Pathway to Japanese Literature

About three months after being admitted to this hospital, Utsu was asked if he would become the caretaker of the animals that the hospital kept for experimental purposes. Though called a hospital, this place—accommodating nearly fifteen hundred patients and even permitting marriages among them—was fully a special community. Within its grounds were laborers, female workers, and children who darted about like young sprouts; for those children, even a school had been established. The patients too—perhaps wanting to escape the agony of spending each day vaguely watching their own bodies decay—were zealous in their work, and those with mild symptoms continued even strenuous labor. Their daily pocket money naturally arose from this work, and when dawn broke, they would set off to their respective posts. Amidst this, since Utsu had not yet belonged to any occupation, he agreed to the request to become the caretaker. Of course, this too was one of the jobs, and five sen per day was provided. Utsu was by nature an introverted man, and having only recently been hospitalized, he had not yet fully accustomed himself to his illness; he wore an expression of deep anguish at all times and was often tormented by his thoughts. Moreover, everything was communal living, and he was truly overwhelmed by the disorder of six people each living their own lives in a spacious twelve-and-a-half-mat room. For someone like him, being an animal caretaker was the perfect role, and the fact that he would be given his own room was extremely convenient.

The animal shed stood behind the L-shaped Wards 3 and 4—a dimly lit place where damp, humid air lingered all day long. At times, he felt as though he had entered a cave, and bluish moss crept across the ground. Originally built within Musashino’s distinctive mixed forests after land reclamation, this hospital still retained traces of its remote desolation. To prevent patient escapes, a tall holly fence encircled the entire compound; beyond it stretched Musashino’s flat mountains. Around the shed grew pines, chestnuts, cypresses, and assorted trees splitting through moss-covered earth. Among them rose two pines behind the shed—called “husband-and-wife pines”—each trunk three arm spans thick. Their branches surged skyward in umbrella-like spreads, engulfing the roof as though cradling the shed. Fallen leaves lay heaped on the roof—thick and swollen—so that sunlight only occasionally pierced through like silver threads into the interior. Utsu’s room too lay within this shed, where foul odors from animal waste perpetually pooled. It was nearly akin to sharing bedding with beasts—an ordeal he initially found unbearable—yet he deemed it more tolerable than the putrid stench of pus wafting from severe wards.

The animals were monkeys, goats, guinea pigs, white mice, and rabbits—as for special cases, three white mice afflicted with rat leprosy were kept in a special box. Feeding these animals and cleaning their enclosures two or three times a month were his duties. Consequently, he had much free time, but since he had no particular friends to speak of, he would typically spend his days reading or gazing at the small bodies of the white mice—their faces swollen and puffy from illness, deep anguish etched into their features—as they picked up grains of rice one by one to eat. When the day began to darken and the surrounding forest started to grow dusky, he would go out for a walk and wander through the forest for a long time. At such times, he completely forgot about the animals. He earnestly observed the animals and discovered various things about them, but he never once felt any affection or joy toward them.

Going around to the back of the shed and walking a short distance, there was a prison cell. It was a red brick building, resembling a small box. It resembled a kiln for firing pottery, and when he first saw it, he had been intensely suspicious of what it could possibly be.

“No matter what world we go to, can humans and prisons never be separated?” When he realized it was a prison cell, he muttered those words. It was because he had recalled a friend serving time in a prison under general society’s laws—not this small abnormal community’s detention cell. The hospital grounds were peaceful, with no crimes worth mentioning. Consequently, the prison cells often stood empty. Even when Utsu occasionally heard shrill women’s wails from the cells during his walks, they were generally nothing more than failed escapees or adulteresses who had stolen another’s husband. Until meeting the mysterious old man Maki, Utsu too had experienced nothing that stirred emotional ripples. The appearance of the two L-shaped wards had also become familiar to him. At night, when light streaming from the wards brightly penetrated even into the shed’s interior—casting leaf shadows across tatami mats—he found it beautiful and would gaze endlessly. Inside the wards swarmed severely ill patients—a complete world of divine punishment disease. Following the light’s path with his eyes, he could see their upper bodies through glass windows. Patients with heads wrapped in spiraling white bandages; completely bald, smooth-shaven blind men groping eerily through empty space—they appeared close enough to touch. Yet he no longer felt the terror of his early hospitalization days. During those first days after admission, he had felt cast into a native tribe on some desolate island—or perhaps an even more grotesque haunted mansion. He simply couldn’t believe this was humanity’s world. Whether turning right or left—only people resembling crumbling clay dolls surrounded him. He alone seemed to sink into profound loneliness, desperately struggling to find normal humans while flailing against despair. When idling through hospital grounds, if someone approached from ahead—he would watch them intently with fierce excitement. But as they drew nearer—when bandaged legs became visible or faces swollen like rotten pears glared piercingly—his strength drained instantly, leaving him withered. Conversely, if a nurse’s white figure flickered unexpectedly through trees—relief would flood him before he noticed himself already stepping toward her. Utsu—while accepting his leprosy—remained long tormented by his heart’s contradiction: an inability to treat himself as merely another patient.

