Pathway to Japanese Literature

Mother

Today was Sunday.
It was fine weather befitting a Sunday.
All the family members—my wife, the children, and the maid—had gone out together to the suburbs for leisure, leaving me alone to keep house.
And so today, lying all day on the sunny engawa veranda, I wanted to talk to you.
Right then in front of me, a cat was crouched with its back rounded, dozing off.
In that way—though it would be rude to say so—well, in that way, as if you were here before me, I wanted to talk slowly.
The story concerned nothing other than this.
It concerned Hirada Gousaburou.

Mother

Hirada Gousaburou truly came to a pitiable end.
But it’s too late to do anything about it now.
Whatever I say amounts to nothing but complaints.
You have probably already heard most of this from Hirada’s mother and uncle.
Therefore, I shall not recount those matters again in detail.
And so, I simply wish to tell you—things I couldn’t convey to Hirada’s mother and uncle with mere words, significant matters that never surfaced—all of that.

Mother

It was a cold evening in early February.
A telegram reading “Hirada Yukutanomu” suddenly arrived at my place.
Of course, even if I say it was sudden, that might only have been from my perspective.
Because there had been two letters beforehand—one from you and one from Hirada’s uncle.
However, your letter had merely stated that someone named Hirada from the neighboring village was coming to Tokyo and that his uncle had come to ask for my favor, and as for Hirada’s uncle’s letter, it contained only simple wording to the effect that Gousaburou would soon be coming to Tokyo to study and that he wished for my guidance in all matters out of neighborly ties, so I had simply sent a perfunctory reply.
After two full weeks had passed, since it was a telegram saying he was coming and asking for my help, I felt completely taken aback.
What exactly he would come to Tokyo to study, which school he would enter, how he would handle lodging, when he would arrive in Tokyo—I had absolutely no idea about any of it and simply stared at the telegram.

“What a carefree person he is,” said my wife.

“But seeing how suddenly he’s coming out,” I replied, “he must already have everything properly arranged and might just be intending to pay a courtesy visit to my place. Even so, it’s rather odd that he sent a telegram…”

But in any case, thinking that if he was indeed finally coming, things would work out somehow once he arrived, I waited without really intending to wait.

Two days later around noon,a call came through to the company.The maid had borrowed[the phone]from a merchant's house we dealt with and made[the call].“A Mr.Hirada has come,”she relayed from Madam—that was all.Even so,since I was somehow concerned,I returned home early from[the company].

Mother

I left my hometown when I was young and lived elsewhere except during summer vacations; since graduating from school, I rarely returned home, so I did not feel much familiarity with the villagers from my hometown. Moreover, I did not even know whether there was anyone with the surname Hirada in the neighboring village, and Hirada Gousaburou was a complete stranger whom I met for the first time. That Hirada Gousaburou suddenly came to my house and sat properly in the zashiki room from around ten in the morning until past three in the afternoon. At least when I entered the zashiki room, he was sitting formally with both knees and both hands aligned. He had his coarse jet-black hair cropped to five bu length, raised his sunken-cheeked swarthy face, and wore a brand-new tailored Kurume kasuri outfit. The thick, excessively padded feel of his garments—the haori and kimono—and the sturdy knuckles of both his hands strangely caught my attention.

“This is my first time meeting you, Teacher, but your mother back home I’ve met many times…”

He spoke to me in that manner.
That word "Teacher" gave me an uncomfortably ticklish feeling.
This was perhaps because, having become a company employee immediately after graduating from law school, I had never been called "Teacher" by anyone before.
Now being addressed as "Teacher" by him, while feeling this strange ticklish sensation, I nevertheless composed myself with what I imagined to be a teacherly demeanor and began exchanging formal greetings.
At that point, my wife brought tea and joined us.

“Since the telegram only said you were coming, I didn’t know when you’d arrive... Didn’t you get lost at the station?”

“At the station itself there was no trouble, but I had difficulty finding my way along the road. Tokyo’s streets are terribly tangled, aren’t they?”

“You mean you couldn’t find your way along the road...?”

“No matter how many times I asked directions, I’d immediately get confused again, so I ended up asking dozens of times.”

“You,” my wife said to me with a meaningful look and a smile at that moment, “Mr. Hirada walked all the way here from Tokyo Station.”

“I walked… And what about my luggage?”

“He was walking while carrying a heavy basket, you know.”

“Oh! From Tokyo Station all the way here….”

“Teacher, I have no problem walking. Since Tokyo’s streets are hard to navigate, I was told that walking would be more reliable than taking trains or rickshaws…”

And when Hirada saw my wife and me exchanging smiles with our eyes, he too broke into a grin on his swarthy face.

Mother

You may not understand this, Mother, but Hirada’s figure—clad in a thickly padded Kurume kasuri haori and kimono stuffed with cotton, wearing short hakama trousers of Kogura fabric and a bell-shaped mantle, trudging over a distance of more than one *ri* from Tokyo Station to my house while carrying a heavy wicker basket—appeared to our eyes as something both absurdly comical and endearingly simple—something we couldn’t decide whether to laugh at or cherish.
In the countryside, walking one or two *ri* was nothing unusual, and as Hirada had done—I later heard—walking over one *ri* daily to commute to the town’s middle school despite having access to a light railway for more than half the route was hardly remarkable either. But in Tokyo’s city limits, carrying heavy luggage and walking over one *ri* from the station while constantly asking directions without taking trains or rickshaws—this was truly a method that defied common sense.
That said, this did not mean people in Tokyo never walked at all.
When they had no errands, when they went for walks, they did sometimes walk quite long distances.
However, when going out for errands, they ordinarily made use of some form of transportation.
This was especially true when carrying luggage.

Now, Hirada Gousaburou had ridden the steam train all the way from Kyushu to Tokyo, arriving at Tokyo Station around 8:30 in the morning, then trudged through the cold wind while carrying a heavy wicker basket and asking directions repeatedly until he reached my house around ten o'clock.
And during my absence, at lunchtime, while repeatedly offering his rice bowl, he apparently said this:

"Since I didn't eat breakfast, I'm terribly hungry..."

"Oh my!" my wife exclaimed in surprise.
"You should have said so earlier."

