Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

The events I am about to record will likely never occur again in this world, and even should they recur, I believe none but a shameless scoundrel such as myself would ever conceive of making them public. First, most people would have thrust a dagger into their carotid artery before entertaining such thoughts, thereby erasing any temporal margin for these notions to arise. That said, even as I write this, I remain acutely conscious that I am indeed the world's most repulsively cowardly human being. Therefore, I absolutely refuse to endure readers imposing their various inane criticisms upon my actions under the pretense that I might lack this self-awareness. Moreover, if modern pharmacology proves reliable, my life should persist no more than several hours henceforth, and once I conclude this writing, I will likely retain merely an hour or two of remaining breath. Thus, even should anyone speak, there exists no possibility of their words reaching my ears. The reason I have resolved upon suicide will become evident should you read this to its conclusion, but another motive resides in my wish to traverse beyond the boundary separating living and dead before hearing humanity's clamorous voices—particularly your utterly predictable, imbecilic censures regarding my private matters.

＊ ＊ ＊

I shall begin this narrative from this morning.
The reader may find this unclear without earlier explanations, but I shall supplement those details in their respective places as needed.
In the present circumstances, I lack the composure to begin writing in an orderly manner from events four years ago within this limited time.

It was past eight o'clock this morning.
When my wife left, I hurriedly took off my summer kimono and changed into Western clothes.
When I had fully completed my preparations to go out, I proceeded to securely lock every door and window in the house.
The house was plunged into darkness.
However, this darkness felt somehow unnatural compared to that of night.
It was said that the detective Dupin would plunge his room into darkness even during daytime, artificially creating a nocturnal atmosphere with lamplight. But in reality, when one suddenly darkened a room in broad daylight, there came this peculiar sensation of having become someone else entirely.
I entered the study and twisted the switch of the desk lamp.
A weak orange light dimly radiated through the surrounding space.
As if someone were watching me—though I knew full well such a thing was impossible—I approached the bookshelf while muffling my footsteps, and from the second shelf from the bottom on the right-hand bookcase, I pulled out a thick Western book.

The Psychology of Famous Criminals, A Scientific Study was embossed in gold lettering on its spine.
I gently took out a small slip of paper from between the pages of the book and returned the volume to its shelf.
Then I took the paper fragment under the light and spread it out.

“It’s definitely today.”
While thinking “There’s no mistake—today at noon,” I struck a match against the silver ashtray on my desk and lit one corner of the paper fragment.
The blue flame traced a serpentine curve, slowly spread out until it had completely consumed the paper, then hovered as a small droplet-like mass before finally vanishing into thin air.
I carefully stirred the remnants with a pencil, reducing them to ash.
I did this because I thought it would be disastrous if my wife were to discover it later.
Having completed all these actions in silence, I twisted the switch again.
And two or three minutes later, I had already slipped out of the dark house and was bathing in the white summer daylight outside, bright as an arc lamp's glow.

I ascended the gradual slope of Yushima 5-chome toward the tram line, eyes scanning sharply in all directions like a tailing detective—though my eyes were naturally considered keen, they must have been exceptionally so at that moment.
Even now I clearly remember how I startled at every faint noise then.
When overtaken from behind by a boy on some unrelated bicycle, my heart thrashed arrhythmically at the thought it might be her.
Above all else, I absolutely could not let my wife discover I'd gone out that morning.

Of course, since a full twenty minutes had already passed since my wife left saying she was going to her aunt’s house in Shibuya, under normal circumstances such caution wouldn’t have been necessary.
However, since the ways of the world do not always proceed so perfectly smoothly in ordinary fashion, even now I do not consider my methods to have been excessively cautious.
There was ample risk that she might have forgotten something and turned back midway, and it was perfectly common for women to stop for shopping along the way and waste twenty minutes or so.
Moreover, even if my wife didn't discover me, I couldn't risk being seen by anyone who so much as recognized my face.
After all, it would inevitably come to light someday.

II

To make you understand why it was necessary to keep this morning's outing so secret, I must by all means explain the circumstances from some time ago—though this task feels nearly unbearable in my current state and will likely bore readers—yet I cannot omit even these two or three pages containing the essential framework required to establish the narrative's structure.

