Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

This memoir spans approximately four or five years beginning in Meiji 29 (1896), corresponding to the period when—following the conclusion of the First Sino-Japanese War—the Liaodong Peninsula retrocession issue raged fiercely; when the Great Sanriku Tsunami struck northeastern Japan; when the Ashio Copper Mine Poisoning Incident occurred; and when literary circles saw publications such as Mori Ōgai's *Wake-Up Grass* and Yosano Tekkan's *All Directions*, alongside works like Rohan's *Sleeves of Clouds*, Kōyō's *Passions and Regrets*, and Ryūrō's *Imado Love Suicides* being written.

It was the time when horse-drawn railways first appeared in Tokyo, and when the sand-artist old woman could still be found in the precincts of Sensō-ji Temple in Asakusa.

This sand-artist old woman was a petite, one-eyed crone who carried bags holding five or six colored powders. Before gathered crowds, she would narrate tales of Priest Yūten, the Forest of Shinda, Anchin and Kiyohime, and miraculous accounts of Kannon while fluidly painting scenes—dipping her fingers to trace a white fox's tail in pale powder, flashing a crimson tongue with red dust, finally dotting its eyes with black. When depicting Fudō Myōō's flaming aureole, she built up vermilion layers with practiced sweeps. Whenever I visited Kannon's temple in my boyhood, I found myself rooted there, unable to depart.

The old woman too vanished before anyone noticed; with no way to know when or of what illness she died, and with neither successors to her art nor practitioners of similar craft emerging, that tradition perished as it stood.

At that time, she never brought anything resembling an assistant and always came alone as just the old woman.

Moreover, though called sand-art, that powder might not have been sand at all but rather udon flour or something similar; there must have been some technique to prepare it so that the colors blended uniformly. But in truth, I never fully understood what exactly it was.

Even if such things were to be revived now, they could not withstand the times; that outcome was for the best as it was.

The horse-drawn railways also appeared precisely during that period.
Having heard that horse-drawn railways ran along Kuramae-dōri, there was a time when I was taken by the maid to go see them.
The two blindfolded horses ran along pulling a carriage that moved on rails, with passengers riding inside.
I felt as though I were witnessing one of those enlightenment-era prints I’d seen in my hometown come to life, but until that time, even Tokyo had not seen carriages running on rails.
These horse-drawn carriages continued until electric trains were established.
I often witnessed scenes of dogs being run over or cats darting across getting crushed by the newly introduced electric trains, but such narrowly avoided accidents did not occur with horse-drawn railways.

II

Thus at age fifteen by the traditional count, having graduated from Kamienoyama Elementary School in my hometown, I left home around 1:00 AM on the seventeenth day of the seventh lunar month—that is, the seventeenth day of Bon—led by Father.
Father would die at seventy-three in Taisho 12; calculating backward reveals he remained forty-six and in his prime during Meiji 29.
Yet because Father had labored so intensely in his youth, his back already stood bent.
We passed through Yamagata's outskirts on foot while dawn still held darkness captive, then crossed Sekiyama Pass.
I remember extinguishing our lantern after leaving Yamagata that morning.

By that time Sekiyama Pass had become a well-maintained highway posing no difficulty at all, but from around when we crossed the pass's watershed my legs began to tire, making progress arduous. We descended along the upper reaches of the Hirose River though we rested time and again; at such times my father would tell me ghost stories. These were mostly fox-based tales he presented either as his own experiments or as things someone in the village had tested, making them feel less like mere folktales. Yet among those stories there were some we had already heard before, and as my leg fatigue grew dominant they gradually lost their effect. But just then a cavalry drill battle commenced. The soldiers wore yellow-braided military uniforms with yellow stripes on their trousers while officers had black braids on their chests and red stripes on theirs. When I saw this all fatigue vanished from my mind. Though I had seen nishiki-e prints of the First Sino-Japanese War this was my first time witnessing real military spectacle.

One troop was positioned on this bank of the Hirose River, while a force resembling the enemy was stationed near the foothills on the opposite bank. As combat drew near, part of our troops dismounted and spread out along the riverbank to open fire with their rifles. Then from across came answering gunfire—a sound that struck me as unbearably tense. After some time exchanging shots, our entire troop drew swords, crossed the bridge, and charged. Both my father and I witnessed such a spectacle for the first time in our lives. The sight revived my spirits enough that I reached Sakunami Hot Springs by nightfall—a day's journey spanning some fifteen ri.

