Pathway to Japanese Literature

Malory’s Arthurian Tales, passed down through the ages, remains a work to be treasured for its simplicity and purity; yet being an ancient text, when considered as a novel in parts, it cannot avoid being criticized as disjointed.
Moreover, should one attempt to compose by gathering mere fragments of this material, it proves wholly impossible to follow the original text in all matters.
Thus even this work has been reshaped by the author’s deliberate rearrangement of facts, invention of situations, and reworking of characterizations into something approaching a novel.
The intent lies in writing because such matters hold interest; it does not seek to introduce Malory merely because Malory himself is intriguing.
I hope it will be read with this understanding.

To tell the truth, Malory’s depiction of Lancelot resembled a carriage driver in certain aspects, while Guinevere carried herself like a carriage driver’s mistress.
This single flaw alone seemed to me ample reason for rewriting.
Tennyson’s *Idylls* stood not merely as a timeless masterpiece of elegance and grace, but through its character portrayals—which set nineteenth-century souls dancing upon ancient stages—it naturally proved indispensable as reference for crafting such a short work.
By rights I ought to have reread it to refresh my memory; yet I abstained, fearing its essence might seep unbidden into my pen through some shadowed mimicry.

I. Dream

When hundreds upon hundreds of clustered knights exhausted their numbers hastening northward to the tournament, within Camelot’s stone-aged hall remained only the lingering rustle of Queen Guinevere’s long-trailing hem.

A pale red garment carelessly thrown over her shoulder bared her white arms, while her skirt—lightly gathered by pearl-encrusted shoes—trailed its excess two stone steps behind as she ascended.
At the top of the stairs, a great curtain woven with somber gray flowers in its depths hung motionless, as if mourning the emptiness.
Guinevere pressed her ear against the curtain and listened intently for something beyond.
Having finished listening, she turned her profile straight back and peered down the stone steps with sharp eyes.
Upon the marble richly streaked with veins, white roses here and there released a gentle fragrance seeping through the shadows.
When was it crushed—this wreath I gave you at dusk, urging 'Look'—leaving only these remnants?
For a moment, even the rustle of silk about her feet gave her pause—but then, as if resolved by some thought, she straightened abruptly. A flick of her slender hand sent the deep curtain rippling, and a dazzling light like an arrow shot from the chamber beyond to illuminate the crown upon Guinevere’s head.
What gleamed was the diamond piercing her brow.

“Lancelot,” she said, parting the curtain as she spoke.
In the space between fearing heaven and earth, her voice held such contained power that neither self nor world could intrude.
If love has no enemy, I do not fear this crown I wear.

“Guinevere!” came the reply—so tender it scarcely seemed a voice from within the chamber.
His hair—half-veiling his broad forehead before tumbling back in disarray—proudly proclaimed its blackness; yet his cheeks’ pallor struck a discordant note.

The woman released her hand from the curtain and stepped inside.
The sunlight that had slipped through the crack and crossed the marble staircase diagonally vanished all at once, leaving only the curtain's pattern standing out distinctly in the dimness.
In the corridor stretching left and right, the overlapping shadows of pillars hung poised to fall—yet being shadows, they made no sound.

Only the two in the chamber seemed alive.

“You did not attend the northern tournament either.”
“Is it only the hair upon your brow that’s disordered?” the woman inquired with meaningful intent.
Her brows—nearly cleared of shadows—were clouded anew; a feeble smile emerged through sorrow’s veil.

"Intoxicated by the scent of roses presented to me"—with only these words, the man gazed out from the high window.

It was the height of May.
Along the river that slowly encircled the mansion, a thousand willows dipped their shadows clearly into its flow, and even the crumbling peaks of clouds in the sky poured into the water’s depths.
On the white sails that showed no sign of movement, had there been people aboard, a boat song with a lively melody might have brought some delight.
Beyond the river, a pale trail hidden among trees stretched white—a single thread vanishing into mist—was the main road where Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table had raced northward at dawn, their hooves kicking up dust in the rising morning sun’s light.

"If I consider sin in joyful things, then this wretched self prays that the sin may endure."
"If I must secretly endure this day with you remaining alone in the castle, then let this be a bond for today alone," said the woman, her coral lips quivering to reveal a restless heart.

“What do you mean by ‘a bond for today alone’?”
“Not even the afterlife dammed by graves shall alter it,” said the man, turning his black eyes to gaze intently at the woman’s face.

“That is precisely why,” said the woman, raising her right hand high and turning her spread palm vertically toward Lancelot.
When the golden bracelet encircling her wrist glinted, Lancelot’s eyes moved involuntarily.
“That is precisely why!” the woman repeated.
“The illness of being intoxicated by roses’ scent—only we two may permit it as illness.
The knights gathered in Camelot—countless even were one to count fifty times five fingers—not one doubts the malady keeping Lancelot from journeying north.”
“If we greedily seize this fleeting peril and transform it into long-awaited meetings’ abyss…” She trailed off, abruptly dropping her raised hand.
The bracelet gleamed again, producing a sharp chime like jewels striking each other in momentary resonance.

“Life is a long gift; love is a gift longer than life.”
“Be at ease,” the man said with audacious resolve.

The woman extended both hands and pressed down on the crown she wore from either side. “This crown! This crown!
“The burning of my brow—” she said.
If her wish were granted—she would cast off this gold, this jeweled ornament, and hurl it down from the window to see what came of it—such was her demeanor.
Her white arm slipped smoothly through the silk—under the light of the suppressed crown, swirling strands of hair, unrestrained by the pearl circlet, fluttered near her cheeks as they escaped.
The sleeves of her pale red garment, gathered at her shoulders, formed ample folds past her chest, while the hem drew three lines—strong yet not rigid—down to the floor.
Lancelot gazed on, enraptured.
Having severed past and future, in the oblivion between them, only Guinevere’s form appeared vividly.

The mirror that illuminated the depths of subtleties was said to be the brightest among all that the woman possessed.
The heart of the one guarding Guinevere—who, unable to bear the agony, pressed her own head—flashed across the woman’s breast like the swift shadow of a bird in flight.
Suffering vanished like spiderwebs brushed away, leaving only the joyful sentiments of people.
“If this be how it is,” the woman resolved to prolong endlessly the fleeting spark-like joy slipped perilously between moments, letting a smile trickle down both cheeks.

“So be it,” declared the man with an air of one who had resolved thus from the very beginning.

“But…” After a moment, the woman spoke again.
“To make this possible—go to the northern tournament.
“Follow the hoofprints of those who departed this morning and declare that your illness has been cured.
“Dispel the cloud of suspicion enveloping us from these recent whispers, I implore you.”

