Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

It was a deceptively warm day, with a brilliant sun shining.

The temple where Endō Kiyoko’s gravestone stood was on a street where one turned left after keeping Yanaka’s Five-Storied Pagoda to the right; as the time for the memorial service drew near, I hurriedly left home.

Then I felt as though the air currents were growing turbulent midway through.

“It looks like it might start raining along the way—”

The automobile driver said this while peering at the sky ahead through the front windshield.

Black clouds were forming.
To put it more precisely—a murky drift as though ash and black had been poured into vermilion—was streaming across.
The cloud formations showed a stark contrast to the clear skies here.

From Akasaka to Yanaka Cemetery at Ueno Park’s far end was a considerable distance; we ended up meeting heavy rain as we approached Kanda.
The winter rain’s ferocity made one doubt such tempestuousness could exist even in winter.

I had become thoroughly damp and chilled by the time I arrived at the temple, but there—whether because the rain hadn't fallen so heavily—the warm sunlight from earlier that morning had left every sliding door wide open, with only the brazier having its fire replenished.

The sponsors that day were former members of the Bluestocking Society. Hiratsuka Raichō and Araki Ikuko had taken charge as the principal organizers. It was a memorial gathering held on the day her friends finally established a grave for Endō Kiyoko, who had remained without one long after her death.

The financial report was presented with modest discretion. In a far corner sat a white-haired elderly man in stiff formal Japanese attire, accompanied by one or two men in Western suits; out of deference to their presence, discussions about future arrangements were conducted quietly. Membership fees and contributions for subsequent memorial offerings were collected.

Before long, we were guided to the main hall.
We all took our seats together, but though the main hall—with its many glass shoji screens—was brighter than the study, the cold was severe.
The sutra chanting inspired no sense of solemnity whatsoever, but as I stared at the coarse weave of the tatami mat before me, something strange began to flicker in that space—a white glimmer that defied description, neither flame nor steam nor beam of light.

Ms. Endō Kiyoko must be pleased.

Certainly I had thought so, but more than that, something suddenly struck my chest. Twenty-five years—had they aged everyone this much?—

In everyone's hair there must have been a strand or two of white—perhaps more. On their faces as well, fine and rough wrinkles could be seen. One by one, they stood to offer incense.

A chill ran down my spine, and I shivered violently. The discomfort that had lingered since coming through the rain manifested itself at that moment, and Ms. Okada Yachiyo, who had been right behind me, gasped in alarm.

“You must go quickly to where the brazier is,” she urged with concern.

Ms. Ikuta Hanayo offered to fetch a coat. The others noticed too and pressed me to move toward the warmth. Having already finished offering incense, I heeded my kind friends’ suggestions.

Wrapped in my coat and clinging to the brazier, I noticed Ms. Yachiyo approaching with concern about my condition—only to find it unwarranted.

“Oh! Cold! So cold!”

She exclaimed as though fleeing winter herself, shutting the nearby shoji screens before settling beside me.

“How are you? We can’t have you catching cold in a temple.”

While saying I was fine, I curled up and did not look at my friends' faces. If I looked, I would be unable to stop the tears from coming. They had endured such tremendous hardships—and I thought as if chewing on that alone. They were all people who had walked barefoot through fire. To the eyes of today's youth, they might appear ashen or charcoal-like in their darkness, but they were all burning like fire—each one of them having struggled to blaze and build that path of thorns leading not to where young women today arrive, but to the very starting point from which they depart. It was neither the frost of hair needlessly multiplied nor the fine wrinkles formed from yawns.

――In all those years——so very，so very much had women’s path progressed――

The previous night, having talked endlessly amidst a group charged with such vivid immediacy, I now found myself among companions of an entirely different nature, and indeed felt thoroughly disoriented. In my daily existence, where I rarely contemplated the passage of years, this very comfort of perpetually keeping company with young friends left me feeling as though my face were being ground against that desperate, all-consuming past—a past where everyone had struggled desperately without distinction.

Just because they appeared vibrant on the surface did not mean the youth’s entry into society was any less of a desperate struggle—in the same way, the pioneers too were by no means in a state of rest.
Although they had walked through the same era—well—how to put it—from today’s perspective these were people who had endured every conceivable trial to such an extent that such trivial matters—or so they would say—

I gazed at the profile of Ms. Kamichika Ichiko and saw that in Ms. Hyūga—who had become the dancer Hayashi Kinko—she alone still retained her beautiful round marumage chignon, her features unchanged.

“Kiyoko must be pleased as well.”

Having said this, the white-haired elderly man returned to his seat and spoke in a solemn tone.

