Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

Titled *Yahazu Grass*, I would that I might fulfill the duty of my trade by taking up the brush to narrate the old wounds of my person just as they come to mind.

II

Some time ago, a certain person took me up in jest to reproach: “In this world of ours, there are none as fortunate as those called novelists.” To come and go at teahouses in broad daylight without fear of reproach from anyone, amusing themselves with women—this alone should render them objects of utmost envy in the eyes of upright youths. Yet being creatures bound to this world’s common lot, when they take their own shameful conduct—their reckless improprieties and self-indulgent follies that ought by rights to be concealed—and embellish them with fins and tails to grandiose effect, people read these tales, find amusement therein, and in the end revere them as “sensei.” Truly, how blessed are their livelihoods—transgressing the moral precepts of human relations and five constants, yet being welcomed by society and revered by others! Could it be that this person who deigned to jest did so with some deeper intent? Should they deign to lay eyes upon this *Yahazu Grass*, they would surely be angered in the end. *Yahazu Grass* chronicles events from years past concerning a geisha named Yae who resided in my Ōkubo home.

At that time, Yae had become the household’s wife; not only preparing morning and evening meals but seizing every spare moment—without my noticing—to dust desks, clean inkstones, wash brushes, remove insects from orchid pots, or mend broken bindings on old books—all performed with such diligence that even outsiders would have admired her industry. Yet due to circumstances, she later placed herself back in Shimbashi’s training quarter, assuming the name of a certain Fujima to instruct children in song and dance.
She taught jōruri lyrics and koto-shamisen, remarking, “The days when a widow’s virtue stands firm.”
Was this Yae’s resolve to safeguard her twilight years?
I do not know.

III

To begin with, the practice of novelists writing down matters pertaining to their own lives as they were and shaping them into stories came into practice in the West from around the beginning of the nineteenth century; referred to as *roman personnel* and such titles, it had not fallen into disuse even then.
Namely, Goethe’s *The Sorrows of Young Werther* and Chateaubriand’s *René* stood as examples of this genre.
In our country, might Kōyō Sanjin’s *Aobudō* have been considered the genesis of such works?
In recent times, since Morita Sōhei’s *Smoke* and Oguri Fūyō’s *Indulgence* were exceptionally well-received by society, works adopting this form had proliferated to such an extent that one could scarcely find leisure enough to enumerate all these fine compositions.
Especially notable was a piece titled *Mizusabi* by Eimi Suiin that had recently appeared in *Bungei Kurabu* (Taisho 4, November issue), which held particular interest for me.
Therefore, now that I belatedly attempted to compose a lengthy novel using my own affairs involving Yae as its seed, it proved no easy task. To weave a novel required by all means delving into the characters’ natures and establishing the story’s trajectory in advance.
Such painstaking efforts being beyond what my body—frequently ill and lacking vigor of late—could endure, I instead set brush to paper without restraint, thinking the unconstrained form of essays might better suit my purpose.
Whether it be novel or essay, their essential aim lay in depicting the particulars of relations between men and women.
They spoke of quarrels between patrons and geisha.
They told of quarrels between masters and wives—stories so trifling even dogs would turn up their noses.
Though dogs might scorn it, should those of passionate temperament—steeped in worldly desires—deign to read this work; should they, if gentlemen, take heed when visiting geisha, or if geisha themselves take heed when appearing before patrons—each thereby heeding predecessors’ overturned carts as caution for their own conduct—then could this *Yahazu Grass* be merely scorned as sensational pulp sowing naught but amorous folly between men and women?

IV

That Yahazu grass is a medicinal herb colloquially called “Immediate Proof” appeared in the fifth volume of an essay titled *Kairoku* by Yamazaki Yoshishige, an Edo-period scholar.
It states: “When taking this Yahazu grass—colloquially called ‘Immediate Proof’—in miso soup, it proves most effective against diarrheal diseases; moreover, it has marked efficacy against malarial disorders and epidemics, et cetera.”

This grass is also called Mikoshi grass.
When Hagino-ya Sensei consulted the dictionary *Kotoba no Izumi*, it stated: “Gen no shōko: Geranium...
Plant.
Name of the grass.
Growing wild, its leaves divide into five parts with serrated edges like saw teeth, each about an inch long, and grow in opposite pairs.
In summer, it blooms pale red flowers resembling plum blossoms; later, when the pods form and ripen, they split open and curl upwards like the curled fronds of a fern adorning a mikoshi.
Both stems and leaves are said to be a miraculous medicine for diarrheal diseases.
‘Mikoshi grass.’”

I first came to know of this grass through Yae.
At that time (Meiji 43–44 [1910–1911]), Yae had hung out the Tomoe-ya signboard behind the flag-adorned Hanatsuki teahouse in Shimbashi and wore her kimono with the left hem drawn up.
As serving alcohol was part of her trade—though she disliked it—she had no choice but to drink excessively; on occasions when this caused stomachaches, she would send someone to an old shop in Nihonbashi-dori 1-chōme that sold Hankontan (the name now forgotten) to purchase Yahazu grass, which she would brew in a clay pot and drink instead of tea.
Although I had been sickly since birth, at that time I rarely suffered stomachaches; thus, even when Yae frequently spoke of that grass’s efficacy, I paid no heed and let her words pass by.
Yet three or four years later, I was struck one night by a violent diarrheal illness; though I recovered temporarily, whenever the seasons turned—from spring to summer, autumn to winter—and rains fell heavily at these junctures, my stomach would unfailingly begin to ache, leaving me prone to despondency.
The vermilion clay teapot that once accompanied my recitations of Du Xiaoshan's quatrain—"On cold nights when guests come, tea substitutes for wine; In bamboo stoves, water boils as flames first blush red"—and my deliberate savoring of steeped tea's bitterness, had now ended up as a vessel packed with Yahazu grass that I brewed each night into medicine taken at bedtime.

