Pathway to Japanese Literature

It was a leaden, overcast evening. When she exited the National Railway station, Mitsuko immediately stepped into the market across the street and bought tonight’s side dishes. Holding them in her right arm, she turned through several narrow alleys and hurried along a valley-like path sandwiched between large factories. Today was unusually busy at the office, and her fingertips—still unaccustomed to typing—stung with pain, yet she felt somehow buoyant and cheerful. How many years had it been since she last experienced such feelings? Such a sentiment suddenly rose in her mind. From now on we must gradually improve our livelihood—the past two or three years had been too wretched. But when she suddenly recalled her husband Yamada's face, she was instantly overcome by an inexplicable unease. Would that miserable life return? Such a dark premonition naturally flowed into her mind. But she hurriedly smothered that ominous thought and became absorbed in thinking: Should they move to a better apartment by summer? No, rather than that, they should endure more now and get a house next year. Until then, they must save as much money as possible by cutting back.

She came to a stop. Ruined person—the term suddenly came back to her. She curled a faint smile at her lips and firmly thought to herself: For me, my livelihood comes first. And she was surprised that such words continued to lurk within her with unexpected tenacity.

When she passed through the factory district, there appeared a small wooded section where her apartment stood. It was a cheap wooden building erected for factory hands and such, with two or three similar houses clustered nearby. She mechanically shifted the newspaper-wrapped parcel bought at the market to her left hand and began thudding up the stairs. Then from downstairs,

“There’s a letter for you.” She heard the landlady’s voice calling out. After hurriedly receiving them, she began climbing the stairs again while turning them over to look. One was in the handwriting of a school friend. She had been out of contact with this friend for about four years now, but lately, wishing to revive their connection, she had written and sent a letter some twenty days prior. It was likely a reply to that. At that time, she had written letters to two or three other friends like this as well, but until now, not a single reply had come. So because twenty days had passed since she had sent her letter, she felt a bit dissatisfied with the delay, but still, she was happy.

The other bore a completely unknown name, and what’s more, lacked any written address at all. “Tsuji Issaku.”

She clattered the door key open, entered the room, and while still standing there looked at the back of the letter then the front, murmuring. Who could it be? Of course it was addressed to her husband, but if it had been from one of Yamada's friends she would have recognized most of them. She went through recalling her husband's friends—though truth be told he had no real friends left now—one after another, but no such proper noun came to mind. Then for no particular reason she began to feel uneasy.

She cast a fleeting glance at the clock on the desk. It was nearly time for her husband to return. Putting off opening the letter, she threw it onto the desk, took off her jacket, and went down to the kitchen in just her skirt. She lit the gas to start the charcoal, then began chopping the lotus root she’d bought earlier with rhythmically thudding cuts, but her unease toward this unknown man still wouldn’t leave her. There was no reason for it, but she couldn’t help feeling that this man must surely be one of her husband’s friends from that time, and from that thought came an inescapable sense that her life was under threat. She had long been constantly worrying and fretting that her husband's former friends might suddenly show up and cause various troublesome problems.

When she finished preparing dinner, she spread it out on the dining table, covered it with a white cloth, and glanced at the clock again. It was six—Yamada usually came home around ten minutes before the hour. She strained her ears for a moment, directing her attention to the street below the window, but her husband’s footsteps were not heard. The thought that he might be drinking again tonight flickered through her mind, but when six o'clock came, she decided to eat alone and picked up the earlier letter. She had felt somewhat lighthearted wondering what it might say, but upon opening it, she was disappointed. The friend had written on a single sheet of stationery—expressing pleasure at receiving a letter after so long, apologizing for the delayed reply, being glad Mitsuko was safe, and mentioning that they themselves were managing to live peacefully—all hurriedly scrawled in elegant script. It was almost entirely businesslike and formulaic in its wording, with no detectable nuance of heart or affection. She felt as though she were observing the correspondent’s back. The skillful handwriting itself seemed to stand stiffly aloof, and she felt as though she’d been thrown over someone’s shoulder. They must think that associating with someone like me would only bring them loss—she couldn’t help harboring such twisted suspicions. She recalled their years of calamity—for that was how she referred to Yamada’s three-year imprisonment and subsequent unemployment—and reflected with wretchedness how those hardships had warped her so. However, when she thought back to those days, this might not have been mere suspicion but accurate criticism.

Indeed, at that time, everyone without exception had kept their distance from them. Ever since her husband Yamada had branded himself as an apostate upon his release from prison, the two of them had been forced to endure even more intense insults and scorn. Of course, not only her school friends and teachers had left her, but even her father—the village mayor in her hometown—had refused to let her into his house. Even her aunt in Yotsuya, whom she had gone to visit, went so far as to scatter salt at her in the entryway. On top of that, hunger closed in. Yamada would take on temporary jobs, working ten days only to have twenty days off, while she commuted to a celluloid factory with a daily wage of thirty sen. One New Year’s season, Yamada had even worked as a New Year’s postman, but the image of her husband standing in the dirt-floored entryway—leggings wrapped around his calves and wearing a coat with torn elbows—was something she still could not forget. Yamada had only begun commuting to his current company about six months prior; driven to desperation by their circumstances, he had tearfully begged his uncle to secure him the position. Yamada’s uncle was an executive at that wireless telegraph company—a man who was practically Yamada’s archenemy. Yamada had been arrested while leading a labor dispute at that very company. Mitsuko understood, at least to some extent, the humiliation Yamada must have endured when he went to plead for employment. Even so, it was she who had made Yamada go to his uncle; she had cried all night as she pleaded with him to do so. When her husband had been in prison, the social climate had supported her ideals, and those ideals had supported her spirit. However, as those social currents were swept away, her ideology was swept away along with them. Now, when she looked back, she realized there had been no ideology within her at all. It seemed there had been nothing but the social currents and her love for Yamada. But such reflections didn’t matter anymore. Improving their living conditions even slightly had become her primary task. No matter what happened, she must not lose their current life—to that end, she endured even unbearable humiliation.

She had learned typing after Yamada found work; if she had a job herself, then even if Yamada were to lose his, they wouldn’t immediately face starvation. Moreover, if Yamada did not lose his job, she could save what she earned. This would form the foundation for future peace, and in that way, she could also hold onto the joyful hope of wanting a child. She had until now felt nothing but anxiety over whether she might not be able to have children. Rather than that, she had constantly been suppressing the desire for a child within herself. This was undoubtedly a lonesome thing for her. Considering that no child had been born in their married life so far, she might never have one in her lifetime—but even so, how joyful it would be if she could still think "I want a child," for that would mean a peaceful life and an abundant heart.

After graduating from its Japanese studies department in four months, she joined a German-managed limited partnership company in Marunouchi. It had not yet been two months since she started there, but she felt as though her years of hardship had finally come to an end. That said, she could not forget her first day's impression at that company, and even now still faced insults and humiliations— The truth was, she had failed the employment exam there. Fresh out of school, she was practically an amateur as a typist, and with two or three others—people who had long toiled in the same field—also seeking employment, she had been effortlessly cast aside. But when informed of this in a room—the man was Japanese—she suddenly burst into tears with a voice so loud it startled even herself. Needless to say, Yamada also had a job, so her not securing employment wasn’t something to worry about all that much—but the moment she was told of her failure, memories of past unemployment suddenly surged back with vivid intensity, plunging her vision into darkness. It was nearly equivalent to physical pain. Her chest tightened violently, and her throat suddenly spasmed.

“How pitiful, how pitiful,” came the German man’s voice at that moment. She had secured the position this way, but to put it harshly, it amounted to having no skills yet winning foreigners’ sympathy through tearful ploys. From that day on, how the company’s employees would look at her and what attitude they would adopt had already been determined. Moreover, there was an older typist there who handled European-language documents.

Yet she endured every insult and humiliation. Sometimes, the moment she entered the toilet, tears would stream down, but she resigned herself, thinking it was still better than their previous life. Not only that, but in the clatter of high-heeled shoes she hadn’t heard in some time and the sensation of hurriedly boarding and alighting from trains, she felt a vague sense of having come back to life. When she finished reading her friend’s cold letter, it was mortifying that the other still thought she remained in the same wretched state as before. And recalling the wording of the letter she had written before, she grew furious at having believed she still felt the same toward this friend as she had during their girls’ school days. She took up the other letter, hesitated for a moment, but with such irritation welling up inside her, she resolutely tore open the envelope.

It has been a long time since I last had the honor of meeting you. How have you been? I am somehow managing safely here. As I have come to Tokyo for the first time in ages, I humbly wish to have the opportunity to meet you. If it is not inconvenient, I will humbly wait at × Station from 6:00 PM for thirty minutes on ×× day. As it has been so long, I earnestly wish to meet you.

As for other matters, they shall be discussed when we meet—Tsuji Compared to the previous one, this letter was strikingly brief, yet she felt an ominous pressure emanating from it. The fact that it contained the phrase "we had not met in a long time" indicated there must have once been a rather close association between them. The characters were like a woman’s—gentle and slender, each stroke meticulously rendered in block letters, beautiful in their precision—yet to her, they felt utterly alien. Moreover, upon reading it carefully, there was something suspicious about this letter. If one wished to meet, it was customary for them to come themselves; if summoning someone, they must be in exceedingly busy circumstances. Yet here, the characters were written in block letters with deliberate care, showing no trace of urgency whatsoever. It was undoubtedly composed with remarkable simplicity and ease. Feeling something ominous, she couldn’t help but think this letter would at least crack their lives that had finally begun to stabilize, even if it didn’t shatter them.

Even after six o'clock passed and Yamada did not return, she began eating dinner alone. The meal tasted good since her stomach had been so empty it occasionally growled loudly, but as she thought how he would undoubtedly come home sloppily drunk again, her irritation gradually swelled. No matter how diligently she tried to safeguard their livelihood, it felt as though her husband kept gouging gaping holes through its edges—this was the irritation Mitsuko had been feeling toward him lately. It wasn't that she failed to understand her husband's pain. But in this society where thick walls enclosed them on all sides with not one path of escape—something her husband must have understood perfectly well—why couldn't he stop suffering? That point remained utterly incomprehensible to her.

“Do you even know what sincerity means?” When she protested to her husband who had come home dead drunk again the other day, Yamada suddenly said such a thing. “Sincerity? “I don’t know—is being constantly drunk like you what sincerity means?” “Is causing your wife such suffering what sincerity means?” “I don’t need that kind of sincerity.” “I...” “You want to say livelihood is what matters most, don’t you?” “Hmph, I know perfectly well what you’re going to say.” “You can deceive yourself without feeling the slightest pain—in other words, you’re a fortunate person.”

“Then you aren’t deceiving yourself? Do you really find happiness in destroying our livelihood? Well, you might be happy—since you’re drinking. But I can’t stand it.” “Don’t get smart with me.” “I’ll say what I want!”

“Shut up!”

And then Yamada contorted his face into a pained expression before suddenly grinning with an eerie smile, “Everything you say is correct. “I have nothing to say. “I’ll bow my head to you anytime. “But you have no right to crush me with that kind of correctness. “Listen—the more correct that correctness becomes, the more idiotic it turns. “But enough. “I’m sleepy.”

Then he let out a loud yawn, lowered his raised arms onto her shoulders, suddenly planted a rough kiss, and afterward sullenly fell silent without uttering another word.

She recalled her husband from the past. Back then, Yamada’s movements and words had been brisk, his slender, supple body moving like a whip. His eyes had been sharp and clear, symbolizing a fierce spirit and deep affection. But in her current husband, there remained not a trace of such features. His eyes were perpetually clouded over, each word he spoke carried an undercurrent of sarcasm, and she felt mocked every time she spoke. There had been a time when her former husband would occasionally leave her spellbound, making her blush furtively like a maiden, but now, whenever she thought of him, only exasperating irritation, dissatisfaction, and resentful bitterness welled up inside her.

