Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Murō Saisei

I Because the mother had beriberi, we decided not to let him drink any breast milk at all. My plump wife would squeeze out the lukewarm white milk, and when her breasts became engorged, she would complain that her shoulders stiffened unbearably, squeezing it into ceramic pots only to discard it. Though Dr.Higuchi suggested it might be permissible to let him drink a little, I opposed this and my wife concurred. When we considered how beriberi-tainted breast milk often damages an infant's brain and contemplated the irreparable future consequences, it was absolutely impermissible. “If that’s how you feel, then naturally it’s better not to do it.” “Because thinking of what might follow, it wouldn’t be good.” Dr.Higuchi—who knew my obstinacy as though it were his daily bread—gave his assent.

“To not even let him drink when I’m this swollen… Wouldn’t a little be all right?” The mother pulled her breast from her loose chest and said bitterly, watching the milk drip into the ceramic pot with soft plopping sounds. I kept rebuking her and waited for the wet nurse who was supposed to be arranged through the nursing association. The labor broker was from Chiba—they said the agency boss, wet nurse, and her mother would come up to Tokyo within the day or next, but with no reply telegram arriving, we were left in anxious uncertainty.

“What sort of idea is it to use milk from someone with unknown origins? And if she happens to carry some disease, wouldn’t that be worse than raising him on cow’s milk?” “She should have a doctor examine her thoroughly. If the doctor deems her suitable, then it’s acceptable.” Even as we exchanged these words, each morning, noon, and evening required our housemaid Natsu and caretaker Hirabayashi to take turns making the journey to Ugatsuka for donated milk. Every time they went, I would fretfully question Hirabayashi about the woman supplying it.

“There are three or four children crowded into a house with just two rooms.” “But her milk seems abundant.” “Will they scowl when we come?” “They never show any displeasure.” “Even if it’s just once every three times, during busy hours like evening...”

Hirabayashi, who knew my feelings, said, “That’s not the case.” “And,” “Every time someone from their household comes here, they ask how he’s doing today or tell us that if his condition worsens, we should just discard any spoiled milk and come collect more.” “They say they time it to give what seems like the freshest milk.” Having heard this, I thought they must be good people even though I hadn’t met them yet, and felt truly grateful. “I see—we really ought to send something with them next time.”

Natsu chimed in, “There’s no one as kind as them.” The mother would always test the warm milk in the bottle against her palm or hold it up to the light to check for sediment, her face brightening with joy each time. While sterilizing it, “Since their household has many people, I wonder what we should present,” she said. Having said that, she began listing congratulatory items that were unnecessary for the time being, saying they should give this and present that. And she squeezed her own breast milk and peered into the thick white liquid accumulated in the ceramic pot.

“To have this much milk come out, yet not be able to let him drink it…” Having said that, she whispered to Natsu, “I want to secretly let him drink it.” “That secrecy could smash everything to pieces.” I testily rebuked her. Finally, there was no place left to discard the milk, so they dug a shaded spot where bush clovers were planted in the garden and discarded it.

One evening when there was a visitor at the front entrance and the household was busy, I absentmindedly went to answer it. But it was a woman we'd never seen before. "Um... I've come from Ugatsuka." "Ah, from Ugatsuka?" I immediately realized this must be our milk donor. She carried a bottle wrapped in a hand towel, while what looked like her younger sister stood shrinking outside the lattice door.

“We’re always so grateful for your kindness… Hey, we’ve come from Ugatsuka.” When I called toward the interior, my wife and Natsu all came out. “Thinking you might be occupied, I took the liberty of coming here myself.” She unfolded the handkerchief and took out the milk bottle. Her indigo summer kimono had crumpled sleeves, and her threadbare sandals stood out. “Oh, how thoughtful. Please do come inside.” Then to the sister hiding by the latticed door too—my wife meeting her for the first time—she said “Please come in,” earnestly pressing about the milk matter. Her thick arms left no doubt about her robust health. I felt reassured.

“Even though I offer milk every day, I thought it would be dreadful if it were to spoil or something like that.” “No, he’s grown quite used to the rubber nipple now—what with us taking it three times daily even during your busiest hours—.”

After saying this, my wife began guiding them toward the room where the infant lay sleeping, “At any rate, please take a look at him once. He’s grown so chubby.” “My, how plump he’s grown…” The woman in her late thirties said this, adding, “We’ve been wondering every day what sort of child he might be.” “And what am I to do—he’s just so adorable… My younger sister here has been insisting all day that we simply must come see him today,” she added, glancing back at her sister’s bashful expression. “I never said any such thing,” the younger sister retorted curtly, her face flushing a dark red.

“With this, I too somehow feel relieved. “I’ve been concerned, you see.”

With her small lips pursed as she spoke, the woman with a spirited-looking face stood up and went to the entrance.

After that person had left, everyone discussed. "I was so worried—so terribly worried—I didn't know what to do with myself." "I'm sure of it."

“Even I’m concerned,” I said to Natsu.

Making three daily trips to Ugatsuka required more hands than we could spare. Everyone said to each other, “If only it were a bit closer.” Even so, as the matter with the wet nurse remained unresolved, we received a telegram in reply stating that if pressed too hastily, she would surely abscond tomorrow. That day, the wet nurse came accompanied by her mother, who appeared to be around sixty, and an old broker from the employment agency. When I saw the broker’s face, I immediately averted my eyes. I thought he was a repulsive fellow—that was my immediate impression upon seeing his upturned nose and sunburned, greasy face.

“The monthly salary will be thirty yen paid six months in advance, with my service fee of fifteen yen.” Having laid out these terms brusquely, he turned to face the wet nurse’s mother to ensure comprehension: “My responsibility ends here—now you must properly instruct your daughter.” The broker then sat beside the elderly mother and addressed the rigidly postured, healthy-looking girl: “Once this arrangement’s settled, you mustn’t complain about dislikes or demand to return home—not when we’ve secured this position through considerable effort.” At this, the mother shifted her compact knees toward her daughter.

“It’s only for about a year, so endure it well—and I’ll come visit from time to time, and everything’s been entrusted to Mr. Tsumugiya, so—” The round-eyed young woman of about twenty-one or two remained silent throughout, her face downcast without uttering a word. With her fingertips resting on her kneecaps as if digging into the skin, she struck me as a tenacious sort of person. “We really must have a doctor examine the breast milk itself. Even if we were to hire her, I’d still be concerned about that.”

It seemed matters were being settled unilaterally by their side, so I said while looking at the old man’s face. "We’ve even had a doctor in Chiba examine the breast milk—it’s apparently safe. Though it would be best if your household conducted one more test." Following the old man’s words, the mother spoke up. "This child hasn’t had a single illness in recent years—as you can see, she has a hardy constitution. There’s nothing to worry about." She glanced at her daughter and added uneasily, as if fearing this talk of breast milk might unsettle her.

“Then please express some into a test tube, and we’ll have Dr. Higuchi take a look at it right away.—Come this way for a moment.” My wife took the wet nurse to the kitchen, where Hirabayashi then carried the milk that had been put into a tube to the doctor.

“Since I must also make a visit to Waseda, I shall take my leave as soon as matters here are settled.” The old man received the contract and brokerage fee from me and stored them in his large wallet. “After all, these days there are no women becoming wet nurses, so the work is quite strenuous,” he said. “She didn’t eat anything particularly bad these past two or three days, so there’s no reason her milk should be poor.” The mother continued saying such things until the errand runner returned. The wet nurse sat with her knees locked rigidly, her posture so constricted that she panted shallowly, clearly ill at ease. Like a woman unaccustomed to respectable service, her eyes darted furtive glances toward me and my wife with unsettling swiftness.

Hirabayashi returned. "The milk shows no particular defects," he said, bringing what appeared to be a doctor's certificate separately. Both my wife and I rejoiced. "Since her body has been well-used, she should produce good milk." The old man finished his preparations and added, “Then Mother should come by tomorrow to settle the financial matters. I’ve urgent business to attend to,” then exited through the entrance with the mother who was to return with him.

“Be sure to consume plenty of liquid-rich foods, and unless you think of this place as your own home, breast milk can unexpectedly cease.”

When she heard that breast milk could sometimes cease, the wet nurse placed a hand on her chest and widened her eyes. “Anyway, since I’ll come again tomorrow, I’ll assess how things are going for you then.” After the old man and elderly mother had left, my wife told her to immediately give her breast milk to the infant. The infant, who had been fed only donated milk, took into his mouth the wet nurse’s nipple—soft and somewhat unreliable, entirely different in sensation from the rubber tube. I could not bring myself to look upon the wet nurse’s chest—its sickly tortoiseshell hue—with any semblance of ease.

