Pathway to Japanese Literature

Since Taki had begun speaking of his work and not insignificant changes had emerged in our interactions—when I considered it now—a considerable amount of time had already passed.
Wasn’t that from back when we still went to the sea every day?!
And now—hadn’t it already become the peak season for mandarin oranges!

It was the villagers' busiest harvest time.
On quiet days, from dawn until dusk, the sound of shears mingled with the songs of people laboring in distant hills and nearby fields—audible even from where I stood.
It looked as though hundreds of gardeners had been let loose across the fields to tend the trees.
As I listened to those unhurried songs and the dutiful snip of blades, gazing upon the beautiful mandarin groves beneath a windless blue sky and this harvest scene spread before me, even I could not remain entirely untouched by poetic sentiment.
That this scenery alone—were one to describe it meticulously—should suffice to yield a lyrical chapter seemed beyond dispute. Yet I found it strange that Taki, who professed such delicate sensibilities toward light and shadow—who spoke of perpetually yearning for the field's radiance and feeling melancholy toward phantom shades (sentiments I myself could never mimic)—remained unmoved to dream.
The yellow of fruit, the dark green of leaves, the dappling of light—when gazing out at these from my vantage, the hillside resembled nothing so much as an ornate carpet.

Those who encountered people heading to the fields along the way refrained from any greeting beyond a single word acknowledging their labor.
As for me, each time I went out I felt oppressed by this atmosphere, so I refrained from my beloved walks and substituted them with mere gazing.
Taki was shameless.
He exchanged busy greetings with everyone in such a carefree manner—as if he himself were one of those caught up in the season’s bustle!

It was only natural for others to regard him with such puzzled looks.
During this busy season, just yesterday he had been earnestly flying a kite for over half a day on that conspicuous hilltop meadow—a spot where, with even a casual glance upward, it would catch the eyes of everyone in the village.
Though it was none of my business, I couldn’t help secretly blushing.
Assuming he was wholly absorbed in developing his creative work, I had scrupulously avoided any commentary—yet given that restraint, his conduct struck me as excessively unsettled.
He was by no means flying that kite in any carefree manner.
Just when he had finally managed to get it aloft, he would frantically yank it back down; no sooner had he done so than he’d immediately let out more string and break into a run.
Even running down from the hilltop to the field’s edge two or three times wouldn’t get it aloft.
He was absorbed.
To craft that kite, he had engaged in remarkable nocturnal labor for an extended period.
I had simply assumed he was wholly engrossed in his novel work.
To think all that constant talk of being busy was about his creative work!
It was only when he came to inquire about the kite’s setup in the end that I finally understood.
Though inwardly astonished, I found myself bowled over by the ferocity of his demeanor and ended up acquiescing without protest.

Be that as it may, when I considered that Taki possessed such patience, I found myself struck by how utterly unexpected it was.
But as for me alone—though half-unconsciously—effort!
I must indeed have harbored considerable goodwill toward effort; otherwise, no matter how profoundly one might have been languishing from boredom, maintaining such interactions with Taki of late would have been impossible.

(Note: The author of this text, B, was Taki’s contemporary—a thirty-one- or thirty-two-year-old Bachelor of Science. He had held such a title but now possessed no particular specialization; he was a man struggling to newly determine his life’s work.)

