Pathway to Japanese Literature

I Leftist writer Washio Kazuyoshi, who had hurriedly returned from Tokyo to Kumamoto City in southern Kyushu, had already grown thoroughly irritated after just three days—. In the mornings—since his wife had to finish the laundry and he had to mind the children until then—he would set out a bench under the eaves of his family’s candy shop, rocking his third daughter against his chest as he sat motionless in the weak winter sunlight. This had become his routine. This area marked the outermost edge of Kumamoto City—a desolate stretch where manure-cart services, eateries catering to farmers from nearby villages, blacksmiths, bicycle shops, and lumber mills stood scattered along a prefectural road that stretched bleakly toward a cluster of southern Kyushu’s characteristic low-eaved thatched-roof houses huddled tightly in a farming hamlet to the left. Of course, the western side of the prefectural road was nothing but rice fields and cultivated plots—stretching all the way to the foothills of Mount Tatsuta with its blunt, continent-like undulations—and when the dry winter wind blew beneath the low-hanging sky, white dust from the roadside would rise like tornadoes, spiraling as it raced into the distance. The horses vanished, the cloth-wrapped farmers disappeared from sight, and both heaven and earth turned entirely gray—leaving only the dull, monotonous clatter of horse-drawn carts echoing through the void.

Washio looked terribly aged for a man not yet forty. Though he now worked in the unusual profession of writing novels—perhaps owing to his laborer roots—his stubbornly sturdy build appeared deeply exhausted, with white hairs conspicuously visible around his temples. “Last year’s cocoon prices were good, so things must’ve been a bit better for you.”

He turned around and spoke in a deliberately light tone. Then Washio’s sister—rustic-looking as she fried dumplings at the shopfront—responded with what seemed an indignant retort.

“What’re you on about? That wasn’t even worth a damn!”

“Is that so…” “Well, you know—without a war or somethin’, the economy ain’t gonna pick up—” Huh! With that thought, Washio Kazuyoshi glanced at his sister, but she—her bluish-black sunburnt face unperturbed—kept her head bowed as she briskly flipped the dumplings. “So, who’re we gonna fight in this war?”

“Well... that’s how it goes, I tell ya.” Without a moment’s hesitation, she told him about the newly established “Military Horse Procurement Office” in the next hamlet and other matters. This institution manifested far more plainly and concretely than what Washio had known of such things in Tokyo. This miserly, infertile country wife would frequently turn her goosebumped bluish face toward the outdoors. Whenever she spotted farmers leading horses with cloth-wrapped heads or cyclists from the fields, she’d call out in a voice starkly at odds with her pallor—“Won’t you stop for a bite?” or “It’s freezin’ out! Drop by on yer way back!”—but they’d merely tilt their cloth-bound heads slightly and hurry past.—

“Those stingy dirt-farmers won’t even come ’round while they’ve still got New Year’s rice cakes—” At such moments, her bitter tirades carried such frustrated resentment that one might’ve thought tears would spring forth any instant.

Washio regretted having gone to the trouble of scraping together travel expenses to return home. One of his purposes had been his mother’s first memorial service—which he hadn’t even been able to attend before her death—entrusting his aging father to his sister and her husband, and various other responsibilities as the impoverished eldest son; but given his financial helplessness, he’d already concluded that forcing these matters through a letter would have been wiser. On the very evening of his return, when everyone gathered around their father to drink sake together, his sister had already begun subtly laying the groundwork by enumerating their household finances in meticulous detail. The sister’s husband—a carpenter—had a daily wage of one yen (including his own lunch); Washio’s youngest brother Torakichi worked as a boy conductor on Kumamoto City’s suburban trains for seventy sen a day; the youngest sister and their father’s side jobs brought in less than thirty sen; and even the shop’s earnings barely covered the monthly land rent.

“All five of us family’re workin’ our guts out here! What’re we s’posed to do if they take Torakichi for conscription next year?!” “I see… I see…” Washio had given a reply whose meaning even he himself couldn’t fathom. Her husband left early each morning for work, and his youngest brother had a brutal duty schedule of over three hundred twenty hours a month—so since returning home, he still hadn’t had a single proper chance to talk with them. To tell the truth, Washio himself had become unable to understand his own complex present self. Their writers’ group was nearly……………… dissolved, and now, with some fellow writers charging resolutely through the storm ahead of an immensely challenging future, he thought he must lighten his load as much as possible—settling family affairs, resolving karmic ties with his father, even entrusting one or two of his children to others if possible—to follow his comrades no matter what. Yet at the same time, his utterly exhausted mind and body harbored emotions……………… crumbling into an abyss—so much so that even this return home, though undertaken with such proactive plans, felt like a frantic retreat while shouldering an insurmountable chasm he could not leap across.

Calm down, calm down— or You mustn’t panic now— he would scrawl such phrases throughout his diary, screaming them desperately even in the depths of his heart. Yet whenever he came to his senses, he would find himself stiffly staring at some random spot in the oppressive winter sky. “Lately they’ve been sellin’ Nyūmu dirt cheap… bamboo ladles ain’t worth a damn no more……”

The father, doing side work in a corner of the shop’s earthen floor, spoke up. In this area, they made bamboo ladles and chopsticks from the abundant roots of Moso bamboo—awkward and heavy as they were—yet these still sold among the farmers. After being bereaved of his wife, the father—who seemed to have grown severely senile—raised his kind face, now small with wrinkles beneath a headband around his white hair, and spoke. Because he had almost no front teeth, his speech came out in a breathy “Hwaa, hwaa” sound. Using “Sen”—a blade with grips on both sides—he shaved the bamboo bark, and each time it struck a hard node, his withered-branch-like arm quivered like jelly for a moment.

“But y’know… just t’other day, we got an order from ‘Mitsui’—”

“Mitsui?”

I thought he was exaggerating, but upon further questioning, it turned out to be a special order from Mitsui’s dye factory in Ōmuta—apparently for handling “poisonous chemicals,” they said.— “Should’ve taken more of ’em when we had the chance?”

“That can’t be done—there’s a market rate to mind, y’know.” The father—whose nameplate at the eaves read “Washio [surname], Eighth-Class Order”—was a survivor of the Russo-Japanese War, but his left leg, which he sat cross-legged with difficulty, bore a scar from a bullet fragment that had cost him two toes and now glowed a purplish hue. Washio understood well the timid yet foolishly honest—and somewhere stubborn—poor farmer temperament that ran in his blood. For example, this morning too, Washio’s wife—trying to be considerate—took their two grandchildren, whom she was seeing for the first time, somewhere, but soon flared up in anger and turned back midway.

