Pathway to Japanese Literature

The Miner

I had been walking through this pine grove for some time now - pine groves being far longer in reality than they appeared in pictures.
No matter how far I walked, nothing but pines kept growing endlessly without offering any sense of progression.
It was useless unless these pines themselves advanced forward no matter how much I trudged on.
I might as well have stood rigid from the beginning engaged in a staring contest with the pines - that would have been preferable.

I left Tokyo around nine last evening and walked recklessly north all night until exhaustion and sleepiness overtook me.
With no inn to stay at and no money，I climbed up into the dark Kagura hall and slept a little.
Apparently，it was a Hachiman shrine.
When I woke from the cold，dawn still hadn't broken.
After that，I pushed relentlessly onward，but with nothing but these endless rows of pines stretching before me，I lost all will to keep walking.

My legs have grown quite heavy.
My calves feel as though small iron hammers are strapped to them，making every step a struggle.
The hem of my lined kimono has of course been tucked up.
What’s more，I wasn't even wearing my Western-style underpants—under normal circumstances，I could have managed a sprint.
But against this endless army of pines，I stood no chance in the end.

There was a roadside tea stall.
From the shadow of the reed screen, I saw a rusted iron kettle hanging on the clay stove.
A folding stool protruded about two feet into the roadway, from which hung two or three pairs of straw sandals; a man wearing an indistinguishable garment—perhaps a happi coat or padded workman’s coat—sat with his back turned toward me.

Should I rest? Should I give up? As I peered sideways while passing by, the man wearing that ambiguous happi coat or padded workman’s coat suddenly turned toward me.
Exposing teeth blackened with tobacco tar through thick lips, he laughed.
Just as I was beginning to feel unsettled by this, his face abruptly turned serious.
He had been engaged in some amusing conversation with the tea shop proprietress until now, and when he turned his unchanged face toward the roadway without a second thought, he suddenly found himself confronted by my countenance.
At any rate, when he turned serious, I finally felt some relief.
The moment I felt relief, unease crept back in.
The man kept his now-serious face fixed in place as the whites of his eyes began creeping upward with such intensity it unsettled me—from my mouth to my nose, my nose to my forehead, methodically scaling my entire head.
Having crossed the brim of my hunting cap and reached the crown of my head, those white eyes then began methodically descending back down.
This time, bypassing my face entirely, they traveled from chest to navel and paused briefly.
At the navel’s location was a frog-mouthed purse.
There were thirty-two sen inside.
The white eyes peered at this purse through the Kurume kasuri fabric, then climbed over the cotton boy’s sash to finally reach my groin.
From the groin down, there were only bare shins.
No matter how much he looked, there was nothing there to see.
Only, they had become slightly heavier than usual.
The white eyes deliberately, methodically scrutinized this now-heavier area before finally descending to the wooden geta base stained black with thumbprint marks.

If I describe it this way, it might seem as though I stood frozen in place for ages, practically begging to be inspected—but that wasn’t how it happened.
The truth was, the moment those pale eyes began their scrutiny, I suddenly found the idea of resting at that tea stall unbearable—or so I told myself as I started walking briskly away.
Yet this resolve must have been half-hearted at best, for by the time I’d shaped my thumb into a viper and prepared to twist my wooden sandal, those pale eyes had already finished their appraisal.
Regrettably, he worked with alarming speed.
I’d assumed his methodical inspection would take considerable time—a grave miscalculation.
Methodical it certainly was, executed with unshakable composure.
Yet despite this deliberation, he moved with startling swiftness.
As I passed beyond the tea stall’s frontage, it struck me that certain eyes in this world possess uncanny powers.
Still—couldn’t I have turned away faster before enduring such leisurely examination?
It felt like being thoroughly mocked before reaching the inevitable “Off you go now—no business here,” leaving me to rise muttering “I’ll take my leave” like some groveling fool.
I’m pathetic.
That one’s a master.

For the first five or six paces after starting to walk, I felt strangely furious. However, the unpleasantness vanished within five or six paces. No sooner had I thought this than my legs grew heavy again—it’s these legs, after all. With iron hammers bound to both legs like this, nimble movement was impossible from the start. That I’d been methodically scrutinized by those white eyes couldn’t be entirely blamed on my own half-hearted measures alone. Reconsidering it like this seemed pointless.

Moreover, I'm in no position to dwell on such matters.
Once I'd run away, there was no resolve to return home no matter what.
This body couldn't even remain in Tokyo.
Even in the countryside, I had no mind to settle.
If I rested, they'd come chasing after me.
If yesterday's commotion kept slicing through my head like this, no countryside would be bearable.
So I simply kept walking.
Yet since this walking lacked any particular purpose, everything within a square ken around my face turned hazy, clouded like a botched photograph.
Moreover, this haze showed no prospect of clearing, spreading limitlessly and indistinctly ahead.
As long as I was alive—whether for fifty years or sixty—no matter how much I walked or ran, this haze would undoubtedly continue spreading just as it was.
Ah, how pointless.
I walked because not walking was unbearable—not to break through this hazy path ahead.
It was perfectly clear that even if I'd tried to escape, I couldn't have.

Since nine o'clock last night when I left Tokyo, I had resigned myself to this—yet when I actually started walking, my nerves frayed with every step.
My legs were heavy; the pines stood in ranks until I grew sick of them.
But more than my legs or the pines, the turmoil in my gut pained me most.
I didn't understand why I was walking; yet this agony of being unable to survive a single moment unless I walked was something rarely endured.

Moreover, the more I walked, the more I felt myself sinking deeper into this clouded world from which there was no escape.
When I looked back, the sunlit Tokyo already belonged to a different age.
Even if I reached out my hand or stretched my leg, they couldn't reach it in this world.
It was an entirely different realm.
And yet that warm, bright Tokyo still lingered vividly before my eyes.
It was so vividly clear I wanted to call out 'Hey!' from the shade. Yet at the same time, the direction my feet were taking stretched into a formless void.
Into this formless void—this void that spread limitlessly as long as life existed—I staggered and lost myself, and it was daunting.

This clouded world persisted obstinately clouded—unbearably blocking my path until fixed karma ran its course.
When anxiety drove me to thrust my halted leg forward one step, that step plunged deeper into anxiety itself.
Hounded by anxiety, dragged by anxiety, compelled to move—no matter how far I walked, no matter how desperately I trudged, there could be no resolution.
I would walk through this lifelong unresolved anxiety.
If only this thoroughly clouded existence would grow darker instead.
Were I to step from this darkened place into deeper darkness, soon the world would become void—my own body vanishing from sight through these eyes.
Then I might find peace.

Spitefully, the path I tread refuses to brighten—yet neither will it darken.
Endlessly half-lit and half-shadowed, endlessly unresolved anxiety looms over everything.
This way there's no purpose in living—yet even so, I can't die.
I want to go anywhere—anywhere without people—and live completely alone.
If I can't do that, then I might as well...

Strangely enough, I steeled myself for drastic measures—but felt no jolt of alarm. In my Tokyo days, I had often contemplated reckless actions—yet never without that visceral startlement. A belated shudder would run through me—I couldn't help feeling it was just as well. Yet this time, no divine jolt came—not so much as a tremor. The anxiety must have saturated every crevice of my chest until it seemed external forces could act as they pleased—with shocks or shudders—without affecting me. Moreover, some part of me found relief in believing now wasn't the moment for decisive action. Perhaps I'd resigned myself to postponing it—until tomorrow or next week, maybe indefinitely if fortune allowed. Whether considering Kegon Falls or Asama's crater, I must have unconsciously sensed the journey remained distant. Until one reaches that critical point, who could feel alarmed? Thus I even grew inclined to attempt drastic measures. If this uniformly clouded world brought pain, yet offered hope of escaping it to a non-alarming degree, then moving these leaden legs forward held meaning. This seemed the extent of my resolve then—though I dissect these psychological states retroactively. At the time, I simply needed darkness. Convinced I must reach some dark place—any dark place—I'd begun walking with single-minded purpose. Now it strikes me as absurd, yet there come moments when we find solace in marching toward death itself—provided our targeted demise lies sufficiently distant. At least, so I believe. When death looms too near, it cannot comfort—such is death's inherent paradox.

All I wanted was to reach some dark place—had to reach it—yet as I walked with this cloud-chasing determination, something kept calling from behind. However adrift my soul might wander, it's strange how some kernel of resolve remains when summoned. I turned without conscious thought—truth be told, without any awareness of responding at all. Only when already facing backward did I realize: I remained barely twenty ken from that tea stall. There at its threshold emerged that cross between a happi coat and padded workman's jacket, baring grease-shined teeth while urgently beckoning me.

Since leaving Tokyo last evening, I hadn’t yet spoken to another person.
I had never even dreamed someone might address me.
I was utterly convinced I possessed no right to be spoken to.
Then came this sudden call—crude teeth bared in a forward-thrusting smile as he waved insistently—and in the dazed moment of turning, my feelings clarified themselves even as my legs began moving toward that man of their own accord.

To tell the truth, I didn't particularly care for this man's face, his clothes, or his mannerisms. Especially when subjected to that cold-eyed glare earlier—something like a seed of disgust had taken root in my chest. Yet before I'd walked even twenty ken, those former emotions had vanished somewhere, and for reasons beyond my grasp, I found myself turning back with an abruptly transformed warmth permeating my being. I'd thought I needed to reach some dark place. So when I began retracing my steps toward the tea shop—moving directly counter to my original purpose—it meant retreating one step from that darkness. Strangely enough, this retreat brought me inexplicable relief. Later experiences would show me such contradictions lay scattered everywhere—this couldn't be unique to me alone. Lately I've concluded there's no such thing as fixed character at all. How novelists preen themselves crafting this personality type or that—how readers prattle about characters having definitive traits—it's all lies they concoct for amusement or swallow with smug satisfaction. Truthfully? Coherent character doesn't exist. Truth itself lies beyond novelists' grasp—even if recorded faithfully, it could never become fiction. Real humans resist categorization stubbornly—entities so incoherent they'd baffle even deities. Yet perhaps I presume too much—assuming others share my own inherent formlessness simply because I'm condemned to perpetual dissolution. If so—well—that amounts to discourtesy.

In any case, when I turned back and reached beside Mekurajima, the man in the padded coat called out in an overly familiar voice—

“Young man,”

he said while drawing his large jaw slightly into his collar and staring at my forehead.
When I’d had enough, I remained standing on my two brown legs,

“Is there something you require?”

“Is there something you need?” I asked with careful politeness.
Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t be one to respond amiably when addressed as “young man” by someone wearing such a shabby padded coat.
Even had I replied, it would likely have been with a noncommittal grunt before moving on.
Yet in this singular moment, I felt myself and this ill-favored man in his workman’s coat stood as complete equals.
This wasn’t some calculated deference born of self-interest—not in the least.

Then the man in the padded coat spoke in a tone suggesting he regarded me as his equal,

“You looking for work?” he said.
Having resolved that my sole purpose now was to reach darkness—that I had no other business in this world—when suddenly asked out of nowhere if I intended to work, I stood stiffening my bare shins, mouth agape like a fool’s, staring vacantly at him without knowing how to respond.

“You looking for work? You’ll have to work anyway, won’t you?”

The man in the padded coat asked again.
By the time he repeated his question, my mind had somehow grasped enough of the situation to form a response.

"I wouldn't mind working."

This was my answer.
Yet that these words had escaped my lips at all—that my mind, through makeshift contrivances, had finally settled on this reply—meant it had completed a simple yet full process.

I didn’t know where I was going, but I’d resolved to seek places devoid of people.
Yet having turned toward this man in the padded coat, I felt a vague self-reproach with each step.
What I mean is—however coarse his appearance, he remained human.
That one who ought to flee humanity found himself dragged back proved both mankind’s inexorable pull and my own frailty in betraying resolve.
To put it plainly—though I claimed resolve to enter darkness, I went only by necessity; had any lifeline appeared, I’d have clung to it like a opportunist staying in this vulgar world.
Fortune smiled when the man hooked me from afar—my legs began retreating without conscious will.
Thus I committed a petty treason against my grand purpose.
Had he asked instead, “Field or mountain work?”, I’d have recalled my nearly forgotten aim with a start—suddenly terrified of desolate places.
Such was my lingering worldliness that it sprouted the moment I turned.
Each summons from the man, each step toward him, nourished these earthly ties.
When I planted my bare shins like posts before him, those attachments peaked.
At that instant came his question: “How about work?”
This crude fellow had executed masterful manipulation of my psyche.
Though briefly stunned by his abruptness, awakening revealed I’d already rejoined worldly society.
As part of that society, eating became imperative.

To eat, I had to work.

“I wouldn’t mind working.”

The answer slipped effortlessly from my mouth. Then the man in the padded coat made a face as if to say “That’s right—exactly as expected.” I found myself, oddly enough, nodding in agreement that this expression was perfectly reasonable.

“I don’t mind working, but what exactly would I be doing?”

And there I asked again.

“It’s very profitable—you want to give it a try?”
“I’ll vouch for the profits!”

The man in the padded coat waited for my reply with evident good cheer, beaming all the while.
Since it was the man in the padded coat's laugh anyway, it held no charm whatsoever.
By nature, his face wasn't made for smiling—every grin only diminished him.
Yet that laugh of his struck me as strangely nostalgic.

“Alright, I’ll try it.”

I found myself accepting.

“You’ll try it?”
“That’s more like it!”
“You’ll rake it in!”

“Even if I don’t make much profit... that’s alright...”

“Huh?”

The man in the padded coat let out a strange noise at that moment.

“What exactly is the job?”

“I’ll tell you if you’re set on doing it—but you are set, right? Can’t have you backing out after I lay it all out.”
“You’ll do it for sure, yeah?”

The man in the padded coat pressed with relentless insistence.
At that moment, I—

“I’m committed.”

I answered.
However, this answer hadn’t emerged with the same natural spontaneity as before.
It was, so to speak, an answer I’d wrenched out.
I could handle most situations, but should the worst occur, I appeared resolved to flee.
That’s why I’d said “I’m committed” rather than “I’ll do it.”――It feels somewhat strange to write about myself as if I were someone else, but since human beings are inherently slack creatures, even when it comes to one’s own circumstances, nothing can be stated definitively.
Especially where the past is concerned, there’s no distinction between myself and others.
Everything would inevitably end up changing regardless.
I might be called irresponsible, but since it’s the truth, there’s no help for it.
From here on out, whenever things grew precarious, I intended to proceed in this manner.

At this point, the man in the padded coat—having apparently concluded that his summary had been accepted—

“Well then, come on in.”
“Let’s have some tea and talk leisurely.”

“Well then, come on in,” he said. “Let’s have some tea and talk leisurely.”
Having no particular objection, I entered the tea stall and sat beside the man in the padded coat, whereupon a fortyish proprietress with a twisted mouth served tea that gave off a peculiar odor.
When I drank the tea, hunger suddenly came over me as if I’d just remembered to feel it.
I couldn’t tell whether I was growing hungry or had simply become aware of existing hunger.
The frog-mouthed purse held thirty-two sen; as I was thinking of getting something to eat,
“You want a smoke?”
With that, the man in the padded coat held out a crumpled “Asahi” packet from his side.
That’s some smooth flattery.
The torn corner of the packet was unavoidable, but what with being slightly grimy and completely flattened, the tobacco inside seemed to have clumped into a single mass.
Because it was a sleeveless padded coat, he must have struggled to find storage and ended up cramming it into some hidden pocket of his apron.

“No thank you, I’m fine.”

When I declined, the man in the padded coat showed no particular disappointment, pulling out a clumped cigarette himself with fingers caked in nail grime. Sure enough, the cigarette was thoroughly crumpled and curved like a sword. Even so, there appeared to be no torn sections, and when he drew deeply on it, smoke streamed from his nostrils. It was mystifying how he managed to put the cigarette to use in such a precarious state.

“How old are you?”

The man in the padded coat alternated between calling me “omae-san” and “kimi,” but I couldn’t grasp the logic behind his choice of address. From what I could gather so far, it seemed that when there was profit involved, he’d address me as kimi, but revert to omae-san during ordinary times. It seems he’s quite preoccupied with anything related to making a profit.

“Nineteen.”

I answered.
In truth, I was indeed nineteen at the time.

“You’re still young.”

said the proprietress with her twisted mouth, turning her back to wipe a tray.
Since she was facing away, I couldn’t see what expression she wore.
I couldn’t tell whether she was talking to herself, addressing the man in the padded coat, or perhaps even intending to engage me.

Then Chouzo, looking thoroughly emboldened,
“That’s right—nineteen’s still a kid. You’re in your prime.”

he declared in a tone that brooked no refusal—as if I absolutely had to work.

I silently left the folding stool.

Directly ahead stood a counter for displaying cheap sweets, beside a chipped confectionery box sat a large plate. From beneath a blue cloth draped over them, round fried buns protruded. I had wanted to eat these fried buns, so I rose and approached the sweets counter, but upon drawing near and peering closely at the plate, there was a horrifying swarm of flies. Moreover, no sooner had I stopped before the plate than they scattered in all directions at the sound of my footsteps. Thinking this odd yet steadying myself, I began examining the fried buns when—as if agreeing among themselves that the gale had passed and all was safe—the dispersed flies came swarming back onto the buns in an instant. On the yellow, greasy skin of the buns, black specks formed haphazardly. Just as I considered reaching out, suddenly the black specks began arranging themselves like constellations in a starry night sky, crisscrossing every which way. Slightly repulsed, I found myself staring vacantly at the plate.

“Would you care for some fried buns?”
“Still fresh.”
“They were fried just the day before yesterday.”

The proprietress had already finished wiping the tray and now stood on the opposite side of the sweets counter.
I abruptly raised my eyes and looked at the proprietress.
Then the proprietress—for whatever reason—abruptly held Setsuta’s hand over the plate,
“My, what an awful swarm of flies!”

As she spoke, she sliced downward with her raised hand and shook it two or three times from side to side.

"If you're going to eat some, I'll fetch them for you."

The proprietress immediately took down a wooden plate from the shelf above and, using long bamboo chopsticks, plucked seven or so buns with quick snapping motions,

"This batch is better."

With that, she brought the wooden plate to the stool I had been sitting on.
Resignedly, I returned to my original seat and sat down beside the wooden plate.
When I looked, the flies were already swarming back.
I gazed at the flies, the buns, and the wooden plate while facing the man in the padded coat.

“Care for one?”

I ventured.
This wasn’t entirely out of gratitude for the Asahi cigarettes alone.
Part of my motivation stemmed from wanting to test whether Chouzo would actually eat those fly-covered buns fried two days prior—to see if he’d partake or refuse.
Then the man in the padded coat,

“Oh, don’t mind if I do.”

While saying this, he effortlessly grabbed the topmost one and stuffed it into his mouth.
Observing the way his thick lips worked as he chewed, it didn’t seem entirely disagreeable to him.
So I too steeled myself, plucked a relatively clean one from beneath my side, and opened wide.
No sooner had the oily taste spread across my tongue than the bitter filling abruptly invaded my senses.
However, given the circumstances, I didn’t particularly think it regrettable.
Once I’d effortlessly gulped down the filling, skin, and oil into my stomach, my hand naturally reached out toward the wooden plate again—a strange phenomenon indeed.
The man in the padded coat had already devoured his second bun and was moving on to his third.
Compared to me, he was remarkably fast.
And while eating, he didn’t open his mouth.
He seemed to have completely forgotten all about working and making money.
Consequently, the seven buns vanished within two or three breaths.
And yet I ate only two.
The remaining five were swiftly devoured by the man in the padded coat.

No matter how filthy something might be to make you hesitate, once you took that first bite, what followed could be eaten without grating so harshly on my nerves. This was something I would later come to know intimately in the mountains—a truth so commonplace now as to mean nothing—but in that moment, gnawing on those buns, I found myself wanting more despite feeling somewhat disgusted. And I was hungry. What's more, my companion was Chouzo. Watching Chouzo casually devour those sand-crusted buns with such ease stirred something competitive in me—though keeping up proved pointless, for rousing my senses only brought disadvantage. In the end, I asked the proprietress for another serving of buns.

This time, without uttering a word like "Care for one?" or anything else, no sooner had the wooden plate been set on the stool than I immediately stuffed a bun into my mouth.
Then the man in the padded coat also silently stuffed one into his mouth without saying anything like “Oh, pardon me” or such.
Next, I stuffed another one into my mouth.
Next, the man in the padded coat stuffed another one into his mouth.
By the time we’d taken turns stuffing our mouths up to the sixth bun, only one remained.
Fortunately, this one happened to be my turn, so before the man in the padded coat could reach for it, I stuffed it into my mouth.
Then I received another serving.

“You’re quite the eater, aren’t you?” said the man in the padded coat.
I hadn’t felt particularly driven, but hearing this, I supposed I must have been eating quite a bit. Yet this likely arose from how he’d first wolfed down what I hadn’t wanted to touch, sparking an appetite that now drove me forward. His tone suggested this entire feast unfolded solely through my instigation. An urge to justify myself surfaced, yet no suitable words came. I only hazily sensed he bore some responsibility too—but since I couldn’t pinpoint how, I kept silent.

Then

“You seem to really like those fried buns.”

said the man in the padded coat this time.
As for the buns—well, it wasn’t as though I actually liked those sand-crusted, fly-covered things fried two days prior.
That said, given that I’d already gone through three plates of replacements, I obviously couldn’t claim to dislike them.
So this time too, I remained silent.
At that moment, the tea shop proprietress suddenly interjected—

“Our buns are renowned, so everyone finds them good and eats up.”

When I heard the proprietress’s words, I somehow felt like I was being made a fool of.
So I fell even more silent.
As I listened silently,

“Ain’t nothin’ better’n this!”

said the man in the padded coat.
I couldn’t tell whether this was sincere or just empty flattery.
Anyway, I no longer cared about the buns—I resolved to press him about the crucial labor matter.

“About that earlier discussion, Mr. Chouzo. The truth is, due to various circumstances, I’m in a position where I must work to eat—but what exactly would I be doing?”

So I tried being the one to break the silence.
The man in the padded coat had been gazing at the confectionery stand directly ahead, but now suddenly turned only his face toward me.

“You’ll rake in profits, I’m telling you.”
“No lie—this is a real moneymaker, so you oughta jump on this.”

And once again addressing me with that familiar "you," he kept insisting I should profit. When he turned fully toward me, his face straining with the effort to entice, the flesh beneath his cheekbones sank naturally inward, the sunken mass squaring off sharply against his jawline. Through sunlight streaming from outside, crescent-shaped wrinkles beneath his nostrils cast deep shadows. Seeing this, I grew strangely afraid of profit.

"I don't require substantial earnings."
"But work must be done."
"Any sacred labor will suffice."

A flicker of puzzlement surfaced around the cheeks of the man in the padded coat, but soon he stretched those crescent-shaped wrinkles wide to either side, bared his grease-smeared teeth unabashedly, and released a laugh of singular peculiarity. In retrospect, it appeared the man had failed to comprehend the notion of "sacred labor." His laughter sprang from pity—here was this self-styled human being spouting pretentious sophistries without even grasping the fundamentals of profit-making. Up until that very moment, I had been resolved to die. Failing that, I was determined to vanish into some desolate place devoid of people. Having botched both options, I had settled on working merely to sustain my existence. The question of profitability held no place in my mind. Nor had it ever—not even during my Tokyo days as a burden to my parents. Far from embracing mercenary ideals, I harbored profound contempt for them. I had believed such convictions were universal throughout Japan—that no matter where one went, people shared this basic decency. Thus each time the man prattled on about profits—profits here, profits there—I found myself perplexed as to their purpose. Not that it rankled me. My station and circumstances being what they were, I remained utterly unperturbed—though it never once occurred to me that these honeyed words represented humanity's ultimate seduction, nor that they constituted recruitment's sharpest tool. And so I became the butt of his laughter. Even this mockery failed to penetrate my understanding. Now reflecting upon it, the absurdity overwhelms.

The man in the padded coat, who had laughed in a uniquely particular manner, as that laughter was beginning to subside,

“You there—have you ever actually worked a day in your life?”

he asked in a slightly serious tone.
Whether I worked or not, I had only just fled my home yesterday.
In my experience, the extent of my work had been limited to kendo practice and baseball drills—I’d never earned my keep for even a single day.

“I’ve never worked.
But now I’m in a position where I must work.”

“Figured as much.
Never worked means… hell, you’ve never earned a damn sen either, have you?”

He asked a matter-of-fact question.
Since I didn’t need to respond—as I kept silent—the tea shop proprietress from behind the confectionery stand—

“If you’re gonna work, you gotta make it pay,” she said as she stood up.
The man in the padded coat chimed in, “You said it. Even if you wanna make money, them profit holes ain’t just lyin’ around these days,” his tone dripping with unearned generosity.
“That’s how it is,” she tossed back with a sneer, brushing past us to the back.
Something about that flippant dismissal stuck in my craw—maybe ’cause I figured there’d be more to it—so I kept watching her out the corner of my eye. She ambled over to a gnarled black pine’s roots and hitched up her skirts. When I realized she meant to take a piss right there standing, I jerked my face away quick, fixing my eyes back on that padded coat bastard.
He leaned in sharp—

“It’s only because it’s me, you see—I’m the one making such a sweet offer to a complete stranger like you. If this were anyone else’s deal, they wouldn’t take you on without getting their cut—that’s how sweet this offer is.”

He once again acted as though bestowing a favor. Since it was too much trouble, I obediently—

“That’s very kind of you.”

I replied stiffly.

“To tell you the truth, this is how it works.”

The man in the padded coat said immediately.
I remained silent and listened.

“To tell you the truth, this is how it works.
You’ll work at the copper mine—soon as I arrange things, you’ll be a miner.
If you can become a miner right away, that’s something big, isn’t it?”

I felt compelled to respond somehow, but swept up by the man's persuasive tone, I couldn't bring myself to say "Yes." When one speaks of miners, they were unquestionably laborers toiling in mine shafts. Though there must be many types of workers in this world, just as I'd become convinced miners represented the most wretched and lowly among them, to then be told that becoming one immediately would be something remarkable—far from matching his enthusiasm, I found myself inwardly astonished enough to think "Huh?" To claim there existed classes beneath miners was like insisting days remained plentiful after New Year's Eve—a notion I could hardly imagine. Truth be told, I suspected the man in the padded coat might be disparaging me as young and trying to half-heartedly deceive me with such prattle. Yet contrary to expectations, he appeared utterly sincere.

“After all, you become a miner right from the start.”
“If you’re a miner, it’s easy work.”
“You’ll have money piling up quick as anything, then do whatever you damn well please!”
“Why, there’s even banks there—wanna deposit your cash, you can do it anytime.”
“Hey, proprietress—if he can become a miner straight off, ain’t that something grand?”

As he turned the conversation toward the proprietress, she—still wearing the same expression she’d had while relieving herself standing up out back earlier—

“Exactly! Become a miner right now and within four or five years you’ll have so much piled up you’ll groan.”
“After all—nineteen.”
“Prime working years—gotta make your pile now or lose out.”

She delivered each phrase with measured pauses, as if murmuring to herself.

In short, through her utterances that practically demanded he become a miner without outright saying so, this proprietress too appeared to hold exactly the same opinion as the man in the padded coat.
Naturally, I found that acceptable.
And even if that weren’t the case, I wouldn’t have cared in the slightest.
Strangely enough, never before in my life had I felt such calm as I did in that moment.
No matter what errors they might have insisted upon, I think I would have simply listened with compliant "yes, yes"s.
To tell the truth, having descended here aimlessly after the inconveniences, social obligations, human feelings, and agonies I'd committed over the past year had erupted into a violent collision, it made no sense that I could become this docile when considering my self of yesterday—yet in reality, no matter how I might have tried to summon rebellious feelings toward others at this moment, none would emerge.
Moreover,I didn’t find this contradictory or strange at all.
I probably hadn’t had the mental space to consider it.
In a human being,the only coherent thing is the body.
Because their bodies are coherent，they assume their minds must be similarly ordered—thus，even while doing things diametrically opposed between yesterday and today，there are many who calmly maintain they remain exactly the same as before.
Moreover，even when issues of responsibility arise and one is pressed about their inconsistencies，why does no one respond:"No—my mind merely retains memories；in truth，it is entirely scattered"?
Even someone like me，who has frequently experienced such contradictions，seems to feel a certain responsibility—though I recognize the impossibility.
Considering this，humans are rather efficiently built to become society's sacrifices.

At the same time, witnessing the current state of my fragmented soul wavering irregularly and deducing from this impartially observed truth of examining myself as a stranger, I realized there was nothing more aimless than human beings. Promises and covenants were utterly impossible for those conscious of their own souls. Moreover, to wield such promises as shields and forcibly constrain others—this barbarity epitomized vulgarity. When carefully examining most instances of keeping promises, despite inherent contradictions somewhere within, one finds they're only fulfilled after violently suppressing those contradictions and dismissing them with feigned ignorance. This could never be the soul's free act. Had I grasped this truth sooner, I might have avoided pointlessly resenting others, agonizing over matters, or fleeing my home in desperation. Even had I fled to this tea stall, had I maintained enough composure to calmly compare—as if observing a stranger—how my attitude toward Chouzo and the proprietress had completely changed from yesterday's self, I might have attained some insight.

Regrettably, at that time I possessed not the slightest curiosity about myself. It was all just frustration and anguish, sorrow and rage, pity and guilt—the world growing detestable yet humanity impossible to discard—until I could neither sit nor stand still, reduced to stumbling about recklessly, getting entangled with that man in the padded coat, and devouring a fried bun. Yesterday was yesterday, today was today; an hour ago remained an hour ago, thirty minutes later would stay thirty minutes later—until no mind existed beyond the one before me, my perpetually discontinuous soul growing ever more unmoored from its usual state, hovering in such profound ambiguity between existence and non-existence, while the vast memories of the past year coalesced into a hazy mass of sinister miasma like some tragic dream, endlessly enveloping the distant void in what felt like limitless expanse.

At this point, had it been my usual self, I would have spun logical arguments—why becoming a miner should be considered splendid, how there could exist occupations lower than mining, that I wasn’t someone who worked solely for profit, or what good lay in mere moneymaking—and wouldn’t have relented until asserting myself to the fullest; yet now I simply kept silent and remained reserved.
It wasn’t merely my mouth staying quiet—from the very pit of my gut, no urge to resist arose at all.

It seems that at this time, I was only thinking that working would suffice.
As long as I could work—as long as this wavering soul could remain drifting within my mortal frame—then so long as I didn’t force myself to destroy what couldn’t fully die, whether being a miner ranked above or below others, profitable or not—none of it seemed to matter.
So long as I could secure work—regardless of what grandiose lies they might spin about the job’s rank, nature, or outcomes that contradicted my own views; regardless of those lies being mere strategic ploys to recruit me; regardless even of how accepting such fabrications might stain my integrity as a reasoning being—none of it seemed to matter in the slightest.
In times like these, even complex people become ruthlessly simple.

Moreover, when I heard the word "miner," I felt an inexplicable sense of pleasure.
I had left home resolved first and foremost that I might die.
This had shifted to secondly not needing to die but wanting to go somewhere without people.
Before I knew it, this too had shifted, transforming thirdly into a resolve to work regardless of circumstances.
Now then, when it came to working, I’d prefer something closer to the second resolve rather than ordinary labor—or advancing a step further, what’s truly desirable would be work connected to the first.
Though unbeknownst to me, my mind had shifted through first, second, and third resolves—this state of mind that advanced while transforming maintained faint connections in the haze, brushing past them as they slipped away, yet turning back to gaze longingly at their origins even as it was compelled forward.
The resolve simply to work appeared neither so abrupt as to break free from the second resolve, nor had it strayed so far as to sever ties with the first.
Working while being in a place without people—if I could labor in a state closest to death—the final resolve would proceed as intended while partially fulfilling my original purpose.
As the name suggests, mining is a profession conducted underground, never seeing sunlight.
While remaining in the mortal world yet diving beneath it into darkness, facing ore and earth, one could be spared from hearing worldly voices.
It must be gloomy.
That very quality was what I needed most then.
The world teems with people, but none could possibly be better suited to being a miner than I.
Mining was my true calling.
Of course I hadn’t thought it through this clearly at the time—but when I heard "miner," I felt an inexplicable gloominess, and that gloominess in turn brought an inexplicable pleasure.
Now that I look back on it, it still strikes me as nothing more than someone else’s affair.

Then I said to the man in the padded coat:

“I intend to work as hard as I can, but will you make me a miner?”

At this, the man in the padded coat adopted an unexpectedly magnanimous air,

“Becoming a miner right off ain’t easy, but I’ll make sure it happens long as I put in a word.”

Since he said this, I thought perhaps that’s how it worked and remained silent for a while, whereupon the tea shop proprietress spoke up again.

“If Mr. Chouzo puts in a word, becoming a miner’s guaranteed.”

It was then that I first learned the man in the padded coat was called Chouzo.
Afterwards, when we rode trains together or disembarked, I too would seize this man and address him as “Mr. Chouzo” several times.
Yet even now I don’t know which characters compose “Chouzo.”
What I’ve written here is naturally a phonetic approximation.
How peculiar that while I could verbally recall the name of this man who yanked me by the nose upon my first flight from home—who redirected me toward unforeseen directions and utterly transformed my existence—I remained unable to commit its written form to paper.

Now then, since Mr. Chouzo and the tea shop proprietress assured me I could definitely become a miner, I supposed that meant I could as well,

“Well then, I earnestly ask for your assistance.”

I requested.
However, I didn’t know how one went about becoming a miner from this tea shop—where to go or what procedures were required.

After all, since they were urging me this strongly, once I said “I earnestly ask for your assistance,” I assumed Mr. Chouzo would surely handle it and remained silent without asking anything further.
Then Mr. Chouzo energetically lifted the hem of his padded coat from the folding stool,

“Well then, let’s head out right away. You all set? Make sure you don’t leave anything behind,” he said.
When I had left home with nothing but the clothes on my back, there could be nothing else to forget besides what was on my person.
So,
“There’s nothing.”

I stood up, but upon meeting the proprietress's gaze, I realized I had forgotten the crucial payment for the fried buns. Mr. Chouzo maintained an unperturbed expression, already halfway outside the reed screen as he watched the street. I took out the frog-mouthed purse containing thirty-two sen from my pocket and paid for three plates of buns, then added five sen for the tea while I was at it. I ended up completely forgetting about paying for the buns and couldn't recall it. But at that moment, the proprietress said:

"Once you become a miner, save up plenty and come by again on your way back."

I remember her saying.

After that I quit being a miner, but I never had another chance to visit that tea shop.
Then I followed Mr. Chouzo back to that same tedious pine grove, trudging down a straight path that kicked dust up to my insteps—only to find our interminable journey from before exchanged this time for one that ended with unexpected speed.
By the time I noticed the pines had vanished, we emerged at the entrance of an unfamiliar inn resembling Itabashi Highway.
Just like on Itabashi Highway, horse-drawn carriages rumbled past.
Mr. Chouzo—who had gone a step ahead—turned around and,

“You care to ride the carriage?”
When he asked,
“I could ride.”

“I could ride,” I answered.
Then this time,
“You don’t mind walking instead?”
he posed the opposite question.
“I don’t mind not riding,”
I answered.
Mr. Chouzo asked for the third time,

“What’ll you do?”

he said,

“I don’t care either way.”

I answered.
Before long, the carriage had gone far away.

“Well then, let’s walk.”

Mr. Chouzo started walking.
I also started walking.
When I looked ahead, the dust from the carriage that had just passed glared in the sunlight, making the road appear a turbid yellow.
Before long, pedestrian traffic gradually increased.
The townscape gradually grew more impressive.
In time we emerged into an area thriving like Ushigome’s Kagurazaka.
The storefronts around here, the look of the people, their clothing—it was all exactly like Tokyo.
Those like Mr. Chouzo were scarcely to be seen.
I said to Mr. Chouzo,

“What is this place called?”

When I asked, Mr. Chouzo—

“Here? You don’t know this place?”

He looked surprised but, without laughing, promptly told me. So I learned the name of the place but will refrain from stating it here. Evidently finding it quite strange that I hadn’t known the name of this bustling town, Mr. Chouzo—

“You there, where on earth were you born?”

he inquired. Reflecting on it now, the fact that Mr. Chouzo had never once asked about my past or background seemed somewhat excessively careless for a man who recruits people, but I later came to understand this fellow possessed an inherently indifferent nature toward such matters. This question at the time was merely a curiosity born of his own shock at my ignorance. As evidence, I—

“In Tokyo.”

When I answered,

“Is that so?”

Having said that, without asking anything further, he pulled me along and turned down a side street.

To tell the truth, I was the child of someone who had held a position of considerable standing. Though complicated circumstances I couldn't endure had led me to flee my family home, it wasn't purely reckless spite or resentment toward my parents that drove me. When my growing distaste for the world at large made even my own family home feel oppressive, I reached a point where I could no longer bear to look upon my parents' faces or those of my relatives. I realized this was dire and tried to regain my composure, but it was too late. The more frantically I sought solid ground, the deeper my disgust grew. Finally, the stopper of endurance blew out all at once, and patience's defenses collapsed entirely. That night, I fled my family home for good.

When I examined the origins of the matter, at its center lay a single girl.
And beside that girl stood yet another.
Around these two girls there were parents.
There were relatives.
Society enveloped everything without exception.
Yet the first girl would act accommodating or confrontational toward me.
Then through some karmic twist, I too would have to start acting accommodating or confrontational.
But I was a person born with an unfulfilled promise toward the second girl that made such accommodating and confrontational behavior untenable.
For someone my age, I had a remarkably clear understanding of my position.
The more I felt this was inexcusable, the more accommodating or confrontational I became.
In the end, it wasn’t just my outward behavior that changed—the very structure of things began transforming.
The second girl watched this with resentment.
Parents were watching. Relatives were watching.
Society was watching too.
I strained to conceal how my heart kept stretching and shrinking, twisting and contorting, but with the first girl persistently refusing to cease—recklessly expanding herself here, contracting there—there remained no possibility of completing this concealment.
I had come under the scrutiny of both parents and relatives.
They deemed it improper.
I hadn’t thought myself suspicious, but as I listened more closely, their notion of impropriety turned out to be quite different.
I tried offering various explanations, but they simply wouldn’t listen.
While considering it supremely inconvenient that my own parents didn’t trust a word I said, I simultaneously began to realize that remaining near the first girl might lead to unforeseeable consequences—indeed, circumstances might compel me to commit some truly improper act that defied all explanation.

Yet I simply couldn't bring myself to leave.
Moreover, my sense of having wronged the second girl—this awareness of having committed an inexcusable act—grew more intense daily. In this manner, incompatible emotions assailed me from all directions like tangled threads of five colors: pull one strand here and the fibers there grew taut; loosen them there and this side got yanked—a configuration where my disordered mind could find no unraveling, no matter how I tried.
I had devised all manner of schemes, contorting myself to the point of self-revulsion, but when matters stubbornly refused to resolve as I wished—I finally understood.
In other words, since I'm the one suffering, there's no path but to contain this bitterness myself.
Until now, while suffering myself yet manipulating others, I had persistently relied solely on external means—desperately hoping that somehow a resolution convenient for myself might materialize.
In other words, whenever I encountered people on the street, I would stand rooted in place, endlessly contriving ways to make them step aside into the mud for me.
Remaining as this unmoving self, I had been fixated on the impossible proposition of trying to make only others move as I desired.
While I stand before the mirror, fretting over my reflection won't change a thing.
If the mirror of societal norms cannot be easily moved, then the wisest course is for me to step away from its reflection.

And so I resolved to vanish like smoke from these tangled relationships.
But to truly become smoke required no other method than suicide.
Thus I repeatedly tried killing myself.
Yet each attempt made me flinch and stop.
I finally understood that suicide isn't something one improves at through practice.
If sudden death proved impossible, self-ruin would have to suffice.
But as I'd said before - being the child of well-positioned parents who provided daily comforts - self-destruction at home was unfeasible.
Flight became absolutely necessary.

