Pathway to Japanese Literature

“Speak clearly.”
“Don’t dodge—say it plainly.”
“Cease your jokes and smirking.”
“Tell me something true—just once will do.”

“If I do as you say, I’ll have to go back to prison again.”
“I’ll have to attempt drowning myself again.”
“I’ll have to become a madman again.”
“When that time comes—will you not run away?”
I am always telling lies.
But I have never once deceived you.
Haven’t my lies always been effortlessly seen through by you?
The truly wicked liar may in fact be among those you respect.
I can’t stand that person.
In my excessive aversion to becoming like that person—I have even come to speak truth as if it were lies.
A faint murkiness.
But I do not deceive you.
Even if I’m not perfectly clear to the depths—today I will tell you a truth that seems like a lie.

Dawn clouds—they are the child born from the sunset glow. Without the sunset, dawn clouds could not be born. The sunset glow always thought: “I have grown weary. You must not gaze upon me so intently. You must not love me. I am a being soon to perish. But please, make the sun that will emerge from the eastern sky tomorrow morning your friend. That is my child, raised with my own hands—a plump and round good child.” The sunset glow appealed this to you all and then smiled sadly. At that moment, could you all revile the sunset glow with abusive words like “unhealthy” and “decadent,” mocking it? The man who answered “Of course we can” without hesitation, rolling up his sleeves and stepping forward—this fellow in the manner of a firebrand—was the world’s greatest fool. It was because of fools like you that the world became increasingly unbearable to live in.

Please forgive me. My words went too far. I am neither life's prosecutor nor its judge. I have no right to blame others. I am evil's child. My sins run deep; I have likely committed fifty times—no, a hundred times—the evil deeds you have. Even now, I am committing evil deeds. No matter how careful I am, it's no use. There is not a single day when I do not commit evil deeds. Praying to God, binding my own hands with rope, prostrating myself on the ground—yet when I suddenly come to my senses, I have already committed some grave evil deed. I am a man who must be whipped. Even if beaten until my blood gushes forth, I must remain silent.

The sunset glow too had not appeared in this world innately ugly with bashful smiles.
There had been a glorious time when plump and round with innocent resolve—when burning serenely through heavens it soared believing all things would come to pass through will alone.
Now it stood weakened.
Not originally born frail.
Made feeble through awareness of its own evil—that very evil.
"I once sat upon the throne.
Now watch roses bloom within my garden."
These words were forged by my friend Mr.Yamagashi.

In my garden too, there were roses. Eight of them. The flowers weren’t blooming. Only small, timid-looking leaves quivered in the cold wind. These roses were ones I had been deceived into buying. The deception had been so shallow and despicable—almost violent in nature—that I felt inexpressibly unpleasant at the time.

In early September, four days after moving from Kofu to this house amidst Mitaka’s fields, a farmer woman suddenly appeared in my garden around noon and uttered a servile “If you’d be so kind” in an ingratiating, catlike voice. I had been writing a letter in my room; stopping my hand, I looked closely at her appearance—a plump farmer woman of about thirty-five or thirty-six. Her face hung jowly like a chestnut with a bluish-black hue, needle-thin eyes gleaming unpleasantly as they smiled, teeth pure white.

Feeling repulsed, I remained silent. Yet the woman bowed politely toward me and, peering obliquely into my face, repeated, “If you’d be so kind.”

“We’re farmers workin’ these here fields,” she said.
“They’ll be buildin’ a house on this plot soon.”
“Planted all these roses here, see? Been tendin’ ’em, but now we gotta pull ’em up and toss ’em out—pitiful as it is.”
“Such a waste—please let us plant ’em here in your garden.”
“Six years since we planted ’em.”
“Look how thick the roots got—blooms fine flowers every year.”
“Oh, it’s nothin’—we farm that field there daily. We’ll come by now ’n’ then to tend ’em for you.”
“Master,” she pressed on, “our field’s got dahlias, tulips—all sorts aplenty. Next time I’ll bring whatever takes your fancy and plant it for you.”

