The Third Notebook

Part One

　One of Takeichi's prophecies came true, and one did not. The dishonorable prophecy — that I would be popular with women — came true, but the blessed prophecy — that I would surely become a great painter — did not.

　I managed only to become an obscure, inept cartoonist for cheap magazines.

　Expelled from higher school because of the Kamakura incident, I was living in a three-mat room on the second floor of Hirame's house, and a very small sum of money arrived from my hometown each month — apparently sent not directly to me but secretly to Hirame (and moreover it seemed the arrangement was that my brothers back home were sending it in secret from Father) — and after that, all connection with my hometown was completely severed. Hirame was always in a sour mood; even when I smiled pleasantly at him, he would not smile back. The change in him was so drastic it seemed almost comical, something that made you think a human being could change this easily — could flip like a palm of the hand — as he kept saying nothing but:

"Don't go out. Whatever you do, don't go out."

　That and nothing else to me.

　Apparently Hirame suspected I had suicidal tendencies — meaning he seemed to think there was danger of my jumping into the sea again after the woman — and so he strictly forbade me to go out. But since I could neither drink nor smoke, merely burrowing morning to night under the kotatsu in the three-mat upstairs room reading old magazines and living like an idiot, even the will to kill myself had drained away.

　Hirame's house was near the Ōkubo medical school; the sign read "Seiryūen, Fine Arts and Antiques" and the characters on it were fairly impressive, but it was one unit of a two-unit building, with a narrow storefront and the interior dusty and filled with a random jumble of junk. (Though in truth Hirame did not actually rely on that junk in the shop for his livelihood; it seemed he made his money by acting as broker when a so-called "patron" wished to transfer the ownership of a prized possession to another so-called "patron.") He was almost never sitting in the shop; usually from morning on he would go out with a difficult look on his face, leaving behind a single apprentice boy of seventeen or eighteen to mind the place — this boy serving as my guard. The boy, whenever he had a free moment, would be outside playing catch with the neighborhood children, yet seemed to regard the freeloader upstairs as something like an idiot or a lunatic, even going so far as to lecture me with the ponderous moralizing of an adult, and since I am the type who cannot argue with anyone, I would listen with an expression that was part weariness and part admiration, obediently submitting. This apprentice boy was Shibuta's illegitimate son, though for strange reasons Shibuta never acknowledged the parent-child relationship in so many words, and the reason Shibuta had remained a bachelor all these years seemed to have something to do with that as well — I believe I had once heard some gossip about it from the people at my family home, but I am not the type who takes much interest in other people's circumstances, so I know nothing in depth. However, there was something about the boy's eyes too that strangely reminded one of a flounder, so perhaps he really was Hirame's illegitimate child... but if so, the two of them were a truly lonely parent and child. Late at night, without letting the freeloader upstairs know, the two of them would sometimes order soba and eat it together in silence.

　At Hirame's house the apprentice always prepared the meals, and for the freeloader upstairs the food was placed separately on a tray and the boy carried it up three times a day, while Hirame and the boy ate in a damp four-and-a-half-mat room under the stairs, the clinking sounds of plates and small bowls coming from within as they ate busily.

　On an evening near the end of March, whether Hirame had come upon some unexpected profit or had some other scheme in mind (even if both those guesses were right, there were probably several more subtle reasons beyond my ability to guess), he invited me to the table downstairs where unusually a sake bottle had appeared, and as the host he himself expressed admiration and praise for the tuna sashimi that was hardly "hirame" at all, and urged the dazed freeloader to have a little sake too, then said:

"What are you planning to do, exactly, from here on?"

　I did not answer, picked up a dried small sardine from the plate on the table, and as I gazed at the silver eyes of the little fish, the warmth of the sake began to rise through me, and I found myself missing my days of wandering around, even missing Horiki of all people, and was seized with a profound longing for "freedom," and almost began, quietly, to cry.

　Since coming to this house, I had not even the motivation to perform the clown, simply lying prostrate beneath the contempt of Hirame and the apprentice, and Hirame on his side seemed to avoid having any long, frank conversations with me, and I had no impulse to chase after Hirame and appeal to him about anything — I had virtually become a listless, vacant-faced freeloader.

"A suspension of indictment means you won't have a prior conviction or anything of that sort. So your rehabilitation is purely a matter of your own resolve. If you sincerely come to me with a plan, I'll consider it."

