Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Toyoshima Yoshio

When a mild low-pressure system settled in, it created an eerily sharp visibility where even distant objects appeared vividly close—enough to make one imagine what it might be like in a vacuum. Yet this same low-pressure phenomenon could occur within our minds as well, where at certain moments, a particular aspect of human affairs became indeed uncomfortably vivid.
Such a thing occurred to Nakae Keiichiro in the waiting room of Koizumi’s examination office.

While Koizumi was examining Kimiko, Nakae—in the waiting room—gazed absently at the young leaves outside the window while frequently smoking cigarettes.
He no longer felt even a hint of bashful embarrassment.
Since they were close friends who didn’t need formalities, Nakae had repeatedly told her to take a letter of introduction, but Kimiko would only shake her head like a petulant child—so Nakae finally decided to bring her himself. Yet after hesitating for a while, Kimiko abruptly agreed, and then began acting as if they were simply going to visit an acquaintance.
Her usual stance was that matters of the body should be left to nature—that simply living... and working... sufficed—and that seeing a doctor constituted a luxury. Yet now, this luxury had dissolved into a certain novelty: going to Koizumi’s place with Nakae—with the examination itself being secondary.
But for Nakae, the fact that she occasionally felt a dull pain in her stomach or abdomen—a pain that shifted locations—or experienced pressure in her chest seemed to suggest an overall decline in her health, troubling him more than any localized symptom would have.
That she—who usually adopted such a dismissive attitude toward her illness, claiming it mattered little—would now relatively easily agree to come with Nakae to Koizumi’s place felt to him like a crushing weight pressing down on his heart.
Shouldering that burden while pretending they were departing from home, he had called from the inn where they’d stayed the previous night and brought along a body still in the same state as last night.
For Kimiko, all traces of what had transpired since last night had already vanished; she carried herself as if today were entirely separate, eagerly asking about Koizumi and such.—“A title like ‘medical doctor’ feels so grandpa-like—it doesn’t do young people any favors.”
It was such a typical opinion of hers that any sense of actually undergoing an examination now had already grown distant.
And Nakae too found himself swept along, shoving that oddly presumptuous feeling into a corner of his mind as he ended up coming all the way to Koizumi’s house.
Koizumi, who had come out to greet them, efficiently handled everything with an all-encompassing expression. In response, Kimiko recounted her past physical condition with the demeanor of someone making casual conversation. Then the two of them entered the adjacent examination room.

—It was good I came after all.
She might not be sick at all.

Nakae was so composed that he could vaguely think such things amidst the cigarette smoke.
He didn’t even mind that the examination was taking time.
And then, Koizumi’s words as he emerged from the examination room corroborated this.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly wrong.”
“Of course, I can’t say for certain after just one examination…”

Taking this inversely—that something unclear after a single examination couldn’t be serious—Koizumi maintained such an attitude as he smoked his tobacco and called a nurse to offer tea, making Nakae grow increasingly at ease.
Just then, Kimiko—having adjusted her clothes—came rushing in energetically, bowed to no one in particular, beamed a smile, and sat down beside Nakae.

At that moment, Koizumi fixed his gaze intently upon Kimiko as if seeing her for the first time, imparting a touch of dignity to his short-trimmed mustache as he began speaking with deliberate admonishment.

"Your stomach seems a bit off."
"That too should be manageable with just dietary care—likely nothing requiring medication."
"Otherwise, there appear to be no other abnormalities."
"There’s no need to measure your blood pressure."
"……If I had to specify… there’s some neurasthenia present—this leads to oversensitivity—so you now and then experience subjective complaints… that’s about the extent of it."
"However, such things are best forgotten."
"Since it’s a troublesome condition where neurasthenia and hypersensitivity strike simultaneously, the more you dwell on it, the worse the outcome becomes—so to speak…"

At that, he showed a slight smile and shifted his clinical gaze toward Nakae.

“You’re far more the patient here, of all people.”
“You’re a proper gastric illness patient, and on top of that, there’s that tissue laxity—you’re worth examining.”

Those words lingered suspended in the air.
This was because, ever since earlier, both Kimiko and Nakae had been acting oddly solemn before Dr. Koizumi Shoji when the diagnosis—likely intended to reassure Kimiko—suddenly leapt over to Nakae. To make matters worse, when Kimiko briefly glanced in Nakae’s direction, it laid bare their shared position as though seated side by side in a defendant’s dock.
That had also laid bare their physical relationship.
Even if it had begun with ideological alignment, theirs was now a relationship that had oddly rusted through.
Kimiko, who had once flitted about Nakae like a small bird, now seemed drawn by some centripetal force, gradually gravitating bodily toward him, while Nakae—fueled by suspicions and jealousies of the past—strained to keep her bound to him. When this suffocating dynamic grew unbearable, Kimiko would deliberately assume an air of coldness, and Nakae would forcibly immerse himself in the liquor of the pleasure district. Yet these strained efforts only inflamed their mutual longing further—leaving Kimiko’s nerves increasingly frayed, and Nakae’s health ever more damaged.
And projecting this onto each other, they neglected their own selves—Kimiko, concerned about Nakae’s nervous irritability, would frantically call him nonstop, while Nakae, worried about Kimiko’s declining health, would drink sentimental liquor.
Originally, their honest desire had been to live brightly... radiantly... Yet circumstances kept veering in the opposite direction.
Nakae bringing Kimiko to Koizumi’s place was, in truth, nothing more than one manifestation of his attempt to impose some resolution on this situation.
Yet the examination—or rather, the impartial words of a third party—brought no resolution, merely proving the facts anew.
Kimiko had neurasthenia and hypersensitivity; Nakae, gastric illness and tissue laxity.
Particularly this relaxation—likely in the muscles, skin, internal organs… no, nearly all bodily tissues—was something Nakae had vaguely yet persistently feared.
No—the examination was… Yet that reflexive impulse became entangled with Kimiko’s presence beside him, until he became aware of their two bodies lined up before Koizumi’s gaze—and then aware, too, that they shared each other’s scent.

