Romaji Diary and Sad Toys

by Takuboku Ishikawa

  As if treading on frogs.11

  ___

  Takes a three-year course of study

  Before giving a great big yawn

  In my superior's face!

  To leave home, cross plains,

  Traverse mountains, seas,

  Oh, I want to go somewhere!

  ___

  Took her hand without a pause:

  Surprised, she resisted

  And never came back.

  ___

  Isn't there a gadget like a pen in your eyes

  That aids

  This perpetual flow of tears?

  ___

  That guy used to stammer, hands trembling,

  When he saw a woman—

  He's miles from that now!

  ___

  Lying on green grass by this bank

  And hearing from the distant sky

  Sounds of a band!

  Akiko-san had invited us to continue composing all night. I devised some unconvincing pretext and hurried home. I found Aomi in Kindaichi's room and talked idly there for about an hour. And then I returned to my room.

  Remorse suddenly welled up in me: "Another precious day spent uselessly!" If I had wanted to see the cherry blossoms, why hadn't I gone alone and seen them to my heart's content? Tanka meetings! How dull and stupid!

  I'm a person who rejoices in solitude. I'm a person who's a born individualist. Any time spent with others seems to me empty unless the time has been spent fighting. To waste one hour with two or three or even more men! It's natural for that hour to seem empty or at least half-empty.

  Formerly I was happy when someone called on me. I tried to please him as much as possible so that he'd come again. What a ridiculous thing that was! Now when someone comes to see me, I'm not particularly happy about it. I think I'm only happy when some guy comes who can lend me something when I'm out of cash. But if at all possible, I don't want to borrow money. If it were possible to live without being pitied by anyone or helped by anyone, helped or pitied not only monetarily but in everything, how happy I would be! If that were the case, I could live without saying a word to anyone.

  I had felt, "A wasted day!" Somehow, though, I was afraid to continue with that line of thought. The top of my desk was a mess. Since I had no books to read, the only task at present was to write some letters to my mother and others, but I was equally afraid to do that. I always feel as though I want to console those pitiful people by writing something to please them, anything at all. I haven't forgotten my mother and wife—far from it, I think about them every day. Nevertheless, I wrote them only one letter and a card this year. Setsuko mentioned this in her letter the other day. She's still working at the school that she had intended to resign from in March. She said that even though it was only the beginning of the month, she had only twenty sen to give Kyōko for her allowance. That was why I borrowed from the company a little more than the advance I needed. I had intended to send her fifteen yen out of it. And while I kept hesitating to write, a day passed, then two.... Oh God!

  I went to bed at once.

  This morning a man by the name of Arai from Gumma Prefecture had come to see me. He said he was going to bring out a magazine entitled Fallen Chestnuts.

  Monday, April 12

  As bright and clear today as it was yesterday. The cherry blossoms, which had not yet begun to fall, were enjoying their third day of life under a windless sky. The cherry tree below my window has put forth light green shoots above its blossoms. The leaves on the elder tree have become quite large.

  After I go down the slope and come out on Tamachi Street, there's a shop on the right that sells geta. As I passed in front today a joyous sound suddenly came to me as though it were emerging from some precious memory. Spreading before my mind's eye was a wide field of green grass. A skylark inside a cage suspended from the eaves of the clog shop began chirping. I walked on for a minute or two remembering my dead cousin and Oideno, the place where I used to go hunting with him.

  I think it's already time to separate from my old friends—yes! from my old pals—and to build a house of my own. There are two kinds of friendship. One, a friendship in which each party seeks something in the mind of the other. And the second, a friendship in which someone is approached because of mutual tastes, opinions, or interests. In the first type, differences in taste, opinion, or interest or differences in status and occupation will never be an obstacle to camaraderie unless they lead the two individuals into a situation in which they are forced to directly and seriously compete with each other. A friendship between two such people lasts a comparatively long time.

