Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

From the sea beyond the hill came the blast of a steamship whistle.
"It must be nearly noon already"—he merely thought this and didn't move.
As usual, he was supposed to spend another hour or two in this daze.
The sunlight was so dazzling that he pulled the head covering completely over himself and lay perfectly still, holding back his urine.
The glass doors and shoji had been thrown wide open without restraint, and cicadas were shrilling furiously.

"I'll let myself sleep a while longer."

He was merely thinking that.

Parallel to his head lay an utterly unadorned tokonoma where only magazines lay haphazardly scattered, and in one corner a dirty coat had been discarded in a crumpled heap.

The steamship whistle sounded again.
As a child, he had felt quite unpleasant at the sound of this whistle.
He would recall his father in that foreign country he knew only through photographs.
Even now, he could still clearly recall those unresolved feelings from that time.

He buried his face in his pillow and thought of his father, with whom he had recently had such a savage argument that they had nearly come to blows.

"Yankee old man!"

He muttered to himself so vehemently that he unintentionally broke into a wry smile.
Though in his heart he held such contempt and spoke with such bravado before his mother and wife, when actually facing his father in conversation, he would shrink like a mouse, unable to make a sound.

He had known by chance for some time that he had a mixed-race sister.
Of course, five or six years had already passed since learning this, yet he had never seen her.
The steamship whistle's sound expanded his imaginings of his sister.—In a dreamlike state, he gazed at the faded coat in the alcove's corner.

..."Your coat—old it certainly is—but I... I've grown quite fond of it.
"Ridiculously ill-fitting though it may be, there's an odd harmony in precisely how it hangs loose.
"The shoulders sit all wrong like this, and these sleeves are absurdly long—it doesn't properly fit your frame at all. Yet somehow that very discordance harmonizes with you..."

His friend—a Keio University student who treated the patterns and tailoring of Western clothes as matters of life and death—tapped his shoulder enviously and said.

“…”

He stared at the tips of his mud-caked shoes, painfully self-conscious.

“Where did you have that made?”

“...”

“If I say this, it might sound like I’m oddly flattering you—though of course you wouldn’t understand such refined tastes anyway—but I recently started reading this novel called Oblomov. In the opening section, there’s a description about this man Oblomov’s garment."
“When he’s in his room, he apparently wears something like a thin gown—they say it’s terribly baggy. Well, never mind that, but what’s interesting is how it’s described—they say Oblomov’s garment doesn’t so much clothe him as submit to him like a beautiful slave... though perhaps I got carried away with my own amusing translation—it’s supposedly large enough to fit five of his bodies... If someone saw it discarded, they’d never imagine it could be his garment, yet once it wraps around his form...”

The friend started to say this and then placed his arm on his shoulder.
Was it winter?
Because puffs of breath accompanied his friend’s chatter.

When he was told such things, he couldn't understand the reason at all but felt slightly pleased. He had never read this novel called Oblomov, but being compared to such an extraordinary work made him feel important. And he felt that if he hadn't read such a famous novel, he would likely be scorned, so—

"Ah, Oblomov," he replied with an airy pretense of recognition, deftly sidestepping the subject.

“That truly is a magnificent novel.”
“It encompasses all the ennui that constitutes modern literature.”
“And isn’t the entire work harmoniously saturated through a singular musical rhythm?” the friend declared with growing enthusiasm, spouting words that sounded like book jacket copy.

"This guy's head isn't quite right"—he thought, already dismissing him as a fool despite knowing nothing himself.

"Yeah, that's right," he answered.
As long as he kept agreeing, his own shabby truths wouldn't be exposed... and so he maintained this supremely cunning calculation.

"Well, never mind all that," the friend hurriedly replied.
"To tell the truth, I want your coat so badly."
"I'll have a new one made to the exact model—won't you trade yours with me?"

“No way!” he answered with exaggerated reluctance.
Until now, he had been wearing that coat unwillingly.
With no other overcoats available, he had been enduring private shame while wearing such a thing.
But when this man said such things to him, his innate base vanity surfaced—a flash of realization that I’m deliberately dressing this slovenly; those blockheads wouldn’t understand, but deep down I’m scheming quite a bit about appearances—struck him.
Having squandered the money received from his mother to make an overcoat, he had no choice but to wear that old cravenette coat without lining even in midwinter.
When he returned to his parents’ home—intending to take even his father’s old coat—and stealthily slipped into the storage shed to rummage through the trunk, it was what he had discovered at the bottom.