The green leaves of the dendrobium outside the window, illuminated by the sun, stung Nakae’s eyes with their harsh glare.

With an air of concluding matters, Koizumi’s demeanor abruptly shifted. When he invited Nakae—citing their long separation—to go elsewhere and talk, Nakae sank into complete listlessness and muttered “This should suffice” to Kimiko, implicitly urging her to leave first.
Kimiko’s eyes glinted from their depths as she fixed him with an unwavering stare, but Nakae displayed no reaction.
She swept up her short hair with a hand, directed something resembling a bitter smile toward Koizumi, then rose with brisk energy.

The two who remained behind sat facing each other in the parlor as friends, but to Nakae, this felt strangely unfamiliar.
He had recently almost ceased visiting any old friends at leisure.
The conversation naturally turned to various rumors about mutual acquaintances.
The other day, when four or five people had gathered, Koizumi even brought up such a matter—that there had been something of a conspiracy to make Nakae marry.
Koizumi went on to say that a single life past thirty-five was physically unnatural.
The human body is a well-designed thing; to put it metaphorically, it is structured so that supply and demand naturally harmonize, preventing occurrences such as capital accumulation or overproduction. Only the necessary amount of production and consumption proceed smoothly, with excess merely passing through.
The balance of accounts settles neatly in the end.
However, a single person’s body is like a household without a ledger—the balance of income and expenditure becomes chaotic, and equilibrium between production and consumption cannot be maintained.
Marriage equips one with a sort of household ledger…
Perhaps that was true, Nakae thought, but now his own economic collapse—not of his body, but of his actual livelihood—loomed so large before him that he found himself unable to remain seated.

“Though, like that person…” Koizumi suddenly remarked.
“That person doesn’t maintain a household, does he?”
“Someone like him—obsessively saving and stockpiling fat beneath the skin—might still be preferable, but…”

“Not an ideal constitution.”

“Hm?” Koizumi briefly looked up. “Ah, that man… I can’t claim full understanding of his condition, but excess fat does tend to obstruct metabolic processes.”

In reality - confronted with this body somehow deficient in freshness - Nakae found himself thinking of Kimiko yet again.

Just then, a call was connected to Koizumi—a request from an acquaintance asking if he could come by past three o'clock.
Koizumi grumbled about how even this rare Sunday was being spoiled, but from Nakae’s perspective, his settled life—working at a hospital alongside his research while tending only to acquaintances’ patients—seemed enviable compared to his own scattered existence devoid of any focal point.
Along with this, he felt a desire to pour out his mental gloom and practical worries before Koizumi’s bright spirit, but when he found himself too abject to do so, he grew restless as if driven by something and could no longer sit calmly in his seat.

Nakae had resolved to rebuild his life independently since his uncle’s downfall; he had requested the full-time faculty member to increase his language lecture hours at the private university. Furthermore, having signed a publishing contract with a certain bookseller for a popular edition of Henri Fabre’s complete works, he intended to proceed sequentially—first translating juvenile readers, then moving on to *Souvenirs Entomologiques*—and had begun with *Uncle Paul’s Story*. Yet no progress materialized regarding the university position, and the translations showed no advancement whatsoever.
First and foremost, he was not motivated by anything.
He spent his days in a daze, sustained only by hollow expectations of what lay ahead.
Despite that, his mind alone remained restless.
He left Koizumi’s house and, finding himself in the early summer sunlight, felt an unusual urge to take a walk—but this too proved fleeting, and driven by vague expectations and restless haste, he headed straight back home.
Some urgent matter might have arisen; someone might have come to visit; the response to the loan request he’d made to his friend at Meidaiya might have arrived—but above all, there might be a call from Kimiko—such thoughts incessantly drove him onward.
However, when he returned home, everything was as usual—no events, no visitors, no phone calls—just two ordinary letters waiting.

“No calls came from anywhere either, huh?” he asked again.

Even so, the temporal gap of having been away from home since yesterday sparked a somewhat fresh mood, and he tried sitting in his study—but he couldn’t bring himself to read ahead in the translation abandoned halfway through.
Unrelenting effort had become something distant from him now.
Tissue laxity... He found himself ruminating on that again, growing restless as he wondered what Kimiko had been up to since then.

It was at such a moment that Shibata Kenzou suddenly appeared, and Nakae met him in a disjointed frame of mind.
Though this was his second interaction with Shibata, Nakae—true to his nature—displayed a magnanimous friendliness in his demeanor.
But on Shibata’s part, he maintained an oddly guarded attitude, speaking only in ways that made it difficult to grasp the true intent of his words.

“The workers’ atmosphere seems to be gradually growing unstable, so I’m concerned as well.”

Yet in his appearance—that foreman-like large body wrapped in an even larger Western suit, sitting solidly cross-legged—there showed no trace of concern.

“But if we act now—depending on how you steer—things could swing either way.”

This “either way” ultimately referred to two movements that had emerged among the workers following N Manufacturing’s transfer—the factory formerly owned by Nakae’s uncle—to new ownership after his downfall. The first demanded what they deemed appropriate: a gratuity payment from the former president to the employees under such circumstances. The other involved gathering certain funds to be shouldered collectively by all employees, opposing the new president to the end, with the aim of managing the factory through the workers’ own hands.

