Pathway to Japanese Literature

Well, how should he put it—yes, it was a feeling as though his body was effortlessly falling apart piece by piece. Even as he curled up and hugged himself tightly—as if his own strength would inevitably fail someday—when he awoke, he realized he was seized by a tremendous chill and trembling violently. The area around him felt damp and clammy. Some part of his body had gone numb, devoid of sensation. A white, flat electric light struck his eyes with such force it seemed to press his eyeballs inward. From a platform one step higher than where he lay, two or three police officers in white high-collared uniforms sitting at a desk briefly caught his eye.

(Oh... This is a police station,) he thought.
Everything held its breath in silence—the lifelessly exhausted air with its gelid chill testifying to how profoundly late the night had grown.
All of this happened within a flash.
The shock of this unforeseen situation flung him from the bench where he'd been sitting.
The frayed rat-gray blanket wrapped around him rustled dryly as it slipped from his body and hit the floor.
Now he stood completely naked.
Yet he paid this no mind; lurching unsteadily forward, he staggered toward an officer's desk—then slammed his palm against it and shouted.

“Police officer, police officer, what have I done?”
“What on earth has happened to me?”

Depending on how one saw it, he might have been the station chief—a man who appeared to be around fifty.
The man, startled at an unexpected turn,

"Hmm? Huh?" Flustered, he raised his face—as if he'd been dozing until now. While lightly rubbing his gaunt cheeks with his fingers and staring fixedly at him, he suddenly burst into loud laughter. Then turning toward the shadow of a large partition screen off to the side, he shouted: "Looks like this bastard's come around. Hey, Officer △△—take him over there and let him sleep it off somewhere."

A young police officer—barely twenty-two or twenty-three—appeared alone, his saber clattering noisily as he approached.
The young man, seeing the man at the desk still laughing, began to smile as well,

“Are you in your right mind?
You’ve really tied one on—serves you right!
And what’s more, you bastard were just about to die!”

He involuntarily—eagerly—

“What on earth happened?” he pressed.

“What an utterly hopeless bastard—if you don’t remember any of that, you’d have died clueless! You fell into the river.”
“Once you sank and vanished for a while—it became such a mess that the whole station mobilized.”

“That was truly dangerous,” said another police officer standing nearby.

“Look at him! The bastard’s shivering like a leaf from the cold!”

There were others too—pointing at his stark nakedness and laughing while saying such things.

No such memories surfaced in his mind.
There was nothing he could do but think it had all been like a dream.

After passing through a dark corridor-like space with no lights, he was shoved into a room. When he groped through the darkness, he found a coarse-haired blanket on the floor without tatami mats and lay down wrapped in it.

After lying down for a while, he felt a sensation as if the inside of his nostrils were painfully itchy.
Then came the memory of his throat choking on something, followed by his mouth being forcefully blocked by something—an unbearable agony that threatened to suffocate him—suddenly, completely unexpectedly revived within him.
Then, within his head, a shuddering sensation flashed like lightning.
However, because he was utterly exhausted, he eventually drifted off into a deep, drowsy sleep.

When he awoke again, the darkness had thinned somewhat.
His hands and feet were unpleasantly cold.
His head was filled with an unhealthy, unpleasant reverberation, as if he had been struck by a rod.

The room he had been put into—what an intimidatingly constructed room this was! Three sides were enclosed by concrete walls, while the remaining side was fitted with a lattice of four-inch square pillars spanning its entire surface. The entrance formed part of this lattice, where an iron door was set into it, bearing a large rusted lock that lay heavily with solemn gravity—as if declaring itself part of some "major incident." The ceiling was disproportionately high, and the floor felt like the bottom of something.

A faint, barely perceptible light drifted from the right through the lattice onto the left wall.
He gazed at that uncertain predawn light while contemplating his own circumstances from the previous night.

No matter how much he thought or reconsidered, there was a large gap between one memory and another, and that gap simply refused to become clear.
Even so, why had he gone to a place with a river? And what river could it have been...

He once again tried to retrace the memories of last night in his mind from the beginning, following their sequence.

From around dusk, there was a company gathering in the grand hall of a certain restaurant in Kobiki-cho.
The rain poured down.
The garden trees stood white and misty.
Along the pond's edge bloomed large white and purple irises, glossy and dewy.
On the engawa of a detached tatami room stood a fair-skinned, stylish man of twenty-three or four gazing dejectedly at the garden as if awaiting someone.
Countless small ripples drawn by rain danced soundlessly across the pond's surface like interwoven dreams.
The round-faced petite geisha who had joined them en route appeared downstairs in another banquet room.
...To his right sat Mr.S from the front page editorial section.
To his left was A—a Waseda graduate and rising writer from the third-page editorial team.
He was the one who had introduced me to the company; though not particularly close, our long acquaintance made things less stifling.
Next came T Legal Scholar from page two and Mr.Y from page three... This section had been occupied by those whom others in the company called the "newcomers."

