Pathway to Japanese Literature

I too thought I would depart tomorrow evening.
I had now come to Shinbashi to see off someone bound for Nagoya.
The waiting room was filled with the anxious mood of people awaiting departure and cigarette smoke.

I picked up a bound volume of a magazine called Trademark Gazette and looked through it.
Here I found myself able to appreciate a kind of practical commoner art and thought it quite fascinating.
The illustration on the rat poison label showing a cat wiping its tears with a handkerchief was something I recognized, but the soap named 'PARK Park' struck me as born of considerable naming desperation.
Yet by psychologically or artistically linking these two concepts over time, one came to recognize an interest altogether different from haiku or such forms.
Other cosmetics displayed combinations of iris and jade.
The cotton fabric trademark bearing a mounted warrior and the name "Samurai Mark," written in characters that looked copied by some dubious Western hand, made me involuntarily recall the storefront decorations of Yokohama Samurai Shōkai.
This too must surely have been a reflection of Japanese taste as perceived through Western eyes.
There existed a sake called "Sakurayama."
There was another named "Yoshino."
I marveled that such names had remained unused by others until now.
The design of a traveling courtesan emblazoned with "Masamune" from chest to waist struck me as crude yet bold. When contrasted with Western thought that deifies both Bacchus and Venus, it became all the more fascinating upon consideration.
I wondered how one should read "Tsumugi Kōjizuke."
To incorporate an entire streetcar's form into a pattern—amateurs showed remarkable audacity indeed.

I once saw a book from the Tenmei era titled *Edo Machijū Kuishoku Jūhōki*. I recall the shop names, family crests, and advertisements adorned with simple borders within it. When I looked at adverts like that of Oman-zushi, said to have been famous in its day, I was filled with a peculiar nostalgic feeling. I had once been astonished by the painstaking efforts of a collector who gathered Senjafuda votive slips from shrines and temples into three bound volumes, but when would we ever see such a carefree era that could produce works like *Japanese Advertising Art History*? If that were the case, had a proper history of ukiyo-e not even been properly compiled yet?

(March 29th, Kobe.)

Last night before entering Kobe, I spent the day in Kyoto.
But now nothing remains in my memory.
If anything remains, it is merely the cloth-drying along the riverbank.
The sight of Yuzen-dyed detachable collars in various sizes of reds and purples hung on ropes beneath what they call Kōshin Bridge had such a pleasantly spring-like, quintessentially Kyoto atmosphere.
Another instance was when I saw a man in a cobalt-colored garment reminiscent of Mr. Kuroda Seiki’s style filling a four-to barrel with various cuttings and clattering a stick through them.
In the background, with green mottling upon the gray riverbed stones, cloths of vivid mottled colors lay dried here and there.
Many such scenes could be seen.
However, in Kyoto, even a scene where a single person works at the riverbank while five or six others gaze vacantly at them does not appear like an oil painting; instead, it resembles a partitioned section from an old illustrated scroll of auspicious tales.
I wandered into a long market street from the direction of Kyōgoku—what was it called?—and though the shops lining both sides displayed their wares beautifully—the pale pinks and greens of striped kamaboko at fishcake vendors, the handpicked small sea bream, black sea bream, horse mackerel, and red gurnard at fishmongers—they were by no means things that could be handled with canvas and turpentine.
It is indeed the taste of Yukinobu, Harunobu, and others.

Therefore, works by Eisai and Utamaro often seen in antique shops around Sanjō and Shijō appeared far more natural here than in present-day Tokyo, as if they rightfully belonged in this place.

After the lamps were lit, I walked along the riverside road from Sanjō to Shijō.
"Neshudanofu of 'Uncultivated Land'" was seized by a mood even more mysterious than that which fills elderly couples with Rococo tastes when entering their homes.
Through gaps in the willows, lamplight reflected on the water could already be seen.

I visited various people but was unable to meet anyone.
That evening I arrived in Kobe.
(March 29th, Kobe.)

Before coming here, I visited the cooper’s house where HY and you were staying, but unfortunately they were out. Even before that, along with one other person, the three of us visited Mr. Nakazawa Hiromitsu’s studio, and then went to your place.

Before touring Kyoto, I had actually intended to savor "Kyoto's Premonition" at Mr. Nakazawa's place, but unfortunately all the Kyoto sketches had been diverted to woodblock carving, making it impossible to view them. We can never view natural scenery through what might be called our own absolute eyes. We rely considerably on the great masters who dominate that era. For instance, when I see the grasses along Tsukudajima’s riverbank sprouting forth in ash-green hues of early spring, I cannot help but recall Mr. Kuroda’s distinctive style. In Tokyo’s natural world, I had savored the compositional harmony between Mr. Kuroda and Hiroshige; in Kyoto, I intended to do so with Yukinobu and Nakazawa, but regrettably found myself unable to infuse it with Mr. Nakazawa’s particular sensibility.