The following day, we arrived in Sendai and stayed overnight. I felt the reality of encountering Sendai, a castle town in Tōhoku, and at the inn, I ate a confection called monaka for the first time.
At that time, my eldest brother had enlisted as a one-year volunteer soldier in the Second Division, so we went to visit him, but he was away on maneuver exercises.
After spending a day there, we departed Sendai in the morning and arrived at Tokyo’s Ueno Station by night.
And I wondered whether such brightly lit nights truly existed in this world.
Years later, when I learned the term “city that never sleeps,” even then I found myself recalling in reverse the impression from when I first arrived at Ueno Station.
The lights of that time should have consisted more of oil lamps than electric ones, yet I found it so dazzling.

Then, my father and I rode in a two-person rickshaw to 54-banchi, Higashi Mitsujimachi in Asakusa Ward, though the towns along the way were not as brightly lit as Ueno Station. There remained several areas as dark as Kamienoyama, and in my boyhood mind, a jumble of thoughts must have flowed. Now at that address, Adoptive Father Saitō Kiichi had established a clinic called Asakusa Clinic—there we finally arrived.

The clinic still being early evening, a large lamp hung in the room casting brilliant light. The guest room spanned about eight tatami mats but felt wholly different with its red carpet laid out. Moreover, I found myself able to eat confections called monaka nearly every day.

I once wondered what date the seventeenth day of the seventh lunar month I wrote about here would correspond to in the Gregorian calendar and looked into it.
According to this conversion, the seventeenth day of the seventh lunar month corresponds to August 25th in the new calendar, which means we must have arrived in Tokyo on either the 28th or 29th.

III

My adoptive father Dr.Kiichi was then called Kīchirô,but apparently because one of his patients versed in Chinese studies remarked that the characters for Kīchi were exceptionally fine.he changed it to Kīchi.The Asakusa Clinic where my father practiced had several cases where patients abandoned by university doctors made full recoveries,and he became one of Asakusa Ward’s most sought-after physicians.He did not limit himself to any single specialty but handled everything.He practiced internal medicine,surgery,and gynecology;took on pediatrics and otolaryngology too-so children suffering midnight convulsions came frequently.At such times,Father would conduct examinations still wearing nightclothes under his quilted robe.I too would rise curiously on these occasions.A child lying unconscious would start crying after simple treatment;when told all was well,the mother would leave gratefully-scenes recurring often.There were midnight cases like a man who stepped on glass shards,the fragments stubbornly resisting removal.There were also moments when an odd hair-made instrument extracted fish bones from throats,making elderly patients weep with joy.This being an era preceding laryngoscopes’ invention,gratitude flowed all the more freely.

Nowadays, medical education institutions are fully established, with doctors being trained either in the medical departments of Imperial Universities or single-faculty medical colleges—some even argue specialized schools are now considered inferior—but in those days, one could become a doctor simply by passing the medical licensing examination administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Thus, many youths would come up to the capital from rural areas, performing miscellaneous duties at practicing physicians’ clinics while studying medicine.
If circumstances allowed, they would attend Saisei Gakusha, what could be called the only convenient medical school of the time, to pursue their studies.
If they couldn't manage that, they would self-study basic medical sciences alone; upon passing the preliminary examination, they would then assume the status of substitute doctors—engaging in actual patient examinations while attending Saisei Gakusha—so that through diligent study they could quickly become physicians, though some ultimately ended up failing to become proper doctors at all.

The medical student boarders of that era comported themselves with gaudy attire and ceaseless talk of women, obsessively memorizing texts like Yamada Ryoshuku's *Ranshi Seirigaku Seishoku-hen* (*Dr. Ran's Physiology: Reproduction Volume*)—traits that likely drew scornful looks from more austere circles. Yet Hasegawa Tai's influence at Saisei Gakusha had subtly imbued these students, for from their ranks there periodically arose extraordinary individuals.

On one occasion, when a group of students from Seijō School—said to be affiliated with the Army—attempted to raid Saisei Gakusha, even our medical student boarders received something like a manifesto.
Then two of our medical student boarders gathered and went off carrying sticks or similar implements.
Among our boarders was a man named Hori who had facial paralysis; I once followed him.
Then every alley in the Kiridoshi area became packed with medical student boarders from Saisei Gakusha.
They lay in wait, poised to counterattack the Seijō School students.
This ended abortively due to vigilance from the Honfuji Police Station vicinity, but it proves that among the medical student boarders of that era, there existed those not entirely frivolous at their core.

