Pathway to Japanese Literature

It had been nearly two years—in ten days it would be exactly two years—since my wife Chieko died of miliary tuberculosis as a schizophrenia patient in Room 15 of James Hill Hospital in Minami-Shinagawa. Through encountering Chieko in this world, I had been purified by her pure love and rescued from my former decadent life; since my spirit had depended entirely on her very existence, the psychological blow from her death proved truly devastating, plunging me into months of emptiness where even my artistic creations lost their purpose.

During her lifetime, I would show my wife Chieko the sculptures I made before anyone else. At each day's end, examining them together with her brought me incomparable joy. She accepted them unreservedly, understood them deeply, and loved them passionately. The small wood carvings I created would be tucked into her kimono and caressed as she walked through streets. In this world without her now—who could receive my sculptures with that childlike openness? For months I agonized over having no one left to show them to. Works born of beauty never spring from official doctrines or grand national consciousness alone. Though such things might form a work's theme or motivation, true creation—welling from the heart's depths and coursing with living blood—demands a mighty exchange of love at its core. This may be divine love. This may be imperial love. But there also exists—indeed—the bottomless pure love of one woman. For an artist, no force equals knowing one soul gazes upon your works with ardent eyes. No potential exists that guarantees creating what you wish to create. What's made may perhaps belong to all humanity. Yet typically, the creator's heart overflows simply desiring that one person's gaze. I possessed such a person in my wife Chieko. Hence the void following her death nearly equaled nonexistence itself. Mountains of desired creations went unmade. Because those fervent eyes no longer existed in this world. After months wrestling this torment—on a full-moon night through some chance occurrence—I came to keenly realize: by losing her individual being, Chieko had instead become my universal presence; since then I've constantly felt her breath nearby—this palpable sense of her being with me has grown stronger—that she endures eternally in my perception.

In this way, I regained my composure and mental health, and the vigor for work returned once more. When I finished a day's work and gazed upon my creation, if I said "How about this?" and turned around, Chieko was surely there. She was everywhere.

Chieko’s life from marriage until her death twenty-four years later was nothing but an unbroken succession of love, life’s hardships, devotion to art, contradictions, and battles against illness. Amid such maelstroms, she fell due to the innate mental constitution fate had bestowed upon her, vanishing amidst waves woven from exultation and despair, trust and resigned acceptance.

Though people had suggested many times that I write about her memories, until today I had never felt inclined to do so. The aftermath of such raw struggles had been too painful to commit to paper, even if it concerned a small corner of life; moreover, a strong doubt about what meaning could exist in what amounted to a mere report of private life had powerfully restrained my heart. But now I resolved to write. I would record the fate of this woman as simply as possible. I determined to document how one had secretly suffered through such trials, lived through such experiences, and fallen through such circumstances during the Taisho and Showa eras—allowing this account to serve as a farewell offering to that pitiable soul. Believing that what reaches perfection in one must resonate with all, I dared take up this pen even amidst these times.

Now, calmly reflecting upon her life—to summarize it briefly—she was born in Meiji 19 (1886) as the eldest daughter of the Naganuma family, sake brewers in Urushihara near Nihonmatsu Town, Fukushima Prefecture, in the Tohoku region. After graduating from a local girls' high school, she entered the Home Economics Department of Japan Women's University in Mejiro, Tokyo, where she began developing an interest in Western-style painting during her dormitory life. Following her university graduation, she barely obtained her parents' consent to remain in Tokyo, attending the Taiheiyo Painting Institute to study oil painting while frequenting the circles of then-emerging artists Nakamura Tsune, Saito Yoriji, and Tsuda Seifū, from whom she received influence; she also joined the women's ideological movement spearheaded by figures such as Ms. Hiratsuka Raichō at the time, contributing cover illustrations for the magazine *Seitō* (Bluestocking). This occurred around the late Meiji era; through an introduction by Ms. Yanagi Yae, she came to know me for the first time, and in Taisho 3 (1914), she married me. Even after marriage, she remained passionately devoted to her oil painting studies, but the days of being torn between artistic refinement and domestic life gradually increased; moreover, since falling ill with pleurisy, she had been frequently compelled to take to her sickbed; in later years she lost her father back home and then faced her family's impending bankruptcy—her mental anguish knew no bounds. Eventually, menopausal psychological disturbances became the cause as signs of mental abnormality appeared; in Shōwa 7 (1932), she attempted suicide with Adalin—fortunately escaping the drug's toxicity, she temporarily regained her health—but thereafter, a gradually progressing brain cell disease overrode all treatments until by Shōwa 10 (1935), she had been completely afflicted with schizophrenia. In February of that year, she was admitted to James Hill Hospital, where she quietly closed her eyes in October of Shōwa 13 (1938).

