Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

………It was a compactly built house with a refined gate structure.
However, in this neighborhood, such houses were not uncommon.
But the plaque reading “Genkaku Villa” and the garden trees visible over its fence were more artfully designed than those of any other house.

The master of this house, Genkaku Horikoshi, was also known to some extent as a painter.
However, he had built his assets through obtaining a patent for rubber stamps.
Or perhaps through real estate transactions he engaged in after securing that patent.
Indeed, a certain plot of land he owned in the suburbs seemed incapable of even properly yielding ginger.
But now it had transformed into what was called a “Culture Village,” lined with houses bearing red-tiled and blue-tiled roofs………

Yet “Genkaku Villa” remained a compactly built house with an elegant gate structure.
Lately, with snow ropes draped over the overhanging pine and yabukōji berries reddening among dried pine needles spread before the entrance, it appeared all the more refined.
Moreover, the alley where this house stood had scarcely any foot traffic.
Even tofu sellers passing through would unload their goods onto the main street beforehand, blowing their horns as they went by.

“Genkaku Villa—what does ‘Genkaku’ even mean?”

A long-haired art student, who happened to be passing in front of this house with a slender paint box tucked under his arm, said such things to another art student wearing the same gold-buttoned uniform.

“Hmm, surely it can’t be some pun on ‘strictness’ or something.”

They both laughed as they casually passed by the front of the house.
After they passed, all that remained on the frozen road was a single ‘Golden Bat’ cigarette butt—discarded by one of them—sending up a faint blue thread of smoke, thin and feeble.………

II

Shigeyoshi had worked at a certain bank even before becoming Genkaku’s son-in-law.
He therefore always returned home around the time lamps were lit.
For several days now, no sooner had he passed through the gate than he would sense a strange odor.
This was the breath of Genkaku—bedridden with pulmonary tuberculosis, rare among the elderly.
Yet of course, such an odor could not possibly emanate from outside the house.
Clutching a briefcase under his winter coat’s arm as he trod the entrance stepping stones, Shigeyoshi found himself doubting his own nerves.

Genkaku had taken to his bed in the detached room, and when not lying down, would lean against a pile of nightclothes.
When Shigeyoshi took off his overcoat and hat, he would invariably show his face at the “detached room” and offer words such as “I’m home” or “How are you today?”—this had become his custom.
However, he would rarely set foot inside the threshold of the detached room.
This was partly out of fear of contracting his father-in-law’s pulmonary tuberculosis and partly because he found the odor of his breath unpleasant.
Whenever Genkaku saw his face, he would always only reply “Ah” or “You’re back.”
That voice was again feeble—closer to a breath than a voice.
When Shigeyoshi was addressed in this way by his father-in-law, he could not help but occasionally feel guilty about the latter’s callousness.
But entering the detached room was somehow eerie to him.

Then Shigeyoshi would go to check on his mother-in-law Otori, who was likewise bedridden in the room next to the family parlor. Otori had become paralyzed even before Genkaku took to his bed—seven or eight years prior, her body had reached a state where she could not even make it to the toilet. Genkaku had taken her as his wife not only because she was the daughter of a senior retainer of a major domain but also, it was said, due to her beauty. For that very reason, even as she aged, her eyes retained a certain beauty. However, even she—sitting on the floor and meticulously mending white tabi socks—was not much different from a mummy. Shigeyoshi left her with the same brief remark—“Mother, how are you today?”—before entering the six-mat family parlor.

If Osuzu, his wife, was not in the family parlor, she was working in the narrow kitchen with Omatsu, the maid from Shinano.
To Shigeyoshi, not only the neatly tidied family parlor but even the kitchen equipped with a modern stove felt far more familiar than his father-in-law and mother-in-law’s living quarters.
He was the second son of a certain politician who had once even served as governor.
But he was a scholarly talent who took more after his mother, a female poet of olden times, than his father with his swashbuckling disposition.
That was also evident in his amiable eyes and slender jaw.
Upon entering the family parlor, Shigeyoshi would change out of his Western clothes into a kimono, then settle comfortably before the long brazier, puffing on cheap cigars or teasing his only son Takeo, who had just started elementary school that year.

