Pathway to Japanese Literature

He woke to a bone-chilling cold.
Partly due to the dreariness that follows waking from a dream, the faces of his wife and child—sleeping on the adjacent futon with their pillows aligned—appeared to float up helplessly in the dim lamplight.
An anxiety he couldn't withstand with his own strength came surging up in his chest.
It wasn't that he couldn't bear life's weight—rather, within the petty bourgeois sentiments he'd gradually slipped into, he'd unexpectedly come to witness where he and his fate would settle.
Then everything within his field of vision—the room's furnishings, even the cluster of children's toys filling the alcove—all these elements rooted solidly in domestic life awakened in his still-unprepared paternal heart a fatalistic sense of being shown an inescapable cross-section of human existence.
Ah—this was life's true substance—with a feeling that constricted his chest at this moment's poignancy when he couldn't help reexamining everything anew, Goichi Sagino quietly rose and immediately opened the storm shutters.
Something cold suddenly grazed his cheek—the stark white of blowing snowflakes searing his eyes.
Goichi hurriedly closed the storm shutters and,

“Hey, it’s snowing!”

In a lighthearted voice, he roused his sleeping wife before burrowing back into the futon.
Toyo groaned “Ugh… ugh…” as she fluttered her bleary eyes open, then—while pressing down on the shoulder of four-year-old Mayumi sleeping beside her that had slipped out from the futon—pulled the girl closer to herself with one hand.
Even though it was nearly March, the unseasonal shift in weather abruptly poured a single ray of brightness into his chest.
In a manner of speaking, with the feeling of having somehow located a phantom of his remaining youth in some corner of his heart, he seemed to fall fast asleep while praying that the snow would keep falling for two or even three days.
Before long, the shrill voice of someone shouting at the entrance reached his ears, and soon the sharpness of that urgent tone began jabbing at Goichi’s drowsy nerves like flickering sparks. Suddenly assaulted by an ominous premonition, he leapt to his feet.

Standing before the entrance shoji was his cousin Takichi Kobashi, whom he had parted with just two or three days prior. He propped his half-closed umbrella laden with snow against the lattice door, and upon seeing Goichi's face, burst out in a voice that seemed to leap forward,

"Do you know what happened this morning?"

He must have walked through the snow without wearing an overcoat, indifferent to his rumpled indigo kasuri kimono being soaked through.

"It's finally begun—this morning!"

A rising voice caught in his throat, and his eyes suddenly took on an unusual gleam.

“What are you talking about?”

As he said this, Goichi deliberately put on a cold expression.
He wouldn’t fall for that trick—that was his resolve.
Yet even so, this Takichi seemed slightly different from his usual self—the one who would spin outlandish tales to unsettle Goichi’s emotions before exploiting that opening to concoct clever excuses for wheedling pocket money.
Having just endured a lengthy account the previous evening from his Yoyogi aunt about how Takichi had recently become obsessed with the daughter of a neighborhood eel restaurant—thereby racking up social debts through neglected obligations—Goichi found himself unable to respond to Takichi’s intensely earnest expression with anything but a dismissive snort.

"Huh? — What's really going on?"

"The new government—the new government is being formed, finally this morning!"

Takichi blurted out in a voice that rang with forced cheer.

"The new government?"

“Well—”

He said impatiently,

“You don’t know about this morning’s events—they’ve wiped out everyone from the Prime Minister down to key officials.”
“Japan—no one knows what will become of it now, I tell you.”

His pale-tightened cheeks twitched spasmodically.

“It’s finally happening!”

Takichi glanced back at the half-open front gate and declared, "Our time has come! The mastermind is Take-chan—everything's unfolding exactly as he planned!"

The more he tried to compose himself, the more unsteady his voice grew. As wave after wave of surging excitement robbed his mind of equilibrium, his eyes quivered—unable to fix their focus on the seething fantasies that defied containment—while Goichi observed this spectacle with a feeling akin to being half-crushed by its intensity.

"Anyway, why don't you come up?"
"Don't just stand there."

"I can't stay like this! Today's the critical juncture—when it comes down to it, I must take up my role!"

"You mean enlist—?"

"Everything will be uprooted—ah, everything! It'll all get settled in this mad scramble anyway!"

“Well, even so...”

As he said this, Goichi opened the parlor door located to the left of the entrance.
Takichi followed him inside and leaned against the rattan chair, then downed the coarse tea the maid had brought in one gulp.

"Anyway, they've done something tremendous!"

While gazing dissatisfied at Goichi's unfazed face, Takichi explained how a group of young officers who had revolted before dawn that day divided into several units to storm the residences of key officials, and were now occupying the Metropolitan Police Department in siege formation.

“I also—”

After saying that, he fidgeted awkwardly for a moment—

“At last—the moment has come! The time has arrived—the time!”

It felt as though he could no longer contain the words surging unbidden from his chest’s depths.
Then Toyo—who had been speaking with the neighborhood pharmacy’s errand boy at the kitchen entrance—called out from beyond the door:

“It’s terrible—right now, I heard from someone making a phone call over there—this morning, they killed everyone! The Prime Minister, the Education Superintendent-General, even the Finance Minister—all dead!”

“Is that true?”

As he spoke, Goichi finally delineated in his mind the scenes of reality rising to the surface of his consciousness. While listening to Takichi's story, he had sensed something hollow and contrived, but now that half-doubted reality had abruptly become an unstoppable force pressing against him.

“Anyway, I’ll go to Funagata’s house—depending on how things go, I might end up proceeding all the way to Tokyo from there.”

To prevent Takichi from seeing through the panic he could no longer conceal, Goichi said with deliberate composure, “Well, you should have a drink to calm down. I’ll be right back.”