When the hallway clock struck twelve, Mitsuko could no longer stay in bed and rose wearing nothing but her flannel nightgown. Since Yamada hadn't returned even by ten o'clock, she had gone to bed alone earlier, but filled with fury as she was, sleep had been impossible. Still, when she closed her eyes and tried forcing herself to sleep, her anger gradually transformed into lonely desolation. This always happened. At Yamada's lateness she first felt rage that made her want to bite and claw, but as night deepened she became overwhelmed by inexpressible loneliness and gnawing anxiety of being abandoned by all. This was because the bleak desolation from their unemployed years—the feeling of being like a stray cat tossed into an alley with nowhere to go—had seared black stains into her heart. Even when sleeping beside Yamada, she'd sometimes startle awake from nightmares of that time, sitting bolt upright on the futon in midnight's depths and bursting into tears—no rare occurrence. Yamada showed astonishing tenderness during these moments. After all, he undoubtedly knew her feelings through and through. Yet at such times he never spoke a word. Only through his caressing arms could any expression be sensed. While throwing herself into Yamada's embrace, suddenly noticing his stern expression made her feel confused uncertainty—was it right or wrong to keep losing herself in his caresses like this?

She laid her face on Yamada’s desk, curled her body, and began weeping like a young girl. The daytime held mid-April warmth, the sun’s rays so thick and heavy they verged on oppressive, but the sky that had begun clouding at dusk turned to rain by night unnoticed. She kept crying, thighs pressed tightly together as she hunched over. As she continued like this, daytime fatigue surfaced until she drifted into fitful drowsiness. Her consciousness flickered between wakefulness and haze until sleep finally claimed her. She dreamed of the company. It was quitting time. Clutching her handbag, she stepped into the elevator. Rowdy voices filtered through the metal box from outside. German and French tangled together. Having secretly studied French without Yamada’s knowledge, she strained to decipher the words. The elevator remained motionless after stopping. A girl clattered the control handle repeatedly, but it wouldn’t budge.

Then a hulking German man loomed into view, advancing toward her with a fearsome visage. She huddled inward, her breath strangling in her throat. As she writhed desperately to scream something—anything—she found herself awake, unaware of when consciousness had returned. While vaguely recalling descending the company elevator with that German man earlier that day, she raised her face, still feeling half-entangled in the dream. But finding a figure standing there, she let out an involuntary cry—a sharp “Kya!”—and sprang backward as if triggered by a coiled spring. Her face drained to ash-white, heart hammering against her ribs like a frantic prisoner.

“Oh, it was you.” She managed to wrench out the words, but couldn’t shake the feeling this was somehow different from her husband Yamada. Yamada stood in the room with a vacant, trance-like expression. His face was ashen as earth, his hair plastered wet against his scalp, and she felt as though she were looking at a madman.

“It’s me.”

Yamada said in a thin, whispering voice but still did not attempt to sit down. Mitsuko, unsure of what to say, vacantly gazed at her husband’s face for a while. Yamada sank down as though collapsing. That he was utterly exhausted, limp as cotton, became clear even to Mitsuko. She finally stood up and stirred the fire in the brazier, “Where have you been?”

"Where have you been?" she asked. There was not the slightest smell of alcohol. Then where had he been all this time without even drinking? She looked over her husband from his head to his hands and knees in turn. His clothes and trousers were soaked through to the point of dripping dew. Rather than reproach him for coming home late, an inexplicably painful feeling welled up within her. Probably because he was cold, Yamada trembled in small shudders,

“I’m tired.” he said in a feeble voice. “Where on earth have you been?” She said impatiently and grabbed Yamada’s hand. His hand was cold as a corpse’s. “I was walking.”

Yamada said just that in a voice thick with contemplation, the words dropping like solitary stones. “Were you walking?” “Yeah.” “Where were you walking?” “Various places.” “Various places?” “Here and there.” “What’s wrong with you?” “You’ve lost your mind.” “I’m tired.” “Let me have a cup of tea.”

“But it’s already late, you know.”

The instant Mitsuko thought an irritated look had flashed across Yamada’s face, her cheek stung with a sharp slap. She instinctively pressed her cheek, yet somehow no cry escaped. With a terrifying expression of rage she had never witnessed before, Yamada stared fixedly at Mitsuko. The flesh of his forehead twitched in spasms. In that moment, their eyes locked in a mutual glare. But soon the agonized look faded from Yamada’s face, and he swayed soundlessly to his feet, stripped off his day clothes, pulled on sleepwear, and wordlessly burrowed into the futon. When Mitsuko looked at the garments her husband had discarded, the anger she’d suppressed suddenly erupted. Snatching up a stray sock, she hurled it at his face with all her strength. But the sock caught on her fingers and merely fluttered down onto Yamada’s head. Then an even fiercer rage surged through her, and she began pelting him with whatever came to hand. Yet Yamada didn’t stir. She burst into tears and clutched at Yamada’s hair. Then Yamada’s hand clamped tightly around hers.

“Stop it.” Yamada said sharply. “Y-you made me wait all this time… and hit me.”

“I get it.” “How dare you hit me and then act like you understand?!”

But she was effortlessly covered with the futon. Even if she tried to thrash about in the futon, it was futile. She stiffened her body resolutely and turned her back to Yamada, remaining silent.

Yamada let out a deep sigh,

“Let me sleep quietly. I was wrong.”

It was a thin voice. And after that, he did not move again.

Mitsuko kept her body rigid, but as her emotions gradually settled, she began occasionally stealing furtive glances toward Yamada.

“Do you have any idea what I was doing tonight?” Yamada said abruptly. “There’s no way I could know that.” She still carried residual anger from earlier and answered sullenly. “Then you don’t want to know what I was doing?” “I don’t want to know.”

“I see.” After being lost in thought for a while, he continued: “You’ve become remarkably skilled lately at tearing into me. But you’ve never once pierced my guts. You can only tear into me with your foolishness. But what strange creatures women are. I’m only drawn to your foolishness.”

“Must you keep saying ‘foolish’ over and over?” “Have you ever read a novel called Madame Bovary?”

“It’s late.” “Enough already.” “I’m taking tomorrow off.” “This coming Sunday is the company cherry-blossom viewing.”

“Cherry-blossom viewing?” “Indeed. It’s the Battery Department’s cherry-blossom viewing, you know.”

“Taking days off, going to cherry-blossom viewings… I’ll be doing laundry on Sunday.” “I’m miserable all the time.” “However, I won’t be going to the cherry-blossom viewing.” “It’s late already.” “I have to go to work tomorrow.” “Don’t disturb my sleep.” “I won’t interfere, but I’ll be talking to myself tonight.” “I’ll talk till morning.” “There are moments when I think you might actually understand my feelings—but never mind that now.” “If I stay silent tonight, I'll go mad. I killed someone tonight.”

“A person?” “Yes, that’s right. That man—he must have been about forty-four or forty-five—was completely dead. Right in the middle of the main street. His heart split open, he hemorrhaged internally, and died with blood oozing from his mouth. In the streetlight’s glow, blood was flowing across the asphalt. I glared at it sidelong and went home. It’ll probably be in tomorrow’s paper….” “Did you kill him?” “Indeed, I killed him.” Mitsuko whirled around to face her husband. And through some shift in her emotions, she clung desperately to Yamada’s chest.

“Ha ha ha, don’t worry—I won’t get caught. God forged an escape hatch called human error for us, you see…” And Yamada began spewing out tonight’s events without sequence or coherence.

Every person reaches a moment when they must vomit out through their mouths the oppressive memories festering in their minds. It verged on madness. Yamada would sometimes fall silent—What am I doing spouting this nonsense?—assailed by violent self-loathing even as his mouth continued moving autonomously. Eventually, having reached this psychological state, he understood that obstinate silence would prove futile—so he resolved to remove the brakes from his emotions and let his thoughts spill unrestrained. And deep within his psyche—at what felt like the terminal point of infinite reflections between two opposing mirrors—he secretly smirked and whispered, "Well, the die is cast anyway."

He left work at the company today as usual and began his commute home without incident, yet his mood felt suffocatingly heavy. And he couldn’t help but feel an anxiety that somehow induced nausea. He had long suffered from a stomach ailment and would occasionally vomit by the roadside. He was in an unpleasant, irritated mood. However, he walked on, trying his best to feign ignorance toward his own feelings. It was like forcibly sealing away something akin to sullenly smoldering gunpowder. After walking for some time along the foul-smelling riverbank and crossing the bridge, he found the apartment already right there.

When he reached the bridge, he stopped for a moment and looked down at the water’s surface, murky like lye. He intensely disliked going home. The image of his wife—who had suddenly become buoyant after starting work—and the vulgar tastes of their shabby apartment were recalled so unpleasantly that it intensified his nausea. Above all, when he recalled Mitsuko’s body, he felt something stifling and clogged within his chest. Women, when they appear beautiful, are endlessly so, stirring in men a desire to tear them apart; yet once they begin to seem unclean, they become so repulsive it turns one’s stomach. He recalled his wife’s every gesture and movement with an unpleasant, irritating mood. What normally appeared innocent, with her clumsy words, actions, and patterns of thought even holding a certain charm, today only made him want to scorn that ignorance. He had, on multiple occasions before now, made his wife the object of discomfort. Because he had a wife, his spirit was somehow becoming vulgar and his actions were turning spineless like maggots; having thought this, he had even resolved to separate from her immediately. However, that had been merely a decision. For a moment, an instant, he had consoled his feelings by making that resolution. Even he himself felt constant self-loathing toward the foolishness of such self-consolation, but there had been no other escape route than to do so. Though he was aware that this couldn’t truly serve as an escape route, ultimately, he had disposed of his shifting psychological states through momentary deception. When it came down to it, he himself was the most spineless one. He avoided allowing this conclusion to rise to the surface of his consciousness. It wasn’t a conscious avoidance—it was instinctive self-defense, a colossal enemy standing before him, an instinctive self-deception to protect himself from society. Of course he was aware of this self-defense mechanism within himself, but he also possessed an instinct to avoid even that awareness. At this point, the scalpel of his self-analysis grew clouded, and he did not inscribe the results of his analysis onto the blackboard of his consciousness. And what surfaced here was a pitiable self-mockery and gestures that at first glance seemed whimsical. These gestures, however, might indeed be called profound.

He gazed at the water’s surface for a while, then eventually began moving his feet sluggishly with a gait that seemed thoroughly dispirited. The thought of going somewhere for a drink surfaced, and after crossing the bridge, he headed toward the main street where the station stood opposite their apartment. Emerging before the station and veering slightly into back alleys, he found bars, cafés, and teahouses crammed together in chaotic disarray. Yet upon reaching them, he had already grown sick of drinking. Pressing his palm to his forehead momentarily, he became perplexed about what to do next. While brooding over that unpleasant daytime incident at the company, he realized his current rotten mood stemmed from its lingering aftermath. “Just that trivial matter,” he thought, growing furious at himself for being so unhinged by something so insignificant.

It was during lunchtime. A discussion about a cherry blossom viewing party arose among his section members. At that time, since the rectifier he had been laboring over for so long had finally been completed, he went straight to inspect the product after finishing his meal. In a sense it was his own creation; he was savoring the rare joy of completing something, yet having no true friends with whom to discuss it earnestly, he found himself idly thinking about testing it immediately when time came while drifting into a daze. He was lonely even at work. Everyone knew about his past—whether due to some notice circulated by personnel or not—and all kept their distance from him. He resolved to hurl his entire being into the work itself. Yet even there he felt something like a clinging stench permeating his mood, preventing total immersion. Each day he felt a hollowness as though something invisible yet vital within him had drained away. A fissure had formed between his work and self, hollowing into an empty cavity where currents, wires and metals held no life. Had one been able to immerse oneself fully, one might have sensed from metal and current alike a breath-like tremor in the ammeter's needle.

