Pathway to Japanese Literature

Yū had been wanting a portfolio for some time now.
For office workers, magazine reporters, or doctors—people who might actually need such things—it wasn’t strictly necessary in his case. Yet there were moments when having one proved convenient.
Not just for day trips by train or brief writing excursions nearby—even on longer journeys, a single case to store various small necessities would have been practical. Something that allowed easy access while keeping items organized.
Tobacco, matches, medicine, paper, notebooks, letter paper, fountain pens, magazines, slim volumes—though never all at once—these couldn’t be carried in Western suit pockets or Japanese robe sleeves when going out briefly. Still, consolidating them in some container seemed preferable.
But he wondered—this Portfolio designed for business efficiency—how well suited was it really for an elderly man like himself? Someone hovering ambiguously between professional and drifter.
Yū had occasionally bought handbags before—carried them about two or three times with initial pleasure—but always ended up feeling old-fashioned and abandoning them.

"Hmm, maybe I should buy a Portfolio."

When Yū went for walks around town with his children and wife or went out shopping, he would often stop in front of luggage stores or shop displays and say such things.
Of course, though it was a practical item, for him it was also a childlike desire—a wish to possess something others had, wanting to hold it like a toy.

“Father seems a bit odd.”
The children would say.

At that time, Yū refrained from buying it as if to defer to the children, but somehow, even after that, he would still occasionally stop in front of luggage stores.

Then, on a day close to New Year’s Eve—as if this routine had persisted for two or three days—Yū took another evening walk through town with his wife and older child that night. The previous evening too, he had browsed three or four bookstores with all three of them and bought writings on theater along with books on haikai poetry; and even the night before that, he had purchased items like a toso set for gifts when out with just his wife. On one such evening, she abruptly grew unwell midway and hastened back home.

“I think I’ll go home—my head feels strange.”

She told Yū in a sorrowful voice.

“Ah, that won’t do. Let’s hurry back. I’ll take your hand and lead you.”
Yū said urgently while staring at her face.

“It’s all right. It’s not that bad really, but something does feel... off.”

Yū suddenly felt—as he had occasionally since their youth—that her legs had grown heavy beneath her, leaving her moments from collapsing in the street. Her complexion was deathly pale. Every contour of her face and figure seemed drained of vitality.

“Your complexion is terribly ashen.”
“You look exactly like a corpse.”
“You must go to the doctor tomorrow morning.”
“No excuses—you will go without fail.”
Yū said, putting force into his tone and speaking with deliberate menace.
Of course, it was true her pallor had grown ghastly and he understood her health had been deteriorating since autumn, but the truth remained that his words were motivated less by genuine concern than by a desire to shock her—this woman who persistently treated her condition with such negligence.

Yū harbored more anxiety about her health with its chronic conditions than she herself did. Though the grief and terror that had arisen when her illness first manifested after childbirth over twenty years prior had gradually diminished over time—their intensity weakened by the subsequent course of the illness and doctors' examinations—Yū had never been able to shake off a persistent anxiety, as though handling cracked Seto pottery that might shatter at any moment. And there were even times when he felt irritated at her for growing accustomed to her illness and sometimes making a face as if it were someone else's concern.

“You can’t just think of it as your own body alone.”
“Lately you haven’t been going to the doctor at all, but every time I read in the papers about people these days dying from cerebral hemorrhages caused by their kidneys, I get chills.”

Yū had even recently scolded her when, after rising early in the morning and preparing the children’s lunchboxes, she sat by the long brazier with a weary face.
She, who had always struggled with early mornings since long ago, found herself unable to stay in bed once the clattering sounds from the kitchen reached her ears.
Moreover, once she was up, she absolutely detested lying down even briefly to rest her body.

“When you get up early, wouldn’t it be better to sleep a little after sending the children off?”
Yū said as much, but even when he fretted and said something meddlesome out of concern, she never once obediently replied, “I’ll do that.”
There was no particular reason for Yū’s words to grate on her ears—deep down she was grateful—but her mood remained so stubborn and unyielding that it began to irritate him.
Yū came to refrain from meddling obtrusively.
Of course, even when Yū didn’t notice, there were times when she would quietly take diuretics or prescribed medications; she wasn’t so brazen as to irritate him.

