Pathway to Japanese Literature

I was now at a hot spring inn in Izu, gazing at the sea in a leisurely manner.
But you couldn’t judge people by appearances alone.
As for me—far from being at ease—I was in fact brimming with worries.
Gazing at the sea was merely a facade—my eyes were in fact searching for rental notices.

When I looked at this morning’s Miyako Shimbun, in its “Readers and Reporters” column, a reader was airing grievances under the opening line: “Since January I’ve been hunting for a rental, finally found one after five months and breathed a sigh of relief, but—”
The reporter, sympathizing, responded, “It’s a major issue.”
I too had been searching for a rental house all this time.
Since I still hadn’t found one myself, I hadn’t reached the point of relief.
And so, this was how I ended up coming to this hot spring inn.
Even while gazing at the sea, muttering about rental notices—this essentially expressed my state of mind.

Whenever I picked up a newspaper, I made it my habit to look first at that very last page—that particular spot. While I wasn’t entirely indifferent to the fate of the Balkan Kingdoms, what truly commanded my attention were the classified listings for rental houses. Yet lately, houses for sale outnumbered rentals by far. If there were two rental listings, those for sale numbered twenty. Thus the “Seeking Rentals” columns lined up in droves. By natural proportion, “Seeking Buyers” notices were nowhere to be found. The world’s rules were carried out with flawless precision. What a perfectly ordered world we lived in—or so I mused.

The world may be in peaceful order, but I cannot understand why houses for sale and rentals are grouped under a single column labeled “Buildings.” Those who must rent have no reason they could buy. Though they are indeed the same structures, these two categories differ as starkly as paradise and hell. For a newspaper company to remain oblivious to this was utterly absurd.

Be that as it may, I found a suitable listing.
But even having found this did not mean a suitable rental house had been secured.
Whether I liked it or not, I had to go there myself.
I circled around obscure locations in a fixed-rate taxi.
The meter simply clicked away in silence, but the driver didn’t keep quiet.
“Enough already—get out here,” he said.
My intention to impress the landlord by arriving in a taxi—a rare show of luxury—had now completely gone up in smoke because of that.
“So, how about it? I’ll finish my business quick and head back to Ginza—you feel like waiting around here to earn a bit?”
“You’d be better off than going back empty, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course, you can reset the meter,” I tried to butter him up with such remarks, but he didn’t fall for it.
“You must be joking! Nowadays, nonsense like fixed-rate taxis cruising around empty is even rarer than rental houses,” he retorted.

Now, harboring such thoughts, I finally reached the landlady’s house—only to find her utterly frosty. She made a face that declared there could be no vacant properties in her holdings. “Ah, you mean that one?” she said. “That place was snapped up ages ago.” “Ages ago? But the ad ran in this morning’s paper!” “When exactly was it decided?” I pressed. “This morning,” she replied. “What time this morning?” I found myself asking—a futile question propelled by momentum. “Well, around seven or seven-thirty,” she answered. “They said it had to be before their commute.” Seven o’clock—before work began. Of course there was no competing with this.

I am not a salaried worker.
That’s why I’m a free agent when it comes to bedtime and waking hours.
Spring sleep knows no dawn—though this isn’t seasonal—but even what’s called the morning paper doesn’t reach my hands until around noon.
Then I leisurely wash my face, calmly have breakfast.
I quietly sip coffee.
Thus my day begins.
So even when I rush over after seeing an ad, it’s already past 3 PM—what seems like four hours between 7 and 3 becomes eight when crossing from AM to PM.
If we count an eight-hour workday, it’s exactly as if I’m a full day behind.
Even someone like me couldn’t help feeling profoundly inadequate.

Meanwhile, evening papers were already being sold in the streets.
A poster boldly proclaiming “King of Albania in Exile” fluttered before an elderly evening paper vendor whose face bore an Albanian cast.
But as for me, I no longer cared about the fate of the Balkans or such things.
Rather than splashing such headlines about, how much more grateful I would be if they’d move those ‘classified ads’ to the evening edition’s pages.
If it were the evening paper, then rushing over before work would already be too late.
No matter what I did, it ended up being after work hours.
If that’s how it worked, then even I should be able to compete.

