Pathway to Japanese Literature

1

As I climbed the mountain path, I thought this.

When intellect prevails, edges sharpen.
When one yields to emotion, one is swept away.
When one insists on pride, it becomes stifling.
All in all, the world of humans is difficult to inhabit.

When life's hardships intensify, one wants to move to easier climes.
When one realizes that no place is easy to live no matter where they move, poetry is born and paintings are created.

The creator of the human world was neither god nor demon.
They were indeed just ordinary people flitting about among the houses across the way and the neighbors on either side.
Simply because this human world created by ordinary people proved difficult to inhabit, there could be no land to which one might move.
If such a place existed, one would have no choice but to go to the land of non-humans.
The land of non-humans would likely be even more difficult to inhabit than the human world.

If this inescapable world grew too harsh to dwell in, then we had to cultivate tolerance for our difficult circumstances and make even this fleeting life—however brief—a habitable one.
Here emerged the divine calling of poets; here descended the sacred mission of painters.
All artists were revered because they brought tranquility to the human world and enriched people's hearts.

To extract from this hard-to-inhabit world its hard-to-bear vexations and lay bare before our eyes a realm worthy of gratitude—this is poetry; this is painting. Or there is music and sculpture. To elaborate, exact reproduction proves unnecessary. If one simply gazes directly before them, poetry quickens there and songs well up unbidden. Though one sets down no inspiration on paper, still jade-toned harmonies resonate within the breast. Though never facing easels to daub pigments, five-hued splendors nonetheless glow in the mind's eye. It suffices if one can thus perceive their inhabited world—capturing within their soul's camera this turbid age's mire as something limpid and luminous. Therefore though silent poets lack verses and colorless painters lack scrolls—in perceiving human existence thusly; in shedding earthly desires; in passing through pure realms; in establishing this non-dual cosmos; in sweeping clean selfish cravings' fetters—they stand more blessed than wealth's heirs than ten-thousand-chariot lords than all this vulgar world's darlings.

Having lived in this world twenty years, I came to know it as a world worth inhabiting.
At twenty-five, I realized light and dark were like two sides of a coin—wherever sunlight fell, shadow surely followed.
Now at thirty, I think thus: when joy runs deep, sorrow grows deeper still; where pleasure swells large, suffering too expands.
To try cutting these apart would leave me unable to sustain myself.
If you try to tidy things up, the world becomes unmanageable.
Money matters greatly—let your valuables multiply, and you'll worry even in sleep.
Love brings delight—let happy love accumulate, and your loveless past becomes dearer still.
Cabinet ministers' shoulders bear millions of feet.
Upon their backs rests heaven's heavy realm.
Not tasting delicacies feels wasteful.
Take small portions and remain unsatisfied.
Eat your fill and discomfort follows...

As my thoughts had drifted this far, my right foot suddenly misstepped on the edge of an ill-seated angular stone.
To maintain balance, my left foot that had swiftly leaped forward to compensate for the misstep caused my hips to land neatly upon a rock measuring about three shaku square.
Only the paintbox slung over my shoulder leapt out from under my arm; fortunately, nothing came of it.

When I stood up and looked ahead, a peak resembling an overturned bucket rose to the left of the path. Whether cedar or cypress I couldn't tell—amidst their bluish-black forms stretching from roots to summit, mountain cherry trees streaked pale crimson patches through the mist that hung so thick their boundaries blurred. Slightly ahead stood a single bald mountain, towering above its peers and looming close enough to graze one's brow. The denuded flank appeared hewn by a giant's axe, its sharp planar surface thrusting sharply into the valley's depths. What must be a red pine stood visible at the summit. Even the sky between its branches showed clear through the haze. The path ahead terminated in some two hundred meters, but seeing a red blanket moving downward from above, I supposed climbing further would bring me there. The way proved thoroughly treacherous.

Leveling the soil alone wouldn't have required excessive effort, but within that soil lay large stones.
You could level the soil, but you couldn't level the stones.
Even if you broke the stones, you couldn't manage the rocks.
There was no scenery that stood majestically upon the excavated earth to yield us passage.
Since those ahead paid no heed, one had to either climb over or detour around.
Even places without boulders weren't easy to walk.
The left and right sides rose high while the center sank low, forming what one might liken to a six-foot-wide triangular hollow whose apex pierced straight through the middle.
Rather than saying one walked this path, it would have been more appropriate to say one crossed a riverbed.
Since this was never meant to be a hurried journey, I ambled toward the seven bends.

Suddenly, from beneath my feet, a skylark's song began. I looked down into the valley but could discern neither shadow nor form of where it sang. Only the voice rang clear. It sang busily, ceaselessly, as though the very air for leagues around had been bitten through by fleas until it became unbearable. That bird's song allowed not a moment's respite. It seemed determined to sing through every tranquil spring day—to sing from dawn till dusk and live out its days in song—or else remain unsatisfied. Moreover, climbing endlessly onward, ascending perpetually forever. The skylark must surely die amidst the clouds. Having climbed to its utmost limit, it would drift into flowing clouds and, while floating there, its form would vanish entirely—leaving only its voice lingering in the sky.

Turning sharply around the rocky crag where even a blind masseur would plummet headlong, I veered right at the perilous edge and, looking sideways down, saw rapeseed flowers spreading across the vista.
I wondered if the skylark would fall there.
No—or rather, I thought it might be flying up from that golden field.
Next, I imagined a descending skylark and an ascending one passing each other crosswise.
Finally, I thought that whether falling, ascending, or crossing paths midair, they would keep singing cheerfully.

Spring brings drowsiness.
Cats forget to catch mice; humans forget their debts.
At times they forget even their soul's abode and lose all substance.
Only when gazing upon rapeseed flowers from afar do eyes awaken.
Only when hearing the skylark's voice does the soul's dwelling grow clear.
The skylark sings not with its beak—its entire soul resounds.
Among all manifestations where soul becomes voice, none rivals its vigor.
Ah, how delightful!
To think thus and feel such delight—this is poetry.

Suddenly recalling Shelley's skylark poem, I tried reciting from memory only the parts I knew, but what I remembered amounted to no more than two or three stanzas.
Among those two or three stanzas, there is this one.

We lookbefore and after

And pine for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Looking before and looking after, desiring things, longing—alas, we do.
Though it be laughter from the gut, suffering must lie there.
In songs of utmost beauty, know that thoughts of utmost sorrow are contained.

Indeed, no matter how happy poets might be, they could not sing their joy with such abandon—so single-mindedly, so free of past and future—as that skylark does.
In Western poetry as a matter of course—and even in Chinese poetry—one often finds phrases like ten thousand measures of sorrow.
Because they were poets, it took ten thousand measures; had they been amateurs, perhaps one measure might have sufficed.
Considering this, poets appeared more prone to hardship than ordinary people, their nerves likely more than twice as sensitive as those of common folk.
They might know transcendent joys, but boundless sorrows too must have been their lot.
If that were the case, becoming a poet might be something worth reconsidering.

For a while, the path remained level with mixed woodland to the right and rapeseed flowers stretching continuously to the left. Underfoot I occasionally trampled dandelions. Saw-like leaves spread unreservedly in all directions encircling a yellow orb at their center. Distracted by the rapeseed flowers after stepping on one and thinking what a pitiful thing I had done when I looked back the yellow orb remained enthroned within its saw-like leaves. What a carefree thing it was. I resumed my musings.

Poets may be fated to sorrow, but if one attains the mindset of listening to that skylark, there remains not a speck of suffering. Even when gazing upon rapeseed flowers, my heart would leap with nothing but joy. Dandelions likewise—cherry blossoms too—though the cherry blossoms had vanished at some point. Coming into these mountains and immersing oneself in natural scenery made everything seen and heard fascinating—fascination unaccompanied by any particular hardship. Should hardship arise at all, it would amount to nothing more than legs growing weary and being unable to eat anything delicious.

Yet why was there no suffering?
It was simply because I observed this scenery as a painting and read it as a volume of poetry.
As long as it remained painting and poetry, I would neither feel compelled to claim the land for cultivation, nor would schemes arise to lay railways and turn profit.
It was simply that this scenery—this scenery that neither filled the stomach nor supplemented a salary—existed purely as scenery, delighting my heart, so that neither hardship nor worry arose.
The power of nature was noble here.
It was nature that instantly tempered our dispositions and ushered us into a pure and unadulterated poetic realm.

Love might be beautiful, filial piety might be beautiful, loyalty to lord and country might seem commendable. Yet when finding oneself caught in such circumstances—swept up in a whirlwind of profit and loss—even beauty and commendable deeds become blinding. Therefore I myself could not discern where poetry lay.

To comprehend this required assuming the position of a sufficiently detached third party. Only from this third-party vantage did theater become truly engaging to watch. Novels too became interesting to read. Those who found plays engaging and novels interesting all shelved their personal interests. They became poets only while watching or reading.

Even that could not escape human emotions in ordinary plays and novels.
They suffered，got angry，made noise，cried.
Eventually，even those watching became assimilated into it，suffering，getting angry，making noise，and crying.
Their merit might have lain in being free from greed，but precisely because they were free from it，other emotions likely became more active than usual.
That was what I disliked.

Suffering，anger，commotion，and tears are ever-present in human existence.
I too had persisted through that for thirty years and grown thoroughly weary of it.
Having grown thoroughly weary of it，to have the same stimuli repeated through plays and novels was unbearable.
The poetry I desired was not the sort that stirred worldly human emotions.
It was poetry that allowed one to abandon worldly thoughts and feel detached from the dust-laden world，if only for a moment.
No matter how masterful there existed no play devoid of human emotions; novels that transcended right and wrong must have been few.
The inability to ever escape the worldly realm was their defining characteristic.
When it comes to Western poetry in particular，since human affairs form their foundation，even what is called pure poetry knows no liberation from this realm.
They conduct their affairs solely with things found in the marketplace of this fleeting world—sympathy，love，justice，freedom.
No matter how poetic they become，they run about on the ground with no time to forget counting coins.
It was no wonder Shelley sighed upon hearing the skylark.

Happily, Oriental poetry contains works that have achieved liberation from this realm.
Plucking chrysanthemums beneath the eastern hedge; gazing serenely at southern mountains.
Behind such works emerges a scene where the oppressive world lies utterly forgotten.
It is neither that a neighbor’s daughter peers over the fence, nor that a close friend serves at Southern Mountain.
One can attain a state of mind that is detached and transcendent, having shed the toil of worldly profit and loss.
Alone sitting in secluded bamboo grove; playing lute then long whistling - deep woods unknown to others, bright moon comes shining.
Within just twenty characters, they effortlessly establish an entirely separate universe.
The virtue of this universe is not that found in Hototogisu or Konjiki Yasha.
It is the virtue of forgetting everything and falling into deep slumber after being exhausted by steamships, trains, rights, obligations, morality, and etiquette.

If sleep remained necessary in the twentieth century, then this transcendental poetic essence proved equally vital to that century.
Regrettably, both those who composed poetry today and those who read it were all infatuated with Westerners; none seemed inclined to pole a carefree skiff upstream toward this Peach Blossom Spring.
Since I was no poet by profession, I harbored neither intention nor inclination to propagate the realms of Wang Wei and Tao Yuanming in this modern age.
Yet for me, such inspiration seemed more medicinal than variety shows or ballroom dances.
I considered it more precious than Faust or Hamlet.
Thus did I trudge alone along spring mountain paths with paint box and tripod slung over my shoulder - all for this very purpose:
The desire to absorb directly from nature the poetic realms of Tao Yuanming and Wang Wei,
To wander if briefly through Non-Human Emotions' domain.
A solitary bout of poetic intoxication.

Of course, as a mere human myself, no matter how much I may favor them, Non-Human Emotions could not persist indefinitely.
After all, it was not as though Tao Yuanming spent every year gazing at Southern Mountain, nor was Wang Wei a man who would willingly sleep in bamboo thickets without hanging mosquito nets.
I imagine they too must have sold surplus chrysanthemums to florists and disposed of sprouted bamboo shoots at greengrocers.
In saying this, I am no different.

Even if I had taken a liking to skylarks and rapeseed flowers, my Non-Human Emotions hadn't intensified enough for me to camp out in the mountains. Even in such a place as this, I encountered people. I encountered laborers with sleeves rolled up and cheeks wrapped in cloths, young women in red sashes, and occasionally even horses with faces longer than those of humans. Even when surrounded by a million cypress trees and breathing air hundreds of feet above the sea, the human scent stubbornly clung. Far from escaping it, the destination beyond these mountains where I would spend the night was none other than Nagoi Hot Springs.

However, things can be interpreted any way depending on one's perspective.
In Leonardo da Vinci's instruction to his disciple: Listen to that bell's sound; though there is one bell, its tone may be heard diversely.
A single man or woman can be likened to anything depending on how they're viewed.
Since this was after all a journey undertaken to practice Non-Human Emotions, viewing people with that intent should differ from those cramped days lived in some numbered house along Floating World Alley.
Even if I cannot fully detach from human emotions, I ought at least attain a serene state of mind when attending Noh performances.
Noh too contains human emotions.
Even in Shichikiochi or Sumidagawa, I cannot guarantee one wouldn't weep.
Yet that is a technique shown through three parts emotion and seven parts artistry.
The appreciation we derive from Noh does not spring from skill in faithfully reproducing worldly human emotions as they are.
It arises because they drape multiple layers of artistry over reality and affect a leisurely manner unbefitting this world.

What if I were to temporarily liken the events occurring during this journey and the people encountered along the way to Noh theater's structure and actors' movements?
I cannot wholly abandon human emotions, but since this journey is inherently poetic in nature, I wish to economize my practice of Non-Human Emotions to approach that state.
They surely differ in essence from Southern Mountain and secluded bamboo groves, nor can they be equated with skylarks and rapeseed flowers, yet I desire to bring them as near as possible and observe humanity from this shared vantage point to the utmost limit.
The man called Bashō considered even a horse urinating by his pillow an elegant occurrence worthy of haiku composition.
I too shall attempt to interpret all persons I henceforth meet—peasants, townsfolk, village clerks, old men and women—as natural scenery elements rendered through artistic composition.
Of course, unlike painted figures, they will likely act willfully.
Yet should one investigate their willfulness like common novelists—probing psychological motives or dissecting human conflicts—it would descend into vulgarity.
Let them move as they will.
There's no harm in perceiving painted humans as moving.
However they stir, figures in paintings cannot transcend their flat plane.
It is precisely when imagining them leaping beyond two dimensions into cubic existence that collisions arise and troublesome entanglements of interest occur.
The more complications emerge, the less tenable aesthetic observation becomes.
I shall confront those I meet henceforth with detached observation from lofty heights, preventing indiscriminate sparks of human emotion's electric current between us.
Thus engaged, however actively others might behave, they cannot easily invade my inner sphere—equivalent to standing before a painting watching figures bustle across its surface.
Maintaining three feet's distance allows calm observation.
Observation without perilous involvement.
To rephrase: being unburdened by profit and loss enables full artistic scrutiny of their motions.
I may appraise beauty's presence or absence with undivided attention.

When I had resolved myself to this extent, the sky took on an ominous cast.
The indecisive clouds that I had thought were looming overhead began collapsing, and from what might have been a sea of clouds engulfing all directions, the softly pattering spring rain began to fall.
The rapeseed flowers had long since passed from view, and now I walked between mountains, but with the rain's threads so dense they nearly fooled the eye into mistaking them for mist, it became impossible to gauge the distances between peaks.
Occasionally when the wind blew away the higher clouds, the dusky line of a mountain ridge would become visible to the right.
There seemed to be a ridge running along the opposite side beyond a single valley.
To my left lay what appeared to be the immediate foot of a mountain.
From within the rain's deep shroud, pine-like shapes would fleetingly appear.
No sooner had they revealed themselves than they vanished.
Was the rain moving? Were the trees moving? Or was it my dream that shifted? I found myself in a peculiar state of wonder.

The path had become unexpectedly wide and flat, so walking wasn't particularly strenuous, but having no rain gear prepared, I quickened my pace.
When raindrops began plopping steadily from my hat, a bell's jingle sounded from five or six ken ahead, and from the murk emerged a horse driver with a sudden whoosh.

“Is there any place to rest around here?”

“If you go another fifteen chō, there's a teahouse. You've gotten quite soaked, haven't you?”

"Still fifteen chō?" I thought, turning around—but already Genbei’s figure was swallowed by the rain like a shadow play, vanishing with a whoosh.

The granules that resembled rice bran gradually thickened and lengthened until even how each strand was swept up by the wind became visible.
My haori became thoroughly soaked through, and the water seeping into my undergarments felt lukewarm from my body's warmth.
Because I felt unwell, I tilted my hat and strode briskly on.

Through this boundless pale ink-wash world where countless silver arrows streaked diagonally - if I envisioned myself walking single-mindedly drenched as someone other than myself - it became poetry; it composed verse.
When one completely forgot their corporeal self and cultivated a purely objective gaze - only then did I maintain beautiful harmony with nature's scenery as a figure within a painting.
The moment I became conscious of both the oppressive rain and my weary trudging feet - I was no longer a figure in poetry nor within a painting.
I remained nothing more than an ordinary youth from town.
Not a wisp of drifting cloud or swirling mist entered my vision.
Not a trace of falling blossoms or birdsong stirred my heart.
Walking desolately alone through spring mountains - how beautiful I was - yet still I could not comprehend.
At first I walked with my hat tilted.
Then I walked staring only at my feet.
Finally I hunched my shoulders and walked timidly.
The rain shook treetops filling my vision - pressing against this solitary traveler from all sides.
It seemed my Non-Human Emotions had been somewhat too strong.

II

"I called out 'Hey,' but there was no response."

When I peered into the depths from under the eaves, the sooty sliding door stood tightly closed.
The other side was not visible.
Five or six pairs of straw sandals hung forlornly from the eaves, swaying listlessly in the breeze.
Below, about three boxes of cheap sweets were lined up, with half-sen coins and Bunkyū-era coins scattered nearby.

"Hey," I called out again.
On the mortar pushed into the corner of the earthen floor, the puffed-up chicken startled awake.
Cluck cluck, cluck cluck—it began clucking noisily.
Outside the threshold, an earthen stove - soaked by the recent rain with half its color altered - bore a jet-black kettle, though whether it was earthenware or silver remained unclear.
Fortunately, a fire had been lit beneath it.

Receiving no response, I entered without permission all the way in and settled onto the bench.
The chicken flapped its wings and jumped down from the mortar.
This time it climbed up onto the tatami mat.
Had the sliding door not been closed, it might have dashed all the way to the inner rooms.
When the rooster crowed in a deep voice with a cock-a-doodle-doo, the hen clucked in a high-pitched voice with a cluck-cluck-cluck.
It seemed they regarded me as nothing more than a fox or a dog.
On the bench rested a tobacco set about the size of a one-shō measure, while inside, coiled incense smoldered with supreme leisure, oblivious to the sun's passage.
The rain gradually subsided.

After a while, footsteps sounded from the inner rooms, and the sooty sliding door slid smoothly open.
From within emerged an old woman.

I had thought someone would come out eventually anyway.
A fire was burning in the hearth.
Coins were scattered atop the sweets box.
The incense smoldered leisurely.
Of course someone was bound to come out.
However, leaving one's shop unattended without concern showed a slight difference from how things were in the capital.
Even though there had been no response, sitting on the bench and lingering here indefinitely felt somewhat incongruous with the twentieth century.
This very quality of Non-Human Emotions proved intriguing.
Moreover, I found the face of the old woman who emerged quite appealing.

Two or three years ago I saw Takasago performed at the Hosho theater.
At that time I thought this was a beautiful tableau vivant.
The old man carrying a broom came five or six paces along the hashigakari bridgeway, turned deliberately backward, and stood facing the old woman.
The posture of their confrontation remains imprinted on my eyes even now.
From my seat Granny's face appeared nearly full-frontal, so that when I thought 'Ah how beautiful,' her expression clicked sharply into my mind's camera.
The tea house woman's face resembled this photographic plate so vividly it might have had blood flowing through its emulsion.

“Granny, I’ve borrowed this spot here for a moment.”

“Why, this old one wasn’t aware of it at all.”

“It rained quite a bit, didn’t it?”

“What wretched weather—you must be quite distressed. Oh my, you’ve gotten thoroughly drenched. Let me light a fire to dry you off.”

"If you could stoke that fire a bit more, I could dry off while warming myself."
"I grew rather chilled after resting."

"Right away, I'll build it up for you."
"Now then, some tea?"

As she rose, she shooed away the chickens with two sharp hisses.
The feathered couple scurried from the burnt-umber tatami, trampling through the cheap sweets box as they fled into the street.
The rooster left droppings on the confections in its escape.

"Well now, here's one," said Granny, who had already placed a teacup on the hollowed-out tray.
At its blackened base where the tea had scorched, three plum blossoms were casually painted in single strokes of glaze.

“Here are some sweets,” she said, this time bringing over the sesame twists and crumbled sticks that the chickens had trampled.
I scanned to see if any droppings had stuck elsewhere, but they remained in the box.

Granny, wearing a sleeveless robe with a sash tied over it, crouched before the hearth.
I took out a sketchbook from my breast pocket and, while sketching Granny's profile, began speaking.

“It’s so peaceful here.”

“Well, just as you see—a mountain hamlet.”

“Do bush warblers sing here?”

“Yes, they sing nearly every day.
They sing here in summer too.”

“I’d like to hear them.
The less I hear them, the more I want to.”

“Unfortunately today—what with the earlier rain—they must have fled somewhere.”

Just then, the fire in the hearth crackled, and crimson flames suddenly surged upward over a foot with a gust of wind.

“Come now, warm yourself.
“You must be chilled through,” she said.
Looking up at the eaves, blue smoke struck against them and crumbled away, yet still left faint traces clinging to the wooden awning.

“Ah, what a splendid feeling! Thanks to you, I’ve been revived.”

“The rain has cleared up nicely.
“Look, Tengu-iwa has come into view.”

The section of the front mountain where the impatient mountain wind—blowing away the hesitant, cloud-heavy spring sky with full force—had swept through now cleared completely without lingering attachment, and there in the direction the old woman pointed rose Tengu-iwa, jagged and towering like a roughly hewn pillar.

I first gazed at Tengu-iwa, then looked at Granny, and third compared both in equal measure. As a painter, the images of old women existing in my mind were limited to the Takasago old woman and Rosetsu's mountain hag. When I saw Rosetsu's work, I felt this ideal old woman must be something fearsome. I imagined her placed among autumn leaves under a cold moon. Upon seeing Hosho's special Noh performance, I was astonished to discover an old woman could possess such gentle expressions. That mask must have been carved by a master. Though regrettably missing the artist's name, I saw how this rendering made old age appear abundant, serene, and warm—an element harmonizing with golden screens, spring breezes, or cherry blossoms alike. I concluded Granny in her sleeveless robe—leaning forward, hand shading eyes as she pointed afar—made far better spring mountain scenery than Tengu-iwa. The moment I lifted my sketchbook to continue, Granny's posture collapsed.

Idly holding my sketchbook to the fire to dry it,
“Granny, you seem quite sturdy,” I remarked.
“Yes.
By heaven’s grace I keep well—I can thread needles, spin hemp, even grind rice flour for dumplings.”
I felt like having Granny work the stone mortar.
However, since I couldn’t make such a request,
“It’s just under four kilometers from here to Nagui, isn’t it?” I tried asking about something else.
“Yes, it’s twenty-eight chō.”
“Master has come for the hot spring cure...”

“If it’s not crowded, I think I might stay a while—well, if I feel like it.”

“No, since the war began, there have been scarcely any visitors coming.”
“It’s precisely as if we were boarded up tight.”

“That’s strange. In that case, they might not put me up.”

“No, if you request it, they can put you up anytime.”

“There was only one inn, wasn’t there?”

“Oh, if you inquire about Mr. Shibata, you’ll be understood right away.”
“It’s village-owned—whether as a spa or retirement retreat, I couldn’t say.”

