Pathway to Japanese Literature

(I) Madwoman's Love Letter

I

Kanako had to make the madwoman Kyōko take a walk at least once a day.
But Kyōko couldn’t be allowed to go out to the main street alone—it was too dangerous.
Kyōko was not a mad patient of violent nature or dangerous symptoms, but her surreal movements did not match the pace of all modern culture.
Even when she occasionally ventured onto the main thoroughfare, streetcars, automobiles, bicycles—the walking speed of modern people and Kyōko’s movements would always clash, making the eyes of those watching flutter with anxiety.
Kanako had long since established that even when she herself accompanied Kyōko, her walking route would be confined to the backstreets’ residential area as a safe zone.
Last autumn, the maid Omi—who had come from the countryside and was nearly fifty—had a maternal nature that took good care of Kyōko.
Kanako had recently decided to send Kyōko out on her daily walks accompanied by Omi.

From the back kitchen entrance, turning left and walking about a block along a lonely path lined with black-painted fences brought them to the very center of the residential district.
It was a quiet street two ken wide where bank and company executives' mansions stood in rows—their spacious front gardens blending fresh leaves with blossoms beneath Western-style gates.
Occasionally those mansions' private cars would come and go in silence, leaving the street so tranquil it scarcely seemed part of the city.
Kyōko had walked there with Omi as if it were an extension of her own garden, proudly leading the way until about a week prior when she inexplicably began finding Omi’s company irritating.
But Omi’s maternal attentiveness remained undaunted by this resistance—today too she followed behind Kyōko.
Rebounding like a coiled spring mechanism against this persistence, Kyōko walked with jerky strides while turning back to look at Omi.

“You’re still following me?”
“I’ll go back right away, so you go on ahead.”

“Yes.”

Omi did not attempt to oppose any further and, as usual, slipped into the narrow side alley she had partially retreated down. This was a tactic Omi had employed two or three times since Kyōko had begun driving her away during their walks. Even a sane person would have quickly noticed such a trivial tactic, Omi thought as she stood there for a while, rustling the leaves of the cedar hedge between her thumb and forefinger. Then, that pleasant middle-aged madwoman began to appear endearingly pitiable to her. Even though she was once a renowned beauty and must have endured countless hardships before becoming a madwoman—until being taken in by her childhood friend, now Madam—what an utterly childlike disposition she still possessed! Was that her inherent nature from the start, or was that simply the disposition of madpeople as a whole? Omi recalled how, back home, she had been troubled by the malicious cleverness of her foster daughter, who was not yet of age. Perhaps it was because she was Madam’s friend and of good birth after all that her disposition was so different from my foster daughter’s, Omi wondered. Before long, Omi began to worry about Kyōko and quietly peeked half her face out from an old stone wall in the alley to observe her movements.

Kyōko walked on diligently，stooping forward.
She liked cool green silk crepes even in winter，and Madam often made them one after another for her.
But over it hung a black figured gauze haori with red tie-dye patterns; its shoulder was slipping down.
While considering whether to alter it for her，Omi was intently watching Kyōko’s gait.
And Kyōko came to an abrupt halt.
At a right-angle bend in this residential district—one and a half *chō* beyond where Omi hid—stood a red-painted postbox in its cylindrical form，like an object forgotten amid the quiet surroundings.
Beside the postbox，Kyōko once again anxiously scanned her surroundings.

Kyōko’s eyes grew slightly fixed and took on a fearsome quality. Just then, there was no one around. She swiftly took out something resembling a letter from her pocket with her right hand and threw it into the postbox slot. Then she pulled back her right hand once before thrusting her finger as deep as possible into the slot, patiently probing inside; after a while she withdrew her finger and peered intently into the postbox’s opening once more. This was an identical action Kyōko had been repeating nearly every day of late. For about a week now, it had become routine behavior for her. But until now, Omi hadn’t paid it any mind, assuming Kyōko’s motions were merely those of an ordinary person fumbling to mail a letter. Yet today, Omi grew suspicious. She realized Kyōko’s refusal to let her accompany the walks stemmed from this very act. Kyōko had no family or friends to whom she could send letters. As a lifelong incurable mental patient who had lost her parents and siblings to death—and who had been taken in by Madam after divorcing her third husband, a Frenchman—Kyōko had long been severed from the world.

Even after Omi came into service, she was well aware that not a single visitor had come to see Kyōko, nor had she received even one letter.

“I’m truly at my wit’s end too.”
“The letters Miss Kyōko sends are just nonsense.”

When Kanako was secretly informed by Omi that Kyōko was sending letters somewhere almost every day, she felt as flustered as if her own shameful secret had been discovered—but to Kanako, Omi’s overly earnest manner of reporting also seemed absurd.

“Miss Kyōko has already sent about five letters, including today’s.”

“Hmm, to whom?”

“What do you mean ‘to whom’? That’s not proper at all.”

Kanako had inadvertently blurted out to Omi the sort of words one would use with a husband or friend. Observing the stern, troubled expression around Kanako’s lips that now held a faintly amused smile, Omi felt torn between wanting to press further with questions and thinking she ought to withdraw in silence—yet ultimately still wished to hear more details. Kanako decided there was little need to hide matters from Omi, who doted on Kyōko like a daughter, and so she explained the gist of it.

Lately, Kyōko seemed to have contracted that pathological longing for the opposite sex common among madpeople.
Before becoming a madwoman, she had rather detested real-life romantic relationships.
Her marital breakdown must have largely stemmed from that.
Mentally, she had long been someone with a pathological longing for the opposite sex.
When one becomes a madperson, that may become pathologically extreme.
Lately, it seemed that the phantom of a man had arisen particularly vividly in her mind.
But there was no trace of who that might be.
It appeared to be nothing more than a vague, indistinct man.
However, among the five letters, while there were almost no matching surnames, all given names were set as “Mr. Shūo.”
And while she reliably wrote her own address and full name, the recipient’s address she merely wrote simply as Paris, Akasaka, Yanaka, or Hongō.
At first, the deliveryman who had seemed somewhat disgruntled ended up smirking at Kyōko’s nonchalance, yet still dutifully delivering those utterly absurd letters back to her.
If Kyōko were to send five or six letters, she would likely give up and stop on her own; even if not, she had intended to supervise and put an end to such harassment of the deliveryman—but just then, Omi informed her that Kyōko had gone to the postbox again today.

After Omi—leaving behind her characteristic pout-like smile—had walked toward the kitchen while commiserating over Kanako’s troubles with Kyōko, Kanako, as she had done repeatedly during this period, turned her thoughts once more to the addressee on Kyōko’s letters.
Shūo, Shūo—there was not a single man by that name among those with whom Kyōko had shared romantic entanglements before parting ways.

Kanako had once heard about the human subconscious from someone. Even unexpected memories from the past burrow minutely into this hidden realm. At times, they could profoundly influence a person’s present and future—rising and vanishing like momentary waves. She searched through entirely different corners of Kyōko’s past for the name Shūo but found nothing. Perhaps it belonged to a neighbor’s son from elementary school days whom she had never met, or that diligent student said to have been in Count M’s residence during Kyōko’s marriage. Or was it purely imaginary? The letters numbered about seven across five envelopes—some containing two bundled together. Though nearly a torrent of disjointed phrases, they still conveyed a consistent undercurrent of Kyōko’s sorrow, aesthetic sense, and lyricism—conveying a strange sense of reality and allure.