When the lights came on, the geisha and apprentice geisha noisily entered with exaggerated refinement.
They all wore faces that thoroughly dismissed the guests—(They’re just third-rate newspaper reporters)—as they moved around serving drinks with perfunctory, insincere smiles.
The assembled crowd there also accepted their pours with an air that seemed to say (We’re well aware of that), as if they had seen right through everything.
Before long, the customary shamisen, song, and dance began without any particular excitement and ended just as unremarkably.
And yet, once it ended, the gathering—as if lying in wait—burst into applause and cheers.
All of it struck him as utterly absurd.
In his own tray, there were always two or three cups.
He kept gulping down drink after drink as they were poured for him.
However, even during that time, his eyes and ears took in countless small, trivial instances of unpleasantness and irritation.
For example: vulgar class sentiments, arrogance, flattery, secret feuds—then some clerk’s grotesquely unbearable kappore dance, followed soon after by someone vehemently exchanging insults with another until it escalated into blows, the sound of dishes shattering… And since that altercation contained various ulterior motives, it was said Foreign Affairs Chief K—who held grievances against the company—had orchestrated the whole spectacle as a scheme… By then I was already quite drunk.
Everything around me began to appear unbearably foolish and absurd.
Beyond absurdity, everything had become nothing but an insufferable annoyance.
When he suddenly looked up, there before him was an apprentice geisha—a name like Hatsuko—sitting with her hands neatly folded on her knees.
He unsteadily stood up and, wrapping both hands around her shoulders from behind, forced a kiss on her cheek despite her resistance.
After that, he camped out in a corner with two or three others and drank heavily. At that moment, someone—who it was or what they were referring to remains unclear—exclaimed, "...That is the world’s grand irony; it must be a grand attack against something."
He remembered someone shouting such things.
……And then…

No matter how I strained, the rest simply wouldn't come into focus.

A clock somewhere about two rooms away struck four.
The clacking sound of shoes walking across a wooden floorboard echoed, and soon a voice called from deeper within, "△△-kun, ○○-kun—shift change!"
After a while, the same clacking of shoes echoed again, and then the same desolate silence as before returned.

Until now he hadn't noticed—but right outside the building there was a faint rustling sound of flowing water. When he listened closely he could also occasionally hear the lapping sound of waves—perhaps from a boat passing by.

He stood up leaned against one wall and as if belatedly thoroughly surveyed his surroundings. By now the night had completely broken. When he glanced up on the wall to his immediate right he could make out characters that appeared to be scratched with a fingernail: “願放免” and “五月二十三日”. His mood abruptly darkened. Crime criminals real prisoners—all manner of such thoughts flooded his mind. Speaking of May 23rd—it wasn’t even a full month ago yet—what kind of person had written this? And for what reason had they been placed here? Such questions began to trouble him in various ways.

A police officer approached the entrance,

“Hey!” he called out to him.
He peered inside.
When he saw that Sone had awakened and was leaning against the wall, his tone became more formal.

“What’s your name?” he demanded.

“My name is Sone Shiro,” Sone answered with excessive politeness.

The police officer then asked detailed questions—current address, domicile of origin, family registry status, his father’s name, even his birth order among his father’s sons—and recorded each item meticulously in his notebook.
Finally came the question about his occupation.
When asked what his occupation was, Sone found himself suddenly perplexed.
Though working as a newspaper reporter made “I’m a newspaper reporter” the simplest answer, he felt for some reason that declaring this would be improper.

"I'm a poet—no, unemployed" was what he desperately wanted to say.
But fearing what trouble might arise were he to utter such things, he hesitated slightly before answering, "I work for a newspaper."

Because his way of speaking was unclear, the police officer alertly took exception to this.

“A newspaper? A deliveryman?”

“I am a newspaper reporter.”

He had to say this.

When asked for the name of the newspaper company, he didn’t attempt to inquire about anything else in detail afterward.
After about half an hour, someone from the newspaper company came bringing clothes, so he was taken out of that room and moved to the reception room.
There, an attendant brought him tea.
While sipping the steaming hot tea, he let out his first deep sigh of relief.
Two or three idle police officers came there and, laughing, told him all sorts of stories about the previous night.
According to them, it was apparently still just a little past ten o’clock.
The fall had occurred in the Dōgawa River flowing right beside this police station, and that a single police officer had witnessed him plunging in.
Apparently, he hadn’t noticed there was even a river there and, walking straight along a curved road, ended up falling in while swinging his arms grandly.…

Then, a police officer went out of his way to drag him all the way to the window and, pointing downward,
“There, that’s the river.”
“Even that stone embankment must be at least ten feet high,… Lowering ladders and all—what a commotion that was.”
“Seeing your hat bobbing along down the river, some folks even said that was you—and then you vanished from sight around there for a while…… But well, guess your luck hadn’t run out yet…… After all, you were gloriously drunk.”

