Pathway to Japanese Literature

Regarding "To the Spring Equinox and Beyond"

To confess the truth before my readers, I was already supposed to have begun serializing my novel in print around August of last year. However, when someone kindly expressed concern that pushing my post-illness body through such intense summer heat might be unwise, I seized this opportunity to secure two more months' respite. This became the reason why even after those months had passed by October, I still did not take up my pen, with November and December too ending in complete absence from print. The way my rightful work kept extending itself like crumbling waves that collapse even as they spread was by no means a pleasant state of mind.

When it was settled that from New Year's Day marking the year's turn I would properly begin my work, what brought me greatest joy was not so much the pleasure of release from long suppression as the sense that the time had come to fulfill the obligations I had carried on my back. However, when I considered how I might carry out this long-neglected duty more efficiently than usual, I could not help feeling a new kind of pain.

Because it has been so long, I feel somewhat compelled to write something as interesting as possible.
Moreover, a feeling has grown considerably stronger—that I must reciprocate both the goodwill of colleagues who showed generous consideration toward my health condition and other circumstances with tolerant understanding, and the goodwill of readers who make a daily ritual of reading what I write.
And so I earnestly hope that by some means I can produce something good.
However, mere willpower alone cannot ultimately determine the quality of one’s work; no matter how much I may wish to create something excellent, the act of writing is such that even I cannot predict whether it will turn out as desired—which is why I lack the courage to publicly declare that this time, I intend to make up for my long period of inactivity.
Therein lurks a kind of pain.

When publishing this work, I found myself wanting to state only what I have mentioned above.
I saw no present need to discuss matters such as this work's nature, my own critical perspective toward it, or any particular assertions about it.
To speak truthfully, I am neither a Naturalist nor Symbolist writer.
Still less am I one of those Neo-Romanticist writers so frequently mentioned these days.
I cannot claim confidence that my works bear fixed hues dyed by loudly proclaiming these doctrines to catch the eye of roadside passersby.
Moreover, I consider such confidence unnecessary.
I simply maintain the conviction that I am myself.
And since I remain myself, I intend to remain wholly indifferent to whether I might be Naturalist, Symbolist, or even Neo-Romanticist.

I also have no fondness for trumpeting my works as "new, new!"
I have long considered that those in this world who frivolously chase novelty would be Mitsukoshi Department Store, Yankees, and then certain writers and critics within the literary sphere.

I do not wish to borrow all those hollow buzzwords overused in literary circles to brand my works.
I simply want to write something that feels like myself.
What I fear is only this: that through insufficient skill I might produce work beneath my own standards, or through affectation create something pretending to surpass them—outcomes for which I would owe my readers an apology.

When calculated across Tokyo and Osaka, the number of subscribers to our Asahi Shimbun indeed reaches several hundred thousand.
I don't know how many people among them will read my works, but the majority of those readers have likely never peered into either the back alleys or side streets of the literary world.
I think they are merely living moderately as utterly ordinary humans, unaffectedly breathing the air of nature all the while.
I believe myself fortunate to be able to present my works before these educated and ordinary gentlemen.

"The title 'To the Spring Equinox and Beyond' was in truth an empty title, merely named as such because I had planned to write from New Year’s Day until after the equinoctial week."
"For some time now, I had held the opinion that if one were to structure individual short stories—after accumulating them—so that they coalesced into a single long novel, such a work might prove unexpectedly interesting to read as a newspaper serial."
"But since I had passed by without ever having had the opportunity to attempt it, if my skill permitted, I considered constructing this 'To the Spring Equinox and Beyond' as I originally envisioned."
"However, unlike an architect’s blueprint, a novel—no matter how poorly executed—must inherently contain movement and development."
"Thus even when I set out to create them according to my own plans, situations often arose where they could not proceed as intended—a phenomenon no different from how our endeavors in the ordinary real world frequently encountered unexpected obstacles and failed to coalesce as anticipated."
"Therefore this might be a problem belonging entirely to the future—one I couldn’t quite discern unless I kept writing further."
"But even if it didn’t go well, I could predict that it would simply result in a succession of short stories that neither cohered nor concluded—inconclusive fragments trailing on and on."
"I thought there would be no problem even so."

(Preface written when this work was first published in the Asahi Shimbun in January 1912 [Meiji 45])

After the Bath

I

Keitaro had begun to feel somewhat weary of his recent efforts and running about that showed no particular promise.
He knew his sturdy build could easily handle mere physical exertion, but as repeated setbacks accumulated—whether ideas would take root and stagnate or slip away when he reached for them—his mind gradually stopped obeying him more than his body did.
That night, spurred by irritation, he deliberately popped open beer after unwanted beer, trying to summon some semblance of cheerfulness.
Yet no matter how long he waited, his awareness of this forced merriment persisted until he finally called the housemaid to clear away the bottles.
The housemaid looked at his face and exclaimed, “My goodness, Mr. Tanigawa!” then added again, “Truly now!”
Keitaro stroked his cheeks and said, “Red as can be. What a waste to keep such fine coloring under electric light—I’m off to bed.
While you’re at it, lay out my futon,” he added, brushing past her attempted reply as he stepped into the hallway.
Returning from the toilet and burrowing into his bedding, he muttered aloud, “Suppose I’ll rest awhile then.”

Keitaro woke up twice during the night.
The first time was because his throat was dry; the second time was because he had a dream.
When his eyes opened for the third time, it was already bright.
The moment Keitaro noticed the world beginning to stir, he muttered "Rest, rest" and closed his eyes once more.
Next came the loud, clunky sound of an old-fashioned clock rudely assailing his ears.
After that, however hard he tried, he couldn't fall asleep.
Having no choice but to remain lying down while smoking a rolled cigarette, he watched as the tip of the Shikishima—burned halfway down—crumbled and turned the white pillow ash-covered.
Even so, he intended to stay motionless until finally struck by strong sunlight streaming through the eastern window and developing a slight headache forced him to relent and rise. With a toothpick still in his mouth and hand towel slung over his shoulder, he went to the bathhouse.

The bathhouse clock already read a little past ten, but the washing area was completely tidied up with not a single bucket left out. There was a figure lying sideways alone in the bathtub, gazing at sunlight streaming through the glass while splashing about nonchalantly. It was Morimoto—a man staying at the same boarding house as Keitaro—so Keitaro called out, "Hey, good morning." Then the other man returned the greeting with a "Hey, good morning," but—

"What's with you stuffing a toothpick in your mouth at this hour? Ridiculous." Then he added, "Come to think of it, your light wasn't on last evening either."

“The light had been blazing since dusk. Unlike you, I’m a model of propriety—I hardly ever go carousing at night.”

“Quite right. You’re rigid. Rigid enough to make a man envious.”

Keitaro felt an itch of embarrassment. The man remained submerged up to his diaphragm, still sloshing water about without respite. His face wore an incongruously earnest expression. Keitaro studied the carefree figure’s mustache—each strand dripping sloppily downward—as he...

"Never mind about me—what about you? The office?" he asked.
Then Morimoto, appearing weary, placed both elbows on the edge of the bathtub, rested his forehead upon them, and remained lying prone.
"The office is closed," he answered like someone with a headache.
"Why?"
"No particular reason—I'm taking a break myself."
Keitaro involuntarily felt as though he had discovered a kindred spirit.
At this, Keitaro said, "So it's rest after all?" to which the other man answered "Yes, rest," before resuming his original position lying prone by the bathtub.

II

By the time Keitaro had sat down in front of the wash basin and had the bath attendant scrub him, Morimoto finally emerged completely from the bathwater with a body so red it seemed to emit smoke.
And then, with a look that said "Ah, how pleasant," he plopped down cross-legged on the wash area—no sooner had he done so than—

“You have a good physique,” he said, beginning to compliment Keitaro’s build.

"Even this has gotten quite worse lately."

“Oh no no—if that’s considered bad, then what about someone like me?”

Morimoto slapped his own stomach with a thump thump to demonstrate.
His stomach appeared sunken, as if pulled back toward his spine.

“Well, my line of work being what it is, I’ve only been ruining my health. Though I must admit I’ve neglected it quite a bit too.” Then he suddenly laughed as if remembering something—a hearty “Ah ha ha!”
Keitaro, matching his tone in a manner of,

“Since I’m free today, why don’t I listen to your old stories again after all this time?” he said.
At this, Morimoto—
“Yes, let’s talk,” came Morimoto’s immediately eager reply—though this liveliness was confined to his voice alone, his movements presenting less sluggishness than the appearance of all muscles having temporarily ceased function after being parboiled in the bathwater.
While Keitaro lathered soap onto his head and scrubbed vigorously, and rubbed the tough soles of his feet and between his toes, Morimoto remained seated cross-legged, showing no sign of washing anywhere.
Finally plunging his emaciated frame into the bathwater as though hurling it, he then emerged drying himself at nearly the same time as Keitaro.
And then,

“It feels so clean and pleasant when you come to the morning bath occasionally,” he said.

“Yes.
“Well, you’re not here to wash—you’re really just soaking in the bath. That’s why it feels that way.”
“It’s not a bath for practical purposes—it’s bathing to indulge in pleasure.”

“It’s probably not such a difficult way to bathe, but I just can’t be bothered to wash my body at times like this.”
“I just end up soaking absentmindedly and getting out in a daze.”
“Compared to that, you’re three times as diligent.”
“From head to toe, everywhere—you wash so thoroughly without missing a spot.”
“You even use a toothpick in your thoroughness.”
“I’m almost impressed by how thorough you are.”

The two left the bathhouse entrance together.
Since Morimoto said he was going to buy rolled paper at the main street, Keitaro felt inclined to accompany him. When they turned east into a side alley, the road abruptly deteriorated.
The previous evening’s rain had saturated the earth completely, and now horses, carts, and foot traffic since morning had churned and kicked up muddy tracks through which they walked with an air of contemptuous distaste.
Though the sun stood high overhead, vapor rising from the ground still seemed to sketch faint undulations along the horizon.

"I wish I could've shown this morning's scenery to a sleepyhead like you. The sun was blazing away, yet there was this thick haze everywhere. When I looked through from this side of the train, every passenger stood out clear as day—like shadow pictures cast upon a shoji screen. And yet since the sun was on the opposite side, each and every one of them looked like gray monsters—it was quite a spectacle, I tell you."

Morimoto continued this narration as he entered a stationery store and emerged while pressing down slightly on his pocket, now bulging with rolled paper and letter envelopes. Keitaro, who had been waiting outside, immediately turned back toward the path they had come from. The two returned together to the boarding house just as they were. When Keitaro finished climbing two flights of stairs—his slippers' heels clattering—he quickly slid open his room's shoji.

“After you,” Keitaro invited Morimoto.
Morimoto—

“It must be nearly lunchtime,” he said—yet contrary to what one might expect of hesitation—he followed behind Keitaro with an offhanded manner as though entering his own room.
And then,

“The view from your room is lovely every time I see it,” he said while opening the window shoji himself and placing a wet hand towel on the railed edge of the veranda boards.

III

Keitaro had long harbored a certain curiosity about this emaciated yet never seriously ill man who went to Shinbashi Station every day.
He was already over thirty.
And yet he still lived alone in a boarding house while commuting to the station.
However, what position he held there and what duties he performed remained complete mysteries to Keitaro, as he had never asked the man himself nor received any voluntary explanations.
Though Keitaro occasionally visited the station to see people off, he would inevitably become lost in the crowds during such times, leaving him no opportunity to associate the station with Morimoto—nor did Morimoto ever appear conspicuously enough to remind Keitaro of his existence through some chance encounter.
It was simply that their prolonged cohabitation in the same boarding house—whether through happenstance or mutual tolerance—had gradually led them to exchange greetings and engage in casual conversation over time.

Therefore, it might have been more accurate to say that Keitaro's curiosity toward Morimoto lay not in his present self but rather in his past. Keitaro had once heard from Morimoto's own lips the story of when he had been the clearly established head of a household. He had heard about his wife too. He had also heard about the death of the child they had together. "The brat went and died on me, so I guess you could say it was something of a relief." Keitaro still remembered the words Morimoto had spoken: "I was genuinely afraid of the mountain deity's curse, you know." He still remembered not only that moment when he hadn't understood what "yamagami" meant and had asked for clarification, but even the absurdity of being told it was simply the Chinese term for "mountain deity." Even as he recalled these things, from Keitaro's perspective, all of Morimoto's past seemed shrouded in a hazy, comet-tail-like aura of romance that emitted an uncanny glow.

Apart from anecdotes about forming or breaking off relationships with women, he was also the protagonist of various adventure tales. It seemed he hadn't yet gone to Seal Island to hunt seal pelts, but it was certain he had profited from salmon fishing somewhere in Hokkaido. Then there was the time he went around Shikoku claiming amber could be found in a certain mountain—though none ever materialized—but since he himself admitted this, it must indeed be true. Yet the most outlandish was his Nomi-guchi Company plan—conceived, he claimed, from the scarcity of craftsmen in Tokyo who made spouts for sake barrels. Though he had gone to the trouble of summoning a craftsman from Osaka, the venture collapsed due to their clash, and he still regretted this failure to this day.

When conversation turned to ordinary gossip beyond money-making schemes, he readily proved himself owner of abundant material.
Viewing mountains across the river from some upper Chikuma River location—where bears might be seen lolling about for midday naps on boulders, still relatively ordinary—the tales grew more vivid: how Shinshu's Togakushi Mountain inner sanctuary remained an insurmountable challenge for ordinary climbers, yet a blind man had astonishingly scaled it to the summit.
To worship there required spending a night en route even for sure-footed travelers, so Morimoto—having no choice—lit a fire near the fifth station to endure the cold when he heard bells ringing below.
As he wondered at this strangeness, the sound drew nearer until finally a blind monk came climbing up.
Moreover, when that monk greeted Morimoto with "Good evening" before hastening upward, it seemed so peculiar that closer inquiry revealed one guide accompanying him.
The guide had worn a waist bell so the following blind man could climb by its sound—an explanation somewhat understandable yet still quite unexpected to Keitaro.
When such tales escalated further, they transformed into something strange verging on ghost stories, delivered with utmost courtesy beneath unkempt mustache.
While passing through Yabakei after visiting Rakanji Temple, hurrying down a solitary path at dusk through cedars, he suddenly passed a woman.
She wore rouge and white powder with wedding-style coiffure, clad in patterned furisode bearing thick obi—still in zori sandals—walking briskly alone toward Rakanji.
Though temple business seemed unlikely with gates already closed, this fully attired woman climbed through darkness alone—so the story went.
Each time Keitaro heard such tales he'd utter "Heh," leaking disbelief-tinged smiles yet invariably receiving Morimoto's eloquence with keen interest and tension.

IV

Anticipating that Morimoto would come out with his usual sort of story as always, Keitaro deliberately took a roundabout route home from the bathhouse with him that day.
Though not particularly advanced in years, the life stories of a man like Morimoto—who seemed to have passed through all manner of society’s trials—were not only of great interest to Keitaro, who had just graduated that summer, but also held considerable benefit depending on how he listened.

Moreover, Keitaro was a young man with a romantic taste, genetically averse to the ordinary. When Tokyo Asahi Shimbun once serialized the adventure stories of a man named Kodama Otomatsu, he read them daily with the fervor of an underage middle school student. Among these, he found particularly fascinating an article where Otomatsu-kun battled a giant octopus that leapt out from a cave, telling a classmate in the same department: “You see, he kept firing his shotgun pop-pop at the octopus’s massive head, but it was so slippery there was no impact at all!” Before long, small octopuses came streaming out from behind the giant one, forming a ring around him. Just as he wondered what they’d do next, Otomatsu said they were eagerly watching to see who would win—so Keitaro recounted all this with great enthusiasm. Thereupon this friend spoke mockingly: “Someone as flighty as you could never settle for taking civil service exams and plodding through life properly. Once you graduate, why not just head off to the South Seas and hunt octopuses to your heart’s content?” From that time onward, the phrase “Tanigawa the Octopus Hunter” began circulating widely among his friends. Every time they met Keitaro—who had been wearing out his soles like a pestle searching for an exit into society since graduating not long ago—it had become customary for them to ask, “So how’s the octopus hunting going? Any success?”

The idea of octopus hunting in the South Seas was too outlandish even for Keitaro to seriously consider, but he had already contemplated ventures like cultivating rubber plantations in Singapore while still a student.
At that time, Keitaro could not stop imagining himself constructing a single-story bungalow amidst millions of rubber trees that sprawled endlessly across the wilderness—and within it, living day and night as the cultivation overseer.
He intended to deliberately leave the bungalow’s floor bare and lay a large tiger pelt over it.
On the walls, he would mount water buffalo horns to hang rifles from, and beneath them place a Japanese sword still sheathed in its brocade bag.
There he would wind a pure white turban around his head, recline on the rattan chair placed on the wide veranda, and puff away at his strongly scented Havana cigar with lordly ease.
Not only that, but beneath his feet there was supposed to be a mysterious black Sumatran cat—with velvet-like fur, eyes of pure gold, and a tail far longer than its body—crouching with its back arched like a mountain.
After arranging all these imagined scenes to his satisfaction, he finally embarked on practical calculations.
But to his surprise, securing land for planting rubber trees alone required considerable effort and time.
Then clearing the borrowed land proved no easy task.
Next, the sum needed for leveling and planting turned out unexpectedly large.
Moreover, when faced with six years of idly watching saplings grow while continuously employing weeding laborers—already convinced retreat was justified—the rubber expert who had advised him threatened that rubber supplies from those regions would soon exceed global demand, plunging cultivators into panic. Thereafter Keitaro never again uttered even the first syllable of “rubber.”

V

However, his appetite for the abnormal showed no signs of cooling so easily from such matters. He was in the heart of the capital, not only delighting in conjuring dreams of distant people and lands, but even when observing ordinary women sharing his train carriage daily or actual men he encountered while out walking, he would wonder whether each and every one of them might be concealing something extraordinary beyond the ordinary—tucked inside the lining of a cloak or the sleeve of a coat. And he felt like turning these cloaks and coats inside out to catch just a fleeting glimpse of whatever strangeness lay within—then feigning ignorance as if he’d seen nothing.

Keitaro’s tendency seems to have gradually begun to emerge from around the time when he was still in high school and his English teacher had the class read Stevenson’s New Arabian Nights as a textbook.
That he had previously detested English yet never once neglected to prepare this book’s assigned readings after starting it—and would invariably stand to provide his translation whenever called upon—shows just how thoroughly he came to relish it.
Once, carried away by excitement to the point of forgetting the distinction between fiction and reality, he earnestly asked his teacher with a solemn face, “Did such things actually happen in nineteenth-century London?”
The teacher was a man who had only just returned from Britain, but as he pulled a linen handkerchief from the tail of his black melton morning coat to wipe beneath his nose, he remarked, “Why limit it to the nineteenth century? Such things exist even now. London is truly a mysterious city.”
Keitaro’s eyes lit up with astonishment at that moment.
Then the teacher rose from his chair and said the following.

“However, since the writer is who he is—with his outlandish observations and interpretations of events that naturally differ from ordinary people’s—such works may have come into being.”
“Indeed, Stevenson was the sort of man who could find a kind of romance even in a hackney carriage waiting at the crossroads.”

When it came to hackney carriages and romance, Keitaro became somewhat confused, but upon mustering the courage to hear the explanation, he finally understood.
Ever since then, whenever Keitaro saw the most commonplace of rickshaws—those utterly ordinary ones clattering about every corner of this supremely mundane Tokyo as they waited at crossroads—he would imagine that very vehicle might have dashed off in haste the previous evening carrying a passenger clutching a kitchen knife for murderous purposes. Or he would fancy that someone had hidden a beautiful woman under its hood to race her against time to some station where she might catch a train heading in the opposite direction from her pursuers' expectations. Alone, he would take delight in these visions, trembling with both fear and fascination.

As he piled up such imaginings, the thought naturally arose that in this intricate world—even if his speculations fell short—he ought to encounter at least one incident capable of jolting his nerves with some unusual and novel quality diverging from the ordinary. However, since leaving school, his life had consisted of nothing more than riding trains and visiting strangers with letters of introduction—beyond that, there was not a single incident worth recounting as a story. He had grown thoroughly tired of the face of the boarding house’s housemaid that he saw every day. He had grown thoroughly tired of the boarding house’s dishes he ate every day. If only something might break this monotony—if the South Manchuria Railway position materialized or the Korea opportunity came through—then beyond mere livelihood, he might obtain some stimulation. Yet when it became clear two or three days prior that both prospects held no immediate promise, the ordinariness before his eyes increasingly seemed intimately tied to his own incompetence, leaving him utterly dazed. Of course, there was the running about to scrape together a living, but even the leisurely mood of searching for stray coins fallen on the streets—riding trains to casually probe into people’s affairs—had lost its appeal, so last night he had downed a great quantity of beer, which he didn’t particularly care for, and gone to bed.

At such times, seeing Morimoto's face—that of a man who could only be described as an ordinary person yet rich in extraordinary experiences—had already become a kind of excitement for Keitaro.
This was precisely why he had gone so far as to accompany him to buy writing paper and bring him into his own room.

VI

Morimoto sat by the window and gazed downward for some time.

“The view from your room remains as lovely as ever—particularly fine today.”
“The way those red bricks show through gaps in the warmly clustered patches of tinted trees beneath that scrubbed-clean sky’s hem—it truly does seem fit for a painting.”

“I suppose so.”

Keitaro had no choice but to give such a response.
Then Morimoto, from the window where he was resting his elbows, looked at the edge board projecting about a foot outward,

“This spot absolutely needs one or two bonsai placed here to feel complete,” he said.

Keitaro supposed that might indeed be the case, but having already lost the courage to repeat “I suppose so,” he

“Are you knowledgeable about paintings and bonsai too?” he asked.

“You asking ‘Do I understand?’—I must say I’m flattered.
“It’s truly not in my nature, so I can’t blame you for asking—but since it’s you, Mr. Tanigawa, I must say—though it may not look it—I’ve dabbled in bonsai, kept goldfish, and even went through a phase where I painted quite avidly.”

"You really do a bit of everything, don't you?"

"A jack-of-all-trades is master of none—so here I am, ended up like this."

Having said that, Morimoto looked at Keitaro with his usual expression—neither regretting his past nor lamenting his present, not a trace of sharpness in his features.

“However, I’ve always thought that I’d like to experience even a fraction of the varied experiences you’ve had,” Keitaro began earnestly, whereupon Morimoto—as if mimicking a drunkard—thrust his right hand before his face and waved it grandly from side to side.

“That’s a terrible idea. When you’re young—though come to think of it, you and I aren’t that far apart in age—but anyway, when you’re young, you want to try all sorts of unusual things. But after going through all those unusual things, when I think about it—it all seems so foolish. I just end up thinking it would’ve been better not to have done any of it. A guy like you’s got his whole life ahead. If you’d just stay quiet, you could develop however you like—but no, you’ve got to stir up trouble with your mountain recklessness and rebellious notions right when it matters most! Downright unfilial, I tell you. —So then, how about it? I’ve been meaning to ask—meant to ask for days now—but got caught up being busy. Found any good prospects yet?”

Honest Keitaro answered truthfully with dismay. And then, since there was absolutely no prospect of anything materializing for the time being, he added that he intended to abandon his exertions and take some rest. Morimoto looked slightly startled.

"Huh—so even university graduates these days can't land so much as a halfway decent position? Must be quite the slump we're in."
"It must be quite a recession, huh."
"Well, given we're over forty years into Meiji now, I suppose that's only natural."

Morimoto tilted his head slightly at this point, making a gesture as though mulling over his own philosophy. Keitaro observed the other’s demeanor and did not find it particularly comical, but within himself wondered whether this man deliberately employed such speech out of calculated intent or whether his lack of education left him no other means of expression. Then Morimoto suddenly straightened his tilted head.

“How about it—if it’s not disagreeable to you, why not try going to the railway department? Shall I tell you more?”

Even the most romantically inclined Keitaro could not imagine that relying on this man would secure him a respectable position.
But he lacked the bitterness to interpret Morimoto’s amiably dismissive manner—delivered with such casual ease—as deliberate manipulation.
Helplessly forcing a wry smile, he called for the housemaid.

“Bring Mr. Morimoto’s meal here as well,” he instructed, then ordered sake.

VII

While declaring he had recently been cutting back on alcohol for his health, Morimoto would empty his cup whenever it was poured for him. In the end, even as he muttered "Let's stop," he himself lifted the sake bottle by its base. He had always been a man whose quiet composure carried an air of ease, but with each refilled cup, that calmness grew feverish, his nonchalance swelling steadily outward.
“Now that it’s come to this, I might as well take it all in stride."
“Wouldn’t bat an eye even if they fired me tomorrow,” he boasted.
Since Keitaro hardly drank, he would occasionally bring the cup to his lips as if going through the motions—and seeing this, Morimoto—

“Mr. Tanigawa, you really can’t drink? How strange,” he said. “Loving adventure yet shunning liquor? Every adventure begins with drink.” He emptied his cup. “And they all end with women.”
He had been dismissively brushing aside his past as worthless mere moments earlier, but now drunk, his demeanor transformed abruptly. He began blustering with an attitude like a halo cast in reverse—a radiance born of failure rather than sanctity. This bluster mostly concerned past failures. And there sat Keitaro before him—

“No offense, but someone like you’s just fresh out of school—you’ve got no real knowledge of how the world works.”
“No matter how many ‘Bachelor this’ or ‘Doctor that’ titles you flaunt, I don’t intend to be intimidated.”
“I’ve got proper hands-on experience here, you see,” he declared brusquely, as though he’d forgotten entirely about the great respect he’d shown for education moments earlier.
Then, as if contradicting himself, he let out an “Ah”-like sigh and lamented his own lack of schooling with palpable regret.

“To put it bluntly, I’ve been blundering through this world like a monkey.”
“This might sound odd coming from me, but I’m certain I’ve piled up ten times the experience you have.”
“And yet here I still am—can’t achieve liberation like this—all because I’m unlearned, that is, got no proper schooling.”
“Though mind you—if one had an education, they probably couldn’t go changing willy-nilly like this either.”

Keitaro had been listening with due attention to what he considered—with a touch of pity—to be the words of a kind of unfortunate trailblazer, but whether due to having perhaps imprudently given him drink, today there was more bluster and complaint than usual, and he found himself regretting that his usual pure interest didn’t surface.
He tried cutting off the alcohol at a reasonable point, but it still left him unsatisfied.
And so, while offering the newly poured tea,

“Your accounts of your past are always fascinating to hear.
“Not only that, but an inexperienced person like myself feels grateful, believing I gain something each time I listen—but of all the life you’ve lived until now, what would you say was the most enjoyable part?” he asked.
Morimoto blew on his hot tea, blinked his slightly bloodshot eyes several times, and remained silent.
Eventually draining the deep teacup, he said:

“Let me see...
“When I look back on what I’ve done, they all seem interesting yet all seem trivial—I can’t quite distinguish between them myself.
“—When you say ‘enjoyable,’ are you referring to... well, matters involving women?”

“That’s not exactly what I meant—but I wouldn’t mind if there were.”

“Oh, come now—that’s what you really want to ask about, isn’t it? But let’s cut through the small talk, Mr. Tanigawa. Putting aside whether it’s interesting or not—I do recall living what must be the most carefree existence this world has ever seen. Shall I tell you that one instead of tea?”

Keitaro requested it without a moment’s hesitation.
Morimoto said, “Well then, I’ll go relieve myself,” starting to stand up, then added, “But let me warn you—there’s no female company involved here.
“Not only is there no female company—there’s not even a hint of human presence,” he emphasized before heading out into the hallway.
Keitaro, harboring a certain curiosity, waited for his return.

VIII

However, even after waiting five minutes and then ten more, the adventurer showed no sign of appearing.
Keitaro could no longer endure waiting patiently and went downstairs himself to look around, but there was neither sight nor trace of Morimoto.
Just to be thorough, he climbed back up the stairs and came to Morimoto’s room, where he found the man lying face down in the center with his arm as a pillow and the shoji left open about five or six inches.
He called out “Mr. Morimoto! Mr. Morimoto!” two or three times, but when there was still no sign of movement, even Keitaro finally grew irritated—abruptly entering the room and seizing Morimoto by the nape before shaking him violently.
Morimoto suddenly let out an “Ah!” and half-leapt up as if stung by a bee.
But the moment he turned around and saw Keitaro’s face, his eyes immediately reverted to their dreamlike lethargic gaze,

“Oh, it’s you.”
“Maybe I had too much to drink—started feeling unwell, so I came here to rest a bit and ended up dozing off,” he explained with an air that offered no real target for ridicule, leaving Keitaro unable to sustain his anger.
However, since his long-awaited adventure story had effectively come to a halt here, when Keitaro tried to withdraw alone to his room, Morimoto said, “I’m terribly sorry. Thank you for your trouble,” and followed after him once more.
And then, settling himself neatly on the zabuton where he had been sitting until moments before,

“Well then, shall I begin my tale of the world’s most unparalleled carefree existence?” he said.

Morimoto’s carefree life, as he called it, was a story from fifteen or sixteen years prior, when he had been employed as an assistant technician to survey the inland regions of Hokkaido.
They would pitch their tents in uninhabited areas to live and sleep, and once their work was done, they would shoulder those tents and press onward—so as he had forewarned, there was no trace of female presence to be found.

“After all, we had to cut through bear bamboo grass twenty feet tall just to make a path,” he said, raising his right hand high above his forehead to illustrate how densely the bamboo grass grew.
“On both sides of that cleared path when we woke each morning,” he continued, “vipers lay coiled with sunlight glinting off their scales.”
He recounted how they would hold the snakes down from afar with sticks before approaching to beat them to death, then roast and eat the meat.
When Keitaro asked what it tasted like, Morimoto replied that he couldn’t quite recall, but that it was probably somewhere between fish and game meat.

Their usual routine was to pile bear bamboo leaves and small branches into mountainous heaps inside the tent and cast their exhausted bodies upon them until they nearly buried themselves—though occasionally they would venture outside to build bonfires and find themselves confronting large bears face-to-face.
The insect swarms were so relentless that the mosquito net remained perpetually suspended.
Once they carried that very net down to a mountain stream to scoop up some nameless river fish, only to discover from that evening onward that the net had taken on an overwhelming fishy stench they couldn’t escape.
—All these episodes formed fragments of what Morimoto termed his carefree existence.

He also gathered and ate all kinds of mushrooms in the mountains, it seemed. He gave detailed explanations—how the Masu mushroom grew as wide as a hat brim and when sliced into miso soup would boil up looking just like kamaboko fish cake; how the Tsukimi mushroom reached armful size yet proved inedible; how the Nezumi mushroom resembled trefoil roots in its delicate charm. As an afterthought, he added how they once filled a large basket with wild grapes and gorged on them so ravenously that their tongues grew raw, leaving them unable to eat proper meals.

Just when it seemed to be all stories about eating, there emerged another bleak tale of them going without food for an entire week.
This occurred when their provisions had run out completely, and while the laborers were away fetching rice from the village, a torrential downpour struck.
To reach the village required descending to the riverside and following the stream bed downward—so when sudden rains filled the valley in moments, carrying rice back on their shoulders became impossible.
Morimoto grew so desperately hungry that he lay on his back staring at the sky until his mind grew foggy, until day and night blurred into senselessness.

“If you go without food or drink that long, both bowels and bladder must stop working,” asked Keitaro. “No such luck—they kept right on,” answered Morimoto with remarkable nonchalance.

IX

Keitaro could not help but smile.
However, what he found even more amusing was the ferocity of the great wind as Morimoto had described it.
When their surveying party encountered a wind so fierce they couldn’t face forward while crossing a vast silver grass plain, they crawled on all fours into a nearby dense forest—only for trunks and branches of trees one or two arm-spans thick to be violently shaken by the gale with such terrible noise that tremors traveled down to the roots, making the ground beneath their feet quake and sway as if during an earthquake, or so he claimed.

“Then even if you fled into the woods, you couldn’t possibly remain standing?” asked Keitaro. “Of course we had to throw ourselves flat,” came the reply, but however fierce the wind might have been, Keitaro couldn’t imagine roots spreading through the earth from such massive trees moving with enough force to cause earthquake-like tremors—and before he knew it, he burst out laughing.
At this, Morimoto too began to laugh just as loudly, as though it were someone else’s affair—but once the laughter subsided, he suddenly turned serious and made a gesture as if to silence Keitaro.

“It’s absurd, but it’s true.”
“Well, given that I’m the sort of useless fool who has experiences so far removed from common sense, it’s only natural you’d find it hard to believe—though I swear it’s true. But then again, to someone as educated as you, it must sound like an utter fabrication.”
“But Mr. Tanigawa—the world’s full of fascinating things beyond just gales, and while you’re out there struggling to encounter those very things, once you’ve graduated from university, it’s hopeless.”
“When it comes down to it, people usually start thinking about their social standing.”
“Even if one were determined to lower themselves as much as possible—it’s not like avenging a parent’s enemy, you know—there’s no one left in this world with enough eccentric resolve to seriously abandon their station and wander about.”
“Besides, those around you won’t allow it, so you’re safe.”

Keitaro heard Morimoto’s words as tinged with both defeat and triumph.
And within himself, he thought that indeed, a life more extraordinary than the usual might be beyond the reach of ordinary university graduates.
However, feeling compelled to suppress even this thought from himself, he adopted a deliberately defiant tone,

"But I did graduate from school, yet I still don’t have a position."
"You keep harping on 'position, position,' but—"
“Truth be told, I’ve grown thoroughly sick of chasing positions myself,” he blurted out.
Then Morimoto assumed a comparatively solemn expression,

“Your position both exists and doesn’t exist.”
“Mine exists yet doesn’t.”
“That’s the only difference,” he replied with an air of lecturing youth.
Yet this oracle-like pronouncement carried little weight for Keitaro.
The two smoked their cigarettes wordlessly for some moments.

“Well, I...” Morimoto began.
“I’ve been working at the railway like this for over three years now—had enough of it. Thinking of quitting soon.”
“Though if I don’t quit myself, they’ll just fire me anyway.”
“Three years—well, for me that’s quite a stretch, you know.”

Keitaro did not say whether it was better to quit or not to quit. Having never experienced resigning from a job himself or being dismissed, he felt indifferent toward others' career decisions. He was only conscious that their conversation had grown too matter-of-fact and lost its appeal. Morimoto must have sensed this, for he abruptly shifted his tone. After ten minutes of spirited small talk, he declared, "Well, thank you for your time—anyway, Mr. Tanigawa, these things must be done while one's young," affecting the manner of a man in his fifties before taking his leave.

For about a week after that, Tanigawa had no proper opportunity to speak with Morimoto, but since they were both living in the same boarding house, it was rare indeed for a morning or evening to pass without him catching sight of the man.
Whenever they happened to meet at the washbasin or such places, Keitaro found his eyes drawn to the black-collared workman's coat he wore.
He would often return from the government office wearing a newly tailored suit with wide-open lapels and carrying that peculiar Western-style cane, then promptly head out again.
When that cane stood in the earthenware umbrella stand in the entryway, Keitaro would think "Ah, Mr. Morimoto must be home today," as he routinely passed through the boarding house gate.
Then one day, though that Western-style cane remained properly placed in its usual spot, Morimoto's figure abruptly vanished.

X

A day or two passed without his noticing, but when even around the fifth day Morimoto's shadow remained unseen, Keitaro finally began to harbor suspicions.
When he asked the housemaid who came to serve him, she informed him that Morimoto had gone away on official business for the government office somewhere.
Naturally, being a government official meant he could be dispatched anytime—but Keitaro had long since concluded this man must be doing no more than working as a freight dispatcher within the station grounds, so hearing of this trip left him somewhat taken aback.
However, since Morimoto had stated when leaving that he'd be gone five or six days, when the housemaid told him he should return today or tomorrow, Keitaro did think that made sense.
Yet even after the scheduled days had passed, Morimoto's peculiar Western-style cane remained in the umbrella stand while the man himself in his workman's coat never once appeared at the washbasin.

Finally, the landlord came and asked if there had been any word from Mr. Morimoto.
Keitaro answered that he had been meaning to go downstairs himself to inquire.
Mr. Kami left with an uneasy look drifting in his owl-like round eyes.
Even after about a week had passed, Morimoto still had not returned.
Keitaro too began to harbor suspicions once more.
When passing by the accounts desk, he would even deliberately stop and ask, "Still not back?"
However, around that time—having turned his thoughts back to resuming his job search in its early stages—he found his mind increasingly occupied with that pursuit day after day, and thus refrained from probing any deeper into the matter.
To tell the truth, he had abandoned his rights as a curious soul for the sake of securing food and clothing, just as Morimoto had predicted.

Then one evening, the boarding house owner slid open the shoji screen and entered while apologizing, “Might I trouble you for a moment?”
He took out an old-fashioned tobacco pouch from his waist and produced a popping sound when removing its tube.
Then he packed his silver pipe with cut tobacco and skillfully sent thick smoke spouting from his nostrils.
As for the true intent behind this leisurely demeanor, Keitaro had remained unaware until it was explicitly broached from the other side—all the while thinking it thoroughly peculiar.

“The truth is, I’ve come with a small request,” said the boarding house owner, lowering his voice slightly before abruptly adding, “Might I trouble you to tell me where Mr. Morimoto might be found? I assure you nothing troublesome will come of it.”

Caught off guard by this unexpected question, Keitaro found himself momentarily unable to muster any response. Finally peering into the owner’s face, he asked, “What exactly is this about?”
Keitaro tried to read his meaning, but the owner, apparently finding his pipe clogged, was digging at its bowl with Keitaro’s fire tongs.
After finishing that, he tested the pipe’s airflow with a few experimental puffs before slowly beginning his explanation.

According to the owner’s account, Morimoto had let six months of lodging fees go unpaid at this house.
But as he had been a tenant for over three years and was no idler, they had trusted his excuse about settling matters by year’s end and refrained from pressing him—until this trip came about.
The household had naturally taken it for a business trip, but when days stretched beyond the promised return with neither sight nor word of him, suspicion finally took root.
They searched his room while sending inquiries to Shinbashi about his supposed destination.
Yet while his belongings remained untouched as when last occupied, Shinbashi’s reply proved startling:
Morimoto—assumed away on duty—had in fact been dismissed the previous month.

“Since you’re ordinarily so close with Mr. Morimoto, I came up thinking that by asking you, I might likely ascertain his whereabouts.”
“I’ve absolutely no intention of troubling you about settling Mr. Morimoto’s affairs—might I simply beg you to inform me of his present location?”

Keitaro found it extremely vexing to be treated by the boarding house owner as both a friend of this missing man and someone privy to his unsavory actions.
To state the facts plainly, he had indeed approached Morimoto until quite recently while harboring a certain admiration—but being regarded as if secretly colluding in such practical matters struck him as a profound disgrace for a young man with a future.

XI

Honest to a fault, he seethed inwardly at the boarding house owner's unreasonable suspicions.
But before his anger could rise, he was first struck by an eerie sensation—as though he'd been forced to clutch a cold blue serpent.
The misunderstanding of this oddly composed man—who kept taking tobacco from his old-fashioned pouch to pack into his pipe bowl—filled Keitaro with an unease no different from what the truth might have caused.
He was a man who handled his pipe with the practiced skill of an art form integral to negotiation.
Keitaro watched his demeanor for a while.
And he felt frustrated that there was no way to dispel the man's suspicions other than simply claiming ignorance.
Indeed, the boarding house owner did not readily put the tobacco pouch back into his waistband.
He repeatedly tried putting the pipe into its tube and taking it out again.
Each time, as usual, there was a popping sound.
Keitaro finally began to feel that he absolutely had to put a stop to this sound.

“I, as you well know, have just graduated from school and am still an impoverished student without any fixed occupation—but even so, I am a man who has received some education.”
“If I’m seen associating with vagrants like Morimoto, it does rather affect my dignity.”
“To go so far as to baselessly suspect there’s some underhanded connection between us, and then persistently doubt me no matter how many times I say I don’t know—isn’t that utterly unreasonable?”
“If that’s how you treat a tenant who’s been here two years, then so be it.”
“I have my own considerations.”
“I’ve been lodging at your place these past two years—have I ever delayed paying rent by so much as a single month?”

The boarding house owner repeatedly reiterated that he had absolutely no intention of harboring suspicions disrespectful to Keitaro’s character. Then he requested that should Keitaro by any chance receive word from Morimoto and learn of his whereabouts, he not forget to inform him. Finally, he added that if what he had said earlier had offended Keitaro, he would apologize profusely and asked for his forgiveness. Keitaro, wanting to make the boarding house owner quickly put away his tobacco pouch at his waist, simply replied “Fine.” The boarding house owner finally stowed the implements of negotiation behind his sash. When he left the room, his demeanor showed no particular signs of suspecting Keitaro, so Keitaro concluded that getting angry had been the right course of action.

After some time had passed, a new guest had entered Morimoto’s room before anyone noticed.
Keitaro harbored suspicions about how the boarding house owner had disposed of his belongings.
However, ever since the boarding house owner had come to negotiate with that tobacco pouch in his sash, Keitaro had resolved not to inquire further about Morimoto—and while his inner thoughts were another matter, on the surface he maintained an air of ignorance.
And so he continued doggedly pursuing what he considered his primary duty—securing a position that seemed both attainable and unattainable—with a persistence less feverish than before.

One evening, having gone to Uchisaiwaicho for that purpose only to find no one home, he had no choice but to take the train back. As he did so, he happened to notice a woman in a yellow-striped hanten coat with a baby on her back sitting across from him.
The woman had finely shaped thick eyebrows and a beautifully formed neck—a rather stylish type—but she didn’t seem at all the sort to wear such workman’s attire.
Even so, Keitaro thought, the child on her back was undoubtedly her own.
Looking more closely, he noticed checkered-patterned fine silk peeking out from beneath her apron, which struck him as increasingly peculiar.
Since it was raining outside, the five or six passengers had all closed their umbrellas and were using them as canes.
The woman’s black snake-eye umbrella—apparently too cold to hold—stood propped beside her.
The tip of its folded shaft bore the word "Karuta" in red lacquer that caught Keitaro’s eye.

When the woman he couldn’t discern was dark-skinned or simply respectable—the baby of dubious legitimacy in her arms, the pale face with thick eyebrows slightly furrowed into an inverted V above downcast eyes, the fine silk kimono beneath workman’s garb, and the vivid “Karuta” characters on the black snake-eye umbrella each pricked at Keitaro’s nerves—he suddenly recalled the woman rumored to have borne Morimoto’s child.
Morimoto himself had said: “It may sound strange to say this as if clinging to memories, but her features weren’t bad.”
Fragmentarily recalling phrases like “thick eyebrows that often knit together when speaking,” Keitaro studied the owner of the umbrella bearing this inscription.
Then the woman soon alighted from the train and vanished into the rain.
Left behind alone, Keitaro returned to his boarding house while envisioning Morimoto’s face and mannerisms, pondering where fate had now spirited him away.
There he discovered an unsigned letter upon his desk.

XII

Driven by curiosity, Keitaro tore open this anonymous letter and looked inside.
There on the first line of Western-style ruled paper, the words "Dear Mr. Tanigawa" followed by "From Morimoto" below immediately caught his eye.
Keitaro promptly picked up the envelope again.
He angled his gaze this way and that, straining to decipher the postmark's characters, but the impression proved too faint to discern anything conclusive.
With no alternative, he returned to the main text and resolved to address that first.

The main text read as follows:

“You must have been quite startled by my sudden disappearance.
“Even if you weren’t startled, Thunder Beast and Zuku” (Morimoto had always called the boarding house owner and his wife Thunder Beast and Zuku.
(Zuku is short for mimi-zuku [ear Zuku].) Those two must have been shocked.
To be perfectly frank, I was actually a bit behind on my rent payments. If I’d tried explaining things to Thunder Beast and Zuku, I knew they’d make a fuss—so I deliberately skipped the formalities and took independent action.
If you dispose of the luggage left in my room—since the trunk contains all my clothes and other belongings, I think they should fetch a decent sum.
So please tell those two from me—either sell those items or use them as you see fit.
Of course, given that Thunder Beast is the scoundrel you know him to be, he may well have taken care of it long ago without waiting for my approval.
Moreover, if I show such leniency from my side, Thunder Beast might try saddling you with the outrageous demand of cleaning up the rest of my mess—but you mustn’t give him the slightest heed.
Those like yourself who have received higher education and are newly emerged into society tend to be preyed upon by Thunder Beast types, so you must take great care on that front.
I may lack education, but I certainly know better than to go defaulting on debts.
I fully intend to pay everything back once next year comes.
“Though I may have an unexpected number of checkered episodes in my past, if you were to doubt me on this point too, it would be as grievous as losing a single close friend I’ve gone to such lengths to keep—so I beg you not to misunderstand me because of some creature like Thunder Beast.”

Morimoto next wrote that he was currently employed managing entertainment at Electric Park in Dalian, adding that come spring he would surely visit the capital on business to procure motion pictures, and that he already looked forward with pleasure to seeing Keitaro there after so long. He then proceeded to boast in fragments about conditions in Manchuria through which he'd traveled. What most astonished Keitaro was the description of a gambling den in Changchun—apparently operated by a certain Japanese man who'd once led mounted bandits—where hundreds of grimy Chinese patrons sat packed like boxed lunches, eyes bloodshot as they exhaled a collective stench. Considering how Changchun's wealthy would don soiled garments for amusement while sneaking in and out, Keitaro thought even Morimoto must have played some role there.

The final section of the letter mentioned bonsai.
"That plum bonsai was purchased at a nursery in Ugusaka—while its trunk isn't particularly aged, it's just the right size for placing on a boarding house windowsill to contemplate morning and evening.
Since I'm offering it, do take it to your room.
Of course, given Thunder Beast and Zuku's utter lack of refinement, they may have already let it wither after plunking it in the tokonoma alcove and leaving it neglected.
In the umbrella stand at the entrance's dirt-floored area should be inserted my Western-style cane.
While its price hardly qualifies as extravagant, being something I've cherished, I wish to present it to you without fail as a memento.
Even should you take that cane, Thunder Beast and Zuku surely won't raise objections.
Therefore please don't hesitate in the slightest.
Do take and use it.
—Manchuria—Dalian especially—is an exceedingly fine place.
For a promising young man like yourself, there's likely nowhere better to thrive these days.
Won't you resolve to come?
Having made numerous acquaintances with Mantetsu since arriving here, I intend to provide substantial assistance should you truly wish to come.
Only I must ask you give some advance notice when that time comes.
Farewell."

Keitaro folded the letter and put it into his desk drawer, and to the boarding house owner and his wife, he said nothing about Morimoto’s whereabouts.

The Western-style cane remained inserted in the umbrella stand.
Every time he came or went and saw it, Keitaro was struck by an indescribable sensation.

Tram Stop

I

Keitaro had a friend named Sunaga.
This was a man of thoroughly passive conservatism: while being the son of a military man, he detested the military; though having studied law, he had no inclination to become either a bureaucrat or company employee.
At least, that was how he appeared to Keitaro.
His father had died long ago apparently, and now he lived alone with just his mother—a life that seemed both lonely and close.
His father had risen to a high position as a military accountant and, being originally skilled at wealth accumulation, the mother and son now enjoyed a comfortable status free from worries over food and clothing.
His passive conservatism could be seen as half stemming from having grown accustomed to these secure circumstances and half from having lost the stimulus to strive.
This became clear through how—perhaps because his father had occupied a relatively distinguished position—there existed relatives around him who were not only socially respectable but practically useful, people who would have gladly assisted his advancement in any number of ways, yet he kept listing one self-serving excuse after another and still continued procrastinating.

“It’s such a waste for you to keep spouting such extravagant talk.”
“If you don’t want it, just hand it over to me,” Keitaro would sometimes half-jokingly pester Sunaga.
Sunaga would habitually let slip a lonely, almost pitiable smile and refuse with, “But since it can’t be you, there’s nothing to be done.”
Even framed as a joke, being refused left Keitaro in less than pleasant spirits.
I tried to muster some resolve of my own.
But being by nature not one to hold grudges, his resentment toward Sunaga over something this trivial couldn’t possibly last long.
Moreover, with his social position still unsettled and lacking any stable foundation to calm his mind, he found it unbearable to sit still in his single boarding house room from morning till night.
Even when he had no business to attend to, he would make a point of going out and walking around for half the day.
And he often visited Sunaga’s house.
One reason may have been that Sunaga was usually home whenever he visited, giving Keitaro some incentive to go.

“Scraping by is one thing,” he said, “but what I really want—even before that—is to encounter something truly astonishing. Yet no matter how many trains I ride or streets I wander, it’s all for nothing. I can’t even stumble upon kidnappers.” Then he’d pivot abruptly: “You know, I used to think education was some sort of right—turns out it’s just another shackle. What kind of right leaves you starving after graduation? You might think that if social standing doesn’t matter, you could do as you please—but society still cares. Education binds people tighter than rope,” he’d sigh with palpable bitterness.
Sunaga appeared to harbor little sympathy for any of these complaints. Likely he couldn’t tell whether Keitaro’s attitude stemmed from genuine conviction or mere restless agitation.
One day, when Keitaro had been particularly insistent with such frivolous talk, Sunaga asked, “Then what exactly do you want to do? Setting aside practical matters like food and clothing.”
Keitaro answered that he wanted to do something akin to what detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department did.

“Then why do you not do it? It is nothing complicated.”

“But it doesn’t work that way.”

Keitaro earnestly explained why he couldn’t become a detective.
Fundamentally, detectives were like divers plunging from society’s surface into its depths—a profession that had seized upon human mysteries like no other.
Moreover, their position required merely observing others’ dark facets without risking personal corruption, making it undeniably convenient—yet being a vocation founded on premeditated entrapment, its very purpose lying in exposing crimes.
Such underhandedness was something he couldn’t bring himself to practice.
I simply wish to observe—no, rather gaze with wonder—at how humanity’s aberrant machinery operates in shadowed nights.—This was Keitaro’s fundamental conviction.
Sunaga listened without protest yet offered no critique.
To Keitaro, what seemed like worldly wisdom revealed itself as mere banality.
Taking offense at Sunaga’s composed air of disregard, he parted ways.
Yet within five days he again found himself wanting to visit Sunaga’s house, stepping out to immediately board a Kanda-bound train.

II

Sunaga resided in an exceedingly perplexing location—using the former Kogawa-tei, now called Tenkado, a tall building as his landmark, he had turned right from Sudamachi into a narrow alley that climbed steeply before twisting irregularly two or three times.
As this was a densely packed backstreet unlike Yamanote’s spacious residential areas, there naturally remained no room for an expansive estate; yet even so, the structure required walking nearly two ken across granite paving stones from gate to entrance—so much that one couldn’t reach the doorbell by the lattice without traversing them.
The property had originally belonged to his family before being lent to a relative and left unattended for years until his father’s death prompted them—on his mother’s judgment that its modest size suited their now reduced household—to sell their main Surugadai residence and relocate here.
They had undertaken significant renovations since then.
When Sunaga once explained it was practically rebuilt from scratch, Keitaro—thinking “Ah, that explains it”—had examined the second-floor pillars and ceiling boards.
This upper floor had been added later as Sunaga’s study; though prone to slight swaying during strong winds, it otherwise formed an impeccably clean and bright suite of two rooms—a four-and-a-half-mat chamber adjoining a six-mat one—with nothing whatsoever to fault.
Sitting there afforded views of pine branches in the garden, the upper section of an axe-hewn plank fence, and anti-intruder spikes along its crest.
Once when Keitaro stepped onto the veranda and peered down from the railing, he gazed at the egret flowers blooming thickly around the pine’s roots and asked Sunaga, “What are those white things?”

Every time he visited Sunaga and was shown into this room, he couldn’t help but clearly reaffirm in his mind the distinction between a student lodger and a young master of the house. And so he found himself simultaneously despising Sunaga for living in such a tidy, well-ordered manner while also envying his friend’s serene yet comfortable existence. The young man would consider it unacceptable to remain as he was while simultaneously desiring to become exactly that, and today too, bearing this patchwork of conflicting interests born from two contradictions, he had come to visit Sunaga.

After winding through the familiar back alleys two or three times and arriving at the corner of Sunaga’s street, a woman slipped through Sunaga’s gate just before Keitaro could reach it.
Keitaro had caught only a fleeting glimpse of her retreating figure, but the curiosity common to young men and his own peculiar romantic inclinations joined forces to drag him hurriedly toward the same gate.
When he peered inside, the woman’s form had already disappeared.
With mild surprise and dissatisfaction, Keitaro gazed at the shoji doors—quietly closed as usual with their maple-leaf-patterned handles—before his attention settled on the geta sandals left on the genkan step.
Though unmistakably a woman’s sandals, they sat neatly aligned facing outward without any sign of the housemaid having straightened them.
Combining the sandals’ orientation with the woman’s unexpectedly swift entry, Keitaro surmised this must be an intimate acquaintance who had entered unannounced by sliding open the shoji herself.
If not that, then someone from the household—but that would be rather odd.
Keitaro knew full well that Sunaga’s household consisted of four members: himself, his mother, a live-in helper, and the housemaid.

