttered as if to herself. “He’s downright strange—it’s like he’s got something shady in his past,” she muttered. Aunt was nearing fifty, her appearance and manner old-fashioned and sensible, yet she was more perceptive than your average young person. Before long, Aunt closed the sliding door and went to sleep in the room across with her cousin. I had napped quite a bit during the day, and now found myself unable to sleep, preoccupied by Aunt’s words and Mr. Akawa’s recent remarks and demeanor. Resignedly, I got up, folded my hands on the desk, rested my head on them, and pondered Aunt’s mention of Mr. Akawa having something shady in his past. Everyone has some shady things in their past; but seeing Mr. Akawa’s frantic efforts to conceal his from others’ notice—to prevent anyone from sensing it—was painful to witness. Guests are each other’s business when it comes to their respective rooms, after all. The guests at the bourgeois sons’ room were truly something. From morning till night, outsiders would crowd in one after another—harmonica playing, group singing, sumo wrestling, uproarious laughter. Those [activities] did not disturb Mr. Akawa’s nerves, yet he seemed to harbor a kind of fearful fixation toward my guests—all of whom, except for “The Sower,” would quietly converse or amuse themselves before departing. Even on Mr. Akawa’s side, apart from the young and innocent Mr. X, the gentle and refined writer Mr. XXX, and painter K, the guests were not particularly pleasant either. A certain man once encountered me in the hallway and stopped me, launching into a pretentious preamble—“I’m keeping my identity concealed, you see”—before lavishing exaggerated praise on Mr. Akawa. Since he too was one of Mr. Akawa’s guests, he adopted a tone as if he were some grand figure of consequence, which made me unbearably uncomfortable. Nor was it pleasant to see the rather dubious-looking female guests surrounding Mr. Akawa in his parlor, sitting with imposing postures as they glared at people passing through the corridor or garden. At times, I found it unbearably grating to wonder what such women and the backbiting-skilled Mr. Akawa might be saying about me. Whenever there were guests in Mr. Akawa’s room, I would discreetly conceal my presence. When I spoke with Mr. Akawa without guests present, I nearly forgot all about his visitors—yet he grew so neurotic over my own guests, who had no connection to him at all. Was it because he sensed in me what Aunt called “some shadowy secret,” and suspected I might mention even a fraction of it to them? Even so, what could it have been that Mr. Akawa was concerned about me having “something shady” at present?

If I were to force myself to recall, it would be Mr. Akawa’s persistence during the “Beauty Dialogue” about a week prior. The persistence with which he had pressed himself upon me then was met with resistance, and I could imagine how this had left him scarred. About a week prior, in the late afternoon, the conversation between Mr. Akawa and me had veered toward the subject of “female beauty.” Mr. Akawa: “True beauties among women are just as rare as those among men, you know.” “However, when a man becomes fixated on a certain woman and piles various fantasies and hopes upon her, she comes to appear as a peerless beauty.” “And I don’t want to wake from that rapturous illusion.” “That way lies happiness for men, you see.” “Wiping away rouge and powder from a woman to see her bare face—that’s something I could never bring myself to do.” “But what’s wrong with that?” “That’s all there is to it.” The tone of Mr. Akawa’s words pressed down on me piece by piece. I chimed in, “Absolutely.” Then Mr. Akawa pressed me further: “Do you really, truly think so?” “Yes.” “What is it?” I said.

Mr. Akawa fell completely silent after that. His eyes gleamed like the bed of a faintly clouded river, and a sardonic smile played about his lips. After a while, Mr. Akawa squinted his eyes and fixed his gaze on one part of the wisteria trellis, but suddenly stood up, reached out his hand to pluck two or three wisteria leaves, and sat back down in his original spot. But with an irritable sigh, he said, “In that sense—if *I* acknowledge a woman as beautiful, you surely have no grounds to object.” “Who is this ‘certain woman’?” I said. In the heat of the moment, I found myself cornered. Mr. Akawa laughed with desperate cunning: “Heh heh heh.” Suddenly, I thought of Madam X. And then I realized: having seen Madam X years prior at a certain restaurant—where I had witnessed her before skillful makeup transformed her—I could not simply join Mr. Akawa in admiring the beauty of the Madam X before us now. The essay I wrote for a magazine, criticizing Mr. Akawa through this very sentiment while absolutely avoiding explicit mention of either his or Madam X’s names—Mr. Akawa had indeed read it, detected my meaning, and harbored these feelings all along. “I have quite clear standards of beauty myself, but others’ preferences are of no concern to me.” Having said this, I became inexplicably sad and hung my head. What persistent nerves Mr. Akawa had. Had he, since before noon, gone to such lengths—relaying messages through the maid, sending Okoma with sweets, summoning me to his room for conversation—all just to say this? Or was it an invitation timed now that we’d interacted enough for him to deem it acceptable to broach the subject… A similar incident had occurred just two or three days before. I had encountered a very striking beauty on horseback along the road from the coast to Ōgigayatsu and told Mr. Akawa about it upon returning. Then Mr. Akawa formed a strange, sardonic smile and said, “Oh? A very beautiful woman?” “Oh? So you possess fixed standards of beauty, do you?” “But I thought she was beautiful—without any issues of fixed standards or the like.” Mr. Akawa retorted: “That woman only looked beautiful because she was on horseback.” I felt a surge of emotion welling up inside me, but outwardly I replied calmly, “Her being on horseback may have accentuated her dashing figure, but what I’m speaking of is her face—a perfectly proportioned face that flushed with a natural blush as she rode.” “Hah,” said Mr. Akawa, looking utterly resentful.

