Pathway to Japanese Literature

Chapter 1 When he left the hotel, it was raining. To perform a surgical operation on the woman from Room 421 instead of the one from Room 352.

When they left the First Hotel side by side, rain was falling. From how thoroughly the pavement had soaked through, they understood it must have been raining for over an hour. It was a midsummer afternoon when even substantial rain would dry almost immediately. That it had been raining for so long now abruptly gripped Shinkichi with melancholy. Yet what was this loneliness truly…?

Rain falling carried no inherent meaning. If it were the protagonist of Chekhov’s play, “It’s raining—what meaning does this hold?” “It doesn’t mean a thing, you know.” That was how it would go. It was raining… It was nothing more than an utterly ordinary natural phenomenon. However, the fact that this ordinary phenomenon had been occurring without his knowledge struck Shinkichi as a fresh surprise.

Why? For the hour that rain had been wetting the pavement, Shinkichi had been wetting the body of a woman he neither knew nor had ever met before on the bed in Room 453 of the hotel. The girl was named Itsuko Nakasuji. She was nineteen, though her profuse freckles made her appear twenty-two. She had a slight strabismus and carried body odor. Until an hour prior, Shinkichi and Itsuko had been complete strangers. To Shinkichi, Itsuko had been nothing more than an existence akin to a station bypassed by an express train. Yet an hour later, when they left the hotel side by side, Shinkichi already knew every inch of Itsuko's body. He had learned her with the velocity of an express train rushing past.

Even though the woman had approached first and thrown herself into Shinkichi’s arms, the sheer abruptness of it all had ultimately turned into regret. But this was not loneliness born of regret. Nor was it even that profound sentiment of Ah, it’s raining… That while he had been in the room with Itsuko—that the rain had been falling unrelated to their actions; that he had remained unaware of it; that the hotel room and rain-soaked world outside were entirely separate realms—it was this that gave rise to his sense of melancholy. But this sensation was something Shinkichi couldn’t explain. Could this be what loneliness was?

Shinkichi suddenly furrowed his brows and raised his habitually vacant, absent-minded eyes, staring blankly at the white streaks of rain, but being unable to remain confined to one mood for long, he immediately burst into frivolous laughter, “I’m a rain man, you know. Whenever I travel, it always rains. Do you hate rain…?”

Then Itsuko, “I hate the rain, but I like rain men.”

“Why…?” “Because a man who can’t even make it rain would be too boring.” With that, Itsuko laughed in a hoarse voice unbecoming of her age, but when they reached the subway entrance, her expression abruptly turned earnest, “Well, I’ll head to Nihonbashi from here… “I’ll come by at ten tonight.” No sooner had she said this than, without waiting for Shinkichi’s reply, she descended the stairs while fussing with the back of her skirt.

When Itsuko said she would come at ten o'clock, it meant she intended to sneak into Shinkichi's room tonight. Shinkichi suddenly recalled the smell of Itsuko’s underarm odor.

And getting wet in the rain, he walked toward Ginza. Both Shinkichi and Itsuko had errands they needed to attend to by 4:30 PM. Therefore, mindful of the time, they hurriedly rushed out of the room.

Itsuko’s errand was to purchase a typewriter at a certain trading company in Nihonbashi. Shinkichi’s errand was to observe the full rehearsal of his own script, which would be performed starting tomorrow at Tokyo Theater. For that purpose, Itsuko had come up from Kyushu and Shinkichi from Osaka, each arriving in the capital where they coincidentally ended up staying at the First Hotel. The fact that Shinkichi had specially come up to the capital to see the performance of his own script could only mean that he was still a newcomer as a playwright. When one becomes an established master seasoned through repeated stagings, even watching one’s own plays becomes a chore. There might also be the reason that seeing the images they had conceived in their study being distorted on stage was unbearable. Shinkichi, with his exceptionally strong self-respect, certainly knew this, and thus inwardly scorned himself for having eagerly come up to the capital, but the truth was he couldn’t bear to stay put in Osaka because this play marked Shinkichi’s very first staging. To put it bluntly, it was a script that had been selected through the theater troupe’s competition. Until yesterday, he had been utterly unknown.

Admittedly, he had fabricated a pretext for this trip to Tokyo. He hadn’t come here overjoyed about his play’s production. Since the entire script had been written in Kansai dialect, his stated purpose was to instruct the actors of the Theatre Troupe who would perform it. Was conversing with famous actors truly such a spine-tingling prospect? While self-mocking, Shinkichi awoke in Room 453 well past noon.

After finishing his meal at the basement grill, Shinkichi went to the lobby to get a newspaper.

But there were no newspapers at all. Five earlier guests were each engrossed in their newspapers. They showed no sign of becoming available. Shinkichi grew irritated. He wanted to see the Tokyo Theater advertisement.

Shinkichi sat down beside a middle-aged man, “When you’re finished with it, please pass it over,” he said.

“Newspaper?”

“Huh?”

“What’s the point of looking at a newspaper?” “Huh…?”

He was surprised. “Looking at newspapers is pointless anyway—nowadays they only print lies.”

“I agree, but aren’t you the one looking at it right now?”

“I’m not reading the articles.” “I’m reading the cipher.”

“Huh…?” “A cipher…?” “There are characters marked with pencil on the second page of this newspaper.” “If you trace those characters…” He grinned slyly. “What happens then?”

“If you trace it, you’ll find numbers—Room 352 and 3 PM. This cipher means a beautiful woman will welcome anyone who visits Room 352 at three o’clock.” “Does that mean anyone can go?” “Anyone. Me included. You too.” “Are you planning to go?” “What about you?” “Hard to say… There’s some thrill in it. But it’d be awkward if we both showed up.” “Don’t worry. There’s no chance of that happening.”

“Why would…?” “By 3 PM, something will definitely go wrong for either you or me—one of us two.” “Are you a fatalist?”

“Otherwise, I wouldn’t tell you something like this.” “Ha ha…”

He laughed eerily and,

“—Well, it’s free now.” He handed the newspaper to Shinkichi and briskly walked out to the entrance.

Shinkichi looked at the Tokyo Theater advertisement. The author’s name, Shinkichi, had been misprinted as Shinzō. At the numeral "three," Shinkichi jolted.

“3 PM…”

When he looked at the clock, it was 2:30 PM.

Half an hour left.

Shinkichi entered the coffee room.

He sat down in an empty chair and waited for the boy to arrive when a young woman holding a room key and wallet sat down across from Shinkichi with a slight bow.

Just then, the waiter arrived.

“Coffee!” When Shinkichi placed his order, the young woman also,

“Soda water!” Without looking at Shinkichi’s face, she placed her order. She had many freckles, but her eyes were wide and bright, with her lower lip slightly protruding. She seemed fidgety and restless. Shinkichi suddenly noticed the number on the young woman’s room key. Room 421!

“It’s not Room 352.” As he muttered this, the waiter brought their orders but placed soda water before Shinkichi and coffee before the young woman. Shinkichi and the young woman suddenly exchanged glances and smiled. Shinkichi placed the soda water before the young woman. The young woman placed the coffee before Shinkichi.

For a while, they drank in silence until at last the young woman spoke up resolutely, “Excuse me, but are you staying here?” Shinkichi also had a key dangling. “Oh. You’re staying here too.”

“Oh… Since it’s my first time staying at a hotel, I’m so bored I don’t know what to do.” “Even being in the room isn’t any fun…” “Can’t you go outside?”

“During the day, it’s so hot…”

“I see…”

Shinkichi thought about inviting this bored girl to watch a stage rehearsal. “It should cool down in the evening. How about going to see the rehearsal of my play?”

“Are you involved with the play?” “Oh no, I’m not an actor.” “Oh… Then you’re the scriptwriter…” “Well…” “What time is the stage rehearsal?”

“It starts at 4:30 PM.” “Oh, what a shame.” “I have to get to Nihonbashi by 4:30 PM.” “I see.” “Then please come see tomorrow’s opening performance.” “I’ll set aside tickets for you.” “I’m leaving tomorrow morning.” “That’s a shame.” “I see.” “Well…” Shinkichi had become disillusioned.

The café was crowded. Beside Shinkichi and the others' table, a customer stood looking for an empty spot. Shinkichi grabbed the check and stood up. The young woman also stood up simultaneously. The young woman had no check. The waiter must have thought they were together. Shinkichi paid for both.

“Oh, but I was going to…” “No—it’s simpler this way. Let’s just…” “Thank you for the treat.” When Shinkichi went to the lobby sofa, the young woman followed and sat down beside him—a gesture that seemed perfectly natural, likely owing to the matter of the bill. Sunlight was streaming onto the sofa. The young woman kept using a handkerchief.

“It’s hot, isn’t it?”

“Shall we go to your room and talk?”

Shinkichi involuntarily looked at the young woman’s face. Shinkichi was the one who blushed. Shinkichi said hurriedly, “Is your room cool?”

“Very…”

“But going to your room feels a bit…”

“Then I’ll come to your room.”

Shinkichi felt a sudden turmoil in his chest. "My room is hot." "But it's better than here, I suppose."

He said in an embarrassed rush, stood up, and rode the elevator,

“Don’t you have to be there by 4:30 PM?”

Shinkichi spoke in a timid voice.

“But we can talk until 4:30 PM.” The young woman looked at her wristwatch. It was three o'clock.

“Ah, damn it! Three o’clock—so Room 352 was finally taken by that man after all.”

Shinkichi muttered. They got off on the fourth floor and walked apart down the long hallway.

“Here we are. Please.” After letting the young woman enter first, Shinkichi closed the door but refrained from locking it. To the small table by the window, they deliberately pulled their chairs apart and sat down. “You smoke quite a lot, don’t you?” “A hundred a day—don’t you?” “Oh, I do.” She took one from Shinkichi’s box, lit it, and skillfully blew smoke rings. “I’m such a delinquent, aren’t I…?” The smoke rings went out through the window.

As he watched them go, his eyes suddenly caught sight of a man staring fixedly this way from an office in the building across the street. Shinkichi pointed in that direction. “Oh, we’ve been caught in the act of underage smoking!” “How rude of him.” “That person.” She said frivolously and laughed, but suddenly her face took on a half-tearful expression, “Shall we close the curtains?” Shinkichi silently stood up and pulled the curtains. Suddenly, the room became dark.

Shinkichi suddenly swallowed dryly. As he was about to return to his chair, Shinkichi abruptly set his hand on the young woman’s shoulder. The young woman remained motionless and closed her eyes. Shinkichi abruptly yanked the young woman’s shoulder. The young woman stood up and snapped her eyes open but closed them again at once and thrust out her lips.

The two fell onto the bed, their lips still pressed together. “Ah, please spare me that at least…”

“Why…?” “I’ve never done this kind of thing before.” Yet perhaps her writhing movements had paradoxically numbed her body—the young woman now yielded completely to Shinkichi’s will. And then, “I won’t regret it.” “Because it’s you—that’s why I won’t regret it.” “Because I like you.” “Liking someone isn’t wrong.”

She had been shouting in a frenzy when he suddenly looked up, “You won’t laugh at me…?” “I won’t laugh.” “Then that’s fine.—Let me hear your name!” “Shinkichi Suga...” “Suga-san! Suga-san!” “Huh? What…?” “It’s nothing. Ah, Suga-san—Suga-san!” And she continued to call Shinkichi’s name. Eventually, Shinkichi struck a match in the darkness and looked at the watch. It was four o'clock. He turned on the light,

“I have to go out.”

The young woman nodded while huddling into the corner of the bed.

When they had finished getting ready, the young woman started to leave first but suddenly turned around and thrust out her lips. Lightly touching them with his own, he followed as they left the room.

Then, as they exited the hotel side by side, it was raining...

As he walked along Ginza-dori, Shinkichi,

"If you call it ordinary, it's ordinary; but if you say it's not ordinary, it's not ordinary."

He muttered. Suddenly, the words "surgical operation" floated up. Shinkichi's expression twisted.

"What I did resembles a surgical operation!" There was no religious or moral remorse amounting to a sense of guilt—yet there lingered a sensory remorse. The cruelty of a doctor wielding his scalpel. "But when people fall ill, they'll risk death itself to undergo surgery. That girl too had willingly sought my operation. I removed that woman's illness for her." Thinking this, he felt relieved.

"—But what exactly was that woman's illness...? That's right—it might have been curiosity. Or perhaps ennui?"

Shinkichi smirked and turned the corner at the Owari-cho intersection toward Tsukiji.

Chapter Two

The fact that a love scene had been added for one act.

The urge to run away upon seeing it.

However, the reason he did not run away.

When Shinkichi arrived at the theater, the rehearsal for the first act had finished, and the prop setup for the second act was just beginning. After being introduced to the entire troupe by the manager of "Theatre Group," Shinkichi took a seat in the audience next to a company executive who had hurried in just then. “I’m surprised you’re so young. If I may ask, how old are you?” said the company executive, initiating the conversation. “Just turned thirty.”

He was twenty-eight, but fearing he’d be underestimated, he added two years to his age. “Thirty...? “You’re just starting out, then.” “Please do keep writing.” “There aren’t many people writing scripts these days.—How about movies—do you have any interest?”

“When you say ‘interest’...?” “At the studio, you know, they read your script and took notice of it. They mentioned something about asking you to write a scenario...”

Shinkichi flushed. It was strange that I, who had been unknown until yesterday, was being made such an issue of. I suddenly felt lonely. But why did I feel lonely? Shouldn’t I have been overjoyed at a time like this?

“I’m no good. I can’t write topical pieces...” “Actually, it’s better if it’s not some rigidly earnest topical piece.” “People prefer softer material after all.” “When something gets labeled ‘Information Bureau recommended,’ it actually becomes less popular.” “As for your current script—since it lacked appeal on its own, we’ve added just one love scene.”

“Huh...?”

Shinkichi made a face as if he’d bitten into a hairy caterpillar. “This scene here is it—well, please watch it.”

“……” Shinkichi became indignant and began watching the rehearsal of that act once it started, but in no time at all, he turned deathly pale. Indeed, that scene had not been written by Shinkichi but had been added afterward. Just as they had stated about adding allure, it was a shallow love scene that bore no relation to the play’s overall progression. The fact that such a scene had been added without even consulting the author was clearly an insult to him.

With that thought, Shinkichi slammed the chair back and stood up.

At the sound, the company executive started and looked up at Shinkichi. Shinkichi faced that face,

“Please remove this scene. Otherwise, cancel the performance.”

tried to hurl those words. If he angered the company executive there, he might lose this hard-won opportunity, but enduring such an insult in silence would be worse than letting the chance slip away. What mattered more than his fate as a playwright was self-respect.

However, Shinkichi was quick to anger but inherently timid. The timidity of a city dweller was ingrained in him.

“This scene...”

He started to say—then suddenly averted his eyes.

The moment he did, his gaze collided with that of an actress sitting in the audience, still wearing a garish dressing-room yukata.

Sae Eguchi, though a supporting actress, had left the strongest impression among the performers introduced earlier. She had a more vivacious charm than the lead actress, and above all, her eyelashes were long. That was exactly Shinkichi’s preference. Moreover, when they had been introduced, it was only with this actress that their eyes had momentarily locked in a stare. Sae had apparently been looking toward Shinkichi since earlier.

“Won’t you come over here?” Sae’s eyes suddenly beckoned to Shinkichi.

"If he quarreled with the company executive and left now, he would lose any chance to speak with that actress." Shinkichi suddenly thought that.

"I'll save the fight for later."

Shinkichi moved toward Sae. Sae, who had been sitting on the edge chair, moved one seat over with a smile.

On the stage, the lead actress was saying, “Don’t say such embarrassing things. I feel like running away”—saccharine lines that Shinkichi had never written, so cloying they made one’s teeth ache. “If anyone wants to run away, it’s me.”

While saying so, Shinkichi sat down beside the chair Sae had cleared. Whether she understood his meaning, Sae smiled— “You must’ve been quite shocked.” “To have such a scene inserted... It’s truly appalling.”

“I’d like them to cancel the entire performance—but well, I suppose I’ll stay quiet like a proper novice should.” “After all, writing for a commercial troupe was my fundamental error from the start.” “Mr. Tamura sympathized too,” “He said it’s pitiful for the author’s painstaking debut.” Mr. Tamura referred to the director Tamura Reisuke. Tamura had formerly been a director for a leftist theater troupe and written novels alongside plays, achieving greater fame in literary circles than theatrical ones, but after being arrested on suspicion of ideological activities and released on bail, he had been barred from writing and now directed anonymously for “Theater Group.” Though he had stooped to directing commercial troupes to survive, his work remained meticulous—it might have been precisely Tamura’s direction that had motivated Shinkichi to submit his script to this troupe in the first place.

“But Mr. Tamura listens to what the company executive says too, doesn’t he? He’s changed quite a lot.” “Mr. Tamura—is he always like that?” Tamura’s direction was oddly half-hearted, the execution rough.

“No.” “He’s usually meticulous, you know.” “But tomorrow is when they’ll deliver the verdict for Mr. Tamura’s trial.” “I think Mr. Tamura must be quite irritated.” Shinkichi felt wretched. That the opening day of my debut work’s performance would coincide with the director’s trial verdict… But simultaneously, he felt sudden sympathy for Tamura. He thought causing a scene now would be too cruel to Tamura. The melancholy from his wounded self-respect found meager comfort through Sae. —Suddenly,

“Tomorrow…” Just as Shinkichi began to say, “Won’t you come to the hotel for lunch?”—however, Sae,

“I need to go put on the costume, so…”

With that, she had already stood up.

And without giving Shinkichi a chance to speak, she slipped away.