“How can love thrive if you fear others so?” the man said, brushing his disheveled hair back from his broad forehead as he forced a dry laugh.
In the quiet of the lofty chamber, an unusual, unpleasant sound reverberated.
He abruptly stopped laughing. “This curtain moves without wind,” he said, walking to the chamber entrance where he deliberately shook the thick drape to test it.
The strange sound subsided, giving way to desolate silence.

“The echo from last night’s dream—or rather, from within the dream itself—” The woman’s face suddenly flushed crimson as she murmured this, and the stars upon her crown quivered brilliantly.
The man too appeared restless in spirit and recounted to the woman the dream he claimed to have seen the previous night.

“It was a day of blooming roses.
Lying among white roses, red roses, and yellow roses were only you and I.
The joyous day set, yet I believed the twilight’s glow would know no end.”
He raised a finger to touch his brow. “At that hour, I wore this crown.”
A single snake coiled doubly around the crown’s base, its body intricately carved with golden scales, its raised head embedded with sapphire eyes.

“When my crown burns as if devouring my flesh,” Lancelot recounted, “and I hear cloth rustling above my head, this golden serpent coils through my hair and stirs.”
“Its head turns toward you,” he continued, “while its tail lingers near my chest.”
“The moment it extends like a wave,” his voice lowered, “we become bound by a fetid rope beyond severing.”
“Separated by four feet,” he clenched his gauntlet, “we could neither close the distance nor break apart.”
“Though this bond be accursed,” his eyes grew distant, “I resolved in my anguished heart—better this than severed strands leaving us estranged.”
“Bitten or stung,” his jaw tightened, “I vowed we’d endure until the gagging rope rots away—ah, cruel fate!”
“Then crimson roses,” his hand slashed air, “erupted in flames to consume the serpent.”
“The remaining fathom between us,” he shuddered, “belched blue smoke—scales tarnishing—before snapping with foul stench.”
“As I willed body and soul to vanish,” his whisper frayed, “dry laughter pierced my ear—and the dream broke.”

Guinevere hid restless eyes behind lashes as she murmured, “Even now that laughter haunts me—your mirth tonight echoes like dusk’s remnant, shaking me bone-deep.”

No mere oddity—this vision troubled even a veteran of seventy-five tournaments who’d never slipped saddle nor lost stirrup.

Lancelot’s brows furrowed stormclouds deep, teeth grinding behind sealed lips till jaw muscles quivered.

“Farewell—I shall go!
“I’ll head north belatedly,” he said，shaking free his clasped hands and smoothly rising his six-foot-two frame.

“Are you going?” were Guinevere’s half-doubting words.
Within her doubt lingered a faint stirring of regret at parting now of all times.

“I’m going,” he declared, striding firmly to lift halfway the curtain hanging over the doorway—then smoothly pivoted on his heel to stand before the woman. Taking the pale hand, he pressed lips hot enough to suggest fever against knuckles cool and soft.
It felt as though she drank deeply from lily petals thick with dawn’s dew.
Lancelot ran down the stone steps without looking back.

When the sound of a horse neighing three times echoed and hooves clattered upon the stones of the courtyard, Guinevere descended from the high chamber, leaned against the window directly above the gate where the knight would depart, and waited impatiently for him to emerge.
When the black horse’s muzzle came into view below, she leaned halfway out and waved a white silk cloth about a foot long toward the departing figure.
The golden crown slipped from her beautiful hair, grazed the horse’s nose with a clatter, and fell upon the stones as though it would shatter.

When he hooked the crown on his spear’s tip and held it near the window, Lancelot and Guinevere’s gazes abruptly met.
“Accursed crown!” the woman said as she received it.
“Farewell,” the man said as he kicked the horse’s stout belly.
After the white helmet and its plume swayed briskly away, all that remained was boundless dust.

II. Mirror

The Lady of Shalott, who did not see the world as it truly was but gazed only upon the world reflected in her mirror, dwelt alone within a lofty tower.
One who knew the living world solely through a mirror’s reflection had no need for friends to meet face-to-face.

When birds trilled “Spring I yearn for, spring I yearn for,” she tilted her ear, wishing to glimpse the crimson wings hidden among leaves—yet turned not to the window, but to the mirror cut into the wall.
The vivid hues of the reflected wings retained even the sunlight’s color unchanged.

When songs of men reaping wheat and women threshing wheat in Shalott’s fields—borne through valleys and over waters—reached the high tower as faint threads of sound like voices from another world, the Lady of Shalott covered her tilted ear and turned again to the mirror.
From the blurred boundary where sky and field met beyond the hazy willows across the river, what seemed a sorrowful melody seeped forth.

All who walked Shalott’s roads were likewise reflected in the Lady of Shalott’s mirror.
At times appeared a man in a red cap shaking his head as he chased a horse.
At times appeared a pilgrim clad in wide robes with a white beard, walking with a long staff bearing a small gourd at its tip.
At other times passed a figure shrouded head-to-toe in pure white—eyes, mouth, hands and feet indistinguishable—clamorously striking a bell as it went.
This was a cruel practice where those cured of leprosy proclaimed their past karma to the world—something the Lady of Shalott had no means of knowing.

Unless one illuminated the contents of the pack borne on the traveling merchant’s back—whether it contained a red ribbon, white undergarments, coral, agate, crystal, or pearls—those items within would not appear in the mirror.
If they were not reflected, they did not appear in the Lady of Shalott’s eyes.

It illuminated ancient ages and all that existed in Shalott in the present world.
Since it illuminated all without discrimination, the things reflected in the Lady of Shalott’s eyes became endlessly vast.
For they were but shadows—appearing only to vanish, vanishing only to reappear.
To linger long within the mirror was difficult even for the sun itself.

The Lady of Shalott sometimes wondered: If the living world was merely a shadow, why did it fade so swiftly? Or was it that the living world itself was the shadow?
Since it was a world not seen clearly, one could not easily judge whether it was shadow or reality.
Since they were shadows, there should be no lack in seeing only their ephemeral forms in the mirror.
What if they were not shadows?
At times, driven by a sudden impulse welling up within her, she rushed to the window and resolved to gaze upon the world beyond the mirror as she desired.
When the Lady of Shalott cast her gaze from the window, it was the moment the curse befell her.
The Lady of Shalott must remain confined within the realm bounded by the mirror.
Even layered once, twice, dividing the vast world into a square—she must not hasten her own destruction by even an instant.

