Pathway to Japanese Literature

Ten days had passed, and my tooth still ached. I placed ice on my right cheek, swallowed sulphon drugs, and lay motionless. I didn’t want to lie there, but applying ice left no alternative but stillness. I read books while prone. I had mostly finished rereading Dazai’s works. I emptied three boxes of sulphon drugs, yet the pain persisted relentlessly. With no other recourse, I visited a doctor. The situation showed not the slightest improvement.

“Well now, this is quite severe. Splendid. “What I must tell you is simply to take Sulphon drugs and apply an ice bag—that’s all. “That’s what matters most above all.”

For me, that alone didn’t cut it. “I believe it will subside before long.” This young doctor used impeccable phrasing. So he believed it’d subside before long—did he? Was medicine about subjective perception or about drugs’ objective efficacy? Either way, I was the one sitting there with a throbbing tooth. Even if you obliterated a million souls with an atomic bomb in an instant—if one man’s toothache persisted—what good was civilization? Goddamn it all.

My wife tried to stand the Sulphon drug’s glass bottle upright and knocked it over with a clatter. The sound resonated so intensely it could make one leap.

“Hey, you fool!” “This glass bottle can stand upright properly.”

The other party was enjoying this balancing act. “You’re such a fool—that’s why I can’t stand you!” My wife’s countenance changed. Anger had seeped into her very marrow. My pain had seeped into the marrow. A dagger stabbed into my cheek with a sickening thrust. With a grunt, it gouged deeper. A fine state of mind, was it not? A lump had formed in my throat. That spot throbbed. My ear ached. The crown of my head stung like electricity.

Hang me. Destroy the devil. Vanquish. Advance. Don't lose. Fight.

That third-rate scribbler finally met his end by hanging—all because of a toothache. A desperate countenance, fearsome to behold. His fighting spirit had been fully sufficient.

Magnificent.

Ain’t nobody gonna praise me for that. No one. The fact that one has a toothache—such a thing won’t resonate with anyone except those currently suffering from toothaches themselves.

Humankind be damned! Even if you rage about it, does this disparity in how toothaches are felt make humankind be damned? Then toothache be damned. What's wrong with that? Just a toothache. Good grief. Was that all teeth could be? A new discovery. Only one person—a peculiar individual known as Editor-in-Chief Masukane of Ginza Publishing—showed sympathy.

“Hmm, Ango-san. Truly, a toothache is a painful thing indeed. Tooth disease and genital disease—they’re gloomy like terms in an equation.”

He made a clever remark. It was thoroughly steeped in gloom. If one considered it, debt must be another term in the same equation. Debt is a gloomy illness. It is an incurable illness. Even if one attempted to vanquish it, human effort proved insufficient. Ah, sorrow, sorrow.

Enduring the toothache, he grinned. Not one bit impressive. This damn idiot.

Ah, I weep from toothache. I'll kick you away! This fool.

How many teeth are there? This is the problem. I thought people had different numbers of teeth, but apparently that's not how it works. They even copy down to the weirdest details. They don't need to go that far. That's why I hate God. Why'd they have to make everyone's tooth count match too? Madmen. Honestly. Such fastidious methods can only come from lunatics. Why can't you just be honest?

Enduring the toothache, he grinned. He grins and cuts down a person. Sit in silence, and it heals completely. It’s Otasuke-jii-san. Indeed, it’s no wonder followers would gather.

I was thrown into ten days’ worth of fits of rage by this toothache. My wife was kind. She attended at my bedside—filling the ice bag, wringing out towels, replacing them on my cheeks every five minutes. Though fury pierced her to the marrow, she showed no sign of it: chaste and textbook-perfect in womanly virtue.

The tenth day.

“Has it healed?”

“Hmm.” “It’s somewhat healed.”

The animal called woman—what goes on in her mind is beyond even clever humans. My wife suddenly changed her countenance,

“For ten days, you tormented me.” I was beaten black and blue and kicked aside. Ah, when I die—the moment I die—my wife will suddenly contort her face and, while wailing “You tormented me my whole life,” will pummel my lifeless body and strangle its neck. How amusing it would be if I were to revive right then.

