Pathway to Japanese Literature

My friend Tomoe Hachirou was a somewhat eccentric individual.
To understand just how eccentric he was, the most expedient approach would be to present those dream stories he so often recounted to me.

Tomoe Hachirou would often speak fondly of dreams.
The dreams he saw were both profoundly strange and remarkably coherent in content, and for someone like me who rarely experienced dreams, they could be beautiful yet at times strike an uncanny chord.
"I see the same town time and again in my dreams," he would say, rolling his vacant eyes sharply.
"Ah... I realize I've come out to that town I once visited again."
Then people with all sorts of faces—those I'd only ever met within the dream—would begin appearing one after another.
There were older men and young women of marriageable age.
...I would converse with those mysterious people as if continuing the next chapter of some long story, our exchanges unfolding with coherent progression.
"However, more often than not, we always end up repeating similar things, and ah—when I think 'Next it'll turn out like this,' it inevitably does come to pass."
"Strangely enough, my imaginings hit the mark with uncanny precision."
"And then there's another strange phenomenon."
"That is this face of mine."
"In those dreams, I possess a single face—but astonishingly, that face is entirely different from the one you now see before you."
"My complexion isn't this sickly pale—it's more like a bronze red, if you will."
"The proportions were longer; the nose sharply defined; the mouth remarkably large; and the gleam in its eyes was so vividly alive."
"Moreover, its hair grew thick and luxuriant, and it even sported a bold mustache—that imposing-faced man in the dream was me."
"How about that? Quite a bizarre story, don't you think?"
"That's why I occasionally get these bizarre ideas."

“Could it be that the town and people I see in those dreams actually exist somewhere out there?”
“I have but one soul, yet perhaps possess two bodies with different faces—or something like that.”
“Ah, you’re looking down on my dream stories, aren’t you?”
“I can tell from your face that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Well then, I’ll tell you an even more bizarre and terrifying story—one that will at least wipe away those mocking creases floating on the tip of your nose.”
“That’s a true story I experienced just recently, you know.)”

1

One day, I had a dream.

I was walking down a long corridor.
Strangely enough, it was a corridor devoid of windows.
The ceiling and walls were all yellow—a tremendously long corridor it was, with doors of identical shape lining both sides at regular intervals.
I inspected each door handle one by one, moving only my eyes sharply while proceeding.
All handles were brass-colored, but on what might have been the fifth or sixth door—I can’t recall precisely—there gleamed a single golden handle. This was unquestionably on the corridor’s left side.

“Golden handle!”

When I reached the glittering golden handle, my hand involuntarily stretched out toward that door. I grasped that golden handle, turned it all the way around, and pushed it open. Of course, that door always opened easily to the other side. I was drawn into the room as if being sucked in.

The room was an empty guest parlor spanning about ten *tsubo*. In the center lay a red carpet, and upon it sat a water-blue table-and-chair set. On the table stood a single Spanish-style green vase, inside which was always arranged a pale red carnation.

This room was most peculiarly constructed.
It happened to suit my tastes perfectly, with a large mirror embedded in the far wall.
This mirror surpassed even those found on dressing tables—a full-length behemoth stretching from ceiling to floor, nearly two *ken* wide (about 3.6 meters), flanked by narrow curtains of elaborate heavy fabric along its transom.
The dim lighting around the mirror made the curtains’ color difficult to discern, though they appeared deep purple.
Naturally, the mirror reflected every furnishing of the room in perfect inversion.
Upon entering, my first act was always to stride briskly to that mirror—the delight of beholding my own face awaited.
The mirror’s recessed sideways placement meant I couldn’t see myself unless standing directly before it.
There I would stand transfixed, gazing at my own gallant visage.
I found myself thinking Victor Emmanuel I must have worn such a countenance.
My mirrored self likewise turned about, looking thoroughly pleased with his form.

While I was amusing myself before the mirror with prolonged glaring contests, strange expressions, and comical gestures, a human voice suddenly sounded from behind.

“Would you care for refreshments…?”

That was a young man’s voice.

When I turned to look, unbeknownst to me, a Western liquor bottle and cups arranged on a silver tray had appeared on the table.
And with his back to the entrance door stood a handsome-faced young man who looked like a sportsman—likely the one who had just spoken.
But that wasn’t all—clinging tightly to that young man stood a single young woman.
When had they come in, and from where?

