Pathway to Japanese Literature

I. Dawn Smells of the Forest

June’s refreshing dawn breeze stroked my motionless cheek. I had been awake since Sakki. The entire vista of Shonan’s "Seaside Sanatorium" was now quietly beginning to reveal itself within the radiant light of early summer. Even if I strained my ears, not a single sound could be heard. The pine branches towering majestically on the opposite cliff swayed soundlessly. The yellowed white silk curtains swayed languidly and soundlessly in the morning breeze, as if they were rising smoke or undersea kelp. The only sound was that of abundant rays of light glittering down across the entire surroundings.

Pure white ceiling and walls, pure white bed, gleaming floor reflecting a pure white shadow... (Upon waking—a laziness that doesn't accumulate...) Before I knew it, my eyelids had closed again—and through the perpetually open window came a smell that seemed to part through the forest, that deep forest, all the way to its heart.

×

When I opened my eyes again, there was a sense of a nurse moving about somewhere in the distance. Keeping my body perfectly still while moving only my eyeballs, I saw the clock at the edge of my vision pointing to six-thirty. After coughing lightly two or three times, I busily worked my tongue tip to dislodge the stubborn phlegm that had accumulated overnight—ptui, ptui—spitting it into the spittoon. While inhaling the pungent formalin fumes rising around me, I carefully examined the expelled clump of phlegm before finally propping myself halfway up in bed, reassured.

――Thus began yet another unchanging day of sanatorium routine. 6:00 Wake-up, temperature check. 7:00 Breakfast. 9:00-11:00 (every other day) Medical examination. 12:00 Temperature check, lunch. Afternoon nap until 3:00. 3:00 Temperature check. 5:30 Dinner. 8:00 Temperature check. 9:00 Lights out…. Beyond this, there was absolutely nothing else to do. As if it were a tradition dating back to before this sanatorium’s construction, that daily routine was reliably repeated. I propped myself halfway up in bed and, while gazing through the window at the flowerbed overflowing with intensely vivid crimson-black dahlia blossoms, habitually tucked the thermometer under my arm. Along with the chilly sensation of the mercury column, I recalled the day of my hospitalization several months prior.

It was when I—having just been hospitalized and still unfamiliar with everything—lay listlessly in bed that trainee nurse Yuki came around. She suddenly thrust a thermometer into my armpit. The moment I let out a startled "Ah!", there came the pain when two or three armpit hairs got tangled and were yanked out... Nurse Yuki's voice resembling a stifled moan, her face flushing bright red... (Huff, huff, huff...) Before I knew it, an irrepressible urge to laugh welled up, and as my body shook involuntarily, the thermometer's tip began jabbing here and there inside my armpit.

“Cheerful, aren’t we… Morning—” “Huh…” Startled, I looked up from my bed toward the entrance and saw Madam Okako from the same ward standing there with a toothbrush in hand, laughing. “Oh… Morning…” “What a lovely morning! Do look—the lilies are blooming.” “Right.”

After pulling out the thermometer, I adjusted the front of my nightgown and peered through the mercury column. (Thirty-six and a bit...) I muttered. (I feel great—) I fumbled for my slippers with my toes and slipped them on. “Well—” “Look—up there so high.”

Madam Okako’s translucent white arms were bared and extended, the toothbrush trembling at her fingertips. I forced my gaze away from Okako’s veined forearms and looked up at the cliff. “Hmm... I see...” “That pollen—isn’t it bewitching? When you stare at dewy stamens and pollen like that... it makes you shiver somehow... doesn’t it?” “Yeah...”

I felt as though I had touched the naked heart of Okako—she who, having ripened to absolute corruption, now found her very chest beginning to fester.

Madam Okako wore a gaudy towel nightgown. Though not pajamas, it created an odd harmony with her bobbed hair. “I’ll be going ahead—” Madam Okako vanished into the washroom, her slippers clicking against the polished corridor. Sensing something uncanny in her disheveled bobbed silhouette retreating before me, I entered my room, roughly yanked open the medicine cabinet drawer, seized my toothbrush and toothpaste tube, then hurried after her.