He felt let down, but when Sae appeared on stage wearing her costume, Shinkichi’s eyes gleamed intensely. "If I can’t make that woman come to the hotel tomorrow, I’ll have my self-respect wounded twice over." The moment he muttered this strange remark, however, Shinkichi suddenly wore a lonely expression. On stage, Sae was desperately rehearsing her typecast minor role with painful intensity. Shinkichi abruptly felt tears welling up. His own ambition to seduce Sae was despicable. Yet Shinkichi’s ambition would not be extinguished by such things. Shinkichi stood up abruptly, went out into the corridor, and looked through the window. The rain still fell. The town lights lay hazy.

Shinkichi was gazing contemplatively when he suddenly grinned for no apparent reason.

Chapter Three

Even though the promised ten o'clock had come, the rehearsal showed no sign of ending. Shinkichi’s expression resembled that of a crematorium worker. He noticed the matches had run out. Oratory!

Ten o'clock came. It was the time Itsuko—the girl from Room 421—had promised to sneak into Shinkichi’s Room 453. However, the stage rehearsal had not yet ended. The stage setup was taking time, leaving the rehearsal of the final act still pending. Some of the actors were concerned about missing the last train. There were those who insisted that they could just rehearse this act tomorrow morning. However, tomorrow director Tamura would likely be unable to come, as the verdict would be delivered at the prosecutor’s office. In the end, they decided to continue with the rehearsal. The senior-level actors, as one would expect, did not voice any complaints. The senior-level actors wore expressions of those eagerly diving into rehearsal. It was the small-part actors who tsked in irritation. On Sae Eguchi’s face was neither an expression of enjoying rehearsal nor one of dissatisfaction. Detached like a mask, it was coldly and perfectly clear.

Shinkichi had already lost interest in the rehearsals themselves. No—rather, he had even come to feel an unbearable emotion at seeing the imagery of his own creation being distorted. But as long as Sae Eguchi appeared in that remaining act, he thought he could not leave the theater. The act remained, but Shinkichi still had the task of inviting Sae to lunch at the hotel tomorrow. Sae had not spoken a single word since then. No—or rather, one might say she had deliberately chosen not to speak. To be fair, Sae herself had already begun acting as though she were ignoring Shinkichi, making no attempt to speak to him either.

That he had been ignored—though for a man like Shinkichi, one might even say this was rather an unexpected boon. If she had approached him familiarly or shown fawning behavior, Shinkichi might well have lost all interest in Sae. Such a woman should be waiting for Shinkichi’s return in a more accessible place—like at the hotel. Shinkichi remembered his promise with that woman and should just hurry back to the hotel. For a man to feel curiosity toward a woman and be tempted was already a sin. Why would one choose to commit a double sin? He was, of course, the man with the least sense of guilt...

By nature, Shinkichi was a man composed entirely of self-respect, so being ignored by Sae—or so he had convinced himself—left him feeling his self-respect had already been wounded. Of course, that self-respect had long been wounded by the unauthorized revisions to his own work. He had nearly reached the point of demanding the performance be banned. Yet what ultimately stopped him was a timidity he possessed in greater measure than most, despite his strong self-respect, coupled with his lingering interest in Sae Eguchi. Moreover, that very Sae Eguchi was now ignoring him. Shinkichi’s self-respect had been, so to speak, doubly wounded. To heal these wounds,

“I’ll make Sae Eguchi fall for me!”

For that very reason, being ignored from the start made the endeavor more worthwhile—this was Shinkichi’s personal theory. What a strange man he was.

The rehearsal ended at half past ten. It ended unexpectedly early. The actors, who had been worried about missing the last train, sighed in relief and headed to the dressing room. The senior actor,

“How was it…?” “Tomorrow we’ll do even better.” the senior actor addressed Shinkichi. “Well, it was fine. I look forward to tomorrow.” While giving a perfunctory reply, Shinkichi watched Sae’s retreating figure head back to the dressing room without so much as a farewell. Director Tamura—perhaps finally feeling embarrassed at having finished the rehearsal so quickly—suddenly gave a wry smile when his eyes met Shinkichi’s. Shinkichi recalled Sae’s words that Tamura had sympathized with him over the script revisions and approached. However, as Tamura placed the script into his briefcase,

“Well then… “Good work today.” With just that, he hurried off like a man whose wife was nearing childbirth. Shinkichi felt let down, but he did not become indignant. He thought it was rather a stroke of luck that he hadn’t been asked to walk back together.

Shinkichi stepped onto the stage and smoked a cigarette. The stage devoid of actors reeked of paint that smelled exactly like the corpse of his own creation. The spectatorless auditorium was as silent as a crematorium at night. And there on the stage, Shinkichi wore a face as cruel as a crematorium worker’s.

What on earth was this cruel face?

Shinkichi was calculating the time it would take for Sae to return to the dressing room, remove her stage makeup, change her clothes, and come out through the back entrance. He was a man who could not bring himself to lie in wait, even for the sake of his self-respect. Waiting in the rain for Sae to emerge was something Shinkichi could never bring himself to do—an impossibility that defied even his self-respect. Entering the manager’s room by the actors’ geta box, making small talk while waiting for the rain to ease—this too struck him as too pathetic to endure. Shinkichi’s exit from the stage to the dressing room’s back entrance and Sae’s descent via the elevator had to occur almost simultaneously. Shinkichi was aiming for that very coincidence. Shinkichi’s sensibility instinctively abhorred unnaturalness. Therefore, he sought to manufacture naturalness himself. Was he an artist? It might be called a form of dandyism.

The expression of dandyism is inherently cruel. And so, Shinkichi wore a cruel expression.

But how does one go about creating naturalness? For Shinkichi to exit to the dressing room’s back entrance—like a great actor’s entrance—being too late or too early would not do. If he were too late, all would be lost; if too early, it would be unnatural—this calculation ultimately came down to the intuition of a great actor. Calculating the time it took for Sae to return to the dressing room, remove her stage makeup, change her costume, and come down via the elevator relied on nothing but intuition. However, Shinkichi had no real confidence in this intuition. He was leaving it to chance. In that sense, he was a fatalist. For Shinkichi, life was an accumulation of coincidences. Shinkichi believed in the fate that created these coincidences.

Shinkichi slowly finished smoking a cigarette. After stamping it out, he wanted another one. But the matchbox held not a single remaining match. Yet in Shinkichi’s experience, a stray match often lingered in his pocket. While calculating the timing, he slowly searched through his pockets. When he finally confirmed none remained, Shinkichi instinctively grinned—an eerie, mirthless smile.

“Now’s the moment!”

Shinkichi headed from backstage toward the dressing room entrance like a man approaching a racetrack betting window. The moment he did, Shinkichi froze. Sae was taking her shoes from the geta box and swapping her slippers for them.

If Shinkichi left now, that would truly be the end of it. At times like these, he was a man who couldn’t linger to wait for Sae following behind—so while she put on her shoes, the distance between them would inevitably widen. Yet he couldn’t simply stand vacantly beside her as she fastened her footwear either. In a sense, his timing might have been slightly premature.

However, for Shinkichi, it wasn’t the slightest bit early. Because there was time to enter the head’s room and borrow a light for a cigarette. And this was not the slightest bit unnatural. Shinkichi entered the head’s room, “Excuse me, but could you spare a light?” he said.

The head stood up and retrieved a matchbox from the coat hanging in the corner of the room.

“Thank you.” As he struck the match,

“You’ve had a long day—” Sae’s voice reached him from behind. The way she spoke—with that upward inflection on the ‘ma’ in *otsukaresama* as she presumably prepared to leave—struck Shinkichi as indifferent in tone. But such things didn’t matter now.

Shinkichi returned the matches and stepped out into the rain.

Ahead, Sae was walking alone. She was holding an umbrella.

Everything unfolded exactly as Shinkichi had anticipated. The sight of Sae trudging home alone through the late-night rainy streets under her umbrella bore all the marks of a supporting actress returning from rehearsal. Though if she were truly a supporting actress, she ought to have companions walking home with her. Was this solitary, dejected walk a sign of loneliness? Was she a misanthrope? Drenched by the rain, Shinkichi passed by Sae with the exaggerated strides of a man soaked through. The moment he did—

“Oh, Mr. Suga!”

Then came Sae’s voice. She had come after all. “Wouldn’t you like to come in?”

This too was exactly as anticipated. Yet the fact that everything had unfolded all too exactly as anticipated suddenly made Shinkichi feel lonely. I felt disgusted with myself. I was pathetic.

When he stepped under the umbrella, “This play is going to be made into a movie, I hear.” “Oh?” “Is that so?” He deliberately feigned surprise. “Haven’t you heard about it?” “Well, there was some brief talk about that earlier... By the way, where are you headed...?” “Hongo.”

“So I take it you’ll be letting me ride along as far as Mihara Bridge then.” “I’m headed to Shinbashi, so I’ll get off at Mihara Bridge…”

“The Daiichi Hotel…?”

“Yes... You’re well informed.”

“It’s the talk of the entire dressing room.” “Huh?”

Shinkichi jolted. Had everything about the hotel been discovered? “Mr. Suga, the old ladies in the dressing room were terribly interested in where you might be staying.”

Shinkichi was relieved.

“They’ve even given you a nickname already.” “Chimney...?” It was “Beanpole.” “No, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke.” “Oh—?” “Young, talented, well-built... No—the eyes, the eyes.” “It’s your eyes that resemble his.” “In any case, if Akutagawa Ryūnosuke were alive, he’d probably challenge me to a duel.” Laughing, they came to the Mihara Bridge tram stop. The tram was slow to arrive.

“Please—” “It would be bad if we’re late…”

“Yes.” “But until the tram comes…”

Sae was holding the umbrella for him. "You know, waiting for a tram on a rainy night is rather lonely, isn't it? Even though I've somehow become suddenly famous compared to yesterday, standing here soaked through by the rain while waiting for the tram makes me realize how unexpectedly lonely human beings can be."

Shinkichi suddenly said such a thing. It was a genuine sentiment. Sae simply looked up at Shinkichi’s face in silence. Her eyelashes were astonishingly long. How beautiful, he thought. Shinkichi said.

“You don’t have any matches, do you? Even if I go back to the hotel, I won’t be able to smoke...” “I don’t have any on me now… but I’ll bring them to the dressing room tomorrow for you.”

“What time do you go to the dressing room...?” “Three o’clock…” “Three o'clock... huh. “It’s pathetic that I can’t get any matches until three o’clock. “They aren’t selling them, you see.”

He deliberately put on a troubled expression, "You come into town earlier than that, don't you? If you could be kind enough to deliver them to the hotel reception then, I'll be indebted to you for life." "Oh, so many matches..."

"I'm a dreadful nicotine addict, you see." "Well then, I'll bring them to you—can't be helped." "Around what time...?" "Well now, I'll eat lunch before coming out—one o'clock perhaps."

She spoke with a slightly boyish manner. That boosted Shinkichi’s confidence.

“If you’d like, please come without eating lunch. Of course, since I shouldn’t starve you over matches—even though it’s not very tasty—I’ll treat you to lunch at the hotel. In other words, it’s thanks for the matches.” Shinkichi said quickly, laughing. “In return, you’re saying one box of matches won’t be enough, right? If I take too many, my mom will scold me… hehe…” Shinkichi also laughed emptily for some reason, and in the same way, that was how their promise came to be.

Just then, the tram arrived. “Thank you. Then, I’ll be waiting tomorrow.” “In the lobby…” “What time…?”

“Is noon all right…?” “Yes. Then tomorrow at noon.”

Shinkichi boarded the tram. As the tram began moving, Sae crossed the tracks toward the Shibuya-bound stop, but her figure soon disappeared from view. Perhaps because she wore a raincoat, her form appeared strikingly petite—an image that lingered inexplicably behind Shinkichi’s eyelids. And this abruptly weighed down his spirits. Though the tram had empty seats, he remained standing—not from restless agitation over his newfound success, but rather this oppressive gloom. Yet why should it weigh on him so? Shinkichi stared vacantly at the white rain trails beyond the window.

Chapter Four

On the Midnight Phone Call.

On the Strange Breakfast.

On the Even Stranger Subject of the Death Notice.

Eleven o'clock.

After stopping by his hotel room, Shinkichi glanced at his wristwatch and picked up the telephone receiver. He tried to call Itsuko’s room.

At that moment, a knock sounded at the door. “Come in!”

Since the door wasn’t locked, it opened immediately, and the one who entered was, as expected, Itsuko.

With her lips pressed together and a tearful face, she stood motionless while smiling faintly. Her hair was wet, having likely just emerged from the bath. What thoughts had accompanied her as she washed the body she'd relinquished to a man that very day? Shinkichi too— "......"

No words came to him in that instant. Silently drawing near and attempting to embrace her, Itsuko parted her sealed lips—

“Ah—” While letting out a faint voice, she stretched both hands toward Shinkichi’s back. And then stood on her tiptoes. The sensation resembled putting a mandarin orange segment in one’s mouth; breath carrying the scent of desire rising from her throat’s depths; underarm odor mingling with bath-freshness—it was the full-bodied scent of a girl living unreservedly. Shinkichi immediately pulled away from her chest. Then the two sat side by side on the edge of the bed. “I came by earlier to check. It was closed.”

Itsuko looked embarrassed. Even if she acted boldly, she was still a girl.

“I’m sorry. Rehearsal ran late, you know? I just got back and was about to call your room.” When Shinkichi said this, Itsuko’s face paled. “Did the call connect?” “No—I canceled it right away…” Itsuko sighed in relief, “Ah, thank goodness. If the call had gone through, Uncle would’ve woken up.”

She had come to the capital with her uncle, and the two seemed to be staying in the same room. "But since he's drunk and passed out, he might not wake up even if the bell rings, you know."

Itsuko said she had come out by taking advantage of her uncle being asleep. "—Uncle is terribly ill-behaved." "He's the principal of a typist school but gets involved in scandals with students." "He apparently has something going on with the receptionist at this hotel too." "No, really—" "Uncle does bad things too, you know..."

As if declaring she’d do it too, Itsuko suddenly pressed her lips against his. Then, taking Shinkichi’s hand, she pressed it against her own chest. Because she wasn’t wearing a bra, the swell of her chest had a slack softness.

Exhaling fiery breaths, the two fell entangled. Under her chemise, Itsuko wore nothing and was naked.

"I washed them in the bath, didn’t bring a replacement, you know." Shinkichi’s face flushed red.

“………” “Is no one coming…?” “Is no one coming…?”

“They won’t come. It’s okay.” When he said this, Itsuko burned with frantic abandon as if relieved. Shinkichi was appalled—was this what a girl was?

Eventually, after who knows how much time had passed, the two slumped and averted their wretched faces from each other.

“I’m ashamed,” she said. “I feel wretched. Like an animal—is this what all humans are like?” Yet Itsuko kept gripping Shinkichi’s hand, refusing to let go. His hands were pale and delicate. “They’re like a woman’s hands.” “I may not have other virtues, but at least my hands are clean.” “I’ll remember these hands.” Itsuko appeared pleased to have her body touched by those hands. They remained together until around four o’clock,

“Oh, it’s already this late….” “Uncle’s probably sobering up by now.”

With that, she hurriedly left. The fact that Itsuko knew exactly when her uncle would sober up struck Shinkichi as strange. As she was leaving, Itsuko,

“Tomorrow we must already part. “I won’t regret it.” “Would you have breakfast with me tomorrow morning?” “Breakfast’s until nine, right? Will I even wake up?” “I’m a late sleeper, you see…” “I’ll wake you by phone.”

On the bed where Itsuko’s scent lingered, Shinkichi slept soundly. When he woke, the bell was ringing. As he picked up the receiver,

“Hello, is this Sensei?”

Itsuko’s voice sounded older and stiffly earnest, perhaps due to the telephone. When called “Sensei,” Shinkichi gave a wry smile. “Won’t you come for the meal…?”

“Ah, thank you.”

When he went down to the lobby, Itsuko stood dejectedly at the entrance to the dining hall. When they sat facing each other, Shinkichi looked around the dining hall. And, finding a young man smoking a cigarette, he borrowed a light. The man lent Shinkichi a light while glaring at him with a sullen face. Shinkichi’s self-respect was wounded. Was it all because he didn’t have matches that he had to feel like this?

When he returned, Itsuko,

“The man you just borrowed a light from is my fiancé.”

she said. Shinkichi gasped in surprise.

“That man is doing business with Uncle.” “Uncle wants to marry me off to him for political reasons.” “I can’t stand…a man like that…”

However, it seemed the uncle had told the man that Itsuko had already consented. Therefore, if Itsuko continued to oppose it, he couldn’t face the man. He had brought Itsuko to Tokyo with the intention of forcibly marrying her off. The man deliberately reserved his own room in front of Itsuko’s. The uncle seemed to urge Itsuko to go visit that room.

“I didn’t go there for him.” “Acting all fiancé-like and putting on airs.” “But in the end, I have to marry him out of obligation to Uncle.” “I can’t bring myself to give my virginity to a man like that.” “That’s why I’ll give it to you…” Upon hearing Itsuko’s words about having given her virginity, Shinkichi groaned. “Uncle was listening to my phone call this morning.” “He kept asking who ‘Sensei’ was, so when I told him you’re a writer, he said he wants an introduction.” “What a show-off Uncle is.” “‘When did you two become acquainted?’ he exclaimed in surprise.” “I want to flaunt you, Sensei, to Uncle and that man.”

