Pathway to Japanese Literature

In the case of the human figure mediated through art,

Tranquility is the primary beauty of the body.

*Ingres’ Essays*

June 7, 1928 (Atami)

The great fever had liberated me.
I was once again a harmonized human being.
Now emerging quietly from the mist before me was a world with a new rotation I had never known.
In this world, not a single thing yet bore a name.
This I would probably become the one who names everything.
But for now, I merely gazed with eyes full of joyful anticipation at this boundless disorder spreading endlessly before me.
...Now I had written 'boundless disorder.'
But could there already be an error here?
Had I truly called what should be called disorder by its correct name?
No—that was not so. Absolutely not.
I, yielding to the world's face that smiled gently from all around, ended up using presumptuous words.
(For humans, completely stripping away something called memory seems to be an exceedingly difficult thing.)
See—even in this crucial moment for my rebirth, old memories crept in as faint stains, showing signs of soon spreading to cover the entirety of my innermost being.
I must fear.)

I must not be defiled by anything ever again.

My current world consists of several colors and shapes forming a monotonous arrangement upon a single plane.
When I say 'monotonous' there, it is because they are not forced into any conceptual connections with one another.
However, what harmony dwells there!
A quiet harmony where not even a thought is given to desiring order or such.
……I enjoy peace.
I enjoy peace.

At the breakfast table, I overturned the milk pitcher.
When I think of that moment now, it seems utterly absurd.
Could such a thing as a flowing solid exist?
I believed I could gather all that spilled and spreading milk into one place with my ten fingers.
I did exactly that.
Despite my efforts, the milk was entirely absorbed by the tablecloth.
After the meal, I secretly tried telling Ms. Yuri about those fleeting stirrings in my heart.
Ms. Yuri had listened in silence, but at last spoke just a single word, her smile dissolving into softness as she said:
"I don't truly understand...
But I simply envy you, Miss Uneme..."

“I don’t quite understand... but I simply envy you, Miss Uneme...”

June 17th

Because of the rain that had been falling for a week straight, I lost my vigor again and ended up spending my days in bed.
A strangely whitish bright room.
The rain did not come all the way into the room.
A room congealed with a clunk.
But this coldness—what was I to do about this coldness.
Was the temperature of this seaside hot-spring town sensitive to rain, or were my nerves after the fever sensitive to cold?
Ms. Yuri said there was no need to call a doctor.
My temperature had only risen ever so slightly.
But if even such a slight dampness could affect my skin this adversely... I could not help but fall into nervous unease about my own body once more.

(Afternoon)

I have just woken from feverish sleep.
Nevertheless, my mood remains calm and composed.
I gaze at my own upper arms.
Within the milky white skin, a beautiful pale pink has already begun to mingle.
I search for Ms. Yuri’s figure in a corner of the room.
I know that Ms. Yuri’s eyes occasionally wander from the pages of her book toward me.
To dispel this anxiety, summer, come quickly.

June 24th

It was the rain’s fault after all.
My fever returned to normal in curious synchrony with Ms. Yuri’s words when she came downstairs—“The rain just now circled the cape and vanished out to sea.”
The rain probably wouldn’t come anymore.
I would probably regain my health.
Another happy thing:
――It appeared that starting tomorrow morning, I would be moving to a room on the second floor.
It seemed the doctor had permitted me to view the sea from the veranda window.

June 25th

In the morning, they moved the bed to this room.
The bed's freshness—this purity—that I had hardly noticed in the lower room.
This room must be that bright.
Sunlight appeared briefly at the windowpane's corner around nine o'clock before vanishing completely.
It was now afternoon.
A faint misty rain fell without sound.
The windows—locked under pretext of humidity harming the body—were further covered with thick lace,
like a blindfold's handkerchief.
I had grown completely accustomed by now, no longer finding it particularly oppressive.

According to what was said when I first came up to this room this morning while clinging to Ms. Yuri’s shoulder, the window apparently looks out onto a veranda overlooking the sea and harbor.
And on clear, windless mornings, I was permitted to go out onto the veranda.

