Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

Red, yellow, and verdigris flowed together in a paint palette where white had been dissolved, appearing like a rainbow or blending like iridescent clouds,

“Oh, this—”

The girl holding the paint palette called out.

“It’s like Yamada Bimyōsai’s ‘Butterfly’.”

The ocean mist from the spring tide coming from Princess Otohime’s Dragon Palace reached the girl’s eyes.

Yamada Bimyōsai was a literary man said to have beautiful eyebrows who co-founded the Ken’yūsha society with Ozaki Kōyō and Kawakami Bizan. His story “Butterfly,” written in the unification of spoken and written language and serialized in *Kokumin no Tomo*, had gained considerable acclaim in multiple respects.

During the Genpei War’s Battle of Yashima, when the imperial ship and all other vessels—warships included—had sunk into the sea, a young woman named Butterfly, who served a noble lady, also sank to the ocean floor but was unexpectedly washed ashore.
It was a spring day; at the hazy inlet, there was only the crashing sound of white waves breaking, and the small seashells on the shore sparkled like flowers in the serenity.
With no one to witness her, Butterfly—who had unexpectedly gained life—stripped completely naked. It was that part she then recalled.

“I’ll write novels.”

Seventeen-year-old Tanizaki Nishikiko, gazing at the five-colored hues seeping into her ring finger, told herself.

The sky was a deep blue, the flowing water swelling—

A spring redolent with lingering snowmelt—where plum blossoms, cherry blossoms, peaches, even kerria burst into bloom; where frog croaks carried through air, and stepping outside meant pheasants crying shrilly in fields while skylarks restlessly darted about—a spring like the blended hues of Nishikiko’s half-mixed paint palette: this was the day butterflies emerged in northern Japan, nearing May.

Nishikiko—whose beauty rivaled that of Komachi, daughter of a Dewa district governor from ages past—possessed pure white skin; moreover, in her seventeenth spring, even she would sometimes find herself captivated by the delicate peach-tinged hue of her blood’s radiance beneath that complexion.
When that vividness welled up, this girl—

How crude it was.

And, the fact that her own paintings were nothing more than copies was making her increasingly frustrated.

This color won't come out.
None of these beautiful colors come out at all—how disappointing—

She would sometimes sink her teeth into her own arm.
And while glaring at how she could possibly capture in color the vitality of that flower of life bursting forth and blooming there, she threw the spatula.

Speaking of throwing the spatula—Nishikiko was the daughter of an esteemed doctor.
In the Tokugawa period, if one spoke of *the spatula*, it was understood to mean a court physician; if a doctor threw the spatula, it signified the patient would not recover; and if one held the spatula, it denoted an internist.
This was because there were many Kampo physicians; since Chinese herbal medicines were chopped, combined, and decocted, doctors had their medicine boxes carried with them, and in these boxes lay long-handled, slender flat spatulas—ones shaped like small forsythia petals.

Nishikiko’s house was in Nishitagawa District of Dewa Province—on the outskirts of Tsuruoka, an area abundant with Shōnai rice and Sakata Port’s goods—and as it was a clinic that had adopted Western medicine by the Meiji 20s (1887–1896), her family held relatively modern knowledge and prestige in that culturally underdeveloped region.

My painting is so crude.

Even as she thought this—how magnificently Yamada Bimyōsai’s novel captured every nuance of feminine corporeality—the frustration seethed like acid.

Nishikiko gazed intently at the glowing, smooth skin of the water-soaked Butterfly as if it were before her eyes. When she realized the Butterfly in the novel was about her own age, she felt ashamed of her skin as if it had been described by Bimyōsai. That was in the passage where he had written about her some time ago—her body seeming naturally oily whether after bathing or swimming in the river, droplets scattering off her skin like crystal beads whenever she emerged from water—

"I feel like he had written in that manner before."

"Yes, 'I do swim—completely naked'—or so he seemed to have written."

Lake Tazawa is in Akita.

“The lake where they say that beautiful district governor’s daughter drowned herself pining for her lover—that must be a geographical error arising from our shared surname Tazawa, Mr. Yamada.”
“Tazawa Inabune remains very much alive.”
“What we have nearby here is Ōgishi Pond.”
“I want to paint myself bathing—astride a snow-white roc—but it simply won’t come together…”

It seemed he had described things that way before—though wait, “Butterfly” had been published much earlier—

Nishikiko could mutter as much as she liked, but it was no use.
He finally let out a deep sigh.

Nishikiko scooped up the blended white and crimson from her paint palette with her fingertip, then swiftly drew a rounded outline of a woman’s waist on the silk canvas beside her. In one breath, she next carried it upward and placed a raised dot with a precise dab.

She shaped the curve of an arm in the opposite direction with a softly rounded touch, and there—with unexpected vividness—a young woman lay before Nishikiko, imbued with shame—

“Ah, Lady Butterfly—thy form doth mirror mine own most faithfully—”

In a manner reminiscent of kabuki dialogue, Nishikiko—her own satisfied body included—rolled into that exact posture, using her elbow as a pillow.

Should I write a novel? Should I pursue painting?—Unfocused fantasies kept welling up one after another.
As she grew entranced,

“Oh, what’s this?”

Though having the younger sister see the painting was tolerable, when signs indicated the mother would follow right after, Nishikiko panicked.

“I was imitating the novel’s frontispiece.”

Even if she could deceive her younger sister with those words, her mother’s eyes were terrifying.
The still-wet paint made the buttocks’ form appear vivid; the mother would surely discern in a glance that they matched her daughter’s own plumpness.
What about the round areolas without protruding nipples?

Oh my, how utterly disgusting this daughter is—

And in dismay, she would inevitably roll her eyes and stiffen her posture.

Not wanting to be seen by her mother—who always muttered “How precocious you are”—Nishikiko jumped up, turning her breasts into morning glories and transforming the roundness of her hips into a washbasin.

Nishikiko was utterly precocious.
She began corresponding with Yamada Bimyōsai, the up-and-coming novelist.
However, while the novel *Butterfly* had been written two or three years prior, she recently tracked down the New Year’s supplement of *Kokumin no Tomo* in which *Butterfly* had appeared—read it obsessively, became utterly captivated by it, and fell completely under its spell.
And then suddenly she found herself being irresistibly drawn in.
It was only natural that Nishikiko was so deeply moved—even at its publication Bimyōsai’s *Butterfly* had been highly regarded.
Even Ozaki Kōyō—who had fallen out with him at that time—addressed a public letter to Butterfly-dono,

Exposing snow-white skin that ought to be concealed—truly, the Suma shore wind.

And as if he had composed a poem, the Japanese-style nude illustration by Watanabe Shōtei accompanying it was so unprecedented that it even made people gasp.

According to Kawai Suimei’s *A Critical Biography of Yamada Bimyōsai*, Bimyōsai was born in Kanda Yanagichō, Tokyo; at the age of ten, he transferred from Shiba Karasumori School to Tomoe Elementary School, where he was hailed as a child prodigy.
He entered the Second Prefectural Middle School at age thirteen but neglected his studies, immersing himself in works like *Taiheiki* and *The Tale of the Heike*, and among Edo-period kusazōshi, he came to admire and emulate Bakin.
Ozaki Kōyō, born in Shiba, had attended the same Second Prefectural Middle School as Bimyōsai. When Kōyō entered the university preparatory school from Mita English School, Bimyōsai joined the fourth grade while Kōyō was in the second. Rekindling their old friendship, the two pledged to each other to establish themselves in literature. Moreover, as Shiba was too distant from the school, Bimyōsai’s family relocated to Surugadai nearby, and Kōyō also took up residence there. In an eight-tatami room, the two shared desks. Soon after, Ishizaki Shian—a fellow preparatory school student—moved in with them. The Ken’yūsha (Literary Society), which would dominate the literary world, was founded by these three with the addition of Maruoka Kyūka. It was established through research that the first issue of *Iroke Bunko* was published on May 2, 1885.

That Mr. Ishizaki Shian had later suffered from a brain ailment, but he told me the story of Ms. Inabune.

Nishikiko found her own actions absurd and let out a stifled chuckle while—

*Alone blooms the wild rose—how pitiful.*

*Who would cast aside this unbloomed hue?*

*Wild rose, wild rose—crimson wild rose—*

She started to sing.
This poem too was a verse from Yamada Bimyōsai’s *Wild Rose*, but her younger sister said to their mother, who stood behind her:

“Sis is such a strange person, isn’t she?
Even when she plays the koto, she doesn’t sing, does she?”