Kyōko’s Letter One

Mr. Shūo, it's been an age, hasn't it?
Spring still bites cold, doesn't it?
But never mind—the plum in my garden only just bloomed.
Plums must flower in spring by nature.
That tree bore crystal blossoms.
When I call them crystal, Kanako laughs it off as foolishness.
I'm truly aggrieved.
Yet I owe her this debt—not pressing my crystal claim.
Kanako's my guardian deity through all, but debts remain debts.
To you alone I'll cling to crystal truth.
Grant me your assent.
Yet debts being debts, I'll practice thrift to spare this house.
I mean to subsist on gruel.
Then Kanako forbids it, warning of frailty.
Kanako's kindness holds steel—no room for same-sex [affections].
You alone fill my longing.

Kyōko’s Letter Two

No matter how much I search for you, I feel you do not exist anywhere in the world.
And even if I tried to search for you, I can’t leave this house.
Kanako gives me everything.
I can’t leave such a good person behind.
Green silk crepe kimonos—Kanako always makes them for me.
And yet she herself only wears old Western clothes.
Kanako admires the Spanish diva Rakere Meree she saw in Paris—a beauty with the air of a silver cat.
You go find Rakere Meree from Spain and give her to Kanako, please.
Still, I long for you.

Kyōko’s Letter Three

You haven’t given me a single reply at all, have you?
Even so, I’m worried about the famine-stricken areas.
Shall I go give all I have?
But if I take diamonds to a famine-stricken field, wouldn’t they transform like potatoes?
Kanako keeps praying to the crystal Kannon-sama statue.
She’s probably praying again for my illness to be cured.
When Kanako treats me like a patient, I hate her the most.
I’ll make you into small crystal too—just like Kanako’s crystal Buddha.
But where are you?
Where in the world are you?
You’ll come tomorrow, won’t you?

I’m lonely.
I’m lonely—as lonely as Hamlet or Yaezakihime.
Give my regards to old man André Gide.
You should quit literature despite being an old man, you know.
I’m lonely.
Ah, I want to burrow into the ground.

Kyōko’s Letter Four

Kanako’s husband is a good man.
But ever since he acted like some dashing young man and harassed Kanako when they were younger, I don’t like him very much.
Kanako says she treats me so preciously because she did something regrettable to me when she was young—I wonder what that regrettable thing was.
Please listen to this.
Last night I had a strange dream.
All around my body, purple flowers were blooming in full.
Then a cat came and began licking every last one of them.
The flowers all shed their petals and grew withered, you know.
I often have strange dreams.
Like one where all my teeth turned into stars and kept shining inside my mouth.
Ah, even though airplanes are flying through the sky, I want to ride a little carriage to the famine-stricken area.
I can’t help feeling you’re working right across in that famine-stricken land.

Kanako lit the gas stove for me.
Purplish flames smoldered all day.
If I spent a whole day silently watching them,
hells and paradises flickered on their tongues before vanishing.
In hell there were demons resembling Kewpie dolls,
surrounded by men who took me as their bride only to abandon me.
Paradise proved surprisingly dull -
a faceless Buddha dug tirelessly at the ground.
But then came beauty:
a fountain gushed gold and silver.
What burst forth at last?
Mr.Shūo - it was you.
At first you resembled Kato Kiyomasa,
then Antony seeking Cleopatra,
then Napoleon,
then Akutagawa Ryūnosuke...
Ah,
what tedious transformations.
Go away quickly.

Kyōko’s Letter Five

Mr. Shūo, I long for you and yearn to meet you.
But when I long for you, you never come at all—and last night, what was that? Bringing such a crowd of retainers to tap-tap at my bedroom door… I didn’t get up for you in the end, I tell you.
Bringing so many people so late at night (I could tell by the footsteps)—if I were to open the door and see…
Omi would immediately—(Omi seems to be the reincarnation of Lady Chūjō, quiet and kind, but she strangely tattles to Kanako)—[act].
(It must be because she was bullied by her mother in a past life.) Omi would tell Kanako to get up.
Kanako is writing a play now.
The protagonist in it might be chasing you, armed with who knows what weapons.
When I thought of that, I felt so sorry for you that I stayed hidden under the futon.
How I longed to see you.
I cried and cried until morning.
Ah, are you and I destined never to meet?

Kyōko’s Letter Six

Kanako’s husband was talking to Kanako tonight about eugenics (author’s note: likely a mistake for 優生学, eugenics).
I somehow felt like I was being alluded to.
My father and mother were cousins, and everyone opposed their marriage—but for my father, there was no woman in the world he loved more than my mother, so being cousins wasn’t an issue at all, you know.
But they say my mother was blind, yet the mother I knew was sharp-eyed.
Does Kanako’s husband think I’m a fool?
Instead of calling me a fool born to cousin parents, is he skillfully alluding to it through eugenics talk?
Ah, how I long for you.
Become a gardener or something and come to my garden.
Otherwise, become a university student in the film industry and come to this neighborhood on a location scout.

Ah, for what purpose was I born?
Though I have never once met you since the day I was born, I long for you so desperately I cannot bear it.
I...

Kyōko’s Letter Seven

I long for you.

I yearn.

Love.

"This grammar is difficult—the character for 'love,' does it use quadrigrade conjugation?"
Ah, I've forgotten all about grammar.

I won't write anymore.
I'm unqualified to write love letters.
I am cast-off trash.
I'll spend my days watching the pond goldfish.
I'll pluck garden flowers and eat them.
Tonight at home means a Chinese feast.

Ah, shall I take Kanako's hand and weep?
If I do that, will you appear?
Where are you from—Chinese?
Jewish?
Anglo-Saxon?
Latin?
You were Japanese before, weren't you?
Are you wearing a hunting cap?
No hat?
Could you possibly be my child?

If you were someone with nothing but a big nose, I’d be utterly disappointed.

Studying philosophy is fine too, but literature and poetry are what I love most. Why does Kanako’s husband only paint such strange pictures? But since he takes good care of Kanako—well, he’s somewhat among decent people. I am so lonely. There are no square people or triangular people by my side. Just Omi, Lady Chūjō reborn.

Ah, Leonardo da Vinci—come!

I earnestly, earnestly beg you to come; I wait while simultaneously gazing up at the sun and moon.

At night, she was alone in the bedroom.
Night is better, you know.
Please don’t bring a crowd of retainers like last time—come alone, all by yourself, slipping in secretly…

II

In the center of the rectangular front garden of Kanako’s house, square paving stones were laid out from the front gate to the entrance. On one side stood plantings where azaleas and sakaki trailed through patches of lawn grass; the other side rose slightly higher, where thick clusters of fatsia sprawled around a single robust giant pine tree at the garden’s corner. Pressed outward by this arrangement, a camellia tree laden with crimson flowers tilted its branches heavily toward the stone-paved path.

Kyōko opened the glass-paned entrance door and poked her face out. Clacking her geta against the paving stones, she approached the camellia. The red blooms on its upper branches—which had first opened around late March—now showed edges browned by wilting, while those on the middle branches clustered in full vivid bloom. The fierce sunlight of a late April afternoon, still new to its hour, sliced diagonally through portions of these floral masses.

Kyōko glared at a single flower protruding from the tip of the camellia branch.
She poked it with her right index finger and released.
The flower swayed up and down together with the branch.
The swaying flower imparted a pulsation to the madwoman’s visual senses.
It gradually began to appear to Kyōko’s eyes like a small animal…….

