Pathway to Japanese Literature

Sketching Travelogue

I began practicing oil painting last spring.
By early winter, I had painted twenty to thirty on small sketching boards and several on No. 6 to No. 8 canvases.
During the cold months, I took a break, and from when the new leaves emerged this year until autumn, I painted fifteen or sixteen—or perhaps around twenty—canvases.
The majority of these were sketches of my garden or parts of the buildings.

It wasn't that I never painted still lifes. However, whenever I tried to arrange flowers to sketch them, they would immediately wilt; conversely, those that remained vigorous changed so drastically day by day that they proved ill-suited to an amateur's hand. While pots and apples weren't entirely without their appeal, when the plants of "living nature" stood so radiantly before me and the outdoor air remained agreeably mild, it seemed wasteful to chain myself indoors with "dead nature." Partly because I resolved to save still lifes and self-portraits for colder days, I naturally came to seek subjects outdoors while warmth persisted—though to call it "outdoors" was charitable indeed. I merely shifted perspectives around the garden, peered at rooftops from the second floor, or scrutinized nearby treetops—subjects any true painter would have scorned from the outset—yet compulsively gathered these fragments to daub onto canvas. Thus did it become inevitable that every painting—each and every one—would betray some portion of the same lattice fence or protrusion of that all-too-familiar roof.

Even so, for me, there was never a moment when it wasn't interesting. Whether it be lattice fences, roofs, hibiscus flowers, or cockscombs—since I had never once managed to paint any of them in a way that left me even slightly satisfied—no matter how many times I painted them, they always remained new, always different fences and plants. I imagine that even if I were to paint these "things" my entire life, I would likely never grow tired of them. Yet there were times when I grew weary of this task.

When I saw paintings by professional painters at exhibitions, beautiful plants, scenery, and architectural structures were lavishly employed as materials.
From my current perspective at the time, I found these painters to be in an enviably fortunate position.
When considering what in this world could be called luxury, I believed there were few extravagances greater than this—the freedom to use such beautiful and precious nature as one’s own property, even squandering it at times.
The only extravagance that could rival this was perhaps reading.

Every time I saw such paintings, I found myself wanting to step beyond my gate and try painting them myself.
If I just stepped beyond my gate—whether into the nearby alley, along the riverbank, or to the tram stop—subjects far surpassing my garden in quality lay scattered carelessly about, wasted and unnoticed.
It seemed unnecessary for me to go out of my way to spend travel expenses and ride trains around for days.
But as for having the courage to set up my easel on Tokyo’s streets, ignore the passersby, and calmly squint or tilt my head—perhaps I’d have found unexpected resolve had I tried, but merely contemplating it made such courage seem entirely absent.
I thought that if I at least went to the suburbs, there might be somewhat more suitable places in that regard, but on the other hand, I was concerned that riding trains and trams for too long and walking long distances while carrying heavy things would aggravate my current illness.

This autumn, my condition had improved considerably, and since the doctor had permitted and even encouraged me to go out, I thought of trying to visit somewhere. But as luck would have it, an unseasonal prolonged rain continued for some time, and no suitable days came about.
By the time the weather finally cleared and I began feeling the allure of the Indian summer's sunlight, the child had fallen ill, leaving me in no mood for such pursuits.

October 15.

The morning was so exceptionally clear that I suddenly decided to go out. Recalling that when I last met M-kun we had talked about perhaps going to Ōmiya together someday, I decided to head there after all. I placed a sketching board into my paint box, bundled it together with an old cloth scrap serving as a makeshift cushion in a wrapping cloth, and boarded a city tram to Sugamo. Even during the ride on the Shosen Line to Tabata, and while waiting at Tabata Station for the train bound for Ōmiya, I was struck by how everything that met my eyes today shone with unusually beautiful colors. Even the station's sooty train sheds, peeling-paint tanks, and objects like switch stands showed indescribable color harmonies under the magic of Indian summer sunlight and air. Compared to this, the artificial hues of the women's clothing standing about appeared like some cluttered patchwork of mismatched tones. I even found myself thinking that if these fabrics were left outdoors for half a year, exposed to rain and nature's touch, they might acquire more settled colorations. Indeed, the faded blue uniforms of railway workers become picturesque against suitable backgrounds. Venice's beauty too owes half its charm to being weathered by nature.