I considered that even if I fled, I probably wouldn’t be able to forget these relationships.
I also considered that I might be able to forget.
In short, I thought that unless I tried, I wouldn’t know.
Even if anguish clung to my flight, that was my own affair.
I thought that those left behind would surely be saved because of my flight.
Not only that, but even if I were to flee, it didn’t mean I’d remain in flight forever.
Because sudden self-destruction proved difficult, I resolved to first attempt flight as that initial step.
So if even after fleeing I still found myself pursued by the past and suffering, then there would be no harm in slowly setting about devising a plan for self-ruin at that point.
If even that failed, then I’d finally kill myself.—Putting this into words made me sound like an utterly worthless person, but since stating the facts plainly amounted to nothing more than this, there was no helping it.
Moreover, writing it this way only rendered it trivial, but were I to narrate those hazy aspirations of that time in their true haziness, I thought even this would sufficiently qualify me as a novel's protagonist.

Even without that embellishment, had I written down everything from that time exactly as it happened—the circumstances of those two girls, the daily shifting situations, my own anxieties and torments, my parents' opinions and relatives' advice—it would have made for quite an engaging serialized story. But lacking both pen and time for such endeavors, I resolved to abandon the idea and confine myself instead to relating this singular miner incident.

Having thus resolved to flee under these circumstances, I was prepared from the start to be buried alive—nay, was resolved to bury myself—yet try as I might to cast off all propriety, I still couldn’t bring myself to tell Mr. Chouzo my family name or personal history.
It wasn’t just Mr. Chouzo—I didn’t want to tell any human being.
All people were fools—I myself was in such a pathetic state that I could barely bring myself to speak of things within my own power, dragging myself along in this wretched condition.
Thus while I found it strange that Mr. Chouzo—unbecoming of a labor recruiter—never once pressed me about my background, I felt secret relief.
To tell the truth, at that time I hadn’t yet honed the art of lying and considered deception a grave transgression, so had he questioned me, I surely would have been at a loss.

Following Mr. Chouzo and turning into a side street, I hadn't walked more than a block or two before the townscape suddenly thinned out, patches of rice fields glimpsed through narrow gaps here and there.
Though the main street had been so bustling, I realized this prosperity extended only in width—then I was abruptly made to turn another corner and thrust back into a lively quarter.
At the end of that street stood the train station.
It was at this moment that I finally understood: unless I boarded the train, the procedures to become a miner wouldn’t be completed.
In fact, I had assumed that even if the mine’s branch office existed in this town—that first they would take me there, and from there officials would escort me to the mountains.

After making our way those five or six ken toward the station entrance,

“Mr. Chouzo—are we getting on the train?”

I called out from behind as I asked.
This marked the first time I’d addressed him as “Mr. Chouzo.”
He turned slightly—showing no suspicion at being named by a stranger—and promptly replied,

“Aye, we’re gettin’ on.”

With that answer, he strode into the station.

I stood at the station entrance and began to think.
Is that man actually intending to ride the train all the way to our destination with me? If so, he’s being excessively kind.
No matter how you looked at it, there was something strange about him showing such meticulous care to a complete stranger like me.
There was a chance that fellow might be a swindler.
I suddenly realized—as if it were some belated revelation—the triviality of it all, and abruptly grew disgusted with boarding the train.
Perhaps I should just bolt from the station again, I thought—swiveling my feet—which until then had been aimed toward the platform—toward the entrance instead.
Yet evidently still lacking the resolve to start walking, I stood vacantly staring at the red noren curtain of the station-front tea stall when a loud voice suddenly called out to stop me from afar.
The instant I heard this voice, I recognized its owner as Mr. Chouzo—the same voice that had pursued me since the pine grove.
When I turned around, Mr. Chouzo was leaning his face out at an angle from the distance, looking intently this way while nodding his head up and down.
Apparently, his body was concealed behind the latrine wall.
Thinking that since he had gone to the trouble of calling me, I walked toward Mr. Chouzo's face when—

“You there—how ’bout takin’ care o’ business ’fore we board the train?”

“You there—how ’bout takin’ care o’ business ’fore we board the train?” he said.
I initially declined—having no need for such business—but as he showed no sign of relenting, I ended up standing beside Mr. Chouzo and urinated; a sordid affair.
At that moment, my thoughts shifted again.
I have nothing but my body.
Even if someone were to take me or deceive me, I’ve neither honor nor property to begin with—a hopeless article from the very start.
My confusion of yesterday’s self with today’s self, which made me fear Mr. Chouzo, was akin to someone fretting over salary garnishment after already being dismissed from their post.
Mr. Chouzo may not be an educated man, but to see through my appearance and realize at a glance that I couldn’t be deceived required neither education nor anything else.
So it occurred to me that perhaps he was recruiting me as a miner to collect a recruitment fee afterward.
In that case, that would be fine.
While thinking that it would be settled by giving a portion of my wages, I took care of business.
In truth, arriving at this conclusion required this much effort and reasoning within barely any time.
That even after exerting this much effort, I still couldn’t comprehend Mr. Chouzo’s role as a recruiter in the purest sense of what’s called a recruiter was because I was nineteen years old.

The disadvantage of youth was truly vexing—here I’d struggled every which way to reach this recruiter’s very doorstep, yet still found myself constrained by absurd reserve, half-convinced his kindness might have sprung from some meddlesome goodwill.

In truth, when the two of us had finished our business and shuffled our way to the third-class waiting area's entrance, I straightened with uncharacteristic formality and said this to Mr. Chouzo.

“I’m terribly obliged you’d go out of your way to escort me all that distance, but this is quite sufficient.”

Then Mr. Chouzo made a strange face without replying and silently stared in my direction, so I wondered if my way of expressing gratitude had been improper,

"I'm grateful for all your help."
"From now on I'll manage alone, so please don't trouble yourself any further."

Having said this, I bowed my head repeatedly.
Then,

"You think you can handle this alone?"

said Mr. Chouzo.
At that moment alone, he seemed to have dropped the 'you'.

"I can manage something."

When I replied,

"How so?"

When he countered with this question, I was a bit flustered, but

"If I ask you now and have it settled, then when I go ahead and mention your name up there, they'll make arrangements."

As I fidgeted through this explanation,

"You there—thinkin' my name alone'll get you straight into minin'? That's where you're dead wrong."
"Bein' a miner ain't no simple matter."

I got snapped at.
With no alternative,

"But I couldn't possibly trouble you like this."

Having offered this apology-excuse hybrid,

"No need for such airs—I'll see you clear to the end, so quit your frettin'. Even sleeves brushin' past each other's got its karmic ties... Ha ha ha ha!"

he laughed.
At last—

“Thank you very much.”

He expressed his thanks.

Then, as we sat side by side on the bench, people gradually began converging on the station.
Most were country folk.
Among them stood figures like Mr. Chouzo in hanten-padded workmen’s coats shouldering carrying poles.
Others were Edo-style merchants sporting glossy aprons and bowler hats dented at odd angles.
When footsteps and voices turned our bench perimeter clamorous,the ticket window door clattered open.
The restless crowd surged up en masse toward the iron grating.
Through this commotion Mr.Chouzo remained preternaturally composed.
Clenching his trademark Asahi cigarette—curved like an inverted tachi sword—between thick lips he pivoted his angular face two-thirds toward me,

“D’you got the train fare?”

Mr. Chouzo asked.

Though this may expose my naivety once more, to tell the truth, the matter of train fare hadn't crossed my mind until this very moment. While thinking I had to board the train, it never once occurred to me how much money I'd need to pay or even whether payment was required—the height of foolishness. I fully acknowledge my foolishness, but it remains a fact that until confronted with this question, I'd maintained perfect composure under the delusion I might ride for free. Though I couldn't quite grasp it, there must have been some peculiar dependency lurking deep within me—this notion that as long as I clung to Mr. Chouzo, he'd somehow see me through. However, I never consciously thought that way. Even now, though I say it myself, it's hard to admit that was truly the case. Yet had I lacked this unconscious reassurance, no matter how foolish or nineteen-year-old I might be, I could not have come to the station without so much as considering the "train" in "train fare." Despite relying so heavily on Mr. Chouzo, what reasoning led me to flatly refuse his company with polite refusals like "I needn't trouble you further" and "I'll go alone from here"? Having encountered such situations repeatedly, I eventually formulated my own theory: just as diseases have incubation periods, so too do our thoughts and emotions have latent phases. During this latent period, though possessing those very thoughts and being governed by those emotions, I remain completely unaware of them. Moreover, should these thoughts never surface through external circumstances, though one might spend a lifetime governed by them, I would insist I'd never suffered any such influence. The proof stands here—I proceed to demonstrate contrary actions and words. Yet those very actions appear contradictory when viewed from without. There are times when even I find myself perplexed. There are times when, without realizing one's perplexity, one comes to suffer unforeseen torments. The reason I was tormented by that girl mentioned earlier was ultimately this failure to perceive the latent presence within myself. Had someone injected some potent poison to exterminate this entity before it invaded my mind, how many human contradictions and worldly misfortunes might have been averted. Yet that things refuse to conform to reason becomes pitiful beyond measure for both others and oneself.

Thus, when Mr. Chouzo asked me, “Do you have the train fare?” I was jolted and not a little flustered.
Subtracting the cost of buns and tea from thirty-two sen left nothing.
Despite having no train fare yet readily agreeing to become a miner—when I realized what a simpleton I was being—my cheeks suddenly burned.
Thinking back on that time now, I can’t help finding even myself endearing.
Were this now, even dunned for debt in a streetcar, I’d only feel troubled—never blush.
As for showing sacred shame’s blush to some broker like Mr. Chouzo—such wasteful concern never once crossed my mind.

For some reason, I wanted to tell Mr. Chouzo that I had the train fare.
But since I didn’t actually have it, I couldn’t tell a lie.
If I could have gotten away with an outright lie, I might have resolved to do so—but here at the ticket counter’s brink, any falsehood would instantly unravel, making this predicament disastrous.
To say "I don’t have the train fare" was excruciating.
The problem was that I was still a child—not entirely a child, but one beginning to outgrow childhood, already bearing budding desires, tormented by anxieties, possessing what passed for common sense yet didn’t—making everything all the more ill-suited.
So it became difficult to state whether I had the train fare or not,

"I have some."

I answered.
It would have been fine had those words emerged without hesitation, like an echo meeting its sound—but coming as they did after I'd so wastefully reddened my cheeks and adopted that terribly apologetic demeanor, what a fool I was.

“Some? You’ve got how much?”

Mr. Chouzo asked in return.
Even when I flushed crimson or cringed with embarrassment, Mr. Chouzo remained utterly indifferent.
He merely seemed to want to ask how much I had.
However, unfortunately, I myself wasn’t entirely clear on exactly how much remained.
All told, from the thirty-two sen I had, after eating three plates of buns and paying five sen for tea, what remained wasn’t much.
It might as well not exist.

“I have only a little.”
“It doesn’t seem nearly enough.”

To tell the truth,

"The shortfall—I'll cover it. Don't fret,"
"Just hand over whatever you've got."

Contrary to my expectations, he remained perfectly calm.
I first considered how thoroughly improper it would appear to count out one-sen coins or two-sen coins in this situation, then—equally loath to be seen hiding what little I possessed as if it were nothing—drew out the usual frog-mouthed purse from my breast and handed it over intact to Mr. Chouzo.
This frog-mouthed purse was an exceptionally fine article crafted from crocodile skin, a luxury item about which I’d received thorough lectures from Father when he gave it to me—how costly it was.
Mr. Chouzo received the frog-mouthed purse and gazed at it for a moment, but—

“Hmph. Not cheap.”

Having said that, he stuffed it into the hidden pocket of his workman’s coat without even checking the contents.
That he didn’t check the contents was fortunate,

“All right, I’ll get your ticket for you. You stay right here and don’t move a muscle.”
“If we get separated, you won’t become a miner, got it?”

With this final warning, he left the bench and strode briskly toward the ticket window.
As I watched, he entered the crowd and waited for his turn to buy a ticket without once looking back.
Ever since we left the pine grove tea stall earlier, Mr. Chouzo had been glued to my side—to the point where if he occasionally stepped away, he’d call out even when emerging from the restroom—yet upon taking the frog-mouthed purse and buying the ticket, he now seemed to have completely forgotten about me.
There were just too many people; he probably hadn’t time to keep an eye on me.
In contrast, I kept my eyes fixed on Mr. Chouzo’s retreating figure, watching with strange intensity from afar as he gradually approached the ticket window each time the purchasing order advanced person by person.
The frog-mouthed purse was splendid, but if opened, only copper coins would spill out.
If opened and seen, Mr. Chouzo would surely be shocked—“What? Is this all you have?”
I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.
As I tormented myself over needless worries—how much he’d have to cover—Mr. Chouzo soon returned with his usual expression.

“Here, this one’s yours.”

With that, he handed me a red ticket and said nothing about any shortage.
Feeling awkward, I too simply—

“Thank you.”

I received it and said nothing about the fare.
I left the matter of the frog-mouthed purse as it was.
Mr. Chouzo, for his part, never mentioned the frog-mouthed purse again.
Thus, the frog-mouthed purse had ultimately ended up being given to Mr. Chouzo.

Then we finally boarded the train.
Inside there were no particular incidents.
However when a man covered in boils with festering eyes and pockmarks sat beside me, I suddenly felt ill and moved across to the opposite side.
When I think back now on my state at that time, it seems quite strange.
Having fled my family home and resolved to stoop even to becoming a miner—I shouldn’t have been daunted by most things—yet still couldn’t bring myself to sit near anything unsightly.
Even had I been a day from suicide under those circumstances, I surely would have fled from sitting next to those festering eyes.
If that was the case, you’d think I’d structure everything into neat paragraphs—but no—which was precisely the problem.
First off—when encountering Mr. Chouzo or the tea shop proprietress—I acted completely unlike my usual self—utterly docile without so much as a murmur.
Not a shred of argument—assertion—fighting spirit—none remained.
Admittedly this was during considerable hunger—some allowance should be made—but I can’t believe it was solely due to an empty stomach.
Contradictions—since yet another surfaced—I should discard this line of thought.

I have a habit of conjuring up the most vividly colored adventures from that period of my life whenever time allows. Whenever I begin thinking about it—since it concerns my former self—I wield the scalpel of rigorous analysis without restraint, dissecting my psyche crosswise and lengthwise, yet the conclusion remains invariably the same: ultimately incomprehensible. I mustn’t claim that just because it happened long ago, I’ve forgotten it all. An experience as vivid as this will never occur again in my lifetime. Yet I must not dismiss this as mere disordered reasoning failing to grasp essentials—it was recklessness born from the imprudence of those under twenty. At the time itself I became entangled in chaos and acted with reckless abandon, but the process leading up to that blind action couldn’t truly be comprehended without awaiting critique from today’s calm intellect. Even this mining journey, being a dream of the past today, can be written about in terms comprehensible to others. It’s not merely that romantic notions have faded, granting me courage to lay everything bare in writing. If I hadn’t dragged my former self before my present eyes to scrutinize every detail, I couldn’t have written even this much. Laypeople believe experiences written in the moment are most accurate, but this gravely mistakes truth. What we call present circumstances—driven by momentary impulses—readily convey egregious errors. Had I recorded my mining expedition’s raw emotions in some diary then, it would have produced something childish, affected, and riddled with falsehoods. By no means was there any obligation to present it polished for others’ viewing like this.

When I moved across to the opposite seat to avoid the man with festering eyes, Mr. Chouzo merely glanced briefly at me and the man before settling back into his original seat without moving. I couldn’t help being astonished at how much more robust Mr. Chouzo’s nerves were compared to mine. Not only that, but when he started conversing with the man with festering eyes as if nothing were wrong, my patience wore decidedly thin.

“Off to the mountains again?”

“Ah, taking another one along.”

“That one?”

The man with festering eyes looked in my direction. Mr. Chouzo must have started to reply at that moment, but upon suddenly meeting my gaze, he closed his thick lips and turned away. Circling around that face, the man with festering eyes—

“You’ll make quite a profit again,” he said.

The moment I heard these words, I immediately thrust my face out the window.
And then I spat out of the window.
Then, that saliva was blown back by the train's draft into my face.
I felt somehow repulsed.
On the bench in front, two unfamiliar men were talking.

“Suppose a thief breaks in.”

“Sneaking around?”

“What? A robber.”
“And then, when he threatens them with a drawn blade or something—”

“Yeah, and then?”

“So, suppose the master, claiming he’s a thief, gives him counterfeit money and sends him packing.”

“Yeah, and then?”

“Later, when the thief realizes it’s counterfeit money, he’ll go around telling everyone that shopkeeper’s a counterfeiter, a counterfeiter! In front of Judge Tsune here—which one do you think committed the worse crime?”

“Which one’re ya on about?”

“The shopkeeper and the thief, I mean.”

“Let me see...”

The other man was struggling to reach a verdict.
I grew drowsy, so I leaned my head against the window and dozed off.

When I sleep, time just vanishes into thin air. That's precisely why sleep becomes the sole refuge for those tormented by time's passage. Dying would likely achieve the same end. Yet death—deceptively simple in concept—remains stubbornly elusive in practice. For ordinary folk, substituting death with sleep proves infinitely more practical. Practitioners of judo sometimes have comrades constrict their throats. On interminable summer days when lethargy reigns supreme, they'd lie lifeless in dojos for five full minutes after having their breath stopped, only to be revived and feel reborn—or so I've heard told. As for myself, haunted by the fear that such rough treatment might finish me off completely, I've never dared request this drastic remedy. Sleep may lack such dramatic efficacy, but neither does it risk permanent oblivion—making it nature's supreme gift to the anxious, the anguished, those crushed by pain, and above all to those who choose mining as a living suicide. This divine boon now chanced to descend upon my own head. Before I could mutter thanks for this mercy, I slipped into blissful stupor, annihilating great chunks of time that—so long as one draws breath—must otherwise be consciously endured. But then my eyes snapped open. Reflecting afterward, I realized that having dozed off while the train was moving meant its sudden halt disrupted sleep's rhythm, sending it scattering to the winds. It seems that while asleep, I retain only the capacity to forget time's passage while remaining responsive to spatial movement. Therefore, to truly erase my torment demands true death. Yet once torment fades, revival inevitably becomes desirable—so my honest ideal would be alternating between death and life like changing clothes. Now, writing this may sound like flippant jesting—rest assured it's no such frivolous fancy. I mean every word with deadly seriousness. As proof—this ideal didn't spring from some whimsical afterthought while reminiscing—no—when the train halted and I jolted awake, this truth emerged fully formed.

Because it felt foolish and might seem comical, such an absurd sensation had honestly arisen within me at that time—there was no helping it. The closer this feeling verged on the comical, the more pitiable I found my former self. For it becomes clear that I had been in such a wretched state back then that I needed to seriously cling to this hope defying all common sense.

When I suddenly opened my eyes, the train had already stopped.
Before registering that the train had stopped, what first arose was the realization that I had been riding a train at all.
No sooner had this thought formed than everything came surging up from my skull's depths in a seething mass—Mr.Chouzo being here becoming a miner having no train fare fleeing my family home what have I done this is what I've done—like some twelve- or thirteen-year-old's tantrum congealing all at once.
To speak of its speed—should I call it beyond language? Compare it to lightning? It was terrifying enough to chill.
I later heard how drowning men supposedly see their entire lives flash before them in perfect detail—judging by this experience, that could hardly be false.
In short, with that same swiftness I became aware of my actual position and circumstances in the real world.
The moment this awareness struck, revulsion flooded through me.
This revulsion defied description—yet having no better words for it, I'll simply call it revulsion.
Anyone who's felt similarly would grasp my meaning instantly from this alone—"Ah, that."
While those who haven't? Fortunate souls—may they never know.

Before long, two or three of those who had been riding in the same compartment stood up.
From outside, two or three more people entered.
The way they darted their eyes about as if choosing where to stake their claim, paced restlessly with expressions of checking for forgotten items, then pointlessly shifted positions to crane necks out windows or yawned—all these merged at once, beginning to collapse the world into a state of upheaval. I became aware that everything surrounding me was stirring into motion.
Upon becoming aware, I considered myself an outcast unlike ordinary people—one who wouldn't have his mood swayed by others even when everyone else grew active.
Though their sleeves brushed past and knees pressed together, my soul alone felt like a ghost that had strayed from another realm—utterly unconnected, without ties or lineage.
Up until now, I had somehow managed to keep pace with others, but the moment the train stopped, the world suddenly turned cheerful and surged upward.
I suddenly turned gloomy and sank downward; the moment I thought there was no way I could interact, the thickness of my back and chest shriveled away, my organs pressed flat as a sheet of paper.
Instantly, only my soul slipped out beneath the ground.
I was sinking into depression, my truly inexcusable and shameful state of mind left wavering unsteadily.

Just then, Mr. Chouzo came and stood before me,

“Still not awake?”
“We’re getting off here.”

he cautioned.
At last realizing Ah, right—I stood up.
Even as my soul was halfway escaping to the earth’s depths, so long as blood flowed through my limbs, it would return when called—how strange that was.
Yet when this intensified further, my soul refused to cling to my body as I wished.
There was a time afterward when my ship wrecked off Taiwan—my soul had nearly lost all patience with me, plunging me into dire straits.
There’s always another tier above.
When I proceeded with reassurance, thinking this must be some final destination or dead end, I met with unforeseen consequences.
Yet at this moment, this state of mind stood as both freshest and most bitterly experienced for me.

Exiting through the ticket gate while sniffing at the hem of Mr. Chouzo's padded workman's coat, I emerged onto the main street of a large post town.
It was a single straight thoroughfare yet unexpectedly wide—no, more than that—so straight it could clarify one’s very state of mind.
I stood in the center of this wide thoroughfare and gazed down toward the distant outskirts of the post town.
At that moment, I was struck by an uncanny sensation.
Because this sensation too was something novel in my life, I’ll take the opportunity to record it here.
I had just managed to call back my soul from where it nearly escaped through the bottom of my lungs, regained some semblance of human reason, and shown my face at the inn—for with each inhaled breath, my soul had only just now fluttered back into the womb of my body, still floating unsteadily.
I was not the least bit settled.
Therefore, whether existing in this world, disembarking from this train, exiting this station, or standing at this post town's center—it was as though my soul had grudgingly performed these courtesies out of obligation. My consciousness remained so dull that I could never perceive these acts as earnest undertakings or specialized duties I’d assumed as my own work.
So there I was—staggering, on the verge of fainting, having lost all interest—when I opened my dull, pot-like eyes to find that the boundaries which until now had confined me within the train’s box-like compartment, rigidly partitioned on all sides, had in an instant raced some ten cho ahead along the single straight thoroughfare.
Moreover, at its terminus loomed a mountain so lush it seemed to drip verdure—while obstructing my vision, it maintained a non-intrusive distance, drawing my dulled eyes into its emerald embrace.
And so I somehow ended up feeling exactly as I’ve just described.

First, being likened to a great whetstone—so much so that it had become proverbial—this flat, straight road stretched unobstructed and refreshing. Put more plainly, it didn't let eyes wander. Constructed to draw you forward without hesitation, it required no reservations or formalities. But that wasn't all. When lured into following its single unbroken line, you could walk endlessly onward. Strangely enough, eyes refused to turn toward side streets. The straighter the road extended, the more eyes felt compelled to follow rigidly ahead—an oppressive discomfort tightening one's gaze. I firmly believed this grand thoroughfare had been shaped parallel to vision's natural freedom.

Looking at the house rows flanking both sides—some tiled roofs among thatched ones—no distinction mattered between them. The farther they stretched into distance, roofs gradually lowered until hundreds of dwellings seemed skewered by a single wire gathering their slopes into orderly procession along a diagonal line stretching endlessly forward. With every step they drew closer to earth.

The two-story buildings bracketing my position—inns I vaguely recalled—soared high enough to make me crane my neck upward when viewed nearby. Yet peering through eaves at town's edge revealed structures squat enough to slip between spread fingers.

Noren curtains flapped in wind currents; waist-high partitions displayed painted clams—minor variations dotting this relentless geometry of eaves chasing toward horizon where one ri distance collapsed into half-second perception span.

As I mentioned before, my soul remained in a wretched hangover state, dazed beyond measure.
No sooner had I exited the station than I collided abruptly with this vivid—so vivid it could enlighten the blind—landscape.
My soul needed to be startled.
And startled I was.
Though undoubtedly startled, transforming the inertia of my previous vague, listless wandering into sudden alertness would require time.
This uncanny sensation I had described earlier arose precisely between my soul's failure to rouse itself and my realization of the landscape's piercing clarity—that precarious moment when psychological states shift.

This landscape stretched so unobstructed, stood so vivid—a bracing sight utterly dissimilar to my previous emotional state—but once my soul stirred with surprise and earnestly confronted this external world, however luminous its clarity, however unimpeded its flow, it all hardened into solid reality.
Once something becomes a fact of the real world, no matter how divine its radiance, its preciousness diminishes.
Fortunately, because my soul existed in a peculiar state—possessing the capacity to perceive this vivid external world as vividness itself, yet lacking perceptual acuity sufficient to recognize this as tangible reality—I beheld this straight road, these straight eaves, as a vivid dream indistinguishable from fact.
With a clarity unobtainable in this world and the cool refreshing pleasure that accompanied it, I felt as though I had encountered a vision from another realm.
I stood at the center of a great thoroughfare.
The thoroughfare stretched endlessly long and ran perfectly straight.
If I walked on, I could reach beyond it.
I could indeed pass through this post town.
The houses on either side could be touched if I reached out.
If one were to go up to the second floor, I could ascend.
While fully comprehending that it was possible, I had completely lost the very concept of possibility, standing there receiving into my eyes only the impression of acute sensory perception.

I am not a scholar, so I don't know what to call this feeling.
Unfortunately, not knowing its name led me to write at such length.
Those with learning might laugh at such things, but there's no helping it.
Afterward, I occasionally experienced similar sensations.
Yet never had one struck with such intensity as at that moment.
Therefore, thinking it might prove instructive somehow, I made particular effort to record it here.
But this feeling vanished the instant it arose.

When I looked, the sun was already sinking. Since it was early summer—the time of long days—judging by the sunlight’s angle, it had just passed four o’clock and likely wouldn’t reach five yet. Perhaps being near the mountains made the weather less fair than I’d anticipated—though with sunlight still breaking through, one couldn’t call it poor. When I gazed obliquely at that sun illuminating the town’s straight stretch, I took its position for west. Though I’d meant to travel ever northward after leaving Tokyo, stepping off the train left me utterly disoriented. Descending through this town along its ruler-straight main street until it ended at a mountain—which by direction must still mark north—I concluded Mr. Chouzo and I remained bound northward as before.

The mountain appeared to lie at a considerable distance.
Nor was its height by any means low.
The color was a deep verdant blue, and perhaps because only where sunlight struck from the side gleamed, the shaded portions appeared as darkened azure depths.
Though this might be less due to the sun's angle than to the abundance of cedar and cypress trees.
In any case, it appeared densely overgrown and profoundly deep.
When I shifted my gaze from the tilting sun to survey this verdant blue mountain, I wondered whether that peak stood alone or connected to others deeper within.
Walking alongside Mr. Chouzo, gradually making our way toward the mountains, I found that no matter how I looked, what lay visible stretched endlessly onward—those peaks seemed to form nothing but an unbroken chain leading ever northward.
This could be said to result from our walking toward the mountains yet never quite reaching their foothills—merely advancing without progress—thereby creating a sensation of being drawn ever deeper into their recesses.
As the sun gradually sank, where azure mountain layers and azure sky strata forgot their proper domains to carelessly encroach upon each other's territories, my eyes could no longer distinguish earth from heavens. Thus when shifting my gaze from mountain to sky, I would forget having left solid ground behind, still perceiving that celestial expanse as the peak's continuation—or so one might explain this perceptual dissolution.
And that sky was immensely vast.
And it stretched endlessly northward.
And so Mr. Chouzo and I continued northward.

I had left Tokyo yesterday evening, arrived at Senju Bridge with my lined kimono still tucked up, and persisted in remaining bare-legged even when entering the pine groves, sitting at tea shops, or boarding trains. Even so, it had been rather hot. However, since entering this town, my bare legs somehow felt cold. It was less that I felt cold than lonely. As I moved only my legs in silence alongside Mr. Chouzo, it felt as though we were passing straight through autumn itself. Then I became hungry again. To write repeatedly of becoming hungry seemed rather improper, and becoming hungry at this juncture was hardly poetic—but there was no helping it. In reality, I had become hungry. Since leaving home, just by walking without eating proper meals, I immediately became famished. No matter how wretched I felt, no matter what torments plagued me, even if my soul seemed ready to flee—my stomach alone would empty itself completely. No—or rather, perhaps it would have been more accurate to rephrase it as needing to offer up a meal to appease my soul. It was rather crude to say, but I walked down the long town's main thoroughfare alongside Mr. Chouzo, scanning left and right to peer into the eateries lining both sides. However, this town had quite a number of eateries. Even if inns and restaurants—those higher-class establishments—were out of the question, eateries of a caliber suitable for me and Mr. Chouzo could be seen here and there. Yet Mr. Chouzo showed not the slightest indication of making preparations. Unlike that time with the horse carriage when he had asked, “You want supper?” he didn’t inquire now. Despite this, he looked around restlessly at both sides just like me, his expression clearly betraying a desire to discover something. I proceeded ever northward through the long town, summoning patience with the conviction that Mr. Chouzo would soon find a suitable place to have supper and take me inside.

I admitted my hunger, though not yet desperate enough to collapse. My stomach still held traces of those earlier buns. So walk I did, one foot after another. No sooner had I stepped from the train than my spirit threatened to give way, cast into this straight road's center where mountain air pierced through sunset's glow—a sudden chill that sharpened my appetite anew. I could endure without eating if needed. Not once did I consider begging Mr. Chouzo for food. Yet some craving lingered in my mouth, drawn endlessly to rope curtains and steaming pots behind shopfronts. When Chouzo resumed his practiced survey of storefronts left and right, my hunger swelled beyond restraint.

Nine rice shops I counted as we walked—nine establishments befitting our station. At the ninth, the interminable town finally tapered toward its edge; one more block would see us clear of civilization entirely. Desolation tightened its grip until—suddenly—another sign materialized at my right: SAKÉ AND RICE.

This must be the last chance.

Soot-stained shoji bore those characters—SAKÉ RICE FINE SIDE DISHES—their thick brushstrokes branding themselves behind my eyes with violent clarity. Even now they linger undimmed. SAKÉ'S looping curves, RICE'S angular lines, each stroke etched perfect and precise. Should dementia claim me decades hence, these five ideograms alone I could faithfully reproduce—this much I know.

As I gazed intently at what might be my final sake, rice, and fine side dishes, Mr. Chouzo too had fixed his stare on the waist-high shoji panels with strange intensity. I thought even this hardened man would surely go in to eat this time. Yet he didn't enter. Instead he halted abruptly. Peering through the shoji's paper screens, I saw something crimson shifting deep within the shadowed interior. Studying Chouzo's expression revealed his rapt attention fixed on this scarlet form. Undoubtedly human - but why would he scrutinize some red-clad stranger? The figure remained indistinct in the gloom, merely a smudge of carmine without discernible features. As I stood puzzling beside him, Red Blanket Man came bursting through the shoji panels. Some might question woolen wraps under May skies even in mountain villages, yet this man had indeed armoured himself in vermilion cloth. Beneath lay only a single handwoven summer kimono - when all was said, little different from my own threadbare attire. Though this sartorial truth emerged later; in that first explosive moment, there existed only red.

Then Mr. Chouzo suddenly strode briskly over to the red-clad man’s side,

“You there—not looking to work?”

he said.
When I had been caught by Mr. Chouzo, the first question I’d been asked was likewise: “Not looking to work?”
Since it was the same question, I thought, “Oh, so he’s going to put this one to work too?” and found myself observing the two of them with considerable interest.
At that moment, I clearly realized that this Mr. Chouzo was a man who—should he assess anyone as a suitable young man—would proposition them with “Not looking to work?”
In other words, Mr. Chouzo was in the business of putting people to work—so he had never singled me out as some uniquely qualified candidate when recommending me for miner’s work.
He must have been the sort of man who could patiently repeat “You there—not looking to work?” with mechanical precision in that stamped-out tone of his—no matter where he was, whom he encountered, or how many souls he met.
Considering this, it was remarkable he never tired of such work and kept at it for years.
Even Mr. Chouzo hadn’t been naturally suited to asking “You there—not looking to work?”
After all, he must have been compelled by unavoidable circumstances to keep rehearsing that “you there” routine.
Thinking this way, he was truly an innocent man.
In essence, he couldn’t do other work because he lacked any particular talent—yet showed no sign of being consciously troubled by this limitation—going about his business with complete nonchalance, believing there couldn’t possibly be two people in all creation besides himself capable of handling you folks.

If I had possessed such an understanding of Chouzo back then, it would have been rather amusing—but caught as I was in that moment when my soul had nearly fled its confines, such composure remained entirely beyond reach.
This understanding of Chouzo—which regards my former self as another person—has only now surfaced in the preface’s opening lines as I transcribe these youthful recollections onto paper.
So after all, it will likely vanish entirely, existing only on paper.
However, when compared with my understanding of Chouzo at that moment, it seems quite different.—

As I listened to Mr. Chouzo and Red Blanket Man converse, I realized Mr. Chouzo hadn't acknowledged my personhood in the slightest.
Though I must say, the very notion of personhood seemed rather questionable in this situation.
For one who had fled Tokyo and sunk to being a miner to prattle on about personhood was an absurd contradiction.
That much I understood perfectly well.
Now, actually taking up my pen to write 'personhood,' it felt so foolish I nearly burst out laughing.
When I compare my present self—verge of laughter at my past—to those days, it seems splendid indeed, but back then there was no room for mirth. Mr. Chouzo had clearly never recognized my personhood.

The reason being, he had caught this young man who came bursting out from behind the sake, rice, and fine side dishes, and was now persuading him to become a miner—using precisely the same tone, the same manner, the same phrases, and to delve deeper, the same degree of earnestness—as if he were my second coming.
That I found myself thinking this was, for some reason, somewhat improper.
If I were to try explaining its meaning now, it would likely amount to something like this:—

That mining was an excellent family business as Mr. Chouzo claimed—even to my then-self with ordinary judgment intact—proved utterly unconvincing.
Firstly, since miners ranked below cattle and horses in terms of social standing, I understood becoming one to be a disgrace.
I knew it was nothing to boast about.
So I understood perfectly well that even if—contrary to my assumption of being the sole candidate—Red Blanket Man were to suddenly materialize from the izakaya entrance, it wouldn’t constitute any major event worth troubling one’s nerves over.
But rather than resenting how this Red Blanket Man was being treated exactly as I had been—exactly the same—I found myself feeling that I was fundamentally no different from Red Blanket Man as a human being.
If one were to extend this sameness of treatment indefinitely, one would inevitably arrive at the strange conclusion that those being treated must therefore be fundamentally the same.
I appear to have dazedly arrived at that conclusion.
Mr. Chouzo was negotiating with Red Blanket Man about working—and Red Blanket Man was none other than myself.
Somehow I couldn't quite see him as another person standing there wrapped in a red blanket.
My soul had abandoned me, plunged into Red Blanket Man, and was being pressed by Mr. Chouzo to become a miner.
At that, I felt utterly disheartened.
While directly interacting with Mr. Chouzo, I could forget all about personhood and such matters, but the moment I saw myself becoming Red Blanket Man—watching this situation where someone was being persuaded with "You'll strike it rich!"—there was no escaping the disheartenment.
"Is this really what I am?" I wondered, my interest somewhat dampened as I closely observed Red Blanket Man.

Yet strangely enough, this Red Blanket Man responded exactly as I had.
It wasn't just about wearing a red blanket—this young man was fundamentally identical to me through and through.
At that moment, I felt profoundly hollow.
What compounded this emptiness was Mr. Chouzo's infuriating impartiality—he showed no hint that I might be better suited for mining than Red Blanket Man.
He conducted everything with mechanical precision.
Being his first recruit made me wish he'd show me some preferential treatment.—This revealed how human vanity clings relentlessly.
Even at my most desperate crossroads—to become a miner or perish—I still clung to such vanity.
That thieves observe codes and beggars maintain decorum must stem from this same vein.—Yet compared to realizing my equivalence with Red Blanket Man—which left me utterly desolate—this vanity proved almost bearable.

As I grew profoundly disheartened and stood there dazedly, the negotiation between the two men concluded in the blink of an eye.
This was not necessarily because Mr. Chouzo possessed such exceptional skill.
It was because Red Blanket Man proved foolish to that very degree.
I call this man a fool outright, but it's not at all that I look down on him in comparison to myself.
At that time—in obediently listening to Mr. Chouzo's words, in readily agreeing to become a miner, and in all other various respects—I stood entirely equivalent to this young man: a fool through and through.
Were one to stubbornly seek differences, they would amount to little more than that between someone wrapped in a red blanket and another wearing splashed-pattern cloth.
Thus when I say "fool," I mean someone as pitiable as myself—a term in which I meant to imply at least a grain of sympathy.

And so, two fools ended up trailing after Mr. Chouzo and being dragged all the way to the copper mine.
However, when I started walking shoulder to shoulder with Red Blanket Man, I suddenly noticed that my earlier futile state of mind had already vanished.
Truly, nothing comes and goes as capriciously as human perception.
Just when you find reassurance in its presence, it's already gone.
Just when you think it's absent and feel secure—no—there it lingers.
It seems to exist yet not exist—this elusive essence remains beyond grasp no matter how far one pursues it.
Later at some hot spring resort, finding myself bored, I borrowed a book from the inn and read through it. Among various tedious sutra passages lining its pages, there was one that declared: "The mind cannot be grasped across three lifetimes."
To speak of spanning three lifetimes was likely bombastic exaggeration, but I think when it says "cannot be grasped," it must be referring to matters such as this.
To be fair, there was once someone who, upon hearing my account, objected: "No—that's mental formations, not mind."
I remained silent, as it made no difference to me either way.
This discussion is entirely superfluous, but the reason I feel compelled to mention it is that there are a great many exceedingly clever people in this world who nonetheless completely fail to understand the human psyche.
Since they consider the mind a solid entity—believing that barring worm-eaten damage, it remains mostly unchanged from last year to this—I find this view utterly exasperating.
And then, with that complacent mindset of theirs, they go about manipulating people freely, educating them, making them act as desired—it's astonishing.
Water once flowed away never returns.
Linger indecisively and you'll evaporate entirely.

At any rate, all you need remember is that by the time I began walking alongside Red Blanket Man, those earlier trivial thoughts had evaporated.—And what surprised even myself was how walking beside him began to feel genuinely pleasant.
To be fair, this man was some country bumpkin from Ibaraki or such, with a strange nasal intonation that seemed to escape through his nostrils.
The matter of him pronouncing 'potato' as 'potato' belongs to an anecdote yet to come, but from the very start of our walk, his voice hadn't been particularly welcome.
Moreover, his face wasn't even average-looking.
Compared to this man, Mr. Chouzo—with his angular jaw and thick lips—cut an imposing figure.
Moreover, he had done nothing but rush through the Ibaraki countryside and had never once set foot in Tokyo.
And then, the red blanket reeked strangely.
Despite all this, I felt something akin to having gained an ally for our journey to the copper mine here in this mountain village, and was glad.
I may be someone bound for abandonment, but I’d rather have a companion in this fate than face it alone.
Being cast down alone is lonelier than being cast down with another.
Though it might be rude to state so plainly, I found nothing about this man to like, yet felt great pleasure solely because he would be cast down together with me—for that alone I was grateful.
And so, no sooner had we started walking than we had already become close companions—all from exchanging just a few tentative words.
If we extrapolate from this, when drowning in a river, one would surely want to drag down one or two boatmen with them.
If there were such a thing as going to hell after death, I would surely choose a hell populated by demons over one devoid of people.

For these reasons, I suddenly grew fond of Red Blanket Man, but after walking about one or two blocks, hunger began gnawing at me again.
This frequent hunger wasn't new emptiness but rather a continuation from earlier.
To recount the sequence: first came mental haziness and weakened immediacy when I disembarked the train; then staring down the arrow-straight road to its mountain terminus finally restored my senses—as previously mentioned.
This became the turning point—appetite returning only to recognize my unacknowledged personhood, plunging me into profound despondency, until fellow miners appeared just as I neared rock bottom, slightly reversing my downward spiral.
Explaining how this cycle returned me to hunger would make perfect sense.
Now hungry again, we'd already passed the last rice shop.
The town was thinning out.
Ahead lay a dark mountain path.
No hope remained of satisfying this craving.
Moreover, Red Blanket Man marched vigorously ahead on his full stomach.
I surrendered completely.
Steeling myself for a final attempt, I addressed Mr. Chouzo.