And Itsuko exchanged glances, “Over there, across from that man—that’s Uncle.” “He’s looking this way.” However, Shinkichi did not turn around. He was just looking at the freckles on Itsuko’s face. Somehow, they resembled stains of misfortune. “You don’t have parents, do you?” Shinkichi had tried using both blunt phrases like “I suppose” and polite ones like “wouldn’t you say” with Itsuko, but now it was just half an hour before they would part.

He spoke politely. “Yes.” “I don’t have parents either.” This was their last conversation, Shinkichi thought. And in that instant, he felt their hearts connect.

When the meal was finished, Itsuko prepared to leave and went up to the fourth floor.

Shinkichi went to the lobby to read the newspaper. When he picked up the same newspaper bundle as yesterday, there was again a red pencil mark on the printed text. Tracing it,

8 PM, Room 333...

It was deciphered. "The number three again." "Alright—today I'll definitely visit that mysterious woman at eight."

As Shinkichi muttered this, “When you’re done with the newspaper, please…” he was addressed.

When he looked up, the same middle-aged gentleman as yesterday was standing there with a smirk. “Here you go,” he said as he handed it over, “—8 PM, Room 333, you know.”

With that, the gentleman,

“Oh, is that so? Then there’s no need to read any further.”

he said.

“I agree. There’s not a single truthful article these days except for death notices…”

“Ahaha…” “Well said.” “However, you still trust too much.”

“Why…?” Then, the gentleman said in a solemn tone, “There are lies even in death notices.”

“For example…?” “An example? Ahaha… Well now—that’s an excellent question.”

The gentleman pointed to the death notice section of the newspaper, “Here, you see Hachiya Jūkichi’s death notice.” “Yes.” “Former Member of the House of Representatives Hachiya Jūkichi passed away on July 31st of last year. “It says so here, doesn’t it?” “Do you know a Diet member named Hachiya?”

“No, I’ve never heard of him.”

“Exactly, I’ve never heard of him either. The man named Hachiya Jūkichi is not a Diet member.”

“Then, who is he?” “I am nobody, but Hachiya Jūkichi is none other than myself.”

“What?” “According to this newspaper, Hachiya Jūkichi is supposed to have died yesterday.” “Yet as you see here, I remain very much alive.” “Newspapers are pure fabrication from start to finish.”

“Indeed. By the way, you’re the sponsor of this death notice, aren’t you?”

When Shinkichi promptly asked, the gentleman didn’t show a single smile, “That’s correct.”

he answered.

Chapter Five

On the Meaning of "Dandy".

The trivial explanation that Shinkichi had charm for women.

Sae came wearing a hat.

The man named Shinkichi Suga had a face where two expressions intertwined: what women would call a nervous demeanor and a childlike quality conveyed through his vacant, dazed eyes when spaced out and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled.

Moreover, like a true urbanite, he was bashful yet sociable, seemingly timid yet capable of sudden cruelty, and while appearing almost frivolously cheerful one moment, he could be plunged into profound melancholy the next—seemingly innocent yet appearing as a consummate womanizer… His expressions shifted dizzyingly with time and circumstance, making him a man of modest allure to women weary of ordinary, unremarkable men.

He was tall and slender, and in his blunt manner of speaking to women, there was a smooth politeness that licked through like a tongue. He was, so to speak, a ladies' man. He wasn’t a handsome man, but he had a subdued charm.

Therefore, he was by no means a dandy (a man of style).

“……I’m rather unrefined, you see.” He was half-serious when he said it. His clothes were not stylish either. He was too much of a slacker to bother about his appearance.

However，Shinkichi， “I am spiritually a dandy.”

he had thought.

In other words, it was a difference in what the word "dandy" meant. For Shinkichi, a dandy was what Baudelaire called— "To astonish others but never be astonished oneself—that is the precept a dandy must uphold." This was it. Therefore, Shinkichi had always resolved never to be surprised by anything, no matter the circumstances. However, even Shinkichi could not help being somewhat astonished by this strange man named Jūkichi Hachiya. "Former Member of the House of Representatives Hachiya Jūkichi passed away on July 31st."

A man who proudly declared himself to be the sponsor of that death notice! There was a writer in the Meiji era who placed his own death notice under his own name, but when that notice was published, the writer was of course already dead.

However, this man named Hachiya Jūkichi was currently alive before Shinkichi’s eyes. Moreover, when asked if his title as a former member of the House of Representatives was genuine, he nonchalantly declared it to be nonsense.

He was a strange man.

However, before Shinkichi could hear it from the man named Hachiya, he had already taken the initiative to— “The advertiser is you…?” Since he had asked,

“That’s correct.” Even when answered, he hadn’t particularly shown surprise—or so one might say. However, to state it so definitively would have been a lie.

The surprise had merely passed swiftly through him—in any case, he had undeniably been startled for an instant. —At the very least, Shinkichi acknowledged it. For a dandy, this was quite a painful ordeal. However, Shinkichi had been thoroughly bested by that man. He had no choice but to bow his head. Shinkichi detested all commonplace and ordinary things. The principle of testing a stone bridge before crossing it; the common sense of worldly wisdom; the self-preservation instincts of the petty bourgeois; thrift; the mentality that fears waste—he despised them all. What suited Shinkichi’s tastes was limited to things grounded in an anti-philistine spirit—recklessness, unconventionality, defiance of norms, transgressions of convention, boundary-breaking acts, and the exposure of one’s true nature.

Therefore, Shinkichi’s desire had never been for worldly success, but rather to fully become a distinctive figure. And though he had intended to carry himself in that manner, Shinkichi’s own distinctiveness now seemed nothing but a shabby existence in the presence of Jūkichi Hachiya.

Shinkichi asked frankly. “Why would you place such an ad?” Then Hachiya responded curtly,

“Why…?” “Why would you ask such a question?” “Even if I were to explain the reason to someone who asks such questions, they wouldn’t understand.”

As soon as he said this, he suddenly stood up,

“8 PM, Room 333.”

After making sure of this, he swiftly headed toward the entrance and left.

“Alright—8 PM, Room 333 then.” Today I wouldn’t let that man outdo me.

As he muttered this, Itsuko emerged from the elevator carrying a suitcase. Her uncle and fiancé were with her. Itsuko, with a half-crying face, smiled, bowed her head slightly, and went out into the rain with the two accompanying her.

Shinkichi too merely bowed his head in silence. As she pushed through the revolving door, Itsuko glanced back. Shinkichi tried to bow again, but just then, Itsuko’s fiancé glared sharply at him. Shinkichi abruptly averted his gaze. And when he looked again, Itsuko’s figure was no longer visible. The fiancé’s gaze pierced Shinkichi’s chest sharply, and there was a fresh pang of remorse. But suddenly, when he thought of that man eventually becoming Itsuko’s husband and embracing Itsuko’s body with its troubling odor, the various poses Itsuko had shown on the bed in Room 453, her burning caresses, and her gasping cries of “Mr. Suga!— the gasping voice that had kept crying “Mr. Suga!” was vividly recalled,

“I’ll probably never see that girl again……”

The thought that there was no undoing it instead dredged up his remorse, leaving behind only a lingering sweetness; Shinkichi suddenly brought his right hand to his nose.

And as he caught the scent of Itsuko—or rather, the faint lingering odor of base human dealings—the woman’s pitifulness had already seized Shinkichi with melancholy. And yet, Shinkichi was waiting for Sae Eguchi—with whom he had made a promise the previous night—to arrive. What in the world was this? Women don’t understand this kind of man’s feelings. No—they don’t even try to understand. Even geisha and prostitutes who casually engage in such acts view this kind of man’s feelings as mere caprice and condemn him.

"Men are all like that," he thought. Certainly, that must be the case. Fickle and frivolous—in other words, not sincere. Yet in Shinkichi's case, this was clearly Decadence. But as proof it wasn't Decadence at all, he suddenly felt struck by his own pitifulness. And he grew even more pitiful feeling pity for his own pitiful state.

“He’s not a bad person, but…”

A man who issues disclaimers only to be criticized! In other words—a man commonly found among modern youth: one who falls for women but, through passion intense enough to lose himself, becomes incapable of true romance—such would be the explanation. Yet compared to this majority of young men, what makes Shinkichi dangerous to women lies in this single point: he possesses charm. However, women dislike the phrase “male charm” and refuse to acknowledge such a thing— “He’s a good person.”

He kept telling himself this. For instance, even a woman like Sae Eguchi... no—Sae hadn’t even appeared in the hotel entrance yet. The reader must wait with Shinkichi for her.

As for what we might tentatively consider fortunate, Sae arrived forty minutes later than the promised time.

In other words, Sae was not miserable. It could be said she had fully exercised a woman’s privilege of arriving late. However, that Sae had come late was something Shinkichi too should have welcomed in a sense. Because having been kept waiting, Shinkichi thought he had found another excuse to seduce her. His pride had been wounded. Though late, Sae ambled in. Her gait suggested she wouldn’t have cared if Shinkichi had gotten angry and disappeared.

Yet her eyes were indeed searching for Shinkichi. Perhaps because she was slightly nearsighted, or perhaps because Shinkichi’s figure in the corner of the lobby wasn’t immediately visible, she suddenly furrowed her brows as if troubled. That expression saved Shinkichi, who had been made to wait endlessly. Like a spoiled child, he thought it would be amusing if he hid himself even more. No—or rather, it might have been more satisfying if he had simply vanished from the lobby altogether.

However, Shinkichi, “Hey—”

He immediately stood up and approached. “You kept me waiting quite a while…?” Without answering, “What about the matches…?” She wore a look that suggested she had only been waiting for the matches. Sae smiled faintly and, “Later…” They entered the basement grill and sat facing each other,

“I brought two boxes.” “I got scolded by my mother.” “She said, ‘What are you going to do with so many matches...?’” “When I said I was giving them to the author, she said, ‘Then just take three...’”

“Ahaha…” Laughing, he struck the match and lit his cigarette. It tasted good. “I don’t really like being invited out to meals.” Shinkichi frowned, but his mood improved with the words Sae said next.

“—I’ve been asked out many times before, but I usually refused.” “Then today’s an exception.” “Well… I suppose so.”

“Why didn’t you refuse…?” He said casually and cast a quick glance at Sae’s face.

“Why…?” “Yeah,”

He thought she would struggle to respond. But Sae— “But I brought you the matches, didn’t I?”

she retorted immediately.

“Oh, right,”

he said playfully, while thinking that this actress was quite clever.

Then, Shinkichi found it difficult to carry out his plan of taking Sae back to his room after they finished eating. Moreover, Sae was boldly wearing a wide-brimmed hat like a promotional staff member from some Ginza hat shop. Even though it was raining… In Osaka, there were no girls bold enough to wear such a large hat. That, too, made Shinkichi feel slightly intimidated. Though perhaps "exasperated" would be more accurate—or maybe it would be better to say it annoyed him. In any case, Sae lacked the air of last night’s unexpectedly resentful large-room actress. Today’s Sae was unmistakably a Ginza girl.

He couldn’t very well treat her like some woman from Kyushu—Shinkichi found himself uncharacteristically intimidated by Sae’s "Ginza style." Was this the melancholy of an Osaka native? Or perhaps— “Women are all the same.” This was Shinkichi’s desperate conviction—a last-ditch theory forged through his experiences thus far. They only differed in etiquette. Therefore, caution was required. Yet he couldn’t use techniques he didn’t genuinely feel. Not genuinely felt—that is to say, unnatural.

The meal ended.

“What should we do now…?” “There’s still quite some time before the dressing room call, right…?” “Shall we walk around Ginza…?”

This was natural.

“In the rain…?” This response, too, had been part of his calculations.

“Well then, shall we talk in the lobby?” “I don’t like the idea of talking with a man in a hotel lobby. People will talk…” It was a remark befitting an actress. “So, what should we do…?” “Let’s go to your room.”

Shinkichi was disappointed. The same line as Itsuko!

He was disappointed by how anticlimactic it was, but Shinkichi boarded the elevator with Sae. with a look that said this was all part of the plan...

Chapter Six

That Sae Was the Shy Type.

The Reason They Didn’t Kiss.

Bizarre Message.

And the Appearance of an Even More Bizarre Man.

As usual, Room 453—Shinkichi’s room. The lingering scent of Itsuko from last night should have still been there, but the smell of tobacco had erased it. “Instead of burning incense, you’re burning tobacco, I see.”

Sae made a slightly clever remark.

They sat facing each other by the window.

Sae took off her hat. When she took off her hat, Sae appeared as just an ordinary woman. The hat placed on the desk looked no more luxurious than a cheap salaryman’s bowler hat. Should he compare it to a discarded revue girl’s costume, or rather to a leftover stick of lipstick in a handbag? Even if she put on airs of luxury, she was just a Japanese girl. There was a wretchedness worn down by the long war. That wretchedness, however, was not unappealing to Shinkichi. Her taking off her hat made him feel a sudden sense of relief.

“You smoke quite often.” “A hundred a day.—” Shinkichi gave a wry smile. He thought it was just like yesterday. “Is tobacco really that enjoyable…?” “Don’t you smoke…?” “Should I try smoking…?” “Well, you’d better not.”

Shinkichi said hurriedly. He smoked. They could be seen from the building’s windows. Close the curtains—and then… Shinkichi was not so unrefined a man as to repeat yesterday’s same course all over again. “Tobacco isn’t something you smoke out of curiosity.” “The tobacco being smoked cries.” “Speaking of crying… I have a habit of drinking coffee before bed.” “I have to drink coffee or I can’t sleep.” “For coffee—having its pride soiled like this—it must want to cry.”

“What about alcohol…?”

“Well, let’s drop this conversation, shall we? ‘Do you like tobacco? Do you like alcohol? What do you like? I like it too’—how trite. Asking about each other’s preferences, discussing hobbies… Even if they end up matching, it’s still tedious. It’s not like we’re getting married or anything, after all.”

“Why don’t you get married…?” “With you…?”

“Well…”

“No—my apologies, my apologies.—Well… why I don’t get married…? “Hmm.” “Because I hate having my freedom restricted.” “I don’t want to be bound any further by marriage—what with the war starting and already being restricted on all sides.”

“Love…?” “Not currently seeing anyone.” “And you…?” “…………” “Somehow, you seem to be involved with someone.” The question felt so absurd that even Shinkichi grew weary of himself. “If you were to have one—what kind of relationship would you want?” “Hmm. Platonic love.”

He thought all women say that. It must be the nostalgic longing of fleeting women. "Do you really think Platonic alone would suffice?" "Bese...? I think Bese is such nonsense. Don't you think so...?" "Well, I guess so." Reluctantly, Shinkichi responded. It was a meaningless response he had given. Like this, he couldn't even leap forward and kiss her.

The conversation stopped.

Shinkichi was staring intently at Sae’s face.

Sae looked up at the painting hanging on the wall and smirked. “Why are you smirking…?” “Why…?” She smiled faintly and blinked. “—I don’t know why. I just can’t help wanting to laugh.” “Aren’t you just embarrassed…?”

“That’s right. I’m terribly shy.—This is unbearable.”

She really burst out laughing. “Is it because I’m staring too much…?” “That’s right. When someone looks at my face, I get embarrassed right away.” “With that, you managed to become an actress, huh?”

“On stage I’m fine, but…”

And when she started laughing again,

“I’ll be going now.”

With that, she stood up. Shinkichi felt like he’d been had.

However, he didn’t feel like stopping her. “Well then, I’ll walk you down.” Sae put on a hat. “Thank you for the matches.”

“Huh…?” “Oh...” She chuckled softly,

“I’d like to talk more, but today’s no good. I’m too embarrassed to stay. I’m sorry.” “If you’re leaving out of embarrassment, that’s fine… but if you’re leaving because you dislike me, that would hurt. You don’t detest me like vermin…?” “If I disliked you, I wouldn’t have come.” “So I was relieved…”

Shinkichi began to open the door but suddenly turned around and stared intently at Sae. Sae was standing nearly brushing against Shinkichi’s body. Their eyes met.

Shinkichi suddenly stretched out both hands and placed them on Sae’s shoulders.

Sae remained still. “Do I seem like a bad man…?” “Why…? “You’re a good person. You...” “A good person…?”

Shinkichi laughed and,

“—In that case, I’ll stop trying to kiss you. I’ll be a good boy.” With that, he removed the hands he had placed on her shoulders. “So not kissing makes you a good boy…?” “That’s right. In other words, I’m a philanderer, you see. After all, it’d be bad if I did it, you know.” “You don’t look like a philanderer.” “Then what would you do if I kissed you…? Would you hit me?” “Let’s have this kind of talk.”

“Let’s stop.”

With that, Shinkichi said in an intentionally loud voice and opened the door.

After seeing her to the entrance and parting with Sae, Shinkichi entered the coffee shop. While drinking coffee, "I should have kissed you at the door." "In other words, I was trying to be a good boy." Shinkichi muttered. "—'Would you hit me if I kissed you?'—what a terrible line that was." "That ruined everything." "If it weren't for that line, I could have kissed her." "However, in that situation, kissing her without that line would have made the staging's climax too abrupt." "Because it would be too abrupt." "However, why is being too abrupt a bad thing...?" "In other words, actions devoid of passion must not be abrupt, I suppose."

Speaking of actions devoid of passion, visiting Room 333 at 8 PM tonight was not an act driven by passion either. Therefore, were it abrupt, it would prove unseemly. How then should he ensure it wouldn’t be abrupt?

Shinkichi left the coffee shop and went to the front desk. And after receiving a message slip,

I shall call on you without fail at eight o'clock. Room 453　　　Suga Shinkishi (We cannot escape one without falling into the other—either frivolity or weariness.) Room 333-sama

Having hastily scribbled this, “Could you pass this along for me?”

