Pathway to Japanese Literature

——Love takes without sparing. "Dazai—must you forever indulge only in a patient’s sensations, forgetting all noble spirit? These killifish-like katakana, so vexing to read—" Mr. Sato feigned anger, though inwardly pleased. Adjusting his glasses with a "Well, well," he prompted: "And then? At the seafloor, a girl student in blue hakama sat on a rock amid kelp forests, lost in thought—yes, truly." "The divers’ roundtable discussion that appeared in a women’s magazine." "They also considered various forms of drowned corpses—an uncle in a white yukata, having stuffed his pockets full of stones, sat cross-legged imposingly on the sandy seabed." "When someone opened the door to the sunken steamship’s cabin, five corpses came swiftly forth from the depths." "Yet the drowned corpses in the river stood upright—the man rigidly bowing his head forward, the woman likewise stiffening her posture, chest thrust out and face tilted upward, their feet barely grazing the gravel below as if poised on tiptoe. Carried by the current, they seemed to walk with light, splashy steps. One woman, her chignon undisturbed, moved like a rubber doll—but look closely, and she was a human child sleeping with her breasts full."

I wrote this far, and couldn't write anymore. This time, I thought. More quietly than that girl student in the kelp forest, I thought. For about forty days, I thought. Day after day, this hand overflowed—no matter what I wrote, no matter how poorly composed, no matter how sentimentally I wrote it—that it became such passable prose, standing apart, coalescing into something resembling a quality novel—this was dangerous. Slump. Swing, and it's inevitably a hit. Run, and it's always ten point four. Ten point three—if not that, then not even five. A slump is this sort of thing—weariness beneath passionless white daylight, feathers losing their weight in vacuum tubes—something one can never quite overcome. My every passing moment's form—laughed, raged, cheeks burning with shameful heat, munching corn noisily, lying facedown sniffling alone—all recorded without doubting they should become noble words for those tender yet weak young people; that itself was the root of the slump.

Enough. Dazai, why don’t you stop already?

Malady of over-virtue.

Fiercely came the morning when I must write. Wait until that day. Ten years. Deem it not late.

He does not lose. This morning at six, having read Mr. Hayashi Fusao’s essay, I resolved that I must write. A measure of anguish and resolve had washed through the margins of that brief essay, leaving it purified. The literary world—these past four or five years had seen nothing of the sort. Good writing—you! Young truthful readers—rise! For your sake—a true toast! It hurts! A handshake so fervent it makes one leap up.

Mr. Ishizaka was a lousy writer. Master Kasai Zenzo had been deeply troubled by what they called patronage art. For ten autumns and springs since then—tossing day and night, subduing myself beneath the whip’s shadow through this devotion of nine parts madness to one part prayer—if Master’s grave concerns had indeed been swept clean through such labors, what more could I say? Only a bright, solemn cry of “Thank you,” loud and clear. Indeed these days you were writing terribly rude novels. Exiled from home; in blizzards, clutching wife and child—three people in staggering embrace—no path forward; tottering wanderers; targets of public scorn; these sincere, timid, bashful souls—not one of their hundred beauties voiced—loitering Kōenji, gulping coffee to pin down tomorrow’s unknowable life, sighing; no other recourse; think of these ten thousand youths. It wasn’t that poverty was being advocated. These ten thousand honest—no, foolish—gentle weaklings who knew not even how to doubt revered you, startled as if terrified by your five-hundred-page asceticism; leaping up, dragging their military sashes loose as they rushed to bookstores, pocketing their wives’ hidden savings to buy pistols in moments of resolve; upon reading it, choking back tears and lamenting thrice, thinking to bash my own worthless, filthy head against the wall—ah! Only your figure shone resplendent, sunflowers encircling you—Mr. Ishizaka, you could not laugh at Tsurumi Yusuke. There was comprehension alone. There was no life.

Sluggishly emerging only to be swatted away like a fly without protest. Five hundred pages.

Conscience. Behold now—this petty vengeance-obsessed asceticism posturing with daggers! Fool, cast it away! Shimazaki Toson. Shimaki Kensaku. Quit the grubbing mentality. Returned home splendidly shouldering a sack. Do not deceive the severe self-consciousness of the accused. I alone am the tormented one. The tattooed holy monk. Make Mr. Principal bow. “Story” Editor-in-chief. A monster that wants to win. Effort not to be laughed at. Fellow writers had concluded their fragmented utterances. Regarding your esteemed work, I request that you yourself conduct a re-examination. The surest way to discern truth from falsehood was to measure how deeply a single work had lost something. "There are parents who have killed two people." Or something.