“So it makes sense they’re unaffected even without guests.”

“Is this your first visit, Master?”

“No, I briefly visited there once long ago.”

The conversation paused briefly.
As I opened my sketchbook and quietly began drawing the chicken from earlier, the clanging of a horse’s bell reached the depths of my tranquil ears.
This sound naturally took on a rhythm, forming a kind of cadence in my mind.
While sleeping, I felt as though enticed by the sound of a neighboring mortar in my dreams.
I abandoned sketching the chicken and moved to the edge of the same page,

Spring breeze—
In Izen's ear, a horse's bell

I tried writing.
After ascending the mountain, I encountered five or six horses.
The five or six I encountered were all wearing belly bands and ringing their bells.
They did not seem like horses of this modern age.

Before long, the tranquil horse driver's song shattered the dream-laden solitude of the mountain path steeped in late spring. Beneath its plaintive tones lingered an effortless resonance—unmistakably a voice lifted from an ink painting.

The horse driver's song crosses Suzuka Pass—spring rain

This time I scrawled it diagonally across the page, only to realize upon writing that these were not my own words.

“Another visitor comes,” Granny murmured half to herself.

For being but a single spring path, all who traveled it—whether coming or going—seemed only to draw nearer. Those five or six jangling bells I’d encountered earlier must have each descended and ascended the mountain whenever Granny’s perception willed new arrivals into being. Through that lonesome trail piercing springs ancient and present, in this petal-scorned hamlet where feet find no purchase, Granny must have tallied clang upon clang since eras untold to reach this white-haired day.

Horse driver's song—white hair undyed as we pass through spring

I jotted this down on the next page, but staring at the pencil tip, I thought: This doesn't fully capture my sensations—there must be a more artful way to phrase it. Trying to incorporate the character for white hair, include a phrase about generations' cadence, add the title "Horse Driver's Song," season it with spring imagery—all while devising how to condense these elements into seventeen syllables,

“Good day!” called the actual horse driver, stopping before the shopfront in a loud voice.

“Oh, Mr. Genbei. Heading down to the castle town again?”

“If there’s anything you need bought, I’ll get it for you.”

“Right—when you pass through Kajimachi, have them give you one talisman from Reiganji Temple for my daughter.”

“Yes, I’ll get it. Just one? Miss O-Aki’s settled into a good place and found her fortune. Right, Auntie?”

“Thankfully, we’re not in need today. Though whether this counts as happiness...”

“It does count as happiness, y’know. Just compare yourself with that young mistress of Naga no.”

“How truly tragic. With such beauty she possesses. Has there been any improvement in her condition lately?”

“Nah, same as ever.”

“What trouble,” Granny heaved a deep sigh.

“Trouble indeed,” Mr. Genbei said, stroking the horse’s nose.

The leaves and blossoms of the thick-branched mountain cherry held clusters of rain fallen from the deep sky, soaked through—but now a passing wind tripped their footing, and unable to stay, they tumbled from their temporary perch in a rustling cascade.
The horse startled, shaking its long mane up and down.

“Hey there!” Mr. Genbei’s scolding voice, along with the clang-clang of bells, shattered my meditation.

Granny said,
"Mr. Genbei... riding a horse..."

“That’s right—it wasn’t by boat.
“It was a horse—
“So you did rest here back then after all, Auntie.”

“Ah yes, when Young Mistress’s horse stopped beneath that cherry tree, the blossoms fluttered down and left speckles all over her carefully done shimada updo.”

I opened my sketchbook again.
This scenery could become a painting; it could become poetry.
Conjuring up the bride's image within me and imagining that bygone scene with self-satisfaction,

Past blossom season—awe-inspiring bride upon horseback

I jotted it down.
Strangely enough, while the bridal attire, hair, horse, and cherry blossoms appeared vividly before my eyes, the bride’s face alone I simply couldn’t conjure.
As I deliberated between this face and that, the visage of Millet's Ophelia suddenly materialized and slipped snugly beneath the high shimada.
"This won't do," I immediately dismantled the carefully composed sketch.
The attire, hair, horse, and cherry blossoms all withdrew cleanly from my mental stage in an instant, yet Ophelia's figure—hands clasped as she drifted upon the water—lingered dimly in my heart's depths, refusing to clear away like smoke swept with a palm-fiber broom.
The comet trailing its tail across the sky somehow felt inexplicably peculiar.

“Well then, I’ll be taking my leave,” Mr. Genbei said.

“Please stop by again on your way back.
“Unfortunately with this rain, Seven Bends must be quite treacherous.”

“Yes, it’ll be a bit of a hassle,” Mr. Genbei said as he started walking.
Mr. Genbei’s horse also started walking.
Clang-clang.

“Is that the man from Naga no?”

“Yes, that would be Genbei of Naga no.”

“Did that man take some bride over the pass on horseback?”

“When the Young Mistress of Shibata entered the castle town as a bride, Mr. Genbei led the bridal procession with her riding a pale horse.”
“—How swiftly time passes. It’s already been five years this year.”

Only when facing a mirror do those who lament the whiteness of their own heads belong to the fortunate class.
Having counted on her fingers for the first time and comprehended the swift wheel of five years' flowing light, this Granny must be closer to an immortal than to humankind.
I answered thus.

“She must have been beautiful.
It would have been nice to see her.”

“Hahaha, you can still see her even now.
If you would honor us with a visit to the spa, she will surely come out to greet you.”

“Oh, so she’s in the village now?
If only she were still wearing that hem-patterned furisode with her hair done in a high shimada.”

“Just ask her to show you.
She’ll put it on and show you.”

I thought it impossible, but Granny’s demeanor was unexpectedly serious.
A journey of Non-Human Emotions would lack interest without such encounters.

“Granny said.”

“The Young Mistress bears a striking resemblance to Nagara no Otome.”

“The face?”

“No.
“It is about how their lives unfolded.”

"Hmm, what exactly is this Nagara no Otome you speak of?"

"Long ago in this village, there was said to be a beautiful wealthy man's daughter called Nagara no Otome."

"Hmm."

"But then two men fell for that girl at once, you know."

“I see.”

“Should I yield to Sasada’s man? Or yield to Sasabe’s man? The girl agonized day and night over this dilemma, but finding herself unable to choose either, in the end—

‘When autumn comes, dew rests on yellow blooms—
As fleeting as my life—so I feel.’

“—she composed this poem, then threw herself into Fuchigawa River and perished.”

I had never imagined that coming to such a mountain village, I would hear such a classically elegant tale from such an old woman, told in such classically elegant language.

“If you head east from here for five chō, there stands a Five-Ring Pagoda by the roadside. While you’re at it, do go see Nagara no Otome’s grave.”

I resolved within my heart that I must go see it.
Granny continued her tale.

"The Young Mistress of Nagara no was also pursued by two men."
"One had met Her Ladyship when she went for training in Kyoto, and the other was the wealthiest man in this castle town."

"So which did the Young Mistress choose?"

"Though she herself had set her heart on Kyoto—for there must have been various reasons—her parents forced the matter to be settled here..."

“How fortunate—she was spared having to throw herself into Fuchigawa River after all.”

“However—though the groom’s side had taken her in marriage valuing her noble bearing and may have treated her with considerable care, since she had been compelled to enter this union from the start, their relations grew quite strained, and even among the relatives there appeared to be great concern.”
“Then with this recent war, the bank where the master was employed collapsed.”
“After that, the Young Mistress returned to Naga no.”
“In society, they say all sorts of things about the Young Mistress—that she’s unfeeling, cold-hearted, and so forth.”
“Originally such an extremely shy and gentle person, she has become quite rough in temperament lately—every time Genbei comes, he says he’s rather worried about her.……”

If I were to hear what came next, it would spoil this carefully cultivated aesthetic.
Just as I was finally nearing immortal transcendence, I felt as though someone had come demanding "Return the feathered robe! Return it!" with urgent insistence.
Having risked the perilous seven bends to finally reach here, to be so wantonly dragged back down into the mundane world would render meaningless my having left home with such carefree abandon.
When idle chatter delved beyond a certain degree, the stench of the floating world seeped into my pores, and grime weighed down my body.

“Granny, the path to Naga no lies straight ahead, does it not?” With a clink, I tossed a ten-sen silver coin onto the bench and rose.

“Should you take the rightward path down from Nagara no Five-Ring Pagoda, you’ll find a shortcut of some six chō.
“Rough going it may be, but for one of your youth that way would serve best.
“—This covers the tea and then some—mind your step on the road.”

III

Last evening, I had a strange feeling.

Having arrived at the inn around eight o'clock at night, I naturally couldn't grasp the layout of the house and garden, nor even distinguish east from west.
I found myself being led through what seemed like endless corridors until finally being ushered into a small six-tatami room.
It bore no resemblance whatsoever to when I had visited before.
After finishing dinner, bathing, and returning to my room to drink tea, the maid came to offer bedding.

What struck me as peculiar was how this single maid managed everything—from receiving guests upon arrival and serving dinner to guiding visitors to the bath and preparing futons.
Yet she rarely spoke.
Nor did she strike me as particularly rustic.
When led through corridor-like spaces and stair-like passages by her red obi tied without flair and an old-fashioned paper lantern—when repeatedly descending through those same ambiguous spaces neither fully corridor nor staircase via identical obi and lantern light to reach the bath—I already felt myself traversing a canvas painting.

At mealtime, she said that since there were no guests lately and the other rooms hadn’t been cleaned, I would have to make do with the room they usually used. When laying out the bedding, she offered a human-like “Rest well” before leaving, but as her footsteps gradually faded down those winding corridors, I grew unsettled by the profound stillness left in her wake—a silence so complete it felt utterly devoid of human presence.

Since the day I was born, I have had such an experience only once.
Long ago, I once walked from Tateyama in Bōshū straight through to Kazusa, then continued along the coast all the way to Chōshi.
At that time, one evening, I lodged at a certain place.
There was no other way to describe it than as "a certain place."
Now I have completely forgotten both the name of that place and the name of that inn.
The question was whether I had stayed at the first inn.
In a large house with a tall ridgepole, there were only two women.
When I asked if I could stay, the older one said yes, and as the younger one began guiding me this way, following along led us through several dilapidated, spacious rooms until we reached the innermost mezzanine.
As I climbed three steps from the corridor to enter the room, a cluster of cultivated bamboo that had begun to lean beneath the wooden eaves rustled softly in the evening breeze, brushing from my shoulder to my head—already sending a chill through me.
The veranda boards were already beginning to rot.
If I said that next year bamboo shoots would pierce through the veranda and fill the room with bamboo, the young woman merely smirked silently and left.

That night, the bamboo rustled ceaselessly by my pillow, keeping me awake.
When I slid open the shoji screen, the garden stretched before me as a wilderness of grass; under the summer moon's glow, my sweeping gaze found neither fence nor wall—only the expanse merging directly into a great grassy mountain.
Beyond that mountain lay the open sea where booming waves advanced to menace the world of men.
I passed the entire night without sleep, enduring within this eerie mosquito net while thinking it all resembled some scene from a woodblock-printed tale.

Since then I have journeyed through various lands, but never before tonight—never until lodging at this Naga no—had I experienced such sensations.

Lying on my back, I happened to open my eyes and see a framed panel with vermilion-lacquered borders hanging in the transom.
Even while reclining, I could clearly read the characters: "Bamboo shadows sweep the stair's dust, yet remain unmoved."
The seal reading "Daitetsu" was indeed visible.
In calligraphy I am a man of no discernment, yet I have always cherished the brushwork of Priest Kōsen of Ōbaku.
Ingen, Sokuhi, and Mokuan each possess their own charm, but Kōsen's characters stand as the most vigorous yet refined.
Now examining these seven characters—from the brush's touch to the flow of hand—I could not help but think them Kōsen's work.
Yet since it clearly bears "Daitetsu," it must be another's hand.
Perhaps there was a monk called Daitetsu at Ōbaku.
Still, the paper's hue appeared remarkably fresh.
It could only be received as something recent.

I turned my head.
The crane painting by Jakuchū hanging in the alcove caught my eye.
Given my profession, I had already recognized this as a masterpiece when I entered the room.
Jakuchū’s works are mostly intricate polychrome pieces, but this crane was rendered in a single uninhibited brushstroke—its slender single leg standing tall with an egg-shaped torso softly perched atop—capturing my aesthetic perfectly; the ethereal charm permeated even to the tip of its long beak.
Adjacent to the alcove—omitting the staggered shelves—it continued into an ordinary cupboard.
I didn’t know what was inside.

I fell peacefully asleep.

In a dream.

As the Nagara Maiden in her long-sleeved kimono rode her blue horse over the mountain pass, Sasadano and Sasabeno suddenly leaped out from both sides and pulled at her.
The woman abruptly transformed into Ophelia, climbing onto a willow branch as she drifted downriver singing in a beautiful voice.
Determined to rescue her, I grabbed a long pole and chased toward Mukōjima.
The woman showed no distress, laughing and singing while floating toward an unknown destiny downstream.
Shouldering the pole, I called out "Wait! Wait!"

Then I woke up.
Sweat was beading under my arms.
What a curiously hybrid dream I'd had, I thought—this strange mingling of refined elegance and common vulgarity.
They say that long ago, Dahui Zonggao of Song China—even after attaining enlightenment and gaining mastery over all things—remained tormented for years by how worldly thoughts still arose in his dreams. How perfectly reasonable that seemed.
Those who stake their lives on literature must now dream somewhat more beautiful dreams if they hope to achieve true distinction.
As I lay thinking how such a dream could never become painting or poetry for the most part, I turned over to find moonlight now shining through the shoji screens, two or three tree branches casting their shadows diagonally across them.
A spring night so vivid it pierced the senses.

Was it my imagination, or did I feel someone singing softly?
I strained my ears to discern whether the dream-song had escaped into this world, or if a voice from reality had slipped into that distant realm of dreams while still tethered to wakefulness.
Someone was indeed singing.
Though thin and low without doubt, this voice faintly set a single thread of pulse quivering through the spring night that sought sleep.
Strangely enough—whatever its melody might be (for not being sung at my pillowside, there should be no way to discern its lyrics)—those words that should have been inaudible came through with perfect clarity.
It seemed to repeat over and over—the Nagara Maiden's song: "When autumn comes, upon the silvergrass / The dew that settles— / Though I may vanish like it, / So I feel."

At first, the voice that had sounded near the veranda gradually grew fainter and more distant.
When something stops abruptly, there arises a sense of abruptness - yet only faint pity remains.
When one hears a voice severed decisively mid-flow, one's heart too feels cleanly severed.
In phenomena that naturally diminish without clear demarcation and vanish unnoticed - I found myself shortening seconds into fractions as my unease grew ever more tenuous.
Within this song that disturbs the mind with its wavering between cessation - like an invalid resisting death yet fated to perish; like a lamp struggling against extinction yet destined to fade - lies a melody gathering all springtime regrets from under heaven.

Until now I had endured listening from within my futon, but as the voice grew more distant, my ears—though knowing they would be drawn outward—began wanting to chase after it.
The thinner it grew, the more I felt that even reduced to mere ears, I wanted to fly after it.
In the instant before realizing no matter how frantically I strained there would be no response in my eardrums, I could bear it no longer and slipped unconsciously from my futon while sliding open the shoji screen.
The moment I did so, moonlight slanted across my legs from the knees down.
On my nightclothes too, tree shadows swayed as they fell.

When I opened the shoji screen, I hadn't noticed such a thing.
That voice—as my ears strained toward its direction—it was there in the distance.
Against a trunk that, were it a flower, one might mistake for a crabapple tree, stood a shadowy silhouette—aloofly concealing itself in the moonlight.
Even as my awareness that it might be her remained unconfirmed in mind, the black form crushed through the shadows of blossoms and darted sharply to the right.
The corner of the building adjoining my room promptly blocked the tall female figure slipping away.

Clad only in a single borrowed yukata, I stood blankly pressed against the shoji screen for some time. When at last I came to my senses, I realized that spring in mountain villages held a considerable chill.
At any rate, I returned to the futon I had slipped out of and began thinking.
From under the bundled pillow, I took out my pocket watch and saw that it was ten past one.
I pushed it back under the pillow and began thinking.
It couldn’t possibly be a monster.
If it wasn't a monster, then it was human; if human, then a woman.
It might be the young mistress of this house.
However, for a returned Young Mistress to venture into the mountain-adjacent garden late at night seemed somewhat improper.
No matter what, sleep simply wouldn't come.
The very clock beneath my pillow began chattering away.
Never before had I noticed my pocket watch's sound, but tonight alone it seemed to speak—as if urging "Think now, think now," as if admonishing "Don't sleep, don't sleep."
This was outrageous.

If frightening things are viewed exactly as they are, they become poetry.
If awe-inspiring phenomena are detached from oneself and perceived purely in their solitary majesty, they become painting.
That unrequited love becomes an artistic subject is precisely as it should be.
Forgetting the pain of heartbreak - its tender aspects, where sympathy dwells, where sorrow accumulates, or pushing further, those very instances overflowing with love's anguish - when one objectively visualizes these before their eyes, they transform into material for literature and art.
In this world exist those who fabricate nonexistent heartbreaks, forcibly agonize themselves, and revel in this manufactured misery.
Ordinary people denounce this as folly; they declare it madness.
Yet those who deliberately outline misfortune's contours to dwell within them must be acknowledged as entirely equivalent - in securing artistic footing - to those who carve imaginary landscapes and delight in jar-contained utopias.
In this regard, countless artists worldwide - though as everyday people that's another matter - as artists prove more foolish than common folk; they are mad.
While we straw-sandal travelers complain endlessly of hardships from dawn till dusk during our journeys, when recounting these travels to others, we show no hint of such discontent.
Naturally we relate amusing episodes and pleasant memories; we even boastfully prattle about past grievances with self-satisfied airs.
This constitutes neither deliberate self-deception nor intentional misleading of others.
While journeying we inhabit ordinary mindsets; when narrating travels past we already assume poetic attitudes - thus such contradictions emerge.
Therefore, should one wear down a corner named common sense from the square world to dwell within a triangle, we might rightly name them artists.

Therefore, whether in nature or human affairs, in those realms where common folk recoil and dare not approach, artists discern countless jewels of Linlang and recognize peerless treasures of Baolu.
This is commonly referred to as beautification.
In reality, it is neither beautification nor anything of the sort.
The resplendent colored light has existed brightly in the phenomenal world since ancient times.
Because their eyes are clouded by delusions of falling blossoms, because they remain bound by worldly fetters they cannot sever, and because glory and shame, gain and loss press upon them with relentless urgency, they pass through life unaware of a train's beauty until Turner painted one, ignorant of a ghost's beauty until Ōkyo depicted it.

The shadow figure I had just witnessed, if considered purely as a phenomenon in itself, would be imbued with abundant poetic charm to any observer or listener.
——An isolated village's hot spring——flower shadows on a spring night——murmured verses beneath the moon——a figure in the hazy moonlight——each of these made splendid subjects for artists.
Yet though such fine subjects lay before me, I found myself erecting needless arguments and casting superfluous doubts.
In this rare moment of elegant atmosphere where logic had taken root, a sense of unease had trampled underfoot the refined beauty one might never hope to encounter again.
If matters stood thus, then Non-Human Emotions held no worth proclaiming.
I would require further discipline before qualifying to boast myself as either poet or painter before others.
I recalled hearing how long ago, the Italian painter Salvatore Rosa had risked peril to infiltrate bandit gangs, driven by his singular desire to study thieves.
Having left home with sketchbook casually tucked in my robe, I too must maintain at least that measure of resolve—anything less would shame me.

If you ask how to regain poetic footing in such moments, it suffices to place your own raw feelings before yourself, step back from them to settle objectively, and create space to examine them as if they belonged to another. A poet bears the obligation to dissect their own corpse and proclaim its pathological condition to the world. While there are various methods for this, the most accessible is to take anything at hand—even a mosquito—and immediately mold it into seventeen syllables. The seventeen-syllable form being poetry's most portable structure allows composition while washing your face, using the toilet, or riding a train. That such verses can be easily crafted—that one might readily become a poet—should not be scorned as mere convenience, for poetic awakening constitutes its own enlightenment. Indeed, I believe greater convenience yields greater merit, making it worthy of respect instead. Suppose I grow slightly irritated. Capture that moment of anger instantly in seventeen syllables. In shaping them, your irritation already transforms into another's. One cannot simultaneously rage and compose haiku—these require separate selves. Let tears fall. Mold those tears into seventeen syllables. No sooner do you complete this than joy arises. When tears are shaped into verse, suffering's droplets detach from yourself, leaving only the gladness of being a man who can weep.

This has always been my doctrine. Resolving to test this principle tonight beneath the covers, I began shaping that strange incident into verses. Knowing unwritten thoughts would scatter without discipline, I opened my sketchbook—this meticulous practice requiring ink—and set it by my pillow.

First I inscribed: "Madness shakes dew from crabapple blooms." Reading it back revealed neither particular merit nor unease. Next came: "Flower shadows, woman's shadow—hazed moonlight," though its seasonal motifs overlapped. But technicalities mattered little if composure returned. Then I crafted: "Shōichii transforms to woman under misted moon"—a verse so absurd even I found mirth in its lunacy.

Feeling encouraged that I could maintain this rhythm, I zealously recorded every verse that emerged.

Spring stars cast down - midnight's jeweled crown!

Spring night clouds mist-dampen freshly washed hair

Spring! This very night I reverently sing to your august form

When crabapple spirits materialize beneath moonlit skies - ah!

Song fragments wandering through moon-bathed springscapes

Resigned to deepening spring's passing—ah, this solitude!

As I continued such attempts, before I knew it, I began to nod off drowsily.

I wondered if "ecstasy" was the appropriate adjective for such a situation.
In deep sleep, no one can recognize their own self.
In moments of clear awareness, there is none who forgets the external world.
Merely between these two realms lay a filament-thin phantom landscape.
Too hazy to be called awake, yet retaining too much vitality to be deemed asleep.
It spoke of a state where waking and sleeping realms were contained within a single vessel, stirred and blended together with poetry's colorful brush.
Blurring nature's colors to dreams' very edge and washing reality's bare universe further into mist-shrouded lands.
Borrowing sleep's sorcerous arms to smooth every angle of tangible existence, through this softened world a faint sluggish pulse began flowing of its own accord.
Like ground-crawling smoke straining yet failing to rise skyward, so my soul strained to escape its mortal shell yet could not bear severance.
It strained toward freedom yet hesitated, hesitated yet strained toward freedom—until this soul-entity could scarce maintain wholeness—while hazy dream-atmosphere clung undispersed to my entire being, leaving me steeped in clinging attachment and wistful longing.

As I drifted through this borderland between sleep and wakefulness, the entrance's sliding door slid open soundlessly. Into the opened space appeared a woman's shadow like a phantom. I felt no surprise. I felt no fear. I was simply observing with pleasant ease—though to say 'observing' makes the word sound too forceful. The phantom woman had slipped unbidden behind my closed eyelids. The apparition entered the room stealthily by degrees. Like a celestial maiden gliding over waves, not a single human-like sound arose from the tatami mats. Through these closed-eye visions I couldn't discern her clearly, but she seemed a fair-skinned woman with thick hair cascading down her long nape. The impression resembled viewing one of those blurred photographs currently in fashion held up to lamplight.

The phantom stopped before the cupboard.
The cupboard opened.
A white wrist slipped from the sleeve, glimmering faintly in the darkness.
The cupboard closed again.
The waves of tatami spontaneously returned the phantom.
The entrance’s sliding door closed spontaneously.
My sleep gradually deepened.
When one dies and remains yet unreborn as ox or horse, this must be what the interim resembles.

How long I had slept between human and equine forms, I did not know. The instant I perceived a woman's laughter ringing sharply by my ear, my eyes opened.

Looking around, the curtain of night was decisively cut away, and the world lay bright from corner to corner.
When I saw how the radiant spring sun had dyed the bamboo lattice of the round window a deep black, there seemed no room left in this world for anything called mystery to linger.
Mystery must have returned to the realm of ten trillion lands, crossing over to Sanzu River's far shore.

