Pathway to Japanese Literature

I would usually walk around with my head hung low, looking only at my feet.
But there were indeed many times when something like fate would whisper secretly into my ear.
I believed it.
My so-called discoveries were, in that way, things of extreme subjectivity—devoid of reason, form, or anything else.
As for who did what or what someone said, I hardly concerned myself with any of that.
That was only natural, and someone like me had no right whatsoever to dwell on such things—but in any case, reality held no place in my vision.
I had written down this strange phrase twice in my travel notebook: "Reality exists where there is belief; reality can never make people believe." (Osamu Dazai, *Tsugaru*)
(Osamu Dazai *Tsugaru*)

On June 16, 1948 (Showa 23), I received a telegram that read: "Dazai Osamu shinda."
I was at the Yūbari Coal Mine in Hokkaido.
There, the first article appeared in the next day’s newspaper.
The article stated that the body had not yet been found, but I thought he was dead.
On the morning of the 18th, I departed Yūbari.
On the morning of the 20th, I arrived in Ueno and bought a newspaper in front of the station.
There was an article stating that the body had been discovered.
Arriving at the Mitaka house, I saw the displayed photograph of Mr. Dazai with that dark gaze.

I had not seen Mr. Dazai for a year and a half.
At the end of January 1947, I went to Hokkaido.
During the time Mr. Dazai was first evacuated to Kofu and later to Kanagi, I had been house-sitting alone at the Mitaka house the entire time.
This was the period from April 1945 to November 1946.
In mid-November 1946, Mr. Dazai withdrew from Kanagi and returned once more to the Mitaka house.
I lived with him for about two months and then went to Hokkaido.
The night before I left, we went to see a movie at the Mitaka movie theater.
The next morning, when I was about to leave, a magazine reporter had arrived.
“Well, I’m off then,” I said and went to the entrance.
At that moment, Mrs. Dazai suddenly had an idea and handed me a bundle of tissues.
From behind the shoji screen, I heard only Mr. Dazai’s voice saying, “Take care of yourself.”
That was the last time.

During the two months we lived together, there was a boy from Mrs. Dazai’s relatives who had been hospitalized, and due to a lack of helping hands, I went as an attendant and spent some time living at the hospital. Among the attendants in the same room was an amusing elderly woman who would clutch her sides laughing whenever I told a joke. After returning to the Mitaka house, when I recounted the story like a traveler’s tale and said, “Whenever I treat each moment as my last chance and start spouting nonsense, everyone roars with laughter,” Mr. Dazai’s eyes gleamed as he pursed his lips and retorted, “You never make us laugh at all. Try harder.” Perhaps he found it unsatisfying that I always wore the face of a newly adopted puppy before my mentor of ten years. The boy I was attending to had gained weight with each measurement after being hospitalized, maintained a good appetite, and his subsequent progress continued smoothly. When I remarked with a smug look, “It must be thanks to having a proper cook,” Mr. Dazai broke into a grin and countered, “Ah, but that’s surely what they call resistance therapy. We’d be driven to worry with Koyama’s proper cook.” There was also a time when, walking home together at night, he said to me, “Family life truly is a good thing.”

After going to Hokkaido, I did not send word for a long time.
It was partly due to my laziness in writing, but also because my health had deteriorated and life wasn’t going smoothly, so I ended up not feeling inclined to send word.

After some time had passed without correspondence, when one of my manuscripts left in Mr. Dazai’s care was accepted by a magazine, I received a postcard from him. It served to confirm my address when sending the manuscript fee. The message contained a phrase: “Nothing left but to dwell beyond the graves.” I sent a telegram urging immediate remittance via telegraphic money order. I wrote “Koubin” but subsequently sent neither letters nor postcards. When the money order failed to arrive, I dispatched another pressing telegram. This one bore the word “Yamai.” Days later, a registered letter arrived from Mr. Dazai containing the enclosed money order.

That was in August of the year I went to Hokkaido.
I had become a miner at the Yūbari Coal Mine but since May had not been going to work and had been resting.
A heart condition made me unable to endure the labor.
The diagnosis carried the grand-sounding name "mitral valve insufficiency."
Though I kept up hospital visits, there remained no telling when my body might become fit for work.
I came to indulge in mahjong gambling.
Addiction took hold until I spent every day holed up in the town's mahjong parlor.
I continued by selling rationed clothes, taking debts, resorting to desperate measures.
What obsessed me was wanting seed money.
It was my first accepted manuscript and first earned manuscript fee, yet I felt no particular happiness.
No mental space remained to feel happy about it.
To both Mr. Dazai and that magazine's editor alike, I ended up never expressing gratitude.
The manuscript fee sent to me vanished like water poured on burning stones.