The train I boarded was packed with a girls' school excursion.
As the train began moving, the group of students started singing a school song.
I couldn't tell what song it was, but it was a two-part chorus that carried a quiet, gentle, and pure feeling.
Overlaid upon the train's monotonously rumbling fundamental tone, two crystalline streams of sound flowed at a leisurely tempo—now converging, now diverging, endlessly intertwining as they went.
Outside the window, beneath an even purer and clearer sky light, the complex melody and harmony of Musashino's autumn colors flowed onward.

I got off at Ōmiya Station and ambled toward the park.
In the town before the station, shops selling sweets called "Hotaru Gokaho" were lined up.
Whenever I see the name "Gokaho," a map of Saitama Prefecture unfurls in my mind.
And I feel as though catching a whiff of that cloying bean aroma.

As I turned a corner in the town, a shop displaying wax models of skin diseases on its left side caught my eye.
Among all the ugly things created by humans, it is rare to find something as devoid of beauty as this.
When seen on a day like today, its ugliness became even more pronounced; compared to things like these wax models and chrysanthemum dolls, I thought even the sight inside a slaughterhouse held somewhat more beauty.
The remains of cows and pigs are, even so, fragments of nature.

To sell medicine for curing ugly, harmful diseases, they promoted the diseases' repulsiveness to society—this method bore striking resemblance to how contemporary newspapers and women's magazines operated. Their stated purpose was most commendable. But could such methods truly eradicate the world's ugly diseases? Even if the medicine sold well, might the disease not instead spread all the more? Was it not possible to cultivate a fundamental constitution that resisted such diseases through the power of something more proactive?

I reached the park entrance and hesitated for a moment.
It seemed that the tree-lined path opposite the park held more subjects I favored than the park’s interior.
However, having come all this way, I thought it would be too discourteous to society not to at least glimpse this renowned park, and so I passed through the large torii gate to enter.
Before I knew it, I had emerged behind the shrine to find a broad meadow crowned by towering pine trees, where the schoolgirls from earlier had formed ranks and gathered.
From a distance, they looked like blossoming flowers and were quite beautiful.

I was hungry, so I entered one of the flag-decorated inns and ate lunch.
Perhaps because it was out of season and not a holiday, there were no other customers.
I felt almost guilty making them prepare a full meal just for me, but the quiet and calm proved immensely pleasant.
In the window of the small parlor, yellowed persimmon leaves gleamed with a waxy luster while red dahlias blazed in the garden.
Not a single thing appeared unfit for painting.

As I ate while listening to the maid's account, it emerged that a certain Dr. So-and-so had recently inspected this park and concluded its scenic features must be preserved given their exceptional quality, leading to plans for expanding the park's boundaries to include the hills behind.
"In that case, we will have to vacate this place," she said.
I thought this an excellent development.
Amidst the sudden storm of "reform" that had swept through in recent years—uprooting all natural elements from our countrymen's hearts while painted ideologies and wax-crafted isms were being clumsily erected like sundry shops in new developments—the preservation of unremarkable natural landscapes here and there offered at least some consolation.
If possible, I wished similar scenic beauty could be preserved in the spiritual realm—in certain mountains and forests.
While pondering this, I finished a bowl of carp soup.

“If you wish to paint, there’s a good spot over in that field across the way,” I was told, and so I went in that direction.
There were red clay embankments of Cézanne-style cuttings favored by recent art students, and further ahead stood a cowherd’s hut suited to traditional painters.
Upon emerging into what might be called a grassy field, I found the south-facing slope of a hill where autumn grasses mingled with crimson maple leaves. Yet no particular spot struck me as ideal for composition, and so I ultimately crossed through the field to descend onto the thoroughfare.
Along the roadside here and there stood patches of red withered millet fields against dark woods, each presenting various ready-made vignettes.
However, while walking in search of a slightly better subject, I ended up completing a full circuit and emerging back at the original park entrance.

On the other side of the entrance stood a garden resembling some peculiar artifice. Within it stood a peculiar stall-like structure displaying lifelike dolls. There was Ushiwakamaru practicing swordsmanship with a tengu at Kurama-yama. From their colors to every other aspect, the dolls were indescribably macabre. The beautiful old cedar towering above this hut became terrifyingly uncanny because of them. I simply could not fathom why anyone would deliberately create such things.