Shigeyoshi always ate meals with Osuzu and Takeo gathered around the low dining table.
Their meals were lively.
But lately, even when called "lively," there was undoubtedly something stifling about it.
It was solely due to the presence of Nurse Kōno, who attended to Genkaku.
However, even with Nurse Kōno present, Takeo’s antics showed no sign of abating.
No—in fact, it was perhaps because Nurse Kōno was there that he acted up even more.
Osuzu would occasionally frown and glare at Takeo when he acted like this.
However, Takeo remained blank-faced, only making a show of exaggeratedly shoveling rice from his bowl into his mouth.
Shigeyoshi, precisely because he was reading novels and such, sensed a certain manliness even in Takeo’s boisterousness, and could not help but feel some discomfort.
But usually, he would just smile and eat his meal in silence.

The night at Genkaku Villa was quiet.
Of course Takeo, who left the house early in the morning, and Shigeyoshi and his wife generally went to bed by ten.
Even after that, the only one still awake was Nurse Kōno, who had been keeping vigil since around nine o'clock.
Nurse Kōno sat without dozing off, huddled over a brazier glowing red with fire at Genkaku's bedside.
Genkaku—Genkaku too would occasionally awaken.
But aside from mentioning that the hot water bottle had cooled or that the compress had dried, he had hardly spoken.
The only thing audible in this "detached room" was the rustling of planted bamboo.
Kōno kept watch over Genkaku in the chilly quiet, thinking of various things—of this household's emotional currents and her own uncertain future.
………

III

One afternoon after the snow had cleared, a woman in her mid-twenties, holding the hand of a frail-looking boy, appeared at the kitchen window of the Horikoshi residence, where blue sky was visible through the sliding shutters.

Shigeyoshi was, of course, not at home.
Osuzu, who had been operating the sewing machine, had somewhat anticipated this, yet she felt something close to bewilderment.
In any case, she stood up from before the long brazier and went to greet this guest.
After stepping up into the kitchen, the guest straightened her own footwear and the boy’s shoes.
(The boy was wearing a white sweater.) That she felt self-conscious was evident even in such gestures alone.
But that was only natural.
She was Oyoshi, a former maid whom Genkaku had openly kept as his mistress in a certain Tokyo suburb for the past five or six years.

When Osuzu saw Oyoshi’s face, she was struck by how unexpectedly aged she had become.
Moreover, it was not only her face.
Oyoshi had once had plump, rounded hands four or five years prior.
But age had even thinned her hands enough for her veins to show.
And then the things she wore—Osuzu sensed a household-worn loneliness in her cheap ring.

“This is because my brother said to present this to the master.”

Oyoshi, as if belatedly remembering something, quietly moved an old newspaper-wrapped package to the kitchen corner before stepping into the family parlor.
Omatsu, who was washing dishes at the time, kept her hands busy while occasionally stealing sidelong glances at Oyoshi’s freshly styled ginkgo-leaf chignon.
But when she noticed this newspaper-wrapped package, her expression turned even more spiteful.
The package undoubtedly emitted a foul odor that clashed with the refined culture stove and delicate dishes.
Though Oyoshi hadn’t seen Omatsu, she seemed to sense something amiss in Osuzu’s expression and explained, “This is… garlic.”
Then she called out to the child biting his fingers: “Come now, young master—greet them properly.”
The boy was none other than Buntarō—the child Genkaku had fathered with Oyoshi.
To Osuzu, it seemed unbearably pathetic that Oyoshi addressed him as “young master.”
Yet her common sense quickly rationalized that such behavior was inevitable from a woman like this.
Maintaining a composed expression, Osuzu offered whatever sweets and tea were available to the mother and child seated in the parlor corner, began discussing Genkaku’s condition, and tried to humor Buntarō………

After taking Oyoshi as his mistress, Genkaku would unfailingly visit her residence once or twice a week, never minding the hassle of transferring between suburban railway lines.
Osuzu had initially felt disgust toward her father’s behavior.
“If only he’d consider Mother’s position even a little,”—she often found herself thinking such things.
Admittedly, Otori seemed to have resigned herself to everything.
However, Osuzu felt all the more pity for her mother and would even tell her transparent lies like “He said there’s a poetry meeting today” after her father had left for his mistress’s house.
She was not unaware that the lies were ineffective.
But whenever she saw something close to a sneer on her mother’s face, she regretted having told those lies—or rather, she often felt a certain pity for her spineless mother, who couldn’t even discern her own daughter’s heart.

