Pathway to Japanese Literature

*Recumbent Random Notes*

No matter how many times I read them, they remain fascinating; indeed, the more I read, the more their essence seeps forth—such are Natsume Soseki’s *Shuzenji Diary* and Shiki’s *Recumbent Random Notes*.
There is a depth to them that no play or novel could ever hope to capture.
I cannot fully grasp why they are so compelling, but it may be that both works—among all creations—show the least trace of artifice, their unfettered narration harboring a pure sincerity in its depths that transcends all criticism and appraisal, moving people directly.
And this is likely because they are literary gems that can only arise from the chance union of a great illness traversing the boundary between life and death and an extraordinary human being in some regard.

I kept the Iwanami Bunko edition of *Recumbent Random Notes* in the hidden pocket of my summer clothes.
I sometimes read it on the train as well.
When I could not sit, I read while standing.
When I read this, I could forget the heat and the distance.

“Morning: Three bowls of warm rice, simmered preserves, pickled plum, one go of milk with cocoa, sweet bread, salted rice cracker…”
These entries were repeated day after day.
That was not felt as wasteful or bothersome in the slightest.
Each time I read it, I experienced each new morning and came to truly feel the warmth of the warm rice and its aroma.
And together with the author, I greeted each precious, dwindling day of life.
Whether one go of milk contained cocoa or tea became a matter of grave importance.
That was a far more significant issue than whether the Rikken Seiyūkai or the Kenseikai formed the cabinet.

The article stating that he ate “leftover sashimi” from lunch for dinner was frequently repeated.
The shadow cast by the image of those few remaining slices of sashimi over this poet’s half-day of mental life was neither as faint as we might lightly skim from the surface of his words, nor was it something trivial.

In the sentiments of those who had sent various gifts to comfort this ailing poet, one could discern layers of complex psychology at play. The sharp-witted Shiki could not have remained oblivious to this undercurrent. Yet through force of habit, he recorded these acts of receiving gifts from diverse people with bureaucratic detachment—as though claiming them by natural right. Behind such clinical prose lay an ocean of unshed tears.

There comes a passage where his mind unravels into ceaseless chants: “Sa—my head’s broken! Sa—my head’s broken!” “What to do? What to do?” Reading this, I found myself gripped by peculiar mirth. How strange that an account of anguish driving one to suicidal desperation should provoke amusement! I who detect tragedy in “tuna sashimi” perceive here a species of comedy within this suicide scene. Yet perhaps Shiki’s desperate cries were themselves a form of laughter—in some twisted sense. Having staged and documented this episode, he likely tasted the purest refreshment of spirit.

In Natsume Soseki’s *Shuzenji Diary*, the joy of rebirth stood powerfully imprinted alongside longing for distant realms, crystallized within haiku and Chinese poetry scattered like jewels throughout its pages.
In Shiki’s *Recumbent Random Notes*, that Shiki who confronted unavoidable death expressed his attachment to this world through raw,vivid immediacy.
And the most potent effect of this expression lay in those meticulous records of three daily meals and snacks.
It proved impossible to consider removing from *Recumbent Random Notes* elements like “warm rice,” “sweet bread,” “tuna sashimi,” and all manner of delicacies arrayed as if savoring their very existence.

The daily meal records in *Recumbent Random Notes* must be the refrain and tonica—regularly repeated in each chapter of this rare and beautiful epic poem written at the risk of life itself.

Summer

In recent years—I believe this dated back to my illness in the eighth year of Taisho—the arrival of summer had become my greatest joy throughout the entire year.
When I woke up and the thermometer reached nearly eighty degrees, even if I washed my face and hair with water, I felt no chill, and even without wearing tabi socks, my feet didn’t get cold.
Even this alone was something to be grateful for.
The blood throughout my body circulated freely for the first time without stagnating anywhere, reaching even to the capillaries' extremities.
Perhaps because of this, my brain experienced mild anemia, making my head a bit fuzzy.
My hearing also grew duller than usual.
I was in a supremely tranquil and peaceful state of mind.

I found it pleasantly soothing to engage in light mechanical tasks during the sweltering heat of daytime.
Without taxing my mind much—and because results gradually accumulated the more I worked—I found myself unconsciously forgetting both time and heat.

As for what it means to be blissfully intoxicated—I being a nondrinker—cannot truly comprehend.
At least through alcohol alone it remains unattainable.
Yet I think that pleasure born of summer labor fogging one’s mind may mirror precisely this sensation of mild intoxication.
It would have been fine had cicadas swarmed to sing then too—but regrettably this summer’s orchestra remained absent from these parts.

Sitting at a clean café table and drinking hot coffee—there was nothing more fitting for the height of summer.
The gleam of silverware, the sparkle of glassware, a single vase of flowers, and the musical sound of the fan resembling the drone of bees—it was precisely the mood depicted in *The Afternoon of a Faun*.
One might imagine Debussy had likely suffered from anemic chilliness.

