In June 1911, Setsuko wanted to visit her parents' home as the Horiai family had decided to leave Morioka to move to Hakodate. In order to acquire the necessary funds for the journey, she borrowed five yen, lying to her husband that her sister Takako had sent the money. Takuboku had his doubts, and finally Setsuko had to tell him the truth. Her sister wired her then, requesting her to come and sending a telegraphic money order. Takuboku sent back the sum.
The following entries in Takuboku's diary are relevant:
June 4, 1911: I could not forgive Setsuko for trying to deceive me with her chicanery. I declared I divorced her, but she would not go. [Westerners may find these words strange; in those days, however, Japanese husbands used such words in the same way a judge does. The wives usually acquiesced, so there was no need to go to court.] Thus our relationship has become nothing but a means of life for each of us.
June 6, 1911: I ordered her to give me the purse. She said she couldn't find it, though she was sure she had put it somewhere temporarily.... I ordered her to absolutely find the purse because, I said, she might be concealing something else. She sobbed out that she felt she was going mad. I wrote a letter to Takako enclosing in it a money order for five yen. In the letter I censured her for sending the telegram, and I added that if they wanted to exercise parental power, it was entirely inconsistent with my ideas of the family system, and so I would divorce her.
Behind Takuboku's tyrannical attitude, we can sense the irritation of an invalid and his fear of again being deserted by his wife. After this event the entries in Takuboku's diary are short and rather sporadic. He developed a high fever in July, and Setsuko too was unwell. In spite of her condition she continued to keep house with her mother-in-law and often went to the Asahi to borrow money on her husband's salary. On July 27, Setsuko went to the Miura section of Internal Medicine of Tokyo Imperial University and was told that her left lung was slightly affected. The following day she went to the Aoyama division of Internal Medicine (see note 97). Her reason for doing so is not clear, but she may have hoped the other department would negate the previous day's diagnosis. Dr. Arima, who saw her, diagnosed her as having "catarrh of the pulmonary apex," and he told her the disease was contagious. In his diagnosis Dr. Arima used a euphemistic expression which was usual in those days to lessen the shock.
What the actual relationship was between Setsuko and Takuboku at this time is not clear, but the following entry written on August 2, 1911, several days after Setsuko's diagnosis, is suggestive: "Of late Setsuko frequently keeps to her bed. And so the burden of cooking and other chores falls on my aging mother. Going up and down stairs must be trying to an old woman."
In September 1911, Takuboku broke off his relationship with Miyazaki, Setsuko's sister's husband and his own friend and patron of many years. A letter from Miyazaki had infuriated the poet. According to the husband of Takuboku's sister Mitsuko in the April 19, 1947 issue of the Mainichi newspaper, the cause of the split was due to Takuboku's belief that illicit relations had gone on between Setsuko and Miyazaki. It is now impossible to verify this assertion, but Yukinori Iwaki, Takuboku's biographer, believes Mitsuko was misinformed about the nature of the dispute between the two friends. Even though Miyazaki liked Setsuko very much and sympathized with her, it is utterly groundless, Iwaki says, to infer there were clandestine relations between them. Some very warm and rather careless expressions of sympathy toward Setsuko in Miyazaki's letter to Takuboku's wife hurt the poet very much. Miyazaki had written the letter to Setsuko on behalf of her parents for, because Takuboku had severed relations with her family (probably in June), there was no other channel through which they could inquire after Setsuko. Miyazaki, as Setsuko's brother-in-law, tried to know the state of her health and to persuade her, if possible, to come to see her parents. His solicitude and his affection for her seem to have led him to use some expressions which might incur misunderstanding. The supposition that he had a liaison with Setsuko originates from what Seiichi Miura (Mitsuko's husband) said after World War II and from a book written by Mitsuko. But biographer Iwaki convincingly denies this theory, saying it resulted only because of Mitsuko's misunderstanding. At any rate, this incident seems to have dealt Takuboku a crushing blow, for from that time on he did not publish anything.
