Pathway to Japanese Literature

A notebook bound in black morocco leather covers lay forlornly on the desk.
A single-stemmed narcissus in a vase cast its shadow upon it.
At first glance, within this unremarkable old notebook lay recorded the entire process of a certain man's audacious research.
It should have brought him wealth so symbolic it verged on the tangible, but that man had ended his life in distress and loneliness two days prior, staining the paving stones with his blood.

To obtain this notebook, a certain couple had grown so anxious it altered their very features.
Ultimately unable to achieve their wish, they departed northward with resentment in their hearts.
And through haphazard circumstances, I—who had never desired it—ended up receiving this item in some vague capacity as a memento.
Fate is inherently such a bungling thing, I suppose.

The luggage containing materials that was supposed to arrive this morning would not arrive until tomorrow due to an accident.
To distract myself from this tedious time, I thought I would try to write down the events surrounding this Black Notebook exactly as they occurred.
It concerned the delicate entanglement between him and a certain couple.

At that time, he lived in the sixth-floor attic; the couple on the fourth floor; and I in the middle fifth floor.
If one wished to observe the lives of these two households, merely ascending and descending the same number of stairs would suffice.
I would converse with the couple downstairs, then immediately climb up to his sixth-floor room.
I observed these two fascinating lives—unaware of each other yet subtly influencing one another—from both sides without missing a thing.

I was not a literary person, so I could not write in an interesting or readable way.
But I believed my eye for observing things did not err much.
I wrote exactly as I saw.
I had ample motivation for writing this, but I had no intention of divulging it yet.
You may freely consider this as confession or sentimentality—whichever you prefer.

1. From the middle of that year onward, the exchange rates continued their unfortunate deviation.
By the third month, they had fallen to half their former value; by the end of six months, to approximately one-third.
Since my study abroad annuity was fixed at a set amount, to remain in Paris for the predetermined years required by my research, I had to progressively lower my standard of living in accordance with exchange rate fluctuations.
For those reasons, I relocated three times within six months.
With each move, the places became more squalid.
This third lodging was such that if it had been any more squalid, I could hardly have maintained human dignity.

I climbed at great peril up a dark, treacherously steep staircase riddled with holes, where a rope substituted for a handrail.
At the fifth-floor landing stood that room.
A single small window fitted with iron bars.
The tiled floor and bare walls were thoroughly permeated with dampness from rain two or three days prior, glistening here and there with beads of condensation.
This was what they proposed to rent to human beings.
Moved by the sheer audacity of this proposition, I decided to take the room.
The exchange rate's decline surely wouldn't sink to such depths.
This meant I could at least avoid relocation hassles for now.

As I sat on the bed with nothing to do and my arms folded, there came a knock at the door, and a man entered wearing a startled, childlike expression that defied comprehension. His hair was thinning unapologetically, yet his face appeared to have arrested its development at twenty-one or twenty-two.

He must have buttoned his jacket specifically for visiting my room. He seemed to be desperately holding in his stomach to keep that button from bursting off. After exchanging customary greetings, he said in a slurred tone: “I live on the floor below.”

“If it’s not inconvenient, I’d like to offer you dinner as a token of our budding acquaintance,” he continued. “Given tonight’s Christmas Eve vigil, dining alone must feel particularly bleak.”

“And... my wife has been most insistent about it too,” he appended in an air so vague it nearly dissolved mid-air.

1. Despite their poverty, the couple's room maintained a peaceful atmosphere that still compelled one to acknowledge it as a home.
In its midst stood a very petite woman.
This was the wife.
She had her bangs trimmed straight across above her eyebrows in the style of a Chinese woman.
She appeared twenty-four or twenty-five.
When she grasped my hand with those seductive eyes that would make any man falter and said "Welcome," I felt as though she had uttered "Je t'aime."
Such an excessive quality that could create this illusion was indeed present in her intonation.

This couple were American-born so-called second-generation compatriots; the husband was studying vocal music and the wife piano, or so it was said.

When the meal and personal stories ended, out came the usual album.
It proved just as tedious as any previous instance.
Among them was a photograph of a crew-cut man with the miserable countenance of a gambler.
I grew interested and asked if he was a relative. They explained he was a complete stranger—a major fishery owner from Hawaii—who had been so moved by their dedication to study that he chivalrously undertook their three-year study abroad expenses in Paris, and that their current studies here were made possible through his patronage.

When I tried to return to my room and stood up, at that moment I heard a loud sound of something falling repeatedly from far above along the window.
It was undoubtedly the sound of urine.
I felt a certain sense of refreshment and asked who was responsible, to which he replied, “It’s the Japanese man living right above you.”
“He was originally a painter, they say, but now he just shuts himself in his room every day doing nothing but calculations.”
“I heard he’s been at this lodging for over ten years,” he said.

1. It was the morning of January 1st.
I was awakened by the violent noise of something recklessly jumping about in the room above.
The resident of the upper room had indeed been causing disturbances all night by pacing about and clamorously knocking over chairs, but this morning’s commotion was utterly absurd—because of it, chunks of ceiling plaster kept breaking loose and raining down on my face.
I could endure this no longer.