“I’m only wearing this precisely because I’ve come to like it somewhat, you know. If not me, who else would wear such a thing in this cold out of sheer whimsy...?” he declared with unruffled composure.

“So that’s how it was after all! Ah, how disheartening!”

The friend stamped his foot with theatrical force.—After parting ways with him, Shinichi furrowed his brows and clicked his tongue. “If only there’d been someone wanting this thing—I would’ve gladly handed it over—”

...............

He lay absorbed in such reminiscences within his bedding.
Half of it seemed dreamlike.
It was a reminiscence from five or six years prior.
—Such an old story he had completely forgotten—when suddenly this old coat reappeared through his wife’s unnecessary meddling.—Lately, he had been spending most afternoons at the sea.
Avoiding main roads—for upon exiting the brief pine grove lay the sea—he always went out stark naked.
Disliking this, his wife had sent him to his parents’ house on an errand over a week prior—

“At the house during the seasonal airing, this emerged from the bottom of the long chest.”
“You likely used this during your student days, didn’t you?”
“It’s rather worn through.”
“But this should do well enough without causing fuss.”
“Wear it when you go to the sea,” she said as she brought it over.

“Yeah, that’s mine.”

He stifled a bitter smile and answered tersely.
From then on, he obeyed his wife’s instruction, always draping it over his bare skin when visiting the sea.

"In the end, no one ever noticed this coat was actually women's clothing."

Thinking this, he nearly let slip a sardonic smile.
This was his mixed-race half-sister's raincoat.
When he had first discovered it at the bottom of the trunk, there had been a letter from the daughter to her father tucked in the pocket corner.
The letter's contents amounted to nothing significant—merely an invitation to a picnic.
Father must have carelessly forgotten to discard such trifles.—In Father's photo album lay a picture of him with his sister wearing this very coat.
He remembered Father explaining to Mother—She's a friend's daughter—and such.
...When he tried it on, the length nearly matched his kimono... Secret, secret... Terrified by these thoughts, he had nevertheless smuggled it back to Tokyo in his desperation.
That night in his solitary room, he paraded before the mirror wearing it—smirking to himself, indulging in dime-novel fantasies, feeling genuinely maudlin—then marked a spot below his kneecap and hacked five or six sun off the hem with iron shears—snip-snip.
The next day he took it to a tailor's shop, had them run a machine stitch through it, and returned wearing it properly—with an expression that made it seem truly his own—before visiting a friend exactly as he was.
Had it been around March's end?
Everywhere remained in winter preparations as they talked around the stove, when suddenly the friend's eyes went round—

“Well! You’re ahead of the curve, aren’t you—sporting a spring coat already. Quite chic.” Given this remark, it must have been an early spring evening.—At that time such raincoats hadn’t yet become fashionable in general society, and what’s more, the color wasn’t what you’d expect for one, so no one realized this was actually a raincoat.

II

Having had the meal brought out to the veranda, he was having his evening drink. He wasn’t the type for evening drinking, but since moving here he’d spent every night with just his wife for company, spouting nonsense until two or three in the morning during particularly bad spells. Exhausted from talking, he wouldn’t sleep until thoroughly drunk.

“Not even the maid would listen to a word you say.”

Despite having sent away the maid she herself had brought along, each time she sensed even slightly how frequently she had to move about, she seethed with complaints. The young maid, having realized that he would often offer her unnecessary kindness, had been sent away by the wife on a different pretext.

“The very thought of that makes my blood boil!”

The wife had started drinking beer alone.
"That matter" referred to his father.
The other day when she had returned home, Father had spitefully badmouthed him at length despite not even being drunk.

"After getting tangled up with that woman, Father’s completely lost his mind.
Hadn’t he changed entirely from before?
He never used to indulge in such dissipation before, you know…"

“Yeah, that’s right.”

He didn’t think so himself, but he wanted to make his wife lament that his once-upstanding father had been ruined by a woman.

