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154 “All right, go to sleep.” “What the hell are you saying.” He sat up. Her face was turned half away, hidden from him, but he suddenly lunged out and kissed her neck ** ******** ****** *** *** ****** *** ****. We mustn’t “** *******. Didn’t you say you wanted to be friends?” . . . . I’m not anyone’s wife. I’m not some “*** *** ******** **** *** *** **** unskilled average woman **************** *****. I won’t have any regrets. I’ll never have any regrets. I’m not that sort of woman. It won’t last. Didn’t you say so yourself?” His physical power had been stronger than *** ******** ***** *** **** ******** **** her will to refuse *** ****** *****. “It’s not my fault. It’s yours. You lost. You’re the weak one. Not I.” She bit at her sleeve as if to fight back the *** *** ** *** ******** **** ***** **** *** happiness *********.1 All right, go to sleep.” “You aren’t making much sense, you know.” He pulled her into bed after him. Her face was turned half away, hidden from him, but after a time she pursed her lips out towards him. Then, as if in a delirium she were trying to tell of her pain, she repeated over and over, he did not know how many times: “We mustn’t. Didn’t you say you wanted to be friends?” . . . . “I won’t have any regrets. I’ll never have any regrets. I’m not that sort of woman. It won’t last. Didn’t you say so yourself?” She was still half numb from the liquor. “It’s not my fault. It’s yours. You lost. You’re the weak one. Not I.” She ran on almost in a trance, and she bit at her sleeve as if to fight back the happiness.2 7. Redactionary Literature The Function of Deletion Marks in the Magazine Kaizō Redactionary Literature / 155 Censorship systems haunt literature long after the last moments of suppression . First published in the January 1935 issue of the journal Kaizō as part of “Shiroi asa no kagami” (The mirror of a white morning), the above scene, which would later become a pivotal moment in Kawabata Yasunari’s classic novel Yukiguni (Snow Country, 1948), signaled potentially offensive passages with marks of deletion in accordance with the publishing practice of its era. The subtle shifts between the scarred early version and the later, mass canonical rendition of this classic of modern Japanese literature cannot be said to significantly alter the plot of the novel, and yet much is different in mood and tone. The suggestion of rough sex, the difference between sex workers and “average” women, and the jouissance redacted from the early version—left as only a series of dots on the page—are by and large not replaced in the postwar novel. Though imperial censorship had vanished and the deletion marks disappeared, the lasting effects of the early redactions are visible in the versions printed during the Occupation and after. The more direct and overt sexuality intimated in the original marks of deletion becomes a smoothed-over, suggested sensuality . In fact, all five major textual differences between the portion of the story published in Kaizō and the multiple versions published as Snow Country occur around passages in the text that contain redaction marks in the original. If the historical marks suggested to readers of the early version that something had been deleted, they themselves remained readable as visible markers of explicit censorship and explicit sex. Later, the marks of deletion that drew attention to the fact that something was missing are themselves missing, elided almost without a trace as the novel entered the modern canon. By omitting the marks, the canonical versions of the novel neglect direct reference to the impermissible but maintain the deletions. That even the postwar canon would maintain the imperial censor’s deletions might not be so surprising, but that it does so in an unmarked or invisible way permits a forgetting of the circumstances of the original circulation that continues the work of prewar censors in new ways. When the changes are subtle ones of affect rather than major plot turns, the concerns reflected in the changes may appear to be less connected to an external censor than an internal aesthetic mechanism of self-control; but it is precisely this appearance that has allowed the phenomenon of redaction to go relatively uninvestigated. The processes of textual transmission and circulation through reprints, collections, and translations that do not maintain the aesthetics of redaction present in the originals dulls our sensitivity to the history of a text’s censorship...

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