When I pushed open the door in silence, a somewhat deranged scene unfolded before my eyes. The entire floor of the spacious room was piled with an astounding quantity of paper scraps reaching about two feet in height, and numbers and formulas were scrawled across every inch of the walls. He seemed to relieve himself freely on the floor, with dome-shaped mounds of solid waste peeking out from among the paper scraps.

On the chaise longue lay an emaciated, half-gray-haired man who appeared to be around forty, his eyes filled with hostility as he fixed his gaze upon me. It was a face so distinctive it might appear once in thousands—his forehead was abnormally broad, his jaw jutted out like wings, and beneath bushy eyebrows lay eyes so intense they seemed to emit flames.

He appeared truly unable to endure the indignation of this trespass and barked, “You bastard!” I recoiled from the bizarre stench that made it nearly impossible to open my eyes or mouth. “It reeks so bad I can’t even talk like this.” “I’ll talk after opening the window now,” I answered while pushing open the window set into the sloped ceiling.

“The ceiling plaster keeps falling—it’s unbearably dangerous. Enough with your thrashing around already!” He suddenly adopted a familiar tone. “Well now, today I had something joyful happen and was dying to talk to someone. The fact that you came because I made a racket—this is one hell of a fateful tale... Can’t argue with that. The way you spoke in that tone perfectly matched my feelings. If you’re not busy, go sit there for a while. The thing is, my research is just about to be completed. Soon I’ll obtain infinite wealth. Infinite. Infinite, infinite! This may sound outlandish, but I’m not a madman, you know. I’ve been researching roulette for ten whole years. I ate scraps from trash cans and did nothing but calculations without sleeping a wink. After all, the established theory is that there’s no pattern in odd-even. To put it simply, great mathematicians from the Sorbonne like Poincaré and Bruxelles have proven this through examples of precise calculations. For example, in the odd-even game, they say that each current result and those that follow are perpetually new every time. This is their theory. Very well… Yet we know that when you spin the roulette wheel a thousand times, odd and even numbers always appear in roughly equal proportions. If the outcomes are always new, if there’s truly no law governing odd and even, then why don’t we ever see absurd occurrences like a thousand consecutive odds or evens? That it’s not impossible—mathematicians would say.”

“That’s not impossible,” he said while pointing to the formula he had written on the wall. “What kind of research do you specialize in? Are you someone who understands the meaning of that formula?”

On the wall was such a formula.

I got fed up and told him I didn’t understand.

“This formula—n’ya—proves that in roulette’s red-and-black game, something like red coming up a hundred times straight would only happen once a century.”
“You’ll see they’re ruled by some law—not random at all.”
“Dig into it and you’ll find there’s actually an orderly pattern to how numbers fall.”
“But to crack this code, you’ve got to wrestle with over five hundred fifty thousand combinations and permutations... Five hundred thousand!”
“You can’t fathom how brutal this work is.”
“I meant to finish in five years, but no breaks dragged it out to ten.”
“And I finally found it.”
“Ninety-nine percent done.”
With that he yanked the black notebook from his pocket, whirling it overhead. “The formula’s in here.”
“Roulette’s no dice roll for me anymore—no hoping for luck.”
“Just simple combos and permutations now.”
“A million Francs? Half-day’s distraction... Get it? That’s how I’ll grab infinite cash. Ten years without sleep studying gambling—folks’d laugh. But this wasn’t some greedy scheme.”
“Truth is—even if I’d wanted options—no other way to make dough... I was a painter once.”
“From seventeen, fifteen years straight—nothing but painting.”
“Came to Paris ten years back.”
“Heart pounding, I bolted to the Louvre.”
“Saw all those masterpieces—left me hollow.”
“Finally told myself—”
“With such genius already around—what room for me?... Snapped my brushes that day.”

“When I think about how I started studying art despite having no talent, wasting my youth without even enjoying it properly, I couldn’t stand the idea of scrimping to save a mere hundred thousand yen by the time I turned fifty.”

There can be no such thing as an absolute law in gambling.

I gazed pityingly at the figure of his foolish obsession—ten years wasted pursuing an illusory target.

From the following day onward, I shut myself in my room to study and spent about a week in days so busy that I had no chance to visit either of their rooms.
When my work reached a stopping point that evening and I went down to the fourth floor where the couple lived, I found them sitting side by side on a settee—the husband wore a vacant, unfocused expression, while the wife’s otherwise charming eyes were red and swollen from crying.

When I inquired, I learned they had received an unfortunate letter that morning. The fishery of their Hawaiian patron had been destroyed by a tsunami, leaving him penniless overnight. Reluctantly, he informed them he could no longer provide aid. This was truly a bolt from the blue. It was precisely the scheduled month for their six-month remittance—they had been awaiting it so desperately that barely a thousand francs remained on hand. However frugal they might be, it wouldn’t last two months. What would become of them then?