The autumn sun sank lower and lower.
If I lingered any longer, I risked returning without a single painting despite having come this far, so I turned left wherever the tree-lined path led and settled on a slight rise in the sweet potato field, where I opened my paint box at last.
I felt something like a fresh stirring in my heart whose cause I couldn't name.
It resembled that childhood sensation when first handling a long-coveted new toy, or when commencing research and faintly discerning the dawn of new findings.

All that existed between heaven and earth was the forest yonder, a house, a sweet potato field, and a single sketching board. Occasionally farmers would pass along the distant path, but not a single person went out of their way to come peek at my spot.

I had no idea how much time had passed.
The dutiful sun sank lower regardless of me until the scenery began transforming too rapidly—I had no choice but to abandon my work.
The strong western sun beat down on my lightly flushed face, leaving me in a state akin to mild intoxication, my body uncharacteristically light and my stomach pleasantly empty.

When I arrived at the station, the train had just departed, and I had to wait nearly an hour for the next Tabata-bound service. When I went to the WC outside the station and peered over the low fence there, a baggage cart stood on the other side with two laborers atop it loading lumber. To the right in the background, the station warehouse roof loomed black; in the foreground, piled rice bales glowed golden under the western sun; to the left, red and purple smoke swirled upward into the clear autumn sky—it was all too beautiful. I abruptly placed my paint box on the fence, leaned against the WC wall, and attempted a hasty sketch. As I only had one board, I began painting roughly on the back of my previous work.

Given the nature of the location, onlookers gradually gathered behind me. It seemed that not only rickshaw pullers but students came as well. However, in my desperate struggle to capture this fleeting light, I had no time to spare for such onlookers. Even so, people's words occasionally reached my ears. Each time I set down a new brushstroke, someone would explain things like “That’s smoke” or “A utility pole,” and I couldn’t help feeling a peculiar ticklish sensation along my back and neck. To repay such people’s sympathy, I thought it pitiful that my painting needed to look more coherent to the human eye.

I had barely estimated the general colors and tones before hurriedly putting away the paint box.
When I turned to look, there was no one left.
The object of people’s curiosity was not me after all, but rather "some person painting over there."
If things continued like this, I began to feel that sketching might even be feasible right in the heart of Tokyo.

I found myself sharing the train carriage once again with the same group of schoolgirls from our outbound journey, but the students had become utterly different people in their vivacity compared to before.
That quiet singing was no longer heard, and lively—rather boisterous—chatter erupted throughout the train car.
One of the students who had been tidying away leftover rice crackers and sandwiches from small baskets and Shingen bags began tearing their wrappers into tiny pieces and tossing them out the window, whereupon several others leaned out from downwind windows trying to catch them.
The young man who looked like a merchant sitting by the window also joined in and enjoyed this game.
The warm Indian summer sunlight must have invigorated the young people’s blood circulation.
In such times of heightened vitality, how effective it would be if true education—proactive education that elevates human hearts to higher realms—were provided.

Among the energetic crowd, a few somber faces could be seen. Had they perhaps quarreled? Some were pressing handkerchiefs to their faces and crying. This, too, might have been one aspect of the Indian summer sunlight’s effects.

A man who had boarded midway—unclear whether student or laborer—sat on the bench's armrest and told various jokes to the surrounding schoolgirls, making them laugh.
“Where’s your school… Kōishikawa? Or…?”
“…Kōishikawa? Or…?” he continued listing what seemed to be girls’ school names, but none of the students gave a clear answer, merely laughing.
I found it curious how he had fixed upon Kōishikawa.
Just as experts identify product origins, it seemed this man too possessed particular discernment.
When he said that, I couldn’t help but feel there was something vaguely Kōishikawa-like about it.

By the time I arrived at Tabata, the sun already hung low on the horizon.
The station grounds bathed in evening crimson had become an entirely different painting—one far more beautiful than what I witnessed that morning.
It struck me as peculiar that among countless exhibition works, none had ever captured this sublime spectacle.
Yet I found it inconceivable that Japan's Ministry of Railways would forbid artists from sketching such scenes.