Then, at the end of November, there was a boy from the same dormitory who had quit his job and was returning to the mainland, and since he would be stopping by Mitaka, I decided to entrust him with a letter.
In that letter, I informed him of my circumstances since coming to Hokkaido for the first time.
I had also intended that through the boy’s account, he might learn of my circumstances here.
However, it seems the boy did not meet Mr. Dazai.
It seems he merely left a letter at the unoccupied house and went no further than that.
Looking back now, that too was only natural.
In the letter, I wrote that I had coughed up blood, but it wasn’t what you’d call hemoptysis.
I had exaggerated and claimed it was blood-tinged sputum.
I also wrote asking them to send me cut tobacco, saying that it was in exchange for goods.

The day after the boy departed, a letter arrived from an unknown youth informing me that another of my manuscripts had been accepted. At that moment, I felt happiness. I tasted the joy of seeing my writings step into daylight. I sent a follow-up postcard to Mr. Dazai—expressing gratitude before writing again to request an advance on the manuscript fee. My circumstances demanded it. Though I had quit mahjong while leaving behind those unreasonably unpaid gambling debts, I still remained absent from work. Days later, a reply postcard came from Mr. Dazai. When I saw it, he too appeared in dire straits. It stated he'd urged the magazine to send payment immediately, bearing again that phrase about dwelling beyond gravesites. The only correspondence I received from Mr. Dazai during my Hokkaido exile amounted to these two pieces.

When I went up to Tokyo following Mr. Dazai’s passing, at the Mitaka house, inside the familiar small drawer beside the desk, I found an unsent postcard addressed to me. It dated from when I had sent the telegram, bearing the phrase: “Dreams lie in a state of withered fields.”

As Yūbari was a mountain mining town, magazines and such were hard to come by, and since I had not properly read Mr. Dazai's later works, I could not grasp his circumstances from the brief postcard messages alone.
Mr. Dazai usually made light, joke-like remarks, so I too would end up dismissing them casually.
Seeing the phrase "beyond the graves and such" stamped like a seal on both received postcards, I felt an odd sensation.
I even harbored paranoid thoughts that it might be some charm to ward off monetary requests.
The second postcard mentioned he'd fallen ill while entangled in women troubles, describing his state as literally half-dead half-alive, but I thought half of it was just romantic bragging.
Still, I couldn't help worrying, though being too far away meant I couldn't simply rush over.
I didn't take "beyond the graves," "illness," or "half-dead half-alive" at face value.
I downplayed them and gave them little thought.
Looking back now, Mr. Dazai had been expressing significant vulnerability.
The youth's letter stated Mr. Dazai was concerned about my illness.
It appeared he'd kept the "YAMAI" from the telegram in mind.
He seemed to have taken my subsequent mention of "hemoptysis" literally too.
The second postcard read, "I pray for your recovery."

Another one of my manuscripts that were with Mr. Dazai sold, and I received a letter from the editor.
It was around mid-May of 1948.
At that time, I had apparently managed to catch my breath.
Since that March, I had obtained a position as a newly created tool attendant inside the mine and started working.
Because it wasn’t manual labor, even I could manage it.
Given how things were going, I thought I could keep going for another year or two and resolved myself to do so.
I had gone all the way to such a remote place and spent a year in a vague haze, but even so, I wanted to make a fresh start.
I had intended to send that news to Mr. Dazai but kept putting it off due to my aversion to writing.
In the letter I entrusted to the boy, I conveyed that given my physical condition, I couldn’t stay here much longer and wanted to return to the mainland by around September of next year.
The postcard from Mr. Dazai in response only mentioned Tokyo’s worsening living hardships - things like 10,000 yen key money for rented rooms.
I thought to send another message when receiving the editor’s letter but again failed to dispatch it.
Laziness in disposition and aversion to writing are simply unavoidable things.
While I kept postponing it, a telegram arrived.

Because I was far away, I knew nothing at all about Mr. Dazai’s life during his final days.
When I came up to Tokyo and saw photographs taken before Mr. Dazai passed away, in every one of them, I thought what a sorrowful face he had.

I had wanted to meet him once before he died.

In Mr. Dazai's study there remained a paper-wrapped bundle containing my manuscript. On its front were written a Hokkaido address and my name. To me, it appeared to be in the handwriting of an unknown woman. It bore no resemblance to anything familiar.

I returned to Tokyo at the beginning of October of the year Mr. Dazai had passed away.
Through the letter I had entrusted to the boy, it ended up as if I had told Mr. Dazai.

