Pathway to Japanese Literature

Here lay the suburbs of the capital.

As for Takino's sudden——(I should clarify that this "sudden" served merely as an adverb for Takino himself, and for his mother who, having likewise abruptly lost her husband about a year prior, had been living desolately with his sole remaining younger brother in a coastal impoverished village some twenty ri distant). She had anticipated her eldest son Takino's return to their hometown. Takino himself had intended this very course until two days before moving here. He had found unexpected comfort in becoming what olden times would call a "prodigal son who could return." ...but I shall omit explaining how matters came to this pass. (Here I had merely wished to delineate this adverb's scope.)——and thus he had relocated from Shiba-Takanawa, where he had dwelled two or three months with his wife, one young child, and a single luggage cart, with over thirty days now having elapsed since.

Spring had arrived, but it was still cold. Since coming here, Takino had not set foot on the earth except to go out once daily for bathing. He would wake past noon, stare blankly into space, then slip back into a pleasantly dozy sleep. After some time, he’d crawl from bed, venture out to bathe, and return refreshed—only to find the lamp lit and the evening meal laid out. Nothing else ever occurred. Days passed without thought or incident—like a toy flute unfit for proper music yet still possessing about three tones, like a clay pigeon whistle whose monotony carried a thread of mournfulness—but no resonance stirred in his chest, his head, his throat. In this state, he wasn’t exactly consumed by weariness, nor did he harbor any profound melancholy—though of course he wasn’t cheerful either. To put it another way, he differed little from some carefree office worker—a rather mediocre tool of sorts—who rises at a set hour each morning, returns every evening on the same train (even when others arrive every ten minutes), wolfs down his supper, and promptly falls asleep snoring loudly.

Once, through his younger brother’s hand, he received a letter from his mother in the impoverished village inquiring after a nearby fire. Since newspapers had not yet been delivered to him, he first learned through that letter of the great fire in the suburban district of Nippori. As he had a friend there, he ordered his wife to go buy newspapers. His wife took the train to some distant place and finally returned with four or five days' worth of newspapers. The great fire had occurred in a different direction from his friend’s house. Nippori—if one were to imagine the capital as a circle—lay at one end of a straight line passing through its center, with his current location at the other end. Because both were in the same suburban district, his mother had thought those places were near each other. ...During his childhood, when his father had been staying in Boston, America, Japanese newspapers reported that a great earthquake had occurred in San Francisco, America. He still remembered that incident vividly even now, twenty-some years later. He still could not bring himself to laugh at his ignorant grandparents from that time. In the sunny spot of the engawa (he’d forgotten the season, but it somehow felt like winter), his grandfather had been gazing at the newspaper,

“Bastard!” he shouted. Grandfather had often spoken of the terror of the Ansei earthquake. Even when his mother—knowledgeable about American geography at the time—explained how Boston and San Francisco’s distance compared to Japanese geography (like from such-and-such place to another), Grandfather would not readily accept it. Grandfather resembled him in build—slight of frame—and was a notorious coward. At sixteen during the Meiji Restoration—or so Grandfather had proudly recounted—he’d supposedly secured Hakone Checkpoint and taken a sword wound at the Battle of Yamazaki, though he still believed those were tall tales.

“It’s all connected land, damn it!”

He remembered Grandfather letting out such a sigh.

“But wasn’t the Ansei earthquake only in the Kantō region?” “Anyway, let’s send a telegram… We can’t make sense of foreigners’ countries!” Just like his grandfather, he worried about the safety of his father—a man he knew only through photographs. On the day he received the fire inquiry letter, he found himself recalling such old memories and imagining the conversation between his mother and younger brother that must have preceded its writing.

Takino had developed a habit of never praising his current residence—no matter where he lived, even if it were his birthplace—but declared that he hated this latest place more than any he’d inhabited before. On the first day after moving here, when he went to the bathhouse, he looked around—gazed at the strange houses scattered across the fields—and wondered: What kind of people lived in those houses, and how? He had wondered such things. There was a middle-aged man and woman walking arm in arm without a hint of shame, like Westerners. There were also two men of about his age who walked along earnestly studying how to construct Western-style buildings as simply as possible while maintaining an ostentatiously sophisticated appearance... He had proudly declared his hatred for the place—but was that all his dubious observations amounted to?! ——And he vaguely pictured where he might move next. Whenever he moved, it had been his habit to inform his mother in detail of his new address; but this time he neither consulted her about it nor—when notifying her by postcard (a first)—merely found writing out the full address ("Tokyo Prefecture, Such-and-Such District, Such-and-Such Village, Greater Such-and-Such, Number ×××") troublesome; he even had his wife write it for him. Even if he—as sender—were to dispatch a hundred letters daily, his mother would return them unopened upon his next homecoming unless he meticulously specified his current address exactly as recorded in the local office’s citizen registry. Thus he rarely sent sealed letters—but even when omitting details on postcards, she would return them in envelopes. Though returned postcards had served their purpose; on rare occasions he’d deliberately forget addresses and send things like "Your's obedient son" just to annoy her. Therefore she no longer returned them. ——Yet whenever drafting personal writings requiring his current address, he found himself unable to settle unless meticulously recording each unique place name: Sagami Odawara Town, Izu Atami Town, Ushigome Such-and-Such Town, Shitaya Ward Ueno—though fully aware how pointless and jarring this was. He couldn’t casually use "A Town" or "B Village" as seen in other novels. This stemmed partly from impoverished imagination—but sometimes he’d wryly smile at how his mother’s old-fashioned education might influence even this—and occasionally think how pompously writing unimportant place names might make readers laugh or find him insufferable.