Upon hearing this, the surrounding people stirred in commotion,

“It seems your hearts remained estranged all this time, but now that you’ve spoken those words as her elder brother, the bond between you and her spirit has finally mended—”

they said words to that effect, stitching them together phrase by phrase.
Even as siblings who never reconciled, those people also knew her remains had been permitted burial in the cemetery.
To ensure building the grave wouldn’t be seen as presumptuous, the friends spoke gently to comfort the elderly man.

“You’re too kind. That you all—who understood her heart so well—have done this for her... it honors her memory, proving she had such excellent friends—”

And the man referred to as elder brother said thoughtfully.

“You’ve all heard so much about her, but—”

With deep emotion, the elderly man said, "I too was troubled."

I would have liked to hear more about such matters, but there was considerable distance between the elderly man’s seat and mine.
Moreover, a man in Western clothes had seated himself facing the elderly man and was speaking to him about something, so I could barely make out half of what the elderly man was saying.

“She must have thought me an incomprehensible brother, but I too was troubled.”
“My eyesight worsened too—”

With this, he covered his swollen eyelids with a palm against his yellowish-white square face,

“I must say—she did something akin to a forced entry—”

The clash of old and new ideologies—it was only after taking commemorative photos, visiting the grave, and partaking in Yanaka’s famous Imozaka habutae dumplings that his words began flowing more freely, as if recounting a chapter of family hardships.

“Why was that?”

Someone asked.

“Whether it was luggage or something else—they came forcing their way in with men, demanding we hand everything over. So we had people standing guard too, but—it turned into such an uproar with them battering down the shoji screens, and that’s when one of those ruffians struck my eye.”

Had he said he’d lost his eyesight entirely? A sigh laced with something like “Well, I suppose…” rippled through the air.

“Ah—that... the one from that incident?”

One of the men facing away was saying something to that effect.
Another person was whispering about someone named Mr. Endō—who shared the same surname as Ms. Kiyoko and had lived with her until the moment of her death—though who exactly this was remained unclear.
*Bluestocking* magazines and other books were spread out, and people looked through the writings of the deceased that were contained within them.

Though solemn in tone, the rather clamorous atmosphere made me feel unwell, and I could only retain one or two anecdotes from the conversations nearby.

“In her very youth, she was fond of traditional Japanese chignons.”
“And she’d style her Ginkgo-Style Chignon with such flair and adorn it with decorative combs—so to appear like that as a woman journalist meant visitors were always taken aback when they called on her.”

“She was a reporter for *Twentieth-Century Woman*, wasn’t she, back then?”

“If I recall correctly, she was part of the Oriental Students’ Association and taught English to Indians.”

In people’s eyes, the Ms. Endō Kiyoko of her far younger days was being spoken of.
In my eyes floated only the exhausted face from when we dined at my home in Tsurumi—around Taisho 6 or 7 (1917–1918), much later than that time being discussed—during her final years when her cheeks had sunken deeply.

The reason Ms. Araki Ikuko had been concerned about the grave for Ms. Kiyoko and her child was her wish to construct it with that child included—the boy entrusted to her after Ms. Kiyoko’s death, who had gone missing during the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake and whose whereabouts remained unknown even after ten years.

Because Ms. Ikuko was the daughter of an inn called Tamamotokan, Ms. Kiyoko’s surviving child was entrusted to her by the Bluestocking Society members in accordance with the deceased’s wishes.
And during that Great Kantō Earthquake and Fires of 1923, the child who had been in the spacious second-floor tatami room fled toward the front staircase.
Ms. Ikuko fled toward the back staircase.
They saw his figure from behind as he ran toward the front staircase, but after that, no matter how much they searched, he never appeared.
The child—Tamiwo—was indeed Mr. Iwano Hōmei’s biological son, but to Kiyoko, who was then Mrs. Iwano, he was not her own child by birth.
A child of tragic fate who did not stay with his father, became Ms. Kiyoko’s adopted child, and remained together with her as mother and son even after the divorce.

Iwano Hōmei had many other children as well—children from his previous marriage before Ms. Kiyoko, and children from subsequent marriages after her. Yet not only was his union with Ms. Kiyoko unconventional, but their adopted child Tamiwo was also an unfortunate boy born to another woman.

Iwano Hōmei, who died at forty-nine, had lain under a lonely grave marker for nineteen years until last year, when through Ms. Araki Ikuko’s efforts, his friends erected a splendid tombstone as it neared collapse from decay. This man’s Half-Beast Doctrine, Momentarism philosophy, and New Liberalism remain all too familiar to literary enthusiasts, but for those yet unacquainted, the epitaph on last year’s monument describes them with admirable concision; therefore I shall transcribe it here.