After returning to Tokyo, I lived in Narimasu on the outskirts of Itabashi Ward until last November.
The back was a quiet place separated only by a small stream from Saitama Prefecture.
On fine days, I would open the window and gaze outside, thinking this was exactly the sort of day for visiting Mitaka.
When walking outside, newly built houses could be seen everywhere.
There were many compact homes with about three rooms.
Whenever I noticed kerria flowers blooming in front gardens, my chest would tighten.
The quiet dignity of tightly closed shoji screens would hold my attention, making me reluctant to leave.
I found myself constantly reminded of the Mitaka house from those early days of visiting Mr. Dazai.

The first time I visited Mr. Dazai at his Mitaka house was in mid-November of 1940, the year following his move from Kofu to Mitaka.
It was just before Mr. Dazai had been invited by a high school in Niigata and was about to depart for a lecture.

At that time, I worked delivering newspapers for a shop in Ryūsenji-chō, Shitaya.
The night before visiting Mr. Dazai, I went to see a woman I knew in Yoshiwara.
As I waited in her room for her arrival, I abruptly resolved to visit Osamu Dazai the next day.
She had kept me waiting rather too long.
I had once considered going to Kofu after seeing Misaki-cho's address printed in Sunagoya's edition of The Schoolgirl.
Later learning through a newspaper notice that he'd moved to Mitaka, I noted down his new address.
My only decent outfit was a Kurume kasuri lined kimono that perpetually languished in pawnshop storage.
When preparing for my first visit to Mr. Dazai, I wanted to retrieve that kimono but couldn't muster the redemption money.
With no alternative, I set out wearing my usual workman's jumper.
I've always been constitutionally incapable of delaying any sudden resolution.

After alighting at Mitaka Station, I found a branch of Newspaper A near the station entrance where I quickly asked directions.
Even then, I floundered considerably before locating the house.

When I opened the front door and said, “Excuse me,” Mr. Dazai immediately appeared.
He had disheveled hair and was tall.
When I said, “I’m someone visiting for the first time, but I wished to see you for a moment,” he gave a light nod and replied, “Please come in.”
I entered.
When I remained silent, he said, “Mitaka?”
“No, Shitaya,” I said.
Mr. Dazai made a slightly puzzled look.
Then he said in a tone that seemed to confirm whether I knew about it, “There’s a bookstore called Sunagoya in Shitaya.”
He continued, “And Kazuo Ozaki is there too.”
His phrasing implied a rhetorical question—why would a Shitaya resident trouble himself to visit remote Mitaka when Kazuo Ozaki already resided there?
When I took out the manuscript I had brought, Mr. Dazai’s face fell with disappointment.
Still, noticing my pencil-written text, he remarked, “I’ve used pencil too,” then added, “though I find it tiresome.”
At the conversation’s lull, Mr. Dazai picked up my manuscript from where he’d set it aside, read the opening lines, nodded, and said, “This might be good,” before replacing it.
Yet what he had praised wasn’t my writing.
I had prefaced my work with an excerpt from “The Picture Book Without Pictures,” a piece I’d once loved reciting.
I felt faint amusement but offered no correction.
This realization would come later.
“When I finish reading your manuscript,” Mr. Dazai said while making me write my contact details, “I’ll send a postcard. Come again then.”
As I began writing “Y Newspaper,” Mr. Dazai’s expression clouded.
Even with my gaze lowered, I perceived this subtle shift in his demeanor.

On the chest of my jacket was the Y Newspaper mark.

Upon entering the genkan, the six-tatami room immediately inside was Mr. Dazai’s study. Mrs. Dazai wore what resembled a black work coat over her clothes. She served tea before withdrawing to the adjacent room and did not reappear during my visit. From Mr. Dazai’s household, I gained an impression of unassuming modesty.

In *Heibon*, there is an account of the day the protagonist first visits an established novelist. Seeing swaddling clothes drying in the front yard, the protagonist privately feels a sense of looking down upon his senior—though upon initial meetings, might this not be the sort of awareness that naturally surfaces? It hardly seemed a matter deserving severe censure.

After visiting two or three more times, I came to understand that Mr. Dazai’s life was not necessarily one of austerity.

That day on Mr. Dazai’s desk lay an open section of the original Chinese text from Tanaka Kōtarō’s translation of *Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio*. When I asked if he was translating it, he replied that he was adapting the material instead. He didn’t use the word “adaptation” itself. He was writing *Tale of Austere Poverty*, drawn from “Huang Ying.” “Reading the original text makes all sorts of fantasies bloom—it’s rather delightful,” he remarked. *Tale of Austere Poverty* would soon be published in *Shinchō*. It must have been one of those works that reveals Mr. Dazai’s distinctive qualities. To speak of my own tastes, it remains among my favorites of his writings. Looking back, this must have been when Mr. Dazai—newly remarried and having returned to Tokyo to set up his household—was striving with particular earnestness. A time of happiness too, perhaps. I believe *Tale of Austere Poverty* stands as one work conveying those circumstances. In Mr. Dazai’s heart, might this not have been an interval of “Serene Blessing”? His body remained healthy, his mood bright. The residence too was kept tidy. Though later—before his passing—the Mitaka house would suffer bombing damage until rain leaked through its roof, and further deteriorate during Mr. Dazai’s stay in Kanagi while a barbaric caretaker like myself ran roughshod through it, leaving it quite pitiable—at this time it still stood newly built, brimming with the freshness of a home recently established.