October 16th, Sunday.
Since yesterday's stroll seemed to have exerted a more beneficial effect on both body and mind than anticipated, I resolved to continue my excursions today.
I determined to walk through the woods and hills near Urawa that I had glimpsed from the train window yesterday.
Though I'd departed yesterday with scarcely any concrete plans, that single round trip had spawned innumerable objectives along the way.
In our research work too, we frequently encounter analogous patterns.
Subjects rarely emerge from idle contemplation alone, yet once one begins probing a matter, objectives multiply along the path until they verge on overwhelming.
In such instances, it often seems interest arises not from prior curiosity about doing, but rather from the very act of doing itself.

Today being Sunday, the train was unreasonably and unjustly crowded.
It was so packed that one could hardly move, making me wonder if I'd manage to disembark at all.
With no space on the luggage rack for my paint box, I rested it on the bench—only to accidentally drop it onto the foot of an elderly man standing nearby.
The old man initially looked displeased, but when I hastily apologized, his expression softened at once.
I always find myself thinking the same thing in such situations.
Why do I remain calm yet lack the courage to shout back—"Who told you to put your foot there? Watch yourself!"—if someone were to confront me angrily?
Without such courage, it seems impossible to navigate today's world with any peace of mind.
In former times, unless prepared to stake one's life, even accidentally stepping on another's foot was unthinkable, let alone exchanging insults.
One of my relatives once crossed blades with a man he'd bumped into on a nighttime path—killing him before committing seppuku.
Nowadays, provided it stays within legal bounds, stomping on someone you dislike by your own judgment and then hurling twisted insults passes for manly virtue.
There exist so-called paragons who treat such behavior as casual amusement.
Thus when considering my children's future, I often think I must educate them in these ways now to spare them hardship later.

“They’re setting up a place to make electricity over in Akabane now. Once that’s done...”
A man was talking about such things.
I found the expression “make electricity” interesting.
If everyone used Japanese this way, we could probably abandon those stiff technical terms—the kind you can’t understand without seeing the characters or can’t read even when you do—and replace them with something more familiar.
It seemed worthwhile for something like a National Language Research Council to collect these good expressions.

From Urawa Station, I immediately exited to the town outskirts and wandered leisurely through fields of sweet potatoes, taro, and various other crops.
I spread out a cloth on the fallen leaves at the edge of a mixed grove, sat down, and began sketching the hill across from me.
The complex color gradations of the autumn forest—usually carelessly overlooked as merely beautiful—utterly confounded this timid amateur painter.
For us beginners with untrained eyes, there could hardly be better subject matter than this.
Yet if one were to become a Black person, even upon the surface of a low dining table or across a mere handful of tablecloths, I suppose this same degree of chromatic complexity would still manifest.
I suppose becoming that absorbed is indeed problematic, yet even in matters of pleasure, I also think one must reach that depth or else find it dull.

Not a single swath of cultivated plants in the field shared precisely the same hue. Even in the upturned soil laid bare, each patch revealed its own chromatic nuance through varying degrees of desiccation and spatial depth. This rather irregular planar distribution found unification through the principle of perspective, manifesting there a beautiful geometric consonance. Were I to alter even one of these hues or misplace a single line, I felt everything would collapse.

Two boys about ten years old came and watched from behind.
“Nice.”
“That’s a nice color,” they said—their words still carrying that childlike flattery.
They spoke in reserved, hushed tones, yet unlike yesterday’s Ōmiya carters, they remarked on “colors” rather than pointing out objects in the painting—perhaps a sign that these were indeed children of a new age.

I wrapped up my work there somewhat haphazardly and walked through the fields atop the hill. I wanted to paint a piece featuring millet as the main subject, but I couldn’t find a suitable background anywhere. Repeatedly walking back and forth in the same field, I grew somewhat self-conscious under the suspicious gaze of a farmer working in a distant plot. When I imagined myself as a farmer, the sight of me walking around dangling this paint box made me look so much like some Tokyo idler that I grew uneasy. Finally, I sat down on a cliff beside the railway tracks and somehow managed to roughly complete a single sketch.

October 18th, Tuesday.
In the afternoon, I took a child with me and passed through Shinkaimachi in Nippori to reach the outskirts of town.
Small factories that appeared to have been built for wartime purposes were conducting small-scale production everywhere.
In any case, items that had all been precious imported goods during my childhood must now be properly manufactured in these shabby local factories, affixed with neat labels, and sent out to market.
Even that alone left no doubt Japan had advanced.
If only all other countries worldwide would keep marking time as they had in the past, waiting for Japan to catch up—how splendid that would be.

