Pathway to Japanese Literature

“I won! I won! I won!…”

Within Mr. Kitagawa’s mind, only the awareness of his victory spun like a windmill.
He thought of nothing else.

He had no idea where he was walking now or where he intended to go. To begin with, he wasn't even conscious that he was walking.

The passersby made strange faces as they watched his bizarre gait. For a drunkard, his complexion appeared normal. For someone ill, he displayed unexpected vitality.

What ho!What ho!thisfellow is dancing mad!He hath beenbitten by the tarantula.

It was a bizarre manner of walking that exactly recalled those madness-laden lines.
Mr. Kitagawa had by no means been bitten by a real poisonous spider.
However, he had become a prisoner of an obsession more terrifying than any poisonous spider.

He was now intoxicated, his entire body drunk on the euphoria of revenge.

"I won, I won, I won…"

With a kind of pleasant rhythm, the venomous whisper of victory continued endlessly, endlessly.
Like spiral fireworks, dazzlingly bright glowing objects raced ceaselessly through his mind.

Starting today, that bastard would spend every single day of his life—his long, long life—enduring that irreparable suffering without a moment’s respite. He'd writhe through that helpless agony from start to finish.

You think this is all my delusion?
Nonsense!
Certainly, certainly—I’d stamped down a seal as solid as a drum!
Hadn’t that bastard finally choked up while listening to me?
Hadn’t he turned deathly pale and collapsed?
If this wasn’t victory, what was?

“I won, I won, I won”

Amidst this monotonous, thoughtless whirlpool, fragmented thoughts would flash up like subtitles in a silent film.

The summer sky hung oppressively cloudy, like a leaden-hued eye.
Not a breath of wind stirred; the noren curtains and sunshades of the houses stood as motionless as sculptures.
The passersby appeared to walk stealthily, as though anticipating some unfathomable misfortune.
There was no sound.
A dead silence enveloped the entire area.

Mr. Kitagawa continued his maddened walk alone through it all like a Stranameria.

An endless road—glistening a dull gray no matter how far one walked—stretched onward before Mr. Kitagawa.

For someone wandering aimlessly, Tokyo City was an endless labyrinth with no exit in sight.

Narrow roads, wide roads, straight roads, winding roads—they continued endlessly from one to the next.

"But what a delicate, and yet profound revenge it had been! That bastard’s must have been quite an ingenious revenge as well."
"But as for that revenge, how brilliantly executed was my counterattack!"
"A duel between geniuses."
"It was flawless artistry."
"That bastard handled the first half, and I handled the latter half—together forming one grand artistic masterpiece."
"But no matter what, victory is mine... I won! I’ve won! I’ve flattened that bastard completely!"

Mr. Kitagawa continued walking tirelessly under the blazing sun, beads of sweat pooling on the tip of his nose.
For him, the heat itself was no concern.

Soon, as time passed, his ecstatic, thoughtless joy gradually became conscious.

And within his mind, space had finally emerged—enough to savor the sweetness of recollection.

It was a visit after three months.
They had last met just before that incident occurred, and until today, the two had not seen each other.

On Nomoto’s side, the fact that he had merely sent a letter of condolence regarding the incident and had not once visited Mr. Kitagawa’s new residence had become a lingering source of resentment.

As for Mr. Kitagawa himself, reflecting Mr. Nomoto’s awkwardness, he had felt such intense discomfort from the moment he stepped over the threshold of his house that it nearly made him vomit.

The two had been natural-born enemies from the very beginning.

In the same school and department, sharing desks as they did, Mr. Kitagawa had always found Mr. Nomoto thoroughly disagreeable.
Mr. Kitagawa believed that Mr. Nomoto, for his part, must have detested him like a house centipede.

The fact that the two had once been romantic rivals had only heightened this animosity.
From that time onward, Mr. Kitagawa had felt such indescribable discomfort that merely catching a glimpse of Mr. Nomoto’s retreating figure would cause his body to twist like this.
Then came this problem.
And then, while teetering on the brink of rupture—again and again seeming ready to tear apart—the fragile equilibrium that had barely held their relationship together finally detonated.

Now that things had come to this, he believed there was no escape route for the two of them other than engaging in a fight to the death until one perished.

Mr. Kitagawa intended to keep the true purpose of today's visit concealed until the opportune moment arrived.

However, the sensitive Mr. Nomoto seemed to have long since discerned the husband’s intentions; with eyes that could no longer bear the terror, he kept stealing furtive glances at Mr. Kitagawa.

Between the chilled beer glasses that had first been brought out and the two men seated facing each other on the new leather futon, an oppressive cloud had hung low from the very first moment.

“I know precisely why you refuse to touch upon that incident.”
“You’re so afraid of mentioning it that you can’t even offer me one word of condolence—this being our first meeting since it occurred.”

After continuing some forced small talk for a while until he could bear it no longer, Mr. Kitagawa thus lit the fuse for battle.

Mr. Nomoto started and averted his eyes.

At that time, Mr. Kitagawa firmly believed that Nomoto’s pallid complexion stemmed not merely from the garden’s verdant leaves reflecting off his turned face.—

"The first words I hurled had masterfully gouged that bastard’s heart."

As he trudged through indistinguishable backstreets once more, Mr. Kitagawa persisted in savoring his recollections.

Like a ruminant regurgitating swallowed matter to chew it wetly again and again for pleasure, Mr. Kitagawa slowly retraced every minutiae of today’s meeting with Mr. Nomoto—from inception to conclusion—lingering over each verbal nuance.
The allure of remembrance—more intoxicating than truth itself—inevitably enthralled him.

“It was only very recently that I noticed it. At that time, my heart was filled with a grief so profound I couldn’t even weep. It’s embarrassing to admit, but to be honest, I was in love with Taeko. Precisely because I was in love with her—while she was here—I could devote myself to my work to such an extent that you and all my friends were astonished. No matter how absorbed I became in my work, it was the reassurance that my wife—with that single-dimpled smile of hers—was sitting right behind me that made me that way.”

“It was the morning of her seventh-day memorial service—a day I will never forget. When I glanced at the newspaper, there in a corner of the literary section was a translated poem by Ikuta Shungetsu.” When I read that line—‘The day comes unbeknownst when she who was becomes she who is longed for’—tears I’d forgotten since childhood began falling with strange, ceaseless persistence. “I realized how deeply I had loved my wife only after she died. …You must be tired of hearing these tedious complaints. I don’t want to say it either—especially not in front of you. But it’s precisely because I want you to fully grasp just how much my wife’s death grieved me—how thoroughly it had wrecked my entire life—that I’m forcing myself to say these things I’d rather not say.”

