Pathway to Japanese Literature

I She had been lying face down on the kotatsu when she suddenly noticed the high window glowing pale with daylight. Startled, Oyoshi jumped up and scanned her surroundings. Though children's voices and cartwheel rumbles suggested commotion already filled the main street, the shop workers still lay asleep in complete disarray. After calling apprentice Seiji's name twice, Oyoshi untangled her crumpled obi and straightened her kimono front with precision. The two doctors' horseback lanterns had departed one after another through the mountain pass; about an hour after they split north and south through the nearly-dawn town, everyone had finally gone to bed. When the midwife finishing cleanup tasks removed her work sash and announced her temporary leave, both Mother and Oyoshi felt profoundly uneasy. Yet knowing they couldn't detain someone exhausted from two nights and a day of nursing indefinitely, they earnestly requested she return after resting through what remained of the night. Watching Oyoshi pace restlessly while peering into the parlor without sleeping, Mother urged her to get proper rest before donning a padded robe herself to keep vigil at her daughter's bedside. Recalling the terrifying commotion from two or three hours prior made Mother feel as though groans still echoed in her ears. Entering the kitchen revealed last night's supper eggshells abandoned on their plate. The Masamune sake bottle brought from the shop shelves as tea substitute - its bottom stained yellow where they'd broken the seal - sat shoved into a corner. Oyoshi had been left to manage the kitchen alone.

The mother grew deeply concerned about her postpartum recovery, believing that without an infant her convalescence would be poor and that she had exerted herself greatly accordingly. This too was unavoidable—about a year prior, she had endured similar childbirth suffering and hadn't been able to leave her bed for nearly two months. Seiji had gone to meet him when Chizō, an Echigo man who frequented their business, arrived. While the patient slept, a small plain wood box was quietly placed on the veranda and secured with rope before being shouldered by the old man. The mother draped a kimono with crimson lining over it. To obscure it from view, the old man donned a straw raincoat over the bundle while Sōsaburō—his haori draped carelessly—took the lead with red incense sticks tucked in his sleeve.

In the afternoon, the midwife came, performed the necessary treatments, and then applied the thermometer.

“How about it? Does the fever seem quite high?” said the mother, tapping her pipe and leaning forward.

“Well, it’s somewhat high as one would expect… but it’s about thirty-eight point five degrees,” the midwife said, tilting her head.

The next day arrived, and the patient mentioned that her breasts were swelling. The mother worked her naturally small nipple between her fingertips, sucking at it herself like an infant before spitting into a bowl. At first it emerged as a watery thin liquid, but through repeated sessions whenever time allowed, what came out gradually turned white and thick. Deeming it too wasteful to discard in the toilet, she diluted it with water and poured it down the kitchen sink.

After lighting the lamp and noticing how flushed her face was, Mother and Oyoshi searched through the chest drawers for the thermometer that should have been there.

Oyoshi sat before the hibachi working her knitting needles when,

“Oyoshi,” she asked as she emerged from the parlor and thrust forward a thermometer. She held its thin mercury line against lamplight like startled proof—

“Thirty-nine point two degrees!” Oyoshi said.

“39.2 degrees!” Mother parroted back.

“39.2 degrees!” The elderly father at the kotatsu pricked up his ears upon hearing this. Layer by layer like silk being stretched across his vision, the father who had completely lost his sight two years prior had in his youth combed through medical texts and gained some expertise in that realm. When it came to illness, he would fret and fuss over even the slightest symptom. Sōsaburō, who had been at the shop counter, was summoned. As the three huddled around the hibachi whispering about choosing a doctor, “Mother... Mother...” From behind the screen, the patient called out in a faint voice.

II

Doctor Seto’s rickshaw—the bespectacled doctor with haze-covered lenses—came to a stop. The midwife, having completed her training as a nurse, came daily for disinfection, marking the fever chart with a pencil as her face clouded at its rises and falls. As Oyoshi—having taken over for her mother who had decided to get some rest in the evening—sat reading a magazine by the bedside, the patient, whom she had thought was asleep, suddenly began speaking in a flat tone. “Huh?” Laying the magazine on the foot warmer she’d been warming her hands in, Oyoshi peered at the face—only for that face to turn back and repeat the same words. Her eyes were looking at a person, but somewhere they seemed vacant. Oyoshi started and stood up to call her mother.