At that moment, a shout erupted as female factory workers clapped their hands and jeered in unison, their voices swelling audibly. When the noise subsided, he was summoned and asked by the section chief whether he would join the cherry blossom viewing. He replied that he agreed in principle,

“The location...” the moment he began to ask. Suddenly, from among the women, a voice escaped—a “Huh?” that sounded genuinely surprised. “Even the fighting spirit of a leftist...”

A muffled, slurred word reached his ears. He involuntarily turned around with a grimace to find Sayama from the Rīku Department smirking among the women. For an instant, the surroundings fell completely silent. Then the section chief, “Sayama, I hereby appoint you as treasurer for the day.” solemnly declared, then made everyone burst into laughter. Thus, while the situation had subsided, Yamada’s feelings remained far from settled. He had long been aware that Sayama had been sneering at him and whispering things to the female workers.

In every group there invariably exists someone who ceaselessly pries into others' vulnerabilities and spreads malicious gossip—a person with a pathologically cunning talent for self-interest—and Sayama was precisely that type of man. Of course it was trivial—Yamada had dismissed it until now—but this time he couldn't help snapping. This was mockery that struck precisely at a known weakness. Serves you right—it delivered a blow to Yamada's inner anguish and torment. What infuriated Yamada most was having to concede the truth in this mockery. Even if not entirely justified, there was at least no room for defense against it. Any attempt at explanation would only make him appear more contemptible. However infuriating, silence remained his sole recourse. He worked all day under a pall of gloomy discomfort. While Sayama himself deserved contempt, something in those words resonated beyond mere spite.

“To be told by others, ‘You’re a fool,’ and then have to agree with those words—heh heh.” He muttered this while walking sluggishly, letting slip a distorted smile.

The city was at twilight. From the station-front market, maids and housewives streamed out, their aprons fluttering urgently as they went. People walking along the street were sucked into the station like wood chips caught in a whirlpool, and each time a train roared to a stop, passengers bubbled out from within. He found this human-swarming city utterly detestable, feeling the metropolis' oppressive air bearing down on both shoulders. He imagined a world devoid of humans—one teeming only with monkeys, dogs, wolves, bears, foxes. Of course there would be blue-tinged leaves there, and clear flowing streams. He became aware he was indulging in boyish fantasies, yet realized adults occasionally slip back into childhood days—that by reliving moments with identical youthful feelings, they gain unexpected respite. At that instant, a face abruptly flashed through his mind before fading away. He halted sharply—Who was that?—and upon recognizing Obayashi Seisaku, found himself inexplicably amused, standing mid-street with a smirk. Back in his rural elementary school days, he'd once struck Obayashi Seisaku's head with a hammer. The spot had swollen into a puffy mound as Obayashi—tears streaming down his face while clutching his head—spun full circle in the handicraft room. He hadn't meant to make him cry; instead of calling "Hey!", he'd simply tapped him with the hammer. This occurred during handicraft class. Obayashi Seisaku now farmed for a living and had three children.

"Heh heh... I wonder how that guy's doing now. He was a clever man," he thought as he started walking again, only to find himself suddenly perplexed. He had no fixed destination. I should go to the countryside—such a thought suddenly surfaced then. If he took the train tonight, he would reach Osaka by morning, and arrive in Shikoku by tomorrow evening. He raised one hand as if startled and stopped the vehicle, "Tokyo Station."

he said. Mitsuko’s face floated into his mind—he was aware this caprice of his amounted to nothing more than a clownishly exaggerated gesture—yet simultaneously, something within kept spurring him on: Act the clown more, act the clown more.

Upon arriving at Tokyo Station, he wandered aimlessly through the vast station grounds. This place was also packed with people. He entered the second-class waiting room. Young women and portly old gentlemen with grim faces were lined up restlessly. He sat down and lit a cigarette. However, he immediately stood up and this time went to see the third-class waiting room. This place was dimly lit and filthy. A Korean woman in a white kimono stood there, her body swollen like a paper bag, leading a malnourished child. The child was wearing a Japanese kimono but kept glancing around at the people nearby with an uneasy air. In this child’s eyes, would these people appear as enemies or as allies? He pondered this as he gazed fixedly at them for a while. The mother took the child’s hand and whispered something in Korean. In one of her hands, another child was being held. The father must be in the restroom or out shopping—probably around there somewhere. Yamada suddenly recalled Osaka Station. No matter when he went there, Koreans were always swarming about. A Korean woman leaning against stacked large luggage, women squatting on the ground with nowhere to sit, children sucking on hard candies or something, paper-like faces and bag-like clothes—such things were recalled one after another.

"Yellow Gypsy"—he muttered as he left the waiting room and walked toward the ticket counter. A chill flowed through his heart, making him feel he'd become a Gypsy himself. They'd probably call someone like me a spiritual Gypsy—a man so harmoniously inconspicuous whether entering second- or third-class waiting rooms. But wait—am I really about to head all the way to Shikoku's backcountry? What could possibly be there if I go to Shikoku? How absurd. ——Yet there he stood before the ticket counter. The clink of counted coins reached his ears, followed by a young woman clutching a spring coat who peered through the window and said, "Tadotsu." Five or six people jostled in line awaiting their turn. Yamada stopped at the queue's end. Still he felt no urge to buy a ticket. Soon his turn came. He reluctantly pulled out his wallet like someone forced into a bad bargain. But then his country father's image surfaced—sullenly silent with pipe clenched—and suddenly he stuffed the wallet back, abandoning the purchase. Staggering from the station as if swept by currents, he found himself heading toward Yurakucho with thoughts of Ginza.

However, he soon grew tired of that too, and this time reluctantly began heading toward Hibiya Park. The sun had already set completely, and the sounds of the elevated railway and streetcars began taking on a demonic quality. He dragged his feet as though walking through a basement, yet found himself increasingly compelled to simply stand motionless. He looked up at the sky. It was daubed pitch-black, and though he tried asking whether even a star might be visible, there were no stars, no moon, not a single glimmer of light. A sinister night hung with fathomless depth. In patches of that dark void, neon signs flared like fireworks. He suddenly opened his mouth wide and yawned. Fatigue was gradually beginning to numb his body. It was an immensely hollow yawn, one steeped in melancholy. There was not a soul in sight. When he reached the corner of Marunouchi Street, he gazed toward the Maru Building as if peering into the depths of a valley, but another yawn escaped him. Before the Maru Building, car lights crisscrossed, making him think this might resemble dozens of electric eels swimming through seabed darkness.

"However," he muttered, stopping in his tracks. What's wrong with me? Something feels off about my mood. What exactly do I plan to do? And what on earth am I thinking about? My head hasn't been right all day. First of all, there's no benefit in doing something like this anyway. This walking I'm doing now—it's just wearing my body out for nothing— But even as he muttered this, he wasn't listening to his own words at all.

At that moment, “Sir, where to?” as the car slowed to a crawl. Then suddenly, in a voice like that of a man with urgent business,

“Ōshima.”

he said, but the words burst out in a voice so loud it startled even himself. It was a tone that verged on shouting. Ōshima? What for? As the car began moving, he questioned himself again, but found it too troublesome to examine his own feelings now. The car was darting like an arrow between lights. Human thought was powerless before this movement.

When they crossed the Ōkawa River at night, the car gradually entered among houses that seemed to have been crushed. A pungent stench seemed ready to assault the nostrils. Yet as he approached the slums, his feelings gradually settled. That said, this was no calmness expressible through such words. It was a composure born of violently wrenching himself free—a 'To hell with everything!' sort of calm.

He abandoned the car behind a large steelworks. From somewhere unseen, a smell of decaying matter drifted in. He continued walking aimlessly from one narrow alley to another. Crossing bridge after bridge, he wandered round and round between machine factories and glassworks. The self-question of why he was walking kept surfacing incessantly, yet somehow he found himself unable to stop. He had somehow entered Kameido and, crossing the tram tracks, headed toward Azumabashi. In the area, crushed-looking houses were lined up in great numbers. He recalled several years back. Back then too, he had walked through these alleys many times. However, how determined he had felt back then! His entire body burned with heat, and beneath his feet lay unshakable earth. But what about now? It was as if the very earth beneath his feet had crumbled and melted away. This area was among the most memorable districts where he had once been active. While steeped in wretched, beaten-down emotions, he nonetheless felt something—the fervor of those days—beginning to surge within him once more. And he felt as though he had found again the self he had long lost.

He walked along the embankment of the drainage ditch. In the river, two or three coal-laden ships swayed as if about to sink. When a stench-soaked wind blew in, the water's surface reflected distant lights and glimmered. The surroundings were almost pitch-dark. Memories of that time came flooding back one after another. It was exactly like watching a film trailer—single frames of various comrades spun past one after another. The man still missing to this day, the man still imprisoned, the man arrested at Oshiage Station, or the woman as tenacious as any man—each of their figures came flooding back with vivid clarity. He sat down on the bricks piled along the embankment and continued unfolding those visions. He felt an intense loneliness. What were they all doing now? They had scattered in every direction, every one of them losing their way in life. And what about me now? What about Mitsuko— He thought that if he could cry like a boy, he wanted to weep bitterly. Leaning motionlessly against the pile of bricks, he contemplated the pain of humans living in the present era.

But at that moment, the film that had been spinning in his head came to an abrupt halt. There floated the face of a boy still in his late teens, his cheeks apple-like. This man went by Tsuji Issaku, though his real name was Obayashi Issaku—Seisaku's younger brother. He found it strange that he had completely forgotten about this boy until now. What had become of this youth who had once instilled such fervor in him? He must be twenty-four or twenty-five by now. He suddenly felt an uneasy, unpleasant sensation—as if the dark word "fate" had attached itself to him too. He hadn't entirely forgotten about this man. It was simply that he couldn't bear to recall him.

He suddenly stood up and began walking with frenzied strides. But after advancing five or six paces, his footsteps reverted to their former sluggish, exhausted gait. "Hmph. What a wretched human I've become," he muttered. When he thought about how he'd wanted to cry like a boy, he came to feel like spitting on himself. "Heh heh, but what about Tsuji Issaku?" he muttered again. "What does Tsuji Issaku matter? I am who I am." He made his way out along the pitch-dark riverbank toward Gonobashi-dori. When he caught an approaching car, he suddenly shouted the name of the street where prostitutes were.

People swarmed through the narrow tunnel-like alleyway, rubbing shoulders against each other, hitting dead-ends, tripping over their feet as they squirmed along. Abandoning the car at its entrance, he slipped inside like a fallen leaf. With a cruel sensation like peering into zoo cages, he swayed his way through the crowd. Yet even here, his heart found no satisfaction. ……………………that feeling had utterly disappeared.

He fell sullenly silent, peering sideways into houses as he walked around numerous corners. ……the voices calling out were merely a nuisance. He simply moved along with the flow of the crowd.

In a certain alley, he suddenly had his coat hem grabbed and was yanked forcefully. Involuntarily lifted off his feet, he was pulled under the eaves. When the arm of the woman who had leaned halfway out from the tatami room suddenly stretched out, it snatched his hat right off his head.

"Come on up now, come." The woman said, twisting her body seductively. He raised his face with listless affectation and, in a voice thick with lethargy,

"Give me my hat," he said curtly.

“But hey, come on up now. “I’m free tonight. “Look, right? Huh?” But Yamada had already lost any desire to retrieve his hat. It was too bothersome. He suddenly twisted away and merged into the crowd. The hat remained in the woman’s hand. He emerged onto the tram street. He had grown to detest both walking and moving. His body was utterly exhausted, the tendons in both legs feeling as though they’d turned into wire. He wanted to simply collapse right there on the ground. Yet he couldn’t just sit down. He had no choice but to trudge along once more. What’s more, his stomach had been completely empty for some time. Even so, not the slightest desire to eat arose. Or rather, he had entirely forgotten about eating. His head felt crammed full of something parched.

