Pathway to Japanese Literature

蟲有蚘者。
一身兩口、爭相齕也。
遂相食、因自殺。

——Han Feizi——

I

As I was returning from the biology classroom to the staff room, someone called out "Sir" from behind me in the corridor.

When I turned around, one of the students—whose face I definitely recognized but whose name didn’t come to mind immediately—had come before me and was holding out something like a lidless confectionery box about five sun square while muttering something I couldn’t quite catch.
Inside the box was laid cotton, and atop it rested a strange-shaped bluish-black creature resembling a lizard.

“What? Huh?”
“A chameleon?”
“Huh?”
“It’s a chameleon!”
“Is it alive?”

Flustered by the unexpected apparition, when I fired off rapid questions, the student nodded "Yes" and began explaining while blushing. A relative who was a sailor had received it in Cairo or somewhere, and since it was a rare creature, they suggested bringing it to school—which was why it had been brought to me, the biology teacher.

"Well now, that’s something."

Without even saying thank you, I took the box and gazed at the dragon-like little monster. Far more three-dimensional than a lizard, with a large head and a long coiled tail; though it seemed listless from the cold, there it nevertheless was—pressing down on the cotton with its vivid blue forelimbs in solemn fashion.

After handing me the chameleon, the student—as if embarrassed to remain standing before me any longer—gave a quick bow and left.

After taking it to the staff room, I realized for the first time how difficult it would be to keep. The school had no greenhouse. For the time being, I had it perch on a branch of the potted magnolia tree near the brazier. At first it remained perfectly still, but then, apparently revived by the warmth of the nearby fire, it gradually began to move. The eye sockets were rather large, but the apertures through which the eyeballs peered outward were extremely small; swiveling these tiny holes in every direction, it seemed to be surveying unfamiliar scenery from within their depths. It would crawl from the magnolia branch toward a leaf, nearly slipping under its own weight, then try to support itself by gripping the leaf's edge with its toes—only to ultimately fall. It fell onto the pot's soil and the floor again and again. Each time it fell, it would rise up with a serious expression like a child angered by being mocked for its blunder, and—the decorative serrations standing along its back lending it an air of grave solemnity—set off walking blindly.

The staff members all came to see it out of curiosity.
Most would ask "What is it?" with apparent curiosity.
The old national language teacher, through some misunderstanding, declared, “That thing’s supposed to be some kind of cure for venereal disease, isn’t it?
“You dry it in the shade and brew it into a decoction, now.”

Someone caught a fly from somewhere, plucked off one wing, placed it on their palm, and presented it.
From the chameleon's mouth shot forth a pale vermilion rod of flesh.
The moment the fly stuck to the tip of its tongue, the mouth was already closed.

In the end, I consulted with the other biology teachers about how to handle this creature.
Though it probably wouldn’t survive long anyway, we decided to make something like a canary cage, place it in the warmest spot possible, and try keeping it at the school as it was.
As for food, it was decided that if we had the students search for out-of-season flies and bring them in, we could probably manage somehow.
However, until those simple facilities could be prepared, I decided to take custody of it and keep it in my apartment to protect it from the cold nights and the threat of cats.

That night, I put more coal than usual into the small stove in my room.
I took down the round cage of the parrot that had recently died, spread cotton inside it, and placed the chameleon within.
I didn't know whether it drank water or not, but at any rate, I placed a bird's water dish inside for it.

Ridiculous as it was, I felt both pleased and excited to no small degree.
Only the thought that I would eventually have to let it die from cold cast shadows over me.
If it wasn't going to survive long anyway, I thought, then rather than keeping it at school, I wanted to have it at my place.
I also considered donating it to the zoo, but somehow couldn't bear to part with it.
I felt as though I had personally received it.

The exoticism that had long lain dormant within me awoke once more with the unexpected appearance of this peculiar little creature. The color of the sea when I once visited Ogasawara. The gloss of thick tropical leaves. An oily, glaring sky. Primary-colored vivid hues and blazing light and heat. A youthful fascination with exotic curiosities suddenly sprang to life within me. Even though outside lay a sleety evening sky, I felt my chest swelling with emotion for the first time in ages.

I placed the cage near the stove and arranged beside it the rubber tree and trough-shaped pot that had been in the corner of the room. I left the cage entrance open. Since there was no risk of it escaping the room, and because I thought it might sometimes want to perch on a tree.

II

When I woke up and looked, the chameleon was not perched on the rubber tree or anything of that sort, but had settled atop a book that had slipped under the desk, peering toward me through its tiny eye apertures. It seemed more energetic than I had expected. Though having heated the room considerably the previous evening—perhaps due to it becoming overly dry—I had ended up with a slightly sore throat. The book upon which the chameleon had perched was Schopenhauer's Parerga und Paralipomena.

It was my day off, but I went to school in the afternoon because of the chameleon.
As I had thought last night, if there were no proper facilities, keeping it at school would make no difference—so I decided to keep it at my place instead.
Surely the school wouldn't build a greenhouse just for one chameleon.

When I went to school and requested permission, the principal and other staff members spoke as if they had nearly forgotten yesterday's matter.

“Ah, that insect from yesterday!” they said.
It was only I who remained ecstatic about this small reptile's sudden appearance.

I went to collect the flies from students as requested yesterday.
To my surprise, many had survived.
A matchbox brimmed with them.
This would likely sustain it for two or three days.

