Pathway to Japanese Literature

Okamoto had been the Yamura couple’s painting teacher. He had always been a man of unruly conduct, but as he aged, his debauchery only intensified, and by the time he passed fifty, he had descended into outright madness. After the Yamuras’ marriage, Okamoto’s reputation had declined, and he came to rely on them for daily support more frequently. Consequently, he found himself forced to delve deeply—no matter how repugnant—into matters he had previously only been peripherally aware of or completely ignorant about: financial entanglements, concealed women, and children.

Okamoto declared that his life’s hardships were art’s very destiny. He insinuated through both manner and word that to scorn him was to scorn art itself. Yet one could not deny that his life’s purpose now resided solely in sensual pleasure, having drifted far from art. When young, Yamura reflected, Okamoto had at least maintained both integrity and dignity. Now only schemes for extracting loans and the vulgarity of using art as a billboard had permeated his essence.

Yamura thought bitterly, but he resolved to respond earnestly to Okamoto’s pleas for money and believed it best to suppress minor resentments. The modest environment in which he had lived until this age was irreplaceable to him, so he had long believed that maintaining it quietly and gently, apart from others’ standards of evaluation, was his proper “role” in life. He was neither extraordinary enough to seek a path that transcended this “role,” nor passionate enough at his core to do so. And if he set aside his minor resentment, there were indeed many things worthy of affection even in Okamoto’s mad antics.

However, one day—whether due to a fit of ill temper or some other impulse—Yamura uncharacteristically found himself berating Okamoto to his face. It wasn’t quite a direct confrontation, but he had exposed thoughts he’d strived to keep sealed within his chest—so much so that even Yamura, who cherished domestic tranquility above all, found himself startled by his own actions. He said: "You presume to style yourself as an unappreciated genius, Teacher." "Yet if I may speak from my own humble perspective, it seems even you don’t truly believe those grand pronouncements." "An unrecognized genius must produce unrecognized masterpieces, but for you, Teacher, life’s purpose seems to lie not in the passion or ambition to create such works, but in satisfying unrecognized carnal desires." "You tell us your decadence is a destiny demanded by art itself." "In that case, you naively assume we cannot refrain from funding this ‘art.’" "Yet contrary to your expectations, the world isn’t so generous." "True, society often overlooks geniuses—but that applies only to geniuses. For talents of your caliber, Teacher—middling, second-rate talents—society makes no miscalculations. Even if it did miscalculate and overlook you, you’d merely be one among countless second-rate talents." "You too once enjoyed considerable fame—meaning you weren’t some unrecognized genius, but rather someone who had found his proper station." "Why has your reputation decayed? Why are you forgotten?" "Is it because you’ve attained such profound artistic realms that you’ve barred entry to us mediocrities?" "Yet the common masses judge that it’s your artistic realm that’s been shut out from art." "As I too am one of those common masses, I can see no further." "They interpret that you’ve destroyed yourself through decadence and ruined art." "The only difference between me and them is that I still cling to an old-fashioned sense of duty."

Okamoto was abjectly flustered. Not a trace of his former bluster remained. His face contorted in pain. Yamura, witnessing this, was overcome with a desolate sense that he might be tormenting someone as inherently decent as Okamoto. Yet in that distorted face, there remained nothing but pure baseness.

★

“You must have enjoyed cornering Teacher.”

After Okamoto had left, Motoko said. Yamura had always harbored a physical revulsion toward this kind of evasive manner of speaking. It was nothing but a stratagem to amplify discomfort in others—spite and cruelty incarnate. Motoko wielded it inseparably from expressions of affection. That too was a voice of the body.

“Just tell me plainly. If Teacher were an artist, would you lend him money exactly as he demands?” “Do you mean my approach was cruel? I’m already being judged by myself. And what do you intend to add on top of that? But I didn’t corner him. It was just an act of resistance.”

“Even so, Teacher must have been cornered.” “Teacher’s face—it looked like it had collapsed inward, didn’t it?” “The holes in a person’s face are so base.” Women were the ones who said cruel things, Yamura thought. Yet uttering those words bore no relation to her true purpose. Motoko was likely trying to corner him. Along the way—like carelessly uprooting weeds by the roadside—she had doused Okamoto with that single cruel remark.

