Pathway to Japanese Literature

Chapter: Ichigaya

Criminal Record Checker

In the remand wing of Tokyo Prison, there was an old guard nicknamed "Criminal Record Checker."

Each time the defendants were summoned to court, they would be divided into groups of twelve or thirteen—the number fitting in a single horse-drawn carriage (these days replaced by automobiles)—and made to line up along various points of the dim, expansive corridor. There, they would be handcuffed or tied with waist ropes before receiving roll call from the escort guard chief.
The old guard nicknamed "Criminal Record Checker" was one of these escort guards, who were typically assigned two per group of defendants.
When he first assumed this escort duty, or when he came to be nicknamed "Criminal Record Checker," I do not know.
However, he must have been eating prison food for at least thirty years by then.
He must have been around sixty—perhaps just reaching it, perhaps not quite yet.

When the defendants were called and gathered in the corridor, this old guard would inspect not only his assigned group but also the lines of over ten other groups, borrowing the "index" from their respective guards and walking along to compare everyone's faces against it.

The "index" was essentially a kind of card that recorded defendants' hometowns, social statuses, charges, physical descriptions, and so forth.

“Hmm, I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

After bustling about for a while—scurrying with short strides as he propelled his tall, large frame through several groups without incident—the old guard suddenly came to a halt before the man next to me.

And with his dark-skinned, ugly yet innocently beaming face—those narrow eyes that seemed so disarmingly kind—he stared fixedly at the man’s face while speaking.

“Ah, right—you were in Osaka before.”

The old guard pressed on with his words to the man, who wore a startled expression and remained silent.

“Oh come now, Sir—you can’t be serious! This is my first time in a place like this!”

The man answered in an overly familiar tone that seemed to exploit the old guard’s kindly demeanor, awkwardly rubbing his handcuffed hands together.

“Quit your lying.”

The old guard made those narrow eyes of his—eyes that held no real menace yet always seemed ready to smile—glint faintly as he looked,

“Ah, right—it was definitely Osaka. And then you were in Kofu once too.”

He nodded again to himself.

“That’s not true, Sir—this is absolutely my first time.”

The man kept bending at the waist while incessantly rubbing his hands.

“What’s the use? Playing innocent won’t work.”
“And between those times—you were in Sugamo once too, weren’t you?”

The old guard paid little heed to what the man was saying and simply continued reciting his own litany.
The man had stopped rubbing his hands and sat silent as if his weak spot had been struck.

“And then you were in somewhere else once more, weren’t you?”

“Oh…”

Finally, the man was overwhelmed.

“Where was it?”

“It was in Chiba.”

Having been arrested for theft or some such charge and having passed through the police, the Metropolitan Police Department, and the Prosecutor’s Office each time as a first offender, that man was now definitively marked as a fourth-time offender.
And then,

“Honestly, once you get stuck with that Sir, there’s just no managing it.”

Then, the man whispered to me—who had been listening curiously to this exchange all along.

My Criminal Record

When I entered Tokyo Prison for a brief stay this past March, this old guard was still conducting his criminal record checks in exactly the same manner as when I first saw him twelve years prior—also in March.

“Well, well, back again? What’s it this time? Been quite a while, hasn’t it?”

The old guard made his face—now grown darker and uglier, yet still retaining its deceptively kind appearance—break into a grin.

I now conducted my own criminal record check with the same nostalgic yet daunted feeling I had when facing that old guard.

That said, truth be told, I didn't remember well—even just three or four months prior, I had been frequently summoned to the Prosecutor's Office over the rice riots and newspaper matters and subjected to various interrogations, but even then I couldn't properly answer questions about my own criminal record.
And finally,

"Since your investigation must have it thoroughly documented without error."

With that being said, I had the prosecutor read it aloud,

“Well, that must be how it is.”

I had vaguely settled it with that; however, upon later reflection, there seemed to be some minor errors in the prosecutor’s investigation. It appeared my criminal record had been reduced by one count.

If one were to check newspapers and magazines from that time, it would likely become clear immediately, but since that’s too troublesome, I will simply list here the charges and sentences as I remember them. As for which year and month on what day I entered and which year and month on what day I left, I don’t remember a single one. Even my own “collar number” from prison—the very first one, 977—is the only one I remember. This isn’t just me. Certainly—go ask Sakai (Toshihiko), Yamakawa (Hitoshi), Yamaguchi (Koken), or any of our other comrades with three or four prior convictions. None of them could give a proper answer. As for the sentence length of the first Newspaper Ordinance violation I listed next (now changed to Newspaper Law violation), I don’t clearly remember that either—it’s all just a hazy memory.

1. Violation of the Newspaper Ordinance (Disturbing Public Order) — Three Months

2. Violation of the Newspaper Ordinance (Disturbance of Imperial Governance) — Five Months

3. Violation of the Public Order and Police Law (Rooftop Speech Incident) — One and a Half Months

4. Assembly of Violent Groups Charge (Tram Incident) — Two Years

Resisting Government Officials Charge

5. — (Red Flag Incident) Two and a Half Years

Violation of the Public Order and Police Law

Looking at this, my criminal record showed five offenses with sentences totaling nearly six years, though I'd actually served just over three years.
Compared to the thirty years served by Preshkovskaya—the revolutionary old woman who'd briefly stopped in Japan last month—mine amounted to a mere ten percent.
Sakai, Yamakawa, and Yamaguchi all had about the same number of prior offenses as I did, though Yamaguchi and Yamakawa likely received sentences one or two years longer.
Someone like me remained very much the junior member among our comrades.

My debut came in the spring of my twenty-second year with the Assembly of Violent Groups charge stemming from a citizens' rally organized by the Japan Socialist Party (which no longer exists today) opposing a tram fare hike (when one-way fares were set to rise from three sen to five sen). I entered detention in March and was released on bail that June.
And the other four incidents occurred during the over two years I spent on bail while this Assembly of Violent Groups charge was being resolved.
I also served out the nine-and-a-half-month sentences for the three incidents from one to three during this bail period.

In this way, during cycles of seeing daylight for two months or at most six months—going out and coming back in—I was finally apprehended in the summer of my twenty-fourth year at Kinkikan Hall for brandishing that anarchist-communist red flag, and simultaneously, the Tram Incident matter was settled.
And thanks to the gracious old Penal Code of that time—where they treated the three other cases excluding the two Newspaper Ordinance violations as combined crimes based on severity—the two years from the Tram Incident and the already-served one and a half months from the Rooftop Speech Incident were all absorbed into the two and a half years of the Red Flag Incident.
In other words, it all just zeroed out.

They must have stamped their feet in frustration at the Prosecutor’s Office—and rightly so. Even though I had been jailed three times while on bail, they had completely forgotten I was still under bail. However, on my end, thanks to that oversight, I made quite the profit. But with the New Penal Code taking effect that October—now requiring each crime to be severely punished individually regardless of quantity—there would be no more such lucrative opportunities.

Thus at year's end of my twenty-seventh year—about a month before Kōtoku and his band of traitors were to be executed—I briefly saw daylight again, and have maintained this seclusion ever since, a full seven years to this very day.

Therefore, my life in prison spanned six years from the spring of my twenty-second year to the end of my twenty-seventh, with sporadic intervals in between.
And the fact that I, now thirty-four years old in the prime of discretion, am still branded as a "dangerous individual" through such alarming epithets stems from those impetuous youthful errors made between the spring of my twenty-second year and summer of my twenty-fourth.

What a wretched flophouse

However, on one later occasion through some trivial matter, I found myself briefly going to Tokyo Prison.
But this was neither reckless impulse of youthful vigor nor error of immature judgment.
Indeed, even the officials themselves sent me home with apologies—"We must humbly beg your pardon"—such was their contrition.
This happened in the current year, and the circumstances unfolded roughly thus.

On the evening of March 1st, there was a small gathering of comrades at a fellow associate's house in Ueno. On the way back, as it had grown too late for any trains to Kameido, we decided to try staying at Wada's old haunt—a flophouse in Namidabashi—and so I walked from Mita along the Nihon Embankment with the two men who shared my lodgings: Wada and Hisaita. Both Wada and Hisaita are now in Tokyo Prison for their first Newspaper Law violation, but Hayashi Takeo's "Portrait of Mr. H," shown at this year's Nikakai exhibition, depicts this Hisaita.

As I passed by Yoshiwara's main gate, a large crowd had gathered and was clamoring loudly.
A laborer-looking man who'd gotten drunk and accidentally broken a bar's window glass found himself seized by local hoodlums and a police officer demanding compensation while threatening custody.