Even if one were to depart, she heard the world as it truly was remained tainted with sin.
If one grew weary of dwelling, there might be peace of mind in retreating to the mountains.
Though small was the narrow universe behind the mirror, she did not have to endure standing in the crossroad town where troubles rained down, minding those who came and went.
Once someone stirred a wave of karma, ten thousand ripples spiraled into endless chaos for eternity; caught in the vortex, one's head and hands and feet were seized—whither I went, none could know.
If one were to call such a person wise—this solitary soul who had long dwelled in a high tower where silvery light blurred surface and depth alike, compressing an illusory world into a span, passing her days without ever treading soil—it would be the height of folly.
What my eyes beheld was not the living world, but a realm glimpsed through motionless means—a world observed indirectly via that which remained still.
A world that extracted life and death's duality from ultimate truth, painting five-colored hues within stillness.
Viewed thus, this woman's fate was not entirely lamentable; yet the Lady of Shalott, her heart agitated by something unknown, sought to gaze upon the world below outside her window.

The mirror’s length did not reach five shaku.
It was said to be Merlin’s magic that polished away black iron’s darkness to restore its original whiteness.
Thus spoke he who had gained renown through sorcery.
“When mist veils the mirror’s face,” he declared, “and autumn’s sun ascends yet brings no light—know this for an ill omen.”
“When clouded glass holds vapor while lotus droplets fall,” he warned, “peril comes to those who gaze therein.”
“When cracks resound unbidden,” he proclaimed, “and white streaks mar its plane—let that soul prepare for death’s approach.”
How many years the Lady of Shalott had faced this glass none could reckon.
Morning-facing and evening-facing, sun-facing and moon-facing—the Lady who forgot weariness itself found no mist gathering nor dew forming in her eyes; nor did she dream of cracks threatening that surface.
Like soundless autumn waters lying still, after myriad shadows swept its luminous face in fleeting hues, there lay revealed before her eyes antiquity’s colorless realm.
The infinite sky—forged solid and compressed into five shaku of resonant metal—this she witnessed night after day.

Night after night and day after day, the woman who faced the mirror sat beside it, weaving tapestries night and day. At times she wove bright tapestries; at times she wove dark ones.

Those who heard the sound of the shuttle cast by the Lady of Shalott could not help but timidly look up at the window of the high tower standing upon a lonely hill. The dwelling of the Lady of Shalott upon the hill appeared like an aged person who had outlived both parents and children, left solitary in a new era, bearing the resentful visage of one cursed with longevity. From the old ivy-locked window spilled the sound of her shuttle—like a ceaseless pendulum hastening to mark the days—yet its tone belonged to another world. In silent Shalott, where even the air hung heavy—a stillness that would have seemed immovable under normal circumstances—it quivered faintly, incited solely by this shuttle’s sound. The loneliness surpassed even that of soundless moments. The traveler who timidly looked up at the high tower covered their ears and ran.

The Lady of Shalott wove an unceasing tapestry.
When she wove the image of bellflowers submerged beneath the thickly sprouting grass of the thicket, the color ran so deep that one could not discern when the flowers’ shadows might ever rise to the surface.
When she wove waves scattering like snow across the undulating plain’s swells, she folded unfathomable depths into a single thin layer.
At times, on a black ground, she depicted a cross in the color of blazing flames.
The wind of sin that pervaded this turbid world blew ceaselessly across the land, seeming even to reach the eyes of one weaving a cross—and the flames alone strove to break free from the tapestry.
The dimly lit woman’s room was bright, as though suspected of burning down.

When she threaded love’s strands as warp and sincerity’s strands as weft through her shuttle, the form of Mary—hands clasped upon shoulders gazing heavenward—took shape. When she wove through a night of hail-lashed winter winds with madness as warp and anger as weft, the visage of Lear—white beard flying—emerged in the wilderness. When she twisted together shameful crimson and resentful iron-gray to read the heart of one who met and vanished, then interwove gentle yellows and haughty purples fold upon fold, she captured the visage of a maiden lured by demons—face alight with pride. Entwined like clouds upon long sleeves were the tangled threads of unutterable wishes.

The Lady of Shalott had deep-set eyes and a broad forehead, with lips not even thin as befits a woman.
Since the summer sun had risen and the hourglass measuring time had emptied nine times, it must now have been past noon.
Though the sunlight piercing the window shone dazzlingly bright, within the chamber lay darkness like a cave untouched by summer.
The only things shining were the iron mirror exceeding five shaku in length and the long hair drifting over shoulders.
Catching the shuttle thrown from her right hand with her left, the woman suddenly gazed into the mirror's depths.
A light colder than a honed sword—as she thought how it illuminated even the tips of downy hairs—what sorcery was this?!
Soundlessly, swiftly—was it fog that clouded over? The mirror’s surface lost its light as though struck full by a giant’s breath.
The willows that had lined Shalott’s shore until now were hidden.
Shalott’s river flowing through the willows vanished.
Of course, the figures coming and going along the river were no longer visible.
The shuttle’s sound ceased abruptly, and the woman’s eyelids trembled faintly along with their dark lashes.
“An ill omen?” she cried, drawing closer to the mirror. The haze cleared in an instant, and the river, willows, and figures of people reappeared as they had been.
The shuttle began to move again.

The Lady of Shalott soon began to sing in a sorrowful voice that should not exist in this world.

"The mortal world,
If one dwelled in the real world instead of shadows,
Would that I could dwell,
Then as now."

"Lovely love,
In the mirror that reflects,
Hues shift and blend,
Morning and evening."

While the distant willow branches in the mirror swayed and bent in the wind, a silver light suddenly struck, raising a thin veil of hot dust.
The silver light approached Shalott in a straight line from south to north.
Like an eagle eyeing a lamb, she stared unblinking at the mirror’s depths, though she knew it was but a shadow.
When one who had dashed through the willow grove spanning ten blocks like the wind came into view, his meticulously forged steel armor bathed in sunlight, and from the rim of his helmet streamed white hair over a foot in length—thickly billowing as if yearning to scatter.
The chestnut steed’s robust form—the number of studs adorning its leather-wrapped head and chest evoked a sensation as though all the stars of an autumn night had been sifted down and gathered at once.
She held her breath and fixed her gaze.

Along the curved embankment, as the horse’s head turned slightly to the left, the figure that had until now been visible only in profile advanced straight toward the mirror. He stowed the large lance in its rest and slung the shield over his left shoulder. The woman leaned forward, straining to discern the pattern on the shield, but the knight advanced with such force—as though he might shatter this iron mirror without so much as a glance—until he drew near. In that moment, she involuntarily cast aside her shuttle and cried out toward the mirror: "Lancelot!" Lancelot cast his gleaming gaze from beneath his helmet’s brim and looked up at Shalott’s high tower. The knight’s blazing eyes and the woman’s sharp eyes—like a bundle of needles—met abruptly within the mirror’s depths. At this moment, the Lady of Shalott cried out “Sir Lancelot!” once more, dashed to the window, and thrust her pale face halfway into the world. The knight and his steed galloped beneath the high tower like a distant earthquake.