With deliberate composure, he forced a grin, then hurriedly changed into Western clothes. Pressing both hands against the corridor pillar, he rammed into it two or three times. Next, on the tatami mat, he mimicked a sumo wrestler’s stomp to test the spring in his legs, assumed a ready stance as if to say “Bring it on,” and finally stepped out through the entrance.
“Are you all right?” Listening behind him to his wife’s anxious call as he opened the lattice door, Goichi suddenly felt a tension in his body as if some unexpected transformation had occurred.
The outlines of the city transformed by accumulated snow—even the distant forests and hills—appeared completely new to his eyes. That morning’s formless anxiety now manifested itself indelibly in his heart through these natural phenomena.
It wasn’t the sense that what should naturally occur had occurred, but rather a feeling of having entrusted himself to a fate he could no longer gauge with his own power.
As he walked through the snow, scenes of tragedy beyond any individual’s power to prevent drifted through his mind—each surfacing like fragments from the blurred recollections of a distant historical past.
Then both Takichi’s face—thrilled by new fantasies—and that of his older brother Takekichi, who seemed to have already sunk into this movement’s peripheral atmosphere at some unnoticed moment—all appeared as but one among countless phantoms passing through history’s cross-section.
Come to think of it, a man like Takichi must undoubtedly be one of those countless popular agitators who had always emerged in such disturbances since ancient times.
The anxiety that made it impossible for him to survive a single day without convincing himself what an exceptional man he was naturally compelled him to proclaim “The time has come!” amid this chance occurrence—though this didn’t mean he aspired to become the people’s representative, but rather stemmed from an uncontrollable urge to synchronize himself with this chaotic movement’s rhythm.
Goichi couldn’t help detecting within Takichi’s buffoonish posturing—this cousin who had been sponging off his household for two or three years—an increasingly desperate determination to somehow rescue his own poverty-stricken family, a resolve that only intensified the more bitterly he tasted reality’s cruel hardships.
“If things had gone differently, even I could have become something like the President of the Art Academy”—as he earnestly whispered to himself while clinging desperately to his hallucination—Takichi’s face suddenly began to shine in Goichi’s mind with indescribable pathos, radiantly clear.
In contrast, the face of Takichi’s older brother Takekichi—emerging solely from dire reality—had been completely painted over with tragic hues.
The anticipation of danger looming over him could rather be said to be taking root in Takekichi’s single-minded emotions—Goichi felt a chill strike his chest and began walking briskly.

Funagata’s house was located less than a kilometer from his own.
The suburban residential area lay in hushed stillness, with chunks of snow occasionally sliding off the galvanized iron roofs and thudding heavily with loud noises.
Funagata was blankly leaning against his desk in the second-floor study with its door tightly shut, but when he saw the face of him who had barged in energetically,

“How’s it going?”

[Funagata] formed a sneering smile.
“I hear something’s started, hasn’t it—”

“So there you have it.”

Goichi limply sank down before the long hibachi.
“Were you wondering what would become of today’s wedding?”
“It’s not particularly a big deal—for us, anyway.”
Funagata said with dismissive composure.
“I think I’ll try heading out after noon passes—”
That day, their senior—the elderly writer Akiyama Muken’s eldest daughter—was set to marry the up-and-coming writer Takagaki, with Funagata acting as their go-between.
However, talking with Funagata here made him feel as though the incident had already passed into distant history. By this reasoning, he who had rushed out without breakfast now came to think he might be haunted by the same illusions as Takichi. But when he saw Funagata’s face—grinning slyly as he said, “Let’s at least fortify ourselves with some snow-viewing sake before heading out. No use flailing about now”—he was suddenly struck by an impatience that made sitting still for even a moment unbearable.
It was just before noon when he practically dragged Funagata outside—who had settled himself to start drinking “just one more cup” repeatedly—though the snow had completely stopped by then, the gray sky hung heavier than before in a suffocating hue, and the snow-covered road had frozen so thoroughly that it gleamed slippery underfoot with every step.
They transferred from the bus departing in front of the market to a passing taxi on the national highway. “They’ve done it, haven’t they?”—the young driver remarked in an animated voice, glancing back.
After rattling off stories about who had been killed and who had survived at exact times with evident pride, he asked, “What will become of Japan now?”

As Goichi remained silent, the driver muttered to himself—something about how they should’ve at least spared the Finance Minister, or how there’d soon be no one left willing to become ministers if they kept getting slaughtered like this—but as the car drew closer to Tokyo, the city’s air visible through the windows seemed to fall into a hushed stillness that nonetheless palpably carried something ominous within it.
After parting ways with Funagata—who was heading for Moriokacho—at the Hibiya intersection, Goichi pushed through the restlessly shifting crowds and walked toward the A Newspaper Company that had reportedly been attacked by rioters that morning. Yet in the eyes of people clustered at street corners and utility poles lingered a curious anticipation, as though awaiting the next act after a curtain had finally fallen.
In front of the A Newspaper Company that should have been attacked, only two or three cars were parked with no particularly unusual appearance, yet precisely because of its quietness, an ominous feeling still lurked somewhere in the shadows.
Having no particular destination in mind, Goichi suddenly felt inclined to visit the newspaper company. After writing his name on the visitor form and being led to the third-floor reception room, it was not long before Goto from the cultural department entered with his usual composed expression.
He coughed affectedly and threw a cold smile at Goichi inquiring about military movements, then recited the names of slain high officials in a dispassionate tone. “They say a man with Special Duty Sergeant insignia came here too—brought five or six soldiers. All they did was enter the factory and overturn some type cases—” he added abruptly, diverting the conversation mid-sentence.
In any case, Goichi excitedly expounded—his voice trembling with fervor—about how the young officers’ uprising clashed with the people’s sentiments in some subtle way, but when the other man showed no sign of engaging, he stood up in deflated fashion with a muttered “Well...”
Immediately after that, he visited the nearby Japan Newspaper Federation, where four or five familiar employees were gathered around a stove talking intently.
It seemed no accurate information had yet arrived anywhere—to the extent that as soon as one heard reports like the Army Minister being shot dead, they would immediately be confirmed as mere rumors. As he listened to these rumors being relayed one after another, the existence of the officers—gradually distancing themselves from public sentiment amid the ominous atmosphere—began taking shape in Goichi’s mind with increasingly tragic overtones.
The faces of young officers who had resolved to die on that snowy night evoked an even more tragic impression in his heart than those of slain high officials—a curious phenomenon—but ultimately what remained wasn’t any sense of where justice lay, only recollections of dramatic scenes flickering through his mind like fleeting flashes.
Now that a great divide had narrowly formed between them and the people, he suddenly found himself regretting it—and this sense of having witnessed change to its end made him feel his own figure had already slipped unnoticed into the murmuring crowd awaiting a new curtain’s rise.
With every new mimeographed report that came in, Goichi meticulously examined each one, but within those hours the young officers—steadily retreating from offense to defense—began exhibiting a calmness suggesting they’d completed their task. Unnoticed, this transformed in his heart into a hollow, deflated sense of defeat.
Even the initial expectation that young allies nationwide would rise up harnessing public passion was gradually fading like a shadow.

