Pathway to Japanese Literature

Preface

When various painful and distressing things arise within one's heart, isn't it true that everyone feels an intense desire to confide their suffering and anguish to others and to be understood? And would it not be true that the more intense and profound the inner suffering becomes, the more fervent that desire grows—until at times, when one comes to believe it utterly impossible to convey their feelings to others, they grow irritated and impatient, until finally they might even feel compelled to shout and wail at every visible tree, plant, and all other things around them? At least in my experience, that was the case.

Or perhaps not only in such times of anguish but also conversely, when one’s heart overflows and is buoyed by happiness and peace, would they not still feel that same desire to share their joy with others and seek empathy? And when one has no one around them with whom they can share that joy, would it not often transform into sadness, becoming an awareness of loneliness that even torments oneself? You have probably had that experience as well—if you are someone who has encountered true suffering… And you will understand this feeling that compels me to write such things.

That said, when it comes to speaking of my private life, I required considerable effort and courage. First came the revulsion toward writing such letters, then the self-contempt—what did it accomplish to hurl this trivial private life at society? Could your worthless sufferings and joys possibly matter to society? Were you not merely a house mouse, or at best a hairy louse? Did you believe that if society was a problem for the individual, then the individual must conversely be a problem for society? However, such beliefs were nothing but an 18th-century dream—I had to fight against these and more. In this case, the only weapon I could take up was love—or if the word 'love' felt too embarrassing, then empathy would do—I believed in this desire within me, this craving to be understood by someone.

As an example, we have the letters that Flaubert gave to George Sand. What matters to us lies precisely in this point: that Flaubert—who believed in annihilating his own life, who held that humans are nothing and works everything—nonetheless found himself compelled to write such letters. (Unfinished?)

Encircled by Holly Hedges

When I left the station—since I had about two pieces of luggage—there was simply no choice but to take a car. With just Father and me, carrying one piece each wouldn’t have been impossible—but when told I had to walk nearly a ri, I felt utterly exhausted just hearing it. At the station front, two or three 1934-model Chevrolets were parked, "Stay here." Father said to me, and went to negotiate. I remained standing, gazing at the distant mixed woods, the nearby rows of houses, and the chicken coops clinging to the backs of those houses. It was a feeling I myself couldn’t quite comprehend—something like loneliness, something like sorrow, yet when I thought that might be it, unexpectedly calm.

Father soon returned, his face clouded over, "They say they’ll carry just the luggage."

And that was all he said. I felt my illness churning violently through my head. I was ill, but still in a mild stage—this was when I couldn't help feeling my leprosy was somehow different from what others despised—so the driver's attitude struck me like a club suddenly falling on my head. But upon reflection, it seemed only natural, "Then let us at least entrust them with the luggage."

I said to Father. When the car drove away, my father and I began walking along the white road, sweating. Since Father had previously visited the hospital regarding my hospitalization,

“I know the way.”

He said and walked on calmly, but since it was my first time on this road, it felt unbearably long to me.

“Father, is the path alright?” When he heard this, “Yeah. No mistake here.”

So I had been reassured, but before long Father began tilting his head in thought. "But there's only one road, I suppose." Father said, and the two of us kept walking resolutely on and on.

“How old were you?”

When Father asked, I said, “You know that.” “Twenty-one...? Hmm, you were twenty-one.” “Well, you’ll just have to endure two years.” “By twenty-three, you can return home.” And he counted them off one by one on his fingers.

It was the afternoon of May 18, 1934. The sky stretched clear and cloudless, the sun blazing down. I still sometimes picture us walking that straight path through mulberry and wheat fields—after passing through several windbreak forests of zelkova trees—a hollow, aching recollection.

Before long, Father— “I’m in a fix. This is bad.” When he said this,

“Did we take the wrong path?” When I asked, “No—seems there aren’t any outhouses around here.” “They usually have them in the countryside...”

Father had felt the urge to relieve himself. I forced a bitter smile, yet suddenly found myself longing for Father. Father rustled into the wheat and hid. Standing on the country road, between the blue ears of wheat, a head streaked with white hair peered out. A sudden sadness welled up within me.

When he came out, Father was deep in thought— “It seems we’ve lost our way.” Father said.