The shabby man kept apologizing profusely as he staggered unsteadily.
I couldn't stand watching and pushed through the crowd.
After leading him five or six steps aside and hearing his story, I turned to address everyone gathered there.

“This man doesn’t have a single sen on him right now.”
“I’ll cover the compensation.”
“That should settle it.”
“Really, it isn’t right to call officers here every single time something happens.”
“One should avoid imposing on the authorities whenever possible.”
“Major matters can be settled like this—just by the people present there.”

The bar men also accepted this.
The local hoodlums also accepted this.
The crowd of gawking onlookers also accepted this.
However, the only one who couldn't accept this was the policeman.

“You’re a socialist!”

The policeman who had been scowling at me from the start suddenly lashed out at me.

"That's right—what of it?"

I lashed out at the policeman too.

"So you're a socialist. Fine—I'll take you into custody."
"Come with me."

"That's rich."
"I'll go anywhere you like."

I shook off the policeman's hand, took the lead, and immediately leaped into the Nihonzutsumi Police Station right before my eyes.
The duty officer abruptly ordered the policeman to shove not just us but even the other two who had followed behind into the holding cell.

This was the simple truth behind the incident sensationalized in newspapers of the time under grandiose headlines like "Ōsugi Sakae and Others Apprehended"—where they fabricated baseless lies about us being drunkards who stormed into Yoshiwara, interfered with a policeman trying to detain another drunkard, or fled with that drunkard tucked under our arms.

The next morning, an inspector emerged to repeatedly apologize for last night's blunder, even treating us to breakfast while urging, "Please just go home quietly." But when we tried to leave, the station chief appeared this time, and somehow we found ourselves returned to our original holding cell.

Thus, under the name of obstruction of official duties, we became guests at an outrageous flophouse—two nights at the police station, one night at the Metropolitan Police Department, and five nights at Tokyo Prison—

“We must sincerely apologize. Please return home with this,” came the farewell as I was dismissed.

Fundamentally, I am—a man who can’t drink even a drop, who has never once visited a brothel in his life, who always loses at arm wrestling even against my wife—a truly upright and spineless soul.

My wife was also taken along.

And then, when I returned this summer after observing the Osaka Rice Riots for about a week,

“Just a quick trip to the police station.”

With that, I was then and there taken to Itabashi Police Station and kept under police custody for about ten days under the pretext of "protective custody."

However, this too was apparently not because I had done anything wrong in Osaka, nor from any suspicion that I might do something upon returning to Tokyo, but rather stemmed from the authorities’ “benevolence”—the reasoning being that given my past history, I might be mistaken for a rioter and end up pitifully falling under police officers’ and soldiers’ sabers.
I was ushered into an elegant tatami room, had the station chief himself come three times daily to take my meal orders, and saw any women who came to visit me each day detained,

“How about it, ma’am? I deeply apologize for the inconvenience of such accommodations, but there’s absolutely no need to worry—please do stay here as well, ma’am.”

Considering he had said such things with a straight face, I had likely come to fully believe it myself.
At the time, I heard that newspapers here and there had written about me giving street speeches in Osaka or being detained, but all of that was utterly groundless fabrications by newspapermen.
Beyond these，there were countless other instances of “protective custody” arising from this sort of authorities’ “benevolence,” but they are neither my wrongdoing nor any good deed.

Anyway, since my affairs ended up riddled with misunderstandings wherever I went and whatever they concerned, I first made sure to set down this much of an explanation.

First Incarceration

“Come on, get in.”

The guard clanged and clattered the lock open with a tremendous racket before sliding the door aside. Following his orders, I gathered up the futon and meal box that had just been handed to me and stepped inside.

“Put that box on the shelf.”
“Good.”
“Then fold the futon in two with the pillow on this side.”
“Good.”
“The rest I’ll show you tomorrow.”
“Go to sleep immediately.”

Having tersely finished speaking, the guard slammed the door shut with a dreadful clanging, rattling, and clattering—a noise that seemed to shake not just the cell but the entire building.

"This will be my home for the time being, I suppose."

With that thought, I stood rooted to the spot and first surveyed my surroundings.
It was a neat little room of about three tatami mats in size.
Two still-new borderless tatami mats were laid out, and the remaining space for one mat beneath the window on the side opposite the entrance had been made into wooden flooring.
In the right half of that space, there was a faucet and an iron washstand in the corner, with a broom, dustpan, and rag hanging below them, and what appeared to be a rag bucket placed there.
The left half consisted of two wooden planks, with a hole in the center just large enough to insert a finger.
Wondering what it was, when I lifted the plank, about one shaku below was a layer of artificial stone, and in its center lay a narrow wooden lid about one shaku in length, fitted with a small handle.
When I removed it, a pungent and musty stench wafted up.
Toilet.
I immediately went inside and urinated.
Below, an empty bucket seemed to be placed, making a splashing sound.
I restored the plank to its original position, turned on the faucet, and washed my hands.
The window was positioned at a height where I could just barely reach eye level by standing on tiptoes, measuring about three shaku in width and four shaku in height.
Through the glass, what I saw outside was a starless, pitch-black night.
The four walls of the cell had thick planks nailed between square pillars three sun across, spaced about two shaku apart.
And from high above the ceiling, a five-candlepower electric lamp blazed brightly, illuminating the entire cell.

"This is first-rate.
Comfortable and Convenient Simple Life!"

I muttered to myself while hanging the hand towel on the rod beneath the left-side shelf—the rod meant for towels—then retightened the blue cord belt of the blue prison uniform I'd been made to change into earlier, before attempting to burrow into the futon.

"But where is everyone, I wonder."

I thought about the ten or so comrades who had been arrested on the day of the citizens' assembly four or five days prior. And I quietly peered down the corridor through the "peephole" attached near the top of the entrance door. It was the same corridor where I had earlier furtively glanced left and right while thinking that very thought. Across the corridor spaced about two ken apart stood rows upon rows of doors resembling giant faces—each bearing a nose-like white-polished iron lock that clanged fearsomely, eyes-like “peepholes” above them, and mouth-like “food slot” windows measuring five sun square at the base. Light from the cells leaked through their eyes into the dim corridor, and their twisted noses glistened whitely. However, this "peephole"—carved from thick three-sun planks with its interior widened and exterior narrowed—likely served well for viewing inside from without, but proved inadequate for peering outward from within. Therefore, crouching down this time, I quietly pried open the "food slot" door with a fingernail. The usual giant faces were now more numerous than before, and every last one from one end of the building to the other became visible. Yet from none of those twenty-some faces' eyes did the truly human eyes I had anticipated ever emerge. And then the giant faces, all seeming to glare this way, began to feel somewhat eerie.

Everyone must be asleep by now.
I should sleep too.
I'll worry about everyone tomorrow.

I gently closed the door again with my fingernail and hurriedly burrowed into my bedding.
I was also shivering from the cold with nothing but a single layer of wadded clothing and a thin undergarment.

Then, on the right wall of the cell,

“Knock, knock.
Knock, knock.
Knock, knock.”

Then came a knocking sound.
I leapt up.
And then—knock, knock, knock—in exactly the same manner they had described: I had long since read in books about Russian comrades in prison using this knocking method to communicate by rapping on boards with clenched fists.
I thought that surely some comrade was in the next cell and trying to speak to me.

“You’re Mr. Ōsugi, aren’t you?”

However, the voice was unfamiliar and childlike.

“Yes, that’s right. And you are?”

I asked back in a low voice imitating that tone. It was a man with an unfamiliar voice. And yet he already knew my name, though I’d only just arrived. I couldn’t help but find that strange.

“I’m nobody important, but... I was just told by the neighbor to come here. Everyone’s been waiting for you to come every day, they said, and since there was a new arrival now, they figured it must be you, so they asked me to check with you.”

“Who’s this neighbor of yours?”

I was astonished at how increasingly unexpected things were becoming.

“He’s a Mr. ○○ involved in the arson incident.”
“Since that person and Mr. Yamaguchi are across from each other and meet every day during hot water and exercise times, I’d been asked by Mr. Yamaguchi about you.”

“Couldn’t I have a word with that Yamaguchi?”

“Oh, please wait a moment.”
“I’ll try talking to the neighbor then.”
“Because right now, the guard had just left for his break.”

After some time passed, someone told me to open the food slot, so I hurriedly did so and saw half of Yamaguchi's bespectacled face visible through the third food slot from the front across from me.

