Pathway to Japanese Literature

○ About Paoli

○ Father and Daughter’s Stroll

○ About Mutō

○ The Noblewoman's Young Companion

○ Dream (2)

○ Conversation of the Neighboring Factory Workers

○ The Sensation of the Nighttime Downpour

○ Ono, Yamaoka, Shimano (Attitude, Words, Face)

○October 1 (Fourteenth Night Moon)

○Catharanthus Roseus (October)

× The Maid of Yanagiya.
Policeman, innkeeper’s wife, temple worker of Engakuji.

○ Various Fits of Anger

✓ October’s Hyakkaen Garden

○ The doctor near Nakano who went to rent a room,

Paoil

A Dutchman.
Bestowed with an Italinate appellation named Paoloil
Crowd-puller

1. A Japanese Boarding House Near Kanda

1. The Disarray of His Room

1. Boarding house maids, broken Japanese–English conversations, the maids’ excitement.

1. Paoli’s Happiness

Father and Daughter’s Stroll

A kind-hearted yet timid, young and curious father—even if rural-born would suffice—

A daughter—a typist or something of the sort—using her own earnings for her father’s sake for the first time: that particular feeling,

A daughter—that career woman type—

○ About Mutō

Her body.

Gaze.

Forcefulness.

Possessiveness.

She treated children and peers alike as underlings.
A habit born of her loneliness.

The Pitiable State of the Old Noblewoman's Young Companion

She wore a kimono reflecting the old noblewoman’s taste.

○ Ceaseless Selfishness and Nagging

(Well-meaning yet self-serving examples:)

“Now read this for me—goodness how trivial—go thank Peter and return it at once. Oh dear, you’re still not changed? How hopeless you are—I’m always being made to deal with this—it’s exhausting my dear.”

“How’s the weather today?”

“Perfectly acceptable.”

“That can’t be right—the wind’s picking up! Open the window and look—you mustn’t go out now—my you’ve done yourself up grandly.”

In society, she played the most pitiable role. Everybody knew her, and nobody paid her any attention.

She was very self-conscious, and she looked about her with impatience for a deliverer to come to her rescue.

A Certain Dream (as seen by Father)

He was walking along a cliff edge.
Below lay the sea.
When he suddenly noticed, two cows were swimming toward him.
One came straight ahead while the other, appearing exhausted, veered off toward something like a delta in the distance.
Then three humans came floating by—all with long hair.
"How dreadful," he thought as he tried to call for someone, only to wake up.

The lingering disgust from those long-haired figures made him consider sending a telegram. He concocted this foolish notion: since Sueko was there, what if she'd gone out for a seaside stroll without permission and met with some accident?

“But Sueko had already been sent back on Saturday, hadn’t she?”

“Hahaha, you’re absolutely right.”

“You forgot for a moment back then, didn’t you?”

“Hmm...”

This refers to what Father recounted when we met at the Imperial Theatre that day after Mother Kouzu had stayed over with her maid.

Dream

It was Denmark.
Over the ice field passed tank-like objects and whatnot; in a place resembling a station, I found myself among many white-clad girls.
I spoke in English laboriously.

“How old are you?”

Etc.
The girl attempted to reply in English but struggled to articulate her words, clearly distressed.

The neighboring workers’ conversation

“Are ohagi and botamochi different?”

“No, they’re different. People say it’s just a regional name difference, but that’s not true. Botamochi uses half-crushed rice.”

“Huh? ‘Half-crushed’?”
“You steam glutinous rice till it’s regular rice consistency, then crush it with a rolling pin or something.”
“You pound it in a mortar, right?”
“Oh no—a mortar?! It’s a pestle, right?”
“—With a pestle, you know.”
“Then what about ohagi?”
“Ohagi’s when you shape plain rice and coat it with kinako or such.”
“I see—still glutinous rice though, right?”
“What’s ‘complete crushing’ then?”
“That’s rice cake territory.”
“Ha ha ha ha!”

A woman’s voice

“Hey, there’s a labor union they’ve got now. If you join up, they say you’ve got to pay twenty sen every month in fees or something.”

“Hmm.”

“And then what’s it about? If some factory goes on strike, they say everyone pools money to help ’em out.”

“Huh.”

“If you gotta keep payin’ forever though, that’d be rough, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

The Sensation of the Night's Torrential Rain

An Account of the Heavy Rain That Fell Continuously for an Entire Day from September 29 to 30, 1925.

Typically after a day and night passes, weather changes; yet this rain did not cease even on the 30th—falling from heaven all day with unchanged ferocity and relentless force.
The rain fell so violently I felt all houses and people beyond my own had been erased from existence.
After lying down came sounds of water washing everything clean; beneath my second floor I sensed that rushing torrent coursing and flowing.

[Marginal note: Said to be the heaviest rain in fifty years]

Ono: A sake drinker; fair-skinned; with a slightly bent waist that drooped limply; would say, “Yer makin’ too much noise!”

