Romaji Diary and Sad Toys

by Takuboku Ishikawa

  I returned around ten. I had bought several magazines. Only forty sen left.

  Twenty Days

  An account of my moving to the upstairs rooms of a barbershop c/o Arai (Kinotoko), 18, Yumichō 2-chōme, Hongō.

  With my hair untrimmed and even my sparse moustache getting long, I looked so haggard that I felt disgusted with myself. A maid said I resembled a consumptive. I had been lying in my three-and-a-half-mat room until the morning of the tenth, ill from an overdose of laxatives. On no account could I bring myself to write. But an argument with Kindaichi served as an opportunity to put my various views on literature in order.

  Iwamoto came spilling out his thanks for my kindness.

  In bed on the morning of the tenth, I read the letters sent from Morioka by Miyazaki and Setsuko. They said they had left Hakodate on the seventh, my mother stopping at Nohechi, and Setsuko and Kyōko staying at Morioka with my friend Miyazaki. I thought: "And so at last!"

  With the fifteen yen Miyazaki sent me, I rented two rooms from a barber named Arai at 18, Yumichō 2-chōme, Hongō. As for my present boardinghouse, they will receive a monthly installment of ten yen on the one hundred and nineteen yen I owe, Kindaichi acting as my guarantor. I sent word to my family to set off on the fifteenth.

  I left the Gaiheikan that day. Putting only my bags in the rooms I had rented, I slept that night in Kindaichi's room. There was in us a strange feeling of farewell. Farewell!

  On the morning of the sixteenth before the sun had risen, the three of us—Kindaichi, Iwamoto, and me—were on the platform at Ueno Station. The train arrived an hour late. My friend, my mother, my wife, and my child. We arrived at our new home by jinrikisha.

  Notes

  1. Five yen was a large sum in those days, especially for Takuboku, who rarely had that much in his purse.

  2. The campus of Tokyo Imperial University.

  3. Since early films were all imported—and silent, of course—someone had to explain them. Such a narrator was called a benshi, which means "orator." The benshi stood by the side of the screen, watching the movie and reading his script at the same time. The custom continued even when the Japanese produced their own silent movies. Some benshi enjoyed as much fame as today's popular singers, so much so that some fans went to the movies just to listen to their favorite commentator.

  4. In those days, rooms in a boardinghouse were usually separated from the hallway by sliding paper screens (there was no actual wall), one of them serving as the door. Thus, a silhouette could easily be seen.

  5. Italicized passages, other than titles of books, etc., represent Takuboku's own use of English words in the original.

  6. A novel by Gorki entitled Three Men (1901). In a letter dated July 7, 1908, to Tadashi Iwasaki, one of the founders of the Bokushuku-sha in Hakodate, Takuboku writes: "I went to bed at two a. m. and read Gorki's Three of Them in bed.... Fine, very fine. I, who have surprised my friends by saying Turgenev is dated, am utterly impressed by Gorki. In the passage I read last night, the description of the psychology of the hero after he murdered someone on the spur of the moment and then stole the person's money was lifelike beyond description. There wasn't a trace of falsehood. I had become somewhat tired, but I was so engrossed in the book that when I put out the lamp, the light of dawn coming through chinks in the shutters formed whitish patches on the paper screen, and here and there clocks were striking four."

  7. Mt. Iwate in Iwate Prefecture, the view of which was visible from Shibutami.

  8. Takuboku was mimicking a yokel on his first trip to the big city.

  9. The Pan Society was an organization founded by poets and artists in December 1908 to discuss new literary and artistic trends in Europe and Japan. The name "Pan" was taken from a similar group formed in Berlin. The Japanese police, however, thought that the Pan of Greek fame meant "bread" (pan is "bread" in Japanese), so the group was under observation as a radical organization demanding food for the poor.

  10. These were henaburi, a style of comic tanka. They were diametrically different from the romantic style of Akiko Yosano and her group; some of the members probably regarded them as an insult.

  11. At one time, Japanese dandies liked creaking shoes. To help produce the sound, a thin layer of leather was inserted in the shoe.

  12. When a parent writes to a son or daughter, dono, rather than sama, would normally be used in the greeting. Also, it is usual to use the given name instead of the family name. The salutation in this letter should thus be Hajime-dono, not Ishikawa-sama. (Today, such rules are becoming obsolete.)