“Okatsu... Okatsu, are you in pain?” The mother gently touched her forehead and murmured, “No wonder I had thought her face looked so flushed this evening!”

Sōsaburō also entered looking startled and immediately sent Seiji to the doctor’s house. When they took her temperature, the mercury rose just past forty-one degrees. Gathering with the air of an impending tempest having arrived, people huddled closely around the bedside. It seemed the doctor made his patient visits by hired rickshaw only during daylight hours; now he arrived in traditional Japanese attire carrying a horseback-style lantern. Through the sleet, Seiji followed behind the snake-eye-patterned lantern with a handbag in tow. He took her pulse and measured her temperature again as per protocol, but by then it had dropped once more, and she seemed more bothered by the stifling futon pressing against her chin. After the doctor left, Seiji was sent again to fetch the dose of medicine.

Through word of mouth, various visitors came from time to time. The wife of the konjac flour wholesaler—who placed considerable trust in the old father's steadfast nature—and Mrs. Kanōya, a couple who had amassed their fortune through their philosophy that even specks of dust accumulate into mountains, visited especially frequently to inquire after the patient, each time teaching Oyoshi various things. They taught her matters like how she needn't serve tea each time to midwives and others when short-handed—as proper thanks afterward would suffice—along with simple pickling methods.

There was also Mrs. Takewo from Shin-Yoshida—a woman from the dried goods shop connected by the veranda—whom the entire Yama-sa family unanimously disliked. She was the type who spoke enviously of thriving households and discussed declining ones with grim satisfaction, perpetually hunting for flaws in people's homes. Claiming she couldn't stand how this woman gathered saliva at her mouth's corners, the patient would feign sleep whenever hearing her voice, avoiding entry into the sickroom. There also came the wife of a man who served as both conversation partner to the elderly father and tea ceremony instructor to Okatsu in her youth—a practitioner of divination and moxibustion since childhood. Though kind-hearted, this woman shadowed by whispers of some inadequacy had arrived just as the doctor and midwife—white-gowned and scrubbing hands with brushes—lingered in the sickroom despite completing disinfection preparations, much to everyone's dismay.

Some people would briefly show their faces to offer get-well wishes, while housewives from both neighboring and across-the-street households came saying, “The baby can’t be helped now—but above all else, your health comes first.” “Oh, you’re still young,” they all said similar things and left. Merchant houses that had dealings with the family also sent get-well gifts. Eggs were gathered in particularly large quantities. Not only did the fever persist near forty degrees, but at times it would drop far below normal, causing the blue line on the thermometer chart to swing wildly off-scale. Gradually, an uneasy feeling began to grow about leaving her in the care of Dr. Seto, the bespectacled doctor with haze-covered lenses. The theory emerged that this was no longer an obstetric case but rather an ordinary illness, leading them to the medical graduate who had opened his practice barely a week prior—whether due to that common tendency of people favoring new things, this man enjoyed an extraordinary reputation throughout the town. When it was decided to engage that medical graduate, fortunately having a slight connection, Mr. Kanōya one night lit a lantern and went specially from the kitchen quarters to make the request.

That night, violent shivering suddenly gripped the patient. In their panic, both Mother and Oyoshi called out loudly for Sōsaburō. When Tetsuo—whom they had sent rushing for the doctor—returned with news that he was unfortunately away attending another emergency nearby, the tremors had subsided, but now a sudden fever raged instead, leaving her restlessly kicking off the futon in unbearable agitation. The next day when the exceptionally tall medical graduate made his rounds, the same violent shivering struck again. As she cried "Cold! Cold!" in frenzy, Mother and Oyoshi piled every available zabuton cushion atop her and pressed down with all their strength from either side. After letting her cries of "Hot! It's hot!" continue awhile, the medical graduate calmly listened to Sōsaburō recount the course of events before gently taking her pulse.