Do you know—you—when enduring the agonies of fasting, assume a sorrowful countenance like that hypocrite. This was the word of the Child of God. The timorous son of man who preached Superman doctrine while laughing through solemn words; the philosopher like a luminous pearl who shrieked self-recriminations and perished in madness. Though rectified self-reflection might address multitudes—no—the handshake remained insufficient; it was precisely those words behind the shield: “Should self-reflection stay unrectified, even encountering a beggar brings crimson-faced disarray—defendant, sinner, darting into liquor shops.”

Once I was love's philosopher—Hegel's child. Philosophy isn't love for knowledge but systematic truth-knowledge that ought to be established—this dictum of Master Hegel's had been imparted by an elder academician. Rather than rhetorical exactitude, my system of articulated thought stood logically ordered, free from surface contradictions; were it deemed worthy of provisional approval, my labor would be complete. Flicking open a white fan, I drove mosquitoes from my shins. "Ah yes, that too forms a sort of logic." Japan—this ancient vernacular of ours chronicles everything. Consistency from start to finish, orderly structure. That this morning's hasty scrawl constitutes no pure subjective confession—you're all well aware. Consider Punkt's feelings—and such. Suddenly I no longer wished to write.

All words were correct; all words were lies. After all, it was but a rickety construction atop a raft—swaying, swaying—you, I, and even Mr. Hayashi too, all seemed violently swept away in the same current even as we slept. Flowing, pooling into depths; raging into boiling rapids; cascading as falls—in the end, all became one. It was a sea of chaos. It was the death of flesh. Was it due to your work? Or was it due to mine? The immortal truth smiled and taught: "Every advantage has its disadvantage."

This morning, clear weather—leapt up; truly, Spartan love struck your right cheek twice, then thrice, with force. No ulterior motive.

Swayed by the cool breeze of Hayashi Fusao’s name, my own labors did not surpass theirs. A trickster’s surge—no, actually gentle ripples—all of this was my life: a hidden wish to live and grow even a little longer; wanting to die only after seeing Tokyo’s Olympics; lightly clicking my tongue at readers’ conjectures yet knowing I had to dig deeper—this wouldn’t do. That was all.

Whispers on the mountain.

“I found it quite engaging.” “And then, and then—can you take responsibility?”

“Yes.” “I did not write it to overthrow anyone.” “Are you aware?” “Anger is the pinnacle of love.”

“How about that—‘No one’s ever solved it,’ as the ancients’ words say.” “Flailing for ten years, twenty years—all caught in the net of the ancients’ simplicity.” “Hahaha.” “And you added the furigana because…?”

“Yes.” “Because the prose became slightly too refined, I intentionally blemished it.” “Gaudily—like a child’s armor embroidered with gold and silver threads.” “The garish striped pattern that startles the eye—that is the long-legged bee’s act of mercy.” “Since it’s a barbed insect, never lower your defenses.” “Aim for this abdominal patterning and strike, strike! That constitutes zoological warning coloration.” “Senior, I maintain at least this courtesy and conviction toward Mr. Ishizaka.”

To myself and my work—a single word of explanation, half a phrase of excuse—for a writer, this meant fatal disgrace. Inadequacy of words, absence of human presence—I reproached myself deeply, with no ulterior motive; resenting no one, alone in rigorous discipline. This had been my writerly golden rule for a decade. Even nights at suffering's depths secretly comforted me and drew quiet smiles—not once or twice. But one night, tossing restlessly, I cast away all of it—the sorrowful self-respect barely retained in my heart's depths; the oath sworn to Lord Byron to defend this isolated castle even at life's cost; the painful manacles, heavy iron chains—now discarded with a sudden laugh. Pearls before swine, pearls before swine—throughout eternity. Oh—so they were pearls after all? I mocked myself in shame—far from humble apology for my faults—no, I'd known all along! This person wasn't just some student—I'd judged—so last summer gave them seven measly corn ears from my field. Truths: two. Beyond that—the spectacle of heartless judgments from ignorance here and there—clearer than held in hand, more vivid than white falls before my eyes—knowing this full well yet... The pearl rain; in days ahead, my own Mr. Brandes—likely posthumously—No—!