“Hey, you made it. How is Mr. Sakai? Is he alright?”

“He’s safe. He was summoned to the Metropolitan Police Headquarters yesterday, but it seems nothing came of it.”

“Well, that’s a relief. Has anyone else come besides you?”

“No, it’s just me.”

I answered and called out “Hey, hey” to Yamaguchi, who had quickly withdrawn his face.

“Where are all the others? What about Nishikawa (Mitsujirō)?”

“Shh, shh.”

Yamaguchi briefly showed his face, remaining cautious like this, then withdrew it again.
The clunking sound of footsteps echoed from far away.
I hurriedly burrowed back into my bedding.
The footsteps drew near, right up to beside my pillow, but then gradually faded away into the distance from where they had come.

“Knock-knock, knock-knock, knock-knock.”

Then once again came the sound of knocking on the wall from next door.
And using this man next door as an intermediary, I talked for a while with a man named ○○ in the cell beyond.
I learned that Nishikawa was on the second floor with two or three others, and that here on the same side as me there was one more person.

I was unbearably fascinated.
From yesterday evening when I was arrested through my first imprisonment—filled purely with curiosity about what sort of place this would be and what experiences awaited me—I had been led step by step: from police station to Metropolitan Police Headquarters, from Headquarters to Prosecutor’s Office, from there to prison. Now thoroughly satisfied by this progression, comforted by the settled ease of having a fixed destination and the reassurance of comrades being immediately close at hand, I forgot both the cramped discomfort of sleeping like a kashiwa mochi in a single futon and the cold. After turning over once or twice, I fell asleep almost instantly.

Noguchi Otosaburō

The next day it rained, making outdoor exercise impossible, so right after breakfast they had us take walks in the corridor in groups of three or four.

I opened the usual food slot and watched everyone circling through the corridor.
Through an intermediary who had spoken with Yamaguchi the previous night, I exchanged nods with another man.
From my neighbor I soon learned, when that group went out for their walk, that the person staying with another comrade was Noguchi Otosaburō—perpetrator of the then-notorious Neisai murder case.
Otosaburō too, having apparently heard about me through his companion, immediately acknowledged me with a glance when our eyes met.

This marked the beginning of my connection with Otosaburō, and though we hardly exchanged words over the next two-plus years until his execution, we maintained a friendly rapport.
During that period, I came and went, staying there two or three times for short stretches. Furthermore, whenever I was taken from Sugamo Detention Center to court for remaining charges, I was invariably made to spend one night there each time.
And particularly during times when I was in the restricted status of a convicted prisoner, I received considerable assistance from Otosaburō.
Through Otosaburō’s own hands or via prisoners working as errand runners under the title of miscellaneous labor, I received washi paper and bread several times through the usual food slot.
Each time I went out, I would send him some book through the channels.

Even among his fellow defendants in prison, Otosaburō was thoroughly unpopular.
The story went that he constantly buttered up the warden and various officials, and thanks to this was rather well-liked, which was why his execution kept getting postponed.
In the small wooden enclosure—colloquially called a "shamisen box"—about two shaku square near the visitation area, where prisoners were placed while awaiting their turn, phrases of righteous indignation such as "Execute the vile Otosaburō swiftly!" had been carved with fingernails here and there on the walls.

One reason he became close to someone like me may have been his desire to have himself publicized in society. In fact, I received letters with such implications once or twice while in prison.
It is said he had always made similar remarks to the comrades he was associated with.

In short, he was an extremely timid man.
Whenever he spoke of Neisai’s daughter and child, he would genuinely grow teary-eyed.
He claimed never to let go of the child’s photo for a moment, and once even showed it to me.
He also declared, “This is a picture I drew of a woman and child,” presenting a colored painting that resembled a magazine frontispiece.
It had undoubtedly been traced from some such illustration.
But how had he obtained the paints?
He must have gone to extraordinary lengths—extracting pigments from something and piecing them together.
Yet for what purpose had he undertaken such pains?
Moreover, it depicted neither his own woman nor child, but rather the face of an utter stranger bearing no resemblance whatsoever.

There had been a time when he was extremely delighted, claiming he’d been acquitted in the Neisai murder case due to insufficient evidence. Again—though I don’t know whether this was true or false—he had also claimed that in the pharmacist murder case, there had been another accomplice who actually carried out the deed; since this man had managed to escape unscathed, he was now providing daily meal deliveries and handling legal matters with lawyers. And there had been times when he had become extremely angry at that man and vehemently declared he would expose everything about him in court.

After being held again in the detention center during the Red Flag Incident, one day while walking in the exercise yard, I saw Noguchi Otosaburō lean out from a second-floor window to show me something written on washi paper—on it,

"PRAY FOR HEALTH"

was scrawled in large katakana characters.
I responded with a silent nod.
Otosaburō smiled his usual lonely smile, dipped his head several times in mock bows, and kept his eyes fixed on me for a long moment.

Whether the next day or the day after that, word finally spread through the prison that Otosaburō had been executed.

Debagame

I met Debagame there as well.
He didn’t seem to have buckteeth prominent enough to be particularly noticeable.
He always looked shabby, hunched his back, and scurried about with quick, short steps while smiling cheerfully.
And by everyone,

“Hey, Debagame.”

Even while being teased with such remarks, he still kept smiling cheerfully.
Even when his sentence was decided,

“Hey, Debagame, how many years did you get?”

When asked by the guard,

“Oh, life sentence.”
“Eheheh...”

he laughed.

Robber-Murderer

Then, there were also three men who became close prison friends during exercise and bath times there.

One was a burly large man in his forties who had previously been sentenced to death for robbery-murder, had his sentence commuted to life with labor and sent to Hokkaido, escaped during that time, was caught again for robbery-murder, and once more received a death sentence. Another was a refined man from Kamigata, also in his forties, who had come from Kyoto appealing—whether through a formal appeal or a higher court petition—for his counterfeiting charges. And the third and final man was a refined elderly gentleman in his sixties with abundant white hair, who had entered after me on fraud charges and joined our group.

Robber-Murderer often told stories about when he escaped from Hokkaido. He said they had hidden deep in the mountains for about a month, eating whatever tree buds and roots they could find, but—

“There’s nothing you can’t eat, you know.”

While stroking the coarse beard he had let grow unchecked since entering prison by refusing to allow a razor near it, his small eyes darted about.

And,

“Anyway, who knows when they’ll wring my neck….”

He would make as many selfish demands as possible, and if even the slightest of these was refused, he would fly into a violent rage.
He stayed in the bath longer than anyone else.
He also exercised for a long time.
Thanks to him, the members of our group were spared various hardships.
In front of this man, even the most demonic guards suddenly became buddhas.
Whenever the guards said or did something rough to a prisoner or defendant, this man would stand defiantly and continue shouting and raging until other guards came to calm him down.
On the other hand, when they skillfully flattered him a bit, he would become as docile as a cat and act sweetly like a child.

On one occasion, when he noticed a female guard passing outside the window roughly shoving from behind and berating a woman she had brought—either a defendant or detainee—who had apparently lifted her woven sedge hat slightly to glance toward the window where the men were, throughout the day,

“Ito, you demon hag! Demon hag! Demon hag!”

he kept shouting in a rasping voice.
Now that I cannot remember a single one of the guards’ names, this name Ito alone still reverberates in my ears.
She was already well along in years—a tall woman.
At that time, I too was using a rag bucket as a footstool to watch the women pass by.

This Robber-Murderer, so kind to his comrades, had on one occasion shouted at the Counterfeiter.
The Counterfeiter had apparently run a brothel in Manchuria for many years.
And these frequently replaced wives of his were all said to be fully trained geisha from Japan proper.
The Counterfeiter had also put those wives to work in the trade.

“You’re a real piece of work, making your own wife whore herself out, you idiot!”

Robber-Murderer ferociously lashed out at Counterfeiter in the middle of the exercise yard.
Finally, I and the elderly fraudster managed to calm him down.

“I’ve committed robberies too.
“I set fires too.
“I killed people too.
“But I’ve never done anything as bad as making my own wife become a prostitute.
“You don’t think doing that’s wrong at all?
“Doesn’t that sicken you?”

After finally calming down, he now called him “you” as usual and quietly interrogated Counterfeiter.

“Well, honestly, I don’t feel the slightest bit bad about it, nor do I even think it’s wrong.”
“I’ve just been doing that as naturally as breathing all this time.”
“Moreover, my wives always earned the most profit for me.”