The woman had initially been looking down, but eventually raised her face timidly and glared at me.

(Gah!)

I suddenly felt as though my chest had been seized and abruptly averted my eyes.
Ah, that woman was my lover.
The young man had come in holding hands with her or something, and my heart was anything but calm.

But I thought panicking there would be shameful.
Maintaining an air of unhurried composure, I approached the table and sat down with my back to them.
And then filled the goblet to the brim with liquor, and then quietly brought it to my lips.

In hushed tones, weren't the young man and woman murmuring secretively behind my back?
The faint voices, amplified by an amplifier, resounded near my eardrums as if someone were clanging a metal basin.

(They aren't just ordinary acquaintances!)
(They must have gone all the way!)

I gritted my teeth and desperately suppressed what was forcefully rising up within me.
But a nauseating anger welled up within me.
I closed my eyes, took up the goblet, and gulped it down in one breath.
And with a clatter, I slammed down the empty goblet onto the table.
The whispers of the two abruptly ceased.

I did not panic and remained perfectly composed.
(What are they here to flaunt before me?) Do they think I haven’t noticed?
Then so be it.
Very well—I’ll play along with their charade.

I planted my trembling legs firmly and rose from the chair.
Keeping my gaze averted from the pair, I moved quietly toward the great mirror at the rear.

Before I knew it, I stood pressed against the mirror’s very edge.
Peering through the glass, I saw the man and woman entangled body-to-body as though about to embrace.
The woman struck a provocatively inviting pose.
The young man’s face flickered with faint hesitation.
My blood reversed course—a scalding tide rushing upward from feet to skull.

When I looked in the mirror, my face had changed to a tremendously terrible expression. I could see my shoulders trembling violently. Unaware that I was watching from within the mirror, those unfaithful wretches behind me were on the verge of committing their vile act. I was beginning to panic slightly. I tried to cry out, but my throat was parched and no voice emerged. I must steady myself—

I decided to enlist the aid of tobacco, so I slipped my hand into the pocket and gently pulled out the cigarette case. And I tried to open the lid, but for some reason it wouldn’t budge. I was doing this concealed by my body. Since I thought now was the time when even moving my face had to be restrained, I looked at the hand reflected in the mirror. And I looked at the cigarette case.

(Huh?)

I was slightly surprised.
What was in my hand was not a cigarette case because...

(...A pistol!)

What I was gripping was none other than a square Browning pistol, wasn't it?
I felt a dizzy spell.

Then, at that moment.
My mirrored self was quietly raising the hand holding the pistol from my abdomen toward my chest.
It shouldn't have been like this, but against my will, it continued steadily upward.
Strangely enough, my mirrored self's hand was inching upward ahead of my real hand.
It was an exceedingly eerie sensation, but my mirrored self was initiating movement before me.
I became terrified of remaining motionless.
If the self standing before the mirror remained utterly still like this, I might go mad.
The fact that my mirrored self moved while the self that should be standing before it stayed frozen could only mean one thing—it proved my true self standing before the mirror had already perished.

(……)

A searing convulsion of terror raced through my entire body.
In a panic, I chased after my reflection in the mirror and forcefully raised my pistol-holding arm toward my chest.
So before long, I caught up with the me in the mirror.

(Ah, how terrifying!)

I was drenched in sweat from head to toe.

The pistol finally rose fully onto my chest.
The gun muzzle pressed firmly against my left shoulder.
Then my left shoulder began rotating inch by inch.
I opened my half-closed eyes and stared fixedly at the aim.
With my aim fixed, it continued rotating inch by inch to the left.

“Kee… kee… kee…”

Letting out such sounds, the oblivious pair continued their dalliance.

“D-Damn you!”

“You hateful woman! You vile harlot!”

When I stole a fleeting glance at my face in the mirror, I found myself baring my teeth and biting down hard on my lower lip.
A face taut with bitter frustration inexorably inched toward the next act.
The two fingers curled around the trigger suddenly jerked back…

“Bang.”

“Ah, I did it.”

“Ugh… uuungh…”

As if struck by electricity, the woman arched backward.
One hand pressed against her chest while the other arm grasped wildly at the air before she collapsed heavily on the spot.

“I killed someone.
At last, I performed murder!”

I approached the woman lying on the floor.
The woman lay motionless as if asleep.
When I looked, a large red hole had opened on the chest of her clothing, from which fresh blood gushed out, trickling down from her exposed chest toward her neck.
—The man had vanished without a trace.
He must have darted out through the door.