“Grandpa’s such an idiot…”

When she asked the older boy, who was bawling his eyes out, he said Grandpa had struck him along the way. “What’s the matter, Father?” Even when Washio asked, the sullenly angry father came and sat down in his workspace on the earthen floor. “Basically, Tokyo kids are impertinent…” Despite this, whenever he argued with his sister, he would invariably shout—“I’m off to Tokyo folk!”— The sister and father often quarreled even in front of Washio and his wife, but on such occasions she too would adopt a reckless attitude and retort—“Well then, off to wherever you please—”

“Brother, that Masukiya boy’s up and died.”

That sister of his suddenly brought it up as if she'd just remembered something. "Ikida-kun? Why?" "'Twas peritonitis or suchlike—got himself tangled up in... well... for ages, then landed in prison—" Washio jolted and stared at his sister's face. He'd heard through rumors about some great upheaval here but knew nothing concrete until now. Ikida-kun—the pawnshop owner's son who'd visited him two or three times during his last homecoming—had been a quiet youth from their cultural group.

“The public image was bad, so ’twas done quiet-like, see—”

“Only Ikida-kun? What about F-kun?”

“As for the barber’s son—he got himself hauled in for a bit too, seems like.” “And then?” “How should I know? Ain’t even made the papers yet.” When a farmer who had pulled his horse’s muzzle in from outside entered the front of the shop, the sister curtly ended the conversation, looking annoyed. With an irritated expression, Washio walked while jostling the child in his arms and restlessly peered toward the back door. When the sun hid within the low gray clouds, the sunlit patch at his feet vanished completely, and a wind blew coldly over the frozen ground.

“Hey, still dawdlin’ back there?” As if having reached his absolute limit, he bellowed toward his wife at the back door—she still hadn’t finished the laundry.

II

Upon returning home, Washio promptly sent a postcard to the K Police Station.—Having returned due to familial obligations, I hereby notify you of this matter.—

After dropping the postcard into the mailbox, he was surprised to find it felt utterly natural. He was a "legal figure"—there was no reason he should be breaking any laws. However, right around that same time, the police officer arrived.

“Well, well—long time no see.” The bicycle that had come speeding straight along the prefectural road soiled with horse manure drew a circle in front of Washio standing beneath the eaves and stopped. “So this time—it’s the reason, I suppose?” While bringing his bicycle right up to the eaves, the forty-year-old man with a brush-like mustache and a pockmarked, fleshy face sneered maliciously. “It’s Mom’s first anniversary. I did properly notify you, didn’t I?” Washio turned away, but the bicycle man—nodding incomprehensibly—kept darting glances over his shoulder into the house even while lighting his cigarette.

“Since I’ve got my wife and kids with me this time, I’d like you to go easy on me.” Regaining his composure bit by bit, he said with a forced chuckle. “You’re just some two-bit novelist—no call to eye me like I’m your mortal foe.” ……………… The man answered only with a derisive “Hmph”; both stood wordless in the cutting wind until at last he swung his bicycle about. Keeping his wry smile turned aside, he muttered: “Still—you’ll always be this town’s original trailblazer for that sort of thing.”

……………… It was as though his timidity had been jolted back.——

When the bicycle man left, Washio handed the child in his arms to his wife and went out through the back door toward the rice fields. He felt both repulsed by himself and utterly wretched. The winter-withered rice fields had only the barest scattering of wheat sprouts, giving them a sun-scorched, utterly desolate appearance. The earthen bridge with collapsed girders, the stream where water had dried up to expose its riverbed, and the ridge paths crumbling from frost—caught in the teeth of his geta clogs—made each step terribly difficult. At times like this, driven by his worsening neurasthenia, he would walk hurriedly as though rushing to some urgent errand. From between the dried stems of bead-like grass rustling along the stream’s edge—even when a sun-scorched, earth-toned young lark tumbled out as if rolling while emitting faint chirps—he noticed it yet had no mental space to turn and look.

Chasing his perpetually agitated, ceaselessly restless thoughts yet feeling utterly exhausted all the same, he wandered through the desolate field with the vague sense of searching for some place—any place—to sit down and rest. And in the end, there was no such place to be found anywhere. Every ridge path had crumbled; every stretch of riverbank lay jaggedly exposed when approached, its raw flesh scoured by the dry winter wind. Then suddenly realizing this, he hurriedly opened his mouth and let out a hoarse sigh—"Haa." He felt as though he had been holding his breath for hours—tens of hours—until that moment.

“You’re the pioneer of this land”—the words spoken earlier by that man now probed at his restless mind. When he thought about it, had it already been fourteen or fifteen years since he was driven out of this town with its rice fields—back then still a village—for his activism? During that time, Washio had shifted from activism to cultural organizations, yet this inescapable past remained firmly tethered to the present.— Even the “hometown” he had somewhat blurred in his thoughts back in Tokyo now revealed itself as an utter falsehood when confronted like this—a realization that sank in all too late. Even this field—the way the stream meandered, the slope of the rice fields, the riverbank blanketed with hibiscus—had held a hazy sort of childhood nostalgia in his mind, but confronted face-to-face, it all seemed absurd. When Washio first became aware of his surroundings, his parents didn’t even hold tenant fields, and he had grown up as something like a “stepchild” of these rice fields. Whenever he tried to scoop fish from the stream, the farmers would berate him; whenever he searched for lark’s nests, they would chase him around with manure scoops. Such bitter memories kept welling up.—

Recalling someone’s words—“Proletarians have no homeland”—Washio crossed the rice fields with a bitter smile. The hamlet, now interspersed with farmhouses, was filled entirely with unfamiliar faces. Even when he happened to recognize an elderly person and nodded in greeting, they would only stare back with looks of bewilderment. On one side was a bamboo grove, and when he reached the front of a thatched-roof house with exposed mud walls inside a collapsed fence, Washio paced back and forth two or three times. At the entrance, a basket and scales—likely for peddling—were propped up.

After a while, a shrill voice sounded from the sunny spot on the veranda, and a man with a shaved head wearing a dirty splashed-pattern garment—appearing both youthful and aged—emerged. “Idiot! Idiot!...”

With his hands tucked into his sleeves, the stocky man—his neck twisted at an angle—tilted his head back toward the right and skyward, unleashing a terrifying shriek like that of a shrike. "N-kun, N-kun..." Washio removed his hat and called out several times, but seeing no reaction whatsoever, he stood motionless in silence. This man had been a defendant in the March 15 Incident. Though he returned to society as a madman, he'd once worked as a train conductor. Though two or three years Washio's junior and an alumnus of the same elementary school—so that even in this grotesquely altered appearance, he could faintly trace the childhood features—where now could one find the bearing of the man who six or seven years earlier had led Kumamoto City's streetcar dispute...

“N-kun...” When he called louder this time, N-kun—as if somehow noticing—bowed his face toward his feet like someone who had dropped something and began spinning wildly. The sunken cheeks, the slack jaw trailing drool—compared to when he’d last seen him three years prior, Washio could tell he’d grown drastically more emaciated. “Hey, hey...”