“Mr. Chouzo, are we crossing that mountain next?”

“That mountain you’re talkin’ about?”
“Crossin’ that’d be hell itself.”
“We’re cuttin’ left up ahead.”

Having said that，he walked off at his usual brisk pace.
There was no avoiding it now.

“Is there still much farther to go? I’m getting a bit hungry.”

With that confession finally escaping him,
Mr. Chouzo

“That so?
“Let’s get some taters then.”

No sooner said than he plunged into the potato shack on our left.
As if preordained, there stood exactly such a shop in that precise spot.
To put it grandiosely—divine providence.
Even now when I recall how perfectly this played out, it strikes me not just as absurd but somehow joyous.
Not that it resembled Tokyo’s pristine tuber emporiums.
This was a shop blackened beyond description—potato-themed in name alone, hardly specializing in them. What else they peddled besides spuds escapes me now.
Perhaps my focus had narrowed too keenly on consumption.

Before long, Mr. Chouzo emerged from the jet-black shop, his hands loaded with potatoes, lumbering out with heavy deliberation.
Since there was no container, he extended both hands forward,
“Here, eat.”

he said.
I had potatoes thrust before my eyes, yet merely—

“Thank you.”

I expressed my thanks and gazed at the potatoes.
It wasn’t as though I was deliberating over which potato to take.
They weren’t the sort that permitted such choosing.
Red and black, shriveled and damp-looking, with patches where peeling skin revealed a taste like verdigris seeping from beneath.
Whichever I might have grabbed would have been much of a muchness.
Now you might think this wretched potato-vision would make me recoil in disgust—but no.
Judging from my stomach’s state, I believe I possessed appetite enough to properly savor these tuberous specimens—if one could even dignify them as such.
Yet when confronted with “Here, eat” thrust at me, I found myself startled into fumbling my reach.
This was likely owing to Mr. Chouzo’s brusque delivery of “Here, eat.”

Seeing that I wasn't taking any potatoes, Mr. Chouzo—wearing a somewhat impatient look—once again

“Here.”

With that characteristic chin motion indicating the potatoes, he twitched the wrist of his outstretched hand in an eat-now gesture. Upon reflection, his hands had been so full of potatoes that unless I helped him, Mr. Chouzo couldn’t bring any to his mouth no matter how much he wanted to eat. His impatience was only natural. Finally realizing this, I attempted to bring my right hand toward the potatoes through an awkward forearm arc—only for one tuber to roll clattering into the road mid-motion. Red Blanket Man immediately scooped it up. No sooner had he retrieved it than—

“This potato’s a prime one.
“I’ll claim this.”

he said.
Through this exchange, I realized this man pronounced “potato” with a peculiar inflection.

I distinctly recall receiving potatoes from Mr. Chouzo in two batches then—three initially, then another single tuber added later, making five in total.”

While eating them with a nostalgic air, when they finally reached the town outskirts, another incident occurred.

At the town outskirts stood a bridge.
Under the bridge was a mountain stream where indigo water flowed.
While aware that the town was ending, my attention remained so fixated on the potato that I failed to notice the river until stepping onto the bridge.
Yet when I suddenly heard water's sound and thought "Huh?", there I stood at the bridge.
There was a river.
Water flowed.—It sounds absurd, but if attempting factual description, this phrasing proves most apt—I'll write it thus.
This was no novelist's fanciful half-lie of embellishment.
Were this not ornamentation, how I savored those potatoes then would become self-evident.
Startled by the water's noise, I peered down from the railing—the clamor proved natural enough, for the stream held many large rocks.
Their shapes so crudely formed they lay or stood obstructing the watercourse.
Against these the water crashed violently.
Moreover it flowed along a steep gradient.
Carrying momentum from its mountain plunge in relentless succession, it came leaping as if pursued.
Thus what we call a river resembled nothing so much as a broad waterfall stretched thin in installments.
Hence despite its meager volume it raged extraordinarily fierce.
It charged headlong like some brash Edo alley-brawler.
Spouting white foam, turning blue-syrup clear, twisting sinuously downward it flowed.
Dreadfully clamorous it was.
Meanwhile daylight steadily waned.
I looked up but found no sunlit space.

The direction where the sun had set glowed faintly bright, while only the mountain backed by that luminous sky stood out, growing increasingly indigo-black.
Though it was May, it was cold.
The sound of this water alone didn't feel like summer.
All the more so with the setting sun at its back and its front now in shadow—what in the world was that color?
If all I had to do was describe it, purple, black, or blue would suffice—but when I tried to capture that color’s essence, words failed.
I couldn’t help but feel that at any moment, that mountain might start moving, come right over my head, and come crashing down to crush me.
That must be why it was so cold.
In reality, having become dimly aware that within an hour or two, everything around me—left and right, front and back—would take on that mountain's ominous hue, that Mr. Chouzo and Ibaraki Prefecture and I would all be utterly engulfed in a monochromatic world, I had recognized this total coloration destined to occur an hour or two later as merely a localized tint of sunset an hour or two earlier; thus provoked by fragmentary perception into anticipating the mountain's color now spreading everywhere, forewarned by some visceral intuition that the mountain itself might start moving to come crashing down and crush me beneath its weight—or so I now dissected at my desk.
When I have time to spare, I tend to want to do unnecessary things, which is a problem.
At that time, it was simply cold.
I had grown envious enough of the Red Blanket Man from Ibaraki Prefecture standing beside me.

Then from beyond the bridge—for ahead lay a mountain with forests flanking both sides, not a single human dwelling remained—in truth, I had never imagined that habitation would end so abruptly until I stepped onto those bridge planks myself.

From the direction of that desolate mountain came a lone boy.
He appeared thirteen or fourteen years old, wearing straw sandals with frayed rice-straw cords.
At first his face remained unclear, but there he was—walking alone through dim woods along a rock-strewn path that cut a brighter line through the shadows, bobbing toward us with light steps.
From where or how he had emerged was unclear.
The solitary path beneath the shadowy trees wound around a couple of bends ahead where visibility ended—perhaps engineered to make figures abruptly materialize or vanish—but given the hour and location, I couldn’t help feeling startled.
I had brought the fourth potato to my mouth and, forgetting to move my jaw, stared at this boy for some time.
Though I say "a while," it lasted barely twenty seconds.
I must have begun eating the potato right after that.

As for the boy—whether he felt surprise upon seeing our group remained unclear—but regardless, he approached without hesitation.
From five or six ken away, he appeared as a boy with a round head, round face, and round nose—every feature perfectly rounded.
In terms of quality, he was far superior to Red Blanket Man.
The three of us were lined up blocking the path beyond the bridge, yet he attempted to pass through with an air of utter nonchalance.
He displayed an utterly nonchalant attitude.
Then Mr. Chouzo, once again,

“Hey there, boy”

Mr. Chouzo called out to stop him.
The boy showed no trace of timidity—

“What?”

he replied.
He came to an abrupt halt.
I was somewhat surprised at that boldness.
Indeed, this was someone who’d come down from the mountain alone at dusk.
When I was around this boy’s age, I found it somewhat daunting to pass through Aoyama Cemetery at night.
While I was impressed by how remarkable he was, Mr. Chouzo—

“How about some potatoes?”

As he said this, with a show of generosity, he thrust two leftover potatoes right before the boy’s nose.
The boy immediately snatched both potatoes, and without so much as a thank you, began devouring one of them right away.
Observing this swift action intently, I found myself impressed once more—truly, someone who’d come down from the mountain alone operated on a different plane than myself.
Meanwhile, the boy—oblivious to such concerns—continued mindlessly devouring the potatoes.
Moreover, he would stuff his cheeks and gulp them down without even mixing in saliva, making his throat gurgle violently—or so it seemed to me.
Despite my concern that eating more calmly would be easier, the boy kept devouring them voraciously, as if declaring that it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it looked from the outside.
Since they’re potatoes, they aren’t exactly hard.
No matter how much he gulped them down whole, his throat wouldn’t get injured—but in exchange, it would become completely blocked, with the risk of suffocation until the potatoes passed through his esophagus.
The boy didn’t seem bothered by this in the least.

No sooner had the throat lurched than it lurched again.
The later potato seemed to chase after the earlier one, plunging forcefully down into the pit of the stomach.
The two potatoes were quite large, yet despite their size they vanished in the blink of an eye.
And then, the boy ultimately showed no abnormalities.
The three of us watched from three sides as the boy devoured the potatoes, yet not one of us exchanged a single word until he had finished.
I thought it somewhat odd to myself.
But somehow, it felt pitiable.
This was not merely pity.
The reason I had grown hungry and begged Mr. Chouzo for potatoes—though my memory of starvation lay pitifully close, having occurred just moments ago—was because this boy's manner of eating made him appear two or three times as hungry as myself.
Just then, Mr. Chouzo—

“Tasty?”

“Was it good?” Mr. Chouzo asked.
Having thanked him even before taking a potato myself, I naturally assumed the boy would say something after eating—yet stubbornly, he remained silent.
He stood without speaking.
Then he looked toward the mountain where dusk was gathering.
It later became clear this boy was entirely wild, completely ignorant of how to express gratitude.
Once I understood that, I stopped dwelling on it—but in that moment, I thought him oddly charmless for someone with such a round face.
Yet when he tilted that round face halfway and stared curiously at the darkening mountain peak, he became pitiable again.
Then things grew slightly ominous.
Why they'd grown ominous remained unclear.
Perhaps the small boy, tall mountain, gathering dusk, and mountain inn were bound by some profound karmic thread.
I've read few poems or essays, but isn't this exactly the sort of fateful connection writers make such grand claims about?
Then you find poems in strange places or collide with passages unexpectedly.
All these years I've wandered various regions, occasionally encountering such karmic ties that even I found peculiar.
But calm reflection would surely unravel them.
This boy likely resembled those tales from my childhood—of boys who tumbled down mountains but failed their transformations.
Anything beyond that seemed superfluous, so I stopped thinking.
In any case, the Boy kept gazing at the black mountain's summit with that strange expression.

Then Mr. Chouzo inquired again.

“Where you headed?”

The boy immediately averted his eyes from the black mountain,

“Ain’t going nowhere.”
he replied.
His brusqueness was strikingly at odds with his face.
Mr. Chouzo remained unfazed,
“Then where you going back to?”
he asked again.
The Boy remained equally unfazed,

“Ain’t going back nowhere,”
he said.
As I listened to this exchange, I grew increasingly unsettled by a sense of danger.
There was no doubt this boy was homeless, but having never imagined homelessness taking such a form—in one so young, so desolate, yet so resolute—even while recognizing his vagrancy, my instinct leaned less toward the pity or sympathy typically afforded to street urchins, and more toward an instinctive wariness.
Yet Mr. Chouzo seemed entirely unperturbed by such impressions.
He likely considered it sufficient merely to confirm whether the boy was truly destitute or not.
Addressing this youth who neither went anywhere nor returned anywhere,

“Then come along with me. I’ll let you earn some money.”

When he said this, the Boy immediately—without a moment’s thought—

“Yeah”

—consented.
Whether it was Red Blanket Man or the Boy, I was astonished at how swiftly matters were settled—almost comically so.
If humans were made this simply, we wouldn’t have to look after each other.
Yet it was strange—I myself, who spoke thus, being no less than both this Red Blanket Man and this Boy, indeed the very epitome of someone requiring no looking after.
Seeing the Boy’s ready compliance, I was not a little astonished, and at the same time realized there existed in this world many others like myself—those who, when beckoned right or left, would drift aimlessly wherever led, buoyed by half-hearted indecision.
When I was in Tokyo, even as people swarmed about in dizzying numbers, they all remained anchored as they moved—so much so that I believed myself likely the only soul in all this wide world whose roots had been torn loose, prompting me to hastily set out from Senju.
Thus my anxiety weighed doubly heavy, but at this lodging I unexpectedly gained Red Blanket Man.
No more than twenty minutes had passed since acquiring Red Blanket Man when we gained this boy as well.
And both of them were far more uprooted than I.
As comrades continued to emerge one after another like this, whether our destination be mountains or rivers, it wouldn’t pose much hardship.
I, whether by fortune or misfortune, was born into a family of at least moderate means and had lived as an exemplary young master until nine o’clock yesterday evening.
Of course, my anguish had been that of a young master, but even this flight I had attempted at the height of anguish remained, inescapably, a young master’s flight.
It was precisely for this reason that I had attached undue, self-important significance to this flight—if not exactly treasured it, regarded it as the major event of my life.
I had regarded it as a crossroads between life and death.
In the world perceived through a young master’s eyes, there existed not a single soul who had fled their circumstances—on the rare occasion such cases occurred, they existed solely within newspaper pages.
Yet in newspapers, these flights became flattened—mere images floating on a sheet of paper, like invisible ink revelations—so they offered no sustenance even if consumed.

It was like receiving a telephone call from another world—all I could manage were these vacant "uh-huhs" in response. This brought an added sense of significance in believing myself alone to be making a truly earnest flight from my circumstances. That said, I had merely agonized and merely fled, having scarcely read poetry or fine literature; thus I recast my own plight's miseries as a novel, then darted about this fictional realm—now wallowing in anguish, now drowning in sorrow—all while coldly observing my wretched state from without as this same self, never once entertaining thoughts that might mistake it for something poetic. The fact that I'd ascribed undue importance to my flight stemmed from how my inexperience led me to inflate what could have been regarded with far less ceremony, leaving me flustered in solitary turmoil. Yet this agitation faded imperceptibly upon meeting Red Blanket Man and the Boy, their unperturbed demeanors proving experience's true gift. To confess, both Red Blanket Man and the Boy back then seemed far greater than I had been.

Red Blanket Man was recruited effortlessly.
The Boy was recruited.
When I considered how even I had been effortlessly recruited in this manner, it became clear that Mr. Chouzo’s line of work wasn’t entirely the thankless toil of waiting around that it appeared.
I’d believed that in all this wide world, only a fool like myself—who’d fled in such haste with his kimono tucked up—would readily agree to become a miner with a simple “Huh, can I? Well, I suppose I will.”
Therefore, a carefree business like Mr. Chouzo's would require just one such person existing in all Japan—moreover, unless that one person happened to be born with the karmic fortune of crossing paths with someone like me, the enterprise could never possibly function.
Thus this work required far greater patience than fishing for three-foot-long carp beneath Okawabata’s gaze—work demanding someone settle into it properly from the outset—yet Mr. Chouzo wore an expression declaring such self-awareness unnecessary, apprehending men passing by with unflinching poise, as though society itself had certified this to be the most ordinary of trades.
Then, remarkably, the apprehended man would immediately say “Yeah” without a moment’s hesitation.
It somehow succeeded in making one suspect this might actually be society’s most ordinary trade.
If a business succeeds this well, you’d think one person alone in Japan could never handle it—that having several would pose no problem at all. No doubt he thinks so himself.
I thought so too.

With this carefree Mr. Chouzo, the even more carefree Boy and Red Blanket Man, and myself—who through imitation had grown thoroughly carefree—the four of us turned left onto a narrow path beyond the bridge. We received a warning that from here onward, the path would begin ascending along the river, so we'd best take care. I had just eaten potatoes and no longer felt hungry. Though my legs had been exhausted from walking since last evening, they could still carry me if I kept moving. Following instructions, I proceeded as cautiously as possible behind Mr. Chouzo and Red Blanket Man. The path proved too narrow for us four to walk abreast. Thus I resolved to follow at the rear. Being small of stature, the Boy too fell a step behind, keeping pace with me as he clung close.

I found myself disinclined to speak, my stomach heavy and legs leaden. Mr. Chouzo had stopped using "you" entirely after we crossed the bridge. Red Blanket Man hadn't been particularly talkative since the negotiation outside the rice shop earlier, but now he'd fallen completely silent. The Boy's silence grew even deeper. Only his straw sandals squelched wetly against the path.

When everyone fell silent like this, the mountain path became a quiet place. Especially at night, it felt even lonelier. Though called night, the sun had only just set, so the path we walked remained dimly visible. The water cascading down to the left appeared to glimmer faintly—or perhaps it was just my imagination. However, it didn’t sparkle brightly. Somehow, only the dull black moving areas appeared to glimmer. The spots where it struck rocks turned comparatively distinct white. And that sound rustled on without cease. It was quite clamorous. And so it was quite desolate.

The narrow path within this gloom gradually began sloping upward.
Had it been merely an ascent of this grade, it wouldn't have taxed us so—but the way grew treacherously uneven.
Rock roots snaking up from river depths surfaced abruptly only to vanish again beneath soil.
My geta caught repeatedly on these protrusions.
When jolts grew violent enough to make viscera leap upward,
the trek turned truly arduous.
Mr.Chouzo and Red Blanket Man navigated tree-shrouded darkness with practiced ease,
which I might have accepted—were it not for that infernal Boy.
He leapt across jagged terrain without breaking stride,
straw sandals slapping wetly,
utterly mute.
By daylight I'd have dismissed such sounds,
but through deepening dusk those rhythmic slaps frayed my nerves
until I fancied myself walking alongside some chittering bat.

Gradually, the path began to slope upward.
The river imperceptibly grew distant.
Breath grew short.
The unevenness grew increasingly severe.
My ears began to roar.
If this weren't an elopement but a picnic excursion, I would have voiced complaints long before now—but since this self-destruction stemmed from a botched suicide attempt, no matter how agonizing or bitter it became, there was no one to whom I could bring my grievances.
If I were to ask who the other party might be, there was no one but myself.
Even if I tried, I lacked the courage to dwell on it.
To make matters worse, they remained so composed that they wouldn't even engage with me.
They walked briskly on.
They didn't even speak.
There was simply no way to engage them.
I had no choice but to gasp for breath, ears roaring, silently following behind with resigned obedience.
I had known the characters for "resignation" since childhood, but it was only now that I truly grasped their meaning.
Though this could be laughed off as a fleeting enlightenment—a realization that begins and ends with itself—once awakened, that understanding persisted relentlessly until reaching its zenith deep within the copper mine.
When I reached the pinnacle of resignation, even the tears that should have flowed held back out of deference.
They say it's enough to make tears spill, but if tears were to flow, that would be a relief.
While tears flow, one can surely still laugh.

Strangely enough, he who had been steeped in such resignation now acted nonchalantly, showing not a trace of that obedience—indeed, others perceived him as a presumptuous idler. From Mr. Chouzo's perspective—he who had extended such kindness back then—I must surely have appeared an insufferably presumptuous bastard now. Yet were my current companions to pass judgment, they might have declared that in those days I'd been truly pitiable. Whether deemed presumptuous or pitiable mattered not. That what was once resigned became presumptuous constituted the natural order of being—since humans are fashioned thus, there could be no remedy. Even were summer to come while clinging to winter's trembling heart, such persistence proved impossible. When fever-stricken patients abstain from beef, no great lord could enforce lifelong abstinence from sukiyaki pots. They quote "The scalded mouth fears cold broth" to chide forgetfulness as impropriety, yet forgetting flows naturally—remembering rings false. This may reek of sophistry but speaks plain truth: humans torment themselves through belief in their own immutable solidity. We press others flat against circumstance-blind templates—logic holds when judging outsiders, yet none cheer when self-applied vises make them squeak. Enforcing such uniformity demands fleeing our dimensional world for Flatland's confines—there dwell those who indiscriminately condemn distrust, infidelity and fickleness while shrieking others' sole culpability; banner-wavers staring at letterpress-printed hearts. Young mistresses and masters, scholars and naifs, feudal lords—such types teem among them, rendering discourse laborious and vexatious. Had I not fled then—had I matured as some demure young master oblivious to my heart's ceaseless motion, fretting over change as calamitous sin while drawing salary through study, content with domestic peace and mediocre friends—had I never required introspection nor witnessed psyche's vigorous transformations—lacked both this experience forged through pain, privation, transience, wandering, exhaustion, anguish, gain-loss and profit-loss; lacked too this ability to publicly dissect then critically discard each fragment—then by this immense undeserved boon I possess—without all this—I'd never dare voice such convictions. However resolute my words merit no pride—they merely state what is because it is. Yet as resignation once turned presumption today, tomorrow's presumption might yet revert to resignation again.

When I planted my buckling legs like poles and listened, the swishing sound of water crept into my ears that roared dully from afar. I grew increasingly resigned.

In this state, I came quite a distance. I came so far I couldn't even estimate how many miles we'd traveled. Because it was a night path—already feeling interminable compared to daytime—compounded by walking this uneven climb with calves swollen, knee bones grinding against each other, thighs threatening to collapse earthward with every step—the distance stretched endlessly... Yet as proof of living persistence, through some miracle I kept within five or six ken of Mr. Chouzo's backside.
This was not merely a result arising from some resigned state of self-effacing obedience.
When I fell more than five or six ken behind, Mr. Chouzo would turn back and wait five or six paces—so having no choice but to catch up, only for him to start walking again before I fully closed the gap—it was merely being forced to rouse myself in sporadic spurts and fits.
Even so, it was remarkable how well Mr. Chouzo could see behind himself.
Especially since it was midnight.
A dark path where black trees pierced splendidly through the sky on both sides, and only when I looked up did I realize how narrowly it opened overhead.
Though they call it starlight, it isn't much use.
Of course, we wouldn't have brought along something like a lantern.
From my perspective, the Red Blanket Man moving ahead served as my guide.
Though night prevented its redness from showing, it somehow still registered as the Red Blanket Man.
Having fixated on that blanket since daylight—staring at it, that blanket, like a mantra—now that night had fallen and sudden darkness rendered it indistinguishable to others' eyes, to me alone it still clearly appeared as the Red Blanket Man.
The merits of devotion must mostly arise from such circumstances as this.
Through such reasoning, I had at least managed to maintain my visual target ahead, but for Mr. Chouzo, it remained utterly impossible to ascertain how closely I followed behind.
Yet whenever the distance properly exceeded five or six ken, he would stop.
Whether he stopped out of consideration or whether stopping was simply his own prerogative remained unclear, but at any rate, the fact that he stopped was certain.
This was an art that no amateur could possibly master.

Even amidst my suffering, I found myself considerably impressed—this was an art essential to Mr. Chouzo’s trade, one he must have honed through long practice to perfect. Since Red Blanket Man walked alongside Mr. Chouzo, he would surely stop whenever Mr. Chouzo did. If Mr. Chouzo started walking, he would invariably start walking too—a man who moved exactly like a puppet. Compared to me—prone as I was to lagging behind—this Red Blanket Man must have been far easier to manage. The Boy—that Boy—had vanished completely.At first I thought his youth would make him fall behind, and had even resolved to encourage him when he tired—but that was before witnessing him clattering along in those straw sandals of his, leaping over the uneven path as he advanced.My realization that I stood no chance against his stamina came much earlier than expected.For a while,the clattering had drawn near enough to brush against my sleeve as we climbed,but now not even a shadow remained in my vicinity.Walking alongside him proved unsettling enough—that a mere boy moved with such vigor would have been tolerable alone,but combined with his profound silence,made for an exceedingly disquieting experience.If one imagines an animal that laughs—should it laugh at all—with utmost subtlety,brimming with vitality yet never uttering a sound,then one might comprehend.Such creatures are practically nonexistent.Had one crossed mountains at night with such an animal,anyone would feel uneasy.Even now,when I think back on this Boy from that time,an uncanny sensation arises within me.I’d likened him to a bat earlier—but he truly was a bat.Because Mr.Chouzo and Red Blanket Man were there,it was manageable—but had it been just me and the Bat alone—to be honest,I would have surrendered.

Then Mr. Chouzo, suddenly in the darkness—
“Hey”

Mr. Chouzo raised his voice.
I don’t know if anyone has ever suddenly heard a human voice on a lonely night path, but when one actually hears it, the sensation becomes distinctly peculiar.
If it had been an ordinary speaking voice, that might have been tolerable enough, but someone shouting “Hey” carries an unsavory air.
On a mountain path, in pitch darkness where not a soul passed by, burdened with a bat-like companion for the journey, Mr. Chouzo seized upon this ominous emptiness to raise his voice with portentous gravity.
It was a time when nothing should have occurred, and moreover a place where occurrence seemed least likely—thus when the “Hey” came, suddenness merged with expectation to produce a peculiar resonance in my head.
Had this voice been calling me, I would have simply startled at something happening—but it was too loud to be merely trying to catch my attention from five or six ken behind.
Moreover, the direction in which the voice traveled was different.
The voice wasn’t directed this way.
The “Hey” ricocheted right and left but was blocked by standing trees, fleeing far along the narrow path toward the distance where a distant echo of “Hey” resounded.
There was certainly an echo, but there seemed to be no reply.
Then Mr. Chouzo raised his voice even louder than before,

“Hey, Boy!”

he called.
Looking back now, shouting 'Boy' without even knowing his name seems rather obtuse, but at the time he hadn't been obtuse at all.
The moment I heard that call, I knew the bat had gone to ground.
The natural assumption should've been that he'd forged ahead—even mistakenly concluding he'd fled would've made more sense—yet this conviction that he'd hidden rose unbidden to my mind. I must've been thoroughly cursed by that bat.
This curse dissipated completely come morning when the sun rose, leaving me thinking myself such a fool—yet in that actual moment of hearing "Hey, Boy!" shouted out, it struck me like a physical blow.

Yet again the echo stretched forward as usual, but finding no obstruction to collide with, it faded faintly like the tail of a will-o’-the-wisp—and whether from that recoil or not, when every last tree, mountain, and valley fell utterly silent—there came no reply.
During this echo's lonesome fading—and after its disappearance—until all the world held its breath in perfect stillness, Mr. Chouzo, Red Blanket Man, and I stood nose-to-nose in the darkness without speaking.
I felt sick to my core.
Then Mr. Chouzo—

“If we pick up the pace a bit, we’ll catch up. You okay with that?”

he said.
Of course I didn't like it, but with no alternative, I consented and started hurrying.
By nature, presuming to hurry in this situation should have been impossible—yet there was something uncanny about it. Despite having neither the will nor strength to hurry, I ended up consenting.
He must have made a strange face when I consented, but once consenting—whether capable of hurrying or not—I ended up rushing recklessly.
As for where and how we passed through during that interval—well, it would be safest to say I absolutely had no idea.
Before long Mr. Chouzo came to an abrupt halt, and I suddenly became aware of my surroundings.
Then we found ourselves standing before a house.
A lamp was lit.
The lamp’s light cast onto the thoroughfare.
I felt abruptly glad.
Red Blanket Man was vividly visible.
And there was the Boy as well.
The Boy’s shadow cut horizontally across the thoroughfare before bending into the valley beyond.
For a boy, it was a long shadow.

I had never imagined there might be a house where people lived in such a place; what's more, with my vision blurred and ears ringing, I had rushed onward in a frenzy—no destination, no hope—and the moment we came to an abrupt halt, the lamp's light flooded into my eyes so dazzlingly that I was startled. Startled as I was, I found myself deeply impressed by how human-like the lamplight appeared. Never before until today had a lamp felt so precious. When I later inquired, I was told the Boy had slipped ahead to this lamplight and waited there for us. The calls of "Hey" and "Boy!" had been audible, but according to the story, he hadn't responded. What a remarkable fellow.

Our group had finally assembled here, but as I wondered what would become of us while maintaining resigned obedience, Mr. Chouzo left us by the roadside and entered the house alone.
We called it a house out of necessity, but truthfully it hardly deserved the name.
Had there been cattle, it would have been a cowshed; had there been neighing horses, a stable.
It appeared to be some sort of straw sandal vendor's stall.
With nothing but walls, straw sandals, and a lamp present, I concluded it must be a stall.
The front measured about one ken wide, its storm shutters half-closed.
The remaining half likely stayed open all night.
Perhaps they had jammed in their threshold grooves and become immobile.
The roof was naturally thatched with straw now ancient and rain-rotted, collapsing into vague formlessness.
It bulged so severely that roof seams merged with night itself.
Mr. Chouzo went inside.
I felt as though he were burrowing into some hole.
He was talking.
The three of us waited outside.
Though my own face remained unseen, Red Blanket Man and the Boy's faces stood clear in lamplight slanting from the shack.
Red Blanket Man maintained his vacant expression.
This man would surely wear that same face even if earthquakes brought down roof beams or he faced a parent's deathbed.
The Boy gazed at the sky.
The situation remained precarious.

At that moment, Mr. Chouzo appeared.
However, he did not emerge onto the thoroughfare.
With his foot planted on the threshold and facing our direction, only the lamplight extended in a slender beam from the doorway.
The lamp's position seemed to have lowered without us noticing.
Mr. Chouzo’s face was of course impossible to make out clearly.

“You—since crossing the mountains from here will be tough, let’s stay here tonight.”
“Everyone inside.”

The moment I heard these words, the resignation I'd maintained until now suddenly ruptured, and my body went utterly limp.
That spending the night in this cowshed would afford me such solace—until this very moment of seeing the cowshed, I hadn't had the slightest inkling.
Even though a place to stay had been secured through resignation, I suppose I still couldn't muster the will to actually stay there.
Once matters reach this point, there's nothing more easily managed than humans.
Even when forced, I would obediently listen without complaint—no, more than that, I'd act downright delighted. Whenever I recall those days, a conviction arises within me: I was surely the most compliant and diligent of men.
There are even times when soldiers come to think they must be like that.
Simultaneously, I realized that if humans can disregard the utility of things, then they can also come to forget that utility altogether.
Having written this down, upon rereading it, I find it somehow convoluted and unclear.
To tell the truth, it was actually much simpler, but in trying to condense it, I ended up making it this convoluted.
For example, if one can convince oneself they have no right to drink sake and even regard its virtues as nonexistent, then even when sake flasks are lined up before them, they'll remain oblivious to the fact that sake is something to be drunk.
That we manage to avoid becoming thieves ultimately stems from being artificially conditioned to these boundaries since childhood. Yet conversely, since such boundaries form as a result of numbing part of human nature, if someone gets carried away and rigidly enforces them, all humans will end up turning into fools.
As long as someone refrains from stealing, I foolishly consider it the greatest virtue to ensure all other mental faculties can function appropriately.
Had I continued living as my former self through to this day, no matter how compliant or diligent I might have been, I would undoubtedly be a fool.
From anyone's perspective, I must have been not merely a fool, but a broken wreck beyond that.
As a human being, one should get angry now and then.
Rebel.
To forcibly suppress what's meant to rage and rebel—that's happily educating yourself into a fool.
First and foremost, it's poison to the body.
If they consider that a nuisance, then isn't it only proper to make arrangements to prevent them from getting angry and keep them from rebelling?

At that time under various circumstances, I obediently followed everything Mr. Chouzo said—indeed found that obedience natural. But now in my current station, even if a hundred Mr. Chouzos pulled me for seven days and nights straight, I wouldn't budge an inch.
For my present self, this felt natural.
And I consider that changing thus constitutes being human.
I invoked Mr. Chouzo for clarity's sake, but upon examination, human character transforms hourly.
Change being natural means contradictions must arise—hence human character brims with contradictions.
A conclusion riddled with contradictions equates character's presence or absence.
If you think this false, test it.
Rather than sinfully testing others, first test yourself upon yourself.
You needn't sink to miner's depths to grasp this.
Even consulting gods would yield no further understanding.
The only god comprehending this logic dwells in my gut.
I shouldn't spout scholarly notions sans learning—it won't do.
I never meant such grand proclamations, but truthfully matters stood thus:
People often complained to me—"You're too contradictory, such a nuisance!"
Each complaint brought pained apologies from me.
Myself troubled—thus I couldn't pass as ordinary. Secretly fearing destitution unless reformed—yet through varied circumstances and testing found no room for improvement.
This being my true nature—nothing else human remains.
Then I tested others too.
Yet they proved made like me.
Absurdity arises when complainants themselves merit complaints.

In short—when stomachs grow empty they want to eat; when full they grow drowsy; in desperation they act recklessly; achieving their aims they follow the path; falling in love they join together; until affection wanes and couples part ways—all of it amounts to adapting to circumstances. The defining trait of humans lies nowhere beyond this. And so, thoroughly impressed by this realization, I merely mentioned it in passing. However, the world contains no shortage of formidable types—scholars, monks, educators—each devoted to specialized study. For me alone to hold forth as though grasping such matters would be improper.

So I set aside my current fiery vigor, returned once more to my original attitude of resignation, and resumed the tale of the mountains.
When Mr. Chouzo stood on the threshold facing the road and proposed staying here, I hadn't anticipated lodging at all—to such an extent that rather than first becoming aware we could stay even in this rundown shack, I only belatedly realized that all houses are fundamentally built for staying in.
And yet my body lay limp as konjac jelly, utterly spent.
Under normal circumstances, my entire being would swell taut with lodging desires—I’d be desperate to stay anywhere—yet this fatigue born of embracing a self-obliterating miner’s path, this prelude to self-annihilation through moral decay and resignation meant that however much my body required lodging, it made no request from body to soul regarding accommodation.
When just then a command to stay came down from heaven to my soul, the soul—in some flustered fashion—first reported this to my limbs; whereupon the limbs became exceedingly delighted, so the soul too thought 'How grateful!' and for the first time felt thankful for Mr. Chouzo's kindness.
That’s how it came to pass.
This may sound like playful jesting reminiscent of a comic monologue, but the actual state of my mind at that time cannot be explained without resorting to such analogies.

The moment I heard Mr. Chouzo’s words, my nerves abruptly slackened; dragging legs that refused to hold me up, I became the first to approach the doorway.
Red Blanket Man shuffled in.
The Boy darted over.
It wasn’t that he flew, but with his straw sandal’s heel striking his foot with such force, the flapping sound seemed to take wing.

When I stepped inside, a pungent stench assaulted me.
I still couldn’t identify its source.
Noticing the Boy twitch his nose, I realized he too had registered the odor.
Mr. Chouzo and Red Blanket Man remained utterly unfazed.
At the step up from the dirt floor, I thought of using a rag first, but the Boy disregarded such niceties, kicking off his sandals and clambering up.
His sandals lacked heels entirely, leaving him half-barefoot.
As I stared at this wretched creature, Mr. Chouzo called out: “You’re wearing geta too—come on up.”

“Since you’re wearing geta too, go on up.”

He cautioned.
Though unsettled by this instruction，he ascended without brushing off any dust.
When testing his weight on one foot against tatami，it sank with a muffled puff.
The Boy lay sprawled across its surface.
I lowered myself into a cross-legged position within shadow cast by shoji screens—two panels flanked me.
These entrance screens meant turning revealed Mr.Chouzo and Red Blanket Man removing straw sandals.
Both men produced towels from waistbands，flapping their feet with percussive slaps.
They mounted directly afterward，
apparently deeming foot-washing too laborious.
At that moment，the proprietor emerged from an adjoining room bearing tea implements and tobacco tray.

Mentioning "the proprietor," "the next room," "tea," or "tobacco tray" made it all sound perfectly ordinary, but these were mere labels—to explain each one would reveal how utterly we'd misunderstood everything, leaving one aghast.
But in any case, the proprietor had certainly brought tea and a tobacco tray from the next room.
He then began conversing with Mr. Chouzo.
I'd forgotten the thread of their conversation, but judging by their manner, the two men seemed old acquaintances with some lending and borrowing between them.
They kept talking about horses.
They didn't so much as mention me, Red Blanket Man, or the Boy.
It wasn't that we went unnoticed—more likely Mr. Chouzo had already heard everything when he alone entered negotiations earlier.
Or perhaps he so frequently took such carefree types to the copper mine that he'd naturally grown accustomed to relying on this proprietor during these trips, which might explain his indifference.

I began dozing off while listening to Mr. Chouzo and the proprietor's conversation.
I didn't know when I'd begun.
From talk of selling horses at a loss and such matters, their words gradually blurred until Mr. Chouzo naturally faded away.
Red Blanket Man vanished.
The Boy disappeared.
When the proprietor vanished along with the tea and tobacco tray—when even the ramshackle hut dissolved—I jerked awake.
My head had fallen onto my chest.
Startled, I tried lifting it but found it leaden.
The proprietor still droned about horses.
As I wondered if they'd ever stop talking horses, my consciousness ebbed again.
Letting this distant haze linger undisturbed, my eyes suddenly flew open.
In the dim room knelt shadowy Mr. Chouzo and the proprietor facing each other.
Just as debt negotiations reached some conclusion—"Ha ha ha ha!"—the proprietor roared with laughter.
This proprietor's forehead sloped sharply backward from his brow to crown like a hillside roadcut.
The higher it climbed, the more hair sprouted.
These hairs tangled—some half-inch stubble among inch-long strands—growing irregularly in sparse disarray.
When I startled awake from my doze and snapped open my eyes, this head imprinted itself on my retinas first.
The soot-filmed lamp's gloom made his head appear equally soot-smeared.
Yet its proximity remained undeniable.
Thus its shadow emerged starkly defined.

In that instant of regaining awareness from dozing unconsciousness, I suddenly saw the proprietor's head—both clear and hazy.
At that moment I felt distinctly unwell.
This compelled me to temporarily resist sleep and survey the room—there lay the Boy collapsed in the far corner.
Beside me stretched Ibaraki Prefecture at full length.
A large foot protruded from beneath the blanket.
The wall at the far end bore a hole in its corner whose depths were pitch black.
Above spread an attic space blackened to chilliness where lamplight struck through oil smoke; staring intently made the thatch underside appear aquiver.

Then I grew sleepy again.
My head dropped again.
Because it was heavy, lifting it only made it drop again.
At first, my lifted head would gradually grow drowsy as it fell, and the moment this haziness peaked—when it thudded onto my chest—I'd snap back to full awareness. But after three or four repetitions, even with eyes open, my mind refused to clear.
I would drift back into awareness, only to lapse back into oblivion again.
Then, as always, my head would drop.
I felt as though I were clinging to life by the faintest thread.
No sooner had I thought this than I plunged back into utter void.
In the end, even when my head kept drooping forward, I no longer reacted.
Or perhaps I had kept leaning forward; the weight of my head might have caused me to collapse sideways.
In any case, I slept peacefully until dawn, and when I awoke, I was no longer dozing off.
As usual, my entire body lay stretched out long against the tatami.
And there I lay drooling.—I had begun dozing off while listening to talk of horses, then opened my eyes to hear about debts, and while rehearsing this cycle of interrupted slumber, finally collapsed into proper sleep—stretched out long, having heard no tidings from my soul—so that upon waking at dawn to find the world turned upside down from its very foundations, yin and yang reversed, I simply lay there with eyes open and saliva trailing down, perfectly still.
If I’d died with full awareness, it might feel like this.
I was alive but couldn’t muster the will to move.
I remember everything about last night, down to the last detail.
However, I couldn’t accept that everything from last night had naturally extended itself into today.
All my experiences are new and poignant, yet these new and poignant matters seem to reside somewhere far off.
Rather than residing in some distant place, it was as though a thick partition had formed between last night and today, creating a clear distinction between them.
When the sun rises—a mere shift of being drawn into its light—it feels almost miraculous how I lose all sense of continuity in my mind, how I myself cease to feel real.

After all, human existence is but a dream.
Having briefly thought this, I sank back without wiping my drool when Mr. Chouzo gave a groaning stretch and, still lying down, raised his clenched fist up to his ear.
The clenched fist jutted straight out, rubbing against the tatami until his arm had fully extended—then the momentum slackened, and it went limp.
Just when I thought he might go back to sleep, he lowered his right hand and began vigorously scratching his sunken cheek.
He might be awake.
Meanwhile, as he mumbled something incoherent and I realized he still wasn’t properly awake, the Boy suddenly jerked upright.
This was a true leap in every sense—a heavy thud reverberated as if the floor joists might tear free.
Then, true to form for Mr. Chouzo, he stopped his incoherent mumbling and immediately raised the shoulder that had been against the tatami to elbow height.
He was blinking his eyes.

At this point—with no end in sight to how long I might remain sunken—I too rose up.
Mr. Chouzo had fully awoken.
The Boy stood up.
The only one still sleeping was Red Blanket Man.
He remained utterly carefree, still sticking a large foot out from the blanket as he snored thunderously in his sleep.
Mr. Chouzo woke him——

“You.”
“Hey, you.”
“If you don’t get up now, we won’t make it to the copper mine by noon.”