“Ah… I’ve killed someone…”

"I muttered. However, at that moment, I thought I heard my own voice sneering somewhere."

“Yeah, that’s how it was.”
Right now, I’m having a dream about murder.
……Now, if you get too scared, this dream will end right at the crucial moment!
You’ve got to tremble violently as if you really committed murder.
You’ve got to be more scared.
"More... more..."

In the midst of all this, I lost all memory of what happened next.
I do not remember the scene of killing the woman beyond what has been described here.

2

Though this was supposed to be a dream narrative, I fear I spoke too exhaustively—you must have found it excruciatingly tedious, I imagine.
In essence, I wanted you to comprehend how distinctly vivid the dream I witnessed had been, and that it harbored such inexplicable phenomena.

My dream does not end with the story up to this point.
“Now I finally intend to speak about the mystery within the dream.”
“What I’m about to disclose is something you must hear.”

Now then, I can’t recall how many days had passed since then—you know—but I had yet another dream.

――It was when I was staggering down a long corridor… that I realized.

—Still a long corridor.
The ceiling and walls were yellow, you know…

“Ah! I’ve been to this corridor before!”
I realized immediately.
When I noticed that, to my dismay, I immediately became aware of another thing.

“Ah… I’m dreaming. Right now, I’m dreaming.”

And—…

—I made a conscious effort to walk down that corridor with as close to the same gait as before as possible.
If I didn’t faithfully replicate the same gait, I feared this hard-won dream might shatter…

Sure enough, I found myself looking at the door as I went.
I discovered a golden handle attached to the fifth door on the left.

“This is it.”

I grinned slyly.

—I turned the golden handle and stepped into the room.
Of course, the interior matched exactly what I had seen during my previous visit.
A red carpet lay spread across the center, upon which sat an elegant set of sky-blue tables and chairs. On one table stood a green vase holding pale pink carnations identical to before.

“Heh, heh, heh. Huh.”

I advanced toward the center of the room while steadfastly suppressing an absurd impulse to burst into laughter. When I looked toward the back, there indeed was that large mirror. I felt completely relieved and became very much at ease.

(Actors and the like—since they perform the same things daily with identical stage setups—must find it growing easier with each repetition after the first day, just as I am feeling now.)

I found myself thinking such things.

—As was customary, I had come to stand before the great mirror before realizing it.
When I saw my figure reflected there, it showed the same gallant visage as ever—hair bristling toward heaven, mustache firmly anchored beneath my nose.

“Please have a drink…”

A man’s voice came from behind, and when I turned around, there stood the same handsome young man as before.
Beside him, even the young female companion looking downward remained an exact replica of the characters from before, differing not an iota from their previous appearance.

Then, following the sequence, I returned to the table.
Then I opened the Western liquor bottle and poured it to the brim into the cup.
As if triggered by this, hushed voices speaking rapidly—a man and a woman—reached my ears from behind.

—Thereupon, I became greatly indignant and gulped down the Western liquor in the cup in one go. Having stood up with a clatter by slamming the cup onto the table, I staggered toward the large mirror…

It was then that I began to feel uneasy—the intensely terrifying impression from before had come vividly back to mind.
After that, something truly chilling occurred.
It did not refer to the scene of murder.
Long before that, when I stood before this mirror and tried to reflect my figure, my reflected self was moving before I did.
That bizarre spectacle clearly reflected in these eyes….

“That alone was truly terrifying.”

My body began trembling in minute shudders.
Fearfully, I scrutinized each motion mirrored before me.

—From my pocket I withdrew not a cigarette case but a pistol…

Ah, that’s when it occurred!

—The hand gripping the pistol inched upward toward my chest… Inched upward.

“Hmm… Today’s perfectly in sync.”

I exhaled in relief when the abnormality I’d anticipated failed to manifest today.
But there was no telling when the two images might suddenly begin splitting apart vividly…

“Ah… It’s okay.”

I was so overjoyed and relieved that I nearly cried out.
There was indeed no abnormality.
In the midst of this, I deliberately moved my arm up and down, but the real thing and the reflection, like a synchronized talkie, repeated the same movements in the same instant without the slightest discrepancy.

(Was that terrifying separation phenomenon from before just a delusion of my mind?!)

