Pathway to Japanese Literature

Preface

The reason I decided to write under the title *The Thinking Reed* in the Japan Romantic School’s organ magazine for approximately one year is as follows.

“Because I wanted to keep living.”
I had to apply myself to my livelihood, did I not?
A simple reason.

Over these past four or five years, I had already published seven mere novels.
Mere here signifies without payment.
Yet each of these seven works served as samples of my life’s novels.
Though I had staked my very life on them at publication, looking back now, it seems I merely submitted seven specimens to journalism.
My novel found a buyer.
I sold it.
Only after selling did I begin to think.
I would stop writing mere novels henceforth.
Acquisitiveness took root.

“People can only write works of the same level throughout their lives.”
I remembered it as Cocteau’s words.
That day I too took up this phrase as my shield.
To the market’s presumptuous calls of “Another work—let’s see another work,” I responded.
“It’s all the same.—Give me a stage.—I’ll surely take to it.—If you miss me, come seek me out.”
I simply took out the seven samples from my bag and presented them once more.
I did not speak of the blood and sweat I had splattered across those seven works.
If one looked, it would surely be clear.
“Already—already I possessed the qualifications to be chosen.”
What if there were no buyers?

I had grown acquisitive and stingy about everything, finding it unbearable to publish novels without compensation—but if no buyers came, my name would gradually fade from memory until I’d be rumored in dimly lit oden stalls as someone who must surely have died by now. In that case, my livelihood would amount to nothing at all. After much consideration, I settled on writing various matters each month—or perhaps every other month—in five or six-page installments under the title *The Thinking Reed*. It seemed a vulgar scheme to occasionally let everyone glimpse my diligent efforts so they wouldn’t forget me.

Vanity Fair

Descartes’ *Passions of the Soul* was a famously dull book despite its renown, yet it contained this line: “Reverence refers to the passion of desiring that which may benefit us.”
I had thought Descartes not entirely a fool, but then came: “Shame refers to the passion of desiring that which may benefit us.”
Or take “Contempt refers to such-and-such that may benefit us”—try cramming any random emotion into this “benefit us” formula, and it scarcely sounds incongruous.
One might even declare, “All emotions arise from self-love,” and have it pass as some novel sophistry.
Virtues like devotion, humility, and chivalry had so thoroughly hidden self-serving desires—like concealing one’s privates—that we now reached a state where spouting “for my own sake” might not necessarily inspire awe at one’s insight. Thus Descartes offered no particular brilliance here.
People—to phrase it elegantly—applaud by calling “truth” the arrow shot into weakness’s mark, that leaf-shaped scar upon the shoulder.
But rather than pierce such obvious flaws, how much more amusing to deliberately miss while knowing better—letting your rival sense your awareness, all while muttering about accidental failure until even you half-believe the pretense?
Therein lay Vanity Fair’s pride.
All who thronged this fair—gorging like swine, bustling like baboons—none surpassed its denizens in passionate craving for self-benefit.
Yet none burned fiercer than these same denizens in their zeal to affect devotion, humility, and chivalry while cloaking themselves in phoenix-like excellence and bird-of-paradise splendor.
Even I—playing the invalid while airily dismissing public opinion—raged inwardly like a demon: to crush critics, I hired private detectives for ten yen apiece to bare my opponents’ pedigrees, upbringings, educations, misdeeds, ailments, and failures, then methodically fortified my arguments with their secrets.
Karma.

"I love this ephemeral yet absurd Vanity Fair."
"I intend to dwell in this Vanity Fair all my life and persist in various futile efforts until the day I die."

While drowsily turning over such thoughts of the child of vanity, I found a splendid companion.
Anton van Dyck.
It was a self-portrait he painted at twenty-three.
It was one published in Asahi Graph, with a commentary by a man named Kojima Kikuo.
"The background is the usual dark brown."
"Luxuriant blond hair crimped into rich curls hangs thickly over the forehead."
"The downcast eyes—modestly averted, blue, nervous, and sharp—and the sensual cherry-colored lips are equally striking."
"Beneath skin as fine-textured as a woman’s, the beautiful color of blood shows through in a rosy hue."
"A blackish-brown garment with snow-white collar and cuffs."
"He is stylishly draped in a dark indigo silk mantle."
"This painting was created in Italy, and the gold chain draped over his shoulder is said to be a gift from the Marquis of Mantua."
He also states: “His works—always aiming for posthumous acclaim—were the crystallization of a vanity that lashed at his frail body.”
That must be it.
When I thought of the brazen audacity of that twenty-three-year-old youth—who boldly painted his own face into such suspiciously exquisite beauty and likely sold it at an exorbitant price to some noblewoman—I was overcome with unbearable hatred.

Song of Defeat

There was a term called *the condemned man’s ditty*. It referred to the ditty hummed nonchalantly by a condemned man being led to the execution ground atop an emaciated horse—still striving to conceal his wretchedness—a phrase that mocked such ludicrous stubbornness in defeat; yet wasn’t literature itself something like that? Without further ado, I tried advancing the discussion from the ethical issues surrounding me. Since no one else would say it if I didn’t, even stating something so obvious might sound heroic—but first and foremost, I disliked my old mother. Though she bore me, I couldn’t bring myself to like her. Her ignorance—that’s why I couldn’t stand her. Next, I had to declare that I sympathized with Iemon of *Yotsuya Kaidan*. Truly, if your wife’s hair fell out, her face swelled with pus, she became lame, and then clung to you whimpering from dawn till dusk—even if you weren’t Iemon—you’d want to pawn the mosquito net and go carousing, I thought. Next I could expound endlessly on friendship and money; next on master-disciple decorum; next on soldiers—but being rather averse to immediate imprisonment, I stopped here. What I meant was that I lacked conscience. There had never been any from the start. Fear of the whip’s shadow—meaning dread of social ostracism—and loathing of prison: people seemed satisfied to call such things pangs of conscience. Even carriage horses and guard dogs possess self-preservation instincts. But society’s endearing quality lay in perpetuating these obvious ethical falsehoods with feigned ignorance—"Don’t let hot-blooded folly make you act stupid," admonished the salaryman sharing my lodgings. No—I steadied myself and muttered inwardly: I will establish new ethics. I will create new ethics based on beauty and wisdom. Beautiful things and wise things are all right.