Dr. Seto with his haze-clouded glasses ceased visiting under pretext of tending to the patient from that day onward, taking away both accumulated medicine fees and half a dozen beer bottles added as gratitude.

III

After the Winter Solstice arrived, the cold intensified sharply, and snowy days followed one after another.

Day ○: 25 degrees Celsius.

A cold, cold morning; a cold, cold day. The rice in the deity's offering bowl had frozen. Such entries had grown numerous in Oyoshi’s diary.

Striking the ice in the water bucket with all her strength, she broke the ladle's handle. There were mornings like this. The frozen ground was lightly dusted white again, and before the storehouse, dove footprints formed maple-leaf shapes. The water clinging to the well froze solid, and the bottom of the placed bucket slid smoothly. The well bucket rope was less cold than painful.

Both the upper and lower parts of the house fell mostly to Oyoshi’s hands during this period. She had never imagined herself capable of managing things like this, nor had she ever envisioned such times arriving. Though she helped her sister and mother with morning and evening chores, she attended sewing classes like any proper town girl. She would leave at a decent hour each morning and sometimes return only after sunset. Even while performing these now-habitual tasks, her mind never scattered among them. She had lived through everything without contemplation.

During the time when her bangs still hung unevenly cut, Oyoshi developed an obsession after accidentally glimpsing works like Gensai's "Blood and Tears" and "The Kitten" that her elder sister had concealed beneath sewing projects. Whether songs, poems, or novels, she came to scrutinize written words with saucer-eyed intensity. Until she first noticed physical changes in her body at seventeen, Oyoshi didn't know how men and women differed. Weeping from intense shock, she first heard from her mother then about what it meant to be a woman - though that shock and wonder didn't last long.

“Miss Oyoshi has happily turned nineteen,” declared one disciple when visiting their teacher’s house with companions this New Year—she who habitually said outrageous things—provoking laughter through this unconventional greeting. Yet even while speaking those words, she found herself utterly unable to believe she had truly become nineteen. The age of nineteen rang strange and curious in her ears. When greeted with phrases like “Good morning” or “What dreary weather we’re having,” she would respond with mere “Yes” or “Right.” Though often scolded by her mother for failing to greet people properly, Oyoshi rather reveled in being called childish—took pride in it even.

Mother was usually at the bedside. Taking on talkative female visitors coming to inquire after the patient, Oyoshi could no longer remain as sluggish as before. Naturally, she could now speak to older people without embarrassment and respond appropriately. When she sat beside the long hibachi and served tobacco and tea, she came to be thought of as a woman—a bride—the household’s mistress. Serving tea to business clients visiting the shop; lighting a fire for the rickshaw driver who brought the doctor; preparing washbasin water; more tea; noticing dust accumulating on the nandina leaves by the Buddhist altar; even finding the presence of mind to right overturned geta sandals left by passersby. When she realized all that needed doing, she began noticing countless details throughout the house.

After her hands could no longer keep up and day had darkened, under sparse snow that fell here and there like cotton—soaking into her clothes before vanishing—she draped a hand towel over her head, placed a bucket on the frozen well frame, and rinsed the rice. Hearing the creaking of the well pulley from the sickbed, "Oyoshi..." trembled the patient's voice.

I want to get better soon, somehow! Each time I conceived, it only left behind painful, bitter mementos of suffering—the loneliness of being twenty-nine now and still without a single child. I even tried resenting God, but now I mustn't think that anymore! My blind father; my mother, whose white hair now shocks me as I lie here looking closely; my two younger sisters—all of them leaned heavily, heavily upon my shoulders. My husband, who had consulted me about everything without exception, must surely be overwhelmed by the year-end busyness—the shop workers' uniforms still not prepared. From Seiji’s tabi socks—the boy who had just come crawling in carrying the medicine jar—the reddened tip of his big toe peeked out… Ah, ah, damn! I must live!……

In the cramped house, the voices of carters unloading goods, customers haggling, footsteps rushing to retrieve items from the back storehouse—all these sounds resonated in her sharpened mind as if she could grasp them physically. A single glove she'd repeatedly thought lost had been chewed to shreds by mice and emerged from behind a shelf; a cart's broken shaft protruded into the neighboring notions shop; such disparate things manifested before the patient's eyes.

