Modern Japanese Literature

by Donald Keene

  Ilya was a bachelor. I always think: how lucky Ilya was to have been a bachelor! There’s the difference between the unhappy Ilya and myself.

  I am worn out now. And I am seeking peace of mind. What sort of thing is “peace of mind?” Where is it? I can’t return to the blank mind I had long ago before I knew pain, not if a hundred years were to elapse. Where is peace of mind?

  I want to be sick. For a long time this desire has been lurking in my head. Sick! This word that other people hate sounds as sweet to me as the name of the mountain where I was born. A free life, released from all responsibilities!

  Sickness is the only way we have to obtain peace of mind.

  I think: I wish they would all die. But nobody dies. I think: I wish they would all be my enemies. But nobody shows me any special enmity, and my friends all pity me.

  Why am I loved? Why can’t I hate anyone from the heart? To be loved is an insufferable insult.

  But I am tired! I am a weakling!

  For just a year, for even a month,

  Even a week, even three days will do,

  God, if you exist, God!

  I have just one wish, that you

  Will break down my body somewhere.

  It doesn’t matter if it hurts, make me sick

  Oh, make me sick.

  I want to sleep

  On pure white, soft, and

  Gently enveloping my whole body

  Cushions, where I feel as though I am sinking

  All the way into the bottom of a valley of peace, no

  On the worn mat of a home for the aged will do,

  Not thinking of anything (so that even if I die,

  I don’t care) to sleep a long time.

  To sleep so soundly that I won’t know

  If someone comes and steals my hands and feet.

  How’s that for a feeling? Ah—

  Just the thought makes me sleepy.

  If I could tear off and throw away

  This garment I am wearing now,

  This heavy, heavy garment of obligation (ah, I grow drowsy).

  My body would become light as hydrogen,

  And perhaps I would fly, high, high into the great sky,

  And everyone below would say, perhaps, a lark!

  Death! Death! My wish

  Is for this alone.

  Ah, will you really kill me? Wait just a bit,

  Merciful God, oh, just a little while!

  Just a bit, just enough to buy some bread,

  Five, five cents will do,

  If you have enough mercy to kill me!

  A tepid wind heavy with rain is blowing this evening. In the distance the croaking of the frogs. At three in the morning the rain came splashing down.

  IIth, Sunday

  Today I had to go to a poetry gathering at Yosano’s house.2 Naturally, there was no likelihood of anything amusing taking place. Hiraide was telling what a big success last night’s “Devotees of Pan” 3 had been. Yoshii, who came in late, was saying, “Last night when I got drunk and pissed from Eitai Bridge, a policeman bawled me out.” Everybody seems to have been drunk and had a wild time.

  As usual we wrote poems on given themes. It must have been about nine o’clock when the selection of poems was completed. Recently I haven’t felt like writing serious uta, and as usual turned out some mock verses. Here are a couple:

  When I wear shoes

  That make a squeak

  I feel unpleasant, as if

  I tread upon a frog.

  Your eyes must have

  The mechanism of

  A fountain pen—

  You are always shedding tears.

  The man

  Whose hands tremble and voice breaks

  At sight of a woman

  No longer exists.

  Akiko suggested that we sit up all night composing poetry. I made some silly excuse and left.

  Another precious day wasted. Suddenly a feeling of regret surged up within me. If I was going to look at the cherry blossoms, why didn’t I go by myself and look at them as I wanted? A poetry gathering! Of all the stupid things!

  I am a person who delights in solitude, a born individualist. I feel as if the time I have spent with others, at least when I haven’t been fighting with them, has been so much emptiness. It seems quite natural that when I spend an hour with two or three or more people, the hour, or at least half of it, is so much emptiness.

  I used to enjoy people’s visits, and tried to send guests away as happy as possible so that they would come again. What a stupid thing to have done! Now I am not so pleased when people come. The only ones I’m glad to see are those who are likely to lend me money when I am broke. But I try not to borrow unless I have to. How happy I would be if I could make a living without being helped in anything because I am pitied! This doesn’t necessarily refer only to money. Then I could live without listening to anybody’s talk.

  I have thought what a pointless way I am living, but the thoughts after that have frightened me. My desk is in a mess. I haven’t anything to read. At the moment the most pressing thing is to write a letter to my mother, but that also frightens me. I always think: I wish I could comfort those poor people by writing them something, anything at all. And since the beginning of the year I’ve sent them exactly one letter and one postcard. This month, it was at the beginning of the month, I had a letter saying that they had only twenty sen to spend on Kyōko. I borrowed in advance even more than usual from the firm, with the intention of sending them fifteen yen. But I put it off from day to day, disliking to write a letter. Ah—

  I fell asleep immediately.

  I2th, Monday

  Today was just as beautiful as yesterday. The cherry blossoms, enjoying their three days of life under a windless sky, have yet to fall. The cherry tree under my window is sprouting pale leaves above the blossoms.

  Down the hill on the right-hand side of the street, just at the corner of Tamachi, is a shoemaker’s shop. When I passed there, suddenly a happy, gay voice entered my ears, as if from a fond memory. A wide grassy field floated up before my eyes—a skylark was singing in a cage at the shoemaker’s. For a minute or so I remembered my dead cousin, with whom I used to go shooting in the fields near his house.