　In Hirame's manner of speaking — indeed, in the manner of speaking of every person in the world — there was this kind of complexity, vague and somehow evasive, and in the elaborate caution that seemed almost pointlessly excessive and the countless petty maneuverings, I was always left bewildered, falling into a don't-care mood, either clowning to laugh it off or nodding in silent submission — a posture of defeat, so to speak.

　Later in life I would learn that what Hirame needed to say was simply this brief report, and I felt a deeply oppressive sadness at Hirame's needless caution — no, at the incomprehensible vanity and propriety of people in the world.

　What Hirame should have said at that time was just this:

"Enter some school somewhere — public or private, it doesn't matter — in April. When you're enrolled in a school, more adequate funds will be sent from home."

　As I came to understand much later, that was in fact the arrangement. And I would have followed those instructions. Yet because of Hirame's unnecessarily roundabout manner of speaking, things somehow got twisted and my direction in life was completely altered.

"If you have no desire to consult with me sincerely, there's nothing to be done."

"Consult about what?"

　I genuinely had no idea whatsoever.

"That's something you should know in your own heart, isn't it?"

"For instance?"

"For instance — what do you yourself intend to do from here on?"

"Would it be better to work?"

"No, I'm asking what your own feelings are."

"But when it comes to entering a school..."

"Yes, money is needed for that. But money isn't the issue. It's your feelings."

　Why did he not say one single word: "The money will be coming from home"? That one sentence would have settled my mind, but I was in a complete fog.

"Well, what about it? Is there any hope for the future, anything of that sort? When one is caring for someone, the person being cared for can hardly understand how difficult it is."

"I'm sorry."

"It's a matter of real concern, truly. Since I have taken on your care, I don't want you to remain half-hearted about things. I want to see proof that you are resolved to walk the path of proper rehabilitation. For instance, if you came to me sincerely with a plan for your future, I would be willing to discuss it. Of course, since this is the assistance of an impoverished Hirame, you'd be disappointed if you hoped for the luxury of before. But if your feelings are firm and you clearly establish a plan for the future and then consult me, I am even thinking I would help you, little by little, toward your rehabilitation. Do you understand? My feelings. So what exactly do you intend to do from here on?"

"If you can't keep me on the second floor here, I'll work and..."

"Are you saying that seriously? In today's world, even a graduate of the Imperial University..."

"No, I don't mean becoming a salaried worker."

"Then what?"

"A painter."

　I said it at last, taking the plunge.

"Oh?"

　I cannot forget the cunning shadow on Hirame's face as he shrank his neck and laughed — it resembled a look of contempt and yet was something different, the kind of shadow that might waver in the deepest fathom of the sea if you compared the world to an ocean, a laugh that gave a brief glimpse into the depths of adult life.

　He told me that wouldn't do at all, that my feelings weren't in the least settled, that I should think it over, to think it through seriously tonight. I was sent upstairs as if driven out, lay down, and no particular thoughts came to me. As dawn broke, I fled from Hirame's house.

　I'll definitely be back by evening. I'm going to the friend listed below to consult about future plans, so please don't worry. Really.

　I wrote this large in pencil on a sheet of writing paper, then wrote Horiki Masao's name and address in Asakusa, and slipped quietly out of Hirame's house.

　It was not resentment at being lectured by Hirame that made me flee. I truly was, exactly as Hirame said, a man whose feelings weren't settled, who had no plan for the future at all — I felt genuinely sorry to keep imposing on Hirame, and if I happened to somehow work up some ambition and set a goal for myself, the thought of receiving monthly financial support from that impoverished Hirame for my rehabilitation was so distressing, so unbearable, that I couldn't stand it.

　But I had not left Hirame's house with any serious intention of consulting someone like Horiki about a so-called "plan for the future." That was simply to put Hirame's mind at ease for even a little while — (there was the detective-novel strategy of wanting to put as much distance between myself and him as possible while his guard was down, which is why I wrote such a note, though it would be more accurate to say that more than that reason, I was simply terrified of giving Hirame a sudden shock and throwing him into confusion. Even when something is bound to be discovered anyway, saying so directly is too frightening, and I have the sad habit of always adding some embellishment — similar to what people call dishonesty, yet I almost never added these embellishments for my own benefit, mostly it was because an abrupt change in the atmosphere, suffocating as it was to me, and even knowing it would later put me at a disadvantage, out of what I can only call my "desperate service" — however distorted, feeble, and foolish that service might be — I would end up adding a single word of embellishment, it seems. But this habit too has been greatly exploited by the so-called "honest people" of the world.) — and in that moment, the name and address of Horiki simply floated up from the depths of my memory and I wrote them at the edge of the paper.

