Pathway to Japanese Literature

One September morning.
An early autumn breeze swayed gently over the city.
It was an unusually tranquil morning; sky and air stood perfectly clear as sunlight filled every corner with brilliance.
Kita Teruo leaned back against his rough-hewn desk in pleasant stupefaction while bathing his head in light still holding summer’s lingering warmth.
He had woken barely thirty minutes prior.
In this multipurpose room—study and workplace and parlor and dining hall and bedroom that both consoled daily fatigue and bestowed fresh vigor—the dingy bedding from last night remained exactly where he’d left it.
Through windowpanes stretched views of Hongo’s elevated groves and layered buildings beneath pale heavens—vistas intermittently shaken by large leaves from the fruitless tree at his windowsill.
He remained acutely aware of how ill-matched elements clashed: haphazard desk and bookshelf crammed into eight tatami mats; star charts and world map plastered beside portraits of Christ and Buddha; all juxtaposed against bedding sprawled center-floor.
Normally he’d have grimaced self-reproachfully at such disorder—flung quilts into closets and marched straight to douse himself under icy wellwater—but today’s awakening came with light cascading over his pillow.
This unexpected joy sprang from last night’s forgotten storm shutters.
Gazing upward at sunlit azure skies compelled belief he’d been specially blessed.
I couldn’t help thinking this sky exists solely for me today—free and fruitless and grandly ardent.
Thus he sat bolt upright against chairback while remaining desk-leaned—spellbound by radiance unbound from worldly constraints.
Each breeze made fruitless tree’s purple-green leaves shiver—but what force could even all creation muster against him now!

“How nice.”

And he nodded unconsciously.
Ah, this fleeting world consecrated by vitality, power, and beauty!

But this fleeting moment was shattered by a deep, immense sigh that arose from within him for reasons unknown, and an unpleasant dark shadow began to form in his soul.
It was a heartrending, dark shadow of life seeping into the void where the exaltation and fullness of his soul were beginning to unravel.
(Why am I not permitted to dwell eternally in this magnificent joy?
Why can I not pulse with this joyous exaltation?) He let out another deep, heavy sigh.
The waves of joy had already receded into the distance, and his tragic resolve had solidified into an unyielding conviction—"I will surely prevail"—as it confronted the reality of his ongoing struggles and victories.

His room was the sole single-story building in an orchard owned by a former aristocrat.
It appeared to have been built as a simple rest house during the period when the orchard’s owner had seriously cultivated fruit trees here, and since this spring, he had been renting it as his residence.
In the heart of the city, there was no other way to seek fresh air and vast open spaces than this.
Before long, Kita folded the bedding, opened the shoji screens, and stepped outside.
Almond, apple, and mandarin orange trees filled the garden—overgrown with weeds and left to ruin—their branches intertwined, each fruit seemingly premature and infested with insects, displaying persimmon-hued, yellow, and green-gold tones against the clear autumn sky.
Coming to the wellside, he stripped naked as usual and, while taking care with his sturdy frame—thick-jointed limbs and taut muscles beneath resilient skin—poured cold water over himself from head to toe in one continuous motion.
Sunlight glittered on the white water—a healthy beauty with a faint flush rising.
As he poured ten ladles over himself, a vigorous energy welled up from within as a kind of shudder.
He shuddered violently like a warrior and gazed for a while at the buildings visible near the hill through the trees. When he realized that area housed the university, something about it stirred him, and with a “Let’s go!” resolve, he returned to his room.

The milk and hard bread that the early-rising milkman had left on the dirt floor while still asleep were Kita’s breakfast.
He separated himself from the ecstasy of the blissful sun and vast sky, and while tearing off pieces of bread and carefully reading the foreign telegrams column in the newspaper, became absorbed in mapping each word and phrase precisely onto the world map adorning the wall.
The deeply rooted reality of revolution could not even tempt his soul with visions of emperors and heroes crushing continents beneath iron-shod hooves.
Lately his state of mind had grown incapable of dismissing Napoleon outright; rather, he found himself infuriated by newspapers’ glib condemnations.
If one recognized that blood spilled between nations was neither meaningless nor trivial—that its true necessity lay in inexorable destiny and cosmic evolution—then to dismiss class struggle’s carnage as mere vengeance or opportunism became not merely distasteful but abhorrent.
Therein he could not help but discern profound inevitability.
Mutual bloodshed was no simple matter.
However beastly its guise, who could deny its solemn core as humanity’s tragic stride forward?

The shortcoming of many people lies in only seeing the superficial aspects of facts and failing to perceive the significant internal meaning that substantiates those facts. While this is a trait common to societal customs, it is particularly severe among a certain class of people in Japan. The masses may lack words, but they possess an intuition like gunpowder awaiting ignition; yet a certain group among them is hollow, armed only with the empty echoes of logic and form.—but such matters are utterly trivial in the grand scheme. He realized he had more pressing work to do—and today, having slept in, wasn’t the minute hand already less than two full rotations from noon? Ah, even so—think of the happiness of being able to pour all my strength into work on this blessed morning! How on earth am I so happy right now!