Her life was truly simple, remained purely personal throughout, and never touched upon anything of social significance. The brief period during which she had been involved with *Seitō* could at best be called her sole moment of social contact. Not only did she lack interest in societal matters, but she was inherently unsociable by nature. Though during her *Seitō* years she had been recognized among certain circles as one of these so-called "new women," and though the name Naganuma Chieko occasionally circulated within that group, this was in truth due to gossipmongers of the era embellishing tales with fanciful additions; she herself appeared to have steadfastly maintained a personality that was taciturn, asocial, non-confrontational, and single-mindedly devoted. It seems her female friends' genuine sentiment at the time was that conversing with Ms. Naganuma proved challenging. I myself scarcely knew her during those years, but I recall Mr. Tsuda Seifū having written somewhere about frequently encountering her walking in high lacquered geta sandals, trailing her kimono hem long behind her. From such mannerisms and her sparing speech, one senses people must have regarded her as some enigmatic object of curiosity. She came to be viewed alternately as a female counterpart to the Water Margin rebels or a cultivator of refined aesthetics, yet I imagine she was in reality far more artless and unconcerned with appearances.

I might as well say I knew almost nothing of her early life. What I knew about her was limited to events from after we were introduced and became acquainted. Filled with present matters, I had never felt inclined to learn about her past; in fact, I hadn’t even known her exact age until much later. The Chieko I came to know was a woman of truly simple and earnest character, always harboring something celestial in her heart—one who devoted her entire being to love and trust. Due to her innate strong-willed nature, she seemed to keep her emotions largely suppressed within; her demeanor remained calm, with no trace of frivolity. There were times when I had been astonished by the strength of her will to overcome herself and press forward, but looking back now, I could surmise that she must have been secretly accumulating considerable unreasonable efforts in that endeavor.

At the time I did not understand, but looking back now, it seems her life had progressed inexorably toward mental illness. In this life with me, there seemed to be no alternative path for her. Before considering why that was so, if one imagines a different life—for instance, had she lived not in Tokyo but in her hometown or some rural area, and had her spouse not been an artist like myself but someone in another occupation sympathetic to the arts, particularly one engaged in farming or livestock—one cannot help but wonder how things might have been. Perhaps she might have lived out a more natural lifespan. To such an extent does one think so—Tokyo had already become a physically unsuitable place for her. Tokyo’s air remained ever tasteless, dry, and gritty to her senses. She appears to have spent her youthful days in vigorous bloom at women’s college—encouraged by Principal Naruse to ride bicycles and devote herself to tennis—but after graduation, she grew generally less robust in health, her figure slenderized, and she seems to have passed nearly half of each year in the countryside or mountains. Even after beginning our life together, she would return to her family home for three or four months each year. Her body could not endure unless she breathed country air. She would often lament that Tokyo had no sky. There exists a small poem of mine titled *An Innocent Tale*.

Chieko says there’s no sky in Tokyo,

She says she wants to see the real sky.