When Goichi—who had left there in the evening—opened the door to the restaurant in Tokyo Building’s basement where that night’s wedding reception was to be held, the waiting room was already filled with more than half of the guests; but as he entered—

“Hey, Sagino!”

A deep voice called out from the corner as a bearded man smoking a cigarette slowly rose to his feet. When Goichi looked up in surprise, it was Sakura Hokami—a comrade from twenty years ago when he had been a socialist youth, now wielding influence as the leader of a right-wing organization.

In this atmosphere, Sakura too appeared to lack conversation partners—he had stationed himself alone at a table, dejectedly propping his cheek on his hand. But when Sagino responded with nostalgic recognition—“You?!”—he hastily used one hand to slide aside the empty chair beside him.

“How unusual—it’s been how many years? I was invited here since I’m close friends with Takagaki’s old man, but I did think there was a chance I might run into you.”

Laughing in a loud voice that brooked no restraint—Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!—he tightly gripped his hand.
His smile still faintly retained traces of his former self, but everything from his demeanor to his manner of speech had changed so drastically since his transition from left-wing to right-wing that he now appeared, from any angle, the very image of an undeniable patriotic devotee.

“How’s that?”

As he said this, Sakura Hokami squared his shoulders.
"They’ve finally done it! If only they’d set off one big blast with a bang—that’d do the trick."

He glared around at the faces of the assembled crowd with unbearable frustration at their coldly composed calmness.

"They’ve got to blow it up with a bang—otherwise they can’t get down to business!"

As a small-statured, refined old gentleman approached, he hurriedly called out in a booming voice, "Mr. Takagaki!"

"Let me introduce—Mr. Sagino here."

"Well, hello there!"

With that, the old gentleman politely bowed his head.
Goichi Sagino respectfully returned the bow, then slipped away from his seat the moment his posture shifted.
When he entered the next room partitioned by low screens, about ten men had formed a circle around a corner table.
At its center sat Uchigari—a B Newspaper reporter from his same village—holding court with overflowing verbosity.
Having apparently concluded his information report, he now dispensed plausible-sounding critiques in a self-assured tone—what should have been done then, what ought to have been done now—though lacking any real conviction behind his opinions; rather, he seemed thoroughly intoxicated by his own performative eloquence.
Soon the dining table was prepared, prompting all guests to rise at once in a rustling commotion.
Yet when seated in the separate banquet hall’s assigned places, the absence of leading literary figures transformed the atmosphere into something so unsettled that it abruptly recalled the hostile air outside.
Young writers and journalists—friends of the groom—rose one after another to deliver congratulatory speeches, but even the sporadic applause lacked vigor. With every pause between speakers, phantoms of street-corner unease would seep unbidden into the room, and no matter how time passed, the buzzing excitement proper to such receptions never kindled.
As attendees gradually stood and departed until empty seats multiplied beyond counting, Goichi Sagino too grew restless. Catching a meaningful glance from someone ahead, he trailed Uchigari’s exit path—feigning restroom business—and opened the front door to find critic Akiniwa already standing there facing him alongside Uchigari.

The time had barely passed eight o'clock, and with the sense that parting ways now would leave matters incomplete, Goichi said, “Let’s go somewhere!”

“Weeell...”

And Uchigari gave a non-committal reply before,

“Tonight might be the most dangerous time. We’d probably stay safe if we just go back now.”

He murmured this, yet even when they reached the intersection where the lights of the Ministry Railway station glowed to their right, he made no move to change direction, instead gazing around with lingering reluctance.

Ginza’s main thoroughfare lived up to its reputation—scarcely a soul walked there, though snow still lay heaped in street corners and droplets fell from every roof.

Most shops had already begun closing their shutters, and even the quivering shadows of lamplight on ice-glazed roads somehow exuded an ominous air. As he walked, Goichi pressed the question to himself again and again—“Should I go? Shouldn’t I?”—before veering left into a side street that opened before him.

When he pushed open the bar door at the second crossroads—the place where Yuri worked—the clamor inside, so dissonant with the outer chill, abruptly stilled. Every customer occupying the tables turned toward the entrance.

No one spoke above a whisper. With each new patron entering, frightened glances sparked and tangled.

Of the twelve or thirteen hostesses, nearly a third were absent. But when the three men settled at a table near the entrance, Yuri rose quietly from the back and smiled their way.

"I knew it."

In a buoyant tone, she brought her mouth close to Goichi’s ear:

"I just knew you’d come for sure."

Both her voice and expression held a single-minded intensity that seemed to draw one into unfathomable anxiety. It wasn’t quite the resigned abandon of “let come what may,” yet a vibrant emotion—as if stirred by unseen violence—tightened her features. She was the complete opposite of Goichi’s preferred type of woman, but the shifting shadows that grazed her expression would at times restore her to twenty-two or three; then, at some trigger, the habits of a long life would abruptly lay themselves bare, transforming her face in an instant into the boldness of a forty-year-old woman grown utterly defiant toward life. It was as though only the phantom of charm—divorced from substance—had formed in Goichi’s mind the impression of a woman surviving through mimicry adaptable to any atmosphere, but tonight, perhaps due to the anxiety creeping in from outside, that phantom appeared all the more corporeal.

“Hey, I was really happy!”

Yuri flickered her disordered gaze toward the three faces that had finally begun settling into a unified atmosphere after two or three beers,

“It’s almost strange that I still have these feelings left in me.”