Kita discarded the newspaper and took out manuscript paper; from the map vanished the crowds, the shouts, the cannon fire.
He gripped his pen and began to write as usual, but tears threatened to well up uncontrollably.
Ah, it’s no wonder the tears well up.
How many long, arduous, burning years must have passed since he—even as an immature and innocent boy with that heartrending resolve buried deep in his chest—first vowed to dedicate his own life to the fate of the poor and the weak!
Even now, the wandering life filled with hardships, suffering, and endurance vividly revived within him.
The souls of the many kind, suffering people he had encountered during that time still pressed vividly upon him even now—still, still.
O tears that lament my own ignorance and powerlessness, chewed upon time and again—ah, how many times must this pitiful self have clutched his chest, confronted by the thought that he cannot even lay a finger on this unjust, unforgivable reality that persists eternally!
Beneath the lamentation and resentment over his powerless incompetence—despite his taut single-minded resolve—there welled up new tears of impassioned emotion.
But now—ah, the joy of being able to say this!
(I am no longer zero.
I am no longer nothing.
I may not be a complete one, but I am one part—one-tenth part, one-hundredth part, one-thousandth part, one-ten-thousandth part.
The work I can do may indeed still be minuscule, perhaps even invisible when compared to all the undertakings that come and go on this earth.
I will feel ashamed at the smallness of my work.
However, I will never, never be disappointed.
Even if ever so small, this self of mine is watching the present and future of humankind with these very eyes.
At times drenched in tears, at times burning and shining with anger, and at other times holding the faint smile of hope—I strive to clarify the true meaning of the phenomena of human life that arise and perish on this earth.)
He was writing it with a terrifying sense of daring.
And a very few of his acquaintances were lending their strength so that he could somehow have time for his work.
Truly, writing for him was the revelation of truth—the earth’s very marrow—and the conquest of falsehood and ugliness.

He clearly recognized the various evils that swarmed like poisonous smoke, flooded like a muddy sea, and overran like noxious weeds across the surface of the colossal living Earth—evils progressing with a ferocious intensity beyond human comprehension.
He could not help but cleanse and purify those evils and falsehoods, at least within his own world.
Of course, he was not satisfied merely with illuminating his inner life through pen and paper; yet his belief that the understanding and ideas quietly held within him would one day serve as the great leveling ground for summoning new storms and thunderbolts upon the earth did not disrupt his stride.

It was perhaps past eleven in the morning when he stopped writing—to avoid being swept away by his thoughts rushing like a torrent—and casually gazed out the window, where he saw two young men entering through the decayed back gate of this Koishikawa hilltop garden, its roots old and rotten.
Hidden by the leafy shade of the fruitless trees, they were invisible from the opposite side, but he could see them clearly from where he stood.
One was a tall, corpulent man in his mid-twenties wearing a university uniform, his complexion pale and eyebrows gentle; the other, of shorter stature and sturdy build, wore a newly tailored suit with a grass-colored soft hat. His black necktie, tied straight across the collar, formed a striking contrast against the angular stubble and bluish jawline.
They were Fujii and Oka.
It was unclear why the two had come together, but each time they walked along the weed-covered path, blades of grass caught at their shoe tips.

“Here it is.”
“That small single-story house is Kita-kun’s residence—I just hope he’s not out.”

With that, the tall university student stopped and said with a slight smile.

“Thank you. Truly, thank you despite your busy schedule.”
“Well then, let’s meet again next time. The day after tomorrow, there’s an experiment in my classroom—if you have time, please come by.”

“Ah, thank you.”
“Today was truly helpful.”
“Really—I’m glad I happened to meet you.”
“I hadn’t known it was such a place.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Well then, goodbye.”
“Give my regards to Kita-san.”

“Goodbye.”

Fujii, having apparently encountered him along the way and informed Oka of his own residence, parted ways at the back gate.

What remained was an indescribably quiet, hushed orchard under autumn daylight.
Fujii was a genetics major at Imperial University.
He served as a tutor for businessmen’s families while pursuing considerable self-supported studies.
Kita’s interest in him lay in his expertise in genetics and circumstances of academic struggle; though Fujii had a plump pallid physique and gentle demeanor, Kita particularly disliked his passive nature—how he kept both anger and joy tightly concealed—or what might harshly be termed an effeminate disposition.
Yet Fujii had approached him with servile friendship ever since Kita first published his ideological works.
What aspect of himself could possibly interest the man? Kita had even nursed uncharitable suspicions that he might be some sort of lapdog—yet in the end, Fujii too had proven a decent friend.
But regarding Oka—who stood directing an intense fearsome gaze through the thicket toward them, sunken eyes glinting beneath thick brows as he mumbled and shook his head twice or thrice like one pondering grave matters—there was something altogether different.

In truth, last night—as an apology for not having visited his senior Mr. X in so long—he had stopped by while strolling through Hongo. As he stood at the entrance awaiting a response from the attendant, an unfamiliar high-pitched and strained voice could be heard through the sliding door.
Just as he was about to be overwhelmed by the loneliness of wanting to meet but being unable to and having to return home—thinking *Maybe it’s no use*—the sliding door opened, and a young man in a suit, ushered out by Mr. X, emerged with an unsteady gait.
Kita, without paying much attention to the short young man, was immersed in the joy of seeing Mr. X’s somewhat frail, tear-dampened smile after a long absence.
Then Mr. X said, “Oka-kun, well then, please give my regards to Mr. W when you meet him.”
Wasn’t fate a strange thing?
The attention Kita had been about to direct flared up in an instant, illuminating the young man.
“Ah, so it was you,” he thought—intertwining the joy and astonishment of this sudden reunion after so long with a sense of bewilderment—as he stood stock-still there.

“I’m Kita. Kita Teruo,” he stammered.