With nowhere to sit down, we stood like solitary stakes rooted in place, wiping our sweat in helpless bewilderment. Not a soul was visible. Pure white clouds swelled above a distant copse of mixed trees. Eventually someone resembling an electrician came pedaling by on a bicycle, so we hailed him to ask directions. Though Father found it distasteful to name the hospital, there proved no alternative.

We began to retrace our steps. After walking another fifteen or sixteen minutes, we arrived at what was precisely the hospital’s flank. First, the holly hedge came into view. Feeling an abnormal curiosity and unease, I kept peering into the hospital grounds as we circled around the hedge all the way to the main gate.

For two years since then, I lived in this hospital. Surrounded by the holly hedge—days with no outlet, suffocating days—yet I turned twenty-three. How many years would I continue living within this?

Today, I attempted to walk all the way around the hospital grounds along the path built alongside this hedge. And suddenly I recalled a passage from the beginning of Notes from the House of the Dead. "—This is what they call the prison's outer enclosure. At one point along this outer enclosure, a sturdy gate had been installed. The gate was always kept tightly shut, and guards stood watch day and night. It was only opened by order of the superiors when they went out to work. Outside this gate existed a bright, free world where people like everyone else lived. But on this side of the wall, they thought of that world as something like a dream or a story. Here existed a special world utterly beyond comparison. This was a house of the living dead."

But even this world seemed lighter when measured against ours. There existed enemies called superiors. Yet my world held no enemies at all. They all offered their sympathies. And the true enemy dwelled within my very body. Had the enemy been external, the act of fighting itself might have brought some salvation. But how could one wage war against an enemy inhabiting one's own flesh?

Surrounded by the holly hedge, yet I lived for two years. I must live longer.

Flowers

The first time I profoundly felt that flowers were beautiful was the day after being admitted to this hospital. Though a new admission ward now exists so patients aren't immediately placed in severe care, when I first arrived this system wasn't yet established, so I was directly admitted into the serious ward upon entering. What I saw there and what I felt lie beyond all description; they cannot possibly be expressed. There's a saying: "Don't speak of splendor until you've seen Nikko," but here precisely the opposite holds true. Even if you were to expend every ounce of imagination conjuring hideous things, unpleasant things, terrifying things—the moment you step inside this place, I believe you'd instantly understand how impoverished your imagination truly is. I too had felt this. Before coming here, I'd imagined this place in various ways, but upon arriving and seeing it firsthand, I was astonished at how it surpassed all expectations. My nerves, never before exposed to such stench of pus, became disordered, screamed out, and literally turned into tangled chaos. Should I cry? Should I laugh? Should I find this eerie? Should I find it absurd? I had absolutely no idea.

There was utterly zero color; in sound, less than a decimal point; in scent, even less than that. My senses froze rigid like stone. Until my books returned from disinfection, I became exactly like a corpse. What I craved was printed type - letters, words threaded with thought, language carrying human warmth. What I still remember is the joy when the woman in the next bed - whether it was King magazine or not - lent me a coverless periodical. I tore through those entertainment pages I'd never deigned to glance at before.

But above all, the joy when my own books—those volumes stained with my body odor and the grime from my hands—returned was even greater. I was on the verge of tears as I cradled each volume, gazing at them and running my hands over their covers, then stacked them on the small shelf attached to my bed. While gazing at them, I somehow felt relieved.

While I was lost in such thoughts, someone—I can’t remember who—brought me flowers. What flower it was—careless as I am, I never learned its name—but I remember it had small petals and was crimson red. The undersides of the petals were somewhat tinged with white, a pale pink. It wasn’t showy, but there was an ineffably refined and well-put-together quality to the flower, and I would gaze at it utterly fascinated.

Until then, I had never so much as looked at flowers, but from that point on, I became utterly fond of them.

Some time ago, due to certain circumstances, I made a truly arduous journey back to my hometown in Shikoku, and upon returning, I potted cosmos that had yet to bloom. They were ones that had been growing in front of the ward, and I carefully dug them up while putting strength into my fingertips.