Since the studies conducted by medical student boarders always concerned the physical body, I imagine their overall demeanor inevitably took on a sensory-oriented quality. Yet it remains quite intriguing that Old Man Hasegawa became engrossed in Buddhist studies—that is, Buddhist scriptures—in his later years. Considering how Western medicine served as a vanguard during the eastward spread of Western learning, there may have been some inherently Western element embedded within these medical students.
The ostentatious displays of flashy attire and frequenting the Yoshiwara pleasure district—these too, depending on one’s perspective, might represent transformations of Western-influenced elements. Thus, I believe that should cultural historians ever delve deeply into their essence, the lives of medical student boarders from that era would prove a fascinating subject.

Moreover, among the medical student boarders, there were those who did not study medicine at all—who borrowed Rōroku works and Ruikō works from itinerant book peddlers laden with miscellaneous writings, devouring them from dawn till dusk.
That I, as a boy, became engrossed in works like Old Master Rohan’s *Aigo Shōja Zasshitsu* (*Miscellaneous Writings from the Mist-Guarded Hermitage*) was due to the influence of those eccentric medical student boarders.

My father generally overlooked such medical student boarders who came and went in constant rotation, allowing those with potential to develop. That medical student register has now been burned, leaving no way to know its contents, but several of them had already succumbed to illness, and only in a photograph taken when I first came to Tokyo do faint traces of that era remain.

IV

At that time, there stood a single thick, tall chimney in Kuramae, and no matter where I walked, I would generally orient myself by that chimney to find my way back.
This chimney would soon become two, but even as a solitary structure—towering as it spewed smoke—it possessed a majesty I had never before witnessed in anything man-made.
Whether traversing Kanda or Shitaya, the chimney would disappear behind houses only to reappear when I shifted my position slightly.
Guiding myself by its presence, my heart would ease whenever I saw how substantially it loomed ahead.
To the boy newly arrived in the capital, this chimney was no mere inanimate pillar rising from the earth.

When I came to Tokyo, the place I quickly learned besides Mitsujimachi was Honjo Midorichō.
In what must have been its fourth block stood a pawnshop called Kurokawa Shigehira, where the head priest of my village temple—Priest Sahara Ryōō—had rented a room on the second floor while working diligently for our head temple, Rengetsu-ji in Ōmi Banba.
I had someone draw me a map and walked there on foot.
On the second floor was a six-tatami room where hung a plaque by Old Master Nakabayashi Gotoku, and from which Mount Fuji could be seen.
I saw Mount Fuji for the first time then.
Though it was a summer Fuji wreathed in clouds, that moment when the boy's eyes beheld the real mountain became an epoch-making event.
Such pivotal moments are not confined to encounters with beautiful female forms.
Even landscapes hold this power.

In my hometown of Kamigōyama, the district governor would occasionally visit the elementary school for observation.
I believe it was Mr. Eka—an elderly man from Kagoshima who had been one of the delegation sent to negotiate with a British warship.
Guided by the principal, the district governor passed through while puffing on a rolled cigarette.
The children who were playing in the hall stood up and saluted.
Afterward lingered the scent of tobacco smoke.
The smoke had an indescribably pleasant fragrance—something aromatic yet sour, sweet—a unique scent all its own.
As a boy, I had come to harbor a faint obsession with that scent.
However, upon coming to Tokyo, I found that both our substitute doctors and student boarders were constantly smoking tobacco with the same scent that used to linger after the district governor passed by.
When I secretly observed them, they were all imported cigarettes.
And since the Pirate brand contained insert pictures of beauties and soldiers from various nations, I too would sometimes secretly buy cigarettes to collect them.
The cigarettes were initially given to me by the medical student boarders, but I would sometimes light them and inhale the smoke.
Having already developed a peculiar attachment to the scent of smoke, I secretly learned to smoke tobacco around my third year of middle school and occasionally indulged for about a year, but after quitting due to certain circumstances, I began smoking again during my third year at First Higher School.
From Meiji 37 (1904) through Taisho 9 (1920), I continued smoking and consumed a considerable quantity.

When I was employed at Sugamo Hospital, Director Kure had ordered that since patients weren’t allowed to smoke tobacco, the staff shouldn’t smoke either, so people like me would secretly smoke in the toilet.
Despite loving tobacco that much, I quit when I was in Nagasaki, and even when I was in Europe where good tobacco could be smoked cheaply, I never even put it to my lips.
Once I put it to my lips, I realized it would be like embracing a departed lover anew—and so I never did so again.
However, I still love smelling that smoke, and it seems no different from the attachment I felt to Pirate’s smoke in my boyhood.

