Pathway to Japanese Literature

In a six-tatami room, they had laid out three beds side by side, placed their seven-year-old daughter in the middle, and the couple were sleeping.
The Sakura charcoal in the paulownia brazier lit at dusk had turned to white ash, and by the master’s pillow, a lamp with a subdued flame burned faintly.
Next to it sat a small box containing a clock and notebook, upon which lay a Western book with a temporary binding, left open and face down.
It must be that the master had stopped reading and gone to sleep.

It was 7:00 AM on January 30th.
The northwest wind blew fiercely, rattling the storm shutters at intervals.
In the kitchen one room over, the maid had risen and was clattering about noisily.
The noise roused the master from sleep.

The shoji screens facing the rear garden glowed faintly white.
Unnoticed by anyone, the maid had opened only these storm shutters.
The master turned to look at his daughter sleeping beside him - her plump, rosy face half-buried in her nightgown's collar - and smiled.
He recalled how she had sung a nursery rhyme in her sleep during the night.

The master recalled that today was Emperor Kōmei Memorial Day—a day requiring his presence at the Kashikodokoro by nine-thirty—and looked at the clock. By private automobile, departing from this Nishikata-chō residence at eight-thirty would allow sufficient time to reach the Imperial Palace. He calculated that even with a leisurely rise, morning ablutions, and breakfast, there remained adequate margin.

At that moment, a sharp voice came from the kitchen: “Oh, hasn’t the hot water boiled yet?”
Suddenly, the Wife stretched out her white, delicate hand and flung up her nightgown.
The Wife had a habit of sleeping with her nightgown pulled completely over her head.
This was because when she was younger, she had heard a story about a thief who broke into a house and resolved to rape a woman after seeing her beautiful face—from then on, she had begun sleeping in a way that kept her face hidden.
Indeed, hers was a face with well-proportioned features.
Once undone, her hair—which seemed long enough to exceed her height when styled into a Western bun—lay half-disheveled, with pins and a comb fallen beside the pillow whose black-lacquered base bore a small red cushion.
The Wife opened her large, dark eyes so wide they seemed to occupy half of her pale face.
And she spoke thus:
“Oh, what a voice!
That voice always ends up waking Tamako.”
It was loud and shrill, so it certainly carried to the kitchen.

Who was it that had complained in the kitchen about the slow boiling of the water?
This was none other than Takayama Shunzō's mother—Professor of Literature at the Imperial University and Doctor of Letters.
It was through this mother's efforts that when the Professor's father—aided by a friend from their home prefecture who had secured a favorable position in early Meiji—received an appointment as a junior clerk with a fifteen-yen monthly salary upon moving to Tokyo, she sustained his education by going without fish they should have eaten and clothes they should have worn, until he became what was then called a government-sponsored scholar.
When the Professor's father once asked a high-ranking official who had assisted them how much money one needed to study abroad, the official reportedly responded thus:
“I don’t know if you mean to save up to send your son overseas, but you mustn’t harbor such reckless notions.”
“Generally speaking, we Japanese lack sufficient regard for property.”
“First—on your salary, even starving yourselves wouldn’t suffice to send him abroad. But suppose you could—what if the son you sent were to die?”
“Letting your wife starve would violate your duties.”
“Any children born afterward must at least receive an ordinary education.”
“Where would those funds come from?”
“The fact you’re putting your son through university on your income alone defies ordinary practice.”
“Since you and your wife are united in this endeavor, I won’t dissuade you—but understand this itself constitutes a gamble.”
“Such gambles spring from Japan’s peculiar custom of parental devotion, but I cannot endorse this as wise.”
“At minimum,” he concluded, “it cannot be called prudent.”

Under such circumstances, Mother raised the Professor and brought him to where he is today. This elderly woman was not one of those people commonly found in society who are naturally unable to sleep, but even now, so that the Professor would not be late for his lectures at the university, she rose each morning herself to prepare the hot water and prepared the meals. On occasions when, due to time constraints, the Professor left without eating a meal, Mother would lament for several days. For this reason, she had complained about the hot water this morning as well.

The Wife was naturally a late riser, but she was not so carefree as to think it acceptable for her husband to be late for his lectures. On mornings when she had to rise especially early, she would set an alarm clock to play "From the High Mountain" and rouse the maid. Yet invariably, Mother would wake first. This was only natural. Mother was a remarkably strong-willed woman; having decided the night before upon an hour to rise, she would unfailingly awaken at that precise time through autosuggestion. In contrast, the Wife's lack of willpower was exceptional. This had been true since her arrival in the household as a bride.

As Professor Takayama Shunzō detested socializing, banquets, and geisha, on festival days and Sundays he would have someone prepare a Kansai-style boxed lunch, take Mother to Dōkan-yama, open their meal on a tea shop bench, and spend the day reading a Western poetry collection or similar work he had brought along—until one day he invited his new Wife on this excursion. Though deeply displeased, the new Wife had only recently married into the family and remained reserved, so she reluctantly accompanied them.

