Pathway to Japanese Literature

I. Cipher

As I entered the reception room, there was a gentleman leaving in passing.

“That’s my cousin.”

Mrs. S handed me the notebook she was holding and said,

“If you have time, do give it a read.
That cousin of mine wrote it.”

“Does he work in literature?”

“No, he’s a businessman.”
“His original path lay elsewhere, but when young, even a slight weakening of resolve can lead to unimaginable blunders.”
“Poor cousin lost his position and idled for years, but he’s finally found employment at a company of late.”

I promptly began reading the notebook.

It was the evening of the second day after departing Kobe.
Since even I, prone to seasickness, had grown somewhat accustomed to the ship by now, I thought it was about time I ventured out to the dining hall.

The fact that I was entrusted with an important mission never left my thoughts, so this journey simply couldn’t settle into the leisurely, enjoyable mood I usually experienced.
I had been entrusted with the cipher.

The words Mrs. S had cautioned me with at departure echoed in the depths of my ears and would not leave.
“You must regard the cipher as more important than your own life.”
“Trunks are dangerous too.”
“Suitcases are even more dangerous.”
“Keep it close to your person”—I had done exactly that—kept it close.
There was likely no safer method than this.
However, since no one could have known that I carried this vital cipher with me, remaining vigilant would surely suffice.
If I dwelled on such matters too long, neurasthenia would claim me.
At any rate, I resolved to adopt a brighter disposition for now.
With these thoughts churning within me, I stepped into the dining hall.

My seat had been placed next to the steward.
Because I had come out a bit late, the meal had already begun.
Five or six guests seated around a round table were animatedly chatting with the steward while moving their forks and knives.
Since they were all energetic young men, this table was the liveliest.
Around the time dessert was about to be served, two Chinese nationals quietly entered and took the vacant seats next to me.
That they were people of considerable status could be discerned at a glance from their attire.

Probably the father and daughter—their facial features bore a resemblance in some way. The man was slightly hunched forward with a tall and lanky stature. His face remained youthful, yet his hair was pure white.

The Young Lady appeared to be twenty-four or five, her peach-colored Chinese dress looking strikingly beautiful and charmingly lovely. However, she appeared sickly. She was petite, terribly thin, and pale-faced, yet an extraordinary beauty. Regrettably, her entire body was utterly exhausted; even walking seemed laborious, and watching her was painful—she appeared completely emaciated.

As she took her seat, she offered a slight bow while glancing up in my direction.
I was first astonished by the beauty of her eyes.
Her body seemed long dead yet her eyes alone lived on—that desolate beauty stirred turmoil within my heart.
Never before had I encountered eyes with such terrifying allure.
It would be no exaggeration to say her single glance had completely stolen my soul.

After finishing the meal, I wandered alone about the deck.
The two I had just seen lingered uneasily in my thoughts.
I kept waiting expectantly—surely they would emerge onto the deck once their meal ended—but they never came.
Perhaps she had returned to her cabin due to her illness.
A vague dissatisfaction settled over me.

It was a muggy evening.

The moon was beautiful, and reluctant to return to my cramped cabin, I ended up staying awake late into the night. Apparently finding it too stifling to sleep, even those who had once returned to bed came back up to the deck, but before long everyone had withdrawn to their respective cabins, leaving only me behind.

"I guess I should turn in soon."
I took out my watch.
"Huh, it’s already one o’clock!"

I stood up, stretching both hands high while letting out a series of yawns.
While I was at it, I lightly touched my midsection over my vest.
Since departure, this had become a habit—something I did countless times a day.
It’s because I have the vital cipher wrapped around my midsection.
I cannot rest easy until I reach my destination and safely hand it over; therefore, the responsibility weighs heavily upon me, leaving no room for even the slightest lapse in vigilance.
Our lives are supposed to be carefree and paradisiacal only during travels, yet even during this journey I must remain so tense—when I think about it, I can’t help but feel disheartened.
I can’t even enjoy my favorite dancing, and I’ve been refraining from visiting bars.
"Despite being thirty years old," I suddenly felt unfulfilled.

Clicking my tongue in annoyance, I began descending the stairs when—casually glancing back—I wondered when she had come up.
Leaning against the deck railing, the Young Lady from earlier stood utterly alone, gazing at the moon while lost in thought.
At this late hour, it struck me as odd that someone so ill would be here, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave her as she was, and for a while I gazed at her figure from behind.