  13. Hiragana is one of two syllabaries, collectively called kana, which today consist of forty-six characters each. It is used for grammatical elements, such as inflections of verbs, which cannot be written in Chinese characters, or kanji. Any word in kanji can, of course, be spelled out in hiragana. This is what Takuboku's mother did, since she could not remember the more complex kanji.

  14. A shutter-box is a storage place for sliding shutters, or amado, which are slid along the windowsill at night as protection from the elements.

  15. No tidal waves had ever caused serious damage in Hakodate, so in his wild imaginings Takuboku may have been envisioning them washing away his family and thus releasing him from his heavy responsibilities.

  16. In Japanese farm villages, babies were placed in rice-straw cribs for safety while their parents were working in the fields. The inside of the bowl-shaped crib was tolerably warm.

  17. These stories are "Dysentery" (Subaru, no. 1, January 1909) and "Footsteps" (Subaru, no. 2, February 1909).

  18. In a public bathhouse in Japan there is a stand at the entrance from which the attendant can watch both the men's and women's sides. A public bath is usually a single-family business, so male and female members of the family take turns being attendant, collecting the bath fee and guarding against theft. Bathers male and female do not mind disrobing before the attendant, who is treated as a non-person, so to speak. Male and female bathers cannot observe each other.

  19. Teiko Ueki. Entries on this woman occupy more pages in Takuboku's diaries than any other female does. Takuboku first met her in 1904 when members of the Shinshi-sha gave theatricals. Takuboku had relations with her when she was nineteen, but later forsook her. She eventually became an Asakusa geisha.

  20. This is Takuboku's own English, left uncorrected by the translators. The last sentence of the first paragraph might mean something like,"... these great pains and deep sorrows of my physical struggle, but equally this rapture of a young nihilist."

  A five-rin dōkwa (dōka) was a coin equal to one-half sen (there are one hundred sen to one yen), a very small amount of money even in those days.

  The bizarre term "finger-bones" in the last paragraph probably means that other writers wrote without using their brains, that is, their work lacked substance. That they write with blood, an expression which can be interpreted as "they write enduring excruciating pain," is a reference to minor naturalist writers, who believed that a naked description of actual life, however ugly or shameful, would result in a work of art. (A G-pen was a popular nib of the day.)

  The "green-coloured struggle" might refer to the green of nature, oppressive in a hot climate.

  21. The expression "Too late, Yuranosuke!" is a translation of "Osokarishi Yuranosuke," which comes from one of the most popular Kabuki plays, Kanadehon Chūshingura. A certain Lord Asano, who has been ordered to commit ritual disembowelment (seppuku), is waiting impatiently for his chief retainer, Ōishi Yuranosuke, to entrust him with certain affairs. The official overseeing the rite waits as long as possible, but finally urges Lord Asano to carry out his suicide. Immediately after the lord thrusts the short sword into his belly, Yuranosuke appears, whereupon the dying lord utters, "Osokarishi Yuranosuke."

  22. The May 1909 issue of Subaru was to be a tanka number, the editor's intention being to issue a manifesto on new trends in the genre. Takuboku contributed seventy tanka as specimens of this new direction, but with the
subtitle "Don't Ask Me Again" to tell readers to figure out for themselves what was new in the poems.

  23. A naval squadron with midshipmen aboard used to visit the United States or Britain as part of their training program.

  24. A likely interpretation of this is "... when I am abandoned by everything."

  25. In the May 1909 issue of Subaru, Tekkan Yosano published one hundred tanka under the title "One Hundred Sham Poems," which were mostly melancholy, self-pitying, and often cynical poems on past love affairs and marital discord. Among them we find the following: "Father beating them/Mother proposing divorce/Oh, my miserable kids!" "How unlovable a wife you have become!/To suggest divorce/In a fit of anger!" "Not a trace of that love/I trusted would endure—/For this is human life."

  26. The Ryōunkaku (lit., "skyscraper"), a twelve-story tower, the highest structure in Tokyo at that time.

  27. The translators conjecture that this was the name of a prostitute.

  28. Carp streamers, one for each son, are hung on poles by Japanese families around the time of the Boys' Festival, May 5. Each streamer is a long tubular piece of cloth or paper shaped like a carp and painted red and black. The wind blowing through the streamers makes them extend horizontally their full length, so they look like big fish swimming in the sky.

