Confessions of a Mask

Content Warning: The source material contains references to suicidal ideation, gore, and cannibalism, and uses outdated language regarding sexual orientation.

The novel opens with Kochan’s possibly imaginary memory of his own birth. Early in his childhood, adults try to convince him that this memory is impossible, but they lose resolve when faced with his quiet rigidity. As an adult, Kochan thinks over the memory again and realizes several ways in which he has likely contrived it—namely, that he remembers the reflection of sunlight on water when he was born at night. He insists that, even though the memory makes no logical sense, he is still able to believe it, even as an adult.

Kochan describes the family dynamic he was born into, which his grandfather’s recent loss of status burdens and disrupts. His mother is frail when he is born, and he is smaller than average, with blond hair that his parents wash with olive oil to turn it black. On the 49th day after his birth, his grandmother takes him to her sickroom to keep him safe, as his mother and father live on the second floor of their house. Despite many efforts to keep him protected from harm, Kochan has early brushes with death when he falls down the stairs as an infant and, at four, has his first bout of what was believed to be chronic autointoxication—a now-discredited but at the time widely popular diagnosis based on the belief that food can rot within the digestive system, poisoning the individual. The latter leads his family to believe he is dead and prepare a funeral, only for him to unexpectedly revive an hour before the event takes place. After this, his health creates regular catastrophes. His grandmother isolates him from other boys. He spends most of his time with her, staying as quiet as he can to avoid aggravating her neuralgia. He is a quiet, feminine child as a result, only “freed” from this state of repression when removed from his grandmother. Although people pity him for this, he claims that he enjoyed this time more than the rowdier lifestyle of his siblings. Even as a child, he fakes interest in “boyish” activities, pretending to match others’ expectations for him.

In a series of vignettes, Kochan describes the early, childish attraction he had to tragic men and death, connected to his own encounters with mortality. He describes a young night-soil man that drew his attention, saying that his image is “the earliest of those that have kept tormenting and frightening me all my life” (8). He experiences the same emotional pull towards streetcar operators, subway ticket-punchers, and soldiers due to their existences, which he perceives as uniquely isolated and condemned and therefore tragic. He describes these men sensually, focusing on the smells and appearances of their clothes, even though he was too young at the time to make meaning out of such details. He treats this fascination with tragedy as foreshadowing of his own future isolation and condemnation.

Kochan’s interest in soldiers conflicts with his grandmother’s protectiveness. He seeks out soldiers on the street, hoping to get empty cartridges from them, but his grandmother believes the soldiers to be dangerous. He finds the scent of the soldiers intoxicating and becomes fascinated with imagining their deaths in far-off places. This attraction extends beyond the soldiers he sees on the streets, however; before he can read, he develops an interest in a painting of a mounted knight in a book. Looking at the page causes his heartbeat to speed up. He fantasizes about the knight’s noble, violent death. This fascination, however, is corrupted when he learns that the knight is a woman, specifically Joan of Arc. After this, he no longer can indulge in his fantasies about the knight’s death, and the painting repulses him.

Kochan indulges himself in fairy tales, which become like reality to him. One night, he envisions a beautiful city full of mystery and wonder. After seeing a magic show by Shokyokusai Tenkatsu, Kochan decides to become her. He describes her as opulent and feminine but heroic. To mimic her, he borrows a vivid kimono and obi from his mother and powders his face. When he rushes to show his mother and grandmother his work, he loses sight of them in the frenzy and delight of his imitation. He only comes back to reality when his mother, ashamed, refuses to meet his eyes. Describing his response to his mother’s reaction, he says only, “I understood” (19), although it is not clear exactly what he has understood. Despite the shame he experiences, Kochan continues to dress up, developing an intense fascination with Cleopatra and enlisting his younger siblings to help him dress as her. His love for feminine clothing leads him to imagine a kinship between himself and the Roman emperor Heliogabalus (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus), who reputedly dressed in wigs and women’s makeup and is seen by some scholars as an early transgender historical figure.

As his indulgence in fairy tales grows, Kochan realizes that he is only interested in princes. He claims to have been in love with the princes that died, especially those that died violently. Kochan especially enjoys pictures of their deaths, especially because of the clothes they wear. He has no explanation for this fascination with morbidity, violence, and death, nor for his accompanying early attraction to men. He admires an illustrated prince who died seven gory deaths, but the story’s happy, magical conclusion feels to him like a betrayal. He covers part of the story with his hand to read a version where the prince, instead of the dragon, meets a violent end. Despite his love for death, Kochan is afraid of dying himself. He fantasizes about being poisoned by a maid he has insulted. He eats a simplified diet intended to protect his health, feeling afraid when he strays from it, even though doing so makes him feel like an adult. Only fantastical deaths interest him. He plays war with his cousin, who is much healthier than he is. The game bores them both, but Kochan finds it interesting when he fakes his death by a bullet and lies in a contorted position on the ground. He believes that, if he were shot, he would feel no pain from the wound.

The chapter ends with a scene Kochan views as the symbol of his entire childhood. During the city’s Summer Festival, Kochan’s grandmother arranges for the processions to pass by their household’s gate so that she and Kochan can see the event without endangering themselves by leaving home. Kochan describes the drums and the chanting of the crowd as vulgar but beautiful, representative of deeper realities but outwardly purposeless. The emotions Kochan feels upon seeing the crowd, the rituals, and the priests blend fear, joy, anguish, and anticipation, creating a permanent effect on his future experiences—he cannot feel anticipation after this moment without pain. Several young men carrying a shrine begin to act chaotically, and Kochan and others escape into the house, where they watch as the young men trample and destroy the family garden. The sight fills Kochan with inexplainable, painful emotions at the sight of their faces, taken aback and entranced by the enjoyment at destruction he sees there. The destruction of the garden coincides with his developing fascination with violence, imbuing his memory of the festival with intense, inscrutable meaning.