Pathway to Japanese Literature

April 13th

How could I believe such a thing?
But in truth, I had seen it with my own eyes.
That person—the one I had believed to be my sole companion in this world—that very person proved to be nothing but a common, vulgar, repulsive human being.

At ten o'clock this morning, I entered that person's study and searched for Mirose's Confession on the bookshelf. What an extraordinary coincidence! Just as I pulled out that volume, an opal-colored envelope fell at my feet. Naturally, its seal had already been broken. Without conscious intent, I picked it up and quite accidentally drew out the contents to examine them—for I had never before read my husband's letters without permission.

On letter paper matching the envelope's hue, written in violet ink, were these words:

"You shower me with letters like a deluge.
Surely you spend dawn till dusk writing nothing but missives to me.
I grow utterly spent simply from reading them.
Every time I open the mailbox, there your letters lie.
Yet reading them brings me such delight—they set my mind whirling with thoughts.
They teach me more than any tome.
And I clearly see how you deign to love me.
Perhaps even I could come to love you.
Indeed, perhaps I already do.
You feel shame over keeping a wife and children.
Oh, I know it full well.
I watch the stirrings of your heart with rapt fascination.
But what remedy exists for such matters?
No amount of your brilliant thinking will solve this riddle.
Were it me, I'd resolve to think no more.
And truthfully, I myself think nothing at all.
For even if I agonize and strive, I lack the strength to break free from your sway.
I love you a hundredfold more than you love me."

April 11th

From your T

My Lord N

I came within a hair's breadth of staggering and collapsing onto the carpet.
It was still yesterday's letter.
And on the envelope's front was properly written: "Koishikawa Ward, Suidobashi 1-chome, 12-banchi, Mr. Namiki Gorou."
But I could not believe it.
I kept thinking this must be some monstrous mistake.
But still...

April 14th

I began paying intense attention to that person's every move from today onward.
Yet there wasn't a single suspicious action I could pinpoint in that person's behavior.
If those letters were genuine, then that person was truly the worst villain imaginable.
But more pressing still—what manner of brazen creature was this woman?
“From your T”
A phrase like “My Lord N” defied all reason.
I had heard tales of shameless women aplenty, but could reality harbor one so utterly devoid of decency?
“But what can be done about such things!”
What a vamp—a seductress, man-eater, wanton harlot!
And that person—he whom I had trusted implicitly until yesterday—with what countenance had he perused these words?
Had he—forgetful of both me and our two children now sleeping peacefully—read them with features twisted in obscene delight?
Ah, I could no longer endure this torment of thought.

April 15th

Another letter arrived.
That dreadful opal-colored letter.
Though knowing it to be a cowardly act, I found myself unable to stop inspecting each and every piece of mail addressed to that person since yesterday.
When I discovered that letter in the mailbox a little past noon, I shuddered as if encountering a caterpillar.
That single letter made me feel as though the entire house was defiled.
Yet even so—were I iron—those letters held magnetic attraction.
In my baseness, I moistened them with steam and quietly opened their seals.

It was all my fault.
I was such a vain creature.
I was an obstinately proud being with supreme self-esteem.
Yet before you, my self-esteem became like frost pillars posturing before morning sunlight.
I offer you the entirety of my heart and body.
I no longer possess any will of my own—any desires of my own—any strength of my own.
Your will shall be my will—pray do as you please without restraint.
Even being tormented by you—even being spat upon and scorned like maggots by you—this brings me boundless joy.
Deign not to utter any more lonesome words.
You must command me anything, like almighty Jupiter.
To your commands I shall become obedient as sheep.
I shall grow cruel enough to tear newborn limbs and cast them into searing pans.

From T-ko

The one and only Lord N in the world

I had heard worldly women employed all manner of artifices to ensnare men.
Yet I never imagined a woman who conducted herself with such brazen audacity—who breathed the same earthly air as I—could truly exist.
This I, who am that person's wife, found myself utterly disregarded.
Ah, what countenance would he assume upon reading this letter?
What sensations might course through him?

I decided to feign ignorance and place the letter on that person's desk in the study.
That person returned a little past seven.
While sitting together at the meal, I attentively observed that person's demeanor, but that person remained completely calm as always.
I firmly suppressed the desire to rake that composed face with something like a clawed tool and finished my meal.