He said this.

Sone listened intently, determined not to miss a single word of their accounts. Even as he listened, he frantically strained to summon memories of each moment. Yet the gaps in his memory stubbornly refused to clarify, remaining hazy and indistinct. That plunged him into a dark melancholy.

When he returned to the boarding house and saw no sign of the landlady near the entrance, he let out a faint sigh of relief.
In great haste, he paid the rickshaw driver his fare, then, carrying the bundle of wet Western clothes he had brought back in the rickshaw's cab dangling from one hand, raced up the staircase as though running.

The room remained exactly as he'd left it yesterday morning—chaotic and utterly uninviting.
Newspapers had been thrown through the shoji screen gaps and lay scattered about indiscreetly.
He muttered "(That little brat—no matter how many times I tell him, he keeps doing this)" while gathering them up onto the desk.
But he had no intention whatsoever of opening them to look.
After setting down the cloth-wrapped bundle he'd carried in a corner, he stood vacantly for some time before—finding nowhere to anchor himself and overcome by unbearable dreariness—dragging out the futon from the closet and burrowing inside.
Then, as if some tension stretched taut across his surface had slackened, an indescribably fierce loneliness and sorrow came bearing down on him like a great typhoon.
Hot tears raced from his eyes.
He could no longer restrain himself—his body shuddering violently as he broke into wracking sobs.

For some reason, his very being felt inexpressibly pitiful. He felt unbearably lonely, thinking there wasn't a single soul in this vast world who would stand up for him. He found it terrifying to think that even his own life might spiral into chaos should he let his guard down for a moment—and unbearably pathetic this made him feel.

Memories of suffocating anguish that threatened to choke him would occasionally surface in his mind. When he closed his eyes, the wretched figure he had been mere moments before appeared vividly—his naked body wrapped in a tattered blanket, laid out in the police detention cell. Recalling how he'd shrunk under the officers' relentless questioning, all manner of emotions came drizzling into his heart like damp rain: something like shame, something like being debased by an unseen force, something resembling profound remorse toward some indeterminate entity. Tears streamed endlessly down his face.

A little past noon, the boarding house landlady entered Sone’s room.
The landlady said resentfully to him,

“…Um, how are your circumstances at present?”

It was the same old routine.
He had nothing particular to say in response, so as usual,

“Well, I don’t have anything right now.
Please wait a little longer.
I’ll surely do something about it soon,” he said.

The landlady made a face that seemed to say “Here we go again” and remained silent for a while, but

“We’re in such trouble ourselves…… And then, you were supposed to pay some amount by the fifth of the month, but that didn’t happen either, and when you said you’d surely do it by the tenth this time, what became of that?”
“We’ve told those waiting for our payments about our situation…… If this goes on too long, the whole household will lose trust and we won’t be able to keep our business running…… We absolutely must ask you to resolve this, but……”

Having said this, she peered at Sone’s face as he lay sleeping.

Normally when addressed like this, Sone would get drawn into earnestness—truly feeling apologetic about himself while knowing full well he couldn’t manage it—and would respond with something like (I’ll surely handle it within two or three days). But today he lacked even the energy for that.
Yet paradoxically he seemed composed within.
Being under the futon appeared to have calmed him somewhat—(Well, the landlady had grown quite adept at demanding money lately!
Even so—still young as she was—how pitiful she truly was…) He held these thoughts silently.

The landlady continued.

"My husband always scolds me for being too soft when I bring this up."
"He flies into rages and beats me mercilessly."
"I simply can't endure it anymore!"
She stopped just short of adding, "And it's all your fault."
However, he remained silent while thinking:

(Bah, it's barely fifty yen anyway.)
(It's not like I'm refusing to pay forever—even if I never repaid it at all, how much of a sin would that really be in the grand scheme of my entire life?)

No matter what she said, his continued silence wore down the landlady until she declared, “This is truly impossible—then I must insist you settle this without fail by month-end,” and stormed out with deliberate harshness.

Sone had taken the day off from work today and resolved to quietly meditate on more profound matters for the sake of his own life, without being troubled by such trivial concerns.
But try as he might, that matter kept nagging at his mind, becoming unbearably unpleasant.

When it came time to light the lamps, his friend Matsumoto appeared unexpectedly.
As usual, he was slightly intoxicated.
He might have come intending to drink a bit more or perhaps borrow some money, but upon seeing Sone lying there with such a tragic face, he instead quietly approached.

“What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?” he asked with evident concern.

Sone stated that he wasn’t lying there due to illness, recounted the events of the previous night, and told of how lonely “the intuition of life” truly was.

Afterward, Matsumoto spoke about his own circumstances.