Yamaoka: Dark-complexioned with thin skin and plumpness; thick hair; thick black eyelashes.
Animal-like; his mouth moved as though his tongue were too large for speech.
Haiku and fishing; plans to build a house of Korean pine using low-interest funds.
Diligently researched construction,

“That pillar’s damage comes from the earthquake disaster,”
he continued,

“That central corridor proved useful during the quake—it acts as a brace,” and so on.

Shimano: A gaunt, quivering withered nose that seemed plucked from an ancient tale or picture scroll; a thin mustache; thin, servile lips; he would say, "--de gozaimasu."

Take no Shima-jin: a large alcohol-reddened nose, glossy eyes that seemed to dart sharply. A leftover habit from his days as an old reporter, he addressed people brusquely and spoke of Noda Taikai and Shaku Sōen as his drumbeats.

Fourteenth Night Moon

Leaning my chin on the second-floor railing, I gazed at the moon. Clouds emerged and gradually closed in—thin wisps grazed the glowing lunar surface, pressing forward in patches as the moon hid behind clouds only to reappear, then vanish once more. When I was just a child, I would rest my chin on the high window beside the kitchen and gaze at the moon floating among the clouds like this—I remembered that. It was not that the clouds were moving. The moon—the round silver moon—seemed to glide smoothly at equal speed through cloud gaps and pitch-black voids, through thinner spaces where its pale form faintly showed. I too glided along smoothly. Though it felt as though I were gliding downward, I never drew near the ground. After all, it was in the high, high sky. An odd, hazy sadness lingered. How old had I been back then—eight or nine?

Catharanthus roseus

From the Catharanthus roseus came a scent similar to that rising from the volatile leaves of geranium.
They said that if you soaked the roots in hot water, new flowers would bloom day by day, but none came, and by the second day, there were only leaves.

The Yanagiya Maid

Mildly foolish and sex-crazed,

She delivered fish to Jinbei’s house and did not return to Yanagiya for some time on her way back.
The innkeeper’s wife came out with an umbrella to meet her as the rain had just started.
Assuming they must have missed each other, she turned back.

In the meantime, the woman met a laborer—a construction worker—somewhere along the railway tracks, was asked if she would come as his bride or become his wife, and ended up spending two or three hours with him until evening.
She quickly found herself in trouble.
This woman would see someone and say she wanted to marry them, asking if they’d take care of her.

The next day, she left saying she had promised that laborer. The laborer was gone. Then several days later she met the laborer again and lived with him for a time, but when he moved on elsewhere, she returned to Yanagiya.

Then one pale dawn, after sneaking over to a neighboring man's house for a nighttime tryst and being caught on her way back by a policeman who interrogated her, she confessed everything—from her five-month pregnancy and uncertainty about the child's paternity to her past relations with that very policeman in Kamakura.

The policeman—said to be capable, an inexperienced twenty-seven or twenty-eight-year-old who considered policing the greatest job in existence—persisted in his questioning, eager to declare he’d make even minor contributions to public order.

The innkeeper’s wife grew flustered and abruptly resolved to marry her off to the Enkakuji temple worker she’d previously favored, summoning the man.

A bug-eyed simpleton with a perpetually agape mouth.

She made them undergo a formal arranged meeting, and with full awareness of the pregnancy, matters were finally settled.

The man declared:

“I’ll come every night from now on—but you’ll call me ‘dear.’”
The foolish woman looked delighted.

“Yes.”

○ Varieties of Fury

A certain lieutenant had terrible fits of anger.

When something angered him, he would suddenly hurl the dining tray into the garden. If the tray happened to land upright, deeming it an affront, he would deliberately go down and stomp it to pieces.

Also,

the same person

insisted on filling the warped bathtub with water no matter what—"It’s impossible"—"No, fill it to the brim no matter what!"—and threw a tantrum.

The seventeen-year-old wife, taken for her comely appearance, could no longer endure and tried to flee back [to her family]. Near her parents’ home, while holding a neighborhood child, her former husband—the Lieutenant—suddenly dismounted his horse and soothed the child she was holding. He still loved (his wife)—there had been lingering attachment. But the seventeen-year-old woman did not look at the man’s face.

A certain person

When he flew into a rage, he would shake the sliding doors like a child.

Things Seen at Hyakkaen Garden in October

Kiyoura’s horse-like face—devoid of nobility—photograph.

Holds a single yellow hollyhock bloom in hand.

Autumn grasses.
Kiyoura encircled by his retinue of low-ranking retainers.

“Hyakkaen must surely be delighted,” said the old geisha.

Mukōjima Geisha

A trio: an Asakusa-area actress of extreme voluptuousness wearing chirimen komon crepe with black obi and borrowed garden clogs, accompanied by two men.

The champagne-drenched “I love you” witnessed at Kamakura’s seaside hotel had reappeared—with that woman in pale yellow checkered cotton dress and another matron accompanied by a child.

A woman in her late twenties, wearing a merino obi with a nasal voice, was painting a clumsy picture (a sketch of green and yellow Joseph’s coat).