“As a rule, those with well-proportioned faces tend to be idiots.”

I turned away sullenly. Why was it so wrong for me to call the woman I saw on horseback along the Ōgigayatsu road a beauty in front of Mr. Akawa? Yet despite Mr. Akawa himself ceaselessly evaluating the beauty of various women—one might even say excessively—why should it be wrong for me to have casually praised the equestrian beauty of Ōgigayatsu in his presence? As a matter of fact, I had never before seen such a noble and beautiful face in broad daylight as hers.

Mr. Akawa perceived my sullen expression. Then, suddenly acting timid, he poured tea and placed it before me, blurting out as if thrusting it forward. “She must have been truly beautiful then.” “As for that beauty.” I ended up laughing meekly. “Yes, thank you.” Why on earth had I said thank you? And yet, despite that, my chest was filled with frustration…

After being hospitably entertained by Mr.Akawa,I returned to my room while part of me thought he was indeed a timid but good-natured person.But my frustration wouldn't subside.To my cousins,I pretended to nap and lay down with my back turned.I suppressed tears threatening to spill.I too might be an obstinate,foolish woman who can't bend her thoughts for others-a difficult creature.Yet Mr.Akawa's nerves were far too grating.This made me feel like I'd come all the way to Kamakura just to serve as his stubborn opponent...

My cousin spoke from behind. “Sister.” “You had some quarrel with Mr. Akawa, didn’t you?” Then my cousin muttered soliloquy-like: “Honestly—Mr. Tada, who once wrote a novel depicting me grotesquely before dying off as that sickly poet, and Mr. Akawa too… Writers are such irritatingly tedious people.” The remarks of this practical, strong-willed cousin were so humorous that I whirled around, laughed out loud, and said: “And your sister here is also quite bothersome and tedious, isn’t she?” “Hmph—can’t be helped.” My cousin gave a whack with the palm-frond fly swatter.

After taking a long nap and rising to have my cousin cut some yōkan for our snack, I heard thud, thud—footsteps echoing down the corridor beyond the shōji. “Who is it?” My cousin stood and slid the shōji open partway—revealing Mr. Akawa. “Oh, tea? I’ll come back later.” Since I had taken a brief nap and completely forgotten about earlier events, I said, “No, please come in.” “Fujimura’s yōkan has arrived from Tokyo.” She amiably offered Mr. Akawa a zabuton cushion. Mr. Akawa entered holding something like a document holder in one hand. “This is delicious,” he said, and ate all of the yōkan we offered. Then, with an air of restlessness, he stared intently at the fusuma and tokonoma before finally placing the document holder in front of me and saying, “Would you care to take a look at this?” “What is it?” “It came out from between the books by chance.”

When I casually took it from his hand and looked, it was an offset print of Tintoretto’s nude. I was utterly captivated at first glance by its sensual yet sublime beauty, like lustrous pearls and jade. My cousin leaned over and gazed intently at the image in my hands. And she let out an admiring gasp, “Oh my!” “Ah, you’re admiring it, aren’t you,” said Mr. Akawa, addressing my cousin—whom he rarely spoke to—while watching us with satisfaction as we remained unable to tear our eyes from the print. But when I returned the print to him, he began to speak as though he had been waiting for this moment. “But consider this—would the gentlemen and ladies of our ancient past—Susanoo-no-Mikoto, Fujiwara no Kamatari, Taira no Masakado, Sei Shōnagon—truly marvel at this nude’s beauty that we of the Taishō era so deeply admire? Or Napoleon, Henry VIII, Columbus, Cleopatra, the South Seas islanders—would they value it equally with us today…?”