“I just can’t take it anymore.
If they don’t even increase my salary, I’ll finally quit the company this time.
Bah—when one is truly cornered, a new path will surely open there. That’s certain—”

he said.
According to his account, the company where he worked was actually in a rather pitiable state.
There was this one bad fellow at the company who embezzled funds while the president was away on a business trip to the provinces, neglected all the work he should have done, and even had an affair with the president’s wife—or so they say.
Matsumoto said that no matter how much he worked on such a foundation, there was neither worth in the work nor any energy left to keep working.
Dissatisfied with everything, he drank alcohol daily and idled about until the company’s funds ran out; having run out, he began frequently taking advances on his salary at the company this month, and now even when month-end came there wasn’t a single sen left of his due portion—on top of that, his boarding house payments had accumulated for about two months; such things he also said.

However, he concluded in an increasingly resolute tone: “There’s no need for pessimism—before long, everything will swiftly pass by. Any suffering, any hardship—they will all pass by and vanish away from us together with ‘Time’ someday once again.” They talked of such things.

The next morning, when he left his futon, Sone's head was in a daze.

A sultry early summer wind laden with light and heat blew through the clearing rainy-season sky.
Low clouds heavy with moisture broke off and drifted away repeatedly, fluffy and fragmented.
Across the ground, shadows and sunlit patches formed large mottled patterns that raced about like children playing tag.
It was a day that felt hurried and restless.
People's minds scattered in disarray, unable to find calm.
The bedbug bites Sone had received in the police detention cell had swollen red and grown unbearably irritating, so before going to work he visited a doctor to have medicine applied.
For visible areas like his hands and neck—parts that would be exposed outdoors—he had bandages wrapped.

When he went to the company, the old shoe attendant smirked with a thin smile while handing him his indoor sandals and seemed about to say something to him. He hurriedly climbed the ladder steps, forcing an unpleasant expression before anything could be said. There he encountered a fieldwork employee called F—something. Then the man, though they had never exchanged words before, tapped his shoulder and said, “Oh, Sone-san, congratulations.”

"Nah," he replied ambiguously, then entered the editing room as if shaking something off.

Someone clapped their hands sharply.
Then even those who had been writing set down their pens and turned to look at him in unison.
To his eyes, their faces appeared precisely as if poised—duty-bound to mock him with some biting remark.
When he took his seat, Old T the proofreader, who had been right behind him, briefly clamped the red-inked pen behind his ear and turned toward Sone.

“Your article nearly made it into yesterday’s city edition. Came this close.”

“A newspaper delivery boy drowned in the river, they say.”

The third-page editor added this with a laugh.

The Foreign Affairs Chief arrived.
L from page two, O from page one... Soon four or five people had gathered around him.
Then came their remarks: ("It's a type of drunken mania after all," "A genius must differ from ordinary people," "He ought to show more restraint from now on.")
"Really, this is no joking matter!" they exchanged such self-indulgent comments.
Sone imagined himself shrinking before these people.
He wondered why he couldn't maintain more dignity before the crowd.
When he kept silent with downcast eyes, his own face—wearing a bitter half-smile and an unsettlingly vague expression—appeared before him as clearly as if reflected in a mirror.
The thin, feeble wrinkles gathering at his eye corners; the excessively defiant look around his nostrils,

Mr.S (Literature Scholar) and M came over and said, “Why don’t we raise a toast to life for you—our fortunate survivor who nearly lost it?”
Then A, seated at the desk directly in front, lifted his head and,

“Hear, hear!”
Having said this, he pushed the unfinished manuscript aside.

Sone was uncharacteristically obstinate and in a disjointed state of mind.
He thought to himself:

I appreciate your kindness, but to tell the truth, drinking with you all has never been the least bit enjoyable for me.
Somehow it’s all so tedious—even your so-called “new men” have already formed a new mold.
Moreover, I’m not some poet of refined sensibilities like you all.
Rather than having refined tastes, I am quite indifferent to such things—and am a terribly unrefined person.
And I’m not some scholar like you all either—in fact, these past few years I haven’t read a single book worth calling a book.
All those recent theories and new claims you all always talk about are just pointlessly boring to me, and I can’t muster any interest in them at all.
...Truly, though I maintain this joking camaraderie with you all under the pretense that even brushing sleeves creates some semblance of connection, perhaps—no, certainly—I may not respect you all nearly as much as you presume to tolerate me.
And now, I am working alongside you all in this job, but I might leave the company at any time—no, perhaps even tomorrow.
For I possess the splendid occupation called “art”—to tell the truth, it is utterly shameful that I should be working as something like a newspaper reporter on top of that.
There has never been a time when I haven’t thought I must put an end to all this at the earliest possible moment.
There should be no spending even a moment of this precious life doing such trivial work that goes against my heart—engaging in this vile act akin to selling my very self. That I remain here among you all like this—what unbearable humiliation it brings me!