Kazuo Dan arrived. He took out expensive tobacco from his breast pocket, muttering about how poverty drives one to luxury—that when you have plenty of money, you buy twenty-yen hand-rolled cigarettes—and gave me one.

“Dazai has died, hasn’t he?” “Because he died, I didn’t go to the funeral.”

There’s no such thing as a funeral for someone who isn’t dead. Dan once engaged in something called Communist Party cell activities alongside Dazai. At that time, Dazai was a leader-like figure within the cell, and according to Kazuo Dan’s account, he was supposedly the most earnest party member in the group.

“Since the place he jumped was near my house, I thought he’d really died this time.”

Dan the Sage delivered a divine oracle and declared: "He's pulled another prank, hasn't he?" "He's always up to some mischief or another." "The day he died was the thirteenth—his thirteenth goodbye... something... thirteen..." Dan the Sage aligned thirteen in a row. Since I'd failed to notice any of this beforehand, I stood dumbfounded. Such was the Sage's discernment. I had been the first to learn of Dazai's death. Before it even hit the newspapers, a reporter from Shincho came to inform me. Hearing this, I immediately left a note and vanished. I'd intuited that newspapers and magazines would come swarming about Dazai, and since I wanted no part in discussing him yet, I addressed a note to the visiting reporters and fled my home. This became the seed of misunderstanding.

The newspaper reporters became suspicious because the date on my note predated the news article. They concluded that Dazai’s suicide had been a hoax and that I was hiding both of them.

I too had initially thought he might still be alive. But upon hearing there were clear drag marks along the riverbank, I realized he must truly be dead. You can’t fake drag marks as part of some prank. Newspaper reporters ought to apprentice under me and study detective novels.

If the newspaper reporters’ misunderstanding had been correct, that would have been splendid. If someone had hidden Dazai away for a year or so and then revived him, the reporters and upstanding citizens of the world might have flown into a rage—but wouldn’t it have been fine for such a thing to happen just once in a while? I believe that if Dazai had managed the prank of plotting a staged suicide rather than a real one, his literature would have become something far more masterful.

★

Mr. Branden, unlike those Japanese literati, was a man of discernment. Regarding Dazai's death—as reported in Jiji Shimpo—there was a theory that literary figures rarely die from melancholy alone; most are driven to it by frailty, and in Dazai's case, tuberculosis might have been a contributing factor. The same applied to Akutagawa. One could well imagine how the syphilis he contracted in Shina made this man of aristocratic tastes tremble in terror. I believe it true that even if the pressures from syphilis and tuberculosis had become chronic and unconscious elements within the anguish of Akutagawa and Dazai, the greatest force that set them on their suicidal course was their physical frailty.

Dazai called himself M.C.—My Comedian—yet try as he might, he could never fully become a comedian. In his late works—no, this simply won’t do. He’s writing a novel called *The Final Years*, so he gets all muddled—it just won’t do. Among his works from near the time of his death—(my tongue’s getting tangled here)—*The Setting Sun* stands as his finest. However, *The Fish服記* from ten years ago—this being part of his late period—isn’t it splendid? This is an M.C. work. *The Setting Sun* is also mostly M.C., but he just couldn’t fully become M.C., you see.

“Things like *Chichi* and *Sakuranbo*—it was agonizing.” One mustn’t show that to people. That belonged solely within shameful vulnerability—something that had to be processed entirely within its confines. One must not make the anguish of self-reproach and remorse born of shameful vulnerability—nor the heartache of its shamefully vulnerable nature—into a matter of literature or a problem of life. In his final years approaching death, Dazai had been far too steeped in shameful vulnerability. Even if every day was steeped in shameful vulnerability, literature must not be shamefully vulnerable. For M.C., who had taken the stage, shameful vulnerability was impermissible. Even if one overdosed on stimulants and their heart exploded, they had to suppress the shameful vulnerability on stage.