Yesterday, I returned home from the ministry at exactly four-thirty as usual.
And then, I discovered that on the desk, along with two postcards, a confidential Western-style envelope had been placed.
The postmark was from Yokohama, but I had no recollection of the handwriting on the address.
When I opened it, to my astonishment, it was a letter from Asada Yukiko—who four years ago had vanished after leaving friends with nothing but rumors of her sudden departure for America.
She had been my lover before her disappearance.
The blazing romance exchanged between Yukiko - who had graduated from girls' school and was studying music at an Akasaka dormitory run by an American woman - and myself, freshly graduated and newly appointed as a Foreign Ministry official; consequently, my despair when she vanished, my fury at her betrayal - these defy description by pen. Even were description possible, I lack time for such endeavors now. Yet I believe those who have known youth, or currently dwell within it, might approximate these through imagination alone. Let imagination suffice.
To put it simply, my life had completely lost its purpose.

Nevertheless, Pascal’s words that time heals all sorrows were correct.
Moreover, the time I experienced afterward was no ordinary time.
It encompassed the Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1923.
This earthquake that slaughtered humans like flies and shattered human civilization like a child’s toy had shaken even the depths of my heart, completely disrupting its equilibrium.
And yet, strange as it may seem, within my heart—which I myself had thought turned as barren as a desert since losing Yukiko—a love for another woman had sprouted anew.
The object of this second love was said to be the daughter of a prominent Yokohama trade merchant, but having lost both parents and fortune in the disaster, she found herself utterly alone in the world.
As she was a graduate of Yokohama's Santa Maria Girls' Academy, there may still be those among her former classmates who would recognize the name Fukao Minako.
In any case, at that time she worked as a waitress at a certain café in Ginza.

Of course, our love was not as passionate as what I had shared with Yukiko.
It began as natural sympathy between two unfortunate souls of opposite sexes—a quiet, almost passive affection that had gradually transformed into romance without our conscious awareness.
In truth, it started one rainy evening when few customers remained—she sat at my table and, with strange reserve, nervously recounted her life story in halting tones. Hearing this, I became utterly sympathetic.
At that very moment, I resolved to somehow save this woman.
Looking back now, this resolution revealed itself as the self-serving determination typical of middle-class youth.
The reason being: For me—a man unencumbered by familial ties—the monthly salary from the ministry sufficed to support a single woman's modest living. By paying this paltry price, I could eternally savor both the satisfaction of having rescued a woman and her gratitude. After all, such an arrangement constituted less an honor than a thoroughly dishonorable transaction worthy of humiliation.

Be that as it may, we were formally married within less than a year.
However, just as we reached the verge of marriage, I recalled the solemn promise exchanged with Yukiko four years prior.
Until that time, whenever Yukiko came to mind, I had remembered her only as a hateful betrayer—but precisely at that juncture, as I stood poised to marry Minako, a notion I had never before conceived even in dreams suddenly arose like a sneak attack.
This was an utterly vexing thought—that perhaps Yukiko had been compelled by some profound circumstance back then to either depart for America or conceal herself elsewhere, and that she might still be keeping our promise while eagerly awaiting the day we could finally unite.
Indeed fate—that scoundrel—deliberately seeks human misery, lying in wait to ambush us at life's most inconvenient moments. This I believed then, and believe all the more strongly now.

But no matter what thoughts arose, there was nothing I could do about it now.
Not even God possessed the power to sever the love between a man and woman who had reached the brink of marriage.
Of course we married as planned.

Our married life could not necessarily be called happy.
I never found in Minako as my wife the kind of charm she had possessed back when she worked at the café (though that was only natural).
I realized she was an oddly shy, ordinary woman—a bit too dull.
Particularly unlike someone who had graduated from a Western-style girls' school, she showed no real interest in books and seemed reluctant to read even newspapers beyond serialized new novels.
In return, she never made any bothersome demands of me and never opposed my opinions on anything, so at first glance, I imagine third parties would have considered ours an extremely happy household.
In any case, it was a fact that the household was peaceful.

However, I immediately determined that yesterday's letter from Yukiko left on my desk possessed the power to shatter this peace.
She had returned from America.
And she had come seeking an audience with me.
The letter's contents were exceedingly simple—merely requesting that I visit Yokohama's XX Hotel around noon tomorrow (that is, today)—yet I comprehended its intent instantly.
And in that moment of comprehension, my mind plunged as if smashed against a colossal boulder.