I thought that way, but no—there was no need to think so deeply.
After all, this was an event within a dream.
It stands to reason that various things might not fit with logic.
If I were in the middle of a field and wished for a desk, it wouldn’t be strange at all for one to suddenly appear as if by magic—after all, this was a dream.

―Pressed the muzzle against my left shoulder, took aim, and slowly turned my shoulder to the left. The man and woman were arguing in hushed voices, their breaths quickened. A young woman’s—how to describe it—intensely emotional nasal voice, as though steeped in dying resentment, was heard…

“There! —You bastard!”

I pulled the pistol’s trigger.

_Bang._

“Agh—…!”

A soul-rending scream erupted, violent enough to tear the room apart.

When I looked, the woman collapsed onto the carpet with a thud, one hand pressed to the shoulder area while the other arm flailed incessantly, clawing at anything within reach.

“What’s happening?”

I grew suspicious and approached the woman who should have been shot dead.
The woman had not yet fully died.
Yet it became unmistakably clear that her vitality was rapidly draining away.
As the hand pressed against her shoulder—stained crimson with blood—gradually slid downward, the wound gaped open and fresh blood gushed out like a blossoming flower.
Her limbs quivered violently for a moment before her body collapsed limply to the floor, finally ceasing all movement.

“She staged such an absurdly grave final act.”

Sneering mockingly, I kicked the woman’s hip as I drew near.
She lay motionless as one asleep.
Then I circled to her head and peered down at her face.

“Oh?”

I—who had believed her to be that very lover from my past—startled at the sight of her profile.

“Mistaken identity…”

I felt as though my chest had been struck with a sudden jolt. Startled, I lifted the woman’s head and turned the deathly face toward me.

“Ah! This is…”

What a terrible case of mistaken identity I had committed.
I had thought she was my former lover, but how gravely mistaken I was—for the dead woman was unmistakably the wife of a certain friend of mine with whom I was as close as brothers!

“D-damn it!”

I involuntarily clenched my teeth.
How could I not have noticed this?
To have shot my friend’s wife dead—the crime of murder was undoubtedly terrifying, but more than that, how could I possibly apologize to that dear friend of mine?

The wife had been such an admirable woman.
Her husband had been quite close with me, but lately I had been hearing quite a few strange rumors about him.
He was said to be lending money at exorbitant interest rates to amass wealth, and he rarely returned home to his wife, who waited alone.
In her anxiety, the wife would often come to my place, saying things like how it must all be due to her own shortcomings and pleading for me to mediate matters with him properly—and she would end up prostrating herself on the tatami mats, weeping endlessly in such a manner.
I thought there could be no woman as kind-hearted and gentle as this.
I couldn’t fathom that friend of mine, who wore a face of utter ignorance and brushed it all aside.

For that reason, I had great sympathy for his wife and had comforted her whenever the opportunity arose.
Each time, the wife would return home somewhat brighter than when she had come to visit me.
However, lately that friend had come to strangely suspect something between his own wife and me.
Though it was truly a ridiculous and infuriating matter, the fact that we had been alone under the same roof time and again had become the seed of calamity.
That was truly a troubling matter.

"That very wife at the heart of the issue—I had killed her with my own hands."
"Ah, what should I do?"

I couldn't face my friend.
To the wife I killed, I had even less excuse.
At the same time, through this incident, it had become utterly impossible to prove the innocence between my friend's wife and myself.
I prostrated myself beside the wife's corpse and was tormented by pain as though my intestines were being torn out...

"...Ah... what a fool I am."
"I'm crying in a dream right now, I tell you!"

Suddenly, somewhere, he heard a voice telling himself.
"Oh! So this was all a dream after all."

The entrance clattered open, and a team of people came surging in noisily.
At their forefront was a handsome man who had been beside the wife; when he saw my face, he recoiled in shock and hid behind the multitude.

“Behave yourself!”

The team wearing police uniforms lunged at me and wrenched my arms behind my back. As I thought to myself that I was finally going to be executed, I was handcuffed with utmost compliance. From that point onward, I had utterly no memory.

Having heard these two dreams, what do you think?
"What a bizarre story, don't you think?"
"Don't you think it's too vivid for a dream?"

3

It was a quiet winter morning.

The sun was hidden behind high walls, but the sky stretched clear and radiant, the air crisp as citron.