With a sharp crack, the gleaming mirror split cleanly in two.
The shattered surface burst into countless fragments again, scattering through the chamber like shattering ice with sharp cracks.
The seven or eight rolls of half-woven fabric tore with a bubbling rip and swirled upward alongside iron fragments in the still air.
Crimson threads, green threads, yellow threads, purple threads unraveled, tore loose, came undone, and tangled like a ground spider’s web across the Lady of Shalott’s face, hands, sleeves, and long tresses.
“The one who kills the Lady of Shalott is Lancelot.
The one who kills Lancelot is the Lady of Shalott.
Bear my death curse and flee north!” she cried, raising both hands high to the heavens. Like a rotten tree battered by a stormwind, she fell with a thud amidst the chaos of multicolored threads and glittering shards that mocked winter’s ice.

III. Sleeve

The lovely Elaine, like an unknown violet illuminating Astolat’s ancient castle, remained steeped for days and months in the deep purple dew of a spring night’s star that had secretly fallen.
There were naturally no visitors.
She lived only with her two brothers and father, whose even eyebrows had turned white.

“Where does the knight journey?” inquired the old man in a tranquil voice.

“Intending to go to the northern tournament, I have spurred and pressed on until now.”
“Unlike the enduring summer day, night fell unnoticed, and even the road forked in the gloom.”
“—Even the steed I cast aside would cry out in gratitude.”
“I am ashamed to have nothing with which to repay your deep kindness in granting me shelter for this night,” answered the knight, who had removed his armor and changed into a yellow robe.
When he rode through Shalott unaware of what had transpired, feeling as though he had bathed in autumn water from a rock’s hollow, even now upon finding temporary lodging, the pallor of his cheeks stood out all the more.

Elaine hid her small frame behind her father’s back, wondering what wind had lured so gallant a knight to this Astolat, while peering through the crane-like shoulders of the gaunt old man at intervals to gaze at Lancelot from beneath bashful lashes.
If they were rapeseed blossoms or bean flowers, there might be a way to frolic with them.
Where no path existed for a white butterfly to flutter toward the gnarled pine branches moaning in the ravine’s depths, it folded its pale wings and remained still.

“Though it may seem forward of me to ask this of you who granted me lodging,” Lancelot said with slight hesitation.
“For tomorrow’s tournament, I who arrive late wish not to be recognized as anyone of note.”
“I neither disdain the new nor refuse the old—if you have a shield unknown to others, pray lend it to me.”

The old man abruptly clapped his hands.
“I shall lend you the desired shield. My eldest son Tirre injured his leg in a past knightly tournament and still keeps to his sickbed.”
At that time, the shield he held bore a red cross upon a white field.
Having been wounded in but a single tournament, with that injury still unhealed, the crimson bloodstains had aged uselessly upon the wall.
“Hold this aloft and go forth to astonish all as you desire.”

Lancelot clutched his arm and said, “That is precisely it!”
The old man continued.

“Though my second son Lavaine appears a stalwart young man, it would be a knight’s profound regret to miss attending King Arthur’s grand tournament.”
“Take him along in the wake of your chestnut steed’s hooves.”
“I shall urge him to make haste for the morrow.”

Lancelot replied “Understood” with an air of ease, without a moment’s hesitation.
Within the folds of the old man’s cheeks, waves of joy rippled for a time.
If I were not a woman, I too would go—so thought Elaine.

The ivy clings to the tree, clinging through countless ages without parting—but for you and I who meet at dusk and part at dawn, I have no days to entwine.
If my delicate form were to cling, in the storm that buffets the trunk, rootless kudzu would surely fall.
If I do not cling, you will break free from these secretly bound threads of love and depart.
Does love not melt to overflow my lids—do you not see the light beneath these tears?
Though the mansion I dwell in stands ancient, I have known but eighteen springs since birth.
The pity swelling in one’s breast differs not from locked clouds parting of their own accord, letting fair sunlight sweep the land.
Filling fields and burying valleys, it draws warm radiance from a thousand leagues away.
This present feeling—of abruptly meeting your luminous gaze like one emerging from a pit to be swept by the world’s spring winds—remains indifferent to tomorrow’s parting, though no word is exchanged.

The candles burned out as they lamented the passing night watch, yet when the watch ended, the guest slept.
After falling asleep, Elaine struggled time and again to brush away the man’s figure forcing its way into her eyes through gaps between unclosed lids—all in vain.
When she pressed her resisting eyes shut to pursue this shadow, his form had already slipped behind her eyelids.
There were nights harrowing dreams assailed her, making the world seem terrifying.
There were times she trembled at tales of soul-snatching specters, rising gladly at rooster cries in sleepless ears.
Though fears and pains depart, they’re but echoes of my heart’s craving for peace.
They place dream demons before this pitiful self called me, setting curses of vengeful spirits—such becomes fear and torment.
Tonight’s anguish lies beyond those.
That the individual spirit named “I” has vanished—sought yet unobtainable—astounds and confounds me, until feelingless disarray reigns.
The self governing me isn’t myself; strange, eerie sorrow fixates on that earlier-seen figure.
When did I become Lancelot? Where has my true self fled?
Calling “Elaine,” the responder isn’t Elaine but Lancelot—who abandoned his steed in the courtyard, gazing up at high turrets from his helmet’s shadowed depths.
Calling “Elaine” again, Elaine answers “I am Lancelot.”
Ask if Elaine perishes—they say she exists.
Ask where—they know not.
Elaine lurks in faint pores’ depths, hoping to return as in days of old.
Though Elaine has 84,000 pores and pours 84,000 jars of perfume daily to smooth her skin, the hidden Elaine will never emerge.

Before long, Elaine opened the door curtain to her chamber and took out a long garment hanging on the wall.
When held up to candlelight, it revealed a burning crimson hue.
Swallowing the night that pervaded the room, it stood vivid as though concentrating midday sunlight into a single garment.
Elaine gripped the garment's neckline with her right hand and gazed at its dazzling form for a time; then, seizing a dagger in her left, she swung the sheathed blade two or three times.
The steel clattered against floorboards, and in that instant, a flash grazed her vision before vanishing into crimson depths.
When she looked, one sleeve of the beautiful robe had been cleanly severed, what remained floating down onto the sheath.
The bare handheld candle, buffeted by wind, was extinguished in a gust.
Outside, night had deepened beneath a fractured crescent moon.

Guiding herself by the luminous sleeve held aloft in her right hand, Elaine slipped through the darkness and exited her chamber.
To the right lay her brother’s dwelling; straight ahead to the left stood tonight’s guest’s quarters.
The woman of dreamlike grace walked as though not treading the earth, then halted before Lancelot’s chamber—more silent than a shadow.

Lancelot's dream did not come to fruition.