In his diary entry for January 7, 1912, he writes:
I cannot help lamenting the misfortune of having to spend yesterday and today in unutterable unpleasantness. Recently my wife is rather unwell. Going around with her hair uncombed and wearing some shapeless nightgown over her old clothes, she looks quite dispirited and listless. And she often keeps coughing incessantly. Every time I see her god-awful appearance, I cannot help being seized by some indescribable brooding anger and desperation.
Today when I was lying by the brazier and warming myself, she seemed to be out on the verandah in the cold wind. Twice I asked her, "Aren't you cold out there?" The first time I heard only her answer, "No." When I repeated the same question about half an hour later, I was greeted by the brusque retort, "Why should I be on the verandah?" She seemed to be lying in the next room, warming herself by using the kotatsu [in Takuboku's day, a device for warming oneself economically by covering an earthenware case containing a few pieces of live charcoal with a quilt under which one sat]. I felt I had to make some sort of angry reply, but lying on my back at the time, I utterly lacked the strength to get angry.
At night when Kyōko went to bed, my wife had another violent fit of coughing. "You go to bed too," I ordered. She lay down in bed. Then I asked her, "I'm going out to buy something for a cough. Will you take it or not?" "I'll buy something tomorrow," she replied. With the words, "No. My kindness seems to be annoying to you, but your coughing is maddening," I went out into the cold wind to buy some medicine and some cough drops. I was overpowered by self-pity.
Setsuko was a dutiful wife to the end. Her death, reported by Miyazaki in a letter to Kindaichi, is pathetic:
On May 5, 1913, she died in the hospital. When she was dying, she wrote in pencil that she hoped we would take care of Kyōko....Then she wrote down the names of Mr. Yosano, Mr. Kindaichi, Mr. Toki, Mr. Mori, and Mr. Natsume, asking me to tell them about her death and to beg them to be kind to Kyōko. Next she stared at me and asked me to love her sister (my wife). Then closing her eyes, she said, "I'm dying. Good-by, all of you." But a few moments later she opened her eyes again and said, "It takes a long time to die." By that time we were already crying. Then once more she said, "Good-by, all of you," and closed her eyes. A small amount of yellow foam came out of her mouth. And that was the end. [Quoted from Koyō Yoshida, People Around Takuboku (Kaizōsha, 1929).]
The weighty kanbunchō style adds gravity to this tanka and saves it from sentimentality.
179. The reading for home as ie instead of the other possible reading ya gives this line one syllable too many, but the heaviness caused by the extra syllable makes the impact stronger.
Even something as trivial as a household pet will bring on the usual conflict between mother and daughter-in-law. Had Takuboku's home been a little larger, the tension would have been eased, but his poverty made a large home with many rooms an impossibility.
180. This tanka once more emphasizes the bitterness of the discord between Setsuko and Takuboku's mother. It was unendurable to Takuboku, but he had to hold back his feelings, for he loved his mother and his wife, and he was too ill, too powerless, to remedy the situation.
A boardinghouse may be one of two kinds, either a shirōto-geshuku or (as in tanka 180) a geshukuya. The former is run by some widow or elderly couple needing money and having a spare room in their home. A more personal relationship is possible in such a home. In the geshukuya the boardinghouse is run as a business by professionals —there are many rooms, food is served, maids wait on the boarders, and a large bath is provided. Takuboku stayed at the Gaiheikan when he came up to Tokyo in 1908. The rude, business-like treatment he received is recorded in his Romaji Diary.
The comma after
mo in the second line adds to the staccato rhythm intentionally wanted by Takuboku.
181. This tanka is similar to tanka 174 in which Takuboku amused himself by watching a fly, and while tanka 181 is as humorous on its surface, it too has a deeper level. Takuboku imitates the cow to forget his illness, but it is not the illness alone that oppresses him. As usual, he could not support the heavy burden of his family. No relief was in sight for him, so he had to create his own whims, his own antics. On the surface the tanka suggests that the poet is feeling better, that he can forget his illness, that he can create his own diversions, but that he had to employ such devices implies the weight of the oppression he was perpetually under. Of course, he is quite aware that he cannot imitate a cow in the presence of his wife and child—the indented line reveals how difficult the constant presence of his family was. When Setsuko and Kyōko went out, he could breathe easier, could find release, could whip out a good moo—there was no longer the possible intrusion of the tension between his mother and wife.