From inside the house emerged a girl of about six, clad in oversized wooden clogs and sniffling back her runny nose. And suddenly, as if hauling goods, she planted both hands on the madman’s back and began shoving him forcefully toward the house— “You… you…” When he called out to the girl—likely his sister or niece—her crimson hair, vivid as a red spider lily, whirled about as she turned. With fierce indignation twisting her face, she thrust out her tongue at him.

She must have mistaken Washio for someone else. The madman, pushed and staggering unsteadily, nevertheless obediently made his way into the house. Washio began walking hurriedly again.—

III

Washio would sometimes read books from early morning in the wind-blown room facing the rice fields at the back. They were dense books related to social sciences, and with his weakened and agitated mind, they proved stubbornly difficult to penetrate. So he tried frantically underlining passages, and when that didn’t work, he would read a single section over and over in a loud voice. As he did so, his mind would gradually calm down, a raw, grainy taste would emerge, his momentum would wane, until eventually a dim brightness would settle in—but today, even that proved futile.

Last night, he was again assailed by severe obsessive thoughts. It was an utterly trivial yet shameful dream—one he had never spoken of to anyone—but in its worst moments, the events of the dream would cling stubbornly to his mind for a day or two, vividly etched. Even now, it occupied the greater part of his brain and still could not be repelled. Last night’s dream had even included the face of the detective who came during the day, presenting a wretchedly defeated version of himself— At such times, he would sit bolt upright on the futon, drenched in sweat. And he peered restlessly around the depths of the dim darkness. The children sleeping rolled up like potato tubers; the wife and baby, exhausted and collapsed in disheveled sleep… He would try turning on the light and taking deep breaths; he would try smoking a cigarette—but gripped by a terrifyingly unmoored anxiety, he would end up shaking his wife awake.

“What…?” But she was exhausted; her words trailed off into sleep almost immediately— “You had another nightmare again, didn’t you…—” And he would be left alone in the darkness, tossing and turning until dawn, yet in his heart—now strangely fragile—even the works he had written in the past began to feel as though they were the deeds of another.... When dawn broke and he mingled among people, he could regain an active resolve to combat this illness; but lately, as it worsened and he began to realize this malady was directly tied to the current dark circumstances, terror would seize him, and he would start flailing about as though set aflame.

The best medicine for this illness is scientific conviction. I think it requires unclouded eyes and a stance braced against the current, but even now, for instance, though my eyes alone race across the printed characters, they simply skim over the surface.

“Hey, someone’s calling you.” “Wh-where…?” Alerted by his wife nursing their child behind him, he looked out the window and saw a pale, emaciated young man pacing along the rice field’s edge. Wearing a brown scarf and an old coat with a hunched back, he initially resembled an elderly man… “Oh—M-kun!” “Yes…it’s been ages…” Terribly gaunt, M-kun pressed his elongated face against the windowpane and smiled faintly before gesturing “one moment” with his hand and withdrawing toward the fields.

Washio threw on his cloak and went out through the back door to the rice fields. Joining him on a sparsely frequented embankment, they began walking along the footpath toward Ryūtasan.—

“You… were you alright?” “Well, I’ve been bedridden since last summer continuously through…” M-kun laughed in the bold manner characteristic of this region’s people, mixing standard Japanese with the local dialect and lacing it with self-deprecation.

He had been a theater club member since his days in the Faculty of Liberal Arts at H University in Tokyo, but two years ago his lungs worsened and he returned to his hometown, after which he had worked continuously as a branch member of a cultural organization. “It must have been tough.” When Washio said this, the other man sharply raised his sunken cheekbones as if to interrupt. “Well, there are still some scattered around, you know,” he said. As they walked along the path, even hearing M-kun’s excited, trembling words in fragmented bursts, he understood that it was………………. It felt as though……………….

“Of course, quite a few folks have come out now, but…”

M-kun would cough violently whenever hit by the wind. Yet even when urged to take shelter inside a house or under a tree’s shade, he refused. As if driven by something, he climbed the mountain path—and when his agitation peaked, his sunken eyes gleamed fearfully.

When we came to our senses, we had somehow reached the summit of Ryutasan. Though a low mountain, it must have been nearly a ri from Washio’s house. A slightly flattened area had been fashioned into something park-like, and from there spread out the tree-filled streets of Kumamoto City—this agricultural metropolis—in a single sweeping view. Even when names were mentioned, most were young people Washio didn’t recognize, but among those he did know, there were many stories—like Ikida-kun, who had fallen gravely ill and died soon after emerging, or H-kun’s family left destitute on the streets.

“That’s right—this here’s Ikida-kun’s debut work, you see.” “You’ve been reading it for me, so I’ve kept it safe.”

M-kun, who had settled himself at the base of a pine tree and was calming his breathing, as if remembering something rustled through the pockets of his old coat, pulled out a small compactly bound manuscript, and handed it to Washio. "A debut work... and a final one........" While recalling the pale delicate face of Ikida-kun—who had been a banker—he turned the pages of the manuscript. The title was "A Boring Town"—a sketch of this town soiled by horse dung—but it remained an unpolished work.

M-kun, supporting his knees, let his emaciated hands hang limply atop them, opened his mouth as though gasping for air, and stared fixedly at his feet. He spoke sparingly about the complete destruction of their “circle” and those who had recanted, then fell silent. Even when Washio spoke of similar circumstances in Tokyo, he gave no sign of agreement, his dark expression suggesting he was preoccupied with other thoughts. “Well, calm yourself now, eh?”

“……”

“In times like these, you just end up thinking such trivial things—no, really.” To Washio, it felt as though he could understand this young man’s cornered state of mind. “……This isn’t the first time, you know.” “It’s happened many times before.—And you’re sick, aren’t you? Calm down and first get yourself healed…”

“Huh—”

“We must always stay healthy. Only a sound mind can... make proper judgments. Calm yourself now—calm yourself.” Even as he spoke, Washio suddenly realized he was convincing himself of this, and felt his face flush— The gray winter sky—utterly devoid of sunlight since morning—had sunk ever lower, while a fierce dry wind gusting up from below swayed the giant red-barked pine tree where they sat.

The two had begun descending the mountain path when M-kun—now seeming somewhat recovered—spoke up. “—Y’know ’bout Takenaga Aiko though?” “The one from th’town’s rice shop—”

“Takenaga Aiko?”

Washio couldn’t immediately recall the name, but at the other man’s next words, he stopped in his tracks. “You were in service, weren’t ya…”

“Ah, that girl from the rice shop…” Speaking of Aiko, when Washio was a child working as an errand boy, she had been the baby he often carried on his back who would pee on him. Only the fair-skinned, plump, chubby face of infancy remained in memory…….

“This time…she was arrested, y’see.”