Rain of pearls. Wordless oceanic forbearance. Know that all these mercies—this warped perverse love, this unconsciously petty vengeance—stem from such origins. The Madame, ever prideful of her noble lineage—arrogant and indulgent; her lover’s disgraceful single-minded material lust; the Madame’s round face. Even before one could take in the sight—“Money, give me money,” one syllable high, the next low—a nightly and daily chant. My pride in the depth of my own affection became the seed of ruin—I threw bracelets, hurled necklaces, scattered five finger rings like buckshot. “Take them all! I don’t care what becomes of me!” I cried, tears overflowing. “If you’re going to deceive me, do it skillfully—perfectly! I want to be deceived more and more—to suffer more and more! Among all the world’s vulnerable women, I am the champion of suffering!” Even as these bizarre words spilled out, I maintained a motherly smile of mercy. The tip of my small nose—pinched tight like delicate craftwork—burned chili-pepper red with tearful agitation. An eighteen-year-old beauty born in the Year of the Tiger crawled sluggishly across the carpet, smirking faintly as he gathered the heap of gold and silver trinkets Madame had tossed aside earlier. Stealing a glance at Madame’s face, the youth let out a cheer: “Ah! Madame’s nose is a pig’s cock!”

Poor Madame. Which were pearls, which were swine? Having thoroughly inverted subject and object—now in reckless despair—the bridal hair ornament from her wedding day, even the locket that concealed a photograph of a nearly simple-minded lover—down to the very end of the band's metal fittings. Bare. When there had been nothing left to give—having written only “An” before suddenly thinking of other matters, though it surely took less than sixty seconds—the trance shattered. I jerked back to the manuscript paper, tried to resume writing, then halted abruptly. This single character, “An”—what had I meant to write? A girl who died in early spring just after turning three, lovely in face and gentle in heart; a catfish that bit through the fishing line and escaped, appearing as vast as a leviathan capable of swallowing boats; five or six lines of words dragged into oblivion’s abyss—these had been profoundly significant key notes. I couldn’t bear the loss. Surface! Surface! If it was truth, then surface! No good.)

This act of relentlessly bestowing pearls upon swine—this rain of mercy—was no concrete embodiment of the Son of God’s words about offering one’s left cheek after the right. The filthy hellscape of the Son of Man’s monopolized lust—born of unequivocally unjust hearts—compelled me henceforth to never neglect giving even a single pearl. “Mr. Pig, this is a pearl,” I insisted kindly yet persistently, “distinct from mere stones or roof tiles,” adopting this stingy attitude of enlightenment and guidance—a path of thorns by nature. Yet here, precisely here, I held unshakable conviction: signs of germination stirred, the writhing birth of creation.

Henceforth, I would boldly provide my own annotations—number one. Within the unadorned text, pages scattered with katakana—this was my own indictment, a courtroom veiled in swirling snow: a single pure white crane chick, surely cold—neck drawn in like a child’s—with a pleading tone and round clear eyes, undaunted even by God. For this heart’s unerring testimony, I spurned no tedium in crafting each unfamiliar character—know that this was how it must be written. “This is red blood, this is black blood.” The slaughtered mosquitoes, one by one—their corpses with swollen abdomens—the family member lined them up on the cover of *Late Years* at the bedside and chanted. In the flood of night sweats, I woke and grimaced at the family member’s theatrical display. “Cut out the clever evening paper seller act.” Evening paper seller. *Filial Daughter Shirakiku*. A clam seller on a snowy day, knocked down by a hurrying rickshaw. The sound of wind chimes.

The other mocking words, too, had lately vanished. If the lamp at my bedside glowed dimly, it meant before five o’clock; if extinguished—aha, five-thirty. Without a word, I would slip out of the mosquito net, drag my military-style obi behind me, and head straight to the doctor’s.

The doctor.

At five-thirty, a lone nurse would rise to water the fatsia plant by the entrance, sweep the gravel path, open the heavy gate with one drowsy eye precisely at that moment—such things felt utterly devoid of human intent. It's a lie. Your sleepiness, your laughter, that broad daylight, the frayed metal threads of the apron—I'd absorbed them all exactly as they were, and that's why I couldn't write a single novel. "It's not just you—write! Write! I understand the pain!" Do you really?! When I inadvertently shouted and jerked my knees upward, you—meanly snickering while backing away—how could you possibly understand my suffering?

