Pathway to Japanese Literature

Grasshopper

I bid you farewell.
You did nothing but lie.
I may have my own flaws as well.
But I don't know what part of me is wrong.
I am already twenty-four.
At this age, even if told what's wrong with me, I can no longer fix it.
Unless I die once and resurrect like Christ, I cannot be cured.
Since taking my own life feels like the greatest sin, I wish to part ways with you and endeavor to live for a while in the way I believe is right.
To me, you are frightening.
Perhaps in this world, your way of living is indeed the right one.
But for me, I simply cannot go on living that way.

It had been five years since I came to you.

In the spring when I was nineteen, I had an arranged meeting, and then almost immediately after, I came to you with barely a thing to my name.
Now that I mention this, both father and mother were vehemently opposed to our marriage.
My younger brother too—this was when he had just entered university—would say precocious things like "Sis, you sure about this?" and show displeased looks.
Because I thought you would dislike it, I kept silent until today, but back then, I had two other marriage proposals.
My memory has grown so faint, but one of them—I heard something about him being a young master who had freshly graduated from the law department of Imperial University and aspiring to be a diplomat.
I also saw his photograph.
He had the cheerful countenance of an optimist.
This was the kind recommendation of the Elder Sister from Ikebukuro.
The other was an engineer nearing thirty who worked at father’s company.
Since it was five years ago, my memory isn’t entirely clear, but I believe I heard he was the eldest son of a prominent family and had an upstanding character.
He seemed to be father’s favorite, and both father and mother ardently supported him.
I believe I did not see his photographs.
Such things shouldn’t matter, but since being laughed at by you with that ‘hmph’ would pain me, I clearly stated only what I remembered.
Now, bringing up such matters is by no means intended to annoy you or anything of the sort.
Please believe that.
I am troubled.
I have not entertained even a speck of such unfaithful, foolish thoughts as "I should have married into a better household."
I cannot imagine anyone but you.
When you laugh in your usual way, I am troubled.
I am speaking in earnest.

Please listen to me until the end.
Back then and even now, I have not the slightest intention of marrying anyone but you.
That is clear.
Since I was a child, there was nothing I disliked more than indecisive people.
At that time, I was told various things by my father, my mother, and even the Elder Sister from Ikebukuro—urged at least to have an arranged meeting—but to me, both the meeting and the wedding ceremony seemed like the same thing, so I couldn’t give a carefree reply.
I had absolutely no intention of marrying such people.
If those people were as unremarkable as everyone said, then there would have been no particular need for it to be me—any number of good brides could have been found for them—and I somehow found the whole prospect rather unchallenging.
In this entire world (if I say something like that, you’ll start laughing immediately) I idly thought I wanted to go to someone who couldn’t marry unless it was me.
Just at that moment, that proposal came from your side.
Because it was such a reckless proposal, both my father and mother were displeased from the very beginning.
Because that antique dealer Mr. Tajima came to my father’s company to sell paintings, went on and on with his usual chatter, and ended up declaring that the painter of this work would surely make it big someday.
"How about your daughter?" he began with an improper joke, which Father half-dismissed; in any case, he bought just the painting and hung it in the company reception room. Then two or three days later, Mr. Tajima came again, and this time made a serious proposal—can you believe it?

“How outrageous.”
“If Mr. Tajima as the messenger was already something, then the man who’d ask such a thing of him was quite something else,” my father and mother exclaimed in exasperation.
However, when I had later inquired with you and learned this was something you’d known nothing about—that everything had stemmed solely from Mr. Tajima’s loyal initiative—
I remain deeply indebted to Mr. Tajima.
Your current rise to prominence is also thanks to him.
He had truly devoted himself to you beyond mere business dealings.
That’s because he saw potential in you.
From now on, you must never forget Mr. Tajima.
When I first heard about his reckless proposal back then, though startled, I suddenly found myself wanting to meet you.
I felt inexplicably happy.
One day, I secretly went to my father’s company to see your paintings.
I wonder if I ever told you about that time.
I pretended to have business with Father, entered the reception room, and stood there alone gazing intently at your paintings.
That day had been bitterly cold.
In the corner of that unheated, spacious reception room, I stood trembling violently as I looked at your paintings.
It depicted a small garden and a sunlit veranda.
On the veranda sat no one—only a single white cushion had been placed there.
It was a painting composed solely of blue, yellow, and white.
As I kept looking, my trembling grew so severe I could no longer stand.
I thought no one but me could understand this painting.