The reason I had no friends besides Taki was my possession of a rare impatience and irascibility toward others. From others’ perspectives, this might not have been the case—there might have been worse traits—but I myself couldn’t discern them. Only between Taki and me did an old connection persist. At times I wondered if Taki might voice some observation about me, but perhaps it was safest that we rarely exchanged such thoughts face-to-face. Lately, it had become me—only me—who started making all sorts of comments to Taki! Even so, I found it strange that I hadn’t once lost my temper with him recently—strange even to myself. Though this was our first time engaging in such close interactions, it was also my first encounter with this version of Taki! Given that his family members didn’t find this particularly strange, I could only assume he had often repeated such episodes of illness at home. Twice would have been unbearable. I resolved to endure until his work was done but wanted to move to A Town by year’s end. I harbored no special interest in Taki lately, nor was I casting some cold observational eye upon his actions to indulge in any pleasure. I remained nothing more than a long-standing friend as always. There was nothing to him as a writer either. To me, Taki was ultimately nothing but Taki. I had read several of his novels. Because they were exactly the Taki I knew—though I originally had no taste for or understanding of art—I understood them. And though he called it creative work, they differed little from my diary. They mainly consisted of everyday events and fleeting memories written in halting prose resembling his speech—casually strung together in that manner.

However, he had always lived this perversely warped life that ran completely counter to mine since time immemorial. That he simply abandoned it as it was—to those of us who knew him—seemed utterly natural. I cannot fathom where his creative agonies reside, but regarding Taki alone I can state this much: “Why do you torment yourself so? Over what? From spring through summer this very year you’ve had remarkable experiences enough, haven’t you? Those several tales you told me—weren’t they each naturally coalescing into short stories distinctly yours?”

“……”

Taki invariably fell silent and looked down.

“In the life you’ve led since starting to talk about your work—there probably isn’t such a thing—but—”
“It feels like you’re working for work’s sake and botching it—even to my eyes—”

“Don’t use that startled tone with me,” Taki murmured quietly, stealing a furtive glance at my expression through seemingly frightened eyes before yielding without reason.
“That’s true too… When one immerses oneself in work…”

“You’re likely chasing delusions—do you relish that?”

“I haven’t the leisure for such things.”

“Are you manufacturing such unnatural exertions then?!
“By my count alone, hadn’t there been five properly completed short stories?”

“There haven’t been any lately.”

“But I heard those stories just this past summer!”

“I feel like those are already done with.”

“Just because you told me about them!”

“Hmm… well—” Taki murmured, his face slightly flushed as he nodded to himself.

“I don’t understand,” I said, letting escape a somewhat scornful bitter smile.

“If one immerses oneself in work, their entire life becomes work...”

“That’s just fine, isn’t it?”

“Don’t you think something might emerge from this kind of life we’ve been leading lately?” Taki inquired.

“That’s—” was all I could manage before a blatantly sarcastic smile formed on my face.
“It might produce something, I suppose—but given how your life has been since you started talking about your work, with all that’s happened, your only audience here would be me alone.”
“Except for those nighttime hours, I know everything else—even what occurs while you’re in the mandarin orange groves!”

“True… From here, every corner of the grove lies visible…”
He looked up at the ceiling, mouth agape, and declared.
“This creative period has stretched on too long.”

“That’s right,” I nodded deliberately in a loud voice.
I was also implicitly criticizing him for living apart from his family.
If interactions with family were severed, then perhaps it was only natural to end up like this.
In the end, he was being disturbed by some artistic delusion.
It was unnatural—the act of transcribing one’s own minor experiences into that sort of novelistic style did not strike me as being so difficult.
“Did you struggle like that last time too?” I asked with an ironic smile.

“I’ve completely forgotten about last time,” Taki said, tilting his head intently with an extremely plausible expression.
I had grown tired of laughing at that foolishness and murmured through a yawn.
“If you’ve forgotten, then forget it. It’s not like there’s much to think about anyway...”

“Just a slight nuance in mood, you see—in the sense of shadow and light—” he said without any pretense of bashfulness, “I omitted ‘and sunlight’ from the title.”
“Later, when I realized it was slang for ‘wickedness’—ah, even now when I recall it, I’m filled with irreparable regret,” he said.

“Tch!” I clicked my tongue in irritation despite myself.
“Go home quickly and start working on your writing tonight of all nights.”