She must have undoubtedly come to demand fulfillment of our four-year-old promise.
Thus, she had indeed kept her promise to me.
Not only had she not betrayed me, but I myself had now become the betrayer.
She had preserved our pledge for four years, yet I had shattered it in barely over one.
But now—how could I possibly undo this?
To confess the truth, parting from Minako now might bring me little pain; were I to explain matters, Minako herself might even consent to separate willingly.
Such was her docility.
Yet even one such as myself could not commit so base an act.
Especially hearing Minako preparing dinner in the adjacent room as I harbored these thoughts—I felt absolutely certain that even were she a murderess, I could not bring myself to such treachery.

In such circumstances, what would society's wise and prudent people do?
(Even if prudent people had acted as recklessly as I) I tried recalling similar love triangles from novels and newspaper stories, but my pounding head refused to yield a single example.

I'd agonized over it all night, yet no solution emerged.
Morning brought no reprieve.
Yet this urgent problem demanded resolution: I had to reach Yokohama today without informing my wife and meet Yukiko.
But we salaried-class couples maintained our Sunday ritual - joint excursions into town or nearby countryside. Breaking this routine required airtight pretext.

Moreover, I knew myself woefully inept at deception (not that I wholly abstained from lies) - my face invariably betraying falsehoods.
This left me paralyzed.
Then miraculously, the obstacle dissolved itself: Minako proposed visiting her aunt's home today after long neglect.
She'd even apologized with visible discomfort, explaining dinner would be delayed until six o'clock due to her late return.

I immediately made a despicably vile resolution.
Very well—I would use that time to make it appear to my wife that I had stayed home all day and go meet Yukiko.
If I returned by five o'clock, there would be plenty of time!

III

I took a taxi to Tokyo Station and got off at the boarding gate. The entire time I crossed through the station concourse and bought my ticket, I couldn't stop worrying that I might run into Minako. The logic that there could be any reason to encounter Minako—who had gone to Shibuya—at Tokyo Station was nothing but the specious reasoning of those ignorant of human psychology during such abnormal times. Even as I dashed through the ticket gate, and even when passing through the dimly lit tunnel, I continued to worry about it. And the moment I stepped onto the platform, I scrutinized almost every person there one by one—those standing or seated, men and women of all ages. Though in truth, this took no more than two or three seconds—five at most.

I had judged that second-class would have fewer passengers and consequently less chance of encountering acquaintances, and thus bought a second-class ticket—but when the moment came, I suddenly changed my mind and boarded the most crowded third-class car instead. This was because I realized that if the car were crowded with passengers, even should an acquaintance be aboard, there would be less risk of being discovered.

However, I immediately realized that man's feeble wisdom holds no power or authority before chance. How could this be possible? Of course, no one would believe it. Were I to hear such a story from another, I too would snort in derision—yet being fact, I cannot but record it. From where I stood—perhaps the sixth or seventh person away—there, right before my eyes, my gaze became riveted to the retreating figure of a woman facing away, gripping an overhead strap as she stood. The face remained unseen. But her general height and build—from the way her hair was arranged down to the hairline at her nape and even the pattern of her kimono—she was the spitting image of my wife Minako. I was so shocked I thought my body might crystallize right there on the spot. Moreover, she kept facing away as if deliberately, not a single strand of her hair stirring.

When the train arrived at Shinagawa, thinking that if that were Minako she would transfer to the Yamanote Line, I skillfully concealed myself among the shadows and intently watched her movements. However, not only did she not alight, but she slightly shifted her shoulders and appeared to retrieve something from her bosom. That it was a hand mirror became immediately clear from the fleeting reflection glimpsed over her shoulder.

In my head, unbearable thoughts began seething like boiling liquid.

That had to be Minako.
She must have sneaked a peek at the letter I'd slipped between the books last night.
Before I returned home, she might've even opened it stealthily while keeping up appearances.
Then she fabricated that flimsy excuse about visiting her aunt's house to tail me.
No doubt about it.
Taking out that hand mirror now—she meant to surveil my movements.—This realization stoked utterly uncontainable hatred within me.
I nearly shoved through the crowd then and there to strike her across the cheek with full force.
Truth was, whenever emotions—hatred above all—reached their zenith in me, I became prone to discarding gentlemanly pretenses like worthless coins.
Yet even as this loathing burned, she grew pitiable to me precisely because I despised her so.
I almost wept.