“There’s a story like this in the Kojiki,” Yamura retorted to Motoko. “One day, when Emperor Jimmu went out for a stroll in the fields, seven maidens happened to pass by.” “One of the vanguard maidens was exceptionally beautiful, so he commanded his attendant Ohokume no Mikoto to convey his desire to meet her tonight.” “Then the maiden stared at Ohokume no Mikoto’s face and said, ‘My, what big eyeballs you have.’” “Ohokume no Mikoto had large eyeballs.” “But really, his heart was pounding.” “Because the maiden spent a night with Emperor Jimmu and became empress.” “Yet instead of replying with ‘Yes, understood’ or ‘I’ll wait,’ she exclaims, ‘What big eyeballs!’” “Even in such blissful, unexpected, extreme moments, a woman’s eyes never overlook others’ flaws—and to divert their own discomfort, they take shelter behind those very flaws.” “Since Emperor Jimmu’s time, women’s fundamental nature hasn’t changed—unscrupulous, cruel, brazen, and cunning.” “Yet in their own minds, they think it’s due to weakness.”

Yamura had always harbored a disposition to feel both hatred and fear toward women’s spitefulness.

He had been sickly since birth—pleurisy, then caries; his youth had been spent becoming intimate with illness. Even if he had grown intimate with Motoko instead of illness, just as illness had become part of his body, Motoko did not become part of his body.

Yamura suspected that Motoko might be simultaneously yet separately married to two people: himself as a human being, and another person called Illness who was distinct from Yamura.

During the several times a year when Yamura fell ill, Motoko devoted herself to nursing him through multiple nightlong vigils without hesitation. Though Motoko was not a smoker, Yamura noticed she would sometimes light cigarettes exclusively during those late nights of caregiving, and he couldn’t help but feel a pang of pity.

“Is the cigarette tasty?”

“Yes.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Because there’s nothing to think about.”

The ailing Yamura feared the night. Sleep was mostly interrupted, casting him back into darkness and loneliness. Nothing proved more despairing than the night's fantasies painted by malignant fever. The prayer for dawn—that single hope alone—seemed to spare him from an agonizing death.

Amidst that suffering, there was no friend as profoundly devoted as Motoko. She spent nights at his bedside; each time he awoke to despair, he would find Motoko's unchanging figure there, and if he spoke, she would answer. Motoko would read books, do some writing, engage in sewing, and at times smoke a cigarette. With Motoko's sleepless face—stained with grime—imprinted upon his heart, Yamura never forgot to feel gratitude.

However, that alone was not Motoko.

In nighttime play, Motoko was whole-bodied and selfless, like an unreflective girl wholly devoted to her diversions. The only thing that could sate Motoko’s voracity was Yamura’s “everything.” Even the beads of weary sweat that erupted on Yamura’s gaunt forehead were as dear as an inexhaustible spring of love to her—Motoko who would tenderly wipe them away. Yamura contemplated his own emaciated body that could not endure even a fifth of ordinary labor. He contemplated the strangeness of this body being able to satisfy a woman’s wholesome carnal desire. This must be what pathos is, Yamura thought. Just as a candle gradually burning itself out will eventually expire when its flame dies, so too did Yamura’s life-flame burn gradually—and within Motoko’s greedily cherished caresses, the time would soon come when it extinguished itself.

The fact that Motoko of devotion and Motoko of carnal desire were one and the same stirred Yamura’s lament and hatred alike. That the waning aftermath of carnal desire would eventually lead to Yamura’s recurring seasonal illnesses seemed to elude Motoko’s awareness entirely. Could devotion be atonement? he wondered. Decay would end in death, devotion in tears—a few days, mere days, through tears. Yet between Motoko of carnal desire and Motoko of devotion, Yamura thought, there existed no logical bridge one might call atonement. Since Motoko was thoughtful by nature, she must have been aware that her excessive indulgence had weakened him and that her devotion served as recompense of sorts. But what substance did consciousness hold? Was it not merely that he had occasionally pondered such matters within time’s ceaseless flow?

Yamura thought that Motoko's voracious carnal desire and Motoko's devotion were each separate things with no connection between them. Within Motoko's single body dwelled separate instincts, harboring separate lives, each vigorously and blindly pursuing its own thoughts and desires. Even if Motoko's reason could bridge the two, Motoko's true body would never cross that bridge to connect them. And Motoko had never noticed that her time was divided by different existences.

Yamura could not help being drawn to Motoko’s carnal desire even as he cursed it. He thought it pitiful—this self of his that hated even as it was bewitched by her allure. Yamura voluntarily challenged Motoko, casting himself aside to be thrown into disarray by carnal desire. How much must Motoko have loved that Yamura!