As I prepared to leave with the flies, Yoshida from Japanese studies came hurrying after me, declaring we should walk together since he too was heading home.
He clearly burned with some urgent matter needing discussion.
We detoured to M. Beekary’s, drinking tea while conversing for nearly an hour.

Although he was about the same age as me, I knew no one else so inexhaustibly energetic, so resolutely practical-minded, so shamelessly materialistic, so utterly divorced from feelings of doubt, shame, or bashfulness as this man. He was a workhorse who knew no fatigue. A capable administrator. A master of methods. (To hell with essentialism!) A man perpetually brimming with spirited prejudices, charging headlong into every endeavor. Sports days, exhibitions, cultural festivals, editing the alumni association magazine—he single-handedly handled all these and anything else. Abstraction was synonymous with meaninglessness to him. Around New Year this year, at some class gathering, three or four students had gone out to buy oranges and rice crackers. The front of the school formed a slope descending from Yamate, and when the students in charge of shopping—carrying cloth-wrapped bundles—had climbed halfway up this slope, one student's bundle came undone, spilling oranges from within. Two, three, four... seven, eight—down the rather steep slope, vividly colored mandarin oranges tumbled out one after another. The student flushed crimson at this unforeseen mishap, barely managing to retie the cloth bundle as oranges continued rolling away—chasing them now utterly beyond reach. Because there were quite a few people from outside the school passing by, it must have been a bit embarrassing for him.

Just at that moment, Yoshida, who had been standing at the top of the slope, began charging down with ferocious momentum the instant he saw this.
Kicking pebbles away, nearly slipping on the gravel, almost stumbling forward, shoving aside a student standing in his path, he hunched his short-statured back and gave chase to the oranges.
He fell once but immediately got up, started running again without brushing off the sand, eventually picked up all fifteen or sixteen oranges, and prevented them from tumbling into the ditch on one side of the slope.
The students and passersby alike stopped in their tracks, dumbfounded, captivated by his ferocious momentum.
Yoshida, holding oranges in his hand and stuffing them into his pockets, climbed back up while scolding the students: “You lot can’t just stand there gawkin’!”
The reason his face turned red was simply because he had been running; it was absolutely not due to him being bashful.
At that moment, I keenly felt that this man was indeed the very model I should emulate.
This man always taught me that humans—or perhaps living beings—should live thus.
There was someone who characterized him as a higher elementary school student type.
Higher elementary school students, they say, lack the cheekiness of middle schoolers and work so diligently that it's hard to tell how much more useful they are compared to those middle school students.
I too thought that vigorous higher elementary students were far more admirable than lackluster university students.

As he spoke, Yoshida took out a sheet of paper from his inner pocket and spread it before me.
This was the second time I was being shown this today.
It was a salary chart of all staff members at this school (not publicly listed in private school staff directories) that he had painstakingly compiled by gathering information from who knows where.
Moreover, estimated bonus amounts from the previous year had even been entered.
He was truly skilled at uncovering such matters, and took personal pride in this ability.
Regarding all people with whom he associated, he seemed to be conducting background investigations on each and every one through methods akin to a private investigator’s.
When it came to those he resented in particular, he would investigate them with such thorough obstinacy as to uncover their every flaw.
In this salary chart, next to the names of teachers who unjustly received higher salaries than he did were marked with red pencil lines.
He would show this to anyone and everyone, voicing his grievances at length in Kansai dialect.

“Cooking Teacher T—a woman pullin’ down way more than me.”
“All comes down to how ya negotiate at the start—ain’t no fixed standard, see.”
“Complete madness, I tell ya.”

When he had shown me this chart before, he had spoken about Cooking Teacher T in much the same terms.
Now that I looked, only above T’s name had several thick blue pencil lines been drawn alongside the red ones.

“Because it was just too absurd, I went and told the principal about it.”
“Anyway, since I’ve had more years of schooling—might be they’d call me thick-skinned for it—I told him to set my pay higher than Ms. T’s no matter what.”
“Then he says, ‘Well, that’s reasonable enough—let’s make it three yen more than Ms. T.’”
“Three yen, I tell ya.”
“Only that?”
“Still, it’s better than now, I suppose.”

Yoshida kept the salary chart spread out before him and proceeded to discuss each staff member’s backgrounds and personal circumstances. Among the female teachers were those rumored to have graduated from Women’s Higher Normal School, though in truth they had merely attended the Temporary Teacher Training Institute. N, head of Japanese language studies, had taken an advance of two months’ salary. Old Art Teacher H had been taking hefty commissions between framing shops, paint suppliers, and students. There was talk of Mr. S from English often walking about with the music teacher of late. Yoshida’s manner of speaking made it clear that knowing others’ secrets brought him supreme satisfaction. From his account, he appeared to have argued with Head N over some matter that day and separately clashed with physical education teachers too. This stemmed from a disagreement last month between Yoshida and the gym teachers regarding how the sports day program was conducted—an issue that reportedly remained unresolved. When not buried in administrative work, Yoshida became like a stomach with excess acid lacking substance to digest, ever prone to creating friction with others.

After listening to his talk for about an hour, I found myself in a rather unpleasant mood and returned home carrying a matchbox filled with flies.