June 26th

Yesterday, after finishing morning tea, I moved to this room.
At that moment, I first noticed that my legs had become terribly weak.
I finally managed to climb the stairs by leaning on Ms. Yuri.
And upon entering the room, I immediately had to collapse onto the bed.
……

(Afternoon)

How many hours had I slept, I wondered.
Fatigue seemed to have considerably subsided.
It was dusk.
Ms. Yuri had been writing a long letter at the small desk by the pillow for some time.
Dull sea light was wetting the ceiling from the gap in the curtains.

June 28th

Yesterday morning past ten o'clock, Ms. Yuri opened the French window wide for me, so I ventured a single step onto the veranda—but then frantically pressed my eyes shut and dashed back into the room.
It was a quiet morning.
What did I see?
No—I saw nothing at all.
Just something—a chilling glint—struck my forehead.
Sea?

(That afternoon)

When I dozed off earlier, I somehow felt as though I had dreamed of the sea. Though this was merely a sensation—for the sea that had sunk beyond oblivion could have neither form nor color—...

More than that, if I had truly begun to dream, I must fear that above all else. If the gate leading out of oblivion would guide me back to dreams, then I needed no such gate. Rather, I would gladly perfect my own oblivion. I knew its completion was itself a grand construction.

June 30th

Ms. Yuri smiled and scolded me for being afraid of the sea and not going out to the veranda.
I laughed in a "forgive me" sort of way.
From the day after moving to this room, I had decided to sit up on the sofa only during mornings.
I drowsily narrowed my eyes and slept through the entire time.
I asked Ms. Yuri, "Don't I look like a little kitten?"
Ms. Yuri nodded gently.

July 1st

This diary-like thing I started just the other day—I write it using Ms. Yuri’s fountain pen on paper from medicine packet wrappers saved without crumpling after swallowing their contents.
The first two or three times, I wrote while Ms. Yuri was knitting on the veranda or preparing meals in the kitchen, then tucked it between the bed.
Ms. Yuri soon found it.
I had been anxiously wondering if I would be forbidden from doing so, but the opposite proved true.
On the contrary, Ms. Yuri even gave me a small entomological pin to bind the paper.
In exchange for an agreement limiting me to three sheets per day.
But I cannot write three.
Though it’s such small paper, writing that much would surely tire me out.
I’ve forgotten so many characters that it’s become tedious.
Strangely enough, my fingertips don’t tremble much.

July 2nd

I wrote this diary like my temperature chart.
Because there was still no strength in my fingers, the characters formed irregular shapes.

July 4th

My morning menu.
—A slice of bread, milk, an egg, a small amount of wine.
The wine had been added since yesterday; it was something Father sent after consulting with Dr. U.
Father was apparently too busy to come here for the time being.
Because the servant child’s carelessness caused an egg to break this morning, the meal was at nine-thirty.
My temperature had dropped by two-tenths of a degree, making it a pleasant morning.
Perhaps due to my ears, this morning the sound of the sea could be heard clearly.
In order to welcome sunlight onto my knees, I asked Ms. Yuri to draw the window curtain slightly.
So I was able to see a part of the harbor.
This time, since it wasn’t me who went out to the sea but rather I had the sea come all the way to the window, I wasn’t frightened in the least.
The harbor was laughing in green.
Even calling it a harbor, it was apparently just a place where small steamers come and go, connecting several hot spring towns on this peninsula.
The white steamship I had noticed was just leaving, its mast fluttering with small blue flags.

July 5th

Yesterday, I stopped right after writing about the white steamship.
I must write a bit further about that.
The truth was that when those small blue flags caught my eye, I suddenly dropped my knife, causing Ms. Yuri to startle and lower the window curtain.
My chest was thumping.
I later heard that I had apparently screamed something at that time.
Fearing the onset of fever, I retreated to bed from the morning.
The fever did not develop.

(3 PM)

Since waking this morning, I slowly considered yesterday’s events.
There is such a thing as oblivion.
Perhaps my calmness—(I must not use the word 'happiness' here)—
(I pass my days without even being conscious of whether I’m happy now)—could it be that this state exists solely through oblivion?
Oblivion is imagined as a stiflingly warm mist that envelops one’s body.
And when one notices or becomes aware of something, does one not suddenly feel that object signaling to some memory of the past through the mist?
And this is a bad omen.
At that moment, I saw a single figure climbing up near the steamship's small blue flags.
That figure signaled to my memory.
I hurriedly thrust myself into the depths of oblivion.
On my forehead was clammy sweat.……

July 9th

Since yesterday, the harmony of colors has returned to me once more.
Yesterday and today, I do not take to bed during daylight hours.
Instead, this soft, comforting sofa becomes my dwelling.
From here, I spend my days gazing upon each object in the room in turn.