　I left Hirame's house, walked to Shinjuku, sold the books in my pocket, and found myself at a total loss once again. I got along well with everyone, yet had never once genuinely felt what is called "friendship" — setting aside playfellows like Horiki, all associations brought nothing but pain, and struggling to knead away that pain I would perform frantic clowning and end up completely exhausted. Even seeing in the street someone I barely knew, or even just someone resembling such a person, I would be startled and seized for an instant by such severe, dizzying unease that, though I knew how to be liked by people, I seemed to be deficient in the ability to love people. (Though I am deeply uncertain whether people in the world even possess the capacity for "love.") For such a person, having what might be called a "close friend" was impossible; moreover, I had not even the capacity to make a "visit." To me, the gate of another person's house was more uncanny than the Gate of Hell in the Divine Comedy, and without exaggeration I could literally feel behind that gate the stirring presence of some terrible, raw-smelling strange beast like a dragon.

　No one to associate with. Nowhere I could go to visit.

　Horiki.

　It was, in truth, a case of the joke turning real. As I had written in that note, I decided to actually go visit Horiki in Asakusa. I had never once visited Horiki's house before — I had always summoned him to me by telegram — but now I didn't even have the telegram fee, and wounded pride at having sunk so low made me think that a mere telegram might not bring Horiki to me. I resolved to attempt what was most difficult for me, a "visit," and sighed as I got on the streetcar. As I realized that Horiki was the only lifeline I had in this world, I was seized by something eerily chilling along my spine.

　Horiki was home. In a two-story building at the end of a dirty alley, Horiki used a single six-mat room on the second floor; downstairs, his elderly parents and a young craftsman were busy sewing and tapping together thong sandals.

　That day, Horiki revealed to me a new aspect of his urban self — what people commonly call being "sharp." It was a cold, cunning egoism that even this country person was startled to see. He was not a man of the endlessly drifting sort like me.

"You're really something, aren't you. Has your father forgiven you yet? Not yet?"

　I could not say I had run away.

　I fudged it, as usual. Even though Horiki would surely see through it at any moment, I fudged it.

"That'll work itself out."

"Hey, this is no joke. Take my advice, stop playing the fool around here. I've got things to do today. I've been ridiculously busy lately."

"What things?"

"Hey, stop pulling at the cushion ties."

　While talking, I had been unconsciously toying with one of the tasseled corner ties of the cushion I was sitting on, twisting and tugging at it. Horiki seemed to begrudge even a single tie on a cushion that belonged to his house, and without any sign of embarrassment, with a positively sharpened look in his eye, he rebuked me. When I thought about it, Horiki had not lost a single thing throughout our association.

　Horiki's elderly mother brought two bowls of shiruko on a tray.

"Oh my," said Horiki, shamelessly filial before his mother, in an unnaturally polished tone, "shiruko! How wonderful. You needn't have gone to the trouble. I have to go out right away — but such exquisite shiruko, it would be a shame to waste it. I'll have some. You have one too. Mother went out of her way to make it. Oh, this is delicious. How wonderful."

　And he ate it with what seemed like genuine delight. I sipped mine too — it smelled of hot water, and when I tasted what was supposed to be mochi, it was not mochi but something I couldn't identify. I did not at all look down on the poverty. (I didn't find it unpleasant then, and the old mother's thoughtfulness moved me. I believe I have a fear of poverty, but not contempt for it.) What struck me, through that shiruko and through Horiki's delight in that shiruko, was the frugal authentic nature of the city dweller, the substance of Tokyo family life with its clear division between inside and outside — and suddenly I felt wholly left behind, the only dim-witted fool who runs from human life without any such distinction, having been completely abandoned even by Horiki — and handling the chipped lacquered chopsticks, I felt a loneliness I simply must record here.

"Sorry, but I have things to do today."

　Horiki stood, put on his jacket, and said this.

"Excuse me, sorry about that."

　At that moment, a woman visitor came for Horiki, and my circumstances changed abruptly.