“Even during the ten-odd years he was abroad, he was impeccably upright, you know.”
“Didn’t he do nothing but send letters always thinking of you and Mother?”

“Well, so that’s how it was…”

He felt a sardonic impulse but found himself momentarily uncertain toward whom this irony should be directed.
Afterwards, the face of his faintly detestable father came dimly to mind.

“Did you write something like a novel called To Atami?”

“Did you read it?”
He started and asked back.

“I read it ages ago.”
“It’s one thing that I read it, but Father has apparently read it too!”

“That bastard!” he exclaimed involuntarily.
And then, overcome with embarrassment and not directing it at anyone,
“What an idiot...” he muttered.
“And not only that… Mr. Sugimura brought over that magazine and flipped through it while reading aloud right in front of Father...”

To Atami was his newest creative work. The events were written in a sketch-like style depicting the actual domestic atmosphere of his household. However, he found it awkward to write himself—the protagonist of that novel—as “I,” so he wrote “He—” He wrote as objectively as possible in the manner of “He—,” but when it came to his father, mother, and wife, he did not maintain that approach. Their father, now fifty-two years old, had begun carousing; his keeping a mistress was discovered by their mother, sparking conflict; and their eldest son—that is, “he—” In the midst of this, he had written a story that utterly despised his own parents during that period. He himself had never even dreamed that such a thing would come to the eyes of his family members.

“Well, no wonder he got angry,” the Wife muttered. Though she herself privately disliked his father and mother—whom he normally never mentioned by word—seeing him lambaste them so harshly in his novel seemed to put her in a somewhat agreeable mood; forgetting her own grievances, she offered a bitter smile.

Unable to do anything about it, he kept refilling his cup in rapid succession with a terribly forbidding expression, until at last he launched into such talk.

“Those who conflate creative work with real life are no different from people who look at what should be a magnificent artistic nude sculpture yet harbor lewd thoughts.”
“They’re utterly contemptible.”
“Having such wretches among one’s close relatives is the height of misfortune.”
“First of all, how dare you read my novel?”
“It feels rather sordid...”

Needless to say, his words had all the force of something leaking through a hole in their side.
Needless to say, he himself was precisely the sort of man who deserved the criticisms he had just leveled at his wife.
This too was superfluous, but in reality, whenever he looked at nude sculptures, he would first fixate on the shameful parts.

“That self-serving reasoning of yours won’t hold water.”
“You spout off whatever you want to say, yet your creative work amounts to nothing.”
“And writing such things is utterly scandalous.”
“Baring your parents’ shame to the whole world…”

“Silence!” he rebuked.

“What’s with that look on your face!”
“If you’re going to write a novel, then write a proper one worthy of the name.”
“As long as you keep writing that sort of thing, you’ll never achieve fame no matter how many years pass.”
“As proof of that, your work has never once been praised, has it?”

“How do you even know that?”

He muttered with feigned nonchalance but felt his resolve falter slightly.
He thought it might be better to abandon his novelist aspirations sooner rather than later.
If he just stopped that, he mused, then perhaps things would work out without his parents mocking him so much…

“Even someone like me reads newspaper reviews, you know.”

“Newspaper reviews are worthless.”

“But all the people who write those are surely more esteemed than you—even so, I’ve never once seen your novel being praised.”

“Nakagawa Yoshiji and Kashiwamura Jirō have praised it quite a bit.”

“Your friends don’t count.”

“I like my friends’ criticism the most.”

“That’s just sour grapes—”

“Let’s stop talking about the novel already,” he muttered quietly.
His demeanor seemed so contrived that his wife’s thoughts abruptly shifted to his father.

“I was truly so frustrated that time.”

“I’ve heard it enough times already—I get it.”
“I’m frustrated too, I tell you.”
“If Father hadn’t gone and done such a foolish thing, I wouldn’t have to live in a place like this either.”

