Pathway to Japanese Literature

He scorned love.
He loved cigarettes.
Therefore, whenever the topic of love was broached, he would turn away and smolder his beloved Mon Repos.
From within smoke, instances where love is born are exceedingly rare.
And so, their love too finally vanished like a single cigarette smoked with apparent delight.

“Farewell.”

“Farewell.”

Afterward, only his smoke remained, wafting airily upward as it transformed the entire affair into mere smoke.
――Mon Repos, Da Capo――

On one such day, he suddenly received a single sweet-smelling light pink letter from the mountains—a letter so unfamiliar it seemed to have come in her stead.
Inside was written nothing but a plea to meet him, heedless of prying eyes.

“Hmm, this one’s pink too.”

He departed on a journey just like that, as if searching for a black envelope.

About a month later, when he casually returned home, the light pink had turned green again, with about eight letters having accumulated on his desk.

"However, this is truly splendid."

He arranged the envelopes on his desk with the intent of building a house of colored paper craft, then opened each one by one.

Yet as he read on, he had unwittingly forgotten his Mon Repos cigarette had gone out.

What on earth was wrong with this woman?
How could such gentle, unbroken letters—devoid of even a hint of anger—be written to a cold man who hadn't given a single reply to eight letters sent back and forth?
He abruptly lashed himself for his arrogance and lit another cigarette.

And yet, considering how this woman combined the gentleness evident in her letters with an entirely separate, brazen ability to keep writing to a stranger indefinitely, he could not help but feel that her light pink envelope was not merely pink—it seemed poised to spew forth some unforeseen chariot of flame.
――Mon Repos, Da Capo――

Then, suddenly from within the eighth green envelope, a message leapt out declaring she had come to Tokyo.

"This is breakneck speed.
It's already begun, hasn't it?
Alright then, let's meet and try to smoke her out with cigarette smoke."

He promptly set his cigarette down and,

“If you would come,” he began writing at the opening.

He could not bring himself to think of her as a tainted woman.
If she were not beautiful, she could never have sent such audacious light pink envelopes so repeatedly.
He gathered his beloved array of cigarette boxes close at hand and began gazing at them as if to ward off the woman’s beauty.
Russensorte, Mikruli, Mon Repos, Melachrino

The next day, he received a phone call from her.
She said she would come tomorrow at noon.
He exited the telephone room and stopped.
He tried to make the eight letters he had received from her bloom all at once in his mind—she must have lived a student’s life in this city.
She claimed to have read through his writings for eight years.
If that were the case, he must have unconsciously drawn her somewhere into the folds of his personality over those eight years.
If that were the case, to what extent had his own senses and perceptions been swimming within her?
The thought made waiting for tomorrow’s noon unbearable.
—But this cigarette’s taste—Yaka, Bouquets, Delight

The next day at noon, he was summoned by the boarding house maid and went out to the entrance.
Then she stood before the large door like a slim wisteria trailing downward.—Precious items were present.
Purple.—
“Oh,”

But she drew her face tight, struck by his habitual bitter expression that he always produced during first encounters.

“Please,” he said.

“Um, I must take my leave here.”

What nonsense.
He turned his back to her abruptly and retreated alone with heavy steps.
But she did not follow him up.
He turned back, his face still contorted in a scowl.

“Please come in.”

She came up toward him.

The two sat facing the garden in the Japanese-style room that overlooked it, but neither had any topic of conversation.
He, as if smoking out a woman he had parted with, once again blew out strong cigarette smoke from nostrils.
―― Le kama, Perlas, High Life, Pothschilde, El Siglo, Mikruli.

“Now, you’re at a boarding house, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you dislike cigarettes?”

“Yes, I cannot smoke at all.”

“Then, it must be all right for you to stay at the boarding house without any trouble.”

“Yes.”

“I like this more than anything,”

“Well,”

Her face was one where eyes moved faster than speech.
When he looked at her, she flustered and averted her gaze.
For her age, there was no vulgarity in how she gazed at people.
She was a girl who had lived in some spacious mansion where she met no one, spending her days freely playing alone until sunset.
Her face, unpracticed in smiling's art, shone in its stillness.
The beauty of her eyes and mouth's contour needed almost no correction—it was a face where any movement drew forth only past sufferings from within its smile.
—El Dominio, La Karma—

“Your father often lets you go out alone, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, Father listens to everything I say now.”

