Pathway to Japanese Literature

I Because the mother had beriberi, I decided not to let the infant drink any breast milk at all. My full-figured wife would squeeze out lukewarm white milk, and whenever her breasts grew engorged she would complain that her shoulders stiffened unbearably, pressing it into ceramic vessels only to discard it. Though Dr.Higuchi suggested allowing some nursing if limited, I opposed this and my wife concurred. Given how beriberi-tainted breast milk could damage an infant's brain and bring irreversible consequences, this was absolutely impermissible. "If that's your stance then naturally we shouldn't proceed." "It wouldn't be wise considering later repercussions." Dr.Higuchi too, recognizing my obstinacy as routine, ultimately consented.

“To have this much fullness and not be allowed to nurse… Wouldn’t a little be harmless?” The mother pulled her breast from her ample bosom, watching the milk drip into the ceramic vessel with soft plopping sounds as she spoke resentfully. I persistently scolded her for it and waited for the wet nurse who was supposed to be arranged through the nurses’ association. The labor broker was from Chiba, and it was said that from there—the broker’s old man, the wet nurse, and her mother—would arrive in Tokyo within the day or the next, but not even a reply came, leaving things uncertain.

“What do you think about feeding him milk from someone with unknown origins?” “And if she has some illness, wouldn’t that be worse than raising him on cow’s milk?” “We should have a doctor examine her properly.” “If the doctor approves, then it’s acceptable.” Even as we spoke these words, each morning, noon, and evening saw our maid Natsu and caretaker Hirabayashi taking turns making the journey to Motozaka to obtain donated breast milk. Every time they went, I anxiously questioned Hirabayashi about the woman providing the milk.

“They’ve got three or four children tumbling about in a two-room house. But seems she produces plenty of breast milk.” “Would they mind if we go ourselves?” “They don’t mind at all.” “Even if it’s just once out of three times… especially during busy evenings…” Hirabayashi, who understood my anxiety, said, “Nothing of the sort.” Then, “Every time someone from our household goes over, they ask how the baby’s doing today—say if he’s poorly, we should toss the milk and come fetch more.” “They claim they time it to give what seems like the freshest breast milk.” Hearing this, I thought them good people though we’d never met, and thanked them sincerely.

“I see—next time I should have them bring something in return…”

“Natsu chimed in, ‘You won’t find kinder people than that.’” The mother would always take the warm breast milk in the bottle—first pressing it against her palm, then holding it up to the light to check for sediment—and delight in it. While sterilizing it, “Since there are many people in their household, I wonder what we should present.” Having said this, she declared she would give this and present that—all celebratory items unneeded for the time being. And she squeezed her own breast milk and peered into the thick white liquid accumulated in the ceramic vessel.

“To have this much breast milk come out and not be allowed to let him drink it...” Having said this, she whispered to Natsu, “I want to secretly let him drink it.” “That sneaking around could ruin everything.” I snapped irritably. Finally having no place left to discard the breast milk, they dug a shaded spot beneath the garden’s bush clover and buried it.

One evening, when there was a guest at the entrance and the household was busy, I casually went out to answer it. But it was a woman who had never visited before. “Um… I’ve come from Motozaka.” “Oh, from Motozaka?” I immediately thought she must be someone providing donated breast milk. A girl who appeared to be her younger sister stood outside the lattice door, clutching a bottle wrapped in a handkerchief and shrinking into herself. “Thank you for your continued kindness… Hey, we’ve come from Motozaka.” When I called toward the back of the house, my wife, Natsu, and everyone else came out.

“Thinking you must be quite occupied, we took the initiative to come here ourselves.”

She opened the handkerchief and took out the bottle of breast milk. Her indigo-dyed yukata had rumpled sleeves, and her worn-through footwear stood out. “How kind of you. Please do come in.” Then to the sister-like girl still hiding by the lattice door, my wife—meeting them for the first time—said, “Please come inside—,” while earnestly making her request about the milk. With those thick arms of hers, there was no doubting her robust health. I felt relieved.

“Even though I provide breast milk every day, I worried it might spoil or something, which would be disastrous.” “Oh no, he’s grown quite accustomed to the rubber nipple now—even though we’re troubling you three times a day during your busiest hours—.” Having said this, my wife began guiding them toward the infant’s sleeping room while, “At any rate, please come see him once. He’s grown so plump.” “Oh my, how plump he’s become…” The woman nearing forty said, “We’ve talked every day about what a fine child he must be. And what could I do—he’s so utterly precious—my sister simply wouldn’t take no today about coming to see him.” She glanced back at her blushing sister. “I never said any such thing,” the sister-like girl retorted brusquely, her face flushing a dusky red.

“With this, I too have somehow felt relieved. “It’s just been so worrisome.” The woman who pursed her small lips and wore a resolute expression stood up and went to the entrance.

After that person had left, everyone discussed.

"I was so worried—so worried—I couldn't do anything about it." "I'm sure." To Natsu who had said this, I replied, "It's been weighing on me too."

To make three daily trips to Motozaka required more hands than we could spare. Everyone agreed it would be better if the location were somewhat closer. Nevertheless, with the wet nurse situation still unresolved, a reply had come: if they pressed her too hastily, she would surely bolt and leave the next day. That day, when the wet nurse arrived accompanied by her sixty-something mother and the employment agency’s old man, I immediately averted my eyes upon seeing the old man’s face. What a repulsive bastard, I thought instinctively when I saw his upturned nose and sunburnt, greasy complexion.

“You’ll set the monthly salary at around thirty yen—paid six months in advance—and I’ll take fifteen yen as my service fee.”

After stating this in a businesslike manner, he turned to the wet nurse’s mother and spoke in terms she could readily comprehend,

“I’ve said all that’s required of me—now you must speak properly to your daughter.” The old man now sat beside the elderly mother and said to the stiffened, healthy-looking girl, “Once this arrangement is settled, even if there are things you dislike, you mustn’t act capriciously and demand to go home—not when we’ve gone to the trouble of securing this opportunity.” When he said this, the mother turned her small knees toward her daughter. “Since it’s only for about a year, endure it well—I’ll come visit you from time to time, and I’ve entrusted everything to the employment agency—”

The round-eyed young woman of about twenty-one or two remained silent the entire time, looking down without uttering a word. With her fingertips pressed against her kneecaps as if jabbing into the skin, she struck me as a stubborn sort. “We must have a doctor examine the breast milk—it’s essential.” “Even if we make this arrangement, that’s exactly what worries me.”

It seemed they would make a unilateral arrangement, so I said while looking at the old man’s face. “As for the breast milk, we’ve even had a doctor in Chiba examine it—they say there’s nothing wrong with it." "Most importantly, if your household could conduct one last test, that would be all the better."

Following the old man’s words, the mother also spoke. “This child hasn’t had a single illness in recent years, and as you can see, she has a sturdy build, so there’s nothing to worry about.” Looking toward her daughter, she said with some unease, as if worried this talk about breast milk might make her balk. “Then let’s have you express some into a test tube and get Dr. Higuchi to examine it right away.—Come this way for a moment.” My wife took the wet nurse to the kitchen, and there Hirabayashi took the milk collected in a tube to the doctor.

“Since I must also visit a household in Waseda, I shall take my leave as soon as matters are settled.” The old man received the contract and agency fee from me and stowed them away in a large wallet. “After all, these days there are hardly any women willing to become wet nurses, so this work is quite taxing,” he said. “For two or three days, she hasn’t eaten anything harmful, so there’s no reason for the milk to be poor.”

The mother kept saying such things until the errand person returned. The wet nurse had stiffened her knees and looked cramped; her shoulders heaved as she breathed, appearing ill at ease. Like a woman unaccustomed to respectable service, her eyes darted furtively, stealing quick glances at me and my wife.

Hirabayashi returned. “There’s nothing wrong with the breast milk,” he said, producing what looked like a doctor’s certificate. My wife and I both felt relief. “Since they’ve been properly used, they should produce good milk.”

The old man finished preparing to leave and said, “Then Mother should come by tomorrow to settle the financial arrangements.” “I’m in a hurry,” he added, exiting through the entrance with the mother who was to accompany him back. “Be sure to consume plenty of fluid-rich foods—if you don’t think of this place as your own home, breast milk can suddenly stop flowing.” When she heard that breast milk could sometimes cease, the wet nurse pressed a hand to her chest and rounded her eyes. “Anyway, I’ll come again tomorrow to assess the situation then.”

After the old man and elderly mother had left, my wife told her to immediately give breast milk to the infant. The infant—accustomed only to borrowed milk—sucked at the wet nurse’s nipple, its softness utterly unlike the rubber tube’s feel, yet somehow unreliable. I couldn’t bear to look at the wet nurse’s chest skin with its unhealthy tortoiseshell tint. “It’s flowing nicely, isn’t it? See? Plenty’s coming out now.”