I heard Yae had recently grown quite sound in body.
Now that Yahazu grass was no longer needed, how fortunate indeed.

V

Alas, there is nothing so pitiful as when one, having passed the prime of vigor in life, finds their body assailed by various ailments and their mind troubled by manifold cares—each day more aged and enfeebled than the last—and through occasional encounters with things, comes to feel this truth keenly in their bones.

宿昔青雲志、蹉跎白髪年、誰知明鏡裏、形影自相憐〔宿昔 青雲の志。
I have squandered—the years of white hair.
Who knows the inside of a bright mirror?
The phrase ‘Form and shadow lamenting one another’ comes from this widely known Tang poem.
The act of being startled by one’s white hair when looking in the mirror has also been written about in the short story *The End* by the French novelist Maupassant.

My hair was not yet white.
Yet this sense of having aged did not come upon me merely yesterday or today.
In early summer of the year following my father’s death and the passing of his first memorial anniversary, I was suddenly stricken by a violent diarrheal illness and lay bedridden for over half a month.
As I had never been one to drink alcohol, neither could I recall habitually indulging in poor fare.
If compelled to shift blame elsewhere, might it be attributed to the Western-style meals ordered from Keio Gijuku?
At Mita’s campus, seeking to curb extravagance, they had imposed strict price limits on all lunchboxes procured within school grounds.
Thus did ingredients naturally degrade in quality—consuming them left me with lingering chest discomfort throughout the day.
Whenever I saw butter resembling safflower-dyed pomade jam, I found it repulsive; yet on rainy days I grew too indolent to venture beyond the gate to Mita-dori. That day too, heedlessly eating a small portion from the plate, I awoke at dawn’s second morning to pain as though my bowels were being wrung—from then until daybreak I ran repeatedly to the privy.

At that time, the house where I lived was exceedingly spacious.
I placed my desk in the six-mat southern room on the second floor, designated the eight-mat northern room as the guest parlor, and fixed the three-mat west-facing chamber overlooking the staircase as my bedroom; exhausted by countless trips up and down, I pressed both hands against my aching lower abdomen and before long drowsily dozed off.
When I awoke, it was already nearing noon.
Through the servant’s notification, Mother—who resided in a detached room—deeming it improper to leave her be, summoned a doctor straightaway.
I secretly concluded that I must have contracted dysentery; upon hearing others speak of the suffering caused by this disease, my heart trembled with fear.

Fortunately, according to the doctor’s diagnosis, my illness was not such a dreadful one; however, he instructed that my abdomen be warmed day and night without cease using konjac.
Nothing was to be consumed except meat broth and thin rice gruel.
Since the impure matter must be inspected every morning, have it sent to the pharmacy—so the doctor solemnly instructed and departed.
In my household there was an elderly maidservant who had served for over twenty years since my father’s time.
This woman promptly brought warmed konjac as the doctor had instructed; pressing it against his lower abdomen, he drowsily fell asleep once more.

From the south-facing small window came the incessant calls of a mother sparrow summoning her chicks.
Hearing footsteps ascending the ladder stairs and awakening—expecting the elderly maidservant coming to replace the konjac compress—it was instead Yae wearing a Tōzan-striped silk crepe short coat with a collared lined apron fastened about her.
Her hair was arranged in a round chignon swept low at the nape, the traditional hairpiece protruding prominently behind, forelocks cropped short and draped across her forehead.
This hairstyle remained from that time when Yae had come to my study and taken down chapbooks from the shelves—among them Toyokuni’s illustrated book *Jisei Shō* depicting a woman with cropped forelocks and a boxwood side comb labeled “That One”—and when I had jokingly remarked how I wished present-day geishas still looked thus; whereupon Yae, ever impulsive, snatched the Western scissors on the desk and with a snip cut off her own forelocks, then clamored joyfully for a mirror to admire herself.

Around February of that year, Yae had contracted rheumatism and become unable to dance; thus, she closed her geisha house in Yamashita-cho and chose to live secluded in the remote Yotsuya Arakicho district of the Yamanote area, intending to recuperate in peace.
My house was separated from Ichigaya Yanagicho only by a sunken hollow; thus, she came daily to my second-floor study and devoured every last one of the novels and miscellaneous writings piled there—old and new alike.
She was originally from the northern provinces.
At the age of thirteen, she had already made a name for herself in that region’s training quarter.
From birth, she had loved literary diversions and understood refinement.
When she grew weary of reading, she would go out to the backyard, stroll through the vegetable garden, pick flowers, and adorn my desk with them.
Now, most of the torn covers and broken threads of the old books and albums stored in my house have been splendidly repaired; all are mementos of Yae’s devoted care from that time.
Yae came daily to my house in this manner, and when evening drew near, she would take me along to Master Kashiwazu Shikatsu of Shibaguchi’s place to practice *hauta* ballads; this became our custom.