“Oh, Kita!”

Oka, with his perpetually short-tempered-looking thick eyebrows, narrowed his sunken ferocious eyes into triangles beneath them and—as if driven by passion—trembled his thick red lips while watching him.

“I’m Oka—Oka Naotaro, the one who did judo… How many years has it been since we met? Must be six by now—I remember.”
“I remember how, out of frustration from losing to you in the class tournament, I ambushed and beat you up under those cherry trees.”
“Yeah, after that, you never came back to school—but after that… what’ve you been up to?”

“You’re the one,” Kita wanted to retort, but he remained silent, staring intently at Oka as he yielded to the welling sorrow. The emotion from seeing Mr. X after so long grew even more intense and profound when compounded by the shock of unexpectedly encountering him—the man who had been preserved unchanged for six years in memory’s vault without fading—until it overwhelmed him completely. But he, long accustomed to suppressing the free outward flow of pure emotions, fell silent like a statue.

“Where are you now?”

Oka said imploringly.
Kita still did not answer.

“Please come up, Oka-kun—you too,” said Mr. X, at which he and Oka went up.
Bathing in the pale light of Mr. X’s guest room, he calmly explained—in simple terms to avoid distressing him—about his residence, how his painstaking ideological debut work had been brought into the world by Mr. X, and how he was now drafting a new manuscript.
Oka informed him that he had entered a university’s law department the year after Kita left high school midway, graduated, and was now working in the trade department of a large company—then added with fierce self-mockery, “I’m a hidden revolutionary,” or something to that effect.

While they were having such a conversation, the maid brought coffee.
The teacups at that time—those used by myself and Mr. X—appeared to be deep-bottomed Dutch ones of fine quality with beautiful floral patterns, but the one given to Oka was an ordinary flat teacup of hard ceramic.
Kita, perceiving that Oka’s eyes had keenly detected this difference, could not help but startle.
Just as he had worried and anticipated, Oka—in a manner that was scolding, weeping, like a solitary soul muttering to itself—repeatedly asked for his address, wrote it down in his notebook, and brusquely left.
And he had already forgotten by this morning even the unbearable pain and loneliness that followed his departure.
Of course, he had not even dreamed that Oka would come visiting like this on the morning after last night.

Oka stood silently by the well for about ten minutes.
Most likely, when the moment finally came, he suddenly found himself unwilling to call out.

The surroundings were quiet, and the sun blazed down upon the garden’s melancholy desolation. The sky burned with surging silver waves, and in this supremely silent world, he once more began letting the faintly rhythmic sound of his pen tip racing across paper resonate. Yet Kita could not escape feeling a suffocating restraint that immobilized him—this awareness of Oka’s presence—(Within this morning’s great stillness, my blessed creation takes shape while cradling fate’s strange confluence!) Nor could Oka linger forever in silent vigil; he circled around to the side entrance.

“Kita-kun, are you there?!”

No reply was given, and Oka likely heard only the sound of the pen racing across the paper.

“Kita-kun, are you there?”

“Who’s there?!”

“It’s me.”
“It’s Oka.”
“It’s Oka—the one you met at Mr. X’s place last night. Are you working now?”

“No, it’ll be done soon.”
“Please come in.”

Oka, who had casually slid open the shoji and entered, now faced the young Kita Teruo—a man with long hair, a rock-solid build, clad in a single-layer Kurume kasuri kimono with a black obi tightly fastened around his lower abdomen.

“Please come in.”

Kita stood up and, as was his habit when meeting people, gazed directly at Oka for a moment.

“Just now on my way here, I met Fujii—someone I recently became acquainted with at the university—and since he knew you, he told me where you live.”
“Well, when it comes to anthropological insight, I’m certainly no less knowledgeable than Fujii.”
“Right now I’m conducting research on marriage and birth rate restrictions—it’s certainly worthy of a doctoral thesis, you know. It’ll lay the foundation for realizing pure socialism and fundamentally crush all opposition.”

“Hmm.”

Flustered yet maintaining clarity, he stared at Oka once more.
The narrow, low forehead constricted at the temples contrasted with the skull’s center rising like a stone block; sunken eyes beneath short thick brows narrowed until triangular, gleaming with pathological intensity—the angular jaw and protruding teeth forming a visage where passion had congealed into granite.
Here was a self-obsessed zealot—tormented and betrayed by society—now petrified into obstinacy.
“At times,” he thought, “this Oka-kun has truly become someone capable of murder.”
He bitterly regretted being visited mid-work.
Interactions with clever, nimble types like Fujii sometimes brought respite—frivolous as half-flirtatious chatter with beauties—but dialogues with Oka’s ilk tended toward absolutes or nullity.
What I say never reaches him.
What he says—passionately affirmable yet rationally worthless—clings to warped logic he wields like a cudgel.
While considering this might waste his day, he conversely mused that such men—once devoted—could warrant lifetime sacrifices; regardless, he steadied himself.
That this was no time for immersion would later become evident.

“I was rude last night.”
“No, I’m the one.”

After Oka glanced around the entire room, he lowered his eyes to the manuscript on Kita’s desk, as though unable to contain his emotion,

“Are you working on it?”
“Magnificent!”
“You must do it—yes, you must! Such drive—it sends shivers down my spine, truly—truly!”
He trailed off as if muttering to himself, then raised his voice again,

“So, you quit high school midway after that incident, then.”

“Yes, that was the end of it.”