×

“Mealtime…”

The nurse went whispering from room to room. It was the custom of this sanatorium for mild-case patients to sit at the dining tables arranged in the Sun Room. This was because eating while conversing with others stimulated one’s appetite more than moping alone through meals in their sickrooms. “Good morning…” “Oh… Good morning…” This ward housed exactly ten patients across its upper and lower floors, but those who emerged here—myself included—numbered merely four. That referred to myself; Yurei Aoki, an art school graduate teaching at a secondary school in Korea; and Madam Okako—though her room’s entrance bore the white-lettered name “Okako Hirozawa”, everyone called her Madam, Madam. But her husband likely detested tuberculosis—he had never once visited—and the fourth was Kimie Moroguchi, said to have just graduated from girls’ school.

Now when the four of us met, our first topic would invariably be how so-and-so seemed slightly worse today or likely had a fever—discussing even a single degree’s fluctuation in temperature with the gravity of stock speculators. And even after finishing our meals, we would spend the thirty minutes before taking our powdered medicine gazing at the azure sea beyond the pine branches from the second-floor Sun Room, listening to records, or exchanging trifling talk. At such times, it was nearly Madam Okako’s one-woman show. Extending her white, cream-translucent arms, she would overwhelm everyone with her grandiose storytelling.

“Today I’ve come down with a bit of a fever too…”

After a round of small talk, Madam Okako—for reasons unknown—said this and surveyed us. "Why…" "What ever could be the matter—" Miss Moroguchi asked with concern. "Hoh-hoh-hoh—I do get feverish once a month, you know." "Oh…" "Hoh-hoh-hoh"

At Madam Okako’s frank words, everyone averted their eyes abruptly and sipped their cold tea. I stole a glance at Aoki’s face—he remained with furrowed brow, deliberately swishing the unpalatable tea in his mouth with audible splashes. Aoki was, to use a common analogy, as thin as a crane. He had graduated from art school and been teaching in Korea, but when he coughed blood there, he immediately took a leave of absence and came—or so they said—though by now his temperature had almost entirely normalized. When he left Korea and crossed the Kammon Straits, everything he saw was so verdant it seemed to have cured his illness—though he’d said things like, “Well, I might as well rest properly while I’m here.”

And lately, starting from discussions about his specialized art, he had begun lingering exclusively in Madam Okako’s sickroom, declaring, “I’m going to paint Madam’s portrait.” Miss Moroguchi seemed to harbor some unpleasant feelings about it, and though I too couldn’t help but sense her demeanor, I— (Why should I care about others’ affairs—) and pretended not to notice—which, as you might guess, was because I was fond of Miss Moroguchi. And the more clearly Aoki and Okako’s partnership became defined… the more jealous I felt… yet paradoxically, I harbored this vile, selfish emotion—so typical of a tuberculosis patient—in some corner of my heart: that the two of us left behind—Miss Moroguchi and I—would inevitably grow closer.

×

Today as well, even after the dining table had been cleared away, the four of us remained as we were, talking amongst ourselves. In the end, as I had anticipated, the conversation amounted to Aoki and Okako bantering playfully while Miss Moroguchi and I occasionally interjected with brief responses. Miss Moroguchi, having just graduated from girls’ school, was likely eighteen or nineteen. The way she wore her floral-patterned undergarment—with an obi-style sash tied high on her chest for ease in lying down and rising—gave her an almost raw vitality. Her lovely lips glistened vividly like fresh hemoptysis stains, while her large dark eyes were framed by lashes so long they seemed emblematic of a consumptive’s sickly constitution. Though her condition had finally entered a quiescent phase, her cheeks—likely remnants of wasting fever—retained a faint flush that formed a beautiful contrast against her translucent skin.

That raw vitality found its complete antithesis in Madam Okako. In this woman—decadent and perfected to an uncanny degree—I sensed a bizarre, overwhelming dynamic force. From these two women, I learned that beauty in women exists in two distinct varieties. Against Miss Moroguchi’s delicate beauty—one might call it a classical tranquility—Madam Okako’s radiated with such ferocity that it evoked a beautiful demon scorching everything in passion’s inferno.

