A Modern Murder

What is reproduced below is the testament of the late Dr. Giichiro Kitabatake (a pseudonym), which I was recently permitted to borrow and read from Viscount Honda (also a pseudonym). Even if I were to reveal Dr. Kitabatake’s real name, there would likely be few people left now who knew it. As for myself, it was only after I came to know Viscount Honda well and began hearing from him various anecdotes and scraps of talk about the early Meiji years that I first had any opportunity to hear the doctor’s name. His character and habits will no doubt be explained to some extent by the testament below, but if I add two or three facts I have heard indirectly, it seems the doctor was famous at the time as a specialist in internal medicine and, at the same time, was a kind of theater connoisseur who held certain radical views on the reform of the stage. In fact, with regard to the latter, there even existed a play written by the doctor himself: a two-act comedy based on part of Voltaire’s Candide, adapted as an event from the Tokugawa period.

From a photograph taken by Hokuba Tsukuba, Dr. Kitabatake appears to have been an imposing gentleman with English-style whiskers. According to Viscount Honda, his physique was enough to outdo Westerners, and from boyhood he had been known for astonishing vigor in whatever he undertook. Come to think of it, even the handwriting of the testament, free and unrestrained in the manner of Zheng Banqiao, seems in its flowing ink traces to suggest something of the man’s appearance.

Naturally, in making this testament public I have applied a great many alterations. For example, although the peerage system had not yet been established at the time, I have used such names as Viscount Honda and his wife in accordance with the titles they bore in later years. As for the tone of the prose, however, it is no exaggeration to say that I have copied the original almost exactly as it stood.

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To His Excellency Viscount Honda, and to Lady Honda,

As I approach my end, I intend to confess the accursed secret that has coiled within the depths of my breast these past three years, and thereby lay bare before you the ugliness of my heart. If, after reading this testament, you should still feel even the slightest pity for the memory of me, now that I am dead, that would of course be a happiness beyond all expectation. But even if you should instead regard me as a madman deserving death ten thousand times over, a man whose corpse ought to be whipped before it is left in peace, I shall have no complaint whatever. Only, because the facts I am about to confess are so utterly beyond expectation, do not rashly borrow the name of nervous illness and brand me with it. Though for the past several months I have suffered from insomnia, my consciousness remains clear, and indeed exceedingly sharp. If you will only recall that you have known me these past twenty years (I should hardly dare call myself your friend), then I beg you not to doubt my mental soundness. Otherwise, this testament, in which I mean to expose the disgrace of my whole life, would in the end amount to nothing more than so much useless wastepaper.

Your Excellency, my lady, I am a despicable and dangerous man who has committed murder in the past and who, in the future as well, intended once again to commit the same crime. And when I say that this crime was planned against a person most closely connected with you, and was to have been planned again, your astonishment must surely be beyond all measure. Therefore I cannot help but feel the need to repeat my warning. I am entirely sane, and my confession is from beginning to end the truth. I beg you, believe it. And do not allow these few sheets, the only memorial of my life, to be dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic.

I have no leisure to go on protesting my sanity. The little time left to me alive drives me now to set down the motive for my murder and its execution, and further still, to speak of the strange state of mind that followed it. And yet, alas, even as I breathe upon the inkstone and face the paper, I feel a lingering agitation and cannot compose myself. To review and record my past, I think, differs hardly at all from living that past over again. I must renew the plan of murder, renew its execution, and renew the terrible anguish of this last year. Can I truly bear it? Even now I pray to my long-abandoned Lord Jesus Christ. Grant me strength.