A girl of about five in a cute crepe-silk kimono with an apron and yellow crepe-silk soft sash; her elderly father brought her to rest at a tea shop before they slowly departed.
On returning past Shirahige Bridge Station Road area—where one looked—the little girl had vanished; only her father nearing sixty remained waiting by motorcar.
Taking his mistress' child out briefly then abandoning them mid-walk—his solitary return cut pathetic figure indeed.

[In margin]

Pampas plumes aster blooms.
That transient hour before duskfall held peculiar grace—autumn grasses' hues glowing vivid through gathering gloom.

The Factory Woman and the Dog

A Rainy Day in October

Factory Girl

“Maru, Maru, Maru! Come here, come here! I’d love nothing more than to let you stay, but if Mr. Tsuchiya scolds us, that won’t do—out you go, okay? Maru, Maru.”

“What are you saying?”

“—I’m talking to Maru, see? [aware someone’s listening] Maru—I’d love nothing more than to let you stay, but... Come now—is it too much trouble? If it’s too much trouble, go on to the shed.”

Listening to this myself, I grew annoyed and felt stifled.

Amma Kimura

He was sixty-nine years old,

In his youth, he engaged in various trades—scroll mounter, cook, sericulture teacher, Amma, and others.

In winter, he wore a red Mennel shirt and did his own sewing too.

“How much do you have?” they would ask.
Petite frame, white hair.
He occasionally made his full dentures clatter.

A small nose, small eyes; there was something feminine about him, yet he lacked refinement.

Gotō Shinpei’s Lecture on Autonomy

He spoke of an autonomous instinct that was intensely grounded in biological philosophy.

“The autonomy I speak of is by no means difficult—anyone can grasp it immediately. The children from the girls’ and boys’ groups who come to me learn it thoroughly too. Just three articles.”

The storyteller Ōyauchi Essan's dialect.

Konjiki Yasha.

"The Kan'ichi of old has gone and died."

Dr. Kosakai had terrible lung disease.

Wife.

She would scold the maid in secret, yet when approaching her husband, never relinquished her conspicuously artificial smile.

Husband: Unskilled,

The Young Assistant Woman’s Vanity

Dream (Y’s)

Father was pushed into the river (which he had diverted into the garden) by the children.—When Katsutarō entered through the garden gate, the other children followed him in, so

“You shouldn’t come from there.”

When that was said, one of them seemed to agree.

When Y frantically tried to rescue him, he had become unmistakably a sliced buri fillet.
Not knowing how to perform artificial respiration, she probably thought that kneading thoroughly would suffice, and so she kneaded with both hands.

“But with a sliced buri fillet，artificial respiration might not work after all.”

The sliced buri fillet gradually gained elasticity.
Eventually，it would return to being Father himself.

“The artificial respiration had started working，but he couldn’t possibly survive—he was going to die.”

Y shouted，

“Will! Will!”

“The land we bought this time cost 27 yen in total．I intend to make it Mother’s—I’ve written down everything else．”

Y thought her mother would resent having her land valued so cheaply．
Eventually，Father died．
She wailed，“Dad! Dad!”

Her Dream

A Western-style entrance at the top of the slope (perhaps Kōzu?), a large group—herself, Mother, other small figures—crossed through the station grounds at night, a place so dark they couldn’t see their feet, where trains approached unseen from ahead, to return home.
K, Father, and the others who were supposed to follow never arrived for some unknown reason.
They waited anxiously.
She wondered if someone had been run over.

Sure enough, a man came.
Y and Mother stood at the entrance; she suddenly realized, and without letting Mother hear, asked, "Tell me—did something happen?"
The man nodded in understanding.
In a whisper—

“Who was scolded?”
“Mr. K.”
“!”
She felt such shock and sorrow that her body went rigid.
“Will he survive?”
“Shattered to pieces!”

Regarding K, what had been witnessed so far was also an accidental death.
It was an unpleasant feeling.

Another one.

She couldn't tell where.
She couldn't comprehend why.

A hurled a bomb at me—it was yellow and red, flat and round, like a chrysanthemum flower.
A stood by the utility pole, holding it with both hands.

I thought I'd be hit, but couldn't escape. The thrown bomb didn't strike my body squarely—part of the blast hit my left leg.
It would take four weeks.
Around the second week, it had swollen terribly and hurt.
she said.

[In the margin]

A’s face—terrifying, as if filled with hatred—appeared vividly before her eyes.

Factory Story

“Willows may seem gloomy, but they’re actually yang entities, you know.”
“Long ago, a certain famous painter tried all sorts of things—painting ghosts, making them visible even to the blind—but they never turned out frightening at all.”
“So he figured that in all things, balance between yin and yang is crucial.”
“Since ghosts are yin, they say he tried balancing them by pairing it with one yang element—when he painted a willow, it worked perfectly. And men and women—alive, men are yang and women yin, but death changes that. Drowned corpses, see? Men’ll face down, women up, I bet.”
“That’s not because men’s balls are heavy and face downward while women’s backsides are heavy and face upward—they say it’s just yin and yang switching places.”