“There you go. “See? It’s flowing well now.” With her fingertips, my wife pressed down slightly on the wet nurse’s breast from above to encourage more milk flow. The wet nurse peered down at the infant’s faintly haired head from above. Natsu, Hirabayashi, and even I in my heart—we all hoped the infant would take to the wet nurse’s nipple. But the infant immediately released the nipple. And cried. When she offered the nipple again immediately, he would briefly latch on only to release it and cry once more.

“How strange – it won’t come out. Try squeezing with your fingertips.” This time only a meager dribble emerged. However much they tried, nothing changed. The wet nurse’s face flushed crimson.

After some time— “Please try again.” As my wife started to speak and pressed the nipple to the infant’s mouth, he showed no sign of latching on. “Why don’t you try using a rubber teat?” When I said this, my wife immediately gave him the rubber teat. The infant puckered his lips to lick it, calmed his deep black eyes, and ceased crying. “Why isn’t it coming out?”

The more frantically the wet nurse squeezed, the more the milk would only trickle out. "But I assure you this is milk that flows plentifully enough to discard daily," she said, vigorously kneading her breasts. Even the wet nurse’s forehead now glistened with sweat as she worked. "You should rest awhile first." I said this, unable to bear watching any longer, and sighed inwardly. Even the thin-skinned area of her chest taking on a dullness became a concern, filling me with despair. After letting her rest in the maid’s room, under the lighted lamp they tried having the infant suckle again, but after just two attempts he began to cry. Upon inspection, only drops emerged one by one. Since it was already time to send someone to fetch milk, they couldn’t very well leave the ineffective nipple attached, so as a last precaution they tried once more, but it still proved futile. I grew impatient. The wet nurse turned crimson once more, 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 her handkerchief, added, “Let’s have Mr. Hirabayashi go collect milk from Ugatsuka right away.” They decided that since evening was approaching and Natsu was occupied, they would have Hirabayashi go instead. Hirabayashi left immediately. “This is troublesome. “The problem is he’s not taking to the nipple.” I said that to my wife, deliberately not mentioning that her milk wasn’t coming out. The wet nurse was glistening with oily sweat.

“What became of your child?”

When my wife suddenly asked this, the wet nurse lifted her face, glistening with sweat and oil. “He died. Right after he was born.”

“Oh my.” My wife’s eyes widened in surprise, but I felt nothing in particular. Children are prone to die. Because I had thought of them as fragile flowers. “And you were in Chiba?” “No.” “Where were you?” The wet nurse fell into an uncomfortable silence. I signaled with my eyes not to ask. The wet nurse once again stiffened her entire body, looking as though she might stifle a sigh.

Hirabayashi returned. "She said since it was later than usual," he reported while wrapping a handkerchief around something "'I thought I'd bring it up myself right now.'" The milk was lukewarm. When they sterilized and fed it to him，the infant drank blissfully，panting as he sucked. My wife remarked absently，"With how we've been feeding him，only milk that flows abundantly will do." The wet nurse stared fixedly at the infant's face through lowered eyelids. Her head seemed foggy，her posture unsteady—she must be exhausted，I concluded.

Late into the evening, Natsu suddenly came to my study and said the wet nurse had requested someone go to her Asakusa lodgings for kimono and other necessities. She was carrying the furoshiki bundle she’d brought earlier and declared at the back entrance that she’d depart any moment now, adding, “Apparently she once worked in Yoshiwara—this household must feel stifling to her.” “If we send someone tonight, we won’t be able to give him his milk tomorrow morning.” “What a troublesome one she is.”

My wife began voicing her discontent. "If we let her go tonight, that woman might not come back." Earlier, it had seemed to me that the wet nurse, who had appeared ill at ease, was seeking some pretext to escape this stifling household. "That's true. But she only just arrived... Though I can't say for sure." My wife too grew apprehensive. "Tell her to tend to any business tomorrow daytime if she must. Not tonight." Natsu relayed these exact words and promptly arranged for the wet nurse to retire.

Afterwards, "When I relayed exactly as you instructed, Master, she wept softly." The housemaid reported this to my wife and also remarked that respectable households must feel stifling. The next morning, they had hoped with joyful anticipation that after a night’s rest, the wet nurse’s milk would flow, but still it only trickled out. Finally, the infant began rejecting the unnaturally soft nipple. Hirabayashi prepared to go out immediately and waited at the entrance.

“Did it really come out before you came to the house?”

When my wife pressed skeptically, the wet nurse admitted she had indeed been squeezing it into a bowl and discarding it all along. I looked with disgust at the shriveled nipple, like a breast that produced no milk at all.

Hirabayashi took the bottle and left. The wet nurse made the same gesture over her nipple as one would use to see someone off, but still nothing came out. Even at noon, the white liquid showed no sign of emerging, and even when pressed against him, the infant rejected it. The wet nurse repeatedly pleaded through Natsu to have someone make just a quick trip to Asakusa as promised last night, but to no avail. "If you insist that much, then tell her to go." “Since she probably won’t come back anyway, and since her milk isn’t coming out, there’s no helping it.”

“That’s true too. Then let’s go ahead.”

My wife told 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—everything—she left just her toothbrush.” Though it was clear she wouldn’t return by evening, we left the back door unlatched late into the night—but she never came back. The wet nurse must have been troubled by the constraints as well, but we, having felt a moment’s relief, were troubled again as the supply was cut off.

“So after all, we’ll have to rely on donor milk for now. There’s just no helping it.” “Could there be another one out there?” “After all that searching and finally finding one—this situation isn’t something we can manage in a hurry.” As we were talking, Natsu interjected with such a remark.

“At the back entrance, the wet nurse said she’d leave the toothbrush for you—so she won’t be coming back.” The naively honest Natsu uttered these words blankly, oblivious to our distress, but I jerked my chin toward the door to dismiss her.... The infant slept with eyes closed—eyes that might be likened to a serene flower, though even that comparison couldn’t capture their beauty, their lids traced with a jet-black line. His breathing peacefully soothed my ears.

………We married in the winter four years ago. That night followed an extraordinary snowfall—when I slid one storm shutter across the washbasin at midnight, even the copper ladle had frozen fast. Through dawn air faintly stratified with blue, snowlight clashed with snowlight, their gleam imparting not brightness but a cold that carried pain. There I lingered awhile, then soundlessly closed the shutter over the frozen threshold—careful not to let the woman sleeping peacefully within become aware of my vigil.

After our wedding, we lived in an outbuilding of a farmhouse on the border between Tabata and Shinmeicho, where I spent my days writing nothing but lyrical poetry, but what little money my father had left us—meager as ant provisions—had vanished before I knew it. Even as we continued our poor, modest life, my self-published poetry collections began to sell little by little. Using the lump sum from my father, I compiled the poems I had spent about ten years writing into a book and had the Hongo bookstore sell them for me.

Around that time, a friend named Onju who had already become a father would come carrying a girl of about three in his arms each time he visited. Every time I saw Onju proudly holding his child, soothing her, or helping her relieve herself, I always found it absurd. When he didn’t bring her along, he would invariably be carrying packages containing gifts for the child—bread or toys. Though I found myself seeing too fixed a routine in this, Onju was so fond of his child that he even let the baby handle hot water himself.

“Why can’t you have children? And your wife isn’t in poor health either.” Onju, with his clear, beautiful eyes, often said such things to me. “Why is that? But if we were to have a child now, it would be a problem. We have no preparations at all, and we’re poor…”

I made a point of avoiding that conversation. I made to avert my eyes. “Children are truly wonderful.” Onju would hold his child aloft as if offering it to heaven and would return all the way to the distant depths of Nakano. When I tried to go out to town, he wouldn’t listen when I asked to take him along. “I just couldn’t bear to leave him…” With a face as innocent as if he’d never told a lie, Onju touched his child’s cheek and spoke.

The landlady disliked the woman doting on the dog,

“It’s because you keep a dog that you remain distant from having a child.” “They’ve been saying that since olden times.”

Every time she came, she would shoo the disliked dog by the gate with sharp hisses of “shh-shh,” scolding it half in fear. Every time a letter arrived from back home, it would ask whether we still didn’t have a child, whether we still couldn’t conceive. Each time, I was filled with displeasure. Whenever I saw how all my recently married friends here and there had children, the idea of having one grew even more repellent to me. Not only that—though we ourselves lived in hardship—I also felt that should a child be born, it would mean tremendous hardship. When I recalled our boarding house days when poverty had worn us to the bone, I found myself thinking of nothing but that child not being born.

The boredom born of their excessive idleness as merely a couple was at times accompanied by an inexplicable discomfort. The woman wore an expression devoid of purpose, taking other people's infants to the bathhouse, keeping dogs and cats, and expressing her loneliness. "Why don't we have a child?" "Why indeed."