The Counterfeiter, still pale-faced and hesitantly, yet honestly confessed.
The elderly fraudster—a man of refined bearing yet somehow lecherous, who always kept 16- or 17-year-old girls as mistresses—opened his mouth wide and laughed boisterously: “Ha ha ha!”
Robber-Murderer maintained an indignant expression as if declaring “What a bunch of hopeless fools,” yet in the end, he too joined the elderly fraudster in grinning along.

The Counterfeiter and the Elderly Fraudster were walking together amicably.
The two boasted to each other about their betting stakes in hana gambling and exchanged stories about profits from their successful crimes.
The Counterfeiter had apparently once counterfeited Russian banknotes and made a huge profit.
The Elderly Fraudster’s method mostly involved erasing cancellation marks on revenue stamps and reselling them.
And the elderly fraudster,
“When I get out this time, I think I’ll try forgery using photos like you did.”

While saying this, he persistently asked the Counterfeiter for detailed explanations of the photographic techniques.

I would occasionally share eggs and bread from care packages with the Robber-Murderer, looking forward to hearing his guileless fervor.

The Robber-Murderer remained unharmed for three or four years after sentencing—I suppose the evidence against him must have been sufficient after all—but later had his death sentence commuted and was reportedly sent to Hokkaido.

Sugamo Volume

A slightly bespectacled Sir

When people say "Sugamo-bound," in society—apart from referring to the train line—it means someone slightly unhinged, but among us, it signifies being sent to prison. Yet since we lot are treated as lunatics by society anyway, I suppose both interpretations ultimately amount to the same thing.

I went to this Sugamo three times in total.
To be precise, it was actually two times—while serving my sentence for the first violation of the Newspaper Ordinance, a second violation was decided, and upon completing the prior term, I immediately began serving the subsequent one.
Next came a violation of the Public Order Police Law.

I think it was probably Kajibashi—when the old jail was demolished and a new stone-and-brick prison built there, they erected in one corner of the grounds a building using timber from the old jail, an exact replica of the original structure.
This building had become something like a semi-infirmary housing disabled individuals and semi-invalids—the blind, cripples, elderly people with unsteady legs.
Both times, I was assigned a spacious room within this building.

When I was first transferred from Tokyo Prison to this place and thrown into a cold, dark solitary cell, truth be told, I felt somewhat uneasy.
It was near noon on a warm spring day verging on summer, with the sun shining warmly.
Yet upon entering the cell, my entire body was suddenly struck by a shiver from the cold air.
The whitewashed brick walls on all sides and the large iron-plated entrance door radiated a palpable chill just to look at them.
When I tentatively pressed my hand against it, a creeping coldness began seeping into my body from that contact.
Moreover, the window—positioned too high to reach even when stretching upward, with only a small opening near the ceiling—left the room dim and gloomy.
Even the single thin mat laid across the wooden floorboards as seating felt clammy with dampness.

I sat on the thin mat near the door as ordered, facing it—the door having iron plates at top and bottom with iron bars between them—while a guard stood rigidly behind a table positioned directly before my cell. The discomfort of constant surveillance rendered even the guard's rather ordinary face—not particularly malicious-looking—strangely disagreeable.
The Russian proverb "A stone house chills the human heart" came to mind, and observing how this man kept stealing glances in my direction, I became convinced he must surely harbor a cold heart.

Before long, as I wondered about the clattering noise that had been echoing through the corridor for some time, the guard opened the cell door and barked "Out!" When I emerged, I saw about twenty prisoners sitting face-to-face in two rows on thin mats laid over concrete, hands placed on knees as they faced their meal trays.
I also sat at the end.

“Salute!”

For me experiencing this for the first time, it was unclear what this loud command meant.
Everyone lowered their heads while keeping their hands on their knees.
I blankly watched what everyone was doing.

“Commence meal!”

Once again I couldn’t comprehend what was happening—only a sharp 'bang' rang out clearly, followed by another loud-voiced command.
Everyone hurriedly took their bowls and chopsticks in hand.
Then each of them began hurriedly shoveling the rice—formed into large conical mounds in separate big bowls—in such a manner that one might think them starving specters from the realm of hungry ghosts: transferring rice from serving bowls to their own, cramming it into mouths, swallowing, then cramming again, swallowing.
The speed was truly the literal blink of an eye.
I watched in stunned silence.

“Number [thousands][hundreds][tens]!”

The guard shouted loudly again.
Startled, I turned toward the sound.

“What are you dawdling for?
Hurry up and eat your meal.”

The guard was yelling at me.
I looked down at my collar and realized for the first time that this several-thousand-several-hundred-several-tens number would be my name from today onward.
And then hurriedly picked up the bowl.
But by the time I had finally managed to munch down about one-fifth of that conical lump, everyone had already returned to their initial posture with hands on knees, sitting properly.

Although I had seen it constantly since then, the speed at which the prisoners ate their meals remained truly astonishing. As if teeth served no purpose, they simply shoveled it down and swallowed.

“There’s really no helping it.”
“No matter how much you tell them it’s bad for their bodies, they simply can’t help doing it that way.”
“Yet when you hear their reasoning—absurd though it may be—you can’t help feeling some sympathy.”
“They claim that on days when they chew properly, the food digests too quickly and leaves them unbearably hungry.”

The monk, true to his monastic role, once discussed this with the prison chaplain, who responded by furrowing his brows while wearing a strained smile.

Munching away any longer felt improper toward everyone sitting properly in seiza as they waited, and I myself grew somewhat self-conscious; moreover, I found myself thoroughly overwhelmed by the coarse four-six ration—four parts Nanjing rice to six parts barley—that filled my bowl to bursting. Thus I simply laid down my chopsticks.

Everyone was led back to their cells.
Having grown thoroughly disquieted, I found this meal experience returning me to my customary principle of curiosity-satisfaction.
And I felt an odd sense of deprivation that practices Sakai had described from when our comrades first entered this place years earlier—being made to crawl naked on all fours during strip searches while guards inspected their anuses, or being forced to walk with hands glued to hips without swinging arms—had now been abolished.

The next morning, I was moved among the group of semi-invalids and disabled individuals I had mentioned earlier. The place where I had been until now was a special building housing temporary occupants—new inmates, those scheduled for release the next day, or those punitively confined to solitary cells. Ishikawa Sanshirō and Yamaguchi had already occupied one of the rooms, also for violating the Newspaper Ordinance. In the order of Yamaguchi, Ishikawa, and I, I was placed in the adjacent cell. It was a spacious room that could likely fit about ten to twelve tatami mats. The front and back were fitted with the usual prison-like bars, with large shoji screens set into the rear latticework; opening those screens revealed a large paulownia tree spreading its branches right outside. The front latticework, separated by an earthen floor of about three feet, also faced a shoji screen. Beyond this shoji screen too, a paulownia tree could be seen. The left and right sides of the room connected to other similar chambers separated by wooden doors. In the earthen-floored area, guards were loitering.

"Ah, these bars—the ones he mentioned."

As I spread a thin mat in a corner near the earthen-floored area and sat directly before the latticework bars, I recalled Sakai’s story. When Sakai had been admitted previously, he too had been placed there. And he had lived together with the teachers and officials from the Textbook Incident. If petty people live in quiet seclusion, they probably wouldn’t engage in such mischief, but when gathered in large groups, it seems they come up with outrageous schemes. They would liken these bars to those of a brothel, and themselves—bearded as they were—to courtesans (though it was hardly a witty pun about "bearded courtesans"), while outrageously teasing the guards by pretending they were customers, playing pranks like calling out, “Hey there, Mr. Bespectacled! Why don’t you step over here for a bit?”

Since becoming this bearded courtesan, I too had become completely light-hearted.
The room was bright.
The outside could be viewed quite freely.
The shoji evoked a strangely homey feeling.
Right next door were comrades.
The guards too, since those they dealt with were disabled individuals and the elderly, seemed to have been specially selected for their Buddha-like demeanor.

Meeting an Old Friend

It happened about an hour after I had been moved to that cell. Suddenly, there stood a prisoner before my cell, staring fixedly at my face. While thinking the face looked familiar, I found myself unable to recall it as I kept gazing.

"Hey!"

Finally recalling, I called out.

“Yeah, it is you after all. Every time I passed by earlier, time and time again, I thought your face looked familiar and wanted to call out—but really, how did you end up in a place like this?”

The man asked with a pained, puzzled expression.
But for me, my own coming to such a place was not at all strange; rather, meeting that man here was far more peculiar.