(Dusk)

I suddenly noticed the change in colors.
It was something that hadn’t been in the downstairs room.
This room possesses living light.
It flows directly from the sea to here.
Light living without being absorbed by anything.
This light possesses shadows.
It first gives depth to colors, then imparts change—the harmony of calm planes collapses.
A more complex harmony is newly formed…… I am dazzled before this new discovery.
I feel my mental footing stagger.
Stepping into this new world of harmony is overwhelming for me.
I probably still cannot endure it.
Let me close my eyes, let me close my eyes.

July 10th

I want, if possible, to complete my own rebirth in peace.
In the shapes and colors that form the young harmony of this world I now inhabit, I seem to be unconsciously allowing shadows little by little.
May this not be an improper indulgence.
……A long conversation with Ms. Yuri about the sea.
For me, the sea holds profound fascination.
To my present self, the sea exists solely as tidal sounds swelling faintly at dawn and dusk—a sea perceived through hearing alone.
To preserve my integrity, I must comprehend the sea through my ears alone.
I listened to Ms. Yuri's words merely as fairy tales from some distant realm.

(Afternoon)

When four o'clock approached, I would always hear the ship's whistle.
At that hour, I would inevitably find myself gazing at the clock upon the mantelpiece.
The marble statue of a woman was not simply white.
Its ash-gray hue transformed with each passing moment.
The measure of shadows shifted imperceptibly.
Even the dampness in the air left its trace upon that pallor.
……I was contemplating life itself.

July 13th

I was not mistaken.
What I had been gazing at in the marble statue was a vision of life.
I was not mistaken.
Now slightly past four in the afternoon, as I gaze at the female statue whose drapery folds are gradually shifting into darker purple hues, I listen intently to the strange throbbing in my chest.

Ah, this is too heavy for my strength alone.
When night fell and the electric light transformed the room into a single plane, that female statue reverted to stone bearing a cold, faint smile.
I was still weak—the strength within me could barely support even myself.
Must I not take a single step forward?
Ah, this was far too heavy for my strength alone.
……Ms. Yuri leaned her face over my pillow and carefully wiped away my tears.
Like an infant, I clung to Ms. Yuri’s gaze.
(Night, 9 PM)

July 14th

This morning I asked Ms. Yuri to place that clock where my eyes could not reach.
The crisis passed.
I would no longer trouble myself over human matters.
I would boldly dash back into the vibrant canvas of colors.

July 16th (Father’s Letter)

Unako,

Having learned from Ms. Yuri’s letter that you can now read lengthy correspondence, I write this at last.
That I had not written you a single letter until now was due both to medical advice and my own trepidation.
Instead I frequently wrote to Ms. Yuri, receiving detailed replies from her each time.
This morning’s letter made me smile from my very core.
Within it Ms. Yuri describes what an enviable child you have become.
From my perspective, you appear to be passing your convalescence with wisdom.
This matter Ms. Yuri has also emphasized strenuously in her writing.
It brings me joy.
Yesterday I returned from an extended journey.
To this desolate atelier where none awaited me.
Through Shinano’s mountains I wandered without destination.
The approaching summer sun sought repeatedly to crush me.
I fought.

Can you imagine how much passion I felt with each stroke of my sketch?
Will you celebrate my second youth?

But now in this room, my passion has begun to feel a thread of coolness.
I could reflect calmly.
The whirlwind of transformations since the start of this year:
Your mother’s sudden death, your inexplicable fever.
I entrusted you to Ms. Yuri and set out on my journey.
While receiving at each inn the long letters Ms. Yuri sent about your condition, I truly traveled a great distance.
Before long, I learned you had escaped critical danger and ascended onto convalescence’s beautiful path.
After that, your state drew my attention intensely.
For your life’s breath bore too close a resemblance to mine.
One might say two lives had assumed identical forms without mutual awareness.
The letter from Ms. Yuri that arrived last night rendered this fancy of mine nearly definitive.
I am an infant just like you.
I am one who seeks to rebuild the world anew.