Sullenly, I fell silent whenever that topic came up. And each time,

“A child? That’d be nothing but trouble.” “We’re already in a bind without one.” With that I stood up sharply and left the room. Perhaps considering the subject forbidden now，the woman stopped raising it herself，though whenever visitors came she would only murmur，“I wonder why we can’t have one.” Three years passed without her showing any signs. Friends often wielded that topic to taunt me. Onju now cradled his second child，while come summer he dressed his first daughter in crisp white lace dresses and had her stroll about.

“They say having a child purifies the body,” “Especially since you’re always complaining of headaches.” Onju would make these remarks before my wife, then tell me obliquely that her melancholy came from failing to bear what should be borne—“It’s because she doesn’t bring forth what must be born,” he’d say. Even then, Onju’s eyes—those of a man raised properly—stayed serenely clear.

“There’s nothing to be done about what can’t be done.”

That was all I ever said. But in my heart, I gradually came to want a child. At times when I became lost in thought, I would often recall the young couple from the boarding house where I had stayed ten years prior—they slept alone together but never managed to have a child. I finally came to think that a couple lying sprawled alone in bed was an unadorned, hollow sort of loneliness. Come to think of it, we too were always alone when waking up and going to bed. There was neither flourish nor ornament. And then, helplessly, in the end, the absence of a child made us feel an unprecedented shame in being just a couple.

But when it finally came to having a child, precisely because I knew myself, I grew strangely anxious that we might end up with some deformed creature, and even thought it would be better if things remained as they were without one being born. —However, more than that, I wanted to see a tangible being directly connected to both our souls and flesh.

Therefore, one evening, I abruptly brought up the matter of a child—something I had never before broached—to my wife. “If you’re truly willing to bear a child, I feel one could come at any time.”

“Why?”

My wife said that what couldn’t be achieved before couldn’t suddenly be achieved now. I began to speak seriously to my wife about what I had secretly been doing.

“When were you ever doing such things? “Since when?” “Since we held our wedding in the country.”

Even I was taken aback by my unexpectedly cold expression; an air of irritability had crept in for some reason. But before I knew it，I had blushed. “That’s a lie.” After a while，the woman turned deadly serious and peered into my eyes with an eerie smile. “It’s absolutely the truth—you can think it’s a lie if you want.” “It’ll happen in time.”

“Really?”

The woman placed her hand on her stomach, but suddenly stood up, went to the next room, and began to cry. She said she never imagined I was the kind of person who would do such a terrifying thing all by myself, and kept crying until morning. I believed that children couldn’t be conceived in difficult times, and that when one truly desired a child from the heart, it would be born—so I simply waited for the woman to finish crying. But strangely, a semblance of vigor returned to the woman—this manifested itself after that.

“I wonder if it’s happened yet.”

The woman began to scrutinize her own body with deep attention, as though peering into buried nuts. And from time to time, she would say such things.

“Don’t you think you were doing something wrong?” “I don’t think so.”

I answered clearly, though in my heart I added that it felt unnatural.

“I think that’s terribly wrong.”

The woman said this as if ready to argue vehemently, but I remained silent and did not respond.

After becoming pregnant, the woman began happily sewing small undershirts and diapers. She would fold them into stacks and rejoice at each new addition. She called it prenatal education, saying 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 briefly into view. "If this were possible all along, I wish you'd made it happen sooner—what a terrible Papa you are."

The woman would sometimes bring up such things, but I would put on a stern face and try not to engage. The woman counted every day on her fingers. And then one evening, after I had revealed a certain matter, when she learned that the child had come to her womb, she turned pale and suddenly became lost in thought.

II

Not only did the wet nurse fail to come the next morning, but even when we inquired with Chiba, there was not so much as a reply. Reluctantly, we resorted to donor milk each day, but since the midwife referred us to a source in Shimotabata where milk was readily available—with no help at hand and Ugatsuka being too distant—we decided to first collect from Shimotabata. “The people of Ugatsuka are kind, but since they’re short-handed, let’s decline properly with our thanks.” I had them convey our thanks to Ugatsuka and arranged daily trips three times to Shimotabata, but each time Hirabayashi and Natsu returned with their geta and kimono hems caked in mud. Shimotabata—formerly rice paddies now in rainy season—had roads reduced to impassable mire. Once Natsu even rolled through the mud and came back stained up to her chest.

“The roads are so bad I can barely walk at all!” Since she kept saying this so often, I told her to just endure it if that was all there was to it. But having this repeated to me at the kitchen entrance rankled my nerves.

“If you don’t like it, quit.” I also said. Hirabayashi, even when covered in mud, would silently wash his feet at the well and never mention it, but perhaps from walking while clutching fences, he often ended up with mud caked between his toes. “What kind of house is it?” “It’s like a company employee’s household.”

I grew concerned about whether he'd shown displeasure earlier and asked Hirabayashi. "At the appointed time, they squeeze the milk into bottles and leave them at the entrance," he said. "They say 'Here you go' when handing it over, but the wife just lies there nursing and hardly ever comes out herself." "Every time?" "It's always left out." Hirabayashi wore an oddly discontented expression, his face suggesting he shouldn't voice whatever troubled him. I immediately sensed they'd already found it bothersome before.

“Which household feels better—Ugatsuka’s or this one?” “That would be Ugatsuka’s.” “Do you make sure to ask each time when they expressed it?” “Oh, the wife says it was just expressed each time.”

That day when the infant passed green stool, I thought it must be due to the milk. When I examined the remaining liquid by holding it up to the light, a viscous substance had settled at the bottom of the bottle, and when disturbed, something resembling butterfly scales floated up. “Because of this milk… it gave him stomach trouble.” The woman resented the donor’s wife, saying, “If only she had been more careful.” “I’m sure she gave us what she’d expressed this morning,” she also said. From then on, the infant suffered from stomach trouble, the muggy rainy season seeped dampness even into the rooms, and Natsu and Hirabayashi, upon returning from Shimotabata, had to wash their feet at the well. That loud voice frequently irritated me.

“I’ll go fetch it in the evening—it’s just a matter of the road being mud-churned.” I flared up and went out at dusk carrying a bottle, passing beneath Hachiman Shrine’s sagging green branches heavy with foliage, emerging at Shimotabata upstream along Aizome River where millet leaves had once flowed until about two years prior—but when I stepped on a charcoal bale sunk into the muddy puddle, sludge water surged over my instep. In trying to pull it out, my strength faltered too much, and I nearly fell. The splattered mud soaked my kimono hems, leaving an unpleasant dampness.

In the damp latticework of the earthen-floored entryway, atop the three-foot shelf, a bottle had been set out containing a white liquid. Within the opened shoji screens, a floor had been quickly laid out, and a woman who appeared to be the wife lay sprawled, her heels—calluses worn from what seemed like hard labor—facing toward me. I made an estimation and thought this must be the house. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” “I have come to receive breast milk.” “It’s been set out there….”

The wife said this while lying sprawled, but her heels didn’t budge from their position. I wrapped the bottle in a handkerchief, “Apologies for troubling you when you’re busy.” “When was this milk expressed?” “I just pumped it now.”

Since the wife still showed no sign of rising，I quietly set down the package of eggs and said， “It’s a humble offering，but please do accept it.” With that，I stepped outside the lattice. The road had deteriorated even further from when I’d come earlier，the rainfall had turned messily erratic，and hems of lattice doors lining four or five connected row houses were beginning to soak through.

I took care to step from one dry spot to another as best I could, careful not to let my feet slip into the puddles. Yet when I thrust my geta into [a puddle], tepid water splashed over my toes.—Even so, cradling the precious milk, my own figure struck me as wretchedly pitiful; as I began ascending Hachiman Slope, deutzia flowers floated rotting in the dark rain along the inner side of the wall. “What a terrible road this is. “I can’t walk at all.” As I washed and washed my feet at the well while complaining, Natsu was stifling a giggle. But since the milk needed to be administered immediately, the woman had started a disinfecting charcoal fire; however, when she held the milk bottle up to the light, she slightly furrowed her brows.

“This is spoiled…” “That’s not true. She said she’d just expressed it.” “No, look at this—see how the sediment has settled and turned viscous? If you feed him this, he’ll get sick again right away.” “What a mess—and after all that trouble I went through to get it here.” At that moment, I recalled the wife lying sprawled behind the shoji screens and the disarray that had been strewn about the parlor, and felt a wave of displeasure.

“What about Ugatsuka?”

“But we already decided on this place—there’s no obligation to go there now.” “This is no time for formalities—we can’t bother with that now.” “Over there, they’re already giving it to another child, I hear.”

“Then I’ll go with cow’s milk.” “There’s nothing else to be done.”

