37—
Enlightenment through Empirical Experience
I wrote a novel called Unmei (Destiny) based partly on my experience in the West and partly on my imagination, and another called Jinkosai[*] (Festival of the gods), an embellished account of what I saw in northern Kyushu.[1] While I was writing the second novel, I also became interested in the local dialect, which I started to learn from a friend native to the area. After I finished writing the dialogue in dialect, my friend corrected it. I had long thought that Tokyo's spoken language was rather lively, but its inconsistency of form was problematic and so I came up with the idea of writing the dialogue in the local dialect in hopes of remedying the situation somewhat. But perhaps it only makes the novel more difficult to read.
During that time, I wrote many essays for journals and newspapers, primarily on ways of interpreting Japanese culture. Living in the West altered the way I looked at Western culture, which in turn compelled me to change the ways I had looked at Japanese culture. One idea I mulled over was that since modern Japanese culture represents a mixture of long-cherished indigenous traditions and Western learning, arts, and technology, it cannot be transformed into a purely Japanese or a purely Western product, nor is there such a need. There was nothing new in thinking that modern Japanese culture was in this sense a "hybrid culture." But in terms of its potential, a hybrid isn't necessarily inferior to its purely authentic counterparts, and we need to just roll up our sleeves and do the best we can with what we already have. At least for me, this
[1] Unmei was published in May 1956 and Jinkosai in March 1959, both by Kodansha[*] .
state of mind was something nobody else had talked about.[2] To develop it into a coherent body of ideas, beyond the specificity of time and space, I had to identify examples that brought together the ability to assimilate alien cultures and the capacity for cultural creativity. Then I had to explore the general dynamics behind such cases. I was not at a total loss as to where such examples could be found, but I did not have the luxury of time to investigate and examine foreign cases to my own satisfaction. I simply wrote short essays in a hurry and published broad outlines of my ideas in journals.
My other thought was related to modern Japanese history. According to a popular theory, Japanese culture after the Meiji Restoration represented a "discontinuity" with its earlier traditions; I too had once accepted this view without really thinking through the issue. After my experience in the West, I could no longer think of the cultural relationship between the pre-and post-Meiji periods in any area of endeavor in terms of a "discontinuity." Besides oil paintings we also had Japanese-style paintings; besides Western-style orchestral music, traditional musical instruments, scales, and techniques of vocalization were widely practiced. And in the world of post-Meiji lyric poetry, the tradition of classical Japanese poetry still played a significant role; and the contemporary novel and zuihitsu most certainly cannot be considered as having been uprooted from the Edo yomihon, kibyoshi[*] , and haibun traditions and the like.[3]
[2] See his essays, "Nihon bunka no zasshusei" (The hybrid nature of Japanese culture, Shiso[*] , June 1955) and "Zasshuteki Nihon bunka no kadai" (Question about Japan's hybrid culture, Chuo[*] koron[*] , July 1955), in Kato[*] Shuichi[*] chosakushu[*] , 7:5–46.
[3] The zuihitsu (random essay, lit. "following the brush") dates from Sei Shonagon's[*]Makura no soshi[*] in the late tenth century; distinguished modern and contemporary writers of zuihitsu include Shimazaki Toson[*] , Nagai Kafu[*] , Terada Torahiko, Tanizaki Jun'ichiro[*] , Nakano Shigeharu, Yasuoka Shotaro[*] , and Kushida Magoichi (and other political/literary figures such as Nakae Chomin[*] and Sakai Toshihiko). • Edo yomihon fiction began in mid-eighteenth-century Osaka and was strongly influenced by traditional Chinese fiction, meant to be read as a text, and with relatively few illustrations; its representative writers include Ueda Akinari, Santo[*] Kyoden[*] , and Takizawa Bakin. • Kibyoshi[*] (lit. yellow covers) was late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century popular illustrated fiction meant for mature audiences—sarcastic, frivolous, and later even didactic; its major writers include Santo Kyoden and Koikawa Harumachi. • Haibun were prose writings by haiku poets whose best-known examples include Matsuo Basho's[*]Oku no hosomichi (The narrow road through the provinces, 1702), Yokoi Yayu's[*]Uzuragoromo (Patchwork cloak, 1787–1823), and Kobayashi Issa's Ora ga haru (The year of my life, 1819).