“What? That girl?!” Not knowing what to say, he suddenly felt his body grow hot—Huh! Huh! he repeated. M-kun spoke haltingly about how she’d worked as a clerk at K Electric Company after finishing girls’ school, and how she’d already recanted and returned to society.

“I’d like to meet her.” “The family’s being real strict—isn’t no way.” “Is that so…” Absentmindedly, he continued down the slope, lost in old memories. That baby who’d peed on him had read his novel. And now she was walking a higher path than himself—it felt like some dream. “Wait—” When he suddenly noticed, M-kun—who’d been glancing back repeatedly since earlier—hurriedly pressed his body against the shade of a tree on one side.

“What…?” “Yeah, seems that way.” Sure enough, about twenty ken behind them, among the stand of pine trees flickered a brown hat and a black overcoat with its collar turned up—though the face remained unseen—and it seemed the same figure had indeed been walking behind them as they ascended. “Well then, I’ll come see you again.”

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

Suddenly quickening their pace, the two parted ways on a small path near the foot of the mountain. Washio did not look back even once along the way, but when he reached home and—though thinking it unlikely—looked behind him, he was startled. The black overcoat half-hidden in the lumberyard was staring this way with a casual air. The still-young, round-faced, vulgar Waniguchi was now clearly visible from this side as well.

IV Since returning home, Washio had attempted multiple times to work on the novel he had planned as far back as two months prior. After putting the children to bed, he would lower the lamp to a corner of the room and sit there night after night, freezing to his fingertips—but it was no use. The characters that surfaced within his desiccated prose lacked both vitality and passion. And when he finally realized it lay in his own attitude as the author—in this wavering state of mind—he slammed against the wall as if physically struck, clutched the pen like a talon, and while making the manuscript paper crackle with sharp motions, scrawled: *You coward, you hypocrite, this fraud who’s dragged along by both children and parents—!*

Yet almost immediately, his spirits sank, and on days like the one after M-kun’s visit, he didn’t even step outside all day. As was his habit... he tidied away even his books and manuscripts, then sat vacantly in the sunny spot beneath the eaves. Was there some military exercise happening somewhere? Since morning, soldiers had been streaming along the prefectural road toward the farming villages. All of them had green and yellow gradient-dyed nets crowning their heads and were hauling machine guns in groups of two or three. They were laden with backpacks, ammunition belts, daggers, rifles, yellow steel helmets, and other equipment unfamiliar to Washio—so much so that it seemed merely walking had become an arduous task for infantrymen these days.

As a group of infantrymen passed by, their lower bodies concealed in billowing clouds of dust, soon a transport unit’s formation rumbled through, shaking the houses along the town with their heavy ammunition carts. The horses exhaled steam-like breath, and the soldiers were already drenched in sweat as if doused with water. Intense angry voices could be heard as a galloping dispatch rider, frothing at the mouth, rushed past at full speed.…

At such moments, Washio unconsciously held his breath. In the face of this intimidating spectacle, he found himself unconsciously clutching the baby against his chest. — The whirl of white dust gradually receded, and after a considerable delay, three or four men who appeared to be commanders… passed by, swaying quietly atop their horses while echoing with laughter—whereupon the horse-drawn carts and farmers who had until now taken shelter beneath eaves and along the roadside began to stir as if relieved.

“What’s that over there?” Washio Kazuyoshi asked his sister, who was sticking her head out from behind the dango roasting pot. Peasant women loaded handcarts with white rice and hung baskets from balance scales filled with miso and vegetables—among them mingled young women trailing red flannel sashes—passing in groups each morning as they always did.

“Oh, that… they’re headin’ into town to sell their goods, see.” “Lately, even the well-off farmers ain’t got no cash, I tell ya…” The wives of impoverished peasants—not the well-off ones—with nothing to sell would come in groups to work as day laborers come evening. They’d approach Washio’s house beneath the eaves, shaking babies strapped to their backs who’d cried themselves hoarse over and over. With a copper coin or two, they’d buy dango to hush the infants before trudging back along the darkened prefectural road.

Along the earthen embankment running beside the prefectural road passed the suburban train where Washio’s youngest brothers worked—it came approximately once every hour. The faded red train with peeling paint rattled unsteadily as it moved, perpetually empty. When Washio stood beneath the eaves, his younger brother’s round face—flushed crimson from the cold—would jut out from the conductor’s cab. With a shout of “Hey!”, he would hurl his emptied lunchbox toward the roadside as the train clattered past. Passing by again and again—that hollow train—the farmers trudged over rusted railroad ties. Old buzzards in straw sandals, students bound for city schools, peddlers shouldering bulky bundles—all such figures kept walking while glowering sullenly at the departing train.

“This depression… shows no sign of improving anytime soon, huh…” That night, unusually, his brother-in-law the carpenter had returned home early, so Washio began talking about such matters while drinking with their father. “To begin with, no matter where you look in the capitalist countries of the world, they say there’s nothing that could lead to an economic recovery.” “Haa, so that’s how it is…” The carpenter, already glassy-eyed from a couple of drinks, clumsily received the offered cup with both large hands aligned and gave a vague reply.

Washio, fueled by alcohol among other things, spoke about social conditions and recent events. Though Washio was accustomed to adjusting his explanations to match his listeners’ level of understanding in such situations, tonight he rambled on with intense subjectivity, heedless of his audience. Whether they understood or not—the carpenter who usually fell fast asleep right after finishing his meals, and his father clutching his chilled cup in solitary silence—both stared vacantly at his face with their mouths hanging open.

“Given these times, everyone’s suffering. “Even novelists like us—those who stand with the workers—find it far from easy. And things will only get worse from here—” Before he knew it, the societal discussion had shifted to his personal circumstances, though Washio Kazuyoshi had not particularly intended this. “As for my father’s situation—as the eldest son, I’m constantly worried about it too. It’s not like I feel the least bit at ease about leaving him to you all…”

Beside them, his sister—who had been eating her meal in sullen silence—clattered the lid of the rice tub shut at that moment, stood up, and headed toward the kitchen. Washio, his head muddled with drink, sensed this keenly but said nothing.

“Well, seein’ as we ain’t got no young’uns yet, tendin’ to just Father alone ain’t no hardship…”

The good-natured carpenter said this to Washio without any particular mediatory expression. “Since you’re the scholar among us, Brother-in-law, why don’tcha go ahead and put your name forward for all us brothers.”

“Thank you—”

Washio was beyond even a bitter smile as he answered with solemnity, accepting the offered cup.

“Sure, I’ll represent you all and put my name forward.”

Yet the father sat hunched and forlorn, shoulders drawn up as if in loneliness. By force of habit during such moments, he would vacantly stare at some part of his averted face, appearing almost childlike. Washio felt he couldn't help but blurt out some flippant remark. "And you know, Father, elderly folks just can't settle down in Tokyo." He said while keeping his eyes on the wrinkled profile and recalling those facts.