About a week had passed when, unable to wait any longer for a postcard from Mr. Dazai, I went to see him.
Two or three days before that, there had been the Tori no Ichi festival, and I had bought a charm from Otori Shrine.
I had intended to present it to Mr. Dazai.
It was that type of charm meant to be inserted into ceilings and such.
On my way from getting off at Mitaka to Mr. Dazai’s house, I ended up discarding it on a whim.
I was also carrying Mokutarō Kinoshita’s *Chinese Legend Collection*.
Having seen that Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio had been left open on the desk the day before, I thought it might serve as a reference.
Yet even this feels somewhat forced.

On the road lined with hedges near Mr. Dazai’s house, I encountered Mr. Dazai approaching hurriedly from the opposite direction, wearing a double-layered coat.
“I’m on my way to visit a friend who’s enlisted,” Mr. Dazai said.
“And I sent a postcard—did you get it?” he said.
We had missed each other.
Mr. Dazai turned back home to retrieve my manuscript.
I handed over the *Chinese Legend Collection*.
Mr. Dazai entered the genkan and said, “Hey, give me Koyama-kun’s manuscript.”
I was standing outside when Mrs. Dazai said something, prompting Mr. Dazai to reply, “Yeah. I met him there.”
On the way to the station, we talked.
Mr. Dazai explained he had been invited to lecture at a Niigata high school after our last meeting, then visited Sado Island before returning.
He mentioned emphasizing “loving those around me” in his postcard.
Then laughing, he said, “The other day I called it good writing—but that was Andersen’s phrasing, wasn’t it?”
“Though when it shifted to your own words, it didn’t exactly collapse either—that reassured me.”
He continued: “You handle psychology thoroughly enough, but lack descriptive technique.
“Master description though—then you’ll be a demon wielding an iron club.”
My manuscript had taken the form of a journal by a youth barely past twenty.
My youthful appearance seemingly convinced Mr. Dazai I matched that age exactly.
Mr. Dazai stopped at a sushi shop en route—
The same one featured in *The Seagull*.
He ordered one yen’s worth of sushi as a souvenir for his friend.

The sushi shop owner initially said something about it being inconvenient, but Mr. Dazai firmly insisted, “Please make an exception there.” At that moment, Mr. Dazai’s strangely tenacious voice lingered in my ears for some time afterward. While waiting for the sushi to be ready, we sat on chairs and talked. When I asked, “Is my poor description due to my life lacking fluidity?” he nodded and said, “Yeah, that could be part of it.” “Ensuring the accuracy of impressions is crucial,” Mr. Dazai added. “There was a young man around your age in Kyoto who sent me a manuscript—I told him to study five more years before showing it again. You’ll face all sorts of trials from now on.” “My past was hell itself,” he concluded.

I once again failed to mention that I was turning thirty years old.
Mr. Dazai took the manuscript I was holding, flipped through its pages with a rustle, pointed to a particular passage, and said: “I like this sort of atmosphere.”
At any rate, I understood that my manuscript had managed to convey some fragment of myself to Mr. Dazai.
On Mitaka Station’s platform, Mr. Dazai turned back to look at me and remarked: “Today proved fortunate amidst misfortune.”
Though brief, he meant it had been good that we met.
When the Tachikawa-bound train arrived and Mr. Dazai was about to board, he added: “Should you ever find yourself at an impasse, come consult me anytime.”

When I returned home, the postcard that had crossed paths with me had arrived.
"I have perused your manuscript with great interest in its various facets," it read.
"Do not let your daily life fall into disarray; continue your studies quietly."
"Do not strain to produce a masterpiece at once—take your time in loving those around you as you live your life."
"That alone constitutes my most earnest entreaty to you at present."
Such was its message.
My manuscript chronicled the journal of a boy who couldn’t acclimate to family life and withdrew into himself—a work I had titled *Letter to My Teacher*.