“While I was thinking about whether it was okay to say so, it had already become noon.”

In that manner, he brought us an air of utmost guileless familiarity.
After bathing and finishing dinner, that evening my wife and I talked and laughed with him until late, finally coming to fully understand his circumstances.

He had graduated from middle school the previous spring but, while dawdling over establishing his future course, had ended up missing the enrollment period for higher schools.
Then while he was engaged in agriculture for the time being, a joint letter from his father and brother in America had arrived addressed to his uncle.
The letter stated that whether one worked in Japan or came to America, they believed one could not achieve success without education—therefore Gousaburou should be allowed sufficient study time, with tuition money sent as needed.
Thus he—despite his middling middle school grades—had resolved to come to Tokyo to study.
It was arranged for him to receive fifty yen each month.
Moreover, due to conscription examination requirements and such matters, he intended to enter some preparatory school first before taking the commerce university entrance exam next spring.
—Well, that was more or less the gist of his story.

“Since you’re going to take the entrance exam next year anyway, why not give it a try this year as well?” I suggested.

“If you treat it as preparatory practice for next year without fixating on passing or failing from the outset, then not passing wouldn’t be a disappointment—while passing would gain you a whole year’s advantage, wouldn’t it?”

However, he opposed this resolutely.

“I’ll refrain this year.”
“Because I’ve been idling away for nearly a year now, I’ve forgotten everything—there’s no way I’ll pass.”
“And if I fail this year, I can’t bear to lose heart.”
“If I can’t pass in one smooth attempt, it’s no use at all.”

“I see.”

“Teacher, have you ever failed before?”

“Well, I don’t recall ever having done so.”

“I thought so.”
“I want to go about it that way too.”

At the desperate tone of those words, I couldn’t help but break into a pleasant smile. However, as we talked about various things, a single troublesome matter arose. He had apparently gathered his clothes, books, and all daily necessities in the wicker basket he had brought and the willow trunk that would soon be delivered from the station, but there was not a single piece of bedding prepared. Moreover, he had made no arrangements whatsoever regarding lodging and seemed to have intended from the very start to settle at my house.

“Is your house not acceptable, Teacher?” he asked nonchalantly.

“But you see, there are already two children in the house, and there’s no proper study room for you either.”

“Oh… Is that so?”

Seeing his face, which showed not so much surprise as simple bewilderment, my wife and I burst into laughter.
But then, a lingering melancholy came over me.

“I truly can’t tell whether country people are carefree or just shameless,” my wife later said to me.
And I too felt exactly that way.

Mother

In Tokyo, feelings toward neighbors were entirely different compared to the countryside. In rural villages, people had lived in the same ancestral residences for generations; both their houses and land were mostly their own property; there were no families relocating elsewhere or migrating in from other places—each person maintained their own fixed, unchanging place of residence since ancient times—so neighbors became as intimate as relatives. Well, it wasn’t just the immediate neighbors—all the villagers, and even those from neighboring villages, formed close bonds with one another. However, in Tokyo, due to frequent residential relocations and varied lifestyles, even next-door neighbors often remained complete strangers. I had now lived in my current house for four years, yet I had seen the face of the neighbor himself only a handful of times. As for what work my neighbors did or what kind of lifestyle they led—I knew nothing whatsoever about such matters. Most were renting their homes; one didn’t know where they came from, nor when or where they’d move next—in short, they merely happened to be living nearby by chance. For that reason, there were hardly any neighborly bonds among those living nearby. This proved convenient at times, yet also felt lonesome. And those who came from the countryside and had long resided in Tokyo gradually became dyed by such impersonal relations until eventually, they no longer felt much familiarity even toward people from their hometowns. There’s a saying: “Country folks bring a measure of adzuki beans and stay over for ten or even twenty days.” This illustrated how feelings toward neighbors differed entirely between Tokyo and the countryside. In rural areas, where land was spacious, houses large, and food abundant, even a slight acquaintance staying several days was considered rather lively; however, in Tokyo, unless one belonged to an exceptionally wealthy household with a grand residence, such hospitality was utterly impossible. In an ordinary home, the residence barely accommodated the family alone; there might be one or two extra futon sets at most, no surplus food reserves whatsoever, monthly budgets were strictly fixed, and busy daily tasks filled the hours—so if someone were to stay ten or twenty days based merely on shared hometown ties—those ties that meant little to Tokyo residents—bringing nothing but adzuki beans as a gift, it became truly unbearable. Therefore, Tokyo had inns everywhere—from high-end to low-end.

That being said, people from the countryside living in Tokyo had not lost their attachment to their hometowns.
Due to the scarcity of neighborly bonds, nostalgia for their hometowns showed no sign of increasing or decreasing.
However, this applied strictly to the land of their hometowns.
It did not apply to the people of their hometowns.
Even if memories of the people from one’s hometown grew faint, the mountains, rivers, and fields of that hometown—wrapped in old recollections—shone ever more fondly.
The phrase “The nation perishes, yet its mountains and rivers remain” took on a new and different meaning, striking a deep chord in the hearts of those from the countryside who now lived in Tokyo.

The story has digressed, but when Hirada Gousaburou came to Tokyo, I was one of those people from the countryside living in Tokyo, as I mentioned earlier. On top of that, I was very poor. I was barely scraping by on my monthly salary; there was no leeway in the household budget whatsoever, the house was already full with just my family, we only had one extra set of bedding for guests, and with friends coming and going quite frequently—from every angle I considered it, even if I were to receive boarding fees, I couldn’t have kept Hirada Gousaburou at my house. Moreover, unless there was some special connection between us—but he and I were merely born in neighboring villages in rural Kyushu—we were complete strangers, weren’t we?

So I, despite having just begun to develop a favorable impression of him, found myself overcome with an oddly incongruous feeling and couldn't help but let slip a wry smile as I spoke.

“That’s quite reckless of you—coming to my place without any prior discussion…”
“As you can see, my house simply won’t do.”

“Well then, I suppose I must look for a boarding house.”

“There’s no other choice…”
“But you’re certain about receiving fifty yen every month?”

“Yes, absolutely.”
“Another thousand yen should have already arrived from America.”