I looked up at the sky in surprise. Amidst the young cherry leaves was the unbroken beautiful sky of old familiarity. The smudged horizon, hazy and overcast— the pale peach dampness of morning. Chieko gazed into the distance and said: "Above Mount Adatara the blue sky that appears each day— that is my true sky." An innocent tale of the sky. Having been born and raised in Tokyo myself, I could never fully grasp her desperate longing through lived experience. I had assumed she would eventually grow accustomed to this urban nature, yet her yearning for such fresh, transparent wilderness remained unaltered until her dying breath. In Tokyo, she sought to satisfy this craving through myriad means: The ceaseless sketching of weeds around our home; her botanical inquiries; cultivating lilies and tomatoes in bay windows; consuming raw vegetables; her fixation on Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony records—all were transmutations of that unfulfilled desire. This single thread alone suggests her half-lifetime of inexpressible, unrelenting anguish surpassed imagination. On her final day, hours before death, when she clasped the Sunkist lemon I brought—even that joy must have flowed from this same source. She sank her teeth into the lemon, body and soul seemingly cleansed by its crisp fragrance and juice.

The even greater cause that ultimately led her to mental collapse was unquestionably the anguish arising from the contradiction between her intense artistic devotion and the daily life sustained through her pure love for me. She loved painting passionately. It seems she had already been painting oils during her women's college years, consistently undertaking tasks like creating backdrops for student plays at school festivals; I heard that her parents back home, who initially opposed her becoming a painter, finally consented because a portrait of her grandfather she painted around that time had astonished people in their hometown with its quality. This oil painting—which I later saw myself—possessed a restrained harmony within its simplicity, a work of beautiful tonal values. Regarding her paintings from the years following graduation, I do not know them well, but they seem to have been somewhat sentimental pieces prioritizing mood over substance. She destroyed all works from that period without ever showing them to me. Through mere sketches and preparatory drawings alone could I imagine them. After we began living together, she mainly continued studying still lifes, painting hundreds upon hundreds of them. Landscapes she painted when visiting her hometown or traveling to the mountains; figures she drew in sketches, but in oils she never achieved full mastery. She deeply admired Cézanne and naturally fell under his strong influence. At that time, I too painted oils alongside sculpture, though we maintained separate studios. She truly suffered over color. And because she rejected half-measures in success, she tormented herself to degrees verging on self-flagellation. One year, she spent summer at Goshiki Onsen near her hometown, painting its scenery before returning. Among these works were some quite excellent small pieces that made her consider submitting to the Bunten exhibition alongside larger works, but failing to gain the judges' approval, they were rejected. Thereafter, no amount of persuasion could make her submit to any exhibition again. I believe that publicly exhibiting one's work to voice inner turmoil provides artists psychological relief; yet her withdrawal into herself likely exacerbated this introspective tendency. She pursued only perfection, remaining perpetually self-dissatisfied, leaving works eternally unfinished. Moreover, her oils undeniably still showed deficiencies in color handling. While her sketches displayed remarkable power and elegance, she never fully conquered oil paints.

She grieved over that. At times, she would shed tears alone before her easel. When I happened to go up to her room on the second floor and witness such moments, I too would often feel an indescribable loneliness and find no words of comfort.

Now, I was living in greater hardship than people could imagine. Other than having employed a maid only once around the time of the earthquake disaster, it was just the two of us living together throughout, and since both she and I were plastic artists of similar disposition, managing our time required considerable effort. If we both became absorbed in our work, neither of us could eat all day long, clean, run errands—our entire life would come to a complete halt. As such days accumulated considerably, in the end she—being a woman—had to handle the household chores; moreover, as I worked on my sculptures during daytime and spent nights writing manuscripts begrudging even mealtime, her time for painting study became increasingly eroded. While work such as poetry might allow one to half-progress compositions mentally and utilize even scraps of time effectively, plastic arts alone cannot proceed without demarcated hours—a reality that made her distress over this matter heartrending to contemplate. No matter what happened, she endeavored not to reduce my work time, shielded my sculptures from disruption, and strove with all her might to protect me from menial tasks. She had gradually reduced her time spent on oil painting studies—at times attempting sculpture in clay; later spinning silk thread; dyeing it with plant-based colors; even taking up weaving. The hand-woven kimonos and haori jackets she made for us both still remain today. Mr. Yamazaki Akira—another authority on plant dyeing—upon her death sent a condolence telegram inscribed with the poem:

At the sleeve’s edge wove a single blue stripe, The noble one now exists no more—alas.