In times like these, not having proper employment seemed to be the fundamental problem.
At last there remained one rental house not yet taken.
"At last!" I thought, and promptly asked to see the floor plan and other details—whereupon she approached saying, "One moment."
I assumed she was retrieving the key to unlock the back gate, but instead came her inquiry: "Where are you employed?"
She was an old woman past fifty and nearing sixty.
Glasses perched on her face.
Three thick horizontal wrinkles stood distinct at the bridge of her spectacles.
"I write manuscripts and coach theater rehearsals—no conventional employment to speak of," I answered truthfully. Immediately vertical creases bisected those horizontal folds as she stated: "Our properties cater exclusively to those employed at institutions like the Ministry of Colonial Affairs, Ministry of Finance, or Mitsui and Mitsubishi conglomerates."

There is such a thing as selling words.
This must be what they mean by it.
Very well—if I can’t buy a house for sale, I can at least buy selling words.
“Then if I had someone employed at the Ministry of Colonial Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Mitsui, or Mitsubishi act as guarantor, would you rent to me?” I launched my retort at those horizontal wrinkles, vertical lines, and the tangled lattice-like stripes atop her nose.
“But of course I’m not some old woman to be rattled by that! Hohohoho!” she suddenly shrilled, peering sharply through her glasses at me. “Do you mean to say you associate with such people?”
“A guarantor means affixing a seal.”
When confronted like this, I realized I had been misguided in my usual approach.
I do have three or four acquaintances, but none I’m on such intimate terms with to ask for a shop guarantor.
As I fumbled for words, the old woman snapped the lattice door shut with a sharp clack.
This lattice was the actual one at the main entrance.
Through the lattice gaps, the crisscrossed wrinkles on the old woman’s nose swayed like seaweed.
From her side, I must have looked like an unstamped scrap of paper.

Speaking of the Ministry of Colonial Affairs—this was an office where a Diet member from my hometown had once become a minister. Had I sent a sea bream back then as a token of our shared provincial ties, I might have made acquaintance with at least one minor official there. They say opportunity has no hair on the back of its head—had I grabbed it then, I could have spared myself this humiliation. As for the Ministry of Finance—just recently, I’d been asked to judge a naniwabushi ballad contest promoting war bond sales. The head judge was none other than the Financial Bureau Director, though in my worldly ignorance, I hadn’t realized this bureau chief would soon rise to vice-minister. To come crawling now that he’s been promoted would seem too wretchedly calculating. My lack of foresight had left me hopelessly behind. There’s someone at Mitsui Bank who once sent love letters to my wife—approach him for favors now and he’d likely recoil in discomfort. Then at Mitsubishi there’s a schoolmate now in high position—the sort we all wondered why he’d ever pursued humanities, until we settled on contempt—so suddenly respecting him now would breach all decorum. They say a single misstep on life’s path can never be retraced—but does stumbling truly mean one can’t even rent a house?

That “a guarantee means affixing a seal” was indeed the unshakable truth the old woman taught me.
Even if they provide guarantees, obtaining seals proves no simple matter.
I may have strayed from life’s proper path, but even had I kept connections with those at the Ministry of Colonial Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Mitsui or Mitsubishi—would they have readily stamped their seals?
One must never treat life lightly.
Not even the wife at my side trusts me when crisis looms.
Is it not precisely because they never treated life lightly that they now hold positions at those ministries and conglomerates?
They belong to a different race altogether from someone like me—one who took life lightly and became a manuscript writer.
Racial difference stands as today’s great dilemma.

Here I recalled a friend of the same race.
He visited me one day and suddenly said:
“You there—don’t you need my seal?
“I went to the ward office today and completed my official seal registration. Look here—this is it.
“In appearance, it’s just a plain wooden stamp, but once you register it and thud it into the government ledger, it’s no longer just a stamp.
“It properly gains a personality of its own.
“It speaks.
“It says things.
“So? Isn’t it delightful? Isn’t it fascinating?
“If you want, I’ll stamp it on anything for you!”
In other words, this friend was utterly delighted that his little seal had begun to possess a certain magical power.
And so he intended to share a portion of that delight with me as well.
At the time, unfortunately, I had nothing for him to stamp, so he merely stamped the margin of a newspaper I had on hand; but another friend, persuaded by your insistence, accompanied me to a moneylender.
Needless to say, it was through that magically empowered seal speaking on their behalf that they borrowed the money.

There was such a thing as the Literary Artists’ Association. Once, they had decided to lend money to association members. So the members applied. “Why do you want to borrow?” asked the office executives. “Isn’t it because you said you’d lend that we’re borrowing?” retorted the members.