The previous night as well, having gone out for Utazawa-bushi practice, we parted at the corner of Yotsuya Umaru Yokocho around the time early evening had passed.
Thus, unaware that I lay ill, Yae slid open the shoji screen and was startled for the first time.

VI

Yae recounted how she herself had once been struck by a life-threatening diarrheal illness—perhaps from drinking stream water while visiting Ikaho to quench her thirst on mountain paths.
For years afterward, she explained, she had known well the stomach ailments born of her pitiful trade: though aware of the harm, she could never refuse the cups pressed upon her by customers in their revelries, returning home each night weeping yet drinking still through dawn's torment.
"As for recuperation methods," she reflected inwardly, "I myself may surpass physicians in understanding."
"Do not neglect the medicine the doctor prepares," she added mentally, addressing him.
Yet she noted through narration that traditions passed down from ancient elders held matters of spiritual efficacy without exception.
"The Yahazu grass I constantly used before leaving the geisha registry still grows at our Yotsuya house," Yae mused to herself.
Urging him to endure its foul odor since it must be decocted and taken, she immediately sent someone to fetch and brew the Yahazu grass.

This was the first time I had ever drunk an herbal decoction in my life.
Since this medicine seemed truly effective to me, from then on whenever I felt the onset of a cold, I would prepare and decoct remedies like kakkontō rather than resorting to Antifebrin.
On nights when sleet clattered against the eaves—huddling in my Tamuraya-style striped silk robe to barely withstand chills while reviving dying charcoal embers beneath a solitary lamp to brew herbal medicine—the medicinal smoke would fill my study through the heavy night air until what was already deep darkness seemed to deepen further, leaving me inexplicably moved to tears by my own condition.

VII

Through Yae’s devoted care, the illness was healed before long.
The peony blossoms scattered, and the world had swiftly turned to summer.
Impatient for the rainy season to end, when that year’s doyō period began, I found myself busy each morning being led by Yae to various grassy spots to gather that medicinal herb.

At first glance, Yahazu grass leaves resembled those of mugwort.
Like raspberries, its stems spread and thrived like vines.
They were abundant on the embankment from Yotsuya Mitsuke to Akasaka Kuitsui.
They also grew profusely along the road descending from behind Aoyama Garrison to Sendagaya, intermingled with dayflowers and plantains.
After gathering them, we would thoroughly wash off the soil, chop both stems and leaves into suitable sizes, and dry them in the shade.

I, unable to stop worrying that vacant lots across Tokyo would gradually be cleared away for civil engineering projects, thought even the embankments where Yahazu grass grew would soon disappear, and thus transplanted a clump of it into my garden. That autumn, having obtained my mother's permission, I welcomed Yae for the first time and established a household—yet even this proved but a fleeting dream lasting barely half a year. After that person had left, with none to pluck them from the garden fence, the Yahazu grass grew rampant unchecked. There was nothing that did not become a seed of sorrow. When grass buds began sprouting anew the following year, I too left Ōkubo one night to live alone in Tsukiji, leaving that Yahazu grass's fate unknown thereafter. If indeed someone has newly taken residence there of late, then most of those abandoned garden weeds must have been cleared away along with it—though none can say for certain.

VIII

I need not belabor theories of naturalism as if they were something novel.
The ten people, ten colors of thought—viewing this world as good or ill—differ according to those people, yet one factor lies in their health.
As I come to know the decline of my own body, so too does my aversion to the world irrepressibly grow ever stronger day by day—there is no help for it.

Among those known to me, there are those who, determined to reform our nation’s theater and elevate it into a meaningful art form, remain undeterred even now by familial misunderstandings or worldly slander, holding fast to their decade-long resolve.
Merely hearing it brings tears to one’s eyes—such a tale of virtue!

Yet I had already become disheartened and sought only the peace of seclusion.
Moreover, this did not stem from any profound despair worth mentioning, nor was it born of righteous indignation.
It was simply that the theater’s lights felt too glaring for my eyes to bear.
In contrast, I had come to find nothing more irreplaceable than the dim interior of my house—dwelt in since my father’s time—where the blue lamplight of my study hazily illuminated the flowers in the alcove.
With teahouses having disappeared, it was solely because the theater cafeteria’s food felt somehow unpleasant.
It was solely because trudging home along distant paths on rainy nights had grown so arduous.
All these matters would have been trivialities not worth mentioning had one been in good health, but for a feeble body like mine—so timorous of the cold that I carried a pocket warmer when venturing out even until near the spring equinox—everything above felt like a great sacrifice to be made for attending the theater.
Even when encountering newspaper reporters seeking material—had my body been robust enough to meet others’ faces unflinchingly and had I possessed the courage to spin grandiose tales, they might have become willing listeners to unwelcome boasts—for a body such as mine, it became merely irritating and painful.
Even when seeing myself slandered vulgarly in literary magazines of the world, I remained too indolent to take up my brush in rebuttal; thus, even when people engaged in misguided arguments, I merely nodded along without mustering the courage to point out their errors.
How much less, then, would I be inclined to correct their mistakes out of kindness?
Even when I occasionally encountered meticulously written passages about the interesting parts of my crude works from strangers in distant provinces, I often let them pass unacknowledged, rendering their kind intentions futile.