Instead, I was able to view a collection of Mr. Nakazawa's hot spring sketches.
Hot springs are of course sensually pleasurable, but they must also prove fascinating when measured against painting's standards.
The color harmonies of the colorist school - with their principal themes of white nudes and surfaces of springs clear and purple - whet the appetite even in recollection.

Mr. Nakazawa said he paints hot spring scenes in oil.
Things like Tansen-buro bathhouses and Roman baths are indeed the ultimate culmination of a decadent civilization.
However, if Degas’s ruthless observational eye—which disdains all vulgar commonality in pursuit of the exotic—were permitted in this country today, I could not help but think that such pictorial themes would prove more interesting if captured from the life of the town.
Delicate shoulder blades are effective even in sculpture.
In the warm, misty steam, “the harmony of white” becomes even more pronounced, and I believe it particularly suits the colorist’s canvas.
There are two rare bathhouse paintings by Kiyonaga, and when I learned through Mr. Ueda Ryūson’s *Uzumaki* that one of them had come into Degas’s possession, I found it quite remarkable.

(March 29th, Kobe.)

29th, 30th, rain.
In the afternoon of the 30th, when the sky had finally cleared, I went sightseeing around Kobe with someone but found it thoroughly dull.
In Yokohama, traces of what I term the "foreign settlement atmosphere" still linger here and there, yet in Kobe even that is entirely absent.
Every object observed in the city thrusts itself before one's eyes either vertically if not horizontally, or at forty-five or sixty-degree angles where neither applies.
From nearby Western-style buildings to distant ship masts, harbor cranes, railway freight cars on piers, various smokestacks, and the noon time signal tower—all conform to this geometry.
In color scheme—brick reds, roof tiles, painted clapboards, occasional poplar foliage, all suffused by a metallic gray atmospheric tone.
I encountered no countenances along the streets worthy of being called beauties.
The faces of shop proprietors and managers maintaining splendid establishments remained unrefined by urbanity, bearing fierce colonial-like visages.
The adjectives "Tokyo-style" or "Edo pride" plastered on shop signs reeked of provincialism and displeasure.

If you take a mixture of Tokyo speech, Osaka, Kyoto, Ise, and Chūgoku border dialects and add endings like *dosu*, *omasu*, and *naa*, it roughly approximates Kobe dialect.

I encountered few strange tales or oddities. However, yesterday there was a trial run of the streetcar between Kobe and Hyōgo, and Sakae-machi became crowded with people gazing intently at it. Kobe may have tall foreign residences that appear thoroughly modern, but seeing such sights feels utterly ridiculous, like viewing famous-place prints by Kiyochika or Kuniteru from the early Meiji era.

When I went to the local bathhouse last evening too, it was filled with talk about the streetcar. “Trains have crossing guards, but streetcars don’t, so they’re dangerous for children,” said a man, to which the bathhouse attendant’s wife chimed in agreement: “That’s exactly right.”

(March 31st morning, Kobe.)

Yesterday I came to Osaka and spent the day there. Until then, the daily rains had kept me reading works like Kaishū’s Gakugahen and Shen’s Gaden, immersing me deeply in a Chinese sensibility—but all of that was utterly washed away in a single day yesterday. That morning, I walked about viewing every bustling street, riverbank, bridge, and other scenes there. I believe a city’s morphological standard resides in its bridges. From Kyōmachi to Hirano Bridge, then walking at right angles from my current path to Shianbashi, through Hakubutsukan Street, Nōjinmachi, and Sumiyoshichō until reaching Dōtonbori, before turning back to Nakanoshima. The impression of Osaka’s riverbanks seems quite different from Tokyo’s. This subtle sensual difference in impressions cannot be conveyed through mere casual description.

Osaka’s riverbanks in summer are dominated by yellow clapboards and blinds, yet even so, there are not few white-walled storehouses visible when looking up and down from places like Amagasaki Bridge.
There are not as many bricks as in Tokyo.
On the white walls are small windows—two, four, sometimes five—and they possess something faintly suggestive.
On the white walls, sake brand names are often painted.
Commonly seen are Fukuō, Hakutsuru, Kinka, Marumaru Masamune, and Asahi Beer with its wave and rising sun motif.