The next day, I awoke earlier than usual. Last night I had a strange dream. In the center of the cabin's round window, a single eye about the size of a fifty-sen silver coin had appeared. In the blink of an eye, that eye grew larger until it filled the entire porthole, transforming the window itself into one great eye. Without blinking, those enormous pupils stared fixedly at my face. And those eyes looked exactly like the Young Lady's. Being so preoccupied with her, I found it almost laughable that I'd had such a dream. How happy I would be if the real Young Lady's eyes were to gaze upon me. With nostalgic longing, I looked toward the window—but there was no trace of that frail Young Lady, only the retreating figures of Westerners strolling briskly as they breathed the morning air.

I, too, took a stroll on the deck immediately after waking up. Gradually, familiar faces began to appear, and each time we met, we would exchange greetings. With a vague sense of anticipation for those two, I attended meals both morning and noon, but the neighboring seats remained perpetually vacant, a napkin folded into a flower-like shape lying forlornly upon the plate. I was concerned, so I casually asked the Steward about them.

“The Young Lady is ill and returning to her home country, it seems.”

“What sort of standing do they hold?”

“They are of noble birth—though it seems they are now unable to engage in any occupation. They’re immensely wealthy Chinese nationals, you know.”

“So it seems. They must have stayed in Japan quite a long time—they might as well be Japanese.”

“That’s correct.”
“Their language is excellent too.”
“But what a pity.”
“Since the Young Lady’s health is so frail, her father watches over her while they travel the world seeking out places with good climates—or so I’ve heard.”

“Quite an enviable position they’re in.”

“Well, they have money.”

The Steward remarked with evident envy.

When I entered the dining hall slightly late for dinner, the two in question were already seated at their table.

The Young Lady seemed to find even moving her hands laborious; it was painful to watch.
She ate with utter quietness, not making a single sound.
She kept her eyes downcast and hardly ever raised her face.
Long eyelashes cast faint shadows upon her cheeks.
What a beautiful woman, I marveled inwardly.

I had been so focused on watching the Young Lady that I paid no attention whatsoever to her father. But when I happened to glance his way by chance, I was startled to discover he had a most peculiar mannerism—what might be called a sort of nervous convulsion. Whenever reaching to take something from the table, his hand would trace shapes resembling English letters in midair before grasping the object.

At first I thought he was signaling to someone. But that did not appear to be so. For instance, even when reaching for the sauce bottle, he moved with that same abrupt motion. He did it when taking salt as well. Pepper, fruit—it made no difference what he grasped. The ceaseless repetition grated on my nerves until merely watching made them fray.

As I observed this disagreeable habit—one so contagious I felt my own hand twitch involuntarily—the compulsion grew unbearable. I would avert my face, determined not to look, yet inevitably my eyes returned. At last I rushed through my meal and quit the dining hall altogether.

Another thing that bothered me was that the Young Lady wore a glove only on her left hand despite being in the middle of a meal. Pure white—not a single stain to be found, pristine—yet somehow this too felt strangely unsettling.

II. Bewitching Eyes

The evening before the ship was to enter port at dawn.

On the night before the ship’s arrival, I could never sleep; this was a habit of mine. A new post brings both hope and anxiety. Before assuming my post, I would generally research things like my superiors and colleagues to gain prior knowledge, but even so, there were times when I failed and endured considerable hardship. I brought a deck chair to the edge of the deck and was leaning my arms on the railing, staring blankly, when the Father, tending to the Young Lady as usual, emerged onto the deck with her, step by cautious step up the stairs. As they passed by my side, he called out.

“Good evening.”
“It’s awfully humid tonight.”

“You’re still awake?”

The two of them stopped.

“We came out thinking to cool off a bit, but…”
“There’s quite a good breeze here.”
“But wouldn’t we be intruding?”

Since they were leaning against the railing with apparent reserve, I quickly offered my own chair to the Young Lady and even fetched two more chairs.

“Oh no, this is truly too generous.”

The Father bowed repeatedly as though genuinely grateful for my kindness, then cradled the Young Lady’s slender form to seat her in it.
And he spoke as if offering an explanation.

“You see, her body is so frail that...”
“It’s quite troubling.”

Watching their condition filled me with pity.
What a perilous thing it must be to travel burdened with such a patient.
Not only was the Father himself afflicted by nervous convulsions, but the Young Lady’s condition—this half-dead frailty—was downright pitiful.
I could no longer remain silent and just watch; I felt compelled to ask.

“What seems to be troubling her?”

“The doctors say it’s her heart, her liver, such things—but ultimately they don’t seem to grasp where the true ailment lies.”
“Well, I thought perhaps returning to our homeland for convalescence might restore her spirits.”
“Yet I’ve privately concluded she isn’t ill.”
“That is to say… well, nerves.”
“I believe it stems from nerves.”
“However one looks at it, it’s a vexing predicament—I find myself completely confounded.”