“You” was repeated three or four times, but Red Blanket continued sleeping soundly.
Since there was no other way, Mr. Chouzo placed his hand on Red Blanket’s shoulder and—

“Hey, hey”

When he began shaking him, Red Blanket had no choice but to respond with a similar “Hey” and rise halfway up.
With this, everyone could be considered awake, but as I remained without washing my face or eating, wondering what to do—Mr. Chouzo,

“Well then, let’s get going.”

Having said this, he began descending to the earthen-floored entryway first—which startled me.
The Boy followed right after.
Red Blanket Man too awkwardly lowered his large foot into the dirt-floored space.
Faced with this progression, I had no choice but to get myself together; slipping into my geta last of all, I stood with hands tucked gloomily in my sleeves, waiting for Mr. Chouzo and Red Blanket Man to finish tying their straw sandal cords.

Once we had descended to the dirt-floored entrance, even asking basic questions like whether we wouldn’t wash our faces or eat breakfast came to feel like such an extravagant notion that I couldn’t muster the will to pose them.
It seemed absurd that things deemed essential through habit could suddenly become superfluous, but when I later expanded my consideration of this reversal, I realized there were many such examples.
In other words, when the majority does something in this world, it becomes accepted as natural, while what a single person does alone comes to seem superfluous. Therefore, if you wish to establish something as natural, you must gather a multitude of allies and commit unjust acts with all the appearance of legitimacy.
Even if I didn’t attempt it myself, it would surely succeed.
That even those two—Mr. Chouzo and Red Blanket Man—could bring about such a transformation in me made perfect sense.

Mr. Chouzo finished tying his straw sandal laces and, having no more business with his feet, abruptly looked up.
Then he looked at me.
And then he spoke these words.

“You probably don’t need to eat breakfast, right?”

There was no good way to go without eating, but even if I said it was bad, there was no starting point—so I simply—

“Fine.”

I replied.
Then Mr. Chouzo,

“You want to eat?”

Having said that, he smirked.
This was perhaps because my face had betrayed some hint of that hungry determination—or else because my demeanor naturally showed resentment at this departure without breakfast—so contrary to nineteen years of expectations upon waking.
Otherwise he wouldn’t have asked such a thing after finishing tying his straw sandals.
The fact that Mr. Chouzo hadn’t posed this question to Red Blanket Man or the Boy made it clear enough.
Looking back now—I feel it might have been better had I asked both of them the same question.
Those who set out to walk five or ten ri without eating breakfast must be either homeless or quasi-homeless.
When you wake to daylight yet find no steam from morning soup or scent of pickles rising in your thoughts—you become one of those carefree souls who seize today’s life as today’s alone—memorializing each day’s spirit as it passes—people both wretched and blessed enough to accept a world where tomorrow doesn’t exist as natural law.
I thought—for the first time in nineteen years—I’d stayed in the same place as people like this—and now we’d be setting out together again.
When I observed Red Blanket Man and the Boy’s expressions and saw not the slightest anticipation of breakfast—realizing they were a breed of humanity unaccustomed to morning meals—I understood that my fate had already slipped below that of a miner even before I became one.
However—this understanding alone didn’t bring any particular sadness.
No tears came—of course.

Yet now I found myself regretting that Mr. Chouzo hadn't asked these breakfast-unaccustomed souls—"Do you all want to eat?"
Would they have answered "We can do without," through habit forged from scarce meals? Or might that unexpected hope—the slim chance of being fed—have spurred them to say "We want to eat"?
A trivial thing, but I wanted to hear which answer they'd give.

Mr. Chouzo stood in the dirt-floored entrance and glanced back briefly—

“Kuma-san, we’ll be off now.
Thank you for all your help.”

He gave two or three light but emphatic stamps of his feet.
Kuma-san was of course the proprietor’s name, though he still lay sleeping in the back room.
Peering inside, I saw that disheveled head which had unsettled me last night protruding from beneath the futon.
This proprietor seemed to follow the custom of sleeping with his mattress spread over him.
When Mr. Chouzo addressed this shaggy head, it lifted abruptly from the tatami.
Then Kuma-san’s face emerged.
This face didn’t strike me as quite so uncanny as it had the previous night.
Yet even this morning one couldn’t deny how his forehead sloped gauntly upward, elongating toward the crown of his skull.
From within his bedding, Kuma-san—

“Nah—didn’t do nothin’ worth mentionin’.”

he said.
Sure enough, Kuma-san hadn’t done a thing.
I alone was covered with a futon.

"Wasn't too cold, eh?"

he added.
How carefree.
Mr. Chouzo

"No, not at all."

Acknowledging this, he stepped out from the dirt-floored entrance with one foot when, from behind, Kuma-san interjected through a yawn—

"Well, come by again on your way back."

he said.

Then Mr. Chouzo stepped out into the thoroughfare.
I too lagged a step behind, then chased after the retreating figures of the Boy and Red Blanket Man.
Everyone quickened their pace.
They all appeared thoroughly accustomed to journeys like this.
According to Mr. Chouzo, we were to cross the mountains next, but he said we had to hurry because we needed to reach the copper mine by noon.
I didn't understand why we had to arrive by noon, but lacking the courage to ask, I simply followed along in silence.
Then sure enough, the path began to climb.
Though I'd thought we climbed so much last evening, having to climb still more felt almost unreal—yet when I actually looked around, mountains crowded every direction.
Within mountains there were mountains, and within those mountains yet more mountains existed, so that we ended up advancing absurdly deep into their recesses.
Given how things looked, the place where the copper mine stood was sure to be desolate.
I climbed with labored breath, yet my heart faltered.
Having come this far and realizing how arduous returning to the capital would be, I grew ashamed of what drunken whim had driven me here.
Yet having fled precisely because I couldn't bear staying in the capital, to enter some remote place where returning would prove difficult—to rot away beyond the notice of family and relatives—was in fact my truest desire.
When I came to a steep slope, gasping for breath, I would pause and survey the mountains encircling us.
Then those mountains—each and every one darkened and covered in an astonishing density of trees—became enshrouded in clouds, growing distant before my eyes.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say they were growing faint rather than distant.
Having grown faint, they were gradually drawn deeper into the recesses until what had until now appeared shadow-like now ceased to show even a shadow.
Then again, the clouds would move along, passing over the mountain's ridge.
As the white mass churned incessantly, the faint shadow of a mountain emerged.
The edge of that shadow gradually darkened, and by the time the trees' colors grew distinct, the earlier clouds had already drifted to the neighboring peak.

Then yet another cloud immediately swept in from behind, blurring the mountain's colors that had just begun to emerge through the haze.
Eventually he could no longer discern where any mountains stood or what shapes they took.
When pausing to gaze while standing, trees and peaks and valleys all surfaced in chaotic disarray.
Even the sky overhead seemed to collapse from immeasurable heights down to within arm's reach.
Mr. Chouzo,

"This here's rain comin',"

he muttered while walking.
No one responded.
The four of us climbed onward through the clouds—buffeted by their gusts, swallowed by their billows, near buried in their smothering embrace.
To me these clouds brought profound relief.
Through their veil I could fully hide this body I wished to keep veiled from society.
Thus I walked without particular hardship through their folds.
My limbs moved freely; I felt none of a prisoner's confinement while enjoying perfect anonymity.
To be interred while still breathing—this was its very essence.
That moment held my sole remaining ideal.
Therefore these clouds proved an absolute mercy.
More than gratitude—from becoming cloud-entombed came this easing of tension, this released breath.
Now considering it, I can't grasp what exactly felt so reassuring.
None could dispute if called utterly deranged.
No helping it—this self might well yearn for clouds again come tomorrow depending on circumstance.

When I think about that, it feels somehow strange.
I feel as though I can’t vouch for my own self with my own self—as though my own self isn’t my own self at all.

But these clouds brought me absolute joy.
The sight of us four—scattering apart, clustering together, separated by gaps or swallowed whole—as we walked through those clouds remains unforgettable to this day.
The Boy would emerge from the clouds only to vanish back into them.
The Ibaraki blanket shifted between red and white.
Mr. Chouzo’s padded coat grew darker or lighter across mere five or six ken.
No one spoke.
They hurried recklessly onward.
The vision of four shadows severed from the world—sometimes lagging behind, sometimes surging ahead; neither increasing nor decreasing yet always four; drawn together as if pulled by strings, repelled apart as if struck by invisible blows yet bound by some inexorable logic to remain four—walking relentlessly through those clouds remains burned into my memory.

I was buried in clouds.
The remaining three were buried too.
With heaven itself turned to cloud, the world now contained just us four.
And those three—all three of them—were homeless.
A band wandering lost through clouds, neither washing faces nor eating breakfast.
After traveling with this group—climbing one ri and descending two as far as our legs would carry through buffeting clouds—the rain began.
Having no clock, I couldn't tell the time.
By sky's appearance you might call it morning, or past noon, or even evening without contradiction.
Just as my mind stayed blurred, so did the world—yet through rain-gaps came faint mountain hues that caught my eye.
Their color differed utterly from before.
Before I knew it, trees had vanished leaving bald expanses that transformed into mottled scalps glowing cinnabar-red.
Having been erased—both myself and society—by clouds until now, staggering onward while driving only my limbs forward, that crimson mountain's sudden appearance snapped me from clouded stupor.
This chromatic assault's violence shocked me.
Truth be told, I'm naturally so color-indifferent I sometimes suspect colorblindness.
Thus when this scarlet peak savaged my optic nerves with unusual force, I thought: We must near the copper mine at last.
Call it gut instinct if you will—though truly seeing that hue likely sparked immediate copper associations.
At any rate, when I'd intuitively—if what passes for intuition amounts to this much—when I'd so-called intuitively grasped our arrival's fact, Mr. Chouzo—

“Finally, we’ve arrived.”

Chouzo had said what I had wanted to say.
Then after about fifteen minutes，they emerged into a town.
Having crossed mountains within mountains and passed through clouds within clouds，I was so shocked by our sudden emergence into a new town that I nearly rubbed my eyes to verify what I saw.
Had this been some shogunate-era town lingering with old post stations and villages，it might have made sense—but here stood new banks，new post offices，new restaurants，everything dripping with such raw newness that moss couldn’t cling to it，right down to women with freshly powdered faces．The sheer unreality left no time for doubt to register on my face before we’d already passed through．
Then they came upon a bridge．
Mr．Chouzo stood on the bridge and briefly observed the water’s color，

“This here’s the entrance.
Now that we’re finally here, you’ve got to keep your resolve.”

He gave this warning.
But having no notion of what resolve I was meant to keep, I stood silent on the bridge, staring from the entrance into its depths.
To the left rose a mountain.
To the right rose a mountain.
Here and there stood houses.
Their wooden frames still bore that raw newness.
Some might have had white walls—or perhaps paint—I couldn’t tell.
All equally fresh.
Only the mountains showed weathering, bald patches worn bare.
The sensation of being dragged back into reality left me faintly disappointed.
Mr. Chouzo observed me peering mutely across the bridge,

“You got that? You alright there?”

When he repeated the question, I—

“I’m fine.”

I answered clearly, but inwardly, I wasn’t feeling well at all.
For reasons unknown to me, Mr. Chouzo seemed concerned solely about my well-being.
He asked neither “You got that?” nor “You alright there?” of Red Blanket Man or the Boy.
From the very start, Mr. Chouzo seemed to have plainly written across his face that these two were destined by some karmic reckoning from their past to become miners and meet their ends within the copper mine.
Upon reflection, I alone was deemed untrustworthy—perhaps Mr. Chouzo had long been sizing me up as a risk.
What a fine charade.

Then, with all four of us together, as we crossed the bridge, there were some rather impressive houses visible on the right-hand side. Pointing to the most imposing one among them, Mr. Chouzo informed us that was the director’s house. Then, while looking to the left, he said: “This here’s the work zone, you got that?” I heard the term “work zone” for the first time at this moment. I nearly considered asking for clarification, but thinking this must be what they meant by “work zone,” I kept silent. Later, when I too found myself in a position where I had to clearly understand this term “work zone,” my initial vague conception of its definition proved not so different after all. Before long, turning left, we finally entered the work zone. As we followed the iron rails and gradually climbed upward, crude little houses appeared here and there in great numbers. Upon hearing these were miners’ dwellings, I thought I too would be living in such a place starting today—but that was mistaken. All these cabins had six-tatami and three-tatami two-room layouts—undoubtedly miners’ dwellings—but due to a regulation that only those with families were permitted to rent them, someone like me, alone, couldn’t get in even if I tried. Threading our way between these cabins and climbing upward without respite, we next saw a longhouse—narrow and elongated—beneath a stone cliff. And there were many such longhouses. At first I thought there were only two or three houses, but as we climbed, they continued to appear one after another. Their sizes and lengths were similar, and since they were all beneath the cliff, their positions didn’t vary—but each faced a different direction. They had to make use of the mountain slopes and build on what little ground was available, so they couldn’t afford luxuries like facing east or west. Having finally managed to level the ground, they’d built them without regard to orientation—resulting in an irregular layout. Moreover, first of all, the path we were climbing was winding. Just when I thought we were walking along the right side of that longhouse, before I knew it, we had come out in front of it.

Just when I thought it would be right overhead and waited in anticipation, the path would suddenly veer off and carry us far away. I was completely disoriented. Moreover, from these narrow elongated houses, faces were emerging. It wasn't particularly unusual for faces to emerge from houses—but these weren't ordinary faces. Each one was ill-formed with sickly complexions. Their sheer awfulness defied ordinary standards. Blue-black tinged with brown—colors unimaginable to city dwellers—they troubled me profoundly. They defied comparison even to hospital patients. As I climbed that mountain path seeing these faces for the first time—not fully understanding what "Mining Area" meant—I couldn't help feeling This must be what they call a Mining Area. But even accounting for that label, I never imagined so many such faces could exist—yet with each longhouse we passed, more identical faces appeared until finally I came to see the Mining Area as terrifying—forced to endure countless unpleasant visages while having my own face scrutinized in turn—those longhouse faces must have been watching us all along with a menacing glare.—At last we reached the work camp at one o'clock sharp.

I didn't understand why they called it a work camp.
Maybe they'd named it that from when they used to serve emergency rations here.
Later when I asked a miner about what "work camp" meant, he snapped at me—"You idiot! A work camp's a work camp! What kinda fool question is that?"
All the technical terms used in this society—whether it was Mining Area or work camp or funeral procession—they'd all come about by accident and persisted through happenstance. Ask about their meaning carelessly and you'd get shouted down immediately.
There was no time to ask meanings or explain them—anyone who looked into it was considered a damn fool—so it was all perfectly simple and thoroughly practical.

Thus, while I still don't understand the meaning of "work camp," for now one could simply think of it as referring to the longhouses scattered beneath the cliff. We finally arrived at that longhouse. Among the many longhouses, why Mr. Chouzo had chosen this particular work camp was difficult for me to explain, as the decision had been his alone. Yet this work camp didn't appear to be one of Mr. Chouzo's regular business partners. No sooner had Mr. Chouzo foisted me onto this work camp than he disappeared, taking Red Blanket Man and the Boy with him to another camp. Only later did I realize they must have ended up eating at another work camp's mess. I never heard word of their whereabouts after that. Not once did I encounter them within the copper mine either. When I think on it, it feels peculiar—that Red Blanket Man who'd burst from a cheap eatery and the Boy who descended from evening mountains, with whom I'd shared that summer night taking turns under a crumbling thatched roof before spending half a day struggling through clouds to reach our destination work camp, should vanish like smoke the moment we arrived. This makes for no proper novel. Yet the world holds many such things that seem poised to cohere yet never do—botched semblances of novels, one might say. When I look back across the years, it's precisely this carelessly truncated history—its tail lost in azure skies—that seems more compelling. Any past worth remembering exists as dreamstuff; since it's precisely those dreamlike qualities that lend nostalgic charm, unless the actual facts themselves possess some hazy ambiguity, they cannot sustain this phantasmal allure. Thus compared to matters that develop fully to satisfy expectations of cause and effect, I find greater interest in scenes like those following Red Blanket Man's pattern—where both beginning and end dissolve into secrecy, leaving only fragments of that night-and-half-day tableau floating before one's eyes. That quality of nearly becoming a novel yet utterly failing to do so feels refreshingly untainted by worldly concerns. Nor was it only Red Blanket Man. The Boy was no different. Mr. Chouzo was no different either. Even the proprietress of Matsubara's tea shop was no different.

To put it more broadly, this entire work "Koufu" itself was no different.
It merely recorded incoherent facts exactly as they occurred.
Because it wasn't fabricated like a novel, it wasn't as entertaining as one.
But in exchange, it held more mystery than any novel.
All natural facts dramatized by fate followed fewer rules than novels constructed through human design.
That was why they held mystery.
This I had always thought.

Though Red Blanket Man and the Boy would be taken away later, when we arrived at the work camp, both were naturally still with us.
There, Mr. Chouzo finally began negotiations for my becoming a miner.
To call it "negotiations" makes it sound complicated, but in reality, it was an extremely simple matter.
All he did was say that since this man wanted to become a miner, he simply asked them to take him on.
He didn’t mention my full name, place of birth, background, or history—nothing at all.
Of course, even if he had wanted to talk about them, he couldn’t have—he didn’t know anything—but I never imagined he’d settle things this abruptly.
From my experience entering middle school, I had simply assumed that even miners wouldn’t be hired without undergoing the proper procedures.
I had already jumped ahead in my thinking to the point of assuming there must be guarantors or sponsors stamping seals on some written oath—and that when the time came, I could just ask Mr. Chouzo to handle it.
Contrary to my expectations, when negotiations were brought to the work camp boss—though at the time I didn’t even know if he was the work camp boss or something else—
He was a sturdy man of around forty with thick eyebrows and a pronounced shadow of a bluish beard.
—As soon as that man had heard Mr. Chouzo’s explanation in full,

“Alright then, just leave him here.”

He had said it as casually as one might toss aside a rag. To me, it felt exactly like watching a charcoal seller haul his clay furnace into a kitchen—a transaction of inanimate objects. This man didn’t recognize that I’d crossed mountains to become a miner. In my gut, I resented the work camp boss—though this resentment would prove misguided. The reason soon became clear.

The work camp boss was a mining crew captain overseeing one barracks cluster. Every miner joining this longhouse collective became entirely subject to his whims. Thus his authority ran absolute. Mr. Chouzo—having concluded negotiations with this boss in under a minute—

“Then I’ll leave him in your care, Mr. Hara.”

With those words, he took Red Blanket Man and the Boy and left.
I thought he would come back, but when he never showed hide nor hair afterward, I realized I'd been well and truly ditched.
When I think about it, he's a right bastard.
For all his show of concern while dragging me up here—all those caring words and whatnot—when push came to shove, he couldn't even spare a proper farewell.
Still can't figure when or where that labor broker pocketed his commission, though.

Through these circumstances, I was recognized by the work camp boss as nothing more than a charcoal bale in a clay furnace, then hurled into this place by Mr. Chouzo like a parcel.
Feeling not the least bit human and sunk in profound despondency, I was startled when the work camp boss—who had just watched the three departing figures walk away—suddenly turned toward me.
His expression had changed.
A man who treated people like charcoal bales—I simply couldn't accept him.
It was exactly the face of a seasoned laborer—one you’d encounter mornings and evenings around Tokyo, who knew how to handle anything.

“You don’t seem like someone who’s been a laborer from birth…”

When I heard the work camp boss’s words up to this point, I suddenly wanted to cry.
After being relentlessly addressed as “you” in that crude way—battered until I grew sick of it, having steeled myself that I could never rise above being treated as just another laborer—when suddenly he reverted to addressing me as “you” in that proper manner from before, the joy of having my self recognized in this unexpected place, the nostalgia, along with memories of how until just the day before yesterday I had still proudly carried myself as that proper “you”—all these things came crowding and clamoring up in my chest, compounded by his exceedingly courteous and kind tone—I nearly wept.
I have since encountered many hardships that made me want to cry countless times, but looking back from my weathered present, most were not worth shedding tears over.
Yet even now, I think the tears that had accumulated in my head at that time would not fail to come out if I were to find myself in the same situation.
Painful, bitter, frustrating, desolate tears—these can be erased through experience.
I could avoid shedding even tears of gratitude.
Only the tears of joy when one’s degraded self is recognized by others as still being one’s former self will undoubtedly follow one until death.
Humans are such self-centered creatures.
To misinterpret these tears as tears of gratitude and feel smug about it—isn’t that just like keeping a student for your own sake while believing you’ve done it for theirs?

For these reasons, when I heard just a line or two of the work camp boss's words, I suddenly wanted to cry—but in truth, I did not.
I was despondent, but my nerves were taut.
I didn't know where it came from, but a resistance began to rise within me.
Just because I couldn't speak as I wished, I silently listened to what he said.
Then the work camp boss said in a tone so kind it verged on cheerfulness: —

“Well... I can’t imagine why you’ve come all the way to a place like this—though given that man brought you here, I have a rough idea of the circumstances—how about giving it another thought? He must have spun you some sweet talk about becoming a full-fledged miner and raking in heaps of cash, didn’t he? But you see, when you actually try it, it doesn’t even reach one-tenth of what they claim—it’s just not worth it. First off, when people talk about miners in general... It’s not a job just anyone can do—especially someone educated like you. There’s no way you’d last……”

The work camp boss, having reached this point, stared fixedly at my face.
I had to say something.
Fortunately, by this time I had gotten past wanting to cry and could speak again.
So I said: —

"I—I—don’t want money that badly."
"It's not like I came here to make money or anything—I know that... I know that all too well……"

To this day I remember repeating "I know" twice then.
It had been an insufferably presumptuous way of speaking.
Youth makes one grow arrogant at the slightest provocation, even when steeped in despondency moments before.
The shame still burns.
Yet when I said "I know," it merely meant recognizing that Mr. Chouzo—the man who brought me here—belonged to that breed of labor brokers who spin lies as naturally as breathing.
No amount of explaining—that I hadn’t been deceived, that I’d come willingly knowing full well—could undo things now.
But youth’s vanity—still not wholly purged from me—drove me to make excuses so mortifying they’d draw cold sweat.
Mercifully, Mr. Hara—a decent soul ill-suited to his trade—took pity on my greenness, knowingly overlooking my impertence without reprimand.
For this I remain grateful.

After moving into this work camp, as I grew increasingly astonished by the boss’s vast influence, I would recall my “I know” claims and blush alone.
Incidentally, this boss’s name was Hara Komakichi.
Even now, I think it’s a good name.

Mr. Hara listened to my excuses without making any unpleasant expression and remained silent, but eventually began shaking his head. His head bore a close-cropped cut, with his forehead receding sharply like a polished metal plate.

“That’s what we call a twist of fate.”
“Even if you insist on doing it since you’ve come all this way—it’s not like you resolved to become a miner when you left home.”
“So to speak, it was just a passing whim.”
“Once you try it, it’s plain as day you’ll get sick of it right away—might as well quit while you can.”
“In fact, there isn’t a single student type who’s come here and lasted even ten days.”
“Eh?”
“They come.”
“Many have come.”
“They do come, sure enough—but every last one of ’em gets spooked and runs off.”
“It’s truly not work that ordinary people can manage!”
“I won’t give you bad advice—go back home.”
“You don’t have to be a miner—just getting by ain’t such hard work, you know.”

Mr. Hara, having reached this point, uncrossed his legs and began lifting his hips from the floor.
My circumstances clearly pointed toward inevitable failure.
I was in dire straits.
As my panic subsided and I shifted focus from mining to self-examination—the cold suddenly pierced through me.
My lined kimono remained soaked from the earlier rain.
I wore no Western undergarments.
Even Tokyo's May transformed into February's chill this deep in the mountains.
While climbing, my body heat had masked the cold.
The tension of facing Mr. Hara's judgment had sustained me until now.
But having rested at the work camp with my mining prospects nearly extinguished, desolation merged with physical chill to set me trembling.
My face must have shown unbearable wretchedness then.
In that moment, I inexplicably yearned for Mr. Chouzo—the man who'd abandoned me without farewells.
With him present, he might have maneuvered me into the mines.
Failing that, he'd have arranged some solution.
Having paid my train fare before, he'd likely escort me to recognizable territory at least.
Since he confiscated my coin purse, my pockets held nothing.
Returning meant starving mid-mountain during retreat.
Perhaps I should chase him now.
Searching work camp after work camp might bring encounter.
If found—if I tearfully explained—our prior dealings might compel him to devise solutions.

However, given that this was a man who hadn’t even offered farewells at parting, perhaps... In truth, right there before Mr. Hara, I found myself feverishly turning over such trivial matters in my mind.
Why was it that despite kind Mr. Hara being right before me—not extending much assistance—I had fixated solely on the vanished Mr. Chouzo as my confidant?
Such things happen often enough that when crisis strikes, you mustn't rigidly stamp enemies as enemies and allies as allies; instead keep your mind fluidly active, searching for allies among enemies and exposing enemies among allies, never leaning entirely to one side.

Being an inexperienced youth, I still couldn’t grasp this situation, so as I stood trembling and flustered before Mr. Hara, he too seemed to take pity—

"If you're truly intent on returning, though my assistance may prove inadequate, I could offer counsel on the matter."

he addressed me from across.
When he spoke up like this, I was struck by sudden gratitude.
That alone would have been natural enough—but then it hit me.
—I realized there was no one to turn to except this Mr. Hara who had rejected my very aspirations.
The moment this dawned on me, my voice failed once more.
I couldn’t bring myself to plead *Make me a miner* or *Lend me travel money*—so I stayed rooted there.
Realization changed nothing—I only recall making a fist and scrubbing it under my chilled nose.
I’d often seen raconteurs at variety halls use such gestures, but never before had I mimicked them so precisely.
Mr. Hara observed this pantomime before speaking again.

“If I may say so, you needn’t worry about travel expenses.”
“I’ll take care of it for you.”

There was no travel money.
Not a single rin clung to my skin.
Even when resolved to die destitute, having money brings peace of mind. For my present self—content with chronic self-destruction—even one white copper coin for sandals mattered.
Had returning been settled, I’d have pressed my forehead to dirt to beg travel funds from Mr. Hara.
In reality, once reduced to this state, neither modesty nor dignity remained.
I’d resort to any undignified means of acquisition.
—Most people would reach this point.
And rightly so.
—Yet this outcome merits no praise.
That I write such things nakedly stems from recording human nature as fact—fundamentally distinct from self-congratulatory confession.
To claim raw human substance suffices because it’s natural—this equates to arguing raw azuki beans suffice as sweets since they form nerikiri’s base.
Each recollection of that wretched mentality—why did I sink so low?—makes me despise myself.
Those who live without such base thoughts may lack experience but know fortune.
They stand far nobler than we.
Blessed souls savoring refined sweets through life, never tasting raw beans’ bitterness.

I had nearly come to clasp my hands together and beg a complete stranger—the work camp foreman—for some meager assistance. What barely stopped me was this dim realization: even money prepared through kindness would disappear after just two or three nights taking shelter from the night dew in cheap boarding houses—and once gone, I’d have no choice but to drift rootlessly again. Despicably, I refused the pity money. Outwardly, this refusal looked dutiful. I too think so—but scrutinized closely, it undeniably sprang from a judgment weighing desires on scales of profit and loss. As proof, the very moment I declined assistance, these words came out:

“Instead, please make me a miner. Since I’ve gone to the trouble of coming all this way, I’m absolutely determined to try this.”

“You’re quite taken with this idea, aren’t you?”

Mr. Hara tilted his head, staring at me before emitting a sigh-like sound.

“So you’re truly resolved not to return?”

“Even if I wanted to go back, there’s nowhere to return to.”

“But—”

“I have no home. If I can’t become a miner, my only choice is to become a beggar.”

As we repeated this verbal sparring two or three times, I found speaking becoming remarkably easier. This must have been momentum naturally built up from forcing myself to use strained words—words I knew would be difficult to utter—and persisting through it; one might dismiss this as merely mechanical change, yet strangely, that mechanical alteration began inversely affecting my psyche. As the things I wanted to say began flowing effortlessly from my mouth—there are those who, under certain circumstances, get carried away and end up babbling on about things they never intended to say—the tongue proved itself such a mechanical thing. As this mechanism gained accelerating efficacy through repeated use, I gradually grew bolder.

No—it was because I'd grown bold that I rambled on. If you want to argue that what I'm saying is inverted, so be it.
That's fine, but it's too trite and occasionally becomes falsehood.
Those who find no satisfaction in lies and triteness will nod in agreement with my claims as most reasonable.

I grew bold.
As I grew bolder, I became determined to settle into being a miner.
Moreover, I came to realize that if I kept talking volubly, I would surely become a miner.
Until the very moment I fled home the day before yesterday, the thought of becoming a miner had never once crossed my mind.
Not only that—had I resolved to run away specifically to become a miner, I might have felt somehow ashamed and, after giving it a week's proper consideration, vaguely postponed the timing of my flight.
I would have fled.
I would have fled—a gentleman's flight—but the notion of escaping with the express purpose of descending into some pit where one couldn't tell if the diggers were human or mere clods of earth would never have so much as cast a shadow across the mind of someone raised in sufficiency like myself.
Yet there I stood before Mr. Hara, gritting my molars against the chill as our futile verbal sparring wore on—until I found myself believing this mining labor wasn't just my destined path, but a divinely ordained calling I'd been born to shoulder.
Having endured these mountains, these clouds, and this rain to get here, I simply must become a miner—there's no other way.
If I were not accepted, I would lose all face.—The readers would laugh.
But since I'm earnestly writing about my state of mind at that time, the more absurd it appears to others, the more pitiful I feel toward my former self.

Whether it was stubborn pride, refusal to admit defeat, fear of collapsing on the road that kept me from turning back—the exact nature remains unclear even to myself—regardless, I pleaded with Mr. Hara in the most fervent tone.

“Don’t say that... please employ me."
“If I’m truly unsuitable then so be it, but since I haven’t even tried yet—having gone to the trouble of crossing mountains and coming all this way—please, even just a day or two will do, think of it as a trial and employ me.”
"Then, if it’s conclusively decided that I’m utterly useless, I’ll leave."
"I’ll definitely leave."
"After all, even I don’t intend to stubbornly impose on your hospitality if I can’t manage that much work."
"I'm nineteen."
"I'm still young."
"I'm in my prime..."

I proceeded to boldly state exactly what the tea shop proprietress had said yesterday, getting carried away with myself.
In hindsight, these were rather words others might use to evaluate me, not phrases I would boast about myself.
At that, Mr. Hara began to laugh slightly.

“If you desire it that strongly, I suppose there’s no help for it.
Well, call it fate’s doing.
Go ahead and try it then.
But it’s going to be tough, you know.”

Mr. Hara casually looked up as if peering at the red mountain behind—likely checking the weather. I too shifted my gaze toward the mountains along with him. The rain had stopped, but the sky remained darkly overcast, holding an eerie, ominous cast that unsettled the senses. In that instant—my wish granted—I became a man of the mountains. Yet now Mr. Hara’s earlier warning—“But it’s going to be tough”—began pressing strangely upon me. When one finally achieves some hard-won immediate purpose through great effort, a reaction inevitably follows—cases where that very fulfillment suddenly curdles into bitter resentment. The sensation I felt upon receiving verbal orders to settle here as desired somewhat resembled that phenomenon.

“Well then―” Mr. Hara shifted his tone and began speaking.
“Well then―”
“In any case, go ahead and enter the Mining Area tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll assign someone to guide you.”
“And then―oh right, there’s something I need to explain first.”
“When people simply say ‘miner,’ it might sound like an easy job, but it’s far from the straightforward work you hear about out there.”
“Well, you can’t just become a miner right off the bat,” he said, gazing at his own face, then―

“With that physique of yours, it might be a bit difficult.”
“Even if you don’t become a miner—s’pose that’d be alright?”

he asked sympathetically.
It was there that I first understood one must undergo considerable ranks and training before becoming a miner.
Of course—Mr. Chouzo had been going on about “miner this, miner that,” brandishing the word as if it were some great honor.

“Are there other things besides miners?”
“Aren’t all the people here miners?”

I asked just to confirm.
Then Mr. Hara, without any trace of mockery, promptly explained.

"In the copper mine here, there's ten thousand men working underground."
"They're split four ways—diggers, support crew, stone breakers, and proper miners."
"Diggers're them what ain't fit to be full miners yet. Basically grunt workers for the real miners."
"Support crew—quick way to put it—they're like carpenters inside the Mining Area."
"Then stone breakers—this bunch just chips rocks all day, mostly kids—you saw one earlier."
"That's the sorta work they'll have you doing as a miner apprentice first off."
"That's the gist of it."
"Now miners work contract—if luck's with you, might pull one or two yen a day. But diggers get thirty-five sen daily wage year-round."
"And five sen of that goes straight to the foreman—get sick? Your pay gets halved to seventeen sen five rin."
"So futon rental's three sen each—need two in cold months makes six sen total. Meals run fourteen sen five rin daily—side dishes extra. How's that sit?"
"If you can't hack being a miner—think you'd stomach digger work?"

Truth be told, I lacked the vigor to respond with energetic conviction, but having come this far, there was no longer any reason that could justify refusal. So I mustered as much cheerfulness as possible,

“I will.”

I ended up answering.
Whether Mr. Hara took this answer as resolute determination or perceived it as stubborn bravado plastered on for show remained unclear, but in any case, upon hearing these words, Mr. Hara cheerfully—

“Well then, come on up.”
“I’ll have someone guide you tomorrow—go ahead and try entering the Mining Area.”
“With ten thousand men divided into all these groups, managing even one work camp means nothing but daily nuisances.”
“You go through the trouble of taking ’em in, then they up and run.”
“Two or three desert every single day.”
“Then just when you think they’ve settled down, some get sick and die on you—godsbedamned hassle.”
“Funeral processions alone—not like we get five or six a day often.”
“If you’re set on doing this, give it your all.”
“Sitting around’ll stiffen your legs.”
“This way.”

Having listened to all this in detail, I had reached a point where—whether as a digger or stone breaker—I simply had to work hard, or else I would be failing Mr. Hara.
So I resolved within myself never to cause any inconvenience that might trouble Mr. Hara.
After all, being nineteen years old, I was honest.

Following Mr. Hara’s instructions, I was wiping my feet and settling down when—the old woman emerged from the back, her appearance so abrupt that I startled—

“Please come this way.”

So when she said this, I gave a perfunctory bow and followed behind her.
She was a small-statured old woman who, given how delicate her frame appeared from behind, walked with a surprisingly lively gait, almost bouncing with each step.
She had neatly tied a narrow brown obi around her waist and gathered her scant hair at the nape of her neck, securing it with a lead-colored hairpin.
And she wore a work sash around her sleeves.
Perhaps she’d been in the kitchen—or if not a kitchen—in the back area, right in the middle of some task when called to guide me, hence this hurried swaying of hips as she walked.
Or perhaps it's because she was mountain-raised, I wondered.
No—it must be because in a work camp, you can’t afford to take things easy.
Considering this, now that I’d be starting on work camp meals from today onward, I too couldn’t afford to idle about.
I must model myself after this old woman in all matters.
No—I mustn’t.
——With a forceful effort—Hmm!—I steeled myself, yet my exhausted limbs remained stubbornly unresponsive, filling me with the peculiar sensation that something in my head and chest had undergone a structural shift.
With that momentum, I climbed the wide staircase—thud-thud—following her lead with forced vigor.
As soon as my head popped up about a foot above the staircase, this determination recoiled violently.

I pushed my upper body above the staircase and looked around the second floor—startled.
I couldn’t tell how many dozens of tatami mats there were—they stretched all the way to the distant end without a single partition in sight.
It looked exactly like a judo dojo or naniwa-bushi storytelling hall, only two or three times larger than either.
So it was just this overwhelming sense of vastness—even on tatami mats, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d stepped out into a field.
That alone would be astonishing enough, but within that vast expanse were two large hearths, each surrounded by clusters of about fourteen or fifteen people.
To say my resolve had retreated was a cowardly admission, but it seemed entirely due to encountering these people.
I had always put on a brave front, but being young, I had rarely ventured into gatherings of strangers.
When it came to formal settings, I was fidgety enough as it was.
And then, suddenly captured by a group of miners, no sooner had I seen this black mass than I felt thoroughly daunted.
If they were just ordinary people, that would be one thing.
If I put it that way, the meaning doesn’t come across clearly.
If ordinary people were becoming miners, that would be acceptable.
However, when the upper half of my body emerged from the staircase, each part of this mass uniformly turned toward me as if by prior agreement.
Their faces—no, it was precisely those faces that left me utterly cowed.
What I mean is, those weren’t ordinary human faces.
They weren’t ordinary human faces.
They were purely miners’ faces.
To put it another way—there was simply no other way to describe them.

For those curious about what miners' faces look like, there's no recourse but to go see for themselves.
If you absolutely demand an explanation, I'll sketch it roughly—cheekbones progressively rising higher and higher.
Jaws thrust forward.
Simultaneously pushing outward to both sides.
Eyes receding like jars, sucking eyeballs unsparingly deep into their sockets.
Nostrils collapsing.
In sum, one might characterize it as all flesh beating retreat while every bone mounts its clamorous offensive.
It grew so angular you couldn't discern whether it was bone wearing a face or a face become bone.
You could attribute this to premature aging from brutal labor, yet natural aging alone would never produce such visages.
Roundness, warmth, kindness—try distilling these into medicine and you'd find not a drop extractable.
In a word—ferocious.
Strangely, this ferocity seemed a collective trait; when the black shapes around the hearth uniformly turned my way, fourteen or fifteen savage countenances assembled in an instant.
The group huddled around the far hearth surely wore identical faces.
These were precisely the visages that had glared down from longhouse windows as I climbed the slope earlier.
By this logic, all ten thousand faces inhabiting those partitioned longhouses must share this ferocity.
I had fully recoiled.

At this moment, the old woman turned back,

“Come over here.”

Since she said this impatiently, I steeled my nerves and approached the ferocious group.
When I finally reached the hearthside, the old woman, this time,

"Well, please sit here."

She issued her directive—but since it merely meant "sit wherever" with no specially prepared seat—I avoided the black mass and sat down alone on the tatami.
All the while, those ferocious eyes remained fixed on me.
There was no restraint whatsoever.
And yet, no one spoke.
Until I could find some point of contact, I couldn’t very well blend into the group; remaining poignantly isolated only made me a target for their ferocity—it was thoroughly vexing.
The old woman made no move to introduce me—she simply barked "Sit here" in that mechanical way of hers, then swung her tightly bound hips about-face and clattered down the staircase.
Left utterly alone in the center of a vast hall, I felt as though being mocked by an entire troupe backstage—the idleness was unbearable, of course.
Especially for me now, it was unbearably unnerving.
Not only that—wearing just a lined kimono made it bitterly cold.
The cold was understandable—here in May, with that ferocious bunch warming themselves at a hearth where charcoal blazed fiercely.
I had no choice but to mask my awkwardness—unbuttoning my undershirt to slip hands under my arms, propping up knees to grab at big toes, rubbing thighs with both hands—keeping myself occupied with all manner of such antics.
At times like these, keeping a composed face—no, not just the face but maintaining true inner calm—if you hadn’t trained yourself through disciplined practice to sit unfazed, you’d be at a great disadvantage.
However—at nineteen—my ability to remain composed remained hopelessly inadequate; I had no choice but to continue.
As I made all those foolish gestures described earlier—suddenly—

“Oi”

Someone had called out.
I was just then looking down and tightening my Narumi-patterned sash when, upon hearing this voice, my neck snapped taut like an electric puppet’s.
When I looked up, those same faces had all turned this way—their eyes glinting.
The voice that called “Oi” could’ve come from any of them—not that it mattered which.
Every face was ferocious; looking closer I saw contempt, mockery and raw curiosity carved into each one—a realization that struck me when I raised my head and left me sickened.
With no other choice, I kept my head up waiting for another “Oi” to come.
I don’t know how long I stayed frozen like that—seconds stretched taut—but my body held that expectant pose regardless.
Then suddenly,

“Putting on airs, aren’t ya?”