Standing on Amagasaki Bridge, I suddenly felt as if I were at Imagawabashi in Tokyo. I remembered that before that bridge, at a house along the riverbank, there had been an evergreen tree—perhaps a masaki—thickly overgrown, upon which summer wind chines hung drenched by rain as if in mourning. Here on both banks—excluding the present warehouses—houses mainly had glass-paned shoji screens installed facing the river. Bay windows with small railings jutted out, where bonsai of pine, omoto, and cypress were arranged. Behind this jumbled scenery—where red sarasa cloth wrappers (now rarely seen in Tokyo, dyed as furoshiki with red grounds bearing black and white patterns) and swaddling clothes hung drying beneath eaves—rose a laundry pole towering above clusters of Osaka-style rooftops with their chaotic proliferation of ridges. Countless hand towels fluttered on the laundry pole in the wind. The same sort of scene could be seen at Imagawabashi too. Moreover, seeing how this view had been captured in a painting by Hiroshige III, it appeared to attract those with artistic sensibilities, much like the shops that once displayed Narumi shibori tie-dye fabrics in the old Narumi post town.

The canal water was cleaner than Tokyo’s. Timber rafts and boats laden with fertilizer barrels passed leisurely beneath the bridge, propelled by oars. On the bridge, sketching proved utterly impossible. Osaka’s bridges all appeared to predate Western engineering principles; even those with iron railings groaned and swayed unsettlingly with each passing vehicle or horsepower.

On that familiar narrow bustling street from Kyōmachi to Hirano Bridge, a ukiyo-e advertisement displayed at an old bookstore’s entrance caught my eye, prompting me to enter for closer inspection. They were likely reproductions, yet the rendering of flesh in one print—possibly Harunobu’s—depicting a woman bathing proved exquisite. Behind her stood a screen with a kimono hanging upon it. Before this backdrop, a woman of those characteristic Harunobu-style delicate contours and countenance used water from a basin; while her lines avoided unpleasantness through their realism, they inevitably assumed an ukiyo-e-esque sensuality overall—for in lieu of the intellectual chill permeating Rodin’s or Manet’s sketches lay an artistic intent to softly exhibit alluring grace beyond mere bodily contouring.

There were also woodblock prints by Utamaro and Koriusai, but they were uninteresting.
They all appeared to be reproductions sent to Germany about ten years prior.
Even though such prints were already abundant in that form, people still desired the originals—there must have been some reason beyond simply venerating rarity. Edo ukiyo-e were in fact more fitting in Osaka than they were in Tokyo.
Then too, I found strolling through Osaka more pleasant than walking in Kyoto.
As Kyoto had long been accustomed to handling many wanderers, I could not peer at their profiles unnoticed while posing as a traveler.
And among the scenes that caught a painter’s eye，there were not few crude contrasts such as maiko and foreigners.
In contrast，Osaka remained fixed in its old ways，much like a traditional long-established shop.

The streets were narrow enough to cause unease, their roofs correspondingly low. Kamaboko shops lined up their red and green fish cakes as usual; sushi shops arranged their wares, poultry stores displayed channel-marker signs, shiruko parlors hung paper lanterns, even udon stalls' hanging lamps—all manifested a uniform aesthetic reminiscent of Edo-period illustrated chapbook covers.

In a Minami Ward backstreet, I even spotted signs outside a pawnshop's crimson-lacquered lattice door proclaiming "Shingaku Lectures" and "Scriptural Expositions by Venerable Master Fujisawa." Yesterday's overcast sky held a smoky silver tint. Across the plains between Kobe and Osaka, I witnessed withered and verdant grasses blending in color harmonies that cooled the heart like spring water.

(April 2nd, Osaka Library.)

When I came to Osaka yesterday, there happened to be a medical conference underway, so I stealthily slipped in to observe this solemn spectacle.
Dr. Ōsawa, elderly and wearing a black frock coat over his short white hair, was lecturing before three thousand listeners on contemporary advancements in physiology.

After leaving there, I walked through Osaka’s streets once more.
If you, who know Osaka so intimately, had been with me, I might have penetrated deeper into the city’s essence beyond mere visual impressions—how gratifying that would have been.

In Osaka, there existed only one class of sights worth seeing. To say this might verge on exaggeration, but at any rate, one could state in ordinary terms that this was a town of merchants. Thus I thought ukiyo-e remained fitting for this town's shopfronts, and that gidayū narrative music still intimately permeated the emotional life of this city. Even when riding trams, fellow passengers were either square-sashed merchants or company employees in business suits. People said even officials often transformed into merchants when coming to Osaka.