Though I had written about these ideas, I was unable to examine specific writers and their works in detail to substantiate my views. I do not think that my ideas were incorrect. However, my writings were like skeletons without the flesh. The more I wrote at the request of journals and magazines, the less time I had to adequately examine the facts, leaving me no choice but to merely describe my impressions and opinions before I could complete my preparatory work. Working full-time as a physician, I was in the hospital and could not be reached at home during the day. Telephone calls from my editors would come to my residence even at night, and I had to interrupt my meal or dash out in the middle of my bath to answer them. There were times when an editor would come over on a weekend and wait in a room until I finished writing the manuscript he requested. Sometimes, I was up all night trying to meet the deadlines; at other times I would write short manuscripts on the commuter train to and from the hospital. While I still managed to continue my work as a physician, so many things required my immediate attention that I could no longer even think of reading a book. In Paris not only did I have time for reading, the theater, and art museums; I even had the luxury of admiring the trees on the riverbanks and the rows of houses glowing in the setting sun.
My hectic life as a literary journeyman, however, had given me the opportunity to get to know people in the same trade. The language they spoke differed strikingly from the familiar everyday conversation among ordinary people. Perhaps one could describe theirs as a sort of telepathic communication, for merely a few words could instantaneously convey with dramatic effectiveness their subtle "feelings." They shared a unique lexicon framed within a specific context. Consequently, if one could not fully appreciate what its implications were, at times it would be totally impossible to surmise what they were actually talking about. Somebody might say, "There is no bigger fool than that fellow. See what a splendid thing he's done!" and everyone would understand and join in a hearty laugh. I could not help remembering the time when I found myself in a Parisian vaudeville theater listening to an anecdote, conscious of myself as a foreigner, a man out of place. On one occasion, the editor of a literary journal went so far as to ask me, "Could you address the aspect of Soseki[*] as a moralist from the standpoint of an actualized problem consciousness?"[4] Though I responded in all plausible seriousness,
[4] The Japanese reads "Soseki no morarisuto to shite no men o akuchuaruna mondai ishiki kara toriagete . . . " On Natsume Soseki[*] see chapter 12, note 1.
in fact I didn't really understand what he was saying. On those occasions I felt somewhat irritated and also lonely for being left out in the cold. Nothing hurts what sociologists call one's sense of belonging more than the inability to communicate within the group.
On the other hand, these problems in communication also helped arouse my curiosity. "Oh my! What you gentlemen are talking about is really beyond me!" a bar hostess remarked. While I felt the same way, I enjoyed socializing with novelists, literary critics, and editors. "I'll tell you," one of them said. "Science is not going to help you appreciate literature." What he really meant was, "You're a physician, a practitioner of the medical sciences. Therefore, literature isn't something you can understand." But he and others like him had very little idea of what science was all about. And there was another fellow, an admirer of "science," who merrily proclaimed, "According to quantum theory, an elementary particle is a particle in wave motion. With that, the validity of dialectics is scientifically proven." But why should I spoil the occasion when somebody was having such a good time? And so their conversation, be it on "science" or on "literature," ran on smoothly.
Small though my social circle was, it held many charismatic personalities. I don't believe I have encountered as many people with such refinement of character and sensitivity in any other society than in Tokyo's so-called bundan , our "literary world." The late Takami Jun was such an individual.[5] Moreover, what could only be described as an inner warmth animated his personality. The reason I enjoyed our friendship had absolutely nothing to do with my curiosity. It came from my respect for his extraordinary character.
Takami-san—that was what I called him—and some of us once held
[5] Dominating the prewar career of Takami Jun (1907–65) was a series of attempts to come to terms with his "abandonment" of Marxism in 1933 under official pressure. In his classic Kokyu[*] wasureubeki (Auld lang syne, 1935–36) he describes the suicidal decadence and political impotence of a generation of former left-wing intellectuals; in Ikanaru hoshi no moto ni (Under what star? 1939–40) he depicts wartime dancers and entertainers in Tokyo's popular Asakusa district, a work so successful that Nakajima Kenzo[*] spoke of "the Takami Jun era." His major postwar works include Iya na kanji (Feelings of disgust, 1960–63), an ambitious historical novel about an anarchist active in Japan, Korea, and China, and Showa[*] bungaku seisuishi (The rise and fall of Showa[*] literature, 1952–57), an informative literary history.