Keitaro stood for a while before Sunaga’s gate.
Rather than stealthily observing the movements of the woman who had just entered from outside the fence, he had intended to imagine what kind of narrative Sunaga and this woman were weaving together in their romantic intrigue—yet still found himself pricking up his ears.
But inside, it was as quiet as ever.
Far from hearing a woman’s alluring voice, not even a single cough could be detected.

"A fiancée, perhaps?"

Keitaro first considered this possibility, but his imagination was not trained enough to settle at that point.
Mother had taken the live-in helper and gone to visit relatives, so the house was empty today.
The cook had withdrawn to the servants' quarters.
Sunaga and the woman were now facing each other, whispering something in private.—If that were indeed the case, it would be strange for someone to slide open the lattice door as usual and call out loudly.
Perhaps Sunaga, his mother, and the live-in helper had all gone out together.
The housemaid must be taking a nap.
The woman had entered there.
Then she must be a thief.
He couldn’t simply turn back.—Keitaro stood rigidly, fox-bewitched.

III

Then the second-floor shoji slid open smoothly, and Sunaga—holding a blue glass bottle—suddenly appeared on the veranda, startling Keitaro slightly.

“What are you doing there? Did you lose something or what?” When Keitaro looked up at Sunaga peering down and asking curiously, he noticed that Sunaga had wrapped a white flannel around his throat. What he held in his hand appeared to be a gargle solution. Keitaro looked up and exchanged two or three words about whether he had caught a cold or something, but he remained standing outside without making any move to leave. In the end, Sunaga said, “Get inside.” Keitaro deliberately pressed again to confirm whether it was alright to enter. Sunaga, as if scarcely registering the question, gave a slight nod and withdrew behind the shoji screen.

As he climbed the stairs, Keitaro thought he heard the faint rustle of fabric from the inner room.
On the second floor lay only a discarded black Hachijō silk padded robe with a collar that Sunaga had apparently been wearing until now; beyond this, nothing differed from its usual state.
Given both Keitaro's nature and his friendship with Sunaga, there should have been no reason he couldn't directly inquire about this woman who so preoccupied him. Yet a lingering guilt over having indulged in improper imaginings, combined with an awareness of having cast an unarticulated yet sardonic gaze upon his friend, left him unable to summon the guilelessness needed to ask outright: "Who exactly was that woman who just entered your house?"
Instead, in a manner that seemed to suppress his heart's urge to race ahead,

"I'll put an end to these fantasies for now. Rather than that, securing a position is more pressing," he said, then earnestly requested that Sunaga introduce him to the uncle in Uchisaiwaicho he'd previously mentioned, wanting to meet regarding such employment matters.
This uncle—being the brother of Sunaga’s maternal aunt—had transitioned from government service to the business world and now held a considerable position involving connections with four or five companies. Yet Sunaga appeared to have no intention of leveraging his uncle’s influence, and Keitaro remembered him once saying: "Though my uncle offers various suggestions, I make little progress."

Sunaga had been supposed to meet his uncle that morning but postponed going out due to a sore throat, and after replying that he would likely be able to go within four or five days when he would certainly speak to him, added—whether by way of precaution or something—"My uncle is a busy man, you see, and since he gets requests from all quarters, he can’t make any firm promises. Still, you should meet him."
Keitaro interpreted this as meaning it would be troublesome if too much hope were placed on it, but even so, thinking it better to meet than not, found himself inclined to make the request with uncharacteristic earnestness.
Yet despite voicing the request, deep down he felt neither anxiety nor hardship.

That he had been racking his brains, scheming, and scurrying about—indeed still continued to do so—in pursuit of a suitable position since graduation was, as he himself publicly declared, an undeniable fact; yet within his exaggerated display of suffering over having yet to glimpse the dawn of success, there lay concealed at least half pretense.
He was not an only son like Sunaga—his sister having been married off—but in both their cases, only their mothers remained.
He was not an owner of land and houses like Sunaga, but instead possessed some rice fields in his hometown.
While it wasn’t enough to produce a significant rice yield, since it was converted into a fixed amount of money each year based on the number of bales, he was not in a position to struggle with twenty or thirty yen for lodging fees.
Moreover, taking advantage of his mother’s leniency, he had on more than one or two occasions requested extra expenses that ate into his own means.
So while all this clamoring for status and position wasn’t entirely baseless, it was undoubtedly being fueled by vanity toward hometown folks, friends, or even himself.
Given that, one might have expected him to study harder and achieve better grades while still in school, but being the romantic he was, he had instead resolved to slack off as much as possible in his studies, ultimately passing with rather unremarkable results.

IV

Thus, even as he spoke with Sunaga for about an hour—Keitaro having proactively raised those trying issues of status and basic needs himself—his mind kept returning to the woman whose retreating figure he had glimpsed earlier, so that he couldn’t muster toward practical survival the sincerity his lips had professed.
Once, when he heard a youthful woman’s laughter from the downstairs room, he even considered asking whether some guest had come to visit.
Yet the very time spent deliberating became an instrument to shatter naturalness, rendering his well-considered question ill-timed, so in the end he refrained from voicing it.

Even so, Sunaga felt he had done his best to bring up topics that would cater to Keitaro’s curiosity.
He informed Keitaro of how the backstreets behind the tram lines where he lived—divided into dice-like squares by small houses and narrow alleys to form nests of anonymous urbanites—contained dramas that never rose to society’s upper layers, with nearly every household enacting such unacknowledged plays.

First, five or six houses down from Sunaga's lived the retired proprietor of a hardware store near Nihonbashi and his concubine.
That concubine had taken an actor who performed at places like the Miyato-za Theatre as her lover.
The retired man knew about it and kept silent.
In the cross street beyond that stood a neat lattice-doored house whose purpose was unclear—whether it was a legal advisor's office or an employment agency—and from time to time they would write advertisements on a blackboard out front like "Urgently Seeking: One Female Reporter" or "One Female Cook Needed Immediately."
One day, a beautiful woman of twenty-seven or twenty-eight came there wearing a long dark-blue twill mantle with pleats draped over her shoulders—dressed exactly like a Western nurse—and requested assistance in finding employment.
It turned out that she was the daughter of the household where the master had once been a student lodger, so the story went that not only the master but his wife as well were astonished.
Next, when one emerged into the back-to-back backstreets, there was a white-haired moneylender with a wife of about twenty.
According to neighborhood gossip, she was said to be a wife taken as collateral for a debt.
Next door, while the gambler gathered his many peers to feverishly clash with bloodshot eyes, there were times when his wife—a sleeping baby strapped to her back—would come to fetch her husband, still engrossed in his match.
When the wife tearfully pleaded for them to return home together, the husband said he would go back—he would go back—but only after staying another hour to win back what he'd lost.
Then, because the more stubbornly she insisted, the more she would lose, the wife clung to him and pleaded desperately for them to return home now.
"No, I won't go back," "No, go home!" they shouted—even in the freezing midnight, disturbing the sleep of all the neighbors...

As he listened to Sunaga’s stories one after another, Keitaro grew increasingly convinced that Sunaga—who had lived for years amidst these proliferating real-life dramas—might also be secretly performing his own unseen play, then wiping his mouth and acting innocent.
Naturally, behind this conjecture lay the faint shadow of the woman’s retreating figure he had glimpsed earlier.
“I might as well ask about yours while I’m at it,” he pressed, but Sunaga merely hmphed with a faint smile.
After that, he simply said, “My throat hurts today.”
It sounded like a remark that seemed to say, “I do have a story, but I won’t tell you.”

When Keitaro descended from the second floor to the entranceway, the women's wooden sandals were no longer visible. Had she left? Had they been put away in the geta box? Or had someone discreetly hidden them? He had absolutely no idea. As soon as he stepped outside, for some reason he immediately rushed into a tobacco shop. And then he emerged from there with a cigar clamped between his teeth. Puffing on it, he came as far as Sudacho, but just as he was about to board the tram, he remembered the company's no-smoking policy, so he set off walking toward Manseibashi instead. He intended to keep this cigar until returning to his Hongō boarding house, walking ever so slowly while still thinking about Sunaga. But that Sunaga did not enter his mind in his usual solitary manner. Whenever he thought about it, the woman's retreating figure flickered after him. In the end, he began to feel as though Sunaga were sneering at him—"Do you think you can manage some clever romantic exploration just by peering at the world through a telescope from your third-floor room in Hongō-Daimachi?"

V

He had been, until now, a man who could claim neither intimacy with nor interest in what is commonly called downtown life.
Whenever he happened to pass through the backstreets of Nihonbashi and saw lattice doors too narrow to enter without turning sideways, iron lanterns inexplicably dangling above earthen-floored entryways, neatly arranged bamboo slats gleaming beneath raised thresholds, or the wafer-thin lower shoji panels—whether cedar or some other wood—glowing crimson where sunlight filtered through them, he couldn’t help but feel cramped and confined.
When everything was so precisely arranged in such a compact manner and made to shine like that, he found it unbearably stifling.
He considered that those who lived so compactly and meticulously probably even concerned themselves with how to whittle the toothpicks they used after meals.
And he surmised that all of this was governed by legendary principles, much like the tobacco trays they used—sheltered beneath habits polished generation after generation—dazzlingly gleaming.
Even when visiting Sunaga’s house and seeing places where they had elaborately built snow guards around pines that didn’t need them, or the view of a narrow garden meticulously spread with dried pine needles, he could not help but associate these with a young master, nurtured within the delicate embrace of Edo-style refinement.
First of all, the very fact that Sunaga had sharply tightened his stiff sash and was sitting with perfect posture struck him as peculiar.
At such times, Sunaga’s mother—who was said to enjoy nagauta ballads—would occasionally appear and bestow her smooth-tongued charm through polished yet sharply accented speech. Her manner carried the savor of something long stored away in a warehouse’s second floor, now retrieved—a flavor surpassing anything freshly made. Though Keitaro would never have called it formulaic, he could only perceive beneath it a skill honed through generations of practiced eloquence.

In short, Keitaro wanted a bit more freedom that strayed from convention.
But today he was different from his usual self, at least in his imaginings.
He wanted to grow up in backstreets lined with black storehouses where the damp air of the Tokugawa era still lingered—in a family home passed down from his parents—playing games like cops-and-robbers and war generals with friends who would call him “Kei-chan.”
He wanted to visit the Honorable Suitengu in Kakaidocho and the Honorable Fudo in Fukagawa once each month to perform goma fire rituals.
(Indeed, Sunaga routinely accompanied his mother in performing these antiquated practices as a matter of course.) Then he wanted to stroll enraptured through neighborhoods redolent of Kabuki adapted to modern tastes, wearing perhaps a plain iron-gray haori.
There he hoped to discover some alluring conflict—one bound by convention yet transcending it.

At that moment, he suddenly recalled the name "Morimoto."
Then, the fantasies surrounding those two characters strangely shifted in hue.
As a result of his own proactive curiosity in seeking a handshake with this shady eccentric, he had nearly ended up suffering an unexpected calamity.
Fortunately, since the boarding house owner had believed in his character, things turned out all right—but given that it was a situation where suspicion could have been cast endlessly if one chose to doubt, depending on the owner’s disposition, he might have even ended up having to go to the police.
And as he thought this, the arbitrary romances he had woven in midair suddenly lost their warmth and crumbled meaninglessly, like cloud peaks formed from ugly imaginings.
But deep within, only the emaciated face of Morimoto—with his double eyelids and sloppily drooping mustache—persisted tenaciously.
He found himself wanting to love that face, to scorn it, and to pity it all at once.
And he thought that behind this ordinary face, something inexplicably mysterious was dimly looming.
And then he recalled the strange Western-style cane that he had said he would give him as a memento.

This Western-style cane was an extremely simple one made by bending the root portion of bamboo into a handle, but it differed from ordinary canes in having a snake carved into it. Unlike the garish export-style canes commonly seen with snakes coiled around bamboo shafts, this one bore only a carved head—its jaws agape mid-swallow of some indeterminate object—which formed the grip. But as for what it was swallowing, because the grip’s tip had been rounded and smoothly polished, no one could tell whether it was a frog or a chicken egg. Morimoto had said that he himself had cut the bamboo and carved this snake.

VI

Keitaro noticed this Western-style cane first and foremost as he passed through the boarding house entrance.
Or rather, it was the associations formed along his route that drew his gaze toward the Seto-ware umbrella stand the moment he slid open the glass door.
To tell the truth, ever since first receiving Morimoto’s letter, Keitaro had felt such an inexplicably strange sensation whenever he saw this cane that he began deliberately averting his eyes when passing through the entryway.
Yet this very act of pretending not to look while skirting past the umbrella stand grew burdensome—until at last, though only faintly, he found himself feeling haunted by this peculiar Western-style cane.
He finally began questioning his own nerves.
Undoubtedly laboring under a vulnerability—being unable to inform the landlord and wife of Morimoto’s whereabouts or message due to fearing suspicions about his own past—this weakness cast no shadow over his conscience.
That he couldn’t bring himself to graciously accept what Morimoto had expressly offered as a memento certainly felt unpleasant in rejecting goodwill, yet even this didn’t weigh heavily enough to trouble him.
It was simply that Morimoto’s fate—buffeted by worldly winds—would soon meet its end.
(He would likely die in some gutter.) Imagining that pitiful demise now, he pictured this cane standing in the umbrella stand.
He envisioned how Morimoto’s own skilled hands had carved that snake’s head—neck severed from body—forever gaping at the bamboo tip in suspended animation: neither swallowing nor disgorging its phantom prey.
When Keitaro connected Morimoto’s destiny with this mute serpentine emblem—and considered being entreated by a gutter-bound man to carry this symbolic head daily—only then did that peculiar sensation first stir within him.
He could neither extract the cane himself nor order its removal—a predicament he exaggeratedly regarded as karmic retribution.
Yet between his poetically tinted visions and prosaic livelihood lay such discord that truthfully, he hadn’t suffered enough from this cane’s presence to contemplate changing lodgings.

Today too, the Western cane remained standing in the umbrella stand.
The serpent's head faced the geta cupboard.
Keitaro glimpsed it sideways and climbed to his room, soon sitting at his desk to begin writing a letter to Morimoto.
First he expressed thanks for Morimoto's recent message, then considered adding two or three lines explaining his delayed reply—but to lay matters bare would require writing that exchanging letters had become distasteful when contemplating how being acquainted with a drifter like him brought personal disgrace. Instead he brushed over it with a simple phrase about being preoccupied with his usual errands.
Next he inserted brief congratulations on Morimoto having secured favorable employment in Dalian, followed by an observation that as Tokyo too would gradually grow colder with the season, Manchuria's frost and winds must surely prove harsh.
He then composed several lines of kindness: "Given this must severely tax your constitution, please take utmost care not to fall ill."
From Keitaro's perspective, this was truly the letter's main intent—he'd wanted to write skillfully and at length so his sympathy might thoroughly reach the recipient, crafting something anyone would recognize as sincere. Yet upon rereading, he found nothing beyond ordinary seasonal greetings exchanged between acquaintances, leaving him somewhat disappointed.
That said, he'd already resigned himself that it couldn't match the fervent sincerity of a love letter addressed to a sweetheart.
So under the pretext that being poor at composing meant revisions were futile anyway, he left those lines unchanged and pressed forward.

VII

Regarding the disposal of the luggage Morimoto had left behind at the boarding house, he felt obliged to add something in writing as a matter of courtesy. However, he found it distasteful to ask the landlord about handling arrangements, yet without asking, he couldn’t provide detailed particulars. Keitaro hovered his brush tip midair until finally writing: “As per your request, I was supposed to speak to the landlord about having your belongings disposed of according to his convenience. But true to your clairvoyance, before I could utter a word, Thunder Beast took matters into his own hands. Please acknowledge this.”

“Regarding your offer of the plum bonsai—since no trace of it remains—I must decline.”

“I shall simply express my gratitude.”

After writing “and then,” he set down his brush again.

Keitaro had finally come to the matter of the Western-style cane.
Being a fundamentally honest man, he couldn't bring himself to spout some hollow lie about accepting that cane—so graciously remembered—and declaring he'd take it out for daily walks, yet neither could he write outright, "Your kindness is appreciated, but I cannot accept it."
Since there was no other way, he wrote: "That Western-style cane still stands in the umbrella stand.
It stands as though waiting day and night for its owner's return.
Even Thunder Beast dares not lay a hand on that snake's head.
Every time I see that head, I can't help but admire your skill as a sculptor"—reeling off perfunctory compliments to obscure the facts.

When addressing the envelope, he tried to recall Morimoto’s name, but as it simply wouldn’t come to mind, he had no choice but to write “Mr. Morimoto, Entertainment Officer at Dalian Electric Park.” Given that this was a letter he needed to keep from the landlord and his wife’s eyes due to their prior dealings, and since he couldn’t very well summon the housemaid to have her post it, Keitaro immediately stowed it away in the fold of his kimono. He had just finished descending the cold staircase with it, intending to go out for a walk after dinner, when a call came from Sunaga.

Today, upon hearing from his cousin who had come from Uchisaiwaicho that his uncle might be going to Osaka on business within four or five days, and thinking it would be too late if he delayed any further, he had tried calling to ask if they could meet before his departure. Having received an affirmative response, he concluded that if he intended to go, it would be better to do so as soon as possible.
However, since he had developed a sore throat during the call and been unable to discuss details, his message had essentially been to proceed with that understanding.

Keitaro said, “Thank you very much. Then I’ll go as soon as possible,” before hanging up. But since he would have to go regardless, he found himself motivated to visit that very night. Hurrying back up to the third floor, he put on the serge hakama he had prepared earlier and finally stepped outside.

When he reached the corner, he didn’t forget to drop the letter into the postbox—but by then, any real concern for Morimoto’s well-being had already dwindled to a faint ember in Keitaro’s heart. Even so, when the envelope slipped through the postbox’s slot and dropped to the bottom with a soft thud, envisioning how the recipient would break its seal within a week, he couldn’t help feeling it wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

From there until boarding the train, he walked straight ahead at a brisk pace. His thoughts had been fixed unwaveringly toward Uchisaiwaicho, but when the train reached Akejimashita, as he absentmindedly repeated in his mind the words he had just heard from Sunaga over the telephone, he found himself struck by an unexpected realization. Sunaga had indeed said, "A cousin came from Uchisaiwaicho today," but there was no doubt that this cousin was the child of his uncle. However, whether the child was male or female had absolutely no connection to the ambiguity inherent in the Japanese language.

Which one was it? he wondered.

Keitaro suddenly began to dwell on it. If that were a man, it would provide no clue regarding the woman from behind. Therefore, the woman had merely stimulated his curiosity without making any move at all. But if it were a woman, whether in terms of the day, the time, or how she had approached Sunaga's entrance, it seemed likely she was that very woman who had entered just one step ahead of him. Skilled at piecing together imagination and fact, he had already settled on this conclusion without bothering to verify it. When he arrived at this interpretation, Keitaro felt a satisfaction akin to dousing his effervescent curiosity with cold water—yet simultaneously sensed a dullness in having obtained one clue along a more mundane avenue than anticipated.

VIII

When he reached Ogawamachi, Keitaro briefly considered alighting from the train to visit Sunaga's gate and verify the facts directly from his friend's mouth. However, finding no justification for such intrusive inquiries beyond simple curiosity, he held back and immediately switched to the Mita Line.
Yet even as he passed straight through Kandabashi and sped across Marunouchi, he remained conscious that he was now hastening toward the residence of Sunaga's cousin.
He had meant to disembark near Kangyo Bank but accidentally rode past to Sakurada-Hongocho. Startled, he turned back toward darker streets.
Though the night felt desolate, he quickly located his destination.
Peering through the gate marked "Taguchi" on a circular gas lamp, the property appeared more imposing than expected.
In truth, it was merely the gravel path angling away from the road to conceal the entrance, combined with the densely clustered hedge blocking the front with its shadowy bulk, that lent this somewhat stern appearance to the nighttime scene—for upon passing through the gate, the residence proved far less expansive than its initial impression suggested.

The entrance had two Western-style glass doors closed tight, but even when he called out or pressed the electric bell, no attendant came forth. Keitaro had no choice but to stand beside them for a while, peering inside to gauge the situation within.
Then, from somewhere, footsteps finally began to be heard, and the frosted glass before his eyes suddenly brightened.
After two or three steps of garden clogs clacking against the tamped earth floor, one side of the entrance door opened.
Keitaro stood there with no particular expectation of notable appearance from the attendant—merely waiting idly—yet still anticipating that either a student in kasuri-patterned haori or a housemaid in double-layered cotton would emerge to bow and accept his calling card. Instead, the figure who now stood before him through the half-opened door was an impeccably dressed old gentleman of wholly unexpected stature.
Since he was backlit by electric light, his face remained indistinct, but the white crepe silk obi immediately caught Keitaro’s eye.
At that moment, the conviction struck Keitaro that this must be Taguchi—Sunaga’s uncle.
But the situation was so unexpected that he found no immediate chance to offer a greeting, left somewhat dumbfounded and staring blankly.
Moreover, Keitaro—who considered himself very young—viewed elderly men with such indifference that those in their forties, fifties, or even sixties all appeared as indistinguishable old men to him.
He lacked both the sympathy to differentiate between forty-five and fifty-five and the familiarity to feel at ease around either age group—to him they remained an alien breed that inspired vague unease until accustomed to—leaving him all the more disoriented.
However, the man appeared completely unperturbed as he asked, “Do you have some business?”
The thoroughly casual manner of speech—neither polite nor contemptuous—restored some of Keitaro’s composure, allowing him to finally state his name and briefly explain his purpose.
“Ah yes,” said the elderly man as if recalling, “Ichizo—Sunaga—called earlier today.”
"But I didn't expect you to come tonight," he added.
Perceiving implicit disapproval in Taguchi’s manner—as if coming so soon were improper—Keitaro felt compelled to offer his fullest explanation.
The old man stood listening yet not listening, then said, “Then come again."
“I’ll be taking a short trip within four or five days, but if you can find time to meet before then, that would be acceptable.”
Keitaro expressed profuse thanks and exited the gate, though in the dark night he reflected that his manner of gratitude had perhaps been excessively polite.

This was a story Keitaro learned much later from Sunaga’s own lips: at that time, the owner there had been sitting alone in the parlor near the entrance, facing a Go board and alternately arranging black and white stones while lost in thought.
This was because he had felt compelled to resolve a certain problem following his stone placement against a guest in their ongoing Go game, but just as he reached the critical moment, Keitaro began making such a country-bumpkin-like commotion at the entrance that he resolved to first rid himself of this nuisance before continuing—though in his impatience, he ended up answering the door himself.
When Sunaga told him this story, Keitaro felt even more that his greeting had been excessively polite.

IX

After letting a day pass, Keitaro confidently called Taguchi to inquire whether it would be all right to come immediately.

The person who answered on the other end, apparently mistaking Keitaro's relatively brusque tone for that of someone high-ranking, said politely: "Please wait a moment—I'll check if the master is available," then withdrew. But when relaying the response this time, their words turned markedly curt: "He's with a guest now—it's inconvenient. If you must come, arrive around one o'clock this afternoon."

"I see. Then I'll come around one o'clock. Please convey my regards to Mr. Taguchi," replied Keitaro before hanging up, though he felt an unpleasant sensation within.

Having intended to eat lunch exactly at twelve o'clock, Keitaro found that the meal he had ordered in advance from the housemaid was not brought out on time. Urged on by the clamorous university bell as if it were rushing him, he pressed for his food and finished eating as quickly as possible.
In the train car, he recalled Mr. Taguchi’s offhand manner from their meeting two nights prior and pondered whether he would be treated in that same casual way again today, or if—since they were now meeting at Taguchi’s own premises—the man might offer a slightly more amiable greeting.
He was prepared to endure some degree of stooping and discomfort if only he could secure a respectable position through this gentleman’s goodwill.
But if someone like that phone intermediary from earlier were to have their language turn coarse within less than five minutes, he’d grow thoroughly displeased again—he couldn’t help hoping that guy wouldn’t be the one answering next time.
Yet despite this, he was by nature completely unaware that his own manner of making requests was somewhat too brusque.

At the corner of Ogawamachi, when he saw the side street leading diagonally toward Sunaga’s house, he abruptly recalled that retreating figure and shifted his imagination from shade into sunlight.
For telling himself he was visiting where Sunaga’s beautiful cousin lived today felt infinitely more splendid to Keitaro than consciously dwelling on the troublesome reality of groveling before some unsmiling old man to beg for livelihood.
Though having arbitrarily decided that Sunaga’s cousin and old man Taguchi were parent and child, he persistently considered them as wholly separate beings.
Even when facing Taguchi at the entrance the other night—the lighting having obscured the man’s character—Keitaro had formed this initial impression of mediocrity based solely on facial contours, now etched in his mind as clearly as if seen through night vision.
Yet despite judging this man’s daughter—whatever her relation to Sunaga—as unlikely to be any great beauty, no corresponding conviction took root.
Thus he held toward the Taguchi household a mental image like a single sheet with sunlit front and shadowed back—simultaneously joined and divided.
After switching between these perceptions several times, he stood before Taguchi’s gate.
There, a large automobile waited with its chauffeur still inside, giving him a faintly ominous impression.

When he approached the entrance and presented his calling card, a young student wearing ogura-cloth hakama trousers accepted it and, saying “Just a moment,” disappeared inside.
Since the voice was unmistakably the same one he had heard earlier on the phone, Keitaro thought him an unpleasant fellow as he watched his retreating figure.
Then the student reappeared still holding the calling card.
“I regret to inform you that we currently have a guest. Please come again another time,” he said, standing planted before Keitaro.
Keitaro felt slightly miffed.

"When I called earlier to check your availability, I was specifically told to come around one o'clock this afternoon since you had a guest now."

"The earlier guest still hasn't left, and with the meal being served, things are rather hectic here."

Though the explanation wasn't entirely unreasonable had he listened calmly, everything about this intermediary's manner of speaking grated on Keitaro's nerves after their phone exchange.
Determined to have the last word, he said, "I see. How kind of you to trouble yourself so often."
"Please give my regards to Mr. Taguchi," he added with incongruous formality, then slipped past the waiting motorcar as if to say "What's this monstrosity doing here?" before striding out to the street.

X

After having conveniently concluded the necessary meeting of the day, he made his way to the home of a friend who had newly established a household in Tsukiji, intending to regale them with the full account of how he was artfully weaving together—with threads of imagination—the connections between Sunaga, Sunaga’s cousin, and Taguchi, who served as Sunaga’s uncle, while talking late into the evening.
But upon exiting Taguchi’s gate and standing beside Hibiya Park, he found no room left in his mind for such leisurely thoughts.
Though he had only glimpsed her from behind, he naturally lacked any buoyant sense of having already pinpointed her whereabouts and now paying a visit to her home.
He remained unaware that he had come here seeking employment.
He was simply angry—a result of feeling humiliated.
And he felt that Sunaga himself—the one who had introduced him to a man like Taguchi—ought rightfully to bear responsibility for this treatment.
On his way back, he resolved to stop by Sunaga’s place, recount every detail of what had transpired, and air all his grievances without restraint.
Thus he boarded the train once more and returned directly to Ogawamachi.
Checking his watch, he found there were still twenty minutes until two o’clock.
Arriving before Sunaga’s house, he deliberately called out “Sunaga! Sunaga!” twice from the street, but whether anyone was inside or not, the second-floor shoji remained tightly shut and never opened.
To be sure, Sunaga was a man of appearances who had always disdained such provincial methods of summoning; suspecting he might be feigning deafness even if he heard the calls, Keitaro formally approached the latticed entrance.
But when Nakabou—who had come to receive him—spoke the words “He left a little past noon,” Keitaro momentarily deflated and stood silent for a spell.

“It seems he had caught a cold, but—”

“Yes, he had been taken ill with a cold, but he said he was feeling much better today and has gone out.”

Keitaro was about to leave. Nakabou said, “I’ll inform the mistress,” and left Keitaro waiting inside the latticework as he went into the back. Then, from behind the sliding door, Sunaga’s mother appeared. She was a tall, oval-faced woman with an elegant downtown Tokyo air.

“Please, come in. He should be back soon.”

Once Sunaga’s mother made this invitation, Keitaro—unaccustomed to Edo ways—still had no idea how to politely decline and take his leave. First of all, her well-phrased words kept sliding one after another into his ears, leaving no gap for him to refuse. Unlike polite social platitudes meant to keep up appearances, as he was being urged to stay, his initial hesitation about imposing gradually faded without him noticing, until he found himself thinking he might as well stay and talk a while out of pity. Keitaro finally sat down in the usual study as instructed. Sunaga’s mother, saying he must be cold, now closed the partition doors, now urged him to warm his hands at the Sakura-filled brazier, and as she did so, his earlier agitation gradually subsided. He gazed at the fusuma’s pattern—large Akita butterburs printed across white silk called Shiki—and the glossy yellow lacquered hand warmer, all while conversing with this graceful, eloquent mother who seemed incapable of letting anyone leave.

According to her account, Sunaga had gone to visit his uncle in Yarai that day.

“So when I told him, ‘Since you’re out anyway, stop by Kohinata on your way back to visit the temple,’ he started complaining—‘Mother’s grown lazy lately, didn’t you make someone else do this last time too? Maybe it’s your age’—all sorts of rude things! But you see, he’s had this sore throat from a cold since the other day, so I tried to dissuade him again today—‘Wouldn’t it be better to rest?’—yet young people, for all their seeming caution, have such reckless streaks. They pay no heed whatsoever to their elders’ advice...”

Whenever he visited Sunaga’s home during his absence, his mother would invariably speak of her son in this manner, as though it were her sole pleasure.
If Keitaro were to bring up Sunaga’s reputation, she would latch onto the topic indefinitely and rarely shift the conversation—this had become customary.
Keitaro was quite accustomed to this by now, so this time too, he obediently listened to what she said with noncommittal responses, waiting for her to reach a stopping point.

XI

Before long, the conversation—having at some point strayed from the main subject of Sunaga—shifted to this uncle from Yarai.
Unlike the one in Uchisaiwaicho, this man was Sunaga’s mother’s actual younger brother, and Keitaro had heard from Sunaga that he was a man of extravagant tastes.
Keitaro still remembered stories about him declaring a coat disgraceful unless lined with silk satin, or doting on what he called antique imported calico beads—objects indistinguishable from stone or coral—despite having no practical use for them.

"It must be wonderful to live in luxury without working a day—what an enviable position," said Keitaro. The mother cut in as if seizing his words: "How could you say that? We’ve only just reached the point of managing through confiding in each other—we’re still far from any stage of leisure or extravagance, I assure you."

Since Sunaga’s relative’s financial standing held little relevance to Keitaro, he remained silent. Then, as if considering even a momentary pause in conversation her own failing, the mother immediately resumed speaking.

“Still, thanks to your kindness, my brother-in-law has managed to stick his neck into one company after another, so he at least appears to live comfortably—but when it comes to our lot and my brother in Yarai, why, we’re practically ronin these days! Compared to former times, we’re barely keeping our feathers from molting—my own brother often says as much himself and laughs!”

Keitaro felt somehow embarrassed as he reflected on his own circumstances. Fortunately, she kept talking smoothly, so he continued listening—at least relieved he didn’t need to formulate any responses.

“And as you know, Ichizo being such a withdrawn young man, I still can’t stop worrying even after graduating him from school—it’s truly vexing.”
“When I tell him to hurry and find a bride he likes so this mother can rest easy, he retorts that the world doesn’t revolve around my convenience and utterly ignores me.”
“If he’d just ask someone to find him a position—anywhere at all—and show willingness to work, that would be something. But he remains completely indifferent to such matters, you see…”

Keitaro had always thought Sunaga was indeed too negligent in this regard.
"Though it may be presumptuous of me to say so, why not have someone senior offer him advice?"
"Why not ask that uncle in Yarai you mentioned?" he said with genuine sympathy for the elderly woman.

"But he's an eccentric who detests company—instead of giving advice, he mocks, 'What fool would work at a bank clacking abacuses?' So consulting him is utterly pointless from the start."
"And Ichizo positively revels in that attitude."
"He often visits his Yarai uncle, claiming they get along splendidly."
"Today being Sunday and fine weather, he really should have called on the Uchisaiwaicho uncle before his Osaka trip—yet off he went to Yarai again, always following his whims."

At this moment, Keitaro began reconsidering anew why he had rushed into this house today.
He had resolved that upon seeing Sunaga's face, he would use vehement language to condemn the inconvenience, declare "I never intend to pass through this gate again—mark my words!" and leave in a huff. Yet with Sunaga himself absent and his unknowing mother steering their conversation in unexpected directions, his anger had inevitably dissipated.
Still, given how matters stood, he needed at least to relate to this mother the full account of his failed meeting with Taguchi—even if only into her ear.
Now that their talk had turned to comings and goings in Uchisaiwaicho seemed precisely the right moment, Keitaro thought.

XII

“Actually, I went to Uchisaiwaicho today too,” Keitaro began. Sunaga’s mother—who had been wholly absorbed in thoughts of her son—finally seemed to notice and replied, “Oh? Did you now?” with an apologetic look.

Keitaro’s frantic job search these past weeks, his eventual plea to Sunaga for an introduction after exhausting all options, and Sunaga’s subsequent efforts to arrange a meeting with the Uchisaiwaicho uncle—all these matters had been witnessed by the mother through her constant presence at her son’s side. She likely believed that a properly considerate person should have inquired about the outcome even before being prompted.

Having made this deduction, Keitaro used his opening statement as a preface to launch into a full account of events. Yet whenever she interjected with sympathetic murmurs like “How trying” or “What wretched timing,” he meticulously pruned from his narrative any mention of his own indignant outbursts.

After repeating “How dreadful” numerous times, Sunaga’s mother spoke as if defending Taguchi: —

“Well, the truth is, he’s a terribly busy man.”
“My sister and others live under the same roof as him, but—how should I put it?”
“He probably doesn’t have even one day a week for a proper conversation.”
“When I can’t stand to watch anymore and tell Mr. Yousaku, ‘No matter how much money you make, working yourself to ruin won’t do any good. Take a proper rest once in a while—your health is your capital, isn’t it?’ he just laughed and said, ‘I think so too, but one thing after another keeps popping up. If you don’t scoop them out from the sidelines, they’ll rot away—can’t be helped.’”
“Then again, he’ll suddenly decide to take his sister and daughters to Kamakura today, urging them, ‘Hurry up and get ready!’ as if startled birds were taking flight at his feet—it’s quite something...”

“Do you have any daughters?”

“Yes, I have two. Since they’re both of marriageable age now, I suppose we must soon find them households or take in sons-in-law.”

“Is there no chance that one of them might come to Mr. Sunaga’s home?”

Mother hesitated slightly.
Keitaro realized he had asked too many intrusive questions merely to satisfy his own curiosity.
As he was trying to think of some way to change the subject, the other party took the initiative,

"Well, who can say?"
"There are also the parents’ considerations."
“And unless we properly ascertain the parties’ own inclinations, we cannot know for certain.”
“No matter how fervently I alone may wish to do this or that, there’s simply nothing I can do about this particular matter,” she said with an air of significance.
Keitaro’s curiosity, which had once begun to retreat, seemed about to surge back at this response, but was immediately checked by his conscience deeming it improper.

Sunaga’s mother continued to defend Taguchi. Given how busy he was, she explained that while he might occasionally break promises he never intended to keep, once he took something on, he wasn’t one to forget—so perhaps it would be best to wait until his return from travel and meet him at leisure, offering this advice that hovered ambiguously between caution and consolation.

"The one in Yarai won’t meet you even when he’s available—there’s simply no helping that—but the one in Uchisaiwaicho has such a disposition that he’ll rush back for a meeting if arrangements can be made, even while away. Once he returns from this trip, without us needing to say a word, he’ll surely contact Ichizo’s side without fail. Without fail."

Hearing this, he had to admit she was right—Taguchi did seem like that sort of person, but that was only if he remained meek himself. If he went around fuming as he had earlier, he’d never get anywhere. However, now that it had come to this, he couldn’t very well bring himself to confess it, so he simply remained silent. Sunaga’s mother added, "He may have that face, but contrary to appearances, he’s a well-meaning joker," and laughed to herself.

XIII

The term "well-meaning joker" struck Keitaro as utterly incongruous with Taguchi’s dignified appearance and demeanor. Yet upon hearing actual accounts, he had to admit certain aspects rang true.

Taguchi had once visited a teahouse and earnestly requested of the proprietress, “Madam, this electric light is too bright—could you dim it a bit?” When the housemaid asked with a puzzled look whether she should replace the bulb, he seriously instructed, “No no—just twist it here to make it dimmer.” Whether she concluded he must be from some rural area without electric lights, she giggled and explained, “Sir, electric lights aren’t like oil lamps—twisting them just turns them off.” With a click, she plunged the parlor into darkness before abruptly restoring full brightness with a loud “Voilà!”

Unfazed, Taguchi remarked, “My my, still using such antiquated methods.”
“How unsightly! It doesn’t suit this establishment at all.”
“You ought to request improvements from the company soon.”
“They’ll address things in due order.”

His plausible advice so convinced the housemaid that she reportedly agreed to the upgrades, marveling, “This really is inconvenient—left burning all night, it’s too bright for sleeping. Many must find it bothersome.”

Another incident during a business trip to Moji and Shimonoseki revealed even greater artifice. When complications delayed a man named A from joining him, Taguchi spent two days at an inn devising an elaborate prank.

While strolling through town, he spotted a photography studio and impulsively purchased a provincial geisha’s portrait. On its back he inscribed “To Mr. A,” packaging it like a gift with an accompanying letter. He hired a woman to craft this missive—lavishing time to make it sufficiently alluring to stir A’s heart. Not only would anyone delight in receiving it, but since that day’s newspaper noted A’s imminent arrival, it included lines like, “Having sent this after so long, please come immediately upon reading to such-and-such place”—rendering it no trivial creation.

That evening he mailed the letter himself, retrieved it at delivery time the next day, and awaited A’s arrival. Even when A appeared, Taguchi withheld the letter. Maintaining a facade of discussing serious business, he finally produced it from his sleeve during dinner—as if suddenly remembering—and handed it over.

Seeing “Urgent—Private” on the envelope, A set down his chopsticks and opened it at once. Upon extracting the photo and glimpsing its back, he crumpled it into his pocket.

When [Taguchi] asked if some urgent matter had arisen, [A] merely muttered something vague and picked up his chopsticks again, though with restless demeanor throughout. Leaving their unfinished discussion hanging, [he] excused himself by saying it pained him to be rude, then retreated to his own room.
Taguchi called the housemaid and ordered that since A would likely go out within fifteen minutes, she should have a carriage waiting as if prepared in advance; before A could say anything, they were to bundle him into it, dash off, and drop him at the gate of whatever house he intended to visit.
Then he went to the same house ahead of A, and no sooner had he summoned the mistress than—riding in the carriage from his inn with its lit lantern—he instructed her that a certain man would be arriving; when he came, she was to immediately usher him into a fine parlor, treat him courteously, and before he could utter a word, declare "The gentleman has been expecting you for some time," then withdraw and promptly send word to him.
And then, puffing on his tobacco and crossing his arms, he waited for the course of events.
Then everything proceeded smoothly according to plan, and finally it came time for him to step in.
Then, going to the side of A’s room and sliding open the intervening fusuma, he greeted him with a "Well, that was quick," whereupon A’s face changed color in surprise.
Taguchi sat down before him and laid out every detail of his prank—"Actually, it was like this and that"—then added with a laugh, "Since I tricked you, I’ll treat you tonight."

"He’s the sort of man who does these whimsical things, you see," said Sunaga’s mother, then laughed with an air of amusement.

Keitaro returned to his lodgings while thinking that the automobile incident surely couldn’t have been a prank.

XIV

After the automobile incident, Keitaro resigned himself to having no further prospects of Taguchi's patronage. Simultaneously, when he reflected how even his investigation into that woman seen from behind—presumed to be Sunaga's cousin—had stalled at the shallow threshold of its inception, there arose within him an irritation both maddening and unresolved. He had never once been conscious of having broken through any barrier through his own efforts. Whether studying or athletics or anything else, he had never truly committed himself to anything and seen it through to completion. From birth until now, the sole thing he had carried through was graduating university—and even that achievement came only because others had dragged him through while he coiled himself idly about it. Thus instead of experiencing mid-process lethargy from immobilization, he remained ignorant of that clear-hearted satisfaction felt when one finally digs through a well.

He spent four or five days in a daze. Suddenly, he recalled a talk given by a certain religious figure who had been invited to his school during his student days. This man—though having no dissatisfaction with family or social standing—had voluntarily become a monk; when recounting those circumstances, he said he’d entered this path because he found it utterly inexplicable. No matter how brilliantly clear the sky above him shone, he claimed to feel enclosed on all sides, tormented by suffocation. Even when gazing at trees, houses, or people walking the streets—all vivid before him—he alone seemed trapped in a glass box, perpetually disconnected from the outer world until the anguish grew so intense it choked him. Upon hearing this story back then, Keitaro had suspected it might be a nervous disorder but had given it no further thought—until now. During these days of listless brooding, examining himself thoroughly, he realized his own lifelong failure to experience any truly fulfilling breakthrough bore eerie similarities to that monk’s pre-monastic state. Of course, his own condition was incomparably milder and fundamentally different—no grand resolution like taking vows was needed. If only he’d learned to exert himself more vigorously earlier, he might’ve lived more satisfyingly whether succeeding or failing—yet until now, he’d never truly applied his mind to such effort.

Keitaro, alone with these thoughts, resolved to charge ahead wherever he could—yet at the same time felt like he was chasing after a festival that had already ended, and so spent another three or four days drifting aimlessly without any real purpose.
During that time, he went to the Yurakucho Theater, listened to rakugo comic storytelling, chatted with friends, and strolled the streets—but all of it felt like trying to grab a kettle by its spout, leaving him no more able to grasp the world than before.
He wanted to play Go, yet felt like he was being shown games.
And if he was going to be shown games anyway, he wanted to see ones with more dramatic twists and turns.

At once he imagined a connection between Sunaga and the woman with the retreating figure. Their relationship was hardly one worth constructing in his mind with such reckless coloration and false depth—even had it existed, it would only amount to meddling in others' affairs. Yet even as he mocked himself for this foolishness, thinking How absurd, that very curiosity—this persistent notion that there must be something to uncover—kept flickering intermittently within him as it did now. Then he began to think that if he pushed a bit more patiently down this path, he might encounter something romantic unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Having gotten angry at Taguchi’s entranceway and abandoned his investigation of that woman altogether, he started considering his own impatience a weakness unworthy of his curiosity.

Even regarding his occupation, he shouldn't have raised the threshold between himself and Taguchi by voicing even a single word of displeasure over such a trivial misunderstanding. With that act, he had divided his still-unsettled future into half-baked possibilities of feasibility before reaching any conclusion. Thus he had willingly taken on the appearance of one agonizing over unresolved matters. According to Sunaga's mother's testimony, Taguchi—despite his exterior—was apparently a man of genuine kindness; it wasn't impossible he might consent to another meeting after returning from his trip. But if I were to inquire again about arranging an interview from my side, how mortifying to be dismissed as a fool lacking common sense. Yet to firmly seize that breakthrough sensation—even if it meant being called foolish—one needed to charge ahead that far.—Burdened with cares, Keitaro turned these thoughts over in his mind.

XV

However, unlike the extreme circumstance of needing to decide a matter of grave importance on the spot, within the depths of Keitaro’s brooding there floated a certain carefree lightness.
Should I press onward along this path to its very end, or should I abandon it here and now and prepare to move on to something new?

The problem had been extremely simple from the very beginning, without any need to analyze it thoroughly.
The reason for his hesitation lay not in facing some cruel fate where failure to draw the right lot once meant no chance of recovery thereafter, but rather in how a lazy mindset—the notion that it didn't matter either way since neither outcome would bring significant consequences—had unwittingly taken hold.
He was like someone reading a book while drowsy—disliking the effort to resist sleepiness yet attempting to absorb the text’s meaning—habitually cradling the egg of resolve in his carefree embrace, yet vexed solely by its refusal to hatch properly.
Under the pretext of needing to escape this indecision, he implicitly tried to flatter his own fate.
And so he resolved to have his future judged by appealing to a diviner’s Eight Trigrams.
He had not been educated in such an unscientific manner as to possess full faith in incantations, prayers, talismans, insect charms, or spirit possessions; yet he was a man who had maintained—and indeed cultivated—a commensurate interest in all such things from youth until the present day.
His father had been a neurotic man well-versed in the Nine Stars of Directional Divination.
When Keitaro was attending elementary school, one Sunday, his father tucked up the hem of his kimono and jumped into the garden with a hoe still shouldered. Wondering what he was doing, Keitaro tried to follow from behind, but his father turned to him and ordered: "You stay there and watch the clock. When it starts striking twelve, give me a loud signal. Then I'll start digging up the roots of that plum tree in the northwest."
With a child’s mind thinking it was another of his father’s house divinations, Keitaro shouted loudly the moment the clock chimed clearly, “It’s twelve o’clock!” exactly as ordered.
Thus, the matter was settled without incident, but Keitaro found his father’s oversight amusing—if he had intended to bring the hoe down with such precision, he really should have made sure the crucial clock was properly adjusted beforehand.
This was because the school clock and the one at his house differed by nearly twenty minutes at the time.
However, after that incident, when returning from gathering herbs, he was kicked by a horse and rolled down an embankment.
Miraculously having suffered no injuries at all, his grandmother rejoiced greatly and said, "This is entirely thanks to Jizo-sama standing in your place as substitute—look here!" When she took him before the stone Jizo statue beside where the horse had been tethered, its stone neck had cleanly broken off, leaving only the bib-like cloth behind.
From that moment, a cloud tinged with a suspicious hue began to drift into Keitaro’s mind.
Though this cloud would thicken or thin depending on his physical condition and surrounding circumstances, it was certain that even now, having reached adulthood, it had never completely dissipated.

For this reason, he had always gazed at the bow-shaped lanterns of street diviners as one of the interesting professions passed down through the Meiji era.
Though he lacked the enthusiasm to pay for the sound of divination sticks, whenever during his strolls he noticed women with blank faces illuminated by lantern light standing despondently there—drawn by curiosity about what mixture of hope, anxiety, awe, and confidence a diviner might offer these pitiable individuals casting this dark shadow into their future as they sank into contemplation—he would often approach half out of amusement and eavesdrop from the shadows.
Around the time a certain friend of his, despairing over his own mental capacity, agonized over whether to take an exam or drop out of school, someone who had obtained Zenkoji Nyorai’s sacred lot—the fifty-fifth auspicious sign—while traveling happened to mail it to him. Among its verses were lines stating “Clouds disperse, moons align to reveal clarity,” and “Flowers bloom to prosper anew.” Declaring “One must test such things,” he took the exam and passed splendidly. Elated, he even went about indiscriminately collecting sacred lots from shrines.
Moreover, since he had obtained them without any particular purpose in mind, he must have already been fully qualified to become a customer of a fortune-teller even in ordinary times.
In return, even in such circumstances as this time, there was a considerable mingling of capriciousness—a sense of “well, let’s just try it”—as a sort of consolation.

XVI

Keitaro considered which fortune-teller to visit, but unfortunately he had no particular place in mind.
He knew of two or three establishments—the backstreets behind Hakusan, somewhere within Shiba Park, Ginza’s numbered blocks—but those that were wildly popular seemed like charlatans’ dens he couldn’t bring himself to visit. Yet those who knowingly spouted nonsense while forcing it into plausible form were equally unsuitable. What he truly wanted was some quiet, uncrowded place where a serenely bearded old man might pierce through his uncertainties with startling words—clear and decisive—delivered in concise strokes.
While thinking this, he conjured up in his mind the face of the retired monk at Ippon-ji Temple in his hometown, whom his father had often visited for consultations.
Then suddenly noticing how absurd he looked—unable to tell whether he was deep in thought or merely sitting idle—he threw on his hat and set out with the vague notion that while wandering about, he might chance upon some fortune-teller's signboard that fate itself had arranged to beckon him in.

He emerged at Shitaya’s Kurumazaka for the first time in ages and headed straight east from there, passing temple gates, sculptors’ workshops, musty herbal medicine shops, and curio dealers displaying Tokugawa-era knickknacks alongside dust on either side, then deliberately cut through the grounds of a monzeki temple before arriving at the corner of Yamanouma.

As a child, he had often heard tales of Kannon’s bustling precincts from his grandfather, who knew Asakusa from the Edo period.
Among the various names he was told—Nakamise, Okuyama, Namiki, Komagata—there were even some that people today scarcely mention.
He had been told many food-related stories—about a stylish establishment called Sumiya in Hirokoji that served vegetable rice and tofu dengaku, or about the renowned loach restaurant in Komagata with its beautiful rope noren curtain hanging before the temple—but what most stimulated Keitaro’s imagination were Nagai Hyosuke’s iaijutsu performances, Mamezo swallowing short swords in great gulps, and the dried specimen of a giant toad said to dwell at the foot of Mount Ibuki in Ōmi Province, possessing four front legs and six hind legs.
To these, the illustrated explanations in the kusazōshi stored within the long chest on the second floor of the storehouse provided endless descriptions that conveniently suited a child’s imagination.
Scenes of a man crouched on a small three-legged tray while still wearing single-tooth clogs, attempting to draw a sword curved higher than his own body with a cloth sash across his shoulders; of Jiraiya sitting cross-legged atop a giant toad working magic; of a white-bearded old man holding a telescope larger than his face seated before a Chinese-style desk looking down upon a flattened chonmage topknot—all such marvels had emerged from picture books to line up in this imagined Asakusa.
For this reason, within the precincts of Kannon as they appeared in Keitaro’s mind, hues of historical grotesquerie and fantasy had always enveloped the eighteen-ken main hall, shimmering like heat haze since his childhood.
Since coming to Tokyo, this strange dream had of course been painfully shattered, yet even now he would sometimes drift into thoughts that storks might still be nesting on Kannon’s roof.
Today as well, the notion that something might come of going to Asakusa had been subconsciously at work, and his feet had naturally turned in this direction.
However, when he emerged from behind Luna Park to stand before the movie theater, he was struck anew by the bustling crowd—this was no place for fortune-tellers.
He thought he might at least go stroke the Binzuru statue, but having forgotten its location, he climbed up to the main hall instead. After viewing only the Fish Market’s great lantern and the framed painting of Yorimasa subduing the Nue, he promptly exited through Kaminarimon.
In Keitaro’s estimation, there ought to be one or two fortune-tellers along the way from here to Asakusabashi.
If there are any, I’ll make a point to enter regardless—it doesn’t matter which one.
He walked along as though searching for a decent restaurant around lunchtime—or perhaps he could turn past Koto Kogyo and cut through toward Yanagibashi.
But when he actually set out to find one, it proved frustratingly elusive—though ordinarily even a casual stroll would reveal divination signs hanging everywhere, not a single fortune-teller with an open storefront could be found along that broad main street.
Keitaro arrived at Kuramae with some disappointment, thinking this plan too might end halfway without breaking through—just like all the others before it.
Then at last, after much searching, he found a single establishment of the kind he’d been seeking.
On a long, narrow hardwood plank, beneath "Fortune-telling and Divination" written in split characters, was carved "Monzen Uranai" in white lettering, and further below that, a bright red chili pepper painted with lacquer.
This strange signboard first caught Keitaro’s eye.

XVII

Upon closer inspection, they had partitioned this herbal medicine shop to create a neatly arranged space in the narrower section; since bags of seven-spice chili peppers were displayed inside, it must indeed be designed for conducting divination alongside selling these items as the signboard indicated.
Having made these observations, Keitaro stealthily peered into the recesses of the partitioned area that resembled a sweetshop—only to find a petite old woman sitting there sewing alone.
Though it appeared to be nothing more than a single cramped room serving as both residence and workplace, with no sign of the crucial diviner, he initially thought perhaps the proprietor was away and his wife was minding the shop. However, judging from the storefront’s layout—which suggested the rear might connect to the herbal medicine shop—he couldn’t conclusively deem it unattended.
Stepping a few paces forward, he peered into the herbal medicine shop proper. There were no dried lampreys hung up, no large turtle shells on display, nor any old-fashioned decorations—dolls with hollowed torsos revealing five-colored viscera arranged on shelves inside their bellies.
The bearded old man resembling Ippon-ji Temple’s retired monk was naturally nowhere to be seen.
He stepped back once more and passed through the curtained entrance bearing a sign that read “Fortune-Telling and Monzen Divination.”
The old woman who had been sewing stopped her needlework and peered at Keitaro over large glasses before asking bluntly: “A divination?”
“Yes, I’d like a reading,” said Keitaro, “but it seems the diviner isn’t in.”
The old woman answered “Please come up” while tidying away the soft object on her lap.
Keitaro obediently climbed up as instructed and found it to be a narrow room—cramped but not unpleasantly dirty.
The tatami mats had been newly replaced and still exuded a fresh scent.
The old woman poured boiling water from an iron kettle into a teacup and placed roasted barley tea before Keitaro.
She then began retrieving a small desk from what appeared to be shelves once used for medicine boxes.
The desk was covered with plain woolen cloth, but the old woman positioned it directly before Keitaro before returning to her original seat.