I see, he thought.
There could be no doubt that the cause of her suffering had sprung from her father’s boundless love.
In the soft sorrow of affluence that clung to her whole being, there was no pleasure to be found where the heart’s object had been restricted.—
He would sometimes find himself captivated by her beauty.
When motionless, she was undeniably flawless.
However, strangely, the desire to reach out to her beauty did not arise from the depths of his heart.
He met her and, for the first time, grasped the profound intent behind God bestowing ugliness upon people.

When three days had passed, he received the first letter from her since their meeting.

“I thought you were a lonely person.”
“You were also a frightening person.”
“But I came to look forward to the arrival of this coming Sunday.”
“Please, grant me another chance to meet you.”
“Oh, why ever does the color of the sky appear so bright?”
“Yet I, who had been living each and every day like a nun.”
“May I speak of such things to you?”
“Please forgive me.”

Even after finishing reading it, he felt no inclination to write a reply.
For it seemed that if he were to write a reply and receive another in return, he would ultimately end up peering into a dangerous abyss.

“Love, huh. Enough—I’ll have to pass on this one,” he muttered.

Da Capo, La Kama, La Rubia.

He left on a trip the very next day.
When he returned from his trip, another letter from her had arrived.

“Why must you be this way?”
“How I long to meet you soon.”
“As I was feeling so very lonely, today I went to church first thing in the morning.”
“Even after returning home, gazing out from that window and this, I did nothing but dwell on the dream I had of you last night.”
“Please, grant me another chance to meet you.”

Dangerous, he thought.
Groaning again, that clumsy figure dragging along that heavy love appeared before his eyes.
He immediately lit another cigarette and wrote her a cold reply.

“You said I am a lonely man.
But from my perspective, you cannot help but appear as a lonely woman.
If a lonely man and a lonely woman were to stand side by side and both declare their loneliness, that loneliness would surely triple.
You must indeed possess such feelings, and you must keep silent.”

The names of the cigarettes he had newly purchased—*Excelsior*, *Ambassador*, *Club Royale Estrellas*.

Two days later, a reply came from her.

“I have just received your letter.”
“It is currently my noon recess.”
“I returned for my meal, but the food wouldn’t go down my throat.”
“My heart is simply overflowing.”
“I no longer care about school or anything of the sort.”
“I shall set aside even the bathrobe I’ve been sewing for my sister’s baby and believe I shall come to visit you this afternoon.”
“I am no longer lonely at all.”
“I wish I could write so much more.”
“Eyes shining as if newly born—I gazed at them in the mirror just now.”

"He failed," he thought.
Before he knew it, he had come to the abyss.
However, he wondered where that abyss was.
He gazed into his own heart.
Then, within his chest that sought to preserve her joy, a great abyss lay waiting.
Then what was he to do?
He began chain-smoking cigarettes.
El Dominio, La Calma.—But why must he avoid her passion?—Yet this very thought was already taking shape as he staggered.—"But I mustn’t sit still; I must flee."—El Dominio, Mon Repos—

That day, she came at dusk.
He sat silently for a while amidst the cigarette smoke he exhaled, just as during their first meeting—
“Goodbye,”

“Goodbye,”

was all that was said.
While thinking that this was surely the last time.
――El Dominio, La Calma――

Three days later, a letter came from her.

“Even when I take up my knitting, I find myself thinking only of you—I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve miscounted the glass beads.”
“I immediately rushed to my desk and wrote this letter.”
“Though I was a child who never once woke in the night, now I startle awake without fail.”
“Perhaps you are still awake and might call out to me—I hold my breath and listen.”
“Whether I’m truly happy or in pain—I can’t tell.”
“My heart is full.”
“What a disagreeable creature I must be.”
“There can be no such thing.”
“Everything I saw seemed so dull, and I cannot express how desperately I wished to vanish away.”
“But I’ve grown tired of all those unpleasant things now.”
“Why should there be days when I cannot meet you?”

He was startled by this unforeseen turn.
Yet what a gentle letter this proved to be.
He felt cleansed, as though his soiled feet had been ritually purified.
――Mon Repos, Da Capo――Still, contemplating how she maintained that exquisite face in perpetual silence while dwelling on such matters, he concluded the divide between beauty and ugliness lay no deeper than a single layer of skin.
Without delay, he penned her a response.