When I went to discuss this with Dr. Higuchi, he said that while that would suffice as a stopgap, we should by all means find a wet nurse. “This time, let’s try sending word back home for a wet nurse.” “Perhaps there might be a good-quality one there.” “Oh, that would be most suitable.” I promptly wrote a letter to my hometown. I asked them to search for one right away.—That evening, a friend came by and told us that goat’s milk was said to be excellent. It was said to make the complexion fairer and be more nutritious. When I promptly consulted Dr. Higuchi, he told me it might be better than cow’s milk, so Hirabayashi began going daily to fetch it from the goat shed near Tabata Guard. Fortunately, the infant took to the goat milk. Everyone breathed a unified sigh of relief. The infant, who had been suffering from stomach troubles since birth, finally began to recover slightly.

To the Shimotabata side, I sent a token of gratitude along with our refusal. At that time too, I sadly recalled the soles of the feet lacking vitality. ――A reply came from my hometown that there were no wet nurses available at all. Whether they hadn’t properly searched or there simply were none to be found—it was infuriating. In autumn, I took two photographs. I captured the moment when Hyō broke into a smile as Natsu danced about showing him a toy. I sent one to my mother in the countryside and one to my wife’s parents’ home. My mother in the countryside wrote that she slept holding it every day. The mother, prone to intense love and hate, had developed such a tender heart, and I rejoiced at this change. ――Whenever there was even a slight cough, we immediately called Dr. Higuchi.

“It’s not the infant—it’s you all getting so neurotic that’s the problem.” The portly doctor said this and told me and my wife that we should let things be to some extent. Whenever I returned from outside, unless I first pinched the infant’s face—those soft cheeks—I could not enter my study. The woman often protested that my way of pinching looked painful.

“Poor thing, treating him so roughly like that.” “Look, when I do it like this, he smiles, doesn’t he? So you mean to say you don’t know there’s also this way of caressing?”

In truth, the infant would often smile as if being tickled. The rosewood stand made to hold the electric lamp was placed beside the desk in the study each evening. The infant liked tapping on its surface. In this tap-tap manner—when they would enter the room while I was writing, I would furrow my brows, and because of this, my wife had to leave silently with the infant in her arms without letting him tap on the stand. At such times, I would later realize my mistake and go out of my way to call them back so he could tap on it. By doing so, I could soften my own mood.

Despite the cold, the infant ushered in the New Year. Everyone ate rice cake soup, “It’s a good New Year,” they said. Each time, I found it remarkable that I was spending New Year with my own child like this. In the rough-walled, frozen backstreet room where I stayed, I would often shudder when recalling that tremor.—One day after the Great Cold had passed, Natsu let out a single, rasping cough. In the evening she kept at it intermittently in the kitchen area. “She’s caught a cold—we mustn’t let her hold the child.”

While I was cautioning my wife about this, since Natsu was holding the infant, I immediately snatched him up and held him. And then I handed him to my wife. That night, the infant coughed. After two or three coughs in succession, I turned deathly pale. “Damn it.” “He’s caught it.” “It does seem that way. This is a problem.” When I took his temperature, it was 38.5 degrees. Moreover, what was strange was that with each cough, he would wheeze and gasp for breath as if in agony. Since it was late at night, we decided to call Dr. Higuchi early tomorrow morning and had a water pillow applied.

Morning came, but the fever did not subside. Dr. Higuchi said it was just a cold and there was no need to worry too much. We cooled him with ice. Yet even after three days passed, then four, his fever still had not subsided, and the cough persisted. He explained that the wheezing was due to asthma and that the phlegm wasn't clearing, which made breathing difficult.

Two more days passed. Dr.Higuchi tilted his head. “You should have Dr.Utsuno in Hongō examine him. “I’m rather concerned about this.”

Dr. Higuchi said, “I’ve no objection to another physician attending. There are limits to what I alone can assess—indeed, having someone else present might better reassure you,” then assumed an expression utterly divorced from the matter, as if making this proposal for no particular reason at all.

“Then let us proceed with that arrangement.” Thinking it only natural, I immediately telephoned Dr. Utsuno and arranged for a nurse to attend. From that night onward, the infant began wheezing laboriously, his distress growing visibly worse. “I won’t let him die like this,” I resolved, my determination hardening like clenched muscle.

Moreover, even amidst such suffering, he continued drinking milk without difficulty, so I thought we might pull through that way. Yet the fever stubbornly refused to break. It only kept climbing higher. When Dr.Utsuno arrived, he promptly loosened the heavily padded kimono and applied a mustard plaster to his back. But ten minutes passed with no reaction. I fixed my gaze on the watch in my palm. Three minutes elapsed. When we peeled off the plaster, a red reaction had emerged on his skin.

“If this doesn’t appear, it’ll be a bit troublesome.” After saying this, Dr.Utsuno instructed us to drape cloth over the shoji screens and administer the inhalation treatment twice daily. Dr.Higuchi stood prepared with the seventh injection. “This constitutes oxygen deprivation.” Having said only that much, Dr.Utsuno began rising from his seat without further comment. I thought this man engaged illness through technique. I thought Dr.Higuchi engaged illness through passion.

"Is he going to be all right? I hadn’t realized it had gotten that bad." Startled anew, I looked up at Dr. Utsuno’s slightly pretentious yet confidently broad forehead.

“I was somewhat concerned because the mustard plaster’s reaction was delayed. However, since there remained residual efficacy from the treatment…”

Having said that, he immediately left. There was an air of solemn excellence about him. I was glad Dr. Utsuno had examined him. And I believed. One inhaler was held by Iori’s aunt while Suzuki from the carriage shop handled another, adding water as my wife and nurse took turns directing the oxygen mask. Natsu bustled about tending and replenishing the charcoal fire. Late that night, another nurse arrived. Through the mist of inhalation treatment, our infant wheezed painfully, gasping like a fish out of water. I paced between sickroom and study all night long, performing senseless acts like shifting geta clogs in the entryway corner.

The infant, though both my wife and I were mischievous by nature, had glossy black eyes. They shone with a celluloid-like luster, appearing to shift sorrowfully under the fever's influence. "Hang on. You're too young to die." When I said this, I called the infant's name. The surrounding air hung thick with inhalation mist, creating an illusion of condensation droplets trembling at the ceiling's edge. The nurse's starched white uniform clung damply where the paste had moistened it. My wife's hair too bore traces of inhalation dew. Everyone labored with desperate vigor.

“We must reduce his fever tonight.” My wife had become half-crazed, repeating things like “The inhalation’s clogged” or “We need more charcoal.” If we failed tonight there would be no recovery—the thought sent feverish heat surging through my head.

“It’s down to 38 degrees! It’s down!”

Toward dawn, my wife came to where I was sleeping, shouting those words. I sprang up and peered at the infant's face—he was still gasping laboriously, his breaths coming in ragged bursts.

“Given how things look now, the fever should drop further by morning.”

The female nurse made an assessment and tried to reassure me and my wife. But only emptied oxygen iron tubes had piled up, with no next supply remaining.

"This is bad. What if we rouse Miyagawa Hospital?" Since it was right nearby where I had been hospitalized last year, Natsu dashed off.

“If they don’t wake up, knock on the gate with a stone.” Even as I spoke, the oxygen had completely run out, and the sound of water being drawn through the apparatus in the room abruptly ceased. The hushed silence that followed filled me with intense anxiety. “What could she be doing?” I was frantic with worry. “I’ll be right back.” With that, I immediately stepped out into the street and ran to the hospital. Before the hospital’s white gate, the pale glow of dawn revealed Natsu standing motionless in the dim light, her silhouette dark against the brightness.

“Hey, did you wake them?” As I approached, I shouted. “Yes, they’re just now opening it.”

Soon came the creak of the gate opening. I pushed Natsu aside and asked them to lend us oxygen.

“There’s no one from the office present either.”

The hospital worker said this sleepily and showed no sign of providing it immediately.

“Do you know where the oxygen is? You there.” “Yes, I do know that.”

“Then I’ll take it—I’ll speak to the director tomorrow myself. Hand it over now. We don’t have time for this dawdling.” “I can’t possibly allow that.” “Such a thing.”

“I’ll take responsibility．Please hurry．There’s a patient on the verge of death．” When the hospital worker entered the pharmacy，I too audaciously pushed my way in and grabbed just one cylinder． The clock had grown forlorn． “I’ll come tomorrow and explain everything．”

Having said that, I immediately returned home. At the gate, the nurse had come out and was waiting for my return. When everyone heard the vigorous sound, they let out a sigh of relief. "They just wouldn't wake up." Natsu kept muttering under her breath.

When dawn broke, the infant was sleeping soundly. Dr. Higuchi came before breakfast.

"The fever seems to have gone down a bit."

While shaking down the mercury, he said, “The infant could take a turn for the worse at any moment, so you can’t let your guard down.”

"Didn't you say once that we were being too neurotic?" "Did I say such a thing? No, but in the infant's case, that's just as well. But I find it troublesome when you make a fuss over nothing."