When I went out at night and casually looked up at the eastern sky, I unintentionally let out a cry of "Ah!" For through the bare branches of the great hackberry tree, I had spotted Orion rising for the first time since spring—half a year later. When the small green mandarin oranges begin to appear, Lord Three Stars starts showing himself—this memory from my childhood, often told by my grandmother, came flooding back. Above Orion were Auriga and crimson Aldebaran and the Pleiades—like frozen droplets on a glass vessel—showing themselves with crystalline clarity. It wasn't just the fixed stars. High in the southern sky, lined up from left to right at approximately equal intervals, were likely Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. Especially Jupiter’s white gleam shone so radiantly it seemed to sweep clean all four corners of the sky.

It was quite cold, but a windless, quiet evening. While gazing up at the three planets, I recalled the beginning of Poetry and Truth. There was recorded—in handwriting overflowing with confidence in his own greatness—the constellation arrangement filled with auspicious signs from the day of this poet's birth. During my third year in the science course at Higher School, this book had been used as our second foreign language textbook, and since I had been assigned to translate this opening section, I remembered it clearly. Suddenly, the green cover of that textbook used in class—its title embossed in gold letters, the smell of printing ink when I first held it—along with the German teacher's features and voice, even matters concerning classmates from those days—all came flooding vividly into my mind.

With nostalgia for youth searing my chest, I returned to my room.
I rummaged through bookshelves and boxes searching for the copy of Poetry and Truth that I’d used long ago and that should still be there, but couldn’t find it.
Amidst the scattered books, for a while I was gripped by a feeling—something beyond mere restlessness—that could only be described as an unbearable ache of longing for youth and thirst for friendship.

Something similar had happened just two or three days earlier. While riffling through an English-Japanese dictionary trying to look up a certain character, when my eyes happened to catch the word "Opera" on a randomly-opened page, I suddenly felt as if something bright, vibrant, and youthful had passed before me. It resembled watching the brightly lit windows of a night train pass along an embankment from a dark country path through rice fields—a fragment of some resplendent dream I had completely forgotten until now had come from a distant world and flickered past before me. When I was still a student, opera troupes from Russia and Italy would come to perform at the Teikoku Gekijō—which wasn’t yet a cinema then—around March every year. Carmen, Rigoletto, La Bohème, Boris Godunov—I went to see these as often as my finances allowed. In the bright lighting, the downy hair on the actresses’ ample shoulders and pale arms glistened, their blond tresses swayed, their cheeks flushed crimson, their sensual youthful voices quivered delightfully—intoxicating me. The mere five letters of "Opera" that I had chanced upon wafted a fleeting fragrance of that lost-distant-resplendent world's sweet air, leaving me momentarily disoriented. Forgetting to search for the needed character, I stared at the letters "Opera" and remained in a daze.

People said becoming retrospective was likely due to physical decline.
I thought so too.
Yet undoubtedly,the greatest cause had to be my current lack of work—or perhaps life—into which I could immerse myself.

Truly,the misery and wretchedness of my recent existence.
Squirming inwardly,turning my venom upon myself,sputtering smoke as I gnawed my own flesh,warping into grotesque shapes—through it all,nothing remained but flimsy cynicism.
This wasn't how things should have been—why then,and when exactly,did I become this way? At any rate,I'd already transformed into this oddity by the time I noticed.
Not good,nor bad.
To force definitions would only bring distress.
Regardless,I differed from the healthy people around me.
Not from pride,mind you—
Quite the contrary.
Through anxiety and restlessness.
My perception,the orientation of my heart—fundamentally askew.
Others dwell within reality.
Not I.
Enveloped in agar like frog spawn.
Some refractive medium of gelatinous vision intervening between myself and reality.
Unable to directly touch or feel external things.
Initially,I'd considered this intellectual ornamentation—troubling,yet clung to it with vanity.
But clearly,I'd been mistaken.

It seemed to stem from a more fundamental, innate lack of certain abilities. Nor was it just one ability missing, but several. For instance, I appeared to lack utilitarianism in the most universal sense of what makes an individual an individual. Moreover, I had no capacity to comprehend things as a unified series—a sequence arranged toward a purpose. I would take up each element as something entirely independent. A day remained merely a day—I couldn't conceive of it as part of some future plan. Unless a day possessed its own independent value, I refused to acknowledge it. Furthermore, I couldn't directly penetrate into the essence of things—including myself—instead first attempting to gauge their position from without. Simply measuring their place within the whole and their value relative to greater things left me disappointed, unable to truly enter into them. To view things sub specie aeternitatis—not that I was any philosopher. Rather, I saw everything through the most commonplace lens of impermanence—that is, by presumptuously contrasting all matters against eternity, I first came to feel their meaninglessness. Before devising practical solutions, I would contemplate (or rather feel) their ultimate futility—not through logic, but through this visceral sense of pointlessness rising from my gut—and thereby abandon all effort.

When I consider it properly, what a thoroughly meaningless way of existence mine had been until now.
This half-life of mine might well be described as having been spent entirely on obstructing the unified concentration of spirit.
In any event, I appear to have devoted all my efforts solely to numbing myself and negating everything I inherently possessed.

In those days when I still retained some acuity of sensibility, I feared being driven solely by it, and strove to blunt my perceptions through contemplating flavorless clumps of concepts I never desired. When I ultimately came to know all concepts as gray, and when I realized how golden-green that which I'd painstakingly excised had been, I found myself already bereft of means to retrieve it. When I once possessed a fairly reliable memory, I despised this faculty. I declared that those endowed only with memory differed not from arithmetic machines, and sought to eradicate this capacity within myself. This proved an utterly unreasonable undertaking. Thus I resolved at least to avoid employing it. Now that I've come through personal experience to understand how many vital aspects of human existence depend fundamentally on this mental faculty, it lies already lost within me—through excessive inhalation and ingestion of sundry medications.