182. A poem of real pathos. Takuboku's father had no real place in Takuboku's Tokyo home. The aging Zen priest who had lost his incumbency and had later deserted his family can now only idle away his hours, playing in this instance with ants in the garden. The poem shows Takuboku's filial piety. There is no harsh criticism of his father, but an image of love is generated in the selection of the detail. The poet is watching a broken old man.
This poem must have been written after Takuboku moved from the two rooms over a barbershop, for no garden would have been available there for the family. Thus this moment must have occurred after Takuboku rented a small independent house on August 7, 1911. On September 3, however, Takuboku's father again ran away because of his son's poverty and because of the emotional strain in the household.
183. The formal kanashikaruran is in colloquial usage kanashii darō (must be sad).
Another tanka of Takuboku's self-scorn, but one in which he once more reveals his sympathy and compassion for his aging parents.
As the only male child Takuboku was doted upon by his parents, so much so that his sisters were jealous of him. Tora, the second eldest sister, said, "After my brother was born, my mother loved him alone, forgetting our existence. Though only a small child, I remember I was dissatisfied" (see Yoshida, note 178).
Mitsuko, Takuboku's younger sister, said: "My brother was such a spoiled child that on those nights he wanted to eat yuzu-manjū [a kind of steamed bun flavored with the grated rind of Japanese lemons], he did not stop insisting on having one until he woke up everyone. My mother was obliged to get up and make him some. He did not mind how cold it was or how late. I hear that she denied herself tea when she was near her death, praying to God to alleviate his disease in exchange for her abstention [see tanka 184]. I don't know if this was true or not as I was not with her at the time. But I remember that she never ate chicken or eggs when I was a child. I was told that she forswore them so that my brother, who was very delicate, might grow healthy" [see Mitsuko Miura, My Sad Brother Takuboku (Tokyo, 1948)].
Such blind love for Takuboku was shared by his father. Thus in Takuboku's childhood the child lacked nothing to make his life comfortable. His parents' infatuation with him, together with his precocity, contributed a great deal toward making the poet an arrogant young man proud of his talent.
184. In Japan, people often abnegated what they liked best when they prayed to the gods for something, such as recovery of their dear ones from illness. Sake o tatsu (to give up sake) or otoko o tatsu (to abstain from sexual relations) were common expressions. Some Japanese even vowed to give up salt.
Takuboku's mother is so self-sacrificing for her son that she is willing to give up tea, a real necessity for the Japanese. But in spite of the mother's kind intentions toward Takuboku, she is also human and cannot help becoming angry. In this household the main problem concerns her daughter-in-law. When the mother is angry with Setsuko, the former cannot help being stiff toward her son. She cannot help sulking, and that in turn must affect her attitude toward her son moment by moment. Perhaps this tanka is not this complicated, but it may suggest the irony that in spite of praying for her son's recovery, she does not realize how much pain she has been causing him through the discord with her daughter-in-law.
185. Usually the children in the neighborhood responded when the poet called them, but at this moment no one came up to him. The poet, who has been troubled by the psychology of both his wife and mother, recognizes that even the simple mind of a child cannot be guessed, cannot be calculated. Yes, the child is father of the man!
The first two lines in the Japanese without a comma between them contain two actions by the poet and a reaction on the part of the children, and these lines have an effect very similar to that of prose. That is to say, the poetry of this tanka is concentrated in the last indented line. What seems like awkward prose suddenly changes into a poem as the reader reaches the last line.
186. The division of the lines in this tanka is unusual, for even while there is only one extra syllable in the Japanese, the first two lines contain only nine syllables, the last line twenty-three. The length of this last line suggests the building up of extreme tension in the poet's mind over this long period of illness in which he can neither recover nor die. The second line, composed as it is of only one word of strong impact, is also effective. There is in this moving tanka the bitterness of a mind deteriorating.