Then he suddenly turned red and shouted in a feverish voice, “I *am* working on my writing!”—irritably—and ran off without another word.
I didn’t understand.—Only his vacant face lingered in my mind like an illusion.
When he had been right before me, I had observed him with such intensity, yet a moment later, his silent face now gazed mutely back at mine.
He blinked; at times he opened his mouth as though to speak. In the stagnant midday silence—a bleached emptiness where nothing was visible—I felt scrutinized by that face of his. Neither eeriness nor loneliness quite captured it—only a drifting, smoke-enveloped rapture took hold, until meeting the non-illusory Taki began to feel like salvation.
His coming grew interminable.
If it were daytime, one could scour the mandarin orange groves with eagle eyes and find him immediately.
He would sometimes assist enthusiastically with the harvest, shears in hand.
There were times he flew kites boisterously on the hilltop.
There were times he pushed carts.
There were times he joined the field workers’ tea gatherings.
Even though he must have known I was sticking my face out of this window, he didn’t so much as glance my way.
With the feeling of watching a figure in a painting, I gazed relentlessly at his violent movements.
No matter how one looked at it, this was not the way a thinking person worked.—Indeed, it seemed the only time he became absent-minded, lost in some thought, was when he wasn’t before me.
He must have been a man who couldn’t remain absorbed when alone.
Even at night, he must have been creating something that wasn’t a novel.

His patience was commendable, but I found myself growing increasingly uneasy about Taki’s capabilities. When faced with him, I would fish out from experiences predating this lifestyle something that might serve as material for him and drop hints.
“You probably don’t even have time to quarrel with your wife these days.”
“Living apart now?”
“You two had quite a lot in summer—your marital quarrels were rather special.”
“What starts them and why they stop there—those watching can never quite grasp.”
“Just pick any single scene and try recalling it exactly as it was.”
“Try lining up several of those petty quarrels—I think some connecting thread will naturally emerge, and you might unexpectedly encounter something rather splendid.” Then shifting tone: “Or what about that time you went to worship at the Buddhist temple on that mountain over there?”
“Since Fazaa’s third memorial has passed, starting this year they’ve been making you request household-safety prayers under your name?”
“When Mother looks at the inscription on the offerings she wrote, why are you even having someone else write your own name?!”
“When she saw that—what happened?!”
“In your household’s case, they usually write ‘household safety,’ but you didn’t notice—when they opened it over there, they suddenly saw ‘wish fulfillment’ inscribed with ‘Taki something-or-other,’ didn’t they? And that face of yours when you told me about it!”
“I couldn’t even say—it’s indescribable!”
“How many other types of prayers there are—you said you’d remember them?”
“If you go without writing it down carelessly, they’ll ask you about prayer types at the office?”
“If you were asked that—you’d be quite perplexed yourself—or so you said.”

I also said such things.
“What about when your whole family planned that island cruise from Y Onsen – in that little motor launch?”
“That uncle-type fellow you hate – what’s-his-name – was along too, wasn’t he?”
“Why do you two get on so badly?”
“Mother found it rather a nuisance when you all trailed after us to Y later, didn’t she?”
“That business about you being horribly seasick – wasn’t that the time?”
“You once claimed it wasn’t seasickness but some oppressive mood that overwhelmed you – what manner of heaviness was that?”

“There’s no reason I should get seasick on a boat, but…”
“That was actually the first time I ever got seasick on a boat.”

“Your first time getting seasick—huh.
Was it really that unbearable?”

Having said that, I deliberately stared at him with exaggerated wide eyes, but Taki said nothing further.
He continued to gaze at the two differently colored streams of smoke rising from either end of his rolled cigarette.

“First time getting seasick—huh,” I muttered even more heavily.

