Pathway to Japanese Literature

The first time I read the novel titled "The Chronicle of Lord Chūnao" was when I was thirteen or fourteen, and I never had another chance to read it again, but even now, twenty years later, I still remember every detail of that story's plot.
It was a strangely sorrowful story.

A young lord skilled in swordsmanship defeated his retainers one after another in matches and was proudly strolling through the garden when unpleasant whispers reached his ears from the depths of the garden’s darkness.

“Lord Chūnao has improved remarkably lately.”
“It’s gotten easier for those of us who have to lose on purpose too.”

“Ahahaha!”

“Ahahaha.”

It was the retainers’ careless whispers.

After hearing this, Lord Chūnao’s conduct underwent a complete transformation.
He became desperate to see the truth and went mad.
He challenged his retainers to duels with real swords.
Yet even when fighting with live blades, they refused to engage him seriously.
The lord kept winning effortlessly as retainers kept dying.
Lord Chūnao spiraled into madness.
He had already become a terrifying tyrant.
Ultimately his entire house was dissolved, and he himself was placed under confinement.

I distinctly remembered that being the general plot yet found myself unable to forget that lord.
From time to time I would recall him and sigh.

However, lately, an ominous doubt had suddenly arisen within me—without exaggeration, I’d grown so anxious I couldn’t sleep at night.
Was Lord Chūnao not truly a brilliant master of swordsmanship?
Had the retainers not actually been losing on purpose, but genuinely been no match for His Lordship’s skill?
Were even those garden whispers nothing more than the retainers’ spiteful excuses for their defeats?
This was a plausible scenario.

Even we, after being mercilessly criticized by an admirable senior for our work and utterly worn down by that senior’s lofty passion and correct sensibilities, once we parted ways with them—

“That senior’s been rather spirited lately, hasn’t he?”
“Seems we don’t need to coddle him anymore.”

“Ahahaha.”

There must have been nights when they exchanged such truly base whispers. That was entirely possible. Retainers, by their very nature, were invariably inferior in character to their lord. Could it not be that even those garden whispers were nothing more than a dirty excuse to satisfy the retainers’ twisted self-esteem? If that were the case, I shuddered. Lord Chūnao had grasped the truth yet gone mad pursuing it. Lord Chūnao was in fact a master swordsman. The retainers had never been losing on purpose. They had simply been no match for him. If that were so, Lord Chūnao’s victories and his retainers’ defeats should have followed naturally, leaving no cause for turmoil afterward. Yet a great catastrophe had still occurred. Had Lord Chūnao maintained unshakable confidence in his skill, peace might have prevailed. But it was said geniuses throughout history found their true worth hardest to recognize. They could not believe in their own power. Therein lay genius’s anguish and profound prayer—or so I supposed—but being a mediocre talent among common folk, I could not properly explain such matters. In any case, Lord Chūnao could not place absolute trust in his own skill. Though he possessed peerless mastery as a swordsman, his inability to believe it drove him mad. This misfortune must have stemmed from his exalted status as lord. Had we been tenement dwellers,

“Do you think I’m great?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I see.”

What could be settled with mere words would never suffice for a lord.
As I continued considering the misfortunes of genius and lordship in this manner, my anxiety only grew greater.
A similar tragedy had indeed occurred around me.
Because of that incident, I found myself recalling The Chronicles of Lord Chūnao on my own—then one night, suddenly seized by a dreadful doubt and pondering this and that—I became so anxious that, without exaggeration, I couldn’t sleep at all.
Was Lord Chūnao not truly a brilliantly skilled swordsman?
But the problem was no longer that lord’s circumstances.

My Lord Chūnao was a thirty-three-year-old woman.
And so my role may well have been that of the retainer who uttered those shameful excuses for their defeats in the garden—making this an increasingly unbearable affair altogether.

Mr. Kusata Sōbee’s wife, Sizuko Kusata.
That this person suddenly declared, "I am a genius," and ran away from home was astonishing.
Although there was no blood relation between the Kusata family and my own, we had nevertheless maintained a close association since around my grandfather’s generation.
To say we "associated" sounded respectable enough, but the reality was better described as my birth family’s members being permitted to come and go at the Kusata residence.
In terms of what people commonly called social standing and wealth, there had been an immense gap between them and my birth family.
To put it another way, it was as if my birth family had been the ones requesting this association.
It was precisely a relationship of lord and retainers.