  A friendship of the second type, however, is considerably different. Of course, in some situations a friendship formed in this manner changes into the first along the way and continues a long time. But generally this latter relationship is, in a sense, a kind of business connection. It's a commercial relationship. It's not a direct relationship between A and B, but a relationship between A's property or rights—for example, his tastes, his opinions, and his interests—and those that B possesses. The mutual relationship between shops and banks continues as long as no change occurs in their actual business conditions. Once some change does occur in either party, the transactions must be broken off. That is the natural order of things.

  It is a misfortune to lose friends, provided the relationship has been of the first variety. If the loss is in a relationship of the second kind, it is by no means a misfortune, though it may not necessarily be called a blessing. If a man lets this latter rupture occur passively, it's an insult to him; if he takes the initiative in rupturing it, it's a victory.

  Those I referred to as "old friends" are actually the newest friends in my past, no, were the newest. I don't of course regard Mr. Yosano as an elder brother or a father. He's merely a person who has been helpful to me. The relationship between the man who helps and the man who is helped will continue only as long as the helper remains more influential than the man helped or the two men go their separate ways. In a situation in which both pursue the same path and some rivalry exists between them, the friendship dies. I now have no respect for Mr. Yosano. Though we are both following literature as a profession, I feel we are walking along different paths. I do not have any desire for a closer relationship with him, nor do I feel any particular need to separate from him. I want to thank him for his past kindnesses if the opportunity arises.

  Akiko-san is quite another matter. I sometimes think of her as an elder sister. The two of them are quite distinct from others.

  Most of the other friends I have gained from my association with the Shinshi-sha are in a quite different category from the Yosanos. I have already quarreled with Hirano. And Yoshii is a carbon copy of those self-indulgent dreamers who try to overwhelm you through sheer bluff—and a most pathetic carbon at that. If what they call literature were the same as what I call it, I would not hesitate to throw away my pen at a moment's notice. As for the rest of those friends, they are not worth mentioning.

  But all this is idle. There's no use thinking about it.

  All I have to do is do what I want, go where I want, in short, follow my own needs.

  Yes. Only what I want!

  That is all! All of all!

  So don't be loved by others. Don't receive favors from others. Don't make promises to others. Never do anything that requires begging another's permission. Never tell others about yourself. Always wear a mask. Be ready at all times to fight, ready to land a blow to the head. Never forget that when you become friends with another person, a day will inevitably dawn when you must break with him.

  Tuesday, April 13

  When I awoke for a moment early in the morning, I heard the maids opening shutters here and there. I didn't hear anything else. And then falling asleep again, I indulged, until eleven, in the sweet slumber of a spring morning. A quiet balmy day of haze in this season of flowers. Before long all the cherry blossoms in Tokyo will begin to fall. Otsune came in and wiped the windows c
lean.

  A sad letter from my old mother:

  April 9

  Ishikawa-sama,12

  The letter you wrote to Miyazaki-sama the other day made me glad. Every day I'm waiting for your order to come to you, and it's already April. Until now I've been taking care of the baby and doing the cooking, though I can't do it good, and with Kyōko growing up more every day, I don't have the strength to bring her up any longer. Can't you send for us to go to you? Please tell me. This month on the sixth and seventh there was a big wind and lots of rain. The rain leaked into the house and there wasn't a dry spot, so I had to spend all day standing carrying Kyōko on my back. It was miserable. April two Kyōko caught a cold and still isn't over it. Her mother goes out at eight and doesn't come back until five or six. I been very troubled to hear the child cry for her mother. Beside that I have no spending money. Even one yen will do. Please send it quick. About what time will it suit you to send for us? Tell me that by all means. If you have no answer, I'll shut up this house and all of us will come to you, so be prepared for that.

  We can no longer stay in Hakodate, I tell you.