With that, he said he would return around noon, then told Natsu, “I must ask you to spare me some of this ivy,” and left. “He’s not very approachable, is he? Yet he kindly comes three times a day.” The wife spoke those words to the nurse.

Dr. Higuchi was someone I had known for eight years since coming to Tabata. The next day, when Dr. Utsuno came, he spoke to Dr. Higuchi about the medicine, "It seems we can stop now." he said quietly. He also said the critical period had passed. But he added that we still couldn’t let our guard down—that things could still take a turn for the worse. I trusted Dr. Utsuno. "If you do something clumsy, you’ll get written about."

I turned back to Dr.Higuchi in response. The other day, he had seen the child of someone who also wrote and said he'd been written about. "There are cases even doctors can't do anything about." I agreed with that. Even though they had done so much for us, the thought of writing about such things had never crossed my mind.

The doctors, Dr. Utsuno and Dr. Higuchi, attended daily, and it had been a week. “He’ll be alright now. After all, he’s drinking milk, so that’s favorable.” Dr. Utsuno was the first to state it clearly, and we were relieved. We reduced the nurses to just one.

When I came to my senses, Natsu, my wife - everyone had become utterly haggard within a week, yet even so, my wife remained in a state of nervous agitation. “At one point, I truly thought things were going to take a turn for the worse, I tell you. Oh thank goodness.”

My wife finally untied her obi and slept. Throughout that time, I slept peacefully alone. Though I felt guilty about being the only one getting proper rest, I created the excuse that I had work to do and that if I didn't sleep even a single night, my body would break down immediately. "You need to sleep or you'll collapse later," my wife had said without realizing, but I felt profoundly ashamed of my selfishness and egotism.

Dr. Higuchi continued to come three times a day. The doctor who had watched over the infant since birth would often say such things. "After all the care I've devoted until now, I couldn't possibly face you if something were to happen." The guilelessly kind Dr. Higuchi sat one morning in the sunlit tatami room where daylight spilled through, wearing his serge suit and sipping tea with an unclouded expression. "This time, I must truly thank you for everything..."

In that manner I expressed my gratitude. “Generally, my opinions aligned with Dr. Utsuno’s as well. That man is quite the expert, you see.” Dr. Higuchi stood up and left after saying that. I could smile and savor Dr. Higuchi’s rather innocent demeanor, and the infant began to smile little by little.

III

Even after his first month had passed, not only had the infant still not cut any teeth, but he showed no signs of crawling either. When I finally picked him up and placed my hand on his leg to support him, he would stand, but lately he would bend his leg and cry as if in pain when touched. "What in the world is wrong with this child?" "His legs can't support him anymore." "Please look."

When she mentioned that, he would bend his leg into an L-shape and cry when touched. "In any case, it would be best to go see Dr. Utsuno and have him take a look." "Yes, let's do that."

When we returned from Utsuno by rickshaw, my wife had a pale face. “We had them write a referral to the orthopedics department at Rakuzen-do Hospital. Even Dr. Utsuno said it’s outside his specialty and he can’t quite figure it out.” “Isn’t Rakuzen-do Hospital pretty far?” “The train won’t do either.” “We’ll take a rickshaw.” “In that case, you should go ahead then.” My wife immediately went out to the downtown area. I wondered if it was really alright to make him walk around so much when he’d only just recovered, but I also had the thought that if we left his leg as it was, the condition might set in permanently and cause problems. When she returned,

“They say this child’s nerves are tense and a tendon in his leg is pulled tight. There was no treatment other than massage, so we’ve been having that done. Oh my, he cried so much.” “I’m sure he did, but won’t all this massaging of an infant’s legs cause some sort of complication later? If he keeps crying loud enough to be heard all the way to the gate like that, couldn’t it harm his heart?” “They said his heart was sturdy. He isn’t crying because of illness—and they said a child with nerves this tense is quite rare.”

“I see.”

However, I found myself strangely reluctant about these Rakuzen-do visits. Yet since we were already undergoing treatment, there was no way to discontinue it; but whenever I saw the rickshaw lower its shafts before our gate every other day and glimpsed the woman holding the infant, I felt an oppressive gloom. Particularly when the infant wailed until hoarse, I also pitied him,

“Why don’t you take today off? The wind’s a bit chilly and he’ll cry…” Even when I said that, she wouldn’t listen, insisting that since it was every other day, delaying by even one would set back the treatment that much more. Even when giving injections to the infant, the woman would watch with an unfazed expression, seemingly believing this would cure him. Yet during injections—as had been true during his previous grave illness—I would stay out of the sickroom whenever possible, sitting in my study until greasy sweat seeped from me while listening to the infant’s cries first choked silent by pain then bursting forth anew, putting myself in his place until it became unbearable.

“Because he cries so much, people from other wards even gather to come peeking in.” “There truly isn’t another child who cries as loudly as this.” The woman who had returned from the hospital said his leg seemed somewhat better and showed the infant’s leg. I still couldn’t bring myself to believe that massaging such scant flesh would do any good.

“Even if there comes regret, I wash my hands of it. This hospital business sits ill with me.” “But what alternative do we have?” “No alternative whatsoever.”

I fell silent and left the room. The infant seemed to be gaining a little flesh bit by bit, yet also appeared to be wasting away. When I ate, he would say "Ah" and try to grab something. When the infant was nearby, my meals tasted delicious. The ordinary thought that even someone like me could have such a child born to him felt rare, and I sensed a subtle inner strength within human beings.

When the greenery deepened, both the painter Mr. K’s household across the way and our neighbors the Hayases took their children for a change of climate to Kamakura and Bōshū, citing the unseasonable weather. Both households had frail children, but our infant was far weaker than those. Just hearing about such matters among the neighbors made remaining in Tokyo seem likely to make one ill, filling me with desolate loneliness.

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

“Oh, that was terrifying.” The wife stood properly holding the infant, whose jet-black eyes suspended within the darkness a light whose luster had been extinguished. At that moment, I felt disgusted with myself for having rushed out before my child. “I just instinctively grabbed him and ran out. I mean, there was no time to think at all.”

While watching the treetops quiver again in the stilled air, my wife said this without remarking at all on my having rushed out alone. I looked at the infant's eyes. And once again, I regarded myself with a disgusting feeling.

"I felt disgusted."

“Why?”

“That I didn’t carry him out before you – that’s what disgusts me. Why didn’t you ask me to hold him?” “How could there have been time for that? That’s a mother’s duty.” “Then is he yours alone?”

Even while knowing I was defeated, I couldn't help but feel that until a child grew, it seemed to belong to the mother. Was a father merely someone who monitored that? That too could be considered.

“Because I was scared, you rushed out first.”

“Ah, you rushed out.”

“I was scared afterward.” “After you carried him out, you know.” “Hmm.”

I fell silent. Once again, I compounded my own displeasure by dwelling solely on my rigid self.

When the trees deepened in green, during those times when Natsu and my wife—holding the developmentally delayed infant—often came out into the garden, strangely, the infant would gaze intently at the sky. When I approached and peered closely, it wasn’t the sky he was looking at, nor a tree—it was a single leaf fluttering from a branch that he was gazing upon with apparent fascination. “He seems to know you well enough, but somehow doesn’t truly recognize me.” "In other words, even setting aside what it means for me to be his father, compared to you, the infant looks at me as if I were a complete stranger."

“Do you think so? But he seems to recognize you quite well. Look—it’s Papa! Don’t you see?” Even as she said this and thrust the infant toward me, my wife tried moving toward Natsu rather than me. She tried her utmost to accustom him to me, but to no avail. Yet there remained some difference between how he looked at me and how he regarded others. His gaze held a soft familiarity. The mother came from our hometown and stayed about two weeks before leaving. That day we took him on his first train ride to Ueno in the evening, but he grew terrified by the clattering rails and jostling crowds. Having known only Tabata’s quiet neighborhood, he stared wide-eyed and trembling before finally bursting into tears. The overstimulation seemed too severe. Fearing fever might set in, we hurried home by automobile.

The next day, Dr. Higuchi said he had caught a bit of a cold and treated it, adding, "He really is a frail child, isn't he? Taking him all the way to Ueno—that’s why it’s been so difficult." It was also mentioned that for infants, if they were ill for a week, their development would be delayed by exactly that week. Come to think of it, our infant was six months behind compared to ordinary infants. No teeth had come in; he couldn’t crawl, and even when held, his legs wouldn’t hold him up. But I took pride in both his black eyes and the beautiful, well-formed face that bore no resemblance to my own.

Sugihara, a poet living in the countryside who had also become a father by then, would immediately praise the infant’s beautiful features whenever he visited.

"My child is dark-skinned and utterly unremarkable—this one here is a masterpiece."

When Sugihara said that, I asked whether the infant resembled me or my wife. "He resembles your wife," he said. "But doesn't he resemble me about halfway?" "Now that you mention it, he does resemble you a little." He also said.