Suddenly, the side door entrance near the front gate clattered open.
With resounding footsteps, a uniformed student entered as if thrown in.
Kyōko started and looked at the student, but a sudden, impulse-like shame assaulted her as a kind of anguish.
The color drained from Kyōko’s flusteredly averted profile, and a faint spasm appeared in her facial muscles.
Kyōko’s right hand, which had poked the camellia, remained extended forward just as it was; her left hand hung limply downward—both now began to tremble in small, rapid quivers.
And her legs, suddenly bereft of the brain’s control which had lost its judgment, barely managed to support Kyōko’s trembling body as before, while her heart—overwhelmed by the blood that had rushed in—flailed wildly without direction, nearly causing Kyōko to collapse.

One might think Kyōko could walk unperturbed through any crowd, yet occasionally she would encounter just a single person and display such exaggerated surprise.

Seeing the figure of an abnormal woman within the gate where he had thought no one was present, the student faltered slightly, but his feet, carried by inertia, brought him unceremoniously close to her. And he was struck by a kind of negative aura emanating from her strange demeanor. But the student quickly returned to a simple, cheerful mood and interpreted Kyōko as either someone from this household or a relative.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Is Madam present?”

The student’s polite and composed words at first faintly reached the depths of Kyōko’s ears where her eardrums had stiffened, then gradually came to be heard clearly. Along with that, her taut nerves began to loosen. Kyōko regained her senses and, instead of replying “Yes,” exhaled a sharp “hah”—but with that momentum, her legs moved, and she slipped into the open entrance with animal-like nimbleness.

Kyōko, who had rushed into the maids’ room, turned to Omi—who had been doing needlework—and

“A person—a person has come, Omi.”

The way Kyōko frantically uttered “person” sounded somehow monstrous to Omi.

“A person?”
“Where?”

Omi set her sewing down and turned to face Kyōko.

“At the entrance!”

“Hmm, what kind of person?”

“A gold-buttoned uniform. He’s a university student.”

“What is it, Miss Kyōko? That gentleman had an appointment over the phone earlier. He must be the one who came to ask Madam to give a lecture.”

Omi promptly stood up and headed off toward the entrance.

Kyōko plopped down right there with a dissatisfied feeling, as though she had been mocked by Omi.
But when she raised her face—which had been resting on her knees for a while—Kyōko’s eyes began to sparkle vividly.

The guest who had been introduced to Kanako soon left, and Omi returned to the maids’ room.
Then Kyōko, as though she had been lying in wait, asked Omi with a gesture resembling an embrace.

"What did that person say about me?"

"He didn’t say anything in particular about you, but…"

"But…"

"He has already left."

“Oh!”

Kyōko, her eyes sparkling, pressed closer to Omi as she asked.

“That person left without saying anything about me?
“That can’t be.
“That person truly came here for me, you know.
“Because I was embarrassed, I used Madam as an excuse.”

“Well, Miss Kyōko, it would’ve been better if you hadn’t gone and hidden yourself away like that.”

“But I was embarrassed, you know.”

Omi thought there was no end to indulging her.
Omi resumed her half-sewn work.
Kyōko also fell silent.
She sat silently in a sideways position, staring at the shōji screen.
Her breath was thick with agitation.
Eventually, Kyōko found something.
It was a single small fly that had emerged early in spring on an unseasonably warm day.
The fly crawled timidly and slowly along the shōji frame like a lonely child.
Kyōko pulled out a single thin silk needle from Omi’s needle case.
Into the fly’s back, Kyōko thrust the needle with a swift jab.
The small fly shook its pollen-like head for a moment before dying.
Kyōko stared intently at it.
And then, switching it to her other hand, she continued to stare—but tears began to spill silently, and she muttered to herself.

“How pitiful—you should die and go to your parents.”

III

After that, every afternoon, Kyōko would quietly open the lattice door by the entrance and wait for someone to come.
She was waiting for the uniformed university student who had come the other day.
He hadn’t been meant to come yesterday, the day before, today, or tomorrow.
Even so, Kyōko had resolved that he would come.
In the end, he never came.
From the evening of the seventh day onward, Kyōko grew terribly sullen and depressed.
Even at a glance, they could clearly see it.
Kanako stayed continuously in Kyōko’s room with Omi, doing all sorts of things to please her.
But Kyōko disliked the gramophone, Kanako’s shamisen, the karuta games, and even having books read to her.
Kyōko remained sullen and ate neither sweets nor fruit.

"I want to go to bed early."

Thinking this might be better after all, they resolved to put Kyōko to bed exactly as she said.
Kanako liked dressing Kyōko in kimonos for sleep that were even finer than her daytime clothes.
Kyōko too had liked that.
Tonight they put her in the green tie-dyed silk gauze lined kimono Omi had just finished sewing.
Kyōko silently put it on, but tonight she did not even make a happy face.

“Shut up.”
“Go over there quickly, everyone.”
Kyōko fell asleep but immediately awoke, driven by the shock of unfulfilled dissatisfaction, anxious impatience, and resentment with nowhere to go.
As her fatigue began to lift during sleep, those sundry emotions revived once more.
They clashed violently within Kyōko’s mind as the surrounding silence deepened.

It was a quiet night.
The neighboring houses were blurred, enveloped in mist within the stagnant air.
Not even the faintest sound reached them from the tram-lined main street two or three blocks away.
The hazy moonlight, glowing faintly from within, subdued and calmed all earthly things.

The lamp above Kyōko’s head seeped a dim light through the dark purple cover Kanako had placed over it when leaving the room earlier.

Kyōko suddenly sat up.
She remained seated on the futon, listening intently to something.
A whistle rose and fell in her ears—whether from outside or from the depths of her own mind.
Kyōko’s eyes—fixed outward, her entire being concentrated on the sound—faced the window overlooking the front garden like hollow voids.
Then, upon the retinas deep within those eyes—bypassing boundary walls and window panes—the figure of a man in a university uniform appeared clearly, standing on the front garden’s stone pavement and facing her direction.
Yet his face, framed between his stand-up collar and hat, remained blurred as though its details had been erased.

“You’ve finally come, haven’t you?”
“I’m coming now. Wait for me.”
Kyōko’s voice, spoken with force, came out hoarse and monotonous like breath blown through a bamboo tube.
Kyōko quickly rolled up the tea-colored Hakata sash over her grape-leaf-patterned silk sleeping robe, took three or four steps around the room, then violently struck her face against the wall beneath the window frame.

“Ah—ouch.”

Kyōko cried out, but the pain only whipped her resolve further.
She immediately lunged at the window and began frantically groping around the area.
Blindly feeling across the window surface.
Her mind raced frantic—eyes fixed skyward to not lose sight of the man’s apparition—making it impossible to locate the lock.
Finally at the center where two glass doors overlapped in their frame, she found the screw in the very middle.
Then while making it rattle violently, opened the door nearer to the entrance.
Moonlight drifting across the garden’s surface suddenly cast itself into the room like an unfurling silver fan.
Kyōko—left foot perched on the windowsill—suddenly recoiled from a chill-inducing moonbeam reflection that left her soles numb and weightless.
She momentarily aborted her leap, turned back, and leaving the shoji wide open went to fetch footwear from the entryway.
Kyōko returned clutching black-lacquered geta.
Putting them on over tatami mats, she resolutely pressed the clogs’ teeth against the windowsill—her body’s heaviness met by disproportionate lightness—effortlessly landing on the front garden’s lawn grass.