I am speaking in all seriousness, so you must not laugh.
After seeing that painting, for two or three days, day and night, my body would not stop trembling.
No matter what, I thought I had to become your bride.
Though I burned with shame over such a frivolous notion, I pleaded with Mother.
Mother made a most disagreeable face.
Yet having steeled myself for this, I did not relent and replied directly to Mr. Tajima instead.
Mr. Tajima bellowed, "Splendid!"
He rose shouting this, tripped over a chair and fell—yet neither he nor I so much as smiled then.
What followed you surely know well.
In my family home, your reputation only worsened with each passing day.
That you had fled your Seto Inland Sea hometown for Tokyo without parental consent; that not only your parents but all relatives had turned cold; your drinking; never exhibiting at shows; suspected leftist leanings; doubts about your art school graduation—with other accusations whose origins mystify me—Father and Mother recited these facts while rebuking me.
Still through Mr. Tajima's ardent efforts, we somehow reached the meeting arrangement.

I went to the second floor of Senbikiya with Mother.
You were exactly the person I had imagined.
I was impressed by how clean your white shirt cuffs were.
When I lifted the teacup saucer, my body trembled perversely, the spoon clattering against the plate until I grew terribly flustered.
After returning home, Mother spoke even more vehemently about your faults.
That you smoked incessantly and scarcely spoke properly to Mother seemed most unforgivable.
She kept insisting you had dishonest features.
She said there was no future in it.
Yet I had resolved to go to you.
After sulking for a month, I finally prevailed.

After consulting with Mr. Tajima, I came to you with almost nothing but myself.
In the two years we lived in the Yodobashi apartment, I had no happy days.
Every single day, my heart was full of plans for tomorrow.
You remained utterly indifferent to exhibitions and the names of established artists, painting only what suited your fancy.
The poorer we grew, the more I quivered with an odd delight, feeling toward pawnshops and secondhand bookstores a nostalgia like that for some distant hometown.
When we truly had no money left at all, I could test my full strength, and it gave me real purpose.
For meals when we had no money were the most joyful and delicious things imaginable.
Didn't I invent one good dish after another?
Now I can't.
If I think I can buy anything I want, no fantasies come to mind.
Even when I go to the market, I find only emptiness.
I simply buy what other housewives buy and bring it home.

Ever since you suddenly became so grand, moved out of that Yodobashi apartment, and came to live in this Mitaka Town house, all joy vanished completely.
My opportunity to put my skills to use vanished.
You suddenly became so eloquent and treated me with even greater care, but I felt as if I were being treated like a pet cat and was always at a loss.
I never thought you were someone who would achieve worldly success.
I had always believed you would remain poor until death, painting nothing but willful works—ridiculed by everyone yet unperturbed, never bowing to anyone, occasionally drinking your beloved sake—living your whole life untainted by the vulgar world.

Was I a fool?
But I believed then, and still believe now, that there must be at least one such beautiful person in this world.
Since the laurel wreath upon that person’s brow would remain invisible to all others, they would surely be treated like a fool, and since no one would go as a bride to care for them, I resolved to go and serve them my whole life.
I thought that you, of all people, were that angel.
I thought that no one but me could understand.
Well, how about that.
Suddenly, somehow, you became so grand.
For some reason, I was unbearably ashamed.

I did not resent your rise to prominence.
When I learned how your strangely sorrowful paintings came to be loved by more people each day, I gave thanks to God every night.
I was so happy I could have wept.
During those two years at the Yodobashi apartment when you painted whatever caught your fancy—the building's rear garden, Shinjuku's midnight streets—and when our funds had completely run dry, Mr. Tajima would come to leave generous sums in exchange for two or three paintings. Yet in those days, you looked profoundly lonely whenever Mr. Tajima carried off your works, remaining wholly unconcerned with monetary matters.
Each time he visited, Mr. Tajima would discreetly summon me to the hallway, utter his customary earnest "Please handle this" with a bow, and slip a white rectangular envelope into the fold of my obi.
You always pretended not to notice, and for my part, I refrained from vulgarities like immediately inspecting the envelope's contents.
I believed we could manage without it, after all.
Never did I report to you the sums received.
I wished to keep you untainted.
Truly, not once did I plead for wealth or fame.
I had thought someone of your nature—taciturn and rough-mannered (forgive me)—could never grow rich nor achieve renown.
But this was all pretense.
No—no.

