Pathway to Japanese Literature

The Golden Death

I

Okamura-kun was a friend from my boyhood days.
In early April of the year I turned seven, around the time I began attending an elementary school not far from the house in Shinagawa, Okamura-kun was also brought there by an accompanying maid.
He and I had adjacent seats in the classroom, and we always pushed our small desks tightly together to sit side by side.
Moreover, Okamura-kun and I seemed to resemble each other in many respects.

At that time, my family ran a large sake wholesaling business, and the family business was thriving more each day, piling success upon success; the sight of the shopfront, always brimming with vitality, evoked in my child’s heart a vague yet distinct sense of joy and security. Whether going to school or staying at home, I was never made to wear cotton kimono. Moreover, I excelled tremendously in my studies; whether arithmetic or reading, every subject flowed into my head with remarkable ease. Just as ink adheres to blank paper, everything I heard was imprinted clearly and effortlessly into my mind. I struggled to comprehend why many students found it difficult to memorize things.

Among all the students in the class, there was not a single one who could match the many strengths I possessed.
Only Okamura-kun somewhat resembled or even surpassed me in certain aspects.
Despite being the same age as me, he was a small-statured, refined-looking beautiful boy who appeared one or two years younger.
His family possessed immense wealth; his parents had passed away early on, and he, having no siblings, was raised under his uncle’s supervision.
According to rumors at the time, the Okamura family’s inheritance that he was expected to receive was an astonishingly vast sum—it was said that if one totaled their various stocks, mines, forests, and residential lands, it would amount to about half of what Mitsui or Iwasaki possessed.
Therefore, if one were to compare the extent of my family’s “wealth,” I could not hold a candle to him in the slightest.
I found that sad.

Okamura-kun's clothing was always a vibrant Western outfit, standing in stark contrast to my actor's-child-like shabby kimono. He wore knickerbockers with long socks, soft-looking half-boots, and a naval cap set crisply upon his head. In those days Western attire was considered far more novel than now, so his clothes drew more attention than mine and became an even greater object of envy.

In intellect too, Okamura-kun was by no means inferior to me. Yet unlike me—who excelled equally in all subjects and loved every academic discipline—he could not do so. If anything, he disliked mathematics and favored reading. Even his compositions, which were his strongest suit, did not quite surpass mine. In literary talent, he and I bore matchless reputations while perpetually competing. At every examination without exception, I claimed first place in our entire grade while he took second. Both of us were treated as pariahs by teachers and classmates alike. Consequently, our friendship grew intimate of its own accord; while mutually respecting each other's strengths, we secretly held contempt for the inferior students in our class.

II

For about ten years thereafter, Okamura-kun progressed by following exactly the same pace and academic path as I did.
In the spring of the year we entered fifth-year middle school, I asked him, “Which school will you enter after graduation?”
“The same as you, of course,” he answered boldly without hesitation.
From my first year of middle school onward, I had been declaring that I would graduate from a humanities university and become a great artist.

Okamura-kun’s mathematical ineptitude grew increasingly pronounced from that time onward, his class rank falling far below my top position.
Mathematics itself went without saying—physics, chemistry, every subject requiring mathematical knowledge became objects of his loathing.
Another thing he despised was history.
“What we call history is merely a long line,” he would often say.
His favored subjects were languages first and foremost, followed by mechanical gymnastics, drawing, and singing. By his fourth year, he already appeared to possess English skills at graduation level while immersing himself in assorted novels and philosophical texts.
Having engaged a Western tutor for his household, he soon came to read and speak even German and French.
His throat and tongue seemed peculiarly suited to foreign pronunciation—even the dreary passages from our school readers, when he recited them aloud, took on an inexplicably fluid cadence, as though transforming instantly into gilded script before our ears.
At that time, when Maupassant’s works were being lionized in Japan’s literary circles, while we muddled through relying on clumsy translations, he could already parse original texts with effortless ease.

“You know, Maupassant in French is truly exquisite!”

Having said that, he once read aloud about a page from the beginning of *Sur L’eau*. Even to my ears, which held no knowledge of French, it indeed struck me as some of the most beautiful prose in existence. I thought it only natural that Okamura-kun, who knew such a beautiful national language, had recently come to spurn Japanese literature. Now that I think about it, there can be no doubt that it was through his recitations that my interest in foreign languages and my ability to understand them were first cultivated.

Putting aside languages for the moment, what was strange was his fondness for mechanical gymnastics. Baseball, tennis, rowing, judo... He tried his hand at most standard sports, but what he excelled at most was mechanical gymnastics. At the school playground, if he wasn’t reading a book, he would invariably be entwining his supple body around the horizontal bar or parallel bars to amuse himself. His body, which had been small in childhood, developed rapidly from the age of thirteen or fourteen, transforming him into a tall youth with sturdy muscles and an elegant yet robust physique. His hair was as black as if he were wearing a wig, and his skin was always pure white, as though it knew nothing of sunburn. His slender, sturdy limbs suggested at first glance that they were well-suited for agile movement. Even after returning from school, he would often come to the mechanical gymnastics gymnasium set up in his own home’s backyard and, while amusing himself alone for one or two hours doing handstands and somersaults, showed almost no sign of weariness.

III

At first, I secretly held great contempt for his obsession with gymnastics.
For me—who had single-mindedly convinced myself there could be no pleasure beyond art—his pastime, akin to acrobatic training, naturally seemed meaningless.
When I saw him practicing with such absorption that he paid no heed to his surroundings,

“You’ll never become an artist.”

A feeling of resentment arose within me, making me want to admonish him thus.

One autumn evening shortly after school ended, I visited his residence as usual intending to engage in literary debate, but finding him mid-practice, he had me guided straight to the gymnasium.

“Hey there—you ought to get a bit of exercise yourself.”

With the bright blue sky at his back, he sat astride the horizontal bar and called out in a loud, cheerful voice.
I—accustomed to seeing him in school uniform (it seemed Okamura-kun wore his uniform even at home most of the time)—found his figure, clad in a form-fitting gaudy navy-blue tracksuit that left him nearly half-naked, strangely beautiful and alluring.