Yet her younger sister remained unaware that this military song—“Even if there are tens of thousands of enemies, they are all mere rabble!”—had been composed by the very same person much earlier.

“Nishikiko is jumping for joy because Father’s permission seems likely,” Mother said, looking around her daughter’s room.

“It’ll be lonely when Sis is gone, won’t it?”

Nishikiko—who had been suppressing her leaping emotions since her mother’s arrival, hands clenched tight against her chest as if sparks might fly from her fingertips—involuntarily blurted out:

“Oh! I can go to Tokyo!”

Trying to keep her feelings from showing on her face, she spoke in a rush.

“But you know, Father was worried—‘Will women really be allowed to enroll in art schools?’”

“That can’t be impossible. After all, Saisei Gakusha—the medical school—started admitting women ages ago, didn’t they?”

“That does seem to be the case, but…”

The mother viewed her daughter as possessing extraordinary talent.
That was a renowned flower of singular beauty—one whose rich fragrance could scarcely be found anywhere in that snowbound land.

She thought that if she sent this daughter to Tokyo and let her study as she pleased—then even Ono no Komachi would cede her glory to a Meiji-era girl who combined talent and beauty.

The era in which this mother—harboring such thoughts—had been born and raised coincided with the Bakumatsu and Meiji periods, a world of progress and initiative.
After enduring various hardships, the domains of Ōu sent forth figures like Yamakawa Sutematsu of Aizu—twelve years old at the time (later sister of Yamakawa Kenjirō, president of Tokyo Imperial University; wife of Ōyama Iwao; and the model for Namiko in Tokutomi Roka’s novel *Hototogisu*, where she appears as the mother of a woman originally named Nobuko)—and Ms. Tsuda Umeko, founder of Tsuda English School, aged nine. Alongside seven or eight others led by youths of seventeen or eighteen—including Japan’s first female overseas students—they continued drawing inspiration from female pioneers bridging Bakumatsu and Meiji eras. Thus, even as Tokyo had already entered a reactionary period against radical Westernization, it was precisely then that a certain provincial family in Ōu’s hinterlands began to stir.

“I’ve been working as hard as I can to send you, but—”

She took the unassuming painting her daughter had drawn into her hands, gazed at it, and sighed deeply.

—This daughter is a stronger child, but—

Even when made to play the koto, she played in silence.
At that time, her chest had been filled to the brim with some unfulfilled longing.
This daughter said nothing, but what she might be thinking was anyone’s guess—and that was precisely what worried the mother.

Yet the reason Nishikiko strummed the koto without singing wasn’t due to any impure thoughts.
The patterns drawn forth by the koto’s strings swelled her imagination to bursting, giving rise to feelings she couldn’t discern which bud to pluck first.
She didn’t know how to organize them—something whose cause still wasn’t entirely clear had begun fermenting.
So she remained there, part entranced, part sullen, utterly pent-up.
But in the end, Nishikiko left behind both Mount Chōkai and Mount Haguro—which she had gazed upon morning and evening—and departed for the capital.

II

Inabune, the girl from Michinoku who visited the residence of Bimyōsai—where the nameplate bore Yamada Taro—startled Bimyōsai, who had likely dismissed her as merely another country girl come calling.

Bimyōsai had indeed published a monthly magazine called *Iratsume* for female students from around age twenty for four or five years, frequently interacting with young women; even during that period, while maintaining his relationship with Ishii Otome at the pale tea shop behind Asakusa Park, he found himself drawn to this aspiring novelist.

—Inabune, not in name alone—

Such a phrase too may have suddenly welled up in the poet Bimyōsai’s heart.

“Inabune is a fine name.”
“Even ‘Ms. Nishikiko’ would be good, but I suppose it’s because the Mogami River flows nearby.”
“When one speaks of Michinoku, there are so many nostalgic river names—the Mogami River, the Natori River, the Koromo River, the Kitakami River.”
“Father may have been over there for a long time, but—”

Bimyōsai said these things before the silent girl.

Bimyōsai’s father had been in Ōshū around the time of the Restoration, and Takeo of Bimyōsai was born in the summer of Meiji 1 while his father was away.
Afterward, his father served as a police inspector in Nagano Prefecture, and Bimyōsai was raised by his strict grandmother and mother into an introverted, quiet son.

Recalling his boyhood when he had missed his father, Bimyōsai tried enumerating the names of the rivers over there.

“Are you going to give up painting?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re going to write novels?”

“Yes.”

After asking, “You were seventeen, weren’t you?” Bimyōsai recalled an amusing coincidence.

The age of seventeen seemed to hold some mysterious connection to talented women: Ms. Nakajima Shōen (Kishida Toshiko, called the Liberal Party’s sheltered daughter) was summoned to the imperial court at seventeen, and Ms. Shimoda Utako—still known as Hirao Sekiko at the time—was likewise summoned as a court lady-in-waiting at seventeen, where she was graciously bestowed the name Utako.

While thinking of others besides,

“Tatsuko Tanabe—Tatsuko Miyake, Mrs. Setsurei—was also around seventeen, I think, when she began writing novels. Yes, Ms. Kimura Akebono started at seventeen as well.”

He listed names of pioneering female novelists from Japan’s Meiji era—figures from the early days of that literary era—but since it was not so distant a past, even Nishikiko knew of them vaguely.

“Could I… write?”

The girl, who had kept her face down as if displaying nothing but her lustrous Chinese-style topknot and floral comb, raised her face at that moment and met Bimyōsai’s gaze directly.

The clearly defined white forehead at her hairline, flushed red with embarrassment across her entire face, exuded a beautiful fragrance.
She was a woman whose femininity was almost too pronounced.

Her round face, pleasingly full-cheeked—though what kimono she wore remains unclear—later appeared in *White Rose*, the novel she wrote the following year: a beautiful young lady with a red collar and Chinese-style topknot, walking pensively up Kudanzaka hill, clad in an eye-catching yellow Hachijō underkimono layered with a wisteria-patterned crepe haori. This description aligned perfectly with contemporary tastes; applying it here would not be amiss.
Friends knew she adored Chinese-style topknots.

Bimyōsai was a strikingly handsome man of twenty-seven.
Fair-skinned, black-haired, and tall—despite his meek, well-bred upbringing, his ambition had flourished quite freely. As editor-in-chief of *Miyako no Hana* magazine, he received a generous monthly salary from Kinkōdō Shoten in Nihonbashi Honchō, on top of substantial income from his creative works.

No matter how much one tried to extend the sleeve length, women’s kimonos were tailored not to exceed approximately 1 shaku 7 sun 5 or 6 bu (about 51.5 cm).

She wasn’t a large-framed girl, but Nishikiko had a well-proportioned figure.
Above her rounded shoulders, shoulder padding gathered up about five bu gave her a girlish air tinged with rustic simplicity from the countryside. To Bimyōsai, it felt like peeling back the layers of a freshly dug bamboo shoot still clinging to soil—beneath lay something fresh and unspoiled.
Her standing figure was unexpectedly slender, yet he saw that if this girl’s rough edges were smoothed away, she would be splendid.

When he noticed that this girl, though silent, spoke eloquently through her body, he likely thought that having her write on paper might produce something unexpectedly bold precisely because of her reticence.

"Rather than studying painting, you might be better suited to writing."

He spoke with deliberate encouragement, as though granting permission for her to devote herself fully.

Bimyōsai regarded Nishikiko as if envisioning her with rough edges polished away—though this same Bimyōsai harbored tastes that cherished such edges.
In certain preferences, he differed from Kōyō.

This was likely because Kōyō was a town child, while Bimyōsai—a Kanda native and police inspector’s son from what Kyoto-Osaka folk would call a stodgy household—had favored long boots since around age nineteen, when attending the university preparatory school and gaining fame through novels.

But then again, from early Meiji through its twentieth year or so, such styles counted as *haikara*.
Haikara—though “high collar” emerged as a term much later—is borrowed here for descriptive convenience.
As evident even in Kawatake Mokuami’s plays, the civilization-and-enlightenment man sported a shirt and long boots, with a loose clump of bangs spilling over his forehead.
Moreover, he wore a cambric heko obi tied slackly to dangle limply down his backside.
This too would later shift to white or purple Chinese crepe, cheap crepe with pathetically limp drape, or habutae-dyed cat-teaser patterns—yet even the finest shibori-dotted fabrics never quite matched the skin-deep compatibility of shitamachi youths who yanked their obis taut.
Still, shibori’s exclusion came far later.