Akutagawa died on stage, at any rate. Even in death, he remained somewhat of an actor. Dazai twisted the number thirteen, painstakingly constructed plots for works like *No Longer Human* and *Goodbye*, and followed their scripts—yet ultimately died not on stage, but in a shamefully-vulnerable manner. Strip away the *futsukayoi*, and Dazai was a sound, orderly man of common sense—in other words, a proper human being. Kobayashi Hideo is such a man. Though Dazai laughed at Kobayashi's conventionality, that was a mistake. Unless one is a truly correct and orderly person of common sense, one cannot write genuine literature.

On some day in January this year, when we were drinking at Sakunosuke Oda’s first anniversary memorial, Mrs. Oda arrived about two hours late. By that time, the whole group was thoroughly drunk, but someone started talking about several women Oda had been hiding, so—

“Let’s settle this talk now,” I said. “You mustn’t do it when Mrs. Oda arrives.” The moment I spoke, “Right! Right! Absolutely right!” Dazai clapped loudly without missing a beat—a man who wore hakama when calling on his seniors. He was sound, orderly, a true human being. Yet he could never become M.C., invariably slipping into that shamefully vulnerable state.

To live is to accumulate shame. However, in literature’s M.C., there exists human shame, but not the shame of futsukayoi.

*The Setting Sun* uses far too many awkward honorifics. They spread out boxed lunches in the tatami room and drink the whiskey they brought along—scenes like these—then suddenly Uncle Wada boards a train and merrily chants noh verses．It’s all such hackneyed aristocratic tropes．An author should remain unperturbed by these trivialities that hold no real literary significance，yet it’s precisely here that he，most shamefully vulnerable，would blush crimson．

Truly, such blushing is meaningless—for literature, it’s not even worth acknowledging. However, a man named Shiga Naoya seized upon this very point and demolished it. In other words, this clearly demonstrates how Shiga Naoya was no literary figure—merely a stylist—yet paradoxically, this very critique struck at the heart of shameful vulnerability, undoubtedly hurling Dazai into a crimson-faced turmoil of humiliation and rage.

Originally, Dazai was a man who would slip into shameful vulnerability when carried away—the very one who tore apart Shiga Naoya’s honorific “o-koroshi,” declaring it structurally unsound. Generally speaking, I believe this was where Dazai harbored his most fiercely guarded secret. From his earliest works onward, his novels excessively emphasized his own upbringing in a respectable family. Yet when Kamei Katsuitchirou once described himself in some context as a scion of a prestigious family, Dazai retorted: “Ugh—*prestigious family*? Don’t mock me. What a detestable term.” But why would “prestigious family” seem absurd? Precisely because Dazai himself was obsessed with the concept. The absurdity of prestigious families resonates immediately. Shiga Naoya’s “o-koroshi” must have struck that same resonant chord within him.

Freud speaks of the “correction of error.” When we inadvertently misspeak, we unconsciously commit similar errors in an attempt to rationalize our words, seeking to correct them. In shamefully vulnerable, enfeebled psyches, this intensifies particularly—amidst the chaotic agony of blushing rage, a maddened state of corrective frenzy takes hold. Dazai enacted this through literature. I imagine that even in his youth—when he ran away from home and relied on women’s support—Dazai must have affected the airs of a scion from a respectable family, at times even feigning noble lineage. With such pretenses, he may well have swindled tavernkeepers and amassed debts.

In a heart enfeebled by shameful vulnerability, the numerous shames of his distant past must have tormented him with blushing rage. And he, in that novel, perpetrated the correction of error. Freud’s “correction of error” does not mean honestly correcting an error, but rather attempting to make the ends meet of correction by committing a similar error again.

Indeed, Dazai did not engage in the frank correction of error—that is to say, positive efforts toward virtuous construction. He wanted to do it. That yearning and common sense overflowed in his words and deeds. However, he could not do it. In that, there was indeed the influence of frailty as well. Yet to place blame on frailty was not the correct principle. Certainly, it was because he had been careless. To become My Comedian required the effort to kill one’s shameful vulnerability, but drowning in the lament of shameful vulnerability demanded far less effort. But why had he been so careless? Perhaps it should indeed have been attributed to frailty.