“My husband’s a good-for-nothing who can’t do anything but sing, and I can’t handle a sewing machine or typewriter.”
“Papa said it was demeaning work and wouldn’t let me do it.”
“In America we might manage, but in this miserly Paris there isn’t a single job for Japanese people. Our friends are all too busy scraping by themselves—just poor folks who can’t spare a thought for others. So whether we starve or commit suicide… our fate’s practically sealed already.”

She spoke with grave earnestness and then put on a kind of graceful weeping that seemed to demand sympathy. In the end, she was likely asking for help—but I had no such inclination. I heard her out and withdrew.

Three days later, when I went to the couple’s place on some errand, the man with a childlike face from stunted growth rose eagerly from his chair as if he had been lying in wait.

“Please rejoice.”
“We might not have to starve after all.”
“No—in fact, we might even become wealthy!”
“Here—take a look at this.”

With an air of radiant triumph etched across his face, he thrust yesterday’s evening newspaper toward me.
“This must be splendid news by any measure,” I remarked approvingly while scanning the indicated section under the headline “Monte Carlo Triumph”—an insubstantial article about a British woman named Winnam who had won two hundred thousand francs overnight, mentioning how Monte Carlo Beach Club had either presented or planned to present her with some commemorative gift.

The husband—speaking in a slurred, disjointed tone as if he’d drunk bad grog—declared: “Well? Isn’t this incredible? Two hundred thousand francs in one night! Anyway, Monte Carlo’s been getting hammered repeatedly lately. Just last week, a trio of Germans nearly took them for a million francs, and the Principality of Monaco had to declare a moratorium with a three-day deadline. So since I know a little system, I intend to make one last stand with our final thousand francs as the stake. Even if we lose, it’s no different from committing suicide. Depending on how it goes, it could completely change our fate—”

His forehead flushed red with frantic enthusiasm, he jabbed his finger at the first page of the green casino weekly report—the Monte Carlo newspaper *La Revue de Monte-Carlo*, its entire sheet crammed with nothing but numbers—and declared, “The day before yesterday at Monte Carlo’s No. 2 table, from eight in the morning until midnight, these numbers appeared in precisely this order.”
“We’ve had the wife read these results and been testing the system since morning—since it replicates exactly what happened at the table itself, there’s no difference from doing this at Monte Carlo’s casino.”
“The results are quite favorable.”
“We’ve been placing small five-franc bets—by our calculations we’ve already won over a thousand francs.”
“Do you grasp this?”
“Five francs yielding a thousand!”
“Had we wagered a hundred each time—twenty thousand! A thousand per bet would mean two hundred thousand by this logic!”
“I’ll show you the experiment now—watch closely.”
“Right—let’s resume where we left off,” he told his wife with affected gravity before settling back at the desk.

The wife picked up the Monte Carlo newspaper with a knowing expression, adopting a pose so earnestly comical yet pitiful it defied description. In a voice indistinguishable from a roulette croupier’s, she announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets,” then read aloud the week-old Monte Carlo roulette outcomes—“Thirty-five… black… odd… second dozen…”—in a strained tone that laid bare every layer of her ignorance and vulgarity. When the moment arrived, she called out per protocol: “No more bets.”

The husband’s eyes were wide and darting about, but he twisted only his neck toward me and said, “Look here! Red has come up ten times in a row.”
“This can’t be happening.”
“This time it’s bound to shift to black,” he explained, then shouted “Five hundred francs on black!” and jotted N-500 in his notebook as proof of the wager.

Red came up.

“Wasn’t our promise to keep riding red all the way if it came up?”
“It’s because you arbitrarily changed the System that this happened,” the wife rebuked.
The husband looked pathetically flustered as he countered, “Calling it a System doesn’t mean it’s gambling with perfect accuracy.”
“This System drastically cuts losing rounds while maximizing wins so profits emerge naturally—so even one or two losses mean nothing.”
“Though admittedly, it failed this time because I altered the System on my own.”
“We’ll follow red strictly per the System we agreed on.”
“This time it’s safe… five hundred francs on red.”

Black came up.
Unable to watch any longer, I told them how the man on the sixth floor had actually been researching roulette for ten years—his system finally beginning to take shape after all that time.
Even with such prolonged study offering no guarantee of victory, I'd meant my rebuke—that charging at roulette with these half-baked notions was pure folly best abandoned—to carry weight. Yet it seemed to make no impression; instead, they burst into fierce desire, declaring they must have him teach them his methods.
"After a decade of research, he won't simply hand over his findings," I said bitterly. The husband countered: "Exactly—we're not asking for charity."
"We'll disclose our system to him in exchange. An expertise exchange."
"With that arrangement, even the Professor couldn't possibly refuse, could he?"

And under the pretext of inviting him to dinner, they entreated me to deftly lure him out.
I didn’t consider myself young enough to go courting trouble, but the couple’s shamelessness grated so harshly on my nerves that I felt driven to drag down the Resident of the Sixth Floor and give them a sound thrashing.