a reception at a Shinjuku bar for a guest from afar. Among those present were Matsuoka Yoko[*] , then the executive director of the Japan PEN Club, and Asabuki Tomiko, who was known for her translations of female French writers.[6] In her introduction of Takami-san, Ms. Matsuoka remarked that he was one of the most celebrated contemporary novelists. No sooner had she finished than our attentive guest from France turned to Takami-san and asked, "What kind of novels do you write? What are your themes and how do you treat them?" Considering the circumstances, it was a natural question for a Frenchman to raise but an altogether awkward thing to ask in a gathering of Japanese writers.
"Ha! You really put me on the spot here," Takami-san said. "It's not easy to explain one's own works."
And so I took the liberty of speaking for him. Takami-san might have thought I had misinterpreted his works in my impromptu commentary. In fact, I think he must have. But when I finished, he was in a very cheerful mood and said, "Come on, let's have another drink. Now, I seem to know what I have been writing all along," a comment that made everybody laugh. And there was not the slightest hint of sarcasm in what he said.
In addition to the charismatic personalities among my circle of friends, the precision of their knowledge often struck me with awe. Among my old friends were the French linguist Miyake Noriyoshi and the music critic Yoshida Hidekazu.[7] They could answer almost any question about French linguistics, or Eastern and Western music of all ages, including the background. In those days I frequently went to the Mitsukoshi Theater, where members of the Nomura family gave bimonthly kyogen[*] performances. There I would always meet my old friends Kubota Kaizo[*] and Koyama Hiroshi.[8] After the performance we would have
[6] Matsuoka Yoko (1916–79), journalist and executive director of the Japan PEN Club in 1956 and most noted for her social commentaries and her active role in the women's movement. • On Asabuki Tomiko see chapter 26, note 6.
[7] See chapter 17 for Kato's[*] reminiscences of Miyake while they were fellow students at Tokyo University. • On Yoshida Hidekazu see chapter 32, note 10.
[8] Kubota Kaizo is the pen name of Kubota Keisaku (1920–), short-story writer, literary critic, and translator of contemporary French literature; see chapter 18 on his association with Kato[*] dating from the days of Matinée Poétique. • Koyama Hiroshi (1921–), a distinguished scholar of no[*] and kyogen; among his edited works are two volumes apiece on kyogen in the Nihon koten bungaku taikei series (1960–61) and on yokyoku[*] in Nihon koten bungaku zenshu[*] (1973–75); he taught at Tokyo University from 1959–81 and was head of the National Institute of Japanese Literature (Kokubungaku kenkyu[*] shiryokan[*] ) in Tokyo.
dinner somewhere nearby and talk about kyogen[*] , or to put it more accurately, Koyama would answer our questions on the subject. As far as kyogen was concerned, the only questions Koyama could not immediately answer were precisely those nobody in the academic world of the time could elucidate.
My association with these friends amply heightened my awareness of my own shallow knowledge on literature and matters of literary taste, as well as on any subject within the broad spectrum of the humanistic sciences. The same thing could be said of my later friendship with novelists and literary critics. Each and every one of them took long years to cultivate the truly solid foundation of his erudition. For example, Kobayashi Hideo would not speak about Mozart's music without scrupulously listening to his compositions, or comment on Tessai's scroll paintings without meticulously observing the master's art.[9] Ishikawa Jun is thoroughly familiar with nanga and has absorbed Edo literature into his own flesh and blood.[10] His ability, with a sake cup in hand, to impress and awe every one of the listeners around him with the sophistication and eloquence of his delivery came from the extraordinary insights he had accumulated. Once I also heard Terada Toru[*] speak in a symposium about Korin's[*] painting Red and White Plum Trees . "Every time I look
[9] Kobayashi Hideo (1902–83) wrote a 1946 work on Mozart and one on the master painter Tomioka Tessai (1836–1924) in 1948; he was an editor of Tessai (1957). See also chapter 17, note 8.