When that person entered the study and closed the door, I hurried over—muffling my footsteps—to press my eye against the keyhole.
That person sat smoking in the swivel chair; presently he took up that letter, opened it immediately upon handling it, finished reading it in less than a minute, then carelessly tossed it into the desk's corner.
Then he pulled out some Western-language book from the shelf and began reading.
He carried himself as though such letters weren’t worth more than a minute of his time.
I felt relieved.
At the same time, my own despicable actions grew loathsome, and I felt intense self-reproach.
That person is mine after all!
Ah, to be clearly conscious of this—what joy it is!
That person would never flinch no matter what temptation came his way—he must be a person as immovable as bedrock.

April 17th

Yesterday that opal-colored letter came again.
But I did not open it.
To doubt that person even slightly would mean trampling upon him, and proving my own foolishness and ugliness to myself.

However, when I discovered that envelope in the mailbox again today, somehow I felt a numbness creeping through my mind.
I sensed a violent battle between self-esteem and jealousy surging within my chest.
In the end, I could do nothing but open it through the same means as before.
As I read the letter, I felt my entire body shudder uncontrollably from fierce jealousy.
My body alternated between feverish heat and icy chills.
That was a dreadful letter which—even were it not me—no ordinary woman could have endured.

I write this letter immediately after parting from you.
I cannot remain still for even a single minute.
As long as our lives endure, I cannot live for even a single second without feeling you immediately by my side.
Has there ever existed in this world a love so strong, so unadulterated?

You went through the trouble of meeting me yet deigned not to speak—though I too remained silent.
There was simply nothing to say, I tell you.
Just as a clumsy translation utterly fails to convey the original text's meaning, I knew all too well that voicing my innermost feelings would render them something utterly commonplace—that being scorned by you would be the inevitable outcome—I tell you.
I believe that is why you maintained your silence.
Yet for me, no matter what words you might deign to utter, I can draw an ocean of meaning from even your slightest phrase, I tell you.

That is because I have completely and utterly understood you.
And it is precisely through loving you deeply and fiercely that I can understand you, I tell you.
It is not on the foundation of understanding that love arises—no, it is precisely upon love that understanding is born, I tell you.
I shall vie for your love against anyone in this world, I tell you.

Last night, when our lips touched upon the park bench, I thought I could gladly be led straight to the execution block and have a glinting axe laid against my bare neck within twenty seconds.

I am already completely and utterly dominated by you.
Even the characters in this letter of mine must have come to closely resemble your handwriting.
I feel your heart firmly within my own heart.
And I shall feel it for all eternity.
Let us overcome all obstacles and unite bravely, firmly, firmly, like triumphant generals.

From all that is yours,

To all that is mine

When I finished reading, my vision began to swim.
In that moment I cursed that humans are born with eyes.
Have these two eyes preserved their vision until now just to see such detestable, such terrifying, such outrageous letters?
Indeed, come to think of it, this woman’s handwriting was exactly the same as that person’s.
In this letter, I was merely regarded as an "obstacle" to their sullied love.
All the blood in my body rushed to my head at once, and my head throbbed violently.
Has there ever been a woman who has endured such suffering?

If that person were taken from me, then of course my very reason for living would cease to exist.

The children are dear.
But whether my life can be sustained by love for the children alone, I do not know.
However, could I possibly die shamefully, leaving that vamp behind?
After all, those who die are the defeated.

I pressed my eye to the keyhole and peered inside immediately when that person returned home and entered the study, just as before. I held my breath yet felt chilled with anxiety that the violent pounding in my chest might penetrate the inch-thick wooden door to reach that person's ears.

That person opened the seal as before, finished reading in under a minute as usual, tossed the envelope onto the desk, then lit a cigarette. Whether trick of vision or not, today that person seemed to tremble faintly. Suddenly extending his right arm, he picked up the letter again and appeared to scrutinize its contents while holding his breath; eventually setting it down, placing both hands atop it, and burying his face in his hands. This time I distinctly perceived that person's entire body trembling minutely.

That I could endure watching my own husband wail, tremble, and writhe in longing for another woman—I was astonished at my own nerves' resistance.

April 18th

I had resolved everything during the night.
However, when in the morning I saw that person's face - wearing the same expression as always as he rose, as though nothing had occurred - I found myself cowed and could not bring anything to my lips.

However, when that person left, vexation surged up within me at once.
Yet so long as I could still feel this bitterness, there remained a tautness in my heart that let me go on living.
When the bitterness subsided, my heart turned hollow, and I found myself utterly unable to endure it.

Another opal-colored envelope arrived past noon; I was terrified to open it.
Yet I could not help but open it.