Mr. Kitagawa began to speak in this way with an air of utmost earnestness.

However, who could have imagined that what seemed like effeminate ramblings was in fact the first step toward a revenge so horrifying it defied imagination?

“As days passed—incrementally, almost imperceptibly—the grief began to recede.”
“No—the grief itself hadn’t diminished, perhaps, but my heart—so long mired in sniveling-and-weeping—had finally carved out some meager leeway.”
“Then that doubt—one buried beneath grief, forgotten through no intent of forgetting—began to rear its head with ferocity... As you’re well aware, Taeko’s mysterious death remained for me an utterly inscrutable enigma.”

Mr. Kitagawa had harbored doubts about his wife's death from the very beginning.
Even the child had survived, yet why had Taeko alone perished in that fire? For him, this remained an inscrutable mystery—one he pondered again and again without resolution.

It was an event that had occurred three months prior, in the waning days of spring.

At that time, Mr. Kitagawa had been living in a modest duplex rental, but one day at midnight, a fire broke out from the neighboring house—separated only by a single wall and sharing the same roof ridge—reducing his home to ashes.

The fire was contained after burning through about five houses, but whether due to the fierce wind, the speed at which the flames expanded was astonishingly fast.
Though this might have partly been due to their frantic urgency—an abnormal, cornered state of mind only experienced when rescuing precious belongings or preventing injury to a child—which made considerable time feel almost instantaneous, the speed at which those flames, like some impossibly massive serpent’s tongue, consumed human dwellings was truly astonishing.

Mr. Kitagawa first grabbed the infant—a child who had only recently been born—and rushed to a friend’s house some distance away.

Entrusting the wailing child to the friend’s wife and enlisting the friend’s help, he rushed back to the burning ruins to salvage as many belongings as possible.

Mr. Kitagawa, deranged in his nightclothes, had regressed to a primitive era when humans knew no language; gasping for breath as he ran, he muttered meaningless delusions.

And so, after making two round trips between his friend’s house and the fire—a distance of two or three blocks—the flames had grown so intense that retrieving belongings was out of the question; indeed, his very life now seemed in peril. Thus, he settled at his friend’s house and first attended to his bone-dry throat, refilling his glass again and again until the parched ache subsided.

But when he suddenly noticed, Taeko was nowhere to be seen.

He had indeed caught sight of her running once, and she should have naturally known that Mr. Kitagawa had taken refuge at this friend’s house, yet for some reason she never showed herself.

But never imagining she might attempt to leap into the raging flames, he simply kept waiting in a daze for her disheveled figure to appear at his friend’s entrance.

At the entrance of his friend’s house—where a wicker trunk, small chest, documents, and various other belongings lay haphazardly strewn—the friend and his wife, Mr. Kitagawa, and a young maid trembling as she held the child all fell into an eerie silence, exchanging uneasy glances.

From outside, the commotion of the fire scene could be heard as vividly as if one could grasp it.

The uproar—shouts of "Hey!" and cries of "Whoa!" blending into a chaotic "Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah...", the clamor of footsteps racing down the main street, mingled with the drowsy yet anxious murmurs of people huddled under nearby eaves—all reached Mr. Kitagawa like some irrelevant music that held no connection to him.

Here and there, those alarm bells with their strangely theatrical tones kept ringing—a sound both dreadful and perversely exhilarating that inevitably set hearts pounding.

In stark contrast to this, the silence of their group inside the house was so strangely profound.
How much time had passed? For an exceedingly long time, they remained utterly still, not even moving a muscle.

The infant, who had been crying as if aflame for a time, had now fallen completely silent.

After some time had passed, the friend’s wife spoke in a leisurely tone, as if engaging in trivial small talk.

“What could have happened to Mrs. Kitagawa, don’t you think?”

“That’s right—it’s strange so much time has passed.”

The friend stared intently at Mr. Kitagawa’s face and answered thoughtfully.

Thus, it was when even the once-ferocious flames had finally subsided that they set out to search for Taeko.

But even after searching and searching, Taeko’s figure was nowhere to be seen.
Visiting each acquaintance’s house one by one, they came to think there was nothing more they could do by the time it was nearly dawn.

Utterly exhausted, Mr. Kitagawa first returned to his friend’s house and went to bed regardless of all else.

The following day, a woman’s corpse was excavated from the site of Mr. Kitagawa’s house by workmen clearing the burnt remains with fireman’s hooks.

And then, for the first time, they understood that Taeko had—for reasons unknown—leapt into the raging house and burned to death.

It was truly a strange thing.

There was not a single reason that could have led her into that raging inferno.
Among the relatives who had come from afar due to the incident, the prevailing theory became that she must have been deranged from the shock of the terrifying event.

"An old woman I know—even when it was a fire—panicked and suddenly went to the rice bin, meticulously measuring out rice into a bucket, they say."
"She must have truly believed rice was the most important thing."
"Even the most composed person would panic in such a situation."

Taeko’s mother would say such things in a voice thick with congestion, struggling to suppress her sobs each time they threatened to overwhelm her.

“A beloved wife—so young and leaving behind even a child—has died.”
“This alone is more than sufficient to crush a man’s heart.”
“And on top of that shamelessly grotesque way she died... I wish I could have made you all see her face just once.”
“If I could have placed that corpse before you all and told this story—ah, what a profoundly dramatic effect it might have achieved!”

Her corpse was nothing more than a single jet-black mass.
It was less gruesome than downright uncanny.
What lay before my eyes when I rushed to the scene upon receiving the news was something so extraordinary I had never seen anything like it since the day I was born.
That this could be the wife who had been by my side for three years was utterly unthinkable.
At first glance, I couldn’t even tell it was a human corpse.
A single black mass where even eyes, nose, or limbs could not be discerned.
Here and there, the black skin had split open, exposing bright red flesh that bulged out.

“Have you ever seen a telescopic photograph of Mars? Do you know those strange expressionistic web-like patterns they call the Martian canals?” It looked exactly like that. The surface of the jet-black mass had cracked in that fashion, crisscrossed with lurid crimson streaks. This was an unfathomably grotesque entity, utterly divorced from anything human. I wondered if this could truly be Taeko. The experienced workman, noticing my doubtful expression, pointed to a specific part of the blackened object. There, upon closer inspection, glimmered the thin platinum ring Taeko had worn until yesterday. I could no longer doubt it.