In mid-June of the following year, I suddenly felt compelled to visit Mitaka. After completing my evening newspaper deliveries, I hurried over.
When I reached Mitaka, night had already fallen.
Mr. Dazai was reviewing galley proofs.
A leather-cased camera hanging on the hat rack caught my attention.
From the adjacent room came an infant's cries, while a congratulatory gift inscribed with Mr. Ibuse's name adorned the tokonoma alcove.
Sonoko had been born.
An elderly helper seemed to have been employed.
I promptly left the house and, en route to Kikuya - our regular tonkatsu restaurant near the station - passed by the midwife's residence we'd summoned earlier. In her characteristic manner, she remarked, "You came knocking at my door at one in the morning."
She informed me thus.
Thereafter, whenever I visited, I began noticing drying swaddling cloths.
Four or five days later, a postcard arrived from Mr. Dazai:
"I have carefully read your manuscript.
There were one or two valuable descriptive passages.
There is nothing to feel ashamed about.
The latter half remains unrefined.
It's chaotic.
I await your next work.
I suggest focusing solely on precision rather than intentionally crafting atmosphere or scent."
(Then he added: "All humans are beings of disgrace.") That day at parting, Mr. Dazai gripped my hand and declared, "Become someone who won't disgrace me as a friend."
Upon returning home, I sent Mr. Dazai a postcard stating: "I shall endeavor to avoid disgraceful conduct henceforth.

“Because I keep thinking of your parting words,” I wrote.
Mr. Dazai always delivered parting remarks that sounded like lines from a Shinpa drama.
They seemed like dramatic flourishes he couldn’t resist uttering.
He once said something similar to a tavern mistress:
“Whenever I see Koyama looking so forlorn, I feel utterly helpless.”
My visits to Mitaka always carried an air of desperate entreaty.
For the one receiving these visits, it must have been trying.
There was even an instance when he bought me thistles from a florist.
That day, regarding the manuscript I’d left at his house, he warned he might give harsh feedback after reading it, to which I replied perhaps I shouldn’t have shown it after all.
Mr. Dazai proposed, “If you write something worthy, let’s take a trip together instead of chasing prizes,” adding with conviction, “My endorsement would make it peerless.”
When I deadpanned, “I believe that,” Mr. Dazai grew visibly flustered at my expression and excused himself to the lavatory.

Around that time, whenever I went to Mitaka, I would often find myself together with Mr. Kazuo Takanaishi.
Due to my occupation as a newspaper deliveryman leaving me with little free time—and perhaps because I only went occasionally—I had few opportunities to encounter other guests and had almost no acquaintances there, yet by some twist of fate, I would often meet up with Mr. Takanaishi.
One of us would arrive first, and we would end up meeting.
It was strangely frequent.
Mr. Dazai also made a face that seemed to say, “Oh, we meet again.”
Mr. Takanaishi was the person who later published a limited edition of Kakomi Utae.
He was a man of regular features and considerable good looks.
According to Mr. Dazai’s account, a certain café waitress became so entranced by Mr. Takanaishi’s face that she dropped the plate of food she was bringing to a customer, which so deeply wounded the man’s pride that he ultimately drowned his sorrows in drink.
He was a man of such anecdotes, yet he was not one to laugh easily.
My return from Mitaka always ended up being just before the last train.
We would become fellow passengers in the empty train car, but during the ride, Mr. Takanaishi wouldn’t utter a single word.
When I tried to start a conversation, he would respond only to what was necessary.
However, that was all.
He acted as though I were his mortal enemy.
When Sonoko was born, Mr. Takanaishi presented a basket for the baby.
When Mr. Takanaishi saw Mr. Dazai’s hold on Sonoko and teased, “Still not getting the hang of it,” Mr. Dazai replied, “I’ll never get the hang of it.”
He said in a serious tone.
On the lintel hung a framed peach painting by Mr. Haruo Sato, created to celebrate Sonoko’s birth.
According to Mr. Dazai’s account, Mr. Sato had said that since it was Dazai we were talking about—someone who wouldn’t hang it even if you framed it for him—he had given only the painting as a gift.
Mr. Dazai had said, “Mr. Sato can be quite harsh too.”

This peach painting still hangs in the Dazai household's room now.
Regarding Mr. Sato, Mr. Dazai once told me, "I intend to be Jishin Katō toward Mr. Sato."
"If that Koyama says something unnecessary, Mr. Dazai might remark."
If we're speaking of superfluity, this very text is already superfluous.