At the end of their play, only Yamura regained his senses. Never had he cursed Motoko so much as in that moment; never had he felt such shame and sorrow at the baseness of carnal desire. In the rapturous exhaustion of carnal desire’s embers, Motoko performed practical tasks with the naturalness of one simultaneously engaged in meal preparation. It was at that moment he realized such acts of carnal desire were Motoko’s life’s work, her life’s purpose, the entirety of her existence. Yamura could no longer bear to look. He came to know the fact that he was married to carnal desire itself and could no longer bear to look directly at that animal truth. However, Motoko could not have missed Yamura’s averted eyes. Those eyes were stones of hatred, yet they had mostly sunk to the depths of settled resignation.

Motoko maintained a composed demeanor. It was also at that time that she wiped away the fatigue-induced sweat beading on Yamura’s gaunt forehead. The more he hated, the more her care seemed to deepen. It looked precisely as though she were teasing him—“The little darling always sulks at times like this, doesn’t he?” In response, Yamura twisted his neck ever more grotesquely, drew back his chest, and tensed his body. It was at that moment Motoko pressed a wet kiss to his averted cheek, leaning over him as if to smother.

What manner of being was Motoko? Yamura’s answer was but one: Motoko was a woman. And what was woman? To Yamura, all women appeared as but a single entity. Woman was a thinking body and, moreover, the thought of someone without a body. These two coexisted, yet bore no link whatsoever. Inexhaustible charm existed there, and inexhaustible hatred hung there as well, Yamura thought.

★

Motoko showed not the slightest reaction to Yamura’s sarcasm. Yet Motoko was not a woman to grow vehement in her bearing. Even when angered, she remained quiet; only her complexion would darken slightly.

“You would say you have no recollection of ever having outwitted Teacher.” “And you would say you merely rebelled.” “Isn’t this like that story about the children?” “The one where children playing at stone-throwing end up striking and killing a frog.” “What counts as mere play to the children becomes a matter of life and death for the frog.”

Motoko continued. "I too understand Teacher’s intentions." "Anyone would understand." "He’s a shallow-minded person, after all." "If one is desperate for money, anyone would become base, wouldn’t they?" "Since he says he’d cling to even a straw to stay alive, isn’t it only natural that he’d wield whatever he can—be it his meager titles or fading reputation—to scheme for loans?" "When someone with nothing but vulgar motives puts on airs as an artist and hits you up for money, it’s only natural that anyone would grow sick of it." "Since I am a woman, others’ flaws particularly grate on my nerves." "I detest even looking at Teacher’s lecherous face." "That stubby mustache of his when he postures as an artist is so revolting it makes me shudder." "But that’s just how it is." "There’s absolutely no need to throw stones at that, don’t you think?"

Motoko was not a sociable woman. She had studied painting but showed no marked inclination toward the ornate styles characteristic of artists. If anything, she was of a plain, solitary disposition—the sort of person who would lose herself in thoughts of spending her entire life with Yamura in some primitive existence, just the two of them in the forest shade of a highland or by a marsh in the countryside.

Yamura thought this disposition was deeply ingrained. That Motoko had willingly married the sickly Yamura, that she endured the gloomy, quasi-hermetic existence his infirmity had cemented—both stemmed from this disposition rooted deep within her. To discover and believe in this naturalness became Yamura’s consolation, his relief. There was nothing more reassuring than being able to believe that being with him like this was this person’s most natural state—more so than living with another man. Yamura believed that the primary source of stability supporting his present reality and propelling him toward the future now resided in such a small, wretched place—and rather than grieving this fact, he had come to cherish it.

The two seldom had what resembled arguments, for when one grew angry, the other would act like the adult. When it came to valuing the reality of just the two of them, Motoko was not inferior to Yamura. And no matter how angry they grew, the two never voiced their honest thoughts. Care supported them both, yet finding oneself being cared for brought discomfort; however, when alone together, they felt no such discomfort—and even when they did, they possessed the adaptability to redirect or divert it elsewhere. Yamura wondered if this was truly acceptable. Yamura thought this must be acceptable. It was because there existed within him a conviction that there could be no other way.

“However, why must you speak for the frog? The frog itself doesn’t speak.” “And a frog doesn’t speak by its very nature.” “The frog itself only starts speaking within the conscience of those involved.”