Yet I found myself unable to prioritize either beauty—Madam Okako’s plump arms… even within that enchantress-like beauty that seemed to strangle necks like silk floss and suck every last drop of living blood, I could not deny their profoundly mysterious allure. Yet I—terribly selfish yet consummately image-conscious—could not bring myself to confront this dynamic force head-on. Thus I merely watched with a smirk as Aoki, who had apparently taken the lead in courting Madam, made his advances. And I—as I mentioned before—awaited Miss Moroguchi’s approach like a spider in its web, staring fixedly yet feigning obliviousness all the while…

×

Deeply silent, bathed in the morning sun. A bell rang, permeating the sanatorium. Nine o'clock—the signal for medical examination. In this hospital, it was customary for patients with mild symptoms to attend examinations at the doctor’s office.

When the bell rang, patients from various wards—some coming through corridors, others crossing the promenade lawn—would line up on narrow waiting-room chairs to await their turn; from the Third Ward, only the usual four of us, myself included, went via the corridors. In the sickrooms lining one side of the wide corridor, patients of all ages and genders—old and young, men and women—lay staring fixedly at the white ceiling. Those patients would watch us walk to the doctor’s office for examinations with such palpable envy, following our figures with their eyes alone until we vanished from sight. At such times, Madam Okako would deliberately walk briskly down the corridor and call out in a loud voice, “Good morning—” to the nurses and familiar patients.

When I arrived at the doctor’s office, four or five people had already come, each stripped to their underclothes and waiting their turn.

“Please…” “Well then, I’ll go ahead…” Madam Okako slipped out of her kimono and seated herself in the chair before the Deputy Director. “How are we today?” “Nothing in particular…” There was nothing but routine conversation. Deputy Director Narukawa languidly glanced over the chart and inserted the stethoscope into his ears.

Absentmindedly watching that motion, I suddenly gasped and held my breath. Whether by today’s positioning or chance arrangement, Madam Okako’s nude upper body now loomed directly before me. Provocatively close-up, her chest bore a robust swell unimaginable in a tuberculosis patient. Her skin appeared so fine-textured and supple that one might think her entire body had been sheathed in dew-dampened cream-colored silk. Moreover—whether from backlighting or some trick of perspective—from my vantage point, her breasts seemed dusted with golden down, while between those twin swells ran a shadowed groove sunken like a devil’s lair, its soft contours brazenly displayed. I felt my gaze involuntarily shrink back—whether imagined or real—and flustered, blinked two or three times in quick succession. At that moment, I even detected Aoki’s ragged breathing beside me.

When the examination ended, the four of us went directly to the resting area. The resting area was at the edge of the sanatorium, where reed screens had been set up under poplars and wisteria, with rows of reclining chairs arranged in neat lines. When I lay down there, the sanatorium’s red roof appeared vividly before my eyes, floating against the backdrop of early summer’s clear blue sky.

We lay there for a while with our eyes closed; when we closed them, it was as if we had sunk to the ocean floor—not a sound to be heard. Only very rarely would a swollen gadfly—its wings beating with a dull drone—wander beneath the wisteria that had nearly begun to bear fruit. A south wind bearing the scent of the tide arrived—it was a wind from the deep blue sea.

...After lying with my eyes closed for a while, I suddenly sensed stifled laughter somewhere. When I shifted only my eyes, I saw Miss Moroguchi lying on the adjacent chair, gazing skyward while suppressing a strangely distorted smile—something between nostalgic amusement and ticklish embarrassment, yet reminiscent of an expression I too had once worn. (Hm?)

Having thought this, I followed her gaze with my eyes without hesitation. Her gaze collided with the red roof. (How odd…) While thinking this, I traced her gaze once more—and collided with something that made me gasp. Before I knew it, I was scrutinizing it intently. It was a stark white cumulonimbus cloud, floating large above the red roof within the azure sky. That cumulonimbus cloud, swollen and writhing upward as if alive, had formed a shape beyond imagination—bizarre.

The moment I grasped the meaning behind Miss Moroguchi’s stifled laughter, I realized this demure consumptive girl too shared Madam Okako’s pulsing bloodline. A visceral disgust welled up within me. “Ahem.” I deliberately turned aside to clear my throat, “Miss Moroguchi, splendid weather… That cloud resembles laundered absorbent cotton in whiteness.” “Oh! How crude—comparing it to absorbent cotton! One shouldn’t voice such thoughts!”

She had somehow recomposed that distorted face and said with a scornful "Hmph."