“We don’t go asking favors of households we dislike.”
“Because your place is good—because I like it—that’s why I’m asking this favor now.”
“Please kindly allow us to plant just these roses here,” she said, lowering her voice slightly and speaking earnestly.
I knew it was a lie.
All the fields around here were the property of my house’s landlord.
When I had rented the house, I had properly learned this from the landlord.
I knew the landlord’s family with precise accuracy.
There was the grandfather, the son, the son’s wife, and one grandchild.
Such a filthy, streetwise woman as this could not possibly exist here.
She must have thought that since I had only been living in Mitaka for four days, I wouldn’t know anything, and was thus spouting this nonsense with such brazen confidence.
Her attire alone betrayed its artifice.
An unsoiled work coat with a neatly fastened wisteria-colored obi sash; a headscarf tied in rustic fashion; navy armguards and leggings; brand-new straw sandals; padded undergarments—it was all far too perfect.
It was a theatrical, thoroughly stereotypical peasant costume—the sort that appears in plays.
It was undoubtedly counterfeit.
It was an extremely malicious forced sale.
In her attitude and voice, even foolish flattery could be sensed—it was truly stomach-churning.
However, I could not bring myself to reprimand that person and drive them away.

“That must have been quite an ordeal for you.
“Let me see these roses then.” Even I was startled by how ceremoniously polite these words sounded—feeling a limp resignation to this ill fortune of having been perceived—now rising with forced effort and painting an awkward smile across my face as I stepped onto the veranda.
I too am repulsively weak—unable to reprimand others.
The roses lay wrapped in straw matting, each plant twelve or thirteen inches tall—eight in all.
No blossoms adorned them.

“Even now, will they bloom?”
There were not even buds.

“They’ll bloom.
They’ll bloom.”
Before I could finish speaking, she snatched her reply, straining open those narrow eyes—glistening as if with tears—as wide as possible.
Without a doubt, they were the eyes of a fraudster.
When looking at the eyes of someone telling lies, without exception, they are thinly moistened with tears like this.
“They’re giving off such a lovely fragrance—so strong, I tell you!
This one’s Criim.
This one’s pale red.
This one’s white.”
She kept talking to herself about this and that.
Liars, by nature, cannot remain silent even for a moment.

“Is it that all these fields around here are your property?”
On the contrary, it was I who asked the question with trepidation, as if touching a festering wound.

“That’s right.
“That’s right.”
She answered in a slightly sharp tone and nodded two or three times.

“I hear a house is going to be built.
When will it be built?”

“It will be built very soon, you know.
It seems a grand mansion will be built, you know.
Ha ha ha!”
She laughed boldly like a man.

“It’s not your house, then.”
“So then, that means you ended up selling your fields after all.”

“Yes, that’s how it is.
“We ended up selling them off, that’s how it is.”

“What would land here cost per tsubo?
It must command quite a premium.”

“Oh, come now—per tsubo? It couldn’t be more than twenty or thirty yen at most.
Heh heh.”
She gave a low laugh, but when I looked at her face, sweat was oozing on her forehead.
She was desperate.

I had lost.
I decided I wouldn’t torment her any further.
I too had once, like this, known full well that my transparent lies were being seen through, yet desperately insisted on them anyway.
At that time too, I remember how those strange tears made my eyelids burn terribly.

“Please plant them and be on your way.
“How much is it?”
I wanted this one gone as soon as possible.

“Oh my, I didn’t come here to sell them,” she said, her face brimming with smiles. “The roses looked so pitiful—that’s why I’m asking this of you.” She abruptly brought her face closer to mine and lowered her voice: “If you’d be so kind as to take them for fifty sen each.”

“Hey,” I called out to my wife doing needlework in the back three-tatami room. “Give this person the money. I bought roses.”

The fraudulent farmer woman calmly planted the eight roses, offered her artificial thanks, and left.

I stood on the veranda gazing absently at the eight planted roses and told my wife.