“Mine was over the newspaper matter, but you—how did you end up here?”

“Well, I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself. Though I suppose you’ve truly become the genuine article now.”

When asked about his criminal charge, the man suddenly turned bright red and, saying this,

“Well, excuse me—we’ll meet again.”

hurried away as if fleeing.

He and I had been comrades expelled from the Army Cadet School for similar reasons.
He had attended the Sendai Cadet School while I was at Nagoya’s, but when we were just six months from graduation, we were ordered to leave nearly simultaneously.
Both of us immediately came to Tokyo where we happened to meet by chance.
He had two more comrades who had been expelled alongside him from Sendai.
One of them had been my childhood friend since elementary school.
Thus the four expelled cadets gathered.
Then stragglers from Osaka and Tokyo joined them, forming a group of eight or nine comrades.
Everyone vowed to erase the disgrace of expulsion by helping each other study hard.
They all immediately entered fifth year at various middle schools.
However, he and another comrade broke their vow midway and began slacking off.
The group became indignant and admonished them several times,
finally declaring a severance of ties.
The following year, all other comrades passed entrance exams for specialized schools.
But no one knew what had become of those two.
Everyone had come to regret the severance.

It had been exactly four or five years since then.
My imprisonment, from his perspective, was "finally becoming the real thing."
However, his own imprisonment, when considered alongside that past severance, must have left him “thoroughly ashamed”—
though in truth, that shame was likely nonexistent.
But for my part, the severance we had imposed on him now weighed even heavier with regret.

Apparently, he had been acting as something like the leader of a delinquent youth group around Waseda. And from what was merely a prank by the members—not even amounting to robbery—he had been saddled with the terrifying charge of instigating robbery, it was said. And he, who had once been a top student at the Sendai Army District Youth School, was now performing miscellaneous labor at Sugamo Prison—carrying meals to other prisoners and transporting materials for their work.

He performed miscellaneous labor within this building until my second arrival neared its completion. I don't know where or how he obtained them, but there was a time when he brought lumps of rock sugar nearly every day. And somehow knowing about the wife who came for monthly visits, he would say, “Your wife’s here. The guards will probably come to call you soon, so you should get ready and wait.” He would inform me of things like that.

One day he suddenly vanished; that night, through a guard's hands, I received a scrap of paper saying, "I'll be released on parole tomorrow—when you get out, I'll come see you right away." But to this day, I've not once met him again.

Release in the Twenty-Fifth Year

There was an old man over sixty who also performed miscellaneous labor together with this man.
He too had been released shortly before I completed my second full term, and he used to say something about seeing daylight in his twenty-fifth or sixth year.

“What things like streetcars are like—no matter how much I hear about them or think about them, I just can’t wrap my head around it.
I mean, I first learned about electric lights right here.”

One time he said while looking up at the electric light with a dreamlike gaze. When a guard was nearby and joined in conversation, he would often talk about various things. However, when that was not the case, he would hardly utter a word beyond what was necessary for his duties as a laborer. Even when in his own cell, he remained the same. Even when others seized moments of guard inattention to engage in mischief and chatter, he alone remained silent, reading some book annotated with phonetic guides. Even when spoken to, he would not respond. Even when performing his duties as a laborer, he was even more of a stickler than the most malicious guards.

“Hey you, these filthy clothes won’t do at all.
Bring me something newer.”

I once pointed out to this old man the inadequacy of the clothes he had brought.

“Don’t be so fussy.”

The old man dismissively said this and headed toward the neighboring room.

“Hey, you! You there!”

I tried to call him back in a slightly louder voice.
The guard heard this and came over.
After briefly hearing my complaint,

“Bring him a new one.”

he ordered the old man.
The old man went to fetch it while grumbling under his breath.

This may not have been the best example of the old man’s stickler tendencies, but everything followed this pattern.
Complaints from other prisoners were never accepted.
Even the toilet paper they distributed at half a sheet per day—no matter how much you pleaded for an extra sheet due to stomach troubles—they never gave more than allotted.
At times, he would even confront guards who said things like “Just give him what he wants,” using prison regulations as his shield. But in adhering to these regulations, as mentioned earlier, he was utterly consistent—the very embodiment of the rules themselves.
Following prison regulations from years past to the letter, he walked without swinging his arms in the slightest, keeping all five fingers rigidly extended and pressed firmly against his waist.
He also wore about three white square commendation cloths on his arm.

It was said that he had initially been sentenced to death for murder, commuted to life imprisonment, then reduced again and again on subsequent occasions until finally being discharged.
The term "stickler" had apparently originated as something akin to an honest man from the very beginning, but since entering prison—while regretting the crimes born from that rigid disposition—he had channeled all his exactitude solely into strict adherence to prison regulations, thereby becoming an ever more peculiar sort of stickler.

Limping Youth

In the neighboring room lived about ten disabled individuals.
Among them were an old man in his seventies; a large young man whose face—had one encountered him in a forest—would have seemed unmistakably chimpanzee-like; and a youth who walked with a limp and an oddly protruding backside.
The chimpanzee-like man was not exactly blind, though both eyes appeared to see poorly.
Beneath high eyebrows, his deeply sunken narrow eyes perpetually squinted.
This man went out briefly once during my stay and immediately returned.
They all seemed like mere sneak thieves.

This boy was quite the jokester, making everyone laugh and stirring up commotion all day long.
Someone would suddenly let out a fart.
Then this boy would say things like “There, there” or “Okay, okay,” as if soothing a baby.
Throughout the day, everyone farted so frequently that keeping count proved impossible.
And every time this happened, the boy would say something like that and make everyone laugh.
Listening next door, I too would occasionally burst out laughing.

When they grew tired of work, everyone would often go into the bathroom and take a breather.

“How long are you going to stay in the bathroom?”

Sometimes the guards would come around two or three times and scold the same person still squatting in the bathroom.
Then the boy would say, “It’s a difficult birth,” while groaning “Ugh, ugh” for show.
Everyone burst into laughter.
In the end, the guard snapped, “Get out already—enough of this,” and stalked off.

The laughter from next door—how much it must have comforted me through the tedium of those long days.

Letters from Prison

My daily routine was such that upon waking each morning, I would first sweep this spacious room, and after that, all I had to do was spend the day at my desk reading, writing, and thinking.

Apart from the dictionary, I could keep five or six books at hand.
And I could have them replaced with new ones once a week.
Pen, ink, and notebooks were specially permitted as personal items.

To view life during that period through unfiltered contemporary sentiment, I have transcribed several prison correspondence below.
These were all from those initial days.

"It’s gotten hot, hasn’t it? Even so, they say this Eleventh Block where we’re kept is the coolest spot in the whole prison. Unlike those cells with brick walls, iron-plated doors and three-foot windows, here both east and west walls are nothing but three-inch square bar grilles—and since both sides open directly to the outside, you get some breeze whenever there’s wind. What’s more, I’ve got this twelve-tatami room all to myself, lounging about in an eight-tatami mosquito net—getting up, lying down—playing at some antiquated elegance. For a commoner’s brat like me, it’s practically luxurious living. They even gave me two brand new kimonos—turned one into sleepwear. Sometimes I even get my laundry done."

"In the conclusion of Laozi’s second-to-last chapter appears a depiction of this passive anarchist society: 'They find their food sweet, their clothes beautiful, their dwellings peaceful, their customs joyful; neighboring states watch each other across the border, hear each other’s roosters crowing and dogs barking, yet the people grow old and die without ever visiting one another.' Though I find basing it solely on that initial 'sweetness' somewhat precarious, when I consider our present existence—isn’t this precisely what it resembles? Curiously enough, these days I’ve nearly lost all sense of being imprisoned—save for certain exceptional moments—or so it seems to me."
(To Sakai)

This mosquito net reminded me of one sweltering night when I couldn’t sleep and spoke to a guard pacing through the earthen-floored area.

“Even if it’s a bit hot, you lot have it good.”
“I’ve been lying here watching you through this mosquito net and thinking long and hard.”
“Staring through these bars at you all, I’ve truly come to wonder which of us is the real prisoner here.”

The guard said with a laugh, though his words spilled out earnestly.

After some time had passed, I sent a letter addressed to Kōtoku.

"The summer heat had passed.
The mornings and evenings grew almost too cool.
And I found myself being teased by the guards with remarks like 'You've put on some weight, eh?'