Still in my yukata, I went down to the bath and let my face float idly in the tub for about five minutes.
I felt no inclination to wash nor any desire to emerge.
Why had I felt that way the evening before last?
With day and night as boundary markers, how strange that heaven and earth should somersault like this.

Even drying my body seemed too troublesome, so I half-heartedly climbed out still wet; when I opened the bath door from inside, I was startled once more.

“Good morning.
“Did you sleep well last night?”

The opening of the door and these words came almost simultaneously.
Since this was a greeting exchanged in an entirely unexpected encounter—before I could even muster a proper response—

“Here, please put this on.”

She went around behind me and softly draped a garment over my back.
Finally managing to utter only “Thank you for this...” as I turned around—the moment I did so, the woman retreated two or three steps.

Since ancient times, it had been an established practice for novelists to exhaustively describe their protagonists' appearances.
Were one to compile all terms ever employed across languages of East and West for appraising feminine beauty, their quantity might rival the voluminous Great Treasury of Scriptures.
From this overwhelming multitude of adjectives, were one to gather the most fitting terms to describe this woman standing three paces away from me—her body twisted at an angle, gazing back at my astonishment and discomfiture with evident satisfaction—who could say how many there would be?
However, from birth to this day over thirty years later, I had never before seen such an expression.
According to artists' critiques, the ideal of Greek sculpture was said to be encapsulated in the two characters signifying "dignified solemnity."
Dignified solemnity, I believed, represented human vitality poised to move yet remaining motionless.
If set in motion, what form would this transformation take—storm clouds or thunderclaps? It was precisely because an ethereal resonance lingered indistinctly beyond discernment that the essence of profundity could be transmitted for a hundred generations.
The world's many dignities and majesties lurked on the reverse side of this placid potential force.
When it moved, they manifested.
When they manifested, they would inevitably be settled as one, two, or three.
One, Two, and Three must each possess unique capabilities; yet once they manifested as One, Two, or Three, they could not return to their original harmonious state without fully displaying their muddy inelegance.
Therefore, all things bearing the name of motion were necessarily base.
Both Unkei's Nio statues and Hokusai's manga had utterly failed through this single character of 'motion'.
Motion versus stillness.
This was the great problem governing the fate of us artists.
Throughout history, descriptions of beauties had largely been confined to one of these two great categories.

However, when I looked upon this woman's expression, I found myself perplexed as to which category it belonged to.
Her mouth was drawn taut in stillness.
Her eyes shifted restlessly, seeking even the slightest opening.
Her face formed a melon-seed shape with fullness below that suggested composure, yet her forehead appeared cramped and pinched, bearing what's vulgarly termed a "Fuji forehead."
Moreover, her eyebrows pressed inward from both sides, quivering like droplets of peppermint essence dotted between them.
The nose alone was neither frivolously sharp nor dully rounded.
In a painting, it might have been beautiful.
With each of these disparate features possessing their own peculiarities, rushing tumultuously into my eyes in chaotic fashion, bewilderment became inevitable.

In what should have been a still corner of the earth, a collapse occurred that set the whole mass moving against its nature; realizing this motion betrayed its inherent stillness, it strained to regain its primordial form—only to be constrained by unbalanced momentum into continuing this unwilling movement—until today it seemed almost to declare through sheer desperation, "If compelled, I shall move regardless"—were such a state to exist, it would perfectly describe this woman.

Thus beneath this scornful exterior one could glimpse a landscape yearning to cling to others.
Beneath her mocking countenance toward people shimmered a prudent discernment.
Should she rely on her talents and assume an air that could dismiss a hundred men as insignificant, from beneath that imposing manner a gentle compassion would well up unbidden.
There was simply no coherence across her features.
Enlightenment and delusion coexisted uneasily under one roof, quarreling yet sharing the same dwelling.
The absence of unified harmony in this woman's face proved her mind lacked integration; this mental disarray likely sprang from a world itself devoid of unity.
A face being crushed by misfortune while striving to overcome it.
She had to be an unfortunate woman.

“Thank you,” she repeated with a slight nod.

“Hohoho, your room has been cleaned.”
“Go and see for yourself.”
“I’ll come by later.”

No sooner had she said this than she nimbly twisted her waist and briskly ran down the corridor. Her hair was styled in a ginkgo-leaf twist. Her white collar showed beneath the looped sash. The black satin obi was fastened only on one side.

IV

When I absently returned to my room, it had indeed been tidied up thoroughly.
As something felt off, I opened the cupboard just to verify.
Beneath lay a small storage chest.
From above hung a yuzen-patterned sash halfway down - likely evidence of someone having hastily retrieved garments and departed.
The sash's upper portion disappeared among alluring robes, its end remaining hidden.
One side held several tightly packed books.
Atop them rested Hakuin Oshō's Enra Tenkama tea kettle alongside a volume of The Tales of Ise.
It struck me that last night's waking reality might have been factual after all.

When I casually sat down on the zabuton cushion, there on the karaki wood desk lay the familiar sketchbook - left carefully open with a pencil still tucked between its pages.
I took up the verses I had written in my fervor, wondering how they would appear when viewed in morning light.

Beneath "Shaking dew from kaidō branches—madness," someone had written "Shaking dew from kaidō branches—morning crow."
Being in pencil, the handwriting style remained unclear—too angular for a woman's yet too soft for a man's.
"Oh!" I gasped again in surprise.
Looking further, beneath "Flower shadows, woman's shadow—hazily," someone had added "Flower shadows layered with woman's shadows."
Underneath "Transformed into a Senior First Rank lady beneath misted moon," was written "Transformed into a nobleman's daughter beneath misted moon."
Was this imitation? Editorial presumption? Poetic correspondence? Folly? Mockery? My head tilted involuntarily.

Since she had said she would come later, she might appear around mealtime.
If she came out, I might gain some understanding of the situation.
When I checked my watch to see what time it was, it was already past eleven.
I must have slept deeply.
In that case, it would be better for my stomach to make do with just lunch.

I opened the right shoji screen and gazed out, wondering where remnants of last night might linger.
What I had identified as a Chinese flowering crabapple was indeed one, though the garden proved narrower than imagined.
Five or six stepping stones lay buried under a carpet of moss; stepping on them barefoot would likely feel pleasantly soothing.
To the left, a red pine jutted diagonally from between rocks on the cliff continuing from the mountain, its branches extending over the garden.
Behind the Chinese flowering crabapple stood a small thicket, while further back a great bamboo grove exposed thirty feet of emerald green to the spring sun.
To the right was blocked by the roof ridge and thus invisible, but judging from the terrain, it must slope gradually downward toward the bathhouse.

The mountains ended and became hills; the hills ended and became a plain about three chō wide; that plain ended and submerged into the seafloor, traveled seventeen ri onward before rising up majestically again to become Maya Island, six ri in circumference. This was the terrain of Nagoi. The hot spring resort had been constructed by extending the base of the hill as far as possible toward the cliff, with half of the rocky landscape enclosed within its garden compound; thus while the front portion stood two stories high, the rear remained a single-story structure. Were I to dangle my legs from the veranda, my heels would immediately touch the moss. It made perfect sense now why last night I had found myself endlessly climbing up and down stairs—this house must have struck me as having a most peculiar layout.

This time I opened the left-side window.
In a naturally hollowed rock basin roughly two tatami mats in size, spring water had quietly pooled without notice, calmly steeping the shadow of a mountain cherry.
Two or three clumps of bear bamboo adorned the rock corners; beyond them lay what appeared to be a wolfberry hedge, while from outside—along the rugged path ascending from the beach to the hill—occasional human voices could be heard.
Across the road, mandarin orange trees were planted along the gentle southward slope, while at the valley's end, a large bamboo grove shone white.
I learned for the first time then that bamboo leaves appear to shine white when viewed from afar.
Above the thicket rose a pine-covered mountain, where between red trunks five or six stone steps appeared within reach.
That must be a temple.

When I opened the entrance fusuma and stepped onto the veranda, the railing bent at square angles; across the courtyard where the sea should have been visible by orientation, there stood a room on the front second floor separated by the central garden.
The room I occupied also revealed itself to be on the second floor when leaning against the railing—a configuration that intrigued me.
Given that the hot spring source lay underground, from the bathing facility's perspective I essentially resided on what equated to a third floor.

The house proved quite spacious, yet apart from a room on the opposite second floor and another where I followed the railing's rightward bend, I could discern no living quarters or kitchen—most chambers that might qualify as guest rooms remained shuttered.
As for guests, beyond myself there seemed virtually none.
The sealed rooms kept their shutters closed even by day, and once opened appeared never to be closed again at night.
In such conditions, I couldn't even determine whether they bothered locking the front door.
It made for an uncompromising location ideally suited to a journey of non-human emotions.

The clock neared twelve, yet no meal-serving scenery materialized.
Hunger had finally begun to stir within me, but remembering the poetic line "In empty mountains seeing no people," I found no cause to regret economizing even a single repast.
Painting felt tedious, and composing haiku seemed unnecessary—already steeped in poetic rapture as I was—to force verses would only betray vulgarity.
The two or three books I'd bound to my tripod stool with reading intentions now held no allure for unwrapping.
Lying thus upon the veranda, my back bathed in the nurturing spring sun amidst flower shadows—this constituted heaven's ultimate joy.
To think meant descending into heresy.
To move courted peril.
Were it possible, I'd have ceased even nasal respiration.
I yearned to exist motionless as a tatami-rooted plant for a fortnight's span.

Before long, footsteps sounded in the corridor as someone came up the stairs from below.
As I listened to them approach, it seemed there were two people.
When I thought they had stopped in front of the room, one person wordlessly turned back the way they had come.
When the sliding door opened, thinking it might be this morning's visitor, it turned out to be last night's young maid after all.
I felt somehow unsatisfied.

“My apologies for the delay,” she said, setting down the meal tray.
She offered no explanation about breakfast whatsoever.
Arranged green accents with the grilled dish; lifting the bowl’s lid revealed shrimp dyed in red and white, nestled amidst young bracken.
Ah, thinking what a lovely color, I gazed into the bowl.

“Do you dislike it?” asked the maid.

“No, I’ll eat it soon,” I said, though in truth it felt almost a shame to consume it.
I once read in a book an anecdote that Turner, at a dinner party, stared at a salad arranged on a plate and told someone beside him, “This cool color—this is the color I use.” How I wished I could show Turner the colors of this shrimp and bracken.
Western food had not a single visually appealing dish.
If any existed, they would be salad and red radish, and that was about it.
As for nutritional value—I could not speak to that—but from a painter’s perspective, it was rather underdeveloped cuisine.
In contrast, Japanese meal arrangements—whether clear soups, appetizers, or sashimi—could be made exquisitely beautiful.
Even if one were to place a kaiseki meal before them and depart without touching a single bite, simply gazing upon it—from the perspective of visual nourishment alone—ascending to the teahouse would prove fully worthwhile.

“There’s a young woman in this house, isn’t there?” I asked while setting down the bowl.

“Ah,”

“What’s that?”

“The Young Mistress.”

“Is there still an elderly mistress besides that one?”

“She passed away last year.”

"What about the master?"

“He is here.”
"She is the master's daughter."

“That young woman?”

“Yes.”

“Are there any guests?”

"There are none."

“Am I the only guest?”

“Yes.”

“What does the Young Mistress do every day?”

“Needlework…”

“What else?”

“She plays the shamisen.”

This was unexpected.
Finding it intriguing, I pressed further.

“What else?” I asked.

“She goes to the temple,” said the maid.

This too was unexpected.
The temple and shamisen made for an odd combination.

“Does she visit the temple?”

“No, she goes to the reverend’s place.”

“Is the reverend learning to play the shamisen or something?”

“No.”

“So what does she go there to do?”

“She goes to Reverend Daitetsu’s place.”

Ah, of course—Daitetsu must be the man who wrote this plaque.
Judging from this verse, he must be a Zen monk.
The Tōra Tenkama kettle in the cupboard must have been entirely that woman’s possession.

“Is this room usually occupied by someone?”

“Usually the Young Mistress is here.”

“So she was here until I arrived last evening, then.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve done something truly inconsiderate. So what does she go to Reverend Daitetsu’s place to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“What else?”

“Regarding what?”

“And then, does she do anything else besides that?”

“And then, this and that…”

“What do you mean by ‘this and that’?”

“I don’t know.”

The conversation ended there.
The meal finally concluded.
As the maid withdrew the meal tray and opened the entrance sliding door, beyond the courtyard plantings on the second-floor railing opposite, the Young Mistress leaned her cheek on her hand and stared downward like a modernized Willow Guanyin.
In contrast to this morning, her figure remained remarkably still.
Looking down with her gaze not reaching this way—had her countenance undergone such a transformation?
They say the ancients claimed “nothing reveals a person like their eyes,” and truly—how can one remain hidden? Among human faculties, none possesses such vitality as the eye.
From beneath the serenely leaning A-shaped lattice railing, two butterflies fluttered upward, drifting together and apart.
At that instant, the sliding door of my room opened.
At the sound of the door, the Young Mistress abruptly turned her gaze from the butterflies toward me.
Her gaze pierced through emptiness like a poisoned arrow and struck between my brows without acknowledgment.
In that moment of realization, the maid snapped the sliding door shut decisively.
What followed became an utterly carefree spring.

I flopped back down again.
What immediately floated into my mind was:

Sadder than is the moon's lost light,

Lost ere the kindling of dawn,

To travellers journeying on,

The shutting of thy fair face from my sight.

That was the verse.
If I were to fall for that Young Mistress and, even after breaking myself trying to meet her without success, were to feel—to the point of astonishment—either joy or regret at such a fleeting glance of parting as just now, I would surely compose a poem of this meaning.
And

Might I look on thee in death,
With bliss I would yield my breath.

I might have even added these two lines:
Fortunately, having already transcended those commonplace boundaries called love or affection, such suffering could not be felt even if one wished to feel it.
Yet the poetic essence of what had occurred in that fleeting moment was abundantly present within these five or six lines.
Even if no such heartrending feelings existed between Ginkgo-gaeshi and myself, it proved interesting to apply our current relationship to this poem and observe how it fit.
Or perhaps it would have been equally delightful to interpret this poem's meaning as applying directly to our own circumstances.
Between us existed a thin karmic thread that bound part of the circumstances depicted in this poem into reality.
When karma's thread grew this slender, it caused no suffering.
Moreover, this was no ordinary thread.
A rainbow thread crossing the sky; a mist thread lingering over fields; a spider's thread glistening with dew.
Should one attempt to sever it, the thread would snap instantly—yet while observed, it remained surpassingly beautiful.
What if this thread were to thicken before my eyes and harden like a well rope?
There existed no such danger.

I am a painter.
She is no ordinary woman.

Suddenly, the sliding door opened.
As I turned over and looked toward the entrance, my karmic counterpart—Ginkgo-gaeshi—stood upon the threshold holding a celadon bowl on a tray as she lingered there.

“Are you lying down again? I must have caused you considerable trouble last evening.
“I disturbed you so many times, hohoho,” she laughed.
Neither timidity nor concealment—and certainly no shame.
It was merely that I had been anticipated.

“Thank you for this morning,” she said again with a bow.
When I considered it, she had now performed this deep bow three times.
Moreover, all three instances consisted solely of those three syllables: “Thank you.”

The woman had already seated herself at my pillow-side where I was attempting to rise.

“Oh, do stay lying down.”
“You can still talk while lying down,” she said with casual assurance.
Because I thought this entirely reasonable, I first lay prone, supported my chin with both hands, and for a while propped my elbows like pillars on the tatami.

"I thought you might be feeling bored， so I came to make some tea."

“Thank you.” Another thank-you escaped me.
When I looked into the sweets dish， splendid yōkan were arranged inside.
Of all confections， I like yōkan best.
I don't particularly want to eat it， but that smooth surface—delicate yet firm， semi-translucent where it catches light—is undeniably a work of art.
The bluish tint from its molding process resembled some hybrid of jade and soapstone， exceptionally pleasing to behold.
Moreover，the blue yōkan on its celadon dish gleamed like something newly birthed from porcelain itself， making my fingers itch to stroke its surface.
No Western sweet gives such aesthetic pleasure.
Cream’s color feels insipidly soft—oppressive even.
Jelly might sparkle like gems at first glance， but its trembling form lacks yōkan’s dignified weight.
As for constructing five-story pagodas from sugar and milk—that’s pure absurdity.

“Hmm, quite splendid.”

“Genbei just bought and brought this back. This should be something you can partake of.”

Genbei appeared to have stayed in the castle town last evening. I made no particular reply and continued gazing at the bean jelly. It made no difference where or from whom it had been purchased. If something was beautiful, simply recognizing its beauty brought complete satisfaction.

“The shape of this celadon is excellent.
“The color is splendid as well.
“It is scarcely inferior to the bean jelly itself.”

The young mistress gave a derisive snort.
A faint tremor of contempt rippled at the corners of her lips.
She must have interpreted my remark as crude humor.
To be sure, taken as jest, it would indeed warrant disdain.
When men deficient in wisdom force themselves to be witty, they frequently produce such utterances.

"Is this Chinese?"

"What do you mean?" she said, showing no interest in the celadon whatsoever.

"It does seem Chinese," I remarked while lifting the dish to inspect its underside.

"If you like such things, I could show you."

“Yes, please show me.”

"My father loves antiques, so we have quite a variety of them."
“Having said that to Father, I’ll serve you tea sometime.”

Upon hearing "tea," I felt slightly annoyed.
In all the world, there exists no aesthete more pretentious than tea masters.
Those who artificially constrict the vast poetic realm into cramped territories, acting supremely self-important, supremely deliberate, supremely petty, bowing ceremoniously without cause while deeming their sipped froth satisfactory—these are your so-called tea masters.
If such tedious regulations contained even a shred of elegance, then the Azabu regiment would be choking on refinement.
Those who drill to "About face! Forward march!" must one and all be grand tea masters.
That is an artform where merchants and townspeople—those utterly lacking cultivation in taste—mechanically adopt every post-Rikyū regulation through their inability to discern true elegance, presuming this constitutes refinement, thereby creating a system that ironically mocks genuine aesthetes.

“This tea you mentioned—is it the kind with established schools?”

“No, there are no schools or anything of that sort.”
“If you dislike it, you needn’t drink this tea.”

“In that case, I might as well drink it while we’re at it.”

“Hohohoh.”
“Because Father dearly enjoys having others view the implements…”

“Must I offer praise?”

“Since they’re elderly, they’ll be delighted if you offer praise.”

“Well then, I’ll offer some modest praise.”

“Just yield and praise lavishly.”

“Hahaha! Incidentally, your manner of speech isn’t provincial at all.”

“Are humans themselves provincial?”

“Humanity fares better in rural settings.”

“Then your influence would hold greater sway.”

“But surely you’ve resided in Tokyo before?”

“Indeed I have—in Kyoto too. Being migratory by nature, I’ve dwelled in manifold places.”

“Between this place and the capital—which do you prefer?”

“They amount to the same.”

"A place this quiet must be rather carefree, don't you think?"

"Whether carefree or not, the world becomes whatever one makes of it through their state of mind. Even if you grow weary of the land of fleas and move to the land of mosquitoes, it changes nothing."

"If you went to a land without fleas or mosquitoes, that would be good."

"If such a land exists, you should produce it here for me to see. Now produce it for me," the woman pressed closer.

"If you wish, I shall produce it for you," I said, taking out that sketchbook to capture the essence of a woman riding a horse beneath mountain cherry blossoms—though being hastily drawn lines, it could hardly be called a proper painting—merely scribbled down just the essence,

“Now please step right into this.”
“There are no fleas or mosquitoes”—I thrust the sketch before her nose.
Expecting either surprise or bashfulness—judging by her demeanor she surely wouldn’t take offense—I glanced up to gauge her reaction,

“My what a cramped world—nothing but width!”
“So you fancy such places—exactly like a crab.” She pushed the sketchbook away.
I—

“Ha ha ha!” I laugh.

Near the eaves, a bush warbler began its song only to break off mid-cry and flit to a distant branch.
The two deliberately ceased their conversation and strained their ears for a time, but a throat once having faltered in its song did not easily open again.

“Did you meet Genbei in the mountains yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Have you seen Nagara no Otome’s Five-Ring Pagoda?”

“Yes.”

“When autumn comes, dew settles on silvergrass—impossible to wipe away, this heart feels.” Without explanation, the woman recited the verse smoothly and without melodic inflection.
For what purpose, one could not tell.

“As for that song—I heard it at the tea house.”

“Did Granny teach it to you? She originally served at our house—back when I wasn’t yet married…” she began, then catching herself, she looked at me sharply, so I feigned ignorance.

“When I was still young—whenever she came—I would have her tell me stories of Nagara. The songs alone proved quite difficult to memorize, but after listening countless times, I eventually came to recite every last one by heart.”

"So that's why you thought I knew such difficult things."
"—Yet that song is such a pitiful one, isn't it?"

"Pitiful, you think?"
"If it were me, I wouldn't compose such a song."
"To begin with, throwing oneself into Fuchigawa River—isn't that just trivial?"

"Indeed, it is trivial."
"What would you do?"

“What would I do? It’s simple—I’d just take both Sasada and Sasabe men as my male concubines.”
“I’d just take both Sasada and Sasabe men as my male concubines.”

“Both of them?”

“Yes.”

“How impressive.”

“Not impressive at all—it’s only natural.”

“I see—in that case, you wouldn’t have to go leaping into either the land of mosquitoes or the land of fleas.”

“You could live without feeling like a crab.”

The bush warbler that had nearly forgotten its "Hoo-oo, hokekyo" song suddenly—as though regaining vigor—let out an untimely high-pitched cry. Once it regained its footing, the rest seemed to flow naturally. Inverting its body, vibrating the depths of its swelling throat, its tiny beak straining near to bursting,

"Hoo-oo, Hokekyō.
Hooooo, Hoke-kkyō—" it continued to trill without pause.

"That is the true song," the woman instructed me.

V

“Pardon my asking, master—are you from Tokyo after all?”
“Do I appear Tokyo-like to you?”

“You ask if you look it? One glance tells all—your speech gives you away first thing.”

“Can you tell where Tokyo is?”

“Well now.”
“Tokyo’s downright huge, you see.”
“—Doesn’t seem to be the downtown area.”
“It’s Yamanote, I bet.”
“Yamanote’s Kōjimachi, eh?”
“Huh?”
“Then Koishikawa?”
“If not, Ushigome or Yotsuya, I suppose.”

“Well, that’s probably about right.”
“You know it well.”

“You may not think it to look at me, but I’m a true Edo native.”

“That explains why I thought you were the genuine article.”

“Heh heh heh. When one ends up like this, it’s downright pitiful.”

“So why did you drift into this backwater?”

“Not a bit off—exactly as you say, Master. I just washed up here completely, you see. Ended up completely broke...”

“Were you originally a barber shop proprietor?”

“I ain’t no proprietor—just a craftsman.”
“Huh?”
“The place?”
“The place was Kanda Matsunaga-chō, y’know.”
“Ah, well—just some postage-stamp-sized dirty town, y’know.”
“You wouldn’t know about that, Master.”
“There’s this bridge called Ryūkan Bridge over there, y’know.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you even know that one?”
“Ryūkan Bridge’s a famous one, y’know.”

“Hey, could you put a bit more soap on? It hurts too much—this won’t do.”

“Hurtin’ ya now? See, I’m particular like that—gotta do a close shave like this, diggin’ into each whisker hole one by one, or I ain’t satisfied. What’s with today’s craftsmen? They ain’t shavin’—just strokin’, y’know. Just a bit more now—bear with it.”

“I’ve been patient since the start—done plenty of enduring already. I beg you, put on a bit more hot water or soap.”

“Can’t you bear it any longer? It shouldn’t hurt that much. It’s just that this beard’s grown out way too much.”

