Pathway to Japanese Literature

It was three years after the Great Earthquake.
It was around the time when the first glimmerings of apartments—nowadays reaching their zenith—were appearing, and also around the time when young men and women became enchanted by a wizard’s tome called Capital.
A great turning point was about to arrive in both the form and content of life.
Modernity, and also today, was about to begin.

Into the Indian Philosophy Department of Nirvana University—a school anyone could enter without exams—came a student named Kurisu Angichi, bearing an air of extreme vagueness and slipping in with the hazy indistinctness of smoke seeping through cracks. With his thick myopic glasses and composed demeanor, he gave the appearance of someone deep in thought, but generally speaking, this sort of "constantly thinking" look had fallen completely out of fashion these days. In this day and age, clever people didn’t put on such a look. This may sound crude, but there existed a story about how even clever people—during those vast, empty moments when humans found themselves struck by that astonishing psychological state in what we'll call the smallest room (they said even Toyotomi Hideyoshi had never expanded that particular chamber), compelled through some magical force to sink into meditation—might ultimately resort to such a look when all strategies failed. Yet precisely because that room's design ensured two people never coexisted within it simultaneously, to shamelessly expose such an affected look before others became a matter of utmost disgrace. Therefore, nowadays, those who insisted on seeing a "constantly thinking" look had no choice but to go to a mental hospital. On the other side of those iron bars resided people who thought too deeply—individuals whose very nature and appearance of profound contemplation had been acknowledged, thereby receiving blissful protection.

However, precisely because the times were what they were, whenever people saw Kurisu Angichi’s contemplative look, they would gulp down an unnecessarily large breath of air—in other words, they became convinced that this sort of countenance belonged to a face on the other side of prison bars.
In short, they thought he was putting on ideologue’s airs.

Unfortunately, this man carried an air of arrested development—that is to say, while all other humans had evolved from creatures like gorillas and chimpanzees tens of thousands of years prior, this gentleman’s ancestors had only just leisurely emerged from the Congolese jungles a mere two or three centuries ago.
As you are all well aware, gorillas, lions, and toads all wear contemplative expressions.
That look spells danger.
Release them from zoo cages into the wild—of all places—have them heap yet another layer of intellectual hardship upon themselves in Nirvana University’s Indian Philosophy Department, and in their extremity they might start hurling explosives or spraying pistol fire—every last bit of it springs from this very expression.
Being gentle monk students through and through, they were thoroughly frightened by this monster’s enrollment—indeed, they now lamented they should have attended schools with entrance exams even if it meant developing mild neurasthenia—yet whenever Kurisu Angichi addressed them, they would turn pale in a manner pitiful to behold.
But fortunately—as the reader doubtlessly knows—toads and gorillas seldom deign to speak to people.

When it came to where Kurisu Angichi had been or what he had been doing up until this point, this remained completely unclear.
I, the author, conducted thorough investigations as well, but ultimately failed to comprehend any of it.
He was twenty-one at the time, yet according to someone's account from the previous year—in a makeshift hut deep in Okutama's mountains near Daisatsuzan Pass, built by one Ban, a dreamer of yore who intended to turn Okutama's highlands into pastures teeming with cattle from ridge to valley floor—there wasn't a single cow to be found, refreshingly enough.
Yet there exists a story about a man who rented this makeshift hut—inhaling mist and nibbling tree buds, hunting flying squirrels with a bow to make sukiyaki, coming to realize that humans could live comfortably on five yen a month—who then wandered through deep mountains and read books with an air of self-importance; a story suggesting this man might very well have been him.
Since there was no lamp in this hut, once night fell, there was nothing to do but abruptly go to sleep.
And then, there in that place, this man made a most unsettling discovery.
That is to say, he had discovered that every night, a single snake would coil itself around the ridgepole directly above where his face lay as he slept.
Judging from how it was already gone by daytime, it must have been the snake’s nest—but considering that even snakes might have nightmares depending on how tightly they were coiled or whatnot, if in an instant they were to slip a leg—no, their belly—and come crashing down, that would be truly too dreadful to behold.
As evidence that this man had not attained enlightenment, there was no mistaking the appearance of his earnest anguish in the dark corner of the room.
A few days later, he vanished from the mountains, lost to the wind.
From then on, until his appearance at Nirvana University, there was not a single person who saw him.

There were thirteen students in the Indian Philosophy Department at Nirvana University.
Excluding the misfit Kurisu Angichi, the rest were all monks of proper lineage.

A monk’s child enters university.
What do they do first?
They grow out their hair first.
Applying an excessive amount of pomade, they would think—Ah, those damn brutes!—about the existence of something as nonsensical as hats.
And then, a no small incident occurred.
Suddenly, Kurisu Angichi showed up at school with a closely shaven head.
This was nothing less than the spirit of revolution itself.
The twelve classmates shed tears of grief and indignation.

It was truly pitiful.
Kurisu Angichi wore a large hat just like a first-grade elementary student.
Inside lay three days' worth of folded newspaper.
When entering classrooms, he would promptly remove this hat and—lacking a handkerchief—wipe his closely shaven head with tissue paper from his pocket.