"Madam seems to have read my letters, has she?
Traces of opening are visible, are they?
Were you intending to keep hiding it forever?
Did you truly think you could conceal it all along?
'I am your slave. You are my queen.'
So these words were mere offhand lies.
Were you amusing yourself with me behind your wife's back to relieve boredom?
In this world exist things possible and impossible.
I'm going mad—stop trembling so! Just show all my letters to your wife!
If you can discard me with Madam's words, then do it now!
Confess everything and beg your wife's forgiveness.
That way is better for all.
Worry not about me.
Should that happen, I'd be content—but know this: you'll become exactly as I envision.
Having read this letter today, confess everything to Madam.
Show all my letters too and be done."

T-ko

Lord N

That person was still thinking of me after all. He was human after all. He remained exactly as I had always believed him to be from the beginning—steadfast, righteous, godlike.

For the first time in ages, I awaited his return with a buoyant heart.

When that person entered the study, I went to peer through the keyhole as had become my custom. Though I told myself there was no need for such vigilance today, I found myself compelled to continue nonetheless.

That person finished reading the letter as usual, then slowly puffed on a cigarette. But after about five minutes, he suddenly stood up. He pulled books from various places on the shelves and extracted opal-colored letters one by one from between their pages. Roughly twenty letters piled up on the desk like bananas. I was astonished both by the sheer number of letters that had emerged and by how that person had remembered their hiding places as if tracing them on his palm.

That person extracted the contents one by one from the envelopes and stacked them on the desk. Since they were all opal-colored letter paper of the same size, they aligned neatly. That person then sat down in the chair, took out an awl and paper string from the drawer, punched holes in the corners of the letter papers, and bound them together.

When this task was completed, that person lit another cigarette, slowly exhaled the smoke, and then pressed the call bell on the desk.

The maid’s response was heard from below.
I suddenly pulled my eye from the keyhole and remained frozen in place for about two seconds as if struck by electricity; but when I heard the maid’s footsteps approaching up the stairs, I finally stood up and walked stealthily to the stairway landing.
I signaled to the maid with hand gestures to go downstairs, then turned back to the study door and formally knocked twice before opening it.

“What dreadful smoke. Shall I open it a bit?”

When there was no response, I pushed the right-hand French window open diagonally outward on one side.

"Sit there!"

That person brusquely pointed to the adjacent chair.
I silently sat down.
For no particular reason, I felt as though my confidence until just now had been completely overturned from its foundation.

"Read this."
Having said this, that person shoved the bound letters before me.

I wordlessly (at times like these there's simply no way to respond) began to read.

Reading approximately a hundred sheets of letter paper took me a good thirty minutes.

What I had read before were merely scattered fragments of their love affair's partial episodes, but now, reading through these documents—bound together in sequence—they coalesced into a feverish romance that pressed upon my chest like a vise tightening again and again without mercy.
I endeavored to maintain composure as best I could, but by the end, I found myself ceaselessly dabbing at tears with a handkerchief.

That person spent the entire time turned sideways, doing nothing but smoking cigarettes.
He was chain-smoking so relentlessly that it seemed he had no moment to inhale fresh air.
Just when I had read halfway through the last letter from earlier today, suddenly I felt an indescribably painful sensation shoot through my chest.

That person was doing exactly as that woman had commanded him through these letters—this thought flashed into my consciousness with such abruptness.
Why I hadn’t noticed until that moment—even now, I do not understand.

"I am in love with this woman."
That person waited until I had finished reading the letters and said—
"It was all too sudden—I couldn't even believe myself—but now that I've seen things clearly, I'll confess everything."

I felt as though that person's entire body had turned completely to ice in that very instant. Could there truly exist another human being so cold-hearted, so brutal? My whole body trembled like poplar leaves.

“Since this is an unavoidable fate, resign yourself—goodnight—no worthwhile ideas will come from thinking anyway, so abandon all hope right here and now, and please forgive this good-for-nothing, stray dog-like me!”

I could no longer endure listening to those merciless words—as if spewed from steel machinery or some such thing. Pressing the handkerchief to my eyes with both hands, I wordlessly descended the stairs.

April 19th

Last night, needless to say, I did not sleep a wink.
One moment tears were flowing ceaselessly; the next they had suddenly dried up, and I felt my eyes narrowing in anger.
I thought I might be going mad and remembered startling myself at that moment.
Around midnight, suddenly remembering, I intently gazed at the faces of my two children.
At that moment too, I feared my mind might suddenly be failing.

I waited for dawn to break and，rising immediately，entered that person’s room.
That person was still sleeping with the bedside lamp on.
A Western book with a blue cover lay open on the bedside.
When I looked at the spine，it was written in gold letters as “The Recent Development of Physical Sciences.”
Despite what happened last night，and despite tormenting me so，this person could calmly read a book—of all things，a physics book—and I wondered whether the blood in this person’s heart was even warm.
And I found the sight of that face，snoring loudly in sleep，truly detestable.