Motoko nodded faintly. It had meant, “I understand.” It had meant, “Please refrain from saying unnecessary things.” “You must detest Teacher putting on airs as an artist and pestering you for money.” “Fundamentally, you detest being pestered for money.” “You detest lending money to others.” “You are not stingy with money compared to me.” “Compared to others as well, you are indifferent about money and possess a generous heart that wishes to help those in need.” “But the fact remains that you detest being pestered for money and don’t want to part with it.” “And when it comes to your own problem, isn’t that precisely it?” “If you begrudge the money, then you should say you begrudge it.” “If you find it repugnant, you need only declare it so.” “Setting that aside, is there any need to expose Teacher’s weaknesses?” “That is what we call cowardice.”

Indeed, that was precisely correct, Yamura thought. However, to his own awareness, it amounted to nothing more than a trivial matter.

Another raw thought was swirling in his head. That was the question of why Motoko had to speak for the frog.

For here lay a clear fact: while Motoko spoke for the frog, she felt no sympathy toward it—rather, she harbored even greater malice and disgust toward the creature than Yamura himself did. She had said Okamoto’s stubby mustache when he put on airs as an artist was so disgusting it made her shudder. She had also said that the orifices of Okamoto’s face were vulgar. Those words carried a visceral rawness that made one avert their face, laced with simple venomousness. The woman’s observations were at all times built upon venom, yet at the same time there lingered sweet daydreams like those of an eighteen-year-old girl. Venom might prove incapable of obstructing sympathy—might not even obstruct love. However, in Motoko’s case—Yamura thought—there was an intuition that she felt no sympathy for Okamoto, and he found himself unable to doubt this.

Despite that—why? Surely she doesn’t truly hate me, Yamura thought. Ah, well, it’s fine. The time would come when he’d understand, Yamura thought.

Yamura felt his physical condition weaken once again. From these faint signs of change, he had come to contemplate not just bodily decline but full physical decay. Then he would invariably find himself burning with secret hatred toward Motoko. This must be jealousy of Motoko’s body, Yamura thought. He reflected that both he who harbored jealousy and Motoko who provoked it were bound together in tragic fate. Yet lately, he understood his own sorrow clearly. But why should Motoko be condemned to sorrowful destiny? He began to doubt. Yamura thought he too had grown self-indulgent—but why shouldn’t he indulge himself? Wasn’t it permissible? These thoughts now erupted through him like steam from a valve.

★

After that, Okamoto did not show his face for about three months. Within those three months, Yamura had that seasonal illness he always got.

Okamoto’s request was too outlandish. Mrs. Okamoto was a woman who had married into a good family, and Motoko among others knew her possessions included many expensive items; however, after Okamoto’s dissipation and subsequent downfall, she had come to guard them with desperate intensity.

Okamoto took out seven or eight items from those possessions—a diamond ring, pearls, and the like—and sold them to a man named Ōki for 15,000 yen. Mrs. Okamoto had noticed this, but refused to believe he had sold them off, becoming convinced he’d given them to a new mistress. And he was storming over to confront the woman—unfortunately, this time the woman in question was married, meaning that if her husband found out, it wouldn’t be dismissed as a mere affair driven by passion. He said he wanted someone to buy back the items from Ōki—but since Okamoto had no money, he wanted them to cover the amount temporarily—adding that this was all the cash he had on him, so they should make up the difference—as he pulled out three thousand yen from his pocket and presented it to Motoko.

The scale of the request was utterly beyond their means.

Yamura had been able to live without taking up employment thanks to a small inheritance from his parents, but even if his health had been average enough to make him want to work for extra money, once he deducted the expenses of his austere lifestyle devoted to his artistic pursuits, there remained no room for extravagant luxuries. The amount Yamura could spare in response to others’ requests was meager, and there was no way Okamoto didn’t know this. Because the disparity was so absurd, he felt no fear of struggling to find an excuse for refusal, and Yamura’s mind was at ease. He doubted whether Okamoto’s proposal had been made in his right mind.

In every respect, things differed from the ordinary. First and foremost, Okamoto spoke frequently to Motoko. This wasn’t the pretense of addressing Yamura through her; rather, he pleaded directly with Motoko himself, laying bare his innermost feelings. It didn’t seem solely due to having been cornered by Yamura. A murkiness tainted Okamoto’s account. Both his story and demeanor gave the impression of an elaborate counterfeit crafted upon some hidden scheme. Yet this very act of Okamoto primarily addressing Motoko afforded Yamura ironic amusement. Yamura had never forgotten Motoko’s words. Why had Motoko needed to speak for the frog? And he found himself wondering what attitude Motoko herself might show toward the creature’s absurd entreaty.