“If you don’t want to, you can just watch from there.”
“If I don’t do it until I break a sweat, I feel uneasy, you see.”

Having said this, Okamura-kun then proceeded to perform all sorts of feats for about twenty minutes without pause.

As I silently watched on, I found myself gradually drawn in until finally I came to envy his ingenious techniques and nimble movements.
The phrase "like a bird in flight" must have been coined precisely to describe Okamura-kun’s swift techniques...The sheer speed with which he would nimbly leap from the ground to the horizontal bar and, in an instant, invert himself like a bat to dangle upside-down with both legs thrust skyward was truly worthy of astonishment. His limbs would stretch into empty space with the tremendous force of a stone slingshot’s rubber band only to immediately rebound and coil around the bar like a spinning potter’s wheel.
Each time, it was rather the horizontal bar that was struck—thud after thud—by his whip-like body as if enduring blows.
After finishing with the horizontal bar, he would next leap down headfirst from the top of a staircase or use a bamboo pole over ten feet long as a vaulting staff to spring higher than the garden pine trees’ uppermost branches...The splendor of that jumping defied belief—no one witnessing it could think it humanly possible.

“Thank you for your patience! Now I finally feel splendid.”

Having said this, Okamura-kun, who had lingered by my side, had innumerable particles of silver sand clinging to his fine-textured white calves as though he were wearing thin socks.

That evening, he cornered me and expounded at length on the relationship between art and physical education.
Those who have truly grasped the essence of the Greek spirit—the very source of European art—cannot help but recognize the paramount importance of physical education.
He declared that all literature and all art begin entirely from the physical beauty of the human body.
“A nation that neglects the body will ultimately be incapable of producing great art.” From such a viewpoint, he had named his mechanical gymnastics “Greek training.”
He even declared that as long as one did not undergo this training, no genius could ever qualify as a true artist.
I found his argument somewhat reasonable and realized that my contempt for physical education had been a prejudiced view; however, I could not bring myself to fully endorse his theory of the body’s supremacy.
Rather, I thought his words verged on eccentricity.

“Thought takes precedence over the body.”
“Without great thought, great art cannot be born.”

I remember saying such things and opposing Okamura-kun.

IV

In such circumstances, as the years gradually passed, Okamura-kun and I—though sharing the same artistic aspirations—began to lean toward being unable to walk the same path. However, as long as we two were not one and the same person, such an outcome might indeed have been natural—yet sadly, these changes extended not only to our ideologies but eventually even to our circumstances.

My family’s business had already fallen into decline for two or three years, and what little movable and immovable property we had was passing one after another into others’ hands, making it utterly impossible to maintain the shop as it was.
However, about six months before I graduated from middle school, my father suddenly passed away.
As the eldest son of the Shimada family, I found myself burdened with a mother and three younger siblings, agonizing over how to support the household henceforth.
When I sorted through the various debts my father had left behind, the inheritance that remained in our hands as mother and child was nothing but stock certificates amounting to barely two thousand yen.
In the end, I was urged by relatives to abandon my aspirations and pursue engineering, medicine, or at least enter law school, but I flatly refused.
“I am determined to pursue literature no matter what. Even if I can’t live in luxury as I once did, I am determined to make my name as an artist, for I will never allow my family to suffer want.”
Having said this, I indeed strengthened my resolve all the more.

While my family had fallen into such dire straits, Okamura-kun’s wealth remained unshaken by poverty.
His assets were far too vast to be destroyed by a single ordinary blow.
Once he reached the age permitted by law, he often told me of his desire to free himself from his uncle’s oversight as soon as possible and gain full control over his entire fortune.
“I am the only son of a wealthy family.”
“I am the complete owner of vast assets, a robust physique, an elegant countenance, and a young age.”—This self-awareness had already taken full root within his heart.
Before I knew it, he became terribly arrogant, dapper, and self-indulgent.
Despite being a middle school student, he would part his hair, carry a gold watch, smoke cigars, and even go so far as to wear a diamond ring to show off.
When it came to Okamura in his fifth year, he had become the most detested student in the school—known to everyone. The students hated him; the teachers hated him; not even friends would approach him—only I remained close.
But even I, on occasion, was subjected to speech and actions that provoked my anger.

“I am indeed a fortunate person.”
“In many ways, there can’t be many as fortunate as I am in their circumstances…The only dissatisfaction is that while my family has wealth, we lack an aristocratic title.”
“If I were the son of an aristocrat, then I would truly be happy.”

On one occasion, he voiced such complaints and let out a sigh.
Until then, I had never attributed malicious intent to his stylish affectations and extravagance.
I had judged that Okamura-kun's lavishness stemmed not from vulgar motives but from his artistic temperament that revered "beauty."
"Wealth does not necessarily accompany beauty,
but beauty must always borrow wealth's power"—holding such beliefs, I felt envy toward Okamura-kun's fortune yet harbored no resentment.
I had considered that his boasting of wealth was precisely his way of boasting about beauty.
But when he came to desire worldly titles like nobility, I found it wholly unexpected.
Hearing these words, I felt I had misjudged Okamura-kun as a person.
"Until today, I had overestimated Okamura.
I had been deceived," I murmured under my breath.

And with that, I intended to subtly prompt him to reflect,

“Having money is certainly fortunate, but sometimes it leads instead to misfortune.”
“Wealth corrupts the human soul without one even realizing it.”

I said.

“There’s no need for such worries.”
“The wealthy only grow corrupt when they engage in business to increase their fortunes.”
“Those with money need only enjoy themselves without working to remain forever happy.”

Having answered thus, he appeared utterly unconcerned.

V

In the summer of the year I graduated from middle school, I managed to enter Tokyo’s First Higher School. However, as Okamura-kun struggled with mathematics, he ultimately failed the entrance examination. Granted, he might have been admitted to a provincial high school, but declaring he loathed to leave Tokyo even an inch, he resigned himself to staying back.

“There’s no need to rush—I’ll take the exam again next year,” he said. “This year I’ll throw myself into studying mathematics as though dead to the world.”