My wife pressed down slightly on the wet nurse’s breast from above with her fingertips to make the milk flow more abundantly. The wet nurse peered down at the infant’s head, sparsely covered with fine hair. Natsu, Hirabayashi, and even in my heart—we all thought how good it would be if the infant would just take to the wet nurse’s nipple. However, the infant immediately released the nipple. And then he cried. When they immediately offered the nipple again, he briefly held it in his mouth before releasing it and cried.

“Strange, it won’t come out. Try squeezing with your fingertips.” This time only a meager trickle of breast milk emerged before stopping. No matter how much they tried, the result remained unchanged. The wet nurse’s face flushed crimson. After a while— “Please try once more.” As my wife started to speak and pressed the nipple against the infant’s mouth, he showed no inclination to latch. “You should try giving him an empty nipple.” When I said this, my wife promptly offered the empty nipple. The infant licked it with pursed lips, his jet-black eyes growing calm as he finally stopped crying.

“Why won’t it come out?” The more frantically she squeezed, the more the milk merely trickled out. “I discard this much every day from how overabundant it flows,” she said, working the breast vigorously. As she strained, sweat beads bloomed across her forehead. “You should rest awhile first.” I spoke unable to watch further, sighing silently within. Even the sickly pallor of her thin-skinned chest caught my notice now, seeding despair.

After letting her rest in the maid’s room, under the lit lamp they made the infant suckle at the breast again—but after about two attempts he began to cry. When checked, only drops came out one by one. —It was already time to send for more breast milk, so we couldn’t keep pressing the ineffective nipple against him; as a last precaution, we tried once more, but it was still no use. I grew irritated. The wet nurse turned bright red again, sweat beading on the bridge of her nose.

My wife looked at the wet nurse and me and said, “Why won’t it come out?” Then, as she wrapped a bottle in a handkerchief, she added, “We should have Hirabayashi go fetch more from Motozaka right away.” Since Natsu was pressed for time in the evening, we decided to have Hirabayashi go instead. Hirabayashi left immediately.

“This is a problem. “It’s because he isn’t taking to the nipple.” I said to my wife, deliberately not mentioning that the milk wasn’t flowing. The wet nurse was drenched in greasy sweat. “What happened to your child?” When my wife suddenly asked this, the wet nurse raised her face glistening with sweat and grease. “He died.” “Right after he was born.” “Oh...” My wife’s eyes widened in surprise, but I felt nothing in particular. Children are prone to death. Because I had always thought of them as fragile flowers.

“And you were in Chiba?” “No.” “Where?” The wet nurse fell silent, appearing reluctant to speak. I signaled with my eyes not to ask. The wet nurse stiffened her entire body as expected, her sigh catching in her throat. Hirabayashi returned. “Since it was later than usual, I was just saying I’d bring it up here myself,” he said, wrapping it in a handkerchief. The breast milk was lukewarm. When they sterilized and fed it to him, the infant drank blissfully, panting as he did so. My wife remarked absently, “Since we were feeding him this way, only breast milk that flows abundantly will work.” The wet nurse watched the infant’s face with downcast eyes, her gaze fixed. Her head seemed foggy and her posture unsteady, so I thought she must be tired.

Late that evening, Natsu suddenly came to my study and said the wet nurse wanted her to go to an inn in Asakusa for her kimono and other errands; carrying the wrapping cloth she had brought earlier，she added that the wet nurse was about to leave through the back entrance while saying，＂Apparently she once worked in Yoshiwara，so your house must feel stifling to her．＂

“If we have her go tonight, she won’t feed him tomorrow morning.” “What a troublesome person.” My wife began voicing complaints. “If we let her out tonight, that woman might not return.” It had seemed to me that the wet nurse—who had looked ill at ease earlier—wanted to flee this stifling house under some pretext. “That’s true. But she just arrived... Though I can’t say for certain.”

My wife also grew anxious. “Tell her if she has business to do it tomorrow during the day. Not tonight.” Natsu relayed those exact words and promptly decided to put the wet nurse to bed. Later, “When I relayed exactly what the master said, she just sobbed quietly.” The maid reported this to my wife and also remarked that a respectable house must feel stifling. The next morning, they were heartened by the thought that after a night’s rest, the wet nurse’s milk would flow properly—but in the end, it only trickled out. In the end, the infant began rejecting the unnaturally soft nipple. Hirabayashi promptly prepared to go out and waited at the entrance.

“Did it really come out before you came here?” When my wife asked hesitantly, the wet nurse said she had indeed been squeezing it into a bowl each time and discarding it. I looked with disgust at the nipple, withered like breasts that produced no milk at all. Hirabayashi left with a bottle. The wet nurse applied to her nipple the same gesture one makes when seeing someone off, but still nothing came out. Even at noon, the white liquid showed no sign of emerging; the infant rejected it the moment it was offered. The wet nurse, through Natsu, kept pleading to be sent to Asakusa just briefly as per last night’s agreement, but to no avail.

“If she’s that insistent, tell her to go,” I said. “She probably won’t come back anyway—and with her milk not flowing, there’s nothing to be done about it.” “You’re right,” my wife replied. “Let’s send her then.”

My wife said she would tell her to return as soon as possible and decided to let the wet nurse go. Later, I asked Natsu, “Did she take the bundle?” “Yes,” she replied. “She left only the toothbrush behind.” Even though we knew she wouldn’t return by evening, we left the back door unlocked until late—but still she did not come back. The wet nurse must have found it stifling, but while we felt some relief at her departure, we were troubled again as our milk supply had been cut off.

“Looks like we’ll have to keep relying on borrowed breast milk for now. There’s nothing we can do.” “Could there really be none anywhere else?” “After all that searching just to find this source—we can’t expect another one so quickly.”

As the two of us were talking, Natsu spoke up.

“At the back door when the wet nurse was leaving, she said ‘I’ll leave you the toothbrush,’ so I suppose she won’t be coming back.” Natsu—simple-minded Natsu—had uttered this blankly, oblivious to our feelings, but I jerked my chin to shoo her away. ... The infant slept with closed eyes—eyes that traced a beautiful jet-black line, more exquisite than any tranquil flower one might imagine. Its breathing gently soothed my ears.

………We got married four winters ago. That night followed an unusually heavy snowfall; in the dead of night, I bent over the hand-washing basin to slide open one storm shutter, but even the copper ladle had frozen solid. The snowflakes reflected each other in the dawn air that held a faint bluish layer, and their gleam rather evoked a biting cold that carried pain. I stood there for a while and, not wanting to let the woman who seemed to be sleeping soundly know that I was standing there like that, soundlessly closed the storm shutters over the frozen threshold.

After our wedding, we moved into a tenant house on the border between Tabata and Shinmeicho, where I spent my days writing nothing but lyrical poetry—yet what little money my father had left us had vanished before we knew it. Even as we maintained our poor, modest life, my self-published poetry collections gradually began to sell. With funds from my father’s legacy, I compiled poems I had written over about ten years into a book and entrusted it to a Hongo bookstore for sale.

Around that time, a friend named Onju who had already become a father would bring along a girl about three years old each time he visited. Every time I saw Onju proudly carrying that child around, soothing her, or making her urinate, I always found it utterly absurd. When he didn’t bring her along, he would invariably be carrying a bundle of gifts for the child—bread and playthings. Though I had grown all too accustomed to seeing such routines, Onju loved his child so dearly that he even prepared the bathwater himself.

“Why can’t you have children?” “And your wife isn’t in poor health either.”

Onju would often say such things to me with his unclouded beautiful eyes. "Why is that? "But having children now would cause nothing but trouble. "We've no preparations whatsoever—and we're poor..."

I made every effort to avoid that conversation. I turned my eyes away. “Children are truly adorable.” Onju would carry his child aloft as if offering it to the heavens and return all the way to the depths of distant Nakano. Whenever he tried to go into town, the child would insist on being taken along. “It’s just too pitiful…” Onju said, his face—as if he’d never told a lie—touching the child’s cheek.

The landlady disliked how the woman doted on the dog. “It’s because you keep that dog that you stay distant from bearing a child.” “That’s what they’ve said since olden times.”

Each time she said this, she would shoo away the disliked dog with “shh, shh” by the gate, scolding it while half-fearful. Every time a letter came from back home too, it asked whether we had a child yet, whether we still couldn’t conceive. Each time, I felt displeasure. When I saw how all my recently married friends everywhere had children, the idea of having one myself grew even more repugnant. Not only that—even as we ourselves were struggling to get by—I couldn’t help feeling that if it were born, it would mean disaster. When I thought of our boardinghouse days, when poverty had worn us to the bone, all I could think of was that child not being born.

The boredom of having too much leisure, with just the two of us as a couple, was occasionally accompanied by an inexplicable discomfort. The woman wore a listless expression, taking other people’s babies to the bath and keeping dogs and cats to stave off her loneliness.