Iwano Hōmei, real name Yoshie, was born on January 20, Meiji 6 (1873), in Sumoto, Awaji Province.
He died at the age of forty-eight on May 9, Taisho 9 (1920).
Thereafter grieving the absence of a tombstone, friends gathered here and erected this monument.
Hōmei produced numerous works across poetry and novels, showcasing his singular genius.
The richness of his emotions and the originality of his ideas astonished his contemporaries.
The forthrightness of his expression may give the impression of harming refined sensibilities, yet none have been heard to doubt Hōmei’s innate talent, and his passing before reaching literary maturity must be regarded as most regrettable.
Hōmei initially believed in Romanticism, shifted to Symbolism, then shifted again to emphasize the primacy of instinct over the Harmony of Spirit and Flesh, thereby coining the new term "Momentarism."
Hōmei became aware of life’s mysteries and aimed to achieve a fulfilling life force through their absolute simplification; ultimately, he advanced his beliefs into what became known as New Japanism.
In my view, Hōmei was a man ahead of his time, one who presaged the era yet to come.

The epitaph was composed by Mr. Yone Noguchi.
(The punctuation marks have been tentatively added by the author for readability.)

Dying is folly—declaring

With boisterous laughter, you truly

Cherished life.

When one thinks of Hōmeiko, Mr. Kawahara Ariake’s poem is also engraved there.

It was Endō Kiyoko who had forged profound ties with such a literary figure during what was presumably his most vigorous period—both ideologically and humanly.

While Mr. Hōmei stood as an eccentric man with not merely one but two peculiarities, she too harbored unconventional convictions regarding love and marriage.
Moreover, this stance championed spiritual union with a purity so excessive it bordered on rigidity—insisting that matters of sexuality should only follow spiritual fusion—as she guarded her own chastity with a solemnity verging on severity.

She had been in love with someone for five full years and suffered a broken heart before Mr. Hōmei proposed to her. Crushed by this Platonic love’s defeat, she had been so wholly devoted to “romance” that she attempted drowning herself in the sea at Kōzu; she declared that career and honor were secondary concerns—for one who treated love as life itself, being broken by it meant losing all purpose for existing in this world. And she continued to harbor that first love deep within her heart forever.

Born during the late Meiji era’s women’s awakening period, she sought under grand ideals to forge a way of life distinct from that of previous generations of women. As one who pioneered the awakening movement in our nation from its inception, she fought to follow her chosen path faithfully. That idealist—or as Hōmei would have it, romanticist—her battle for love, though shattered, could never be deemed a defeat.

It was Hōmei—proponent of the Half-Beast Doctrine—who suddenly appeared there.

In December 1909, Hōmei suddenly went to meet her, with whom he had no prior acquaintance, and for about two hours candidly laid bare the story of his life up to that point in confessional fashion.
Kiyoko wrote in her diary about that occasion that while she could not agree with Mr. Hōmei’s conduct, she was able to respect his unperturbed nature.

He returned home that day, but about five days later, Hōmei paid his second visit.
That day, as Kiyoko’s father happened to be visiting,

“I would like to meet once more tomorrow.”
“Actually, there is a matter of great importance I wish to discuss.”

With those words, he left.
The next day, he came as promised and this time confessed his domestic circumstances.

“My wife is only in name—I merely provide her material support—”

“We’ve been separated for over three years now—but with my wife refusing consent, I remain unable to formalize the divorce.”

Therefore, he asked Kiyoko to live with him without reservation and simultaneously proposed marriage.

Around two in the afternoon, they went to Ryūdoken in Azabu for lunch, where Kiyoko set up the handicap stones and played two games of Go against Hōmei—both of which she lost.
Afterward, she watched Hōmei play billiards for about two hours, and as these friendly exchanges seemed to foster a completely relaxed atmosphere between them, when they parted ways at the top of Yuureizaka, even arrangements for moving had been settled, with Hōmei handing Kiyoko fifteen yen to rent a new house.

“A marriage without love would only disgrace oneself and commit the sin of deceiving a man.”

Kiyoko refused marriage but agreed to try living together as a household.

“Of course, I will respect your personhood—”

she made this promise.

This promise, though seemingly abrupt, must have stemmed from Hōmei’s honesty—his two confessions having touched her own forthright heart—but when alone, she sank into thought before her desk.
Her long-held argument—that love must enter through the spirit to be real and must originate from proper reason—rejected it.

—I can have nothing more than friendship with you.

Having written those words, as she was about to enclose the entrusted money and send it back, a letter arrived from Hōmei.

Of course it would be preferable to have at least the first condition accepted rather than face outright rejection—but regarding the second condition as well, I would like you to reconsider it as much as possible and grant your consent—such was the letter’s content.

"You are a romanticist born from loving Chogyū’s works—either I become your romanticist, or you become a New Naturalist."

Hōmei had also spoken in that manner, but in any case, the matter of entering into cohabitation was quickly settled.

Until then, she had decided to vacate the house in Akasaka Hinokichō 10th block where she had lived for about five years.
Among the cats she had picked up, there was one that had become quite tame, but as Hōmei disliked it, she went so far as to leave it with a neighbor.
There was no doubt that Kiyoko had indeed been drawn to Hōmei.