Goichi flashed a self-mocking smile inwardly, but when confronted with the woman’s unexpectedly earnest expression as she stared fixedly at him, he was suddenly struck by an inescapable emotion. Chiding himself—This won’t do—he fixed his gaze on her face, now radiant with sudden new hope under the dim, blurred electric light, to verify Yuri’s words once more.
Goichi gulped down the half-finished beer and,

“Things could get really serious tonight.”

“So what?”

“You all should hurry back.”

“But...”

The faint haze resembling scratches lingering on her eyeballs transformed Yuri’s face into a sorrowful visage.
“You’ve only just arrived, haven’t you? Not even twenty minutes—at least twenty minutes... And there’s so much to talk about, but somehow tonight I just can’t contain my happiness.”

“You say you’re happy—but you don’t look it at all, do you?”

“Well...”

Yuri hunched her shoulders as if melting into him,

“This is unbearable—I can’t say a single thing I want to. If I were a dog, I’d at least wag my tail.”

After glaring at him with piercing eyes, she began to chuckle through stifled breaths, but Goichi Sagino—suddenly overcome by an odd sense of deflation—leaned back against the wall behind him.
“The situation could shift any which way... And if you slip up—”

“Careless?”

With a sneering laugh that twisted her nose into a provocative “How about tonight?” expression, Yuri’s face became one he found himself meeting—before he knew it—with a flustered yet lustful smile.

Not a single customer made a move to rise.
Just then, four or five men who looked like company employees noisily piled in, clustered around a table in the middle, and began discussing something in hushed, fragmented tones.
The hostesses had gathered around them before anyone noticed, all ears straining to catch every word.

*

The situation still hung in uncertainty, yet from every corner of the city rose a sense that even should things shift again, the sudden upheavals threatening the populace had come to a pause. The civic sentiment that had lost its foundation for living and drifted aimlessly now turned conversely toward condemning the rebel army's misdeeds. But though martial law had been imposed, the crisis hadn't truly passed—the people who had cowered beneath rumors now sought to scatter those very rumors themselves. With each passing hour grew the ranks of irresponsible agitators who, quivering at illusions of their own making, tried to grasp some shred of life's purpose by prolonging the perilous state.

It was on the third night that novelists and painters—fellow professionals residing nearby—gathered in Goichi’s study. Each had been airing their own views on this dire phenomenon when Uchigari the newspaper reporter entered with information more than half of which seemed unreliable, at which the entire gathering tensed up. Uchigari’s face appeared not merely to convey credible intelligence but to brim with a tragically heroic fervor.

He spoke as if he had personally witnessed which opinions were hardline and which were weak, but according to his colleague who had visited the Akasaka Hotel designated as the rebel army’s headquarters that day, the young officers were determined to persist until their objectives were fully achieved.

“After all, they’ve resolved to die—their determination is anything but ordinary.”

Uchigari blinked his eyes rapidly,

“But you,”

Then, Yashiro, the Western-style painter who had been lying sprawled on the tatami propped up on one elbow, heaved himself upright.
“If they persist any longer, won’t they just plunge deeper into calamity? I mourn for their heroic resolve.”
“The outcome remains uncertain—even the regular army merely maintains a perimeter. They can’t just take initiative.”
Uchigari said this, then abruptly assumed a somber expression,

“The hour is already late.”

he said in a low tone.
“If they were going to act, they should’ve done it yesterday. Letting that chance slip and wasting time was their mistake—their failure lies in losing the opportunity. Take Akechi Mitsuhide’s attack on Honno-ji Temple, for example—”

The source of Uchigari’s knowledge was his recent favorite book, Taikōki, but in this atmosphere, no one was inclined to lend an ear to his exceptional opinions.

“Look—I still think so. Why didn’t Mitsuhide, who had overthrown Honno-ji, prepare for Hideyoshi’s forces returning from Chūgoku while he was complacently basking in Kyoto, drunk on dreams of victory?”

Uchigari leaned forward and glared up at the group from below, carried away as he expounded in one breath how Mitsuhide—defeated at the Battle of Yamazaki—had his broken remnants of an army impaled by the bamboo spear of a nameless peasant. But reaching that point, even he seemed to grow self-conscious about his digression, masking it with an embarrassed smile as Marukawa, the literary youth, murmured “Hah!” in admiration—

“After all, their fundamental delusion lay in believing the people would rise up.”

“No.”

And then Funagata, who had been silently listening until now, cut in.
"They’ve already achieved their initial objectives with that alone—what more could they possibly hope for? Trying to shift to a popular movement now is impossible—rather, shouldn’t they clarify their responsibility before the nation to account for instigating such a major incident?"

“That may be true,”
said Yashiro.
“What will become of us, I wonder?”

“Nothing will come of it—no matter what era comes, our lives couldn’t possibly get any worse. If anything, I...”

Funagata started to say something but suddenly took on a grave expression.
"I think it might be better if the literary world were swept clean entirely."

“However,”

Marukawa’s eyes blazed with excitement behind his glasses.
“—Even worse conditions will emerge. No matter which way things fall, political power will inevitably tilt entirely to one side. Once that happens, all that’ll remain is mass-market journalism peddling government ideology. I tell you, we’ll soon enter an era where that hardware store owner and soba shop owner over there strut around like they own the place.”

“You could say that—but then again, it might not actually be that way.”

Uchigari worked his mouth as if to speak but ultimately stayed silent.
Then the conversation shifted abruptly to military power dynamics, but whenever words trailed off, it felt as though their lives might be uprooted at any moment—all that remained was the bleakness of a future they had envisioned until just yesterday, now stripped even of its hazy form.
Yet when alcohol arrived, the talk circled back again until they found themselves settled in their former spectator seats, debating arbitrary opinions about the actors’ movements on stage; as their discussion grew animated, they began sensing something dreadful still lurking in unseen corners.
It suddenly transformed into fresh curiosity.
The danger seemed both already past and yet poised to erupt anew.
Relief and anxiety filled their chests as everyone dispersed just after ten o’clock, leaving unvoiced what they’d meant to say. After escorting Marukawa—who intended to visit his aunt in Tokyo—to the suburban station, Goichi turned back alone. He walked right from the station for about a block before veering left onto a broad stone-paved slope ascending between banks of hardened snow. As he climbed beneath lamplight streaming down from above, a man with a long shadow hurried past without a word—then halted abruptly two or three steps beyond—

“Mr. Sagino!” he called out, spinning around to look back.