It was around midnight, about ten days after he had come to the animal shed, that he met Old Man Maki. That day, after finishing feeding the animals their evening meal, he immediately crawled into bed and fell asleep, but a nightmare startled him awake. And no matter how much he tried to sleep, his eyes only grew more alert. Reluctantly, he got up, left the shed, and wandered off toward the orchard. Fortunately, since the moon was out, his footing was bright; when he gazed into the distance, even the hazy beauty of vast Musashino could be glimpsed. The peach grove crouched dusky as if pressing foreheads to the ground; beneath them floated a moon round and large like a balloon lamp, its faint light casting Utsu’s shadow. As Utsu walked, his shadow chased after him along the crawling earth. When Utsu noticed his shadow clinging so tightly to the ground beneath him, he began feeling as though his body were gradually floating upward—a sensation he couldn’t shake. Then came that intense uncanny anxiety again—he found himself unable to take another step. Here again—he muttered—and took a deep breath. He wasn’t particularly startled; this anxiety had visited him many times before. But its sudden emergence defied prediction—whenever it surged up like this, he became completely immobilized—terribly vulnerable. He had interpreted this himself: his fear of disease must resonate with death itself. The anxiety clung like a persistent demon—each time bringing fresh dread that he might be going mad. At such moments he would gulp air until his chest strained full—then exhale sharply with a *Hah! Hah!* at breath’s breaking point. He took another deep breath until his chest tightened taut—and just as he tried exhaling with a sharp *Hah!*—

“Mr. Kareno.”

The voice calling out had come so suddenly from right beside him that, startled, his breath escaped before he could make a sound. “Isn’t this Mr. Kareno?”

At a distance of only two or three ken away, he spoke again this time. Utsu was startled to realize for the first time that there was a person so close to him—and moreover, that they were calling out to him.

“No.” he responded hastily. The man approached Utsu as if peering through the moonlight,

“I must apologize,” he said quietly, then asked, “Who are you?” His voice carried a subdued tone with an unaffected dignity. Utsu immediately sensed he was an old man. Beneath the moon’s pale light, darkness flowed thickly, making it impossible to clearly discern what kind of man stood before him—yet Utsu sensed it all the same. However, having never before heard such deeply refined words imbued with lingering emotion, Utsu felt struck to the core as he wondered who this man could be.

“I am Utsu.”

After a brief pause, when he answered like that,

“Utsu?”

As he parroted flatly, again,

“I see.” “Utsu?” “Utsu?”

With an air of deep contemplation, he repeated it. This fellow’s strange, Utsu thought as he... “Do you know me?” he asked. “No, no.” flustered, he strongly denied, “I am Maki—”

“Ah.” While replying, Utsu inferred that there must be something in the old man’s past related to the proper noun “Utsu,” and that associations arising from it were surfacing in his mind. “When were you admitted to the hospital?” “It’s still only been about three months since I was admitted. Please treat me kindly.”

“Oh, is that so?”

As he said this, Old Man Maki began walking off bit by bit, so Utsu followed and walked along with him. While carefully observing Old Man Maki, Utsu could not help but wonder why he was wandering around in the middle of the night like this. Old Man Maki asked about the severity of his illness and encouraged him by saying that if he focused earnestly on treatment, he should be able to be discharged eventually, so there was no need to worry. “Are there people who make a full recovery?”

When he asked this, Old Man Maki seemed to ponder something for a moment,

“Well, when asked that way—it’s rather difficult to answer… We here at this hospital use the term ‘stabilize.’ While we cannot fully eliminate the pathogenic bacteria, we can render them dormant.” He went on: “The leprosy bacillus resembles tuberculosis bacteria—rod-shaped organisms. Through chaulmoogra oil injections—as I’ve heard from our doctors—they fragment and perish under microscopic observation. For a mild case like yours,” he leaned forward slightly, “devotion to treatment now is paramount. Moderation in all things—that alone constitutes proper convalescence.” His voice sharpened like a scalpel’s edge. “Adhere strictly to this regimen,” he concluded with military finality, “and leprosy becomes no more fearsome than a paper tiger.”

Since his hospitalization, Utsu had already been comforted and encouraged countless times with these same words, so not only did he feel little joy at this speech, but the sharpness in the old man’s tone made him wonder what sort of past this man could have had—and preoccupied by this, he strained every nerve to grasp the essence before him. Perhaps feeling the pleasure of being considerate toward so-called new patients, Old Man Maki continued telling Utsu about the hospital’s systems and the general disposition of the patients, and finally asked whether he was currently engaged in any work.

“I work as the caretaker of the animal shed.”

When he answered, “I see. That place has poor air, so take care with your chest.” “You can’t afford to burden yourself with lung disease on top of that.” “In this hospital, there are quite a few people suffering from both leprosy and lung disease—a wretched thing indeed.” “Just the other day, a man imprisoned in the cell behind your shed—one who tried escaping here with a woman—coughed up so much blood he dyed the cell crimson before dying.”