In the previous year or so, Hōmei had written the novel *Indulgence* for *Shinshōsetsu*.
The wave of Naturalism was surging forth, and it was also the time when Tayama Katai's *Futon* appeared.

Before attempting to write about the strange life that began there between Hōmei and Kiyoko, I recalled how the literary movement of the Bluestocking Society—pioneers of women’s liberation—had considerably inspired even the men.
Mr. Ikuta Shungetsu's proposal to Ms. Hanayo was also motivated by such circumstances.
Moreover, it was also a time when the Free Theater was proposed by Mr. Osanai and propelled forward the torch of the theater movement.

By coincidence, the place where I now sit facing my desk is Akasaka Hinokichō.
Block 10 was near Nogizaka, situated on the cliff behind my residence.
It now lies between where I live and where the musician Hara Nobuko resides.
The reason I began writing about setting out from the Akasaka house to visit Endō Kiyoko’s grave was that this connection suddenly occurred to me.
Moreover, Hōmei had first visited Kiyoko on December 1st, and by the 10th they had already relocated to Ōkubo.

It was December 22nd in the twelfth year of Shōwa—that most groundbreaking year heralded by Nanjing’s fall—yet this very month had also witnessed Mr. Osanai Kaoru’s passing a decade prior on Christmas Eve’s waning hours: the twenty-fifth’s dimming twilight.
Plans for reviving the Free Theater now teetered toward realization under Ichikawa Sadanji’s direction.
I sat silent through frost-pale dawnlight with muted sentimentality clinging like rime.

II

In the bed where she had just fallen asleep, Kiyoko faintly opened her eyes to the tat-tat of a trumpet crisply resounding through the frost-laden dawn.

She was under the illusion of hearing the 1st Infantry Regiment’s reveille at her former residence in Akasaka Hinokichō, though she also sensed a cat purring nearby.

In some murky recess of her mind surfaced the image of the old cat—though they had supposedly entrusted it to a neighbor when moving out, its black-and-gray mottled fur had grown as dingy as an old man’s grizzled head—left behind in the vacant house.

That was when I went to the Ichinoki festival—picked it up where it lay abandoned by the gutter beside the rice shop—but has it become homeless again?

Mr. Hōmei found it filthy and detestable, so we had to abandon it—and with that thought came the memory of their relocation—how Mr. Hōmei had retrieved the old ladle she had deliberately discarded atop the cart piled mountain-high with belongings, placing it back among the luggage. If only he hadn't done that, she thought, pretending not to see as she averted her eyes—yet the detestable image remained vivid beneath her eyelids: his slender back catching the pale winter sunlight as it slanted downward, bending to retrieve the worn ladle and thrust it into their possessions.

"Oh—this isn’t my former residence in Akasaka."

When her eyes snapped open, what she had mistaken for a cat turned out to be the sound of a man’s snoring coming from the adjacent room.

The trumpet’s call was emanating from Toyama Military Academy.

In the mornings and evenings since arriving at their new home in Ōkubo—though it was an unfamiliar place—the only thing unchanged from her five years in Akasaka was hearing the sound of the army trumpet.

—It had already been nearly twenty days—

Whenever she awoke, it had become her recent custom that images of their moving day would float before her eyes with peculiar melancholy, and once more she found herself recalling everything since December 9th—when she had begun cohabiting here with Mr. Hōmei—the memories cycling through her mind again.
After unloading their belongings, they borrowed a lantern from the landlord and brought it to this house they had come to together, where they sat facing each other.
In the chill of evening twilight, they waited for their luggage to arrive—huddling around the lantern for warmth and smoking tobacco.

After finishing their evening meal of soba noodles, Kiyoko looked around the house and said, "The luggage should arrive soon."

“Anyway, even though we’re living together, we’re still maintaining a friendship. So I’ll make this area my bedroom by using it as the tea room and take that six-tatami space over there.”

“Then I’ll take the eight-tatami room? That one there’s the guest room, right?”

“Then I’ll take the eight-tatami room? That one there’s the guest room, right?” said Mr. Hōmei.
The two of them looked at the cold, still-empty room—from that bedroom, snoring was leaking through.

“Even after all that crying and raging, he can still sleep so soundly.”

Kiyoko thought of the covert struggle between them that arose nightly—the tangled interplay of granting and withholding forgiveness.
The man who would rage about cutting open his belly one moment, then weep over my failure to appreciate his ardent devotion the next—yet fall soundly asleep the instant his head touched the pillow—I lay there comparing myself to him, now rendered insomniac, unable to sleep until morning.

—But gradually, I was coming to like Iwano.

I couldn’t help but think so.
Yet I had not yet conceived even the bud of love—my head shook vehemently sideways in my heart.