It is said that when King Arthur, troubled in heart, sought to wed Guinevere, Merlin—who knew the world’s course without leaving his abode—shook his head and refused consent to the nuptials.
"This woman shall later love an unforeseen man," he persistently warned, "and you who would wed her shall know remorse."
When I first heard this—being then free of sin—I could neither discern who this unforeseen person might be nor dwell on the matter.
When I came to know who the unforeseen man was—among the multitudes born beneath heaven—I cursed myself for being fated to this sorrowful life yet rejoiced in having tasted this ephemeral joy; not seeking to sever the cord woven of bliss and anguish, thus have I spent these years.
I do not desire a troubled heart.
There lies honey within guilt—this brings me solace.
For even in moments when guilt itself made me think to ferment honey—I have kept the queen by my side until this day when knights sharing my table doubt me.
When suspicion congeals into proof—when Guinevere is seized and burned at the stake—considering that hour, Lancelot’s dream remains unfulfilled.

At the door that refused sleep, something lightly brushed against it—a presence made itself known.
The head lifted from the pillow turned toward the sound for a moment before settling back as before—afterward, no pulse stirred in the old castle’s corpse-like stillness.
Silence reigned.

The sound that grazed it again verged on being called a knock.
Having conclusively determined a human presence, Lancelot slowly rose from his bed and slid the door halfway open with a “Who’s there?”
The extended candle flame was blown out by the motion; retrieved and relit, it now flickered toward the maiden standing in the doorway.
The maiden’s face lay hidden in the shadow of a crimson sleeve held before her.
The flush coloring her cheeks owed nothing to lamplight alone.

“Have you lost your way… on such a deep night?” the man stammered, his tongue faltering with astonishment.

“It is on unfamiliar roads that one strays.”
“In a house long inhabited—even a mouse would not lose its way,” the woman answered resolutely, her voice faint yet determined.

The man could only gaze at the woman’s face with suspicion.
She hid her face—more beautiful than flowers—behind a foot-tall screen of crimson silk.
Was the ever-radiant hue of her full cheeks from swiftly coursing blood, or did the vivid silk lend its aid?
Her barely concealed locks cascaded over her shoulders, while three white roses—woven into a circlet—adorned her head.

When the white fragrance assailed his nostrils and he even discerned the number of flowers shrouded in silk's shadow, Guinevere’s dream flooded back into Lancelot’s heart.
Not knowing why, his entire body went limp; startled at nearly dropping the candle he held, he regained his composure.
The maiden had no means to read the heart of the man standing before her.

“In crimson dwells human truth.
“This single shameful sleeve I offer unbidden.
“Wind it round your helm and compete—this is my entreaty.” She thrust forth the sleeve as though casting it away.
The man did not readily answer.

“Are you truly a knight who refuses a woman’s gift?” Elaine entreated, peering up at Lancelot’s face from below.
The man thus observed pressed his thin lips into a straight line, his right hand half-receiving the glowing sleeve, his troubled brow carved with contemplation.
After a moment’s pause, he spoke:
“I have faced battles great and small sixty times over, and jousted in tournaments beyond reckoning.”
“Never yet have I borne a noble lady’s token upon my person.”
“Though discourteous it be to refuse this heartfelt gift from our gracious lord’s child...”

“It could be called courtesy—or it could be called discourtesy,” she said with finality.
“It was not for courtesy’s sake that I braved the night.”
“I came to offer this sleeve filled with devotion to heaven’s greatest warrior.”
Having pressed this far with “I implore you to accept it,” even this fragile maiden could no longer be swayed—her resolve now hardened beyond retreat.
Lancelot wavered.

Among Camelot’s gathered knights—weak and strong alike—none failed to recognize the crest upon my shield.
Nor had my arm or helm ever borne a fair lady’s token.
My lateness to tomorrow’s tournament—though never intending to attend—stemmed from this mid-journey change of course.
Were I merely to ride into the lists and hear them chant “Lancelot! The belated Lancelot!”, ’twould be but fleeting notoriety.
If they claimed tardiness from illness proved no true sickness when I arrived despite delay—how then to answer?
But should I now borrow some unknown knight’s shield, don some stranger’s sleeve, and veil my face till twenty or thirty foes lie slain—then at dusk, declaring myself Lancelot to astound them all—would they not concede my deliberate delay?
Some might even admire the stratagem of feigned illness.
At last Lancelot resolved himself.

On the far side of the room glistened the armor.
Lancelot, having lightly lifted with one hand my shield that had been propped against the armor’s torso and placed it before the woman, said:

“It is a knight’s honor to wrap the sincere heart of one who brings joy around his helmet.”
“Precious indeed,” he said, accepting the sleeve from the woman.

Her half-smile—as she murmured “You accept it?”—was like morning sunlight striking lilies in a valley, the dew vanishing without a trace.

“I leave this shield unused in tomorrow’s tournament as a keepsake until we meet again.
“Guard it until I pass through here again once the tournament ends.”

“Would I not guard it?” The woman knelt and clasped the shield in both hands.
Lancelot lifted the long sleeve near his brow and murmured, "Red... so red."

At this moment, crows cawed as they passed over the watchtower, and the night faintly brightened into dawn.

IV. Sin

It was not that Guinevere disliked Arthur, but that she loved Lancelot—a truth her heart spoke only to herself.

When the northern tournament had ended and all who had gone there returned to the hall, Lancelot alone remained unseen—not even a shadow of him visible.
News from those who wished for his return ceased, and there was no use watching the procession of unexpected travelers entering Camelot with their bridles.
Counting one day as two, two days as three—until today, when they had bent every finger on both hands to reach ten days—they clung to the hope that he would still return.

“Where has the tardy one been bound?” Arthur said without showing any sign of distress.

At the front of the lofty chamber rose two stone steps—half-covered by a thick carpet.
Upon them, in a great chair, sat Arthur in majestic repose.
"No days that bind, nor months that tether," Guinevere responded as though answering yet not answering.

Positioned two feet to the king’s left upon a stool, her slender fingers interlaced, from the knees down concealed by a long robe—even the whereabouts of her footwear remained uncertain.

She answered coldly, yet her heart leapt at even hearing his name.
To wither with cold breath the seeds of conversation sprouting in the garden of her thoughts—how vexing.
Guinevere opened her mouth again.

“Is it the rule that those who depart late return late?” she added with a half-smile.
When a woman smiles thus, peril follows.

“What is delayed must be love’s law rather than man’s,” Arthur replied with a tranquil smile.
Arthur’s smile too held special meaning.

When the word “love” reverberated in her ears, Guinevere’s chest—pierced by an awl’s sting—jolted upward violently.
A whooshing sound flooded behind her ears as hot blood surged.
Arthur maintained his feigned ignorance.