Summer nights were also enjoyable.
I brought out a rattan chair to the courtyard and gazed at the stars.
Scorpius and Cancer glittered in the chestnut treetops of the neighboring house.
This year, the sunflowers in the flower bed had grown tremendously tall, surpassing the eaves.
The large flowers, bright even at night, nodded in the cool breeze.

The mosquitoes that people found bothersome didn’t trouble me much.
Ever since middle school, when I’d spent one summer sitting in a chair in the detached house out back, engrossed in reading while allowing mosquitoes to literally cover both my legs without a gap, I’d likely become immune to their poison; even when my limbs got bitten a bit on the cooling platform, I felt almost nothing.
A summer without mosquitoes might have been something like sea bream sashimi without wasabi.

On evenings when a downpour seemed imminent，I found it delightful to sit alone at the second-floor window watching the changing clouds.
The movement of clouds at such times was extremely complex.
Directions and speeds changed abruptly.
When lightning flashed，it became even more fascinating.
No fireworks could match this natural creation.

The evening shower that seemed imminent never came.
Well past midnight, I went to bed and slept.
In the middle of the night, I awoke to the sound of pouring rain.
If there exists in this life something that costs not a single penny and brings joy unconditionally and without reason, then surely the sound of this rain must be one such thing.
I thought this was probably the same even for those who dislike summer.

To indulge in winter required being a healthy person of means; moreover, cultural amenities were indispensable.
In contrast, summer was a paradise for the anemic poor and a realm for nature’s children.

Sensations of Cool

The meaning of the word "coolness" was unexpectedly complex.
Of course, it did not simply mean that the temperature was low.
It could also be interpreted as referring to the sensation when continuing heat temporarily diminished.
However, what was enjoyed as coolness during midsummer rather appeared to be the abrupt alternation of high and low temperatures.
For example, staying in an icehouse in midsummer for even an hour was not coolness but an eerie cold.
The electric fan’s ceaseless wind was by no means cool.

When walking on a summer mountain path, one felt the complex intermingling of masses of hot and cold air.
Some of these particles were large, others small.
It appeared that maximum coolness was felt when their particle size was optimal.
However, no scholar had yet conducted quantitative research on coolness in this sense.
This would be an intriguing joint research topic for meteorologists and physiologists.

The air in warehouses and basements had an almost uniform temperature without such intermingling of hot and cold particles; in other words, the air was dead.
In contrast, the air in the mountains was alive.
From temperature disparities came complex heat exchanges being conducted.
The skin’s nerves received complex stimuli both temporally and spatially.
The special sensation arising from that stimulation was what might be called coolness.

There existed something akin to coolness in the sensation of applying moxibustion during midsummer.
The feeling of pouring hot water on one’s back at summer’s peak similarly approached coolness.
From this line of thought emerged one conceivable scientific cooling method: if appropriate high and low temperatures were simultaneously applied to selected areas of the skin, might this not allow us to experience the greatest possible sensation of coolness?
Alternatively, alternately applying heat and cold to a single area at measured intervals might prove more effective.
This seemed likely to become a promising research topic for experimental physiologists.

If we extend this hypothesis, then the appreciation of cold tofu dishes with hot sake or hot coffee immediately after ice cream must also be considered a form of enjoying coolness.

Could this interpretation of coolness—discussed solely in terms of skin sensations—be transposed to mental sensations of coolness? This too must be considered another potential problem for psychologists.

Sunflowers

Lying on a rattan chair in the courtyard，one gazed at sunflowers glowing against the evening sky．
Beside the vigorously blooming flowers，there were those already beginning to wilt—the large pitch-black cores surrounded by parched petals clinging sparsely．
Some，stunted in growth and resembling mere imitations，still managed to bloom with at least the form of these flowers．
Among the large leaves，few remained intact；there were those eaten by insects，those half-blackened and withered．
All these mismatched elements gathered together formed the living，real visage of a sunflower．
A sunflower painting that intentionally excluded wilted flowers and insect-eaten，half-dead leaves through shallow judgment cannot possibly be a realistic sunflower painting．

The essential difference between exquisitely crafted glasswork flowers and real flowers also lies in this very point.
There is some validity to the claims of extremists who revere realism and categorically reject idealism.
In truth, certain shallow idealist art is precisely like glasswork flowers.
But then again, one cannot embrace an expressionism that emphasizes only leaves discolored by insect damage and mold; doesn’t recent German painting seem to exhibit precisely such tendencies?

Among all physics literature, there was nothing more tedious to me than the theoretical papers of shallow theoretical physicists. Even if there was not a fraction of a gap in their logic and not a single error in their mathematical computations, the "nature" being handled there was a glasswork "nature." It was nature as rendered in Yuzen-dyed hem patterns. The unfathomable true essence was rather concealed and hidden because of this. Such papers—like flowers wrapped in decorative chiyogami paper—could occasionally be found among German doctoral theses.