Having listened to Mr. Akawa’s words up to this point, I had nearly grasped why he had come to show me the Tintoretto print in my room. Mr. Akawa—wanting to settle our earlier debate about beauty evaluations according to his own inclinations—had come using Tintoretto’s nude as material for this purpose, and had nearly achieved his intended effect. A tight lump formed in my chest; while listening to his words, I kept my eyes fixed on the offset print now returned to his hand without moving them. Mr. Akawa’s acute sensitivity seemed to immediately notice this shift, and when I saw his face—now standing silent after all—I unmistakably perceived the “scar of self-satisfaction” upon it. I still remember with crystalline clarity how vividly I felt the tragic essence of Mr. Akawa’s character through that “scar of self-satisfaction” at that moment.

If I were to seek what my aunt called a “shadowy past” in Mr. Akawa for the time being, all manner of incidents from recent days such as those described above came to mind. But being forced to endure even the sight of Mr. Akawa slightly staggering under the weight of his “scar of self-satisfaction” was utterly unbearable.

One day. In Mr. Akawa’s room, a crowd of his admirers had been lined up nearly all day. Mr. Akawa sat composedly amidst the circle of guests, exuding an air of dignified grace akin to that of a noble sage. When compared to the effeminately persistent Mr. Akawa who grew terribly neurotic during private conversations, there was indeed a marked difference. Even so, when I hear someone say things like “I’ve known that person for years” as if they understood them completely, I cannot agree. Even meeting another as host and guest for a fixed period within a day and night amounts only to encountering them during curated interpersonal time. No matter how casually one interacts, it remains an acquaintance confined to allotted hours. A person with such a showy disposition as Mr. Akawa would never meet even close friends without retaining all defenses. Yet seeing someone’s many facets through unguarded moments as neighbors—even briefly—reveals more of their true nature than years of scheduled meetings as guests or friends ever could. I had already spent over twenty days living separated from Mr. Akawa by nothing more than a single wall. I had observed much of the “unguarded Mr. Akawa” unknown to ordinary guests and friends alike. One morning: his retreating figure shuffling down the corridor to the bathroom, sash ends trailing carelessly. Mr. Akawa pausing before the mirror in an empty washroom—sticking out his tongue, stroking his forehead, even grinning at his reflection—then retreating as if certain none had witnessed it. One afternoon: peering alone at goldfish in a washbasin. In a hushed room: clipping his nails. Silently facing the wall: knees hugged to chest. In moonlit gardens: exercising shirtless beneath windows. Suddenly—his face lifting from the writing desk: not its usual beauty but drawn and haggard, contorted into a chilling grotesque mask. These moments, compared to his posed discussions of literature and art, perhaps emanated a far more guileless nostalgia—human sorrow and solitude seeping through. That I—while harboring such vexing displeasure on Mr. Akawa’s account—would eventually regain goodwill toward him might stem from how I brushed against these unnoticed expressions of his in passing.

One day.—A sweltering wind blew ceaselessly from the sea, rendering the room unbearable that night. Aunt had grown close to Granny Okoma and went shopping in town together.

I finished writing the accumulated letters and went out to the garden’s cooling platform with my cousin around nine o’clock. There was Mr.Akawa, all alone. It was a night thick with stars. As we talked, we often found ourselves looking up at the stars. “I just thought of something—have you ever heard a song like this… ‘The Sumida River flows gray, perhaps to gather and carry away the melancholy of great Tokyo…’ or something along those lines.” “Yes. I spent some time living in the downtown area as a child.” “During that time, the urban melancholy of that area truly sank into me.” “You are quite the melancholic soul.” “Associating with you makes me feel mentally sharp.” “And Mr.Sakamoto is such a good person too—I suppose coming to Kamakura wasn’t a mistake.” “There were times when we proved irritating too, weren’t there?” “Ha ha ha….” “But you did go so far as to move next to us.” “But I had rented it first… Besides which, I’m fickle by nature.” My cousin suddenly boomed in her deep voice: “When you say Tokyo, I just immediately think of Aoyama Palace!”—sending our conversation veering backward. “Ahaha… That simplicity has its charm… As for me—a Honjo native—I’m like a bubble floating on Honjo’s great ditch.” “Oh, don’t be absurd!” Mr.Akawa: “It’s true! Absolutely true!” Then turning to me: “Though honestly—I’ll likely just bubble away and vanish soon.” “Were you contemplating such things while stargazing?” “In essence—in this irresponsible world where humans squirm under fleeting vows of life and death—we’re nothing but trivial, wretched creatures.”