  When I think of it, I have left my old—yes, old—friends, and the time has come for me to build a house for myself. The “old friends” I have are, or were, actually the newest friends I have made. Naturally I don’t think of Yosano as an elder brother or as a father. He is simply a person who has helped me. The relations between one who helps and one who is helped can continue only while the former is more important a person than the latter, or while the two are traveling different roads, or if the former is no longer as great as the latter. When they are traveling the same road and there is rivalry between them, the friendship ends. I do not now have special respect for Yosano. We are both writers, but I somehow feel that we are traveling different roads.

  I have no desire to be any closer to Yosano, but at the same time I do not feel any necessity of making a break with him. If an occasion comes, I should like to thank him for all he has done for me.

  It is different with Akiko. I sometimes do think of her as an elder sister . . . the two of them are quite different.

  Most of the other friends I have made through the New Poetry Society are very different from the Yosanos. I have already quarreled with Hirano. Yoshii is a second-rate lascivious daydreamer who frightens people by wearing a devil’s mask—a pitiable second-rater. If their so-called literature is the same thing as my literature, I won’t hesitate to throw away my pen forever. The others are not even worth mentioning.

  No, such things have no use. However I think of it, they don’t amount to anything.

  To do only what I want, go where I want, follow all my own needs. . . .

  Yes, I want to do as I please.

  That is all! All of all!

  Do not be loved by others, do not accept their charity, do not promise anything.
Do nothing which entails asking forgiveness. Never talk to anyone about yourself. Always wear a mask. Always be ready for a fight—be able to hit the next man on the head at any time. Don’t forget that when you make friends with someone you are sooner or later certain to break with him.

  13th, Tuesday

  Early this morning I opened my eyes, momentarily wakened by the noise of the maid opening the shutters. Hearing nothing else, I dozed off again, the unconscious sleep of spring. It is a cloudy calm day. All over the city the blossoms are gradually beginning to fall.

  A sad letter came from my mother.

  “Dear Mr. Ishikawa,

  I was so happy with the letter you sent to Mr. Miyazaki. I have been waiting every day since, hoping word would come from you, and now it is April already. I am taking care of Kyōko and feeding her, which I have never done before. She is getting bigger every day, and is almost too much for me. Can’t you send for her? I beg the ravor of a reply.4 On the sixth and seventh there was a terrible rainstorm. The rain leaked in and we had nowhere to stay. Kyōko was so upset she couldn’t sleep. She caught a cold on the second of April and is still not better. Setsuko 5 leaves for work every morning at eight o’clock and doesn’t return until five or six. It’s so hard for me when she is not here. There’s no more household money left. Even one yen will be appreciated. I beg you kindly to send something soon. When do you think we will be able to go to Tokyo? Please let me know. If we don’t get an answer from you, it’s all over with us. We are all coming, so please make preparations.

  Katsu”

  My mother’s letter, in shaky characters, full of spelling mistakes! I don’t suppose very many people besides myself could read it. They say Mother was the best student at school when she was a girl. But in forty years of married life with my father, she probably never once wrote a letter. The first one I received from her was two summers ago. I had left Mother alone in Shibutami. She couldn’t stand that dreadful town any longer, and she had written out of loneliness, searching in her memory for the completely forgotten characters. Today was the fifth letter I have received since coming to Tokyo. There are fewer mistakes, and the characters are better formed. How sad—my mother’s letter!

  14th, Wednesday

  I decided to take off today and tomorrow, and started a story. I’m calling it “The Wooden Horse.”

  Inspiration in writing seems to be something like sexual desire. The man from the lending library came today and offered me some “unusual” books. Somehow I wanted to read them, and I borrowed two. One is called The Misty Night in the Blossoms, the other The Secrets of Love. I wasted three hours copying out in Romaji The Misty Night.

  At night Nakajima came here, together with a minor poet named Uchiyama. Uchiyama’s nose has the most extraordinary shape! It looks as if a deformed sweet potato had been stuck in the middle of his face, with a few parings and flattenings here and there. An endless flow of chatter comes from him: he’s like one of those unshaven beggars one sees clowning in the streets. On top of everything else, he is practically a midget. I have never seen anyone quite so pathetic-looking. A truly pitiful, farcical innocent—excessively so, perhaps: I felt a strange impulse to smash him in the face. Every serious utterance he makes sounds funny, and when he says something humorous with a sniff of his grotesque nose, he looks as if he is crying.

  It started to rain a little before ten. Nakajima professes to be a Socialist, but his is a very aristocratic socialism—he left in a rickshaw. Uchiyama—the poet is a feal Socialist—went home under a borrowed umbrella. He really looked a poet.

  I wrote three pages of “The Wooden Horse.” I longed for Setsuko—not because of the lonely patter of the rain, but because I had been reading The Misty Night in the Blossoms.

  15th, Thursday

  No! Does my need for Setsuko arise simply out of sexual desire? No! No!

  My love for her has cooled. That is a fact, a not surprising fact—regrettable but inescapable.