“Why does bowing take a yin form? I can’t figure that out.”

Izu Yugashima

From December 27, 1925

Shuzenji Station

The teahouse woman (marumage hairstyle) at the bustling spot outside; the scramble for luggage.

A dog, one eye crushed into a raw wound; before I knew it, I cried out, “Ah!”

Y cried out, “This dog can’t stay like this!”
“Its white body makes it even worse.”
I covered my face with one hand and could not move.
Each time I thought to touch the wound, I could not bring myself to do so, and felt such pity.

Imagining the dog’s feelings—it must feel sad and suspicious that people had come to dislike it these days, she thought.

The 28th—terribly warm.

Going outside to look—the front mountain: mountains, cedar groves, a bright rust-golden slope of withered grass where a hajinoki tree with small red leaves stood; the back mountain’s perpetually shaded areas beneath cedar groves were thick with moss (sugi-goke and zeni-goke), while orchid plants and ferns flourished verdantly, always slightly damp.

There were many mountains; sunlight reached some areas and not others, and due to these varied conditions, the mountains themselves held diversity.
There were areas resembling Hon'ami’s garden seen at Zuigan-ji—an entire grass-covered hillside with nothing else, here and there punctuated by rocks of striking shapes.

○ Nanga-style sturdy trees abounded—old chinquapins, ancient oaks, Japanese torreyas, cedars (few pines). ◎ Nandina, yew, broad-leaved podocarpus, coral trees adorned with beautiful red berries; aged trunks bearing time-worn charm; tall yabukouji shrubs (Senryō)—the nandina especially splendid.

○ A riverside pavilion; fallen chinquapin nuts.

“Because they ate chinquapin nuts and kaya nuts.”

What exactly are kaya nuts?

○ Strange group of five giving banzai cheers.

○ A man’s shakuhachi, and another timid man who came to listen to it.

Yamada Kuniko’s Life

Shinshu native.
Murasaki Era,
Chuo Shinbun reporter.

Various men

The cohabitation period with Ikuta

She married a man slightly senior to her in the same company’s political department,

The man became a Diet member.

Her indifference toward women—she treated her husband as a father, was surrounded by numerous young men, and would leave the parlor with her husband and child to go out.
Such understanding.
Yet this loneliness of blaming none but myself.
(A common type of wife these days)

Ms. Ikuta Hanayo’s Words

“When one becomes too unfortunate, a kind of fairness develops—even if it doesn’t bring any benefit to oneself.”

A Certain Aspect of Ms. Nogami

“A person who may be disliked by the emotional but is respected by the intellectual.”
“I think she’s a fascinating presence,” said Ito Ayako.

Ito Ayako

Twenty-five—this year six.

Unmarried male; anxiety born from romantic deprivation; rootlessness in life.

Kikuchi Kan

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.”

“My—when did you get so old?… Kamishiro Tanesuke has lost his wife and has three children—how about it, would you consider marrying him?”

"That’s too much," I thought.

Akutagawa

“A woman doesn’t lose anything by getting married, but…”

Ikuta: Myself

“When fate brings it about, it will come.”
“It’s better to wait than to do something wrong.”

Ayako understood that.
But she was lonely.
Despite the younger brother being so young，waiting felt interminable；sometimes he’d suddenly cry out “—chan” and burst into tears.

Children's perplexity.

Social conditions.
== Livelihood difficulties, marriage difficulties, etc.

A heart sliced by the sharp blade of loneliness.

Fatigue in Middle Age

A woman who left her rural home young and worked tirelessly—pulling three or four all-nighters without complaint for manuscripts that brought money or fame—found herself at twenty-seven or twenty-eight, just when life should finally offer pleasures, besieged by exhaustion. Her head and hands grew numb, leaving work utterly beyond reach.
“That must be so hard, so very sad.”
“So whenever I see people pushing themselves too hard, I tell them to stop.”

Odagiri Masunosuke’s Daughter

Twenty-three, graduate of Seishin Women’s Academy,

Intelligent and fond of showiness.

Scattering flowers on the tea table and serving cream in silverware—such was her style.

She became engaged to Nagao Hanbee’s son—a man who had been at Keio for seven or eight years with no certainty of when he would graduate.
——on the condition that she could lead around a good-natured man.
If Nagao’s property sold for 200,000 yen, she would marry.
Until then, the daughter attended Waseda as an auditor.

The XX-ed Boy

Beauty, sixteen.

Hospitalization, bodily immobility.

The nurse caused a commotion.
She was noisy.
She licked.
She clung.

Alone, she did something terrible of her own accord.
Then another nurse entered, watched silently, but burst into tears.
After crying her fill, she left silently.
In the middle of the night, the original woman came again and acted willfully two or three times.

He developed a fever.

And then，he found women utterly unbearable.
The state of mind at twenty-seven or twenty-eight—having finally become able to like women.

Snowy Sapporo

Snow clinging to trees—right overhead—the bare, small-thorned branches of acacias reaching over roads elevated by snowdrifts.
The chimneys of houses.
A small transport sled pulled by dogs.
A horse-drawn sled loading coal.
The woman’s headscarf-clad figure.