Because I had once heard too many detailed accounts from Taki, I had mostly forgotten his words of impression and the complicated emotional circumstances of that occasion, but I still remember Taki on the boat.
Taki, who had uncharacteristically suffered terrible seasickness, in his anguish carelessly thrashed about as he pleased, and because the boat was too small, it nearly took on water.
He had to endure double suffering.
He was barely lying in the hull’s space, but nausea incessantly welled up in his chest.
But he couldn’t afford to panic and rush to the gunwale.
The entire crew mustered their energy; as he attempted to press toward the gunwale, they had to gradually shift the boat’s center.
While suppressing what welled up in his chest, he finally reached the gunwale and let out a gurgling sound before vomiting violently.
If he could just stay leaning there against it, that would be one thing—but merely sensing the deep, clear sea’s quiet water before his closed eyes made him tremble with a dizziness that threatened to swallow him whole.
He could not endure the disorientation.
And so, each time his nausea subsided slightly, he could not help but return to the hull’s space.
Each time, those aboard would resettle themselves here and there, carefully re-establishing the boat’s center.
Everyone’s faces had turned pale.
In his anguish, there was no telling when Taki might make some sudden movement that would throw them off balance.
Taki himself was also terrified of that.
Taki’s entire body became stiff as a rod, leaving him no choice but to grind his teeth with his whole frame.

After barely five minutes had passed, nausea welled up again, and Taki could no longer remain lying down.
Exchanging signals of caution with one another, those around him remained mindful of every movement as they repositioned themselves once more.
The movements of all those people resembled those in a film shot with a high-speed camera—slow yet intensely tense—as they repeatedly shifted from their positions to new ones.
In the end, no one made a sound except for Taki’s groans, and at the height of terror, they devoted themselves to maintaining their positions with silent, skillful focus.
While cowering under their terrifying attentiveness, he had to retch, strain, writhe, and roll.
He had to transform every nerve into a single spear and with his own hands plunge the final thrust into his own chest.
In the end, he no longer even knew what he was vomiting.

The small boat carrying this eerily quiet commotion glided across the mirror-like water with a cheerful drone. …… Upon reaching the island, the group—having completed their unnervingly grueling task—simply stood dazed on the shore for some time, silently exchanging glances.
The family had gone to the trouble of confirming the fine weather and gathering everyone for a pleasant boating excursion, only to have it ruined by Taki’s presence aboard.
On the return trip, Taki alone boarded a separate boat.
He had been lying face up cautiously, but gazing solely at the clear sky proved unexpectedly pleasant, and he ended up returning to the shore while dozing off.
If he were alone, he felt like he would have wanted to stay on board longer.
Though he hadn’t been on a boat since then and couldn’t be certain, he thought it must have been because those around him had been so frightened and because he himself had rocked the boat so violently in his own suffering that he succumbed to the commotion—under normal circumstances, there was no reason he should get seasick on a boat.

“It would be interesting to try riding once more—for you—”

“Once I finish my work or something…”

“How about stopping this time—you’re getting sick from your work.”

“No, I’m burning with creative passion.”

“Without form, that would be impossible,” I said, intending instead to press him further.
“Even if you stare at nothingness, isn’t it just pointlessly weakening your nerves?”

“It’s not exactly nothingness… no—it’ll work out.”
“If it weren’t for that, I couldn’t endure the loneliness.”

“Then your recent actions—those actions alone are your work, and that’s just a means to escape loneliness, isn’t it?”

“…………”

“Rather, I envy your work,” I spat out irritably.
Taki, who had been tilting his head oddly and lost in thought for some time, suddenly slumped and hung his head dejectedly.

As I wondered whether he might be dozing off, some time passed for me.

"I haven’t kept my diary for some time now—something that hasn’t happened in years."
"If you don’t write in a diary day after day, you’ll forget everything," I muttered irritably to myself, whereupon Taki nodded deeply with an air of plausibility, as though these words concerned his own affairs.

“Lately I’ve lost all distinction between day and night—so even you—”

“Watching your life has practically become my work now.”
“I can’t even keep up the diary.”
“But I can’t just skip them, so I’ve been jotting things down in batches—”

With that intention, I had occasionally jotted down bits like this, yet I could not impose any order on the passage of days.
I inserted my conversations with Taki in this manner, but they all remained vague and lacked any coherent sequence.
Dreams may have blended in.
Even in dreams, the other party was Taki.