“The owner of that sleeve must indeed be beautiful...”

“That sleeve...?”
“The sleeve’s owner...?”
“Must be beautiful?” Guinevere’s breath quickened.

“With white plumes and a crimson headband.”
“It appears to be a certain person’s gift.”
“To be bound is but natural,” Arthur laughed dryly again.

“What is the owner’s name?”

“I do not know the name.”
“I hear she is called a beautiful maiden simply because she is beautiful.”
“Having been bound for ten days past, the one who binds the remaining days is blessed indeed.”
“He shall not turn his steps toward Camelot.”

“Beautiful maiden!
“Beautiful maiden! Beautiful maiden!” Guinevere cried out in rapid succession, stamping her thin slippers three times against the stone floor.
The hair cascading over her shoulders formed untimely waves, each strand traversing over two feet to its very end.

The teaching that fidelity to one’s husband was the divine way had been ancient.
I would not claim ignorance of how easy it was to follow the divine path.
To abandon what came easily, and to find joy even in the suffering that followed—this too was for you.
The spring breeze acted mindlessly; flowers bloomed of their own accord.
To say flowers bore sin was merely the fallen world’s idle talk.
The clarity of a mirror that reflected love was the mirror’s virtue.
In such contemplation, there must be solace in being cast aside by both people and the world.
At this moment when I had resolved to view things thus, the footstool I sat upon overturned, leaving not a speck of dust to support my heels.
Their attraction—like iron drawn to magnet—would fear no sin if nature alone compelled it; had they but crossed this one thin barrier of worldly shame, she had resolved, their lives might find repose. Yet the magnet transformed into flintstone, and the iron it once drew now fell through endless skies to the underworld.
The seat of my stool fell away; the floor of my dais crumbled; the shell of the earth I trod split asunder—as though all that once upheld me had vanished.
Guinevere kept her clasped hands before her chest and pressed as though to crush even the bones from left and right.
With one hand drawing out the surplus strength from the other, she sought to let the anguish in her breast escape unnoticed.

“What is this?” Arthur asked.

Her answer of “I know nothing” was neither deception toward Arthur nor self-deception.
One can only speak of not knowing what one does not know.
The truth—even words formed by my own mouth—had tumbled from my throat before I knew.

When the receding waves returned, forgetting their retreating manner, the force with which they now gnawed at the shore in reverse—more ferocious than before—made even the waves themselves seem startled by their own violence.
Struck by unforeseen tidings, Guinevere—bereft of composure—after retreating so far from herself that she forgot her own being, returned with a welling resurgence to an 'I' more poignant than ever.
To Guinevere’s eyes—when she realized that Arthur, who had furrowed his brows in astonishment with an air of comprehending nothing, was her husband—Arthur was no longer the Arthur of moments before.

When I repent my sin of wounding another, there is no remorse more profound than when I remain unaware of the injuries borne by the one I harmed.
The horror of whipping a saint lies in this: because no punishment rebounds upon the wielder of the lash, one must repent both oneself and that transgression.
The shame I feel before a doubting Arthur does not pain me as acutely as my sin resounding within my heart before an Arthur free of suspicion.
Guinevere shuddered and knew a cold that pierced to the bone.

“Consider another’s plight as your own.”
“I know not of days untouched by longing—countless nights have passed since I wed.”
“To think of Lancelot—master of the crimson sleeve—must be akin to Your Majesty’s thoughts of me.”
“If there were gifts, I too would forget returning for ten days—twenty days—yet to censure is ignoble.” Arthur looked at the Queen with a doubtful expression.

“Beautiful maiden!” Guinevere repeated Elaine’s name three times.
This time, her voice held no sharpness.
Even were she to depart, he showed no sign of compassion.

Arthur half-turned his body where he leaned against the chair and spoke.
“Do you remember when we first met?”
“When a stone cross too tall to measure had been buried deep in the earth, and ivy crept over it in spring.”
“When I wandered lost and entered a chapel to rest awhile, before a silver-inlaid altar stood one with a sky-blue robe cascading from her shoulders, golden hair billowing like clouds—who could this be?”

The woman uttered only “Ah” in a trembling voice.

A past not unpleasant—one she had resolved to find solace in forgetting—now suddenly and mercilessly resurrected was unbearable to her.

“Until I heard Your Majesty’s voice—speaking in withered tones of one who waits for those who left with unsettled hearts—I thought you stood only at this altar of Mary’s church beneath heaven.”

Though we chase days that have passed, they do not return; and what has passed cannot be buried in eternal darkness.
In the heart that vowed not to think dwell old sparks that strike like loosed arrows.

“If I were to say I’d escort you back to the chambers, you’d nod your golden hair as if to say ‘anywhere’—” Arthur cut off mid-phrase, rising to press both hands against Guinevere’s cheeks and peer down into his queen’s face from above.
With each new memory came a fresh surge of love—the Queen’s face remained cold as one cradling a corpse.
Arthur involuntarily released his hands.
Just then, distant footsteps echoed through the corridor as cursing voices drew near Arthur’s chamber.

The thick curtain hanging over the entrance was not drawn back.
It hung long enough to conceal the floor.
When those footsteps paused briefly near the door, a tall man with abundant hair tore the curtain in two and appeared.
It was Mordred.

Mordred strode without a bow to the front of the chamber and halted beneath the dais where the king stood.
Following him entered Agravain—a man with brawny arms spilling from wide sleeves, a ruddy neck tightly bound by his garment’s collar, so muscular that even his complexion seemed altered.
Behind the two came others who, having no time to look around, pushed their way in tumultuously and lined up with Mordred at their forefront—twelve men in all.
Something must happen for this to be settled.

Mordred lifted his head, which he had inclined in a bow toward the king, and spoke in a powerful voice.
“Is it not a king’s duty to punish sin?”

“Needless to ask,” answered Arthur, his expression suggesting it was too late to raise the matter.

“Shall even the highborn not escape judgment?” Mordred demanded of the king again.

Arthur struck his own chest and declared, “The golden crown shall not rest upon an unrighteous brow! The sovereign’s robe does not conceal evil!” He ascended the dais as he spoke.
The scarlet robe fastened at his shoulders spread its hem wide, its white lining gleaming like snow.

“If you swear not to pardon sinners,” Mordred declared without flinching, raising a single finger toward Guinevere’s brow, “then you must not spare even this woman at your side!”
Guinevere rose abruptly.

Dumbfounded Arthur watched the person standing before him—a person who stood like a rock thrust up from the earth—as though struck mute by lightning.
It was Guinevere who spoke.

“Do you dare falsely accuse me of guilt?”
“By what evidence? What sins do you presume to enumerate?”
“Let Heaven bear witness to this falsehood!” she declared, raising her slender hand high into the air.