IV

“Oyoshi, I know it’s a burden, but please go pray to Inari-sama in my stead—beg for your sister’s life… If she recovers, we’ll vow to raise a banner…” Oyoshi was still too young to laugh at the old woman’s stubborn foolishness. How absurd, she thought—yet even as this feeling arose—she still clung to some vague hope in the concept of divinity. Changing into fresh clothes, she left the house.

In the evening, the light snow began melting, sending drips splattering from house eaves. The mud-caked snow scraped against the geta's wooden teeth, soaking through the tabi socks.

Mother kept growing pale alone - convinced she wouldn't survive - wouldn't survive. But could a human being really die so easily? Would Sister die? Would that Sister die...?

Hearing that people had died didn't strike me as particularly strange, but try as I might, I couldn't imagine death coming to my own home now.

“Die? Sister would die? That Sister would die?!”

"But suppose she died... suppose the beloved sister of the Yamazaki household died..." Imagining that moment and everything that would come after, Oyoshi shuddered.

Brother-in-law Sōsaburō was someone who had married into the family. When the chain binding a blood daughter snaps, a rift inevitably forms between parents-in-law and son-in-law. Even if they brought some new bride from outside and forced her upon them, that gap would only widen further. That common fate society imposes - if they tried forcing even me into it... No! No! It made me shudder with revulsion! At that point - no, precisely then - I'd rather die! No... no need for dying either. That very moment might become my chance to escape to Tokyo - the Tokyo I'd always yearned for...

Oyoshi knew how to write things and learned to submit them to magazines, eventually coming to yearn constantly for that path. Bound by the label of womanhood—a wish that could never be fulfilled—if there truly existed something called God, please kill me and save Sister. Devoured by emotion, Oyoshi slumped dejectedly. Before she knew it, she had passed through the torii gate, yet couldn't muster the resolve to clasp her hands earnestly and convey her mother's plea.

V A nurse from the medical graduate’s practice came daily to perform disinfection. That person would often gossip to the midwife about the medical graduate’s wife, and one day too, the two of them were talking about something on the engawa. “Hey Ms. Sawada, you know Ms. Osumi Ishii? That person—you know, that person—she’s been hospitalized again.”

“Oh… Again?” “They say her menstrual cycle stopped for three months...” Without thinking, Oyoshi went out and turned bright red. She had never imagined that even people in such professions would exchange such words. When Mrs. Kanōya offered to send over a maid to help, she refused with “No, in the end it’s better to do it alone patiently,” and even laundered Sōsaburō’s undergarments. She would return with tabi socks soiled from snow-melt paths, discard them, and go about barefoot when there were no replacements—her feet reddened from cold so raw that Mother would scold her while washing the socks beneath eaves where icicles shattered. When she returned from elementary school or sewing class, she would find her mother sitting hunched before the hibachi, mending them. From among them she selected the whitest and least conspicuous ones to mend—all while thinking such thoughts as she washed even men’s garments and dressed them—wondering if this was a woman’s fate.

Though there was a bathroom, during this period they mostly took to going to the public bath whenever they pleased. When she considered the ear-slicing cold outside, Oyoshi had grown reluctant and let three or four days pass without going. Now at nightfall, wearing her padded work jacket unchanged and clutching a hand towel, she stepped outside. Just as she was about to turn into the side street with the bathhouse, she encountered a primary school classmate holding a paper lantern.

“Oh my, you’re wearing that?” her friend laughed. “But I need this to work!” “You’re going to work, Oyoshi?……” “If you’re going to say that, then look! Even these hands have earned quite a bit.” Oyoshi thrust her clenched hand right before her friend’s eyes. The back of her hand was rough and chapped, covered entirely with cracks. “Oh…” Her friend looked at her face and made an expression that seemed to say this person—once lively, innocent, skilled in writing, beloved by her teachers—had…

Seiji was such an amusing boy that he became fast friends with the pharmacy student he visited daily to fetch medicine. Sometimes he would return late after overplaying and get scolded by Sōsaburō; other times he would bring back ointments for chapped skin and frostbite to give Oyoshi.