“I am the one who performs the divination.”

Keitaro was taken by surprise. This woman with her hair tied in a small round chignon—dressed in a plain striped haori over a black satin-collared kimono, sewing with single-minded focus—being the prophetess of the fate awaiting him lay entirely beyond his imagination. Moreover, he stared in wonder at the absence of divination sticks, counting rods, or celestial telescopes on her desk. The old woman clinked nine holed coins from a slender bag on the desk’s surface. Keitaro surmised these must be the “monzen coins” advertised on the signboard’s “Monzen Divination” label. Yet how these nine coins could relate to fate’s threads manipulating him in darkness defied comprehension. He silently compared their cast patterns with the storage bag’s design—a piece seemingly crafted from Noh costume remnants or leftover mounting fabric for scrolls, its gold threads glinting sporadically through age-worn patches where handling and time had leached away all vivid hues.

The old woman arranged nine monzen coins into three rows of three with her white, slender fingers—unexpectedly refined for her age—then abruptly looked up and asked, “Shall I read your life’s course?”

“Well, hearing my whole fate at once couldn’t hurt,” he replied, “but what matters more right now is deciding how to act here. Let’s start with that.”

The old woman replied, “Is that so?” then asked Keitaro his age.
She confirmed his birth month and day.
Afterward, as if making mental calculations or arranging something, she counted on her fingers and pondered before rearranging the coins again with her delicate fingers.
Keitaro watched intently, his gaze seeking profound meaning in the three-row sequence where waves or characters seemed to appear on the coins’ surfaces.

XVIII

The old woman rested her hands on her knees for some time, silently studying the faces of the old coins with intense focus. When at last her thoughts seemed to have coalesced into clarity, she declared flatly, “You are lost,” and locked her gaze on Keitaro.
Keitaro deliberately gave no answer.

"You're wavering between advancing or holding back—this is to your detriment."
"It would be better for you to press ahead—even if it seems unfavorable for a time, in the end it will prove advantageous."

Having delivered this verdict, the old woman closed her mouth and studied Keitaro's reaction.
Keitaro had resolved from the start to only listen with noncommittal hmms, determined internally not to speak himself. Yet at the old woman's words, he felt his vague mind—reflecting her voice like a dim mirror—briefly take tangible form, so he found himself wanting to respond to this stimulus.

“Even if I press onward, might I not fail?”

“Yes.”
“So try to stay calm.”
“And don’t lose your temper, alright?”

He thought this was no prophecy—merely common-sense advice applicable to anyone—but finding nothing intentionally deceptive in the old woman’s demeanor, he pressed on with his questions.

“When you say ‘press onward,’ which way should I go?”

“That’s something you should know better than I.”
“I can only tell you to press onward just a bit further—that’s all I must say, as it would be to your benefit.”

At this point, Keitaro found himself unable to retreat with a simple "I suppose that's how it goes," given how matters had progressed.

"But since there are two paths, I'm asking which one I should take."

The old woman fell silent again, gazing at the coins before answering in a heavier tone than before, “Well, they’re much the same.” She then gathered thread scraps scattered during her earlier sewing, selected several long strands of navy and crimson silk from among them, and began neatly twisting them together before Keitaro’s eyes. Keitaro thought this mere idle busywork and paid it no particular heed, but she meticulously twisted them into a five- or six-inch length—about seven inches—and laid it atop the coins.

“Look at this.”
“When you twist them together like this, doesn’t one thread become two strands, and two strands become one thread?”
“See—the flashy red and the subdued navy.”
“In youth, people tend to rush headlong toward the flashy and nothing but the flashy only to fail, but yours at present are intertwined just like these twisted threads—in just the right balance—so you are fortunate.”

The metaphor of the silk threads was undeniably intriguing, but when told he was fortunate, Keitaro found himself more amused than pleased.

"So if I tread a steady path with this navy thread, flashes of that showy red will appear along the way—is that what you mean?" Keitaro asked in a tone that seemed to swallow her words.

"Yes, yes, that's how it should be," answered the old woman.
From the start, Keitaro hadn't been so desperately fixated on forcing a definitive choice between left or right based solely on a single divination pronouncement. Yet leaving with only this much still felt somewhat unsatisfying.
If the old woman's words had been tidings from some distant realm utterly removed from his own heart, there would naturally be nothing more to discuss. But given how they could be interpreted—how several aspects seemed applicable to his current circumstances—Keitaro was left with a faint lingering attachment to them.

“Is there anything else I should inquire about?”

“Let me see... You may be able to accomplish something minor before long.”

“A calamity?”

“It may not be a calamity, but if you aren’t careful, you’ll bungle it. And if you bungle it, that’ll be final—no undoing things afterward.”

XIX

Keitaro's curiosity sharpened slightly.

"What exactly is the nature of this matter?"

“You won’t know until it occurs and you witness it yourself.”
“Though it doesn’t appear to involve theft or drowning.”

“Then I suppose you don’t know how to avoid failing either?”

“It’s not that I lack knowledge—if you desire it, I could cast another divination for you.”

Keitaro could not help but say, "Then I humbly request it."
The old woman moved her delicate fingers with deft precision again, rearranging the divination coins.
To Keitaro's eyes, both the previous arrangement and this new one appeared largely similar, but the old woman evidently perceived some critical distinction between them—so much so that she refrained from carelessly flipping over even a single coin.
After meticulously arranging all nine coins at last, the old woman turned to Keitaro and announced, "I have grasped the general shape of things now."

"What should I do?"

“What should you do? Divination reveals only broad patterns through yin-yang principles—when facing reality, each must adapt those patterns to their situation. Well, here’s how it is.”
“You’re waiting for something that’s both yourself and another, long yet short, emerging yet receding. When this matter arises, make sure not to forget that above all else.”
“If you do that, things will go smoothly.”

Keitaro found himself utterly bewildered.
However grand a pattern might manifest through yin-yang principles, this was fog too thick to discern direction—so he pressed her for something more concrete, whether truth or lie mattered not. Two or three rounds of verbal sparring yielded no resolution.
In the end, Keitaro emerged carrying these Zen-like mumblings like a hand-towel-wrapped warming pan tucked against his chest.
On his way out, he bought two packets of seven-color chili peppers and slipped them into his sleeve.

The next day, as he sat before his breakfast tray and lifted the lid from the steaming miso soup bowl, he suddenly remembered yesterday’s chili peppers and took out the same bag from his sleeve.
He generously sprinkled them over the soup and managed to finish his meal while enduring the stinging heat, but when he tried to summon in his mind what the old woman had called “the grand pattern manifested through yin-yang principles,” it still lingered vaguely, like gas.
However, not being so devoted a believer in divination as to agonize over an inscrutable mystery, he was spared the anguish of desperately trying to interpret it.
Yet precisely because there was a peculiar allure to this incomprehensible part, before he could forget, he wrote down the old woman’s exact words on a scrap of paper and slipped it into his desk drawer.

The question of whether to devise a means to meet Taguchi again had already been settled by the old woman’s advice yesterday—or so Keitaro interpreted.
But he wasn’t moving because he believed in the divination—he thought it was simply that the old woman had provided the opportunity to act just as he was about to move.
He considered going to Sunaga to ask whether his uncle had already returned from Osaka, but since the memory of the automobile incident still weighed freshly on his mind, he couldn’t quite muster the courage to make the visit.
The telephone was also difficult to use under the circumstances.
He had no choice but to settle the matter by letter.
After briefly writing an account nearly identical to what he had previously related to Sunaga's mother, he inquired whether Taguchi had returned from his trip yet. Should he have returned, Keitaro continued—apologizing profusely for the imposition during such busy times—might it be possible to arrange a meeting? As for himself, being idle anyway, he intended to appear at any appointed date and time. All this he presented in a tone that seemed to have cleanly forgotten his previous urgency.
At the very moment he sent this letter, Keitaro anticipated Sunaga’s reply would come as soon as tomorrow.
However, even after two days had passed, then three days, there was still no response, and he began to be troubled by a growing sense of unease.
Regret now mingled with his unease—the thought that acting on some half-baked diviner’s words and making a fool of himself would be utterly pointless.
Then, on the morning of the fourth day, he was suddenly summoned by Taguchi to the telephone.

XX

When he went to the telephone, it was unexpectedly Mr. Taguchi’s voice with a simple inquiry: “Can you come right now?”
Keitaro answered that he would come immediately, but feeling that hanging up so abruptly would seem too brusque and lacking in charm, he tried to soften his tone by asking, “Did Sunaga mention anything to you?”
The other party replied, “Yes, Ichizo did inform us of your request, but to spare you the trouble, I took it upon myself to check your availability.”
“Then I shall await you—please come immediately.” With that, he hung up.
As he once again put on his usual hakama trousers, Keitaro thought that this time things looked promising.
Then taking the black bowler hat he had recently bought from the hat rack, he stepped out briskly into the street with a face brimming with vitality and future prospects.

Outside, sunlight that had dissolved all traces of white frost at once lay serenely across the tranquil streets, undisturbed by winter winds. Aboard the train cutting through this scene, Keitaro felt as though he were advancing by parting streams of light.

Taguchi's entrance appeared more desolate than during his previous visit. When the usual student attendant in hakama appeared, Keitaro felt awkwardness prickle at him—unable to properly apologize for last time's incident, he maintained an air of feigned ignorance while politely stating his business. Whether recognizing him or not, the attendant merely uttered an acknowledging "Hah," accepted his calling card, and disappeared inside before soon returning to guide him to the parlor with a perfunctory "This way."

Keitaro slipped into the indoor shoes laid out by the attendant and moved through with guest-appropriate decorum, yet hesitated momentarily before the array of four or five chairs. Choosing what he deemed safest through self-effacing logic—reasoning that even settling on the smallest would avoid missteps—he deliberately selected the plainest chair devoid of high backrest or ornamentation, positioning himself in an inconvenient spot.

Before long，the boarding house owner appeared.
Keitaro stated his greetings for their first meeting and expressed his thanks for the audience using stiffly formal language he was unaccustomed to, whereupon the boarding house owner merely listened dismissively and offered a perfunctory "Hmm, hmm" in return.
And no matter how many pauses arose, he still said nothing at all.
He wasn’t exactly disappointed by the boarding house owner’s attitude, but he was frustrated that his own words didn’t carry on as long as he had intended.
Once he had exhausted all the formal greetings stored in his head, there was nothing left—he had to remain silent, fully aware of his own idleness.
The boarding house owner took a Shikishima cigarette from his tobacco pouch and then slightly pushed the pouch toward where Keitaro was.

"I’ve heard something of your circumstances from Ichizo, but what exactly are you hoping for in a position?"

To tell the truth, Keitaro had no particular aspirations. Having focused solely on obtaining any respectable post, when confronted with this question he could only muster a vague reply.

“I’m open to opportunities in every field.”

Taguchi burst out laughing.
Then, with a good-natured expression, he earnestly explained the circumstances—that in these times when university graduates had multiplied so greatly, no matter how many connections one might have, one couldn’t expect to secure a decent position right from the start.
However, this was something Keitaro had already known all too keenly—hardly requiring fresh instruction from Taguchi.

“I’ll do anything.”

“Even if you say you’ll do *anything*, you can’t possibly mean you’d even sell train tickets, can you?”

“No, I can.”
“At least it’s better than idling around.”
“If it’s something with future prospects, I’ll truly do anything.”
“First of all, just escaping the pain of idling would be good enough.”

“If that’s how you feel, then I’ll be sure to keep it in mind as well.”
“Though I suppose it won’t happen immediately.”

“Please—well, do try using me.”
“Though saying ‘your household’s—’ would be rather odd—even if it’s just your personal matters, please do try using me there.”

“Are you truly willing to attempt even such matters?”
“I am.”

“In that case, depending on circumstances, I may have some request to make.”
“Would any time be all right?”

"Yes—the sooner the better would be preferable."

Keitaro brought the meeting to a close here and stepped outside with a cheerful expression.

Twenty-One

Calm winter days continued for another two or three days.
From his third-floor room, Keitaro gazed at the sky, trees, and roof tiles visible through the window. He felt a quiet pleasure in this gentle sunlight that warmed nature into an orange hue—as though it were illuminating the world solely for his sake.
He had come to firmly believe, following their recent meeting, that a favorable outcome would soon descend upon his head.
And he waited most eagerly to see what strange form this result would take when appearing before him.
Within the tasks he had requested of Taguchi were included even more than what an ordinary client would propose.
He hoped not only for obligations arising from steady employment but also expected stimulating temporary assignments from Taguchi.
Given his disposition, he thought that if success's shadow were to graze him with its glimmer, something extraordinary—divorced from mundane tasks and imbued with special brilliance—would likely be cast abruptly before him.
Harboring such hopes, he basked each day in the beautiful sunlight.

Then, about four days later, another telephone call came from Taguchi.
A matter had come up that he wanted to ask of me, but summoning me all that way seemed inconsiderate, and discussing it over the telephone would only prove more troublesome. As such, he had decided to send the details by express letter—I could check them there.
The notice stated that if anything remained unclear, we could always consult again by telephone.
Keitaro felt a pleasant sensation, as though the focus of a telescope that had been blurrily out of alignment had suddenly snapped into clarity.

He did not budge an inch from his desk as he waited for the express letter to arrive. All the while, he indulged in his usual imaginings, mentally constructing what Taguchi’s so-called task might entail. There, the woman’s retreating figure he had once seen before Sunaga’s gate would intrude unannounced at every turn. Each time he suddenly realized it ought to be something more practical and scolded himself for these flights of fancy, he spent an agonizing interval wrestling with frustration.

Before long, the long-awaited letter envelope fell into his hand.
He tore open the seal with a swift, audible motion.
Without pausing for breath, he read through the letter from start to finish in one go and involuntarily let out a faint "Ah—" sound.
For the task assigned to him was even more romantic than the imaginings he had prepared himself for.
The wording of the letter was naturally simple and contained no words other than the matter at hand.
Today between four and five o’clock, there was a man in his forties who would board a train from the Mita area and get off at Ogawamachi Station.
He was a tall, gaunt gentleman with an oval face wearing a black bowler hat and a frosted coat; since he bore a large mole between his eyebrows as a distinguishing feature, the letter simply instructed him to use that characteristic as a marker to investigate and report his movements within two hours after he disembarked from the train.
For the first time, Keitaro began to feel as though he were a protagonist playing a leading role in a perilous detective novel.
At the same time, he began to suspect that Taguchi might be daring to perform such shadowy deeds to protect his own social interests—perhaps aiming to secure leverage over others’ vulnerabilities for future use.
At that thought, he felt the dishonor and immorality of being used as someone’s pawn, and an anguished sweat trickled down from under his arms.
He remained holding the letter, his gaze fixed and his body rigid.
However, when he combined what he had heard from Sunaga’s mother about Taguchi’s character with his own direct impressions from meeting him, it became impossible to view the man as someone capable of such malice. Even if this involved prying into another’s private affairs, the inference arose that it need not necessarily stem from such vulgar motives—and as this realization took hold, warm blood began to flow once more beneath his rigid musculature. Gradually, he found himself able to observe the matter with detachment, free from nausea at moral transgression, viewing it purely through the lens of curiosity.
And so, as his first real engagement with the world, he resolved to at least attempt completing this task exactly as Taguchi had requested.
He carefully reread Taguchi’s letter once more.
And then he verified whether, based solely on the features and conditions written there, a satisfactory result could actually be obtained.

Twenty-Two

Among the characteristics Taguchi had informed him of, the only one truly inseparable from the man was the mole between his eyebrows; yet under the dim light of these short winter days around four or five o'clock, trying to unerringly pick out a man from among the numerous passengers bustling to board and alight—using only this single specified point as a marker—was no easy task. Moreover, between four and five o'clock—precisely when government offices dismissed their staff—the number of bureaucrats departing from Kanda Bridge via the single train line running from Marunouchi alone was considerable. Furthermore, since the station in question was Ogawamachi—unlike others—the shops lining both sides, being close to year's end, had decked themselves out with curtains, bands, gramophones and such, creating a festive air beyond just electric lights to attract unexpected customers; this commotion too would have to be factored into his calculations. When he imagined this and considered the likelihood of success, a vague unease arose—the sense that it was beyond one person's capabilities. Yet if he could confirm that his target would indeed alight from the train dressed in a frosted coat and black bowler hat, he thought even there a thread of hope might linger. Of course, relying solely on the frosted coat—however distinctive its appearance—would provide no useful lead. But if he wore a black bowler hat—a headpiece so uncommon these days that only eccentrics favored it—it should catch the eye immediately. If he focused on that marker, success might not be entirely beyond reach.

Having thought this through, Keitaro resolved that he should at least go to the station to see. When he looked at the clock, it had only just struck one. Even if he were to arrive thirty minutes before four, leaving the house around three would be sufficient—so there were still two hours to spare. He remained sitting still, intending to make the most beneficial use of these two hours. However, all that played out before his eyes was the swirling chaos of the T-shaped intersection where Mitoshiro-cho and Ogawamachi crossed—no superior stratagem capable of inducing success arose in his mind. The more he thought, the more his head remained stuck in the same place, showing no sign of movement. Then, the worry that he would never meet the person he was trying to find stirred uneasily in his chest, accompanied by anxiety. Keitaro thought he might as well try to keep walking outside until the appointed time. Having resolved to do so, he placed both hands on the edge of his desk and was about to rise vigorously when he recalled the warning he had heard from the old woman diviner in Asakusa the other day: “Something will happen soon—when it does, don’t forget this thing here.” Despite having nearly cast the old woman’s words from his mind as an insoluble riddle, he had deliberately written them down and placed the note in his desk drawer for future reference. Then he took out that scrap of paper again and gazed endlessly at the phrases—seemingly his own yet someone else’s, appearing long yet short, emerging yet retreating. At first, it appeared as nothing more than what it had always been—utterly devoid of meaning—but as he read it over and over, he began to feel that if he simply thought patiently enough, something possessing these peculiar characteristics might perhaps emerge. Moreover, Keitaro recalled how the old woman had warned him—since he already possessed it—to take care not to forget when the time came. He now realized that if he could just find among his immediate surroundings something that seemed both his and not his, both long and short, emerging yet receding, then within this relatively narrow scope, the matter might be resolved surprisingly quickly. Therefore, he resolved to devote the next two hours of his free time entirely to unraveling this mystery.

However, starting first with the desk before him, then moving methodically through books, hand towels, cushions, all the way to his wicker trunk, bag, and socks—not a single thing that fit the description presented itself—and before he knew it, an entire hour had passed.
His mind grew disordered along with his impatience.
His thoughts darted about restlessly within his room; refusing to be reined in, he burst outdoors and ran about wildly.
Before him appeared a tall, gaunt gentleman wearing a frosted coat and black bowler hat, bearing the very authority of the man he was about to seek out, vivid in every detail.
Then that face suddenly became the face of Morimoto in Dalian.
When he gazed with his mind’s eye at Morimoto’s unkempt, bearded visage, he suddenly let out an “Ah—” as though jolted by an electric current.

Twenty-Three

The two characters of “Morimoto” had long served as a medium conveying an odd resonance to Keitaro’s ears, but lately this had intensified, transforming entirely into a kind of signifier.
From the very beginning, the mere mention of this man’s name would conjure up that Western-style cane; yet whether interpreted as forming a bond between them or viewed as an obstruction wedged between them to drive them apart, there had always been a certain distance between Morimoto and this bamboo stick—a distance that prevented leaping directly from one to the other. Now, however, they had merged into one entity, so intensely stimulating Keitaro’s mind that to speak of Morimoto was to invoke the cane, and to speak of the cane was to invoke Morimoto.
When the notion—neither fully his own nor Morimoto’s, its ownership stubbornly unresolved—rose abruptly in his mind, carried by heated blood through the stimulation pounding his skull, he cried “Ah, this is it!” and from the chaotic fleeing black shadows, seized that cane with a firm grip.

Believing he had solved the old woman's riddle of "something half his own, half another's," Keitaro delighted privately in this triumph. Yet since he still hadn't grappled with the remaining clauses—"long yet short, emerging yet retreating"—he steeled himself to extract these dual qualities equally from the cane through renewed effort.

Initially assuming it meant something appearing long or short by perspective alone, he pressed forward with this interpretation only to find it too banal—whether deciphered or not seemed equally meaningless. Retreating once more, he muttered "long yet short" repeatedly while pondering, but no solution readily emerged.

When he checked the clock, only thirty minutes remained of his two allotted hours. He began doubting his own judgment—had he blundered into a sack's mouth by mistaking its lining, willfully torturing himself in this impasse? If stranded at an exitless dead end, perhaps retracing steps to find new paths would prove wiser.

Yet with time so pressing, restarting from scratch seemed impossible; better to take heart in partial success thus far and push through properly instead. As his thoughts seesawed between options, imagination abruptly shifted from the cane's entirety to its carved serpent-head grip.

In that instant, his unconscious comparison between glittering scaled torso and spoon-tipped head brought revelation—this sickle-shaped neck lacking a body should naturally extend long yet stood abruptly truncated, embodying precisely that paradoxical quality of seeming both long and short.

The answer flashed through his mind like lightning; exultant, he leapt up wildly. The remaining "emerging yet retreating" puzzle unraveled effortlessly within five minutes—he envisioned something indescribable as egg or frog, half-hidden in the serpent's maw yet half-protruding, neither swallowed whole nor fully escaped, suspended eternally between emergence and retreat before declaring decisively: This must be it.

Keitaro, now convinced that everything had been neatly resolved in this manner, leapt up from his desk and fastened the watch chain around his obi.
He tried to leave the room with his hat in hand and without putting on his hakama trousers, but the question of how to take that cane with him gave him pause.
Touching it was out of the question—but even if he were to extract it from the umbrella stand, given how much time had passed since Morimoto abandoned it, there was certainly no risk of being reproached or suspected by the landlord, even without seeking permission. Yet actually attempting to retrieve it when they weren’t nearby—or even if present while unseen—would demand considerable forethought or preparation.
Having grown up in a household steeped in superstition, Keitaro had often heard from his mother back home that when acquiring items for use in curses—and he now intended to use them for precisely that purpose—one must invariably seize an opportunity unseen by others, or else they would prove ineffective.
Keitaro pretended to check the clock hanging directly above the boarding house entrance, then descended halfway down the stairs to peer at the situation below.

Twenty-Four

The boarding house owner sat in the six-tatami living room clutching his usual large Seto-ware round brazier.
His wife was nowhere to be seen.
As Keitaro crouched halfway down the stairs peering through the glass-paned shoji door, a doorbell suddenly clanged sharply above the owner's head.
The owner tilted his head back to check the call indicator and shouted toward the adjoining room, "Hey! Isn't anyone there?"
Keitaro crept back up to his third-floor room.

He deliberately opened the cupboard and took out the serge hakama that had been tossed on top of the wicker trunk.
As he put it on, he dragged its stiff back panel behind him and walked around the room.
Then he took off his tabi socks and changed into Western-style socks.
After making these adjustments to his attire, he once again descended the three flights of stairs.
When he peered into the living room, the wife’s figure was still nowhere to be seen.
The housemaid wasn’t around either.
The doorbell did not ring this time either.
The house was utterly still and silent.
Only the boarding house owner remained as before, leaning against the large round brazier, sitting perfectly still while facing the entrance.
Before Keitaro had fully descended the stairs, from his elevated position he caught a diagonal glimpse of the boarding house owner’s hunched back. Though he thought this timing was still unfavorable, he finally resolved himself and stepped out to the entrance.

The boarding house owner, as expected, greeted him with, “Off somewhere, are we?”
And then, as usual, he tried to summon the housemaid to fetch the footwear stored in the geta box.
Keitaro—who had already been laboring just to evade the owner’s gaze—judged that having the housemaid emerge now would prove unmanageable. “No need,” he said while lifting the geta box lid himself and swiftly retrieving his shoes.
By fortunate timing, the housemaid did not appear until he had stepped down into the earthen-floored entryway.
Yet the owner remained oriented toward him all the same.

“There’s something I’d like to ask of you.”
“In my room, on the desk, there should be this month’s Law Association Journal—could you fetch it for me?”
“Since I’ve already put on my shoes, it’d be a bother to go back up.”

Keitaro had deliberately made this request knowing the boarding house owner possessed some legal knowledge.
Since this was a task no one but himself could manage, the boarding house owner replied “Very well” and obligingly stood to climb the ladder-like stairs.
In that interval, Keitaro extracted the Western-style cane from the umbrella stand, tucked it under his haori as if embracing it, and slipped out before the owner returned to his seat.
Feeling the curved head of the Western-style cane beneath his right arm, he hastened to Hongo Avenue.
There he momentarily drew the cane from beneath his haori and stared fixedly at the snake’s head.
Then using a handkerchief from his sleeve, he meticulously wiped away every speck of dust from top to bottom.
Afterward he gripped it in his right hand like an ordinary cane and strode forward, swinging it vigorously with each step.
On the train he stacked both hands atop the snake’s head and rested his chin upon them.
Now that he had finally brought this phase of efforts to conclusion, he looked back on his exertions and heaved a sigh of relief.
Simultaneously he began worrying over whether he would succeed or fail upon reaching his designated stop.
When he considered how this Western-style cane—procured through such laborious stealth—could possibly aid in identifying a mole between eyebrows, its utility lay entirely beyond his comprehension.
He had merely followed the old woman’s instructions—desperately seeking something half his own and half another’s, something long yet short, emerging yet retreating—and now carried it faithfully without forgetting.
When doubts arose about whether this suspicious yet ordinary bamboo stick—absurdly light whether laid down or held aloft—could prove useful in locating his target, he straightened like one shaking off malaria and casually surveyed the train car.
Then he felt acute embarrassment toward his earlier frustration—so intense it seemed steam might rise from his scalp.
To mask his discomposure he deliberately retrieved the cane again and tapped it lightly against the train floor.

When he finally reached his destination, he first turned back from in front of the Youth Hall and emerged onto Ogawamachi Street. Since it was still about fifteen minutes before four o'clock, he crossed to the other side, cutting through pedestrian traffic and the clatter of trams.
There stood a police box.
From beside the red post, he gazed with the same bearing as the officer stationed before it at the southbound avenue running straight ahead and the broad boulevard curving in gentle arcs to either side.
After surveying this terrain that would serve as his stage for impending maneuvers, he immediately set out to verify the tram stop's exact location.

Twenty-Five

Heading east from the red postal box for about five or six ken, an iron pillar painted white with "Ogawamachi Bus Stop" written on it immediately caught his eye.
He reasoned that as long as he waited there, even if he lost track of his target in the crowd, he would still have the advantage of having reached his post by the appointed time. Clutching this reassurance to his chest, he left the marked iron pillar behind and surveyed his surroundings.
Directly behind him stood a storehouse-style ceramics shop.
Beneath its eaves hung a framed box display of numerous small sake cups arranged like a picture.
A large iron birdcage also hung there, with multiple ceramic feeders fastened to its exterior.
The neighboring shop dealt in leather goods.
The store's layered decorations included a large tiger pelt—its eyes and claws preserved as if still alive—edged with scarlet woolen cloth.
Keitaro stood transfixed, gazing deeply into the tiger's amber-like eyes.
The tip of what seemed to be a long, narrow scarf made of pure white leather bore an attached face resembling a small tanuki, creating a comical effect.
Checking his watch as he moved to the next shop,
he peered through the jeweler's glass window at an elegant display: transparent rabbits carved from agate, square amethyst seals, jade hair ornaments, malachite cord fasteners, gold rings, and lynx fur items arranged together.

In this way, looking from shop to shop in succession, Keitaro ended up passing in front of Tenkado and arriving at the storefront of the Chinese woodwork shop.
Just then, a tram coming from behind suddenly halted on the opposite side of the street where he was walking. Thinking this might be it, he diagonally crossed the thoroughfare and approached a Chinese goods store at the corner of a narrow side street. There too stood an iron pole bearing white lettering identical to what he had seen earlier: "Ogawamachi Bus Stop."
He stood at this corner just to be sure and waited for two or three trams to arrive.
First came one marked Aoyama.
Next came another labeled Kudanshinjuku.
But since they were all coming straight through from the direction of Manseibashi, he finally felt reassured.
With all such concerns now dispelled, he was just about to return to his original position when a tram from the south swung around the corner at Mitasudaimachi and halted right beside where Keitaro stood.
When he read the two black characters for Sugamo displayed above the tram driver’s head, he finally realized his own carelessness.
From the Mita area through Marunouchi to alight at Ogawamachi, one could proceed straight along Kandabashi Avenue and turn left to disembark at the bus stop where Keitaro now stood, or turn right to get off in front of the Seto ware shop he had inspected earlier.
Given that both were identically labeled as Ogawamachi Bus Stop in white paint, it now meant he had absolutely no idea whether the man in the black bowler hat—whom he intended to tail—would alight on this side or that.
Sweeping his eyes over them, he roughly measured the distance between the two red iron poles and found it fell just short of one chō*. But even if they were practically within spitting distance, given that his surveillance skills were barely sufficient to focus on just one station, demanding flawless monitoring of both was utterly impossible even for Keitaro in his current state of overestimating his own competence.
Due to the geographical constraints of his residence—having always ridden only the trams connecting Hongo and Mita—he now deeply regretted his own oversight in having failed until this very moment to notice the existence of tracks running from Sugamo through Suidobashi that likewise continued on to Mita.

In his perplexity, he had suddenly hit upon a desperate plan—he considered seeking Sunaga’s assistance.
However, the time was already nearing seven minutes to four.
Though Sunaga lived just down this back alley, when he factored in the time needed to dash to his gate and hastily convey the matter, it seemed utterly impossible to arrive in time.
Even if they could secure that much time, having enlisted Sunaga to watch one station meant that if the gentleman alighted at Sunaga’s post, he would have to find some way to signal Keitaro.
Moreover, in this crowd, merely raising a hand or waving a handkerchief would hardly suffice.
To ensure Keitaro noticed unmistakably, one would practically need to shout loud enough to startle the street—but even in such an extreme situation, a propriety-conscious man like Sunaga could never bring himself to do so.
Even were he to endure and attempt it, by the time I rushed over there was no guarantee that the crucial figure of the man in the black bowler hat wouldn’t have vanished.
Having thought this through, Keitaro had no choice but to resign himself to fate and resolved to stake out just one of the two stops.

Twenty-Six

Though he had resolved himself, staying rooted to his current position would amount to the same indolence as not moving at all. Unable to avoid feeling uneasy, he deliberately set aside considerations of effectiveness as he began his task. Craning his neck, he gazed once more at the eastern tram stop. Whether due to its location, the layout of the opposite side, or simply his own habitual use of that boarding point, that direction somehow appeared more lively. He sensed that his quarry would likely disembark there. Contemplating shifting his surveillance post once again yet still indecisive, he hesitated for some time.

Just then, an Edogawa-bound tram arrived with a drawn-out screech of brakes. The conductor, having confirmed no passengers were alighting, prepared to restart the vehicle within moments. With his back to the narrow lane leading to Nishikichō, Keitaro stood so oblivious to the tram before him that he scarcely noticed it as he vacillated between staying or moving.

Suddenly a man came dashing from the rear alleyway, shoving past Keitaro as if brushing aside an obstacle, and leapt onto the driver's platform where hands gripped the controls. Before Keitaro's surprise could subside, the tram clattered into motion with a metallic groan. The man who had vaulted aboard spoke an apology through the half-opened glass door while still partially outside the vehicle. When their eyes met, Keitaro noted how the man's final glance dropped to his feet.

In their collision, the man had kicked away the Western-style cane Keitaro carried, sending it clattering from his grasp onto the pavement. Keitaro immediately stooped to retrieve it. As he did so, he noticed how the carved snake's head atop the cane had fortuitously come to rest pointing eastward. Somehow its form now struck him as an omen indicating direction.

"I suppose east is better after all."

He returned at a brisk pace to the front of the Seto ware shop.
There, he stood determined to scrutinize every single passenger alighting from the tram labeled *Hongō Sanchōme*.
He scrutinized the first two or three trams with a fierce glare, as though confronting sworn enemies. Then, as his mind gained some leeway, his inner resolve gradually strengthened.
He discovered that across the plaza within his view—which he now regarded as a unified stage—there were three men bearing the same demeanor as himself.
One was a police officer at the police box who stood facing the same direction in identical posture.
Another was the pointsman stationed before Tenkado.
The last was a middle-aged man in his prime standing at the plaza's center, waving blue and red flags like sacred symbols.
Among them, Keitaro thought, those standing with apparent boredom while awaiting unpredictable duties must be himself and the police officer.

Trams stopped one after another before him. Those boarding tried desperately to cram themselves into the cramped compartments while those alighting reached down from above with authority. Keitaro watched time and again as men and women of unknown origin gathered and scattered before him, rudely putting on momentary scuffles. Yet the man in the black bowler hat he sought never appeared however long he waited. It struck him that his target might have disembarked long ago at the western stop—that standing here staring at useless faces until his eyes flickered now seemed utterly foolish. Keitaro concluded those two feverish hours spent hunched at his boarding house desk would have been far better used consulting Sunaga properly to secure his aid.

From the moment he was made to taste this bitterness with acute intensity, the sky gradually lost its light until everything visible took on a deep blue cast.
Gaslights and electric lamps began dotting shop windows here and there, compensating for the gloom of a winter dusk.
When he suddenly became aware of her presence, a young woman with her hair arranged in side locks stood barely two yards from Keitaro.
Though he had meant to sweep his residual attention left and right each time passengers boarded or alighted from the trams, discovering this woman standing unexpectedly close—her approach unnoticed from any direction—startled him first and foremost through her sheer existence.

Twenty-Seven

The woman wore a plain coat that trailed too long for her age.
Keitaro imagined brilliant colors adorning her youthful form beneath it.
She stood as though deliberately swathing herself from public view.
Even her underrobe's collar lay hidden beneath a habutae silk scarf.
Nothing else about her drew attention save that white silk emerging from the dusk-dimmed air like a revelation.
Yet this single-color defiance of seasonal propriety—this declaration of taste—burned brighter to Keitaro than any ornament.
Under the light-leaching sky, rather than discordance he perceived a sharp focal point—her neck's pale curve amid soot-stained crowds.
Meeting his gaze directly, she adjusted her posture.
Still unsettled, she raised her right hand to sweep back temple-loosened hairs with practiced grace.
Her coiffure needed no correction—this empty gesture struck him as pure affectation—until he saw her hand and found himself newly compelled.

The woman was not wearing silk gloves like typical Japanese women.
They were made of goat leather that fit precisely, neatly enveloping her slender fingers.
The skin and leather adhered so seamlessly it appeared as if tinted wax had been thinly poured over her hand's surface, leaving neither a single crease nor the slightest looseness.
When the woman raised her hand, Keitaro noticed these gloves concealed her pale wrist three sun deep.
With that, he averted his gaze back to the tram.
Yet when the boarding/alighting commotion subsided without his target appearing—granting him two or three minutes of mental leeway—he continued observing her with such subtlety between passing trams that it went unnoticed.

At first, he had thought this woman would board either the Hongō-bound or Kamezawa-chō-bound tram.
However, after both trams had made one full circuit and stopped right before him with no sign of her boarding, he found it somewhat peculiar.
He considered whether she might adhere to the principle that enduring a little wasted time was wiser than squeezing into an overcrowded tram car and suffering near-crushing discomfort. Yet even when trams arrived without "full" signs and seemingly had vacant seats, the woman showed no intention of boarding—leaving Keitaro increasingly perplexed.
The woman seemed to realize she was receiving more than ordinary attention from Keitaro, for whenever he shifted his stance even slightly, she deliberately prepared to evade his observation like someone opening an umbrella preemptively.
She would then look pointedly in the opposite direction or take a few steps forward.
Because of this, Keitaro—now oddly self-conscious—took care to avoid looking directly at her.
But finally it struck him—perhaps this woman, unfamiliar with the area, had arbitrarily chosen this stop and was pointlessly waiting for a tram she couldn't board.
When courage to kindly inform her suddenly arose, he turned squarely toward her without hesitation.
At this, the woman abruptly walked to a jeweler's window two yards ahead and pressed her forehead against the glass as if wholly unaware of Keitaro's presence, gazing at rings, obi clasps, and coral branch ornaments displayed within.
Keitaro felt foolish for having shown unwarranted kindness to a stranger—only to diminish both himself and his dignity.

The woman’s appearance had never been anything remarkable from the start.
When viewed straight on, it wasn’t particularly noticeable, but the shape of her nose seen from the side struck everyone as slightly too low.
Instead, her complexion was fair, and she had eyes that had a refreshingly clear quality.
The jeweler’s electric light now shone through the glass upon her nose, a portion of her plump cheek, and her forehead, imparting to Keitaro’s eyes—as he stood at an angle—a peculiar contour composed of light and shadow.
He took into his mind that contour and her figure—wrapped in a long coat and looking quite stylish—then turned back toward the tram.

Twenty-Eight

Two or three more trams arrived.
And once again, each of those trams renewed Keitaro’s disappointment as they departed eastward.
He took out his watch from beneath his obi and stared at it like a man who had relinquished all hope of success.
Five o'clock had long since passed.
As if only now realizing, he tilted his head back toward the black sky pressing down overhead and clicked his tongue bitterly.
When he considered how the bird had slipped calmly from the western stop without ever entering the net he’d painstakingly laid, everything—the old woman’s prophecy concocted solely to deceive him, the bamboo cane he’d carried out with such solemn care, even the directional hint it had supposedly offered—all curdled into seeds of resentment.
Piercing through the dark night, he surveyed the electric lights flickering before him, and finding himself at their center, thought even this brightness must ultimately be but a shadow of the dreams he’d abandoned.
He stood there still—his curiosity roused yet his mind lingering in that half-dazed state—until at last he resolved to hurry back to his lodgings and reclaim his sanity.
This Western cane stood as a monument mocking his own folly; he determined to break it in two where none could see on his return journey, smash both serpent’s head and iron ferrule into ruin, and cast them from Manseibashi Bridge into Ochanomizu’s waters.

He had already shifted one foot to move when he again became aware of the young woman’s presence.
She had left the jeweler’s window without his noticing and now stood about two yards away from him, just as before.
Her height made her limbs appear more gracefully proportioned than most—something he had found pleasant to observe from the start—but this time it was her right hand that particularly caught his attention.
She let it hang naturally at her side, smooth and unselfconscious, as though expecting no particular notice.
In the night light, he noted her five neatly aligned fingers, the wrist tightly bound by supple leather, and the faint flesh tone visible between wrist and cuff.
Though the evening held little wind, the cold bit harshly at those who stood motionless too long.
She kept her chin slightly buried in her scarf, eyes downcast and still.
Keitaro believed he had detected in this deliberately indifferent gaze evidence to the contrary—proof that she was in fact acutely aware of him.
While he had been scouring the area with hawklike intensity for the man in the black bowler hat, might she not have been gathering equally sharp attention, training arrows of observation ceaselessly his way?
Could it be that he had spent over an hour here both investigating a man and being investigated by a woman?
Yet just as he had no inkling why he pursued this unknown man’s unknowable actions, so too did he remain utterly baffled as to why this unknown woman might observe him—a person liable to commit who-knew-what acts.
Thinking that walking a short distance might clarify matters, Keitaro began moving stealthily westward behind the police box.
To avoid alerting her, he strictly avoided turning to look back.
But continuing straight ahead while fixated forward would defeat his purpose, so after advancing about ten ken, he feigned interest in a shop window displaying a girl’s mantle with a velvet collar—using this pretense to glance backward discreetly.
The woman was no longer behind him.
Even craning his neck revealed only shadows of people overtaking him from behind—no glimpse of white scarf or long coat remained.
He questioned whether to press onward.
The man in the black bowler mattered less now past five o’clock—abandoning that chase brought little regret—but however trivial the outcome, he still wished to observe the woman longer.
Reversing his suspicion that she was investigating him, he resolved instead to scrutinize her movements further.
With the hurried gait of someone retrieving lost property, he returned near the original police box.

Peering from the dark shadows there, he saw that the woman remained standing still, facing the street.
She seemed completely unaware that Keitaro had returned.

Twenty-Nine

At that moment, a doubt arose in Keitaro’s mind—was this woman unmarried or a wife? Her hair was done in the sidelock style common among Japanese women of the time, making such distinctions unclear from the outset. But when he moved into the shadows and observed her figure in the dim light, a new question assailed him—to which social class did she belong?

Judging by appearances, she seemed possibly to have married into another household. Yet her physique being far more developed than average suggested she might be younger than presumed. If so, why would she wear such plain clothing? Though Keitaro held no right to comment on women’s kimono colors or patterns, he had vaguely observed that young women typically layered vibrant hues against their skin to defy this gloomy year-end atmosphere. He found it strange that this woman displayed nowhere any stimulating elements to ignite passion in his youthful blood. Among her attire, only the habutae silk scarf around her neck drew slight attention—its cold hue merely evoking purity. The rest lay hidden beneath a long coat harmonizing with the winter-bare sky.

Keitaro looked once more at this outfit from behind—far too devoid of coquetry for her age—and concluded it could only result from having already known a man. Moreover, there was a certain adult-like composure in this woman’s demeanor. He could not attribute this composure solely to character and education. He suspected that through exposure to environments beyond the household, her maidenly bashfulness had naturally dissipated like perfume sprinkled upon a handkerchief. Not only that—he had just moments earlier witnessed how within this woman’s composure, restless muscular movements would intermittently surface as motions across her entire body or twitches of brows and lips. He had long recognized that her eyes would be the most keenly active feature. Yet he could not help simultaneously acknowledging her efforts to forcibly restrain those keenly restless eyes. Therefore, he had concluded that this woman’s composure was accompanied by an awareness of deliberately stifling her own nerves.

However, when viewed from this point onward, the woman seemed relatively composed in both body and mood, maintaining a harmonious balance between the two. Unlike before, she neither adjusted her posture nor began walking away, neither leaned against the jeweler’s window nor showed any sign of battling the cold; standing at the edge of the raised sidewalk with an almost refined composure one might describe as elegant. Beside her, two or three people stood scattered about, waiting for the next streetcar. They all stared at the approaching vehicle from ahead, appearing eager to draw it swiftly to their side. Having apparently grown greatly relieved by Keitaro’s withdrawal, she now became the most fervent among them in awaiting something, fixing her attention intently on the corner diagonally across the way. Keitaro circled around behind the police box and stepped down into the roadway. Using the painted police booth as a shield, he peered at her face from beside where the officer stood—and was startled anew by her transformed expression. Until now, while observing her from hiding and seeing only her back, he had indulged in overly fanciful conclusions spun from her plain single-toned coat, her tall stature, and her large sidelock hairstyle; but now, gazing unhindered at her face without her knowledge, he felt he had encountered an entirely different person altogether. In short, she appeared far younger than before. Both her eyes—keenly awaiting something—and her lips brimmed with nothing but a vivid, almost radiant vitality, utterly devoid of any other expression. Before long, Keitaro even detected in her the innocence of a maiden.

Soon, from the direction the woman was staring, a streetcar came rotating gently around the curved track shaped like a bow.
When it glided to a stop before the woman, two men emerged from within.
One man, carrying something like a ball-shaped box wrapped in paper, briskly passed in front of the policeman and hopped up onto the sidewalk, while the other, upon alighting, went straight to the woman and came to a halt before her.

Thirty

Keitaro saw the woman's smiling face for the first time at that moment. He had been observing her thin lips and disproportionately large mouth as distinctive features from the beginning, but when she revealed her beautiful teeth and brought together her large, lustrous black eyes until her upper and lower lashes nearly touched, an impression he had never anticipated from this woman etched itself freshly into his mind. Rather than being captivated by her smile, Keitaro found himself startled into shifting his gaze to the man facing her.

There he noticed a black bowler hat crowning the man's head. Though unable to discern whether the coat bore a speckled pattern, it cast the same somber gleam into Keitaro's eyes as the hat. The man stood tall and gaunt. Yet when it came to age, Keitaro hesitated to make any definite judgment - except for the certainty that this man occupied a position far beyond him on life's measured scale, leading him to conclude unhesitatingly that the figure before him must be fortyish.

The moment he assimilated these characteristics almost simultaneously, Keitaro could no longer deny that the man he'd been foolishly tailing since earlier had finally alighted from the streetcar. Though long past the appointed five o'clock hour, a peculiar exhilaration seized him as he counted himself fortunate to still be lingering there. He felt grateful that this young woman had chanced along to bait his curiosity into such fervor - more grateful still that she'd waited for their quarry with twice his own confidence and patience.

For Keitaro now believed that through this man X, he could both supply Taguchi with needed intelligence and partially satisfy his own curiosity about woman Y.

The man and woman appeared completely unaware of Keitaro’s presence, continuing their conversation while standing without hesitation in any direction.
The woman never ceased letting her smile show.
The man occasionally laughed aloud.
Even judging from their initial greeting when first meeting face-to-face, theirs was by no means a distant relationship.
The courteous etiquette between men and women—seemingly connecting them while actually creating distance—could be found in neither.
The man did not even trouble himself to touch his hat’s brim.
Keitaro desperately wanted to confirm the large mole that should lie beneath that hat by confronting the man directly.
Had the woman not been present, he might have boldly approached him with whatever random question came to mind.
Even otherwise, he would have immediately drawn near to scrutinize his face until satisfied.
What prevented such boldness at this critical juncture was precisely that woman standing before the man.
Whether she truly suspected Keitaro’s motives mattered less than how clearly her doubtful scrutiny registered through his prolonged observation.
To recklessly expose himself again within her sightline would not only prove ungentlemanly but risk fanning suspicion’s flames until his own purpose burned away.

Having thought this, Keitaro judged it wiser to refrain from confirming the presence or absence of the mole until an appropriate opportunity naturally presented itself. Instead, he resolved to follow the two stealthily from behind and, if possible, eavesdrop on snippets of their conversation. He did not wait for their permission, nor did he feel compelled to consult his conscience about the moral implications of secretly storing away their words and actions in his mind. And he simply and dispassionately believed that whatever results came from his efforts would surely be put to good use by the worldly-wise Taguchi.

Before long, the man made a show of inviting the woman.
The woman seemed to refuse while laughing.
In the end, the two of them—who had been half-facing each other—aligned their shoulders and walked up near the eaves of the pottery shop.
From there, they began walking eastward side by side, almost but not quite holding hands.
Keitaro moved forward a few paces at a quick clip and soon came right behind them.
And then he adjusted his pace to match theirs.
Even if the woman were to turn around, to avoid arousing suspicion, he never let his eyes linger on their retreating figures.
As if they happened to be heading in the same direction along the bustling thoroughfare by coincidence, he walked while looking about with feigned nonchalance.

Thirty-One

“But it’s too much. Making someone wait this long.”
“Making me wait this long.”

The first words that reached Keitaro’s ears were this complaint from the woman’s lips, though he couldn’t catch the man’s reply at all. After they had walked five or six ken, their footsteps abruptly faltered until their paired shadows nearly blocked his path. With no choice but to advance unless he wanted to collide from behind, Keitaro—fearing they might turn back—pressed himself against a confectionery shopfront. Feigning interest in biscuits displayed in large glass jars, he waited while watching them.

The man seemed to reach inside his coat before tilting sideways to angle something in his right hand toward the shop’s light. Only then did Keitaro recognize the glint beneath the man’s face as a gold watch.

“It’s still six o’clock.
It’s not that late at all.”

“You’re late! If it’s six o’clock...
I was just about to go home!”

“I’m terribly sorry.”

The two started walking again.
Keitaro abandoned his inspection of the jarred biscuits and followed.
They came to Awajicho and turned into a narrow side street leading toward Surugadai.
Just as Keitaro moved to follow them around the corner, they entered a Western restaurant at the intersection.
In that instant, he caught a sideways glimpse of their faces illuminated by harsh light spilling from the entrance.
When they had left the station stop, Keitaro couldn't begin to imagine where they might go together; yet seeing them enter this particular establishment—precisely because it seemed so ordinary—left him struck by its unexpected banality.
This was Hōtei, a restaurant Keitaro had known since his student days, long frequented by university affiliates.
Since its recent renovation, half of its fresh paint now faced the streetcar thoroughfare, its diagonally truncated gable turned southward—a detail he'd occasionally noted when passing.
Within those pale blue-painted walls, beneath framed advertisements for Munich Beer, he even recalled several occasions of fiercely wielding steak knives against forks.

Though Keitaro had followed them this far with no clear hope or expectation about their destination—only a vague sense that they might be drawn into some labyrinth suffused with a purplish-tinged atmosphere—the Western restaurant now before him, reeking of oil from potatoes and beef frying in its kitchen that pungently spilled out into the street, appeared far too mundane.
Yet he reconsidered that it was far more advantageous than having them vanish into some mysterious realm his own presence could never approach—only to never reemerge. He felt rather reassured that their figures were enclosed within the painted walls of an ordinary Western restaurant, accessible to anyone.
Fortunately, he had a wallet in his pocket sufficient to satisfy the appetite stimulated by the wintry outdoor air at a place of this caliber.
He was about to immediately follow the two up to the second floor there, but when he came to the entrance where the electric lamp shone brightly onto the thoroughfare, he suddenly realized.
Since the woman had already memorized his face, it would be unwise to push up to the second floor almost at the same time.
Doing so might intentionally give them the suspicion that he was following them.

Keitaro, feigning nonchalance, crossed through the light spilled onto the thoroughfare and walked about a block down a dark alley. Then, from where the alley ended at the base of a slope, he became a shadowy figure once more and quietly returned to the brightly lit entrance as though folding his own silhouette into his body. He passed through the gate. Having visited occasionally before, he knew the house's layout well enough—there were no guest rooms on the first floor; business was conducted solely on the second and third floors. Unless particularly crowded, they didn't guide patrons to the third floor, so matters were usually settled on the second. His plan was to check either the recessed room on the right or the side hall on the left after ascending—surely their seats would be visible there—and if not, he'd simply have to open up the narrow front-facing room. But as he began climbing the stairs, he noticed a white-uniformed attendant standing at the landing, ready to guide him.

Thirty-Two

Keitaro had climbed the stairs still holding his Western-style cane in hand, so the attendant first took the cane before determining his seat. At the same time, saying "This way" while turning his back, he guided him to the hall on the right. From behind the attendant, he made sure with a glance where his cane would be placed. There, hanging, was the black bowler hat he had noted earlier. The frosted coat and the woman’s coat in its distinctive hue were both hung there. When the attendant moved the hem and inserted the bamboo cane, the lining of the habutae silk with its large pattern fluttered into Keitaro’s eyes. He waited for the snake-headed cane to be concealed behind the coat, then shifted his gaze toward its owner. Fortunately, the woman was facing the man, her back turned toward the entrance. Hearing the sound of a new guest arriving, Keitaro reasoned that even if she felt like turning around, an ordinary woman would likely avoid such a movement unless necessary, fearing it might compromise the dignity she had assumed upon settling into her seat. As he gazed at her back, he felt a fleeting sense of relief. The woman, just as he had surmised, did not turn around. In the meantime, he moved right beside where she was sitting and attempted to take a seat at the second row of tables with his back to her. At that moment, the man raised his face and looked at Keitaro, who had neither sat down nor changed his position. On his dining table was a bonsai of pine and plum planted in a Chinese-style pot. In front of him was a soup plate. He, having dropped a large spoon into it, exchanged glances with Keitaro. The distance of less than six feet that spanned between them was thoroughly illuminated by the bright electric lamp. The white cloths spread over the tabletops further enhanced the brightness, reflecting a pristine light from all the dining tables around. In this room, equipped with such convenient conditions, Keitaro looked at the man’s face to his satisfaction. And there, between his eyebrows, just as Taguchi had informed him, he detected a large mole.

Apart from this mole, there were no particular distinctive features in the man’s appearance.
The eyes, nose, and mouth were all completely ordinary.
Yet when these mediocre features were viewed separately before taking their respective positions on his oval face, he appeared to everyone as nothing less than a gentleman of exceptional dignity.
When facing Keitaro, his demeanor—with the spoon still submerged in soup and his sipping momentarily paused—carried an air of quiet nobility about it.
Keitaro turned his back toward the man and took his seat, but as he began contemplating the usual connotations attached to the word "detective," he felt this man’s bearing was fundamentally incompatible with that profession.
From Keitaro’s perspective, there was nothing in this man’s physiognomy that justified him being a detective.
Every one of the eyes, nose, and mouth arranged across his face was far too ordinary in construction to conceal any secrets within.
When he settled into his seat, Keitaro felt a disappointment akin to one-third of his initial interest in this evening’s task—accepted from Taguchi—having already evaporated.
To begin with, he had even begun questioning the ethical permissibility of accepting such work from Taguchi in the first place.

He had placed his order and sat vacantly, not even touching the bread.
The man and woman, somewhat reserved due to the new guest who had sat down beside them, paused their conversation for a short while.
However, around the time a warmed white plate appeared before Keitaro, they seemed to regain their momentum somewhat, and the voices of the two alternately reached his ears—

“I can’t go tonight. I have some business to attend to.”