In truth, nothing mirrored his parents' faces as strangely as the infant's own visage. Even in the movements of his expressions, something faintly reminiscent of his parents drifted through them. Confronted with this self-evident truth, my mind clung with terrifying persistence, as though staring unblinkingly. "You can always make another." "It's troublesome." "I'm thinking of having him drink ground cherry root or such." "Stop that nonsense!" "But I don't find children particularly cute." "Not an ounce of affection gets through."

“Why is that?”

I couldn’t understand Sugihara’s feelings. Despite this, he would bundle up children’s playthings from town and always take them back to the countryside. “First off, their looks are bad—” Sugihara, who indulged in beautiful things, insisted on his own likes and dislikes even in such simple matters. Even so, I simply couldn’t bring myself to think he wasn’t cute.

"I do hold them and such." "I do hold them and such, but somehow I just can't muster up the kind of affection you do." "You're completely absorbed in them." "Despite being a rascal yourself, it's admirable how much you dote on him."

When Sugihara said this, it didn't seem he was tailoring his words solely for my benefit. When encountering gentle, beautiful things, he could adopt an equally soft disposition; toward those that weren't, he seemed to slip into that characteristically sickly, melancholic mood of his. But the infant kept coughing day after day. There also appeared signs of asthma, but since this was routine and hardly worth noting, the doctor came daily. When footsteps echoed at the entrance and he glimpsed Dr. Higuchi's white summer clothes, the infant instinctively began crying.

“This is really troubling—to be so thoroughly disliked!” Finally slipping through the back gate into the garden, “How is he? Asleep?” Dr.Higuchi whispered while hiding his starched white summer uniform. This very attentiveness struck me as profoundly considerate. “He’s awake. Keep quiet.” “The cough?” “Still comes intermittently. And there’s wheezing.”

“The phlegm isn’t clearing properly.” “I’ll give him some medicine to clear the phlegm.” “Well then, I’ll take my leave.”

Dr. Higuchi, having said that, once again returned through the back gate. But two days later, the infant’s face turned pale and listless, and he began coughing incessantly.

That morning, my wife came to my room and said. “Our neighbor Mrs. Hayase, you know... She said it seems our boy has whooping cough, and that we should get him vaccinated now before it becomes serious…… She also mentioned her husband Mr. Hayase appears to have it too, and though she felt it was presumptuous, she couldn’t just stand by and watch, so she told us all this.” “Now that you mention it, it does seem to be the case.” The Hayases were our neighbors over the fence, and upon closer inquiry, turned out to be from the same hometown as us. Moreover, coming from their experience of having already raised three children, that warning struck my chest with a jolt.

“It does seem to be the case. That was good advice we received.” I expressed my gratitude and immediately had the doctor administer an injection, but they said, “He’s just now developing whooping cough.” Both Dr. Higuchi and Dr. Utsuno had told us this. I felt glad, as though some great difficulty had somehow been swept aside before me.

But for some reason, the cough came in fits. About once a day—but being accustomed to such things, though concerned, they merely had him take his medicine; Dr. Higuchi too had said it wasn’t anything serious. However, his complexion gradually worsened; his hands and feet grew cold; if not held even for a moment, he would burst into cries as if set ablaze. One morning, Natsu, holding the infant while her own face paled, said:

“He just had a dreadful coughing fit—then his whole body began trembling so violently—I was quite startled—” “He trembled violently?”

My wife immediately took him into her arms, but there was no change in his condition. When she tried to amuse him, he smiled and made a cooing sound. "But his complexion looks poor," I said. "There's a worrying bluish pallor to it." I leaned over to examine the infant and saw a faint listlessness in his eyes' hue. An inexplicable loneliness washed over me. That sickly pallor and lifeless eye color always stirred this unpleasant, desolate feeling within me—now it left me feeling profoundly more unsettled than usual.

“Look at his feet.” “They’re cold.” “But look, he’s smiling.” “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 bad. What are we supposed to do?” In the end, there was nothing to do but keep holding him. Perhaps it was my imagination, but even his lips weren’t as red as usual. The doctor said it was an asthma attack, and indeed there were no other symptoms whatsoever.

When we played with him, he would smile and drink his goat milk as usual, but kept shaking his head listlessly. One morning, my wife entered the study holding the infant. As was routine, I looked down from my desk and saw his pallid face and listless state. "Hyō, what's wrong? If you don't get better soon, we'll all be in trouble." Having said this, I stood up to try amusing him, but my wife suddenly spoke these words.

“After suffering through all these illnesses, don’t you think this child might die?”

“Is that what you think?” “Yes, I just can’t shake this feeling.” I stayed silent, then spoke in a voice tinged with irritation: “I won’t let him be taken now!” Having nurtured him this far, I refused to believe we could let him die. I vowed to drag him back even from death’s grasp—hollow words that left my heart barren. “Better not think that way—look how lively he is right here, eh, Hyō?”

When I took his hand and found it so cold, I was startled. His feet were even worse than yesterday.

“Something’s wrong—his hands and feet are so cold.” “Yes, shall we send for the doctor?” “We should call immediately—no, I’ll go make the call myself.”

I immediately went out to Miyagawa Hospital to make the phone call. Being someone who rarely used telephones, I dialed wrong numbers in my fluster, and when I finally got through correctly, I suddenly stammered and couldn't say the number when the operator answered. As I repeated this several times over, I only ended up dialing more wrong numbers. "……" While I stayed silent, they kept hanging up on the other end. Realizing this would only cause more delays, I immediately returned home and sent a servant to Dr. Higuchi. The doctor didn't come all morning. During that time there were two seizures - after each coughing fit that went "Ah...", the infant would gasp in agony, then pant heavily when it subsided.

“This is bad. “This has taken a serious turn now.” A shivering cold ran down my back as I sent out another servant, but they failed to return. His hands and feet had turned cold. But those black eyes still shone darkly in his unsettled face. “Hyō, Hyō.” My wife called out in a frantic voice. “If only the doctor would come soon…” Then Dr.Higuchi arrived, but after deliberating at length,

“The heart’s failing... This’s bad.”

Having said that, he promptly administered an injection. "I hadn't realized it had progressed this far." "In any case, we should have Dr.Utsuno examine him," he said. "I had been thinking the same."

Feeling his efforts were inadequate, I stared vacantly at Dr.Higuchi. If I were to say it came suddenly, then yes, it was sudden; but if I were to say it came slowly, this decline had been there all along. But I thought since it was the usual seizure, it probably wasn’t anything serious. Since Dr.Utsuno’s phone wasn’t connecting, we sent a servant around four o’clock, but he was apparently out and couldn’t be reached in time. We grew impatient. Dr.Higuchi also seemed unable to do anything; he said he would first return home, coordinate via telephone, and then come back together.

In the evening, while I was talking with a guest, my wife called me. Her voice sounded different from usual, so I rushed over. At that moment, the infant cried out with his third violent coughing fit and gasp, like a goose. He wheezed with a gurgling rasp.

There was no knowing how much he suffered. I muttered to myself, yet there remained nothing to be done.

“The doctor isn’t coming. This is bad.” We persisted in this torment that felt like oil seeping through our very guts. Evening reached eight o'clock. What a transformation this was—the infant, who had already been put to bed, lay there limp and quiet, though he was not a child who usually did such a thing. I felt a desperate, alien excitement beyond comprehension shuddering through every pore of my body.

“Natsu, go out front and check if the rickshaw has come.” Natsu went outside but immediately turned back,

“He hasn’t arrived,” she said, also out of breath.

Anyway, I had to stay calm—I steeled my resolve.

“Do you think he’ll be alright?”

“Well…”

I said nothing more after that. “The door slid open. The doctor!” “The doctor!” Having said that, I immediately went to the study, settled beside the desk, froze into a dusky shape, and lit a cigarette to avoid showing any panic. I explained the symptoms to Dr. Utsuno, and I added that it seemed to have come on suddenly,

"I thought it was strange that his hands and feet had gotten cold," I said. Dr. Utsuno, as he often did when hearing my explanations, pondered at length until he seemed to have formed some general notion in his mind, then stood up saying, "Let's take a look." When Dr. Utsuno told the nurse, “We’ll need to give injections every thirty minutes tonight,” Dr. Higuchi prepared one and administered it. Then he administered another. And Dr. Utsuno slipped his hand under the infant’s pillow and lifted his head about four inches.

“It’s a mustard plaster. Then warm his hands and feet with a hot water bottle.” As he pressed in with these instructions, the mustard plaster arrived – but since it was cloth, “Use paper,” he said. The infant gasped raggedly and twisted in agony. They applied the plaster. Ten minutes elapsed. His elbow barely reached below his leg, his wrist lying motionless and desolate. “I kept noticing his hands and feet growing colder,” I thought through tremors, “but this truly meant disaster.”