The head of the household, Mr. Sōbee, was still young.
Though called young, Mr. Sōbee was already past forty.
After graduating from Tokyo Imperial University’s Economics Department, he went to France, spent five or six years there, and upon returning to Japan immediately married Miss Sizuko—the only daughter of a distant relative’s household (a family that would soon fall into ruin thereafter).
The couple’s relationship was generally harmonious.
They had a daughter and named her Hariko.
It appeared to be a play on "Paris."
Mr. Sōbee was a man of Western tastes.
He was a tall, stately and handsome man.
He always smiled warmly.
He owned many good Western paintings.
Among them, Degas’s horse racing painting appeared to be his most prized possession.
Yet he never displayed any airs of flaunting his refined tastes.
He didn’t talk much about art either.
Every day, he commuted to his bank.
In short, he was a first-class gentleman.

Six years ago, when the previous head passed away, Mr. Sōbee immediately succeeded to the Kusata household.

Mrs. Sizuko—Ah! Rather than explaining her circumstances, I should describe a certain minor incident from several years ago.
That would prove more efficient.
Three years ago during New Year's, I went to pay respects at the Kusata residence.
Friends occasionally point this out—it seems I'm a man with an extraordinarily strong persecution complex.
Particularly since leaving my parental home eight years prior under certain circumstances and beginning to scrape by alone in near-destitution, this bitterness appears to have intensified further.
Fearing potential humiliation from others, I remain perpetually tense—trembling like withering autumn leaves—staking my very life on this vigilance.
An unbearable vice.
I seldom visit the Kusata household.
Though my birth mother and elder brother still appear to call there regularly with their respects, I alone abstain.
Until high school days I too had visited innocently enough for social calls, but upon entering university this inclination vanished entirely.
The Kusatas were all perfectly decent people—yet somehow I grew unwilling to visit.
I had begun nurturing a simple conviction: I detested the wealthy.
As for why I specifically resolved to pay New Year's greetings three years ago—this stemmed fundamentally from my own lack of discipline.
In December of that preceding year came sudden invitation correspondence from Mrs. Sizuko Kusata.

It has been some time since we last met.
Please do come visit us for the New Year.
My husband too awaits your visit with anticipation.
Both he and I are readers of your novels.

At that final line, I became utterly carried away.
It is a shameful thing.
At that time, my novels had begun to sell somewhat.
I confess—I was getting carried away at that time.
It was a dangerous period.
When I was in a listless mood, an invitation arrived from Mrs. Sizuko Kusata—and being told things like "I am a reader of your novels" proved unbearable.
Smirking smugly, I wrote a fawning reply full of coquettish phrases—expressing profuse gratitude for the invitation and so on—then naively went calling on New Year’s Day, only to return home having suffered a humiliation so profound it felt as though my forehead had been split open.

That day, the Kusata household welcomed me with considerable hospitality.
To each New Year’s guest who arrived, he introduced me as the “popular writer.”
Not only did I fail to recognize this as mockery or insult—I even began reconsidering whether I might truly have become a popular writer by then. It was utterly absurd.
I was miserable.
I drank until intoxicated.
I proceeded to get thoroughly drunk with Mr. Sōbee as my companion.
Yet I alone ended up inebriated; no matter how much he drank, Mr. Sōbee’s complexion remained unchanged as he listened to my literary ramblings with a forced, timid smile.

“Mrs.,” I said, getting carried away, and offered her my cup.
“How about it?”

“I won’t have any.”
Mrs. Sizuko replied coldly.
It was an indescribably bone-chilling tone that pierced through to the marrow.
An unfathomable contempt lay packed within that single word.
I was done for.
The drunkenness had subsided.
But forcing a bitter smile,

“Ah, my mistake. I just had too much to drink,” I said lightly to gloss over the situation, though my guts were churning. To make matters worse, I no longer felt like drinking any more alcohol and decided to have a meal instead. The clam soup was delicious. As I busily dug out the clam meat with my chopsticks and ate it,

“Oh,” Mrs. Sizuko uttered a small cry of surprise.
“You’re eating that... and it doesn’t bother you?”
It was an innocent question.