Long ago, Dazai smirked and imparted a lesson to Tanaka Hidemitsu. “Don’t get annoyed—write replies to fan letters. You’re our Mr. Benefactor, after all.” “Writers are merchants too.”

I hear Tanaka Hidemitsu diligently wrote replies in accordance with this lesson, but as for Dazai—did he ever write replies with such diligence? He probably didn’t write much at all. However, it remains a fact that Dazai went to considerable lengths to service his fans. Last year, some bookstore proprietor from Kanazawa or elsewhere sent me what appeared to be a sketchbook—whether it was a sketchbook or something else, I didn’t open it to check—but it had considerable heft, along with a request to write a note inside. When I left the package unopened and untouched, reminders began arriving periodically. Eventually, they claimed it contained paper of exorbitant value he’d strained himself to purchase—that Mr. So-and-so, Mr. Such-and-such, and even Dazai had already contributed writings—and included some bizarre line like: “I trust in your character, Mr. Sakaguchi.” During one of those foul moods, I too grew angry and sent the entire package back with a note: “Don’t invent such absurd pretexts, you fool!” only to receive an enraged reply: “You lunatic!” According to the postcard from that time, Dazai had drawn a picture and apparently appended some text to it. This should be considered considerable service. I think this too must stem from his frailty.

Generally speaking, actresses and actors aside, the relationship between literary figures and their fans isn’t a common topic of discussion in Japan or abroad. Fundamentally, unlike the worldly profession of acting, literature is work of historical significance; thus, it’s only natural that literary figures have little engagement with mundane matters. Even Mallarmé—said to have been surrounded by admirers including Valéry—or Sōseki of the Thursday Society had connections that were probably less about “fans” and more about discipleship—relationships that presumed a demonstrated talent.

In Dazai’s case, it was not so—he resembled movie fans, and in this aspect, there was a resemblance to Akutagawa as well. I regarded this as stemming from their physical frailty. Their literature was inherently solitary, with no inherent connection to worldly or fan-like matters—and yet, I believed they lacked the fortitude to fully become My Comedian on stage, which led them to compensate for that weakness through worldly means.

In the end, that drove them to their deaths. Had they rejected the world, they would not have committed suicide. They might have committed suicide—who can say? But regardless, had they become more tenacious My Comedians, they would have written even more remarkable works. Whether with Akutagawa or Dazai, their novels were works of psychological and human insight, possessing almost no ideological substance.

Nihilism as such is not ideology. Nihilism constitutes a physiological mental content inherent to humanity itself; ideology is something far more foolish and slapdash. Christ is not ideology—he is humanity itself. Humanity (nihilism being its appendage) remains eternal and immutable, common to humankind at large, but an individual—a human who lives but fifty years—stands as the sole unique entity in this regard, distinct from collective humanity. Ideology belongs to this individual; hence it lives and dies. Thus it proves inherently slapdash by nature.

Ideology is a strategy individuals devise—desperately contrived to value their single lifetime and strive for a better existence—but precisely because of this, once humans die, that’s the end of it; if one were to say, “Don’t fret,” then that’s simply how it ends. Dazai could not bring himself to declare such things with an air of enlightened conviction. And yet, he could not devise ways to live better, face naive ideologies without fear, or even become a fool. However, even if he assumed an air of enlightenment and coldly scorned life, he was not saved in the least nor made noble. Dazai must have known that all too well.

This “unredeemed sadness” of Dazai’s lay beyond the understanding of what people called Dazai fans. Whenever Dazai coldly scorned naive ideologies and the bratty antics of people while displaying acts of shameful vulnerability, his fans would get worked up. Dazai did not want to be shamefully vulnerable and must have cursed it most vehemently. No matter how naive, even if childish—he must have desperately contrived worldly good deeds or whatever else to become a better person in striving to live well.

What prevented him from doing so were the various aspects of his frailty. And he catered to the fans of this world, becoming not My Comedian within history but My Comedian solely for his fans. “No Longer Human,” “Goodbye,” “Thirteen”—how vulgar. Ugh. If someone else had done that, Dazai would surely have said the same thing.