And then, after going up to his own room on the fourth floor and preparing, he headed out to the Tokyo Theater.

When he boarded the streetcar, the man sitting next to him— “Oh, it’s been a while...”

he said. He was a pale-complexioned man around forty. He was wearing a wrinkled raincoat. Shinkichi had no recollection of him at all. “What perfect timing to meet.” “Excuse me, but you are…?” “You are…? Ahaha…. You’re the one who…”

He started laughing. “In Bunkyū 3, a whale named ‘you’ was caught off Shinagawa Bay. Named ‘you,’ I tell you.” “Ahaha…” He had been laughing, but suddenly making a serious face,

“—How far…”

“To Tokyo Theatre…”

“Then I’m just like you.” “Let us proceed together.” “Excuse me—who might you be?”

“I cannot reveal my name…” “Huh?”

“No—I’m telling you I can’t reveal my name.” “Why can’t you reveal it?”

“If I reveal it, you’ll have to prostrate yourself.” “Huh…?” Shinkichi asked reflexively.

Then, the man suddenly started laughing.

The passengers were startled and looked toward the man.

Shinkichi, feeling embarrassed, tried to stand up when, “Are you running away?”

The man suddenly grabbed Shinkichi’s arm.

Chapter Seven

Engaging in futile debates about the psychology of ideological converts. Infatuation. The sensation of infatuation. When he arrived at Tokyo Theater, Shinkichi’s play was just about to begin. Shinkichi entered the supervisor’s room and decided to watch the opening performance of the play he had written. The supervisor’s room was a room constructed behind the first-floor auditorium—in a position analogous to a cinema’s projection booth—with a window facing the stage that allowed viewing of the performance from there.

This was a special room where the troupe’s executives and directors could watch the performance while chatting or jotting down notes about acting techniques and sound effects. Entering such a room and putting on airs as the playwright did not suit Shinkichi’s taste, but being able to watch while smoking cigarettes was a godsend for Shinkichi, who loved them. One reason was that he intended to shake off the middle-aged man in the wrinkled raincoat who had suddenly spoken to him on the streetcar and followed him all the way to the theater.

In the supervisor’s room was director Reisuke Tamura. The moment he saw Tamura’s complexion, Shinkichi thought, "The trial results must have been favorable." The roughness in Tamura’s direction during yesterday’s dress rehearsal had been due to his irritation while awaiting today’s verdict announcement. Tamura had been arrested on suspicion of leftist activities at the outbreak of the war but had been released on bail.

“How was it…?”

Shinkichi asked instead of greeting. “Huh…?”

Tamura lightly asked in return, but

“Ah, the trial?” Tamura seemed to immediately understand, borrowing Shinkichi’s cigarette as he continued: “—It was a suspended sentence.” “Mr. Yamagami—the leader of our theater troupe—testified for me. In his usual simple way, he said: ‘I don’t understand anything about ideology, but Mr. Tamura here is indispensable to Japanese theater.’ That testimony made all the difference.” “If things had gone badly, I might have been thrown in prison during the war.” “That’s good to hear.”

After making that perfunctory remark, Shinkichi— “Of course, you were made to pledge ideological conversion, I take it?”

he inquired.

“Well, you see…” Tamura gave a bitter smile and, “If you don’t convert, you can never get out for life—isn’t that right? The ones who’ve gotten out have all converted ideologically.” “I see. But are they truly converted ideologically?” Though his name was Shinkichi—a name meaning “faith and good fortune”—this Shinkichi had never believed in any ideology. Unable to comprehend the psychology of ideological converts, he had asked not out of irony but naive curiosity. “Well, that’s not really…”

“For example, Mr. Tamura—what about you?” “—”

Tamura’s cold, clear eyes suddenly showed a look of astonishment as he looked at Shinkichi’s face, but he did not respond. “When speaking of ideological conversion, does that mean acknowledging the error of the leftist ideology one has held until now...?” “Well, I suppose so.”

“If you acknowledge your errors and swear to cooperate with the war, this makes you right-wing—can one switch so easily from left-wing to right-wing?” “It must be more convenient to have become right-wing, given that we’re at war.”

“So it’s just opportunism?” “Well, that’s about it.” “Then when the left-wing flourished—were they opportunists too?” Shinkichi needled further. “No—the left-wing wasn’t opportunism. They had passion.” “But if we speak of passion—those right-wing fools have just as much. Though I’d call it fanaticism rather than passion.” As he spoke, an unexpected thought began developing in Shinkichi’s mind—emerging not from his articulated ideas but from the very words themselves.

“So it’s passion after all.” “The way left-wing members convert to the right wing so easily—or how those former leftists swarm within the Imperial Rule Assistance Association while putting on such a show of being right wing—isn’t it because there’s a passion common to both left wing and right wing?”

Shinkichi suddenly recalled that the topical play Tamura was directing had an agitational atmosphere similar to leftist theater. The vociferous elocution and collective directing methods characteristic of leftist theater had been directly incorporated into topical plays, and moreover, within those parameters, this was not at all unnatural. Wondering what on earth this was about, Shinkichi reached the following conclusion. “The left-wing and right-wing are ultimately polar opposites, but even two extremes share some point of convergence.” “So when former leftists convert to right-wing and work for the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, don’t they surprisingly find motivation in how the organizational building they once did can now be done through the Association?” “In other words, the actual content of ideology isn’t the issue here, is it?” “As long as their work’s form remains similar, isn’t that good enough?” “It’s more about sensibility than form.” “In other words, sensibility over ideology…”

“Well, that’s one perspective.”

Tamura kept the cigarette in his mouth and smiled behind his glasses. “So, ideology is rather a fragile thing, isn’t it?” Shinkichi, who harbored a passive distrust toward ideology and systems and such, couldn’t help wanting to tear down ideology itself. “No—it’s not that ideology is fragile. “It’s the people holding ideologies who are fragile.” Tamura was, after all, more mature than Shinkichi.

“I see.” “Then what about people who can’t hold any ideology?”

“You’re the one who says you can’t hold any ideology, aren’t you?” “That’s right.” Shinkichi said proudly.

“But decadence is also a proper ideology, you know.” Tamura had already seen through Shinkichi’s decadence.

“That’s right. Decadence is high-class, you know. Japanese art hasn’t even reached the level of decadence yet.”

Shinkichi said smugly. Then Tamura suddenly grinned. “However, that thing called decadent thought often becomes an easy self-justification for one’s actions. Becoming true decadence is an exceedingly difficult thing.”

he said. Shinkichi was struck by a sudden thought. He felt he’d been caught off guard. He had intended to confront Tamura about the psychology of ideological converts, but instead felt as though he had been outmaneuvered by him. Shinkichi, flustered, “…………” He tried to say something, searching for words, but at that moment, the play’s curtain rose, so he looked toward the stage. And,

“Japanese people sure love debates, don’t they?” “They’re so meddlesome, aren’t they?” “Other people’s affairs… shouldn’t matter at all…”

Muttering this like a soliloquy, he watched the play he had written. The first act was not received well at all. However, the added love scene in the second act—perhaps because the audience had been starved for this sort of thing lately—received an unexpectedly strong reaction from the seats. The dialogue was awkward, and above all, that this act—completely unrelated to the overall progression of the play—was being well-received must have been beyond Shinkichi’s expectations. However, as Shinkichi sensed that enthusiastic response, he sank so carelessly into a state where he momentarily forgot this was an act someone had surreptitiously added without his knowledge, deluding himself into believing its success was entirely his own.

What on earth was this? Wasn't it simply because it was a love scene? A cloying, saccharine love scene—this thoroughly nonsensical act made all the more incongruous by the shin'nai recital's background music in what was supposed to be a modern play. Under normal circumstances, he would have been angered by this dissonance or at least scoffed at it. Yet now Shinkichi found himself entranced by the shin'nai melody along with the audience—no, even more than the audience. Strange.

"Theater is such a mysterious thing. No—music is the mysterious thing here. How does this utterly unartistic, half-baked play—with nothing more than its musical effects—intoxicate me so completely? And it’s not even particularly sophisticated music. It’s just shin’nai, after all.—Critics will tear this act to pieces. Not that I think it’s any good myself, mind you. But still—it intoxicates me. What in the world——"

He tried to figure out what was happening, but Shinkichi couldn't understand. Yet when Shinkichi saw Sae appear in a minor role during the next act, he gasped as his chest burned hot, numbed by an unexpected surge of nostalgia.

Am I falling in love with Sae? This discovery startled Shinkichi. "No way—" Though he tried to dismiss the thought, he could no longer deny that his own eyes watching Sae on stage burned with an intensity different from yesterday’s mere curiosity. Sae was dressed as a country girl, her white calves visible beneath the hem of her kasuri-patterned kimono. It was a thoroughly stereotypical country girl costume, but no matter how one looked at her, Sae couldn’t fully become a country girl. Her eyes were too rationally sharp.

Though unscripted, Sae had conceived an innovation where her character suffered from a cold—while silent onstage between lines—she maintained a rasping cough that echoed through her body. Yet this came across less as theatrical realism than as a schoolgirl feigning illness to coax comfort from S.

She was earnest but unskilled. She had esprit but lacked talent as an actress. However, that very quality held an appeal for Shinkichi. Suddenly, she seemed poignantly vulnerable. Had she always been this alluring? At this, Shinkichi became flustered.

Women with jobs (and men too, for that matter) are most beautiful when they are working. A bus conductress is most beautiful when she is on the bus. When you meet barmaids outside the bar, the magic fades. Dancers who aren’t dancing have utterly no charm. An actress is at her best when seen on stage. A man who visits an actress in her dressing room does not understand what constitutes her charm. It’s the kind of thing foolish hangers-on do.

In this sense, the reader might assume that Shinkichi now felt an unexpected new charm in Sae because he had seen her for the first time as an actress on the opening night’s stage—but at that moment, Shinkichi was simultaneously recalling three images of her: Sae in her dressing room yukata during yesterday’s dress rehearsal; Sae trudging home alone through the rain after practice; and Sae arriving at the First Hotel, her large hat worn with striking elegance.

While watching a woman, he simultaneously recalled her appearances in various settings—what else could this be but proof that he felt an inescapable love for her?

“——Have I fallen for her?” At the very moment Shinkichi muttered once again, he realized that his undisciplined intoxication—no, his utter loss of self in the mood of that shin’nai recital rather than in the love scene itself—must have stemmed from a hidden nostalgia for Sae lurking in the depths of his heart.

He did not give a wry smile. Rather, a sweet aftertaste lingered as if he had listened to lyrical music, and Sae’s habit of peeking her tongue out between her lips while speaking—with a bashful smirk at the ceiling or walls—now seemed utterly irreplaceable to him.

——I fell. "I’ve definitely fallen."

Muttering this over and over，Shinkichi did not realize for some time that he was merely feeling as though he was in love．In other words，he did not realize that the reason he was so drawn to Sae was precisely because he hadn’t even touched Sae’s lips—．The reason Shinkichi hadn’t kissed her during the day today was that an act devoid of passion must never be abrupt．—because he had thought that．

Sae had no passion. Even now, could one definitively say there was still passion…? Love was an act of passion that continued until one lost oneself—but could Shinkichi ever lose himself enough to fall for a woman? Did such men even exist among modern youth? Moreover, when a man listened to music,

“I’ve fallen.”

He wanted to think— He wanted to convince himself. He wanted to tell her too. The lamentable affliction of modern humanity. However, only those who fall ill can yearn for true health. Only those accustomed to the night sea’s glow can yearn for the sun’s rays. You have to go through the night before the sun will rise. Even Shinkichi—therefore—might not necessarily be free from yearning for that intense passion that makes one lose oneself.

However, none of that mattered now. For now, the immediate task was to meet Sae again tomorrow. When the curtain closed, Shinkichi fidgeted his way out to the corridor outside the supervisor’s office.

Chapter Eight

Strange Shin'nai Narration and an Unexpected Encounter in the Understage

Shin'nai as Decadent Music: A Superficial Discussion Creak...

Shinkichi, intending to meet Sae in the dressing room, opened the door behind the hanamichi and descended the staircase leading to the basement.

From there, one could pass through the understage (as theater people called it—meaning the bottom of the stage) to reach the dressing room.

Walking through the dim understage illuminated by bare bulbs casting dull light—a space so oppressive it made one’s head feel stifled— “Well, well...”

he was called out to by a man approaching from ahead. Shinkichi was startled. It was that unidentifiable middle-aged man who had approached him earlier on the train while coming from the First Hotel to this theater. Even on the train, he had approached him in this same manner— “Well, well...” Recalling that he had been called out to in that manner, Shinkichi felt a creeping unease.

At that time, Shinkichi had no recollection of the man whatsoever, so he remained silent, but the man— “What a place to meet.” he said. “Excuse me, but you are…?” he asked. “And you are…?” “Ahaha….” “You being…” he burst into laughter. “...” “In the third year of Bunkyū, a whale named ‘you’ was caught off Shinagawa Bay. Named ‘you,’ I tell you.” “Ahaha….” He had been laughing, but suddenly assumed a serious expression,

“—How far…?” “To Tokyo Theater…” “Then I’m just like you.” “Shall we proceed together?”

“Excuse me, but who are you?”

“I can’t reveal my name…”

“Huh…?” “No—I said I can’t reveal my name.” “Why can’t you reveal it?” “If I reveal it, you would have to prostrate yourself.” “Huh…?”

When he inadvertently asked, the man suddenly burst into laughter.

The passengers were startled and looked toward the man.

Shinkichi, embarrassed, tried to stand up when— “Are you running away?” Then, the man suddenly grabbed Shinkichi’s arm.

And just like that, they ended up coming together to Tokyo Theater, but Shinkichi suddenly entered the supervisor’s office and shook off the man. However, to encounter him again in a place like this now... For one thing, it was strange that he had come from the direction of the dressing rooms. Who was he? In any case, feeling unsettled (partly because the man’s complexion was sickly pale, exuding something morbidly gloomy and sinister), Shinkichi— “Well, we do keep meeting.”

“As he said this, he tried to brush past him when—” “Are you running away?”

Just like in the train car, his arm was grabbed again.

Before irritation could take hold, Shinkichi found himself forcing a bitter smile.

“I’m not running away.” “Of course not. It’s not like I’ve lent you any money.”

The man smirked.

“Even if you told me to borrow, I wouldn’t!”

Shinkichi promptly retorted.

“I see…”

And the man nodded,

“But even if you asked me to lend, I don’t have any. Money or anything—” “Money or anything—”

“—” “I don’t have any money or anything.”

The man suddenly peered into Shinkichi’s face and uttered in a harsh tone. “I don’t care about money or anything like that. “Anyway, could you let go of my arm? “I’m in a hurry.”

“What brings you rushing backstage? In such haste...” “I’m going to meet an actress.” Shinkichi declared haughtily.

“Ah, but it’s eight o’clock,” “You mustn’t forget.” “What… are you talking about?”

“Eight o’clock, Room 333!” It was a voice as incisive as a shogi lance capturing a pawn.

“…………” Huh…… He couldn’t even muster a voice to ask back. Shinkichi was dumbfounded, staring at the man’s face while— How did this man know about the newspaper cipher in the First Hotel’s lobby?

And in his gut, he secretly groaned without any artistic flair.

“You’re going at eight o’clock, aren’t you?” The man let out a snickering laugh that bordered on sobbing. “Well… I suppose.”

As Shinkichi was leaving the First Hotel, he wrote on a message slip: "I will certainly come to see you at eight o'clock." Room 453　　　　　Suga Shinkichi (We cannot escape one without falling into the other—whether it be frivolity or weariness.) Room 333-sama Having written that and left it at the front desk, he said, recalling what he had done.

Having left such an ostentatious message, he had no choice but to go.

“Aren’t you going?” When Shinkichi asked that, the man suddenly burst into laughter. “I...?” “Ahaha….”

“Why on earth should I have to go? Don’t be ridiculous.” “I should go…?” “Ahaha….” “You’re hilarious.”

Shinkichi thought this guy might be a lunatic. “Just who on earth are you?” “Me?” “You said you couldn’t reveal your name, didn’t you?”

“If I reveal it, I’d have to grovel…?” “That was all nonsense.” “Why, I could tell you if I pleased.”

Then, lowering his voice, the man— “—There was a man reciting shin’nai offstage during the second act, wasn’t there?” He grinned slyly. “So, you’re the one who…”

Shinkichi realized instinctively. “That’s right—I was the one reciting it, you know.”

“Oh... I truly hadn’t known, so I couldn’t help but...” “Ah—... But tell me—do you care for shin’nai?”

“I do like it.”

“Why…?”

“Shin’nai is a cry, isn’t it? It’s an art form that demands you throw your entire being into it, isn’t it? When it comes to decadent music, shin’nai represents its ultimate form, don’t you think?”

Having said that, the man suddenly reached out his hand and grasped Shinkichi’s.

“Th-that’s it! You’ve got it! Shin’nai is decadence!” “In other words, it’s the blues, isn’t it?”

The man’s eyes shone with an unusual intensity.

Shinkichi carelessly grasped the man’s hand in return,

“Do you like decadence?” he asked. “No—it’s not a matter of liking or disliking.” “I see—so you’re saying there’s nothing left but decadence now.” “In a world like this, you know.” “The world…?”

Then, the man retorted contemptuously, “No—let’s drop such terms as ‘the world.’ Whether Japan is at war or not—who cares about that?”

“It’s not a war we started—is that what you’re saying…?”