I nearly dropped my chopsticks and bowl.
This clam wasn’t meant to be eaten.
Clam soup—you were supposed to drink only the broth.
The clams were just for flavor.
For us poor folks, even this clam meat tasted decent enough, but upper-class people threw it away like something filthy.
True enough—the clam flesh looked as grotesque as a human navel.
I couldn’t respond.
The very innocence of her surprised voice made it cut deeper.
If she’d asked that question while putting on airs of refinement, I might’ve found a retort.
But because her voice held genuine astonishment from the heart, I was crushed.
The upstart “popular writer” hung his head, chopsticks and bowl in hand, speechless.
Tears welled up.
I’d never suffered such vicious humiliation.
After that day, I stopped visiting the Kusata household.
Not just theirs—I resolved to avoid all wealthy homes henceforth.
And so I stubbornly clung to my shabby life of poverty.

Last September, an unexpected visitor was standing at the entrance of my shabby house.
It was Mr. Kusata Sōbee.

“Sizuko hasn’t come here, has she?”

“No.”

“Is that true?”

“What’s the matter?”
I was the one who countered with a question.

He seemed to have some reason.

“The house is a mess, so let’s go outside.”
I didn’t want to show him the inside of my filthy house.

“Yes,” Mr. Kusata nodded meekly and followed behind me.

After walking a short distance, we arrived at Inokashira Park.
While walking through the park’s grove, Mr. Kusata spoke.

“It’s no good,” he said. “This time I’ve bungled it completely. The medicine… worked too well.”
Mrs. Sizuko had run away from home.
The reason was utterly absurd.
Several years earlier, her family had gone bankrupt.
After that, she had transformed into an oddly cold and aloof woman.
It seemed she had come to regard her family’s bankruptcy as an immense disgrace.
No matter how much they tried comforting her by saying it meant nothing, she only grew more resentful.
Hearing this, I finally understood the bizarre severity of that “I won’t have any” during New Year’s.
Mrs. Sizuko had come to the Kusata household as a bride during my high school years. Back then, I’d casually visit their home without a second thought, chatting with the new Mrs. Sizuko and even going to movies together—yet that young bride had never spoken with such bone-piercing sharpness.
She’d been the sort to laugh with a brightness verging on naivety.
On that New Year’s morning when we met after so long, I’d thought to myself even before exchanging greetings—“She’s changed”—and now saw clearly that it must have been the anguish of her family’s ruin that had so drastically altered her.

“Hysterics, huh?” I snorted.

“Well, that’s...” Mr. Kusata, seemingly unaware of my contempt, pondered gravely and said, “Anyway, it’s my fault. I flattered her too much. The medicine worked too well.” Mr. Kusata had his wife take Western painting lessons as one means of consoling her. He had her attend, once a week, the atelier of a certain Nakazumi Kasen—a nearly sixty-year-old, terribly unskilled old painter who lived nearby. Then came the praise. Starting with Mr. Kusata himself, that senile old painter Nakazumi, the young research students attending Nakazumi’s atelier, and all the assorted riffraff frequenting the Kusata household—they all gathered around and lavished praise on Madam’s paintings until it culminated in her hysterical outburst. She blurted out “I’m a genius!” and ran away from home. But as I listened to this story, I struggled not to burst out laughing multiple times. Indeed, the medicine had worked too well. An absurd farce typical of wealthy households.

“When did she run away?”
I had already completely ridiculed the Kusata couple.

“Yesterday.”

“Oh please,” I scoffed. “Then there’s nothing to fuss about, is there? Even my wife sometimes goes back to her parents’ place for a night when I overdo the drinking.”

“This isn’t the same,” he countered. “Sizuko says she wants to live freely as an artist. She left with a considerable sum.”

“A lot?”
“It’s rather much.”
Given that someone as wealthy as Mr. Kusata would describe it as “rather much,” I figured it might be around five thousand yen—or perhaps even ten thousand.

“That’s no good now.”
For the first time, I felt a flicker of interest.
Poor people can’t stay indifferent when money’s involved.

"Sizuko was always reading your novels, so I thought she must have gone to pay you a visit—"

“Don’t be ridiculous.
“I am—”
I was about to say “You’re the enemy,” but seeing Mr. Kusata—who always wore a smile—now pale and utterly dejected before me, I found myself unable to voice it.