“What kind of business?”

“What do you mean, ‘what kind’? It’s important business—not the sort of thing that can be discussed so lightly.”

"Oh, you're impossible! I know perfectly well—"
"—after keeping everyone waiting!"
"—and then some!"

The woman spoke in a slightly petulant tone.
The man chuckled softly while minding their surroundings.
Their conversation lapsed into silence.
Then suddenly, as if remembering something, the man spoke.

“I think it’s best we call it off tonight—it’s getting rather late.”

“It’s not late at all. If we take the train, we can go straight there, can’t we?”

Keitaro clearly understood both what the woman was urging and what the man was hesitating about.
But as for where they intended to go—when it came to that crucial destination—he had no conception of it whatsoever.

Thirty-Three

Thinking that if he listened a little longer he might get a clue, Keitaro gazed at the meat knife left on his plate and the single slice of red ginseng lying beside it.
The woman still showed no sign of relenting in her insistence.
Each time, the man would evade her with some vague excuse.
Yet his gentle attitude of trying not to anger her remained unchanged.
By the time fresh meat and green peas arrived before Keitaro, even the woman had finally begun to yield.
Keitaro had secretly been hoping she would persist in her stubbornness to the end or that the man would give in at some point—either outcome would do—so when he discovered her will wasn't as strong as he'd expected, he felt no small disappointment.
At the very least, he had wanted to catch some hint of their destination—a term they kept unspoken between them—should the chance arise. But now that their discussion remained unresolved, their conversation naturally shifted elsewhere, dashing that hope for the time being.

“Then you don’t have to go. Just give me that,” the woman finally said.

“If you just say ‘that,’ how would I know what you mean?”

“Look, that one. The one from the other day. See? You understand now, don’t you?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea.”

“How rude you are,” she said. “Even though you understand perfectly well.”

Keitaro turned slightly, wanting to look behind them. At that moment came the loud clatter of footsteps on the stairs as three customers came clattering up all at once. One wore a khaki uniform with long boots. The sword at his waist rattled noisily against its scabbard as he walked across the floorboards. The group was shown to a room on the left side after ascending. This commotion disrupted the couple’s conversation, leaving Keitaro’s curiosity suspended until the sword’s gleam had settled.

“It’s what you showed me before.”
“You understand?”

The man neither affirmed nor denied understanding.
Of course, Keitaro couldn't even begin to imagine it.
He resented why the woman wouldn't plainly state the name of what she wanted.
He found himself inexplicably wanting to know what it was.
Then,

"You think I'd be carrying something like that here now?" said the man.

"No one said you have it here."
"I'm just telling you to give it to me."
"Just this once will do."

“If you want it that badly, I’ll give it to you.”
“But…”

“Ah! Delighted!”

Keitaro turned around again, wanting to see the woman’s face.
He also wanted to take the opportunity to see the man’s face.
Yet when he considered his position—sitting back-to-back with the woman in a direct line—he had to restrain himself from such reckless movement at this critical moment. At a loss for where to direct his eyes, he simply gazed vacantly around straight ahead.
Then, from the direction of the kitchen entrance, the attendant entered carrying two white plates, exchanged them with the old ones, and placed them before the two.

“It’s small birds. Won’t you have some?” the man said.

“I’ve had enough.”

The woman showed no sign of touching the grilled small birds.
Instead, she moved her unoccupied mouth more than the man did.
From their exchange, it seemed what the woman had been pressing the man to give her was coral tree beads or something of the sort.
In a tone suggesting expertise, he explained various points to her.
But to Keitaro, this held neither interest nor meaning—it was merely the sort of esoteric knowledge that delighted collectors.
He meticulously instructed her about counterfeits made by pressing fingerprints into molded replicas, how their rough texture betrayed them as fakes compared to genuine antique imports.
Piecing together their conversation, Keitaro realized she had secured a promise from him for beads of extraordinary value—rare artifacts from a bygone era, nearly impossible to obtain nowadays.

“I’ll give it to you if I must, but what could you possibly want with such a thing?”

“You’re one to ask! Carrying something like that around yourself—and you a man!”

34

After a while, the man asked the woman, “Will you have sweets or fruit?”
“Either works,” she replied.
This brief exchange—seeming to signal their meal’s conclusion—jolted Keitaro from his absorption in their conversation, sharply reminding him of his duty.
Having resolved to track their movements post-meal, he had already devised his plan.
He knew from the outset that descending alongside them would be unwise.
Even if he lingered after their departure, he’d surely lose them in the night’s chaos—crowds and darkness swallowing their figures before he finished a cigarette.
To trail them undetected, he concluded he must exit first and lie in wait where they wouldn’t notice.
Deciding it prudent to settle accounts early, Keitaro summoned the attendant for his bill.

The man and the woman were still talking calmly.
However, since no fixed topic arose between them, there was no opportunity for opinions or emotions to take root; their conversation merely drifted aimlessly from one thing to another like shapeless clouds.
Even the mole between his eyebrows—considered one of the man’s distinguishing features—had somehow come up in their talk.

“Why do you have a mole in such a place?”

“It didn’t just appear out of nowhere recently—it’s been there since I was born.”

“But still,” she pressed. “It’s so unsightly, right there between your eyebrows.”

“There’s nothing to be done about that,” he replied flatly. “It’s congenital.”

“You ought to visit the university clinic and have it removed properly.”

Keitaro dipped his head low enough to see his reflection ripple in the finger bowl’s water, muffling a snicker behind hands clasped over rice-speckled teeth. The attendant arrived just then with his change arranged neatly on a tray. Rising with studied nonchalance, Keitaro edged toward the stairwell—only for the attendant’s booming “Departing!” announcement to startle him into remembering the forgotten cane.

There it still lay beneath the hat rack’s shadow, half-concealed by the woman’s trailing coat hem. He stole back on catlike feet to retrieve it, the snake-head grip brushing against silken habutae lining and woolen coat underside as he withdrew the staff. At the stairhead he paused, then clattered down in three sharp heel-strikes—thud! thud! thud!—before darting across tram tracks to take up position behind a shopfront’s electric glow. From this vantage point between secondhand kimono bolts and Western suit displays, he planted his cane firmly and watched the restaurant entrance. Right toward Renjaku-chō’s merchant stalls they might go, left toward Surugadai’s shadowed alleys—no matter their path now, his post commanded full view of all exits.

After waiting about ten minutes, he began growing suspicious when no human figure materialized within the circle of light that commanded his attention. Compelled to gaze up at the second floor window's illuminated depths as if peering through it, he willed them to rise from their seats soon. Each time his waiting-weary eyes shifted focus, they traveled upward to confront the black sky sprawling beyond rooftops. This vast night—which until now had let itself be beguiled by earthbound human lights into near self-oblivion—seemed to have been distilling a chill rain above his shadowed head since earlier moments, leaving Keitaro's heart stranded in desolation. Abruptly it struck him—what if those two, who'd confined themselves to trivial talk out of deference to his presence, had seized his departure as opportunity to commence some vital negotiation he desperately needed to overhear? While tilting his face toward this suspicion-laden darkness, he soon discerned with visceral clarity their figures sitting face-to-face.

35

He had maneuvered too cautiously and ended up regretting leaving the Western restaurant's gate too soon. Yet since the two felt restrained in his presence, even had he remained planted in his seat indefinitely, he would still have heard nothing beyond ordinary chatter. Thus he reasoned that staying put would yield little more than his early departure—and so, enduring the cold, he resigned himself to keeping watch from his post. Then came what felt like two raindrops striking his hat brim, making him tilt his head back toward the blackened sky. Above him stretched only darkness, its stillness contrasting sharply with the clattering streetcar thoroughfare below. Intent on catching a droplet against his cheek, he kept his face upturned until his anxiety about impending rain dissolved into wonder—why did he willingly pursue such restless business beneath this tranquil sky? Simultaneously, all responsibility seemed concentrated in the bamboo cane he leaned upon. Gripping its serpent-head pommel as usual, he shook it violently two or three times to vent his chill-induced frustration. Just then, the long-awaited shadows emerged together from the restaurant entrance. Keitaro's gaze first locked onto the white scarf encircling the woman's slender neck. The pair stepped onto the main street at once, retracing their original path along Keitaro's opposite side in reverse direction. He crossed over without hesitation. They advanced at a leisurely pace, appearing to inspect each gaudily decorated shopfront in turn. Forced to match their sluggish stride from behind, Keitaro found the delay increasingly vexing. The man clenched a fragrant cigar between his teeth, exhaling smoke that tinted the deepening night—its aroma occasionally reaching Keitaro's nostrils on favorable breezes. Sniffing repeatedly, he doggedly maintained their plodding tempo. The man's height lent him a vaguely Western appearance when viewed from behind, an illusion accentuated by his vigorous cigar-puffing. This association abruptly shifted to his companion—the woman now struck Keitaro as some kept foreign-style mistress wearing leather gloves bestowed by her patron. Amused yet self-conscious about this fantasy, he was still privately entertaining it when they paused at their earlier meeting point—the tram stop—before crossing tracks to the opposite side.

Keitaro also imitated their actions.
Then the two crossed from this side to the opposite side at the corner of Mitasudai-chō.
Keitaro likewise crossed to the same side.
The two began walking again and moved southward.
About half a block from the corner, they found another red-painted iron pole standing there.
The two approached and stood by the pole.
It was only now that Keitaro realized they were people using the Mita Line to head south—whether returning home or going out—and resolved he must board the same streetcar without fail.
They looked back toward Keitaro as if by prior arrangement.
Though naturally the streetcar would come from his direction around the corner, Keitaro still felt ill at ease.
He flipped his hat brim up and down, ran a hand over his face, pressed himself against eaves as much as possible, deliberately stared at odd places, and waited in torment for the streetcar's appearance.

Before long, one arrived.
Keitaro deliberately entered after the two had boarded, devising a plan to avoid suspicion.
As he lingered at the back for a while, the woman dragged her long coat hem just short of stepping on it and moved her foot onto the conductor's platform.
However, the man who he had thought would immediately follow showed no intention of boarding and stood with his feet together, both hands thrust into his coat's hidden pockets.
Keitaro finally realized that the man had gone out of his way to come here to see the woman off.
In truth, he was more interested in the woman than the man.
If the man and woman were to part there, he naturally wanted to abandon tracking the man and follow her path to its end.
However, since what Keitaro had been entrusted with by Taguchi was solely to observe the movements of the man in the black bowler hat—who had no connection to the woman—he restrained himself from leaping onto the carriage.

36

The woman gave a slight nod to the man as she boarded the streetcar, then disappeared inside without another word.
As it was a winter night, all the window panes had been tightly shut.
The woman made no particular effort to open them and lean out with any show of charm.
Even so, the man stood there lumberingly, waiting for the streetcar to move.
The streetcar began to move.
As if acknowledging that no further farewells were needed between them, the electric carriage swiftly bore its glowing windows southward.
The man threw his still-clenched cigar onto the ground.
Then changing direction, he walked back to the three-way intersection before turning left and stopping before the curio shop.
This was the tram stop—fresh in Keitaro's memory—where someone had jostled him and made him drop his bamboo Western cane.
He had followed the man's intermittent trail here, peering at the curio shop's display of newfangled collars, silk hats, and oddly striped lap robes he had no wish to see—all while thinking that such excessive caution would only dampen a detective's zeal.
With the woman already gone, he couldn't claim weariness of duty, yet the constraints that should have remained unchanged now felt suddenly unbearable.
Since his assignment was strictly limited to observing the bowler-hatted man's movements within two hours of disembarking at Ogawamachi, Keitaro now considered his reconnaissance complete—and even contemplated returning to his boarding house to sleep.

It appeared that the streetcar the man had been waiting for had arrived there, and no sooner had he grasped the iron pole with his long arm than he deftly hoisted his lean frame onto the barely-stopped carriage.
Keitaro, who had been hesitating until now, suddenly felt he must not lose this moment and immediately leapt onto the same carriage.
The carriage was not particularly crowded, so passengers had ample leisure to observe one another's faces freely.
As soon as Keitaro stepped into the compartment, he was met with simultaneous gazes from five or six people who had already taken seats.
Among them was the man in the bowler hat who had just sat down. When their eyes met, there flickered a silent recognition of "Oh?" in the man's gaze, but no suspicion of being followed manifested.
Keitaro finally relaxed and chose a seat on the same side as the man.
Wondering where this streetcar might take him, he looked up at the eaves and saw "Edogawa-bound" written in black.
He resolved to alight promptly if the man transferred, keeping watch on his demeanor at each stop.
The man kept his hands thrust in his coat's hidden pockets, mostly looking straight ahead or down at his lap.
To describe his appearance, he seemed to be thinking deeply about nothing in particular.
However, from around Kudanshita onward, he began occasionally craning his long neck to peer out the window as if verifying something.
Keitaro found himself drawn to look too, straining to see through the poorly lit exterior.
Amidst the train's rumbling, raindrops began pattering sporadically against the windowpanes near his ears.
He looked at the bamboo Western cane he carried and remembered he should have brought an umbrella instead.

After scrutinizing both the demeanor of the man in the bowler hat and his utterly unsuspicious gaze since their encounter at the Western restaurant, Keitaro abruptly thought—as he endured this stifling effort to gather needless information—that it might still be shrewd, even belatedly, to instead boldly approach him directly, secure his consent, and report only that verified fact to Taguchi. Thus he began devising a method to introduce himself to the man.
Before long, the streetcar finally reached its terminal.
The rain seemed to have grown increasingly fierce, and when the streetcar halted, a roaring sound suddenly assailed his ears.
The man in the bowler hat muttered “This is troublesome” as he turned up his coat collar and flipped back the hem of his Western-style trousers.
Keitaro stood up while pressing his Western cane against the floor.
The man stepped out into the rain and immediately caught an approaching rickshaw puller.
Keitaro also hired one so as not to fall behind.
The rickshaw puller raised the shafts and asked where to go.
Keitaro ordered him to follow that carriage.
The rickshaw puller said “Right away!” and recklessly dashed off.
When they came to the Yarai police box along the single road, the rickshaw puller stopped the shafts again and asked “Which way are we going, Master?”

No matter how high the man's rickshaw rose from under its canopy, not even a shadow of it remained visible.
Keitaro, bracing his cane inside the rickshaw, lost his bearings amidst the sound of the rain.

Report

I

When he awoke, finding himself lying as usual in his familiar six-mat room struck Keitaro as utterly strange. Yesterday’s events all seemed real. It also seemed like a disjointed dream. To put it more precisely, it seemed like a “real dream.” The memory of having moved about the town in an intoxicated state also accompanied him. But more than that, the strongest feeling was that this intoxication had permeated every corner of the world. Tram stops and streetcars alike were steeped in an intoxicated haze. The jewelers, the leatherworkers, the red and blue flag wavers—all were steeped in the same intoxicated atmosphere. The pale blue-painted second floor of the Western restaurant, the gentleman with a mole between his eyebrows who had taken a seat there, the fair-skinned woman—all were enveloped in this same atmosphere. The names of places that came up in their conversation—locations whose whereabouts were unknown—and the coral beads the man had promised to give the woman all carried a kind of enraptured air. But what had been most animated and saturated with this atmosphere was the bamboo Western cane. As he stood propping that bamboo Western cane under the rain lashing the carriage canopy, the disorientation he felt in losing his bearings became a climactic interlude before the curtain—a sensation akin to one possessed by a fox. He looked around at the drenched thoroughfare forlornly illuminated by shop lights, the small police box visible atop the slope, and the grove dimly reflected in black to his left, doubting whether this was truly the conclusion of today’s work. He remembered having no choice but to make the rickshaw puller redirect the shafts and order him to proceed unexpectedly to Hongō.

He lay in bed gazing at the ceiling, circulating the still-vivid world of yesterday before his eyes countless times.
With his hungover eyes and head, he gazed unwaveringly at these memorial scenes that emerged one after another like silkworms spinning threads, but in the end could no longer endure the swarm of dreamlike flies fluttering before his eyes.
Yet as they kept emerging one after another of their own accord from beyond, he—while still in his right mind—even began to suspect he might have been bewitched by something.
He could not help but recall that Western cane in connection with this faint suspicion.
Both the man and woman from yesterday were as clear to his eyes as if viewing a painting.
Their appearances—from their clothing down to their very gait—were all sharply imprinted in the mirror of his memory.
And yet he felt as though both were in a distant land.
Though existing in that distant land, they invaded his vision with vivid colors and forms as though viewing something right before him.
Keitaro harbored somewhere within him the faint suspicion that this strange influence might have emanated from the Western cane.
Last evening, having been charged an exorbitant rickshaw fare when slipping through the lodging's gate, he had returned to his room still absentmindedly carrying that cane. With a look declaring this shouldn't be left where others might see it, before sleeping he'd flung it behind a trunk deep inside the cupboard.

This morning, the snake's head no longer seemed to hold such significance. Especially when the practical matter of having to meet Taguchi and report his detective findings rose to the forefront of his mind, that sensation grew all the more profound. He was indeed conscious of having moved through that afternoon into evening steeped in a mood strangely intoxicated by some atmospheric force, yet when attempting to shape those haphazard results into a coherent report usable for practical affairs, he could scarcely discern whether his efforts had succeeded or failed utterly. Consequently, it remained unclear whether he owed anything to the Western cane's influence. To Keitaro—who had tossed restlessly beneath bedding—it truly seemed he might be under its sway. Yet equally, it appeared he owed it nothing at all.

He resolved that at any rate he would deal with matters after ridding himself of the demon of his hangover, then suddenly threw off his nightclothes and sprang up.
Then he went down to the washroom and vigorously scrubbed his head with water so cold it felt like ice.
Having shaken off yesterday’s dream from the very roots of his hair and feeling as though he had returned to being an ordinary person, he energetically climbed up to his third-floor room.
He thoroughly threw open the window there, stood facing east, and took about ten deep breaths while bathing his entire body in the sunlight shining high from above Ueno’s forest.
After thus stimulating his mental faculties to human levels, he took a breather and began pondering as practically as possible the order and items he needed to report to Taguchi.

II

Upon thorough investigation, it appeared that not a single lead useful to Taguchi had surfaced, making Keitaro grow somewhat uneasy.
Yet sensing the other party's urgency to receive his report even this morning, he immediately telephoned the Taguchi residence.
When he inquired whether he might proceed directly there, after being made to wait considerably, permission came through the usual attendant, prompting him to depart without delay for Uchisaiwaicho.

Two carriages stood waiting before Taguchi’s gate.
At the entrance lay a pair of shoes and a pair of geta.
This time he was ushered into a Japanese-style room unlike before.
The spacious ten-mat room featured two large hanging scrolls adorning its long tokonoma alcove.
The attendant poured coarse tea into a deep yunomi-like bowl and presented it.
A paulownia-wood hand warmer arrived via the same attendant’s hands.
Though the man offered a soft zabuton cushion, no women appeared whatsoever.
Keitaro sat rigidly formal in the room’s center, anxiously awaiting his host’s approaching footsteps.
Yet the master’s ongoing discussions showed no sign of concluding—he failed to materialize despite prolonged waiting.
With no alternative, Keitaro estimated values for faded brown scrolls, traced the hand warmer’s rim with his fingers, or sat ramrod-straight with hands precisely positioned on his hakama-covered knees.
The very perfection of his surroundings—too immaculately ordered—made this novel comfort impossible to relax into.
He nearly reached for what seemed an album on the display shelf, but its resplendent cover gleamed like a warning—“Decoration: Hands Off”—and his arm froze mid-reach.

The master, who had so troubled Keitaro's nerves, finally emerged from the parlor after keeping him waiting for nearly an hour.

“I’m terribly sorry to have kept you waiting so long.”
“The guest simply wouldn’t leave, you see.”

Keitaro offered what he considered an appropriate response to this apology along with a respectful bow.
He then tried to broach yesterday’s events immediately, but faced with the actual situation, he suddenly became uncertain about how best to present his account and missed his chance to begin.
Though the master carried himself from the start as if terribly busy—voice and gestures alike—he showed not the slightest urgency to hear about the detective work results, maintaining what seemed like an inner reservoir of composure.
He raised topics that sounded intensely interesting—whether ice had formed in Hongō, whether winds battered the third floor fiercely, whether even boarding houses had telephones now—yet these amounted to nothing but trivial conversation.
Keitaro had been answering each query to the master’s apparent satisfaction, but as these meaningless exchanges continued, he gradually sensed the man was covertly observing him.
This much he dimly perceived.
Yet why the master should scrutinize him so—this reason remained utterly beyond his grasp.
Then,

“How was yesterday? Did it go well?” the master suddenly asked.
Keitaro had anticipated from the start that he might be asked this, but if he answered honestly, it would amount to nothing more than a foolishly vague response like “How did it go?”, so after hesitating briefly,
“Yes, I finally managed to locate the person you notified me about,” he answered.

“Did he have a mole between his eyebrows?”

Keitaro answered that he had recognized a slightly raised black spot of flesh in that specific area.

"Were the clothes also as I had described to you? A black bowler hat and a frosted coat."

"Yes."

"Then there's likely no mistake. He got off at Ogawamachi between four and five o'clock, right?"

"The timing seems to have been slightly delayed."

"About how many minutes?"

"I don't know how many minutes exactly, but it seemed to be well past five o'clock."

"Well past. If it was well past five, then there was no need for you to keep waiting for that person, was there? Since I went out of my way to notify you it was between four and five o'clock, once five had passed your obligation might as well have been over, don't you think? Why didn't you just go home and report exactly that?"

To suddenly be rebuked so harshly by the wealthy man who until now had been speaking calmly and in good spirits was something Keitaro had never even dreamed of.

III

Keitaro had until now been envisioning a shopkeeper from the downtown area before his eyes.
When that figure suddenly bore down on him as a military man of strict discipline, he found his mental equilibrium shattered.
Though he might have offered explanations like "It's for your sake" to a friend, such phrases proved utterly useless in this situation.

"It was simply my own doing that I didn't move from there even when the time came."

Before Keitaro could finish responding, Taguchi immediately dropped his resolute demeanor.

"Well, that was quite convenient for me," he accepted in a pleased tone, but then countered, "However, what do you mean by 'your own doing'?"
Keitaro hesitated slightly.

“Oh, I don’t need to hear that.”
“That’s just like you.”
“If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.”

After saying this, Taguchi pulled the portable tobacco tray closer to himself, opened its drawer, and retrieved a slender horn ear pick from within.
He inserted it into his right ear and began scratching around as if terribly itchy.
Keitaro found Taguchi’s scowling face eerily unsettling—pretending not to look yet acting as though deliberately watching him, yet also seeming preoccupied only with his ear.

“To tell the truth, there was a woman standing alone at the stop,” he finally confessed.

“An old woman or a young one?”

“A young woman.”

“I see.”

Taguchi said only this and offered no continuation.
Keitaro likewise left his sentence half-finished.
The two sat facing each other in silence.

“No—whether young or old, it wasn’t proper to ask about that woman.”
“Since it concerns only you, we’ll speak no more of it.”
“My business lies solely in hearing your findings about the man with the facial mole.”

“However, that woman kept inserting herself into the man with the mole’s actions.”
“In the first place, since it was the woman who had been waiting for the man,”
“Haa...”

Taguchi made a face as though this was entirely unexpected, but asked, “So that woman isn’t an acquaintance of yours or anything, then?”
Keitaro naturally did not have the courage to answer that she was an acquaintance.
Though it pained him to admit, he had to honestly state she was a woman he had neither seen nor spoken to.
Taguchi merely responded with a calm “Is that so” to Keitaro’s reply, showing no sign of pressing further—but then abruptly adopted a defeated tone and—

“What kind of woman is she?
The young woman you mean.”
He leaned his face over the portable tobacco tray with keen interest. “In terms of looks—”

“No, she’s just some unremarkable woman,” Keitaro replied out of obligation, though even in his own mind she now seemed rather plain.
Depending on who he might have been speaking to, he could never have admitted she was actually quite attractive.
Taguchi burst into loud laughter upon hearing this assessment.
Though Keitaro didn’t fully grasp why, he felt as though a tidal wave had crashed over him, his face growing noticeably warm.

“Very well, then.
“—And then what did you do?
“The woman was waiting at the stop when the man came—”

Taguchi returned to his usual tone and proceeded to seriously inquire about the course of events.
To tell the truth, Keitaro had wanted to begin by elaborating on how he had managed to grasp the full story he was about to relate—starting from his confusion over the two tram stops sharing the same name, through how he had acquired and utilized that mysterious cane pulsating with vitality—all in meticulous detail to make his own achievements resonate as weightily as possible. However, having been immediately cornered by Taguchi’s interrogation about the four-to-five o’clock timeframe, compounded by the awkward fact that the very woman who had caused him to arbitrarily extend his surveillance turned out to be a complete stranger of no consequence whatsoever, he found himself completely stripped of the courage to advertise his exploits.
And so, when he attempted to recount only the events following the man and woman’s entry into the Western restaurant in a thoroughly matter-of-fact manner, it resulted in a meager report—just as he had feared when leaving home—utterly devoid of substance, as though he had ripped open a handful of gray clouds right before Taguchi’s nose.

IV

Even so, Taguchi did not show any particular look of displeasure.
Without ever undoing his calmly folded arms, he merely interjected occasional transitional phrases for Keitaro’s benefit—a “hmm,” an “I see,” or a “then what?”—and nothing more.
Even when the report reached its conclusion, he maintained his previous attitude unchanged, as if still anticipating something.
Keitaro said resignedly, “That’s all. It’s truly a shame it turned out to be such an unremarkable outcome.”

“Well, that was actually quite informative.”
“You’ve worked hard.”
“It must have been quite a task.”

It went without saying that Taguchi’s greeting contained no real gratitude, but to Keitaro, who now felt himself appearing foolish, even this much affability sounded more than sufficient.
At this moment, he had finally gained some relief at having narrowly avoided humiliation.
At the same time, the sense of relief that had settled in immediately began to direct itself toward Taguchi.

"What exactly is that man?"

"Who could say?
"How did you appraise him?"

Before Keitaro’s eyes vividly appeared the figure of a man wearing a black bowler hat and a frosted coat with its collar spread wide open.
His demeanor, his speech, his gait—every last detail seemed clear enough to Keitaro, yet not a single answer came forth in response to Taguchi.

“I can’t make sense of it.”

“Then what sort of nature would you say he has?”

As for his nature, Keitaro had already formed a rough assessment.
“He seemed like a calm person,” he answered truthfully based on his observations.

“You’re saying that because you saw him talking to a young woman, aren’t you?”

When Taguchi said this, Keitaro noticed a faint smile flickering at the corner of his lips and once again closed his mouth, which had been about to offer some reply.

“Anyone would be kind to a young woman.”
“It’s not as if you’re entirely without experience yourself.”
“Especially when it comes to that man—he might be even more so than others,” Taguchi laughed heartily.
Yet even as he laughed, he kept his eyes fixed steadily on Keitaro.
Keitaro thought how he must appear an utterly inept fool to any observer—yet despite his anguish, he found himself compelled to force a laugh alongside Taguchi.

“Then what exactly is this woman?”

Taguchi abruptly shifted his observational focus from the man to the woman.
Then he himself posed the following question to Keitaro.
Keitaro answered honestly at once, "The woman is even harder to get a read on than the man."

"Can't you even make a basic distinction between an amateur and a Black person?"

“Indeed,” said Keitaro, pausing to think. The leather gloves, the white scarf, the beautiful smiling face, the long coat—they all came flooding back to the surface of his memory, but even when he tried to piece them together, he couldn’t find any coherent way to answer this question.

“She was wearing a relatively plain coat and leather gloves, but…”

Even these two points among the articles she wore that had particularly caught Keitaro’s attention seemed to hold no interest for Taguchi. He soon put on a serious expression and inquired, “Then do you have any opinions regarding the relationship between the man and the woman?”

Having just concluded his report without a hitch—even receiving words of gratitude like "You’ve worked hard"—Keitaro had never imagined such difficult questions would follow in rapid succession. Moreover, perhaps because he was cornered, he couldn’t help feeling they were escalating in difficulty one after another. Seeing Keitaro’s flustered state, Taguchi rephrased the same question in different terms.

"For example—like husband and wife, siblings, just friends, or mistress and lover, you know."
"Of the various possible relationships, what do you think theirs is?"

“When I saw the woman, I wondered whether she might be a virgin or someone’s wife… but I don’t believe they’re husband and wife.”

“Even if they aren’t married,”
“do you suppose there exists a physical relationship between them?”

Five

In Keitaro’s mind too, this suspicion had not been entirely absent from the very beginning. When he dissected his own thoughts anew, he realized that his assumption of a preexisting secret bond between them might have been steering him from afar, thus honing his investigative curiosity to an even keener edge. He was no theorist to claim that beyond this intimacy born of flesh meeting flesh, no interaction worth examining could arise between man and woman. Yet as a youth of ardent blood, he believed true sentiments befitting their sexes emerged only when viewed through this lens—and so he yearned to observe the world while clinging fast to that perspective. To his youthful eyes, while humanity’s vastness remained blurred, the compact cosmos of men and women shone with crystalline clarity. Thus he delighted in paring down most social bonds to this singular axis whenever possible. Even the station pair’s connection had likely been categorized from the start in some recess of his mind as precisely such a gendered dyad. Nor was he so moralistic as to conjure phantom sins and tremble needlessly. Though he possessed commonplace ethics like any man, these principles—unlike his imagination—lay dormant until crisis demanded them; hence recasting the station duo into his favored mold of man-woman intrigue left him unruffled. He merely questioned their stark age disparity. Yet paradoxically, that very gap seemed to heighten what he deemed the essence of this “world of sexes.”

His feelings toward the pair had gradually slackened in this manner, but when Taguchi formally pressed him with an “Is that really the case?”, no definitive answer coalesced in his mind—regardless of whether he bore responsibility for it.
So he said:
“There may be a physical relationship between them, but I can’t definitively say there isn’t.”

Taguchi merely smiled.
At that moment, the usual hakama-clad student attendant entered carrying a business card on a tray.
After briefly accepting it, Taguchi told Keitaro, “Well, the parts you don’t understand must be the truth,” then immediately turned to the attendant and commanded, “Usher them into the parlor…”
Having been cornered for some time now, Keitaro saw this visitor as his chance to conclude matters and began straightening his attire to leave—but Taguchi deliberately intercepted him before he could rise.
Undeterred by Keitaro’s visible frustration, he pressed on with his questions.
Among these queries, there was scarcely a single one Keitaro could answer clearly, making this ordeal feel even more grueling than the oral exams he’d endured at university.

“I’ll stop here then—have you managed to learn the man and woman’s names?”

Even to this question, which Taguchi had declared would be his last, Keitaro naturally possessed no satisfactory answer.
While intently listening to their conversation at the Western restaurant, he had waited in earnest anticipation for terms like "Mr. So-and-so" or "Miss Such-and-such"—or any honorific names—to inevitably surface somewhere in their talk. Yet they had refrained from mentioning even each other's names, let alone those of third parties, as if deliberately avoiding such references altogether.

“I don’t know their names at all.”

Upon hearing this answer, Taguchi began tapping the paulownia rim of the hand warmer with his fingertips as if keeping time, while moving the hand that had been resting against its metal body. After repeating this for a while, he said, “I’m not quite getting the gist of things,” then immediately continued, “But you are honest.”

“That’s your virtue, I suppose.”

“It might be far better than pretending to understand what you don’t and reporting it as such.”

“Well, I suppose if you’re going to buy into something, that’s where you’d do it,” he said with a laugh.

Keitaro discovered that his observations had indeed proven impractical, and he felt somewhat ashamed of his own carelessness. Yet he firmly believed that even if someone ten times more thorough than himself had been entrusted with the task, relying on just two or three hours of attention, patience, and conjecture would never have yielded results satisfactory to Taguchi—and thus he did not feel particularly pained by this evaluation.

On the other hand, being praised for his honesty did not bring him much joy.

For to him, this degree of honesty appeared to be nothing more than utterly commonplace.

Six

Keitaro had been wanting to voice his true thoughts bluntly before the unrelenting Taguchi with just one decisive remark, but it was now that the realization suddenly struck him—if he didn't speak here, there might never be another chance.

"I too deeply regret that my findings remain inconclusive, but matters as detailed as what you seek to know could hardly be discerned by someone as careless as myself within such limited time."
"This may sound impertinent, but rather than conducting these petty investigations and trailing after them, wouldn't it save effort—and allow us to grasp unshakable truths—if we were to meet them directly and ask outright what we wish to know?"

Having said this much, Keitaro looked at Taguchi’s face, certain he would be mocked or ridiculed by his worldly-wise counterpart.
To his surprise, Taguchi adopted a serious demeanor. “So you had grasped that much?”
“Impressive,” he remarked.
Keitaro deliberately kept silent.

“Your proposed method may appear reckless, yet it’s simultaneously the simplest and most legitimate approach.”
When Taguchi repeated, “Had you recognized that point earlier, you’d be commendable as a human being,” Keitaro grew increasingly unable to respond.

“It was my fault for entrusting such trivial work to someone of your discernment,” said Taguchi. “Practically admitting I misjudged your caliber.”
“But when Ichizo introduced you,” he continued, “he did mention it.”
“That you harbored an interest in detective-like work.”
“So naturally, I made this preposterous request.”
“Should’ve abandoned the idea altogether…”

“No,” Keitaro answered with visible strain, “I do distinctly recall having discussed such matters with Sunaga in that vein.”

“Was that so?”

With this single remark, Taguchi dismissed Keitaro’s contradiction and refrained from pursuing further interrogation.
He then immediately reframed the issue.

“Well then, how about this?”
“Instead of continuing to tail them in secret, do as you suggested—approach them normally through the front entrance.”
“Do you possess sufficient courage for that?”

“It isn’t that I lack it.”

“After having shadowed them so thoroughly…”

“Even if I did follow them extensively, I maintain that none of my observations could possibly tarnish their reputation.”

“You’re absolutely right,” he said. “Then why don’t you go and try it? I’ll provide an introduction.”

As he said this, Taguchi let out a loud laugh.
However, to Keitaro, this offer did not seem entirely like a joke, so he conceived the plan of actually facing the man with the mole between his brows while carrying the letter of introduction and attempting to speak with him.

"I will meet him, so please write the introduction letter.
I want to speak with him."

"Fine, sure.
Since this too counts as one of those experiences, well, go meet him directly and study him for yourself.
Since it's you, I'm sure you'll go ahead and tell him that Taguchi had you tail him the other evening.
But that doesn't matter.
If you wish to say it, go right ahead.
No need to hold back on my account.
And as for your relationship with that woman—well, if you've got the courage, go ahead and ask about that too.
Well then, do you have the guts to ask that?"

Taguchi paused there for a moment and looked at Keitaro’s face, but before a response could emerge, he resumed speaking on his own.

“But until circumstances naturally lead to both matters being speakable, you mustn’t ask or speak of them. No matter how much courage you have, you’ll just be seen as someone lacking common sense. Far from it—that man is already quite difficult to meet as it is. If you carelessly blabber about such things, he might well tell you to go straight home. In exchange for introducing you, you’ll need to be quite careful around those matters…”

Keitaro answered that he would of course comply.
But in his heart, he simply couldn't view the man in the black bowler hat in the same way as he did Taguchi.

Seven

Taguchi summoned an inkstone box and scroll paper, then began writing the letter of introduction with fluid strokes. When he had finished inscribing the recipient’s name, he said, “I’ve simply arranged some conventional phrases here—this should suffice,” and held the letter before the hand warmer for Keitaro to examine. As its writer had himself acknowledged, there was nothing within deserving particular notice. It merely stated that this was a Bachelor of Laws who had graduated university this year, and since there was a possibility he himself might need to look after the young man, would [the recipient] kindly grant him an audience. After verifying Keitaro’s acquiescence, Taguchi briskly rolled the scroll and slipped it into an envelope. Then on its face he wrote “Mr. Matsumoto Kōzō” in bold characters, deliberately leaving it unsealed as he passed it over. Keitaro studied the five-character name with earnest attention, but the rounded, undisciplined brushwork was so crude it seemed implausible that this man could produce such calligraphy.

“You can’t just stand there admiring it forever.”

“It seems the address isn’t written here.”

“Ah, right. That was my oversight.”

Taguchi took back the letter and wrote in the recipient’s address and block number.

“There, this should do.”
“I suppose you might call this clumsy grandiosity - Tsuchihashi’s Ōzushi-style or some such.”
“Well, if it serves its purpose, you’ll simply have to endure it.”

“No, thank you.”

“Shall I write one for the woman while I’m at it?”

“Do you know her as well?”

“I might just know her,” answered Taguchi with a meaningful smile.

“If it’s not too much trouble, perhaps you could write one for her while you’re at it,” Keitaro requested half-jokingly.

“Well, it’s probably safer to stop there.”
“Introducing a young man of your age could lead to a matter of responsibility if anything were to go wrong.”
“Romanticism—isn’t that what they call it? For people like you.”
“I’m no scholar, so I keep forgetting these fancy high-collar terms that are all the rage nowadays—what was it called again... that thing novelists go on about?......”

Keitaro couldn't bring himself to explain that this was surely not the correct term.
He merely laughed with a foolish-sounding chuckle.
The longer he stayed, the more mercilessly he felt Taguchi might mock him, so he resolved internally that once this matter reached its conclusion, he would promptly make his exit.
He tucked the letter of introduction from Taguchi into his pocket and said, "Then I shall take this and visit within two or three days."
"I shall call again once I've assessed the situation," he added while sliding off the soft zabuton cushion.
Taguchi merely offered a polite "Thank you for your trouble," then stood up with an expression that suggested he'd completely forgotten about romanticism—or "cosmeticism," for that matter.

On his way back, Keitaro kept pondering the relationships between Taguchi, whom he had just met; Matsumoto, whom he was about to meet; and that stylish woman who had been waiting for Matsumoto—combining and separating their connections in his mind.
The more he thought about it, the more he felt an intriguing sensation of being drawn step by step deeper into a labyrinth.
Though the only thing he had obtained from Taguchi today was the name Matsumoto, this name struck him as a peculiar pouch binding together various tangled facts for his own purposes—and precisely because he couldn’t foresee what might emerge from it, he found all the more enjoyment in it.
According to Taguchi’s explanation, Matsumoto might sound like someone difficult to approach, but from what Keitaro had observed, he seemed several times easier to talk to than Taguchi.
Within the impressions gained from Taguchi that day—where he had found admiring remarks about Taguchi’s seasoned skill in handling people, and where certain imposing qualities had occasionally flashed before his eyes—Keitaro nevertheless could not shake off a constrained feeling of being bound by something invisible throughout their meeting.
This state of perpetual surveillance seemed not temporary; he came to see that no matter how many times they met, it would never diminish.
He could not stop imagining Matsumoto—standing opposite Taguchi with his oppressive air—as someone whose very voice carried nostalgic warmth, someone he could question freely without fear of reproach.

Eight

The next morning, just as he was preparing to go meet Matsumoto, an ill-timed cold rain began to fall.
When he cracked open the window and looked out from the third floor, the world below was already completely drenched.
Keitaro, who had been gazing at the lonely hue permeating the roof tiles, placed Taguchi’s letter of introduction on his desk and briefly wavered over whether to go out. But as his desire to meet him grew urgent, he finally stepped away from the desk.
And so he descended toward where the tofu seller’s horn pierced the gloomy air and resounded sharply through the street below.

Since Matsumoto’s house was in Yaraicho, Keitaro arrived there while imagining the scenery below the police box where he had felt similarly foxed the other night, and discovered that both the base and top of the slope forked into two, with only the sloped middle section bulging awkwardly.
He stopped in his tracks, undeterred by the cold rain lashing against the hem of his hakama trousers, and surveyed the area where he supposed that rickshaw puller had gotten stuck gripping the shafts that night.
Today too, the rain poured down just as before, and the ground beneath his feet was soaked through to the point of rotting the lead pipes underground.
Yet because it was daytime, the surroundings were dark yet bright, so the mood when he stopped now was entirely different in character from before.
Keitaro climbed the slope, looking back at the Mejirodai Forest looming darkly behind him and at the hazily overlapping grove of Mizu-Inari Shrine deep to his right.
Then he circled around and around within Yaraicho, where several houses shared the same block number.
At first, he turned right into small alleys and left into others, peered at rain-soaked trifoliate orange hedges, and passed before what appeared to be an old graveyard overgrown with camellias—yet Matsumoto’s house proved difficult to find.
After finally giving up his inquiries, he found a rickshaw shop at the corner of an alley and asked the young man there, who promptly told him as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

Matsumoto’s house was a clean residence surrounded by a bamboo fence, located at the end of the alley across from the rickshaw shop.
When he passed through the gate, the sound of a child beating a drum reached his ears.
Even after reaching the entrance and requesting to be announced, the drumming showed no sign of abating.
Yet the surroundings remained utterly still, devoid of any trace of human presence.
The sixteen- or seventeen-year-old housemaid who emerged from the rain-bound depths of the house pressed her hands to the floor, accepted the letter of introduction in silence, then withdrew. After some time, she reappeared and said, “I must apologize for our presumption, but might we ask you to return on a day without rain?”
Even to Keitaro—who had grown accustomed to rejections during his job search—this particular refusal struck him as peculiar.
He nearly demanded to know why rainfall should hinder a meeting.
But finding it improper to argue with a servant, he instead clarified: “So if I come on a clear day, I’ll be able to meet him?”
The housemaid simply replied, “Yes.”
With no other choice, Keitaro stepped back into the downpour.
Amidst the sudden roar of rain, the child’s drum continued its steady rhythm.
As he descended Yarai Slope, he repeated to himself several times that this was indeed a strange man.
He wondered if this peculiarity was what Taguchi had alluded to when calling Matsumoto difficult to meet even under normal circumstances.
Returning home that day left him mired in suspended animation—a state so oppressive he could advance in no direction.
He considered visiting Sunaga’s house after so long to while away half a day discussing recent events over tea. Yet he reasoned that unless he first brought his current task to some conclusion and had a coherent tale to tell, such conversation would prove meaningless. In the end, he stayed put.

The next day brought a complete change from the previous one, turning into fine weather. As he rose, Keitaro looked up at the pristine blue sky—washed clean of all murkiness by the rain’s power—squinting against its brilliance as he rejoiced that today would finally bring his meeting with Matsumoto. He retrieved the Western-style cane he had hidden behind the trunk that other night and resolved to take it with him today. Leaning on it as he climbed Yarai Slope once more, he imagined how it would be if yesterday’s housemaid appeared again to say, “How unfortunate—the weather is too clear today. Perhaps you could come back on a somewhat cloudier day?”

Nine

However, unlike yesterday, even after passing through the gate, there was no sound of a child beating a drum.
In the entrance stood a folding screen he hadn’t noticed before.
The screen depicted nothing but a single crane painted in pale washes, its elongated form—resembling a full-length mirror—catching Keitaro’s attention precisely because it defied standard proportions.
Though the usual housemaid had indeed come to receive him, two children now clattered up behind her with unselfconscious footsteps, peering at Keitaro from behind the screen with curious faces.
Noting these changes from the previous day, he followed her final “This way” into a tatami room with latched glass doors.
On either side of a large Seto-ware brazier resembling a goldfish bowl at the room’s center, the housemaid placed one round cushion each, indicating one for Keitaro.
He settled onto the perfectly circular cushion printed with chintz patterns, his expression bemused.
In the alcove hung a landscape scroll painted with such rough brushwork that trees and rocks blurred into abstraction.
Keitaro regarded this indistinguishable scenery as one might a contemptible trinket.
Then his eye caught the gong hanging beside it, complete with mallet—another oddity that deepened the room’s peculiar atmosphere.

Then the partition door slid open and the master with a mole emerged from the adjoining room.
"You've come," he said brusquely, immediately seating himself so close that his face nearly touched Keitaro's nose—his tone devoid of any warmth.
Yet there was an unhurried quality to him, and precisely because he seemed to attach little importance to formalities, Keitaro found himself put at ease.
With only the hibachi separating them and their faces inches apart, Keitaro felt no particular constraint.
Though convinced the master must have recognized him from their previous nighttime encounter, he now detected neither acknowledgment nor denial in the man's composed demeanor—no flicker of recognition in word or expression—leaving him even less inclined toward deference.
In the end, the master offered no explanation for yesterday's rain-induced refusal—not a single word of justification.
Whether from unwillingness to explain or belief that explanation was unnecessary—Keitaro couldn't begin to discern.

Following the natural order, the conversation began with Taguchi, who had served as the introducer.
"You're planning to have Taguchi employ you going forward, I take it?" With this opening salvo, Matsumoto proceeded to interrogate Keitaro about his aspirations, academic performance upon graduation, and similar matters.
He then periodically introduced torturous questions about social philosophy and life perspectives—subjects Keitaro had never before contemplated.
At that moment, Keitaro privately suspected this Matsumoto might belong to that class of unheralded scholars—so thoroughly did he find himself bombarded by flashes of peculiar logic.
Not content with this, Matsumoto took Taguchi to task, denouncing him as a man who proved useful despite lacking any real intellect.

“First of all—if you’re that busy, you won’t have leisure to organize your thoughts properly. That’s why he’s useless.”
“As for that guy’s brain—it’s like miso paste being churned year-round in a mortar with a pestle.”
“It’s so overactive it never takes shape.”

Keitaro found it utterly incomprehensible why this master would direct such abuse at Taguchi.
What struck him as strange was how neither venomousness nor petty malice colored the master’s tone or bearing as he delivered these vehement words.
The insults resonated through a voice carrying the composure of one unversed in berating others, leaving Keitaro unable to muster resistance.
He felt only a renewed stimulation from the notion that here was simply an eccentric sort of man.

“And yet he plays Go and chants Noh.”
“He does all sorts of things.”
“Though mind you, he’s rather clumsy at all of them.”

“Isn’t that proof he has leisure to spare?”

“Leisure? Let me tell you—yesterday I refused to see you because it was raining, told you to come on a fine day instead.”
“No need to explain why now, but do you think such a capricious refusal exists anywhere in polite society?”
“Taguchi could never make such a refusal.”
“Go on—why do you suppose Taguchi enjoys meeting people?”
“Because he’s a man who seeks something from this world.”
“In other words, because he isn’t a high-class idler like me.”
“Because he lacks the composure to remain unperturbed even when trampling others’ feelings.”

10

“To be honest, Mr. Taguchi hasn’t told me anything about this, but are you using the term ‘high-class idler’ in its literal sense?”

“In the literal sense, I am an idler.”
“Why?”

Matsumoto leaned both elbows on the rim of the large hibachi and rested his chin on a clenched fist while gazing at Keitaro. In Matsumoto’s manner—which seemed not to treat a first-time visitor as a guest—Keitaro sensed what might indeed be the true nature of a high-class idler. An apparent tobacco aficionado, Matsumoto kept a large Western-style wooden pipe with a rounded swan-neck bowl between his lips, periodically exhaling thick plumes of smoke as if suddenly reminded—releasing them like signal fires in brisk puffs that proved the embers still glowed within. The smoke dissipated soundlessly near his face, harmonizing with features that seemed to reject any need for restraint, imparting upon Keitaro an unfamiliar species of calm.

His slightly thinning hair was parted down the center from crown to temples, rendering his flat skull all the more ordinarily composed. He wore an unpatterned brown haori jacket of a style uncommon among ordinary people, layered over white tabi socks with matching brown outer tabi. The hue immediately evoked a monk’s vestments, striking Keitaro as yet another peculiarity marking him as extraordinary. Though this was Keitaro’s first encounter with someone self-proclaimed as a “high-class idler,” Matsumoto’s demeanor and bearing—so quintessentially representative of that class—had undeniably made their impression on him, leaving Keitaro somewhat disarmed.

“If I may ask, do you have a large family?”

Keitaro had wanted—for reasons unclear even to himself—to pose precisely this sort of question first to someone who styled themselves a “high-class idler”.

“Yes, many children,” replied Matsumoto, exhaling a sudden puff from the pipe Keitaro had nearly forgotten about.

“And your wife…”

“Naturally I have a wife. Why?”

Keitaro regretted having asked this irredeemably foolish question that left him cornered. Even if his interlocutor showed no visible offense, those eyes studying his face with bemused expectation meant he now had no choice but to say something.

"I merely wondered whether someone like yourself could maintain a domestic life like ordinary people—that’s all I meant to ask."

“Me, maintain a domestic life...
“Why?
“Because I’m a high-class idler?”

“That’s not precisely it, but I somehow felt that inclination and thought to inquire.”

“High-class idlers are more domestically inclined than someone like Taguchi.”

Keitaro had nothing more to say.
In his mind, the distress of being at a loss for a reply, the effort to change the subject here, and the desire to use this as an opening to confirm the connection with the woman in leather gloves all worked together, casting an even darker shadow over his already disordered thoughts.
Yet Matsumoto paid no heed to such matters and calmly observed Keitaro’s troubled face.
"If this had been Taguchi," Keitaro thought, "he would have skillfully cornered his opponent, but upon doing so, would have immediately shifted the situation from their side—possessing that brilliant knack for never leaving anyone in an awkward impasse."
In the presence of Matsumoto—who, though unpretentious, completely lacked keen expertise in handling people—Keitaro found himself unwittingly sensing a difference between them, when Matsumoto coincidentally asked, "It seems you’ve never considered such issues before, have you?"

“No, I haven’t thought about it at all.”

“There’s no need to think about it—as long as you’re living alone in a boarding house. But even living alone, you must consider the broader question of male-female relations.”

“Rather than saying I think about it, perhaps it’s more accurate to say I’m interested. If you mean interest, then I certainly have that.”

11

The two men talked for a while about this issue that concerned all humans by nature of shared interests.
Yet whether due to difference in age or social standing, Matsumoto's words seemed to present only a skeletal framework stripped of vital flesh—utterly lacking the urgent force needed to seep into Keitaro's blood and flow as one.
In turn, Keitaro's disordered fragments of speech lost their heat upon leaving his lips, failing completely to reach Matsumoto's heart.

Amidst these distant discussions, the only thing that struck Keitaro as novel was the story of a Russian writer named Gorky or something like that, who, feeling the need for funds to put his advocated socialism into practice, had crossed over to America accompanied by his wife to procure them.
At that time, Gorky had amassed such tremendous popularity that he was swamped with invitations and receptions, yet he continued to steadily advance his objectives without difficulty.
However, the fact that the woman he had brought from his home country as his wife was not his real wife but merely his mistress was exposed from some quarter.
Thereupon, his reputation—which had until then reached a fever pitch—suddenly plummeted, and with not a single soul left in the vast New World willing to shake his hand, Gorky had no choice but to depart America as he was.
Such was the course of events.

“In Russia and America, the interpretation of male-female relations differs to this extent.”
“In Russia, Gorky’s methods would be such a trivial incident that they’d hardly become an issue, I suppose.”
“Trivial,” said Matsumoto with a face that suggested it was anything but trivial.

“And where does Japan stand?” Keitaro asked.

“Well, probably the Russian side.”
“I’m quite content with the Russian faction,” said Matsumoto, then briskly puffed out a thick plume of smoke like a signal fire from his mouth.

Having come this far, Keitaro began to feel that asking about the woman from the other day would no longer trouble him in the least.

“I believe I met you at a Western restaurant in Kanda the other evening.”

“Yes, we did meet.”
“I remember clearly.”
“And we met again on the train home too, didn’t we?”
“You rode all the way to Edogawa—are you staying at a boarding house thereabouts?”
“That rainy evening must have been quite trying for you.”

Matsumoto indeed remembered Keitaro.
Neither bringing it up from the start nor feigning belated awareness now, his attitude hovered between speaking or remaining silent at will—Keitaro found it hard to discern whether this sprang from guilelessness, audacity, or an innate magnanimity woven into his nature.

“It seemed you had a companion with you.”

“Yes, I’d brought a beauty along.”
“You were quite alone yourself, weren’t you?”

"I was alone."
"Weren't you accompanied when returning home too?"

"That's correct."

The brisk exchange came to an abrupt halt there.
Just as Keitaro waited for Matsumoto to mention the woman again, he was posed an entirely unrelated question: "Is your boarding house in Ushigome or Koishikawa?"

"Hongo."

Matsumoto stared at Keitaro with unconcealed puzzlement.
When confronted by that gaze demanding explanation—why would someone living in Hongo ride all the way to Edogawa's terminus?—Keitaro resolved to confess everything outright to avoid complications.
If angered, he would simply apologize; if his apology went unquestioned, he determined to bow politely and take his leave—that would suffice.

“The truth is, I followed you all the way to Edogawa,” said Keitaro. When he looked at Matsumoto’s face, he first felt relieved—unexpectedly, there was no reaction as strong as he had anticipated.

“For what purpose?” Matsumoto asked back in his usual relaxed tone.

“I was asked by someone.”

“You were asked?”
“By whom?”

For the first time, Matsumoto asked in a slightly surprised voice, placing stronger vocal emphasis than usual on his words.

12

“The truth is, I was asked by Mr. Taguchi.”

“Taguchi?”
“Taguchi Yōsaku?”