“You must have thought there was no need to remain among barbarians who beat you even after you won the match.”
“But that was for the best!”
“Because those like me who graduate from school have already become perfect specimens of capitalist lapdogs by graduation.”
“It’s hopeless!”
“No proper ideas come to mind!”
“I write something small and reread it—look! It’s turned into nothing but hollow mimicry!”
“Yes, you quit splendidly!”
“The failure of my life lies in having graduated from university.”
“I lacked your purity and resolve.”
“Just for having barely graduated, here I am wearing this new Western suit while my inner sanctum lies empty—those gramophone professors and dictionary professors at that university turned me into this stone-headed fool.”

Oka seemed to struggle to articulate his thoughts, unrelated words spilling forth until he abruptly began speaking in a heated, grave tone. His eyes blazed beneath his brows like fire smoldering under brushwood.

"I actually read something you wrote last night."
"That prophetic section from the essay called 'The Next World War'."
"The great conflict that may follow this current global war could become a total confrontation between the capitalist class and working class across the entire earth—this might be called an inevitable rhythm of human existence."
"But can we truly not make this battle something beyond weapons clashing? Can we not determine victory not through arms, but ensure those who should win do prevail?"
"Even your notion that revolution could be achieved through internal understanding rather than bloody conflict contains a fatal flaw in its very foundation—this framing of global confrontation between capitalists and workers."
"I rather believe the next great war will be between equalized socialist states and other nations—what say you?"
"In that case, countries that have most fully realized socialist principles would hold greater chances of victory."
"Rather than assuming this Great War will bring free global exchange and make worldwide class struggle the next conflict, I'm convinced the current war will spur domestic reforms realizing socialism within various nations—and these socialist states will inevitably provoke the next great war by each asserting their expansion and survival."
"You keep a world map in your room, so you're no mere dreamer—but for someone who understands maps, your ideas strike me as curiously insubstantial."

Kita remained silent and listened attentively.

“I find it impossible to comprehend how you don’t seem to take national and ethnic differences seriously enough.”
“While I emphasize class distinctions, I cannot help but place even greater importance on geographical environment and racial discrimination.”
“Because we actually have yellow skin—because we actually have small physiques and black hair.”
“No matter how we construct our theories—it’s because we were born in this long, narrow little archipelago.”
“Because no matter what, we need that fertile continent of China and the islands of the South Seas.”
“How can we not anchor our starting point here?—For this starting point equally lies in my—in *our*—clear recognition that we are truly poor people.”
“Just as our yellow skin is an unshakable fact before our eyes, it is equally true that we are a conquered class—the bottom layer of society—working ourselves to the bone from dawn till dusk without even understanding why, forced to resign ourselves to meager food, wretched dwellings, and threadbare clothes, all while tearfully watching our aspirations vanish into futility.”
“I believe there is no truth beyond this fact—no matter what.”
“There may be greater truths than this—but there can be no others apart from them.”
“Therefore—I am both a socialist and a nationalist.”
“I am both a proletarian and a Japanist.”
“From this severe stance of mine—I can’t help but find your attitude lukewarm and diluted—in fact—I even feel resentment.”
“Of course—if this were the lukewarm ideology naturally expected of university professors—I’d simply spit on it and be done—but you—at least you who claim to be a prophet of Japan’s future—no—more than that—the tendencies I find in your ideas… First off—how on earth do they end up so diluted? It’s utterly puzzling.”
“I even thought this—”
“If you truly harbor such lukewarm ideas—then for the sake of modern evolution—it might be necessary to forcibly silence you—or so I thought.”

He probably needed to respond, but Kita could not say anything.
The reason was that what Oka was now expounding with rare white-hot eloquence were ideas he himself had already repeatedly melted in the forge of his mind and transcended.
Oka too looked up at him in silence.
If he remained silent any longer, he disliked the thought of being hastily assumed defeated—and moreover, he had discovered within Oka’s outwardly rigid demeanor an honest, human sincerity flowing beneath his speech.

“But,” Kita said quietly.
“There is a truth beyond the truth you speak of.”

“A miracle, eh?! Or are you calling it some immortal truth?—Immortality, eternity… Doesn’t all that reek of ghosts and religion? Don’t you think that’s absurd?”
“What you call eternal truth—isn’t it simply a truth that will never be realized?”
“Because once realized, that truth would likely become obsolete anyway.”
“My state socialism may not be an eternal truth—but the state socialism those few tedious old bureaucrats advocate today? That’s a counterfeit!”
“I can’t stand being lumped in with *that*—that’s a mask for self-interest! Mine is the truth, a *practical* truth! But precisely because we can achieve it right now if we act—that’s exactly why it feels like a great truth to us.”
“In reality, what grand strategy other than this could possibly save Japan today?”
“There is no path but to saturate the earth with our lives through the fulfillment of internal equalization!”

He took a breath and continued further.