Ugliness and stupidity are death sentences. And having stood up—well then—what could I do? Murder, arson, rape—though I trembled with longing for them, I couldn’t accomplish a single one. I stood up and sat down hard. The salaryman reappeared and extolled the virtues of resignation and laziness. Sister sent me an utterly foolish letter telling me to consider mother’s worries. My madness begins to stir. Anything will do—I’ll thoughtlessly do whatever people say not to do. Whirling and dancing and dancing madly—ending up with suicide and hospitalization. And so my “ditty” too seemed to begin immediately after this. The condemned man entrusted his body to an emaciated horse and hummed a carefree tune: “I am God’s stepchild. I dislike leaving matters unresolved and entrusting them to God’s judgment. I want to resolve everything conclusively on my own. God did not assist me in a single thing. I do not believe in inspiration. Artisan of intellect. Master of doubt. Deliberately writing clumsily—deliberately writing without flair—a godless helpless child. I understand all too well.”

“Ah, looking down from here, everyone seems so foolish and grubby,” he made such lively remarks—but wait, the execution ground was already coming into view right there.
And this man too added a single comment—“He must painfully, valiantly decline even as he creates”—though Zarathustra did not lumber forth to provide such commentary.

A Certain Experiment Report

A person could neither influence others nor be influenced by others.

Old Age

Having been recommended by someone, I read *Kadensho*.
“Thirty-four or thirty-five.
At this age, Noh reaches its glorious zenith.
There, having thoroughly mastered these articles and attained *kan’nou* (mastery), one shall surely gain the world’s approval and acquire renown.
If, by this age, one’s approval from the world remains lacking and renown falls short of expectations, then know that even the most skilled performer has yet to attain the true flower (*shite*).
If one has not mastered it by then, from forty onward Noh will decline.
This shall be evidence thereafter.
Thus, rising occurs up to thirty-four or thirty-five; decline begins from forty onward.
If by this period one has not obtained the world’s approval, they should not consider themselves to have mastered Noh...”
He also states:
“Forty-four or forty-five.
From this age onward, one’s methods must largely change.
Even if one has gained the world’s approval and mastered Noh, even so, one must maintain good auxiliary *shite* (main actors).
Even though Noh does not decline, as one gradually grows older and loses vigor, both one’s own flower and the flower in others’ eyes are lost.
As for exceptionally handsome men—I cannot speak to them—but even those of suitable appearance, when aged, cannot be seen in Noh performances where they directly face [the audience].
Thus, this side is lacking.
From this age onward, one should no longer engage in such meticulous mimicry.
One should maintain a generally suitable appearance calmly without strain, let the auxiliary main actor bear the flower, and perform sparingly as if in mutual recognition.
Even if there are no auxiliary main actors (*shite*), one must refrain from performing with increasingly meticulous physical exertion.”

...”
He also stated:
“Fifty or more.
From this age onward, unless one generally refrains [from performing], there can be no means [to sustain it].
There is a saying that even a kirin, when aged, is inferior to a clay horse.
...”

Next are Toson’s words.

“Bashō died at fifty-one.”
(Omitted) I was astonished by this.
Since my boyhood, I had been convinced he was an old man, an old man—but now I had no choice but to change my way of thinking about Bashō.
“(Omitted) ‘Around forty,’ Baba-kun had also remarked, ‘Bashō already carried himself with the air of an old man.’”
In any case, the astonishment in my heart has made the mental image of Bashō that I had carried in my breast until today younger by ten, even twenty years.
...”

People these days make such a fuss criticizing Rohan’s writing this way and that, but isn’t that precisely what those who haven’t read his classic works like *The Five-Storied Pagoda* and *A Single Sword Stroke* from days past would say?

In *Tamakatsuma* too there exists the following passage.
“People of the present age revere desolate and timeworn divine shrines as noble because they know nothing of the era when ancient shrines flourished; having grown accustomed to seeing even the most venerable old shrines in this world now terribly decayed and ruined, they have deluded themselves into believing such decay is intrinsic to ancient shrines from the very beginning.”

However, there was one thing I admired about old people.
In the corner of a twilight bathhouse’s washing area, an old man furtively busied himself alone.
When I looked closer, he was shaving his beard with a crude Japanese straight razor.
Without any mirror, in that dim half-light, he performed the task with unshakable composure.
At that moment alone, I felt such admiration it nearly made me groan.
Thousands upon tens of thousands of repetitions had taught this old man to effortlessly shave his facial hair by touch alone.
Against this mountain of accumulated experience, we stood no chance even if we turned cartwheels.
Keeping this in mind thereafter, I noticed my sixty-something-year-old landlord knew everything worth knowing.
When to replant shrubs—only during the rainy season. How best to exterminate ants—do it this way. His knowledge ran deep.
He had weathered forty more summers than we had, attended forty more cherry blossom viewings—in short, witnessed forty-odd additional cycles of spring, summer, autumn and winter.
Yet when it comes to art, matters refuse such neat resolution.
Maxims like “Three years mastering dots, ten years mastering lines”—those faintly tragic codes of apprenticeship—amount to nothing more than the ignorant heroics of old-time craftsmen.
Iron must be struck while glowing red.
Flowers must be viewed at peak bloom.
I reject entirely the concept of late-blooming art.

Incomprehensible.

“In the beginning was the Word.”
The Word was with God.
The Word was God.
This Word was with God in the beginning.
All things came into being through Him, and not one thing that was made was made without Him.
In Him was life.
This life was the light of men.
The light shines in the darkness.
And the darkness did not comprehend it.
...”