“Then there’s nothing to worry about.”
“You should find a comfortable private boarding house.”
“Though without your own bedding, it would be quite wasteful—and renting long-term isn’t sustainable. Why not have them send some immediately?”

“I’ll do that.”

So it was decided he would stay at my house temporarily until the futon arrived.

Mother

I remember that Hirada Gousaburou stayed at my house for about two weeks. And he, unable to remain long at my house where he had been staying, soon had to move alone to a boarding house—though he showed no particular sign of despair—and four or five days later entered the preparatory course at Kanda’s Seisoku English School, beginning his study of English.

“Tokyo’s schools are rather inconsiderate, aren’t they?” he said.
“When the bell rings, the teacher comes into the classroom, rattles on and on in an alarmingly fast manner, and then abruptly leaves.
I don’t understand a single thing.
There’s no time for questions.
Moreover, if you arrive even a little late, there are already no seats left, and you have to stand.
That they can be so inconsiderate yet still thrive—isn’t that just Tokyo for you?”

His tone carried more admiration than discontent.
And he went out every day.
He always made those round trips on foot, never once taking the train.

"Why don't you take the train?" I asked him repeatedly.
"If you walk too much, you'll tire yourself out—won't that hinder your studies?"

“No, I’m accustomed to walking, so it’s nothing at all.”
“Walking that much each day does better for the body.”

And as he stubbornly persisted in his walking philosophy, he discovered that rain and snow in Tokyo fall sideways.

Mother

Tokyo was generally a windy place.
Especially from around the end of January, the fierce north wind would blow continuously.
On days when rain or snow fell, no matter how skillfully one held an umbrella, if one tried to keep walking, one’s legs from the knees down became completely drenched.
Even when one felt as if there was no wind while at home, the moment one stepped out into the street, rain or snow was falling completely sideways.

“Back home, such things don’t happen.
“Rain and snow are meant to fall straight down.”

With that, Hirada Gousaburou beamed as if he had made a grand discovery.
And as though savoring this revelation, he would walk back unfazed through rain and snow, much to the maid's dismay.
His clothes—absurdly thick with cotton padding as I mentioned before—left the maid frowning each time she dried his thoroughly soaked legs from the knees down.

“He must be freezing himself, don’t you think?” my wife said to me.

That must indeed have been freezing.
With the north wind already cutting like blades through one’s body, mingled with rain and snow, ordinary people could never have endured it.
Yet Hirada Gousaburou remained unfazed.
Even when the edges of his earlobes swelled red with frostbite and his nose-tip turned crimson, he still refused to abandon his walking doctrine.
This wasn’t for lack of train fare—he had ample funds for that, even once purchasing an imported fountain pen costing fourteen whole yen.
He seemed compelled to walk some distance daily—less from habit than primal instinct.
On Sundays he invariably took half-day strolls.

Perhaps out of necessity from walking in that manner, he apparently never missed a day of school during his stay at my house.
However, he was not particularly enthusiastic about his studies.
One reason may have been that, lacking a proper study room and having to use a corner of the guest parlor, he couldn’t settle down—but with the mindset that “There’s still a year left,” he took it easy and usually ended up playing with the children at home.

He seemed very fond of children.
Even so, it was not that he actively engaged them in play, but rather that he seemed to enjoy being their playmate—silently smiling as he interacted with them.
The children took this as an opportunity and played with him endlessly.
Being four and six years old—the peak of their mischief—they sometimes teased him quite persistently.
There were frequent occasions when they pulled his ears, pinched his nose, or barked like dogs—things that would make us step in with scoldings—but no matter what they did to him, he remained unbothered, smiling all the while.
So to speak, he seemed to find amusement in silently becoming the children’s plaything, while they themselves treated him like a living doll—a playmate with whom they felt no reservations whatsoever.

Even so, he would occasionally become oddly serious in games with the children.
No—or rather, it might be more accurate to say it was a game he played by himself than one with the children.
One time, while he was playing with the children in the tatami room, the dinner preparations were completed, and the maid went to call them.
But he did not come.
When she went to call a second time, only the children came, and he remained alone.
When she asked what he was doing, he said he was playing battledore.
So they left him as he was and began their meal, but since the sound of battledore continued endlessly and he still didn’t come, they sent the maid to call him again.
After a while, he came out panting heavily, his brow furrowed in a gloomy manner.

“What were you doing?” my wife asked.

“Since I made a bet with the young lady about whether I could keep up battledore fifty times, I tried my hardest, but reaching fifty in one go was simply impossible.”

Looking at that face with its angular forehead furrowed in earnest-looking wrinkles, we found ourselves unable to laugh.
His figure—clumsy yet sturdy hands gripping a battledore painted with an actor’s caricature, resolved to keep the shuttlecock aloft fifty times, darting about the tatami room alone even after the children had left—transcended mere comicality.

After that, for several days, the battledore play continued daily.
We failed to hear whether he managed fifty hits, but thanks to that game, the older child learned to count up to fifty on their own, and the younger one up to twenty.

Mother

There was one more thing that he found interesting at my house.
That was about the vegetables lying around in the kitchen.

One cold rainy day, when he returned from school half-drenched as usual, my wife invited him to warm himself by the fire burning under the kettle for some simmered dish.
In winter, they say the gas didn’t flow well, so in my house, we took to using firewood under the kettle.
And he crouched before that hearth, warming himself by the firewood flames, and apparently marveled at how—unlike the earthen-floored kitchens of the countryside—this Tokyo kitchen had fully wooden flooring with a hearth set upon it for burning firewood. Then, picking up a single burdock root lying in the corner, he began speaking in a puzzled tone.

“What is this used for?”

“That’s a burdock root, isn’t it?” my wife replied.
“It’s for tonight’s side dish.”

“Just this?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“Even so, with Teacher and Madam…” he began, methodically counting from the two children to the maid and finally himself, “that makes six people in total, right?”

“Yes, this is the side dish for six people.”
“We’ll boil that along with those taro.”

“Ohh… Is that so?”

And he looked back and forth between that single burdock root and the approximately five gō of taro opposite it in apparent bewilderment, then remarked in a tone of earnest admiration.

“Life in Tokyo is like playing house.”

Later, my wife told me about that and added this.

“He must have thought we were being terribly frugal.”
“But since I couldn’t even risk making a joke, I didn’t know how to respond.”