[10] Ishikawa Jun (1899–1987), one of the most prominent contemporary Japanese novelists known for his polished neoclassicist style and extraordinary erudition in both modern French literature (esp. Gide, Claudel, and France) and the classical Chinese and Japanese traditions. In Kato's[*] view, Ishikawa more profoundly epitomized the literary tradition of the Edo intelligentsia (bunjin ) and their literary sensibilities than any other writer of his generation after Mori Ogai[*] and Nagai Kafu[*] (Subaru 4 [1988]: 58); among his best-known and acclaimed works are Fugen (1936; The Bodhisattva: A Novel , trans. William J. Tyler [New York: Columbia University Press, 1990]), "Marusu no uta" (The song of Mars, 1938), Shion monogatari (The story of asters, 1956), and Shifuku sennen (Thousand years of consummate bliss, 1965–66). On his story "Mujinto[*] " see chapter 23, note 4. • Nanga (southern paintings), inspired by China's Southern-school style of literati painting (wen-ren painting; in Japanese bunjinga ), flourished after the mid-Edo period with artists like Ike-no-Taiga (1723–76), Yosa Buson (1716–83), and Uragami Gyokudo[*] (1745–1820) in contemplative and poetic landscapes in ink or light colors with soft brushes. See Kato's essay "Nanga daitai ni tsuite" (On Ishikawa's General principles of nanga, Asahi Janaru[*] , April 5, 1959); and Ishikawa Jun's Nanga daitai (General principles of nanga , 1959), which praises Buson's work in particular.
at it, the roots seem to be floating in the river."[11] In this symposium sponsored by a journal, we were supposed to talk about "the traditions of Japanese culture." But unless a commentator is able to scrutinize Korin's[*] folding screens as Terada did, any words he utters on cultural traditions only ring hollow.
Listening to Terada reminded me of Dr. Miyoshi of the Tokyo University Hospital. I once told him that I thought an infection had occurred because there was an elevated white-blood-cell count. "Who did the blood count?" was his immediate response. "You'd better do the counting again yourself to make sure before jumping to conclusions." Dr. Miyoshi would never make any deductions based on information about which he had the slightest doubt, not even for something as rudimentary to a physician's trade as a white-blood-cell count. How then could one seriously talk about the Rimpa school or ink paintings without even having properly examined the works themselves? When it comes to Dogen[*] or Hakuseki, how reliable could one's casual thoughts be without reading through their entire collected works?[12] And if one excludes the
[11] Terada Toru[*] (1915–95), an erudite literary critic who took up Stendhal, Balzac, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Valéry, and Camus, as well as The Tale of Genji , Izumi Shikibu, and Dogen, Japanese medieval painting, philosophy, and major modern Japanese writers—the critic Kanno Akimasa compares Terada's critical commentaries to spiritual dialogues; among his major works are Terada Toru[*] bungaku ronshu[*] [Collection of the literary commentaries of Terada Toru, 1951], Gendai Nihon sakka kenkyu[*] [Study of contemporary Japanese writers, 1954], and Waga chusei[*] [My medieval period, 1967]. • Korin's painting of plum trees, on a pair of two-panel folding screens with gold-leaf background, is dominated by the almost menacing image of a river in black and gold that swirls and dramatically expands across the scene in bold contrast to the poetic elegance of the red and white plum blossoms. See Yamane Yuzo[*] , "Korin[*] no shogai[*] to geijutsu," in Korin[*] to Sotatsu[*] , Genshoku Nihon no bijutsu (Shogakukan[*] , 1976), 14:237–39; and the commentary in Rimpa Bijutsukan: Korin to Kamigata Rimpa (Shueisha[*] , 1993), 2:55.
[12] Dogen (1200–53), the founder of Soto[*] Zen Buddhism and one of the greatest religious minds in Japan, wrote Fukan zazengi (General views on the rites of zazen, 1227) and Shobo[*] genzo[*] (The eye treasury of the true dharma, 95 vols., 1811), which holds his teachings from 1231–53 and koans[*] and anecdotes from daily life (see Kato's[*] comments in the next note). • Arai Hakuseki (1657–1725), mid-Edo historian, renowned kanshi poet, linguist, political adviser to the shoguns Tokugawa Ienobu and Ietsugu, and one of the most celebrated intellectual figures of his age whose Seiyo[*] kibun (News about the West, 1715) demonstrates his interest in the world outside Japan, while his historical writings (Koshitsu[*] [Comprehensive survey of ancient history, 1716] and Dokushi yoron [Random comments on history, 1712]) exhibit extraordinary intellectualindependence and objectivity. His work most widely known in the West is his autobiography Oritaku shiba no ki (Told round a brushwood fire, 1716; Eng. trans. 1979), "the first Japanese autobiography in the prose terms known in the West" (Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature , 142). See Kato's[*] long article "Arai Hakuseki no sekai," in Kato[*] Shuichi[*] chosakushu[*] , 3:225–94; and Kate Wildman Nakai, Shogunal Politics: Arai Hakuseki and the Premises of Tokugawa Rule (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988).