I found this text, these concepts, difficult to comprehend.
I carried it around everywhere and raised a clamor about it.

However, when I suddenly shifted my perspective and reconsidered it—what do you know—it turned out to be nothing more than a statement of truly mundane matters.

Then I thought as follows.
In literature, "incomprehensibility" cannot exist.
"Incomprehensibility" exists solely within "nature."
Is it not that literature lurks in this act: each writer pretending to slice through that incomprehensible nature from their own idiosyncratic angle, then boasting of the incision's vividness?

Mortals of the dust

I read Hanshan's poetry but found it as tedious as sutras. Within them was a verse:

"Tranquil people of the dust,
Constantly delight in the charms of the dusty world."

...”

"I think 'tranquil' is a lie, but 'mortals of the dust' gave me pause."

In *Tamakatsuma* too there is this.

“Scholars of past ages and those pursuing learning in the present world alike speak only of making one’s dwelling good and desirable in remote, tranquil mountains and forests far from villages—yet I, somehow, cannot perceive it thus. To me, bustling places teeming with people are what feel pleasant, while desolate places divorced from the world feel so lonely that my very heart seems to wither.”
...

If only my health and financial circumstances had permitted it, I too ought to have been living in an apartment at Ginza’s heart—uttering irreversible words day after day, committing irreversible acts day after day—yet there I lay sprawled on a rattan chair in this land of white sand and green pines, reduced to pinching my own flesh.
When I envisioned Sato Haruo, Ibuse Masuji, and Nakata Takaoo—who felt this unlivable world’s anguish more keenly than most, truly deserving to be called children of suffering—still unable to retreat into monastic seclusion even now, writhing and gasping in the capital’s dusty world—no, this was no distant conflagration.

Concerning the Act of Asking Others About the Merits and Demerits of One’s Own Work

The merits and demerits of one’s own work are what one knows best.
If there exists even one work among a thousand that one deems good, then there could be no greater fortune than this.
Each and every one of you, pray listen well to your own hearts.

Collection of Letters

Oh?

“You’re more concerned with your collection of letters than your collected works.”
The writer hung his head dejectedly and replied,
“Yes—I’ve scattered far too many foolish letters about hither and thither until now.”
(With a deep sigh,) “I shall never become a great writer.”

This was no laughing matter.
I found it utterly perplexing.
In Japan, when a great writer died, one or two volumes of what they called a collection of letters were invariably appended to the complete works published afterward.
I even got the sense there had been collected works where letters far outnumbered literary works, though there may have been special circumstances behind such cases.

The writer's letters, fragments of notebooks, writings from when he was ten years old, and free-form drawings. To me, all were trivial. When someone who had been particularly close to the deceased writer during his lifetime published a volume of his playful sketches in excessive mourning and distributed it among inner-circle friends and relatives—that was an entirely different matter. It was no business for complete strangers to meddle in.

As a mere reader—as a reader of Chekhov, for instance—I discovered nothing from his collection of letters. In his work *The Seagull*, I could only faintly discern Trigorin's monologue scattered here and there within those epistolary pages.

Readers might pride themselves on having discovered an author’s utterly unguarded true self after perusing collections of letters by various writers, but what they had so cleverly seized upon amounted to nothing more than banal life records—this author ate three meals a day, that one enjoyed sexual relations, and so forth. This was already perfectly clear. That itself remained a matter too tactless to even mention. Yet readers refused to relinquish their prized demon’s head once seized—speculating that Goethe likely had syphilis, wasn’t Proust kowtowing to his publishers?, just how intimate were Kochō and Ichiyō anyway? And so, regarding the collections of works into which writers poured their very lives as rudimentary elements of literature and disparaged them, they exclusively scavenged through diaries and collections of letters. It was said: "If you wish to shoot the general, aim for his horse." Literary theory went unheeded; everywhere one turned, all was bustling with character critiques.

Writers cannot turn a blind eye to this phenomenon either, relegating their works to secondary importance and busying themselves solely with compiling their own collections of letters; even in correspondence with a decade-long close friend, they adopt ceremonial formality, scrutinizing every character’s typographic impact when printed, appending superfluous annotations to each sentence so that prying eyes might comprehend them—until the sheer tedium leaves them incapable of producing a single work of substance, reduced to individuals famed solely for epistolary skill—is this not precisely what transpires?

If there were money intended for a collection of letters, they should use it to bind the collection of works all the more splendidly. Letters and diaries that hovered ambiguously between anticipation of publication and its absence. It felt like being made to grab a frog—profoundly disagreeable. It was better to just decide on one or the other.

Once I cherished a fine posthumous collection containing neither letters nor diaries—just some ten poems and ten translated poems. It belonged to one Tominaga Taro, yet two poems and one translated poem from it still light a lamp in the darkness of my heart. The one and only. The immortal. That which absolutely does not exist in a collection of letters.

Strategy

When at a loss over whether to cut out this passage in the text or leave it as is, one must always excise that portion without fail. Not to mention adding anything to that passage—such an act should be deemed utterly unthinkable.

In a word

I seem to recall having definitely read this in someone’s writing—perhaps Kubota Mantaro or Kojima Masajiro—but then again, this might be my misconception.
It’s a nostalgic anecdote about how Akutagawa Ryunosuke would repeatedly ask “In other words?” during debates to confound his opponents.
I’ve completely forgotten whether it was Kubota Man or Mr. Kojima, but in any case, he was speaking in an extremely leisurely manner.
He spoke in a tone that suggested we had been utterly flabbergasted by this.
Who can say? Akutagawa chased after this “in other words” with such desperate frenzy that he ended up committing suicide by poison—a method even nurses and nursemaids could manage with ease.
I, too, was once in haste to pursue this “in other words.”
I wanted resolution.
I knew nothing of the delight found in grazing on roadside weeds.
I did not know the mystery of repeating decimals.
I wanted to seize the unmoving, eternal truth—right now, with these very hands.