“This is critical!” Dr. Utsuno said to Dr. Higuchi in a voice unlike his usual tone. The infant’s eyes bulged out. And his breath became inaudible. There was not a single sound in the room.

“Papa, now,” my wife said.

Dr. Utsuno performed artificial respiration. Sweat and oil clung stickily to the infant’s body and Dr. Utsuno’s palms. Because this was the first time I had ever witnessed artificial respiration, even without that factor, I kept thinking that doing that would save him—save him. “Higuchi, take over.” When Dr. Utsuno said this, my wife burst into tears. Dr. Utsuno lifted the infant’s eyelids, brought the lamp closer, and looked. I suddenly thought that shining the lamp so intensely must be blinding. At the same time, those jet-black pupils of the infant had been seen for the last time.

In the corner of the room, Natsu began to cry. Once she began wailing, my wife also did not stop crying for some time.

“Papa, please hold him one more time.” To me standing there dazed, my wife tried to hand over our child with closed eyes. “Ah, I’ll hold him of course.”

Having said that, I took him in my arms, and my head went limp and heavy. As I was thinking I should hold him more gently, it struck me that he was truly dead. How utterly dazed and stupefied I must have been up until then.

——This time, I gently laid him down on the floor.

“Please come this way.”

I guided the two doctors to the study. Dr.Higuchi's eyes were red from weeping. That they had tended to him for so long - even this became something to be grateful for. "What a profound loss," Dr.Utsuno said as he took up his bag.

“Thank you for all your care.” My wife also came out and bowed. When I escorted the doctors to the entrance, I sensed them quietly boarding the rickshaw. Don’t ask anything, I thought. “I have no further duties here.”

The nurse also left. The doctor came, and forty minutes later, the infant died.

A clean cloth was placed over the infant’s face. Staring at it fixedly, I still couldn’t bring myself to believe he had truly died. “Isn’t it wrong to give an enema to a baby at death’s door? Right then, I felt his breath jam up in his throat,” I said to my wife, unable to accept what had happened. “No—doing that can save them sometimes. There was no harm in it.” My wife insisted the doctors had done what was most proper. I fell silent. Yet gazing at my dead child, I found no resignation within me. This wretched self of mine kept muttering “I won’t resent, I won’t resent” even as resentment swelled—though toward whom these words were aimed, I couldn’t say.

IV

Being our first experience, we didn’t know where to begin, but Mr. Hayase from next door and the aunt from Negishi came to help, while the rickshaw driver and Ueichi ran errands and made the funeral arrangements. When placing him in the coffin, we held him once more, but as we lifted his slightly stiffened body and looked at his closed eyes, he still seemed to be peacefully sleeping. But strangely enough, perhaps because his lifeless face had taken on a slightly darker hue, he appeared to have aged two years in that brief span of time, looking precociously old. I wondered if this was how a dead child made one look so aged.

“Let’s put in some socks too, then a hat, and toys.” They put on him the woolen socks he had never worn once and placed as many toys as could fit. They put in a flute and a drum too. No matter which one they looked at, the women cried.

I began to feel somewhat strange and put a rolled cigarette between my lips. Since the gap between my teeth allowed my breath to escape, I didn't feel like tearing up. —We chose Dairyu-ji Temple in Tabata as the burial site. —because Shiki's grave was there and it was quiet, and since it was nearby, we thought we could visit occasionally.

“I wouldn’t mind being buried there myself.” Having said that, I was met with my wife’s displeasure.—The clear morning after—with me remaining alone at home and many friends attending—on the evening the funeral concluded, my wife’s sister arrived from our hometown. To the cremation, I, my wife, Mrs. Hayase from next door, my wife’s sister, Natsu, and others like them went. Along the dark ditch water of Mikawashima’s riverbank, the rickshaw ran. The advertisement text written on the plank fence of the Nekoirezu factory caught my eye.

There was a considerable amount of bones. Kneecaps like ginkgo nuts and pipe-like slender leg bones touched the tips of the bamboo chopsticks. My wife, her eyes swollen from crying, while hooking small, hard objects with the tips of her chopsticks, said: “Even though they kept saying his teeth wouldn’t come in—look how perfectly they’ve all come in.” Having said that, she began picking them up. “The teeth that were buried in the gums don’t break even when burned,” said the mortuary worker, who with practiced movements himself picked up several of them.

“They kept saying he had no teeth, no teeth…” The woman repeated this endlessly, her voice thick with bitter frustration at how they’d lacked the strength to break through the gums. They placed them in a small unglazed pot before everyone boarded the rickshaw again.

At the bend in the road, a young man in a barber's white uniform, poking at a black object with his stick's tip, tried to have it crushed by the wheels of a packhorse cart that chanced to approach head-on. The wheel clattered roughly over pebbles, and just as it began to skid, the youth deftly jabbed at the small dark mass with a broken stick fragment. But the tiny black creature darted two or three sun lengths ahead using that momentum; then with one full revolution of the wheel, my rickshaw rolled past. The mouse had cleverly escaped alive, and for some reason I felt an unexpected tranquility.

"What a nasty thing to do."

For a while, the shadow trembling on the white, parched road would not leave my eyes, and I felt deeply unsettled.

We spent our days in a daze, and the woman went about everything with a listless expression. After the lullaby had continued for about a year, it ceased from that day onward, and this too was enough to leave the house hushed. We kept repeating the same things, yet we couldn’t bring ourselves to give up.

One morning, when I stepped out to the gate, there were Mrs. Hayase’s three children playing there. “Come on in—I’ll give you a hug.” When I said this to the four-year-old girl, she pressed herself hesitantly against the fence before suddenly breaking into a run toward me.

“You’re quite heavy.” “Next is you.”

The older child also put on an air like her younger sister had, but perhaps because being treated this way pleased her, she too came running over and was hugged. “Now it’s your turn, big brother.”

The eldest brother was seven years old. He was heavy.

And then, suddenly, while doing such things, I became overwhelmed with sadness and rushed into the house through the side gate. What a desolate feeling this was.—And that feeling did not leave me for some time.

As for my wife, whenever she saw other people's children, she would lament: "Look how healthy they all are—why was our own child so weak?"

“When I see other people’s children, if I think, ‘That’s someone else’s child, not mine,’ it all becomes meaningless.”

That's what I said, yet I felt there must be more to it than that. And when asked to write fairy tales or such things—how could I possibly write something to please other people's children? It felt shamefully infuriating. Both of us would sigh at every spare moment.

“There’s nothing enjoyable.”

The woman said just that and left early in the morning to visit Dairyu-ji Temple. "What could possibly be enjoyable?"

I spent each day in a sullen daze.—An acquaintance of mine had seven children, yet lost his eldest daughter that spring. Then someone said, “Since you have seven children, losing one probably doesn’t matter much.” Then that acquaintance reportedly said, “Because there are seven, I want to keep every single one all the more.” I understood that feeling.

An acquaintance who did sculpture and lived up the hill said to me as I wandered vacantly like a fool in the evening: "You can always have another kid, you know."

My head was reeling, and I could barely manage to speak. "Do you think another child could ever be born with exactly that face?" When I said that, I flared up in anger at that moment, thinking how fitting it would be if this man's child too happened to die somehow. Because I believed that should such a thing occur, he wouldn't dare speak so carelessly. "There will be others after..." When addressed in that manner, I fell into a desolate silence. Yet I felt certain that nowhere in this world existed another child with precisely that face.

When my wife went to visit the temple, I would often try to approach the chest drawer only to stop abruptly and look around me. As expected, only the shadows of quiet garden trees fell upon the shoji screens—there should have been no one there. Yet in that whitish-bright light, I distinctly heard the squelching sound of the water pillow our infant had once used.

"What on earth 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 from the piled-up assortment of items and documents a photograph with rough-edged corners, tucked it into my pocket, and shut the drawer. In such emotions, an absolute carefulness to never let them be seen by others clashed with an effort to prevent myself from developing strange feelings through that very act. Another aspect was how the tedium of such acts overlapped with a peculiar, almost ostentatious sense of shame—a faint itch in my heart that persisted even when unseen by others.

And I sat cross-legged with a heavy thud, opened it, and gazed. A quiet and pleasant feeling came over me. I was reminded of how I’d scolded him when he cried too much, telling him he was being noisy—that I shouldn’t have said such ordinary things. The childish emotions that everyone possesses came thundering in with their footsteps, and them surrounding me for a time was what made me happiest of all. I soon put away the photograph, locked it, and left the room.

After doing such trivial things, I suddenly became as sad as if stung by a bee and collapsed into despair. I clawed at the tatami mats nearby, and when I called out to some distant place, I felt something might return. Ah, this was unbearable. Couldn't something have been done back then? Why hadn't the doctor come sooner? What a fool I'd been to remain unaware—with these thoughts, I literally clawed at the tatami until my nails frayed. I tell myself I won't resent, but resent I do. My head burned hot; I flared up, teetering on the brink of madness.