The Young Lady listened silently to her father’s words, her beautiful eyes—the kind that could stir one’s heart—showing a lonely smile as she stared fixedly at me.
I felt my insides shrink.

“You must be in quite a predicament.”

After saying just this, I finally turned sideways as if to escape her gaze.
What eyes possessed such bewitching power!
I felt somehow as though I might be dragged away—this thought suddenly struck me.
If this Young Lady were to fix those eyes on me, no matter how perilous or terrifying the command might be, I might ultimately find myself unable to refuse.
When I thought about it, I felt a certain dread.

“I’ve resigned myself to it, but this business with nerves remains the most troublesome part.”
The Father kept going on about nerves, but for both of them to be afflicted by nerves struck me as absurd.
Especially since the way the Father had been tracing Roman letters in the air during dinner seemed to carry some hidden meaning—

“Isn’t it hereditary? You seem to have a nervous disposition yourself.”

The Father smiled and said.

“Me?”
“I am quite a carefree person.”
“In fact, I might even border on insensitivity.”

What nonsense.
And I laughed inwardly.
Whether he immediately noticed this or not，he suddenly rephrased his statement as if recalling something.

“Ah.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I reach for something, I make strange gestures—that’s what you were referring to, wasn’t it?”
“However, that isn’t nervous convulsions.”
“It resulted from a terrifying experience.”

“A terrifying experience?”
“What kind of experience was it?”

Involuntarily, my eyes sparkled with curiosity.

III. The Convulsive Hand

He began to speak in a low tone.

“My daughter had apparently had a weak heart since early childhood and suffered occasional attacks, so I was constantly tormented by the fear that some dreadful incident might suddenly befall her one day.”

“Then one day, while taking a stroll in the garden, my daughter tripped over a discarded stone and fell—in that moment, her breath stopped.”
“The doctors naturally declared her dead, and indeed, there was no mistaking that she had passed away.”
“For one day and two nights, we did not leave my daughter’s side as we held the wake, and I myself placed her into the coffin.”
“And escorted her to the graveyard, where I laid her to rest in our family’s ancestral plot.”
“That graveyard was in the countryside—we are from Suzhou—in the middle of a lonely field.”

“When I placed her in the coffin, I dressed her in the pure white evening gown she had favored. That was a commemorative piece I had made at great expense when in London to debut my daughter into society for the first time. Then I adorned her with all the jewelry I had bought for her—necklaces, bracelets, rings—especially so many rings they couldn’t all fit on her fingers—and laid her to rest. How foolish a parent can be.”

The Father let out a small sigh, looked at my face, and broke off his words.
I gestured with my eyes toward the Young Lady and asked.

“Is that person this Young Lady’s older sister?”

“Oh please, do hear me out to the end.”
“After completing the burial and returning home—can you understand what I felt in that moment?”
“My wife died when our daughter was young.”
“I have loved and raised my daughter even in her mother’s stead.”
“And a motherless daughter had only me to rely on, while I had no one dear to me but her.”
“Therefore, I believe you can well imagine how I cherished my daughter more than my own life.”
“The fact that parent and child had to dwell in separate worlds—how deeply this grieved me! I even considered entering the coffin alongside my daughter.”
“No—I came to regret that I had not died and let my daughter live.”
“I have truly been left all alone.”
“Half out of my mind, I returned to my home utterly exhausted.”

He collapsed into an armchair and remained there—bereft of the power to think, move, or even see—as if reduced to an empty shell.
“While the coffin remained, I could still endure.
Because my daughter was sleeping inside it.
But now even that coffin is gone.”

The house suddenly seemed devoid of human presence.

The butler named Huang Liang—who had faithfully assisted in laying my daughter in the coffin and adorning her final rest—entered noiselessly at that moment.

“Master, would you care to partake in something?”

“I did not respond. This was no time for a meal—I silently shook my head.”

“Master, that won’t do. This will harm your health. Then, shall I prepare your bed? Would you care to rest a while?”

While fully aware of Huang Liang’s kind consideration yet finding it bothersome, he grew slightly irritated and spoke loudly:

“Just let me be.”
“Leave it as it is—”

“I closed my eyes.
Despite this, Huang—ever loyal and concerned for my well-being—remained reluctant to withdraw, lingering hesitantly. But I would no longer acknowledge him and turned sharply away.
At this, Huang had no choice but to leave the room.”

I don’t know how many hours passed after that.
“What a night that was!”
It was an unbearably cold night, yet the stove’s fire had gone out completely, and a winter wind—frigid enough to carry ice—kept striking the window with an eerie persistence.