“They make a great fuss, both openly and covertly, about the distribution of material goods, ideals, this -ism and that—but in truth, humans are nothing but wretched creatures squirming through life like maggots at the bottom of a barrel.” “That’s true.” “But when you dwell on things so obsessively that you reach a dead end, doesn’t that backlash make you want to stir up some festive commotion or establish new ideologies and ideals?” “Aren’t they both part of humanity’s true nature?” “What do you think about the problem of life and death?” “I think of death as a metamorphosis from a certain period of life, and life as a metamorphosis before a certain period of death—but I also consider them to be entirely separate entities.” “By that,” Mr. Akawa said, “I consider it both the unity of life and death and also something where life and death have no connection whatsoever.” “Yes.” “I wish I could settle it one way or the other.” “Since there’s no help for it, for now we must adhere to whichever idea dominates us more strongly.” Mr. Akawa continued: “I do not believe in the unity of life and death.” “Though I close my mind’s eye to the notion that death is an endless dark world arriving after life’s destruction, I believe that through the single work I leave behind, a connection can be maintained between my posthumous self and the present.” “I have thought that way before.” “However, now, it has become quite different.” “The energy contained within our bodies may physically transform through death and remain as real elements within the universe without departing a single step beyond it, but since individuality, spirit—in other words, phenomenal existence—will entirely vanish beyond that, works produced by the phenomenal self during life have no relation whatsoever to the individual self that has completely disappeared after death… To think they do is merely an observation by those left behind in this world…” “Wait a moment—don’t you feel lonely thinking that way?” “At least, for a sentimentalist like you.” “I did feel lonely—and precisely because I’m a sentimentalist, I ended up thinking through to that very point.” “I understand.” “The reason you, despite being quick-tempered, soon become gentle is precisely because you possess such twists in your thinking and changes in character.”

“Is that so? As for someone like me—so full of worldly desires—I simply can’t think of things plainly and remain composed. Yet one side of my character remains utterly simple and carefree, even though…” Then my cousin abruptly concluded with a peculiar remark—“That’s just fine”—leaving me disconcerted into silence. Mr. Akawa rose from beside us and lay supine on another vacant rectangular cooling platform. Nearing late August, insects chirped in hushed clumps of grass near and far. Mr. Akawa’s refined face appeared desolate as a death mask in the starlight. A chill seized me as I fancied his body rapidly transforming into bleached bones from the sharp tip of his nose outward. And through that faint shudder raced the ghastliness of his *Rashōmon*, the uncanny beauty of *Hell Screen*, and the phantasm of *The Death of a Christian*.

Imbued with reverence for him that welled up from memories of those works, I said in a formal tone that would normally have embarrassed me, “Please take care of your health.” The year before last, when my husband drew a caricature that displeased Mr. Akawa—a piece for which Mr. Kawada, a reporter from *Literary World*, had provided material—it stemmed from that incident; moreover, even afterward, the rumors that the illness he had brought back from his China trip continued to trouble him did not seem entirely baseless. Mr. Akawa would sometimes claw at his own long hair. And he seemed to have developed a habit of plucking one or two strands with his fingers and bringing them close to his eyes to examine them. I too had a vague recollection of having witnessed this habit once or twice, and on nights like this, when my reverence for him swelled into tender concern, I found myself profoundly wishing to speak about his health.

One day—while everyone was still asleep—she slipped out through Hotel H’s gate and went for a morning walk alone. Even as I myself thought how unusual this was—walking alongside the sorghum field—Mr. Akawa came approaching from the direction of the train station. He wore a darkish sheer silk haori over his kimono and carried a small case. His brand-new summer hat gleamed as if ready for travel. As Mr. Akawa drew near me, he laughed with a voice that seemed sucked into his throat—“Oh”—and said: “I went to Tokyo.” “Last night I decided so late that I left without even giving proper notice...” “And did you depart your home this early?” Mr. Akawa appeared momentarily flustered before replying: “No—I didn’t go home.” “Stayed at X Station Hotel.” “Then you came straight back?” “Thought it improper to startle my family returning too late—stayed at the hotel last night meant to visit bookstores today gathering funds return home once then come back here—but waking this morning found it all too tiresome abandoned everything and came.” “Your household must be awaiting you?” “Home’s a nuisance.” “Yet you have such a fine wife and children.” I caught myself thinking I’d uttered something trite. “What think you of marriage—of family?” “At minimum I deem marriage naught but a mechanism for perpetuating bad heredity.” “Hypothetically speaking.” “Suppose me bearer of grandparents’ or parents’ defective inheritance...needless to say passing to my children grandchildren their grandchildren...” Mr. Akawa fell silent having spoken thus far.