Moreover, it later became clear that apart from Taeko, not a single person had gone missing that night.

But such a manner of death was not unheard of in the world. It was undoubtedly terrible, but more than that—far beyond such superficial matters—what increasingly tormented my heart was the doubt about why Taeko had died. There wasn't the slightest reason she needed to die. Materially or mentally, I couldn't conceive she'd had troubles profound enough to drive her to death. That said, she wasn't so weak-willed as to lose her mind over sudden events either. That she was more resolute than she looked—you know this well enough yourself. Even conceding she might have gone mad—why would anyone deliberately leap into raging flames?

There had to be some reason for it. What could possibly be so grave a reason as to compel a woman—even at the risk of death—to leap into a burning house? Day or night, this suffocating doubt clung to my mind and would not leave. Even if the cause of death were known—knowing full well there was nothing to be done about it now—I still couldn't help thinking about it. I took a long time to consider every conceivable scenario.

To interpret that she had left an important item in the house and taken such action to retrieve it was first and foremost the most plausible explanation.

But what important item could she have possessed?
I had paid no attention to the minute details surrounding Taeko, so I had no idea what possessions she might have had.
However, wasn't it unthinkable that that woman would possess an item so precious it could be exchanged for one's life?
Even when I imagined various other reasons in this way, they all proved lacking in plausibility.
In the end, I thought I had no choice but to resign myself to this being a question that would perish eternally with the deceased.
There is a term called dead secret—Taeko's cause of death was a dead secret in the literal sense.

You know about blind spots, don't you?

I think there's nothing more terrifying than how blind spots operate.
When people speak of blind spots, they generally mean visual ones, but I believe consciousness has its blind spots too.
What you might call the "brain's blind spot."
There are moments when I suddenly forget the most trivial things.
Times when I can't recall even my closest friend's name.
I tell you, there's nothing in this world as dreadful as that.
When I dwell on it, I feel I can't stay still.
Suppose I were to present an academic theory full of novel insights.
What if this "brain's blind spot" were acting upon some critical point of that meticulously constructed theory?
Once caught in a blind spot, one remains unaware their error is an error until some chance dispels it.
For people like us engaged in such work, nothing is more terrifying than these workings of a blind spot.

But wait—what do you think?
I began to feel that Taeko’s cause of death had somehow become caught in my "brain’s blind spot."
While finding it utterly perplexing on one hand, some voice within whispered that nothing had ever been so clear.
A vague, indistinct presence sat there as if declaring, "I am the very cause of your wife’s death."
"But I had reached the brink where it was almost within grasp—yet beyond that point, try as I might, I simply could not think of anything further."

Mr. Kitagawa proceeded with his story exactly as planned, without a single error.
He firmly suppressed his impatient heart and tried to prolong the distance to the conclusion as much as possible.
And with the same kind of sadistic pleasure as a child torturing a snake to death, he observed Mr. Nomoto’s agonized state.
Testing inch by inch and minute by minute, he pricked away at the vital points.

He knew full well how terrifying an instrument of torture this whiny, seemingly innocuous long lecture was for Mr. Nomoto.

Mr. Nomoto remained silent as he listened to his story.

At first he would interject responses like “Hmm” or “I see,” but gradually he stopped speaking altogether.
It also appeared as though he was utterly bored with the tedious story.

However, Mr. Kitagawa believed that Mr. Nomoto had become unable to speak due to fear.
He believed that Mr. Nomoto remained silent out of fear that if he were to carelessly speak, it might turn into a scream of terror.

"One day, Koshino came to visit.
Koshino, precisely because he lived nearby, had handled everything from firefighting assistance to managing the evacuation shelter—but on that day, he gave me an extremely crucial suggestion regarding Taeko’s cause of death.
According to Koshino’s account—which he’d heard from a witness—Taeko had been running around frantically in front of the blazing house at that time, shouting something at the top of her voice.
Due to the surrounding noise, they couldn’t make out what she was shouting, but the man had apparently insisted it must have been something gravely important.
The people working at the scene were struggling desperately for their lives, so none seemed to have noticed Taeko’s strange behavior—but as this went on, a man appeared from nowhere and approached her side, or so I’ve heard."

Mr. Kitagawa said this and gazed fixedly into the man’s eyes.
Conscious of how profoundly this terrified his opponent, he fixed Mr. Nomoto with a serpentine gaze—the unblinking stare of a snake targeting prey from within a dark cavern.

The man had no sooner reached Taeko’s side than he flicked around and ran back the way he came—but then, for some reason, Taeko became terribly startled and began looking about with eyes wide open, as though seeking salvation.
But that too was momentary—in the blink of an eye, she had rushed into the house now engulfed in flames.... As for what became of the man thereafter—apparently, never imagining that mysterious woman might burn to death, he had slipped away into the crowd without witnessing the aftermath.
And when he heard that she was the wife of Koshino’s friend who had been dug out from the burnt ruins the next day, the man apparently expressed his condolences, lamenting his failure—saying that had he known, he would have informed them immediately at the time.

Hearing this account, I became convinced that Taeko had not, in fact, lost her mind.
I became convinced there had indeed been some grave reason that compelled her to throw herself into the flames.

“Still—who on earth was that man who went to Taeko’s side only to vanish immediately?” I said. Then Koshino lowered his voice and declared with a grave look, “I may have some recollection about that.”
…At that time, while running with my luggage on his shoulder, Koshino suddenly brushed past a man.
But when he joltedly turned around, the man had already blended into the crowd of onlookers and was nowhere to be seen.
Koshino informed me of that man’s name—but who do you think it was?
He was an old friend quite close to both me and Koshino… So why did that man meet our friend Koshino yet slip away without so much as a greeting?
Even though my house was burning, you left without even coming to check on me.
“So how exactly do you explain this?”

Mr. Kitagawa's narrative was gradually reaching its crucial point.

Mr. Nomoto remained utterly silent, his uncanny expression fixed on Mr. Kitagawa's eloquently moving lips.
Though he had been freely drinking considerable amounts of beer since their meeting began, his pallor had become so pronounced compared to when they first sat down together that he looked like a different man.