Two or three days prior, he had entertained this foolish notion: Next time he encountered this town's name somewhere, he'd casually label it "C Town"—or just use the initial—since he'd grown thick-skinned enough to even sign off to Mother as "Your's obedient son". ...Though never formally suspended, he had spent extra years beyond normal studying in the liberal arts department of a private university. Yet despite his prolonged stay, he'd made not a single friend there. On rare occasions when encountering former classmates in the streets, a nervous revulsion would course through him while they too wore expressions asking how this eternal underachiever still drew breath—and he also thought that should he stay long in this town too, he'd inevitably recreate those same strained relationships. While declaring his hatred for the place, he nonetheless harbored in abundance that murky ambiguity which drew him in.

(……Had Takino been compelled to create his own daily record, how would he have had to chronicle the days after the first? ……)

From when the outside scenery still held daylight, Takino had been tilting his sake cup alone in slow sips until he felt as though floating on waves, then abruptly dismissed himself in such a manner.—What was he even saying? He chuckled drily—alone— (If I must... then I must...)

Such foolish wordplay alone rolled over his tongue like the clunky wheels of a cheap toy. (...How hateful to utter—chanting that three-sides-four-sides nonsense without losing breath... I did such tongue-twisting contests as a child!) Hmm? What was that phrase again? I’ve completely forgotten! But I was always the loser in that game, wasn’t I! My tongue just wouldn’t work properly… Still, you’d think I’d remember at least one of those chants by now, but tch! Damn it all! I’d like to give it a try now, but…? Ah, such a skill—are children or adults truly superior at it? Could even that be counted as one of nature’s gifts? The games I couldn’t master as a child… Well of course not—if anything, I’ve probably grown even more inept by now.)

With a "Tch," he clicked his tongue. That much was enough to make him feel disgusted.

The same day repeated endlessly: waking past noon in a daze, dozing off again, eventually forcing himself from bed to visit the bathhouse, returning to lamplight and sitting down to his evening meal—then suddenly drunk, with no memory of how he reached his futon. Only when he snapped his eyes open the next day—again past twelve—did he discover himself there exactly as described in those literal English-to-Japanese translation exercises. Needless to say, he forgot everything—what drunken thoughts had crossed his mind, what nonsense he had babbled, what antics he had performed. What he remembered was waking past twelve, going to the bathhouse, and—"Quiet down!"—scolding the child. —first shouting "Quiet down!" to scold the child, then this daily pattern: whenever he shouted thus, his wife would scoff—"There’s nothing even noisy here! If you’re so high-and-mighty to say that, you should’ve rented a bigger house"—thereby ruining his mood, until he’d sulkily sit down to his evening meal. That was all. That drunken actions are entirely forgotten is commonly dismissed as sophistry, and while he might have possessed some measure of that excuse, his drinking fundamentally lacked the dignity of evening libations—being instead, so to speak, the reckless binges of a failed student: crude, juvenile, and utterly chaotic. Thus there had been no helping it.

(……If only Takino……)

Once again, he found himself muttering the same words and letting slip a bitter smile. ——So what did he contemplate between waking past noon and sitting down to his evening meal? It amounted to nothing but the inane ramblings already described in this first section—rootless thoughts forgotten within an hour. Though he muttered things like “I’ll call it C Town in my next novel,” no incidents occurred, and life remained this simple yet rigidly regimented. Were he to create his own daily record, the first day would read like a schoolchild’s entry: woke at such time, went to the bathhouse, returned home, finished dinner and slept—and all subsequent days would merely note changes in cloud cover, clear skies, or rain before repeating, in every other respect, the same as the day before, the same as the day before. Now, if one’s mood were to shift with the weather—becoming lively on clear days, calm on rainy ones, or contemplative when winds blew—then naturally one’s impressions would gain color; but he remained utterly untouched by such influences.

He had harbored an antipathy toward diaries since his youth. The moment he entered elementary school, his mother ordered him to keep a diary. Each day, in the column labeled "Weather," his mother would not permit simple entries like "clear" or "rainy" based on actual conditions; instead, he had to record things like "cloudy then clear," "all-day fair skies," or "winds arising in the afternoon"—and even this task alone subjected him to considerable tedium. “I woke at six, washed my face and ate breakfast, went to school at seven-thirty, came home and played with friends until evening, studied at night, then went to bed.”

"A diary isn't something you write for others to see—it's for gaining insights when you read it yourself as an adult. That's why you must write honestly and in as much detail as possible." So Mother had declared. Yet he suspected she occasionally inspected it herself, and whenever he wrote anything, he felt certain someone would read it. Even when he had thoughts worth recording, he loathed committing them to paper. For instance, mornings when everyone would rouse him from bed and he'd rise half-heartedly only to pick fights with Grandfather out of frustration... Mother would admonish him that even such matters needed documenting. But he detested writing anything shameful—on days he didn't study, he invariably wrote that he had. Since it wasn't checked daily, a few lies could surely slip through—even when he'd risen at eight and nearly been late for school, he wrote that he'd gotten up at seven. In later years, he would sometimes think the diary itself had forced him into deception. Several volumes of diaries he'd kept until mid-January had remained in the bookcase at his hometown home until just two or three years prior; though he once briefly opened them, not a wisp of nostalgic sentiment for his childhood arose. Seeing through the duplicitous heart of his younger self laid bare in those insipid passages only made his skin crawl—so much so that during a soot cleaning, he'd once thrown them into the fire.