The mandarin orange harvest ended, and the hills and fields lay hushed.
Occasionally, if I spotted a figure in the fields, it was Taki.

My winter chronic ailment—this inability to take walks—had begun to manifest, and when awake, I had no choice but to lean against this window.

In reality, it seemed Taki hardly ever spoke in my presence.
When I looked at it that way, I must have been dreaming of Taki quite often.
Though the fact that I was writing this much suggested it wasn’t a dream, his face remained constantly before my eyes—yet when I considered it this way, there were no clear words from him.
If that were the case, then Taki had not exchanged words with any human being lately.—On the windswept hill where gales blew wildly, he was often seen enthusiastically flying kites.

As I documented my conversations with Taki, even words he had undoubtedly spoken transformed as if I were arbitrarily pulling distant whispers closer, and I sometimes felt as though I myself was delving into my own incomprehension of him. Something other than words—something that needed no words—must have been connecting us. Right—after all, I hadn’t been talking to him in a dream. It was just that the words I’d spoken would feel like a dream the next moment. It was merely that I’d neglected my diary too much.

“When it comes to writing everything together at once, it must be quite a struggle,” Taki had once said with a sympathy that treated me as though I were a writer.

“My life consists solely of observing yours, and yet your life in turn...” I found myself struck by a strangely suffocating sensation.

“It’s not as if I’m deliberately living unnaturally.”

Hearing this, I couldn’t suppress a hollow, meaningless laugh.
I shrank back involuntarily in embarrassment.

Not long after that, he replaced the study window with glass doors. He had often consulted me about matters of light and shadow, but for now had likely only altered the windows. His ideal room could be described in a word as resembling a photographer’s atelier, and there had once been an entire day and night spent discussing its structural details in depth. That window was hastily modified—of course no attention had been paid to things like the refraction of light he’d mentioned—they had simply removed the original frames and replaced all three sides with glass doors the size of traditional sliding paper doors. The feeling he had spoken of—being indoors yet seated in the wilderness? I should have been able to grasp at least that much. From here, it appeared as though gazing into an aquarium tank—his every gesture visible as if held in one’s palm. Though invisible to the naked eye, I watched there nightly through a cylindrical telescope I’d assembled myself, never tiring of the view. He seemed unaware that I conducted such observations. He was quite secretive, to the point of disliking even having his books seen by others—until now, even I had rarely entered his study. However, given my window’s distance—from which he likely believed nothing could be seen—and considering I’d been forced into this habit of all-nighters thanks to him, I supposed this much was permissible. Even had it been impermissible, I’d have had no other way to pass the nights than continuing thus.

Now more than ever, I was an observer of Taki’s entire life.

(Note:
Both houses stood in the terraced mandarin orange groves—B’s closer to the hill, Taki’s directly below it near the sea.)

Were I to mention it, he would promptly amend himself; yet pitying the thought of ruining his hard-won creative mood, I endured the discomfort and kept it secret, grateful that he too avoided broaching the subject.
I meant to caution him subtly once his work concluded—but given how matters stood, I simply couldn’t refrain from peering into his room.
It felt karmic.

It was a windless, quiet night.
It must have been quite cold outside.
Taki’s window glowed bright.
He had gone to bed early in the evening, awoke twice—each time merely smoking a cigarette before immediately falling back asleep—and now lay profoundly slumbering beneath the blazing electric light.
Dawn must have been approaching.
Though sleepiness weighed on me too, I resolved to keep writing a while longer rather than risk being roused after finally drifting off.