The moment he said this, he grew self-conscious and turned his gaze toward the ocean.
...To friends, he would spin impressively plausible tales—claiming he had come to write a full-length novel, or that he’d grown weary of Tokyo and retreated to Odawara only to tire of that place too, thus boldly relocating to such a remote spot... Yet the truth was far grimmer: a wife suffering under her mother-in-law due to her husband’s incompetence; a household unraveling from the father’s improprieties; a son forced to witness his parents’ quarrels; and declarations like “I absolutely refuse to return while he remains in this house.”
...hearing that Father had berated him with words like “I can’t even stand to look at your face”—and so it was that he had fled to Atami since spring in such a scrambling, pitiful state.
He alone never once returned to Odawara.
But all sorts of rumors spread.
After he was gone, there were rumors such as his father returning home relatively often, and whenever he did return, there would invariably be at least one intense marital argument—

"Both of them were equally ridiculous and pitiable characters."

He would pass such definitive judgments on his parents and indulge in these foolish observations.
He neither read books nor felt the slightest inclination to write any novels.
Even so, the sheer tedium he’d endured since coming here had been immense.
Soaking in hot springs only made him flushed; he wasn’t the type to find solace in scenery; he detested walks; nor was he born with the composure to lose himself in solitary artistic contemplation. Truly, each day left him utterly at a loss with himself.
When he compared enduring that suffering at his family home to battling this boredom here, he even came to feel that the former, having human beings as his adversaries, was at least somewhat lively and interesting.

"But I refuse to live with Mother either."

“Well, I suppose that’s right,” he nodded readily.
He had, even apart from his wife’s perspective, secretly recognized various unpleasant traits in his mother since childhood.
At times he would wonder if Mother wasn’t the reason Father had gone abroad in the first place, and when he observed her putting on airs of being a samurai’s daughter or trying to browbeat her husband with unbearably stiff formal speeches, he would shudder with revulsion and find himself sympathizing with Father: “No wonder the old man couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Father often says Mother became eccentric from being a schoolteacher or that she’s innately stubborn with that educator’s disposition, but isn’t it really just that her strangely tender aspects and oddly spiteful ones exist completely separate?”

“Hmm, that’s right.”

Because he accepted it too readily, his wife grew slightly awkward,

“But being made to keep house for over a decade would make anyone strange, don’t you think? She was working at some elementary school to distract herself, you know,” she murmured.

"I wouldn't know.—But I suppose that's just her innate nature." He adopted the plausibly thoughtful expression of someone possessing considerable intellectual pretensions.

"What do you think of me?"

Suddenly, the wife asked.
He hesitated momentarily in his reply, but when he forced himself to consider it properly, the irritation only grew more intense.

“Lately, I can’t endure it anymore,” he answered bluntly.

“Then what will you do?”
“If you had money, would you start carrying on like your father?”

He grinned slyly and gave no answer.
He felt a faint twinge of envy toward his father.
Even if he’d possessed money, he sensed such fortune would never have come his way.

“That must be your way of harassing me—I understand perfectly well.”

“I’m not joking at all right now,” he stated flatly.

“Putting that aside, you must stop writing about our family in your novels from now on, you hear? Your father’s way of getting angry is truly something to behold, let me tell you. If you encounter him this time, you’ll surely get one of these—” She formed a fist. “—right here.”

As he was being tediously lectured by his wife about such matters, his heart gradually began to change. The feeling of utter exasperation he had felt from having his novel—which he had dismissively assumed would never be read—actually read now began to unravel in an ironic manner. He imagined his father’s enraged figure and felt a sense of pleasure.
...You mock me too much, stir up domestic storms over women's affairs despite your age... Old man, it's all your lack of judgment! Read my novel—what do you think? Must be shocking, eh? Having such an ill-fated son must make daytime strolls through town quite awkward for you. Take a good look!—I wanted to say these things.
Still, rather than using such a gentle, lowly means as a novel, I wanted to deliver a far more ironic and gratifying form of harassment—I thought.

Before he knew it, his wife polished off an entire bottle of beer by herself, her face flushed.
This was unusual.
He brought out a one-shō bottle of sake entirely on his own initiative and kept drinking incessantly.

“I’m not the least bit drunk. Somehow I want to drink more—let me have that.”

She closed her eyes as if assessing her own drunkenness, then sat up straight with a stiffened spine.
Normally, he would have dismissed her with a single blow, but whether it was due to his own strangely distracted state of mind or the oppressive gloom weighing on him, he offered no resistance to his wife.