Red blood, black blood. "Do you understand this?" The abdomens of mosquitoes that bit the family member were crimson and translucent, while those that bit me hung dark and clouded; spilled across white paper, they reeked of poison. Red blood, black blood—all carrying the wry humor of "Even mosquitoes stagger after drinking medicinal blood." I never read any type beyond the words in my own first story collection, *Late Years*—lately had taken to calling it boring, utterly boring, never peeking at its contents—yet still placed it by my pillow each night before sleeping. There was even a night when a man visiting the sick stood outside the mosquito net, weeping silently as he watched this ritual, until his nose-blowing betrayed him to me inside.

1. The Oath. Probably—a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence—it must be so. Tonight, for this one night, go to the doctor in silence—(without laughing)—truly in silence, and make one more request for me. I entrust this to you. In my lifetime, there will be no such thing again. Believe in me, and since I am no demon, I must abandon my vices—if only for the sake of your magnanimity tonight. The above contains not a single error in word or phrase. Please preserve this oath document without tearing it. In ten or twenty years, this will become a treasure—not merely for my household, but for Japanese literary history.

Year, Month, Day. Additionally, please tell the doctor I will convert the check to cash tomorrow and settle the payment. Tomorrow, I will somehow procure the funds in earnest. Ashamed beyond endurance at home, I shall take a walk by the seaside. "If you consent to this arrangement, please keep the entrance light lit."

The family member was jealous of the medicine. If one were to ask the family member’s true feelings, they would unhesitatingly declare, “It must have been about twenty years since I was last caressed”—so certain was their conviction. Occasionally, when the possibility would suddenly manifest before their eyes—a thousand-league sprint, a ten-thousand-mile flight—in an instant drawing so unnervingly close that they’d startle: an ominously large black swallowtail or a still-warm furry bat would flutter madly right before their nose, leaving their face deathly pale, trembling violently until they nearly fainted in violent sobs. The old woman, her desires gradually swelling—if only that medicine weren’t there—pondered deeply until one night she earnestly broached her hidden intentions to her master, careful not to let them be discerned. Her master sprang upright in his sickbed, sitting rigidly—ignorant fool that he was—and spat rude gibes: “Now if this were Dazai, he’d adjust his collar here, shut both eyes, and solemnly start spouting Tsugaru dialect.” And somewhere among those vanity-filled streets—the hundreds of coffee shops, sake bars, oden stalls and Chinese soba joints, down to the yakitori stands, eel-head vendors, shōchū bars, and awamori dives—someone was surely laughing. This, as ten eyes observe, a hundred hearsays, ten thousand hounds’ truth—that night too, he tightly pursed his lips into a straight line, arms crossed in prolonged deliberation, then calmly presented his dissenting opinion: “You must not forget that a shield has two sides.” “It has two sides: gold and silver.” “Even while calling this shield ‘Gooruden’ in your fake English, you managed to express the true form you saw without error.” “When it comes to the harm of the medicine, I know better than you.” “However, you must know that there is another side to that shield.” “The shield is both gold and silver.” “Similarly, it is neither gold nor silver.” “A shield with two sides—gold and silver—and you may assert the golden side as vehemently as you wish.” “However, you must duly acknowledge the existence of the silver side beneath that assertion and make your claim upon that foundation.” “It may seem like cunning scheming, but no matter—it is correct.” “It is neither a false claim nor a deceptive attitude.” “The world—that’s how it works.” “It is precisely those who have experienced such objective recognition and the timidity of self-interrogation who may truly be called cultivated.” “As for foreign language conversations—to Yokohama’s rickshaw pullers, Imperial Hotel waiters, sailors, stokers—hey!” “Are you listening?” “Yes, I found your suddenly formal tone so strange that I kept myself under the futon trying not to laugh.”

“Oh, it’s agonizing.” The family member’s modest flame, the high tide of cleanliness, their demeanor having coolly withdrawn—I too felt inwardly relieved. “That’s a shame—I could teach it again if you like, but—” The family member placed their right palm vertically before their low nose, making a one-handed prayer gesture—they had already understood. Since it’s always the same teaching materials, they’d mostly memorized them by now. “If I drink alcohol, blood comes out; and on days without this medicine, I would have killed myself long ago. Right?” I answered, “Hmm—even if my argument is crude, it’s half the truth of the shield.”