Had Dazai failed to die and been revived, he would eventually have blushed crimson in a shamefully vulnerable manner, descended into chaos, and produced anguished outcries like *No Longer Human* and *Goodbye*. Suicide—how vulgar. Ugh. He was bound to write that sort of thing.

★

Dazai would at times become a true My Comedian and write works that shone brilliantly. "Gyofukuki," "The Setting Sun," and others—there were several among his earlier works—but even among his recent ones, pieces like "Gender Equality" or "Friendly Exchange Between Close Friends," though lighter in tone, stood as splendid achievements. He became a majestic, admirable My Comedian—a My Comedian existing within history. Yet he could not sustain this and inevitably reverted to being a My Comedian of shameful vulnerability. He would recover from there and return to being the true My Comedian. Again he reverted to being a My Comedian of shameful vulnerability. This cycle appeared to repeat itself endlessly.

However, each time, his storytelling became more skillful, and he grew into a better storyteller. The content of literature had not changed. This was because his literature—steeped in human insight—dealt solely with the primordial questions of human nature, leaving no room for ideological evolution. Had he once again refrained from suicide, recovered, and returned to being My Comedian within history, he would have become an even more skillful storyteller and served up a beautiful tale. Generally speaking, acts of shameful vulnerability are easily comprehensible, so it’s only natural they stir the passions of overly serious youths. However, I believe that a soul as lofty and solitary as Dazai’s was prone to being dragged into the My Comedian of shameful vulnerability due to his frailty—and in one part, due to alcohol.

Mr. Branden discerned their frailty, but I would add another factor: alcohol, this utterly vulgar fiend.

Dazai’s final years were marked by shameful vulnerability, but I think that in reality, this utterly vulgar thing called shameful vulnerability had been eroding his lofty, solitary soul.

Alcohol hardly ever caused addiction. The other day, according to a certain psychiatrist, it was reported that there were almost no cases of true alcoholism in Japan, particularly. "But if you think alcohol isn’t a narcotic but rather a type of cuisine, you’re gravely mistaken." Alcohol isn’t something tasty. I hold my breath and finally manage to swallow down any whiskey or cognac. I drink to get drunk. When I get drunk, I can sleep. This too is one of its benefits.

However, when I drink—no, when I get drunk—I forget. No—rather, a different person is born anew. If there had been no need to forget this thing called myself, I wouldn’t want to drink any of this stuff.

Want to forget myself—you liar. If you want to forget, drink year-round and stay drunk. This is called decadence. Don't you dare spout sophistries. I am alive, you know. Like I said earlier—a human life spans fifty years, it's all too predictable—but I'm refusing to say it precisely because stating that would be too damn easy, you know. Even if childish, naive, or grubby, I am endeavoring to establish some proof that I am alive. If I have to stay drunk all year, I might as well die.

Being able to temporarily forget oneself—this is an attractive thing indeed. Indeed, this is a truly great magic in reality. In the old days, gripping a single jagged fifty-sen coin would let one drink five cups of sake in front of Shinbashi Station and wield magic. Nowadays, using magic is no easy task. Dazai did not fail as a magician; he failed as a human. And thus he convinced himself of this.

Of course, Dazai had not failed as a human. Even just blushing crimson in shameful vulnerability—who knows how much more truly human he was than those who never flushed at all. It wasn’t that he’d lost the ability to write novels. It was merely that his power to fully become M.C.—if only temporarily—had waned slightly. Dazai was certainly a man some must have found difficult to tolerate. For instance, he’d turn to me and say, “I’ve gone and joined that literary coterie—what should I do about it?” To which I’d retort, “Leave it be. It’s fine as it is.” “Ah! Right, right!” he’d crow in delight.