The barber, reluctantly releasing my cheek he had been pinching hard, took down a thin red soap from the shelf, dipped it briefly in water, and proceeded to slather it all over my face.
I hadn’t often had bare soap smeared on my face.
Moreover, when I considered that the water used to wet it had likely been drawn days before and left standing, it felt rather unpleasant.

Given that this was now a barber's establishment, I had no choice but to face the mirror as my customer's right required. Yet I had been considering relinquishing this right for some time now. A mirror, by its very nature as a tool, must be crafted flat to reflect human countenances smoothly—anything less constitutes a dereliction of its fundamental duty. Should one hang such an ill-made mirror and force others to confront it, that enforcer stands guilty of willfully disfiguring their subjects' appearances no less than an incompetent photographer might. While curbing vanity might serve as an ascetic exercise in self-discipline, there exists no justification for affronting a person by thrusting before them an image beneath their true worth—this crude proclamation of "This is you!" The mirror now compelling my reluctant gaze had indeed been insulting me from the very outset. Turn right, and my entire face became naught but nose; present my left profile, and my mouth split clear to the ear; tilt back my head, and I flattened like a toad viewed head-on; hunch slightly forward, and my cranium protruded like Fukurokuju's votive child statue. So long as I endured this accursed glass, I found myself obliged to single-handedly embody every manner of monstrous form. Even were I to first endure my reflection's artistic deficiencies, when considering holistically the mirror's warped construction, discolored surface, and peeling silver backing that permitted light to leak through in grotesque patterns, this very implement itself reached the pinnacle of ugliness. When subjected to a petty man's insults, the words themselves might cause no pain—but being forced to dwell beneath that same petty man's constant scrutiny would surely vex any soul.

Moreover, this barber was no ordinary barber.
When I had peered in from outside, he had appeared thoroughly bored—sitting cross-legged, continuously blowing tobacco smoke from his long pipe onto a toy Anglo-Japanese Alliance flag—but upon entering and entrusting my neck's positioning to him, I was astonished.
As he shaved my beard, I began to doubt whether full ownership of my neck now resided entirely with the barber or whether some portion still remained mine—so mercilessly was I handled.
Even if my neck were nailed to my shoulders, this wouldn't last long.

When wielding his razor, he understood nothing of civilized principles.
When it struck my cheek, there came a grating sound.
At my Adam's apple, the artery resounded with sharp vibrations.
When the keen blade flashed near my jaw, an eerie noise emerged—crunching, crunching—like trampling frost pillars.
Moreover, he prided himself as Japan's foremost master of his craft.

Finally, he was drunk.
Each time he uttered "Master," a strange odor accompanied it.
At intervals, peculiar fumes blew against the bridge of my nose.
In this state, there was no predicting when or how that razor might errantly fly.
Since even its wielder lacked clear intent, I—who had loaned my face—could scarcely surmise.
Having entrusted my visage with full awareness, I meant to voice no complaint over minor wounds—but were he to suddenly shift intent and slice my windpipe, catastrophe would ensue.

“Ain’t no need for soap or nothin’ when shavin’—my hand’s still green, but Master’s beard bein’ what it is,” the barber said as he tossed the unwrapped soap onto the shelf—only for it to disobey his orders and tumble straight down to the floor.

“Master—haven’t seen you around much—what brings ya? You come here recent-like?”

“I arrived just two or three days back.”

“Huh—where you puttin’ up at?”

“I’m staying at Shibata.”

“Ah, so you’re the guest there? Figured as much. Truth is, I came here countin’ on that retired gentleman myself.”
“See—back when he was in Tokyo, I lived nearby—that’s how I know him. Good sort, he is.”
“Get it now?”
“Last year his wife passed—now he just fusses with antiques all day—but there’s some real treasures there, I tell ya.”
“They’d fetch a hefty sum if sold, so they say.”

“There’s a rather beautiful young mistress there, isn’t there?”

“That’s dangerous.”

“What is?”

“What d’you mean ‘what’? Right before your eyes, Master, but she’s a returned woman, I tell ya.”

“Is that so?”

“Ain’t no time for ‘Is that so?’ nonsense. If it were up to everyone, she shouldn’t have had to come back at all. The bank collapsed—couldn’t keep up the high life no more—so she came crawlin’ back. Makes for awkward obligations, don’t it? While the retired gentleman’s still around like that, it’s all well and good—but if somethin’ were to happen to him, there ain’t gonna be no way to settle things proper.”

“Is that so?”

“Of course it is, I tell ya. The main family’s brother—ain’t on good terms.”

“There’s a main family?”

“The main family’s house is up on the hill, I tell ya. Why don’t you go take yourself up there for a look-see? It’s a place with a lovely view.”

“Oi, can’t you put on another lather? It’s starting to hurt again.”

“A beard that keeps getting sore, isn’t it? It’s because your beard’s too stiff. With a beard like yours, Master, you absolutely must give it a shave once every three days, I tell you. If my shaving hurts you this much, you ain’t gonna last anywhere else, I tell ya.”

“From now on, I’ll do that. If you insist, I could come every day.”

“Are you planning to stay that long? Dangerous. Quit it, I tell ya. Ain’t no good in that. You get yourself tangled up with no-good things, and you never know what kinda trouble you’ll land in, I tell ya.”

“Why?”

“Master, that girl may look pretty, but she’s marked in her head, I tell ya.”

“Why?”

“Why? Master, the whole village says she’s mad, I tell ya.”

“That must be some sort of mistake.”

“But there’s actual proof, I tell ya. Quit it. She wouldn’t drink it!”

“I’m fine, but what evidence do you have?”

“It’s a strange tale, I tell ya.
Now take your time—have a smoke and come on out, I’ll tell ya. ――Shall I wash your hair?”

“I’ll pass on the head wash.”

“How ’bout I just get rid of the dandruff then?”

The barber unhesitatingly placed his ten grime-encrusted nails across my skull and, without warning, began vigorously raking them back and forth. These claws parted each and every strand down to its ebony root, plowing through barren borders like a giant rake sweeping back and forth at gale-force speed. I knew not whether hundreds of thousands of hairs grew upon my head, but every last strand was uprooted until the remaining ground swelled with earthworm-like welts across its entire surface - so violently did the barber rake through my skull that the residual force, penetrating through layers of earth, sent tremors from bone to brain matter.

“How’s that? Doesn’t that feel good?”

“What formidable skill.”

“Huh? This’ll leave anyone feelin’ fresh and clean, I tell ya.”

“My neck might come off.”

“You feelin’ that worn out? It’s all this spring weather’s doing, I tell ya. Damn this spring—makes the body all sluggish-like. C’mon, take a breather. Must be lonely stayin’ alone at Shibata Inn. Drop by for a chat sometime. Us Edo natives can’t have proper talks ’less it’s with fellow Edo folk, I tell ya. What’s this now? That Young Mistress still comin’ round to entertain you? Woman’s got no sense of boundaries—downright troublesome, I tell ya.”

"When the Young Mistress did whatever she did, my dandruff went flying and my neck nearly came off."

"Nah, it's all tangled up—no damn sense to this story.—Then that monk went and flipped things around..."

"That monk you mentioned—which one are we talking about?"

"The administrator monk at Kankaiji Temple..."

"In neither the administrator's quarters nor the head priest's residence has a single monk shown up yet."

"Oh right—since it's Kyūshō—ain't gonna work."
"He was this bitter-tongued monk who looked like quite the charmer—ended up gettin' mixed up with you, Reko—finally sent her that letter.—Wait now."
"Was he makin' advances?"
"Nah—it was a letter."
"Definitely a letter."
"So then—hmm—somehow the sequence gets twisted."
"Ah right—that's how it was after all."
"So then that fella went and got himself all shocked..."

“Who was shocked?”

“The woman, you see—”

“The woman was startled when she received the letter, I take it?”

“But if she were the sort to get shocked, that’d show some proper virtue—but shock ain’t even in the picture here.”

“Then who was surprised?”

“The one who tried putting the moves on her, I tell ya.”

“But he didn’t actually try to court her, did he?”

“Yeah, this is gettin’ frustratin’.”
“Nah, got it wrong.”
“He got the letter, see...”

“Then it must have been the woman after all.”
“Nah, it’s the man, see.”

“If it’s a man, then that monk, right?”
“Yeah, that monk, see—”
“Why on earth was the monk surprised?”

“Why, you see—while he was chantin’ sutras with the priest in the main hall, suddenly that woman came burstin’ in—ufufufufu. No matter what, it’s gotta be Kyouin, right?”

“What happened?”

“‘If she’s that adorable,’ she up and declares before Buddha himself, ‘let’s sleep together!’ Then chomps down on Mr. Taian’s neck.”

“Good heavens!”

“Taian looked downright flustered there—man alive! Got himself tangled with that madwoman Kyouin through letters, ended up sufferin’ terrible shame—then that very night sneaks off to hide himself away and dies…”

“Did he die?”

“I reckon he’s dead.”
“He couldn’t go on living.”

“I can’t say for certain.”

“Exactly! Since he was dealing with a madwoman, even if he died, it wouldn’t be clear-cut—so for all we know, he might still be alive, I tell ya.”

“That’s quite an interesting story.”

“Whether it was funny or not—the whole village was in an uproar over it, I tell ya."
“But she’s crazy to the core, see—just laughs it off like nothin’ happened. Now if you were steady as you are, Master, you’d be fine—but with her bein’ her, if you go teasin’ or anythin’, you’ll land in real trouble, I tell ya.”

“I’ll be a bit more careful, then.”
“Hahahaha!”

From the lukewarm shore came a salty spring breeze wafting gently along, lazily stirring the barber’s noren curtain. A swallow tilted its body to slip beneath and fluttered lightly into the mirror’s reflection. Across the way squatted a sixtyish old man beneath eaves, silently shucking shells—each clink of his knife sending red flesh retreating into bamboo baskets while empty husks glinted through two feet of heat haze ahead. Piled hill-like—oysters? Clams? Razor clams?—some collapsed into Sunakawa River’s depths below this floating world’s surface toward shadowy realms below; others accumulated anew beneath willows where he tossed spent shells without pause into shimmering air above—his basket bottomless vessel making spring days seem endless tranquil measure.

The Sunakawa River flowed beneath a small bridge of less than twelve feet, pouring its spring waters toward the beach. Where spring waters met the spring sea, irregularly arranged drying nets spanning several fathoms seemed to impart a fishy warmth to the soft wind that slipped through their meshes and blew toward the village. From between them, the color of the sea appeared as if a dull blade had been melted and patiently smeared.

This scenery and this barber simply did not harmonize with each other. Had the barber's personality been so intense as to rival the surrounding scenery in its impact upon my mind, I would have found myself standing between them, struck by a profound sense of incompatibility—like a square peg forced into a round hole. Fortunately, the barber was not such a great stalwart. No matter how much of an Edo native he might be, no matter how boldly he talked tough, he could not match this harmoniously serene grand atmospheric phenomenon of heaven and earth. Brandishing his glut of words in a relentless attempt to disrupt this harmony, the barber had already been reduced to a mere speck, floating within the blissful spring light.

Contradiction is a phenomenon that can only be observed when it arises between things or people of comparable standing—those who, whether in power, quantity, or spirit and physique, are as incompatible as ice and coal yet occupy positions of equal magnitude.
When the gulf between the two becomes exceedingly vast, this contradiction—ground down and polished through attrition—may instead coalesce into a component of some greater force and begin to act.
It is for this reason that the talented act as the hands and feet of the great, the ignorant act as the limbs of the talented, and cattle and horses can act as the confidants of the ignorant.
Now my barber performed a sort of comic act against the backdrop of boundless spring scenery.
He who ought to disrupt the tranquil spring atmosphere was instead deliberately enhancing it.
I found myself unexpectedly feeling akin to a carefree Yaji in mid-Yayoi.
This most lowly of braggarts formed a single harmonious hue within the spring day that embodied the visage of peace.

Considering this, the barber too was a man who could belong in a painting or a poem—though he should have returned long ago, he deliberately settled in to hold forth on all manner of topics. Just then, a small shaven head slid through the noren curtain.

“Excuse me, could I get a shave?”

and slipped in. He was a young monk who wore a white cotton kimono fastened with a round sash of the same material, over which he wore a coarse priestly robe like a mosquito net, appearing thoroughly carefree.

“Mr. Ryōnen. So, how about it—got scolded by the Master Priest the other day for dawdling, didn’t ya?”

“Nah, he praised me.”

“So you were sent on an errand, stopped to catch fish along the way, and then he praised you for being impressive?”

“Despite his youth, Ryōnen here often goes out playing and gets called impressive—so the Master Priest praised him!”

“No wonder your noggin’s all swollen! Shaving such a rude noggin’s a real pain, I tell ya. I’ll let it slide today, but next time, don’t come back without kneading yourself into shape.”

“If I have to be kneaded into shape, I’d rather go to a slightly more skilled barber.”

“Hahaha! That lumpy noggin of yours may be all bumps, but that mouth sure runs smooth!”

“Your blades may be dull, but your liquor tolerance sure isn’t!”

“You damn fool, calling my skills dull...”

“I didn’t say that.
“It was the Master Priest who said it.”
“Don’t get so angry.”
“Act your age.”

“Hmph—nothin’ funny ’bout that.—Hey, Master.”

“Huh?”

“Well these monk types live up on their high stone steps with not a care in the world—no wonder their tongues grow so sharp. Even a young monk like you’s got a mouth on ya—whoa there, tilt your head back more—I said tilt it!—If you don’t listen, I’ll cut ya—got it? There’ll be blood.”

"That hurts," he protested.
"Don't be so rough..."

"How d'ya expect to become a monk if you can't handle this much?"

"But I am a monk already!"

"Not a proper one yet.—Say, how'd that Mr. Taian die again, boy-monk?"

"Mr. Taian ain't dead."

"Ain't dead? Hmm."
"Should be dead though."

“After that incident, Mr. Taian steeled his resolve and went to Daibaiji Temple in Rikuzen to immerse himself in ascetic practice.”
“He’ll soon become a proper learned priest.”
“A most admirable path.”

“What’s admirable ’bout that?”
“Don’t matter if you’re a monk—there ain’t no righteous law praisin’ midnight flits.”
“You best mind yourself proper-like, hear?”
“Anyroad—quit yer bunglin’. Speakin’ o’women, that Kyōin wench still visitin’ the Master Priest?”

“I’ve never heard tell of any woman called Kyōin.”

“Thicker than mortar, you! She goin’ or not?”

“Kyōin may not come, but Miss Shiota does.”

“No matter how many of the Master Priest’s prayers you receive, it’ll never mend.”
“It’s wholly the late master’s curse afflicting things.”

“That young lady is an extraordinary woman.”
“The Master Priest frequently commends her.”

“When you climb up those stone steps, everything turns ass-backwards—ain’t no way anything works right.”
“Don’t matter what fancy words the Master Priest spins—a madwoman stays a madwoman. There! All shaved!”
“Now scram and get your scolding from the priest—and don’t come crawling back!”

“Nah—I’ll linger a spell longer and earn some praise first.”

“Do whatever the hell you want, you never-shut-up brat!”

“Hah! You crusty old shit-stick!”

“The fuck you say?!”

The bluish scalp had already passed through the noren curtain and was being blown by the spring breeze.

VI

I faced my desk at dusk.
I threw open both the shoji screens and sliding doors.
The inn's occupants were few in number, and the house was comparatively spacious.
The room I dwelled in, separated from the realm where those few people conducted themselves as such by winding corridors, remained undisturbed even by sounds in my contemplations.
The day felt quieter still.
The master, the daughter, the maid, and the manservant—it seemed they had all slipped away unnoticed, leaving me behind.
Had they withdrawn, they would not have retreated to any ordinary place.
It must have been to the land of mist or the realm of clouds.
Or perhaps clouds and water drew naturally near upon a sea too indolent to steer its course; before one realized when they had begun drifting, a white sail came wandering into that indistinct boundary between cloud and water—until at last the sail itself agonized over where to distinguish itself from cloud and water—to such a distant place they seemed to have withdrawn.
If not that, they must have abruptly vanished into spring itself, their former four great elements now transformed into invisible spiritual essences that left not a trace behind in the vast expanse between heaven and earth—even with a microscope's aid.
Or perhaps they had transformed into skylarks and, after singing their fill of yellow rapeseed blossoms, gone to linger where deep purple dusk unfurled its edges.
Or perhaps, after fulfilling their duty as horseflies to make long days longer still, they had failed to sip the sweet dew congealed on pistils and now lay prostrate beneath fallen camellias, sleeping fragrantly through this world.
At any rate, all was quiet.

The spring breeze that emptily passed through the empty house—its passage was neither obligation to those who would welcome it nor reproach to those who would block its path. It came of itself and departed of itself—such was the impartial will of the universe. My mind, chin propped on palm being as empty as the room I inhabited, allowed the spring breeze—uninvited—to pass through without reserve.

It was precisely because one thinks what they tread upon is earth that apprehension arose—might it not split asunder? Because one knows what they uphold is heaven, fear emerged that lightning might quake amidst thunder's rumble. As this fleeting world demands survival through contention with others, the suffering of the burning house proved inescapable. For those dwelling in an oriented world of east and west who must traverse profit-loss webs, factual love stood as foe. Visible wealth revealed itself as dirt. The name grasped and honor seized resembled honey that cunning bees appear to sweetly brew while discarding their stingers—so-called pleasure contained all suffering through material attachment.

Yet poets and painters existed who chewed this confrontational world's essence to its marrow, knowing purity through bone-deep comprehension. They dined on haze, swallowed dew, savored purples and appraised crimsons—reaching death without regret. Their pleasure attached not to things but assimilated into becoming things themselves. When fully transformed thusly, no earthly expanse offered foothold for selfhood—clay clods discarded effortlessly beneath tattered hats brimming with azure tempests.

To idly manifest this state sought not to startle market brats with demonic airs nor elevate oneself pretentiously—they simply proclaimed this realm's gospel to guide karmic multitudes. What we plainly call poetry's domain or painting's sphere comprised paths inherently walked by all.

Even those who had counted out their springs and autumns on bent fingers and lamented into white-haired old age could, when reflecting on their entire lives and sequentially examining the undulations of their experiences, awaken the joy of clapping hands through moments when faint light leaked from putrid corpses of being and they forgot themselves. If he claimed he could not, then he was a man whose life lacked purpose.

However, it could not be said that a poet's inspiration consisted solely in responding to specific matters and transforming into particular things.
There might be times when one becomes a single flower petal, other moments when one transforms into a pair of butterflies, or instances like Wordsworth where one turns into a cluster of daffodils that stir the heart amidst marsh winds—yet there were also occasions when my heart would be seized by indiscernible surrounding scenery, remaining unaware of what exactly had captivated it.
Some might say they touched the vital energy of heaven and earth.
Others might claim they heard a stringless zither within their soul.
Still others, finding it difficult to comprehend, might describe it as lingering in infinite realms and wandering through dimly discernible thoroughfares.
Whatever one chose to call it remained entirely their prerogative.
My current mental state—leaning vacantly against my karaki wood desk—was precisely this.

I was clearly not thinking of anything.
Or indeed, I was not seeing anything at all.
Because there was nothing moving with vivid colors upon the stage of my consciousness, I could not say I had assimilated with any particular thing.
Yet I was moving.
I was not moving within the world, nor was I moving outside it.
I was simply moving without purpose.
Not moving for flowers, nor for birds, nor in response to humans—I simply moved abstractedly.

Were I compelled to explain, I would say my heart was simply moving with spring. I would say that an essence—forged by striking together all spring's colors, winds, things, and voices; solidified and refined into an immortal elixir; dissolved in Penglai's divine liquid; then evaporated under Peach Blossom Spring's sun—had seeped through my pores unnoticed and saturated my heart before perception could intervene. Ordinary assimilation involved stimulation. It was precisely because there was stimulation that one found pleasure. In my assimilation, because it remained unclear what I had assimilated with, there existed not the slightest stimulation. Because there was no stimulation, there arose a serenity so profound it defied description. Tossed by wind, it stirred waves upon an absentminded surface—unlike that light, clamorous charm. One could describe it as resembling a surging blue sea moving from continent to continent across unseen fathomless depths. It merely lacked that measure of vitality. Yet within that very state lay happiness. The manifestation of great vitality contained within it the apprehension that this vigor might someday exhaust itself. In its ordinary form, such apprehension found no foothold. In my current mental state—lighter than usual—I was not only free from anxiety about my intense vitality wearing thin, but had transcended the ordinary realm where nothing proved particularly commendable or objectionable in my usual state of mind. By "lightness" I meant merely that it eluded capture; it held no implication of excessive weakness. The poets' terms—chōyū and tantō—had most keenly articulated this state of being.

I wondered how it would be to render this state of being as a painting.
However, it was certain not to become an ordinary painting.
What we commonly call paintings are nothing more than either transferring human affairs and natural scenery before our eyes onto silk canvas in their unaltered forms, or filtering them through my aesthetic sensibilities before transposing them.
If flowers appear as flowers, water reflects as water, and figures move as figures, then it is considered that painting has achieved its ultimate purpose.
Were I to rise above this and vividly animate upon the canvas those phenomena I have perceived, infused with the very essence of my perception—
Since embedding a special inspiration within the all-encompassing phenomena they have captured is the guiding principle of this type of artist, unless their perceived vision of phenomena bursts forth clearly from their brush tips, one cannot say they have created a painting.
Unless a work demonstrates that I observe certain things in a certain way and feel them in a certain manner—that this mode of observation and feeling neither stands in predecessors' shadows nor is governed by ancient legends, yet constitutes what is most correct and most beautiful—I dare not proclaim it as my creation.

There may be distinctions between subject and object, depth and shallowness among these two types of creators, but both share the commonality of only commencing their work upon receiving clear external stimuli.
However, now, the subject I was attempting to paint stood not so clearly defined.
Mobilizing every last sense and searching externally for this, I found myself unable to discern square or circular forms, red or green hues—let alone gradations of shade or variations between thick and thin lines.
My sensation did not come from without; even had it done so, since it formed no fixed scene within my field of vision, I could not raise a finger and clearly indicate this as the originating cause.
Some things existed merely as states of mind.
How could I render this mental condition into a painting? No—the true challenge lay in what concrete form I might borrow to make others dimly apprehend this psychic atmosphere.

Ordinary paintings could be created even without feeling, provided there was an object.
The second type became possible when both object and feeling coexisted.
With the third type—where only a mental state existed—one had no choice but to select an object perfectly suited to this condition to make it a painting.
Yet this object refused to emerge readily.
Even when it surfaced, it resisted cohesion.
At times when unified, its essence diverged completely from anything existing in nature.
Consequently, ordinary viewers would never accept it as a painting.
The creator themselves didn't recognize it as reproducing nature's fragments; they deemed it a triumph if they could convey even a fraction of their inspired mood and breathe some vitality into this elusive atmosphere.
I knew not whether any painter since antiquity had achieved full success in this arduous pursuit.
Those who had dipped their brushes into this school's methods included Wen Yuke's bamboo.
The landscapes from Unkoku's disciples.
Later works like Taigadō's scenery.
Buson's human figures.
As for Western painters—since most fixated on the concrete world rather than devoting themselves to ethereal spiritual resonance—how many could transmit transcendent divinity through such brushwork remained unknown to me.

Regrettably, the type of spiritual resonance that Sesshū and Buson strove to depict proved too simplistic and sorely lacking in variation. In terms of brushwork technique, I could never hope to match these masters—yet what I now sought to capture in painting was a far more complex sensibility. Precisely this complexity made the essence refuse containment within a single composition. Abandoning my chin-propped posture, I crossed arms on the desk and pondered, but no solution emerged. Colors, forms, tones needed to coalesce until my mind would cry "Ah! Here it dwells!"—I had to paint as one who after scouring sixty provinces for a lost child might glimpse them at some crossroads and think "There you are!" faster than lightning's flash. Such proved impossible. Were I but to sustain this creative momentum, others' opinions mattered not. Let them decry it as non-art—no resentment would stir me. Should color harmonies echo some fraction of this mood, should line curvatures express its vital breath, should compositional balance convey any measure of its grace—then whether form became ox or horse or neither concerned me not at all. Unconcerned yet impotent—I laid my sketchbook open and stared until eyes threatened to sink through paper, devising permutations that refused coherency.