Yet Kurisu Angichi's transformation into a closely shaven head stemmed from no revolutionary zeal.
He had his own unavoidable reasons.
Early summer had arrived.
Without long hair, one would surely feel cooler—so he reasoned.
One morning this thought struck him.
Compounding matters, his neurasthenic condition left mental fog clinging stubbornly to his mind.
While humans surpass gorillas and lions intellectually, no one ever heard of apes visiting barbers.
Therefore hair should be cut.
No—it must be shaved.
Then his mind would surely sharpen.—The barber found this thoroughly inconvenient.
As for razor wear—the blade would require honing every three days.
Thereupon came these words:

“Sir...
“There might be some nicks on your head.”
“After all, a head’s about as bumpy as a gourd, you see.”
“Heh heh heh.”

"I'll endure it to a certain extent," Angichi answered calmly.
The head contains what is known as the skull.
Shaving one’s head differs from being struck with a hammer; thus, there is no concern of sustaining injuries to the brain.
It was the look of someone who fully understood this.
Furendo-ken turned sideways and held his breath.
"You blockhead—I’ll give you ten times the nicks you’re asking for and send you packing, so you better remember this!" he resolved in his heart.

Now, Kurisu Angichi had made a bizarre discovery there and was thrown into utter disarray.
To put it plainly—when it came to the sheer heat of a hairless head—who in this world would believe this?
People speak of ordinary sweating, but from a closely shaven head, sweat gushed forth and flowed.
It flowed into his eyes, blocked his nostrils, fell into his mouth, pooled in his ears, and streamed unceremoniously down his back and chest.
He came to believe his very head was nothing less than a water jar.

Where in the human body does sweating occur most profusely?
Head!
What purpose does hair serve?
It's to prevent sweat!
Ah.
Not even medical doctors or physiologists could know this much.
Because they have hair.

――If one carelessly fixates on Kurisu Angichi's thoughts, even I would be thought a fool.

I must hurry the story along.

If one were to ask who the meaningless teachers were, they would be the teacher of students more knowledgeable than themselves and the professors of Nirvana University’s Indian Philosophy Department. The students here had wind tunnels between their ears that let both breeze and their teachers’ words pass right through. However, the professors paid no mind to such things. The professors received their salaries for talking but not for teaching.

In such an apathetic class, what if there had been a student seriously listening to their words? It was truly laughable—a pitifully miserable sight indeed. They were desperately struggling to erect walls in those cranial wind tunnels to block out professorial utterances. It made no sense whatsoever as to its purpose. At a glance, one couldn’t help but get the impression that this was someone so dim-witted as to be beyond saving. First of all—what on earth was this person coming to school for? So extreme—no, utterly so. There was nothing more bleak and wretched than this spiritual poverty compared to material want. Thereupon, the professors grew so disheartened they nearly wept, feeling compelled to blurt out things like: What defines a student’s true calling? What embodies this school’s spirit? Be more upright! How wretched! Cultivate noble minds!

In other words, Kurisu Angichi was none other than this sole miserable student.

Yet even for such a man, one beneficial use became clear.
To put it plainly, at Nirvana University’s Indian Philosophy Department, there were times when professors would go out of their way to arrive at classrooms a full thirty minutes late, only to find not a single student’s shadow present.
In other words, the monks’ children had no concerns about employment because their hereditary professions required neither passion nor interest.
The professors who received hourly wages would nap for forty or fifty minutes in empty classrooms, hum to themselves, and even catch colds.

Thereupon, someone like the Academic Affairs Director called over the class representative and proceeded to say:
“I do understand your position,” he mumbled sympathetically, “but deciding lecture assignments through a lottery—what sort of approach is that?
“In other words, for each and every lecture course, one student must attend with a do-or-die resolve.”
“No—in other words, you see, this is a student’s obligation,” he declared.
“And in Kurisu Angichi’s class, isn’t there precisely no need for such concern?”

Here were two lecture courses where even if the monks' children had offered donations, "I wouldn't attend." These were the Sanskrit and Pali lecture courses. Yet Kurisu Angichi poured more passion than anyone into diligently attending these classes. Upon investigation, it turned out he spent seven or eight hours daily flipping through grammar books and thumbing dictionaries.

The Sanskrit professor was an exceedingly kind-hearted soul. On the new semester's first day, he surveyed the freshmen with gentle benevolence—this being the sole occasion when all attended—and declared: "Sanskrit is something that will never amount to anything no matter how many years you devote to it."

"Four or five years back," he continued, "there was one who studied Sanskrit with great fervor—they still come to me asking 'What about this passage?' or 'What does this mean?' This person devotes entire days to Sanskrit study, yet first comes the ordeal of merely reaching dictionary competency—the words you seek seldom deign to emerge from its pages."

"Oh my," he sighed, "even those we call Sanskrit scholars are each rather dubious characters." With painstaking kindness he concluded: "Therefore I shall never recommend forcing yourself to study Sanskrit." Then came his final pronouncement: "Anyone still attending Sanskrit lectures despite this must undoubtedly be either a fool or one of those ill-mannered ruffians devoid of propriety."