Within the papers of truly excellent theoretical physicists exist works that genuinely evoke masterpieces of Eastern painting—particularly the divine works found within Nanga. At first glance, however roughly or arbitrarily distorted nature may appear in their depictions, what becomes captured and expressed there is the living soul concealed deep within nature's vitality. Such theories are what we call *fecund* theories; they blossom, bear fruit, and contribute something substantive to human culture.

Just as even ideal art becomes scientifically commendable when reaching the heights of exceptional Nanga paintings, so too does theoretical physics attain artistic beauty when it evolves into something truly refined.

Pure experimental physicists share certain similarities with realist artists.
They must observe the naked nature before them with their own eyes.
Though this is both the primary imperative and the greatest challenge, our eyes—blinded by tradition and dazzled by the glare of authority—easily lose sight of nature as it truly is.
Even if a truly fascinating phenomenon manifests before our very eyes now, if it has not appeared in authoritative literature, it will likely be dismissed as a trivial secondary matter and forever overlooked.
Our eyes are captivated solely by the moldy, commonplace phenomena long handled by great Western authorities.
And we tend to end up resigned to work akin to gathering scattered shell casings on a field where a conqueror’s great army has passed.

The majority of descendants from the realist school saw nature only through the eyes of their ancestors. Those who depicted nature beyond the subjects chosen by the founder were heretics and rebels.

When we tried to look at sunflowers, the blinding flash of intense traditional light cast by Van Gogh immediately struck our eyes. To contemplate the difficulty of radiating from within oneself a light strong enough to turn this pale and thereby create one's own sunflowers—that was surely of the same nature as the difficulty felt by all those engaged in scientific inquiry.

Sparklers

In the summer nights, on the edge bench of a small garden, even my adult self felt a strong temptation toward the sparklers that children played with.
Through this, my childhood dreams were revived.
Memories of those dear ones no longer in this world were summoned back.

The silence—beginning when the tip was lit and faintly smoldered—persisted for precisely the right duration to tighten the hearts of those watching through anticipation of the imminent phenomenon.
Next, the gunpowder began to combust, releasing small flames like peony petals, and in reaction, the whole swayed like a pendulum.
Simultaneously, the superheated sphere of molten mass gradually grew.
The brief interlude between the flames dying down and the transition to the next spark phase also imparted an indescribable mood.
The fireball vibrated finely while emitting a faint sound like something boiling furiously.
It made one feel the force swirling within, ready to gush forth at any moment.
Suddenly, the release of sparks began.
Minute fiery pellets launched at imperceptible speeds scattered into countless shafts of light as though colliding with some unseen entity in midair and shattering; a fragment among them broke apart once more, unfurling into second, third, and fourth pine needles.
The temporal and spatial distribution of these sparks would not do were it either more sparse or more dense than that.
With truly appropriate tempo and arrangement, and with ample variation, the music of sparks proceeded.
The tempo of this music gradually quickened, its density increased; simultaneously each individual spark shortened, and the tips of the fiery arrows drooped weakly.
The firebomb, now lacking even the force to explode, lost its velocity to air resistance and traced a parabolic arc downward under gravity.
What began with a solemn *largo* passed through *andante* and *allegro* to reach *prestissimo*, only to shift into a pitifully lonely finale through a sudden *decrescendo*.
My mother had named this final phase “Chirigiku” (Scattering Chrysanthemums).
It truly had the form of a single-petaled chrysanthemum beginning to wilt.
*“Chirigiku, chirigiku…”*
When I recalled my mother’s voice chanting this for me to hear, the recollections of my childhood in my hometown were vividly summoned back.

The fireball, having expelled every last spark of its energy, fell brittle and powerless with a *plop*—and thus concluded this sonata of sparks. What remained was the pale, ephemeral dusk of a summer evening. I somehow recalled Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony.

Indeed, in the burning of a single sparkler lay the three-act rhythm of *jo-ha-kyu*, the four-part narrative arc of *ki-sho-ten-ketsu*, poetry, and music.

But what of these so-called electric fireworks and other such novelties that had become popular in modern times? Admittedly, the flashes from aluminum or magnesium might be intense in luminosity, and the flames of strontium or lithium could possess beauty, but from start to finish they merely burned wildly and crudely, devoid of tact or rhythm. And then what of that squalor in their dying moments, their utter lack of melody? If sparklers were Beethoven’s sonata, then this was garish jazz music. One might even say this too was one manifestation of the social trend where the essence of Japan’s unique culture was being pushed aside by modern culture redolent of America.

The phenomenon wherein sparks fly out from the superheated sphere within a sparkler and burst in two or three successive stages presents an intriguing problem in both physics and chemistry. If one were to study this in detail, the results would naturally touch upon the most fundamental issues of these sciences, and it was reasonable to consider that such an interpretation could offer a significant prospect of yielding some valuable contribution.
And so, for over a decade, I urged many people to research this.
To those people—especially those employed at local schools without sufficient research facilities who wished to engage in some original work—I always presented this sparkler problem.
However, by that time, I had yet to receive any reports that someone had undertaken this work.
In the end, thinking there was no choice but to handle it myself, I began to dabble in it a bit about two years ago.
Even the meager results obtained from merely dabbling a little proved utterly mysterious.
At the very least, this was sufficient to compel acknowledgment that it could become an important research topic in the future.