Shinkichi was so intrigued by the strange words of this strange shin’nai reciter that he found himself smiling. “No—that’s not what I’m saying.” “In other words—”

The man hesitated for a moment, then spoke resolutely,

“—The problem is...” “What remains for a man who made his wife commit adultery but decadence?” Huh— Shinkichi gasped as the man suddenly grabbed his hand, “What do you think that woman in Room 333 is to me?” “You don’t mean she’s your wife, do you?” “However, alas, she happens to be my wife.” Whether the next act had begun or not, the sound of wooden clappers reached the underground passage where the two men stood.

Chapter Nine

The rude conversation in the basement was more unconventional than the dialogue on stage.

On the imposing theme of cuckoldry.

That the snake was too long.

On stage, the next act seemed to have begun.

Regarding that act’s unconventional nature, Shinkichi had felt somewhat confident. However, even that unconventional stage now seemed abruptly commonplace—a plausible cliché—when compared to the strangeness of the words that the peculiar shin’nai storyteller was speaking to Shinkichi in the basement passage directly below it. Shinkichi felt wretched. "The man’s implausible words were far more theatrical than the plausible lines I had written."

Shinkichi thought so.

However, the people of this country had a tendency to prefer plausible words and arguments. They liked ordinary things. They preferred things that represented the lowest common denominator. They had a habit of finding reassurance in slogan-like conclusions—ones that would inevitably result no matter who thought them or voiced them. In particular, they preferred to listen—out of a self-preservation instinct and with a certain reassurance—to words grounded in narrowly defined morality, such as those embodying the spirit found in ethics textbooks, while instinctively furrowing their brows at any eccentric, unconventional words that deviated from this norm.

Therefore, those unconventional words of the shin’nai storyteller—words that defied good customs and virtues—were loathed and feared by refined petit-bourgeois sensibilities more than germs themselves. No—it would not have been regarded as the act of a sane mind. That a mysterious beauty—who, according to coded messages in the First Hotel lobby’s newspaper, waited daily to welcome whichever man deciphered them (yesterday at 3 PM in Room 352, today at 8 PM in Room 333)—was one’s own wife, and moreover that this wife had previously committed adultery—such words, even if meant as a joke, ought never to have been uttered before others. At the very least, these were not words that a person of common sense would utter. It was far too immoral! But Shinkichi—being neither a conformist nor a fool—preferred to lend his ear to words that were unconventional, even if immoral, rather than those that pleased moralists’ ears.

Therefore, rather than continuing to watch his own play unfold, he found paradoxical significance in listening to the man’s words. “How about it? It’s almost eight o’clock now. Don’t you want to go meet my wife—keh keh keh!” The shin’nai storyteller laughed with a strained smile. “You’re awfully insistent on recommending this… heh heh heh…” Shinkichi also laughed frivolously. “However—before going—I’d like to get some background information first.”

As soon as he said this, the shin’nai storyteller grinned broadly, baring his uneven teeth,

“Do you want to read a clumsy synopsis before the curtain rises, like some clumsy theatergoer?” “Not at all—far from it… Not only is it a clumsy synopsis—the synopsis itself might be more of a play than the actual performance. At the very least, I’m interested.” “Ah, foreign plays do often feature cuckolds, don’t they? Cuckold… Do you know—yes, the pitiful man whose wife committed adultery. In other words, that would be me, wouldn’t it? Keh, keh, keh!”

“Just who made you a cuckold?” Shinkichi asked.

“Jūkichi Hachiya!” The shin’nai storyteller spoke in a tone as though uttering the name of a bosom friend. “You know…?” “Yes.” Far from merely knowing him. He had met Jūkichi Hachiya just that day in the hotel lobby. The man who taught me the newspaper code! And the man who placed his own death notice in the newspaper? The name of such a strange man was not the kind one could forget even if they tried. But that man’s name—! To think of hearing that man’s name now in this Tokyo Theater basement…?

“You were surprised, weren’t you?” The shin’nai storyteller said in a low voice and looked at Shinkichi’s face as if savoring it.

“I was surprised.”

Shinkichi had answered in that manner, but he was telling himself that he wouldn’t be surprised no matter what this man said now— “Ah ha ha… Were you surprised? Ah ha ha…”

The shin'nai storyteller suddenly burst into laughter. Shinkichi grew sullen. He would say “You must have been surprised,” and when you answered that you were, he would laugh scornfully—Shinkichi found that attitude rude. “Well, those who write possess a naive sensitivity that makes them at least somewhat surprised by even the most inconspicuous things.” “However, they also possess a boldness that remains unshocked by even the most outrageous things.” “What do you mean by that?”

“What do you mean by that?” asked the shin'nai storyteller. “In other words—for example—women generally surrender their bodies on their wedding night to a man they’ve only seen at the matchmaking meeting. Even though they don’t love him. This is truly an astonishing passivity in women! Such nerves unique to women are a wonder to those who write. No—it’s not just those who write. If one were to set aside the lens of preconceptions and directly engage with this fact through the naked eye of sensitivity, anyone would be astonished by it.”

Before he knew it, Shinkichi had grown eloquent.

“—Society’s common sense says weddings are auspicious, doesn’t it? However, what could possibly be auspicious about a ritual where a bride—unless she’s exceptionally lustful, that is to say, a virgin—without exception nearly faints as she surrenders her body to her husband? Rather, it’s a sad ritual. I am astonished by the age-old fact that all women—not uniformly, tentatively—no, uniformly tentatively—are born bearing such a sad fate.”

The shin'nai storyteller’s muddy eyes were somehow filled with a dark, restless shadow.

Shinkichi continued speaking. "—However, I'm no longer surprised by the fact that such women eventually, after some time passes, suddenly exhibit agency—creating a man other than their husband and surrendering themselves to him, even eagerly doing so." "—Humans—they'll do anything, you know." "But after all, human wisdom is all much the same." "In other words, there are limits to what humans can do." "Even if one goes mad, they don't invent any new ways of madness." "Properly—within the limits of madness, or rather, they go mad within a set pattern." "All the more so—the things sane humans do are limited in scope." "Even if someone does something unimaginable, when you boil it down, it's merely desires lurking within every human taking form within the scope of what human wisdom can conceive." "New actions cannot be created to the extent that new diseases are discovered." "Therefore, there's no need to be surprised."

Shinkichi was being slightly inconsistent. He recognized value in things like distinctiveness, eccentricity, and unconventionality. Yet according to this argument, all human actions ultimately amounted to set patterns with only minor variations—mere primary colors like red, yellow, blue, purple, black, and white, and their combinations—rendering the very notion of distinctiveness impossible. However, discussions by their nature tended to become exaggerated generalizations, and moreover easily fell into monistic tendencies in some sense. To speak of complexity as complexity was difficult in discussion.

Such was the emptiness of words. “Humans will do anything.” “Therefore, I’m never surprised by anything humans do,” Shinkichi said, but this was mere resolve. But since it was resolve, he wouldn’t act according to those words. For example, no sooner had the words left his mouth than upon hearing the shin’nai storyteller’s tale, even Shinkichi found himself astonished, clicking his tongue in amazement.

The shin'nai storyteller proceeded to speak as follows.

“Hold on, let me speak too.” “Well—it’s not like I have any major objections.” “Everything you say is correct.” “In fact, humans—or rather, women—women will do anything.” “If you were shocked by every little thing, there’d be no end to it.” “From what I can tell, you’ve resigned yourself to thinking humans ultimately amount to this—but I’ve equally resigned myself to believing women ultimately amount to that.” “But…”

The shin'nai storyteller’s voice was hoarse and weathered, but as it grew heated, a rusty metallic edge gradually intensified.

“—But…”

The shin'nai storyteller continued. “—It took me considerable suffering to reach this resignation.” “Just like everyone else.—You said you wouldn’t be surprised even if a woman took a lover besides her husband, didn’t you?” “But have you ever been cheated on by your wife?” “It’s not something I’d go around proclaiming to others.” “But I do understand the feeling of jealousy.”

Shinkichi had never formally married but had lived with a woman before. The woman had been with several men before living with Shinkichi. Moreover, while living with Shinkichi, she became involved with another man. Shinkichi suffered from jealousy. But the woman had died about half a year prior. When she died, only the beautiful aspects of her remained as memories. With just her photograph, posthumous name, and those beautiful memories—when he recalled her through these alone—he could no longer conceive of her as a woman touched by the grime of many men’s hands, and even his feelings of jealousy had faded into something like a distant memory. Yet he still understood the suffering of jealousy twice as much as anyone else.

“You comprehend jealousy…?”

The shin'nai storyteller’s eyes gleamed. “—Then you must understand a little of how much I suffered when my wife cheated on me.—The man she was involved with was this Jūkichi Hachiya I mentioned earlier. He’s been my close friend since middle school—a rather peculiar fellow. Even though he’s over forty, he refuses to marry and remains single to this day.” “He doesn’t even womanize.” “Women are filthy—that’s his catchphrase, you see. He has absolutely no interest in them.” “Well, he seems to have no interest in anything in the world—yet somehow he manages to work as a journalist. Actually, that guy is a reporter, but when it comes to the articles he writes, they’re all fabricated lies he’s made up himself.” “He doesn’t write a single line of truth.” “That guy only feels alive when he’s shocking people.” “Once I went to the races with that guy, but the horse he bet on only received one single bet.” “In other words, he was the only one who bet on it—of course that odd horse lost—but he was delighted, saying, ‘How about that? I was the only one who bet on that horse!’” “That’s the kind of guy he is.”

The shin'nai storyteller seemed to take genuine pleasure in recounting tales of the close friend who had mistreated him, but suddenly clouding his brow, he— “—But then, suddenly, that guy committed adultery with my wife.” “When I found them at the scene, I could hardly believe my own eyes.” “The fact that my wife had committed adultery didn’t shock me that much, but even as I saw it with my own eyes, I couldn’t believe the man was Hachiya.” “Humans are so unreliable, aren’t they?” “No—I realized that even Hachiya was human after all.” “I thought about killing the two of them.” “But then I reconsidered and thought of tormenting them even more cruelly—what I came up with was the coded message in the Daiichi Hotel lobby’s newspaper.”

“I see.”

Shinkichi made a face that showed he mostly understood. “Normally, one would choose one of these—kill her, sue her for adultery, divorce her, or make my wife repent by swearing never to do it again and cut ties with Hachiya—but instead of making her repent, I adopted a method of forcing her to commit adultery even more frequently to torment both my wife and Hachiya.” “Heh, heh, heh…”

“To be more specific…?” “First, my wife must commit adultery with a different man every day through the coded messages in the newspaper.” “Hachiya has an obligation to convey those coded messages to others.” “However, when no one goes to the room where my wife is waiting, Hachiya must go.”

“I see, but I’m surprised your wife and Mr. Hachiya agreed to that.” “It’s retribution for the sins they committed.” “Heh, heh, heh…”

The shin'nai storyteller laughed once more in an eerie voice, “—It’s almost eight o’clock.”

He reiterated the point. Shinkichi’s head crawled with irritation. How should one describe this shin'nai storyteller? “What an impudent *cocu*!”

Should I say—or perhaps——

*A magnificent cocu?* Or should he be described as clinging to the coattails of Crommelynck (Note: A French playwright; author of the play *The Magnificent Cuckold*)? If Decadence were pursued this thoroughly, even Shinkichi was no match.

Shinkichi suddenly thought he wanted the honor of declaring Decadence disqualified.

Shinkichi suddenly— "Snake.—It’s far too long."

He recalled the words from Jules Renard’s *Natural Histories*. He didn’t know why he had remembered it. But in any case, the shin'nai storyteller’s words— It was far too something-something. For instance, even allowing for some uniqueness, it was far too unconventional.

“You’ve had enough preliminary knowledge by now.” “Come now—my wife awaits you.” “Well…”

Shinkichi parted ways with the shin'nai storyteller and began walking, but he did not immediately attempt to head to Daiichi Hotel.

He had to go to Sae Eguchi's dressing room.

Chapter Ten

That Shinkichi was shy. That there was a Bible next to Sae’s dressing table. That Sae kicked the pebble of misfortune.

When Shinkichi rode the elevator at the stage entrance up to the third floor, he walked along looking up at the actors' nameplates one room at a time.

Sae Eguchi’s room was in the back on the right. Sae Eguchi’s room—or so it was called—was not occupied by her alone; there were nameplates of four or five other actresses hanging there as well. However, whether the actresses were on stage or not, when he lifted the curtain and peered inside, there sat Sae alone in front of the dressing table—though it was more like a small mirror placed atop a shelf—still in her country girl costume, slumped dejectedly. “Oh.”

She turned around.

“May I come in?”

When he realized Sae was alone, Shinkichi’s voice lilted eagerly. “Please do.”

Shinkichi remained standing and took off his shoes without using his hands. He appeared somewhat flustered and restless, but even after removing his shoes, he couldn’t bring himself to approach Sae immediately. He was that shy. “Please. “Please, make yourself comfortable——” Sae flipped over the red seat cushion she had been sitting on and placed it before Shinkichi, but he was still not accustomed enough to dressing rooms to plop down heavily on it. “Ah, thank you.” He bowed his head with excessive politeness and fidgeted nervously.

He bowed his head with comical politeness and shifted awkwardly. For a playwright’s attitude toward a supporting actress, it was polite—almost excessively casual. This politeness might be the refinement of the intellectual class. However, intellectuals—just when you think they’re oddly well-mannered—suddenly turn rude. It was not, so to speak, the kind of well-ingrained politeness one might associate with a student’s good manners. One reason might have been that Shinkichi felt a sense of guilt from the awareness that he, too, was now engaging in the act of visiting an actress’s dressing room—something to be delighted about.

So, unable to meet Sae’s gaze at all, he found it mortifying that his seemingly curious glances around the room might be misinterpreted, but he had no other way to fill the awkward silence. Admittedly, there was also a part of him doing it somewhat consciously and deliberately. Perhaps he avoided looking directly at Sae’s face because he didn’t want his interest in her to be detected. Was this to be called cunning, or was he genuinely bashful?

Sae’s dress hung on the wall. And the wide-brimmed hat! Shinkichi abruptly recalled what had happened that afternoon. Sae had come to the hotel in that outfit. And as they were leaving, Shinkichi placed his hand on Sae’s shoulder. Sae remained still.

“Do I look like a bad man…?”

“Why…?” “You’re a good person, you…” “A good person…?” Shinkichi laughed, “Then I’ll stop trying to make advances.” “I’ll be a good boy.”

With that, he removed his hand from her shoulder. “So not making a move is what makes you a good boy…?”

“That’s right.” “In other words, I’m a philanderer.” “It’d be bad if I did.”

“You don’t look like a philanderer.” “Then what’ll you do if I make a move…? Would you hit me?” “Let’s talk about something else.” “Let’s drop it.”

With that, Shinkichi said in an intentionally loud voice and opened the door. Shinkichi, who had acted so boldly during the day—why was he now fidgeting restlessly and being so shy?

No—despite posing as a cynic and brandishing decadence, he had ultimately been shy. He had not acted boldly. Though appearances suggested otherwise, his letting Sae leave after merely placing a hand on her shoulder stemmed from that shyness. One might say he was trying to be a "good boy," but his failure to create an opportunity—releasing the hand too quickly, never mustering the force to pull her close—likely exposed the timidity characteristic of an intellectual.

If given the opportunity, he could easily become a bad boy. Even if he became a bad boy, he would at least try to appear good—but depending on the person, he might not put much effort into refining his good-boy act. For example, in Itsuko’s case! However, in Sae’s case, that approach was impossible.

What was the difference between Itsuko and Sae? They were both the same kind of woman. They were both born as human beings, and both were girls. (Probably Sae was a girl too.) Their personhood must be treated equally. For Shinkichi, there should have been no significant difference between a bourgeois girl, a tenement girl—no, even a prostitute. Despite this, Shinkichi undeniably altered the tone of his performance when dealing with Itsuko versus when dealing with Sae.

If one were to say it was the cleverness of a great actor altering his performance according to his scene partner—that would make things easy to understand—but while a fidgety demeanor could be consciously performed, the act of flushing crimson beyond one’s control was a feat no great actor could achieve. Moreover, for Shinkichi, there was nothing more excruciating than blushing in front of a woman. He even felt humiliated. That Shinkichi was now flushing crimson before Sae—what could this mean?

The issue did not lie in determining whether Itsuko or Sae was superior. The point was which one he was in love with.

To put it clearly, he wasn’t in love with either. But that he felt as though he was in love with Sae was undeniable. For instance, when he saw the Bible next to Sae’s mirror stand, Shinkichi became flustered. Shinkichi’s flaw was that he sometimes tended to exaggerate things in his thinking. When he saw where the Bible was placed, he thought she might be a Puritan. It was a combination of self-reproach—that he must not taint Puritan blood with the blood of Decadence—and a calculation that if she were a Puritan, she might prove unexpectedly rigid and thus not one to be carelessly seduced.

“Are you a Christian…?”

“Are you a Christian…?” Shinkichi asked. “No. This,” Sae replied. She pointed to the Bible. “—I borrowed it from a friend.” “They said it was interesting and told me to read it.” “There’s nothing else to read here anyway.”

Shinkichi’s eyes shone. It wasn’t because he had learned Sae wasn’t a Christian. It was because Sae’s words had suddenly provided the opportunity. Shinkichi immediately said: “How about I lend you a book? Have you read *The Princess of Clèves*…?” “Yes.” “Then, how about Stendhal?” “Not yet…”

“It’s outrageous that you haven’t read Stendhal. You should at least read *The Red and the Black*, you know—there aren’t many books you’ll regret not reading your whole life, but *The Red and the Black* alone will flip your worldview upside down between reading it and having read it.”