Regarding this extreme frugality and not being able to make casual jokes—there existed a story that seemed almost like a lie. I had forgotten to mention earlier that this occurred on the evening following Hirada Gousaburou’s arrival at my house. At that time, owing to stomach troubles, I had been skipping lunch and consequently found myself ravenously hungry each evening. That night being no exception, I asked my wife how many bowls I’d eaten while remarking, “When you skip lunch, you end up terribly hungry.”

At this, Hirada exclaimed in surprise, “You don’t eat lunch?”

“No—since I can’t possibly afford expensive company lunches, I only eat twice daily,” I replied. “This is what they mean by not getting three square meals a day.”

Yet it appeared he had taken these words—spoken jokingly—at face value. The following day, he reportedly told my wife...

“Teacher must be having a hard time. If the company lunch is expensive, you should just bring bread with you.”—That became one of our family’s amusing anecdotes.

Given that such things had occurred, it was only natural that my wife interpreted the matter of one burdock root and five gō of taro in the manner she had previously mentioned. However, upon hearing that, I clearly understood his—Hirada Gousaburou’s—feelings, and even I began to feel somewhat strange.

Mother

In the countryside，food was truly abundant．With the exception of beef and marine fish，everything existed in such abundance that there was more than enough．Rice was stored by many bales；vegetables were brought from fields in basketfuls all at once；chickens were always counted individually；and river fish were measured by multiple kin．And accordingly，even single stews were made in large quantities．However，in Tokyo，various merchants came daily to inquire about needs and delivered small amounts－mainly provisions for one evening meal．A single daikon radish，one burdock root，two or three gō of taro，half a bunch of turnips，two or three slices of fish fillet，several momme of meat－such was their way．Therefore，seeing half a daikon radish with four or five potatoes lying about，or fish fillets wrapped in bamboo sheaths，country people must have thought this resembled playhouse housekeeping．When considered，it formed an astonishingly meager kitchen．In rural areas，such scarcity only appeared during great famines．Should merchants fail to come one day，the whole household went hungry that day．Yet housewives and maids spent most hours preparing simmered dishes from these scant kitchens while cleaning cramped dwellings．

Upon hearing Hirada Gousaburou’s story, the contrast between the abundant life of the countryside and the impoverished life of Tokyo came vividly into focus in my mind.
Then suddenly, I began to feel strangely adrift.
This was no trivial matter.
When I shared these reflections with my Tokyo-born wife, she too fell into deep thought with a lonely look in her eyes.

Somehow our discussion had grown too analytical and melancholy，so I decided to leave it at that and move forward with my account.

Mother

For the reasons I mentioned earlier, Hirada Gousaburou could not stay at my house for long. About ten days later when his futon arrived from home, he himself set out to find a boarding house. And he found one in Tōzakichō, Koishikawa. Though there were two or three other boarders, it was an amateur boarding house run solely by the husband and wife owners, with very cheap rent. Having decided on this place, and since we insisted so strongly, he rode in a rickshaw along with his trunk while having his futon and basket loaded onto a separate rickshaw ahead, then moved out.

“I’m off,” he said, bidding farewell as though embarking on a journey, and left.

When he was gone, I did feel a tinge of loneliness in the house, but still, it felt more settled with just our own family. Moreover, he came around about once a week at first. The children welcomed him most joyfully. He didn’t talk much and would spend half a day or an evening smiling as he played with the children. And before we knew it, he had become nothing more than a familiar guest who often came to visit us. Moreover, since I was working at the company every day, even when he came to visit, I was often not there, and we never had the chance to talk properly.

Mother

In that manner, February, March, and April passed, and it was a certain warm evening in mid-May.
He came rushing in, clutching a potted Moso bamboo.
Of course, even though it’s called Moso bamboo, it wasn’t a large specimen like those found in your region—merely wrist-thick. However, two stalks stretched straight up four or five shaku, their upper sections having dried and fallen away nicely, while from the lower nodes sprouted splendid branches and leaves.
Planted in a pot over a shaku in diameter, a small shoot was beginning to emerge.

He got one hand and the hem of his kimono covered in mud while wearing a good-natured smile, wiping the sweat from his forehead with one sleeve.

“I intended to take it back, but since it’s too heavy, please let me rest for a moment.”

The sight of him sweating profusely as he carried back that large, heavy planter—so sizable it could have been placed in the hall of a Western-style restaurant—was somewhat amusing, but first and foremost, the very fact that he had bought such a planter didn’t sit right with me.
Even when I asked why he had bought such a thing, he would only answer that it had been there at the night stall and smile to himself.
And he was indulging in rather cheerful fantasies—things like how potted Moso bamboo was rare in Tokyo, and how that shoot would soon grow rapidly.

“But what on earth do you plan to do with something like that?” I pressed again.

“You will surely laugh too—the landlady was also laughing, so…” And he was still smiling to himself.

"I won’t laugh... Where on earth are you going to put such a huge thing?"

"I’ll put it outside the window."

"Outside the window...?"

At that moment，he suddenly raised his voice.

"Shall I surprise Teacher?"

“Huh? What’s that, all of a sudden.”

"But…," he said, lowering his voice and pausing briefly in thought.
"Teacher, it won't work because you've never once visited my boarding house."
"Oh, I'll go if there's something interesting."

He stared fixedly at my face for a while, then began to speak as though divulging an important secret.

“I’ve created a large garden outside my window.”

“A garden…? But your room is on the second floor, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s on the second floor. But outside the window—though I’m not sure if it’s proper to call it a window—the lower part becomes a bit of a wall, like in those three-tatami-mat spaces you see in houses, while the upper part stretches all the way to the lintel. It’s a large window with four shoji panels spanning the full width of the room. Outside this window, there’s a small veranda-like extension for placing things, with a low railing attached.”

“There, I have created a garden.”

“Every time I go out, I buy potted plants and bring them back, intending to line up as many as can fit.”

“They’re mostly lined up in a row already.”

“But they’re all just trees, and when I thought I wanted a clump of bamboo, tonight I found that Moso bamboo.”

“If I place that there, it will be just right.”

“Hmm—”

I was vacantly gazing at his face, but upon seeing those eyes that seemed somewhat dull yet clear, his feelings became quite clear to me.