Upon returning home and facing him directly, the new Wife declared: "I truly dislike going out with your mother. Please don't make me endure such unpleasant things." From that moment onward, whenever the Wife voiced complaints, this plea—"don't make me endure such unpleasant things"—would be repeated like a refrain.

The Wife did not endure unpleasant things. Under no circumstances did she endure them. There existed no concept of her exerting effort or applying herself to any task. Not an ounce of self-discipline could be found in her—a memento of her girlhood days when she had been indulged by her Father, former Chief Justice of the Daishin-in. Whenever the shadow of anything resembling duty fell across her path, three firm wrinkles would form between her beautiful, long eyebrows. There was no trace of any resolve to rise simply because rising was necessary.

“Oh, what a voice! That voice always ends up waking Tamako,” said the Wife.

Young Miss Tamako, having heard her mother’s voice rather than the one from the kitchen, stretched out her two plump fists with a yawn and opened wide her dark eyes—handed down from her mother—in a pitiable manner.

When the Professor saw this and said, “Oh, you’re up? You’re up? What a good girl,” she turned her outstretched hands toward Papa, laughing as if ready to be picked up.

The sole right the Professor retained was the ability to speak kind words to this child alone; toward Mother, he was far from offering kind words—indeed, even addressing her at all was no easy matter.

The Wife pursed her dry, cracked lips tightly and stared fixedly at the Professor’s face.

“You’re most welcome to.”

“Just say whatever you like to her.”

It was as though she were thinking, Even though I said her voice was grating, and you wouldn’t chime in with agreement—which I resent—I’ll specially keep quiet about it for your sake.

The Wife’s lips were always dry and cracked.

This was because she always slept with the bedding pulled over her head.

Since coming to this household, the Wife had never referred to the Professor’s mother as anything other than “that person.”

As for why the Professor did not say “Mother,” it had come to be answered that she had come to this house to become your wife, not to become that person’s child.

On the Professor’s part as well, he thought it highly improper that the Wife should complain about Mother’s voice in a manner audible to Mother herself, but if he were to reprimand her for it, a storm would arise.

If he were to reprimand even such a thing, the surface of this household’s waters would never be calm.

He remained silent.

This standoff constituted the atmosphere of this household.

Professor Takayama Shunzō, his Wife, and Tamako had been inhabiting this atmosphere for seven years.

The commotion from the kitchen spread to the adjacent room where the three family members lay sleeping.
At the same moment the manservant opened the storm shutters on the front garden side, the maid drew water into the adjacent room.
The clattering noise now coming from the tearoom further ahead was Mother setting out the meal trays.

The Professor rose.
Tamako furrowed her face and whined, “Ugh.”
This was her acting up a bit because she wanted to go wash her face together.
“Papa has to go to His Majesty the Emperor’s place early today, so I got up first,” he said soothingly.
And he said to his wife, “Wake her up, change her clothes, and send her over.”
Even if she found it unpleasant, as long as the necessary instructions were given, the machinery of this household continued to operate.
By the time the Wife had half-risen, the Professor had already left for the adjacent room.

The Professor sat in the adjacent room wearing a modest two-layer meisen silk garment and a mouse-gray crepe heko sash. Beyond the glass door lay a flower bed where only withered hibiscus stumps remained like deer antlers, frost pillars that had lifted thin soil crumbling sporadically. He took water from the stoneware jar into his rinsing bowl, drew hot water from the small bucket into the metal basin, and washed his face using a toothpick. His procedure was so methodically ordered that when his wife first came as a bride, she had remarked it resembled a tea ceremony ritual. True enough—after rinsing his mouth, he would wipe the bowl with a dry cloth. Upon finishing his ablutions, he poured out the water into a bucket, wrung the towel to wipe the basin dry, then stacked the rinsing bowl atop it. He twisted the towel again before hanging it on its rack. Toothpick, comb, and soap each found precise placement on the small lid’s surface—every motion indeed redolent of chanoyu precision.

When the Wife—wearing a two-layer everyday undergarment for ventilation with a tea-striped silk haori draped over it—had dressed Tamako in a yuzen-dyed merino kimono with Genroku sleeves and brought her out, the Professor finished his usual tea ceremony-like routine, called out “Tamako, come for breakfast once you’re done,” and headed to the tearoom.
In the tearoom, Mother waited, served the Professor and Tamako, and ate together with them—as was the household’s custom—while behind the Wife’s meal tray lay an empty zabuton cushion.
The Wife ate in a separate room after everyone else had finished their meals.
This was not limited to meals.
The Wife did not sit together with Mother at all.
When she first came as a bride, it had been such that whenever Mother entered where the couple was, the Wife would promptly stand up and flee; but gradually she ensured Mother would not come to places where the Professor was present.