The sky, even when clear, lacked the beauty of those June and July days and was clouded by soot from chimneys. A crowd trudged along the narrow path carved through the snow.

Winter Seclusion

○ Water without freedom

○ A room where tabi socks turned black in no time from coal soot.

○ Snow piled up at the house's rear where blocked windows stood.

○ A flowerless room.

Old Mrs. Batchelor.

○ A large cat's-eye brooch.

○ A Victorian-era cap with net lace dotted by small red-enameled bird brooches and flowers.

○ A beard resembling an aged feline's.

○ Eyes tinged blue-gray.

○ A thick-knuckled finger—wrinkled and indented by rings.

○ Apron.

○ Always knitting

A preference for harmonizing light blue and wisteria purple.

“I am quite all right—so far I keep still.”

○81

Miss Batchelor

○Around fifty.

○A thin woman whose nose and chin looked mushroom-like.

○Reddish, straight hair carelessly tied up.
A gray knitted wool garment.

○Never laughing, she formally parted her lips slightly.

She did not engage in lengthy conversations with a strong voice, speaking briefly in an unclear nasal tone.
“Yes, I should go out as well,” she would say something like that.

A typical unfortunate old maid.

Yae’s State of Mind

Because this person had come, Yae no longer needed to handle any household affairs at all.
Yet this was no cause for joy.
The loneliness of the elderly not depending on her.
But when matters came to a head, she still retained the conviction that she would ultimately be the one to care for them.

Having regained her health, her comprehension of religion had grown clearer, and she had come to believe that resolving never to take joy in life ran counter to God’s teachings.
Compared to eight or nine years prior, there had been a profound transformation.

She was gathering funds to establish a Utari (compatriots) middle school.

“Until now, even when others wouldn’t do it for us, it didn’t work because the Utari hadn’t awakened.”
“But since this is something our people have sought themselves now, it will surely work out.”
“It will never die!”

“The other day, a Miss Course came by and said all your efforts for them would likely be in vain.”
“So when I say I can’t help doing this even if it’s futile, and you reply ‘Then you may do as you please—it will have no effect’ so clearly—I felt so sad I cried.”

“I myself think that just doing things this way isn’t of any use, but I also think it’s precisely by doing so that we maintain things as they are.”

A certain Miss So-and-so—an American doctor—had come for blood tests; they ordered Yae to escort her.
Though Yae refused this task, Miss Batchelor—being indebted to both the prefectural office and Dr. Sato—couldn’t refuse on her behalf; when Yae returned home after being summoned by telegram, that woman had already arrived.

"I refused until I knew their purpose or anything," Yae thought. She would interpret, but whether people would come out remained unclear. However, if one went—since they gave out a daily wage of one yen and fifty sen each time—the worst sorts came flooding in.

Miss So-and-so Kitanagari.

"They are the weakest people in the world," Miss Batchelor said.
"Yae."
"You have seen the shameful aspects of our people," Miss Batchelor continued, "so please keep silent about anything beyond what is necessary."

"No, I can’t," Yae replied. "Since we’ve received such enormous expenses, from what I’ve seen, everyone feels compelled to speak up."

“You truly went to parade that shameful disgrace.”

Yae had spent a year earnestly sewing various items in great quantity for the bazaar, which was organized through the efforts of Tokugawa and others.
At that time, the Iburi Ainu came to Tokyo.

“A friend of mine deliberately asked, ‘Are those people over there Ainu?’”

“‘Yes, those are the Ainu—those pitiable people in Hokkaido who dig up tree roots and grass roots to eat,’ she said.”
“So I’m glad I didn’t go.”

Yae personally felt regret that Batchelor’s work was insufficient and that the name lacked substance.

[In the margin]

Yae's Way of Thinking

1. An Ainu Woman!
Efforts to avoid being scorned as an Ainu woman

1. Primitive reverence toward noble people as a concept
1. Passionate Love for Utari

○ Yae’s Background

1. Yae’s Father – Died When She Was Around Seven

1. She was sent to her mother’s sister as a foster daughter but had a quarrel with her Japanese husband and left.

1. With single-minded determination to build a house,

2. At sixteen or seventeen, she persuaded her mother and devoted herself to studies.

3. She was taken in by Batchelor.

4. After falling from a horse, she suffered from a bruise that turned inward and a leg that cramped up.

5. For six years, she remained bedridden.

1. Having recovered, she engaged in missionary work,

[In the margin] Leading passion for Utari.

People around her:

Mother: Good-natured. Domestic.

Younger Brother: Yamao

Tomijirō

Batchelor Family

Older Sister: Naniwabushi Performer

Personalities of K and S

Having been raised in the pleasure quarters from a young age, she considered deceiving men an accomplishment.

A certain young man, loved by an older woman and engaged in passionate dalliances; she was chosen instead of that woman and, through her reluctance to be bested, consented.
However, when the negotiations fell through, she refused.
Disliking being observed by the maid in that unclear position of how she might have changed, she stayed awake until dawn broke.