He suddenly looked up at the sky. A raindrop struck his cheek. The sky was of course pitch black, but the rain seemed to have already begun falling some time earlier. Though it was only sporadically striking his cheeks and neck.

“Rain?” he muttered. And when he hailed another car,

“Yokohama.” he said. When he looked at his watch inside the car, it was already long past eleven. He had still thought it was eight or nine. He would go to Yokohama—and then what? But such things no longer mattered. He wanted to rest his body.

The rain gradually grew heavier. It splattered against the window. He closed his eyes, slumped against the seat, and whenever the car took a sharp curve—limply swaying with each turn—would gaze out the window as if roused from dozing. No thoughts rose in his mind. He could neither reflect on the day gone by nor contemplate what lay ahead. It felt like when a heavy dose of sleeping pills first takes hold—nerves gradually numbing while a pleasant drunkenness washed through his limbs. He let out yawn after enormous yawn. Yet the face staring back from the rearview mirror held no trace of color. His hair hung in matted clumps; though he shuddered as if gazing at a corpse, it never occurred to him this might be his own reflection. His mind lay utterly hollow, like an imbecile's.

Before long, the car passed Kawasaki and charged headlong down the national highway. The houses on both sides, now completely still in sleep, gradually thinned out, leaving only the streetlights continuing endlessly. He surrendered his body to the pleasant vibrations, listening in a daze to the asphalt's whooshing hum. The driver maintained a motionless posture, gazing at the circularly illuminated area ahead as he gently turned the steering wheel left and right. In the gliding car, Yamada gradually slipped into a dreamlike state, vaguely thinking how nice it would be if they just kept driving like this until tomorrow. But just as they reached the Tsurumi area, the car suddenly jolted violently, skidded several yards, and screeched to a halt. When the driver turned his pale face around,

“It seems we’ve hit someone.”

he said in a hushed voice, then opened the door and leapt out.

“Did we hit them?” Yamada dazedly opened his eyes, but by then the driver was already gone. The sodden splatter of rain filled his ears, and when he peered into the darkness outside, the wet roadside trees glowed white under the streetlamps. There were no figures in sight, only the pouring rain splattering against the concrete pavement. "What happened here?" Yamada wondered suspiciously, but found it too bothersome to consider further. “It seems we’ve gone and hit someone after all.” “I’m sorry—please change the car.”

Before long, the driver came running back and blurted those words at Yamada inside the car in an agitated voice before rushing out into the rain again. Yamada realized for the first time that he had run over and killed someone. Yet not only did he feel nothing, but the mere thought of having to get out of the car in such a place filled him with irritation. He closed his eyes again and leaned back against the cushion as if trying to recapture that earlier dreamlike state. The fact that he had killed someone seemed somehow absurd to him.

Just then, several voices shouting something loudly intermingled behind the car, and the sound of footsteps reached his ears.

He lumbered to his feet and stepped outside as if oblivious to the rain. Because his hat had been taken by the woman, the rain poured down relentlessly, soaking his hair and streaming down his neck.

About twenty-some yards behind the car, four or five people gathered and were clamoring all at once. Beside the black mass dimly illuminated by the streetlight lay a handcart smashed to pieces. Yamada staggered unsteadily over to see. Surrounded by people, the corpse lay on its back, its clothes and everything else sopping wet and disheveled. The neck remained twisted sideways, the cheek plastered against the asphalt, blood oozing steadily from the mouth turned to the side. Even though the rain was pouring down as if to wash everything away, strangely, Yamada could see the blood with perfect clarity. A policeman started to lift it, but for some reason set it back down. The people did not yet notice Yamada. He stared blankly at the corpse for two or three minutes before eventually beginning to trudge toward Kawasaki as if carried by the wind. The fact that he was getting drenched by the rain, the fact that he was exhausted, the fact that it was nearing midnight, the idea of what walking would accomplish—he had no inclination to consider any of it. When the heart is wounded, the external scenery appears to the eye with an uncanny vividness. He walked with a gait that seemed ready to collapse him to the ground at any moment, yet the corpse he had just seen remained etched on his eyelids with nightmarish vividness. Yet this neither appeared as death—a raw, tragic event—nor shocked him as a firsthand encounter with life’s misery through the sluggishly oozing blood. It existed like a photograph—possessing only vivid contours, color, and movement. He suddenly raised his face. Then across the street, the red light of a police box came into view, and for no discernible reason, he suddenly felt as though his chest had been pierced.

He staggered two or three blocks. And he gazed into the distant dark streets, wondering if an empty cab would come. Yamada spent several restless minutes swaying with the train’s motion. He found himself alternating between intense disgust at having to go out like this, strongly feeling that he absolutely had to meet that man, and experiencing something that was neither curiosity nor fear about what had become of that man since then. And the distant past was recalled—those blank years in Tsuji Issaku and Yamada’s relationship that followed seeming like some dark valley. How had that boy spent these years? How had he survived? He felt as though a dark fault line of what is called life, what is termed fate—all such things—had been thrust before his eyes.

Yamada first met Tsuji in the year he had just graduated from Higher Technical School. Tsuji Issaku had come all the way from Shikoku seeking Yamada's help, carrying a soiled basket and bearing a request letter from his brother Seisaku. At that time—freshly drenched in the spray of social ideologies surging like a tsunami, the flames of societal ideals newly kindled within him—Yamada had found himself inevitably driven to channel this fervor through the boy. He had taken to this youth—whose eyes glinted with latent arrogance, who possessed the relentless will of a miniature locomotive—loving him and making him his first disciple. Each day after work Yamada would return home to lecture on historical materialism and proletarian political theory. Tsuji had been sixteen then. Years later when Yamada recalled himself and Tsuji from those days, he would marvel at how he could have thrown himself so passionately into molding such a mere child—yet this was because even then Tsuji had contained something resilient enough to withstand his influence, something one might call the germinating seed of intellect.

He had shared waking and sleeping hours with Tsuji for just over a year, but for the boy's blank-slate mind, this was by no means a brief span. The boy suddenly declared one day, his face showing resolve.

"I'm going back to the countryside." Thus, Tsuji's boyish fantasies and hopes manifested in the entirely different form of a peasant movement, and the two parted ways. Tsuji had come to Tokyo seemingly for no other purpose than to kindle the fire of social thought within himself. Yamada knew almost nothing about Tsuji's subsequent activities. Of course, for the first year or two they had corresponded, and necessary documents for Tsuji had been sent through Yamada, but after that, the letters abruptly ceased. In time, Yamada married Mitsuko and was arrested and imprisoned.

Even in the midst of his dark, gloomy prison life, Yamada would occasionally recall Tsuji and find himself seized by an uneasy premonition—could it be that he too was spending his days in a place like this? And while being made to silently perform his handwork, he would suddenly count on his fingers, wondering how old Tsuji was this year. He felt a nostalgic affection akin to recalling his own younger brother or nephew.

However, the first year of prison life ended, and it was the autumn of the second year. He suddenly received a visit from Tsuji.

Yamada closed his eyes inside the train and recalled the circumstances of their meeting. It was somehow a strange and startling moment.

Yamada was first startled by Tsuji’s altered appearance. Tsuji wore a serge kimono appropriate for autumn, but it had yellowed from sun exposure, and combined with his small stature and unkempt appearance, he looked utterly wretched—so much so that Yamada actually felt pity for him. Moreover, his once-ruddy cheeks had vanished, his hair hung wildly disheveled, and he had grown so pale and emaciated that one might suddenly suspect tuberculosis. Though still said to be twenty, deep horizontal wrinkles furrowed his forehead, making Yamada shudder involuntarily. And though facing Yamada directly, Tsuji remained sullenly silent, never opening his mouth. Reluctantly, Yamada began,

“What’s wrong?” Yamada couldn’t help but say. “Yeah.”

Tsuji replied as if angry. “Were you well?”

“Yeah.” “Are you well?”

Yamada had never been called “you” by Tsuji before, so he stared at Tsuji’s mouth in surprise. Tsuji fell completely silent then, lost in some deep contemplation.

“Ah, I’m fine as you can see,” Tsuji said. “But how have you been holding up? There’s something off about you. How are things out there these days?” “Yeah,” Yamada replied. Tsuji looked around with a melancholy gaze, suddenly attempted to smile as he stared at Yamada’s face, then pressed his lips tightly together again. There’s something wrong here, Yamada thought, yet he felt irritated—under these circumstances, it was impossible to tell who was visiting whom. A prolonged silence followed as they faced each other, alternately studying one another’s faces and tapping the floor with their feet. Tsuji appeared restless. He kept glancing about, averting his eyes whenever they met Yamada’s as if startled. Eventually, Tsuji swayed to his feet and began walking away with his back turned to Yamada.

“Hey, are you leaving?”

Tsuji stopped with his back still turned, “Ah.”

he said; then whirled around，brought his mouth close to Yamada’s ear，and whispered— “I’m sick，you know．I’ve come down with something terrible．” “A disease？”

For an instant, Tsuji closed his eyes as if bewildered, then suddenly blood rushed to his face, and in a strained voice, all in one breath—

“It’s leprosy.”

With that, he went out through the door. Yamada felt as though his head had been struck with a thud. In an instant, he thought to call Tsuji back, but his voice wouldn’t come out.

Nearly four years had passed since then. He could not conjure up Tsuji’s face. He felt something eerily dreadful—anxious and oppressive.

When Yamada exited the station’s ticket gate, he scanned the premises, glancing at his watch to check if he was too early, yet his heart raced with nervous excitement. With no sign of Tsuji in sight, he felt a flicker of panic, though deep down he couldn’t suppress the wish that Tsuji might never appear at all. “How have you been? I’ve been terribly remiss in keeping in touch—to call you out like this…”

Such a voice suddenly reached his ears from the side. However, Yamada didn’t even consider that it might have been directed at him, so he paid no attention in that direction and continued looking ahead when— “Um, I’m Tsuji.”

When Yamada turned around in surprise, “Ah, no—I’m Yamada.”

and ended up being a flustered reply. “How has your health been since then? I was worried—I didn’t know where you were.” “Yes, I’m well.”

Yamada had not imagined this kind of meeting. He had envisioned a scene where, regardless of how the other man’s condition had progressed, he would casually give his shoulder a hearty slap and ask, "So, how’ve you been?" This very imagining had made him all the more flustered. Moreover, he had not at all expected such polite language to come from his own mouth, so he felt startled by his own words. The two left the station side by side, but Yamada found his attention naturally drawn to the other man’s face and limbs. Whenever he became aware of his own scrutiny, he would hurriedly avert his gaze elsewhere, yet deep inside, he felt something relieved and light. Tsuji had the same small frame as when they’d met in prison, his tangled hair spilling out from under a fedora, a gaunt, bony face peering through the strands. He looked even more emaciated than he had back then, yet paradoxically appeared healthier. He was wearing a mouse-gray suit with an overcoat layered on top.

“How are you getting by now?” When they entered the narrow alley lined with coffee shops, Yamada ventured to ask. He had mustered enough composure to try restoring their former intimacy, his wording growing more casual. “Yeah, I’m at the sanatorium.” “How’s your health?”

“Well, for now, somehow…”

“Can you come out freely anytime?” “I can’t exactly call it freedom.” “About once a year…”

Tsuji answered in a small, melancholy voice that seemed perpetually on the verge of lapsing into silence. Yamada found it strangely terrifying to fall silent himself for some reason, and though he searched his mind for words, he couldn’t determine what he should say in this situation. The years of severed connection between them lay like a deep chasm. When he thought of Tsuji—likely tormented by his illness—he found himself at a loss for words.