Even now it remains so; since long ago I had found it difficult to fall asleep after retiring at night.
This was chiefly due to the asthma sedative I'd taken nightly for ten years—yet ultimately managed only two or three hours' sleep, leaving me dazed throughout each day.
Though my mind sharpened once abed,I nevertheless forced myself toward slumber,squandering what were undoubtedly my clearest-headed hours on this passive,futile effort.
In truth,I felt precisely then that various embryonic thoughts—if one could call them such—cascaded forth torrentially.
Yet were I to focus on these,I'd lie awake all night from excitement—then face tomorrow's attack!—so frenziedly I crushed these sprouting cognitive shoots.
How many thought-seeds had I thus trampled beneath insomnia's darkness?
Of course—being no thinker nor scientist—I don't claim my fleeting notions were all profound.
But even trivial beginnings may through development become unexpectedly compelling,a phenomenon recurring through material and spiritual realms.
To imagine that among those countless ideas slaughtered nightly—scattering like dandelion seeds on dark winds never returning—some few held potential...was this mere self-delusion?

Now, for several years thus, whenever my spirit showed signs of becoming vigorous, I strove to put it to sleep; only when it grew drowsy and hazy did I attempt to set it to work.
No—I strove with all my might to prevent my spirit from working at all.
(For what purpose?
For the sake of my body.
So has the body improved?
Not at all, not at all.
Not in the slightest.) I succeeded in this absurd endeavor.
True sleep and true awakening were both lost to me.
My spirit had lost all power to function again, completely asleep—stagnant—rotted. A canned spirit, rotten preserves, a mummy, a fossil.

Could there be any more complete and glorious success than this?

III

Last night around bedtime, I felt a slight tightness in my chest, and sure enough, at midnight I was struck by that familiar attack and sat up.
I injected a shot of adrenaline and sat on the bed until morning.
The breathing difficulty subsided somewhat, but the headache was severe.
When morning came and I was still anxious, I took eight ephedrine tablets.
I did not partake of breakfast.
Due to breathlessness, I could not lie down.
I spent the whole day sitting in a chair, leaning against my desk, with my cheek propped in hand, gazing at the chameleon's cage before me.

The chameleon too lacked vigor.
It perched on a bird's roost and stared fixedly this way through tiny eye sockets.
It did not move.
It bore the aspect of a meditator.
The curling of its tail held peculiar interest.
The digits gripping the branch were three before and two behind.
Its coloration showed little variation.
Could being thrust into an utterly alien environment have left it unprepared with adaptive pigments?

As I gazed, things gradually began to appear sub specie chameleonis.
Each thing that passed as common sense for humans began to seem increasingly mysterious and doubtful.
The headache still did not subside.
It was mostly a dull ache, but at times sharp, stabbing pains would intensify.

In the intervals between headaches, fragmentary thoughts surfaced with crystalline clarity.

The "I" I take myself to be is not me to the extent I imagine.
My habits and environment act in my stead.
When I consider heredity and the general biological habits of humankind as a species, this unique entity called "I" seems to vanish altogether.
This should go without saying—yet when people ordinarily act selflessly, none consciously register such matters.
But for someone like me who lacks work demanding full devotion, this awareness becomes inescapable.
Eventually everything blurs beyond distinction.

I couldn't help imagining myself as a mechanical doll constructed from material components—various apparatuses constituting my being—and some controlling force that manipulated them. Just the other day, as I began to yawn, I suddenly felt even this motion was being manipulated by some puppeteer; startled, I lowered the hand I'd started to raise.

About a month ago, regarding each of the various organs within my body—while recalling anatomical charts and animal dissections—I would press around their approximate locations and, closing my eyes, try to imagine their size, shape, color, degree of moisture, softness, and such.
It wasn't that I hadn't had such experiences before, but those had merely involved imagining internal organs in general—stomachs in general, intestines in general—in their supposed locations within my body, a highly abstract mode of imagination.
But this time—how should I put it—I directly contemplated with vivid clarity the color, moisture, and tactile sensation of the very organs constituting my individuality: my stomach, my intestines, my lungs (these organs endowed with individuality, so to speak), envisioning them functioning exactly as they did.
(Gray sagging bags, ugly tubes, grotesque pumps.) This time, unlike before, I continued for quite a long time—nearly half a day.
Then, as my attention began spreading across each part of the physical body constituting this human called 'I,' gradually, the very existence of this human called 'I' became unclear.
Where on earth did this 'I' exist?
This was not at all because I lacked detailed knowledge of brain physiology or was unfamiliar with theories of self-consciousness that such a childish question had arisen.
It was a far more physical (systemic) doubt.

Since that day I had become engrossed in such imaginings until they hardened into habit; save when distracted by some external matter, I now found myself acutely aware of my internal organs' presence within me.
I deemed it an unhealthy fixation yet remained powerless against it.
Do physicians harbor such experiences?
When considering their own fleshly forms, do they not regard them merely as they would their patients'—never consciously sensing their own stomachs and lungs beneath their skin, those very organs shaping their individuality?

There was said to be a type of worm whose severed halves would immediately begin battling each other when cut apart; I felt I had become such a creature. Or rather—even before being severed—my entire body began splitting into fragments that fought amongst themselves. With no external object to confront, I could only gnaw at and torment my own being.