From childhood I loved my cousin, now Lady Honda, then Akiko of the Kanroji family. If I were to go back through my memory and list the happy hours I spent with Akiko, it would surely weary you beyond endurance. Yet as one illustration I cannot help telling of a scene that even today stands vivid before my heart. I was sixteen then, and Akiko not yet ten. One day in May we were playing beneath the wisteria arbor on the lawn of her family’s house when Akiko asked me whether I could stand on one leg for a long time. When I answered no, she let her left hand hang down, grasped the toes of her left foot, raised her right hand to keep her balance, and stood there on one leg for what seemed a very long time. Above her the purple wisteria swayed in the spring light; below it Akiko stood motionless, like a sculpture. I have never forgotten those few minutes of her, picture-like beneath the arbor. Looking back on myself, I was astonished to realize that my heart had already fallen deeply in love with her there under that wisteria.

From that time on my love for Akiko only grew fiercer. Thinking of her incessantly, I came close to abandoning my studies, and yet my timidity never allowed me to utter a single word of what was in my heart. Under the tragic skies of emotions forever changing from cloud to sun, I wept, I laughed, and in a blur several years passed. Then, when I reached twenty-one, my father suddenly ordered me to go far away to London and study medicine, our family profession. At parting I wished to speak to Akiko of my love, but the gravity of our household afforded no such chance, and I too, brought up under Confucian discipline, feared the reproach that would attend an illicit declaration. So, carrying an infinite sorrow of farewell, I drifted away alone with my bookbox to London.

There is no need to describe here how, during those three years of study in England, I stood on the lawns of Hyde Park and thought of Akiko beneath the wisteria in my homeland, or how I walked the streets of Pall Mall and pitied myself as a wanderer at the ends of the earth. It is enough to say that while I was in London I dreamed, in that so-called rosy future, of the married life that would one day be ours, and in that way barely managed to dispel my misery. Yet when I returned from England, I learned that Akiko had already married Kyohei Mitsumura, president of the Number X Bank. I resolved at once to kill myself, but what was I to do? My native cowardice and the Christian faith I had embraced abroad unhappily paralyzed my hand. If you wish to know how brokenhearted I was then, remember only this: within days of my return I tried once more to leave for England, thereby provoking my father’s violent anger. In the state of mind I was in then, a Japan without Akiko was no homeland at all; and rather than remain in this homeland that was no homeland and live out my days as a spiritually defeated man, I believed it would be far more consoling to become a lonely traveler across ten thousand miles with a volume of Childe Harold in hand, and bury my bones in foreign earth.

But the circumstances around me ultimately forced me to abandon that plan of returning to England; what was more, I found myself seated in the dull chair of a newly returned doctor in my father’s hospital, kept endlessly busy attending to a multitude of patients.

Thus I sought consolation for my lost love in God. An English missionary then living in Tsukiji, one Mr. Henry Townsend, was in those days a friend I can never forget. It was owing entirely to certain chapters of the Bible that he explained for my sake that, after many bitter struggles, my love for Akiko gradually changed into a fervent yet peaceful, almost familial affection. I remember often discussing God with him, and the love of God, and further, human love, and then returning home alone through the Tsukiji foreign settlement late at night, when scarcely a soul was in the streets. If you will not laugh at me for being sentimental, I may also tell you that as I gazed up at the half-moon hanging over the empty settlement, I prayed to God for the happiness of my cousin Akiko and, overcome with feeling, broke into sobs.

Whether this new turn in my love can or cannot be explained by what is commonly called the psychology of resignation, I have neither the courage nor the leisure to examine in detail. But of one thing there can be no doubt: it was through this familial affection that I was at last able to heal the wound in my heart. Therefore, I, who since my return to Japan had feared hearing any news of Akiko and her husband as one fears vipers and scorpions, now, relying on this familial affection, hoped to draw closer to them. This was only because I rashly believed that, if I should find them to be a happy married couple, my consolation would be all the greater and my mind at last free from anguish.