In just one place, a passage like this caught his eye. “——Today there’s a horse race at Komine Park. “When I returned from school, Kawai’s grandfather had come with Sei-chan, and we went to see the horse race. The horses were fun—when they ran along the opposite bank of the track, I thought how splendid it would be to ride them like toys. But up close, their breath blew out fiercely like steam from a locomotive’s smokestack, and the riders’ faces looked terrifying. They were going so fast I thought if I fell under those hooves, I’d be done for. Yet from across again, they turned back into cute toys, which was somehow amusing. On the way back, Sei-chan and I raced down a slope pretending to be racehorses, but since I was wearing geta-sandals, I lost. Sei-chan kept shouting brave cries even while running. I was sweating buckets, breathing hard, and choking on dust—but I figured Kawai’s grandfather watching us laugh from afar couldn’t possibly grasp this fierceness……”

When he entered middle school, he was made to keep summer vacation journals and found it tiresome every summer. It must have been the summer of his fourth year. The homeroom teacher for that class was a kindly old man called Teacher Matsuoka who served as mathematics instructor, yet unlike ordinary math teachers, he would readily expound abridged discourses from ancient Greek and Eastern sages, fond of sharing his studies on life's enlightenment. ——He was at that typical age when common delinquents boast of their idleness. “Tch! Who even keeps a diary? It’s ridiculous! All you gotta do is go ask someone about the weather a couple days before term starts, then just make up whatever nonsense you want for the rest.”

He spent many days that could never be recorded in the school journal he was required to submit, all while smugly boasting of such exploits. That was at a prefectural middle school where discipline proved mercilessly strict. Entering an eatery like a soba shop or Western restaurant meant five days' suspension; venturing out without hakama trousers brought one day's confinement. A three-centimeter crew cut or trimmed sideburns earned a strike from the gymnastics instructor's fist. Riding bicycles required incident reports, while perusing new literary books reduced moral education grades. Love letters meant expulsion; red-light district strolls brought indefinite suspension. Wearing geta sandals with Western clothes warranted another strike, humming popular tunes summoned guarantors, and playing harmonicas or violins invited suspicion of composing amorous notes. Theater visits meant three days' suspension; marked athletic shirts banned sports. Wearing rain clogs on fair days forced barefoot trudging during rainstorms. Night outings were permitted only in summer—coastal walks until seven in regulation attire, extended to nine for shrine festival kagura viewings—though these were but fragments of the draconian code. A self-styled Righteous Gang of Delinquents had spontaneously formed among students—policing misdeeds like love letters, violin performances, literary readings and brothel visits to impose sanctions—and he numbered among this faction. Yet their other lifestyle aspects wholly defied school authorities' prohibitions, and in those realms he served as chief instigator. Thus there existed not a single day fit for recording in the journal destined for school inspection.

Four or five days before the second term began, he visited a dutiful student and, ignoring their protests, seized their journal to copy fifty days' worth of weather entries. And so, guided by the weather conditions, he had to fabricate each day's record—for by then, his mind and pen were anything but free, and the difficulty of forging these entries truly carried the bitter taste of hell. Had he instead created an honest record with the diligence to meticulously copy weather data from others' journals and meekly accepted the authorities' punishment, he might have found himself rather cheerful—even would surely have been commended by his fellow party members. But he, like the rest of them, remained underhanded.

The idea of copying the weather had been his. When he proposed this, the entire group praised him beyond measure. And each of them copied the weather data from his transcript, promptly creating richly fabricated journals——A gathered various materials to create a Mountaineering Journal of the Japanese Alps with Photographs; B fabricated an Account of Tent Life on Mount Hakone; C wrote a Logbook of Accompanying Fishing Boats Around Ōshima; D ventured to Mount Tanzawa for Insect Collecting and composed an Encounter with Mountain Apes; E holed up at the foot of Ishigaki Mountain for fifty sweltering days while narrating at length his Record of Dreaming Myself a Hero, interspersing it with endless listed titles like The Autobiography of Franklin, Napoleon’s Words and Deeds, and Plutarch’s Lives; F sprinted along Moonlit Atami Highway in his "Marathon and Open-Water Swimming Chronicle," claiming to have swum all the way back to Ogosho Beach in Odawara; G produced a Seven-Day Fasting Record at Amiri Shrine; and H even proposed writing My Battle with Tanuki in Dōryō Mountain Forest—only to be intimidated into scratching his head and withdrawing when warned, "That lie’s too obvious—they’ll see right through it!"

But not a single such brilliant idea occurred to him. And when he finally completed several days’ worth of entries, he had created such a gentle and dutiful record that—had it been true—would have not only earned top marks in ethics but even warranted seizing the position of class leader. Each character he wrote summoned Teacher Matsuoka’s visage; each advancing line conjured the disciplinary supervisor’s dreadful form. What a wretchedly undutiful son I am toward Mother, he’d think—sinking into self-pity—while those insipid falsehoods hit dead end after dead end. Thus he scribbled on, muddled and frantic, sweat streaming down his spine. ――At home, he had maintained an air of dutiful obedience to his parents’ words and unfailing dedication to self-cultivation; yet even as fabrication, such fanciful notions lay beyond his imagination. Compared to aspirations of composing accounts like encountering mountain apes on Mount Tanzawa, this merely required narrating the extreme antithesis of his actual life—a task far easier than hollow imaginings, and a more accessible expedient for him.