If I may add something superfluous, Mr. Dazai’s upper teeth were dentures.
And it was during the summer of the year Sonoko was born that he had been going to the dentist to have those dentures made.
Around that time, a youth named S-kun sent a letter to Mr. Dazai.
Mr. Dazai showed me the letter and said, “He seems like a sincere person. Why don’t you meet him?”
From what the letter conveyed, he appeared to be nineteen or twenty years old.
When I said the age difference was too great, Mr. Dazai made a slightly annoyed face.
Mr. Dazai wrote a postcard addressed to S-kun introducing me and showed it to me.
The phrase “Koyama-kun is a splendid person, so...” appeared.
That S-kun came to visit my shop in Ryusenji Town.
S-kun was a nineteen-year-old youth who found his sole comfort in reading the works of Osamu Dazai during his lonely existence.
When I said that Mr. Dazai was exactly like he appeared in his works, S-kun replied, “Then he must be a good person, someone approachable.”
The works of Osamu Dazai must go straight to the heart of someone like S-kun.

From Mr. Dazai came such a postcard.
"I hear you met S-kun, and that he proved to be a sincere person—I'm most relieved."
"If you don't associate out of obligation and can feel affection, I think it would be good if you occasionally spend time with him going forward."
"I am feeling gloomy due to ongoing dental treatment."

I had been meeting S-kun occasionally, but he was conscripted in the final stages of the war, and all contact was lost afterward.

Whenever I visited Mitaka and came upon that road lined with living hedges near Mr. Dazai’s house, my heart would pound and I’d be filled with reverence.
I would take out the tissue paper I had brought and blow my nose.
No matter how many times I visited, I never grew accustomed to it.
After I began house-sitting alone, whenever I returned from an outing and approached that area, I would be reminded of my former self and find myself reflecting on how I was now recklessly trashing that house as if it were my own.
I was keeping watch over a ramshackle hermitage where I subsisted on potatoes.
At that time, I was living such a life.

Through meeting Mr. Dazai, I came to understand that his character—and indeed his very way of life—were of one piece with his literary works.
Mr. Dazai was also an extremely straightforward person.
He used to say that to avoid regrets whenever death might come, one should unreservedly tell those they love that they love them—there was such an aspect to everything about him.
There was a straightforwardness about him so heart-stopping it made you anxious just watching.
Afterward, when I met Mr. Eikō Tanaka, he said, “I like Mr. Dazai precisely because of his umbrella swordsmanship.”
When I said that Mr. Dazai was our Last man, Mr. Tanaka corrected it to Last one.
Before Mr. Dazai was burned out of Kofu and went to Kanagi, the four of us—Mr. Dazai, Mr. Kamei, Mr. Tanaka, and I—held a small farewell banquet at the Mitaka house.
Only Mr. Kamei left early.
To be the first to leave such a gathering was like drawing the short straw.
Mr. Kamei became what you might call the target of collective criticism among the three of us who remained.
Mr. Dazai was reciting what Tsugaru people call their long-winded dialect banter.
When I reproached him, saying, “You told Mr. Kamei to his face, ‘When I die, I’ll entrust you with editing my complete works,’ yet you—” Mr. Dazai replied with complete seriousness, “I truly do intend to ask Mr. Kamei to edit my complete works.”
“Kamei has his good points and his bad points, you know.”
Mr. Dazai said to me, “I have something to say to Koyama.”
I said, “I understand.”
When I said, “I understand,” he said, “From now on, you and Tanaka must trust each other as you go on.”
Mr. Tanaka, being the stalwart he is, may have forgotten all about that.

Mr. Dazai once said this to me:
“What do you suppose the Imperial Rescript on Education says about friendship between people?”
“That friends must trust one another.”
This occurred during the period when he was writing *Sekibetsu*.
And this very matter is written about in *Sekibetsu*.
A certain passage in *Sekibetsu* also describes Lu Xun—who wore the countenance of a slave perpetually gauging others’ expressions.
In one of Mr. Tanaka’s works, there appears a passage about me stating: “an old literary apprentice called Ogawa-kun who supposedly once served as live-in student to Fujimura.”
While I had indeed been greatly indebted to Mr. Shimazaki in the past, I was never his live-in student.
When I read that passage, I felt Mr. Tanaka could have phrased it somewhat better.
After Mr. Tanaka’s passing, there was a line in Mr. Kamei’s memorial essay that read: “Dazai’s most beloved disciple has followed him in death.”
For Mr. Tanaka, these were likely the finest words of tribute one could offer.
They constituted the phrase he had most wished to hear spoken through another’s lips.