After seeing her father off, Osuzu would often stop working at the sewing machine to think about family matters.
Genkaku had never been a "proper father" to her even before taking Oyoshi as his mistress.
But of course, such things were of little consequence to her gentle nature.
The only thing that troubled her was how her father kept carting off even his calligraphies and antiques to his mistress's house.
Osuzu had never considered Oyoshi wicked, not even from when she'd been a maid.
No—if anything, she'd thought her more timid than most women.
But she couldn't fathom what Oyoshi's brother—running his fish stall in some Tokyo back alley—might be scheming.
To her eyes, he indeed appeared peculiarly cunning.
Osuzu would sometimes corner Shigeyoshi and pour out her worries.
But he wouldn't engage.
"I can't be the one to tell Father"—when he said this to her, Osuzu could only fall silent.

“Surely even Father doesn’t think Oyoshi would understand Luo Liangfeng’s paintings.”

Shigeyoshi also occasionally mentioned such things to Otori in passing.
But Otori would look up at Shigeyoshi and, with her usual wry smile, say this:

“That’s just Father’s nature.”
“After all, Father is the sort of man who’d even say to me, ‘What do you think of this inkstone?’”

But now, looking back, all those things were nothing but foolish worries to everyone.
Genkaku, after his illness had taken a sudden turn for the worse that winter and he could no longer visit his mistress’s residence, surprisingly readily agreed to the separation proposal Shigeyoshi had brought up (though in truth, the terms of this proposal were closer to something Otori and Osuzu had devised rather than him).
The same was true for Oyoshi’s brother, whom Osuzu had feared.
Oyoshi received a severance payment of 1,000 yen and returned to her parents’ home on a certain coast in Kazusa, where she would receive a modest monthly sum for Buntarō’s upbringing—he raised no objections to these conditions.
Not only that, but he had also brought Genkaku’s treasured tea utensils from the mistress’s house without even being asked.
Osuzu, precisely because she had previously doubted him, felt all the more goodwill toward him.

“Regarding this matter, if you’re indeed short-handed, my sister has expressed her desire to come and assist with nursing care.”

Osuzu consulted her spineless mother before responding to this request.
That was undoubtedly a blunder on her part.
When Otori received her consultation, she began urging that Oyoshi bring Buntarō as early as tomorrow.
Osuzu feared not only her mother’s feelings but also the disruption of the household atmosphere and repeatedly tried to make her reconsider.
(Despite this—due to her position mediating between her father Genkaku and Oyoshi’s brother—she had fallen into a state of mind where she could not coldly refuse their request indefinitely.) But Otori would not straightforwardly accept her words.

“If this hadn’t yet reached my ears, it would be one thing—but how embarrassing for Oyoshi’s sake.”

Osuzu had no choice but to consent to Oyoshi’s brother regarding Oyoshi’s coming.
That too might have been a blunder born of her naivety in worldly matters.
Indeed, when Shigeyoshi returned from the bank and heard this from Osuzu, a faintly unpleasant expression surfaced between his effeminately gentle brows.
“It’s certainly appreciated to have more help, but...
“…You really should have at least mentioned it to Father.”
“If Father is the one to refuse, then you won’t be held responsible.”—he even voiced such things.
Osuzu, remaining uncharacteristically sullen, replied with things like, “I suppose that’s how it was.”
But consulting Genkaku—consulting her father, who was of course still attached to Oyoshi and now on death’s door—was undoubtedly a matter she found herself unable to broach, even now.

Osuzu, while keeping company with Oyoshi and her son, found herself recalling these convoluted matters.
Oyoshi never once warmed her hands over the long brazier as she spoke in fits and starts about her brother and Buntarō.
Her speech still retained the same rural accent from four or five years prior, pronouncing "sore wa" as "S-rya" without alteration.
In this country inflection, Osuzu sensed that Oyoshi's very disposition had at some point acquired a certain unguarded quality.
Simultaneously, she felt an amorphous disquiet toward her mother Otori sitting silent beyond a single sliding door—not so much as a cough escaping her.

“So can you stay for about a week?”

“Yes, if it’s no inconvenience to your household.”

“But don’t you need at least a change of clothes?”

“My brother said he would deliver it after dark.”

While answering thus, Oyoshi took caramels from her pocket and gave them to Buntarō, who seemed bored.