“Why don’t we have a child?” “Who knows why.” Sullenly, I would fall silent whenever that topic came up. And each time,

“A child would be nothing but trouble.” “We’re in trouble even without one.”

Having said that, he stood up abruptly and left the room. Perhaps thinking that subject must not be broached, the woman stopped speaking of it herself and, when people came, would only say, "I wonder why we can’t have one." Three years passed, yet the woman showed no signs of it. My friends often tried to mock me with that topic. Onju was already holding his next child, while Natsu had the previous girl walk about in a cool white lace dress.

“They say having a child makes your body feel refreshed,” “Especially since you often complain about your head hurting.” Onju would say such things in front of my wife, then tell me tactfully that our gloom stemmed from not having children—that it was because those who could bear them weren’t bearing any. Even in such moments, Onju’s well-bred eyes remained calmly clear. “There’s nothing to be done about what can’t be done.” That was all I ever said. But in my heart, little by little, I wanted a child. At times when I became lost in thought, I would recall the young couple from the boardinghouse I had stayed at ten years prior—how they had slept alone together yet never managed to have a child. The fact that a husband and wife lay sprawled out alone together to sleep came to feel like a stark, hollow loneliness—I finally began to think. Now that I thought of it, we too had always been just the two of us, whether waking or sleeping. There was no flourish or adornment. And in the end, with no support to rely on, the absence of a child even made us feel an unprecedented shame at being just a couple.

Yet when it finally seemed we might have a child, precisely because I knew myself, I grew strangely anxious that it might give birth to some malformed thing, and even thought it would be better if things remained childless as before. Yet more than that, I wanted to see a reliable living being directly connected to both our souls and flesh.

Therefore, one evening, I suddenly brought up the matter of a child with the woman—something I had never mentioned before. "If you're willing to bear one, I feel a child could come anytime."

“Why?” The woman asserted that what had never been possible before could not suddenly become possible now. I seriously began to tell the woman about what I had secretly been keeping.

“When did you ever do such a thing?” “Since when?” “Since our wedding in the country.”

Even I had unexpectedly assumed a cold expression, and somehow a sullenness came over me, but before I knew it, I blushed. "That’s a lie." After a while, the woman’s face grew perfectly serious, then she peered into my eyes with an eerie smile. "It’s completely true—you can think it’s a lie if you want." "In time, it will happen." “Really?”

The woman placed a hand on her stomach but suddenly stood up, went to the next room, and began to cry. "I never imagined you were the kind of person who would do such a terrible thing alone," she said, and wept without ceasing until morning. I had believed that no child could come during difficult times and that one would be born when truly desired from the heart, so I simply waited for the woman to finish weeping.

But strangely, the woman seemed to have regained her vigor, and such a change manifested afterward.

“Still nothing?”

The woman began paying deep attention to her own body, as if peering into buried nuts. And from time to time, she said such things.

“You were doing something wrong, don’t you think?”

"I don't think so." I answered clearly, though in my heart I added that it was unnatural.

“I think that is a very bad thing.” The woman seemed about to retort angrily but remained silent and did not answer.

After becoming pregnant, the woman began cheerfully sewing small undershirts and diapers. Folding them one after another, she rejoiced each time their number grew by even one. She would say it was prenatal education, or that she wanted to bear as beautiful a child as possible, placing Western masterpieces by her pillow and gazing at them intently. A subtlety I had never before seen in this woman flickered across my vision in small increments.

“If this was possible, I wish you could have made it happen sooner, you bad Dad.” The woman would sometimes bring up such things, but I would put on a stern face and avoid addressing them. She counted on her fingers every day. Then one evening after I had disclosed a certain matter, when she learned the child had come to her womb, she turned pale and abruptly fell into deep thought.

II

Not only did the wet nurse fail to arrive by the next morning, but even when inquiries were made to Chiba, there was not so much as a reply. Having no choice, we resorted to obtaining breast milk every day. But upon a midwife’s referral that there was milk available immediately in Shimotabata—and since we had no help while Motozaka was distant—we decided to first go to collect from the Shimotabata area.

“The Motozaka people are kind, but they’re short-handed. Let’s properly thank them and decline.” We had them go to Motozaka to express our thanks and decided to make three daily trips to Shimotabata, but each time, both Hirabayashi and Natsu ended up caking their geta and kimono hems in mud. Shimotabata, which had been a former rice paddy now in the rainy season, was a road so muddy it was impassable. Once, Natsu even rolled in the mud and returned with her front soiled up to her chest. “The road’s so bad it’s completely impossible to walk!”

Because she said that so often, I told her to just endure that much. But having it repeated at the kitchen door grated on my nerves. "If you don't like it, quit." I said. Hirabayashi, even when covered in mud, would silently wash his feet at the wellside and never mention it, but perhaps from walking while clutching fences, mud often caked between his toes. "What kind of house is it?" "It's like a company employee's house."

I grew concerned about whether they had shown any displeasure earlier and asked Hirabayashi. “At the proper time they squeeze breast milk into bottles and leave them at the entrance. They hand them over when we come to collect—after saying their thanks—but the mistress lies there nursing and hardly ever comes out.” “Every time?”

“It’s always out and ready.” Hirabayashi wore an oddly discontented look and an expression that seemed to forbid himself from voicing it. Even earlier, they’d seemed bothered by the hassle—I sensed it immediately. “Which gives a better impression—the Motozaka house or this one?” “That would be Motozaka.” “You do ask them properly when they expressed it each time, right?” “Well, the mistress says it was freshly expressed each time.”

That day when the infant passed green stool, he thought it was due to the breast milk. When he examined the residue by holding it up to light, a viscous substance had settled at the bottle's bottom—when moved, something like butterfly scales floated up. "It's because of this milk... That's what upset his stomach." The woman resented the mistress: "If only she had been more careful..." "She must have given us milk expressed in the morning," she added. From then on, the infant kept suffering stomachaches while humid rains seeped dampness into every room corner—Natsu and Hirabayashi having to wash their feet at the well each return from Shimotabata. That loud voice kept irritating me.

“I’ll go collect it in the evening—it’s just a muddy road, isn’t it?”

Flaring up with anger, I set out in the evening carrying a bottle, passed beneath the heavy drooping green branches of Hachiman Shrine, and emerged into Shimotabata downstream along the Aizome River—where millet leaves had once streamed until about two years before—but when I stepped onto a charcoal bale sunk into a muddy puddle, murky water soaked up to my instep. In trying to pull free, my strength faltered too much, and I nearly collapsed. The splattered mud left my hem damp and clammy. In the damp earthen-floored entrance behind the latticework, atop the three-shaku altar sat a bottle holding something white. Beyond the opened shoji screens lay a hastily spread floor mat where a woman who seemed to be the mistress reclined; her feet—their calluses worn smooth from what must have been hard labor—faced toward me. I estimated this must be the house.

“I’m sorry.” “Oh.”

“I have come for breast milk.” “It’s there…” The mistress spoke while remaining sprawled out, her calloused soles unmoving. I wrapped the bottle in a handkerchief, “Apologies for troubling you during your busy hours. Might I ask when this was expressed?” “Just now.” When she still showed no intention of rising, I set down the parcel of eggs. “A meager token, but please accept it.” With these words, I stepped beyond the lattice. The road had deteriorated further since my arrival—the rain fell in grubby, disordered sheets, and the lower edges of four or five adjoining row-house lattices glistened with new dampness.

I walked in short, wary steps, careful not to let my feet slip into puddles. Yet my geta sank deep, splashing tepid water over my toes——still cradling the precious milk, I felt my shabby figure grow lonelier yet. As I started up Hachiman Slope, deutzia flowers floated rotting in the rain within compound walls. "What a wretched road." "I can't walk at all." When I complained while washing my feet at the wellside, Natsu stifled a giggle. But since the milk had to be given immediately, the woman lit the sterilizing charcoal fire——yet when she held the milk bottle to the light, her brow furrowed slightly.

"This breast milk is spoiled…" "That can’t be." "She said she had just expressed it." "No—look at this! See how sediment settled thickly at the bottom?" "If we feed him this sludge-like substance now..." "What a disaster—after all that effort I poured into obtaining it."

At that moment, I recalled the mistress sprawled out behind the shoji screens and the room left in disarray, and felt a wave of displeasure. “What about Motozaka?” “But we already decided on this place—it’s not as if we can go there now out of obligation.” “This isn’t the time to talk about social obligations—we shouldn’t concern ourselves with that.”

“I hear they’re already giving it to another child over there.” “Then shall we switch to cow’s milk?” “There remains no alternative but to do that.” When I went to discuss this with Dr.Higuchi, he said that while it would do as a stopgap measure, we should certainly look for a wet nurse. “This time, let’s try requesting a wet nurse from back home.” “There might just be a high-quality one available.”

“Ah, that would be best, wouldn’t it?”