He was lying sprawled on the chaise longue, smoking a cigarette.
All the paper scraps in the room had vanished without a trace, leaving it looking unexpectedly clean.
Dust had accumulated on the desk as well, indicating that no one had leaned there for some time.

He energetically jumped up and said, “The moment I think I want to meet you, here you come trudging along.
“Maybe there’s something like electricity resonating between you and me.”
“Actually, I came here thinking to invite you to dinner.”
“Though it won’t be just the two of us—the fourth-floor couple will be joining as well.”

Sure enough, he didn’t say yes.
He put up fierce resistance, making various pretexts—that he was bad with women, that he’d long forgotten social customs.
I then said, “Roast beef with butter, eels, raw oysters, chicken… All these delicacies have been prepared for you,” and provided a detailed description of each dish.

He was groaning with his head in his hands, but then spat out: “You’re the type to exploit people’s weaknesses.”
“I find it utterly detestable to fall for your schemes, but I can’t resist.”
“Alright, I’ll go,” he said, standing up.

His voracity presented a spectacle beyond words; having devoured everything before him as though launching an assault, he audaciously belched with a guttural rumble.
Immediately after finishing the meal, the husband—having recently discovered an excellent roulette system—proposed testing it out there as a party trick.
Declaring “If you wish, I can disclose it,” he quickly spread out the notebook on the desk.
He immediately showed a look of disgust and turned a sharp gaze this way.
He seemed to have perceived everything, but he did not say a word about it.

As was their custom, the wife became the croupier and the husband took on the role of bettor.
On this day, things were off to a strong start from the very beginning, and he continued winning a considerable sum over about twenty minutes.
He was silently watching with his cheek propped on his hand but suddenly barked, “What nonsense!”
“You call this a System? Don’t make me laugh!” he snapped.
The baby-faced man waved his notebook wildly as he shouted, “Look! We’re clearly winning right now!”
He said, “It’s true you’re winning now—but you’ll lose in the end.”
“Logic won’t work on a moron like you!”
“I’ll show you proof.”
“I’ll read it out—you follow,” he said, grabbing the Monte Carlo newspaper.
A bizarre spectacle began.
Bet on black—red came up.
Bet on odd numbers—even ones appeared.
Every single time without fail—the opposite result.
It became an endless game of cat and mouse.
The husband kept betting frantically until soon—having lost his entire imaginary fortune—he slumped away from the table.

“How about that? I only read every third number, but any so-called System that crumbles under this isn’t a System at all—it’s worthless! Be grateful your idiocy was exposed here. Realize your own stupidity at a casino and you’d have no choice but to hang yourselves! If you dare call this a System and take it out there, you’ll end up destitute in every corner of Monaco! Don’t even dream of grasping what’s beyond your reach.”

In a Europe mired in its own poverty, starvation wasn’t some abstract nightmare for this isolated Oriental couple devoid of survival skills—it loomed as an imminent reality. For these worthless spouses, gambling alone had remained their last hope. The sole salvation meant to rescue them from misfortune had now vanished without a trace. The devastation of this blow left them collapsed in their chairs like emptied husks. The spectacle of their despair bordered on cruelty.

He stared intently at the couple's state, then pulled out the black-covered notebook from his breast pocket. Flipping through pages crammed with numbers and showing them, he declared: "A System is something you only obtain after conquering infinite numbers."
"I've been at it for ten years."
"But even I still haven't figured it out."
"Do you think I'm certain to win?"
"That's impossible."
"I'll show you proof of how difficult roulette really is."
Having said that, he ordered the wife: "Take any part of the Monte Carlo newspaper and read it however you like."

He had been resting his cheek on his hand while listening to the wife read aloud, but then casually tossed out, “Black—maximum bet (12,000 francs)!”

Black came up.
He bet on Black again.
Black came up.
He bet on Red next.
Red came up.
In just three rounds (after deducting the initial capital of 12,000 francs), he managed to win 50,000 francs.
He continued placing maximum bets with an indifferent air—twice on Black, twice on Red, once on Black, three times on Red… then returning to twice on Black, twice on Red—maintaining this pattern.

An uncanny phenomenon was occurring.
Belatedly, we discovered that the roulette was now endlessly repeating an orderly sequence of alternating black and red—Black twice, Red twice, Black once, Red three times (2–2–1–3).

After continuing this utterly simple repetition ten times, the roulette had shifted to a different pattern.
This time it was (Red once—Black once—Red once—Black twice)… circling back to the beginning for a repeating pattern of (1–1–1–2).
He mechanically followed its patterns, and after an hour, amassed 800,000 francs without a single misstep.
This was merely virtual gambling, yet we could vividly picture towering mountains of gold coins and enormous bundles of banknotes piled high on the table before us.

The couple had flushed faces as if drunk, showing intense craving through their ragged breathing, when the wife abruptly prostrated herself on the floor and seized his hand.

“Please help.”
With eyes brimming with sorrow, she looked up at him and said, “Please… that System…”

He frantically stuffed the notebook into his breast pocket like a miser concealing treasure, then shouted in a tone blending sorrow and fury, “Gambling has no System!” Then he roughly threw open the door and stormed out.