“Because we are the Japanese people, we advocate and strive for our nation’s survival and prosperity.”
“In the same way, because we are the proletariat, we advocate and strive for the survival and prosperity of our class.”
“At first glance, my position may seem utterly barbaric, uncivilized, and self-centered—but in this modern age, this is justice itself! This is truth!”
“The very fact that we are the proletariat transforms our self-assertion into truth.”
“If we were Anglo-Saxons or Teutons or Indians or Hottentots—if we were millionaires or factory owners—that would not be truth.”
“Because such claims would inevitably be falsehoods born of intellect.”
“And today’s League of Nations is nothing but a conference of global bandits!”
“How could permanent peace possibly come so soon?”
“Doesn’t your vision—‘a global class struggle culminating in victory and peace’—mean the annihilation of nations and ethnicities? Doesn’t it mean realizing a unified world? In this twentieth century, our foremost need is to implement socialism domestically while competing with other nations abroad!”
“And this will undoubtedly be achieved.”
“Once it is done, I will not rest until I first destroy today’s capitalist class and avenge our ancestors’ grievances since humanity’s dawn—grievances against those so-called young ladies and madams who paint their coy faces with rouge and powder bought by the people’s lifeblood!”
“Truly, in times of suffering—when oppressed, when utterly helpless—I barely restrain myself by imagining such days of victory.”
“All humiliation and pain merely strengthen my conviction that vengeance on that day will be supremely justified.”
“Today’s silk-clad gentlemen gorging on luxury—I won’t rest until I make every last one of those so-called ladies and wives don red undergarments and parade them through Ginza’s streets!”
“And likewise, I cannot rest until I destroy the white race infesting this entire globe.”

Oka let out a deep sigh, but Kita had become filled with sadness.
Ah, tormented warrior! Scream born of agony!
In that lay a profound truth.
But I was neither a man thrashing in the abyss nor Oka.
To put it in Oka’s words: “something beyond...”
“I am one who dwells in ‘religion.’”
I was a person who had descended into the abyss.
Kita gazed at Oka with tears in his eyes, his feelings now entirely different from when they had begun.
Oppressed, crushed souls; the scream of a will to live—Kita spoke after a while.

“Oka, are your parents in good health?”

“Oh, my parents are in good health.—But ever since Father failed in the mine, he’s been dependent on my meager income.”

“Do you have any siblings?”

“I have two sisters.”

“Oh… I envy you.”

“Oh, come on…”

Oka forced a bitter smile, but in that moment, he actually felt envious.
His parents were both alive and well; he had received a university education and now supported his entire family; at home there were even two young, modest, and diligent sisters—was this not truly a good, peaceful, warm, and humble household? To him, it even seemed that if one could live in such a home as its young head, as an elder brother, as a dutiful son—bestowing joy and receiving happiness—then enduring a little pain might be acceptable.
He stood silently with arms folded, staring intently at Oka—who had lived a far more stable former life than he himself ever had.

“Reality isn’t as sweet and beautiful as people imagine.”
“A massive oppressive force wrings out my family’s happiness and joy—it even wrings out my very humanity.”
“We must bring about great destruction.”
“We must fundamentally bring about great destruction.”
“People often say great actions require great preparations—while that may hold truth, its application is usually flawed.”
“Great destructive action isn’t the petty deeds of individuals but an epochal act by the entire populace! Thus its preparations too must be epochal!”
“Wasn’t the fiftieth year of Meiji our finest preparatory era?”
“This modern age must now become an era of action!”
“Though the entire nation’s groundwork is already laid—is there not a single pioneer? Not one devoted laborer?”
“Even if great Russians have their assailants—when Japan lacks even a single [pioneer]—isn’t it pitiful?”
“Precisely because I endure such anguish, I can’t bear this frustration with you!”
“Why won’t you become more direct and revolutionary? This regret gnaws at me endlessly.”
“Beloved youth—even Jesus of Judea said it: ‘Today’s work must be done today; let tomorrow worry for itself.’”
“I insist there must be more revolutionary fervor—more class consciousness! More relentless national awareness!”
“Nothing poisons mankind like unattainable humanity and hollow philanthropy!”

The noon sky was clear.
In the orchard, beneath overlapping deep green branches and leaves, green-golden citrus fruits glinted.

“First of all, where is there any reason to sympathize?!”
“After Darwin’s theory of evolution—and further, after Marx’s *Das Kapital* and historical materialism—to feel sympathy for those ruling-class bastards is, I think, a far more egregious fallacy and absurdity than believing the sun revolves around the Earth after Copernicus.”
“Especially—when it’s you, of all people, who seems to harbor such sympathy and tears—I cannot let it stand.”
“If you were an upper-class scion or even a middle-class one, feeling sympathy for them might be understandable—hell, I’d just scoff and dismiss it. But you’re specifically from the proletariat, a man who’s lived unyieldingly in this capitalist-saturated modern society, relying solely on your own strength to avoid being crushed, a vigorous young man at that! Truly, when I first met you at Mr. X’s place and learned of your grit through that Dutch-made coffee cup, it felt like witnessing a miracle.”
“Yet it’s utterly disheartening that I cannot help but recognize how even you—infected by this nauseating, trendy humanitarianism—seem to speak with tears welling beneath your words.”
“When I think that even you have fallen into the same old predictable pattern… I can’t bear it.”
“I feel so helpless and lonely.”
“Unless you burn with even more incandescent revenge and hatred—unless you blaze with a revolutionary conviction that won’t settle for anything less than the entire globe—isn’t that what it truly means to be genuine?”
“You—you—do you really, truly sympathize with them?”

“——”

“Do you sympathize?”
“Or do you hate them?”

“I cannot hate them—they are pitiable.”

“That’s half-hearted!”
“Otherwise, you’re just posturing as a false saint!”

“But is not humanity as a biological whole—all living beings—creatures deserving of sympathy?”

“But such diluted sympathy is a lie—and dangerous! It’s not authentic.”
“Cast it off!”
“Cast off that emotion!”
“Reduce it to ashes with the scorching flames of hatred blazing from within!”