He found it difficult to comprehend why this interesting and beneficial problem had been left untouched and abandoned by anyone until then. It seemed probable that no reason could be found other than the fact itself that “it did not appear in the literature”—that is, that no one had yet undertaken it. However, the fact that people had not considered it did not in any way mean this problem was trivial.

If Japanese sparklers had been commonly known among Western physicists, one could imagine there would likely have been one or two people who researched them long ago. And if those results had yielded anything interesting, by then Japan too would likely have produced one or two doctoral dissertations on sparklers. Even someone like himself probably would not have given up until then.

Recently, there was a Frenchman who researched the sparks produced when sharpening blades on a grindstone and conceived a method to discern the type of steel in those blades from the shape of the sparks.
If someone were to submit it even to this person, the sparkler problem might progress surprisingly quickly.
But if possible, he thought sparklers should still be researched by Japanese hands.

I think it’s all well and good to travel far to search for fragments of ore in the wake of Western scholars’ excavations, even belatedly—but we must not forget the treasures buried beneath our own feet.
However, to unearth them requires courage sufficient to resign oneself to being laughed at and treated as a madman by others.

Konpeitō (Sugar Candy)

The confection known as konpeitō was hardly found in ordinary sweet shops or traditional candy stores those days. I heard that konpeitō had been gradually pushed out by caramel and chocolate, and now those who manufactured this had become exceedingly rare. There were some sold in small glass bottles as tiny grains colored blue, yellow, red, and so on, but those were made with a slightly different method.

The process by which this konpeitō took shape was truly mysterious. From what I had heard, pure sugar was mixed with a small amount of water in a pot and melted into a viscous liquid. To this, they added mustard seeds that would become the core of the konpeitō, stirred with a ladle, and through repeatedly lifting and stirring, it was said that they naturally took on that distinctive shape.

There was nothing particularly mysterious about there being a core within, around which the sugar solidified and gradually grew.
However, why it developed such angular protrusions as it grew was the question.

In physics, when all directions were considered to possess equal potential, it had been customary to assign identical quantities to every aspect based on symmetrical principles.
In this case of konpeitō’s growth, since no reason could be found why it should grow more in any particular direction, one would conclude it ought to form a perfect sphere.
Yet konpeitō paid no heed to such logic, sprouting jagged protrusions as it grew.

This was, of course, not a logical fallacy.
It was an erroneous conclusion that naturally arose from starting with an erroneous assumption.
The key to resolving this paradox lay ultimately in two errors: the first being the direct application to individual cases of directional uniformity—a concept only applicable to statistical averages—and the second being the neglect of so-called unstable cases where deviations from the average, once initiated, became increasingly exacerbated.

All that were required were the physical conditions whereby random statistical fluctuations from an average spherical shape—once they occurred even slightly—resulted in areas that had become higher growing at a greater rate than lower areas. In the present case, what this condition was remained poorly understood, but numerous such possibilities could be conceived.

Interestingly, the number of protrusions on konpeitō remained nearly constant; what factors determined this number was an exceedingly intriguing problem.

In traditional physics, the problem of individual fluctuations arising in such cases as konpeitō had largely been neglected. Only those cases where discrepancies were always automatically canceled out had primarily been addressed. In unstable instances where this did not hold true, they had, so to speak, turned a blind eye and allowed them to pass by. This was likely due partly to their inability to determine how to handle such phenomena, but it might also be said that physics had entrenched itself in its "traditional rock-hewn paths," seeking comfort there.

While research into phenomena of accidental variations in physics had recently begun to show glimmers of new progress, as of then both its methodology remained rudimentary and its scope exceedingly narrow.

In that sense, it could be said that physics research on the formation of konpeitō, at its core, would inevitably and essentially relate to certain fundamental issues that should become important across all of physics in the future.

In the same sense, one of numerous phenomena that could be considered future research subjects was Lichtenberg figures.
This too had long been neglected as an antiquarian topic, and dilettantes who chanced to study it were met with little more than ridicule from scholars.
Yet ironically, it came to pass that this phenomenon’s potential application in electrical engineering for high-voltage measurement gained recent recognition, and those engaged in its research appeared to gradually increase in number.
Still, no one had yet attempted to explain this phenomenon’s genesis.
Nevertheless, in its fundamental nature, this phenomenon inherently shared certain formative factors with konpeitō up to a point.
And it likely represented a future instance of "two birds felled by one stone."

As for the problem of "life" in biology, physics currently holds no right to intervene.
Lord Kelvin proposed the hypothesis that the seeds of life on Earth were transported from the stellar world by light pressure.
However, that was a peripheral issue when it came to the origin of life itself.
Current physics would likely remain powerless forever as it stood, but if research into statistical variations within physics gradually advanced hereafter, one could not help but entertain the fantasy that an unexpected key might be granted from this direction—ushering in a day when a bridge would be built between matter and life.