As Utsu listened to the old man’s words, he pictured the prison cell resembling a furnace and felt deep anxiety and terror, convinced that this hospital still harbored unimaginable horrors beyond human capacity. To the dimly lit room of the animal shed—where until now no one but Utsu had been present—Old Man Maki began visiting from time to time. As Utsu mixed tofu lees with leftover food to prepare the animals’ feed, the old man would come diligently over, watching how he worked and sometimes even lending a hand. At this figure they had never seen before, the monkeys clung to the iron mesh and let out shrill shrieks, causing quite a commotion at first. But as they gradually grew accustomed, Old Man Maki began sneaking sweet dried confections into his pocket and letting the monkeys grasp them. Yet what Old Man Maki cherished most was a small white mouse; whenever he saw it grabbing rice grains one by one with its front paws like red coral and eating them, he would rejoice as if making a marvelous discovery. When he saw a mouse afflicted with leprosy, he would generally frown and avoid approaching it.

While carefully observing Old Man Maki, Utsu discovered a kind of dignity—evident in each casual gesture he made and every fragment of his speech—that convinced him the old man’s past life could never have been vulgar. The contours of his face had of course been distorted by disease, yet even there something inviolable could still be perceived. According to the old man’s account, he had already been hospitalized for ten years; at admission time nodules had covered his entire face, which had also become grotesquely swollen, but now the nodules had completely disappeared and the swelling had receded cleanly, just as it had been during his healthy days. Naturally, being a wet-type case meant all his eyebrows had fallen out, but to Utsu—now thoroughly accustomed—this never struck him as particularly strange.

When their work was done, the two of them would sit facing each other in the dim room and slowly drink tea.

“I’ve been a tea devotee since birth—truth be told, when I’m worn out, I can’t bring myself to skip savoring a cup.”

With a faint smile on his face, the old man said this and taught Utsu the proper method of preparing tea. As their interactions deepened, Utsu gradually developed a profound interest in this old man while simultaneously coming to deeply respect him. And as dusk approached, watching the old man’s retreating figure walk away with quiet footsteps, he found himself wondering what manner of person this could be. He still did not know which ward the old man resided in, so one day he resolved to ask. Then, because that answer proved far too unexpected, he was utterly stunned.

“I reside in Ward 10.” The old man said this in a thin voice and made a dark expression. Ward 10 was this hospital’s special ward, a ward for idiots and lunatics.

Utsu observed Old Man Maki quite carefully, but nowhere could he detect any traces of madness. Yet he could not even conceive of him being an idiot. His dignified tone and gentle demeanor made such notions completely unimaginable. In that case, he must surely be working as an attendant, he thought. Attending was one of the hospital’s assigned tasks, offering a daily stipend of ten sen and performed by those with milder symptoms. Yet Old Man Maki was no attendant—he remained one of the psychiatric patients. When Utsu ventured, “Attendant work must be quite trying,” the old man rapped his own head rhythmically and,

“It’s this, you see.”

Having said that, he clouded his face with a lonely expression and silently walked away. So even that was still a madman? he wondered, as if realizing it only now—within those calm yet heavy words and composed actions, he sensed an uncanny unease. And recalling the circumstances of his first meeting with the old man, he now realized there had been something abnormal about wandering such a place in the dead of night.

It was on a certain evening about a month later that Utsu realized this old man had been an army captain. That day, he visited Old Man Maki’s room for the first time.

Ward 10 stood quite apart from the other wards at the northernmost edge of the hospital, with a small pond lying immediately nearby. Though the word "pond" might conjure images of clear water, this was a murky swamp encircled by wire mesh sturdily woven from wire as thick as number-8 gauge. This served of course as suicide prevention—over the years, a considerable number had plunged their heads into this muddy bog to die. The other wards each contained two rooms per building with twenty beds lined up per room, but Ward 10 had a long central corridor running through it with five rooms on either side—ten in total—the only ones with traditional Japanese tatami mats. Each six-tatami room housed two patients until their madness erupted, at which point they were confined to detention cells. Those called lunatics were mostly severe anxiety cases, many others plagued by persecutory delusions. Beyond these existed idiots and epileptics, women gripped by extreme hysteria, and every manner of afflicted soul.

Walking for the first time down the corridor polished to a shine by the attendants’ hands, Utsu felt a strange sense of wonder at the silence and quiet air—more profound than he had imagined—but at the same time, he felt a fear as though something eerie lurked beneath the surface. The shadows of the gradually deepening dusk crept in, the air there dimmed hazily, and in the distance of the long corridor—appearing tapered into a conical shape and darkly soaked—the outlines of things blurred. Each time he took a step, the air seemed to sway faintly, and he couldn’t help worrying that a lunatic might suddenly leap at him from behind like a wounded boar. Having failed to ask which room was Old Man Maki’s, he stood pacing back and forth in the corridor, stealing sidelong glances through the slightly open doors of rooms or thinking that if someone would just come out soon, he could inquire—but as he took a few steps this way and that, a beautiful woman’s singing voice drifted out from a room immediately to his right. Utsu stopped and listened intently to the beautiful singing voice, murmuring “hmm” in admiration, when it occurred to him that it might be a Korean woman. The song was Arirang, skillfully sung in its original language. As the song spread throughout the ward, suddenly, at the far end of the corridor where it dead-ended, a shoji door slid open, and a man drifted out from within. Utsu, who had been feeling the awkwardness of someone wandering through an empty house for the first time, felt momentary relief, only to tense his nerves at the thought that the man might be an idiot or a lunatic as he stared at him. He wore the hospital’s regulation vertical-striped straight-sleeved garment and had fastened a belt twisted like rope. A man who appeared to weigh twenty-four kan, his body swollen and corpulent, swayed unsteadily toward Utsu as if carried by air currents; when he drew near, he abruptly halted and stared vacantly at him. He intuitively thought, *An idiot*, but decided to ask anyway,

