Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

How changed the Nihonbashi Vicinity has become.
No trace of its former appearance could be found there anymore.
It had become difficult to clearly recall even vestiges of the Meiji period there, let alone those of the Edo period.

The water of that rusted canal no longer mirrored the whiteness of those aligned storehouses.
Because they had been there—how even that murky water had once inspired poems and paintings...
Yet around last year’s end, as I walked upon that bridge—amidst streetcars and automobiles clamoring past—my eyes had caught a small cargo boat laden with leek bundles, white daikon radishes, and green pickled vegetables, moving quietly along as it rhythmically worked its tiny oar.
I felt unbearably nostalgic.
I stared fixedly at that vegetable boat receding into the distance.

The canal water was as rusted and foul as ever, yet there the shadows of the vegetables and boatman fell upon it, those ripples faintly pointing them out beneath the wrinkled surface—I felt as though I had discovered traces of a distant past there.
In the midst of everything transforming—especially after the earthquake, amidst scenes so utterly devastated they sometimes seemed reduced to ruins—the fact that such tranquility from a distant past could still be savored was something truly beyond words for me.
Especially on that day—a day when pale sunlight seeped through winter’s leaden mist from somewhere—the stillness past ten in the morning enveloped mismatched barracks roofs, laundry-drying poles, and ungainly verandas in a uniform shroud.
On a laundry-drying pole was visible a woman’s red obi turned backward.

Even so, how desolate had the relocation of the fish market rendered this area. It might be that the very term “desolation” no longer suited this still-bustling place, yet what remained certain was that the atmosphere of old no longer swirled there in eddies. Where now was that former vitality? Where now that vigorous spirit? True, food stalls remained. There were still large shops near the bridge unchanged from olden days. Seafood lay displayed as before, early vegetables arranged likewise. Customers clustered about sushi stalls to eat. Yet had not more than half those eating and buying now changed? Were not gentlemen and wives from Yamanote—rather than people from Edo’s heart—the main patrons? And so had they not come to sloppily array there boxed meals—lavish yet superficial things meant only to catch the eye? Just as Mitsukoshi catered to country folk, had not the former air of these places been wholly abandoned to such customers’ trampling? This filled me with desolation. As the surroundings had become barracks, as the white storehouses would never again reflect upon water, so too did laundry poles hung with washing become faintly visible through gaps from the main street.

II

One day, I entered from the main street toward that direction to have a look.

I discovered there glass windows, doors, ungainly verandas, and low laundry-drying platforms. I discovered a small alleyway running vertically through two or three horizontal streets. I discovered two-story houses crudely built as if this were newly developed land, their eaves stretching continuously from one to the next. Moreover, I discovered vacant lots here and there where the setting sun streamed in, and a potted plant—perhaps a pomegranate—placed by a second-floor window, its afterglow brightly illuminating it. Could this be the Fish Market? Could this be the interior of what was once the stomach and intestines of this metropolis—the Fish Market? Not even once had I ever entered its interior before. Had there been someone I knew inside who could guide me, I might have entered and looked around; but amidst that bustle, it was utterly impossible for an outsider to venture all the way in. During my student days, I would always take a shortcut from this side of the bridge toward Yokkaichi, but the commotion of that time defied description. If I had dawdled even a moment—(What the—!)—I would have been shoved aside as if being told, "Out of the way, kid!" Therefore, the Fish Market remained impressed in my mind from that time as both Tokyo's most vibrant place and its most incomprehensible. All the more did this ruinous feeling strike me with clarity.

I walked along a street near the river—passing through what had once been an area with large fish wholesalers where salmon and cod used to be abundantly displayed in rows, now transformed into a desolate, barren thoroughfare—proceeded to near Yokkaichi-dori, then turned right into a narrow alleyway to explore. A large kamaboko shop, unchanged from the old days, stood there as the sole survivor. Perhaps because they were barracks, the area felt unnaturally hollow—where once stood rows of thickly plastered storehouses that had stubbornly resisted the late afternoon sunlight, now that same light streamed freely everywhere: into lattice windows, through narrow alleys between houses, along the edges of shingled eaves, across water gushing from communal spouts, upon the profile of a standing woman, over the tail of a large red-striped dog walking the street at an unfamiliar width, and even onto the signboard of a small eatery that seemed to have lost all traces of its former dashing elegance—spreading stillness and desolation across every corner. I walked quietly, like a poet wandering through an ancient capital.

Though I had long been familiar with Kanmo's hanpen and Bensho's anago—such things as these—now thinking I could no longer truly savor them, while mourning how all such things were perishing and disappearing along with the area's transformations, I wandered through that vicinity for a long time.

I recounted matters from the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake.
I recounted how even here in this area, many who fled too late became corpses floating in the water; how even when people managed to board boats, the heat from fires along both banks proved unbearable.
Where one emerged from the alleyway, I caught sight of shops selling wild boar meat and such.