A voice spoke up. This voice sounded slightly more rasping than the previous “Oi,” so I concluded it must belong to someone else. However, since it wasn’t the sort of remark that warranted a response—though written down it might resemble an ordinary “huh,” in truth it was a vulgar Kurikara-ryū-style bastardization of a command—I kept silent as before. But inwardly, I reeled with shock.

Since arriving here, I’d only exchanged words with Mr. Hara and the old woman—but setting aside her being female, Mr. Hara had shown more courtesy than I’d anticipated. Yet Mr. Hara was the work camp foreman. If even the foreman behaved thus, I’d convinced myself ordinary miners couldn’t possibly be so crude.

So when this verbal assault came flying out of nowhere—what fresh hell?—before I could even flinch, it first left me utterly disarmed. Had I snapped back viciously then, matters might’ve been settled quickly—either through a mob beating or achieving equal footing through confrontation—but I offered no retort whatsoever.

Being Tokyo-born and bred, I ought to have known how to handle such situations somehow. Yet despite this, I refrained not only from using language resembling my brother’s but even from mustering a simple riposte—was this because I disdained them as unworthy opponents? Or was I simply too terrified to summon the courage?

I wanted to believe it was the former.
Yet truth seemed to tilt toward the latter.
All things considered, both motives likely intertwined—that appeared most plausible.
The world teems with things we scorn yet fear.
No contradiction there.

It didn't matter which it was—when the miners saw I'd heard their abuse and let it pass without protest, they burst into uproarious laughter. The more passive I remained, the louder this laughter must have resounded. If they left the copper mine, society would shun them; in retaliation, when some ordinary soul strayed into their domain, they seized this chance to mock him. From my perspective, I alone now bore these miners' accumulated resentment toward society. Until entering the mine, I'd believed my own body unfit for societal standing. Yet ascending to the work camp brought treatment declaring they'd never accept my kind as comrades. I stood trapped between ordinary society and the miners' world—a perfect wedge. So when fourteen or fifteen men's laughter erupted scorching before my face, what struck me wasn't sorrow beyond sadness, shame beyond humiliation, or tedium beyond idleness—no, what chilled was realizing these utterly heartless bastards' complete lack of pity. Their ignorance had been plain from the first. I'd meant to demand nothing beyond an uneducated man's limits, yet believing even miners must retain some birthright humanity, hearing this laughter that defied all measure made me think: beasts. Not the vulgar 'beasts' spat in anger. Beasts in a sense denying human recognition. Now experience had narrowed man and beast to a hair's breadth—those with calloused nerves might shrug this off—but this malicious laughter seeped deep into a mind still soft and new after mere nineteen years' use, and that was agony.

Even I, whenever I recall it, feel something truly heartrending yet endearing—as if wanting to wrap that nervous system from that time in silken floss exactly as it was and carefully store it away for safekeeping.

When this malicious laughter finally began to subside,

“Where you from?”

The question was asked.
The person who had asked this question was sitting closest to me, making the voice’s origin unmistakably clear.
He had hitched up a pale yellow hand-towel patterned sash above his hipbones, sitting cross-legged with his back turned while angling just his face toward me.
One eye was permanently bloodshot from birth, its conjunctiva entirely inflamed.

“I’m from Tokyo.”

When I answered, Bloodshot-Eyed Miner sucked in his fleshless cheeks and let out a derisive laugh, then jerked his chin at a fellow miner three bunks down. Then, upon receiving this signal, the Beggarly Monk spoke up in turn:

“Using ‘I’ like that—what a student brat.”
“Probably messed up whoring around or something.”
“Fatso.”
“Students these days have such rotten manners—can’t stand ’em.”
“How could I put up with someone like you? Get out of here!”
“Such scrawny arms ain’t cut out for this work.”

I remained silent. Perhaps because my prolonged silence drained the tension from the air, their rowdy jeering gradually subsided. At that moment, a miner—this one with an ordinary face—came into view. His features were so harmoniously arranged they might have passed unremarked in proper society. While enduring their mockery, each time I raised my eyes to these dark masses I gradually cataloged their numbers, garments, and varying degrees of ferocity—though at first all their faces appeared uniformly composed of bone and eyes overlaid with a greasy film of bestial desire, rendering each indistinguishable from the next. As this repeated three or four times and I grew able to differentiate four or five visages among them, this particular miner began standing out conspicuously. He likely hadn't yet reached thirty. His frame suggested rugged strength. The area where his eyebrows converged at the nasal bridge receded deeper inward, as though perpetually pressed by pince-nez glasses. While this feature seemed to harbor pent-up irritability, it paradoxically served to diminish rather than accentuate his ferocity.—This miner now spoke for the first time.—

“Why’d you come to a place like this?”
“Ain’t no use even if you did.”
“This ain’t no place to strike it rich.”
“Everyone here’s nothin’ but bottom-feeders.”
“Best get back while you can.”
“Go deliver newspapers or somethin’.”
“I went to school myself once—’fore all my screwin’ around landed me eatin’ Mining Area slop.”
“End up like me and you’re done for.”
“Try leavin’ later and you’ll find you can’t.”
“So get back to Tokyo now—deliver them papers.”
“Soft student types don’t last a month here.”
“Ain’t lyin’ to you—just go.”
“Got it?”

This was comparatively sincere advice. Even the ferocious faction remained quiet throughout this counsel, listening without retort. After the advice ended through that inertia, silence lingered for a time. Of course, I began suspecting this might actually be deference toward whatever influence this miner held—that he commanded some authority among them. At that moment, I felt strangely pleased deep down. This miner or that miner—they might have slight differences in their features, but ultimately they were all just chipping away at ore in the same hole. There could be no varying levels of skill in such work. Upon reflection, this man’s authority stemmed entirely from his literacy, comprehension, and good judgment—in short, from being educated. I was being made such a fool of right then. As an inhuman creature not even acknowledged by the lowest laborers, I endured insults from the multitude. Yet once I plunged headfirst into this society and successfully posed as one of the ferocious faction, I might gain influence comparable to this man’s after living through one or two months. I could do it. I even felt certain I could do it. So no matter what anyone said, I wouldn’t go back—I’d definitely become more than a full-fledged member of this society and prove my success. It had been quite a reckless, trivial thought I’d conceived, but even then, it seemed somewhat logical. Thus while I respectfully listened to this miner’s advice, I didn’t give the reply he demanded by saying, “Then I’ll return home.” Before long, the mocking tongues that had momentarily quieted began wagging again.

"If you're set on staying, we'll put you up. But there's rules here—you'll be nothin' but trouble if you don't get 'em through your skull."

When one of them said this,

“What kind of rules are there?”

When I asked this,

“What an idiot. There’s a boss and sworn brothers here, ain’t there?”

he bellowed in an extraordinarily loud voice.

“What’s the boss like?”

I ventured to ask.
To tell the truth, I had considered staying silent since they nagged so persistently, but fearing I might break their rules and face harsh consequences later, I decided to ask anyway.
Then the other miners immediately responded.

"What a hopeless guy."
"Don't even know the boss?"
"You don't know the boss or sworn brothers, yet got the nerve to be a miner? That's wrongheaded thinking."
"Get out!"

"There's a boss and sworn brothers here—so even tryin' to make money, it ain't gonna work. Get out!"

“You think you’ll strike it rich? Just get out!”

“Get out!”

“Get out!”

They kept telling me to get out.
Moreover, they weren’t actually telling me to leave out of concern for me.
They were saying to get out because they wouldn’t let me join their group.
“You probably want to strike it rich,” they meant, “but things don’t work that way—this work’s for us alone to profit from. So give up and get out already.”
Therefore, they didn’t tell me where to go back.
Whether it was the riverbed or a hole—they didn’t care—they were just telling me to go back wherever I pleased.
I remained silent.

If this situation continued unchanged, I couldn’t help but imagine what might come to pass.
The enemies weren’t just around this hearth.
As I mentioned earlier, over there too they had formed a large ring, clustering darkly together.
If even just handling this group alone proved difficult, should that faction over there join forces, it would spell disaster.
While being mocked, I occasionally stole sidelong glances at future enemies—once it came to this, anyone human would be deemed an enemy—watching those distant yet imminent foes likely to come surging forth.
Thus, with my heart torn asunder in all directions yet unable to maintain its independence, there was nothing more agonizing than chasing after things, pursuing them in circles.
When you meet an enemy, it’s best to swallow them whole.
If you can’t swallow them, then it’s best to be swallowed.
If both prove difficult, cleanly sever all ties and face your enemy with an independent and self-respecting attitude.
If you can neither assimilate with the enemy nor keep your heart beyond their sphere of influence—and must instead grovel at their heels—it becomes a tremendous loss.
Therefore, it was the lowest form of existence.
I had often encountered such situations and researched various ways out, but the more I researched, the less my heart would listen.
Therefore, these three strategies I present here were all empty sermons of the Buddha.
If it was an argument so well-known it needed no explanation, then voicing it would only prove one’s boorishness.
If I hadn’t neglected proper academic study, I wouldn’t find myself in such a place, unable to distinguish what to keep and what to discard—it was truly vexing.

As I kept my awareness in all directions, minimizing my presence to the utmost and cowering,

“Please partake of your meal.”

I heard the old woman’s voice saying this. I had no idea when she had come up—my soul had shrunk to the size of a pigeon’s egg and was in the midst of withering away—so I didn’t notice her call to eat until her voice finally reached my ears. When I looked, there was a bowl with a chipped rim lying face down on the worn-out tray. A small rice tub was also placed there. The chopsticks were painted red and yellow, but about half of the yellow lacquer had worn away, leaving the bare wood completely exposed. The side dish consisted of a plate of shirataki noodles.

When I lowered my gaze and surveyed this meal scene, I became ravenously hungry. The truth was, I hadn’t had a single drop of water since morning. My stomach was utterly empty. If it weren’t empty, there would only be the fried buns and sweet potatoes I had eaten yesterday. It had been nearly two days and nights since I’d last had anything resembling a meal, so even in this state of a shriveled soul, the moment I caught sight of the rice tub’s shadow, my appetite surged ferociously up to my throat.

Without a moment to spare for their jeers or comebacks, casting aside all pretense and decorum, I abruptly scooped from the rice tub to heap my bowl full. I was so impatient that even these steps felt tedious, but when I took up those peeling chopsticks and tried to scoop rice from my bowl—Oh!—I was startled.

It wouldn’t scoop at all.

I applied force between my fingers, thrust the chopsticks forcefully to the bottom—this time for sure—and tried lifting them, but it still didn’t work. The rice slid slickly off the tips of my chopsticks, refusing to leave the bowl’s edge.

In all my nineteen years, I’d never experienced anything like this. So strange was it that after repeating this failed attempt two or three times, I paused my chopsticks with a “Hmm...” and pondered.

I must have looked like someone bewitched.

The miners who had been watching burst into laughter once more.
The moment I heard this voice, I suddenly pressed the bowl to my mouth.
And shoveled a mouthful of lusterless rice into my mouth.
Then came a taste so strange—more than the laughter, more than the miners, more than my hunger—it felt as if my soul had taken root on the tip of my tongue alone.
I couldn't possibly accept this as rice.
It was completely wall mud.
The sensation when this wall mud mixed with saliva and spread through my mouth was beyond description.

“Look at that face.”
“What a sight!”

When one of them said,

“It’s not even a festival day, yet putting on airs with your ‘silver rice’.”
“So I’m telling you—get lost already!”

said another.

“You don’t even know imported rice’s taste, yet wanna be a miner? Wrongheaded from the start.”

said yet another.

I swallowed this imported rice helplessly amid their mockery.
I thought to stop after one bite, but since I’d be mocked again if I didn’t finish what I’d served myself, summoning the resolve of swallowing a bear’s gallbladder, I managed to cleanly get every grain from my bowl into my stomach.
It wasn’t from hunger at all.
The fried buns and steamed potatoes I ate yesterday must have been such feasts compared to this.
This imported rice’s taste—I came to know it for the first time since being born.

As for what I'd managed to heap into my bowl—for these reasons—I somehow finished it off, but when it came to a second serving, I couldn't bring myself to take more, so I ate only the shirataki noodles and set down my chopsticks. Even after enduring this much and forcing something unpleasant into my mouth, the moment I set down my chopsticks, I was thoroughly mocked. At the time, I found it excruciating, but once I became someone who had to face this imported rice three times daily without fail, even that wall mud grew familiar. By the time I came to understand it as something humans could eat—no, as a flavor one ought to eat, no different from so-called silver rice—the hesitation I'd shown before that worn tray now struck me as shameful instead. The miners' mockery wasn't entirely unreasonable. Now that I think of it, were some inexperienced bourgeois miner like that to come across this scene of agonizing over a single bowl of imported rice and witness the present reality—given the circumstances—even I myself might laugh. Even if they didn't mock me, I think there was more than enough reason to laugh with goodwill. People sure do change in all sorts of ways.

I couldn't keep writing solely about the imported rice, so I'll stop here—but had they let those cold remarks about my failure take their natural course, there was no telling how far they might have continued. Just then came a sudden clanging like metal washbasins being struck together. Not just once. As I heard it twice, three times—clang-clang, clatter-clang—they came pounding onward, marking time in rhythm. Then arose what sounded like work chants. It certainly wasn't a proper work song, but as far as I knew, I supposed calling it that was the closest approximation. At that moment, the mockery abruptly ceased. Through the hushed mountain air where clang-clang and clatter-clang reverberated, something approached chanting in an eerie chorus.

“It’s a funeral procession!”

As one of them nearly slapped his knees while raising a loud voice,

“Funeral procession! Funeral procession!”

As the crowd chanted in unison, the black mass scattered into individuals moving toward the windows.
I didn't understand what this "funeral procession" meant, but with everyone's attention shifting away from me and my mood suddenly clearing, I found myself wanting to see it too—and with that composure came renewed energy.
Upon deep reflection, the human heart resembles water: push it and it retreats, pull it and it surges forward.
One might say we live our lives locked in a sumo match where hands never touch.
And so after everyone had stood frozen in place, I too rose.
Then I walked toward the window as well.
Standing on tiptoe over the mass of black heads blocking my view below, I peered down to see two men in navy-blue narrow-sleeved shirts emerge from around the corner of a slanting stone wall.
Two more followed.
Each carried what looked like flattened metal washbasins—thin sheets held one in each hand.
Ah—just as I thought they'd strike them—the two men clashed their hands together with a clang-clang.
The dissonant noise struck the sheer stone wall, echoed through the bald mountain behind, and before fading brought another group clattering forth from the rear.
No sooner had they appeared than more followed.
This time they carried no washbasins.
Instead came work songs—though I'd called them work songs earlier.
Yet now their raised voices carried an unprecedented tone—less like work chants than the bellowing cries of street ballads.

“Hey, Kinko ain't here?”

"Hey, Kinko ain't here?" one of the black-haired men bellowed. Since he was facing away, his face wasn’t visible. Then,

“Yeah, show it to Kinko.”

someone promptly responded. Before these words had even finished—or perhaps before they could finish—five or six black-haired men turned their heads in unison toward us. I stood there resignedly, bracing myself to be told something again in my usual manner, yet strangely, the eyes that had turned toward us were not fixed on me. Because their gazes had darted toward the far corner of the large room—wondering what was there—I too turned my head to follow their line of sight, and... there lay someone sleeping. A figure lay sleeping alone under a thin futon.

“Hey, Kinshū!”

One of them shouted loudly, but the sleeping figure gave no response.

“Hey, Kinshū, get up!”

They barked out as if shouting, but when there was still no answer, about three of them left the window and finally went to rouse him.
When they roughly yanked off the futon covering him, a man wearing a thin sash came into view.
At the same time,

“Get up, I said! Get up already!”
“I’ll show you something good.”

I heard voices shouting such things.
Eventually, the man who had been lying down rose to his feet, supported by two men at his shoulders.
Then he turned toward us.
At that moment—in that instant—merely glimpsing that face made me shudder involuntarily.
This was no convalescent taking a rest.
He was gravely ill.
More than that—he was critically ill, so much so that he couldn’t manage even basic tasks on his own.
He was nearing fifty.
His beard, seemingly unshaven for days, remained wildly overgrown.
However fierce one might be, when reduced to such emaciation, they become pitiable.
It became too pitiful—so much that it turned frightening.
The feeling I had when I first saw this face was pity stretched to its limit and utterly terrifying.

The sick man, supported by two men, moved his unresponsive legs as if being pulled along, inching closer to the window.
The crowd at the window, watching this spectacle, jeered with apparent delight.

“Hey Kinshū! Get over here quick.”
“The funeral procession’s passing through right now.”
“Hurry up and look!”

“I ain’t never seen no funeral procession.”

As the sick man was being dragged roughly along while answering in a listless voice, there was no choice about wanting or not wanting to see.
In an instant, he was crushed against the corner of the shoji window.

With a clang-clang and clatter-clang, the funeral procession appeared indifferently by the stone wall.
Wondering if the procession would never end, I stood on tiptoe to peer down again—and shuddered once more.
Sandwiched between metal washbasins after metal washbasins, a square coffin was carried aloft along the mountain path.
The top was wrapped in white cloth, and threading thin cedar logs through both ends as if they’d been tasked with hauling water, they carried it mercilessly.
Even those carrying it, from where I stood, seemed to cheerfully sing that same song.—It was then that I first understood the meaning of the Funeral Procession.
I understood with such piercing clarity that no matter what might befall me in life, I could never forget it.
The Funeral Procession was a funeral.
A kind of funeral conducted—and necessarily so—exclusively for miners, pit workers, diggers, and mountain towns.
A funeral where they chanted sutra verses as naniwabushi ballads, blared music loud enough to shatter metal washbasins, swung the coffin like a load of water—then finally dragged up a half-dead patient by force, suppressing any refusal, just to make him witness it all.
It was truly the height of innocence and the depth of cold cruelty.

“Kinshū! How was that? Did you get a good look? Pretty damn interesting, eh?”

they were saying.

The sick man,

“Yeah, I saw it. Now take me back to my futon and let me sleep.”
“I’m begging you…”

pleaded the sick man.
The two men from before once again sandwiched the sick man between them,

“Heave-ho! Heave-ho!”

Chanting all the while, they took him with measured steps to where the futon was laid out.

At that moment, the clouded sky released a rain so fine it seemed powdered dust might be falling.
The Funeral Procession clanged its way down through the rain toward the town.
The crowd,

“Rain again.”

With these words, they closed the window tightly and each returned to their places by the hearth.
Amidst this commotion, I found myself joining their savage ranks and managed to edge closer to the fire.
This was both an accidental outcome and a deliberate act.
A place without fire's warmth is bitterly cold.
In these mountains, a single lined kimono proved utterly insufficient against the chill.
Then even rain began falling - or rather, a precipitation one might call rain if pressed for a name, or mist if equally compelled - so fine it blanketed all surrounding bald peaks and smothered the open sky, falling steadily until even indoors one felt this moisture finer than rice bran seeping through every pore to permeate one's very core.
Without fire's warmth, there was simply no enduring it.

Having claimed a haphazard spot near the hearth and begun absorbing its residual warmth against my face, I found myself unexpectedly ignored this time—spared from harassment more thoroughly than I'd anticipated.
Whether they spared me because I’d proactively joined their ferocious ranks and thus deserved to be treated as an ordinary member, or whether their mood had abruptly shifted after witnessing the Funeral Procession, making them temporarily forget about me—or perhaps their reservoir of sneering material had dried up, or they’d simply grown weary of needling—whatever the reason, since relocating my seat, my mind had grown comparatively lighter.

And so, the conversation around the hearth remained dominated by talk of the Funeral Procession.
Various voices said such things: —

“Where’d that Funeral Procession come from?”

“Where it came from don’t matter—it’s the Funeral Procession.”

“Might be from the Kuroichi-gumi.”
“That’s the thinking.”

“When you get made into a Funeral Procession, where’s it take you anyway?”

“The temple. Obviously.”
“It’s decided.”

“Quit messin’ with me.
“I’m askin’ what comes after the temple.”

“Exactly—it ain’t gonna stop at no temple.”
“Gotta be goin’ somewhere else.”

“So? What kinda place you think it’s headed to? Maybe someplace like this here after all?”
“What kinda place you figure?”
“Prob’ly someplace like this here.”

“Well since it’s where human souls go most places are probably th' same anyway.”

“I think so too.”

“Once you're goin' there ain't no other place t'end up anyway.”

“Even if it's hell or paradise they still gotta eat meals right?”

“Would there be women too?”
“Is there even a country in this world without women?”

In short, their conversation was so utterly nonsensical that listening to it made my head spin.
At first, I thought it was a joke.
Knowing it was permissible to laugh, I did little more than twitch the corners of my mouth while glancing around to assess the situation.
However, I was the only one who wanted to laugh; every face gathered around the hearth had hardened as if carved in stone.
They were discussing the great issue of the future with deadly earnestness.
An earnestness so intense it could only be taken as falsehood appeared etched between each of their brows.
At that moment, with a single glance at this scene, I instantly transformed my earlier impulse to laugh.
That these reckless, foolhardy men—men who descended into the mining area with their lanterns, resigned to never again see daylight—that this ferocious crew—human machines, mechanical beasts—should care so deeply about the future was truly beyond all expectation.
When I considered this, it became clear that what the world needed was a religion that could guarantee one’s future.
When I actually raised my eyes and surveyed the group sitting cross-legged around the hearth, I naturally had no awareness that a laugh—already seven parts formed—had abruptly collapsed under the combined weight of restraint and timidity.
When I opened my eyes, half-expecting to find myself at a vaudeville show, there before me sat a crowd of stern-faced deities—Bishamonten statues come to life—and I felt compelled to straighten my posture.
In short, I suppose it was at this moment that I first glimpsed the seeds of genuine religious devotion and felt compelled to maintain solemn decorum even before these half-beast, half-human beings.
Yet despite this, I still possess no trace of what could be called religious devotion.

At that moment, the same sick man began to groan in the far corner.
There was certainly no special meaning to that groan.
It was merely an ordinary groan from a sick man, but to those brooding over the Funeral Procession’s future, it likely carried an eerie resonance.
They all exchanged glances.

“Is Kinko in pain?”

asked one of them in a loud voice.
The patient merely,

“Ugh...”

he said.
It was unclear whether he was groaning or responding.

Then another miner said,

“Quit fussin’ over your damn nose.
“They already took it.
“What’s groanin’ gonna change now?
“It’s a pawned nose.
“If you don’t redeem it, ’course they’ll sell it off.”

Still seated by the hearth, a miner comforted him in a loud voice.
It was so ambiguous whether they were comforting him or spewing abuse that it was hard to tell.
From the miners’ perspective, both were probably the same thing.
The patient merely let out a faint "Ugh"—a sound that couldn’t even be called a proper response.
So the crowd abandoned their ineffectual consolations and confined their conversations to the area around the hearth.
Yet their conversation still lingered on Kinko.

"Well, if he hadn't gone and gotten sick, even Kinko here could've kept his nose."
"When you get down to it, it's still his own fault."

No sooner had one man condemned Kinko's illness as though it were a sin,

“Exactly.”
“He got sick and borrowed money, couldn’t pay it back, so they took his nose as collateral—honestly, he’s got no right to complain.”

Someone among them voiced agreement.

“It was put up as collateral for a pittance.”

When this was heard, from across came:

“Five ryō.”

Someone succinctly informed the others.

“So Ichi’s bastard moved down to the tenement house and swapped places with Kinshū, huh?”
“Ha ha ha ha!”

I found sitting by the hearth painful.
My back was chillingly cold to the point of shivering, yet sweat poured from my armpits.

“It’d be good if Kinshū healed up quick and got his nose out of hock.”

“So we’re swapping with Ichi again? Ain’t worth the trouble.”

“Rather than that, work your ass off and take collateral that’s actually worth somethin’. Now that’d be smart.”

“Nah.”

As one man began speaking, the rest erupted in laughter.
While enveloped in this laughter, I found myself unable to laugh fully and instead looked down.
When I looked, I found myself sitting formally with knees aligned.
Realizing how foolish this was, I rearranged myself into a cross-legged position.
But my mind was in no state to sit cross-legged with such ease.

Gradually, dusk began to approach.
It wasn’t merely time passing—the oppressive weather and encircling mountains conspired to hasten the darkness.
When I listened quietly, there seemed no sound of dripping rain—perhaps it had already stopped.
But given this gloom, it was more accurate to say it still fell.
The windows remained firmly shut.
There was no discerning conditions outside.
Yet dank air seeped through the shoji paper, invading the hearth’s perimeter.
The fourteen or fifteen lined faces grew increasingly indistinct.
Simultaneously, the charcoal piled mountain-like at the hearth’s core—heated through—seemed to redden gradually.
It felt as though I sank into the mine’s depths while flames conversely surged upward from its pits—that approximate sensation.
Suddenly, the room brightened.
Looking up, the electric light had flared on.

“Let’s go eat already.”

When one man said this, everyone stirred as if remembering forgotten tasks,

“Eat and then another shift?”

“It’s a bit cold today.”
“Is it still raining?”
“Who knows? Go outside and look up yourself.”

Cursing in unison, they stood up and descended the stairs to the lower floor.
I was left completely alone in the spacious room.
The only other person present was the sickly Kinko.
It seemed Kinko was still letting out faint groans.
I sat cross-legged before the hearth, shading my hands over it, then turned sideways to look at Kinko.
His head wasn't visible.
His legs too were drawn in.
Kinko's body lay small and flat within a single futon.
He looked pitifully small and flattened.
Eventually, the groans seemed to have subsided, so I shifted my gaze again and stared into the hearth.
But somehow I couldn't stop worrying about Kinko, so I turned sideways again.
Then Kinko still lay small and flat within a single futon.
And so he lay there motionless.
Was he alive or dead? He simply lay there motionless.
Being groaned at wasn't exactly pleasant, but having him stay this quiet made me even more anxious.
When my worry peaked and turned to fear, I half-rose from my seat, but then steadied my resolve - people don't die that suddenly after all - and settled back down.

Just then, two or three people came clattering up the stairs from below.
Had they already finished eating? It seemed too early for that. As I distractedly gazed toward the upper stairs, something unexpected appeared.
They wore workman’s jackets in an indeterminate color between black and navy.
Their legs were clad in narrow workman’s pants, the color likewise navy.
They carried mining lanterns.
Not only were both of them covered in mud, but they were also soaked through.
And they did not speak.
They stood rooted in place and glared sharply in my direction.
I couldn’t help but think they looked exactly like bandits.
Soon, they threw down their mining lanterns, unfastened their buttons, and took off their workman’s jackets.
They removed their workman's pants.
Putting on the wide-sleeved coats hanging on the wall over their work clothes, wrapping three-shaku belts around their waists, still without uttering a word, the two of them descended heavily down the stairs.
Then they came up again.
This time, they were soaked too.
They were covered in mud.
They discarded their mining lanterns.
They changed clothes.
Thudding heavily down they went; then up they came again.
In this manner they came and went repeatedly, until quite a number had passed through.
Each of them made their eyes gleam from the depths and surely looked at me once.

Among them,

“You’re the new recruit, eh?”

Some said.
I simply,

“Yeah.”

I replied.
Fortunately this time I wasn’t needlessly mocked like before—it passed without incident.
Those coming up and those going down all hurried along, likely having no time to harass me.
Instead, every single one glared at me without exception.
As this continued and those ascending finally dwindled away, I felt some relief at last. Staring at the hearth’s reddening coals, I began thinking various thoughts.
Of course they were incoherent thoughts growing more foolish the longer I dwelled on them—but gazing into the fire made such delusions flicker endlessly among the embers regardless. Until finally my soul slipped out into those crimson coals and danced wildly within the flames’ updraft—this strange exhilaration had just taken hold when suddenly,

“You must be exhausted. You should get some rest now.”

she said.

When I looked, the old woman from earlier was standing there.
She still wore her work apron.
I had no idea when she had come up; I hadn’t noticed at all.
My soul raced unrestrained through the flames, becoming Miss Yanako, becoming Miss Sumie, becoming the Old Man, becoming Kinko—haori coats and sidelock hairstyles, red blankets and groans, fried manjū and Kegon Falls—countless visions danced wildly within the hearth, chasing and being chased by the rising heat until they multiplied like dust motes floating in sunlight. In the midst of this, when I suddenly came to my senses, the old woman before my eyes seemed unnervingly strange.
However, since the instruction to sleep must have clearly reached my ears, I simply,

“Yeah.”

I answered.
Then the old woman pointed at the cupboard behind her,

“The futons are stored over there, so take them out yourself and lay them down.”
“Three sen each.”
“You’ll probably want two because it’s cold.”

Hearing this, again,

“Yeah.”

When I answered, the old woman said nothing more and went back downstairs.
Now that I had obtained permission to sleep without fear of reprimand for lying down properly, I opened the cupboard as instructed by the old woman—and there they were.
There were many futons.
However, every single one was slightly soiled.
They were utterly incomparable to the ones I had spread out at home.
I quietly took down two futons from the top of the pile.
And then I examined them in the electric light.
The base fabric was light yellow.
The pattern was white.
Moreover, a layer of grime had been smeared all over them, so about sixty percent had discolored, and the white areas had transformed into something so filthy it would normally be unbearable to endure.
Moreover, they were exceedingly hard.
The cotton had clumped into dense masses like freshly pounded rice cakes wrapped in muslin, having no more connection to the outer fabric than strangers—it was rock-hard.

I spread this futon flat on the tatami. Then I spread the remaining futon flat. And then, stripped down to just my undergarments, I slipped between them. I forced my way into the damp space and stretched my legs out fully, but when my heels ended up on the tatami, I pulled them back slightly. Whether extending or bending them, they wouldn't move as lightly and supplely as usual. My joints had stiffened so rigidly they creaked audibly, refusing to move. Lying still with my knees stretched out in the futon, they felt heavy beyond mere weariness. Having had my legs cut off below the thighs, they felt as heavy as if fitted with steel-reinforced prosthetics. They were like two sentient rods. I worried over my cold, heavy legs and thrust my head into the futon. This was a desperate measure born of a fleeting hope—that if I could at least warm my head, my legs might meet me halfway.

However, I was truly exhausted.
More than the cold, more than my legs, more than the futon's stench, more than anguish, more than misanthropy—I was tired.
I was exhausted to the point where dying would have been easier.
So the moment I lay down—no sooner had I withdrawn my legs from the tatami and performed the mere act of tucking my head into the futon—I fell asleep.
I sank into a deep, snoring slumber devoid of consciousness.
From this point onward, though it concerns myself, I simply cannot write...

Then suddenly, my back was pierced as if by a needle.
Whether this stabbing came in dream or waking reality, the sensation remained profoundly ambiguous.
Had this been all—whether needle or splinter—I likely wouldn't have minded.
It would have been mere work of dragging wakefulness's needle into dreams and burying dream-thorns beneath unconscious floorboards.
Yet such resolution proved impossible.
For even as I registered each sting, whenever my daze grew sufficient to forget the needle's existence—another sharp prick would strike.

This time, I opened my eyes wide.
Then came another sharp prick.
The moment I gasped "Huh?" in surprise, another sharp stab pierced me.
Just as I began to realize this was serious, I was struck so violently in the groin area that I nearly leapt up.
It was at this moment that I finally returned to being an ordinary human.
And then I discovered that my entire body was prickling all over.
So I carefully slipped my hand under my undershirt and ran it over my back, only to find the skin covered in roughness.
When my fingertips first touched my skin, I was certain I'd contracted a severe skin disease.
However, when I kept my finger pressed against my skin and dragged it a few inches, something scattered and fell away.
Realizing this was no ordinary matter, I immediately leapt up and, though presenting an unsightly figure in nothing but my undershirt, went to the hearth. There, I examined the thing pinched between my thumb and forefinger—a grain-sized creature of grotesque form.
In truth, at this point I had never seen a bedbug before, so I couldn't definitively say this was one—but somehow, intuitively, it seemed like a bedbug.
To recklessly employ the term "intuition" in such a vulgar context is inexcusable, but having no other words, I was forced to use this high-minded terminology.
As I inspected the bug, it grew increasingly agitated.
I placed it on the edge of the hearth and crushed it with a crisp snap of my thumbnail—it was an indescribably pungent insect.
When I smelled this pungent odor, I somehow felt a strange sense of relief.
——I had become so steeped in madness that I had to seriously engage in such an ugly act.
To tell the truth, until I smelled this pungent odor, it hadn't felt like I had dispelled my resentment.
So I kept catching them and crushing them, catching them and crushing them, pressing my thumbnail to my nose to sniff each time I crushed one.
Then it clogged deep in my nose.
Tears were about to spill out.

It was utterly pathetic.
And yet, when I sniffed my nails, it was pleasant.

At that moment, a large group of people two floors below burst into laughter all at once.
I suddenly stopped crushing the insects.
When I looked around the hall, no one was there.
Kinko alone lay flat and slept quietly.
Neither head nor feet were visible.
Besides that, there was only one other person.
However, when I first noticed it, I didn’t think it was human.
From midway up the opposite pillar to the window sill, something like white sailcloth had been stretched across, and because it was enveloped within its width, it felt somehow unsettling.
However, upon closer inspection, a black object protruded diagonally from within the white.
And that was a human chestnut-burr head.
In the vast room—aside from myself and these two—there was no one else.
Only the electric light was blazing fiercely.
It was deathly quiet—then from the lower floor came another burst of raucous laughter.
It must have been either the same crowd as before or those who had finished their shift and returned—gathered in large numbers and horsing around.
I returned in a daze to where the futon lay.
Then I stripped naked, shook out my undershirt, put on the clothes laid by the pillow, tightened my obi, and finally carefully folded the futon that had been spread out and stored it in the cupboard.
After that, I didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t know what time it was, and the night showed no sign of breaking.
As I stood there with my arms crossed, thinking, the top of my foot began to itch again.
I could no longer endure it,

“Damn it!”

With these words, I hopped a few times in place.
Then I rubbed my left instep against my right foot’s arch, my right instep against my left foot’s arch, and ground my teeth as if this weren’t enough.
But I couldn’t dash outside, lacked the courage to sleep, and didn’t have the energy to go downstairs and push into their circle.
Remembering how I’d been snarled at earlier felt even more repulsive than the bedbugs.
If only dawn would come—if only dawn would come—thinking this, I walked toward the front-facing window.
There stood a pillar.
Standing upright, I leaned against it.
Pressing my back to the wood and lifting my hips to balance on my soles, my legs began sliding helplessly along the tatami’s woven grooves, drifting further away.
Then I straightened again.
Again I slid.
Again I stood.
This was how I passed the time.
No bedbugs appeared.
Below, occasional bursts of laughter erupted.

The phrase "can't sit or stand still" may be metaphorical, but this was when I truly experienced that very state of restlessness.
So I kept making these neither-sitting-nor-standing motions, half-heartedly distracting myself.
Yet I can't recall how long I kept up that persistent movement.
Already exhausted, I further wore out my limbs until I became so spent that not even bedbugs would bother me—that must have been when I finally fell asleep.
When dawn came, I found myself crouched beneath the pillar I'd slid down from, legs stretched out and back hunched like a coiled spring.

It was strange how even the bedbugs that had tormented me so much gradually stopped hurting after two or three days passed.
In truth, once about a month had gone by, no matter how many bedbugs there were, I came to think of them as nothing more than grains of rice scattered about, and I slept soundly every night.
Though they say even bedbugs grow more restrained as days accumulate.
The proof being how they swarm all over new guests and torment them through the night, but if you endure it a while, they lose interest and stop clinging so much—or so people claim.
Some said it was because daily feasting on human flesh naturally becomes repugnant to them, while others argued—no, rather—that the flesh itself develops such refinement and Mining Area stench that even bugs are cowed.
Observing this, bedbugs and miners share remarkably similar natures.
Likely it's not just miners—the general human tendency and these bedbugs are probably governed by the same psychology.
Thus this interpretation, amusing in its attempt to lump humans and vermin together, seems like the sort of elegant notion philosophers would adore—but if I were to give my own view, it appears entirely mistaken.
It's not that the bugs grow considerate or fastidious—rather, I think we humans simply grow numb through habit from being bitten.
The bedbugs kept biting all the same, but those bitten surely didn't care—after all, whether you felt their bites or didn't feel them differed only in experience, not outcome, making this debate rather pointless in practical terms.

Such pointless arguments mattered little—when I opened my eyes, dawn had fully broken. Below came the clamor of voices. I felt relief. Leaning out the window, I found rain falling again—though not in any distinct downpour. Thick clouds had failed to form proper threads; only fragmented streaks fell thinly earthward. This left no true deluge, just a gradual clearing where gaps between rain veils grew visible. Yet all they revealed were mountains—barren peaks stripped of grass and trees, their parched slopes glowing red enough to imagine summer's scorch reaching even their deepest folds. Every inch lay soaked by rain that might as well have been mist sprayed on pottery—drenching yet never quenching. A chill lingered nonetheless. As I withdrew my head, movement caught my eye: two or three men emerged beneath the stone wall opposite, hand towels on their heads and straw girding their waists, clad in tube-sleeved work clothes. They retraced yesterday's path where Jambō funeral processions passed. From afar they seemed pitifully bedraggled—then came the shock of recognition: those rain-sodden towels heading mineward would soon be mine too. More old hats materialized through the rain's gauze, followed by additional figures in identical sleeved uniforms.

It must have been the time when miners assigned to morning shifts entered the Mining Area.
I finally pulled my head back inside from the window.
Then five or six men came clattering up the stairs from below all at once. *They're here,* I thought helplessly, tucking my hands into my sleeves and leaning against the pillar.
The group swiftly changed into identical work clothes and went back down.
More came up behind them.
They too changed into tube-sleeved uniforms and descended.
At last, every last attendant in the Work Camp seemed to have left.

With all this activity in the Work Camp, I couldn't remain idle either.
Yet no one came to tell me to wash my face or eat my meal.
Even a 'young master' like me couldn't bear being so unbearably idle any longer, so I resolved myself and clumsily made my way down.
My heart was by no means calm, but in demeanor alone, I was exactly like a guest who had stayed at an inn and left a tip.
No matter how apologetic I felt, I couldn't adopt any attitude other than this—truly, I was a complete greenhorn.
When I went down, I suddenly came face to face with the proprietress—wearing a work sash and carrying a pair of straw sandals—as she came rushing out from the back.

“Where do I wash my face?”

When I asked, the old woman merely glanced at me and—

“Over there.”

She dismissed me and headed toward the entrance.
She completely ignored me.
I couldn’t figure out where “over there” was, but thinking it must be the direction the old woman had come from, I walked further in and came upon a large kitchen.
In the center was placed a rice container like a four-to barrel sawn crosswise.
When I thought that container must be stuffed full of cooked imported rice—after all, it was enough that even if I ate three meals a day for a month, I couldn’t finish it all—I felt sickened before even taking a bite. I also found a place to wash my face.
I descended from the kitchen, stood before the long wash trough, and with cold water wiped around my cheeks as a formality.
Once it came to this, fastidiously washing my face began to feel utterly absurd.
If this took one step further, the nerve to not wash my face at all would surely take root.
Red Blanket Man and the Boy from yesterday must have evolved through exactly this sequence of steps.

I finally washed my face through my own efforts. Wondering what would become of breakfast, I lumbered back up to the kitchen. Just then, fortunately, the old woman returned from outside and laid out the meal for me. Thankfully there was miso soup included, so I poured it over the imported rice in one swift motion and shoveled it down in great mouthfuls—this time managing to avoid tasting the wall mud. Then the old woman said,

“Once you’ve finished eating, Mr. Hajime says he’s waiting to take you to the Mining Area. Hurry up.”

she pressed, before I'd even set down my chopsticks.
I had actually thought my body wouldn't hold out unless I ate another bowl or so, but faced with this urging, there was naturally no need to serve up a second helping.
I,

“Oh, right,” I said and stood up. When I stepped outside, sure enough, a man was waiting at the entrance. He looked at my face and demanded with rock-splitting force: “You’re the one going to the Mining Area?”

“Yes,” I answered plainly.

“Then come with me,” he said.

“Is this clothing acceptable?” I politely inquired again.

“Nope, nope,” he shot back. “You think you can get in dressed like that? I went and borrowed a set from the boss here—you’d better put this on.”

With that, he tossed out that tube-sleeved jacket.

“This one’s the top.”
“This one’s the work pants.”
“There.”