When forced to show daily variation, he had no choice but to record waking at seven o’clock one day (though school rules demanded five o’clock—but surely skipping strict five o’clock observance occasionally for seven would be permissible)—then set it at five-thirty the next day, followed by precisely five o’clock for three or four consecutive days. Then again—having undertaken a long swim yesterday, this morning I unwittingly overslept; suddenly noticing upon checking the alarm clock by my pillow—already past seven-ten! Morning light flooded the front garden. I leapt up energetically, rushed to the wellside for my usual five cold water baths, then solved mathematics until nearly noon. Yet realizing these post-seven cold baths—with their tepid water temperature—proved utterly ineffective for mental discipline, I resolutely resolved to rise at four tomorrow—thus he wrote. The following day gloriously declared—At four a.m., roused by the alarm clock’s cheerful chime. Nightlong rain still unceasing; Mount Hakone vanished in distant twilight haze. Surroundings silent save raindrops whispering unknown truths. Unthinkingly I cried “Bravo!”, seized my washbasin for ten cold baths. This day spent in sparkling spirits solving over ten geometry problems from reference books—in such fashion he created several diary variants. Yet conquering the hardship of fabricating fifty distinct days proved beyond him. And so he conveniently arranged these fabricated records according to the weather, inserting blandly rule-compliant entries between them—for example: *5 a.m. wake-up, cold bath, mechanical exercises and military bugle practice, homework review until late morning, afternoon swimming excursion, one-hour seaside walk after dinner, 6:30 p.m. return home, 8 p.m. bedtime*—then for the following day would write *Same as previous day* or *Actions identical to yesterday’s*, repeating this pattern until such entries occupied nearly one-third of the entire journal.

Shortly after the new term began, they—the self-styled Righteous Party members—were summoned before the disciplinary committee. Starting that year, a document called the "Student Behavior Investigation Report During Summer Vacation" had been instituted. Several disciplinary supervisors had established shifts to conduct day-and-night surveillance in the city, while also secretly visiting guardians to carry out detailed investigations. Of course, their faction had always been persons of interest to the authorities—so thoroughly had their activities alone been scrutinized that this investigation report might as well have been created specifically for them. His section detailed matters such as: *Failure to take breakfast during vacation*; multiple visits to the Kinema Permanent Electric Theater in elaborate disguises with C, D, E, and F—C in a crested haori and hunting cap, D with a mustache and glasses, E posing as a university student, Takino clad in a fisherman’s festive happi coat with his face half-wrapped, F impersonating an automobile driver; organizing a so-called Glutton Club that convened successively at empty homes of absent guardians, raising clamor until late hours; gatherings at Western restaurant Banzaiken on [X month X night], soba shop Seiseian on [X month X night], and the inner room of sweets shop Shōgetsu on [X month X night], where they commandeered the establishment’s professional imagawayaki griddles for chaotic misuse to the owner’s dismay; on [X month X night], mobilizing several bicycles and a sidecar-equipped motorcycle to Kurihashi Roadway, stealing sweet potatoes and watermelons from nearby fields before congregating on the coast past midnight to drain beer barrels while chanting “Long live the Glutton Club!”; and finally, how their journal had been fabricated over an all-night meeting at the vacant XX residence three days before term began—merely copying weather data from another student’s diary. All this was meticulously recorded. When confronted with this, they stood dumbfounded. The timid H fainted. They were all suspended for two weeks and had their moral education grades reduced to zero.

During their confinement, their homeroom teacher would visit each household once. Teacher Matsuoka came to his place. Teacher Matsuoka, laughing, “How convenient it must’ve been to just write ‘same as the previous day’!” “But these days, aren’t you just repeating the same as the day before?” “…………” “That may be how it is, but the point you must consider lies there—do you understand?” “Haah…” “The Samantabhadra Sutra states: ‘Those who delight in purifying the Six Roots must learn this contemplation.’ Since ancient Greece, the theory of universal flux has been proven… Even if it were a stone’s existence—moment by moment, in its surroundings, air shifts, clouds race, lightning strikes… Leaves scatter without wind… The difference between one instant and the next is immense! How much more so for us who are not stones—we who possess eyes, ears, nose, body, tongue, and mind: the Six Roots!”

Until now, Teacher Matsuoka’s countenance had borne a gentle expression; at this moment, it stiffened abruptly,

“Joy and anger are perceived through the eyes,” he declared, jabbing his index finger against Takino’s eyebrow.

With considerable force applied, his body—seated formally—arched slightly backward in response to the teacher’s finger before returning upright. At the same moment, the teacher— “Hearing and judgment reside in the ears,” he declared, then grabbed both of his ears with fingertips and yanked them upward. He grimaced involuntarily and lifted his hips. “Love and hate, fragrance and stench—these reside in the nose,” the teacher solemnly continued, his demeanor tinged with excitement as he sharply pinched Takino’s nose. —And this time, rapidly, “Tasting bitterness and sweetness resides in the tongue,” he declared, then yanked his lips as if reeling them in. He let out another involuntary “Ugh!” He gulped, his chin jutting forward like a spiteful little girl pulling a nasty face—though of course his pained grimace, mortified flush, and dazed bewilderment made him no different from a fish hooked on a line. For two or three breaths’ worth of time, the teacher kept his fingertips clamped there (his fingers reeked of tobacco)—then abruptly, “Gah?!” gathering strength in his abdomen, he jammed his chin upward,

“Constant deliberation and contemplation reside in the mind!” he roared—then with a “Hyah!”, slammed his fist into Takino’s chest. The blow landed with a dull thud. Truly, this swift action embodied the lightning-flash kiai technique he’d described moments earlier—a masterful display. The teacher then resumed his moderately amiable expression. “Since you’re no fool,” he declared, “I’ll say no more. Fourteen days’ confinement—meditate in silence. Chant ‘purify the six roots’ during cold baths. Keep meticulous records of your daily reflections—at least five ruled sheets per day.” He paused, indicating the stipulation with bureaucratic precision: “Requires guardian inspection and seal.” Having delivered these instructions, he dismissed him. After an extended discussion with Takino’s mother—his legal guardian—regarding numerous precautions, the teacher rapped briefly on his study door while departing.

