Teito Monogatari:
The Tale of the Imperial Capital
Part 1: Great Spirit of Tokyo
Author: Hiroshi Aramata
Part 6: Those Who Command Shinigami
Chapter 26: Unknown Language
In contrast to the brightness of the room, a heavy silence enveloped them both.
Dr. Morita opened the desk drawer and took out several sheets of paper, which he handed to Mr. Narutaki.
The first sheet depicted a skull with a great deal of German text written on it.
"These are reports examining Miss Yukari's skull from the standpoint of phrenology. According to Franz Gall's cranioscopic diagnostics, the morphology of the skull reflects the characteristics of the cerebrum it protects. Note her developed forehead. According to Gall, development of the upper half of the frontal lobe enhances what he calls the Group III cerebral functions. The abilities of Group III are things like profundity of spirit, feelings of justice and injustice, talent for imitation and piety, firmness of character, religious sensibility, and so on. She is bright, but somewhat hysterical, and easily susceptible to religious suggestion. In other words, she is precisely the kind of woman prone to develop prayer-induced psychosis."
Mr. Narutaki laid those documents face down on the desk and kept reading. He saw Yukari's familiar, neat handwriting. "Do you think so?" he asked absently as he read.
The next sheet stopped him cold. The blackness of the ink stung his eyes.
"This is also her handwriting. My mentor, Dr. Shūzō Kure, has conducted detailed research into such cases. He published a work titled The Handwriting of the Insane fifteen years ago. For reference, you should look at the examples included there."
Dr. Morita rose, took a thin booklet from the shelf by the wall, and handed it to Mr. Narutaki. "You may find something close to Miss Yukari's handwriting in it."
Narutaki did as he was told and began working through the collection of handwriting examples.
The booklet left a truly bizarre impression on him. First came the handwriting of an idiot—something very simple, obsessively repeating Chinese numerals across the page. Next, the handwriting of a depressive patient caught his eye. At first glance, it looked almost skillful, but ink blots and additions were everywhere. There were many erasures and traces of corrections worked over and over. According to Dr. Shūzō's marginal notes, this patient had not readily complied with instructions and had deliberately used paper made from crumpled newsprint or cheap Asakusa paper. The letters varied wildly in size, unstable from one word to the next.
Mr. Narutaki turned pages and stopped on the handwriting of a confused, maniacal patient.
Dr. Morita peered over his shoulder and nodded.
"Just as I thought. That was written by a delirious maniac patient at Sugamo Hospital—a man named Iizuka. He had fallen ill as a result of being punished in 1884 (Meiji 17) for making an extremist speech. He was sentenced to five months' imprisonment and a fine of twenty yen. He ranted that someone was plotting to kill him. His delusions of persecution were severe. He claimed that someone was watching his every action from the heavens with a microscope and giving detailed instructions to agents inside the hospital via telegraph wires.
"The handwriting of delirious maniac patients shows one major characteristic. Abnormalities appear in the shapes of the letters and the way the pen is used. A defensive instinct—not wanting others to know—produces an individualistic style like this. That is still manageable, when you can call it individualistic. But before long, they begin writing characters others cannot decipher, or arbitrarily shifting meanings. There are patients who create an entirely new language that functions only for themselves."
"A new language?"
"Yes. Let me show you an outlandish letter. This was left behind by a man who had the most strikingly bizarre condition among all the mental patients ever admitted to Sugamo Hospital. His name was Shimada Bungorō, from Miyagi Prefecture. He had been a Christian since childhood and was a sickly man. Later he became a policeman in Hakodate, but he was a heavy drinker, and it seems he developed mental illness around 1849 (Meiji 22).
"In 1852 (Meiji 25), this man suddenly appeared at the Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Surugadai, Tokyo, and clung to the priest in tears, saying, 'I am a German named Stau, but I am being persecuted in Japan! Please help me.' He said that he was not Japanese; he was a naturalized citizen of Germany, homeland of the Bismarck that he revered. That was his story. He even went to the German legation to take care of naturalization procedures. He asked that this letter be presented to Bismarck. Take a look.”
Mr. Narutaki was handed a copy of the letter and fixed his gaze on it. At first glance, it looked like an English or German letter with the alphabet lined up, but no matter what he did he couldn’t decipher it.
Dr. Morita laughed. “It’s no use, Mr. Narutaki. No matter how fluent your German is, you can’t read that. The patient didn’t know any German. But what’s surprising is what comes next. The patient said that this letter is written in a new script that he devised with great effort. If you read it horizontally from the front, it can be read as Western letters, but once you hold it up to the light from the back and read it vertically, it becomes our country’s kanji characters!”
Mr. Narutaki hastily turned the letter over and held it up to the sunlight. Suddenly, the letter he had thought was nothing but Western letters changed into comprehensible Japanese! The first line on the left could be read as “May 30, Meiji 24,” and, unbelievably, the line on the far left could be read as “To Lord Bismarck." All the rest had changed into Japanese characters as well. His face went pale.
“Doctor, what in the world is this?”
“I just told you. It's a new script invented by a madman. I don’t mean to astonish you again, but take a look at the last page of those documents; there is an example of handwriting by Miss Yukari while in a hypnotic state.”
Narutaki, with an incredulous look, set the letter down and turned pages until he reached the final one.
There was a symbol there that he had never seen before. It was written over and over in a firm, confident hand. He no longer had the strength to raise his head.
"What is this?" he asked.
"You could call it a new character Miss Yukari created herself. She is a typical confused maniac." Dr. Morita's voice was steady, but his tone had shifted. "She is an abnormal patient the like of which we have not seen since Shimada Bungorō, whom my mentor Dr. Kure Shūzō treated more than ten years ago. Now listen. Tell me the patient's medical history over this past year again in detail."
Translator's Note
The Shimada Bungorō case is so
obscure that even Japanese sources don't fully document it; the closest
match I could find for the case was in a book of biographical stories
compiled by Aramata Hiroshi called The History of Paranoia.
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