Second Memoir (2/3)

by Osamu Dazai

"Could you lend me five yen?"

We were merely acquaintances, having never exchanged a single word before. I offered him the five yen, feeling a little perplexed.

"Alright, let's drink. I'll treat you. You're a fine young man, aren't you?"

Unable to refuse his offer, I was pulled by him and taken to a cafe in Horai-cho, near the art school. That was the beginning of our friendship.

"I've had my eye on you for a while. That shy smile of yours, it's truly the expression unique to an artist. A toast to our new acquaintance! Kinu-san, isn't this guy handsome? Don't fall for him. Thanks to him coming to the school, unfortunately, I've become the second most handsome man."

Horiki had a dark complexion and well-defined features, and unusually for an art student, he wore a proper suit. His tie was subdued, and his hair was neatly combed with pomade, parted down the middle.

I was in an unfamiliar place, simply trembling with fear, crossing and uncrossing my arms, wearing a shy smile. However, after two or three beers, I began to feel a strange sense of liberation and lightness.

"I was thinking of enrolling in art school, but..."

"No, it's boring. A place like that is boring. Schools are boring. Our teacher is in nature! The pathos towards nature!"

However, I felt no respect for anything he said. I thought he was a fool, and his paintings must be bad, but he might be a good companion for fun. In other words, at that moment, I saw a real urban hoodlum for the first time in my life. Even though he was different from me in form, he was certainly a kindred spirit in that he was completely detached from the human activities of this world and lost. And the fundamental difference between him and me was that he performed his buffoonery unconsciously, completely unaware of its tragedy.

I always looked down on him, thinking I was just playing around, just dating him as a playmate, and sometimes I even felt ashamed of our friendship. Yet, as I walked with him, I ultimately found myself broken by even this man.

However, at first, I mistook this man for a good person, a rare good person, and even I, with my fear of humans, completely let my guard down, thinking I had found a good guide for Tokyo. In truth, I couldn't ride a train alone, the conductors terrified me, and even when I wanted to enter the Kabuki-za, the usherettes standing on both sides of the red-carpeted stairs at the main entrance were terrifying. When I entered a restaurant, the waiter silently standing behind me, waiting for my plate to be empty, terrified me. Especially when paying the bill, my clumsy movements, and when shopping and handing over money, it wasn't stinginess, but rather dizziness from tension, shame, anxiety, and fear, making the world go dark, and I would become almost half-mad. Far from haggling, I sometimes even forgot to receive my change or forgot to take home the items I had bought. I simply couldn't walk the streets of Tokyo alone and had no choice but to laze around the house all day.

But when I handed my wallet to Horiki and walked with him, Horiki would haggle extensively, was skilled at having fun, and achieved maximum effect with minimal money. He avoided expensive taxis, skillfully using trains, buses, and small steamships to reach our destination in the shortest time. On the way home in the morning from a prostitute's place, he would give me practical lessons, like stopping at a certain ryotei for a morning bath and a light drink with yudofu, which felt luxurious despite being cheap. He taught me that gyumeshi and yakitori from street stalls were inexpensive and nutritious, and he guaranteed that Denki Bran was the quickest way to get drunk. In any case, being with him never once made me feel anxious or afraid.

Furthermore, what saved me by associating with Horiki was that he completely ignored the listener's intentions, passionately expressed himself, and kept up a constant stream of trivial chatter. There was no fear of falling into an awkward silence when we walked together and got tired. I, who was originally taciturn, used to desperately make jokes when interacting with people, wary of that dreadful silence appearing. But now, this idiot Horiki unconsciously took on that role willingly, so I only had to listen without much response, occasionally saying "No way!" and laughing.

Alcohol, tobacco, prostitutes—I eventually came to understand that these were all very good means to temporarily distract oneself from the fear of humans. I even began to feel that I wouldn't regret selling all my possessions to obtain these means.

To me, prostitutes seemed neither human nor female, but rather like idiots or madwomen, and in their embrace, I, conversely, felt completely at ease and could sleep soundly. They all, sadly, had truly no desires. And perhaps sensing a kinship with me, those prostitutes always showed me a natural kindness that wasn't stifling. Kindness without calculation, kindness not forced upon me, kindness towards someone who might never return—there were nights when I truly saw the halo of Mary in those idiotic or mad prostitute women.

I went to that place seeking a brief respite, escaping from my fear of humans. While playing with prostitutes who were in similar circumstances to myself, an eerie atmosphere unconsciously began to surround me. This was an "added bonus," so to speak, that I had not anticipated at all. However, this "bonus" gradually became clearer, and when Horiki pointed it out, I was stunned and a wave of unpleasant feelings welled up within me.

From the outside, it seemed as if I was, as they say, undergoing "female training" with prostitutes, and it was recently said that I had become quite skilled at it. Training with prostitutes is considered the most rigorous and effective, but I already had the scent of a "womanizer" clinging to me, and women (not just prostitutes) instinctively sniffed it out and gravitated towards me. Such an obscene and dishonorable aura was clinging to me as an "extra appendix," and it seemed to stand out more than my desire for rest.