I had secretly known that Mr. Akawa’s biological mother was insane, so I listened to his words with solemn gravity. But voicing that seemed too cruel, so I said something unrelated instead. “If you dwell on it too much, your wife and children will suffer.” Mr. Akawa: “That’s true.” “That’s why, even as I think such things, I strive to be as good a husband as possible to my wife and as good a father as possible to my children.” “Yet precisely because one feels those responsibilities and bonds all the more keenly does rebellion toward family arise—such is human nature.” “Ha ha ha… Humans—especially men—are such selfish creatures.”

Mr. Akawa’s laughter fluttered emptily across the August coastal vegetable fields thriving with growth. Within the oddly hollow tension of Mr. Akawa’s voice, one sensed something hidden—an emotion veiled in obscurity. Could he have met someone secretly last night instead of going home... someone... perhaps her... Madam X...

One day.—Last night, the aunt returned to Tokyo with her shamisen (she had come to have me sing for vocal exercises, but I didn’t want the people at the resort to hear), and my husband returned here from Osaka this morning.

Showing fatigue from the night train, as my husband entered through H Hotel’s main gate, Mr. Akawa hurried out to greet him. To his room—closer to the main gate than ours—Mr. Akawa first invited my husband, offering a zabuton cushion, filling a washbasin with cold water, and laying out a fresh towel—a hospitality far more meticulous than anything I, with my social clumsiness, could have managed. At such times, Mr. Akawa’s long limbs moved with the practiced ease and refinement of a middle-aged housewife. On these occasions I would always wonder: Were these motions—whether tending to the crutch-dependent painter Mr. K or other such ministrations—born of innate disposition, or habits drilled into him since childhood through his upbringing in an urbane, well-bred household? Many times I found myself watching these acts as though witnessing some noble endeavor. My husband smiled agreeably while being tended to by Mr. Akawa. Where once we had exchanged the performative greetings of actors bowing at first meeting, we now shared an intimacy like that of family members truly attuned to one another.

One day—around ten o’clock in the morning today, five or six days after my husband had returned from Osaka—an old carriage stopped before Hotel H’s gate. This appeared to be one of the hired carriages kept for those traveling from inland areas far from the coast to Kamakura’s seaside. I did not know for certain, but it seemed to be stored at some rental carriage depot. Given that I had never encountered such a carriage while walking through Kamakura’s streets, it must have been hired only by those with exceptionally special, prearranged plans. It had been ordered from Mr. Akawa’s room.

The reason I specifically wrote “Mr. Akawa’s room” was that during this period, his space had become almost entirely dominated by Ōkawa Kakuko—to such an extent that their most thoroughly blended wills might even be termed the will of Mr. Akawa’s room itself. Under normal circumstances, I avoided visiting Mr. Akawa’s quarters when other guests were present; but since Kakuko remained there nearly continuously except when returning to her own lodgings at night, it became impossible to persist in avoidance forever—thus my opportunities for contact with her had multiplied considerably of late. Once accustomed to this arrangement, Kakuko began occasionally visiting the front veranda of my room that adjoined the garden.

For some reason, Kakuko and Mr. Akawa came rushing to our room and persistently urged us to go to the coast by carriage. I found it somewhat abrupt and felt slightly inconvenienced. Moreover, their insistence on rushing my husband out—who was exhausted from working through the night and about to go to bed—only heightened the inconvenience, but in any case, we decided to go as a neighborly courtesy. In contrast to our vague demeanor as we traveled along, both Kakuko and Mr. Akawa seemed buoyant with an expectation that held some definite purpose toward the coast. We arrived at Hase Coast. The sea—where crowds had temporarily thinned—lay serenely calm, folding even wispy cloud shadows from some corner of the sky into each richly undulating wave's trough. Yet within that placid seascape I sensed something sinister lurking beneath the surface—a submerged malevolence that made me resent it slightly. I don't want to enter this sea today—the thought surfaced unbidden. (Not that I could swim properly even if I did.) My husband—worn down by consecutive all-night work and sleep deprivation—seemed even more reluctant than I.