From the time Mr. Tajima brought the proposal for your solo exhibition, you somehow became stylish.
First, you started going to the dentist.
You had many cavities and looked like an old man when you laughed, yet you didn't mind at all—even when I suggested visiting the dentist, you'd just joke, "Fine, if all my teeth fall out I'll get dentures. No use flashing gold teeth to impress girls," never bothering with dental care. But then, by some shift in the wind, you began slipping out between work sessions to return with one gold tooth after another glinting in your mouth.
When I said, "Hey, try laughing," you flushed your bushy-bearded face and offered an excuse in an uncharacteristically timid tone: "Tajima kept nagging me about it."
The solo exhibition was held in the autumn of the second year since I came to Yodobashi.
I was happy.
How could there be anything but joy in your paintings being loved by even more people.
I did have foresight, didn’t I.
But with even the newspapers lavishing such praise, all the exhibited paintings reportedly selling out, and letters arriving from famous masters—it was all too much, and I felt terrified.
Despite being urged so strongly by both you and Mr. Tajima to come see the venue, I remained in my room trembling all over, doing nothing but knitting.
Just imagining the sight of your paintings—twenty or thirty of them arrayed in rows—being gazed upon by so many people made me feel like crying.
I even thought that if so many good things came so quickly, something bad was sure to happen.
I apologized to God every night.
"Please—we've had more than enough happiness already," I prayed. "From now on, keep him from illness and let no misfortunes come."
Every night, you were invited by Mr. Tajima and went to pay visits to various prominent masters.
There were even times when you returned the next morning, but though I thought nothing particular of it, you would earnestly recount the previous night’s events in detail—how Master So-and-so was such-and-such, how that one was a fool—beginning such utterly trivial chatter, quite unlike your usual taciturn self.
In the two years I had lived with you up to that point, I had never once heard you speak ill of others.
When it came to how Master So-and-so was doing, you maintained an aloof, self-important attitude and showed no interest whatsoever—isn’t that right?
Moreover, through such chatter, you seemed to be striving to convince me that there was nothing untoward about your previous night—but there's no need for these timid, roundabout excuses. After all, it's not as if I've grown up completely ignorant of the world. It would actually bring me relief if you'd speak plainly, even if the truth pains me for a day or so.
After all, I am your wife for life.

When it comes to that sort of thing, I do not place much trust in men, nor do I harbor baseless suspicions.
As for that sort of thing, I am not worried in the slightest and can even endure it with a smile, but there is something else far more painful.

We suddenly became wealthy.
You also became terribly busy.
You were welcomed into the Nika Association and became a member.
And then you came to feel ashamed of our small apartment.
Mr. Tajima persistently pressed us to move out too, imparting his unpleasant scheme that staying in this apartment would damage our social credibility and—above all—keep painting prices from ever rising: "You must be bold and rent a large house!" Even you enthusiastically declared vulgar things like "Damn right—if we stay in this dump, people'll think we're jokes," which startled me and made me feel terribly lonely.
Mr. Tajima rode his bicycle all over town and found this house in Mitaka for us.
At year's end we moved into this strangely large house with only a few belongings.
Without my knowledge you went to the department store and bought all sorts of splendid furnishings—truly a great many—and as those packages kept arriving one after another from the department store, my chest tightened and then I grew sad.
In this way you're no different at all from the common nouveau riche all around.
But I, feeling guilty toward you, made an effort to appear happy and acted excited.
Before I knew it I had taken on the form of that unpleasant "Madam".
You even went so far as to suggest hiring a maid, but that alone I could not bear and opposed with all my might.
I cannot bring myself to employ people.
Shortly after moving in you had three hundred New Year’s cards printed to serve as relocation notices.
Three hundred.
When on earth did you make so many acquaintances?
To me it seemed you had begun an incredibly dangerous tightrope walk, and I was terrified beyond measure.
Something bad will surely happen before long.
You are not the sort of person who could succeed through such vulgar socializing.
Thinking this I spent each day on edge filled with anxiety, but far from stumbling you encountered nothing but one good thing after another.

Am I the one who is mistaken? My mother began visiting this house frequently too, each time bringing my kimonos and bankbook with evident delight. Father, I heard, had initially disliked the painting from his company's reception room and stored it away in their warehouse, but now brought it home reframed to hang in his study. The Elder Sister from Ikebukuro started sending letters urging me to "Keep strong." Guests multiplied until sometimes our parlor overflowed with them. On those occasions, your buoyant laughter carried all the way to the kitchen.