When I had been out of touch for some time, Mr. Dazai would inquire after my well-being. There was also a time when he sent me the correspondence between Chekhov and Gorky published by Chikuma Shobo. I think this book may have been used as reference when writing *Kaze no Tayori*. There were times when such wind-borne tidings came fluttering in: "How are you getting along? Are you writing even a little each day? Please take good care of yourself. Believe, and you must succeed. There's no need to come all the way to Mitaka, but please keep making progress with your writing, even if just little by little. (Even one line a day)" He must have meant I should show my face occasionally. While house-sitting in Mitaka, I made my first request for funds to Mr. Dazai in Kanagi. A check arrived from him, but between its folded halves emerged a lily-of-the-valley. Mr. Dazai, apparently bedridden with a cold, had written: "Lilies-of-the-valley bloom in our garden now—Sonoko picked these and left them by my pillow. I enclose them here." Yet this kindly sent check proved immediately unusable. I promptly returned it to Mr. Dazai, though in imitation I slipped some purple flowers from Mitaka's garden between the check's folds. His postcard reply noted how the returned check had been thoroughly stained purple by the petals' dye, rendering the text illegible—it might not be negotiable now, truly an accursed check indeed. Such are the consequences of mimicry that copies form without spirit.

On March 10, 1945, I suffered disaster in Ryūsenji Town and rushed to Mitaka to plead for help.
Mr. Dazai immediately offered that we should study together.
Mrs. Dazai and the children were to evacuate to her family home in Kofu.
The evening before that, Mr. Dazai had been drinking with me when he suddenly turned to Mrs. Dazai beside us and said, “Michiko, you drink too,” offering her a cup.
Then addressing Mrs. Dazai as she held the cup to her lips, he said, “There are bonds that form through separation.”

In the predawn hours of April 2nd, American planes raided the Mitaka area.
I took shelter in an air-raid shelter together with Mr.Eikō Tanaka, who happened to be there at the time, and the three of us narrowly escaped with our lives.
On the way to the Mitaka municipal office to obtain a disaster certificate, I suggested to Mr.Dazai that perhaps he should go to Kofu.
Mr.Dazai agreed, but had I not suggested it, he might have remained in Mitaka.
After staying four or five days at Mr.Kamei’s house in Kichijoji, I saw off Mr.Dazai as he departed for Kofu and accompanied him there myself, remaining about a week to fully savor the leisurely spring of that basin region—far removed from Tokyo’s tumultuous existence.
One day, I visited Mr.Kumaō Tokuhei—a barber in a place called Aoyagi on the outskirts of Kofu City—was allowed to stay overnight, and the next day received two chickens as gifts before returning to the house in Suimonchō.
While Mr.Dazai and I were plucking chicken feathers, Mr.Ibuse—who had been evacuated to Kōun Village on the outskirts of Kofu City at the time—came to visit.
Since we could hear Mr.Ibuse’s voice as he was being received by Mrs.Dazai at the entrance, I remarked, “Mr.Ibuse has such a beautiful voice.” Later, after we were shown to the sitting room, Mr.Dazai immediately seized upon this and said, “Koyama-kun here says that Mr.Ibuse has an exceptionally beautiful voice.”
Mr.Ibuse joked, “Hmm. It’s because I used to perform Utazawa in my youth.”
In that sitting room hung a large framed photograph of Mount Fuji’s crater.
When Mr.Dazai was not in the room, Mr.Ibuse said to me, “That must be Mount Fuji, right?”
It must have been said as a continuation of the conversation.
The occasion when Mr.Dazai and Mrs.Dazai had their arranged meeting was probably in this parlor.
In *Fugaku Hyakkei*, Mr.Ibuse lets out an admiring gasp—“Ah, Fuji!”—and Mr.Dazai too gazes up at the framed picture; in the moment he slowly turns his head back, he steals a glance at the matchmaker’s daughter and inwardly cries, *I’ve decided!*
That place was quite wonderful.
At that time, Mrs.Dazai’s younger sister was cultivating shiitake mushrooms at their home in Kofu.
She was quite skilled and had an abundant harvest.
We drank sake while eating shiitake mushrooms and chicken.
Mr.Ibuse picked up the chicken comb with his chopsticks and said, “This is a secret remedy for the kidneys.”
When I said, “It’s rather like something Iwano Hōmei would write,” they laughed.

After that, we went to an inn called Ume ga e in the downtown area of Kofu.
This was Mr. Ibuse’s regular haunt.
Mr. Ibuse said to the proprietress, “Something liquid-like,” with feigned annoyance.
He bowed his head and murmured this while rubbing the surface of the low dining table with his palm.
I thought Mr. Ibuse was quite a quaint person.
At that time, “liquid-like substances” were not easily come by.
The proprietress looked hesitant.
The sitting room, with its long hibachi and such, resembled her private quarters.
Mr. Ibuse restlessly flipped through a movie magazine that lay there.
Then a page appeared showing photographs of various scenes from Konjiki Yasha films spanning past to present.
Mr. Ibuse said, “Konjiki Yasha is splendid.”
“Suzuki Denmei’s Kanaiichi was wonderful,” he added.
Mr. Dazai chimed in, “Konjiki Yasha remains splendid whenever one sees it.”
The proprietress joined the conversation too.
For a time, we indulged in effusive praise of Konjiki Yasha.
I had previously heard from Mr. Dazai about how he and Mr. Ibuse had praised chickens at another Kofu household.
“Well, then Mr. Ibuse and I debated whether we were praising them or not,” Mr. Dazai had recounted to me.
Praising chickens wasn’t particularly remarkable, but this Konjiki Yasha admiration became an even more roundabout affair.
Yet remarkably, the proprietress had a maid fetch “something liquid-like” for us.
That night from Mr. Ibuse’s lips, I heard how the woman from Mr. Dazai’s Obasute had died in a distant land.