Even as I thought such things, I found myself still recalling the events of their relocation day.
The luggage belonging to Hōmei that arrived the next day consisted of two cartloads of books, a night robe, and an iron hand warmer—nothing more.

“After all, I failed in the crab canning business, so I have nothing left.”
“I do have one suit, but since we didn’t have enough money for the move, I had to pawn it.”

When Kiyoko took out her silver watch in an attempt to cover part of the expense,

“You don’t need to bring out your things.”
“After all, I thought I’d make a quick profit with crab canning in Karafuto—there were crabs aplenty, but the cans just wouldn’t cooperate.”

He said with an awkward laugh.

—He’s not without his merits—

Kiyoko felt her cheekbone make contact with the hand pressed to her cheek.
In the mirror she saw every morning, she could tell that only her eyes were growing larger, but as the nights gradually became more unbearable, the loneliness in her heart the moment she awoke also struck her as increasingly intolerable with each passing dawn.

If he were to resort to physical force, I could resolve to resist, but being worn down by his persistent entreaties brought sorrow.
She thought she couldn't yield or capitulate her ideology over such things.
Even though the man who had been her first 'spiritual love' partner had long since become completely disillusioned,

“Have you already married Mr. Hōmei?”

they came to visit this new cohabitation home and said,

“I leave it entirely to your imagination.”

She answered simply, and they stood side by side gazing at the moon.
Hōmei was watching it too.
He later made a sarcastic remark, but the October winter moon shone radiant and piercingly clear.

At that moment, I clearly thought that between our hearts lay a separation equal to the distance between the moon and us.
Not out of attachment to that man, but unable to burn the mementos of my spiritual love alone, I bundled them into a single package—resolving never to look at them again nor let them touch my hands—and buried it at the bottom of my trunk.

――So, put another way―if only spiritual love would bud in Hōmei―
But I know it’s impossible for one who espouses the Half-Beast Doctrine.
And yet―isn’t it precisely because it remains unattainable that we writhe in shared anguish―

She tried not to hear the morning sparrows outside the window—their chirps like laughter at the eaves. Pulling the futon over her head as if armoring herself, she imagined the frost pillars outside must be piercingly sharp. Feeling everything had grown too severe yet resolved not to bend her convictions, she kept her eyes tightly shut. What a bizarre existence—to outward appearances a harmonious newlywed couple, yet in truth wearing down each other's very souls through their struggle to prevent any contact until achieving that realm of Harmony of Spirit and Flesh!

Last year around this time (Meiji 41), she had rushed from morning till night for the movement to repeal Article 5 of the Public Order and Police Law in defense of Japanese women's rights—but this year brought a bloody battle in the romantic combat between flesh and spirit!

She hunched her shoulders and pulled up the futon cover, only for her large round chignon to snag on the pillow.

＊

The unresolved matter of granting or withholding forgiveness persisted, but as days passed, the harsh winter of cohabitation life began to thaw somewhat.
The bristling frost pillars too were beginning to melt.
In the garden where two or three cedar trees stood, maiden camellias, red plum blossoms, and flowering quinces brought from Akasaka bloomed here and there, their buds swelling.
Various types of Kiyoko’s favorite plants and flowers had been planted or sown.

“My, you’ve started doing such things for me now.”

As Kiyoko would say, there were times when Mr. Hōmei tended to the soil.
As she heard more stories from literary circles, Kiyoko too began considering writing a novel.

It was not uncommon for the pair to visit the public bathhouse together, sharing a single soap box.
At times while soaking in the women's bath, Kiyoko would calmly listen to Mizuno Yashū and Mr. Togawa Shūkotsu conversing loudly in the men's section.
On this day too, when she returned home slightly later than usual, a woman's voice could be heard inside the house.

“I’ve said I’ll repay when I have money—there’s none now.”
“You refuse to accept this?”

she persisted,

“Here, this is the promissory note.”

It appeared she was writing something down and handing it over.
After sending her away, Hōmei leaned into the six-mat room and reflected his own face in Kiyoko's mirror as she did her makeup,

“She’s the woman who modeled for Wanderer (the novel).
“During the canned food business venture, I ended up pawning her kimono too, so she came demanding I return it.”
“If there’s no money, she told me to make a promissory note and took it away.”

Kiyoko didn’t particularly concern herself with the woman who had just left.
Facing the mirror while adjusting her sidelocks, what she recalled was that time shortly after arriving here when, upon returning from the bathhouse as usual, she had overheard a conversation between host and guest through the sliding doors.

“Not yet?”

“Not yet.”

The visitor at that time was indeed Mr. Masamune Hakuchō.
Among Mr. Hōmei’s friends, there were even harsher critics who sent postcards saying things like, “What will you do if Kiyoko takes up with another man while you’re carrying on like this?” or “She must be some sort of physiological cripple, driven to this arrangement out of necessity.”