When I used to check on patients at Sugamo Hospital, there were some who would roll paper pretending it was tobacco to smoke, while others with pipes would stuff them with dried plantain leaves and smoke those.
Their state was truly pitiful and helpless.
Also during the Tokugawa period, there had been a temporary smoking ban.
One day, a certain merchant passing through Yanagihara-dōri caught sight of a beggar hidden within a straw mat smoking tobacco. Anticipating this ban would soon collapse, he proceeded to hoard pipes—a true story tells of this.
At lunchtime, I once used this real-life example to persuade Director Kure through lighthearted banter.

When the licensing exam approached, Father would thoughtfully give substitute doctors and medical student boarders time off work to study.
However when Father was absent, everyone would gather in the room and make a tremendous racket.
Though I couldn't grasp the first half since the conversation had started midway, they were discussing matters related to Yoshiwara.
They were recounting how they'd put feces in a dresser to vent their frustration after being rejected by a courtesan—sharing these stories like clinical reports—yet my presence there as a boy didn't seem to bother them at all.
When late night had deepened, two or three medical student boarders opened the door and went outside.
Still, Father turned a blind eye to such matters.

Around Meiji 30 (1897), a magazine titled *Chūgaku Shin Shi* (Middle School New Journal) was published.
This was edited by a teacher named Amano, who also taught at Kaisei Middle School, and within its pages appeared an essay by Mr. Kōda Rohan.
Among several entries was one that read: "When young chickens fight and win repeatedly—knowing only victory yet remaining unaware of defeat—they endure even unbearable pain steadfastly, ultimately triumphing over formidable foes."
Moreover, those who have fought repeatedly from youth and suffered frequent defeats become habitual losers, unaware how to endure pain or summon courage; in truth, even when facing opponents weaker than themselves, they cannot achieve victory.
Even among chickens, those who become habitual losers are called 'inferior birds' and harshly shunned by society.
'How could one possibly admire and delight in a person who has become a habitual loser?'—this passage existed, and I once copied it into my notebook.
This writing differed from works by conventional moralists like those in *Ekken’s Ten Precepts*, weaving practical worldly lessons that gradually seeped into my boyhood heart.

Stories of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters, the scents of Pinhead, Golden Bat, and Pirate tobacco, and tales of young chickens prone to defeat—all these things must have exerted an equal force upon the heart of the boy who had come to the capital from Mutsu.
Now that these are mere memories, they may seem unreliable, yet there are points that unexpectedly ring true.

V

From the time I came to Tokyo—before my father who had brought me had even returned to our hometown—I was taught several elements of Tokyo speech.
They called soy sauce murasaki.
They called rice cakes okachin.
They called the toilet habakari.
I sincerely accepted such things and endeavored to adopt the Tokyo dialect from then on.

When I entered Kaisei Middle School, the Chinese classics text at that time was Nihon Gaishi, so when called upon, I could read through it effortlessly.
Since I had already thoroughly read works like Nihon Gaishi back in my hometown, seeing the other students struggling with it struck me as rather amusing.
However, when I read Nihon Gaishi, everyone would laugh all at once.
The teacher was one Isobe Mushagorō, and he would laugh while clutching his stomach.
I had no idea why I was being laughed at; this was because my recitation was not only monotonous but also too fast to be understood.
For forty years since then, no matter how much I tried to adopt the Tokyo dialect, I could never truly master it—my life will conclude with this nasal, insolent dialect clinging to me.

When I came to Tokyo, I ate topped soba for the first time. One day, Mother took me to a soba shop and had me eat egg-bound soba. I was as moved as when I had eaten a confection called monaka at an inn in Sendai, thinking there could be nothing more delicious in this world—but upon later learning of soba toppings like tempura, oyako chicken-and-egg, gomoku five-ingredient, and okame varieties, I truly could not help but be astonished.

After that, there were several horse meat shops on Satake Street, but I did not know to enter such places. However, across from the Ichimura-za theater was a small establishment serving horse meat stew whose cooking method held some secret that produced a flavor unattainable elsewhere. Our medical student boarders theorized they might add camellia oil or something similar, though I couldn’t say for certain.

When night grew past ten o'clock, the medical student boarders and substitute doctors would gather to draw lots, and the one who drew the winning lot would go to buy from that horse meat shop in Izumichō, all the way from Higashi-Mitsujimachi.
Boys these days disdain horse meat and crave fancy steaks, but abstaining from horse meat doesn’t make them any wiser.
Also, in the summer of Taisho 10 (1921), when I had relocated to Fujimi in Shinshu for convalescence, there was a festival at a certain shrine in that vicinity where I ate horse meat stew again.
The flavor was identical to that of the horse meat stew from the shop across from the Ichimura-za theater, suggesting there might have been a common element in the bones used for stewing.