S, M, A—joined by T-hōgakushi from page two—the four of them were busily listing various café names and debating whether this one or that would be best for deciding on the venue to raise their celebratory cups that evening.

Sone once again thought to himself: If you’re going to raise celebratory cups, just do it yourselves. I might... tell some lie about not feeling well and escape halfway through.

As the deadline for the first edition approached, they all returned to their desks.

That day turned unusually busy with numerous sudden articles about the career history and anecdotes of a minor political figure who had died of illness. Moreover, on page two, telegrams, dispatches, and phone calls kept pouring in without cease amid the China issue, Balkan issue, America’s exclusion of Japan problem, and others, plunging everything into chaos. At the Managing Editor’s desk, the Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, Page One Chief, Page Two Chief, and Diet Member H exchanged opinions about tomorrow’s editorial.

Boys taking manuscripts to the factory and boys bringing proofs from the factory clattered their geta sandals as they scurried in and out.
Among them were those who had just been hired and had done something wrong, being harshly scolded.

Right beside where he sat stood a contraption like a well pulley that hauled up mail and communications from the reception desk, screeching ceaselessly with grating persistence. Accompanying this motion, a bell signaling its operation rang faintly. Together they seemed to impose a peculiar rhythm upon the entire editorial department.

The editorial desks were arranged in three long rows corresponding to Page One, Page Two, and Page Three in order.
Further back, set one step lower, was the Foreign Affairs Chief’s large desk, from which two long rows of field reporters’ desks stretched out in perfectly ordered lines.
In that area, cigarette smoke perpetually rose in hazy clouds amidst jumbled voices, urgent shouts, and drawn-out telephone conversations—all intermingled with the somehow leisurely click-clack of Go stones being played by someone from morning till night, sounding exactly like what someone in the company often called "stillness within motion."

Sone Shiro, fortunately having no assigned work that day, looked around while puffing on a cigarette.

(This room might see its last day today.) With this thought, he now looked around thoroughly as if for the first time.
Walls, windows, curtains, ceiling, several electric lights hanging from the ceiling, cupboards in every corner, a covered fireplace, a large octagonal clock, barometer, thermometer, bulletin board—on the walls here and there were ostentatiously pasted advertisements for kimono shops and beer companies, along with grand sumo rankings—whether due to someone’s taste or rather what meaning they held was unclear.
World maps, Japan maps, Tokyo maps—each hung in disarray—were scattered about haphazardly here and there.
Also hanging here and there were antique painting scrolls of dubious origin, their creators unknown.
Among them were some that had been newly hung just four or five days prior, while others looked as though they had been dangling there for fifteen years or more.
He surveyed every last one of them methodically from corner to corner.
Yet not a single thing caught his interest.
From those things, he could feel neither any familiarity nor any yearning charm.

Next, he shifted his gaze to the several rows of desks neatly arranged facing each other.
At the farthest end of each row sat the respective section chief, followed by the chief assistant, deputy chief, and then down through the XX Section staff and YY Section staff—each properly seated in their designated spots and carrying out their assigned tasks.
The desks' surfaces were in disarray everywhere, as if a mouse nest had been overturned.
Crumpled discarded draft manuscripts; cigarette ashes; newspaper scraps; dictionaries left splayed open; paste pots; ink stains; traces of eaten boxed meals—snapped chopsticks tossed aside, with pickled vegetable pieces occasionally left fallen here and there being hardly uncommon—teapots; overturned teacups;...

However, as if to say none of it was anything new, not a single person paid any mind to such things.

Sone continued gazing at each employee one by one.
The first thing that caught his eye was K from page two—the section chief he alone had nicknamed "Shaggy Hunting Dog."
He immediately began his internal critique.

(Well now, Shaggy—Mr. Shaggy Hunting Dog—still primping yourself as always.)
(What exactly should we call that gleaming garment of yours?)
(Very stylish pattern... though that light-blue crepe coiled around your waist seems rather gauche.)
(Of course it can't be cheap—not for you, Mr. Hunting Dog... Let's see—how much was that gold watch again? The one with gold-platinum chain—380 yen, wasn't it?)
(Drape yourself in such splendid—no, expensive—finery and you'll pass for middle-class anywhere they misjudge you.)
(But no need for you to explain—dressing up's just another obligation... Absolutely... precisely...) He found himself absurdly amused.

He suddenly recalled someone at the company having remarked—(He comes from a poor household and until recent years suffered terrible privations in that regard)—this sort of comment.
The chief of page two was now one of the indispensable figures for the company.
In fact, he had recently been writing most of the editorials single-handedly.
He had received no formal education to speak of.
Instead, over long years he had haphazardly devoured books.
He was a man who had resolved from the outset to become a newspaper editorial writer and had finally succeeded.
Through the art of rhetoric he had earnestly practiced both speech composition and delivery.
A shrewd operator, he always kept a diverse group of youths and university students around him, knowing precisely how to absorb new ideas and fresh perspectives from them.
At times, opinions from certain youths or students would appear verbatim in his articles.
It was around this period that Sone conceived the nickname "Shaggy Hunting Dog."
The Editor-in-Chief consistently praised him as one of contemporary society's most tactically astute individuals.—

The Company President slid in.
A pride akin to that of a ranch owner surveying his domain—(This company belongs entirely to me)—and an arrogance resembling steam—(Thanks to me... no—rather, I can expel any man among you with a single thought)—rose hazily from his body like vapor and could be felt.