Lately there's been something remarkable about reading.
I open books.
Bakunin, Kropotkin, Reclus, Malatesta—every anarchist begins by expounding on astronomy.
Next they elaborate on flora and fauna.
Finally they debate human society.
Eventually I tire of reading.
I raise my head and look outside.
What greets my eyes: sun and moon constellations, drifting clouds, paulownia leaves still green, sparrows and kites and crows descending to the prison roof across the way.
It felt precisely like rehearsing what I'd just read.
And I burn with shame at how paltry my knowledge of nature remains.
From now on I mean to study this natural world properly."

"The more I read and ponder, the more inescapably I conclude that nature is logic itself."
"Logic finds its perfect embodiment within nature."
"And this same logic must achieve complete realization within human society too—that natural extension of cosmic development."

“Alongside this investigative passion for nature, I’ve grown profoundly captivated by anthropology and human history."
"In this fashion, while my academic thirst kept welling forth like an eternal spring—overflowing from subject to subject—simultaneously…"

“How is your health, brother?
“How goes *The Conquest of Bread*?
I intend to immediately begin my long-cherished project of translating Kropotkin’s autobiography upon release from prison.
I am now closely reading it.”

Then, as my release approached, I sent a letter addressed to Yamakawa.
In that letter, the part about appearing in court and such referred to the later trial for violating the Newspaper Ordinance.

"I returned from Tokyo Prison yesterday. First I entered my cell and sat at the desk. I truly felt as though I had come home.

"I detest being summoned to court. What I find utterly unbearable is this business of cross-examining with judges. Sometimes I even think the Russian way—skipping trials and exiling people straight to Siberia—has a raw directness that's almost appealing. A prostitute suits me better than some noblewoman.

"Once the trial ends, they first send you to Tokyo Prison. The moment I pass through those gates, I always shudder thinking of the bedbugs. In a single night they bite you in twenty or thirty places—the pain and itching make sleep impossible. When I returned to Sugamo after two or three days, my fellow prisoners kept exclaiming how thin I'd become—'So thin! So thin!'"

"The only interesting thing about Tokyo Prison was the pigeons. Right around mealtime, they would flutter their wings noisily outside the window while calling out in strange voices. I tried tossing them a clump of rice. Over a dozen pigeons would scramble down and devour it in an instant. I threw another clump. Finding it so amusing, I kept hurling rice repeatedly without pause. There were times I threw away all my rice and breakfasted on nothing but soup; though hunger pangs troubled me later, never had I experienced such delight."

"I return to Sugamo.

'That was quick—how went your trial?' The guard inquired with feigned concern.

My mind settles.

Truly now do I feel home.

'Yet brief remains my tenure here.

This long idle life wearies me.

Soon would I depart.

To act with vigor—much have I pondered its shape.

Resolutions stand made.

Freed,I shall discourse at leisure with you all.

Convey my regards unto our comrades.'"

Shunkan of Kikaigashima

After being out for about a month and a half, I was thrown back in this time alongside Sakai, Yamakawa, and three other comrades over that notorious rooftop speech incident. Once sentencing was finalized, the other three remained at Tokyo Prison, while Sakai, Yamakawa, and I got shipped off to Sugamo.

"Oh, you're back again."

The guards and fellow prisoners welcomed us.

"They got me again. But this time, since I've come back before properly shaking off the prison air, being already accustomed to everything works out perfectly."

At the time, I was an editor for Nippon Heimin Shimbun, our organization’s newspaper, and wrote and sent a letter beginning in this manner to Morichika Unpei, who would later be executed alongside Kōtoku.

Yamaguchi had been admitted to the prison infirmary due to some illness.
I believe Yamakawa had indeed been transferred to another building.
Ishikawa, I, and Sakai were lined up in that order.

Sakai had already lost the courage of his younger days when he would cling to the cell bars and play "The Bearded Sir," but Ishikawa and I frequently played pranks on each other in adjacent cells.
During exercise time, we picked up a nail from outside and drilled a hole in the wall between our cells.
When we grew tired of books and notebooks, we would call out through that hole.
While Ishikawa was talking, I pressed my ear against it.
While I talked，Ishikawa pressed his ear.
However, this never went smoothly.
Sometimes we would press our mouths against it or press our ears against it.
Wondering what was wrong, I removed my ear and peeked through to find him also pressing his ear against it on the other side.
Whenever our discussions turned debate-like, we would argue—"It’s my turn to talk now, so you listen!"—spraying spit through the tiny hole.
At times one would say, "Just watch there for a bit," then go to the cell’s center to perform a dance.

While doing such things and fooling around, Ishikawa was writing nearly two thousand pages of *History of Western Social Movements*.
This was later published and banned from sale.
At the time, Sakai and I were translating a series titled *Heimin Science*, which he was editing.
Yamakawa was also doing that.

And just as each volume of this translation was completed, Sakai, Yamakawa, and I reached the end of our sentences.

"It’s pitiful, but you look just like Shunkan of Kikaigashima."
"However, just a little longer."
"Endure it."

Sakai and I said this to Ishikawa as we,

"Hey, Shunkan, farewell."

Sakai and I teased Shunkan and exited the building.

Chiba Volume

"There's loads of sardines to eat!"

However, within less than half a year—perhaps not even that—we were once again sent from the scene of that very Red Flag Incident to Tokyo Prison under the meticulously crafted charges of resisting officials and violating the Public Peace Police Law.
There were twelve of us in total—including four women—with Sakai, Yamakawa, Arahata, and others among our number.
Among the women was Sugano Suga—who had been acquitted due to the police’s flawed testimony, but who later founded a magazine with Kōtoku, was charged with violating the Newspaper Law, and ultimately executed alongside Kōtoku and others.

Simultaneously, the group involved in the Tram Incident—who had been released on bail two years prior—were acquitted in their first trial, then acquitted again in a second trial following a prosecutor’s appeal, only to have the Supreme Court order a retrial at the Sendai Appellate Court due to a further prosecutor’s appeal, where they were finally found guilty. Though they had now appealed this verdict to the Supreme Court themselves, their bail was abruptly revoked, and they too were imprisoned in Tokyo Prison.
This group consisted of seven or eight individuals including Nishikawa and Yamaguchi.
I was involved in both of these incidents.

Tokyo Prison became lively with comrades. However, when everyone except the women had been convicted, Tokyo Prison lacked both the capacity and facilities to place this number of people in individual solitary cells. We were like patients with a malignant contagious disease—they couldn’t house us with other prisoners, and there was a fear that placing us comrades together would only intensify the virulence. Thereupon, everyone was to be transferred to Chiba Prison—renowned as a model prison with the most modern architecture and facilities, housing Japan's only solitary confinement system.

Though Chiba's winter temperature was said to be five degrees higher than Tokyo's, the prison had been built in an elevated, arid favorable location in Chiba's northern suburbs—where it measured another five degrees warmer than Chiba Town itself in winter, and correspondingly colder in summer.

“That’s where all of you are headed.”

When the train approached Chiba, the Transportation Commandant Warden—speaking in the tone of an uncle taking his nephews to his house for the first time (indeed, this warden remained a decent uncle to us until the end)—pointed outside through the left window while boasting about various features of his domain. Everyone craned their necks to look. In the far distance, bathed in the autumn sun of an Indian summer day, they could see the beauty of the circular building, its high red brick walls shining brilliantly around it. The freshly painted persimmon color matching that kimono on every surface of the building’s exterior evoked an oddly gloomy feeling on rainy or overcast days, but when bathed in sunlight, it inspired a vivid, buoyant mood.

“I hear there’s loads of sardines to eat.”

I parroted to Arahata, who was right beside me, exactly as I had heard it from the miscellaneous labor prisoner yesterday.
Through several imprisonments, we had still never tasted any fish other than salted cod and salted salmon.
And for me who had heard this story, it had become the sole pleasant expectation.

“That sounds grand.”
“Can’t wait to get there and eat.”

Arahata, along with two or three others beside him, smiled with genuine delight.

The Crafting of Sandal Thongs

When we arrived and looked, sure enough, the building was newly constructed and gleaming brightly. The cell was a bright and neatly kept room of about 4.5 tatami mats in size, facing south. Above all, the window was low and large. It was far more comfortable than a modest Tokyo hospital room.

But first and foremost, I was astonished by how utterly lacking in cleverness the officials were.
Upon arrival, we were immediately lined up in a row and subjected to a lecture from the supervising guard captain.

"Since all of you now have lengthy sentences, strictly observe prison regulations. Those with two-year terms should strive to be released in one year, and those with one-year terms in half that time through your own efforts."