When I left my hometown, my grandmother gave me a small amount of pocket money and told me that Tokyo had something called roasted sweet potatoes—if I got hungry, I should eat those. Therefore, on my way home from school, I would stop by the roasted sweet potato shop at the foot of Saemon Bridge and buy five rin worth each time. At that time, five rin would get you three roasted sweet potatoes.

Mother, feeling sorry for me, would get me hot soba when I returned from school. Around the time when morigake soba ranged from 1 sen 2 rin to 1 sen 6 rin per serving, I would generally eat about three.

Also, when night grew late, I would go with the medical student boarders to eat what they called beef rice.
For about one sen five rin per bowl, they served it sprinkled with red chili powder and such.
Even now there are several food stalls near Asakusa Kannon, but the broth has become too sweet and ruined.
Back then, it wasn’t that sweet.

My cousin, who like me had come to Tokyo to attend Seisoku English School, once told me a story: while walking through Nihonbashi one day, he entered a nigirizushi stall, ate about three pieces, and then found himself in distress when he discovered he only had two sen in his gamaguchi—a type of coin purse.
Hearing that story, I had no desire whatsoever to eat sushi.
Eel bowls too were considered one of the finer forms of hospitality; when I recall that era when leaving half uneaten was deemed proper etiquette, we truly live in a blessed age thanks to the rise of aquaculture.

VI

Around that time there was something called the Tento-sai ceremony, and I believe the venue was probably Hibiya. There was a time when I saw a group of girls wearing red hakama and found them extremely beautiful. Then, before long, female students began wearing red hakama, and subsequently russet-brown hakama became fashionable for a time—though how deeply they captivated young men’s hearts remains unknown—but at that earlier period, such things had not yet existed.

In Tori-koe-cho, near Higashi-Mitsujimachi, resided Mr. Watanabe Seitei the painter, and his daughter commuted by rickshaw to Ochanomizu Girls' School. At that time she wore her hair in a peach-parted style and had not yet taken to wearing russet-brown hakama, which is why I remember it so clearly.

Haiku poet Watanabe Suiha was the son of Seitei the painter and would often come for New Year's karuta games and such.
As these are now dream-like recollections, certain details remain hazy, but Suiha became a haiku poet and Mokichi a tanka poet.

Elder Kurokawa Masayori too received treatment from my father when unwell.
In his later years, Elder Masayori had already shaved his head completely smooth.
When he complained of unbearable bodily itching, our substitute doctors devised sulfur baths through their ingenuity, and there were also instances where they employed yuuka mineral deposits from Mogami hot spring.
Even though I was still a boy and could not converse directly with the elderly scholar, merely catching a glimpse of this great academic’s bearing left a profound impression on me.
In those days, there existed both such familiarity and a moral bond between practicing physicians and their patients’ households.
However, after Father specialized in psychiatry, such familiarity with patients' families was lost.
In this matter lay a truly delicate relationship—Father transformed from being "a doctor who is thanked" to "a doctor who is not thanked."
Psychiatrists are doctors who are not thanked by their patients—needless to say—nor by their patients’ families either.

I came to Tokyo and entered puberty in Asakusa Mitsujimachi. At that time there were of course no movies or such things, nor did we go to variety halls or plays; with maxims from educational texts like "Within books dwell women with faces like jade" having seeped into our consciousness, everything remained far simpler and more innocent compared to the psychology of boys these days, with stimuli being far fewer. Even so, these tremors of awakening libido appear destined to follow one through life—even now in old age, when drawn to members of the opposite sex, I cannot escape the sense that they form links in a chain extending back to those primal urges. Around that time there was a girl attending Eikyu-cho Elementary School across the Shinbori canal. She soon seemed to graduate and disappear from view, but years later when past forty, I suddenly recalled her features in a Munich inn. Perhaps in whatever girl now stood before me there might exist that reincarnation.

Speaking of Shinbori, in those days there used to be numerous boats coming and mooring there.
In Elder Kōda Rohan’s *Water Tokyo*, it is written: “Beneath the historic site of Asakusa Bunko lies yet another small canal that flows westward—passing by Suga-cho’s edge, bending once past Kuramae Street before branching twofold.
The northern branch is what is called Shinbori, running along Eikyū-chō, Mitsujimachi, and others, reaching beneath Kikuya Bridge, Kappabashi, and so forth.
Although this single canal was exceedingly narrow and filthy, its crucial role in transporting filth and other materials—along with being an utterly unpleasant thoroughfare—was evident from the incongruous sight of numerous large boats entering and exiting its channel despite its unsuitability.
‘And considering how the low-lying dampness of land throughout Asakusa Ward—land resistant to drying—was indirectly mitigated by this single canal to an unquantifiable degree, one might well declare it a waterway deserving of the ward’s gratitude.’”
I, still a boy, once bought Pirate cigarettes, kept only the picture of the beauty inside, and discarded the contents into this canal water.
It is only natural that the name Shinbori, along with Shamisenbori, remains indelible in my memory.

