Chapter One

All this happened a long time ago. I’m sure it was around 1880, as there is a reason I can remember the exact year of the events: At that very time I shared a wall with the protagonist of the story. He was my neighbor at the Kamijo, a boarding house which stood directly across the street from Tokyo University’s Iron Gate. The Kamijo burned to the grown in 1881, and I was one of the residents suddenly without home. Yes, I remember quite distinctly—all this occurred the year before the fire.

A majority of residents at the Kamijo were students at the medical school, but there were a handful of patients of the school's hospital staying there as well. Nearly all boarding houses have certain residents who command more influence than others. They move more money than others, demonstrate a considerate shrewdness, and when they pass the landlady ’s room on a pass through the corridor they stop by and make extended, sincere greetings over her charcoal brassiere. Occasionally those greetings morph into dipping heads and extended small talk over the toasting heater. They turn their rooms into veritable bars and brothels, call for the landlady to bring snacks, and cause her untold heartache with their selfishness, but when it comes to book-keeping they apparently see to it that she is rewarded for her efforts. I don’t doubt that my readers are familiar with such types and the authority they command. They command respect by expressing, often to excess, their sway over the house. No one at the Kamijo commanded more influence than my neighbor, though he was a very different sort of character.

His name was Okada. Despite being one year my junior, graduation was already within his grasp. To explain what kind of man he was, it is necessary to start with his familiar, though extraordinarily good looks. He was beautiful man, though not pale and dainty as the expression might suggest. His complexion was healthy; his build was sturdy. I had perhaps never seen another man with a face like his. In truth he bared a resemblance to a young Bizan Kawakami, the writer whose life ended in misery and disrepute. He looked a bit like Okada in his youth, but Okada, a member of the rowing team, possessed a more robust physique.

Those looks, how they have supported the lives of those men who own them! However, looks need more space than the halls of a boarding room to exercise their influence. No —Okada did not command influence over the building by his looks alone. It was his private mannerisms. Surely no other students at the Kamijo maintained balance in their lives to the extent Okada did. Never one to challenge himself with perfunctory exams or plunge himself into studying with the intention of winning scholarships, he simply did what needed to be done and never fell below average or what was necessary. Furthermore, he was careful to protect his own time for relaxation. Each night after dinner he went out for a walk, and each night he returned before ten. On Sundays he typically went rowing, and when he did not do that he found some other excursion with which to occupy himself. Before rowing competitions he accompanied the rest of the rowing team when they spent the night in Mukojima, and over summer vacations he returned to his hometown, but aside from these particular times, when he slept in the room beside mine, there was a remarkable consistency with his schedule. Whenever someone neglected to set their watch by the evening bells, they ran to Okada to ask for the proper time. Even the clock that stood at the front desk was occasionally adjusted to match the time on his pocket watch. All who knew him, and proportional to the amount of his activity to which they'd been witness, came to the same, inevitable, conclusion: He was a man in whom one could place their trust. The landlady came to slather elaborate praise on him for his honesty and prudence in the ways of money, and her words built on that very same trust he had earned. That he was always on time with bills and rent and dependable in all matters was a fact she was well aware of, and with time she could often be heard admonishing others with a sing-song, “Just look at Okada”

A good portion of students had already given up, declaring they'd never measure up to him. Soon, within the bounds of the Kamijo, he was considered the standard by which other residents were judged.

The path Okada followed on his daily walks was, for the most part, fixed. He'd shamble down the lonely hump of Muenzaka and follow the Aizome river, black as tooth stain, on its path around the north of Shinobazu Lake before arriving at the Ueno hill. He would then proceed up Hirokoji, take a path through Nakacho —always too narrow, always bustling—before stopping in the Yushima shrine grounds and turning at the corner of Karatachi Temple, dank and mysterious as always. There were also times that he turned right out of Nakacho and returned by Muenzaka.

So composed were his normal wanderings. There were times that he would leave the university through its Red Gate. The Iron Gate was chained up relatively early, and when that was the case he would use that main gate, so often used for patients at the hospital. At one point they had closed the main gate for repair work, during which time they constructed that black one to serve as an entrance to Harukicho.

On those days he left from the Red Gate and walked up Hongo Street, past the rice-cake vendors, and continued on to the Kanda Shrine. Back then the Megane bridge was still new and lovely. He took it down through Yanagihara and Katakawa for a little walk through those quiet towns. After returning to Narimichi he wandered about the western alleyways and came out by Yahari Temple. That was his other path. Aside from these two walks, he rarely ventured other excursions.

During his walks he entertained himself with little, other than short glances into second-hand bookshops. There are still a few shops from that era in Ueno and Nakacho. There ’s one in Narimichi still doing business as well. None have survived in Yanagicho, And the businesses on Hongo street change locations and owners rather quickly. Okada never turned right upon exiting the Red Gate, and while it may have been due to Morikawa being a thoroughly small and featureless place, the west side of town being in possession of but one single second-hand shop may have played a role as well.

The reason Okada entertained himself with these shops, to explain in modern diction, was his literary tastes. Back then the new school of novels and plays had yet to appear, and as for poetry, neither Shiki ’s haiku nor Tekkan’s Waka had been published. Many of us read Kagetsu Shinshi, which published the first translation of a Western novel. I remember because I, too, was a devoted reader of Kagetsu Shinshi. It was the first magazine to run translated novels from the West. There was a story about a university student somewhere in the West who was killed on his way home. Takahara Kanda translated it as a dialogue, I believe. It was the first time I’d ever read a story from the West. Well, those were the times, and Okada’s interest in literature consisted of these popular Chinese poetic interpretations of the unfolding new world. It was fun to read, but not much more serious than that.

I was by no means a socialite, and I rarely carried on conversations, even with those people whom I frequently encountered about campus. Only occasionally would I remove my hat and greet others, even those students with whom I shared my residence. My friendship with Okada was only brought about through the mediation of a second-hand bookshop.

Now, while my walks did not follow the same rigid definition of Okada ’s, I did often enjoy a long stroll through Hongo and Shitaya, out through Kanda. If I came across a second-hand bookshop it was difficult to resist a quick perusal. Once, I ran into Okada at the entrance to one of these shops.

“I sure seem to see you around these bookstores a lot,” one of us said at the time—though heaven knows I can’t recall which of us it was. It was a friendly greeting.

Back then there was a shop, just at the bottom of the hill leading out of Kanda shrine, that placed a bench out by the street and used it to display their books. Once, when I was passing by, I saw a copy of the Chinese text Kinpeibai, and I quickly asked the owner the price. He answered seven yen. I asked for him to give it to me for five, to which he responded, “Mr. Okada recently offered me six yen for it, and I was forced to turn him down.”

By chance, I had a fair amount of money on me at the time, so I bought the book for its asking price. A few days later I ran into Okada again, at which point he said, “Aren’t you a gentleman, sweeping in and buying Kinpeibai. You know I had my eye on it.”

“The owner did say that you had had discussed the price with him. If you want it, I suppose I could give it up.”

He smiled. “Don’t be ridiculous. I live next door, I’ll just borrow it when you finish.”

I gladly agreed.

It was through these means that Okada and I, having lived next to one another for so long without so much as a greeting, came to be friends.