But that too was long ago. Today’s literary artists, being more attuned to common sense than logic, would surely never engage in such absurd exchanges nor attempt such unreasonable borrowing. Even then, since this was nominally a financial transaction, they required a guarantor. But for literary artists, guarantees meant nothing. Didn’t a mere seal suffice? And so everyone became guarantors for everyone else. The result was that while Party A guaranteed Party B, Party B in turn guaranteed Party A—all unfolding in perfect harmony. They mutually guaranteed each other. What splendid unity! If only one guaranteed the other, it could hardly be called complete. In mutual trust lay a splendid life; in mutual trust lay societal harmony. “Well then—shall we toast with this money?” they said, each slapping their newly weighted pockets.

But that era had already receded far beyond even the eighteenth century. Though the Literary Artists’ Association still exists, the age of literature had changed. When ages change, even landlords’ very nature transforms completely.

They speak of Mendel’s laws and such, but heredity must manifest only within the physical body. Literary arts and rent collection are matters of the mind.

When it comes to landlords being like parents—so lecturers and rakugo performers start prattling on.
To say their antiquatedness gets exposed in such matters would be one thing, but old-fashioned landlords aren’t exactly rare.
A friend of mine in Shin Kokugeki’s literary department managed to find an ideal house during this rental crisis.
Working in theater doesn’t count as proper employment, yet this bordered on miraculous.
When he explained he was from Shin Kokugeki, the landlord immediately nodded—it was a respectable institution, they said, and Sawada Shōjirō had been an admirable man.
Sawada Shōjirō has been dead ten years now.
And yet they trusted his legacy and rented on the spot—what an edifying tale!
When he hesitantly asked about a guarantor, they replied that Shin Kokugeki’s endorsement would suffice.
Guarantee.
How do you parse this character *shō*?
Shin Kokugeki secures his livelihood.
If your living is secured, why need a guarantor?
Ah—security *is* guarantee.
Following this logic, I recalled those ministries—Colonial Affairs and Finance—where civil servants enjoy status protection ordinances.
Financial privileges exist solely for officials, shielded by law’s latticework.
They call lattice-confined men prisoners, yet deem those beyond it trustworthy—such is human nature.
Those outside the bars might bolt any moment.
That crone peering through the lattice at me, her crosshatched wrinkles swaying like seaweed—perhaps she wasn’t wholly unjustified.
Even had I lattice ties, they’d be manuscript grids.
No one trusts paper lattices.

That said, the world is full of contradictions.

The landlord of the house I once rented in Ōmori must have belonged to the old-fashioned—no, the antiquated—category.
When I candidly stated that I was a manuscript writer, he remarked, “Ah—so yours is a line of work where money comes in when it comes in and doesn’t when it doesn’t.”
“That’s exactly right,” I replied, to which he said, “But as long as money comes in when it comes in, there’s nothing to worry about,” and approved my tenancy.
When humans place trust in other humans, they should always aspire to be as magnanimous as this.

Now, here I wished to say a few words in praise of this magnanimous, antiquated landlord.
What I meant to recount was brief, yet this also turned out to be a long story.
But no—this was not merely a story.
It became nothing less than a moral parable—one that teaches how tender human kindness can drown others, how meticulous consideration can lead others astray in their way of life, how even the virtue of magnanimity ends up serving only to delay rent payments and thereby becomes detrimental, and how, in short, what is antiquated remains antiquated and cannot belong to the present world.

Facts speak.
Facts are more eloquent than anything else.
Therefore, even if I were to call this an exemplary moral parable or even a splendid novel, there would be no need to tell it as either.
A great masterpiece can move people profoundly through its mere outline.
But not everything qualifies as a masterpiece.
Those popular novels often prove more engaging in summary form.
Hence film studios vie to purchase adaptation rights.
To adapt means seizing structural scaffolding and tinting it anew.
Though debates persist about fidelity to source material, nearly all works share monotonously uniform frameworks.
Thus when every adaptation emerges identically formulaic, cinema itself bears no blame.
Yet what I now recount defies such commonplace foundations.
Just as astonishing news sometimes surfaces among trivial columns—and this indeed merits being called news—I suspect merely sketching its contours will already leave you astounded.