In a perfectly square room surrounded by pure white walls, my friend Tomoe Hachirou once again began to tell me the continuation of that recurring dream story.

“I tell you, sometimes my mind goes awry—it’s quite troubling.”
“Even though it’s surely not due to age, I keep mixing up various things and it’s quite troubling.”

“I believe I told you before about repeating similar murders twice in a dream, but to begin with, I’d forgotten how much I actually recounted. As for the second incident—yes, I must have spoken of it after being confined as an unconvicted prisoner. That’s how it was, wasn’t it?”

“Regarding that matter—I recall having spoken to you with such earnestness while making a laughable mistake without realizing it. Wasn’t that how it went? To tell the truth, when recounting that story, I’d thought you were someone from the real world—the one outside dreams. But seeing how we’re both involved in that murder case and now face each other in this prison cell, I’ve realized you too dwell in the realm of dreams. Why hadn’t I noticed this until now?”

“I’m terrible at explaining things—it’s maddening.”
“Now listen—let me put it this way again.”
“I told you about that recurring murder case in the dream.”
“Yet here I was, imprisoned for murder.”
“You visited that prison many times yourself, didn’t you?”
“Doesn’t this prove the world where the murder happened and your own world are exactly the same?”
“I described the murder case from the dream country.”
“And from my perspective, you belonged to that dream country.”
“For me, that incident was a dream event—but for you, it was part of your living world.”
“Yet here I am now, speaking within this very dream country... When I chase these thoughts from start to end, this dullard always loses track of who’s who.”
“I’ll leave such judgments to others—now let me tell what happened next.”

At one point, as I mentioned before, I found myself confined in prison as an unconvicted prisoner. Upon learning that the cause was related to that murder case in the room with the large mirror, I—

“My god—what an interminably long dream you’ve been having!”

he exclaimed in exasperation.

Though I heard this later—apparently at that time I was on the verge of being forcibly committed to a mental hospital.
It’s good I came to my senses at just the right moment.

Now, as things were gradually investigated afterward, among those officials there was a very kind-seeming gentleman called Judge Sugiura, and that gentleman blabbered on about things I never even asked him to tell me.
“It was truly a story born from remarkable imagination.”
“A riddle-laden tale steeped in the bizarre—like something straight out of a short story.”
“The veracity of his tale may be insignificant, but that very contrivance is so intriguing that I’ll be sure to share it with you.”

“Do you truly believe those two dreams were mere dreams? And even supposing they are dreams, do you not notice that there exists a certain inconsistency between those two?”

And then, Judge Sugiura began speaking in a solemn tone.
I remained silent because it was too much trouble.

Then he began to speak smugly.
What he said was as follows.

“In your first dream, you shot dead your former lover, and in your second dream, you killed your friend’s wife.”
“If, as you say, dreams show the same thing more than once, shouldn’t the victim be the same in both instances?”
“Doesn’t the fact that they differ strike you as strange?”

he declared.
I objected.
Dreams are free.
I retorted that characters and such could change freely and unrestrainedly.

Then he asked again.

“The scene when you killed your first lover was phantasmagorically beautiful yet utterly simple.”
“Yet when you killed your friend’s wife the second time, the scene reeked of excessive realism—doesn’t that strike you?”
“When you consider this disparity, can’t you detect deliberate artifice woven into it?”

he said with a terribly serious expression.
The moment I heard this, I thought: This man has made an astute observation.
Indeed, I had sensed something verging on truth in that second dream's murder.
But after longer consideration, I felt contempt—this judge was twisting trivialities into some forced argument.

"You keep silent, yet seem to grasp part of my meaning," Judge Sugiura muttered self-assuredly before continuing his discourse.

“Listen here—I’ll lay out more suspicious points for you.”
“First—what do you make of that room?”
“Isn’t that a truly bizarre room?”
“Upon entering further, there was a large mirror like those found at barber’s stations covering the wall, an oddly striking red carpet, and then—whether it be the simple color scheme of the chair set, their arrangement, or even the flowers—all of it could be called peculiar.”
“If it were a room meant for human habitation, there should be more clutter of everyday items, but those are nowhere to be found; moreover, it’s so simple yet striking, designed to be unforgettable once seen.”
“It’s as if a magician specially designed it—while it has the form of a room, it’s utterly unfit for human habitation and can only be seen as a room for tricks, don’t you think?”

he said.