When she was even younger; when she first met △; the teahouse proprietress.

“How many times did you do it?”

“Thirty-six times.”

“Don’t talk nonsense!”
“Thirty-six times!”
“That’s impossible!”

“But Okan, I was counting them!”

Pitiable.
A miscalculation.

Dancing girls and the like—even without lust or curiosity—encounter such things.

Later, she was led by a man and endured a terrible life for five years—the man being a broker of some repute.
There was always a hundred or two hundred yen in her purse—but it was another's money, and she remained unaware of this.
She never made a clean break but fled to the man's residence—a method of funneling funds in gradually.

[In the margin]

○ She wasn’t particularly skilled.

Eventually Y would find out.

Since there were times when money could be arranged at Y’s place, she would come fleeing there, taking heart from that as well.

Y had her attend a doctor and study Utazawa.
She had good talent, but no intention of making a living through art.
The man realized one of his disciples seemed destitute and attempted to extract funds.

The man thought it was about matters of the heart.
After that, it didn’t work.
(Uji no Hanayashiki.
The man said it would be all right for him and the woman to go into the mountains together.
The woman did not desire it.
Provoked into mischief, he blurted out his true feelings.)

The woman, who had been a friend and ran a bird shop in Kobe, wanted to sell it for the man’s sake.
After consulting together, they tricked Okada into buying it.
Failure

She returned to Tokyo again.
Resignation.

Bad man (Nezu's Nakanishi)

The man who, despite her staying at Y’s place, incited her with remarks like “There’s no need to stay in that hole—a young thing like you.”

[In the margin]

○ She casually spoke ill of men while under someone’s care.

○ Love Always as Convenience

Yet she mistook them for kind-hearted people and failed to see through.

○ Okada produced his legal wife.
One delinquent boy; Sei entered afterward.

× Struggle for Existence

T

Mother, that's not it.

She was treated kindly, brought out into society, and never scolded.

“It’s truly troubling, you know.”

She would say to people.

Through such treatment, she was indulged into a listless, purposeless existence.

Twenty-three.

She had no suitable partner for marriage.

Y, Y.

A clever mind; discernment.

Impatience; dilettantism.

I, A.

Minor talent, scheming.

Marriage Difficulties

Those experienced in love

Awareness of Sexual Desire and Marriage Difficulties from Unresolved Emotional Collisions

Some Thoughts on Family Life

Men are free to experience various lifestyles until marriage and try to settle down once married.
Women hold the expectation that they will build their lives from here on.

○ Men work outside and rest at home—there is an ebb and flow to this.

For women, home is work—even preparing for both work and rest becomes work.

○ Men have the love of possession.
And women?

From Bubu de Montparnasse

"I was acquainted with prostitutes, you see, but their cheerful demeanor—well, it’s the same as children screaming to hide their fear."

A man's rough palm.

Before the man’s rough palm stroked her, she had still been somewhat wild, her skin coarse.
Body hair had remained too.
When a man's rough palm once touched and stroked there, she became precisely like an ivory carving polished by sandpaper of just the right coarseness—richly smoothed, delicately refined.
A woman who had been wild, beside a man even wilder and more powerful, became aware for the first time of her own softness, lightness, and that she was something worthy of love.

The man who refines her into a woman.

Behold the woman stroked too much by the rough palm of that man acting as sandpaper,

Just like over-polished ivory's surface, she lost her luster, the grain stood out, and became dry and rough.

The Psychology of the Woman Who Resents Hata no Aki

I am a woman, she is a woman,

She attracts men.

I burn with jealousy.

To say “I’m jealous” would be mortifying, so she couched it in moral terms—

An invisible coquetry that proceeded not through the face but through the heart.

○ “Men calmly declare, ‘I love women.’
“Women feel the same way, I think—so why can’t I just say ‘I like men’? Is it forbidden for us to say such things?”

[Marginal note:] The essential qualities of motherhood; men’s yearning for purity; women’s whore-mother archetype.

They say there are two [types], but since men’s demands are broadly divided into those two categories, women adapt accordingly—emphasizing one characteristic at a time, don’t you think?

Men alone possess both.
This tendency.

Women may hold two [qualities], yet kill off one—whether cultivation or necessity—out of an instinct to adapt to the man they’re with.

She (I)

She was this kind of woman.

She was sensitive yet timid, easily swayed by those she met and interacted with.
(For a moment—just a fleeting moment.) She thought this way, considered that way, harbored various yearnings—yet ultimately chose from among them what truly suited herself, and once convinced of her choice, possessed the stubborn determination to see it through.

Hara Asao

A daughter from a wealthy family in Sendai or somewhere

A mother and a daughter alone.

She recited poetry.

An extremely small woman, one who might perch upon a palm.

A Woman Who Couldn't Live Without Men

Out of loneliness, she sent photos even to worthless men.
Good men—men—had their desires repelled by her smallness and apparent fragility.
Strong men—in spirit or perhaps in passion—seized her.
She could not easily become happy—and yet her voice rang out clear.
The affair with Ishihara had been a lyrical happiness too.