“Good day.” With that, he tried greeting him. Then, the man said “Haa” and kept staring at the space above Utsu’s head. “Where might Mr. Maki’s room be?” When he asked, “Haa.”

“Haa.” Having said that, he was still staring at the same spot. Utsu forced a bitter smile as he thought, *This has turned into quite a predicament*—when the man began humming a fragment of a popular song in a thin, woman-like voice that sharply contrasted with his thick body. Utsu involuntarily smiled and listened intently when, suddenly, the man stopped singing and went outside while muttering something under his breath. Just then, an attendant arrived, so he asked them and finally entered the old man’s room. The old man was not there, but since the attendant said he would likely return soon, he decided to wait for him.

The room was six-tatami in size, and aside from Old Man Maki, there was supposed to be another person there as well, but that man was also absent. The tatami mats were fairly new, still retaining a faint bluish tint, but here and there were tears and dark reddish-brown stains soaked with blood. The walls were whitewashed, but there were cracks and marks that appeared to have been violently struck with fists. There were also scratches from nails and sections where the wall plaster had crumbled away from objects being slammed against it, giving the room an air befitting a madman’s. He wondered whether that gentle old man could have done such things, but concluded it must have been the other man who lived with him. When he thought about just what kind of man could be living there, he began to feel a slight unease.

On the south side was a glass window, beneath which sat a small desk. On the desk lay a single scroll and a stately inkstone box, blackened with a subdued luster, and a serene and composed atmosphere seized his heart. But what caught his attention most was a single photograph lying beside the scroll—a soldier, unseen within these hospital grounds, seated in a chair with a command sword before him. Utsu gazed at it, his curiosity intensely stirred. From the shoulder insignia, it was immediately clear he was a captain. Undoubtedly, it was none other than the old man in his youth. The stern thick eyebrows, the imposing sturdiness of his beard—the disparity between Mr. Maki as seen in this photograph and the old man now was vast. Yet there remained a faint resemblance in his facial features, like tracing a childhood memory.

“Hmm.” Muttering this, Utsu gazed intently at the photograph. At that moment, he abruptly recalled his father—a military man like the old man, also a captain. As a child, he had heard countless firsthand accounts of the Russo-Japanese War from him. Now it occurred to Utsu that Old Man Maki might have been a warrior who fought alongside his father in Northern Manchuria’s wilderness. When Maki had first heard the name “Utsu,” he had muttered “Utsu… Utsu?” while sinking into thought—this memory resurfaced vividly now. *This has become something serious,* Utsu murmured inwardly. He felt an anxiety as though standing alone before some immense, fateful presence, yet also an anticipation that he would inevitably encounter something new.

As Utsu lost himself in the thoughts that kept welling up in his mind, suddenly, a dull, heavy thud reverberated, followed by the clattering sound of footsteps racing down the corridor— “They’ve done it again!” came the shout. Then, the glass doors of each room rattled open, and the surroundings began to grow tumultuous. Wondering what had happened, Utsu opened the entrance a crack and peered into the corridor. The corpulent imbecile he had first met upon entering here had collapsed onto his back, spewing copious foam from his mouth, his eyes staring vacantly into space. That was likely the man who had run down the corridor earlier, bending over from above and desperately holding him down. Of course, he realized at a glance that it was epilepsy. The people who came rushing out from their rooms surrounded the imbecile and began chattering all at once. There were two women and five men, but every one of them had faces grotesquely contorted—whether from the deranged atmosphere or not—forming a hair-raisingly sinister group. Moreover, when he thought that these were all people who could go mad at any moment in some unpredictable way, he grew queasy, began to feel it would be better to return while there was still daylight, stood up, and took a step out into the corridor. Then, at that moment, the beautiful Arirang song could be heard once again. The singing voice was not particularly loud, but even so, without being drowned out by the people’s clamor, it flowed all around. As if it were gradually cleansing this rotting world, Utsu stopped and listened intently to it. At that moment, when the front suddenly grew noisy, a man—likely a madman—appeared at the entrance, bellowing something like a song in an overwhelmingly loud voice. The center of his head was completely bald, with only sparse tufts of hair growing around the edges. As the surrounding hair trailed down his cheeks to his chin, there hung a magnificent beard—flowing down in waves that looked nearly ten inches long. His entire face was thickly covered in hair, yet paradoxically devoid of eyebrows, lending him an unnervingly sinister appearance. Glistening his extensively bald head, he charged down the corridor with tremendous force, shoved aside the crowd surrounding the epileptic man and thrust himself into their midst, then suddenly bellowed in a voice thick enough to shatter one’s courage:

“Sakurai’s epileptic bastard!” he bellowed. Then, with a hoarse voice, he burst into laughter as if something were unbearably funny. Once he started laughing, it seemed he couldn’t stop even if he tried, continuing at the same pitch for a long time. But after a while—as if a rope had snapped—his laughter ceased abruptly. He fixed his eyes sharply on empty space, his features tensing into a severe expression as though deep in thought. Then, with a heavy droop of his head, he entered Utsu’s room in solemn silence.