Horiki might have said that half as a compliment, but I also had some heavy recollections that came to mind. For example, receiving a naive letter from a woman at a coffee shop, or the general's daughter who lived next door to my house in Sakuragicho, who would go in and out every morning at school time, lightly made up, even though she had no business there. Also, when I went to eat beef, a maid would speak to me even if I said nothing, or there would be something inside the cigarette box handed to me by the daughter of the tobacco shop where I always bought cigarettes, or someone would speak to me in the seat next to me when I went to see Kabuki, or I would feel something when I was drunk and asleep on a late-night streetcar, or I would unexpectedly receive a desperate letter from a relative's daughter in my hometown, or an unknown girl would leave a handmade doll while I was out.

I was extremely passive, so all of these were isolated incidents, mere fragments. However, the fact that some atmosphere that made women dream clung to me somewhere was no joke and an undeniable truth. When Horiki pointed it out, I felt a bitterness akin to humiliation, and my enthusiasm for playing with prostitutes suddenly waned.

One day, Horiki, with his show-off modernity, took me to a communist reading group. For Horiki, a secret communist meeting might have been just another "tour of Tokyo." I was introduced as a "comrade," bought a pamphlet, and received a lecture on Marxist economics from an ugly-faced young man sitting at the head of the table. However, it all seemed self-evident to me. While it might be true, there are far more inexplicable and terrifying things in the human heart. I felt as if something that couldn't be fully expressed by listing desires, vanity, lust, and greed lurked at the bottom of human society. While I was frightened by this uncanny phenomenon, I was naturally accepting materialism. However, this did not free me from my fear of humans, open my eyes to the green leaves, or allow me to feel the joy of hope.

Nevertheless, I attended every meeting, and it struck me as comical how the "comrades," with tense faces as if facing a grave matter, were engrossed in studying theories akin to elementary arithmetic. I played the clown, trying to lighten the mood of the meeting. Perhaps because of this, the stiff atmosphere of the study group gradually softened, and I became an indispensable and popular figure at the meetings. The seemingly simple people might have considered me a similarly simple and optimistic clown of a "comrade," but if so, I would have been deceiving them from beginning to end. I was not a "comrade." However, I continued to attend the meetings and provide my clownish services to everyone because I liked it. I liked them. But it was not necessarily a sense of camaraderie forged by Marx.

Illegality. That was faintly enjoyable to me. Rather, it felt comfortable. I found the legal aspects of the world to be more frightening. It seemed to harbor an unfathomable strength, its mechanism was incomprehensible, and I couldn't sit in a windowless, chilling room. Even if the outside was a sea of illegality, it felt more at ease for me to jump into it, swim, and eventually die.

There is a word, "shadow dweller." It seems to refer to miserable losers or villains in the human world, but I felt like a shadow dweller from the moment I was born. When I met someone whom society would point at and say, "That person is a shadow dweller," I would always feel a gentle heart. And that "gentle heart" of mine was so gentle that I myself would be enchanted by it.

There is also the term "guilt consciousness." In this human world, I might have spent my life tormented by this consciousness, yet it was like a beloved companion, a faithful wife, and playing forlornly with it, just the two of us, might have been one way of my life. There's a common saying, "a person with a skeleton in their closet," but for me, that wound naturally appeared on one of my shins when I was a baby, and instead of healing as I grew, it deepened further, reaching even the bone. The pain every night was like a hell of a thousand variations, but strangely, that wound gradually became more intimate than my own flesh and blood, and its pain felt like the living emotion of the wound, or a whisper of affection.

For such a man, the atmosphere of the underground movement group was strangely reassuring and comfortable. In other words, it felt as though the nature of the movement suited him, more so than its original purpose. In Horiki's case, it was merely a fool's prank; he had introduced himself to the meeting once and never returned. The Marxist, making a poor joke about how Marxists needed to inspect the consumption side as well as study the production side, avoided the meetings and constantly tried to invite me to "inspect the consumption side."

Looking back, there were various types of Marxists at the time. Some, like Horiki, claimed to be Marxists out of a vanity for modernity, while others, like myself, stayed because they liked the scent of illegality. If their true nature had been discovered by genuine adherents of Marxism, both Horiki and I would have been furiously reprimanded and expelled as despicable traitors. However, neither Horiki nor I were ever expelled. In fact, in that illegal world, I was able to behave more freely and "healthily" than in the world of legal gentlemen. As a result, I began to be entrusted with various overly secretive tasks as a promising "comrade."

In fact, I never once refused such tasks, readily accepting anything. I never stumbled, aroused suspicion from the "dogs" (as the comrades called the police), or failed during suspicious interrogations. Laughing and making others laugh, I accurately completed those dangerous jobs. At the time, I felt perfectly fine even if I were to become a party member, be arrested, and live in prison for the rest of my life. I even thought that prison might be easier than groaning in the hell of sleepless nights, fearing the "real lives" of people in the world.

My father, at his villa in Sakuragicho, had many visitors and went out frequently, so even when we were in the same house, I wouldn't see him for three or four days. However, my father was somehow bothersome and frightening, and just as I was thinking of leaving this house and finding a boarding house somewhere but couldn't bring myself to say it, I heard from the old caretaker of the villa that my father seemed to be planning to sell the house.