“Hey, those were fakes.”
I became aware that my face was turning bright red.
My earlobes grew hot.

“I knew,” my wife said unperturbed.
“I was going to come out and refuse, but you had to say you’d take a look and go out.”
“You get to be the kind one while I look like some wicked hag—I couldn’t bear that, so I pretended not to notice.”

“The money—it’s a waste. Four yen—that’s outrageous, don’t you think? It’s like being forced to gulp down boiling water! Fraud. I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“What’s wrong with that?”
“The roses are still here, after all.”

The roses remained.
That obvious thought filled me with a strange courage.
For the next four or five days, I became engrossed with these roses.
I gave them rice-washing water.
I made support stakes from kaya grass for them.
I plucked off the withered leaves one by one for them.
I pruned the branches for them.
I removed every last one of the small green aphid-like insects that were swarming on each rose.
Don’t wither, don’t wither—put down roots.
With my heart pounding, I prayed.
The roses apparently grew without withering.

I would stand on the veranda morning, noon, and night, gazing lingeringly at the field beyond the fence. If that middle-aged woman hadn't been a fraud and had suddenly appeared working in the field, how delighted I would have been, I thought. "Forgive me. I had thought of you as nothing but a fraud. It's wrong to doubt people," I might have said in apology with heartfelt jubilation, shedding tears of gratitude to God. I needed neither tulips nor dahlias. I didn't want such things. All I required was for her to simply show herself working in the field. That would have saved me. "Come out, come out, show yourself," I stood rooted to the veranda for hours, scanning the fields, but there were only sweet potato leaves swaying and rustling their heads in unison under the autumn wind, with occasional appearances of the landlord's old man who leisurely clasped his hands behind his back as he patrolled the fields.

I had been deceived.
And that settled it.
Now I had to pin all my hopes on nothing but what kind of flowers these shabby roses might bloom.
The fruits of non-resistance—behold them.
The flowers likely wouldn’t amount to much—I had half resigned myself to that.
Yet some ten days later, a lesser-known Western-style painter friend came visiting this Mitaka cottage and revealed an unexpected truth.

Around that time, I had received an invitation from the Tokyo branch of a somewhat famous newspaper in my hometown.
"I trust you have been keeping well.
As autumn deepens, our hometown is fortunate to anticipate its fourth consecutive bountiful harvest of golden rice fields and crimson apples.
On this occasion," read the kind invitation printed on the return postcard, "we earnestly request all prefectural artists to gather for an evening of leisurely discussion about Tokyo matters and our hometown's Tsugaru and Nanbu regions—despite knowing this may inconvenience your busy schedules—and would be most grateful for your attendance." The date and location were specified.
I sent my reply accepting.
Why had I agreed to attend when I'd always feared my hometown so?
There were three reasons.
First: since childhood I'd hated socializing—a bad habit that worsened with age rather than improving—to where even for essential gatherings I'd invent excuses to skip them, accumulating social debts until people mistook me for arrogant, often to my detriment; thus I'd secretly resolved just before this invitation arrived to start making public appearances, offer sincere greetings, and fulfill civic duties.
Second: five years earlier during an illness, I'd troubled Mr. Kouchi—now editor-in-chief at that newspaper's headquarters.
Mr. Kouchi and I went back to high school days.
He'd always quietly supported my ill-reputed novels.
Six years ago during sickness I'd borrowed recklessly from various sources—still repaying incrementally without settling fully—and in that state wrote him a near-frantic loan request.
His reply ultimately refused, yet even rejected I felt gratitude.
To someone like me—a mere poor scholar—he'd candidly disclosed his household circumstances: under these conditions fulfilling my request proved impossible; lingering indecision being against his nature, he must firmly decline now—words whose depths revealed masculine nobility that moved me profoundly despite my hardship.
I hadn't forgotten.
This invitation surely stemmed from Mr.Kouchi's planning—were I to make excuses and skip it, though they'd likely never think it loan-related—but if they harbored even a wisp of such suspicion,I'd suffer beyond death's torment.
No such thing existed.
Rather,I remained grateful for that truth.
By all means I must attend.
That constituted reason two.