“My inclination leans more toward compassion than hatred,” Kita said with an unbidden smile.

“That’s the problem! Do you think we stand in any position to pity them? It’s us who deserve pity! They’re the ones who rightfully deserve hatred now. Because we waste our pity on them—that’s exactly why our heads will never lift! They’re the strong rulers; we’re the weak conquered.”

“We may be weaklings, but I am not one! Therefore, I choose to pity rather than hate. The true victors are always brimming with tears, you know. I would rather pity. Your emotions are but a temporary wave. But my emotions are an eternal current flowing beneath the waves.”

“What purpose does that serve now?”

“It does serve a purpose! Oka, this emotion can save the world.”

“You too—it seems you’re just a self-important windbag spouting nonsense in your lonely corner,” he said with evident disappointment.

“Oh, no! That’s it.”
“I am your comrade.”
“It’s precisely because I’m your comrade that your victory is assured.”
“Since I am an eternal champion and eternal victor, laurel wreaths always gleam wherever I join.”
“Isn’t it precisely because your triumph is certain that I cannot hate them—that I feel pity instead?”
“I am what has emerged from you and surpassed you; your role is to hate—you must hate.”
“Yet I need not hate.”
“Because I have no such requirement, you see.”

“However, if you say that, I feel disheartened.”

“Why should you feel disheartened? Where else could there be such reassurance? Oka, victory is certain. What a heartening thing it is that I feel no pity for you who suffer but instead feel sorrow for them who strut about!”

“Hmm.”
“That may be so, but Kita—even if I were convinced of our victory, how could that possibly become a reason for me to feel pity for them?”
“I will hate them to the very end.”
“I hate them.”
“I truly hate them!”
“Ah, how our countless friends, our countless fathers and mothers, our countless grandfathers and grandmothers must have suffered at their hands!”
“Ah, when one considers that even as we speak like this, promising young men are being killed and beautiful, pure maidens are being violated and trampled—truly, even then it would still not be enough!”
“Pity can be left for those bastards to feel alongside their corpses—no, precisely when they’ve all become corpses is when it can be done!”

“—”

“You’re already pitying them before victory has manifested in reality.”
“I lack that fundamental confidence—that greatness.”
“I don’t need it.”
“I will hate them limitlessly and curse them boundlessly.”
“To one like me who speaks thus, your words amount to petty vexations.”
“Of course, as individual beings, you may be greater—greater—but I need not be great.”
“Regardless, in this modern age we must prevail.”
“We cannot know peace until these eyes behold actual triumph.”

Oka fell silent.
Kita also remained silent.
It had been an unusual fervor.
He understood Oka’s heart all too well.
Yet Oka did not seem to clearly understand Kita’s heart.
Kita’s chest filled with the thought that letting such a man die pointlessly would be a waste.
He could not keep from speaking.

“Oka, I hear you have sisters.”

“Ah—two.”

“If I may ask, how old are they?”

“Nineteen and seventeen,” said Oka, smiling for the first time with his bluish-tinged face.
Evidently reminiscing about his sisters wasn’t entirely disagreeable.
He—not beautiful like those blooming flowers—conjured an image of his sisters: sturdy, sincere, shy creatures who must surely be gentle.

“Oka.”

“—?”

“Don’t get angry. In your era, even if you alone do not cry out… It might even come rushing in all at once like a miracle—in a state far surpassing your practical demands. You mustn’t get angry. Wouldn’t it be far better to quietly watch over your two sisters’ fates rather than striving desperately for such things now?” I thought then. “If I had parents or a sister myself… I truly wouldn’t know what to do.”

……

The two of them exchanged glances and fell silent.
Lonely.
So achingly lonely.
It was a loneliness that touched life’s very marrow.
Oka eventually averted his gaze, seeming to endure some complex anguish.

The sound of rustling tree leaves reached them, and at the window appeared the usual mailman.
With a cheerful smile on his boyish, rosy-cheeked face, he raised his right hand high and said to Kita.

“Your letters are here.”

A bundle of sealed letters was placed on the desk.
That boy knew the joy that filled Kita whenever he received mail.
For those who are truly lonely, good tidings are one of those indispensable things that enrich their lives.

“Kita-kun, I’ve imposed on you terribly.
“I must take my leave for today.”

“You mustn’t! Stay a while longer!”

Kita stood blocking his path, still clutching the heavy envelope in his hand.

“I’ve been terribly rude. I’m currently staying in Nezu, Hongo—please do visit again. My sisters would surely be delighted. —I’ve been terribly rude.”

“Then I’ll walk you out.”

Oka appeared deeply pleased by this; smiling as he slipped on his shoes, he bowed politely once more and waited for Kita with an air of contentment.
The midday sun shone blissfully upon Kita and Oka as they walked along the path.
Kita silently pondered the things he wanted to say but couldn’t to Oka as they walked.