“Tokyo hasn’t changed one bit.” Tsuji moved his head as if surveying their surroundings, then abruptly said this. “Yeah, it’s pretty much finished developing now. Probably won’t see much change from here on out.” “But how many years have you been there?” “Three years. Going on four.”

“But you managed to find my address. You moved around quite a bit, after all.” “I asked my brother.” “Ah, I see. Your brother must be doing well.” “Yeah.”

“Is the hospital large?” “About five hundred people.”

"Can you really have visitors?" "You can." "It's allowed freely."

“Would it be alright if I came to visit sometime?” “Yeah. Come.” “It’s just a place full of leprosy.”

Yamada was momentarily at a loss for words. He was shocked that Tsuji could mention his leprosy so casually, as though it were an everyday matter. He’s changed, Yamada thought intensely as he gazed at Tsuji’s profile. And he became aware of a certain tension within his heart, as an intense curiosity began to surge—just what ideology, what beliefs was this man living by now? What about his previous ideology? Was he continuing as before, or had he discovered an entirely new path?

“But you don’t look sick anywhere.” “Can’t you get discharged?” “Discharge? I could if I wanted… but there’d be no point.”

“But your illness must be mild.”

Yamada suddenly wondered if he should be asking such things, but since the words had already escaped his lips, he waited to see what response would come. Tsuji did not answer at all. And then, a faint smile surfaced on his cheeks, and he fell completely silent. Yamada felt uneasy; he began to fear that even if the exterior showed no signs, Tsuji’s body might already be ravaged internally. “It makes no difference whether the disease is mild or severe.”

After a long silence, Tsuji said. Incurable. The word pierced Yamada’s heart. He felt as though his chest had been crushed, left speechless. "But you’re getting treatment, aren’t you?"

Yamada asked hesitantly. “I am... but...”

Tsuji evaded the question and smiled again.

The two entered the tea room. The place was packed with people, the record was clattering noisily, and there seemed to be no chance for calm conversation, so Yamada considered whether there might be a better spot. Tsuji sat down, then restlessly looked around the area—fixing his gaze in one direction, seeming to strain his ears toward the music—and occasionally closed his eyes briefly. Yet in each of those small expressions, there was an awkward stiffness that Yamada couldn’t quite place, and he found himself feeling a pang of pity. Not quite rustic, but it was as though someone who hadn’t appeared in public for a long time had suddenly been brought out into the open. Yamada perceived the expression of someone consciously trying to force composure when unable to settle—he recognized these signs.

When the black tea and sweets arrived, Yamada put sugar into Tsuji’s cup while,

“Aren’t you hungry?” he asked.

“No. I’m full.” “Shall we go somewhere quieter?”

“Yeah.” “Yeah, that’s right.” “However,” Tsuji said, gazing at his watch,

“Are you sure?” “Isn’t my wife waiting?” “I should’ve met you a little earlier.”

“That’s fine. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? As long as you’re okay with it, I don’t mind at all.”

“Yeah, I’m fine, but…”

As Tsuji spoke while moving his fork，somehow it slipped and fell with a clatter. Tsuji let out a small cry，his face turning bright red，then suddenly lunged to pick it up—only to abruptly pull his hand back. He appeared comically flustered，and Yamada instinctively said， “It’s fine—I’ll have someone pick it up for you.”

He whispered softly to Tsuji and called the waitress. Yamada felt people’s gazes swiftly turn toward them, and forced a smile as if nothing were wrong,

“Whenever you come out from now on, be sure to stop by my place.” He tried to gloss over it by saying.

“Yeah, I’ll come. I’ll come.” "But... I..." “Well... I’ll come out next year too.” “I’ve made it a rule to come out once every year.” "But... you’d hate that."

“There’s no such thing. You needn’t hold back like that.” “Yeah. Those in the outside world don’t truly understand illness—if I could leave that easily, I wouldn’t come out here at all. No, I’ll come out. I’ll come out. Society isn’t noble enough to demand sacrifices from us. Society’s more depraved than we are, isn’t it? But, no…” Then Tsuji—his face, which had just begun losing its flush—suddenly reddened again. He clamped his mouth shut, sat upright while staring fixedly in one direction, then abruptly averted his gaze and glanced sharply around at the nearby people as if gauging their reactions. In those eyes burned a sharp, defiant flame that hadn’t been visible before. Yamada, carefully observing these expressions, felt something like an inexpressibly grim stench. Through those eyes and through those challenging, abrupt words, he sensed the long-endured pain, humiliation, and oppression by a fate that must have been nearly unbearable.

The two left there and walked through the already darkening streets for a while before climbing up to the second floor of a small soba shop. “How many days are you staying in Tokyo?”

When the sake arrived, Yamada picked up the decanter and asked.

“I’ve been here about two weeks already, but now I have three days left before returning.” “So your days are fixed then.” “Yeah.” “Is the hospital a terrible place?” “Well.” Tsuji muttered to himself as if contemplating,

“I can’t explain.” “In any case, ordinary people’s concept of humanity doesn’t apply.” “No—not that meaning. I meant in a political sense. That is to say, about hospital life itself—the relationship between administrators and patients, that sort of thing...”

“It’s peaceful.”

“Peaceful, huh? But don’t problems sometimes occur and get reported in the newspapers?”

Then Tsuji suddenly burst into a strange laugh and downed his drink in one gulp,

“It’s out of boredom that such incidents occur.” After uttering this single line, he muttered as if to himself, still looking downward.

“People in society view hospitals as gloomy places utterly unfit for human habitation.” “That’s a lie—such thinking—” “Compared to society, hospitals stand far superior.” “At least there, people live with truly human spirits.” “But what is society? Isn’t it saturated with falsehoods, deceptions, and depravity?” “Hospitals too have their foolish aspects and vile elements.” “Yet they still surpass society.” “And still, whenever meeting those societal types, their eyes inevitably gleam with curiosity as they press questions about hospitals.” “What purpose does quizzing about hospitals serve?” “It must be that thrill-seeking mentality.” “Or perhaps they preemptively imagine hospitals as utterly depraved—wanting not just confirmation but validation of that truth.” “What wretched foolishness!” “If they crave ugliness, let society examine its own feet.” “At minimum, society ought to feel shame before leprosariums.”

“No, I didn’t ask out of such feelings.” “Yeah, yeah, I understand what you’re saying.” “How should I put this… I….” But Tsuji began speaking as if to suppress Yamada.

“What disgrace and humiliation have the five hundred patients in my hospital endured? It is terrible disgrace, humiliation. Yet they have endured it steadfastly. In the face of leprosy, a man who does not bow his head in silence—that alone is proof of his depravity. That is terrible humiliation. The humiliation of prostitutes is nothing compared to this. And that humiliation continues even now. Until death—until death itself, I tell you—think carefully about these words: humiliation will never cease until death. But even if I tell you this, you’ll never understand. Try living even three days among lepers—then you’d understand what a terrifying, soul-chilling world it is. And they endure it steadfastly. Humans live by their own inner strength—live by the deepest reserves of human power. The most purely beautiful state of humans as humans exists nowhere else but that. Lepers accomplish that without even a conscious thought.”

Yamada listened intently to Tsuji’s words while feeling something disjointed and out of focus. Even what Tsuji spoke of with gleaming eyes and heated tone felt somehow unrelated to him, like Tsuji’s own solipsistic fervor. Moreover, for Yamada, whether lepers’ spirits were beautiful or ugly was a matter of complete indifference. He simply found it enjoyable to infer from Tsuji’s words where his interests now lay and how his ideology had transformed compared to before. This man’s become a full-blown humanist, he mused, feeling the urge to grin slyly. Then suddenly, reflecting on his own feelings from earlier, he realized that facing leper Tsuji Issaku had made him adopt an oddly formal demeanor, and a sense of What nonsense is this? welled up within him.

Tsuji appeared thoroughly affected by the alcohol now, his eyes bloodshot and features animated as he alternated between staring fixedly at Yamada and abruptly raising his cup to his lips.

“But you, isn’t it getting late?”

Yamada asked. Yamada, too, had become quite drunk. “It’s fine.”

"But you've changed quite a bit."

Yamada said while staring intently at Tsuji. “Changed?” “Yeah, I’ve changed. Changed completely. Maybe I’ve transformed entirely.” "But there are parts that haven’t changed." “Ah, well… after all, back then—when you were sixteen, that time.” "There are parts of you that haven’t changed at all from back then." "You’re still unmistakably yourself in some ways… but your way of thinking…"

"My way of thinking... Ah, it has changed." “I’ve abandoned socialism,” Tsuji declared flatly, then suddenly fixed Yamada with a challenging glare and continued in a fiercely excited tone—as if convinced that discarding socialism would inevitably draw scorn from the other man, and he was now desperately trying to refute it. He seemed as if he had received unbearable ridicule. “Socialism—I’ve abandoned it. Completely cast it off. Let those who want to laugh do as they please. How many can even laugh?” "I myself have mercilessly laughed at that version of myself." “I’ve already laughed at myself enough.” “But now I won’t laugh anymore.” “No—it wasn’t me abandoning ideology.” “It’s absolutely not like that.” “It was ideology that abandoned me.” “I was cast off by ideology.” "When I first became ill, I desperately clung to ideology and theory." “That’s right,…………………………………………………………………,………………,………………….” "But you see, in my case... it’s just something that amounts to nothing." “So I don’t consider that theory entirely meaningless.” "But for me, it’s meaningless." "It’s unnecessary for me." "But that’s a social theory." "But I’ve been rejected by society." “In other words, I was rejected by theory.”

“What good does it do for someone like me to cling earnestly to theory in my head? Isn’t that utterly meaningless?” “It’s like shoes—they only hold value when worn on your feet. Balance one atop your head, and it becomes worthless.” (Having spoken with mounting agitation, Tsuji suddenly fell silent, seemed to grapple with some thought, then continued in a lowered voice while staring at the floor—as if soliloquizing.) “I agonized over this.” “Couldn’t sleep properly even at night.” “When first hospitalized, I still clung to belief.” “But that was mere ignorance of my condition—I thought I’d rejoin society, live like any proper member.” “Back then, I never doubted my place in society.” “So letting theory lie dormant in my mind felt natural.” “I believed someday it would stir awake—someday rise again.” “Yet as days passed, I came to know this disease’s true nature.” “An understanding forced upon me.” “I realized I—this self called me—had become wholly unnecessary to society. Nothing but a solitary… thing.” “Now I must watch my body rot day after day, awaiting death.” “No—not just mine. Not merely this individual flesh.” “Daily I witnessed those around me decaying.” “Endless days observing noses crumbling, fingers dropping, legs vanishing—bodies festering with sores as their rot progressed.” “Those sighted yesterday turned blind today.” “Men standing on two legs yesterday hobbled on one tomorrow.” “This I’ve watched—silent, unblinking—through all my days here.”

“Right now I may have a mild case, but I’ll end up like that eventually.” “I’ll end up like that.” “Legs disappear. Fingers drop off. Blindness sets in.” “Ah, do you understand what kind of life this is—a life where one must dwell on such matters?” “Moreover, this life is long.” “It’s still so long.” “However, saying these things won’t amount to anything anymore.” “What my feelings were like—I can’t even begin to express it.” “That’s beyond anything words could convey.” “I became clearly aware that I was nothing more than a completely meaningless, utterly unnecessary human being to society.” “And yet I am still alive.” “I have to keep living—for years and years to come.” “If only you could understand this feeling.” “But no one will understand—how could they?” “I’ve become utterly alone—completely isolated.” “The people in society go on about being lonely, about being isolated—as if they’re legitimate claims.” “Do those people have any idea what isolation truly means?” “They’ll never understand.” “That’s terrifying.” “It’s like being carved apart piece by piece.”