“Do your best. I don’t hate you,” he said and left. He slumped over his desk and wept. His mother also came to his side, her tears welling up.

“Those friends from back then...”

He remained holding his cup, face contorted in an exaggerated expression, as he dwelled on such thoughts. ……A? What about B? C? ……What about G? H? ……"Lately, the only ones he'd had any real contact with were G and K!" A had apparently become a Bachelor of Laws. B took eight or nine years to graduate from Keio University's political science department only to die of typhoid that same year. C became a policeman and went to Korea. G became a Bachelor of Science and was now engrossed in entomology research at the University of Michigan in America. He too harbored ambitions of going to America and researching entomology—hence why he exchanged letters with G about three times a year. K was now devoted to his family's kamaboko manufacturing business at their home in Odawara.

“And what about Takino?” he muttered, just as he had earlier when imagining Takino going on about his daily records, his face contorting into a grimace.

“What have you been muttering to yourself and tilting your head about all this time?”

Though accustomed to his antics, whenever she observed her husband—even in his drunken state—affecting such absurdly exaggerated airs with earnest pretense, an unbearable irritation would arise within her, compelling her to hurl those scornful words his way. "This way of living simply won’t do—that’s what I’m realizing now." "If you spend your whole life spouting that nonsense, we’ll never get anywhere! Hmph!" "Whatever you do, don’t speak until I initiate conversation first."

"Please don't get angry and answer me—what on earth are you..." "Shut up!" he shouted, though he didn't seem particularly angry. He looked pitiable.

"May is a bright time for dreaming—a lecturer once said that, but it truly was an excellent turn of phrase."

He had slipped into a drunken tone without realizing it as he muttered such things to himself.—“Ah,” his wife sighed. But she— “When did you go see moving pictures?” she asked with mild curiosity. “Back in my middle school days, we formed a costumed brigade...” “Ah, enough already!”

What a tedious man he must be—she thought profoundly.

“Oh soul! Make merry and Carouse, Dear soul, for all is well! ……” (Tennyson) Is it really hopeless?! she thought. His light weight made him manageable to haul around—yet when he lost consciousness like this, he became unbearably heavy. What a nightly ordeal! she thought. Still, his tendency to spout those dubious English phrases was utterly mortifying. She’d have to scold him tomorrow—but with matters already having reached this state, there was no turning back now. “How very erudite you sound. Do explain it all to me,” she said. But fortunately, he merely hung his head, emitting coarse breaths. (And Takino...) he thought.

At that time, there existed a faction in his country’s literary world called the "Self-Faction." That name originated from how its authors used their own real lives as material to create art through artistic transformation. For this differed from another faction called the "Empirical School"—though both took life as their material—in that some wielded incisive chisels, others blended unrestrained fancy, still others took up blades of sharp reason, each transmuting "life" into jewels. There was yet another faction known as the "Enpa Party." This was a name given to a faction—alongside the "Self-Faction" and "Empirical School"—for convenience’s sake, derived from a critic’s citation of words once used by Jonathan Swift in old England: likening life to an egg that should be cracked from its rounded end to avoid injury, thereby proposing that our path through life ought to follow such handling. There was also another faction called the "Sharp-Break Party." This was, broadly speaking, the opposing faction to the Enpa Party.

Thus, the literary world of that time was undeniably in a flourishing era of literary fortune since the nation’s founding.

Many young men, drawn by the glittering literary circles of Tokyo, had journeyed from afar to congregate there.—Now, Takino had long been treated as a nuisance at his family home in his hometown; then, without parental orders—indeed in defiance of them—and not through any youthful romance either, he had muddled into marrying his current wife five years prior. This made his family home unbearable, so he fled as if chased out to Izu Atami once, and now drifted between dwellings in Tokyo, passing these simple days devoid of purpose. At first, he hadn’t aspired to be a writer, but as those days accumulated, he had before he knew it become a self-styled "Self-Faction" student.

Therefore, he grimaced while muttering with a plausibly earnest expression—"If Takino were to... his daily records..."—as if this were some belated revelation, though the words held no novelty. Life remained exactly as it appeared; his thoughts too persisted unchanged. Yet still clinging to youthful vanity and blind to its delusional nature, he would spew complaints of "Life—" "Life—," forgetting his own failings as he traced the contours of those delusions.

If others were to see this, what a terrifying conceit—"Self-Faction"! What were the delusions of this Self-Faction student Takino? He had already lost his father; though eldest son, he had relinquished the impoverished village house to his mother; now father to a four-year-old; and thirty years old. The old proverb about vainly accumulating years like dogs and horses—or perhaps the ancient song: "Though spring renews all things with warblers' song, I alone grow old"—even these remained new to him.