Though unwell, I could not claim to be ill enough to take to bed. My condition—possessing an illness without illness—was truly perplexing. In Professor Gidō’s poem—my maternal grandfather from Shitaya—there was a line that read “A nameless minor ailment fears evening’s chill”; was this not precisely such a feeling? In Du Fu’s seven-character regulated verse “Climbing the Heights,” one finds the lines: “In autumn’s sorrow across ten thousand li, ever a wanderer; / With a hundred years of ailments, alone I climb the terrace.”

When I entered the house after being buffeted by January and February’s icy winds, a dizzying headache would take hold; when I walked beneath August’s blazing sun and paused in the shade to wipe sweat and catch a breeze, no sooner had I thought “Ah, coolness—” than my skin turned clammy with an unnerving chill. Since winter’s cold was shared by all, I did not find it particularly sorrowful, but summer proved utterly merciless. Evening baths brought fear of catching a chill, and even when parched, I could not bring myself to drink anything cold—through these alone, ordinary social interactions became impossible. When invited out for evening coolness, I alone—anticipating night dew’s harm to my skin—would don a plain cotton knit undershirt and always wear tabi socks. Even when ascending to restaurants, if night seemed to deepen slightly, I alone left seats near railings to shelter from dew-laden winds behind reed blinds. Though night watchmen’s clappers sounded here and there and the Milky Way’s flow grew vivid overhead, contemporary gentlemen—shouting “Hot! Hot!” while positioning electric fans before them, yawning open rental yukata collars to let chest hairs flutter, crunching ice chunks in beer cups as if splitting stones—persisted in their revelries. I sighed at this as barbaric or tasteless, yet in truth it was merely envy born of my own frailty. Were anyone to consider my words earnest argumentation, they would be nothing but laughable pretensions.

IX

The duties at Keio Gijuku also became increasingly burdensome day by day under these circumstances.
There were frequent occasions when I would develop stomach pains just as I was about to leave early in the morning, and in the ensuing commotion over hot-water bottles, pocket warmers, and heated stones, the long journey from Ōkubo to Fuda no Tsuji would often cause me to be late for work.
The faculty meetings or editorial meetings held in Western-style rooms with feeble afternoon fires during drizzling rains were undeniably counted among the most trying ordeals.
When a close friend casually proposed meeting on some unspecified day—“Let’s go out then”—even so, if my stomach were to ache that very day, what would I do? And if it rained, going out would prove difficult; such needless fretting piled up until even my eagerness soon faded away—how disheartening.

Though it may be my nature, by forcibly narrowing my world and severing social ties, then secluding myself solely at home—where even my self-indulgent fantasies remained undisturbed by the clamor beyond the gate—before I knew it, my heart had truly become that of an old man with a rounded back bent forward, frost upon his head.

Yae, too, as a woman, had already passed thirty years of age.
At first, she had contemplated various plans—if only her rheumatism would heal enough to allow dancing without difficulty, perhaps she might return to Shinbashi, make a new appearance in Yanagibashi, or even choose a location to hang her instructor’s sign. Yet before long, she seemed to grow accustomed to my indolent ways, and with the urging of Old Man Kaneko of Mukōjima, who often visited intimately, she turned away from the fleeting dreams of this world. Thus did she come to bury her memory-filled life in Ōkubo village, tending daily to my prematurely aged self.
It was a day in late August of the year of Kinoe-tora, when autumn had already begun.
With the auspicious arrangements settled, having requested Old Man Kaneko to act as Yae’s temporary guardian and Ichikawa Sadanji and his wife as go-betweens, we held a ceremonial exchange of cups in form only at the Yamaya greengrocer in Yamaniwa.
(Old Man Kaneko—born in 1840, the year before the Tenpō Reforms, to a family of minor retainers serving at Edo’s Dutch trading post—mastered the Kiyomoto shamisen style, became a Uji tayū under the pseudonym Kinshi, and after the shogunate’s collapse turned merchant, amassing wealth in Yokohama and building Arima Hot Springs in Fukagawa; he had two sons: Bandō Shūchō, his eldest, and Fujima Kinnosuke, his second.) At that time, Yaoya Zenshirō’s establishment had closed to customers for garden terracing and foundation repairs. However, since Old Man Kaneko had been close to the greengrocer’s previous master, he explained our circumstances and made his request. The current young proprietor kindly consented: he tidied the lower room facing the pond, hung Kōrin’s pine-bamboo-plum triptych in the alcove, and for that day alone did not begrudge suspending business for our sake.

On this day, beneath the fierce lingering summer sunset, my honored mother too joined the gathering, undeterred by the long journey through Yamaniwa.
My mother had already known since my father’s time that I had begun associating with a geisha called Yae.
Last year, when I fell ill, she began coming daily to nurse me, and gradually started speaking to me as well. My honored mother secretly observed Yae’s conduct during this time. In addition to her commendable disposition—serving my irritable and self-indulgent self without ever contradicting my wishes—there was a particular occasion when I was replacing the scroll in my living room. Upon seeing her effortlessly recite the seven-character quatrain *Tea Smoke and Zen Couch* by Xiao Du, written by the Shanghai-based contemporary calligrapher Gao Yong, my mother felt this woman was no ordinary person of the world. Thus, regarding this marriage arrangement, she did not deeply inquire into the particulars of her background.