“I wasn’t sleeping.”
At that moment, that person snapped his eyes wide open and abruptly said this.
“I didn’t sleep for a single second.
Did you come to kill me?”
That person narrowed one eye slightly and added.
I had come up to the second floor in a fury, but hearing such utterly unexpected words threw me off balance, completely derailing my planned program.
While my lips quivered uncontrollably, I did not utter a single word.

“Ah yes, that’s it! Exactly what I’ve been waiting for!” that person said, abruptly shifting the tone of his voice.
“Never before have I seen your face so beautiful as at this moment.”
“Never before have I seen your heart so strained as now.”
“Never before have I seen your heart so bursting with love for me as in this instant.”
That person, perfectly composed with a slight smile playing at his lips, continued uttering outrageous things.
“Our domestic life had become devoid of emotional charge like a deflated rubber ball through its recent peace.”
“You had grown thoroughly lax lately, and I could no longer endure this unstimulating existence.”
“I wrote all those letters myself.”
“As a stimulant for our life together.”
“Since I couldn’t fully disguise my handwriting, I once tried writing ‘Even these characters of mine have come to perfectly resemble your script, have they not?’”
“I took considerable care, thinking you might see through it.”
“I knew full well you’d opened the letters and peered through the keyhole.”
“To observe this effect, I had been maintaining this forty-day charade.”

At that moment, I could not determine whether that person’s words were lies or truth.
But after a few minutes had passed, all circumstances melted away like frost dissolving in morning sunlight.
And to tell the truth, I even thought it would have been better had that person not said such things.
For having become utterly relieved, the tension in my heart had completely slackened.
And my heart slackening meant that person’s interest in me was waning.

April 20th

Ah, my life is a burning hell!
Why must I suffer so?
What to believe, what not to believe—I have become utterly lost.
Again, those opal-colored letters came.
I, as if touching a child’s toy, tried opening the seal with a light heart.
But after reading two or three lines, I could no longer remain composed.
I felt a shuddering chill crawl up the nape of my neck.

What a wicked person.
But to feel relieved by such a simple trick—the wife was so naive.
Yet what you did could truly be called wise.
Causing people unnecessary suffering is a sin.
I think it was our duty—at the very least—to keep the victims reassured until the final moment.

I am imagining such things.
You and I will probably board a train or some vehicle and go somewhere eventually.
We have resolved never to return to Tokyo.
That matter will surely become clear to the wife as well—within a single day and night.
By that time, we will still be riding the train.
After all, if we were to go, it would be to a distant place.
Let us assume it is around midnight then.
I will surely weep thinking of the wife.

In that case, you would endeavor to comfort me in various ways to keep me from crying.
Yet all the while, you yourself would be weeping a hundredfold more bitterly in your heart.
We would weep as we were rocked through the darkness.
Within the train compartment—for after a full day and night's journey it must surely be some remote region—there would likely be no fellow passengers besides ourselves.
We would inevitably embrace.
And you would strive to prevent me from thinking of the wife, while I would strive to prevent you from perceiving that I was thinking of the wife—all while being carried along by the train, each intimately aware of what occupied the other's thoughts.

Before long, there would come a moment when you forgot everything for my sake. I too would forget everything for your sake at that moment. Since the movements of both our hearts would likely align as if coordinated, I found myself fantasizing solely about such things now. It was so terribly lonely. And yet so indescribably, so inexpressibly blissful.

Farewell then.
I shall plant a kiss here.

T-ko

Lord N

Was this another of that person's tricks to reignite yesterday's fading excitement?
Or were yesterday's words merely careless lies meant to deceive me temporarily?
I spread out the letters and scrutinized the handwriting.
But no matter how thoroughly I examined them, they seemed both like that person's script and yet not—there was simply no way to describe it.
It could mean that person had deliberately altered his own handwriting to disguise it, or that the other woman's hand had truly come to resemble his.

Now that things had come to this, I could no longer bring myself to confront that person about it.
And no matter what that person might answer, I found myself unable to believe it.
There remained nothing but to wait for the final day recorded in those dreadful letters.
That day might come, or it might never arrive.
The other woman might truly be lurking nearby, prepared to abscond with that person come tomorrow—or she might be nothing more than a hollow fabrication conjured within that person’s mind, utterly devoid of real existence in this world.
How long must I endure this state?

If it's a shadow, then let it vanish quickly. If it's real, then as something real—I want it to show itself clearly.

I had grown terrified of seeing that person's face, of being with that person.
I couldn't help feeling that person himself had become like some eerie shadow whose true nature defied grasping.