Near the outskirts of town, a newly built blue-painted structure caught my eye.
As I searched for a suitable spot to sketch this subject, I encountered two proper art students—likely genuine ones—working on approximately No. 8-sized canvases that incorporated the same "blue house" into their compositions.
One had placed a row of millet in the foreground; the other employed a plank bridge spanning a ditch.
One work stood out with reddish-black tones; the other drew attention through markedly yellowish hues.

I walked slightly too far, sat down on the edge of a cliff overlooking a deep drainage ditch, and drew the perspective where the canal and road converged at the center. Neighborhood children came in turns to peek. The local children seemed to possess considerable specialized knowledge - I could hear them using terms like "tube" and "palette." They differed in every quality from the children near Urawa.

On the way back, while trying to brush dust off the large cloth spread beneath him, he dropped it.
The cloth had snagged far below on the ditch's edge where retrieval proved impossible, so he abandoned it there.
This scrap might still remain caught there even now.
When looking at the painting made that day, he cannot escape the sensation of this cloth dangling at the canvas's lower edge.
The mental state of one who has killed may share some kinship with this feeling.
(Omission)

October 29th, Saturday.

He took the Oji tram to Kogai Crossing.
The crossing he had imagined solely through its name—a lonely, melancholic little station along the riverbank where Musashino's pampas grass tips flowed downstream—proved upon arrival to be lined with large inns doubling as restaurants, among which stood a painted cheap Western-style establishment. Along the riverbanks clustered various crude factories, and most startling of all, three-phase alternating current—generated by Lake Inawashiro's hydroelectric power at tens of thousands of volts—arced high across the river's expanse.

It appeared the Arakawa River had overflowed from last month’s rains, leaving all the riverside plants dried out while still caked in muddy water, uniformly cast in a wretched gray. He felt an unpleasant sensation, as though this were how nature might appear to someone with total color blindness.

When he reached the high-voltage wire's support pillar, there was a small drainage ditch dug at a right angle from the river. Along it ran two trolley rails leading to a shrine beside the tram street two or three blocks away. Across the ditch lay the ruins of what seemed to be a small ironworks. The long rain-exposed iron structure had completely rusted red, forming a beautiful composition with the blue corrugated tin roof. Chimneys leaned partially collapsed, creating an air of desolation. Behind this factory appeared a reservoir where river water had been channeled from the drainage ditch. The collapsed sluice gate itself possessed pictorial charm. Across the pond's stone embankment rose a bamboo thicket from which towered a massive enoki tree—its branches bearing red and yellow hues of unspeakable beauty. In the tree's shadow glowed a simple vermilion-painted building, likely another factory's warehouse, half-bathed in sunlight. Before it, silver grass flourishing along the abandoned factory's edge shone like mercury.

Setting up my easel on this side of the ditch, I began painting with the triangular composition of the enoki tree, red warehouse, and silver grass on the opposite bank as my subject.

Right beside where I was painting, new timber with the scent of fresh wood was piled up.
A little further away, several large pipes lay scattered across the gravel.
Even before I arrived there, a child who appeared to be in his first or second year of middle school had been sitting alone on the timber. When I began painting, he came close and watched quietly.
And he continued watching there without ever leaving.

Before long, two or three laborer-like men came right behind me, sat down on the timber, and were engaged in animated conversation.
Someone was supposed to come—likely their foreman or such—and they seemed to be gossiping restlessly while waiting for whoever hadn't yet arrived.
They were so absorbed in their discussion that the presence of "some man painting" nearby seemed utterly inconsequential to them.

Before long came the sound of a horse-drawn cart as a large group of laborers arrived, rolling timber and beginning to load it onto vehicles, forcing me to shift my easel aside and keep out of their way for some time.
There, perched on a slightly removed clay pipe and smoking a cigarette, I contemplated how to fill the gaps in my unfinished painting.

Among the laborers, some came to peek at the painting. They proceeded to spout coarse or obscene language clearly meant to amuse others. “You should paint that crooked chimney,” one of them said. “Go see the Bunten Exhibition! Shimamura Kanzan, Teraoka Kogyo—those guys are real masters, I’m tellin’ ya! Nothin’ like this here stuff.” “Even that could fetch thirty yen or fifty yen if you take it somewhere,” I heard someone remark.