If we take statistics on the number of people moving through the streets, the results demonstrate that individual humans exhibit a statistical distribution just as if they were inert gas molecules.
If some being from another world were to observe only matters related to such statistical distributions concerning these humans in the streets, then in its eyes, humans would appear as nothing more than lifeless particles.
And then, upon seeing those same particles constituting organic societal organisms on one hand, they would undoubtedly doubt and wonder about the origin of that organism’s vitality.

One fantasy evoked by this analogy was the notion that perhaps the ultimate seed of life had already been present within each and every material molecule. Were physicists perhaps observing only the statistical manifestations of these? And were they not then astonished and perplexed when what they considered lifeless particles came together to form a nation of living beings and organized a society?

There had been those before who attempted to recognize the possibility of individuality in each molecule of the same element. Furthermore, by endowing each individual atom with life, might we not unify the duality of life and matter that lay at the foundation of science?

Starting from the physics of konpeitō and gradually climbing the ladder of fantasy until I found myself venturing into the age-old enigma of life’s origin—even I must admit this had been something of a digression. It might be more appropriate to view this as the ramblings of a delirious fool intoxicated by this summer’s record-breaking heat.

Even so, it was a pity that this fascinating konpeitō was dying out like the Chishima Ainu or their ilk. Those who devoted themselves to preserving natural things might as well consider preserving such artifacts while they were at it.

Bath Attendant

He did not know when the bath attendants known as *sansuke* first came into existence, but upon reflection, it was a most peculiar profession.
At a large inn or similar establishment, the *sansuke*—bath attendants—would strip even those esteemed nobles whom one could scarcely approach under normal circumstances completely naked, freely manhandling their limbs as if they were daikon radishes or grating sticks, before finally striking their shoulders and backs and twisting them about.
Moreover, they possessed the privilege of daily appreciating and praising the beautiful forms of Nymphs—figures one would otherwise only have glimpsed in ancient Western forests inhabited by Satyrs—all without incurring any punishment.

It appears that similar professions existed in the West as well, for I had seen examples of them in old woodblock prints. They were depicted carrying an object resembling the hilt of a large green dragon sword, which one might imagine they used to scrub away grime. They wore what looked like loincloths—an amusing detail.

Even during my years of visiting public baths, I never once employed this attendant service. I simply could not reconcile myself to surrendering this body—which I could wash myself—to some unknown man and being handled like an object.

However, the trouble was that whenever I traveled and stayed at what seemed like a proper inn, I was inevitably forced into this attendant service. I could have refused this, but going out of my way to decline felt awkward, so I resigned myself to letting them do their work. I felt extremely uncomfortable. What troubled me most was being struck and twisted on thin shoulders under the guise of a massage. The pain reverberated through my head and abdomen. Even when I said I'd had enough, they wouldn't stop as quickly as one might expect. It was truly a nuisance. When they were particularly meticulous, even after finishing the washing, they lingered by my side endlessly, and in the end kindly rinsed even the towel for me. Bathing under surveillance felt somehow oppressive, and this too was a nuisance.

When I tried telling this to my friends, there was still no one who sympathized with me. A certain person said that unless the bath attendant was as thorough as possible and the massage thoroughly vigorous, it became unpleasant. Another said that during travels, the most effective and interesting way was to extract general knowledge about the locale from the *sansuke* at inn bathhouses.

Considering this, it may not have been entirely futile to record as a fact that in this world, there existed rare individuals who greatly detested the bath attendants that pleased many people.

Incidentally, in the spiritual domain there appears to exist an occupation equivalent to these bathhouse *sansuke*. Whether cleansing the mind of grime or the body of grime—when made into a profession—are they not fundamentally akin? As for these spiritual sansuke too, I wish to be granted the freedom of acceptance or rejection.

Piano Tuner

Among various professions, piano tuners—whatever they themselves may think—appear relatively clean and respectable from an outsider’s perspective.
As Western music gradually spreads and demand for this work increases, despite the number of practitioners growing accordingly, their business always appears bustling.

I think that a room which presumably contains a piano would generally not be particularly unpleasant.
And one would imagine that the people who receive guests there are probably not so ill-mannered or rude.

He adjusted each slightly out-of-tune string one by one according to a fixed method. He meticulously inspected every poorly functioning keyboard action. This was genuinely pleasant to watch. There was a feeling akin to scratching an itchy spot. After he had fully completed the tuning, dusted off the instrument, closed its lid, and tapped through the scales and chords one last time for good measure—in that moment when he had finally accomplished his work, one imagined he would not feel displeased.

I sometimes entertained the thought that it might be interesting to become a piano tuner with an artist’s eye like the protagonist of Mr. Natsume’s *The Three-Cornered World*, wandering from town to town across all of Japan.