Four or five days prior, he had received a postcard from his old friend K in Odawara stating that come next month, K would be coming up to Tokyo to watch baseball and wanted to visit Takino’s lodgings for the first time in ages—troublesome as it was—could he please send directions for the train and a map? He was eagerly awaiting K’s visit. Regarding G and K—as noted briefly earlier—those self-proclaimed Justice Party members from their middle school days had all grown into undutiful sons, though now most had settled into something. "Only I alone..." he would sometimes think, sinking into gloom. K had once come to Tokyo determined to enter Waseda University and become a baseball player, but before even enrolling fell in love with geishas in Kojimachi and Fujimicho, devising every pretext to draw school funds for about a year until ultimately discovered by his family and dragged back home to work briefly in the family business. But having fallen for another local geisha and repeatedly squandering embezzled funds, he was disowned; undeterred, he boldly declared he would go to America to become an activist and wrangled one last travel allowance from his parents. However, he didn’t go to America—instead taking that geisha to Hakone. Before long parting ways with her somehow, he tearfully pleaded with his parents to let him "reform"—how many times had K used that word?—and took his place at the shop. But then he fell passionately for yet another local geisha and embezzled collected funds again. Disowned once more—the woman having gone off to Yorishiro Town—and with Takino himself driven from home and staying in Atami at that time, he spent the whole summer there. In Atami he came down with sunstroke that returned him to his family home, only to embezzle funds again while fixating on another geisha—this time being officially disowned for five years—precisely one day before the Great Taisho Earthquake struck. A fire broke out and destroyed the town entirely. —K’s house had been a venerable establishment, but post-earthquake its fortunes plummeted: though over a dozen craftsmen once worked splendidly at its storefront, when passing by later he saw K standing before a massive cutting board alongside three or four craftsmen, pounding kamaboko with skill while leading them in spirited chants.

(Author’s note. “Kamaboko” is a type of processed seafood product and has been a renowned local specialty of Sagami-Odawara Town since ancient times. In its manufacture, they place the ingredients on an enormous cutting board over two ken in length, then several craftsmen—each gripping two chopper-like paddles in both hands—strike them in unison while chanting rhythmically. The sound was as interesting as listening to a xylophone performance.)

Three years ago when he lived in Atami, neither his lifestyle nor his thoughts had differed from what they were now. Through K’s postcard, he found himself indulging in such reminiscences and muttered profoundly that he belonged to the "Self-Faction." He had once inserted fragments of those circumstances into an old work titled *Spring Coat*. This occurred because K’s visit had briefly animated his life, leading him to first compile a daily record of that period with novelistic intentions. But when his planned novel failed, even these painstaking records became useless—though he later quoted one or two passages from them in *Spring Coat*. The remaining fourteen or fifteen sheets of those daily records still lay at the bottom of his storage chest. These records—created for such purposes—were unlike those from elementary or middle school days, yet proved equally devoid of flavor or vitality.

(He’d grown so dark that people said his countenance had changed.) He sat before the mirror intending to shave, and upon gazing at his face, even he himself thought, "So that's it!" I could neither swim properly nor was I venturing out because the seaside held any appeal—I only go because K drags me along, better than rotting in my room all day. But watching those men and women cavorting about with such exaggerated cheerfulness turns my stomach; their overblown antics are a misery to behold.

(It was already mid-August; the gastrointestinal issues he'd incurred during his single June trip to Tokyo still hadn't fully healed. Recalling Tokyo makes me dizzy; yet no matter how much time passes, I still can't grow accustomed to the countryside's loneliness. K swam to Manazuru today and returned by boat. "If I focus even a little, my old man's terrifying face surfaces and becomes unbearable—so I keep myself frantically active while awake," K said. At night K drinks until he collapses—a bit concerning.)

(In places like Russia, there’s apparently something called the snowbound suicide method. After getting dead drunk and wandering aimlessly through the snow, an intensely pleasant drowsiness overcomes you—apparently if you sleep then, you’ll never wake again, peacefully. Among many suicide methods, this is supposedly the easiest. Couldn't you manage that same trick even at sea? K said with a laugh. That story about Russia has to be a lie. What an unpleasant thing for K to say.) (K said he felt unwell and didn’t get up. When I placed my hand on his forehead to check, it was burning hot. Startled, I took his temperature and found it was just over thirty-nine degrees. I rushed outside in panic, went to A Hospital but found it closed, had no other acquaintances, haphazardly pleaded at three clinics. As the rickshaw raced through town, I suddenly stood up for no reason and remained standing as we continued for a while, only realizing what I’d done when passersby laughed at me. Two doctors came to treat him. Diagnosed with sunstroke and enteritis—they cooled his head and chest with three ice bags. His fever rose to forty-one degrees. I had no knowledge of illness and had rarely been sick myself, so I felt utterly helpless. All-nighter. Since all-nighters are my forte, it was no trouble at all.)

(K said, 'Notify my family.' Though it was no longer necessary, he kept insisting I notify them and said he wanted to call upon a nurse he knew. I went to the post office to call K’s house. K’s mother’s voice trembled; she seemed to think I was deliberately speaking lightly to keep her from worrying. There had been some of that, but K’s mother had been too perceptive. She said she would come tomorrow morning with the nurse. I couldn’t help adding: “A nurse alone would suffice—if you’re coming under some pretense of leisure, then don’t bother.” “There’s no fool who’d visit your place for amusement,” K’s mother said.)