III

I think I will try to depict Nihonbashi as it was forty-five or forty-six years ago here.
It was exactly nine years and ten months after I had been born.
In terms of the era name, this spanned from spring to autumn of Meiji 14.
At that time, I lived as an innocent, cute errand boy at a bookstore called Yurindo in Minami-Denmacho, Kyobashi, which mainly published agricultural texts and similar works.

I recalled there being no day when I didn't cross both Kyobashi and Nihonbashi.
I carried heavy books or took around a notebook listing required titles to bookstores everywhere.
Even so, it was a distant past.
Now passing through and seeing it, I couldn't imagine this being the same main street even in my wildest dreams.
A city where waves of mud surged when it rained.
As the rows of houses were mostly clay-walled storehouses, the main thoroughfare appeared drearily gloomy compared to Ginza's new brick-built district beyond Kyobashi.
Through this ran those Entaro carriages sounding their horns and kicking up mud as they dashed along—such was the scene.
Yet on the right side just a short way from Nihonbashi—around where Kuroeya or Shioze stands today—there used to be two large bookstores, Suharaya and Yamashiroya, spaced two or three shops apart. Those imposing square signboards(?) seen in Edo-period book illustrations hung there with all the authority of venerable establishments.
What a lonely, gloomy bookstore it had been.
Only two or three clerks in stiff sashes sat about looking bored—never once did I see customers entering to buy books.
Compared to this, Echigoya's corner shop—Mitsukoshi's predecessor—truly stood out.
This shop still occasionally appears in old paintings—a single-story structure like a long corridor where the boisterous cries of "Hup-ho! Hup-ho!" constantly resounded.
Every customer without exception lined up and sat there.
In other words, the clerks' voices ordering apprentices—"Bring that! Fetch this!"—had merged into a single rhythmic cadence echoing throughout.
This wasn't unique to Echigoya—at the corner of Honcho-dori leading toward Asakusabashi stood an even larger shop called Daikoku where they too kept up that "Hup-ho! Hup-ho!".

To go from Nihonbashi toward Asakusa, Honmoku-cho serves as the main route today—but in those days, it was Honcho-dori—that is to say, the road entering from where Yamaguchi Bank now stands—that functioned as the principal thoroughfare, with horse-drawn railway carriages continuing to pass through there long into the era before they were replaced by electric streetcars.
I would often trot through those areas while singing popular songs of the time such as 'Hoppeta Ottsuke, Aijō Horokake, Tekeretsu Noba, Tekeretsu Noba'.

At that time, Ginza was what they called a new-style brick town, but from Kyobashi through Nihonbashi to Manseibashi—the Eyeglass Bridge—there were scarcely any buildings worthy of being called Western-style structures.
I do recall there being a large Western-style building named Asahiya near where the former Niroku Shimpōsha office once stood when coming all this way.
What exactly they sold there I cannot say, but it was something called Kerei-shu.
That imposing edifice—though today its height would seem unremarkable—had once loomed awe-inspiringly in people's view.

IV

Several years ago when I visited Beijing and saw the bustling crowds outside Zhengyangmen Gate—the countless shops and food stalls lining the streets, people nonchalantly eating by the roadside—it vividly evoked memories of early Meiji culture. In truth, the liveliness around Nihonbashi bridge at that time differed not in the slightest.
There, food stalls of every variety—serving sweet red bean soup, dumplings, golden taiyaki, quick-serve drink stands, oden and warmed sake—were packed so densely across the expanse that not a sliver of space remained between them.
No—these multitudinous food vendors not only stimulated passersby’s appetites through aromas, shapes and colors, but also called out in sundry voices—“Freshly made this instant!” or “Here! Delicious dumplings!”—vying to draw even one extra customer to their stall.
I can still clearly recall the scene beneath a large umbrella—a big-nosed old man of a type unseen since the Edo period, facing his apprentice as he shaped cheap sushi pieces one after another.
I also remember how at Edobashi’s edge there had been a Deroren saimon performance venue, where a diminutive man drew a crowd thick as a black mountain around him.
Sweets and fruits too lay piled high on stalls, and I recollect a passing apprentice boy voraciously biting into one of those crescent-cut watermelons from the top.
To foreign eyes visiting Japan during that era, this bustle must have appeared as wildly uncultured as how I now perceived the commotion outside Beijing’s Zhengyangmen Gate.
I distinctly recall such a description appearing in Pierre Loti’s writings.