Yet being a kind-hearted soul, the Professor never showed any anger even when one student still attended despite the new term having begun.
He always continued his lectures with gentle smiles, though he must have found it somewhat unnerving—for this man would ask questions with an utterly desperate expression, and whenever this man raised his head as if to speak, the Professor would startle and avert his eyes.

Sanskrit and Pali were indeed tremendously difficult.
They say French verbs have over ninety conjugations, but such a thing wouldn’t even make for morning tea-rice before breakfast in Sanskrit.
This was because Kurisu Angichi later began studying French; even such a dullard found the aftermath of struggling through Sanskrit to be terrifying.
Ninety-some conjugations? Good grief—it’s just too easy, absolutely no challenge at all.
Even if you resolved not to memorize them, you ended up having no choice but to memorize them—that’s how it went.
Therefore, Kurisu Angichi would say to those who intended to study French in this manner:
“Y-Y-You...”
“A-After studying Sanskrit for a whole year, then try putting on airs with French.”
“That stuff’s just morning tea-rice before breakfast!”
“Huh? Hey, you.”

In Sanskrit, both nouns and adjectives change as they please.
Each one reaches the height of irregularity—so much so you’d call them self-willed.
Therefore, you couldn’t look them up in dictionaries.

Angichi had somehow obtained a British-made Sanskrit dictionary costing sixty-five yen.
No Japanese-made Sanskrit dictionaries existed.
After flipping through it on his knees for just ten minutes, his knee joints would creak alarmingly, his shoulders stiffen, and his breath grow labored.
He kept it there for five hours.
His vision swam.
Sports.
Though not a single word he sought would appear, his entire body became pleasantly fatigued, leaving him feeling he’d done serious studying.
Rather than memorizing vocabulary, he felt engaged in more substantial study.
It was as though his very flesh had transformed into a dictionary—a sensation of unparalleled grandeur overwhelming him.

On Angichi’s desk lay Raja Yoga—a Sanskrit text he had also painstakingly acquired—alongside its English translation.
He had been glaring at the first page for half a year now, unable to advance to the fifth line.
The Professor, being a kind-hearted soul, would occasionally show concern for Angichi with thoughtful consideration.

“Before long, you will become able to read the original text.”
The Professor declared with a gentle smile.

“It will require one more effort.”

For Angichi, who would spend six or seven hours flipping through dictionaries only to finally unearth a single word and raise a triumphant cry, it was clear that even two or seven more such efforts would never bring him to the point of reading original texts.
Thereupon, seeing Angichi’s unconvinced expression, the Professor showed even greater solicitude.

“Oh no no.
“Sanskrit is perfectly sufficient as it stands.”
The Professor declared with a gentle smile.
“This already holds true for everyone.
“Even should you persist for five or ten years, I fear there’s no guarantee every single word each of you has sought will deign to emerge.”

This made for another unsettling account.
Under such circumstances, he couldn’t muster a convincing smile.
Noticing his student’s deepening gloom, the Professor redoubled his kindness and attentiveness.

“Sanskrit remains quite manageable for you.”
The Professor said with a gentle smile.
“As for Tibetan—why, I myself have studied under Professor Yamaguchi Emi these five full years.”
“Every last word undergoes irregular conjugation.”
“To this day I cannot properly consult a dictionary.”
“Yet still I lecture at Imperial University.”
“It’s most trying indeed.”

The Professor served as a lecturer in Tibetan at Imperial University.
Because the Professor was always smiling so gently, Angichi, despite his gloominess, gradually began to feel mentally refreshed.
Even without properly understanding the grammar or being able to use dictionaries effectively, he gave lectures at Imperial University.
Tibetan and Sanskrit—even when one couldn't properly use dictionaries or read them—might still somehow end up being properly read after all.
And so Kurisu Angichi came to feel as though he were genuinely reading original texts long before he could competently use a dictionary.

Around that time, Kurisu Angichi became acquainted with a mysterious scholar.

This scholar was a graduate of Gol Republic's Latin University and a linguist.
He was said to be proficient in over twenty Eastern languages.
He bore the magnificent name Kurama Rokuzō, but true to his reputation as an agile scholar, he stood just under five feet tall.

Professor Kurama lived in obscurity at a boarding house in Oiwake, occupying two rooms filled with thousands of volumes, but come morning, he would typically dampen cotton wool with alcohol and meticulously clean his books.
The reason was that symptoms of sleepwalking had recently manifested in Professor Kurama: he would walk unconsciously at night, urinate toward his most precious bookcases, then return to sleep.
Thus each morning upon waking, he would startle in shock and end up cleaning the books with alcohol. While the sleepwalking itself was troublesome enough, urinating upon rare texts proved truly tragic.
In short—if only he could avoid nocturnal urges—the Professor stopped drinking tea in the afternoon and placed chamber pots in all four corners of his upstairs room, yet his unconscious compulsion remained utterly determined to urinate toward the books.
He consumed raw horse meat and otter seal flesh, even resolving to eat a live red frog, but with an equally fierce refusal to ingest it—the warring impulses within a single body culminated in violence.
More than the frog resisting consumption, the Professor attempting to devour it waged an even more frantic and desperate battle.