  29. Five rin equals one-half sen; one sen is 1/100 of a yen.

  30. In the original, a hyottoko, a comical mask with one eye much smaller than the other and a pair of pouting lips.

  31. The end of the previous entry, that is, "I slept as I was," probably refers to not changing into nightwear. The beginning of May is too cold to sleep without bedding, so Takuboku must have laid out the bed.

  32. A short novel serialized in the Tokyo Mainichi from November 1, 1908, to the end of the year.

  33. Probably the name of the shop where Takuboku bought the lamp, cigarettes, and other items.

  34. Takuboku's first book of tanka of the same title was to be published in December 1910. This reference, though, appears to be the title of a story he had in mind at this time.

  35. The expression "national life," in English in the original, is enigmatic, but Takuboku might have been hinting that the cause of his difficulties, of all difficulties, all evils, was the State, the structure of society. To the Japanese of his day, the State was all, and there was no clear notion of the people being the State. Takuboku's reference probably means that if the common people were to lead meaningful lives, the State would have to be changed.

  Selected Allusions

  Note: Many individuals close to Takuboku are mentioned in greater detail in the Introduction (to which the reader is referred); thus, only a brief mention of them is given in this list. Certain individuals mentioned in Romaji Diary seem not to have made names for themselves elsewhere; they are therefore not listed here.

  Akiko: See Yosano, Akiko.

  Akogare: Takuboku's first published volume of poems, dated May 3, 1905. The title means "yearning." Asahikawa: A city in the center of Hokkaido.

  Asakusa: An area of Tokyo in which are found Asakusa Park and Sensōji Temple. Many theatres, movie houses, and vaudeville halls were clustered there, as were numerous eating establishments serving substantial meals at moderate prices. Until World War II, it was by far the most popular amusement center for the common people. A bridge called Azumabashi spans the Sumida River there. On the opposite side of the river is Mukōjima, part of which is Kototoi, famed in poetry.

  Chieko: See Tachibana, Chieko.

  Chūōkōron: A famous Japanese journal, established in 1899. Its contents include politics, economics, philosophy, and literature.

  Doppo: Doppo Kunikida. The penname of Tetsuo Kunikida (1871-1908). Doppo means "going my way." A well-known short story writer, Doppo was a precursor of the naturalist movement in Japanese literature. Some of his well-known stories are "Musashino," "Beef and Potato," and "The Diary of a Drunkard."

  Evans, Miss: Anna Evans. A nurse and Anglican missionary with whom Takuboku's sister Mitsuko lived in Hakodate and Asahikawa, Hokkaido.

  Futabatei Shimei: Penname of Tatsunosuke Hasegawa (1864-1909), coined from a slangy Tokyo dialectal phrase, "Kutabatte shimae!" (loosely translated, "Go to Hell!"). Although Futabatei was skeptical of his own literary talents, in the latter part of his career he joined the staff of the Osaka Asahi newspaper, in which he published two novels, The Image and The Commonplace. In 1908, he went to St. Petersburg as a reporter, but developed tuberculosis and died on his return voyage. Futabatei enjoys a solid position as a translator of Turgenev and as one of the pioneers of the modern novel in the Meiji era.

  Gaiheikan: A boardinghouse near Tokyo Imperial University. Takuboku's room was at its branch house, a separate structure under the same ownership as that of the main house.

  Gilyak: A Mongolian tribe living along the lower course of the Amur River, Mongolia, and in northern Sakhalin.

  Hakodate: A port city on the southern coast of Hokkaido.

  Hasegawa, Tatsunosuke: See Futabatei Shimei

  Hiraide: Shu Hiraide (1878-1914). Lawyer, poet, and critic. Hiraide was counsel for the socialist Shūsui Kōtoku, several members of whose group participated in the alleged assassination attempt on Emperor Meiji in 1910 (see Introduction, p. 30).

  Hirano: Banri Hirano (1855-1947). A romantic tankaist of the Myōjō school, one of the oldest members of the Shinshi-sha, and a co-founder with Takuboku and others of Subaru. He later broke with Takuboku over a dispute involving the handling of tanka in the magazine.

  Hirayama, Yoshiko: The name taken by a young man whose real name was either Yoshitarō or Ryōtarō (the characters for his name can be pronounced in two ways). In November 1908, under the female name Yoshiko, Hirayama wrote to Takuboku, asking him to correct "her" tanka. Later he sent a photo, probably of a pretty young woman, which prompted Takuboku to write in his diary that he was surprised to find "her" so pretty. On January 15, 1909, Takuboku noted in his diary that he had found out that Yoshiko was actually a man. Yet on March 8 he wrote that he sent Subaru no. 3 to "Yoshiko Hirayama."