Next, I recall how I—having just turned ten—was instantly drawn to those enticing food stalls.
I recall spending money I didn’t even have for that purpose.
I recall that although there were two or three other reasons for my failing as an errand boy, one cause was resorting to misdeeds in my desire to eat those roadside foods to my heart’s content.
Moreover, this main street had shops displaying nishiki-e color woodblock prints everywhere—with Yoshitoshi’s *One Hundred Aspects of the Moon* and Eitaku’s *One Hundred Historical Scenes* hung prominently—no, in fact, those nishiki-e shops around Asakusa even displayed rows of erotic prints—leaving me astonished. To put it another way: since there were no magazines or such things at the time, I would stand transfixed there for long periods, peering through those prints as if glimpsing life’s secrets hidden beneath its surface.
However, during the Edo period, the banks of Nihonbashi must certainly not have been in such disorder.
It must have been far more orderly.
Such congestion could be said to be a lingering vestige of the atmosphere from the early years of Meiji.
That atmosphere—that decadent atmosphere is nostalgic to me.

V

I don’t know what became of it after the earthquake, but there was a narrow alley between the main street and Nakanami-dori that I recalled often passing through with delight during my days as an errand boy.
I walked about a block from Minami-Denmacho toward Nihonbashi, immediately turned left, and then wound my way through that alley.
Of course it was a path too narrow for two people to walk abreast—a path where one picked their steps along gutter planks while peeking into the hidden lives of those lower-town residents: darting past cramped kitchen nooks where maids polished pots and pans, skipping by basins clutched at hips as some stylish woman did laundry.
And cutting through the alley running alongside it, I would enter into the beyond.
At the very least, this alley connected from a little toward this side behind Fugetsudo all the way to that Shirokiya-dori area.
When heading from Edobashi toward Ningyocho, I had always made it my custom to take that alleyway.

Even before the earthquake, few houses in that area had retained their original form.
There were only five or six.
Every time I walked there, I could not help sensing both how swiftly human affairs changed and how rapidly eras shifted.
With each passing age came a distinct atmosphere that gradually altered its shapes and impressions.
Alongside its people, the very aspect of the place transformed over time.
I doubt anyone today knows there once stood a great clock tower on Tōri 4-chome’s northern side, its side street facing Yaesu Bridge.
Though those houses had vanished, how dear felt those scattered shops I once knew that still lingered here and there.
Fugetsudo stood directly across from the bookstore where I’d been apprenticed—I spent whole days facing that shop curtain beneath its eaves inscribed with seal script characters.
A little further along was Shogetsudo confectionery, where I’d been sent by the shop’s retired mistress to buy sweets called Kōbai or such—tiny red and blue bead-like treats—though whether they still exist now I wonder.

At the corner a little further past Maruzen stood a small soba shop—that too remained one of my nostalgic memories. For that shop had once been much larger, with a second floor ringed by handrails, and on one New Year's Eve past midnight, the clerks from my workplace had taken us apprentices there to feast us in recognition of our year's labor. The bustle of New Year's Eve along that main thoroughfare then differed entirely from today's atmosphere, though the crowds that turned out far exceeded anything seen in the present age. Night stalls packed both sides of the street, potted plants lining their fronts, while smoke from oil lanterns smoldered so thickly it choked the roadway.

Though I’ve forgotten the exact location now, I still clearly remember how there was something—on the south side around Tōri 4-chome, against a backdrop of old-fashioned lattice windows—where a large round tray stood tilted, its muddy yellow lacquer being stirred incessantly with a long spatula in the evening light.

VI

As I crossed Nihonbashi Bridge, I would always conjure Ariake Kambara’s poetry in my mind.

Morning comes, soon the muddy river
Lukewarm yet glowing, the night’s membrane—
In the faint glimmer borne gently,
Still the market’s aligned storehouses’
Mist of the river clings to the wall.

Morning comes—soon faintly whitens
The shadow of the wall reflected on the water’s surface—
Dawn breaks—the dark water’s depths too—
The tide surging along Ōkawa—
The tide’s force pushes back the murky waters.

Around Meiji 39 to 40 (1906–1907), just after the Russo-Japanese War had ended, there was a time when poetry rather than novels dominated the literary world—and it was during this period that young literati frequently recited this poem.
I was immersed in foreign literature at that time, often going from my workplace in Honmachi to Maruzen to retrieve books I had ordered when they arrived.
At that time, the bridge had not yet become the current iron bridge.
It was an old, old wooden bridge.
“It would be nice if they rebuilt it—such a dilapidated bridge.”
“Doesn’t the city have any money?!” We often used to say such things.

Flow on, oh melon rinds

Kernels, debris-straw—Sakamizuki

Steams and heaves—the haze again,

Intermittently, a blue-green scent smolders

Perishing while lingering, they decay and vanish.

At water’s edge thinning into wave-rows,

Mud-clogged bridge pillars

And then—the yielding, languid woman’s

With footsteps shy at a glance

The bridge planks creak and groan.