An hour later, he was completely and utterly drunk.
However, as his wife had never experienced anything like drunkenness before, her outward appearance remained stiffly rigid.

“How about it—isn’t there something wonderfully interesting we could do?”

Whenever he got drunk, he would always say such things, but since he was now drunk himself, his wife had also fallen into such a mood for the first time,

“Hmm,” she mused idly.

“A café’s opened up on the coast. There’s a stylish woman over there who looks like she’s from Tokyo! Shall we go take a look?”

“Shall we go?”

“Nah, having some country bumpkin youth around would be unpleasant.”

“Then how about we just go down to the beach?”

“I’d rather not.”
“Drinking? Eating?... Anyway, if it’s not something lively, count me out.”

“I want to try wearing the summer clothes I went to the trouble of making—it’s only on a night like this that I could ever bring myself to do it.”

“Ah, that sounds good,” he said, as though the idea had just occurred to him.
Had he known she’d prepared such things, it was perfectly clear he would have been furious—which was precisely why the wife had kept them hidden until now.
She knew his flaw—that if she spoke in such a domineering manner on occasions like this, he would readily comply.
But even so, today her husband was in such uncharacteristically good mood that it left her feeling slightly uneasy.

“And now I’ll call an automobile and let’s go to the hotel,” he said.
At the edge of a steep cliff beyond three forests stood a Western-style hotel.
In such surroundings, it was an uncommonly bright building.

“But if we spend this money now, we won’t receive any more this month.”

“Who gives a damn? Today we’ll splurge properly and stay overnight there.”
“Who cares about money?... If Mom starts pinching pennies, I’ll just borrow from friends,” he declared with great bravado.

He crossed his arms and watched his wife prepare herself.
With unsteady steps—though she must have tried it on many times during his absences—she managed to put it on with relative efficiency.

“Hmm—it suits you quite well.
Most Japanese women in Western clothing tend to have plain faces—and you’re certainly among them—but your figure is rather commendable.”

He affectedly showered her with such compliments—and then, when it came time to depart,

“Won’t that leave you cold? Shall I lend you my coat?” he said.

“Ridiculous! Such a filthy man’s coat,” the wife scoffed, refusing to even listen.
……He shuddered violently.
Cold sweat streamed down.
“She’s completely lost it. It’s like she’s putting on some kind of act.
Idiot, idiot,” he reflected, no longer wanting to take another step outside.

He lay collapsed drunk on the tatami mats.……After dozing for a while—apparently having dreamt something……he mumbled to himself, then sank into a deathlike slumber.
After that, he never heard another word from his wife about the Western clothes—perhaps it had all been a dream, just as he’d imagined.

III

Miyata, who had been his friend since middle school, had been staying there for five or six days. Miyata was fond of swimming, and though Shinichi had recently grown tired of going to the sea, he went out every day with him. By midday, his sunburnt back would become parched like a salt cracker, prickling so intensely that he couldn’t resist immersing himself in water.

A wooden post stood inscribed with distances—three ri to Hatsushima, eighteen ri to Oshima—under an exceptionally clear sky where both islands, whether three or eighteen ri away, indifferently bared their pale surfaces to the sun. Countless red dragonflies swarmed over the sand. With no breeze and the heat hanging thick and stagnant, the dragonflies’ shadows were sharply etched into the sandy ground. Miyata swam leisurely offshore. Since he wasn’t much of a swimmer, Shinichi floated upside down near the buoy with his arms crossed. The water covered his ears, and he couldn’t hear a thing. The sky was blue, but it was so intensely azure and clear that he felt dizzy. He hurriedly climbed ashore using a dog paddle and carefully warmed his stomach on the sandy ground. Miyata cut through the water with a brilliant sidestroke, swimming energetically. How enjoyable it must be to swim like that—he thought.

“It’s about time for the ship to leave.”

While saying this, Miyata came ashore and lay down beside him.

"It'll be just right if we go once we've arrived."

There was said to be a National Tennis Tournament competition within the next two or three days.
Miyata’s older brother was a player for the Odawara Club and was said to be coming on the three o'clock ship.