“Who are you? Here for Maki?” Despite his solemn expression, he said in a sharp tone, then sat down heavily while stroking his beard as if deep in thought. With a chill creeping into his heart, Utsu— “Well, I’m waiting for him.”

he replied and looked at the man. He must be about sixty-two or sixty-three by now. He was likely the same age as Old Man Maki, or perhaps three or four years younger. However, his jet-black beard—without a single strand of white hair mixed in—was truly magnificent. The shiny part of his head was sharply pointed, and there bore a nodule scar the size of a one-sen copper coin. That area alone had turned a dark purple-black, as if ink or something had been smeared on it. The man gazed at Utsu for a while, but— “When did you come to this hospital?”

he asked. “It has been nearly five months.” When he said this, “Hmm.” he was thinking deeply about something, but— “All that has form shall be destroyed; all that lives shall perish; the inevitable extinction of living beings is the work of heaven, earth, and great nature.” Having declared this with bated breath while fixing Utsu with an intense gaze, he suddenly burst into laughter again with the same hoarse voice as before. But immediately, his expression turned serious again, “To begin with, the disease called leprosy has since ancient times been referred to as the heaven-sent punishment disease—it is divine retribution!” “It won’t heal—it absolutely won’t heal!”

Having declared this with a tone of brisk finality, he burst into laughter once more. “Modern medicine says it can’t be healed.” “But I’ll heal it.” “Since it’s actually healing right now, there’s nothing to be done about it.” His eyes gleaming, he peered into Utsu as he said this. “How can I be healed?” While Utsu thought this poor man had been driven utterly mad by his illness, he nevertheless found himself stirred by curiosity at the spectacle of that beard and tentatively posed the question.

“First, two characters: ‘faith.’” “Take refuge in Buddhism.” Having declared this with such conviction that not even a tremor seemed possible, he then spent considerable time expounding on Buddhism with astonishing erudition, urging Utsu to adopt a religion without fail. “In that case, I’ll follow your lead and try it.” When he said this, “Good, good.” Repeating this several times, the man brought over a tea set, then retrieved a rock-hard yōkan from the closet—likely bought over a week prior—and tossed it before Utsu, telling him to eat without hesitation. He then put a piece in his own mouth and began chewing noisily. Feeling it rude to refuse, Utsu tentatively bit into a piece, the hardened yōkan crunching audibly. The man watched him with satisfaction, then suddenly stood as if struck by inspiration, pulled out a hammer roughly the size of an envelope from the closet, and began rapidly chanting a sutra passage. As Utsu watched warily, suspecting some absurdity, the man hurriedly stripped off his clothes, sat before him clad only in a loincloth, propped up his kneecap, and started pounding it with dull thuds. When his kneecap reddened painfully, the man intensified his hammer blows while chanting the sutra louder. After striking it at length, he stopped and began massaging the spot with both palms, groaning “unh-unh.” As sweat glistened across his body, he exhaled deeply and turned his gaze toward Utsu,

“You must want to cure your illness as well, but if that’s the case, then do as I do,” he said, rubbing his knee with even greater force than before. “Nothing is as unreliable as modern science! Medicine divides leprosy into three types—maculous, nervous, and nodular—and administers chaulmoogra oil injections, but I cannot endorse this classification. To treat it as a mere skin disease is downright laughable! First and foremost—where in the human body does the leprosy bacillus reside? Doctors collect nasal discharge and earlobe blood from hospitalized patients. Sure, maybe one or two lurk there, but the truth is—they’re inside the bones! The bacilli build nests within the bones! That’s why I strike my kneecap like this—this spot harbors the largest swarm of bacilli in the entire skeletal system! There must be about five nests of bacilli here! When you strike it, the heat and violent vibrations make the damned bacilli panic and crawl out to the bone’s surface. That’s how nodules form! The hammering creates nodules! ‘Then why endure such pain to create nodules?’ you ask? Because there’s a method to remove them immediately! “At this hospital, they call it ‘nodule injections’—shooting chaulmoogra oil into the nodules—but that’s sheer idiocy! No one realizes that injecting just drives the bacilli that finally surfaced right back into the bones! Injections are utterly useless for removing nodules! Scrubbing with a hemp palm works best—scrape them clean! Look at my head—see the scar from a nodule? This is the mark left by my scrubbing therapy!” he declared, spittle flying from his mouth as he smoothly stroked his bald scalp. Utsu burst out laughing despite himself, yet at the same time felt something uneasy deep in his heart and even a desire to resist. The trust in medicine within him seemed on the verge of crumbling away so easily.