You had truly become talkative—so unlike your former reticence that I'd convinced myself your silence stemmed from finding everything beneath comment. Now you prattled trivialities before guests, pompously regurgitating art theories heard yesterday as your own insights. When I shared thoughts about novels I'd read, you'd casually tell visitors next day things like "Even Maupassant feared faith," parroting my naive observations verbatim until I'd freeze mid-step with tea tray in hand, scalded by shame.

You knew nothing before, did you? Forgive me—I know little either, yet believe I at least own my words while you merely mimic others'. Still you succeeded inexplicably. That year's Nika exhibition painting won newspaper accolades crammed with embarrassingly grandiose praise—"aloof integrity," "spiritual poverty," "contemplation," "Chavannes-esque melancholy"—phrases you later discussed with guests as being "rather apt." What nonsense—we live in no honorable poverty! Shall I show you the bankbook?

Since moving into this house, you started talking about money as if you were a different person.
When customers requested paintings, you never hesitated to bring up the matter of price.
"It's better to clarify things upfront—that way we avoid disputes later and both parties stay comfortable," you would remark to customers, but when I overheard this, I still felt repelled.
Why must you obsess over money so much?
If one just painted good pictures, I believed living would naturally take care of itself.
There was nothing more joyful than doing meaningful work and living unknown in poverty with modesty.
I wanted neither money nor anything else.
In my heart, I wanted to live discreetly with a quiet, immense pride.
You began inspecting even the contents of my purse.
When money came in, you divided it between your large wallet and my small one.
In your wallet you placed about five large bills; in mine, a single large bill folded into four.
You deposited the remaining money at the post office and bank.
I always simply watched from the side.
One day when I had forgotten to lock the drawer containing the bankbook, you found it and irritably scolded me—"This won't do"—leaving me utterly dismayed.
When you went to collect money from galleries, you would return around the third day; even then, arriving drunk at midnight and clattering open the door, no sooner had you entered than you'd say such pitiful things as "Hey! Three hundred yen left—check it!"
Since it was your money, why should you care how much you spent?
I supposed there might be times when you wanted to splurge for diversion.
Did you imagine I'd be disappointed if you spent everything?
I too understood money's importance, but I didn't live fixated on such matters.
The sight of you returning smugly with just three hundred yen filled me with unbearable loneliness.

I do not want money in the slightest.
I do not want to buy anything, eat anything, or watch anything.
As for household tools, I mostly make do by repurposing discarded items, and even kimonos I re-dye and resew, so I do not have to buy a single one.
I will manage somehow.
Even a single hand towel rack—I dislike buying new ones.
It is such a waste.
You would sometimes take me downtown and treat me to expensive Chinese cuisine, but none of it ever tasted good to me.
I felt somehow unsettled and apprehensive, and truly thought it was such a shameful waste.
More than three hundred yen, more than Chinese cuisine, I cannot express how much happier I would be if you were to build a gourd trellis in this house's garden.
Since the western sun shines so strongly on the veranda of the eight-tatami room, I think building a gourd trellis there would work quite well.
Even though I pleaded so much, you say things like "We should call a gardener," yet refuse to build it yourself.
Calling a gardener—such imitations of the wealthy—I detest.
Though I want you to build it, you only ever say "Yes, yes, next year," and have yet to build it even today.
You are terribly wasteful with your own affairs, yet always feign ignorance regarding others' matters.
When was it again—that time your friend Mr. Amemiya came troubled by his wife’s illness to consult you, and you deliberately summoned me to the parlor to ask, “Do we have any money in the house right now?”
With a perfectly serious face you asked this, leaving me at a loss whether to find it amusing or absurd.
When I blushed and fidgeted, you said mockingly to me, “Don’t hide it—if you rummage around here, you’ll probably find about twenty yen,” which left me utterly astonished.
Just twenty yen.
I looked at your face again.
You brushed aside my gaze with one hand, saying, “Just lend it to me already—stop being stingy,” then turned toward Mr. Amemiya and laughed, “Times like these make poverty sting, don’t they?”