187. That Takuboku's friend sent him a money order just as the poet's medicine ran out saddens the speaker. Most people would be happy because of the coincidence, but Takuboku says the money order (kawase may be a money order sent either by mail or wire) made him sad. He is sad to be reduced to such helplessness by illness. At this period in his life Takuboku was undergoing a severe financial crisis. He had been taking Pyramidon, a medicine tuberculosis patients use to reduce fever. Made in Germany, Pyramidon must have been very expensive, but though it was very efficacious in bringing down the fever of tuberculosis patients, the drug did have some bad side effects. Most doctors did not worry about fever in tuberculosis patients, for the fever usually fluctuates. But the patient himself worried about his Pyramidon, so the money Takuboku received at this time was quite fortuitous.
Takuboku's diary entry for January 23, 1912, notes he had Setsuko buy five packs of Pyramidon. On January 28, 1912, Takuboku wrote: "I took Pyramidon pills three times yesterday and the day before for fever, but as my fever rose to over 100 degrees at bedtime, I didn't take the medicine this morning or afternoon. I finally took one dose at 3 p. m. when my fever rose to over 100 degrees. It seems my condition is very bad."
In September 1911, Takuboku's father again deserted his home, taking with him two lined and two unlined kimonos, a tobacco pouch, a hat, one yen fifty sen from Mitsuko plus fifty sen of household money. On July 17, 1911 (the year Takuboku was hospitalized), an old friend had wired Takuboku money. On August 2, 1911, Miyazaki had wired Takuboku forty yen. At this time Takuboku's wife was ill, her sickness having been diagnosed as tuberculosis. Takuboku himself was ill in bed. August 1, 1911, Setsuko had gone to Takuboku's office to get an advance on her husband's salary—even though she herself was ill. Takuboku's mother had to do the cooking during this period. On August 6, Takuboku borrowed twenty yen from a usurer. On August 7, he moved from the upstairs rooms over a barbershop to an independent house with three rooms (three, six, and eight mats respectively) plus a kitchen and garden. This period was one of intense financial struggle. Certainly we can understand Takuboku's sadness on receiving a money order from a friend.
Kawase no kanashisa is a kind of shorthand to reduce the complexity of the emotions involved in receiving the money order. If this tanka were translated into prose, it might read: "I was very reassured on receiving a money order, but at the same time I was very sad because I was reduced to being dependent on the sympathy of my friend."
188. The psychology of this tanka is common to nagabyōnin (persons with a long illness). The ill are apt
to be irritable and to scold in spite of knowing they ought not to. After the poet's child, exhausted from the torment of her tears, fell asleep, the poet could then touch her—a kind of caress gentle enough not to wake her. If the child were awake, Takuboku could not have performed this gesture of sympathy. The restraint of Japanese fathers in showing affection toward their children is stressed in this tanka.
189. Logically, breathing will be harder with the lungs contracted, but this tanka clearly describes the freshness of a late summer morning when the weather suggests the coming of autumn. To a patient stricken with tuberculosis, summer is a bad season, for when the weather is hot, he feels as if his lungs are edematic, as if he cannot take in enough air. Of course this reaction is more psychological than physiological. When the weather turns cooler, the patient feels as if his lungs have been restored to their full activity. The poet, having suffered from the heat, was joyous in perceiving a sign of autumn in the cool morning breeze. The following entry appears in Takuboku's diary for August 21, 1911: "I created 17 poems, sending them to Yūgure Maeda of Shiika magazine. This morning it was cool like autumn." Tanka 189 then follows.
190. The last poems of Sad Toys (tanka 190 through 194) are quiet, pure. They contain an afterglow, a twilight glimmer. In tanka 190, we feel something of the expectation of a patient waiting for the passing of summer. Usually the warmth of an electric lamp is unpleasant in summer, but when the temperature is falling, we get a pleasant sensation from the warmth of a bulb. Of course, today's bulbs cannot be touched, but in those early Takubokian days, the candle power of an electric bulb was only five to ten.
Romaji Diary and Sad Toys Page 28