“I’ll go tell Father that. He’s become so weak, you know. Only the ear facing the shoji has developed frostbite.”

Osuzu, before leaving the long brazier, absentmindedly adjusted the iron kettle.

“Mother.”

Otori uttered a reply.
It was a sluggish voice—as though she had finally been roused by her daughter’s words.

“Mother. Ms. Oyoshi has arrived.”

Osuzu felt relieved and, avoiding looking at Oyoshi’s face, promptly stood up from before the long brazier.
Then, as she passed through the adjoining room, she called out “Ms. Oyoshi” once more.
Otori lay still, her mouth buried in the collar of her nightgown.
But when she looked up at her daughter, only her eyes floating something akin to a smile, she responded, “Oh my, well, how prompt.”
Osuzu hurried restlessly down the corridor facing the snow-covered garden toward the detached room, keenly sensing Oyoshi’s arrival bearing down on her back.

The detached room appeared dimmer than reality to Osuzu’s eyes that had abruptly entered from the bright corridor. Genkaku had just sat upright and was making Nurse Kōno read the newspaper. But upon seeing Osuzu’s face, he suddenly demanded, “Oyoshi?” It was an oddly strained voice—hoarse and nearly interrogative. Osuzu stood frozen by the sliding door and reflexively answered, “Yes.” Then—no one spoke.

“I’ll send her over right away.”

“Yeah. ………Is it just Oyoshi alone?”

“No. ………”

Genkaku silently nodded.

“Then, Nurse Kōno, come here for a moment.”

Osuzu hurried along the corridor a step ahead of Nurse Kōno, almost breaking into a run.
On palm fronds still bearing traces of snow, a wagtail twitched its tail.
Yet more than any of this, she felt something uncanny trailing her from the sickroom's stench-filled confines in the detached quarters.

IV

Since Oyoshi began staying over, the family’s atmosphere grew visibly more hostile by the day.
It began first with Takeo bullying Buntarō.
Buntarō was a child who resembled his mother Oyoshi more than his father Genkaku.
Moreover, he was a child who resembled his mother Oyoshi even in his timid disposition.
Osuzu was not entirely unsympathetic toward such a child, of course.
But there also seemed to be times when she thought Buntarō a coward.

Nurse Kōno, by virtue of her profession, was coldly observing this commonplace domestic tragedy—or rather, she was relishing it. Her past was a dark one. She had, due to her relationships with the masters of sick households and hospital doctors, attempted to swallow a lump of potassium cyanide countless times—who could know how many? This past had planted in her heart a morbid interest in taking pleasure in the suffering of others. When she entered the Horikoshi household, she discovered that Otori, the invalid, did not wash her hands each time she defecated. “The daughter-in-law of this house is quite attentive. She even brings water without any of us noticing.” “She even brings water without any of us noticing.”—such things had momentarily cast a shadow over her suspicious mind. But after four or five days, she discovered that it was entirely due to Osuzu’s oversight—Osuzu, who had been raised as a young lady. She felt something akin to satisfaction at this discovery and brought a basin of water to Otori each time she defecated.

“Nurse Kōno, thanks to you, I can wash my hands like a human being.”

Otori clasped her hands and spilled tears.
Kōno remained utterly unmoved by Otori’s gratitude.
Yet seeing Osuzu—now obliged to fetch water once every three times—had since become a source of amusement.
Thus even the children’s squabbles held no displeasure for one such as her.
Before Genkaku, she affected an air of sympathy toward Oyoshi and her son.
Simultaneously, before Otori, she adopted a demeanor tinged with malice toward that same pair.
Subtle though it was, this act undeniably bore fruit.

About a week after Oyoshi had begun staying over, Takeo got into another fight with Buntarō.
The fight had started over nothing more than whether a pig’s tail resembled a persimmon calyx or not.
Takeo pressed the frail Buntarō into the corner of his study room—a four-and-a-half-mat space next to the entrance—and relentlessly hit and kicked him.
Just then, Oyoshi, who had happened upon the scene, picked up Buntarō—now unable to even cry out—and began to scold Takeo.

“Young master, you mustn’t bully those weaker than you.”

For someone as timid as her, this was an uncharacteristically barbed remark.
Takeo, startled by Oyoshi’s sudden fury, now fled tearfully to the family parlor where Osuzu was.
Then Osuzu too seemed to flare up, leaving her sewing machine work half-done as she forcibly dragged Takeo to where Oyoshi and Buntarō were.