×Natsume Sōseki's Grave

Advantage

Wife

Disciple

The late Master

Сижки Суми 25 years old

A Girl from a Modest Company

She took eccentricity as her vocation.

She had cohabited with a man who was her classmate at Toyo University; had a child; during the earthquake, when the man was in Kyoto for Nikkatsu business, she was swindled by a friend and left penniless; at the lodging house, harsh treatment ensued.

They decided with the lodging house owner and the house master to publish a monthly report for the tatami-making machine shop; the wives of two salaried workers discussed the matter, setting their monthly pay at forty-five and fifty-five yen respectively, with ten yen going to the lodging.

Having been suddenly expelled from that lodging house, she wandered around the monthly report shop and other places past one o'clock at night, and came to live in a house rented by four groups at an unspecified location in Shichijo.
And then Tokyo.

[Marginal note:]

She had a delinquent girl's modicum of talent; when it came to money, she remained unfazed while doing terrible things, taking purses straight from living rooms.
She seemed utterly unperturbed.
Instead, they were left with an odd sensation.
In other words, her complete nonchalance made being robbed feel almost inconsequential—a sensation far removed from anything resembling guilt.

Argumentative Mother's Conversation

“Hey, go ask Grandma quickly—is crying while saying such things really allowed?”

Oh dear—this child wouldn’t come down. No matter how many times they were told “Come down! Come down!”, they just wouldn’t budge.

○ A Walk with Two Shrewd Unmarried Men Over Forty and a Husband

Hamanaka, A, Ginza,

Hamanaka peered into Western goods stores like the bachelor he was.

A focused entirely on food—in the end, neither bought anything.

[Marginal note:] Sporadic raindrops fell; Hamanaka fussed over Bōchū.

Radio News

According to an Osaka telephone report, Mr. ○○ of the "Matsushima Incident" was released on bail.

*From Annette & Sylvie*

“Annette felt that, alone, she was incomplete; incomplete in mind, body and heart.”

“She had reached the time of life, when one can live no longer without a mate.”

○

“Master, you’re holding a baby outside and watching what we’re doing—oh my, how absurd!”

A thin voice with a peculiar cadence.

“Does it hurt? Grandpa, what happened?”

“You bought so much, Grandpa—fifty sen?”

She talked at length, calling "Grandpa, Grandpa" over and over.
But there was something in her voice—a lack of affection, a lack of warmth—as if she were half treating him like a child when she called him "Grandpa."
She did not appear to be a blood-related granddaughter.
She had the air of a grandson’s wife.

Archbishop Nikolai of Surugadai

He had lived in Japan for fifty-five years and died in Meiji 45.
The one who came was assigned to the Hakodate consulate.
At that time—perhaps due to Enomoto Takeaki's affairs—Hakodate had many rōnin from Sendai.
There was one among them: a *rōnin* from Shikoku, a scholar of Chinese classics.
During the height of the "expel the barbarians" fervor, he resolved to kill one foreigner—but first met to hear what they might say.
Nikolai, having just arrived and still poor at Japanese, spoke with him until he ultimately couldn't bring himself to strike.
He returned empty-handed.

[Marginal note:] ○ Circa 1860, around the time Funarōdo began.

"This shouldn’t be happening," he thought, loosening his sword collar.
Again, failure.

On the fourth attempt, he confessed and became Nikolai’s sole assistant, sharing his life with him; one could scarcely fathom how much Nikolai had relied on Mr. ——.
The two began Japan’s first missionary work.

○ Among those who assisted Nikolai with translation was a man from Kyoto called Mr. Nakanishi Zukumarō.
A great scholar.
Crippled.
His limbs were stubby, his head disproportionately large.
When he walked, he waddled like a duck.
This man served as Nikolai’s assistant. “Now then, Mr. Zukumarō, let’s work,” Nikolai said laughing cheerfully, having him sit briefly on a nearby chair. Then he sat down at his own side and began working earnestly on the Bible translation, referencing Jewish, Greek, and Russian scriptures.

[Marginal note:]

Nikolai was a large, truly imposing man; Mr. Zukumarō never left his side.
They always worked together and were inseparable.

Such a form, yet what a beautiful way hearts connected!

○ Everyone was convinced by Nikolai’s words.

When his condition finally worsened，he was admitted to St．Luke．
Tell me whether I'll live or die．Die．
Then how many days would I last？
It wasn't clear exactly，but ten days．
In that case，I couldn't remain like this—given ten days，I could accomplish a substantial amount of work．

He immediately returned and began translating the prayer book.
Again having Mr. Zukumarō sit beside him, he translated while Mr. Zukumarō refined it into more literary Japanese.

He worked for ten days, completed the translation, and wrote a report to Russia alone in his room. Having finished, he put down his pen and lay down on the nearby divan. That was the end.

When the nurse, having grown worried, finally came, he was already dead.
Peacefully, nobly, facing the wall—had there been a holy image?

Was that a beautiful afternoon?