The Professor left every morning; more often than not, he returned at dusk.
When he returned and Mother tried to come speak to him, the Wife would say that coming to the couple’s room at night was the act of a jealous person.
To lend weight to this argument, the Wife had been stating that Mother once peeked into the couple’s bed.
This referred to when Tamako fell ill and cried in the night, prompting Mother’s concerned visit.
For some time afterward when the Professor bathed upon returning home, Mother would come discuss household matters.
The Wife remarked: “There may be maids eager to tend to the master’s bath, but such behavior from a grandmother seems most peculiar.”
“When Mother flusters about needing something and lurks outside our shoji waiting to pounce,” she added, “I find it quite trying having this jealous creature constantly haunting our corridor.”
On rare holidays when the Professor stayed home during daylight hours, if Mother appeared, the Wife would bolt upright and flee as was her custom.
This avoidance gradually intensified until she would rise with an indignant “Hmph!” and slam the sliding door shut.
Thus Mother could only speak with her son while serving him meals—no other opportunity remained.
The Wife naturally refused silence on this arrangement.
“What mother in creation insists on serving her grown son?” she sneered.
Had her wishes prevailed, meals would have excluded Mother entirely—the couple and Tamako dining alone—but this concession the Professor steadfastly denied.
Even Takayama Shunzō—who had utterly failed to achieve domestic harmony through marriage—defended this last bastion of tradition by insisting they dine together with Mother.
Tamako being a child required no mealtime formalities; she simply joined her father and grandmother when food appeared.
Thus through established custom did the Wife alone remain behind when meals concluded.

This morning, the Professor hurriedly finished his meal.
When he stood up after saying to Mother, “Today I must go to the Imperial Palace,” Tamako—who had finished her preparations—came running in and, upon seeing that her father had already finished, looked disappointed; then from the inner room came the Wife’s voice: “Tamako, bring your meal tray over here.”
At the same time, the manservant came to take the meal trays of the Wife and Tamako.

The inner room was the Professor’s study.
The Professor disliked confined spaces, so he lived in the largest room in the house, where he also worked.
He also changed clothes there.
He also received guests there.
The Professor stood up from the tearoom and, on his way to enter the inner room, asked whether the carriage was ready; upon hearing the rickshaw puller’s reply, he then entered the inner room.
There in the inner room were the ceremonial robes the Wife had prepared and laid out the previous evening.
The Professor detested clothes adorned with gold trimmings, and given that an expenditure of five hundred yen was no easy matter on his income, he had always resolved to feign illness on days requiring palace visits—but he had finally managed it just recently through some means.
As the manservant set down the meal trays for the Wife and Tamako beside the brazier, the Professor—to prevent dust from settling on the trays—went to the corner of the room and put on the hakama of his ceremonial robes.

Just then, Tamako came running in and, seeing the Professor dressed only in his shirt, clung to him saying, “Papa’s milk.”
When the Professor said, “Come now, your meal is set out—eat quickly,” Tamako sat properly before her meal tray.

There, the Wife—having finished her preparations—entered with quiet abruptness, appearing unsettled as she crouched on a zabuton cushion with knees drawn up. She took the two fire tongs standing neatly in the brazier, planted them upright elsewhere, and rested her hands over them to warm herself.
The efficacy of imported cosmetics from Sekiguchi showed; her face glowed with water-clear beauty.
Her cheeks—too pale upon waking—now bloomed dawn-pink.
Without glancing at Tamako eating broth-soaked rice, the Wife first heaved a labored sigh and addressed the Professor as he fastened his mid-weight undergarment:
“I’ll take Tamako and go somewhere.
I can’t stay where that dreadful voice reaches me.”

The Professor stopped his hands fastening the clasp of his mid-weight undergarment and strained his ears.
He had grown wary of this “Let’s go somewhere.”
She had once said the same thing, abruptly left alone for an inn in Yugawara, and when no one knew her whereabouts, both his household and her parents’ home grew terribly worried until an innkeeper’s postcard arrived, prompting her family to send someone to retrieve her.
The Wife always insisted on taking Tamako during such episodes.
“No one would leave a small child behind when going out,” she would first declare.
Then came her next line: “I can’t entrust my child to someone who claims she hates caring for them.”
“This counters Mother’s excuse about fearing accusations if Tamako caught cold under her watch—though of course that’s pure fiction.”
Mother actually yearned to dote on her pitiful granddaughter endlessly, were it not for social constraints.
Yet the Professor refused to acknowledge such reasoning.
Whether keeping the brazier lit against chills, managing nighttime ablutions with groans when nightclothes were kicked off, or having O-maru assist with washing—since he handled all these himself, he couldn’t trust others with them.
Were he to explain, he’d say the Wife took Tamako as a hostage when threatening departure; leaving alone would resolve matters too simply for her taste.
This morning too, with a “Here we go again” air, he paused his buttoning to glance at the alcove clock.
It read eight twenty.
He clapped for the maid: “Tell Matsukichi to put away the carriage—I’ll walk today.”
As the manservant turned to leave, he added: “Serve Tamako’s meal.”
The manservant prepared broth-covered rice for Tamako before departing.
Half-fastened in his undergarment, the Professor hastily drafted a report for the Ceremonial Affairs Department, retrieved the palace pass from the utility cabinet, summoned the maid again to have the rickshaw man deliver it.
Tamako finished eating and poured herself tea.