“Yes.”

“But didn’t you come specifically to see me with a letter of introduction from Taguchi?”

Feeling it would be easier to explain everything himself rather than endure this piecemeal interrogation, Keitaro began recounting his entire story—from receiving Taguchi’s express letter and rushing to stake out Ogawamachi Station, all the way to his rain-soaked ordeal after the train reached Edogawa’s terminus—holding back nothing.
From the outset aiming only for coherence, he naturally avoided exaggeration and minimized elaboration as much as possible—perhaps because it didn’t take long—but Matsumoto never once interrupted throughout the entire account.
Even after he finished speaking, there was no immediate sign of a response.
Keitaro surmised that his host’s silence stemmed from offense and resolved it would be wisest to apologize before anger erupted.
Then the host abruptly began speaking.

“What an outrageous fellow that Taguchi is.”
“And you’re just as much to blame for letting yourself be used by him.”
“You’re quite the fool.”

When Keitaro looked at Matsumoto’s face as he said this, the air of utter exasperation was plain for anyone to see, yet since no trace of anger appeared anywhere by comparison, Keitaro actually felt relieved.
Being called a fool at this point was nothing to him.

“I did something wrong.”

“I don’t want any apologies from you.”
“I’m only saying this because I feel sorry for you.”
“To be used by someone like that.”

“Is he really such a bad person?”

“What on earth compelled you to take on such a foolish task?”

The words about having accepted the task out of sheer curiosity simply wouldn’t come out of Keitaro’s mouth in this situation. He had no choice but to explain that due to his livelihood needs—circumstances forcing him to rely on Taguchi—he had reluctantly agreed despite knowing it was disagreeable.

“If you’re struggling to make ends meet, I suppose there’s no helping it—but you really should stop now. Isn’t this all unnecessary? Getting caught in the rain in this cold just to trail someone around.”

“I’ve learned my lesson a bit.
From now on, I don’t plan on doing it again.”

Having heard this confession, Matsumoto said nothing at all and merely wore a wry smile.
Since that could be taken by Keitaro as either contempt or pity, he felt extremely self-conscious either way.

“You seem to be acting as if you’ve wronged me, but is that actually the case?”

Though Keitaro hadn’t fundamentally felt that way, being questioned like this left him no choice but to concede to how things stood.
He had no choice but to answer accordingly.

“Then go tell Taguchi this: ‘The young woman I accompanied the other day is a high-class prostitute—I guarantee it myself.’”

“Is she truly that sort of woman?”

Keitaro asked with a slightly startled look.

“Well, never mind the details—just tell him she’s a ‘high-class prostitute’.”

“I see...”

“That ‘I see’ isn’t good enough. You must say it exactly like that.”
“Can you say it, you?”

As one of the modern-educated youths, Keitaro was not the sort to hesitate in voicing such implications before an elder out of propriety. Yet beneath Matsumoto's insistence on cramming this four-character phrase into Taguchi's ears lurked something disagreeable—so much so that he found himself unable to accept the task with casual readiness. When Keitaro fumbled for a response and grimaced, Matsumoto observed this and said, "Oh, you needn't worry. After all, it's Taguchi we're dealing with." Then after a pause, as if suddenly realizing something, he asked, "You still don't know about my relationship with Taguchi, do you?" "I still know nothing at all," answered Keitaro.

Thirteen

“If I explain our relationship, you’ll lose your nerve to call that woman a high-class prostitute to Taguchi—which would disadvantage me—but I can’t keep deceiving an innocent like you forever out of pity, so I’ll tell you.”

After making this preface, Matsumoto explained how he and Taguchi were socially connected.
Precisely because the explanation was so straightforward, it surprised Keitaro all the more.
To put it in a word, Taguchi and Matsumoto were close relatives.
When Keitaro first grasped the familial connection—that Matsumoto had two older sisters, one being Sunaga’s mother and the other Taguchi’s wife—he came to view the fact that Matsumoto, as Taguchi’s brother-in-law and in his capacity as an uncle, had arranged a meeting with his daughter at a designated time and station before dining together at a restaurant as nothing more than one of the most mundane events in society.
The fact that he had chased after it—scattering the heat haze of his own fervid imaginings all the while, as though unraveling some convoluted coded message—now struck him as utterly absurd.

“Why on earth had your niece gone all the way there? Was it just to deceive me?”

“She was returning from visiting Sunaga. While I was at Taguchi’s discussing matters, the girl called saying she’d be waiting there around four-thirty and asked me to stop by on my way back. I considered brushing her off as troublesome, but she kept insisting so persistently that I eventually got off there.”

“This morning she’d apparently heard from her father that her uncle had promised to buy her a ring for the year-end gift. She’d been lying in wait at the tram stop since earlier to ambush me—demanding I take her shopping then and there to get it, this willful request she’d cooked up entirely on her own without anyone’s knowledge. When she refused to budge, I thought I’d at least placate her with some Western food and ended up taking her to Hōtei.”

He snorted derisively. “That Taguchi’s a perfect fool. What need was there for such elaborate theatrics? The man’s a greater fool than you who got deceived by it all.”

To Keitaro, the fact that he himself had been deceived seemed far more foolish. Had he known this earlier, he could have shown more restraint when reporting his detective findings—he couldn't help flushing at his own actions.

"You truly knew nothing of this?"

"How should I? Even as a high-class idler, I'd never have leisure for such trifles!"

"What about your niece? I suppose she must know..."

“That’s right,” said Matsumoto after pondering for a while, then declared in a decisive tone, “Or rather—she probably doesn’t know.”
“If I were to name one redeeming quality of that fool Taguchi—and mind you, it’s a stretch—it’s this: no matter how many pranks that man plays, when the victim teeters on the verge of humiliation at the critical moment, he either abruptly stops them or steps in himself to cleanly resolve things before the person’s dignity comes into question.
"In that respect, he’s certainly a fool, but there’s something admirable about him."
"In other words, even if his methods are ruthless, in the end he shows a point permeated with a strangely warm humanity."
“Even in this matter, he’s probably keeping it all to himself.”
“If you hadn’t come to my house, I would have surely remained unaware of this incident.”
“He isn’t so heartless a man as to go around proclaiming from the start a scheme that would prove your foolishness even to his own daughter.”
"So he might as well stop the pranks while he’s at it—but the fact that he simply can’t stop himself is precisely what makes him a fool."

As Keitaro silently listened to Matsumoto’s critique of Taguchi’s character, he became aware that within his heart—more than any regret over his own foolish behavior, more than any resentment toward the one who had made a fool of him—it was his admiration for Taguchi, who had orchestrated the prank, that reigned supreme. But if he was indeed such a person, Keitaro couldn’t help but feel a doubt sprouting within him—why did such an uncomfortable feeling arise whenever he stood before him to speak?

"I’ve come to understand Mr. Taguchi much better thanks to your explanation, yet whenever I stand before him, I somehow grow restless and strangely on edge."

"That’s because he doesn’t let his guard down around you either."

Fourteen

When told this, Taguchi’s distrustful gazes and turns of phrase—all of which had clearly not let their guard down toward him—were etched into Keitaro’s heart as undoubted memories.
But why someone as seasoned as Taguchi would find a greenhorn like himself, fresh out of school, so bothersome—Keitaro couldn’t make sense of it at all.
He had firmly believed until now that he was exactly as he appeared—someone who could hold his ground before anyone.
He, as precisely such a youth who had so thoroughly constricted his view of himself as to lack even the qualifications to be either respected or regarded by others, now found it all the more perplexing to receive treatment from elders of differing degrees of experience that diverged from what he had expected.

“Do I seem like such a duplicitous person to you?”

“Who can say? Such nuances can’t be grasped from a single meeting.”
“But whether you are or not, it makes no difference to how I treat you—isn’t that enough?”

“But if Mr. Taguchi thinks of me that way…”

“It’s not that Taguchi thinks that way because it’s you—he thinks that way about everyone, so there’s nothing to be done about it. When you’ve been using people like that for so long, you end up getting deceived quite a bit, you see. Even when someone naturally beautiful appears before him, he still can’t let his guard down. If you think that’s just the karma of someone like him, then isn’t that fine? Since Taguchi is my brother-in-law, it might sound strange coming from me, but he’s inherently virtuous. He’s by no means a bad man. It’s just that after years of fighting society with his eyes fixed solely on business success, his perspective on people has become oddly skewed—constantly wondering things like ‘Will this one be useful?’ or ‘Can I trust this one?’ That’s all he ever thinks about. When that happens, even if a woman falls for him, he can’t help but immediately wonder: ‘Did she fall for me? Or did she fall for the money I have?’ Since even a beautiful woman would be doubted, a guy like you being treated with suspicion is only natural—you must understand that. That’s precisely what makes Taguchi Taguchi.”

Through this critique, Keitaro felt he had finally grasped the man that was Taguchi. Yet who exactly was this Matsumoto, who drove judgments into his head with an iron hammer—judgments so thorough they compelled his agreement? When it came to that point, Keitaro still felt as though facing a vague, formless cloud. Even Taguchi, before being subjected to such critiques, had struck him as more of a living human being than this man did.

Even when considering the same Matsumoto, he had seemed far more lively and animated that evening at the Western restaurant in Kanda when talking to Taguchi’s daughter about coral beads—discussing this or that concerning them. What now sat before him was akin to the spirit of a wooden statue clutching a large pipe—something that gave Keitaro the same impression as when it spoke—so he merely struggled to conjure up the man’s true form. While on one hand being deeply convinced by Matsumoto’s clear critique, and on the other hand pondering in this way what sort of man Matsumoto truly was—just as he began suspecting he himself might be a man of poor intellect, dull intuition, and below-average perception—this indistinct Matsumoto opened his mouth again.

“Even so, thanks to Taguchi playing the fool, you’ve ended up rather fortunate, haven’t you?”

“Why is that?”

“He’ll surely secure some position for you.”
“If he’s left to his own devices, even Taguchi won’t lift a finger.”
“I could take responsibility and handle that for you.”
“But what’s tedious is me.”
“It’s all because I’m such a failed detective.”

The two exchanged glances and laughed.
When Keitaro rose from the round chintz cushion, Matsumoto personally saw him to the entrance.
Before the folding screen adorned with an ink-wash crane, Matsumoto lingered with his gaunt frame while watching Keitaro put on his shoes. "That’s an unusual cane you have there.
“Let me see it,” he said.
Taking it from Keitaro’s hands, he remarked, “Hmm—a snake’s head carved with surprising skill.
“Did you purchase this?”
“No—it was carved by an amateur who gave it to me,” replied Keitaro, swinging the cane as he descended Yaraizaka slope toward Edogawa.

Rainy Day

One

The reason Matsumoto had refused to meet on that rainy day had long since passed without ever being heard from the man himself. Keitaro too had eventually become caught up in other matters and forgotten about it. It was only after he had obtained a position through Taguchi's assistance and consequently gained unrestricted access to the same household that he suddenly heard of it again. By that time, the station incident had already begun to lose its vividness in his mind. He could only respond with a bitter smile whenever Sunaga brought up the matter. Sunaga would often confront him, demanding, "Why didn't you come to me first and tell me everything?" There were even times when he admonished him, saying he should have known from his mother that his uncle from Uchisaiwaicho was the sort to deceive people. In the end, he began teasing that it was because Keitaro had been far too eager. Each time, Keitaro would brush it off with a "Don't be ridiculous," but inwardly he always recalled the woman whose retreating figure he'd seen at Sunaga's gate. He also remembered that this woman was none other than the one from the station. And then he would feel a distant sense of embarrassment. That her name was Chiyoko and her sister's Momoyo no longer came as surprising news to Keitaro now.

When Keitaro went to show his face at Taguchi's after meeting Matsumoto and learning all the behind-the-scenes details—though he felt somewhat awkward about it—the situation demanded closure regardless, so he steeled himself for mockery and passed through Taguchi's gate once more. True to expectation, Taguchi burst into loud laughter.
To Keitaro, however, this laughter seemed to carry not the arrogant ring of self-congratulation over clever schemes, but rather the triumphant joy of having guided a stray soul back to its proper path.
At that moment, Taguchi employed none of those patronizing phrases about disciplinary measures or educational methods.
Having declared it wasn't done maliciously and that Keitaro mustn't take offense, he immediately promised to secure him a suitable position.
Then he clapped his hands, summoned the elder daughter who'd been waiting with Matsumoto at the station, and formally presented her as his own child.
"This gentleman is a friend of Mr. Ichizo's," he informed his daughter regarding Keitaro.
The daughter offered an exceedingly formal greeting, her manner suggesting bewilderment at being thus associated with such a person.
It was then that Keitaro committed the name Chiyoko to memory.

This became Keitaro’s first opportunity to establish contact with Taguchi’s household. Thereafter, using errands or visits as excuses, he began passing through the same man’s gate with increasing frequency. At times he would enter the attendant’s room beside the entrance and engage in casual conversation with the attendant he had once spoken to by telephone. Naturally, he also found himself needing to enter the inner quarters. There were times when he was summoned by the wife to attend to matters within those private rooms. He was occasionally stumped by English questions posed by the eldest son, who attended middle school. As his visits grew more frequent, Keitaro naturally found more opportunities to approach the two daughters. Yet his somewhat lax demeanor, the relatively strict customs of Taguchi’s household, and their lack of face-to-face time left them stranded in circumstances where becoming familiar proved difficult. The words they exchanged were certainly not mere formalities prioritizing etiquette alone, but since these interactions mostly concerned immediate matters lasting no more than five minutes, little opportunity arose for genuine rapport to develop. It was during a mid-January karuta gathering that they sat openly knee-to-knee for an unusually long time, engrossed in unreserved conversation. At one point during this gathering, Chiyoko told him he was rather slow-witted. Momoyo snapped that she refused to partner with him because they were bound to lose.

Then, after about another month had passed—around the time when plum blossom bulletins began appearing in the newspapers—Keitaro spent a certain Sunday afternoon on the second floor of Sunaga’s house for the first time in ages, where he chanced upon Chiyoko, who happened to be visiting.
As the three of them kept up their meandering conversation jumping from one topic to the next, Matsumoto’s reputation abruptly surfaced in Chiyoko’s remarks.

“That uncle has changed quite a bit, hasn’t he? When it rained, there was a time he turned away guests quite frequently, you know. I wonder if he still does that now?”

II

When Keitaro began, “Actually, I was one of those who went on a rainy day and got turned away…”, Sunaga and Chiyoko burst into laughter as if by prior agreement.

“You’re quite an unlucky man, aren’t you? I bet you didn’t bring that walking stick of yours,” Sunaga began to tease.

“But that’s impossible! Even if you told me to bring a walking stick on a rainy day… Hey, Mr. Tanigawa.”

Upon hearing this logically argued defense, Keitaro also gave a bitter smile.

“Just what kind of walking stick is this Mr. Tanigawa’s walking stick, anyway? I want to see it. Please show me, won’t you, Mr. Tanigawa. You could go down and get it.”

“I didn’t bring it today.”

“Why didn’t you bring it? And today of all days, when the weather’s so lovely!”

“Because it’s my precious walking stick—you know, even if the weather’s lovely, I don’t take it out on ordinary days.”

“Really?”

“Well, something like that.”

“So you only take it out on national holidays?”

Keitaro was beginning to find it somewhat difficult to face both of them alone.
By promising that he would definitely bring it to show her the next time he went to Uchisaiwaicho, Keitaro finally managed to escape Chiyoko’s persistent questioning.
Instead, he decided to have Chiyoko tell him the reason why Matsumoto had been refusing visitors on rainy days.—

It was an unseasonably cloudy afternoon in November.
Chiyoko brought sea urchin—Matsumoto’s favorite—to Yarai at her mother’s request.
“Perhaps I’ll stay and visit awhile—it’s been so long,” she said, sending back the rickshaw she had specially hired and settling leisurely into place.
Matsumoto had four children in orderly alternation—a thirteen-year-old girl followed by a boy, girl, and boy.
All born two years apart, they were growing up just like any ordinary children.
Beyond these vibrant adornments that perfumed their household with splendor, the Matsumotos cherished their youngest child Yoiko like a pearl set in a ring, clinging to her and never letting go.
She had pearl-pale translucent skin and lacquer-black eyes, having come into their care on the eve of the previous year’s Doll Festival.
Of all five children, Chiyoko doted on this one most.
Every visit brought some new toy.
Once she even earned a scolding from her aunt for plying the child with too many sweets.
At this, Chiyoko cradled Yoiko carefully and stepped onto the veranda. “There now, Yoiko-san,” she said pointedly, flaunting their closeness before her aunt.
The aunt laughed. “What’s this? It’s not as if we’re quarreling.”
Matsumoto teased, “If you love her so much, I’ll give her to you as a wedding present—just take her along when you marry.”

That day too, Chiyoko sat down and immediately began playing with Yoiko.
Yoiko, having never had part of her scalp shaved since birth, had hair that grew out very fine and soft.
Perhaps due to her pale skin, when sunlight illuminated its color, the hair glinted with tightly curled strands containing an abundance of purple hues.
“Let me tie up your hair properly, Yoiko-san,” said Chiyoko as she carefully combed the girl’s curls.
Then she divided a portion of the sparse side locks and tied a red ribbon at their base.
Yoiko’s head was spread out flat and round like a ritual offering.
With her short hands finally managing to reach the edge of this offering-like head, she toddled over to where her mother was while clutching the ribbon’s end, saying “Ibon-ibon.”
When her mother praised how neatly it had been tied up, Chiyoko laughed happily while gazing at the child’s retreating figure before instructing, “Now go show your father.”
Yoiko made her way with unsteady steps to the entrance of Matsumoto’s study and dropped to all fours.
It was her invariable custom to assume this position when bowing to her father.
There she raised her bottom as high as possible and lowered her ritual-offering-shaped head to within two or three inches of the threshold, repeating “Ibon-ibon.”
When Matsumoto—who had momentarily stopped reading—remarked “What a lovely hairstyle! Who did it for you?”, Yoiko kept her head bowed and answered “Chii-chii.”
“Chii-chii” was the usual sign by which she—with her tongue still unskilled at forming words—called Chiyoko.
Chiyoko, who had been standing behind watching, heard her own name emerge from those small lips and once again laughed joyfully in a loud voice.

III

Before long, all the children returned from school, and the household—which until then had been dominated by the red ribbon—suddenly took on a variety of vibrant colors.
The seven-year-old boy who attended kindergarten brought something like a war drum with a tomoe emblem and, saying, "I'll let you hit it, Yoiko-san—come here," took her along.
At that moment, Chiyoko was watching the shadow of red woolen tabi socks, shaped like drawstring pouches, moving down the hallway.
At the ends of those tabi cords were round tassels, which fluttered up each time the tiny feet moved.

“You’re the one who knitted those tabi socks for her, aren’t you?”

“Oh yes, they’re adorable.”

Chiyoko sat there and talked with her uncle for a while.

Before long, a dismal rain began to fall from the cloudy sky, and no sooner had it started than it swiftly began to soak the leafless Chinese parasol tree with a loud patter.
Matsumoto and Chiyoko, as if by prior agreement, gazed at the rain’s hue through the glass and held their hands over the hand warmer.

“It’s because of the banana plants that the sound is so much louder, isn’t it?”

“Banana plants are remarkably resilient.”
“I’ve been thinking every day since then—today’s the day it’ll wither, today’s the day—and watching it like this, but it just won’t die.”
“Even after the sasanqua flowers scatter and the Chinese parasol stands bare, it’s still green, you see.”

“You find such odd things fascinating, don’t you? That’s why people call Kōzō an idler, you know.”

“On the other hand, your uncle could never manage to study banana plants even if he lived to be a hundred.”

“I wouldn’t want to do such research anyway. But Uncle, you’re far more the scholar than my father ever was. I truly do admire you.”

“Don’t get smart with me.”

“Oh, but it’s true! You know everything I ask about!”

While they were having this conversation, the housemaid came in saying, “This person has just arrived,” and handed Matsumoto something like a letter of introduction. Matsumoto stood up with a laugh. “Chiyoko, wait here. I’ll tell you something interesting soon,” he said.

“Ugh, don’t make me memorize a bunch of Western cigarette names again like last time!”

Matsumoto left for the parlor without answering anything.
Chiyoko also returned to the dining room.
There, to compensate for the sky's light blocked by rain, an electric lamp already glowed.
In the kitchen, dinner preparations seemed underway as both gas stoves busily spewed blue flames.
Soon the children sat facing each other in pairs at the large dining table.
Since Yoiko alone customarily had a housemaid assist her during meals, Chiyoko took on that role this evening.
She placed a small vermilion-lacquered bowl and a dish of fish meat on a tray, then led Yoiko into the six-tatami room beside them.
This room served mainly for household members to change clothes, with two chests and a full-length mirror positioned as if jutting from the walls.
Chiyoko set the tray bearing toy-like bowls and teacups before the full-length mirror.

“Come on, Yoiko-san, time for num-nums. Sorry for the wait.”

Each time Chiyoko scooped rice porridge spoonful by spoonful into her mouth, Yoiko was compelled to perform an array of tricks—repeating “Yummy, yummy” and “Gimme, gimme.” When she finally declared she would eat by herself and took the spoon from Chiyoko’s hand, Chiyoko painstakingly taught her how to hold it again. Yoiko had never been able to pronounce anything beyond extremely short words. When scolded for not holding it properly, she would tilt her flat head—resembling a ritual offering—and ask, “Like this?” “Like this?” she repeated. Chiyoko found this amusing and kept making her say it until, as usual, she began asking “Like this?” Halfway through the question, as she looked up at Chiyoko with her large eyes turned slightly sideways, she suddenly flung the spoon in her right hand and collapsed face down before Chiyoko’s knees.

“What’s wrong?”

Chiyoko picked up Yoiko without any particular concern.
Then, as though holding a sleeping child—with only the weight suddenly going limp in her arms—Chiyoko abruptly raised her voice and called, “Yoiko-san! Yoiko-san!”

IV

Yoiko lay supported on Chiyoko's lap, eyes half-closed and mouth half-open like someone drowsing into sleep.
Chiyoko slapped her back two or three times with an open palm, but it produced no response.

“Aunt! It’s an emergency—please come here!”

Mother threw down her chopsticks and bowl with a clatter and rushed into the room with heavy footsteps.
“What’s wrong?” she asked while tilting her face upward under the electric light—the lips already bore a faint purple tinge.
Even when pressing a palm against the mouth, no breath could be heard.
In a choked voice thick with strain, Mother told the housemaid to fetch a wet towel. As she laid it on Yoiko’s forehead, she demanded of Chiyoko: “Is there a pulse?”
Chiyoko clutched the tiny wrist but found no trace of a heartbeat.

“Aunt, what should we do?” she cried, her face pale.
Mother commanded the children standing there in a daze, “Go call your father quickly.”
All four children dashed off toward the parlor.
The sound of their footsteps stopped at the hallway’s end, and Matsumoto appeared with a puzzled look.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, looming over his wife and Chiyoko to peer down at Yoiko, but upon seeing her, his brows suddenly furrowed.

“The doctor…”

The doctor arrived promptly.
“The symptoms are unusual,” he said and immediately administered an injection.
However, it had no effect.
A painfully strained question—“Is there no hope?”—escaped from the master’s tightly pressed lips.
Then all at once, three pairs of eyes—filled with a fearful light dreading despair—fixed upon the doctor.
The doctor, who had been observing her pupils with a mirror, now lifted Yoiko’s hem and examined her anus.

“There’s nothing to be done. Both pupils and anus have fully dilated. My deepest condolences.”

The doctor said this but attempted another injection directly into her heart.
As might have been expected, this proved utterly ineffective.
When the needle pierced his daughter’s translucent skin, Matsumoto involuntarily knit his brows.
Chiyoko’s tears fell in steady drops onto her lap.

“What could have caused this illness?”

“It’s truly inexplicable.
There’s simply no way to describe it except as inexplicable.
No matter how I consider it...” The doctor tilted his head.
“What if we tried a mustard plaster bath?” Matsumoto proposed with amateurish logic.
“That might be worth trying,” the doctor replied immediately, though his face showed not the slightest encouragement.

Soon they drew hot water into a basin and emptied an entire bag of mustard into the midst of the billowing steam.
Mother and Chiyoko silently removed Yoiko's garments.
The doctor put his hand into the hot water and said, “Let’s add a bit more water. If it’s too hot, you might get burned,” he cautioned.
Yoiko, held in the doctor’s hands, was immersed in the water for five or six minutes.
The three of them held their breath and stared at the soft hue of her skin.
“That should be enough. If left too long…” he said as he lifted Yoiko from the basin.
Mother immediately received her, carefully dried her with a towel, and dressed her back in her original clothes, but seeing that Yoiko remained limp—utterly unchanged from before—she looked resentfully at Matsumoto and said, “Let’s let her rest like this for a while.”
Matsumoto, having agreed that this would be best, turned back toward the sitting room and saw the visitor out to the entrance.

A small futon and small pillow were soon taken out from the cupboard for Yoiko. As she gazed upon Yoiko's form—which seemed to have simply fallen into her usual peaceful nighttime sleep—Chiyoko let out a wail and collapsed forward.

“Aunt, I’ve done something terrible…”

“It’s not like Chiyo-chan did anything wrong…”

“But since I was the one who fed her… I’m truly sorry to both Uncle and Aunt.”

Chiyoko, in fragmented words, repeatedly recounted over and over her usual lively appearance from when she had been taking care of dinner earlier.
Matsumoto crossed his arms and said, “It really is strange after all,” but then urged his wife, “Hey Osen, it seems pitiful to leave her lying here, so let’s take her to the sitting room over there.”
Chiyoko also helped.

Five

With no suitable folding screen at hand, they chose a convenient spot and laid her down gently, her head facing north in the unenclosed space.
Osen brought the balloon Yoiko had been playing with that morning from the tearoom and placed it by her pillow.
They covered her face with a white bleached cotton cloth.
Chiyoko would lift the cloth from time to time to look, then weep.
“Come see,” Osen said, turning to Matsumoto with a congested voice. “Her face looks as lovely as Kannon’s.”
Matsumoto peered at Yoiko’s face from where he sat and murmured, “So it does.”

When finally mitsumata branches, an incense holder, and white rice dumplings had been arranged on the plain wooden desk, and the candle’s flame cast its faint light, the three of them were struck for the first time by the desolate realization that they had become irrevocably separated from Yoiko, who would never awaken from sleep.
They took turns offering incense.
The scent of that smoke ceaselessly assailed their nostrils, which had been drawn into a world entirely different from two hours before.
After the other children had been put to bed early as usual, only Sakiko, the thirteen-year-old eldest daughter, remained awake and kept vigil by the incense.

“You should go to bed too.”

“Still no one has come from Uchisaiwaicho or Kanda yet.”

“They should be here soon. Now go to bed already.”

Sakiko stood up and went out into the hallway, then turned around and beckoned to Chiyoko.
When Chiyoko likewise rose and stepped into the hallway, she pleaded in a hushed voice, "Please come to the lavatory with me—I'm frightened."
The lavatory had no electric light.
Chiyoko struck a match, lit the paper lantern, and turned down the corridor with Sakiko.
On their return, peering into the servants' room, they saw the cook and an errand-running rickshaw puller whispering across the brazier.
To Chiyoko, their hushed tones seemed to be recounting every detail of Yoiko's tragedy.
The other maids were in the tearoom preparing for visitors—wiping trays and setting out teacups.

Relatives who had received the notification gathered, two or three in number.
There were also those who left, saying they would come again.
Chiyoko kept recounting Yoiko’s sudden passing to each person who arrived.
After midnight, Osen deliberately prepared a heated table and placed it in the room for those keeping vigil, but no one warmed themselves at it.
The master and his wife were reluctantly persuaded to retire to their bedroom.
Afterward, Chiyoko replenished the dwindling incense smoke several times with fresh sticks.
The rain still did not let up.
The sound of evening raindrops falling on banana leaves was no longer heard; instead, the rain striking the zinc-roofed eaves sent a ceaseless stream of lonely, sorrowful droplets into her ears.
In the midst of this rain, she would occasionally remove the cloth placed over Yoiko’s face and sob—and so the night passed into dawn.

That day, the women all worked together to sew Yoiko's shroud.
With Momoyo newly arrived from Uchisaiwaicho and two or so wives from close households appearing besides her, the small sleeves and hems passed through various hands.
Chiyoko went around carrying hanshi paper, a brush, and an inkstone, having everyone write the six characters "Namu Amida Butsu" on one sheet each.
“Please write one too, Mr. Ichizo,” she said, coming before Sunaga.
“What’s this for?” Sunaga asked as he took the brush and paper with a puzzled look.

“Please write in small characters as much as you can all over the page. Afterwards, we’ll cut them into strips of six characters each and scatter them into the coffin.”

Everyone reverently inscribed the six-character invocation. Sakiko said, “I hate being watched,” while shielding her writing with her sleeve and forming twisted characters. The eleven-year-old boy declared, “I’ll write in kana,” then lined up multiple “Namu Amida Butsu” invocations like telegrams.

When the time came that afternoon to place her in the coffin, Matsumoto told Chiyoko, “You should change her kimono.” Chiyoko wept without replying as she stripped the cold Yoiko bare and lifted her up. Purple discolorations covered the child’s entire back.

Once dressed, Osen placed a small string of prayer beads in Yoiko’s hands. They added a woven hat and straw sandals to the coffin, along with the red woolen tabi socks she had worn until yesterday evening. The image of round beads swaying from the sock cords flashed before Chiyoko’s eyes. They stuffed toys near Yoiko’s feet and head, then finally sprinkled “Namu Amida Butsu” strips over her like snowfall before closing the lid and draping it with white rinzu silk.

6

Due to Osen’s belief that Tomobiki (a day considered unlucky for funerals) was inauspicious, they had postponed the funeral by a day, leaving the house more bustling than usual beneath its gloomy air. After being scolded for beating his usual toy war drum, seven-year-old Kakichi quietly approached Chiyoko and asked if Yoiko wasn’t coming back anymore. Sunaga laughed and teased that they’d take Kakichi to the crematory tomorrow to burn him up alongside Yoiko, to which Kakichi retorted “I’d hate that!” while rolling his big eyes at Sunaga. “Mother, I want to go to the funeral tomorrow too,” Sakiko begged Osen. “Me too,” pleaded nine-year-old Shigeko. As if finally noticing, Osen called to her husband—who had been speaking with the Taguchi couple in the back room—and asked, “Will you be attending tomorrow?”

“I’ll go.”
“You should go too.”

“Yes, I’ve decided to go.”
“What should we dress the children in?”

“A crested kimono should suffice.”

“But the patterns are too gaudy.”

“Have them wear hakama trousers.”
“The boys can wear their naval uniforms.”
“You have a black crested kimono?”
“Do you own a black obi?”

“I do.”

“Chiyoko—if you have mourning clothes, put them on and join the procession.”

After overseeing these arrangements, Matsumoto withdrew to the inner rooms again.
Chiyoko rose to offer incense.
When she looked at the coffin’s lid, she found a beautiful wreath had been placed there unnoticed.
“When did you arrive?” she asked her younger sister Momoyo beside her.
“A short while ago,” Momoyo answered softly before explaining: “Aunt said white flowers alone would feel too bleak for a child—she deliberately added red ones.”
The sisters sat side by side in silence.
After ten minutes passed, Chiyoko leaned close to Momoyo’s ear and whispered: “Momoyo—did you see Miss Yoiko’s deathly face?”
Momoyo nodded. “Yes.”

“When?”

“Look, didn’t you see it when we put her in the coffin earlier? Why?”

“Why?”

Chiyoko had forgotten about that moment.
Had her younger sister said she hadn’t seen it, she thought they might have opened the coffin lid together again.
“Don’t—it’s too frightening,” said Momoyo, shaking her head.

In the evening came an all-night vigil monk who recited sutras.
As Chiyoko listened nearby, Matsumoto had cornered the monk and was holding forth about how the Three Part Sutra was like this and the wasan hymns were like that—strange topics indeed.
Throughout their conversation kept resurfacing the names Saint Shinran and Saint Rennyo.
When the clock had just passed ten, Matsumoto laid out sweets and offerings before the monk before requesting he take his leave now that all was settled.
After the monk departed, when Osen asked why he'd sent him away so soon, [Matsumoto] answered nonchalantly: "Monks ought to turn in early too. Besides—Yoiko would've hated listening to sutras anyway."
Chiyoko and Momoyo exchanged glances and smiled.

The next day, under a windless, clear sky, the small coffin moved quietly.
The people by the roadside watched it pass as if it were something mysterious.
Matsumoto, declaring his dislike for white lanterns and unpainted palanquins, placed Yoiko’s coffin in a hearse.
Each time the black curtains draped around the hearse swayed, the wreath adorning the small coffin covered in white rinzu silk could be glimpsed flickering.
The children who had been playing around there ran up and peered curiously into the vehicle.
When they encountered the vehicle, some people took off their hats as they passed by.

At the temple, both sutra chanting and incense offering concluded according to ritual form. As she sat in the spacious main hall, Chiyoko found herself strangely dry-eyed. Even when observing her uncle and aunt's faces, she detected no particular signs of grief weighing them down. During the incense offering, when Shigeko mistakenly grabbed ashes from behind the burner instead of incense sticks—flinging a pinch into the powdered incense—Chiyoko nearly laughed aloud at the absurdity. After the ceremony ended, Matsumoto and Sunaga accompanied the coffin to the crematory with a few others, while Chiyoko returned to Yayoi with the remaining group.

In the carriage, she came to think that the mood of those past two days—agonizingly sorrowful though it had been—seemed to contain far more of something pure and beautiful than her present state of slightly diminished anguish. She found herself yearning instead for that piercing sorrow she had tasted then.

VII

Accompanying the bones were Osen, Sunaga, Chiyoko, and Kiyo—the housemaid who had customarily cared for Yoiko—bringing their number to four.
When they disembarked at Kashiwagi Station for what proved merely two blocks' distance—having absentmindedly taken a carriage from home—the trip ironically took longer.
This marked Chiyoko's first encounter with a crematory since birth.
The suburban vistas she hadn't glimpsed in ages delighted her like recovered memories.
Her eyes took in azure wheat fields, azure radish fields, and forests where crimson, gold and russet mingled wildly among evergreen boughs.
Sunaga walked ahead, periodically turning back to show Chiyoko landmarks like Anahachimangu Shrine and Suwa Forest.
As their carriage reached a dim gradual slope, he indicated for her a slender tower amid cedar-clad high ground.
Its engraving read: Memorial Tower for Kōbō Daishi's 1,050th Anniversary Observance.
Below it sat a well choked with kumazasa bamboo and a lone teahouse lending rustic charm to the bridge approach.
From lofty branches resembling tonsured monks' pates drifted small discolored leaves singly downward.
Their violent aerial spirals pierced Chiyoko's vision vividly.
That they resisted earthward descent to flutter suspended struck her as wondrously new.

The crematory was built facing south on a sunny plain, so when the carriage was drawn inside the gate, a sunnier light than Chiyoko had expected cast its shadow across her chest. When Osen stood before the office and said, “This is Matsumoto,” the man seated behind a window resembling a post office counter asked, “You have the key, I presume?” Osen made a strange face and suddenly began rummaging through her pockets and the folds of her obi.

“What a mess I’ve made.”
“I left the key on top of the household chest in the tea room…”

“You didn’t bring it? That’s a problem.”
“Since there’s still time, it would be best to have Mr. Ichizo hurry and fetch it.”

Sunaga, who had been coldly listening to their exchange from behind, said, “I have it,” and took a cold, heavy object from his sleeve to hand to his aunt.
While Osen was showing that at the reception window, Chiyoko reprimanded Sunaga.

“Mr. Ichizo, you’re truly a wicked person.”
“If you had it, you should’ve given it sooner.”
“Auntie’s mind has been so distracted by Yoiko’s affairs—isn’t that why she forgot?”

Sunaga simply stood there smiling.

“A person as unfeeling as you might as well not come at a time like this.”
“Even though Yoiko died, you haven’t shed a single tear.”

“It’s not that I’m unfeeling.”
“Since I haven’t had children yet, I don’t fully understand parental affection.”

“Well.”
“How can you say something so carefree in front of Auntie?”
“Then what about someone like me?”
“When have I ever had children?”

“I don’t know whether there is or not.”
“But since you’re a woman, Chiyo, you probably have a more beautiful heart than men.”

Osen, as though unaware of their argument, finished her business and immediately walked toward the waiting area. After sitting down there, she beckoned to Chiyoko, who was standing. Chiyoko immediately came to her aunt’s side and took a seat. Sunaga also followed and entered. Then he sat down on something resembling a cooling platform across from them. Kiyo offered her seat, saying, “Please sit.”

While the four were drinking tea and waiting together, two or three groups from the bone platform appeared.
The first consisted solely of a rustic-looking old woman who seemed hesitant before Osen and Chiyoko's attire and spoke little.
Next came a parent and child with their kimono hems tucked up.
In a lively voice they requested an urn, bought the cheapest one for sixteen sen, and left.
Third came a blind person of indeterminate gender with cropped hair and a stiff sash, led by a girl wearing purple hakama.
After confirming there was still time left, they took out a hand-rolled cigarette from their sleeve and began smoking.
When Sunaga saw the blind person's face he stood up abruptly and went outside without returning for some time.
Just then an office worker approached Osen urging them forward with an announcement that preparations were complete, prompting Chiyoko to go around back to fetch Sunaga.

VIII

Passing through the standard-grade furnaces with their brass placards inscribed "So-and-So-dono," which they had surveyed uneasily to either side, and exiting to the back, they found pine firewood piled mountainously in a corner of the broad vacant lot.
Surrounding them was a beautiful Mōsō bamboo grove, lush and thriving.
Below it lay wheat fields, and because beyond those fields the hills rose high in a winding continuation, the northern vista was especially serene and unobstructed.
Sunaga stood at the edge of this vacant lot, gazing blankly over the wide vista.

“Mr. Ichizo, they say everything is ready now.”

Sunaga heard Chiyoko’s voice and returned in silence, then said, “That bamboo grove is truly remarkable.
“It feels as if corpses’ fat became fertilizer, making them grow so vigorously—don’t you think?
“The bamboo shoots here must be delicious,” he said.
Chiyoko exclaimed “How ghastly!” and briskly walked through the standard-grade furnaces again.
Yoiko’s furnace, designated first-class grade one, had a purple curtain hung over its door.
Before it lay yesterday’s wreath, slightly wilted and resting quietly on the stand.
This seemed to Chiyoko like a memorial to the heat that had consumed Yoiko’s flesh the previous night, making her suddenly short of breath.
Three Buddhist priests emerged.
The eldest among them began, “The seal...” prompting Sunaga to request, “Go ahead and open it.”
The solemn priest cut the seal himself, removing the lock with a metallic clank.
When the black iron doors swung open, dimness revealed a formless mass within—gray rounds, black lumps, and white fragments barely visible.
“I’ll retrieve them now,” announced the priest as he extended two rails forward and fastened iron ring-like objects to the coffin platform’s ends. With a sudden clatter, the shapeless cremated remains materialized beneath the four observers’ noses.
Among them, Chiyoko recognized Yoiko’s plump skull—resembling ritual offerings—preserved exactly as in life, and pressed her handkerchief to her mouth.
Leaving behind this skull, cheekbones, and several large bones, the priest said, “I’ll sift the remainder cleanly and bring them.”

The four of them each held a wooden chopstick and a bamboo chopstick, picking up the white bones from the platform however they pleased and placing them into the white urn. Then, as if by mutual agreement, they began to weep. Only Sunaga remained pale-faced, neither speaking nor sniffling. When the priest asked "Would you like the teeth separated?" and deftly sorted through them—crushing the jawbone and extracting two or three fragments—Sunaga watched and muttered like one talking to himself: "At this stage, it scarcely feels human anymore. It's no different from picking pebbles from sand." The housemaid's tears pattered onto the earthen floor. Osen and Chiyoko set down their chopsticks and pressed handkerchiefs to their faces.

When boarding the carriage, Chiyoko embraced the white urn housed in its cedar box and placed it upon her lap. As the carriage started moving, a cold wind blew in between the lap robe and the cedar box. Tall zelkova trees lined both sides of the road with their whitish trunks and swayed their slender branches as if to see them off and welcome them. Despite the slender branches emerging so densely from both sides that they crossed high overhead, Chiyoko found it strange that the path she was passing through remained unexpectedly bright. From time to time, she would look up and gaze at the distant sky. When they arrived home and placed the remains before the Buddhist altar, a child immediately approached and asked her to open the lid, but she resolutely refused.

Before long, the entire household gathered in the same room for the midday meal.
"Looking at it this way, it still seems like there are many children, but now one is already missing," Sunaga began.

"When someone's alive, you don't think much of them, but once they're gone, they seem to become the most precious thing," said Matsumoto. "I almost wish someone among us could have taken her place."

“How cruel,” Shigeko whispered to Sakiko.

“Auntie, do splurge again and make me a child who’s the spitting image of Yoiko-san. I’ll cherish her, so…”

“It can’t just be a child like Yoiko—it has to be Yoiko herself. Even if you could replace her like a rice bowl or a hat, you can’t just forget the child we lost.”

“I’ve grown weary of the man who comes bearing letters of introduction on rainy days.”

Sunaga's Story

I

Ever since Keitaro had seen the woman’s retreating figure at Sunaga’s gate, he had constantly imagined this thread of fate binding the two together. This thread carried a dreamlike fragrance, yet whenever he actually looked upon them as Sunaga and Chiyoko before his eyes, it would often vanish somewhere instead. But during those moments when they, as ordinary humans, failed to stimulate his naked eye with reality, the lost thread would once again bind them through what seemed like inescapable causality. Even after he began frequenting Taguchi’s house, regarding Sunaga and Chiyoko’s relationship, he had not heard a single word from anyone—and though direct observation revealed nothing beyond ordinary cousinly behavior—some corner of his mind, dominated by these initial associations, still tended to regard them perpetually as a man and woman pair. To Keitaro, young men without female companions and young women without male partners were merely incomplete halves violating nature’s order. That he mentally paired those he knew in this way might have sprung from a moralistic impulse—a desire to swiftly grant these two, still floundering in their incomplete state, the qualifications nature itself had ordained.

It was complicated reasoning, and regardless of what demands had given rise to it, there was no need to explain it for Keitaro’s sake. Yet it was undeniably true that he, having recently chanced to hear of Chiyoko’s marriage prospects, found himself puzzled by the contradiction between the world inside his head and the society outside it.
He heard that story from the attendant Saeki.
However, someone like Saeki—a mere attendant—could not have known such intricate details from the outset when matters were still unresolved.
He merely tensed his vaguely blank facial muscles more than usual and said only that such was the rumor.
The name of the man who would marry Chiyoko was naturally unknown as well, but it seemed certain that he was a businessman of some standing.

“I always assumed Miss Chiyoko would end up with Sunaga, but that’s not the case after all?”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Why?”

“If you ask why, I can’t give a clear answer myself. Even when I try to think about it, it seems rather complicated.”

“Is that so? But I still think they’d make a perfectly suited couple.”
“They’re relatives, and there’s only a five- or six-year age difference—it’s not that strange.”

“To people who don’t know them, it might appear that way at first glance.”
“There seem to be various complicated circumstances behind the scenes, so…”

Keitaro wanted to press Saeki relentlessly about these so-called "complicated circumstances," but between irritation at being treated like an outsider through Saeki's phrasing, concern that extracting family secrets from a mere entryway attendant would compromise his dignity, and ultimately sensing Saeki likely knew no more than he'd hinted—he dropped the subject entirely. Seizing the opportunity, he went inside to greet the wife and conversed briefly, but finding her demeanor unchanged from usual, he couldn't bring himself to offer congratulations.

This had occurred just two or three days before Keitaro heard from Chiyoko at Sunaga's residence about the bereavement that had struck Uncle Yara's household. The very reason he had visited Sunaga that day after such a long interval was in fact to sound out Sunaga's thoughts regarding that marriage matter. Whoever Sunaga might marry or wherever Chiyoko might settle—this was none of Keitaro's concern—yet could their destinies truly part so easily, without lingering attachment, to left and right? Or did some phantom thread-like thing, just as he had imagined, become an invisible bond that tethered them together in obscurity? Or was it this glimmering thing—something one might liken to a sash woven from dreams—that at times shone clearly before their eyes only to suddenly snap and leave them isolated apart? It was precisely this that Keitaro wanted to grasp. From the outset, this had been nothing more than a fanciful notion. He was acutely aware of this fact. Yet when it came to Sunaga, he also recognized that indulging this fancy would not constitute discourtesy. More than that—he even believed himself entitled to satisfy this whim.

II

Unfortunately, that day he was first hindered by Chiyoko, and then in the end even Sunaga’s mother appeared, so despite having sat there for quite some time, he had no opportunity at all to bring up any probing topics.
Yet when Keitaro suddenly realized that the three people who had by chance lined up before him had, as they were in their present state, already become a perfectly suitable married couple and mother-in-law, he returned home thinking that fitting them into conventional societal forms would be the simplest task.

The following Sunday again blessed all working people with fine, warm weather, so Keitaro set out early in the morning to visit Sunaga and invite him out to the outskirts. Though the indolent and willful Sunaga had come to the entranceway, he showed no sign of agreeing until his mother pressed him insistently, finally managing to get him into his shoes. Once shod, he became a man who would go wherever Keitaro directed. Yet no matter how much one consulted him, he was not the type to insist they absolutely had to head in some predetermined direction. When he went out with Matsumoto from Yarai, since both wandered aimlessly without considering destinations, they would often wind up in the most improbable places together. Keitaro had in fact heard this very example from Sunaga's mother herself.

That day they took the train from Ryogoku and alighted below Kounotai. They then plodded along the embankment of a beautiful broad river. Keitaro, feeling invigorated for the first time in ages, surveyed the waterway, hillsides and sailboats dotting the landscape. Though Sunaga admired the scenery too, he grumbled that it wasn't yet seasonable weather for strolling wind-whipped levees, blaming Keitaro for dragging him out into the cold. When Keitaro insisted brisk walking would warm them up and set off at a clip, Sunaga trailed behind with an exasperated look. Reaching the vicinity of Shibamata's Taishakuten Temple, they entered an establishment called Kawajin for lunch. There Sunaga pulled another sour face, complaining the specially ordered grilled eel tasted cloyingly sweet.

Frustrated by their incompatible moods preventing serious conversation since arrival, Keitaro finally turned to Sunaga: "Edo natives are particular folk, aren't they? Do they make such exacting demands when taking wives too?"

“If they could, anyone would say so.”
“It’s not just limited to Edo natives.”
“Even someone like you—a country bumpkin—would say so.”

Sunaga answered thusly and kept a straight face.
Keitaro, unable to counter, laughed and said, “Edo natives are so unamiable, aren’t they?”
Sunaga also suddenly seemed to find it funny and burst out laughing.
After that, just as their moods had aligned, their conversation proceeded smoothly.
When Sunaga remarked to Keitaro—“You seem to have settled down quite a bit lately”—he meekly accepted it with, “Have I become a bit more serious?” And when Keitaro teased Sunaga—“Aren’t you becoming increasingly reclusive?”—Sunaga simply acknowledged his own weakness in good humor, saying, “I must admit I’m growing rather weary of myself.”

In this unreserved state of mind, as the two sat facing each other peering unembarrassed into the depths of one another's eyes, Chiyoko's matter being brought up proved a serendipitous opportunity for Keitaro, who had been seeking to uncover the truth.

He first confronted Sunaga with the rumor he had heard about a week prior—that she would soon be getting married.
At that time, Sunaga showed not the slightest sign of agitation.
In a tone more subdued than usual, he replied, “It seems another marriage proposal is taking shape.
I do hope this one comes to fruition.” Then abruptly shifting his manner, he added, “Not that you’d know, but there have been countless such discussions before,” delivering this explanation as though it were the most banal matter imaginable.

“You don’t intend to marry her, do you?”

“Do I strike you as someone who would?”

Their conversation dragged on in this manner until reaching an impasse where they had to either confront the crucial issue or abandon it entirely. At this critical juncture, Sunaga finally said to Keitaro with a wry smile, “You’ve brought that cane again.”

Keitaro laughed and stepped out onto the veranda. Retrieving the Western-style walking stick from there, he returned inside and thrust its snake-head handle toward Sunaga. “Exactly as promised,” he declared.

III

Sunaga’s account lasted far longer than Keitaro had anticipated.
—

My father died young. He died suddenly when I was still a child who did not yet understand parental affection. Since I have no children myself, my feelings toward a warm lump of flesh sharing my blood may still remain relatively weak even now, but the heart that yearns for the parents who gave me life has since grown considerably stronger. I occasionally find myself thinking how different things might have been had I possessed this present sensibility back then. To put it plainly, I was utterly cold toward my father in those days. Admittedly, he was by no means affectionate either. The image of his face that now dwells in my heart remains nothing more than a portrait—high-cheekboned, pallid, aloof, filled with sternness. Every time I saw my face reflected in the mirror's surface and recognized its striking resemblance to this paternal visage etched in my memory, displeasure would rise within me. This went beyond mere social anxiety about projecting his unpleasant impression—when I consider that beneath those gloomy brows and forehead I inherited, my own blood now carries warmer affections than they ever expressed, it makes me wretched as a son to think my father might have harbored deeper tears within than I myself possess, while I retain only his disagreeable exterior as memento.

Two or three days before his death, Father summoned me to his bedside. "Ichizo," he said, straining the muscles of his skeletal face, "when I die, you'll have to depend on Mother. Do you understand?" Having relied on her since birth, I found this renewed instruction peculiar. As I sat silently, he added, "If you remain this unruly, even Mother won't tolerate you. You must behave better." Secure in Mother's unwavering care, I dismissed this admonition as unnecessary and left the sickroom.

When Father died, Mother cried very hard.
Just before the funeral began, after being made to change into formal clothes and left with nothing to do, I went out alone to the veranda and gazed up at the blue sky as if peering into it when my mother, wearing pure white mourning robes, suddenly appeared there—what thoughts had brought her, I couldn’t tell.
Since Taguchi, Matsumoto, and all those attending were crowded on the far side, there was no one nearby.
Mother suddenly placed her hand on her own shaved head and fixed her tear-swollen eyes on top of it.
Then, in a small voice, she said, “Even though Father has passed away, I will care for you just as before, so don’t worry.”
I did not answer.
I did not shed any tears.
At the time, that was the end of it, but as I grew older, the feeling that these very words they spoke then were what clouded my memories of my parents from afar gradually grew stronger and clearer.
Why I had to back their words—which required no particular meaning—with such thick suspicion was something I couldn’t explain even when asking myself.
At times I felt the urge to confront Mother directly, but whenever I saw her face, my courage would suddenly crumble—this became the pattern.
And somewhere in my heart, a voice would whisper that once I confessed it, the close bond between mother and child would be severed, never to return to its present warmth.
Even without that, Mother would watch my earnest face as if trying to mask her thoughts with a laugh—“Was there ever such a thing?”—and anticipating the cruel outcome of being brushed off like that, I would reconsider and remain silent, feeling no obligation to voice it at all.

I was never an obedient son to my mother. Having been summoned to his bedside and admonished before Father’s death, I often defied Mother from a young age. Even after growing up and gaining the discernment to want to be kinder to her now that she was my only parent, I still did not follow her words. In the past two or three years especially, I did nothing but cause her worry. Yet however much we might argue as we pleased—being mother and child since birth, never having experienced wounding this precious bond whether deeply or superficially—I thought that if we were to bring up that matter and incur scars of mutual regret, that would truly be an irreparable misfortune. I even began to doubt whether this sense of dread might be something fabricated by my own neurotically inclined mind. But to me, it often existed as a future more vivid than the present. Therefore, even now, I cannot help but feel wretched that I was unable to forget those words Father and Mother spoke at the time exactly as they were.

IV

How harmonious the relationship between my father and mother was, I do not know. I have yet to marry, so perhaps I am unqualified to speak of such matters, but even the most harmonious couples must occasionally feel mutual awkwardness—such being human nature—and I imagine that they too, through long years together, must have discovered unpleasant flaws in each other's innermost hearts while privately enduring bitter dissatisfactions unknown to others and unspoken between them. Admittedly, my father was a man of irritable temperament yet passive disposition, and my mother was by nature incapable of raising her voice except when singing traditional ballads, so I had never once witnessed them quarrel before my father’s death. In short, from society’s perspective, a household as quietly harmonious as ours was rarely found. Even Matsumoto’s uncle, who speaks so bluntly ill of others, still firmly believes this assessment to be accurate.

Every time Mother spoke to me about my late father, she never failed to describe him as the closest thing to a perfect husband that ever lived.
This seemed partly a defense meant to purify the memory of Father that lay muddied and sunken in the depths of my being.
Or perhaps it was her way of gradually burnishing her own recollections by polishing them over time with time's cloth.
Yet when presenting Father to me as a parent overflowing with benevolence, her attitude would transform completely.
There were even moments when my ordinarily gentle mother—the one I saw daily—would impress upon me such solemn gravity that I marveled at her capacity for earnestness.
But that belonged to the days when I was moving from middle school to high school.
Now, no matter how much I begged Mother to repeat those stories, I could no longer access such noble sentiments.
My sensibilities had likely grown as desolate as those protagonists in modern novels during my years from then until graduation.
When wishing to curse this modern air poisoning me, I sometimes yearn to experience just once more that sublime feeling in Mother's presence as before—yet simultaneously, sadness surges knowing this wish is but an unattainable dream of the past.