The landscape painting that accompanied me on my long journey will soon leave my hands.
Soon I will be able to live with you all in Atami.
And then, as my summer residence, I have contracted a small house in Karuizawa.
Once August arrives, I plan to move to that house.
Whether that house will be to your liking.
In the corner of the atelier, two or three paintings you drew during your school days lie covered in dust.
You certainly drew some rather ill-behaved apples.

“Hey, hey! If you’re not careful, you’ll tumble off the table!”

……I think I may have written too much about things from the past.
Both you and I were gazing at the sky like infants, I suppose.
Make sure to thank Ms. Yuri for various kindnesses.

July 18th (Unako’s Reply)

Thank you very much for the letter.
Because it was too long, I had Ms. Yuri read it.
Please forgive me.
Taking refuge in your closing words, Uneme will say nothing more.
I shall simply state that Uneme too is building her world, much like an infant who has just awoken from sleep reconstructs fallen blocks.
I am most heartened to hear a suitable house has been found in Karuizawa.
This must remain between us, but Ms. Yuri appeared to weep while reading Father's letter.
Though I could not meet her gaze, I distinctly perceived the tremor in her voice.
I did not shed tears.
I shall have this letter enclosed within Ms. Yuri's correspondence.

July 19th

What could a fever be? That fever which obliterated all memories, made them vanish, left me with this white flesh and pale crimson veins, then suddenly disappeared—what was it! According to Ms. Yuri’s account, he had caused me to lose not only my memories but all consciousness over these six months. Even the senses that expressed each moment’s pain and joy had apparently been nearly paralyzed. The consciousness that finally returned to me about a month ago could only grope blindly through the void of those blank months in search of old memories. Ah, how utterly empty. But that was fine. I had no more use for memory. The world of oblivion had become a chalk-white tower beyond a vast, vast desert. That expressionless tower would probably no longer speak to me. And here this eighteen-year-old body... I felt that alone was sufficient.

July 21st

Among all things, the sea especially was filled with countless pitfalls for me. I found myself seeing signals of old memories even in a single fold of the ever-changing waves. Could that be the burial shrouds of the dead confined within that chalk-white tower fluttering suddenly in the wind? The surprise I felt when I first glimpsed the harbor through the window during that time must have been this. A sailor climbed the mast toward a small blue flag. The sea and people—now I remember nothing, possessing neither the capacity nor the inclination for clear imaginings, yet from that place, something like a voice seemed to call out to me faintly. I knew no method to write this any more clearly. And this would probably be the last time I wrote even a little about the emergence of past memories. I must never again repeat such a foolish act.

July 22nd

“Unako!”

I do not know how I, who had been enjoying a pleasant rest on the sofa after breakfast, could distinguish Father’s voice so clearly from beyond the door.
From the deep, deep depths of oblivion, that voice alone had risen swiftly like a single bubble of ether.
I suddenly flung the hand cloth from my lap and ran to the door.
The door opened.
It had truly been so long since I last saw Father.
My eyes clung to Father’s thick beard.
Father hugged me tightly with both hands.
I smiled at Ms. Yuri’s face—beautifully breaking into a smile over Father’s shoulder—perhaps with tears.

July 24th

Since Father began living with us, our lives changed.
I came to spend several hours of the afternoon with Father on the sunlit veranda.
A time of quiet dialogue.
Father did not talk too much.
Father spoke while looking at the sea even when talking to me.
Somehow, in the sea I gazed upon with Father, I no longer sensed those flashes of signals I had once frequently seen.
Father talked about the color of the sea.
I nodded back meekly.
Fragmented conversation.
Ms. Yuri occasionally raised her eyes from the desk inside the window and exchanged smiles with Father and me.

July 25th

Father set up a bookshelf on the veranda facing the sea.
I was tracing with my eyes the colors melting away beside Father.
Conversations were exchanged even more rarely than yesterday.—

“Unako, have you noticed this color the sea beneath that cape possesses?”

“No, Father.”
“But if I stare intently, it gradually seems to come into view.”
“……Could it not be the shadow cast by that white cloud that just now appeared at the edge of the cape?”

Father answered while carefully spreading Veronese with a brush.