The Wife adjusted her knees and sat down, using fire tongs to gather the embers in the ash-covered brazier to one side and pile them up.
The Professor quickly changed into his everyday clothes and sat down at his desk.
The Wife brought the brazier to the Professor’s side and sat facing him across it.

“Aren’t you going to eat your meal?”
It was the Professor who broke the silence.

“I don’t want to eat.”

“And this talk of going somewhere—are you serious?”

"If I can take Tamako with me, then I'll go."

"You know perfectly well it's always been my stance that taking Tamako is unnecessary."
"You may go alone."
"That doesn't mean you have free rein over destinations."
"You mustn't wander off to random places like before, but you may go to the villa in Zushi where your mother from Kioi-chō resides."

Kioi-chō referred to the residence of the Wife’s father, Non-active Privy Council Judge Saka Naoto.

“That’s an impossible proposition.”
“No father or mother would ever leave their child behind.”
“If you can’t take care of her, I’m telling you I’ll stay up all night here if I have to.”
“In that case, I’ll just stop!”

“You should stop.”
“There’s no such rule that Mother’s voice must not be heard.”

The Wife's trip was immediately called off.
The Professor had no reason to cancel his attendance at the imperial ceremony over such a matter.
Were it a day requiring his presence at the university, even he would not have canceled.
Yet leaving without notice would leave him later troubled by uncertainty about her whereabouts.
What he truly disliked was having Tamako taken away.
Though such incidents occurred periodically even on ordinary days, it had become customary during these occasions for the Professor to take Tamako to his sister—who resided with a nearby law professor—and entrust her there.

The couple remained silent for a while.
Tamako pulled out the Western magazines piled up in the alcove and looked at the illustrations.
The manservant came and glanced briefly at the Wife. As she said, “I won’t eat now, so take it away,” he cleared away the meal tray.
Such things happened often, so he was prepared for it.
The Professor instructed, “Bring the hand warmer to Tamako’s place and leave it there.”

The Professor lit a cigar.
Given his policy of keeping no alcoholic beverages in the house and his declared inability to manage relations with two women simultaneously, tobacco remained his sole indulgence.
Though he disliked paper-rolled cigarettes and considered expensive cigars extravagant, he had settled on Victoria at twenty yen per hundred sticks.
After studying abroad, he maintained that only Havana cigars offered authentic flavor—yet endured Manila ones for frugality’s sake.
The Wife picked at the flaking skin of her lower lip, deep in thought.
Tamako remained absorbed in examining illustrations.
Outside, the wind had ceased; sunlight now fell upon the shoji screens.
The room lay hushed.
At intervals came the ticking of the clock.

“Could there possibly be someone with such a voice?”
The Wife began.
“Even if you were to kindly stay home—abandoning your visit to the Imperial Palace—by noon that voice would still resound in the tea room.”
“I’d surely go mad.”

The Professor furrowed his brows.
“Don’t be absurd.”
“Mother’s voice isn’t what one would call gentle.”
“With her masculine temperament, gentleness was never its quality.”
“But that it disturbs you speaks of your own nerves.”
“This mirrors when you first came here and declared the temple gongs in Sakana-machi made you unbearably desolate.”

Within the darkness shrouding their hearts, sweet honeymoon memories flashed lightning-bright—then vanished.
Whenever those gongs had sounded, Hanayome would press her face to her husband’s chest and murmur: “That sound fills me with such loneliness.”
The Professor had felt something peculiar then.
That this woman might harbor some neural aberration—the thought chilled him.
Yet he reconsidered: no, human nerves varied—some like factory gears, others like koto strings; nerves that transformed indifferent gongs into mournful echoes. Such nerves deserved compassion.

“No.
“If it were the voice of someone present, it wouldn’t bother me.”
“It’s not like she’s just an ordinary person, you know.”
“She’s taken all the money and handled it carelessly, and now she’s even trying to take you away from me, you know.”
“If you let your guard down even a little, she immediately comes to your side.”
“To you, that is right before your eyes.”
“Exactly.”
“It’s revolting.”
The Wife’s large black eyes gleamed.