Yae’s visits to Chuhakuen to study waka poetry had become a thing of the distant past. Since moving to Yotsuya of late, she had chanced upon Su Dongpo’s calligraphy executed in drunken abandon—admiring its unconstrained vigor, she procured numerous copybooks and practiced assiduously, until she could now read Tang cursive script with effortless fluency. Everything truly depends on one’s daily diligence!

X

Since coming to Yae’s house, I had become a person of boundless worldly bliss.
People lamenting old age was common.
Yet I now sought to boast of the newfound pleasures of old age.
The joys and sorrows of life depend solely on the heart of the individual.
Through nights when the winter wind howled, gathering around a worn brazier to brew tea beneath lamplight where even shadows grew faint—this flavor remained unknown to those who reveled solely in green wine of red towers.
The pleasure of taking out old scrap paper that my wife and I had each secretly kept until then and reading it over while patching the torn drum-stretched fusuma panels of the bedroom screen was another thing those wealthy people who made mansions their homes could never fathom.
The playful task of mending damaged chrysanthemum fences or toilet window lattices by cutting bamboo from the garden grove oneself was another thing the young lords on silver-saddled white horses outside could never comprehend.
The manuscript paper for my writings had been something I printed myself during spare moments using a baren and woodblocks. Now Yae, with sleeves tied back and ink-stained fingertips, printed ream after ream without complaint.
Such pleasures too—should I say they lay beyond the ken of those literary men who wielded fountain pens across Western paper?

In my house were not a few books, bonsai, and stationery tools left by my late father. To help me repair the house, Yae pulled out and voraciously read Sino-Japanese texts like *Rin’en Getsurei* (“Monthly Ordinances of Gardens and Forests”), *Gayū Manroku* (“Records of Refined Leisure”), *Sōmoku Ikushushō* (“Treatise on Plant Cultivation”), *Teizō Hiden Shō* (“Secret Notes on Garden Construction”), and *Nihon Kagu Hiyō* (“Secret Uses of Japanese Household Items”), pondering how best to wash away the ink residue that clung like rocks in the sea-like depths of the inkstone. She researched how to wipe clean the tarnish on maki-e’s gold and silver, how to remove dust from between the carvings of tsuishu incense trays and containers. She learned that the bonsai plum would not bear many blossoms come spring unless fertilized during *Doyō*, and that when mountain lilies finished blooming, their roots needed digging up to be stored in dry sand. That one had to be handled thus; this one like so—she hadn’t a moment’s respite all day long to remove her work sash.

My father was an exceedingly steadfast man.
However, when one looks at the poetry manuscript *Raiseikaku-shū* that he himself compiled during his lifetime,

Fine hours and splendid gatherings have been rare since ancient times [Fine hours and splendid gatherings have been rare since ancient times]

Jade hands, delicate and fair—how many rounds of wine have circled? [Jade hands delicate and fair; how many rounds of wine have circled?]

Never say poets lack romantic sensibility [Never say poets lack romantic sensibility]

First following the Flower Kingdom’s ode to welcome spring [First, composing an ode following the Flower Kingdom to welcome spring]

New Year’s Bamboo Branches [New Year’s Bamboo Branches]

Spring birds mindlessly calling companions to sing [Spring birds mindlessly call out to companions and sing]

The orchid boat moored west of the water shrine [The orchid boat is moored west of the water shrine]

Warm waves one side, flowers three sides [Warm waves cover one side; flowers blanket three sides]

Truly, this embankment is a land of tenderness [Truly, this embankment is a land of tenderness]

*Viewing Flowers: Seven Quatrains* [Viewing Flowers: Seven Quatrains]

He had mastered composing such erotic verse.
Moreover, during his earlier travels through China—when passing beyond Gusu City—he produced many works presented to courtesans, among which—

Radiant beauty and exquisite grace—peerless from the start [Her beautiful essence and delicate grace have always stood apart from the masses]

蘭房別占四時春 蘭房は別ても占む四時の春 → Orchid Chamber uniquely claims spring across all seasons [The Orchid Chamber distinctly occupies the spring of all four seasons]

Meeting yet wordless—how it twists into deeper sorrow.

Peach Leaf and Peach Root—figures within a painting.

As if viewing from north of Chenxiang Pavilion,

Enchanting beauty and alluring demeanor—spring wanes.

You, so full of passion—truly the seed of a city-toppling beauty.

I cannot believe they call you by the petty name Bokuran.

Such verses remain clearly etched in my memory.
To this day, at an inn bearing a single banner by Minaminate Street near Jōnan Shinbashi, one may still find drunken brushwork left upon a silver screen.

I inherited the household and, not long after, took a courtesan as my wife.
Though disgracing the family name was no light matter from the outset, what could I do? This woman's nature proved so guileless that she fretted solely over avoiding missteps in attending me.
All things must be karmic bonds from past lives.
What began as a transient vow accumulated through years into reasons too profound for others' tongues until even true tears came to be drawn forth.
Those who would call these deluded dreams might say...
I disregard both the scorn of society's critics and their delusions.
It was precisely through clinging to this delusion that I escaped the calamity of welcoming one of those modern-educated schoolgirl brides.
A geisha's delicate hands—lacking the arm-strength bred by schoolyard calisthenics—would neither damage cherished furnishings during daily cleanings nor threaten veranda bonsai with snapped branches caught in trailing sleeves.
The world never grants two blessings at once.