I, (Hmph...) sneered silently to myself, yet perhaps because the crimson dahlia’s shadow fell upon her, I found her slightly flushed profile even more beautiful than usual. When I raised my upper body slightly, beyond Miss Moroguchi lay Madam Okako—and pressed so close to her recliner that they nearly touched was another chair bearing Aoki’s emaciated frame. Both had their eyes closed. On Madam Okako’s sharply upturned nose bridge, dewdrop-like sweat glistened, while the recklessly bright sun made the entire surroundings shimmer like heat haze.

When the chair creaked, Miss Moroguchi also raised her upper body and, stretching toward me, began to speak in a small voice. “I... I’ve gotten all worked up for some reason...” “What...” “What do you mean...? I feel like I'm getting worse... Really... I can't help feeling like I'll suddenly get a fever any moment now...” “Nonsense... That worry’s what’ll give you a fever... You’ve got too much free time. Instead of thinking that nonsense, you’d do better for your health staring at cumulonimbus clouds and letting your imagination run wild...”

“Oh…” She momentarily wore a startled expression and forced a stiff smile— “How mean of you…” While brushing back the stray hair near her earlobe, she shot a light glare. “Ha ha ha... What were you thinking about...” “……It’s about Madam and Mr. Aoki… You know.”

“What—” “Oh, you don’t know? How oblivious can you be.” “You mean they’re close?” “If that’s all you mean, everyone already knows.” “Hmph. So there’s more to it then?” “Well… Let’s go over there—”

Miss Moroguchi got down from her chair without making a sound, stepped onto the lawn, and headed toward the pond. I also rose quietly, confirmed with a sidelong glance that Madam and Aoki were dozing, and immediately followed after. In the pond, water lilies already held buds, and here and there flowed shadows of cotton-like cumulus clouds.

“What’s ‘that’——?” “You see… At night… After lights out… Mr. Aoki comes to Madam’s room…”

“Hmm.” “And then... Guess what they do—” “He goes to draw pictures on her skin… that is, to give her tattoos…” “No way—” “Oh, it’s true! My room’s right next to Madam’s—you should know that.” “But if she got a tattoo, they’d notice immediately during examinations…” “That depends on where it is…” “I see… But for what purpose—” “Oh my, I don’t know about that! After all, it’s through the wall…”

“Hmm.” "They seem... awfully close..."

Miss Moroguchi covered her mouth as if stifling a yawn. "Hmm." As I listened to this story, I felt an intense unpleasantness unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Could this be jealousy—this nauseating, unbearable sensation that made me unable to sit still? When I considered it properly, I shouldn't have been particularly interested in Madam—yet somehow, the moment I heard this story, I began to feel a blazing resentment toward Aoki.

I felt a sharp tightening around my solar plexus. And, (Damn... Aoki...) As soon as I thought this, my heart began thudding wildly in my chest...

At that moment, the solemn noon bell rang. With a start, I noticed a nurse in the window of the distant ward,

(Lunch is ready—)

I could see her mouthing the words while waving her hand.

II. Noon Smells of Sunflowers

During the meal, I suddenly realized my gaze kept drifting toward Okako. Even as I tried not to look, the matter of the tattoo I had heard about from Miss Moroguchi weighed on my mind, and I found myself utterly captivated by Okako’s every movement. Whether due to the heat or not, Okako—who had apparently lost nearly all appetite lately—sat at the dining table with elbows propped and eyes glistening as if moist, when suddenly, as though struck by some thought, she began singing a passage from *Humoresque*.

Is it the moon’s sigh—this faint melody— Flowing through darkness—this desolate body of mine, In my anguished heart—resound, melody—

A song of solace stealthily drawing near with yearning Yet still unknown—a poem to draw forth tears

As she sang, her eyes began to gleam with an uncanny light. Strangely enough, she might have been shedding tears.

“Hey… what do you think of this song…” “How so…”

“I learned this song from Mr. Aoki—but I believe it’s the ‘Consumption Melody.’” “The lyrics?” I asked, stunned by her startling declaration.