VII

In those days, within the precincts of Asakusa Kannon, there was a panorama depicting the Battle of Pyongyang from the Sino-Japanese War, and this was truly splendid.
Growing up in the mountain regions of Tohoku, I could never have seen such things—this I felt profoundly even in my childish heart.
Ten sen for admission was something I had to consider expensive in those days, but the panorama venue would lend telescopes for viewing, which showed great thoroughness.
Beyond where the officers from the division headquarters stood, smoke from a fire rose to scorch the heavens, and that smoke appeared to billow and swell.

This panorama at Ueno Park depicted the Ueno War, but I did not end up viewing it as frequently as the one at Asakusa Park.
At that time, there was an exhibition hall in Nakamise where photographs were sold featuring figures such as Napoleon I, Bismarck, Washington, Moltke, and Napoleon III.
These photographs were ones my elementary school principal had bought as Tokyo souvenirs to show us students when I still lived in my hometown; thus whenever my pocket money accumulated, I would come here to collect those heroes' photographs.

Amidst these photographs of heroes and great men were three or four types of Pontatsu’s portraits—some showing her with freshly washed hair and fingers resting against her cheek, others with her hair tied in a peach-parted style, and still others with lipstick darkly shaded.
I thought to myself that truly beautiful women did exist in this world, and that image would resurface in my consciousness from time to time.
Pontatsu was then renowned as the most celebrated courtesan in the land, and this was from the time when she frequently became the subject of rumors about being taken under the wing of Kashima Seibē-san.

Around the time I graduated from middle school and advanced from high school to university, I heard that Mr. Kashima was living near the intersection in Hongo Sanchōme. There was also an article in the newspaper about how he had opened a photo studio where some chemicals exploded and caused burns, and within that article, woven in as a subordinate detail, was the name of Pontatsu I Kashima Etsuko.

Moreover, at Aoyama Brain Hospital managed by my father, they held monthly recreational gatherings for patients where a succession of different entertainers came and went; on one occasion, Ms. Kashima Etsuko performed a dance between other performers.

Father said at that time, “Ah, still quite a beauty,” and I once tugged at Father’s sleeve.

In my mind, my intention had been that he shouldn’t speak in such a loud voice.

Although the details were not clearly visible from afar, the essence of a life fully lived seemed to have sunk into her beauty, leaving an expression that defied description.

It was something far more beautiful, more poignant, and more profound than the photographs I had seen as a boy in Asakusa.

I would ultimately see Pontatsu only once in my entire life, but this awareness stemmed from how the impression of Pontatsu from the photographs I had seen upon first arriving in Tokyo never completely escaped my field of vision.

I composed that moment into a poem: "How mournful—even Pontatsu I dances as an aged wife beneath the lamplight of a departing spring night."

For a landscape poet like myself, this was unfamiliar material, but after much agonizing, I barely managed to compose this single poem.

Had I been skilled in prose, I might have expressed this with more lingering resonance, but in tanka form, this was the full extent of my ability.

A certain friend remarked that I, a landscape poet, had uncharacteristically composed a poem about Pontatsu and such, but if one traces the origins of my poetic motivation, it can be followed back as far as Meiji 29 (1896).

The poem is included in the Taisho 3 (1914) section of my poetry collection Ara tama.

Many years later, in Taisho 14 (1925) when I had returned from Europe—during what I believe was still the lingering pain following the fire disaster—I received a letter from one of my friends that contained the words: "Pontatsu has finally passed away." And while I believe this report was likely based on newspaper coverage, the metropolitan newspapers do not seem to have treated it as a matter worth addressing. Thus I remained unaware, and I do not possess any newspaper clippings of that report. It was probably published as an extremely small article, wasn’t it?

In Showa 10 (1935), I suddenly remembered Pontatsu, and through various inquiries aided by a friend’s strenuous efforts, managed to locate where her grave was.
The grave is currently located in Tama Cemetery.