The third reason lay in the invitation's text.
"—Being told we are about to welcome a fourth consecutive bountiful harvest of golden rice fields and crimson apples—I too am a child of Tsugaru."
Unsteadily, I wrote "Will attend".
They floated before my eyes.
The mountains and rivers of my homeland floated before me.
I have not laid eyes on my hometown for ten years.
Eight years ago in winter—when I think back, that time too was bitter—I had been summoned by Aomori's Prosecutor’s Office and secretly boarded an express train to Aomori from Ueno alone.

Near Asamushi Onsen, dawn broke with snow fluttering down. The onsen’s iron-gray sea heaved heavily, waves scattering in rigid triangular shards like broken glass. Ink-black clouds hung so low they seemed to crush the sea beneath them—Never—I’ll never come here again!
And at that moment, I steeled my resolve.
I arrived in Aomori and immediately went to the prosecutor’s office; after being subjected to various inquiries, it was midnight when I obtained permission to return home.
Stepping out from the courthouse’s back entrance, I was immediately assailed by a blizzard that struck both cheeks like a hundred arrows. The hem of my cloak flipped up abruptly, leaving my entire body battered as I stood paralyzed on the iron-hard frozen deserted road—though physically present in my hometown, gripped by the loneliness of a traveling performer or matchstick girl—and attempted to churn through searing questions: Is this my hometown? Is this that hometown?
Late at night, through a street where not a soul passed, only the blizzard roared as it whirled white and raged. Hunched shouldered and angling my body, I hurried toward the station.
At a stall in front of Aomori Station, I ate just a single bowl of Chinese soba before boarding the Ueno-bound train, returning straight to Tokyo without meeting a single soul from my hometown.
Over ten years, having glimpsed my hometown just once—it was so excruciating to me.
Now, numbed by some kind of suffering and grown markedly weaker, I was swept up by those sweet words—"golden waves, apple cheeks"—completely forgetting my old hatred for my hometown, and carelessly wrote "attending."
That was the third reason.

After replying that I would attend, I grew increasingly anxious.
It revolved around the notion of "worldly success."
To be invited by my hometown newspaper as a local artist—could this be a form of returning home in glory?
Wasn’t this quite an honorable thing?
When it occurred to me that I might be considered a celebrity of sorts, I could not help but panic.
They—out of malicious mischief—deliberately treated me, a man bearing many stigmas, with ceremonious respect as a distinguished personage; then while sticking out their tongues behind the scenes, exchanging knowing glances and tugging sleeves as they snickered, I became certain such people swarmed behind the sliding doors, leaving me utterly unable to remain composed.
Not a single person from my hometown reads my works.
Even if they do read them, they would only pick out the passages describing the protagonist’s disgraceful behavior with pitying smirks, be utterly appalled to tell others about it, and denounce me as a hometown disgrace while mocking me—that would be the extent of it.
Four years ago, when I briefly met my elder brother in Tokyo, he told me: "Stop sending your books to our relatives."
"Even I don’t want to read them."
The relatives—after reading your book—started to say something like "What on earth..." but abruptly fell silent and looked down; however, I understood the entire situation with perfect clarity.
I intend never to send another book to anyone from my hometown for as long as I live.
Even the literary scholars from my hometown—all except Mr. Kouno Kaichi—are laughing at me.
Even painters and sculptors with no connection to literature probably just casually take at face value the occasional insults toward my works that appear in newspapers and smirk knowingly with an air of cleverness—that’s about the extent of it.
I am not suffering from paranoid delusions.
By no means am I deliberately nursing a grudge.
The reality may perhaps be in an even harsher state.
Even among fellow artists, it is so.
Not to mention—at the hearths of my hometown folk, they say: "The youngest son of the Tsujiuma household (D being my pen name, while Tsujiuma is my family’s actual name) is making quite the fool of himself in Tokyo"—and with just that single remark surfacing before vanishing, they stoke the fire, rebrew their tea, and shift conversation to autumn festival preparations—such is the state of affairs, I imagine.
Unaware of existing in such desolation, this foolish impoverished writer—having received an invitation from his hometown newspaper and promptly replying that he would attend—chuckling to himself "I’ve made it in the world," presents a pitiful sight indeed.