“Then you should go for suburban walks or look for a boarding house in the suburbs instead. Potted plants… bonsai and such are an art form conceived by people deprived of nature who seek it… Do you really think lining up plants haphazardly outside your window like that will work out?”

“Is it really not all right?” he replied obediently.
“But Teacher, even if I go to the suburbs, it isn’t satisfying.”
“There’s nothing but cherry blossoms, dust, and noisy crowds.”
“Back home around this time, the woods and fields would sprout fresh green buds all at once—it’s truly refreshing.”
“When I lie in my boarding house room thinking such thoughts, I feel like I’ve been packed into a box.”
“The warm air just hangs heavy and stifling, with nothing to show for it.”
“So I didn’t go see the cherry blossoms either. Instead of going out, I mean to make that garden outside my window.”
“Even so... might it still not be all right?”

"There’s no reason you can’t do it, but…"

At that moment, into my mind suddenly rose up a thought I had never before considered—a thought so startling even to myself.

Mother

In Tokyo and the countryside, the perception of what constituted a house and its land differed greatly.
In the countryside, even if the fence lay broken and allowed clear visibility through it, or strangers passed casually through the garden, or one could gaze far into the distance from the sitting room, the house and land remained entirely within that sitting room—only what lay within belonged to oneself, and taking a single step beyond meant entering another’s domain entirely.
In Tokyo however, the concept of house and land scarcely existed.
For those of the upper class who maintained spacious mansions it might differ, but for ordinary people in general, their own home was nothing more than a bedroom and a dining room.
And house and land—though I remain unsure whether it could even be called house and land—was the entire city of Tokyo itself.
Streets became part of the corridor that continued from bedroom to dining room, parks mere extensions of the garden.
Thus the people of Tokyo were always going out for walks.
Not only those spending entire days at home but also those rushing about outside from dawn till dusk—even laborers toiling on open streets—all generally ventured out for evening strolls or holiday walks.
One might say that between dining room and bedroom they detoured through bright, lamp-lit corridors bustling with life.
A certain foreigner once remarked that compared to European cities Tokyo resembled nothing so much as a vast village—this owing to Yamanote’s relatively sparse housing.
Yet downtown areas remained urban, and even Yamanote compared to true countryside still counted as city.

Given this state of affairs, thinking of only one’s own house as house and land and attempting to live there comfortably was utterly impossible. There was no way to find comfort with just a dining room and a bedroom. One had to regard bustling streets as one’s own corridors and wooded parks as one’s own gardens—or at least live in such a manner even without consciously thinking so—for otherwise, remaining solely within one’s house would have become unbearably suffocating. It was not about living in a single house—it was about living within Tokyo as house and land.

And in this single house and land, how countless people who know nothing of each other are swarming and nesting!

Mother

I recalled such thoughts and explained them to Hirada Gousaburou.
Then he—whether he understood or not—listened attentively without offering a single word of protest or question.

“So no matter how much you line up plants outside your window, as long as your feelings about life don’t change, it won’t go well at all.”

“Is that so?” he replied calmly at the end.

“But well, I’ll give it a try,” I said.
“Whether what I say is true or whether your garden succeeds—let’s make a bet on it.”

“Yes,” he replied ambiguously, letting slip a faint, good-natured smile.

With that matter left unresolved, he carefully cradled the large Moso bamboo planter and returned home.

From then on, every time I saw his face, asking “How’s your garden?” as a joke had nearly become a habit.
He gave no answer at all, but a strangely gloomy shadow drifted across his brow.

Noticing this quickly, my wife said to me one day.

“It’s pitiful if you keep saying such odd things.”
“He must be terribly lonely all by himself.”

“Oh, young people are fine,” I replied.
“Just you wait and see. Before long, he’ll grow to love Tokyo beyond measure.”

And I remained unfazed.
He, too, didn’t say anything in particular.
But only once, in the course of some conversation, he apparently let slip something resembling indignation to my wife.

“Teacher has forgotten his hometown.”
“He does not love his hometown at all.”
“As proof…”
At that point, he reportedly fell into a long thought.
“At first, I thought someone of Teacher’s standing would surely have many people from home coming and going.”
“But when I came—during the entire time I was at your house, and even afterward when I would occasionally visit—there has never been a single instance of people from home coming.”
“It’s very strange.”
“It’s because Teacher doesn’t love his hometown.”

Hearing this, I simply found it amusing that he was complaining and paid no attention to it.
My feelings toward my hometown had been as I had stated before.

Mother

This was an unrelated matter, but I thought I should mention it while I was at it.

In my house there existed a simple machine for making ice cream.
You would put in milk, eggs, sugar, and ice, then turn the handle on its lid.
However, since this required nearly thirty minutes of continuous turning, the womenfolk actually came to regard it as rather troublesome.
Yet on one sweltering June day when Hirada Gousaburou visited, my wife apparently recalled this machine and had him prepare ice cream.

From then on, every time he came to my house, he would invariably make ice cream himself. And this wasn’t because he wanted to eat ice cream; rather, it seemed he had taken a liking to gripping the machine’s handle and turning it round and round for nearly thirty minutes, sweat pouring down his back.

“Exercising feels good,” he would say things of that nature.

Mother

When I thought about it, I had not returned home for quite a long time. While I wanted to visit the graves and return home whenever I had the chance, I was always hindered by some task and ended up continually putting it off. As it seemed I wouldn’t be able to return home this summer either, I thought that if Hirada Gousaburou were to go back to his hometown during the summer break, there were various things I wanted to send word about to you, so I asked him to do so.

“Even if I return to my hometown, it won’t do any good, so I’m thinking about what to do,” he answered.

However, when July came, he only showed up about once every ten days, and from the beginning of August, he stopped coming altogether.

“What’s happened to Mr. Hirada? Could he be ill?” my wife said.
“If he were sick, he’d have at least sent a postcard… Well, since I mentioned sending things to his hometown, he probably found it too troublesome and went back without a word.”
“But he isn’t the kind of person who would do such a thing.”

That was exactly as my wife had said.
But I didn’t go out of my way to visit him either, and just let August and September pass by like that.
The heat was intense, there was a bit of commotion at the company, my child fell ill—my mind was full of various things.