“You’re the one who’s really being selfish.”
“Now, apologize to Ms. Oyoshi—apologize properly by prostrating yourself!”

Oyoshi, faced with Osuzu’s demeanor, could do nothing but shed tears together with Buntarō and offer abject apologies.
And the one who invariably served as mediator was Nurse Kōno.
While desperately holding back the red-faced Osuzu, Nurse Kōno invariably imagined the feelings of another person—Genkaku, who was silently listening to this commotion—and inwardly wore a sneer.
But of course, she never let even a hint of such a demeanor show on her face.

However, what unsettled the family was not limited to the children’s quarrels alone.
Oyoshi had, before anyone noticed, begun fanning the jealousy of Otori, who seemed to have resigned herself completely to everything.
It must be noted, however, that Otori had never once voiced any resentment to Oyoshi herself.
(This had also been the case five or six years prior, when Oyoshi was still living in the maids’ quarters.) Yet now she frequently took out her frustrations on Shigeyoshi, who had nothing to do with any of it.
Shigeyoshi, of course, did not engage.
Osuzu felt sorry for this and sometimes apologized in her mother’s stead.
But he would only force a bitter smile and habitually deflect the conversation by saying, “I can’t have you turning hysterical too.”

Kōno felt interest in Otori’s jealousy too.
She clearly understood not just Otori’s jealousy itself but also her feelings of lashing out at Shigeyoshi.
Moreover, before she knew it, she herself had come to feel something akin to jealousy toward Shigeyoshi and his wife.
To her, Osuzu was “the young mistress.”
As for Shigeyoshi—well, Shigeyoshi was undoubtedly an ordinary man molded by society’s standards.
But he was also unquestionably just another male she despised.
To her, their very happiness felt almost like an injustice.
To correct this injustice (!), she began acting overly familiar with Shigeyoshi.
Perhaps this meant nothing to Shigeyoshi himself.
Yet it provided the perfect opportunity to provoke Otori.
Otori, her knees still exposed, spat venomously: “Shigeyoshi—is my daughter not enough for you? My invalid daughter?”

However, Osuzu alone did not seem to suspect Shigeyoshi over this. In fact, she even seemed to feel sorry for Kōno. Kōno not only felt dissatisfied with this but found herself unable to keep from despising the kind-hearted Osuzu anew. But the fact that Shigeyoshi had begun avoiding her was delightful to her. Moreover, that while avoiding her he had instead begun to develop a masculine curiosity toward her was delightful. He had not minded getting naked to enter the bath next to the kitchen even when Kōno was present before. But lately, he had not once shown such a figure to Kōno. It was undoubtedly because he was ashamed of his body, which resembled that of a plucked rooster. Kōno, while observing him like this—his face too was covered in freckles—secretly mocked him, wondering who on earth besides Osuzu could possibly fall for him.

One frost-hazed morning, Kōno set up a mirror in the three-tatami entranceway that had become her room and began styling her hair into the Ooru Back she always wore. That was exactly the day before Oyoshi was finally to return to the countryside. The prospect of Oyoshi leaving this house seemed welcome to Shigeyoshi and his wife. However, on the contrary, it seemed to cause even greater irritation for Otori. While tying up her hair, Kōno heard Otori’s shrill voice and recalled a certain woman her friend had once spoken of—a woman who had gradually fallen into intense homesickness while living in Paris and ultimately threw herself into the sea when nearing Japan’s waters during her return voyage. Even the long journey had not seemed particularly painful for her until they approached Kii Province, where she grew inexplicably agitated before leaping overboard. The closer one drew to Japan, Kōno mused while quietly wiping her greasy hands, the more intense homesickness became—this mysterious force now at work not only in Otori’s jealousy but in her own as well.

“Oh, Mother! What’s the matter?”
“You’ve crawled all the way out here.”
“Oh, Mother! — Nurse Kōno, please come here.”

Osuzu’s voice seemed to be echoing from the veranda near the detached room. When Nurse Kōno heard this voice, still facing the clear mirror, she at last let out a sneer. Then, as if startled, she replied, “Yes, coming right away.”