(Note:
Taki, who used his study as a bedroom, had developed the habit of coming to B’s room to sleep after finishing his work ever since opening the windows.
They would sleep there with their pillows side by side from dawn until a little past noon.
Until the curtains were installed, Taki had asked B to let him sleep in his bedroom.
Because Taki’s room was bathed in sunlight throughout the day.
B would occasionally reproach Taki about the curtains with hesitant persistence, but he would only deflect the words with a vague, moody artist’s gaze.)

“Has your work made any progress?”

Whenever I saw Taki’s face entering my room, asking this question had invariably become my first act. At first, I found the emptiness of Taki’s responses comical—for instance, when I posed such inquiries, he would answer with grave sincerity:

“It’s progressing.”
“Last night alone, I kept my pen moving from evening till now and wrote nearly twenty pages,” he’d declare—despite having been curled up in bed throughout that time—until gradually I too became like Taki, no longer sensing any hollowness whatsoever.
I don’t even feel deceived.
As for this sensation of mine—though its cause eludes even my own understanding—I too began adopting an excessively earnest tone,

“So in total, it’s already reached sixty-five pages now,” I counted out truthfully by bending each finger.

“That’s right.
“It’s progressing surprisingly quickly, so…”

“Was opening the window a good idea after all?”

“That’s hardly the case… I’m still too keyed up from the lingering excitement to sleep for some time yet, so you should rest first.”

“Well then, I’ll excuse myself.”
“Excuse me.”

Both of them would fall into peaceful slumber while exchanging such words without any hint of unnaturalness.
Though he told me to sleep first, I more often than not ended up hearing his snores before I could.

An unexpected variety of people came and went through Taki’s room. I had been absolutely convinced that Taki spent every midnight in solitude until he replaced them with glass doors. Under those circumstances, one could safely say there was absolutely no time when he took up his pen. When not entertaining some unknown visitor, he would either be sleeping on his bed or smoking a cigarette with an air of nonchalance. And when dawn approached, he would rise and come to my place—his figure trudging along the narrow path—and except for those moments when he disappeared beneath the mandarin orange trees, every one of his movements remained within my field of vision.

“It’s excellent that you’re hitting your stride. I look forward to reading your new work,” I said.

“Thank you. I’d very much like you to read it,” he said modestly.

“How many more days until you finish the draft?”

“I intend it to be four or five days, but I can’t say for certain.”

Once he started writing, he would undoubtedly complete it in one sustained burst—that was what I kept thinking—yet Taki showed no sign of sitting at his desk.

Nights like these persisted.

Despite having once made a habit of constantly saying nighttime hours were crucial, whenever someone other than myself visited his room, he would insist on keeping them there while putting on an exaggerated show of charm. To begin with, while he had always been even-handed toward others to some degree, his recent behavior was extreme; first and foremost, the very fact that he would invariably usher anyone who came into that study marked a departure from his usual self.

There were times when he engaged in amiable conversation with a young man who looked every bit an artist—one whose face I'd never known. I didn't know what they discussed, but they likely held animated talks about art. With cheerful bearing, Taki moved his mouth more than usual. The young man would occasionally clutch paper scraps and recite something. Taki solemnly tilted his head. In the end, they sipped coffee and talked nearly without cease until daybreak.

There were also evenings when he practiced the trumpet with relentless dedication, taking the musician from the town’s motion picture theater as his teacher.
The sound of the trumpet could be heard coming here.
Even so, come morning, he told me nothing but the same old things.
I too calmly counted out the number of pages he claimed to have written for his creative work on my fingers.

There were also evenings when his mother and he sat facing each other properly, just the two of them.
He seemed to be being lectured about something.
He occasionally turned sideways, his face reflected in the glass doors.
He made a sneering expression.
He twisted his mouth as if on the verge of tears.
He turned back toward his mother and drew himself up stiffly.
The moment his mother’s figure vanished, he collapsed onto the bed as though fainting—indeed, it was the motion of someone breaking down in weeping.
He remained as he was and did not get up until he went out to this place.