“In other words, I just need to study harder.”
“Same to you.”
All night long, after their heated debate had run its course, they plopped down on their backs and with those words, the two of them declared.
That was the conclusion.

Lately, I’ve come to think that’s just fine.

I seem to have stepped into a formidable problem.
At first, I hadn't meant to say such things.

Under the subheading "In a word," I had intended to describe various brutal scenes: how people dismiss Shestov as counterfeit with a single word, dispose of Kōmitsu Riichi as a hack with two characters, expose skepticism's contradictions through mere phrases, slaughter Gide's novels as second-rate with one stroke, kick down the Japan Romantic School as ignorant of hardship, and most egregiously—like Yomiuri Shimbun's Mr. Kabe Hyōron—strive to compress an entire story (my "Monkey Island") into a single line of satire or maxim. But whether due to the autumn sky, my mood abruptly shifted, and I've ended up creating something strange even to myself.
This is clearly a failure.

On the Prose of a Sickly Body and Its Handicap

Certainly, I am now presuming upon others. My family still treats me as an invalid, and those who read this trifling prose must surely know of my illness. It is precisely because I am an invalid that I am forgiven with a bitter smile.

“You, keep your body robust.”

A writer must not create any sort of tabloid articles within their biography.

Postscript.

Literary Booklet *Prose*
Yamagishi Gaishi’s “On Decadence,” published in the October issue of the literary booklet *Prose*, was a meticulously crafted essay; those who wished to encounter something worthy were to read it.

Words to "Declining Fortune"

Coolly holding water

Being thus, none shall know.

The fire blown out, even the mountain's traces—

The above is a poem by Ikuta Chōkō.
"Declining Fortune"

If this might serve as a beneficial suggestion to my esteemed readers, I would be most gratified.

“You, after sleeping through one more month, will be twenty-five. Cherish yourself deeply, and set forth upon the pathless path.”
“And then erect an indestructible tall tower, and have that tower face travelers even a hundred years hence—compel it without fail to proclaim, ‘Here once stood a man who—’”
“You, accept these words of mine tonight just as they are.”

On Das Gemeine

Just over two years ago now, I read—no, was made to read—Professor Keber’s “On Schiller,” in which Schiller, through his works, expelled *Das Gemeine* (the vulgar) from human nature and restored it to *Ur-Stand* (the primal state). It was there that true freedom was born. That’s how I came across such an argument. Professor Keber lamented with that pure countenance of his, “We find ourselves quite unable to extricate our feet from this mire called *Das Gemeine*, and—” I, too, let out a faint sigh. “*Das Gemeine*.” “*Das Gemeine*.” The melancholy of this thought clung stubbornly to a corner of my mind and would not leave.

In Japan today, the literary figures who come even slightly close to *Ur-Stand* are the leading members of the Shirakaba School, Kasai Zenzo, and Sato Haruo. In the case of Messrs. Sato and Kasai, rather than speaking of freedom, it would be more apt—indeed wonderfully apt—to call them once-in-a-generation contrarians to better express what freedom truly means. *Das Gemeine* is Kikuchi Kan. Moreover, whether it be *Ur-Stand* or *Das Gemeine*, to pass judgment here and now on their relative merits would be utterly unthinkable. I find it sorrowful that there are none who squarely confront and discuss the sadness inherent in Mr. Kikuchi Kan’s *Das Gemeine*.

Be that as it may, a few days after I published my novel *Das Gemeine*, a single postcard arrived—completely anonymous—of the following sort.

In this fleeting world,

you drew

the maiden’s sketch

this desolate day

how desolate is the heart

The above [is a poem] titled "Spring Flowers and Autumn Leaves: Which Is More Beautiful?"

Poet unknown.

“State your name!”
For this single poem，I spent seven or eight days restlessly pacing about，my heart burning in my chest．
Neither Ur-Stand nor Professor Keber ever truly existed．

After all, am I not merely a sentimentalist?

On Money

In the end, money was not the supreme thing.
Now, even if I were to receive a thousand yen, if you wanted it, I would give it to you.
What remains is love—pure as the azure sky, preserving its primordial form—and then vengeance: the most cruel and most enduring.

On Absentmindedness

Assailed and trampled by the beauty of all creation, his tongue scorched and chest seared, a man alone staggered—yet one night, he suddenly discovered a faintly glowing path! Convinced of this, he jumped up. He ran. He ran headlong. A momentary event. I shall call this moment the beauty of absentmindedness. This is absolutely not due to Das Dämonisch. It is the pinnacle of human strength. I believe in neither gods nor demons. I believe in human beings alone. Even if Kegon Falls were to dry up, I would not particularly lament. But I cannot help but pray for the robust health of the actor Uzaemon. Take care not to damage even a single work by Kakiemon. Let us henceforth use precisely the term "artificial beauty". Even if it be a heavenly robe, if seamless, it becomes too filthy to behold.

I appended a note.
Do you know the terrible ennui that follows such complete absentmindedness?

The Secret to Getting By in the World

Maintain moderation.
Maintain moderation.

Ryokū

“Yasuda-kun said, ‘I’ve been reading Ryokū lately.’”

Ryokū once called himself Shōjiki Shōdayū.

Yasuda-kun.
Were you drawn by this dauntless courage?

Once More on Letters

If I avoided meeting friends and remained alone like this in the countryside，writing these shameful letters grew ever more frequent．However，just the other day，I had dismissed all writers’ collections of letters，diaries，and fragments as worthless．I still believed that．“Very well，”I resolved—I would publish my own letters myself．

Below are two letters.
(Forgive any discrepancies in my memory of grammatical particles.)

Yasuda-kun.

I, too, am in my twenties.
Tongue scorched and chest seared, I hear the cries of wild geese high in the sky.
Tonight, the wind bites cold; I have nowhere to anchor myself.
Inconsistency.

As for the next letter,

(Unable to sleep, one night I wrote and sent this to an older acquaintance.)