“Your perspective could indeed be considered correct.”
“But truly, regarding this color, it would be better not to focus solely on that cloud.”
“This is an inexplicable tone born from the mingling of various forms clustered around the right side of the composition, so to speak.…”

Then, after some more time had passed, Father abruptly paused his brush, turned to me, and said.

“When you watch the flowing clouds and churning waves like this, don’t you think of stories? If you are thinking of stories, then stop looking at my paintings with those same eyes.—Because not a single one of those lines or colors in my paintings tells any story.—For I am someone who has discarded not only the connections of memory but even its very traces.—For I am a painter.…”

I looked up at Father’s face in surprise.
Story?
What an utterly unexpected word that must have been for me.
I felt my entire self sway unsteadily, and for a while I could say nothing.
What should I say?
Father was talking about those flickerings of memory that once flashed between the waves.
How did Father come to know that?
Did Father see the same things I did?
If that were not the case, then the only place Father could have perceived it would be within my own pupils!……Several minutes later, I finally managed to answer, suppressing my trembling voice.

“I—I want to become that painter.”

I felt Father’s warm palm on the back of my hand.……

July 26th

(3 PM) Perhaps from staying too long on the veranda, I felt a slight dizziness and lay down on my sickbed, during which time I seem to have dozed off. When I awoke, my forehead was damply sweaty, but my spirits were refreshingly clear to the point of being unrecognizable.

On the veranda, Ms. Yuri’s clear, melodious laughter rang out. Finding this terribly amusing, I jumped up and flew out still in my pajamas to look—only to discover Ms. Yuri’s yarn ball stuck fast to Father’s palette. She chuckled while trying to retrieve it, attempting to skillfully remove it without dirtying the thread, yet it stubbornly refused to budge. Even the tangled strands of unraveled yarn clung stickily to the paint. Father stood nearby, calmly smiling as he watched. When Ms. Yuri noticed my presence, she flushed crimson as a poppy. I thought her terribly adorable.

July 27th

Yesterday evening, Father returned to Tokyo by train.
When we had prepared a small table on the veranda and were partaking in farewell tea together, Father gave me a gray book.
That was this book.
*Ingres’ Essays*.

The first sign of my convalescence.

Reading permitted for the first time!

July 29th

On excessively hot days, I would draw the sunshade halfway down and spend a little over an hour each afternoon on the veranda with *Ingres’ Essays*—this had become my daily routine.
At my feet lay Ms. Yuri’s yarn ball.
……Even the French I once loved so much had been forgotten to a strange degree—now I could barely recall it at all—but even so, thanks to this book’s modest and faithful translator, I was intensely glad that between the lines I could occasionally sense the gentle breath of the original text.
I understood perfectly well Father’s feelings in giving me this book—which conveyed the words of this exceptional painter who knew to value classical tradition above all else—as reading material for my convalescence.
As for me—who had lost everything by the great fever—regarding where I should first begin, the path Father had silently pointed out lay here.
This book utterly delighted me.
I had forgotten Ms. Yuri was nearby and nearly jumped up in surprise when the yarn ball touched my ankle.

July 31st

In the afternoons came reading on the veranda. Feeling the familiar texture of *Ingres’ Essays*’ mouse-gray cover with the pads of my fingers—what a soothing sensation it was. Of what I had read so far, the chapter on color had most deeply captured my heart. Ingres’ reflections on drawing seemed filled with profound revelations, yet somehow they failed to set all the strings of my heart resonating at once. Beneath my eyes swayed a green sea. There was a small steamship that punctually departed the port at 2 PM. The quiet bustle of the hot spring town spread from the seaside to the middle of the hills. From unexpected cliffs and the backdoors of houses, pure white steam occasionally rose……All these were the dear landscapes Father had captured on his canvas during his brief stay. I recalled several words Father had spoken to me as a painter while considering my condition. I gazed at the sea and the steam rising from the town, then read Ingres’ words on color. In particular, I carefully observed the color of the waves at the cape’s edge—the secret of those waves that Father had layered with Veronese green in their folds. Ingres’ words—“In living flesh there is nothing absolutely white. There is nothing absolutely white; everything is relative. Place a sheet of paper beside a lady shining with whiteness!”