1. Then, about two days later, I visited the couple’s room again.
When I entered, the husband suddenly picked up the evening paper and said they had just been discussing the Targe incident.
The couple had become severely emaciated within just two days, with dark rings forming around their eyes.
Their eyes had taken on a piercing glare, their voices carried a gloomy undertone—to such an extent that one could say their very countenances had transformed without exaggeration.

The Targe Incident referred to a very recent case where a wife had murdered her husband by administering a henbane decoction.
The crime came to light after their maid spread word through the neighborhood about the husband’s abnormally violent behavior during his illness.

When I rose late at night to return to my room, an unfamiliar book lay atop the piano.
Absentmindedly picking it up, I found it titled *A Compendium of Toxicology*: R.A. Witthaus, *Manual of Toxicology*.
Feeling something amiss, I instinctively turned toward the couple—whereupon the wife said, “I once wrote detective novels.”
“Fortunately,” she continued, “I’m acquainted with the editor of a magazine called *Detective*, so I plan to take that up again for livelihood.”
In measured tones, she explained this was why she now pursued accelerated studies.

Upon returning home, I immediately retired to bed, but found myself completely unable to sleep due to mounting suspicions that the couple might be plotting murder. I tried hard to divert my thoughts elsewhere, but ultimately felt compelled to examine what motives had led me to develop these suspicions.

The first was the impression I had upon entering the couple’s room.
When I entered, they had just been discussing the Targe incident.
However, based on my actual impression at the time, I couldn’t help feeling they had clearly been discussing something else—something far more sinister, akin to a crime.

The second was how the couple maintained their interest in the Targe incident. They displayed an abnormal fervor that far exceeded ordinary social interest, with their discussions centering on matters like poisoning. The third was the toxicology book. When I picked it up, unmistakable panic flashed in the husband’s eyes. Yet the wife calmly explained its presence there—a composure so excessive it aroused suspicion, betraying her will and declaring her explanation undeniably false. For what purpose then had that toxicology book been acquired? There exist no vast differences in how human minds develop. In exhausted characters who seek gambling rather than diligent solutions to hardship, one would readily conceive murder as means to obtain their desires.

Having come this far in my thoughts, I found myself troubled by a new notion.
It was a peculiar sort of notion, one that even I found discomforting—this idea of wanting to calmly observe the entire process leading up to a murder’s execution.
Right now, a person who intended to kill another was formulating a plan.
It had been meticulously devised, gradually closing in on the target's life.
After undergoing various twists and turns, it would succeed (or fail).
Right before my eyes, the entire process and all stages of a premeditated murder were about to unfold.
To witness through these eyes the gradual process of a human being being killed had to constitute a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Moreover, I could observe this from both perspectives—the murderer’s and the victim’s—watching fate’s manipulator from backstage and scrutinizing destiny’s methods in minute detail.
However, since I was not an immoralist, I had no intention of participating in murder.
Of course, I would strictly limit myself to observation.
I had to cultivate a heart of ice that offered neither guidance nor suggestion to the murderer and felt neither sympathy nor pity for the victim.
A fair mind was required—one that neither felt disgust toward murderers nor mocked victims.
I intended to observe as calmly as possible, but I did not necessarily desire the murder’s success—whatever the outcome might be, it would serve as a lesson.

To observe better, I needed to get closer to both parties.
While he could be handled, I lacked a daily pretext to visit the couple.
Yet there was a way.
Under the guise of inconvenience, I would have them manage my evening meals.
If I paid substantially above standard rates, they would surely consent.

Fortunately, my vacant air had given them the impression of a simpleton, making me think I could let them act without restraint.

As long as I toyed with it as an intellectual plaything within my mind, it remained entirely harmless, but when I considered putting it into practice, my ethical feelings suffered a sort of oppressive discomfort.
For regarding murder, in any active sense whatsoever, one could be nothing other than an accomplice.

1. Even by the following morning, my fervor regarding the notion showed no signs of abating.
I went downstairs to request dinner arrangements.
As expected, the wife readily agreed.
Reasoning that detailed knowledge of toxicology would be essential to properly track their murder plot's progression, I proceeded directly to the library and borrowed the volumes in her possession—
Witthaus' *Manual of Toxicology*, Kunhel's *Handbuch der Toxikologie*, and two others.

1. January 13th. Having finally resolved to begin my observations today, I prepared a notebook and decided to meticulously record—in the manner of a physician’s clinical diary—every criminal sign manifested in the couple’s words and deeds.
It would have been easy to employ trickery to discern their intentions, but as one who desires to remain strictly in the observer’s position, I found that method distasteful.
There existed no means to perceive the situation except through spontaneously manifested external signs and a modicum of psychological probing; yet since my specialized research had reached a natural pause, I could now devote all hours of the day to observation.
I therefore divided the day into three parts: mornings allocated to toxicology research, afternoons spent in the resident of the sixth floor’s room, and evenings passed with the couple.