“Oyoshi! Oyoshi! Mr. Kimishima sent this!” One day, Seiji handed her a letter along with the medicine jar. “Mr. Kimishima?……” “Huh? The pharmacy guy, the student,” he said quickly. Oyoshi opened it, looked, laughed, and threw it away. There were two or three poem-like imitations written inside, and as was his custom, he praised Oyoshi’s literary talent. Letters of this pretentiously suggestive kind came constantly from other quarters.

Oyoshi's frostbitten feet had deteriorated into festering wounds. “Since it’s quite overwhelming to manage alone, why not call someone like Tami to help?” Sōsaburō’s sister would often come and say this. "My, how hard you work, Miss Oyoshi..."

Mrs. Kanōya was impressed every time she visited. She had a second son who had reached the age of taking a bride.

VI

Mandarin oranges, herring roe, cotton, freeze-dried tofu, sugar bags with narrow paper tags, and salted salmon with tails bound by ornamental cords began to be exchanged as year-end gifts.

The patient still hadn’t rid herself of the lump that had formed on her left abdomen some time ago, and though her fever was no longer as high, it continued at similar levels. The medical graduate wanted to try applying leeches there, so one day Oyoshi went to a farmer’s house in the back of town to buy leeches.

In the hollows between fields and around tree stumps entangled with thin, withered vines, the mottled patches of remaining snow had diminished. In the mouse-gray twilight light, the wind remained cold against cheeks, as low thatched houses dotted the lonely outskirts here and there.

The old man with a face reddened by the hearth flames remained motionless as he said, “Even if you offer more money, there’s no helping it—in winter they all curl up like beans and you can hardly find them. Even one ryo per leech—look—there’s no helpin’ when they ain’t to be found.” They had requested a business partner in × City to send a package, but by the time it arrived, there was no longer any need. Inside the jar, only black bugs stretched and shrank.

“Oh, c-come in!” Oyoshi exclaimed at the rare sight of her friend, forcibly pulling inside the companion who had shown her face while returning from sewing work and deliveries. “Who have you been seeing lately? What about O-Taka-chan?”

“O-Taka-chan has been taking time off lately, what with everyone being busy with year-end preparations... As for me, today’s my last day, and O-Hide-san caught a cold, so she hasn’t come around at all recently.” “Right.” Oyoshi found that when she paused to observe the sight of everyone sitting in a circle - sometimes bowing their heads, sometimes stretching, occasionally exchanging glances and bursting into hearty laughter - it somehow felt nostalgic. “Sister, what would you like? Is a little bit alright?”

“It seems slightly better now, but still... The fever just won’t go down...” “I’m swamped—doing everything alone… Just look how chapped they’ve gotten…” She grasped Oyoshi’s hand held over the hibachi and frowned. “They’re so rough they don’t even feel like my own… Here, look!” Oyoshi laughed as she pulled out the torn sleeve of her red underrobe from her cuff. “The Instructor sends her regards and says she really ought to come visit, but she’s tied up with work right now. Oh, you know—that betrothal gift for Iseya… It’s going to be splendid! Once it’s ready, the obi will look absolutely stunning. You should go see it when it’s finished—once the black one’s done, the whole set will be complete…”

“When is Iseya’s celebration?” “It’s the first day of February.” “I wonder if that Bon-chan is finally becoming a groom.”

Oyoshi and her friend both said the nickname "Bon-chan" and doubled over laughing.

“What are you sewing?” Oyoshi asked, lifting the corner of her friend’s furoshiki as she tried to leave. “What a lovely pattern! Whose is it? Yours?” Her friend laughed happily and gave a quick bow. “It’s already New Year… but this year we can’t even play karuta.” Oyoshi smiled sadly and saw her off. That evening, Oyoshi prepared a package to send to her older sister at Tokyo Medical School. Some time ago, her sister had come saying she wanted a komon-patterned kimono, so Oyoshi had commissioned one made from cheap silk, which had been completed today.