Triumphant, Mr. Kitagawa proceeded with increasing eloquence, his tone as if delivering a speech, desperately pressing forward with his account.

He felt his cheeks flush hotly from the extreme tension.
He felt his armpits drenched with cold sweat.

"But merely hearing such enigmatic facts left me utterly unable to render judgment."
It was certain I had come quite close to the essence of the facts.
Yet the essence itself—though seemingly within grasp—remained entirely beyond my comprehension.
It was a maddening vexation—as though I could approach within an infinitesimal distance yet never touch its core.
Less frustration than sheer terror.
When I thought, 'This must be the brain's blind spot,' terror gripped me so violently that I shuddered.
And so two or three days elapsed.

However, through an inadvertent occurrence, that blind spot was suddenly shattered.
And, as if waking from a dream, I understood everything completely.
I leapt up in a fury—that man, none other than the one Koshino had told me about, was someone I could never hate enough.
I nearly rushed straight to that bastard’s house to strangle him with my bare hands……No—I had gotten too carried away.
I should have spoken more calmly and slowly……At that moment, I was looking at the child being held by the new wet nurse sent from Taeko’s family.
The child, still unaccustomed to the wet nurse, called for his dead mother with an unsteady tongue—“Mommy, Mommy.”
The child was heartrending too.

But the mother who had left behind such a lovely child only to die—no, to be killed—was even more heartrending.
When I thought this, I felt as though I could hear the voice of the mother calling "My boy, my boy" from the beyond.

"You see, this must have been Taeko’s unquiet soul whispering to my heart from somewhere. When I imagined Taeko’s voice calling 'My boy, my boy,' I was suddenly struck by a violent shock. That’s right. That must be it. ……The only force great enough to drive Taeko into those raging flames was this 'my boy.' ……Once the blind spot ruptured, thoughts long dammed up came surging forth like a tidal bore."

At that time, Taeko might not have known that I had first evacuated with our child to a friend’s house.
Under those circumstances, such a thing wasn’t impossible.
I leapt up, immediately grabbed the child, and started running while shouting to my wife, who was rising from the floor and adjusting her clothes, “Hurry and escape! I’ll take the child!”
However, whether my shout had truly reached Taeko’s ears amidst the chaos remained uncertain.
Could it be that she had instinctively rushed out without a moment to think, and only then realized about the child?
And could it be that she was wandering in front of the house, calling out, “My boy, my boy”?
In such abnormal circumstances, psychological processes indeed operate in a manner entirely different from usual.
As proof of this, even I myself—during my second trip while carrying luggage and running to Koshino’s house—had my heart pound many times over with the thought, “Wait, what happened to the child?”

Mr. Kitagawa paused his words here and observed Mr. Nomoto’s state as if to confirm their effect.

And upon noticing Mr. Nomoto growing even paler and clenching his teeth, he nodded with apparent satisfaction and proceeded to advance the conversation to its most critical point.

“Suppose there was an obsessive man there who harbored deep-seated resentment toward a certain woman.”
“The man was obsessively lying in wait for an opportunity to exact revenge.”
“Then, one day, the woman’s house was struck by a fire.”
“Due to some circumstance, the man who happened to be present there watched with grim satisfaction as the woman’s entire family was driven out by the flames.”
“When he suddenly looked, the woman was loitering in front of the house, calling out, ‘My boy, my boy.’”
“A brilliant scheme flashed into the man’s mind.”
“The man thought he couldn’t let this chance slip away.”

“The man abruptly approached the woman and informed her in a tone akin to hypnotic suggestion, ‘The boy is sleeping in the inner room.’”
And then he swiftly fled the scene.
“What astonishing, ingenious revenge this is!”
“Under normal circumstances, no one would ever fall for such a suggestion.”
“However, to kill that mother—driven half-mad with frenzied worry for her child’s safety—it was the finest trick.”
While burning with anger, I couldn’t help but admire the man’s brilliant wit.

“Until now, I had never thought a crime leaving absolutely no evidence could exist.
But what about that man’s case?
No matter how great a judge might be, there would be no way to punish him—isn’t that right?
That whisper—which no one but the dead would have heard—what evidence could that be?
There may indeed be some who, suspicious of that man’s actions, committed them to memory.
But what does that amount to?
Approaching to console a friend’s wife in her misfortune and speak to her is an utterly ordinary thing—perfectly natural.
‘Even if we concede that whisper might have been overheard—that wouldn’t frighten that man in the least.
“I merely stated what I believed to be true.
“That the wife threw herself into the flames because of it—that’s none of my concern.
“Are you suggesting I should have anticipated such madness?” Wouldn’t that make a splendid defense?
What a horrifying scheme.
That man is truly a murderous genius.
Ah—isn’t that right, Mr. Nomoto?”

Mr. Kitagawa once again paused his words there.
And as if declaring, "Now I shall finally execute my revenge," he licked his lips over and over.
He stared fixedly at Mr. Nomoto’s face with a fearsome look, appearing utterly delighted like a cat toying with a half-dead mouse.

The reason Mr. Kitagawa and Mr. Nomoto had grown close was partly due to attending the same school, but more significantly, it stemmed from their membership in a group of youths united by their shared yearning for a particular woman—a collective that bound them together even as they eyed each other with envy.

Within that group, aside from Mr. Kitagawa and Mr. Nomoto, there remained two or three other young men of similar disposition.
Mr. Koshino, who had sheltered the Kitagawa family during that fire, numbered among them.
This occurred seven or eight years prior, and though those youths had by then each assumed the dignified airs of petit bourgeois, they nevertheless persisted in maintaining their associations without forgetting the past.

As for the happy woman who became the center of that group, she was none other than Taeko, who would later become Mrs. Kitagawa.

Taeko was the daughter of a former samurai family in Yamanote.
She possessed beauty worthy of being called a modern-day Ono no Komachi. Though her education came only from a modest technical arts school, as a woman she demonstrated considerable perceptiveness. Likely owing to her old-fashioned mother’s upbringing, she maintained a demure refinement ill-suited to contemporary girls—in short, a flawless young woman.

At that time, Mr. Kitagawa, being a distant relative, was lodging at Taeko’s house and attending school.

Naturally, the youths who admired Taeko gathered in Mr. Kitagawa’s study.