“The reform of life’s economic foundation must undoubtedly stand as humanity’s necessary, momentous, and inevitable destiny.”
In reality, it had grown abundantly clear that matters could not persist as they were.
Yet that revolution would not be final.
One might say only the faintest steps of new life would commence from that revolution.
Economic reform was assuredly but the most crucial means—the first that must be enacted.
I—I sensed within humanity a love and power stronger, more profound and mighty than what was required to become sacrifices for that mere prologue.
My birth was not meant merely to agitate a single wave—not merely to unleash a solitary storm.
To erect true greatness upon the desolate ruins left by the storm—this was my task.
Oka-kun—I hold this conviction within me—how could your era fail to dawn?
Even so, in this present age—to declare that protecting your parents and sisters through your own strength alone constitutes a grand labor—this too forms one part of my mission.
Beyond that—you yourself must choose your path.
Once we comprehend how our lives’ principal currents—our lifework and fate—differ in binding themselves to whatever portion of humanity’s greater existence—then any action becomes permissible.
No deed lacks meaning.
No act holds superiority or inferiority in worth.
That poverty and disease and crime must above all else be eradicated from this earth stood perfectly evident.
What you speak is truth.
Your very passions are truth.
Ah—for you all—they must truly be ones whom rending limb from limb would never sate.
Their entire civilization would prove counterfeit—unworthy of regret though smashed to its very roots.
Were I to dwell on this myself—my tears would become a wailing unto heaven and earth that could never suffice……yet Oka-kun—I have truly transcended a step beyond this unspeakable realm of lamentation and contortion—tempered through anguish.

The resounding power in your arms can sway the Earth—believe yourselves invincible victors. You will gradually come to know that rather than baring fangs and howling at them, it is better to hold tears of compassion in your eyes. Let us quietly see them off to their fated extinction. The human suffering beneath the skin remains equal even for them. It cannot be helped—the happiness born of birth’s chance creates tragedy nonetheless. They are pitiful beings indeed. When one feels they truly merit compassion, when pearlescent tears pool in one’s eyes—in that moment, theirs alone shall remain upon the earth.

The air was still and quiet, with only the midday sun of early autumn blazing down. The impression of several green citrus fruits peeking out from under the leaves revived in Kita. He walked along the path with long strides, swinging his arms vigorously and whistling. When they descended the gentle slope from the gate to the foot of the hill, across the valley, Hongo’s high ground shone under the white sun, presenting a solemn landscape.

“Kita-kun,”

Oka beamed, stammering as he spoke like a child pleading for something.

“Stay silent and just obediently accompany me, won’t you?”

Kita was also in a good mood.
To converse heart-to-heart with an old friend he had unexpectedly reunited with last night after so long—to meld together and reach mutual understanding like this—what an unparalleled, pure beauty of life this must have been.

“I’ll go—anywhere you wish.”

“You must follow silently—is that clear? You absolutely must.”

Kita laughed.
And then the two of them boarded the train.

Oka told the conductor it was bound for Asakusa.

After some time, he followed behind Oka through an alley reeking of mud, puddles, and urine—a path so foul it made breathing difficult and walking nearly impossible.
It was a street he had passed through once two or three years prior. Back then, firelight had glittered from the windows of low single-story houses lined with glass doors onto the granite-paved path, while from behind those glass doors—left slightly ajar—countless women’s endearing eyes and voices had called out: “Hey there, student! Oh, how cruel to walk right by! Hey now!—You there, the one from the other day! The one in the black hat! Do come in!”
But now, everything had completely changed beyond recognition.
The white urban sky held a trembling sun.
Many of the houses on both sides had their doors closed with crisscrossed log bars, as if they were homes where tragic incidents had occurred in the past.
Everything was filled with the desolation of ruins.
He simply couldn’t believe this was the same street from that night—with its lights, debauchery, and red-lit thresholds.
When they reached the third street corner, Oka entered an oden shop.
There was no one in the shop; the copper pot of oden shone coldly.

“Are you there, Osome?” Oka shouted.

“Who is it?”

The coarse-patterned noren curtain swayed, and a girl who looked no older than fifteen or sixteen showed her face.
Kita did not overlook the girl’s unnaturally pale pupils nor the heartrending premature wrinkles on her forehead, etched beneath white powder that cast a deep purple reflection.

“Oh, it’s you, Brother.”
“Is she here?”

“Right now… a customer has come.”

“Who is it?” Oka whispered, lowering his voice. “Someone who comes often?”

“No, that’s not it. Just a little while ago, he happened to peek in here, so I tried calling out ‘Why don’t you come in?’ just once to catch his attention—and he got all carried away and came right up.”

“Is that so.”
“Well, let’s go up,” said Oka, comparing Kita and the small, already wilting pitiful bud. “He’s my friend—no need for formalities.”

“Well now, do come right in.”

Following Oka’s lead, Kita also went up.
The entranceway was a four-and-a-half tatami mat space where a paulownia wardrobe, household shrine, brazier, and dressing table were meticulously arranged and tended with relatively warm care.
Oka sat cross-legged directly facing the brazier, packed the long pipe from the tobacco box beside him—in a manner completely different from when he had come to Kita’s room—and began puffing white smoke, his face bearing an expression that seemed to say: “Well now, Kita-kun—hush, just leave things quietly as they are.”
The girl spoke to Oka while offering cushions and tea for herself.

“Why didn’t you come last night?”

“You think I can just keep coming here every damn night?”

“But Big Sis was so gloomy about it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I thought maybe you’d picked another fight—since you’re always so quick with your fists—or maybe some thug had beaten you up… Honestly, Brother, you’re such a lucky man.”

“Stop spouting nonsense—since when does being remembered by some whore make a man lucky?”

“No, no! If that’s how it is, Big Sis’ll cry! Never mind that—today you’ll stay awhile and dote on her properly, won’t you? Please?”

“Eat shit.”

“Oh, you’re impossible! You!”