“I was not sleeping. Limp with disappointment and dejection, my eyes remained open but my nerves were paralyzed; legs stretched out limply, I lay unaware of time’s passage. Suddenly, the entrance bell rang clamorously—its sound echoing through that house as silent as a graveyard, hollow and utterly empty. I looked up at the large clock in surprise—it was exactly two o’clock in the morning—and wondering who could have come at such an hour, I abruptly sat up.”

When he had spoken up to that point, the Young Lady beside him whispered something in a faint voice near her father’s ear.

“Hmm?”
“Do you want to return to your room?”

Tilting his head as he spoke to the Young Lady, he then turned toward me and spoke as if making an excuse.

“The sea air has made her body damp, so she says she wants to return to her room now—”

It was a shame to end things just as the story was finally getting interesting—but more than that, here I was feeling so pleasant beside the Young Lady, and this heartless person had to go and say such a thing.
If she were to return to her room now, and if the ship were to arrive at port tomorrow morning, we would be parted forever.
Even though we might never meet again, I found myself growing somewhat sentimental, filled with a lonely reluctance to part.
While frantically trying to think of a way to keep her here, I ended up blurting out such an awkward remark.

“Are you retiring for the night? It seems quite late already.”

I wanted to strangle myself. What am I even saying? I’m spouting the exact opposite of what I feel. You idiot! If I’m told to rest because it’s late, then that’s the end of it. What a clumsy, foolish thing I’ve gone and said. As I bit my lower lip, inwardly chiding myself, the other party abruptly interjected with such a presumptuous remark mid-conversation—apparently misconstruing my discomfort—

“No, we’re not retiring.
“It’s just that my daughter fears the night air—”
“Her constitution being rather delicate, you understand—she tends to insist on her own whims.”
“If you would permit us, why not visit our cabin? I could continue the story there.”

I didn’t know where their room was located, but since mine was closer, I tried inviting them to visit me.

“If it’s no inconvenience, might you care to come to my room? It’s just down these stairs and immediately around the right-hand corner.”

At first, the Young Lady appeared politely reluctant to accept, but through my persistent urging, they both finally agreed to come.

I offered the plush sofa to the Young Lady and settled into a chair facing her.
I considered serving some refreshments, but upon checking the clock found it was already past midnight.
Summoning the steward felt too late now—and even were I not alone, receiving female visitors at such an hour would be improper.
As I hesitated over this dilemma, Father—apparently discerning my thoughts—swiftly exited the room only to return moments later bearing a whiskey bottle and chocolate box in both hands.

The Young Lady poured whiskey into a glass, had Father taste-test it, then poured some for me as well.

“Now then, please continue with your story from earlier.”

I said while sipping from the whiskey glass.

“Would you care for one?”

The Young Lady held out the box of chocolates and said.
I took a nearby piece and put it in my mouth.

4. White Glove

Father gulped down his whiskey and began to continue his story.

“The bell clamored again.”
“The servants gave no indication of waking.”
With no other choice, I lit a candle and, clutching it, made my way downstairs.
And stood at the entrance,

“I thought about asking ‘Who’s there?’ but felt an eerie unease.”
I grew furious and ashamed at my own cowardice, then resolutely turned the handle quietly.
But my heart pounded violently, and I was too terrified to step back from the door.

But when I finally mustered my resolve and threw open the door, there stood a white figure in the shadow of the veranda.
My body stiffened, and I couldn’t move.

“Wh-wh-who’s there?—”

“Father.”
“It’s me.”

“Wasn’t that my daughter’s voice?” I started involuntarily and recoiled a step.
“It’s me, Father.”

While thinking I had gone mad, I began to retreat step by step, as if pursued by the white figure that had slipped in. In trying to drive it out, I performed that bizarre gesture—the one you saw during dinner yesterday, like writing characters in the air. Then, the white figure spoke.

“You mustn’t be afraid.”
“I was alive.”
“I didn’t die.”
“Someone tried to steal the ring and cut off my finger.”
“Blood flowed, and the pain brought me back to my senses.”

I saw a hand dripping with blood.
The white kimono was already drenched in blood.

I couldn’t exhale.
I couldn’t tell whether it was a dream or reality.
Whether it was a monster or something else, since it had the form of my daughter, I was so overjoyed that I frantically took its hand.
That hand was as cold as a dead person’s.

I brought her to my room as if cradling my daughter.
I had her lean against an armchair and promptly administered treatment to her wounds.
And I stared fixedly at my daughter’s deathly pale face.
She was not a ghost.
It was indeed my daughter.
I suddenly felt my chest tighten, became as if mad, and laid my head on my daughter’s knees, sobbing convulsively.