(K’s mother came in the morning. The letter she had sent the previous day arrived just as she stood vacantly at the entrance that evening gazing out at the sea. Having already come herself, she ended up receiving the very letter she had dispatched. When she turned toward me and flushed—attempting to tuck it into her obi—I noticed my name on the address and playfully snatched it away to read. Since the day before yesterday, we had laughed for the first time. It was quite a long letter written in colloquial style. When I read it, my chest tightened. ‘I who gave birth to that child am sorrowful—’ it said. The next day she even forgot to go out—one could understand K’s mother’s state of mind when she wrote such a letter unthinkingly.)

He took out those things the other day but discarded them without reason. It seemed he hadn’t moved an inch beyond those days when Teacher Matsuoka had jabbed his eyes and pinched his nose— But now, these suburban days would remain "the same as the day before"—no matter how harshly Teacher Matsuoka might yank his ears, tug his lips, or strike his chest.

There were also times when he thought of his lineage. His father had spent his entire life without stable employment, yet despite this restlessness, closed life's curtain in hurried confusion. A sort of coward who'd drunkenly proclaim "My vision's global—I'm what you'd call a cosmopolitan!"—none of Father's grand pronouncements ever lasted beyond tomorrow. Though he'd died about a year prior, to him it already felt like some ancient dream—so much that dwelling on it brought an urge to laugh (exactly as that father had once laughed at his predecessors). There was no legacy to bequeath, no pronouncements worth passing down—nothing he could offer others in any meaningful sense as a son. Thus he envied K—who'd inherited their ancestors' kamaboko manufacturing business and now devoted himself wholly to his cutting board. Now, if there was one thing he'd inherited from Father, it was this solitary remnant.

His father had stood as a candidate—whether for the village assembly or prefectural assembly, prompted by what momentary hesitation—and became obsessed (an act that likely contradicted his usual pronouncements), gathering many campaigners. This obsession grew so excessive that (How utterly un-cosmopolitan! And how utterly un-socialist he was too!) Even with just these campaigners each casting their votes, he optimistically declared, “We’ve already secured it—hurrah!” Smugly remarking on election day: “When push comes to shove, I’ve got plenty of allies—after all, I’ve been defending democracy! My artisan friends alone make a formidable force, and I’m trusted in unexpected quarters.” Then he’d make an entirely anxious face: “Let’s just hope I don’t get ambushed on the way home after such an outlandish landslide.” Yet when the votes were tallied, H.Takino had received only one ballot. That night, his mother, his maternal grandmother (who had come for recuperation at the time), and he—S.Takino, then a humanities university student—sat around the hibachi waiting for H’s return. Directly across from this house stood another house with a large black gate. Then, suddenly shattering the silence, they heard the clattering sound of stones striking the door of this gate. “Perhaps it’s children’s mischief,” they whispered.

“They threw stones.”

Having said this, H returned flushed bright red. Upon entering the house, H suddenly roared at the top of his voice. Then in his frenzy, he shouted “Don’t we have any bigger stones?!” and tried to go out again when Grandmother restrained him from behind—this grandmother who had memorized most of the Chushingura dialogues and prided herself on vocal mimicry—“This is not the age of warring states! If you must quarrel, do so through dignified debate! To throw stones at gates under cover of darkness—!” “Should there be any discourtesy from the other party,” she continued in antiquated turns of phrase, “you ought to go forth tomorrow morning and… and so forth”—thus admonishing her son-in-law nearing fifty. H went to sleep muttering something under his breath. The owner of the black gate was the one who had promised to vote for H. Of course, H did not go out the next morning. H. Takino was inept at any form of debate; when angered, he could do nothing but hurl empty expletives like “Idiot!” or “You cur!” or “Step outside and I’ll thrash you!”—mere outbursts of frustration. And if he were to meet them the next day, he couldn’t remain composed—wanting to speak but not knowing the words, he could do nothing but turn away indignantly. He had inherited this very trait intact; though a man of letters, he knew no means of lodging a protest through argumentation—no matter how mortifying it was to be bitten by the neighbor’s dog. Later, his father once told him that he wanted to find whoever cast that single vote and befriend them. But he died without meeting that friend.—What he had now inherited from his father amounted to little more than thoughts of “that friend.” So much did he resemble his father—that is to say, he possessed no talent beyond investing capital in ventures doomed to fail—but since his father had devoted himself solely to such undertakings, their household had now fallen into poverty, rendering impossible any lifestyle akin to his father’s. He had no way to spend his days other than thinking about the “Meager Daily Record”—that chronicle he’d been inept at since childhood. And nowadays, five or six lines sufficed for the daily record.

One day he put on a suit, went out with opera glasses in his pocket—his wife felt refreshed. Late at night, he returned home extremely drunk. The next day, he again went out, this time wearing a kimono. That night, he did not return.

Though she found it somewhat irritating to hear the station attendant’s calls with every arriving train, his wife—able to lose herself in reading for the first time in ages—felt a semblance of composure settle over her. When they had first moved here, she’d imagined the suburbs might offer more breathing room, but row upon row of beehive-like houses—theirs being one such cell—left no comfort to speak of. If living meant inhabiting such a place, she thought, there had been no point in coming here at all. Her husband’s mother from back home had sent their family maid over, but with only three cramped rooms to show, the maid could do nothing but laugh awkwardly before leaving. Contempt prickled at her skin—of course her husband had spun his usual outrageous lies about rent and deposits to his provincial mother. How long would he keep playing the eternal dropout student, blind to his family’s dire straits? The more these thoughts took shape, the more terror coiled in her chest. Worse still was being seen as cut from the same cloth—never shopping, never venturing beyond their hovel, working like a scullery maid… As this litany unfolded, she—

"That idiot..." she mocked her husband, only to be overcome with pity instead. ..."What a stingy man..."