And then these contradictory thoughts arose immediately.

That woman was certainly not following me.
On the contrary, she hadn't even noticed my presence at all.
Even were she to look directly at my face, so long as I remained silent, she wouldn't believe it was me.
The fact that I—who should have been keeping watch at my Hongō home—rode a Sakuragichō-bound train would lie beyond that woman's intellectual grasp—or perhaps women's imagination in general.
Even the hand mirror—she hadn't taken it out to monitor my actions.
On this sweltering day when sweat streamed down one's body, for all young women it was perfectly ordinary grooming to check their powder-melting faces in hand mirrors—what would be unnatural was a Tokyo-to-Yokohama rider who never once glanced at her mirror.
Moreover—and this was fundamental—that woman couldn't be Minako.
It was absolutely impossible—.

IV

As time ticked away, I could not afford to dawdle in writing about such trivial matters as what happened on the train.

Moreover, when the train stopped at Sakuragichō, my suspicions had solidified to such certainty that there was no longer any need for concealment.
I caught a glimpse of her profile when she alighted.
Undoubtedly, that was my wife Minako.
Her complexion was ashen like earth, with an appearance of deep worry—though she might have been putting on such an act—but there was not the slightest indication she was monitoring anyone.
She seemed entirely consumed by her own worries.

All the myriad phenomena occurring in this world can be broadly divided into two categories: those that become comprehensible upon careful consideration—or at least potentially understandable—and those that remain utterly inscrutable no matter how much one ponders.
And Minako's present conduct stood as a quintessential example of the latter.
I felt compelled to unleash a hollow laugh.
Though it didn't quite become that hollow laughter, I did emit a faint, genuine chuckle.
Naturally, I spared no thought regarding her whereabouts or whether she still trailed me.
With the nonchalance of one embarking on an ordinary stroll, I entered the station-front café and ordered ice cream.
That fulfilling physiological needs brings considerable pleasure—nay, constitutes an absolute necessity—in any circumstance finds clear proof in the astonishing fact that even mothers bereft of their most beloved child still eat through their tears.
To this day I vividly recall that ice cream's penetrating chill.

However, my astonishment did not end there.
When I arrived by taxi at the ×× Hotel atop Negishi Hill, through the taxi window I saw a woman just stepping away from the reception desk and hurrying into the interior.
This time of all times, I was shocked to the point where it felt as though the lower half of my body had suddenly vanished.
That woman—wasn't she indeed Minako who had just alighted at Sakuragichō?

The fact that she had come here ahead while I was in the café could only mean one thing.
She had seen my letter.
And she must have come here with some—though in truth I couldn’t discern what—despicably base purpose.
I burned with a hatred bordering on awe at her malice and persistence.

Above all, the fact that Minako—who appeared touchingly timid, docile, and virtuous to anyone observing her—had boldly and unbecomingly arrived here first to monitor her husband's movements was unbearably infuriating.

I grew restless and couldn't settle my mind at all. Moreover, that precisely at this moment of meeting my former lover after four years I found myself in such an utterly repulsive state only served to further sicken my heart.

I stood before Room Eleven - which I'd learned about at reception - and knocked twice: knock knock. Soon came quiet footsteps and the door swung inward. At that moment my head might as well have been inorganic matter; I don't believe a single thought arose.

There stood Yukiko.
Somehow their reunion had an unnatural quality.
The four-year separation had stretched too long - I couldn't abruptly reach for her hand, yet remained paralyzed by uncertainty over whether formal speech was warranted, leaving me profoundly awkward.
I believe my face might have flushed crimson in that instant.
What I distinctly remember is being utterly disconcerted.

She was wearing a light blue dress.
The dress fit her so naturally that one could immediately tell she had arrived in Yokohama just two or three days prior.
Her clearly defined facial features, her fully developed and imposing physique, and that natural composure brimming with confidence—characteristic of a woman seasoned in social circles—which allowed her to remain utterly unperturbed by men while conversely manipulating their hearts as she pleased—to be honest, I found myself intimidated by all of this.
Far from being able to speak familiarly, I stiffened up completely, my sweaty, awkward body wanting nothing more than to hurriedly hide itself away in some closet.