Sone turned his face in that direction.
At that moment, his eyes unexpectedly met briefly with the Company President's own—dull and coldly gleaming.
Sone grimaced as if he had seen something foul.
However, he rallied himself and began talking internally again.

(Oh, Mr. President... You seem to be in quite a foul mood.)
...Rumor has it you've amassed quite a fortune lately?
Couldn't you at least show us a smiling face once in a while?
That would be more karmically suitable... Yes, that's right—standing there lets you survey everything perfectly. Our esteemed supervisor, perhaps?...)

Sone found himself growing oddly cheerful.
And he continued.

(Mr. President, I just remembered something to ask—you used to be an oil peddler in some alley in Asakusa, didn’t you?)
It’s certainly none of my business, but since it’s coming from Old T the proofreader, it can’t be entirely baseless.
They say you went around peddling goods wearing straw sandals and pulling a cart—truly admirable.
Old T sounded downright envious when he told that story.
Your extraordinary success is something nobody can help but admire.
"I hear you’ve been making your household members call you 'my lord' these days."
And then they say you have a maid take off your shoes each time—that too, according to Old T.
Quite a refined taste you’ve cultivated.
When did you first come up with such notions?
Truly extravagant.
But really—how did you ever get into buying newspaper shares?
Though they say your success only came after acquiring those shares, so I suppose it shows foresight.
Still, I must say I’m somewhat impressed by the Company President.
Absolutely.
Ah—my apologies—Mr. President, there’s a rumor you’ll sell off this company soon. Is it true?
The other day, five or six of us were complaining—how you never give raises, leave broken windows unrepaired forever.
Then one of them declared triumphantly, like he’d found some eternal truth: "You won’t find any farmer spreading fertilizer at harvest time."
Absolutely correct. Exactly so.

I wholeheartedly agree with that as well. …)

Sone kept moving from one thing to the next in this manner without respite.
And that day, having written not a single line, when the clock passed five by a margin, he left the company with S and his cohort without waiting for the night shift's arrival.

Sone did not return to his own boarding house for three or four days after that.
Today, when the company dismissed its employees and he stepped outside, he found himself utterly unable to return to the boarding house.
Creeping back now would surely mean facing two or three unpleasant matters.
First would come that landlady with her interminable reminders about the usual demand.
Then there was the matter of the tailor—having made that agreement, the man must have come yesterday to collect the remaining payment.
That tailor cut a pitiful figure—past forty with a bankrupt shop, a deceased wife, no place to call his own, reduced to working and lodging at a former apprentice's establishment out of sheer necessity.
A man acquainted with hardship never nags but always wears a pleasant face—yet I must find some way to assist him.
Even if it strains me, I must deliver the payment soon.
But what of myself?
The month's end looms once more.
What scheme could I devise?
Yet what difference would it make now? However I suffer, there remains no choice but to beg some acquaintance for a loan.
But which of the men I know has money to spare?
Every connection who might possess funds has been alienated through my own discourtesies... Last night Hasegawa—who gave me shelter—suggested writing fairy tales if so desperate, knowing an editor at a boys' magazine who might buy such work.
*I see... Perhaps I should begin dabbling in such things gradually.* ...With these thoughts churning, he drifted aimlessly out toward Ginza's streets.

Even calling it a fairy tale—how should I write one? What do children these days even like? I can't even get a handle on that.
But regardless, I'll try to come up with one plot.
He decided to actually attempt it and earnestly considered various approaches.
No matter how much he thought about it, nothing particularly interesting would surface.
They keep making these modern-day contrived stories using stepchildren or orphans as material—you see them in moving pictures and such—but I can't stomach that sort of thing no matter what. In that case, I suppose we'd have to go back to the oldest standard: "Once upon a time, there lived an old man and an old woman."
This is also too affected to be admirable, but I suppose I'll start with that.

"The old man went to the mountain to gather firewood, and the old woman went to the river to do laundry."
...As the old woman was splashing away at her laundry, two large peaches came bobbling down from upstream—plop-plop, plop-plop.
What was it the old woman said at that time?
(Little peach, go away! Big peach, come here!) That’s it, that’s it.
...As you all know, the larger peach that was picked up by the old woman gave birth to Momotaro, who later set out to conquer Onigashima Island with Japan's finest millet dumplings hanging at his waist. But now, what became of the smaller peach that wasn't picked up by the old woman at that time?
"Separated from Momotaro, its elder brother, and left all alone—how far did it go bobbling along downstream? Who eventually picked it up? And what kind of life did it lead?......"