On the day of the tennis tournament, he promised to go watch but overslept and failed to attend.
He thought about going in the afternoon but carelessly fell into a nap and was awakened by the two Miyatas who had returned.
Miyata’s older brother, completely exhausted, lay sprawled out in his uniform in the tatami room.
"The Odawara Club won the cup," he boasted.

As usual, he started a drinking session with bottled sake and canned dishes.
Despite being fond of alcohol, Miyata's younger brother didn't drink a single drop in front of his older brother.
The story went that after some foolish dissipation, he had been disowned for about a year and had only just been allowed to return.
No wonder Miyata's younger brother was being so damn obedient, following everything his older brother said—he thought.

He found it both somewhat pitiable and forced, so

“Are you really not going to drink?” he asked with a bitter smile, looking over at Miyata’s younger brother.

Miyata laughed and nodded.
The older brother, looking increasingly uncomfortable, stiffened.
The younger brother had written before coming here that though currently hospitalized at K Hospital in Odawara, he still hadn't been permitted to return home and was at his wit's end—Father and Mother weren't the problem, but that damned older brother kept stubbornly opposing it without resolution; Father was, as you know, that gentle sort who might as well not exist for all his presence, but the one with real influence was the older brother.
From what I hear, Mother has lately been shedding tears before our older brother, begging for my return home—apparently he still won't give his approval.
I don't hold any grudge against Brother—after all, I've made repeated mistakes—that was the essence of what he'd conveyed.
Therefore, he couldn't help finding it absurd—watching the younger brother behave so meekly before his older brother.

But he envied Miyata’s family. Comparing Miyata’s household to his own, the presence of their eldest son made for a truly stark contrast—as different as cloud and mud. In his family, it was rather his younger brother who held recognized authority. That he might be more of a fool than Miyata’s older brother—such an absurd notion even crossed his mind.

“Shin-chan’s drinking style always ends up like some student’s heartbreak ritual, no matter how long it’s been.”

Miyata’s older brother showered him with this critique in a jovial tone. He had long maintained goodwill toward Miyata’s elder sibling. Though Miyata’s words were all artful affectations laced with vulgarity, they carried such cheerfulness—like hearing a school anthem played brightly on a clarinet. Both his refined features and athletic build appealed to him—this delicate yet vivacious man who harbored tears as luminous as a deer’s deep within his heart. Whenever Miyata’s younger brother would cling to him and speak ill of his elder sibling, he would counter with vehement objections dripping in sarcasm—as if proclaiming, “You’re the far greater fool here.”

Is it because he’s like this that he holds such authority in the family?—he thought, growing slightly gloomy.
"Compared to Miyata, what a dullard I must be—and harboring this hateful, impure heart in my depths."

The night-fishing boats could be seen from the garden like a distant town when looked down upon.

“Ryozo, there were beer crates over there, weren’t there? Bring about two of them,” Miyata’s older brother ordered his younger brother.

“Ah,” the younger brother replied obediently as he carried the beer crates.
He placed two of them at the garden’s jutting edge to make a cooling perch.

“Let’s drink here.”

“But,” he hesitated, “since this spot overlooks the street and feels too exposed, let’s shift them a little further back.”
Miyata Ryozo hung an electric lamp from the eaves and connected a stand to brighten the garden.

“Let me at least drink some beer. Come on, Brother, just let me have that much.”

He, already intoxicated, spoke in that manner.
Even so, the older brother made a slightly troubled face but nodded as if there was nothing to be done.
The younger brother, seeming to have been lying in wait, dashed to the kitchen and brought back beer bottles.
He thought how he’d like to display even a fraction of such commanding presence to everyone.

“Hey, hey, why don’t you buy some cups?”

Miyata’s older brother quickly regained his composure and teased him.
Since there wasn’t a single cup, the younger brother had brought coffee bowls instead.

“I simply detest shopping, you see.
For some reason, buying things makes me feel strangely self-conscious—”

He said affectedly, putting on airs of refined sensibility.

“No wonder your wife was fuming, saying, ‘My husband’s such a miser I can’t stand it.’”

"I'll buy them on my way back from the sea tomorrow," said Miyata Ryozo.
The older brother was looking away but suddenly,

“Since bottled liquor isn’t good, I’ll go see what they have at the sake shop,” he said and left.
Soon after, he returned saying he’d ordered some fine Shirotaka since they apparently had it in stock.