“There is one sin.”
“Ask Lancelot.”
“The proof lies there!” Mordred cast a hawk-like glance behind him, whereupon the twelve men aligned there all raised their right hands high, chanting in unison: “God knows—sin shall not escape!”

Guinevere, her body about to collapse, barely steadied herself against the wall hanging and faintly cried out, “Lancelot!”
The king wavered.
With the inner lining of the scarlet robe draped over his shoulder half-turned back, he wavered, his right palm still extended toward the thirteen knights.

At that moment, a voice crying “Guilty! Guilty!” echoed off the stone battlements within the manor, spreading like a distant howling winter wind.
Before long came the sound of the riverside sluice gate being opened—its rusted iron chains screeching as if to resound to the heavens.
The people in the room exchanged glances.
This was no ordinary occurrence.

V. Boat

“By the color of the silk wrapped around his helmet, even the eyes of enemies crossing spears would be roused.”
Lancelot defeated over twenty knights in that day’s tournament, proclaiming his own name for the first time just as he was about to withdraw.
While the astonished people had not yet awoken from their stupor, he exited the enclosure with Lavaine.
“Our destination was naturally Astolat,” Lavaine recounted to his father and sister three days after returning to Astolat.

“Lancelot?” The father arched his eyebrows in surprise.
The woman let out a soft “Ah,” making the hue of the flower she was inserting into her hair tremble.

“While crossing swords with over twenty enemies—perhaps having failed to evade someone’s spear—he suffered a wound two inches below the torso of his armor on his left thigh…”

“A deep wound?” The woman gulped, her eyes wide with concern.

“It was not so severe that he couldn’t endure the saddle.”
As the summer day faded into evening and we traversed grass-thick plains under a blue dusk, the horses’ hooves grew damp with dew—yet the two of us exchanged not a single word.
Not knowing what thoughts weighed upon Lancelot, I found myself reminiscing about that extravagant tournament which ought never to recur.
With no treetops rustling in the wind, only the loud clatter of horseshoes striking ground persisted.
“—The road splits into two paths.”

“If you turn left here, it’s ten miles to this point,” the old man said with a knowing air.

Lancelot turned his horse’s head to the right.

“Right? The right path is Shalott’s main highway—fifteen miles for certain.”
This too was the old man’s explanation.

“Toward that Shalott—without so much as a glance back at me calling from behind, he spurred his horse onward and departed.”
“With no other choice, I followed.”
What proved strange was that when I tried to turn my horse, its forelegs reared up and it let out an uncanny whinny.
The cry faded across the endless summer fields, scattering like an unfurling fan. As I guided the reins with practiced ease—as one handles a horse’s hooves—Lancelot’s shadow melted into night’s faint recesses alongside the gathering dark.—I struck my saddle and gave chase.

“Did you catch up?” Father and sister asked in unison.

“By the time I caught up, it was already too late.”
The breath of my horse rose white as it pushed through the darkness—I whipped it all the more fiercely and galloped down the endless road in one desperate dash.
When a shadow resembling that black figure appeared some two hundred meters ahead, I called “Lancelot!” with every ounce of breath in my lungs.
The black figure continued onward, feigning deafness.
Was that faint sound a bridle?
Though showing no visible haste, this mysterious one proved impossible to overtake.
When I finally narrowed the gap to a hundred meters, the black figure dissolved into the night as though woven into its fabric.
Uncomprehending, I pressed onward.
As I drove my horse onto the stone bridge spanning Shalott’s entrance—hooves pounding as if to shatter rock—the beast tripped over something and snapped its foreleg.
I yanked the mane backward and lurched forward.
“I thought the metallic clang came from striking stone—but it was the armored sleeve of one who had fallen before me.”

“Look out!” the old man cried as though it were happening before his very eyes.

“The danger was not mine—it was Lancelot who had fallen before me…”

“Was it Lancelot who fell?” the sister exclaimed in a voice trembling with shock, gripping the edge of her chair.
The chair’s leg was not broken.

“At the bridge’s willow-shaded base stood a hermitage that seemed uninhabited. When I knocked tentatively, I found it housed a hermit who had renounced the world.
I carried the cold man inside.
When I removed his helmet, even his eyes were frozen…”

“Digging roots and brewing herbs are a hermit’s daily work.”
“Did you revive Lancelot?” Father interjected mid-narration.

“We did revive him.”
“He differed not from one returned from Yomi’s realm.”
“The Lancelot who regained himself had not truly regained himself.”
“Like one beset by demons who speaks in dreams, he utters only fragmented things.”
“At times he would cry ‘Sin! Sin!’ and at others murmur ‘Queen—Guinevere—Shalott.’”
“The herb-scent into which the hermit poured his care brought no cooling breath to that seething brow.”
……”

“If only I were at his bedside,” the girl thought.

After a night had passed and his seething brain had finally calmed—when faint shadows of a quiet past began to flicker in his heart—Lancelot told me to leave.
The distrustful hermit told me not to leave.
Thus two days passed.

On the third morning, when the hermit and I awoke and peered into the sickroom to observe the ailing man’s complexion this dawn—he was gone.
“In the verse carved upon the ancient wall with a sword’s tip, it read: ‘Sin pursues me as I pursue sin.’”

“Did he escape?” Father asked. “Where to?” Sister inquired.

“If I knew where, there would be a way to seek him.”

I did not know how far the winds blowing boundlessly across the summer fields reached.
Unable to discern where east met west along the sun’s course, I returned alone.—The hermit declared he had departed without feigning illness.
That person’s life was in peril.
The direction of his frenzied flight must have been toward Camelot.
“Though one could tell from the words he had uttered in delirium that he was headed there, I did not firmly believe so,” Lavaine concluded, then drank the bitter wine filling his cup in one gulp and exhaled a breath that shimmered like a rainbow.

The sister stood up and entered my chamber.

When one sees butterflies fluttering and playing among flowers, the whole world remains unaware that spring holds sorrow.
Go—yet coldly sinks the sun—think of evenings when even the moon hides in darkness.
Think of fallen dew’s density.
Think how thin wings are—how very thin.
——Think of something small as a plectrum’s tip hiding in grassy shadows across wide fields——dew on folded wings grows too heavy—even dreams turn agonizing.
In endless plain-depths, shrinking a worthless form—how lonely to fear shattering by winds that beckon.
Elaine would not endure long.

Elaine gazes at the shield.
Elaine gazes until nightfall at the shield entrusted by Lancelot.
Upon that shield is depicted a pattern where a knight kneels before a tall woman, pledging love and faith.
The knight’s armor is silver; the woman’s robe blazes in fiery hues, while the ground lies spread in navy nearing black.
That the crimson woman is Guinevere remains unknown even in poor Elaine’s dreams.