Nevertheless, Bimyōsai’s forehead—that of a man who had achieved fame in his youth—shone with wisdom.

At that time, having turned against his former Ken’yūsha peers—Kōyō, Bizan, Shian, and Kyūka—Yamada still earned income, but the vernacular school no longer blazed with the fervor it had during *Butterfly*’s publication. Meanwhile, the Saikaku studies faction gained prominence, and debates arose over whether Futabatei Shimei’s *Ukigumo* predated Yamada’s contributions to vernacular writing. Worse still, Kōda Rohan’s *The Five-Story Pagoda* and *The Buddha of Artistry* had surged ahead in acclaim. Yet to Nishikiko, Bimyōsai’s fierce determination—so unbefitting his delicate appearance—made him seem superior to all others, and she admired his style no less.

“Mr. Yamada.”

She spoke with an inseparable blend of longing,

“I’ll do my best.”
“Nowadays, what sort of women are writing novels?”

While folding the corner of the zabuton and mostly looking downward, she nevertheless spoke clearly.

“Well…! There’s someone named Higuchi Ichiyō who’s studying hard—Miyake Tatsuko, Koganei Kimiko, Wakamatsu Shizuko—those would be the ones, I suppose. There must be women like you—trying to write.”

“What sort of ladies might they be?”

“Ms. Koganei Kimiko is Mr. Mori Ōgai’s younger sister.”

“Ah.
“The Mr. Ōgai who wrote *The Dancing Girl*?”

“Ms. Koganei does French translations.”
“Wakamatsu Shizuko handles English works, and both excel.”
“Wakamatsu Shizuko is the wife of the principal of Meiji Women’s School—her real name is Iwamoto Kashiko.”

Bimyōsai gazed out the window, thinking it would be a fine day to take a walk while seeing this girl home.

The window was in an eight-tatami room where, eight or nine years prior, Kōyōzanjin—then a student—had lived alongside him, sharing desks and engaging in literary discussions from dawn till dusk. Gazing out the open window at Ochanomizu’s embankment, Bimyōsai spoke candidly, even mentioning how the north-facing orientation made winters bitterly cold.

The fact that Kōyō—with whom he had shared such rapport—moved to his grandparents’ house in Iidamachi after just three or four days was not solely because the north-facing window made the room cold.
There were Yamada’s mother, who had long been living like a widow, and her mother-in-law—a very fussy grandmother—whose excessive doting on their docile grandson had grown so irritating that he moved out; yet this reason alone was something Bimyōsai did not mention.

The Ochanomizu canal where the Kanda River flowed had high embankments on both banks and densely overgrown trees—so much so that Meikei was a secluded place where Zhu Shunshui, retained by the Mito clan, had bestowed the name “Little Red Cliff.”

The forest of Shōheikō Shōdō—the Tokugawa shogunate’s university for samurai scholars—still retained vestiges of its former self, and the walls of the Higher Normal School were visible, but the newly constructed Ochanomizu Bridge stood slender and sleekly elegant in form.
Nishikiko also stood and gazed.
A bush warbler chirped softly, and a Japanese white-eye flitted between branches.
In a silence where no human voices could be heard, the sound of a Noh drum drifted in from somewhere.

“So you’ve decided on Hitotsubashi Women’s Vocational School after all?”

Bimyōsai said to Nishikiko with the desire to keep her by his side.

She had been invited to tour Tokyo, but Nishikiko declined, explaining that a friend from their shared hometown attending Kōjimachi Girls’ School would be coming out to meet her. On her way back, she placed the novel she had written and brought along beside Bimyōsai’s desk, asking him to read it. The one who had come to meet her at Yamada’s gate was her close friend Shindō Takako, whose birth family too were doctors in Tsuruoka City.

Whenever Nishikiko and Takako met, their conversation was always about poetry.
Takako favored new-style poetry, so when Bimyōsai mentioned that his works included not only beautiful verses but also one titled “Poverty” about a scrap collector, Nishikiko refused to be outdone, countering that there were poems about miners and novels about rickshaw pullers.

These two sought out literary rankings, found them amusing, and began comparing them.

“There’s this ‘Ryōunkaku Ascended Ones (Tengu Leaf Warriors of the Future)’ list.”
“It’s about Asakusa Park’s Twelve-Story Tower, right?”

When Nishikiko unfolded it, Takako craned her neck and,

“With the elevator out of service, those who climbed via the spiral staircase—it says here,”

she began reading.

“Up to the twelfth-floor summit: Haru no ya Shujin—Tsubouchi Shōyō.”
“Then, Mori Ōgai, Morita Shiken, Yoda Gakkai, Miyazaki Sanmaidōjin.”

“Let me read it too.”

Nishikiko took it back,

“Those who rode the elevator up in one minute—all the way to the twelfth-floor summit: Kōyōzanjin, Rohan-ko, Myōbisaishujin—agreed?”

Nishikiko’s lips glistened strawberry-red,

“The eleventh floor is Futabatei.”
“And then, Renzanjin.”
“On the tenth floor: Hirotsu Ryūrō and Emi Suiin.”
“On the fifth floor—currently passing through—is Kawakami Bizanjin.”
“That’s what he gets!”

“Why?”

Takako laughed.

“Because he’s Ken’yūsha, right?”

“Contributors really do know all sorts of things, don’t they?”
“You know, you can even understand things about people from the past just by how they climbed Ryōunkaku, don’t you think?”

That was exactly as Nishikiko had said.
In the continuation of the Twelve-Story Tower Ascended Ones list that they were looking at,

Among those who ascended the tower from its construction period even before its opening were Sueatsu Seihei, Fukuchi Ōchi, Yano Ryūkei, and Suehiro Tetchō.

Fusematsu-san was the beloved son-in-law of Itō Hirobumi and had been regarded as an exceptional prodigy since his youth.
Around Meiji 12–13 (1879–1880)—perhaps even earlier—they had begun advocating for theater reform and the establishment of a national theater.
Ōchi Koji founded what is now the Kabukiza Theatre and created new scripts emphasizing gut-driven acting for Danjūrō IX, among which *Spring Rain Umbrella*—still performed today—incorporated *Sukeroku*, a staple of the Ichikawa family’s repertoire. The play satirized the era’s lingering discriminatory treatment through its protagonist: born with the chivalry of Ōkuchiya Gyōu, a wealthy Kuramae townsman, and the fierce resolve of Tsurigane Shōbei, yet driven to ritual suicide due to class disparity.

The play featured two courtesans—Katsuraki Tayu and Teizan—who embodied women of Yoshiwara’s golden age, priding themselves on matching boldness and resolve. They showcased contrasting archetypes: the Tayu’s dignity versus the nimaime’s rakish charm.
And for this production, there were ideally cast actors like Nakamura Utaemon—beautiful and dignified—and the late Sawamura Gennosuke, known for his rakish flair.
Suehiro Tetchō, having early published *Keikan no Himeyuri*, stood as Meiji fiction’s foremost pioneer; but as these figures were scholars, politicians, and societal pillars, it followed that they had already scaled the Twelve-Story Tower’s heights even before its construction.

Among the staff was Kuroiwa Ruikō Shōshi—founder of Yorozu Chōhō and benefactor who brought Hugo’s Les Misérables, The Count of Monte Cristo, and other translations to Meiji-era masses.

From Okuzan-kaku—a five-story tower within Hanayashiki pleasure gardens resembling Uji’s Phoenix Hall—came the amusing sight of Shōjiki Shōdayū and Ryokusei Seikaku glaring at Ryōunkaku Tower.

Among those watching from Ueno Hill stood Rōan Uchida of Fuchian Cottage and pitiable Neisai Noguchi—master Chinese poet whose brother-in-law Yūsaburō, driven by incurable illness and forbidden love for his sister Soeko, sliced flesh from a stranger’s buttocks seeking cure before being executed for the crime.

“Hey, look at this! If you don’t want to see it, I won’t show you.”

As Takako waved the sheet teasingly, it bore a parody titled *Eight Canine Warriors of the Meiji Literary World*.
The piece drew parallels between the temperaments and appearances of the Eight Dog Warriors from Takizawa Bakin’s famed *Nansō Satomi Hakkenden* and pioneers of the Meiji literary scene.

“Oh! Inukai Koheita is Bimyōsai!”