　Horiki suddenly brightened.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I was just about to come call on you, and then this fellow turned up out of nowhere — it's quite all right. Please come in."

　He seemed quite flustered, snatching the cushion I had been sitting on, flipping it over, and offering it to the woman. There was only one guest cushion besides Horiki's own in the room.

　The woman was thin and tall. She set the cushion aside and sat in the corner nearest the entrance.

　I watched the two of them talk absently. The woman appeared to be from a magazine company, and it seemed she had previously asked Horiki for an illustration or something of the sort, and had come to pick it up.

"I'm in a hurry."

"It's done. Finished long ago. Here it is, please."

　A telegram arrived.

　Horiki read it, and his cheerful expression turned rapidly menacing.

"Damn! Hey, what's this about?"

　It was a telegram from Hirame.

"Anyway, go back right now. I suppose I should escort you, but I don't have time for that. Running away from home and sitting there with that carefree look on your face."

"Where do you live?"

"Ōkubo."

　I answered before thinking.

"That's near our office, then."

　The woman was twenty-eight, born in Kai Province. She lived with a five-year-old daughter in an apartment in Kōenji. She said it had been three years since her husband died.

"You seem like someone who had a hard upbringing. You're very perceptive. Poor thing."

　For the first time I lived the life of what one might call a kept man. After Shizuko (that was the woman reporter's name) left for her magazine company in Shinjuku, I and Shigeko, the five-year-old girl, would be left quietly minding the place. Until then, when her mother was away, Shigeko had apparently played in the apartment manager's room, but now that a "perceptive" uncle had appeared as a playmate, she seemed to be in high spirits.

　For about a week I was there, vaguely drifting. A kite — the human-shaped kind — was tangled in the electric wire just outside the apartment window, battered and torn by the dusty spring wind, but still clinging stubbornly to the wire, refusing to let go, nodding as if agreeing with something, and every time I saw it I smiled bitterly, blushed, and dreamed of it at night, tormented by it.

"I want money."

"...How much?"

"A lot. 'When money runs out, love runs out too' — that's the truth."

"How silly. Such old-fashioned..."

"Is it? But you don't understand. If things stay like this, I might end up running away."

"Who's poor and who's the one who runs away, I wonder. How strange."

"I want to earn my own money and buy alcohol — no, cigarettes with it. And painting — I think I'm much better than someone like Horiki."

　In moments like this, what rose up unbidden in my mind was those self-portraits I had painted in middle school — the "monster pictures" as Takeichi called them. Lost masterpieces. They had been lost in the course of repeated moves, but those alone I felt were genuinely superior paintings. Everything I had painted since fell far, far short of those remembered works, and I was always plagued by a dull sense of loss, as if my chest had been emptied out.

　A half-drunk glass of absinthe.

　That was the secret name I had given to this sense of loss that seemed to admit no compensation. Whenever painting came up in conversation, that half-drunk glass of absinthe would flicker before me, and I writhed in an agitation — if only I could show that person those paintings, make her believe in my talent.

"Ha, I wonder. You say such things with such a serious face — that's what makes you charming."

　It's not a joke, it's true, oh, if only I could show those paintings — I twisted in pointless torment, then suddenly changed tack and gave up.

"Cartoons, then. At least with cartoons I think I'm better than Horiki."

　That self-deprecating clown's remark was taken more seriously.

"You know, I was actually impressed. The cartoons you always draw for Shigeko — even I can't help laughing. Why don't you try it? I could ask the editor at my company."

　The company published a monthly children's magazine that wasn't very well known.

　...Whenever people — most women especially — look at you, they feel an irresistible urge to do something for you... You're always timid and jumpy, and yet you're funny... Sometimes you sink into terrible solitude all by yourself, and that makes women even more restless...

　Shizuko said various other things to flatter me, but thinking that these very qualities were the dirty characteristics of a kept man only made me sink deeper — I couldn't find any energy at all — and I secretly vowed to get away from Shizuko and live independently, with money rather than a woman, devised various plans, yet found myself increasingly dependent on Shizuko, and almost everything relating to the aftermath of my running away was handled by this capable Kai woman, so that I ended up having to be even more "timid and jumpy" around Shizuko.