There was beauty in the friendship between Mr. Zukumarō and Nikolai—even their deaths held a certain grace.

Mr. Tenpō’s Marriage

Seminary. The bishop’s son. No matter how much time passed, he never graduated.
He became an interpreter to Siberia.
A wealthy man from Aomori—a believer, with one daughter—who wanted a guardian for his heir: someone educated and capable.

So there was a marriage broker.

“There’s this fine candidate—the bishop’s son. They agreed upfront, thinking he must be splendid.”
“Since his father has no job and is struggling, he’ll agree to anything.”
“But he already has someone he likes and isn’t keen.”
Even if he refused, the broker insisted he should at least take a look once, so he went.

With no way to back out, they married; a fine house was built in Ōmori; they sent 150 yen each month; he’s attending university or something—yet he remains utterly dissatisfied with it all,

“There was one worrisome matter.”

“What is it?”

The exams were coming up soon—he absolutely had to pass them no matter what—what a predicament, what a predicament.

The person who had been worrying about tomorrow’s livelihood found that when their circumstances suddenly changed, all their worries became solely about the exams.
“Fascinating thing, life is—”

Mr. Yamauchi spoke in this manner; meanwhile, the wife, sitting nearby, took out a photo album—“You must find such stories tedious, Mr. Karita”—and showed him pictures of ducks here and sheep there, displaying them like child’s play. It was amusing.
The wife could not grasp the appeal of such stories.

[Marginal note:]

Mr. Karita had felt that human beings would adapt to live for any purpose at all.

Frozen Flower

The room faced south; the shade of the Japanese aralia resembled the North Pole. A primrose had been placed in a vase on the desk.
Before four or five days had passed,
when examined one day, the primrose—now completely frozen within ice—showed no signs of withering.
There arose a sense of astonishment mingled with beauty.
An uncommon occurrence indeed.

○ Female University Student Rubber Lover-san

Private University’s Modern Student ℓ-san

I thought Mount Maya was where I would take El-san to climb.

Intellectual class’s twenties–thirties Liebe

A Beloved One

Kurachi Toshi employed at the farm.

Whoa, this was a huge melon—a giant melon!

○ Keiō University Student

“That guy acts so carefree despite being a Red Line tram rider.”

Anarchist

“Because we’ll face a publication ban.”

Filippov

○ Filippov: Twenty-Eight, a White-Haired Russian

[Marginal note:]

Young yet...

○ Lover of Children

○ A Life Making No Distinction Between Others' Lives and One’s Own

○ Wife Elena: Twenty-One or Twenty-Two

○ Tailor’s Wife Who Had Been to America: Forty

Husband: Fifty-Nine

[Marginal note:]

At Filippov’s office, a woman had come. When he went out to check, there were two people—one was Mrs. Rosen (the woman who emulated activism), and the other was the tailor’s wife from Tenkōji.

○ Rosen-tomo was quite the chatterbox—nicknamed ‘Long Tongue’.

This man slept with money in his pocket; relying solely on it, the couple kept separate finances.
(Feared she might be killed, she made her child test everything first.) The wife quarreled with her husband, insisting he return the 600 yen she had lent him, and fled to Filippov’s place.
If Filippov went to her husband’s place, she had thought her husband would return (thinking it was their usual quarrel).

"No, the woman—(the high-ranking official had come and declared Japanese women would never do such a thing)—"

"A cloth seller—that sounded like 'Resshauri.'"

To Y.

A letter in katakana arrived from a Japanese woman.
Someone brought it to Filippov to have him read it.
When he saw a woman, he would firmly grasp her hand and not let go—a dirty-bearded face with sunken eyes and short stature.

They called Filippov Don Juan.

There had been a Japanese woman married to a Russian whom they met in Siberia; she returned ahead of her husband. Her friend Miss Fushe, a female boxer, declared such men worthless and took up with a fellow boxer from their circle. The two became a pair. When her husband returned, she came to Tokyo, but a letter from another man surfaced, revealing her pregnancy. She gave birth to a child. Both the child and woman were left in Filippov’s care. Whenever summoned by men, the woman would leave the child with Filippov and go out. From his meager means, Filippov bought powdered milk for the child.

“If we’d been living like this back then, we could’ve taken in and raised that child, but we were too poor—it didn’t work out.”

The house where they rented the second floor belonged to a construction business; downstairs there were always an old woman and a petite six-year-old girl who would ask, “Do you understand? Do you understand?” She spoke in adult language. This intertwined the emotional states of those from Akasaka’s pleasure quarter with the Russians’ way of life.

Missionary: A red-faced, hairless German.

He had summoned someone to sell a friend’s jewels. When they had met at the Japan-Russia Discussion Meeting, he had spoken to Filippov about matters of faith. Filippov wanted bread more than faith. The diamond sold for 800 yen.

(He couldn’t express it due to his lack of Japanese, but he had a good understanding of religion.) That man (who didn’t understand Russian either).

[Marginal note:]

To admit the Russian’s wife who had gone mad to the hospital, Filippov wrote a letter.