The First Modern Japanese: The Life of Ishikawa Takuboku (Asia Perspectives: History, Society, and Culture) by Donald Keene

Author:Donald Keene [Keene, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Asia / Japan, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary, HIS021000, BIO007000, keen17972
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2016-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

He sometimes failed to appear in the Asahi office for as long as four or five days in a row, but even when he spent the entire time writing, he rarely completed a story. Some “stories” consisted of nothing more than a page or two; others rambled on until inspiration deserted him.

Members of the Asahi staff grumbled about Takuboku’s frequent absences, but he was protected by Satō, who was convinced that Takuboku was an exceptional person whom he definitely wished to keep at the Asahi.

On June 15, 1909, Takuboku left the room in the boarding house where he had lived ever since September 6, 1908. He moved into an apartment that Kindaichi had found for him, two rooms on the second floor of a barbershop on Yumi Street.49 Miyazaki sent fifteen yen to enable Takuboku to pay the rent.

On June 10, Takuboku had received letters from Miyazaki and Setsuko announcing that that they were in Morioka and had seen members of Setsuko’s family. Takuboku thought, “It’s finally happened!”50 This was how he expressed his realization that his wife would soon appear in Tokyo.

Takuboku still owed one hundred yen in back payments for the rent of his room in the boarding house, but Kindaichi, acting as his guarantor, promised that the money would be paid in monthly installments.51 Takuboku finally sent word to his family, asking them to come to Tokyo on June 16. He would meet them at the railway station that day and go with them from the station to their new house. He spent the night of June 15, his last in the boarding house, in Kindaichi’s room.52 They said good-bye the next day with strange feelings of separation. They had lived in nearby rooms for almost a whole year.

Before dawn on June 16, he and Kindaichi were on the platform of the Ueno railway station in Tokyo to greet the members of Takuboku’s family. Takuboku’s diary says not one word indicating that he was glad to see his family.53

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