That evening, she didn’t feel particularly unwell either, but after sleeping soundly through the night, by morning there was again nothing amiss.
And she continued working as usual.
So on the following evening too, they went out into town.

Then, after another day had passed, the parents and their child went out to the year-end town.
There wasn’t any particularly significant shopping.
At a cosmetics shop, she bought just two or three items.

“Maybe I should go somewhere.”
Yū imagined himself setting out on a journey midway.

“Please go ahead.”
She also encouraged him.

“Places too far wouldn’t do, and nearby ones are probably crowded, you know.”
Yū said indecisively.

They stopped at their usual place to eat the sushi she liked, then set off on their way home.

Midway, as if he had remembered something, Yū suddenly came to a stop in front of the luggage shop’s display window.

“Maybe I should buy one.”
He was captivated like a child.

“Do buy it, please do buy it.”
The wife also agreed.

“If Father doesn’t use it, I can carry it around.”

“That might be all right too.”

The three of them entered the luggage shop together.
They began selecting items.
After deliberating at length over this one or that one, they finally chose one based on her advice.
In such situations, her advice always determined indecisive Yū’s will.
Though it wasn’t necessarily certain she always made good purchases, her frank advice was indispensable for Yū—a man prone to frequent shopping.

Yū felt somehow happy.
And even after returning home, he was fiddling with it.
He carried it and felt like going somewhere for a bit.

Carrying that folding briefcase, Yū went to the station-front hotel on the evening of the following day.
Yū still had two or three small tasks needing completion before year’s end.
Moreover, his chronic gastrointestinal troubles had recently worsened again—having eaten only porridge for some time—and though he longed to visit a warm seaside hot spring, work obligations prevented it.
Yet despite his compromised health, his mood inclined toward active pursuits.
He felt a certain dissatisfaction and emptiness regarding both his past work and present circumstances—a feeling that drove him toward hopes of initiating some fundamental new plan.
Simultaneously, he sensed an urgent need to fully restore both his own health and his wife’s.
Had finances allowed, he would have wished to leave home for a quiet solitary life—but he had come to recognize how their household’s ingrained atmosphere—largely shaped by her particular moods and customs—though not entirely charmless or unpleasant, burdened him with overly mundane tasks; and how beneath their daily rhythms—seemingly attuned to his sensibilities—lay contradictions born of their incompatible temperaments that could never truly coalesce.
To state it bluntly: she had only truly become his after losing her mother—who died of cerebral hemorrhage three years prior.
Even now, this timid yet stubborn woman remained pitifully constrained by an unyielding reserve—whether called modesty or obstinacy—that prevented her from fully opening her arms to embrace her husband.
Though compassionate in all matters, she could never touch love’s essential depths.
Likely Yū too—compelled by long-standing self-preservation instincts into oppositional self-absorption—had been unable to truly cherish her until her mother’s death.

"M— is inconvenient for mailing things, Atami and Yugawara are too daunting... Maybe I should just stay at a hotel through the New Year period."

A few days prior, whenever Yū went to Tokyo, he had made it a habit to stay at that hotel where Mr. and Mrs. S were lodging. He happened to meet them at a theater, took along one of his children who had gone to see the play with them, then after stopping at Fujiya’s restaurant in Ginza on their way back, accompanied them to the hotel and spent some time in their room before returning home.
At that moment he suddenly thought, "It might be good to stay here for a while"—and since Mr. and Mrs. S were also staying there and it would be convenient for submitting manuscripts—he considered taking his portfolio and going there.
Mrs. S, who had no children of her own, was surprised to see how much Yū’s child had grown.

“Would you care to take a bath?”
Mrs.S said to Aiko.

Yū’s oldest son never bowed awkwardly or stiffened up, no matter how large the crowd he entered or how eminent the person he stood before.
Provided they were not overly vulgar people, he had been born with a disposition that allowed him to match the tone of conversation with any elder.
And when Yū declined, Mrs.S suggested it to the child.

“Go on.”
He was smiling.

“I’ve just had it prepared now.”