“No—well, that too—but this melody, you see. Listen closely—doesn’t this melody perfectly match those temperature chart curves? The rises and falls correspond so precisely to those feverish undulations—it’s shockingly how perfectly they align...” “Ah... Now that you mention it...” “When I sing this song, it terrifies me... Because—” A song of solace stealthily drawing near with yearning “When it reaches that part, the pitch suddenly soars… If translated into fever, that’s about forty degrees… I feel like I’m right at that rising point now—any moment, my temperature will climb fiercely…”

With these words, Madam Okako’s beautiful face rippled with a desolate loneliness unbefitting her usual cheerfulness. (Oh well, it must be due to some bodily imbalance...)

While thinking this, I found myself unconsciously humming that eerie song. Indeed, the ladle-shaped curves dancing across the musical score had transformed into sine waves, forming a striking approximation of the temperature chart’s undulations. While attributing it to a tuberculosis patient’s delusional anxiety, I could do nothing but watch with uneasy fascination—this patient’s unique latent terror that I couldn’t outright deny, these convulsions of nerves honed to razor sharpness. When I realized that even Madam Okako—this femme fatale who seemed like some beautiful demon—harbored such visceral terror, this nerve-rending dread that left her unable to sit still or stand still, I sensed in her a delicate woman I had never before imagined.

Aoki and Miss Moroguchi remained silent, but within everyone’s breast, that ordinary yet bizarre melody from *Humoresque* must have been repeating itself over and over…

× “Well then, since it’s rest hour, let’s head to the reclining area… Ah, what fine weather...” I tried to dispel the strange atmosphere and stood up, deliberately slamming the table with a bang. “Right...” Miss Moroguchi also suddenly raised her eyes and half-rose from her seat.

That was when it happened. Madam gurgled in her throat—a wet, convulsive sound—then collapsed prostrate across the table she had half-risen from with a sickening splat like a heart being coughed up.

“Ah—” The instant I thought this, a translucent surge of vivid blood bubbled forth from Madam Okako’s lips as she lay collapsed face-down, spreading across the snow-white table to paint a crimson map that seeped outward before our eyes.

(Hemoptysis!)

The three of them jolted upright in unison. With a thunderous crash, the chair flipped over backwards. “Nurse… Nurse…” Miss Moroguchi, her trembling hands clasped near her chest and her face deathly pale, continued calling for the nurse in a whisper. “Madam, you’re okay, you’re okay.” Aoki hurriedly flipped up the tablecloth and pressed it against Okako’s chest. Okako’s back, now prone, heaved violently as she gasped with all her might to expel the blood clogging her throat…….

“You’re okay, calm down, calm down—” The head nurse who had rushed over supported her with practiced hands. ……When Okako finally lifted her face, her eyes—drenched in tears until they seemed all pupil—glistened wide open as they stared fixedly at some unseen corner of the room. Then, perhaps noticing us, she offered a faint smile so desperate it seemed to sap her last strength. At that moment, crimson blood remnant flowed from between her slightly parted lips like a dangling red thread, then curled swiftly beneath her sharply defined chin.

Urged by the nurses, we hastily left the sunroom and went to the reclining area.

The moment we stepped outside, the dazzling brightness struck our frayed nerves—all three of us staggered to an involuntary halt. The sun seeped through from the crown of our skulls like a rotten sunflower, putrid and blue.

×

We collapsed into the reclining chairs, and no one spoke. Eyes shut tight, desperately trying to calm myself, my abnormally heightened nerves instead conjured visions of frothing scarlet blood and that ghastly Humoresque—though I fought against humming it, the melody rode my pulse to whisper through every fiber of my being. After tossing and turning restlessly for what felt like ages, overwhelmed by my frayed nerves as I lay there listening to the rasping buzz of some sluggish gadfly with eyes shut tight, the nurse made her rounds.

“It’s three o’clock. Your temperature…” “Ah, I forgot... I’ll take it now, Madam—” “Ah…” While inserting the thermometer under my arm, I found myself staring at Nurse Yuki’s youthful, almost childlike face— (Madam’s in bad shape…) I intuited. “The doctor mentioned that since it was precisely when her condition worsened, the bleeding has been quite difficult to stop…”

“Ah, right… It was a bad time for her, wasn’t it?” I too felt feverish somehow. When I fearfully peered at the thermometer, it read thirty-seven point five. (Not good…)

I suddenly felt a tightness in my chest.