“She says it again.”
“If people heard it, they’d only think she’s a lunatic.”
“Isn’t she the Mother who gave birth to me?”
The Professor’s voice grew vehement.
Tamako raised her face from the book and glanced briefly.
As this was a recurring argument, the Professor did not feel as angry as he had the first time he heard it.
Even so, it still echoed in his mind.
A scar that had long remained unhealed and caused no pain would still ache when prodded by others.
Tamako, as it was a common occurrence, wasn’t particularly surprised and went back to looking at the illustrations.

“That you and that person would become like adopted sons attending upon a widow—such a notion had never even crossed my mind.”
“Though aged in years, her passions remain youthful—she desires to play at marriage with someone.”
“That’s precisely why she clings so desperately to managing the accounts herself.”

“That too is mistaken.”
“It’s exactly as I’ve always explained.”
“Household finances hold no real significance.”
“For a wife to manage accounts is at best a mediocre affair.”
“In grand households, even servants like Sandayū handle such things.”
“Managing accounts doesn’t make one a wife, nor does abstaining from it negate wifely status.”
“When you first came here, you were utterly unfit for financial stewardship.”
“You’d developed that habit of coaxing your father into buying whatever frivolities caught your eye.”
“You possessed not the slightest notion of budgeting.”
“Lately you’ve shown some glimmer of understanding.”
“Though you may grow capable of handling accounts eventually, there’s no need to wrest control from Mother while she manages comfortably.”
“Should Mother herself declare the task too burdensome and relinquish it, I would naturally assume responsibility first.”
“Once matters settle and your temperament improves—once we can discuss things openly—I wouldn’t refuse you the role.”
“But given your current disposition, I see no imminent prospect of improvement.”
“Wouldn’t it suffice to conduct yourself such that Mother—who’s managed our finances all this time—might voluntarily say ‘Very well, this can be entrusted to you’?”
“In short, you should have her surrender control willingly.”
“Your error lies in approaching this like plundering spoils of war.”

“It’s not about having her hand it over.”
“It’s your salary, isn’t it?”
“It’s not that I want to handle it without permission.”
“If you had managed it yourself—if you had consulted me—would you still claim I’m not acting like a wife?”
“Mother from Kioi-chō never meddled in my brother’s salary affairs!”

“That’s different. Father from Kioi-chō is a man of property—the salary your Brother earns at the company only needs to cover his own household’s petty expenses, so he naturally considers it inconsequential.”
“In our home, there’s nothing beyond the salary I bring in.”
“Since Mother is managing it and practicing frugality for our sake, what could be better?”

“No. That’s just unnecessary meddling.”
“It’s the salary you earn, isn’t it?”
“Since her husband was just a low-ranking official who amounted to nothing, she should be content relying on you for sustenance and behaving properly without meddling.”
“She’s putting her hands into other people’s affairs.”

“You utter such vulgar things.”
“Who do you think paid my tuition and made me graduate from university?”

“Well, until you became a scholarship student or something, they probably contributed a little.”
“That is simply what parents are supposed to do.”
“The fact that you’ve come to earn a salary as you do now—isn’t that due to your own ability?”
“My brother had all the tuition he could ever want and was even sent abroad, but he never became someone like a professor.”

“Whether one received a little tuition or a lot—you can’t measure the weight of parental gratitude through such calculations.”
“For my father to provide even a little, he must have struggled many times more than your father did to provide a lot.”
“Indeed, your brother is not a professor.”
“Even if parents pay as much tuition as they can, not everyone becomes a scholar.”
“People have their own paths.”
“Moreover, determining how much of a person’s success stems from innate qualities and how much from the help of others is something not even the greatest scholar can ascertain.”
“Even what one is born with could be due to heredity.”
“Just because one succeeds through their own efforts, does that mean there’s no debt of gratitude to their parents?”

“Oh, come on.”
“Then by all means, bask in your debt of gratitude!”
“Even accepting that, if you keep me utterly ignorant of what assets we hold or what becomes of your salary—should you die, what would become of me and Tamako?”
The Wife pivoted her argument.
Tamako—perceptive beyond her years—set down her book, stood up, pressed a finger to her lips, and fixed her pitifully wide eyes in an earnest gaze that shifted between her parents.
She refrained from putting the finger in her mouth—the Professor had taught her never to do so.

“The property is limited, isn’t it? This house was built with all of Father’s assets and the salary I earned up until then, and as for real estate, there is only 5,000 yen. My annual salary, including lecture fees, is 2,700 yen. And it’s only by maintaining this standard of living and giving you sixty yen each for summer and winter clothing expenses that we can manage—all thanks to Mother’s frugality.”

“You’ve already heard about this, I tell you.”
“How should I know? I haven’t seen it myself—I haven’t a clue.”
“If you leave everything to that person, who knows what horrors might befall me and Tamako!”