There were times when I delivered such clever conclusions, and then—how utterly ashamed I would be, standing dumbfounded before this closet! If this urge to crawl into any available hole were to grow even more intense than now—this audacious scheme to casually slip into the closet—how absurd! No—no—that too existed, but there must have been something else besides. Hmm—perhaps there was a letter in the closet I didn’t want you to see? If there had been such splendid secrets concealed there, why on earth would I choose to lounge around all day in this cramped house? That wasn’t it at all.

I am now—my vision turning pitch black—a man silently plummeting into hell. By my own will, I cannot move an inch. "Heheh, it's a corpse," I muttered. A bottomless fall—do you know Muken Naraku? Acceleration upon acceleration, at speeds matching meteors—even as he plummets, the boy grows taller within the pitch-black cavern. Relentlessly falling while groping for love in the dark. Mid-descent: childbirth, breastmilk, sickness, senescence, life at its final gasp—all falling, dying. A sob of uncanny sorrow—faintly—was that once a gull's cry? Falling, falling—the corpse rots, maggots falling alongside; bones weathering to nothingness; only wind, only clouds, falling endlessly— And so—ignobly emboldened—I began chattering: a thousand-league steed, an unstoppable deluge of words, this born dilettante who adores the ten-thousand-lantern festivals of the rich. To no avail—tapping my dinner bowl with lacquered chopsticks, reveling in my own verbosity through what you might call a tanuki farce, accompanied by nonsensical chan-chan noises—this bizarre jubilation. Nothing good will come of this—even I grew uneasy, gradually tightening the reins—when suddenly an outsider in my own home interjected: "Such effort to hide embarrassment—" "Quite the production," they said. "You could've just said 'Go to the doctor' in one line."

“Hey, hey.” “You—”

“Patience, patience.” A demon I couldn’t stop with my own strength; what grieved me was a weeping insect I couldn’t stop. Chaos chaos chaos. “Have patience, won’t you? At least lower your voice, please.”

“It’s not my fault.” “It’s all God’s will.” “I’m not the one at fault here.” But because in my previous life I was a woman who berated her husband or some such vile creature, I now suffer this retribution. When I hold my breath and listen, I can almost hear that former self’s shrieks rising from the earth’s deepest depths. Love is words. Since we’re weak and inept, let’s at least make our words splendid. What else could we possibly possess to bring others joy? Though unspoken—am I not sincere? Did you hear that from Makino? At rock bottom’s absolute end—never doubting my sincerity, pleading with life-or-death earnestness everywhere—yet still plummeting into a vagrant’s pipe-dream existence, blinking owlishly, staying awake three days and nights until comprehension finally struck: That very refusal to doubt my sincerity—that subjective blind pride—drove that decent soul deep into the pipe’s recesses. You—not one redeeming quality. Only through days and nights of cringing self-flagellation does true sincerity emerge. Ah—love remains words after all. I resolved single-mindedly to console my friend’s shameful illness—so fixated that I willed myself into sickness. But all of it—useless. No one believes me.

Around the same time, I abruptly sent a substantial sum to a friend with instructions: “Use this for drink or travel.” I had intended to write that this month’s allowance had surplus funds—yet another failure. My friend evidently suspected Dazai harbored some guilt and anticipated him soon seeking aid; this assumption was later verified when I questioned the friend directly—yes, they drank and reveled together regardless, though an unspoken disquiet apparently drained all genuine pleasure from their outing. This episode—among others—became fodder for prolonged mockery within our circle thereafter. Not even that very friend stricken with illness could grasp my blazing affection. Has wordless love’s expression yet been substantiated in this world? Five years after that illustrious failure, another acquaintance of mine lay hospitalized with the same malady—I who still clung then to honeyed words’ virtue spent an hour rubbing his back, tending his bedpan, even igniting a faint glimmer of hope for tomorrow’s dawn. Without stirring a single limb, through words alone—making him sip gruel spoonful by silver spoonful, lifting blue mitsuba from broth to offer—all performed while I lounged ceiling-gazing, my ingratiating flatteries met with his earnest gratitude; instantly enshrined among our group as moral exemplar—nothing but vexation endured. This you surely know already. It rankles. It grieves. I’ll force you to hear it— Listen— Truth cannot be immaculately captured through flawless articulation. Learn deliberate failure’s rapture. You commemorate your resplendent collapse— Truly— Shamefaced and writhing daylong—the Almighty who fears no god drags this self-lacerating stray, its morrow-fleeting life unseen by sun’s eye, into daylit amphitheaters; wielding whim’s cane sans scruple or shame, He charts youths’ life-paths wholesale— Now chastising, now rewarding—this lawless cumulus-monster of postures! Theft dwindles beside this titan’s villainy; murder itself stands absolved in our age—yet worst looms this irredeemable daylight marauder confronted with millions in marked bills—“Ho! Quite the haul! Devotional offerings perhaps?” “Contributions for party coffers maybe?” “Wahahaha!”—their spectral guffaws lingering as they quit the scene—some fossilized functionary who’d rehearsed prosecutorial grandstanding since birth; I brushed “Kiyomizu Fujūgyo” onto silk mourning such fastidiousness while conical-hatted men heedlessly clasped palms, meandered aimlessly, finally embraced tearfully—“Banzai! Banzai!”

