On a Spring Night
I
I had been walking along a side street in Maru-no-uchi lined with concrete buildings. Then, I smelled something. Something? No, it was the smell of a vegetable salad. I looked around. But there was not a single restaurant to be seen on the asphalt way. I thought that that was very much the essence of a spring night.
II
U: You’re not afraid of the night, are you?
Me: I don’t find it particularly frightening.
U: Well, I do! It makes me feeling like I’m chewing on a giant pencil eraser somehow.
These too—U’s words—are very much the essence of a spring night.
III
I was watching a Chinese girl boarding a train. Even though she was beneath season-destroying electric light, there was no mistaking the fact that it was truly a spring night. The girl turned her back to me, and made to put her foot on the step of the train. With a cigarette in my mouth, I suddenly noticed a bit of dirt remaining on the girl’s earlobe. Then, that dirt became something closer to “filth” than dirt. Even after the train started going, I felt some warmth from the dirt remaining on that earlobe.
IV
One spring night, I passed by a stopped carriage by the side of the road. The horse was thin and white. I felt a small temptation to give the horse’s mane a pet as I passed by.
V
This was also one spring night. While walking on the road, I recalled that I wanted shark caviar.
VI
Vision of a spring night: once outside the window of the Café Printemps was a large farm. And right in the center of that farm there was a whole roast chicken, its head hanging down in thought…
VII
Words for a spring night: “Little Yasu shit green!”
VIII
One March night, when I put down my pen, I noticed the progress of my nickel pocketwatch. The clock in the next room struck ten. However, the pocketwatch was at ten-thirty. I placed the pocketwatch above the small brazier, and I carefully set the time to ten. And then I again began to work my pen. Time has never passed as unexpectedly quickly as it did at this time. This time the clock struck eleven. Still holding my pen, I shot a glance at the pocketwatch: incredibly it was twelve. Perhaps when I warmed the pocketwatch at the fire, it made the hands spin more quickly?
IX
Someone brushes their nails on a chair. Someone stitches lace before a window. Someone violently picks flowers. Someone silently strangles a parrot. Someone sleeps beneath the chimney of a small restaurant. Someone hoists the sail of a sailboat. Someone scratches a charcoal image into soft white bread. Someone, amidst the smell of gasoline, scoops a shovel of mud. Someone—no. A plump gentleman, he opens a book of Chinese poetry while even now he thinks of poetry for a spring night…
(February 5, 1927)