The lonely Professor had apparently wanted a disciple.
But when it came to subjects like Persian or Annamese, even if he paid the tuition fees himself, there was no one willing to study them.
Thus, in the care he showed Kurisu Angichi—the sole disciple he had finally found—there was an air that surpassed even the Sanskrit professor at Nirvana University.

“If that’s all it takes, you have sufficient natural talent to specialize in linguistics,” declared the Professor after testing Angichi’s Sanskrit skills.
Unlike the Sanskrit professor at Nirvana University, he never laughed, making his words all seem truthful.
“At Latin University’s linguistics department where geniuses from all over the world gather, there was once a man whose ability matched yours exactly.
If you reach that level within a year or so, you could become a Sanskrit scholar in Japan.”

The Professor’s words somehow evoked a sense of ease toward everything.
It made one feel as though geniuses from Latin University, philosophers from Annam, and kings of Nepal were all friends.
As for the likes of Japanese Sanskrit scholars, I ended up feeling something like, "Wasn't that man actually supposed to be my disciple?"

However, the Professor turned to Angichi and declared he would impart Tibetan to him, seeing great promise.
He declared that anyone serious enough to study Buddhism in the twentieth century must first master Tibetan—otherwise, it was out of the question.
While not much Sanskrit or Pali literature remains extant, nearly all Buddhist-related texts have been transmitted through Tibetan translations.
Therefore, he declared that unless one entered Buddhism through Tibet, one could not be a genuine twentieth-century scholar.

Unfortunately，Kurisu Angichi was already beginning to abandon Indian Philosophy.
Enlightenment seemed utterly unattainable for him.
The hair on his head was gradually growing back，and seizing this opportunity，he began considering cutting ties with India and joining hands with modern Western fields like French or German.
Just when he had completely lost all passion for Indian philosophy circles，it was said that even an Imperial University professor specializing in the field still did not properly understand the grammar nor could competently use the dictionaries.
Indeed，dictionaries exist to be consulted，but words do not seem to exist for the sake of consulting dictionaries.
Consulting Sanskrit and Tibetan dictionaries may be excellent for one’s health，stimulate the appetite，and generally prove as effective as radio calisthenics—but dictionaries were not published as athletic equipment.
Thereupon，Kurisu Angichi，drenched in sweat，endeavored to decline the Tibetan language instruction；however，Professor Kurama remained utterly oblivious to the notion that others might possess wills or preferences of their own.

“No—you there,” declared the Professor. “Tibetan is not a language that exists for Buddhism. You should immediately abandon Indian Philosophy if it holds no interest for you. Become a Tibetan scholar instead. In all of Japan, there are barely four or five people who can speak Tibetan properly—which would make you the sixth. To master a nation’s language is to conquer its land and people outright. Isn’t that right? You.”

The Professor’s words were far too glib.
Though Angichi was someone who fell for flattery all too easily, wasn’t this idea that mastering a language meant conquering its land and people just like claiming you’d possessed a woman merely because she gave you directions when asked?
To be fair, Kurisu Angichi potentially becoming the sixth Tibetan scholar did seem genuine—as evidenced by how even the Imperial University professor neither properly understood grammar nor could use dictionaries competently.

Around that time came Professor Yamaguchi Emi’s theory—this leading authority on Tibetan posited that the naturalized peoples long called Koryo people might actually be Tibetans.
In fact, place names from the so-called Koryo language like Uzmasa and Saitama were Tibetan; Kagura and Saibara too were Tibetan, while that “Ya” exclamation found in their texts supposedly carried obscene meaning in Tibetan.
It was claimed that Sambasō corresponded entirely to “Tōtōtarari” in Tibetan, and that in Tibet itself, dances nearly identical to this were still performed.

Given how deeply intertwined this was with our country’s ancient culture, even while thinking it dangerous to succumb to Professor Kurama’s too-smooth flattery, he found himself swelling with a grand sentiment that becoming the sixth scholar might not be such a bad thing after all.

Now, when Angichi willingly accepted the transmission of Tibetan, the Professor became so invigorated—textbooks! dictionaries! grammar books! reference materials! introductory texts on Tibetan affairs!—that he piled them all onto Angichi’s lap, declaring "This one too!" and "That one as well!"
Now, as Angichi remained secretly vigilant about this—for it was a rather foul problem—the place from which the Professor busily retrieved these books turned out to be none other than below the waist-level of the bookcases.
When you thought about it, these were clearly those that had received that baptism.
However, as the spirit of academia should reside in lofty heights far removed, even though the books on his lap were indeed damp, Angichi considered that these were mystical texts and thus must be sweating.
In India, they handle feces with their fingertips, so he told himself that their language must naturally carry some odor.

However, through some karmic twist, Tibetan truly did stink.
This was because the Professor possessed a marked propensity for emitting gas.
Mid-instruction, he would declare "Pardon me" and exit into the corridor.
The door would snap shut behind him—leaving his exact hallway posture a mystery—whereupon he would let loose seven or eight robustly resonant, perfectly rounded emissions in quick succession.
Even during late-night sessions or dreary rainy days, these sounds maintained their spherical purity, never acquiring a soggy timbre or raspy reverberations.
His subsequent five or six aimless corridor traversals likely constituted a courteous perambulation born of consideration—remaining unseen until the malodorous cloud had sufficiently dispersed.
Soon enough he would reappear, murmur another "Pardon me," and continue the pedagogical transmission.