I set down the pencil and thought.
Trying to capture such abstract fascination in painting was fundamentally misguided from the start.
Since humans differ little in essence, there must be others among the multitudes who have touched upon this same aesthetic thrill—people who had undoubtedly attempted to eternalize this fascination through some means.
If they did attempt it—what means might they have used?

Suddenly the characters for 'music' flashed before my eyes.
Indeed music must be that natural voice born when necessity compels in such moments.
I had only just realized music was something one should listen to and study—yet unfortunately remained utterly ignorant of its intricacies.

Next, wondering if it might become poetry, I ventured into a third domain.
I seemed to recall that a man named Lessing had established poetry's fundamental principle as dealing with events unfolding through temporal progression, positing that poetry and painting were distinct yet dual arts. Yet viewing poetry through this lens, the realm I now feverishly sought to express appeared unlikely to materialize at all.
In the mental state where I felt joy, there might indeed be time, but along time's flow there existed no sequential events needing arrangement.
It was not because one departed, two arrived, two vanished and three was born that I felt joy.
What brought me joy was that this essence had dwelt profoundly in the same place from the very beginning.
Since this essence already resided there fundamentally, even were one to translate it into ordinary language, there would be no need for temporal organization of materials.
Just as with painting, it could likely be achieved through spatial arrangement of scenic elements alone.
The sole problem lay in determining which imagery to bring into the poem to depict this vast, anchorless state—for once captured, success could be achieved even without adhering to Lessing’s theory.
Whether Homer or Virgil—it mattered not.
If poetry was suited to express a certain mood, then I believed this mood—though bound by time—could be rendered through language without relying on sequential events, provided it fulfilled painting's spatial requirements.

The debate didn't matter.
Having mostly forgotten about Laocoön and such, I realized thorough investigation might render my stance suspect.
In any case, painting having become untenable, I resolved to attempt poetry instead - pressing my pencil against the sketchbook as I rocked back and forth.
For some time I merely wished to set the sharpened tip in motion, yet found myself utterly incapable of moving it.
Suddenly forgetting a friend's name, I felt it teetering on my tongue's edge yet refusing to surface.
When I abandoned the effort there, this failed name finally settled deep within my gut.

When preparing kuzuyu, at first it remains powdery, offering no resistance to the chopsticks.
If you persist through this stage, stickiness gradually emerges, making your stirring hand grow heavier.
Even then, if you keep stirring without pause, you soon find yourself unable to sweep through.
Eventually the kuzu in the pot begins clinging to the chopsticks unbidden, vying for purchase of its own accord.
This is precisely what composing poetry means.

The pencil, finding no traction, gradually began to move with gathering momentum until after some twenty or thirty minutes—

Youthful spring, second and third months.
Sorrow grows with fragrant herbs.
Lonely blossoms fall in the deserted garden.
A plain zither lies across the empty hall.
A daddy longlegs hangs motionless.
Seal-script smoke coils around bamboo rafters.

I had managed to compose only these six lines.
When I read them back, every line seemed fit to become a painting.
In that case, I thought, I should have painted this from the start.
I wondered why poetry proved easier than painting.
Once I had come this far, the rest should flow without much struggle.
Yet next I wanted to versify emotions beyond painting's reach.
After agonizing over whether it should be this approach or that—finally,

Sitting alone without a single word.
In the heart's domain, a faint glimmer perceived.
Human affairs—all futile bustle.
This realm—who could forget?
Attaining a day's stillness.
Truly knowing life's century-long hustle.
Where shall these far-flung thoughts alight?
Distant and remote, the realm of white clouds.

And it was done.
When I read it through once more from the beginning, it proved somewhat engaging, yet when considered as a transcription of the divine realm I had just entered, it felt hollow and unsatisfying.
Since I was already at it, I thought I'd try composing another poem. Still gripping my pencil, I absently glanced toward the entrance and saw a sliding door being drawn open. Through the three-shaku-wide gap, a beautiful shadow briefly passed.
How curious.

When I turned my eyes to look at the entrance, something beautiful was already half-concealed within the shadow of the opened sliding door. Moreover, that figure seemed to have been moving even before I noticed it, passing by in the blink of an eye. I abandoned my poem and fixed my gaze on the entrance.

In less than a minute, the figure reappeared from the opposite direction.
A slender woman clad in a long-sleeved kimono walked soundlessly across the second-floor veranda opposite, moving with serene stillness.
I involuntarily dropped my pencil and abruptly halted the breath I had begun to draw through my nose.

The clouded cherry-blossom sky sank lower from the heavens with each passing moment, and now upon the veranda where evening rain was awaited, the shadow of a long-sleeved kimono came and went with grace. From my parlor across the six-ken courtyard, through the heavy air, it appeared desolately and vanished again.

The woman naturally did not utter a word.
Not even bystanders took notice.
She walked so quietly that even the sound of her hem brushing against the veranda failed to reach her own ears.
From the waist down, the hem pattern burst into vivid color—what design had been dyed there? It was too distant for me to discern.
The transition between plain fabric and pattern became naturally blurred, creating a sensation akin to the boundary between night and day.
The woman walked along the boundary between night and day.

Dressed in those long sleeves, how many times she intended to walk back and forth along the long corridor—this I could not fathom. How long she had been wearing that mysterious attire and continuing that mysterious walking—even I could not fathom. As for her underlying intent—that I could not fathom from the outset. That this figure should repeat actions—something that should by nature remain beyond comprehension—with such poise, such solemnity, such relentless frequency; that it should appear at the entrance only to vanish, vanish only to reappear; this evoked in me a sensation peculiarly uncanny. If these gestures lamented spring’s passing resentment, why did they remain so unconcerned? If these gestures were indifferent, why were they so adorned with splendor?

In the lingering allure of spring's fading hues that momentarily adorned the dim entrance like a phantom, could that obi fabric—so vivid it awakened the eyes—have been brocade?
The vivid fabric went and returned, enveloped in the pale evening, disappearing each minute into that distant beyond veiled in silent darkness.
It was as though the dazzling stars of spring, nearing dawn, were sinking into the depths of a profoundly purple sky.

When the Gate of Taigen opened of its own accord, about to draw this resplendent figure into the abode of darkness, I felt thus: With a golden screen at her back and silver candles before her, this attire meant for living amid lively chatter that treasures a spring evening's moment as worth a thousand gold—showing neither detested scenery nor signs of conflict—fades from the world of color and form, creating in some aspects a supernatural scene. Peering through the black shadow pressing closer moment by moment, I saw the young mistress standing solemnly—neither hurried nor panicked—maintaining the same measured pace as she wandered the same area. If she remained unaware of the calamity about to befall her, it would be the height of innocence. If she knew yet did not perceive it as calamity, then it was terrifying. The dark place was her true abode; only by returning this transient phantom to its original state within formless obscurity could she wander between being and non-being with such serene composure. On the long-sleeved kimono she wore, where intricate patterns faded and flowed into inevitable sumi ink, she hinted at her true nature.

Again I felt this: When a beautiful person falls into beautiful slumber and draws their last breath in this world while still lost in hallucinations, without even time to awaken, how anguished must have been the hearts of us keeping vigil by the sickbed. If one were to die with four sufferings and eight hardships compounded into a hundredfold agony, then not only the person themselves—who found no purpose in living—but even those close by watching might resign themselves to killing as merciful acceptance. But what crime could exist for a child who has fallen peacefully asleep to die? To be taken to the underworld while sleeping is akin to having one's precious life ambushed before resolving to die. If killing must occur, then let them at least understand it as inescapable karma, have them relinquish hope, and permit nembutsu chanting. When only the stark fact of death becomes confirmed before any conditions warranting it materialize—if this compels someone to voice Namu Amida Butsu in prayer for the departed—then through that very chant I would desperately want to call out "Hey! Hey!" and forcibly retrieve those already halfway across death's threshold. For those transitioning from temporary sleep to eternal slumber without noticing the shift, being recalled might feel like having frayed ropes of earthly desires violently yanked—an agonizing experience. Out of compassion, they might think: Don't call me back; let me rest undisturbed. Even so, we want to call them back. I resolved that if the woman's figure appeared at the entrance again this time, I would call out and try to rescue her from the waking world. Yet the moment I glimpsed that shadow slipping dreamlike through the three-foot space, my mouth became incapable of speech. While steeling myself to act this time, she glided effortlessly through. The instant I wondered why words failed me, she passed again—someone watching here, yet she passed without the slightest concern for how anxiously this person fretted on her behalf. In manner both vexing and pitiable, she passed without sparing concern for someone like me from the very first. While repeating "This time, this time," the cloud layer finally released its burden of rain threads with quiet solemnity, sealing away the woman's shadow in silence.

7

I'm cold.
Lowering the hand towel, I descended to the bathing area.

In the three-tatami room, I removed my clothes and descended four steps to emerge into a bath chamber spanning about eight tatami mats.
The land evidently knew no shortage of stone—the floor was paved with Mikage granite; they had excavated its center to four shaku depth and installed a tub comparable to those found in tofu shops.
Though called a bath, this too was laid with stone.
Given its designation as mineral water, it must contain various components; yet being perfectly transparent, it felt pleasant to enter.
At times I even took sips, but detected no particular taste or odor.
They say it cures illnesses, but having never inquired, I knew not what diseases it might remedy.
With no chronic ailments to begin with, its practical value had never crossed my mind.
The sole thought arising each time I entered was Bai Juyi's line: "The warm spring's waters, smooth, wash congealed fat."
Hearing 'hot spring' inevitably evoked that poetic mood expressed in those words.
Moreover, I considered any hot spring failing to conjure this feeling utterly worthless as such.
Beyond this ideal lay no further demands regarding hot springs.

When I slipped in, I sank down until the water reached my chest.
I didn't know where the hot water sprang from, but even under normal conditions it cleanly overflowed the bath's rim.
The spring stones, never drying, remained warmly wet; the heart of my stepping foot grew gently glad.
The falling rain skimmed night's watchful gaze with a hush sufficient to secretly nourish spring, yet the eaves' droplets grew ever frequent—plink, plink reaching the ear.
The trapped steam filled every corner from floor to ceiling, and wherever a gap existed, it strove to escape through even the tiniest knothole—such was the scene.

Autumn mist chilled, the drifting haze lingered serene; blue smoke from evening meals rose into the vast sky, entrusting my ephemeral form.
There were many kinds of pity, but only the steam of a spring night's hot spring softly enveloped the bather's skin, making me wonder if I were a man from an ancient world.
Though not so thick as to obscure what met the eye, should one but tear through a single layer of sheer silk, it proved no shallow thing—effortlessly revealing both people of the lower world and oneself.
Even when I tore through one layer, two layers, countless layers—this haze refused to release its visage, while from all directions the warmth buried me alone within a radiant rainbow.
There existed the expression "drunk on sake," but I had never heard the phrase "drunk on steam."
If it did exist, it could never apply to fog, and would have been too potent for mist.
Only when we prefixed 'spring night' to this haze did it feel truly fitting.

I supported my upturned head on the edge of the bath and tried to let my light body drift through the clear water to where there was no resistance. Gently, gently, my soul floated like a jellyfish. The world too would have been an easy place if one could adopt such a state of mind. I unlocked discernment's padlock and removed attachment's stopper. Let it be, I thought, as I merged completely with the thermal waters. For things that flow, there is no hardship in living. If one lets even their soul flow among flowing things, it would be more blessed than becoming a disciple of Christ. Indeed, when I thought of it this way, Tosaemon was poetic. I recalled Swinburne wrote in one of his poems about a woman finding blissful release in death beneath the water’s surface. The Millet’s Ophelia that had always troubled me now appeared rather beautiful when observed in this light. I had long wondered why someone would choose such an unpleasant place, but that indeed made for a painting. The sight of them flowing effortlessly—whether remaining afloat, remaining submerged, or alternately sinking and rising—all while retaining their natural form—was undoubtedly aesthetic. Then, by arranging various plants and flowers along both banks—if one could achieve a composed harmony between the water's hue, the complexion of the person flowing downstream, and the colors of their garments—it would undoubtedly have made for a splendid painting. However, if the expression of the person flowing downstream were perfectly serene, it would verge on becoming myth or metaphor. Convulsive agony needless to say shatters the entire spirit, but a calm face entirely devoid of allure fails to reflect human emotions. What kind of face should I paint to succeed? Millet’s Ophelia may have been a success, but I doubted whether his spirit resided in the same realm as mine. Millet was Millet, and I was I; therefore, I wanted to paint a poetic Tosaemon according to my own interests. However, the face I envisioned did not seem to arise so easily in my mind.

Floating in the hot water, I next tried composing a eulogy for Tosaemon.

If rain fell, you'd get wet.

If frost formed, you'd feel cold.

It'd be dark under the earth.

If you floated upon the waves,

If you sank beneath the waves,

If it were spring water, you’d have no suffering.

As I continued reciting under my breath while drifting idly, I heard a shamisen being played somewhere. Though abashed when called an artist and such, my knowledge of this instrument was most dubious—whether the second string rose or the third lowered, my ears had scarcely registered any effect. Yet on this quiet spring night where even rain lent charm, there was profound delight in floating within a mountain hot spring bath, my soul buoyed by thermal waters, while irresponsibly listening to a distant shamisen. Being so distant, I naturally couldn't discern what song was sung or what was played. There lay a certain charm in this. Judging by the composed quality of its tone, I thought it might be a futozao shamisen like those heard in jiuta pieces performed by kengyō masters from Kamigata.

When I was a child, there stood a sake shop called Manya before our gate where lived a girl named Miss Okura.
This Miss Okura would invariably practice nagauta ballads on tranquil spring afternoons.
When her rehearsals began, I would venture into the garden.
Before a tea field spanning some ten tsubo stood three pine trees aligned along the guest room's eastern side.
These pines—each trunk measuring a full shaku in girth—only achieved their graceful form when clustered together in trio.
Viewed through childhood eyes, these pines imparted profound contentment.
Beneath them sat an iron lantern blackened by rust upon an unnamed crimson stone, perpetually rigid as some obstinate old curmudgeon clinging to his ways.
I adored gazing at this lantern.
Before and behind it through moss-choked earth sprang nameless spring grasses—countenances oblivious to worldly cares—each solitary in fragrance, each solitary in joy.
Within these grasses I would discover just enough space to kneel, squatting motionless—this had become my custom during those days.
Beneath these three pines—contemplating the lantern, inhaling grassy perfumes, listening to Miss Okura's distant nagauta—lay my daily ritual of that time.

Miss Okura must have long since passed even the age of red headscarves, her face now grown quite accustomed to household matters as she stationed herself at the account counter.
I wondered whether she got along well with her husband.
Swallows return year after year—I wondered if they were busily working their beaks caked with mud.
I find swallows and the scent of sake forever inseparable in my imagination.

I wondered whether those three pine trees still stood in their fine form.
The iron lantern must have broken by now.
Did the spring grasses remember the one who once squatted among them long ago?
Even at that time, I had passed without uttering a single word—there was no reason they would recognize me now.
Miss Okura’s traveling robe was what they called a Suzukake; as for her daily voice, I could scarcely claim any familiarity with it.

As the shamisen's sound unfolded an unexpected panorama before my eyes, I stood amidst the familiar contours of a cherished past—having assumed the guise of that carefree boy who dwelled in memories twenty years gone—when suddenly the bathhouse door swished open.

Someone’s here, I think, keeping my body afloat while directing my gaze toward the entrance.
Because my head rested on the edge of the bathtub farthest from the entrance, the steps descending into the tub entered my vision diagonally across a space of two jō.
Yet nothing yet reflected in my upturned eyes.
For a while, only the sound of rainwater circling the eaves could be heard.
The shamisen had ceased playing without my noticing.

Before long, something appeared at the top of the stairs.
The only illumination in the spacious bathhouse came from a single small hanging lamp; even with this crystalline air filling the space, discerning anything clearly remained difficult.
Moreover, with rising steam compressed by the insistent rain within tonight's bath that had lost all refuge, determining who stood there proved impossible from the start.
Unless one descended a step, then two more into direct lamplight, none could tell whether it was man or woman.

The black figure moved one step downward.
The stepping stones appeared as soft as swan-down velvet; judging by the absence of footsteps, one might say they remained motionless.
Yet the outline rose slightly.
As a painter, I possessed an unexpectedly keen visual sense regarding human skeletal structure.
When the indistinct figure descended another step, I realized only the woman and I occupied this bathhouse.

As I floated there deliberating whether to speak or remain silent, the woman's figure had already appeared before me without fail.
When I beheld her form—jet-black hair flowing like clouds through steam permeated with soft light's molecules, her stature stretched to full slender height within faint crimson warmth—all notions of propriety, decorum, and public morals vanished from my mind, leaving only the conviction that I had discovered a truly beautiful artistic subject.

As for ancient Greek sculpture I cannot speak, but whenever I saw the nude paintings that modern French artists staked their lives upon, the traces of their attempts to depict overt fleshly beauty to its utmost extreme were vividly apparent, leaving me with an ineffable sense of lacking vital essence that tormented me until now.
Yet on each such occasion I could only deem them vaguely vulgar, and not knowing why they felt vulgar, I unwittingly tormented myself seeking an answer until this very day.
If one covers the flesh, the beautiful thing remains hidden.
If you do not conceal it, it becomes vulgar.
Contemporary nude paintings refuse to confine their artistry to mere vulgar exposure.
Merely depicting figures stripped of garments proves insufficient; they insist on thrusting nudity itself into a robed-and-crowned world.
They forget that clothedness constitutes humanity's natural state while attempting to vest nakedness with full authority.
What should suffice with ten parts they press to twelve parts, fifteen parts - endlessly striving to forcefully proclaim "Behold! This is nudity!"
When technique reaches this extreme, people rightly deem such compulsion of viewers vulgar.
When one frantically strives to make beautiful things yet more beautiful, those very things often diminish in beauty instead.
This explains why the proverb warns that in human affairs too, excess invites loss.

Absentmindedness and innocence demonstrate composure.
Composure constitutes an essential condition in painting, poetry, or prose.
The great flaw of contemporary art lies in how this so-called tide of civilization needlessly drives artists into becoming obsessively constrained and petty at every turn.
Nude paintings serve as a prime example of this.
In cities exist those called geisha.
They trade in allure and make their business flattering others.
When facing their clients, they can manifest no expression beyond considering how their appearance reflects in those eyes.
The salon catalogs viewed year after year overflow with nude beauties resembling these geishas.
Not only are they incapable of forgetting their own nudity for even a single second—they strain every muscle in their bodies striving to display their nakedness to viewers.

The figure now gracefully manifesting before me bore not a single mote of this vulgar world’s gaze to obscure it. To say she had cast off the garments that ordinary people wear would mean she had already fallen into the human realm. It stood as natural as if one had summoned forth a divine form from the age of gods—unaware from the very beginning that garments to wear or sleeves to sway might exist—into the midst of clouds.

The steam filling the room continued surging up endlessly even after saturating every corner. The spring night’s lamplight dissolved into translucence, spreading through a richly swaying world of rainbows where—amidst the haze—a pure white figure gradually emerged from beneath the clouds, her hair haloed in darkness so profound it verged on blackness. Behold the contour.

The line that pressed gently inward from both sides at the nape and cascaded effortlessly toward the shoulders curved richly and roundly, its flowing end likely dividing into five fingers.
Beneath the two breasts floating plumply, the momentarily receding wave smoothly swelled back, serenely revealing the tautness of the lower abdomen.
The taut force pulled backward, and from where its momentum waned, the parted flesh tilted slightly forward to maintain equilibrium.
The knees now receiving this counterforce straightened themselves, and as they reached the heel of the long undulation, the flat feet peacefully resolved all conflicts within their twin soles.
In this world there existed no composition more complex than this; nor any composition more unified than this.
A contour so natural, so supple, so free of resistance, so effortless could never be found.

Moreover, this figure was not thrust blatantly before my eyes like an ordinary nude.
Enveloped in a spiritual aura that transformed all into mysterious profundity, it merely hinted with refined subtlety at beauty's full measure.
Like scales scattered through splashed ink that let one envision a coiling dragon's mystery beyond the brush tip, it possessed an artistic vision flawless in atmosphere, warmth, and profound resonance.
If dragons rendered with thirty-six scales descend into absurdity, then viewing bare flesh through pure clarity before explicitness holds lingering fascination.
When my eyes fell upon this contour, I beheld it as Chang'e—she who fled the cassia-tree moon capital—now encircled by rainbow pursuers and hesitating momentarily.

The contour gradually emerged white.
Just as I thought that with one more step, the precious Chang'e would alas fall into the mundane world, her green hair stirred a gust like the tail of a sacred turtle cleaving waves, wildly billowing.
Cleaving through swirling smoke, the white figure leaped up the stairs.
A woman's sharp laughter—hohohoho—echoed through the corridor as the quiet bathhouse gradually faded into the distance.
I remained standing bolt upright in the tub while gulping down the hot water.
A startled wave struck against my chest.
The sound of hot spring water overflowing the rim splashed steadily.

VIII

I was treated to tea.
The fellow guests were a single monk—the priest of Kankaiji Temple, whose name I heard was Daitetsu.
There was also one layperson: a young man of twenty-four or twenty-five.

The old man’s room was situated at the end of the corridor—turning right from my room’s hallway, then left to reach the dead end.
The size was probably six tatami mats.
Because a large rosewood desk occupied the center, it felt more cramped than anticipated.
Looking at the seating area, a floral rug lay spread in place of a futon.
It was undoubtedly Chinese-made.
The center was partitioned into a hexagon, with strange houses and peculiar willows woven into it.
The surrounding area was dyed in steel-blue indigo, with tea-colored rings bearing arabesque patterns at each corner.
Whether this was ever used in Chinese sitting rooms seemed doubtful, but seeing it employed here as a futon substitute proved remarkably intriguing.
Just as what they call Indian chintz or Persian wall hangings derive value from their artless simplicity, this floral rug too possessed charm in its unpretentiousness.
It wasn’t just the rug—all Chinese utensils shared this unassuming quality.
They could only be products of a simple-minded yet patient race.
As I gazed upon them, there was something precious in how they induced meditation.
Japan creates art objects with a pickpocket’s precision.
The West makes things grand in scale yet intricate in detail, forever shackled to worldly concerns.
Thinking thus, I took my seat.
The young man settled beside me, claiming half the floral rug.

The priest sat on the tiger skin.
The tiger skin’s tail extended past my knee, while its head lay spread beneath the old man’s buttocks.
The old man had completely plucked out the hair from his head as though transplanting it to his cheeks and chin, sporting a bushy white beard, and was meticulously arranging teacups—each set on a saucer—upon the desk.

“Since we have guests after such a long time, I thought I’d serve some tea…” he said, turning toward the priest,

“Ah, thank you for your trouble.”
“I’ve neglected to visit for quite some time myself, so I was just thinking today might be a good day to come by.”
This priest, nearing sixty with a round face, possessed features resembling a cursive-script rendition of Bodhidharma.
He appeared to be on intimate terms with the old man from their usual interactions.

“So this must be our guest?”

The old man nodded as he let two or three drops at a time of an amber-hued liquid tinged with green drip from the vermilion clay teapot into the base of the teacup.
A faint, pure fragrance assailed my nostrils.

“It must be lonely for you here alone in the countryside,” the priest immediately addressed me.

I gave a vague “Uh...” that captured neither here nor there.
To say I felt lonely would have been a lie.
Had I claimed otherwise, a lengthy explanation would have ensued.

“Oh, it’s nothing, Priest.
This gentleman has come here to paint—he’s quite occupied enough.”

“Ah! So that’s how it stands! Splendid.”
“Then you belong to the Southern School after all?”