It was Shima, his senior who lived on a nearby hill.
Shima—unusually endowed with business acumen for a literary man—had rarely crossed paths with Goichi since becoming manager of the T Theater in Marunouchi, their interactions typically limited to Shima offering a brisk “Hey!” in passing whenever they chanced to meet on the street. But tonight’s sudden, overly familiar call left Goichi caught off balance,

“Where are you going at this hour?”

“Well...”

The face of Shima, who was over fifty, appeared taut with a youthful vigor characteristic of a young man.
“I was just about to go to sleep when I got a phone call waking me up—something about the regular army.”

After saying that,

“I don’t really understand who’s doing what either, but apparently a unit based at the Imperial Theater is confronting the Metropolitan Police Department in a situation where anything could happen at any moment. Then at night, soldiers on guard started noisily pouring into a restaurant near the theater—they’re making a huge racket drinking and singing right now—so they called me in case something goes wrong. Not exactly grateful to get dragged out at this hour.”

However, he did not seem particularly frightened by the danger.

“Gotta go!”

No sooner had he called out in a spirited voice, one hand raised to his hat, than he spun around and hurried off.

In Goichi’s mind floated intermittent glimpses of a scene—like some faded vignette from an old tale—of exhausted, drunken soldiers clustered around a dining table, shouting in unison, chanting dramatic recitations, and singing military songs. Snow hardened like stone was piled high on both sides of the road, and through the cold night wind came the raucous voices of soldiers inflamed by drink. The situation seemed to have reached a point where it could no longer be altered. When Goichi returned home, Takichi—who had apparently arrived almost as he was leaving—sat dejectedly before the long hearth in the parlor. His face lacked the vigor of the previous day, and even the bandage running from his left eye to his ear looked painfully incongruous. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nah.”

he said, repeatedly scratching his head,

"I'm more worried about my brother."

“Take-chan...?”

“Well, until yesterday things had remained unclear, but it seems external connections have been coming to light—this morning a man named Nemoto who led the People’s Union fled to my house with his wife. As for Big Brother, he left in the evening and hasn’t returned. For now, it seems neither the police nor the Military Police know about his involvement yet—but they’ll inevitably find out soon enough.”

According to Takichi’s account, Takekichi had been set to receive information from Nagatomi—the managing director of the Union—but when he visited at the appointed time that morning, Nagatomi’s attitude had suddenly become unsteady due to the changed circumstances, leaving Takekichi reportedly indignant.
However, there remained room to doubt just how deeply involved Takekichi had been, but Takichi now wore a completely calm face as though yesterday’s excitement had been washed away,

“What are we supposed to do...?” he said in a haggard voice, then clicked his tongue in disgust, “Honestly, no matter which way you turn, it’s all guys trying to wrestle using someone else’s loincloth! Take Big Brother’s friend Attorney Iwakoshi—yesterday he spent the whole day bowing and scraping while following Big Brother everywhere he went. But today? Now he’s acting like Take-chan’s to blame for everything! That same Iwakoshi was in the car with Take-chan yesterday heading to the Sanno Hotel headquarters. He whispers, ‘You sure this’ll work out?’ and when Take-chan says ‘Of course,’ he goes, ‘No—I mean, even I could become a cabinet minister!’ We had a good laugh about it afterward.”

With an air of having completely forgotten the resolve he had once expressed on that snowy morning to charge into the political arena, Takichi let out a thin, sarcastic smile.
And so, the fact that those who strove not to exceed the bounds of common sense still secretly yearned in their hearts for some abrupt, unforeseen chance occurrence made Goichi increasingly aware of the people’s uncertain movements.

“So where on earth is Take-chan?”

"I don't know where he is," he said, "but Big Brother's holding steady—we just need to make preparations now for when things come to a head."

The haggard exhaustion left after his illusions had vanished was etched across Takichi's face. Goichi entered the study alone, but his anxiety seemed to take firmer root in his relationship with Takekichi than in the rebel army itself. That feeling had grown even stronger by the next day. As evening fell, a dark shadow flickered within the brief reports of successive extra editions, hinting that the final fate of the rebel army was drawing near. Goichi opened the study window and gazed at the faint remnants of snow still glistening on distant rooftops, struck by sorrow as though witnessing how youth that had surged with anxiety now withered back into diminished lives. The lattice door swung open violently as Uchigari—returned early from the newspaper office—came upstairs and immediately pulled out a mimeographed sheet from his pocket.

“They dropped these over their positions from planes today—no hope left now that things have come to this.”

According to his account, at dusk—through the Konoe Division Commander’s quick thinking—the retreat call sounded from Sannoudai had made the soldiers’ tightly formed ranks suddenly begin disintegrating from one flank.

“What became of the officers?”

“Nothing’s certain yet. They say Lieutenant Nomura—their spokesman—delivered a solemn farewell address. There’s talk they all did the honorable thing en masse, but I doubt that story. Wouldn’t it be grimmer still if some survived? They’re bound for the gallows either way.”

“In such a moment, can they still not bring themselves to die in one decisive act?”
“Well...”
As he spoke, Uchigari gradually assumed a calm expression,
“They must be prepared, but when it comes down to it, feelings of uncertainty are bound to arise.”

The tragedy lies precisely there—Goichi found himself murmuring inwardly. The reality of their fates reflected in the cold eyes of those who had moved beyond passion's climax made him sense something irredeemably cruel in human existence. Any endeavor risking life inevitably carries illusions that incinerate the soul in an instant. Does life's meaning ultimately reside solely in affirming one's existence through these phantasms? When new realities coalesce and emerge, fervor dissipates, leaving behind only some unmanageable residue from the past. After Uchigari departed, through the faint gloom seeping into Goichi's eyes as he leaned against the window, the snow's hue lingered with unbearable rawness. Then flashed through his mind—the visage of that young officer who three mornings prior had marched at the vanguard through driving snowdrifts, eyes ablaze with revolutionary ardor.