Mr. Kitagawa had been somewhat of an eccentric, taciturn type even back then—second to none in academic pursuits yet utterly inept at social interactions.
Despite this, the reason his study was never without visitors lay in his friends’ ulterior strategy—for by simply calling on him, even if it didn’t lead to shared conversation, they could have her come out to receive them, bring tea, and find some opportunity to catch a glimpse of Taeko’s face.
Among them, those who frequented his room most often were the group consisting of Mr. Nomoto, Mr. Koshino, and two or three others.
Their covert rivalry was exceptionally fierce.
But that remained a covert rivalry.

Among them, Mr. Nomoto was the most ardent—a man of striking features whose academic performance placed him squarely among the top scholars, and who was, moreover, a remarkably smooth socializer. That he harbored the conviction "I am the one" was only natural...
Not only did he himself believe this, but regrettably, his competitors too could not deny his superiority.
In Mr. Kitagawa’s study, Mr. Nomoto invariably assumed the role of conversational centerpiece as though it were his natural duty.
On the rare occasions when Taeko was present at these gatherings, if Mr. Nomoto happened to be absent, the atmosphere turned awkwardly subdued.
When Mr. Nomoto was present, she too spoke cheerfully.

She only laughed boisterously when Mr. Nomoto was present.
In this fashion, he effortlessly drew nearer to Taeko.

Everyone considered Mr. Nomoto the certain victor.

Through myriad opportunities and their manifold unspoken understandings, Mr. Nomoto himself had grown convinced of this truth.
He believed nothing remained but the proposal itself.

When their relationship had reached precisely that state, summer vacation arrived.
Mr. Nomoto departed for his hometown trip with a victor’s satisfaction.
The conviction that she was already his possession made even this temporary separation from Taeko feel pleasurable.

Foreseeing how their correspondence from afar would draw them closer still, Mr. Nomoto left Tokyo.

However, during Mr. Nomoto’s return home, the situation abruptly changed.
Taeko—whom Mr. Nomoto had so utterly believed to be his possession—had married that taciturn Mr. Kitagawa without a word of notice to him, the very man the group had dismissed with their "Surely not him?" assumptions.

In inverse proportion to Mr. Kitagawa’s delight, Mr. Nomoto’s fury was intense.
It was less fury than sheer astonishment.
It was the astonishment of a man betrayed by what he had believed in utterly.
Having flaunted his triumph so ostentatiously, he could no longer face his friends.

However, since there had been no explicitly clear promise exchanged, there was ultimately no way for him to lodge a protest. Even had he wished to accuse her of breaching their promise, no such promise had yet been made. The unvented frustration had completely transformed Mr. Nomoto’s character.

Since then, he had stopped speaking much. He no longer went around to friends’ houses as he used to. He tried to distract himself from the unbearable sorrow of his heartbreak by immersing himself solely in academic pursuits. Mr. Kitagawa knew those circumstances all too well. The fact that Mr. Nomoto had remained unmarried to this day since then, he believed, attested to how intense the sorrow of his heartbreak had been. Precisely because of this, while on the surface he and Mr. Nomoto maintained their association as school friends, in reality their relationship had become quite strained.

Considering such circumstances, it was quite reasonable that Mr. Nomoto would plot such revenge, and Mr. Kitagawa’s suspicion of it was by no means unfounded.

Now, Mr. Kitagawa was, as had been briefly mentioned before, somewhat of an eccentric.

Social conversations, witty remarks, casual banter—he was utterly inept at all of them.
He was the sort of man who utterly failed to comprehend humor.
However, when it came to debates and such, he spoke quite eloquently.
He seemed unable to feel motivated to do anything unless a single purpose had been firmly settled.
On the other hand, once he became convinced of something, he would charge ahead without a glance at bystanders.
In such moments, he became utterly blind to anything beyond his purpose.
It was precisely this trait that enabled his success in academic pursuits.
He even succeeded in the romance he was so inept at.

He was a man of such disposition that he could not keep two things in mind simultaneously.

Until he won Taeko, he thought of nothing but her.
After winning Taeko, he now threw himself into academic pursuits.
He abandoned Taeko—whom he had once been so obsessed with—leaving her utterly alone, and immersed himself in academic research.
And now that he had encountered Taeko’s death, he could think of nothing but “poor Taeko.”
As for his revenge against Mr. Nomoto, he pursued it with maniacal fervor.
And when he achieved that objective, he rejoiced with maniacal delight.

Everything swung from one extreme to another.

He possessed in abundance the predisposition of one who might easily go mad if he made a single misstep.
Indeed, his outlandish conjecture regarding Taeko’s cause of death and that bizarre revenge against Mr. Nomoto—were these not delusion-tinged notions too deranged to believe him sane?

However, Mr. Kitagawa firmly believed in the accuracy of his conjecture.
And now, that belief had been confirmed.

Mr. Nomoto, whom he had targeted for revenge, had masterfully fallen into Mr. Kitagawa’s trap and now lay exposed before his eyes in wretched anguish.

Mr. Kitagawa’s account had finally concluded its lengthy preamble and entered the crux of the revenge.

“That man’s terrible revenge had not a single flaw.”
“Even if one could conjecture about it, not one step beyond mere conjecture would be possible.”
“Though I might accuse you of committing this crime—if my adversary does not yield—there remains no path forward.”
“I could do nothing but sit motionless in awe of that man’s cunning.”
“I know my opponent’s identity.”
“And yet there exists no means to charge you with it.”
“Could any predicament prove more excruciatingly absurd?”
“But rest assured, Mr. Nomoto.”
“I have at last uncovered the instrument to destroy that man.”
But what a cruel instrument this proved for me.

The fact I discovered torments that man even as it torments me. To use it as an instrument of revenge, it was the sort of thing that would prove useless unless I myself first tasted suffering equal to my adversary's. I recalled the tale of a loyal retainer from ages past who, to make his enemy eat a poisoned bun, first risked his own life by tasting a piece of it himself. If I defeat my enemy, I too shall perish; unless I die first, I cannot kill my adversary. What a terrifyingly desperate frenzy of revenge this was!

But in the loyal retainer’s case, it was still manageable. If he had given up on revenge, he would not have needed to kill himself. However, in my case—whether I sought revenge or not—that terrifying fact kept pressing in on me regardless, growing clearer and more vivid with each passing moment. What had initially been a vague, half-formed suspicion gradually began taking on the shape of fact—truly gradually. And now it had become a blazingly clear fact that brooked no qualifiers like "seems," an undeniable reality. What had until now been a matter of the heart had become an immovable fact through the discovery of irrefutable evidence. In any case, I had to taste this suffering. Since I must suffer anyway, I decided to inform my enemy—who would likely endure many times more anguish than I—of this fact. And then I would watch him writhe in agony. I had resolved to do so.