Afterward, when he deliberately put on this dejected act in front of others—showing them how he’d approached Ango Sakaguchi—sure enough, the man was just the type to play up his seniority, thumping his chest as if to declare, “It’s fine! Just leave it be!” and turn the whole affair into an amusing anecdote. Many old friends left Dazai in distaste at this approach of his; while there’s no doubt these methods wounded his friends, in reality, Dazai himself must have wounded himself even more deeply in private by his own hand, flushing crimson with shame.

Of course, these were, as he himself states in his works, merely things he would impulsively say as a service to the person right before him. Such a thing—his friends who were fellow writers must have known it well—but those who found it unpleasant despite this understanding likely distanced themselves from him.

However, Dazai’s private blushing and rage, his self-abasement, and that pain must have been excruciating. In this regard, he was a man of integrity worthy of trust—a sound and wholesome human being. Therefore, in discussions, Dazai would impulsively pull off this performative service and end up blushing and raging in private—yet he does not commit this to writing. However, when it comes to Dazai’s disciple Tanaka Hidemitsu, he engages in this indiscriminately in both discussions and literature. Afterward—far from keeping it private—he openly dashes off accounts of blushing confusion and rage, and since this makes him feel redeemed, there’s no saving him.

Dazai was not like that. He was truly more modest, devout, and sincere. All the more reason his private fits of blushing rage must have been excruciating. For Dazai—who suffered from such self-abasement more than others—alcohol’s magic being a necessity was only natural. Yet alcohol’s magic came with the foul byproduct of shameful vulnerability, leaving one troubled. It was adding fuel to the fire. Culinary alcohol contained no shameful vulnerability, but magical alcohol carried this burden. During periods of mental exhaustion, when one employed magic, they became prone to indulgence—ah, well then, inclined to think dying wouldn’t be so bad—and as the most intense self-aware symptoms: no longer being able to work, coming to detest literature; these came to feel like one’s true sentiments. In reality, it was an illusion born of shameful vulnerability; beyond such pathological delusions, there existed no truly desperate situation where one could no longer work.

Even someone as worldly-wise as Dazai, a man who had seen through so much, would succumb to such vulgar thoughts. It couldn’t be helped. Alcohol was magic, after all. Even if vulgar or superficial—since the enemy was magic—human intellect couldn’t prevail against it, however aware one might be. It was the Lorelei. Dazai was sorrowful. The Lorelei had claimed him.

Calling it a love suicide? That's a huge lie. The magician does nothing but fall for women through alcohol. The one submerged in drink isn't the real person, but another being entirely. Even when this other being falls in love, the actual man remains unaware. First off, genuinely falling in love and dying—that's pure nonsense. When you fall in love, you keep living. Dazai's suicide note lacked any coherence. He must have been utterly plastered. Perhaps he'd privately contemplated dying on the thirteenth. At any rate—No Longer Human, Goodbye, then suicide—he'd likely sketched out this vague narrative framework. But even with such private plotting, there was no absolute need to die. No desperate ideology or truly inescapable situation exists that demands death absolutely.

His shameful vulnerability-induced weakness must have gradually rendered the private framework unbreakable.

However, if Sacchan said she didn’t want to, it should never have come to pass. Dazai had been utterly plastered when he brought it up, and Sacchan must have made it definitive. Sacchan too was known to be a heavy drinker, yet her suicide note—a composed statement along the lines of "It is an honor beyond my station to accompany my respected teacher"—showed no trace of drunkenness whatsoever. However, Dazai’s suicide note—with neither its handwriting nor prose holding any coherence—undoubtedly stemmed from extreme intoxication. Had this not been a suicide, there would have been that *futsukayoi* blushing rage of “Good god, did I really do that last night?” But since it was a suicide, there could be no waking the next morning—rendering such reactions impossible.

Dazai's suicide note lacks coherence entirely. Even if the writings from near Dazai’s death were futsukayoi in nature, it remains certain that they were those of M.C. engaging with the present world. However, the final installment of *Nyozegamon* (the fourth?) is terrible. Here as well, M.C. is scarcely present. What remains is complaint. By writing such things, his private blushing and rage must have grown increasingly severe, his spirit worn down until he found himself all alone, life painfully difficult and excruciating. However, to the extent that he ceased to be M.C., disapproval arose from those close to him, and while knowing its foolishness, growing exasperated, he seems to have targeted the critical people and gone along with them. In that regard, he remained M.C. until the very end. Engaging with the narrowest circle surrounding him.