It was already late at night when Takekichi—Takichi’s older brother—arrived with an utterly haggard face, and after removing his overcoat and settling himself in the parlor,

“Ah…”

He let out a hoarse sigh while shaking his head vehemently, his movements nervous.
“It’s finally time to make a decision.”

When Goichi saw the flicker of irrepressible emotion glinting in his moist eyes, he nodded lightly two or three times in a manner that suggested he understood everything, then—

“So what will you do, Take-chan?”

“Well, about that...”

Takekichi said in an utterly sunken voice.
“I was thinking of consulting you—it seems nearly a hundred external associates up to today have completely lost contact. So for now, I plan to lie low somewhere, grasp clear information, and then determine our next move.”

"But even speaking of information, the outcome's already been decided."

"I know, but—"

With a slack, lifeless voice, he furrowed his brows as if deep in thought.
“It’s still unclear how other circumstances might change...”

“Even so, there’s nothing to be done about it now—the real issue is your own course of action, Take-chan.”

“I can’t figure out what to do about it—whether I should turn myself in or try to flee somewhere—I’m struggling to decide.”

“I can’t say either way, but if you’re going to get caught anyway, don’t you think it’d be better to just turn yourself in?”

“That’s something I’m considering, but...”

He forcibly suppressed his voice growing thick with tears, straining to kindle a sense that there still remained something to rely on somewhere—though,

“No matter how cornered...”

He said while managing a pained smile.
"I don't think I should turn myself in. Ah, even for me—"

Through his glasses, Takekichi's eyes gazing at Goichi gradually took on a sharp glint.
"There's still backbone left—that is to say, as long as I live, one task remains for me."

"I know that, but…"

To avoid his increasingly urgent emotions, Goichi ordered Toyo in the next room, "Hey, bring some sake," and then—

“But you—that’s a separate matter. At least in my understanding, your role in this incident is over.”
“And if you were to flee, there’d be big trouble for your family.”

“So that’s how it is.”

Takekichi answered in a grave voice. The faces of his eight younger siblings and elderly parents must have flashed through his mind, for Takekichi—his heart racing at the phantom visions from three days prior that still dragged their stubborn shadows through his thoughts—

"There are still things I can’t bring myself to believe based solely on what’s come to light—so I’ll lie low somewhere until I can be certain there’s no way forward."

However, his voice immediately dropped to a muffled whisper,

“But maybe surrendering really is the right choice—though if I were shackled in a detention cell for two or three months with this body of mine, I’d surely break down immediately. Ah, what really weighs on me is my family—the interrogations are bound to drag on.”

Tormented by the frustration of still not fully grasping the fate he had fallen into, he kept clamping his lower lip tightly between his teeth and jiggling his legs violently, but after drinking some sake, he seemed to relax slightly. “I’m exhausted!” he muttered, flopping down onto the floor.
Then he suddenly heaved himself up,

“I wonder if Takichi didn’t come today?”

“So you won’t meet him then—he was supposed to come back in the evening.”

“Evening?”

Takekichi’s eyes sharply slanted upward.
“What’s he doing? This is such a hassle—but since he’s only worrying about family matters, I suppose that’s fine in its own way.”

Just the previous night, Takichi had been drinking at an eel restaurant when he got into a fight with an apprentice tailor at another table—the current incident serving as the spark—and though he made a grand show of shouting “Take it outside!” with great bravado, once they stepped out, he was promptly beaten senseless and left sprawled on the street.

“Anyway, he’s being far too reckless—he already acts like his whole life is over. I just wish he’d calm down a bit more.”

Takekichi burst out laughing in a hysterical tone,

"Anyway, the sheer vigor he had on that first day was something else! He cleverly tricked a driver living nearby and spent all day cruising through danger zones—and would you believe it, that driver was such an odd duck too! Apparently he thought something good would come from just sticking with Takichi. Then come afternoon on the second day, he starts kicking up a fuss about suffering huge losses."

“I see.”

In Goichi’s eyes appeared Takichi—wearing a wrinkled kasuri kimono with smiling patterns—vividly spouting wild boasts while sprawling arrogantly inside the automobile.
It was only natural for the day-laborer driver to think “if things turn out right,” yet when this person—wandering through the chaos while clinging to dreams of an impossible miracle—suddenly confronted their own wretchedness upon realizing all was lost, the shock solidified into an unshakable phantom lingering in his mind.
Takekichi, suddenly energized by two or three bottles of sake, lay down in the same room as Goichi with their pillows aligned. Just when he seemed to be breathing faintly in sleep, he burst into raucous laughter; then after some time began speaking calmly about fringe political groups in exhaustive detail—only to cut himself off mid-sentence and mutter, “I really should turn myself in.”
He had been uttering such things when four-year-old Mayumi—awakened by voices next door—slipped free from her sleeping mother’s arms, wriggled across the floorboards, and slid open the fusuma door while calling out, “Uncle!”

“Ah—”

With sentimental eyes gleaming, Takekichi sat up on the futon and firmly lifted Mayumi onto his lap.
“Ah, sweetheart, what’s wrong? Let’s sleep with Uncle tonight.”

He pushed his back out of the cramped futon to make space for Mayumi to sleep and stared for a long time at the child’s bewildered face.
However, even this sentimental scene had already transformed into a caricatured form in Goichi’s mind.
The melancholy had indeed flitted through the depths of his chest like fleeting sunlight—yet this did not stir in him any desire to harmonize with Takekichi’s sentimentalism. Instead, it was only the desolate emotion left behind after the exhilarating illusions had been swept away that reminded him of his own life, which had persisted amidst all that was unbearable and unendurable.
That soon transformed in his mind into the pallid faces of Young Officers, into the sound of a bugle shaking and echoing through hazy twilight air, until finally becoming a fated helplessness—one that loses sight of all wretched facts belonging neither to hope nor despair within history’s fleeting glimmer.
Then he came to feel that he himself—still somehow managing to endure these events that hadn’t ended at all but kept arising one after another—was becoming an unmanageable sort of person.