There was a gate.
I entered.
There was a garden.
I looked at it.
At first glance, I was captivated.
For it became clear this garden had not been made to impress others, but solely for the master's own enjoyment.
This approach to garden design has fallen into severe decline today.
Wherever you go now, gardens disappear into mere ornamentation.
Even Yuuki silks are worn for show these days, and tea rooms serve social functions rather than embodying refined taste.
Okakura Tenshin wrote *The Book of Tea*, but people today read it merely as social currency for discussing propriety.
Ah, even what we call good sense has become decorative plumage.
Being prone to sentimentality, I soon found myself awash in fragmented thoughts.
I stepped inside the house.
The woodwork pleased me.
Old it was, yet the woodwork pleased me.
Perhaps its age accounted for this virtue.
Had it been newly built, Americanisms would surely have crept in somewhere.
No matter how you try to Japanify American timber, it betrays itself eventually.
There was an American of my acquaintance who relished miso soup each morning—yet unfailingly plopped a knob of butter into his bowl.
And without exception, he deferred to his wife in all matters.

That wife of his was a purebred Japanese woman.

The toilet was flush-style.
Ah, this touch of Americanism alone was acceptable.
However, what I had come to like was not such things.
The entire property consisted of two buildings—the main house being a single-story structure and the annex having two floors.
I was not a salaried worker, so naturally I was no homebody.
If one waited for employment, they were unavoidably forced to leave home.
When forced into this position, a feeling of resistance arose.
Naturally—were salaried workers not driven into this psychology of longing for home?
Yet I had no such compulsion.
As my obligation dictated, I had to remain at home unless unavoidable circumstances arose.
This too became its own form of compulsion.
By logical progression, resistance welled up again.
Was it not inevitable that I should feel like wandering out without purpose?
That I now found myself idling at this hot spring—despite wanting to move quickly and refresh my mind—stemmed from this unavoidable reality: no rental house could be found.
This was by no means luxury.
Wasn't my continued fretting over rentals even here proof enough?
Twenty years prior—in a school classroom—I had met Mr.Shimazaki Tōson shortly after his return from Paris.
Through those classroom windows drifted the wretchedly inept music of a student orchestra newly formed at that time.
Yet Mr.Toson—mid-sentence—turned his ear toward those sounds: Ah...even hearing such music as this makes me recall Paris.
Just yesterday while walking through Zoshigaya Forest—I suddenly discovered myself feeling as though strolling through Boulogne Forest and startled at the realization.

And yet, when I was in Paris, I found myself constantly reminded of Tokyo at every turn.
While walking in Boulogne, I often found myself walking in Zoshigaya.
In Paris, I longed for Tokyo; in Tokyo, I longed for Paris—could this be life’s nature?
Having said this, the poet before us let his eyes drift dreamily toward a solitary white cloud floating beyond the window.
Ah, so that cloud was Paris? We too turned our eyes in that direction.
But that this matter had resurfaced even twenty years later under the theme of rental houses was a paradoxical thing.
Whenever I searched for rental houses, I thought of hot spring inns; whenever I came to hot spring inns, I considered rental houses.

Well, I am generally not a homebody.
Therefore, I will briefly explain why I took a liking to the second floor of the detached annex.
By being in the annex, I could keep that much more distance from my family.
On top of that, it had a second floor.
If I stationed myself there, not only would there be planar distance, but even a three-dimensional vertical distinction would come into play—wouldn’t I be able to establish a tranquil study here?
I said to the landlord.
“I liked it.”
“I would like to rent it.”
But there I added, “However.”
And simultaneously, from the landlord’s side as well, came a “However.”

“However” was an unfathomable word.
It possessed hidden depths.
Its nature resembled that of politicians.
Consider Mr. Hiranuma—a politician of sterling character—but however—
The true issue lay in what followed that “however.”
By turning to what came after that “however,” even the most distinguished record of a principled statesman would be thrown into disarray—neither negation nor affirmation, but only a profoundly vague and utterly ambiguous miasma hovering there.
Had this word “however” never existed, I believe life in this world would have remained an exceedingly simple matter.
Observe dogs barking.
Listen to horses neighing.
When they bark or whinny, they do so with pure singularity of purpose—never uttering any “however” or such qualifiers.
Might this very “however” then constitute what we call human nature?
Among British playwrights existed a man who wrote a drama titled *If*.
But compared to this “however,” one might say “if” represents utter shallowness and vulgarity—for “however” embodies reality itself, while “if” amounts to nothing more than trivial Romanticism.
Now then—I had said “however,” and the landlord too had said “however.”
But were these two “howevers” truly one and the same “however”?