I would compare it—that bridge—to the one depicted in the *Edo Meisho Zue*, then to the bridge of the early Meiji years when its approaches were thronged with food stalls and entertainments, further to the bridge now traversed by streetcars and automobiles, and finally, reaching further back, contemplate it against the form it took when Ieyasu first reclaimed this land and erected the original crossing.
Doubtless, anyone would have found themselves irresistibly drawn into a peculiar state of mind.
No, even from the time of Ariake’s poem, the appearance of the area had undergone tremendous changes.
New trends came time and again, changing the exteriors of nearby shops and altering the displays in show windows, transforming the appearance of the old town that clung tenuously to existence here and there, swirling in eddies.
And yet, the transitional period remained just that—a transitional period.
No matter how much effort was exerted under meticulous plans, achieving uniformity in their appearance proved no easy task.
No—amidst all this, that dreadful Great Kanto Earthquake came and destroyed everything.
And reduced all those prolonged human efforts to ashes in one conflagration.
The fact that the bridge did not burn down precisely because it was made of iron must be called at least a fortunate find.

Morning comes—shadows quicken with color

Thus the day passes—the muddy river—

Morning comes—all is aglow.

the market quay’s aligned storehouses’

That white wall too—my chest too.

Even though they have now vanished, the fact that the morning visage of those aligned storehouses’ white walls remains immortalized within that poem could not help but gladden our hearts.
I tried reciting that poem aloud once more.

VII

I once had such a conversation with N.

“You know, there was an era when even nightfall would plunge that entire area into utter darkness.”
“When I think about that, I’m struck by how strange it feels.”

“That’s true…”

“And that it wasn’t so very long ago…”
“It was like that until just sixty or seventy years ago…”
“I believe it was Pierre Loti—imagine him setting out all the way to Nikko by carriage in those days without trains.”
“And imagine him spending a lonely night there.”
“He wrote as if utterly astonished—as though marveling that such a place could still exist in the world—describing a metropolis plunged into total darkness come nightfall, a city of Buddha’s shadow without a single light. In this way, his account blended bewilderment with reverence for its mystery… yet Edo itself was precisely such a place.”

“It was a town of street slayings, a town of thieves, a town of vice, a town of specters—wasn’t it?”

“According to my uncle—who died last year at eighty-five—even so, here and there around where Mitsukoshi stands today, just before its current location, there were soba shops where you could eat for about two mon—either street stalls or tiny establishments renting corners of other shops—and in those places, a faint light would be lit.”
“Don’t they often stage that in plays or recount it in storytellers’ tales?”

“That’s right…”

“On the main streets, even so, it’s said there were some who carried lanterns and others who rode in palanquins with those customary lanterns hurriedly passing by.”

“From afar, those lanterns flickered and looked quite beautiful, so I’ve heard.”

“But nowadays, there’s no longer any reason to even consider such things…”

“Because I’ve come to think that even from long ago, it was always this bright and lively and crowded with people……”

N said this but paused briefly to think,

“While it’s true even in foreign countries, this transition of lighting is quite an intriguing matter. In foreign novels too, there are accounts from the era when lamps were used, but even in Japan, the progression from torches and bound lantern stands to candlesticks, andon lamps, and then modern lamps is quite fascinating, don’t you think?”

“And with each advancement meant to brighten our world—once we grow accustomed—such progress ceases to feel particularly wondrous. How curious it all is.”

While he spoke, our conversation shifted to the oil lamps that once lined both sides of the main avenue in long rows.
Indeed, in those days, cleaners would refill each oil reservoir one by one during daylight hours, and come evening, lamplighters carrying long metal rods tipped with flames would hurry along at a trot, skillfully opening and closing the glass doors of lamps on both sides as they went from one to another lighting each wick.
This was enough to captivate my young heart—I had just turned eleven or perhaps was about to.
I went dashing after that lamplighter.

“There was such delight in how each one gradually lit up as I followed along while watching…”
“Ah, he’d already gone that far—I’d say things like that and just stand there watching it.”

“In other words, it was a transitional period from the city of darkness to today’s bright metropolis,” N said with a laugh.

VIII

The fact that Jikkendana over there formed a single swirling eddy intrigued me.
Even as time passed and that fish market lost its former visage, this place continued maintaining its distinctive small-scale prosperity through the years.
I make no claim that the Edo period remains here.
Nor had it remained untouched by various influences over time.
As far as I knew, even here had apparently experienced significant decline.
The practice of displaying March dolls and May banners had come to be seen as hopelessly antiquated, with people scarcely glancing at such things during that period.
I retained some faint recollection of that era.
I believed it spanned from Meiji 20 to around 25 or 26.
I had heard many changed occupations there during those years.
The current proliferation of banks and companies appeared rooted in those former shops that had converted during that time.