When walking through Kyoto, I found myself surrounded by many superfluous elements—it was merely vast and swiftly grew wearisome—yet upon reaching Osaka, I felt that in any partitioned corner of its city blocks, vibrant fragments of life could be grasped.
Kyoto—just as with its geiko and maiko there—seemed wholly devoted to catering to outsiders, while Osaka, like a seemingly aloof merchant, paid no heed to others and worked solely for its own sake.
Therefore, whether in Sennichimae or Dōtonbori, there existed a unique charm not found in Tokyo’s Asakusa, Kyoto’s Kyōgoku, or other similar locales.
Life was simple and practical.
For instance, even the numerous eateries in its districts appeared conveniently arranged more for the leisure of the same town’s people than for out-of-town visitors to Osaka.
Moreover, unlike Tokyo where entertainment districts were scattered about, here they were concentrated in roughly a single area; thus when viewed from above, Osaka City did not appear fragmented like Tokyo but allowed one to savor its form and physiology as a unified organism.

After the lights were lit, I was able to walk through the bustle of Sennichimae not with the mindset of a traveler—an outsider—but with the familiarity of a citizen of this city.
And I came to understand what necessity this bustle here and these vulgar entertainments held.

Dingy theaters and signboard paintings assaulting the eyes with garish splotches of color—Osaka had not yet adopted Asakusa’s cheap painted signs—shamisen, drums, and clarinets; Kasuga-za’s “Barracks’ Dream,” Daiichi Osaka-kan’s “Kawachi Jiro,” Sakae-za’s “Sumiyoshi Dance: Inari Mountain,” Nihon-kan’s moving pictures, Tokiwa-za’s “Chūshingura Promotion,” female jōruri performer Takemoto Haruhiro, along with fishing games and rakugo storytelling—all these reflections of human desire further enticed passersby.

Driven by the desire to see as much of Osaka as possible within limited time, I walked without resting for a moment and peered into every entertainment spectacle I could find.
Having once heard you mention the vaudeville hall called Hajū, I entered and observed for about an hour.
Upon its front signboard were written large characters in modern parlance: "National Female Jōruri Performers - Training Presentation Institution."
A girl between fourteen and eighteen years old—her facial contours still undefined and her understanding of worldly matters incomplete—lacked any profound comprehension of complex jōruri lyrics or their artistically refined emotional passions; driven by some urgent necessity wholly divorced from artistry, she nevertheless delivered tragic passages with partially intentional expressions and grimaces born of vocal strain—baring teeth and squeezing shut her eyes to shamisen strings played out of tune—presenting a truly pitiable sight.
Simultaneously recognizing how this physiological exaggeration aroused particular interest among listeners compelled me toward adopting an unexpectedly optimistic perspective regarding society's mechanisms.

However, when viewed as models for neck studies, there was another kind of interest.
Expressions resembling Rodin’s “Weeping Woman” were not infrequently encountered.
To seek out Degas’s ironic pictorial subjects would already lie beyond my purview.
That required deeper penetration.
I would have to await your collection of short pieces.

In the midst of this, I was suddenly startled by a deep, hoarse voice.
“Take-chan! Take-chan! We’ve been waiting—” were the words grasped in that instant.
Everyone immediately turned their gaze in that direction.
They were likely some sort of prearranged applauders.
An excessively aged old man with a bronze-colored face sat bowing as if oblivious, stroking the hibachi’s edge with his fingertips.
Since this contrast had already surpassed mere absurdity, the redirected gazes seemed to return to their former state with an unanticipated slackness.

I had always thought to observe art as existing at the extremes of △Illusion + △Connaissance.
The old aesthetics appeared to discuss only the most extreme instances of art's illusory sensations.
The melodic patterns woven by raw vocal tones, the raw vocal tones drifting beneath those melodic patterns—it is within this oscillation between two such axes that the psychological process of artistic appreciation must be sought.
Were I to be counter-questioned—whether such thoughts might not belong to people of an era lacking art refined enough to transport one into realms of illusion—I too would find myself at a loss to respond.
The interweaving of artistic sensibility and lived reality manifested itself repeatedly through the clamor of packed audiences at venues like Tokyo-za and Kabuki-za during performances such as Shikan's Yaezakihime and Akane-ya's Osono.

Even in this instance, were there a somewhat beautiful female jōruri performer who—mixing her gidayū-style voice with the nasal tones of an actual woman—were to sing in a smooth *tampo* style while saying, “All this time, it was your own treachery…”, lightly striking her left palm with a fan in her right hand, raising herself slightly on her knees, blinking her eyes irregularly, and adopting an expression as though recalling something—then many spectators would inevitably manifest their emotion through applause or meaningless shouts. For this was a place entirely liberated from any notion of restraint. If there exists an artistically insightful individual, it goes without saying that they could create from Japanese materials what Rodin achieved fame through.