He said this without appearing particularly discouraged and thereafter seemed to practice geometry and algebra for two or three hours each day.

“Someone like you ought to go study abroad in the West.”
When I offered such advice, he would say: “Oh, I’d love nothing more than to go—truly I would—but my uncle absolutely refuses to allow it.”
“As long as uncle is alive, it’s probably hopeless.”

he would say.

Given that even under strict middle school regulations, Okamura-kun engaged in extraordinary extravagance, his appearance and demeanor during the year he severed ties with school life reached the pinnacle of splendor, undergoing a remarkable transformation.
He, who until now had not particularly favored kimono, suddenly had many flashy striped haori jackets and kimonos made and began to wear them in turn as he went about.

“The clothing of modern Japanese men is altogether too plain.”
“Westerners of course—and whether Chinese or Indian—their men’s garments overflow with vivid colors and curves, suitable for both Japanese paintings and oils. But Japanese men’s clothing can’t be rendered into any art form whatsoever.”
“If one must wear such unartistic rags, remaining naked would be far more beautiful.”
“Even in Japan during the early Tokugawa period, flamboyant styles were so popular there was scarcely distinction between men’s and women’s robes.”
“This modern delight in striped cottons and disdain for Yūki silk merely inherits Bakumatsu-era merchants’ conservative tastes.”
“Modern Japanese must return to the dashing opulence of Keichō-Genroku fashions.”—Advocating this view while avoiding excess, Okamura-kun had countless feminine-patterned fabrics tailored into garments that he swaggered about wearing.
Sometimes he’d stride in a black crested silk crepe kamishimo over stone-patterned padded kimono, iron-soled geta clacking deliberately; other times he’d cinch a white Hakata obi around coarse yellow Hachijō robes. On these outings he always went hatless, his lacquer-black sideburns streaming in the wind as he swayed his six-foot frame with such regal bearing—neither vulgar nor absurd—that pedestrians whirled to stare in wonder.
During that period he visited a beautician five or six times monthly, obsessing over cosmetics. Whenever venturing out, he’d dust his face with white powder and tint his lips faintly rouge. Yet his natural handsomeness was such that none detected this artifice.

“I believe my figure becomes a painting at any given moment.”

Thus he boasted arrogantly.
That he could wear such attire without it seeming the least bit outlandish was entirely due to Okamura-kun’s innate dignity—a feat others could scarcely hope to achieve—and I secretly found myself in admiration.
Not to mention, it was only natural that the geishas of Shinbashi, Yanagibashi, and Akasaka—where Okamura-kun would go to revel—fervently worshipped him.

“If you continue living like this, you’d grow to despise returning to school.”

When I said this and asked him, he shook his hat vigorously,

“Not at all—that’s not true.”
“I could never despise the value of learning.”
“You still don’t truly understand my nature, I suppose.”

he answered.
Even so, I secretly doubted him—but when in the world had he studied mathematics?—for by the following summer, he had splendidly gained admission to First Higher School with top honors.
I found myself increasingly admiring him.

VI

At least in academic matters, I always felt I must not lose to Okamura-kun. Moreover, spurred by being an impoverished student, I continued studying with such self-abandoned devotion that I fell into severe neurasthenia. My cheeks grew gaunt, my complexion pallid, until I became a figure of pitiful, desolate wretchedness. Believing that to become a great artist one must first thoroughly study philosophy, with my faltering grasp of German I devoted myself to voraciously reading Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. As a result of straining over the minuscule print in Yasumoto’s Reclam editions, I soon developed severe nearsightedness.

“Reading books is important, but having perfect vision is even more essential,” declared Okamura-kun, who never deigned to read texts with small print. He opened his copy of Laocoön—the German text he studied under his school’s language instructor—to page fourteen and thrust it toward me as he continued:

“Speaking of eyes—this Lessing fellow strikes me as thoroughly disagreeable. Look here—this passage: ‘Aber müsste...’ and so on. He praises Milton’s blindness, arguing that if physical eyes constrain the mind’s eye, we’d be better off without them! What preposterous logic! A mind’s eye without physical eyes? Utterly worthless in art! To be an artist demands perfect sensuality above all else—this proves Lessing fundamentally misunderstands art’s nature.”

“So you don’t consider Milton great, then?”

"I don't think so."
"Though Homer may be an exception, there seems reasonable doubt whether he was actually blind."

Okamura-kun's denunciation of Lessing grew ferocious; he would flip through pages of Laocoön and tear its arguments apart until not a shred remained intact.

“...From here onward, it’s written like this: ―――‘Achilles, enraged and without a word in reply, strikes him so brutally between cheek and ear that teeth, blood, and soul all plunge from his throat at once. Too cruel! The wrathful murderous Achilles becomes more hateful to me than the snarling treacherous Thersites; ……………………………………………………………for I feel that Thersites too is my kin, a human being.’ ―――This is Lessing’s commentary on the scene where Thersites is slain by Achilles. But the sight of his face shattered to smithereens between ear and cheek—teeth bursting from the wound, blood gushing forth—is so gruesome that any sense of humor one might have felt toward Thersites up to now utterly vanishes.” “Rather, it is Achilles—who dared to commit such a cruel murder—that becomes hateful.” “The argument is that even if Thersites is hideous in appearance, since he is human like us, one cannot help but feel compassion.” “But in my view, a comical character should remain comical through and through—the more grotesque their manner of death, the more fascinating it becomes, don’t you think?” “When you imagine Thersites’ face—already absurd in life—completely smashed to bits, writhing drenched in blood, doesn’t it actually strike you as comical?” “While criticizing literature yet being dominated by moral sentiments—to say things like ‘Achilles is hateful’—is foolish talk.”

“Your argument seems rather morbid.”
“If such a cruel depiction were not in poetry but painted as a picture—just imagine that.”
“Do you still find such a painting comical?”

When I posed this counter-question, he grew even more pleased and pressed forward with his argument.