Nishikiko brightened.
Koheita had been portrayed as the youngest and most spirited figure.

This Koheita stood for Bimyōsai—assigned green as his symbolic color and the Bungo plum as his representative plant, it explained.

“Bungo plums have large fruits that are delicious whether eaten raw or made into umeboshi.”

“Stop showing off and read the rest already.”

Takako laughed.

Inuyama Dōsetsu was Mori Ōgai, with the color black and the flower aster.
Inukai Genpachi was Morita Shiken, in purple with monkey cedar.
Inuzuka Shinno was Ozaki Kōyō, in scarlet with hibiscus.
Inuta Kobungo was Kōda Rohan, with chestnut and quince.
Daibōshi was Tsubouchi Shōyō—white and octopus.

“Green is crisp and nice, but—just a bit more.”

When Nishikiko voiced dissatisfaction with the color, Takako pivoted to “Flower Comparisons,”

“A peach—Bimyōsai is a peach! And Kōyō’s likened to cherry blossoms.”

she declared as she singled them out.

III

After leaving the capital, Nishikiko stayed at a relative’s house in Kanda Sarugakuchō, as it was close to the Hitotsubashi School.

Though it was a small house, when Nishikiko emerged from behind the black-walled enclosure holding a deep-brimmed Western parasol, she drew the eyes of the many law and medical school students in the vicinity.

Since Yamada’s house in Surugadai wasn’t far at all, she naturally began visiting frequently.
Bimyōsai often told her stories about literary figures.
Before long, he said he would even publish the novel he had polished for Nishikiko.

In Surugadai’s Higashi-Kōbaimachi, Nikolai Cathedral had been completed not long ago. Some were indignant that such a tall structure had been permitted on such a high elevation—wastefully allowing views of even the Imperial Palace’s roof—yet the cathedral stood imposingly with its stone walls and copper-tiled tower roof, its spire both sharply pointed and softly rounded, achieving an exquisite perfection.

“In the old days, they would’ve called this something like a Nanban Temple.”
“This is Nikolai Cathedral.”
“It’s Russia’s state religion.”
“They call it after the missionary who came to Japan to proselytize, but its real name is Christ Resurrection Cathedral.”

As they walked side by side around the imposing cathedral grounds, Yamada Bimyōsai explained that its bell tower measured precisely 125 shaku in height.

“Come to think of it, your hair is red.”

He stared fixedly at Nishikiko—her washed hair left loose in a *chonpin* style, a wide white ribbon tied above her forehead like a large butterfly, and a purple hakama hitched high at the chest—

“Rather than Inabune, you this way suit this building perfectly.”
“Truly lovely, truly lovely.”

He stepped back slightly and peered intently.

“What a peculiar girl.”
“When bound in Japanese chignon form though—black hair then.”

“No, it’s red hair.”

When Nishikiko, embarrassed, hung her head, the downy hair from her neck to her back was glimpsed in golden hues.

Though it was an afternoon street with partial shadows, so quiet that not a soul passed by, lizards darted across the sidewalk.
Yamada Bimyōsai, unable to restrain himself, mischievously pulled Nishikiko’s hair.

In an instant, Nishikiko’s earlobes turned cockscomb-red; she drew her body in tightly and hung her head even lower.

As hymns began drifting from the windows of the red-brick dormitory—Nikolai Cathedral’s seminary—on one side, and organ music started to be heard, Yamada Bimyōsai began walking with Nishikiko gathered in his arms.

It was after such things had occurred.

When she met Takako, Nishikiko—

“I’m getting sick of it,” she muttered. “At school, Ms. Atoemi Tamae says my paintings are too sensual, you see. If it were just that, it’d be fine—but she says they’re cloying too—”

“Is it the paintings?”

What Takako had asked in return was something that had been silently considered among both the female students and the teachers. Putting aside the quality of her paintings, compared to when she first arrived in the capital, she had begun astonishingly rapidly cultivating femininity—her beauty growing more pronounced each passing day—in a manner impossible to overlook.

“I’m trying to learn all sorts of things, with Mr. Yamada teaching me—” said Nishikiko.

“So, those literary folks—they’d write things like ‘Mr. Kōyō this’ and ‘Mr. Bimyōsai that’ in their letters.”
“I once got a bit angry when I saw a letter signed ‘From Kōyō’.”
“Then I found out it was Mr. Kōyō.”

When the June sun began to blaze, the calls of millet sellers, wind chime vendors, goldfish peddlers, and seedling hawkers started flowing through the town with rhythmic charm, heralding the season.

Hongōdai and Surugadai had turned completely to fresh green leaves; against the deep azure sky, Ochanomizu Bridge appeared slender and white, while the water flowing below became invisible unless one peered down.
At night, fireflies came flying from the direction of Sekiguchi, and cuckoos called incessantly.

Around that time, whenever Bimyōsai grew restless, Nishikiko never failed to notice.
It had been arranged for the novel "Hagi no Hanazuma Meiyo no Ippon" to be published.

On one such evening, when she went to visit Bimyōsai—having smelled the verdant leaves and resolved to take a stroll, fully intending to have him accompany her home afterward—he was out.

A wise-looking mother came out and urged her to enter, saying, “Do come in, please come up.”

That Yamada Bimyōsai was filial to his mother was evident even in conversation, so Nishikiko did not oppose his mother’s urging.

“You do not visit other households, do you?
As for your main family——”

“With that, she somehow hinted at the prospect of you being married off.”

“Does your family have only one younger sister?”

she also said.

Conscious of what Yamada’s mother meant by her words, Nishikiko replied as if to suggest that having a grandmother who treated her kindly meant most wishes could be fulfilled.

When questioned whether she was a stepmother, Nishikiko grew flustered.
She dismissed it as impossible.

“But you know, abandoning the headship of a wealthy household—no matter how much of an eccentric you are…”

The mother spoke as though deep in thought.

Nishikiko suddenly felt gloomy.
She loved Bimyōsai beyond endurance, but with his mother here—and an even sterner grandmother—she found herself unable to truly become part of this household.

If she had thought this was merely her own notion, she now realized this mother too must be harboring similar thoughts.

It was exactly as Nishikiko had sensed; however, the mother, while thinking her son didn’t seem to dislike the girl and that she appeared suitable enough, wondered whether this girl would take over tasks like cooking and cleaning in her stead.
That brides must double as tractable maidservants was among their women’s domestic codes.

Nishikiko thought that Bimyōsai could remain her mentor, but she also desired a deeper connection. However, becoming a bride in this household gave her pause. She was loved by Bimyōsai—and yet, something within her that yearned to be loved even more was beginning to sprout. That was the bud of art which, once it took root, would become her life’s work.

“I want to have him settle down here.”

The wise mother had begun fearing for her son’s future—his reputation, achieved so young, had recently started tarnishing. If she formed ties with a provincial wealthy family—none could claim there lacked such ulterior motive.

“Butarō is filial,”
“When he first began writing in genbun itchi style, he would read it aloud to me immediately.”
“If I said a part was flawed, he would always revise it.”

“Oh—” Nishikiko blinked rapidly.
This was alarming—she grew anxious imagining her own work being subjected to such scrutiny.
Yet,

“Mr. Yamada does have such a beautifully resonant voice.”

Adjusting the long sleeves on her lap—placing them here, shifting them there—she wondered how to take her leave.

“It must be cold in Yamagata as well. Yamada’s father hails from a place called Yamada in Iwate Prefecture.”
“No, we wouldn’t know about that.”

Yamada Bimyōsai’s mother felt from this girl the same oppressive weight—fundamentally incompatible with someone born in Edo—that she received from her estranged husband, yet—

“But I’m a doctor’s daughter too.”

She laughed.
Having borne a genius with a resplendent epithet like "the Shakespeare of the East"—and having such a rare son, fair-skinned and beautiful, filial and never talking back, kinder than daughters from other families—the fact that Nishikiko sullenly fell silent made even Yamada’s mother, who had wanted to speak warmly, gradually grow reluctant. She did not keep her there long.

Moreover, Bimyōsai was fond of alcohol—once he started drinking, he would come home late—and she was all too aware of his womanizing tendencies.

“Where might he have dropped in, I wonder.”
“He has all sorts of things on his mind—when he goes to a friend’s place, it always takes ages.”

With that, she gave Nishikiko the opportunity to leave.

Nishikiko walked through the verdant foliage, dragging her wooden clogs, burdened not merely by disappointment at her thwarted plan to stroll with Bimyōsai but by a deeper, suffocating weight.