“Oh my, you’ve kindly come after all.”
“I was ever so worried whether you would.”
“I simply had something I needed to discuss with you.”

To lay everything bare, I had been expecting that today's meeting would bring about the scene naturally anticipated between lovers separated for four years. I had expected today’s meeting to begin with a long, soul-satiating embrace and fiery kisses—that was what I had anticipated. And in truth, while worrying that such developments would prove troublesome, I had even privately planned to curtail such matters appropriately (let me clarify—I wish readers to know that had I still been alive in two or three days’ time, I would never have confessed such shameful things). But what do you know—her transformation. Her attitude today— Is she not welcoming me as her lover but rather—having likely forgotten all that in reality—speaking as if to some first-time guest?

"It's been a while," I formally greeted her, but immediately regretted how utterly commonplace those words sounded.

"You don't seem angry with me, do you? I thought once more that you must be angry with me, you know."

“...”

"I understand perfectly well. With your eyes. And are you still alone? I know this is too abrupt a question, but have you already..."

“No,” I inadvertently blurted out in haste.

"So you've been keeping your promise to me after all?"

From the very start, she had been startling me out of my wits, but now she finally—with utter composure—hurled the most desperate question I had feared above all others.

Like iron drawn to a magnet, I acted without forethought or afterthought, haphazardly blurting out:

"Yes."

I affirmed it.
Immediately regretting my slip—"I messed up"—I instinctively looked at her face like a cowardly slave.
To my surprise, large tears had welled up in her eyes.
They were crystalline tears of heartbreaking beauty.

Having completely lost my rationality—forgetting both my unworthiness and status as an unforgivable liar—I involuntarily reached out to desperately clutch her hand.

"You mustn't, you mustn't.
"You mustn't touch me.
"My body has already been defiled.
"Don't ask anything... please forgive me..."

As she shook off my hand, she completely lost her self-control, reverting to the Asada Yukiko of four years ago as tears pattered down unrestrainedly.

The two of us fell into silence.

I was overcome with shame and dejection at my own disgraceful behavior.
Yukiko placed both hands on the arm of the chair and buried her face in them.

Ah, what a chasm existed between us two!
It was as though an angel and a demon faced each other in a single room.
Through tears more eloquent than ten thousand words—beautiful tears—she confessed having betrayed me due to unavoidable circumstances and begged forgiveness.
And what of me?
I had betrayed her of my own accord while cowardly concealing it.
To make matters worse, I had even shamelessly tried to grasp her hand moments earlier!
No matter what happened, I should have knelt at her feet then and there to confess everything.
And so I truly tried to do exactly that.
This wasn't some irresponsible remark made now—this was truth itself.

However, just as I thought to do so and tried to rise from my chair, someone knocked on the door.
Then Yukiko sprang up as if propelled by a spring, strode right up to my ear, and said to me in a low voice:

“I would now like to introduce you to a friend.”
“This person is a friend I discovered in America—not a decayed woman like myself, but someone who, just like you, possesses a truly pure heart.”
“The purpose of having you come all this way today was for you to meet this person.”
“Very well.”

She went to open the door without waiting for my reply.
Of course she remained completely unaware of how terribly perplexed I was.

V

The woman who entered at that moment was someone I would never have forgotten even if I were to live a hundred years. To put it simply, she was the woman I had long been searching for, believing she must exist somewhere in the world. More intellectual than Yukiko, more noble than Yukiko, and yet with an air of harboring a profound, magnificently profound loneliness in her heart.

I was completely conquered like cotton at first glance. I even felt a divine majesty akin to when I first saw Mount Fuji.

As for Yukiko, her despondent attitude from just a minute before had completely transformed, and she had somehow regained the same composure she possessed when we first met. And she seemed to have long since discerned—and even appeared satisfied by—the feeling I harbored toward the new guest.

After all, I didn't believe I would have felt myself so diminished—not even standing before the Prime Minister—as I did in this moment.

“This is Mr. Miura, who serves as a translation officer at the Foreign Ministry… And this is my friend, Ms. Fukao Minako…”

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

"For the first time..."