Would no great piano tuner appear to adjust the world’s morals and people’s hearts—disordered as a deranged piano? If only there were someone who would go around visiting unfortunate families devouring their own flesh and blood, and despicable gatherings of people ridiculing their peers, to perform the tuning of their discordant hearts.

The Saimeiji Tokiyori of legend and Lord Mito from kōdan tales likely wandered the land believing themselves to be a kind of piano tuner, perhaps. Yet while these two may have performed tunings, they probably also went about damaging perfectly good instruments along the way.

One characteristic of the piano tuner’s profession that makes it a noble vocation is that they do not impose even a trace of "self" upon their work.
Sounds inherently possess natural laws by which they should harmonize; the piano tuner merely lends a hand to guide them to that point of harmony.

We need neither so-called great thinkers nor religious figures.
There are times when I think what we need is simply a piano tuner for human hearts.
If there were something akin to that piano tuner, would it not be good poets, good musicians, good painters?

However, in this world there exist people who appear utterly insensible to all art—nay, even those who seem to detest it.
These are individuals who lack ownership of a “piano of the heart.”
Thus they have no use for piano tuners or their ilk.
Such persons are observed in great numbers among that class of people termed so-called “moral exemplars.”
This is rather only natural.
A piano one does not own cannot fall out of tune.
Just as a flower that never blooms cannot scatter its petals—such is the logic of things.

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke committed suicide.

I had seen Mr. Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s face no more than three or four times.
One of those occasions was at Mr. Natsume’s seventh memorial service in Zōshigaya Cemetery.
Amidst the crowd dressed either in Western suits or haori and hakama formal wear, Mr. Akutagawa’s kimono-clad figure stood out.
The image came to mind of him standing slightly apart from the others—his face terribly gaunt, pallid and devoid of luster.
The vivid redness of his lips and the way he swept back his long hair with his hand—details that heightened his melancholy air—rose clearly before me.
I recall that when everyone was leaving after the memorial service and K-kun said, “How about joining us later?”, he responded only with a silent nod.
That I remember even such trivialities must be because he left some singular impression on me that day.

Another time was when K Company hosted a commemorative gathering for the publication of a poetry collection by a poet of the A faction at a restaurant in Shiba Park.
At the dining table came a table speech through what must have been the organizer’s request.
Mr. Akutagawa, seated to the right of the guest-of-honor poet, rose with a somber expression and declared he had no particular thoughts to share there.
"But if compelled to voice some impression," he said as he resumed his seat, "for one with a weak constitution like mine, tonight’s bread was a terrifyingly hard loaf."
That night showed none of the spiritual frailty I had witnessed years earlier at Zōshigaya Cemetery in Mr. Akutagawa.
His features and speech bore tension charged with youthful acuity.
Yet that some grave malady was consuming his body from within remained glaringly evident to all present.
“Terrifyingly hard bread”—this phrase now echoes vividly in my ears as I set down these recollections.
And I cannot shake the sense that it held some portent of his unforeseen demise.

Of those four or five people who had sat in that same row at that time，two more were now deceased.
The other one was poet S.A.-shi.

Death Register

News came that Shikome had died.
She was an elderly maidservant who had served at my father’s home in our hometown for nearly fifteen years.
She first entered our service during my high school years, assisting my then-sickly mother in managing household affairs.
When I closed my father’s hometown residence after his passing and moved to this area, she returned to her seaside village in that same region.
With the brother who should have maintained her household having died in the Russo-Japanese War—leaving her truly alone—she had adopted her sister’s daughter, who had married into another family, and was caring for her.

During my mother’s lifetime, she had occasionally sent letters, but after my mother’s death, we naturally grew distant, so I did not know about this illness.
In her later years, it seems she had suffered from various illnesses, so she had likely collapsed due to one of them.

She was a woman faithful in every sense.
She was not one to leave things half-done.
This disposition naturally often manifested as a strong sense of self.
Yet on the other hand, though unlearned, she possessed a clarity of mind rare among women and a sharp eye for observation.
She had a habit of staring impolitely at anyone’s face without hesitation, her manner appearing as though she sought to peer through their eyes into the deepest recesses of their hearts.
Indeed, it seems she possessed such mysterious abilities in abundance.
The true nature hidden beneath human artifice seemed laid bare before her eyes.
In that respect, she seems to have been rather feared or even hated by many people.
Yet being a woman after all, she seems to have been unable to confront her own inner self.

Once, through observing the moment a certain person alighted from a rickshaw under public scrutiny, a woman of high social standing discovered a particular characteristic of their skin and spoke of it to others. This led people to call her a truly fearsome woman, and it became quite the topic of conversation.

She possessed a physique that was impressive and rare among Japanese women.
Her features were not unattractive, belonging to the Rubenesque type.
Her movements were not agile but rather sluggish; however, her work always progressed swiftly.
Because she was intelligent, she did not waste time on pointless matters.
And this was likely because she did not know how to spare herself and had no understanding of slacking off.

