Summer insects, lured by flame, leap into it and die. These men had so ignorantly been captivated by what we call the metropolis that they had dashed toward it. Sooner or later they would be burned to death or would run for their lives. Of the two possibilities, one was inevitable. I felt a sharp pang of sorrow.
Without giving them any advice about their recklessness, I kept repeating, "Don't be impatient. Take it easy." That was because I knew a time would definitely come when they would want to commit suicide. Minoru had only two yen thirty sen, Shimizu one yen eighty.
There was absolutely no connection between Shimizu and me. I would probably be putting myself to unnecessary trouble helping the two of them if they stayed together. But I didn't have the heart to force them to separate when I saw the helpless expression on Shimizu's honest face.
"How about your inn? Can you leave any time you want?"
"Yes. We paid up last night. We definitely thought we could manage something by today."
"Well, first you have to find a place to live."
At about ten-thirty I went out with them. After searching all over, we found a boardinghouse called the Toshimakan at 8, Yumichō 2-chōme. The landlady agreed to their each paying eight yen fifty sen per month for one six-mat room for the two of them. I handed her a one-yen deposit.
I took them to lunch at my favorite tempura shop. Having decided to take the day off, I sent Shimizu to their inn to pick up their baggage, and I went with Minoru to Shinbashi Station to get their checked luggage. When we got back, Shimizu was already waiting. We talked about various things until around three and then I came back to my room. My purse was completely empty.
The stories about Shibutami that I had heard today from Minoru revived so many memories that it was almost unendurable. He said the principal of the primary school had formed a secret relationship with N-san, and a quarrel in the teachers' room caused by jealousy had taken place. N-san, who resigned last year, seemed to have become pregnant, and recently a rumor had circulated that she was slightly deranged.
Minoru told me Seimin Numada had been punished for trespassing and had been put on probation for three years. Not one of the rumors concerning the other people Minoru told me about failed to move me. Even Isoko, my "woman of the firefly," had become the wife of the younger brother of the village doctor and was living in Hirosaki.
I also heard to my surprise that my story "The Shadow of a Bird" was known by the villagers.32
In the evening I tried to write a letter to Iwamoto's father. For some reason I couldn't. I tried writing to Chieko-san at Sapporo, but that too I couldn't do. When I opened the window in my room, a soft night wind caressed my heated cheeks, and from the depths of the screech of some streetcar rounding a curve, there floated before my eyes my native town.
Monday, May 3
I sent in a sick-report and spent the day in bed. That slut Otake abused me terribly: the entire day passed without her bringing me any coals for my fire. Every now and then Sumi-chan came in for an innocent chat. That bitch Raku-chan went by looking at us suspiciously.
A nasty day! I lay my head, my heavy head, against my pillow like a man in despair, like a man totally worn out. I excused myself to all visitors.
Tuesday, May 4
Again took the day off. Kept writing the entire day. I began "A Day Spent with the Gate Locked," but gave it up, began "Reminiscence" and dropped it, began "An Interesting Man?" only to stop that, and "Memories of my Boyhood," only to leave that too. This showed how agitated I was. Finally I threw down my pen. I went to bed early. I couldn't sleep, of course.
Towards evening Namiki came over. Then Iwamoto and Shimizu dropped in for a moment and left. From first to last with them as usual, I talked about nothing in a carefree way.
Wednesday, May 5
Took the day off again.
Wrote and wrote, but unable to finish anything. It was already evening when I completed an essay, "Looking at My Hand." Sent it to Reisō-sha in Maebashi.
Thursday, May 6
Again took the day off. Rained all day yesterday and today, to the inconvenience of those who went to attend the festival at Yasukuni Shrine.
In the morning I had been awakened by Iwamoto and Shimizu. They looked depressed.
"This won't do at all!" I thought. "I've got to do something for them. That's it! I'll take next week off and work hard at writing. This room isn't suited for that. I'll go into some empty room at Iwamoto's and write from morning till night. In the evening I'll come back here and sleep."