“In wealthy households it’s different, but in poor people’s factory towns, not even a single blade of green grass can grow properly.” “Houses are crammed together—the sun doesn’t reach—and old folks can’t even have their tea-time chats—” “Yeah, s’pose that’s how ’tis…” From beside them, the carpenter chimed in with a nod. Washio spoke of actual examples involving friends from his factory days—K and M. K was a printing worker who had brought his elderly parents to Tokyo after his siblings in the countryside died, but within less than half a year—even his father with failing eyesight and mother whose hearing had grown distant—they began longing for their rural soil. Even when scolded by their son K, they would quietly pluck weeds from the embankment of the nearby government railway and plant them at the three-foot-wide alley entrance beneath the eaves—where no sunlight reached—gazing up through the overhang at an invisible sun. K had once recounted this to Washio while removing his glasses and wiping away tears.—

“Actually, that kind of thing’s downright common in Tokyo’s factory towns.” “Long as the countryside keeps scraping by, poor old folks don’t come to Tokyo—it’s the truth, Father—” Washio peered at his father’s face gradually bowing downward as if being scolded. “Young’uns grow quick in Tokyo—’cause they can turn proletarian.” “But old farmers—right down to their marrow—they just can’t cut it.” The old man merely sniffed and scrubbed at his nose once, still saying nothing. Carried away by his own momentum, Washio reached for his sake cup with detached resignation, but the liquor had gone cold and bitter.

When he noticed, his emotions were completely agitated again, and his mind—which had just begun to clear—throbbed dully. The carpenter, exhausted from the day’s labor, fell asleep leaning against the dining table, and Washio, as usual, went to the kitchen to prepare a water pillow, then lay down beside the children—but sleep seemed impossible.――

In the neighboring room with torn fusuma sliding doors, a lamp seemed to have been lit before their deceased mother’s memorial tablet—yellow light seeped through. Then, with two clangs of a bell, the hoarse voice of his father reciting the “odaimoku” Buddhist chant could be heard.——

V

An oppressive winter sky persisted day after day. His head felt as if encased in an iron helmet, while his unsupported lower abdomen gasped in ragged bursts—toka, toka—as though perpetually pursued by something. Unable to settle even in the cold house, he would rush out toward the rice fields, but every ridge path and embankment road soon led to dead ends, and after thirty minutes he’d hurry back as if having forgotten something. Characteristic of Southern Kyushu, it wasn’t as cold as Tokyo, but the continental climate changes were drastic. Just when a faint sunlight seemed to seep through, in the blink of an eye the entire field would turn pitch dark. From beyond the distant mountain-like hills, gray clouds barreled down violently alongside a moist-laden dry winter wind that roared and howled as it assaulted the land.

“Hey, apply the moxa…” When he moved to the edge of the veranda and stripped to his undershirt, his wife emerged from the kitchen as usual, wiping her wet hands as she approached.

“Just how much longer are you planning to stay here?” She held up the incense stick’s flame while scrutinizing her husband’s expression and voicing complaints, but Washio kept his eyes shut, straining his lower abdomen with all his might.

“Even though I’m dutifully contributing to the food expenses, they treat me like some freeloader snapping at me. I’d sooner beg in Tokyo than endure this!”

………… “Last night too,your sister was shouting at the top of her lungs that three *sho* of rice disappear every single day.” “Ah，ouch… Just stop it already.”

Washio went outside again. However, he couldn’t even bring himself to visit the people he wanted to see, and during this homecoming, those who came to call on him had dwindled to almost none. The world felt suffocatingly small.— Throughout the day, he made two or three round trips through the dreary town—its streets clattering with night-soil carts and horse-drawn wagons, its single thoroughfare fouled by horse dung. The building fronts stood wildly uneven, laying bare the economic depression here too. A yellowed “For Sale” notice clung to the white walls of a large grain merchant, weathered by rain and wind; the signboard of a clock shop that had thrived during Washio’s earlier years in these parts now tilted precariously, threatening to drag down the eaves with it. The Takenaga Rice Shop at the town’s center bore no resemblance to its appearance from his apprentice days—the storehouse walls had crumbled away, and the characters on the noren hanging from low eaves had faded beyond recognition. Washio peered into shopfronts during his walks but found no girl matching that description.

“Hey F, it’s me…” When he pressed his face against the glass door marked “○○ Barbershop” in red paint and peered inside, a man around his age in a white work uniform—who had been reading a shogi manual—looked over at him with apparent reluctance through the book, but upon finally recognizing him, said, “Oh.” “Cold, isn’t it…”

When he entered inside, F neither asked when he had returned nor mentioned how long it had been. With a beard unbecoming of his profession and listless eyes, he cast a glance at Washio and then fell silent. F was originally a childhood friend of Washio’s from their elementary school days, a man who had defected from his old Tolstoyan beliefs. He had never been one to take the lead, but he could not help but be shocked by this nihilistic transformation. His inherently reticent nature—as though he’d even discarded himself—now revealed its edge with chilling sharpness.

“Weren’t you done in too?”

“Hmph…”

He smiled wryly as if to say it was pointless, then fell silent. Even when Washio inquired about his circumstances, F-kun would only respond with vague utterances like “Hmm” or “Yeah,” then immediately flip over onto his back along with his shogi book. “How’s business?” “Not so good…” At the storefront, slippers lay overturned, and an old-fashioned mirror with peeling lacquer glowed dully, as if clouded.

When his sturdy, local-looking wife brought tea, F-kun heaved himself up with a groan, blinked his sleepy eyes a few times, and suddenly spoke as if discussing strangers. “Heard O-kun’s turned into a National Socialist now.” “O-kun?!” When Washio, startled, looked at him, F-kun burst into a “Wahaha” laugh. “When I met ’em t’other day in [Town Name], heard he’s workin’ for that gangster paper *[Mountain Name]* now—and get this, he says if you start spoutin’ nonsense this time, he’ll cut you down! Scary stuff, eh—”

F kept guffawing uncontrollably, but when a customer’s face appeared at the storefront just then, he reluctantly began to rise. “From what you’ve seen, how d’you reckon things’ll go for us from here on, eh?” When asked in a low voice, the other man answered in a loud, emotionless tone while slowly fastening the ties of his white work apron.

“Well, how things’ll turn out… we haven’t got a damn clue.” Then, as if having already forgotten everything else, they began making small talk—the two of them—.

He went outside to find the sky threatening sleet at any moment. As he walked beneath the eaves and reached Takenaga Rice Shop, the portly old man with a ruddy face—his balding white head tilted back as he glared at the sky—suddenly turned toward him. "Is that you, Master? It's been..." Meeting his former employer from apprentice days still left an unpleasant taste. The bald-headed man flusteredly ducked his head, scrutinizing him up and down before letting out a shrill cry of recognition.

“Kazuyoshi! Well, if it isn’t you!”