The child from earlier kept loitering around without ever leaving the area.
It seemed odd for a school trip to have only one participant.
I even wondered if he must be truly fond of painting, trying to watch this process of an oil painting taking shape without boredom until the very end.

The horse-drawn cart and laborers who had once left returned again.
Through their workday conversations, he learned that the abandoned factory across the way had been a certain foundry—how it had finally been completed and was on the verge of beginning operations when a major economic upheaval struck, leaving it in ruins.

By the time I packed away my paintbox, the setting sun had dipped low, dyeing the clumps of silver grass along the ruins' edge in a golden hue. What appeared to be clods of earth piled there were, upon closer inspection, all coal. On the reservoir's bank, two or three children were fishing. On the smelting furnace’s roof, a single crow tilted its head as if pondering something.

When viewed as a painting, these ruins were beautiful and intriguing, yet until this moment I had not considered at all the tragic fates of numerous households hidden within their shadows. Once I became aware of it, the painting before my eyes vanished, and in its place appeared various scenes of tragedy.

That people driven solely by profit—who had capitalized on wartime upheavals to embark on various precarious ventures—should have collapsed under economic shifts they ought to have anticipated might have been inevitable. Yet when I considered the plight of their wives and children left behind, it became undeniably pitiable.

Suddenly, a voice called out from the ditch right in front of me. When I looked, a cargo boat had slipped in unnoticed from upriver. It was one of those families living aboard their boat as a home—like those commonly seen in city moats. The man in his late forties standing at the bow had called out not to me, but to the middle school student who had been watching my painting all along.

Everything concerning the child flashed through my mind like lightning.

Today was Saturday.
The child who had likely returned from the municipal middle school for the first time in a week would spend this night under the same makeshift shelter as his parents.
When I compared the lonely sight of the parent who had come to fetch him and the weary child silently facing each other across boat and shore, a peculiar tightness suddenly rose in my chest, and before I knew it, tears welled up.
What purpose those tears served, I myself couldn't discern.

The world within paintings was supremely beautiful.
Even when I sought refuge in this beautiful realm to nurse my ailments,the reality lurking beneath canvases would find the smallest crack in my defenses and come pressing urgently against my eyes.
Was this due to weakness in my art or strength in the world? I could never quite determine.

As one factory crumbled elsewhere another rose new-built.
The timber too,I learned from laborers' talk,belonged to some workshop.
Industry showed no signs of waning.
Should individuals perish while their kind flourishes,the state stands secure.
Perhaps we do better not to dwell on sentimental elegies for solitary deaths.

Not only around factories but everywhere, flimsily constructed houses in various stages of completion had been catching my eye throughout this period.
It seemed the solution to the housing shortage that had caused such uproar was being patched together in this slipshod manner.
I caught sight of a young couple who had forcibly moved their belongings into a house with its rough walls still half-plastered and interior fixtures yet to be installed, eating their meal within a rampart of bedding and dressers they'd erected in the center of the tatami room.

A caterer owner who had followed the newly developed area to set up shop was sprawled ill-manneredly with his cheek propped on his hand at the storefront, while before him, a peddler had laid out dishes and bowls in an attempt to make a sale.
From behind the paper sliding doors of a grimy straw-thatched house in the forest shade came the sound of someone practicing a folk song on the shamisen.
Thus did my great Tokyo sprawl haphazardly without design, endlessly gnawing away at the beautiful Musashino Plain.
It seemed better to build multi-storied apartment buildings underground in the city rather than resort to such measures.
If we didn't do that, we might ultimately end up growing rice and radishes on basement shelves.

In Berlin's outskirts—where across that wilderness not a single house had yet been built—I found it somewhat absurd to see roads already completed with splendidly polished asphalt surfaces and artistic lamp posts standing in rows. Yet ultimately, it seemed only natural that matters would turn out this way unless such measures were taken.

I reflected that the term "newly developed towns on the outskirts" now applied to nearly all of Tokyo City.

November 2, Wednesday.

I boarded the Tamagawa Electric Railway from Shibuya.
I was struck, as always, by how Tokyo’s urban sprawl seemed to stretch endlessly onward without cease.