“Don’t keep saying ‘Tamako-chan’ like that.”
“The child will worry unnecessarily.”
“I have had a notary public prepare a proper will, so there will be no troubles for you and Tamako.”

The Professor looked at Tamako, smiled and jerked his chin upward, whereupon Tamako circled around from behind her mother’s back and was gathered into the Professor’s embrace.

“Even this will business—that messenger from the notary’s office turns out to be the husband of that crone who comes to Kioi-chō! So that’s how I finally learned of it. Preposterous!”
“I suppose it hasn’t been drafted in any way that would inconvenience someone like me.”
“But Father says wills aren’t reliable documents no matter how they’re written.”
“And anyway, it’s not as if that person has possession of it.”

“It’s not at Mother’s place.”
“A will may lose its validity under certain circumstances.”
“I’ve simply taken the most reliable measures possible.”
“Of course I intended it to be fair, but since you’ve treated Mother harshly and she grew anxious about what might happen if something befell me, I decided to prepare it.”
Ridiculous.
There being no real property to speak of, a will had no place here.
When Father was alive and my siblings still lived at home—if I recalled those days—no one in our household ever fretted over matters of death or money.
The elderly forget their own aging while thinking of their children.
Children find joy in studying to please their parents.
There was neither money nor anything else.
Heart and skill were our only assets.
Thus our entire household united to lead a life of struggle.
In those days, hopeful light filled our home, and laughter arose whenever parents and children gathered.
The Professor clutched Tamako tightly.
“Tamako has never heard her parents laugh.”

When the Wife finished saying all she usually said, she remained silent for a while.
By nature taciturn—when she had first entered the household as a bride, the Professor had even remarked that her reticence was her sole virtue.
Tamako pressed her cheek against her father’s chest, gazed up at him through half-open eyes, and breathed softly.
The room grew hushed once more.
At intervals came the sound of the mantel clock.

The Wife piled and crumbled charcoal in the brazier while lost in thought.
Her mind churned turbulently.
Incapable by nature of arranging thoughts methodically, whenever the Professor assailed her with logic during their exchanges, she would grow half-engrossed in responding until inevitably cornered like a child playing at counting games.
When considering how to escape this torment, she recalled her father’s words upon her marriage: “If you ever feel unhappy, return home at once.”
She wondered whether it might have been better had she gone back much sooner.
This led her to remember how three months after her wedding, when visiting her parents’ home with her husband, Mother had said: “You were never one to grow close to others easily—yet you’ve taken so well to Mr. Takayama.”
Ultimately she concluded she couldn’t have returned.
She asked herself whether she loved her husband now.
Her husband was not a handsome man.
Once he had said: “Handsome men deteriorate with age—an ugly fellow like me gains advantage.”
Another time he had remarked: “My face bears the gradual etchings of experience—quite unlike what my parents bestowed at birth.”
At any rate, she didn’t dislike him.
Were she to take another husband—what if that man proved more disagreeable than the Professor? she mused.
She also supposed that remarrying someone of professorial standing might prove difficult.
If only my husband’s mother weren’t here—the thought flashed through her mind.

If only she would go away somewhere. If only she would go to her husband’s sister’s house. But there was a mother-in-law there too—she couldn’t possibly go there. She thought it would be better if she simply died. Thinking this, she found it strange that she herself felt nothing at all about entertaining such a terrible thought.

As the Professor pressed Tamako down with his right hand, the cigar he had been holding in his left hand had gone out without him noticing.
Tamako seemed content and remained perfectly still.
The Professor found himself recalling something.
On his commute route to the university stood a grain merchant.
Though he owned a rickshaw, he would sometimes walk to work for exercise when mornings were early.
Lately, especially on these cold mornings, he often walked because riding felt colder.
One day while passing that grain merchant's shop, he noticed an old woman inside.
Her white hair had yellowed, and her hands looked like crumpled persimmon paper.
The old woman was sorting through red bean scraps in her palm—that same persimmon-paper palm—picking out impurities.
The Professor paused to observe.
He thought:
When winnowing grains piled mountain-high, chaff naturally abounds.
Yet this old woman painstakingly picked through pinches with clouded eyes—a task that made no difference.
Beside her, an apprentice vigorously sifted with a large sieve.
Still, she must have believed her work meaningful.
The shopkeeper likely found it odd but never complained.
An amusing situation.
Thereafter, whenever passing by, he would glance unconsciously.
The old woman kept sorting impurities daily.
The master never did complain.