Though termed a factory, it was originally a small operation with capital around 100,000 yen, so if they could raise sufficient funds, they should be able to wrest it from the new president’s grasp.

And as he—being the foreman—had received favors from the former president, and as the employees too esteemed the former president’s character, they wanted to adopt the latter method if possible; yet they found themselves troubled by not knowing how much money would actually be needed for negotiations with the new president.

“I have no idea about such matters,” was all Nakae could reply.

“That must be so—as I don’t know either, it’s quite troubling.”

And so Shibata—his face layered with skin and fat impervious to any challenge—did not allow even a shadow of smile to surface. He still could not fathom what business had brought the man here. Nakae grew irritated and asked directly, but Shibata remained unperturbed, stating he had simply come to report as the former president’s nephew—offering an even more evasive reply. As he observed that brazen demeanor, Nakae remembered Nishida. He was a worker Nakae had vouched for despite fully knowing his role as a union activist—a man who cloaked his sincerity in a shadow of melancholy. But when Nakae considered how this man now labored under Shibata, he felt sudden curiosity.

“Changing the subject—was there not a worker named Nishida Shigekichi at your place?”

“Nishida... Shigekichi.”

Shibata repeated this and, in that fleeting moment, scrutinized Nakae’s reaction—then abruptly shifted his demeanor.

“Ah, that man… I believe he remains at the factory, though naturally, his dismissal is imminent.”
“When it comes to full employee co-management, we cannot retain such a man even momentarily—but regardless, dismissing any worker requires careful timing…”

That too was an unexpected remark to Nakae.
Absolute opposition to wage cuts and dismissals should have been the primary article in all circumstances.
When pressed on that point, Shibata clearly showed signs of fluster and merely stated that Nishida would disrupt the workers' unified solidarity before proceeding to tediously expound on various minor regulations requiring reform.
And when it came to matters such as revising lending regulations due to the mutual aid fund’s depletion, he had clearly positioned himself on a reactionary stance.
As Nakae listened to such talk, he found himself recalling Nishida—his stiff demeanor, sharp gaze, that pale intellectual-looking face, and terse, pride-laden speech—when suddenly he was seized by an amorphous surge of indignation.
It was neither out of sympathy for Nishida nor, much less, grounded in any ideological basis; rather, it resembled the vague sense of solidarity he always felt toward the oppressed class—and for that very reason, it was broad, vast, and blind.
He abruptly cut off Shibata's loquacity.

“In any case, that company no longer belongs to my uncle, and much less does it have any connection to me.”
“First of all, factory matters are an entirely different world to me.”

Up to that point, things had gone well enough, but Nakae pressed on further and—as the reason he could offer neither aid nor advice for the workers’ movement—foolishly laid bare his own destitution.
The house was rented; the telephone served as collateral for a 500-yen debt; there was a debt of about 3,000 yen from acquaintances; other payment delays here and there amounted to roughly 1,000 yen; moreover, he was considering resorting to a loan shark for immediate needs—he had indiscriminately spilled out everything that came to hand.
Shibata was momentarily taken aback and fell silent, but soon spoke in a tone that was neither calm nor cold.

“No—it wasn’t as if I came here to ask for your help or anything…”
He stared fixedly at Nakae’s expression.
“But keeping company with a man like Nishida does you no good.”

Nakae fell silent, having grown irritated of his own accord.
Shibata soon rose to his feet.
“I’ll come again later to inform you about the company’s situation—I’ll rely on your cooperation then,” he said with empty formality, departing after leaving behind a laugh that seemed to have abandoned all hope.

Nakae later wondered what purpose he had truly come for.
Perhaps he had arrived without any prior scheme, merely observing the situation while keeping watch for any tendrils of profit that might surface—poised to seize them opportunistically at a moment’s notice. That might have been the full extent of his intentions.
Yet it wasn’t simply because Nakae was the former president’s nephew—he sensed Nishida must be somehow entangled in this matter.
At the very least, it was evident Nishida had been acting within the factory.
But even as this understanding crystallized, Nakae found himself powerless against the strangely desolate feelings swelling within him—feelings born from confronting his present self, who now harbored almost no interest in Nishida despite having once risked securing the man’s position at his uncle’s company out of fervent goodwill toward him as a leftist fighter.
By nature, he rarely sustained any consistent ideology or will; instead, he often became ensnared by transient moods and compulsively rationalized them—a tendency that lent him an outward appearance of resolve and confidence, yet such self-justifying reflections never propelled him forward, serving only to sink him deeper into his current emotional state.
This tendency had grown markedly worse of late.
Even now, he remained caught in this psychological vortex. From a faint impulse to resist it, he contemplated using Kimiko to probe both the activities of his former ideological comrades and—by extension—even Nishida’s affairs to some degree. Yet this too, sapped by a lethargy that permitted no genuine interest, led to no action whatsoever, leaving him merely steeped in his present desolate, listless mood.
And with this flicker of thought—triggered by Kimiko’s image surfacing—he found himself once more absorbed in thoughts of her. That she hadn’t called since their parting at Koizumi’s office weighed on his mind; for her, who typically phoned incessantly, he couldn’t help but wonder what had gone awry.