He flung the work pants at me again.
When I picked them up and examined them, they felt damp.
They had mud caked in places.
The fabric appeared to be ogura cloth.
Thinking that I too had finally ended up wearing this work uniform, I took off my striped kimono and changed into a full set of navy blue clothes.
At a glance, I resembled an office attendant at the cabinet, but in terms of my state of mind, I felt far gloomier than when I had first been appointed to such a position.
Under the impression that my preparations were now complete, I descended to the dirt-floored entryway when—

“Hold it!”

Hajime called out again in a bold voice.

“Strap this to your backside.”

When I looked at what Hajime had handed me, it was a peculiar contraption—a straw mattress resembling a small three-to straw bale with a cord attached.
I did as Mr. Hajime instructed and fastened this to my buttocks.

“That’s the butt pad.”
“Got it?”
“Next, the chisel.”
“Stick this one into your waist here and—”

Taking the chisel Hajime handed me, I saw it was an iron rod probably about one shaku four or five sun long—roughly forty-three to forty-five centimeters—with a slightly pointed tip.
I attached this to my waist.

“Here, stick this in too.”
“Kinda heavy.”
“You good?”
“If you don’t hold it firm, you’ll get hurt.”

It really was heavy.
I wondered how anyone managed to walk through the mine with this hammer at their waist.

“How’s it feel? Heavy?”

“Yes.”

“Even this counts as light."
"The heavy ones go up to five kin."
“Alright—got it secured? Now shake your hips a bit there.”
“You good?”
“If you’re good, take this.”

As he started to bring out the mining lantern,

“Wait! You don’t put on the straw sandals before the mining lantern!”

The new straw sandals were at the entrance. These were likely what the old woman had been hanging earlier. I slipped them over my bare feet. When I threaded the cord around my heel and pulled it tight,

“You’re such a dimwit! Does anyone tighten them that much? Loosen the space between your toes more!”

he scolded. While being berated, I somehow managed to fasten them properly.

“Alright, this is finally it.”

Hajime handed over the conical hat and mining lantern.
I didn't know whether it was called a steamed-bun hat or bamboo-shoot hat—names derived from their shapes—but it resembled headgear worn by convicts.
I obediently put on the hat.
Then I lifted the mining lantern.
This lantern was designed for carrying.
Its form resembled a two-gou oil canister with an oil spout and wick hole at the top, connected to a slender pipe that curved sideways into a bulbous cup.
By inserting your thumb into this cup and leveraging its grip strength, you could carry it with one digit rather than five—a remarkably practical arrangement.

“You put your thumb in like this.”

Hajime thrust his thumb—resembling a roasted chestnut—into the mining lantern’s hole.
It fit perfectly.

“There ya go.”

Mr. Hajime used a single finger to swing the mining lantern like a pendulum clock's weight two or three times, demonstrating its stability.
It wouldn’t fall.
So I too, adjusting to the rhythm, tried swinging it in the same way—but it still didn’t fall.

“Right.
“You’re quite deft.”
“Alright, let’s go. You ready?”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

I followed Mr. Hajime out to the front.
It was raining.
The first drops struck my hat.
When I looked up to check the sky, raindrops spattered against my chin, mouth, and nose.
Then they began striking my shoulders as well.
They struck my feet as well.
After walking a short while, my entire body grew damp, the moisture that had seeped into my skin now steamed back out by its residual warmth.
However, the rain carried a sharper chill, and though it felt as if my body's residual warmth were gradually cooling away, when we reached the slope Hajime began hurrying recklessly onward. Soaked through yet propelled by some force that seemed to repel rain from my very pores, we finally arrived at the mining area's entrance.

The entrance could initially be described as resembling a large train tunnel. The top of its half-cylinder arch rose about two ken high. The way the rail tracks emerged from within also bore similarity to a train tunnel. This was apparently the path where an electric train passed through. I stood before the entrance and peered into the depths. The depths were dark.

"What do you think? This here's the entrance to hell. Think you can crawl in?"

Mr. Hajime asked. His tone carried unmistakable mockery. When we had left the barracks earlier, even while approaching this spot, miners had been leaning out from the windows of multiple longhouses,

“Yesterday’s one.”

“Newcomer.”

They had been jeering in unison, but observing their demeanor, it didn’t seem like mere curiosity born of being cooped up in the mountains with nothing novel to see.
Beneath the surface of those words undoubtedly lay mockery.
To elaborate on this, their words meant two things: first, that I’d finally tumbled into this hellhole—serves you right, look at you now.
The second was that it was a pity, but coming here would be no use.
It also meant they were saying: What could such a greasy body possibly accomplish?
So “Yesterday’s one.”
In their clamor of “Newcomer,” they took pleasure in my having fallen so low that I would have to taste the same suffering as them, while also layering on contempt for someone who could never endure such pain.
They not only dragged others down to their level and applauded the act, but once having dragged them down, would kick them even further beneath their feet—satisfying themselves by hinting that while the degradation might be equal, their own strength to endure it was conversely superior.
Each time I heard “Yesterday’s one” along the way, I passed through with my convict-style hat half-hiding my face until I arrived at the mining area’s entrance.
Since Mr. Hajime had mocked me again there, I felt a flicker of irritation,

“Of course I can enter. There’s even a train passing through here, isn’t there?” I replied.
Then Mr. Hajime—
“What do you mean you can enter? Quit your grand talk,” he said.
If I were to grovel there with an “I can’t crawl in,” he’d immediately snap back “See? Told ya!”—that much was certain.
No matter which way I fell, it would be no good, so I didn’t particularly regret it.
Mr. Hajime suddenly leaped into the mining area.
I followed right after and crawled in.
When I crawled in and looked around, it turned out to be suddenly darker than I’d imagined.
Before long, my footing grew precarious, and I gave in.
Even when it rains, the outside remains bright.
Moreover, while the rail tracks themselves were manageable, both sides were exceedingly muddy.
Despite this, Mr. Hajime pressed onward briskly at mid-slope.
I, too, pressed onward briskly with a determination not to lose.

"If you don't keep quiet in the mining area, you'll get thrown into the ore chute—gotta watch yourself."

While saying this, Mr. Hajime suddenly halted in the darkness.
At Mr. Hajime’s waist hung a chisel.
There was a five-pound hammer.
I shrank small in the dark,

“Yes.”

I replied.

“Alright, you get it now? If you’ve got any notion of crawling out alive, you’d do better not to get cocky and barge into a mining area like this.”

This was a statement made half to himself when Mr. Hajime turned around and began walking.

I was more than a little surprised. The mine's acoustics made Mr. Hajime's words boom and reverberate back at me. If his warnings held truth, I'd crawled into a truly cursed place. It was precisely because this vocation equated to dying that I'd resolved to become a miner—but if death truly awaited me here—if this trade proved so dreadful—if I were to be killed—if they'd throw me into that ore chute—what exactly was this ore chute anyway?

“What’s the ore chute like?”

“What?”
As Mr. Hajime turned around.

“What’s the ore chute like?”

“A hole.”

“Huh?”

“It’s a hole—you throw the ore in, collect it, and send it down below. You’ll see what happens when you get tossed in with the ore…”

He cut off his words and strode briskly onward.

I paused for a moment.
When I looked back, the entrance appeared like a small moon.
When I entered, I thought this must be the Mining Area.
It wasn't as bad as I'd heard, I thought.
However, ever since Mr. Hajime had intimidated me, even the most ordinary tunnels had drastically changed in nature.
I found myself longing for the cold rain that used to beat against my convict-style conical hat.
When I looked back there, the entrance appeared like a small moon.
Only when I looked back did I realize how deep I had crawled—so deep that the entrance now appeared like a small moon.
No matter how overcast it was, I still longed for the outside.
The pitch-black ceiling pressing down from above was an unsettling sensation.
Moreover, this ceiling seemed to be gradually lowering.
When I thought this, I veered off from the rail tracks and turned right.
The path became a gradual downward slope.
The entrance was no longer visible.
When I looked back, it was pitch dark.
The window to the fleeting world, resembling a small moon, snapped shut without ceremony, and Mr. Hajime and I continued our gradual descent downward.
While descending, I reached out my hand and touched the wall; it was wet as if it had rained.

“How about it—still keeping up?”

asked Mr. Hajime.

“Yes.”

When I obediently answered,

“We’re almost at Hell’s Third District.”

With that, both fell silent once more.
At that moment, I spotted a speck of light ahead.
It glowed like a black cat’s single eye in the darkness.
If it were a mining lantern’s flame, it should have flickered, but it remained utterly still.
I couldn’t make out the distance either.
The direction wasn’t straight either, but at any rate, it was visible.
If the mine had been a single straight path, both Mr. Hajime and I would undoubtedly have been advancing toward this light.
I didn’t ask anything, but thinking this must be Hell’s Third District, I entered.
Then, the gentle slope finally came to an end.
The path curved ahead on level ground.
At the end of that path glowed the same light.
Earlier, it had been visible below my nose, but now it had risen nearly to eye level.
The distance had also drawn near.

“We’ve finally arrived at Third District.”

Mr. Hajime said.
Upon arriving, I saw the mine shaft open up into a space about four or five tatami mats in size, with a police-box-sized hut standing there.
And inside it, an electric light was burning.
Two officials in Western clothes were seated facing each other, a Western-style desk between their chairs.
On the front was written “First Inspection Station.”
I had only later learned this was an inspection station for checking miners’ comings and goings and work hours, but at the time, having no idea what the facility was for, I found it strange that six or seven miners stood silently before it, their faces uniformly darkened.
This was because they were waiting for their shift change time.
Though I carried a chisel and hammer at my waist and even held a mining lantern, since I had entered the Mining Area merely as a labor volunteer to observe conditions—not yet formally accepted even as an apprentice—it appeared there was no need to wait with the others, so I immediately passed through this gathering spot.
At that moment, Mr. Hajime thrust his head into the inspection station’s glass window and briefly informed the officials, but they did not even glance in my direction.
Instead, all the miners who had been standing there looked.
However, likely out of deference to the officials, not a single one of them uttered a word.

As soon as we exited the gathering spot, the mine's condition abruptly changed.
The ceiling that until then had been beyond reach even when standing tall or stretching up suddenly descended until walking straight made me feel it might graze my head at any moment.
If it had been just two sun lower, I thought, I would have smashed my forehead against rock and bled. So instead of walking freely as through a pine grove, I had to hunch with all my height, unable to move recklessly like wild wind.
Because it was terrifying, I tucked my head into my shoulders as much as possible and clung to Mr. Hajime as we pressed on.
Though I had lit the mining lantern earlier.

Then Mr. Hajime, who was about three shaku ahead, suddenly dropped to all fours.
Oh, he slipped and fell, I thought, planting my foot firmly where it seemed I might trip from behind.
If I didn't brace myself properly here on this slope, I might pitch forward.
I arched my upper body slightly backward while waiting for Mr. Hajime to rise, but he showed no sign of getting up.
He was still crawling.

“Are you all right?”

I asked from behind.
Mr. Hajime did not respond.
"Hmm—could he be hurt? Should I ask again—" Just then, Mr. Hajime began plodding forward.

"Are you unharmed?"

"Crawl."

“Huh?”

“It’s that you gotta crawl.”

Mr. Hajime’s voice grew gradually more distant.
That voice struck me with suspicion.
Even though it was coming from a distance where one should clearly hear it no matter the direction, it suddenly became muffled.
It wasn’t that his voice had grown thin.
Hajime’s normal voice grew muffled as if trapped in a sack.
When I realized this was no ordinary situation, I peered through and finally understood.
The tunnel that until now could be walked normally suddenly narrowed there, making it impossible to pass through without crawling.
From that narrow entrance protruded Mr. Hajime’s two legs.
Mr. Hajime had just now inserted his torso.
Soon, one of the legs that had been protruding retracted.
As I watched, another leg retracted.
With this, I resigned myself to having no choice but to get on all fours.
“Crawl,” Hajime had instructed, and since this was by no means unreasonable, I crawled exactly as instructed.
However, I was holding the mining lantern on my right side.
When I squelched my left palm without hesitation onto what might have been icy mud, rock, or some formless earth—I couldn’t tell—the cold shot up my forearm, from shoulder to heart, as if plunging straight in.
In trying not to let the mining lantern hang too low, my right hand brushed perilously close to my face, which proved exceedingly awkward.
Wondering what to do, I remained motionless in this posture.
Then, with my right hand, I looked at the mining lantern suspended in midair.

Just then, a drop plopped down from the ceiling. The mining lantern's flame sputtered. Soot spread from my jaw to my cheek. It also got into my eyes. Even so, I kept staring at this light. Then from far away came the sound of clang, clang. The miners must be working, but I couldn’t tell how far away they were or in which direction. It wasn’t like the sounds of the ordinary world with its cardinal directions. In this posture, I nonetheless managed to take two or three steps. Inconvenient—of course it was inconvenient—but walking wasn’t impossible. The only thing that bothered me was the occasional drop falling and causing the mining lantern to sputter. Mr. Hajime had gone on ahead. My only support was the single mining lantern. The mining lantern sputtered and was about to go out from the water. Just when I thought it might go out, it would flare up again. Just when I began to relax with a sigh of relief, another drop would plop down. It sputtered. It was about to go out. I felt profoundly uneasy. The truth was, drops had been falling continuously all along, but I hadn’t noticed at all, probably because the light was below my waist.

When the lantern came near my ear and I began to hear a sputtering sound, my nerves suddenly sharpened.
Therefore, my crawling slowed even more.
And I had only taken three steps.
Just then, Mr. Hajime's voice suddenly called out.

“Hey! You done crawlin’ yet? What’s with the dawdlin’? — Hurry up or we’ll lose daylight!”

In the darkness, Mr. Hajime had actually mentioned daylight fading.

Crawling forward, I thrust out my chin until my Adam’s apple jutted sharply and looked toward Mr. Hajime. About six feet ahead sat what resembled a bear’s den, from which emerged Mr. Hajime’s face—or something vaguely face-like. My sluggish progress had made him crouch down to peer inside.

How I squeezed through that six-foot gap now escapes me. All I recall is scrambling to the hole and poking out my head, only to find Mr. Hajime already standing outside, his withdrawn face replaced by two legs looming before my nose. What relief—I’d squirmed through the narrow pass!

“What were you doing?”

“It was too narrow.”

“If you’re scared of tight spaces, you’ll never set foot in the mining area.”
“Any idiot knows there’s no proper ground here like on land!”

Mr. Hajime had indeed said that inside the mine was a place without solid ground like on land.
Since this man often said unexpected things, this time too I made sure to mentally record his statement to verify its accuracy.
Every time I tried to make excuses, Mr. Hajime would mercilessly shut me down, so I usually kept quiet—but this time, I—
"But the mining lantern was about to go out, so I got worried."

I blurted out.
Then Mr. Hajime brought the mining lantern right up to my nose and slowly began inspecting my face.
And then, he issued a command.

“Try putting it out.”

“Why?”

“No matter why—just try putting it out.”

“Do I blow it out?”

Mr. Hajime let out a loud laugh at this.

I wore an expression of utter astonishment.

“This ain’t no joke.
What d’you think’s inside?
It’s rapeseed oil—a few drops ain’t gonna put it out.”

With this, I finally felt relieved.

“Feeling better now? Ha ha ha ha!”

Mr. Hajime laughed again.
Whenever Mr. Hajime laughed, the entire mine interior reverberated.
When the echoes subsided, it became twice as quiet as before.
Then from somewhere came the clang-clang of a chisel and hammer being used.

“Can you hear?”

With that, Mr. Hajime gave a signal with his chin.

"I can hear it."

As I strained my ears, I was immediately prodded to hurry.

“Let’s go. This time, don’t you dare fall behind—keep up.”

Mr. Hajime was in remarkably good spirits.
I thought this was undoubtedly because Hajime had me completely under his thumb.
No matter how harshly I was driven, it was acceptable as long as Mr. Hajime remained in good spirits.
In this state, anything that worked to my advantage became synonymous with what was acceptable.
I had fallen so low as to trail subserviently after Mr. Hajime when the path curved leftward and became a steep slope again.

“Hey—we’re going down.”

Mr. Hajime called out without turning around.
At that moment, I somehow recalled Tokyo rickshaw pullers and, amidst the hardship, couldn’t help finding something amusing.
But Mr. Hajime began descending without noticing that.
I descended determined not to be outdone.
The path was carved into the ground in steps.
It turned every four or five ken—if I calculated right—about the height of Atago Shrine’s main hall.
I threw myself into it and descended alongside.
When I let out a relieved breath upon reaching the bottom, that breath felt somehow painful.
However, I attributed this solely to poor air circulation deep in the mine shaft.
In truth, my body had already begun succumbing at this point.
After advancing twenty or thirty ken with labored breathing, the terrain changed once more.

This time, Mr. Hajime pressed his hands against the ground on his back and inserted his lower body first.
The width and height of the mine shaft had narrowed so much that one had to perform contortionist-like maneuvers—inserting their hips first—to pass through.

“This is how you get through.
Watch close and remember, ya hear?”

No sooner had I thought Mr. Hajime said this than his torso and head slid-slid through and disappeared from view.
I had to admit there was real skill in experience, I thought as I first extended just my legs forward, probing cautiously with my straw sandals.
Yet it felt completely suspended in midair, offering not a single foothold.
He surmised that beyond the hole lay either a sheer drop or, failing that, an extremely steep slope.
So if he plunged in headfirst, he’d only end up hurtling forward and injuring himself, and if he carelessly thrust his legs out, he’d just tumble backward—he’d learned this much—so he laid his legs out straight like poles and pressed his hands behind him.
However, this maneuver proved terribly awkward, so when he pressed down with his hands, his rear end slammed firmly against the ground.
There was a wet squelch.
A slight sensation traveled along the ledge to his buttocks.
It appears he had landed on his backside with considerable force.
While thinking 'Damn it,' I thrust both legs straight forward.
I slid my legs down about a foot, but they still didn’t reach anything.
Having no other choice, he moved his hands forward this time and extended his legs as if thrusting his hips out.
Then his legs slid down to his thighs, and the soles of his straw sandals finally landed on something solid.
For good measure, I tapped-tapped this hard surface with my soles to test it.
The plan was that if it seemed secure, I would let go with my hands and stand on this hard surface.

"Why you flailin' your legs around like that?"
"It's safe—put your back into it and stand up already."
"You ain't got no guts."

Then Mr. Hajime's voice came from below.
The upper half of my body stood straight through the hole just as I was being scolded.

"You look just like an umbrella monster."

Mr. Hajime said, looking at my face.
I didn't understand what he meant by "umbrella monster," so I didn't feel like laughing at all.
Just...

"I see."

He answered earnestly.
Curiously enough，this earnest response seemed to amuse him，for Mr．Hajime burst into loud laughter once more．
From that moment on，his attitude changed，and he became somewhat kinder than before．
There’s no telling in what way coincidental things might fail to please others．
On the contrary，art that one deliberately creates to please others usually turns out poorly．
I had never encountered flattery so artful it could pilfer natural genius．
Out of self-preservation，I too tried various ways to please people afterward，but truly favorable results never emerged．
No matter how foolish they may be，it’s terrifying because sooner or later，the truth will come out．
Among all the prepared greetings I had readied，there were almost no cases where I succeeded in responding to this “umbrella monster” as much as this．
Having realized the folly of exerting effort only to fail，I had recently been interacting with people from the standpoint of a fatalist．
The only problem lies in public speaking and writing．
That guy would fail unless he worked hard to prepare．
Instead，no matter how much effort I put in，I still ended up failing．
In essence，it was the same outcome—but with failures born of exertion，even if they didn’t please others，since my weaknesses remained concealed，I had resolved to prepare thoroughly before acting．
I wanted to try giving speeches or writing essays that would please Mr．Hajime someday—but since I’d likely just be ridiculed，I still hadn’t done it．
—Since that was an unnecessary digression here，he stopped at this point and returned to Mr．Hajime’s story．

At that moment, Mr. Hajime, laughing from below, called out to me,

“Hey, quit actin’ all serious—hurry up an’ get down here already.”
“Day’s gettin’ short, ain’t it.”

he said.
In the mine shaft, Mr. Hajime lit a mining lantern and repeated, “Day’s gettin’ short, ain’t it.”

When I’d descended one or two ken down the earthen steps to where Hajime stood, he turned right.
Another set of steps continued four or five ken further.
After descending those, Hajime veered left this time.
Yet more steps awaited.
We zigzagged right and left like lightning through these stairways—who could say how many chō we descended?
Being my first time on this path, and trapped in the mine’s darkness, the descent felt endless.
Finally reaching the bottom—when I thought myself severed from the living world—we abruptly entered a five-mat room.
A “room” only by name: an excavated cavity narrowing at top and bottom while bulging at the middle, like tumbling into a sake cask.
I later learned this was called a work area—when engineers confirmed an ore vein here, they’d expand it into such spaces.
Thus naturally wider than tunnels, miners would contract these work areas in teams of three.
Jobs estimated for two weeks might finish in four days; those reckoned five days could drag past a fortnight.
Hence paths formed throughout the mining area—whenever a copper vein surfaced along their edges, they’d tunnel straight through. While the tram-tracked entrance remained level and singular, beyond the first checkpoint below branched paths spread left and right, spawning work areas everywhere.
Completing one job meant finding new veins to tunnel through—soon the mining area teemed with narrow paths and dark shafts.
Ants burrowing crisscross through earth might resemble this.
Or bookworms devouring pages—the comparison held.

In essence, humans would burrow through the earth to devour copper, and once they had consumed it all, they would seek out more to devour—resulting in a chaotic proliferation of paths.
So no matter how much one passed through the mining area, unless they emerged at a work area while doing so, they wouldn't encounter any miners.
There was a clang-clang sound, but with only the sound echoing through the void, it felt utterly desolate.
I was led into the mining area by Mr. Hajime, but since observing its layout seemed our primary purpose—apparently taking detours around work sites—it wasn't until we came beneath these steps that I first saw miners laboring. When zigzagging down those lightning-shaped steps, we merely kept descending endlessly without encountering a single soul, which filled me with profound unease; but emerging at last into a work area and meeting people brought me immense relief.

When he looked, they were sitting on a log.
There were three of them.
The four logs—each about the size of railroad ties—were of considerable weight.
How they had managed to bring them this far was utterly beyond my imagination.
These were apparently taken to work areas in the Mining Area where supports were needed—to prevent ceiling collapses and secure props in slightly wider sections.
Two men sat atop them while the remaining one crouched facing the log.
Between the three sat a small wooden jar.
It lay overturned.
One man pressed down on the jar from above.
The three emitted strange cries.
They abruptly lifted the pressed jar.
A die tumbled out from beneath—just as Mr. Hajime and I entered.

The three men lifted their eyes in unison and looked at me and Mr. Hajime.
The mining lantern was jammed into the earthen wall.
The dim light illuminated three pairs of eyes that glinted piercingly.
What actually shone were the eyeballs alone.
The mine was inherently dark.
Even the lights that should have been bright remained dim.
The area burning a dull black and spewing smoke appeared like murky liquid in motion.
As soon as the murky tip blackened into smoke, this smoke vanished into the darkness.
Therefore, the mine interior hung hazy.
And so it churned.

The mining lantern was embedded above the three men’s heads.
Thus among them, only their heads were relatively discernible.
Yet since all three heads were blackened, this amounted to near invisibility.
Their clustered formation made it stranger still—but when I entered, the three heads instantly parted.
Through the gap emerged the jar.
Beneath it appeared a die.
Having heard the jar’s clatter, the die’s rattle, and their discordant shouts, I turned to their faces.
The faces remained indistinct.
One man showed only a sliver of cheekbone and half a nostril caught in the light.
Another revealed part of his forehead and half an eyebrow.
The last was entirely blurred.
He faced my mining lantern head-on from four or five shaku away.
In this posture, all three fixed their eyes—glinting sharply—
Toward me.

Finally encountering humans and thinking 'Ah, what a relief!', I involuntarily froze in place the moment I saw these three pairs of eyeballs.

“You…”

One of them began to speak but cut his words short.
The remaining two still did not open their mouths.
I, too, remained rooted in place and did not answer—could not answer.
Then,

“He’s a newbie.”

And Mr. Hajime gave a hearty reply.
To confess the truth, when the three men’s eyeballs gleamed and I was asked “You…,” I even forgot I was beside Mr. Hajime and simply thought 'Huh?'
So this is what they mean by freezing in place.
As I stood frozen, my body stiffening rigidly, a voice declared, “He’s a newbie.”
When this voice emerged from right behind my left ear and passed through to the other side, I finally remembered—oh right, Mr. Hajime had been with me.
Because of this, my limbs, which had begun to stiffen, halted midway and returned to their original state.
I took a step back to the side.
I had intended to have Mr. Hajime step forward.
Mr. Hajime stepped forward as requested.

“Still at it, I see.”

Still holding the mining lantern aloft, he gazed down at the jar and die lying amidst the three men.

“How ’bout it? Wanna join us?”

“Let’s not.”
“Today’s for showing him around.”

Mr. Hajime paid no heed.
Eventually, he plopped down onto a four-legged stool or log with a grunt,

“Let’s take a short break before moving on,” he said and looked in my direction.
The terror that had frozen me in place—I suddenly felt happy and revived.
I sat down beside Mr. Hajime.
It was here that I first understood Ateshiko’s advantage.
My buttocks settled perfectly into place, the seat yielding softly to my lower body.
Moreover, it wasn’t cold—a welcome comfort.
Truth be told, my eyes had been slightly dizzy since earlier—or perhaps not dizzy? In the mine’s depths, it was hard to tell—but regardless, I hadn’t been feeling well. Yet settling onto this seat brought great relief.
The four of them were talking about various things.

"A new piece has come to Hiroboto—you know about that?"

"Yeah, I know."

"Still haven't bought?"

"I ain't buyin', you."

"Me?
Me? I—hahahaha!"

he laughed.
This was the man whose entire face had appeared blurred when I first entered.
Even now, it remained blurred.
As proof, whether he laughed or didn't laugh, the contours of his face stayed nearly identical.

"Quite the smooth operator, aren't you?"

Mr. Hajime chuckled slightly.

"Once you enter the Mining Area, you never know when you'll kick the bucket."
"Anyone would, right?"

There came a reply.
At this moment,

“We’re all just tryin’ not to die on each other yet, huh?”

said one of them.
There was an oddly poetic lament tinged in his tone.
I felt it was all too sudden.

While this was happening, the man sitting one ken away next to me suddenly spoke to me.

“Where did you come from?”

“Tokyo.”

“Even if you come here tryin’ to make money, it’s no use.”

Another one immediately informed me.
I’d been startled when Mr. Chouzo bombarded me with endless talk of profits the moment we met, but no sooner had I arrived at the lodgings than I found myself relentlessly assailed from all sides by this chorus of “no profit”—an onslaught that left me thoroughly exasperated.
Yet believing such talk wouldn’t reach the earth’s depths, I’d descended here only to have “no profit” parroted back by everyone I encountered.
The sheer absurdity made me consider retorting, but knowing they’d pummel me for careless words, I held my tongue.
Yet staying silent would earn me another beating.
So I spoke up.

“Why can’t you make any profit here?”

“This mine’s got a god in it.
“No matter how much money you save up trying to get out, it won’t work.
“The cash always finds its way back.”

“What sort of god?”

When I asked this,

“Daruma.”

Having said that, all four men laughed with apparent amusement.
I remained silent.
Then they began talking incessantly about Daruma, leaving me aside.
It must have continued for a good ten minutes or more.
During that time, I was thinking about other things.
What struck me most among these thoughts was this question: what if Tsuyako-san and Sumie-san were to see me like this—wearing these mud-caked clothes, crouched in the pitch-dark mine?
Would they pity me? Would they cry? Or would they call me wretched and turn away in disgust? Without hesitation, I concluded they would surely pity me and weep.
So I felt like showing this appearance to them at least once.
Then I recalled how I’d been mercilessly mocked beside the hearth last night and imagined showing that wretched state to them.
But now it was the complete opposite—I found myself thinking how fortunate I was that neither was here with me.
When I imagined being seen—visualizing before my eyes both my own spineless, thoroughly degraded appearance and these two modern women—I grew so intensely ashamed that sweat nearly broke out under my arms.
From this perspective, my very descent into being a miner wasn’t particularly painful—if anything, I felt a certain pride in it—but I simply didn’t want women to see the awkwardness of my newness to this life.
I wanted to hide from everyone—especially women—those aspects that diminished my dignity.
Since women are such fragile creatures who must rely on men, their very dependence makes one want to endlessly demonstrate being a man of worth.
Men before marriage seem particularly prone to this feeling.
No matter how dire their circumstances, humans will occasionally put on a theatrical display.
The thoughts I had while resting deep in the mine—mining lantern in hand, straw mat beneath me—were utterly theatrical.
In one sense, this served as respite from suffering.

The theatrical displays that could be called public respites, I think, developed entirely from there.
I enacted the protagonist of a stunted play within myself, disheartened yet smug.

Then came a sound so loud it felt like having my lungs pierced through.
Whether the sound had erupted beneath my feet or above my head remained unclear—both the log I sat upon and the black ceiling above had leapt upward in unison.
My neck jerked, hands twitched, legs spasmed all at once.
When you dangle your shins over a veranda edge and strike your kneecap sharply, sometimes your lower leg kicks up involuntarily.
At that moment, my body moved in precisely that manner.
Yet this convulsion felt more than twice as violent.
Nor was this merely physical—my mind mirrored every tremor.
Midway through my solitary performance, I somersaulted back to abrupt self-awareness.
The din persisted still.
Thunder buried underground roared—stifled yet frantic, shrouded yet smothered, battering rock walls only to rebound spent—its free resonance shackled like subterranean lightning.

“Don’t go getting spooked,” Hajime-san said.
He stood up.
I stood up.
The three miners also stood up.

“Just a bit more. Maybe I’ll just finish it off.”

With that, he picked up the chisel.
Hajime and I left the work area.
Then smoke came.
The smell of gunpowder crept into my eyes, nose, and mouth.
Because the choking smoke was unbearable, when I turned around, in the work area they had already started working again with clang-clang sounds.

“What was that?”

In the midst of suffocation, I tried asking Hajime-san. The truth was, when that earlier sound had struck my ears, I'd become utterly convinced there must have been a massive explosion in the mine shaft—so much so that I thought my life would be in danger if I didn't flee. Yet Hajime showed every intention of pushing deeper inside. Though I found this unsettling, my body wasn't free to act independently, nor did my mind possess any autonomous resolve. Reassuring myself that even a senior miner would surely retreat when appropriate, I followed behind him—only to be hit by smoke so thick it made me recoil. Part of me thought this reckless advance couldn't continue, but just as I turned to look back, I heard the group already clang-clanging away at the ore through the smoke. In my bewilderment over whether this meant things were actually safe after all, I ended up posing this question. Then Hajime-san coughed two or three times in the smoke and—

“You don’t need to be startled.”
“It’s dynamite,” he told me.
“Is it safe?”
“Might not be safe,” he said, “but once you’re in the Mining Area, ain’t nothin’ to be done.”
“If you’re scared of dynamite, you can’t last even a day in the Mining Area.”
I remained silent.
Hajime-san plunged steadily forward through the smoke as if pushing it aside.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t suffering at all—but I suspected part of it was him putting on a show for a newbie like me.
Or perhaps the smoke had already cleared between shafts—if we were on the surface—it would likely be bright daylight by now—but because the path was dark—I might have felt as though—the smoke continued crawling endlessly—and thought it suffocating.
Then I’d be—the one—in—the wrong.

In any case, I endured the harshness and followed on.
After passing through another womb-like tunnel and winding up steps of three or four ken each, turning right and left repeatedly, the path forked into two branches.
At the end of the tunnel came a clattering, clanging sound.
The rhythm resembled that of throwing a stone into a deep well, but this place seemed immeasurably deeper than any ordinary well.
The sound—ringing out as it fell and struck the sides—was piercingly clear.
Not only that, but it continued for an exceedingly long time.
The final clang emerged from the deepest depths, requiring considerable effort to reach the surface.
Yet since there was only a single path leading straight upward with no other escape routes, no matter how much time it took, it would surely emerge.
When it seemed about to fade midway, the reverberation from the walls lent support, sending even the faintest, most distant sound produced at the bottom upward without leakage—this was roughly the nature of the noise.
Clang-clang-clang.
Cla-clang!
……

Hajime-san stopped.

“Can you hear it?”

“I can hear it.”

“They’re dropping ore into the ore chute.”

“Haaah…”

“Since we’re here, I’ll show you the ore chute.”

With an air of sudden inspiration, Hajime-san vigorously pulled back one step and repositioned the heels of his straw sandals.
While I was distracted by the sounds and hadn’t yet responded, Hajime-san turned sharply to the right.
I too followed into the darkness.

The winding path came to an end after only about four shaku. As we turned right at that point, about one ken ahead suddenly grew dimly bright, spreading out both vertically and horizontally. Within it were two black shadows. When we drew near that spot, one of the black shadows—as they shifted their full forward momentum backward with their left foot—flung a large winnowing basket diagonally upward. The winnowing basket fell onto the footboard. A clang and clatter fell away into the distance. A foot ahead was a large hole. The width was probably about two tatami mats in size. The miner had just thrown in the loose ore from the winnowing basket. The wall at the dead end towered upward. Illuminated by the dim mining lantern, the ceiling—its color indistinct in the gloom—was thoroughly soaked, and only the wet patches glistened.

“Take a look.”
Hajime-san said.
The area before the hole was tightly boarded up with planks spanning about three shaku.
I stepped out about one-third of the way onto the plank.

“Further out.”

Hajime-san urged from behind.
I hesitated.
Even as it was, if this plank were to come loose, there’d be no telling how far I’d fall.
If I were to step out another shaku forward, when the moment came, the effort to leap back onto solid ground would be delayed by that same shaku.
One shaku might seem insignificant, but here it was equivalent to ten ken on flat ground.
I hesitated for some time.

“Move!”
"What a stingy bastard."
“You call that being a miner?”

I was told. This wasn't Hajime-san's voice. It must have been one of the black shadows who spoke. I didn't look back. Yet still my legs refused to move forward. Only my eyes traced downward along the dim opposite wall glistening with moisture—for about six feet I could barely make out shapes, but beyond that lay pure darkness. The pitch black made it impossible to gauge depth. The more I imagined its profundity, the more bottomless it seemed. As I fixated on the peril of falling, I felt an imaginary jab between my shoulder blades. My legs remained rooted in place. Then,

“Hey, you’re in the way.
Move aside a bit.”

When someone called out to me, I turned around to find a miner standing there hefting a straw sack that looked heavy. The sack was only about half the size of a rice bale. Yet with both hands supporting its bottom and hips braced slightly backward, the way he strained with all his might made it appear truly weighty. Seeing this figure, I quickly moved aside. Then retreated to what seemed a relatively safe distance—close enough that even if the plank snapped, I could leap back to solid ground without trouble. Though surely nervous with his vision blocked by the sack, the miner unexpectedly stepped forward without hesitation, dragging his leaden legs. He advanced to within two shaku of the edge and aligned his feet—I thought he'd stop there—but then stepped out again. Only one shaku remained. Into that space he carved another five sun forward. Then neatly squared his feet left and right. With a forceful grunt—chest and hips thrusting forward as one—Dangerous! The instant I thought he'd topple over, the heavy sack flipped backward out of his hands. The miner stood rigidly back in his original spot. The fallen sack made no sound for a time...until a distant thud echoed up. The sack had clearly reached the bottom.

“How about it—think you can manage that feat?” Hajime-san asked.

I—

“Well...”

He bowed his head, thoroughly daunted.
Then Hajime-san and the miners all burst into laughter.
Even as they laughed at me, I thought there was nothing to be done about it, and remained thoroughly daunted.

At that moment, Hajime began to explain:

“Whatever you become, you need training.”
“You ain’t gonna get it right ’less you try.”
“Even if you aim to be a miner, if you’re all timid-like and just fling stuff in half-assed without tryin’..."
“Everything just ends up falling onto the planks—none of it makes it into the damn hole.”
“And then you get dragged down by the ore’s weight—makes it twice as perilous.”
“Ah, you gotta thrust forward from your chest—”

Hajime had just begun to say when another man—

“You gotta fall into the ore chute two or three times first.
“Ha ha ha ha!”

they laughed derisively.

After backtracking to the original path and walking about fifty meters, the miner turned right.
Hajime-san and I descended straight down the slope.
When we finished descending, Hajime-san stopped at the dead end where we had threaded our way along a flat path of four or five ken.

“Hey.
Still think you can keep going down?”

he asked.
The truth was, I hadn’t been able to descend any further for quite some time.
But if I surrendered midway, failure was certain—so through layer upon layer of endurance, I'd made it this far, though deep down I'd calculated I'd likely reach rock bottom eventually.
Just as I reached that point, when the other man came to a complete stop, bringing things to a temporary halt, and then formally asked if I still intended to keep descending, it implied the remaining path down stretched far beyond a mere couple hundred meters.
In the darkness, I studied Hajime-san’s face and thought.
I considered begging off.
In such moments, one’s course of action hinges entirely on the other’s inclinations.
Whether fool or genius, it makes no difference.
Thus rather than consulting my own heart, it was swifter to resolve matters by reading Hajime-san’s expression.
That is to say—there are instances where surrounding circumstances rather than one’s own character dictate fate.
When one’s character plummets below the baseline.
It stands among the most striking examples of how a character painstakingly built over years can crumble into chaos.
My theory of characterlessness too finds root here.

As mentioned earlier, I looked at Hajime-san’s face.
There was no trace of friendly camaraderie urging us downward.
No paternal warning that descent served my good emerged.
No coercive threat materialized in his bearing.
Naturally absent was any haste-provoking pressure.
His entire aspect radiated contemptuous disbelief in my capability.
This superficial scorn meant little.
But beneath it pulsed disqualification’s existential threat—
Here surpassing honor or character—the ultimate crisis.
Even should breath fail—downward I must go.

“I’ll go down.”

I resolved myself and said.
Hajime-san looked unexpectedly taken aback, but—

“Well then, let’s go down.
“But it’s a bit dangerous.”

he calmly expressed his agreement.
It was indeed dangerous—as it should be.
It was a monkey’s job to descend straight down a screen-like hole that rose sheer at a ninety-degree angle.
A ladder was hanging.
There was no slope whatsoever.
Pressing tight against this wall, like a pole suspended in midair, peering down revealed no end in sight.
I couldn’t tell at all how far it continued or where it was anchored.

“Well then, I’ll go down first.”
“Be careful when you come down.”

Hajime-san said.
I never imagined Hajime-san would use such considerate words.
He must have felt some measure of pity since I’d resolved to descend with such resigned obedience.
Before long, Hajime-san turned completely around and deliberately positioned his rear toward the shaft.
He bent down. Then, starting with his feet, he gradually began to enter.
In the end, only his face remained.
Before long, that face too vanished.
While his face stayed visible, I felt some reassurance, but when even the tip of that black head plunged into the hole, anxiety and loneliness overwhelmed me—I couldn’t stay still, rising onto my tiptoes to peer down from above.
Hajime-san kept descending.
Only his black head and the mining lantern’s light were visible.
At that moment, even amidst the eeriness, I thought:
If I don’t get down while I can still see Hajime-san’s figure, I might fail to make the descent.
I’d done something shameful.
Resolving there was no better course than to act quickly, I suddenly turned around like Hajime-san, pressed my knees to the ground, and slid down using my hands while probing each rung with the soles of my straw sandals.

Gripping the first rung with both hands and placing my feet in a comfortable position, my back curved like a shrimp. Then I slowly began stretching out my legs. When I stood up straight, the mining lantern's light came level with my chest. If I stayed still, I would be choked by smoke. With no alternative, I lowered one leg. My hands too had to readjust their grip accordingly. When trying to descend further, the lantern I held between my fingers swung awkwardly at the worst moments. Swinging it carelessly risked setting my kimono ablaze. Handling it cautiously made it bump against the wall and threaten to extinguish the flame. Though I'd thought it handy when hooking its cup on my thumb to swing like a pendulum, now it became a terrible hindrance. Moreover, the ladder was narrow. The gaps between rungs stretched unusually long. Each descent demanded twice the normal effort—terror compounding the strain with every move. Each regrip found the rungs growing slicker beneath me. Pressing my nose close to examine them in the feeble light revealed clay-like soil caking every surface—trampled flat by countless straw sandals climbing and descending before mine. Midway down, I craned my neck sideways to peer below—a mistake I immediately regretted yet couldn't resist making—and suddenly my head spun violently as my tightly clenched hands began losing their grip.