When bathed in moonlight, Kyōko’s disheveled hair turned silver-white, transforming her instantly into a bizarre old woman. Thrusting her grotesquely expressionless face forward while stretching both hands to grope about, she found that the shadowy black mist-like apparition—likely the same vision from earlier—had already shifted from its previous position and vanished toward the hidden outer door. Kyōko ran to the concealed entrance. The phantom fled once more—slipping through the hidden door to dart left before making a sharp right turn at the corner. She halted in frustration. Why would this man she believed had come to fetch her keep dodging about in the midnight stillness where no prying eyes existed? Or did he harbor some ulterior motive? Kyōko could endure no further delay. Doubling her resolve, she broke into a desperate sprint with neither direction nor destination.

In the dead of night, Kyōko—limp and exhausted like a half-dead person—was brought back, supported by a middle-aged policeman.
Kanako chidingly calmed the astonished Omi and put Kyōko to bed.
Since her feet were terribly cold, when she warmed them by placing a small hot water bottle, Kyōko closed her eyes without saying a word.
According to the policeman’s account, Kyōko—who had run all the way to the tram-lined street in the dead of night, her hems and hair disheveled as she chased after someone—had been apprehended by a patrolling policeman.
Kyōko, who had initially resisted fiercely, was finally brought back exhausted.
Conveniently, the policeman already knew both that Kyōko was a mental patient and that she was someone staying at Kanako’s house.

After forcibly making Omi—who kept trying to fuss over the completely exhausted Kyōko lying in bed—withdraw, Kanako closed the window Kyōko had left open and sat alone once more by her bedside. Normally, Kyōko’s hair—slightly tinged with a reddish hue and softly cascading over her forehead—appeared pale blue and ethereal under tonight’s electric light. Pity and confusion toward Kyōko welled up all at once in Kanako’s chest. As the policeman had sternly cautioned on his way out, Kyōko would have to be kept under even stricter protection from now on. Omi and Kanako would have to take turns staying in Kyōko’s bedroom at night. Could even Kyōko’s behavior tonight be a manifestation of some perverse sexual urge characteristic of madmen—as her doctor had once suggested? If this symptom were to progress persistently, what kind of actions would Kyōko end up performing in the end?

“Hmm, so you’re not even relatives—just taking in this mental patient based on an old friendship from way back.”

With a manner of speaking that could be taken as either utterly flippant or deeply admiring, the policeman said this to Kanako as he was leaving.
At the time, Kanako had taken his words as mere meddlesome prattle, but upon calm reflection, she couldn’t deny that to an outsider’s dispassionate eye, her decision to take in Kyōko and burden herself with all manner of hardships might indeed seem inexplicable.
The reason for taking in Kyōko was now being reconsidered by Kanako.

Kyōko was Kanako’s beautiful friend from her youth.
For Kyōko, Kanako was a true friend.
Kanako did like Kyōko’s refined and surreal nature, but ultimately concluded Kyōko was a friend solely for her beauty.
Kyōko had confided every change in her state of mind and circumstances without concealment and come to rely on Kanako’s heart, yet Kanako never spoke to Kyōko about her own fate or heart.
It wasn’t out of spite, heartlessness, or trickery that she did so.
Her own heart—more stable than Kyōko’s—was something she couldn’t bring herself to thrust upon the delicate Kyōko.
Kanako merely appreciated Kyōko’s beauty and agreeable tastes aesthetically, feeling satisfied she received enough from their association.
Kyōko’s tall, unassuming figure from her youth; a chin tinged milk-white.
Cheeks like a white lily; a forehead like a white lily.
Eyes like a remote mountain lake reflecting only stars.
In summer: white linen with tea-striped patterns; a cream-colored single-layer obi with hemp leaf designs.
To this she added a platinum chain necklace with cloisonné chrysanthemum engravings and small amethyst stud earrings.
That Kyōko was shy—even when trying to speak, her voice would scarcely emerge.
(After becoming mentally ill, Kyōko actually began speaking more frequently.) The emerging voice often trembled; her face frequently flushed bright red.
Despite rarely speaking to others while maintaining an air of haughtiness, she had somehow been taken in by men enough to marry three times.
Kanako silently overlooked it all.
“Beautiful flowers are easily moved”—in other words, it was mere one-sided appreciation.

After Kyōko lost her parents, wealth, and men and went mad, Kanako’s heart suddenly turned nakedly toward her. To say she had merely taken Kyōko from that cold hospital with wretched food and cared for her might suggest the most ordinary caretaker’s mindset—but in truth, what an anxiety-filled, heart-wrenching endeavor it was to live with the madwoman Kyōko. Moreover, being entangled with Kyōko—who had lately succumbed to hysterical heterosexual longing without shame or regard for appearances—felt like having her own humiliation exposed. It wasn’t just the limited circle of Omi, her husband, or that policeman who might witness this; to put it grandly, it was as though she were brushing against some unspeakable disgrace between heaven and earth, watched by all under that sky—an unbearably excruciating sensation.

Living while sheltering Kyōko in this manner imposed a burden on Kanako that was far from easy, both materially and mentally.
And yet, in the depths of Kanako’s heart, she considered this a responsibility she should naturally bear.
Her thoughts had settled on the notion that this was a natural burden to bear.

Inclinations of the heart that cannot be named as duty or morality indeed govern the actions of people in this world.
Kanako ultimately settled on the thought of resolving not to doubt it.
Kanako stood up and put on the lampshade that had been knocked off.

Whether pretending to sleep or truly asleep, Kyōko lay with her eyes closed, motionless.
Since becoming mentally ill, Kyōko had taken to feigning sleep in awkward moments—like a mischievous boy or a senile old woman.

(II) The Cherry Blossoms of the Psychiatric Hospital

Kyōko’s deranged mind seemed to have taken another turn for the worse over the past four or five days.
She began making a fuss, claiming a large star had formed in her eyes.
As soon as she woke up in the morning, she went around showing her eyes to every household member she encountered.

“There’s a big white star in my eyes, don’t you see?
I just know it’s there.”

That wasn’t the case—her eyes were open as clearly as ever.
They were rather more beautiful than usual.
When one looked closely, the buds on the trees in the garden appeared far more luminous and crisply vivid than real tree buds.
Even so, Kyōko was not fully convinced.

“Is that so?”

Kyōko listened quietly and attentively for the moment.
They ended up feeling pity instead, and thus could not coldly shake off the one who would later grab them and ask again.

They took a mirror to show her.
Encased within the rim of a round hand mirror, its well-polished surface approached the lonely beauty of madwoman Kyōko.
Air carrying the scent of an early spring morning seeped through the freshly opened glass door.
With slender hands, Kyōko held the received mirror up to the morning sun—causing it to glint, making those nearby squint—before once more ascertaining the sun’s position.
She scrutinized how mirror and sunlight interacted.
And since she herself would check whether stars existed in her mirrored eyes, she demanded those nearby carefully compare her reflection’s eyes with her real ones.

“There isn’t one.”
“There’s no star.”

Kyōko showed her cool teeth and, turning to those nearby, smiled happily.
No sooner had she laughed than she deliberately turned toward the dark shoji this time, positioning the mirror behind her to catch the most unfavorable light, and peered bitterly into her own eyes.

――Star.
There is one.
There is one.

Kyōko blurted erratically and flicked her eyelid with the fingers of her free hand that held no mirror.
Even if those watching thought she must be moderating the force—since she was flicking her own eyelid—she struck so viciously they winced at what must have been searing pain.