Evening came，and even after finishing dinner，Nakae neither worked nor read—he simply sat blankly.
When the telephone rang，he sprang up as if jolted by electricity.
It was indeed Kimiko．“What have you been up to since then？”she asked．
“What did you talk about with Dr．Koizumi regarding me？”she asked．
“What are you doing right now？”she asked．
Even when asked where she was，she only laughed and did not answer．
Then，in a suddenly wilted tone，she asked to borrow just twenty yen．
“Alright，”he answered magnanimously．Whereupon she quickened her tone：“I’ll send someone over now—please give it to them．We’ll talk later．”With just a“Goodbye…see you tomorrow…”the call ended．

Nakae felt relieved yet somehow unsatisfied.
Then he felt weariness within himself.
He lay down and waited for Kimiko's messenger.
He found himself blessed solely in the act of waiting, and time passed without the slightest hardship.

The letter from Kimiko that the maid delivered contained nothing but a hasty scrawl: "Please give the earlier item to this person." With a feeling of being mocked, Nakae simply wrapped two ten-yen bills in paper, placed them in an envelope, and took it to the entrance. A woman around thirty years old, with her hair pulled back tightly and wearing a shabby, dark kimono, stood at the entrance. When she saw Nakae, she gave an awkward, slight bow. With that, she showed no expression in her eyes or around her mouth. When Nakae stared, her makeup-free, dusky face felt as if it hardened into stone.

“Please hand this over.”

“Yes.”

In a low yet strangely clear voice—then pausing briefly as if waiting for something—she made another awkward bow and departed without ceremony.

A shadow-like thing lingered in Nakae’s mind.
At first, it had spread smoothly like a brushstroke, then gradually expanded until it stole Kimiko’s form away from Nakae...

He tried calling Shimamura as if suddenly remembering.
He wasn't there.
And he went outside without any particular reason.

Having settled into a room at Yoshimatsu, Nakae was somewhat more drunk and also putting on a bit of an act of drunkenness.

“Mr. Shimamura hasn’t come?”
“That’s strange….”

Leaning against the armrest with an entranced gaze, not touching the side dishes with his chopsticks yet moderately drinking from his cup, he appeared every bit the refined gentleman—save that despite his slightly plump physique and lustrous long hair, the light in his eyes floated strangely detached.
When those eyes were stared at through the depths of his glasses, they revealed a nervous displeasure.

“Oh, alone?”

When Shizuba, who had just arrived, said this, Nakae's eyes revealed their displeasure.
Joking that one shouldn't be so blatantly disappointed, he scrutinized Shizuba's appearance—her hairstyle, collar, kimono, obi—but soon abruptly shifted to a serious tone. Out of nowhere, he asked whether she truly loved Mr. Shimamura, then warned with strangely earnest intensity that he wouldn't stand for it if she meant to deceive him half-heartedly.
From Nakae's tone that didn't seem particularly invested, Shizuba too ended up adopting an unvarnished directness.

“Then, if Shimamura deceives me, what will you do?”

That she had referred to him as “Shimamura” without honorifics was merely geisha parlor banter, but sensing something oddly insistent in her tone, Nakae’s eyes widened.
Parrying with remarks like “That’s a man’s skill,” Nakae suddenly adopted a self-mocking tone and—against his own intentions—brought up Kimiko: “Though in truth, it seems Mr. Shimamura has a lively bob-cut beauty following him around.” Shizuba tilted her head slightly before hitting the mark directly: “That would be someone called… Kimiko-san, wouldn’t it?”
“As for that person, I’ve had the occasion to meet her once here,” she said.

“Oh, the three of us… in this house….”

Nakae raised one hand in a playful manner and tapped the top of his head, but that alone wasn’t enough to ease the turmoil in his chest.
Originally, it was through Kimiko’s introduction that he had grown close to Shimamura in the first place, and after coming to love Kimiko, there had even been a time when she had stayed at Shimamura’s house for a while—prompting him to briefly suspect something between the two of them—given how familiarly she had behaved around Shimamura. Moreover, considering Kimiko’s nature, it was plausible she would harbor enough curiosity to want to see inside a geisha house. Yet even so, that Shizuba knew of Kimiko struck Nakae—now entangled with her in their present relationship—as an oddly humiliating blow.
Kimiko had never shown the slightest hint of such things in the past, merely feigning concern for Nakae’s health whenever he drank this local alcohol.
Not only that, but half of Kimiko’s life was actually hidden in shadow and unseen.
In contrast, the relationship between Shimamura and Shizuba—with its open brightness and few shadows—appeared in Nakae’s eyes.

“Let’s call him. Let’s summon Mr. Shimamura,” Nakae proposed.

“Sure.”

In a tone that suggested it was only natural, Shizuba stood up to make the call herself.
Mechanically reaching up to lightly touch her hair, skillfully adjusting the trailing hem of her kimono, her large plump body smoothly disappearing behind the sliding door—Nakae stared fixedly at this retreating figure until he lowered his gaze to his knees and noticed something white on the crumpled hem of the crepe kimono where his crossed legs met.
When he looked closely, he saw that the spot was worn through, with about an inch of the hem padding peeking out.
As he gazed at it, his drunkenness began to fade.
The reason he had come alone to Yoshimatsu for the first time in so long was that he had been rather remiss in visiting his usual haunt, Kikuhon—but through the frayed hem of his kimono, such personal hardships now came into sharp focus in his mind.
And once that settled into his consciousness, he conversely steeled himself, summoned even Fumie and Chiyoji, and they repeatedly filled their cups in lively fashion.
He was generally something of a show-off who took great care to maintain appearances, so neglecting his obligations to the geisha houses was unpleasant, and he was particularly troubled by the frayed hem of his kimono.

When Shimamura Youichi appeared with an artist’s disheveled hair, lumbering manner, and carefree smiling face, Nakae was already quite intoxicated.
Still, he kept his posture upright.
Some lucid part of his consciousness snagged on the frayed hem padding peeking from his kimono.