Bimyōsai’s distinctive elongated jawline, the allure of his hair curled into clustered locks near his ears like Western poets and scholars—these images surged in her mind with peculiar vividness whenever they were apart, and at such moments, he would adopt that particular gaze.
At such times, it was his jaw rather than forehead that shimmered before her flickering vision—she loved him desperately, yet the prospect of becoming his household’s bride left her utterly unwilling.

Moreover, since Higuchi Ichiyō had begun writing good novels, she spitefully and persistently reminded herself that she needed to study harder. When I was with Bimyōsai, I felt encouraged and didn’t dwell on such worries—

“Higuchi Natsuko has her struggles, you see.”
“So just because that’s the case, you don’t have to go seeking out the same hardships as that woman.”
“You—your own work will come forth.”
“Moreover, if I cherish you this much, Ichiyō might even come to envy Tanizaki Nishikiko—or rather, it’s not that she fancies me, but that woman must have her own love affairs too.”

Such things had also been said.
Ichiyō, with that slender frame of hers, was said to even go out to buy penny sweets; she welcomed guests eagerly, and while Miyama and others described her as typically reserved, when literary discussions arose, she transformed into something like a gang matriarch.
When this happened, her pale cheeks would flush crimson, lending her face an unexpected beauty.
Since she was rumored to be opening a hardware store in Asakusa’s Dainenji-mae area near Yoshiwara, she would sometimes talk of passing through that neighborhood while peering curiously into the pleasure quarter.

“Such a livelihood must be the price she pays to dedicate her life to writing.”

With that dark yet compassionate gaze—ah, after all, it could not be compared.
I had been listening in this self-satisfied, carefree mood—

(Then what should I aim to devote myself to with all my strength?)

When I asked myself, the only answer that came was (romance). And once more, I could not help but think that the target of that aim was Bimyōsai.

When Nishikiko descended to Jinbōchō, the front second floor of a boarding house with a wide facade was packed with students crowded together as they looked down on the town.
This area had so many boarding houses they could be called gate-to-gate, with bundles of hand towels hanging from the railings and bedding sometimes aired out, but come evening, the students’ faces would cluster like grapes.
The students were looking down because the Yokayoka candy sellers had come, but when the candy sellers spotted Nishikiko, they grew bold.

The Yokayoka candy sellers traveled in groups of two or three; when one sang, the others accompanied. They wore hand-towel headbands with tub-like objects balanced atop their heads as they drummed, their geta’s tatami soles clacking while kimonos were tucked up in exaggerated fashion—the handles of their Buddhist prayer drums lavishly decorated with swathes of red and blue merino cloth into a gaudy, rustic spectacle.

They beat their drums with a *dodonga-dodonga* rhythm while chanting *saikodondon-saikodondon*. As Nishikiko passed by, they called out to her as if—

“Miss Bamboo! Miss Pine! Mushroom! Big Sis! Get over here!” they jeered with suggestive cadences.

“Oh love letters—snatched by mice, you beg cats to fetch ’em back!”
One launched into a shrill, rhythmic chant—“Zui to kokya!”—while the others clattered out a raucous “Saikodondon! Saikodondon!” on their drums.

From the second-floor windows, the students erupted in uproarious laughter.

Nishikiko flushed crimson and stomped back to her uncle’s boarding house, her mood blackening further.
Even when informed of Takako’s letter awaiting her, she felt no flicker of pleasure.

Even so, the letter weighed on her mind.
She hastily opened it to find—

“I write to inform you of the continuation of our previous ‘mitate’ parody rankings.”
“As the name you favor is included, I wished to share this news posthaste—I simply couldn’t wait until our next meeting to deliver it by letter.”
“Do say thank you.”

“Women of the Literary World: A *Mitate* Ranking”

Female Instructor Ōgai, Geisha Kōyō, Schoolgirl Ren, Activist-Shōdayū, Power Consort Bimyōsai, Actress Suikage, Nun Rohan, Widow Shōyō, Dance Mistress Miyama, Tradesman’s Wife Ryūrō.

“And in the *mitate* of Diet members—Yamada Bimyōsai makes Kaishintō’s Shimada ‘Chatter’ Saburō! The true marvels were Tanabe Ryūko, Koganei Kimiko, and Wakamatsu Shizuko—women all, yet counted among their ranks.”

“In the ‘Contemporary Authors’ Chūshingura Mitate’ parody,”

Yuranosuke was Haru no ya (Shōyō), Wakasanosuke was Ōgai, Kaooyo Gozen was Ryūrō, Kanpei was Kōyō, and Bimyōsai was Okaru.
Rikiya was Ren Sanjin.
“It’s just perfect that Jūkuro is Shōdayū.”

Nishikiko snorted at the pairing of Okaru with Bimyōsai—it wasn’t that she wasn’t pleased, but she felt somehow ill at ease.

That evening’s incident brought yet another sorrow upon Nishikiko.

For two or three years, the cutting of women’s hair had been in fashion, but at first, the women of the lower city—claiming it was caused by sharp-toothed black insects that gnawed through hair—were terrified to the extreme; they would twist papers inscribed with incantations and tie them to their locks. Eventually, however, it came to be said that it was something like a random assailant—that before one knew it, their topknots would be cut off or their faces slashed.

There were many cases where a beautiful girl standing outside would suddenly feel a sharp pain, only to find blood seeping from her cheek—such incidents were numerous among women who stood out.

When Nishikiko awoke in the morning and looked, the Chinese-style chignon had tumbled down.

Nishikiko gasped, her lips draining of color as she shuddered violently, but with no signs of an intruder, the household attributed it to divine work—blaming misfortune itself. The severed portion from the outer layer must have remained clinging until reaching her pillow. Yet Nishikiko felt an ominous premonition.

The nickname “Turkey Miss Nishiki” was bestowed by neighborhood students after her Chinese-style chignon had been cut off.

Nishikiko’s daily school commute—her short hair parted in two and braided into three strands, her attire now splendidly Western—set ablaze the blood of students in Kanda and Hongō. Yamada Bimyōsai’s index finger could not help but itch with anticipation.

—Today with Miss Nishiki—

The phrase first appeared at the end of the twenty-fourth year of Yamada Bimyōsai’s diary.
By the twenty-fifth year, these entries had grown increasingly frequent.

At times it was Ueno Suzumezuka Hill—that place dim even at noon where towering trees loomed thickly, a notorious spot for hangings—specifically Suzumezuka Hill within Ueno Park.
At times it was Kudan—another location with sparse foot traffic even in daylight.
At times it was a meal at a banquet hall in Nezu.

Here, I wish to state that while all current studies of Nishikiko record her death at nineteen, I had always believed she was twenty-three. In a brief biography I wrote long ago, I had grounds to state her age as twenty-three. However, when beginning this manuscript—placing too much trust in other chronologies and doubting my own recollections—I followed prevailing theories and set her final age at nineteen, a decision that created inconsistencies in the timeline. Yamada Bimyōsai had recorded Nishikiko’s coming-of-age ceremony at seventeen, but I would prefer it to be adjusted to eighteen. Admittedly, Nishikiko’s birthplace—like other Michinoku provinces—counted ages in whole years from birth. If we were to calculate her age by completed years, such adjustments would not be entirely implausible.

The photograph that had appeared in the old *Bungei Kurabu* was tacky in some indefinable way, but the one taken in the spring of her twenty-third year—showing her wedding *marumage* hairstyle—depicted an intelligent face marked by grace and soft refinement, coupled with a supple figure.

Now then, without digressing, let us proceed.

At nineteen, Nishikiko came to vaguely perceive how Yamada Bimyōsai’s mannerisms—the way he nudged elbows, gripped fingers, and treated others with both roughness and refinement on dim, tree-shaded streets—could wield complete mastery over a woman’s heart.

Even being by his side, the joy that made her shrink had long since become days gone by. Now, knowing she was not the only woman with whom Bimyōsai interacted, she was filled with sorrow. I didn’t come here for this.

In such moments, she would sometimes coldly rebuke herself.

How can I write a novel that rivals Ichiyō’s like this—

Joy, resentment, and longing whirled round and round like a magic-lantern flower cart—red, yellow, blue—and in that very moment, she was summoned back to her hometown.

“Father so detested your writing and reading, and was so strict about it—it was only because you said you’d study properly at school that we allowed you to go.”

And now she’d become such an outrageous woman—even the grandmother who had doted on her was furious, they said.