The old man called out to him in the same tone he’d used twenty years prior, then creased his face into wrinkles deep enough to bury his small, triangular eyes. “Ain’t you been up in Tokyo? Hmm—up there in Tokyo, the economy’s doin’ just fine, eh?” “What’re you on about? It’s just as bad there.” Washio too, slipping into country dialect, stepped into the shopfront. Grains and sundries lay in disarray, while at the counter, the same small lattice as of old glinted darkly. “You’re still in good health too, Master.”

“Nah, ain’t like the old days no more.” The short-tempered, work-driven old man remained as restless as ever, repeatedly rising during lulls in conversation to berate his apprentice. In the dim earthen-floored area, men in rice bran-dusted marked work coats labored just as Washio had done in his youth. As he scanned the scene, he quietly peered beyond the counter lattice and saw a slender twenty-two- or twenty-three-year-old girl with her hair done up in a bun or shimada-style updo, doing needlework—but he couldn’t quite place her.

“Aiko, bring us some tea…”

When the old man called, the aforementioned girl stood up and curtly approached, carrying a tea tray. “Huh… So you’re A-chan?” Seeing the girl slightly turn her face away, Washio found himself staring intently at her. Not a trace remained of her plump childhood face; she had grown into a sturdy-boned young woman. While immediately sensing lingering traces of something unsettling—a dark, thorny intensity that spoke of no ordinary life—in the pallid, angular jawline and the worn shoulders beneath the merino haori…

“My, how you’ve grown—really—” The words came out naturally. “What’s she got ’cept years on ’er—last year I finally managed to get ’er hitched, see…” “Huh?” “I ain’t gonna rest easy till we get her married off, I tell ya.” “Huh, she’s getting married?” Washio feigned ignorance while darting repeated glances at the girl. With her back turned and both hands thrust under her arms, she stared vacantly into space.—

The master talked about how his elder daughter already had two grandchildren, how the mistress was constantly going over there, and something about Tokyo… All while keeping up such chatter, he kept heading off toward the rice mill, looking busy as ever.

“I’m Washio Kazuyoshi!”

When he said that seizing an opening, the girl’s face—as if startled into awareness—turned toward him. Her small, narrow eyes perched atop cheeks as white as her father’s flickered with such pitiful anxiety that they flushed crimson in an instant, but she gradually lowered her heavy-looking head.— “I heard you worked at the electric company.” “Yes…………” “That must have been hard.” The girl nodded in a low voice while fiddling with the edge of her apron, but upon returning there, she abruptly turned to face away.

“What in blazes’re you doin’ up in Tokyo?” “Yes, I’m a factory hand.”

Washio gave perfunctory replies while seeking an opportunity to say one more thing to the girl, but first she crouched in the shadow of the small lattice, then stood facing away by the Buddhist altar in the back—until rough footsteps echoed, and he saw her figure darting up from the engawa toward the ladder-like stairs to the second floor as though unable to endure staying any longer.

――

He borrowed a bamboo umbrella and stepped out, but the sleet had already stopped, leaving hail faintly whitening the frozen ground. Taking a shortcut through the back alleys and rice field paths, he thought that the girl must surely be breaking down in tears just like that.

Along the prefectural road, scattered lights began to appear in the sparse houses, and it was already dark underfoot. When the wind roaring across the whole expanse of fields struck him head-on, his breath felt stifled. A dull gray evening sky, fields engulfed in thick darkness—everything suffocated—how could anyone imagine “spring” lying hidden anywhere within this ghastly scenery?!

Washio suddenly wanted to return to Tokyo. His breath felt stifled, and he began to feel he couldn’t endure even a single day more.

Six He truly felt like a leaf caught in a whirlwind. Furious at himself for this precariousness—like hopping on one leg—he found that even yesterday's carefully laid plans had now vanished without a trace. Having fled back from Tokyo in a fluster, he now felt himself swinging back like a clock's pendulum—without any resolution or prospect.

He had moved up his late mother’s first memorial anniversary by half a month, completed only the formalities, and packed his junk-like luggage—but on departure’s eve, his eldest boy came down with scarlet fever. The child—who had caught a cold three or four days earlier and seemed likely to recover completely by the departure date as usual through reliance on patent medicine—around the third day saw his fever suddenly spike, with red spots erupting all over from limbs to neck. When ordered into the isolation ward by a town doctor judging it “genuine,” his wife cursed foully—as if every inconvenience were entirely the child’s fault.—

“You idiot, catching such a terrible disease…” To the derelict isolation ward at the foothills of Ryūtasan—a place resembling an abandoned house—Washio loaded futons, buckets, and other supplies onto a handcart and accompanied them. In the filthy room—with straw protruding from the tatami and bamboo leaves peeking through gaps in the crumbling mud walls—where he laid his son, Washio spent each day reading only the newspapers and eating the bento boxes his family packed for him, feeling exactly as he had when confined in a detention cell.

The child grew increasingly emaciated—even when holding him over the bedpan, one could tell by the feel of his body—but around the tenth day, the red spots began fading little by little, and his withered skin started peeling off like powder all over. “Daddy…” In the middle of the night, Washio was awakened by the patient and jerked upright. He was drenched in sweat all over, and a terrifyingly vivid dream still flickered before his eyes. “I need to pee…”

“There, there.” Washio stared intently at his son’s sunken, listless eyes and swollen head as if in a dreamlike trance before finally managing to lift him up. The child released a small stream of yellow urine into the bedpan and parted his white, parched lips when laid back down: “Water...” “Done?”

As he spoon-fed him, the sick child nodded while sucking eagerly like a goldfish. “When I get better, we’re going back to Tokyo, right?” “Ah, so that’s why you need to get better soon.” When he covered him with the blanket, the child fell silent and faintly closed his eyes. As he stared fixedly at his son’s bluish withered chin and the emaciated nostrils twitching with each faint breath, Washio suddenly felt a chill and hastily pulled on his padded kimono.

He no longer felt like sleeping. Stoking the dying embers in the brazier with charcoal, he listened to the wind rattling the eaves and what sounded like a second rooster crowing from a nearby hamlet.— ...That landscape was certainly reminiscent of the rice fields of his hometown, yet also bore resemblance to the vacant lots around N in Tokyo’s outskirts. It was as dark as evening, and the wind roared and howled. Ahead walked fellow writers who should have been imprisoned—N and T—and then from last year……………K; he could only see their retreating figures. He felt he had to catch up to them, but the wind raged so fiercely he couldn’t run at all. Even when he thrashed about, his legs kept circling the same spot. When he came to his senses, his comrades were nowhere to be seen—he stood alone on a vast plain. “Hey—” came a call from far in the distance. He shouted “Hey—” in return, but the voice ahead grew fainter, and before he knew it, a swarming crowd of humans with terrifying bovine or equine faces had surrounded him. Their visages matched the demons from the “hellish paintings” Washio had often seen at temples as a child.—“Hey—just ditch the kid already!” someone yelled. He resolved to do exactly that. As he tried to wrench free from the child’s hand and run, emaciated children who should have been dead kept tumbling ahead to block his path. The rubber-booted feet of his eldest boy and the spider-like buttocks of his third daughter—still swaddled—tumbled away like windblown scraps of paper—. That was the dream.