“Apologies for summoning you… I’m through with drinking anyway,” Nakae uttered this foolish lament.

“Still the same as ever, huh?”

But it was he who never changed. Neither seeming happy nor dissatisfied—simply relaxed and smiling—Shimamura was gazed upon by Nakae with something like admiration. He had been poor since long ago and didn’t seem troubled by it in the least; even the bills here must have piled up quite a bit by now, yet he maintained an unperturbed expression.

But more than that, what didn’t sit right with Nakae was the relationship between him and Shizuba. Their relationship was not that of patron and geisha, but merely customer and geisha; yet despite this, they were nevertheless remarkably clear and open about it. He made no attempt to hide their relationship from any acquaintance, and she openly accompanied him under any circumstances. She nonchalantly came and went from his house, even becoming familiar with his children, while he too unselfconsciously took her around Ginza’s crowded streets.

How much longer could he, in his poverty, keep up such a lifestyle? And how much longer could she, bound by her geisha contract, remain steadfastly devoted to him alone? To an outside observer, there was no telling what they thought about such matters.

Moreover, from Nakae’s perspective—though for any man it should be natural to keep a relationship with a professional discreet—Shimamura and Shizuba behaved with utterly unhesitating openness, while looking back, he and Kimiko had conducted themselves as if perpetually avoiding exposure.

It may have come about naturally, but there must have been something lurking somewhere that made it so—and he couldn’t understand what that was.

Nakae firmly suppressed the feelings of loneliness and misery beginning to well up within him and, while glancing toward Shizuba, tried to discern what it was about her that attracted Shimamura.

Shimamura had once remarked that she possessed a rustic brightness—and indeed, considering her plump build, bright laugh, stubborn rough-hewn temperament, and careless hasty manner—one couldn’t deny glimpses of such qualities. Yet it seemed inconceivable that Shimamura’s aesthetic sensibilities as a sculptor could find satisfaction in these alone.

The problem might have pertained to a deeper physical secret.

Nakae now found himself recalling a maid’s offhand remark he had once overheard—how those two could spend two or three days alone together and never grow weary—and contemplating his own relationship with Kimiko, where even a single night together required some sentimental prop to avoid immediate mental and physical recoil.

And gazing with strangely contemplative eyes, Shizuba’s appearance as she cradled the shamisen seemed utterly bright—while beyond her, Fumie’s standing figure drew countless supple curves in the air with her fingertips, her gentle hem rhythm gliding across the tatami.

…♪ Please grant my wish—having prayed to Myoken-sama—on my return path to that person…

“Mr. Nakae.”

When Nakae was called and turned around, Chiyoji wore an expression of barely contained amusement.

“Alright—I’m counting on both of you to do your best.”

The song proceeded normally through “They tease ‘it’s a cat’—but if a cat were to wear twelve-layered robes, then... rumble-meow...” before Nakae began rhythmically tapping plates and cups with chopsticks... rumble-meow, rumble-meow, rumble-meow...
Fumie burst into laughter first, then everyone else doubled over clutching their stomachs—but Nakae kept tapping... rumble-meow, rumble-meow....

As exhaustion set in, Nakae found his spirits growing listless.
Shimamura had said with his usual relaxed smile that he wanted to eat sushi or something of the sort, but after Shizuba whispered something to him and left, he suddenly turned serious and asked, "How have you been lately?"
As the conversation settled into earnest topics, Shimamura spoke at length.
The notion that humans could work by staking their lives was impossible, he argued—it was merely that through the natural course of events, results emerged that appeared as if one had risked everything. Willpower itself was insignificant, he claimed—merely habits formed through living being mistaken for volitional force.
Therefore, I believe in destiny—the natural progression born from one’s way of life...
Nakae should have agreed with this view, but his feelings toward Shimamura had grown strangely contorted. He began expounding on willpower’s might and effort’s virtues, yet as he spoke, the hollowness of his own words stirred a feverish excitement within him—which in turn provoked sentimental urges, driving him to drink relentlessly.
Thirty or forty minutes later, when Shizuba rushed back from another errand and sat casually beside Shimamura, fanning his neck with her sleeve, Nakae watched the scene as through a haze.
Within that haze, he recalled his growing estrangement from Fumie after their frequent meetings had cooled, and the chance circumstances that led to his current state with Kimiko—how discussions of personal versus societal existence had escalated into romantic theories until he suddenly embraced her. From his former life of passionate social engagement and grand aspirations, he now felt desolately abandoned—his present self left behind without even the strength to resist, sinking into pitiable despair while desperately seeking intoxication. Like a drowning man thrashing pointlessly toward the surface, he found himself chattering and making noise without purpose.
Even when recognizing the absurdity, it was too late—he cast himself adrift.