We parted in front of Kichijoji Station, but at the moment of parting I asked with a wry smile.

"What on earth kind of paintings does she paint?"

"They're unusual."
"There are parts that have a touch of genius."
The answer was unexpected.

“Huh.”
I was left speechless.
I was utterly appalled, thinking what a foolish couple they were.

It must have been three days later when that genius lady appeared at my shabby dwelling, carrying her paint box.
She wore a shabby Western-style dress resembling a workman's jacket.
Her cheeks were sunken to an eerie degree, her eyes grown abnormally large.
Yet what might be called the dignity of a first-class noblewoman remained unassailable.

"Get inside."
I deliberately used a rough tone.
"Where had you been? Mr. Kusata had been terribly worried."

“Are you an artist?”
She stood rigidly in the entranceway, turned away, and muttered it in her usual cold, haughty tone.

“What are you saying? Don’t put on airs with me. Mr. Kusata was at his wit’s end too, you know. Have you forgotten about Hariko-chan?”

“I’m looking for an apartment,”
Madam completely ignored my words.
“Isn’t there one around here?”

“Madam, you’re out of your mind.”
“You’ll be a laughingstock.”
“Please stop.”

“I want to work alone.”
Mrs. Sizuko showed not the slightest hesitation. “I wouldn’t mind renting a whole house.”

“Mr. Kusata also regretted that the medicine had been too effective.”
“In the twentieth century, there are no such things as artists or geniuses.”

“You’re such a philistine,” she said with unflinching composure. “Kusata still has some understanding.”

I’d made it my policy to have guests who spoke to me so disrespectfully leave immediately. There was one conviction I held sacred. I didn’t need anyone’s understanding. If they disliked it, they shouldn’t come.

“What did you come here for?” My voice turned glacial. “Perhaps you should leave.”

“I’ll leave.”
She smiled slightly and said, “Shall I show you the paintings?”

“There are plenty. I already know most of them.”

“So.”
She stared at my face—so intently it could have bored a hole through me.
“Goodbye.”

She had left.

What a disaster.
That woman was supposed to be exactly my age.
She even had a twelve- or thirteen-year-old child.
Driven mad by their flattery.
And the flatterers—true to their name.
It was an unpleasant affair.
I felt terror—actual terror—toward this entire matter.

For approximately two months after that, there were no visits from Mrs. Sizuko, but during that time I received five or six letters from Mr. Sōbee Kusata. He seemed utterly at his wit’s end. Afterward, Mrs. Sizuko took up residence in an Akasaka apartment. At first she dutifully attended Old Painter Nakazumi’s atelier, but soon came to scorn even that elderly artist. She virtually abandoned her painting studies, instead summoning the young researchers from the painter’s studio to her apartment where, intoxicated by their flattery, she held ecstatically rowdy parties every night. Mr. Kusata swallowed his shame and visited the Akasaka apartment alone, pleading with her to return home, but to no avail. He was coldly dismissed by Mrs. Sizuko, even attacked by her entourage of researchers as an enemy of genius, and on top of that, had all his money taken from him. He visited three times, but each time met with the same misfortune. By now, Mr. Kusata had steeled himself. Even so, Hariko was pitiable. “What am I to do? As a man, there’s no more excruciating position than this”—so wrote Mr. Sōbee Kusata, a distinguished gentleman over forty, in his letters to me. But I too had not forgotten that great humiliation I once suffered at the Kusata household. There were times when I felt horrified by my own tenacity—it clung with a persistence that even I found chilling. I simply could not forget an insult once received. Not the slightest feeling of sympathy arose within me for the Kusata household’s recent misfortune. Mr. Kusata had been sending me repeated letters entreating, “Please talk some sense into Sizuko,” but I had no desire to act. Being an errand boy for the rich was repugnant to me.

“Since I’m someone Mrs. Sizuko thoroughly despises, I’m hardly in a position to be of any use.” That sort of thing—I always refused with such excuses.

It was early November, when the sasanquas in the garden had begun to bloom.
That morning, I received a letter from Mrs. Sizuko.