Moved by that belief, I finally, on the occasion of the grand fireworks by Ryogoku Bridge on August 3rd, Meiji 11, through the introduction of an acquaintance, spent my first evening in Kyohei Mitsumura’s company. He was then in an upstairs room at the waterhouse of Manpachi in Yanagibashi, together with more than a dozen geisha. Joy? Joy? I cannot help thinking that the bitterness I felt outweighed it by far. In my diary I wrote as follows:

"When I think that Akiko is wife to such a filthy and wanton creature as this Mitsumura, I scarcely know where to pour out the rage and resentment swelling in my breast. God has taught me to see Akiko as a sister. But why, then, has He entrusted my sister to the hands of such a beast? I can no longer endure the cruel and treacherous sport of this God. Who could bear to see his wife or sister violated by a brute and still look up to heaven and praise the Lord’s name? Henceforth I shall depend on God no more. With my own hand I shall rescue my sister Akiko from the clutches of this lecherous demon."

Even now, as I write this testament, I cannot keep from seeing again before my eyes the accursed scene of that time: that blue haze over the water, those ten thousand red lanterns, and those endless pleasure boats ranged one after another without end. Ah, to the end of my life I shall remember the fireworks that flashed and vanished in the night sky above that evening, and I shall also remember Kyohei Mitsumura, seated arrogantly in drunken abandon on the summer platform, a great courtesan on his right, a child-geisha in attendance on his left, loudly bawling obscene vulgar songs, fat as a hog. No, no, even now I cannot forget that his black gauze haori bore three crest marks of ginger leaves. I believe that the will to kill him was born in me on that very evening when I saw the fireworks from the waterhouse. And I also believe that, from the outset, the motive for that murder was by no means mere jealousy, but rather a moral indignation, a desire to punish wrongdoing and eliminate injustice.

From that time on I quietly watched Mitsumura’s conduct, to determine whether he truly was the depraved fool I had observed in a single evening. Fortunately, several of my acquaintances were newspaper men, so it is hardly too much to say that there was not one of his lawless and cruel acts that did not eventually come within my hearing. It was in this period that I heard from my senior and acquaintance, Mr. Narushima Ryuhoku, that Mitsumura had once, in a brothel in Gion, Kyoto, tormented a young geisha not yet in full bloom until she died. And when such a scoundrel was said to treat Akiko, his wife, renowned for gentleness and virtue, no better than a slave, who could avoid regarding him as a pestilence upon humanity? Once I knew that his very existence corrupted manners and debased the world, and that removing him would be an act of compassion toward old and young alike, my intention to kill gradually changed into an actual plan for murder.

Yet had things stopped there, I would probably still have hesitated greatly before carrying out that plan. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, fate at this dangerous moment caused me to meet my young friend, Viscount Honda, one night at the restaurant Kashiwaya in Bokujō, and over drinks I heard from his own lips a melancholy tale. Only then did I first learn that Viscount Honda and Akiko had once been promised to each other in marriage, but that Mitsumura, by the power of his gold, had forced that engagement to be broken. Could my anger fail to increase? Even now, when I recall that dim place behind the hanging blinds of the pleasure house, under the flicker of a single lamp, where Viscount Honda and I drank together and bitterly cursed Mitsumura, I feel my flesh tremble. Yet at the same time, I remember clearly that on the way home from Kashiwaya, riding in a rickshaw, I thought of the old bond between Honda and Akiko and was seized by a strange grief beyond description. Permit me once more to quote from my diary:

"Since meeting Viscount Honda this evening, I have resolved to kill Kyohei Mitsumura within ten days. From the Viscount’s manner of speaking, it appears that he and Akiko were not only once formally engaged but were in fact deeply in love. (Today I feel I have discovered the reason for the Viscount’s bachelor life.) If I kill Mitsumura, it will not be difficult for the Viscount and Akiko to complete their union. Happily Akiko, though married to Mitsumura, has not borne him a child; this seems almost as if heaven itself were aiding my design. Thinking that, by killing that beastly magnate, my dear Viscount and Akiko will sooner or later enter upon a life of happiness, I cannot help feeling a smile rise to my lips."