And at the beginning of October, I encountered something I had never even dreamed of.

Mother

At that time, I was at the Imperial Theater’s dining hall, sipping my drink alone, little by little.
I felt terribly depressed for some reason.
Oppressed by the glittering air of the theater’s intermission corridor, I felt wretched about myself, felt wretched about my daily life, and yet my head remained oddly, dully foggy.
In truth, it might have been a mistake that on my way home from work, I suddenly decided on a whim and went in alone without any company.

So I absentmindedly wandered into the dining hall, took a seat by the window, and while gazing out at the glittering nightscape outside, drank sake with some light dishes.

Then, as the opening bell rang and the hall began to bustle with commotion, I was just hesitating whether to stand up or not when—suddenly—a young man emerged from the disordered crowd and came straight toward me.

“Teacher, I haven’t seen you in some time.”

Grinning, he scratched his head.
When I saw his face, I was utterly astonished.
It was Hirada Gousaburou.

“Oh, it’s you.”
“You’ve changed completely, haven’t you?”
“What happened to you?”

Then he lightly pressed his head with his left hand.

“I had intended to pay you a visit, but because of this fellow here, I’ve completely…”

Indeed, he grew his hair long and styled it in an all-back.
It seemed the top hadn’t quite grown out fully yet, and the strands weren’t neatly aligned.
Moreover, he wore a silk crepe kimono with a single-layer haori over it.
No matter how one looked at him, he had completely changed from his former self—carrying himself like a Tokyo student in both attitude and speech.

“You’ve changed so much I hardly recognize you.”

“So I was on edge thinking Teacher would tease me… but as expected…”

“I’m not teasing you. I’m impressed, you know.”

Starting to talk in that manner, we drank sake, ignoring the fact that the play had begun.
He had been like that since staying at my house—no matter how much he drank, he never truly got drunk—so in the end, he used to say it made no difference whether he drank or not.
While repeatedly emptying those wasteful cups, he soon began staring fixedly at my face.

“Teacher, I’ve lost the bet after all.”

And for a moment, a gloomy shadow floated across his brow, but the next instant, his face returned to its cheerful state.

“A bet… What kind of bet?”

“Um… It’s about the garden outside the window.”

I had already forgotten, but he was referring to that idea of arranging potted plants outside the window to create a garden.

“I’ve finally surrendered to your theory, Teacher.”
“It’s actually an interesting way of thinking.”
“Houses have only bedrooms and dining rooms—the streets are all extensions of corridors… It’s delightful.”

Hearing this, I was slightly taken aback.

“Huh… Such a trivial thing…”

“It’s not trivial at all.
“I went around telling every friend about it.
“……Tokyo students are such amusing creatures.
“……I mean to go dashing about Tokyo’s streets.
“……Yet it feels odd…somehow…”

He seemed to have some tangled knot in his chest, growing more agitated at being unable to voice it clearly—furrowing his brows, he sank into troubled thought.
I leaned closer to his face and asked.

“What made you change so completely all of a sudden?”

“Huh… You mean ‘change completely’…?”

Then, after a while, he stared at the snow-white tablecloth and spoke.

“It’s still because of that garden’s influence.”
“I’d line up potted plants along the windowsill, carefully adjust their shape and water them, stick my head between the branches, and sometimes spend half the day in a daze.”
“Then below that window, over the brick wall, I could see into a room of another house.”
“It was a dim, dirty boarding house where a landlady around forty sat alone sewing from morning till night.”
“But come evening, a grimy lamp would light up—the landlord in his ill-fitting Western suit would return, then the daughter who looked too modern for that house, followed by a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old boy.”
“They’d all eat dinner and go straight to bed.”
“Watching this from my second-floor window gave me such a peculiar feeling.”
“Somehow... everything felt tedious... lonely... absurd... ridiculous... Truly bizarre.”
“Maybe I’d been peering over too much—they started recognizing my face there. Then one morning, when I poked my head out from behind the plants, I suddenly locked eyes with someone looking up and instinctively bowed.”

“With whom?”
“With the daughter.”

And suddenly he blushed, a sun-tanned face turning red.

“So that’s it—you’re saying you fell in love or something?”

“No, I’m not in love,” he said with feigned seriousness.
“Then what did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“But leaving it at that would be strange, wouldn’t it?”

He seemed to have taken some kind of offense and clammed up sullenly. So I stopped pursuing the matter further and started talking about other things—the play and such—but he seemed rather disinterested, replying distractedly while fidgeting. Realizing that perhaps detaining him had been a mistake, after a while I asked.

“I ended up talking your ear off... You have someone expecting you, I suppose.”

“No… Oh, it’s nothing.”

He appeared slightly flustered.
So I promptly paid the bill, went out into the corridor with him, and there we parted ways in opposite directions.

“Do come visit properly sometime.”

“Yes, I will come.”

He hung his head and walked briskly away.

I reluctantly took a seat midway through, but the play grew even less interesting.
More than the play, thoughts of him were deeply engraved in my mind.
When the intermission came, I searched everywhere but couldn’t find him.
The next intermission was no different.
Before long, an image of myself—abandoning the play to hunt for him—appeared in my mind with an oddly hollow absurdity, so I suddenly burst into laughter alone, left the theater with the remaining act still underway, and made my way home.

My wife listened to my story with a look that seemed both disbelieving and concerned.

Mother,

It was exactly around that time that a letter arrived from Hirada Gousaburou’s uncle.
It was a letter saying something like: “I want you to inform me how Gousaburou has been doing lately—though I’ve been sending him 70 or 80 yen every month since early summer, it seems that still isn’t enough, for I discovered he’s been receiving 50 or 60 yen from a sister who married into another family. As I’m concerned that he is spending too much money, I ask you to kindly supervise him…”

Through our meeting at the theater and that letter, I had come to understand Hirada Gousaburou's general circumstances in recent times. And I found myself quite troubled.

The letter asked me to supervise him, but supervising a man lodging elsewhere was simply not feasible in Tokyo. First of all, it wasn’t even clear what the man was up to. In the countryside, whatever someone did became known to everyone immediately, but in Tokyo, things didn’t work that way—there were far too many people, all strangers to one another. If one hid oneself within that swirling mass of people, one wouldn’t easily be noticed by others.