However, here lay a difficulty: there existed no pretext for daily visits to the Resident of the Sixth Floor.
As he possessed exceptional perceptive abilities, any flimsy pretext risked having my true intentions discerned.
Since that night when my immature notion had caused discomfort, I had found no opportunity to meet him; now, while offering apologies for that incident, I ascended to the sixth floor determined to devise a suitable pretext.

He was leaning against the window gazing blankly at the Paris sky as dusk approached, but when he turned toward me, he silently gestured to a chair with an air of bewilderment.
I noticed something seemed inconvenient for him, but without dwelling on it, I said, “I must apologize for the other day.”
“I employed a minor stratagem intending to have those shallow individuals admonished, but it produced an unexpected result and caused you inconvenience.”
“I’m truly sorry,” I apologized.

He had kept turning away as if unwilling to address that night’s events, but when he abruptly faced me again, his expression bore an indescribably desolate cast as he said, “None of that matters.”
“It’s not something that warrants a formal apology, but that night I had an extraordinary experience—and because of it, I’ve had to start my research over from scratch.”
With an air of utter desolation, he said, “They say that in a philosophical sense there’s no such thing as a system to lead gambling—and that is indeed the truth.”
“That night I realized it with a shock.”
“My research up until now has been utterly worthless.”
“I discovered that the formulas and laws I’d scribbled in this Black Notebook were utterly worthless…… Y’see—that night—I thought I’d deliberately lose to make that foolish couple abandon their plan.”
“If a man who’s researched for ten years were to show such sloppy losses—even that reckless couple would abandon any notion of making their fortune at roulette.”
“So I thought I’d create some random combinations and mechanically push through with them no matter what.”
“With this method—there’s absolutely no way to win.”
“‘First—I’d repeat the combination starting with black—(2-2-1-3)—as many times as it took.’ And when I abruptly started doing that—you saw how it turned out.”
“I decided to resist with a random (1-1-1-2) combination.”
“And then what do you think?”
“And wouldn’t you know it—the same numbers keep coming up!”
“The more desperately you try to lose—the more you keep winning.”
“You must’ve already figured out what I’m about to say.”
“Only those who are absolutely indifferent to the game can conquer roulette.”

“To fight roulette, a system alone isn’t enough.”
“At the same time, one needs absolute indifference to the game… pure detachment.”
“Only those who possess such an exceptional mentality can effectively utilize the System.”
“If a system exists in gambling, it can only exist in such a delicate state… Yet here I am, craving victory like a starving ghost.”
“I’m more avaricious than any miser.”
“If I’d gone out there with some System, I would’ve surely been crushed.”
“I was horrified…… I will now begin researching that.”
“I’ll see this discipline through to the end.”
“I won’t touch roulette until I’ve steeled my mind like that…… But y’know,” he grinned, “once I attain such sublime detachment, I’ll have no desire left to play…… Your methods that night weren’t pleasant, but for this realization—I might just thank you.”
“And one more thing…… No, perhaps I shouldn’t say it.”

For some reason, he flushed and averted his eyes toward the window. His emaciated cheeks shone with a boyish vitality, giving the impression as though two crimson roses had blossomed forth. After a moment, he said, “I’ve been talking to myself, but what’s your business?”
“I want to come talk with you every day from now on,” I said.
“Rather, I’m honored,” he replied.

1. On the fifth day, I visited him for the first time.
2. I had resolved to visit him daily but needed to rapidly assimilate toxicology knowledge using every available moment except nights.
3. Today’s primary purpose was to observe what sort of countenance a person about to be killed displays immediately beforehand.
4. It is said that red patches appearing on the upper face generally portend a violent death.
5. Had such signs begun to appear?

He was lying supine on the chaise longue, clutching his head.
His face bore the shadow of anguish, but there was nothing that suggested impending doom.
He flicked a glance toward me with just his eyes and suddenly said, “Hey, I’ve gotten myself into a strange situation.”
“I’ve come to passionately love that wife.”
“I hadn’t meant to confess even this to you, but it’s too painful to bear… I can’t explain how this began.”
“Since I’d never had such an experience before, it took me ages just to recognize this as love.”
“At first, I thought it was merely a matter of carnal desire, so I went out to Sufacis—that government-licensed brothel in Paris—to see for myself.”
“And I realized this emotion wasn’t born of physical hunger, but of spiritual starvation.”

“If I were to say that at forty-three I fell in love for the first time, you might laugh.”
“But you can likely grasp at least the violent upheaval with which it began.”
“How I’ve agonized these ten days—no explanation could convey it, so I’ll say nothing.”
“Let me simply state I’ve endured the most profound suffering humans can experience.”
“To speak plainly—I want that wife to love me. I want to possess her.”
“I yearn, I thirst—I feel madness encroaching.”
“Yet this was impossible from the outset.”
“Through art and gambling—those twin follies—I’ve exhausted my right to love.”
“No youth remains in me, no health, no vitality.”
“Moreover, she belongs to another.”
“This constitutes a solemn matter.”
“My morals permit no transgression regardless of reason…… Though agonizing, I resolve to crush this sentiment.”