“Turkey” referred to Nishikiko’s flamboyantly beautiful Western attire—the students had likely coined the term to contrast her elegant maidenly style of yesterday with this overnight transformation—but it was true that from around that time, Nishikiko began oscillating between melancholy and excitability with increasing frequency.

“I have to go back to my hometown.”
“But it’s fine.”
“Once I’m there, I’ll study like mad and write something truly good.”

Her friend—moved to tears by these words—tried comforting her by suggesting this might indeed be best,

“You’re simply too infatuated with Yamada Bimyōsai.”
“And what about that woman in *The Irritable Woman*? They say there’s something there too.”
“It’s dreadful—why, even over in Asakusa.”

That the man she loved was loved by others too—could Nishikiko ever have reconciled herself to this so easily?

There were times when Nishikiko thought like this.
Who could Princess Akuya be?—A treasure said to surpass even pearl oysters, someone had written—but who was she?
Could it be me?

——Sweet whispers——

Even with silver bees buzzing around her，Nishikiko—now back in her hometown—found herself unable to focus on anything.

But suddenly，as she flipped through the slim，smooth bluish-black-covered notebook that had been in Bimyōsai’s possession，she couldn’t help but recall unpleasant memories.
On the inside cover，in pencil scribbles，

In meeting Namaiji—such coldness—

Yet neither meeting nor being met in return.

It was marked as written on November 6 of the 24th year.
At times she wondered if those words expressed Bimyō’s true feelings toward me—only to immediately deny it： “No，that couldn’t possibly be.”

However, after all, it seems that was not entirely unfounded.
The human heart is too subtle for others to clearly discern its workings, but Yamada Bimyōsai—who had been involved with Ishii Otome, a woman from Asakusa Park—wrote in that same notebook of celebrating her freedom on the final day of September.

Later, when he cast aside this woman and was denounced in the *Yorozu Chōhō*, marking Bimyōsai’s first step toward downfall; yet the day he secured Otome’s freedom was one of raging storms, and they celebrated with a feast ordered directly from Ichikaku.
They celebrated with gusto through bowl servings, grilled sea bream with heads attached, and red rice.
After that—though likely to this woman’s residence—night after night, he recorded trips to the villa, the villa, the villa.
Of course, there were meetings with Miss Nishiki as well as with other women.

This was something Inabune also needed.
Tanizaki Nishikiko of Inabune has been recorded until now as something of a delinquent girl, but it may have been precisely her cohabitation with a floozy like Otome that made Bimyōsai cherish her modern character all the more.

Nishikiko left the capital again.
And then she returned again.
A restlessness that made it impossible to remain settled in her hometown—not to mention the letters from Bimyōsai.
Rather than that, it was she who wanted to leave.

While Nishikiko was thus occupied, back in her hometown, someone came to yearn for her.
Moreover, after coming to Tokyo, she had experienced a fit where she tried to throw herself into the Sumida River.

The man from her hometown who harbored feelings for Nishikiko became known to only a few people through *Kyoukaroku*—a posthumous document written in elegant brushstrokes on improved hanshi paper that emerged after Inabune’s death.
As for her Sumida River suicide attempt, few knew of it.

What she wrote during that time was the novel *Medical Graduation*—Inabune’s debut work on the literary stage.

However, during the three or four years Nishikiko anguished upon anguish, Yamada Bimyōsai and Otome’s pleasures continued unabated—dining at Maekawa, an eel restaurant in Asakusa Hanayashiki; quipping about peony-viewing excursions from Kameido’s wisterias to Honjo Yotsume’s Uebun; feasting at Manbai, a first-class restaurant beside Asakusa Park’s Denbōin Temple; and on their way back from Kabukiza theater visits, eating chicken at Imahiro in Ginza.

The matter of what sort of life this man Bimyōsai led and the question of why Inabune died are two sides of the same coin, but as this account has limited space, such matters cannot be dwelt upon solely.

Since Mr. Shiota Ryohei will be researching and publishing Bimyōsai’s diary, it will likely become known to the world before long.

And yet, the world is a sad yet fascinating place.
In the 26th year, photographs of a hundred beauties appeared at the Twelve-Story Tower.
That photograph of Otsuma of Shinbashi—renowned for her scandalous affair with Ichimura Uzaemon—who, lacking funds for a hairdresser, had no choice but to be captured with her hair still wet from washing, had taken first place in the hundred beauties contest; Bimyōsai paid six sen to view it, then went straight to Otome’s quarters.

IV

A message arrived at Takako’s from Nishikiko stating that she absolutely had to go to Tokyo at least once in the near future.

The more I tried to settle into my family home in the countryside, the more restless I grew.
I didn’t know what to do—laughing one moment, getting angry the next, constantly flying into fits of temper.

I clawed at my own chest, wondering if it was right for me to keep doing this.
Even if I returned to my hometown, I couldn’t write anything worthwhile.
After all, I had to stay by Bimyō’s side.

“You say Bimyōsai’s reputation isn’t good, but that’s because women adore him—it makes others jealous.”
“Moreover, lately Kōyō’s been writing more novels while Bimyōsai takes frequent breaks—that’s why they spread such rumors.”
“To tell the truth, since Bimyōsai himself has invited me to come, I simply must return to the capital.”

——As such letters were exchanged several times, one day, Nishikiko stood before Takako with a smile.

“I’ve become such a wayward girl—I know I’m being selfish, but I just feel so restless.”

In her eyes as she looked apologetically at Takako surfaced an affected shyness.

“There was someone back home who thought the world of you, wasn’t there?”

“That’s nothing at all. There were quite a few people who said all sorts of things, but they were half in jest.”

And so, Nishikiko tried to evade her friend’s earnestness.

“But didn’t that person propose marriage? Father and Mother are aware of it, aren’t they?”

“But since they said to do as you wish in any way, I refused. That’s nothing at all. We were only ever meant to be friends.”

Though she spoke these words, Nishikiko too felt pangs of guilt whenever she recalled the man turning pale, then flushing red, on the verge of tears.

“I vowed to stay independent my whole life—at first I thought of becoming a doctor, but that didn’t work out; then I considered becoming a painter, but that failed too.”
“After all, I’ve been thinking I should focus on literature—the thing I’ve always loved, you see.”
“But that’s just an amateur’s enthusiasm, isn’t it?”
“Even I myself recognize my lack of talent—it’s got me worrying so much, and that’s why I’m constantly irritated, you see.”
“So I turned him down by saying I’ve been considering becoming a photographer lately, you see.”
“It’s not unreasonable, is it?”

She began to say.
She spoke eloquently, striving to conceal that beneath it all lay an attraction to Bimyō.

“He’s fair-skinned but strange, you know—stoop-shouldered. Goes by Sakurazu, and our maidservants address him with such honorifics—‘lord’ this and ‘your highness’ that—you’d think he was some young master of a noble house.”
“It’s the nickname ‘Lieutenant General Sakurazu Sanmi of the Third Rank’.”

“That’s one you came up with, isn’t it?”

Though Takako also found it amusing, she spoke in a scolding manner.

“It’s a lie! When we played the New Year’s poetry card game, I lost and had ink eyebrows drawn on my forehead.”

Though she said it playfully, the man was deeply versed in Chinese classics and a calligrapher besides.
When Nishikiko took a liking to a hanging scroll of Yang Guifei attributed to Hokusai, begged her father to acquire it, and sought matching calligraphy for the frame, she dragged out everything from the *Wen Xuan* and *Takushi Sōrin* to Bai Juyi’s collected works—even sutra scrolls—to examine them. But finding no satisfactory phrase, she threw a tantrum, grabbing scattered books and flinging them about. It was during this outburst that Sakurazu misinterpreted her actions through some trivial motive.

“I did say I get quick to anger and quick to lose interest, didn’t I? At that time too, I was lying there sloppily, using a photo album for a pillow as I yawned. And then when I pulled the scattered books closer—there it was, the line from my favorite *Song of Everlasting Sorrow*: ‘In the evening halls, fireflies flit as thoughts grow desolate.’ So I asked Sakurazu to write that for me. And you see—he completely misinterpreted it.”

“And so,” Nishikiko explained with exasperation, “since Sakurazu was the sort of man who never gave clear answers no matter what you asked him, I thought he wouldn’t write back for at least a month. But he did so immediately—grinning slyly as he handed it over with ‘It’s poorly done, but…’ Worse yet, he slipped a love letter into that antique Japanese volume he left behind under the pretense of ‘discovering this rare edition.’ After that, he began visiting twice daily. It’s been utterly vexing.”