Shinkichi was no longer embarrassed. He was moving his thin lips fluently.

“Do you have it with you now…?” “No, it’s at the hotel. Shall I bring it for you tomorrow?” He had really wanted to tell her to come retrieve it from the hotel. After all, he’d come all the way to Sae’s room just to invite her there again… “But you must be busy.” “I’ll come to the hotel to borrow it.”

“When…?” Shinkichi deliberately made a sullen face and produced a gruff voice.

“When… well…” “In the next four or five days or so…” “But I have to return to Osaka the morning after tomorrow.” “Then, I’ll come to visit tomorrow.” “What time…” “…………” Sae thought for a moment. Shinkichi immediately interjected as if to cut her off, “Would the same time as today be alright…?” “Noon…?” “Yes. If it’s earlier than that, I’ll still be asleep, and if it’s later, I’ll have to leave by two o’clock…”

The part about sleeping until noon wasn’t a lie, but the part about leaving at two o’clock was pure fabrication.

Why had he told such a spur-of-the-moment lie? Was he implying he wouldn’t detain her long tomorrow to reassure Sae—or had he placed hope in the lie about leaving at two o’clock, expecting it to give Shinkichi himself some pretext or opportunity during tomorrow’s meeting with her?

“Yes, then I will come to visit at noon,” Sae said.

Shinkichi stared intently at Sae’s face for the first time. Sae’s eyes were clear with a bluish tint. Shinkichi suddenly recalled the shin’nai storyteller’s muddy, clouded eyes. Those eyes—a quagmire of decadence—and Sae’s eyes, clear as a spring! Shinkichi forgot that his desire to see Sae had arisen from hearing that shin’nai storyteller’s performance; his chest was warmed by an impulse to hurl his body—which had crawled out of the quagmire—straight into a spring.

Shinkichi's eyes burned with the joy of having met Sae and, like flames, licked over her lovely face. However, even though his eyes burned, Shinkichi's expression remained oddly cold overall. He was as cold-hearted as a crematorium worker. The flames of his gaze might have been half-kindled by the fire lit by a crematorium worker.

“Yes, then I will come to visit at noon.” Sae’s words—perhaps like her kicking a pebble of misfortune lying on the slope of her life—might have set it rolling. Once a pebble begins to roll, it knows no end. And the one who knew that best was, of course, Shinkichi.

Having succeeded in inviting Sae to the hotel again as planned, Shinkichi’s face already bore a melancholy shadow as he left her dressing room.

Chapter Eleven

A round egg can be cut square.

Itsuko coming to Shinkichi’s room again. Aversion to tears.

Smoking a cigarette beforehand. Having succeeded in inviting Sae to the hotel again as planned, Shinkichi’s face had already taken on a melancholy shadow as he left her dressing room.

—Now, the author wrote at the end of the previous chapter that a melancholy shadow had fallen on Shinkichi’s face. But why had such an expression appeared there? As it stood, Shinkichi was a man with some charm, but ultimately— “We have our doubts about your character.” It was evident he was the kind of man who would become a target of women’s general censure. He was a moral failure. He was a man society could rightfully erase. A man not worth considering—in other words, a man not worth taking into account.

What possible significance could it hold—what expression such a man might wear when emerging from the dressing room of the actress he intended to seduce, having already succeeded in his initial maneuver? Is it not an insignificant detail unworthy of consideration? However, the reason the author deliberately captured this man’s inner fluctuations and shadows of expression—and further, why they spared no effort in description and explanation even at the cost of slowing the story’s tempo—was because within contemporary youth, to a greater or lesser extent and whether they willed it or not, there dwelled a figure like Shinkichi. At least many of today’s youth possessed Shinkichi-like elements.

While readers will likely never encounter a man like Shinkichi—a moral failure yet distinctly eccentric individual—they will undoubtedly meet men who possess Shinkichi-like elements. Or perhaps, in the course of their lives, readers may not necessarily avoid some—no—rather, might even entrust their lives or fates to men who possess Shinkichi-like elements.

In such cases—for example—

“This man is morally zero. At first we had thought him more pure-hearted, but had become thoroughly disillusioned,” voicing their disappointment, or again,

“Not only does this man lack even a shred of religious sentiment, he makes no effort toward the ideals that sustain human life—there is no truth in him.”

It is easy to dismiss someone with a single phrase, but the indispensable understanding required in human interactions does not arise from such formal criticism. Any human can be dismissed with a single word if one so chooses, but every human also possesses something that cannot be dismissed with a single word. If we were to liken humans to circles, we often distort this circle into a polygon in our minds. Just as increasing the sides of a polygon brings it closer to a circle, one might think that by multiplying conceptual words, one could approach that human being—but a polygon becoming a circle remains but a geometric dream. Though a round egg can be cut square by the way it’s sliced, fragments inevitably remain. Any interpretation we impose upon a single human being—as though all polygons fit neatly within a circle—may apply to that person, but the circle’s area will always exceed that of the polygon. In other words, only the fragments are vast.

For example, the melancholy shadow that fell upon Shinkichi’s face when he left Sae’s dressing room was also one such fragment. Therefore, knowing the nuance of this expression could be called an indispensable *a priori* for understanding Shinkichi—or modern youths who possess Shinkichi-like elements. So, what was the cause of Shinkichi’s expression, and what did it signify? Conceptually speaking, that would amount to Shinkichi’s pangs of conscience—but…… or rather, upon reflection, the author had gotten somewhat ahead of themselves. The meaning behind Shinkichi’s expression would likely become clearer once Sae visited his hotel tomorrow to explain things, wouldn’t it? Let us proceed.

On stage, the play Shinkichi had written was still continuing. In the final act, Sae would appear once more.

However, Shinkichi no longer had any intention of going to the audience seats or supervisor’s room to watch the play. As soon as he left Sae’s dressing room, he rushed out of the theater.

The clock in the head office room had passed eight o'clock. "8:00 PM, Room 333!" He had ended up being late after all. So even though rushing back would have been futile, he hailed an empty taxi in Kobikichō and went straight back to the First Hotel.

At the lobby reception desk when receiving the key, “Did you deliver the message to Room 333…?”

When he asked, the reply came that it had indeed been delivered to the room. Shinkichi was disappointed. “I will make sure to visit by eight o’clock.” That was the message. He had written it when leaving the hotel during the day and handed it to the reception. Why had he written such a message?—Shinkichi regretted it. For one thing, it was pretentious, and moreover, even though he had left such a message, he had ended up being late by eight o’clock. The weak-willed Shinkichi found himself slightly troubled by the fact that he had broken this unilateral promise, trivial as it was.

Even though he could casually seduce women without compunction, what could possibly explain this scrupulousness? Whether to visit Room 333 at eight o'clock had been entirely Shinkichi's decision. No—though curiosity certainly remained, he could no longer bring himself to barge into the room of a woman who was clearly both the wife of the Shin'nai storyteller and Jūkichi Hachiya's mistress. But a promise was a promise.

I'll go back to my room and try calling Room 333. While riding the elevator, Shinkichi suddenly had that thought.

When he returned to his fourth-floor room, Shinkichi, as usual, first lit a cigarette. As he exhaled smoke while imagining the telephone ringing in Room 333, he found himself unexpectedly stirred by lewd imaginings. In Room 333 there was of course a woman. The shin'nai storyteller's wife. ...And another man... Was that man the unknown one who had read the newspaper code and gone out? Or perhaps, since Shinkichi—and indeed no one else—had gone, was Jūkichi Hachiya there as the lover according to their arrangement?

The phone call he had intended to make to apologize for breaking his promise had suddenly become filled with shameful curiosity.

"Hotels are damnably structured to provoke desire." The moment he gave a wry smile, Shinkichi suddenly recalled Itsuko. Sae did not come to mind. Shinkichi transferred the dwindling ember of his cigarette to a fresh one and, while engaging in what might be called chain-smoking, attempted to lift the receiver.

At that moment, the sound of a knock on the door was heard. It was being knocked hesitantly and softly.

"Who could it be…?"

While thinking this, when he opened it, a woman suddenly rushed in—it was Itsuko.

“Ah!” Itsuko, who should have left Tokyo this morning with her uncle and fiancé—why had she come visiting him now? Before he could even process this thought, Itsuko suddenly spread her arms and clung to Shinkichi’s chest. “I’ve been wanting…” “…so desperately wanting…” While crying out like that, Itsuko frantically sought Shinkichi’s lips. Itsuko’s mouth was salty. The moment Shinkichi moved away from her to extinguish his cigarette, he realized her cheeks were wet with tears. Large teardrops were falling one after another. That which reached his lips and tasted salty might have been tears. Or was it sweat? Itsuko perspired heavily.

It was a coincidence that seemed almost intentional—the moment he thought of Itsuko, Itsuko came in. And then, just as he was about to place the call, Itsuko knocked. The previous night too, when Itsuko had knocked at Shinkichi’s door, it had been when he was about to make a call.

Such coincidences were to Shinkichi’s liking. Moreover, the surprise of Itsuko—who should have parted ways with him in the morning lobby never to meet again—suddenly appearing also pleased Shinkichi.

But tears were his weakness. When confronted with weeping, Shinkichi would panic. Perhaps it was self-reproach. He had caused considerable suffering to women until now. Every woman who fell for Shinkichi ended up anguished. Yet when women concealed their pain behind cheerful facades—even when he fully understood their inner torment—he remained surprisingly unfazed. But show him even a single tear, and this man would immediately grow flustered. Unless something assailed his senses directly, he remained utterly incapable of comprehension. No—even when he did understand, he feigned ignorance.

He understood that women were pitiable creatures. But he only felt it acutely when a woman showed tears. They cry because they’re sad. However, there are times when they cannot even cry. When crying, women may unexpectedly surrender themselves to a self-destructive pleasure. The state of crying—so to speak, the physiology of tears—is something they might even take pleasure in. However, Shinkichi couldn’t consider things to that extent. When injured, he panicked as if startled by the sight of blood.

“What’s wrong…? Why are you crying…?” Shinkichi peered into Itsuko’s face and adopted a comforting stance. At such moments, he would grow flustered—tripped by self-reproach—and find no peace. Yet what was this cruel shadow that suddenly flitted across his furrowed brows? It was pure egoism—the desperate urge to escape this weeping-woman predicament even one second sooner.

“No, it’s nothing.” And just like that, Itsuko’s tears stopped immediately. And,

“Because I was happy to see you—that’s why I cried.” “Am I such a crybaby…?” “Heehee….” “But they’re tears of joy.”

Shinkichi felt relieved. However, he felt relieved because Itsuko had stopped crying quickly. It wasn’t because he’d heard they were tears of joy.

Whether they were tears shed from sadness or tears brought forth by happiness, to Shinkichi, there was no difference. “Because I was happy to see you… that’s why I cried…”

If told this, most men would be pleased. But Shinkichi instead felt the pricking pain of self-reproach—

What in the world was this…? Innocence, emotion, beauty, truth—such things Shinkichi perceived from her. He perceived through tears. And Shinkichi became perplexed, as though he were feeling a kind of bewilderment before a beautiful landscape or painting from which emotion came pressing in. Shinkichi panicked at his own ugliness in that moment. The object that imposed emotion and the self that felt none—he grew irritated by the distance between these two. It was loneliness.

After sitting down on the edge of the bed next to Shinkichi, Itsuko said.

“I’m the type who can’t rest until I do whatever I want.—When I was on the train, I desperately wanted to see you.” “Thinking I have to marry such an unpleasant man—when I look at my fiancé’s face—I want to see you even more.” “My fiancé’s acting all high and mighty like he’s already my husband.” “He gets jealous of you and pesters me with endless questions.” “I told him everything—the whole truth.” “He got angry.”

“Well, of course he’d be angry.”

Shinkichi said flippantly. “But in the end, he said, ‘What’s past is past—I’ll forgive you.’” “When I heard those words, I just flared up.” “I don’t want his forgiveness! Besides, it’s not even in the past yet—I told him I’m going to see you now, and then I got off the train alone in Shizuoka.” “So… you came back to Tokyo?” Shinkichi asked the obvious question.

“Yes—” She nodded with a tear-streaked face but immediately peered into Shinkichi’s face with coquettish eyes while— “—Wasn’t I allowed…?” “No, it’s fine.” As Shinkichi tried to light a cigarette and struck a match—ah, right, this was the match that woman had given him—he remembered Sae. Tomorrow, Sae would come. Itsuko was here. This is a problem, Shinkichi thought, furrowing his brows. What egoism!

“Rather than offering my virginity to a detestable fiancé…”

And so yesterday, Itsuko yielded herself to Shinkichi. They had become acquainted—or rather, within an hour of their first meeting, she had already thrown herself into Shinkichi’s arms. This could hardly be called love. It was nothing more than a fling born of rebellion against the presumptuous fiancé and curiosity. Of course, she had liked Shinkichi. So she had yielded herself, though she hadn’t had the presence of mind to clearly realize she was in love—but driven by the desire to see him again, she had gotten off the train midway. Thinking it was their physical connection that had made Itsuko act that way, Shinkichi pitied the biological impulses of women. It might not be love, but would it truly be going too far to call this love? Even this flirtatious girl had a love befitting her circumstances. Tears! To Shinkichi, that suddenly struck him as pitiable.

However, the act of pitying Itsuko and the egoism of finding her presence inconvenient were no great contradiction for a man like Shinkichi. And what was even more astonishing— The moment he smelled the body odor of the woman he both pitied and found burdensome, Shinkichi was abruptly seized by an ugly instinct.

However, first, he smoked another cigarette.

“Ah, wait!” Because Itsuko was concerned about the pin, she said that.

Chapter Twelve

He did not turn off the lamp.

Magnificent characters!

He felt a charm in the receptionist woman’s telephone voice.

He should have stopped!

The night had deepened.

When Shinkichi tried to turn off the lamp light,

“Don’t turn it off!” Itsuko said commandingly. Shinkichi disliked being ordered around by others. However, “I want to see your face.” “Because I might never get to see it again, you know.” Even Shinkichi was struck by Itsuko’s words. “Why…?”

“But tomorrow morning, I really will go back. So…”

“Do you want to go back…?” “I don’t want to go back.” “Moreover, I can’t go back.” “I don’t mind if the fiancé gets angry, but I’ve upset Uncle.” “But I have no choice but to go back.” “Don’t you want to go to Osaka with me…?” “Of course I do.” “I want to go.” “I want to be with you forever.” “I want to stay with you.”

Itsuko pressed on urgently but suddenly lowered her voice, “But I don’t want to become an uninvited wife.” “Is it because I haven’t told you to come…?” “Yes.” Even Itsuko had resigned herself by now. “Would you come if I told you…?”

“But you’re not the kind of person who would say that.” She snorted a laugh through half-formed tears. The freckles stood out starkly. “Well—since things have turned out this way, any ordinary girl would at least demand marriage.” “She’d claim it as her natural right.” “A calculating girl wouldn’t settle without compensation.” “Having lost something precious as a woman, she’d insist on reparation.” “But as long as women keep making demands and asserting rights, they’ll never stand equal to men.” “Doesn’t that just deepen their misery…?” “Panicking over losing something precious only makes one more pitiable.” “I refuse to be miserable.” “Of course I don’t regret it.” “Even if I marry someday, staying virgin for that man would be slavery.” “But this concerns only my own feelings.” “I won’t stay pretty for society or men.” “I chose to dirty myself—no regrets.” “No, I’m not tainted.” “I’m free.” “Show me your face properly!”

The next morning, Itsuko left Shinkichi’s room.

Shinkichi thought he had lost. It was a feeling like he’d been rejected. Itsuko turned all of Shinkichi’s self-reproach, remorse, sympathy, and bewilderment into a solo act and swiftly exited the stage.

"What a remarkable character!" "I’ve been had!"

Muttering this, Shinkichi nevertheless imagined Itsuko’s figure—her sleep-deprived eyes—rocking along on the long train journey to Kyushu. Itsuko had already bought that morning’s ticket at Tokyo Station before coming to Shinkichi’s place the previous night. Itsuko was a new woman. She carried less pathos than ordinary women. Yet newness brought its own form of loneliness—the kind that must have lingered in the depths of that lengthy train ride. Shinkichi pictured that expression. It might have been the look of life’s loneliness—the fleeting expression that crosses every person’s face.

Before long, Shinkichi fell sound asleep. He fell asleep like a fool. How long had he been asleep when the telephone bell woke him? From where he lay on the bed, his hand couldn’t reach the receiver. Irritably crawling out of bed,

“Hello… hello…” “Is this Mr. Suga?”

The voice on the phone was beautiful. Was it the woman at the front desk?

“Yeah.” “Ms. Eguchi has come for a visit—”

“Eguchi…?” He thought for a moment, but ah—he immediately realized it was Sae.

“What time is it now?” “It is currently 12:30 AM.”

“Thank you.” “I’ll be right down to the lobby.” Shinkichi flushed and hung up the phone. He hadn’t asked the time because he needed to know. The fact that Sae had come as promised, and that—since Shinkichi was nowhere to be found in the lobby—she had stopped by the front desk to have them call his room, somehow pleased him. So he tried to eagerly say “I’ll head to the lobby right away,” but felt somehow embarrassed. He had asked for the time when there was no need to ask. It was, so to speak, as if he had inserted a line that interrupted the rhythm of his joy. He was a troublesome man.

He washed his face, hurriedly took the elevator, and went to the front desk, but Sae was not there.

“Are you Mr. Suga?” As she did so, the woman at the front desk called out. That voice sounded familiar. It was the voice from the phone. She was a fair-skinned girl with large, clear eyes. “Oh, there was such a fresh-faced girl at the front desk?” Shinkichi widened his eyes in surprise. “Yeah.”