When I came out to Dōtonbori, the area in front of Benteiza was so bustling that I wanted to go in again to see.
The curtain did not open for quite some time.
When it opened, it turned out to be a Tokyo-style production pandering to Osaka audiences—utterly boring—so I left immediately.

“Well now, Kōraiya must be number one, I suppose.”

“Sadanji must be splendid too.”

“I can’t rightly say which is better.”

While listening to such exchanges—
The performer here wore a striped kimono bearing family crests.
The Osaka dialect these women employed was mercurial, their speech flowing like oil.

Yesterday afternoon saw a cosmetic advertisement parade pass through Dōtonbori Street.
When they played what might have been Yanagi’s Sawari melody with clanging bells and drums—truly Osaka at its finest—I found myself deeply impressed.
The scene of a maid in leek-green half-apron turning to stare, a clerk pausing with his iron-red bundle cloth, two or three teahouse maids linking arms as they watched—it might have been lifted straight from a Naniwa genre painting scroll.

In the city I frequently came upon shops selling kamishimo, and at such moments found myself assailed by a "sentiment of the urban stroller" I had never before known.
Even that alone made Osaka likable.
How much more so when those one shares a train with or borrows a light from for tobacco—there was not a single person among them who did not understand discussions of artistic matters.

(April 2nd, at Osaka Library.)

This afternoon I entered Osaka Library to look around. All the books I had wanted to borrow were out for a special exhibition, making it impossible to view them—a regrettable situation. Then "Pine Needle Fall" too turned out not to be a collection of Genroku-era short songs as expected, but rather another essay collection by someone called Fujii.

After persuading them to let me into the exhibition room, behind untouchable glass cases lay titles like *Naniwa Seasonal Mirror*, *New Edition Bountiful Year Pilgrimage*, *Dōtonbori Debut Attire: Naniwa Miso(?) and Ise Powder*, and *Shinmachi Root-Pulling Farmer Posture Program*. Works such as *Naniwa Style*, *Record of Naniwa Pleasure Quarters*, *Detailed Map of Osaka's Shinmachi*, *Illustrated Guide to Scenic Yodo River Banks*, and *Picture Book: Friend of Four Seasons*—all illustrated genre painting albums—stood arrayed.

Books of this kind were so abundant in Edo from the An'ei-Tenmei to Tenpō periods that they could fill ox carts and houses, yet were relatively scarce in Kyoto and Osaka. As for those from the Genroku period, there may have been some.

In this dim room, I happened to contemplate the terms *Kamigata’s iki* and *Edo’s iki*, realizing that while the former was psychological, the latter was markedly external (morphological). Were I to compare works like those of Saikaku and Chikamatsu with sharebon witty novels and kusazōshi illustrated books to theorize about the civilizations of those two metropolises, it would make for an interesting study.

(April 2nd night, on the train to Kobe.)

Yesterday’s lunch was at a tempura restaurant called Umetsuki, which I had asked someone about beforehand. Usually one could observe pure Osaka people there, but today, as the hour was well past noon, I couldn’t hear any market rumors marked by the “dasu” and “omasu” speech patterns.

Then, though it was already late, I went to see Bunraku.
Given my recollection of your impressions and having read it a year and a half prior, I had thought it would be something grand, but it did not quite resonate with me.
They say the opening "Shaka Tanjō-e" is Chikamatsu’s work, but that is absurd.
To tell the truth, I had brought along the manuscript of India-ō this time because I hadn’t finished it in Tokyo, but after seeing this play, I felt like burning it all up.
However, Settsu no Daijō’s second performance of Awa Naruto seemed to impart to me a kind of "restorative quality of sound."
Yet I cannot clearly state to what extent this feeling arises from tradition versus my own understanding and emotional investment.
I do not place much trust in my musical ear.
Therefore, I cannot discern whether my admiration for Ryojo’s Tsubosaka stemmed from its true merits or if my current sense of stifling pressure toward Settsu’s artistry reveals a deficiency in my own perception.

It was an undeniable fact that Settsu no Daijō’s advanced age and elegant countenance, along with Hirozuke’s face as he played the shamisen, had instilled in me a sort of romantic reverence toward this artist. Every time I considered how that gentle expression of the seventy-year-old man with long eyebrows had been carved by his lifelong artistic journey, I felt a stirring of sentimental emotion. On this occasion, the two head sketches I made fortunately earned praise from neighboring spectators.