“I have just received your letter.”
“However, I cannot comprehend why a lady of your beauty would write such love letters as these.”
“It would be wiser to wait until people start sending you love letters before you write any yourself.”
“Even when I receive such letters, I cannot discern on which line the boundary between lies and truth lies.”
“Might this not be the time for you to exercise prudence?”
“You must not let your guard down.”
“I must declare that this cigarette creature is a far more beloved lover than you.”

Avalon, Samoa, Dubec.

The following day, a reply arrived from her.

“How happy I must look.”
“The friends in my room remark that they cannot look at me, for I am too dazzling.”
“Could I have acquired such a bright face in so short a time?”
“But I’ve become someone whom black collars suit again.”
“I detested everyone in the world.”
“And having met you, I’ve come to love everyone in the world.”
“There are mountains of things I wish to write.”
“Why is it that I cannot write?”
“I simply cannot wait for Sunday.”
“I worry now that I might be disturbing your work.”

If she came again next time, things would surely take a dangerous turn.
He thought.
He thought that come Sunday, he must immediately flee somewhere.
――Club Royal, Estrella, Meine Kleine, La Rubia――

The following Sunday, he spent three hours before white pastries at a café with a friend, so absorbed in discussing Keaton’s expressionless face that he forgot his hunger.

When he returned home late that night, once again, signs that she had come during his absence were visible in the room.
He immediately wrote her a letter.

“I was certain you would come today.”
“That’s why I ran away.”
“I couldn’t help but flee.”
“There’s likely no man alive who wouldn’t flee when pursued by a beautiful woman such as yourself.”
“Do you know why this is?”
“A certain barber told me this.”
“‘When that beautiful woman looked at me,’ he said, ‘I thought I must have been bewitched.’”
“When I’m pursued by you, I find myself sharing that barber’s state of mind.”
“Please—from next time onward—come with your face smeared in ink.”

The names of the cigarettes he’d bought—Da Capo, Jako, Mikruli, Meine Kleine, Dubec.

The next day, a reply came from her.

“The day before yesterday found me trembling with anticipation.”
“I had thought you as transient as the wind.”
“My hands clutched at the curtains in your room before my gaze drifted to the glass door.”
“Had that been the portal through which you fled, why could my heart not transform into a wall to bar your way? There I sat forlornly at the very center of your chamber, pondering this.”
“The sweet pea I’d worn in my hair lay crushed within my palm.”
“Not knowing whither you might stray, even I cannot give chase.”
“No more—I vowed never again to pursue what proves as fleeting as spring gusts.”
“Forgive me this impertinence.”

“I have just received your letter.”
“I immediately turn red.”
“I believe I should no longer be a shy person, and yet—”
“My friends refer to me as someone who appears happy.”
“Whether this is happiness or unhappiness, I feel as though my head is spinning.”
“In this expanse between vastness and confinement, I am indeed unhappy.”

“Clever,” he thought.
He wanted to spread open a fan in tribute to her skill in composing this exquisite passage.

That night, she suddenly entered his room.
He panicked and brought a large brazier between himself and her, intending it as a wall.

However, perhaps sensing the danger that someone might leap over this brazier, he arranged the tea utensils and charcoal basket like a stone wall. And so, without looking at her face even once, he kept blowing cigarette smoke toward her while staring fixedly off to the side. If one did not look, surely even the most beautiful woman would appear as insubstantial as air.
―― Da Capo, Le Cam, La Rubia, Mine Kleine, Kings down

“I have an aversion to looking at people’s faces. For instance, if I stare at someone and start wondering whether I’m looking at their eyes or their nose, the face I’m seeing fragments into pieces—the person becomes nothing but a nose, or nothing but a mouth.”
“So, I—” he said and fell silent.
Because he had wanted to say, “Your face seems as insubstantial as air.”

It was his habit that whenever he met her, his loquacity would vanish entirely.
However, he could not remain silent in that state forever.
Wondering if there was nothing—or something—he thought of Da Capo, Jako, Ambassador——

"When I meet you, strangely, I find no need to be talkative."
"This is probably because you and I have lived for eight years without seeing each other's faces and in silence, I suppose."

Then she bowed her head and laughed.
He remembered how her beauty shattered when she laughed.
He hurriedly tried to find ugliness in her.
And already, her lips were tensed like a small bow.

"I failed," he thought. Had he seen those lips, tonight he would have undoubtedly leapt over the brazier and charcoal basket like a thief scaling a wall—Da Capo, Jako, Ambassador——

Ten o'clock struck. For an hour, he sat silent, measuring only the heights of the brazier and charcoal basket.