I promptly wrote a letter back home. I asked them to search immediately.—That evening, a friend came and told us goat’s milk was supposedly excellent. He said it would whiten the complexion and was highly nutritious. When I quickly consulted Dr.Higuchi about this, he said it might be better than cow’s milk, so Hirabayashi started going daily to fetch it from the goat shed near Tabata Guard. Fortunately, the infant took to the goat milk. Everyone collectively exhaled in relief. The infant who had been ruining his stomach since birth finally began showing slight improvement there.

To those in Shimotabata, we sent someone bearing a token of gratitude to decline further services. Even then, I found myself recalling those lifeless soles of feet with a hollow ache.—They replied from back home that not a single wet nurse could be found. Whether they hadn’t searched properly or none existed at all—I burned with fury.

In autumn, I took two photographs. When Natsu took a toy and danced to show him, I photographed the moment he gave a faint smile. I sent one each to my mother back home and my wife’s parents. My mother back home wrote that she holds it every day when she sleeps. I was glad that my mother, who was prone to intense love and hate, had taken on such a tender heart. Whenever he coughed even slightly, we immediately called Dr.Higuchi. “It’s not the infant—it’s you all getting so nervous that’s the problem.”

The portly doctor said this and told my wife and me we should let things be to some extent. When I returned from outside, I wouldn't enter my study without first pinching the infant's face—those soft cheeks. The woman often protested that my way of pinching looked painful.

“Poor thing—handling him so roughly like that.”

“Look, when I do this, he smiles, doesn’t he? In short, don’t you know there’s also this way of caressing?”

Indeed, the infant would smile as if being tickled. The rosewood stand made for holding the electric lamp would be placed beside the desk in the study each evening. The infant loved tapping on its surface. With that tap-tap rhythm—whenever they entered the room while I was writing, I would frown, forcing my wife to leave silently while holding him to prevent any tapping. Later noticing this, I would deliberately summon them back for tapping. Through this act alone could I soothe my own disposition.

Despite the cold, the infant welcomed the New Year. Everyone ate zōni, “It’s a good New Year,” I said. Each time, I felt that spending New Year like this with my own child was something rare. In the cold backstreet room with its rough, frozen walls, I would often shudder as I recalled that tremor.—One day after the peak of winter had passed, Natsu gave a single hoarse cough. In the evening, she kept coughing repeatedly in the kitchen area. “She’s caught a cold, so you mustn’t let her hold the child.”

While I was giving that warning to my wife, Natsu was holding the infant, so I immediately snatched him up and handed him to my wife.

That evening, the infant coughed. As the coughing continued two or three times in succession, I turned deathly pale.

“Damn it.” “He’s caught it!” “It does seem that way—this complicates everything.” When we took his temperature, it read thirty-eight point five degrees. What troubled me more was how each cough left him wheezing painfully for breath. As night had grown late, we resolved to call Dr. Higuchi at first light and had them apply a water pillow.

Even when morning came, the fever hadn’t subsided, and Dr.Higuchi declared it was just a cold, saying there was no need for excessive concern. We cooled him with ice. —Yet even after three days passed, then four, the fever still hadn’t subsided, and the cough persisted. The wheezing was due to asthma, he said—the phlegm wouldn’t clear, making it hard to breathe.

Two more days passed. Dr. Higuchi tilted his head in thought. "Please have Dr. Shano in Hongō examine him." "I’m rather concerned about it." Dr. Higuchi said, "I’ve no issue working with other doctors. There are aspects I might miss examining alone, so having someone else attend might actually put your minds at ease." Having uttered this without apparent reason, he made a face as if it were no concern at all. “Then let us hope that will suffice.”

Thinking it was only natural, I immediately called Dr.Shano and arranged for a nurse to come as well. From that evening onward, the infant began wheezing laboriously, visibly in distress. "I won’t let him die like this," I thought, my resolve hardening. Moreover, even amidst such suffering, he kept drinking milk without issue—so I thought we might pull through that way. But the fever stubbornly refused to break. It only climbed higher.

When Dr.Shano arrived, he immediately loosened the thickly layered kimono and applied a pungent plaster to his back. However, even after ten minutes had passed, there was no reaction. I stared at the watch in my palm. Three minutes passed. When they peeled off the mustard plaster and looked, a red reaction had emerged on his skin. "If this doesn't show up," he said, "we'll be in a spot of trouble."

Having said this, Dr.Shano instructed them to cover the shoji screens with cloth and administer oxygen inhalation in two locations. Dr.Higuchi stood ready with the seventh injection prepared. “It’s a state of oxygen deprivation.” Dr.Shano, having said this much, attempted to rise from his seat without wasting words. I thought this was a man who confronted illness through technical skill. I thought Dr.Higuchi was a man who confronted illness with passion. “Will he be all right? I hadn’t realized it was that serious.”

I was newly startled and looked up at Dr.Shano's slightly affected yet confidently broad forehead.

“I was a bit concerned because the mustard plaster’s reaction was delayed,” he said. “However, there remained something in the treatment...” Having said that, he left immediately. He carried an imposing air of first-rate caliber. I felt glad that Dr.Shano had examined him. And I believed. One oxygen inhaler was held by Aunt Iori while Suzuki from the rickshaw company added water to the other; my wife and the nurse alternated directing the mask’s mouthpiece. Natsu bustled about lighting and tending the charcoal fire. Late into the night arrived another nurse. Within the oxygen mist, the infant wheezed painfully, gasping as though starved for air. I paced between sickroom and study, performing odd tasks like gathering geta into a corner of the entryway.

Despite both my wife and I being playful by nature, the infant had jet-black eyes that glistened moistly. They still shone as glossy as celluloid and, with the fever, appeared to shift sorrowfully. “Hang in there—it’s too soon to die,” I said before calling the infant’s name. The oxygen mist hung so thickly in the air that I imagined droplets raining from the ceiling. The nurse’s starched white uniform clung damply to her skin. My wife’s hair glistened with condensation from the inhalation apparatus. Everyone labored with desperate vigor.

“We must lower his fever by tonight.” My wife became half-crazed, saying things like the inhalation was clogged or there wasn’t enough charcoal. If we actually failed tonight and couldn’t recover from it, I felt a feverish rush rising to my head. “It’s down—down to 38 degrees!” As dawn approached, my wife came to where I was sleeping, shouting those words. I jumped up and peered at the infant’s face—he was still gasping laboriously, his breaths ragged with pain.

“Given his current condition, his fever should drop even more by morning.” The nurse made an assessment and tried to reassure me and my wife. But only empty oxygen tanks had accumulated, and there was no next supply left.

“This is bad. Why don’t we rouse Miyagawa Hospital?” Since Miyagawa Hospital, where I had been hospitalized the previous year, was right nearby, Natsu dashed off there.

“If they don’t wake up, knock on the gate with a stone.” Even as I said this, the oxygen ran out completely, and abruptly the sound of water being drawn through it in the room ceased—the sudden hush filled me with violent unease. What was taking so long? I was beside myself with anxiety. “I’ll be right back.” With that, I immediately went out to the street and ran to the hospital. Before Miyagawa Hospital’s white gate—pale in the dawn light—Natsu stood darkly blurred.

“Hey, did you get them up?”

As I approached, I shouted. “Yes, they’re opening it right now.”

Before long, the gate creaked open. I pushed Natsu aside and requested that they lend us oxygen. “The office staff aren’t here either.”

The orderly said sleepily and didn’t seem likely to provide it immediately.

“Do you know where they keep the oxygen? You.” “Yes, I know that.” “Then I’ll take it—I’ll explain things to the director tomorrow, so hand it over now. We don’t have time for this dawdling.” “That’s impossible, sir.” “Absolutely not.” “I’ll bear full responsibility.” “Hurry up.” “There’s a dying patient here.” When the orderly slipped into the pharmacy, I boldly followed him inside and grabbed one cylinder. The clock on the wall hung heavy with loneliness. “I’ll come explain things then.”

“I’ll come by tomorrow to sort things out then.”

Having said that, I immediately returned home. A nurse had come out to the gate and was waiting for my return. Everyone let out a sigh of relief when they heard the reassuring sound. “They just wouldn’t wake up, I tell you!” Natsu kept muttering under her breath.

When dawn came, the infant was sleeping soundly. Dr.Higuchi came before breakfast. “The fever seems to have dropped a bit.”

While shaking down the mercury, he said, "Infants can take a turn for the worse in an instant—one can't let their guard down." "Didn't you say we were being too neurotic?" "Did I say that? Well, for an infant's case, that's perfectly acceptable." "But it becomes problematic when you fuss over nothing."