"That’s quite good," he thought, involuntarily clapped his hands.
Then, as his behavior appeared so outlandish and comical, the two gentlemen who had passed by him chuckled and walked away.
He paid no attention to such things and continued earnestly thinking ahead.

He went past Shinbashi, then abruptly turned back upon realizing.

Lights began flickering on here and there.
The advertising lights on rooftops and atop specially constructed high towers—as if urging, "Now, let us begin"—brightened and dimmed two or three times in the twilight sky that had not yet fully darkened.
Over the city blanketed in white evening haze, young fashionable men and women who loved the early summer evening for no particular reason walked here and there amidst the bustling crowd.
Dressed in the latest fashions, they hurried along with delicate grace, swaying like goldfish fluttering their tail fins as they walked.
In the back alleys, where there seemed to be a banquet at some nearby restaurant they might have been invited to, group after group of lavishly dressed geishas kept passing through, transported by cars.

Sone thought to himself, (There’s someone out there who’s got it all figured out). He thought that somewhere—hidden from himself, in places beyond his sight—there existed abundant good things unknown to someone like him. He felt a loneliness that also stirred him with restless anticipation. Then, the fact that until just moments ago he had been desperately trying to devise the plot of a fairy tale now struck him as utterly pathetic and absurdly foolish. What a convoluted affair... No—just how old do I think I am? At twenty-six or twenty-seven—if I were a flower, now would be the peak of bloom. After all, does full bloom last forever? "Youth is life's vivid frontispiece!" Someone out there was saying such things. “Vivid frontispiece.” That's right, that's right......However,

(Hey, Sone-kun—twenty-seven-year-old handsome man—what's with this way you're shrinking into yourself? That heart of yours, which had begun withdrawing like a snail poked by a stick... A fairy tale—what a brilliant idea indeed. "Heh heh—so what if you fell in a river? What's a little debt? Finally noticed how rough life's waves can be?... Good little boy—some uncle will pat your head eventually...") That familiar voice began rumbling again in his gut. Then suddenly energized, he pursed his lips and started whistling a nonsensical march tune. After some time, he slipped into a deserted side street, pulled out his wallet from his coat, and examined its contents.

Then, after about half an hour had passed, when his friend Matsumoto entered their usual Ginza bar—the XX Bar—he spotted Sone sitting alone in a corner drinking whiskey with a desolate air.
Matsumoto, who had been wanting a good companion just then, was immensely pleased.
Stealthily approaching from behind so Sone wouldn’t notice, he covered his eyes with both hands.

Sone leapt up in delight.
He reached out for a handshake while speaking.

“Did you find something good or what?”

“Far from it—I’ve quit the company.”

“Huh?”
“Why?”
“It was nothing but petty things—so excruciatingly boring I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“So what do you plan to do?”

“Plan? Don’t have any particular prospects—I’ll just keep drifting like this till obligations stack up beyond ignoring.”
"The rest will sort itself out."
“Might visit an employment broker or whatever they’re called.”

Sone felt as though someone had preempted what he himself had been about to do.
And he felt a surge of emotion.
He suddenly raised his glass

“Matsumoto!” he shouted. “To your health!”

As the alcohol took effect, the two became voluble.
Neither paid any heed to the other, each bellowing whatever they pleased.
Sone affected a playful cadence:

“...Once there was a man who styled himself a poet, though never having composed a single verse. One day, drunk on wine, he fell into a river and thus met his end.”
“Ah yes, precisely so.”
“Just like a comic anecdote... The two exchanged cups, drank themselves senseless, and parted ways.”
Afterward, they never again found occasion to meet.
Several years later—or perhaps decades—they each died in separate lands through different means, becoming denizens of the next world...?
“Life! Truly life resembles a comic anecdote...”

He had been saying such things.

Matsumoto, for his part, paid no heed to such things and continued in a tone as if delivering a speech,

“...What are all the world’s gains and losses to us? What are all the world’s beauties, all its uglinesses, all its goods, all its evils? ...No occupation, no possessions, and no home—truly the most courageous life that only the brave can lead. It is only there that one can truly savor a fresh and pure life. ...What is there to fear? What is there to lament? Any suffering, any poverty will eventually ‘pass’ through us in the next moment and vanish—and always our life, our thought, and our body remain existing. This is more than enough. ...What bliss this is....”

He had been shouting such things all along.
Finally placing both hands on Sone’s shoulders, he urged him to quit the company at once.

"...Seniors, juniors, connections, backgrounds, letters of introduction... You go there only to slip, come here only to stumble... So-called this faction, so-called that group, so-called this school—it’s exactly like clump-forming plants."
"What meaning has such a gutless, authority-starved existence where they can’t survive unless clustering together like weeds? ...You must graduate from that world immediately."