“I’ve got a fever too.” “Everyone… After seeing that… Miss Moroguchi’s already lying pale as a ghost in her room.” Now that she mentioned it, Miss Moroguchi and Aoki had both vanished without my noticing. I— (It’s just my imagination.) Even as I thought this, I muttered “37.5 degrees… 37.5 degrees…” two or three times before sinking limply back into the lounge chair.

Nurse Yuki gently laid a blanket over my legs and left.

Before long, the azure sky tinged with purple from the evening glow, and water vapor began streaming faintly from the forest behind us—then the dinner bell rang out, reaching even my ears as though nothing at all had occurred that day.

Although I didn’t feel the slightest bit hungry, I rose from the lounge chair out of sheer habit and, smoothing the bedhead at the back of my head, headed to the sunroom’s dining hall. When I went to the dining hall, there sat Miss Moroguchi all by herself, her face slightly more drawn than usual, perched solitary on a chair.

We remained silent; whenever we recalled Madam Okako’s figure hemorrhaging violently here moments earlier, our appetites vanished completely. “What about Mr. Aoki?” I asked Nurse Yuki.

“Well… He went to the reclining area earlier and hasn’t been seen since…” (Aoki bastard probably wouldn’t want to eat a damn meal) At the same time, (Is he in Madam’s room?)

I imagined him nursing her—frantically cooling her forehead and such—and thought, “Hmph.” Even after we fidgeted through the flavorless supper, Aoki never appeared. Not even steam rose anymore from the ownerless meal tray’s clear soup. “Yuki-chan—have you seen Mr. Aoki?”

The Head Nurse came around and said this. “No, not in his room—” “Neither in his room nor Madam’s—he hasn’t been seen at all.”

“Perhaps he went for a walk?”

“Even so, this is taking too long…”

The two women whispered in hushed tones. “Isn’t Mr. Aoki here?”

I also interjected. “Yes, whatever could have happened… This is troubling…” At that moment, I felt an indescribably ominous premonition. “That’s odd…”

“What’s going on…”

The Head Nurse leaned out over the second-floor sunroom’s railing and intently scanned the entire sanatorium as dusk approached. Miss Moroguchi sat with her eyes half-closed, sipping coarse tea.

III. Dusk Smells of Poppies

I finished my meal and immediately went to visit Madam. Madam lay sunken into the stark white bed, her pallid forehead drenched in clammy sweat, each ragged breath creating violent friction within her chest.

A young nurse sat slumped dejectedly on a chair, clutching a damp washcloth as if uncertain what to do, keeping vigil over Madam’s sleeping face. I abruptly noticed the basin beside the bed within my lowered line of sight, and upon seeing the red liquid brimming inside it, felt inexplicably guilty—as though I’d committed some grave transgression—and in that same moment fled the room in disarray.

When I left the room, Miss Moroguchi was standing at the entrance. “How is she…”

… I silently shook my head and started walking down the long corridor.

(It's hopeless...) I mouthed it again. (Still... what happened to that Aoki bastard...) As I passed by, I peeked into Aoki’s room, but it stood completely deserted.

×

When I returned to my room and opened the medicine stand’s drawer to take my post-meal powdered medicine, I noticed a thick white rectangular envelope fall with a soft thud—it must have been wedged inside.

(Oh—) Startled for some reason, I picked it up to find “Mr. Kyoji Kawamura” written on the front and “Yurei Aoki” scrawled across the back.

Unintentionally pressing a hand to my pounding, surging chest, I sliced open the envelope.

As I read further, my hands trembled violently, and clammy, unpleasant sweat broke out across my forehead and underarms.