We were made to listen to this message repeated endlessly.
We sneered.
They actually think this trickery works on us.
Moreover, even if we took those words as genuine goodwill, believing that parole could be considered some sort of 'merciful act' for us would still be hopelessly naive.
It's as if they don't know us at all.
That much we could have tolerated.

When this lecture concluded and our party of eight (those from the Tram Incident had arrived slightly earlier) were placed into separate adjacent cells, the supervising guard captain now said:

“You really took a beating over petty matters, didn’t you.
“They say you get hefty sentences once you’re in—so how much did you all get this time?”

Such pathetic words.
It was treatment befitting political party members or their zealots.
Even Sakai and the rest could only exchange bitter smiles.
However, Arahata—who usually appeared to be nervously biting his nails but had since begun actively displaying his cheerful side after entering prison—burst out laughing with a loud “Ahahaha!”
The guard looked puzzled.

From the Chief Warden down to the lowest guards, nearly all being of this disposition made it utterly unbearable.

Moreover, to compound matters, the much-anticipated sardines we had been looking forward to turned out to be mustard greens miso soup for dinner, then the same mustard greens miso soup for breakfast the next morning, followed by two slices of takuan pickles and sesame salt for lunch—making it all increasingly unbearable.

Moreover, since this time—unlike previous imprisonment without labor—it was called penal labor, we were assigned fixed work.
What's more, whereas our work at Tokyo Prison had been the extremely easy and clean task of weaving thin wooden sheets, here we were now vigorously scrubbing stiff Nankin hemp to soften it, then using that to weave the core strands of sandal thongs.
If it were merely hands becoming rough, that would have been tolerable, but if done poorly, they’d get raw and peel.
Dust would rise.
It proved quite taxing.
We would do this for about ten hours during the day, and on top of that be made to work two or three more hours at night.
We were completely worn out from the very first day.

Three days of reduced rations were imposed.

It was the third or fourth day.
Exhausted from this daily labor, whenever we paused our work even briefly, we would doze off.
While sitting there repeatedly dozing off and waking only to doze again during that usual thirty-minute to one-hour break after our sesame salt lunch—before I knew it—I collapsed sideways while still asleep.

“Hey, get up!”

Startled awake by the voice, I found myself lying half on top of the folded futon beside me.

"You lazy bastard! Sleeping in broad daylight right after being admitted—you think prison regulations mean nothing to you?"

The guard kept shouting arrogantly, deriding what kind of zealot I was supposed to be while showing such a lack of resolve.

After a while, I was summoned to the warden’s office.
As I walked there—though it was pathetically weak-willed of me—I went resolved to offer an honest explanation that I had simply grown exhausted from unfamiliar work.
However, upon entering the warden’s office—before I could even finish bowing—

“You’re a socialist, aren’t you? So you think you can ignore prison regulations too? I hereby sentence you to three days of reduced rations. Go ahead and break the rules again—it won’t stop at ration cuts.”

He roared with terrifying ferocity.

“Yes, do as you please.”

As I answered—suppressing laughter at the absurdity of his theatrical shouting, which reminded me of a short-tempered naval admiral said to be the father of my Foreign Language School classmate (the warden resembled this man so closely they might as well have been related)—I...

"What?!"

The warden stretched his upper body across the chair and struck a formal forward-facing posture, but since I kept silent with a smile,

“That’s enough—take him back.”

Then he barked at the guard standing rigidly behind me in an immobile posture. I performed my military-school “about-face” with deliberate angularity and exited the warden’s office. This had been my habitual response when reprimanded during my military academy days—not deployed ironically now, but emerging unbidden as an old reflex.

Speaking of habits from my military school days, I discovered yet another peculiar one in this prison as well.

This happened a considerable time later—I had been scolded over something again and summoned to the chief guard’s office. The chief guard was a short, slightly overweight man with a stooped posture and thick mustache—his face perpetually bristling with stubble from which narrow eyes gleamed with malice.

We called this man "Bear."

When I entered, he suddenly—

“Sit there.”

He indicated with his chin.
When I looked, two thin straw mats were folded and laid out at my feet.
I remained silent and feigned ignorance.
In this brick Western-style building furnished with chairs and tables, while he sat there wearing shoes on that chair, they demanded I prostrate myself on the floor.
I was utterly appalled.

“Why aren’t you sitting down?”

“Because I don’t want to sit, I won’t.”
“What’s so disagreeable about sitting?”
“We can converse perfectly well standing.”
“Spare me your logic and sit down.”
“If you sit as well, then I’ll sit.”

After this exchange of thrust and parry, the chief guard—who had been twitching those bushy eyebrows all along—rose resolutely to his feet.

“It’s an order! Sit!”

When this command’s voice pierced my ears, in that instant, I felt my entire body struck by something terrifying—"Hah!" And the moment I felt that, a rebellious urge against my very self in that instant surged forth.

“What’s an order? If you want to make me sit, then make me.”

The sneering attitude from moments before suddenly transformed into a confrontational stance.
And this time too, just as had happened previously in the warden’s office, I was simply returned to my cell.
Without a single word being spoken about the reprimand that should have occurred.

That I should shrink at the mere word "command" may partly stem from hereditary traits honed through thousands of years of slave life, but I suspect the greater portion remains a mental relic from my military school days.

I am by nature an extremely weak person. If there are times when I appear strong, that comes from the bravado born of my need to show off. Nothing injures this show-off tendency more than having my weaknesses laid bare. Once wounded, I cannot remain silent. Whether I possess real ability or not, I must make it seem otherwise—to others and to myself. I want to play the tough. At times, I feel this very pretense might constitute my entire being.

What should have been a warning that "If you violate rules again, reduced rations won’t be the end of it" resulted in two subsequent reduced-ration punishments—three days and five days.
Once, we were caught talking in the exercise yard with Arahata and both got punished.
As for what exactly we had done the other time, I can’t quite recall now.

Arahata, like me, was often scolded, but one evening when the moon was too beautiful, I went to gaze out beneath the window, and—

“What are you doing dawdling around there?”
“...What—looking at the moon?”
“What’s the point of staring at the damn moon?”
“Idiot!”

After being told off like that, we later recounted the story and burst into laughter.

I almost want to stay another six months.

In short, this was the first time we had received such treatment since entering prison.
However, regardless of how they treated us, we had to somehow make our long sentence—whether one year or two—beneficial to ourselves in the most meaningful way.

I agonized over that method for about two weeks.
When it came to methods, there was nothing but reading and contemplation.
Ultimately, it was simply a matter of determining the direction of that reading and contemplation.

I had originally established the principle of "one crime, one language"—meaning I would study one foreign language per criminal charge. During my first untried detention, I tackled Esperanto. At Sugamo next, Italian. During my second stint there, I nibbled at German. This time too, since the untried period, I've kept gnawing away at German. With this long sentence ahead, once I make decent headway here, Russian comes next. And before release, I resolved to sample Spanish too. From experience: three months to basics, six to read books passably without a dictionary. Even allowing a year per language, this seemed manageable. Mornings—I decreed—would be language time.

When I say this, I might sound like some grand polyglot scholar—and truth be told, I did carry out this plan exactly as scheduled and strutted out triumphantly—but having since grown thoroughly lazy and stopped attending this prison school altogether, everything now lies in complete disarray.

And then, having long held the desire to make sociology my specialty, I resolved to give it proper substance during these two and a half years.
But even that would be dull if it remained merely the sociology I'd practiced until now.
I wanted to blaze my own trail in sociology with full determination.
To do this, first, to understand the fundamental nature of humans who organize society, I needed to grasp biology's essentials.
Next, to comprehend humanity's social development path, I aimed to delve into anthropology—comparative anthropology specifically.
And later, I hoped to establish a sociology built upon these twin sciences. Now when I reflect on this—how utterly mortifying—it was pure amateurish fancy.
When I enumerated all the books I wanted to read—this volume and that—and calculated the days required to finish them, two and a half years proved woefully inadequate.
I needed at least another six months.

Once it came to this, the two and a half years that had until now felt interminably long suddenly felt insufficient, and I found myself earnestly wondering if I couldn’t somehow get another six months added on.

There was work.
However, that could be managed once I got used to it.
Though there was a regulation of several hundred pairs per day, half that, a quarter, or even less would suffice.
No matter what they said, I just had to hold firm that I couldn’t do any more than this.
If we all secretly consulted and set a certain limit, that would be even more ingenious.
In fact, this agreement had naturally formed almost from the very beginning.
In any case, we had to steal as much time from work as possible and devote it to study.