What social success?
Returning home in glory? Utter nonsense.
In my case, it was precisely like a horse groomer's finery.
A subject for mockery.
When I realized all this, I whirled around in a frantic dance from sheer shame.
Damn it!
I thought.
I should have written "regrets" after all.
No—whether attending or declining, the very act of replying was already the lechery inherent to despicability.
To feign deafness when receiving invitations—sending no reply while secretly flushing crimson, shrinking and trembling—this alone was the proper decorum befitting my current state.

My own weakness—the carelessness with which I had so thoughtlessly replied that I would attend—made me bitterly resent myself.
It was too late for regrets.
Everything was due to my foolishness.
In that case—if things had come to this—I should steel my nerves, attend proudly wearing hakama pants, maintain an unflappable dignitary’s facade even if people laughed at me, perhaps even deliver some grand speech—this reckless, almost self-destructive resolve also reared its head—the world ran on force! If you pushed through with unyielding strength, eventually they’d stop laughing—Ah! Shallow grave! Know your shame!
As if flipping my palm, I praised that person; even my gestures of reverence became repulsive as I secretly fawned and sent tributes or whatnot.
I could attend proudly in hakama pants, get all fired up about delivering some grand speech—but I was no good.
I was causing trouble for people.
I had not written good works.
It was all deception.
I was dishonest.
I was servile.
I was a liar.
I was lecherous.
I was a coward.
Even before standing upon the platform of God’s judgment, I was always in disarray.
I confess.
I still wanted to wear hakama.
Getting all worked up over delivering some grand speech, lost in fantasies so vast they could shake heaven and earth—my chest roared with them alone—only to jolt awake and recognize my own insect-like insignificance, wanting to shrink my neck and vanish—yet again this swelling urge: at least hakama pants, I thought.
I could not completely sever my worldly attachments.
If I had to attend, I’d wear hakama and present myself properly; since my chipped teeth made me ugly, I’d avoid smiling as much as possible, always keeping my mouth tightly closed—then offer everyone a clear apology for my long silence.

Then perhaps—just perhaps—the hometown people might think: Tsujiuma's youngest son wasn't so disheveled after all compared to what the rumors suggested.
I would go.
After all, I would go wearing hakama.
If I were to greet everyone in a clear and lively tone and then modestly take my seat at the far end, my reputation would surely be favorable; word would spread from one person to the next, faintly reaching even my hometown two hundred ri away, allowing me to make my ailing mother smile quietly.
Wasn't this the perfect opportunity?
I would go; I would go wearing hakama—and once again I became so worked up my chest felt fit to burst.
I could not completely sever it.
The hometown—the hometown that mocked me so cruelly—I could not completely sever myself from it.
Since recovering from my illness, for these past four years my thoughts had remained singular, only growing increasingly relentless.
I too had after all been harboring thoughts of returning home in glory in some corner of my heart.
I loved my hometown.
I loved all the people of my hometown!

The day of the invitation arrived.

That day, it was pouring rain from morning.
However, I intended to attend.
I had hakama.
It was quite good hakama.
It was tsumugi.
This had only been used during my wedding ceremony; my wife had ceremoniously wrapped it in oiled paper and stored it at the bottom of a trunk.
My wife believed this was Sendai-hira.
Since I had worn them at our wedding ceremony, she had arbitrarily concluded they must be Sendai-hira.
But I had been too poor to prepare anything like Sendai-hira back then—even at my wedding ceremony, I had made do with this tsumugi hakama.
Since my wife seemed convinced they were nothing but Sendai-hira—whatever that might be—I still could not bring myself to shatter her illusion now, for it felt too cruel, and so I had yet to reveal the truth.
I wanted to wear those hakama and go.
To me, they were at least meant as brocade robes.