I was so appalled I no longer wanted to say anything.
You are neither living in poverty with integrity nor anything of the sort.
Melancholy? Where in you now does such a beautiful trace remain?
You are the opposite—a selfish optimist.
Every morning, aren't you in the washroom bellowing songs like "Oitoko sō da yo"?
I am unbearably embarrassed before the neighbors.
Prayer, Chavannes—it all seems so wasteful.
Aloofness? Don't you realize you exist solely within your sycophants' flattery?
You let guests call you Master while dismissing every painting but your own—as if no one shares your path—yet if you truly believe that, why must you slander others to win their momentary approval?
You crave even their hollow nods of agreement.
How could anything about you be aloof?
Must you awe every visitor who darkens our door?
You are such a liar.
Even last year, when you left the Nika Association to form that New Romanticist group—how wretched I felt alone.
You gathered precisely those you'd mocked behind their backs.
You haven't an ounce of conviction.
In this world—is your way truly right?
When Mr. Kasai visits, you two rage and sneer at Mr. Amemiya; yet when Amemiya comes, you clasp his shoulder declaring him your only true friend with such fervor it chills me—then turn to censure Kasai's manners.
Do all successful people live like this?
It terrifies yet mystifies me—how they stride unshaken.

Something bad would surely happen.
Let it come.
I had even come to pray somewhere in my heart that some single bad thing might occur—both for your sake and as proof of God’s existence.
Yet nothing bad happened.
Not a single thing.
Still, only good things continued.
The first exhibition of your group appeared to receive tremendous acclaim.
From the guests I heard that your chrysanthemum painting had achieved an even purer state of mind, exuding a rich fragrance of noble love.
Why did it come to this?
I found it utterly perplexing.
That New Year, you took me for the first time to pay respects to that famous Master Okai—reputed to be your most ardent supporter—at his home.
Though Master was such a renowned authority, he lived in a house smaller than ours.
That convinced me it was genuine.
Plump with an immovable presence, sitting cross-legged, he peered at me through his glasses—those large eyes too were truly those of an aloof personage.
My body trembled minutely, just as it had when I first saw your paintings in the cold reception room of my father’s company.
Master spoke only the simplest things, utterly without pretense.
When he looked at me and joked, “My, what a fine wife—you seem samurai-bred,” you solemnly declared, “Ah yes, her mother is of samurai lineage,” stating it with such pride that I broke into a cold sweat.
How could Mother be of samurai lineage?
My father and mother have been commoners from birth.
Before long, would you start claiming her mother came from an aristocratic family when flattered by others?

It was a dreadfully terrifying thing.
That even someone of Master Okai’s stature could not see through all your deceptions struck me as wondrous.
Is this truly how the world works for everyone?
Master Okai kept expressing sympathy for your recent work, saying it must be so arduous, but I recalled your figure singing “Oitoko sō da yo” every morning and became utterly bewildered—so intensely amused I nearly burst out laughing.
After leaving Master Okai’s house, before we’d walked even a block, you kicked the gravel and spat, “Tch!”
“You have to be sweet to women even when it’s unpleasant,” you said, leaving me aghast.
You are despicable.
Just moments ago you’d been groveling before that esteemed Master, yet here you were already speaking ill of him behind his back—you’re deranged.
From that moment, I resolved to part ways with you.
I could endure no more.
You are unquestionably mistaken.
I wished calamity would strike.
Yet still, no misfortune came.
You behaved as though you’d forgotten even Mr. Tajima’s past kindnesses, telling your friends, “That idiot Tajima came around again,” and Mr. Tajima himself seemed to have caught wind of it, for he began sauntering in through the kitchen entrance while laughing, “That idiot Tajima came around again.”
I no longer understood any of you at all.
Where on earth has human pride gone?

I bid you farewell.
It even feels like all of you are in cahoots, mocking me.

The other day you conducted a radio broadcast about the so-called topical significance of the New Romanticist group.
When I was reading the evening paper in the living room, your name was suddenly broadcast, followed by your voice.
To me, it felt like a stranger’s voice.
What a filthy, muddied voice.
I thought you were such a disagreeable person.
Clearly, I was able to criticize you as a man from afar.
You are just an ordinary person.
You will continue to rise steadily and skillfully in the world.
Pathetic.
“The reason for my existence today...” Hearing these words of yours, I turned off the switch.
"What exactly do you think you've become?"
You should be ashamed.
“The reason for my existence today”—please never again utter such terrifyingly ignorant words.
Ah, if only you would stumble soon.
I went to bed early that night.
When I turned off the light and lay alone on my back, a grasshopper was chirping desperately beneath my spine.
It was chirping beneath the veranda, but since it was doing so right below my spine, I somehow felt as though a small grasshopper were singing inside my backbone.
I resolved to go on living without ever forgetting this small, faint voice, storing it away in my spine.
In this world, I suppose it must be you who is right and me who is wrong, but try as I might, I cannot understand where or how exactly I am mistaken.