The sorrowful truth was that even that remained nothing but a farce.
I slammed my forehead against the wall and plotted to end this life.
Alas—this too was nothing but “writing.”
You—I was resolved.
That my art differed not a whit from the beauty possessed by toys.
That beauty of the spinning drum.

(After a line break) The cuckoo’s final cry at life’s end: “Even in death, be glib and fair of face!”
There are three more letters that weigh on my mind—though I suppose another opportunity to discuss them might arise at a later date.
(Or perhaps not.)

Postscript.

The literary magazine *Hibō*
Deguchi Naehiko’s “Wind Blowing Through the Void,” published in the sixth issue, was a work with notable merits.
Had there been just a touch more covert severity in wielding that prose, it would have been altogether flawless.

On Selfishness

To be selfish for literature’s sake is a good thing.
In society’s eyes, being willful over twenty or thirty yen—if one cannot even do that, what use is literature now?

Hundred Flowers in Riotous Bloom Doctrine

Fukumoto Kazuo, the Great Earthquake, the assassination of a prime minister, and thousands of other chaotic events.
In my boyhood and youth, I saw and heard with these very eyes and ears only what might be called "things that should not be seen."
All youths younger than twenty-seven or twenty-eight are tasting suffering too unspeakable to name, too obscure to know.
Where should I place this body of mine?
That much I cannot even grasp myself.

Here lies an impassable thick, jet-black line.
The generations, the stages were gradually revolving.
A solemn sorrow that cannot bridge self and other—no, even choked sobs—I could perceive.
We had made a long journey.
At wit's end, I tried naming the lone flower by the traveler's makeshift pillow the Japan Romantic School.
This single thread.
The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove emerged from the thicket, barely escaping starvation—how splendid!—and proclaimed themselves as such:
"We are flowers and florists.
We do not yet know the opportune moment.
Alles oder Nichts."

They continued:
"The flower of strategy—good.
The flower of rhetoric—good.
The flower of silence—good.
The flower of understanding—good.
The flower of mimicry—good.
The flower of arson—good.
We bear unshakable responsibility for each and every word we have uttered."

Alas, the uncanny allure of this garden! Should one inquire into the secret of its strange beauty, that being who is both florist and flower would call forth an autumn wind in reply. "We may perish at any instant." A single utterance. Two would defile it.

The flowers scattered in disarray, each blooming resplendently: “Love that which lives and exists.”
“I am not new.”
“But I will never grow old.” “If done at the risk of life, all is precious.”
“Ultimately, human beings are not worth speaking of.”
“What is incomprehensible is Fujimura’s expression.”
“No—regarding that matter, I will—”
“No—it’s me.
It’s me.”
“One should not mock others,” and such.

It was not a matter of "Japan Romantic School, unite!"
It was precisely the individuality of the Japan Romantic School and each of its supporters that one must revere as sacred—permitting no contempt whatsoever—and hold fast to their pride in respective ways of life and works' uniqueness even unto death; let them bloom riotously in every corner of the land—that was the imperative.

King Solomon and the Lowly

I was most successful when I was born.
The deceased father was a member of the House of Peers.
The father washed his face with milk.
The orphan gradually fell into ruin.

The necessity of writing for money.

I should know both the bottomless sorrow of King Solomon and the filth of the lowly.

Prose

In prose, there certainly exists a distinction between good and evil.
Is it not akin to countenance and bearing?
It is fate.
It can’t be helped.

Literature of Gratitude

In Japan, there exists a saying that carelessness is one's greatest foe, perpetually rendering humans cold and diminished.
In artistic skill, once one has rowed their way to a certain level, it seems they will never ascend further nor particularly decline.
Let those who doubt look to Shiga Naoya, Sato Haruo, and others.
And yet, I also think this is just as well.
(Regarding Fujimura, I intend to write a separate chapter.) Europe's great writers persist through sheer volume even past fifty or sixty.
It is an accumulation of mannerism.
Were one to heap soba or tokoroten into a mound, it would likely appear truly splendid.
Fujimura might be European.

However, out of gratitude—or perhaps for money, for my children, or for a will—I was merely toiling away at writing.
Not mocking others, I only laughed at myself from time to time.
Before long, bad literature would abruptly cease to be read.
The chaotic monster called the masses is precise in that regard.
There are also good writers who produce strikingly outstanding works, deeming themselves accomplished, living each day tilling fields in fair weather and reading in rain.
A person once blessed.
A person who had passed through Dante’s Inferno and savored even Paradiso.
There are also writers of revenge who affect only Mephisto from Faust and even forget Gretchen’s existence.
As for me, I could not judge either way, but this much I could say.
A window opens.
A good-natured couple.
Success.
Mandarin orange.
Spring.
Until marriage.
Koi.
Japanese hemlock.
Et cetera.

It is precisely novels brimming with gratitude for being alive that possess immortality.

Judgment

When judging others.
It is when one feels a corpse and God within oneself.

Avīci Naraku

No matter how one pushes or pulls, there exists in this world a door that does not budge.
Even Dante, who had coldly passed through the gates of Hell, avoided speaking of this door.

Digression

Here in this essay titled “Ōgai and Sōseki,” while Ōgai’s works remained woefully underappreciated contrary to expectations—and while Sōseki’s collected works, that epitome of vulgarity among vulgarities, received increasingly glamorous public acclaim—I lamented bitterly enough to shed tears; I consulted reference notes and books but grew disheartened and produced nothing of worth.

That night, I did not sleep a wink.
Morning came, and at last I found resolution.
The solution states: It’s merely a matter of time.
Their winter at twenty-seven years old, and so on.
If I dwell too deeply on things, it always comes to such resolutions.

Might I not rather gather now with esteemed journalist colleagues around the hearth and speak of the sadness inherent in journalism?