To even get half of that out was of course a tremendous struggle for me. What an utterly improbable convergence this was! Fukao Minako? Speaking of Fukao Minako—wasn't that precisely my wife's exact name? Just what kind of day was this turning out to be. On the train, I had encountered a woman who looked exactly like my wife. And that woman had clearly passed through this hotel's entrance. Yet here inside the hotel sat a woman bearing my wife's exact name right before my very eyes.

“This may sound strange, but I know a woman who shares both your family name and given name,” I said in an awkward manner that was particularly ill-timed for a first meeting with a lady.
I have this fatal habit of making unnecessary clumsy remarks whenever struck by a sublime feeling.

“Well, where might this person be from?”
“A young lady?”

“She’s about the same age as you.”
“This is a woman born in Yokohama.”

“I was also born here in ○○-chō, but that person—surely not?...”

"That woman was also born in ○○-chō's Twelfth Block."

“My, what a dreadful man you are—to start teasing me the moment we meet.”
"Ms. Yukiko is quite something too."
"You even went so far as to mention the Twelfth Block regarding my affairs."

“No, I haven’t said anything.”
“Mr. Miura.”
“How strange—you know so much about it, don’t you?”
“Even I had nearly forgotten details like Ms. Minako’s address.”

“No, I know nothing about this person.”
“I truly know another woman named Fukao Minako.”
“But I didn’t think the block number would match too.”
“That woman lost her parents in the earthquake and has such a pitiable background.”
“She’s completely different from this person.”

“But Ms. Fukao also lost her parents in the earthquake and has such a tragic background,” Yukiko said with an amused laugh.

“Moreover, in Twelfth Block there was only my family’s house.”
“Though I hear they’ve since built a bank or something there, completely changing the appearance of the place.”

“Did you not have any sisters?”

“No, I am an only child.”

“It’s said that woman graduated from Santa Maria Women’s Academy.”

“Enough with your jokes—I’d like to hear some other story now, Minako-san.”
“As you say, I am indeed from Santa Maria.”

“Please tell me the truth.”
“I feel like I’m going mad.”
“Yukiko-san，this person has conspired with you to mock me，hasn’t he?”
“I……”

I realized I was being utterly mocked for Yukiko's sake, and resolved to confess everything to escape this agonizing predicament. And he attempted to broach the matter.

At that moment, hurried footsteps came clattering down the corridor, followed by a heavy thud against the door from outside. Yukiko rushed over in panic and threw open the door. At the entrance lay a man in his early fifties wearing a cook's uniform, gasping for breath where he had collapsed.

“Fu—Fukao’s—Young Mistress...is she present here?”
“Ah—thank goodness—it’s the Young Mistress!”
“F-Forgive me…”

While saying this, the man staggered into the room and collapsed prostrate at the feet of the woman who called herself Fukao Minako.

VI

“Who are you?” said the woman addressed as Fukao Minako, maintaining queenly dignity as she drew herself up rigidly yet remained visibly startled.

“I work as the cook at this hotel.”
“Please just listen for ten minutes.”
“I’ll tell you everything—you truly are… You really are the young mistress.”
“You were alive after all.”
“To you, Young Mistress, my face must hold no familiarity.”
“I worked at Young Mistress’s shop in the summer of Taisho 6, but due to a trivial quarrel, I accidentally killed a fellow man and had been in Negishi Prison over there until the time of the earthquake.”
“At the time of the earthquake—though you must know this from the newspapers—that prison resorted to emergency measures and temporarily released its prisoners.”
“I was one of those released.”
“Above all else, I was worried about my only daughter’s safety, so I took refuge on Negishi Hill for about two days. Once the fires subsided, I went straight to where my daughter was in service at a restaurant in Isezakichō.”
“Fortunately, my daughter was safe—after great difficulty, I learned she had evacuated to Kanagawa with others from the shop. So I went there and brought her back……”

“Now please bear with me a little longer and listen,” he said. “Though I say I killed my comrade, it wasn’t done with murderous intent. That it was a mere accident had been acknowledged by the court gentlemen—though you must have heard something of this already, Young Mistress—and I’d been sentenced to eight years’ penal servitude. Had I waited two more years, I would’ve been properly released. But I suppose a demon must’ve possessed me then. I could no longer endure seeing my daughter in such a pitiable, heartrending state—I simply couldn’t bring myself to return to prison again. And amidst all that chaotic uproar, I ultimately managed to remain hidden until now.”