Motoko appeared rational because she suppressed her emotions, but in truth she possessed a finely textured sensitivity along with compassion and magnanimity. She made conscious efforts to avoid hating or belittling others whenever possible. Motoko had once been asked by Okamoto to look after one of his women. This girl too had been his disciple—she bore his child, was driven from her home, attempted suicide; though the child died, she alone survived. Afterward Motoko took her in and gave her means to become self-reliant; the girl studied cosmetology and became a beautician’s assistant, but once able to support herself and leave Motoko’s care, she returned to Okamoto.

Okamoto had many other women besides. Many of them were daughters of his disciples, but there were also instances where he refused to pay consolation money or child support, resulting in coercion by yakuza who extorted additional funds beyond what was owed to the women. The girl had been driven from her home and struggled for food and clothing, even attempting suicide, yet she had never made any financial demands on Okamoto. Okamoto had exploited that vulnerability, but Yamura concluded that even the exploited woman had passively desired it in some way.

At that moment, Yamura thought this: Money formed the boundary between love and hate; to not demand money meant there remained lingering attachment. To this thought of Yamura's, Motoko offered no opinion of her own. She appeared to find it distasteful to consider those close to her in such degraded terms, yet simultaneously seemed never to have plumbed those depths of the human heart. Yet Yamura also thought this about that matter: Perhaps Motoko refrained from speaking because she knew more than he did about the human heart and love's true nature—knew their vileness so intimately that their sheer repulsiveness rendered them unspeakable. A woman who has known a man once cannot live without one again. Regarding such weaknesses, he wondered whether Motoko—who understood the vehement language spoken by her very body—could ever translate that flesh's urgent words into drawing-room conversation.

Motoko disliked society women and philanthropic women and thrifty matrons and intellectual women. In general, she disliked women and had no fondness for social interactions. “A woman’s heart is deeply jealous—the closer the friend, the more they envy and betray them,” Motoko said. Indeed, Motoko was magnanimous—a person who strived to avoid hating others whenever possible and to refrain from negative assumptions. She may have strived for that, but what was her true nature? When Yamura began to doubt that, he became tormented. Motoko was the quintessential woman among all women—wasn’t it that she was acutely aware of her greatest weakness residing in her own body?

When they married, Yamura was twenty-seven and Motoko twenty-six; yet Motoko, who had hesitated over their union, gave as her sole reason that there was only a year’s difference in their ages. Motoko—hesitant though she was—had loved Yamura no less than he had loved her. Was this to be taken as artifice—or the voice of an authentic soul? Or perhaps, for women, were truth and artifice indivisible? This marked Yamura’s first step toward confronting that insoluble enigma.

“Because there’s only a one-year difference in our ages,” Motoko had added. “Women age quickly.” “And someday you’ll no longer be satisfied with me.” Yet reality had proven the opposite. Eleven years had since passed—Yamura was now thirty-eight, Motoko thirty-seven. Motoko seemed not to have aged a day. She had no children.

“Don’t you want a child?” “Don’t you want a child?” Motoko said. Then Yamura answered immediately. “Oh, I do want one.” “Only if it means you’d turn into an old woman.”

Motoko’s skin showed no sagging, its luster remained undimished, yet the dense and full-bodied sensuality of her flesh felt coldly oppressive. Whenever Yamura became aware of this, he would inevitably contrast it with his own body. Emaciated, withered—a pallid form like skin stretched taut over bones. Within that frame dwelled a sorrowful heart that sensed its daily decay.

"If I die," Yamura thought. "Would Motoko not even become prey to some lecherous old fool like Okamoto?" Whether those decorative trappings called romantic love existed mattered not at all— was she not simply sinking deeper into this quagmire of flesh? And when that moment came—when crows plucked away her peacock feathers of magnanimity and compassion— would there remain only that black-feathered thing called body?

I want to fall in love. A love that forgets this thing called the body—one that belongs solely to the soul. Yet despite that, I want to experience a fiercely intense love I can plunge into blindly. If it were possible, I would want to die for that love—Yamura would sometimes think. Even that love—though it was a love without a body—he felt a pitiable sense that it too now seemed on the verge of becoming physically impossible.

And at such times, Yamura would think of Nobuko.

★

Each time Okamoto spoke to Motoko with his pitiful entreaties, he displayed an unabashedly groveling servility. Traces of a teacher’s pride toward his disciple still lingered in his words, but they rang so unnaturally that even Okamoto himself seemed aware of it, floundering awkwardly. It was the attitude of a younger man fawning over an older woman.