  Katsu

  The letter from my mother in unsteady and tottering hiragana full of mistakes!13 No other person would have been able to read it! When she was a child, I understand she was the best pupil in a private one-room school house on Senbokuchō in Morioka. After she married my father, she probably didn't write a single letter in forty years. The first letter I received from her was in the summer the year before last. I had left her by herself in Shibutami and had gone to Hakodate. My old mother, unable to bear living in that hateful village, remembered the hiragana she had forgotten long ago and had sent me her sad letter! After that, when I was at Kushiro at the beginning of last year, I received one dated from Otaru. Today's letter is the fifth she has sent since I came to Tokyo. Compared to her first letters, the mistakes are fewer and the characters better. This fact makes me sad. Ah, my mother's letter!

  Today was by no means a happy day for me. When I woke up, despite feeling sluggish from oversleep, I had felt carefree and comfortable; my blood was circulating rapidly and without stagnation through my entire frame. But that feeling lasted only a while. From the moment I read my mother's letter, I ceased to feel refreshed. Various thoughts occurred to me.

  My head felt heavy, as though I was suffering from something like the oppressiveness of spring, and I was impatient with the tediousness of my own thoughts: "I don't expect to be able, after all, to discharge this heavy responsibility....I'd rather give it up now!" That was what I had been thinking.

  I have it! I'd write a newspaper novel in thirty installments or so. Maybe that would soon bring in some cash. But I couldn't pull my thoughts together. I had only one streetcar ticket left. I decided to stay away from the office today.

  The keeper of the lending library came in, but I didn't have the necessary six sen. Nevertheless, I borrowed a book called The Sky Battle and read it.

  The Foundation of a New Metropolis

  In time a world battle will come.

  Warships of the air will swarm phoenix-like in the sky,

  And below, destruction of cities and towns.

  A long continuous war! And half of mankind, bones!

  And afterwards, oh, afterwards,

  Where shall we build our New Metropolis?

  On history's ruins? On thought? On love?

  No. No.

  On earth. Yes, on earth. In a realm

  Of no distinctions, no rules, not even of man and wife,

  Under this boundless blue blue sky!

  Wednesday, April 14

  Fine weather. I decided to send in a sick-report to Mr. Satō and take today and tomorrow off. Last night Kindaichi returned the two yen I had lent him the other day, so I wasn't hard up for cigarettes today. I began writing my story. I called it "Magnolia," but later changed it to "The Wooden Horse."

  The appetite for writing and the sexual appetite seem closely related. When the keeper of the lending library came and showed me some oddities, somehow I found myself wanting to read them. So I borrowed a few. One was The Flowery Night of the Hazy Moon; the other, Trade Secrets of Love. For about three hours I copied The Flowery Night of the Hazy Moon in Roman letters in my notebook.

  In the evening Nakajima and Shun Uchiyama, that pint-sized poet I had heard so much about, came to visit Kindaichi, so I went in too.

  What a nose Uchiyama has! Its tip is planed flat. It's like some ungainly taro stuck in the middle of a face. He keeps talking, talking incessantly. He's like a performing street beggar with a moustache. And he's also dwarfish. Of the countless number of pathetic men I've seen, not one has been as pathetic as him. Truly pathetic and clownish and guileless. In fact, he was so much in excess of these qualities, so excessively pathetic, that I felt a perverse desire to give him a really good thrashing. Whatever he expressed in total seriousness sounded ridiculous. When he drew in mucus through that ungainly nose of his after saying something facetious, it sounded like he was whimpering. A poet! He was more like a festival street performer wearing a headband and dancing before a crowd of children under a shady tree and singing songs in a whimpering voice.

  It had begun to rain. Already it was almost ten.

  Nakajima's a socialist, but his socialism is rather aristocratic—he went home by jinrikisha. Uchiyama, a socialist in the true sense of the word, looked every inch a poet as he walked back in the rain under an oil-paper umbrella he had borrowed.

  In my heart was a vague dissatisfaction—and in Kindaichi's too. Plucking cherry blossoms from the vase in the alcove, we scattered petals all over the room, even on the bedding laid out on the mats, and then we continued playing around, screaming like kids.