“There’s a reason I set up this cooling platform here.
“The players are driving back to Odawara by automobile tonight.
I’ll keep watch here and cheer them on.”

“Why aren’t you going back?” he asked.

“No—I’m returning by steamship tomorrow.”
“Taking such a terrible cliff path would be far too frightening—there’s nothing scarier.”
“Whether it’s steamships or automobiles—it’s a wonder there aren’t more accidents with those.”

“Brother’s such a strong swimmer—he’d have no trouble with boats,” the younger brother fawned.

“I ran into your father on the street the other day.”

“...”

He shuddered, but assured himself that Miyata couldn’t possibly know anything.

"Hmph," he nodded affectedly.

"He was talking about you."

“What?!”

He widened his eyes.

“Well…” Miyata’s older brother laughed with deliberate implication. “Did you mess up something too?”

When he said “You too—”, the younger brother made a slightly displeased face.

“No, it’s nothing…”

“I don’t know the details, but he seemed absolutely furious about something. ‘That Shin! That Shin!’ he kept saying over and over.”

“Hah!” He shot a look that pleaded, “Everyone already knows—just stop.”

“But if you’re just a shin-biter, no matter what they say—you can’t hold your head up—”

The remark seemed aimed at both brothers.
Should I seize this moment to unleash all my pent-up frustrations?—He considered it, but the words wouldn’t come.

“But I hear your old man’s been showing quite some youthful vigor lately,” Miyata’s older brother laughed casually.
His breath caught.
Even while having such conversations, Miyata’s older brother would stand up every time the sound of a car was heard,

“Odawara!
“Odawara!” he shouted.
He had made three or four futile attempts.

The players’ automobile, bearing a tumultuous cheer, approached the cliffside road below.
Miyata’s older brother leapt up,

“Odawara! Banzai! Banzai!” he shouted. Following this, Miyata Ryozo also raised his voice in unison. The automobile was merely a clump of rushing noise; without any response, it immediately vanished into the forest’s shadow. Miyata Ryozo in truth did not want to raise such a loud voice, but since his older brother was being so earnest, he seemed to attempt it out of feeling it improper to remain a bystander—his voice sounded half-bashful, as if consciously aware of his brother’s regard.

His wife, having returned from town, climbed the stone steps and peered over the hedge at his retreating figure.

“Standing like that in the dim light—your figure’s completely invisible! That back of yours is too dark... It’s like there’s nothing there at all!” she said.

He stood absentmindedly behind the Miyatas, stripped to the waist.
Having nothing better to do, he gazed up at the sky where countless stars twinkled.

IV

When his older brother left, Miyata Ryozo let out a breath of relief and drank cheerfully by evening.
Since the beer crate from before remained in the garden as it was, whenever sunlight faded he would sit on it even during daytime, often keeping company with Miyata who devoted himself to cards.

"What’s tonight’s feast?"

Miyata called out from the garden to Shinichi’s wife knitting in the tatami room.

"Beef again? You’re sick of it?"

"Even beef would do if you’d just put some care into cooking it…"

“Ryo-chan, if you’d just cook for yourself, that’d be fine.”

He silently stared at the playing cards clutched in his hand. As he gazed at the King of Spades' face, his father's face strangely appeared. Granted, his father had no beard, and his features weren't like that—but while he was distracted, Miyata discarded the Jack of Spades, forcing him to play the King and take a fifteen-point penalty.

“Your old man must’ve had enough,” Miyata laughed, twitching his nose.
They always referred to the King of Spades as “the old man.”

“A letter!” said his wife with a displeased look.
Immediately, he realized it was from his mother.
—As a rule, he never welcomed letters from close relatives.
His mother’s letters were particularly troubling.
Regardless of their contents, he would always find himself alternating between an uncanny fear and an unrelenting melancholy whenever they arrived.
After putting an end to his life in Tokyo, he had lived near his parents for a time, so he hadn’t encountered these unpleasant feelings for quite a while; but since April, when he had begun living apart again, he had been forced to receive correspondence from his mother at least once a month.

As always, he suppressed an indescribable cold sweat and frantically read through it.
(That day’s letter was a special response to his special request.)