“The visitor is in the coffee room.” “Thank you.” “You’re welcome.” Briefly, their gazes met. Shinkichi suddenly felt a piercing nostalgia—would it surprise the reader to say this?

Having heard her voice on the phone before seeing her face—could that have been what made him feel such nostalgia? Or had he been startled by the beauty resonating in her "You’re welcome"?

Shinkichi wanted to say something. But if he were to speak here, this numbing nostalgia might vanish.

To eternally hold a woman’s beauty in your heart, you must never become involved with her! Shinkichi walked toward the coffee room. ...toward the coffee room where Sae—with whom he was about to start a relationship—waited... Why don’t you just stop?!

Chapter Thirteen

On How Large Hotels Make People Pretentious.

Shinkichi let out an elaborate yawn.

Encounter of Second-Rate People! Hotels, in proportion to their size, either make people lustful or make them pretentious. In other words, small hotels in the outskirts or backstreets exude a somewhat sensual atmosphere, while large hotels like the Daiichi Hotel—with their corridors that feel like mere extensions of the road—make people pretentious. In such places, people find it difficult to walk in an ordinary manner. Some walked with the fidgety steps of a chief secretary, others moved with the measured grace of court ladies, while still others—merely from the presence of porters—felt such superiority as those entering castle gates, their pace quickening like people on a screen. Some adopted a deliberately weary gait, like guests at a hot spring resort. Some walked while fussing with their necktie knots, while others had deliberately removed their neckties. Even in second-rate hotels like the Daiichi Hotel, people cannot walk as they would on the tatami mats of their own home.

However, such things were inconsequential.

Such trivial matters—as he entered the hotel’s coffee room where Sae waited, Shinkichi thought, Oh, I’m putting on airs. Had there been music playing, he might have acted even more pretentiously. He might have affected airs like a man who’d just checked his hat and general-interest magazine at a dance hall entrance. To be fair, music was indeed playing. However, it was a military march.

(Let it be clarified—this novel does not recount events from Shōwa 20 or 21.) It was an event from August of *Shōwa* 17 (1942). Some had said that the author of the novel *Night Composition* made a grave oversight in using the Daiichi Hotel as a setting, but the fact that this story does not take place postwar should have been established in Chapter Two. (Just to be clear.) He hadn’t been particularly putting on airs, but in any case, Shinkichi realized he was putting on airs in his own way.

Shinkichi flusteredly yawned.

Dogs also yawn. After all, there’s nothing strange about humans yawning. But dogs probably couldn’t manage yawns like Shinkichi’s. That said, Shinkichi’s yawn wasn’t exactly high-class, but at the very least, it was elaborate. There was no passion, but Shinkichi wasn’t exactly bored. Therefore, Shinkichi’s yawn carried an unnatural quality—like vulgar paint smeared over his pretentious demeanor. It wasn’t physiological. However, midway through, the effects of last night’s sleep deprivation naturally surfaced. And just as he was physiologically transitioning into a full-fledged yawn, Shinkichi spotted Sae talking to an unfamiliar man in the crowded coffee room. Shinkichi’s yawn suddenly seemed to halt. A passion arose. —Passion—Jealousy! This was unexpected. Shinkichi had never before felt jealousy over this girl. But now... Jealousy might be something one feels even without being in love. For example, self-respect arouses jealousy. However, once jealousy arises, people come to believe they are in love even with those they no longer love. Such was the ferocity of passion. Among the passions humans possess, it might be the most intense. A yawn would stop dead in its tracks.

But Shinkichi—having resumed the yawn that had nearly stopped—must be said to have been truly a man of strong self-respect. To feel embarrassed at himself for feeling jealous, and to hide that he was feeling jealous…

While forcing an exaggerated, unpleasant yawn, Shinkichi approached Sae’s table. Sae happened to be looking up, smirking to herself while turning her head about. As usual, she was putting on a bashful act. This was part of Sae’s charm. That she displayed this charm to others besides himself made Shinkichi’s yawn stretch even wider. Sae introduced the man beside her to Shinkichi.

“Mr. Usui from the Toto Newspaper!” The business card identified him as an entertainment reporter. “We ended up meeting in the lobby. He said he wanted to be introduced to you, Mr. Suga, so…” It seemed he had been waiting in the coffee room for Shinkichi to appear. He was a dark-complexioned young man who at first glance appeared sharp and handsome, but his confidence in his looks muddied his clothing and mouth—that was the impression he gave. In such situations, Shinkichi would either nervously exert himself to be amiable or become sullen, but Usui’s self-assured appearance compelled him to choose the latter.

Shinkichi lit a cigarette. Usui also lit a cigarette with his own matches. For a while they sat silently, their clashing self-respects sparking, until Usui finally spoke. “Did you see today’s paper—?” “No, not yet.” Shinkichi recalled Jūkichi Hachiya’s face. “There’s a review… of your play.” Though around thirty, Usui had never used honorifics with theater people. “Just as well I didn’t read it.”

Shinkichi took preemptive action. "Well—you went ahead and panned it."

Usui grinned slyly. "That's terrible." "Mr. Usui." "It's a good play."

Before Shinkichi could rejoice that Sae had defended his play, he felt displeased at her speaking to Usui in such a familiar tone. "However, that play lacks anything that moves people's hearts." "Mayama Seika's plays, after all, do strike people's hearts." "They have morals." "That's right. However, I am trying to write plays without morals." "I see, but your play fails to convey any universal human experience or grand ideas." "Your play is..."

“What kind of play makes one perceive universal human experience and grand ideas?”

“All the good foreign plays are like that.” “For example—” Usui listed two or three katakana names.

Shinkichi had no choice but to remain silent. But thinking that perpetual silence would show too little artistry, “All those people are geniuses, you know. “I’m no genius. “I’m simply a second-rate playwright. “Even if I stood on my head, I couldn’t become first-rate. “Because I’m not a genius. “Yet geniuses only appear once every hundred years. “If I’m the sort born just once a century—is that my fault? “Japan has no geniuses. “Everyone’s second-rate. “It’s just that nobody else has the guts to declare ‘I’m second-rate.’ “They don’t even realize they’re second-rate—fooling themselves they’re imitating first-rate—but alas, no geniuses. “It’s wiser to know you’re second-rate and work within those limits. “Both literary and theater circles only have second-raters. “Critics are second-rate too. “Second-raters who’ve read first-rate works—deluding themselves they’re first-rate as they tear down others for not being first-rate—leaving their victims floundering. That’s Japan’s literary and theater world today. “Isn’t that so?”

Shinkichi was not talkative by nature, but whenever he challenged what was called "authority," he would unwittingly get carried away. "Authority"—or perhaps "trend" could be rephrased as such. Authoritative thoughts and sacred concepts become trends. Every last person either blindly follows them or wields them as a shield. Individuality becomes submerged within ideology. To protect his individuality that refused to conform, Shinkichi deliberately challenged the "sacred." Of course, he believed in the notion of first-rate literature. However, he did not trust those who preached that notion. He detected, either ridiculously or unpleasantly, the fact that such a person was not first-rate. Therefore, he deliberately promoted his second-rate theory, but such an argument would likely be scorned. Moreover, it was a futile effort. It would be as futile as someone preaching to a fool striving to become wise—or pretending to strive—that "You’re a fool, so don’t try to become wise."

The reason Shinkichi kept rattling on with such futile chatter stemmed from a contrarian impulse to drag Usui down to his rightful status as a vulgarian alongside himself. "—Or do you think you’re first-rate yourself?"

Shinkichi, who had been talking nonstop, finally said it point-blank. Though it was a rather spiteful remark, since Shinkichi had already declared himself second-rate beforehand, it couldn’t be considered tax evasion. Therefore, Usui found himself at a loss for a rebuttal and for a while wore an expression like someone who had discovered a caterpillar in their dried bananas, but— “Then, even if you fall in love, you’d only manage second-rate love, wouldn’t you?”

While saying this, he glanced at Sae’s face. Shinkichi realized that Usui had factored Sae into his calculations and escalated the argument. When Usui had happened to encounter Sae at the hotel front desk and learned she had apparently come to visit Shinkichi, he assumed a provincial literary youth—unaccustomed to actresses—must be naively trying to approach her; he planned both to interfere and mockingly requested an introduction. But now, meeting him like this and detecting Shinkichi’s brazen decadence at first glance, he suddenly felt threatened. Therefore, he thought to make Shinkichi himself expose his decadent views on love in front of Sae.

“What kind of love qualifies as first-rate love?” “It’s Platonic mutual elevation through affection,” he posited. “The spiritual union achieved by raising romance to humanity’s supreme aspiration – self-perfection through devotion.”

“Well, that’s rather difficult for me.” “At best, I can only manage second-rate love.” “Then any woman who falls in love with you ends up unhappy.” “You ultimately just seduce that woman.” “It’s not love.” “A game.”

Usui looked at Sae’s face again. “If that’s what you think, then by all means think so. You’re someone capable of first-rate love—that’s quite something.”

Shinkichi deliberately fell into Usui’s trap. “You’re a dangerous man!”

Usui stood up while saying that. He then tapped Sae’s shoulder,

“Well then, I’ll see you later. Don’t let yourself be seduced by a second-rate lover!” “Well...” Usui left the coffee room without looking back.

Before Shinkichi could grow sullen, he formed a sly, eerie smile. “Now, making this woman mine has become the task assigned to me!”

he muttered. As usual, he finished his meal at the grill. “Will you come to my room to get *The Red and the Black*...?” “...” “Or if you’d rather wait here, I can go get it.”

“I’ll go!” Sae answered clearly.

Chapter 14

On the Twisted Interpretation of *The Red and the Black*.

Shinkichi becoming a false Julien.

Sae appeared as a provocateur.

Sae’s hand tightened. Room 453—Shinkichi’s room.

As they sat down facing each other as they had the day before, Shinkichi looked at his watch.

“It’s 1:30. Only thirty minutes left.”

Yesterday at Sae’s dressing room, Shinkichi “If it’s before noon, I’m still asleep, and if it’s later than that, I have to leave by two o’clock...” he said. Of course, the claim that he had to leave at two o’clock was a lie. However, having said that, Shinkichi thought the time of two o’clock would now serve as a provisional deadline. Shinkichi passed the two-volume Iwanami Bunko edition of *The Red and the Black* to Sae.

“Thank you.” Sae began reading the preface.

Shinkichi—what had he been thinking?—suddenly,

“Let me borrow that for a moment.” He took it back from Sae’s hands and flipped through the pages. Page 95—he immediately found the passage he was looking for.

(At the exact moment ten o’clock strikes, I’ll carry out what I’ve vowed all day to do tonight.) If I can’t do it, I’ll run up to my room and blow my brains out with a pistol! After that fleeting moment of expectation and impatience—when Julien, overwhelmed by excitement, seemed to forget his shame—the large clock overhead resounded with ten strikes. Each strike of the fate-deciding bell reverberated through his chest, giving him something akin to a physical shock.

When the last stroke of ten was still resounding, he abruptly reached out and took Madame de Rênal’s hand. The hand was immediately withdrawn. Julien, without clearly understanding what he was doing, grasped that hand again. Though he himself was deeply moved, he was shocked by the ice-like coldness of the hand he had seized. He clenched it with such force that his hand trembled. She made a final effort to pull away, but ultimately her hand was relinquished to him.

His heart overflowed with joy. It was not because he loved Madame de Rênal. It was because the terrible ordeal had now ended. When it came to Sae, Shinkichi had been unable to resolve a certain lingering ambiguity. When Shinkichi first saw Sae during a stage rehearsal, he resolved to seduce her to restore his wounded pride, but he couldn’t fully become a devil—his emotions twisting and turning depending on the time and situation. But now, having read how Julien from *The Red and the Black* imposed upon himself and executed the idea of grasping Madame de Rênal’s hand for the first time immediately after meeting Usui, this had made Shinkichi resolute.

Shinkichi had been reading so absorbed that he had nearly forgotten Sae’s presence, but when he suddenly looked up, there she sat before his eyes—the very Sae he was about to seduce.

“When it hits two o’clock, I’ll execute it!”

Shinkichi muttered, using the dry term “execution.” “What kind of novel is *The Red and the Black*…?” Sae asked. “Well, what kind of novel it is… You can’t sum it up in a word.” “A novel that can be summed up in a single word doesn’t deserve to be called a novel.” “It may sound like an excuse, but if *The Red and the Black* spans nine hundred and one pages, then I can only say it’s a novel written across every one of those pages.” “When we read novels, we immediately want to summarize things like the plot or themes or ideas.” “At worst, there are fools who make their first priority deciding what ‘ism’ this novel represents.” “But isn’t the very fact that it can’t be easily summarized where a novel’s true appeal lies?”

Sae nodded at each of Shinkichi’s brutally candid replies, but she didn’t abandon her planned line of questioning. “You said yesterday that it’s a novel that completely changes your life—before reading it and after...”

“Of course that’s correct.” “No—it’s not just your worldview that changes.” “Borrowing *The Red and the Black* might completely change your life.” Shinkichi formed a sly, sinister smile. “Oh…? “It sounds kind of scary!” Sae suddenly stuck out her tongue and spoke in a provocatively malicious manner.

“You’re scared… of me?” “Not at all…”

“A second-rate lover.” “I’m…”

“If you’re the one saying it yourself, there’s nothing to fear.” “I’ve never once found men frightening.” “You may yet realize that was an error.” “Hmm…” Sae laughed in a way Shinkichi couldn’t decipher, “—I’ve never loved anyone before.” “I haven’t made a single friend.” “Am I boring?”

“Everything…” “Soldiers are everywhere, and thanks to this damned war starting up, I can’t do anything I want.” “If I say this, I’ll sound like a traitor, but I just can’t get as swept up in it as everyone else.”

“What kind of things… do you want to do?” “You haven’t even considered it, have you?” “I don’t really like plays either.” “I have no talent, so it’s no good.” “I was talked into becoming an actress, but I’ll never be a great one anyway, you know.” “But aren’t you working hard on stage…?”

To Shinkichi, it truly did appear that way. “It’s like I’m in a school play.” “In school plays, everyone’s just sweating on their noses.” “That’s all.” “Maybe I should give up on being an actress.” “Life is so dull, isn’t it?” “It’ll change eventually.” He had already lit five cigarettes.

“Is that so?”

“Don’t speak in such a timid voice.” “Should I change that for you?” “Oh my, oh my.” “You sounded like a delinquent girl there.” “I am a delinquent.” “Have you ever been seduced…?” “No.” “Absolutely.” “My hands and feet are smaller than other people’s.” “I have a childlike body.” “No one ever tries to seduce me.” “What would you do… if I tried to seduce you?” “Seduce…?” “What would you do…?” “For example, force a kiss.” “Can you…?” “I can! “If I do it, what will you do?!”

“I’ll start crying!” Now posing as a cynic, now affecting delinquency, now appearing childlike—Shinkichi could no longer grasp Sae.

Five minutes before two o'clock—

Shinkichi said abruptly. “The protagonist of *The Red and the Black*—you see, when he thinks about holding a woman’s hand at two o’clock, he convinces himself it’s his duty.” “If he can’t hold her hand when two o’clock comes, he’s a man so faithful to the duty he imposed on himself that he’d consider blowing his brains out with a pistol.” “—Is it… alright…?” “Just like that protagonist, when two o’clock comes, I’ll force a kiss on you.” “Three more minutes…”

Shinkichi stared fixedly at Sae.

It was less bad taste than utter chaos. It looked exactly like a desperate man’s declaration. But through this pretense of cynicism, Shinkichi sought to create an opening.

“Are you serious…?” Sae started to smile, but upon sensing the stern look that had surfaced on Shinkichi’s pallid face, she hurriedly averted her gaze—her posture stiffening visibly.

Shinkichi did not avert his gaze. And “Does this woman like me? If she hated me she would have run away by now…” But if she doesn’t dislike me，that doesn’t necessarily mean she likes me. To begin with，there’s nothing about me that women would like. This woman might actually like Usui. She had been quite friendly with Usui. No—there might be another man besides Usui that she likes. She might only be associating with me as a playwright. If I forced a kiss on this woman，I would surely end up humiliated. If I failed to force a kiss on her，I should leave Tokyo immediately. However，even if I succeeded，it would be no good after two o'clock. “I have to do it by two o'clock or it’s all for nothing.”

As he was thinking, a hundred and eighty seconds had passed.

“Two o’clock!” At the very moment Shinkichi muttered to himself, he felt a certain emptiness. But Shinkichi suddenly stood up. Sae gasped. Shinkichi abruptly placed his hand on Sae’s shoulder. Sae, “No!” With that, she turned her face away. Shinkichi, while conscious of his own face—pale from animalistic excitement and suddenly wearing a half-tearful expression—tried once more to pull her close. Sae stood up from the chair and fled to the corner of the room.

And then, clinging to the wall like a newt, she turned her back. However, there was no trace of hatred or fear in that back. “What’s the matter…?” Shinkichi placed his hand on her back and smoothly turned her around. “Are you embarrassed…?” Sae seemed to nod faintly. “You fool…” With a faint smile, Shinkichi suddenly brought his mouth close—and Sae slumped against his chest with a thud. Shinkichi felt on his back—though only for an instant—the force that entered Sae’s hand.

That made him inexplicably sad.

Chapter Fifteen

On the Length of a Kiss!

Esprit determined its length. To put it simply—whether there was any significance in complicating what could be reduced to the single word "philanderer".

――The kiss continued. Though the chapter had changed, he did not alter his embrace. It was a prolonged kiss.