My mother’s character could be entirely captured by the time-honored term “loving mother” we have long used.
From my perspective, it would not be wrong to say she was born for these two characters—“loving mother”—and would die for them.
It is truly pitiable, but even so, since my mother had concentrated her life’s satisfaction solely on this one point, there could be no greater joy for her than if I were to fulfill my filial devotion sufficiently.
But if that very I were to often go against her wishes, such misfortune would by no means befall her.
When I think of that, I am deeply pained.

Since I’ve remembered it, I’ll mention it here briefly—I have not been an only child since birth.
I remember playing every day with my younger sister named Myō when I was a child.
That sister wore an overcoat with a large pattern daily and had her hair cut straight across like a doll’s.
She would always call me “Ichizo, Ichizo,” never once addressing me as “Brother.”
This sister had died of diphtheria some years before our father passed away.
At that time, since serum injections had not yet been invented, treatment must have been extremely difficult.
I had not even known the name diphtheria at all.
I still have not forgotten how Matsumoto, who came to visit our house, teased me by asking if I too had diphtheria—to which I replied, “No, I’m a soldier!”
After my sister died, my father’s stern face appeared much kinder for a time.
When he turned to Mother with an expression that seemed to say “I’ve done you a great wrong,” his face remained particularly calm—so even as a child, I ended up engraving those words in my small heart.
Yet I have no idea how Mother responded to that.
Given that no matter how much I try to recall it I cannot, I must never have known from the start.
It seems strange that I—who had possessed such keen observational ability toward Father since childhood—was so lacking in attention toward Mother.
If humans tend to desire knowing others more than themselves, then perhaps my father appeared far more like a stranger to me than Mother did.
To put it conversely, Mother was so close that she hardly warranted observation.—In any case, my sister was dead.
From then on, I was an only son to both my father and mother.

Now, after my father’s death, I am my mother’s only son.

V

Therefore, I must cherish my mother as much as possible.
But in reality, that very cause has instead made me selfish.
Since graduating last year up to this very day, I have not spent a single day thinking about the issue of employment.
My grades at graduation were rather good.
Had I wished to take advantage of the current custom of selecting people by class rankings, there would have been no lack of opportunities to secure positions that would make my friends envious.
In fact, I even retain a memory of being summoned by a certain professor entrusted with personnel selection from one quarter and being asked about my intentions.
And yet I did not act.
I do not speak of this out of pride.
If I were to lay bare my true depths, it would be the opposite—this timidity stems entirely from a lack of conviction, making it all the more unpleasant.
But even if one were to break one’s back from dawn till dusk and be celebrated by society, that dismissiveness of “so what does it matter?” had clung to me from the very moment I refused.
I do not think I am a man born to achieve prominence.
I think that had I studied botany or astronomy instead of law, some occupation suited to my nature might have been bestowed by heaven.
I am a man who, though terribly timid toward society, shows remarkable patience with myself—which is why I think this way.

The thing that allowed my selfishness to persist as it did was none other than the modest inheritance my father had left behind.
If I had not had this inheritance—no matter how much hardship I endured—I would have had to fight society using my title as a Bachelor of Laws. When I considered this, I felt compelled to offer renewed gratitude toward my deceased father while simultaneously concluding that my selfishness—permitted existence only by virtue of this inheritance—must be an exceedingly rootless and shallow folly.
And thus my mother, who was being sacrificed through this arrangement, became all the more pitiable.

My mother, as was customary for women of proper upbringing in former times, held above all else the notion that elevating the family name was a child’s foremost duty. However, when it came to what she meant by “elevating the family name”—whether it signified honor, wealth, power, or moral prestige—she possessed absolutely no discernment. She vaguely assumed that if one were to descend upon her head, all others would come crowding to her doorstep in its wake. Yet I lacked the courage to explain such matters to my mother. To make her understand, I would first need to have elevated the family name in a manner I deemed most fitting—otherwise, I was unqualified to do so. I was not a man who could elevate the family name in any sense. I merely kept in mind the insight required to avoid tarnishing it. And since this insight—far from being something I could display for her delight—had no connection to her whatsoever, she must have felt uneasy. I too was lonely.

Among the various worries I cause my mother, the foremost one must be my shortcoming as I have just described.
However, given that my mother loves me enough for us to live together without discontent even if I don't correct this shortcoming—and though I could persist as I was then if I tried, provided I don't lose my sense of guilt—it is the marriage issue that secretly weighs on my heart, for it threatens to bring her a disappointment far keener than this selfishness.
Rather than a marriage issue, it might be more appropriate to call it the circumstances surrounding me and Chiyoko.
To explain this properly within the narrative sequence, one must first return to the time preceding Chiyoko's birth.
At that time, Taguchi was by no means as influential or wealthy as he would later become.
Simply because he was a man with promising prospects, my father mediated to have that aunt—my mother’s younger sister—married off to him.
Taguchi had regarded my father as his senior from the start.
He would consult him on various matters and also receive his help.
It was during this time—as the newly formed close relationship between our families was progressing harmoniously month by month, gaining momentum—that Chiyoko was born.
At that time—though I cannot fathom what my mother truly thought—she apparently asked the Taguchi couple whether they might give this child to Ichizo as a bride when she grew up.
According to my mother’s account, they readily agreed to her request at that time.
Originally—with Momoyo being born later and a boy named Goichi entering their family—Chiyoko too could have been sent off anywhere had they wished; but whether Mother had secured their promise so firmly that she absolutely had to be given to me remains unknown even to myself.

VI

In any case, between me and Chiyoko there had existed such a bond from the time when both of us still lacked worldly awareness.
Yet that bond proved a most dubious one for uniting us two.
We had grown up freely from the beginning, like skylarks soaring skyward.
Even those who twisted this bond likely never felt they truly grasped its ends.
I deeply grieve for my mother that I cannot employ the phrase 'dubious bond' here to signify 'strange fate.'

When I entered high school, my mother subtly alluded to Chiyoko.
Of course, I had romantic inclinations at that age.
Yet the very notion of a future wife was absent from my mind.
I lacked even the composure to properly entertain such discussions.
The girl with whom I had played and quarreled since childhood—who had grown up practically in the same household—seemed too familiar, too ordinary through our proximity to stir any ordinary excitement toward the opposite sex.
This was likely not my perception alone; Chiyoko surely felt the same.
As evidence, throughout our long acquaintance I cannot recall her ever treating me as a man.
To her eyes, whether I raged or wept, committed follies or attempted charm, I remained ever her unchanging cousin. This stemmed partly from her own guileless nature—a disposition I understood better than any—yet such understanding alone could never breach that wall between man and woman.
There was one instance... but that would be better related later.

My mother interpreted my failure to heed her words as shyness and, as though biding her time once more, kept this issue to herself.
Even I cannot muster the courage to deny this shame.
Yet by assuming my shame stemmed from feelings for Chiyoko, my mother had effectively acknowledged the exact opposite as truth.
In short, driven by her vision of preparing for the future, my mother strove with all her might to raise us two to be close—only to gradually drive us apart as man and woman.
And thus she remained unaware of it.
I, who made her aware of what she needed to know, was utterly cruel.

Narrating the events of that day remains painful for me.
It seemed Mother had kept the matter of Chiyoko—first hinted during my high school years—close to her heart, nurturing it alone until my second university year, when one evening—a spring night rumored to have blooming flowers—she quietly laid it before me.
By then I had grown mature enough to calmly take up the issue and examine it thoroughly from all sides.
This time Mother didn’t merely hint from afar—she gave proper form to her hopes.
I carelessly replied that I disliked the idea because she was my blood cousin.
Mother startled me by declaring, “Since I asked for Chiyoko when she was born, you should just take her now.”
When I demanded why she’d made such a request, she disarmed me with an explanation absurd for addressing an infant: “Because she’s a child I love, and you couldn’t possibly dislike her.”
Pressing further, I reduced her to tears until she confessed, “It’s not for you—I’m begging entirely for myself.”
Yet no amount of questioning revealed why this served Mother’s interests.
Finally came the blunt inquiry: “Do you utterly despise Chiyoko?”
“Not at all,” I answered.
But I explained that since Chiyoko herself showed no inclination toward me, and Uncle Taguchi’s family clearly opposed the match, pressing the matter would only trouble them.
Mother insisted promises transcended inconvenience—nay, precluded it—recounting every favor Taguchi owed my late father.
Compelled, I proposed postponing resolution until graduation.
With anxious hope flickering beneath her composure, Mother entreated me to reconsider thoroughly.

Due to these circumstances, I too had to bear the problem that until now my mother had kept to herself alone.
Could it be that Taguchi, in his characteristic fashion, was now nurturing this same issue?
Even if they were to marry Chiyoko off elsewhere, assuming that when the time came they would need to obtain our consent, Uncle must have been concerned.

VII

I grew uneasy.
Every time I saw Mother’s face, I couldn’t help feeling guilty—as though I were deceiving her while furtively slipping through each day.
At one point I even reconsidered, thinking that if possible, I should take Chiyoko as Mother wished.
To this end, I made a special visit to Taguchi’s house under the pretext of casual socializing and discreetly observed my uncle and aunt.
In preparation to counter my mother’s persistent pressure, they never once betrayed any hint of aversion toward me through word or deed.
They were not people so shallow or unkind.
Yet as their daughter’s prospective husband, how pitiable I appeared in their eyes—not only had this perception remained unchanged from what I had discerned long ago, but recently it seemed to grow ever more pronounced.
First and foremost, they appeared unwilling to accept my frail physique and pallid complexion as befitting a son-in-law.
However, being of an acutely sensitive disposition prone to exaggeration and unwarranted resentment, I must refrain from discourteously laying bare here the detailed observations of my uncle and aunt that I privately harbored.
To put it plainly: they had likely declared their intent at that time to make Chiyoko my bride.
At minimum, they must have considered it permissible to proceed.
Yet when one considers how their established social standing and my own nature—moving as it did counter to theirs—had doubly stripped them of practical means to act, leaving only a senile husk of hollow obligation abandoned somewhere in their minds, there remains no contradiction in this view.

Neither I nor they had many opportunities to discuss the marriage issues of all people.

Once, there was an exchange of such conversation between my aunt and me.

“Mr. Ichizo, you really ought to start looking for a wife soon.”
“It seems your mother has been worried about this for some time now.”
“If you find a good one, please let Mother know.”
“For someone like you, Mr. Ichizo, a quiet, kind, nurse-like woman would be best.”
“Even if one were to search for a nurse-like bride, there’d be no one willing to come.”
When I said this with a bitter smile, as if mocking myself, Chiyoko—who had been occupied with something in the corner until then—suddenly raised her head.

“Shall I go for you?”

I looked deeply into her eyes.
She too looked at my face.
But neither of us recognized anything meaningful there.
My aunt did not even turn toward Chiyoko.
Then she said, “How could a brash thing like you ever appeal to Mr. Ichizo?”
In my aunt’s low voice, I heard a reproachful yet apprehensive tone.
Chiyoko simply laughed heartily as though amused.
At that moment Momoyo was also nearby.
Hearing her older sister’s words, she smiled faintly and rose from her seat.
Interpreting this as an informal refusal conveyed through silence alone,

After this incident, I increasingly came to regard efforts to satisfy Mother regarding the same matter as worthless.
As the son of a father with strong self-respect, my nerves were surprisingly sensitive—even to myself—in such matters.
Of course I never took offense at my aunt on that occasion.
As an aunt who had yet to receive a formal proposal from us, I suppose she had no other way to let her intentions show than that.
As for Chiyoko, I believed that whatever she said or laughed about was merely an outward expression of her unburdened heart at all times.
From Chiyoko’s words and demeanor at that time, I indeed reaffirmed, as before, that she had no desire to come to me; yet simultaneously, I privately harbored a concern—if my mother were to have a heartfelt talk with her face-to-face, she might readily agree on the spot, saying, “Very well, if that’s how it is, I’ll come as your bride.”
For I had always believed that she was an exceedingly pure woman who, at such times, could calmly sacrifice her own interests and her parents’ wishes.

VIII

Stubborn as I was, I prayed to spare my ego rather than please Mother.
As a result, fearing Chiyoko might be swayed by Mother unbeknownst to me, I discreetly took measures to prevent it.
Mother had determined Chiyoko as my bride from her infancy itself—hence among numerous nieces and nephews, she particularly cherished her.
From childhood, Chiyoko too regarded my home as her natal house, visiting freely for overnight stays.
Owing to this bond, even now when Taguchi's household and mine had grown distant compared to former times, Chiyoko alone frequented us cheerfully—calling "Auntie! Auntie!"—as if visiting living parents.
This guileless girl would even unreservedly disclose to Mother the marriage proposals occasionally targeting her.
My kindhearted mother would simply listen earnestly, never once revealing resentful eyes.
The earnest discussion I dreaded could transpire anytime between these two bound by such intimacy.

My discretion was merely precautionary—an attempt to first keep Mother from broaching the subject. Yet whenever I resolved to formally raise the matter with her, a feeling would stir within me that depriving this vulnerable parent of her freedom simply to assert my own will would make me nothing but a cruel son, and so I often abandoned the attempt altogether. Nor could I claim I stopped solely out of pity for clouding an elder's brow. Considering that even Mother—despite our closeness—had until now been unable to muster the resolve to confess her intentions to Chiyoko, the thought that maintaining the status quo would likely suffice for the time being somewhat restrained me in dealing with her.

And so I passed days without taking any clear measures regarding Chiyoko.
Though even during this period when I spent days in such an anxious state, I had not completely severed ties with the Taguchi household; indeed, there were times when I would take the streetcar all the way to Uchisaiwaicho solely to see my mother’s delighted face.
One such evening after a long interval, detained by Chiyoko—who insisted on treating me to newly learned rare homemade dishes—I sat down to dinner.
My uncle, who was usually seldom home, happened to be present that day, and as he maintained his usual affected banter throughout the meal, the house grew so lively that young people’s cheerful laughter resonated through paper doors.
After finishing dinner, my uncle—for reasons unknown—suddenly said to me: “Mr. Ichizo, how about a game? It’s been ages.”
Though not particularly inclined, I replied “Since you ask” and withdrew with him to another room.
There we played two or three games.
Being a match between two unskilled players from the start, there was no reason it should take long; even after putting away the Go stones, it still wasn’t late.
We began talking while smoking tobacco.
Seizing an opportune moment then, I deliberately asked my uncle: “Has Chiyoko’s marriage arrangement still not been settled?”
This was of course to demonstrate I harbored no ulterior motives toward her.
But it was also because I thought resolving this matter quickly would bring peace to myself and happiness to Chiyoko.
Then my uncle—ever true to his masculine nature—said without hesitation:

“Well, it still doesn’t seem likely to go that way.”
“There are indeed people gradually bringing such proposals, but honestly, it’s so troublesome I’m at my wit’s end.”
“On top of that, the more I investigate them, the more complicated they get—I’m thinking of settling for whatever seems mostly workable.”
“Marriage arrangements are such strange things.”
“Now that I mention it to you—when Chiyoko was born, your mother wanted her to be Ichizo’s bride. A newborn baby, no less.”

My uncle looked at me with a laugh.

“It seems Mother was quite serious when she said that.”

“Dead serious,” he replied. “Your mother’s an honest soul through and through. A truly good woman. Why, even now I hear she occasionally brings up that old matter with Auntie in earnest.”

He burst into loud laughter again.
If he truly viewed this affair so lightly, I thought of defending Mother’s position. But reconsidering—if this were merely a worldly man’s clever pretense—I judged even a single word would be foolish and held my tongue.
My uncle was both kind and worldly.
To this day I remain uncertain through which lens to view his words from that time.
What’s undeniable is this: from that moment onward, I leaned ever more decisively against taking Chiyoko as my bride.

IX

For about two months after that, I kept my distance from the Taguchi house.
Had Mother not been anxious, I might have never directed my steps toward Uchisaiwaicho again.
Even if Mother did worry, had it been purely out of concern for her alone, I might have pushed my stubbornness to its absolute limit when the moment came.
That’s just the kind of man I was born to be.
Yet at the end of those two months, I suddenly realized clinging to this obstinacy would work against me.
The truth was, the more estranged I became from Taguchi, the more vigorously Mother sought every opportunity to engage with Chiyoko.
And so the situation grew increasingly urgent, reaching a point where there was no telling when Mother might initiate the direct confrontation with Chiyoko that I dreaded most.
Resolutely, I tried postponing this crisis to some later date.
With that determination, I crossed Taguchi’s threshold once more.

Their attitude toward me remained unchanged from before. My own demeanor toward them likewise stayed exactly as it had been two months prior. We laughed together as always, traded jokes, and pointed out each other's petty faults just like old times. In short, the hours I spent at the Taguchi residence were filled with boisterous cheerfulness. To be truthful, this cheerfulness felt somewhat excessive to me. As a result, I grew perpetually weary from maintaining hollow efforts within. Had I examined myself with sharp eyes, I believe some false shadow would have revealed my true self in an unflattering light somewhere amid it all. Among these days, there was only one instance where I experienced the pleasure of my mood and words aligning perfectly—like two sides of a sheet of paper pressed together without a gap.

This occurred on one of those annual or biannual days when the entire Taguchi household would customarily go out for leisure together. Unaware of their absence, I made my way to the inner rooms and was startled to find Chiyoko sitting alone in quiet solitude. She appeared to have caught a cold, with a compress wrapped around her throat. Her unusually pale complexion struck me as lonely and forlorn. When she smiled and said, “Today I’m the one keeping house,” I finally realized everyone else had gone out.

That day, perhaps due to her illness, she was more quietly composed than usual. When I saw her sitting alone in this strangely subdued state—she who would invariably rattle off teasing remarks and insist on trading barbs whenever she saw me—I was suddenly moved by a pang of pity. As soon as I took my seat, gentle words of comfort spilled from my lips unbidden. Then Chiyoko made a peculiar expression and said, “You’re being awfully kind today. When you take a wife, you’ll have to be gentle with her like this, you know.” I, who had been unreserved yet affectionate, realized for the first time then that until now I had tacitly permitted myself to behave as coldly as I liked toward Chiyoko without consequence. And recognizing a faint yet seemingly happy hue drifting somewhere in Chiyoko’s eyes, I regretted having been in the wrong.

The two of them looked back on their past as if they had grown up together.
Words recounting old memories spilled from their lips like water reviving parched earth.
I was astonished that Chiyoko’s memory far surpassed mine, vividly permeating even the minutest details.
She even remembered how four years earlier I had stood in the entranceway and made her mend a tear in my hakama.
She still knew it had been silk thread she used then, not cotton.

“I’ve still got the drawings you made for me.”

Now that she mentioned it, I did recall having drawn pictures for Chiyoko.
However, that was when she was twelve or thirteen years old; she had made Taguchi buy her paints and paper, thrust them before me, and forced me to draw them.
My inclinations in painting—evident from having never once picked up a paintbrush since then until now—meant that once those simple red and green stimuli had fully registered in her eyes, her interest should have naturally ended there.
When I heard she was preserving them, I couldn’t help but force a pained smile.

“Would you like me to show you?”

I declined, saying I didn’t need to see them.
She stood up regardless and brought from her room the small lacquered box containing my drawings.

X

Chiyoko took out five or six of the drawings I had made from inside it and showed them.
They were red camellias, purple spider lilies, and color-changing dahlias—all nothing more than simple floral sketches. Yet the technique of painstakingly applying detail to unnecessary areas, not shying away from wasting time to render them meticulously and beautifully, was almost astonishing to my present self.
I was impressed by how meticulous my past self had been.

“When you drew those for me, you were much kinder than you are now, weren’t you?”

Chiyoko suddenly said this.
I had no idea what she meant by that.
When I raised my eyes from the drawing and looked at her face, she too was staring fixedly at me with her large black eyes.
I asked why she would say such a thing.
She still did not answer and continued to stare at my face.
Eventually, in a voice quieter than usual, she said, "But even if I asked you these days, you wouldn’t put so much effort into drawing for me, would you?"
I could neither say I would draw nor that I wouldn’t.
In my heart, I silently acknowledged the truth of her words.

“Even so, you’ve kept these things so meticulously.”
“I intend to take them with me when I get married.”

I felt strangely sad upon hearing these words.
And what frightened me more was how this sorrow seemed poised to echo through Chiyoko's being.
In that instant, I already envisioned before me those large black eyes brimming with tears.

"You shouldn't bother keeping such trivial things."

"It's fine. They're mine whether I take them or not."

As she said this, she stacked the red camellias and purple asters and put them back into the box.
I deliberately asked her when she intended to get married in order to change my own mood.
She answered that she would get married soon.

“But it has not been formally settled yet, has it?”

“No, it has already been decided.”

She answered clearly.

My heart, which until now had fervently wished for her marriage arrangement to be settled as soon as possible as a final means to secure my own peace of mind, crashed like a wave with this answer.
Then an oily sweat, as though crawling from my pores, suddenly soaked my back and underarms.
Chiyoko stood up holding the lacquered box.
When she opened the shoji, she looked down at me from above and, with a single blunt declaration of “That was a lie,” headed to her room.

I remained seated in my usual spot without any thought of moving.
In my heart there dwelled nothing loathsome.
Having for the first time truly become aware of how Chiyoko's marriage prospects might affect me, I felt grateful to her for provoking this awareness through her teasing.
I may have loved her all along without realizing it.
Or perhaps she may have loved me all along without realizing it.
―I wondered if my true nature was something so elusive and frightening, and remained blankly still for some time.

Then, from over there, the telephone tinkled.
Chiyoko hurried over along the veranda and asked me to make a phone call with her.
I couldn't comprehend what she meant by making the call together, but I immediately stood up and went with her to the telephone.

“I’ve already had them put through.
My voice is hoarse and my throat hurts so much I can’t speak, so please act as my proxy.
I’ll handle the listening part since I’ll be the one listening.”

I didn't know the other party's name, and as I prepared to make a call that wouldn't connect properly, I leaned forward and readied myself. Chiyoko was already pressing the receiver to her ear. The words transmitted through it into her head were hers alone to occupy, so I merely amplified her whispered greetings and relayed them to the other end without understanding their meaning. At first, I continued unperturbed—not minding the absurdity, unbothered by the time it took—but as replies and questions that provoked my curiosity began emerging from Chiyoko’s mouth, I called out “Here, hand it over” while still bent forward, extending my left hand straight toward her. Chiyoko laughed and shook her head in refusal. I straightened my posture further and tried to snatch the receiver from her hand. She absolutely would not let go of it. When a struggle between us—one trying to take it, the other refusing to let go—broke out, she swiftly hung up the phone. And then she burst out laughing in a loud voice.—

Eleven

If such a scene had occurred a year earlier than now, I thought over and over again afterward.
Every time I thought this, I felt as though fate had pronounced that it was already too late—the time had already passed.
There were also days when the same fate would secretly tempt me with the thought that even now, I could still seize opportunities to repeat such scenes two or three times over.
If we had not hesitated to use the light in our eyes solely to reflect each other’s affection, then even if Chiyoko and I had set out from that day as our starting point, by now we might have fallen into a love that human interests could not divide.
However, I had adopted the opposite course.

The Taguchis’ intentions and my mother’s hopes—as meaningless as others’ meddling—when compared solely to her innate qualities and mine stripped down to our born natures alone, I had always believed we two could never become one.
Even if asked why this was so, I might not be able to provide a satisfactory answer.
I do not believe this for the sake of explaining it to others.
I once heard a story from a literature-loving friend about D’Annunzio and a certain girl.
D’Annunzio was said to be Italy’s most famous novelist at the time, so while my friend’s purpose was no doubt to introduce me to his prominence, I found myself far more interested in the girl mentioned alongside him than in the man himself.
The story goes like this:
—

One day D’Annunzio received an invitation and attended a gathering.
In Western societies where literary figures are celebrated as national ornaments, D’Annunzio was treated like a great man by all present, showered with immense respect and affection.
Having drawn the entire room’s attention as he moved through the crowd, he somehow let his handkerchief fall beneath his feet.
Amidst the commotion, neither he nor those nearby noticed it at all.
Then a young beautiful woman alone picked up the handkerchief from the floor and brought it before D’Annunzio.
She meant to return it to him, asking, “This is yours, isn’t it?”
D’Annunzio thanked her but, evidently feeling compelled to charm her lovely features, declared, “Keep it as your own—I bestow it upon you,” as if anticipating her delight.
Without uttering a word in reply, she silently pinched the handkerchief between her fingertips, walked to the fireplace, and suddenly cast it into the flames.
All others present except D’Annunzio couldn’t help but smile.

When I heard this story, rather than conjuring up an image of a young Italian beauty with tea-brown hair, I immediately imagined Chiyoko’s eyes and brows instead. And I thought that had it been Momoyo rather than Chiyoko, no matter her true feelings, she would surely have accepted the handkerchief with polite thanks. But Chiyoko could never do such a thing.

The sharp-tongued Uncle Matsumoto had given these sisters nicknames, always calling them Big Toad and Little Toad. Claiming their mouths—too long for their thin lips—resembled the clasp of a frog-mouthed coin pouch, he constantly made them laugh or bristle with anger. This was purely about facial features unrelated to their natures, yet whenever I heard this same uncle habitually remark, “The Little Toad’s quiet and good, but the Big Toad’s a bit too vehement,” I found myself questioning how he observed Chiyoko and inevitably doubted his discernment. That Chiyoko’s words and actions sometimes seemed vehement stemmed not from any unladylike coarseness within her, but rather from her casting herself wholeheartedly into excessively feminine tender emotions—this I firmly believed without doubt. Her sense of right and wrong operated almost entirely independent of learning or experience. She simply ignited intuitively toward others. This was why people sometimes felt as though struck by lightning. The intensity of her impact—signifying pure masses surging forth from her heart all at once—differed entirely from being sprayed with stings or poison. As proof, no matter how fiercely she scolded me, there were many instances where I felt my very insides cleansed by something pure from her. On rare occasions, I even felt I had encountered something noble. Standing alone before the world, I think so strongly of defending her as the most womanly of all women that I might actually do it.

Twelve

Where exactly lay the problem in making Chiyoko—whom I regarded so highly—my wife?
――Truth be told, I had posed this very question to my own heart.
At that moment, before any reasons could take shape in my mind, terror seized me first.
I found myself unable to sustain the vision of us as husband and wife before my eyes.
Were I to speak of this to Mother, she would surely be aghast; even confiding in friends my own age might meet with incomprehension.
Yet since there was no need to bury these memories in enforced silence, I shall not keep them as private impressions but confess here plainly: Chiyoko was a woman who knew nothing of fear.
And I was a man acquainted solely with fear.
Thus not only were we ill-matched—as husband and wife, we could only become perfect inverses of one another.

I am always thinking.
"Nothing is more beautiful than pure emotions.
There is nothing stronger than that which is beautiful."
It is only natural that the strong do not fear.
If I were to take Chiyoko as my wife, I would not be able to withstand the intense light emanating from her eyes.
That light does not necessarily indicate anger.
Whether it be the light of emotion, the light of love, or even the light of yearning—it is all the same.
I am certain to be transfixed by that light.
It is because, as a man of feeling, I am far too inadequate to give her something shining with equal or greater brilliance in return.
Even if I were given a cask of fragrant pure sake, as a teetotaler unqualified to fully savor it, I have been educated by society up until today.

If Chiyoko were to come to me as a bride, she would inevitably experience cruel disappointment.
She would pour her beautiful innate emotions unreservedly over her husband, expecting in return that he—nourished spiritually by her—would vigorously make his mark on the world as his sole repayment.
She, who from her youth, lack of education, and narrow perspective should rightly be deemed pitiable, believes that unless a man throws himself headlong into the real world with all his mind and strength to seize power or wealth visible to the naked eye, he is no man at all.
Her simple nature would demand such efforts from me even if she were to marry into my household, and she remains utterly convinced that I could fulfill them if only asked.
It would be no exaggeration to say that the fundamental misfortune lying between us exists here.
As I have stated, I possess a thoroughly dull and smoldering nature incapable of accepting such vast quantities of her beautiful wifely emotions—and even if I were to absorb them all like water splashed on a heated stone, I could never utilize them as she desires.
If her pure influence were to manifest somewhere within me, it would only do so in an unforeseen form, in a place she could never comprehend no matter how much I explained.
Even if it were to catch her eye, she would likely not value it any more than my head hardened with cosmetic or my feet wrapped in habutae tabi.
In short, from her perspective, it would amount to nothing more than perpetually wasting beautiful things upon me and gradually lamenting the misfortune of marriage.

Whenever I compared myself to Chiyoko, I inevitably felt compelled to repeat the phrases "a woman who knows no fear" and "a man who fears". Eventually I began to feel these weren't my own creations but phrases lifted straight from some Western novel. Since Uncle Matsumoto - that self-styled lecturer - had explained the distinction between poetry and philosophy to me recently, those words now instantly called to mind poetry and philosophy, realms utterly foreign to my existence. Though my uncle only dabbled in such matters, his amateur enthusiasm led him to share various interesting theories; yet when he cornered me with that remark about "a man of feeling like yourself", implicitly comparing me to a poet, he was fundamentally mistaken. If I were to define it, I'd say fearlessness characterizes poets while philosophers are fated to fear. My inability to act decisively stems from obsessing over potential consequences before anything else. Chiyoko moves with the wind's freedom because overwhelming emotions - so intense they blind her to consequences - surge through her all at once. She stands among the most fearless souls I've ever known. This is precisely why she scorns my fearful nature. I pity her deeply too - this poet who can't grasp fate's irony, staggering under her emotional burdens. At times I even shudder for her sake.

Thirteen

The latter part of Sunaga’s story taxed Keitaro’s comprehension somewhat.
To tell the truth, he might have been a man who could be called a poet or philosopher in his own way.
However, that was merely the assessment of those observing him from the outside; Keitaro himself had never considered himself to be either.
Therefore, he had dismissed words like poetry and philosophy as little more than dreams—useless unless in the world of the moon—deeming them hardly worth a second glance.
Moreover, he detested logical arguments.
Logical arguments that could not move his body left or right were as useless to him as counterfeit bills, no matter how skillfully crafted.
Therefore, Keitaro would never have silently listened to phrases resembling fortune-telling slips like "a man who fears" or "a woman who does not fear," but since these impressions had flowed in as part of the smoothly continuing, richly textured personal story, he found himself obliged to listen earnestly despite his incomplete understanding.

Sunaga had noticed this too.

"The discussion has become too logically rigid and difficult to follow," he said. "I let myself get carried away and started monologuing."

"No need to apologize," Keitaro replied. "It was quite engaging."

"Perhaps the Western cane worked its influence after all?"

“It does seem rather mysterious. Since we’re at it, why don’t we continue the story a bit further?”

“There’s no more.”

Sunaga shifted his gaze to the calm water after delivering this definitive statement.
Keitaro too remained silent for some time.
What he had just heard from Sunaga—whether poetry or philosophy remained unclear—loomed in his mind like indistinct cloud peaks, stubbornly refusing to dissipate.
Even Sunaga himself, sitting wordlessly before him now appeared through Keitaro's eyes as a suspicious figure deviating from his usual patterned self.
Certain there must be more to the story, Keitaro asked when these most recent events Sunaga recounted had occurred.
"It happened around my third year of university," Sunaga replied.
Keitaro pressed further about how their relationship had developed over the past year and what interpretation could now be made.
With a bitter smile Sunaga suggested continuing outside.
They settled their bill and exited.
Sunaga smiled bitterly again watching the shadow of Keitaro's Western cane swinging triumphantly as he took the lead.

When they arrived at the precincts of Shibamata Taishakuten, they exited through the gate almost immediately, their faces looking as if they had been obliged by social convention to pay respects to the unremarkable temple building.
And so both of them conceived the idea to take the train back to Tokyo immediately.
When they reached the station, there remained a considerable wait until the departure time of the slow-moving rural train.
The two entered a nearby teahouse and rested.

The following story is what Keitaro, invoking their prior agreement, had Sunaga tell him at that time.—

It was an event that occurred during the summer vacation when I was moving from my third to fourth year at university.
As I was holed up on the second floor of our house, pondering how to endure the sweltering season, my mother came up from below and said, "Why don't you go to Kamakura for a bit once you're free?"
The Taguchi family had gone to Kamakura for summer retreat about a week earlier.
Originally Uncle disliked seaside areas by nature, so the family customarily went to their villa in Karuizawa every year, but that summer they had yielded to the daughters' persistent wish for sea bathing and rented a certain person's mansion in Zaimokuza.
Before their move, Chiyoko had come to bid farewell and inform us that—though she hadn't seen it yet—the residence was apparently a relatively spacious dwelling built on two or three levels atop a cool, shaded cliffside, and she urged my mother to visit. I overheard this from nearby.
So I advised my mother that she herself should go for a change of air.
Mother took out Chiyoko's letter from her breast pocket and showed it.
Written jointly by Chiyoko and Momoyo, it appeared to convey their mother's command that my mother and I should come together.
If Mother were to go, having an elderly person ride the train alone would be worrisome, so I absolutely had to accompany her.
From my eccentric perspective, barging into such a crowded place with just the two of us seemed pitifully awkward, even if we weren't being a burden.
Yet Mother wore an expression of wanting to go.
And since that expression seemed intended for my sake, my reluctance only grew stronger.
But in the end, I resolved to go.
Even if others might not understand this—I am a man of stubborn will, yet also a man of weak will.

Fourteen

My mother, being shy by nature, had never been one for traveling even in ordinary times. During my strict father's lifetime—a man who insisted on upholding old-fashioned propriety—she rarely went out at all. In fact, I cannot recall a single instance when my father and mother left home together for leisure. Even after his death had given her freedom, my mother remained unfortunately deprived of opportunities to go wherever she pleased at her convenience. Without means to travel far alone or leave home for extended periods, she thus grew old through the years in our household of just mother and son.

On the day I resolved to go to Kamakura, I boarded the direct train carrying a single suitcase for her.
As the train began moving, Mother said with a laugh to me seated beside her, "It's been ages since I rode a train."
Truth be told, even for me who heard this remark, it wasn't an especially frequent experience either.
Drawn by this novel mood, our conversation grew more animated than usual.
While engaged in asking and being asked about matters neither of us could later recall, leaving it to these intermittent exchanges, the train reached its destination.
Having given no prior notice, there was no one to meet us at the station, but when we hired a rickshaw and mentioned "the so-and-so's villa," the puller immediately understood and set off.
Passing through sandy paths now suddenly lined with new houses unseen until recently, I gazed admiringly at yellow flowers visible through pine gaps in distant fields.
At first glance they seemed imbued with the same charm as rapeseed blossoms, yet were something entirely novel.
Perched on the rickshaw, I pondered intensely over this flickering color until suddenly realizing they were pumpkins, then laughed quietly to myself.

When the rickshaw arrived at the villa’s gate, the moving shadows of people inside the room with its sliding doors removed were clearly visible from the street. I eventually noticed a man wearing a white yukata among them and thought Uncle had probably come from Tokyo around yesterday and was staying there. However, everyone inside came out to the entrance to greet us, but that man never once showed his face. Thinking that of course Uncle would likely be there, I was shown into the tatami room, but even there his figure was nowhere to be seen. While I was glancing around restlessly, Aunt and Mother began exchanging a volley of greetings—commenting on how sweltering the train must have been, how splendid it was to secure a place with such fine views—their conversation proliferating in that way particular to elderly women. Chiyoko and Momoyo recommended a yukata for Mother and laid out her discarded garments to air. I had the housemaid guide me to the bathhouse and washed my face and head with water. Although it was a hillside quite a distance from the coast, the water was unexpectedly bad. When I wrung out the towel and looked at the bottom of the metal basin, sediment like sand immediately settled.

“Please use this,” came Chiyoko’s voice suddenly from behind.
When I turned around, a dry white towel had appeared at my shoulder.
I received the towel and stood up.
Chiyoko brought out a comb from the drawer of the nearby dressing table.
While I sat before the mirror undoing my hair, she leaned against the bathhouse entrance’s pillar gazing at my wet head. When I remained silent, she asked from across the room, “The water’s poor quality, isn’t it?”
Staring into the mirror, I said, “Why does it leave this discoloration?”
When our water-related exchange ended, I placed the comb on the mirror stand and stood up with the towel still draped over my shoulder.
Chiyoko stepped away from the pillar before me and began heading toward the sitting room.
I abruptly called her name from behind and asked where Uncle was.
She stopped and turned around.

“Father came here four or five days ago, but the day before yesterday some business came up, so he returned to Tokyo.”

“He isn’t here?”

“No. Why? Though depending on how things go, he might come again this evening bringing Mr. Goichi with him.”

Chiyoko explained that since they were all supposed to go fishing tomorrow if the weather stayed fair, it would be troublesome if Taguchi didn't arrange to come by this evening. Then she urged me emphatically to join them too. More than the fishing itself, I wanted to find out where that man in the yukata I'd seen earlier had gone.

Fifteen

"Earlier, wasn't there a man alone in the sitting room?"

“That’s Mr. Takagi.”
“See, that’s Akiko’s brother.”
“You know that, right?”

I neither affirmed nor denied knowing him.
But inwardly, I immediately understood who this man called Takagi was.
I had long known there was a girl named Takagi Akiko among Momoyo’s school friends.
I had seen his face in a photograph taken with Momoyo.
I had seen his handwriting on a picture postcard.
Around that time, I had also heard talk—that one brother had gone to America or had just returned.
Since his family was likely well-off, there was nothing suspicious about him visiting Kamakura for leisure.
Even if he had owned a villa here, it would not have been strange.
But I wanted to ask Chiyoko where this man Takagi lived.

“Just down here,” she said curtly.

“A villa?” I pressed.

“Yes.”

The two of us returned to the sitting room without another word.
There, Mother and Aunt were still exchanging trivialities—the hue of the sea, the direction of the Great Buddha—treating these matters with undue gravity.
Momoyo informed Chiyoko that their father had specifically sent word he would arrive by evening.
The sisters spoke of tomorrow’s fishing plans as if their anticipated joy already lay cupped in their palms.

“Mr. Takagi will also be coming, won’t he?”

“Please come too, Mr. Ichizo.”

I answered that I wouldn’t go.
As the reason for this, I added an explanation that I had some business at home and had to return to Tokyo that night.
But inwardly, I worried that if Taguchi were to bring even Goichi to this already crowded place, there would be no place left for me to sleep.
On top of that, I disliked having to meet the man named Takagi whom the sisters knew.
He had been discussing me with the two of them until just before, but when I heard from Momoyo that upon seeing my arrival, he had considerately left through the back, I was first of all glad to have escaped an uncomfortable situation.
I am by nature someone who is so afraid of strangers.

When the two heard I was leaving, they made surprised faces and tried to stop me. Chiyoko in particular became frantic. She grabbed me and called me an eccentric. "You can't just leave Mother alone and go back right away," she said. "Even if you say you're leaving, I told you I won't let you." She possessed the privilege of using far more unrestrained language with me than with her own younger siblings. I often imagined that if I could interact with others as boldly, directly—and at times well-meaningly yet domineeringly—as she did with me, even someone as flawed as myself might navigate life more pleasantly, and I greatly envied this little tyrant.

“What a fierce display.”

“You’re being unfilial.”

“Then I’ll go ask Aunt. If she says it’s better for you to stay, then please stay. Okay?”

Momoyo said this in a conciliatory tone, then immediately stood up and went toward the sitting room where the elderly women were talking.
There was naturally no need to inquire about my mother’s intentions.
Therefore, relating here the answer Momoyo brought back from the two elderly women would be nothing but superfluous.
In short, I had become Chiyoko’s prisoner.

Under the pretext of going out into town for a bit, I wandered aimlessly around the vicinity of the villa, shielding myself from the hot afternoon sun with a parasol.
It wasn’t entirely untrue to say I came to reminisce about a place I hadn’t seen in so long, but even if I had possessed a poetic soul that delighted in such desolate sentiments, at present I was granted neither the composure nor the leisure to lose myself in them.
I simply wandered aimlessly around, reading the nameplates there.
When I noticed the characters "Takagi" on the pillars of a relatively grand single-story gate, thinking this must be the place, I stood before it for a while.
After that, I continued my leisurely walk for about fifteen minutes with no purpose at all.
However, this was akin to me proclaiming to my own heart that I had not gone out specifically to see Takagi’s house.
I promptly turned back.

Sixteen

To tell the truth, I knew almost nothing about this man named Takagi.
All I had heard was that he was seeking a suitable spouse—this from Momoyo, just once.
I remember Momoyo watching my expression then as if consulting me, saying, "What about my sister?"
I recall replying in my usual indifferent tone, "It might be good—why not mention it to your father or mother?"
From then on, though I couldn't count how often I visited the Taguchi household, Takagi's name never once came up in my presence.
What interest could I have had in the home of this near-stranger—a man I'd never even seen—that I'd brave scorching sand under blazing sun?
I've kept the reason to myself until today.
At the time, I couldn't properly explain it even to myself.
Only a vague sensation pierced my chest—that some distant anxiety had come to move my limbs.
Now, seeing how that anxiety undeniably took form during my two days in Kamakura, I believe it was this same force that drew me out walking.

Within an hour or less of my returning to the villa, a man bearing the same name as the gate nameplate I had noticed suddenly materialized before me. Taguchi’s aunt introduced him to me with meticulous courtesy, declaring, “This is Mr. Takagi.” He was a young man whose firm-fleshed, ruddy complexion radiated vigor at first glance. Though I suspected he might be older than me by years, his brisk demeanor demanded the very label “young man” to capture his vitality. When I first saw him, I wondered whether nature had deliberately placed us side by side in that room to contrast polar opposites. Of course, since I embodied the disadvantaged side of this comparison, being formally juxtaposed struck me as nothing but nature’s ill-conceived jest.

The contrast between our appearances was already unflattering.
Yet when it came to demeanor and social graces, I couldn’t help recognizing an even starker disparity.
Though surrounded by close relatives—my mother, aunt, cousins—I seemed more like some stray guest compared to Takagi, who moved with unhesitating ease while maintaining perfect decorum.
To someone like me who shrank from strangers, I wanted to say this man had been cast into society’s whirlpool at birth and molded there ever since.
Within minutes he’d wrested all conversation from my grasp.
He gathered every thread to himself.
In compensation—careful not to make me feel discarded—he occasionally tossed me a phrase or two.
But these too were topics that failed to engage me, leaving me unable to converse with the group yet equally unwilling to focus on Takagi alone.
He affectionately called Taguchi’s aunt “Mother” at every turn.
With Chiyoko he used “Chiyo-chan”—the childhood nickname—as though ordained by nature itself.
Then he turned to me: “When you arrived earlier, we were just discussing you and Chiyo-chan.”

From the moment I first saw his features, I had already envied him. Hearing him speak made me realize at once how far I fell short. That alone might have sufficed to make me ill at ease in these circumstances. Yet as I continued observing him, a suspicion arose—was he not flaunting his strengths with prideful airs, as if parading them before an inferior like myself? At that instant, I abruptly came to detest him. And even when opportunities to speak came my way, I willfully kept silent.

Looking back on that time with my current calm state of mind, I wonder if this interpretation was perhaps just my own pettiness. Being the sort who, while quick to doubt others, cannot help simultaneously doubting myself in turn, I end up struggling to state things clearly when speaking to others—but if this truly stemmed from my petty nature, then beneath its surface must have lurked a jealousy that hadn't yet taken definite form.

Seventeen

As a man, I myself cannot quite tell whether I tend toward strong jealousy or weak.
Having been raised as a carefully tended only son with no rivals, I at least had no occasion to develop jealousy within my household.
In elementary and middle school—perhaps because there were fortunately few students with better grades than myself—I believe I passed through those years in perfect tranquility.
From high school through university, since it was generally customary not to place much weight on academic rankings, and as each year brought an increasing tendency to overestimate my own merits, differences in scores never became any real concern.
Setting these aside, I have yet to experience falling deeply in love.
Nor have I ever vied with another man over a woman.
To confess, I am a man capable of paying more meticulous attention than most to young women—particularly beautiful ones.
When walking through the streets and seeing lovely faces and fine kimonos, my mood brightens as if clear sunlight had broken through clouds.
In such moments, I even find myself wanting to possess them.
But anticipating how transiently those faces and garments might change, the intoxication fades and I'm suddenly struck by the wretchedness beneath.
What prevents me from clinging obstinately to captivating beauties is precisely this obstacle—a loneliness abandoned like drained wine.
Whenever overcome by this mood, imagining my youth had suddenly turned to old age or monkhood, I would sink into profound displeasure.
Yet perhaps it was this very disposition that spared me from ever knowing love's jealousy.

Because I want to remain an ordinary person, I have no wish to boast about lacking jealousy—but given what I've described, until I saw this man Takagi before me, I had never experienced such a powerfully named emotion seizing my heart.
I clearly remember the indescribable discomfort I felt from Takagi at that time.
And when I thought this jealousy had ignited because of Chiyoko—who was neither my possession nor someone I wished to possess—I felt I absolutely had to suppress my jealousy or else I'd be failing my own character.
I began writhing in unseen agony within my gut, harboring a jealousy that had lost its right to exist.
Fortunately, when Chiyoko and Momoyo suggested going to the sea as daylight faded, and I assumed Takagi would surely follow them, I desperately wanted to be left alone.
They did indeed invite Takagi.
Yet unexpectedly, he fabricated some excuse and showed no inclination to leave.
I inferred this was consideration toward me, which only darkened my expression further.
They next invited me.
I naturally refused.
Though I'd been ready to seize any chance to escape Takagi's presence immediately, in my current mood, even the effort of walking to the beach with those two felt unbearable.
Mother made a disappointed face and said, "Do go with them."
I silently gazed at the distant sea.
The sisters stood up laughing.

“You’re still as stubbornly eccentric as ever. Just like a mischievous brat!”

Having been scolded by Chiyoko like this, I must have appeared to everyone as undeniably a mischievous brat. I even felt like one myself. The ever-sociable Takagi stepped out onto the veranda, fetched two straw hats as large as sedge hats for the sisters, and bid them farewell with a “Have a good time.”

After the two figures had left through the villa gate, Takagi continued talking with the elderly for some time. Though coming here to escape the heat should have been carefree and pleasant, his actual vigor-filled body appeared to be at the mercy of both sweltering weather and boredom—the very question of how to pass each day having become such a weighty problem that it instead brought suffering. Eventually muttering to himself about how to kill time until evening, he suddenly seemed to remember something and asked me, "How about billiards?" Fortunately having never attempted the game since birth, I refused outright. Takagi left lamenting what he'd thought would make a good match. Watching his lively figure retreat, I felt certain he would now head toward the sisters' beachside location. Yet I didn't budge from my seated position.

Eighteen

After Takagi left, Mother and Aunt talked about him for a while.
As he was a first-time acquaintance, Mother’s impression of him appeared particularly profound.
She praised him as someone refreshingly unguarded and thoroughly considerate.
Aunt seemed to be cross-verifying each of Mother’s observations against concrete examples.
At that moment, I realized I had to correct nearly all the scant knowledge I’d gathered about Takagi.
What I’d heard from Momoyo painted him as a returnee from America, yet according to Aunt’s account, he was in fact a man wholly educated in England.
Aunt—apparently having picked up the term “British-style gentleman” from somewhere—used it several times, not only astonishing Mother who lacked any frame of reference but also elaborating, “That’s precisely why he carries an air of refinement.”
Mother could only murmur vague sounds of admiration.

While they were having this conversation, I hardly spoke a word. When I considered what Mother—who outwardly appeared no different from her usual self—might be thinking as she compared Takagi and me at this moment, I felt both pity toward her and resentment. As I imagined how this same Mother—who had already set aside the old relationship between Chiyoko and myself—might feel if she now contemplated a new relationship between Chiyoko and Takagi, I realized that taking her along had amounted to deliberately inflicting avoidable anxiety upon her. This piled another layer of guilt toward the elderly atop my existing displeasure.

Though I could only infer from the surrounding circumstances—and since it never actually materialized into fact, I cannot say for certain—my aunt may have intended to use this occasion to make some sort of candid disclosure to us mother and son: that if a connection existed, she meant to entrust Chiyoko to Takagi, framed ambiguously as neither consultation nor pronouncement. My mother, who normally noticed everything, now proved more circuitous than even myself—but as for me, in that moment I anticipated hearing from my aunt’s lips the opening passage of negotiations to permanently sever the bond between Chiyoko and me.
Whether fortunately or unfortunately, before my aunt could say anything, the sisters returned from the beach, fluttering the wide brims of their straw hats.

It was true that I rejoiced for my mother that my divination had not come true.
At the same time, it was no falsehood that this same event left me agitated.

When evening came, I was ordered by my mother to leave home with my sisters to meet our uncle, who was supposed to arrive from Tokyo at the station. They were wearing matching yukata and white tabi socks. What pride must they have reflected in their mother's eyes as she watched them depart from behind? The sight of me walking alongside Chiyoko must have held what extraordinary value as a painting for my mother. Feeling pained that I was being unwittingly turned into an instrument to deceive my mother, I looked back as I passed through the gate—and there they were, Mother and Aunt, still watching us.

When we were partway there, Chiyoko suddenly stopped as if remembering and said, “Oh! I forgot to invite Mr. Takagi.”
Momoyo immediately looked at my face.
I stopped moving my feet but did not open my mouth.
“It’s fine already—we’ve come this far,” said Momoyo.
“But I was asked to invite him earlier!” said Chiyoko.
Momoyo looked at my face again and hesitated.

“Mr. Ichizo, do you have a watch?
What time is it?”

I took out my watch and showed it to Momoyo.

“It’s not too late yet.
If he wants to come when invited, let him.
I’ll go ahead and wait.”

“It’s already late, you.
Mr. Takagi—if he means to come, he’ll come on his own!
Apologizing afterward with ‘I forgot’ won’t fix anything.”

After two or three exchanges, the sisters finally decided not to turn back.
Takagi, just as Momoyo had predicted, hurried into the station before the train had even arrived and said to them, “How unreasonable! After I asked so earnestly.”
“And your mother?” he then asked.
Finally turning to me, he offered a gracious greeting regarding earlier matters.

Nineteen

That evening, after waiting for my uncle and cousin to join us, we mother and son also took our places at the dining table. Not only was dinner considerably later than usual, but we found ourselves in the very scene of commotion I had secretly feared—amidst a great bustle of moving chopsticks and teacups.
Uncle said with a laugh by way of indirect apology, “Mr. Ichizo, you must feel like this is a scene from a fire! But having such commotion at a gathering makes for an interesting meal.”
Mother, who was accustomed to quiet meals, wore an expression of genuine cheerfulness amid this commotion, just as Uncle had described.
Despite her shy nature, Mother was fond of such lively gatherings.
At that moment, she praised the lightly salted and grilled small horse mackerel that had incidentally come up in conversation, declaring it delicious.

“If you ask the fishermen beforehand, they’ll prepare any amount you need. You should take some home with you when you leave. I’ve been meaning to give you some since Sister likes them, but never found the right opportunity—and they spoil so quickly anyway.”

“I once had some prepared in Oiso and took great pains to bring them all the way back to Tokyo myself, but unless you’re exceedingly careful on the journey...”

“Do they really spoil?”
Chiyoko asked.

“Aunt dislikes Kōzu sea bream.”
“I think Kōzu sea bream tastes better than this,” said Momoyo.
“Kōzu sea bream is also quite fine as it is,” Mother replied meekly.
The reason I remember such trivial conversations is partly because I was carefully observing the seemingly satisfied expression on my mother’s face at that time, and partly because I shared her fondness for salted small horse mackerel.

Since I'm on the subject, I'll state it here. In matters of taste and temperament, I possess both qualities that closely resemble my mother's and others entirely distinct from hers. This remains an unshared secret—in truth, as personal discipline, I've privately conducted detailed research over several years into precisely how I differ from my mother and where we align. Were my mother to ask why I did such a thing, I could offer no satisfactory answer. Even interrogating myself yields no definitive explanation—thus I cannot articulate the reason. But to state the conclusion plainly: I would have welcomed even sharing flaws with my mother. Conversely, possessing virtues she lacked brought me profound discomfort. What troubled me most was how my facial features resembled only my father's, formed with contours bearing no relation to my mother's. To this day, whenever I gaze in the mirror, I think how much more comforting it would feel—how truly her child I might seem—had I inherited more of her countenance, even at the cost of my own looks.

As if following the delayed meal, bedtime was similarly postponed and grew quite late.
Moreover, with the sudden increase in numbers, deciding bedding placements and room assignments alone became quite an effort for my aunt.
The three men were grouped together to sleep under the same mosquito net.
Uncle moved his corpulent body about while noisily flapping his fan.

“Mr. Ichizo—isn’t it hot? In this heat, Tokyo would have been much more comfortable, wouldn’t it?”