×

Mr. Kyoji Kawamura, I am in a great hurry at this moment—yet you must be wondering why I would write such a letter under these circumstances. I implore you to read it through to the end. To state matters plainly—I killed Madam Okako…… Do not make that incredulous face. I am not insane—no, though madness there must be. Yes, to phrase it pretentiously, I have been driven mad by “love and art.” Never before had I encountered an ideal woman like Okako…… Yet how cruel the world proves—this ideal woman I finally met was already the second mistress of an industrialist. Can you fathom such despair? And when you hear this next truth, even you will keenly feel life’s bitter irony—guess whose mistress Madam Okako was. Tetsuzo Kawamura—your own strict father’s second mistress. You likely remain oblivious—but during Okako’s prolonged hospitalization, did her family ever visit even once? Did you ever catch sight of the husband implied by her title of “Madam”? You did not. They lived in terror of encountering you. Naturally, your father repeatedly urged her to transfer to another sanatorium—yet she refused to move…… Because I was here—and because you were here…… Your presence alone allowed us to indulge in our affair without interference—kindhearted Kyoji—you unwittingly became the bulwark protecting our romance—for this I thank you—profusely…… Yet even so—a tragic catastrophe awaited us…… Lately I have been tormented by relapse—my chest now swarms with countless venomous insects gnawing ceaselessly…… Yes—our love awakened the slumbering tuberculosis bacilli…… The temperatures on my chart? Mere fabrications—nothing but my lies that Yuki-chan faithfully recorded……

Even as I became aware of my dwindling days, I felt a restless agitation—I wanted to leave behind a work that would enrapture even me…… And so I resolved—resolved to devote all my energy to creating a masterpiece on the most precious canvas this world could offer: Okako’s gauze-like skin…… Fortunately, Okako permitted it. “The Man in the Shadows”

As if symbolizing me, I tattooed her using face powder… The one done with face powder remains invisible normally, but when entering a bath or drinking alcohol—when the skin reddens—it emerges faintly white… Just as drinking liquor recalls women from one’s past… I carved a white moth there—a single shaggy, swollen and corpulent moth… The thickness of its abdomen, the heft of its toxin-laden wings… That venomous white moth clung tightly to her inner thigh, undulating its plump torso as though alive… No—that moth *does* possess life—there lives an extension of this Yurei Aoki’s very existence…

"But... but lately I’ve felt something profoundly unsettling—that you’ve begun taking more than ordinary interest in Okako, and worse still, that she herself isn’t entirely free from such gestures. There’s an undeniable weight to this suspicion of mine that resists dismissal as mere paranoia. Because Okako has grown palpably colder toward me of late... I grew frantic—tormented—and perhaps because of this, my body deteriorated beyond any self-deception—you must realize now why I refused examinations under pretense of ‘nothing wrong’—my breath reeked of fever even to my own senses—I was already past caring... To kill Okako and myself... You understand, don’t you? Even untouched, my life wouldn’t have lasted much longer..."

I told her it was the final touch and, half-threateningly, drove the last needle into her resisting flesh. The shading needle—five silk threads bundled together—had the potent toxin ×× fixed to its tip. You must know it—that ×× robs blood of its power to clot. Once bleeding starts, it flows unstoppably like hemophilia, draining life away… I knew Okako’s condition. Now you understand everything… But why choose such a half-hearted method for a lovers’ suicide?… Ah, curse you, Aoki… Yet you must realize—this patient clung to life with tenacious claws… Had Okako’s death gone unquestioned, I might still be conversing with you now. And I might have been plotting a second confrontation against you. …But evil deeds bear fruit—Okako coughed blood, seduced by that devil’s melody… Ah, what a catastrophic error! To mistake her waning health for lost passion—my gravest delusion. She truly had been ill—her endured discomfort seeming like cold indifference to my deranged mind. Okako did love me after all—I wanted you to know that. But I killed her… Writing wearies me now. By the time you read this, I’ll have left this world—the boundless ocean awaits me, roaring.

Well then, give my regards to your strict father, Mr. Tetsuzo. Yurei Aoki ×

Having finished reading, I collapsed unsteadily onto the bed, and with trembling hands took three hypnotic drugs wrapped in red paper from the medicine stand's drawer, then gulped them down in one fierce swallow. In such violent excitement that I was on the verge of dizziness, I simply could not remain awake any longer. As the medicine slid grittily down my throat, a piercing poppy-like scent shot through my nose…

In my head, the gadfly I’d seen by daylight and the moth said to be carved on Okako’s inner thigh intermingled indistinguishably—swelling to grotesquely enormous forms or shrinking to needle-tip specks, whispering over and over as they swirled. And in my lukewarm, swamp-like sleep, I somehow found myself vividly recalling Madam Okako’s corpse being carried to the mortuary on a white stretcher.

("Detective Literature" [1936 July Issue])