When my mind had somewhat calmed down, I noticed how utterly chilled and cold the room had become. I hurriedly lit the stove. Wanting to have her eat something warm, I rang the bell violently and called for Huang.

“Huang hurriedly came flying over, but upon seeing my daughter’s figure, he froze in place. Since there stood someone he believed dead, it was only natural for anyone to be startled—yet Huang’s shock proved far from ordinary. With a terrified moan, he suddenly began trembling uncontrollably before bolting outside like a madman.”

As I listened to Father’s story, drowsiness crept over me. Clamping down on a half-formed yawn, I desperately fought to keep my eyes open.
He resumed his tale.

“It was Huang the steward who had opened the grave.”
“He had cut off my daughter’s finger to steal the ring and returned home feigning ignorance.”
“Since I trusted Huang completely, he must have assumed suspicion would never fall on him—but call it divine retribution—in his panic he’d forgotten to hammer nails into the lid of that exhumed coffin.”
“Oh—are you asleep?”

I thought I heard that voice as if from a great distance.

After that, I lost consciousness completely.

V. Fainting

The ship had arrived, and all the passengers had disembarked, yet I still had not shown myself.
The room was locked.
Thus, the colleagues who had first come to meet me began to worry.
When they asked the steward to open it with a master key, they found the room showed no signs of disturbance, but most crucially, there was no trace of me.
It was most peculiar.

So the sailors split up and searched every corner of the ship but still could not find him.
Of course, as evidence that he had not gone ashore, even his luggage remained untouched.
Some began muttering fears—"Perhaps he was murdered," or "Maybe he was killed and thrown overboard"—and suddenly chaos erupted.

Soon, one of the sailors discovered me in a storage room near the ship’s bottom.

I lay there wrapped in a blanket, sleeping as if dead.
Even when shaken, I couldn't open my eyes.
But as the sailors' faces and those of colleagues who had come to meet me gradually came into focus and my consciousness returned, I frantically reached for my torso.
And I was aghast.

I frantically jumped up, ignoring everyone’s attempts to stop me, and left the storage room—but I could no longer even guess where my own room was.

I had the boy guide me to my room and, upon entering, hurriedly locked the door from inside.

I took off my clothes, removed the belly band, and checked again—but the vital cipher was nowhere to be found.

This is bad!
With a rush, I felt all the blood in my body surge to my head at once.

I grew dizzy and nearly collapsed, but soon regained some composure. As I calmed down, various events from last night began to surface in my mind.

I drank whiskey.
I ate chocolate.
While listening to Father’s story, I grew drowsy—
After that, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t recall anything.

But why did they carry me all the way to the storage room? If stealing the cipher had been their sole objective, wouldn’t it have been simpler to just kill me rather than go through such elaborate measures? Moreover, given how thoroughly unconscious I was, extracting the cipher should have been trivial—there had been no need to drag me all the way to that remote storage room near the ship’s bottom. It was only when I followed this logic to its conclusion that I finally grasped the full scope of their meticulously prepared scheme.

After all passengers had disembarked, it would take considerable time for the crew to notice my disappearance and find me—they had wanted precisely that interval. During that span, they could fully accomplish their objective—they must have needed to select a place like a storage room that wouldn’t be easily discovered—but for my part, death would have been preferable to this disgrace. What on earth was I to do now that I’d committed this catastrophic blunder? At that thought, all pretense of being alive deserted me entirely. Yet I had to report this without delay. Knowing this was no time for hesitation, I rose with grim determination. As I thrust my hand into my trousers to fetch my handkerchief, a folded paper scrap fluttered down. Though small and creased, something about it compelled me; I picked it up and unfolded it.

“Have you ever read the novel Chic in Towanne?”

“The story that piqued your interest is, of course, not our own.”

“The husband has no need to write English letters in the air except for cipher communications to a certain person—consequently, all five fingers within his wife’s white glove remain safely intact.”

“When we patriots risk danger for a purpose and perform such scenes—since it is an art where actors stake their lives—the audience can hardly complain if their souls are stolen.”
“And in your case, you were even made to drink the drug—”
“I doubt it will amount to a crime.”
“Moreover, I earnestly hope it will not.”
“For we were good friends, if only briefly.”

We shall endeavor to return the cipher borrowed without due permission at the earliest convenience. “Until then, I do pray you continue resting peacefully as you are now—”

When I had read that far, I tore the scrap of paper to shreds, hurled it onto the floor, opened the door, and went outside.

“Thank you for waiting. Now, allow me to escort you.”

When I disembarked the pier with my colleague and boarded the car that had been left waiting there.