V

Genkaku gradually weakened.
His years of illness were of course one thing, but the pain from the bedsores stretching from his back to his waist was also intense.
He would occasionally let out groans, barely distracting himself from the suffering.
However, what tormented him was not limited to physical pain alone.
While he had received some comfort during Oyoshi’s stay, in exchange he felt constant torment from Otori’s jealousy and the children’s quarrels.
But that was still better.
After Oyoshi left, Genkaku felt a terrifying loneliness and had no choice but to confront his long life.

To Genkaku, his entire life had been a wretched one.
Admittedly, at the time he had obtained the rubber stamp patent, it had undoubtedly been a relatively bright period in his life.
However, even there, the jealousy of his peers and his own anxiety over not losing his profits had constantly tormented him.
After taking Oyoshi in—all the more so—he had continued to bear the burden of financial dealings unknown to them, even beyond the family squabbles.
And what made it even more wretched was that though he had been drawn to the young Oyoshi, over the past year or two he had countless times wished inwardly for Oyoshi and her child to drop dead.

“Wretched? — But when I consider it, that’s not something unique to me alone.”

At night, he would think this way and recall each and every one of his relatives and acquaintances in minute detail.
His son-in-law’s father had done nothing but "uphold constitutional government"—
he had socially destroyed many enemies even less capable than himself.
Then, the elderly antique dealer closest to him had been involved with his former wife's daughter.
Then, a certain lawyer had misappropriated deposits.
Then a certain seal engraver—but strangely, the sins they had committed brought no change to his suffering.
Not only that—they had instead only spread a dark shadow over life itself.

“Ah, this suffering won’t last much longer.”
“If only it would just become ‘blessed’…”

This was the one and only solace that remained even for Genkaku.
He tried to recall pleasant memories to distract himself from the various sufferings gnawing at his mind and body.
But his life, as mentioned before, was wretched.
If there was even the slightest bright aspect to be found there, it was only the memories of his innocent childhood.
In his half-dreaming states, he would recall the mountain village in Shinshū where his parents had lived—particularly the stone-weighted wooden roofs and the silkworm-scented mulberry leaves.
But that memory too did not last.
He would sometimes try chanting the Kannon Sutra between groans or attempt singing old popular songs.
Moreover, after chanting “Wonderful Sound Avalokiteśvara, Brahma’s Voice, Tide’s Sound, Surpassing All Worldly Sounds,” he found it comically unseemly to then sing “kappore, kappore.”

“Sleeping is paradise.
Sleeping is paradise…”

Genkaku wanted only to sleep soundly and forget everything.
In fact, along with administering sleeping pills, Nurse Kōno had been injecting him with heroin.
Yet even sleep did not always bring him peace.
At times he would meet Oyoshi and Buntarō in his dreams.
For him—for this dream version of himself—these encounters felt radiant.
(One night in a dream, he conversed with the freshly printed hanafuda card called *Sakura no Nijū*.
What’s more, this *Sakura no Nijū* wore Oyoshi’s face from four or five years prior.) But this very brightness made his waking reality feel all the more wretched.
Before long, Genkaku had come to harbor an anxiety bordering on dread toward sleep itself.

One afternoon as New Year’s Eve drew near, Genkaku lay on his back and called out to Nurse Kōno at his bedside.

“Nurse Kōno, I haven’t worn a loincloth in ages. Please have someone buy six shaku of bleached cotton for me.”

Obtaining bleached cotton did not require the trouble of sending Omatsu to the nearby fabric store.

“I’ll fasten it myself.
“Please fold it and leave it here.”

Genkaku clung to this loincloth—clung to the prospect of hanging himself with this loincloth—and thus managed to endure the brief half-day.
However, for him—who could not even sit up in bed without assistance—obtaining that opportunity was no easy task.
Not only that—when it came down to it, death was still frightening even to Genkaku.
In the dim electric light, he gazed at Ōbaku’s single-line calligraphy and mocked himself for still being unable to stop clinging to life.

“Nurse Kōno, please help me sit up.”

It was already around ten o'clock at night.

"I'm going to get some sleep now."
"Please don't hesitate to rest as well."

Kōno stared strangely at Genkaku and gave this curt reply.

“No, I am awake.”
“For this is my duty.”

Genkaku felt his plan had been seen through by Nurse Kōno.
He nodded slightly and, without a word, feigned sleep.
Nurse Kōno had spread open a women’s magazine’s New Year’s issue by his pillow and appeared absorbed in reading.
Genkaku, still thinking of the loincloth beside the futon, watched her through half-closed eyes.
Then—he abruptly felt something absurd.