Eleven

Even to close friends, we did not formally announce our wedding with Yae.
This was because we wished to spare ourselves the trouble of congratulatory formalities.
To our more straitlaced relatives, we both naturally refrained from making any announcement at all, considering our stations.
For were we to formally notify them of this illicit union between a novelist whom people disdain and a courtesan whom society scorns, we reasoned it would only cause distress to our relatives’ wives and young daughters.
Yet the world is not made solely of heartless souls.
Since not a few had kindly offered congratulations for what they deemed our auspicious occasion, Yae would seize moments when free from tending to my exacting needs to go out making return visits here and there.
Autumn too passed swiftly by.
Chrysanthemums withered on the fence as tsuwabuki came into bloom; in the leafless treetops, the shrike’s cry had long since lost its novelty.
By the back garden’s well, chestnuts ripened and fell; nandina berries clustered on the veranda; in the stone lantern’s shadow, plum buds began tingeing with color.

In early winter, there was no moment when nostalgia for my garden in Yamanote welled up more keenly than now.
People might suppose that with its abundance of trees, Yamanote could not rival summer at its zenith—yet it was precisely those town residences free from bush mosquitoes where summer evenings on the drying platform and aimless strolls through festival nights held such abundant pleasures.
From the second-floor window with its rolled-up bamboo blind, gazing at the evening's mackerel clouds while hearing the cries of small sardine vendors along the twilight riverbank, I would find myself suddenly impatient for supper preparations—such was the nature of dwelling in town.
Yet when I considered our winter-bound town residence—where even in those densely packed houses the already-short days grew shorter still; where the family room with its long hibachi sank into perpetual dusk—the Yamanote garden lay brighter and more open than in summer, its trees having shed all their leaves, while through the study's round window sunlight gentled by decaying banana plants slanted obliquely all day long.
As nightly dew showers grew ever more frequent, from beneath thickets where fallen leaves rotted away rose ceaselessly the scent of moist earth, while the voices of wagtails, titmice, and bush warblers bustled more than even in spring.
Truly, there was no time as unforgettably pleasant for dwelling in Yamanote as those months spanning November and December.

Having completed her courtesy visits to various places, Yae was now solely at home.
The shoji screens had all been newly replaced.
In the house’s pillars and veranda—aged to an amber-black luster—the shoji paper’s pure whiteness, still retaining traces of paste’s scent in its newness, felt somehow splendid.
The sitting room too seemed to have grown brighter than usual, and even the shadows of garden trees and small birds flying in the tranquil evening sunlight appeared more vivid than was customary to the senses.
When the evening wind rustled the bamboo at the back window and dusk fell, the lamplight upon the new shoji paper appeared pure and clear.
When winter arrived, what brought the greatest delight here was encountering once more the paulownia brazier, hearth, foot warmer, pillow screen, and other furnishings unseen from spring through winter.
The brazier that had been polished every morning with a cloth from last winter through this still-chilly spring, then stored away during summer—now placed back in the same spot as last year, its form as familiar as ever though dulled by closet dust—was like encountering an old friend.
You too were in good health.
I too felt compelled to say that I had been fortunate enough to preserve what remained of my life.
Truly, there was nothing that stirred such a wealth of memories as seeing the fire brazier for the first time on an early winter morning.

In my friend Edoan’s poem:

Winter comes—and once more, the nostalgic old fire bucket.

Is this not an excellent poem that, without the slightest artifice, has fully expressed its intent?
Last winter, when Master Edoan brought a bound sketchbook and persistently urged me to draw something and compose accompanying verses, I had no choice but to sketch the shape of the paulownia round brazier that happened to be by my desk. Yet being poor at haiku composition and struggling to produce an impromptu verse, I ended up scribbling some nonsensical phrases as follows.

A back stooped with time—soon enough, a round fire brazier.

A mellowed form awaits old age, ah.

Be that as it may, since Yae came to my house, all manner of hand tools I had known since childhood were cleaned and polished spotless; and even I—the wayward child who until yesterday had sought only pleasures beyond these walls—now came at last to know the comforts of home, becoming one who guards this house after my father's passing, which indeed brought me joy.

Twelve

Most people consider only composing poetry and painting to be art.
I too had thought thus until now.
My heart that loved art had considered it sufficient to write novels, critique plays, and listen to vocal music.
However, the wellspring of human desire knows no bounds.
I will not rest until I count even the house I must live in, the clothes I must wear, and the food I must eat among the realms of art.
I desire to actively treat my very life as a single crafted work.
Otherwise, my heart would never attain true satisfaction.
When I regard my life as a work of art, my wife becomes the most vital component of its creation.

If people were to hear such words, they would immediately dismiss them as mere gilt on extravagant rice cakes.
Yet the capacity to savor art fundamentally disregards distinctions of wealth or poverty.
The profound sensibilities of depth remain precisely what the affluent fail to grasp in all matters.
With my clothing, food, and shelter—nay, with my very life—as living poetry and living art, what need have I for expense?
Even a modest dwelling in some back alley, should one find contentment there, cannot be said to lack pictorial charm or poetic sentiment; while golden halls and jade towers without heart would render spring blossoms and autumn moons indistinguishable from rubble.