I might die here.
"If I die here, it'll be terrible—" I bit down hard and suddenly shut my eyes.
Amidst large soap bubbles swirling chaotically, Hajime-san kept descending.
To tell the truth, it was precisely when I looked down that I could faintly make out Hajime-san's form—there was no way he could be among the soap bubbles swarming before my bleary eyes.
But he was undeniably there.
And still he kept descending.
It felt utterly uncanny.

Looking back now, I must have glimpsed Hajime-san before the dizziness struck—but as my head spun wildly and fear of death overwhelmed me, his image imprinted on my retina was forgotten the moment I clenched the rung and shut my eyes, only to revive when I opened them again. However, I don't know whether such a thing could even be scientifically plausible. At that moment, I was completely absorbed. The mine was dark; I didn’t want to die; my mind was in chaos. I couldn’t tell whether I was alive or dead. At that moment, Hajime-san descended. It was utter chaos—whether he was descending within my field of vision or beneath my feet. But strangely, no sooner had I opened my eyes than I looked down again. Then, sure enough, Hajime-san was descending. Moreover, it seemed he was descending on the other side of a sheer cliff-like wall. Perhaps because it was the second time, I didn’t feel dizzy enough to fall; when I steadied my gaze and looked closely, he was indeed descending on the opposite side. What the...? I thought. Just then, the mining lantern let out another creak. Though it was a certified light, under these circumstances, I felt unnerved all over again. Hajime-san seemed to be moving steadily onward. When I too reached this point, I concluded that descending at full speed was the best strategy. There, I regripped the slimy rungs again and again, and after finally descending about three ken, my foot landed on soil. I stepped on it to check, but it was still soil. To be safe, without letting go of my hands, I checked my footing and saw that the ladder had completely ended. The soil I was stepping on also ended abruptly at a width of one shaku.

Beyond that was a straight shaft. Instead, this time there was another ladder on the opposite side. It was positioned within arm's reach. Since there was no other choice, I moved to this ladder again. And then I descended as quickly as possible. The length was the same as the previous one. Then, in the opposite direction again, a ladder was still suspended. There was simply no avoiding it. I moved again. When I finally managed to deal with this one, a new ladder was suspended on the opposite side as before. There was almost no end. When I reached the sixth ladder, my hands grew sluggish, my legs began trembling, and a strange breath escaped me. When I looked down, Hajime-san's figure had long since disappeared. The more I looked, the deeper the darkness became. Drops dripped with a creak onto my mining lantern. Clear water was seeping into my straw sandals.

After resting for a while, my hands began to slip.
When I started descending, I nearly lost my footing.
Yet thinking that if I didn't keep climbing down—that stopping would send me pitching headfirst to split my skull—somehow, some way, the strength to descend each rung emerged from somewhere.
The source of that strength remained utterly beyond my grasp.
But this time it didn't come all at once—it seeped gradually into my arms, stomach, and legs like dye soaking through cloth, so even I became acutely aware of it.
It felt just like those exam nights spent cramming until dawn—drowsy from exhaustion yet jolting awake to find I could still read five or six more pages.
With that kind of desperate studying—where you forget everything you've read yet somehow finish—so too here: while I couldn't swear I'd truly descended, there was no denying I'd moved downward.
Even if I forgot entire books skimmed before tests, their page counts stuck with me—just as I now clearly recalled each ladder's rungs.
There were exactly fifteen.
Having descended all fifteen, I gaped at Hajime-san's continued absence.
But luckily the path didn't fork—flustered yet persistent, when I crawled from the narrow hole, there Hajime-san stood.
And uncharacteristically, he didn't unleash his usual barrage of taunts,

“How was that? Rough, wasn’t it?” he asked.
This was truly excruciating—
“It’s hard,” I answered.
Next, Hajime-san—

“It’s just a little more. Just hang on—what do you say?”
he encouraged.
Next, I—

“Is there another ladder?”

I asked.
Then Hajime-san,

“Ha ha ha ha! There are no more ladders.”
“You’ll be fine.”

Hajime let out a good-natured laugh.
There, I too resigned myself to having reached my limit of endurance and followed Hajime-san’s backside—only to find myself descending yet again.
As we descended, water began to pool along the path.
There was a splashing sound.
When I illuminated it with my mining lantern’s light, the ditch along the lower valley had overflowed, turning a pale mouse-gray and sloshing turbidly.
That muddy water was bone-chillingly cold again.
It felt as if the spaces between my toes were being sliced open.
But since the entire area was flooded, I had no choice but to cruelly plunge my feet—which I’d just drained—back into the water.
When I lifted one foot, I wanted to stand still like a night heron.
Even so, when I reluctantly set down the sole of my straw sandal, no sooner had it gone splash than ripples like fish fins rose from the water’s edge.
No sooner had one side glittered with the mining lantern’s light than it immediately settled back to its original state.
No sooner had the surface finally settled than I trampled it again with a splash.
Fish fins glittered again.
As we proceeded deeper and deeper into the tunnel in this manner, the water gradually grew deeper.
Hoping against hope that if I could just push through here, I might reach dry land, I turned around—only for the water that had been at my instep to suddenly rise to my shins.

Enduring in hopes that the next turn would bring relief, I bore through it and turned right—only for the ground to plummet away, submerging me up to my knees. Once it reached this point, every movement produced heavy splashing. Waves kicked up by my knees whirled into eddies as they flowed. The eddies gradually pressed closer toward the groin area. I thought it was truly dangerous. The moment I thought, *Perhaps due to some rupture, water had burst in—soon the entire mine would flood*, a chill spread from my hips through my gut. Yet Hajime-san showed no sign of being daunted, quickly parting the muddy water as he went.

“Is this safe?”

I called from behind, but Hajime-san gave no reply, forging ahead through the water with heavy splashes. By my reckoning, no work could possibly be done in a copper mine flooded like this. Things having come to such a pass, there must have been some mishap—or else he’d led me into an abandoned shaft. Either way it spelled disaster, and as I wavered between dread and the urge to question him again, the water rose at last to my waist.

“Are we still going in?”

I couldn’t take it anymore and called out to stop Hajime-san from behind.
This voice was not an ordinary questioning voice.
In my excessive contemplation of myself, it was as if my very soul had burst from my lips.
So, though on the brink of crisis it would emerge as a single-toned scream, because I still retained enough composure to hesitate before Hajime-san, it merely transformed for a time into a fearful question.

When he heard this voice, even Hajime-san stopped dead in the water and turned back.
He raised his mining lantern high.
When I fixed my gaze, a deep crease formed between Hajime's eyebrows.
And yet the corners of his mouth were turned up in a smile.

"What's wrong? Had enough?"

"No, this water..."

I gazed with dread at the water around my waist.
Hajime was not at all impressed.
He was still smiling.
He looked like passersby amusingly crossing a flooded thoroughfare while hiking up their hems.
Even though this had dispelled my doubts, being fundamentally timid, I decided to ask once more just to be sure—

"Is this really safe?"

I repeated.
At this moment, Hajime-san’s expression grew even more cheerful, but soon he turned serious,

“This is Number Eight Shaft.
“This is rock bottom.
“There’s gonna be water here—that’s only natural.
“You ain’t gotta be so scared.
“Ah, enough already—just get over here.”

Since he wouldn’t back down, I had no choice but to follow, soaking myself up to the thighs.
Since it was already dark inside the mine, if I were to use a bold analogy, one could describe it as being drenched in darkness from head to toe.
On top of that, being soaked in actual water—water the same color as the mine—made the psychological discomfort twice as oppressive.
On top of that, the water crept up gradually from my ankles.
Now I was submerged up to my waist.
Moreover, every movement created waves that left me drenched beyond the actual waterline.
And yet, though the soaked areas never dried, the waves would sometimes surge higher than where they’d already reached—inch by inch chilling my body up to the stomach.
Chilled from head to toe by the mine’s air and chilled to the gut by the water—doubly frozen through—I followed numbly through the unfamiliar terrain like a sea cucumber.
Then there was a hole to the right—from within its gaping maw that opened deep like a cave—water came flowing forth.
And from within that space came a clang-clang sound.
That must be the work site.
Hajime-san stood motionless before the hole,

“Yep.”
“Even down in these depths，there’s folks workin’!”
“Think you can handle this?”

he asked.

I bent down and peered into the cave until my chest was submerged in water.
Then the depths ahead were faintly illuminated—though "illuminated" was an overstatement—a feeble light stretched thin across a vast space, lacking definition or focus, its meager glow overwhelmed by darkness until it dissolved into a murky haze.
From where an even blacker mass clung diagonally to the rock within, there came a clang-clang sound.
Echoing off the cave's four walls, in desperate confinement with nowhere to go, things rebounding off the water clustered together and emerged from the hole's mouth.
Water came flowing out too.
Despite the ceiling being dark, there was light coming from the water.

“Want to try going in?” he said.
A chill ran through me.

“I’d rather not go in.”

I answered.
Then Hajime-san,

“I’ll call it off then.
But this reprieve’s only for today, got it?”

Adding this proviso, he scrutinized my face thoroughly.
I was indeed coerced out as expected.

“Does this mean I’ll be working here from tomorrow onward?”
“If I do work here—how many hours must I stay submerged? Does just enduring the water count as fulfilling my duty?”

“Yeah, ’bout right.”

Hajime-san, who had been considering this,
"Three shifts in a day and night, see."
he explained.
Three shifts in a day and night would mean eight hours per shift.
I lowered my gaze to the black water.

“It’s okay.
“Don’t worry.”

Hajime-san suddenly comforted me.
He must have taken pity on me.

“But I still have to work eight hours, right?”

“Well ’course they’ll make you work the set hours—you already know that. But you don’t gotta worry.”

“Why is that?”
“’S a good thing.”

Hajime-san started walking.
I too started walking in silence.
After taking two or three steps that made the water slosh noisily, Hajime-san suddenly turned around.

“Newbies usually work in Number Two or Three Shafts. You’d really gotta be clueless to come down this far,” he said with a sly grin. I grinned back just as slyly. “Feeling relieved now?” Hajime-san pressed again. Having no choice,

“Yeah.”

I made sure to reply.
Hajime-san looked immensely pleased with himself.
At that moment, the gurgling water suddenly receded to knee level.
When I probed with my toes, there were steps.
When I counted one, two—on the third step—the water had receded to my ankles.
And then it continued as a level stretch.
Having reached a high place surprisingly quickly, I was overjoyed.
From there onward, my spirits rose with each step—the more we turned, the drier the ground became.
In the end, we emerged into a place where not even a splash could be heard.
At one point, Hajime-san asked if I wanted to see the machinery—which he described as a system that collects ore fallen from various chutes, lifts it to Number One Shaft, then transports it out of the mining area via tram cars—but upon hearing this, I flatly refused.
No matter how fascinating the machinery’s operation might be, I had no desire to see places that would be of no use to me tomorrow.
If I wasn’t going to see the machinery, then this more or less counted as having completed my tour of the mining area.
There, guide Hajime-san gave me notice that he would be leaving.
It seemed even Hajime-san had his fill of being submerged up to the waist just once—for he led us back along a path that kept us relatively dry.
Even so, for about eighteen meters, the water surged up to calf level.
As we passed through this eighteen-meter stretch—unaware of our location—I realized we’d returned to that familiar spot. Recalling how my lower abdomen had nearly frozen solid during our initial passage, I pressed forward with chilled feet, anticipating relief at any moment—yet like a crossbill’s crossed beak defying alignment—the path kept diverging from expectations—the water growing shallower with each step.
My legs felt lighter.
Finally—we emerged once more onto a dry path.
Addressing Hajime-san—

“Is it over already?”

When I asked this, Hajime-san merely laughed.
Though I too felt cheerful in that moment, after some time we emerged beneath that familiar ladder.
The water could be endured up to one’s chest—but this ladder—if only on our return path I could have avoided it—yet there we stood directly beneath it once more.
I recalled having heard tales of Shoku’s Plank Road.
This ladder hung like an inversion of that treacherous path, mercilessly denying any gradual slope.
When we reached it, my legs abruptly refused to move.
A sudden sensation akin to beriberi seized me—before I knew it, my hips were being wrenched backward.
Some readers might imagine Hajime-san dragged me back—but no.
This mood had overtaken me so completely that were I forced to name it, I might call it being hauled by an intestinal hernia.
My back simply wouldn’t straighten.
Not that I’d claim this was purely the reversed plank road’s curse—truth remained that ever since our guide Hajime-san had entered such fine spirits, basking in his magnanimity had steadily loosened the bindings of my resolve.
In any case—I couldn’t walk.
Hajime-san observed this posture—

“Don’t look like you can walk, huh? You’re hunched over like a scared rabbit. Should rest a bit. I’m gonna go take care of something.”

Having said that, he slipped into the darkness and disappeared somewhere.

After that, needless to say, I was left alone.
I plopped heavily down onto the ground.
The miner's cushion becomes remarkably useful at times like these.
Thanks to this, there was at least the relief of not having bones ache against rocks or clothes soiled with mud—amidst the wretchedness, a faint glimmer of satisfaction remained.
Then, I leaned my stiffly curved back against the wall.
I had no intention of making any further effort.
I simply kept staring at the opposite wall in the same position.
Was it that my body wouldn't move, so my mind wouldn't function? Or that my mind had taken root, so my body grew idle? In any case, with both factors reinforcing each other, I seemed to wander in some liminal space between life and death—for a time, everything remained indistinct.
At first, I felt a desire to breathe bright air—even just a cubic foot of it—but gradually my mind grew dimmer, until I even forgot about the darkness within the mine.
Unable to tell which was which, they merged and blended into a hazy unity.
But I wasn't sleeping at all.
I fell silent, my consciousness having grown faint—nothing more than that.
However, this diluted consciousness—being worldly attachments dissolved in ten parts water—never lost its sanity, however opaque it became.
It was about equivalent to conversing by telephone instead of face-to-face—or perhaps slightly more indistinct than that.
This sinking of consciousness below ordinary levels was—for me who found the days of mundane society too harsh to bear; for me who could settle neither in Tokyo nor the countryside; for me who needed to administer emergency doses of anguish-reducing medicine; for me who had to disperse excessive stimuli clustering at every nerve fiber's end—a necessity, a desire, and an ideal.
While being dragged along by Mr. Chouzo, this was indeed a higher-class heaven compared to the miner's life I had imagined along the way.
If elopement is self-destruction's first step, then this state is a station along self-destruction's—I don't know which step, but in any case—not far removed from its final destination.
Left behind by Hajime-san during a brief respite, I found myself suddenly drawn—unexpectedly—to the very brink of self-destruction. Well now—what do you suppose that felt like?
To be honest, I was happy.
However, this awareness of happiness floated adrift within a sanity diluted tenfold with water; like all other worldly attachments, it didn’t strike me with any intensity.

It remained attenuated.
Yet awareness persisted.
Those who retain sanity cannot shed solely happiness' perception.
My mental state differed from truncated psychic phenomena with narrowed spheres.
The realm governing general activity endured unchanged; only activity's intensity had waned. Thus my ordinary and present selves differed merely in gradation.
Within that most tenuous existence dwelled tenuous joy.

If this state had continued for an hour, I would have been satisfied for that entire hour.
If it had continued for a day, I must have been satisfied throughout that entire day.
Even if it had continued for a hundred years, I would still have been happy.
However—there emerged yet another new mental activity.

The reason was that, unfortunately, this state hadn't remained fixed where I'd hoped.
It moved.
It moved like an oil lamp's dying flame.
Were I to quantify my consciousness, what normally registered as ten had halved to five and lingered there.
After a while it became four.
Then three.
If this continued, zero became inevitable.
I grew aware of a happiness fading even as it transformed through this progression.
Aware of how this awareness itself thinned as the process advanced.
However far it receded, happiness must still be happiness.
Thus logically speaking—no matter how low my consciousness sank—I ought to have felt only happiness and satisfaction.
But as it dwindled toward zero, something suddenly leaped from the darkness.
The thought This guy's going to die leaped out.
Immediately followed by If I die now, that'd be disastrous.
At that same instant I snapped my eyes wide open.

The tips of my feet felt like they might snap off.
From my knees to my waist, blood flowed yet felt frozen solid.
My stomach seemed stuffed with water.
From the chest up, I remained human.
When I opened my eyes and thought about before opening them, the sequence of thoughts—"I'll die, it'd be terrible if I die"—had connected one after another before snapping off right there.
The moment they snapped, my next action became opening my eyes.
In other words, it was the "I'll die" thought that executed this life course correction—with opening my eyes being the first act following that correction—making the two entirely separate entities.
And yet they were entirely connected.
As proof of this connection, when I opened my eyes and looked around me, the voice saying "I'll die..." still lingered in my ears.
It had indeed remained.
I use terms like "voice" or "ear," but only because there was no other way to describe it.
This went beyond description—I couldn't accept that someone had actually warned me, "You'll die..."
But of course there couldn't be anyone here. Yet to say it was God—I detest God.
It must have been me hastily conjuring it in my own mind—though I'd never dreamed a human could be so tormented by fear of death.
This was precisely why suicide should be impossible.
At such times, the soul's arrangements differ from usual—so even while being controlled by my own instincts, I remained utterly unaware of it.
This seemed worth noting.
Depending on interpretation, one might say God had helped me here.
Or perhaps it was those souls clinging to my shadow self—though this would imply many lovers—whose souls had saved me.
For someone my age, it was commendable—given my strong self-conceit—that I hadn't interpreted this voice as belonging to Ms. Tsuyako or Ms. Sumie.

I suppose I wasn't born that poetic by nature.

At that moment, Mr. Hajime suddenly returned.
No sooner had I seen Mr. Hajime than my consciousness grew increasingly clear.
That I would now have to climb that infamous reverse scaffolding path; that starting tomorrow, I’d have to clang-clang away with chisel and hammer; the Nanjing rice gruel, the bedbugs, the funeral processions, the Daruma—all became clear to me at once. And finally, my own moral degradation stood revealed with utmost clarity.

“You feelin’ a bit better now?”

“Yes, I feel a bit better now.”

“Alright, let’s get climbin’ then.”

Since he said this, I stood there expressing my thanks when Mr. Hajime, energetically grabbing a rung and planting one foot on it while—

“The climb’s a bit tough.”
“Then damn well keep up!”

He looked back and began climbing cautiously.
I felt an icy chill in my chest as I looked up from below to see Mr. Hajime ascending.
He climbed like a monkey.
There was no sign whatsoever of him waiting for me.
If I didn't hurry, I risked being left behind again.
I too steeled myself and began climbing.
After moving just two or three rungs—if even that—I realized just how right he'd been.
Exactly as Mr. Hajime had warned, it proved grueling.
This wasn't merely fatigue.
When descending, your upper body leans slightly forward, letting the ladder bear some of your back's weight.
But when ascending, the opposite occurs—your body naturally arches backward.
This backward-leaning weight had to be supported by both arms, exacting an extra toll from biceps to shoulders with each rung.
Not to mention having to grip these narrow rungs with palms and all five fingers.
They were slippery, exactly as I'd noted before.
Negotiating even one ladder was no easy feat.
And there were fifteen of them.
Mr. Hajime had disappeared far ahead.
The slightest release of my grip would send me plunging backward into absolute darkness.
Holding on threatened to dislocate my shoulders.
Halfway up the seventh ladder, breathing like bellows, I came to profoundly understand labor's hardship.

And then my eyes filled with hot tears.

I blinked my upper and lower eyelids together two or three times, yet my vision remained blurred.
Even walls less than five sun away remained indistinct.
I thought to wipe them with the back of my hand, but both were inconveniently occupied.
I grew frustrated.
I wondered why I had fallen so low as to mimic a monkey like this.
I leaned my teetering body as far forward as possible, pressed against the ladder with all my weight, and thought.
It might be more appropriate to interpret this as having rested.
It would be accurate to say I had simply stopped halfway.
In any case, I couldn’t move anymore.
Once again, I became immobile.
I stood motionless.
I didn’t notice at all the mining lantern’s hissing sound or the clear water seeping into the soles of my feet.
Consequently, I didn’t have a single inkling of how many minutes had passed.
Then once again, hot tears came welling up.
Although my mind was surprisingly steady, only my eyes grew hazy.
No matter how much I blinked, it was useless.
It felt as though my eyes were submerged in hot water.
My eyes felt crumpled and raw.
I grew increasingly anxious.

Irritation arose.
The intensity of my agitation grew fiercer.
And then, my body refused to obey me.
I clenched my teeth and shook the rungs I gripped with both hands two or three times.
Of course they didn’t budge.
Maybe I should just let go.
Falling upside down and shattering my head first would settle things quicker. A surge of suicidal intent welled up within me.—That those who leapt up in alarm at the ladder’s base crying “Dying would be terrible!” could reach its midpoint and suddenly succumb to such crude recklessness—completely resolved to die—stands as the most memorable instance of psychological transformation in my life.
I am no psychologist, so I do not know how best to explain such a transformation. Yet I suspect psychologists themselves may lack sufficient real-world experience; thus crude as it is, I shall venture to offer my own humble opinion here for consideration.

When I spread out the mining plank to sit and rest, I had resolved from the start to take that rest.
Thus there was calmness in my heart.
There was little stimulation.
When I leaned against the wall in that state, this condition progressed so gradually that, by natural momentum, my consciousness began to fade.
The soul sinks deeper.
In such circumstances, the trajectory of mental movement is always fixed; as a rule, it invariably sets out from the active and gradually approaches the passive.
However, when one has traversed that ordinary path to its very end—on the brink of declaring it a dead end—the soul splits into two distinct actions.
The first course is to hoist sails before a tailwind and plunge headlong into these depths.
Then you die right there.
Otherwise, it goes right up to the brink of destruction before suddenly leaping back in the opposite direction.
That which had advanced toward passivity suddenly flips upside down and returns to the apex of activity.
Then, life becomes immediately certain.
What I experienced at the base of the ladder corresponded to this second course.
Thus, while approaching death with a tranquil heart, those who had reached this side of the Sanzu River bypassed the laborious effort of trudging back along the proper path and abruptly manifested themselves in the very midst of the realm of the living.
I have named this experience "turning death into life."

However, at the midpoint of the ladder, I encountered a phenomenon entirely opposite to this.
I had to climb in pursuit of Mr. Hajime.
That Mr. Hajime had long since vanished from sight.
My mind raced; my spirit churned; my hands could not let go.
I was inferior even to monkeys.

Pathetic.
Agonizing.—Everything cut deep.
The intensity of my self-awareness did nothing but grow increasingly more acute.
Therefore, in this situation, the direction of mental movement was in a state of climbing from passivity toward activity.
Now when this condition progressed endlessly and reached its peak of agitation, a twofold effect naturally emerged—though what I found particularly intriguing was one specific phenomenon: that remarkable occurrence where the soul, executing a somersault from the apex of activity, abruptly manifested at the extremity of passivity.
To put it plainly, this referred to the phenomenon where, the very moment the fact of being alive became utterly clear, one resolved to abandon life.
I have named this phenomenon the process of entering death from active life.
This phenomenon might seem contradictory, but in actuality—whether contradictory or not—being inherent to the soul's nature, it proceeded with unexpected naturalness.
Proof over theory: those who died resolutely met a noble end, but those who were killed in meekness never seemed to die properly.
Whatever might be true of others' circumstances, I myself was living proof of this phenomenon.
When I thought—Damn it all, just die already—while clinging to that ladder, letting go hadn’t felt frightening in the slightest.
Of course, as usual, I never so much as flinched.
However, when I actually tried to die and began to release my grip, I was subjected to yet another peculiar mental phenomenon.

I was not by nature a dramatic person, but being still young, whenever I had capriciously planned suicide until now, there had always been the thought that I wanted to do it spectacularly.
Whether by pistol or nine-and-a-half-sun blade—I wanted to die splendidly, that is, in a way that would earn people’s admiration.
There had even been times when I thought that if possible, I would go as far as Kegon Falls to do it.
But I had ultimately given up on hanging myself in places like toilets or storage sheds, deeming such methods beneath me.
That vanity of mine suddenly surfaced at this critical moment.
I didn’t know where it had come from, but emerge it did.
In other words, since there must have been room for it to emerge, emerge it did—which meant that my resolve, however earnest, could not have been all that desperate.
However, given that it emerged even now—as I was acting with such resolve, midway through releasing my grip from the ladder rungs—this opponent must have wielded considerable power indeed.
Admittedly, this mentality likely differs little from those who wish to become bronze statues after death, so as an ordinary human, I wouldn’t consider it a particularly suspicious desire—but given my current circumstances, it did seem a touch too extravagant.
However, because of this vanity, I refrained from impulsively seeking a sudden death and, clumsy as I am, have survived to this day.
It is entirely thanks to that weakness being dragged out even at this critical moment.

This was how it came out when told.
Just when I thought 'I'll die now,' leaning back slightly and starting to loosen my grip—if I must die anyway, dying here would lack dignity.
Wait wait—a command to go to Kegon Falls after escaping—though 'command' sounds strange—something exactly like a command reverberated through my mind.
The hand that had begun to slacken instinctively clenched.
The blurred vision suddenly cleared.
The mining lantern burned.
Looking up revealed mud-slicked ladder rungs stretching endlessly into darkness.
I absolutely had to climb.
Faltering midway would mean dying meaninglessly.
To tumble down like ore in this dark pit—forgotten in some sunless shaft—forgotten even by Mr. Hajime who brought me here—no, even if discovered, scorned by those half-beast miners—this was intolerable.
I absolutely had to reach the top.
The mining lantern burned.
The ladder continued.
Beyond the ladder stretched mine tunnels.
Beyond the tunnels blazed sunlight.
Vast fields existed; high mountains stood.
Crossing those fields and mountains would bring me to Kegon Falls.
No matter what—I had to climb.

He stretched his left hand above his head.
He gripped the slippery rung with such force that it left marks on his fingers.
He thrust his wet hips upward.
At the same time, he raised his right foot a foot.
The light of the mining lantern moved vertically onward through the darkness.
The mine grew brighter layer by layer.
The abandoned rungs fell away layer by layer into the darkness.
Exhaled breath struck the black wall.
It was hot breath.
And at times, it appeared white.
Next, he closed his mouth.
Then, a sound came from deep within his nose.
The ladder still had no end.
From the cliff face, water dripped.
When he flicked the mining lantern with a swift motion, it grazed the cliff face in a bow-like arc, flickered out, and upon settling where his hand movement ceased, once more sent up a straight column of oily smoke.
He flipped it again.
The light moved diagonally.
Stepping outside the foot-wide path of the ladder, the jagged rock wall filled his vision.
He shuddered.
His vision swam.

He closed his eyes and climbed.
He couldn't see the light, couldn't see the walls.
It was just dark.
Hands and feet were moving.
Neither moving hands nor moving feet were visible.
He lived on through hands and feet alone.
He lived on, climbing upward.
To live was to climb, and to climb was to live.
Even so—the ladder still existed.

What followed was almost entirely a daze.
I could hardly tell whether I had climbed through my own efforts or been lifted by divine grace.
When he finally reached the top and realized there wasn't a single rung left to grasp, he sank down right there in the shaft.

“What’s wrong? Did you make it up?”
“Thought you might’ve kicked it halfway—goddamn endless climb.”
“Was gonna check on ya, but creeped myself out goin’ solo.”
“But hell—you actually did it.”
“Not half bad.”

Mr. Hajime, who had been waiting impatiently and fidgeting, looked greatly relieved.
Apparently he'd been quite worried while on the ladder.
I just—

"I felt a bit unwell, so I rested partway."

I answered.

"Unwell? That must've been rough for ya."
"Partway... you mean on the ladder?"

“Well, yes, more or less.”

“Hmm.
“Then you won’t be able to work tomorrow either.”

When I heard this remark, I thought, Go eat shit!
Who would ever do something like imitate a mole? I thought.
Even someone like me had been loved by a beautiful woman, I thought.
If I exited the mine, I could go straight to Kegon Falls, I thought.
And so I would die with dignity, I thought.
In the end, how could I keep dealing with such a beast for even half an hour more? I thought.
So I turned to Hajime and said curtly,

“If you’re ready, let’s go up.”

I said.
Mr. Hajime looked puzzled.
“Going up? You’re full of energy, aren’t you.”

“You’re mocking me, you blind fool,” I wanted to say. “You’ve misjudged me!” But my mouth alone remained courteous as I uttered a single word:
“Yes.”
I replied.
Hajime was still dawdling.
His hesitation carried less surprise than mockery now.

“Hey, you okay?
“This ain’t no joke.”
“You look awful.”

“Then I’ll go first.”

With that, I started walking indignantly.

"No good, no good.
Don't go ahead; don't trail behind."

“I see.”

“Of course!”
“Stick with me.”
“Who the hell abandons their guide and charges ahead? Ain’t no fool does that!”

Mr. Hajime stopped just short of pushing me aside and went ahead.
No sooner had he moved forward than he abruptly picked up speed.
He bent at the waist, crawled on all fours, twisted his back sideways, or craned only his neck—his movements shifting fluidly with the tunnel’s contours.
And he pressed onward frantically.
It was as though he were a creature born of earth and schooled in copper veins’ depths.
Damn him charging ahead in a huff—I marched with equal resolve, but when put to test, mere determination proved insufficient.
After rounding five or six bends, clattering through descents and ascents, Mr. Hajime vanished from view. Then suddenly he began humming that nonsensical “te-te-te-te” tune.
Though his form had disappeared, his voice alone reverberated through the tunnels’ hollows, echoing back from every direction.
I thought him a malicious bastard.
At first I crawled and crouched with furious vigor, driven by vows to catch him—just wait—but to my chagrin, Mr. Hajime’s humming grew ever fainter.
So I abandoned pursuit for now, resolving to follow his “te-te-te-te” as guide.
For a time this sufficed to chart my course, but eventually even those sounds grew dubious until finally vanishing altogether—leaving me utterly confounded.
Were this a straight path I’d have marched sunward unaided, but years of excavation had rendered these tunnels a tsuchigumo’s lair—holes gaping where least expected.
Venture carelessly into one and I’d drown anew in waist-deep floods or stumble upon that accursed inverted walkway again—progress barred at every turn.

So I stood still in the darkness, staring at the mining lantern’s light as I thought. Since on the way there I had descended all the way to Hachiban Pit, on the return I absolutely had to climb back up to where the tram ran. I decided any hole would do as long as it led upward. However, if it sloped downward, I resolved to turn back and try another path. If I followed these detours, I would probably emerge at some work site. When I got out, I would ask the miners. Having made this resolution, I wandered aimlessly through the directionless maze. My impatience left me breathless, but my frantic walking at least warmed my cold feet. Yet still I couldn’t escape. It felt like I kept retracing the same path—so unbearably frustrating that I wanted to smash my head against the wall. If asked which would break, of course it would be my skull—but in my rage, I half-believed even the wall might crack. The more I walked, the more the ceiling hindered me; the walls on either side hindered me. The rungs beneath my straw sandals became obstacles. The mine itself had trapped me inside, its refusal to release me no matter how long I waited becoming the greatest hindrance of all. That I sometimes thought—even if I wouldn’t act on it—of hurling my head against this prison’s walls to crack them open stemmed from my desperate wish to reach Kegon Falls quickly. As I pressed on like this, a miner approached from ahead. He appeared to be transporting loose copper ore to an ore chute, cradling a winnowing basket while swaying his mining lantern and shuffling forward. When I spotted this light, joy made my heart leap. Mustering courage, I hurried toward it—though there was no need to close the distance myself, for he too was walking toward me. When our two lanterns had drawn within six feet of each other, lying in wait as it were, I saw the miner’s face.

Then that face was of a ghastly pallor.
Even within this mine, it was a pallor that could not be taken as ordinary.
If he were brought out into the light and seen under the blue sky, there was no mistaking it—this was a truly ghastly pallor.
So he grew disgusted with speaking.
When I realized that someone like this—with his ghastly pallor—would mock, torment, or humiliate others, I grew even more disgusted at the thought of asking him for directions.
I resolved that even if it killed me, I’d get out on my own and show them.
I’m not some lowly man who’d exchange words with the likes of you, I declared firmly in my heart as we passed each other.
Since he knew nothing of this, I of course passed him in silence.
The path ahead grew dark.
The mining lantern was now alone.
His agitation mounted by the moment.
But still he couldn’t get out.
Yet the paths stretched on endlessly.
They were to the right and to the left.
I entered to the right, and I entered to the left, and I even tried walking straight ahead.
However, he couldn’t get out.
Was I truly never going to get out? he wondered, beginning to despair—when right before his nose, a clang-clang began to ring out.

After five or six steps, I hit a dead end; turning the corner, there was a small work site where a miner was repeatedly raising his hammer to strike a chisel.
Each time he struck, ore fell from the wall.
There was a straw bag beside him.
This was the same size as the straw bag I had thrown into the ore chute earlier and was already filled to the brim.
The miners would come and carry it away.
This time, I thought, I’d ask him.
But the man himself was clanging away with all his might.
Moreover, his face wasn't even clearly visible.
Since it seemed like a good opportunity, I felt like taking a short break before moving on.
Fortunately, there was a straw bag.
If I sat down on this, it would make for a perfect seat.
I plopped my backside onto the straw bag with a thud.
Then suddenly, the clang-clang stopped.
The miner’s shadow suddenly grew long and tall.
He was still holding the chisel.

“What the hell’re you doin’?”

A sharp voice echoed throughout the hole.
It reverberated through my ears as though being hammered in.

The tall shadow strode closer with wide steps.

When I looked, he was a long-legged, broad-chested man with a powerful build.
His face was small for his height.
When his outline became somewhat distinct, the man stopped.
Then he looked down at me.
His mouth was tightly shut.
His large double-lidded eyes stared intently.
His nose bridge ran perfectly straight.
His complexion held a dark reddish-black hue.
He was no ordinary miner.
He said abruptly,

"You're the newbie."

"Yes."

By this time, his hips had already left the straw bag.
Somehow, the miner approaching from the other side was terrifying.
Until then, I had scorned over ten thousand miners like beasts—had steeled myself to die by my own oath—yet when this miner came striding toward me, I was suddenly terrified.
However,

"What're you doin' wanderin' around lost in a place like this?"

When he was questioned in return, he felt somewhat relieved.
It was a tone that had discerned from his demeanor that he hadn’t deliberately sat down on the straw bag.

“The truth is, I only arrived at the mining camp last evening and just entered the mine to survey conditions.”

“Alone?”

“No, the foreman assigned someone to guide me, but…”

“Course you couldn’t’ve gotten in here alone.
“What happened to that guide?”

“He went on ahead.”

“He went on ahead?”
“Left you behind?”

“Well, yes.”

“That fat bastard.
“Alright, I’ll send you out soon—wait here.”

No sooner had he spoken than he began clanging the chisel and hammer again—clang-clang.
I waited as ordered.
Meeting this man made me lose all resolve to escape alone.
The determination I’d boasted about—that I’d escape solo even if it killed me—had suddenly vanished.
I’d noticed this change.
Yet I felt no particular shame.
Since I hadn’t declared it publicly, it didn’t matter.
But later, when I did make public declarations, I kept doing things that should’ve been left undone—things that shouldn’t have been done at all.
Declaring things aloud makes all the difference.

After a while, the clang-clang stopped.
The miner came back to my front and sat cross-legged,

“Hold on a sec, I’m gonna have a smoke, so…”

With that, he took out his tobacco pouch.
It was brown—unclear whether leather or paper—inserted into his work pants beneath the sleeveless jacket draped over them.
While exhaling through his nose the smoke he had deeply inhaled with apparent relish, he used the tube of his tobacco pouch to tap the middle of the short bamboo pipe.
A small fireball shot out vigorously from the mouthpiece, only to land on the miner’s straw sandal and sizzle out.
The miner gave a puff on his emptied pipe.
The smoke that had accumulated in the bamboo pipe rushed out all at once from its mouthpiece.
It was then that the miner finally spoke.

“Where you from.
“What’re you doin’ in a place like this?
“You look pretty slim though.
“Never worked before, have ya?
“How’d you get here?”

“Truth is, I’ve never worked before.
“But there were circumstances… that’s why I came…”

He stopped there, having lost patience with the miner, and didn’t mention leaving.
He certainly didn’t speak of dying.
But this was different from before—when he’d treated them like beasts in his heart while keeping up polite pretenses.
I’d only held back from spilling every last thought—what I did say, I spoke with complete sincerity.
There wasn’t an ounce of deceit.
He answered earnestly from his gut.
The miner silently stared at his pipe’s mouthpiece for a time.
Then he packed more tobacco.
Midway through exhaling smoke through his nostrils, he began to speak.

What first surprised me when I heard this miner’s words was his education.
The refined emotions born of education.
Discernment.
Sincere passion.
Finally, there were the Chinese-derived terms he had used—he employed these terms, ones that miners like him could never even dream of knowing, with such ease as though he had been using them constantly in his household up until just yesterday.
Even now, I can still vividly picture that scene before my eyes.
He sat with eyes wide open, staring fixedly at my face as he leaned his neck slightly forward, planted one hand palm-up against crossed knees, hunched his left shoulder, gripped the pipe with his right fingers, occasionally revealing clean teeth between thin lips—and spoke these words.
The order of phrases and word usage are transcribed directly from accurate memories.
Only his tone of voice remained beyond my grasp—

“There’s a saying—‘With age comes wisdom.’
“You’d do well to listen to an old hand like me, even if I’m stuck in this wretched trade.
“Youth’s the season of passion.
“I’ve walked that path myself.
“Passion’s time means certain failure.
“You’re no different, I reckon.
“Nor am I.
“That’s how it goes for everyone.
“So I understand well enough.
“Can’t say how your troubles measure against mine, but I grasp the shape of ’em.
“Won’t judge you for it.
“Pity you, even.
“Might be deeper currents at work too.
“If you were fit for proper talkin’, I’d hear you out—but a man who can’t leave the mining area can’t lift a finger to help. Best you keep your story to yourself.”
“I too…”

As he began to say this, I noticed the man’s eyes glistening with uncanny intensity.
I felt something profoundly.
Whether this stemmed from his inability to leave the mining area as claimed, or from whatever story trailed his unfinished “I too…”—it remained unclear, but those eyes held an undeniable strangeness.
Moreover, those eyes now pierced me with their sharp gaze.
Within their keenness lay something—whether nostalgia or brooding contemplation—a nostalgic magnetism that drew one in.
In this black pit, human presence meant only this miner, and now this miner had become nothing but eyes.
My entire consciousness was instantly drawn into those eyeballs.
Then I listened intently to his words.
He repeated “I too” twice.

“I too once went to school.
“I even received an education beyond secondary level.
“But when I was twenty-three, I got close to a certain woman—I won’t go into details—and that led me to commit a grave crime.
“When I committed the crime and came to my senses, I’d already become someone society couldn’t accept.
“It wasn’t some drunken whim—I committed an unavoidable crime out of unavoidable circumstances. But society is cold and unfeeling.
“Internal sins may be forgiven endlessly, but surface sins are never overlooked.
“I’m a righteous man—I hate crookedness, which is precisely why I ended up committing a sin. But once you’ve done it, there’s nothing to be done.
“I had to abandon scholarship too.
“I had to cast aside ambition as well.
“Everything was ruined.
“It’s frustrating, but there’s nothing to be done.
“On top of that, I had to be caught by the hand of punishment.”
(Wher intentional or accidental, he had specifically used the phrase “hand of punishment.”) But even though I had no recollection of wrongdoing, I couldn’t simply accept being saddled with guilt—it went against my very nature.
“So I ran for it.
“I fled as far as I could escape, came all the way here, and finally slipped into the mining area.
“For six long years since then, I’ve never once seen sunlight.
“Day after day, all I do is swing my hammer with a clang-clang in the mines.
“I’ve hammered away for a full six years.
“Once next year comes, I can leave the mining area—it’ll be my seventh year then.
“But I won’t leave—and can’t leave.”