When anticipating any matter, I always considered the worst possible outcome. In this lay a cautious strategy—to feel petty relief when reality proved less dire than imagined. Should I attempt to visit someone, I first envisioned their absence, conditioning myself against disappointment should they be out. Then, even if homebound, I would imagine them occupied with visitors or—through some inconceivable rationale—hostile toward me, convincing myself such unfavorable scenarios outweighed likely ones before finally venturing forth.

In all matters like this, I ultimately came to resolve not to harbor hope from the outset so as to avoid disappointment.
To avoid discouragement, I came to refrain from desire from the outset; anticipating that success would prove unattainable, I made no effort whatsoever; dreading humiliation and awkwardness, I avoided appearing among people; and by extrapolating my own imagined distress when asked favors into exaggerated proportions, I became utterly incapable of making requests of others myself.
I closed all sensory organs turned outward, as if trying to become like unearthed winter bulbs.
When touched, any affection from without would instantly turn into cold droplets of ice and freeze—I resolved to become such a stone.

Would that I were now stone;
Having become stone,
May I sink into the cold sea.

Ice rain falls; fox fires blaze—on a winter night, I become a black pebble.

When I close my eyes—wind blows over ice—I, turned to stone, go tumbling away.

The eyes of a rotting fish lack luster—
I wait for the day to become stone.

My soul, spanning—
gazed upon with sorrow
alone on a cold star.

I, who had never composed tanka before, found myself mockingly dubbing these scribbled oddities 'bulb songs.'

The goldfish in the goldfish bowl.
A despairing goldfish that knew its place and was fully aware of the triviality and narrowness of itself and its own world.
A goldfish that, while in despair, could not help but love itself and its own narrow world.

When I was young, I once suspected that everyone in the world besides myself might be foxes in disguise.
I wondered if the entire world—including even my father and mother—had been created to deceive me.
And I wondered if someday, at some unexpected moment, the instant would come when this magic would be dispelled.

Even now, it's not that I can't think that way.
What constantly prevents me from thinking that way must be common sense and customs. But even those no longer hold such strong power over someone like me who has withdrawn from society.
Just as the entire atmosphere of a stage transforms completely with changes in lighting, the world too—with but a single twist of a switch—can become such a so-called happy (?) world, and with that same twist, can also become a desolately cold thing beyond salvation.
For me, that switch has often been the presence or absence of breathing difficulties, the degree of effectiveness from hydrochloride cocaine or diuretin, whether the weather is clear or rainy, or the arrival of letters from old friends.

The ease of settling calmly within vast—at times incomprehensible—structures (organization, custom, order).
The suffering of free humans who remain utterly detached from such things.

Such free individuals must re-examine within themselves the entire history of human development once more.
Ordinary people follow customs unreflectively.
Special free individuals will inspect each custom and refuse compliance unless they genuinely feel the inherent necessity behind its establishment.
In other words, he cannot find peace until he psychologically relives within himself the centuries-long process through which humans formed these customs.

My own disposition seemed inclined toward sharing such tendencies.
What I lacked was precisely that exceptional creative intellect so often found among these extraordinary individuals.

A certain tendency that one of my friends described as "the stratagem of allying with distant states while attacking those nearby." Though I'd earnestly drawn maps of Paris and become thoroughly versed in the geography of that unseen city within my mind, I still couldn't bring myself to visit alone the famous racetrack in this port town where I'd already lived for two years. Despite being a natural history teacher, I knew next to nothing about natural history—instead nibbling at antiquated linguistics or scavenging for philosophy-adjacent trifles. And yet this slovenliness—never having truly made anything my own. To tell the truth, how much genuine self could there be in what I called my way of seeing things? The preening crow from Aesop's fables. A few of Leopardi's feathers. A few of Schopenhauer's feathers. A few of Lucretius's feathers. A few of Zhuangzi's and Liezi's feathers. A few of Montaigne's feathers. What a grotesque bird.

(Come to think of it, only someone who originally held naive views about the world would embrace pessimism; only someone self-conceited and self-indulgent would endlessly repeat this cycle of “self-reflection” and “self-reproach.”)
Therefore, someone like me who constantly indulges in this vice must be the very model of a self-indulgent narcissist.
In reality, that is undoubtedly true.
Truly, I, I—how remarkable I am.
To think I’m constantly dwelling on myself like this.)

IV

Another day without work.
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday—three consecutive days off.
Last night I had slept somewhat.
My concern about attacks (or rather terror) had mostly vanished.
It seemed that slightly increasing the dosage of my regular Ma Xing Gan Shi Tang would suffice.
A dull headache still lingered.
There had been some nausea in the morning.

The chameleon had eaten only twelve or thirteen flies since the day before yesterday. It had come down from its perch and was crouching on the cotton. It must have been cold. I did not think it would last much longer like this. If there was truly no other way, I supposed I would have to take it to the zoo. At the base of its hind limb was a small blackish-brown scar. Had it injured itself when falling on the school floor? The serrations along its back resembled the zipper used on handbag openings.

Today too, all morning long before the small reptile, I sat idly with my chin propped in hand.
I was a little sleepy.
Compared to days when I hadn't slept at all the previous night, the next day—when I managed an hour or two—left me even drowsier.
As I was nodding off and suddenly jolted awake, the face of the chameleon before me appeared like that of a meat-eating medieval monk played by Rui Jūbee.
I felt like trying to write something Leopardian—a dialogue between a chameleon and a bagworm moth.
The bagworm moth's metaphysical doubts, the chameleon's hedonistic paradox...and so on....
But of course I wouldn't actually write it.
Writing was something I just wasn't good at.
The tedium of time spent spelling out each character one by one.
In that time, most of the ideas that had just surfaced vanished, leaving only the most trivial dregs that had brushed through my mind to remain on the paper.