At other times, there were occasions when he was giving dance lessons to his wife.
His wife seemed to be learning for the first time.
Taki had an acquaintance with a foreigner—a fact known only to his family and myself—but he must have been made to learn such things back in middle school.
During that period, there were occasions when he would be discovered by me through sheer coincidence, turn flame-red, tear himself away from his partner mid-dance to hide in the bath chamber, and absolutely refuse to show his face.
Ever since then, he continued to adopt an attitude of avoiding my eyes wherever we met; I too never brought it up, though I soon forgot about it.

Taki had seized his wife, who seemed somehow bashful, and was languidly whipping her.
On his table spun an old-fashioned gramophone with a trumpet attachment—a sight I had hardly ever seen. Though this proved to be a spectacle lasting only a single night. His wife grew accustomed to the rhythm and ended up repeating it quite cheerfully until late into the evening, so I had been certain they would continue for several nights more.

Various people appeared every night only to vanish, but Taki alone never once departed from that place under any circumstances.
In other words, he never vanished from my field of vision.
When there was no one around, he would either be dozing off or smoking cigarettes with a completely vacant expression.
He never even turned off the electric light.
Moreover, compared to before, he seemed to be using a considerably large one—the dazzling light pressed through the glass doors on three sides, pushing back the surrounding darkness.
When there were storm shutters, the brightness of the shoji screens—and from here, the lattice structure there—was no different from a lantern.
After nightfall, it was a place completely devoid of passersby as long as we didn’t traverse it ourselves—which was ideal—but should anyone happen to pass through, every detail of Taki’s activities would be laid bare even to an owl’s eyes.

Under those circumstances, it was no wonder he was even more bored than I when alone.
The fact that he desired company must have been evidence of that.
When I considered that Taki’s nights from the time before I knew him must have also been like that, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of pity.
It was only natural that he had exhausted all ideas beyond becoming engrossed in making kites.
Why couldn’t he write prose with a hobbyist’s detachment? Even in kite-making—once he set to work—he poured his entire being into it in that manner.
He seemed constitutionally incapable of engaging in any kind of work halfheartedly.
It wasn’t that he abandoned things out of whims or selfishness—rather, he became crushed under the weight of his own passions.
He had gone out to work two or three times, but the cause of his failure hadn’t been negligence.
In the end, his feelings alone had accumulated to a breaking point; to an outside observer, he was repeating utterly sloth-like days.

Sleeping and continued smoking—each having reached an intensity he could no longer bear—lately he began devoting his solitary hours to various tasks.
One evening，leaning against a chair near the window while gazing up at the moon，he was wholly absorbed in playing the mandolin.
He must have exerted considerable force in his fingertips，for when he came to my room，they were trembling.
His legs，having remained crossed for so long，seemed severely numb；he came up the path using a cane.
One evening，he arranged laboratory glassware on his desk (I saw they were all my possessions．
When had he brought them in?
What a slippery bastard!
I thought．
Even so，I had been observing every minute detail of his actions，yet I failed to notice him taking out those instruments．
Upon reflection—does he have some spare time beyond my observation?)—he was mixing something with a ferociously focused expression．
It was strange that he knew the uses of those tools and was quite skillful in handling them．
With a celluloid eyeshade on his forehead，he busily worked his hands，but what he tested seemed utterly simple．
He merely pointlessly and ostentatiously played with instruments and liquids．
It was truly nothing more than an empty prank．
Yet，if one were to photograph just that scene，it would precisely capture the dignified appearance of a scientist in a laboratory．

On another evening, he was blowing soap bubbles.
Even if there had been substance to his activities, only the events of the previous night would remain incomprehensible to anyone but me.
At first I thought he was continuing the experiment from that night, but the soap bubble solution had been freshly prepared that evening.

He blew countless soap bubbles of various sizes.
It was only at this time that a faint look of enjoyment appeared on his face.