Every morning, when I saw the unsigned articles and photographs of you esteemed colleagues in the newspaper, I felt a pang of sorrow.
(Occasionally there were unpleasant moments.) These very things—discarded after one reading, cast aside never to be revisited—made me feel as though I were gazing upon ephemeral things.
Yet if someone had whispered, "This is how the world is," I even sensed that I might have nodded in agreement.
It was said that flowing water never returns.
There was also the phrase "clear stream and heavenly realm."
One must realize that being born into this world had been the root error from the very beginning.

Alles Oder Nichts

When I glimpsed how this phrase—born from Ibsen’s plays, gradually rising to European lips, drifting ever onward—had now effortlessly infiltrated even those interminable newspaper novels of dubious merit, I convinced myself I was being mocked and grew indignant.
The clear and murmuring subterranean stream of my thoughts, too, had been this very phrase.

I was top of the class in both elementary school and middle school.
When I entered high school, I fell to third place.
I deliberately took measures to drop to the very bottom of the class.
I entered university, but being poor at French and anticipating humiliation, I hardly attended school.
Even in literature, I could not allow anyone’s scorn.
If I were to become fully aware of my defeat, I could even abandon literature.

However, as a candidate for a certain literary award, I found myself publicly announced to the world—without even a word of notification—with the added humiliation of having been cast aside. Let each person contemplate the full measure of their unyielding self-respect. Yet when I read the winner's work, I must confess I felt secret relief. I had not been defeated. I could keep writing. I possessed the conviction to walk this path—mine alone, one that no other soul might tread.

I, forged from childhood by my stern and ruthless deceased father and elder brother, have grown somewhat obstinate as a human being; in literature, I uphold an absolutely egoistic dandyism, refusing to forgive even a decade-long close friend, and in death itself, I feel the persistent karma of this self who would wander the streets grinding my teeth with a flag clutched in my right hand.
Should life one day collapse and all things reach their direst extremity, with an ear-splitting sound, I too—like Sakai Masato—would become "*Bungei Hōdan* [Literary Chats]."
Far from it—"Literary Shit Talk."
Making a magazine titled *Literary Shit Talk* my livelihood, I might manage to survive even clinging to rocks.
The theme of the prodigy Hazama Kan'ichi abandoning his studies to pursue the lucrative moneylending business shows us a more urgent cross-section of society than any of today’s numerous newspaper novels.

I now of my own volition inscribed upon your sorrowful straw paper the poem that had torn out my heart.
I—that single unpublished important poem I would never show to most people.

I added this postscript.
Do not think I wrote solely because of straw paper.
Having read your letter scribbled across two sheets of manuscript paper, I indeed felt what might be called a lotus in a wastebasket.
For I surmised that you too had suffered Kleist’s anguish, your heart scorched and tormented by the visage of Baudelaire’s decline, and must have penned one or two masterpieces indistinguishable from my own.
However, I limited my writing to this single occasion.
I disliked getting chummy with anyone, no matter who they were.

Causality.
Target shooting.
Prefers.
Big-headed.

Younger brother.

The elder brother always gave life.

The Reed’s Self-Admonition

I.
Fix your gaze solely upon the world.
When I become conscious of my own figure drowning in natural scenery, I must above all candidly confess defeat with the words: “I have grown old and weary.”

II.
Do not ever let the same words escape your lips twice.

III.
"Not yet."

On Impressions

Impressions? Pah!
A round egg becomes a splendid square with but one cut of the knife—is this not so?
I can feign downcast eyes and pursed lips or ape the raw simplicity of a primitive fresh from Takamagahara’s primordial plains.
For me alone does certainty exist—this body of mine.
Lying thus, I observe my ten fingers.
It moves—the right index finger.
Moves again—
The left little finger—
This too stirs.
Gazing long upon them comes revelation: “Ah—I am real.”
All else drifts as clouds shredded to motes—indistinct whether living or dead—
How dare you! How dare you!
Impressions? Folly!

A man observing this state from afar declared, “It’s quite simple. Self-respect. It’s this one thing alone.”

Even just…

Those who have read the Kinkai Wakashū may know this—within Sanetomo’s poems existed a verse that read: “sura da ni mo.”
I do not precisely recall its surrounding lines, but it was a poem along the lines of “Ah, even a beast…” and such.

As one in my twenties, I find myself compelled to utter “sura da ni mo.”
Having striven this far, do I not now feel driven to voice that very “sura da ni mo”?
Mabuchi—he who understood Sanetomo most deeply—excluded this verse for the sake of preserving our national language.
Now that time has passed, I simply think they all acted rightly and hold no particular resentment toward Mabuchi.

Jigen

“Jigen” was the name my deceased elder brother himself had given to his posthumous work—a peculiar Buddhist statue—and that bluish statue, standing about two shaku tall, now sits in the corner of my room. It was his final creation at twenty-seven years old.
He died in the summer of his twenty-eighth year.

Come to think of it, I am now twenty-seven.
Moreover, I sleep wearing my deceased elder brother’s memento—a mouse-gray striped kimono.
Two or three years ago, I would beat and kick innocent people, running wild through the streets like a horse, and even now, the embers occasionally burst forth, leading me to commit irreparable acts.
Resigning myself to whatever may come and spending each day sprawling in bed, I often find Jigen’s waves washing over me, leaving me wordless and beaming with what they call an Ebisu face.
I must say, I’m utterly shallow.

As for this section, let it remain at this. Readers, do not attach unnecessary logic to it.

Matters of gravity.

Knowing is not the supreme thing.
Human intellect has its limits; one must recognize that all—from Mr. A above to Mr. B below—are cut from the same cloth.

Matters of gravity are probably strength.
Michelangelo, though of a station wealthy enough to render such labor unnecessary, borrowed not a single pair of hands but dragged every marble block from mountain quarries to his city workshop entirely alone—and in doing so, wrecked his body beyond repair.

I appended a note.
Michelangelo disliked people, and so it is said that he was disliked by them to such an extent.

Enemy

The ones who can truly negate me are—(I think while gazing at the November sea)—peasants.
For over ten generations—impoverished peasants, that’s all.