August 1st

Mornings of gazing at the sea.
Reading Ingres in the afternoons.
In the meantime, my thoughts seemed to grow more ordered with each passing day.
I felt the color of the sea deepening day by day.

August 6th

Tomorrow was the day we moved to Karuizawa.
Ms.Yuri was busy preparing with this house’s old servant.
Since I could do nothing，I gazed vacantly out the window.
The glossy camellia leaves seemed to pierce my eyes.
(Do not forget to place Lhote’s *Beach*—the one hanging on the wall—between the feather quilts.)

August 9th (Karuizawa)

Since arriving at this house yesterday morning and having obediently stayed in bed until evening on Father and Ms. Yuri’s advice, I still knew nothing about this land.
This morning, past nine o'clock, I ventured out onto the balcony facing the garden for the first time.
What a strikingly different world this highland was compared to the seaside hot spring town!
The stifling atmosphere that had enveloped me until the day before yesterday.
White clouds that appeared suddenly without even attempting to flow, only to vanish again.
The cape, the sea, the ochre cliffs, the inn windows, and even the ships—all lay still as if asleep in that hot spring town.
That hot spring town that had nurtured my ailing body for half a year.
There, everything had pulsated with color, yet in this refreshing highland I felt no colors at all.
What a transparent feeling this place had.
I felt myself going blind and my ears abruptly sharpening.
Everything flowed.
I listened to its resonant flow.
In place of the green sea there, here lay a blue-flowing mountain range.
Wind flowed from one slanted roof to another across the houses.
Animals flowed; trees flowed.
Even the air flowed pale bluishly.…

The afternoon hours delight me with that heat.
I feel I cannot live without heat.
In the heat, I do not feel objects flowing too quickly.
A rich sense of color returns to me once more.……

August 13th

These past few days, I lived with my ears completely covered.
I feared my acute hearing might cause my fever to rise again.
Ms. Yuri grew so concerned that she specially asked Father to telephone the Tokyo doctor.
According to the doctor’s words, a highland was apparently far more suitable than a hot spring town for my health.
Even I had vaguely come to realize that my condition these past few days was due to unnaturally heightened nerves.
It was the too-sudden change in scenery that frightened my heart.
The fever did not come.
And for a few hours during the day, I am intensely happy.

August 14th

No—not everything flows so violently.
It merely lacks a sense of solidification due to its pale colors.
On the canvas, paint is merely thinly dissolved.
And perhaps because of that, there are increasing shadows of things trembling delicately on the canvas.

Mountain clouds and sea clouds are not the same.
Sea clouds lack lines and consist solely of color.
Mountain clouds must first and foremost be drawn with lines.
And this latter was something I had not known until now.

August 16th

Since coming here, I ventured into Father’s studio for the first time.
Father’s studio was a spacious, bright room that stood apart like a separate building.
Several paintings attempted in Atami remained unfinished, left in the corner of the entrance.
Compared to those color paintings, what a difference Father’s current work was!
On the large canvas, only the intertwined lines were clearly visible.
Colors merely flowed modestly within their depths.
I was astonished.
What could a line be?
How strange that I wasn’t the only one who had come to sense lines in this highland.

August 18th

I gazed at my favorite painting—Lhote’s *The Beach*—with quiet intensity for the first time in ages.
What I’d realized—a line was not the boundary of colors.
It was the foundation of colors.
The colorless, transparent air of this land made me realize that.

August 19th

I read *Ingres’ Essays*, which I hadn’t touched even once since moving to the highland.
My fingers naturally opened to the chapter on drawing.
To tell the truth, until now I had never properly grasped what drawing was.
I had been too absorbed in colors.
Moreover, I had convinced myself that sculpture could be created merely through fleshing out.
To someone like me, Ingres’ words at first seemed filled with excessive emphases.
(Indeed, even when I was becoming familiar with this book in Atami, I felt something somehow unfamiliar about this chapter alone.) Yes, this chapter was filled with so many emphases.
It was because Ingres had directed his strongest passion precisely into this chapter.
Ingres was a painter who lived for drawing.
I startled at every sentence.
Each time I finished a passage, I took a deep breath.

Ingres’ words.—
“Even passion must be expressed through lines.”

August 20th

Even passion must be expressed through lines.—

I will copy here once more the words I wrote down yesterday.
It was not that I had liked this phrase.
I was afraid.