Yamura, watching this, perceived a different significance. It was not a soul fawning, but rather a man’s very flesh itself that groveled. That this servile body belonged to a man past fifty, while the body receiving this obeisance was that of a thirty-seven-year-old woman—this disparity struck him as profoundly unnatural. Yamura felt only pity and revulsion toward Okamoto’s prostration, yet burned with envy toward Motoko’s flesh being worshipped. Okamoto’s debasement seemed instinctual. Though it addressed itself to Motoko’s primal nature too, Yamura found this wordless self-abasement spoke more potently than any monetary entreaty. The financial negotiations appeared merely a contrivance to enable this ritual of degradation.

Okamoto was laying bare things that people normally strive to conceal—things that cannot be exposed without shame, vulnerabilities that should remain hidden. Yamura had always feared that a person’s ultimate weakness could nonetheless become a source of allure. The major reason Yamura feared and suffered regarding Motoko was rooted in that fear. In Okamoto’s groveling, the baseness of having laid bare his weaknesses was faintly visible.

In dealing with that Okamoto, Motoko remained largely silent. She maintained her coldly dignified bearing. She seemed to possess a radiant purity. Of course that was only natural, Yamura thought. Was it not only natural that Okamoto’s lunatic antics held no real significance for Motoko as she was now? And Motoko must have felt even greater disgust than Yamura toward Okamoto’s groveling, enduring the discomfort all the while. Okamoto knew that. Okamoto wasn’t concerned with the "present" Motoko. His groveling was addressing the true nature lying at the very depths of Motoko. It was the weakness inherent to the body itself—a body devoid of shame. And what Yamura sensed from Okamoto’s groveling was not Okamoto’s groveling itself, but rather Motoko’s body—devoid of shame—projected forth from it. Yamura suffered from jealousy toward that body. It had become increasingly difficult to face.

Motoko’s composure was sharp.

“Would you deign to open up and discuss this with Mrs. Yamura?” “And might you condescend to visit Mr. Ohki together with me and arrange payment even through installments?”

“Well, you see—Ohki isn’t a man who understands human compassion.” “Because he’s certain to insist you bring every last penny.”

Motoko nodded. “It is not an amount that we can buy back. Teacher, you must be aware of our financial situation, are you not?”

“No, Mrs. Yamura. “Once you buy it back for me, I’ll explain everything to my wife and make sure to have you keep possession of the item. “It’s an item worth over thirty thousand yen in actual value. “Since that Ohki fellow is offering fifteen thousand, you can see just how valuable it must be, can’t you?”

“Teacher is rich, isn’t he? We haven’t laid eyes on a sum like three thousand yen in years.”

Motoko returned the bundle of three thousand yen to Okamoto and stood up. And she stated firmly.

“It is not solely a matter of the amount. “We wish only to be allowed to assist in ways that properly serve you, Teacher.”

As Motoko made to leave just as she was, Okamoto called out to stop her.

“Mrs. Yamura.” Okamoto’s face crumpled grotesquely. He had thrust out his left hand as if to restrain Motoko from leaving. The hand slowly withdrew, and for some reason, he clutched his own chin. At the same time, he pressed his right hand against his stomach. Then he made a strange gesture, as if thrusting his face violently backward. Suddenly he let out a shrill *Hii* sound and collapsed into sobs. He was a wretched sight. Motoko had been staring fixedly at him, but immediately turned around and left. She did not spare Yamura so much as a glance.

★

Among Okamoto’s women, there was one named Fujiko. She too had once been Okamoto’s disciple and worked for a time as a café waitress, but after cutting ties with him, she had now become a stockbroker’s mistress. Since her residence was along Yamura’s walking route, he would sometimes stop by. She was a woman of tall, voluptuous physical beauty—standing something like five shaku four sun five bu (approximately 165 cm)—who was rumored among painter circles to be better suited as a model than as an artist herself. There was an inescapably vulgar physicality to this woman’s every movement and gesture, and Motoko did not look kindly upon Yamura’s frequent visits. "You’re such a pervert too," she would say, teasing Yamura and expressing her disdain. Yet inversely, precisely because Fujiko was a woman who so blatantly displayed her sensuality, Yamura found he could speak with her freely and without reservation. Yamura could casually say to Fujiko the kind of explicit things that even men couldn’t utter among themselves. Fujiko’s position was the same—there had been no need to adhere strictly to distinctions between men and women.