Once we'd resolved this, we read books like madmen.
As we grew accustomed to the work, we found ourselves completing it ever faster.
Moreover, they permitted us to use superior Japanese hemp instead of inferior Nankin hemp.
The labor became increasingly manageable.
Yet they never increased our workload from its initial quota.
We simply watched for gaps in the guards' vigilance and read books.

And so, I cast aside nearly all the ideological knowledge I had once voraciously amassed and set out to rebuild my own mind from the ground up.

I would dream of gorging myself only to wake with diarrhea.

As my scholarly fervor grew, I became horrified by my escalating appetite—or rather, by the wretched greed that hunger had carved into me.

Though my first imprisonment at Tokyo Prison allowed food deliveries and subsequent confinements at Sugamo—whether due to shorter sentences or other reasons—had never reached such extremes, this time I found myself appalled by the hunger's intensity.
While it might seem admirable that I—once so particular about food—now ate anything put before me, the truth was I devoured every last grain of that vile low-grade rice I used to leave half-eaten.
I meticulously picked out grains clinging to the bowl's corners, smoothed over those stuck to the serving paddle, and gathered even fallen specks.
When they molded the rice into set portions measured to the exact gō and shaku, I'd secretly rejoice or grumble about today's portion being large or small.
As the guard ladled soup, I'd strain my ears and widen my eyes to hear whether his ladle clattered against the bucket's bottom.
If he pressed it against the base, more solids would go in.
They served it by placing bowls on the mess box lid—I'd tilt that lid to slurp up every spilled drop of broth.
Sometimes they made rounds with what they called leftover broth—the dregs after initial servings—and distributed it again in order.
I can't describe how desperately I awaited my turn.

When reading novels or such, if a lavish meal scene began to appear, I would hurriedly flip through the pages and skip over that part.
It was simply unbearable to read.
Then again, even when reading a book, or deep in thought, or simply daydreaming, the most trivial things would suddenly become associated with food.

From time to time I would dream about eating something.
Sakai too apparently often had such dreams, but in his case, lavish spreads of exotic delicacies from land and sea would appear—only for something to always go wrong whenever he tried to pick up his chopsticks and eat.
Sakai deeply regretted this.
Yet mine would be this utterly base dream: passing by a shiruko shop displaying mochi sweets of various colors and anko-filled rice cakes, becoming unable to resist and rushing in, devouring them one after another, stuffing them down my throat until I’m groaning and moaning—far beyond mere fullness.
And the strange thing was this: after all that agonized struggling, when I suddenly awoke, my stomach felt wrong.
When I hurried to the toilet, I explosively expelled it with the force of a thousand-league torrent.
Even if that weren’t the case, I would inevitably have diarrhea the next morning after waking up.
It sounds like an utter fabrication.

Now then, as for sexual desire—this too proved utterly peculiar.
In Tokyo Prison and Sugamo Prison before, I used to experience strange urges from time to time, but since coming here, nothing of the sort has occurred at all.

In my childhood, I thought ascetics and high priests who renounced sexual desire were truly remarkable beings, but upon growing somewhat older, I came to regard such people—if they existed at all—as little more than senile invalids.
But both were mistaken.
Even a base commoner like myself—one who gorges himself in dreams only to wake with diarrhea—can, given the right time and circumstances, depending on one’s situation, become a sage or virtuous man in an instant, without any struggle, cultivation, or anguish.

One night, I even began to worry that I had become impotent, deliberately trying to recall or imagine various scenarios.
But in the end, not a single one of those recollections or imaginings came alive.
I nearly despaired.

I was nearly dragged into the High Treason Incident.

Those with one-year sentences had long since been released.
Those with one-and-a-half-year sentences had also been released.
The two-year sentences of Sakai and Yamakawa were now nearly up.
Then suddenly a prosecutor arrived and asked, "Do you know that a major incident has occurred among your comrades?"
I had vaguely heard that some enormous incident had occurred, resulting in Kōtoku and many others being arrested.
They said the prison administration needed to formally inquire about both what I knew of it and how I had come to know it.
Because it seemed suspicious, I gave an evasive answer and left it at that.

Then several days later, I was suddenly transferred to Tokyo Prison under terrifyingly strict guard.
And then I was summoned to the Prosecutor’s Office, where this time I underwent formal interrogation regarding my alleged connection to what they called the High Treason Incident.

“This incident was planned four or five years ago.
“There’s no way you people wouldn’t know about this.
“The fact that you people actually participated in this plot has been clearly established through other defendants’ confessions,” they pressed, alternating between threats and coaxing—but I could only keep repeating that I truly knew nothing about it.

In prison, from the warden down to every guard, they kept showering me with pitying sympathy.

“If you’ve gotten mixed up in this sort of incident, there’s not a chance you’ll come out alive.”
“What a wretched thing this is for you.”

There were even guards who openly offered such consolations.
They were all treating us as accomplices in the High Treason Incident.

At first I found this somewhat amusing, but as these expressions of sympathy accumulated, I gradually grew uneasy.
Since the prison officials were convinced to such an extent, I began to suspect that perhaps the prosecutor’s office had indeed already designated us as accomplices in that incident.
I tried to dismiss it as impossible, yet there remained something undeniable in the guards’ expressions.
I tried to resign myself to the fact that there was nothing to be done if it came to that, but until it became clear whether it had indeed come to pass or not, I still felt uneasy.

Before long, Sakai was safely released after serving his full sentence.
This put most of my anxiety to rest.
Yet the officials' attitudes toward me showed no change whatsoever.
With my own release date approaching, I requested temporary exceptions to the rule allowing letters or visits only once every two months—but the warden and chief guard dismissed these appeals as futile, never engaging seriously.
They maintained nothing but pitying expressions.
At times I couldn't help suspecting I alone might be thrown into that affair—though such fears weren't entirely grounded.
Yet since no prosecutor's investigation followed, I tried again to cast off these doubts.

During that time, I saw nearly all the defendants from the High Treason Incident. My cell happened to be right next to the bathhouse entrance, with the outer corridor stretching about a dozen ken from that entrance to the bathing area positioned directly before my eyes. Whenever possible, I kept watch over that corridor through my window. They all wore deep-brimmed woven hats, but those I recognized could still be identified by their bearing, while even unfamiliar figures became apparent through the unusually heavy security surrounding them.

One day I saw Kōtoku passing through.

“Hey, Shūsui!”
“Shūsui!”

I called out two or three times, but couldn’t raise my voice too loudly—how foolishly restrained I was, now I deeply regret it—and since Kōtoku was slightly deaf, he simply walked on pretending not to notice.

At last, the day my sentence expired arrived.
Escorted by guards who rejoiced at this unexpected turn, I passed through Tokyo Prison's gates.
Outside waited six or seven comrades.
All clasped hands with one another.

Released from Prison and Rendered Mute

On the day I was released, I prattled on endlessly about prison life; yet from the very next day onward, I became like one rendered mute, scarcely able to speak a word.
Whether due to maintaining near-silence for over two years, or the abrupt shock of post-release life's transformation—in any case, my original stutter suddenly worsened into something beyond what could even be called a stutter.

And so, for nearly a full month after that, I managed almost entirely through written exchanges.
Whether at home or going out, I never released my grip on notebook and pencil.

“Can you hear?”

I was often asked this, but there was naturally no impairment in my hearing.
Still, when I would write something in the notebook and thrust it forward, strangers would similarly write their replies in that same notebook and pass it back.

This wasn't unique to me. After that, one comrade who had served about a year for a lese-majesty incident—though he too had stuttered—became nearly mute from the day after his release. And just like me, he too subsisted through written exchanges for nearly a month.

Once you’ve done time, you can’t help but keep going back.

Admittedly veering into somewhat petty territory—in those days before release—I became utterly consumed by plans of what to eat first: crab perhaps.
However once out—once I was out—almost anything I ate tasted indescribably delicious.

First came that white rice.
When I picked up the bowl—its white radiance stung my eyes like a halo.
I put it in my mouth.
My teeth sank into something pleasantly soft as though lying atop a feather quilt—and simultaneously—an intensely sweet liquid gushed across my tongue’s tip.
This white rice alone sufficed—nothing else was needed now.

“Once you remember that taste, you just can’t quit doing time.”

Ex-convicts swapping stories of their days right after release would often laugh like this.

The real flavor of Japanese-style rice—unless you’ve done time—can never truly be tasted.