“They won’t catch me with the hand of punishment, but I won’t leave.”
“If it’s come to this, there’s no point in leaving anyway.”
“Even if I could return to the outside world, the deeds I did there won’t disappear.”
“The past is still lodged in my gut.”
“The past—it’s still lodged in your gut too, isn’t it?”
“What about you…”

Midway through his words, he suddenly posed a question to me.

I was taken aback, having no ready reply for this sudden question.
What lay in my gut wasn’t merely the past.
It was a past equivalent to the present—something carried over from a year or two ago until just yesterday.
I thought I might as well lay bare my innermost thoughts before this man.
Then, as if to prevent my confession, he cut me off and resumed speaking.

“In six years here, I’ve seen every filthy corner of human nature.”
“But I don’t want to leave.”
“No matter how furious I get, no matter how sick to my stomach—I don’t want to leave.”
“But out there—in sunlit society—there are places worse than this.”
“Thinking of that lets me endure.”
“Just tell yourself it’s a dark, cramped place—that’s enough.”
“My body stinks of copper now—can’t last a day without sniffing mining lantern oil.”
“But—that’s my fate.”
“This isn’t about you.”
“You turning out like me would be a tragedy.”
“Living men reeking of copper—that’s a disaster.”
“No—whatever resolve or purpose you brought means nothing here.”
“Any determination gets pecked dead in two-three days.”
“That’s the pity of it.”
“Downright pitiful.”
“If you were some idealess brute who only knows swinging chisels and hammers—fine.”
“But you—you went to school, didn’t you? Where? Eh?”
“Doesn’t matter where.”
“And you’re young.”
“Too young to be thrown into the Mining Area.”

“This is where they dump human dregs.”
“A proper graveyard for men.”
“Where they bury you alive.”
“Step inside just once—no matter how fine a man you are—and it becomes a pit trap you’ll never crawl out of.”
“You stumbled in blind, didn’t you? Let that labor broker sweet-talk you into following him here.”
“That’s why I pity you.”
“Corrupting one soul’s no small thing.”
“Better to slit their throats clean—less sin in that.”
“A corrupted man spreads that much poison.”
“Dragging others down with him—truth is, I’m one such bastard.”
“But once you’re here? No path left but corruption.”
“Weep rivers, repent till dawn—still no path but corruption.”
“So get out. Now.”
“Your corruption won’t just ruin you.—You got parents?...”

I answered that I had just one thing to say.

“If you do, all the more reason. And you’re Japanese…”

I remained silent.

“If you’re Japanese, you should take up a profession that benefits Japan.”
“For educated people to become miners is a loss for Japan.”
“Therefore, you should leave quickly.”
“If you’re from Tokyo, go back to Tokyo.”
“And then do something legitimate—something suitable for you—that doesn’t harm Japan.”
“No matter what you say, you can’t stay here.”
“If you don’t have travel expenses, I’ll cover them.”
“So go home.”
“You understand?”
“I’m with Yamanaka-gumi.”
“Just come to Yamanaka-gumi and ask for An-san—they’ll know right away.”
“Just come and ask for me.”
“I’ll cover your travel expenses no matter what.”

An-san's words ended here.

I had heard there were ten thousand miners.
At this moment when I had convinced myself that all ten thousand were nothing but evolved monsters—beasts devoid of reason or human compassion—encountering this man felt like pure fiction.
It seemed a greater miracle than midsummer snow—being admonished by An-san deep within the mine.
I knew New Year follows Old Year’s Eve; I remembered the proverb about Buddha appearing in hell; I had learned that desperation breeds escape; I often thought help would surely come in times of trouble—indulging theatrical fancies that only worsened my plight—but this time differed utterly.
Having seared into my chest with unforgettable rancor’s flame—the ironclad conviction that ten thousand brutes were truly my enemies—I found myself all the more stunned by this An-san.
Simultaneously, An-san’s warnings struck my ears with force enough to overturn my original resolve in an instant.

For a while, the two of them remained silent. Since An-san had already said all he needed to say, he shouldn’t be speaking anymore—but I felt obligated to somehow respond to him. To neglect this duty would be inexcusable to An-san. I desperately wanted to express heartfelt gratitude and have him hear my thoughts too, but my blocked nasal passages made it difficult. When I tried forcing out words, they threatened to escape through my nose instead of my mouth. Enduring this made my lip corners itch and nostrils twitch. Soon the emotion blocked in my nose and mouth—its momentum lost—began pooling in my eyes. My eyelids grew heavy. My eyelids grew hot. I was deeply troubled. An-san was making a strange face too. Both grew awkward and sat cross-legged facing each other in silence. At that moment came the clang-clang of ore being struck at the next work site. Looking back now, I wish I had known exactly how deep underground that place was—how many hundreds of feet below the surface—where An-san and I had sat wordlessly facing each other. Even in the city, such serendipitous encounters are rare. In a copper mine, there can’t possibly be such a thing. That there could exist a stage—in the sunless pit where two people forgotten by the world, others, history, even the sun itself—where precious teachings were imparted and noble tears shed, was something none but we two cross-legged figures silently watching each other’s faces could ever know.

An-san started smoking again.
Thick puffs of smoke wafted out.
As the smoke billowed thickly only to vanish into shadows, then billowed thickly and vanished again, I finally regained control of my voice.

"I’m grateful."
"Indeed, just as you’ve said—this is no place for humans."
"I too had thought about leaving the copper mine for good today… until I met you."

Because I couldn’t bring myself to say that I had intended to leave the mountain and die, when I paused briefly here,

“That makes it all the more reason—you should leave right away,” An-san urged emphatically.
I remained silent as ever.
Then,

“So I’ll cover your travel expenses.”

he said.
I had been interpreting his repeated mentions of travel expenses as nothing but goodwill, yet despite that, I felt not the slightest inclination to accept them.
Was this the same resolve as when I refused the foreman’s assistance yesterday? No—it was different.
Yesterday, I had desperately wanted to accept it—would have groveled to receive it.
However, because I had calculated that becoming a miner would be more advantageous than accepting travel expenses, I forced myself to refuse when he tried to offer them.
I didn’t want to accept An-san’s travel expenses from the start.
From the perspective of not rendering his goodwill futile, I had no choice but to accept; and if I were to quit being a miner, accepting would have been more practical—yet despite all this, I didn’t want to take it.
Looking back now, this seems to have sprouted from the notion that accepting would be shameful in the face of his upstanding character—that my own character would be diminished.
Since the other party was so upstanding, I wanted to be as upstanding as possible myself; if I didn’t act honorably, I risked damaging my own dignity.
Receiving the other party’s goodwill and giving them adequate satisfaction in return would indeed bring me joy, but to indiscriminately prioritize my own gain when there was no reason to accept it would make me no better than a beggar.
I could not bear to provide factual proof before this admirable An-san that I was a beggar—that I was no more than a beggar.
Youth, though foolish, has an unexpected purity to it.
I

“I will not accept the travel expenses.”

he refused.

At this moment, An-san took two or three puffs of tobacco and was putting his pipe into its case when he glanced at my face.

"My apologies for that."

When he said that, I felt terribly sorry. If I had been forced to take it with something like "Take it since I'm giving it," I surely would have accepted. After that, paying close attention, when I observed people receiving money, they would initially decline once but later usually put it in their pocket—I think this is entirely just an evolved form of this psychological state. Fortunately, An-san was an admirable man who said, "My apologies for that," so I was grateful to have avoided falling into this formality.

An-san immediately retracted the matter of the travel expenses.

“But you will return to Tokyo, right?”

he asked again.
Since my resolve to die had dulled somewhat, I even considered that perhaps I should save up just the travel expenses and then go home.

“Let me think it over carefully. I’ll come discuss it with you properly once I’ve decided,” I answered.

“I see. In that case, I’ll at least escort you as far as where the path becomes clear.”

He inserted the tobacco pouch into his work pants and covered it over with his sleeveless jacket’s torso section.
I picked up the mining lantern and rose to my feet.
An-san took the lead.
The mine shaft proved unexpectedly easy to climb.
After passing through those familiar ledges four or five times and crawling on all fours twice, we emerged onto a path with a ceiling high enough to stand upright and walk straight.
Winding our way around it in meandering loops and climbing up to the right, we abruptly came before the First Watchpost.
An-san halted where the electric light became visible.

“Well, this is where we part ways.”
“That’s the watchpost.”
“If you turn right there and go up, you’ll reach where the rail tracks are laid.”
“From there on, it’s a straight path.”
“It’s still early for me—I can’t leave until I’ve put in a bit more work.”
“I’ll be back by evening.”
“If it’s past five, I’ll be there. Come by if you have time.”
“Take care on your way.”
“Goodbye.”

An-san’s shadow instantly vanished into the darkness.
When I turned around to utter a brief word of thanks, the mining lantern had already rounded the corner.
I exited the entrance to the Mining Area alone.
I staggered back to the barracks.
Along the way, I thought about various things.
If An-san had advanced properly within society, I didn’t know what he’d be now, but he’d undoubtedly have risen higher than a miner.
Was it society that destroyed An-san, or had An-san wronged society?—A man so clear-cut wouldn’t act recklessly without reason, so perhaps it wasn’t An-san at fault, but society itself.
Being young then, I hadn’t clearly understood what society was—but since it drove out someone like An-san, I concluded it couldn’t be decent.
Perhaps due to my partiality toward him, I simply couldn’t believe he’d committed a crime grave enough to flee.
Society wouldn’t rest until it had destroyed An-san.
And yet, as I said, I couldn’t grasp what society truly was.

I had simply thought of it as human.
I couldn't fathom why that human would kill someone as good as An-san.
So I tried concluding it was society's fault, but found myself unable to hate society itself.
I only felt pity for An-san.
Had it been possible, I would have taken his place.
I had come here by my own choice to destroy myself.
Were I to grow weary of it, I could leave anytime.
An-san had been destroyed by humans and lived here through necessity.
Even were I to return, there was nowhere left for me.
By any measure, An-san deserved compassion far more than I.

An-san had said he had fallen.
Since someone who had received higher education had become a miner, it was indeed a fall from grace.
But that fall seemed to signify not merely a degradation of social standing but also a corruption of character, which made it all the more heartbreaking.
Was An-san also pouring money into Daruma dolls? Playing dice games in the mine shafts? Showing funeral processions to the sick to mock them? Putting up his wife as collateral—surely such things couldn’t be happening—could they?
In that environment where everyone who saw me, having just arrived yesterday, mocked me without exception, only An-san, even in the dark pit’s depths, had fully acknowledged my humanity.
An-san did the work of a miner, but he wasn’t a miner at heart.
Even so, he had said he had fallen.
Moreover, he had said that he could never escape this fall for his entire life.
He said he was living dead at the bottom of his fall.
He was fully aware of how far he had fallen, yet he lived and worked on.
He lives on, hammering away.
To live—means trying desperately to save myself.
As long as An-san is alive, I must not die.
To die would be weakness……

Having resolved thus—to accept anything for now as a miner—I hurried back as fast as I could, and when I did, there was Hajime sitting on a stone about half a block away from the barracks, waiting.
The rain had stopped.
The sky was still overcast, but there was no longer any threat of rain.
A wind blew from the mountains.
Even though it was cold, the brightness of the world was intensely joyful.
In my excess of joy, rubbing my tired legs as I hurriedly approached, Hajime made a strange face,

“Well, well, look who’s here.”
“You found your way out just fine,” he said.
Though I had been assigned as their guide, I abandoned the others and rushed ahead while singing some “te-te-te-te-te” tune, leaving them utterly lost—so lost they even thought of smashing their heads against the tunnel corners in frustration—and when I finally managed to emerge thanks to An-san’s kindness, Hajime had the nerve to feign ignorance with his “You found your way out just fine.”
Yet despite this, because he feared the foreman, he had planned to wait along the way and bring me back with him.
I thought about spitting on the head of this guide sitting on a stone with a faint smirk.
But I had only just given up on dying.
For now, I had no choice but to stay here.
If I spat at him, it would only start a fight.
If I fought, I’d only lose.
If I lost and got thrown into the ore chute, there’d be no point in having gone through the trouble of giving up on dying.
So I gave this response.

“I managed to get out somehow.”

Then Hajime-san made an even more puzzled face,

“Huh. Color me impressed.”
“Did you get out all by yourself?”

Hajime asked.
At that moment, I had handled things rather well for my age.
To say I handled it well merely meant acting to avoid my own disadvantage—it wasn’t conduct worthy of praise beyond that—but even so, for nineteen, I was quite the complex schemer, I thought.
To explain: when asked this, An-san’s name had almost reached the tip of my tongue.
The fact that I had ultimately managed not to say it was my pride.
It was a rather trivial thing to boast about, but if I were to explain the reason, this was my line of thinking.
An-san of the Yamanaka-gumi must be an influential miner.
If it became widely known that this An-san had gone out of his way to kindly bring a complete stranger like me all the way to the vicinity of the first checkpoint, this guide would undoubtedly lose face.
Given that I, who had responsibility, abandoned my duty and rushed ahead out of the mine—and given that this could be clearly proven to have stemmed from malice—this guy wouldn’t be able to face the foreman.
In that case, he would surely take revenge later.
The exposure of his irresponsibility was satisfying—but I would never tell such Christian-style lies as claiming I was restrained by magnanimity.
While that much was satisfying, the retaliation would cause me great trouble.
In truth, I was restrained by this sense of trouble.
And so,

“Yes, I asked various people for directions and managed to get out.”

I gave a quiet reply and left it at that.

Hajime-san made a face that seemed half disappointed and half relieved, but soon rose from the stone and—

“Let’s go to the foreman’s place.”

and started walking again.
I silently followed along.
The place where I had met the foreman yesterday was the mining camp, but where he lived was a separate location.
When we went up about half a block alongside the barracks, there stood a two-story building on ground leveled by stone walls that squared off two of its corners.
The house itself was not particularly unsightly, but beyond it, there were neither trees nor a garden.
As before, a demon was sticking its head out from the second-floor window.
When we reached the entrance and Hajime called out from outside, the window was flung open, and the foreman stuck his face out.
He still wore his workman’s coat over a merino shirt.

“You’re back?”
“You’ve had a hard time.”
“Well then, why don’t you go over there and rest.”

No sooner had he said this than Hajime-san vanished.
Then there were just the two of us.
The foreman spoke from inside the window, and I remained standing outside as we conversed.

"How was it?"

"I've seen enough of it."

"How far down did you go?"

"I went down to Pit 8."

"You went to Pit 8."
"That must have been rough."
"It must have been awful for you."
"So…"

He leaned his head forward slightly.

"So… I still intend to stay."

"Still..."

Having repeated this, the foreman stared fixedly at my face.
I also stood there in silence.
From the second floor, the head was still sticking out.
What's more, two more appeared.
Whenever I saw those faces, I was sickened beyond endurance.
After returning to the barracks, whenever I remembered being surrounded by those faces, I would shudder.
Even so, I was determined to stay.
No matter what hardships I endured, I was determined to stay.
However, having resolutely declared, "I still intend to stay," when I unexpectedly looked up at the faces in the second-floor window, I couldn’t help but feel pathetic.
When I thought that I had sunk so low as to have to beg with clasped hands just to be left among these wretches, both my body and soul became as limp as a sea cucumber doused in salt.
At that moment, the foreman finally spoke.
He spoke with crisp finality.

“In that case, we’ll keep you.”
“But it’s the rules—you’ll need to have a doctor examine you once.”
“You’ll need to bring a health certificate—today and—no, it’s too late today. Tomorrow morning, you should go have it done.—The examination room, right?”
“The examination room is south of here.”
“When you came up, you saw it, right?”
“That’s the blue-painted house.”
“Well then, you must be tired today—go back to the barracks and rest properly.”

With that, he closed the window.
Before he closed it completely, I bowed slightly and returned to the barracks.
The foreman’s kindness in telling me to rest properly was appreciated, but if sleeping well were possible, I wouldn’t be suffering like this.
If I stayed awake, I faced the violent crew; if I slept, bedbugs tormented me.
Whenever I lifted my meal’s lid, wall mud that wouldn’t go down my throat appeared.
—But I’m staying.
Once I’d decided to stay, I’d definitely prove it by staying.
At least as long as An-san was alive, I would stay.
Even if everyone in the mining area turned into bedbugs, as long as An-san kept living and working, I too resolved to live and work on.
Thinking this, I walked half a block downhill back to the barracks and climbed to the second floor.
When I reached the top, a large crowd was waiting by the hearth as expected.
Though thoroughly irritated, I kept my face blank and sat where I wouldn’t be a nuisance.
Then it began.

Whether it was sarcasm, cold remarks, insults, or ridicule—they began nonstop.

I remember each and every one.
Because they had stimulated my impressionable mind to the point of being unforgettable for a lifetime, I remember them well.
But there’s no need to recount them one by one.
It’s best to assume it was mostly the same as yesterday.
I suddenly wanted to see An-san.
Enduring the usual evening meal, I ate two bowls and slipped out of the barracks without anyone noticing.

Yamanaka-gumi was located deep beyond a large Japanese pagoda tree that slanted overhead when you turned right at the foot of the gentle slope after passing through the stone walls where funeral processions went.
When I peered through the entrance at dusk, a miner was cleaning his sleeveless jacket by the light of a mining lantern.
The interior was unexpectedly quiet.

“Has An-san returned yet?”

When I asked politely, the miner lifted his face, glanced at me briefly, and turned toward the back,

"Hey, An-san, someone's here to see you."

No sooner had he called out than An-san came out, his footsteps practically declaring he’d been waiting.

“Oh, you came. Come on up.”

When I looked, An-san stood there wearing a striped cotton kimono with a three-shaku belt of some dotted pattern or the like fastened around it.
He was dressed exactly like a Tokyo stablehand.
This came as a slight surprise.
An-san surveyed me with a tilt of his head,

“So that’s the same outfit you wore when you ran away from Tokyo.”
“I used to wear that kind of kimono myself, back in the day.”
“Now look at me.”

He pulled out both sleeves to show their length.

“What do I look like? A rickshaw puller?”

At his words, I grinned awkwardly out of politeness.
An-san,

“Ha ha ha! My spirit has sunk even lower than this.”
“Don’t act so surprised.”

Since I didn’t know how to respond, I just kept standing there with that stiff grin on my face.
Back then, I would resort to that vacant grin whenever I found myself at loose ends.
But compared to me, An-san was far more worldly-wise.
As I took in his appearance,

“I’ve been waiting, thinking you’d come by any moment.”
“Come on up.”

With that, he took care of things from his side.
I was impressed that this person applied his worldly knowledge to rescue people unfamiliar with the ways of the world.
Perhaps I was especially impressed because, had our positions been reversed, I would have been the one being made a fool of.
So I went up to the barracks as An-san had said.
The room was indeed spacious, but not as much as where I had stayed.
The electric light was on.
There was also a hearth.
However, there were few people—only about five or six in total.
Moreover, since they were all huddled together over there, there were just the two of us here.
There, we began talking again.

“When are you going back?”

“I’ve decided not to go back.”

An-san looked utterly exasperated, his face practically screaming “You idiot!” without actually saying it.

“I fully understand what you’ve told me.”
“But it’s not like I came here on some drunken whim either—even if I went back, there’s nowhere for me to go.”

“So after all, did you do something that made you unable to show your face in society?”

An-san asked in a sharp tone.
Somehow he himself seemed startled.

“It’s not exactly that—I just don’t want to show my face in society.”

When I answered this, An-san—who had been closely observing my demeanor, facial expression, and tone of voice—suddenly burst out laughing.

“Don’t spout nonsense.
What kinda mad whim is that?
‘Not wanting to show your face in society’—what’s that supposed to mean?
Ain’t that luxury!
I’d give anything to be in your position—even for just a day.”

“If we could switch places, I’d gladly do it for you.”

When I said this with utmost seriousness, An-san burst out laughing again.

“There’s just no getting through to you.”
“Just think about it.”
“How could someone who doesn’t want to show their face in society possibly want to show it here in the Mining Area?”

“I don’t want to show it at all.”
“It can’t be helped—it just can’t be helped.”
“Last evening and today as well, they gave me an earful.”

An-san burst out laughing again.

“You fat bastard.”
“Who gave you an earful?”
“They’re just picking on you because you’re young.”
“There, there—I’ll take care of your enemies soon enough.”
“But in return, you’ve got to leave.”

At this moment, I felt tremendously resolute.
I became all the more determined to stay.
If I just grew stronger myself, even that ferocity wouldn’t be frightening at all—I thought, feeling that the courage to insult them dismissively as a bunch would gradually well up within me.
So I asked An-san that even if he wouldn’t take on my enemies, could he at least not send me away and let me stay for the time being.
An-san was utterly exasperated at the sheer absurdity and wore a pitying look,

“Fine, stay then.
“Whether you ask for help or not—that’s your own business.
There’s nothing to consult about anyway.”

“But if you don’t consent, it will be difficult for me to stay.”

“If you insist that much, I’ll allow you to stay temporarily.”
“You mustn’t remain long-term.”

I humbly accepted An-san's terms.
In truth, I had actually been thinking the same way myself, so this was by no means a polite formality.
After that, we talked about various things, but it wasn’t much different from the reminiscences shared within the Mining Area.
However, when I heard that An-san’s older brother had become a high-ranking official and was in Nagasaki, I felt deeply moved.
Putting myself in An-san’s position or his older brother’s—whenever I thought how painful it must surely be for them—and then began connecting this to myself and my own parents, I felt somehow sad.
When I was leaving, An-san came to see me off to the exit and told me I could come anytime if I had any concerns.

When I went outside, the overcast sky had cleared without me noticing, and a slender moon hung above.
The path was unexpectedly bright yet bitterly cold.
Through my lined kimono and underrobe, the kamaboko-shaped moonlight seemed to seep into my very skin.
I pressed both sleeves together at my chest, buried my face from the nose down into them, and began walking with shoulders hunched high.
Though my body felt shriveled, my spirit felt far more fortified than before.
This was only temporary.
Once I grew accustomed to it all, there'd be nothing left to agonize over.
After all—with over ten thousand men clustered here, laboring side by side each day, eating together, sleeping together—surely even I could become properly debased after seven days' practice.
At that moment, the two characters for 'degeneration' materialized vividly in my mind.
Yet they'd merely surfaced as convenient ideograms for this circumstance—since they didn't truly encapsulate degeneration's essence, they held no particular terror.
Thus somewhat heartened, I made my way back to the barracks.
When I came within five or six ken of it, some clamor reached me.
Outside hung that same lonesome moon.
Hearing the commotion from within while gazing up at that desolate orb, I stood motionless.
Then came an aversion to entering.
Even standing moon-drenched outdoors grew unbearable.
I wanted to seek shelter at An-san's quarters instead.
I took one retreating step before chiding myself for absurdity and trudged into the longhouse.
To one side lay a spacious room partitioned from the entrance by shoji screens.
Though the overhead electric light cast no shadows, the uproar undeniably emanated from within.

I took off my geta and, moving quietly past the shoji screens, went up to the second floor. When I finished climbing the stairs and surveyed the large room, I let out a sigh of relief. There was no one in the room.

Only Kinko lay flat like a rice cracker as he slept. And then there was also a man wrapped in that usual sailcloth, dangling. However, both were extremely quiet. Their presence made no difference—the room remained vaguely, emptily vast. I came to the center of the room and stood there thinking. Should I lay out bedding and sleep? But then again—should I just lie down as I am in my clothes, or lean against the pillar like last night and see the night through? Sleeping on the floor would be cold; leaning against the pillar would be painful. I must find a way to lay out the futon. Perhaps, given how exhausted I was today, I might be able to sleep even if there were bedbugs. Plus, it would be better to pick out a clean futon. It wasn’t as if the number of bedbugs necessarily stayed the same every day. Coming up with various excuses, I took out the futon and slipped quietly into it.

If I were to write down tonight’s experiences exactly as I remember them here, it would only serve to proclaim myself an utter fool unworthy of storytelling—and since there’s no other benefit or interest in doing so, I’ll refrain. To put it briefly: I suffered hardships similar to last night’s, only more intense—and no sooner had I gone to sleep than I immediately jumped back up. After waking, I regretted why I’d stubbornly pulled out the futon and gone back to sleep despite being bitten so much by bedbugs. When I thought about it, this was entirely my own doing—the kind of self-inflicted misery anyone with common sense could and should avoid. Disgusted at being such a wretched fool, I sat cross-legged on the futon lost in self-loathing when another fierce sting pierced me. My buttocks, thighs, and knees all leaped up at once. I stood on the futon like a night heron. Then I surveyed my surroundings. Then I started crying. With no other recourse, I untied my dark blue heko obi, folded it into quarters, and began whacking myself all over my naked body without restraint. Then I put on my clothes. Then I went to last night’s pillar. I leaned against the pillar. I missed home. I missed my home’s six-tatami room more than Father, more than Mother, more than Yoshiko-san, more than Sumie-san. I longed for the sarasa-patterned futon stored in the cupboard and the medium-sized quilted coverlet draped with its black velvet half-collar. Even thirty minutes would suffice—I wanted to lay out that futon, drape that coverlet, make it warm and sleep comfortably; I wondered who was sleeping in that room now. Or perhaps after I left, they’d left the desk as it was—keeping the room empty? If so, they must have folded up that futon and coverlet and stored them away in the cupboard just like that. What a waste. Father, Mother, Sumie-san, and Yoshiko-san were fortunate not to be bitten by bedbugs.

By now, they were probably sound asleep.
I envied them—or maybe they couldn't sleep and were tossing restlessly?
When Father couldn't sleep, he'd fly into a temper and bang his tobacco pipe insistently through the night.
He claimed it was for smoking, but I suspected he just pounded it out of frustration.
He might be hammering away even now.
Was he striking it out of anger toward his worthless son, or had worry over my fate jolted him awake to strike it?
Either way, he deserved pity.
But since I hardly spared them a thought here, they likely weren't agonizing either.
When Mother couldn't sleep, she'd rise to wash her hands.
She'd open the small courtyard window, rinse her fingers, forget to latch it again—and inevitably get scolded by Father come morning.
She'd surely face his reproach tonight too.
Sumie-san was snoring away—undeniably fast asleep.
When I'd been around, she'd put on airs—curling demurely or squaring her shoulders theatrically—to draw attention. But once gone, she'd forget me instantly, returning to her usual meals and deep slumbers. No use resenting such a woman.
A creature like her would never appear in any newspaper serial I'd read—strange at first, but clearly true given the evidence.
Being shackled by infatuation for such a woman felt like cosmic punishment.
I found her utterly detestable yet remained hopelessly smitten.
An inconvenient truth.
Even now that pale face flickered before me.
Not an untrustworthy face.
Yoshiko-san was awake.

And she's probably crying.
It's truly pitiable.
But since I never fell for her here, nor did I play any tricks that would make her fall for me, there's nothing to be done whether she stays awake or cries for me. I could pity her endlessly—pity her without limit—but it's still useless. I'll disregard it.—In the end, let everything else take care of itself; all I want is to be granted peaceful, comfortable sleep.
I want to eat proper white rice even if it turns my stomach, but more than that, I want to crawl into a bed free of bedbugs.
Even thirty minutes would suffice—I want to experience proper sleep.
After that, I'd even slice open my belly……

As I kept thinking these thoughts, morning came again.
It seems I fell asleep in the middle of my thoughts, for when I awoke, I wasn’t thinking of anything.
After that, I shuffled downstairs, washed my face, and ate the coarse rice.
Since everything was the same as yesterday, I’ll omit it.
Unable to wait for the appointed hour of nine, I set out for the hospital.
The hospital was the blue-painted building I had seen when coming up the mountain the day before yesterday—or so I’d heard—so there was no chance of mistaking the path or the building.
After leaving the miners’ barracks and walking about two chō, it was immediately by the roadside.
Though wooden, it was a rather splendid building, and given its considerable size, it stood in utter incongruity with the Dōmō-gumi.
The fact that barbarians even fell ill was already surprising enough, but since they had gone so far as to equip themselves with instruments, medicines, doctors, and buildings to treat those who became sick, one couldn’t help but feel there was something deeply absurd about the world.
It was exactly like thieves pooling their money to build an elementary school and send their children there.
The two extremes of civilization and barbarism met within this blue-painted house, and when one exerted influence upon the other, barbarism grew increasingly robust in its barbarity.
It’s precisely when such clumsy mismatches occur. As I walked along thinking this, once again the fiends were sticking their heads out the windows to stare.
Even a well-considered thought crumbled instantly when I looked up at these unsettling faces.
If even one face among them had been like An-san’s, I would have been overjoyed enough to come back to life—yet every last one of them was ferocious to the extreme, as though they’d all conspired to be so.
In that case, I even went so far as to think there couldn’t possibly be any need for a hospital.

The weather alone conveniently cleared up completely.
Sunlight struck the mountain wall, its red clay split open as if by a cleaver.
The soil that had absorbed yesterday and the day before’s rain, bathed in sunlight streaming from the east, still hadn’t dried.
The soil continued to drink in the blazing sunlight without end.
The scenery, in its radiant clarity, grew lively with moisture; when looking down between the longhouses at the mountains below, their deep azure hues layered so thickly they seemed ready to burst into a smile.
The wind completely died down.
Between last evening and this morning, there seemed to be a difference of nearly fifteen degrees or more.
By the roadside, a single dandelion was blooming.
It was a wastefully beautiful color.
This, too, was utterly mismatched with the ferocity.

He arrived at the hospital.
The earthen-floored corridor—its boards barely clearing the ground for five or six ken—ended at a door labeled “Examination Room,” while to the right near the entrance hung a sign reading “Waiting Room.”
Crossing this one-ken-wide corridor he had just described and entering the waiting room, he found an earthen floor here too, with about two benches lined up.
On a small glass window was pasted “Reception” in formal block letters.
I went to this window and presented a slip bearing my full name, whereupon a young man of twenty-two or three sitting inside took it, furrowing his practically nonexistent brows into an inverted V-shape as he scrutinized it with apparent difficulty.

“This you?”

he said with such insolence.
He wasn’t in a very good mood.
He couldn’t suppress his resentment—what possible reason could there be for this man to look down on him with such contempt?
And so, simply—

“Yeah.”

He replied as curtly as possible.
The receptionist glared at him for a while, as if to say his greeting had been insufficient, but since he too stood there tight-lipped,

“Wait here.”

With that, he snapped the glass door shut and left.
There came the sound of straw sandals.
I thought he didn’t need to clatter about so much.

He sat down on the bench.
The receptionist showed no sign of returning.
As he sat vacantly, a funeral procession materialized before his eyes.
I could see Kinko being rhythmically carried in.
Even so, I wondered if a hospital was truly necessary.
What purpose did dosing patients with medicine serve? It held almost no meaning.
There’s no hypocrisy more impeccably presented than this.
They torment patients to their heart’s content.
Funeral processions play their music as they please.
Is this their way of providing medical treatment instead?
Such impeccable consideration indeed.

“Hey, go around to the other side.”

Then suddenly the receptionist's voice rang out.
When I looked, he stood imposingly inside the glass window, glaring down at me from above.
I left the waiting room.
Turning right and making my way along the corridor to the examination room, I was struck by the pungent smell of medicine.
As I inhaled this odor, I too remembered that I would soon die.
If I were to die and become part of this earth, it would be a strange thing.
This must be what they call fate.
I had known the two characters for 'fate' since long ago, but I only recognized them as written symbols without grasping their meaning.
Even if I understood it, accepting it proved difficult.
Like Westerners picturing bamboo shoots, I had been content with merely grasping the definition.
But if one were to connect death—that most critical human matter—with the Mining Area where miners live as beasts, then suddenly suspend between these two a young master who until days prior had wanted for nothing, that young master would at last nod in understanding.
I came to see how fate toys with delicate youths through its mysterious magic.
Then what had until now been merely a mountain ceased to be merely a mountain.
What had been mere soil ceased to be merely soil.
The sky I thought was simply blue ceased to be simply blue.
This hospital's examination room, these medicines—even this smell—took on a dreamlike strangeness.
By nature, even I myself sitting here could scarcely grasp what I was.
The world beyond me remained clearly visible, yet its meaning utterly eluded me.
Leaning back in the chair of this combined examination room and pharmacy, I surveyed the rug, the Western-style desk, the medicine bottles, the window, and the mountains beyond.
Though I looked with perfect clarity, everything appeared merely as a single painting; beyond that lay nothing discernible.

Then the door opened and the doctor appeared.
When I saw his face，he too was unmistakably of that miner type.
In black mourning attire and striped Western trousers，his chin thrust out beyond his collar，

“So you’re the one here for a health check,”
he said.
In this tone was a level of respect that should have been kept to oneself even when addressing horses or dogs.

“Yeah.”

With that, he got up from the chair.

“What’s your job?”

“There’s no particular occupation.”

“No occupation.”
“Then what have you been doing to live up till now?”

“I had just been relying on my parents.”

“You had been relying on your parents.”
“Relying on your parents and just lazing about?”

“Well, yeah.”

“So you’re a loafer.”

I did not answer.

“Strip.”

I stripped naked.
The doctor briefly examined my chest and back with a stethoscope, then suddenly pinched his own nose.

“Breathe.”

I exhaled through my mouth.
The doctor placed his hand over my mouth.

“This time, close your mouth.”

The doctor placed his hand under his nose.

“How about this.
Can you work as a miner?”

“No.”

“Is something wrong?”

“I’ll write it down for you now.”

The doctor wrote something on a square piece of paper and handed it to me as if tossing it out.
When I looked, it said bronchitis.

Bronchitis was known to lay the groundwork for tuberculosis.
If one contracted tuberculosis, there’d be no surviving it.
Indeed, it was no wonder my gut had warned me earlier—when I smelled that medicine—that I was going to die.
This time, it seemed I was truly going to die.
In two or three weeks’ time, they’d show me a funeral procession like Kinko’s—heaved along with chants of “yoisho, yoisho”—and then I’d finally become the funeral procession myself, cheered on and pounded to my heart’s content—though being a newcomer, maybe there’d be no one to cheer or pound for me—and in the end—what would become of me? Even I didn’t know.
It didn’t matter if I didn’t understand that.
Even now, alive and moving, I didn’t understand.
As the world stretched on endlessly, uniformly, there was nothing but vivid colors arrayed in manifold ways.
Miners were felt to be the filthiest in the world, but when viewing all things as mere shifts in color, there came a point where filthiness ceased to matter.

Let them do as they please—it makes no difference to me. If I keep my hands tucked in my sleeves, fate will sort things out somehow.
I don't mind dying. I don't mind living.
Going to Kegon Falls had become too much trouble.
Go back to Tokyo?
What need was there to go back?
After all, my life would be over within a few coughs.
Since fate had driven me this far, staying here until fate blew me away required the least effort, was most convenient, and made the most sense.
If I stayed here and simply continued my training in decadence, I should be able to last until I died.

For a tuberculosis patient, other forms of training might be difficult—but training in degradation... I encountered the dandelion I had casually noticed on my way.
Earlier I had thought its color was so beautiful it seemed wasteful, but now looking at it, there was nothing special.
Why had this been beautiful? I stood still awhile gazing at it, but it remained unremarkable.
Then I began walking again.
As I climbed the gradual slope, my face naturally tilted upward.
There as always, miners from the barracks leaned on their hands and looked down at me.
The faces that had seemed so repulsive until moments ago now appeared like clay doll heads.
Neither ugly nor frightening nor hateful.
They were simply faces.
Just as the most beautiful woman in Japan has a face that's merely a face, so too were the miners' faces merely faces.
I too was merely a human made of bone and flesh.
It meant nothing at all.

In this state, with a feeling akin to traversing an uninhabited realm, I arrived at the foreman’s house.
When I asked to be shown in, a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old girl slid open the shoji door with a clatter and came out from inside.
A girl like her shouldn’t be in a place like this—under normal circumstances I would have been startled—but at that moment I felt absolutely nothing.
When I greeted her like a machine, the girl—keeping one hand on the shoji—turned toward the back,

“Father.”
“A guest.”

she said.
At this moment, I realized this must be the foreman’s daughter, but it was merely a realization—even as she still stood there, I had already forgotten about her.
Just then, the foreman came out.

“What do you want to do?”

“I’ve returned.”

“Did you get the medical certificate? Let me see.”

I had completely forgotten about the medical certificate I had been clutching in my right hand and suddenly realized, Oh, where did I put it?

“You do have it.”

the foreman said.
Indeed, I did have it, so I smoothed out the wrinkles and handed it to the foreman.

“Bronchitis.”
“You’re sick.”

“Yes, I’m done for.”

“Well, that’s a problem.
What do you plan to do?”

“Please let me stay after all.”

“That’s just impossible.”

“But I can’t go back anymore—please let me stay.”
“Even as a janitor or cleaner—anything is fine.”
“I’ll do anything.”

“Even if you say you’ll do anything, being sick means there’s no solution.”
“This is troublesome.”
“But since you’ve come all this way... I’ll consider it.”
“Come back tomorrow—things should be clearer by then.”

I returned to the barracks like stone.

That evening, I sat cross-legged by the hearth, unperturbed.
No matter what the miners said, I didn't engage.
I had no will left to engage.
No matter how much they clamored, mocked, or even stomped and kicked, they seemed to me like a group of statues carved into a single plank.
When I slept, I didn’t lay out a futon.
I remained sitting cross-legged by the hearth.
After everyone had fallen asleep, I too lay down right there for a brief rest.
Because no one added charcoal to the hearth, the fire gradually weakened, and as the cold increasingly set in, I woke up.
The nape of my neck quivered.
Then I got up, went outside, and when I looked at the sky, the stars were spread out everywhere.
Wondering why those stars shone so brightly, I went back inside.
Kinko was still lying flat, asleep.
When would Kinko get his funeral procession?
Which of us will die first—me or Kinko?
I heard An-san had been in this mining area for six years—how many more years would he keep pounding ore?
In the end, he’d probably end up flat like Kinko, sleeping in some corner of the barracks.
That’s how he would die.—I sat by the hearth without fire, thinking until dawn.
Those thoughts came forth one after another, endlessly, but each and every one was withered.
There were no tears, no passion, no color, no scent.
There was no fear, no terror, no reluctance, no lingering attachments.

After daybreak, I finished breakfast as usual and went to the foreman’s place.
The foreman said in a hearty voice,

“You’re here. A decent position just opened up.”
“To tell the truth, I’ve been looking around since then, but there weren’t any proper spots—it was a bit troublesome.”
“Finally found a good one.”
“The barracks’ bookkeeper position.”
“We could manage without this if needed.”
“Truth is, till now the old woman’s been handling it, but since you made such an earnest request…”
“How about it? Think I can arrange this through my connections.”

“Oh, that’s most kind.”
“I’ll do anything.”
“When you say ‘bookkeeper,’ what exactly does that involve?”

“Oh, it’s nothing complicated.”
“It’s just keeping track in the ledger.”
“The mining camp has so many people—some buying straw sandals, others beans or hijiki seaweed—they purchase all sorts of things every day.”
“You’ll just need to write all those down in the ledger.”
“The old woman handles distributing the items, so you just need to make sure it’s clear who took what and how much. That’s all there is to it.”
“Then we’ll check that ledger on payday, make the deductions, and hand out their wages accordingly.”
“It’s not manual labor—anyone could do it—but as you know, we’re dealing with a bunch of illiterates here.”
“If you take this on, it’d be a great help on our end. How about it—the bookkeeper position?”

“That’s fine. I’ll do it.”

“The wages are low—I’m truly sorry about that.
Four yen a month.—Excluding food provisions.”

“That’s more than enough.”

I answered.
However, I didn’t feel particularly happy.
I hadn’t yet reached the point of finally feeling at ease.
My position at the mine was finally settled.

From the next day onward, I stationed myself in a corner of the kitchen and began keeping accounts as instructed.
Then the miners’ attitude—which until then had been so contemptuous toward others—changed completely, and they even started flattering me on their own.
I too promptly began practicing corruption.
I ate Nankin rice.
I got bitten by bedbugs.
From town every single day, labor brokers dragged in flocks of new recruits.
Children were brought daily too.
Out of my four-yen monthly salary, I would buy sweets and give them to the children.
But after deciding to return to Tokyo, I resolutely stopped.
I performed this bookkeeper role without incident for five months.
And then I returned to Tokyo.
—My experience as a miner amounts to just this.
And thus all of it is fact.
The proof lies in how this hasn’t been made into a novel.