In the afternoon, while unexpectedly flipping through the pages of a certain book, I found an expression that most aptly explained the state of my mind.

――The refusal to accept one's proper station as a human.
The lethargy arising from this.
Nostalgia for a petulant ideal.
Wounded self-respect.
To glimpse infinity, to dream of it, and in comparing oneself to it, treat both oneself and all things as inconsequential...
The feeling of one’s own powerlessness.
Having no power to break through surrounding circumstances, no power to force things, no power to arrange matters―when circumstances did not become as I desired―I resolved not to intervene.
To set a purpose for myself, to hold hope, to keep fighting―all this seemed impossible, utterly beyond reach.――

I closed the book.
This was a terrifying book.
How clearly it laid me bare!

I had to do something about this.
This was hopeless.
If things continued like this, I'd become a living ghost.
Gradually I was thinning out my individuality; eventually this self called 'I' would dissolve into humanity at large!
This was no joke.
Be more selfish!
Selfishness!
To exclusively lose oneself in one matter was the sole salvation.
Don't become Amiel's desiccated remains!
Stop this insolent charade of trying to objectively examine your own existence—it defied nature!
Without reflection—obstinately (for that was reverence toward nature)—revere crude common sense and blindly obey only the will to life.

In the evening, Yoshida came to visit.
He appeared extremely agitated.
The physical education teacher—with whom he had been constantly at odds—had that day summoned Yoshida to the rainy-day gymnasium's waiting room with a "Lend me your ear for a moment," then berated him with violent language and adopted a threatening manner, so it was said.
When the indignant Yoshida immediately took the matter to the Principal, though the Principal did of course condemn the physical education teacher's violence, he nevertheless seemed to tacitly endorse the notion of mutual culpability in quarrels, leaving Yoshida deeply dissatisfied.
"I can just quit! I can just quit!" he repeated.
Indeed, on two or three previous occasions, he had started making similar commotions about "quitting" and gone around informing the entire staff, but in the end never resigned.
Afterwards, he would act completely unperturbed.
Whenever a crisis struck, he would rush to everyone, make a fuss, force them to listen to his repeated complaints, and wouldn't be satisfied until they acknowledged his own righteousness and the other party's wrongness.
However, no matter how enraged he became, he never did anything that might harm himself—like exchanging blows or impulsively resigning.
Even today, he had only stopped by my apartment on his way home because it was near the school; though we weren't particularly close, he had simply wanted as many people as possible to acknowledge his own rectitude.
There was absolutely no danger of him resigning.
He harbored no concern that making too much of a fuss now might leave him unable to back down later and force him into an awkward position.
Because he knew nothing of feeling self-conscious or such things.
Yet in every situation, this behavior of avoiding any visible disadvantage must have been an instinct ingrained in his very being.

After venting his initial indignation and seemingly satisfying himself, he now launched into a story about how yesterday, through an introduction from a senior colleague, he had gone to meet the prefectural education director.
He recounted in a tone of reverential awe how the education director had warmly received him, practically clapping him on the shoulder while urging him to visit again—hence his resolve to call on the man periodically from then on; how this Mr. Education Director (Yoshida used the honorific "-san," appearing incapable of conceiving anyone who wouldn't feel sincere respect for such officials) held Junior X Rank and the Order of X Merit, being still young enough for greater promotions; how this man's wife's father was a certain high-ranking cabinet official.
He wore a blissful countenance as though having completely forgotten his earlier grief and indignation.

After Yoshida left, I contemplated happiness for a moment.
For him, happiness meant becoming animated and making a fuss until others understood his position; growing closer to bureaucrats was his greatest pleasure.
I had no right to scoff at that.
Even were I to scoff—what happiness would that bring me?
"The multitudes bustle as if enjoying a grand feast, as if ascending a terrace in spring.
I alone remain fearful and hesitant, like an infant yet to smile, like a puppet with nowhere to return.
The common people shine bright while I dwell in darkness; they see clearly while I languish in turmoil..."
Suddenly—without irony or sarcasm—the image of Yoshida shedding tears of reverent joy before the Education Director struck me as utterly enviable.

At night, after lying down in bed, I recalled Yoshida's earlier talk of threats and intimidation. When I imagined what attitude Yoshida—who had considerable mettle but no physical strength—might have taken in that situation, I found myself oddly amused.
I wondered what I would do in his place.

It's truly a spineless story, but when it comes to violence—physical force—I had absolutely no idea how to respond.
Of course, even out of sheer stubbornness, I wouldn’t have yielded to accept their demands—but for instance, if I were struck, what attitude should I have adopted?
Since I possessed no physical strength, retaliating by hitting back remained impossible.
Should I have denounced their wrongdoing verbally?
The misery of being placed in such situations—I detested that pitiful, feminine garrulity.
If that were the case, I might as well have detached myself and coldly silenced them.
Yet even then, I couldn't consider admirable this sore loser’s bravado—though bystanders might perceive no issue—when conscious of it myself. Or rather, the mere fact of falling into violent relations with others already subjected my heart to tremendous disturbance and agitation.
All arguments about fear being animal instinct, violence’s meaninglessness, or contempt for perpetrators—in such moments—held not three pennies’ value. My body trembled; my heart simply whimpered without reason.
To possess strength overcoming violent infringement (not just force—unexpected vulgar malice or misunderstandings included) was certainly commendable; but someone who could admirably counter opponents through pure spiritual power alone—lacking physical might or authority (or having but not using it)—deserved respect.
By what method this might be achieved, I couldn’t imagine.
Even considering various famous figures, hardly anyone came to mind who could admirably withstand violence when stripped of social context.