Niwa Fumio, Kawabata Yasunari, Ichimura Uzaemon, and others.
Even catching a single cold weighs on my mind.

Postscript.
During the serialization in this magazine, I read "The Chapter of Sea Gulls" by my fellow townsman and friend Kon Kanichi-kun, and even my heart was stirred by that splendid prose.
Those who gaze upon the path of this splendid prose are convinced that it is by no means mine alone.

Health

The state of having no will to do anything arises from that person being healthy.
At the very least, it is the Peenless state.
Then, does all their work—from the highest like Napoleon and Michelangelo down to the lowest like Ito Hirobumi and Ozaki Koyo—originate from a state of madness?
It is so.
No mistake.
Health is a satisfied pig.
Sleepy-looking Pochi.

K-kun

Timidly, with an ostentatious manner as if probing some grave secret, he asked me:
“Do you like literature?”
I remained silent.
His countenance alone bore a dignified solemnity, but he was but an eighteen-year-old youth devoid of knowledge.
To me, he stood as my sole unconquerable adversary.

Pooz

From the very beginning—empty though he was—he grinned.
"A pretense of emptiness."

Picture postcards.

In this regard, there was a difference between Yamagishi Gaishi and myself.
I—the mountain’s wildflower fields, the sacred peak of Mount Fuji under first snow—
preferred picture postcards of Asakusa Nakamise over those showing Senbon Matsubara crawling across white sand and spreading out, or Kiyohime Falls peeking through autumn foliage.
Crowds.
Noise.
Bound by karmic ties from past lives, they had gathered here; at that very moment, they were being photographed, controlled by the fate they were born to bear, yet still walked while pondering ways to forge their own destinies.
I could not permit myself to laugh at even a single one of these thousand people.
Each of them must have been striving.
Each of their houses.
Fathers. Mothers.
Wives and children.
I examined each person’s expressions and bone structures, losing track of about two hours.

Truthful Declaration

The silent defendant suddenly stood up and said.

“I know things well.”
“I intend to understand even more.”
“I am honest.”
“I intend to speak with honesty.”

The chief judge, the spectators, and even the lawyers laughed uproariously.
The defendant remained seated and spent the entire day covering his face with both hands.
At night, he bit off his tongue and grew cold.

Burn through the tangled threads.

When discourse about novels grows as tangled as it now stands, I find myself wanting to overturn it all with a single word.
France belongs to poets.
Nineteenth-century Russia stood as the domain of novelists.
Japan is the Kojiki.
The Nihon Shoki.
The realm of the Man'yōshū.
No land for full-length novels.
You who would be novelists—first become foreigners.
Pass no judgments on this or that as though arranging them in perfect concord.
Those who might stand as your brothers or comrades—Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Andreyev, Chekhov—do they not already outnumber ten fingers?

The Final Performance

While skimming through a biography of Da Vinci, I suddenly came across an illustration.
It was a depiction of The Last Supper.
I stared wide-eyed.

This was nothing less than hell's own tableau.
A chaotic, earth-shaking uproar.

No.
This is the most poignant manifestation of an asura in the human realm.

The nineteenth-century European literary masters must also have been shown this painting in their youth and made to listen to detailed explanations.

"There is one among you who will betray me."
Christ murmured this and captured with skill that fleeting moment when he cast aside all his hopes.
Da Vinci knew Christ’s unfathomable melancholy and the infinite compassion that emerges after one quietly discards oneself.
Moreover, he understood completely each of the twelve apostles’ selfish reverence.
Very well.
I shall entrust this task to my fellow members of the Japan Romantic School and have them stage the play.
Who plays this Peter, feigning incomparably fierce expression and striking poses as if to cut down men and horses?
Who is this Philip, so desperate to prove his own innocence?
Who is this Jacob, utterly flustered in panic?
Who is this John of dove-like grace, head bowed as though sleeping at Christ’s sacred breast?
And finally—who is this Christ, sorrow pushed to its limit yet bearing a faintly luminous visage?

Yamagishi, or perhaps someone else, might volunteer to take on the role of Christ—but how would that play out? I couldn’t afford to overlook the presence of that fine young man Nakaya Tadao, let alone the eyeless, earless chaotic monstrosity called the Japan Romantic School looming behind it all. Judas.

With his left hand, he warded off some dreadful thing, and with his right hand, he firmly grasped a money bag.
You there, let me take that role.
For I love the Japan Romantic School most deeply and harbor the highest hatred toward it.

On Cruelty

Severity and cruelty already differ in their very roots.
Severity, in its depths, is filled with humanity’s innate warm compassion—but cruelty is like a flimsy glass vessel; here, not a single flower blooms, utterly barren.

My Sorrow

As I walked along a night path, there came a rustling sound from within the grass.
The sound of a viper fleeing.

On Writing

If one presumes to call oneself a literary person, one must possess no small skill in writing. Good writing refers to that which takes the form of "having emotion deeply felt, words flowing freely, and singing forth the sincerity of the heart as it is." The phrase “情籠りて…” and so on was from Ueda Bin’s writings in his youth.

It suddenly occurs to me.

What’s this—they’re all spouting the same thing.

Y子

That whisper contained a note of sincerity.
Only twice.
The remainder unsettled me.

“I think I might’ve said something foolish somehow.”

“I do have my own individuality, you know.”
“But when you say things like that, there’s nothing to do but stay silent.”

The Strangeness of Words

“Tongue-tied.”
“Shaking at the root of the tongue.”
“Struck dumb.”
“The tongue quivers.”

Comic repartee

What I refer to as comic repartee is, for example, something like the following.

Q.
“Just who are you trying to impress by putting on rouge and blackening your teeth?”

A.
“For their statuses.”
“For their statuses—and because of you.”

Such exchanges cannot be dismissed with a smirking laugh.
Even to strike would dirty one’s hands.
Even within you!

My Mythology

Inshu, the Hare of Inaba.