This was no laughing matter—you couldn't mock these conical hats. This conical hat was splendid. In reason, calculation, and strategy—precisely there—not a single killifish of love could dwell. I'll tell you. Love was words. I did not desire Mr. Yamauchi Kazutoyo's ten ryō. Let me say it again: love that couldn't be expressed in words wasn't true, profound love. There was nothing difficult anywhere. What was difficult wasn't love. It was in blindness, battle, and frenzy that more pearls were found. "I—it's nothing—" Then, bowing gracefully—even that alone could convey considerable feeling. People of today's world were starving for a single gentle word. Particularly for a gentle word from the opposite sex. I did wish to be honestly deceived by a bright, perfect lie just once. "This quiet prayer was none other than the prayer of a great compassionate emperor." She had already fallen asleep. Clad only in stiff, coarse black fabric pants, her legs swaying like seaweed—suddenly striking the pose of a girl in Ishii Baku's seaside dance, fist raised, legs spread wide as if about to make a grand leap—she seemed to be dreaming such a scene. Inside the mosquito net, free from the nuisance of swarming mosquitoes, she performed her grand exploits as she pleased. The writer's wife, trying to demonstrate her sharp wit, interjected a single word—that became the source of failure. By the time she realized with a start, it was too late. A merciless beating ensued. Her low, small face—upper lip swollen one or two centimeters above her nose—showed no particular concern for resembling O-Iwa; she slept as soundly as she had the previous night. Looking closely at her sleeping face, there was no mistaking her as a good person; despite being noisy by day, she remained one of those Buddha-natured foolish wives.

Mountain Dispatch

Dazai Osamu

This morning in the newspaper, I read two articles—one about a marathon victory and another about the Akutagawa Prize—and tears came to my eyes. When I saw the face of the man called Magō straining with bared white teeth, I physically understood his efforts. Then after reading the article about the Akutagawa Prize, I spent a long time thinking about this too, but somehow nothing clarified itself; lying prone on my sickbed, I wrote these words.

“The other day, I received a telegram from Mr. Sato saying, ‘Come at once—there’s something to discuss.’ When I went to see him, he told me: ‘Everyone is recommending your short story collection *Late Years* for the Akutagawa Prize. Though I felt awkward about it—thinking it wouldn’t be bad to reward someone like Mr. Oda for his long perseverance—I tentatively declined on your behalf. But do you want it?’” I thought for five or six minutes before replying. “If it’s already been brought up, Mr. Sato, then please accept it—provided it doesn’t seem unnatural.” “For this past year, I have been suffering unseen harm because of the Akutagawa Prize.” “Even when I wrote manuscripts and took them to magazine publishers, they would calculate that my work would fetch several times the market value after I won the Akutagawa Prize, so they bided their time for two or three months—only for the Akutagawa Prize to pass me by and my humble manuscript to be returned. This dismal outcome occurred not just once or twice.” “Gentlemen of the press.” “Whenever the Akutagawa Prize was mentioned, people would invariably think of me; conversely, whenever Dazai was mentioned, they would invariably think of the Akutagawa Prize—a tragic state of affairs that occurred not just once or twice.” “This is something my family knows better than I do.”