Now my plan for murder was about to pass into execution. After thinking and rethinking the matter with all possible care, I finally selected the appropriate place and means by which Mitsumura should be killed. There is no need for me to attempt any detailed account of where and how. If you still remember the fact that on the night of June 12th, Meiji 12, when a German imperial prince attended the Shintomiza Theater to watch a Japanese play, Kyohei Mitsumura died suddenly of illness in his carriage on the way back to his residence, it is enough for me to say that, at the Shintomiza, there was a middle-aged doctor who remarked that Mitsumura’s complexion looked poor and urged him to take some pills he happened to be carrying. Ah, I beg you, imagine that doctor’s face. Bathed in the light of the round red lanterns, standing at the theater gate, watching Mitsumura’s carriage dash away into the driving rain, yesterday’s resentment and today’s joy came swarming together into his breast; laughter and sobbing alike rose to his lips, and he almost forgot where he was and what hour it was. And do not forget that when, half laughing and half crying, he then plunged through the rain and mud and staggered home like a madman, the name he muttered ceaselessly to himself was Akiko’s. "I did not sleep all night, but paced my study. Was it joy, or was it sorrow? I cannot say. Only some violent, indescribable emotion had wholly taken possession of me, so that not even for an instant could I sit still. On my desk there was cognac. There were roses. And there was also that box of pills. It was almost as if I had given a strange banquet with angel and devil seated at my right and left..."

Never again in the months that followed did I pass such happy days. Mitsumura’s cause of death was diagnosed by the police surgeon exactly as I had anticipated: cerebral hemorrhage. He was at once buried six feet underground, where his decaying flesh became food for worms. Since that was so, who could possibly suspect me of murder? And had I not heard that Akiko, since her husband’s death, seemed for the first time to have regained something of her color? I examined my patients with a face full of cheer, and whenever I had time I gladly went with Viscount Honda to see plays at the Shintomiza. This was entirely because, for me, it had become the glorious battlefield on which I had won my final victory, and I felt a strange desire again and again to gaze upon its gaslights and scarlet carpets.

But that lasted only a few months. As those happy months passed, I gradually approached the fate of having to battle the most hateful temptation of my life. How ferocious that battle became, how step by step it drove me toward death, I have not the courage to describe. No, even now, as I write this testament, I must still fight this serpent-like temptation with death itself. If you would see some trace of my agony, then I ask you only to glance over the extracts from my diary that I copy below.

"October X. Akiko, having no child, is to leave the Mitsumura house. In a few days I am to meet her, together with Viscount Honda, for the first time in six years. Since my return to Japan, at first I could not bear to see her for my own sake; later I could not bear to see her for hers. So the days have slipped by until now. Will Akiko’s bright eyes still be as they were six years ago?

"October X. Today I visited Viscount Honda and was about to go with him to Akiko’s house for the first time. But who could have imagined that he would tell me he had already seen her two or three times before? Why should the Viscount exclude me so cruelly? Feeling intensely offended, I made the excuse of needing to see a patient and fled in confusion from his house. No doubt after I left he went alone to visit Akiko.

"November X. Today I visited Akiko with Viscount Honda. Though she has lost some of her looks, it is still not difficult to glimpse in her the young girl who once stood beneath the wisteria. Ah, I have now seen Akiko again. And yet why is it that in my breast I feel, on the contrary, an unbearable sorrow? I suffer because I do not know the reason.

"December X. The Viscount appears to intend to marry Akiko. Thus the purpose for which I killed Akiko’s husband will at last be fulfilled. And yet--and yet I cannot escape a strange pain, as though I were losing Akiko once more.

"March X. They say the wedding of the Viscount and Akiko is to be held at the end of this year. I pray it may come a single day sooner. In my present condition I shall never be able to free myself from this unendurable pain.