I often found her faithfulness troublesome.
She would never simply carry out matters as I wished, leaving them be without interference.
In other words, two distinct types of egoists could never reconcile on this point.

I recalled a strange thing.

At my father’s final sickbed, near his pillow, an ice block had been placed and an electric fan was set up.
The thermometer had exceeded ninety degrees Fahrenheit, making it an unforgettably hot day.
Shikome kept scooping up the melted water that had accumulated in the galvanized iron box holding the ice block with a small dish and drinking it.
I tried to stop her, saying she shouldn’t drink such things, but she ignored me and kept scooping up cup after cup to drink.
I can clearly remember that purple rings had formed around her eyes.

Last year, when I returned home escorting my mother’s remains, Shikome made the effort to come meet me, traveling forty kilometers.
At that time, I noticed that strikingly white strands had begun to appear in her hair.
She spoke of her own aging in a manner that seemed half proud and half apprehensive.
I think she was probably fifty-two or fifty-three this year.

The gradual disappearance of those dear ones—whose real existence remains vividly woven into my memories of the hometown from my youth—is inevitably lonely. Even if they are alive—with no certainty of meeting again and no communication beyond perfunctory New Year’s or summer greetings—these people, though ultimately inhabitants of the land of memories, still impart through news of their deaths the loneliness of a single paulownia leaf.

When I opened the Death Register notes—jotted down in the back pages of my notebook—even counting only those closest to me, the deceased already numbered over ten people.
Of these, half were younger than myself.
I feel I want to record memories of these people someday, but writing each one would be endless—to write them would mean composing my autobiography.
This is no easy task to begin.
And likely before completing it, I myself will become someone’s entry in their Death Register.

The closer someone was emotionally connected, the heavier their memorial burden became - slowing ink flow across paper when attempting transcription.
Only those dwelling near memoryland's frontier seemed suitable for archival preservation as relatively placid documentation material.

Among those destined for entry in my Death Register yet still unrecorded are three house cats.
Strangely enough, these domestic creatures in the realm of remembrance have become indistinguishable from humans.
They speak and articulate thoughts.
Our hearts interflow with theirs unimpeded.
Yet whereas memories of deceased humans seldom dwell in beauty without some trace of bitterness, these animals’ recollections bear not the faintest aftertaste of rancor.
This must owe to their silence during life.

Cat’s Death

“Tama” was a male cat with yellow fur marked by brown tiger stripes.
He possessed a coarse yet comical appearance, was sluggish and gluttonous, and had a character utterly devoid of any delicacy.
Therefore, he was not particularly loved by anyone in the household.
In his youth, his raison d'être had been recognized as that of a “clown”—a playmate for Mike, the household’s beloved darling. But once both Mike and Tama grew old and ceased to engage in such lively games, he came to be treated as utterly superfluous.
Of course, he showed no resentful face over this and seemed to serenely enjoy his appointed lot with detached acceptance.

The only troublesome thing was that even this monk-like Tama still had his day when spring stirred within him.
When the mating season arrived, he would indiscriminately spray urine, soiling the fusuma sliding doors and furnishings.
Because he caused too much trouble, a motion was proposed by the family to expel Tama.
Wondering if there wasn’t some way to correct this bad habit without doing that, they consulted a veterinarian, who informed them that simply neutering him would suffice.
No matter that he was a cat, this was a cruel and unpleasant affair, but they succumbed to the pressure of the family’s collective opinion for expulsion and ultimately had him hospitalized to undergo the surgery.

After the surgery, he became noticeably quieter and more refined, but somehow seemed to fade into obscurity. Then one day not long after, he was found collapsed on the veranda with labored breathing, but temporarily revived when given water and catnip. However, scarcely two or three days later one morning, children discovered him lying cold and still on the garden’s green grass and came to report it. That day I lay feverish with a cold and had no desire to view the corpse, so I simply ordered it buried at the base of the backyard peach tree. In place of ocular witness, upon my mind’s canvas blazed vivid hues—a golden cat stretched peacefully upon an emerald carpet of grass. This imagined tableau persists in memory with sharper reality than any actual sight could have imprinted.

“Mike” was a female cat whose nature stood diametrically opposed to Tama’s in every regard. Blessed with looks and fur that drew universal praise as beautiful, she exhibited both agile elegance in her movements and a neurotic fastidiousness. Naturally, the entire family doted on her—every feline delicacy prepared in our household existed solely for Mike’s benefit. Even when presented with specially offered fish meat, she would merely sniff at it and abstain from eating if it showed the slightest staleness. These rejected offerings would then be gratefully received by that voracious clown of a cat, Tama.

Over seven full years, she became the mother to about thirty kittens.
After her final litter, her fur thinned noticeably.
Gradually she lost her appetite and her vitality waned.
When we had a doctor examine her, it was said there was no way to treat it because she had fluid in her chest.
This pronouncement cast a shadow over our hearts.
By then she already spent nearly each day sitting properly without moving, and when someone called her, she would blink her eyes as if dazzled and look at the caller’s face.
She tried to meow a reply as usual, but her voice wouldn’t come.