Because she tried to pack whatever was on hand—things like yōkan and freeze-dried rice cakes—the bundle’s shape stubbornly refused to come together properly. Just as it was becoming slightly misshapen, Oyoshi grew irritated when her mother interjected, “Huh?!” she snapped, her face flushing crimson as she violently crumpled the package. “Oh! Oh! Defying your parents! How willful!” “I don’t know what you find so objectionable—from my side, I only urged haste because I thought she waited unaware of our turmoil here… Had she known of this illness, she’d fret despite her exams looming—that’s why I—”

“I said enough!” Oyoshi writhed. Though she found it shameful, a resentful sense that she alone couldn’t have things her way took hold—spiteful, envious, fretting and fretting until she wanted to sulk outright. After some time had passed—from behind the folding screen— “Oyoshi… Oyoshi…” came the faint call, and suddenly overwhelmed with sorrow, Oyoshi clenched her teeth and covered her face.

Seven

The mochi was made at Sōsaburō’s sister’s house, and they managed to put up the New Year decorations. Around New Year's, the patient too had begun to show signs of recovery, with her temperature sometimes staying near normal for an entire day. However, weakened as she was, she had naturally lost all vigor and would furrow her brows at each disturbance—the long conversations of guests in the back room, the opening and closing of doors. Paper was pasted onto the door frame. The careless Seiji would inevitably get scolded two or three times a day for his noisy footsteps and door slamming.

Frequent invitations to play karuta came to Oyoshi from her friends. Oyoshi wrote refusal messages on scraps of paper one by one. Both Mother and the patient showed pitying looks, but Oyoshi had them buy things she wanted instead—like The Complete Works of Ichiyō and That Face, which was popular at the time.

One evening, when she went out to buy New Year's magazines, she suddenly felt inclined to stop by a friend's house she happened to pass.

“Oh, Miss Oyoshi!” Mrs. Kanōya welcomed her and called her friend over. Just as they were about to play karuta, four or five people had gathered in the bright room. She found herself feeling compelled to join in.

“Good evening,” she said as she entered. Gathering the uniformly turned faces, Oyoshi suddenly realized she still wore her everyday clothes. “A rare guest! A rare guest!” exclaimed a middle school student. They had hung the futon from the ceiling with hemp thread because the exhausted body found it too heavy. Remaining in the same position for an hour would make the body ache. When neuralgia set in and she thrashed as if leaping up when her legs were touched, they quietly slipped a hand into the gap near her waist to help her turn over gently. To prevent bedsores, they placed cotton.

Until around ten or eleven o'clock, Oyoshi would be on duty; after that, her mother or Sōsaburō would take over according to their arrangement. She would place a small quilt over the foot warmer and, by the hibachi where steam rose, listen to the pillow clock's ticking while reading magazines or passages from "I Am a Cat" aloud to the patient.

At times, she wrote letters to friends in the capital and rural areas. Many unseen friends repeatedly invited her to the capital. Those replies always contained mentions of elderly parents and family circumstances. To those who countered with "How far must one efface oneself?" she wrote what resembled faltering arguments while holding her freezing pen near the fire. In letters men sent women, there was inevitably some passage that would eventually make one tilt their head in puzzlement. Reading through the traces of erased characters, Oyoshi sometimes found herself smiling involuntarily.

The nurse came and waited for half an hour, but Ms. Sawada—the midwife who was supposed to work alongside her—still hadn't appeared. Since Seiji was inconveniently away on an errand, Oyoshi went to fetch the midwife named Oki from her house. That house too took in many sewing apprentices; voices reciting karuta cards and boisterous laughter leaked through its wooden fence. Ms. Sawada had been summoned at dawn to a household where labor had begun, they said, and still hadn't returned. Just as Oyoshi was about to turn back, the shōji door clattered open,

“Oyoshi-chan,” the woman said with a smile. “Oh!” That was her elder sister’s friend, someone who had often doted on Oyoshi when she was little. She appeared to have been invited for karuta. “Is your sister still unwell?” “How has she been lately?” “Yes... she seems a little better now...” “I see... Do take care of yourself...”

She was the daughter of a wealthy family, so her attire was stylish.