I thought that if I could make some money, the three of us could rent a house and cook for ourselves. I got Kindaichi's approval after telling him about my plan.
With a pad of writing paper and a bottle of ink I at once went to Yumichō. But I couldn't write anything today, so I merely listened to various topics the boys brought up. The more I listened, the dearer the two of them became. They sleep in one bed. And in the light of a small dark lamp, they talk about the future.
Mohachi Shimizu is an honest man with considerable steadiness of purpose. He said that for two years he had been working in his elder brother's shop in Seoul in Korea and that he had run away because he desperately wanted to study.
Various thoughts whirled in my mind as I listened to the talk of these two men, but I used all my will power to suffocate the worries swirling in the depths of my mind. Suddenly I found myself engrossed in listening to Shimizu's words, and I asked, "How much would the travel fare be?" How pathetic I am!
Around eight that evening I returned home and after talking to Kindaichi in his room for a while went to bed.
I made up my mind to write today because it's the only way I can go now. This thought makes me feel terribly melancholy. My salary for the month has already been advanced. There's no other way to get any money, and next month my family will be coming. I'm now in the abyss. The abyss! Either I will die or climb out. One or the other. And I have to rescue those two young men!
Friday, May 7
I had the maids wake me at seven, and by nine I was at Yumichō. They gave me eighty sen for some books at a secondhand bookshop, and I bought a big oil lamp, a chess set, and some cigarettes. Oh, the girl at the Kikyōya!33
It was glorious just to chat. Not only that, but the weather was bad, so I couldn't get much writing done anyway. Nevertheless, I did write about ten pages of "The Inn" and began something else called "A Handful of Sand."34 At least the day wasn't wasted. Returned around nine at night. Oh, the girl at the Kikyōya!
A letter from Iwamoto's father asking me to take care of his son. And a precious letter from Jinko Tsubo in Kushiro, a card from Yoshiko Hirayama, and a card too from Isen Satō.
Saturday, May 8, to Thursday, May 13
What have I done during these past six days? Nothing. What I did merely proves, after all, that it's impossible to change my present condition no matter how impatient I am to.
I went to Yumichō three times in all. While I was with the two boys, I tried to write, but my pen didn't make as much headway as I had hoped. On the tenth I stopped going and wrote in my room. I gave up on "A Handful of Sand" and began "Sapporo," but it's not finished even after fifty pages or so.
I've been absenting myself from the office under the pretense of illness. Even when word came from Mr. Kato telling me to come in, I sent him a letter that I had stomach pains. Yesterday, when I went to Yumichō, I found the boys in distress over the demand for their rent, so I sent Iwamoto to Mr. Kato to ask to borrow five yen for me from Mr. Sato, and with it I paid the lodging house. At a used bookstore I sold "The Heathens," which Kitahara had presented to me.
I gave Shimizu various kinds of bitter advice, and I wrote directly to his elder brother for him. I made Shimizu promise to look for a job, regardless of what it was. As for Iwamoto, I had asked Hiraide's family, since he was away from home, to find someone who would employ the boy as a student-dependent.
An interminable bleakness often blackened the way before me. I was at least
trying to keep the thought of death at arm's length. One night, wondering what I ought to do, I suddenly felt all was pitch dark before me. To go to the office was meaningless, nor was it any use to stay away. I tried inflicting a cut on my chest with a razor I had borrowed from Kindaichi, and with the wound as a pretext I had thought to stay away from work for a month or so and thoroughly think through my circumstances. I had tried cutting myself just below the nipple of my left breast, but it was so painful I wasn't able to. I did manage to inflict two or three slight scratches. Surprised, Kindaichi wrested the razor from me and, dragging me out by force, pawned his inverness and took me to our favorite tempura shop. We drank. We laughed. Around midnight we came back home, but my head was heavy. I felt all I had to do was switch off the light and I would see that terrible thing before me.