I could not utter a single word in the end.

What could my mediocre spirit possibly say to this fervent soul?
And in this I saw fate’s clear first portents.
A stubbornly graceless method.

“1. That night,” I said as I was about to return to my room when the husband interjected: “Lately the bedbugs have become unbearable—we intend to seal and fumigate our rooms.”
“Since we’re at it,” he continued smoothly, “we’ll treat your room too.”
“Just stay at a nearby hotel for two days,” he concluded.
“I don’t object,” I replied cautiously, “but burning phosphorus would ruin my specimens.”
“No need for concern,” he assured me with practiced ease.
“It’s Pynelima—a harmless fumigant.”

The moment I returned to my room, I investigated what exactly Pynelima was.
It was a cyanide compound; inhaling even a trace amount of hydrogen cyanide gas emitted during fumigation would render survival absolutely impossible.
And unless through an extremely thorough autopsy and precise toxicological detection tests, it would be impossible to prove what the cause of death had been.
Olivia’s Poisoning Deaths and Actual Cases described an incident that had occurred at a hotel in Nice six years prior.
The hotel manager had performed fumigation in an empty room, but a man sleeping in a second-floor room died due to a small amount of gas that had leaked upward from below.
The cause of death had remained entirely unknown initially, but due to certain personal motivations—after repeated precise autopsies and toxicological detection experiments had been conducted—it was barely determined.
If cyanide fumigation were conducted in my room and a trace amount of that gas were to leak up to his room above... The result would be exceedingly clear.

Who could have conceived that disinfecting a lower-floor room would mean the death of someone on the floor above? One could not help but marvel at the ingenuity of the couple’s scheme. If I were to hand over the room knowing their intent, it would amount to actively aiding their plan. The next morning, I declined, saying I couldn’t possibly vacate the room as I was currently engaged in urgent studies, and when I immediately went up to the sixth floor, he lay sleeping with a red face hinting at a cold. And since this made even meals difficult, he timidly suggested—blushing, phrasing it in an extremely roundabout manner—that he’d like the wife to handle some errands during his illness, and could I ask her on his behalf?

His pitiable affection could not be ignored.
I naturally understood the torment in his heart, but I couldn’t possibly make arrangements that would carelessly grant the couple an opening.
“There’s no need to bother the wife with such a trivial matter.”
“I’ll handle it,” I said.
True to expectation, he appeared crestfallen and thereafter grew markedly aloof.
He would fix me with resentful glares that accused me of callousness, at times even overtly displaying his aversion to my visits.

About three nights later, the wife said she wished to invite the resident of the sixth floor to dinner and asked me to relay the message. Why would those who couldn’t even feed themselves invite anyone? Recognizing they had devised some new scheme, I told them he seemed to be catching a cold and probably wouldn’t accept. I feared this might give the couple an excuse to approach him.

The following night when I entered, the wife lay in bed swallowing pills. The pillbox read “Polymos Tablets.” When I asked if she was ill, she answered, “I’ve been feeling rather listless lately—just taking a tonic.” After dinner, I turned away from them and buried myself in the newspaper until glancing up absently to see something uncanny reflected in the piano’s black lacquer—the couple exchanging nods, their eyes locking on me with a vicious glare that blended fury and hatred.

I spent the night gripped by a terror more profound than any I had felt since birth. In my excessive attempt to detect signs of their plot, I probed too deeply—thereby allowing the couple to discern my awareness of their scheme. Even if it remained at the level of suspicion, the degree of danger was unchanged. If they realized I knew about their plan, they likely wouldn’t let me live. For that purpose, there existed more than enough opportunities.

1. The next morning, I consulted the Pharmaceutical Formulary to examine the formulation of Polymos tablets and discovered that the pills contained minuscule doses of arsenic as a tonic ingredient.
Her purpose in ingesting trace amounts of arsenic was already clear.
The aim was to gradually increase the dosage from minimal quantities until she could ingest a lethal dose alongside us without endangering her own life.
I urgently researched an arsenic antidote.
The most effective method proved to be intravenous injection of Methylene Blue—Bleu de Méthylène.
Methylene Blue... But how could I obtain it?
The remaining option was to preemptively begin increasing my own arsenic intake in small increments.
I wasn’t foolish enough to risk my life merely to continue observing.

When I entered, the husband was preparing a meal. When I asked about the wife, he answered that she had taken on nursing duties on the sixth floor and gone there. For the sake of a single useless old notebook, the couple had seized a cruel opportunity. It was now only a matter of time before he was poisoned. He would likely regress in all bodily functions due to excessive regular doses of arsenic acid and fade away to death. When I went up to the sixth floor, he lay sleeping with faint sweat on his forehead. The fleeting winter sunset cast across his face, imparting a desolate tone. His face had suddenly acquired deeper contours, his nose appearing to tower. This man of exceptional intellect and a soul as pure as a boy’s would be killed by that lowly, vulgar couple. I said to myself. You’re going to die... Though our days of acquaintance were brief, I felt the sorrow of parting with a friend of many years. This man too was ill-fated.