When Kanako, having only finished washing her face and applied lipstick, appeared there, Kyōko dropped the mirror onto the veranda with a clatter and snorted through her nose.

“This morning too, a star appeared in my eyes.”

“Liar.”

Kanako gently scolded Kyōko.
Kyōko, who was one year older and considerably taller than Kanako—perhaps due to her madness—had forgotten the passage of time in both mind and body, maintaining a pathological youthfulness.
Over their years living together, Kyōko had come to adore Kanako like an older sister.
There was no use lecturing someone mentally ill about life’s proper order or conventional ways.
For about two years now, Kanako had been leading a disjointed, laborious life after taking in her beautiful friend from girls’ school days—Adachi Kyōko, a living corpse—into the home she shared with her kind, childless husband.
Yet when occasionally viewing this life through a convenient lens, it was that Kyōko—though mad—still retained traces of her former beauty, and that Kanako’s poetic temperament projected some intensely romantic fantasy onto her own pitiful existence.
Through this, the tangible hardships of Kanako’s wretched life burdened with a patient were somewhat mitigated.

“Liar.”

Kanako scolded Kyōko once more and stiffened her resolve.
To dispel Kyōko’s obsessive fixation on that illusory star in her eyes, Kanako needed to maintain this slightly firmer stance.

“You’ve grown so impossible lately.
“Fretting endlessly over some star that doesn’t even exist…”

But the edge of Kanako’s voice—that had strained for sternness—faltered from its very foundations and dissolved away.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Then I won’t talk about the star anymore.”
“Hey, I’m sorry.”
“I said I’m sorry, okay?”

Could this really be the demeanor of a woman nearing forty?
Precisely because she was a madwoman, even when Kyōko assumed a girl-like demeanor, it did not seem the least bit unnatural.

The face of Kyōko, who had gone to bed early last night—though pale with madness—bore a faint, healthy-looking sheen of oil.
But Kyōko’s fixation these past three or four days—obsessively fixated on the star—still dragged painful shadows beneath her eyebrows and along her jaw this morning.
Kanako placed her hand on the shoulder of Kyōko’s blue silk-dyed nightgown and said.

“Kyōko, it’s such lovely weather today.”
“Let’s go for a walk somewhere with lots of flowers blooming.”
“And we’ll visit the doctor while we’re out.”

“Nuh-uh.”
“I’m not going to the doctor anymore.”
“There’s nothing wrong anywhere now.”

“But maybe I’ll go just a little.”
“As part of the walk.”

――………。

Kyōko seemed to find the memory of the psychiatric hospital where she had stayed for a while when she first fell ill extremely unpleasant.
But after being taken in by Kanako, she believed that Kanako would absolutely never put her in a hospital.
And so, she did go—though only for examinations—to the hospital that Kanako sometimes took her to.
However, she always vividly displayed her reluctance.

Kyōko had a habit of not eating food whenever her condition worsened.
For these past three or four days, the days when Kyōko did not eat had continued.

“You’re going to eat today.”
“Now, Kyōko.”
“Omelet and toast, okay? I’ll even grill a banana for you.”
“You’re going to eat.”

“No.”

Kyōko retightened the loosening obi of her nightgown with slender fingers while shaking her head.

“Then why not tofu miso soup with aonori?”

“No.”
“Because if I eat, even more stars will come out in my eyes.”

"She’s still saying such things."

Kanako quietly teared up.
Kyōko would develop indigestion and lose all appetite, yet while chasing after stars in her eyes and other extravagant delusions from time to time, she would go a week or even ten days hardly eating or drinking.
Even so—that she remained relatively unemaciated and showed no significant weight loss—could this truly be the physiological state of a madwoman? Kanako was left dumbfounded.
While exasperated, Kanako found it all the more pitiable.

Whenever Kyōko began to be seized by some pathological delusion, Kanako’s life would start casting dark shadows, as if haunted by a malevolent spirit.
Kyōko, due to obsessive thoughts stemming from hallucinations and delusions, would not try to leave Kanako’s side.
Kanako fell into anxiety and melancholy, as though she too were being drawn in alongside Kyōko—entangled in sadness, fear, and dependency.
But over the long months, Kanako eventually grew accustomed even to this.
And she learned the means to break through each situation as it arose.
Kanako would occasionally take Kyōko to different doctors and hospitals, as if to provide fresh stimuli to this easily bored patient.
Even if Kyōko’s condition was incurable, as a precaution against further deterioration, she made sure to have her examined by different doctors from time to time.

Kanako left home to take Kyōko to a renowned psychiatric hospital in Tokyo that she had recently heard about from someone.
When they got off the Yamanote train and hired a car, Kyōko kept worrying about her eyes and did not look at the traffic.
Disliking the outside light, she wore black sunglasses and kept her eyes downcast, staring only at her hands resting on her lap.
Kyōko’s hand, trembling in fear of something, was placed on Kanako’s lap.
As Kanako stared at that hand, she recalled a certain scene from their girlhood twenty years earlier.
She recalled how Kyōko had used these very fingers to open the lid of the black-lacquered piano, now lightly coated in dust.

Beethoven’s pieces—even when I play them myself—feel oppressive.

For Kyōko, the more lyrical pieces of Chopin were better suited.
Kyōko also sometimes enjoyed playing the piercing pieces of Liszt.
Kyōko’s piano playing was not particularly skilled, but it had a remarkable charm.
At that moment, Kanako listened to Kyōko’s piano while feeling inexplicably weary.
On the piano was a vase holding a bunch of small crimson roses.
Occasionally, when these roses appeared jet-black, Kyōko spoke with a frightened look.
Even back then, the seeds of Kyōko’s present illness must have been lurking within her mind and body.

Then, one year-end, the two were walking under the fully bloomed cherry blossoms along Aoyama Cemetery Avenue.
Then from ahead came advancing soldiers.
As they drew near, the soldiers began taunting them, boots crunching noisily.
The two girls hurriedly tried to step aside.
At that moment, a soldier in the column clanked his sword and gave them an exaggerated salute.
Kyōko suddenly dashed toward the cemetery like a frenzied doe.
Her hand snapped like a whip and seized Kanako’s wrist.
About a block into the cemetery’s depths lay a slightly open clearing.
Three or four stone platforms stood there for sitting, beneath a large blue maple tree whose lush branches swept down to the ground.
Kyōko stopped here—gripping Kanako’s breathless hand with one of hers while clutching the thick maple branch with the other.
The soldiers on the road marched past like an armored column.
Kyōko glared at them through the maple branches with shining eyes.
Now, through the association with Kyōko’s fingers resting on her lap, Kanako saw again those flushed cheeks and glittering eyes from that day—the pale slender fingers clutching a branch of vivid green maple leaves.
In that frightened, agitated Kyōko, there must already have been countless precursors to her later madness.

The Tama River gravel spread within the hospital gates clutched cherry blossom petals between its uneven pebbles.

“There’s a really big cherry tree somewhere. Don’t you think?”

Kanako said, trying to cheer up Kyōko, who had her hand on Kanako’s shoulder while gazing downward.

“Hmm.”

Kyōko swung her black sunglasses like a golden ring and looked around in all directions.
The cherry blossoms seemed to be somewhere behind the hospital.

All around, amidst the dusty scent of a spring noon, out-of-season daphnes bloomed hazily and fragrantly at the roots of maki trees.