I had known only that a place called Setagaya existed somewhere near Tokyo, yet until today had remained unaware of its exact location; it was only now, passing through here, that I came to understand.
Indeed, one could infer the presence of soldiers from the types of shops lining the streets.

I also learned for the first time that Komazawa Village lay along this railway line.
I found it somewhat intriguing how various places that had been disconnected and unrelated in my mind were now being pierced by the train tracks and linked together like beads strung on a thread.

The knowledge gained through schooling and book learning still tended to remain fragmented.
Only when I directly confronted some problem and passed through these realms of knowledge out of necessity did all those hollow fragments become pierced by the thread of experience, finally coming alive and interconnecting.
I thought it was much the same with this.

Two or three students from the agricultural science practical course were aboard.
They all carried large bundle-like objects.
I wondered where they could be going on a non-holiday and kept a watchful eye.
Then, from midway along the route, another student wearing the same cap badge boarded and, without warning, tapped the shoulder of one sitting near the entrance, calling out, “Hey, what’s up?”
Through the delicate nuances in his speech’s resonance, I realized this student wasn’t ethnically Japanese.
When I paid closer attention, I noticed that the newspaper being read by one companion seated next to me contained nothing but kanji.
From their appearance, they seemed to be people from Korea rather than China.

At the Tamagawa riverbed, military engineers were conducting bridge-building exercises.
Since the overly glittering riverbed offered none of the subjects I sought, I wandered eastward without aim through the farmland between the river and its parallel hill.
There were vast expanses of peach orchards, but the trees had already shed all their leaves, with the discarded paper wrappings that had encased the fruit now stuck fast from being pounded by rain.
When viewed from a slight distance, the color of the densely clustered treetops appeared hazed in a smoky purple.
Along the path winding through the fields, here and there the yellowed branches of hazel trees were also beautiful.

When I tried to find a path up the hill, I came upon what resembled a pond.
The color of the hill's forest reflected in that utterly still pond was incomparably beautiful.
Among gaps in reeds thickly growing at water's edge stood a man fishing.
Hearing my approaching footsteps, he turned with unmistakable unease.
If fishing here was forbidden, I thought, then this man must share my breed - one cursed with what you might call a conscience that refuses to settle.
Or perhaps he was the sort who, even innocent, would feel guilty under imagined suspicion - mirroring others' judgment within himself until phantom crimes became real.
Driven by this kinship of disquiet, I found myself hastening past the spot.

When I finally emerged onto the thoroughfare at the hill's base, a slope happened to rise directly from that spot. Upon reaching the summit, I could survey the entire plain along the Tamagawa River from a slope planted with beautiful turf. But what drew my eye more than anything were the countless large persimmon trees lining the far side of the hilltop fields, their leaves turned completely crimson. Beyond them, the land seemed to drop to a lower level where only the thatched roof of a house beneath the persimmon branches appeared to rest directly upon the earth. There I erected my easel and passed over two hours in engrossed work.

By the path descending the cliff toward the station flowed a clear small stream that babbled as it went.
The various shrubs flourishing along the stream banks were all dyed in diverse autumn hues.
In the stretch of land between the stream and the hill stood houses resembling villas here and there.
With forests at their backs and small bridges spanning streams before gates, I thought it a fine tract of land possessing an ineffably tranquil charm.
Yet I considered there were aspects of this stream's flow slightly concerning from a hygiene standpoint.

The train was packed with elementary school students returning from a field trip.
Having no choice but to stand on the train operator's platform and look outside, I noticed the magnificent eaves of a house built atop a railway cutting's cliff, savagely battered by a storm and left unrepaired.
According to fluid dynamics, such cliff edges experience infinite wind force and drastically lowered pressure.
One needn't invoke fluid dynamics to recognize building houses here as folly.
Yet perhaps the house predated the cutting's construction.
If so, science would prove the railway company directly caused measurable damage to this homeowner.
Similar cases abound—not merely material but psychological—yet neither perpetrators nor victims often grasp these causal chains.
This lets us sleep soundly with pillows piled high.
And keeps speech and action free.
The judgmental brushstrokes of chroniclers seem absent now.
Else such observations would never slip past guarded lips.

Near Setagaya, two officers boarded.
The captain kept addressing the major in an unceremonious manner.
The Major remained mostly silent.
The state of the Major's chest buttons—one missing and another hanging loose—constantly preoccupied me.