To Kiyoko, such criticisms seemed utterly trivial.
More than that, the presence of an unbearable female visitor was detestable.
That was Mr. Hōmei’s former wife Sachiko.
She, who had been living separately for three years, said in a cold tone,

“As long as I receive what’s owed to me, that’s all that matters.”
“After all, I don’t get along with this husband anyway—let this husband do as he pleases.”
“Since I hear you get along well with him, that’s splendid indeed.”

Though she could endure those words—born from rejecting base carnal love and insisting on singular eternal purity—hurled at her anguished self, what of this woman demanding money? Did she not know her husband wrote until two or three o’clock on bitter winter nights? That a literary man’s daily existence proved more wretched than imagined? Yet those were precisely the words she uttered when pressing her claim.

——Why must I be looked down upon by that vile woman?—— The thought had abruptly surged within her now, conjured by the voice of the woman who had just departed beyond the fusuma sliding door.

"What're you spacing out for?"

Mr. Hōmei said listlessly.

“Hmm, this... It feels like a cold romance, doesn’t it? Because it resembles us,” Kiyoko said insincerely, deflecting as she pointed at the yellow forsythia flowers arranged nearby. But catching sight of her own gloomy, sullen face in the mirror, she became overwhelmed by how she kept darkening the house’s atmosphere. Rising to suggest they take a walk and change their mood, she peered into the eight-tatami room. There lay Mr. Hōmei, turned away from her. Through his turned back, Kiyoko perceived his brooding melancholy.

*

“I’m giving up now.
I’ll cut away everything that rouses such feelings in me.
You needn’t cry.”

At the bedside where she sobbed, Hōmei said this.
Determined not to let such a thing happen, the twenty-eight-year-old virgin wept.
That said, as long as two ideologies coexisted under one roof, this conflict was doomed to repeat itself.

She would sometimes rise early to go to the kitchen, thoroughly clean the rooms, or prepare pickled vegetables.
No sooner would she think this than she’d go to Toyama Field to bathe in silver-colored moonlight.
She would say things like sympathizing with Mr. Shūkō Chikamatsu, who had written the novel Letters to a Departed Wife, and that she thought she might read the tragic history of his lost love with empathy.

While enduring days of mutual torment born from their conflicting positions, the two of them found their affection for each other deepening with each passing day.
Even when keeping her diary, what she had written as "Mr. Iwano" or "Mr. Hōmei" became "you," but within about three months, the characters turned into "master."

“That woman is utterly disrespectful.
“To call it poor manners would be generous! For an educated lady, barging in unannounced every time—it’s intolerable.”

She seethed at how Sachiko, true to form, would come clomping up uninvited and—with characteristic disregard—deliberately rouse her from sleep through heavy footsteps when she had overslept mornings.

Hōmei, once a middle school teacher, and Sachiko, formerly a girls’ school instructor, had parted before Hōmei launched his crab venture in Karafuto. Yet even after Kiyoko began cohabiting with him platonically, she had sympathized with Sachiko—even urging Hōmei to reconcile.
She had sent rice and charcoal to sustain Sachiko’s livelihood.
Yet whenever she visited, Sachiko’s conduct—never once acknowledging Kiyoko’s concessions—left her fuming.

But not every day was filled with such unpleasantness—there were moments of carefree joy, like when they walked together down paths lined with young leaves beneath snake-eye patterned umbrellas on their way to the bathhouse.

In her diary, she noted that when the master’s weight was measured at Mannen-yu Bathhouse—coming in at fourteen kan and three hundred fifty me—he had been delighted.

On a hot evening, Hōmei wrote his manuscript half-naked while she sat beside him adding phonetic guides.
Then a green frog came leaping in.
Hōmei chased it around with a fan, and Kiyoko helped.
Amidst the commotion of moths drawn to the lamp, crickets chirping, and mole crickets crawling about, the puppy bounded up from the entrance while the house cat emerged.
When the cat ate a cricket during their insect competition, the dog whined and barked loudly.

“It’s like a zoo.”

There was also a scene where Mr. Hōmei laughed.
Even so, one could discern the strength of Kiyoko’s multifaceted beliefs—beliefs that had dragged Mr. Hōmei, who so detested both dogs and cats, into family life and immersed him in it—but that was not all.
Mr. Hōmei would sing Kanjinchō during such harmonious family gatherings, surprising the sister who had come to visit by declaring things like, “This is the first time your brother has done something like this.”

Unable to willingly become Nora, yet incapable of retreating to assimilate into the Half-Beast Doctrine.
Love and ideology do not align.
We cannot escape ceaseless anguish and torment.
Moreover, this attachment of love toward you has become something I can no longer control——

That was her sincere confession.

Hōmei gently said that when they had the money, they would move to a spacious place and create a room with a lock for her, and that they would have a splendid wedding ceremony.