In the middle of the night, Nakae blearily opened his eyes.
Though every corner of his body still lay in shadow, a faint hazy lamplight flickered at the core of his head... which then became the brightness of two electric lights in the bedroom.
Within that consciousness, he felt an unpleasant heaviness in his stomach while his abdomen was strangely light—particularly in his lower abdomen, where there was no strength or support, as if in the extremity of hunger.
The heaviness in his stomach was something he had grown accustomed to, but the lightness of his abdomen—particularly the lack of strength and support in his lower abdomen—was a novel sensation.
Feeling anxious about this, he tried turning over to lie face down. The heaviness in his stomach vanished, but only the hollow lightness in his abdomen remained even more distinctly.
It seemed directly connected to some part of his head.
There, in that hollow space where the power of thought had completely drained away, an emptiness existed.
And surrounding it were heavy cloud-like masses that enclosed.
While asleep, he had been thinking incessantly of something; those thoughts had turned into clouds that enclosed him, and at their center had formed an emptiness akin to idiocy.
Searching through the murky cloud walls from that emptiness, he found dead ends everywhere...... It seemed he had been thinking about work matters while asleep.
Whether he could accomplish it—he seemed to have been thinking about such things.
He seemed to have been thinking about the royalties from that translation work as well.
Then he seems to have been thinking about his debts as well.
The frayed hem of a kimono seemed to catch his eye.
For his future livelihood, he also seemed to have attempted calculating his income and expenses.
And then again, he seems to have been thinking about Kimiko as well.
A scene where numerous geishas and various anarchist faction activists were mysteriously intermingling seemed to emerge in the distant view.
Whether he had actually thought or seen such things remained unclear, but now, as he peered intently, everywhere he looked felt like a dead end.
He tried to lift the suffocating clouds of dead ends, but had no strength.
The emptiness in his lower abdomen seemed to have absorbed all strength yet remained hollow.

He tried turning over again.
The entirety of his head became pale like dawn on a cloudy day.
It was as though his internal organs had slipped out from his lower abdomen and were clinging to either his skin or spine.
He tried to sleep, but the urge dissipated completely.
Unable to bear it any longer, he suddenly sat up.

He appeared still drunk; his legs wavered unsteadily.
Clutching a pillar, he tilted his head slightly as if searching for something forgotten—then, uncertain of his own intentions—approached the lamp and abruptly brightened the dim two-candle light.
His head swam.
His eyes still seemed not fully awakened.
The Daruma doll in the tokonoma alcove glared down with wide eyes.
Beside it lay a whip—a slender bamboo rod sheathed in supple leather.
He took it and cracked it sharply through the air.
Then he began lashing his own body.
Stripping off his sleepwear to stand completely naked, he brought the whip down with a stinging crack.
What came was a pleasure utterly divorced from pain.
He lashed his thighs, lashed his abdomen, lashed his back.
Against his moderately plump flesh, the leather whip left brisk red streaks with each light crack.
The absence of pain struck him as strange.
He listened intently to the whip's report, fixed his eyes on the welts rising on his skin, then struck anew.
As weariness set in, he suddenly became aware of his parched throat as though regaining consciousness.
At this he flung down the whip, draped his sleepwear over the striped redness of his body, stiffened his expressionless face, and went to drink water.
His footsteps now held firmness.

Nakae lay in his bedding with his body stinging.
When he gingerly touched his skin, mottled welts had swollen up here and there.
Yet even when he looked at the leather whip propped in the corner of the tokonoma alcove, no particular emotion arose.
Everything seemed like events from a dream.
Or perhaps his spirit simply lacked the resilience to think otherwise.
Listless and feeling that nothing could be done for the time being, he had called the school to cancel lectures for the coming week.

That phone call seemed to have worried Mitani Masako.
She was a maternal relative of Nakae’s who, after having once been estranged, appeared to have completely given up on remarrying; without establishing any plans for her future life from that point onward, she resided at the Nakae household with a composure that entrusted everything to fate, tending to household matters while living there. She looked older than her age—appearing around forty—and was gentle-natured, kind-hearted, and taciturn in all matters.
Women of this type from the middle class become nuisances in busy, active households yet form the foundation of gentle warmth in lonely, quiet ones. However, Nakae’s household happened to be the latter case, and the fact that his singlehood didn’t appear particularly unnatural owed much to her presence.
Nakae lay neither reading books nor sleeping, simply staring vacantly upward as he gazed at her—who moved quietly about the house attending to tasks, occasionally peering in with apparent concern—as though seeing her anew.
Her round, lightly freckled face was quiet as if having forgotten even how to smile, but her eyes carried a cold severity.
At first, Nakae wondered if she was angry, but upon realizing she was actually worried about him, he now spoke.
“The truth is, I had a bit too much to drink last night and I’m still feeling the aftereffects, and besides, I have some research to do, so I’ll be taking about a week off from school. There’s absolutely no need to worry.”
And he himself gave a bitter smile, but the cold severity in her eyes seemed to wipe away as she showed a nod as if dealing with a child.

From such circumstances, Nakae turned his attention away from immediate problems toward her presence, and whenever he thought of some task, he would entrust it to her.
Within her resided a gentleness that could be called that of a silent mother.
Yet in truth, Nakae had no immediate problems to confront.
On the surface things appeared orderly, but beneath lay an apathetic resignation—a state sustained only by vague expectations toward the future.
And that this future would forever remain a future, never becoming the present—that the resigned present had strangely reached a dead end—that was all there was to it.
Nakae sought immediate problems within that void, but where he searched no form of problem existed—in the end he averted his eyes from some formless unease and indulged in thoughts too vague to even be called daydreams.
Through it all his body still occasionally stung with an odd pleasure.

On the afternoon of the following day, a call came from Kimiko Segawa.
She said there were various things she needed to discuss and wanted to meet—couldn't he come out somewhere, anywhere?
Nakae replied with a strangely listless coldness that he couldn't go out as he was convalescing from illness.
Kimiko had been hesitating about something, but suddenly declared cheerfully that she would come right over.
And after some time had passed, when Kimiko arrived, Nakae—who had been idling in his study—let her in there.

“So you’re ill, they say? What’s wrong?”