At that time, day after day, I could think of nothing but that man’s exquisitely cunning revenge. I would rage at times and marvel at others, my mind utterly consumed by it all. However, one day—like a solitary black cloud floating far beyond the horizon—a strange thought suddenly occurred to me: indeed, that man had executed his revenge with flawless precision. But what if Taeko did not dislike him as he believed? No—what if she had loved him instead? ……There’s no way such a thing could be possible. That is a groundless delusion. I’m losing my mind. Ridiculous! How could such a thing be tolerated? But... but... is that truly an impossible thing? Why has such an absurd delusion surfaced in my mind? I shuddered in terror. If... if Taeko had continued to think of that man ever since then...

Naturally, my thoughts shifted to the circumstances surrounding my marriage with Taeko at the time.
That man had been a formidable competitor to me before my marriage.
I secretly believe that neither that man himself nor those around him ever entertained the slightest notion that Taeko would marry me.
And they must have believed that man alone was Taeko’s destined future husband.
To such an extent had that man stolen Taeko’s heart.
Had there been no special circumstances at play, Taeko would surely have run to him.
Even as an enemy, that man possessed every advantage.
In contrast, as for me—had I not possessed a single virtue that could attract a woman’s heart?
But I possessed a special weapon of my own.
I was not only distantly related to Taeko’s family but also, if we trace back through the generations, my family stood as the main branch of hers.
Given such circumstances, it was only natural that Taeko’s parents—those old-fashioned elders—would gratefully consent with immediate approval if I proposed marriage.
Not only due to such obligations, but my upright nature had also won their deep trust in the manner of 'someone like him.'
Moreover, whether by fortune or misfortune, Taeko herself was an old-fashioned girl who could never defy her parents’ orders, no matter the circumstances.
In her heart, no matter how deeply a man might be obsessed, she was not the sort of vulgar woman to let it show in her demeanor.
Had I not taken advantage of those circumstances and tried to force my own will through?
Even if I hadn’t thought it through this clearly, hadn’t I been aware of it in the depths of my heart?

But, like anyone else, I too had an ordinary—no, probably more than ordinary—amount of self-conceit. Unexpectedly, the marriage negotiations progressed smoothly, and once we actually came together, those self-reproaching feelings had vanished without my even noticing. Taeko devoted herself to me faithfully as her cherished husband. "So then, even my belief that she had loved that man was just my own paranoia after all," this naive soul of mine had concluded outright.

But looking back now—though I, who knew no women other than Taeko, can hardly judge—it seems love is not supposed to be like that. My relationship with Taeko was perhaps not so much that of lovers as something closer to master and servant—when I think about it now, I too had been quite the spoiled young master. To have been together for three years and yet not clearly understood my wife’s feelings—in truth, I had never even thought to consider my wife’s feelings until now. Once we became husband and wife, I had simplistically concluded that a wife would naturally love her husband as the only man in the world, and thus without a shred of doubt, immersed myself completely in my specialized work.

But this incident opened my eyes.

Looking back later, there were many aspects of Taeko's behavior that didn't sit right with me.
At such times, trivial incidents came to mind one after another—incidents where a wife who truly loved her husband would not have acted that way.
Certainly, Taeko had not been satisfied with me as her husband.
And she had continually held close in her heart the image of her former lover—the one she had unwillingly abandoned.
No—not merely in her heart.
It was a sorrowful truth—within her plump, warm bosom, the 'figure' of that man had truly been embraced all along.

I had just mentioned discovering irrefutable evidence.

“As for that evidence I mentioned—look here, it’s this. This medal, as you well know, is an item Taeko cherished since her maiden days.

“This was something I had finally retrieved from the fire site—stored carefully in a velvet pouch at the bottom of her small chest—and discovered just a few days ago by chance. Now, what do you suppose was inside this cherished medal of Taeko’s?

“Inside this, Mr. Nomoto—that man whom Koshino encountered at the fire; that man who mercilessly burned Taeko to death; and moreover, that man whom Taeko had continued to love all along—was a photograph pasted like a guardian deity.

“However, if this were simply a case of Taeko having pasted that man’s photo inside during her maiden days and then forgotten about it, that might be one thing—but in fact, when she first married me, she had unquestionably affixed my photograph inside here. For that to have been replaced with that man’s photo at some point—what does this signify?”

Mr. Kitagawa reached into his inner pocket and took out a gold medal.
Then, placing it on his palm, he thrust it right up to Mr. Nomoto’s nose.

Mr. Nomoto received it with trembling hands as though unable to endure the terror.
He stared fixedly at the embossed pattern on the medal's surface.

Mr. Kitagawa was intensely tense.
It felt as though the fate of an empire hung on this single confrontation.
Every nerve had concentrated in his eyes.
He strained to catch every minute detail of Mr. Nomoto's expression, resolved not to miss even the slightest nuance.
A deathlike silence persisted.

Mr. Nomoto stared at the medal for an exceedingly long time.

He did not even attempt to open its lid and verify the photograph inside.
That fact had struck Mr. Nomoto’s heart as an all too evident truth—without even needing to do such a thing.
……His expression gradually grew vacant.
His eyes in particular—though his gaze remained fixed on the medal—appeared utterly vacant, as if he were deeply, profoundly preoccupied with something beyond it.
Gradually, his head sank down inch by inch.
And finally, he ended up prostrating himself over the chabudai.
At that moment, Mr. Kitagawa thought he might have burst into tears and was startled.
But that was not the case.

Mr. Nomoto, having suffered too devastating a blow to his spirit, remained prostrate like a man who could never rise again, utterly motionless.

Mr. Kitagawa thought this was enough now.
The thrill of victory felt like it was constricting his throat.
There was no longer any need to continue speaking.
Even had there been, Mr. Kitagawa could no longer speak.
He writhed upright in his struggle to stand.

And then, with a backward glance at Mr. Nomoto still prostrate, he slipped out of the room.
The unaware old servant woman, flustered, came out to adjust his geta.
The moment he stepped down to the genkan’s stepstone with a springy gait, there was a heavy thud.