—My hearing has gone.
I drank too much cheap liquor and developed otitis media.
I showed it to a doctor, but they said it’s already too late.
I can’t even hear the hissing sound of water boiling in the kettle.
Outside the window, tree branches sway and scatter dead leaves, but I hear no sound at all.
Now, until I die, I will never be able to hear anything.
People's voices too sound as if they're speaking from the bottom of the earth.
This too will soon become completely inaudible.
How lonely and frustrating it is to have poor hearing—this time, of all times, I’ve come to know it full well.
When I go shopping, people who don’t know about my hearing impairment speak to me normally, so I can’t understand a word and end up despondent.
To console myself, I try recalling others with hearing troubles—that one or this one—and barely get through each day.
Lately, I constantly think I want to die—want to die.
When I do, thoughts of Hariko surface, and I tell myself I must persevere somehow.
The other day, believing crying would worsen my ears, I’d been holding back tears—but two days ago could no longer contain them. Letting them flow like a waterfall brought some relief.
Now I’ve begun feeling faint resignation toward my deafness, but when it first worsened, I was half-crazed.
Within a single day, I strike the brazier’s edge with fire tongs repeatedly.
I test whether I can hear clearly.
Even at night, waking up means crawling from bed to tap-tap the brazier.
What a wretched sight I am.
I claw at the tatami with my nails.

I try selecting sounds that are as difficult to hear as possible and testing them out.
When people visit, I make them speak loudly then softly—ordering them to keep this up relentlessly for an hour or two at a time while testing my hearing in every conceivable way—until the guests grow exasperated.
These days, they hardly come to see me at all.
Late at night, I would sometimes stand alone by the train tracks, straining my ears to catch the sound of trains rushing past right before my eyes.

By now, even the sound of trains has become as faint as paper being torn.
Soon, I will likely be unable to hear anything at all.
My entire body seems to be failing.
Every night, I change my nightclothes three times over.
I become drenched in night sweats.
All the paintings I had done up to now, I tore up and threw away.
I discarded every last one.
My paintings were terribly clumsy.
You were the only one who told me the truth.
Other people—everyone—flattered me.
If it had been possible, I wanted to live a poor but carefree artist's life like yours.
Please laugh at me.
My family went bankrupt, my mother soon died, and my father fled to Hokkaido.
I found it unbearable to stay at the Kusata household.
Around that time, I began reading your novels and felt as though I had found one purpose in life—that this way of living might also exist.
I too, like you, am a poor child.
I wanted to meet you.
Three years ago at New Year's, when I was finally able to meet you again after such a long time, I was overjoyed.
I saw your carefree way of getting drunk and found it enviable—so much that it made me jealous.
This is the true way to live.

You lived without pretense or flattery—alone with your pride held high.
I thought this way of living seemed so wonderful.
But there was nothing I could do.
Before long, my husband suggested I take up painting, and since I trusted him—(I still love my husband even now)—I began attending Mr. Nakazumi’s studio. But I soon became the target of everyone’s fervent praise. At first, I was simply bewildered by it all, but then even my husband said to me with a straight face, “You might be a genius.”
Because I greatly respected my husband’s artistic discernment, I finally became unhinged and left home with the intention of beginning the artist’s life I had long yearned for.

What a foolish woman.
With the research students attending Mr. Nakazumi’s atelier, I spent two or three days in Hakone where I created a painting that somewhat pleased me. Wanting you to see it first, I hurried to your house—only to meet with an unexpected ordeal.
I was utterly ashamed.
I wanted you to see my painting, have you praise it, then rent a room near your house and become friends as impoverished artists.
I was insane.
Only after being harshly rebuked by you did I regain my sanity.
I came to know my own foolishness.
No matter how much the young research students praised my paintings, I realized it was all shallow flattery—that behind my back they were sticking out their tongues.
But by then, my life had already fallen beyond retrieval.
I could no longer turn back.
I’ll fall all the way to the bottom and see for myself.
I drank alcohol every night.
I made merry all night with the young research students.
I drank shochu and gin.

What a pretentious, foolish woman.

I will voice no more complaints.
I will accept my punishment with grace.

As I gauged the severity of the wind by the swaying tree branches outside the window, the rain began driving down sideways.
Neither the sound of the rain nor the sound of the wind reached me.
It was like a silent film—a desolate evening, terrifying in its loneliness.
You need not reply to this letter, you know.
Please do not concern yourself with me.
Out of sheer loneliness, I just tried writing a little.
Please remain composed.——

The letter also included the apartment’s address.
I went out.