With that, he said he’d come again around noon, and told Natsu, “I’d very much like a cutting of this ivy,” before leaving. “He’s not very approachable, is he?” “He comes three times a day, you know.” My wife told this to the nurse. Dr. Higuchi and I had been acquainted for eight years since I came to Tabata. The next day, when Dr. Shano came, he informed Dr. Higuchi about the medication,

“It seems you’ve already discontinued it.” He said quietly. He also said we were past the critical phase. But he added we still couldn’t rest easy—that things might take a turn at any moment. I trusted Dr.Shano. “Do shoddy work and you’ll end up in print.” With that, he turned back to Dr.Higuchi. The other day, he’d seen the child of someone who writes too, he said, and been written about. “There are cases even doctors can’t do anything about, you know.”

I agreed with that. Even though they had done so much for us, it never once crossed my mind to write about it. The doctors—Dr. Shano and Dr. Higuchi—attended every day for us, and the first week passed.

“He’ll be alright now. After all, he takes breast milk well—that simplifies things.” When Dr.Shano stated this clearly for the first time, we felt relief. We kept only one nurse. Before we realized it, Natsu, my wife—everyone had grown utterly haggard within a week, though my wife alone remained tense as ever. “There were moments I feared the worst,” she said. “Thank heavens.” My wife finally loosened her obi and slept. All through that time, I slept soundly alone. Guilt pricked me for monopolizing proper rest, but I fabricated excuses—my work obligations, how a single sleepless night would wreck my constitution. “You must preserve your strength for what comes later,” my wife had said too, oblivious to how self-serving and egotistical I was being—though in my heart burned sharp shame.

Dr.Higuchi still came three times a day. The doctor who had been attending to the infant since its birth often said such things. “After all the care we’ve poured in until now, if anything were to happen, I couldn’t possibly face you.” The honest and kindhearted Dr.Higuchi, one morning in the sunlight spilling into the tatami room, sat dressed in his serge clothes, sipping tea with a bright expression. “This time, for everything…”

That was how I offered my thanks. "For the most part, my opinions aligned with Dr.Shano’s." "He’s quite the discerning one, you know." Dr.Higuchi stood up and left after saying that. I could smile and savor Dr.Higuchi’s rather innocent aspect, and the infant began to smile little by little.

III

Even after passing his birth month, he still hadn’t cut any teeth—not only that, but he didn’t crawl either. When I finally lifted him up and supported his legs to help him stand, he would now bend them and cry in pain when touched. “What on earth is wrong with this child? His legs won’t stand anymore. Look.” As she said this, he bent his legs into a ‘ku’ shape and cried when touched. “At any rate, we should have Dr.Shano examine him.”

“Oh, let’s do that.” When we returned from Dr.Shano by rickshaw, my wife’s face had turned ashen. “He wrote us a referral to the Orthopedics Department at Rakuzando Hospital—apparently even Dr.Shano couldn’t determine anything beyond his specialty.”

“Isn’t Rakuzando Hospital far?” “Taking the train won’t do.” “We’ll take a rickshaw.” “Right—then you should go.”

My wife immediately headed downtown. Though he had just recovered, I wondered if taking him out so much was wise, but I also thought leaving him as he was would let the leg condition set in and cause problems. When she returned,

“They say this child’s nerves are overwrought and a tendon in his leg is pulled taut. They said there’s no treatment but massage, so that’s what we’ve been having done. My, how he cried.” “I can imagine—but massaging an infant’s legs like this—you don’t think it might cause complications later? If he’s crying loud enough to be heard at the gate like that—couldn’t that strain his heart?” “They assured me it’s robust. It’s not illness making him cry—they said a child with nerves this highly strung is quite rare.”

“I see.”

However, I felt somehow reluctant about these visits to Rakuzando. Though we couldn’t stop it now that treatment had begun, whenever I saw the rickshaw lower its shafts before the gate every other day and caught sight of the woman holding the infant, an oppressive gloom settled over me. Especially when the infant wailed, I also felt pity.

“Why don’t we take a break today? The wind’s a bit chilly, and he’ll cry…” Even when I said that, she wouldn’t listen—insisting that skipping one day of their every-other-day treatment would set back his care by that much. Even during the infant’s injections, the woman would watch with an unperturbed face, as if believing this would cure him. But during those injections—as with his critical illness before—I remained seated in my study rather than stay in the sickroom, enduring it through the infant’s perspective until greasy sweat trickled down my skin when his cries were abruptly silenced by pain, only to burst forth again—an agony to witness.

“Because he cries so much, people from other wards all gather to peek in.” “There truly isn’t another child who cries this loudly.” The woman who had returned from the hospital said his legs seemed somewhat better and showed me the infant’s legs. As for massaging what little flesh there was, I still couldn’t bring myself to believe in it. “Even if you come to regret this later, I won’t be responsible.” “I can’t shake this uneasy feeling about taking him there.”

“But there’s no other way.” “There’s truly no helping it.” I fell silent and left the room. The infant appeared to be gradually putting on flesh while simultaneously seeming to waste away. During meals, he would go “Ah” and try to grab at things. When the infant was nearby, meals tasted better. The ordinary thought that even someone like me could have fathered such a child felt strangely precious, making me sense some delicately wrought inner human strength.

When the greenery deepened, both the painter Mr. K’s household across the street and our neighbors the Hayases—citing the erratic climate—took their children away for convalescence to Kamakura and Bōshū. Both households had frail children, but our infant was far weaker than any of them. Just hearing about such neighborhood matters made staying in Tokyo feel likely to make me ill and left me lonely-hearted.

One evening, an earthquake struck. A terrifying sound reverberated violently through the house. I had just been drinking tea when I mechanically rushed out into the garden. Because there was a stone lantern there, I stared at its pale stone, wondering if the top part would fall.

“Oh, that was terrifying.” Such a wife was properly holding the infant, and the infant’s pitch-black pupils floated a light within the darkness, its luster erased. At that moment, I felt deeply displeased with myself for having rushed out before the infant.

“I carried him out without even thinking, you know. I didn’t have a moment to think at all.”

My wife said this while watching the treetops trembling once more in the stilled sky, but made no mention of my having rushed out alone. I looked at the infant's pupils. And again considered myself with that same disagreeable sensation. "What a vile feeling." "Why?" "I mean this disgust at not having carried him out before you did. Why didn't you ask me to hold him?"

“There was no time for that.” “That’s a mother’s duty.” “Then is he your child alone?” Even while knowing I had lost, I couldn’t help but feel that until the child grew, he would remain his mother’s. Was the father nothing more than an overseer of that? That too could be considered.

“Because I was scared, you rushed out first.” “Ah, you rushed out.” “I was scared afterward.” “After I carried the child out, you know.” “Hm.”

I fell silent. Once again, I accumulated displeasure toward myself for being fixated only on my rigid self.

When the trees’ greenery deepened, during those times when Natsu and my wife—holding the developmentally delayed infant—often went out into the garden, strangely enough, the infant would fix his gaze upon the sky. When I approached and peered closely, it wasn’t the sky nor a tree—the infant was gazing with apparent fascination at a single leaf fluttering at the tip of a branch. “It seems he knows you well enough, but I don’t think he truly recognizes who I am.” “In other words, even setting aside what it means for me to be his father, compared to you, it seems the infant looks at me with completely stranger’s eyes.”

“Do you think so? But he seems to know you quite well. Look—it’s Daddy, see?” Even as she said this and pushed the infant toward me, she moved toward Natsu rather than myself. Though she tried earnestly to make him accustomed to me, it proved futile. Yet there remained a difference between how his eyes regarded me and how they looked upon others. There lingered a softness in his gaze when it fell on me—a quality of familiarity.

The grandmother came from the countryside and returned after about two weeks. That day, we took him on the train for the first time and went as far as Ueno in the evening, but the infant was frightened by the train's noise and bustling crowds. The infant, who had known nothing beyond the quiet surroundings of the Tabata house, widened his eyes, trembled all over, and finally burst into tears. The stimulation seemed too intense. Thinking that if he developed a fever it would be disastrous, we immediately returned by car. The next day, Dr.Higuchi said he had caught a slight cold and treated it, then remarked, “He really is a weak child.” “Taking him all the way to Ueno—this is why it’s been so difficult.” “It was also mentioned that when an infant falls ill for a week, their development gets delayed by exactly that week.” Now that he mentioned it, our infant was six months behind a normal infant. He had no teeth yet, could not crawl, and even when held, his legs would not support him. But I took pride in those black eyes and the beautiful, well-formed face that bore not the slightest resemblance to me.

Sugihara, a poet living in the countryside, had also become a father by then, but upon visiting, he immediately praised the infant's features. "My child's dark-skinned and isn't even worth mentioning—this one's a masterpiece." When Sugihara said that, I asked whether the infant resembled me or the woman. "He resembles your wife," he said. "But doesn't he resemble me about half?"

“Now that you mention it, he does resemble you a little,” he added.