When evening came, Ms. Sawada hurried in through the back entrance. “I must apologize for today—I was called out to attend the delivery of Mr. Okano's daughter-in-law. Well, for a first delivery it was relatively smooth, I’d say… They say the pains started around two o’clock this morning. Oh, the master made quite a commotion, really quite something… And yes, it was a baby girl.”

Though she claimed to have been forced into it, her cheeks were faintly flushed as she tapped them with both hands, saying "Hot, hot!"

VIII

“Sōsaburō is such an oblivious man… Here we are with such a gravely ill person right beside us, where you’d think he’d be more considerate, but instead he goes clang clang with his pipe against the bronze hibachi. It makes me so anxious just sitting there watching him.” On one occasion, Mother gathered with the old father by the hibachi and shared these words. “Mmm, that’s true—he really ought to be more considerate... Though mind you, a good man remains a good man. That’s precisely why his harmless nature becomes so vexing.” The old father rested his fire-warmed arm along the hibachi’s edge and nodded in agreement.

“Exactly—he’s utterly oblivious to everything.”

At that moment, Sōsaburō hurried in from the shop and cast a fleeting glance.

“Why don’t you have some tea when you’re done,” Mother said, picking up the long pipe as if suddenly remembering it. “Yes.”

Sōsaburō went back out to the shop. "This time I simply must have you obtain certification too." "After all, even Sōsaburō would find it pitiful to continue like this indefinitely..." When their tea conversation suddenly turned to this topic and the two were whispering together, Sōsaburō—who had again come downstairs from the second floor at that very moment—pulled an unpleasant face and went out to the shop.

Two or three uneventful days passed when Sōsaburō returned one day from an outing with pork wrapped in bamboo sheaths tucked into his kimono. Oyoshi carried the portable charcoal stove to the dinner area and set a pot upon it. The smell of boiling fat - absent for so long - drifted through the house as white steam rose past the lamp.

“Old Father, the pork has finished cooking,” said Sōsaburō, serving the meat onto a plate with his own hands and offering it to the old father. “Pork! I shan’t eat today.” “I see.”

Oyoshi stealthily stole a glance at Sōsaburō's face. Of course, neither the blind old father nor Mother noticed these things, but Oyoshi attended to various matters and anxiously fretted alone.

Even a single feigned cough loomed large between their mutually wary hearts. Sōsaburō labored to make Mother perceive his complexion as ordinary, yet whenever the elderly couple whispered together, Oyoshi unfailingly diverted the conversation elsewhere. Even one piece of simmered fish—when circumstances turned delicate—she would place the choicest cut upon Sōsaburō’s tray. There came a day when Sōsaburō left home from morning. Though he typically announced his destination at the sickbed before departing, that day alone he offered no word.

“Osen, you don’t think Sōsaburō has grown tired of his wife’s illness, do you?”

The old father, who had been crouching at the kotatsu all day, raised his worried face and paused at passing footsteps when nightfall brought no sound of Sōsaburō’s voice. The footsteps were faint. “Surely... Surely it couldn’t have come to that...”

Mother didn’t believe that either. Sōsaburō returned nonchalantly after some time had passed. He had detoured to his sister’s house on his way back and finished dinner there before coming home. His complexion wasn’t particularly flushed, so the people were relieved.

Unusually, Sōsaburō opened the Masamune bottle and placed it on the meal tray. He did not speak a word all day. He pulled the iron hibachi closer and kept puffing out thick clouds of smoke between cups of sake. The sound of his pipe being struck grew violent and unceasing. Seiji, being a lightweight from way back, immediately turned bright red—an unusual occurrence that left him looking perplexed—when Sōsaburō harshly scolded him. Without eating his meal, he abruptly left for nearby Shin-Yoshida. When they stealthily followed Seiji later, he was drinking sake with Master Mine.

The parturient woman too seemed to have grasped the situation, “What on earth is going on? Did you do something, Mother?” she anxiously pressed. “I can’t make heads or tails of any of it! I haven’t said a single thing, yet he’s just sitting there getting angry all by himself.” Just then, Oyoshi entered and, “That’s exactly why I said not to! You go and say all sorts of things again...”

Complaints inevitably turned toward those closest.