Mr. Yamazaki Akira had composed this poem. In the end, though she never voiced it, she had despaired of oil painting. To abandon hope in her own art—which she had so passionately loved and envisioned as her life's work—could not have come easily to her heart. On that night in later years when she attempted suicide by poisoning, the adjacent room held a fruit basket freshly bought from Senbikiya arranged like a still life, with a new canvas standing propped on her easel. I saw this and felt my heart gripped. I wanted to cry out in anguish.

Though gentle, she was strong-willed, keeping every matter to herself and pressing forward in silence. She constantly devoted her utmost abilities to her pursuits. In matters of art—naturally—as well as general education and spiritual issues, she pursued each to its absolute limit, tolerating no ambiguity and scorning compromise. It was as if she had been a string stretched taut at all hours—her brain cells ruptured from enduring that extreme tension. She collapsed, having exhausted all her vitality. I cannot tell how many times I found myself purified by the purity of her inner life. Compared to her, I truly felt vague and murky. Merely looking into her eyes would often make me sense more than a hundred lessons. In her eyes there certainly existed the sky that appears above Mount Adatara. When creating her bust, I keenly felt the unattainability of these eyes and grew ashamed of my own impurity. Even now, looking back, it seems she inherently carried a destiny that made survival in this world impossible. She had been living in a realm utterly isolated from this earthly air. I remember times when she somehow seemed like a soul only provisionally existing in this world. She possessed no worldly desires. She lived single-mindedly through love for art and for me. And thus she remained forever young. Along with her spirit's youthfulness, her physical appearance retained striking freshness. Every time we traveled together, people would mistake her for my sister or even daughter. She maintained that particular quality of youthfulness; even approaching death, none would guess her a woman past fifty. When we married, I couldn't imagine her aging, once teasingly asking, "I wonder if even you will become an old woman?"—to which she carelessly replied, "I'll die before growing old."

And thus it came to pass exactly as she had said.

According to psychiatrists, ordinary healthy brains can endure considerable suffering, while those who develop mental illness are largely either born with some predisposition or acquire it through injury or severe illness. There appeared to be no history of mental illness in her family except for her younger brother—the eldest son of her household—whose conduct deviated severely from norms, ultimately bankrupting their family home before he succumbed to a grave illness and died destitute in squalor. Yet I cannot believe any hereditary predisposition flowed strongly there. It is also said she suffered a severe skull fracture from a cut stone in infancy, but this healed without complications and seems unrelated to her later condition. When her brain disorder manifested, doctors questioned whether I had contracted an overseas disease. I recalled no such instance, and though our blood was tested repeatedly, results remained negative. Thus it proves difficult to confirm any physical predisposition for schizophrenia within her. Yet in retrospect, one could interpret all her tendencies since our meeting as inching inexorably toward this illness. Even her purity was extraordinary. She possessed a resolve so absolute she would abandon all else without regret—an unstoppable force—while her love and trust in me approached infantile intensity. What first captivated me was precisely this extraordinary nature’s beauty. To rephrase—she was extraordinary in every aspect. In my poem “Two People Under a Tree,”

Here is your birthplace The heaven and earth that gave birth to this mysterious separate physical body.

That I sang these lines also arose from this genuine conviction. Was it that she approached her final collapse step by step? Or that the illness advanced relentlessly like an unerring spiral? It was only when nearing the end that I too began to vaguely sense something amiss—until then, I had not harbored even a dewdrop of suspicion regarding her mental state. In other words, she was extraordinary, yet showed no signs of disorder. The first time I noticed signs of disorder was around the time her menopause approached.

Let me now briefly record here her as she exists within my recollections.