My house stood on the outskirts of Yamanote.
March spring mud never dried easily.
By May one was already assailed by mosquitoes.
The trumpets of Ichigaya shattered the lingering echoes of evening temple bells while military horses grazing before the gate kicked down fences.
What charm could reside in this place—once overrun by destitute lower samurai now ruled by country gentlemen’s wives with their bulbous chignons?
Yet in my library lay Shokusanjin’s collected works; his *Notes from a Hermitage in Yamanote* often consoled me.
Though my garden was small behind the house remained a vegetable patch spanning several paces.
Butterbur parsley smartweed onions strawberries myoga udo taro lilies shiso sansho goji—all these according to season sufficed for kitchen use.
Each day Yae would go to this garden pluck herbs with her delicate hands season them and serve them in vessels I had curated over time.

Upon careful reflection, there existed no cuisine as rich in vegetables as that of Japan. In the West, one had to go to Paris to encounter vegetables whose flavors were worth praising, yet their variety still could not compare to the abundance found in our country. In China, while there were many rare fruits, when it came to vegetables beyond Chinese cabbage, water chestnuts, lotus roots, young bamboo shoots, and the like, I knew of few others—was this abundance of delicious vegetables and seafood not a defining feature of Japanese cuisine?

The elegant refinement of our tableware was also something worthy of great pride. In the West and China, there existed tableware crafted from gold, silver, gems, and jewels—their sturdy materials and magnificent forms being realms beyond our country’s reach from the outset. Westerners used silver meat forks; Chinese people grasped jade chopsticks. And thus I considered common cedar round chopsticks to be the highest form of etiquette. All things followed this principle. Moreover, I reflected that while Western and Chinese dining tables shared a splendid solemnity, their appearance remained largely unchanged throughout the four seasons; their efforts to harmonize cuisine with vessels seemed less thorough than our country’s practices. In Japan’s table settings, the entire character transformed depending on the vessels’ quality and their colors and patterns. Summer required cups and dishes suited to summer; winter demanded those suited to winter. Would anyone serve tuna sashimi on a red Kutani plate or new pickles in a maki-e lacquered bowl? Japanese cuisine made the selection of tableware its most crucial element. Herein lay a method that was entirely its own distinct art form. The selection of cups and dishes in a restaurant directly revealed the owner’s aesthetic sensibilities; in a household, it allowed one to infer the housewife’s attentiveness. Yae had spent many years in the training quarter—there was no restaurant or tavern in the capital unfamiliar with her. Moreover, her knowledge of antiques ran deep. That my evening meal’s setting had ever been enriched with poetic and haiku-like charm required no verbose explanation. She always attended to even the smallest details. Since Yae left, I had not spoken again of meals. The vase on the desk remained forever without flowers.

Thirteen

Why did Yae leave my home?
And why did I not pursue her afterwards?

The piece *Yahazu Grass* had originally set out to write of these matters, intending to offer solace to my beloved readers.
The third-page articles of newspapers were what delighted the people.
Even a poorly written novel sold well if one simply labeled it a "true account."
What then was the reason that the author indulged only in endless digressions and did not readily approach the main subject?

Fourteen

The auspicious Kinoe-Tora year had ended, and the new year too had reached the time when people awaited the bush warbler’s first song.
One day, I had business in Shibaura and left home early in the morning; on my way back, I visited Niwato-an in Tsukiji, where we lost ourselves in various conversations until late into the night as usual, after which I borrowed a rickshaw and returned home.
At the sound of the gate opening, only the pet dog awaiting its master’s return clung to the hem of his robe as ever; yet within the house lingered an unnameable stillness, with but a single servant girl remaining—Yae was already no longer at home.
In the eight-tatami tea room, lamplight blazed brightly; atop the large rosewood Chinese-style desk we had always used for meals lay a letter with a chest key beside it.
When the maid saw me return, she reported that Madam had drawn a bath and gone out around nine o’clock; soon afterward, a call from an unknown location informed us she would not return tonight due to being delayed. At the time, I was not particularly surprised, assuming she had likely gone to entertain at a geisha house in Shinbashi or perhaps with one of Fujima’s disciples—but upon opening the sealed letter atop the Chinese-style desk, I realized for the first time that matters were far from simple.

Fifteen

*Yahazu Grass* had now reached the point where it must finally enter its main subject.
Yet the author, suddenly perplexed, could only rest his head in contemplation—pipe clenched between teeth—and fold his arms in futility.

When the cherries bloomed that year, Yae became one who took up her dance fan once more after five years.

If curious and discerning guests wished to know the latter half of my *Yahazu Grass*, let them go to Kiraku or Kōsetsuken or Midoriya—any of those restaurants would do—hire Yae, and ask her directly.
Yae not only excelled in dance but was already a natori of Utazawa-bushi; moreover, I had heard she had recently taken up studying *kouta* as well.
If she did not wish to speak openly of the matter’s details to those who inquired, she would not have lacked songs through soft singing and murmuring to entrust her thoughts.
When one wishes to convey their thoughts, they need not necessarily bellow like a country legislator.
Why must we imitate new women and needlessly confess and repent?
I had recently been taught *kouta* by someone.