“What do you mean I said something?” Mother’s eyes widened. “Even if you don’t say anything today, you’ve been doing nothing but whispering with Father all this time.”

“Even so, it’s not as if I’ve been speaking ill of Sōsaburō…” “But that’s precisely what’s wrong! Anyone would find it strange! Then when Brother-in-law Sōsaburō enters, you abruptly stop—he must think something of it! Why, anyone would…”

Oyoshi shed tears and confronted Mother. The worries of a young heart and everything else made her grow unintentionally excited, her words turning fierce. Their emotions tangled and retangled, clashing against each other.

“Fine, fine—oh dear—everything’s Mother’s fault! Go on then, all gang up on me! I’m the only wicked villain here anyway… Fine… Fine… Let the gods take me instead of Okatsu.” “I should just worry myself to death over the children and die…” Mother cried too. Seeing herself blamed so contrary to the truth, Oyoshi couldn’t endure it—flustered, she pressed her sleeve against her face.

“What a mess... Because of my illness, everyone...” Tears fell quietly from the patient’s face. “Okatsu, you have nothing to worry about. Really, it’s nothing at all… It’ll harm your health.” Mother’s voice trembled with anxiety.

Sōsaburō returned home around ten o'clock, his face bright red.

Seeing Oyoshi’s swollen eyes as she said, “Shall I… cook some rice cakes?”, Sōsaburō gently told his sister-in-law, “No need—I don’t need to eat,” then heavily flopped down onto the kotatsu and lay staring at the ceiling.

IX Day by day became apparent signs of recovery in the patient. Even so, the body still hadn't regained any mobility whatsoever, so having her turned over constantly required extra hands.

Having had tears spilled upon him by the patient, Sōsaburō regained his composure from that point onward and began offering morning greetings of his own accord. The nurses and Midwife Sawada still came every day, and after finishing the disinfection, they would gather around the hibachi for idle chatter. Oyoshi made sure to always have something on hand—simmering dishes, occasionally grilling rice cakes—so that snacks for tea never ran out. Sometimes, when Midwife Sawada left, she would twist mandarins or dried persimmons in paper for her children.

Dust had accumulated on the shoulders of the wine bottles and medicine jar arranged on the small desk by the bedside. On the folding screen perpetually left standing, what now appeared as scattered bloodstains clung where written characters had once been. Staring fixedly at them, Oyoshi recalled that utterly terrifying night's events. The notion of womanhood came to mind, then that of children, followed by various forms of households. The words someone had spoken resurfaced—that taking a husband into the family might seem advantageous to outsiders yet brought double the hardship—and she felt as though her sister's position until now had been gouged open and laid bare with crystalline clarity. Was she too, as a woman, fated to be drawn into such a whirlpool? she wondered.

She thought of the friends who kept urging her to come to the capital. “Mother, I’m sorry—could you turn me over again?” Okatsu urged apologetically. Mother, wearing a padded winter kimono, had been dozing listlessly when she suddenly raised her head. “Again? What a nuisance—I just turned you over moments ago.” With that, she reluctantly stood up. “I’m sorry,” Okatsu said plaintively, lowering her voice. “Mother! And you’re the very one who worried yourself sick over this!”

Oyoshi found herself gazing at her mother's face without knowing why. From some trivial incident, she recalled how the patient had recently blurted out "Mother's grown tired of this!"—a remark that struck her as regrettable... The disheveled white hair looked dingy. The rounded back that had stealthily hunched over the foot warmer, ravenous for sleep, threw its full shadow across the wall. The nandina in the alcove, having absorbed all its water and coated in dust, cast a listless shadow upon the hanging scroll.

Oyoshi keenly felt the room's air pressing down on her head. “Ah, now I can finally rest easy,” Mother said to Mrs. Kanōya one day, her tone tinged with reminiscence. “You must understand—throughout these Forty-Plus Days, neither Oyoshi nor I ever loosened our sashes! Taking turns collapsing into the kotatsu... no—it was no small worry we endured.”

Okatsu had said that once she was able to get out of bed, she would invite all the nurses, Midwife Sawada, and friends over for a day of karuta, so Oyoshi was already looking forward to it.