Kimiko entwined her persistent gaze around him.
With a bitter smile, he silently gazed at her in his study for the first time in a long while.
The bobbed hair, large eyes, and rounded cheeks; then the flesh rich in subcutaneous fat and skin glistening with oil—these two aspects appeared separately to his eyes: one showing her youthful vitality, the other her decadent carnal desire.
Not only that, but the gaze with which he observed her in this manner suddenly felt not like his own, but rather like that of a third party.
And while he was puzzling over this strange sensation, a problem emerged.

“Why do you dislike coming to my house?” Nakae abruptly said.

The matter of Shimamura and Shizuba came to mind.
Compared to that kind of unreserved, harmonious, cheerful relationship, they seemed to exist in a place far removed.

“Oh, Professor…”
Kimiko unexpectedly showed a challenging demeanor.
“Professor… do you intend to marry me?”
“That’s not….”

Nakae found the flush that had come to her cheeks strangely beautiful.
That drew a subtle yet brazen smile across his face.
It was as though he were gripping her soul tightly with a skirt.
The faint smile turned into a viscous, smirking thing...

“…………”

Kimiko choked on her words and lunged at Nakae’s neck, but without their lips meeting, she pulled back as if something had chilled her and stared intently into Nakae’s eyes. Nakae's eyes already contained something cold and sharp.

“That messenger from the other day…”

“It wasn’t the other day.
That had been the day before yesterday.”

“Yes, the day before yesterday—that person with the beautiful voice…”

“Ms. Shimizu Eiko...”

And Kimiko, while gauging Nakae’s expression, began to speak.
In truth, there were various matters she needed to discuss regarding that affair.
Shimizu Eiko had come as Matsuura Hisao’s messenger, urgently needing twenty yen, but Kimiko didn’t have the money on hand and so had asked Nakae.
Kimiko said that Matsuura might have intended to send a messenger to her while actually counting on Nakae—with this remark, her shoulder twitched—but Nakae merely listened vacantly.
Kimiko became engrossed in her account.
Today, shortly after noon, Shimizu Eiko had come again.
It was a message from Matsuura stating that it was no good.
Matsuura—who had heard various details from Nakae about N Manufacturing—had focused his attention on the downfall of Nakae’s uncle.
The workers’ movements had headed in a direction completely different from what had been expected.
The fact that factory foreman Shibata Kenzou had been made to grasp a considerable sum of money from the new management this time had somehow leaked out among the workers, leading to the exclusion of the foreman and other executives—thus the movement made no progress beyond that point.
Nishida Shigekichi and the other core activists had been too short-sighted and too passionate.
Matsuura’s external efforts had no effect.
Then yesterday morning, the executives’强硬 measures had suddenly appeared—key workers were detained—and the movement came to an abrupt halt.
Matsuura had no choice but to withdraw.
Ideological differences were unavoidable.
They—Matsuura had sent word about the workers—they possess an awareness of our union, our class, but lack any true consciousness of our workplace.
They possess a consciousness of power but lack a consciousness of labor.
“In opposition to them,” Kimiko recited Matsuura’s words in a tone as though reading aloud, “we have no choice but to proceed slowly while clearly maintaining our consciousness of both workplace and labor.”

Nakae listened vacantly to Kimiko’s account while gazing at images gradually clarifying in his mind. He had roughly understood why Shibata Kenzou had visited, mostly discerned the contours of that cold-voiced beautiful woman, and could now surmise the conflicting movements of Matsuura and Nishida. Yet this resembled how a corner of leaden cloudy sky clears to reveal strange cloud peaks beyond—as if part of his haze-shrouded mind had cleared, projecting some film onto inner walls serving as a screen. Moreover these cleared areas remained narrowly confined and constantly shifted; as each subsequent image sharpened, the preceding one faded away. When Kimiko finished speaking, he merely nodded silently.

Kimiko fell silent, observing Nakae’s demeanor, but his face—which should have revealed some fervent stirring of will—remained eerily still indefinitely, and his mouth—which should have articulated clear opinions—merely hung slightly agape, exposing a line of white teeth.
A hollow silence persisted.

Kimiko suddenly shouted.

“Professor!”

Nakae's eyes turned toward her, and as she gazed into them, she found herself tearing up; then she suddenly collapsed forward and wept.

"Professor... I know... You're in love, aren't you?"
"You must... you must tell me everything. I refuse otherwise."

Nakae merely placed his hand on her shoulder and gazed blankly.
Kimiko had wept sentimentally before in love, but it was strange that she would cry in such a way at a time like this.
Nakae wondered what was wrong.
He also wondered whether something was wrong with himself.

Kimiko stopped crying and lifted her face.

“Professor... you’re involved in an unfortunate love affair, aren’t you?”

As he gazed into those large eyes brimming with tears, Nakae came to a realization.

“That’s right—why won’t you come to my house freely? Why are we so wretched…?”

The tears drained smoothly from her eyes, leaving her dark pupils glowing from their depths. And she clung to his shoulder—"Really? Is that really true?"—before asking. She had asked. "The one being wretched is you—I don’t care what becomes of me—but even so, you should have greater pride than some love affair, you ought to have grander work," she said. "Those engaged in social movements must not be troubled by personal matters—so in that sense, Professor, you must remain absolutely free," she argued. "If you have some unfortunate love affair, you must cast such things aside, and since we’ve been too weak, we must resolve to live strongly from now on," she said. This was the same Kimiko who, while involved in social movements, had worked as a bar hostess and now served in Keibunsha’s proofreading department, laboring alone with manly determination—yet now this very Kimiko found herself moved to tears by her own words, clinging tighter to Nakae’s shoulder, staring fixedly at the tatami before biting down on her lips. That thick, heavy body seemed to sweat, ooze grease, and gasp in its own feverish heat. Nakae felt something suffocating well up within him and sensed his own heart being trampled underfoot; her words went in one ear and out the other as he found himself screaming internally—without reason—"Lies! All lies!" at his earlier emotions, then vaguely wondering what could possibly be true. And as scattered strands of her hair brushed against his cheek, he—as if regaining his senses—gently pulled away and looked up at the bright afternoon light streaming through the windowpane, blinking repeatedly.