As previously mentioned, it was Ms. Yanagi Yae, my senior at women’s college, who introduced me to Naganuma Chieko. Ms. Yanagi Yae was the wife of painter Mr. Yanagi Keisuke, a friend from my New York days, and at that time she was engaged in work for the Sakura Maple Society. It was around the 44th year of Meiji. In July of Meiji 42, I returned from France, pierced a hole in the roof of a retirement cottage in my father’s garden to use as a studio, and there I vigorously studied sculpture and oil painting. At the same time, I had founded a small art shop called Rōkandō in Kanda Awajichō where I held exhibitions of emerging art and participated in the new literary movement of the Subaru group that was then rising in Japan. Meanwhile, my belated youth erupted, and I fell into a rather intense so-called life of indulgence, frequently associating with Mr. Kitahara Hakushū, Mr. Nagata Hideo, Mr. Kinoshita Mokutarō, and others. It was a time when I lived through chaotic days consumed by anxiety, impatience, longing, and despair toward something unknown—planning a move to Hokkaido only to fail immediately, experiencing a mental crisis where even I didn’t know what would become of me. It may be that Mr. Yanagi Keisuke had a friend’s deep consideration, but it was precisely at such a time that she was introduced to me. She was exceedingly elegant and quiet, her sentence endings trailing off; she would simply look at my works, drink tea, listen to talk of French paintings, and then take her leave as was her custom. At first, I noticed nothing but her skillful way of dressing and the appealing delicacy of her figure. She never brought the paintings she had made, so I had no idea what she was creating. In time, arrangements were made for my father to build my current studio, which was completed in Meiji 45, and I moved in alone. She came to visit here, bringing a large gloxinia planter as a congratulatory gift. Just after the passing of His Majesty Emperor Meiji, I went to Inubō to sketch. At that time, she had come to another inn with her younger sister and a close friend, and we met again. Later, she came to stay at my inn, and together we took walks, had meals, and sketched. Perhaps because our behavior seemed suspicious, one of the inn’s maids always followed along to monitor the two of us during our walks. They apparently thought we might commit lovers’ suicide. According to what Chieko later recounted, had I said anything unreasonable at that time, she would have immediately drowned herself to death. I was unaware of such matters, but during our stay at this inn, I was deeply struck by her pure demeanor, her selfless and simple disposition, and her boundless love for nature. The you who delighted in the beach silvertop on the shore—she was utterly childlike.

However, during my bath, when I happened to catch sight of her in the adjacent bathhouse, I suddenly felt a premonition that there might be some fateful connection between us. She was remarkably well-proportioned.

Before long, passionate letters began arriving from her, and I came to believe there was no woman other than this person to whom I could entrust my heart. Nonetheless, I myself doubted several times whether this feeling was but a fleeting thing. Moreover, I also warned her. That was because, when I contemplated the hardships my future life would bring, I could not bear to involve her in them. At that time, malicious gossip concerning the two of us spread among the tight-knit artist circles and women’s groups, and both of us were greatly troubled in dealing with our families. However, she trusted me completely, and I rather worshipped her. The more malicious voices filled our surroundings, the more strongly we became bound together. Whenever I began to lose confidence—knowing the impure elements and turbid residues within myself—she would always illuminate what lay inside me with a pure light.

Amidst the utterly defiled countless forms of my self With the purity of an infant,

You, in your sublimity, did discover my very self. You have discovered what I know not. If I take you as peerless judge, Through you my heart finds joy My unknown self— I do believe it dwells within my warm flesh. And so I too sang. It was her pure love that finally pulled me up and rescued me from my reckless decadence. In the second year of Taisho, during August and September, I stayed at Shimizuya in Kamikochi, Shinshu, and that autumn painted dozens of oil paintings for the Seikatsu-sha exhibition held at the Kanda Venus Club alongside Mr. Kishida Ryūsei, Mr. Kimura Shōhachi, and others. In those days, all who went to Kamikochi would pass through Shimajima and Iwana-dome before crossing Tokugari Pass—a journey of no small distance. That summer at the same lodging were staying Mr. Kubota Utsuho, Mr. Ibaragi Inokichi, and also Mr. and Mrs. Weston, who had come specifically to climb Mount Hotaka. After September began, she came visiting me carrying her painting tools. On the day I received word of this, I crossed Tokugari Pass to meet her at Iwana-dome. She entrusted her luggage to the guide and climbed up unburdened. The mountain folk marveled at her sturdy stride. I crossed Tokugari Pass together with her once more and guided her to Shimizuya. Her joy upon beholding Kamikochi's landscapes knew no bounds. Thereafter, each day I roamed about sketching with two people's worth of painting gear slung over my shoulder. Though she seemed then to be suffering some discomfort in her pleura, while in the mountains it never grew serious. This marked my first viewing of her paintings.