At this point, the author must offer a word in defense of the Japanese Empire’s dignity: that even if an Imperial University professor could not competently use dictionaries, this did not constitute a dishonor to the Japanese Empire.
For even the prodigies of Latin University had been unable to competently use dictionaries either.
Since the Professor was a kind man, he would look up words in the dictionary himself instead of making his student do it.
Before Angichi’s eyes, he would engage in vigorous exertion for twenty or thirty minutes at a time, yet the word simply refused to appear.
Before long, he would say “Excuse me” and step out into the hallway.
He would release gas, pace the hallway five or six times for no particular reason, excuse himself once more, and then resume vigorous exercise while clutching the dictionary.
Still, the word did not appear.

Before long, Kurisu Angichi came to consider that Tibetan dictionaries might well have been created for scholars' physical health, and that finding words within a minute or two would contradict Tibetan's inherent nature—thus he never once thought the Professor's vigorous exertions stemmed from any personal inadequacy. Yet there the Professor was, excusing himself and stepping out into the hallway.
He would pace the hallway five or six times in that aimless manner of his, then declare "Excuse me" once more as he returned.
The Professor’s courtesy felt profoundly touching yet left him unbearably desolate.

Thereupon, one day, Angichi spoke.

“Professor, I must ask you to refrain from holding back your flatulence on my account.”
“It actually makes it harder for me.”

Then when next rising to pass gas—having placed his hand on the sliding door to open it—the Professor seemed to recall Angichi’s words; with a “Very well then,” he turned around, positioned his rear toward the door, and released his usual seven or eight emissions.
And so this method became his habitual practice thereafter.
However, here came an astonishing development—Kurisu Angichi made a discovery that overturned the long-established theory in one stroke.
Even Fūraisanjin—that self-styled know-it-all—had made presumptuous pronouncements on this matter, but there existed an age-old theory that large, round, resonant farts were odorless.
Yet when it came to the Professor’s flatulence—though sonorous in tone—the stench proved potent enough to fell a skunk.
That is to say, the Professor’s seemingly aimless pacing along the hallway must have stemmed from his own full awareness of this fact.
Though academic spirit dwelled in lofty realms, here Angichi had no choice but to confront Tibetan’s malodorous reality with bitter clarity.
These words come from Angichi’s diary of that period.

Outside was a day most clear.

Today once more I imbibed Tibetan and returned.

This two-line poem was somewhat world-weary.
Bombarded by the Professor’s flatulence, he had apparently been driven to an unexpected depth of misanthropy in the end.
Angichi had never composed poetry until completing this two-line poem.
However, at this moment, he suddenly came to acutely realize that there existed something in this world that could not be fully expressed through prose.
Namely, something like the result arising from the intersection of Tibetan and flatulence—was this not impossible to express through the capacity of prose?
Thus, he unexpectedly came to understand the spirit of poetry from the results arising at the intersection of Tibetan and flatulence, and gazed into the abyss of misanthropy.
Humans truly cannot predict where or what they will learn.

Had this transmission continued for another year, Kurisu Angichi might well have ended up committing misanthropic suicide.
However, through divine intervention here, Angichi managed to save his life.

This divine intervention began with the Professor losing his male virginity.
The Professor had maintained his virginity even amidst the flowers of Paris, kept his eyes closed before Malay nude women, and returned home unscathed with his chastity proudly intact—yet now, of all things, he had casually erased over thirty years of virginity with some cheap prostitute.

As a result, due to the following reasons, the Professor became utterly misanthropic.
That is to say, the Professor said to Angichi.

“What is this, you...”
“Sex turns out to be such a pathetically underwhelming affair, doesn’t it?”
“Where’s the supposed ecstasy in this?”
“You agree with me, don’t you?”
“What an absolute fucking farce.”
“Let me tell you—in that singular moment, I became convinced there existed some mystical sensation beyond what every goddamn word in creation could express.”
“Let me tell you—my whole life’s been one grand deception.”
“I’ve had my fill—this city life disgusts me through and through.”
“I’m going back home to think things over alone for a while.”

The Professor himself was too inscrutable; I could never quite grasp the logic or substance of his misanthropy.
I couldn’t fathom why he had endured for over thirty years this mysterious sensation that defied expression even when every single word in the world was mobilized, nor could I begin to understand why having had that expectation dashed now necessitated a return to his hometown.
He was lamenting with these grand claims about having been deceived his whole life, but I couldn’t begin to understand who supposedly deceived him or how.
Listening to him lamenting such grave matters, it seemed his attempt to memorize every possible word stemmed from a mistaken belief that what cannot be expressed even by mobilizing them all must actually be expressed somewhere—thus driving his diligent studies—while paradoxically, his maintenance of virginity for over thirty years suggested he had in fact been obsessively fixated on that very matter year-round. This left me utterly bewildered.