Both I and Goichi next to me agreed that Tokyo would have been more comfortable. Yet why we had gone to the trouble of coming all the way to Kamakura only to sleep crammed together under a narrow mosquito net—this was something none of us, neither Uncle nor Goichi nor I, could explain.

“This too is a diversion.”

The question was settled by Uncle’s single remark, but the heat lingered stubbornly, so no one could fall asleep right away. Being young, Goichi kept asking Uncle questions about tomorrow’s fishing. Uncle, whether serious or joking, told us an outlandish story—that once you boarded a boat, the fish themselves would come raining down hoping for a breeze. Not only did he engage his own son in this, but at times even drew in someone as indifferent as myself and Mr. Ichizo as listeners, which struck me as somewhat odd. However, since I felt obliged to respond appropriately, by the time the conversation concluded, I had naturally begun replying as one of the group members. Since I had never intended to go in the first place, this change struck me as somewhat unexpected. Uncle, who appeared carefree, soon began to snore loudly. Goichi also fell peacefully asleep. Only I deliberately closed my open eyes and thought about various things until late into the night.

Twenty

When I awoke the next day, the figure of Goichi, who had been sleeping beside me, had already disappeared without a trace.
I rested my sleep-deprived head on the pillow and, while tracing a path that could be called neither dream nor thought, gazed at Uncle’s sleeping face with a curiosity akin to stealing glances at a different kind of human.
And then I wondered—when I’m asleep, do I too appear this untroubled to anyone watching?
Just then, Goichi came in and consulted me, saying, “Mr. Ichizo, what do you think about the weather?”
Urged by Goichi to get up and look, I rose and went out to the veranda, where a soft curtain of mist had spread across the sea, obscuring even the nearby cape’s cluster of trees from their usual color.
“Is it raining?” I asked.
Goichi immediately jumped down to the garden and began looking at the sky, but answered that it was drizzling slightly.

He acted deeply concerned about canceling today’s boat trip, even pulling his two sisters out to the veranda as he kept repeating, “What do you think? What do you think?” Finally deciding he needed his father’s judgment as final arbiter, he roused his still-sleeping uncle. Uncle surveyed the sky and sea with sleepy eyes that seemed to dismiss any weather concerns before declaring, “Ah—with these clouds, it’ll clear up soon.” Goichi appeared reassured by this, but Chiyoko said she was worried because it was just an unreliable weather forecast and looked at me. I couldn’t respond. Uncle answered with “Ah, it’ll be fine,” and headed toward the bathhouse.

Around the time they finished their meal, a mist-like rain began to fall.
Even so, because there was no wind, the sea appeared calmer than usual.
Due to the unfortunate weather, my kind-hearted mother felt sorry for everyone.
Aunt cautioned that since it would surely start pouring soon, it would be better to call it off today.
However, all the young people insisted on going.
Uncle then said, “Let’s leave just the old woman behind and have all the young people go out together.”
Then Aunt deliberately asked Uncle, “Well then, which group will Grandpa join?” which made everyone laugh.

“Today, even I count as part of the young people’s group.”

Uncle, whether to substantiate this claim or not, promptly stood up and tucked up the hem of his yukata before heading down.
The three siblings also descended from the veranda just as they were.

“You all should tuck up your hems too.”

“How unpleasant.”

I gazed down from the veranda at Uncle with his bandit-like hairy shins exposed, the two women wearing straw hats resembling Shizuka Gozen’s iconic headgear, and my younger brother with his black hekoobi sash tied in a komamusubi knot, viewing them as a completely rustic and peculiar group utterly removed from urban sensibilities.

“Mr. Ichizo is watching us, thinking of saying something mean again,” said Momoyo, looking at me with a faint smile.

“Hurry up and come down,” Chiyoko said in a scolding tone.

“You should lend Mr. Ichizo some worn-out geta,” Uncle advised.

I came down without protest, but Takagi—with whom I had an appointment—had yet to arrive, which presented another issue. Since everyone supposed he must be waiting out the weather somewhere, we resolved that Goichi would dash ahead to fetch him while we began our leisurely walk.

Uncle kept talking to me in his usual way.
I played along and matched his pace.
Being men, we soon unknowingly overtook the sisters.
I glanced back once, but the two showed no concern about lagging behind, making no effort to catch up.
To me, it could only mean they were deliberately waiting to meet Takagi approaching from behind.
It was likely a natural courtesy toward their invited companion.
Yet I couldn't perceive it that way then.
Even allowing for that interpretation, I couldn't feel it.
I turned intending to signal them to hurry, but stopped myself and resumed walking with Uncle.
Thus we reached the promontory marking Kotsubo's entrance.
The path had been carved through a seaside mountain's base - barely wide enough for passage - winding around to the opposite side.
Uncle stopped at the highest slope's corner.

Twenty-One

He suddenly called out to the sisters in a loud voice befitting his stature.
I must confess that until then, I had tried many times to look back.
Yet whether it was my conscience reproaching me or my pride refusing to permit it, each time I tried to turn around, my neck stiffened like a wild boar’s and refused to turn backward.

When I looked, the two figures were still about a hundred meters below.
And then, immediately following them were Takagi and Goichi.
When Uncle called out "Hey!" in his usual loud, unreserved voice, the sisters looked up at us simultaneously, but Chiyoko turned toward Takagi, who was right behind them.
Then Takagi took the straw hat he had been wearing in his right hand and began waving it vigorously toward us.
However, among the four of them, only Goichi alone responded vocally to Uncle.
As if he had been practicing giving commands at school, he raised both hands above his head in unison with a reply that echoed off the sea and cliffs.

Uncle and I stood at the cliff's edge waiting for them to approach. They kept climbing at the same unhurried pace as before Uncle had called out, chatting all the while. To me, their behavior seemed utterly unnatural—like they were deliberately fooling around. Takagi wore a loose brown garment resembling an overcoat, occasionally slipping his hand into its inner pocket. At first I stared curiously, thinking no one would wear an actual overcoat in this heat, but as they drew nearer I realized it was merely a thin raincoat. Just then Uncle abruptly remarked, "Mr. Ichizo, sailing a yacht around these parts must be quite enjoyable," making me jerk my gaze away from Takagi to look down at my feet. There below us near the shore floated an empty boat painted pure white on the calm waves. The persistent drizzle—too fine to be proper rain—had shrouded the sea in haze, blurring the usually distinct trees and rocks of the opposite cliffs into uniform grayness. Eventually the four of them reached our side.

“I must apologize for keeping you waiting—the truth is, I was in the middle of shaving and couldn’t very well stop halfway…” Takagi offered his excuse the moment he met Uncle’s gaze.

“Aren’t you sweltering in that getup?” Uncle asked.

“Even if he’s boiling, he can’t just strip down.”
“The top half’s high-collar fashion, but the bottom’s downright barbaric,” Chiyoko laughed.
Takagi wore a thin short-sleeved undershirt beneath his raincoat, his shins protruding comically from peculiar half-Western trousers, with black tabi socks peeking through wooden geta sandals.
He demonstratively opened his raincoat to show us this ensemble, adding how liberating it felt to dress casually in Japan without formal pretense—even before ladies.

When the entire group shuffled into the filthy, squalid fishing village with a road barely six feet wide, an unpleasant odor assailed everyone’s nostrils.
Takagi took out a white handkerchief from his inner pocket and covered his short beard.
Uncle suddenly posed an odd question to the child who had been standing there watching us: “Where’s the house of someone from the west who came as an adopted son from the south?”
The child said they didn’t know.
I asked Chiyoko why she used such a peculiar way of asking.
When Chiyoko explained that this was because the master of the house they had sent someone to inquire with last evening had said, “I’ve forgotten the name—just go around asking for such-and-such a man and you’ll find out,” I compared this nonchalant method of instruction and equally carefree approach to inquiry with my own impatient, restless self, feeling strangely envious.

"Would that even work?" said Takagi with a puzzled look.

"If they actually understood, that’d be downright strange, wouldn’t it?" Chiyoko laughed.

“Nonsense! Of course they’ll understand,” Uncle retorted.

Goichi, half in fun, would ask every person he saw where the house of someone from the west who had come as an adopted son from the south was, making everyone laugh each time.
At last, when Goichi posed the same question to an old woman at a filthy tea shop where a young gekkin player—wearing a woven hat with white arm and leg wrappings—was resting, the old woman unexpectedly pointed out its location right nearby with surprising ease, making everyone clap their hands and laugh again.
It was a small thatched-roof house located on a slightly elevated spot at the top of stone steps divided into about three levels, leading up from the main road toward the hill district.

Twenty-Two

The sight of six people in mismatched outfits trailing one after another up these narrow stone steps must have looked quite peculiar to any onlooker, I imagine.
Moreover, among the six of them, none possessed any clear idea of what they would do next—which made them all remarkably carefree.
Even Uncle himself only knew about boarding the boat; as for the rest—whether they’d use nets or fishing lines, or how far out they’d row—he seemed utterly unable to discern any of it.
Following Momoyo up the stone steps worn down by countless feet into numerous depressions, I ascended while thinking that surrendering myself to this meaningless endeavor without regret might be what one calls the essence of summer retreat.
At the same time, I suspected that within these meaningless actions, an important scene of some meaningful drama was being secretly enacted between a certain man and woman.
And so, within that scene, I thought that if there were any role I must fulfill, it could be none other than that of being lightly toyed with by fate wearing a serene face.
If Uncle—who in the end simply acted without calculation or pretense and cleared things away—were to complete this scene unnoticed, then I could not help but think that he must be an author of unparalleled skillful execution.
As these shadows crossed my mind, Takagi, who had been following close behind up the steps, spoke up: “This heat is unbearable—excuse me, I’m going to take off my raincoat.”

The house was even smaller and dirtier than it had appeared from below.
A ladle nailed to the entrance bore the inscription "Hyakunichi-Kaze Yoshino Heikichi and Family," finally revealing the master's name.
It was Goichi—sharp-eyed Goichi—who spotted this and read it aloud for all to hear.
Peering inside revealed ceilings and walls uniformly blackened and glossy.
The sole human presence was an old woman.
She explained that due to the poor weather, he'd likely not come and had gone out to sea early; she would now go down to the shore to fetch him.
When Uncle asked, "Did he go by boat?" she pointed seaward with her hand: "Probably that ship."
Though the mist still lingered, the sky had brightened enough since earlier for them to make out—within the relatively clear offing—the indicated ship lying small in the far distance.

“That’s going to be a problem.”

Takagi said this while peering through the binoculars he had brought along.

“You’re quite the carefree one, aren’t you? How on earth do you expect to go meet them all the way out there?” Chiyoko said with a laugh as she took the binoculars from Takagi’s hands.

The old woman replied, “I’ll go fetch him right away,” and ran down the stone steps still wearing her straw sandals.
Uncle laughed that country folk were carefree.
Goichi chased after the old woman.
Momoyo sat blankly on the filthy edge of the porch.
I surveyed the garden.
The veranda area that sounded too grand to be called a garden fell short of even five tsubo.
In one corner stood a single fig tree, its few green leaves sprouting in the rank air.
On the branches hung countless unripe fruits, and at the fork of one bough dangled an empty insect cage.
Beneath it, a few scrawny chickens were pecking at the ground where they had haphazardly dug their claws, their beaks hungry.
I gazed at what appeared to be an iron-mesh birdcage lying overturned nearby, struck by how its form—irregularly twisted like a Buddha’s hand citron—struck me as comical in some way.
Then Uncle suddenly remarked, “It’s rather smelly here.”
Momoyo said in a timid voice, “I don’t care about the fish anymore—I want to go home soon.”
Up until this moment, Takagi had been looking out to sea through the binoculars while continuously talking to Chiyoko; he now turned around abruptly.

“What could they be doing? I’ll go check on the situation and come right back.”

As he said this, he glanced back toward the rear edge to set down the raincoat and binoculars he was holding.
Chiyoko, standing beside him, reached out before Takagi could move.

“Please hand them over here.
“I’ll hold onto them.”

When she took the two items from Takagi and looked at his half-sleeved appearance once more with a laugh, she remarked: “You’ve finally gone full roughneck now, haven’t you?”
Takagi responded with only a wry smile before immediately heading down toward the beach.
From behind him I silently observed—each time he swung his arms to hasten down the stone steps—the way his shoulders shifted with athlete-like musculature.

Twenty-Three

About an hour later, everyone had gathered and descended to the beach to board the boat.
On the sand, whether before or after some festival, two tall banner poles buried deep in the beach caught my eye.
Goichi picked up dried branches that had washed ashore from somewhere and arranged large characters and faces across the wide expanse of sand.

"All aboard," called the shaven-headed boatman, prompting the six of us to clamber over the gunwale in a disorderly scramble.
By chance, Chiyoko and I were pushed forward by those behind us and ended up sitting knee-to-knee in the partitioned bow section.
Uncle was first to plant himself cross-legged in what might be called the midship area—the central open space—like a patriarch claiming his rightful place.
Then, perhaps meaning to honor Takagi as guest of the day, he gestured with a "Come now," compelling him to take a seat at his side.
Momoyo and Goichi slipped into a partitioned compartment behind them along with the boatman.

“How about it? This side has space—won’t you come over?” Takagi glanced back at Momoyo, who was right behind him.
Momoyo said thank you but did not move from her seat.
From the very beginning, I was not pleased to be sitting with Chiyoko on the same narrow bench.
I had already clearly confessed to feeling jealousy toward Takagi.
The degree of that jealousy may have been the same yesterday as it was today, but alongside it, not a shred of competitive spirit had ever sprouted within my breast.
As a man myself, there’s no telling when I might fall into some fierce love with a woman in the future.
However, I assert:
If I must dare to engage in competition as fierce as that love itself to obtain the one I desire, then no matter what pain or sacrifice I must endure, I intend to abandon my lover with detached composure, hands tucked into my sleeves.
Whether as unmanly, lacking in courage, or weak-willed—others might well criticize me in any way they please.
However, if she is a woman so amenable to being swayed in any direction that one could hardly make her theirs without such agonizing competition, then I can only regard her as a woman unworthy of that very competition.
For me, rather than finding joy in forcibly embracing a woman who does not yield to me, I cannot measure how much greater satisfaction my conscience finds when—with manly composure—I gaze upon the scar of my lost love, having released her affection into freedom's wilderness.

I said to Chiyoko:

“Why don’t you go over there, Chiyo-chan? It seems more spacious and comfortable over there.”
“Why would me being here be in the way?”

Chiyoko did not attempt to move after saying that. I couldn't bring myself to explain that I wanted her to leave because Takagi was there—whether such an explanation would come across as too blunt or be taken as sarcastic. Yet the spark of joy that flared up in my chest when she spoke those words—exposing the contradiction between what I said and what I truly felt—struck me as a painful blow, for I remained unaware of my own weak constitution.

Takagi, who seemed slightly more reserved than when we had met yesterday—perhaps it was my imagination—pretended not to hear this exchange that had arisen between Chiyoko and me.
As the boat departed the shore, he remarked, “The weather’s cleared up at just the right time.”
“This way, it’s actually better than having the sun blazing down.”
“A day made for boating,” he remarked to Uncle as they discussed the weather.
Uncle suddenly raised his voice and asked, “Boatman, what exactly are we catching?”
Uncle and the others had no idea what they were trying to catch until this moment.
The shaven-headed boatman answered in crude terms that they were catching octopus.
At this bizarre reply, Chiyoko and Momoyo seemed more amused than surprised and immediately burst into laughter.

“Where are the octopuses?” Uncle asked again.

“They’re right around here,” the boatman answered again.

He then pressed a koban-shaped bucket—its bottom fitted with glass and slightly deepened like those used in bathhouses—into the water, thrusting his face into it as if plunging through the opening to peer at the seabed.
The boatman called this strange tool a "mirror" and promptly lent us two or three extra ones he had brought along.
The first to use them were Goichi and Momoyo, who had taken seats beside the boatman.

Twenty-Four

When the mirrors were passed around one after another, Uncle was terribly impressed, exclaiming, "This is brilliant! You can see everything!"
Perhaps because Uncle was well-versed in human affairs, despite his habit of taking everything for granted, he proved prone to being immediately astonished when confronted with natural phenomena like this.
I took the mirror passed by Chiyoko and finally peered through the glass at the seabed, only to find an utterly ordinary ocean floor that looked exactly as I had imagined.
There, amidst small rocks forming undulations across the expanse, bluish-black seaweed had spread without end.
The seaweed swayed its slender stems back and forth in the swell of the waves, as though buffeted by a tepid wind—quietly yet perpetually.

“Mr. Ichizo! I can see an octopus!”

“I don’t see it.”

I lifted my face.
Chiyoko plunged her head back into the bucket.
The brim of her limp straw hat dipped into the water each time it resisted the boatman’s steering, sending delicate ripples skittering across the surface.
Beyond that hat brim, I found myself studying the curve of her black hair and pale neck—more captivating than her face.

“Any luck spotting one, Chiyo-chan?”

“Nothing. There’s not a single octopus swimming around here.”
“Not one anywhere!”

“Apparently unless you get quite used to it, you can’t manage to spot them easily.”

These were the words Takagi had explained for Chiyoko’s benefit.
She kept both hands pressed on the bucket, twisting her body—leaning out over the gunwale—toward Takagi as she said, “No wonder we can’t see them.” Then, as if playing with the water, she began rhythmically moving the bucket she held, creating bubbling swirls.
Momoyo called out “Big sister!” from across the way.
Goichi recklessly stabbed at unseen octopuses whose whereabouts remained unknown.
For spearing, they used a peculiar implement—a slender bamboo pole about two ken in length tipped with a barbed point.
The boatman clenched the bucket between his teeth while wielding the pole single-handedly, and as soon as he located an octopus’s hiding place amid the boat’s motion, he skillfully speared the writhing creature with that long bamboo.

The octopuses were all brought aboard by the boatman alone—many of them—but each was about the same size, with none so remarkably large as to astonish.
At first everyone found them novel, making a fuss whenever one was caught, but eventually even the ever-energetic Uncle seemed to grow somewhat weary and declared, “There’s no point catching nothing but octopuses like this.”
Takagi began gazing at the catch gathered at the bottom of the boat while puffing on his cigarette.

“Chiyo-chan, have you ever seen an octopus swimming? Come take a look—it’s really quite fascinating!”

Takagi beckoned Chiyoko over with these words, but when he saw me sitting nearby, he added, “How about you, Mr. Sunaga? The octopuses are swimming around.”
I answered, “Is that so? It must be interesting,” and with that made no move to leave my seat.
Chiyoko went over to Takagi’s side, saying “Which one?” and took a new seat.
From my original spot, I asked her if they were still swimming.

“Yes, it’s fascinating! Come take a look quickly!”

The octopuses aligned their eight legs straight, propelling their slender bodies swiftly through the water in segmented bursts until they collided with the boat’s planks.
Some among them spat black ink like squid.
I half-rose to my feet, peered briefly at the spectacle, then returned to my original seat—but Chiyoko remained by Takagi’s side from then on.

Uncle told the boatman they had caught enough octopuses.
The boatman asked if they were returning.
Noticing two or three large bamboo basket-like objects floating in the distance, Uncle—who had grown weary of catching nothing but octopuses—had the boat rowed alongside one of them.
As if by prior agreement, they stood up in the boat and peered into the basket, where fish about seven or eight sun long were darting back and forth in the narrow expanse of water.
Some of them bore on their scales a blue light inseparable from the water's hue, shining as though illuminating through the very flesh of the waves they created in all directions with their own momentum.

“Why don’t you try scooping one up?”

Takagi had Chiyoko grip the handle of a large scoop net.
Chiyoko took it half in fun and tried to move it through the water, but when it refused to budge, Takagi placed his hand over hers, and together they clumsily churned the basket’s contents.
Yet the fish proved uncatchable, so Chiyoko promptly returned the net to the boatman.
At Uncle’s command, the boatman used that same net to haul up however many fish he desired from the water.
To escape the eerie monotony of octopuses, we welcomed this shift to chicken grunts, sea bass, and black sea bream before making our way back ashore.

Twenty-Five

I returned to Tokyo alone that evening.
Mother was persuaded by everyone to stay in Kamakura for two or three more days, on the condition that Goichi or someone would see her off when she returned.

I wondered why Mother remained so composedly settled as they advised, and through my keenly honed nerves, I found her excessive composure exasperating.

After that, I never once encountered Takagi again.
The triangular entanglement formed between Chiyoko, myself, and Takagi—a relationship that never progressed beyond that point—must surely frustrate those hearing this tale, as I, the defeated party in this triad, withdrew midway from the whirlpool with an attitude akin to having foreseen fate's predetermined course.
I myself also felt as though I had hurriedly lowered my standard while the flames still raged unchecked.
To say this might suggest I had harbored some ulterior motive from the start—that I deliberately went to Kamakura for this purpose. Yet even in me, who possessed jealousy but lacked competitive spirit, a proportionate vanity would occasionally flicker like heat haze in some gloomy recess of my heart.
I carefully analyzed my own contradictions.
And so, to prevent my vanity toward Chiyoko from being fully exploited through proactive means, I was tormented by the vexation of other thoughts and emotions taking chaotic turns to invade my mind.

At times, she seemed to love me as if I were the only person in existence.
Even so, I could not advance.
Yet whenever I contemplated closing my eyes to the future and taking decisive action, she would invariably slip from my grasp and assume the visage of a perfect stranger.
During those two days in Kamakura, these tidal fluctuations had already risen and fallen two or three times.
At moments I even nursed a faint suspicion that she might be orchestrating these shifts through her own will—drawing near with purpose only to retreat deliberately.
But that was not all.
There were numerous instances where I would interpret her words and deeds one way, only to immediately construe them in diametric opposition—leaving me vexed by this futile uncertainty over which reading held truth.

I nearly became ensnared by a woman I had no intention of marrying during those two days.
And as long as that man Takagi kept appearing before my eyes, I felt myself being dragged unwillingly toward some inevitable conclusion.
I had earlier stated that I harbored no competitive spirit toward Takagi, but to prevent misunderstanding, I wish to reiterate this declaration.
If Chiyoko, Takagi and I were to form a three-way entanglement and lose ourselves in a whirlwind of romance, love or human passion, I assert that the force driving me would not be any desire to defeat Takagi.
I declare it identical to that nervous compulsion which makes one both terrified yet irresistibly drawn to leap when gazing down from a high tower.
From an overarching perspective where outcomes resolve into victory or defeat against Takagi, it might resemble competition—but the motivating force itself is an entirely distinct mechanism.
Moreover, this driving force would never have assailed me had Takagi not existed.
During those two days, I felt this mysterious energy flash through me with terrifying intensity.
And with fierce resolve, I immediately departed Kamakura.

I am a man too weak to endure reading novels saturated with intense stimulation.
I am a man who cannot even enact novels saturated with intense stimulation.
Startled the moment my emotional state began crystallizing into a novel, I turned back to Tokyo.
Thus in that train compartment, I was half victor and half vanquished.
In the relatively empty second-class carriage, I imagined various continuations of this novel—one I had begun writing about myself only to tear myself away from it.
There was the sea, there was the moon, there was the shore.
There were shadows of a young man and a young woman.
At first the man raged and the woman wept.
Later the woman raged and the man placated her.
In the end they walked hand in hand across soundless sand.
Or perhaps there was a framed scroll, tatami mats, a cool breeze blowing.
Two young men held meaningless arguments there.
This gradually summoned hot blood to their cheeks until finally both resorted to language striking at each other's very character.
They rose and swung fists.
Or perhaps...
Play-like scenes unfolded before me through countless acts.
Having lost the chance to test any of these scenarios, I found myself grateful.
People will mock me for resembling an old man.
If those who navigate life without poetic recourse are called old, I'll bear their ridicule contentedly.
But if old age means desiccated by poetry's absence, I refuse this verdict.

I am constantly floundering in my pursuit of poetry.

Twenty-Six

I imagined my state of mind upon returning to Tokyo and worried I might grow even more restless than if I had stayed in Kamakura where stimulation loomed before me. Thus I found myself needlessly picturing in my mind the intense agony of restless impatience, alone without any rival. By chance, the result turned out otherwise. As I had hoped, I managed to bring back something approximating my usual composure, calmness, and indifference relatively easily to my lonely second floor. I hung a freshly scented mosquito net across the entire room and went to sleep enjoying the sound of wind chimes beneath the eaves.

In the evenings, I would sometimes go out to town and open the lattice while holding flower pots.
Since my mother was absent, all household tasks were handled by a housemaid named Saku.
When I returned from Kamakura and first sat down to a meal at my own home, seeing Saku—who had placed a black round tray on her lap to serve—sitting deferentially before me, I felt anew the difference between her and the sisters in Kamakura.
Saku was by no means a good-looking woman to begin with.
Yet how modestly, how reservedly, how pitifully feminine did her figure—knowing nothing beyond deference before me—appear to my eyes.
She sat quietly, having seemingly resolved that even contemplating love's nature was already too presumptuous for someone of her station.
I spoke to her with uncharacteristic kindness.
Then I asked her age.
She answered nineteen.
I abruptly asked if she didn't want to marry.
With flushed face lowered, she made me—the asker of this blunt question—feel remorseful.
Saku and I had hardly exchanged words beyond necessity until then.
As reaction to Kamakura's new memories, I then first noticed womanly qualities in our housemaid.
Love was fundamentally no utterable word between her and me.
I merely loved the calm, easygoing, gentle atmosphere radiating from her presence.

To say I found comfort through Saku sounds laughable even to myself.
Yet even now I can conceive no other cause, so I suppose it must have been Saku—or rather, that aspect of womanhood she represented at the time—that settled my mind, grown restless even from imagined stimuli.
Truth be told, Kamakura's scenery would sometimes rise before my eyes.
Within that vista moved living figures.
That these appeared as activities of people distant from me—people whose interests could never align with mine—proved a blessing.

I went up to the second floor and began organizing the bookshelves.
Despite my cleanliness-obsessed mother never neglecting her diligent dusting, actually rearranging each book revealed unexpected colored dust in hidden corners beyond her sightline, making it surprisingly time-consuming to get everything properly ordered.
Adopting a midsummer-appropriate leisure project—deliberately time-consuming by design, where I'd lose myself reading whatever book caught my fancy—I progressed snail-like under this carefree policy.
Saku poked her ginkgo-leaf-bunned head up the ladder stairs upon hearing unseasonable cleaning noises.
I had her wipe part of a shelf with a dust cloth.
But deeming it cruel to keep her assisting indefinitely with this open-ended task, I promptly sent her back downstairs.
After about an hour of laying books flat and standing them upright—having grown somewhat weary—I was puffing tobacco smoke during my break when Saku again appeared at the ladder stairs.
"And if I may be of service," she inquired, "is there anything I can do?"
I wanted to let Saku contribute.
But since organizing books required handling Western letters she unfortunately couldn't read, I regretfully dismissed her with "No need," driving her back down once more.

There was no need to recount every detail about Saku, but given our recent interactions, I ended up mentioning her actions at that time simply because I remembered them. I finished smoking a cigarette and then resumed organizing. This time, free from any risk of Saku disturbing my solitary world, I cleared the second shelf of the bookcase in one go. At that moment, I discovered by chance behind the shelf a strange book I had borrowed from a friend long ago and completely forgotten to return. It was rather a thin, small book that had fallen behind other items and become covered in dust, eluding my notice until today.

Twenty-Seven

The person who lent me this book was a friend with literary inclinations. I once discussed novels with him and remarked that overly prudent people—those who ponder everything yet lack courage for bold actions—would make dull subjects for fiction. My own habitual avoidance of novels stemmed from believing myself unqualified to be a novel's protagonist, this deficiency arising from my tendency to overthink and vacillate—precisely why I'd posed such a question.

He pointed to this volume on his desk and declared, "The protagonist here possesses both extraordinary prudence and terrifying decisiveness." When I asked what it contained, he simply said, "Read it," handing me the book. The German title Gedanke was printed on the cover. He explained it was a Russian translation.

Holding the slim volume, I pressed him again for details about the plot. "The outline hardly matters," he replied. "Whether it's jealousy or revenge, profound mischief or drunken scheming, sincere gestures or madman's logic—who can tell? But since dazzling actions pair with equally brilliant calculations here, just read it."

I borrowed the book and brought it home, though with no intention of reading it. Being no novel enthusiast yet scorning authors as fools besides, I felt utterly unmoved by whatever my friend claimed lay within.

Having completely forgotten about this incident, I pulled out the Gedanke from behind the shelf without a second thought and brushed off the thick dust.
As I noticed the familiar German characters of that title, I recalled the literature-loving friend and his words at that time.
Then, suddenly driven by a curiosity that arose from who knows where, I immediately opened to that page and began reading from the beginning.
Inside was written a terrifying story.

A man who had feelings for a certain woman not only found his affections unreciprocated by her but, resentful that she instead married an acquaintance of his, plotted to kill her new husband. However, he would not merely kill. It wouldn’t be satisfying unless he killed him in front of his wife. Moreover, even though the watching wife knew he was the perpetrator, he would not be satisfied unless he committed this complex murder—one that left her biting her finger and merely staring at him, utterly powerless to take any action beyond that. He devised a certain method as a means to that end. Taking advantage of an opportunity when he had been invited to a dinner party, he suddenly began feigning a violent seizure. He who had dared to perform behavior that to onlookers seemed nothing short of a madman’s, seeing that every single person present had come to believe him a complete lunatic, inwardly celebrated the success of his calculated scheme. He repeated the same actions two or three times at conspicuous social gatherings, after which he succeeded in gaining a widespread reputation as a man at risk of losing his mind due to seizures. He intended to construct an untraceable murder charge upon this elaborate groundwork of preparations. After his frequent seizures began to tarnish the vibrant hues of his social interactions, the doors of all those who had been on familiar terms with him until then suddenly began to shut firmly against him. However, this was not something that troubled him. He still had one house he could freely come and go to. That was none other than the house of his friend—the very man he was attempting to kick down into the land of death—and that man’s wife. He knocked on his friend’s residence one day, putting on a nonchalant face. Pretending to shift the conversation to small talk, he covertly waited for an opportunity to attack the person before him. He picked up the heavy paperweight that was on the desk and suddenly asked if one could kill a person with this. The friend naturally did not take his question seriously. He, heedless, poured all his strength into the paperweight and bludgeoned her beloved husband to death before his wife’s eyes. And so, under the name of a madman, he was sent to a lunatic asylum. With astonishing prudence, discernment, and deductive power, he earnestly argued his case for not being a madman based on the aforementioned sequence of events.

No sooner had he presented his defense than he began doubting it again. Not only that—he now sought to justify those very doubts. Was he ultimately sane or mad?—I trembled in fear, still clutching the book.

Twenty-Eight

My mind was constructed to keep my heart in check.
When I reflect on my past actions and find no lingering profound regrets, I wonder if this might be humanity's natural state.
Yet whenever my heart begins to blaze with passion, having reason's solemn authority forcefully applied—as all people commonly experience—becomes excruciating torment.
In matters of stubbornness, I lean toward possessing a dormant temper rather than overt obstinacy, so I've seldom endured that particular agony where someone gripped by emotional turmoil is abruptly reined in by rationality—like violently slamming brakes on a speeding motorcar.
Even in such moments, I sensed within myself a searing vitality that could only be likened to having life's central axis forcibly warped.
Each time these two forces clashed—this self who always yielded to reason's dictates—I would sometimes believe I submitted because my mind held superior strength to enforce obedience, and other times conclude I capitulated because my heart lacked fortitude to resist. Yet no matter how I rationalized it, I remained trapped in dread that this struggle—though ostensibly for survival—was secretly a life-eroding battle waged beyond others' awareness.

That is why I was astonished when encountering Gedanke's protagonist.
He who treated his closest friend's life as lightly as a moth's dying breath recognized neither contradiction nor conflict between reason and passion.
All his intellectual powers became mere fuel for vengeance—expedient tools for deftly executing cruel atrocities—yet he knew not a shred of remorse.
He was a consummate actor who, marshaling meticulous calculation, could pour an entire vessel of poisoned blood over his adversary's head.
Or perhaps he was a madman endowed with intellect and fervor surpassing the ordinary.
Comparing my ordinary self to him, I felt profound envy toward Gedanke's protagonist who could act with such single-minded abandon.
Simultaneously, it chilled me to the marrow with terror.
To commit such an act would surely feel exhilarating, I thought.
Yet I also thought that after perpetrating it, I would inevitably face unbearable torments of conscience.

But what if my jealousy toward Takagi were to take some unfathomable path and in the future scorch me with an intensity ten times greater than now? I wondered.
Yet I couldn't imagine myself in that moment.
At first, from the viewpoint that human beings are fundamentally different in their very constitution and thus could never possibly imitate such acts, I tried to immediately dismiss this problem.
Next, I began to feel that even I could sufficiently carry out and rid myself of the same degree of revenge.
In the end, I recalled that it is precisely those like me—ordinarily tormented by the conflict between head and heart, muddled in indecision—who are first able to carry out such ferocious acts calmly, calculatedly, and systematically.
In the end, I couldn’t understand why I had thought this way.
Just when I thought this, I was suddenly struck by a strange feeling.
That feeling was neither pure fear, anxiety, nor discomfort; it appeared to be something far more complex than those.
Yet to describe the state that coalesced in my heart, it resembled a timid person emboldened by drink—satisfied they could accomplish anything while simultaneously realizing their drunken self had fallen far below their usual moral character, resigning themselves with anguished certainty that this degradation stemmed from alcohol's inescapable influence.
With this strange feeling still upon me, I saw myself in a dream—wide-eyed, driving a heavy paperweight deep into Takagi’s skull before Chiyoko’s gaze—and startled, I leapt to my feet.

As soon as he went downstairs, he abruptly headed to the bathroom and splashed water over his head. When he checked the clock in the dining room and saw it was already past noon, he decided to take advantage of the timing and sit down there to eat his meal. As usual, it was Saku who served the meal. I wordlessly stuffed two or three mouthfuls of rice into my mouth, then suddenly asked her, “Hey, Saku—does my complexion look off?” Saku opened her eyes wide in surprise and answered, “No.” When their exchange broke off, he then asked Saku if she had perhaps been idling about.

“Oh, nothing much at all.”

“It’s suddenly gotten quite hot.”

I finished eating two bowls of rice in silence.
When she poured me tea and I was about to drink it，I suddenly said to Saku again，“It’s nicer staying home where it’s quiet than going somewhere crowded like Kamakura.”
“But it must be cooler there，” said Saku.
“No—actually，it’s even hotter than Tokyo．Being in such a place only frays one’s nerves，”I explained．
“Will the retired master still be staying over there for some time?”Saku asked．
“He’ll probably return soon，”I answered．

Twenty-Nine

I looked at Saku sitting before me and felt she resembled a morning glory rendered in single-stroke inkwork. Though regretting this wasn't executed by some celebrated artist's hand, I could only perceive her inner being as possessing the same uncomplicated composition as such sketches. One might question what purpose there is in likening Saku's character to a painting. While no profound meaning existed, the truth was—as I ate the meal she served—I found myself comparing my own mind, still reeling from reading Gedanke, to her figure now sitting formally with black-lacquered tray, dismayed at why my psyche had to resemble some overworked oil painting in its complexity. To confess, I'd until today taken pride in my mind's intricate workings as proof of higher education. Yet I'd gradually grown exhausted by this very activity. Wretchedness overcame me as I pondered what karmic compulsion forced me to dissect every detail merely to exist. Setting down my bowl, I gazed at Saku's face and sensed something noble.

“Do even you have various things you think about, Saku?”

“Oh, there’s nothing worth thinking about for someone like me.”

“You don’t think about things, do you? That’s good. Not thinking about things is the best.”

“Even if I did have thoughts, I lack the wisdom to make sense of them. I’m utterly useless.”

“You’re fortunate.”

I inadvertently said this and startled Saku. She must have thought I was suddenly mocking her. I’d done a wretched thing.

That evening, my mother unexpectedly and abruptly returned from Kamakura.
I had brought out a rattan chair to the second-floor veranda as the day waned and was listening to the sound of Saku splashing water barefoot in the garden.

When I went downstairs and came out to the entrance, I was greatly surprised to see Chiyoko following behind her and stepping up from the shoe-removal area in place of Goichi, who should have accompanied my mother. There on the rattan chair, I had not been thinking about Chiyoko at all. Even if I had tried, I couldn't have separated her from Takagi in my mind. And so I had believed that for the time being, those two would remain immobile on Kamakura's stage. Before exchanging greetings with my mother—whose complexion seemed darkened from sun exposure—I first wanted to ask Chiyoko why she had come. In truth, those were precisely the words I used first.

“I came to escort Aunt home. Why? Surprised?”

“Well, thank you for that,” I replied. My feelings toward Chiyoko had been quite different before going to Kamakura compared to after going there. They had also differed significantly between the time after going and after returning. The way I felt toward her when she was paired with Takagi was markedly different from how I felt toward her now that she stood alone.

She explained she had accompanied them herself out of concern about entrusting my elderly mother to Goichi, and while Saku was washing her feet, she busied herself with typical Chiyoko efficiency—retrieving my mother’s unlined kimono from the chest and helping her change out of travel clothes.

I asked my mother if anything noteworthy had occurred since then. Wearing a satisfied expression, she replied there had been nothing particularly unusual, then added, “Still, it’s been a good while since I’ve had such a refreshing change of pace.”

“Thanks to you,” she said.

To my ears, this sounded like gratitude directed at Chiyoko standing beside her. I asked Chiyoko if she would be returning to Kamakura again today.

“I’ll stay over.”
“Where?”

“Let me see.
“I could go to Uchisaiwaicho, but it’s too spacious and lonely there.”
"—Maybe I’ll stay here for the first time in ages. What do you think, Aunt?"

To me, it appeared that Chiyoko had come with the intention of staying overnight at my house from the very beginning.
To confess, I had barely sat there for ten minutes before I found myself once again observing, evaluating, and interpreting her every word and action from a specific perspective.
When I noticed this, I felt intensely displeased.
Moreover, I felt my nerves had been utterly exhausted by such efforts.
Was I forcing my own mind to work this way against itself?
Or was Chiyoko compelling me against my will to move?
Either way, I was irritated.

“Even if you hadn’t come at all—Goichi alone would’ve sufficed.”

“But I’m the one responsible here, aren’t I?”
“It was me who invited Aunt, wasn’t it?”

Thirty

“Well, since I was invited too, you should’ve sent for me.”
“Then you should’ve listened to what others said and come more often.”

“No, back then—
“When I came back—”

“Then it would be just like having a nurse around.
Fine, I’ll be your nurse then. I’ll come along with you.
Why didn’t you say so?”

“Because I thought you’d refuse if I said anything.”

“I was the one who thought I’d be refused, Auntie.
Even though you do occasionally accept our invitations and come, you’re always making such a difficult face, you know.
You really are a bit unwell.”

“That’s why you wanted Chiyoko to come along, I suppose,” said my mother with a laugh.

I had been unable to anticipate Chiyoko’s arrival until just an hour before my mother’s return.
There was no need to reiterate this now, but I had also nearly anticipated as certain fact the news my mother would bring regarding Takagi.
I had even envisioned the pitiful sight of her calm face clouding with anxiety and disappointment.
Now I saw before me a result entirely contrary to these expectations.
The two remained as ever the same affectionate aunt and niece.
Each of them, true to form, pleasantly bestowed upon one another—and upon me—their own distinctive warmth and freshness.

That evening, I saved the time I would have spent on an evening walk and went upstairs with the two women to cool off while talking.
I hung a Gifu lantern painted with the seven herbs under the eaves as my mother instructed and lit a slender candle inside it.
Chiyoko, who had proposed turning off the electric light because of the heat, unceremoniously darkened the tatami room.
The moon hung windless and high.
My mother, leaning against a pillar, said it reminded her of Kamakura.
"It feels odd viewing the moon where you can hear trains," remarked Chiyoko, who had recently grown accustomed to the seaside.
I remained seated in the rattan chair from before, fanning myself.
Saku came upstairs twice from below.
The first time she replenished the tobacco tray's embers and placed it beneath my feet.
The second time she brought up a tray of ice sweets obtained from the neighborhood.
Each time, I couldn't help comparing Saku—who seemed born into an age of strict feudal hierarchy, accepting her lowly servant's lot—with Chiyoko, who maintained noble composure before all.
Chiyoko paid no more heed to Saku's appearances than to any other woman's.
For her part, Saku once rose and reached the stairway's edge, then turned at the last moment to gaze at Chiyoko's retreating figure.
Recalling my two days observing Takagi in Kamakura, I watched pityingly as Saku—who'd declared she needed no material for thought—was now supplied with this modern toxic substance called Chiyoko.

The question "What about Takagi?" kept rising to my lips.
Yet beyond mere curiosity about his whereabouts, some ulterior motive kept pushing me forward—perhaps because I feared being denounced as cowardly from afar—until I ultimately stopped finding it honorable to ask.
I also reasoned that if Chiyoko would just leave and only my mother remained, I could discuss him freely.
But truthfully, I wanted to hear about Takagi directly from Chiyoko herself.
I wanted to clearly ascertain her feelings toward him and lock that understanding securely in my heart.
Was this jealousy at work?
If anyone listening calls it jealousy, I’ve no objection.
Even examining it now through my current lens, no other name seems fitting.
Then was I truly so enamored with Chiyoko?
When the question shifted thus, I could only be left speechless.
The truth was, I’d never felt such ardent love for her coursing through my veins.
This would mean I’m twice or thrice as jealous as others—or perhaps that’s indeed the case.
Yet judged more appropriately, I think the root cause lies in my inherent selfishness.
Still, I must add one thing.
If my jealousy toward Takagi still burns this fiercely even after leaving Kamakura, then Chiyoko herself bears grave responsibility alongside the flaws in my nature.
I’ll state plainly: it’s precisely because she’s Chiyoko that my weakness has seeped so deeply into my heart.
Then which part of Chiyoko might corrupt my character?
I simply couldn’t tell.
Perhaps her kindness itself?

Thirty-One

Chiyoko’s demeanor was as unreservedly open as ever.
She spoke effortlessly on any topic that arose.
After all, I could only take that as evidence she had nothing in her mind.
She said that since going to Kamakura she had begun teaching herself to swim and now enjoyed going out where the water was over her head.
She said it was amusing how the cautious Momoyo would grow apprehensive and stop her with a sorrowful, apologetic voice.
At that moment Mother made a face half-concerned and half-exasperated. “What are you thinking—a woman acting so recklessly?”
“For your own future’s sake, stop these dangerous pranks if only for Auntie,” she entreated.
Chiyoko simply laughed and replied “Don’t worry,” then turned to me sitting on the veranda chair and asked, “Mr. Ichizo-san, you don’t like such tomboyish girls either, do you?”
I merely said I didn’t particularly care for it and gazed at the front garden where moonlight spilled unsparingly.
Had I forgotten self-respect, I would surely have added, “But Mr. Takagi would approve, wouldn’t he?”
That I wasn’t dragged into saying this remained fortunate for my dignity.

Chiyoko remained as unreservedly open as ever.
Yet even as the night deepened and my mother began saying it was time to sleep, she never once broached the subject of Takagi.
In this I recognized extreme deliberateness.
It felt as though a single dark stain had fallen upon a sheet of white paper.
Before going to Kamakura I had believed Chiyoko to be among the purest women in the world; yet within just two days of staying there, I had begun for the first time to doubt her artifice.
That doubt now finally sought to take root in my chest.

"Why won't she talk about Takagi?"

I suffered as I lay in bed thinking this.
At the same time, I was fully aware of the foolishness of letting such matters steal away my sleeping hours.
So the absurdity of suffering only made me even more irritated.
I was sleeping alone on the second floor as usual.
Mother and Chiyoko had laid out futons in the lower sitting room and settled together beneath a single mosquito net.
Lying there imagining Chiyoko sleeping soundly right below me, I could no longer avoid confronting the thought that I was losing to this inevitable torment.
I grew to detest even turning over in bed.
For I considered it a humiliation should the weakness of my sleeplessness—echoing downstairs—reach Chiyoko's heart as a proclamation of victory.

As I turned the same problem over in various ways like this, the same problem began to appear to me in different lights. The fact that she didn’t mention Takagi’s name was simply her kindness toward me. Out of consideration not to upset me, she had deliberately avoided bringing it up. Interpreting it this way, I must have behaved so unreasonably during my time in Kamakura—in such a foul mood—that even someone as guileless as her lost the courage to utter Takagi’s name in my presence. If that were true, then I was nothing but a disagreeable creature who ventured among people solely to discomfort them. If I just stayed home and avoided socializing altogether, that would suffice. But if artifice unadorned by kindness was her true nature... I picked apart the very concept of artifice thread by thread. Was she using Takagi as decoy bait to hook me? Did she mean to toy with me by provoking my affection without any real intent? Or did she want me to transform myself into some version of Takagi? Would that make me worthy of her love? Or did she take perverse pleasure in watching us clash? Perhaps she dangled Takagi before me thinking “With competition like this, you’d better decide quickly!”—I dissected the notion of artifice down to its marrow. And if artifice meant war, I concluded, then war demanded decisive victory.

I bitterly resented myself for lying awake in defeat.
I had turned off my lamp earlier while setting up my mosquito net—now darkness filled every crevice of my room with suffocating oppression.
No longer could I endure this agony of sightless eyes straining open while only my mind raced unrestrained.
Though I'd restrained myself from even shifting positions until now,I suddenly rose and relit my quarters.
While at it,I slid open one storm shutter just a crack onthe veranda.
Beneath skies wherethe moon hung low,nothing stirred—not even a breeze.
All I received was this comparatively chill air against throat and skin.

Thirty-Two

The next day, I woke up an hour and a half earlier than I usually did when sleeping alone. I immediately got up and went downstairs, where Saku—wearing a white hand towel over her ginkgo-leaf hairstyle as she sifted ashes from the long brazier—said "Oh my, you're already awake," then promptly arranged the washing utensils in the bathroom for me. I passed through the dust-filled tearoom on tiptoe and exited to the entrance. At that moment, I took the opportunity to peer through the mosquito net at the two sleeping in the tatami room. My sharp-eyed mother, perhaps due to yesterday's train fatigue, still lay deep in quiet slumber. Chiyoko lay with her head dropped formlessly on the pillow as though buried in the depths of a dream. I stepped outside aimlessly. To me, who had long forgotten the charm of morning strolls, the unchanging townscape appeared serene like a Sabbath untouched by heat and bustle. The streetcar tracks stretched their honed light straight across the ground, contributing to the calm atmosphere. But I hadn't gone out because I wanted to take a walk. My eyes had simply awakened too early, so I walked with the intent to fill this fragment of life stretched into limbo through movement—yet could find no particular interest in the sky, the ground, or even the town.

After about an hour, I returned with a rather tired face that aroused suspicion from both Mother and Chiyoko.
Mother asked, "Where did you go?" then later inquired, "Your complexion doesn't look good. Are you feeling unwell?"

"You didn't sleep well last night, did you?"

I found myself at a loss to respond to Chiyoko's words.
Truth be told, I wanted to proclaim with bravado that I'd slept perfectly soundly.
Unfortunately, I wasn't that skilled a tactician.
Yet to honestly confess my sleeplessness would have demanded more humility than my pride permitted.
In the end, I remained silent.

The three of us had just finished breakfast at the same table when the hairdresser my mother had requested yesterday while it was still cool arrived.
Wearing a freshly starched white apron and leaning over the threshold with her hands planted，she offered a familiar greeting：＂Welcome back."
She possessed the cheerful manner of speech common to her profession.
Skillfully wielding this asset，she created opportunities for the shy mother to speak of their summer retreat as a point of pride with every phrase.
Though my mother appeared satisfied，she could not bring herself to chatter so effusively.
The hairdresser immediately chose the younger Chiyoko as a more responsive target.
Chiyoko was by nature a woman who could casually respond to anyone and everyone without hesitation，so each time she was addressed as＂young lady，"she would offer an appropriate reply and enliven the conversation.
When the topic of Chiyoko’s swimming arose，the hairdresser offered rehearsed flattery：＂How splendidly vigorous！All young ladies these days are taking swimming lessons＂—a compliment that sounded manufactured for any listener.

It may sound strange to admit such an odd thing, but the truth is, I rather enjoyed watching women have their hair styled.
The sight of Mother painstakingly arranging her meager hair into a traditional updo—no matter how skillfully it was styled—wasn’t particularly impressive to look at, yet still served as a decent diversion to stave off boredom.
As the hairdresser’s hands moved, I watched my mother’s small marumage hairstyle taking shape naturally.
And then, in my mind, I thought how magnificent Chiyoko’s hair would look if combed in the Japanese style.
For Chiyoko had beautiful, straight, long, and overly abundant hair.
In this situation, had I been my usual self, I surely would have suggested that Chiyo-chan also have her hair done while we were at it.
However, in my current state, I couldn't muster the will to direct such a familiar request toward her.
Then, as if by chance, Chiyoko spoke up: “Somehow I’ve gotten the urge to have mine done up too.”
Mother urged her to have her hair done, saying it had been too long.
The hairdresser pressed on: “Please do have it styled up properly! Ever since I first saw your hair, I’ve thought it such a waste to keep it in that Western bundled style,” her eager tone suggesting she couldn’t wait to begin.
Chiyoko finally settled before the mirror.

"What style should I go with?"

The hairdresser recommended Shimada.
Mother agreed.
With her long hair still cascading down her back, Chiyoko suddenly called out to Mr. Ichizo.

"What do you prefer?"

"I'm certain sir would favor Shimada too."

I started.
Chiyoko seemed utterly unruffled.
Deliberately turning toward me, she laughed: "Shall I show you by styling it in Shimada then?"
"Fine," I answered, my voice sounding thoroughly flat.

Thirty-Three

I went upstairs before Chiyoko's hair was done.
When neurotic types like me get involved, we dare commit acts that would strike indifferent eyes as downright childish.
Leaving the dressing table midway through, I fancied myself exempt from that tribute of admiration which women sporting elegant Shimada chignons exact from men by force.
At that moment, I simply lacked the magnanimity to indulge this woman's vanity.

I have no desire to patch up my own matters to make them sound more favorable.
However, even someone like me intended to apply my mind to slightly loftier concerns than such tactics born of huddling around the long brazier.
Yet when dragged down to that point, in my weakness, I simply couldn't bring myself to veer off course.
Precisely because I knew full well how trivial it all was, I despised myself for daring to do it—I lashed myself.

As someone who detests bluster as much as outright baseness, I believed it honorable to speak of myself as I truly was—however lowly or insignificant—and thus strove not to conceal it.
But did all those recognized as great or lofty individuals in this world truly transcend the humble struggles of life around long braziers and kitchens?
Though I was but a greenhorn with no experience beyond having just graduated from school, based on what I could conceive through my intellect and imagination, I suspected that such truly great and lofty individuals had never existed in any era.
I respected Matsumoto’s uncle.
But to speak bluntly, I thought it sufficed to describe someone like that uncle as a man who appeared great, a man who presented himself as lofty.
I wished to refrain from the discourtesy and prejudice of labeling my revered uncle as counterfeit or imitation.
Yet in truth, while presenting an appearance of detachment from worldly concerns, he remained deeply preoccupied with them internally.
He kept his hands clean of petty matters while stewing over them in the depths of his mind.
The mere fact that he didn’t show it outwardly made me want to offer praise by saying he was more refined than ordinary.
And the reason he didn’t show it outwardly was due to his wealth, his age, and his scholarship, discernment, and cultivation.
But finally, it was also because he maintained a harmonious balance within his household, and because his relationship with society, while appearing contradictory, in fact proceeded smoothly.
――My story had ended up digressing.
I may have spent too long defending my own petty tendencies.

As I had just mentioned, I quickly went up to the second floor. The second floor, being more exposed to the sun, was considerably less comfortable than downstairs; however, having grown accustomed to it over time, I had made a habit of spending most of my days there. As usual, I sat down at my desk and remained there, propping my cheek on my hand in a daze. Noticing that the majolica ashtray into which I had discarded tobacco ash that morning had been cleaned and placed before my elbow, I gazed at the two geese depicted within it while picturing in my mind the hands of Saku who had emptied its ashes. Then came the sound of footsteps on the ladder below as someone began ascending. The moment I heard those footsteps, I knew immediately it wasn’t Saku. I felt it humiliating to have Chiyoko see me in this state of listless brooding. At the same time, I opened the book beside me, but had no inclination to employ the clever expedient of pretending to have been reading all along.

“Take a look—it’s all done!”

I saw her sit down before me while saying this.

"It looks strange, doesn’t it? I haven’t styled it like this in ages."

“It came out beautifully.”
“You should always wear it in a Shimada from now on.”

“I have to redo it two or three times when it comes undone. The hair just won’t stay put.”
“The hair just won’t stay put.”

Through three or four exchanges of this nature, I gradually began sensing before me the same beautiful, guileless Chiyoko of old—unchanged in her artless sincerity.
Whether some rhythm had softened my disposition, or whether Chiyoko’s attitude toward me had pivoted imperceptibly—I couldn’t clearly say.
My memory suggests there was no discernible foothold for explanation on either side.
Had this ease between us persisted another twelve hours, I might have taken that peculiar suspicion I harbored toward her and—retracing through time—erased it from inception with a straight black stroke labeled ‘misunderstanding.’
Yet I ultimately committed a blunder.