Well—it’s a dream after all. That being simple and striking was only natural—that’s what I wanted to tell him.

“How about it? Each and every point strikes a chord in your heart, doesn’t it?” Judge Sugiura grew increasingly smug.

“And beyond that, there remains a truly enormous contradiction.”
“Do you recall that scene in your initial dream where you felt overwhelming terror?”
“That very incident holds the key.”
“You took the pistol in hand and gazed at your reflection in the mirror.”
Then came the strangeness—your mirrored self had raised its pistol-holding hand to its left breast.
Yet your actual hand, having drawn the pistol from your pocket, remained slack at your side.
“In other words, you found a mismatch between your real body’s movements and those of the mirror’s image.”
There you became utterly terrified.
“Because discovering that rift between two spaces—where an entity and its reflection meant to hold one soul—made you panic senselessly.”
“Had you kept your wits like an ordinary person, that spatial mismatch should’ve jolted you into understanding.”
“This is critical.”
“What would an ordinary person conclude?”
*This makes no sense.*
*It’s no haunted mirror—how could my reflection move without my will?*
*What’s in that mirror isn’t me at all!*
“Meaning that great mirror wasn’t a mirror—beyond its glass stood another man dressed like me, perfectly mimicking my reflection.”
“Any ordinary soul would’ve grasped this instantly.”

When I first heard this theory, even I—the great me—was jolted as if struck by a hammer to the head. But then I grew indignant—how could such ludicrous nonsense be possible? For the room’s furnishings were clearly reflected—the chairs, the tables, even the liquor trays upon them. Wait—there was more! The figures of that man and woman standing there were plainly visible too—how could such absurdity exist? I objected.

“That’s exactly what I’ve been telling you all along,”
“The apparatus for the trick had been properly set up in that room.”
“What you thought was a reflection in the mirror was actually another room of identical shape constructed beyond a large glass pane.”
“They should have arranged them identically but facing backward.”
“Humans are no different.”
“On this side and the other side were two men and women each, making it appear as if it were a mirror reflection.”
“No—there was another man in the room beyond.”
“As I said earlier, he wore the same disguise as you.”
“After all, you were mentally unstable—so much so that you even misperceived entirely different men and women as sharing identical faces.”
“Under such circumstances, deceiving ordinary people would’ve been effortless.”
“Now, what we must consider is why they created duplicate rooms to make us perceive this space and the one beyond as identical.”
“The answer is exceedingly simple and clear.”
“The man disguised as you hinted at the subsequent actions to you.”
“In other words, they made you aim the pistol and then shoot the woman behind.”
“The *bang* you fired was likely a blank round; the woman collapsed on the spot exactly as prearranged.”
“And in a theatrical imitation, they poured out crimson powder—likely packed in eggshells or such—to make it look as though she’d been shot dead by the pistol.”

“Ah! Then why did he make me do such a thing?” I—the great me—involuntarily cried out.

“You already know that,” he said. “They wanted to drag you into the second dream’s scene and make you truly kill what was called your friend’s wife. They made you—a mental deficient—believe you were seeing the same dream again and repeat the shooting exactly as before. The pistol you drew out then was properly loaded with live ammunition. And in the second dream’s scene, they didn’t use that room beyond the glass pane. By turning that room beyond into a darkroom, they made the glass pane function as a mirror. Such tricks are commonly demonstrated as attractions at expositions—a trick everyone knows. You ended up killing a woman against your own will.”

“Why did I have to kill that woman?” I bellowed back.
Then,

“We investigated and found out.”
“The one who plotted to kill that woman was her husband.”
“In other words, that man is none other than your close friend.”
“That room and everything else were constructed by your friend.”

“No—that’s wrong.”
“That man isn’t such a bad person,” I countered.

“No—the plot has been fully exposed.”
“Even if you defend him, it’s pointless.”
“That man you call your friend is a despicable wretch.”
“He’d failed in his business and needed a massive sum.”
“He’d taken out an enormous insurance policy on his wife.”
“Since killing her himself wouldn’t work, he tried to use you to do the deed.”
“He apparently lured his wife into that room with some flimsy excuse.”
“His wife was led into that room and made to see you—they’d spread word you’d gone mad.”
“Then you ended up shooting her dead.”
“Anyway, good thing you came here and your mind suddenly cleared.”

As I listened, I was nearly ensnared by the story’s too-clever construction.
How could a scheme requiring such elaborate steps even exist?
This must be Judge Sugiura’s groundless suspicion, I concluded.