　Through Shizuko's arrangements, a conference was held between Hirame, Horiki, and Shizuko, I was completely cut off from my family home, and Shizuko and I began "openly" living together — and again through Shizuko's efforts, my cartoons earned unexpectedly decent money, with which I bought both sake and cigarettes, yet my anxiety and gloom only deepened. Truly sunk in gloom, while drawing the monthly serial cartoon for Shizuko's magazine — "The Adventures of Kinta-san and Ota-san" — I would suddenly remember my family home and feel such loneliness my pen would stop moving, and I bent over the page and shed tears.

　At such times, a faint comfort was Shigeko. By that period she was calling me "Papa" quite naturally, without any self-consciousness.

"Papa. If you pray, God gives you anything you want — is that true?"

　I myself wanted to pray.

　Oh, grant me cold will. Let me understand the true nature of "human beings." Is it no sin for one person to push another aside? Grant me the mask of anger.

"Yes, that's so. He'll probably give Shige-chan anything. But for Papa, maybe not."

　I was afraid even of God. I could not believe in God's love, only in God's punishment. Faith. It felt to me like nothing more than bowing one's head and facing the seat of judgment simply to receive God's whip. I could believe in hell, but no matter what, I could not believe heaven existed.

"Why not, for Papa?"

"Because I disobeyed my parents."

"Really? But everyone says you're a very good person."

　That's because I'm deceiving them. I knew that the people in this apartment all showed me goodwill; but the more they feared me — no, the more I feared them — the more they liked me, and the more they liked me, the more I feared them and had to pull away. Explaining this unhappy morbid streak to Shigeko was extremely difficult.

"What does Shige-chan want to ask God for?"

　I changed the subject with apparent nonchalance.

"Shigeko wants her real Papa."

　I was startled, went dizzy. An enemy. Was I Shigeko's enemy, or was Shigeko mine? In any case, here too was a terrifying adult who threatened me, a stranger, an incomprehensible stranger, a stranger full of secrets — Shigeko's face suddenly seemed that way to me.

　I had thought Shigeko at least was safe, yet she too had that "tail that suddenly swats a horsefly." From then on I had to be nervous even around Shigeko.

"Lecher! Are you in?"

　Horiki had started visiting me again. Even though that man had made me so lonely on the day I ran away, I still couldn't refuse him, and would welcome him with a faint smile.

"Your cartoons have gotten quite popular, I hear. Amateurs don't know any better, so they have a reckless nerve — scary. But don't get complacent. Your draftsmanship is nothing to speak of."

　He even assumed the manner of a teacher. I writhed again in my habitual pointless torment — what would this fellow's face look like if I showed him those "monster" paintings — but said:

"Don't bring that up. It'll make me scream."

　Horiki grew ever more pleased with himself.

"Getting by on social talent alone — eventually the cracks show."

　Social talent. I could only smile bitterly. Me — with social talent! But does my way of fearing people, avoiding them, and deceiving them amount to the same form as the cunning worldly wisdom people call "let sleeping dogs lie"? Ah, human beings — none of us understands the other at all, we misread each other completely, and yet consider ourselves each other's closest friends, remaining unaware of it our whole lives — and when the other dies, weep and read funeral eulogies.

　Horiki, having been present at the handling of my runaway aftermath (surely pressed and reluctantly dragged in by Shizuko), was now acting toward me as though he were my great benefactor or a go-between, lecturing me with a ponderous air, visiting drunk at midnight and staying over, and borrowing five yen (always exactly five yen) on his way out.

"But you'd better quit your womanizing here. Because the world won't tolerate any more of it."

　The world — what exactly is that? A plural of individuals? Where does the substance of what they call "the world" actually exist? Nevertheless, I had lived this far thinking of it as something powerful, strict, and terrifying. But hearing Horiki say this, the words "The world is you, isn't it" rose to the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them to avoid angering Horiki.

(That's something the world won't tolerate.)

(Not the world. You won't tolerate it, won't you?)

(If you do that, the world will make you suffer.)

(Not the world. You will, won't you?)

(Eventually the world will bury you.)

(Not the world. You're the one who'll bury me, aren't you?)

　Know yourself — your own terror, your own grotesqueness, your own viciousness, your cunning old-fox nature, your witch nature! — various such thoughts passed through my chest, but I merely wiped the sweat from my face with a handkerchief and said:

"Cold sweat, cold sweat."

　And laughed.