V

The chameleon seemed to have grown weaker still, and the wound at the base of its hind legs appeared to have spread since yesterday—perhaps just my imagination.
Its torso was thinner than a crucian carp's; the delicate rows of ribs showed through its skin, and even the occasional swelling at its throat looked chillingly pitiful.
I decided to take it to the zoo after all.
While I liked the zoo itself, I imagined Tokyo City officials would come demanding paperwork once it involved donations or temporary custody.
Nothing felt more unbearable than bureaucrats and government procedures.
Even when people claimed it was simple, I found myself dreading official notifications and paperwork from the very thought alone.
Having no alternative, I resolved to ask Mr. Y—the geography teacher commuting from Tokyo—to take it to Ueno for me.
Those at school had likely forgotten about this creature anyway; there was no need for formal refusal.
I placed it back into the cotton-lined box, punched air holes in the lid, and took it to school.
It being Friday meant a workday.

I met Mr. Y, explained the situation, and asked him.
He agreed.
He said he would go straight to Ueno on his way back today.

During lunch break, after finishing my meal and lingering in the staff room, I heard students making a commotion in the corridor. The door soon opened to reveal the music teacher who had resigned last spring due to marriage, entering with an infant in her arms.
“Ah!” cried the female teachers in unison at the sight.
She had married into a family in Kansai but had accompanied her husband on his trip to Tokyo and stopped by on the way.
What followed was truly fascinating—the behavior and expressions of these women toward this visitor from afar, particularly the unmarried elder spinsters, whose psychological turmoil manifested even in their outward appearance.
Even Stendhal’s pen would have struggled to depict their state.
Envy, jealousy, anxiety about their futures, the sorrowful pride of sour grapes—in short, a vague unease combining all these elements.
While effusively praising the baby’s loveliness—its milky complexion and plump adorableness—they scrutinized the seemingly happy young mother with rapacious eyes no man could imagine: her completely transformed hairstyle from a year prior; her now unrecognizably gaudy attire (she had worn Western clothes while teaching but now donned Japanese robes); voraciously seeking to extract life’s secrets from every detail.
As for their gazes while cradling and cooing at the infant—these blazed with an intensity wholly distinct from women’s usual affection toward children; not even a painter envisioning an original through its copy could match this fervor.

After talking for about thirty minutes, this young mother and her fair-skinned baby boy departed, leaving behind an uncanny effect upon the elderly spinsters like that of a phantom assailant. Throughout the afternoon, the restlessness of the unmarried female teachers remained so pronounced that even someone like me—who would normally overlook such matters—could clearly discern it. If human psychological fluctuations could indeed influence atmospheric pressure, then this hazy atmosphere in the afternoon staff room must surely have caused significant changes on the barometer, one couldn't help but think.

For several years now, the elderly spinsters had been seated at the same desks in the same staff room, instructing students on the same matters in the same classrooms.
Year after next, and likely the year after that as well, they would repeat this with one of the divine attributes: "absolute immutability."
In time, what little preciousness had remained within them gradually petrified, until finally they transformed into monsters neither man nor woman—creatures combining the worst traits of both sexes, yet deluding themselves into believing they possessed the best qualities of both.

The young mother who had visited the staff room today—the former music teacher—had resigned about a month after I first came to this school last year.
When I compared her as she was then—a teacher—to her present self as a mother (for music teachers differed from other subjects in being far more free-spirited, flamboyant, and less conventionally teacher-like), how much more cheerful, bright, and youthful she appeared today than she had a year ago.

The rigidity that the teaching profession causes one to acquire unconsciously.
A servile ethical view born from the habit of believing that keeping up appearances constitutes the highest good.
Insensitivity to progressive things.
Such things accumulate like limescale before one knows it.
When schoolteachers converse with proper adults who aren't students, they struggle like Gulliver returned from Lilliput to recalibrate their standard of comprehension, said Lamb.
If it were only a matter of comprehension, there would be nothing more fortunate.

VI

In the chameleon's cage, there was no longer a chameleon.
The cotton lay spread as before, and the perch remained fixed just as it had been.

From last spring through about a year and a half, three species of animals lived in this cage.
The first were a pair of yellow peony parakeets with black eyes rimmed in white and an undeniably mischievous air.
They had stayed nearly a year, but when one died (of illness?), I gave away the remaining one.
Next came a large parrot with indigo wings and a crimson chest.
It was quite splendid; how it remained perched on its branch dozing drowsily carried a rather refined charm—I delighted in likening it to a philosopher clad in a prostitute’s garments—but in the end, I forgot to feed it and let it die.
Last was the chameleon; this one stayed only five days before being taken to the zoo.
It wasn’t exactly lonely, but neither was it a pleasant feeling.

Though it was a day without classes, I went to school to ask Mr. Y about yesterday’s outcome.
According to Mr. Y’s account, the zoo had apparently been delighted to take it in.
“That’s an exceptionally large chameleon.
The ones we have now are barely half this size,” they had reportedly said.
Furthermore, they had made an arrangement that should it die, the school would send it over for taxidermy.
After thanking Mr. Y and preparing to leave, I was told: “Since we’re having a celebration party for Mr. K in Nankinmachi starting this evening, would you come?”