So many things remained incomprehensible, but from Angichi's perspective, he had come to clearly understand one unequivocal fact: that on his side of things, at least one suicide had been prevented—a realization that soaked in through his very bones.
It was a thought as bright as the midday sun.
And so, with profound gratitude toward the heavenly deities for the Professor having shed his virginity, his heart swelled momentarily.
He even found himself composedly entertaining such ungrateful notions as wanting to thank the prostitute who had attended to the Professor.

To be sure, there was also an unheralded achievement—one that should have had all citizens of our glorious Empire raising their cups in toast as one—for thanks to the Professor having lost his virginity, the nation was spared from giving birth to a single bizarre Tibetan Doctor.

Long ago, in the town of Sakai, Senshū Province, there lived a haiku poet who bore the literary name Sharakusai.
Having received instruction in the secret elixir for becoming a hermit, he spent half a year kneading it into pills, drank them morning and night, and then—thinking he should soon be capable of flight—leapt from a rooftop and shattered his hipbone.

From that time onward, the story goes that attempting the impossible came to be called "doing a Sharakusai."

During his midnight reveries, Angichi would suddenly wonder—might I be a descendant of Sharakusai?—and a sense of desolation would seep into his being. Attempting to attain enlightenment while still young—no matter how one considered it—was not the thought process of a prudent person. To begin with—the very idea that enlightenment lay hidden, holding its breath within dictionaries and books—such a thing was utterly impossible! Long ago, there were monks who had set out for India with entourages of Monkey Kings and Pig Spirits under such ideologies, but those journeys had staked life and limb. As for Kurisu Angichi—wasn’t he merely swayed by the tram on his commute to school?

First of all, look at the Indian philosophers.
Not one among them ever resolved to attain enlightenment while still young and green.
Every last one was nothing but irredeemable scoundrels.
Outright degenerates, the lot of them—until reaching forty, they thought of nothing but women.
Buddhism's greatest philosopher first vowed to sneak into the imperial harem and violate a thousand beauties, only developing a shred of virtue after nearly completing this grand ambition.
The next great philosopher in line finally found his resolve only after defiling his own mother.
To top it off, this very sage—after gloriously attaining enlightenment and being revered as his era's supreme saint—dreamt of coupling with a celestial maiden and spilled his seed.
When disciples discovered this and mobbed him for answers, he coolly declared—in words that would make Dr. Freud want to slug him—"Even saints can't control dreams and bodily functions."
They were all thoroughly rotten saints, yet whenever desolation seeped into Angichi over his link to Sharakusai, he found himself obsessing over this very fact.
For Sharakusai suddenly becoming an immortal was impossible from the start, but there ought to be no reason a great villain couldn't become a saint.

By the way, this is a different matter altogether, but Japanese monks—in a sense distinct from Indian philosophers—are indeed thoroughly unsavory through and through.

He attended Buddhist lectures.
The professors were all cool-headed individuals, among whom was even Your Eminence the Abbot entering the classroom in robes.
They had fully embodied "all phenomena are empty," appearing as serene as heaven and earth; yet despite their dispassionate explanations of realized philosophy, he simply couldn't feel enlightenment's brightness, hope, or any such invigorating qualities.
He had no choice but to conclude the obstacle lay not in the philosophy itself, but in the professors' personalities—or rather, their physical bodies (indeed, Angichi perceived only those bodies with clarity).
Truly dark.
Somehow desolate—a poignant sorrow like wandering through a human flesh market.
Unnatural and grim.

On fine days, there were rare occasions when Kurisu Angichi, after gathering energy in his tanden and fully fortifying his resolve, would visit the abbots.
It was said monks would unhesitatingly strike people's heads—referred to as "thirty blows"—and since this wasn't merely one or two isolated incidents, thorough preparation proved necessary when setting out to visit them.
The phrase "living under the scorching sun" referred to this period; even when he chose clear days to venture out, the journey remained oppressive and poignant.
Yet true to form, the abbots would generally receive even a student like Angichi without ceremony, and upon meeting, they would put him so thoroughly at ease that his journey's anxieties would invariably dissipate like mist.
Then each abbot would recount for him the bliss of their enlightenment.
Yet even there, that same poignancy of wandering through a market of human flesh remained unchanged from what he felt in the classroom.

When meeting these revered abbots, somehow, before sensing anything human or spiritual about them, I found myself immediately aware of their physicality.
In this world there exists the term "benign countenance," but if you wish to know its true manifestation, meeting an abbot should be your first course of action.
Namely, their physical bodies perpetually radiated a benign countenance, much like a spring breeze—that soft vernal wind when plum blossoms bloom.
And so, until the moment of parting arrived, the benign countenance of their physical bodies simply filled my entire field of vision.
And so, the benign countenance of their physical bodies would smile warmly and address me in a friendly manner.
"Well, even beauties are but piles of bones," declared the benign countenance of their physical bodies, grinning warmly.
At other times, reversing this, he would declare with an utterly innocent air, grinning in apparent delight, "Ah now, the soft sensuality of beautiful women—that too is quite splendid, you know," and state, "Touching them truly does prolong one’s life, doesn’t it?"