“Why don’t we take a little walk, Professor…?”

At Kimiko’s coaxing words, Nakae found himself abruptly pulled along, staggering to his feet.
When he checked his wallet and confirmed that a single ten-yen note remained, it felt like someone else’s concern.
And when they stepped outside, Kimiko was already like a bird freed from its cage, dancing lightly atop her felt sandals, while Nakae followed mechanically behind her like a blind man.

The impression remained vividly in Nakae’s mind.
Though he couldn't quite determine their location—on a street curving ever so gently—as they walked along the sidewalk on the inner side of the curve, they could see the irregular outlines of roofs from buildings large and small across the way sharply cutting into the sky still tinged with dusk; while across that sky—clear deep within its surface—something indeterminate between smoke and mist streamed like windblown dust, and from nowhere, as if in a dream, raindrops pattered down only to cease again.
The several white streaks of rain accentuated the street’s twilight, causing the outlines of objects to blur strangely, making it difficult to clearly distinguish the faces of people approaching from ahead.
But from across the sidewalk on the inner side of that curve, a vaguely familiar face suddenly emerged among those bobbing into view—fixing its gaze on him—on Nakae—drawing gradually closer; though he couldn’t place who it was, he certainly knew that face—and just as it drew near enough to crane its neck and peer into him, it slipped swiftly past.
Forgetting even to turn around, he continued facing straight ahead with a puzzled "Hmm...", when yet another familiar face would emerge—whether the same as before or not remained unclear—undoubtedly a face he knew, fixing its gaze upon him, gradually drawing nearer until just as it seemed about to peer into him—it would slip swiftly past.
At that very moment, he thought to turn around this time—yet lacked the courage—not that there was anything particularly embarrassing or shady—but he leaned against the utility pole there, came to a halt, and then slid limply down into a crouch.
He felt as though he were sinking into the depths of water.
A silence fell….
And then—whether from some loud sound—when he raised his eyes, there was Kimiko’s face, overfamiliar from excessive intimacy, its warm breath seeming to loom over him from above.
He suddenly stood up, bid farewell with a slight nod as if to himself, took the hand of the woman standing there in a daze, shook it firmly two or three times in the middle of the street, then leapt into a passing automobile.

And now he lay leisurely in his study beneath the electric light, examining scattered scraps of paper as though they held rare fascination. In one of the cupboard drawers lay fragments he had tossed in over time—jottings made on impulse—and finding they had accumulated considerably, he retrieved them without particular purpose. Brief impressions, poetic fragments, mere memos, various symbols... It was remarkable how this man had scattered such utterly useless writings. Some were completely unintelligible. Yet none contained secrets too shameful for public eyes. He had considered social appearances—or rather, instinctively preserved dignity by burying anything dubious in darkness. But had there ever been anything dubious about this man? An utterly ordinary good soul, with indolence his sole virtue—even his anarchistic ideas likely mere manifestations of conventional fantasy. For this man who merely accepted external stimuli and never initiated action himself, such innocence was natural. Still, to him—to Nakae—these scattered fragments seemed strangely rare, sparking curiosity. Even a faint smile surfaced on his face. As he flipped through the near-worthless scraps, it struck him that should this man die, these scribbles might gain value. Most who contribute something leave corresponding voids when gone—but since this man would likely leave no void at all, perhaps these scraps might become precious substitutes for his very existence—so he mused. Such thoughts brought faint comfort. He felt at peace. Yet in that very moment came the smooth sound of a sliding door opening—realizing Masako stood there—Nakae turned deathly pale. He leapt up as if electrocuted, stood rigidly, lips quivering uncontrollably. At his reaction, Masako too paled slightly and withdrew into the door's shadow—but soon having absorbed the room's state with her eyes—she spoke in her usual calm tone.

“Mr. Shimamura has arrived.”

Nakae seemed bewildered by his own agitation; he nodded wordlessly, but with that slight gesture his strength drained away, and he collapsed limply where he stood.
And almost unconsciously, he gathered the scattered paper scraps and put them back into the drawer.

Shimamura entered with his usual nonchalant attitude and gave Nakae a sharp look.
And since Nakae remained silent, he lit a cigarette and said.

“Am I disturbing you?”

Nakae muttered a response under his breath and shook his head like a mute. It felt as though something had escaped from his mind, leaving him terribly lonely, and as he gazed at Shimamura’s sturdy physique and composed expression, tears threatened to well up.

“Actually, Kimiko came by—she seemed terribly worried that you were acting strange… I don’t suppose you two had a fight?”

At those frank words feigning casualness, Nakae regained some composure. His field of vision seemed to expand. Within that vastness, as Kimiko’s figure came into vivid focus, he felt it was already time to bid her farewell. Not just her—he felt compelled to bid farewell to everything, to the world itself... even to his own life, which appeared manageable through sheer will yet remained fundamentally unmanageable. Suicide... Not in any definitive form, but surrendering to nature’s course—through which he might part with all things. Yet knowing he could neither commit suicide nor even desire to do so, he concluded this farewell might ultimately be mere fantasy. Gazing curiously at Shimamura leisurely exhaling cigarette smoke, he mechanically tried lighting his own—but as his fingertips trembled, he masked it with a vague smile.

Shimamura looked at him with a dubious expression.