“Hey, get that nice hakama out for me.”
I still couldn’t bring myself to say “Sendai-hira.”

“Sendai-hira?”
“That’s enough.”
“A navy-striped kimono with Sendai-hira is mismatched.”
My wife objected.
As for me, when it came to formal summer kimonos, I had only a single navy-striped one.
There should have been one summer haori, but before I knew it, it vanished.

“There’s nothing strange about it.
“Bring it out.”
I almost blurted out that it wasn’t Sendai-hira at all but managed to hold back.

“Don’t you think this looks absurd?”

“I don’t care.
“I want to wear them and go.”

“No, you can’t.”
My wife was stubborn.
There also seemed to be an egoism in treasuring the memory of that so-called Sendai-hira and not wanting to carelessly take it out where it might be ruined.
“There’s a serge one.”

“That one won’t do.
“If I walk around wearing those, I’ll look like a silent film narrator.
“They’re already soiled and unusable.”

“I ironed it this morning.
“The serge one would suit the navy-striped kimono better, don’t you think?”

My wife couldn't grasp the extent of my desperate determination at that time.
I thought about explaining it properly to her, but it seemed too much of a hassle.

“Sendai-hira,” I finally lied, “Sendai-hira is better.”
“With this much rain, if it’s serge, it’ll get all wrinkled right away.”
No matter what, I wanted to wear those and go.

“The serge one is better.”
My wife’s voice took on a pleading tone.
“Why don’t you wrap it in a wrapping cloth to keep it dry and bring it with you?”
“You can put them on after you arrive.”

“Fine, I’ll do that.”
I gave up.

I had my wife wrap the tabi socks and serge hakama in a wrapping cloth, tucked up my hem, and went out into the rain holding an umbrella.
Somehow, I had a bad premonition.

The banquet was held at a famous Western-style restaurant in Hibiya Park.
Though scheduled for five-thirty in the afternoon, poor bus connections made me arrive past six.
I secretly asked the footwear attendant to lend me a small room near the entrance where I could fix my appearance.
Inside that room sat a pale-faced boy of about ten wearing an elegant Western suit, slouching as he munched snacks while receiving arithmetic lessons from his tutor.
He might have been the restaurant owner's cherished son.
The tutor was a composed woman in her late twenties—pale-skinned, plump, wearing Lloyd glasses.
When she saw me retying my obi in the corner, unwrapping my bundle to put on tabi socks before fumbling with the serge hakama, she wordlessly rose—perhaps out of pity—and came to help me into the trousers.
She neatly tied the hakama cords into a butterfly shape at the front.
After muttering brief thanks, I scurried from the room only to deliberately climb the main staircase at a measured pace, undoing the butterfly knot midway.
That grubby, crumpled ribbon tied in such fussy fashion left me mortified—a wretched embarrassment.

As I took my first step into the venue, my nose stung from tension.
This was the moment.
To restore ten years of hometown disgrace—now was the time.
Act the distinguished man—the distinguished man's—
Someone tapped my shoulder.
Looking up, I saw Mr. Kouno Kaichi.
I laughed, forgetting my stained teeth.
Mr. Kouno Kaichi had been my friend for ten years.
Our friendship wasn't born of shared hometown roots.
Because Mr. Kouno was a true artist, I'd asked him to befriend me.
Mr. Kouno Kaichi laughed too.
I laughed harder still.
I'd abandoned all pretense of restraint.

The seating for the banquet was arranged.
I was truly and literally in the lowest seat.
Amid the commotion and our exchanging words like "Well, well," I ended up in the lowest seat.
But three-tenths of it was perhaps me consciously choosing that seat.
This wasn't out of respect for the gathering—if anything, I think it came from defiance.
No, not just defiance—I might have even harbored presumptuous contempt.
Even I don't know the exact truth.
Anyway, there I sat in the lowest seat.
And I found myself genuinely comfortable.
I felt honest pleasure thinking this might do—that even now I could restore my honor.
But then everything went wrong from that point onward.
My subsequent behavior was truly deplorable.
It proved utterly hopeless.