The box next to me was occupied by guests from Tokyo. One was a woman nearing fifty who appeared to be a townhouse housewife, with a moral yet somewhat spirited countenance. I managed to hear her impressions of sightseeing in Osaka, but when she said that upon coming here all thoughts of retiring had completely vanished—that one must work until death—I was struck by an odd sensation. It was an unexpected, oddly moralistic impression that seemed out of place, but thanks to her companion—a merchant-like man past thirty who provided commentary—I was able to grasp its meaning. Starting from how Tokyo’s commerce felt utterly like a child’s mischief when viewed from Osaka, he spoke of how Osaka people cherish time and revere money, then described a certain Osaka establishment—an old-established firm said to be perhaps Japan’s foremost—though unfortunately I’ve forgotten its name. What I now recall is his praise that despite being such a large business, its premises were cramped and dirty, with the proprietor wearing plain clothes. In Tokyo, he explained, even sizable brokerage firms delay payments bit by bit—meaning they finance operations using others’ money to that extent—while in Osaka they account meticulously down to fractions of a sen. If Tokyo people come to do business here, he stressed, they must be scrupulously honest; should there be even a hint of deceit, Osaka people with their hawk-sharp eyes would immediately see through it and refuse engagement. Moreover, he added that their group strength in such matters rivaled the Chinese people’s, leaving no room for maneuver.

“You see, it’s like that,” he said, pointing to the front box seats. “Take a look. They even bring sake from home in bottles to places like this. Then they get some fire to warm it themselves before drinking. You realize those zabuton cushions were brought from home wrapped in furoshiki too, don’t you?”

I countered by noting how affordable Osaka’s theatrical performances were. In Bunraku, twelve sen buys you a whole day in the rear seats. What’s more, theaters here don’t have Tokyo’s single-act tickets—what counts as full-house seating costs merely ten or fifteen sen.

“Osaka people are truly such carefree souls,” the man remarked. “They’ll watch those plays with endless intermissions all day long in such places without a hint of dissatisfaction.”

Meanwhile onstage, puppets carved with intensely exaggerated features appeared almost caricatured at first glance. Yet under the puppeteers’ seamless manipulation, their unstable dynamic expressions blurred into a whirl of motion—until one doll seemed to weep through an angry visage amidst this dizzying spectacle.

I couldn't recall exactly where it was, but when Settsu no Daijō declared, "Let us split up to search...", handkerchiefs were suddenly pressed to eyes throughout the box seats. Even Hirozuke—his yellowish, anemic features giving the impression of an old woman's visage—had taken on a tearful expression as he desperately plucked at his shamisen. Hearing a nearby spectator mutter, "Hirozuke-san's strings are impossible to follow," I wandered through that familiar realm of Illusion and Désillusion, wondering if this were true—yet before me in the box seats, a six- or seven-year-old boy stood straining on tiptoes, vacant eyes wide with bewilderment, gazing toward that distant shore of emotions still unknown to him.

When the segment reached “Ah! The oizuri robe too—since this child has both parents, both hems are madder-dyed...”, I too felt myself abruptly plunging into a world of fantasy for the first time.
The tragedy of Jūrōbei’s household tragedy, which I had until now only conceptually savored, seemed to have its depiction of that peculiar fact—that both hems of the oizuri robe were madder-dyed because he had both parents—cloud my awareness instantaneously like opium.
I was able to experience an artistic reality as if touching the genuine article with my own hands.
Then, at the part where they said “Without undoing the fastenings, just as the pilgrim’s robe was draped,” I felt another small shock.
Once again, the vivid image of the exhausted small pilgrim girl sleeping was conjured up.

It was a shame, but due to time constraints, I went outside—only to realize that an uncontrollable frustration had welled up within me.

That night, after returning to Kobe and going to bed, I was struck by an auditory hallucination for the first time in ages.

At last—though I had not experienced such things since I was fourteen or fifteen—this act of half-unconsciously hearing a shamisen suddenly begin to play and devotional hymns resounding across the surface of my mind, with eyes half-closed in darkness, was nevertheless a pleasant thing.
(April 3rd, in Kyoto.)

It is deeply regrettable that urgent business now forces me to return to Tokyo on tonight's express. Determined to at least spend what remained of the day in Kyoto, I arrived here this morning. Nara and Sakai had sufficed, but I had longed to immerse myself more deeply in Osaka. I had wanted above all to witness Ganjirō's artistry not on Tokyo-za's *hanamichi* or among Sarunosuke's troupe, but within the atmosphere of Osaka's old-fashioned theaters. There I would undoubtedly discover something unattainable in Tokyo's theatrical productions. After all, Kamigata's civilization has far deeper roots than Edo's three centuries of urban cultivation—Osaka people must understand life better than Edo-Tokyo folk. It's no accident that a concept like *iki* was born not in Edo but here in Kamigata.