“But scrubbing with a hemp palm must be unbearably painful.” Keeping his complex inner turmoil submerged within his heart, he smiled and said so, “Nah—it’s paralyzed, so I don’t feel a thing.” Having said that, he burst into his usual dry, hollow laughter. Utsu felt a sudden chill run down his spine at the word “paralysis,” and he found himself wishing Old Man Maki would return soon. Paralysis—to simply call it that would be one thing—but the terror of a part of one’s living body losing sensation like a withered tree and gradually rotting away grows ever more strange, an eerie, sickening dread the more one dwells on it. Moreover, when one heard people’s accounts—how today someone had a leg amputated, how another left an arm in the surgical room—the very person being cut would, even as doctors sweated and dragged sharp saws grating through their limbs, calmly hum a snatch of song and feign indifference, or so it was said. And this was by no means someone else’s affair but a fact that directly followed oneself, with nothing between them but time. Since coming to this hospital, I had been comforted by people many times, but those words invariably contained—

“You’re still in the mild stages, after all.”

“You’re still in the mild stages” they’d said to reassure me, but nothing chilled me more thoroughly than those very words. Yet they were undeniably the most precise assessment possible. Utsu was staring at the man’s beard with leaden despair when the madman abruptly stood and began circling the room like one possessed, clad only in his loincloth. “What’s wrong?” Utsu asked. “The madness is taking hold again.” The words came in a rush, cut short as the man began roaring “Namu Amida Butsu! Namu Amida Butsu!” with earthshaking volume. Utsu was sinking into helpless dismay at this escalating chaos when salvation arrived—Old Man Maki returned through sheer providence.

According to Old Man Maki’s account, this Bearded Man had apparently been involved with something like a political party or similar activities in the past. Upon hospitalization, he maintained an intense silence, making the daily worship of Buddha his sole occupation. However, around five or six months in, his mental state began to show abnormalities. And with his face growing terribly grim, “I too have come to this hospital room tormented by obsessive thoughts, but that man was much the same way at first.” And he spoke of how the Bearded Man had been confined to the detention cell numerous times; how the leprosy bacilli were perceived as if they were maggots or something similar that one could touch with a finger, provoking rage and terror as they ceaselessly rotted away his flesh; and how even within the cell, he would erupt into violence two or three times a day, hurling his body against the walls and clawing at his entire being.

“What an utterly wretched reality this is. The enemy dwells within one’s own body, following wherever one goes.” “To kill it, I too must die.” “I too must die.” “I too sometimes feel the urge to douse my head in sulfuric acid and annihilate all the pathogenic bacteria,” Utsu tried to voice a point he found relatable, but at that moment he realized he was sharing the same psychological state as the loincloth-clad bearded man and fell silent, seized by profound unease.

After Utsu visited Ward 10, for some time, the old man did not come to visit the shed. Utsu went about tending to the animals as usual while wondering what on earth the old man was up to, worrying about him whom he had not seen for some time, and even considering whether he should pay him another visit himself. The inside of the shed was dim as usual, and a small monkey—its belly cut open two or three days prior and fresh nodules from a patient implanted into it—let out a scream that seemed to squeeze the heart, making the area even more gloomy. And during the time before the old man came here again, there was one episode that lingered in Utsu’s mind.

It was around midnight when Utsu suddenly awoke to a man’s rough shouts and a woman’s anguished scream coming from near the prison cells at the rear. Simultaneously—perhaps from a cell being opened—the sound of a door echoed through. Suspicious, Utsu grabbed his sandals and went outside to look. The surroundings were dark, with only wind flowing high through old pine treetops creating rustling sounds. Before the prison cell, a small night light burned faintly bright within the enveloping darkness. In that circle of light, a man in black clothes—camouflaged like a hawk—dragged a young woman into the cell with another man’s help. The man in black was the supervisor who ceaselessly monitored patients within this hospital compound. Utsu held his breath, concealed himself under pine shadows, and watched with rapt fascination as though viewing a phantasmal film screen. They must have been struggling; the gaudy stripes of her kimono flapped visibly even at night. Soon she vanished inside, and the thick door resoundingly sealed the entrance. The men in black exchanged knowing grins before dissolving into darkness, leaving only silence and that door standing resolute under dim light. Utsu emerged from the pines and approached the cell. Low, forceful sobs hiccuped out from within. He stood before the door listening to the weeping inside, gradually wanting to address her—she must be that failed escapee’s partner—but finding no suitable words, he turned to leave when—

“Hey!” A man’s voice rang out from inside the cell, startling him so much he froze in place. Thinking the man must have been confined there earlier, he strained his ears, wondering if this might be some message meant for him. Just as he nearly called back, the woman’s sobs cut off abruptly. Then came the faint murmur of a man and woman conversing. At that moment, he heard crisp footsteps approaching—clack, clack—and realized the Supervisor was on patrol nearby. He hurried back to the shed.