I sat before the letter and pondered, but concluded that formally visiting or summoning him would only cause unnecessary offense, so I resolved to wait until he next came of his own accord, meet him properly, get a clear understanding of his thoughts and behavior, and then devise some way to address it.

And I waited for him, but he did not come for quite some time. Finally, about fifteen days after we had met at the theater, on a Sunday afternoon, he suddenly appeared.

Mother,

It was a day when the slight chill that had begun to set in suddenly reversed course, and a muggy, tepid south wind blew, leaving one’s head feeling foggy.
My wife and the maid had taken the children to the zoo, leaving me alone to mind the house.
Around three o’clock that afternoon, Hirada Gousaburou came bursting in with great vigor.
Yet his complexion looked unwell, and he was panting heavily from his shoulders.

“What’s wrong? Are you feeling ill?” I inquired.

“It’s nothing at all. I just hurried here, so…”

And then, wiping the sweat from his forehead, he suddenly chuckled softly.

“It seems something amusing has happened.”

“Yes, that’s quite comical. I thought about coming to call you, Teacher, but reconsidered that you probably wouldn’t come, so I watched alone. It just finished a moment ago.”

“What’s this about?”

“Well, it’s actually that I made a bit of a blunder,” he began, his seemingly kind eyes darting about. “About that matter I mentioned before… um, the house next door that you can see looking down from my room’s window—well, I’d been taking the lazy way out with the girl there, tossing over notes on scraps of paper whenever I suddenly needed something. When her father found out about it, he apparently got furious. He’s a low-ranking clerk at the Ministry of Communications and an utterly obstinate man. When he discovered that I had been tossing notes from the window, he seems to have flown into a rage at me, completely ignoring his daughter. And today, he went and bought a wide corrugated iron sheet from somewhere and started extending the eaves himself, you see? It seems he intends to block the view from my window. He’s stacking a stepstool on top of empty barrels, climbing onto that wobbly setup, and in just a singlet, working away with a clang-clang-clang. The sunlight hit the balding crown of his head, glinting through the sparse hair, while his whole scalp steamed up as he kept sniffling back his runny nose without pause. He must have thought I was peeking at him, which only made him even more determined. He kept fumbling with large corrugated iron sheets here and there, propping them up with struts and hammering nails—as I watched, it struck me as something beyond comical, verging on pitiful. Even so, he somehow managed to finish extending the eaves, and both the room beyond and the small patch of ground in front of it were completely hidden.”

He chuckled softly again, looking amused.

I was momentarily taken aback.
I couldn't comprehend his state of mind as he prattled on about such matters.
Perhaps because I had been staring too fixedly at his face, he adopted a slightly defensive expression and said:

"But... Teacher, if you'd seen it, you'd surely have laughed too."

There, driven by the frustration of being outmaneuvered and unable to regain my composure, I abruptly steered the conversation toward the issue at hand.

“That may be amusing, but you—this is no joking matter, truly.”

And I stood up and brought his uncle’s letter.

“Please read this.”

He casually opened it and read through the contents with his brows furrowed in the manner of a nearsighted person scrutinizing an object.

“It’s all right, Teacher,” he said, rolling up the letter and looking at me.
“I haven’t been wasting money at all.
“I made clothes and bought books.
“I can list them out one by one if necessary.”

“But it’s not good to worry your folks back home too much. … And you’re always meeting up with that neighbor’s daughter, aren’t you?”

“But we only walk together for a little while.
“When the shop closes and she heads home, we just walk a bit along Ginza Street or such places.
“We rarely go into places to eat.
“Most of the time, we come back with our stomachs completely empty.
“Her father is extremely strict, and if she comes home too late, he apparently starts scolding her as if she’s completely fallen into depravity.
“So we just take a short stroll together.
“Going to see a play together like we did the other day has only happened once.”

“And just what exactly is going on between you two?”

“There’s no such relationship.”
“That’s all there is to it.”

“But that’s absurd, don’t you think? A young man and woman meeting outside constantly… Then let me ask—do you intend to marry that woman?”

“Marriage? No way—with a woman like that. She’d probably hate it too.”

“Hmm… I really can’t say I understand clearly, but…”

“But Teacher, you’re the one being strange here.”
“It’s more fun to walk together than alone—that’s all we’re doing.”

His answer was utterly straightforward, with no apparent trace of guilt.
Even so, it still didn’t sit right with me.
And while we were repeating this strange exchange, the family members returned home.

“Oh—Mr. Hirada…”

In front of my wife, who stood staring wide-eyed at his words, he scratched his head and bowed with an awkward air.
Next, the children approached him from both sides and took him away.

And so the conversation was left at that, and he ended up being treated to dinner.

Thanks to my wife’s thoughtful preparations, sake decanters were even lined up on the dining table.
As we drank and ate together, my wife and I spoke in calm tones about the sort of things anyone would ordinarily say in such situations—that one shouldn’t worry folks back home, that one shouldn’t buy too many things, that associating with young women tends to bring danger even if it starts innocently enough—saying these things here and there.
To this, he merely smiled and listened with a look of ease.
Then, toward the end of the meal, he suddenly spoke up.

“I’ve been thinking of going back home for about a week or so, but…”

“Well… That’s true,” I said, feeling somewhat sorry for him, “returning to reassure mother might be good, but… it shouldn’t come to that. I’ll put in a good word for you.”

“No, that’s not it…”

He started to say something but fell silent.

Then, after finishing the meal, he immediately went over to the children and proposed playing battledore.
The children were delighted.
Begging their mother, they had her retrieve old battledores and shuttlecocks from the bottom of the toy box, then they all dashed off to the sitting room across the way.
And for quite a long time, mingled with the children’s laughter, the clink... clink... of battledore continued.

My wife and I exchanged eye-smiles.

However, after quite some time had passed, he came out from the sitting room, said he was leaving immediately, and hurriedly took his leave.
My wife later told me that at that time, he seemed to have tears welling up in his eyes.
I hadn’t noticed it then, but his figure hastening away did seem somehow unusual.

After he left, I found myself strangely dazed.
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t grasp his true nature.
And that night, I ended up not writing a reply to his uncle either.