Upon entering Kyoto, I found it most peculiar that the first thing I encountered at the station was a monk.
Along the way from there to Shijō, dim shops selling brass candlesticks, a large ox, riverside willows, numerous inns, and old-fashioned bridges stirred my visual senses.

If one adds to these elements temples, pagodas, the languid figures of maiko, and Western women in rickshaws, one can roughly conjure up the scenery of Kyoto.

Mr. Kuroda Seiki’s *Kogō Monogatari* is said to have drawn inspiration from a chance encounter with a crowd on the street, but monks, geiko and maiko, pleasure-seeking patrons, and grass-cutting girls are truly Kyoto-like *Eléments*. Moreover, its composition evokes the genre paintings of old picture scrolls, while the conception—through a narrative style common in Noh plays (such as how Dōjō-ji’s earlier shite role as a white-robed dancer later hints at the serpent that chronologically precedes it)—avoids direct historical depiction yet adds a certain atmospheric quality, thereby rendering it all the more meaningful. Moreover, I think that the contrast between its purely pictorial physiognomy still reminiscent of the West made that painting all the more intriguing.

From Kyoto’s present-day life，however，when attempting to create a genre painting，I must declare that Westerners are an indispensable element.
While Yokohama and Kobe remain their own matters，Kyoto and foreigners have now become inseparably intertwined.

In the darkness of Sanjūsangen-dō, numerous golden Kannon statues stood in rows.
The large ceiling lantern traced an indistinct ring of light there.
“The Imperial Sovereign Go-Shirakawa, seventy-seventh in lineage, established… Within the one thousand and one principal statues, thirty-three thousand three hundred thirty-three Kannon-sama are enshrined,” sang the young acolyte guide in his drowsy melody—yet even amidst this, the procession of colorfully clad foreign women appeared rather incongruous.

At the museum, I viewed various auspicious-themed picture scrolls spanning from the Kamakura period to the era of Nobunaga. Following ukiyo-e, these genre paintings greatly delighted my heart. In any era, nothing has ever captivated my heart more than the lives of common people and their artistic expression.

The earthen head of what is called a sculpted Buddha statue excavated at Tongwubashi in Kucha, Chinese Turkestan—said to have been donated by Reverend Ōtani Kōzui—was so beautiful it felt as though it would shatter my heart.

(April 3rd morning, in Kyoto.)

I was now at a restaurant by Shijō Bridge with someone. To pass the time until the Miyako Odori began—partly so I might observe Kyoto moving across from me without needing to exert myself.

Among them, two Westerners had been there from the beginning. They were conversing in a heavy accent that immediately identified them as Germans. Then two more people who seemed to be their companions arrived.

Against this backdrop, on the riverbank beneath Shijō Bridge visible below the window, that familiar cobalt-hued crowd was busily engaged in gathering the Yuzen muslin spread out in neat rows to dry.

Due to the uneven surface of the glass, the patterns in pale blue-green and golden brown glittered quite pleasantly, as if seen through heat haze. Across a row of cloth lay Umamura (?) Bridge—distantly black, its outline precise in that Hiroshige-esque manner. The grass had already taken on an unpleasantly Japanese yellowing, but between it and the several rows of cloths—drying on bright purplish-gray pebbles in patterns of yellow, purple, and pale blue-green—a kind of pleasant chromatic harmony emerged. At the water’s edge of the riverbank, two or three wicker baskets pasted with shibugami paper were piled up. Nearby, two or three people were working while talking. Someone was busily turning some sort of gear mechanism. Someone else, still wearing black trousers, waded into the river and dragged out a long khaki-colored cloth. Someone else would remove a hung pale blue-green Yuzen-dyed fabric, two people pulling it taut—then drawing closer together, separating again to their original distance, then closing in once more—until what had been folded into two became four, four became eight, and eight became sixteen, before being laid upon the stones. And when gaps began to appear in the ropes stretched between the poles, a person from the river would drape another muslin of altered color limply over them.

The cities of Kyoto and Osaka, along with their formative way of life, were beautifully mottled like Yuzen-dyed fabrics, as lovely as chrysanthemum petals painted by Hōitsu.
However, only the life here could encompass not just milk gold, red ocher, and ultramarine, but also emerald and rose madder.
How pleasant it would be to capture that group of two or three people drying cloth with a coarse-grained camera.

Naturally, beyond that, one could discern the perspectives of Yūshin and Kiyonaga.
In Yūshin’s picture book, there was an illustration of a woman warming herself at a kotatsu with a small pot stand beside her.
Outside the gate was snow piling up, just where a man had closed his umbrella—viewing the cloth-drying on the riverbank from the window of a riverside house with a low string instrument sound would have been this particular aesthetic sensibility.
However, writing such things made me feel as though I myself were thought to harbor a longing for this Yūsenkutsu, which was disadvantageous.
Just as “Olenti in fornice” belongs to Horace’s domain, *Gion Sōshi* was Mr. Yoshii Isamu’s territory.