In his suicide note, not even the M.C. engaging with that narrow circle remained. "Even if my children are ordinary, please forgive them," he wrote. To his wife: "It's not because I dislike you that I'm dying." "Mr. Ibuse is a villain," it stated. What remained there was nothing but the clamor of drunkenness; M.C. had vanished entirely. Yet "Even if my children are ordinary, please forgive them" pierced the heart. How he must have yearned for an extraordinary child. Even ordinary, my child would be pitiable. And so, wasn't that acceptable? Dazai was precisely that sort of ordinary human being. His novels must be read with the understanding that he was a genuine person—a small, good, sound, and well-ordered man.

However, in his choice to say "because they are ordinary" rather than simply asking others to pity his children, there lay the key to the sorrow that permeated Dazai’s entire life. In other words, he was also a show-off of a type rarely seen among the extraordinary. This show-off itself was vulgar and common-sense, but even in his complaints against Shiga Naoya in *Nyozegamon*, this fact stands exposed.

Dazai lashed out at Shiga Naoya with "If His Highness was moved to cherish my work, shouldn’t that suffice?"—but when he forgot the consummate technique of his usual My Comedian persona, he became commonplace through and through. That was perfectly fine. Without being commonplace and sensible, how could one ever write a novel? The fact that Dazai, throughout his life, never realized this one thing—instead engaging in *futsukayoi* self-flagellation to accommodate strange criticisms—was what hampered his great achievement.

Let me repeat. Unless it is commonness and common sense themselves, there can be no writing of excellent literature. Though Dazai stood as the very model of genuine commonness and common sense, he ultimately never achieved awareness of this truth.

★

Trying to rationalize human beings was impossible. What proved especially terrible was children—those inexplicable creatures. They would pop into existence without warning.

Strangely, I have no children. There were two times when they suddenly began to come into being, but they either died upon being born or died the moment they were born. Thanks to that, I am still surviving.

Completely unconsciously—bellies swelling absurdly out of nowhere—they suddenly get urges and develop parental feelings; that humans are born and raised through such means is utterly ridiculous. Human beings are by no means their parents’ children. Just like Christ himself was born in a stable or outhouse or some such place—so too does everyone come into this world.

Even without parents, children grow up. That’s a lie.

Even with parents, children grow up. Parents—those idiots putting on airs as humans and parents, their bellies swollen with arrogance—suddenly panic, become these parent-like failures, and bestow some grotesque pity that’s neither animal nor human as they hole up in the shadows to raise their children. Without parents, children will grow up even more splendidly.

Dazai was a bizarrely twisted delinquent youth who had been tormented by parents, siblings, and family. He went on about his birth—"What about it?"—spouting nothing but nonsense. It was an obsession. That guy—he secretly wished he were truly the child of some aristocrat or even the Emperor’s offspring, and such worthless delusions constituted his private inner life. When it came to parents, older brothers, seniors, or elders, Dazai couldn’t hold his head up. Therefore, he had to confront it. He found it galling. However, he held such affection that he wanted to shake and cry. This aspect was the typical psychology of a delinquent youth.

He was a man who, even at forty, remained a delinquent youth—unable to become either a delinquent young man or a delinquent old man. The delinquent youth did not want to lose. He wanted to look impressive by any means necessary. He wanted to hang himself and, even in death, look impressive. Just as he wanted to be the child of His Highness or the Emperor, he wanted to look impressive even in death. Even at forty, Dazai’s inner psychology remained that of a mere delinquent youth, and since he actually went and did such an outrageous thing—what a hopeless mess of a man.

A writer’s death is nothing like that. Even at forty, that grotesquely warped botched creation—the eternal delinquent youth—shattered into chaos and finally went through with it.