After all, when that reaction set in and those who once couldn’t survive a day without Western ways suddenly turned conservative and preservationist, it must have been a great blessing for this narrow district. Gradually I began remembering that area taking on new vitality. I recall how shops too came to display items that weren’t merely old-fashioned—and even when employing traditional styles, they started blending in something new. Those hina dolls and carp streamers are, after all, quintessentially classical things. They can’t manifest there the kind of bustling prosperity modern innovations bring. Yet the fact that this distinctive liveliness unfolds around there in March and May must be of considerable interest to foreigners and such. It must have been a delightful scene—one that could almost become a poem.

The essence of Edo-era people and their households still lingered abundantly in Honmachi’s inner reaches, yet those districts had deteriorated so severely that their atmosphere grew unnervingly heavy—as if settled into stagnation. By contrast, the Edo folk remaining near Jikkendana, perhaps due to their frequent encounters with modernity, retained a certain vitality; much like how their dolls and banners had been renewed over time, they exuded an enjoyable novelty akin to freshness.
We could sometimes encounter beautiful people in those areas who seemed to blend the refinement of Edo with the glamour of present-day Tokyo.
Moreover, we could also find households there that carried a sense of being a “new Edo.”
For that reason too, I liked the atmosphere around here.

I could hardly forget places like Tatsuki Confectionery, located just off that main avenue.
No, it was not merely that the sweets were delicious—what I find nostalgic is how the air of old Edo still swirls in an eddy thereabouts.
And then those Inarizushi and such, while not keeping up with the times, were rather charming in their own quaint way.
Long ago, there had been debates over whether this Inarizushi or the Inarizushi that once stood at the foot of Senzu Ohashi Bridge was superior, but even that had now become a thing of the past.

IX

Though it may stray somewhat from our subject of the Nihonbashi vicinity, I nevertheless wish to record here next my impressions of that Meganebashi (Manseibashi Bridge) area.
That area had become one of New Tokyo’s celebrated sights even in early Meiji nishiki-e color woodblock prints—the stone bridge with its two rounded spaces resembling eyeglass lenses astonished country visitors, but now both the bridge and its location had completely changed.
Though likely few remained who knew its former visage, it was my custom to frequently stand by the north railing of today’s Manseibashi Bridge and conjure up scenes of that time before my eyes.

I recalled how bustling the bridge had been in those days—how there was a foul public toilet on this side where I too would often relieve myself when heading out to Ueno; how this area served as a firebreak square where sparse willow trees’ verdure swayed, those squares having been built at the base of famous bridges for the same reason people later felt compelled to create small parks after the earthquake, following the Great Fire of Meireki; how stalls for street vendors and makeshift performance stages lined it boisterously, sometimes drawing crowds around sand diviners and roadside fortune-tellers. And beyond that bridge lay the initial departure point for travelers along the Nakasendo highway, where carriage houses stood and carriages lined up in numbers—I would recount how people arriving from Echigo, Shinano, Ueno, and such regions all streamed in through that spot as if it were Tokyo’s inner gateway. Even now, enveloped in the twilight air there, I could vividly recall the carriages, their white covers, the horses’ loose belly bands, and weary travelers carrying large bundles. I couldn’t help but think how the changes in transportation were completely altering the atmosphere of the area. The narrow streets of Kōbusho, which one entered immediately after crossing Meganebashi Bridge, were bustling in those days. In both the people living there and the women walking about those parts lingered something of Edo’s refined elegance, creating an atmosphere that seemed to swirl with an indefinable density. I liked walking there. I liked crossing Meganebashi Bridge, passing through that narrow street, and coming out onto the broad avenue with the large clock. It was much later, but I remembered a large illustrated billboard appearing on the left side just before reaching that plaza, advertising Koyo’s *The Pillow of Agarwood* and Rohan’s *The Bearded Man* being published side by side in the Yomiuri newspaper. Wasn’t this billboard advertising novels on the main thoroughfare likely the first of its kind?

Our young hearts were already surging mightily toward such new literature even then.
Every time I passed by there, I would always feel an inexpressible yearning and stop before that illustrated billboard—a memory I still retain to this day.

X

When I was working at the company in Honmachi, I recalled how I would often cross that Nihonbashi Bridge on my way to Maruzen in Tori-Sanchome.
That was one of my unforgettable memories.
I would often go out during my cigarette break after finishing lunch.
And I would search through those dim shelves of Maruzen before its renovation.
I would search without minding my hands and face becoming covered in dust.
For this was because one might find Flaubert’s Sentimental Education slipped among education books, or Dostoevsky’s short stories set in Siberia mixed into the geography shelves.
In addition to rare new publications, I often unearthed things there.
And holding that book, I returned with a grin.