They possessed a distinctive quality in their rather subjective perspective on nature, and I thought they might become truly remarkable if fully developed. I painted every scene before my eyes—Hotaka, Myōjin, Yakedake, Kasumizawa, Roppyaku-dake, and the Azusa River. She would continue looking at one of the self-portraits I had painted then even during her later years of illness. At that time, Weston inquired whether she was my sister or wife. When I replied, “A friend,” he gave a pained smile. In those days, a Tokyo newspaper had published an article titled “Love on the Mountain Peaks,” exaggerating matters about us two in Kamikochi. It had likely taken root in rumors spread by those who had descended the mountain. This again frayed the nerves of our family members. On October 1st, the whole mountain party descended to the islands. The magnificent golden leaves of katsura trees filling Tokugari Pass’s mountain embrace remain unforgettable. She too would often recall and speak of this.

From that time onward, my parents became deeply concerned. I felt truly sorry toward my mother. The dreams of both my father and mother were all shattered. I neither leveraged what people called my foreign education to advance in the sculpting world, nor accepted offers to become a schoolteacher, nor took a proper Edo-style bride—ending up utterly incomprehensible in my ways. I felt truly sorry, but in the end, in the third year of Taishō (1914), I requested my parents to allow my marriage to Chieko. My parents also granted their permission. Since we would not be attending to my parents and would be living separately in the studio, I had arranged for all land and buildings to become the property of my younger brother and his wife, who lived with my parents. We two established a household that was completely bare. Of course, we did not go to Atami or anything of the sort. Thus began an exceedingly long life of poverty.

She had been raised in an affluent family, and perhaps because of this, remained remarkably indifferent to money, never knowing the true terrors of poverty. Even when I struggled financially and called a secondhand dealer to sell my Western clothes, she would watch calmly; if there was no money in the kitchen drawer, she simply refrained from shopping. Though we sometimes discussed what we might do if we truly couldn't eat, whenever I insisted we must complete whatever work we could manage regardless of circumstances, she would often reply: "Yes, your sculptures must never remain unfinished." We had no steady income—when money came, we had plenty; when it vanished, it disappeared completely from the next day onward. Once gone, there was nowhere to find it. Over twenty-four years, I likely made kimonos for her only two or three times. She gradually stopped wearing the diaphanous kimonos from her unmarried days, eventually adopting plain attire and coming to wear sweaters and trousers around the house. Yet this possessed a remarkably beautiful harmony. "In that poem which says 'You grow more beautiful by degrees,'"

When a woman gradually sheds her attachments, How do you become so beautiful? Your body, washed by years, the boundless celestial metal in flight

It was around that time that I wrote those lines.

Even she, who remained unfazed by her own poverty, was deeply wounded by her family home’s collapse. It appears she returned multiple times to manage their finances, but they ultimately went bankrupt. The Great Fire of Nihonmatsu Town. Her biological father’s death. The heir’s reckless dissipation. Ruin. For her, this must have been unbearable anguish. Though often ill, she recovered each time she returned to her rural home. How that loneliness of having no home left must have tormented her. That she lacked friendships to ease this solitude—though born of her nature—was itself a fateful truth. She staked everything on loving me and gradually withdrew from school friends. Only Ms. Sato Sumiko of Tachikawa’s Agricultural Experiment Station and two or three others remained close—meetings occurring just once or twice yearly. During school years she had been robust, even excessively athletic, but after graduation developed chronic pleural issues. Within years of our marriage, severe wet pleurisy hospitalized her; though fully cured, horseback lessons at a training ground later caused retroflexion requiring surgery. Appendicitis plagued her too—always some ailment. Her healthiest period came around Taishō 14 (1925), lasting a year or two. Yet illness never made her sullen. She stayed serene and calm. When sorrowful tears fell, they soon dried.