Kakuko paid no heed to my reluctance and briskly urged me forward, pulling me into the women’s changing room. Similarly, Mr. Akawa led my husband to the men’s changing room. I saw Kakuko’s naked body for the first time—pure white. The whiteness of peeled potatoes. What plain whiteness. A whiteness devoid of allure. I was disappointed in Kakuko here again. The reason I say “here again” was that I had already begun feeling disappointed in Kakuko some time before. Why did I pay Kakuko such attention that I ended up disappointed each time? It was because I, who had been devoted to the shadow-laden aesthetic works of Kakuko’s brother-in-law Mr. Ōkawa Sōzaburō, sought to place great value on Kakuko, who was reputedly doted upon by Mr. Ōkawa. At first, I had been intrigued by Kakuko’s polished shoe tips, the fluttering hems of her Western attire, and her blunt manner of speech—traits that made me think her a vivacious flapper-like cultured modern girl. But once I grew accustomed to those superficial aspects and their novelty faded, around that midpoint, I realized Kakuko was a woman of the sort one might call an ordinary, sensible household mistress from a respectable town. In her various seemingly eccentric words and deeds performed publicly, the calculated discernment behind every single one had become glaringly apparent. This woman, whether knowingly or not, had ended up riding along with Mr. Ōkawa’s penchant for the grotesque; her surface had at some point been forged into eccentricity, reduced to nothing more than a literary spectacle. Kakuko should find herself a good husband quickly and become a proper wife. And even as my curiosity waned, the essence of me as a woman secretly whispered this to Kakuko with goodwill. As days passed, however, I came to see and hear Kakuko spitefully nitpicking with sarcasm and backbiting—whether in petty competitiveness over trivial exchanges or in reactions to the slightest shifts in her female peers’ appearances—just like any ordinary woman. In the end, I had completely lost interest in her as a woman. Yet regarding Kakuko’s physical charm concealed beneath her kimono, I still hadn’t harbored much distrust…

Kakuko, now clad in nothing but a swimsuit, raised her voice in that usual bravado and leapt into the sea. She had spoken as though she were quite skilled at swimming, but this too proved remarkably ordinary. Even so, they swam competently a short distance from shore alongside Mr. Akawa. I watched the two recede into the distance and went to my husband’s side. “About half a month ago,” I said, “someone died of heart paralysis in this very sea.” My husband understood my true meaning. Years of heavy drinking in his youth had weakened his heart. He had long forbidden himself from swimming. Though there was no reason to enter the water today, both Kakuko and Mr. Akawa had been pressing him since morning to take the lead. Nevertheless, my husband stayed near the shore with me, merely riding the waves a bit. “Hey there!” Kakuko called out, waving between swells. From further out, Mr. Akawa added: “Won’t you join us for a swim, Mr. Sakamoto?” “You simply must swim,” Kakuko insisted. She wore the look of someone displeased that Sakamoto—who should have followed—remained ashore. “I can’t,” my husband waved dismissively. “Nonsense!” Kakuko retorted. “Let’s swim out properly,” urged Mr. Akawa. “Come now!” “Come along!” The two redoubled their efforts with unnatural fervor. Still my husband laughed without moving from shore. Exhausted by their failed persuasion, Kakuko and Mr. Akawa abandoned their efforts after one brief circuit through the waves before returning.

“Won’t you go swimming after all, Mr. Sakamoto?” the two persisted in urging my husband, to which he replied with a hint of irritation, “No, I don’t feel like it today.” Mr. Akawa said with palpable disappointment, “No use, huh? Even though I went to the trouble of inviting you.” Kakuko, now thoroughly displeased, turned her face away with a “Hmph” and briskly headed toward the changing room. “You all could just swim leisurely without minding me,” my husband said. Mr. Akawa then replied, “It’s dull—let’s head back already,” and he too walked briskly toward the changing room. My cousin alone—indifferent and solitary—had been stirring up the waves here and there, but startled by the group’s abrupt preparations to leave, she emerged from the water.

A carriage had been made to wait. There was also a train from Hase to H House. Ordinarily, everyone took the train. They had made sure to have the carriage wait for the return trip. I had now fully intuited that today’s “seaside outing” had been planned under some sort of scheme. Just then, my husband happened to meet Director K of Corporation A near the changing room and accompanied him to meet Mr. T, who was staying at Mr. K’s villa, so I rode back in a sluggish carriage with my cousin, Kakuko, and Mr. Akawa. Sure enough, after the carriage had moved about one block, Kakuko twisted her mouth, turned her face toward me, and in a strong tone directed squarely at me said, “Hmph. And he’s supposed to have a full mastery license in Shinden-ryū?” “Don’t harp on it,” said Mr. Akawa. “But we were finally tricked, after all.” I understood. Yesterday afternoon, when the topic of swimming had come up in Mr. Akawa’s room, my opinion and Kakuko’s had slightly diverged over something. Kakuko, who always had to occupy the highest seat in any gathering due to her self-importance, had worn an unamused expression. For the sake of the subsequent conversation, I had mentioned that my husband had received a Shinden-ryū license in his youth as part of the Sumida River kappa gang. But why did they need to go so far as hiring a carriage just to test that? For example, even if he didn’t swim today, the fact that my husband had received his license remained undeniably true—you shallow people. Let them think whatever they wanted. I gritted my teeth and held my breath, enduring it all. Kakuko had said her piece, but perhaps to dispel the vexation of her carefully laid plans coming to naught, she began humming incessantly with unabashed abandon. Mr. Akawa remained as silent as I was, though he seemed to be intently pondering something, when suddenly he grabbed the sleeve of my ro summer kimono and declared decisively, “Such a pattern would suit Madam X.” (Madam X was X夫人; he appeared unaware of the rumors circulating about himself and Madam X.) Since the topic had shifted, my earlier unpleasant feelings relaxed slightly, and I said, “Madam X would look best in plain fabric of this color—red bean—don’t you think?”