Elaine likens the woman on the shield to herself and even imagines the one who does not kneel as Lancelot at times.
The thoughts that fervently wish Let it be thus must someday slip from the depths of her heart and manifest exactly as such upon the shield’s surface.
Once she has built this different foundation anew, she must layer fiction upon fiction, unable to cease imagining even the future of those fabrications.

The accumulated fantasies crumbled once more.
They crumbled like a child’s tower of pebbles kicked over in play.
When I returned to myself after the crumbled fantasies and looked, Lancelot was nowhere to be found.
There was no reason why the one who had gone mad and fled far to Camelot should be by my side.
Even if we were parted, so long as the vow remained unbroken, there would be a tether to bind us across a thousand leagues.
Lancelot and I—what had we sworn?
Elaine’s eyes overflowed with tears.

Amidst tears, she reconsidered.
It was Lancelot who had sworn no vow.
The vow I alone could swear could not be broken.
A vow that existed solely between two people—I would not call that a vow.
A pledge between myself and my own heart did not fall outside the realm of vows.
If only this vow remained unbroken—she fixated on the thought.
The color faded from Elaine’s cheeks.

It was not death I feared, but that I might never meet Lancelot beyond life’s veil.
Though parted now makes earthly meeting impossible, perhaps encountering him in the hereafter might prove simpler.
One should not view scattering poppies merely with sorrow—for their fall heralds summers yet to bloom.
Elaine ceased taking nourishment.

Decline, like wildfire across spring fields, invaded her frail chest; sorrow chipped away at jade-like bones too delicate for mortal flesh. Until now, she had thought her life would be long. Even if I harbored no covetous wish to live forever—even if death had not once appeared even in my dreams—now that today had come, this day I recognized as a transient spring, when I earnestly observed the world, even within the buds that opened daily, there lay resentment. Were one to ask the round-shining bright moon about tomorrow, it would be desolate. Elaine was a person of no purpose in this fleeting world save for dying.

Now, when she had resolved that her life would end here, Elaine summoned her father and brother to her bedside and said, “For my sake, I beg you to write a letter to Lancelot.”
Father took out a brush and paper and wrote down each word of the dying girl’s speech.

“In all the world there is no one I adore but you alone. Think me pitiable—I who die for you alone! Though my black hair—shimmering like heat haze—turns to disheveled earth with time’s passage—the name Lancelot carved upon my breast shall never fade through ages when stars themselves change form! For these letters dyed in love’s flames need not yield to earth and water’s workings... When I glimpse your visage reflected in dewdrops clinging to my lashes—how fragile it shatters at a glance! My life too holds such frailty—if tears remain to you then shed them! Christ knows me—a maiden pure until death!”

The finished characters were strangely disordered and indistinct.
It was unclear whether the trembling of the old man’s hands stemmed from age or grief.

The woman spoke again.
“Once I have breathed my last, while my body remains warm, place this letter in my right hand.”
“After my hands and feet have grown completely cold, dress me in all the beautiful garments there are.”
“Place me in a small boat filled with black cloth spread without gaps.”
“Gather every last white rose and white lily from mountain and field and cast them into the boat—set it adrift.”

Thus did Elaine close her eyes.
The eyes closed in sleep would never open again.
Father and brother, obediently as per her final wishes, transported the pitiful maiden's remains to the boat.

In the old inlet where even ripples had died away, the surface lay still as though unaware of wind's touch.
The boat now left the green-tinged shade behind and rowed out into midstream.
At the oar sat but a single figure—an old man with white hair and white beard.
The languidly stirred water moved listlessly, emitting a leaden gleam with each oar stroke.
The boat entered amidst slumbering water lilies floating on waves and passed through them without sound.
After passing through—calyxes tilted in its wake—the flowers swayed briefly with lightly drawn ripples before regaining their usual stillness.
On surfaces of parted leaves rising anew, untimely dew formed glistening beads.

The boat vanished soundlessly into the distance, bound for nowhere in particular.
It departed bearing a beautiful corpse, beautiful garments, beautiful flowers, and an old man who scarcely seemed human.
The old man spoke not a word.
He only submerged the long oar into the calm waves and submerged it again.
As though someone had whipped a wooden figure into motion—save for the arms that moved the oar—he seemed devoid of life.

There appeared a swan whiter than snow—wings folded—splitting waves as it glided through the water like a monarch with regal composure.
Its long neck stretched high, noble form sweeping through the surroundings until no trace of fear remained visible.
Never glancing at the swirling currents, it stood at the prow guiding the boat.
The vessel followed the path between waves parted by the bird’s wings where they did not meet.
Green were the willows on both banks.

When passing Shalott, a sorrowful voice from nowhere shattered the ancient water's solitude from the left bank and resounded over motionless waves.
"If one dwells in the real world of ephemeral beings..."
The vanished sound trailed its echo; what lingered would soon vanish once more.
The listeners were only the dead Elaine and the old man seated at the stern.
The old man paid no heed.
Only plunged the long oar into the calm waves, plunged it again.
Presumably, he was deaf.

The sky hung heavy as if thickly layered with beaten cotton.
The willows flanking both banks of the stream—each saturated with green—smoldered hazily.
Had there been someone standing at the boundary between the realm of the living and the underworld, lost in bewilderment, this sight would have resembled their spirits arrayed thus.
They must have lined up to send off the painting-like maiden departing to the other world aboard her boat.

The boat drifted alongside Camelot's sluice gate and came to an abrupt halt.
The swan’s shadow sank into the waves; the black reflection of the castle towering high on the bank was dreadful.
The sluice gates opened to both sides; on the stone steps, with Arthur and Guinevere before them, all the men and women of the castle gathered.

Elaine’s corpse was the most beautiful among all corpses.
Her cool face lay as though smiling, buried in golden hair that billowed like clouds.
Having been cleansed of all impurities clinging to flesh, between her lips and nose manifested the spirit’s own visage—radiant and supremely pure.
Neither suffering nor sorrow, neither resentment nor anger—with no trace remaining of the world’s abominations—did she appear as one returning to earth.

The King asked in a solemn voice, “Who is this?”
The old man who had ceased rowing remained silent as though mute.
Guinevere descended the stone steps abruptly, took up the letter clutched in Elaine’s right hand from amidst scattered lilies, and broke the seal as though demanding answers.

The sorrowful voice crossed the water again—"...beautiful... love, its hue... fades..."—piercing the people's ears like a slender thread plucking waves into song.

Having finished reading, Guinevere bent over and pressed her trembling lips to Elaine’s forehead—to that translucent forehead within the boat—as she cried, “Beautiful maiden!”
At the same time, a single hot tear fell upon Elaine’s cold cheek.

The thirteen knights exchanged glances.