Even Shinkichi,

“Too long! “It’s too long!” Whether he had thought this or whether his breath had grown labored, he separated his mouth from Sae’s. Sae was embarrassed, but Shinkichi was even more so. Why was he embarrassed? Shinkichi had elements of Julien Sorel. However, he was not Julien, nor could he ever become Julien. He possessed neither a noble spirit like Julien’s nor any passion. He was not a first-rate person like Julien. Therefore, likening Julien to himself was absurd, and imitating Julien amounted to nothing but pitiful aping. Julien Sorel was noble, and Sorelians (Sorel’s derivatives) were vulgar—this recent state of affairs was something Shinkichi himself understood.

However, he had deliberately acted in Julien’s manner since he had to draw a line regardless—

"Sae came to borrow *The Red and the Black*!"

because he thought drawing a line anchored to an arbitrary point would be the most straightforward shortest distance. In other words, he’d used Julien as a prop. But when he actually used Julien as a prop—since he did possess Julien-esque elements—what Shinkichi felt during the kiss was first and foremost the satisfaction of his self-respect. In that regard, it was thoroughly demonic.

And yet, as far as such a demonic expression was concerned, he should not have felt embarrassed—but even a demon will occasionally reveal its true nature in moments of intoxication. During the long kiss, Shinkichi—putting on a convincing show of rapture—felt a meek sentiment welling up within him, that of a pure-hearted youth earnestly engaging in a kiss as an expression of love. As it were, he had suddenly taken on a romanticist air. When he closed his eyes, realism faded away, and it was as though a sweet kiss wandered through a garden of sentimentalism.

Shinkichi abruptly opened his eyes. Then, suddenly conscious of the strained ugliness of their kissing posture, he found it somewhat absurd. The world of realism revived, and Shinkichi was embarrassed.

"What a disgrace—to keep kissing like that so long without even realizing it."

He detested unnatural acts for their abruptness, yet he couldn’t abide unconscious ones either. In short, he thought there was no wit in it.

All people kiss. Even fools do it. Either briefly or at length. However, no matter how prolonged it may be, there exists a limit. In acts more intense than kissing, there lies a definitive conclusion, but kissing possesses no physiological course that declares its termination. Yet since people cannot remain interlocked forever, they must eventually separate. Where one chooses to break away varies by individual—but for Shinkichi’s reason to disengage from her lips being his realization that there was no esprit—this was undoubtedly somewhat exceptional. At the very least, it must have been discourteous toward the woman involved.

However, Sae had no leisure whatsoever to think of such things. Sae was on the verge of fainting. The reason her hands clinging to Shinkichi’s back had tightened with force was that had she not clung to him like that, she might have collapsed.

Sae tried to wipe her lips. The moment she tried, her hands trembled violently and she couldn't wipe them away. It wasn't just her hands. Her whole body was shaking violently. Her teeth chattered.

Was it shock, terror, or excitement? Sae couldn’t tell, but she kept shaking violently as though stricken by a pathological fit. Shinkichi was startled. This was the first time he had seen a woman tremble so violently after a kiss, and though he didn’t understand why she was shaking, the tremors struck him as more viscerally raw than tears.

“What’s wrong…?”

Shinkichi gently embraced the shoulders and seated her on the edge of the bed. “Why are you trembling…?” “I don’t know.” “I’ve… never done anything like this before.” “Is it... the trembling?”

He had kissed many times before, but when he asked—intending to inquire whether this was the first time she had trembled after a kiss—it was truly an unforgivable question. For Sae, the kiss was her first experience since birth.

“Are you cold...?” Shinkichi was speaking carelessly. Far from being cold, it was midsummer.

“No.” Sae, of course, shook her head.

Shinkichi did not know what to do. What could he do to stop Sae’s trembling? Since there was no other way, “Are you angry...?” “Were you startled…?” “You dislike me, don’t you…?” “Are you going to break up with me already…?”

While saying disjointed things, he peered into Sae’s face and gently held her.

“Why would you say such a thing…?” “…………”

Shinkichi remained silent for a time, but eventually,

“Then… do you like me…?” he had finally discovered the words. “I don’t know.” “I don’t know anything.” “Can’t you even tell whether you like or dislike me…?” “I do like you.” “If I didn’t like you… I wouldn’t have done that…” “I’ve never even... kissed anyone before...”

“I’ve never done that before,” Sae said, and suddenly collapsed onto the bed in tears. But when Shinkichi lifted her up, the tears stopped immediately.

“Was it truly your first time…?” “I’ve played the cynic and strutted through Ginza surrounded by boys like some delinquent girl.” “But something like this is a first for me.”

And, as if remembering, she began trembling again. Shinkichi was struck by the realization.

Women’s conduct, so to speak, is more disordered than men imagine, yet at the same time cleaner than men could ever conceive. Sae had been at a film studio before joining the theater troupe and had lived as an actress for years—in environments where such opportunities were most abundant—yet it was strange that she had remained chaste. The sensation was akin to hitting an air pocket, and this sudden pang of pain—was it ultimately due to his guilt-tinged awareness that he had been the first to bestow a kiss upon Sae?

“Have you never even been in love…?” “Yes.” “Why...?” “Well…”

Sae considered this seriously, “I just… never had someone I liked.” “There were times when I thought someone was a good person.” “I even felt some fondness.” “But I never felt a spark beyond that.” “The one you’ve fallen for…”

And even he faltered slightly for a moment, “—Just me…?” Sae nodded earnestly. If he could have said “You’re so full of yourself,” it would have been bliss—but that bliss had already been lost, though Sae did not notice its loss. But, poor thing—he had convinced himself he was now happy. At least, he kept telling himself that. Because, “Being able to love someone is happiness.”

because he knew that phrase. But did Sae truly know what kind of man she was falling for now? This was the kind of man he was——

“What part of me do you like…?” A man who enjoyed such verbal games after kissing. And, as a response to that, “Because you have talent” or “Because you’re charming,” and in extreme cases,

A man who expected words like “I like you because you’re beautiful.” He was a narcissist. When Shinkichi seduced women, it wasn’t out of lust but ultimately to satisfy his self-esteem; as a narcissist, he wanted them to like him so they would praise his virtues.

However, Sae’s reply did not meet his expectations. “Once—you remember—at Mihara Bridge station, you said this:” “‘How lonely it feels waiting for the train on rainy nights.’” “‘Though I’ve somehow become famous overnight compared to yesterday, standing here dejected in the rain waiting for the train makes me realize how unexpectedly lonely humans are—don’t you think?’” “When I heard that… that’s when I came to like you.” “That’s why I brought you the matches.”

At the Mihara Bridge stop, when Shinkichi uttered those words, Sae looked up at him in surprise——once, in exactly the same way, Shinkichi had peered at Sae’s profile in astonishment. He came to like Sae’s wit——the way she could answer like that. This woman was unexpectedly gazing deeply into life——Shinkichi, who had always viewed life superficially, found himself astonished. Of course——perhaps Sae’s words were merely an affectation——Shinkichi secretly thought. She might merely be saying clever words and nothing more.

When asked what part of him she liked,

“I’ve never once thought about such a thing.” “From the top of your head to the tips of your toes—I love every single part of you.” A woman who answered like that might have been more honest than Sae. But ultimately, they were all just words. To be honest,

“It’s because I kissed her that she fell for me.” That fact might have been more honest and closer to the truth. That, Shinkichi knew in the depths of his heart. He knew it as an undeniable reality. More than words, more than anything—in the end, it was the physical connection that utterly transformed a woman’s feelings toward a man. This was women’s weakness, their pitifulness. Even if women were to stand on equal footing with men, they ultimately bore the fate of losing their virginity through men—and without acknowledging this fact, along with the psychological shock and sensory cruelty inflicted by the act of losing virginity, any discussion of women’s issues was all nonsense. For both men and women, this fact was not an issue that could be resolved through sermons about sex education or axioms of human reproduction. Yet precisely because it concerned the hidden acts of the bedroom, to touch upon this matter was immediately deemed vulgar, obscene, and sensational—dismissed as a taboo subject not to be spoken of—yet when one reflected, it was a universal human issue. It was a raw sensation that could not be neatly resolved by moralistic terms like chastity. It resembled the sensation of death. For women, there was no sensation as bizarre as losing their virginity, and no bond as harshly inescapable as physical connection.

And if it is men who impart such sensations, who forge such bonds, then demons dwell within men. What manner of man was this Shinkichi, who—while fully aware of this truth—so easily stripped women of their virginity?

In other words, he was a philanderer. Simply put, he was nothing more than a philanderer. And now, there was no longer any significance in expounding at length—in complex terms—on how he differed from the philanderers of the world.

Everything proceeded simply. “Hmm.” “So you fell for me back then…?”

“Yes.” “So… you still love me…?” “Yes.” “Well…”

With that, Shinkichi kissed her again. It remained unclear what he meant by "Well..." Sae no longer resisted. She thought that was a manifestation of Shinkichi’s passion.

While kissing her, Shinkichi became acutely aware of the meaninglessness inherent in repeating the act of kissing twice over. At the same time, he recalled the ulterior motive behind having Sae sit on the edge of the bed.

Shinkichi quietly laid Sae down. And, to keep Sae from realizing the significance of that act, he continued kissing her with a certain fervor.

Chapter 16

A Soliloquy on How the Relationship Between Marriage and Sexual Acts Resembles That Between War and Murder

Plato is the name of ink.

The cheapness of Sae’s travel suitcase.

Sae left Shinkichi's room at four o'clock. And then went to the theater. Shinkichi saw her off to the hotel entrance, sat down on the lobby sofa, and smoked a cigarette. The cigarette carried the scent of Sae's mouth. The tip had lipstick on it. Shinkichi hurriedly wiped his lips and,

"What I did just now wasn't significant for me, but whether for happiness or misfortune, it was a major issue for that girl." "No—it might become a serious problem for me too."

he muttered. He had such a premonition. Unlike with Itsuko, he couldn’t imagine this problem passing by so cleanly and without fuss.

"If I had just kissed her and fled straight back to Osaka, it would’ve been better." There was no need to go any further than that. Psychologically and physiologically… But everyone does it. Humans are like that. And those who want to marry do so with that as their motive. Those who don’t want to marry also end up doing so once they’ve gone and done it. And once they’ve gotten married, they no longer feel guilt nor regret. The institution of marriage is damn conveniently made. Marriage becomes compensation for having made women suffer terribly, and the institution of marriage is utilized as a legitimate means to make them suffer terribly in the future. What on earth was marriage...? Under marriage, no one condemns the act between a man and a woman. Is marriage a form of hypocrisy?

From the café, the gramophone’s military songs could still be heard.

“Murder is the most evil act among all human acts. But those military bastards are encouraging murder in the name of war. The relationship between sexual acts and marriage is just like that between murder and war.”

Just then, Jūkichi Hachiya—wearing his customary morning coat—floated in.

“Oh, did you see today’s newspaper?” “No, I didn’t see it!” Shinkichi said flatly. “Why…?” “It seems there’s a theater review criticizing my play.” “I don’t want to look at any newspapers.” “I see.” “But codes are a different matter.” “No, I don’t want to see it.” “I see….” “You don’t want to see.” “You’re being remarkably prudent.” “……? ……” “First of all, even if you wanted to see it, the code wouldn’t be found anymore.”

“Didn’t you publish it? Did you give up?” “There were unavoidable circumstances, you see. Actually, the woman ran away, you see. She made herself a lover, you see.”

“Oh…?” “And the other person…?” “Does it concern you?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Shinkichi retorted flatly. “I was merely asking out of courtesy. Even if it were Tōjō himself, I wouldn’t bat an eye. That man gets his hands on women too, doesn’t he?” “Ah, but regrettably,” Hachiya drawled, “it’s not our esteemed Prime Minister. A mere student—her cousin, you see.” His lips twisted in mock sympathy. “Young men these days rush to play the white knight at the slightest whiff of feminine distress. Their farewell note claims they’re practicing”—he paused theatrically—“what was it again? Ah yes, platonic love.” The words dripped with derision as he leaned closer. “Can you fathom such nonsense?” Shinkichi exhaled cigarette smoke through his nostrils. “What’s your take on it?”

“They specifically declared it platonic, you see.” “Doesn’t that make it more suspicious…?” “But well—women and students are idealists. They go ninety-nine percent of the way, leave that final line untouched, indulge to their hearts’ content, then have the gall to call it platonic. Plenty of that sort around.” “A kind of sexual perversion, if you ask me.” “But whatever.” “Plato’s just an ink brand.” In any case, he ran away. That was all. Struggling would’ve been pointless. “Later!”

In an instant, Jūkichi Hachiya vanished from sight.

That night, after the performance ended, Sae came to Shinkichi’s room.

“I’m quitting acting.”

“Why…?”

Shinkichi wasn’t particularly surprised. He already knew what Sae would say next.

“I can’t think of anything but you.” “I can’t focus on acting.” “I said earlier today there’s nothing I want to do, but it’s true.” “I don’t want to do anything.” “I just want to think about you and spend my days in a daze.” “Is just thinking enough…?” “I want to get married.” “Who with…?” “You’re so calm.” “Do you think so?”

He was slightly flustered. “Hey. Won’t you take me to Osaka?” “No way!”

“Why…?” Sae’s face became tearful.

“If you come, you’ll be unhappy.” “I don’t mind becoming unhappy.” “No matter what terrible things happen to me, I don’t care.” “I want to go with you.” “I want to stay by your side.” “That’s all I need—hey, isn’t that okay…?” “Let me make this clear.” “I’m not someone who can keep any promises.”

“Do you hate me…?” “I didn’t say I hate you.” “I’m not someone who can easily come to dislike people.” “I may get angry—but I can’t bring myself to dislike them.” “I can’t hate.” “So even when I seduce women, I can’t abandon them.” “But I can’t swear I’ll never abandon you for a lifetime.”

It seemed like sophistry yet resonated with sincerity. Shinkichi employed terms like "abandoning" or "not abandoning," but the crux lay in how love—a matter of lifelong significance for women—held no substantial importance within his inner world. Thus women inevitably became burdens to Shinkichi. Women burned with purity and constant passion. Fundamentally, Shinkichi never slept love's slumber prone to disillusionment—he had remained awake from the beginning. To demand this man who saw love as inherently disillusioning—to nevertheless slumber in intoxication, to love through an ideal where he alone might never awaken even amidst disillusionment—Shinkichi stood too firmly as one who had turned his back on ideals. This very coldness of his only inflamed women's ardor further. They grew increasingly burdensome. The mere awareness that women burned while he himself could not kindle similarly already constituted a burden. In such moments he found these women unbearably pitiful. That he who ultimately tormented them should pity his suffering victims—what manner of contradiction was this?

To speak of contradictions—knowing full well that becoming involved with women would ultimately make them unhappy, yet still proceeding to entangle himself through the form of seduction—what on earth was this? Precisely because he knew, his sin grew all the deeper.

Shinkichi, incapable of burning, was isolated. Unable to endure that loneliness, he would ultimately approach women. The women did not know of Shinkichi’s toxicity. They found charm in the melancholic expression his lonely allure begot.

This lamentable state of affairs, more or less peculiar to modern people—how long would it persist? But for now, Shinkichi kept saying this.

“I’m just a philanderer after all, you know. You mustn’t come along.”

“Then why did you seduce me?” “That’s exactly why I’m telling you I’m a philanderer.” “A real philanderer wouldn’t declare himself one like that.” “Which proves I’m trying to be a good boy.”

Those very words themselves were trying to be a good boy. “Whether you’re a philanderer or a good boy or whatever—hey, isn’t it okay if I come along…?” No matter what was said, Sae wouldn’t listen to any objections about coming along.

“Then come along. But don’t blame me if anything happens!” Shinkichi finally blurted out, unable to endure any longer. Sae remained in a state where no words would reach her ears. Thus, the weak-willed Shinkichi could no longer voice his refusal.

Sae returned home late that night. And that very night, she somehow managed to persuade her mother and spent the entire night packing her belongings. She decided to take every last personal item—winter clothes, bedding, hoarded shoes, even hats—and checked them as luggage; raced around alone for half a day to complete farewells to the theater troupe, partings with friends, and relocation notices to the neighborhood association; made with her own hands the lunchbox she and Shinkichi would eat on the train; then rushed to the station.

And then, Shinkichi and she boarded the Osaka-bound night train. Shinkichi was struck by the earnestness with which Sae had accomplished everything in half a day, but more than that, he was startled by the cheapness of the travel bag she carried. She couldn’t be called the daughter of a poor family, but she was by no means the daughter of a wealthy one. The lunchbox Sae had made for him was so wretched that even she had apologized for it. Yet Shinkichi went out of his way to praise it as quite a feast. But he suddenly stopped mid-bite.

“What are you thinking about…?” “Once you strip away a woman’s outer layer, they’re all just old underneath—that’s what briefly crossed my mind.” “What do you mean…?”

Sae asked, but Shinkichi couldn't answer. Shinkichi was thinking such things. "...When I seduced this woman, I never imagined we'd end up riding a train together like this. But once she made such a wretched lunchbox for me, I could no longer send this woman back to Tokyo. This woman might stay by my side for life. Every day I'll think about driving her out. But weak-willed as I am, I'll likely never voice it. And this woman will remain by my side for life. Anxiously wondering whether she'll be cast aside today or tomorrow—she'll end up staying with me forever. This is life."

To call this 'life' might be an exaggeration, but even so, the cheapness of Sae's travel bag felt far more emblematic of life than any newspaper cipher. And this feeling grew steadily stronger as the train approached Osaka.