＊

It was the following morning that Takekichi decided to flee Tokyo to visit a friend in Osaka.
From behind Takekichi, who was bent forward tying his shoelaces in the entranceway, Goichi called out, “Shall I see you off to the station?” whereupon he hurriedly stood up,

“It’s fine—if you go to such trouble.”

He began to say, then—catching sight of Mayumi poking her face from behind the shoji screen while giggling shrilly—veiled his rising emotions with a smile,

“Good girl—just wait, all right? Uncle will come back laden with souvenirs before long.”

Mayumi evaded the hand reaching to pat her shoulder with an artless gesture and retreated behind the shoji screen. Takekichi cast a gaze laden with wistful affection at Goichi's face looking down from above. "I've imposed on you—please watch over Takichi," he abruptly said in stock-phrased farewell before opening the lattice door. Then Mayumi thrust her face out—

“Uncle!”

she called out in a shrill voice.
“Don’t forget the souvenirs!”

Then Takekichi blinked his eyes repeatedly,

“Goodbye—okay? Goodbye.”

With that, he bowed repeatedly and left.
The sky looked ready for rain, and the snow frozen at the bases of trees and under hedges—now dust-covered and turned a dingy gray—suddenly pierced Goichi’s chest with a pang of anguish.
The morning newspapers were filled with reports of the incident, but immediately following an article stating that among the Young Officers, only a Captain N had committed suicide while the rest had been handed over to the Military Police, there was a list of names of civilian associates arrested by the previous evening.
Goichi suddenly sensed that the authorities pursuing Takekichi were gradually closing in. That morning, he ordered Toyo to immediately burn the notebook Takekichi had entrusted to her, then went straight upstairs. But even after sitting at his desk, he found himself utterly unable to work as the murmurs of towns now seething with fresh rumors in the wake of the subsiding incident seeped into his mind and spread relentlessly.
Downstairs, Toyo—having struggled in secret with the maid over where to dispose of Takekichi’s notebook—finally threw it into the still-smoldering furnace of the briquette-heated bath. It sputtered and smoldered until evening, emitting an acrid burnt-paper smell.
That afternoon saw a military policeman and two plainclothes detectives begin keeping watch in front of Takichi’s house. The household members were prohibited from going out except for nearby errands—effectively placed under house arrest—and every visitor underwent rigorous inspection.
After four or five days, the military police disappeared, leaving only plainclothes detectives. Takichi had somehow grown friendly with them and now joined their search for Takekichi’s whereabouts.

One afternoon, he sneakily came to Goichi’s house.
“If we leave things like this, who knows how long it’ll drag on—and besides, Take-chan can’t hide forever.”

While uttering critical words condemning Takekichi—who kept fleeing recklessly without considering the trouble caused to those left behind—and appearing to struggle with devising some way to make him surrender, he suddenly felt a tragic resolve upon seeing the telegram addressed to Goichi from a friend in Osaka that read “NIMOTSU TODOITA AN SHIN SEYO.”

“What do you think—maybe he should just flee to China or something?”

He would mutter such things to himself, but as the investigations grew increasingly severe and his family’s opinion gradually converged on there being no choice but to have Takekichi surrender, Takichi—claiming he had some leads—skillfully persuaded the detectives, received travel funds from Goichi, and set off alone for Osaka. Two or three days later, he returned with Takekichi in tow.

The newspaper reports stating that every last civilian associate besides him had been arrested seemed to make Takekichi finally accept there was nowhere left to hide. That night, even when hosting a small farewell gathering at Goichi’s house, he carried himself in an entirely transformed cheerful manner—reciting with gusto what he claimed was a Chinese-style poem composed during his flight.

Having finally calmed down with the air of someone who’d done all he could, he slept soundly through the night before being escorted by Takichi to turn himself in at the N Police Station the next morning. But when Takichi returned that evening, he scowled with apparent disgust and spat, “They’re making a fool of me.”

“It’s like I’ve been completely fooled! Before going to pick up Take-chan, I had an agreement with that detective—when I said I’d definitely have him surrender at your station, his face changed color and he insisted, ‘Please do that!’ So then I thought they’d treat us with proper courtesy in return, and I marched in there all confident. But when we arrived, they made us wait and then immediately detained Take-chan. So I confronted him—‘Hey, this isn’t what we agreed on!’—and he just says, ‘No, this is just procedure for now.’”

“It can’t be helped.”

“It can’t be helped,” Goichi answered in an emotionless voice.
That night, he and Uchigari—who had come to visit for the first time in ages—talked awhile in the second-floor study, but their conversation never gained momentum.
“Come to think of it,” Uchigari murmured in a haggard voice with a wan smile, his face now marked by faded youthful vigor as the shadow of tedious life lingered about him, “those two or three days were rather enjoyable.”
As April neared its end, the division commander’s exhortation to Rebel Army soldiers—“It’s not too late yet”—had become a fashionable pickup line among barmaids in Ginza’s backstreet bars for a time, yet the passionate illusions of those young men were finally beginning to fade from public memory.
Takekichi’s interrogation dragged on interminably, and when the Military Police summoned him just before the rainy season’s onset, it proved merely a procedural formality.
After concluding in a single day, he was promptly returned to his original holding cell. As this cycle repeated endlessly, his sickly body steadily deteriorated.
At first, he would request favorite meals through Takichi—who occasionally delivered parcels—ordering eel rice next time, tempura bowls the next. But as external pressures mounted, such indulgences dwindled. Even when Takichi visited, he often returned empty-handed, and though May approached its end, no further summons came from the Military Police.
It was early July when Takichi relayed Takekichi’s plea to Goichi—“Somehow arrange to visit me just once”—and two days later, when Goichi accompanied Takichi to the facility, they were immediately ushered into the High Inspection Room. After a brief wait, Takekichi entered with labored steps—their first meeting in five months.
Yet he appeared far healthier than expected, insisting he could never forget sharing a futon with Mayumi. With a lonely smile, he recounted how two nights prior he had dreamed of his seven-year-old sister Nobuko—his shout of her name so loud that guards reported it to their superior, triggering an interrogation about this mysterious woman’s identity.
Takichi placed the ice cream can he had brought on the table,

“How about a bite?”