Then, a sneer spread across Mr. Akawa’s face. “Is that truly your argument—aren’t you jealous of that person’s wardrobe keeper?” The final phrase—this wasn’t the sort of thing ordinary comrades would say to each other face-to-face— (Is he mad? I thought in that instant)—startled both me and my cousin, drawing our eyes to his face. Yet contrary to expectations, Mr. Akawa’s expression showed greater shock and disarray at his own words than our astonishment did.

Even after returning to the H House room, I remained as silent as if I’d swallowed a stone, unable to bring myself to speak even to my cousin. My husband returned shortly after and remarked offhandedly, “Mr. Akawa brought a wicker chair over to that spot—the garden path between our room and his—and sat there.” This suddenly energized my cousin, who proceeded to recount the carriage incident to my husband, adding, “He must have been eavesdropping on us arguing in the room after blurting out such an outrageous thing himself! He’s the type who often eavesdrops, you know.” “If we’re talking about jealousy, *he’s* the one… Remember that time you praised Mr. Kuno and Mr. Kikui in front of Mr. Akawa, Sis? He made such an unpleasant face and said all sorts of nasty things about them. *He’s* the jealous one, I tell you.” I also realized that. But perhaps because my cousin had spoken so briskly and decisively, and my spirits had somewhat lifted, a faint understanding of Mr. Akawa welled up strangely from the depths of my heart. “Despite that, he’s quite considerate of friends, though.” Then my husband said in his usual slow tone: “That’s right. That’s just his nature.” “He usually puts on a calm front, but sometimes his nerves get all twisted up.” “It’s not that you have any ill intent, but…” “That’s right.” “That person gets along so well with Sis and they’re close, but when someone like Kakuko gets her hooks into him, he suddenly becomes like that.” I, too, mostly understood, but now I couldn’t stop the tears. “Anyway, you just can’t get a handle on that man’s nerves.” “Even so, it seems he can’t bring himself to be completely indifferent toward someone like you.” “For someone with that kind of disposition… they get flustered and end up saying and doing all sorts of things.”

At this moment，along the way，Kakuko—who had gotten off the carriage to return to her own lodging—apparently returned to Mr. Akawa’s room; a loud voice was heard. My husband silenced my cousin’s slight change in complexion with a look. And after lighting a cigarette，he said， “How about it? “Once we head back to Tokyo， “And then once September comes and everyone’s gone back，we can decide to come again.”

Yōko had not met Mr. Akawa Sōnosuke since late August 1923, when this diary concluded, until spring 1927—a span of five years.

In the early spring of 1927, Yōko, in a slight convalescent mood and wanting to see Atami’s plum grove, boarded a train from Shinbashi Station with her husband. Then from the seat directly opposite, the one who abruptly stood up and called out “Ah!” in a fond voice was Mr. Akawa Sōnosuke. What a transformation!

The Mr. Akawa of Yōko’s memory—the Mr. Akawa who, during their Kamakura days, had still retained a handsomeness despite a certain decayed darkness—now bore a grotesque visage: his forehead elongated, rounded, and balded; his cheeks wrinkled and stiffened like an old woman’s. Yet his clothing alone retained its former neatness, his jacket clinging stiffly to his shoulders like kite paper stretched over bamboo ribs—a spectacle that drew even the attention of passengers in the train car. Yōko had constantly heard rumors of Mr. Akawa’s ill health, but she was now deeply shocked by the extent of the disease’s ravages that had tormented him so completely. The illness—likely the same one that had plagued him since his China trip—seemed to cling to Mr. Akawa with unrelenting persistence. But if one looked closely, from within the grotesque form he now presented, the distinct figure of the Mr. Akawa of old would emerge. Yōko had perhaps immeasurably longed for that figure as days passed since parting in Kamakura. The conflicts with Mr. Akawa that Yōko had recorded in her Kamakura diary, and his sickly abnormalities—how ironic that these very things now made her feel nostalgic for him. But when people travel to a scenic beauty, at that time, the harshness of the difficult path makes only travel weariness weigh on their bodies, yet as days pass, that travel weariness becomes a shadow that deepens their memories of that scenic beauty. This could be said to exemplify the memories of Yōko’s authentic contact with Mr. Akawa Sōnosuke, an eminent literary figure during a certain period.