In truth, nothing mirrored both parents’ faces as mysteriously as the infant’s countenance. Even in the movements of his expressions, there lingered something faint yet unmistakable of both parents. Faced with these self-evident truths that my mind obsessively clung to, I felt myself staring with terrifying intensity. “We can always make another.” “Problematic.” “Maybe I should have her drink hōzuki root.” “Stop it! Don’t say such things!” “But I don’t find children cute at all.” “Not an ounce of affection transfers.”

“Why do you think that?” I couldn’t understand Sugihara’s feelings like that. Despite this, he would bundle up the children’s playthings from town and always take them back to the countryside. “Firstly, their features are bad—” Sugihara—who drowned himself in beautiful things—insisted on voicing his personal preferences even about such simple matters. Even so, I simply couldn’t bring myself to think he wasn’t cute. “You do end up holding him sometimes, don’t you?” “I do hold him, sure, but somehow I just can’t muster any affection like yours.” “You’re utterly devoted.” “For a scoundrel, you sure dote on them well—I’m impressed.”

When Sugihara said this, it didn’t seem he was merely feigning sincerity for my sake alone. He could adopt matching tenderness toward gentle, beautiful things, but with what lacked such qualities, he appeared to settle into that distinctive morbid despondency of his.

However, the infant continued coughing day after day. Moreover, while there seemed to be asthmatic tendencies too, this being routine meant there was nothing to dwell on, and each day the doctor came once. When footsteps echoed in the entryway and Dr.Higuchi’s white summer clothes became visible, the infant immediately began crying by instinct.

“Oh dear, this is a problem... If he’s taken such a dislike to me!”

Dr.Higuchi finally circled around from the back gate to the garden secretly, and then— “How is he? Is he asleep?” he asked in a hushed voice, trying not to let his gleaming summer uniform be seen. Such considerate behavior was, somehow, immensely pleasing to me. “He’s awake. Keep it down.” “The cough?”

“It comes out sometimes. And he’s wheezing.” “The phlegm isn’t clearing properly. I’ll prescribe some medicine to clear it. Well then, I’ll take my leave.”

Dr.Higuchi, having said that, left through the back gate once more. However, after two days had passed, the infant began to have a pale, listless face and started coughing frequently.

That morning, the woman came to my room and said. "Mrs.Hayase next door... She says it seems Bao has whooping cough—that you should get him vaccinated now before it turns grave... And that Mr.Hayase thinks likewise too. They said they couldn't bear to just watch anymore, though they know it's overstepping." "Come to think of it, it does seem rather likely." The Hayases were our fence-side neighbors who, upon closer inquiry, turned out to share our hometown origins. Moreover, coming from those who'd already raised three children themselves, this warning struck through my chest like an ice pick.

“It does seem to be the case. That was good advice they gave us.”

I expressed my gratitude and immediately had the doctor administer an injection. “He’s just now developing whooping cough,” both Dr.Higuchi and Dr.Shano told me. I felt happy, as if some great difficulty had been swept away before me. However, for some reason, the cough came on in fits—about once a day. But being accustomed to such things, though concerned, we just made him take his medicine. Dr.Higuchi had also said it wasn’t anything serious. Yet his complexion gradually worsened, his limbs grew cold, and if he wasn’t held even for a moment, he would burst into tears as if ignited.

One morning, Natsu said with her own complexion paling while still holding the infant. "He just had a terrible coughing fit—then went all stiff and trembled something awful—gave me such a fright—" “Trembled?” The wife immediately took him into her arms but found no change. When she tried soothing him he smiled faintly with soft cooing sounds. "But his color looks bad." "That bluish tinge worries me." I leaned closer and saw how weak his eye color seemed. A vague loneliness came over me. The infant’s pallid complexion and lifeless eyes always filled me with this unpleasant solitude. This time felt different—stranger than ever before.

“Look at his feet.” “They’re cold.” “But look, he’s smiling now.” “How about laying him on the floor?” “If you put him down, he starts crying.” “When he cries, he starts coughing and wheezing.” “This is a problem.” “What am I supposed to do?” In the end, she had no choice but to keep holding him. Perhaps it was my imagination, but even his lips lacked their usual redness. The doctors said it was an asthma attack and indeed there were no other signs whatsoever.

When soothed, he would smile and drink as much goat milk as usual, but he would shake his head incessantly and appear listless.

One morning, the wife came into the study holding the infant. As this had become routine, I looked down from my desk and saw his pallid face and listless demeanor.

“Bao，what’s wrong? If you don’t get better soon，everyone’s going to be in trouble.” I said this and stood up to try to soothe the infant，but my wife suddenly spoke these words.

“After all these illnesses he’s suffered through—do you think this child might die?”

“So you think that?” “Yes, I can’t shake this feeling.” I stayed silent but spoke in a voice tinged with irritation: “I won’t let him be taken now.” Could there truly be any reality where we’d let him die after all we’d done to raise him? I’d even vowed to drag him back from death itself—but those hollow words left my heart barren. “You shouldn’t think that way—look how vigorously he’s moving right here, Bao.”

I was shocked when I took his hand—it had grown alarmingly cold. His feet were worse than yesterday's condition.

“This is strange—his hands and feet are so cold.” “Yes, shall we have someone call the doctor?” “You should call them immediately—no, I’ll go make the call myself.” I immediately headed out to call Miyakawa Hospital. As someone who rarely used the telephone, I hastily dialed wrong numbers, and when I finally managed to get through correctly, I suddenly stammered and couldn’t get the number out the moment the operator came on. In repeating this process over and over, I only ended up dialing wrong numbers even more frequently.

…… While I remained silent, they kept hanging up on the other end. Realizing this would only cause further delays, I immediately returned home and sent a servant to Dr.Higuchi. The doctor did not come all morning. During that time, there were two seizures; the infant would cough with a strained "ah…", gasp and struggle for breath, then huff and puff when it passed.

“This won’t do.” “This has changed considerably!” A shivering cold ran down my back, and I sent the servant out again, but he did not return. His hands and feet had turned cold. However, Bao’s black eyes still shone darkly within his quietly unchanging face.

“Bao, Bao.” The wife called out in a distraught voice.

“I wish the doctor would come soon…” Then Dr.Higuchi arrived—he examined at length—but

“The heart’s deteriorating... This’s dire.”

After saying that, he promptly gave an injection. “I didn’t realize it had gotten this bad. In any case, it would be best to have Dr.Shano examine him.” “I had been thinking the same thing.” Feeling his assistance was unreliable, I gazed blankly at Dr.Higuchi. If you called its arrival sudden, then sudden it was; yet if you called it slow, this decline had been creeping in since long before. But I had thought that since it was just another usual attack, it couldn’t be anything serious.

Since we couldn’t get through to Dr.Shano by telephone, we sent a servant at around four o’clock, but he was out and couldn’t be reached in time for the emergency. We grew impatient. Dr.Higuchi too seemed at a loss; he said he would first return home once to discuss matters over the phone before coming back together. In the evening, while I was speaking with a guest, my wife called me. Hearing her voice sounded altered from usual, I rushed over. At that moment, with his third violent cough and gasp, the infant let out a strangled cry like a goose. He gasped with a guttural rasp.

"I couldn’t fathom how much he was suffering."

I muttered to myself, and there was nothing I could do.

“The doctor isn’t coming.” “This is bad.”

We continued to feel as if oil were seeping into the very depths of our bellies. Evening came, and it was eight o'clock. What a transformation it was—the infant lay quietly limp in bed, though he never usually stayed so still. Through every pore of my body surged a shuddering wave of frantic, unknowable excitation—some alien agitation coursing through me.

“Natsu, go out front and check—has the rickshaw come?” Natsu went outside but immediately turned back, “It hasn’t arrived,” she said breathlessly. Anyway I had to stay calm—I steeled my heart.

“Will he be alright?” “I don’t know.” I said nothing more after that.

“The side entrance opened. It’s the doctor.” Having said that, I immediately went to the study, settled beside the desk, stiffened into a shadowy form, and lit a cigarette to avoid revealing any panic. To Dr. Shano, I explained the symptoms and added that it seemed to have come on suddenly.

"I had noticed his hands and feet were cold and thought something was wrong," I said. Dr. Shano pondered my explanation as was his habit, and when he seemed to have formed a rough understanding in his mind, he stood up saying, "Let's take a look." When Dr. Shano told the nurse, “Tonight we must give injections every thirty minutes,” Dr. Higuchi prepared one and administered it. But he gave another. Then Dr. Shano slipped his hand under the infant’s pillow and raised his head about four inches.

“It’s a mustard plaster,” he said. “Then use a hot-water bottle to warm the hands and feet.” Crouching down as he gave these instructions, the mustard plaster arrived—but since it was cloth, “Use paper,” he ordered. The infant rasped hoarsely, writhing in distress. They applied the plaster. Ten minutes passed. His elbow barely reached below his leg, wrist lying eerily still without so much as a twitch. "I kept thinking his limbs kept getting colder," I thought, trembling. "This was beyond saving after all."

“This is critical!”