“Then, I must take my leave,” she said.

She stood up and tried to leave, forgetting the white shawl.
He picked up the shawl and placed it on her shoulder.
As if comparing the height of their backs, they stood motionless and silent.

He knew what needed to be done.
Yet despite this, he found himself compelled to murmur dignified words to himself until the very end.

“I toast to the fine prose written in her letters.”

Now then, like lips draining wine, his mouth slowly advanced toward her lips.
The next instant, he was flustered when presented with a test question from God.

“Why does a woman of such complete beauty lie so serenely within these two arms of mine?”—this became his incomprehensible question.

The very next day, a letter arrived from her.

“The world has grown smaller.”
“In what deep flower color did my heart begin to open its eyes?”
“What part of such a hateful, willful creature could you possibly deign to love?”
“Last night when I returned, I found myself crying and crying uncontrollably.”
“But after that, my heart soaked in calm and settled.”
“Please deign to forgive me.”
“Could it be that I have spoken words to disturb your noble heart, or directed unpleasant eyes your way? I beg you to deign to forget this.”

While smoking Luzon Solte, he promptly wrote a reply to that letter.

“I am the thief who secretly stole the princess’s small bow from within the castle.”
“Oh God, please deign to punish me.”

Two days later, another letter arrived from her.

"I am overjoyed that the withered petals remained alive until this morning."
"When Saturday morning comes, my heart too revives."
"Lately, I find myself recalling only spring days."
"Now I find myself loving you most of all."
"Ah, I must return to my hometown soon."
"I wish to vanish completely."
"I am putting up my hair and looking at the blue sky."

He promptly wrote a reply to her.

“You must go back.”
“You must not approach the thief’s side.”
“You must press your lips firmly.”
“You must not say you love the thief.”
“If you declare that you care for me beyond this measure, I shall inevitably steal even your treasures.”
“You must not make me a greater thief than I already am.”

The next day, he received a reply from her.

“Ah, beloved you—why do you not deign to answer me, I wonder?”

"This won’t do," he thought.
He stopped reading the letter and smoked a cigarette.
But after fidgeting, he resumed reading.

“When I cut a lemon and suck it, your heart flows into my throat.
The glass door cannot help but take on the sea’s color.
Through the evening mist, orange electric lights begin here and there to stitch their way through the town.
I lie in bed with a cold.
I will not speak of this to anyone or anything.
Now I have turned on the electric light in my solitary room that resembles a flower-decked float.
This spring, I knitted a baby’s afghan with Minerva’s thin pink and white yarn.
But when I finished knitting it, I realized such a thing would never find a place in my life.
I wanted to fold it into a triangle and make it a shawl—but then, now in this refreshing early summer evening brimming with stars, that beautifully white afghan sways upon your chest.
It is not strange in the slightest.
My heart has become like a gentle sheep.”

When he finished reading her letter, he stared blankly like a cornered thief.
He read her letter once more as though searching for an escape route.
But the more he read, the more he felt the treasure he feared thundering after him without end.
If he remained here any longer, no matter how valiantly he scorned love or clung to cigarettes, he was destined to come crashing down upon love alongside them—El Dominio, La Culca, Club Royal, El Trella.

The very next day, he finally fled on another journey without a word to her.
But from his inn on the road, he immediately wrote her another letter.

“I have fled from you to such a place again.”
“You are trying to pin that baby’s afghan to my chest like a medal.”
“Yet I remain woefully unqualified to receive such an honor.”
“No—more than that—I must refuse this decoration outright.”
“Let me reiterate: I am but the thief who crept into your house.”
“Your exquisite bow alone suffices me.”
“Should I accept further treasures, would not your so-called punishment transform into a gleaming medal?”
“Surely you don’t mean to dangle this badge of thievery about me forevermore.”

Three days later, a reply came from her.

“I have just returned from church.”
“I can no longer bear being alone.”
“Since you went so far out of your way to such a distant place, I found myself feeling like going to a church I didn’t even want to attend.”
“I simply sang *Lily of the Valley* cheerfully.”
“When I returned home, a friend kindly gave me some apples from my hometown.”
“It was so beautiful—so beautiful—that I wanted to pray upon the snow.”
“Your detestable heart must surely be this color.”
“With the knife bearing cobalt-colored lines that my acquaintance the Regimental Commander kindly brought back from Germany for me, I wish to minutely, minutely carve it all away.”
“No—my hateful heart.”