The Professor now recalled this old woman. The Wife’s complaints about Mother’s management of the household finances were one thing, but it was by no means absolutely necessary to have Mother handle them. Perhaps it would be better if I did it myself. However, stopping something that Mother did believing it to benefit the household would not be good. To do such a thing would mean performing an act even more inferior than that grain merchant’s master. Mother said this: “If I were to hand over the accounts to that daughter-in-law,” she said, “from that very day onward—even if there were some slight need for funds—I would have to go and bow my head to ask for them.” “Since entering this household, the daughter-in-law only bowed once—when exchanging cups with relatives at her wedding—and has never performed a proper bow since.” “Whether going out or returning home, she has never once offered a greeting.” “Having to go there and bow my head would be utterly humiliating.” “If it weren’t for that woman, I would have long since taken the initiative to hand over the household accounts to the daughter-in-law—I’d resolved to do so even before being asked.” “Moreover, when she first came here, the daughter-in-law showed no inclination whatsoever to handle the accounts.” “Even now, my way gets by on half the expenses,” she said. Everything Mother said was reasonable. The matter of having to bow to Mother—he had first told her gently, then even tried scolding her into correcting it—but ultimately proved futile. If I were to handle the household finances myself instead of entrusting them to my wife, Mother would not have to bow to Wife—yet I could not consult Wife, who refused to speak, on household management. When it came to frugality, Mother was undeniably more adept. Perhaps she was even more skilled than I was. Of course, this was not a matter to be spoken of in the same breath as the grain merchant’s old woman sorting beans in her palm. First and foremost, maintain the status quo—the Professor thought.

The Wife suddenly broke her silence and muttered, as if to herself, “After all—it’s the Fire Horse year.”
This was the zodiac sign of the Professor’s mother.
The Professor would often remark in jest, “Mother’s a force to be reckoned with—born alongside the Chief of the General Staff himself.”
The Wife clung to superstition, convinced she must subdue her mother-in-law’s zodiac influence lest she herself be overwhelmed.
This too fed their mutual antipathy.
Such beliefs flowed from her lineage—the Mother hailed from Kioi-chō, raised in Edo’s twilight under the shogunate.
Her devotion to Konpira-sama sprang from this same root.
In her maiden years, the Wife would don a violet-black haori and process from her family’s Kioi-chō estate through Tameike to worship at Toranomon Gate.
So striking was her beauty that Akasaka’s finest geishas claimed not even their most exquisite could rival “the lady in violet-black.”

Tamako had grown tired of being held by Father and began fidgeting with her body when she declared, “I want to go over there.”
Would she be going to Grandmother’s room—the small one near the back gate beside the storehouse where she lived alone—or to where the maids were?
This question arose simultaneously in the hearts of the Professor and his wife.
The Professor thought it would be good if she went to Mother’s lonely quarters.
The Wife thought she must not send her to that person’s quarters.
The Professor remained silent, yet the Wife did not.

“Where are you going?”

“I want to go to Grandmother’s.”

“You are not going to that person’s place.”
“Go play at the maids’ place.”

Tamako glanced at her father’s face, made a look that said there was no help for it, and went toward the maids. While the Professor thought that speaking was futile, he couldn’t remain completely silent.

“You may think or say whatever you like.
There’s no need to go so far as to have even the child call her ‘that person.’”

“It’s because she’s that kind of person that we call her that.”
“She may enjoy clinging to your side and talking, but she absolutely detests things like taking care of a child.”
“She’s completely putting on airs as your wife.”
“She handles the finances.”
“She is also by your side.”
“She serves meals.”
“She peeks into where the hot water is used.”
“She peeks into where we sleep.”
“The pervert.”

The Professor endured.
If he were to say anything, it would only further inflame her irritation.
When it came to what the Wife said, if it wasn’t about household finances, then it was about Mother wanting to speak to the Professor.
The Professor had labeled the matter of household finances as the rational aspect of his wife’s arguments and termed her jealousy toward Mother as the volitional aspect.
The fact that the Wife’s attempts to prevent the Professor and Mother from speaking constituted jealousy had, strangely enough, first been judged by her Father from Kioi-chō.
When the Wife first came to the household, she found it unbearable to watch her husband and mother-in-law converse and would rise from her seat—a behavior that, when recounted upon her return to her family home, led her Father to declare, “That is jealousy.”
Since the Professor was someone who did not even dislike seeing geisha—creatures as they were—there were no grounds for jealousy outside the home.
Even if they employed maids or hired presentable servants, the Professor had never engaged in words or deeds that would provoke jealousy.
Thus Mother became the object of jealousy.
There was a strange tale of a certain general’s wife whose jealousy toward his orderly was so fierce that whenever it arose, the general would send for his adjutant to have her restrained.
Even Mother was not exempt from becoming an object of jealousy.

The Professor merely thought, *Hmm, the offensive has shifted back to the volitional aspect*, and silently stared at his wife’s face. Even the Wife’s printed-like phrases—repeated countless times a day—when heard continuously over half a day during his rare occasions at home, saw their stimuli accumulate until his brain could no longer bear the burden. He no longer even felt like smoking.