It was a tone that lashed like a whip.

By the time the two men emerged from there, it was already quite late.
The street was completely devoid of passersby.
The sky was clear and high, countless stars twinkling incessantly, while directly overhead, the moon around its eighteenth or nineteenth night shone unlovely, as if a scrap of paper had been tacked there.
The two drunkards staggered along beneath it, leaning against each other as they wandered aimlessly.

A few days later, Sone received a single sealed letter from Matsumoto.
It bore the return address of Karuizawa in Shinano Province.
The following was written in it.

"Yesterday, I drifted into this place.

Of course, I haven’t informed the boarding house people or anyone else that I’ve come here.
I am thinking that perhaps I shouldn’t return to Tokyo again as I am.

Around midnight, Mount Asama erupted violently.
Even now, it continues to resound through the ground, roaring intensely.
A towering column of black smoke seemed to reach the heavens.
Ash was falling heavily.
The plateau was hazy, as though sealed off by a thick fog that blanketed its entire surface.
And the sun appears tarnished to an eerie reddish-black, like burnt copper.

If I were to say I came to Karuizawa, you would nod—I see—without my needing to explain. That's exactly right. I came here solely because I wanted to see Oima.

The night before last, I got completely drunk alone again. Yesterday, while nursing my hangover headache and vacantly gazing at the blue sky from my boarding house window, somehow the sky looked unusually high—higher than it ever had before. The more I looked, the more boundlessly high it felt. The large zelkova treetop in the neighboring temple grounds wore an expression as though it couldn't bear the loneliness (indeed, that's precisely how it felt), swaying lightly like fluff. I grew sad for no reason. I felt as though I needed nothing at all, yet grew overwhelmingly desperate to see someone. I became convinced I couldn't endure another moment unless I was with someone. Then at that instant, Oima floated up in my heart—Since we parted that way, she must surely resent me... And when it struck me she might have already married elsewhere—then beyond all resistance, my longing for Oima became unbearable... And without even gathering my things, I rushed here as if running through a dream. When I asked the inn maid earlier, she said Oima hasn't married into any household and remains healthy, working at home. My heart now surges with joy. I am going out now. No matter what it takes, I must make Oima mine once again. I pray you too will wish for my success.

Outside, the ash rain fell increasingly heavily, sifting down with a faint, rustling sound.
The sun’s color grew increasingly dull and clouded over.……I feel inexplicably, unbearably happy.
"I may never come down from this plateau in my entire life.……"

Though written on Japanese paper—perhaps because the fountain pen’s ink had run low—large blotchy stains had formed here and there, making it quite difficult to read.

At that time, the phrase "(falling into the river)" had become fashionable at Sone’s company. Whenever people engaged in debates, someone would interject—("Seems there’s a gutter river flowing ahead of your arguments—better watch your step so you don’t fall in")—or when someone launched a new plan—("That scheme’ll end up drowning in the river sooner or later")—or even—("A gutter river always flows alongside that fellow’s path")—they’d say things like that. Moreover, phrases such as "the sorrow of life’s intuition" and "the melancholy of bedbugs"—heavy with unspoken meanings—came to be used frequently.

Sone found going to the company utterly detestable.
Even when he went there, he hardly spoke with anyone, and whenever free, he would blankly smoke while gazing around.
The others were all working like machines as usual, unchanged in any way.
Each person did their assigned tasks, whirring about like actual machinery at work.
Within the company, he alone stood apart.
He himself felt this too and would sometimes think privately, "Someone like me must just be in everyone’s way."

Because of his headache, he took a day off from work and lay in bed at his boarding house. Then the next day too, finding it too bothersome, he merely sent in his notice and didn’t go to work. After taking two consecutive days off this way, by the third day he had grown even more averse to going. He left home after getting ready, but veered off course partway and wandered aimlessly through town. Wherever he went—whatever he saw or heard—everything felt like utter strangers to him; not an ounce of familiarity remained. Yet there was nothing he could do about this state of mind.

That evening at dusk, exhausted, he entered S-station's premises.
He entered the second-class waiting room.
And when he sat down on the bench there, he let out a sigh of relief.

His mind was hazy, as if stuffed with cotton.
He thought of nothing, like someone senile.
Leaning on his cane and quietly closing his eyes, drowsiness naturally began to creep in.
The voices of travelers conversing nearby, the footsteps of people busily coming and going across the concrete floor, the sounds of doors opening and closing, the noises of luggage being moved and carried—all these various clamors blended into his sleepy ears like a lullaby.
Smoothly, quietly, and pleasantly, they resonated in his ears like a lullaby meant to lull him to sleep.
And just then, the clamorous ringing of the great bell announcing the train's departure reached his ears—faint and distant, like the thinning line between wakefulness and sleep about to snap.