Rimpa school and ink paintings or dismisses Dogen[*] and Hakuseki, how substantive can one's notion of traditional culture be? Acquiring critical intelligence through empirical learning became something of a habit to me in the course of my medical research. And if I were to apply it thoroughly in the realm of literature and aesthetics, the only way was to take my time savoring paintings and books. I could never have this luxury if I continued to work at the hospital and stay up all night writing my manuscripts. It was not despite but precisely because of the long years I had spent in medical research that I began to think about leaving the profession.
Yet being overburdened with work was not the only factor that prompted me to abandon medicine. Medical research had also entered into a period of extreme specialization. After immersing myself in work, at the end of the year I frequently felt I had accomplished nothing. I had no recollection of how the seasons had changed or how things had happened around me. During that time, I did not know life outside my research laboratory. My memory drew a total blank on those years, and all I had to show for them was a research paper in my name. Was that a fair exchange? A year's time constituted a part of my life; an article constituted a part of the total structure of universal knowledge. For two things that belonged to two entirely different schemes of things, comparison was impossible. Nevertheless, I was not satisfied with the bargain. Perhaps the fact that my research work was in the natural sciences had nothing to do with it. But in a field that had become so exceedingly specialized, it was simply impossible for me to bridge the gap between my personal life and the substance of my research. Being totally committed to writing poetry, I suppose, is different from being totally committed to scholarly research; the poetry of Li Po and Tu Fu must have been the very substance of their lives. Perhaps what I needed was poetry in my life.
And that was not all. I also wanted to know what was happening in
society around me. During the Pacific War, Japanese government propaganda failed to cast its spell on me even though I was living in Japan. This was not because I knew what was in fact taking place, but because the propaganda itself was so filled with contradictions that one could easily see through its folly even without specific knowledge. My assessment of the general course of the war had turned out to be fairly accurate, not because I knew what the real situation was, but because I believed, from the course of modern history, that those who tried to turn back the clock of history would only end up destroying themselves. Heaven's vengeance is slow but sure. But in the final analysis, my belief was a value judgment, not a deduction from facts. While the premise on which I based my value judgment did not conflict with the facts as I knew them, my knowledge of the facts was extremely limited. Reflecting on the matter, I couldn't but feel there was just an equal chance that my predictions could have turned out to be incorrect. I did not want the same thing to happen again. There will always be a limit to the information accessible to an ordinary citizen about important national or international issues. In spite of that, in order to assess current situations and their future development as a whole, one can only establish a premise of thinking that, to a greater or lesser extent, correlates with one's value judgment. But I wanted to work on a more meticulous premise based on more facts than I had had during the last war. In order to do that, I desperately needed more time, even if it meant that I had to draw myself away from my literary interests.
I was fortunate to survive the Pacific War. But I witnessed how my native city was reduced to ashes overnight, how devastated people were, how communication broke down even between former colleagues, and how the resentful voices from starving people filled the streets. Many young people died every day, and among them were two of my close friends. All these events had a determining impact on my life. Furthermore, they did not come about because of any natural calamity or any twist of fate, but precisely because of a series of political decisions. One of my old friends who used to share many thoughts with me during the war was sent to the Chinese front, became sick, and returned home. When we met in Tokyo after the war, he said, "Let's not talk any more about politics. I just want to be left alone in my corner and live my life quietly."
"But what dragged you out from your corner was the war, and a war is a political phenomenon," I remarked.
"But the war has ended."
"Political phenomena will never end."
"But there is nothing I can do."
"Even if there is nothing we can do," I said at the time, "I want to scrutinize a phenomenon that had or may again have a decisive influence on my life. It's the same as a man's desire to know who committed adultery with his wife even if there is nothing he can do about it."