VII

“Even if you don’t feel the comical, you’re undoubtedly struck by a certain kind of pleasure.”
“If anything, rendering it as a painting would make it more interesting.”
“The very notion of categorizing artistic pleasure into sorrowful, comical, or joyful types is fundamentally flawed.”
“After all, this world contains no such things as pure sorrow, pure comedy, or even pure joy.”

“I agree on that point—but do you not acknowledge that there exists a boundary between poetry’s realm and painting’s realm as Lessing described?”

“I don’t acknowledge it at all.”
“I am thoroughly opposed to Laocoön’s thesis.”
“That’s a bit too extreme.”

“Now listen well.—I believe that unless beauty can be apprehended by the eye at a single glance—that is, unless it exists spatially as beauty of color or form—it holds no worth to be rendered in painting or prose.”
“Of these, the most beautiful is the human body.”
“Thought, no matter how splendid, is not something perceived through sight.”
“Therefore, there can be no such thing as beauty in thought.”
“So then, if that’s the case, there’s no need for an artist to study philosophy, is there?”

“Of course—beauty isn’t something to think about.”
“It must be felt instantly at a glance—a supremely simple process.”
“And the simpler that process becomes, the more intensely beauty’s effect should strike us.”
“You’ve read Pater’s *The Renaissance*, haven’t you?”
“I recall his book stating that among all arts, music stands as the most artistic.”
“Meaning there’s nothing as direct and unmediated as music’s pleasure—no procedural barriers whatsoever.”
“However exquisite a poem or painting may be, none exists without some trace of meaning.”
“Whereas sounds from pianos or violins—all instrumental tones—utterly lack meaning.”
“Sound cannot be contemplated.”
“It can only register as beauty.”
“That’s precisely why nothing aligns with art’s true purpose like music does.”

“If that’s the case, why don’t you become a musician?”

“However, unfortunately, my ears haven’t evolved as my eyes have—I cannot strongly perceive the sense of beauty conveyed through sound.”
“Music excels at evoking beauty through form, but its very substance feels rather insubstantial to me.”
“Therefore, my ideal art must lie in rendering visual beauty through methods as purely musical as possible.”

“Do you really intend to achieve something so difficult?”

“Even if I can’t achieve it, I intend to make the effort.”
“So we return to attacking Lessing again, but what could be called the main point of *Laocoön* ultimately comes down to the following two articles that delimit the scope of poetry and painting.”
“It states: ‘Since painting takes as its composition the coexistent state of things, it can capture only a single instant of an action.’”
“Therefore, one must select the most pregnant moment sufficient to suggest the sequence of events before and after.’ It states: ‘Similarly, since poetry describes things in their progressive state, it can capture only a single characteristic of a form.”
“Therefore, one must select the characteristic that can most clearly evoke the image of the entire form from a single aspect.’ —That’s roughly what it means.”
“Starting with the very first definition, I find numerous points of disagreement.”
“It is true that painting depicts the coexistent state of things.”
“But where is the logic in claiming one must select a pregnant moment sufficient to make viewers grasp the sequence of events?”
“The interest of painting does not lie in the incident or novel provided as its subject matter.”
“For example, suppose there’s a sculpture among Rodin’s works depicting a human holding the corpse of another human, titled *The Death of Sappho*—you see?”
“Now then, must one absolutely know Sappho’s biography to appreciate the beauty from that work?”
“Must one understand the sequence of events before and after that moment…?”

VIII

“………I find that reasoning rather absurd.”
“The beauty of paintings and sculptures should be intuited instantaneously in the viewer’s mind solely through the effect of the colors or forms depicted there—nothing more.”
“Therefore, if Rodin’s *The Death of Sappho* is beautiful, it is because the two human bodies depicted in that sculpture are beautiful.”
“It has absolutely nothing to do with Sappho’s history.”

“But if you know the history, wouldn’t that make you feel even more interested?”

“But that would be historical interest—it couldn’t be called artistic interest.”
“Since such interest isn’t something art should demand, it makes no difference whether one feels it or not.”
“Therefore, if there is a moment a painter should choose, it is solely to capture the posture of a certain body at the instant it reaches the pinnacle of supreme and most intense beauty.”
“Yet Lessing also severely restricts what he calls the ‘pregnant moment’ that painters ought to capture.—‘When Laocoon sighs, the imagination can hear him scream; but when he screams, it can neither rise a step higher from this representation nor descend a step lower without seeing him in a more tolerable, and therefore more indifferent, state. It hears him either groan first or sees him already dead.’—When one looks at the Greek sculpture of Laocoön, he is merely sighing while entwined by serpents.”
Its expression was sorrowful yet calm.
Never once did it contort its face or utter a cry of agony.
Yet when confronted with that sculpture, one could fully imagine his desperate agony.
In contrast, had Laocoön let out a fierce scream and displayed an expression of extreme agony, his sculpture would have lost all its lingering resonance.
The viewer’s imagination could not take a single step beyond the sculpture.
They could only hear Laocoön’s groans and were shown him already on the verge of death.
“In this way, that which avoids all intense stimuli and presents a moment allowing room for imagination is what Lessing called the ‘pregnant moment.’”
“If we follow this logic, scenes of human death would end up being something rarely depicted in painting or sculpture.”
“As I said before, there’s absolutely no need to understand the surrounding circumstances to savor beauty.”
“Whether Laocoön is lamenting, screaming, or even groaning covered in blood—as long as the beauty of the body in that moment is fully expressed, that’s more than enough.”

“Then wouldn’t imagination become entirely unnecessary for appreciating art?”

“Precisely—I utterly detest vexing things like imagination.”
“Unless it’s something clearly manifested before me—a beauty I can see with my eyes, touch with my hands, or hear with my ears—I simply cannot accept it.”
“I won’t be satisfied unless I experience an intense beauty—one that leaves no room for imagination, like being struck by arc lamp light.”

“Such arguments may apply to plastic arts, but isn’t applying them to things like poetry or novels entirely impossible?”