“Given how things are going, I’m in real danger here.”

I had begun to feel that way too. When my wife returned from the temple, she sat down and said this.

“There were three white bone urns lined up, so when I asked about them, I was told there was a household where three children had died one after another since last autumn.” “Starting with the second child, the wife gradually began acting strangely, and when the third one died, she completely lost her mind and was finally admitted to Tabata Brain Hospital recently, I was told.” “What a story this is.”

I remained silent as I listened, but it seemed only natural that she would lose her mind after losing so many children—unnatural that she hadn’t succumbed to madness instead. At the very least, such a woman could be considered brazen. “A most terrible story. Even I’m becoming somewhat unhinged.”

After some time had passed, my wife vacantly entered the room again and wandered about without saying a word. And, “I can’t even sing lullabies anymore…” She uttered it in a hollow voice.

“What a trivial thing to say… I’ve properly sealed away the photograph. If we look at it, it’ll be bad for both of us.” “Oh, I won’t look. If I did, that would be truly disastrous.” In reality, my wife seemed not to have looked even once. I would occasionally wonder how our respective feelings—mine in willingly looking at it, hers in trying her best not to—had come to misunderstand it in such separate ways. But I felt uncertain about how far either of us could grasp what was true. While eating absently, we would often begin thinking of something and try to keep it hidden from each other, chopsticks in hand as our eyes searched the garden. At such times, I would strangely conjure the distant melody of a flute in but a moment, and a melancholy would arise trailing its fading end. Because flutes of various tones had always been placed beside the infant’s pillow, I felt as though they were arising from somewhere.

The little boy always walked alone, carrying more vividly colored flutes, drums, rabbits, and dogs than he could hold, wearing a sedge-woven hat and those familiar woolen socks on his feet. When I saw how worn the socks were, it seemed he must have walked a great deal. His jet-black pupils still lacked vitality, yet their movement 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 heading? What place could possibly be your destination?" I approached the boy 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 to mine after several hesitations, and somewhat shyly murmured "Father" under his breath. "I have no destination, but even so, it's better to keep walking than stay still here. Somehow I spend each day moving forward like this, bit by bit, but I still don't understand a thing."

“Where you and I are seems awfully far apart, don’t you think? I can see your face clearly, but can you see mine just as well? You really are there, though.”

The boy tilted his still-new sedge hat slightly and gently placed his small bundle on a stone block. "Yes, I understand perfectly well—but who's there across from you? From here I can't see them clearly." "That's your mother. Not good, have you forgotten already?" "No, I can't see well from here—though I do hear a voice." After a moment, the boy started walking again, shouldering his bundle and making lonely footsteps as he went.

“Why don’t we talk a bit more? There’s no need for you to hurry off like that.” “You all may keep eating your meals like that if you wish—but here, I cannot indulge in such carefree things.”

“Why?” “Because you and I have become separate beings now.”

The boy started walking briskly and did not attempt to look back. I fixed my gaze and watched him go when, near the garden, the river frog we had recently acquired let out a solemn cry. “It cried out, didn’t it.” “Ah… It cried.”

As if suddenly recalling something, I said when the wife was about to put down her chopsticks. "The day before that child died, you said '(After all this time,) this child will only get worse after being ill.'" "Why did you say that?" "That was practically a prophecy." "But at that time I couldn't help feeling that way." "Was it wrong to say that?"

“I was wrong. It’s strange how that remark keeps lingering in my mind.” The two fell silent again. The meal had ended, but time grew oppressively heavy as if swollen with a silence that was neither conversation nor its absence……I could see everywhere—in every corner—the unsteady footsteps of that boy who wandered aimlessly at all hours. Whether by my desk or riding the train, upon the shoulders of the woman who emerged when returning from outside, or lying right beside me in the evenings—it all seemed so.

Just as this held true for everything, I found myself unable to stop having fragmented conversations in my mind. In another sense, as days passed, the boy grew into being four or five years old, his lips growing taut and a flush increasingly rising to his ears. The face of this boy who kept aging still bore an unhealthy pallor, yet when he smiled affectionately with that intricate play of expressions, his figure remained exactly as it had been in those moments. Particularly beneath the birdcage - just as he would peer inside when held by his wife or Natsu - I would rise from beside my desk and often gaze into that red-lacquered birdcage. There, the water vessel placed for the small birds held a faintly cold hue, mirroring the sky's pale color. The boy's face peered into it just as mine did, watching the swift fluttering of the small birds' wings.

"Since then I've always sat like this—ended up detesting everything from start to finish with my perpetually lifeless face—but as I gradually consider it all...perhaps it might have been better if you had died sooner..." To live long as I have means encountering various interesting things—but even those vanish without trace like flute tones (you know how they sound bright only to fade instantly)—leaving nothing but tedious matters repeating endlessly like some massive tome chronicling such affairs. So your death amidst flowers like that might have let you feel happiness—as if avoiding things you'd hate.

"Or perhaps you too should have experienced various things—both doing and being done unto—like Father has. It might be better to know even unpleasant truths than remain ignorant. When pressed this far, I scarcely know how to phrase it—Father did everything within his power, but your body proved frail. Yet had I acted sooner back then…" Then you mightn't have needed to wear that sorrowful visage nor become this phantom whose whereabouts none can discern. This may have been my failing—yet nothing can mend it now. There came a time when even Father grew to resent what he'd created. Perhaps you harbor similar thoughts. For a time, I tried listening furtively within my own belly—as though pressing an ear to some covert passage—while probing for answers.

I started spouting nonsense again. I began brooding so strangely that I might end up going mad.

I looked up at the small bird's face. As it kept flitting between perches, its features faintly caught my eye. "Hey—over there, there's someone else peering in like that too. Beside that restless one moving about, there's definitely another watching." The wife sat with her back turned, beyond the next bamboo-screen window on the tatami floor, seemingly engrossed in reading something. "In the birdcage? Where has the birdcage been placed today, I wonder."

“Under the eaves of the tatami room.”

"There's no one there, I tell you. They really aren't visible." "Look—there! The bird shadow slips into view."

The woman stood motionless, staring intently until fragile tears welled up in her eyes. Still unable to look away from the birdcage, she spoke from her heart: "Let's move from this house—I can no longer bear being here." "No matter where we go, this world holds nothing amusing or interesting," I replied. "To put it plainly—nothing but unpleasantness." As I spoke these words, I slumped into a kneeling position—that posture one assumes when sighing drains all bodily strength—and went utterly limp. Disappointed yet resigned, I hung my head; everything seemed trivial now, an inescapable cloud of gloom settling over me. Waking became hateful; sleeping became hateful; even sitting like this had turned hateful. "I don't even know how to manage myself anymore," I thought. "What a tedious, disagreeable state of lethargy."

"I think I'll just go see the doctor. There are still things I want to ask—first and foremost, I feel I should hear what exactly caused him to die." As I kept thinking and thinking, I suddenly found myself calmly telling the woman—as if it were nothing important—about something that had been stubbornly clinging to my heart since long before.

“But even if you say such things now, it’s not like anything can be done… And it’s not something to bring up so abruptly.”

“It’s a futile matter—but I forgot to inquire about it back then. It is an important matter.”

To now seek to understand what had caused it all—how much we had failed in our duties, whether things might not have turned out that way had we acted differently—these irreversible oversights we had failed to notice somehow felt like offering belated greetings to our dead child, yet also seemed capable of softening our hearts.

"If I abandon it，it would fade from memory on its own." "If I forget，it becomes even more irreparable."

I had considered that possibility, but when I thought of making the effort to visit the doctor and ask about it with such strained determination, I still found it depressing. "Perhaps it's better not to go after all. Such questions might not be meant to be asked. Even if I were to go ask them, they might consider it utterly absurd. But still there remains some vague connection binding us to the doctors..."

That might not exist on their side, but what lingers honestly within me remains without solidifying or easing—there's nothing to be done about it.

“If anything, they might smile at us—since he was always such a frail child, there’s nothing left to say now—” “No matter what I say, it changes nothing—yet stubbornly I can’t make sense of any of it in my head.” Having begun to say this, I suddenly realized—even as I’d become someone foolish enough to doubt death itself— “I can’t accept it on my own terms, yet keep hunting for escape routes. What do doctors know—what does anyone know? The moment I touch something, I cling to it—yet somehow I’m turning cowardly.” When I thought this, I felt my shoulders grow slightly lighter.

It might have been like this from the very start. And as days passed, I too would end up utterly detached in the end. I might even come to forget—as humans do.

Thinking this lightened my heart, but a faint unpleasantness like dying charcoal embers cast its shadow. Yet strangely, that shadow refused to fade, lingering like bruised skin.