Takako stared intently at Nishikiko, thinking how much she had changed.
Even she herself had written in letters that she had become selfish, but she even wondered whether she had deliberately made herself disliked by her parents in order to get them to send her to Tokyo.
Takako had not realized that the inability to write novels and romantic longing could be such tormenting anguish. Yet regarding Sakurazu’s selection of the line from *Song of Everlasting Sorrow*—“In the evening halls, fireflies flit as thoughts grow desolate”—which he had mistaken as an expression of affection for her, she could not help feeling a faint, soft lingering warmth, as if to concede, *Perhaps that’s how such things go*.

“But—are you going to marry Mr. Yamada?”

“I haven’t even thought about such a thing.”

Even so, Nishikiko looked troubled.

“If I write novels, can I become independent?”

“So I wrote about how a girl who left for the capital with that intention ends up becoming a female gidayū storyteller in the one titled *Medical Graduation*.”

Suddenly, in their minds’ eye arose the image of patron students—clinging to wheels and mudguards of rickshaws carrying female gidayū performers like Takemoto Ayanosuke (called the Cherry Blossom), Koshiko (Wisteria Blossom), and Kotosa (Peach Blossom)—pushing from behind as they bore the vehicles from teahouse to teahouse like sacred palanquins. Once seated, these students joined their peers in striking tobacco trays with shoe tags to keep rhythm with shamisen music. When Ayanosuke shook her head at a climactic moment, they roared “Do something! Do something!”—a vision of the female performers’ absurd yet spectacular popularity.

“But I’m determined to try, no matter what.”

Nishikiko’s words, spoken to her own heart as if to confirm and savor them, sounded unbearably sad to Takako.

“For a woman trying to make her way, there must be many unpleasant things.”
“Can you endure any unpleasantness, no matter what?”

“I’ll endure anything.”

At that time, Nishikiko had declared as much, but as her dealings with Bimyōsai deepened, there were many things she could not endure.

The docile Nishikiko had grown somewhat reckless—perhaps only in her writings and their surface aspects, but reckless nonetheless.
Takako could not help but think it was Bimyōsai’s influence.

“Why did he take my photo to such a place? A geisha picked it up and got angry, saying it was a veiled jab,” Nishikiko said. “Addressed ‘To the young lady,’ they say he wrote something quite indecent in it.” She pressed her lips into a thin line before adding, “I made him show it to me—I’ll put that in my novel.”

Nishikiko let out these remarks like scattered brushstrokes. “When I went to see him this time, Mr. Yamada had quit his post at the Kaishin Newspaper Company, and Kinkōdō’s *Miyako no Hana* folded too—he said his household’s in dire straits now.”

Inserting a ruled underlay into refined washi paper and signing it “Inabune” without adding a title, Nishikiko faced the blank sheet unable to write a single line—her days of agonized struggle continued.

No matter how often she ground the ink and dipped the fine brush, both the bristle tips and the inkstone’s mound would dry out until nothing remained but the ink’s glossy sheen.

After such frustrations, when Nishikiko visited Bimyōsai’s study to lament her inability to write even that much, days continued marked by *He’s out again tonight—out again tonight*.

Nishikiko tried to distract herself by knitting a shawl, but her mind refused to focus on the yarn in her hands.
Groaning, she yanked the yarn, stabbed it with her knitting needles, and twisted the round ball of wool into a frustrated mess.
“You’ve become terribly hysterical, haven’t you?”

And when they met after such moments, Bimyōsai would say mockingly.

"You’re quite often away, aren’t you?"

"Oh, absolutely."

Bimyōsai answered shamelessly,

"I’ll have to stop taking you to the villa."

And," she chuckled inwardly to herself, "where exactly is this villa you keep mentioning?"

"I can’t say—and besides, that’s already a thing of the past."

Suddenly, he pressed both index fingers against Nishikiko’s dimples on either cheek, squeezing them firmly.

“I’m angry.”

she said, turning her face away.

Swatting his hand aside, Nishikiko averted her face.
In her gaunt profile and the slack flesh of her cheeks, the shadow of anguish seeped through—yet Bimyō, as if turning over his hand, coldly changed the subject.

“I’m moving out of this house already.”

When Nishikiko heard this, she could no longer afford to sulk and was immediately drawn into the thread of that conversation.

"Why do you ask?"
"Why, you ask?"
"I've been besieged on all sides lately."
"You know I've become poor, don't you?"
"I haven't written any notable works at all, have I?"
"Well, I've been trying to establish the Theatre Reform Society and write scripts and such, but with those glaring at me in disapproval—it's a decline."
"Well, even I have confidence that I won't remain like this, but..."

“You absolutely must leave this house.”

For Nishikiko—raised without hardship—the act of selling the residence and moving out meant seeing decline with her own eyes.

“Was I at fault?”

As if bearing personal responsibility, she surveyed the house’s interior.
She worried whether the coming and going of female apprentices studying novel-writing might be why people denounced Bimyōsai as a shallow dilettante.

“That’s irrelevant.”
“Around here—these mansions of wealthy families and villas... ‘Villas’ being mistress houses.”

Grinning slyly,

“It’s a quiet and conveniently ideal location.”
“The scenery’s good, and our sort’s shabby houses will gradually disappear.”

“So,” he said, “perhaps you could help me organize the study a bit today.”

“This room feels so nostalgic—”

As Nishikiko grew sentimental,

“Was it Meiji 24 when you first came to me?”
“Ah yes—there was that time I got reprimanded by a policeman after seeing you home.”

“Oh, there was nothing like that.”

Nishikiko pressed her burning cheeks, flushed with the memory.

“There was that time—in Yamashita-cho or somewhere—when I got reprimanded by a policeman once, and I’m pretty sure I was also reprimanded right at this house’s gate.”
“Didn’t they quip something like, ‘There’s no one who enters his own house as a thief,’ or what?”

With a puff, he blew tobacco smoke at Nishikiko—
“Huh? Was I wrong?”
“Come to think of it, was that Miss Shizuka?”
“Right, I remember now—you said you were hit by your aunt the other day.”

He had uttered it casually, yet as if maliciously gauging the moment Nishikiko’s blood surged backward,

“What’s with that strange face?”
“As if such women would still exist nowadays?”
“They’ve all been driven out.”

Rustling through nearby books, yanking them out and flinging them aside,

“Oh, there’s such a doodle here.”
“Take a look.”

He yanked Nishikiko’s hand—she’d been staring intently, lost in thought—and thrust it toward the doodle.

To take as a wife one who does not shame labor.
A geisha fusses over her bangs.
It was Bimyō’s doodle, two lines written side by side.

Before long, when he moved to Koishikawa Hisakatamachi, rumors that Bimyō had deceived a woman from Asakusa Park grew clamorous.
Malicious rumors arose claiming he had deceived her over a long period and stolen more than two thousand yen.

The Yorozu Chōhō, a four-page newspaper printed on red paper, was immensely popular.
Bimyō rebutted the fact that such matters had been reported in that newspaper’s article.

In Asakusa Park—that den of allure—there was a woman known as Otome, renowned for her prowess; he had approached her intending to make her his material.
Through thirty-five years of research, he had come to understand human affairs inside out; because of this, he had been thinking of writing again after a long interval.
That it had been introduced in a newspaper article was a fine drumroll of a prelude; he neither criticized nor grew angry.
Taking advantage of the situation, he immediately began writing it as it was starting yesterday.

So it was.
It was *Waseda Bungaku* that attacked it as a literary ethics issue—severely, or rather fatally.

During the controversy over *Nude Butterfly*,

From this point onward, the *Nude Beauty* paintings began appearing one by one in the picture book shops of the art district, until finally they were displayed in great numbers.
Moralists lamented; artists were appalled; soldiers bought them with delight; students purchased them surreptitiously.
And there were those who attributed its origin to the first printing of *Kokumin no Tomo*.
We once heard that there were those who attributed Zola’s emergence in France to the corruption of France.
We did not hear of those who would claim it originated from—

In *Koyō Mangoku*, Tsubouchi Shōyō—chief editor of *Waseda Bungaku*—had written; yet toward Bimyō’s rebuttal regarding the Otome affair, he showed no mercy.
Under the title “Do Novelists Have the Right to Commit Immoral Acts in the Name of Experimentation?,” he launched a scathing attack.