"June 12. Today I went alone to the Shintomiza. Thinking of the victim who fell by my hand on this same date last year, I could not help smiling to myself even while watching the play. And yet on my way home from the theater, when I happened to think of my motive for the murder, I felt almost as if I had lost my sense of direction. Ah, for whose sake did I kill Kyohei Mitsumura? For Viscount Honda’s? For Akiko’s? Or perhaps for my own? Even I can no longer answer.

"July X. This evening I rode in a carriage with the Viscount and Akiko to view the floating lantern ceremony on the Sumida River. In the lamplight spilling through the carriage window, Akiko’s bright eyes were more beautiful than ever; I nearly forgot that the Viscount was beside her. Yet that is not what I mean to speak of. When, in the carriage, the Viscount complained of a pain in his stomach, I put my hand into my pocket and found a box of pills there. And I was startled to discover that they were those pills. Why had I brought them with me tonight? By chance? I earnestly hope it was by chance. And yet it seems it was not necessarily chance.

"August X. Tonight I dined at my house with the Viscount and Akiko. Yet throughout the evening I could not forget those pills at the bottom of my pocket. My heart seems to conceal some incomprehensible monster, even to myself.

"November X. At last the Viscount has married Akiko. I cannot help feeling an indescribable fury toward myself. That fury resembles the shame a soldier who has once fled might feel toward his own cowardice."

"December x. At the Viscount's request, I visited him at his sickbed. Akiko was there as well, and said that his fever had risen badly during the night. After examining him, I told them it was nothing more than a cold, returned home at once, and compounded medicine for the Viscount with my own hands. During those roughly two hours, the box of 'those pills' maintained over me, from beginning to end, a terrible temptation.

"December x. Last night I was assailed by a nightmare in which I murdered the Viscount. All day long I have found it hard to dispel the misery in my heart.

"February x. Ah, only now do I know at last that, if I am not to murder Viscount Honda, I must kill myself instead. And yet—what of Akiko?"

Your Excellency Viscount, and madam, this is the outline of my diary. Brief though it is, you will surely understand the torment through which I have passed, day after day and night after night. If I am not to kill Viscount Honda, then I must kill myself. But if, in order to save myself, I were to kill Viscount Honda, on what ground could I then seek the reason for having slaughtered Kyohei Mamura? And if, again, the reason I poisoned him lay hidden in an egoism of which I myself was unaware, then my character, my conscience, my morality, my principles—all of them would be swept from the earth and vanish. That is something I cannot possibly endure. I believe, rather, that killing myself is far preferable to such spiritual bankruptcy. Therefore, in order to uphold my own integrity, tonight, by means of that box of 'those pills,' I intend to share the same fate as the victim who once collapsed beneath my hand.

Your Excellency Viscount Honda, and madam, for the reasons stated above, when this testament comes into your hands I shall already be a corpse, lying upon my bed. The only reason I have, at the point of death, confessed in detail the secret of a half lifetime I ought to curse is that I wished, for your sakes as well, to cleanse myself a little. If you find me hateful, then hate me; if you find me pitiable, then pity me. I—who hate myself and pity myself already—will gladly accept both your hatred and your compassion. And now I lay down my pen, order my carriage, and go at once to the Shintomiza. After half a day at the theater, I shall place several of 'those pills' in my mouth and once more throw myself into my carriage. The season is of course different, yet the restless, drizzling rain happily makes me feel as though I were back beneath the rainy skies of the yellow-plum season. Thus, like Kyohei Mamura, that gross creature like a bloated hog, I shall watch the lights passing beyond the carriage window, and listen to the desolate night rain pattering on the roof above, and not long after leaving the Shintomiza I shall surely draw my final breath. When tomorrow you unfold the newspaper, you will probably read, even before this letter reaches you, a notice that Dr. Giichiro Kitabatake, of cerebral hemorrhage, collapsed dead in his carriage on the way home from the theater. At the very end, I pray earnestly for your happiness and good health. Your ever faithful servant, Giichiro Kitabatake.

(June, 1918)