At the very least, Maruzen’s second floor was the first place where new foreign intellectual currents could be glimpsed. If one considers it today, it must have been even more unreliable than a provincial literary scholar peering into Tokyo’s central literary circles through the magazines and books lining their local bookstore’s shelves—yet even so, to learn of new foreign ideas, there had been no choice but to rely on that very portal. Through those shelves, I came to know Alphonse Daudet, Émile Zola, Leo Tolstoy, Ibsen, and Bjørnson. When I took up Paul Bourget’s short story collection *Hasteru Ofu Man*, I want to relive that indescribable joy—how many times I must have stroked the cloth cover of that book. What remains particularly unforgettable is when several copies of Maupassant’s American cheap edition arrived, and upon receiving a phone call from Maruzen about it, despite having no money, I forced myself to go plead with the publishing department to arrange funds, then rushed over there in a flurry. I believe it was mid-June of Meiji 34 [1901], but not only did few in Japan at that time know much about what kind of writer this Maupassant was—it was practically through my order that those red and yellow American cheap editions first entered Japan. I clearly remember walking along that main avenue—drenched in the drizzling rain of early summer—filled with a thrilling joy, even as it displayed the era’s discordant appearance: half-clay-walled storehouses standing alongside half-Western-style buildings.

No—Naturalism, Decadence, Humanitarianism, Neo-Romanticism—all had entered through the portal of that single bookstore. Now that I considered it, it struck me as strange. Even in that form, it was no exaggeration to say that Nihonbashi’s main avenue shared a profound bond with me.

I was never one to go about listing off various streets or sampling different eateries. Thus I knew little of the minutiae surrounding Nihonbashi. I can’t claim to know things like sushi or tempura in any detail. Though I’d walked through Kihara Store and Ukiyokōji alley, I remained ignorant of their significance. Yet through Maruzen’s shelves—through which I’d touched foreign intellectual currents spanning the late nineteenth to early twentieth century—I found something worthy of pride. To this day I still occasionally recall those times.

XI

In a quiet room on a narrow street entered from the corner of Tori-Yonchome, we had such conversations.

“If you go into the back alleys around here, they’re still completely derelict, aren’t they?”

“Yeees.”

M, who once thrived in this district—M, whose dancing had graced stages far and wide—now being the proprietress here filled me with inexplicable melancholy.
Though traces of youthful vigor remained in her bearing and voice, and though an elegant beauty from days gone by still dwelled deep within her, through that deliberately subdued appearance one could discern a lonely air of advancing years.

“But look—aren’t there still places here and there that remain like open squares?”

“This area will still change in various ways…”
“How it will turn out—the truth isn’t really known yet, don’t you think?”

“What a nuisance!”

“Because it’s quite difficult... Even so, this area here is one that’s managed to recover somewhat.”

“Is that really so?”

While having her pour me a drink, I continued, “Around the year after the earthquake, I had some business here—and even then, I thought how remarkable the people of these parts were. For all their grumbling, they rebuilt everything so swiftly.”
“Women indeed! It’s been said since ancient times that a woman’s hair holds Herculean strength—and how true that rings!”
“I had thought that before, I tell you!”

“Well, that may not be entirely the case, don’t you think?”

M laughed with a lonely air.
Within that laughter lay—subtly enfolded—a solitude attainable only by one who had traversed myriad experiences and been thoroughly acquainted with love’s manifold forms.
“But still, we’d be in trouble if we didn’t do that—”

“After all, women’s power must be called formidable.”
“For men—even when themselves in dire straits—will move heaven and earth for those dear to them…”

Normally, one would divert things by saying something like “You seem to remember something,” or the like. But M said none of that, continuing to smile in silence. I too could not help but become serious. The words I had heard from M earlier—“He passed away three years ago… There was truly a time when I thought, ‘What am I to do?’ I often used to hear older women say they had no choice but to work in teahouses, and now I truly understand how they must have felt”—came echoing back. I was pulled into that current.

“And when did it begin with your husband?”

“We had been together for fifteen years, you see…”
“And besides, the way we parted was so abrupt…”

“What happened?”

“Due to a stomach ulcer—vomiting so much blood—it was over quickly.”

“That must have been hard for you.”

“I just wish there had been a little more time to talk, you know.”

Since I had glimpsed fragments of her past through hearsay—and since I knew she had parted abruptly with that renowned Imperial Theater actor, whose scandalous affairs once filled the newspapers, when he met a sudden death onstage two or three years prior—I found myself all the more unable to resist being drawn into M’s life.

XII

“Time, you know, passes by so quickly…”
“Back when we first met, you were still young though!”

Those words could not leave M unmoved.

Perhaps because there were no customers in the other rooms and she was free, M settled down there and began to talk about various things.
In the time before and after the earthquake, there were many changes that came upon the courtesans there.
“Oh, is that person already gone?”
“Where did they go?”
“To Osaka?”
“So after all, they must have had a good person over there.” Such words kept spilling out one after another.