Among the stories heard from Fujiko was one about Okamoto’s failed courtship. Among Okamoto’s disciples had been a beautiful young lady. Because she was a woman of cool composure and steadfast character, even Okamoto had found himself unable to make advances. Yet when he learned of her engagement—with an added note that her fiancé was reportedly “the finest catch across three provinces,” brimming with happiness—Okamoto abruptly resolved to woo her. He had apparently deliberately grown out his beard into wild disarray, wrapped half his face in bandages from forehead downward, and set out leaning on a cane while groaning pitifully. However, when he confessed his love to the young lady, she—true to her unflappable nature—apparently declared crisply, “I detest frivolous jests. Kindly withdraw your proposition.”

Okamoto had apparently told Fujiko this story, and precisely because he knew there was no prospect of success, he instead became inclined toward half-hearted wooing—he was simply interested in trying such a pitiful approach to courtship, or so he had said.

Okamoto was a moral bankrupt, a fundamentally shameless man. Yet Yamura found himself drawn to precisely those proclivities in Okamoto that society would most condemn, feeling a strong inclination to forgive them. Take, for instance, wrapping one’s entire face in bandages despite having no injuries, growing out a wild beard, and setting out to court a young lady with no prospects of success—such antics, regardless of their moral standing, possessed a foolishness that no half-hearted philanderer would ever muster the will to attempt, and an originality in action that staked curiosity on endeavors far removed from the commonplace. In any case, these aspects stemmed from an inborn artist’s soul—unsightly though they might be, there was something fascinating about them, Yamura thought.

The fifteen-thousand-yen financial proposition of that day, just like the bandaged visit, struck Yamura as a play staged from the very beginning. The sum itself was so absurdly outlandish that Okamoto must have known full well this scheme would never bear fruit. His explanations for needing the money remained incoherent, devoid of any genuine conviction. The only sincerity lay in his seductive posturing.

“Hey, Motoko.” “Teacher’s story is absurd, isn’t it?” “This business of needing fifteen thousand yen—it’s all a fabrication, isn’t it?” “It’s perfectly clear this is an impossible request, isn’t it?” “But if it’s a fabrication, why would there be any need to do something this absurd?”

Motoko answered firmly. “It’s because you outwitted Teacher.”

It was an unexpected answer.

“Why? How could my outwitting Teacher possibly be the cause of this absurd money matter?” “Teacher came here to harass us. It’s revenge—he intends to cause us trouble. Since you inflicted such wretched humiliation upon Teacher, he’s likely putting on an even more pitiful act to plague us.” “Could such a thing even be possible? In the first place, we aren’t troubled by this at all.”

“But that’s how human psychology works.” “You would suffer a wretched humiliation.” “When seeking revenge, one either becomes someone of stature to throw it back in their face—and if that prospect fails—one resolves to make oneself utterly wretched instead, just to cause them trouble. That’s the mindset one develops.” “It’s spiteful recklessness—the essence of revenge.” It was strange logic, but it held a certain coherence. Such psychology could undoubtedly exist in reality.

But in Okamoto’s case, was that truly the truth? Above all else, did Motoko herself truly believe that?

Motoko called Okamoto’s seductive posturing "miserable." She might not have realized now who the wretched man was addressing—or that the one being addressed resided within her. Yamura thought it was likely true she didn’t realize it now. And he felt he had discovered that within this present lack of awareness lay many secrets.

★

There was a college student living nearby who would come over to have the Yamura couple look at his paintings. His name was Nishina. He was a man who lacked not only any artistic talent but even the slightest interest in painting. He had nothing but a mere curiosity—the sort of curiosity one might have for collecting matchbox labels—and so he painted and brought his works to show them. By now, he had graduated from university and become a government official. His paintings were atrocious, but his grasp of art theory was fully fledged; he would persistently engage in fervent debates that tormented Yamura. Due to that characteristic curiosity of his, he voraciously read whatever art theory and aesthetics books he could lay hands on, resulting in a disorganized jumble devoid of system—yet more than sufficient to plague Yamura.

Nishina was well-groomed. Though pomade was hard to come by in those times, his hair gleamed with meticulous care, and from his necktie down to the tips of his shoes—his cigarette case, lighter, watch, pencil, pipe, each and every one of his fine accessories—if prompted to speak of them, he had tens of thousands of words at the ready to expound upon their country of manufacture, model specifications, and so forth. In stark contrast, he was colorblind to the scenery of his inner world—paying no heed to the winds, clouds, or mists of the mind—and yet despite this, no maintenance had been done at all.