I had not infrequently seen examples where an initial agreement between two parties would become disagreement and break down from the "however" onward.
Both Hitler and Chamberlain had been in agreement about their love of peace.
However—from that point onward—the problem became entangled.
I held my breath.
And I prepared to hear what would follow the landlord’s “however.”
But the landlord too had restrained his voice.
My wariness stemmed from unwarranted suspicion, while the landlord’s likely arose from courteous formality.
I was moved by that person’s countenance at that moment.
With a virtuous smile gracing his serene face, he was preparing to receive the words I was about to utter after “however.”
Ah—this was no ordinary landlord.
How could I possibly bring up something like adjusting the rent to such a magnate?

“However,” I finally said.
“How much is the security deposit?”
“Yes, it’s set at three months, you see,” the landlord replied.
I would like you to thoroughly scrutinize this phrasing.
Is there not a world of difference between saying “it is set at” and “it is set at, but...”?
But in that instant, I realized I still hadn’t asked about the crucial matter of the rent—not about three months, nor any number of them.
However, just how much might the rent be?
Thereupon, the landlord once again answered following that phrasing.
“Yes, it’s set at seventy-five yen, you see.”

In a newsreel, I once saw what they called the scene of the Munich Agreement’s signing. No dramatic film, however gruesome, had ever moved me as profoundly as that. Though it should have been a scene where negotiations were concluded with mutual handshakes, the atmosphere was that of a boxing ring. Something unsettling—anxious and gloomy—permeated every corner of the hall captured on film. No great actor had ever appeared with such a grave countenance. Hitler walked with eyes gleaming like a leopard’s, Mussolini stood tensely in a corner like a fighting bull, and Chamberlain hunched his back in the dim light like a horse. The French statesman had hidden himself away like a reprimanded office worker, leaving just such an impression. Of course, I watched this film many years after my meeting with that landlord. But as I viewed it, I found myself deeply recalling. Why were these two meetings—both negotiations—as different as night and day? Or to put it another way, heaven and hell? I supposed that in Munich back then, they likely did not employ such a magnate’s manner of speech. This magnate-like diction leads people into broad-mindedness, compels unreserved voices, and extracts nakedly honest confessions. I told the landlord of my poverty. I confessed I didn’t have a single sen—a hundredth of a yen—in savings. Therefore, if possible, I stated my wish to have both the rent and security deposit reduced. Then the landlord, still maintaining his magnate-like demeanor, nodded and said, “That’s quite reasonable.” And then—however—he began to elaborate his own “however.”

“However, is it truly acceptable for you to decide without consulting your wife?”
“What’s this about?”
So the landlord’s ‘however’ was that kind of ‘however’? I laughed.
“No—in my household, I’m the master,” I said. Whereupon the magnate scowled in his magnate-like way: “That won’t do. A man may have free rein outside, but at least in household matters, you ought to recognize your wife’s discretion.”
“A household values peace, I tell you.”

The landlord’s advice was reasonable. But some of you dear readers may think that writing such things here is somewhat superfluous. But be that as it may, I would like you to read this next anecdote.

He reduced the security deposit from three months to two. The seventy-five-yen rent was already far below market value for such a building, but as the magnate put it: having gone to the trouble of you requesting a reduction, not lowering it would make you lose face. Therefore, he deducted two yen and fifty sen, setting it at seventy-two yen and fifty sen. Even so, my wife wore a look of astonishment, sighed “Ah, seventy-two yen and fifty sen,” and said she had been searching for a more affordable house. When I retorted that it had a detached annex, was two stories tall with seven rooms—wasn’t this exactly a suitable house?—she replied, “No, ‘suitable’ isn’t about the layout or number of rooms.” “Then what is it about?” “It’s about the rent.” When she said that, indeed, seventy-two yen and fifty sen was not reasonable.

Now, that was in September.
Because I moved after the tenth of the month, the rent for that month’s end came to about fifty yen.
But from October onward, it would be seventy-two yen and fifty sen.
Before I knew it, December had arrived—yet even as the rent remained unmanageable, I had already begun falling behind on payments.
When three months—October, November, and December—came due, two months’ worth of security deposit could no longer keep pace.
Under the winter sky of this melancholy season, I felt a twinge of shame.
But was this responsibility mine alone?