“It may be extremely difficult to apply, but I don’t think it’s entirely impossible.”
“Originally, had I been a bit more dexterous, I would have become a painter or sculptor instead of engaging in literature.”
“But since I possess only the talent for crafting prose, there’s nothing to be done about it.”
“Anyway, I want to try handling—through prose in some form—the same beauty that painting and sculpture express.”
“What exactly will result from this, I myself cannot yet say clearly—but let me state plainly that principles like Lessing’s ‘poetry describes things in their progressive state’ or ‘captures only a single part of a form’ hold no place in my view.”

Okamura-kun’s argument had taken on a somewhat desperate tone by the end.
“What practical use does all that abstract theorizing even have?”
“If you can write it, then go ahead and write it.”
With this thought, I sneered inwardly.

IX

For about two years, I immersed myself wholeheartedly in reading, but starting precisely in the year I became a third-year high school student, I gradually began writing poetry and novels, contributing to various literary magazines.
My name soon came to be recognized by literary circles and was marked as one of the most promising among emerging writers.
How happy that must have made me then.
I imagined that before long, my name would become one to adorn the pages of Meiji literary history alongside Kōyō, Ichiyō, and Shiki.
I became thoroughly emboldened and, as inspiration surged within me, indiscriminately attempted a great many creative works.
In truth, thoughts gushed forth so incessantly that I could not help but take up my brush; it never once occurred to me that no matter how much I wrote, they might ever run dry.

“At long last I had defeated Okamura.”

I could not help but feel this.

The state of Okamura-kun being utterly adrift—unable to determine what attitude he should adopt toward art—was clear even to an outside observer. While he talked grandly with mere words, he had not once put any of it into practice. That said… there was no sign he was studying serious literary works either—to say nothing of his detestable philosophy. The only things he occasionally read were French poems and novels, or at best books on art—and even then, he seemed to have only a superficial grasp of painting and sculpture, covering everything from the West to Indochina and Japan. He would often agonize, saying, “It’s profoundly regrettable that I can’t become a painter.”

“Who among the painters of old do you like the most?”

Once, when I said this,

“In Japan, Toyokuni; in the West, Lautrec,” he answered.

Given his fondness for Lautrec, he loved Chariné.

“Japanese acrobatics are uninteresting because their physiques are underdeveloped, but Westerners’ Chariné is more artistic than theater.”
“I want to create art that feels like Chariné,” he was always saying.

As days passed, Okamura-kun’s words and actions grew increasingly eccentric, and he would say things that made it hard to tell whether he was serious or joking.

“The most base form of art is the novel.”
“Poetry comes next.”
“Painting is nobler than poetry; sculpture is nobler than painting; theater is nobler than sculpture.”
“And the most noble artwork is indeed the human body itself.”
“Art must first begin with making one’s own body beautiful.”

There were even times when he wrote such phrases in the margins of a notebook and showed them.
Okamura-kun was putting his opinions into practice only in this matter of “beautifying his own body,” and he still had not abandoned his habits of mechanical gymnastics and light makeup.

“Chariné is music performed in concert through the living human body.”
“Therefore, it is the supreme and highest form of art.”

There were also such lines written.

“If architecture and clothing are considered art forms, why can cuisine not be called such? Why is the pleasure of taste not deemed artistic? I remain confounded by this.”

There were also things like this.
"I retorted, 'Your raising such questions stems from ignorance of aesthetics,' but he paid no heed, saying, 'What use is aesthetics?'"

"In the human body, male beauty is inferior to female beauty. What is called male beauty largely consists of imitations of female beauty. The so-called androgynous beauty seen in Greek sculpture is in fact nothing more than males possessing female beauty."

"Art is the manifestation of sexual desire. Artistic pleasure constitutes a type of physiological or sensual pleasure. Therefore, art is not spiritual but entirely a matter of tangible sensation. Painting, sculpture, and music of course—even architecture does not escape this scope."

"The Greeks counted a large physique as one element of physical beauty."
"Superior arts all possess great mass and volume."

In addition, there were various other aphorisms written that allowed one to glimpse his pathological view of art.

Like the rising sun, my fame began to soar through literary circles, yet Okamura-kun showed not the slightest envy or resentment.
However, from his artistic standpoint, he clearly believed my efforts were utterly meaningless and took no pleasure in them.
While I despised him on one level, I simultaneously feared his very existence.
Whenever I saw his face, I felt my current work had become terribly unstable—even blindly so.
"He may accomplish nothing in his lifetime."
"And yet he remains a genius."
This was how I found myself compelled to think.

While I labored unceasingly, Okamura-kun continued his revelries without respite.
His initial declaration of “respect for scholarship” had been abandoned before long; his extravagance and debauchery grew more intense by the day, and he rarely attended school anymore.
His features, physique, and attire became ever more resplendent and lustrous, radiating a brilliance that seemed to forbid approach.
Though I meant to speak, time and again I found myself struck dumb by that beauty.
Many women shed tears for him and sought to cast away their lives.
Soon they seemed to include women from nearly every station.
Not only restaurants and geisha houses—as a matter of course—but through his family’s standing he gained entry even into soirées and garden parties of every sort.

“Ah, I want to go to the West.”
“I want to go to the West.”
“Not having been born as a Westerner with a splendid physique is my greatest misfortune.”

Around that time, his passion for Western things had grown so intense that he kept saying things like “I hate anything Japanese.”
It seemed there were some complicated circumstances, for his uncle absolutely would not permit Okamura-kun’s trip abroad.

While he immersed himself in ceaseless day-and-night revelry, his robust physique showed no decline whatsoever. However, he did not care for drinking alcohol or smoking. “If I drink alcohol or smoke tobacco, my senses become numb, and I cannot fully savor pleasure,” he declared. “If you don’t maintain perfect health, you’re unqualified to experience intense stimulation. Instead of making people drunk, alcohol induces an extremely melancholy mood once the intoxication wears off. I detest melancholy—I always want to maintain a clear, cheerful state of mind.” Perhaps because of this resolve, he perpetually bore a radiantly healthy complexion and eyes that sparkled with undimmed vivacity and joy.