That day, for some reason, M was unusually sensitive to impressions. She appeared like an entirely different person altogether. She had been a courtesan skilled in conversation—witty yet earnest, with a certain vivacity about her—but now those varied qualities had vanished, leaving only her earnestness and sentimentality conspicuously remaining. She gradually brought forth stories of having been born in Fukagawa, raised in Shitaya’s Mitsujimachi, and then gone to Akasaka. Just as there had been transformations upon the bridges and buildings, so too upon her there had been hardships, a prime, love, and a life.

“While she was over there, things didn’t work out—but once she came here, apparently the water agreed with her—and she quickly became an auntie here, you see.”

“You don’t know Mr. Koyo, do you?”

“I have never had the honor of meeting him.”
“After all, that gentleman was active during O-Yae’s time…”
“An elder sister would surely know him, though…”

In due course, topics such as Mr. Kyoka, Mr. Chugai Goto, and more recently, Mr. Mikihiko Nagata and Mr. Takitaro Mizukami came up.
Stories also emerged about Ogai Gyoshi having written the signboard for what was once called Kuradaya restaurant.
Though this pleasure quarter blended into the bustle and congestion of the main thoroughfares, maintaining an inconspicuous form, once you stepped inside—even in daylight—there was the sound of shamisen, chic two-story houses, and slender alleyways refined with iki, creating a place that somehow stirred the wandering heart.
I found myself recalling stories like that of Mr. Kyoka, who had wandered all night from Sennyo-ko around Kyobashi until dawn while severely intoxicated.

“All the geishas I once knew have disappeared.”
“It’s disheartening... When something happens, they end up making even those who could’ve stayed leave one after another, don’t they?”
“It’s sad that even S has withdrawn.”

“Yet there are geishas who linger on indefinitely.”

Saying such things, M pulled over the printed materials that were there.

The atmosphere there was, if anything, quiet and pleasant—a quietness different from that of places like Kawamukai, Inokashira, or Marushien. It was a stillness submerged within the bustle, or rather, a quietness born from liveliness; or to put it another way, a serenity that emerged naturally from everything being perfectly in order. There was an air about the place where one could settle with ease, whether through the food or in the shamisen music and songs. It was H—the first to arrive—who entered with a “Good evening!”

XIII

The disappearance of Yaezubashi Bridge is not such an old event, yet it seems no one even remembers that such a bridge once stood there. It was located where you turned right onto the street with Tōshi-chōme’s large clock and continued straight ahead. I was living in Ushigome at that time, but I would always go through Kudan, pass through Marunouchi, cross that bridge, and head toward Ōdōri. That was around Meiji 22. I often went out to the secondhand magazine shops in Kitanakadori, Machiya. At that time, copperplate prints included as supplements in foreign publications like *The Graphic* often sold well as decorative items, which is why such secondhand foreign magazine shops could be found here and there. And this was also because novels gaining attention abroad at the time would occasionally find their way into those magazines and copperplate prints. I purchased Wilkie Collins’s *The Moonstone* there a little later. There were works by William Black and Anthony Hope as well as those by Victor Hugo and Eugène Sue.

I recalled how desolate Marunouchi used to be.
I recalled the large gates with bells shaped like breasts, the walls of namako plaster, and the row houses with lattice windows from ruined daimyo residences.
I also recalled how long those roads were, and how when it rained, not only was the path poor but we were lashed by sideways rain, rendering umbrellas utterly useless.
I distinctly remembered that there were the Ministry of Justice and courts there.
I would pass through there and go to Yaezubashi Bridge, always breathing a sigh of relief.
Because there, the view was rather pleasant.
Not only did the old embankment pines have their large roots twisting there, but their pale green branches also cast their shadows elegantly upon the moat’s water.
At times I would climb up that embankment, sit down on the pine roots to rest my weary legs, and gaze at the surroundings.

A woman born in Machiya and about the same age as me said:
“I see, so you also climbed that embankment…”
“Horsetails and dandelions grew there—children often used to climb up.”
“My eldest daughter would go up there and get scolded all the time.”
“Back then, whenever we went around there, we’d always say we were off to gather herbs in the hills.”
“There were so many open fields in that area, you see.”

Indeed, change is such a mysterious thing.
Just as a river’s rapids are ever-changing, so too does the swirling vortex of urban prosperity ceaselessly transform.
No sooner do you perceive a vortex swirling there than it has already shifted elsewhere.
No sooner has it shifted there than this area becomes bustling again—such is its nature.
So you never know how things will turn out.
Just as the site of the ancient capital of Nara has become wheat fields today, those bustling, prosperous areas around Nihonbashi and Mitsukoshi might before long revert once more to their original wild fields—one never knows.
If, for some reason, the capital were to be relocated, it’s clear that this would come to pass immediately.

XIV

For a long time, I had made it my year-round pleasure to invariably walk from Manseibashi Bridge all along the main avenue on New Year’s Eve or the evening before. Anyway, another year had passed. Even if things hadn’t gone as I’d thought, I had at least passed one waystation. Such feelings always accompanied me to a place of composure. I walked quietly on the asphalt.