Around dawn the next day.

I heard hurried footsteps running through the front corridor.
When I stopped the wife who had opened the door and was running out, she answered that he had begun persistent vomiting and she was going to fetch a doctor.

When I went to check, he was vomiting incessantly.
There was nothing left to vomit, and he was vomiting a pale pink liquid.

Near dawn, I went up to the sixth floor.
When I slid open the door, an unforeseen scene spread before me.
The couple moved about with nervous intensity, their eyes red and swollen from sleeplessness.
The wife replaced the hot-water bottle and pulled out swaddling cloths, while the husband pressed the man’s feet against his bare chest in single-minded determination to warm them with his body heat.
At intervals they leaned their ears close to his face; whenever his breathing grew even slightly steadier or the look of pain faded from his features, they nodded to each other with tearful eyes, their expressions overflowing with relief.
With my bewildered mind unable to parse this development, I returned to my room in a state of numb confusion.

After a week or two of nursing by the couple, he had miraculously survived the dysentery-like symptoms and was sitting up on his bed.
Having made me sit beside the bed, he said with a sarcastic crease at the corner of his lips:

“I’d been drinking that putrid gutter water every night to kill myself.”
“If I keep living any longer, I’ll just waste away through this gambling research.”
“That wasn’t a proper way to die.”
“Even if I completed my System and made ten million francs, my body would be too exhausted from overwork to even scatter the money.”
“For forty-three years I’ve been possessed by artistic dreams and gambling illusions—overcoming everything without a single romance. But no matter what fortune might await, I can’t stand continuing this life.”
“I want to die like a human being while there’s still some tender emotion left in my heart—something that can feel even a shred of love.”
“Not for gambling—for love’s sake I want to die now.”
“If I could have one love in my life and die being nursed by my lover, wouldn’t that be my true wish? But those wretched meddlers had to go and cure me!” he said.

A day or two later, when the couple entered my room announcing their farewell, it was the wife who began saying she had something to confess.

“We had intended to kill the researcher on the sixth floor.”
“You must know our purpose without me having to spell it out.”
“But it wasn’t as easy as one might think.”
“When it came time to actually do it, the two of us would just exchange glances and sigh.”
“Before long, we ended up nursing that gentleman and became able to act at any time—but then I worried my husband might do it while I was away, or if his condition worsened slightly, he might think I had poisoned him. We began probing and watching each other until we became like enemies.”
“Before long, we started saying that if we had to suffer this much, we might as well starve to death.”
“Then came that sudden crisis.”
“If we let him die like this, it would seem as though we’d killed him through our own intentions—so we nursed him with our lives and ended up curing him.”

The husband would now go to Spa in Belgium (a hot spring resort) to try his system at roulette.
He had no delusions of a grand victory.
He would be satisfied if he could just win enough each day to eat meagerly.
“If it doesn’t work out, we’ll commit lovers’ suicide then,” he said, turning toward his wife.
The wife placed her hand over her husband’s.
As if that were a sign of consent.

The following evening, the couple departed for Belgium.
Waving from the taxi window.

About five days later when I went up to the sixth floor, he lay curled up on the bed. He had grown shockingly gaunt, his face now alarmingly small. Watching me enter with visible impatience, he spoke in a voice trembling with suppressed rage:
"Hey! Three days I've waited like this for you... Can't move anymore."
"My hands and legs have withered—can't even twitch a muscle."
When I asked what happened, he contorted his lips bitterly: "Tried killing myself—drank whatever came to hand."
"Eye drops... tobacco brew... photo chemicals... Woke up like this."
Then he fixed me with burning eyes: "Waited for you to throw me out that window."
"If my limbs worked, I'd crawl there myself."
"Don't want burdening others with dying—but can't move a finger."
"That's why I'm asking."
"You understand—paralyzed in this foreign shithole without coin or kin?"
"No need for pretty words."
"Just say yes—play executioner for your 'friend'."
"Suicide note's on that desk."
"Won't cause you trouble... Phrased it strange so you'd agree... Better than rotting here alone... Feeling your hands' warmth at the end..."

“Alright, I’ll throw you out. Is right now good?”

He nodded.
I immediately lifted him up.
It was so light I could scarcely believe it was a human body.
He murmured with satisfaction.

“The System is complete. I finally beat Poincaré. As for the method—you’ll understand immediately if you read it. The notebook is in my hidden chest pocket.”

“Are you giving it to me?”

“I’ll give it.”

I extracted the notebook from his hidden pocket, tossed it into my coat pocket, then positioned him at the window frame and let him gaze at the Parisian rooftops for a while.
He grimaced and said, “That’s enough.”

I shoved him forcefully from behind.
He slid down the steeply sloped slate roof, collided with a corrugated protrusion and tumbled head over heels, then plummeted vertically into the darkness in a bizarre pose with his feet toward the sky.

The sky began to lighten.
I'll stop here.
Resolved now—throw this black notebook into the stove and bring decisive closure.
Never will I recall any of this again.