Of this pair of would-be escapees, the man was expelled the very next day after receiving his discharge disposition, but the woman was confined to the prison cell for five days before being released. But after several days had passed, the woman’s body was found hanging dead from a pine branch. She had likely been carrying a child. This minor incident left a nightmare-like impression on Utsu’s heart. He continued living with the animals as before, yet at times the events that had unfolded within that small circle of light would vividly resurface in his mind, tormenting him. Each time, he felt a pitch-black thing—neither quite anxiety nor fear—welling up to assail his heart. He couldn’t help finding it strange—why did it now assail his heart so violently when he had been surprisingly calm back then? Whenever he wondered if this might remain as a lifelong stain on his heart, his spirit naturally grew more despondent.

The guinea pigs were placed one to a box, their containers stacked facing those of the rabbits. The space between narrowed slightly like a valley, its width no more than three shaku. Utsu moved back and forth through that dimly lit space time and again, giving them their feed. The animals pounced and devoured their food as though they couldn’t wait. Utsu did not feel much interest even in their voracious appetite. The red rabbit’s eyes occasionally glinted sharply depending on the light. The guinea pigs’ eyes displayed dramatic shifts in color with even the slightest change in light or the subtlest movement in viewing angle. Indeed, even Utsu had long been astonished by the complexity of the guinea pigs’ eye color changes. They shifted into crystalline sky-blue, lush grape-purple, ominous dark violet, and every other conceivable color before his eyes. However, perhaps because they belonged to living creatures, these were not natural hues of beauty but rather possessed a disturbingly sharp quality. At times, Utsu would feel a deep terror, as though his entire body had been pierced through by those eyes, and he would begin to feel as though his entire body were surrounded by ferocious beasts, prompting him to hold his breath and hurry outside. He simply could not bring himself to grow accustomed to the animals. The other day, a baby monkey had a thin piece of rope—likely tossed in by someone without Utsu’s knowledge—wrapped around its ankle, screeching in distress. When he crouched before its box to remove it, the monkey suddenly thrust its arm through the wire mesh and yanked Utsu’s long hair. He nearly let out a scream in surprise and jumped back, but his heart pounded violently for a long time. Today as well, while moving back and forth countless times, terror once again began filling his entire body, and scenes from a beast film he had seen long ago rose in his mind, so he hurried outside. But he immediately went back inside. It was because he had strongly come to think of himself as someone who could die at any time now. If that’s the case, why not just die now? He idly thought this and looked up. Spotting a beam suitable for hanging a rope, he climbed onto the rabbit box and reached out his hand. His heart swelled with a strange excitement, and he grinned repeatedly. Then, he slowly untied his sash and hung it over the beam.

He tested it by pulling two or three times—it was sturdy enough that even ten people hanging themselves at once would pose no issue. If I just tie my neck to this and jump down… Hmm, dying turns out to be surprisingly simple. Then I don’t need to feel so burdened by life anymore. Having come this far and remained calm, I must be ready to die anytime—this thought brought him relief. But then he realized there was no need to rush into death, so he retied his sash and climbed down. At that very moment,

“Utsu-san.” When he heard Old Man Maki’s voice calling out, he hurried outside— “I really thought you were going to do it.” The old man said with a faint smile; So he saw everything, Utsu thought as he— “Oh, I was just testing it out.” “Hahaha, is that so? Just testing, then.” “How about it? Does it seem feasible?”

“I get the feeling that it might be unexpectedly easy to manage.” “Hmm.” When he nodded deeply and became lost in thought, “Why do you intend to keep living?”

he said abruptly and sharply, staring at Utsu’s face. At such moments, a glimpse of the old man’s former military bearing would surface. Utsu sensed this immediately yet hesitated over how to respond. It had been a question he had kept pondering for some time now. He thought that his sensory acuity stemmed from trying to find within objects something that might resolve this problem—that the keener his senses grew, the more urgent and strained became the space between object and self, like something balanced on a taut line stretched between two points, precariously maintaining itself where the slightest slack would send it plummeting.

“I’ve been searching for quite some time now, but I still haven’t found an attitude toward living.” Old Man Maki nodded deeply and pondered at length before gradually making his way into Utsu’s room. “Please try some tea.” He spoke in a quiet, somewhat desolate voice as he sat down. He appeared utterly exhausted. Though there could naturally be no proper tea ceremony here, Utsu still meticulously adjusted the water temperature and brew strength before offering it to the old man. Old Man Maki lightly touched his tongue to the tea and tasted it while lost in thought,

“Sakurai has died,” he said. “Oh… That person with epilepsy?” “You know the bearded man in my room, don’t you? He got into a fight with him, you see. In a fit of anger, he jumped into the well.” Their conversations had always been prone to lulls, often leaving them sitting face-to-face in silence while each contemplated separate matters. Today too, having spoken that far, the words died away. The old man turned his eyes to the window and gazed at a puppy frolicking in the woods—now scampering about in short steps, now suddenly breaking into a run. After a while, he stared intently at Utsu’s forehead,

“This may be a strange question, but is your father in good health?” “Ah.” When he answered, “I’ve been wanting to ask you something for some time—could it be that your father is Mr. Hikosaburo, who served in the Russo-Japanese War?” “Ah… That’s correct. How do you know that?” “Hmm.” The old man groaned out those words and began to stare intently at Utsu’s face.