But still—Kiyoko’s ideological assertions remained unyielding.
The entire year of Meiji 43 saw this conflict persist, and even their three-night trip to Atami in January of Meiji 44 was carried through under their previous arrangement.

Though unlike Atami’s intermittent hot springs, between this most singular couple, those recurring silent struggles now began erupting sporadically.
She fell mute throughout the day, while Hōmei engaged in restless activity.

“Weeping or shouting does not yet reach sorrow’s extremity.”
“The extremity of grief lies in silence.”
“Silence contains sorrow’s deepest depths.”

“Silence is the most profound sorrow,” said Hōmei.

If it were merely the sagging that comes after satiety, she could still endure it—but because there was an error in love’s fundamental demands, she tormented herself with anguish. At dawn that night, she finally resolved to change her disposition and begin loving him anew.

“I will cast aside rational judgment and hurl myself blindly into love,” she resolved.
“Then Hōmei would be satisfied, and my loneliness might disappear.”

She told herself that annihilating herself might be necessary to create a greater self.
And if she was to do it today—she thought—it must be before this resolve crumbled.

To confess, she wanted to have a pleasant expression.
To lighten her mood, she stepped out into the sunny day.
After playing rugby at a friend’s house and returning at dusk, she thought she could now speak with heartfelt laughter.
She eagerly hurried to discuss matters with a new lover’s disposition.
Bounding up through the entrance, she asked “Is Master home?” only for the maid to answer “He has gone out.”

Kiyoko’s fervent resolve crumbled.

Mr. Hōmei also grew irritable and drank nothing but alcohol.
And,

“I am an unfortunate man. You’re also unhappy. On top of that, we’re poor. It must be so dreary,” he said with deep resignation. Both mentally and materially—I had to find some way to break through.

Whether it was because she believed a complete lifestyle overhaul offered the only solution or not，she joined the Osaka Shinpo.
Before Kiyoko would follow later，the musician Mr.Kitamura and his wife—while forming a new theater company—suggested she become an actress，making her heart waver.

“I don’t like showing my wife to the public.”

Hōmei opposed.
Even Kiyoko, who hadn’t agreed to that, ended up growing completely weary of it after going to watch the rehearsals and refused.

＊

On March 26th, two days before Hōmei’s departure for Osaka, her diary contained:

My heart is enveloped in thick, oppressive air—like a forest on a black night.

Kiyoko wrote.
When she read Hōmei’s letter saying it was better to go hungry together than be apart and worry, she lamented how sorrowful this world was that lovers should be separated east and west, how the one who shared her hardships now dwelled at an inn in distant Naniwa—unanswering though she called—and when she came into a little money, she thought of using it for travel expenses to go to Osaka, reasoning that surely she wasn’t the only one who wanted to meet, and found herself yearning for Hōmei—with whom she would only continue fighting if they were together.
Whether it was her imagination or not, the croaking of frogs had come to sound like "Osaka Osaka."

That vision of your return and our shared tale was but a dream—a sudden spring night's reverie in fitful slumber.

You dwell in western Asuka a hundred ri away—envying wings, I gaze at the vast sky.

And so she came to confess her longing without restraint.

At last, the day came when she took the maid and all the household belongings to Osaka.

＊

Having taken up residence at the foot of Ikedayama in Osaka’s suburbs, she felt lighthearted enough that merely riding the train had brought her from one suburb to another.

The dusk when mist veiled the spring greens was a season of pungent new foliage.
Though it was said to be the same sort of suburban home, in her life at Ikeda where she could even view Rokko Mountain from the second floor, her demeanor had completely transformed.
The master had been in good spirits when he left this morning, yet upon returning his mood had soured—could it be because I hadn’t gone out to greet him?
But that was only on the surface; in her May 11th, Meiji 44 diary entry,

I have no experience in married life.
Today, having first allowed a man both body and soul, my illusions about married life had already faded.
The ancients say marriage is love's grave.
I had believed that true married life meant a lover's efforts aligning inner and outer worlds.
I had thought failed marriages resulted from insufficient effort by those involved.
But this might have been my own illusion—

While chewing on despair from some hidden corner of her being, she nevertheless dragged out the ceramic brazier and burned those mementos—letters from what was said to be a five-year spiritual love she had stuffed at the bottom of a trunk to write a love autobiography with, all while trying to love her husband with single-minded devotion.
In the smoke-dimmed haze of the electric light, when she shook Hōmei awake to show him,

“You do such peculiar things.”
“What possessed you to remember that in the dead of night?”

And he, who had already lost interest in such matters, would often—

“There’s no need for you to stay here so unwillingly.”

he had come to say.