“For what purpose do you paint?” “Mr. Nishina.” “When people take photographs, there’s supposed to be a purpose—like creating a memento.” “And things like mementos or keepsakes—those hold far more meaning than producing wretched paintings.” “Yet when it comes to your paintings, it’s clear they serve neither as mementos nor keepsakes—isn’t that so?” “You’ve rendered them into forms far filthier than nature itself—shameless false semblances.” “How would your aesthetic theory explain this, I wonder?”

Every time Yamura saw Nishina's face, he never failed to tease him. Nishina would grow flustered and vehemently brandish his art theories, but Yamura never engaged with them in earnest. He would spread himself out and employ a tactic of teasing from the sidelines. “There’s a Japanese proverb—though truth be told, I’m not entirely sure if it’s a proverb or what—that goes: ‘When a dog faces west, its tail points east.’” “I don’t know how much truth resides in your aesthetic theories, but this little saying here is, if nothing else, an unshakable truth.” “However, you turn the tip of the dog’s tail slightly westward and then insist that, as you can see, the tip isn’t pointing east at all.” “The true nature of your art theory—isn’t it fundamentally something of this sort, wouldn’t you say?”

Yamura was innately skilled in this kind of argumentation. Because he maintained mental composure when dealing with Nishina, this approach only grew more caustic in contrast to Nishina’s flustered impatience. Nishina, cornered by Yamura, fawned over Motoko.

Nishina’s fawning seemed to result from Yamura’s caustic remarks, so Yamura had let many things pass without a second thought. Upon seeing Okamoto’s fawning, something occurred to Yamura. Nishina’s fawning was not as base as Okamoto’s. Nishina had not laid bare his weaknesses. He had not thrown himself into it. Originally, there was an age gap of over ten years between Motoko and Nishina, so his fawning had a certain naturalness to it.

Intellectually dull, Nishina was by nature a carnal man. Since a dull sensuality pervaded every aspect of his demeanor, Yamura had failed to notice the need to scrutinize any particular part. In Nishina’s fawning too, there was the same element as in Okamoto’s. It was an entreaty directed at Motoko’s body. Through Okamoto’s fawning, Yamura had made that discovery.

At that moment, Yamura made an even more unexpected discovery. That was concerning the true nature of the frog.

Yamura thought. Hadn't Yamura's attitude toward Nishina over these past several years been fostering Motoko's resentment?

Yamura always cornered Nishina. He mocked his works. He made him feel miserable. And he made him angry and took pleasure in it. Motoko had been harboring secret resentment toward that Yamura. And when a somewhat similar situation arose with Okamoto, was she not using him as a proxy to vent the resentment she had long harbored?

Yamura wondered whether Motoko, secretly burning with such resentment, had come to love Nishina.

Motoko had loved Yamura with all her might, unchanged from past to present. The only change lay in their having aged—their freshness faded—now tending to perceive care where love once dwelled, restraint where devotion had been. Yamura harbored not a shred of doubt about Motoko’s spiritual purity; there remained only profound gratitude for their long journey together.

All people had dreams. This reality could not be satisfied by any measure of happiness, and dreams would always break the chains of bondage to run wild through infinite realms. How could people have lived without permitting that? And how could anyone have loved and cherished someone who could not even have dreams? If people held any charm at all, it lay in the unknowable secrets harbored within their breasts—and when those breasts were stripped of both dreams and secrets, how many could possibly have loved such a shameless corpse?

But what was Motoko’s dream? Escaping the bonds of this reality, what was Motoko dreaming of? In dreams, it would have been permissible for her to think of Nishina. But what was Nishina thinking of? What could he have been dreaming of?

Yamura contemplated the two men’s seductive posturing. Might it be that these two men understood aspects of Motoko’s heart—her hidden dreams—that he himself could never grasp? The dreams of Motoko that could not be fulfilled in this reality—and the reality that Motoko could not fulfill was none other than himself—but in short, he could not help but recognize this cold truth: that Motoko’s dreams were something he lacked, and that he himself was the sole person incapable of knowing her dreams.

"I die—then where on earth will Motoko wander off to?" Yamura always imagined the worst. And he could conceive of nothing but the worst. Yamura found himself unable to endure the terror of death. "I mustn't think too much," Yamura thought. "If only I could pour all my care and love into this modest reality, this modest life—"

However, Yamura wanted to love passionately. A love without flesh—one of pure spirit—more intense than any flame, raging madly until it burned itself out. He wanted to vanish along with that love, Yamura thought.