“You’re the spitting image. That forehead of yours—it’s exactly the same.”

Utsu, his heart fiercely struck by something profoundly fateful, thought of how his forehead alone had not yet been infiltrated by the disease—and suddenly it began to itch. As he raised his hand, the old man marveled all the more, “Hmm, hmm,”

“That gesture—that gesture. “Everything about you—it’s all exactly the same.” “Did you know my father?” “Not only did I know him—we were close friends who served together in General Nogi’s army during the Russo-Japanese War.” Old Man Maki seemed to be recalling the distant past. Utsu no longer knew how to respond; the words would not come.

“Back then, I was still full of vitality.” “Full of vigor, I worked for the sake of our nation.” “It was during the fierce battle of Mukden, and a tremendous whirlwind was raging.” “Through that maelstrom—our breath stolen by the gale—our brigade pressed onward in a forced march to the far left flank, day and night without cease.” “It was to sever the enemy army’s communications with their homeland.” “The lightning-fast maneuvers of that march—swifter than the eye could follow—were what decided the outcome of that battle.” “But General Kuropatkin, the enemy commander, was also a formidable man.” “We were actually overwhelmed by the fierceness of that Kuropatkin’s counterattack.” “Because of that, I finally—a pitiful story, I must say—ended up becoming a prisoner of war.” “At that time, there were as many as twelve hundred Japanese who became prisoners of war.” “Several majors and colonels were also killed.”

Old Man Maki sipped his tea and, while clouding his once-bright eyes,

“For the next eight months, we continued our lives as prisoners of war in Russia proper.” “Of course, that life wasn’t exactly unbearable hardship, but the long period before being sent back to our homeland was truly beyond description in its suffering.” “There were quite a few who committed suicide.” “Then there were those who suffered severe injuries, those who lost a hand—when we were sent from that field hospital to Tieling, it was hell.” “At the time, I was in such a frenzy that I don’t remember it well, but looking back now, we were placed into a deep, cave-like hole dug into the ground. There, most of the severely injured died, and by the time we reached our homeland, our numbers had been reduced to about half.”

Old Man Maki spoke at length about his life as a prisoner of war in Russia and showed Utsu the scar on his back from a shell. The scar was about three inches long and perhaps an inch wide—of course, no different from any ordinary scar—but Utsu gazed at it with keen interest. It must have been a rather deep wound, for only that area was depressed by about five-tenths of an inch. “What color is it?”

Old Man Maki asked Utsu, who was behind him.

“Let me see. The color isn’t much different from a healthy person’s skin, but wrinkles have formed.” When he said this, “I see.”

The old man must have felt some joy at having been able to show that it was not a leprosy scar, his face brightening with satisfaction. “Scars that form after the onset of this disease will remain a dark purple color no matter how well they heal.” After saying this, the old man gulped down the cold tea. When Utsu poured hot tea again, he touched it briefly with the tip of his tongue and set it down. He seemed to be pondering something deeply before letting out a deep sigh.

“Truly, when I contemplate human fate, living becomes frightening.” he said feebly, “They were all dreams.” “And they were all bad dreams!”

He continued and formed a faint smile. Then lying down there unlike his usual self, he stretched out his legs at length. “Can you truly say you believe in others?” “I can no longer trust anyone.” “No—even if we truly could trust one another, fate would surely destroy it.” “Daunting fate.” “It was the same with your father.” “We had vowed to remain connected for life, but in the end, it was I who had to break that oath.” “I suffered.” “But I became a prisoner of war and even ended up contracting leprosy, you see.” “In the end, I ended up hiding here all alone.” “But once again, it was fate.” “My daughter contracted this disease and came to this hospital.” “From then on, I placed my trust solely in my daughter and resolved to live sharing everything I had with her.” “My daughter is now over thirty years old, and she swore to me that she was resolved to live her entire life unmarried.” “But in the end, even that daughter betrayed me.”

Utsu vividly pictured in his mind the recent scene that seemed like a nightmare and heard the old man’s plaintive voice shattered by fate. Needless to say, the old man’s daughter was the woman who had committed suicide two or three days prior. Utsu knew that a considerable number of patients had come to this hospital with their parents, children, or siblings, but now, seeing the old man before him, he strongly felt that their anguish was not uniform. Suddenly sensing his own figure about to weakly bow before the immense force of fate, he tried to puff out his chest in defiance—but at that moment, Utsu felt with painful clarity that he had no ground to stand on.

The next day, the old man hanged himself from the same pine branch where his daughter had died. As Utsu gazed at the old man’s corpse, he thought that death alone must have been happiness for him—seeing how his features were now utterly at peace—and even felt something beautiful in that deathly visage free of anguish. Yet as his own face gradually paled, he let out a deep sigh, aware that he now stood before a great crisis.