Mr. Kitagawa collapsed on top of the old servant woman, falling in an undignified heap.
In his excitement, he didn't even realize the numbness had subsided.

"Thus, I won!"

Mr. Kitagawa continued walking, radiating satisfaction.

That bastard will never be able to rid himself of that medal.
Try as he might to discard it, it remains utterly impossible.
No—even if he could discard the medal itself, that accursed thing would cling stubbornly to his mind forever and ever, likely even following him to the grave as an embodiment of its owner’s visage.
I burned to death someone who cared for me this deeply using the cruelest means possible—he would surely writhe in anguish day after day over his irreparable mistake.
Could there be any revenge as deliciously satisfying as this? What flawless execution!
That’s Kitagawa for you.
I’m brilliant.
My mind—as I’ve always believed—is truly splendid!

Mr. Kitagawa’s jubilation had reached its climax—that fleeting instant before triumph curdles into the sorrow of victory.

He walked along while baseball supporters cheered, "Rah! Rah! Let’s go!"—

He leapt up just like baseball supporters shouting and jumping. And, like a madman drooling all the while, he laughed raucously. A copious amount of sweat soaked through his shirt, drenching the area around his waist where the Satsuma jōfu fabric lay. From his crimson, bloodshot face, sweat dripped in droplets.

“Wahahahahahahahahaha! What a ridiculous, child’s play of a trick this is!”
“You fell for it hook, line, and sinker, Mr. Nomoto!”
“Ah, Mr. Nomoto!”

He bellowed in a loud voice like this.

Now, what Mr. Kitagawa had told Mr. Nomoto was actually only the first half true—the latter half was merely a trick he had devised for his revenge.

The fact that he had grieved over Taeko’s death had actually been recounted to Mr. Nomoto countless times over.

For about half a month after her death, he had taken time off from school—that being his profession—and wept in sorrow without sleeping a wink.
“Mama, Mama,” he had wept together with the infant crying for its mother’s breast.

Mr. Koshino—that Mr. Koshino who had kindly helped during the fire—came to his new home and gave a certain hint regarding Taeko’s cause of death; until then, he had been immersed in such boundless grief that he lacked even the capacity to doubt her death.

But once he heard Mr. Koshino’s account, he reverted to his old single-track mindset, casting aside his grief to throw himself wholeheartedly into revenge.
Regardless of night or day, he thought only of means to retaliate against his adversary’s cruel revenge.

It was a considerably difficult task.
First, he did not even know who his opponent was.
Mr. Kitagawa had spoken as if Mr. Koshino had encountered Mr. Nomoto at the fire scene, but that too was a fabrication.
Indeed, Mr. Koshino had said he encountered a man he recognized.
And had also said that the man had hidden himself in the crowd as if fearing his gaze.

As for who that had been, Mr. Koshino had not had time to discern.

“Well, he was one of our close friends from our school days.”
“Given the commotion at the time—I was so flustered—I can’t say for certain, but I think it was Nomoto, Inoue, or Matsumura… in other words, one of that group who used to gather in your study back then.”
“It could have been Nomoto… or Inoue… though I can’t definitively say it wasn’t Matsumura either… In any case, it must have been one of those three—but I just can’t remember.”

Mr. Koshino had spoken in this manner.

First, he had to begin by identifying his adversary.
If he were to take revenge on the wrong opponent, it would lead to irreparable consequences.
Moreover, even if he managed to identify his adversary, their methods were too cunning for any countermeasures—as Mr. Kitagawa himself had confessed to Mr. Nomoto—for it was a crime utterly devoid of evidence.
It was purely psychological.
In other words, there lay a twofold difficulty.

After days upon days of thinking of nothing else, a brilliant plan suddenly occurred to Mr. Kitagawa.
It was certainly not a matter of resorting to the law.
Nor was it to carry out vigilante justice through violence.
It was a method that would keep the avenger absolutely safe while delivering a blow to the adversary deeper and more devastating than government prisons or the agony of vigilante justice.
But even better, with this method there was no need to go through the trouble of identifying the true culprit.
All he had to do was carry it out against all the suspects.

It was a method that inflicted unbearable agony upon the true criminal yet caused not the slightest discomfort to the others.

The materials were the gold locket Taeko had left behind and a large-format group photograph taken during their student days when members of the same class had gathered.

Mr. Kitagawa first had two more identical gold lockets made.
Once three identical lockets were prepared, he then pasted into each one photographs of Mr. Nomoto, Mr. Inoue, and Mr. Matsumura, cutting out only their faces.

What simple preparations these were. To think that with this, that momentous act of vengeance could be accomplished!

"However, wasn't the opponent's trick far simpler and more natural? In this world, there are times when an extremely trivial cause may bring about an immensely significant consequence. Who can assert that this insignificant medal and faded cut-out photograph do not possess the tremendous power to sway the fate of a person's entire life?"

Whether it be Nomoto, Inoue, or Matsumura—there was no way they could have forgotten about this gold medal. Especially the relief carving of Venus on this lid's surface—all the young men who used to come to my room back then must have been well acquainted with it. When they discussed Taeko among themselves, did they not always use the nickname 'Venus'—inspired by the medal's design—instead of her real name? Now, if someone among them were to discover that their own photograph had been pasted inside this medal—hidden deep within Taeko's small chest—how ecstatically they would rejoice! And at the same time, if that someone happened to be the very man who burned Taeko to death, how agonized his torment would be!"

To tell the truth, among the three men Mr. Koshino had informed him about, Mr. Kitagawa had suspected Mr. Nomoto the most.
But since the other two could not have been indifferent to Taeko either, there had been no choice but to suspect them.
He therefore resolved to first test this medal trick—which Mr. Kitagawa himself believed to be a brilliant scheme—on both Mr. Inoue and Mr. Matsumura, leaving Mr. Nomoto, who bore the heaviest suspicion, for last.

However, without even needing to take out the medal, their innocence became clear.

They listened to Mr. Kitagawa’s bizarre story as if by prior agreement, then exchanged looks of pity.
And,
“You must be a bit unhinged from losing your wife.”
“How could such nonsense be possible? You really must get a hold of yourself.”
“Come now, let’s drop such a dreary topic. Let’s have a drink, shall we?”

In such a manner, they comforted him without ulterior motives.
Their expressions showed not even a shadow of a criminal’s fear.