When it came to me, Mr. Kawabata too assumed an air of caution as though detecting hidden motives behind my words—though I bore no dagger, nor did I doubt his passion—and it grieved me to see him smiling at me from afar. I entreated him, "Please don’t concern yourself—accept it," and Mr. Sato replied, "Very well. If it doesn’t seem unnatural, I’ll mention it. Since many others are strongly recommending you, there should be nothing unnatural about it." On my way home, emotions overflowed in my chest. Afterward, with no special word from Mr. Sato, I assumed everything was proceeding naturally—sharing my guarded joy with close acquaintances by prefacing it as confidential, growing impatient with my elder brother’s severity back home (he’d never believe me even if I pleaded, *This time, please trust me*), I came to this mountain hot spring on borrowed money on the seventh day. Half-self-sufficient, I began this crude life—truly a threadbare sparrow—vowing not to descend until curing my stubborn illness, determined to write my true *Genesis Chronicle* after enduring humanity’s greatest suffering (though at first I bashfully wrote it in hiragana as *Sōseiki*, until this morning when Foundation Society fervor made me boldly write *創生記*). *I’ll write it for you*, I informed Mr. Sato—*If crowned an Akutagawa laureate, I’ll dutifully become a blandly respectable literary man*. I even begged him to edit it freely for use as a prize-acceptance essay—all such agonizing efforts now mere future anecdotes. What’s urgent is my inn’s unpaid bill; wanting to retrieve at least one summer kimono for my family (*Ah—this isn’t like receiving five hundred yen*), rent, miscellaneous payments, loan interest—how was my wife faring at our Funabashi home? Hahaha! Odocha had not a single sen—no—wait—thirty-nine sen in petty cash lay on my desk. I couldn’t take this. I couldn’t take this. I thought this guy would become such a filthy thing—writing dull manuscripts like "Akutagawa Prize Backstage Stories," taking them to true story magazines and Kikuchi Kan’s office, getting beaten and thrown out, yet still not stopping that greasy smirk that seemed to have completely seen through everything. Starting now, once again—apology letters to over twenty benefactors I’d troubled; on the other hand, a long earnest letter begging for new loans—I couldn’t take this. Go to hell. Anyone would do—please send money here. I wanted to cure my lung disease.

(Gunma Prefecture, Tanigawa Onsen Kanemori-kan.) Last night, I drank sake from a cup. No one knows.

August 11. A blinding white downpour.

Furthermore, I humbly request that appropriate consideration be given to these four pages of my humble manuscript for Mr. Sugiyama Heisuke, journalist of the Asahi Shimbun.

Having mailed the aforementioned impressions, on the third day I returned to the mountains once more. After three days of writhing agony—now vanished completely under this morning’s clear skies—I soaked in the open-air bath beneath glaring sunlight while overlooking four or five houses in the valley below. This time I sincerely thanked Mr. Sugiyama Heisuke for his prompt return of my manuscript and proper consideration; moreover, regarding personal matters just before dawn today came rare good news from my family. A messenger climbed up the mountain. When commanded by *Chugai Koron*—“Write us a novel over a hundred pages!”—I reflected on my excessive gratitude toward that good reader Mr. Sugiyama and quietly smiled while wordlessly shaking hands with their representative. Having received this somewhat grand commission—a mere citizen’s *Genesis Chronicle*—I judged this faint resurgence to be perfectly frank and appropriate.

Several days later, Mr. Sugiyama Heisuke—half-remembering the text of the "Mountain Dispatch" he had skimmed the previous day—informed everyone in Tokyo about it, even reaching Mr. Ibuse’s ears via Mr. Nakamura Chihiro and others. The faction grew deeply concerned: Might that passage of Dazai’s cause trouble for Mr. Sato? They gathered to discuss it, concluded with Summon Dazai regardless, and adjourned. Later—on an Ogikubo night after two years had passed—at Mr. Ibuse’s residence, where summer grasses thrived in the garden as they always had, a conversation unfolded on the study’s veranda over a game of shogi.

“If by any chance this were to cause trouble for Mr. Sato—you, well—”

“Yes, that’s—” “But Mr. Sato—even if one tried to tarnish it, there would be no way to do so.” “The Mountain Dispatch is simply my attempt to express my mania and ordinary people’s reverence for conventions—there’s no ulterior motive to it.” “Regarding Mr. Sato’s affection—no matter what may happen—I do not doubt it.” “As for the novel for *Chugai Koron* and others—all of them—”

“Yeah, well—” “Even if everyone remains silent, it’s still entirely due to Mr. Sato’s influence.” “That’s right, that’s right.”

“Even if I try to forget, I can’t, and――” “Yeah, yeah—”

The conversation gradually became solely about shogi.