I replied that I would attend and left the school.

Mr. K had passed the Higher Teacher Certification Examination in English about two weeks prior.
On the day I received the chameleon, two or three of Mr. K’s homeroom students had meddlingly told me the following story.
Apparently, during lunch break two days earlier, Mr. K had gone to his homeroom class and said, “There’s something I want to see in yesterday’s ○○ Newspaper Kanagawa edition—could any of you who have it at home bring it to me?”
When several students brought copies of that day’s Kanagawa edition from their homes and checked them, there—small though it was—was printed: “Mr. K of Y Girls’ School Admirably Passes Higher Teacher Certification Examination.”
“He made us bring it just to show off!”
“Ugh, how obnoxious!”
“Seriously!” said one of the students with a cheeky tone.
However young he might be, I thought it unthinkable—yet given Mr. K’s sheer exuberance (boasting to everyone about his exam experience one moment, then abruptly declaring that teaching at a girls’ school was beneath him the next), such preposterous antics seemed entirely within his capacity.

I think humans never truly become adults no matter how long they live. Or rather, even when beards grow and wrinkles form, they remain children in terms of immaturity—merely having learned to put on solemn airs, affect importance, or dress up childish motives with grand justifications. People pout when no one praises them; play mean-spirited pranks on friends; try to be cunning only to get caught—all things that could be rephrased in a child’s terms. Therefore, I think Mr. K’s endearing self-promotion is actually better for its honesty.

On my way home, I detoured around Yamate Hill.

It was still around ten o'clock.
An extremely thin mist had spread endlessly across the sky where the sun hung, yet staring at it proved not particularly dazzling.
Beneath this bright mist resembling ground glass, the surrounding scenery lay whitishly stagnant.
There had been no wind at all since last evening.
Beneath the pervasive whiteness, I could even sense something faintly warm.

Finding my pocket heavy, I reached inside and discovered a book lodged there.
When I took it out to look, it was Lucretius.
The jacket I had worn this morning was one I hadn't used for ages, leaving me with no recollection of when I might have slipped this book into its pocket to carry around.

The ivy of the Christian church had mostly shed its leaves, leaving only the vines visible against the wall's surface like veins.
Two cosmos blooms clung along the fence, their petals curled and wilted yet still clinging to bloom.
The sea lay blurred in the mist, though the silhouettes of great steamships stood readily discernible.
At intervals came the hollow boom of steam whistles.

From below Daikanzaka, a Catholic nun clad in black slowly ascended.
When she drew near, I saw she was a bespectacled woman with an absurdly large nose—an ugly woman.

I came to the foreigners' cemetery.
Beyond the slope clustered with white crosses and tombstones stood Zōtokuin's twin ginkgo trees.
In winter their bare branches would rise in austere purple-brown hues like the inverted cheek whiskers of Yugou or some aged Frenchman, but now with lingering leaves still clinging, that peculiar aspect remained unseen.

After briefly explaining myself to the Indian gatekeeper at the entrance, I entered the cemetery.
I wandered for a while along the familiar winding paths, then sat down before the monument of Mr. George Sidmore.
I took Lucretius out from my pocket.
Not particularly intending to read, I kept it on my lap and turned my eyes to the town and harbor spread out below in the thin mist.

Around this time last year, on a similarly misty morning, I had sat in this very spot looking down at the town and harbor.
I remembered that now.
It felt as if it had happened just two or three days before.
Or rather, I had this strange sense that I was still gazing at the same view continuously from that time onward.
That imagination which sometimes surfaces in my mind—the habit of directly envisioning the sensation of life's brevity and futility (a truly physical sensation) one must feel when facing death—once again brushed through my thoughts.
For it seemed this present feeling—where a year ago felt utterly indistinguishable from now—might resemble what one experiences at death's moment.
Who was it that said human life is like someone running down a slope—forced to keep running because stopping would mean falling?

A short distance away stood a very small cross, with a potted geranium buried pot and all before it. Beneath the cross, on a white stone shaped like an open book, "TAKE THY REST" was carved, and the name of an infant aged five months was inscribed. Due to the warmth of the southern slope, the geranium still bore vivid crimson flowers.

When visiting such a beautiful graveyard, I found it hard to conceive of death's inherent darkness.
Tombstones, epitaphs, bouquets, prayers, elegies—only death’s formal trappings rose like something from a beautifully tragic stage performance.

A passage from Euripides' works.
Beside Phaedra—Hippolytus' stepmother—suffering and lying prostrate from illicit love, her nurse comforts her while still unaware of the reason.

“Human life is full of suffering.
“There is no respite from this misfortune.
“However, if there were something more pleasant than this human life, darkness has surrounded it and concealed it from our eyes.
“Moreover, because this earthly existence appears dazzling, we cling to it like madmen.
“For to speak of why—we know no other life, and have no knowledge of what transpires beneath the earth.”

As I recalled these words and looked around at the surrounding graves, the dead's sorrowful attachment—their sighs of "desires yet no hopes"—seemed to rise as white mist from countless corners of the burial grounds, enveloping everything in its haze.

Without ever opening Lucretius, I stood up.
From the smoky gray over the sea, the steam whistles sounded continuously.
I began to carefully make my way down the sloping path.