“However, I couldn’t remain a fugitive forever, and no one would employ my daughter as the child of an escaped convict.”
“This left me utterly bewildered.”
“However, I suddenly heard that during that earthquake in Yokohama, both police stations and city hall had their family register ledgers burned, so a proclamation had been issued ordering those under their jurisdiction to promptly submit new household registrations.”
“Therefore, I considered it imperative that first and foremost, I establish a family register for my daughter.”
“It was then that I thought of your household.”
“I spent two or three days making various inquiries around the ruins of your residence, but everyone kept saying, ‘Ms. Fukao’s entire family perished in the earthquake.’”
“Please forgive me—though I knew full well it was wrong, at that time I registered my daughter under Young Mistress’s family registry as it was.”

After thoroughly instructing my daughter to serve at a Tokyo café under the Young Mistress’s name, I myself separately created a family register under an altered name and came to reside at this hotel.
“Before long, my daughter found herself a respectable husband, and for about two years now she had been living comfortably in Tokyo without want.”
“However, it was the day before yesterday.”
“I heard a rumor that Ms.Fukao’s Young Mistress had returned from America and was staying at this hotel.”
I—who had been utterly convinced Young Mistress had perished—was shocked beyond measure when I heard she had suddenly returned from America and was staying at this hotel, to the point where I felt all blood might drain from my body.
“In any case, I thought I must meet my daughter, consult with her, and devise a solution—so I immediately sent a letter to her place...”

"My daughter came here about an hour ago,"
"When I told her this, that honest daughter immediately instructed me: 'Go meet the Young Mistress now and confess everything.'"
"'And go straight to the police to turn yourself in,' she urged—'I intend to do exactly that.'"
"'Please forgive me.'"
"'Young Mistress.'"

"'Let me meet your daughter immediately.'"
"'Your daughter has done nothing wrong... How pitiable...'"

After the elderly cook finished his tale, Minako said this, her eyes filled with tears.
Then the elderly cook,

"When that daughter said that to me, she suddenly plunged a razor into her throat—so it was."

While saying this, he finally could endure no longer—tears spilling forth as he burst into sobs.

“Then, as she lay dying, that daughter begged me to send a telegram at once, saying her husband would be keeping watch at home all day today awaiting her return.”
“My daughter died to make amends to both you, Young Mistress, and her husband.”
“‘There was no other way to atone,’ my daughter declared resolutely, though she was my own flesh and blood.”
“Please, please forgive her for that.”

The elderly cook said while taking out a piece of paper from his breast pocket.

“This is my daughter’s husband’s address.”
“Please, I implore you.”
“Send a telegram here and explain this properly.”
“I will go surrender myself to the police now.”

As I silently listened to these accounts, I could not tell how many times I nearly collapsed from anguish, repentance, self-reproach, and regret.
Despite this, I remained silent and listened to the terrifying confession directed at me—a confession that felt like a death sentence—until its very end.
Ah, those ten minutes felt like a thousand years to me.

Yet when at last this cook tried to hand over the paper scrap bearing my own address and full name to the real Fukao Minako, I instinctively lunged forward, snatched away the document, and shouting “I’ll send the telegram myself!” fled the room—leaving three dumbstruck figures behind.

From then on, I was in a daze as to where or how I had walked.
In a manner akin to a sleepwalker, I somehow found myself returning to my Hongō home after three hours.
The despicableness and cold-bloodedness I showed then—fleeing back without even seeing my wife’s deathly face, all because I couldn’t endure the humiliation of having my own name written on that scrap of paper read aloud before Yukiko and Fukao Minako, exposing my deceptions… Ah, when I think of that, living becomes utterly impossible.

Due to my chronic stomach cramps, I had been regularly taking morphine hydrochloride.
I had ingested a carefully measured dosage slightly exceeding the maximum limit before commencing this writing.

Up until yesterday, I had at least managed to pass as a gentleman, but through this, my utterly repulsive true nature will be completely exposed today.
However, before this exposure occurs, I must eliminate my utterly disgraceful existence from the universe.

Once I finish writing this, I will have no further business in this world.
Well then, I shall lie down on the sofa and quietly proceed to die while conjuring up visions of my wife who met her noble end like a martyr…….