When I carefully observed the elementary school students sharing our carriage, though each face differed, they all bore a strangely similar common expression.
The same appeared true when observing military personnel.
Determining why this occurs seemed a matter of utmost significance for certain individuals.
I thought that unless they become as indistinguishable as individual ants or bees we observe, their "group" cannot yet be considered genuine.

November 10, Thursday.

I transferred from Ikebukuro and went to Narimasu Station on the Tōjō Line.
The scenery along the way struck my fancy.
Though appearing completely flat at first glance, I only came to understand how this entire area formed an elevated plateau several meters above sea level through its scattered sunken valleys.
In such valleys invariably stood groves of pine and miscellaneous trees.
The way these valleys opened into the distance suggested a great river lying ahead.
Farmhouses scattered like Go stones across the fields uniformly had forests at their backs to block northwest winds.
Indeed, left exposed like this, they would never withstand winter.

For someone like myself who grew up in a place resembling my hometown—indeed, much of Japan—where mountains loomed immediately before one's nose in every direction and only oppressive rice paddies occupied the scant lowlands, such scenery felt both novel and remarkably bright, peaceful, and liberating.
At first glance, it appeared monotonous because there was nothing in particular to point out, yet within it lay a rather complex but gentle variation.
To eyes wearied by the relentless stimuli of daily life, such a view was truly precious.

Though I feel guilty saying this as someone raised on rice, the scenery of rice paddies somehow gives me a gloomy, unhealthy impression. No matter how vast they may be, their refusal to accommodate our geta-shod feet imparts an oddly constrained sensation of dead ends; yet with farmland, simply knowing one could walk anywhere brings a liberating sense of expansiveness.

Green onions and daikon radishes flourished everywhere, while the wheat had only just begun sprouting here and there. The sweet potato leaves that until recently had been green now lay completely withered by several days of frost, each bundle carefully tied.

I got off at Narimasu and wandered aimlessly near the station. At a valley I descended, taking as my subject a winding road and three or four hazel trees along its edge now turned completely yellow, I incorporated into my canvas the various farmlands undulating across the somewhat complex terrain.

The scenery seen from the train window on the return trip appeared utterly transformed, so much more beautiful than during the journey out. Even amidst everything glowing in the sunset, it was particularly the color of the soil on the valley's west-facing slope that seemed indescribably beautiful. From the shadows of a forest along the railway tracks emerged a young man wearing a blue Western suit and a hat like that worn by the sower in Millet's painting, chasing a single amber-colored calf. The cow's coat shone as if ablaze. It felt utterly otherworldly—I could only perceive it as a world from someone's masterpiece come alive and moving before my eyes.

In the scenery I gazed upon with near-sentimental absorption, numerous farming families still toiled without rest even as dusk deepened. The figures of mothers carrying infants on their backs—walking with a gait that jostled their children as they trampled wheat sprouts—appeared pitiful. After laboring like this until sunset, they would likely rise again around two in the morning to push carts laden with daikon radishes toward market.

As I approached the city, I perceived the air growing increasingly murky through both sight and smell. Over the windless urban expanse, leaden smoke hung thick and menacing.

If circumstances permitted, I thought I might build a small cottage within the shade of one of these wide, flat plateau's forests and spend one day each week there. Having seen various villas constructed in so-called scenic spots until now, none had particularly lingered in my mind as truly resonating with my sensibilities. The coast left me unsettled; the mountains struck me as ominous. Those grand high-rises never appeared particularly inviting. Even if entreated, I couldn't imagine bringing myself to dwell in such places. Yet spending a few chosen days each year in a cottage nestled within this flat plain's forest shadows—provided it had a sunlit engawa veranda or terrace—didn't seem such an ill prospect after all.

The evening sun today was so beautiful that I found myself assailed by such visions of pastoral poetry.

Having spent so long cooped up at home, the occasional exposure to fresh air during this fine season did feel refreshing, yet the overwhelming beauty of nature combined with the ever-present societal stimuli seemed to strain my still-recovering nerves a touch too much.
It was growing colder by the day, and I supposed I’d have to suspend my sketching excursions for a while and at last begin working on still lifes.

(January 1922 [Taishō 11], *Chūō Kōron*)