“No,” he answered this time.
Even if he called it Western painting—this priest would likely never grasp such things.

"No, it's that Western painting we discussed," the old man interjected, half assuming his role as host.

“Ah-ha! Western painting, eh? So it’s the sort of thing Mr. Kyūichi does then? That one—I saw it for the first time just the other day—he painted it quite beautifully indeed.”

“No, it’s mere trifles,” the young man finally spoke up.

“Did you show something to the priest?” the old man asked him.
Judging from their speech and demeanor, they seemed to be relatives.

“Oh no, I didn’t show him—the priest happened upon me sketching at Mirror Pond.”

“Hmm, I see—well, the tea is poured. Have a cup,” the old man said as he placed teacups before each of us.
The amount of tea was no more than three or four drops, but the teacup was exceedingly large.
On a base of raw clay wall color, something was thickly painted in burnt vermilion and pale yellow—whether a picture or pattern, perhaps resembling a Noh demon mask’s design—it proved impossible to discern at a glance.

“This is by Mokubei,” the old man explained briefly.

“This is intriguing,” I remarked simply.

“Mokubei pieces are often counterfeited—examine the base here.”
“There’s an inscription,” he said.

I lifted the teacup toward the shōji screen. The shadow of a potted Hosta lay warm upon the paper panels. Tilting my head, I discerned the small carved character for ‘Mokubei.’ Though I consider inscriptions secondary to true appreciation, collectors fixate on such marks obsessively. Without lowering the cup, I brought it to my lips.

To let thick-sweet drops of this perfectly brewed nectar fall upon the tongue’s tip—this savoring constitutes poetry fit for leisurely souls. Common folk misunderstand tea as mere drinking. When a drop alights on the tongue’s crown and its purity diffuses outward, scant liquid remains to descend the throat. Only fragrance permeates from esophagus to stomach. Chewing is vulgarity. Water lacks substance. As for gyokuro—its richness transcends mere wateriness yet never wearies the jaw with hardness. An ideal beverage indeed. Should any complain of sleeplessness, I’d counsel embracing wakefulness through tea.

The old man had brought out a sapphire-blue sweets dish without anyone noticing.
A massive block hollowed out to such thinness and with such precise regularity—the craftsman’s skill struck me as truly astonishing.
When held up to the light, spring sunlight streamed through its entire surface; once poured in, it seemed to have lost all means of escape.
It was best to leave nothing inside.

“Since our guest praised the celadon ware, I thought to show a piece today—so I brought this out.”

“Which celadon—ah, that sweets dish there? I’m partial to that one myself. By the way—you there—in Western painting, do they not render things like sliding doors? If you do paint them, I’d have a request to make.”

If he wanted me to paint one, I could certainly oblige—but whether it would satisfy this priest was uncertain. To labor over it only to hear “Western painting won’t do” would render all my efforts vain.

"They’re not suitable for sliding doors."

"Hmm, perhaps not suitable. Come to think of it, Mr. Kyūichi’s painting from the other day might be a bit too flashy."

"Mine are worthless. Those are mere doodles," the young man insisted, blushing with humility.

"And where exactly is this so-called pond located?" I asked the young man for confirmation.

"It's in the valley behind Kankaiji Temple—a secluded spot. Well... I learned when I was in school, so I just tried it out to pass the time."

“Speaking of Kankaiji Temple...”

“That’s where this priest lives. Fine spot—overlooks the whole sea. You should drop by while you’re staying here. Why, it’s barely five or six chō from here. Look—from that corridor there, you can see the temple’s stone steps plain as day.”

“Might I visit sometime?”

“Course! I’m always about. The Young Mistress here comes often too... Speaking of whom—haven’t seen Miss Nami today. Anything amiss, Retired Master?”

“Perhaps she went out somewhere. Kyūichi, hasn’t she gone to your place?”

“No, she hasn’t appeared.”

“Off on another solitary stroll, perhaps? Ha ha ha ha! Miss Nami’s quite the walker. The other day when I went to Toginami on temple business—at Sugatami Bridge—I thought, ‘My, doesn’t she look familiar?’—and there was Miss Nami! Tucking up the hem of her kimono and slipping into her straw sandals—‘Reverend, what’s all this dawdling? Where do you think you’re going?’—she suddenly startled me—ha ha ha ha! When I asked, ‘You there—dressed like that, where in the world are you going?’ she said, ‘Just returning from gathering parsley—Reverend, would you like some?’ and suddenly stuffed mud-covered parsley into my sleeve—ha ha ha ha!”

“Well...” The old man forced a pained smile, then suddenly stood up. “I actually intended to show you this,” he said, steering the conversation back toward the artifacts.

The old crested damask bag that the old man reverently took down from the rosewood bookshelf seemed somehow weighty.

“Priest, have I ever had the honor of showing this to you?”

“What in the world is this?”

“The inkstone.”

“Oh? What kind of inkstone’s this?”

“The one said to have been treasured by San'yō...”

“No, I haven’t seen that yet.”

“With Shunsui’s replacement lid—”

“That doesn’t seem to be there yet.
Let me see.”

The old man carefully untied the mouth of the damask bag, and a square reddish-brown stone briefly revealed a corner.

“A fine color indeed. Duanxi stone?”

“A Duanxi stone with nine quyu eyes.”

“Nine?” The priest appeared deeply impressed.

“This is Shunsui’s replacement lid,” said the old man, showing a thin lid covered in rinsu silk. On it was inscribed a seven-character quatrain in Shunsui’s hand.

“Ah, I see. Shunsui’s technique is skillful—quite skillful—but in calligraphy, Kōhei surpasses him.”

“Perhaps Kōhei’s work remains superior?”

“San’yō fares worst of all. All flashy talent and vulgar flair—utterly devoid of substance.”

“Ha ha ha ha! Since you dislike San’yō, today I replaced San’yō’s hanging scroll.”

“Indeed,” said Priest Daitetsu, turning around.

The wooden floor of the alcove was polished to a mirror-like sheen, while in an antique bronze vase bearing patina, magnolias stood arranged to a height of two shaku. The scroll was mounted on antique brocade with a subdued luster—a large hanging work by Sorai that embodied meticulous mounting design. Though not silk fabric, having acquired some age over time, the paper's color harmonized well with the surrounding mounting brocade regardless of any debate about the calligraphy's skill. When first woven, that brocade likely lacked such refined elegance, but with its colors faded and gold threads muted, the gaudy elements receded while subdued tones came forth—it was through this transformation that it attained its splendid harmony. Against the dark brown sand-textured wall, white ivory scroll rods protruded conspicuously from both ends. Apart from those familiar magnolia branches that appeared to float softly in the foreground, the entire alcove's atmosphere felt excessively subdued—if anything, rather gloomy.

“Sorai, is it?” said Priest Daitetsu, keeping his head turned.

“You may not particularly care for Sorai either, but I reckoned him preferable to San'yō.”

“Sorai’s far better. Even if Kyōhō-era scholars’ calligraphy lacks technical skill, there’s an air of refinement about them.”

“If Hirotatsu were made Japan’s master calligrapher, then I—that is, Sorai—would be called inferior even to clumsy Chinese practitioners, wouldn’t I, Priest?”

“I wouldn’t know. Nothing worth boasting about! Ha ha ha ha!”

“By the way, Priest—under whom did you study calligraphy?”

“Me? Well...”
“Zen monks don’t read books or practice penmanship, you see.”

“But you must have studied under someone?”

“When I was young, I practiced Kōsen’s calligraphic style a bit.”
“That’s all there was to it.”
“Still, whenever folks ask, I oblige them with writing.”
“Ha ha ha ha!”
“Now then—let’s see that Duanxi,” Priest Daitetsu pressed.

At last they removed the damask bag.
Every eye in the room fixed upon the inkstone.
Its thickness neared two sun—likely double that of ordinary specimens.
Both width and length measured four by six sun—thoroughly average dimensions.
The lid used untreated pine bark polished scalewise, bearing two vermilion-lacquered characters in an obscure script.

“This lid,” said the old man.
“This lid is not merely a lid—as you can see, it’s certainly made of pine bark, but…”

The old man's eyes were looking in my direction. However, whatever connection this pine bark lid might have, as a painter I could not muster much admiration for it. "The pine lid is somewhat vulgar."

"I said.
The old man raised his hand as if to protest—
'Merely calling it a pine lid makes it seem vulgar, but this one is something more. When San'yō was in Hiroshima, he peeled pine bark from a tree growing in his garden and crafted this lid himself.'

Indeed, since I had thought San'yō was a vulgar man,
'If he was going to make it himself, he could have crafted it more crudely. He needn't have deliberately polished these scale-like patterns to such a glossy sheen—it would have sufficed as is,' I remarked bluntly, dismissing the matter."

“Ha ha ha ha! Exactly! This lid does look rather cheap,” Priest Daitetsu immediately agreed with me.

The young man gazed at the old man’s face with pity. The old man brushed aside the lid in evident displeasure. Beneath it, the inkstone finally revealed its true form.

If this inkstone possessed any feature demanding attention, it lay in the master carvings adorning its surface. At its center rose a circular bulge—the size of a pocket watch—carved nearly flush with the rim to resemble a spider’s abdomen. Eight legs curved outward from this central mass toward the four directions, each tip cradling a kingfisher-feather eye. The ninth eye at the abdomen’s center appeared stained as if dripping yellow sap. All areas except this spider motif and rim had been hollowed out to over one sun in depth. The ink reservoir surely couldn’t lie at this trench’s bottom—even pouring a full gou of water would fail to fill such depth. One would likely ladle a single water droplet from the vessel onto the spider’s back, grinding it into precious ink. Otherwise, despite its name, this was merely decorative stationery.

The old man said with a mouth that looked ready to drool.

“Please look at this texture and these eyes.”

Indeed, the more I looked, the more beautiful its color became.
On that cold yet lustrous surface, I thought that were one to suddenly exhale, it would instantly condense and form a single cloud-like formation.
What was truly astonishing was the color of the eyes.
Rather than speaking of their hue, it was where each eye met its surrounding ground that they gradually shifted colors—so seamlessly that I could scarcely discern when the transformation occurred, my own vision thoroughly beguiled.
To describe it, it was as though green beans had been embedded deep within purple steamed bean jelly at a depth where they remained visible through translucency.
When it comes to eyes, even one or two would be considered immensely valuable.
To have nine eyes—there could hardly be any equal.
Moreover, these nine were arrayed with such orderly precision at equal intervals that one might mistake them for an artificially crafted object—a configuration that left no choice but to acknowledge this as a masterpiece under heaven.

“Indeed, it is splendid. Not only is it pleasant to look at—it’s delightful to touch like this,” I said as I handed the inkstone to the young man next to me.

“Do you think Kyūichi here can understand such things?” asked the old man with a laugh. Kyūichi, with a somewhat resigned air,

“I don’t understand a thing,” he retorted brusquely, but perhaps realizing it was too precious to simply leave this incomprehensible inkstone before him and stare at it, he picked it up again and returned it to me. After carefully caressing it once more, I finally returned it reverently to Priest Daitetsu. After thoroughly examining it on his palm—apparently finding this insufficient—Priest Daitetsu vigorously rubbed the sleeve of his rat-gray cotton kimono against the spider’s back and began intently admiring the resulting luster.

“Retired Master, this color is truly splendid. Have you ever used it?”

“Nah, I ain’t had much call to use it since buyin’ it, so it’s stayed just as is.”

“Told ya. Even in China, something like this would be rare, Retired Master.”

“That it is.”

“I’d like to have one myself.”
“If you’ll allow it, should I ask Mr. Kyūichi?”
“What say you—could you fetch one for me?”

“Heh heh heh.”
“I’ll likely die before ever finding another inkstone like this.”

“This is truly no time to be discussing inkstones. When will you be departing?”

“I will depart within two or three days.”

“Retired Master.
Please escort him to Yoshida.”

“Under normal circumstances, given my age, I’d say it’s manageable enough. But depending on how things go, we might never meet again—so I intend to see him off.”

“You needn’t see me off, Uncle.”

The young man appeared to be this old man’s nephew.
Indeed, they did resemble each other in some way.

“Oh now, having him escorted would be best.
“Taking the riverboat makes it no trouble at all.
“Eh, Retired Master?”

“Yes, crossing the mountains would prove difficult, but if we go by boat along the detour...”

The young man offered no particular refusal this time.
He simply kept silent.

“Are you being sent to China?” I tentatively asked.

"Yes."

The two-character reply felt insufficient, but seeing no need to press further, I held my tongue. When I looked at the shoji screen, the orchid’s shadow had shifted slightly.

“Oh, it’s nothing, you. This war—since he volunteered before—that’s why they drafted him now.”

The old man recounted to me the fate awaiting this youth who would soon march to Manchuria’s plains, speaking on the young man’s behalf. I had been mistaken to believe this dreamlike spring village contained only singing birds, falling blossoms, and bubbling hot springs. The real world had crossed mountains and seas to encroach upon this isolated village inhabited solely by Heike descendants. A ten-thousandth part of the blood staining northern wildernesses might yet gush from this youth’s arteries. Smoke might yet billow from the long sword hanging at his waist. And so this youth sat beside a painter who found no value in life beyond dreaming—so close I could hear his heart’s beating were I to listen. Within those pulses already echoed the high tide that would sweep across a hundred leagues of plain. Fate had abruptly brought us together under one roof and would say nothing more.

IX

“Are you studying?” the woman said.
Having returned to my room, I was reading a book taken from those fastened to the tripod desk.

“Please come in.”
“Not at all.”

The woman strode in without a hint of hesitation.
From within the faded half-collar, the color of her elegant nape emerged vividly.
When she sat before me, the contrast between that neck and the half-collar was the first thing that caught my eye.

"Is that a Western book? It must be full of difficult things."

"Oh, it's nothing."

"Then what's written in it?"

“Well... To be honest, even I don’t fully understand it.”

“Ohoho. So that’s what you call studying?”

“It’s not studying. I just lay it on the desk like this, open it at random, and read whatever passage presents itself.”

“And you find that interesting?”

“That’s precisely why it’s interesting.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because with novels and such, reading them that way is more interesting.”

“You’re quite eccentric.”

“Yes, I’m a bit eccentric.”

“What’s wrong with reading from the beginning?”

“If you must read from the beginning, then it follows you must read through to the end.”

“What strange logic! There’s nothing wrong with reading through to the end, is there?”

“Of course there’s nothing wrong with that. If one wants to follow the plot, even I would do that.”

“If you’re not reading the plot, then what are you reading? What else is there to read besides the plot?”

I thought—ah yes, she was indeed a woman. I felt somewhat compelled to test her.

“Do you like novels?”

“Me?” The woman paused before offering an ambiguous reply: “Well, let’s see...”
She didn’t seem particularly fond of them either.

“Don’t you think even I don’t know whether I like them or not?”

“Whether you read novels or not...”

Her eyes showed complete disregard for novels’ very existence.

“Then whether reading from start to finish, finish to start, or skimming random sections – isn’t it all equally meaningless?”
“There’s no need for you to find such peculiar significance in it.”

“But you and I differ fundamentally.”

“Where?” I stared into the woman’s eyes.
I thought this was the moment to test her, but her eyes remained utterly still.

“Ohoho. Don’t you understand?”

“But you must have read quite a lot in your youth.” I abandoned the head-on approach and took a slight detour.

“I still consider myself young, you know.
How pitiful.”
The released hawk swooped at it once more.
I couldn’t afford to lower my guard for even a moment.

“If you can say such things in front of a man, you might as well count yourself among the elderly,” I finally managed to steer back.

“And you say such things—aren’t you getting on in years yourself? Even at your advanced age, do you still find things like crushes, swellings, pimples and such amusing?”

“Yes, it’s interesting—interesting right up until death.”

“Oh, is that so.
“So that’s how one becomes an artist like you.”

“Precisely.
Because I'm an artist, there's no need to read novels from beginning to end.
But no matter where I read, it’s interesting.
I find talking with you interesting.
I want to talk with you every day while I’m staying here.
If need be, I could even fall for you.
Then it’d be even more interesting.
But no matter how much I fall for you, there’s no need for us to become husband and wife.
As long as there’s a need to fall in love and become husband and wife, there’s a need to read novels from beginning to end.”

“So artists engage in this inhuman way of falling in love, is that it?”

“It’s not inhuman. It’s a way of loving through non-human emotions. Because I read novels through non-human emotions, things like plot don’t matter at all. That’s why it’s interesting—opening them like drawing a sacred lot, flipping to a random page, and reading whatever lies before me in this detached manner.”

“I see, that does sound intriguing. Then do tell me a bit about where you’re reading now. I’d like to hear what interesting things might come up.”

“I can’t talk about it. Even paintings would lose all value if reduced to mere talk, wouldn’t they?”

“Hohoho. Then please read it.”

“In English?”

“No—in Japanese.”

“Translating English into Japanese as I read would be arduous.”

“What does that matter? Approach it through non-human emotions.”

Deeming this an intriguing challenge, I acquiesced to the woman’s request and began reciting passages from the book in fragmented Japanese.
If any method existed in this world for reading through non-human emotions, this was undoubtedly its purest manifestation.
The woman listened through those same non-human emotions.

“Tenderness flows like wind from a woman.
From her voice, her eyes, her skin it streams.
This woman leaning on a man’s arm as they approach the prow—does she seek to behold Venice at dusk? Does the man support her to feel electric blood surge through his veins? —But through non-human emotions, such details become irrelevant.
“Certain passages may elude proper rendering.”

“Of course. You may add whatever you like to suit your convenience.”

"The woman leans against the gunwale beside the man. The space between them was narrower than a ribbon’s width fluttering in the wind. The woman says she will leave for Venice with the man. The Doge’s Palace in Venice now fades crimson like a second sunset..."

“What is a Doge?”

“It doesn’t matter what it is. It’s the name of someone who ruled Venice long ago, you know. How many generations did that continue, I wonder? That palace still remains in Venice, you know.”

“So who exactly are this man and woman you’re referring to?”

“Who they are—I don’t know either. That’s precisely what makes it interesting, you see. The past relationship doesn’t matter one bit, I tell you. It’s simply that when we’re together like this, you and I, there’s an interest that exists only in the moment—isn’t there?”

“Is that how it works? It somehow feels like being on a boat.”

“Whether it’s a ship or a hill, whatever is written there will do. If you start asking why, you turn into a detective.”

“Hohohoho. Then I shan’t listen.”

“All ordinary novels were invented by detectives.”
“They lack any trace of non-human emotions, so they’re utterly devoid of appeal.”

“Then I shall hear the continuation of this non-human emotions.
“And then?”

"Venice sinks and sinks, becoming nothing but a faint line drawn across the sky.
The line breaks.
Breaks into a point.
In the opalescent sky, round pillars stand here and there.
Finally, the loftiest bell tower sinks.
The woman says it sank.
The heart of the woman leaving Venice is as free as the wind traversing the sky.
However, the hidden Venice imposes upon the heart of the woman who must return once more the suffering of fetters.
The man and woman fix their eyes upon the dark bay.
The stars gradually increase.
The gently swaying sea does not splash foam.
The man grasps the woman's hand.
It was as though he gripped a never-ceasing vibrating string…"

“This doesn’t seem particularly non-human emotions after all.”

“What do you mean? This can be experienced through non-human emotions, I tell you. But if it’s disagreeable, shall I omit some parts?”

“Oh, I’m perfectly fine.”

“I am even more fine than you are.—Now then, hmm, it’s gotten a bit difficult.”
“It’s rather hard to transla—no, hard to read.”

“If it’s difficult to read, you may skip over it.”

“All right, let’s handle this appropriately.”
——“This single night,” says the woman.
“One night?”
asks the man.
“To limit it to one shows no affection—‘It is through accumulating many nights,’ he says.”

“Is it the woman who says this, or the man?”

“It’s the man who says it. It must be that the woman doesn’t want to return to Venice. And these are the man’s words of consolation—lying on the midnight deck with rigging ropes for a pillow, within the man’s memory swayed moments—that instant resembling a drop of hot blood, that instant when he firmly grasped the woman’s hand—swayed like great billows. The man, gazing up at the black night, resolved to rescue the woman from the abyss of her forced marriage. Having thus resolved, the man closed his eyes.—”

“What about the woman?”

"The woman wanders lost along the path, yet seems unaware where she strays."
"Like one abducted and carried through the sky—nothing but infinite mysteries—the rest proves rather difficult to read."
"It simply won't coalesce into verse."
"—Nothing but infinite mysteries—is there no verb here?"

“What need is there for verbs? That’s more than sufficient.”

“Huh?”

With a thunderous roar, every tree on the mountain resounded. The moment our gazes met involuntarily, the camellia in the single-stem vase atop the desk swayed unsteadily. "Earthquake!" whispered the woman in a hushed voice as she sank to her knees and leaned against my desk. Their bodies moved until barely touching. With a piercing screech and violent wingbeats, a pheasant burst forth from the thicket.

“A pheasant,” I said, looking out the window.

“Where?” the woman asked, her posture collapsing as she drew her body closer.
My face and the woman’s face drew near enough to almost touch.
The breath from her slender nostrils brushed against my beard.

“You’re being inhuman!” she declared sharply, immediately straightening her seated posture.

“Naturally,” I answered without hesitation.

The spring water pooled in the hollow of the rock swayed dully with a lazy undulation, startled.
As tremors through the earth stirred waves from their depths upward, the surface merely traced irregular curves without breaking into foam anywhere.
If ever there were an occasion to use an expression like "moving harmoniously," this would surely qualify.
The mountain cherry tree that had been calmly casting its reflection now stretched and shrank with the water's motion - bending here, twisting there.
Yet however much it changed shape, it still distinctly retained its cherry blossom form - an utterly fascinating phenomenon.

“This is delightful. Beautiful, and ever-changing. It’s only interesting if it moves like this.”

“If humans were to move in such a manner, then no matter how much they moved, they’d remain perfectly safe, wouldn’t they?”

“You couldn’t move like this without practicing Non-Human Emotions.”

“Hohohoho! How devoted you are to your precious Non-Human Emotions.”

“You’re hardly unpleasant yourself. As for yesterday’s furisode...” I began.

“Won’t you give me some reward?” the woman suddenly cooed in a honeyed tone.

“Why?”

“Didn’t I show it specially because you expressed a desire to see?”

“Was that me?”

“The painting teacher who crossed the mountains apparently made a particular request to the old woman at the tea shop.”

For a moment I found myself at a loss for a proper response.
She pressed her advantage without mercy:

“No matter how sincerely one appeals to such a forgetful person, it’s all wasted effort,” she continued, her voice blending mockery, resentment and direct assault—firing her second arrow.
My position grew increasingly precarious, but having lost the initiative, I found it hard to discern an opening for counterattack.

“Then last evening’s bathhouse incident was also entirely due to your kindness, I presume,” I finally managed to recover at the critical moment.

The woman remained silent.

"I'm terribly sorry.
‘What shall I give you in thanks?’ I put forth this offer as proactively as possible.
No matter how much I proposed, it proved utterly futile.
The woman gazed at Priest Daitetsu’s forehead with an air of feigned innocence."

After a moment,

"Bamboo shadows sweep the stairs; dust remains unmoved."

Having quietly finished reciting the lines under her breath, she turned back toward me, but—as if suddenly remembering something—

"What was that?"

she asked deliberately in a loud voice.
"I won’t bite at that bait."

"I met that monk earlier," she said, her movements as harmoniously fluid as pond water shaken by an earthquake.

"The priest from Kankaiji Temple?"
"He’s quite fat, isn’t he?"

"He said, 'Paint karakami paper in Western style for me.'"
"Zen priests sure do say some incomprehensible things."

“That’s precisely why he’s grown so corpulent.”

“And then... I encountered another young man.”

“Kyūichi, I presume?”

“Yes, Kyūichi-kun.”

“How remarkably well-informed you are.”

“Oh? You only recognize Kyūichi-kun?”
“You remain utterly ignorant of all else.”
“How you do detest proper conversation.”