When her end drew near and my wife went to her side and called out，she made a slight effort to crawl closer，but her head already lolled unsteadily.
Her breathing，gradually signaling death’s approach，bore an uncanny resemblance to that of humans.

The remains were placed in the prettiest empty chocolate box we could find at hand，buried in the shade of a maple tree at the back of the garden，and topped with a token tombstone.

When Tama died，I felt somehow sentimental—perhaps because I was sick and weakened at the time.
That he had lived without being loved by anyone and died without being mourned by anyone was pitiable.
However，the awareness that everyone was grieving Mike’s death seemed to lighten my heart’s burden somewhat.
Several days after Mike’s death，one morning as I left the institute and was on the train toward Fukagawa，I suddenly thought of her.
And naturally，something like a nursery rhyme began to escape my lips：
“Flowers scatter onto Mike’s grave.
Konkon-kogome blossoms scatter.
On the lawn，the shadow of a heat-haze bird.
‘Are you seeing a small bird’s dream？’”
Afterward，I made three more similar verses，then tried adding arbitrary scores and slapdash accompaniments to them.
That I could indulge in such childlike sweet sentimentality must have been because its object was a cat.

When about a month had passed and I went to Shiobara, I was startled to find a cat that emerged onto the inn’s veranda there bore an uncanny resemblance to the deceased Mike.
As I gradually grew accustomed to it, I became fascinated by the curious psychological process through which the mental image of Mike in my mind transformed—absorbed and assimilated into the living creature before me.
It seemed we could savor today without being crushed by memory’s weight not solely through forgetting but equally through this very mechanism of assimilation.

After that, my wife brought home a kitten that had been abandoned nearby.
It was a mostly black female cat with small patches of white mixed in.
The symmetrical white stripe running from forehead to nose lent her features a distinctive charm.
A remarkably long and supple tail also counted among her characteristics.
Though she grew quite large, passersby could still easily catch her—a trait suggesting dullness rather than composure.
Yet she alone among our cats had mastered sliding open fusuma doors by herself.
Another special skill involved standing upright on hind legs for extended periods using her tail as support.
This “Chibi” perished weakly during her first childbirth.
Later when I visited Mr. K in Sendai, I was startled anew by a kitten there bearing her exact likeness.

Now we have taken in a female kitten from relatives that is Mike’s granddaughter. Not only in appearance but also in various aspects of her personality, we were often astonished to find her grandmother’s atavistic traits vividly apparent.

I have already written about cats many times before.
I may yet write of it many more times to come.
To me, writing about cats feels like the greatest consolation, a safety valve, and sustenance for the soul.

Miserable misanthrope—this phrase sometimes threatened me.
Though we fully possessed the hope of wanting to love humans, we who suffered from being obstructed by our shallow "self" and thus unable to do so—the fact that we could first pour pure affection upon small animals must also ultimately have been but another manifestation of our selfishness.
I did not wish to love humans as I loved cats.
Moreover, that would ultimately have been utterly impossible unless I became a being one step higher than humans.
But in that sense, loving small animals might have been the sole means by which unfortunate, weak humans could experience—if only slightly—the heart of "God."

Dance

The deceased "Tama" possessed one mysterious characteristic.
When I entered the bathhouse, he would often come along and stick close.
And upon seeing me undress, he would climb onto the discarded clothes there, lift his front paws alternately in a stepping motion—not only that, but also engage in behavior such as scratching and kneading the clothes with his claws.
And while intently staring at his naked master, he would purr in his throat and stand his short tail up to vibrate it.

The meaning behind this mysterious behavior eluded him completely.
Not even any working hypothesis could be conceived.
Rather, it even evoked in him a sort of mystical sensation.
It made him fantasize about scenes of interaction that might have occurred between primitive humans and feline ancestors wandering through primeval forests.
There were times when he was struck by the illusion that some distant echo of behavior from an ancient wildcat tamed by a naked Adam now manifested before his eyes.

A wild fantasy arose that the cat’s stepping with its front paws—an expression of what seemed akin to human joy—might bear some relation to how its carnivorous ancestors had found choice prey and torn it apart. It also suggested a connection to the grotesque spectacle of primitive cannibals exulting before slaughtered enemies’ corpses. The wings of fantasy drove him further still, leading him into a delusion that even the origin of humanity’s shared instinct for dance might have been interpreted through the faint glimmer of insight offered by this cat’s paw movements.

When a baby is lifted by the torso, the baby turns the soles of its dangling feet inward to face each other. Given that there exists a scholar who has posited that this is likely an inherited habit from when humanity’s simian ancestors hung from tree branches with their hands and attempted to grip the trunk with their feet, then considering the relationship between a cat’s paw movements and the dance of civilized people should be permissible as a flight of fancy.

(September 1927, Thought)