I am a thoroughly hopeless man.
There was nothing admirable about me at all.
I cling childishly to my hometown.
Whenever exposed to my hometown's atmosphere, my body turns leaden, selfish impulses surge forth, and I nearly lose all self-restraint.
I deteriorate so pitifully that even I think "What's this?"—the brakes on my will melting away entirely.
My chest just rumbled unpleasantly, every screw in my body loosening until putting on airs became impossible.
Though delicacies from land and sea kept appearing one after another, my chest felt too full to eat.
Without touching food, I drank only alcohol.
Gulp after gulp I drank.
With all windows shut tight against the rain, the room grew stiflingly hot; alcohol coursed through my veins until I panted like a boiled octopus.

No good.
In this state, my hometown's reputation would only grow worse.
Though I kept sorrowfully imagining how bitterly disappointed my mother and brother would be—how they'd stomp their feet in vexation—if they saw me in such a wretched state, by then I had already lost the brakes on my will.
I just kept drinking alcohol.
My attitude was immature.
At thirty-one years old, having lost every shred of charm, there I still was—clinging and simpering—the very picture of grotesquery.
As drunkenness deepened, I wallowed alone in pathos—trying to negate this entire gathering one moment, plotting to ostentatiously flaunt my heresy the next—then reconsidering: No—no, these people attending here were all individuals of distinction; gentle, humble artists; folks who'd lived earnestly through hardship.
The despicable one was me alone.
Ah—I'm a coward, like some rotten woman! If you detested this gathering so much, why did you attend wearing hakama? Your petty desperation shows right through! I scolded myself this way—in any case, my state of mind then had become utterly unhinged.
I kept fidgeting restlessly, unable to settle down, perpetually swaying my body side to side while drinking nothing but alcohol.
The alcohol flooded through me until my whole body burned fiercely—steam seemed ready to rise from my head.

The self-introductions began.
Everyone was renowned.
Japanese painters, Western-style painters, sculptors, playwrights, dancers, critics, pop singers, composers, cartoonists—all carried themselves with first-rate dignity as they stated their names with calm nonchalance and sprinkled in light jokes.
In reckless abandon, I clapped thunderously at ill-timed moments and mindlessly interjected with “Exactly!” and such without proper listening. Surely everyone felt inner revulsion toward that grimy drunkard in the corner—their scorn palpable.
I knew this, yet my will’s brakes refused to catch.
The self-introductions cycled onward, gradually nearing the lowest seats.
When my turn came—and come it soon would—what earthly words could I muster in this state?
In such utter disarray, delivering any grand speech lay beyond conception.
It would likely manifest as drunken ramblings ripe for mockery.

Suddenly, a snowmelt stream appeared before my eyes.
On the bank grew lush water celery.
Ahhh—there was something I wanted to say.
There were mountains.
But suddenly, I grew sick of it.
For some reason, I grew sick of it.
It's okay.
I don't mind if I remain forever misunderstood by my hometown.
I had given up.
I had relinquished my glorious homecoming.
With drunkenness whirling through my turbulent mind, I nevertheless agonized over various thoughts and resolved to simply tell the newspaper people "Thank you for today's feast"—then withdraw with that alone.
At that moment, those words of gratitude were the only ones I could utter sincerely and without falsehood from my heart.
But reconsidering—if I merely said "Thank you for the meal" and withdrew like that—wouldn't it seem like flaunting my wretched reality of being unable to afford alcohol normally? Wasn't that degrading? Even as this inner voice chided Stop it, stop it!, I stood utterly perplexed.
My turn arrived.
I rose with the limp coquetry of a filthy crone—so repulsive I wanted to slap her—and in that instant thought:
I mustn't mention D's name.
If I said 'D,' they'd dismiss it as nonsense—"What's 'D'?"—and scorn me mercilessly.
My works are pitiful; I've wronged my readers.
I am Tsujiuma's youngest son from K Town.
Were I to say that, it would humiliate Mother and Brother beyond measure—and moreover, I knew my eldest brother was enduring some terrible calamity back home due to a hometown incident.