“Oh, it’s nothing—I’m simply being reserved.
“He’s still just a child...”

“A child? Isn’t he about your age?”

“Ohoho! Is that so?
“That’s my cousin—he came to bid farewell before leaving for the battlefield.”

“Are you staying here?”

“No, I reside at my brother’s house.”

“So you made this trip expressly to drink tea?”

“I prefer plain hot water over tea.
“Though I wish Father wouldn’t summon me—but since he insists.
“You must have been troubled when the numbness wore off.
“Had I been present, I would have sent him home midway through...”

“Where have you been?”
“The priest was asking about you—‘Another solitary walk, eh?’”

“Yes, I took a walk around Mirror Pond.”

“I’d like to go to that Mirror Pond too, but…”

“Go and see for yourself.”

“Is it a good place for painting?”

“It’s an excellent place to throw oneself in.”

“I don’t intend to throw myself in just yet.”
“I may throw myself in before long.”

Because it was too bold a joke for a woman, I abruptly looked up.
The woman remained unexpectedly composed.

"When I throw myself in and float there—not struggling as I float—having passed on peacefully as I float—paint me a beautiful picture of that."

"Huh?"

"Surprised, surprised—you were surprised, weren't you?"

The woman stood up gracefully.
When she exited through the room entrance in three steps, she glanced back and smiled softly.
I remained in a daze for some time.

Ten

He came to Mirror Pond and looked.
From Kankaiji Temple's back road, descending through cedars into the valley before ascending the opposite mountain, the path forked into two branches, naturally becoming Mirror Pond's perimeter.
Along the pond's edge grew an abundance of dwarf bamboo.
In some places, the vegetation grew so thickly from both sides that one could hardly pass through without making a sound.
When viewed through the trees, the pond's water was visible, but one could not discern where it began or ended without first making a full circuit around it.
When walked around, it proved unexpectedly small.
It was probably no more than three chō around.
It had a highly irregular shape, with rocks lying naturally here and there along the water's edge.
The height of its banks undulated like the pond's indescribable shape, irregularly connecting various rises and dips.

Around Mirror Pond grew an abundance of mixed trees.
Impossible to count how many hundreds there were.
Among them were those that had not yet sprouted spring buds.
In areas where branches grew relatively sparse, still basking in the radiant spring sun, there was even sprouting undergrowth.
The faint shadows of violets glimmered here and there amidst them.

Japanese violets have a sleeping quality about them.
"The Westerner’s verse that had described it as 'like a divine whimsy' could hardly apply."
The moment this thought occurred to me, my feet came to a halt.
If my feet stopped moving, I would stay there until weariness overtook me.
To be able to remain here is to be a happy person.
If one were to do such a thing in Tokyo, they’d immediately be killed by a train.
If the trains didn’t kill you, the policemen would chase you off.
The city mistakes its peaceful citizens for beggars and pays high monthly salaries to detectives who are bosses of pickpockets.

I gently settled my tranquil posterior onto a grassy cushion. Here, even were I to remain motionless like this for five or six days, there would be no fear of anyone voicing complaint. Herein lies nature's blessing. While merciless and unyielding in extremity, it never adopts the fickle manner of altering its dealings based on who stands before it. Countless exist who disregard Iwasaki and Mitsui. Impassively indifferent to imperial authority across ages—only nature could render them as irrelevant as beasts of different species. Nature's virtue soars beyond this dusty world, establishing boundless absolute equality. Rather than marshaling earth's petty multitudes to needlessly provoke Timon's wrath, far wiser to nurture orchids across nine fields and irises along a hundred furrows, dwelling solitary behind them. I name this fairness; I name this selflessness. If such principles hold such vital import, one might as well slaughter a thousand petty thieves daily to fertilize garden blooms with their corpses.

Somehow my thoughts had descended into logic and become utterly tedious.
I did not come all the way to Mirror Pond just to refine such middle school-level musings.
I took out tobacco from my sleeve and struck a match with a swish.
There was resistance, but no flame appeared.
When I lit the tip of the Shikishima and tried to smoke it, smoke came out of my nose.
Ah, so I had actually inhaled—it finally dawned on me.
The match, nestled in the short grass, emitted a slender salamander-like wisp of smoke for a moment before expiring into nothingness.
Shifting position, I gradually moved out to the water’s edge to look.
My grassy seat naturally extended into the pond, stopping just short of where dipping my feet might meet lukewarm water.
I peered into the water.

The area within sight did not appear particularly deep.
At the bottom, slender water plants lay lifelessly submerged.
I knew no words to describe them other than "peaceful demise."
Had they been pampas grass on the hill, they would have known how to sway.
Were they algae, they might have waited for waves' inviting mercy.
These submerged aquatic growths at the pond's bottom—which showed no sign of movement even if one waited a hundred years—having prepared every posture appropriate for motion, passing days and nights in anticipation of playful currents that never came, gathering generations' accumulated yearnings within their stems, appeared to persist in this state: unable to stir yet incapable of complete demise.

I stood up and picked up two suitable stones from the grass. Thinking it would make good karma, I tossed one into the water before me. Two bubbles surfaced with a blooping sound and disappeared instantly. Gone at once, gone at once, I repeated silently to myself. Peering through the water, I saw three long strands of hair swaying languidly. As if hushing any revelation, murky water welled up from the depths to conceal them. Namu Amida Butsu.

This time, I resolutely threw it with all my might toward the center.
A faint, hollow plop sounded.
Quiet things never take notice.
I no longer felt like throwing any more.
Leaving my paint box and hat behind, I turned to the right.

I climbed a steep incline of about four meters on tiptoe.
A large tree loomed overhead, and my body suddenly grew cold.
Camellias were blooming in the dark area of the opposite shore.
The camellia leaves' green was too deep, lacking any sense of lightness whether seen in daylight or sunlight.
These camellias in particular had retreated three to five meters back from the rocky outcrop into a place so secluded that one would notice nothing there without the flowers, clustered in profound stillness.
Those flowers!
Even if one counted them all day, there were naturally too many to tally completely.
But once the eye noticed them, they were so vivid that one inevitably wanted to count every last one.
They were merely vivid, with not the slightest hint of cheerfulness.
Flaring up as if ablaze, I found myself utterly captivated—then everything took on an unsettling intensity.
No flower deceives people as profoundly as this.
Every time I saw mountain camellias, I invariably conjured the image of an enchantress.
With black eyes she lures people close, then before they know it, blows bewitching poison into their veins.
By the time you realize you've been deceived, it's already too late.
When the camellias on the opposite shore came into view, I—ah—thought: I shouldn’t have looked.

That flower's color was not merely red.
Beneath their ostentatious brilliance—startling enough to rouse the eye—lay an indescribably somber undertone.
Pear blossoms withering despondently in rain evoked nothing but pity.
Under coldly lustrous moonlight,the Chinese flowering apple inspired only endearment.
The camellias' sinking differed entirely.
A darkened,turgid,dread-laden tone they bore.
Bearing this tone at their roots,yet arrayed above in unrelenting ostentation.
Nor did they fawn upon observers,nor make show of invitation.
Bursting bloom-plummeting fall-plummeting fall-bursting bloom again,living centuries through seasons settled deep in mountain shadows unseen by human eyes.

Just one glance—and that was the end! Those who saw could never again escape her sorcery. That color was not merely red. It was a peculiar shade—like the blood of slaughtered prisoners that instinctively drew the human eye yet inherently sickened the heart.

As I watched, a crimson one fell onto the water with a soft plop. In the quiet of spring, the only thing that moved was this single bloom. After a while, another fell with a soft plop. Those flowers never scattered. Rather than crumbling, they detached from the branch while remaining intact. When they detached, they did so all at once, appearing resolute—yet even in falling, their clustered form carried an ominous toxicity. Another fell with a soft plop.

As they kept falling like that, I thought the pond water might turn red. The area where flowers floated quietly still seemed slightly reddish to me. Another fell. It floated so quietly that one couldn't discern whether it had landed on earth or water. Another fell. I wondered if that would ever sink. Might the myriad camellias that fell year after year—soaking in water, their colors dissolving, rotting into mud—finally sink to the bottom? Thousands of years hence, this ancient pond might, unbeknownst to anyone, be buried by fallen camellias and return to its original flatland. Another large one, smeared with blood, fell like a will-o'-the-wisp.

Another falls.
Plop and plop they fall.
They fall without end.

While thinking, "What if I painted a beautiful woman floating here," I returned to my spot, lit another cigarette, and began blankly pondering.
The words Miss Nami from the spa had jokingly uttered yesterday swelled and washed through my memory.
My heart swayed like a lone plank riding a great wave.
Taking that face as my seed, I'd float it beneath camellias and drop blooms from above.
I wanted to capture camellias eternally falling and a woman eternally floating - but could such a scene ever be painted?
Laocoön be damned - Laocoön matters not.
Whether you defy principles or follow them - what matters is conveying that essential mood.
Yet expressing eternity beyond humanity while remaining human proves no simple task.
First obstacle: the face.
Even borrowing that face, its expression won't suffice.
Should pain dominate, it would destroy everything.
Yet careless serenity proves equally inadequate.
What if I changed it entirely?
I ticked options off my fingers - this face? That one? - but none satisfied.
Still Miss Nami's face seemed most fitting.
Yet something felt lacking.
I recognized this lack, yet couldn't pinpoint its source.
Thus I couldn't casually invent through imagination alone.
What if I added jealousy to that face?
Jealousy brings too much unease.

What about hatred?
Hatred proved too intense. Anger?
Anger would shatter all harmony.
Resentment?
Were it poetic resentment—something like "spring-weariness"—that might suffice, but mere base resentment felt too vulgar.
After much deliberation, I finally arrived at it.
Among the manifold emotions, I had overlooked the one marked by the character for 'pity'.
Pity—an emotion unknown to the gods, yet the most divine of human sentiments.
Not the faintest trace of this pity showed in Miss Nami's countenance.
Therein lay the deficiency.
Should some sudden impulse make this emotion flash across that woman's brow in an instant, my painting would achieve completion.
Yet—when such a moment might come remained unknowable.
What perpetually filled her face was naught but a derisive smile and brows furrowed in ceaseless striving—striving to conquer.
That alone could never suffice.

Crunch, crunch went the sound of footsteps.
The design in my mind crumbled two-thirds complete.
Looking up, I saw a man in a tube-sleeved kimono crossing through bear bamboo toward Kankaiji Temple, firewood loaded on his back.
He must have descended from the neighboring mountain.

"What fine weather we're having," he greeted, removing his hand towel.
As he bent down, the hatchet blade slipped into his three-foot sash flashed brightly.
He was a sturdy man in his forties.
He looked familiar.
The man acted with the presumptuous familiarity of an old acquaintance.

“Do you paint as well, Master?”
My paint box lay open.

“Ah.
I came thinking I might paint this pond too, but it’s such a lonely spot.
No one passes through.”

“Right you are.
Truly in the mountains... Master, having had you alight at the pass, you must’ve been quite troubled.”

“Huh? Ah—you’re that horseman from back then, aren’t you?”

“Right.
"This is how I cut firewood and take it down to the castle town," said Genbei as he unloaded his burden and sat down atop it.
He took out a tobacco pouch.
It was old.
It was unclear whether it was paper or leather.
I lent him a match.

"Crossing that place every day must be quite a hardship."

“Nah, I’m used to it—and I don’t cross it every day.
“Once every three days—sometimes it might stretch to around the fourth day.”

“Even once every four days would be too much for me.”

“Ahahaha!
“I feel sorry for the horse, so I keep it to around the fourth day.”

“Well now. Putting your horse before yourself, eh?” “Hahaha!”

“It’s not quite like that...”

“By the way, this pond must be quite ancient. How old would you say it is?”

“It’s been here since olden times.”

“Olden times? How far back do you mean?”

“They say it’s been here since way back when.”

“Since way back when? I see.”

“They say it’s been here since back when the young mistress of Shibata threw herself in.”

“Shibata—you mean that hot spring town?”

“Right you are.”

“But if the young mistress threw herself in, she’s clearly alive and well right now, isn’t she?”

“Nah.
“Not that young mistress.”
“It was a young mistress from long ago.”

"A young mistress from long ago."
“About when was that, exactly?”

"They say she was a young mistress from way back when…"

“Why did that young mistress from long ago throw herself in?”

“That young mistress, they say she was just as beautiful as the current one, Master.”

“Hmm.”

“Then one day a komuso came...”

“When you say ‘bonnonji,’ you mean a komuso?”

“Right you are.
“That komuso who plays the shakuhachi.
While he was staying at the Shibata estate, that beautiful young mistress took a fancy to him—call it fate if you will—and wept, begging to be with him.”

“She wept.
Hmm.”

“But the estate owner refused.
Said a komuso couldn’t become a son-in-law.
Finally drove him out.”

“That komuso?”

“Right you are. There, the young mistress chased after the komuso all the way here—threw herself from that pine tree over there—and finally caused a great uproar. They say she was holding a mirror at that time, according to what’s been passed down. That’s why even now we call this pond Mirror Pond.”

“Huh. So there was already someone who threw themselves in, huh?”

“It’s truly an outrageous affair.”

“How many generations ago was that? That was...”

“They say it was from way back when. And then—this stays between us here, Master—”

"What is it?"

"In that Shibata household, madness arises through the generations."

“Huh…”

“It’s truly a curse.
“They say even the current Young Mistress has been acting a bit strange lately, and everyone’s gossiping about it.”

“Ha ha ha ha! There’s no such thing.”

“Oh, but there might be!
“But that Madam Mother was also a bit odd, you see.”

“Is she still at home?”

“No, she passed away last year.”

"Hmph," I closed my mouth, watching a thin wisp of smoke rise from the cigarette butt.

Genbei left with a load of firewood on his back.

If all I do since coming here to paint is dwell on such thoughts and listen to such stories, no matter how many days pass, I'll never complete a single piece.
Since I've gone to the trouble of bringing out my paint box, I really ought to at least sketch a rough draft today.
Fortunately, the scenery on the opposite side was somewhat composed as it stood.
I'll dash off a quick sketch there as a token effort.

A bluish-black rock over ten feet tall jutted straight up from the pond's depths, its rugged form imposing at the bend where the dark water turned. On its right side grew the familiar dwarf bamboo, clustered thickly from the cliff top down to the water's edge without an inch of space between. Above, a large pine tree with a trunk three arm spans in girth—entwined with young vines—twisted diagonally, leaning out over the water’s surface with more than half its bulk suspended above. The woman who carried a mirror in her bosom must have leapt from that very rock.

I settled onto the tripod stool and surveyed the materials before me for painting. Pine, bamboo, rock, and water—but where to delineate the water I could not tell. If the rock’s height was ten feet, its shadow too measured ten feet. The dwarf bamboo grew so vigorously from the water’s edge into the depths that one might suspect it continued beneath the surface, its reflection vivid all the way to the pond’s bottom. As for the pine tree, its height soaring into the sky compelled one to look up, and its shadow too was remarkably elongated. The mere dimensions captured by the eye could never be contained within a composition. I might as well abandon the actual objects and paint only their shadows—that could prove an interesting diversion. Drawing the water, drawing the shadows within the water—if I showed this to others as a painting, they would surely be astonished. But merely astonishing would be dull. Unless they were astonished by how it truly became a painting, it was pointless. Wondering how to devise a method, I stared intently at the pond’s surface.

Strange thing was, focusing solely on shadows yielded no painting whatsoever. I felt compelled to devise a method by comparing them with their real counterparts. Turning my eyes from the water's surface, I slowly shifted my gaze upward. My vision traced the ten-foot crag from shadow's tip to where stone met water's edge, then gradually extended over the liquid plane. From that lush vitality of form, I meticulously examined each wrinkle's pattern as I climbed higher. When at last my eyes reached the perilous summit, I dropped my brush like a toad paralyzed beneath a serpent's stare—the implement clattering against rock.

Backlit by sunset filtering through verdant branches, amidst indigo-black hues coloring the crag's crown in late spring twilight, sharply delineated was the woman's face—the very face that had startled me beneath blossoms, startled me in visions, startled me through long-sleeved silks, startled me in bathhouse steam.

My gaze remained nailed piercingly to the center of the woman's pale face, refusing to budge.
The woman stood motionless atop the high crag, stretching her supple body to its fullest extent without moving a finger.
This single instant!

I leapt up involuntarily.
The woman twisted her body lithely.
No sooner had I glimpsed something red as a camellia flower flicker within her obi than she had already leapt down to the other side.
The setting sun grazed the treetops, faintly staining the pine trunk.
The dwarf bamboo grew increasingly green.

Once again, I was startled.

Eleven

I took a leisurely stroll through the mountain village under spring haze. While ascending Kankaiji Temple's stone steps, I composed a verse titled "Counting Spring Stars: One Two Three." I had no particular business meeting the priest. Nor any desire for idle chatter should we meet. Having left the inn by chance and wandered wherever my feet led, I found myself at the base of these stone steps. For some time I stood caressing the stone engraved "No Meat or Wine Beyond This Gate," then on a sudden impulse of delight began climbing.

The book Tristram Shandy states that no writing style aligns more perfectly with divine approval than its own method. The first line I manage through my own efforts at least. Thereafter I simply pray to God and let my brush follow its course. What to write next remains beyond my knowing. The writer may be oneself, but writing itself belongs to God. Thus they say responsibility lies not with authors. My strolls too adopted this method—strolls of irresponsibility. To not even rely on God makes them doubly irresponsible. Sterne evaded responsibility by transferring it heavenward to God above. Having no deity to receive this burden, I finally cast it into muddy ditches.

Even when climbing stone steps, I didn't climb if it required effort.
If it required effort, I would turn back immediately.
When I climbed one step and stood there, I felt somehow pleasant.
That was why I climbed two steps.
Upon reaching the second step, I felt compelled to compose a poem.
Silently, I gazed at my shadow.
It was curious how the corner stones divided them into three sections.
Finding it curious, I climbed further.
I looked up and gazed at the sky.
From the sleepy depths, small stars twinkled incessantly.
Thinking it would become a verse, I climbed again.
Thus, I finally reached the summit.

Atop the stone steps, I recalled.
When I once visited Kamakura for leisure and wandered about visiting the so-called Five Mountains—likely at one of Engakuji Temple's subsidiary temples—as I trudged up similar stone steps just like these, a monk emerged from within the gate wearing a yellow robe, his shaven head's bowl-like crown prominent.
I ascended; the monk descended.
As we passed each other, he asked sharply, "Where might you be going?"
"I merely wish to view the temple grounds," I answered, halting my steps. Whereupon he immediately retorted, "There's nothing to see!" and strode briskly downward.
Finding this too clever by half, I stood atop the steps seeing him off with a vague sense of being outmaneuvered. The monk vigorously shook his shaven head—that bowl-like crown—back and forth until his figure disappeared among the cedars.
Throughout that time, he never once looked back.
Indeed, Zen monks are amusing.

Thinking "How brisk they are," I lumbered through the temple gate and saw that both the spacious priests' quarters and main hall stood utterly deserted, without a soul in sight.
At that moment, I felt genuinely delighted from the bottom of my heart.
When I considered that there existed such a stylish person in this world who would treat others with such elegance, I somehow felt my spirits lift.
It was not that I had any understanding of Zen.
I still don't know even the 'ze' in Zen.
It was simply that I took a liking to that monk with the shaven pate and his manner of conduct.

The world was filled with tenacious, venomous, petty, and moreover brazenly repugnant wretches.
There even existed those whose very purpose for exposing their faces to this world defied comprehension.
And it was precisely those faces that were so large.
They took pride in presenting maximum surface area to the winds of this fleeting world, as if it were some great honor.
For five years—ten years—they attached detectives to people's buttocks, counted their daytime farts, and considered this human existence.
Then they came before others to inform them, unasked—"You've let out how many farts—how many you've let out."
Had they said it to your face, one might have considered it—but instead they declared from behind: "You've let out how many farts—how many you've let out."
Tell them "That's annoying," and they'd say it more.
Tell them to stop, and they'd say it more.
Even if you said you understood, they'd say how many farts you'd let out—let out.
And they declared this to be their philosophy of life.
Policies were matters of personal discretion.
They should have quietly set their course without harping on 'how many farts.'
It was only polite to refrain from policies that inconvenienced others.
If they insisted policies couldn't be established without causing inconvenience, then I too would adopt farting as my own policy.
Were that to happen, Japan too would meet its downfall.

In this way, walking without setting any particular course on a beautiful spring night was truly a noble pursuit.
When inspiration arose, I made its arising my policy.
When inspiration departed, I made its departure my policy.
If a verse came to me, I established my policy where it was gained.
If none came, I established my policy where none was gained.
Moreover, it troubled no one.
This was the true policy.
Counting farts constituted a policy of personal attack; releasing farts formed a policy of self-defense; ascending Kankaiji Temple's stone steps in this manner embodied a policy of following circumstances with carefree abandon.

Having composed a verse about counting spring stars one-two-three, when I finally reached the top of the stone steps, the dimly glowing spring sea appeared like a ribbon.
I entered the temple gate.
The quatrain lost any will to be composed.
I immediately established a policy to abandon it.

To the right of the stone-paved path leading to the priests' quarters stood a hedge of hill azaleas; beyond it likely lay a graveyard. To the left was the main hall. At their highest points, the roof tiles faintly glimmered. I looked up—it seemed as though tens of thousands of moons had fallen upon tens of thousands of tiled roofs. Somewhere pigeons cooed incessantly; they must have been nesting beneath the ridge too. Perhaps it was my imagination, but white specks appeared scattered near the eaves. They might have been droppings.

Where rainwater dripped down, strange shadows stood aligned in a row. They resembled neither trees nor any manner of plant. To my eye, they appeared as demons from Iwasa Matabei's painting *Oni no Nenbutsu* - those who had abandoned Buddhist prayer to take up dancing instead. From end to end of the main hall they stretched, a single file of shadows dancing with perfect discipline. Again those shadows stretched from one extremity of the hall to the other, maintaining their decorous formation as they danced. Seduced by the hazy night, they must have cast aside their ritual gongs, wooden clappers, and donation ledgers; having barely exchanged invitations before coming to dance at this mountain temple.

When I approached for a closer look, there stood a large saguaro cactus.
It appeared seven or eight feet tall, as if green cucumbers the size of loofahs—flattened like wooden ladles with their handles pointing downward—had been stacked upward one after another.
I could not tell how many of those ladle-shaped segments were stacked before reaching its end.
It seemed ready to break through the eaves that very night and emerge atop the roof tiles.
When those ladle-shaped segments formed, they must have suddenly emerged from somewhere and snapped into place.
The old ladle produced a new small ladle, but this small ladle did not seem to gradually grow larger over many years.
The succession of ladle-shaped segments appeared utterly absurd.
There could not be many trees as absurd as this.
And yet it put on such airs.
There was once a monk who, when asked "What is Buddha?" answered "The cypress tree in the courtyard," but should I face the same question, I would respond without hesitation: "The saguaro cactus beneath the moon."

In my youth, I read the travel writings of a man named Chao Buzhi, and there remains a passage I can still recite from memory.
"It was September: the heavens lofty, dew pure, mountains desolate, moon bright. Gazing upward at the stars—all radiant, as though poised above human heads. Dozens of bamboo stalks by the window rubbed against each other, their rustling voices ceaseless."
Amidst the bamboo, plum and palm trees loomed densely, resembling ghosts with disheveled hair standing apart.
Two or three companions looked at one another; their spirits so stirred, they found sleep impossible.
I repeated the line "At dawn, all departed" under my breath once more and inadvertently laughed.
Depending on time and circumstance, this saguaro cactus might have stirred my very soul and driven me back down the mountain at first sight.
When I touched the thorns, they pricked my fingers with a stinging irritation.