August 23rd

(Afternoon) These past two or three days, I spent in a daze.
Father too had grown much quieter than usual.
And yet I felt I somewhat understood why.
……Only Ms. Yuri remained as cheerful as ever.
While knitting by the window, she chatted amiably with a puppy that had come to play in the garden.
Still, she seemed secretly terrified I might develop another fever.
Though never voicing it aloud, I noticed how she would sometimes slip from her bed at night to lay a hand on my forehead.

August 24th

Father spent the entire day shut up in the studio.
Ms. Yuri, for her part, sang while knitting and cooking.
I spent my solitary time looking at art books, gazing at clouds, and occasionally reading Ingres.
In the dining room, we were at peace.
Father remained silent, but he was kind.

August 28th

Father’s painting seems nearly complete.
I can tell from Father’s slight demeanor that it is so.
Today, before lunch, Father went out to town—a rare occurrence—and bought cheese and flowers.
It was to drink wine for the first time in ages, as if he had completely forgotten about it.
These past two or three days, my heart has been remarkably clear and refreshed.
It’s hard to say it’s merely peace.
There is something reflected in my heart, and it smiles expansively throughout my entire heart.
Is it because my body has completely recovered?
Could it be because a new world has opened within my heart?
The words of Ingres that had been frightening me all this time are now a fountain of happiness.
I reread those words countless times a day.
I feel as though something is waiting for me.
I hear a voice whispering of some bright omen.
What could it be?
I don’t understand.……

September 3rd

Peaceful days continued on.
Everyone lived while laughing.
The air throughout the house carried the scent of happiness.
We all worked diligently.
I began French lessons.

September 8th

“Why don’t we have today’s tea in the garden?”

Ms. Yuri, having returned from the studio, told me so. While sensing the garden filled with hot sunlight, I lay in my sickbed utterly thoughtless. I nodded silently. For these past two or three days, I had developed the habit of taking afternoon naps. Instead, I had made it my custom to spend the evenings in the garden with Father and Ms. Yuri. This appeared to yield favorable results for my health. What I must first note is that I could no longer dwell in simple drowsy comfort amidst bright outdoor light. Beyond the clear-cut contrasts of light and shadow divided by thick lines, I gradually began to distinctly perceive the existence of lines of an entirely different nature. For rest—for stillness—the twilight rich with shadows where evening breezes began flowing anew, I started feeling this held deeper meaning and more vitality than daylight’s brilliance. If a modicum of conjecture be permitted—might it be that I was gradually emerging from an infantile mind steeped in potent noon sunlight, coming instead to favor twilights suffused with intricate shadows and transitional moods? ……My pen—you run counter to my will. What I had wished to record—was it not something other than these matters? Though I must write of different things, my pen strays elsewhere……

(That night)

I take up the pen again.
The house is quiet.
The studio’s blissful quiet seems to reach even my room.

Autumn came early to the highlands.
My heart already seemed to seep into the beautiful flames of the hearth.
I blessed the silence of Father’s studio with a warm heart.
I must write.……

I awoke from a pleasant afternoon nap.

The room was still filled with bright light, and the ceiling's whiteness was nearly dazzling to the eyes, yet everything felt strangely hushed.
I wondered if I had overslept.
I recalled the garden tea Ms. Yuri had mentioned earlier.
I hurriedly dressed and went down to the balcony doorway.
From there, I could clearly see a corner of the garden where a tea table stood.
Father and Ms. Yuri were already seated there.
The light filtering through leaves held an odd greenish cast, and the milk jug on the table gleamed with a damp whiteness.
That was all I saw.
Yet something abruptly rooted my feet in place.
I hesitated to step outside.
Then Father's hand reached quite naturally toward Ms. Yuri's shoulder, and her nape inclined slightly forward.
Before I knew why, I found myself running back inside.
When awareness returned, I stood at the foot of my bedroom stairs clutching my breasts tightly.
I had seen something shining brightly.
Love?
It owed nothing to sunlight; it held no color.
I understood nothing about it.
Yet simultaneously understood everything.
I felt all things rushing back into me at once.
Could this have been memory's return?

I don’t know.
I felt my chest swell richly, and I felt life’s void being beautifully filled.
I was completely at peace.……