Though the article might contain significant errors, to neither clarify nor correct them—instead maintaining an air of serene indifference, nay rather radiating self-satisfaction—how could this stand? They denounced that a figure of such renown in literary circles, shouldering personal disgrace, would inevitably drag the entire realm of fiction into disrepute: —What exactly constitutes this “experimentation”? Is it merely observing immorality and vice, or actively perpetrating it? If the latter holds true, then to depict theft’s inner workings, one must first become a thief; to capture an adulteress’s psychology, one must first engage in adultery—

To depict cruelty, one must commit cruelty; to portray murder, one must become a murderer—such societal outlaws, regardless of their contributions to the literary world, were deemed unworthy of living. Especially for such scoundrels, the police must be vigilant. But he believed it to be what scientists called observation. He thought it must be the observer’s principle as in Addison’s *Spectator*. If that were so, then the observer must be a pure and unsullied bystander, as immaculate as freshly fallen snow—this he declared with conviction.

Bimyō likely hadn’t anticipated this either, but for Nishikiko, it was a bitter disappointment too overwhelming for tears.

The tea shops of Asakusa Park—positioned beside Nio Gate, adjacent to Kumeno Hirauchi and leaning toward Benten Hill—now survived as only two establishments under their former designation of Twelve Shops.

Behind Kannon Hall, in front of Ezaki Photo Studio, there were two or three establishments.
The rest were around the pond and near Hanayashiki—decent tea shops with exposed storefronts where Imado-yaki cat-shaped braziers sat and folding benches had been set out.

The branded sake shops were a new enterprise that emerged after convicts in red uniforms had reclaimed the back paddy fields of the Sixth District in the nineteenth year of Meiji.

The woman known as Ishii Otome was called either a tea server or sake house girl, but regardless, Bimyō paid a redemption fee of two hundred yen for Otome, provided her with a monthly allowance of thirty yen, took her on excursions, and bought her clothes—though what followed remains unclear—and showed Nishikiko his diary where he had recorded these initial expenses,

“If I’ve grown weary of such things, there’s nothing to be done—but you alone should understand me as a novelist—”
he even said resentfully.

“If others were to abandon him, then I would—” Such was the strange rebellious spirit that arose within Nishikiko, who had once been disillusioned with Bimyō, compelling her to resolve to save him.

And this thought brought Nishikiko a joy she had never known before.
Having become utterly isolated, Bimyō began treating Nishikiko—now known as Ms. Inafune—as his sole confidante.
For Nishikiko, it was nothing but joy.
Not only was she loved, but now she was suddenly being treated as a fellow literary scholar by Bimyō—

People’s rumors last but seventy-five days; having been disgraced to that extent, Bimyōsai too began to revive.
When *Bungei Kurabu* began publication by Hakubunkan, Inafune too submitted her previously written “Medical Graduation” and began attracting attention.
*Shirobara* was published in the inaugural issue of the Women Writers Series, and *Komachiyu* along with her collaborations with Yamada Bimyōsai were subsequently announced.

Inafune’s works were said to be inseparable from Bimyō.
Perhaps because Bimyō had told her to abandon her young lady’s disposition, she was called a tomboyish rogue and even compared to Bakurenjo.
It was also her relationship with Bimyō that had made her that way—and not merely through gossip—which elevated her to a popular figure among female writers.

Their marriage had become something everyone saw as inevitable, yet it was being terribly fretted over—but when Nishikiko returned to her hometown to discuss the matter, Bimyōsai chased right after her, took lodgings at a nearby inn, and declared his desire to take her as his bride.

Bimyōsai pestered her with demands to stay, and Nishikiko pleaded for him to do whatever it took.
The bewildered parents and grandmother finally consulted a learned monk whom the family revered, managing to prevent the townspeople from growing interested in the matter—but in town, they gossiped that since she was the heir, a thousand yen had been attached.

Having become newlyweds, they returned from Sakunami Hot Springs at the end of the twenty-eighth year of Meiji—three or four days before New Year’s Eve.

Along with that—though whether it was before or after remained unclear—Nishikiko had listed out prices ranging from twenty yen for a chest of drawers, seventy yen for a bonnet, eighty yen for bedding and futons, down to an eighty-sen foot warmer; since the newspapers were making such a fuss about it, they couldn’t avoid making an announcement—and so she badgered her family to send her over four hundred yen in cash to cover these items’ full cost.

Among the visitors were those from ostentatious social circles, and she wanted to ensure there would be no shame in being observed.
Now secluded in a detached room—not wanting to be mocked, or claiming that even if they stood their ground at the Yamada household, there were no funds for leisurely indulgences—and since the announcement ceremony would likely appear in metropolitan newspapers, Bimyō drafted and handed over a document stating that receipts for all expenses would be compiled and presented.

This new couple—Inafune Bimyō’s union having stirred up a resplendent tempest—was met with acclaim as they presented their collaborative novel *The Lingering Moon over the Peak* like some triumphant souvenir.

Yet another storm of a different breed had already begun seething within the household.

When Yamada Bimyōsai had retreated from public life, his mother and grandmother—though reluctantly—had lowered their spears. But upon witnessing his revival, they could not abide how this daughter-in-law had taken away their once-brilliant son, their precious grandson, and now dared to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him, posing as literary peers.

“Since you care for me—”

Bimyō mediated, but his eighty-five-year-old adoptive grandmother—whom he called the Great Ancestor, Omasu Granny—gleamed eyes like the River Sanzu’s robe-stripping hag from her mummy-like body and glared at Nishikiko over Mother-in-Law Oyoshi Granny’s head.

Nishikiko was made to realize all too well that Yoshio—Bimyō’s father—had been cohabiting with Oyoshi’s younger sister and refusing to return home precisely because this Great Ancestor Granny existed.

But Nishikiko had been fully aware that two such formidable women held court.
She had prepared herself for that, but what she couldn’t endure was the fact that Bimyō had gotten a geisha from Nihonbashi pregnant—that a child was on the way.
Within the cramped household, it had become inevitable that the three women would churn up a muddy whirlpool of turmoil.

Nishikiko became half-crazed.
It must have been such a time.
Nishikiko tried to throw herself into the Sumida River—the Sumida River!
It was upstream from that bridge where Fuu-chan had gazed at the water.

They said she had been married only four months when demands for money hounded her; they said she had been divorced and sent back; they said her mother, worried over her failing health, had come from the capital to retrieve her—but whichever it was, Nishikiko had no choice but to return to a hometown she loathed, where cold eyes awaited her, offering no solace to her broken heart.

Through half a year of melancholy—days when she wanted to tear herself apart—Nishikiko gradually wore herself down, holding dolls only to throw them away, writing novels that made her think of Godai Hall-style devotional suicides.

Society, ever eager for scandal, mercilessly condemned the selfish daughter’s downfall, the failure of her free marriage, and her love-obsessed collapse—and spread venomous rumors that Inafune, whom Bimyō had discarded, was now writing a novel titled *Demon* to curse him.

Nishikiko defended Bimyō even after being subjected to that.
To deny having written “such things,” she had *Yomiuri Shimbun*—what could be called Kōyō’s literary column—publish “A Verse of Confession Sung to the Moon,” but it was a rambling, incoherent piece akin to a long poem, filled with nothing but admissions of her own failings.

Was this what love meant? Even amidst all this, she continued sending letters to Bimyō. Because letters were too exposed to prying eyes, she would write her aching thoughts in the margins of books and send them.

In the early autumn of Michinoku, when the September wind swept down swiftly, the white dew scattered in a flurry.
As Nishikiko watched this, her determined spirit crumbled, and her swallowing of the white powdered medicine marked the end of her twenty-three-year life.
Arranging flowers and burning a single stick of incense on the desk—

I heard today that it had been Nishikiko’s fiancé who revived her from the brink of death at that time and kept her alive for four or five days—and that afterward, the doctor became quite renowned.

In this twenty-ninth year of Meiji, Inefune was first, followed by Ichiyō who passed away, and Wakamatsu Shizuko who also died.
The sympathy toward Inefune—who during her lifetime need not have been treated so harshly—once again became a moral issue directed at Bimyō.
That may have been because he promptly made the Nihonbashi geisha his legal wife.

I received word from my uncle that he had spotted Ishii Otome—now over seventy with a shaven head like a Buddhist nun—along the way, but since I couldn’t track her down before concluding this chapter, her interactions with Nishikiko remain unclear.