It was a quiet night.

When she gazed at her four-year-old child's sleeping face, tears welled up in her eyes. The child—with a robust physique unlike his father’s (it was only when she thought this that she sensed a glimmer of light)—slept soundly, breathing steadily like bellows. ...Yet she remained unaware that S. Takino’s mother, having endured her own husband’s decade-long seclusion, had often harbored similar thoughts. She suddenly dwelled on how oddly her husband had been avoiding home lately—though for some reason she felt no jealousy, only bewilderment—shouting nonsensical things in his sleep or muttering indistinct soliloquies in the next room. Could it be neurasthenia? That’s what crossed her mind. At the same instant—as though struck by a black wing—she glimpsed a bizarrely ominous vision. No—it’s my own nerves fraying, she panicked, forcing a feeble chuckle devoid of strength...

The following night, he returned home late. He seemed quite drunk, yet wore a gloomy expression, did not raise his voice, and took up his sake cup. “I want to live with Mother.”

He said such a thing. Exaggerated actions displease those who witness them—he found himself recalling such matters he had written about in the Atami Journal.

“Maybe I should go back to the countryside and really apply myself! First of all, just being here means I have to think about Mother... have to think, must think, 'must be'—no matter what form it takes, it's a burden. I hate burdens—even if you call it idealistic rambling, nature is nature... Whose nature? H. Takino? S. Takino?......” The wife clicked her tongue inwardly and endured stiffly. Then deliberately feigning sleepiness, she tracked the train’s rumble until it faded and counted the clock’s ticks.

“Ugh! If I could say ‘We drink not from delusion’s wine...’—how clever that’d be! Tsk!” “Pour me a drink!” “...Though parrots speak well, they remain among flying birds; though shōjō speak well, they stay with beasts; now should a person lack propriety—though eloquent—they keep a beast’s heart... or so it goes, perhaps...”

He began to speak of things his mother had taught him long ago—"Ah"—and heaved a sigh so theatrically exaggerated it could only come from a drunkard...

This evening, the wife didn't feel the usual tedious unpleasantness so keenly, but instead found her husband's expression uncannily unsettling. So she—

“I too think it would be better if we went to Odawara,” she said in a deeply earnest tone. But perhaps because she had spoken in too low a voice, it seemed not to reach her husband’s ears.

In his mind floated such a scene: …(Before his bed he gazes at moonlight, suspects it to be frost upon the ground; raises his head to behold the mountain moon, lowers it to think of home.)—Li Bai—something he had memorized in his second year of middle school.

Truly, that window was blurred white with moonlight. He couldn't help feeling as if he were in a seaside room. In his childhood—when spring came and moonlit nights arrived—his mother would invariably take him down to the shore. And she would sing school songs. "While I count to ten, run to that boat and see," she'd say, making him dash off. As he drew away, she'd amplify her counting voice—lengthening each pause—until reaching nine; and when she hit nine while he still ran frantically, having waited until anticipation prickled his skin, just as his hand touched the boat,

"Teeen—" she drew out the final number with a lingering cry. "This time, from there…" she said, and when he frantically ran back to her side, she called out "Teeen—". "This time I’ll count to twenty, so try hopping on one leg—right leg going, left leg coming back…" They passed the night engaged in such play. When hopping on one leg, he would usually become exhausted midway through the return trip and fall onto the sand, unable to rise. Just recently, he had received a letter from his mother—*They look down on me for being a woman; no matter how much effort I make, I can’t collect what’s owed from where it should be collected. What’s worse, the owner of the ×× store mocks me terribly. I’m unaccustomed to such treatment, and it’s deeply mortifying*—in which she wrote that he couldn’t take her place in this matter and that she was at a loss over what to do. He had once felt fierce indignation toward that store owner.

He—unlike his usual self—kept tilting his cup with oddly flustered gestures while muttering under his breath fragments like “If only Takino…” or “…must do” or “Can’t make it look contrived.” But when his wife withdrew to the adjoining room, these soliloquies persisted with renewed repetition, growing faintly audible enough for her to discern.

The wife tried to convince herself it was her own neurasthenia at work, yet her husband’s unsettling demeanor defied reason—driven by outlandish delusions, she sat rigidly clutching their child. And her husband’s soliloquies grew ever clearer.—“Mother, let’s live together harmoniously from now on,”—“Truly, I am your obedient son—please forgive me for everything until now,”—“Raise my head to gaze at the mountain moon,”—“Steady my footing,”—“But what will I do once I return?”…

When it had grown unnaturally quiet, the wife thought—perhaps he'd finally fallen asleep? Well, good—she'd let him be a while longer—and just as she was thinking this,

“You!” her husband exclaimed in a tone that seemed to carry force, making her instinctively whirl around to look.

Then he sat bolt upright, rigidly fixed his gaze straight ahead with exaggerated intensity, shouted “You!”, jabbed at his eyes, pinched his nose upward, yanked his ears while contorting his face in apparent pain and stretching upward, tweaked his lips—then again shouted “You!” and struck his chest—all in a frenzy—.

When she saw this, the wife suddenly shuddered and buried her face in their child’s nightclothes. It really hadn’t been a delusion of her own mind—that man had truly gone mad. As she single-mindedly thought this, her entire body shuddered, and at the same moment, tears began gushing forth violently.

(Year 14, April)