Around Shōwa 6 (1931), when I was traveling through the Sanriku region, the first signs of mental disturbance manifested in her. Though I had never left her alone at home for more than two weeks on any previous trip, this time I traveled for nearly a month. When I later heard accounts from my niece who stayed during my absence and my mother who visited her during that time，it became clear she had felt profoundly lonely—she even told my mother once，＂I’m going to die．＂ She was then approaching menopausal age． The seventh year of Shōwa [1932]，the year of the Los Angeles Olympics，brought July fifteenth’s morning when she did not wake． It appeared she had taken Adalin after midnight；the twenty-five gram powder bottle lay empty． Plump like a cherub，eyes shut and lips sealed，she remained supine on her bed，sleeping through all attempts to rouse her． Her breathing continued，her body temperature stayed high． I immediately summoned a doctor for detoxification，filed police reports through him，and admitted her to Kudanzaka Hospital． A suicide note surfaced，containing only expressions of love and gratitude toward me，and an apology to her father． The text bore no trace of mental disarray． After one month’s treatment and care，she recovered sufficiently for discharge． For about a year afterward she maintained relative health，but when I noticed emerging neurological irregularities，I took her on hot spring tours across Tohoku—only for her condition to worsen beyond its pre-departure state by our return to Ueno Station． Her symptoms fluctuated unpredictably．

She initially saw many hallucinations and would lie in bed sketching each one in her notebook. As they changed moment by moment, she noted the times and drew them successively to show me. With deep emotion, she spoke of their forms and colors having unparalleled beauty. After passing through such a period, her entire consciousness grew severely hazy, and I had to tend to her meals and bathing as one would an infant. Both the doctor and I, thinking this a temporary menopausal phenomenon, moved her to the house in Kujukurihama where her mother and sister lived, making her take ovarian hormones and other medications. I visited once a week by train.

In Shōwa 9 [1934], my father was hospitalized at the university hospital for a gastric ulcer; after being discharged, he passed away on October 10th. At the coast, her body grew robust and she emerged from her hazy state, but the disturbance in her brain only progressed further. She would play with birds, become a bird herself, stand in a corner of the pine grove, and chant “Kōtarō, Chieko, Kōtarō, Chieko” for an hour straight. Around the time the arrangements following my father’s death had settled somewhat, I brought her back from the coast to the studio, but her condition charged forward like a steam locomotive. She underwent an examination by Dr. Morooka Arata, but as she gradually began to exhibit violent behavior and home care became dangerous, in February 1935 [Shōwa 10], through an acquaintance’s referral, I admitted her to James Hill Hospital in Minami-Shinagawa and decided to entrust everything to the devoted guidance of Director Dr. Saitō Tamio. Fortunately, I was able to have Chieko’s niece Ms. Haruko—a kind-hearted woman who had earlier become a first-class nurse—care for her until the end. Recounting in detail the course of her condition since Shōwa 7 remains too painful for me now. However, in the latter half of her hospital life, her condition remained relatively calm, and while her mind was split, her hands seemed to have joyfully achieved through paper-cutting what she had never been able to accomplish with oil paints. The paper-cut works she created—numbering in the hundreds—were truly her abundant poetry, a record of her life, joyful forms, chromatic harmonies, humor, and also a plea of delicate affection. She is living here in truly robust health. She seemed happiest to show them to me when I visited. While I was looking at them, she smiled and bowed in a truly happy manner. On her final day, she handed me the paper-cut artworks she had personally organized into a single bundle and, amid labored breathing, managed a faint smiling expression. Her face was completely relieved. Washed by the scent of the lemons I had brought, she passed away from this world extremely quietly within a few hours.

It was the night of October 5, Shōwa 13 (1938).