My father's term as a politician was nearing its end, and while there must have been various reasons, he seemed to have no intention of running for election again. Moreover, he had built a retirement home in his hometown and seemed to have no lingering attachment to Tokyo, perhaps thinking it wasteful to provide a mansion and servants for me, who was merely a high school student. My father's heart, like the feelings of people in general, was something I didn't quite understand. In any case, the house soon changed hands, and I moved into a dimly lit room in an old boarding house called Senyukan in Hongo Morikawa-cho, and immediately found myself in financial difficulty.

Until then, my father had given me a fixed monthly allowance, and even if it ran out in two or three days, there were always cigarettes, alcohol, cheese, and fruit at home. Books, stationery, and clothing items could be obtained "on credit" from nearby stores. Even if I treated Horiki to soba or tempura, if it was one of my father's favorite local shops, I could simply leave the store without saying a word.

Suddenly, I was living alone in a boarding house, and everything had to be managed with a fixed monthly remittance, which left me bewildered. The remittance would still disappear in two or three days, and I became terrified, starting to go mad from loneliness. While repeatedly sending telegrams asking for money to my father, brothers, and sisters alternately, and letters to Isaifumi (the circumstances pleaded in those letters were all comedic fabrications; I thought it best to make people laugh first when asking for something), I also, taught by Horiki, diligently started frequenting pawn shops. Even so, I was always short of money.

After all, I lacked the ability to "live" alone in a boarding house where I had no connections whatsoever. I was terrified of being alone in that room in the boarding house, feeling as if someone would attack me and strike me at any moment, so I would rush out into the city, helping with that movement, or drinking cheap sake with Horiki, almost abandoning my studies and art. In November of my second year of high school, I was involved in a double suicide with a married woman older than myself, and my life completely changed.

Even though I was absent from school and hardly studied, my exam answers somehow showed a knack for getting by. It seemed I had been deceiving my family back home, but it appeared the school had secretly reported my insufficient attendance to my father, and my eldest brother had started sending me stern letters on my father's behalf. However, what troubled me even more was the lack of money and the fact that the movement's tasks had become too busy to be treated as mere play. I had been appointed as the leader of the action squad for Marxist students from schools in the central district, or areas like Hongo, Koishikawa, Shitaya, and Kanda.

When I heard "armed uprising," I bought a small knife, but looking back now, it was so flimsy it wasn't even enough to sharpen a pencil. I put it in my raincoat pocket and ran around everywhere, making what they called "contacts." I wanted to drink alcohol and sleep soundly, but I had no money. Furthermore, requests for tasks kept pouring in from P (I think that's what we called the party, but it might have been something else), and my sickly body could no longer handle them. Originally, I had been helping that group out of an interest in illegal activities, but it was like a joke how busy it had become. I secretly felt towards the people of P, "That's beside the point. Why don't you have your direct subordinates do it?" and I ran away. Even after running away, I didn't feel good, and I decided to die.

At that time, there were three women who showed me special favor. One was the daughter of Senyukan, the boarding house where I was staying. After I returned exhausted from helping with the movement and fell asleep without eating, she would always come to my room with stationery and a fountain pen, saying, "I'm sorry. My younger siblings are noisy downstairs, so I can't write letters in peace." She would then sit at my desk and write something for over an hour.

I should have pretended to be asleep, but she seemed to want me to say something, so I exercised a spirit of passive service. Although I truly didn't want to utter a single word, I forced myself to get up on my stomach despite my exhaustion, and while smoking a cigarette, I said, "I hear there was a man who used a love letter from a woman to boil water for his bath."

"Oh, no! Was it you?"

"I've boiled milk and drunk it."

"That's an honor, drink it."

While wishing she would leave soon, I found it rather off-putting that even though the letter was so obvious, she would say, "Show it to me," and then happily exclaim, "Oh no, oh no." So, I decided to give her an errand.

"Sorry, could you go to the pharmacy on the tram street and buy some Bromural? I'm too tired, my face is flushed, and I can't sleep. The money..."

"It's fine, don't worry about the money."

She stood up happily. I knew well that asking a woman for a favor never disheartens her; rather, women are pleased when a man asks them for something.

The other was a so-called "comrade," a literature student from the Women's Higher Normal School. I had to meet this woman daily for movement-related matters, and even after our meetings, she would always follow me and buy me things indiscriminately.

"You can think of me as your real older sister."

Shuddering at her words, I replied with a sorrowful smile, "That's what I intend to do." Anyway, thinking I shouldn't anger her and that I had to somehow deceive her, I served that ugly woman, and everything she bought me was in bad taste, so I immediately gave it to the yakitori vendor. I made her laugh with jokes and a happy face, and one summer night, not wanting to leave her, I kissed her in a dark part of town, hoping she would go home. She became wildly excited, like a madwoman, called a car, and took me to a narrow Western-style room, like an office in a building she secretly rented for her activities, and we made a big fuss until morning. I secretly gave a bitter smile, thinking what an outrageous woman she was.