  Hirosaki: A city in Aomori Prefecture.

  Hotta, Hideko: (1885-1954). A colleague of Takuboku's at Shibutami Primary School towards whom Takuboku seems to have entertained friendly feelings. On May 3, 1907, when he was about to leave his job at the school to go to Hokkaido, he wrote in his diary: "In the evening I talked with Miss Hotta alone. It rained from time to time, and many frogs were croaking in the neighboring paddy fields. When I thought that this would probably be the last time I would sit with her in this room, my heart was full, and I could not give expression to my feelings. She didn't talk much either." Her name often appears in his diaries.

  Isoko: Motoko Sasaki, a classmate of Takuboku's sister Mitsuko at Shibutami Primary School. In his diary entry for May 4, 1908, Takuboku wrote of a conversation with Kindaichi: "... we talked of home. Autumn flowers and songs of insects at Ibarajima were among the topics. I was so unutterably moved I shed tears. We fell into sleep talking about the woman of the firefly."

  Iwamizawa: A city in Hokkaido. Takuboku's elder sister Sada (1876-1906) lived there.

  Iwate Nippō: A local newspaper published in Morioka City, to which Takuboku contributed numerous articles.

  Jinbo, Dr.: Dr. Kaku Jinbo (1883-1965). Philologist, professor at Tokyo Educational University. He was senior and apparently an advisor to Kindaichi.

  Kadoebi: One of the most famous houses of prostitution in Yoshiwara. Its prestige was such that only the rich were able to frequent it.

  Kanaya, Shin'ichirō: A friend from Takuboku's Shibutami days. He attended the same middle school as Takuboku and had a literary turn. His penname, Shūgen, appears frequently in Takuboku's early diaries.

  Katsu: Katsu Ishikawa, née Kudō (1847-1912). Takuboku's mother.

  Kindaichi: Kyōsuke Kindaichi (1882-1971). Takuboku's lifelong friend who introduced him to tanka during their Morioka school days. Kindaichi, two years Takuboku's senior, went on to become a student
in the Literature Department of Tokyo Imperial University. His life's work was the study of the Yukar, the native epic of Japan's Ainu. In 1945 he was appointed a professor at Tokyo University; he was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit in 1954 for his work on the Yukar.

  Kitahara: Ryūkichi (penname Hakushū) Kitahara (1885-1942). Poet. Published the book Jashūmon (The Heathens) in 1909. (Christians during the Tokugawa era were addressed as jashūmon.)

  Koyakko: The geisha name of Jin Tsubo (1890-1965), with whom Takuboku had a brief romance.

  Kunohe: An area in the northern part of Iwate Prefecture, facing the Pacific.

  Kushiro: A city near the northeastern end of Hokkaido, where Takuboku found a job as chief editor of the Kushiro Shinbun (newspaper) and where he met Koyakko.

  Kyōko: Kyōko Ishikawa (1906-1930). Takuboku's daughter. She appears in poems 70, 107, 127, and 153-162 of Sad Toys.

  Mishina: Chōzaburō Mishina (1858-1936). A writer of stories for the Asahi newspaper. Today he is forgotten as a writer of fiction.

  Mitsuko: Mitsuko Miura (1888-1968). Takuboku's younger sister. Wrote Takuboku, My Sad Brother (Hatsune Shobō, 1948).

  Miyazaki: Daishirō (penname Ikuu) Miyazaki (1885-1962). Miyazaki was born in Niigata Prefecture and later moved to Hakodate, where he met Takuboku in 1907. Miyazaki wanted to marry Takuboku's sister Mitsuko, but dissuaded by the poet, eventually married Setsuko's sister Fukiko. He came to have a deep love and respect for Takuboku and repeatedly helped him and his family in their difficulties. In September 1911, however, Takuboku broke with his friend because of a misunderstanding about Miyazaki's sympathy toward the ailing Setsuko. Miyazaki published The Sands of Hakodate: Takuboku's Tanka and Me in 1960.

  Mokichi: Mokichi Saitō (1882-1953). Psychiatrist and poet. The head of the Araragi school of tanka, he was one of the greatest tanka poets of the Taishō and Shōwa eras. His tanka were simple and strong after the manner of the Man'yōshū, the return to whose tanka principles he advocated. It was for this reason that Takuboku may have been opposed to his school.