“I’ve wanted to meet you for such a long time.”

Five years had made Yōko into a woman who could speak frankly and clearly.

“Me too.”

What wounds of the heart had his impassioned voice now oozed from?

“During our Kamakura days, I kept thinking how much better it would have been if I’d been more sincere in my dealings with you.” “Me too.”

“Let’s discuss things thoroughly and meet again soon.”

“Please do.” “When you return from your travels, please inform me when I may call upon your home.” “By all means.” Then Yōko’s husband Sakamoto and Mr. Akawa conversed fondly. Amidst their talk, the robust laughter Mr. Akawa occasionally unleashed—unchanged from former days—now emerging from his grotesquely altered present form filled Yōko with a spectral sort of sorrow. When the train reached ○○ Station, his convalescent destination, Mr. Akawa rose from his seat alongside someone. So wholly absorbed was Yōko in Mr. Akawa that she immediately forgot this companion’s identity. As he stood to depart, Mr. Akawa said, “The second critique you wrote of me in XX Magazine was entirely apt. My gratitude.” This referred to an essay Yōko had been compelled to write for XX Magazine three or four years after Kamakura: “While Mr. Akawa’s essential nature remains one of rare childlike purity, his cultivated literary style alone bears the dignity of a sage—a disparity whose contradictions beget misunderstanding in those who engage him.” It dated from when Yōko had first grown confident in her deepening understanding of the man.

As Mr. Akawa stood in the clear early spring light after alighting from the train, Yōko found his appearance even more heartrending. She involuntarily averted her eyes. From the halfway-receded hairline at his crown, a feeble strand of long hair—unsteadily extended upward—floated momentarily into the air in rhythm with Mr. Akawa’s geta-clad footsteps, then limply swept back down to caress half of his balded forehead.

“Ah, Monster!”

The one who let out the sudden cry was a child who had seen Mr. Akawa from the opposite train window. Yōko darkly caught her breath. “He’s been completely done in.”

Yōko’s husband, too, said this as if to himself and then fell silent.

That evening, Yōko stood before the wire enclosure where the crane was kept in Atami’s plum grove. Last year, within the generously spaced wire mesh along this mountain stream, a pair—male and female—had stood side by side in resplendent form. Now only a solitary crane remained, its faded crimson crown feathers rustled by the faintly chill evening breeze that swept through plum blossoms as it gazed mournfully up at the mountains ahead, their azure hues deepening into dusk. As I watched this lone crane’s desolate figure, I found myself repeatedly recalling Mr. Akawa, from whom I had parted on the train earlier. "Is this crane too destined to trace the shores of a fleeting fate in its sickness?" Yōko became engulfed in such sentiments and sank into despondency.

In July of that year, Mr. Akawa committed suicide. Yōko was shocked along with the rest of society. The public attributed Mr. Akawa’s suicide to various causes—the suffering of illness, family troubles, artistic anguish, romantic despair, or his more abstract yet penetrating life philosophy—each reason applied separately. Yōko, too… But to Yōko, perhaps all of them seemed to be causes of Mr. Akawa’s suicide. Even as society distanced itself from the shock of Mr. Akawa’s suicide, Yōko’s preoccupation with his death only grew more profound with time. Whenever spring arrived with its white plum blossoms—the season when she had last met Mr. Akawa—and whenever she recalled Kamakura in July and August each year, her memories only grew more vivid with time.

Moreover, according to an article contributed by painter Mr. K to T Magazine, Mr. Akawa had written in his final years' diary that Yōko was, among all women he knew, the most cherished and intelligent one. What intensified Yōko's anguish was this: she had failed to fulfill the meeting promised to Mr. Akawa during their train journey to Atami—that had she met him as agreed, had she who he had selected, trusted, and cherished above all other women within his acquaintance despite everything been able to impart even a portion of the brighter, more expansive and healthier mental landscape she had attained compared to their Kamakura period, perhaps it might have marginally influenced the course of his fate while he lived, or might even have introduced some shift or alteration in the timing or trajectory of his life and death—a possibility she still profoundly mourned and regretted eight or nine years after his passing.

You who would read these as nothing more than the idle sentimental words of a woman called Yōko—do not dismiss them so readily.