*Three carts set out sōra on the path of law… Jealousy and moneylenders—such sinful things.*

Moreover, this sufficed to entrust my transient sentiments.

Sixteen

When I think of yesterday, everything is simply nostalgic.
What need is there to investigate the rights and wrongs of the matter and lay bare each other’s faults?
Youth is but a fleeting dream.
In the wakeful moments of old age, that even a single seed of memory might multiply into abundance—this alone would be my scant consolation.
There was vitality, one might say.
I, who have tested every stone bridge and safely navigated the world for fifty years, can only be called truly fortunate.
Once my foot slipped and I fell into the raging current beneath the bridge, all my strength was exhausted in swimming.
Though I strove to reach the far shore, as the current was rapid, a swift crossing proved impossible.
Sometimes I drifted with the current; sometimes I climbed onto rocky ledges to rest—thus I had to gradually seek my path.
Thus do I come to know the place unknown to those who walk safely upon stone bridges.
I have become one who holds many seeds of stories.

Seventeen

When a geisha saw her companion tying a marumage chignon, she too would often vow to abstain from tea and salt, swearing to the gods, “If only I could do it once!”
Geisha were women after all.
When after dutifully attending to disagreeable patrons—and growing weary even of indulging her passion for favorite actors as diversion—she would nurture that commendable wish to devote herself to a single settled man.
This shift from turbulence to placidity was surely natural human sentiment; by no means ought it be condemned.
Thus these geishas would each find good patrons and wash their feet [of the profession]—some even distributing torinoko cakes—yet before the gossip had faded from their peers’ lips, they’d already grow exasperated—“What an utter bother!”—and after all that weeping and laughing would return with startling frequency to their old nests.
Their comings and goings knew no constancy.
Therefore it was said the authorities had established this regulation: those who once returned their geisha licenses would not have them reissued unless six months had passed.
This was likely meant to spare officials excessive bother.

Such things were of no consequence—but why did geishas thus come and go?
A man of the world said:
Once someone had worked in the trade, their capacity for endurance became differently oriented; no matter how commendable their resolve might be, they could not conduct themselves like amateurs.
Skillfully utilizing this to settle her into domestic life depended entirely on the consideration of the man who became her husband.
To perceive a woman past her prime who once left the trade only to return again as pitiable—this was the compassion of a knowing soul.
As long as she did not do something like daubing mud on a man’s face, it was best to overlook most things.
If one were to possess such a boorish heart that, like a Confucian scholar quoting “the Master said,” they immediately seized upon the Seven Reasons for Divorce as a moral shield whenever any matter arose, then taking a geisha as a wife from the very beginning would have been nothing short of a grave mistake.

Those who refuted argued:
Geishas ought to know both bitterness and sweetness.
Having tasted glory and luxury, they shouldn’t find plays or fine robes particularly novel.
No matter what befell them, theirs was a story where they could manage without flustering like amateurs.
They should handle all matters deftly and grasp things quickly.
They ought to skillfully deflect their husbands’ tantrums and mend their moods.
Since they noticed what amateurs overlooked, such women had the merit of being exactly what they were.
If one could wed some sheltered daughter with a dowry—one who’d show restraint and patience in all things while sharing his life—then why endure society’s and relatives’ scorn by bringing such women into one’s home?

A rather smug individual cleared his throat and stepped forward, declaring: “Both of you gentlemen’s arguments have their merits. All must be applied according to the individual and circumstance. Amateurs and geishas are fundamentally women at their core. One is born and becomes a woman. Since ancient times, the sole path for a woman to preserve herself has been obedience. If she does not obey, in present-day Japan, a woman’s life cannot be sustained. Geishas may appear to pass their days in capricious self-indulgence—but they do not. Since this is fundamentally a charm-based trade, they must first comply with society. They must comply with customers. They must comply with teahouse maids at their destinations. They must wash their feet of the profession and become amateurs. Then they must comply with patrons. They must comply with that household. They must all comply in the same way. The only difference lies in complying with one versus complying with many. Whether one should choose either is entirely at that person’s discretion. If one becomes an amateur, there are amateur joys and sorrows; if one enters the trade, trade joys and sorrows likewise arise. If desiring peace and stability, let them remain amateurs. If desiring change, let them become geishas. This too must be deliberated according to individual and circumstance.”

“Zhuge Liang led troops to Qishan seven times.”
“Why should we find it strange anew that a common woman makes seven appearances and seven retreats?”
“If only she does not, through matters concerning herself, burden others and create obstacles for future lives—then all is well.”
“All is a matter of temporal fortune.”
“If one becomes an amateur, they should not neglect keeping a daily ledger of income and expenditures.”
“If one returns to the trade, they should diligently perform the duties they must perform.”
“If one can spend each day without that morning sensation of something lodged between one’s back teeth—whether becoming a geisha or a wife—why choose?”
“That too is a lifetime; this too is a lifetime!”
“In any case, gentleness is the foremost womanly virtue.”
“Moreover, if one refrains from jealousy, even as a geisha, one can preserve oneself by being loved and supported.”
“How much more so when she becomes a proper wife?”

The smug person expounded endlessly, knowing no bounds.

With this—lest I impose more on all of you than even the author himself—I here interjected and brought *Yahazu Grass* to a close.

Taisho 5 (1916), Year of the Fire Dragon, Late Spring Draft