“It’s as if all the blood in my body freezes solid.” "But such metaphors can’t convey it—I saw fate itself." “I saw reality itself.” “How should one live within this loneliness?” “I’ve lost both life’s compass and the posture to face it.” “Moreover, everyone around me bears leprosy.” “A nest of leprosy, you see.” “Having become like this—do you think living right? Do you think it righteous? Hmm? Answer me.”

Tsuji abruptly cut off his words and fixed Yamada with an intense stare. Yamada stared back at Tsuji’s small, sharp eyes peering through the disheveled hair that covered half his face, fully aware that Tsuji wasn’t expecting any response. Then Yamada suddenly felt a yawn coming on, and to hide it, he shifted his posture slightly and readjusted his sitting position. The more passionately Tsuji spoke, the less Yamada felt its urgency. Then Tsuji, growing even more irritated, twitched his eyebrows and began to speak.

“I don’t want to hear any answer.” “Of course I don’t care whether I hear any answer or not.” “All I wanted to say was that a new problem—what it means to live—has arisen before me.” “I’ve been watching patients dying around me and people rotting away while alive—get this, rotting while alive!—day after day, and this reality, this world—how to interpret it, how to explain it—that’s what’s become my new problem.” “No, that’s a lie—I didn’t mean to say it like this.” “Interpreting reality, analyzing reality—what’s the point?” “What does it amount to?” “No matter how much you analyze it, no matter how much you interpret it, reality doesn’t give a damn about such things.” “Reality pretends not to know how human intelligence may be—reality moves solely for its own sake, working only its own work.” “This is what fate is.” “Humans can do nothing but fear, tremble, weep, scream, and shed tears before this advancing force.” “Call it criticism of reality or interpretation—in the end, it’s nothing but a variation of this wailing and screaming.” “Humans can only cry—merely shed tears and console one another.” “You’re laughing.” “From your perspective, this must all seem like the pitiful ramblings of a wretched man—the whining of a weakling.” “And then you probably want to say this thinking is outdated.” “You’re right—that might be outdated.” “But I don’t give a damn if it’s outdated.” “Things like old or new aren’t the issue at all.” “In my case, they aren’t an issue at all.”

“I’m talking about my own world.” “What do I care about other people?” “No, wait—what was I even trying to say?” “That’s right—I thought about dying.” “I thought about killing myself.” “But I couldn’t die.” “I tried many times.” “But it was no use.” “No, that’s not it—I realized I couldn’t die.” “It’s that I can’t die.” “Can’t die. If only you could understand what this means.” “But you don’t understand—it’s not about lacking the courage to kill myself and being unable to die. Even if I die, it’d mean nothing.” “Even if I die, it’d mean nothing. That’s how it is.” “But how should I put this?” “How inconvenient words are—the moment you say them, they turn absurd.” “In other words, when I say dying would mean nothing—it means that even if I die, people will keep living; even if I die, leprosy will still exist.” “But even saying this—it doesn’t feel quite true—”

Tsuji fell silent, as if groping for adequate words in his mind, and stared fixedly into empty space while sinking deep into thought. However, Yamada had already been growing bored for some time now. As he watched Tsuji's eyes glitter fiercely and the sweat on his fevered forehead shine unpleasantly, he felt an indescribable sense of disgust—a revolting sensation he couldn't dispel. I'm drinking with a leper right now—when this thought suddenly surfaced in his mind, he felt something uncanny, akin to terror. Moreover, against Tsuji's manner of speaking—as if he alone bore all life's sufferings—Yamada found himself harboring an inexplicable discomfort he couldn't shake off. As for Tsuji's way of talking—constantly revising himself, stumbling over words, nodding in self-agreement—to Yamada it all seemed nothing more than an unbearably self-absorbed monologue.

The conversation trailed off, and silence hung heavy. Tsuji was working his mouth as though to continue speaking when suddenly he sprang to his feet as though recoiling. He looked around and sat back down in silence. On his face, something indescribable—neither quite confusion nor fear—kept appearing and disappearing. “What’s wrong?”

Yamada couldn't help asking. Tsuji gave a light smile—"No, it's nothing"—but it was a somewhat strained one. "Well, you see, I had this feeling that this wasn't Tokyo." Tsuji said.

“Not Tokyo?” “Well, you see... Like I was dreaming—I had this strange sensation. I felt like there were patients sitting crowded behind me. Not that I mind them being there—that’s only natural, of course. But somehow, it made me shudder. Having not stepped out of the hospital even once in nearly four years—you start having illusions.” With that, Tsuji tried to smile again, but it faded midway, leaving him in an awful silence as he sank into deep contemplation. “Shall we leave?” Yamada felt the urge to say, but seeing Tsuji in that state, he found it difficult to voice those words. Yamada also naturally began to ponder.

Yamada abruptly recalled the events of that night two days prior. The car jolted violently—the shock of that moment came back with vivid clarity—and the image of the man lying dead on the asphalt, his cheek plastered against it, rose before his eyes. What about that man’s family? What must they be doing now? When such thoughts surfaced, he began to be gripped by guilt and self-reproach he had never felt before. It’s true that was the driver’s negligence without a doubt—but I had no business being there, let alone driving around in such a foolish state of mind. When he thought that, he felt as though all guilt lay within himself. On top of that, that driver would either have his license revoked or be suspended from duty—one or the other.

“But Tsuji—you’ve suffered tremendously, but we’re not exactly living in comfort either. Perhaps having sunk to such rock bottom might actually bring happiness as a human being, I think.”

Yamada recalled each detail of that night and spoke while remembering his usual state of directionless feelings with no outlet. Then Tsuji suddenly looked up at Yamada but fell silent and sank into thought. Yamada had noticed that Tsuji still didn’t know about his conversion, “Actually, I’ve converted too.” he said in a confessional tone. And at that moment, the word “I” suddenly emerged.

“You converted?”

Tsuji abruptly raised his face and parroted back, but his voice immediately dropped to a low tone,

“I probably thought the same way.” he continued, but there wasn’t a trace of irony or scorn in his words.

And with an air of great gravity, he sank into thought once more. “Truth be told, even for us, we don’t know our own direction in life or how to conduct ourselves……………………… In this utterly incomprehensible situation, the only thing we do know is that we’re gradually……………………… sinking further.” “Just because I converted doesn’t mean I want to keep sinking into decline like this—if possible, I want my life to contribute to the progress of history.” “Back when I converted and was released from prison, with such feelings I felt considerable impatience and even despair.” “But in the end, there was simply no way through.” “I can’t really explain how or why things became impossible, but you’ve at least seen the newspapers and magazines, haven’t you?” “Even in novels, it’s come to the point where they only write about how utterly impossible everything has become.”

After pausing briefly, Yamada gazed at Tsuji. Tsuji kept his face lowered and listened in silence. But Yamada had already grown weary of speaking. What's the point of saying these things before this man? In the end, I just want someone to know the anguish in my heart—to make them understand so I can pilfer their sympathy. How utterly pathetic— Yet perhaps owing to the alcohol's influence, his mouth opened of its own accord as he began droning on about his life and mental state since leaving prison. And now, he explained at length how maintaining…………… had come to resemble self-flagellation—or rather, how sincerity inevitably distorts into self-abuse and self-mockery—and how desperately cornered they found themselves,…………………… trapped in such circumstances.

“In the end, my situation isn’t much different from being in the sanatorium either. Well, my body doesn’t rot—but my spirit does. No, gets forced to rot. Just like you regret your sanatorium feelings not reaching me, I suspect my own feelings remain equally incomprehensible to you. If you say spiritual decay stems from weak consciousness—fine, I won’t argue—but at least believe I’m living with some sincerity here. Yet... precisely because of that... this cursed state becomes unavoidable—a perverse logic forcing me to rot. Sometimes they make me act like an utter fool or imbecile. Two nights ago—no, three—it happened again. Though mind you—I don’t consider this condition proper. On the contrary—I must break free—know full well that staying trapped makes me meaningless filth as a human. Right now—if only you could grasp what I feel. Not that understanding changes anything—but listen.”

He felt like mocking himself for having wanted to talk about such things. Wasn’t it just like old men confessing their hardships to each other and trying to offer mutual comfort? "Goodness, you’ve certainly had your share of hardships, haven’t you? But then again, I’ve been through quite a lot myself. Ah well, this world is nothing but suffering, isn’t it?" — wasn’t that essentially what they were saying? At that moment, Yamada suddenly recalled such a scene and found himself grinning wryly.

He took considerable time to explain his state of mind while recounting in detail the events of that night two days prior. To be sure, at first he was sometimes overcome by such intense disgust that he would abruptly fall silent mid-sentence. Yet each time thoughts of Who cares? Who cares? would surface, and as he continued speaking regardless, before he knew it another version of himself—secretly impressed and engrossed in his own tale—had begun sitting beside him. Of course, being who he was, he continued to despise this other self with all his might—yet even this contempt ultimately lapsed into neglect until at last he too adopted an excited tone, carried away by his own momentum to the point of producing slightly exaggerated parts. Of course even as an exaggeration it wasn’t anything significant.

“Even now, when I think back on it, I still can’t understand why I did something so foolish. And to think I even felt like bursting into tears on that embankment.” “Yes, I definitely thought of you there.” “To be honest, I didn’t like remembering you.” “I think it’s because of your illness after all.” “Even if I say this, please don’t take it the wrong way.” “It’s just… I don’t know. Somehow, I was afraid of your illness.” “To be honest, whenever I remembered you, I couldn’t help feeling like I was colliding with some kind of dark, oppressive fate.” “No—it’s not just this! There’s another crucial matter: whenever I recall your figure, aside from that prison scene, all I can remember is how you looked back then—when you were sixteen or seventeen, over the course of a full year.” “Back then, the relationship between you and me was, truthfully, that of a teacher and his disciple.” “So ever since… every time I remembered you, I was gripped by self-reproach.” “Of course, I’m aware that this self-reproach is nothing more than my own sentimentality, and the fact that I became your teacher was likely an inevitable necessity of some greater force that requires no explanation.” “Despite that, I couldn’t help feeling like I had done something wrong to you.” “And since you became ill, it’s been even more so.” “Why is that? It must be the deed I… committed. Because no matter how I explain it… it remains an undeniable stain on my humanity…”

“Wait—wait a moment.” “Why should that be a stain?” “I can’t comprehend it.” “Whether something constitutes a stain depends entirely on the individual’s own mind. There could even be cases where it becomes elevated through………………” “You’re making your own measuring stick first and then trying to define humanity by it.” “Hmm, yes—I suppose one could see it that way.” “But I have no choice but to use the method I believe in as myself.” “So please—just listen a little longer.” “You understand these feelings of mine, don’t you?” “Tonight of all nights, I’ve come to want you to understand my feelings.” “You said earlier that those in society couldn’t possibly grasp loneliness—but I’m lonely too.” “Though I have a wife and work at a company, there’s not a soul who understands my feelings—not a single person I can truly speak to.” “So when meeting someone like you after all this time—though our present feelings may lie a thousand miles apart—I still sense something spiritually shared remains between us.” “This might be some hallucination of mine—trying to recover who we once were to each other.” “But I wanted to confess my feelings to you at least.” “I thought you—of all people—might understand the feelings that drove me to commit such foolish acts… even to killing someone.”

Having spoken this far, Yamada suddenly felt a nauseating disgust—unpleasant and irritating—surge up within him with violent intensity. He no longer wanted to utter another word. He hurriedly grabbed the chilled cup and downed it in one gulp, then proceeded to drink two or three more times. *What am I confessing to this brat?* As such thoughts arose in his mind, he made a bitter face yet grabbed the sake bottle and poured into Tsuji’s cup. And the moment he looked at Tsuji’s face, he jolted slightly for no clear reason, then muttered in his head, *Damn it—what impulse made me do that?* *What’s done is done—hmph!* he thought, suppressing his strangely defiant mood to calm himself, but no sooner had he settled than an inexpressible shame began to well up. What was this shame for? What was this shame for?