　Yet from that time on, I came to harbor a thought-like thing: the world is each individual person, isn't it.

　And once I began thinking that "the world" might be nothing more than individuals, I found I could move a little more by my own will than before. In Shizuko's words, I became a little selfish and stopped being so timid. In Horiki's words, I became strangely stingy. In Shigeko's words, I stopped doting on her as much.

　Silent, unsmiling, tending to Shigeko day after day, drawing the serial cartoons — "The Adventures of Kinta-san and Ota-san," or the obvious derivative of "Nonki-na Tousan" called "Nonki Oshō," or "Sekkachi Pinchan," a title I couldn't understand myself — in response to orders from various publishers (gradually orders were coming from companies other than Shizuko's, though all of them were even cheaper than Shizuko's company, truly third-rate publishers), in a truly, truly gloomy state of mind, sluggishly (my pen strokes were extremely slow), drawing purely for sake money, and then when Shizuko returned from work I would slip out, drink cheap strong alcohol at the stalls and stand bars near Kōenji station, become a bit cheerful, and return to the apartment.

"Looking at you more and more, you have a strange face. Nonki Oshō's face — actually, I got the hint from your sleeping face."

"Your sleeping face looks a lot older too. Like a forty-year-old man."

"That's your fault. Drained me dry. The flow of water, and the life of man, ah. Whatever I'm brooding about, riverside willow, ah."

"Don't be noisy, go to sleep now. Or would you like something to eat?"

　Calm, completely indifferent to my nonsense.

"I'll drink sake if there is any. The flow of water, the life of man, ah. The flow of people, no, the flow of water, the life of water, ah."

　Singing, being undressed by Shizuko, pressing my forehead against Shizuko's chest and falling asleep — that was my daily routine.

And the next day too the same things repeated,

Following the same customs as yesterday.

Simply avoid rough, large pleasures,

Then naturally no great sorrows will come either.

The toad goes around the obstructing stone

That blocks its path.

　When I found this poem — attributed to someone called Guy-Charles Cros, in Ueda Bin's translation — I blushed alone until my face burned.

　Toad.

　(That is me. The world neither tolerates nor buries me. I am an animal inferior even to dogs or cats. A toad. Just lumbering along.)

　My drinking gradually increased. I went out to drink not just around Kōenji station but all the way to Shinjuku and Ginza, sometimes staying out overnight. Not wanting to follow the "same customs," I would act the thug at bars, kissing women left and right — in other words, becoming an even wilder, coarser drinker than in the days before the drowning incident, running short of money and going so far as to take Shizuko's clothing to the pawnshop.

　More than a year after I had come here and smiled bitterly at the torn kite, in the season of young leaves, I again secretly took Shizuko's obi and undergarment to the pawnshop, raised some money and drank in Ginza, stayed out two nights in a row, and on the evening of the third day, feeling ill at ease for once, I was creeping silently up to Shizuko's apartment door when I heard the voices of Shizuko and Shigeko from inside.

"Why do you drink sake?"

"Papa doesn't drink because he likes it, Shige-chan. He's such a good person, and that's why..."

"Good people drink sake?"

"Not necessarily..."

"Papa will definitely be surprised."

"He might not like them. Look, look, it jumped out of the box."

"Like Sekkachi Pinchan."

"Yes."

　I heard Shizuko's low, genuinely happy laughter.

　I opened the door a crack and peeked inside — it was a baby white rabbit. Hopping all around the room, the mother and daughter chasing after it.

　(These people are happy. A fool like me has inserted himself between these two, and soon I'll ruin them completely. A modest happiness. A good mother and child. This happiness — oh, if God would listen even to the prayers of someone like me, once, just once in a lifetime is enough, I pray.)

　I felt the urge to crouch right there and press my palms together. I quietly closed the door, went back to Ginza, and never returned to that apartment.

　And so I ended up sprawling on the second floor of a stand bar near Kyōbashi, again in the form of a kept man.

　The world. It seemed I was beginning to dimly understand it. It's a contest between individuals, moreover a contest of the moment, and you only need to win that moment. Human beings never truly submit to other human beings — even slaves find slavish, cringing ways to get even. So the only scheme for surviving is to rely on that one-shot contest of the moment, and though they invoke great principles, the target of effort is always an individual — overcoming one individual to reach the next — the difficulties of "the world" are the difficulties of individuals, the ocean is not "the world" but individuals — and I found myself somewhat freed from dread of the great ocean mirage called "society," and stopped worrying so much about everything, learning to act somewhat more boldly in response to immediate necessity.