“Nurse Kōno.”

When Kōno saw Genkaku’s face, even she seemed genuinely startled.
Genkaku, still propped against his nightgown, was laughing uncontrollably by then.

“What is the matter?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.
There’s nothing funny at all.—”

Genkaku, still laughing, waved a thin right hand.

“This time… somehow it’s become strange like this… This time, please lay me down.”

About an hour had passed, and Genkaku had fallen asleep at some point.
That night, even the dreams were terrifying.
He stood amidst densely growing trees and peered through a gap in the tall shoji into a tea room-like room.
There lay another completely naked child, facing this way.
Though it was supposed to be a child, it was wrinkled like an old man.
Genkaku tried to cry out and awoke drenched in cold sweat…………

No one had come to the "detached room." Not only that—it was still dim. Still?——Yet Genkaku looked at the desk clock and realized it was nearly noon. For a moment, his heart grew bright—all the brighter because he felt relieved. But then, as usual, it quickly turned gloomy again. He remained lying on his back, counting his own breaths. It was precisely the sensation of being urged by something—"Now’s the time!" Genkaku quietly pulled the loincloth close, wrapped it around his head, then yanked it tight with both hands.

At that very moment, the one who poked his head in was Takeo, chubby and bundled up in thick clothing.

“Hey, Grandpa’s doing something like that!”

Takeo shouted this and dashed off to the family parlor.

VI

After about a week had passed, Genkaku, surrounded by his family members, succumbed to pulmonary tuberculosis.
His funeral ceremony was grand (!).
(Only Otori, the paralyzed invalid, did not attend the ceremony.) The people who had gathered at his house offered their condolences to Shigeyoshi and his wife, then burned incense before his coffin draped in white rinzu silk.
But by the time they passed through the gate, they had mostly forgotten about him.
However, his late friends and colleagues must have been the sole exception.
“That old man must have been satisfied—he had a young mistress and even managed to save up some money.”—They all exchanged similar remarks in the same manner.

The funeral carriage bearing his coffin, accompanied by a single other carriage, made its way through the late December town—where daylight still lingered—toward a crematorium.
In the somewhat grimy following carriage rode Shigeyoshi and his cousin.
Shigeyoshi’s university student cousin, mindful of the carriage’s jostling, remained engrossed in reading a small book while barely speaking to him.
It was an English translation of Liebknecht’s memoir.
Yet whenever Shigeyoshi wasn’t dozing from exhaustion after the wake, he would gaze out at the newly developed town through the window and let slip empty phrases like, “This area has completely changed.”

The two carriages finally arrived at the crematorium along the frost-thawed road. However, despite having made prior arrangements by telephone, they were informed that the first-class furnaces were fully occupied, leaving only second-class available. It made no difference to them. But Shigeyoshi, considering Osuzu’s intentions rather than his father-in-law’s, earnestly negotiated with the clerk through the semicircular window.

“Since he was a patient who couldn’t be saved in time, I’d like to at least have him cremated first-class.”—He even tried spinning such lies. That lie seemed more effective than he had anticipated.

“Then let’s do it this way. Since first-class is already full, we’ll specially cremate him in special-class at the first-class rate.”

Shigeyoshi felt somewhat awkward and thanked the clerk multiple times.
The clerk was an old man wearing brass-rimmed glasses who seemed like a good-natured person.

“No need for thanks at all.”

After sealing the furnace, they boarded the somewhat grimy carriage and attempted to depart through the crematorium gate.
Then, unexpectedly, Oyoshi stood alone before the brick wall, bowing her head to their carriage.
Shigeyoshi panicked slightly and tried to raise his hat.
However, the carriage carrying them was already tilting as it raced down the withered road of poplar trees.

“That’s her, right?”

“Yeah… I wonder if she was there when we arrived too.”

“Well, I think there were only beggars there though.”
“…What will that woman do from now on?”

Shigeyoshi lit a Shikishima cigarette and responded as coldly as possible.

“Who knows how things will turn out.…”

His cousin remained silent.
But his imagination was picturing a certain fishing town on the coast of Kazusa.
And then Oyoshi and her child, who would have to live in that fishing town as well.
――He suddenly made a stern face and began reading Liebknecht again in the sunlight that had begun to stream in.