Tsuji stared at Yamada with a cold expression. His face now bore a mocking sneer—an expression of utter contempt for the other person that had never been there before. Tsuji did not speak. And when that sneer finally faded, he suddenly moved his throat as if to say something—but stopped that too—and abruptly stood up unsteadily. “Are you leaving?” “Yeah, it’s getting late.”

“Wait—hold on a second.” After making Tsuji sit back down, Yamada smiled and said, “It’s cowardly to suddenly withdraw just because you’ve won.” Tsuji momentarily made a face suggesting he struggled to comprehend Yamada’s words, but then—for some reason—began sinking into gloomy, oppressive contemplation.

“I wanted you to criticize me just now. After all, you made that expression earlier, didn’t you?”

Yamada peered into Tsuji’s face. Tsuji was still sitting there silently, lost in thought. And when he slightly moved his chopsticks, he picked up the remaining vinegared dish but, without attempting to eat it, set the chopsticks down. A considerably long silence stretched between the two of them. Suddenly, Tsuji raised his face and stared intently at Yamada,

“I’ll say it. I’ll say it all. “I’ll say everything.” “Alright?” Before Yamada could finish responding “Go ahead,” Tsuji cut him off abruptly—

“It’s a lie! You’re lying.” “You were putting on an act, weren’t you?”

Having shouted this, he suddenly let a sneer rise to his cheeks and fixed Yamada with a venomous stare. “Act?” Yamada instinctively parroted back, but a surge of anger welled up within him. It felt as though something he had carefully preserved had been trampled underfoot. “That’s right. “An act. “You were performing an act. “You were performing an act to feel self-righteous, weren’t you? “Humans are creatures who perform acts with deadly seriousness. “They grow excited, weep, shed tears—all while performing their act. “They perform it with genuine feelings—feelings they themselves don’t notice, feelings they can’t escape. “They deliberately plunge into those inescapable depths and convince themselves those feelings are their true heart. “For simple souls, the act and true heart become hopelessly tangled there. “But wait—you. You’re fully aware of your own act while performing it, aren’t you? “How could a man like you—his head crammed full of self-consciousness—fail to notice his own performance? “From your manner of speaking, I saw through it completely. “I know why you had to stage that act. “I understand it perfectly myself. “Social consciousness, isn’t it? “That consciousness you mentioned earlier—about participating in historical progress.”

“But jumping straight into direct participation would be dangerous.” “So you found that phrase—‘hopeless situation’—and kept it ready, all while stoking that precious conviction of yours.” “That makes your act all the more grave.” “And in this hopeless situation, even if you ran someone over with a car, there’d be no risk to you.” “Whether it’s your neck or someone else’s on the block, everyone tries to strike first.” “Your true self couldn’t care less if history never budges an inch.” “All that matters is your own peace of mind.”

“So you’re saying all ideology is falsehood?” “You’re right that human instinct is repulsive and self-serving—that people would sooner arm themselves than protect others.” “But do you want humanity’s repulsiveness—such evil—to persist on this earth forever?” “I, at least, acknowledge this repulsiveness within us and deem it right to fight against it.”

Yamada tried to suppress the seething anger welling up within him yet declared in an agitated voice. Tsuji, now calm to a degree utterly unlike his earlier agitation, gazed coldly at Yamada. It was a spiteful, venomous expression. “You’re right.” “Or perhaps you are correct.” “But ultimately, that’s just your self-justification.” “As proof—aren’t you putting on an act?” “No! Not just an act—I’ll say everything tonight! I want to rip open this festering rot!” “Listen—weren’t you already… before your act? Why…” “Even possessing so much… yet…” “In my eyes… it’s reflected.” “No matter what… even if… must exist—that logic holds.” “But it’s mere logic.” “Self-deception.” “What you saw in prison was indeed fate itself.” “You—an individual tossed about by that fate.” “Will you claim it doesn’t exist in your true heart?” “No—I won’t permit denial!” “Didn’t you yourself declare this earlier?” “That moment when you realized—your former self rooted in society’s foundation had been severed, that foundation crumbling—leaving you utterly alone.”

“No—it wasn’t mere consciousness. Something deeper, more fundamental. You felt it physically, with your entire body.” “You felt it—but then immediately turned your face away.” “Because it was terrifying.” “Being conscious of loneliness is a terrifying thing.” “You turned your face away.” “Your act began at that moment.” “So even if you claim loneliness or suffering now—that’s a lie.” “If you feel any pain at all—it’s from becoming aware of your own act.” “Hmph—that’s what we call luxury.” “Because there was somewhere you could turn your face.” “An escape route—that’s what it was.” “In your case—there was an escape route.” “But in mine—not a single one.” “Truly—literally—not one escape route.” “It was like a pitch-dark tunnel—endlessly long—no exit in sight.” “That’s how it was.” “Worse than any tunnel.” “Until death—until death—no end.” “In this darkness—all we do is weep and howl.”

Tsuji abruptly stopped speaking. The venomous expression had vanished without notice, and he looked up at Yamada with a somehow sorrowful gaze. His tone, which had initially seemed to berate Yamada, gradually transformed into a monologue, as if he were rambling to himself—I’m spouting all this, but what should I do from here on out?—in apparent bewilderment. But as Yamada listened, his unpleasantness gradually intensified; he began sensing something repulsive within Tsuji, until even meeting each other’s eyes became unbearable. Tsuji divides humanity into two categories: the healthy and the sick. And this man harbors an instinctive hatred toward healthy people. Having thought this, Yamada felt that an absolutely unbridgeable rift had formed between himself and Tsuji. When he thought about how he had tried to make this man understand his feelings and had chattered away self-importantly, he felt something unbearable. He wanted to part ways as soon as possible. But Tsuji continued muttering in a tone that was again neither quite a soliloquy nor intended for Yamada to hear.

“But I believe in humanity.” “I believe in human nature.” “It was when I entered that sanatorium that I first encountered real human beings.” “No matter how oppressed people are, no matter what humiliation they’re subjected to, they never lose their spirit.” “No—it’s when people hit rock bottom that they truly gain their humanity.” “Society’s bastards all dangle in midair.” “It’s because they’re allowed all these freedoms and all these kinds of happiness that things go wrong.” “Only when they’ve lost all that—all that happiness and freedom—do humans truly become human.” “All the trivial things clinging to us get washed away.” “Society’s bastards put on airs of suffering without ever having suffered.” “They mimic loneliness without ever having known true solitude.” “Pathetic.” “They’re all self-satisfied.” “So when those grand folks come to the leprosy sanatorium, their masks get torn right off.” “I’ve seen that sight countless times.” “That’s right.” “I fell ill, but I’m not unhappy at all.” “Because I believe in humanity, I must be able to live.” “How could you live without believing in humans?” “At first, I too dreamed of society every night.”

“I longed for society.” “But I don’t have such dreams anymore.” “I’ve thrown away absolutely everything.” “But I don’t feel any regret over it.” “As if I’d care!” “I intend to live in that world for however many years to come.” “That’s fine.” “No matter how much I suffered, even if I ended up all alone, I didn’t care.” “I’ll stay silent and endure it alone.” “But it must be quite painful…” Tsuji gazed at Yamada’s face for a moment, then looked down and fell silent. He seemed to be intently repeating what he had just said in his head. It was as though he were placing unbearable agony before his eyes, gazing at it while desperately trying to convince himself.

“Hey, should we get going now?”

Unable to bear it any longer, Yamada said this.

“Huh?”

Tsuji looked up at Yamada with a blank expression, as though bewildered by what had transpired. Lost in the thoughts cascading through his mind—so absorbed that he seemed to lose all self-awareness—Tsuji’s face turned expressionless in an instant, like that of an imbecile. But then, as if jolted by some invisible force, he sprang to his feet.

“Let’s go, let’s go.” “Oh, I’m sorry for keeping you so late.” “Really.” “What was I talking about? Somehow, I’m not myself tonight.” “I’m not right in the head.” “Right, I’ll get the bill.”

When he said this in a terribly flustered tone, he suddenly turned bright red, frantically slid open the room’s shoji door, and called out hurriedly for the maid.

The two of them started walking along the wide road toward the station. The night had grown quite late, and the streets had thinned to near emptiness. Given the long hours they spent drinking, the amount consumed was small—neither had gotten drunk. Tsuji fell sullenly silent, sinking deep into thought. Yamada too grew weary of speaking. He seethed with irritation and discomfort, brimming with wretchedness. I was utterly defeated by this man tonight.

Before long, they arrived at the station and ascended to the train platform. Four or five salaryman-like men were scattered here and there, pacing back and forth across the platform, but there was no sign of any other passengers.

“Well then, take care of yourself.” “I’ll come visit before long.”

Yamada grudgingly spoke his farewell. For him, voicing such words wasn't just tiresome - tonight it felt downright repugnant. Then Tsuji abruptly thrust out his hand and seized Yamada's. Startled, Yamada tried jerking back his arm but wound up clutching Tsuji's instead. As awareness of the man's disease pierced through him, he burned with shame.

“I really said some reckless things tonight.” “Don’t be angry with me, please don’t be angry.”

he said with an imploring look. “Yeah, it’s fine, really,” “It made me think about a lot of things.” “Come out again if you get the chance.” "Liar," Yamada thought as he listened to his own words, yet hearing Tsuji’s pleading tone stirred an odd pity within him. Watching Tsuji prepare to return to the sanatorium, Yamada couldn’t help but feel he’d brushed against life’s inherent desolation. There in the dimly lit, deserted station square, he began seeing Tsuji’s solitary figure as if for the first time. Then Tsuji suddenly began weeping violently. With a convulsive voice, haltingly,

“I don’t understand… I… I can’t understand anything anymore… I’ve lost all understanding.” “Ah… what should I do…” But before those words could finish, the train arrived. Yamada said “Goodbye” and boarded. The doors closed. Through the glass, Yamada slightly raised his hand toward Tsuji on the platform. Tsuji tried to smile but abruptly stopped, then was seen walking toward the opposite side. He appeared to stagger away unsteadily.

When Yamada’s train began moving, Tsuji’s incoming train slid into the station with a thunderous roar. At that instant, Yamada involuntarily jolted and pressed his hand against the window. Like a freshly driven stake beginning to topple, Tsuji’s body swayed and started collapsing onto the opposite tracks, imprinting itself vividly on Yamada’s vision in that fleeting moment.

When the train stopped at the next station, Yamada hurriedly jumped down onto the platform. He had thought to transfer trains and go back. However, the moment he got off, he no longer felt like going back. Tsuji’s skull must have been smashed to pieces, his torso perhaps split in two by the train—he would surely be a pulpy mess of blood, flesh, and brains. The moment he thought this, a stifling disgust welled up within him. And not only that—those very flesh and blood were teeming with disease-causing germs. He couldn’t help but imagine a decaying corpse. After all, Tsuji was already dead for certain—what good would it do to go back now? He did not want to get involved with the corpse. The train he had boarded closed all its doors at once and pulled away. Left behind, he stood vacantly on the platform for some time.

He suddenly showed a half-sobbing smile and slowly began walking toward the stairs. He realized his own theatricality. If Tsuji hadn't mocked this theatricality earlier, he might not have had the audacity to turn back and look. Of course, he would pretend not to notice the theatricality— But now, even doing that had become unpleasant. He had no intention whatsoever of turning back to look from the moment he jumped off the train. When he noticed that he felt no urge to turn back, he vaguely felt as though he were doing something wrong, and now thought that being startled into hastily turning back was what it truly meant to be human. Then, at that very moment, his mood naturally grew flustered, taking on a startled quality. Riding the wave of that feeling, he jumped off, but the moment he landed, Tsuji’s blood-soaked corpse surfaced before him.