Weather-beaten entrance.
A senile old shoe attendant.
Worn-out straw sandals they were made to change into.
Dimly lit reception room.
Kanako felt so unpleasant that she wanted to ask someone what this musty, dusty oldness had to do with mental patients.
Weary chairs and tables, torn hygiene magazines scattered across the desk, and a single old book on mental cultivation lay there like a fleeting daytime dream, bleakly conspicuous.

"What a horrible hospital!"

Kyōko had finally said it.
Kyōko’s voice was low and penetrating.
Kanako tried to prevent her from saying more, but the forty-year-old man accompanying a nearby patient overheard.
The man said amiably, as if acknowledging Kanako’s hesitation.

“The director here doesn’t care a whit about appearances,” he said affably.
“But in return, the doctors’ examinations here are reliable. Ha, ha, ha, ha.”

In contrast to this lively attendant, the young male patient, rigid and silent, crouched darkly like a blind man.

The door to the reception room facing the corridor was left wide open.
The figures of nursing attendants constantly coming and going through the corridor were visible.
Their ages were roughly around forty years old.
They were burly men who seemed to serve as guards for the confinement rooms of violent male madmen.
They all wore white head coverings, their facial features and bone structures appearing rugged.
Perhaps because their eyes had to remain sharp—sometimes oppressively, sometimes insightfully—amid unceasing vigilance against unrestrained violent patients, endless alertness, and all manner of aberrations, they had naturally sunk into a cold, spiteful hollow.
One or two at a time, they would occasionally come and go into the reception room on some errand.
Kyōko kept glancing at that, then laid her head on Kanako’s shoulder in an utterly weary manner and averted her eyes.
Kyōko was utterly exhausted, had grown weary of fixating on the phantom of the eye star, and seemed to have completely succumbed to listlessness.
The black sunglasses had also been taken off at some point.

A man and woman entered the reception room.
Before they had even settled into their seats, the stylish housewife-like woman among them choked up and began speaking through tears.

"He simply doesn't realize he's mistaken."
"Why did you put me in a place like this?"
"You've gone and invented some other man..."

The woman couldn't finish her sentence, wary of prying eyes.

"That's just how patients talk—there's no helping it."

“But this is too much, Mister.”

“Mister.”

“So if it gets too harsh, I’ll have the Director convinced, you know.”

The man was a mild-mannered fellow around fifty, likely the master of a merchant household.

What’s that?!

Kyōko let out a shrill cry.

Fireball!

“What’s that?!”

That was a red camellia by the reception room window.

No good.
I’m startled.
Flower.
Camellia flower.

When Kanako admonished her a bit harshly, Kyōko stared blankly at the camellia flower. After a short while, she wrinkled her pale face—still marked by fading terror—in an odd manner and scanned the room’s occupants with eyes feigning playfulness to mask her embarrassment. But when Kyōko realized everyone was watching her, overwhelmed by intense shame, her mood soured, and she roughly grabbed Kanako’s hand to drag her out of the room. Then, a nurse came to call Kyōko, holding her name tag.

With each gloomy door—seeming to conceal a black shadow—opened and closed one by one, the two were led to the next waiting room beyond the examination chamber.

Here too were old, weary chairs and sofas, and five or six patients and attendants sitting or standing.
Kanako feared that coming into a crowd of new people would give Kyōko new stimulation.
So, as if embracing Kyōko’s shoulders, she pressed Kyōko’s chair next to her own and pulled Kyōko’s head into her bosom.

“You’re tired, aren’t you?”
“You should rest like this for a bit.”

“Mm.”

Kyōko’s voice sank obediently into Kanako’s bosom.
Her soft hair, tinged with faint reddish hues, rested upon a nape as delicate as a nursing infant’s—when held, the apparent lightness of her weight seemed pitifully fragile.
When stroked, her back yielded a faint, sleep-like breath.

The sight of Kyōko having entirely relinquished herself to Kanako’s care—heedless of appearances or reputation—stirred pity; and as Kanako drew her into a deeper embrace, there drifted to her nose a faint body odor from Kyōko, slightly acrid yet wool-like in its texture.

One of the patients in the room was a fair-skinned, plump, and beautiful woman around thirty years old. The woman quietly swayed her head from side to side, her beauty framed by a marumage bun so glossy it seemed to drip moisture. She kept shaking her head for some time, pausing briefly to mutter indistinct words through clenched teeth while mumbling. Tears streamed down her face. After meticulously wiping them away with a handkerchief, she resumed shaking her head as before, still murmuring fragmented phrases through her muffled speech. The elderly maidservant attending her moved with practiced deference, her clothing neatly arranged. The young woman appeared to be a wife from at least a middle-class household.

In the adjacent seat sat a ruddy-faced fifty-year-old man with sturdy limbs, wearing a handwoven striped kimono and a cotton heiko obi.
He tilted his glossy ruddy face and laughed himself into a solitary stupor.
A soundless laugh, confined to the face.
A laugh unclear whether it stemmed from happiness or joy.
What kind of madness was this? Kanako wondered, tightening her grip on her own absurd feelings that threatened to pull her into laughter as she stared intently at the man.
This man was undoubtedly a farmer.
The attendant was a peasant woman who looked exactly like a female version of the man.
She was likely his wife.

Some distance away sat a man who seemed to be a middle-aged teacher.
He sat alone in a corner, only his eyes gleaming.
His emaciated body blended into a single plane with the chair’s back.
A student accompanied by an elegant old man sat sunk in gloom, maintaining absolute silence.
He was sniffling his nose, perhaps due to sinusitis.

A middle-aged nurse came out from the examination room.
She looked around at the patient whose turn it was and read the name tag.

“Mr. Yoshimura.”

“Yes?”

The one who responded in a girlish tone was, unexpectedly, the ruddy-faced farmer.
The man stopped his senseless laugh from earlier, stood up from the chair, and approached the nurse—whereupon his expression shifted to a self-satisfied smile unlike before, and he proceeded to bow repeatedly to her.
It was an attitude one adopts before receiving great kindness from another person.
The wife hurriedly stood up after the patient and, as if bracing for yet another deeply shameful incident, displayed a flustered timidity to those around her.

A corner of the examination room entrance was partitioned off with a screen, and a young medical officer holding a medical history notebook sat in a chair.
The nurse took the male patient there.
The wife also followed after them.

“Mr. Yoshimura… you are Mr. Yoshimura, correct?”

The young medical officer, smirking smugly, seated the male patient who had entered in the chair directly across from him and began his inquiry.

“Yessir…”

Even the young medical officer—accustomed to mad patients—blinked in momentary discomposure.

“Your name is?”

“Yessir…(after a brief pause) Haru........”

“Wait—that’s my name, isn’t it, you?”

Though the wife frantically tried to interject, the man remained composed, gazing straight at the medical officer’s face as he smugly awaited the next question. The medical officer cast a pitying glance at the wife before resuming his interrogation of the patient.

“Mr. Yoshimura.”
“How old are you?”

“Hmm... age... Well... How old was I again... Let’s see... I believe nineteen... Yes, nineteen...”

The wife grew increasingly agitated and shook her body.

"What nonsense is he saying? Doctor, that is the daughter’s age."

"Well, that’s enough."