Mother

It was two days later.
From his boarding house came the notification of his critical condition to my home.
Since I was not there, my wife rushed over only to find him already in a state of beriberi heart failure beyond any help.

Piecing together the fragmented words he uttered during his occasional moments of lucidity, I imagined he had been experiencing intermittent numbness in his feet since around September.
But without telling anyone it was beriberi or letting a doctor examine him, he persisted in his usual walking policy.
Then, two days prior, after coming to my house and playing battledore in the sitting room, he apparently grew strangely lonely; on his way back, he drank heavily of strong Western liquor at a café and nearly collapsed along the way.
Even so, he somehow managed to return to his boarding house, and after sleeping through the night, he felt better the next day—so much so that he went out walking everywhere (apparently he couldn’t help but go out)—only to be struck by a severe beriberi heart failure starting that very night.

When my wife went there, he was moaning through frequent bouts of labored breathing, she told me.
Yet no ice pack had been applied to his chest.
The doctor who came that morning had reportedly said he would recover if he rested quietly.
"But since he seemed to be suffering so much, I notified you," the landlady was said to have remarked calmly.
My wife stood aghast at this state of affairs.
Then she single-handedly raised an uproar.
She had someone procure ice and ice packs, summoned an acquaintance who was a physician, arranged for a nurse to administer oxygen—she did everything possible—but it was already too late.
When I rushed over after receiving the call, he lay thrashing with his chest heaving violently.
I immediately wired his uncle.
But even that proved too late—by midnight, he had gone cold.

As I believe you have already heard the details of these events from his uncle and mother, I shall refrain from repeating them here again. And finally, I shall tell you what I have kept hidden in my heart alone.

Mother

When I arrived there early the next morning, my wife and the nurse were in a daze beside the corpse.
I sat upright at the bedside of the corpse, briefly lifted the white cloth from its face, and bid my final farewell.
The skin on its forehead and cheeks was strangely pale and swollen, yet only the eyes were deeply sunken, with earth-colored lips parched and wrinkled.
I gently covered it with the white cloth again.

“Last night in the middle of the night, he suddenly got up saying he was going back home and tried to stand.”
“Between us two we barely managed to settle him down again, but we were utterly distraught.”
“He kept repeating ‘I want to go home’ like delirious ravings until his tongue stiffened, then two or three hours later he was gone.”

In a self-absorbed tone, as if dreaming, my wife said such things.

In a west-facing, dilapidated six-tatami room, the interior felt somehow dim and gloomy. On the shallow alcove’s bookshelf, difficult philosophy books and vulgar novels formed a strange contrast as they stood tightly packed. When I opened the window’s shoji screens, various-sized potted plants were lined up so thickly that they blocked the sunlight. Peering further through them, beneath my eyes lay a brick wall, and beyond it stood a low, aged flat roof. Clumsily patched onto its eaves were new tin sheets that glittered oddly with dew.

I sat down on the window ledge there and sank into a feeling I couldn't quite put into words.
I felt somehow responsible for Hirada Gousaburou's ephemeral life, while simultaneously being overcome with a desire to gently embrace everyone.
And suddenly, I thought I must inform the daughter of the house with tin eaves about his death.

And since I couldn’t very well go to her house openly, I timed it to when she—who seemed to work at places like Marunouchi Building or Mitsukoshi—would likely be heading out and waited for her on the street.

Entering the side street next to the boarding house and roughly estimating the location after checking the nameplates, I found a house labeled "Itakura Residence" with a small sign for "Dressmaking" at the entrance.
After confirming this, I went out to the main street and loitered around the area while waiting for her to come out.

Mother

At that time, if someone who knew me had seen me doing such a thing, they would certainly have laughed.
You would probably laugh too, Mother.
But I was utterly serious.

My assumption proved correct.

From that narrow alley emerged a young woman with her hair bound up in a fashionable large chignon, wearing a flashy merino kimono and felt sandals, clutching a small package in her hand as she hurried out.

I strode purposefully toward her and touched a hand to the brim of my hat.
She stopped.

“Excuse me, but are you the one referred to as Ms. Itakura?”

In her long-lidded eyes, small pupils swiveled sharply, and her thick lips appeared to draw taut.

“Yes,” came a reply so low it barely carried.

“There was something I needed to tell you regarding Hirada Gousaburou…”

No sooner had her face flushed slightly than the next moment it became bright and composed.
And a lively, firm voice rang out.

“You are Mr. Mizushima, aren’t you?”

“Huh?” I answered in a low, surprised voice.

Then, after taking five or six steps in silence, I began to speak with my eyes lowered.

“Last night, Mr. Hirada suddenly passed away from beriberi heart failure.”

“Oh… So it was… beriberi heart failure after all…”

When I turned around in surprise at her stopping, she stood there like an actress on stage, staring straight ahead with tear-filled eyes that blinked sharply.
Then she started walking briskly.

“And so I thought to inform you as well…”

Then we walked about a block in silence.
Then she suddenly said to me.

“I’d like to offer condolence money, but my father is strict… Could you pass it along for me, Mr. Mizushima?”

I felt as though I had been abruptly shoved aside. That was an utterly unexpected thing to hear. Regaining my composure, I told her indignantly.

“There’s no need for condolence money or such.”
“I am simply informing you that Hirada Gousaburou has died.”

She looked up at my face with large upturned eyes.
In those eyes, there was no shadow of sorrow; they even seemed to contain coquetry.

“Yes, I understand.”
“Thank you very much.”

And with that, we exchanged a slight bow and parted.

For a while, I stood blankly in the middle of the street. When I came to my senses, a great many students, laborers, and office workers were bustling past with lively energy. A refreshing morning sun flowed over the streets, and the mist was beginning to thin and fade away. Amidst this, I found myself recalling her impression in fragments, and somehow, I was suddenly filled with a clear, refreshing feeling as though I had glimpsed an unknown world. And so, within the condolence money I offered at Hirada Gousaburou’s altar, only the ten yen I had secretly set aside for her was included extra.

Mother

I now feel I want to live with a renewed spirit.
Should any young men come from the provinces to Tokyo, please tell them to come straight to me.
I cannot provide for them, but I wish to associate with them closely.