He abruptly perceived the regimental commander as a knife.
If he continued his journey in this careless manner, he thought, blood would inevitably drip from his heart during those idle moments.
While wrapping bandages around his heart, he promptly wrote her a reply.

“I cannot bear my terror of the regimental commander’s cobalt-colored knife. If you declare that you intend to chase me about wielding such a gleaming knife, I shall offer not my heart but my stomach before your blade. ‘Alright—do it!’ I declared. But, well—do put down that knife and think for a moment. That beautiful you—in such a state—holding a knife. Dangerous—so dangerous! It will slice your hand. My heart—do not mistake it—is by no means an apple tumbling upon snow. To tell the truth, I confess—this heart is already an animal you’ve sliced and bandaged. I have suddenly become terrified of you. I will probably never again approach such a flower holding that knife.”

Three days later, a reply came from her.

“I have been gazing at the blue sky since earlier.”
“What manner of fortunate creature could I be?”
“What could have brightened my heart so? No one knows—no one at all.”
“I can hardly bear not to sing hymns.”
“I humbly ask you to share all of your loneliness and all of your joy.”
“What could you possibly be doing?”
“I longed to sense your room, so I secretly bought cigarettes I cannot even smoke, and even now, even now, I smolder them while choking.”

The knife had transformed into cigarettes, he thought.
By her cigarettes, a single immovable nail had been driven into his chest.
"It's over."
While removing the bandages from his severed heart, he wrote a reply with dazed hands.

“Am I not crawling flat on my back like a target you’ve shot down?”
“My chest is unbearably tight.”
“Am I not, as that barber said, being transformed into you?”
“You glitteringly flashed the cobalt knife before my eyes, and in an instant, turned it into a cigarette.”
“This is what we call magic.”
“But if that’s the case, then I too shall offer you a puff of magic.”
“You must knit up Minerva’s Afghan once more before I reach your side.”
“I trust you are duly prepared.”
“Blow my cigarette smoke right at the cobalt-colored Regimental Commander’s nose.”

Three days later, a reply came from her.

“I wrote a letter to father.”
“I wrote about you and me as if we were children.”
“But I carelessly wrote too much and became ashamed.”
“I return home, have a beautiful kimono dyed for myself, and quietly contemplate becoming a vibrant purple bride.”
“What could be making me so happy?”
“And then I shall not be a bother, and allow myself to remain by your side.”
“Ah, my hope runs as deep as mist.”
“That I could meet someone as wonderful as you—never once had such a thing crossed my mind.”
“The fact that I am like this feels so strange to me—that being by your side cannot feel natural—and ah, it all seems somehow wrong.”

He immediately wrote a reply to her.

“I too feel somehow wrong.”
“Let me hide my face a while longer.”
“I’m blowing cigarette smoke recklessly.”
“To confirm this is what they call magic—never once had I imagined love might come leaping from such wispy smoke.”
“This is magic without doubt.”
“If not, then it must at least be tobacco’s harm.”
“I’ve sworn never to smoke again in this life.”
“But for now, I don’t want you seeing my face.”
“You mustn’t yet try to remove this hand from my face.”

Three days later, a letter arrived from her.

“Haven’t you returned yet? Please return quickly. I casually asked Mother to dye the hem of her crested black kimono with a scattering of small spilled flowers. Even when by your side, I never think only of comfort—yet nor have I ever contemplated hardships or sorrows. You place me beside you more refreshingly, more achingly familiar, less painfully than magnolia blossoms. When you do so, I—in evening halls where black pianos keep their silence—become a simpler, kinder heart than any white bird crying endlessly. I carefully smooth out and hang by my bed the paintings of van Gogh’s sunflowers and briar roses I crushed in my sleeve at church, gazing upon them. What could be lonely? What could make this world painful?”

“That’s right—what could be lonely? What could be a painful world in this existence?” he muttered in unison.

When he suddenly wanted to see her, he rushed to the station as though plunging headlong.
He boarded the train.
He began puffing away cigarette smoke, then let slip a knowing smile as he contemplated them.

――

“This—yes, this thing called cigarettes is indeed harmful.”
“Such things are best set alight and burned.”

In his mind, a procession of countless lit cigarettes swam forth toward her like a musical score.

―― Damas.

―― Opera.

―― High Life.

―― Da Capo.

―― Le Cama.

―― La Rubia.

—What could be lonely? What could be a painful world in this existence? he wondered while dancing.