“Is that so.
If that’s the case, I suppose I could take a bath…”

Later, Mr. S’s views on children would come up, but even when with the children, Yū felt none of the fatherly awkwardness one might expect.

Thinking he would spend about a week writing, conversing, and reading at that hotel, he left home.

“I’ll come back for New Year’s Eve.
“We’ll have the New Year’s soup at home too.”

“Since you’re away, no one comes over, and my body feels better.”
The wife, while finding Yū’s childlike demeanor—as he packed things into the Portfolio—amusing, could not even bring herself to laugh.

In any case, he needed a place with heated facilities to avoid catching a cold.

After securing his room, he knocked on Mr. and Mrs.S’s door.
As it opened and he abruptly thrust his face inward, Mrs.S—fresh from bathing in only a yukata—shrank back onto the bed.
Yū hastily withdrew into the hallway.

Some time later, Mrs.S came to his room.
She explained that Mr.S had gone to the theater regarding the script’s production and would likely return soon.
While they conversed, Mrs.S—

“Would you care to join me in the dining hall?” Mrs.S said, so Yū also,

“Let’s go.”
“I’ve already eaten, but something like tea would be fine.”

Following Mrs. S who was acting as his guide, Yū eventually headed down to the dining hall; but since it was still somewhat early, he decided to wait in the hall and took a seat in a corner chair.
Yū found it unbearably enviable that—contrary to himself—the childless Mr. and Mrs. S had shut up their seaside house and come to Tokyo to live together in a hotel even on New Year’s Eve, a happiness that seemed utterly beyond his reach.
He had often been told by Mr. S that such a life was not all that happy, but to someone like Yū—who had become a prisoner of his household—it struck him as nothing short of luxury.

When the dining hour arrived, Mrs.S—in addition to her own meal—obtained something for Yū as well, poured him wine and treated him, all while phoning her husband at the theater to inform him of Yū’s arrival.

Before long, Mr.S returned and came to the dining hall.
And while eating, in his usual lively manner, he talked about matters such as stage rehearsals.

After finishing the meal, he went back out to the hall and smoked, but due to Mrs.S’s remark, the three of them ended up deciding to go to year-end Ginza.

“Let’s go.”
When Mrs.S said,

“Come on.”
Mr.S’s eyes sparkled. “Last night was terrible.”
“The area around Owari-cho was completely gridlocked.”
“I don’t know what’s so appealing about it, but people just go out because there’s nowhere else to go.”

Before long, they went to the fourth floor to retrieve their overcoats and such, then all went out together.

True to his usual tendencies, even as he went through these motions, Yū still found himself worrying about household matters and feeling dissatisfied with the work he had written at year’s end. Compared to Mr.S—whose creative passion burned so intensely that life and art had become perfectly fused—he could not help pitying himself, unable to endure the vexations of an existence so rife with inner division.

Ginza was so crowded that evening that walking was nearly impossible.
Yū liked the year-end atmosphere outside, but the year-end mood inside the house wasn’t unpleasant either.
And yet, even as he walked through the bustling Ginza, whenever he saw youths of the new era—like his own children—filing past so cheerfully, he couldn’t help feeling a loneliness akin to that of someone fundamentally out of place.

“Ah, she had said she wanted to go see year-end Ginza at least once.”

Yū suddenly recalled such a thing.
Then he found himself strangely depressed as memories surfaced—of that one particular New Year’s Eve long ago when they had come here together, and she had hunted through shops for detachable collars meant as spring gifts.

“Anyway come springtime, I mean to go somewhere.”
“What if we went to Ise together next year?”
“Then I could show you Kyoto and Osaka too.”
“Shall we go?”
Yū had spoken these very words to her just the other night.

“Well… if we could take Yoshiko along.”
She replied, though her heart didn’t seem fully in it.

“Go ahead.”
The oldest son also encouraged them from nearby.

However, she was not one who could bring herself to leave home even for two or three days to travel as a couple.
Since losing her mother recently, this tendency had only grown stronger.