On another evening, he sat cross-legged on a chair drinking sake.
I learned for the first time that he could drink that much.
No sooner did he grow progressively drunk than he clambered onto the bed with an unsteady gait.
There, he performed anguish identical to his tale of "the first seasickness."
As I wondered whether this was genuine drunken suffering, his movements gradually aligned with that story.
Observing his varied actions, even his fellow passengers’ figures became vividly clear to me.
The small boat rocked violently.

He had never repeated the same act even for a single night before—had he now abandoned all deliberation and begun reenacting that story?

He quietly approached the gunwale and, clawing at his chest with convincing realism, vomited.
With even more meticulous movements, he conjured the figures of surrounding people before my eyes as vividly as he himself appeared.
Contrary to the original tale, in a sudden violent motion, the boat capsized.
He promptly hauled the women back into the boat as if his drunkenness had evaporated entirely.
Finally, he enacted a great struggle in the sea against an uncle-shaped phantom.
He proved the stronger swimmer.
It seemed Taki utterly detested that man.
I had watched with bated breath, wondering what manner of oar he might produce, but midway through his performance of attempting to drag the weakened opponent into the boat, he genuinely grew distressed, thrust his head through the window, and retched.
While he fastidiously tidied the room, dawn began bleaching the eastern sky.
And so he came here.

“How many pages did you get through last night?”
“I only got through two pages.”

“That’s an uncommonly poor result for you lately.”
“But hasn’t it reached nearly a hundred pages already? Has the climax passed?”
“There’s no such thing as a climax in my novel.”

“But are you nearing the end already?”

We still exchanged such earnest conversations whenever we met face to face.
At one time I had hoped, but now when I thought of after his work would be finished, the apprehension that loneliness would come instead had welled up within me.
Taki himself had once told me he felt lonely when not engaged in creative work, and I had recorded feeling indignant at the hollowness of his words, but now I found myself sensing an inexplicable resonance with what he said.

(Note.
The two would lie down side by side, and soon after their snores arose, Taki alone would awaken.
He would indeed fall asleep once, but invariably awaken immediately in a nervous state.
He would get up, open the diary on B's desk, and transcribe the day-by-day additions onto manuscript paper.
The number of pages he reported to B each morning referred to this very task.
He was not intentionally keeping this secret from B, but his feeling was akin to B's having missed the chance to tell him about peering through the telescope.
And Taki would completely forget that he was being watched by B while in his room at night.
That was only natural given his disposition to become wholly absorbed in a single task at a time.
Those experiment tools—during times when there were no new entries in B's diary—he would carry away one at a time without reason.
Around this time, on days without new entries, it had become Taki's habit to take up B's glasses and peer intently into his own desolate room, bathed in morning sunlight and devoid of any human presence.
(the period until he grew sleepy again and collapsed next to B—)

When I recently thought about the dream I had—feeling some association—it turned out to be a memory of the motion picture I first saw when I was six or seven years old.
The scene showed two men appearing in close-up as they ate watermelons.
Holding crescent-shaped large watermelons in both palms, the men opened their mouths wide and greedily devoured them.
Turning their heads aside to spit out seeds with sharp *puh-puh* sounds, they devoured the watermelons while shaking their heads like bears.
Both were so engrossed that they would occasionally mistake the watermelon in their own hands for that of the man next to them and take a bite…
It was a photograph taken with the sole purpose of vividly displaying the act of eating.
I have made it a rule not to record any dreams in my diary, yet I found it strangely amusing how vividly this one remained etched in my own mind.
I first took up the pen to write my diary at the age of seven, so this matter may be recorded in the diary from that time.
Looking back, the films of that era were all specimen-like examples devoid of plot or meaning, existing solely to demonstrate that photographs could move.
“A Person Smoking Tobacco,” “A Person Playing the Flute,” “A Galloping Horse,” “A Person Delivering a Speech,” “A Person Drawing on a Blackboard”—.

(Showa 1, December)