Amidst electric lights glinting on the bamboo leaves of New Year decorations, through the bustle of every shop appearing busy, I walked with quiet footsteps—free from my usual cares or worries, and even if any concerns lingered, I pushed them aside—spending that entire evening thinking of nothing, as though I were life’s utterly detached observer, or as though I alone in all the world were its most carefree being, strolling leisurely in silence.
Yet, I wasn’t buying anything, nor was I eating anything.
I simply walked through the brightly lit spaces, puffing on a cigarette.

A moment of lingering reflection—indeed, it was a moment of lingering reflection within life itself. And never had life's essence risen so clearly to my heart as in those moments. It wasn't that I didn't contemplate people and life even in ordinary times. Rather, I was of a disposition that never failed to ponder life at any moment. Yet being amidst that swirling vortex, I couldn't calmly enter those distant realms. Various distractions immediately disrupted that state. Therefore, for me, that lingering reflection held profound significance. I would stop at various corners, pause before shop window lights, and stand for long periods at Nihonbashi Bridge's railings. With quiet composure, I watched the people bustling to and fro around me.

I walked straight ahead all that time.
Mostly keeping to the right side.
And before Yūrindō where I’d worked as an errand boy in my youth, I would always stop.
Once I even considered paying them a visit.
Though the master and his wife had long since passed away, their eldest daughter—who’d been eighteen or nineteen then—ought still to be alive.
But even if I went and announced myself, would they truly remember Rokuzō the errand boy from those days?
Such doubts always turned me back from entering.

After crossing Kyobashi, I invariably walked on the left side.

That night of a particular year made me keenly aware of life’s inherent profundity.
This was around Meiji 42 or 43 (1909–1910).
My body remained sturdy; I could drink freely; I stood in the prime of manhood; my writings found acceptance in society—could this truly be the same errand boy who once trudged down the main avenue, gasping under the weight of heavy books while clad in a stiffened obi and straw sandals?
When such thoughts came, I felt something beyond words—or rather, it seemed I had now touched life’s very foundations, sensing within a fullness so intense my body might rupture.

_Happiness and fortune!_
_What greater happiness and fortune could there be than this?_

I cried out these words within my heart.

I felt as though the rhythm of my entire life could be distinctly traced along that main avenue.
There existed various iterations of myself there.
Myself accompanied by a wife, myself accompanied by children...
Even now, I never attempted to abandon that New Year's Eve walk.

XV

I went out to see Mitsukoshi’s new building.
It was a quiet, bright morning in early summer.
I went up to the seventh floor by elevator like many others and then ascended to the rooftop garden from there.

In the glittering light, azaleas bloomed vividly, and from snail-shaped sprinklers on both sides, thin streams of water gushed quietly.
Flowers of red, yellow, and purple were scattered about the area.
("I like places like this too") Once again, memories of our youth rose in my chest.
In our youth, whenever we grew bored or disheartened, we had to make a deliberate effort to venture out to distant areas like Ueno or Shiba Park, but now such things exist right here in the city.
Take a short streetcar ride, and you could immediately immerse yourself in such bright light.
And if you came there again and sat down on a bench, you could distract yourself from minor boredom or discontent.
Or when passing by, you could drop in briefly, see various things, and refresh your mood.
At least the fact that such things existed there could be called a blessing one could only obtain in the city.

Thinking it would be good for arranging meetups there, suitable for casual introductions, and that there were scarcely any occasions where it couldn’t become a scene in a novel, I wandered around here and there. At this moment, I suddenly remembered Hamada Shiro, who was serving as a managing director at Mitsukoshi. I had shared a desk with Hamada in Honmachi. That was now twenty-five or twenty-six years ago. We were editing Japan's first graphic magazine titled Taiheiyo. Hamada had just graduated at that time and, with his modern new knowledge, was in charge of the weekly magazine’s economics section. At that time, Hamada kept talking about this department store. He also advocated that advertising (publicity) in Japan was still woefully inadequate at that time. At that time, I still couldn’t truly grasp such matters, so I listened half-heartedly, but the fact that Hamada had already understood them clearly by then was something I found myself repeatedly contemplating. The progression of eras is a fascinating thing. Moreover, to become a pioneer in that progression is a meaningful thing. While those who steadily carry it out when truly confronting that challenge are certainly necessary, those who take the lead in hinting at or guiding its course were all the more indispensable.

Looking down below, I saw large houses with steel frames being assembled, half-completed buildings, and rows of barracks remaining exactly as they were from the time of the earthquake—all spread out there in a jumbled bird’s-eye view.
I was overwhelmed with emotion as I thought about the past and contemplated the future.
It was a vision of life where one could be fully aware yet still not know how things would unfold.
(Living a long life is fascinating.
It is precisely by living on that one can witness such various transitions...) I looked around the area.