Then one of the nurses came and said:

“It seems a bit strange for Mr. Hojō to be fiddling with flowers.” Indeed, when put that way, I must truly be a savage. However, it was I who spoke. “I want to live peacefully. Death is always following me around, you know.” She looked at me with an expression of pity.

Facial Expression

Losing one’s facial expressions is truly a lonely thing.

They say the eyes are the window to the soul, but facial expressions must be the symbol of individuality. Even if one has an ugly face, or even if one bears an expression unpleasant to others, I think the fact that one possesses one's own expression—one's own individualistic facial expression—is something to rejoice in and take pride in.

“It’s truly lonely, having my own expressions and gestures destroyed like this.”

“It’s truly lonely, having your own expressions and gestures destroyed like this,” one of my friends had said to me just recently. He was still a patient with a mild case, his eyebrows only slightly thinned, but infinite sorrow dwelled in his eyes as he spoke those words. He had contracted the disease while studying philosophy at X University; yet he possessed nerves so delicate they might be called feminine, along with a beautiful countenance, and was skilled at writing poetry. Being such a man, if he had gazed upon his many fellow patients consumed by disease and realized he too was fated to become like them in time, then I could perceive he must have felt a desolation far deeper than his words conveyed.

"But I think that even in those who have become terribly disfigured, there still remains an individualistic expression." “Or perhaps, as one’s face changes due to the disease, I also think that along with those changes, individualistic qualities never before seen may rise to the surface.” “Discovering this matters—I want to make that discovery.” When I had answered thus, it was nothing but stubborn pride. The skin turns livid; reddish-black mottlings swell until nodules erupt like bubbles, decaying as they crumble. Nasal bridges collapse, once-luxuriant hair thins to wisps, eyes putrefy white like dead fish. Even written with utmost restraint—even briefly—it becomes this. What expression could one possibly discern here? However beautiful the spirit within might be, the outer visage grows inferior even to beasts. Should the neural type take hold, mouths twist until neither laughter nor anger—nor any stirring of emotion—remains possible. At times I catch myself staring when nurses remove their masks to play in delight. Because there dwell vibrant “human” expressions. Because there exists youthful countenances.

They could neither get angry nor laugh. Of course, in their hearts, they were angry or laughing. Yet their expressions remained distorted as if blanched pale, drooling all the while. The more I thought about it, the stranger and more terrifying it felt.

It had been four or five days prior. I went to watch the children practicing for the autumn sports festival. The children were running about energetically and innocently, as children should. This revealed to me no small measure of light. Since they were children who could even run about, they were all mild cases—children who at first glance couldn’t be thought of as patients. I drew lines for the broad jump and watched their takeoffs.

At that moment, a child wearing nothing but pants came to my side. He crossed his arms, puffed up his shoulders, “Jump properly!” he shouted. His height measured only four shaku five or six sun; viewed from behind he still appeared a mere child, but his voice had already become an adult’s. And no wonder—this boy, who could not be called a boy, was twenty-one years old. But when I moved around to the front and saw his face, what further astonished me was that there remained not a trace of twenty-one-year-old youthfulness—it made one think of nothing so much as a man nearing seventy years of age. His entire face was covered in wrinkles, his skin sagging, his eyes squinted small—he looked every bit an oppressed old man. Yet not only was he conscious of being twenty-one years old, but even if his body was eroded and decayed, young blood must still flow within him—his thinning hair grown out in a modern-style bowl cut, and eyeglasses with plain lenses perched upon his face.

“Tsk, sloppy! Isn’t that three meters?” With his small body yet in a big-brother manner, he barked authoritatively.

He had been ill since childhood. Because of this, he had been unable to develop fully, both physically and mentally. And having grown up entirely within the sanatorium since boyhood, he had now reached what could literally be called an eroded youth. I once read this man’s essay. It had been published in a children’s magazine called 『Yobukodori』 put out by this hospital, but it was filled with a senile kind of clumsiness. In children’s compositions, there is a childlike, innocent clumsiness that moves adults’ hearts—but here I recall there being only the bitter, geriatric clumsiness of an old man.

When he laughed, an expression that was neither old man nor child surfaced, and that essay too bore that very expression.

As I watched his dwarf-like smile and listened to his hoarse shouts, I was overcome with boundless pity and could no longer bear to look; I hurried back. That oppressed-looking smile remained etched in my mind endlessly, leaving me melancholy.