It was said that nothing remained around her but a single handbag. This seemed new information to Mr. Dazai. Mr. Ibuse said, “Is that so? You didn’t know?” “You didn’t know?” he repeated. Then Mr. Ibuse added, “Writers devour those closest to them.” After Mr. Ibuse had settled to stay at Ume ga e, as the two of us walked back to the house in Suimonchō, Mr. Dazai remarked, “Mr. Ibuse has a knack for rousing people’s passions, doesn’t he?” I nodded.

The next day happened to coincide with the festival at Takeda Shrine. The three of us went to see the cherry blossoms with Mr. Ibuse. The local people were all walking about in informal kimono, trailing along in groups. High overhead, a single B-29 flew trailing a long white tail, yet to those on the ground it seemed to pose no particular threat whatsoever. On a modest hilltop, we laid out the boxed lunches we had brought along.

Mr. Ibuse gazed down at the children playing along the canal bank and remarked, “Children always play like that, don’t they? No different from when we were young. Look at them tossing stones like that.”

When Mr. Dazai mentioned how Tayama Katai supposedly felt compelled to claw at his entire body whenever he saw a young woman, Mr. Ibuse didn’t so much as crack a smile as he observed, “You do enjoy your exaggerations.”

Mr. Dazai glanced back at me with a peculiar expression—the face of someone who found it odd that even Mr. Ibuse had failed to appreciate this particular humor.

In those days, whenever conversation lulled, we’d joke about feeling compelled to claw at our own bodies and laugh together over it.

That day Mr. Ibuse wore what appeared to be his old military attire from southern campaigns—complete with knee-high leather boots—and stepped into what looked like a marsh to gather some sort of plants.

Standing apart from this scene, Mr. Dazai watched him for a moment before whispering in my ear, “Mr. Ibuse really is quite kind-hearted.”

After Mr. Dazai passed away, Mr. Ibuse coined the phrase "the vexation of old acquaintances." To be survived by one's mentors and friends leaves nothing but regret. The resentment of those left behind finds no outlet. As for myself, I feel both justified and unjustified in my grievances. Had we lived to meet again, there would have been nothing left to say. Mr. Ibuse's recent work contains a passage about Mr. Dazai suggesting they gather insects from chestnut trees to make fishing line. Let me quote that section here.

“I’ll catch the insects,” Dazai said.
“First, I use a thin tree branch or something like chopsticks to catch them.
As we bring them back, we gradually grow accustomed to the insects.”

“But when it comes time to pluck them, I do feel some reluctance.”

“No, I’ll manage.
Please shout at me loudly: ‘Come on, pluck this insect! You there, pluck this insect!’
Summoning desperate courage, I pluck them.
I close my eyes and pluck them.”

For Dazai, this had become a strange predicament indeed. He wasn’t saying this because he actually believed he could handle the insects himself. If I had gone insect-catching with Dazai, to borrow his manner of speaking, it would have been a case of “feigning pleasure on the surface while harboring bone-deep resentment within.” For years to come, whenever something reminded me of it, I would recall this with bitter regret. Now I find myself wondering—what would it have been like if I had gone along with Dazai’s ‘company’ back then? Suppose I found green caterpillars in a chestnut grove just beyond Mitaka and brought back about ten of them instead of just one. Dazai would be the one to pluck them. He furrowed his brows, tightly shut his eyes, his lips turning pale. He was panting heavily. With those slender fingers, he would tear the green caterpillar in two. It would be fortunate if he didn’t collapse. When it came to plucking the second one, he looked on the verge of tears right then.

What relentless affection that was.

At the Cherry Blossom Memorial Service, Mr. Ibuse said, “I devoted my passion to Dazai.”
I am convinced there exists no teacher of Osamu Dazai other than Mr. Ibuse.

The day after visiting Takeda Shrine, I returned to Mitaka.
Mr. Dazai said, “Your hand is remarkably clammy,” as he grasped my hand, then added, “There are times when they stick even when apart.”

(“Fūsetsu”
Showa 25, July issue)