“That’s absurd, Judge Sugiura.”
“How did he manipulate me so skillfully?”

“You already know that, don’t you? Didn’t you have this habit of endlessly lecturing that friend about your views on dreams and such matters? That’s how he thoroughly exploited you.”

“That’s how it was done,” he said.
“I pity Judge Sugiura’s tendency to overcomplicate matters.”
“You’re claiming that by using me—without dirtying your own hands—you had your wife killed.”
“What an extraordinarily rude man you are.”
“Fortunately, since this occurred within a dream, I could endure it—but had it happened in reality’s space, wouldn’t that make for an utterly inescapable predicament?”

However, Judge Sugiura remained relentlessly persistent; how vexing.

“You insist it’s all a dream, but you’re mistaken. If you still believe it’s a dream, I’ll prove how wrong you are…” he said.

“Well then, what are you going to do?!” When I asked him that, he took me in front of a mirror and—

“Tell me—is the face reflected in this mirror your face from the dream, or your face in the real world?”

he asked.
When I looked, my face was pale and weak—a rather round face at that.
It was completely different from that valiant face I saw in my dreams.

"This shows reality's true visage."

I ended up answering.
Then Judge Sugiura made a look that said "See?" and declared:

"That's absurd."
"Haven't I been telling you all along that you're in a dream right now?"
"If that's supposed to be your real face, this makes no sense."
"Exactly."
"Listen—you have to think carefully and remember well."
"That dream country you believe in never existed from the very start."
"Space is always one."
"Yet you claim there are two spaces where you have different faces—but in the end, it's the same face."
"Listen carefully."
"When your mental state deteriorates, you become a completely different person."
"And you don't groom your hair, letting your beard grow wild."
"You run about half-naked outdoors without reason, and in the end, you even hide away in the mountains."
"As a result, you get tanned by the sun, and your face and appearance change entirely."
"Then now, right before your eyes, I'll make some adjustments to your face."

“First, I’ll muss up this neatly combed hair like so—tangling it and making it stand on end.”
“Then I’ll fix this long false beard here in this manner.”
“Next I’ll daub this brown powder across your face.”
“Now look well in the mirror—how does that face appear?”
“You’ve become precisely the visage you believed existed in another spatial plane, ha ha ha!”

—I gasped in shock.
Exactly as he said.
……But wait—this still doesn’t add up.
Judge Sugiura’s method appeared splendidly skillful on the surface, but in reality, it wasn’t.
He might as well have known no mathematics at all.
His logic didn’t hold together whatsoever.
In other words, he had completely altered my thickly bearded face from the dream—made it up to resemble my real-world face—and kept silent about it all along.
Then now, reversing course again, he used disguise techniques to restore it back to that original dream-face of mine.
That hardly constitutes the one-sided proof Judge Sugiura claims it does!
After all—I am still inside a dream right now.

—I was nearly deceived there, but managed to escape it.
“Hey you—we’re still in the dream world after all…”

At that moment, the iron entrance door creaked open.
And just as I had anticipated, following the warden holding handcuffs, the gaunt crane-like Mr. Prison Director and then the chaplain—resembling a large yam draped in brocade robes—entered quietly.

“Ah, I know we’re in the middle of a conversation, but…” called out the warden.
“As the time for the execution has arrived, we must ask Mr. Tomoe to leave the room.”

My friend startled and stood up from his chair. Then, while glaring at the group, he said as if embracing my back:

“You mustn’t be afraid.”
“No matter what anyone says, the space we’re standing in right now is part of a dream.”
“You’re about to climb the gallows, though.”
“And you mustn’t misunderstand that you’ll truly lose your life because of it.”
“After all, you’re just watching yourself about to be executed in a dream.”
“There’s nothing for you to fear—not even a bit.”
“…Well, if it’s too uncomfortable for you, just wake up from the dream.”
“You’ll soon wake up on a warm bed.”
“In the next room, you’ll hear your children twisting the receiver’s switch to play radio calisthenics music by now.”
“Don’t dwell on such terrifying dreams while lying in bed.”
“Hurry up and get out of bed, and make sure you’re not late for work at the company.”
“Well then, I’ll be off…” With that, my friend left my cell.

That's right, that's right.
I am still dreaming after all.
The gallows… they’re nothing at all!