  I covered Kindaichi with the bedding and gave him one blow after another. Then I fled to my room. And immediately I thought, "What we did just now was a kind of destructive act against the existing order!"

  I went to bed after writing three pages of "The Wooden Horse." I was yearning for Setsuko, but not because of the lonely sound of the rain. Because of having read Flowery Night!

  Kotō Nakajima had told me he'd sell my manuscripts for me.

  Thursday, April 15

  Does my need for Setsuko come merely from sexual appetite? No! Never!

  My love for her has sobered. That's a fact, a deplorable but inevitable fact.

  But love is not all one's life. It's part of it. Love is a pastime. It's like singing. There are times when every person, no matter who, wants to sing. And while he's singing, he's happy. But man cannot merely keep singing his entire life. And if he continues to sing the same song, he'll get fed up with it, no matter how pleasant the tune. Moreover, there are times when he can't sing no matter how much he wants to.

  My love has cooled. I have stopped singing that once-delightful song. But the song itself does remain a delight. It must be so forever.

  It's true that I have grown weary of singing only that song. But that does not mean I have developed a dislike for it. Setsuko is really a good woman. Where in the world is there another like her, good, gentle, steady? I could never think of having a better wife than Setsuko. Yes, I have longed for other women besides her. And there have been times when I wanted to sleep with other women. As a matter of fact, I sometimes thought about sleeping with other women while I was sleeping with Setsuko. And I have—I have slept with other women. But what does that have to do with Setsuko? It doesn't mean I was dissatisfied with her. It merely means that man's desires are not simple. I love her now just as much as I did in the past. The person I have loved most has been, after all, Setsuko, though she has not been the only one I have loved. Even now—especially of late—I have frequently longed for her.

  Is there any other wife in the world that has been placed in as miserable a circumstance as Setsuko?

  The present system of matrimony—all the social systems—full of error! Why must I be shackled because of my parents, my wife, my child? Why must my parents, m
y wife, my child, be sacrificed for me? But all that is quite different from the fact that I love my parents and Setsuko and Kyōko.

  Quite a nasty morning. It was past ten when I got up, relinquishing a sleep of spring as dear as love. Rain, a strong rain, was splattering against my window. The air felt damp, clammy. I went to the lavatory and came back surprised. All the trees, which until yesterday had been as bare as trees in winter, had put forth their young leaves. Clusters of trees at Nishikatamachi had cast off the robe of flowers they had worn until yesterday and had donned a dim gossamer-like garment of young leaves.

  A single night of spring rain had transformed the world to green.

  Again this morning, pressed for the rent!

  How long must I continue this kind of life? Immediately this thought made my spirits sink. I didn't feel like doing anything. Still, before long the rain cleared, and I felt like going somewhere, and I did. I took the inverness that Kindaichi had once told me to pawn in an emergency and brought it to Matsuzakaya's. They gave me a loan of two yen fifty sen on it, but I had to pay fifty sen out of that for interest on a previous loan. I wondered then where I ought to go. I wanted to head out of Tokyo, but where? As I had done when I had gone flower-viewing with Kindaichi, should I take the riverboat from Azumabashi to Senju-ōhashi and walk alone in that rural landscape? Or if I find a vacant house somewhere, should I steal inside and try to sleep until evening!

  At any rate, my feelings at the moment were that it would be unpleasant to be in a place filled with people. In order to make up my mind, I toured the stalls in an outdoor market. Then I boarded a streetcar for Ueno.

  Ueno, which would have only a few people after the rain. I went there with only that thought in mind. All the cherry blossoms had fallen, leaving only their calyxes. What an ugly color! But the green of the maples! It seemed as though they were exuding some indescribably stimulating vigor of early summer from the depths of an ugliness like that found on a face after tears. Behind a shrine a policeman was questioning a woman leper who appeared to be about forty years old. How I wished to go somewhere! I walked on with this thought in mind. A shrill sound struck my ears. The whistle of a train at Ueno Station.