In the autumn equinox of Showa 11 (1936), I went to Tama Cemetery.
It was a day of relentless rain, and though searching through records at the office proved time-consuming, I finally managed to locate it.
The grave stands at Block 2, 8th Side, Number 50, Class Kō of Tama Cemetery, with "Erected by Nidaiseisaburō, August 1, Taisho 14 (1925)" carved on the tombstone's reverse.
This Mr. Nidaiseisaburō Kashima should presently reside at 44 Shimogawara, Odawara.
Here lie interred:
Kashima Seibē.
Born Keiō 2 (1866).
Died Taisho 12, October 10 (1923).
Diagnosis: Chronic intestinal catarrh.
Etsu.
Born November 20, Meiji 13 (1880).
Died Taisho 14, April 22 (1925).
Diagnosis: Liver tumor.
Daiichirō.
Born August 8, Meiji 34 (1901).
Died Taisho 14, February 9 (1925).
Diagnosis: Chronic bronchial catarrh.
Shizue.
Born February 9, Meiji 40 (1907).
Died Showa 3, January 29 (1928).
Diagnosis: Nephritis.

Kyōko.
Born in Meiji 40 (1907).
Died Taisho 13, September 27 (1924).
Diagnosis: Spinal caries.
And so on.

Ms. Kashima Etsuko was none other than Pontatsu I; born in Meiji 13 (1880), she would have been fifty-seven in Showa 11 (1936), having passed away in Taisho 14 (1925) at forty-six years of age. Regarding Pontatsu, she appears in Mori Ōgai’s *Hyaku Monogatari*, but that would have been from before she turned twenty, during her youthful freshness. If some great novelist would chronicle the details of Ms. Etsuko’s life in her later years, I still believe she would emerge as a woman with luminous qualities.

8

In those days, Tokyo had frequent fires, and unlike today where one imagines fires upon hearing steam pumps, when even the fire alarm bell rang, the sheer number of people running past the house was remarkable.

When I first came to Tokyo, I would climb up to the roof nearly every night and watch fires until the fire bell rang. Even after having fallen asleep, I would rouse myself awake, climb from the drying platform across the roof tiles to cling to that rooftop, and on winter nights watch while trembling violently.

It was because Tokyo’s fires would conjure an uncanny world before our eyes nearly every night.

In this manner, I witnessed both the great fire of Yoshiwara and the great fire of Hongo.
There had been several major fires in Yoshiwara, so even now, nearly forty years having passed since then, I can still vividly conjure before my eyes the crimson flames and smoke that scorched the heavens as they billowed in one direction.
At times, the medical students, substitute doctors, and maids would mingle together to watch.
When someone would exclaim, “Ah, it’s moved over there this time,” a sound like something collapsing would reach us.
At the same time, the shouts of people came through as something heavy and oppressive.
As the fire’s intensity gradually waned and the rising smoke’s reach began to narrow, even when the medical students said things like “Well, that’s over” and climbed down from the roof, I would remain there until the very end.
Such scenes are something my children can no longer know.

Nowadays, with naphthalene and whatnot—all sorts of insecticides being readily available—fleas have nearly vanished; but back then, they were so numerous that we suffered every night.
Instead, flea larvae of the kind studied in zoology—there were countless numbers of them in the corners of tatami mats, under carpets, and such places.
There was a time when I meticulously kept their larvae, cocoons, and adults.
In particular, details such as the living conditions of male and female fleas and their mating behaviors were not written about in ordinary middle school textbooks, so I painstakingly maintained them for quite a long time.
To keep them, I used empty wide-mouthed bottles that had contained things like baking soda or Epsom salts—covering their mouths with paper and poking numerous holes in them with a needle.
Also, to occasionally let them feed on blood, I would place the mouth of the bottle against my thigh; fleas would come and suck the blood.
At such times, I could even observe their mating state—that small male leaping upon the female like lightning.
Now that hygiene methods have been perfected and fleas are gradually dwindling due to the spread of insecticides, attempting such experiments has become difficult; thus my children remain unaware of such matters.

Oh right—I forgot to mention this in the section about fires—there had been an incident in Torigoe-machi where the flames came so close that embers rained down. Another fearsome one was the fire at the Second Hospital in Kanda Izumichō, where a nurse had gone mad from sheer shock; I saw three or four peers bringing her along as she laughed hysterically. Though this was the only instance I witnessed so closely, I imagine such cases were commonplace in Tokyo fires of that era.

Tokyo underwent such trials in the Great Earthquake, but I too in later years endured the trial of fire. Unlike my boyhood self clinging to roof tiles to watch the crimson blaze of Yoshiwara’s fires from the sidelines, this was a realm that defied all description—neither terrible nor not terrible. I now recall how, aboard a ship between Hong Kong and Shanghai, I received the telegram informing me of my house’s complete destruction; how amidst anguish I attended a poetry gathering in Shanghai, perusing people’s seemingly joyful verses and offering critiques; and how with an uncanny feeling I returned to my cabin.