  Love is only a part, not the entirety of human life, a diversion, something like a song. Everyone wants at times to sing, and it is a pleasant thing to do. But man cannot spend his whole life in song, and to sing the same tune all the time, however joyous it may be, is sating.

  My love has cooled; I am tired of singing that song—it’s not that I dislike it. Setsuko is really a good woman. Is there in all the world another such good, gentle, sensible woman? I cannot imagine a better wife than Setsuko. Sometimes, even while I was actually sleeping with Setsuko, I have hungered for other women. But what has that to do with Setsuko? I was not dissatisfied with her. It is simply that men have complex desires.

  I have not changed in my love for Setsuko. She was not the only woman I loved, but the one I loved most. Even now, especially during the last few days, I often think of her.

  The present marriage system—the whole social system—is riddled with errors. Why must I be tied down because of parents, a wife, or a child? Why must they be victimized because of me? But that, naturally, is quite apart from the fact that I love my parents, Setsuko, and Kyōko.

  16th, Friday

  What an idiotic thing! Last night I stayed up until three copying in my notebook that pornographic old novel The Misty Night in the Blossoms. Ah, me!

  I could not control my craving for that intense pleasure!

  When I woke about ten this morning I felt a strange mental fatigue. I read the letter from Miyazaki.

  Will they all please die, or must I? It’s one or the other! I really thought that as I sat down to write an answer. I assured Miyazaki that I am now able to make a living, and said that all I need is the money to move from these lodgings, to rent a house, and to pay the traveling expenses for my family! When I finished writing, I wished I were dead.

  I finally got off the one yen to my mother. Out of dislike for writing, out of fear, I have neglected to send it until today. I enclosed it in the letter to Miyazaki.

  Tonight Kindaichi6 came to my room. He talked about all kinds of things, hoping to stir up some literary inspiration in me. I didn’t answer—instead, I indulged in a variety of absurd pranks which eventually drove Kindaichi away. I took up my pen immediately. Half an hour went by. I was obliged to give serious consideration again to my inability to write a novel and to the fact that my future is devoid of hope. I went to Kindaichi’s room and performed my whole repertory of silly tricks. I painted a huge face on my chest and made all kinds of grimaces, whistled like a thrush, and, in conclusion, took out my knife and acted out the part of the murderer in a play. Kindaichi fled from the room! I certainly must have been thinking something horrible!

  I had switched off the light in his room, and stood in the doorway brandishing my knife.

  Later, back in my room, we looked at each other in dismay at what had happened. I thought that suicide could not frighten me.

  Then, at night, what did I do? Misty Night in the Blossoms!

  It is about two o’clock. Somewhere off beyond Koishigawa there is a fire, a single dull red line of smoke climbing perpendicularly into the black sky.

  A fire!

  17th, Saturday

  I did not go to work today because I was sure I would be able to write—no, it was because I wanted to take the day off that I decided to write. I attempted to describe last night’s thoughts about suicide. I wrote three pages and couldn’t think of another line.

  I tried to correct some poems, but just spreading out the paper was enough to make me sick.

  I thought of writing a story about a man who is arrested by a policeman for sleeping in a vacant house, but couldn’t find the energy to lift my pen.

  I said to myself, “I positively will give up my literary career.”

  “If I give up literature, what shall I do?”

  Death! That’s the only answer.

  Either I must have money or else be released from all responsibilities.

  Probably this problem will haunt me until I die—I’ll think about it in bed!

  19th
, Monday

  The abominable treatment I receive at my lodgings has reached a limit. I got up about nine. No fire, even after I finished washing. I put away the bedding myself. While I impatiently smoked a cigarette, a child went by in the hall. I told him to get me fire and some hot water. Twenty minutes later they brought breakfast. Nothing to eat it with. I rang the bell. Nobody came. I rang again. Nobody came. After what seemed hours the maid brought a spoon, which she flung down without a word on the table. The soup had become stone cold.

  Under my window an elderbush is in blossom. Long, long ago, when I was still living in Shibutami, I often used to make pipes from elder branches.

  I always think when the maid and the others are rude to me, “Damn them! I can just imagine how they’ll fawn on me when I pay the bill!” But, I wonder, will such a day ever come?

  21st, Wednesday

  The cherry trees are in full leaf. When I opened the window this morning, a smoky color of young leaves met my eyes. Yesterday I saw two people in summer hats. It’s summer!

  At nine o’clock I went to the public bath in Daimachi. I often used to go there when I first came to Tokyo last year. Nothing has changed, except that the seventeen-year-old girl-attendant, the one who seemed fond of me, is no longer there. I could see through the window the shadows of young leaves in the fresh morning sunlight. I returned to all my feelings of a year ago. Then the memory of the dreadful Tokyo summer came back with painful vividness, that summer I spent in lodgings. I was in terrible financial straits, but happy to be escaping even briefly the responsibility of providing for my family. Yes, I was enjoying the sensation of being a “semi-bachelor.” I soon abandoned the woman with whom I was having an affair at the time. She’s now a geisha in Asakusa. A great deal has changed. I have made a number of new friends and discarded them.