Though Yū found her constant air of loneliness pitiful since her mother’s death, he could not help taking pleasure in how caring for her weakened state allowed him to feel a new-found warmth of elderly marital affection unlike anything they had previously shared.
Just days earlier, she had gone with their children—the three of them—to hear her beloved Bunraku performances in Asakusa.
At home, Yū behaved like a thoroughly spoiled child from head to toe, completely dependent on her care; yet once outdoors, he found himself obliged to gently tend to her chronic ailments.
That day too, he realized she had been walking barefoot on the coarse matting and disliked its texture.

“It’s troublesome not having the slippers out.
“My feet are cold.”

“Right.
“Then I’ll go buy you some slippers.”
Yū went outside after saying that.
And he went quite a distance before buying a pair of indoor slippers and returning.

“There weren’t any good ones.”

“They’re quite fine.”
“With these, they’re warm…”
“Were the slippers all right?”
“No, they’re quite all right.”
“Thank you very much.”
She expressed her thanks happily.

And then one evening, the three of them—parent and children—went to listen to Osaka Jōruri and returned home.
Such things also happened.

“Well, taking Yoshiko along would be reassuring, but it’d be a hassle.”
“Five days or so would be okay, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t really feel like going.”
“It’s such a waste.”
“Once the children are a bit older…”
She remained unenthusiastic.

“By the time the children are grown, we’ll be too old.”
Yū said this though he worried whether she—with her illness—could withstand a lengthy journey.

Even if she had said she would go, it was naturally questionable whether Yū would have taken her.
His mind had been particularly busy lately.
He had no leeway for such things as pleasure trips.
On the night before coming to the hotel, or perhaps the night before that, he had been constantly contemplating a world entirely separate from the household’s year-end mood—a world of his own alone.

“Could you cut the rice cakes?”

On the evening before leaving for the hotel too, his wife—who had been cutting rice cakes—suddenly said to Yū. Even if he would offer to cut them as usual, she never let him do it out of worry that his hands might tremble afterward; why she had made such a remark was something he failed to notice entirely at the time.

“This is no joke. I’m in no state for that!”

Yū decided to collect the books he wanted to read little by little and, that evening too, took the children out to hunt through bookstores.
His wife also came along while running errands.

After returning from Ginza, Yū ended up talking for a full two hours in Mr. and Mrs.S’s room.

The next morning too, he met with Mr. and Mrs.S again, and together they wrote for newspapers and read magazines.

In the evening, he was invited out by the couple and went to Fugetsu’s dining hall.

“So Fugetsu really is the best choice after all, huh?”

“I don’t really know, but Dr. M says it’s the most delicious, you know. Those folks have been in the West—they must know proper Western cuisine’s true taste. And the actors’ spot gets frequented plenty too.”

“I haven’t been there in ages either.”

The three of them hired an automobile. Yū had come to notice that Mr. and Mrs. S’s way of life had recently become quite a comfortable and happy one. He thought that was also because they had no children. He did not consider having many children to be either unfortunate or fortunate. He merely thought of it as his own life, fated to be that way. He couldn’t consider it a very fitting fate for someone like himself, who remained childlike no matter how much time passed, yet he also felt that struggling with children was what made him his true self.

"If Mr. S had many children."
Yū found himself entertaining a slightly ironic thought.

In any case, in front of Mr. S, who had no children, he could not help but feel that he was the weaker one—but even that was only in terms of worldly life.
Perhaps that was merely an economic problem and not something so fundamental.

The streets of Nihonbashi and Kyōbashi reflected in the automobile window were, just as the night before, a sea of people.

At Fugetsu’s dining hall, Mr. and Mrs. S were regulars.
Yū had come after several years—though of course the old building had burned down in the earthquake disaster, there was a settled feeling about this establishment that served good food to a select few regulars.
It being New Year’s Eve, the place wasn’t particularly crowded, but a gentleman and his wife in their early forties, accompanied by about three children enjoying their year-end dinner here somehow caught Yū’s eye.
When he thought that back home at this very moment, the children were likely gathered together for New Year’s Eve with the stewed dishes his wife had prepared, he felt this mental image tasted all the more savory.
He supposed the oldest one might be walking around Ginza as well.
In any case, he felt as though he had stumbled into a mood resembling what one might call a family man’s sorrow.
In truth, whether he qualified as a family man was doubtful—he felt none of the cheerful contentment visible in that gentleman before him now.
Rather, it was nothing more than human sorrow binding him.