Mr. Kitagawa was not a little disappointed.

"Is my idea really so tinged with madness? Could it be that this is nothing more than a baseless delusion, just as they say?"

But Nomoto still remained.
Had I not been targeting that bastard from the very beginning?
In any case, I had to see it through to the end.

Thus, he came to visit Mr. Nomoto today.
And it produced an effect more splendid than he had anticipated.
That he rejoiced like a madman was by no means unreasonable.

Mr. Kitagawa walked for over two hours, drenched in sweat.
Suddenly, when he looked at his watch, the summer day was still far from dusk, yet the time had already passed dinner hour.
As if finally regaining his composure, he now set a direction and began walking.

His body, utterly exhausted from the day’s excitement, was jostled by the suburban train, and when he finally reached home, he could no longer muster the will to do anything.
He immediately had a futon laid out and collapsed limply onto it, whereupon before long, pleasant snoring began to escape rhythmically from his throat—he who was utterly satisfied with today’s victory.

The next day, Mr. Kitagawa woke when it was nearly ten o'clock.
The pleasant weariness after deep sleep left him in an especially agreeable mood.
He rose and entered the study still clad in his sleepwear.
There awaited materials for sweet recollection.
Two gold lockets, indistinguishable from the one left in Mr. Nomoto's possession, waited within the drawer of his writing desk.

He took them out and gazed at them as though caressing.

In his initial scheme, he had meant to leave these not merely with Mr. Nomoto but also with Mr. Inoue and Mr. Matsumura.
Should determining the criminal among the three prove difficult, it would have been imperative to leave one medal with each.
It was for this very purpose that he had gone to the expense of commissioning two replicas.

However, as mentioned before, the two besides Mr. Nomoto could be distinguished without even needing to take out the medal.
Mr. Kitagawa had no choice but to bring back both times what he had carefully placed inside his belly band. He was now gazing at these two medals that had been rendered unnecessary.

"That bastard Nomoto probably couldn’t even imagine such a trick existing."
Heh heh heh. How's that?
What a splendid trick this is!
Now then, shall I reveal one of the secrets?
Now behold.
The secret of the trick lies in these two gold medals.
What could possibly be inside this one, do you suppose?
You couldn’t possibly guess, could you?
Well then, I shall tell you.
In this one is a photograph of Mr. Matsumura, and in the other is a photograph of Mr. Inoue.
"Mr. Nomoto’s photograph is no longer here…"

Mr. Kitagawa abruptly ceased his rehearsed-sounding monologue.

He felt his heart slithering up toward his throat.
His face turned as white as a sheet.
His hand, which had been about to open the medal’s lid at any moment, suddenly halted its motion due to an unknowable fear.

And his eyes, unable to bear the terror, stared fixedly at the sky.

"I believed I had attended to every minute detail with meticulous care.
But what is this anxiety about?
Could I have made some monstrous mistake? Right now, you can’t recall that crucial detail at all, can you?
When you went to Nomoto’s house, did you actually take the medal containing his photograph?

Come on, pull yourself together.
If that medal you gave Nomoto had contained Matsumura or Inoue's photo instead - think carefully what that would mean.
Aren't you terrified?
Look how you're trembling.
"So you're saying you've just remembered that irreversible blunder?"

He staggered to his feet.
Then, as though unable to remain still, he began walking toward the room’s entrance.
Just then, at the very moment he was about to leave, the maid entered his study holding a letter.

“Master, there is a message from Mr. Nomoto.”

Something like a hiccup welled up in Mr. Kitagawa’s chest.

A premonition, like a spoiled child, stopped him from reading the letter.
However, he couldn’t keep glaring at the maid like that forever.

As if he had finally resolved himself, he took the letter and opened it.
The elegant handwriting of Mr. Nomoto, written on the rolled letter, pierced Mr. Kitagawa’s eyes as though burning into them.

As he read, a terrible laugh appeared at Mr. Kitagawa’s lips.
The laughter gradually spread across his entire face.

No sooner had he smoothly raised both hands holding the rolled letter than he twisted it around to cover his cheeks.
And then he exploded into laughter.

“Ha ha ha ha…… Heh heh heh heh heh…… Hff hff hff hff……”

He continued laughing as he writhed in agony.
Exactly like the quack doctor from the "Laughing Drug" chapter of *The Morning Glory Diary*, he collapsed in endless laughter.

And so, poor Mr. Kitagawa went mad.
As for what exactly caused his madness, we cannot hastily determine it now.

However, it would not be a mistake to presume that Taeko's unnatural death was the most significant remote cause and Mr. Nomoto's letter the most significant proximate cause.

In that letter from Mr. Nomoto was written the following text.

Omitted text

Regarding my unexpected blunder and discourtesy yesterday, I most humbly beg your forgiveness.

In truth, these past several days have found me engrossed in work through nights rendered sleepless by extreme busyness, and through successive days of sleep deprivation I ultimately committed that lamentable indiscretion. While I dimly retain our conversation, I have wholly forgotten when you might have departed, and finding myself sinking into shameless slumber before your very eyes without restraint, I lack any words of excuse. Though vaguely aware through yesterday’s discourse that you entertain some misgivings regarding your honorable spouse’s demise, common sense would judge such matters as scarcely conceivable. While offering profoundest sympathy for your grief at losing your beloved, should you persist in brooding solely upon this affair, it would prove most deleterious to your health. Though impertinent of me, as an old friend moved by grandmotherly solicitude, I humbly counsel seeking a change of climate and securing ample repose at this time.

First, I most humbly beg your forgiveness for yesterday’s discourtesy among other matters.

P.S. I have enclosed the gold medal you forgot here. While I understand you consider the individual pictured within to be a fearsome murderer, I find it utterly impossible to accept that our mutual acquaintance Mr. Matsumura—with whom you maintain such cordial relations—could possibly be the archvillain you describe.

Inside the envelope, apart from the letter, lay a gold medal wrapped in blank paper.
Why he had made this mistake—the medal contained not Mr. Nomoto’s photograph, but Mr. Matsumura’s.
Whether this letter expressed Mr. Nomoto’s true intentions or whether it demonstrated his cunning exploitation of the medal’s mix-up remained an eternal secret known to none but Mr. Nomoto himself.

And so, what a terrifying twist of fate became the direct catalyst for Mr. Kitagawa’s madness.
It was the effect of what he had habitually termed the "blind spot of the brain."