When he offered, he turned toward the detective sitting next to him and called out, “How about it, Mr. Yoshikawa?” A man wearing a thin padded robe over a grime-stained white shirt was leaning against the window, but with a sly glance over his shoulder, he silently stood up and bit eagerly into the ice cream Takekichi offered. Takekichi glanced at Goichi’s face,

“This is Comrade Hondo—since we’re sharing the same detention cell, we’re managing to get by.”

As he whispered this, Hondo—a sharp-cheeked man who finally looked twenty-five or twenty-six—flashed a faint, vanishing smile.
However, he simply returned to his original seat by the window and sat down, fixing his gaze on the dry tram line below under the scorching midday summer sun.
Immediately above the tram line rose a low hill crowned with towering ginkgo trees. To the right stretched a gently sloping embankment dotted with small shanty-like houses clustered haphazardly, their tall laundry poles bearing drying diapers visible.
Behind it stretched a red pine grove, and beneath a low cliff lay stacks of round pipes.
Next to it stood a compact single house whose bamboo fence had collapsed, forming a corner where the scent of daily life seemed to drift in from nowhere.
According to Takekichi’s account, the young Hondo had been brought down by his having printed propaganda pamphlets.

“The three of them—two brothers and their mother—had been living together running a small print shop, but both brothers were taken down.”

Goichi silently nodded.
Something unbearable to witness had carved a deep shadow into his profile as he leaned an elbow against the window frame, rested his chin on it, and gazed vacantly at the scenery outside through eyes dimmed by failing vision.
Goichi found himself more drawn to this withered young man—whose eyes he had only glimpsed briefly—than to Takekichi sitting close by.
Just then, a small-statured man with thick eyebrows and a mustache abruptly entered. Takekichi recoiled as he stood up, then whispered into Goichi’s ear, “The chief,” before—

“Well...”

and turned his face toward the man sitting in the corner seat.
“Let me introduce you—this is my relative, Sagino Goichi.”
“Oh.”

The man with the trimmed mustache didn’t bother turning toward Goichi, who had bowed politely, instead glancing at his wristwatch as if scrutinizing it.

“Hey, we’ve been here far too long,” he said in a curt voice.

The detective seated directly in front stood up, prompting Takekichi with a “Well, shall we go back?”

For an instant, fierce emotion flashed across Takekichi’s face—though he’d likely trained himself to suppress such reactions by now. His lips quivered faintly as he swallowed the anger before turning to Goichi with a smile that seemed to say, “You see how it is.”

Hondo, who had been leaning against the window, jerked upright. He moved his mouth wordlessly for a moment as if to explain himself, but was quickly herded out by the detective.

“If you have something to deliver…”

Goichi signaled to Takichi with his eyes, then turned toward the chief—who was facing sideways—and with a calm expression said, “Thank you very much for everything.” As he descended the dark staircase, Takichi immediately followed from behind, so—

“Did he say anything?”

When he asked,

“Yeah.”

His face flushed red as he faltered.
“He says he wants to eat eel.”

“Eel—?”

“Since I’d delivered it to him before, he remembered.”

When they emerged onto the street, Goichi walked silently to the tram stop, handed Takichi money for Takekichi’s delivery, then parted ways with Takichi—who said he’d head home for once. That night, as Goichi worked at his desk past one a.m., a voice singing Kushimoto-bushi drifted in from the hushed town. No sooner had he noticed it than disheveled geta clatters drew nearer to his house. Listening closely, he recognized Takichi’s voice.

There had been many times before when he had been roused awake by Takichi returning drunk late at night, but it was rare for him to come singing so loudly.

As Goichi scowled in displeasure, there came sounds suggesting the maid had finally awoken—the rattling of lattice doors being shaken as she apparently worked the lock—but Takichi outside remained oblivious to this commotion. "Your sweet little face," he kept repeating the same phrase over and over while waiting for the side gate to open.

Goichi felt a strange unease and remained motionless at his desk until the downstairs fell silent, but eventually he quietly stood up and opened the storm shutters facing the street.

It was a moonless night; the damp-laden breeze carried a faint chill, and the shapes of distant things lay sealed within the darkness. But as he stood there—Yuri’s face floating faintly into his mind—an anxiety surged up, churning the calm surface of his settled life like turbulent waves.

It hadn’t begun with any active sense of being in love, but after a chance motive sparked a physical relationship, Goichi had told himself to stop here—no, here—right here—yet found himself dragged inexorably to a point of no return.

Now that he thought of it, it wasn’t just about the woman—now devoid of both resolve and conviction, it was these slippery emotional shifts that had unknowingly formed the very substance of his life.

The passion that once stood ready to risk danger would swiftly approach from the recent past's recollections right behind him, making even the act of repelling its ceaselessly assailing illusions remarkably difficult—whereas now, his youth lay shrouded in a distant, murky shadow, so thoroughly obscured that looking back felt burdensome.

Neither despair nor even sorrow existed—only a mindset determined to view the fact of living as mere fact—and through skillfully evading every conceivable danger, this had transformed him into a man both unexpectedly bold and utterly unfeeling.

Now, nothing but muddled thoughts—so hazy he couldn’t distinguish between what he’d left behind and what he sought to preserve—drove him relentlessly forward without any plan.

The sound of night wind shaking trees began ringing sorrowfully in Goichi's ears.

Then, the memory of the tragedy that had occurred on that snowy day half a year prior rose not as a recollection of the past, but as an unknown hallucination from the depths of his chest.

And there remained in his heart’s grasp—as he tried to survive the present—a cold and eerie tactile sensation: this slippery, ungraspable entity that rebounded with tenacious elasticity when bent or crushed, yet immediately wilted into limpness.