Another pathetic letter in kana from my mother. She thanked me for the one yen I had sent her last month. She asked me to send her some money if it was convenient because she wanted Kyōko to have a summer hat.
A moment came when I even thought of escaping from Tokyo right then and there. And a moment came when I felt I wanted to go to the country to raise silkworms.
With the rainy season approaching, there was no letup in the gray drizzle. I didn't complete even one piece of writing during these several days of depressing weather.
Nor did I meet any friends. No longer did I have any use for them. In fact, they must be angry with me after reading my poems in the tanka number.
Often, thoughts about Shibutami.
Even though I was so very much moved by my younger sister's letter, I haven't even sent her a postcard. To Iwamoto's father only a card. I haven't written to my family. Nor anything to Chieko Tachibana. I had thought I'd write her, but I had nothing to say.
In the evening I went into Kindaichi's room, and the subject of women came up. I couldn't concentrate in the least and didn't write anything on returning to my room before going to bed, so I decided to read Ryūkei Yano's The Unnecessary. His temporary good and genuine good! What, in the final analysis, is genuine good?
I know now that I have no confidence, that I have no aim, that from morning till night I'm driven by vacillation and anxiety. I have no fixed point in me. What will become of me?
A useless key that does not fit! That's me! Wherever I bring myself, I can't find the keyhole that fits me!
Dying for a smoke!
Friday, May 14
Rain.
I was awakened by Isen Satō. With five in his family he has to find work.
After Sato left, Shimizu came. He said he had a job making the rounds of customers for a Nihonbashi wine dealer.
I sent for Iwamoto and told him to write out a record of his personal history and bring it to me.
The weather was unpleasant, but somehow my mind settled. I've become so used to taking off from work it no longer pains me. On the other hand, my thinking's become so flabby I can't write a thing. Somehow I've become strangely indifferent.
Two times my mouth bled profusely. A maid said it was probably from a rush of blood to the head.
At night I copied a pamphlet entitled A Compendium on the Right Use of Kana in Representing Kanji Sounds.
I thought I'd write something about Shibutami, but try as I might, I couldn't warm up to the subject, so I went straight to bed.
Saturday, May 15
I was awakened at nine by Iwamoto. A "trusting to your judgment" letter had come to me from his father.
Today's papers reported that Tatsunosuke Hasegawa (Futabatei Shimei) had died aboard ship on his return to Japan. All the newspapers tried to outdo each other in praising his virtues as they expressed their grief over the death of this man, great in some indefinable way.
It's been very cold lately, but today it's warmer. The sky has also cleared up.
I spent the entire day doing nothing. From the bottom of my mind, which has become terribly dulled, a presentiment rises like a ghost before me that soon I will have to carry out my terrible action.
In the evening the two boys dropped in. Shimizu had arranged to live as an apprentice at the wine dealer's on Kyōbashi. He said he'd move tomorrow.
Soon after they left, Toshimaro Obara, a writer who's visited me once, stopped in. His eyes are like a rabbit's. I was so bored as he talked on about various trivialities that I hardly answered. Around ten-thirty he finally left.
"Everything changes according to the way you look at it," Obara had said. "People think that day by day they are shortening the fifty or sixty years allotted to them, but I believe life means adding one more new day after each succeeding day, so the passing of time doesn't pain me in the least."
"When all is said and done, the happy person is someone like you. A person like you can feel assured deceiving himself in such a way," I had replied.
At about eleven I went into Kindaichi's room, and we spoke of Futabatei's death. My friend said he couldn't understand why Futabatei disliked literature, why he disliked being called a literary man. My poor friend could not understand the deep yearning and pain in life. Feeling unbearably lonely, I returned to my room. Ultimately it's impossible for a man to make another man understand him fully. In the final analysis, camaraderie between one man and another is merely superficial.