While he was occupied with such things, Okamura-kun failed his grade-level exams twice in total. Even when I became a second-year university student, he still had to linger in high school. His failing stemmed not from poor exam performance but entirely from habitual absenteeism from the start. At times he would vanish for half a month or even a full month—absent not just from school but even his own mansion—to the point where his classmates scarcely acknowledged his presence. Then, from the autumn of my third university year, he stopped showing up altogether. I heard rumors like “He must’ve withdrawn” or “He must’ve been expelled.”

I should clarify that even then, my reputation in the literary world was already beginning to wane, and with each piece I wrote, I was subjected to every manner of cruel slander and abuse from critics.
Moreover, my father’s inheritance, which had been depleted by my tuition and our family’s living expenses, was already showing signs of running dry, so whether I liked it or not, I found myself having to earn manuscript fees.
The ideas I had believed would never easily deplete had here abruptly reached an impasse.
Must I endure such pain for a lifetime and continue writing these utterly foolish “stories” for the sake of survival?
When I thought this, I was struck by a desolate thought—that there was no one who led a more unartistic, meaningless existence than artists.

In times of desolation, it was Okamura-kun I found myself remembering.
Because we hadn’t met for so long, one day I suddenly decided to visit his mansion.
He happened to be at home and, while gazing at me seated in the reception room chair,

“During the time we haven’t met, you’ve become quite thin,”

he said.
I compared the two faces reflected in the room’s mirror and felt ashamed of my own dejected, solitary appearance.
Then he suddenly lit up with that familiar gleeful look in his eyes,

“You see, I’ve now freed myself from my uncle’s control and can use my wealth as I please.”
“From this point onward, I shall create my own distinctive art—do watch closely.”

“So you mean to write that poem we discussed before?”

“Neither poetry nor painting nor sculpture.”
“Something far more immediate—and grander in scale—than those tedious things.”
“I shall construct a splendid artistic paradise around myself.”
“An entirely new form of art shall I create.”
“Now simply watch in silence.”

With these words, he laughed.

Eleven

From the spring of his twenty-seventh year, Okamura-kun began creating his own distinctive art that he had long been planning.
He first ascertained the full sum of his vast personal fortune and declared his intention to stake every last coin of it on funding this artistic endeavor.

In a basin slightly off the mountain path veering left from Sengokuhara to Otome Pass—near the summit of Sagami Province's Hakone Mountain, dozens of miles west of Tokyo—he purchased roughly 20,000 tsubo of picturesque land facing Lake Ashi, then abruptly launched a massive construction project. Filling rice fields, leveling farmland, clearing forests, digging ponds, constructing fountains, building hills—employing hundreds of laborers daily—he began striving to create his own designed paradise of art. First, he diverted the lake's crystalline waters deep into his estate, forming a vast inlet between emerald hills dripping with verdure where sailboats, gondolas, dragon- and ibis-headed vessels floated like a fleet in some exquisite harbor. The inlet's waters branched further—here becoming ribbon-like streams meandering through expansive gardens, there transforming into torrents gnawing at jagged rocks through crevices of grotesque crags, elsewhere manifesting as towering waterfalls cascading down cliffs amid plumes of mist. Along stream banks grew narcissus, kerria, irises, bellflowers and maidenflowers in endless seasonal rotation; on sun-drenched southern slopes stood peach groves where cattle, sheep, peacocks and ostriches roamed freely. Upon this landscape of myriad forms rose buildings synthesizing architectural essences across eras—a Chinese pavilion evoking *The Dwelling of Playful Goddesses* atop a Southern School-style crag; Greek columns encircling a fountain in riotous gardens; a Fujiwara-era fishing pavilion cantilevered over lake waters; Roman baths billowing jewel-like springs deep within windbreak forests. Beyond these stood seasonal residences—spring dwellings on eastern plateaus with panoramic views modeled after the Parthenon; summer villas in breeze-cooled coves echoing Phoenix Hall; autumn retreats overlooking crimson ravines styled after Alhambra; winter sanctuaries nestled in warm valleys resembling Vatican palaces—their vermilion walls and white plaster glowing at dawn, rounded pillars and tiled roofs ablaze at dusk, materializing the ancient verse: *When Shu's mountains were stripped bare rose Epang Palace*. Scattered throughout these grounds stood countless sculptures—replicas spanning Buddhist deities to beasts—most strikingly Ming Tomb-inspired elephants and tigers flanking the entrance path alongside Rodin's *Eternal Idol* on the central lawn. Uncannily, the idol's male face precisely mirrored Okamura-kun's features by deliberate design. Having long idolized Rodin, he had amassed nearly all the sculptor's major works.

The construction was completed two years after that, but his so-called “creation” was not limited to this alone.

“All the work up to now has been nothing but preparation for creating my art.”
“So to speak, it’s akin to the stage props of a play.”
“From now on is when the true work begins.”

he said.

“That may indeed be the case.”
“No matter how much money you lavish on splendid construction, if all you’ve done is imitate others’ art, it can’t become your own creation.”

When I said this, he—wearing his usual arrogant faint smile—
“Once it’s completely finished, I’ll notify you immediately, so save your criticism until then.”
“I’ll now seclude myself for about six months to create without meeting anyone. Please wait until then.”

And so Okamura-kun once again disappeared from view.
He would be in Tokyo one day, return to Hakone the next, go to Kansai another time, rush to northern regions, and even make business trips as far as Korea, China, and India—appearing to travel everywhere like some busy merchant.
What sort of creation he was attempting during this time, I had absolutely no idea.

Twelve

“The creation into which I wielded my life’s strength has finally been completed.”
“I am struck and entranced by the beauty of the art I myself have created.”
“This—this is indeed the ideal art I have envisioned in my mind for many years, I believe.”
“To be honest, I don’t really want to show the art I’ve created to others.”
“I want to savor it alone.”
“However, since you understand my ideas well and we once made a promise, I want you by all means to come view it—on the condition that you keep it a secret.”
“If it suits your convenience, please do stay in Hakone for a week or even ten days.”

In the spring of the following year, when the construction was completed, I finally received this notification and, though half-doubting, resolved to visit him regardless.