"I just don't want to know about it," he said.
"Well, I don't suppose that's because you feel helpless to do anything. You first started out not wanting to know, and then you rationalize yourself by saying there's nothing you can do."
"You may be right. Shall we just leave it at that?"
"But that's a curious logic. You said you wanted to live a quiet life. But the condition for living a quiet life, more than your wife's behavior, depends on the policies our government adopts. And you said you don't want to know about it."
"The happiest man is somebody who doesn't know anything," he muttered.
I could appreciate his feelings. The scars of war must run deeper than anything I could ever imagine. I suppose that was because I could not even begin to imagine the kind of experience he had gone through. At this point, there was nothing else to say. As for me, however, I was determined to find out the conditions defining my being as long as it was not physically impossible to do so. History, culture, politics . . . the only way for me to impart any personal relevance to these categories was for me to acquaint myself with them.
I did not turn away from being a specialist in hematology to being a specialist in literature. I did not change the field of my specialization; I obliterated the very idea. Privately, I aspired to becoming a specialist without a specialization. Since then I have written about Takeuchi Yoshimi, about the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty as well as The Tale of Genji picture scrolls; I have also written on modern Japanese intellectual history and modern European thought; and in universities I have talked about Shobo[*] genzo[*] and Kyounshu[*] .[13] These topics were not requests
[13] Takeuchi Yoshimi (1910–77), an influential cultural critic noted particularly for his study and translation of Lu Xun (1881–1936) and cultural comparison of the modern Chinese experience to what he perceived to be Japan's illusory modernity and slave mentality vis-à-vis the West; see his "Chugoku[*] no kindai to Nihon no kindai" (The modernity of China and Japan, 1948); Kato's[*]article "Takeuchi Yoshimi no hihyo[*] sochi[*] " (The critical apparatus of Takeuchi Yoshimi) is in Kato[*] Shuichi[*] chosakushu[*] , 7:268–87; and his more recent assessment in English is "Mechanisms of Ideas: Society, Intellectuals, and Literature in the Postwar Period in Japan," in Legacies and Ambiguities: Postwar Fiction and Culture in West Germany and Japan , ed. Ernestine Schlant and J. Thomas Rimer (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1991), 256–58. Takeuchi resigned his professorship at Tokyo Metropolitan University in 1960 to protest the forced ratification of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, saying that "the only point of contention is a choice between democracy and dictatorship." • On the security treaty see the discussion in chapter 40. • On the Genji scrolls see Kato's[*] essays "Nihon no bigaku" and "Genji monogatari emaki ni tsuite," in Kato Shuichi chosakushu , 12:5–33 and 179–88, respectively. • On Shobo[*] genzo[*] , a vast theoretical tract in Japanese by Dogen[*] that is the fundamental scripture of the Soto[*] sect, see Kato's assessment: "one of the prose masterpieces of thirteenth-century Japan" because Dogen "[opens] up a whole new world through his polished use of the possibilities of the Japanese language" (History of Japanese Literature , 1:233–34). • Kyounshu[*] (Collection of the wild clouds, date unknown; Eng. trans. Sonja Arntzen, 1973) holds 1,060 poems attributed to the fiercely independent-minded mid-Muromachi poet and Zen priest Ikkyu[*] Sojun[*] (1394–1481); Kato[*] divides them into three categories: ones on Rinzai Zen doctrine, others on the era's faults, and love poems; he writes, "In the Kyounshu Zen and love are one and the same thing. . . . In the age of the secularization of Zen, only Ikkyu created a unique and original poetic world by giving flesh to a foreign ideology" (History of Japanese Literature , 1:290 and 293). See also his engaging article, "Ikkyu to iu gensho[*] ," in Showa[*] bungaku zenshu[*] , 28:622–42.
from outside sources but my own choices for various occasions, and for me they are not unrelated issues. Their relationship with one another was not apparent to me at first, and I only gradually came to appreciate it later on.
It was not easy for me to leave the medical profession. But the opportunity presented itself when I decided to go to a writers' conference to be held in central Asia. The mining company that employed me allowed me a maximum of one month's leave by entrusting my work at the medical office to another doctor. What I needed was three months. I resigned from my position and departed on my trip, and never again did I return to the medical profession.