To shake off the tedious drowsiness, Washio Kazuyoshi tapped his own head and drank two or three cups of hot water. And he flipped through a few pages of the books he’d brought from home, but none of it registered in his eyes or mind. The sick child’s parched lips moved unconsciously, gaping open and closed—he could see it...

"How about it? You coward…"

Someone was whispering near his ear. "Having parents and children isn't something only you deal with." "I know that..." Another voice within him answered painfully.

"Can't you make up your mind? How about it?!" “…………” He remained seated through both the third and fourth rooster crows. He watched as the charcoal in the brazier turned to white ash, and the last small red flame flickered out. Even as the wind gradually quieted and the dim light of dawn streamed through cracks in the mud walls, Washio remained seated, still staring fixedly at nothingness.—

“Hey— Brother…”

When he came to his senses, there was his youngest brother Torakichi—his round face grinning as he peered through the window with a youthful voice, the yellow dawnlight bathing his back.

“I’ve brought’cha lunch…”

The entrance apparently being blocked, the young man wearing a boy conductor’s uniform came in through the window with a spirited “Heave-ho!” “What’s up with you today?” The youngest brother, bringing lunch for the first time, made his usually cheerful face grin even more and sat down with his rounded knees neatly together in front of his brother. “It’s my day off—my once-a-month day off!” ……Alas, poor young conductor—” he sang toward the end, setting down the lunchbox with a clatter and laughing without any trace of pity. Peering at the sick child’s face to speak to him, then producing a “picture book” from the torn pocket of his trousers—the entire grimy room suddenly brightened, leaving Washio flustered and darting his gaze about in bewilderment.

“That was unfortunate—you could’ve waited a bit longer to eat…”

As he said this, his buoyant voice rang out, and he spun around sharply.— "You’re always joking around—who sleeps on their day off?" "Ahaha, right you are, right you are." Recalling his factory days, Washio laughed too. "Today I read lecture notes till noon, then hit the barber’s, took a bath, caught some moving pictures…" The young man with a flat nose and puffy red cheeks—having spread his palm when five fingers proved insufficient for counting—launched into speech again.

“Um, could ya listen to me talk about ‘Russia’s Five-Year Plan’? We comrades got into a tiff over that very thing.”

“What? What do you mean, ‘having a tiff’?” His younger brother explained how within their comrades’ mutual aid society, one faction favored a journalistic approach… while the other opposed it, creating conflict. He served as secretary of that mutual aid society’s youth division. While Washio concluded his explanation using only what he knew, the young man listened intently—picking at the hole in his torn trousers while darting his round dove-like eyes about—but after obstinately repeating questions, finally declared “Alrighty.”

“Look sharp—tomorrow I’ll pound that bastard proper, see—”

In this young man, there was not a trace of worry. One moment he would be singing the newly created military song of the XXth Regiment in high spirits, and the next he would speak with startling clarity about class issues. What astonished Washio was that this young man showed not a trace of leftist posturing—and yet this absence felt utterly natural. And yet he knew everything. If asked by his brother, he could explain their working conditions with striking clarity—for instance, how the train schedule had been drastically intensified; how he’d already worked five years and was no longer a boy, yet still earned 70 sen a day; how nowadays, with fewer shift replacements, they had to eat their lunches standing rigid at the conductor’s platform once daily—and even about incidents occurring locally…………… he knew them all with astonishing thoroughness.

“So, it’s that bad—and your mutual aid society’s just staying silent?”

When he said this, his younger brother replied without flinching: “Yeah, we’re just keepin’ quiet.” he answered. "Lectures on Electrical Engineering" protruded from the pocket of his worn uniform collar, where brown single-lidded eyes blinked with carefree languor. He felt strange. He thought this guy might be a bit of a scatterbrain too. Yet if questioned, he would answer with astonishing criticality. For example, he answered that among the employees belonging to their mutual aid society, up to fifty percent were wavering, twenty percent were reactionaries, another twenty percent were nihilists who had grown weary of the world, and the remaining ten percent were earnest members—though not proactive ones. He said even that ten percent were just powerless youths among the employees. The critique was objective to the point of ruthlessness, yet this young man himself showed not the slightest trace of pessimism. He seemed irritatingly calm.

“But if you just sit around being vague, won’t the number of earnest members keep dwindling?”

When Washio pressed him, something frighteningly aged seemed to flash momentarily through those innocently smiling eyes. "But you can’t wage a war you’re gonna lose…" Washio started. Beginning to panic as if his weak spot had been pierced while surging forward with devouring intensity,

“Can you know the outcome before fighting? Can you wage war fearing sacrifice—?” He launched into a rapid speech. Though inwardly growing uncertain, roused by his own words, he enumerated objective circumstances and countless tragic sacrifices—but when the other’s face shifted from bewildered confusion to dissolving into laughter, Washio choked mid-sentence as though struck dizzy. —— “Ain’t no use talkin’ ’bout such impossible stuff…”

“Impossible?” The more the other’s laughter continued, the more Washio panicked. The panic intensified until he could no longer remain still. The young conductor scratched his shaven head somewhat sheepishly, but there was something immovable hidden in his demeanor—something no lever could budge—and Washio abruptly rose to his feet.

“I-I’m just going out for a walk—hold down the fort.” “Sure thing.”

Washio was in such a panic that he couldn’t manage to get his feet into the wooden clogs by the entrance. “Impossible? What does ‘impossible’ mean?”

When he stepped outside, Torakichi’s youthful voice reading a picture book to the children reached his ears.—“And so, the lazy superior private…”

What audacity! What audacity these laborers possessed!! Staring at the frost pillars crumbling with a crackling sound beneath his feet in the yellow morning light, Washio stood frozen in stupefaction.—

VII

When the eldest boy was discharged from the hospital, the Washio family immediately departed for Tokyo. After making his wife and children sit in a corner of the crowded third-class carriage, Washio remained standing almost the entire time. The boy, still not fully recovered, was laboriously dangling his emaciated shins from the seat. “Well, stay healthy… Bye now, bye now!” Torakichi, who had carried their luggage into the train car, kept poking his round smiling face through the window to mess around with the children until the train began to move. Father stood vacantly a little distance away.