IX

After we left Asakusa and were transferred to Kanda Izumichō then Aoyama, I once went to see the old residential site in Higashi Mitsujimachi. At that time, where the stone-paved path from the gate to the entrance had been, another house stood built, apparently occupied by someone dealing in thread-related goods. Yet when I followed along the fence into the alleyway, the well remained unchanged; peering through a knothole revealed the garden just as it had been, with pine trees from the neighboring garden still peeking over the fence. That neighboring garden belonged to a certain estate from the shogunate era, truly magnificent in its day.

Then, around the first year of Showa, late in the year, I once passed through and saw it.
At that time, roads were being dug up during municipal improvements, and with post-earthquake barracks standing about, almost nothing remained of its former appearance.
I picked my way through the muddy mire and barely managed to reach Saitake Street.

Then on another occasion I visited the place in January and October of Showa 11 (1936). Walking along Kuramaedori Street, Momotaro Dango stood worn yet still remained. With municipal improvements fully completed—the roads now paved—there were several groups playing battledore along Mitsujimachi’s streets in January. The corner had become a simple eatery serving Western-style meals. Next door stood a row of houses containing a tea shop, a snap-closure purse workshop, and a ball box manufacturer; that area marked where my clinic had once been. The neighboring buildings lined up with businesses—bag makers, Western goods stores, toy wholesalers, tobacco shops, confectioneries—and entering the alleyway revealed houses densely built where the garden had been, most residents there having changed entirely. By then the tobacco shops and apothecaries, cotton merchants and barbershops, butchers and charcoal dealers were all run by different people with no trace of their former selves remaining. To my mind it was first and foremost a Rip Van Winkle experience.

In January, I also visited Torigoe Shrine. The shrine's main hall and treasure house had both been newly built after the earthquake disaster, and somehow the area where festivals used to be held felt different in atmosphere. I then walked over to see Kita Mitsujimachi as well. Now there were many small alleys, and facing the streetcar avenue stood the splendidly built Salvation Army hospital. The Shinbori canal had long since vanished beneath tram lines that had been running overhead for years, but after the earthquake disaster, the streets gradually became more splendid. Across the tram tracks on the Sakaemachi side, signs like that of the Minato modern café could be seen, Jōnenji Temple had been erected in grandeur, and Tokyo City Seika Elementary School stood towering into the sky as a steel-reinforced monumental structure. It was the school that the girl who once caught my boyhood eye had attended.

My memoir had been confined to such ordinary personal matters and left nothing more to say. The one thing I wished to add was that while my father practiced here, I received a copy of *Kokinshū* annotated by Kamo no Mabuchi as a token of gratitude for medical treatment. I thought it had likely been something dedicated to the Tayasu family, written with exquisite vermilion ink in an extremely meticulous manner. Its provenance was impeccable, having undergone authentication by the venerable Kurokawa Masayori; ever since I began studying poetry composition and became a devotee of Mabuchi, I treasured it as a divine gift—so much so that even when I went to Nagasaki I carried it with me—yet it turned to ashes in the fire at year's end of Taisho 13 (1924). My bookshelf had been meager, with nothing of note; the only thing of any distinction was that *Kokinshū* annotated by Mabuchi, yet even that was lost. Whenever I looked back on my time in Higashi Mitsujimachi, I recalled this *Kokinshū* and lamented its loss; yet I had now resigned myself to the fact that things do not go as one wishes. And knowing that since antiquity, there have been such trivial incidents at the root of how books come to be lost, I found myself resigned in this manner.

As I mentioned briefly before, when I first came to Tokyo, my puberty was beginning to awaken but had not yet fully awakened. I am now well past seventy, but there was a maid named Yao. At the time I first came to Tokyo, she was probably in her thirties. It was the maid who taught me, "In Tokyo, we call rice cakes Okachin." That maid took me to a public bathhouse one night. When we entered, the bathhouse was filled with nothing but women. There were elderly women too, but also a great many pretty girls. I seem to remember feeling an unbidden thrill in my chest, though in reality, it may not yet have been so. The reason I thought there were only women was that this was the women’s bath. Later, when I realized this, the maid Yao was scolded by my mother, and I was never able to enter the women’s bath again. I have at times reminisced about and cherished that single visit to the women’s bath.

This time too I wavered over whether to discard this episode from my memoir or not, but there still remains a lingering sweetness that makes discarding it feel regrettable.