The apartment was neat enough, but Mrs. Sizuko’s room was awful.
It was a six-tatami-mat room, and there was nothing in it.
A brazier and a desk—that was all.
The tatami had turned reddish-brown and grown damp; the room was poorly lit and dim, filled with an unpleasant odor like rotting fruit.
Mrs. Sizuko was sitting on the windowsill, laughing.
To her credit, her appearance remained neat.
Her face still retained its beauty.
She seemed to have gained weight compared to when I saw her two months prior, yet there was something unnerving about her.
The eyes lacked strength.
They were not the eyes of a living person.
The pupils were clouded gray.

“That’s absurd!” I exclaimed, but Mrs. Sizuko merely shook her head and laughed.
She seemed to have lost all hearing.
I wrote “Return to the Kusata household” on a sheet of paper from the desk and had Mrs. Sizuko read it.
Then a written conversation began between us.
Mrs. Sizuko too sat down beside the desk and wrote fervently.

Return to the Kusata household.

I’m sorry.

“Anyway, return home.”

“I can’t return.”

“Why?”

“No way to return.”

“Mr. Kusata is waiting.”

“That’s a lie.”

“It’s true.”

I cannot return.
I made a mistake.

Idiot.
What will I do now?

I'm sorry.
I intend to work.

Do you have any money?

I do have some.

Please show me your paintings.

None.

Not even one?

There are none.

I suddenly found myself wanting to see Mrs. Sizuko’s paintings.
A strange premonition came over me.
It’s a good painting—an astonishingly good one.
It must be so.

Don’t you intend to destroy your paintings?

It’s shameful.

You are surely a liar.

Don't console me.

She might actually be a genius—there was no telling.

Stop this.
Go back now.

I forced a bitter smile and stood up.
There was nothing left but to leave.
Mrs. Sizuko didn’t even rise to see me out; she stayed seated, vacantly staring through the window.

That night, I visited Old Painter Nakazumi’s atelier.

“I’d like to see Mrs. Sizuko’s paintings—do you have any here?”

“No.” Old Painter Nakazumi said with a kindly smile, “I hear she tore up all her paintings herself, didn’t she? Though it was genius. She shouldn’t have been so self-indulgent.”

“Even failed sketches or whatever—I want to see them no matter what. Don’t you have any?”

“Wait a moment.” Old Painter Nakazumi tilted his head. “There were about three sketches left at my place, but that person came by the other day and tore them up right before my eyes. It seems someone thoroughly demolished that person’s paintings, and after that—ah, right! There was one, there was one—there’s still a single piece left. My daughter should certainly have a single watercolor.”

“Please show me.”

“Please wait a moment.”

Old Painter Nakazumi went into the back and soon returned beaming, holding a watercolor.

“Thank goodness, thank goodness.
“It’s a relief my daughter had kept it stored away.
“What remains now is likely just this single watercolor.
“I won’t let go of it even for ten thousand yen now.”

“Please show me.”

It was a painting of narcissus.
It was a painting of about twenty narcissus stalks thrown into a bucket.
I took it in my hands, glanced at it briefly, and tore it to shreds with a ripping sound.

“What are you doing?!”
Old Painter Nakazumi was astonished.

“What a worthless painting.”
“You all were just flattering the banker’s wife.”
“And so you ruined her life.”
“The man who thoroughly demolished her was me.”

“It’s not entirely worthless, would you say?”
Old Painter Nakazumi suddenly lost his confidence. “Though I must admit, I can’t properly understand these new artists’ works nowadays.”

I tore the painting into even smaller pieces and fed them into the stove.
I believe I understand art.
I believe I understand art well enough to even teach Mr. Kusata.
The narcissus painting was absolutely not a worthless painting.
It was splendid.
Why did I tear it?
That I leave to the readers’ conjecture.

Mrs. Sizuko was taken back into Mr. Kusata’s care and committed suicide at the end of that year.
My anxiety only continued to grow.
It somehow resembled a genius’s painting.
Unbidden, Lord Chūnao’s story came to mind, and one night I was seized by a strange doubt—what if he truly had been a master swordsman after all? These days, my anxiety has grown so severe I can’t even sleep at night.
Even in the twentieth century, artistic geniuses may still be alive.