Had its fur plucked, soaked in seawater, and dried it in the sun.
This marks the genesis of suffering.

Inshu, the Hare of Inaba.

It washed its body in fresh water, spread out cattail down, and buried itself snugly within to sleep.
This must mark the beginning of peace.

The Most Mundane of Things

"I am a man."
This discovery.
After he became aware of the 'woman' of the household, he first became aware of his own 'manhood.'
Cohabitation: seven years now.

On Crabs

In Abe Jiro’s essay, a small crab had scuttled sideways in his kitchen. When he wondered whether crabs could fly too, tears came—so the essay said. That part alone was good.

In my garden too, crabs would occasionally come crawling. Have you ever seen a crab the size of a mustard seed? Two crabs, each no larger than a mustard seed, were locked in mortal combat. At that moment, I stood transfixed.

My Dandysme

“Brutus, thou too.”

Has there ever been a single human being who has not tasted this bitterness?
The very one you trust most will inevitably hurl a filthy stone at your face in life’s most crucial moments.
They hurl it with a thwack.

Recently, from within the writings of my friend Yasuda Yojuro, I discovered an excellent haiku by Bashō.
“Morning glories—at noon, the chain is lowered on the gate’s fence.”
Indeed, this is peerless.
But—and yet—No.
This is peerless.
This is peerless!

“On ‘Later Years’”

I wasted ten years for this single short story collection.
For ten full years, I never ate the same wholesome breakfasts as ordinary citizens.
For this one book alone, I lost my place in society, suffered constant blows to my self-respect as I was battered by the world’s icy winds, and wandered about in utter disarray.
I squandered tens of thousands of yen.
I bow my head in recognition of my elder brother’s struggles.
I burned my tongue, seared my chest, and willfully ruined myself beyond all hope of recovery.
I destroyed over a hundred novels.
Fifty thousand sheets of manuscript paper.
What remained in the end was barely this much.
This much.
It comes to nearly six hundred sheets of manuscript paper—yet the total payment amounts to just over sixty yen.

However, I believe—this short story collection Later Years will undoubtedly seep ever more deeply into your eyes, into your heart, with each passing year. I was born solely to create this book. From this day forth, I am nothing but a corpse. I will live out the rest of my life. And even if I were to live on long after this and have to publish another short story collection, I think I would name it Karuta. Karuta is, of course, a game—moreover, a game where one stakes all their money. Ridiculously, if after that I were to survive even longer and publish a third short story collection, it seems I would have to name it Judgment. For me, who has become impotent in all games, there remains no path but to feebly write on—this utterly lifeless autobiography. Traveler, avoid this path. "For this is assuredly a futile path," the lighthouse called Judgment will solemnly declare from beyond this world. But the me of tonight does not wish to live so long. I even find myself thinking I would rather wrap an anchor around my body and drown than defile my own Sparta.

Be that as it may, when I imagine this single volume of Later Years being read again and again until it gleams black with the grime from your hands—ah, I am happy. For an instant.
In a human life, the time during which one can taste true happiness seems not even ten seconds in a hundred-meter dash—it appears far shorter.

There was a voice:
“Lies! If it’s an ill-omened publication, you should cease it.”
I answered, declaring: “I am the peerless beauty of this present age—the Medici Venus. This publication exists to leave in this world the proof of true beauty.”

“Behold! The hue of shame as vivid as that which colors the Venus statue! This: the beginning of my misfortune. Furthermore, perpetually nude through all seasons, eternally silent, with that faintly chilled countenance—(beauty is fated to suffer)—it is precisely this that, with those noble eyes, teaches you outwardly the merciless whip of heaven’s boundless jealousy.”

On the Matter of Concerns

I knew for certain there existed two kinds of concerns - black and white.
The Naniwa-bushi lyric "Tomorrow awaits the treasure ship" and Pushkin's verse "I shall be killed tomorrow" might have seemed equivalent in their stirring of the heart, yet after half a day's deliberation I discerned them parted as starkly as night from day.

Homework.

“On Check-Chack.”
“On Strategy.”
“On the Absolute Nature of Words.”
“On ‘Silence Is Golden’.”
“On Wildness and Violence.”
“A Short Essay on Dandyism.”
“On Luxury.”
“On Success.”
“On Envy.”
“On Primitive Sentimentality.”
Apart from these—though they were exceedingly trivial—there remained some seventeen or eighteen items whose titles I could not name.
I had been jotting them down bit by bit in my notes when now—“Literary Magazine.”
Urged to contribute something for their inaugural issue, I spent from dusk till dawn rifling through two or three notebooks—peering into this one and that—pondering what to write.
Each clung stubbornly to my chest like burrs refusing proper arrangement.
It was only as I drank milk and read the morning paper that understanding came.

My heart was on a shore a thousand ri away, whirling madly in the waves. The publication of my first book. And so everything fell into place. Homework. Unintentionally, I had to hand over the baton to Mr. Yamazaki Kohei, owner of Sunagoya Shobou. How much would my book sell? Would the binding of my book go well? The relationship between tidal phases, seagulls, and waves.

Postscript.
This was written—more than half of it—as an advertisement for my book.
From Showa 11 (1936) onward, I decided my manuscript fees would be either nonexistent altogether or, failing that, five yen per page for novels and three yen per page for all other writings.

In this year’s New Year issue, due to the editor’s letter that made me feel as if a drop of my own blood had been mixed into it. Or perhaps because I had promised last New Year to write something, then spent the following year voluntarily binding myself to ever stricter commitments until I was driven to madness. Because of letters from the editorial department that always comforted me with gentle words while maintaining unwaveringly pure intentions, and other circumstances that left me no choice but to write at least once, I produced over twenty pages of fragmented text. I wrote them all after refusing any payment on my part.

“Each person.”
“Let making diligent effort in one’s own work alone be paramount, but occasionally feign ignorance and nurture your neighbor’s pitiful yet unyielding self-respect.”