Dr. Shano said to Dr. Higuchi in a voice unlike his usual calm tone. The infant’s eyes bulged out. Then there was no sound of breathing. The room held not a single noise.

“Father, it’s now,” my wife said. Dr. Shano performed artificial respiration. Sweat and oil clung slickly to the infant’s skin and Dr. Shano’s palms. Because this was the first time I had seen artificial respiration performed, even without that urgency, I kept thinking this would save him—would save him. “Higuchi, take over.”

When Dr. Shano said that, my wife began to cry. Dr. Shano lifted the infant’s eyelids and brought the electric lamp closer to examine them. I suddenly thought how dazzling it must be to have that light brought so close. At the same time, this child’s deep black pupils were the last I would see.

In the corner of the room, Natsu began to cry. Wailing aloud, for some time the wife too did not cease weeping.

“Father, please hold him one last time.” To me standing there dazed, my wife tried to hand over the child with closed eyes. “Oh, I’ll hold him.”

Having said that, I took him in my arms, and his head lolled limply, heavy. As I thought I should hold him more gently, I realized he was completely dead. Until then, what a dull-witted, stupefied state of mind I must have been in! This time, I gently laid him down on the floor.

“Please come this way.” I guided the two doctors to the study. Dr.Higuchi had tearful eyes. That he had cared for him for so long—even that fact brought me some comfort. “This is truly regrettable.”

Dr.Shano said while taking his bag. “Thank you for your repeated kindness.” My wife also came out and gave her greetings. When I escorted the doctors to the entrance, there was a sense they were quietly boarding the rickshaw. Don’t ask anything, I thought.

“I have no further services to provide here.” The nurse too left. The doctors had come, and forty minutes later the infant died. A pure white cloth was draped over the infant’s face. Gazing and gazing at it, I still couldn’t bring myself to believe he had truly died. “Shouldn’t they have avoided giving an enema to an infant on death’s threshold?” “At that moment I felt his breath had jammed tight up near his throat.” I told my wife these things, unable to accept reality.

“No, there are cases where they survive by doing that. There was no harm in it.”

My wife insisted that what the doctor had done was absolutely proper. I remained silent. Yet each time I looked at our dead child, I found myself unable to accept it. Though I resolved not to resent anyone, there I stood muttering resentments—at no one in particular—powerless against my own wretchedness.

IV

Being our first experience, we didn’t know where to begin, but the Hayases next door and Auntie Negishi came to help, while the rickshaw driver and Uekiichi took care of errands and funeral arrangements. When placing him in the coffin, we held him one last time. Cradling that slightly stiffened body and gazing at his closed eyes, it still seemed as though he were peacefully sleeping. But strangely enough, perhaps because his deathly face had taken on a somewhat dark hue, he appeared to have aged two years in that brief span of time, looking prematurely old. I wondered if this was how dead children showed their age—if they all appeared this aged.

“Let’s put in his socks too—and his hat, and his toys.” We dressed him in woolen socks he’d never worn and packed every toy that would fit. We included a flute and drum too. The women wept at each item they saw. Feeling oddly detached, I put a cigarette between my lips. The gaps in my teeth let breath escape freely—no tears came. We selected Dairyu Temple in Tabata for the burial ground. Shiki’s grave stood there peacefully, and its nearness made us think we might visit now and then.

“I wouldn’t mind being buried there too.” Having said that, I was met with my wife’s displeasure.—On the clear morning that followed, I alone remained at home; that evening, after many friends had attended and the funeral was concluded, my wife’s sister arrived from her hometown. At the cremation, I, my wife, Mrs. Hayase, my wife’s sister, Natsu and others attended. Along the dark canal water of Mikawashima’s riverbank, the rickshaw ran. The advertisement text for Nekoirezu Manufacturing Plant painted on its board fence caught my eye.

There was a considerable quantity of bones. Kneecaps like ginkgo nuts and thin leg bones resembling pipes touched the tips of bamboo chopsticks. My wife, her eyes swollen from crying, hooked small hard objects with the chopstick tips while saying, “We kept saying his teeth wouldn’t come in, but look—they’re all here.” Having said that, she began picking them up.

“Teeth that were embedded in the gums won’t break even when burned, you see.”

The gravedigger, with practiced movements of his own, picked up some of them. "But we kept saying there weren't any teeth at all." My wife kept repeating this regretfully, lamenting that he hadn't had the strength to break through his gums. They placed them into a small unglazed pot and everyone boarded the rickshaw again.

At a bend in the road, a young man in a barber’s white uniform was poking at something black with the tip of a stick when a packhorse cart coming straight toward him tried to crush it under its wheels. The wheel thudded over gravel, and as it began to skid, the young man deftly prodded the small black creature with a broken-off stick. But taking advantage of that motion, the little black creature darted several inches forward—then the wheel completed its rotation, and my rickshaw passed through. The mouse escaped unscathed, and somehow I felt an unexpected calm.

“What an awful thing to do.” For a while, the trembling shadow on the white parched road would not leave my eyes, leaving me unsettled. We spent our days in a daze, the woman going about everything with a lifeless expression. After the lullaby had continued for about a year, it ceased from that day onward, and this too sufficed to leave the house hushed. We kept repeating the same things, unable to resign ourselves.

One morning, when I stepped out in front of the gate, there were the Hayases' three children playing there. “Come on in, I’ll hold you.” When I said this to the four-year-old girl, she pressed her body shyly against the fence and hesitated, then ran over as if steeling herself.

“You’re quite heavy.” “Next is you.”

The older child too put on airs like her younger sister, but whether being treated that way pleased her or not, she too came running over and was picked up. "Now it's big brother's turn." The eldest brother was seven years old. He was heavy. Then, suddenly, in the midst of doing such things, I became overwhelmed with sadness and darted into the house through the side gate. What a lonely feeling this was. ――And for a while, that feeling did not leave me. As for my wife, whenever she saw other people’s children, she would lament, "Why was our own child so frail when all those others are so healthy?"

“Even when I see other children, if I think ‘That’s someone else’s child—not mine,’ it all becomes meaningless.” That’s what I said, though deep down I knew this wasn’t the whole truth. And whenever asked to write children’s stories—the very notion of crafting something to delight strangers’ offspring—I burned with wretched fury. We both sighed whenever idle moments found us.

“Nothing is enjoyable.” As for my wife, she said the same and left early in the morning to visit Dairyu Temple. “What could possibly be enjoyable?” I lived each day in a foul-mooded daze.――An acquaintance who had seven children lost his eldest daughter that spring. Then someone said, “Since you have seven, losing one shouldn’t matter.” To which that acquaintance reportedly responded, “Because there are seven, I want to keep every single one all the more.” I understood that sentiment.

An acquaintance of mine who was a sculptor living up the slope said to me, who was walking around at dusk like a vacant fool. “You can always have another kid.”

My head was spinning, and I could barely manage to speak.

“Do you think a face precisely like that could ever come into being again?”

After saying that, I even found myself wishing that this man’s child would die in some convenient accident—and in that moment, I snapped in anger. For I believed that if such a thing happened, he wouldn’t dare utter such careless words. “You can always have more children…” When spoken to like that, I sank into a lonely silence. But I felt there wasn’t another face like his in all the world.

When my wife went out to visit the temple, I would often start toward the drawer of the chest only to suddenly stop and look around. As expected, the shadows of the quiet garden trees cast upon the shoji screens—there should have been no one there. But in that whitish-bright light, the squelching sound of the water pillow the infant used to use reached my ears.

“What in the world had I come here to do?”

I muttered to myself and tried to reach for the drawer’s key. I took the key from another drawer, turned it once, and opened it firmly. Then I quickly plucked out a photo with rough-edged corners from among the jumble of various items and documents, tucked it into my pocket, and closed the drawer. A scrupulous determination to keep those emotions hidden clashed with his struggle to avoid being overwhelmed by strange feelings through such acts. Another layer was how the futility of these actions mingled with a faint itch in his heart—something both shameful and oddly performative—even when no one was watching.

And I dropped down cross-legged, opened it, and gazed. A quiet and pleasant sensation came over me. I was reminded of how I'd scolded him when he cried too much by calling him noisy—that I shouldn't have spoken so harshly like others would. The childlike emotions everyone harbored came thundering in with their footsteps and surrounded me for a while; nothing made me happier than this.

I soon put away the photo, locked it, and left the room. After doing such trivial things, I was suddenly pierced by a sadness sharp as a bee sting. I scraped roughly at the tatami there, and when I called out to some distant place, I felt something might return. Ah—I couldn’t bear it. I wondered if there hadn’t been anything we could have done then; thought how much better if doctors had come sooner—what a fool I’d been not to realize—and clawed at the tatami till my nails caught fibers. I told myself I wouldn’t resent—yet did. My head burned; rage flared till I feared madness might take me.

"If this keeps up, I might lose my mind." I felt that way too.