He left the station thinking of finding somewhere to drink alone. But before he had gone even half a block, he began wanting to return home and rest his body as soon as possible, turning back toward the station. There were only two or three passengers. He sat down on the bench and found himself inexplicably drained, letting out something like a sigh. He felt a vague loneliness, as if he had lost all sense of direction. When his wife's face floated into mind, an affection surged through him that made him want to deliver one sharp slap to her cheek. Yet strangely enough, at this moment he had completely forgotten about Tsuji—the man didn't surface in his thoughts at all. Occasional flickers would cross his mind, but he hurriedly turned his thoughts away by instinct.

Before long, the sound of a train became audible in the distance. He rose to his feet and stood waiting at the platform's edge. It's still too early to jump now, he suddenly thought. The train approached slowly yet with considerable speed. Now! he screamed inwardly. In an instant, the carriage heavily pressed against the tracks as it passed silently before coming to a stop. While envisioning his own body sprawled beneath that dark carriage—torso crushed and severed—he stepped into the lit compartment. Soon the wheels began turning, and he felt vaguely relieved. Savoring the sensation that everything had finally ended, he found himself wanting to measure the train's speed for no particular reason. Never before had the movement of matter felt so reliably comforting as it did at this moment.

When he returned to the apartment, Mitsuko had already buried herself under the futon from head to toe and was asleep. He felt like calling out "Hey," but immediately found it too bothersome, so he thudded down in front of the brazier and lit a cigarette. His body was terribly weary. He rolled onto his back, placed his feet on the brazier, and blew smoke out through his nose. But had Tsuji resolved to die even before meeting me, or did he suddenly decide to end his life when he came to that station? When such questions arose, Tsuji's gestures, expressions, and manner of speaking surfaced one after another. When the memory surfaced of those terror-filled eyes from when Tsuji had suddenly jerked upright and said "This doesn't feel like Tokyo," Yamada felt something eerily unsettling. He had no concrete idea what the sanatorium was like, yet he sensed something pitch-dark, impervious to sunlight, utterly bleak. Yamada thought that Tsuji must have been contemplating death even before meeting him. He suddenly recalled the time his theatricality had been criticized and realized that those words had ultimately been Tsuji striking at himself. Moreover, the words Yamada had... spoken to him were undoubtedly nothing more than Yamada... mirroring Tsuji's own psychology. However, once he had thought that far, he no longer felt like continuing to think about Tsuji. He couldn't help but feel a growing sense of disgust.

“Hey.”

Yamada tried calling Mitsuko. There was no response. Having no desire to call again, he took a long drag on his dwindling cigarette, tossed it into the brazier, and stared at the ceiling. Then Tsuji's figure resurfaced - he thought surely by now the crowd around the tracks had dispersed, the blood washed away, the corpse carted off somewhere. He tried conjuring the deserted night station and Tsuji's body leaning like a wooden stake. Still, that man had been unfortunate; but ending up like that, better he'd died.

“Go to sleep already. What are you doing?” Mitsuko said irritably, poking her face out from the futon. At this, Yamada felt a surge of anger. When I suppressed that urge, I wanted to say again that I had killed someone, but tonight I stopped myself. That was because he had become aware of himself relishing the effect of jabbing at her irritation by saying that. After changing into his nightclothes, he sat down before the brazier again and unfolded the newspaper. He thought how good it would be if he could sleep alone on such a night, finding the presence of another person beside him unbearably grating.

“What are you doing?!”

Mitsuko said shrilly. “I’m reading the newspaper.” “You should just go to sleep already.” “……” “Hey, what time do you think it is?” “You’re noisy.” “Go to sleep. Hurry up.” “Shut up.”

Then Mitsuko suddenly began to sob quietly. Yamada abruptly recalled the events of that morning. That morning, she had persistently urged Yamada to go see the cherry blossoms. Yamada had thought it made no difference whether they went to something like blossom viewing or not, but her relentless pestering angered him, and he had declared that no matter what happened, he wouldn't drink with that crowd. Of course, she had been desperately afraid of her husband developing poor relations with his coworkers.

“Hey, that tearful plea tactic’s outdated. Might work on Germans, though.” Yamada said while laughing. But having said it, he began to think he shouldn’t have spoken. He had always recalled this phrase whenever he argued with his wife, but until now had refrained from voicing it. After all, this phrase was her most vulnerable spot, her old wound. No matter how foolish her current way of living might be, there was something in that desperate resolve of hers he felt compelled to acknowledge—or so Yamada had thought. Though truth be told, while Yamada often acted contrary to her feelings and was prone to mocking that desperate resolve, he had taken care to avoid touching that particular wound.

Mitsuko suddenly bolted upright and, while sobbing violently, began to speak. “Liar!” “What did you say when we got together? You—try to remember what you said!” “Didn’t you say that marriage must be founded on mutual elevation, and that through marriage we should fight together as one?” “When did you ever do anything to mutually elevate us?” “When did you ever fight alongside me as one?” “Every time, haven’t you trampled on my feelings?” “While I’ve been working so hard to rebuild our life, haven’t you done nothing but destroy it?” “If only you’d try to understand my feelings even a little, wouldn’t that be something?”

“Huh, did I ever say such a thing?” Yamada said with a bitter smile. “What are you talking about? Stop playing dumb.” “Aren’t you mocking me again?” “You’re always like this!”

“Of course I still believe those words now.” “But listen—calm down and hear me out. Then tell me—have you ever once tried to understand my feelings?” “Then have you ever once told me your own feelings?” “There have been plenty of times.” “Just two nights ago—wasn’t that exactly it?” “I swallowed my embarrassment and laid out my actions alongside my psychology in concrete terms—didn’t I?” “That was just you failing to understand.” “Or maybe you never even tried to understand in the first place.”

"That was just you monologuing to yourself, wasn't it?" "Is that so? Then we're done here." "No! No! "Even if you were right, I'm the one at fault." "No matter what happens tonight, we must reach a proper resolution." "A resolution? "Hmph. So you want us to separate then? "Say it outright." Yamada's voice involuntarily sharpened. Mitsuko began shouting. "When? When did I ever tell you to leave? When did I ever say that?" "You're the one who wants out—that's why you keep saying this, saying this, saying this!" "You're mocking me—me!"

But when she got that far, her throat closed up; she made a choked sound like “Uuu” and tears streamed from her eyes. She unconsciously gripped the edge of the futon with both hands and wept unrestrainedly. Yamada had of course completely understood her feelings. Mitsuko’s demand to settle things properly had been words that slipped out in the heat of the moment. That said, for her to let such words slip out, there must have existed within her a motive that caused them to slip—namely, a desire to part ways that occasionally arose. However, what to do after separating—this was what filled her with anxiety. Moreover, she somehow liked the man called Yamada. She wanted to gaze upon the Yamada of old—passionate, resolute, undeniably reliable in his sharp-edged clarity—and savor that same captivated feeling she once had. However, Yamada smirked and asked even more maliciously.

“But when you talk about settling things properly, I can’t help feeling there’s no other way to think about it.” “Do as you please! If you want to leave so badly, I’ll leave you—I’ll leave you!” “Ah! After all the suffering you’ve put me through—it’s unbearable!” “If we separate, I’ll hang myself and die.” “Do you have any idea how I felt—what I did—when you weren’t there?” “You’d be better off throwing yourself under a train than hanging yourself.”

Yamada said for no particular reason. “As if I’d die by something like a train! I’ll hang myself no matter what.” “After you weren’t there… what I did…” “If you’re so desperate to hang yourself, then go right ahead. Of course I don’t know a thing about what you did while I was away.” “I tried to die, you know.” “Oh, I see.” “But you’re still alive, aren’t you?” “Don’t mock me.” “I was serious about dying.” “Ah… I should have died back then.”

Mitsuko writhed as if in agony while wiping her tears with the back of her hand. Yamada had grown weary of it all and, moreover, had begun recalling Tsuji again earlier, so he fell silent. "What foolishness," he muttered, as if observing from the sidelines his own self quarreling with Mitsuko. He grabbed Mitsuko's hands—which were trying to push him away—with one hand, forced his way into the futon, and pulled it over himself. Then, letting out a big yawn,

“Let’s continue this fight tomorrow—I’m too sleepy tonight.”

With that, he closed his eyes. He truly felt an intense drowsiness coming over him. “As if I’d sleep! As if I’d sleep!”

As she said this, she tried to push Yamada out of the futon. However, when she pushed Yamada with all her strength, he didn’t budge an inch—instead her own body recoiled backward, which only infuriated her more. Then wrapping her arms around Yamada’s neck, she began squeezing with all her might. Yamada kept his eyes tightly closed and chased after the successive images of Tsuji that surfaced in his mind. When he recalled the dimly lit desolation of the station where Tsuji had collapsed, he felt an inexplicable pang of desolation. Tsuji was dead—but I’m alive—though which was better he couldn’t say—and I who live on must continue this wretched existence for years and years to come—he thought in Tsuji’s characteristic tone. But there was no other way but to endure—simply endure silently... At any rate—endure silently... Even that alone was no ordinary feat—and perhaps simply enduring through it all was itself noble... Tsuji had called such things foolish before dying (undoubtedly he couldn’t abandon those words no matter how he phrased them)—yet now even lying still... might still be noble... It had been my... As Tsuji said—I had indeed seen my own fateful form as an individual—yet that alone could never be... the entirety of it... Still... To simply endure that... To endure my personal fate—that had been the most correct path... Had I not... Had I not... The present... might have been different—no—even if unchanged there would surely have been more of those... Through... society had undoubtedly become that... Though all that belongs to the past now... With nothing else remaining— When he had thought that far—a phrase flashed through some corner of his mind: Could there be a compromise? But—

“Shut up!” Yamada snarled at Mitsuko.

he snarled at Mitsuko. “Wh-what’s all this noise about?”

“Shut up, you idiot!” Yamada suppressed the fierce anger welling up inside him as he—

“Shut up and sleep!” “As if I’d sleep! As if I’d sleep!”

Mitsuko, who had lain down once more, sprang up and sat. "I'll hit you."

Yamada’s voice involuntarily grew harsh.

“Hit me, hit me! “Oh, how infuriating!” At that moment, Yamada suddenly recalled Tsuji’s sneering face; a burning sensation filled his chest, and his palm shot out in a slap. Mitsuko let out a wail and lunged at him. Yamada abruptly sat up, wrapped his arm around the woman’s neck with force, and yanked her close. Mitsuko thrashed her legs wildly as she writhed. With emotions tangled between rage and twisted affection, Yamada tightened his grip around her neck fiercely. In that instant, Mitsuko tilted her face upward toward Yamada’s and forced something like a smile onto her cheeks—but terror suddenly flashed across her features as she gasped “Ugh… ugh…” and struggled violently. At the grotesque blend of hatred and tenderness twisting Yamada’s expression, she shuddered. No tears remained in her eyes now. Her face had stiffened into pure dread. Frantic, she clawed at the arm constricting her throat, but Yamada’s limb stayed rigid as hemp rope. Gradually, her body began going limp as strength drained away.

Yamada released his arm as if electrified,

“Mitsuko, Mitsuko.”

he shouted and shook her shoulders. For an instant, Mitsuko stared vacantly at Yamada with a dazed expression, then suddenly recoiled about a foot back as if struck, buried her face in the futon, and began weeping soundlessly. Yamada, while looking at his wife, thought it was impossible to explain his current feelings to her and make her understand. He felt a bleak desolation and found himself wanting to cry. He pulled her close in silence,

“Go to sleep.”

he whispered, then pulled the futon over his own head. He felt tears threatening to spill. If I don't cry now, I'll never be able to cry again in my life—such thoughts rose unbidden in his mind as he waited for his sorrow to crest like an inevitable wave.

――April 23, 1937――