“Dear Shinichi, I have received Mr. Kei’s recent message. I am relieved to hear all members remain in excellent health. You must continue exercising utmost caution hereafter. Regarding the funds you requested—as today has grown too late, I shall dispatch them tomorrow morning or alternatively have Ishikawa deliver them.”

“Father seldom deigns to return home, and on those rare occasions when he does, his tirades reach such extremes that I find myself utterly at a loss.”

Now that I too find myself utterly appalled, I am resolved to discard all worldly matters and settle my affairs. Father’s wrath appears to be chiefly directed toward you.

When your matter is mentioned, Father’s countenance transforms as he rages that he will not consent to granting even a single extra penny.

Now I too shall attempt to climb Mount Fuji as per my long-standing plan to create a lifelong memory, departing this locale at eight o'clock in the morning on the twelfth day of this month. My companions shall be six persons: Mr. Matsuzaki, Kan'ichi, Eiji, Takiko, Fuyuko, and others. Though I do humbly consider how you might receive this news given my current circumstances, I shall entrust my fate to heaven and proceed accordingly. Should anything untoward occur, I do humbly beseech you to manage my posthumous affairs. Furthermore, I earnestly request that the majority of my effects be transferred to Eiji.

Father showed no immediate signs of returning home; I earnestly entreat you to establish means of self-reliance without fostering any dependence. Should he return home safely, I intend to visit your current residence during your stay there to impart various unresolved matters.

From Mother, written on the night of August 10th

To Honorable Shinichi

When he finished reading, he rushed up to the tatami room in haste, threw the letter into the desk drawer, then dashed to the entryway as if on some pressing errand, and sat down before Miyata with an ostentatiously casual air.

It had been a match where he kept winning consistently, but even after three more rounds, he continued losing.

It seemed like an all-too-plausible yet tawdrily symbolic novel ending, and he found it laughable.
—And reflecting on himself—how readily he tended toward such insolent ways of thinking about the myriad matters surrounding him—he felt himself shrivel with shame.

V

On September 1st, an unprecedented great earthquake struck.
Fortunately, the house hadn't collapsed; inside it he remained pale and trembling for some time.

In Odawara, only Mother's house had barely survived - all others had burned to ashes.

His Father, who had been living off rental houses and land, was left with nothing; when Shinichi first returned to see him, he found him sitting vacantly with a face like a cicada’s shed shell.
Father, having taken in his mistress’s family and at a loss for what to do, was helping build makeshift huts on the burnt remains.
Mother alone retained ownership of her house and, declaring she wouldn’t spend a single penny on Father or the like, lived by herself.
Father, having no money to give to his women and at his wit’s end after much deliberation ended up starting an izakaya in that makeshift hut.

One evening, when he visited that hut, his father welcomed him with an attitude that was a complete departure from before.
And for the first time in ages, the two drank together.

“I’ll build a proper hotel here before long,”
“Then you can manage the place.”

Father’s words drew a wry smile from him.
He burned to retort with some scathing remark, but in the end, nothing came out.

After that, he came to Tokyo and began his dazzling activities as a social affairs reporter for a certain newspaper company.
Before long, his exceptional skills were recognized by colleagues, making him highly valued within the organization.
He worked with the self-satisfied air he'd felt for the first time in his life, nimble as a swallow.

It was one of those splendid days that could only belong to early winter.
He hurried toward the station while whistling.
He was returning to Odawara for the first time in two months.
...How should he embellish his glorious achievements when explaining them? Just imagine how the old man would gape in astonishment!
Still, considering all the ways they'd provoked him until now—what form should his retaliation take? What brand of sarcasm would cut deepest?
I should find some way to torment Mother too—since she never trusted me and even treated my wife harshly, I'll try some roundabout way to annoy her.... His heart raced wildly as he indulged these vengeful fantasies.

He was holding that "Spring Coat" in one hand.
It had cooled somewhat, but he couldn’t bring himself to walk through the streets carrying it.

This had been inside the trunk that had recently arrived from Atami.

On his way back, he would nonchalantly leave this old coat behind at Father’s makeshift hut—such was his scheme.

He walked hurriedly toward the station, his nose tip red.

(The 12th Year, December)