Things of precisely this nature were what Nagaya no Hachi-san was constantly spouting all year round.
However, since Nagaya no Hachi-san had not attained enlightenment in the slightest, the slackened corners of his eyes when he prattled on like this were truly beyond words.
He would sit there with a truly slovenly demeanor, chuckling "heh heh heh" while tapping his forehead and frequently shifting his crossed legs, yet when listening to Hachi-san speak, I never became conscious of his physical presence at all.
Before I knew it, I too would be grinning slyly, slouching even more than Hachi-san and readjusting my sitting position.
I simply couldn’t help being in this unenlightened state.
Unaware of the night growing light as we chattered on, the next day found us nursing a hangover without having drunk a drop.

However, when it came to the abbots' words, things did not proceed in such a manner.
He too would immediately start grinning slyly and find himself unwittingly in agreement—things did not proceed in such a manner.
Simultaneously with their words—before anything else—the abbots' physical bodies, the benign countenance of their flesh, came lumbering into Angichi's head, parting his brain matter to sit cross-legged.
Kurisu Angichi felt the urge to cover his eyes.
He was struck by the toxic miasma of their mottled enlightenment.
At times, he would shudder in an instant.

Around that time, Kurisu Angichi had formed a close friend.
Mr. Ryūkai was called—a monk of legitimate lineage—but as he was not yet an abbot, he possessed an emaciated physique; though he discussed women as thoroughly as any abbot might, having no connection whatsoever to enlightenment, not a trace of that fleshy benign countenance marked his body.

Mr. Ryūkai was supposed to study as a monk at the monastic school, but he did nothing but think about washing his hands of monkhood, and from then on never attended another monk’s lecture.
And then, he said he wanted to become a painter.
Unfortunately, Mr. Ryūkai was the child of a poor mountain temple with meager academic funds, so he could barely afford to feed himself, let alone purchase oil painting supplies.
He filled a trunk with paintings done in watercolors and pastels, but the astonishing thing was that they were all pictures of women.
Kurisu Angichi had not been underestimating Mr. Ryūkai, but imagining that a monk’s paintings would consist solely of Southern School-style landscapes, he had thought there would at least be many scenery pieces.
At this, Angichi was surprised.
Rather, he groaned.
The paintings weren’t masterpieces.
After viewing hundreds of paintings, there wasn’t a single landscape other than women—not even one flower—to be found.

“I... can only think about women, so...”

When Mr. Ryūkai saw the startled Angichi, he suddenly turned bright red and, looking down, said:
Because Mr. Ryūkai was a monk of legitimate background, no matter how close their relationship became, he used polite expressions like "you" and "there is."

Mr. Ryūkai was emaciated, his figure looking as though it might be blown away by the wind, yet he harbored an obstinately stubborn resolve in his heart.
It was a small yet ironclad resolve—to surely buy oil painting supplies and prove it.
So he reduced his meals to 8 sen per serving; to achieve this, he went to a very distant cafeteria and walked 4 ri for his commute, thus beginning to save money.
Finally reaching the planned amount, at the very moment he was about to go buy oil painting supplies, he came down with appendicitis.
He was hospitalized, and after being pronounced by the medical doctor with “What a frail physique you have,” he ended up losing all his savings.

Mr. Ryūkai’s spirit had been utterly crushed, his future prospects entirely despaired of, but one day he regained his vigor.
This was because he had fortuitously become acquainted with a wandering painter returned from France; according to this painter’s account—a heartening tale—once one managed to reach Paris, even penniless, they could somehow survive through odd jobs while continuing their painting studies.
This being an actual firsthand account held convincing power for Mr. Ryūkai.

That day, immediately from that very spot, Mr. Ryūkai became a demon of saving.
He reduced his meals to two 8-sen portions daily—sometimes cutting them down to one—staggered to school, drank water instead of proper meals, and unhesitatingly deposited every coin he found.

“Today I found fifty sen.”
“I went straightaway and deposited it.”

Mr. Ryūkai would invariably confess to Angichi.
He turned bright red, looked down, and confessed.
From Mr. Ryūkai’s perspective, he must have felt compelled to confess to someone.
It must have been more convenient to confess to Angichi than to a police officer.
Though likely unprepared to rush straight to the post office upon finding money, he carried his savings passbook in his pocket year-round.

With this unwavering resolve, he began accumulating funds for his secret voyage to Paris, yet simultaneously and rapidly reached a state of extreme malnutrition, his appearance becoming akin to that of a wandering ghost.
Kurisu Angichi was anxious.
This time, it wasn’t just appendicitis.
At the very moment his long-sought funds were finally amassed, he harbored a dark premonition: that Ryūkai’s soul alone—grinding its teeth without even a sip of water—would cross the boundary between life and death to race off toward Paris.
However, Mr. Ryūkai remained composed, paying no heed whatsoever to his malnutrition for the sake of his goal.

It was exactly around that time that this story took place.

One of Mr. Ryūkai’s senior monks—a man around forty-two or three, already prominent in their sect who served as the abbot’s close attendant and was viewed as one of the candidates to succeed as abbot in a future generation—through some twist of fate, one day took Kurisu Angichi and Mr. Ryūkai along to drink sake at a certain restaurant in Asakusa.