＊

In the previous issue, it had been written that the boy being raised by Ms. Araki Ikuko who died in the Great Earthquake Disaster was not Kiyoko’s biological child; however, this was a misunderstanding resulting from excessive inquiries across various quarters.
Ms. Ikuta Hanayo—known by her pen name Nagasobe Kikuko during that period—had taken employment as a maid in Mr. Mizuno Yōshū’s household out of her conviction that art must begin with practical living.

The amicable relationship between the Iwano and Mizuno families was maintained through Mr. Hōmei’s characteristic air as he wore his deep violet bell-shaped mantle and accompanied Ms. Kiyoko with her large round chignon,

“Kiyoko is finally carrying my child here.”

and was known to have been seen pointing at his wife’s belly and speaking with satisfaction.

The bell-shaped mantle came into fashion around Taisho 3 and 4 (1914–1915).
At that time, this couple had returned from Osaka and was living in Sugamo Miyanaka, Tokyo.
In the summer of the fourth year (1915), Kiyoko’s health had been poor, and this aligned with Tamiwo being around nine years old in 1923.
Moreover, when Mr. Hōmei parted from Ms. Kiyoko,

“So this is our eternal farewell, isn’t it?”

When she said this, Mr. Hōmei responded as follows.

“I don’t think so. There’s no telling when you might come back after a fight. Besides, the boy will come to visit sometimes, you know.”

Mr. Hōmei had at that time been continuing an illicit affair with Kawahara Fusae (later his wife), whom he had employed as an amanuensis.

“If it’s about Kawahara—it had been going on since a month ago… But I still hold respect for you even today.”

and confessed the affair in a light tone.

That was a grave matter for Kiyoko.
For seven years of cohabitation, Hōmei’s conduct had remained spotless—this had been Kiyoko’s pride, and Hōmei’s too.
The splendid beacon of domesticity that had supposedly reformed years of dissolute living was overturned in an instant.

Kiyoko thought she needed to calmly consider and handle this insult, but became agitated.
She couldn't bear being surrounded by traitors.

Kawahara Fusae said to her.

“Just because our relationship has come to this doesn’t mean I intend to receive anything beyond a fixed monthly stipend.”
“I do not want to do something like being kept with money.”

From then on, Hōmei—taking advantage of their relationship being exposed—began visiting Kawahara openly every night.

The feeling of being plunged into a thousand-fathom abyss—for Kiyoko, what proved even more unbearable than this was the act of trying to maintain their marital relationship despite it all.

Torn between separation or divorce, she visited Ms. Hiratsuka Akiko at the Bluestocking Society.

She resolved to separate.

On the condition that he would hand over two-thirds of his income to support their child and that she would retain her rights as a wife, two privately drafted agreements were drawn up.

Because the incident was so abrupt, everyone was taken aback, but Mr. Iwano nonchalantly departed with a cart loaded with his belongings,

“Goodbye.”

With those words, he departed.

Hollow desolation!

She had once said such things.

"I was born in Shiba and raised in Kanda; there was a time I lived with my father in Ayase (upper reaches of the Sumida River), a water town. When I was twelve, during the height of cherry blossom season, a great fire burned us out, and that marked the beginning of my family’s decline. The bright red of that fire—the crimson that struck my childhood heart—and the summer day when Mr. Hōmei left (it was August), that midday’s pure white emptiness, cannot be erased from my mind or my eyes."

＊

After that, Ms. Kiyoko opened a shop selling cut flowers and potted Western plants. The material support promised by Mr. Hōmei did not appear to have been delivered as agreed. Later, she married a young man who diligently tended the shop and showed her kindness. In Taisho 9 (1920), when a girl was born to them, they left for his hometown of Kyoto to settle various matters, but her chronic gallstones worsened, and she died at Kyoto Imperial University Hospital.

It was the very end of the year.
The Bluestocking had already ceased publication, but due to her work with the New Women’s Association, Ms. Raichō couldn’t leave Tokyo.
When she sent all the money she had on hand,

“Oh, even though she must be struggling with money herself because of her work right now—for her to send me any amount at all—this is truly precious money.”

She was pleased, but by that time had fully prepared herself for death and had written as the first item in her will that she wished to entrust the child she shared with Mr. Hōmei to her friends.

It was a sorrowful bond.
As for Mr. Hōmei, in April 1915, he had submitted a combined work of "New-Style Poetry Composition" and "History of New-Style Poetry" to apply for a doctoral degree, but just as the deliberation process was nearing completion, public criticism surrounding the incident involving Ms. Kiyoko and Kawahara Fusae grew so vociferous that his petition was ultimately rejected at the final stage.

This truly was but a fragment of the story of that strong-willed woman who until twenty-eight had sought to live out Love Supremacy—the Harmony of Spirit and Flesh—yet the year Meiji 43 (1910), when she so stubbornly guarded herself in her cohabitation with Mr. Hōmei, coincided with the time of the High Treason Incident.