She pressed close to the brazier and, half-restrained by her own hesitation, pretended to strike Oka with the fire tongs.

“Come on—will you be sweet or not? Which is it? If you’ll be sweet, I’ll forgive you. If not, I’ll pluck out those eyeballs of yours. Which is it? Huh? Which is it?”

“I’ll be sweet—mercy, mercy—ah, I’ll be sweet, I’ll surely be sweet—”

“You’re sure, right? Swear by Kannon-sama you’ll be sweet.”

“I’ll be sweet!”
“I’d stake the whole world on it!”
“There—how’s that? That should satisfy you now, right?”

“Would you stake your life on it?”

“Ah, I’d stake my life on it.”

“Would you stake even Inari-sama on it?”

“Ah, I’d stake even Inari-sama on it.”

“Oh, you strange man—if you dote on her so much, why do you tell her to eat shit?”

“Eat shit.”

“You again!”
“I’m truly vexed—truly, how must Big Sis be faring?”
“That guy—that insufferable pest. How much longer will he keep clinging on here?”

She looked up at Oka.

“Shall I call Big Sis?”

“That won’t do—it’ll interfere with business.”

“But it’s been way too long—he’s really such a pest. Never mind, I’ll go call her.”

She climbed the stairs and, from halfway up, called out, “Big Sis Osome! Big Sis Osome!”
There was no response.
This time, she said to the two in a slightly raised voice:

“Brother, please come up to the second floor—there’s a three-tatami mat room available on the shop side.”

Oka heaved himself upright.
Kita followed behind him up the dark, creaking warped stairs.
Only a sliding door decorated with silver paper bearing purple diamond patterns faintly separated them from the neighboring room.
With an unmistakably pained expression, Oka collapsed sideways with a heavy thud across all three tatami mats.
From the previously silent adjacent room came rustling fabric sounds and a man’s muttering, until finally a red-faced forty-year-old in an Inverness coat descended after flashing his profile. When the fusuma slid open on the neighboring room—bedding still disheveled—Osome emerged.
Her slender, elongated face held a desolate pallor closer to bleached cloth than living flesh.
Trailing her obi sash behind her,

“What on earth was all that ruckus downstairs about?”

And she scolded the girl.

“Hasn’t he gotten stubborn and kept clinging on forever?”

Kita was bowing his head.
She sat right beside Oka’s head—he lay sprawled on his back—her black silk crepe obi patterned with yuzen dyeing trailing behind her as she placed his head on her lap.

“Why… why didn’t you come last night?”

Oka remained silent.

“Please forgive me.”

“—”

“Are you angry? Why are you keeping silent?”
“I haven’t forgotten about you, you know.”
“Last night too, I… I recited that song of yours in my heart—‘Standing in the lonely fields, though I shake the trees, they do not sway’—and wept.”

She forlornly brushed back the hair tangled at her temples with slender fingertips, her eyes—dyed with indigo-black rings of sin—glistening as she whispered softly.

“Are you jealous? You needn’t worry about a thing—not even a speck. Even if a hundred men came at once now, I wouldn’t feel a thing. It’s strange enough that the others feel anything at all. Mr. Oka—you alone, in all this wide world, you alone possess the power to stir both my soul and body.”

She stroked his face.
Fingertips brushed against his eyes.

“Oh, you’re crying! You…!”

“—You should consider that you’ve grown haggard too—your looks have declined.”

“Oh…” She laughed forlornly. “But you’ve become so—how should I put it?… Gaunt and skeletal, utterly transformed—you’ve truly become my wonderful lover now, haven’t you?”

“Maybe so. Your profession being prostitution—get it? Just like how my own work is, so to speak, a spiritual prostitution where a man sells his soul to get a meal. It’s only natural you’ve grown this thin, Osome.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic—even someone like me can find joy in this world as long as there’s someone like you.”
“You’re truly the only one who treats me as a living Osome—all the rest are just handling my corpse.”

“Even I—” Oka glanced back toward Kita.
The woman also looked at Kita.
“The only ones I can converse with as my living self are you and this Kita-kun here.”

“Well then—this person here—if that’s how it is, that makes me your lover and your dear companion Mr. Kita—that’s how it works, isn’t it?”
“It’s tough—Mr. Kita’s the one who’s really troubled here, and—honestly, with things like this, I won’t feel right unless I find someone for Mr. Kita.”

“You’re saying such sweet things,” Oka said in a voice that seemed on the verge of tears.
“Listen—Kita-kun will become every man’s lover.”
“I too once wanted to become a lover to all, but in the end, I’ve ended up as your lover alone.”

He broke into sobs.
Kita could not say anything.

In the evening, Kita Teruo was returning along the slope road to his humble dwelling in Koishikawa’s highlands.
The setting sun dyed the sky a blazing crimson.
He felt unbearable anguish—as if wishing he could reverse the sinking sun itself, not for Oka’s ideology but for Oka’s desolate life and anguished soul.

“In my place—at least you must rise to greatness—I beg you—I beg you.” The image of Oka sitting beneath the entrance curtain with clasped hands, seeing him off, refused to leave his vision.
He clenched his fists and roared like a lion channeling its full strength.

"I shall burn fiercely to the utmost end—like a sun blazing radiantly, great and overflowing with light and heat!"

It was indeed a certain day in the autumn of 1918.

(An excerpt from a long novel) (June 1919)

(“Shincho”
Taishō 9, January Issue)