“Is this supposed to be delicious?” Yū said while eating cauliflower.

“This isn’t delicious at all,” Mrs. S said girlishly.

“This is supposed to be their most refined dish here, but…”

After finishing their meal, they drank tea by the stove and talked about the food.

“I hear the beefsteak here is famous.”

“The beefsteak is indeed good.”
“Well, seeing how comfortably your stomach settles after eating...”
“That’s a good point...”

After leaving there... Ginza.
On... Mr.H―.
Mr.H―... Lion... left there.

The morning of New Year’s Day arrived.

Yū had overslept a bit and was running late, but since there was a prior arrangement, he made a point to return home by train to partake in the New Year’s soup. The New Year’s soup was prepared to his liking; he always insisted on it, so without that, it would have left him feeling unfulfilled. When he arrived home, many of the children had already partaken of the toso and New Year’s soup, and the kitchen had just been tidied up. His wife wore a somewhat hesitant expression and did not seem particularly pleased by his arrival, but she lit the gas and began getting things ready.

“What’s the matter—did you get into another fight with the kids?”
Yū said discontentedly.

As she prepared the New Year’s soup pot, her face—just as it usually did even when she was well—was slightly swollen with a stagnant hue.
But Yū did not take notice.

She regained some vigor.

Aiko, seventeen years old and having just come up from the bath, let out a faint moan as if she were about to vanish, made her way to the veranda, and then slumped down heavily.
Yū panicked and helped the wife carry her into bed to nurse her.

“She had a fit.”
The wife said without showing any surprise.

Aiko soon regained her color, and her speech became clear.
Just then, New Year's visitors arrived.
The wife welcomed them with a loving expression, carried the toso utensils and tiered box items, and arranged the simmered dishes.

The room was tidied up neatly within its narrow confines, just as it had been every year.

Taking the guests’ departure as his cue, Yū also made to return to the hotel.

“Oh, since you’re busy.”
She also said.

Yū noticed that she was tired.
While expecting she would go to bed later once he returned, he went out through the front gate around when the second New Year's visitor arrived.
After making two quick trips back to retrieve forgotten medicine and other items, he hurried out to the main street.

When he returned to the hotel, Mr.S was seated before the desk, intently beginning to write something.
His face was tense.

Yū returned to the room and began reading a magazine.

That evening he went to the Imperial Theater with Mr. and Mrs.S, but he felt somewhat unsettled.
If Aiko wasn’t feeling well, there would be a call to the hotel.
If that happened, they would inform him here.
He was thinking about such things yet found himself somewhat immersed in the theater’s spring-like atmosphere.

The next morning, he was awakened by the shrill ring of the telephone bell.
Having returned from the theater, he had fallen into an exhausted, deep sleep; thus, even as he heard the frantic vibrations of that ringing bell, for a while he remained unaware of where it was sounding. But then Aiko’s situation faintly surfaced in his mind, and in his panic, he practically slid off the bed as he rushed to the desk telephone.

“Hello?”
He called out in a half-dreaming state.

“Father?”
“It’s me… Mother is unwell.”
“It seems to be a cerebral hemorrhage…”

Yū was suddenly overcome with gloom but found it difficult to accept the term “cerebral hemorrhage” as it was.

“Well then—I’ll return right away—have them call a good doctor.”
In a trembling voice, Yū stressed securing a proper physician.

Yū hurriedly yet relatively calmly put on his clothes, packed papers and a fountain pen into the folding briefcase, and went to bid farewell to Mr.S.
Mr.S had already left his bed and was engrossed in work by the window.

“It seems my wife has fallen ill, so I think I’ll return home now.”
Yū said, and

“I see.
“So you’re leaving completely?”
Mr.S naturally did not seem to consider it such a grave matter.

Yū then returned once more to his room, called downstairs to arrange payment and a car, put on his overcoat and scarf, and with strengthless legs made his way to the elevator boarding area.