While monks drinking monk’s sake makes for a familiar trope in rakugo and comic tales, those are usually corrupt clerics who barely know their mountain temples’ sutras—abbots being considered as Successor Candidate Abbots are indeed different.
They most certainly do not engage in the sort of foolish drinking that would place them alongside characters like Hachi and Kuma from rakugo tales.

What must not be omitted here was first and foremost his benign countenance.
Among the myriad faces in this world, it stood as the very essence of warm visages.
It perpetually held a measured smile, radiated the soft winds of springtide, and maintained an air of leisurely composure.
His voice stayed thoroughly gentle, never once lifting in volume even when cloaked in drunkenness.
With urbane grace he bantered with the maidservants, ceaselessly plied Mr. Ryūkai and Kurisu Angichi with drink, yet never imbibed unless another poured for him.

Now, having left there, the Successor Candidate Abbot led the two green-hearted novices through the gate of a geisha house.

One could only surmise that the Successor Candidate Abbot—pitying these two green-hearted novices for their profound spiritual shallowness as they discussed women before getting drunk, discussed them more fervently when intoxicated, and discussed them through and through without attaining a shred of enlightenment—had been moved by compassion.
The abbot had intended to provide concrete instruction on how, and to what extent, one should properly enjoy female companionship.

The geishas arrived.
They were all longtime acquaintances of the Successor Candidate Abbot and talked about everything except sutras—plays，travel tales，lovers’ stories.

Late into the night, the entire group bedded down together in a room at the geisha house.
Morning came.
After washing his face and changing into his kimono, the Successor Candidate Abbot straightened the women’s collars and tightened their sashes, demonstrating such skillful mastery that he left the two green-hearted novices wide-eyed in astonishment.

Neither Mr. Ryūkai nor Angichi could help but feel grateful for the Successor Candidate Abbot’s goodwill.
That was indeed undoubtedly pure goodwill.
It was no small feat—using geisha patronage, of all easily misunderstood means—to boldly guide these two foolish green-hearted novices even slightly closer toward enlightenment. Yet they could not find it wholly convincing.
No matter what, some kind of unresolved gloom remained with them.

“Don’t you think there’s something... unresolved?” Angichi asked Mr. Ryūkai.

“It can’t be resolved! Enough is enough! Disgusting!”

Having answered thus, Mr. Ryūkai trembled violently with anger.
The two of them had completely sunk into despondency and walked aimlessly for a while, utterly dejected.

If they go so far as to do that, why don’t they just openly sleep with women?
Such matters were first and foremost considered.
The problem was, however, certainly not that.

Even if they were to openly sleep with women, the monks would never become clear.
Angichi thought.
The unresolved, mysterious poisonous aura was not solely due to the issue of whether one slept with women or not.
It was something more fundamental.
Monks think of women solely as objects of sexual desire.
Their protecting themselves from women was merely a matter of protecting their sexual desires.

However, laypeople fall in love with women.
They risk their lives and fall in love with women.
They do every foolish thing imaginable, abandon honor, forsake duty, and lose themselves in their delusions.
Women as such intense objects do not exist among those surrounding the high monks.
Angichi keenly felt this.
Which was correct no longer mattered.
He keenly felt that as long as there was a wavering mind, there was no choice but to persist in doubt.
And after coming to this realization, when he looked again at those who lacked physical warmth or volatile poisonous auras, he noticed that all of them seemed on the verge of losing themselves for women, possessing a fragility that made them appear ready to abandon both duty and life.

That was such a day.
Angichi received a flyer at the school gate.

Learn Turkish and Arabic over one and a half years.
Classes were held every night for two hours.
Then after one and a half years, depart on a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.
It was a flyer soliciting aspiring Muslims.

From that day until the final day of the deadline, Angichi pondered seriously.
He had come to want to go to Mecca and Medina.

Around that time, he had just finished reading an account of a Muslim’s pilgrimage to holy sites.
A great crowd of pilgrims embarked on their reckless journey across the Arabian desert toward the holy land.
The fervor of faith outweighed the perils of travel.
There, due to food shortages, heatstroke, and epidemics, they collapsed one after another onto the desert sands.
Stepping over those corpses, the fanatical crowd chanted the Quran as they pressed on recklessly toward the holy land.

He considered joining the desert-crossing throng as one among them.
In that moment, he felt something like life coursing through him.
It was an intense emotion verging on nostalgia.

On the deadline day, he resolutely set out for the Maru Building.
And then, having arrived at the entrance of the training venue, he found himself unable to commit again and walked back and forth before it three times.
The Turk gazed at him, opened the training venue’s door, and vanished.

But in the end, he did not go in.
When the Turk’s figure vanished, he turned around and descended the stairs.
The reason was—he had seen an exceptionally beautiful female student on the train coming to Maru Building.
It was a dazzling beauty.
His heart stirred violently.

With this, he thought, the idea of going to Arabia was nothing but a blatant lie.
And as he was descending the stairs of Maru Building, he found himself exhilarated by having done something genuine for the first time in his life.
From now on I must always do this, he told himself as he walked.

From that day on, he abandoned enlightenment entirely.

Mr. Ryūkai, just before his secret voyage to Paris, became entangled with a woman and vanished without a trace.
And thus, whether he was alive or dead remained unknown.