　Having left the Kōenji apartment, I went to the madam of the Kyōbashi stand bar and said just:

"I've broken up."

　Just that, nothing more — the one-shot contest was decided, and from that night on I rudely took up residence on the second floor. Yet the supposedly terrifying "world" did me no harm whatsoever, and I offered the "world" no explanation whatsoever. If the madam was willing, that was all that mattered.

　I was something like a customer, something like a husband, something like an errand boy, something like a relative — my status must have been deeply puzzling to outside observers, yet "the world" didn't find it suspicious at all, and the regulars at the bar called me "Ha-chan, Ha-chan" and treated me with great gentleness, letting me drink.

　I gradually stopped being wary of the world. I began to think that the world was not such a terrifying place. In other words, my fear until then had been rather like the "scientific superstitions" that tell you the spring air carries hundreds of thousands of whooping-cough germs, public baths harbor hundreds of thousands of blindness-causing germs, barbershops are teeming with baldness germs, the straps on commuter trains are covered in scabies mites, or that raw fish and undercooked meat always harbor tapeworm larvae and liver flukes and who-knows-what eggs, or that walking barefoot allows tiny glass fragments to enter through the soles of your feet and travel through your body to pierce your eyes and blind you. Such things are perhaps "scientifically" accurate — hundreds of thousands of germs may indeed be floating and writhing about. At the same time, I came to understand that if you simply ignore their existence completely, they vanish at once and become mere "scientific ghosts" with no connection to you whatsoever. Three grains of rice left in a lunchbox — if tens of millions of people leave three grains a day, you can calculate how many bushels of rice are wasted — or, if tens of millions of people save one sheet of tissue a day, how much pulp is saved — I had been terrorized by such "scientific statistics," and every time I left a single grain of rice, every time I blew my nose, I was tormented by the delusion that I was wasting mountains of rice and mountains of pulp and fell into a dark mood as if committing a grave sin — yet that precisely is "the lie of science," "the lie of statistics," "the lie of mathematics." Three grains of rice cannot be collected; as an applied multiplication-and-division problem it's a truly primitive, dim-witted theme, no different from calculating the probability of how often one in how many visits someone puts a foot wrong into the unlit hole of an outhouse, or how many among what number of train passengers catches a foot in the gap between the train door and the platform edge — seemingly plausible, yet one never hears of anyone actually injuring themselves by misjudging the outhouse hole. Learning that I had been taught such hypotheses as "scientific facts," accepted them as reality, and lived in fear of them — I found my former self pitiful, wanted to laugh at myself. That was how I came to know the real substance of the world, little by little.

　Even so, human beings still frightened me terribly, and even meeting the bar's customers required me to down a full cup of sake first. The desire to see what frightens you. Every night I still came out to the bar, and like a child who squeezes extra hard the small animal it is actually a little afraid of, I came to the point of drunkenly foisting my crude theories about art on the customers.

　A cartoonist. Ah, but I was a nameless cartoonist with neither great joy nor great sorrow. Even if great sorrow came later, I desperately craved rough, large pleasures — yet my present pleasures consisted only of trading nonsense with the customers and drinking their sake.

　I had been continuing this worthless life in Kyōbashi for nearly a year, and my cartoons had begun appearing not only in children's magazines but also in the crude, vulgar magazines sold at station kiosks. I drew dirty nude pictures under the playful pseudonym Kamiji Ikuta (suicide attempt, survived), and inserted Rubaiyat verses alongside them.

Stop with the useless prayers already

Cast off whatever makes you weep

Well, have a cup — think only of happy things

Forget the needless worrying

Those who threaten people with anxiety and fear

Tremble themselves at the grand sins of their own making

Preparing for revenge from the dead

Constantly scheming over their own heads

Last night, wine filled me, my heart was full of joy

This morning, sober, nothing but desolation

Strange — within a single night

How this mood has transformed

Stop thinking about curses

Like a drum echoing from afar

The thing fills one with vague unease

If every last fart is counted as a sin, we're all doomed

Is justice the guiding principle of life?

Then on the blood-drenched battlefield

In the blade tip of the assassin

What justice resides?