It was a splendid day in mid-April when the sky, thick with haze, cleared to a deep azure.

I left Tokyo early in the morning and by around two o'clock that afternoon had climbed four ri up the mountain road from Yumoto, arriving at one end of a plateau from which the stately gate of his estate could be seen in the distance. Though I had often visited Hakone for leisure before and considered myself relatively familiar with this area's topography, I now perceived how completely the mountains' visage and waters' forms had transformed since his grand estate took root here. I found myself unable to resist recalling the tales of Urashima Taro and Rip Van Winkle.

When I passed through the gate, Okamura-kun was already there waiting.
He was draped in a loose white Roman-era robe, wearing straw sandals on his feet, and crouching drowsily beneath the familiar elephant statue as the warm western sunlight bathed him.

“I was watching you approach from afar,” he said. “Leaning against that pillar over there―――”

He pointed to the corridor of a white-plastered Western-style mansion nestled in a distant mountain recess.

The mystically serene grounds lay hushed even at midday, with no human figures visible beyond Okamura-kun, myself, and the uncanny sculptures. After a moment, he blew the whistle in his hand, summoning a delicate bell chime from nowhere. A single ostrich came trotting up, pulling a petite cart exquisitely adorned with floral bouquets. Okamura-kun ushered me into the vehicle before taking up the whip himself, driving us deeper along the level path.

Sweet, sharp, fragrant—the scents of various flowers assailed my sense of smell.
As the cart jolted and swayed with each rotation of its wheels, clusters of butterflies swarmed ceaselessly around us, drawn to bouquets shimmering like jade ornaments, while bush warblers’ shrill cries pierced my ears at intervals.
When the path neared the inlet’s shore, we abandoned the cart and transferred to a small boat, rowing toward the shadow of the opposite cliff as oars cut through mirror-still water.

As we rounded the corner of the cliff, there lay the expansive center of the inlet where undulating mountains, fields, and pavilions along the shore could be seen in a single sweeping view. Lake Ashi stretching beyond the inlet in boundless expanse lay veiled in the gauzy shroud of evening mist. When gazing around, the mountains—Komagatake, Kanmurigatake, and Myojingatake—encircled this solemn heavenly realm like a folding screen framing its outer bounds. Suddenly from the bow of the boat, I noticed a bronze statue of a centaur standing on the grassy shore about a short distance away—nearly ten feet tall—glaring at the sky with a goddess mounted on its back. The boat tied its mooring rope precisely at the feet of that beast.

The lawn’s expanse measured roughly three hundred *tsubo*, with one side bounded by water, another bordered by a rounded hill resembling Mount Wakakusa in shape, and the other two sides enclosed by dense poplar groves. At the central elevated spot stood a hexagonal pavilion akin to a music hall. There, an astonishing multitude of human statues—some gazing skyward, others prostrate on the ground, leaning against pillars or seated upon stones—displayed such vivid bodily force in their myriad poses that one might fear they would spring to motion all at once were we to approach.

“When you see so many sculptures gathered like this, it gives you a kind of overwhelming feeling—don’t you think?”

I looked back at Okamura-kun and said.
Then he nodded emphatically—as though I had grasped his meaning—

“You must feel it too… These sculptures are all copies of ancient masterpieces—yet gathered thus—they manifest an entirely novel effect.”
“I labored profoundly on their arrangement—but only when exposed here—to sun and rain—can their sculptural majesty reveal its full corporeal grandeur.”
“Look closely now—don’t they resemble dolls? You might leap forth—seize their shoulders—shake them alive.”
“Strange—isn’t it? These nude forms drenched in sunset—yet voiceless… When totality overwhelms—why dissect particulars? Still—observe their mimicry’s craft.”

A few feet ahead of where we two were walking, the figure of Michelangelo’s *Bound Slave* writhed almost nose-to-nose with me as though begging for mercy.

Thirteen

“This is the Greek-era *Apollo of Piombino* at the Louvre.”
“This is the *Apollo of Pompeii* in Naples.”
“This is Polykleitos’s *Doryphoros*.”

Okamura-kun walked while earnestly explaining each piece.
What struck me as most unnerving was the crowd of figures rampaging across the hexagonal hall’s roof, corridors, and stone steps—their arrangement so haphazardly scattered they might have been corpses carelessly discarded.
Many were Rodin’s works displaying his most provocative poses and expressions. Upon the roof tiles lay *The Man with the Broken Nose*, *The Head of a Woman*, *The Weeping Face*, *The Agony*, and five or six bronze human faces tumbled about like severed heads.
The ghastly form of *Count Ugolino*—driven by starvation to devour his own children—crouched at the staircase’s base like a caged tiger.
“Victor Hugo” leaned against the railing with one elbow extended when suddenly behind him “Satyr and Nymph” began frolicking, while beside them the man of “Despair” lay curled clutching his legs, and the couple of “Spring” embraced in a kiss.

However, as I had mentioned before, these were by no means Okamura-kun's true creations.
Just as Dante was guided by Virgil past the first gate—the lawn—I was shown truly admirable replicas of various architectures and murals.
I was also led through a forest of riotously blooming flowers akin to those in Jakuchū's *Flowers and Birds* paintings, arriving near a paradise where peacocks and parrots wandered freely.
Yet regarding how supremely magnificent these compositions were, I believe I shall largely entrust that to the reader's imagination and refrain from attempting detailed description.

We emerged at the edge of an ancient pond after making our way through the deep, deep forest as the setting sun began sinking behind the mountains.
The trunks of ancient trees—thick with age—bore ivy and kudzu leaves clinging like coarse hemp cloth; branches twisted in obstinate disarray, jaggedly blocking our path ahead, while damp ground overrun by wildly proliferating weeds and shrubs lay blanketed beneath them. In the depths of primeval stillness, spring water clear as lapis lazuli lay stagnant within the pond.
Then from somewhere came the faint trickling sound of dripping water.

“Go and see where that sound is coming from.”