Realizing that the friend who I had thought understood me as thoroughly as I had him was unable, ultimately, to understand the anguish and pain at the bottom of my heart made me feel unbearably dreary. We are each separate, each alone!
This thought left me indescribably sad.
I was able to imagine what had been in Futabatei's mind as he was dying.
Sunday, May 16
Got up late. The rain kept me cooped up indoors and spoiled my precious Sunday.
I went into Kindaichi's room to convince him to change his view of Futabatei, and I succeeded. Iwamoto dropped in again today.
Not only did I not go to the office, I didn't do anything. I had no cigarettes. Absentmindedly, I thought again of going back to the country. I dug out some newspaper from my hometown to glance through and thought of various ways to edit a local sheet.
In the evening I told Kindaichi about my present state of mind. "I'm not fit for city life," I said. I mentioned I was seriously considering going back to the country.
My friend shed tears for me.
The country! The country! That's the place I ought to die in. I'm not suited to the violence of city life. To devote my entire life to literature! Impossible! It's not that I couldn't if I tried, but that the life of a literary man is, in the long run, nothing but emptiness.
Monday, May 17
A terrific gale all morning. Took the day off.
In the afternoon Iwamoto dropped in for a while and left.
Items in today's paper about Futabatei being a nihilist and his relations with a woman of the crudest social position.
I held out without cigarettes until lunch, but at last I went to Ikubundō with a copy of Akogare and two or three other books and sold them for fifteen sen.
"How much for this one?" I had said, pointing to Akogare.
"Five sen, I guess," replied the consumptive-looking shopkeeper. Ha, ha, ha.
Today again thoughts about going to the country. I spent the entire day thinking only of that. "How ought I to run a local newspaper? How ought I to edit it?" Only that!
Reduced to this state, I had spent an entire day thinking about such things without doing anything!
In bed at night as I was reading the Shinshōsetsu, I hit upon an idea.
It was national life.35
Monday, May 31
I spent two weeks doing practically nothing. I kept away from the office.
A letter from Shimizu's brother, but he hadn't enclosed any money.
Two or three times, letters from Iwamoto's father.
A letter also from Koyakko in Kushiro.
I didn't send any letters anywhere, not even to Hakodate.
I wrote and sent to the Iwate Nippō a five-ins
tallment essay, "Letters from a Dyspeptic." My aim: to awaken the people in Morioka from their lethargy. There was a response. The Nippō began a series called "Steps Toward Morioka's Prosperity."
This feeling as though waiting for execution! I actually used those words. I have been studying German every day. Besides that, I've been devising various models for editing a local newspaper. It really seemed best to take myself to some local sheet. Of course to do that I'd have to abandon literature.
Once Kanae Yamamoto, who paints in oil, dropped in. Discussion about a photographic news agency.
The last day of the month.
I couldn't remain in the house without saying anything about the rent, so I went out in the morning and pawning my haori, the only one I have, for seventy sen, I boarded the train from Ueno to Tabata without any destination in mind. I simply wanted to ride a train. At Tabata I roved about the paths through the fields and untiringly inhaled the odors of the earth.
After coming back, apologies to the landlord.
I had never seen Kindaichi's face as pitiable as it looked tonight.
Tuesday, June 1
By sending Iwamoto with a letter to the office in the afternoon, I got an advance of twenty-five yen on this month's salary. But as I had to pay five yen to Mr. Sato, my take-home pay was twenty yen.
I went to Iwamoto's lodging and paid about thirteen yen for his and Shimizu's last month's rent (for which they had already paid six yen). Then I went with Iwamoto to Asakusa, and after a movie we ate at a Western-style restaurant. I gave him a yen for spending money and left.
I slept with a naive young girl whose name slips me. Next I went to see that girl resembling Koyakko that I had once slept with, Hanako. I went with the old woman to that strange place.
She told me she was already sixty-nine. Finally Hanako arrived. We slept. So pleasant somehow, sleeping with this girl.
Romaji Diary and Sad Toys Page 13