Let me introduce Shijō Bridge visible below.
The sake shop’s signboard bearing the name "Kōdai" covered the large roof of Mukōgishi riverbank.
There was a red flag there dyed white with "Toyotake Rōshō".
The unlit Jintan sign stood imposingly atop the roof.
The round shade of the railing’s electric light was tinged a murky purple with a talc-like luster.
Soldiers passed beneath it.
Cars, rickshaws, carts, and a group of country girls passed by.
A maiko’s chignon could be seen—two riding together in a shared carriage.
A lady accompanied by a maid passed by holding numerous playbills in her hands.
Two women passed by, each accompanied by a man holding up a parasol to shade them.
Those must have been the people distributing papers under Gion’s eaves while loudly calling "mono mo o, mono mo o" about Miss So-and-so’s younger sister.
Two foreign women stood on the blue bridge’s railing.
Had the day darkened a little more, they would have truly become figures within a Whistlerian mood.

The facial features of Kyoto women seemed to possess the beauty of composite photographs.
The deep lines and vanishing individuality—a subdued morbidezza peeked from beneath the white makeup.
Ah, lamps were lit along the riverbank for the first time.
We had to walk onward now.

“Oh, Miss! The bill, please!”

(April 3rd, in Kyoto.)

I saw two or three curious sights.

You may not approve of my viewing Kyoto through a Pierre Loti-like perspective, but being entirely unbound by Kyoto's legends as I am, I find myself compelled to perceive it through such cartoonish romanticism. Take for instance the tea ceremonies within the Miyako Odori—through this lens they transform into truly amusing spectacles. The foreigners particularly heighten this comical flair.

The tea was prepared through a ceremony so unbearably tedious we could scarcely endure it. When small, child-faced women—their attire and movements mismatched—served the tea, the first large bowl found its way before the elderly foreigner at the farthest end.

On the opposite side, a group of Western women in mottled-colored jackets and Scout uniforms gazed wide-eyed at the peculiar procedures of *chanoyu*, but when the first tea was now served before their compatriot, they all clapped in unison.
The elderly foreigner blushed and laughed cheerfully.

In any case, the foreign women (with men in black attire serving as contrast) and the troupe of maiko, in their mutually ornate, lavish costumes formed a beautiful scene that might make even a painting by Spain’s Sorolla seem thus. Moreover, candlelight and electric lamps were supplying a certain ambiance.

A greedy old woman collected unglazed confectionery plates with dumpling patterns from two or three people in the neighborhood.
Then the nearby group of Westerners, apparently thinking they too must give all their own dishes to that old woman, began bringing them over to her. Before long, over a dozen plates and half-eaten manju had gathered on the old woman’s table, and the hall instantly became a sea of roaring laughter that erupted in unison.
The foreigners, not comprehending the meaning, themselves blushed and laughed.

If one were to skillfully depict such an Osakan—one who annoyingly flaunted his sophistication without any real finesse amidst this bustle—it would surely have created art with nuances surpassing even *Hizakurige*. This Osakan, who was neither refined nor spirited in the least, through his pride in being a man of the metropolis and his willful words and deeds, had frequently invited both resentment and ridicule from many. For instance, though he showed no apparent familiarity with tea ceremony etiquette, he seemed intent on demanding “propriety” from this disorderly crowd and the young women serving small portions of tea. And then he yelled loudly. I believe *Hizakurige* remains valuable even now due to its observations of dialects and minute actions.

“Osakans in Kyoto” struck me as an excellent touchstone for gauging the author’s meticulous comprehension, his ingenuity in capturing delicate relationships, and his sensitivity to nuance aligned with Taine’s standards.
We had grown weary of too many rough-hewn arts.
We desired works planed with greater finish.
That I favored Mr. Tokuda Shūsei most among so-called Naturalist works derived precisely from this purely artistic perspective.

The Miyako Odori had been inherently trivial from its inception.
Such art, mass-produced through numerical output, merely fatigued eyes and ears—serving no purpose beyond furnishing souvenir anecdotes.
Amidst shamisen that clattered like wooden planks and bells going clang-clang, between the mechanical lower-register rhythms of “Haa ha” and “Yooii” chants, there lingered the drawn-out “...tsuukii kaagee no... katamuku kata wa...”
Since they performed calisthenics to such interminable melodies, it stood condemned to tedium by necessity.

(April 3rd, midnight, on the train.)