Being told this by Okamura-kun, I parted through the brambles, using the water’s murmur as my guide, and descended to the spring’s edge.
When I wandered along the shore and gazed across to the opposite side, I discerned there a standing statue of a beautiful woman imbued with ineffable divinity.
Against a cliff wall some ten feet high—swathed in verdant foliage and hollowed like a grotto—the beauty stood rigidly upright, her back pressed flush against the stone while cradling a jug upon her left shoulder with both hands.
A ceaseless trickle fell from within it onto the water’s surface.
Her form cast upon the spring’s face a shadow without slightest discrepancy; the two shapes joined seamlessly at their soles—one above, one below.

“That is a reproduction of Ingres’s *The Spring*.”

Before Okamura-kun’s voice had finished speaking, the beauty suddenly batted her charmingly large eyes and allowed a faint smile to play at her lips.
My body turned cold as ice.
The beauty was a fair-skinned creature with golden hair and blue eyes.
Exposing her plaster-like body to the twilight’s faint glow as dusk advanced, the woman seemed determined to preserve the painting’s composition for eternity.

When we emerged onto a hill overlooking the distant corridors of a hall as the forest opened up, I saw two living tableaux there on the grass—spread out in slumber, their garments unfurled.
One was Giorgione’s *Venus*, the other Lucas Cranach’s *Nymph*.

“That isn’t mere imitation like the previous sculptures, would you not agree?”
“Just as painters borrow material from novels, I merely borrowed the compositions conceived by painters.”
“That is one of my creations.”

“That is one of my creations,” Okamura-kun declared for the first time.

By the time we arrived at the entrance of the bathhouse surrounded by ancient statues related to bathing, it was already well past sunset.
The interior of the vast hall already seemed to be ablaze with electric lights, their rays penetrating the round glass-covered ceiling and reflecting brilliantly in the night sky.
When I pressed my ear to the door, I could see dozens of people swimming inside like dolphins, accompanied by the vigorous splashing sounds of water leaping up.

Fourteen

I opened the door and entered, only to be struck momentarily by the dazzling light, colors, and steam, leaving me standing there in a daze.
The bathing trough was a structure where the marble floor was excavated three to four shaku underground—its expanse so vast it was more fitting to call it a pool than a mere trough.
The walls surrounding the pool were entirely decorated with Roman-era murals and reliefs, while along the elliptical shore’s floor stood centaurs spaced about one ken apart.
Moreover, their faces all bore Okamura-kun’s expressions of crying, laughing, and anger, while the goddesses straddling their backs to drive them onward were all living humans.
When I saw dozens of creatures leaping in the water like dolphins, they were a group of beauties mimicking mermaids—their lower halves clad in silver flesh-toned undergarments resembling chainmail.
The moment they caught sight of us, they all raised both hands high in jubilant cheers and sprang onto the shore’s paving stones, their silver scales glimmering as they frolicked at the beasts’ feet.

Additionally, there were three or four small bathing troughs filled with milk, wine, peppermint, and more, where mermaids were also frolicking. Finally, we arrived before “Hell’s Pool,” filled to the brim with human bodies.

“Come on, we’re crossing over this.”
“Just don’t mind it and follow me.”

Having said this, Okamura-kun took my hand and stepped across the mass of bodies.

I no longer had the courage to write any more of this.
In any case, suffice it to say that compared to the evening’s entertainments held at the Spring Palace atop the eastern hill that night, the spectacle of that bathhouse was such a small-scale affair as to scarcely linger in my memory.
There existed every form of art composed of living human beings.
I was also shown the sight of a woman said to be the queen of this palace, reclining on a bed supported by four men as pillars of flesh, deep within a brocade canopy.

I think what Okamura-kun’s so-called “art” truly was has now been roughly understood through this account. As I approach the end, I shall now briefly record the scene of Okamura-kun’s final moments—the events of his sudden death about ten days later, at the very instant he reached the pinnacle of revelry.

However, despite his extraordinary health, it seemed he had already anticipated that his death was approaching. “I’ve already spent every last bit of my fortune.” “I can’t keep up this kind of extravagance for even six more months.” Having said this, he began drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes with a touch of recklessness.

During the ten days I stayed there, he changed his attire every single night and engaged with me in increasingly bizarre guises. He favored Léon Bakst’s costumes from recent Russian ballet productions—now appearing as the spirit of a rose, now as a faun, now as a Carnival reveler—until even these transformations no longer sufficed, and he dyed his entire body jet black to become a native dancer from Scheherazade’s tale. On the tenth night, he assembled a host of comely youths and maidens, arraying them now as arhats and bodhisattvas, now as demonic rakshasas—until at last, coating himself head to toe in gold leaf to embody the Tathagata’s divine countenance, he guzzled wine and danced in frenzied abandon.

Exhausted from the all-night banquet, having collapsed drunkenly in disarray across the hall’s corridors, pillars, and benches, they slept through until dawn the next morning—only to awaken and discover Okamura-kun’s corpse on the central table, still golden and cold as ice.
According to the explanation by the doctor employed at his residence, he had likely died from having all his pores blocked by the gold leaf.

Bodhisattvas, Arhats, evil spirits, and Rakshasas—all knelt beneath the golden corpse and shed tears.
The scene formed itself into a great Nirvana image, making one wonder whether he still strove to offer his flesh to his art even in death.
I had never seen a human corpse so beautiful.
I had never witnessed a human death so radiant, so solemnly majestic, utterly devoid of sorrow’s shadow.

Okamura-kun was indeed a happy man.
The reason was that he devoted all his strength and his entire body to his art and achieved full success.
In this world, there are likely plenty of people who possess greater wealth and more knowledge than he did.
However, throughout history, there has never been anyone who pursued his own art as earnestly and single-mindedly as he did.
Although he and I differed in various aspects of our artistic views, I cannot help but acknowledge that his work was splendid art after all.
His art appeared like a phantom and vanished from this earth along with his death.
But he was a great genius—a great artist of unparalleled greatness.

Even those who engaged in meaningless extravagance like Kibun and Naramori are celebrated by posterity as prodigals, so his name must be all the more immortalized.
However, will society truly recognize someone who lived a life like his as an artist?

(Written in October 1914)