But even as he restrained the wife, the medical officer finally burst into laughter.
The people in the waiting room also burst into laughter.
The laughter everyone had been holding back erupted all at once.
And yet, the one who laughed the loudest was none other than the patient himself.
Kanako too laughed, her chest heaving as she held Kyōko, but her laughter faltered midway and collapsed into fear.
The laughter of the patient directly facing Kanako was too ghastly, smothering her own mirth in dread.
The teacher-like man’s laughter—his coldly gleaming eyes fixed ahead unblinking, his stare unrelenting—twisted only his thin bluish-purple lips through the grotesque tension of jaw muscles drawn taut between cheek and chin.
Behind that eerie mirth came a hiccup-like cackle that left Kanako trembling.

“Too loud.”
“What are you laughing at?”

Kyōko woke up and lifted her head.
With eyes still closed like an unbearably sleepy puppy, she found Kanako’s laughter irritating.
Kyōko had developed insomnia and hadn’t slept day or night for ten days straight.
Then she would sleep on and on like a lethargy patient.
Kyōko had been beginning to enter that state again since around last night.
She was so unbearably sleepy.

“Handkerchief.”

Kyōko, with the hand movements of a child climbing a tree, stretched up, cupped one hand around Kanako’s ear, and while glancing around furtively, begged for a handkerchief.
Drooling while asleep was Kyōko’s habit.

While using one hand to take out the handkerchief from her sleeve, Kanako tried to press Kyōko’s face against her own chest so that she wouldn’t see the gloomy surroundings as much as possible.

“Is the patient feeling unwell?”

A young nurse who seemed kind stood by Kanako and asked.

"No, she's just sleepy."
"Because I woke her up early this morning."

The nurse, unable to bear watching Kanako struggle with Kyōko—who was taller than herself—

“Then let’s have her rest a little on the bed. Let’s postpone her examination turn for a little while.”

“Thank you, but I’m quite accustomed to handling things like this.”

“But if the patient dozes off and catches a cold, that would be troublesome.”

I’m sleepy—I’ll sleep on the bed.

Kyōko had decisively succumbed to the nurse’s kindness.

The room with beds—having come to this hospital, Kanako saw something new there for the first time.
Who in this hospital had done such decorating?
Vase, oil painting, frame.
On the wooden bed with gentle legs, a feather quilt stitched with pure white and purple satin hung calmly, bathed in the soft external light streaming through the window.

“I’ll take off the obi and sleep.”

Kyōko untied her green shioze silk round obi embroidered with spring flowers like cherry blossoms and wisteria, entrusted it to Kanako, and buried herself into the bed as if throwing her body onto it.

If I cover myself with the futon, stars won’t come out of my eyes.

Even as she said such things, Kyōko’s voice remained muffled under the futon, like a cat’s.
Kyōko poked her eyes out slightly from the futon she had pulled over herself and looked at Kanako.

“Are you keeping watch?”

“Yes.”

But this lovely egotist soon began breathing steadily in sleep.
And when slumber loosened the hands that had been clutching the futon, Kyōko’s face emerged exposed from its cover.

Like a death mask.
What a chillingly serene midday slumbering visage of the madwoman.
Centered around a short, towering nose bridge—cheeks as though carved away; sunken eye sockets; the broad forehead above them—all lay desolately angled under the midday light’s reflection, like a beach stripped bare by receding waves.
Though the eyebrows were softly drawn, they lacked the vitality of a human woman’s hair; resembling the fragile down of a small bird’s breast, they seemed to silently mourn the pitiful madwoman’s fate.
From the unnaturally pursed lips, almost no breath of a living human seemed to pass.

Is this the end of Adachi Kyōko—once Jōtō’s foremost beauty? Yet it could be said that very beauty invited her present fate.

The numerous men and women who revolved around Kyōko’s beauty.
Kanako, too, had been one of them.
And just like all those other men and women who remained entranced solely by Kyōko’s beauty without ever venturing into her heart, Kanako had been no different from the rest.
Kyōko—coveted purely for her beauty, passed from Count Y to Officer M to those men until even being married off to a Frenchman called Mr. H, then becoming mismatched—ultimately descended into madness. All throughout, Kanako had watched her fate unfold like a beautiful flower tossed about by treacherous winds, observing vacantly.

Kyōko—who was sweet yet haughty, lacking worldly wisdom—continued to rely on Kanako’s nature, which had silently observed her fate, sustaining their friendship for nearly two decades. However, from Kanako’s perspective, she had treated Kyōko as a friend valued solely for her beauty to such a degree that it paled in comparison to Kyōko having relied on Kanako with her heart. The fact that Kanako never confided in Kyōko at all regarding her own romantic affairs or research stood as proof of this. Whether Kyōko had refrained from such character analysis of Kanako or was inherently incapable of it remained unclear, but she appeared to have almost never doubted the shallow friendship between them. In any case, had Kanako approached Kyōko with more critically constructive kindness, it seemed conceivable that even through Kanako’s sincere friendship alone, Kyōko might have steered her destiny onto a different course from some pivotal moment onward, never being driven to such extremes as to descend into complete madness. Precisely because she realized this, Kanako now took Kyōko under her care. This time, she resolved to devote herself wholeheartedly to Kyōko. Kanako brought into her home Kyōko—who, having lost her middle-class relatives and property as a member of a former samurai family, had been institutionalized as an incurable lifelong patient at a psychiatric hospital.

By that time, Kyōko already wore a madwoman’s face incapable of feeling either gratitude or joy toward Kanako’s rekindled friendship. That was how she was taken in, wearing a madwoman’s face as if it were utterly natural. And she exhibited considerable selfishness and troublesome symptoms. But still, fortunately—perhaps due to Kyōko’s originally not wicked upbringing—Kanako did not receive from the madwoman Kyōko the filthiness or the heinous, gruesome acts that other madwomen commit. Even in madness, Kyōko remained a crazed blossom. Even if her beauty had faded, there remained a kind of ethereal, pitiable quality to her madness. Though troubled by Kyōko’s melancholy and obsessions, Kanako was never driven into a life of utter wretchedness. When misjudgments, vexations, melancholy, and obsessions had sapped both her self and stamina to their limits, Kanako would suddenly encounter that romantic aspect of Kyōko’s madness. Kyōko—who had insisted all year that crystal flowers would bloom on her plum tree—even when real plum blossoms appeared, declared them crystalline plums. Lamenting the scattering petals, she wore a green silk tie-dyed kimono layered with a black-silk haori patterned in red shibori, catching the falling flowers in its sleeves as she played outdoors for half a day in the chilly early spring, never tiring. Day after day, this continued. How beautiful, Kanako marveled, then immediately heard her own voice chiding her heart: What was this—she mustn’t take pleasure even in the madwoman Kyōko! Despite being a madwoman, Kyōko had a keen eye for discerning colors. When Kanako bought the kimono Kyōko coaxed her for, it truly suited Kyōko well. When Kanako wore a black soirée dress for her evening out, Kyōko promptly crafted something like a flower from crimson French crepe for her. Because it wasn’t an artificial flower made by a professional, it instead hung down with a fluffy fullness around Kanako’s chest, creating an effective drape. Kyōko was oddly frugal again. While begging Kanako to prepare delicious meat dishes for the maids, she herself continued to eat white rice porridge for days on end. She would eat white rice porridge topped with finely chopped greens, but Kanako was also made to partake in this. While voicing concern that Kyōko’s body would weaken if she continued like this for days on end, Kanako’s aesthetic sense rather favored the colors of the food Kyōko ate and its simplicity. And Kanako quietly slipped behind Kyōko to eat meat and fish.