What a laughable guy. He would visit his seniors, call himself their equal, and have the audacity to show up in formal hakama. Such was the code of delinquent youth. He maintained perfect decorum. And then—acting as if he were the Emperor’s own child—he’d put on airs of being Japan’s very model of politeness, that insufferable fool.

Akutagawa wore a more adult-like and clever-looking face than Dazai—a prodigy, well-behaved, and with an innocent air—but in reality, he was the same delinquent youth. He had a split personality; the other self would wander around festival grounds with a dagger tucked in his coat, threatening young girls and hitting on them. Literary figures—no, philosophers are even worse—don’t make me laugh. Philosophy. What the hell is philosophy? There’s nothing to any of it, is there? They have the gall to contemplate.

Hegel, Nishida Kitarō—what’s the big idea? Absurd. Even at sixty, humans remain delinquent youths—isn’t that all we are? Quit playing adult. Meditating—the sheer gall.

What were they meditating on? What difference existed between a delinquent youth's meditation and a philosopher's meditation? They were merely going through the motions—wasn't it just that adults wasted more foolish effort? Akutagawa and Dazai alike were suicides of delinquent youths.

Even among delinquent youths, they were especially cowardly crybabies. In brute strength, they couldn't win. In logic too, they couldn't win. So they would invoke some example and assert themselves through its authority. Akutagawa and Dazai both invoked Christ as their example. It was the handiwork of cowardly crybaby delinquent youths.

When it came to Dostoevsky, even as a delinquent youth he possessed the brute strength of a gang leader. Once he attained that level of physical power, he stopped dragging out comparisons to Christ or anything of the sort. He himself became Christ. He went and fashioned Christ himself. Honestly—he finally pulled it off. Alyosha—that was what he managed to create right before dying. Up until then, everything had been utterly disjointed. The delinquent youth is pure disarray. Dying? Suicide? Meaningless trifles. They die because they lose. If they win, they don't die. Believing in that idiotic logic of death's victory makes you more foolish than trusting old man Otasuke's worm cures.

Human beings—living is everything. Die, and you’re gone. Fame and such—art being eternal? Ridiculous. I hate ghosts, I tell you. Ghosts who die yet keep pretending to live—I despise them.

Living—that alone is what matters. They failed to grasp even this simple truth. In truth, it wasn’t a matter of understanding or not understanding. To live or to die—there were only two choices. Moreover, dying merely meant ceasing to exist—wasn’t it just nothing? One had to live resolutely, persist through completely, and fight exhaustively. One could die at any time. Don’t engage in such trivial nonsense. One shouldn’t do something you can just do anytime.

When dying, one must remain faithful to this trifling human obligation of merely returning to nothingness. I consider this humanity's true duty. Being alive alone constitutes humanity; what follows is but bleached bones—no, utter void. And through knowing solely how to live, justice and truth emerge. In religions and philosophies that debate life and death, neither justice nor truth resides. Those are playthings.

But living sure is exhausting. Even I who say such things have moments when I think of returning to nothingness. To fight through to the end—easier said than done. It sure is exhausting. But my courage is set. I'll live through my time of living at all costs. And I'll fight. I'll never lose. Not losing means fighting. There is no contest outside of that. As long as you fight, you do not lose. You can never win. Human beings will never win. You simply do not lose.

You mustn’t even think about trying to win. There’s no way you can win, is there? Who or what do you think you're trying to defeat?

You must not view time as infinite. You must not take such grandiose, childlike dreams seriously. Time is the span from when one is born until one dies.

It was too grandiose.

A limit. Scholarship lies in the discovery of limits. What is grandiose is a child’s fantasy—it is not scholarship.

Discovering atomic bombs was not scholarship. It was child’s play. Controlling this force, utilizing it judiciously, avoiding wars and such follies, devising a peaceful order—the discovery of such limits constituted true scholarship.

Suicide is not scholarship. It is child's play. From the very beginning, knowing limits is what's necessary.

Thanks to this war, I was taught that atomic bombs are not scholarship, that children’s play is not scholarship, that even war is not scholarship. I had overestimated grandiose things.

Scholarship lies in the discovery of limits. I fight for that.