When my wife returned from the temple, I sat down and said.

“There were three white bone urns lined up,” she said. “When I asked, they told me about a family that lost three children in succession starting last autumn.” “After the second death, the wife began behaving oddly bit by bit. When the third died, she completely lost her sanity—they say she was finally admitted to Tabata Mental Hospital recently.” “What a story.” I listened silently. It seemed only natural to lose one’s mind after such losses—remaining sane felt unnatural. If anything, such a woman might even be called brazen.

“What a dreadful story.” “I’m starting to go a bit mad myself.” After a while, my wife wandered back into the room vacantly and began pacing without uttering a word. And, “I can’t even sing lullabies anymore…” She let the words fall quietly. “Why say such foolish things?…I’ve sealed away the photos properly.” “If we look, it’ll destroy us both.” “Oh no—I won’t look. If I did, that would truly be calamitous.”

In reality, the woman seemed never to have looked even once. I would occasionally wonder how our respective feelings—mine in looking at it fondly, hers in trying her best not to look—had diverged so completely in their understanding. I felt uncertain how much of either of us held truth. When we ate absentmindedly, there were many times when one would begin thinking something and try to conceal it from the other, chopsticks in hand while our eyes probed the garden. At such moments I would strangely summon a distant flute melody within mere instants, melancholy rising along its fading trail. Because flutes of varied tones had always lain by the infant's pillow, I felt they were welling up from somewhere.

The small child spirit always walked alone, carrying flutes and drums and rabbits and dogs too vividly colored to hold, wearing a sedge-woven hat and familiar woolen socks on his feet. When he saw how worn out the socks were, it seemed the child must have walked a great deal. His dark, dark eyes still lacked vitality, but their expression held a deep sorrowful hue, as though they had aged four or five years all at once.

“You keep walking like that, but where on earth are you headed? What kind of place are you trying to reach?” I approached the child spirit and placed my hand on his head. He gazed into my eyes for a long while, then for the first time smiled gently, linked his hand with mine after several hesitant movements, and with shyness murmured “Father” under his breath.

“Though there’s nowhere to go, it’s still better to keep walking than stay rooted here.” “Each day I inch forward like this, yet nothing becomes clearer.”

“The place where you and I exist feels awfully far apart, don’t you think? Dad can see your face clearly enough—but do you see mine just as well? You really are there though.”

The child spirit tilted his still-new sedge hat slightly and gently placed the small bundle on a stone block. “Yes, I understand perfectly well—but who is across from you? From here, I can’t see them clearly.” “That’s your mother. That’s not good—have you already forgotten her?” “No, from here I can’t see her clearly; I only hear her voice.”

The child spirit, after a while, started walking again, shouldered the bundle, and left making lonesome footsteps.

"Why don't you stay and talk a bit longer? There's no need to hurry off like that." "You all may continue eating your meals as you do—but here, I cannot indulge in such carefree ways."

“Why?” “Because you and I are already separate beings.” The Child Spirit started walking briskly away and did not attempt to look back. I fixed my gaze and continued watching until, in the garden area, the river deer we had recently acquired began crying solemnly. “It cried, didn’t it.” “Ah… it cried.” As if suddenly remembering, I said when the woman was about to set down her chopsticks: “On the day before that child died, you said: ‘After all this child has been sick for so long—isn’t he going to take a turn for the worse?’ Why did you say something like that? That was practically a prophecy.”

"But at the time, I just couldn't shake that feeling." "Was it wrong of me to say it?" "It was my fault." "I can't seem to purge those words from my mind."

The two of them fell silent once more. The meal had ended, but time itself grew oppressively heavy with this state that was neither conversation nor its absence...... I could see everywhere—utterly and completely—the unsteady footsteps of that ever-wandering child spirit. Whether by my desk or riding the train, upon the shoulders of the woman who emerged when returning from outside, or close beside me at night—it seemed to be sleeping everywhere.

Just as everything remained that way, I found myself perpetually unable to avoid fragmented monologues within my mind. Another thing was that as days passed, the child spirit had grown to be four or five years old—his lips tightened and a deeper flush rose to his ears. The face of that aging child spirit still bore an unhealthy bluish pallor, yet when he smiled with apparent affection, it remained exactly as it was. In particular, just as my wife and Natsu would hold him and peer beneath the birdcage, I would often rise from beside my desk and gaze into that red vermilion-lacquered birdcage. There, the water jug placed for the small birds held a faintly cold-looking hue, reflecting the pale color of the sky. In the same way I had done, the child spirit’s face peered in, watching the small birds’ swift wingbeats.

"Since then Father has always sat like this, with this listless face finding everything from start to finish unbearable—but thinking it through bit by bit, perhaps it might have been better had you died first after all……." While living as long as Father has, there are indeed various interesting things—but even those vanish like a flute’s timbre (you know how flutes resound brightly only to fade immediately)—leaving no trace, until nothing but tedious matters arise one after another, much like how some great tome chronicling such things would merely repeat identical passages endlessly. Therefore, that you died swathed in flowers like that might even feel like happiness—as though you’d avoided encountering the things you detested.

“Or perhaps it might have been better for you—like your father—to both do things and have things done to you.” “It might be better to know even unpleasant things than to stay ignorant.” “At that point I can’t find words—Father did all he could, but your body was weak.” “But if only I’d handled you sooner…—” “Then you mightn’t have needed to keep that form with such a sorrowful face; mightn’t have become a you whose whereabouts none know; it might’ve been my fault—but nothing can be done.” “Father too once resented what he’d begotten.” “In the same way, you too might be thinking that.” After a while, I tried listening—as if stealthily pricking up ears inside my own belly—groping for something.

"I started spouting nonsense again. "I’ve grown so strangely distressed—might end up going mad." I looked up at the small birds’ faces. As they flitted from perch to perch, those faint faces caught my eye.

“Hey, over there—look, there’s another person peering in like that.” “Next to the one flitting about restlessly—there’s definitely another one watching.” The woman appeared engrossed in reading something, her back turned behind the bamboo-lattice window on the tatami mat.

“In the birdcage? And where has the birdcage been placed today?” “The tatami room’s eaves.” “There’s no one there. I truly don’t see anything.” “Look, there—the bird shadow, gliding into view.” The woman stood motionless, staring intently, but soon teared up with fragile vulnerability. She continued staring intently at the birdcage, then said from the heart: “Let’s move away from this house—I can’t bear it here anymore.” “No matter where we go, this world is neither interesting nor amusing.” “To put it bluntly—it’s nothing but unpleasantness.”

Having said that, I sank limply into a kneeling position; when I sighed in such moments—as if all strength drained from my body—I found myself slumping listlessly. Feeling dejected and looking down, everything seemed utterly trivial, and I couldn’t help sinking into a gloomy mood. Waking up, going to sleep—even sitting like this was loathsome. I don't even know what to do with myself. What a dull, unpleasant, listless feeling this is, I thought.

“I think I’ll go see the doctor for a bit. I still have things I want to ask—first of all, I want to hear what caused him to die.” As I kept thinking and thinking, I suddenly brought up—calmly and as if it weren’t important—the matter that had been persistently clinging to my mind from long before to the woman.

“But bringing that up now won’t change anything… and it’s not something you should suddenly go declaring like that.”

“It’s something that can’t be helped… but I forgot to ask about it back then.” “It’s an important matter.”

To learn now what had been the cause, how much we had neglected what should have been done, whether things might not have turned out that way had we acted differently—to seek knowledge of these irreversible lapses and unnoticed failures somehow felt like paying respects to our dead child, yet also seemed as though it might soften our hearts.

"If left alone, it would fade from memory on its own." "Once forgotten, it becomes truly irreparable." I had considered this too, but when I thought of going all the way to the doctor's place and inquiring with such stiff formality, I still felt an oppressive gloom. "Perhaps it's better not to go after all." "Such things might not be meant to be asked." "They might consider it utterly absurd if I went to inquire." "But there's still something that somehow connects us to the doctor——."

They might not have it, but this thing that lingers honestly within me—remaining neither hardening nor loosening—is something I can do nothing about.

“If anything, you’ll just be smiled at—that child was such a frail one, so there’s nothing to be done about it now—” “No matter what I say, it’s futile—I can’t get everything to fall clearly into place in my head.” Having begun to say this, I suddenly realized I’d turned into the sort of fool who absurdly doubts death itself. “I can’t bring myself to accept it—just keep looking for ways out.” What do doctors know? What does anyone? “Even when I try to grab onto anything within reach, I end up feeling like some kind of coward.” When this thought came, I felt my shoulders lighten slightly.

"It might have been like this from the very beginning." "And as days pass, I too will eventually become carefree." "I might even forget in a human way." When I thought that, my heart grew lighter, but a faint unpleasantness—like dying embers—cast a shadow-like reflection. Yet strangely, that shadow refused to fade, like a bruise on skin.