When he went downstairs, Mrs.S was already there waiting—though she remained silent—her eyes sorrowful as she awaited his descent.
Having decided on roughly a week’s stay and prepaid the room charge, Yū received his remaining balance and waited awhile for the car’s arrival.

“A small car would be best, wouldn’t it?”
Mrs.S said this and went down to the exit a couple of times to check.

In the quiet morning town, horse-drawn carts of the year's first deliveries and freight trucks were moving.
Because Yū had bitter experiences, he had developed a habit of making a great commotion whenever illness was mentioned, even to the point of provoking doctors' displeasure.
And yet even then, he found himself unable to directly apply the term "cerebral hemorrhage" to his wife's current condition and accept it as such.
This was because there had been three or four instances since her youth when she had turned deathly pale and collapsed in places like theaters or trains, and he felt this time was likely the same—yet despite that, he strongly sensed it was more severe than previous occasions.
And precisely because the town shimmered with spring-like vitality, his own mood grew all the darker.

When he rushed into their house, he tossed his folding briefcase onto a zabuton cushion in a corner of their room and found his wife lying there.
The wife was being cared for by Mrs.T from the house behind theirs, lying quietly with her eyes closed but not asleep.
The family physician Dr.G and Mr.T were warming themselves at the brazier beside Yū’s desk.

“We were just about to call to stop you from coming back.”

Seeing everyone’s relatively composed expressions as they said this, Yū felt his initial urgency checked and a sudden lightness in his mind, yet he couldn’t bring himself to feel optimistic.

“Is that so?”
“You’re sure there’s nothing to worry about?”

“She’ll be fine.”
“If she stays quiet, she’ll calm down.”
Dr.G said nonchalantly.

Yū—still unable to feel entirely reassured—sat down by the brazier and continued talking about the hotel while periodically asking Dr.G questions.

“Is there no need to call someone?”

“No—it’s the usual issue, so there’s no need to worry,” Dr.G said.

Yū fully understood both the peril and horror of cerebral hemorrhage, yet he had never considered its diagnosis might prove challenging.
That morning, after she had finished preparing the New Year's soup and sat down by the long brazier as usual, her head jolted with a sharp, stinging pain when she suddenly sneezed.
As she blew her nose, the pain intensified further while her complexion altered and her body began to give way.
By the time the flustered children rushed behind her to provide care, she had already gone completely limp.

Yū felt uneasy about her condition—her touching the hollow at the base of her skull and complaining of pain between her nose and ear—while still maintaining some trust in the doctor. She seemed to feel as if piercing needles were stabbing around the back of her head, so he began to think it might indeed be a cerebral hemorrhage; yet since she could still speak and move her hands, he also felt it was perhaps best to trust the doctor.

“Well, let’s leave her like this until evening.”
Dr. G soon left.

Yū approached the sickbed.
“How are you holding up?”

The wife put her hand to her eyes and temples and complained of pain.
“It’s different from usual.”
She said in a low voice.
The intuition that it was a cerebral hemorrhage occupied most of Yū’s thoughts.
“Hurry and call Dr.M!”
He ordered his oldest son.
The oldest son tried to leave，but suddenly she said something to stop him.
And at the same time，she complained of a bowel movement.
“Well，wait a moment.”
Yū said to his child.
And he ordered the maid to bring a bedpan.

“Stay still.
“I’ll take care of the bowel movement for you.
“You mustn’t move, okay?”

As he was saying this, she raised her upper body and announced that she felt the urge to vomit, her face twisted in pain.
A small washbasin was brought, and from her mouth spilled a murky yellowish substance in a viscous flow.
And when she had vomited everything up,

“I can’t go on anymore,” she said, her cheeks trembling violently as she collapsed onto the desk.
Her words faltered.
Her eyes had rolled back.

When he saw that, Yū suddenly felt it was serious.
“Hurry and call Dr. M… And tell Dr. G the same.”

Dr. G arrived, administered an injection, and soon Dr. M also rushed over in a flurry, but nothing could be done.
She likely did not last even an hour after that.
And that marked the end of her life.

(April 1926 [Taishō 15], Kaizō)