“Father, well—”

When Washio leaned out, his father hurriedly took a step or two forward with a flustered “H-hai,” staring blankly… Washio found himself utterly at a loss for words. He thought this would likely be his final parting with his father—who had grown so severely senile—yet no trace of sorrow stirred within him. Washio blinked his awkward-looking eyes; his father remained gaping with mouth agape; and the train began to move—. Around Orio Station on the Kyushu Line, darkness had already fallen. While scolding children who inevitably grew restless at duskfall—her face pallid from what might have been motion sickness—his wife nursed their third child as she carried their fourth.

“I’ll write at my own pace and raise the kids—”

Washio repeated these words many times. Even a coward like me—surely even I have my own way to be useful, right? And the wife watched with a look that seemed both comprehending and uncomprehending as a bright smile—like sunlight peeking through clouds—escaped around his starkly prominent white hair and sharply angular cheeks.

“K, M, K·T are of course great, but I’m not someone to be cast aside either!” “…………?” Washio, who had spread newspaper over the dirty space between seats and sat down, drank from the small bottle of liquor the carpenter’s brother-in-law had given him as a farewell gift and monologued. While recalling numerous experiences from his past, he explained to his wife how a labor union operated and how disputes were conducted. …that victory became possible only when all sorts of people fully unleashed their distinctive traits…

“A worker like me turning into an idealist without even noticing—no joke here. Old as I may be, Washio Kazuyoshi’s just getting started!” When the train reached Moji, his wife carried one child on her back while leading two others by hand, and Washio crossed the pier shouldering three or four small pieces of luggage like a redcap porter. As the huge box-like ferry began moving, Shimonoseki’s long platforms and dark buildings soon came into view ahead. The strait’s fierce currents churned with black waves—even through the rocking of that massive floating box, he felt their turbulence directly in his body.

Fourteen or fifteen years ago, when he had been driven from his hometown and departed for Tokyo, he recalled the time he first crossed there. Clad in a single unlined kasuri-patterned garment with two days’ worth of rice balls tied at his waist, the country youth had clutched this deck’s railing and… sung. When they disembarked onto the opposite platform, at the ticket gate marked “Korea/Busan-bound” stood…………………………………………………… Around the dim waiting area, clusters had gathered here and there—people who seemed to have just left their hometowns—crowded together. Men with crown-like hats and long hair, young women whose beautiful peach-colored robes hung disheveled as if worn out from travel, sat perched on luggage eating bananas.

From the opposite platform, a group that seemed to have disembarked from a train…… passed by. They all wore winter coats and walked with heavy steps…… Their low voices lacked any of the lightheartedness typical of ordinary times…… creating a suffocating atmosphere. This transfer station was always razor-tight with tension. On the platform stretching three or four blocks—where the Tokyo-bound train loomed in the distance—right before the noses of seeing-off crowds, a cluster of men stared unapologetically at the passengers. Cold eyes glinting intermittently from beneath Homburg hat brims, young modern-boy types lurking behind iron pillars casting thin smiles at each traveler……

From halfway down the platform, Washio—jostled among people scrambling to get ahead—dashed forward flushed red with exertion, but a man suddenly emerging from the side grabbed his shoulder, nearly sending him tumbling.—

“You, you—where are you going?” “T-Tokyo.” Startled into hoarseness, Washio Kazuyoshi suddenly noticed his crooked necktie and disheveled hair escaping from under his slipping hat. “What’s this ‘Tokyo’? Your occupation?” Answering each query while beckoning his panting wife over, Washio saw the man—apparently satisfied—abruptly terminate the questioning and walk away.

“That was scary…” ……………

His wife, her face pale as if terrified, kept repeating it even after the train had safely started moving. Washio had unwittingly lost the cheerfulness he’d shown earlier and discovered he could no longer muster even a light reply, yet found it frustratingly difficult to regain his composure.

The third-class express speeding through the darkness was shaking violently. His wife threw their third child onto the seat and clung to the window with a face as pale as paper. Washio held the baby, bumped into each child left and right while taking them to the toilet, ran out at every station to fetch water, and when he finally got the children to sleep, he had to remain standing holding the infant. He couldn’t tell what was wrong or what time it was. The train seemed to race endlessly through the night, making dawn feel perpetually out of reach. Exhausted, his brain frazzled like porous pumice—the moment awareness struck, a wave of dizziness nearly sent him reeling. "If I collapse too, it'll be a disaster!" Suddenly seized by this thought, Washio shook the sleeping boy awake and frantically tied the baby onto his back. Each time the boy staggered under the weight, threatening to fall, the infant’s wails pierced louder through the car.

Without even spreading newspaper, he sat down on the wooden floor and covered his face with both hands, squeezing his eyes shut. "I must rest; I cannot collapse." It was such a fragmented, desperate feeling.—And then, inexplicably at that moment, a scene crumbled into view before his eyes. It was the “cost-price sales” stall in Shibaura’s factory district—where Washio had participated—during the Japan Consumers’ Union Federation’s “Consumers’ Union Day” held on July 2nd of last year. A woman carrying a baby on her back... with two or three children clinging to each side—when she grabbed a bag of anpan in exchange for a five-sen coin, that face suddenly thrusting it into her own mouth! Tearing away the child wailing on her back and the children clawing at both hands, she first brought it to her own mouth—that face! Her disheveled hair, bloodshot eyes, bared yellow teeth sinking into the bread—that ugly, savage face! —It all became excruciatingly clear.

The baby’s cries and the boy’s shouts could be heard intermittently from near and far, or from afar…….

“Dad—” When he suddenly awoke from a hollow sleep, leaning against the armrest before him was the boy’s dejected face peering in. “Where’s the baby?” The boy pointed to a country-looking old woman holding the baby on the neighboring seat. Washio expressed his thanks and took the baby, then looked around with a somewhat relieved feeling. Perhaps it was the middle of the night; many people in the train car were asleep. His wife remained clinging to the window with her listless eyes still slightly open, and the children were sleeping uncomfortably.

“Stay strong.”

When he said that, the wife nodded faintly. “How about eating a mandarin? Should I try buying some at the next station!”

She shook her head as if to say she didn’t need any. Washio tied the baby to his back and, sitting on the armrest, suddenly tried to look out the window. To his surprise, reflected in the steam-fogged window glass was a face—terribly old-looking, with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes that glinted. It looked as though it belonged to a stranger.— Outside the window, of course, nothing was visible. Washio soon took out a notebook and, tearing out two or three pages, began writing a letter addressed to his youngest brother from whom he had parted—.

...Torakichi-kun, meeting you was the greatest gain from this homecoming. I ended up averting my eyes. My feet had left the ground—. You are the modern proletariat. You work, you possess great endurance, you…. When the baby on his back started crying, Washio had to rock it while murmuring “There, there”—. ……You do not rush, and are always prepared. Indeed, it is winter now—a terrifying winter. But you do not doubt that "spring" will surely come more than anyone else in the world…

He would start writing, then lick his pencil and look up. He couldn’t tell where he was or what time it was. Only the roar of the train, continuing to race through the fierce wind and darkness, could be heard.