A world without expressions, and those that exist were all as strange as these. My friend’s lament was by no means unreasonable. But if I were to say such things, the severe patients would have dismissed them with a scornful laugh. “Don’t act so spoiled!”

[they said.]

That I knew too well. That as long as I could still grieve and lament over such things, I remained a fortunate mild case! Sometimes, gazing fixedly at the mirror, "Mild case—quit acting so spoiled!"

With contempt, I said to myself. But I still felt so forlorn. I did not think of wanting to have a beautiful face. It was unbearable to lose my own expression—the expression that no one but me possessed.

When I observe my own face day after day, I do not perceive any drastic changes; I cannot readily feel myself gradually transforming into this suspicious leprosy-ridden face. But when I suddenly recall my former healthy years or imagine what they might think if I were to unexpectedly meet friends from that time—when I ponder how they would regard me now—I find myself wanting to cease breathing on the spot. But that was still tolerable. What was truly fearsome was how, alongside this external decay, the expressions of the mind gradually withered and shrank away. Even if I must live a pygmy's existence in this hundred-thousand-tsubo confined world, I wanted my spirit at least to be a roc soaring through the open skies. But even that became buried in the heavy air around me, the hopeless life, the weary days devoid of tension and stimulation.

The scenery I saw every day was a meager grove of trees and a crowd of dying patients. Bathed in pus，my senses lost their luster like lead，and soon my spirit lost its tightness like a barrel with loose hoops.

It had been two years and three months since I came to this hospital, but how I fought against this "loosening of the spirit." Yet no matter how I fought, I could not help feeling I was being defeated in the end. Of course, I remained resolved to fight to the last—but this very will to fight, the physical elements constituting this will, were themselves losing strength. Against this, what weapon could there possibly be?

Religion!

At this moment, the only thing that seemed capable of granting my heart infinite power was religion. Furthermore, it was the spirit of Christ. However, in the end, that too remained merely a thought. Religion! If I couldn't see these desperately contorted expressions of my own heart that I imagined, I might have been able to plunge wholeheartedly into a life of faith. I thought that to believe, one must become utterly absorbed. I must not see my own face even in dreams. A twisted expression.

A stiff expression. A pained expression.

A wretched expression. An expression like a starving monkey lunging at leftover rice. This was my expression when attempting to rely on religion. I grew distressed. I felt I had written something I should not have written. Despair.

Once every ten days, I would be assailed by intense despair. My head felt as if sinking into the depths of murky water, leaving me no choice but to struggle helplessly. I could usually regain my former state of mind within a day or two, but in severe cases, it might persist for five or even six days. My appetite would halve; my pulse would race; even breathing became laborious. After four or five days of this continuing, I became as powerless as any patient. But what exactly was I despairing over? Was it my talent? The incurable nature of my disease? Being cast out from society? Or perhaps my decaying youth? No, no—I—

While I was vaguely pondering such careless thoughts，it had already become dinnertime.

Not again. Lately, whenever I meet people, they often suggest I should quit writing about leprosy and start producing wholesome novels instead. Each time they say this, I reply with an "Oh, I'll get around to it soon," but truthfully, there seems no way I could break free from leprosy yet. No—rather than being unable to escape it, I secretly square my shoulders and resolve to write even more leprosy novels. This isn't because I myself have leprosy, because I see nothing but leprosy daily, because I live solely among leprosy patients. In my eyes lies reflected two thousand years of lepers' suffering. My mind cannot help but ask: Could it ever be acceptable to conclude this vast historical existence with just three or four shoddy novels? Once I reach that conclusion—let them cry "Not again!", let journalism shut me out, let every last reader abandon me—a new resolve surges forth: even if I must grit my teeth, I cannot flee so easily from this place.

×

Of course, I too want to write healthy novels. I don't want to depict such a rotten, grotesque world perpetually reeking of pus. Moreover, how truly beneficial could it be to portray such a world for healthy people? At the very least, society is preoccupied—with so-called domestic and international crises, Europe decrying cultural collapse, war already nearing its ninth month. What meaning could there be in bringing such novels into that society?—These doubts cling relentlessly to my thoughts.