“Is the patient still resting?”
“Let me take over for a bit.”
“Why don’t you view the back garden?”

The young nurse who had brought Kyōko and Kanako here earlier came in and said this.

“Yes, thank you.”
“It’s lovely weather, isn’t it?”

“Why don’t you refresh yourself by viewing the garden? The cherry blossoms are blooming.”

Kanako recalled the cherry blossom petals that had scattered all over the front garden.

“Well, just for a bit then.”
“Please.”
“Please inform me immediately when she wakes up, all right?”

“Understood.”

While hearing behind her the nurse’s words—“She’s sleeping soundly”—after checking on Kyōko, Kanako stepped out into the hallway. It was a dilapidated hallway that made one doubt whether it belonged to the same building as the room they had just left. Yet it suggested that somewhere ahead lay a place of intense brightness. As Kanako walked unsteadily, a pale woman approached from the front. Madwoman(?)—startled, Kanako pressed herself against the hallway’s edge and quickened her pace. Feigning ignorance as she tried to pass by, she stole a glance at the woman: a subdued old Oshima tsumugi lined kimono paired with a wilted Hakata decorative sash. Her hair was combed upward and coiled into an indescribable shape at her crown. Before the stray hairs could hang loose, they had become a fluffy, tangled mass clumped midway. The refined madwoman in her early thirties quietly bowed her head to Kanako and passed by.

Heavy, chaotic footsteps were heard.
Kanako had already begun to turn her feet in the opposite direction to retreat from this corridor.
Suddenly, the side door burst open, and two obese women emerged.
One was a fifty-year-old woman in a nurse’s uniform.
The other was a patient—a woman of twenty-five or twenty-six, bloated like a lifeless vegetable, her swollen, dull eyes blurred like foxtail plumes—who cast a faint, sinister air as she gazed at Kanako.
At that moment, near the partitioned wooden wall, came a heavy thud like an object crashing down.
Groan— came the male patient’s guttural cry.
From a place somewhat removed came the sound of madwomen raising shrill, shrill shrieks.

Kanako panicked.
And she was suddenly struck by anger and confusion—had that young nurse driven her out of Kyōko’s sleeping room into this place just to frighten her?

“Where are you headed?”

The elderly nurse who had earlier passed by with a plump patient returned and inquired while eyeing Kanako with bewilderment.

“I’m going to the garden.”

“No.
This is the corridor leading to patient rooms.”

The vast circular garden was so dazzlingly bright it could awaken the eyes.
It was a walking area for patients without violent tendencies who didn’t require confinement.
On the wide lawn, trees and shrubs were planted in simple, orderly rows.
Now it was only the cherry blossoms that were in their full glory.

On both sides of the walking path crossing the center of the garden, particularly massive cherry trees spread their branches, with dozens of medium-height cherry trees aligned in accordance.
The tips of branches where pale pink fully bloomed flowers clustered were all intertwined in unison, making it difficult to distinguish where one tree ended.
It was a long, encircling layer of flowers; where the layers grew thick, they naturally cast faint shadows, while from the thinner areas, an abundance of falling petals scattered with the breeze caught the eye.
The falling petals appeared to scatter both to the immediate vicinity and to distant, unknown places.

While singing an out-of-tune military song, a thick-bearded man in his fifties emerged from beneath the cherry blossoms toward the corridor window facing the garden where Kanako stood. He wore a baggy, canvas-like khaki-colored outfit. The white hair on his head—drenched through with fallen blossoms—glittered in the spring sunlight.

“Hellooo.”

He raised his hand with a kind-looking smile.

“Hellooo.”

The one who returned the greeting so loudly that Kanako was startled was a middle-aged man who had been standing at a window near her, watching the garden in the same way for some time.
The man came right beside Kanako.

“That one’s an old-timer even in this hospital.”

As the man began explaining to Kanako, the military song patient walked back the way he had come, once again repeating his military song as he went.

“Since he spends all day taking leisurely walks outside like that, his body’s quite sturdy.”
“He’ll live a long life, I suppose.”

Because the man worked intensely in Kabutocho, he occasionally developed mild brain diseases, and since he had been coming to this hospital for about twenty years, he was said to be acquainted with many of the long-term patients.

“That man is a hero of the Russo-Japanese War. He was wounded during the first attack on Port Arthur. His life was saved, but he lost his mind.”

“He’s quiet, isn’t he?”

“Truly quiet. The trade-off is he’s got no prospect of recovery, you see. A lifetime patient. But since he’s like that, he’s well-liked by everyone at the hospital. Far better than half-sane meddling and suffering the hardships of sanity.”

Blue-painted benches had been placed here and there in the garden, and patients exhausted from sunbathing or walks sat silently upon them. Apart from the man singing an out-of-tune military song, not a single person moved their lips. In contrast to the violent nature of the caged patients, these were likely too docile—a static group of patients.

An old man was taking off, putting on, and folding his old haori jacket, sitting formally on the grass and bowing while gazing up at a patch of sky.

“That one stole someone’s kimono when he was young, they say.”
“He was timid, they say, and it weighed on him so much that he went mad.”

When Kanako asked, the man beside her explained again.
A woman with heaps of thread scraps on her lap, doing nothing but connecting them; a man in the distance, alone, imitating a rabbit’s shape with both hands held high like ears, crouching in one spot.

Kanako returned her gaze to a nearby bench and discovered a pair of young men there.
They closely resembled each other in both face and appearance.
One was slightly older and clearly a sane, healthy individual, but the younger one could be recognized as a madman at a single glance.

“Those are brothers.”

Again, the man beside Kanako interjected.

“They were brothers who worked as blacksmiths, you see.
They had no parents or wife or children—just the two of them working day in and out.
But the younger brother’s skills were rather poor.
One time, the older brother flew into a rage and raised his hammer at him, you see.
He didn’t actually strike him, mind you, but the shock made the younger brother lose his mind.
Five or six years back, that was.
When that younger brother got admitted here.
The older one comes without fail three times a month.
And plays along with his brother, you see.
Out of that kind-heartedness, everyone who sees it can’t help but pity them.
Once he’s here, the older brother does whatever the younger one says.
Atonement for his guilt, you understand?
The younger brother makes him do all sorts of strange imitations.
‘Do my hand gestures! Do my foot movements!’ he orders his big brother.
And the older one does every last thing.
‘Stick out your tongue! Raise your hands! Get on all fours! Lie down and look!’—they’ll start up any moment now, mark my words.”

Kanako had come to feel she’d had enough of the man’s explanations.
She thought everyone must return what they had once received and ultimately take responsibility for their own actions.
She thought life was a sad and vexing thing.
But she also thought it was a world of mesmerizing karmic retribution.

But Kanako had already seen enough of this madwoman’s walking ground.
The cherry blossoms blooming excessively and proudly above the madmen’s heads also began to appear stubbornly persistent.
She had grown tired of even this man who was so fond of explaining.
Kanako felt a dangerous sensation that if she stayed there any longer, both her mind and body might be drawn into something beyond disgust—a perilous infatuation.

When Kanako swiftly turned away from the glass window, the young nurse who had been attending to Kyōko hurried over.

“The patient has woken up.”

Even though the nurse had hurried over, she said calmly.

“The cherry blossoms must be in full bloom.”

But beyond that, Kanako’s eyes caught sight of the phantom of Kyōko’s face beyond the nurse’s shoulder, deep in the corridor—a forlorn yet beautiful vision like the pale electric light that would linger over Kanako for the rest of her life.