Where is the guiding principle?

What light of wisdom is there?

Beautiful and terrible is this floating world

Frail human children are made to bear a burden beyond their strength

Having had the seeds of uncontrollable desire planted in us

Cursed only with talk of good, evil, sin, and punishment

Helpless, only confused

Given neither the power nor the will to suppress and crush it

Wherever have you been wandering around?

What — criticism? Examination? Re-recognition?

Ha — empty dreams, nonexistent phantoms

Heh — since we've forgotten the wine, it's all foolish thinking

Look — at this boundless sky above

It's a dot floating in it

How would anyone know why this earth spins?

Rotation, revolution, counter-revolution — do as you please

Everywhere I feel the highest power

In every country among every people

The same human nature is discovered

Am I a heretic then?

Everyone has misread the scriptures

Or else has neither common sense nor wisdom

Forbidding the pleasures of flesh, stopping wine —

Fine, Mustafa, I hate all that

　But around that time there was a young woman who urged me to stop drinking.

"You shouldn't. Every day, you're drunk from noon on."

　She was the seventeen-or-eighteen-year-old daughter of the small tobacco shop across from the bar. Her name was Yoshi-chan — a fair-skinned girl with overlapping teeth. Every time I came to buy cigarettes, she would laugh and advise me.

"Why shouldn't I? What's wrong with it? Drink all the sake there is, child of man, dispel dispel dispel hatred — goes the old Persian — well, never mind — to a heart weary with grief, only the jeweled cup bearing a touch of wine brings hope — you see?"

"I don't."

"You wretch. I'll kiss you."

"Go ahead."

　She pushed out her lower lip, not the least bit abashed.

"You idiot. Chastity..."

　Yet in Yoshi-chan's expression there was clearly the smell of a virginity unstained by anyone.

　In the deep cold of a new year's night, drunk and going out to buy cigarettes, I fell into the manhole in front of the tobacco shop, called out "Yoshi-chan, help me!" and was pulled up by Yoshi-chan, who tended to the wound on my right arm. At that point Yoshi-chan said quietly, without laughing:

"You drink too much."

　Since I'm fine with dying but have always been dead set against being wounded and bleeding and possibly becoming crippled, while having my arm tended by Yoshi-chan I thought: perhaps I should lay off the drinking.

"I'll stop. Not a drop from tomorrow."

"Really?"

"Definitely. If I stop, will you be my bride, Yoshi-chan?"

　Though the bride part was a joke.

"Of course."

　"Of course" — there was a craze for abbreviations then, "mobo," "moga," all kinds.

"All right. Pinky swear. I'll definitely stop."

　And yet the next day I drank again from noon.

　In the evening I wandered out unsteadily and stood in front of Yoshi-chan's shop.

"Sorry, Yoshi-chan. I drank."

"My, how terrible. Pretending to be drunk."

　I was startled. Felt as if the alcohol had cleared.

"No, it's true. I really drank. I'm not pretending to be drunk."

"Don't tease me. That's not nice."

　She absolutely refused to doubt me.

"You'd think you could tell from looking. I drank from noon today too. Forgive me."

"You're such a good actor."

"I'm not acting, you idiot. I'll kiss you."

"Go ahead."

"No, I don't deserve it. I'll have to give up the idea of making you my bride too. Look at my face, it's red, isn't it? I drank."

"That's because the evening sun is shining on it. No use trying to fool me. You made a promise yesterday. There's no way you'd have drunk. Pinky swore. You drank — that's a lie, a lie, a lie."

　Yoshi-chan's white face smiling in the dim shop — ah, an unspoiled virginity is a precious thing. I have never slept with a virgin younger than myself. Let me marry her — even if great sorrow comes later because of it, I want rough, large pleasure, just once in a lifetime — I had thought the beauty of virginity was nothing but the sweet sentimental illusion of stupid poets, but after all it does exist in this world. Let's get married and when spring comes ride bicycles together to see the waterfall in the new green leaves — I resolved on the spot, did not hesitate to pluck that flower with what might be called a "one-shot contest."

　And so we eventually married, and the pleasure I gained from it was not particularly great, but the sorrow that came afterward was — "devastating" does not begin to describe it — it came in dimensions truly beyond imagination. For me, "the world" was still bottomlessly terrifying. It was not such a simple place that everything was settled by any such one-shot contest.