There existed a term called “rent collection,” but when month’s end came, a young servant boy from the landlord would arrive. Yet strangely enough, this servant would appear at the kitchen entrance and merely ask, “Is there any matter requiring attention?” The rain gutters weren’t particularly broken. The trimming of the garden trees had been my responsibility from the start. Thus, even when asked if there was any business needing attention, I had no choice but to reply there was nothing in particular. “Should anything arise, I can come at any time,” he would declare as his standard line before departing. Would this truly fall under what they called rent collection? I felt no pressure whatsoever to pay. Thus someone like me inevitably forgot to make payments—much like taxes, which one had to voluntarily bring to the post office counter, tended to slip one’s mind. With taxes, however, a payment notice would eventually arrive. But our landlord persisted in sending only this servant boy to inquire about “any business.” Three such uneventful months passed until December arrived. They say even the Buddha’s patience lasts only three offenses—perhaps even that virtuous, serene landlord might show a flicker of human expression after three accumulated months. Beneath the winter sky, I finally grew earnest. As a moral duty to this magnate—alright then—I resolved to take the initiative myself.

From the money I'd finally scraped together for various year-end payments, subtracting these three months' worth would leave me without enough even for New Year's rice cakes. Though I might forgo mochi—or perhaps I should call it a lofty threshold—I absolutely had to step over the magnate's threshold on this occasion. With a somewhat painful resolve, I gathered what remained.

When one resolutely sets out to fulfill a moral obligation, there is always a certain sorrowfulness to it.
It is precisely this sorrowfulness that makes a moral obligation a true virtue.
At any rate, this was how I came to knock on the landlord’s gate.

“Ah, welcome!” I was ushered into the sitting room.
I promptly began to speak about this three-month period of neglect.
But my landlord gently cut me off and offered me the tea his wife had brewed.
The graceful wife withdrew after bowing once.

And then it happened.
It was here that our magnate deigned to whisper unexpected words into my ear.
“Mr. Takata, isn’t it that someone like you has certain matters you must pay for in secret from your wife?”

“Hah…” was all I could manage in my flustered state.
In truth, that was indeed the case—such obligations did exist—but with year-end approaching, there was no solution regardless of circumstances.
“Hah…” I responded again, forcing a bitter smile. “Well—I’m fundamentally an undisciplined sort of person, you see.”

“Precisely, precisely,” the landlord promptly interjected.
“You must settle those secret matters first.”
“Marital discord often sprouts from trivialities.”
“Oh, my own humble affairs involve payments your wife already knows about.”
“So set these aside and tend to your private obligations first—agreed?”
“A man’s missteps surface most readily through petty matters.”
“Do you grasp my meaning?”

This incident is what I referred to as an anecdote.
I had no choice but to comply with this magnate’s counsel and prioritize my household’s peace; though it was painstakingly gathered rent money, I redirected it that very day toward alternative payments.
Of course, these alternative payments belonged to a particular category.
There was no need to disclose them here.
Esteemed readers need only infer, through this anecdote, our most gracious landlord’s auspicious dignity rarely witnessed in this world and cultivate feelings of reverence and admiration.
Should any among you yourselves be landlords, you would do well to compare your own deeds or sentiments with this example and engage in self-reflection.
The reason I had earlier described this as even constituting a moral parable was precisely to compel you toward that very realization.

But you, dear readers—even so, have you not harbored one doubt here? While having become a tenant of such a magnate, why has this I now strayed from that grace?

I have recently begun to revise my view of life.
Freedom is by no means our happiness.
Being constantly pressed for payment is by no means pleasant, but it is precisely because of this that we are able to run along the ordinary track without straying.

The era began shifting from what we called liberalism toward something else.
This must have been because people were finally starting to recognize freedom's inherent calamity.
To state it plainly: I myself embodied this truth.
What became of me under that magnate's limitlessly generous patronage? Naturally, I fell behind on those seventy-two yen and fifty sen payments until I could no longer writhe free—is this not precisely what occurred?
I see no need to further explicate the natural logic underlying these events.
Had he been not a magnate but some excessively cautious and cold-blooded creditor, those two security deposits would have remained intact as deposits; I wouldn't now be lying about this hot spring inn after exhausting myself with rental house hunts—in short, everything would have continued peacefully and uneventfully until today without incident. What lesson then might one extract from this moral parable?
It was with sincere intent to extol virtue that I'd begun speaking of this grandly old-fashioned and magnanimous landlord, yet—

Now, the sea of Izu too began to darken.
Today ended here.

I could not lie around at this hot spring inn forever.
Well then, tomorrow I would have to return to Tokyo and resume my rental house search—yet even if times had changed, and even if I should once again fall into the misfortune of benevolence that left me at a complete impasse, if possible, I still wished to encounter another magnate landlord like him.