Thirty-Four

The reason was none other than this. As I talked with Chiyoko for a while and realized she had come upstairs not merely to show her hairstyle but also to bid farewell before returning to Kamakura that day, I found myself stumbling quite unprepared.

“So soon?”
“Leaving already?” I said.

“It’s not early at all—I’ve already stayed an extra night.”
“But going back with this hairstyle feels rather odd, like I’m off to become someone’s bride or something,” said Chiyoko.

“Is everyone still in Kamakura?” I asked.

“Yes.”
“Why?” Chiyoko asked in return.

“Mr. Takagi too?” I asked again.

Until now, Chiyoko had never uttered the name Takagi, and I too had deliberately avoided bringing it up in conversation.
But when some opportunity revived our usual unreserved mood, in the very moment I was drawn into that atmosphere, I ended up thoughtlessly uttering his name.
The moment I posed this question and looked at her face, I was instantly filled with regret.

That she held a certain contempt for me as an indecisive and inept man was, as I had long since explained, nothing more than an intimacy built upon our mutual tacit acceptance—to speak truthfully. In return, I fortunately possessed just one point that Chiyoko always dreaded. That was my silence. For someone like her, who could never rest without laying everything completely bare, my perpetually sullen and reticent attitude should have been utterly displeasing. Yet there also lingered a strange, unfathomable presence within me—so from long ago, she had regarded me with a certain respect as a man she could never fully comprehend, one she both disdained yet feared in some measure. Though never stated openly, she formally acknowledged this in her heart of hearts, and I too had demanded it from her as my right in the depths of my being—such was the reality between us.

However, when I accidentally uttered Mr. Takagi’s name, I felt as though Chiyoko had snatched back this respect forever. This was because her expression had abruptly changed upon hearing my question of “Mr. Takagi too?” I did not want to acknowledge that as an expression of triumph. Yet it remained undeniable—a contempt I had never before witnessed in her now shone clearly in her eyes. I came to an abrupt halt, as though struck across the cheek by an open hand without warning.

“Are you really that concerned about Mr. Takagi?”

She said this and let out a laugh so raucous I wanted to press both hands against my ears.
At that moment, I felt a stinging insult.
But in that instant, I couldn't produce any response at all.

“You are cowardly,” she said next.
I was utterly shocked by this sudden adjective.
I wanted to snap back—You’re the cowardly one! Dragging someone here uninvited!—
But thinking it too soon to match her harshness toward a woman younger than myself, I held back.
Chiyoko too fell silent.
At last I managed to voice the two-syllable question: “Why?”
Then Chiyoko’s thick eyebrows twitched.
She seemed to interpret this inquiry as me—fully aware of my own cowardly implications—attempting to conceal my flaws through feigned innocence whenever externally confronted.

“Why? You yourself understand it perfectly well, don’t you?”

“Since I don’t understand, tell me,” I said.
I had my mother waiting downstairs and believed I understood the temperament of an emotional young woman well enough, so in order to disarm her and calm the conversation, I adopted a tone that was as low and gentle as I could manage at the time—though it seemed this strained effort only ended up displeasing Chiyoko.

“Then you’re a fool.”

I think my face must have looked paler than usual. All I remember is keeping my eyes fixed on Chiyoko. I also remember how Chiyoko’s fearless eyes met my gaze in silence then, both remaining fixed there for some time.

Thirty-Five

“To someone as vivacious as you, Chiyo-chan, a withdrawn person like me must naturally appear cowardly.”
“I’m an utterly timid man who lacks the courage to voice my thoughts outright or translate them into action.”
“If you insist on calling that cowardly, I can’t protest…”

“Who would ever call such a thing cowardly?”

“But you do look down on me.”
“I know it perfectly well.”

“You’re the one who’s been looking down on me all along, aren’t you? I know far better.”

Seeing no particular need to affirm her words, I deliberately withheld my response.

“You think I’m some uneducated, irrational, insignificant woman and utterly despise me in your heart.”

“That’s just the same as you looking down on me as a dawdler.”
“I don’t mind you calling me cowardly, but if you mean it in a moral sense, then you’re the one who’s mistaken.”
“At least regarding matters related to Chiyo-chan, I have no recollection of behaving in a morally cowardly manner.”
“Where you should be using terms like ‘dawdler’ or ‘indecisive,’ to have the word ‘cowardly’ thrown at me makes it sound as though I lack moral courage—or worse, like some base individual who doesn’t comprehend virtue—which is utterly disagreeable. I must insist you correct that.”
“Or else—in the sense I just mentioned—if I’ve done something to wrong you, Chiyo-chan, then speak plainly and tell me.”

“Then I’ll explain what ‘cowardly’ means,” said Chiyoko, bursting into tears.

I had until now recognized Chiyoko as a woman stronger than myself.
However, I had interpreted her strength merely as an amalgamation of feminine qualities springing from a singular gentle nature.
Yet the woman who now stood before me seemed nothing more than a commonplace, worldly woman consumed by a combative spirit.
I remained unmoved, waiting to see what explanation might emerge between her tears.
For I was firmly convinced that whatever spilled from her lips could be nothing but self-serving rhetoric to preserve her dignity.
She fluttered her wet eyelashes several times.

“You think I’m some reckless tomboy fool and are always sneering at me.”
“You... don’t love me.”
“In other words, you mean to marry me...”

“That goes for you too...”

“Oh, do listen!”
“You were going to say it’s mutual, weren’t you?”
“Very well then.”
“I’m not asking you for anything.”
“But why—when you don’t love me and have no intention of making me your wife—toward me...”

She suddenly became tongue-tied there.
Unperceptive as I was, I still couldn’t anticipate what would come next.
“Toward you,” I posed the question, half prompting her.
She suddenly burst out as though breaking through an obstacle—“Why do you feel jealous?”—and began crying even more vehemently than before.
I felt the heat of blood rushing to my face flare up in both cheeks.
She appeared almost as though she hadn’t noticed it.

“You’re cowardly—morally cowardly.”
“You already suspect even the intentions behind my inviting you and Aunt to Kamakura.”
“That in itself is cowardly.”
“But that’s not the issue here.”
“While you’ve accepted other invitations, why can’t you act cheerful as usual?”
“Because I invited you, it’s as if I’ve been disgraced myself.”
“By insulting the guests at my house, you’ve ended up insulting me as well.”

“I have no recollection of giving any insults.”

“There is.”
“Words or deeds—I don’t care about any of that.”
“Your attitude itself gives insult.”
“Even if your attitude isn’t giving it, your heart is.”

“I have no obligation to accept such intrusive criticism.”

“Because men are morally cowardly, they can make such pointless remarks.”
“Mr. Takagi is a gentleman with all the magnanimity in the world to accept you, yet you can never bring yourself to accept him.”
“Because it’s cowardly.”

Matsumoto's Story

I

As for what happened between Ichizo and Chiyoko after that, I did not know. Nothing much would come of it, I supposed. At least from what I could observe, their relationship appeared to have remained completely unchanged from the past right up to the present day. If you were to ask them, they would likely say many things, but those words would be governed by their transient moods—plausible-sounding lies that didn’t hold together, spoken as though they held eternal value. That much I could say with certainty. I believed this.

As for that incident, I too had been told about it at the time—and from both sides at that.
This was no mere misunderstanding.
Since both parties firmly believed their positions without strain or contradiction, we must conclude it was an entirely reasonable collision.
Therefore, whether they married or remained friends, that collision was inescapable—a karmic inevitability woven into their very being from birth.
Yet tragically, they found themselves inextricably bound together.
What chilled me was how this binding force operated beyond mortal influence—a terrifying manifestation of fate itself.
To borrow an overwrought aphorism, they formed a pitiable pair destined to meet only to part and part only to meet.
I cannot say if you will grasp this, but should they wed, they would achieve precisely the misfortune one might intentionally seek through marriage; should they remain unwed, they would endure a dissatisfaction indistinguishable from consciously choosing perpetual unhappiness.
Thus I concluded their best path lay in surrendering to nature's course—letting fate unfold without our meddling.
For what good could come from you or me meddling where even Heaven falters?
Mind you, I am no stranger to either Ichizo or Chiyoko.
Sunaga's sister had indeed sought my counsel numerous times regarding their union.
But how could I impose order where celestial forces fail?
In short—she clings alone to an impossible dream.

Both Sunaga’s sister and Taguchi’s sister were astonished that my nature and Ichizo’s were far too similar. I myself often wondered with amazement how two such eccentrics could have ended up among my relatives. In Sunaga’s sister’s view, Ichizo’s present state seemed to be nothing more than the result of my influence. Among the countless ways I displeased my sister, what most offended her was this acknowledged harmful influence that I, in my unfathomable way, had exerted upon her son. Upon reflecting on my own attitude toward Ichizo up to that day, I acknowledged this criticism as entirely justified. I might as well also acknowledge the dissatisfaction that I had estranged Ichizo from the Taguchi family because of this. However, there was no doubt that it was a mistake for those two sisters to regard Ichizo and me as eccentric recluses molded from the same template and to knit their brows equally over us.

Ichizo is a man whose nature is to coil inward whenever he comes into contact with the world.
So when he receives a single stimulus, that stimulus begins to rotate from one thing to another, gradually burrowing deeper and finer into the recesses of his heart.
And no matter how deep it burrows, this same endless force continues to torment him.
In the end, he becomes so tormented that he prays to escape this inner turmoil, yet he is dragged along as if by a curse beyond his power to resist.
And eventually, he must collapse under the weight of this effort—he comes to harbor the fear that he must collapse entirely alone.
And he grows exhausted as if mad.
This was the great misfortune lying at the root of Ichizo’s being.
To transform this misfortune into fortune, there was no other way than to reverse the inward-coiling direction of his life and make it uncoil outward.
Instead of using his eyes to bring external objects into his head, he must use his eyes with the mindset of viewing external objects through his head.
He must find—even if it’s just one single thing in all the world—something great, beautiful, or gentle enough to seize hold of his heart.
In short, he must become more adaptable.
Ichizo initially looked down upon fickleness.
Now he craves that adaptability.
For his own happiness, he prays wholeheartedly to god that he might somehow become a dashing, frivolous prodigy.
He had already known—even before I advised him—that there was not a single path in the world to save him other than becoming frivolously adaptable.
Yet he still struggles, unable to put it into practice.

II

As the one responsible for shaping Ichizo into his current state, I am implicitly resented by my relatives—though I myself feel deeply remorseful about this matter, so there's nothing to be done. In short, I never understood how to guide people according to their character. It seems all misfortune stemmed from my reckless assumption that simply transferring my own preferences onto Ichizo as much as possible would suffice, thereby arbitrarily shaping the pliable minds of the young. I became aware of this mistake two or three years ago. But by the time I realized it, it was already too late. I could only fold my helpless hands and sigh within my heart.

To state the facts plainly, the life I was leading suited me perfectly, yet was utterly unsuitable for Ichizo.
By nature, I was someone whose attention shifted easily—to put it rather cheaply, I was nothing more than a born fickle soul.
My heart ceaselessly flowed outward.
Therefore, depending on external stimuli, it could be shaped in any way.
To phrase it like that alone might not make complete sense, but Ichizo was a man born to educate existing society, while I was someone who had set out to be educated by the common world.
Though I was of such an age myself while still retaining significant immaturity, Ichizo had already been mature since his high school days.
He used society itself as material for contemplation, whereas I merely shifted myself into society's ideas.
Therein lay his strength—and therein too had long lurked his misfortune.
Therein lay my shortcoming—and therein too resided my happiness.
When I practiced tea ceremony, I attained a tranquil state of mind; when I fiddled with antiques, I became filled with desolation.
Beyond these, whether at vaudeville theaters, plays, or sumo matches, I could adopt the appropriate mood for each occasion.
As a result of becoming too absorbed in things before my eyes, I could not help but be struck by a hollow sense of self-erasure.
That was why I led such a detached life while trying forcibly to assert my self.
However, Ichizo was a man who had possessed nothing but his self from the very beginning.
The path that compensated for his shortcomings—or rather, curtailed his misfortune—was none other than not burrowing inward but responding outward.
Yet I had indirectly deprived him of that sole strategy which could have brought him happiness.
It was only natural for my relatives to resent me.
I considered it a stroke of luck that I was not resented by the man himself.

I believe this happened about a year ago now.
It was when Ichizo hadn't yet graduated from school—one day he came by unexpectedly, exchanged brief greetings, then promptly vanished somewhere.
At the time, I'd been asked by someone to research the history of Japanese flower arrangement in my study.
So absorbed was I in my work that when he appeared, I merely turned with a casual "Oh"—yet troubled by his noticeably pale complexion, I left my study to search for him the moment I reached a stopping point.
Since he got along well with my wife, I thought he might be chatting in the tearoom, but he wasn't there either.
When I asked my wife, she suggested trying the children's room. Sliding open the veranda door, I found him seated at Sakiko's desk, gazing at a photograph of a beautiful woman from a magazine's frontispiece.
He turned to me then and announced he'd discovered this beauty and had been sitting face-to-face with her for about ten minutes.
He claimed that while her visage remained before him, it made him forget his headaches and naturally lifted his spirits.
I immediately inquired whose daughter she was and where she came from.
Strangely enough, he hadn't yet read the name written beneath the photograph.
I called him careless.
"If you liked her face that much," I pressed, "why not commit her name to memory first?"
For depending on circumstances, I thought it mightn't be impossible to take her as my wife.
Yet he regarded me with eyes that seemed to ask—what need had he to memorize names and addresses?

In other words, I had persistently regarded the photograph as a representation of its actual subject, while he had viewed it merely as a photograph.
Had someone attempted to animate that paper portrait by supplementing it with its true position in society, social standing, education, and temperament behind the image, he might well have discarded even that face he found appealing.
This was the fundamental difference between Ichizo and myself.

III

Two or three months before Ichizo’s graduation—I believe it was around April of last year—I received from his mother an unprecedentedly lengthy consultation regarding his marriage. Her intention was fundamentally simple yet obstinate: she wanted to welcome Taguchi’s niece as his bride. Being predisposed to consider it a man’s shame to subject women to logical arguments, I largely avoided complex reasoning—yet still managed to explain, breaking it down into terms her old-fashioned mind could grasp, that refusing to allow the individual’s freedom in such matters amounted to violating parental duty. As you know, his mother was an exceedingly gentle woman, but when pressed, she possessed more than her fair share of that common trait among women who unhesitatingly repeat the same opinion time and again. Rather than resent her obstinacy, I instead felt an odd pity for her excessive tenacity. And so, since there was no one among the relatives whom Ichizo respected besides myself at that time, I readily accepted her plea that I should at least summon him once and speak with him thoroughly.

I recall it was on the Sunday morning four days later that I met with Ichizo in the sitting room to fulfill this purpose.
He took his seat while facing imminent graduation exams and smiled bitterly, saying he didn't care what became of such tests.
According to his explanation, this was a stale matter his mother had repeatedly brought up over time, one he had continually deferred answering.
Yet his attitude toward it appeared all the more anguished in inverse proportion to the staleness of the issue.
When last pressed by his mother, he had apparently asked her to wait until after graduation, promising to settle it then.
Not only did being summoned by me before he'd even taken his exams seem somewhat bothersome to him, but he went so far as to voice his complaint about elderly people's impatience being troublesome.
I too found this reasonable.

In my estimation, his postponement of any definitive response until graduation was merely an evasive tactic—calculating that Chiyoko’s marriage prospects would inevitably settle on a more suitable candidate than himself, thereby avoiding directly disappointing his mother while awaiting the natural pressure of circumstances to overturn her intentions.
I asked Ichizo if that wasn’t the case.
“That’s right,” he answered.
“Do you have no intention of satisfying your mother no matter what?” I inquired.
“I want nothing more than to satisfy my mother in all things,” he replied.
Yet he never once said he would take Chiyoko as his wife.
When I asked if he refused out of sheer stubbornness, he flatly declared, “Perhaps that’s so.”
When I pressed further—“What if Taguchi consented and Chiyoko agreed to come?”—Ichizo fell silent, staring at my face without reply.
Whenever I see this expression of his, I find myself utterly unable to press the conversation forward.
To call it awe would be excessive; to call it sympathy would ring pitifully hollow. What I felt when confronted with that face defied description—a singular countenance blending the despair of eternal resignation with undercurrents of both ferocity and tenderness.

After a while, Ichizo suddenly voiced an unexpected reflection: "Why am I disliked by people like this?"
I was surprised both by its unexpectedness and by how it did not suit Ichizo’s usual self.
I countered in a reproachful tone, asking why he was venting such complaints.

"It's not a complaint."
“I’m saying it because it’s a fact.”

“Then who is it that dislikes you?”

“Isn’t even my own uncle harboring dislike for me?”

I was surprised again.
After exchanging questions two or three times in my bewilderment and trying to deduce his meaning, it seemed he had interpreted my attitude—when I stopped the conversation under the influence of that peculiar expression unique to him—as entirely stemming from aversion toward him.
I tried my hardest to correct this misunderstanding.

"What reason would I have to resent you?"
"Haven’t you known our relationship since childhood?"
"Don’t talk nonsense."

Ichizo, having been scolded, showed no sign of agitation and stared at me with a face that grew ever paler.
I felt as though I were sitting before phosphorescent flames.

IV

“I’m your uncle. What country has uncles who hate their nephews?”

The moment he heard these words, Ichizo immediately curled his thin lips and laughed bleakly.
I saw profound contempt lurking beneath that bleakness.
I confess—he possessed a mind superior to mine in understanding.
I was fully aware of that.
Therefore, whenever I interacted with him, I took care not to let slip any foolishness that might invite his contempt, exercising caution to keep such things contained.
Yet there were times when, succumbing to the arrogance of an elder, I would look down upon him—with whom I shared such strong familiarity—from my lofty position and, though aware of my own superficiality, deliver pompous admonishments that held no meaning beyond the moment.
Clever as he was, he would never stoop to such undignified conduct as exploiting his superiority to make me feel ashamed; yet for my part, it became customary to experience humiliation each time—as though my standing relative to him were steadily diminishing.
I immediately set about correcting my words.

“Well, given how vast the world is, there might be parents and children who are enemies, and couples who endanger each other’s lives.”
“But generally speaking, as long as people are connected by terms like brothers or uncles and nephews, there must be some affection inherent in those bonds.”
“You’ve had a proper education and possess proper intelligence, yet there’s this strange spitefulness about you.”
“That’s your weakness.”
“You must fix it without fail.”
“It’s unpleasant even to watch from the sidelines.”

“That’s why even Uncle harbors dislike for me.”

I was at a loss for a reply. I felt as though contradictions I hadn’t even recognized in myself had now been laid bare by Ichizo.

“If you’d just cast off that spite, it wouldn’t be an issue,” I airily dismissed him.

“Do I truly harbor spite?” Ichizo asked calmly.

“You do,” I answered without thinking.

“In what way? Please explain clearly.”

“What way—it’s there. Because it exists, that’s why I say so.”

“Now assuming such a weakness exists—where does it come from?”

“Since it’s your own matter, you should try thinking about it yourself.”

“You are unkind,” declared Ichizo with resolute gravity.
At first, I was staggered by his tone.
Then seeing his eyes, I recoiled.
Those eyes glared at me with profound resentment.
I couldn’t even muster the courage to greet him.

“I had been thinking about it even before you said anything.
“There’s no need for you to say it—since it’s my own affair, I had been thinking about it.
“Because there was no one to tell me, I had been thinking it through alone.
“I thought about it day and night.
“I thought until my head and body could no longer endure from thinking too much.
“That’s why I asked you—because even then I couldn’t understand.
“You yourself have declared that you are my uncle.
“And just because you’re my uncle, you’re supposed to be kinder than others?
“Yet despite those words coming from your own mouth, they sounded nothing but coldly harsh to my ears.”

I saw tears flowing down his cheeks.
Between him and me—accustomed to each other from childhood—such a scene had never once occurred until now, I must declare plainly.
Therefore, I must also state that I had no idea how to handle this agitated young man.
I merely stood blankly with my hands folded.
Ichizo, again taking no account of my demeanor or such things, lacked the composure to adjust his words.

“Am I harboring resentment?
“I’m certainly resentful.
“Even without you saying it, I believe I already know full well.
“I am resentful.
“I already know perfectly well without needing your admonishment.
“I simply want to know why things turned out this way.
“No—whether it’s Mother, Aunt Taguchi, or even you—everyone knows that reason perfectly well.
“It’s just that I alone don’t know.
“They simply won’t tell me alone.
“I asked because, of all people in this world, I trust you most deeply.
“You cruelly refused me.
“From this day forth, I shall curse you as my lifelong enemy.”

Ichizo stood up.
In that instant, I made my decision.
And then I called out to stop him.

V

I once heard a lecture by a certain scholar.
This scholar dissected Japan's modern enlightenment and unabashedly exposed to the audience his theory that we who receive such civilizing influences are fated to either remain superficial or inevitably succumb to neurasthenia.
He then retreated from the lectern with a bitter smile, remarking that while we yearn to know truth in our ignorance, once known we often envy our former blissful ignorance and regret our present selves—adding that his own conclusions might resemble this very notion.
At that moment I recalled Ichizo—thinking how pitiable we Japanese must be to receive such bitter truths, yet how even more wretched appeared this youth who alternately grasped at his solitary secret in terror and recoiled from it in fear—as I secretly shed tears of sympathy for him within my heart.

This concerns solely a matter within my family—a story entirely unrelated to your interests—and had it not been for the prior obligation arising from your thoughtful concern for Ichizo, I would never have disclosed it. But to speak truthfully, Ichizo's sun had been clouded since the very day he was born.

As I declare openly to all without reservation, I adhere to the principle that all secrets can only attain their natural resolution when disclosed—which is why I do not weigh terms like "moderation" or "preserving the status quo" as heavily as most people do.
Therefore, that I had not proactively traced back to illuminate Ichizo's fate from the moment of his birth until today could rather be called a curious oversight on my part.
Now that I think about it, I can hardly understand why I kept this incident secret until the very moment Ichizo cursed me.
Because even in my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined that letting air into this secret would sour their relationship as mother and son.

The truth concealed within my words—that Ichizo's sun had been clouded since his birth—may already resonate with concrete clarity in your ears, so intimately acquainted with him as you are. To state it plainly: they were not mother and son by blood. To forestall any misunderstanding, let me add this—they were stepmother and stepchild who shared a bond far stronger than that of many natural parents and children. They were bound by nature through cords of affection so unbreakable that they might well have scorned the conventional parent-child ties formed merely by bloodline. Not even the swing of a demon's axe could sever these bonds, making any fear of revelation utterly needless. Yet Sister lived in terror. Ichizo too was gripped by fear. Sister clutched the secret in her hand, Ichizo awaited the moment he'd be forced to grasp it himself—both trembling in shared dread. In the end, I drew forth the very essence of what he feared and laid it bare before him without reservation.

I lacked the courage to repeat every exchange from that time and recount them to you now.
To me, it had never appeared as such a momentous affair from the start; moreover, out of necessity to maintain composure, I had spoken of it as if it were nothing of consequence. Yet Ichizo received it as a life-and-death proclamation under desperate tension.
To continue plainly from before and state the facts concisely: he was not Sister's child, but had been born from a housemaid's womb.
Since it did not occur within my own household and was a story from over twenty-five years ago, I could not possibly have known the precise details. However, it seems that when that housemaid conceived Sunaga’s child, Sister gave her a considerable sum of money and dismissed her.
Then, after receiving word that the pregnant woman who had moved to an inn had given birth to a boy, they took only the child and raised him openly as their own.
This was likely out of Sister’s sense of obligation toward Sunaga, but it was also undoubtedly driven by her genuine resolve to love him as her own child—a resolve that must have been spurred by her distress at being unable to conceive at the time.
In reality, as you see and as we see, they had developed into the closest parent and child up to this day; thus, even if they were to share their circumstances with each other, there would be no reason for any problem to arise.
If I were to say, you couldn’t even imagine how much more pride they take in their relationship compared to those so-called real parent-child pairs commonly found in society.
Even the two of them, knowing this, would find far more joy in looking back on their past intimacy.
At least, I know I would.
Therefore, for Ichizo’s sake, I made sure not to neglect embellishing this beautiful aspect with all the strength I could muster.

VI

“That’s what I think. That’s why I see absolutely no need to hide it. If you have a sound mind, shouldn’t you think the same way I do? If you can’t think that way, then that itself is your resentment. Do you understand?”

“I understand. I understand perfectly,” Ichizo replied.

I said, “If you understand, then that’s enough. Let’s stop saying anything more about that issue.”

“I’ll stop now.”
“I will never trouble you with this matter again.”
“Indeed, as you say, I had been making nothing but biased interpretations.”
“I was terribly afraid until I heard your story.”
“I was so afraid it felt like my chest was tightening.”
“But once I heard your story and everything became clear, I actually felt relieved and my mind was put at ease.”
“I have no more fears or anxieties.”
“Instead, my heart suddenly felt desolate.”
“I feel lonely.”
“I feel as though I’m standing all alone in the world.”

“But your mother remains your mother as she always has been.”
“I too remain exactly who I’ve always been.”
“No one will change their treatment of you.”
“Don’t work up your nerves.”

“Even if I don’t get worked up, I’m still lonely—there’s nothing to be done about that.”
“I am certain to cry when I return home and see Mother’s face.”
“Just imagining those tears now fills me with unbearable loneliness.”

“It would be better to keep this from Mother.”

“Of course I won’t say anything.”
“If I told her, I can’t imagine what pained expression Mother would make.”

The two sat facing each other in silence.
I tapped idly on the ashtray of the tobacco tray.
Ichizo looked down and stared at the knee of his hakama.
Eventually, he looked up with a lonely expression.

“There’s one more thing I’d like to ask—would you hear me out?”

“If it’s within my knowledge, I’ll tell you anything.”

“Where is the mother who bore me now?”

His biological mother had died shortly after giving birth to him. It was said to be due to poor postpartum recovery, or perhaps another illness—but with my memory lacking sufficient detail to give a proper account, it proved utterly inadequate to soothe his starving eyes. My telling of his birth mother’s final fate concluded in mere minutes. He looked up with a sorrowful expression and asked her name. Fortunately, I had not forgotten the old-fashioned name Omiya. Next he inquired about her age at death. On that point, I possessed no definite knowledge. Finally, he asked whether I had met her during her service at his house. I replied that I had. He pressed me to describe what sort of woman she was. To my chagrin, my memory remained stubbornly vague. In truth, I had been but fifteen or sixteen at the time.

“I think she used to wear her hair in a Shimada style.”

Since I couldn’t give any more satisfactory answers than this, I too felt deeply regretful.
With the look of someone finally resigning himself, Ichizo said at last, “Then can’t you at least tell me the temple?
“I want to know where my mother is buried—if only that much,” he said.
But there was no way I could have known Omiya’s family temple.
Groaning, I answered that we’d have no choice but to ask my sister if no other solution could be found.

“Is there no one besides Mother who might know?”
“Well, I doubt there is.”

“Then there’s no need to know.”

I felt both sorry for Ichizo and somewhat guilty.
He turned toward the garden for a while, gazing at the large camellia blooming in the splendid sunlight, but eventually looked back.

“The fact that Mother insists I must marry Chiyo-chan—that too must stem from bloodline considerations, meaning she wants someone from our own family ties to be my bride, isn’t that right?”

“Exactly. That’s it.”
“There’s nothing else to it.”

Even then, Ichizo did not say he would accept her.
I too did not ask whether I would accept her in that case.

Seven

This meeting remained one of the profoundly beautiful experiences of my life. That we could lay bare everything to each other without reservation still adorns my meager past like a rare jewel. From Ichizo's perspective too, I imagine it might have been his first true solace since entering this world. After he left, my mind lingered in the afterglow of having performed some virtuous deed.

“I’ll take care of everything, so don’t worry.”

I escorted him to the entrance while warmly speaking these final words to his back. On the other hand, when reporting the meeting’s outcome to my sister, it proved thoroughly awkward. With no alternative, I placated her for the time being with reasoning she could hardly dispute—that we should wait until after graduation when he’d have time to settle matters properly, and that pressing him now would only interfere with his exams.

I also explained the situation to Taguchi and devised a plan to ensure Chiyoko’s marriage arrangement would progress before Ichizo’s graduation as much as possible.
Taguchi’s tone upon hearing the details remained as attentive and unfussy as ever.
He answered that even without my reminder, he intended to be fully aware of that matter.

“However, since we’re ultimately marrying her off for her own sake—(though saying that might cause offense)—we can’t exactly force Chiyoko’s wedding to be hurried or delayed for the convenience of your sister or Ichizo.”

“You’re absolutely right,” I conceded.
Though I had always interacted with the Taguchi family as if we were relatives, in truth I had never proactively involved myself in their daughter’s marriage prospects, nor had they ever consulted me on such matters.
Thus until that point, I had scarcely even heard indirect rumors about what sort of candidates might have existed for Chiyoko.
The sole exception was Takagi—the man whom Ichizo had met at a summer resort like Kamakura the previous year and taken a dislike to—whose name both Ichizo and Chiyoko had told me.
I abruptly asked Taguchi what had become of that man.
Taguchi smiled amiably and informed me that Takagi had not initially been presented as a formal candidate.
However, he added that any unmarried man of suitable standing and education inherently qualified as a potential candidate, making it impossible to definitively state he wasn’t one.
I pressed for further details about this ambiguous figure and confirmed he was currently in Shanghai.
Though residing there indefinitely with no fixed return date.
Moreover, while their relationship showed no progress, their exchange of letters continued unabated—each missive passing through her parents’ scrutiny before reaching her hands.
“Chiyoko might as well accept that man,” I declared without hesitation.
Taguchi never explicitly committed to this course—whether due to lingering designs or alternative plans.
Having no grasp of Takagi’s true character, I lacked standing to insist further and ultimately withdrew.

After that, Ichizo and I did not meet for what felt like a long time.
Though we called it a long time, it was merely a span of about a month and a half. Yet I found myself deeply concerned about him—facing his graduation exams while burdened with family troubles.
I quietly visited my sister and tried to subtly inquire about his recent situation.
My sister remained unperturbed and calmly stated, “He seems quite busy with everything—but that’s only natural since he’s graduating.”
Still uneasy, I one day arranged for him to spare an hour one evening for a meal with me, and while dining together at a Western restaurant near his house, I secretly observed his demeanor.
He was as composed as ever.
Having agreed to somehow manage his exams, there was no trace of pretense in him.
When I pressed him—“Are you sure you’re alright?”—he suddenly made a pitiful face and said, “The human head is sturdier than you’d think. To be honest, I’m terrified it might break, but strangely enough, it hasn’t yet. Given how things are, I suppose it’ll hold up for a while longer.”
This statement, hovering between jest and sincerity, left me with an oddly poignant impression.

Eight

After the season of young leaves had passed, on a day when one longed to let a round fan’s breeze into the chest of an unlined kimono after bathing, Ichizo came drifting by again.
The moment I saw his face, my first words were: “How did the exams go?”
“They finally ended yesterday,” he answered.
Then he announced, “I plan to take a short trip starting tomorrow—I came to say goodbye.”
Though the results were still unknown, I grew uneasy again, doubting his psychological state as he prepared to journey far.
He expressed his wish to travel from near Kyoto through Suma-Akashi and, depending on how things went, as far as Hiroshima.
I was surprised by the trip’s comparative extravagance.
When I indirectly hinted disapproval—suggesting it would be fine if he at least knew he’d passed—he responded to the exam results with unexpected coldness.
“You’re the one fussing over such things, Uncle—that’s what doesn’t suit your usual self,” he said, barely engaging.
As we spoke, I discovered his resolve had sprouted from motives entirely unrelated to passing or failing.

“The truth is, ever since that incident, my mind has been unusually preoccupied, making it difficult lately to sit calmly in my study.”
“Since this trip has become absolutely necessary, I ask that you at least commend me for not abandoning my exams midway—and forgive me.”

“Well, since it’s your money and you’re going where you want to go, there’s absolutely no problem. If you think about it, it might be good for you to move around a bit and change your mood. Go ahead and go.”

“Yes,” said Ichizo with a somewhat satisfied expression, but then added, “Though it feels pitiful and wasteful to even speak of this aloud—ever since hearing that story from you, Uncle, I’ve been overcome by strange feelings every time I see Mother’s face.”

“Does it make you uncomfortable?” I asked rather solemnly.

“No, it’s just pitiful.”
“At first it was unbearably lonely, but gradually, gradually, it transformed into pity.”
“To tell you the truth—and this stays just between us here—lately, seeing my mother’s face morning and evening has become painful.”
“Regarding this trip, I had long intended to take my mother to see Kyoto, Osaka, and Miyajima once I graduated, so if it were the old me, I would have set out after asking Uncle to look after things while I accompanied her. But given the circumstances I just mentioned, where our relationship has completely reversed, I find myself only wanting to get away from her side even a little.”

“This is troubling—that things have turned out this way.”

“I think if I leave, I’ll surely start missing my mother again. What do you think? I wonder if it won’t go that smoothly?”

Ichizo posed this question with apparent concern.
Even I, who prided myself on being an elder with more experience than he, could scarcely imagine his future in this regard.
I could only think that he had no belief in himself and wished to seek reassurance about his own heart from others; I pitied the depths of his heart.
Though his demeanor appeared gentle on the surface, he was in fact a man of remarkably strong will—for such a person to emit such a feeble sound was an almost unprecedented occurrence.
I gave his heart as much assurance as I could.

“Worrying about that is just a waste. I’ll take responsibility. There’s no need to worry—go enjoy yourself. Your mother is my sister. Precisely because she hasn’t pursued academic studies like I have, she’s all the more pure-hearted—a woman deserving of respect from everyone. How could someone like you, who shares such affection with my sister, ever be completely separated from her? It’s alright—rest assured.”

Ichizo appeared genuinely relieved upon hearing my words.
I too felt somewhat reassured.
Yet if such groundless words of comfort could affect Ichizo—a man of clear intellect—to this degree, I began suspecting his nerves must have been disordered somewhere.
Suddenly envisioning extreme scenarios, I grew anxious about his solitary journey.

"Should I go with you?"

“With you, Uncle?” Ichizo said with a bitter smile.

“Is that so bad?”

“Under normal circumstances I’d be asking you to come along myself—but since I don’t even know when or where I’ll depart, this trip’s schedule could go completely awry depending on my whims. It’d be inconsiderate to drag you into that.
“Besides,” he added, “having you there would feel restrictive and unpleasant for me too...”

“Then I’ll drop it,” I immediately retracted my offer.

Nine

Even after Ichizo had left, I remained strangely preoccupied with him for some time.
Since I had stamped that dark secret into his mind, I felt that I must naturally shoulder all responsibility arising from it.
I wanted to meet my sister to check on her condition and hear about Ichizo’s recent situation.
When I called my wife from the tearoom and explained my concerns while seeking her counsel, she showed no alarm—retorting that it was because I engaged in too much unnecessary chatter—and initially paid little heed. But eventually she insisted on her own: “How could there possibly be any fault with Mr. Ichizo? Young though he may be, he’s far more sensible than you.”

“So that means Ichizo’s actually worrying about me instead, huh?”

“Of course! Anyone would worry seeing you sitting around with your hands tucked in your sleeves, clamping that imported pipe in your mouth all day.”

Before long, the children returned home from school and suddenly made the house lively, so I ended up forgetting about Ichizo altogether and ultimately had no chance to recall him until evening.
When my sister suddenly came to visit on her own, I involuntarily stiffened.

My sister sat among the gathered family members as usual, exchanging lengthy pleasantries with my wife—apologies for her prolonged absence and seasonal greetings. I remained rooted in my seat, unable to find an opportunity to move.

"Ichizo says he's leaving on a trip tomorrow?" I broached the subject at an opportune moment.

"About that..." My sister grew slightly serious and looked at me.
Before she could finish, I interjected, "If he wants to go somewhere, let him.
He's been overworking his mind with exams.
It'll harm his health if you don't let him relax some," I said, almost defending Ichizo's actions.
My sister replied that she naturally agreed.
She explained she was only concerned whether his health could endure traveling.
Finally she asked if I thought he'd be truly alright.
I assured her he would be fine.
My wife seconded this assurance.
Rather than relief, my sister's face showed dissatisfaction.
I felt a pang of discomfort, certain her use of "health" carried psychological rather than physical implications.
Intuitively sensing my expression, my sister furrowed her brow anxiously and asked, "Tsune-san, when Ichizo visited earlier... was there anything unusual in his manner?"

“How could there be such a thing? He was just his usual self. Right, Osen?”

“No, he hasn’t changed one bit.”

“I thought so too, but somehow he’s seemed off lately.”

“In what way?”

“If you ask me to explain... well, there’s really no way to put it into words.”

“It’s entirely because of the exams,” I immediately countered.

“It’s your nerves,” my wife chimed in.

We comforted my sister together as husband and wife. In the end, she seemed somewhat convinced and kept talking with everyone until we had dinner together. When seeing her off later, I took the children along for a walk to accompany her to the station. Still feeling uneasy, I sent the children ahead and took a seat beside my protesting sister, ultimately accompanying her all the way to her house.

Fortunately, I summoned Ichizo, who had been upstairs, before my sister. "Your mother was so worried about you that she came all the way to Yara. After I explained various things to her, she finally seemed reassured," I told him. "Since sending you on this trip ultimately falls under my responsibility, you should take care not to worry the elders. Be sure to send word without fail—from wherever you arrive, depart from wherever you leave, or stay wherever you linger—so we can recall you immediately whenever needed," I said. Ichizo replied that he was already well aware of such matters without needing my reminder, smiling as he looked at his mother.

I believed I had somewhat eased my sister's mind with this and returned to Yara by train around eleven o'clock.

My wife came out to the entrance to meet me and asked eagerly, as if she'd been waiting impatiently, "How did it go?"
"I think she's reassured now," I answered.
Truthfully, I did feel somewhat relieved.
And the next day, I didn't even go to Shinbashi Station to see him off.

Ten

Messages arrived as promised from every direction. When I counted them, they averaged about one per day. Instead, most were simple affairs—just two or three lines scribbled onto picture postcards from his travels. Every time one of those postcards arrived, I would first put on a relieved expression, which often made my wife laugh at me. When I said, “If seeing me like this even once means things are fine, then it seems your prediction was right on target,” she answered curtly, “Of course! Things like tabloid stories or novel plots don’t just happen all the time!” My wife was the sort of woman who regarded novels and scandal sheets as one and the same. And she remained so utterly removed from romance that she believed both to be lies without a shred of doubt.

Satisfied with the postcards, I felt even more relieved when I began receiving his letters in envelopes. The reason was that nowhere could I find traces of his hand—which I had feared—having stained the letter paper with gloomy hues. How vividly the phrases contained within those envelopes illustrated his changed state of mind compared to his postcards could not truly be grasped without reading them yourself. I have kept two or three here.

Among the various elements that contributed to altering his mood—Kyoto's air, Uji's water, and others—the dialect of the Kamigata region seemed to provide the most intriguing stimulus to him, having been raised in Tokyo. To those who had passed through that area many times, this might sound absurd, but I imagine that smooth, quiet cadence could have soothed Sunaga's nerves more gently than any sedative. What if it were a young woman? I don't know about that. Of course, spoken by a young woman, the effect would likely be stronger. Since Ichizo was a young man himself, he might have actively sought out such encounters. Yet curiously, what he wrote about here was an old woman.

——

"When I hear the speech of people around here, I feel myself yielding to a faint intoxication."
Some say it feels sticky and unpleasant, but I'm quite the opposite.
What I find disagreeable is Tokyo speech.
They take pride in producing tones as jagged as konpeitō candy.
And thus they coarsen listeners' hearts while putting on airs.
I came from Kyoto to Osaka yesterday.
Today when visiting my friend at the Asahi Shimbun office, he took me to Minoo - a spot famous for autumn foliage.
Being out of season, we naturally saw no colored leaves, but with its mountain stream, peaks, and waterfall at their terminus, it proved truly splendid.
To let me rest, my friend guided me into what's called the company clubhouse - a two-story building.
Upon entering, I found an expansive earthen floor running lengthwise through the structure's frontage.
The sight of it entirely paved with tiles gave me a sinking sensation, as if I'd wandered into some Chinese temple.
I heard this building was originally constructed as someone's villa before being bought by Asahi Shimbun for club use - but even granting it was a villa, what purpose could this broad tiled earthen floor serve?
Finding this peculiar, I asked my friend.
But he claimed not to know.
Not that it particularly matters.
I only mention it thinking Uncle might know about such things - an unnecessary postscript.
What I truly meant to convey wasn't about that floor at all.
The real matter was the old women who'd come down onto it.
There were two elderly women.

One was standing, and one was sitting in a chair. However, both had completely shaven heads. The standing one greeted my friend the moment we entered, saying: “Oh, pardon me now—just finishin’ up shavin’ this eighty-six-year-old granny’s head here.—Granny, keep still now—won’t be much longer.” She added: “Shaved it clean—not a hair left! Nothin’ to fret over.” The granny in the chair stroked her head and said, “Much obliged.” My friend glanced at me and laughed about its rustic charm. I laughed too—but more than that. I felt carefree as if born a hundred years past. “I want to carry this feeling back to Tokyo like a souvenir.”

I too thought it would be nice if Ichizo could bring back this state of mind as a keepsake for his sister.

**Eleven**

The next one came from Akashi, and precisely because it was somewhat more complex compared to the previous ones, it revealed Ichizo's character all the more vividly.

"I came here tonight. The moon was out, brightening the garden, but my room lay in shadow, leaving me with an oddly gloomy feeling. After eating my meal and smoking while gazing at the sea—which lay just beyond the garden—a single pleasure boat came drifting into view on this serene evening too calm for even ripples to form, along a shoreline ambiguous between riverbank and pond edge. Though the boat’s shape remained unclear in the darkness, it had a wide, flat-bottomed form too placid to seem seaworthy. I believe there was indeed a roof. From its eaves hung several lanterns painted with pigments. Within the faint glow, people appeared to be sitting inside. The sound of a shamisen reached me too. Yet the whole scene maintained perfect composure as it glided past with smooth delight. Watching its silhouette recede quietly, I recalled stories about my grandfather’s youth—you must know them well, Uncle—how he actually performed those moon-viewing boat excursions favored by old connoisseurs. My mother told me two or three times: he’d row a roofed boat up the Ayase River, stand amidst the quiet moon and waves mirroring each other, then cast prepared silver fans opened wide into the distant night light. I imagine the sight of those fan pivots spinning wildly, their silver-painted paper surfaces glittering as they fell into the water, must have been truly magnificent. Even if just one—but with everyone aboard competing to toss those fluttering lights—the spectacle would be breathtakingly beautiful in imagination alone. They say Grandfather was so extravagantly lavish—filling copper pots with sake to warm tokkuri bottles before discarding every drop—that he’d likely have thought nothing of dumping a hundred silver fans into the water at once. Now that I mention it—whether through heredity or otherwise—though it’s rude to say given his modest means, Uncle too seems tinged with extravagance, while even my reserved mother has always shown an oddly cheerful side drawn to lively things. As for me alone—you might hastily think I’m raising that issue again—rest assured I no longer dwell on it as much as Uncle worries. When I say ‘only I,’ it’s never meant bitterly."

I wish to state that in this regard, I am inherently different from both Uncle and Mother. I was raised in relative comfort—a materially fortunate child—so I indulged in luxuries without recognizing them as such, remaining utterly unperturbed. Even with clothing, through Mother’s attentiveness, I wore garments suitable for appearing in public without shame while maintaining a composed demeanor as though this were only natural. However, this arose from an unknown ignorance within myself—the result of long-nurtured habits—and once I became aware of it, I was suddenly overcome with anxiety. As for clothing and meals, well, they mattered little—I once heard about a certain wealthy man’s reckless spending and was terrified. The man would gather crowds of geisha and entertainers, take bundles of bills from his bag, rip them to shreds before their eyes while declaring them congratulatory gifts, and distribute them to everyone. Then, still wearing his fine kimono, he would enter the bath and afterward give it to the bath attendant. He had many more misdeeds, all acts of extreme arrogance that showed no fear of heaven. When I heard this story, I naturally hated him. But I, deficient in resolve, feared him more than I hated him. When I viewed his actions from my perspective, it felt like a robber thrusting an unsheathed blade into tatami mats to intimidate innocents. In a truly religious sense, I feared I had no justification before heaven, humanity, or the gods. I am such a cowardly person. Even before approaching extravagance myself, I imagined the aftermath of those who reached its zenith and reveled wildly—and was unbearably terrified. As I pondered these things while watching the pleasure boat drift across calm waves, I thought this degree of amusement must be just right for a human being. As Uncle cautioned me, I am gradually becoming fickle. Please praise me. The guest on the moonlit second floor—said to have come from Kobe for leisure—used nothing but that Tokyo dialect I detest and occasionally recited Chinese poetry. Amidst this, a seductive woman’s voice had intermingled too, but it fell silent twenty or thirty minutes prior. When I asked the housemaid, she said they had already returned to Kobe.

"As the night had grown quite late，I decided to retire."

**Twelve**

"Last evening I wrote you another letter, and today I must again inform you of what has transpired since morning.
If I persist in sending letters only to Uncle like this, he'll surely smirk sarcastically and think to himself: 'That fellow has nowhere else to write, so he reluctantly wastes time maintaining correspondence solely with his sister and me.'
As I took up my brush, I too briefly entertained such thoughts.
Yet if I were to acquire such a lover, Uncle would likely rejoice—even without receiving letters from me.
I believe it would be more fortunate for me to neglect writing Uncle as well.
In truth, when I rose this morning and went up to the second floor to gaze down at the sea, just such a blissful pair passed westward along the shore path.
They may perhaps be guests lodging at this same inn.
The woman held aloft a cream-colored Western parasol and, while slightly lifting her kimono hem over bare feet, walked beside the man through shallow waves—I watched their retreating figures with envy.
The water being exceptionally clear, when viewed from above everything near shore appeared as transparent as objects in sunlit air.
Even swimming jellyfish were distinctly visible.
Two guests from the inn have come out swimming about, but since their every underwater movement appears as plain as if held in one's hand, swimming's artistic value seems greatly diminished."

(7:30 AM)

"This time, a Westerner was soaking in the water.
Afterwards, a young woman came out.
The woman stood in the waves and called out to the other Westerner remaining on the second floor.
Using English, she called out, “You come here!”
She kept saying things like, “It is very nice in water.”
Her English was remarkably skilled and fluent, flowing out so well that it was enviable.
I listened in admiration, thinking I could never match her.
However, the Westerner who had been called by this English-proficient woman did not readily come down.
Whether she couldn’t swim or simply didn’t want to, the woman stood in the waves with her chest down submerged in the water.
Then the Westerner who had gone down earlier took the woman’s hand and tried to lead her into deeper waters.
The woman recoiled and refused.
The Westerner finally embraced the woman sideways in the sea.
The sound of the woman splashing and kicking water, along with her giggling, boisterous voice, echoed into the distance.
(10:00 AM)"

"This time, the guest who had been staying in the lower guest room with two geishas came out rowing a boat.
I did not know where this rowing boat came from, but it was extremely small and quite dangerous.
The guest offered to row for them and tried to get the geishas to board, but they refused, saying it was too scary.
However, things eventually went according to the guest’s wishes.
At that moment, the younger geisha’s deliberate act of feigning surprise struck me as utterly foolish.
When the rowing boat returned after circling the area, the older geisha turned toward the Japanese boat tied behind the inn and shouted loudly, 'Boatman! Is that boat available?'
This time, they seemed to be discussing loading treats into the Japanese boat and going out to sea again.
As I watched, the geishas had the inn’s housemaid carry things like beer, light refreshments, and shamisen into the boat before boarding themselves.
However, the key guest—quite an energetic man—was still rowing the small boat far out in the distance.
Apparently having no other passengers left, they had now caught a single sun-browned local temple boy.
The geisha stared in disbelief at this development for a while before finally yelling 'Idiot!' at the top of her lungs.
The guest who had been called an idiot then rowed the small boat back toward them.
I thought them amusing geishas matched by equally amusing guests.
(11:00 AM)"

"If I were to report such trivial matters as novelties, Uncle would surely call me eccentric and give a wry smile."
"But this serves as proof that I've been transformed by this journey."
"I came to understand what it means to move freely through open air."
"That I no longer hesitate to record every trifling detail—isn't this precisely because I observe without thinking?"
"I believe observing without thought has become my greatest remedy now."
"To claim my nerves—or perhaps temperament—were healed by a brief trip makes the cure seem almost shamefully cheap."
"Yet I cannot cease desperately wishing Mother had borne me with tenfold more simplicity than even this."
"White sails cluster cloud-like as they pass before Awaji Island."
"On the pine-covered hill opposite, there's said to be a shrine to Hitomaru."
"I know little of this Hitomaru, but should time allow, I think I'll visit since I'm here."

Conclusion

Keitaro's adventure began with stories and ended with stories.
The world he sought to understand had initially appeared distant.
Lately, it loomed before his eyes.
Yet even after finally entering it, he remained like an outsider incapable of playing any role.
His function amounted merely to a form of reportage—eternally pressing a telephone receiver to his ear to eavesdrop on "society."

Through Morimoto's tales, he had heard fragments of a vagrant life.
But these fragments were shallow things composed of outlines and surfaces.
They merely pumped innocuous amusement into his head brimming with feral curiosity.
Yet within the expanded crevices of his mind—swollen by gas-like adventure narratives—he managed to glimpse the specter of Morimoto as a human being, as if in a dream-vision.
And through this same humanity, they instilled in him sympathies and antipathies that transcended mere knowledge.

Through Taguchi, a practical man, he came to understand somewhat how he viewed society.
Simultaneously, he was made to hear part of that life philosophy from a man named Matsumoto who styled himself an intellectual dilettante.
Though bound by close social connections to both men, he held within himself this stark contrast between two individuals of entirely different stripes, feeling as though his worldly experience had somewhat broadened.
Yet this experience seemed only to expand in superficial breadth across its surface area without gaining any significant depth.

He heard about the death of an infant through Chiyoko's account.
The "death" narrated by Chiyoko differed from what he had imagined in common terms; it evoked in him a pleasure akin to beholding a beautiful painting.
Yet within that pleasure, tears were intermingled.
These were not tears shed reluctantly to escape pain, but tears born from a desire to prolong the embrace of sorrow.
He was unmarried.
His capacity for sympathy toward children remained meager.
Still, he found it poignant that something beautiful could die beautifully and be buried beautifully.
He heard the fate of the girl born on the eve of the Doll Festival as though it were as exquisite as the destiny of the hina dolls themselves.

He was startled to hear from Sunaga about this completely deranged mother-child relationship. He too had a mother back in his hometown. Yet while his own relationship with her wasn't as close as Sunaga's, neither was it entangled in such karmic causality. Being a child himself, he'd never doubted his ability to understand parent-child bonds. At the same time, he'd resigned himself to their essential ordinariness. However intricately twisted other familial relationships might be imagined, they held no visceral truth for him. Now he felt this matter had been excavated to its depths solely for Sunaga's sake.

He also heard from Sunaga about his relationship with Chiyoko.
And he doubted whether they were ultimately destined to be husband and wife, whether they should exist as friends, or whether they ought to glare at each other as enemies.
The result of that doubt drove him, with half curiosity and half goodwill, to rush to Matsumoto.
Unexpectedly, he discovered that Matsumoto was not merely a man who clenched an imported pipe in his teeth and observed the world as a bystander.
He inquired in detail about what considerations Matsumoto had held and what measures he had taken regarding Sunaga.
And he also clarified the circumstances that had compelled Matsumoto to take such measures.

Looking back, his experiences from graduating school until today—having aspired to make contact with the actual world for the first time—amounted to nothing more than going around listening to people’s stories here and there.
When knowledge or emotions could not be conveyed through his ears, it meant nothing grander than following a man in a dappled overcoat—who alighted from the streetcar at Ogawamachi Station while carefully leaning on his Western cane—as he entered a Western restaurant with a young woman.
Now when he placed those memories on memory’s pedestal to examine them, they seemed little more than child’s play—unworthy of being called adventure or exploration.
Through these actions he had managed to secure a position.
Yet as human experience, they held no meaning beyond the comical—mere earnest endeavors significant only to himself.

In short, all his recent knowledge and emotions regarding human life stemmed entirely from auditory perception. The series of lengthy conversations—beginning with Morimoto and ending with Matsumoto—had initially stirred him broadly and shallowly before gradually stirring him more deeply and narrowly until they abruptly ceased. Yet he ultimately could not enter into them. This became both the source of his dissatisfaction and the root of his contentment. In dissatisfaction he cursed the snake’s head; in contentment he celebrated it. Then, gazing up at the vast sky, he contemplated how this drama—which seemed to have halted abruptly before him—might continue transforming and flowing eternally into the future.