In truth, what infuriates me most is that our suffering begins with disease. It carries no social aspect whatsoever; it remains inherently personal—our anguish holds absolutely no meaning within society. While depicting patients seized by violent neuralgia or writhing on death’s threshold, I tried countless times to snap my brush and tear paper. Not one of those two or three records or novels I have written was penned without disgust.

× And this was not limited to when I wrote. It was something that directly confronted my own attitude toward life.

Living itself has no meaning—and the feeling I must harbor when truly thinking so while observing my own state is by no means a pleasant thing.

I sometimes took walks circling around the corridors of the critical care ward. And as I gazed through the glass at the crowd of critically ill patients before me, I asked myself: When faced with people who persisted in living even in such a state, was it right for me to bow my head in respect, or should I instead scorn them? Indeed, these people were suffering. They were groaning at rock bottom of life. But what did that matter? Whether these people suffered or not, to society at least, it was irrelevant and absurd.

I had now used the phrase "these people." But of course within this phrase, I too was included. I too would eventually become like that. Novels and such would doubtless become beyond my ability. In a few years’ time, I too would likely be groaning and writhing in agony. I understood this perfectly well. Moreover, I had to force a laugh while picturing in my mind and staring fixedly at my own form when I became like that. When envisioning such a figure within myself, there was no other mental attitude I could adopt than to resign myself steadfastly to the pain while directing a sneer toward that future self of mine who suffered.

“Brothers, dost thou know contempt? “Be just even to those who despise thee—dost thou know the pain of such fairness?” Nietzsche is said to have once spoken such words, but I understand well the pain of fairness.

Indeed, living itself is foolish. Life remains ugly and ignoble no matter how one considers it. Those who grew weary of this foolishness, ugliness, and baseness to hang themselves or leap into the sea—their numbers are by no means small. Yet I cannot help but murmur here: How utterly foolish appear the deaths of those who took their own lives in disgust at life's foolishness!

It was utterly foolish. I had seen hanged corpses many times before, but they were never truly witnessed. The crucial matter wasn't knowing life's foolishness - it was knowing suicide's foolishness.

Even if I were to hang myself, the leprosy patients would still be alive. If I were to die at the same time as them perishing too, then my suicide would be splendid. But in reality, even if I die, people will go on living indifferently. Therefore, my death becomes foolish. Descartes said "I think, therefore I am," but in truth, "Others think of me, therefore I exist" is more accurate. If that's the case, then I must not die under any circumstances. No matter how utterly foolish living may be, it is still somewhat better than suicide. There's nothing to do but endure steadfastly. I must not speak of enduring as if it were something grand. I must simply endure steadfastly. There may be an unexpected feast called affection there.

×

Therefore, I want to write more about leprosy. Even if it holds no meaning for society, it may still prove necessary for humanity.

Two Deaths

It must have been autumn’s doing—lately I couldn’t stop remembering the friend who had died. Had these been memories of his vigorous days when still alive, there might have been some redemption, but what surfaced were only visions of his death throes, leaving me in a state as though possessed. At night when I lay down and closed my eyes, his face—breath nearly spent—would rise like a phantom before me. The browless visage discolored not dusky black but sickly blue, emaciated to skin and bones until it resembled a skeleton—no, a living corpse—would begin writhing before my eyes as if struggling violently. Then came the clamor of recollections: the clammy touch of the still-lukewarm corpse I’d bathed, those enormous eyeballs rolling back twice or thrice just before his final breath, the groans—all clattering through my mind until it became unbearable. Last night saw me spending hours sleepless again, tormented by these phantoms. Consequently today my head swims dizzily, leaving me no recourse but to scribble trivial prose. Yet through this came phrases resembling poetry.

Rough wall.

Nose smashed against the wall.

Late night—

A horsefly was flapping its wings.

When I showed it to a friend, he said, “Hmm, this seems like a poem.” As for the title, rather than “Horsefly,” I would prefer “Wall.” Well, whether this constitutes poetry or not hardly matters here—last night I spent the entire night devising ways to break through the wall. Yet even should breaking through prove impossible, the horsefly has no choice but to keep flapping its wings until it dies.

(Unfinished)