For the past five or six years, my family not only suffered from my unfilialness but also experienced a continuous series of misfortunes in other matters as well.
Please forgive me.

"I had meant to say 'K Town's Tsujiuma...' but my voice caught in my throat; surely almost no one could make out what I said."

“Once more!” came a hoarse voice from the upper seats, and I unleashed all my pent-up emotions toward that hoarse voice from above in one explosive burst.

“Shut up! Keep your mouth shut!” I was certain I’d said it in a low voice, but after sitting down and looking around, the mood had turned terribly frosty.
It was over.
I would undoubtedly be proclaimed as an irredeemable ruffian by my hometown.

Regarding my subsequent misdeeds, I will say no more.
To confess shamelessly would be to indulge in readers’ sympathy; to attempt even slightly lightening my sins might reveal a base spirit—I must remain silent and endure, awaiting God’s severe judgment.
It was I who was at fault.
I had laid bare all the vices I possessed.
On the way back, I rode a rickshaw home from Kichijoji Station through a downpour.
The rickshaw puller was a feeble old man.
The old man became utterly drenched, staggered along, and moaned painfully with each “Ugh… ugh…”
I simply scolded him.

“What’s this? Groaning theatrically when you’re not even in pain—no guts at all! Run faster!” I had laid bare the devil’s true nature.

That night, I finally understood.
I am not the type to achieve success.
I had to give up.
I had to clearly abandon my yearning for a glorious homecoming at this point.
I must settle my mind with ease—"green hills await wherever one goes."
I may end up a roadside musician for life.
How foolish! Let those who wish to hear this obstinate music listen.
Art cannot command.
Art perishes the moment it gains power.

The next day, a friend studying Western-style painting visited this hut in Mitaka, and I soon spoke of my great disgrace from the previous night, laying bare the extent of my resolve.
This friend too had been exiled from his hometown island in the Seto Inland Sea.

“A hometown’s like a beauty mark you can’t stop picking at.
If you keep worrying about it, there’ll be no end.
Even if you have surgery, a scar will remain.”
Beneath this friend’s right eye was a large beauty mark as big as an adzuki bean.

I could not be fully consoled by such careless words and, sullenly tilting my face upward, did nothing but smoke cigarettes.

At that moment.

My friend noticed the eight rose plants in my garden and informed me of an unexpected fact.
He said these were quite excellent roses.

“Is that true?”

“Seems so.”
“These have been growing for about six years now.”
“In rose markets like Barashin, they’d fetch over one yen per plant, you know.”

My friend was someone who had struggled with roses for some time.
In the narrow garden of his home in Okubo, he had planted forty or fifty rose plants.

"But the woman who came to sell these was a fraud," I said, and immediately launched into telling him the whole story of how I’d been deceived.

"Merchants are the sort who’ll even tell unnecessary lies."
"No matter what, they just wanted you to buy them."
"Madam, please lend me the scissors."
My friend went down into the garden and was enthusiastically snipping away at the roses' unnecessary branches with brisk snaps.

“Was she from my hometown?”
“That woman—”

For some reason, my cheeks grew hot.
"She wasn’t entirely a liar after all."

I sat on the veranda, smoked a cigarette, and felt no small satisfaction.
God exists.
He most certainly exists.
Green hills await wherever one goes.
Behold the fruits of non-resistance.
I thought myself a happy man.
There’s a saying that sorrow cannot be bought with money.
They say the blue sky is most beautiful when seen through a prison window—for this I am grateful.
As long as these roses lived, I thought for a moment that I was sovereign of my heart.