In such moments, the Professor’s silence became intolerably disagreeable to the Wife. It was then that she would press closer, saying “Won’t you say something?” as her long white fingers entwined his wrist. There were times when she would escalate to decisive measures—cutting her hair or threatening to slit her throat. Other times she declared she would take Tamako and leave. When their bodies touched, they sometimes achieved a peculiar reconciliation. But since an explosion had already occurred that morning, it did not escalate into decisive battle. “Going somewhere.” The issue proved difficult to raise anew. Given the time of day and how things differed from when she first married a year or two prior, they could not even reach that peculiar reconciliation. At last even the Wife fell silent. The room grew hushed once more. Again, the clock ticked.

In the Wife’s mind, her thoughts were once again circling in the same endless loop as before.
Because parting from her husband was also an unpleasant thing, she could not bring herself to do it resolutely.
Because bowing her head to Mother-in-law was also an unpleasant thing, she could not bring herself to do that resolutely.
Even on those occasional times when she would say she was going somewhere, she spoke knowing full well that returning would bring back the same situation.
At times she would also say such things.
“I wonder if it would be good for me to start going to some lessons again,” she declared.
When the Professor first heard this, he nodded half in agreement, thinking that if she were to devote herself to some art, it might indeed be good—but when he actually heard the Wife’s idea, he was astonished.
The Wife had no intention of engaging in any art or such things.
When she was a young lady, her going to lessons had been the same way.
She had studied under a Japanese painting teacher.
She had taken lessons from a koto master.
She had no intention of either painting pictures or playing the koto.
Merely finishing up her lesson, riding in a carriage, and commuting daily between Kioi-chō and the towns where her teacher and master resided—this was what constituted the so-called concept of “lessons” for her.
The lessons she now spoke of were also that.
When the Professor understood this, he said that if that were the case, rather than spending money and—for someone in the Wife’s position—associating with artists, which carried some unpleasantness, it would be better to take walks.
The Professor took another step forward and said:
“If there are bad habits to begin with, wouldn’t it be better to start addressing them at their foundation?”
“You’re trying to somehow vaguely gloss over it instead.”
“That is nonsense.”
“If there’s a place that hurts because of an illness, that illness must be cured.”

“I cannot approve of such half-hearted measures as using morphine to dull the pain,” he declared, thus rejecting all palliative means.
The Wife was once again recalling this matter of lessons.
The fact that her husband had suggested substituting walks was deeply dissatisfying.
The Wife held no interest whatsoever in nature.
When she first came to the household, the Professor had brought home flowers and such, but the Wife had shown not the slightest pleasure.
And then he asked, “Have you ever felt anything when looking at the moon or such things?”
The Wife made a doubtful face and said only, “No.”
Given such circumstances, it was no wonder she found taking walks unenjoyable.
Even when walking through town and seeing the items displayed in the windows, she didn’t find it the least bit interesting just to look.
“If I’m not going to buy it, it’s better not to look at all,” she said, turning her face away.
Indeed, it was only natural that she disliked walks.
As for why attending lessons alone held any appeal for her, it was because the Wife desired to create some distant destination in her mind and wander to and fro there—and in her experience, there existed no suitable means to realize this except through the routine of lesson-going.
Thus whenever the Wife’s heart demanded palliatives, the matter of lesson-going was always brought up.
And the emergence of this thought was a sign that the Wife’s heart had grown somewhat calm.

The Professor was thinking such things at this moment.
"Is there truly another woman like my wife in this world?
If we call sexual desires that veer into strange directions perverse and pathological," he reasoned, "then shouldn't jealousy that strays from its proper course also be deemed pathological?
Wouldn't such abnormal reactions to human voices likewise constitute evidence of pathology?"
These thoughts had long circulated through the Professor's mind.
This was why he had once declared to her: "Your mind has become deranged."
There had been an occasion when the Wife recounted this to her father in Kioi-chō—to which he retorted: "What an insolent man! To declare someone mentally ill isn't done lightly! One shouldn't say such things without first obtaining a specialist's diagnosis"—and she had later repeated these words at home.
Naturally, she couldn't be certified as mentally ill.
But might there not exist some borderline state between true mental illness and health?
If this weren't mental derangement, how then could one explain this woman psychologically?
How could such a woman emerge in a nation with established concepts like filial piety—a woman who feels no compunction about speaking of her mother-in-law to her husband in such fashion? Even by Western standards where mothers are held sacred, one would hardly find women who consider it permissible to insult their husband's mother.
Throughout all histories East and West—indeed across every novel and play—there exists no woman like my wife.
Could this too be some unique product of our current age—this era that reappraises all values?" Thus pondered the Professor.

Amidst this, clattering sounds began coming from the direction of the kitchen.
They appeared to be preparing lunch.
Before long, Tamako would come running, saying, "Papa, the meal is ready."
Before long, Mother would emerge from her lonely room into the tearoom, unwelcome yet unavoidable.