Having proceeded to the end of the stone-paved path and turned left, I emerged at the priests' quarters.
In front of the priests' quarters stood a large magnolia tree.
It was nearly an armspan in girth.
Its height towered above the roof of the priests' quarters.
When I looked up, the space above my head was branches.
Above the branches were yet more branches.
And above the overlapping branches was the moon.
Ordinarily, when branches overlap like that, the sky wasn't visible from below.
If there were flowers, it would become even less visible.
No matter how densely the magnolia branches overlapped, the spaces between them remained openly spaced.
The magnolia did not wantonly spread slender branches that might disturb the vision of those standing beneath.
Even the flowers remained distinct.
Even from this distant vantage point below, a single bloom remained distinctly visible as one.
One could not discern how densely that single bloom clustered or where its blossoms ended.
Nevertheless, each bloom remained distinctly a single bloom, and between each bloom and the next, the pale blue sky could be clearly seen.
The flower's color was of course not pure white.
To be needlessly white was too cold.
To be purely white appeared as an artful contrivance designed to captivate the eye.
The magnolia's color was not that.
Deliberately avoiding extreme whiteness, it adopted a warm-toned pale yellow, humbling itself with refined modesty.

I stood upon the stone pavement, gazing up at these modest flowers as they spread endlessly into the sky, and for a time remained utterly dazed.
Only flowers met the eye.
There was not a single leaf.

I gazed up at a sky filled with nothing but magnolia blossoms.

I had obtained this line.
Somewhere nearby, doves were cooing softly to one another.

I entered the priests' quarters.
The priests' quarters stood wide open.
This appeared to be a country without thieves.
Dogs naturally did not bark.

“Excuse me.”

With that, I announced my visit.
There was no response; the silence was profound.

“Please.”

I requested guidance.

The doves cooed coo-coo.

“I beg of you—!” I called out in a loud voice.

From the far distance came a response: “Ooooooh!”
Never in all my visits to people’s homes had I received such a reply.
Soon footsteps echoed through the corridor as a paper candle’s shadow fell across the other side of the screen.
The young acolyte popped into view.
It was Ryōnen.

“Is the reverend in?”

“He’s here.
What brings you?”

“Please inform them that the painter from the hot spring has come.”

“Ah, the painter.
Then come up.”

“You don’t mind?”

“I guess that’s fine.”

I removed my geta and stepped up.

"What an ill-mannered painter you are."

"Why?"

"Properly align your geta. Look here," he said, holding out the paper candle. In the middle of the black pillar, measured about five feet up from the earthen floor, something was written on a quartered sheet of Japanese paper.

“There!”
“You could read it, right?”
“It says ‘Look at your feet,’ but...”

“I see,” I said, carefully aligning my geta.

The priest's quarters were located down a corridor that turned at a right angle beside the main hall.
Ryōnen reverently slid open the shoji screen and prostrated himself across the threshold with equal deference.

"Um, Mr. Painter from Shibata has come," he said.
He maintained an attitude of profound humility.
I felt mildly amused.

"Ah, this way."

I exchanged places with Ryōnen.
The room proved exceedingly cramped.
Within lay a sunken hearth where an iron kettle sang.
The priest had been reading a book on the opposite side.

"Come through here," he said, removing his glasses and sliding the volume aside.

“Ryōnen.
“Ryōneeeen.”

“Y-y-yes.”

“Won’t you bring a cushion?”

“Y-y-yes,” replied Ryōnen from afar, his answer drawn out.

“Ah, you’ve come. You must be bored.”
“The moon was so lovely that I wandered over.”

“It’s a fine moon,” he said, opening the shoji. Apart from two stepping stones and a single pine tree, there was nothing else in the flat garden; beyond it, what appeared to be an immediate cliff edge—and beneath one’s eyes, the hazy night sea suddenly spread out. I felt suddenly expansive in spirit. Fishing fires flickered here and there; those in the farthest distance seemed intent on merging with the sky, transforming into stars.

“This is a splendid view. Reverend, isn’t it wasteful to keep the shoji closed?”

“True enough. But I see it every night.”

“You could gaze at this view any number of nights and still find it splendid. If I were you, I’d stay awake watching it endlessly.”

“Ha ha ha ha! But then you’re a painter—that makes you different from me.”

“Yet Reverend, so long as you perceive beauty, you too are a painter of sorts.”

“I suppose that holds some truth. Why, I can paint Daruma decently enough myself. Look—this scroll here was done by my predecessor, yet it’s rather skillfully executed.”

Sure enough, a painting of Daruma hung in the small alcove. However, as a painting, it was exceedingly poor. It simply lacked vulgarity. There was not a single instance where it strove to conceal its clumsiness. It was a naive painting. This previous priest must have been a carefree person like this painting itself.

“It’s a naive painting.”

“The paintings we make are plenty enough as they are."
“So long as the essence comes through...”

"Better crude purity than skilled vulgarity."

“Ha ha ha! Well then, I'll accept your generous praise.”
"Speaking of which—do painters these days have doctoral degrees?"

“Painters don’t have doctoral degrees.”

“Ah, right. The other day, I met some sort of PhD.”

“Oh?”

“When you say ‘PhD,’ that’s supposed to be something grand, ain’t it?”

“Yes. They’re supposed to be grand.”

“You’d think there’d be PhDs even among painters. Why wouldn’t there be?”

“Now that you mention it, there must be PhDs on your side as well, Reverend.”

“Ha ha ha ha! Well, perhaps that’s how it is. The person I met the other day was called something... I must have their business card somewhere around here...”

“Where did you meet them—in Tokyo?”

“No—here. As for Tokyo, I haven’t been there in twenty years. I hear they’ve started something called electric trains lately—makes me want to try riding one just once.”

“They’re tedious things. Just noisy.”

“Is that so? They say dogs in Shu bark at sunrises and Wu oxen pant at moonshine—so this country monk might get himself extra tangled up worrying about fancy trains now!”

“No trouble for you... Just dull iron snakes clanking through fields.”

“You think so?”

Smoke billowed vigorously from the iron kettle’s spout.
The priest took out tea utensils from the tea cabinet and poured tea.

“Have some coarse tea.
Not like that sweet brew of Shibata’s Retired Master.”

“No thank you.”

“You wander about like this—still painting then?”

“Yes.
I carry my tools with me, but don’t mind if I never paint.”

“Hmm—so it’s half in play then?”

“Hmm, I suppose so.”
“I suppose it’s all right to put it that way.”
“Because I dislike having someone tally my farts.”

Even the Zen monk seemed unable to comprehend this particular phrase.

“What’s this ‘tallying farts’ about?”
“Stay long enough in Tokyo and they’ll tally your farts.”

“Why?”

“Ha ha ha ha! If it were just tallying, that’d be fine. They analyze people’s farts, going on about unnecessary things like whether the anus is triangular or square!”

“Ah, so it’s about hygiene after all?”

“It’s not hygiene. It’s detective work.”

“Detective? I see, then it’s the police, ain’t it? What good are police and patrolmen anyway? Do we even need ’em?”

“Hmm, I suppose painters aren’t included in that.”

“Ain’t included me either. I’ve never had dealings with patrolmen.”

“I suppose so.”

“But however much them police tally farts, ain’t no need to mind it. Just keep your cool. If you ain’t done nothin’ wrong, no matter how much them police hound ya, they can’t do nothin’ to ya.”

“I can’t have them making a fuss over just a fart.”

“When I was a young acolyte, the previous head priest often said: ‘People won’t be said to have completed their training unless they can expose their entrails in the middle of Nihonbashi without shame, I tell ya.’ You should train until you reach that level. You won’t even need to travel anymore.”

“If I were to fully commit myself as an artist, I could enter that state at any time.”

“Then you should just fully commit to being an artist.”

“If they tally my farts，I can’t fully commit.”

“Ha ha ha! Look at this! That Miss Nami from Shibata’s where you’re staying—after returning from her failed marriage, all manner of things began tormenting her mind. She kept insisting she couldn’t endure it—until finally she came seeking my guidance.”
“But lately she’s come a long way—there, you see? She’s grown into quite a reasonable woman now.”
“Hmm... I had sensed she was no ordinary person.”
“Ah, she’s a sharp-witted one indeed—there was a young monk named Taian training under me who, through some trivial matter involving her, found himself compelled to unravel a grave karmic entanglement—an ordeal that should blossom into profound wisdom in time.”

In the quiet garden, shadows of pines fell; the distant sea, as if responding yet not responding to the sky’s light, emitted a faint glimmer amidst ambiguity.
The fishing lights flickered.

“Look at those pine shadows.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“Merely beautiful?”

“Indeed.”

“They’re beautiful, yet remain untroubled even when winds blow.”

I drank down the remaining bitter tea in the bowl, turned it threaded base upward, placed it on the saucer, and rose to my feet.

“I’ll walk you to the gate.”
“No need for that.”
“The guest is leaving now!”

Being seen off, when I exited the priest’s quarters, pigeons cooed coo coo.

“There’s nothing as endearing as pigeons. When I clap my hands, they all come flying. Want me to call ’em?”

The moon grew ever brighter.
In profound silence, magnolias held countless cloud-like blossoms aloft against the sky.
At spring night's desolate zenith，the priest abruptly clapped his hands.
The sound perished in wind，not one pigeon descending.

“Won’t come down，eh?”
“Should’ve come though…”

Ryōnen glanced at my face and chuckled faintly.
The priest appeared convinced pigeons could see through darkness.
Such carefreeness.

At the mountain gate, I parted ways with the two of them.
When I looked back, a large round shadow and a small round shadow fell onto the stone pavement and, moving one after the other, disappeared toward the priest’s quarters.

Twelve

I recalled Oscar Wilde’s theory that Christ embodied the highest degree of an artist’s attitude.
Christ remained unaware.
I believed someone like the priest of Kankaiji Temple truly possessed this qualification.
This did not mean he had artistic taste.
Nor did it mean he was well-versed in current trends.
He proudly displayed a Daruma scroll that barely deserved the name of painting, acting as though he had created something masterful.
He operated under the assumption that painters must possess academic doctorates.
He believed pigeons’ eyes could see even at night.
And yet he possessed the qualifications of an artist.
His mind was like a bottomless sack through which all things passed unimpeded.
Nothing lingered within.
Passing through every place, departing as it willed, with no scenery settling in the belly of dregs.
If even a shred of artistic taste could have adhered to his mind, he would have assimilated into that state and existed as a complete artist even while defecating or urinating.
Someone like me could never become a painter while being subjected to a detective tallying my every fart.
I could sit before an easel.
I could grip a palette.
But I could not become a painter.
In this way, having come to an unnamed mountain village and buried my five-foot emaciated frame amidst the fading spring hues, I was at last able to position myself in the attitude befitting a true artist.
Once I entered this state, the realm of beauty became mine entirely.
Though I stained no scrolls nor daubed an inch of silk, I was a first-rate master painter.

In technique, I might not have equaled Michelangelo nor matched Raphael’s mastery, yet in my essence as an artist, I stood shoulder to shoulder with the great masters of all ages without finding myself inferior in the slightest. Since coming to this hot spring town, I had not painted a single picture. The paint box even felt as though I had carried it here in some tipsy whim. People might have sneered that despite this, I was no painter. No matter how they ridiculed me, at that moment I was a true painter—a splendid painter indeed. Those who attained this state were not fated to create masterpieces without exception. Yet those capable of painting masterpieces must necessarily know this state.

Having finished breakfast and leisurely smoked a Shikishima cigarette, my contemplations at that time were as above.
The sun had freed itself from the haze and climbed high.
I slid open the shoji screens and gazed at the mountain behind; the blue-green trees appeared remarkably translucent and more vivid than ever before.

I have always considered the relationship between air, objects, and coloration to be one of the most fascinating studies in the universe.
Should one prioritize color to express the atmosphere? Prioritize objects to conceal it?
Or take atmosphere as primary and weave color and objects within?
A painting can produce various tones through mere concentration.
These tones differ according to each painter’s preferences.
That goes without saying – yet time and place naturally impose their own limitations.
Not a single landscape painted by the British is bright.
They may despise luminous works – but even admirers could achieve nothing under those skies.
Even among Britons, Gudāru employs entirely different tonal palettes.
Naturally they differ.
Though British himself, he has never painted British scenery.
His subjects lie beyond his homeland.
He selects only scenes from Egypt or Persia – lands where air’s transparency far surpasses his native clime.
Thus when viewers first encounter his paintings, all are astonished.
They’re rendered so vividly one doubts Britons could produce such brilliance.

Personal preferences couldn't be helped.
However, if our main purpose was to depict Japanese landscapes, then we too had to capture Japan’s unique atmosphere and hues.
No matter how skilled French paintings might be, one couldn’t claim they depicted a Japanese landscape by merely replicating their colors exactly.
After all, one had to immerse oneself in nature’s immediacy—studying cloud formations and mist patterns from dawn till dusk—and upon recognizing that precise hue immediately shoulder the tripod easel and rush out.
Colors shifted in an instant.
Once one missed that moment, the same hue eluded capture.
The mountain ridge I gazed upon brimmed with a chromatic splendor rarely witnessed in those parts.
Having ventured this far through spring's fading glory, letting such vision escape would have been unforgivable.
I resolved to go sketch it.

Opening the sliding door and stepping onto the veranda, I found Miss Nami standing across the way on the second floor, leaning against the shoji screen. She had buried her jaw in her collar, leaving only her profile visible. The moment I thought to greet her, she kept her left hand lowered while sweeping her right hand through the air like a gust of wind. A flash—could it have been lightning?—zigzagged two or three folds across her chest before slipping through with a metallic clink, its gleam vanishing instantly. In her left hand rested a white scabbard measuring nine and a half sun. Her figure disappeared at once into the shoji screen's shadow. I left the inn feeling as though I'd peered into the Kabukiza Theater first thing at dawn.

When I exited the gate and turned left, it immediately became a continuous rocky mountain path leading into a gentle ascent. Bush warblers sang here and there. To the left, the land sloped down into a gentle valley where mandarin oranges were planted across the entire expanse. To the right stood two low hills, and here too there seemed to be nothing but mandarin oranges. I had come to this place once some years before. I found it too troublesome to count on my fingers. It must have been during the cold twelfth month. At that time I first witnessed mandarins growing thickly upon Mikan Mountain. When I asked to buy a branch for picking mandarins, they answered, "Take as many as you like," and began singing a peculiar melody up in the trees. I thought how even in Tokyo one must visit an apothecary just to obtain mandarin peels. At night, gunshots would ring out incessantly. When I asked about them, a hunter told me they were catching ducks. Back then, I had managed without knowing even the first syllable of Miss Nami's name.

If that woman were made an actor, she would make a splendid onnagata.
Ordinary actors perform their craft formally when taking the stage.
That woman perpetually enacts theatricality within the household.
Moreover, she remains unaware of her own performance.
She embodies theatricality with innate naturalness.
One might term this existence an aesthetic life.
Through that woman's influence, I achieved significant progress in my artistic discipline.

Failing to perceive her gestures as theatrical artifice would render her presence unbearably eerie.
Analyzing her through conventional novelistic lenses - using duty or human sentiment as frameworks - would prove intolerably overstimulating.
Were any persistent connection to form between us in reality, my anguish would defy articulation.
This journey's purpose lies in divorcing myself from vulgar emotions to fully inhabit my painterly identity; thus I must perceive all sights as compositions.
She must be observed solely as a figure from Noh drama, stagecraft, or poetic verse.
Viewing her through this resolute lens reveals gestures surpassing all feminine grace I've witnessed.
Precisely because she lacks conscious artistic intent, her movements outshine even trained performers'.

One must not misunderstand me who harbors such thoughts.
To deem this conduct unsuitable for a member of society would be utterly improper.
Virtue proves difficult to practice; benevolence resists bestowal; integrity eludes steadfastness; sacrificing life for righteousness feels wasteful.
To dare undertake these acts brings pain to any soul.
To brave such pain requires pleasure lurking somewhere sufficient to overcome it.
What we call painting, poetry, or drama are but alternate names for pleasure concealed within this sorrow.
Only through comprehending this essence can our actions become both heroic and graceful—overcoming all hardships to yearn for satisfying that singular supreme pleasure within our hearts.
Setting aside bodily suffering, disregarding material inconveniences, and driven by fierce devotion's heart, one finds interest in being boiled in cauldrons for humanity's sake.
Were we to define art while standing upon human emotion's narrow foundation, then art would crystallize an irrepressible resolve lurking within us educated gentlemen—avoiding evil to adhere to righteousness, rejecting distortion to embrace integrity, supporting the weak while suppressing the strong—shining forth to reflect the white sun's radiance.

If I have a theatrical sense, there are times when I mock people’s actions. I mock how far removed from human emotions are those who dare to make unnecessary sacrifices merely to uphold their beautiful aesthetic sensibilities. I mock the folly of those who forcibly flaunt their own aesthetic views without waiting for opportunities to naturally manifest their beautiful character. The mockery of those who have truly comprehended the inner workings of individuality captures its true intent. As for those vulgar commoners who understand nothing of true taste—when they disparage others by comparing them to my own base nature, it is unforgivable. There was once a youth who left a poem upon a rocky precipice and plunged straight down a fifty-jo waterfall into raging rapids. In my view, that youth cast away a life that should not have been cast aside for the sake of the single character for "beauty." Death itself is truly heroic; however, the motive that prompted it remains difficult to comprehend. Yet how could those who cannot even grasp death’s heroism mock Fujimurasō’s actions? Since they cannot savor the pathos of achieving a heroic end—being restricted from ever attaining such an end even under just circumstances—they are inferior to Fujimurasō in character, and therefore I assert they have no right to mock.

I am a painter.
Precisely because I am a painter - as a man devoted to aesthetic pursuits - even were I to sink into the world of human emotions, I would still stand nobler than those uncultured louts flanking me east and west.
As a member of society, I occupy a position from which I ought properly to educate others.
Beautifully executed conduct surpasses those lacking poetry, painting, or artistic refinement.
Within the realm of human emotions, beautifully executed conduct constitutes righteousness; it embodies justice; it manifests integrity.
Those who demonstrate righteousness, justice, and integrity through their actions become models for all citizens under heaven.

Having temporarily withdrawn from the world of human emotions, I had no need to return to it during this journey at least. To do so would have rendered this carefully planned journey a waste. From the world of human emotions, I had to sift out the gritty sand and spend my days gazing only at the beautiful gold that remained at the bottom. I myself did not consider that I held any position as a member of society. As a pure professional painter, having severed even myself from the entangling chains of profit and loss, I moved freely within the canvas's realm. Not to mention mountains or water or other people. Even Miss Nami's actions and movements had to be viewed exactly as they were, with no other recourse.

After ascending about three hundred meters, I saw a white-walled structure come into view ahead.
"It looks like a dwelling nestled within mandarins," I mused.

The road soon splits into two paths.
When I turned left with the white wall beside me and glanced back, a girl in a red underrobe was ascending from below.
As the underrobe gradually ended, brown shins emerged from below.
When the shins were fully exposed, they became straw sandals, and those straw sandals gradually drew nearer.
Mountain cherry blossoms hung poised to fall overhead.
On my back rested a gleaming sea.

When I climbed up the rocky path, I emerged onto a flat area at the mountain's protruding spur.
To the north lay spring peaks layered with verdure - likely where I had gazed from the veranda that morning.
To the south spread terrain that could be called a burnt field spanning half a cho before terminating in crumbled cliffs.
Below those cliffs lay Mikan Hill which I had just passed; looking across the village revealed nothing less than blue sea meeting my eyes.

The paths were many—they merged only to part, and parted only to merge—so none could be recognized as the main route.
Each was a path, yet none was a path.
Amidst the grass, patches of blackish-red earth appeared and vanished; their shifting connections to any discernible path created an intriguing transformation.

He wondered where to settle himself and wandered through the grass at varying distances.
The view that had seemed picturesque when seen from the veranda proved unexpectedly incoherent when actually confronted.
The colors gradually changed.
While trudging through the grassland, he gradually lost the desire to paint.
If I do not paint, then status matters not; wherever I sit becomes my dwelling.
The permeating spring sunlight, having seeped deep into the grass roots, made him feel as though he'd crushed unseen heat haze when he plopped down to sit.

The sea glittered beneath my feet.
The spring sunlight, unhindered by even a wisp of cloud, shone thoroughly upon the water's surface, appearing so warm that one might think its heat had seeped down to the very depths of the waves unnoticed.
The color, like a single brushstroke of navy blue smoothly applied across spaces, layered fine silvery scales that moved with vivid intensity.
The spring sun illuminated the boundless realm beneath heaven; across this world filled with endless waters, a white sail appeared no larger than a little fingernail.
And yet that sail remained utterly still.
In ancient times, when tribute-bearing Goryeo ships approached from afar, they must have looked like that.
All else reached to the ends of the great thousandfold world—only the realm of the shining sun and the realm of the illuminated sea remained.

I flopped down and lay flat.
My hat slipped down my forehead, giving me an absurdly serene Amida-like expression.
Here and there where grass rose one or two feet tall, small quince shrubs flourished.
My face fell right in front of one of them.
The quince bore fascinating flowers.
The branches were stubborn and had never bent.
If you said they were straight, then they were by no means straight.
Simply, straight short branches collided with straight short branches at certain angles, forming the whole while maintaining a slanted posture.
There, flowers of indistinct red or white bloomed serenely.
They even adorned themselves with fluttering soft leaves.
Upon consideration, the quince among flowers must have been that which was foolish yet enlightened.
In this world, there were those who clung to artless simplicity.
When such people were reborn in the next life, they would surely become quinces.
I too wanted to become a quince.

When I was a child, I cut a flowering quince branch with leaves still attached, arranged its branches into an interesting shape, and fashioned it into a brush rest.
I leaned a two-sen-five-rin waterbrush against it and took pleasure in placing it on my desk where the white bristles played hide-and-seek among blossoms and leaves.
That day, I went to bed preoccupied with nothing but the quince brush rest.

The next day, the moment I awoke, I sprang up and went to check before the desk—the flowers had wilted, the leaves had dried, and only the white bristles still shone as before.
How could something so beautiful wither like this overnight? At that time, I couldn't suppress my doubts.
Looking back now, I realize I was far more worldly-minded in those days.

The moment I lay down, the quince that caught my eye became an old acquaintance of twenty years. As I kept staring at it, I gradually grew lightheaded and slipped into a pleasant trance. Once more, poetic inspiration welled up within me.

Lying there thinking, I recorded each line I conceived into my sketchbook. After some time had passed, the composition seemed complete. I began reading it through from the beginning:

Upon stepping out, myriad thoughts arise
Spring wind billows through my robe
Fragrant grasses sprout in wheel ruts
The abandoned path fades into mist
Planting my staff, I gaze intently
All things don sunlit hues
Orioles warble their liquid song
Swirling petals fall thick as snow
Having crossed distant wild plains
I inscribe verse on ancient temple gates
Lone sorrow at heaven's cloudy edge
Vast skies—a solitary goose returns
How tranquil this humble heart

Ethereal, forgetting right and wrong.
Thirty—I wish to age.
Radiant hours linger still.
Wandering follows nature's transformations.
Serenely facing fragrant blooms.

Ah, it's done, it's done!
This is done.
Lying there gazing at the quince, I had perfectly captured that sensation of being detached from worldly affairs.
Even if the quince doesn't appear, even if the sea doesn't appear, so long as that essence emerges, it suffices.
As I muttered to myself and rejoiced, the sound of a human clearing their throat—"Ahem"—reached my ears.
This startled me.

I turned over and looked toward where the sound had come from to see a man emerge from among the mixed trees around the mountain's jutting promontory.

He wore a brown derby.
The derby's shape had collapsed, eyes visible beneath its tilted brim.
Though their exact shape remained unclear, those eyes were certainly darting restlessly.
With the hem of his indigo-striped garment tucked up and geta worn on bare feet, his overall appearance defied categorization.
Judging solely by that wild beard, he indeed possessed the bearing of a masterless samurai.

Just when it seemed the man would descend the rocky path, he unexpectedly turned back from the bend.
Just when it seemed he would disappear back along the path he had come, that was not the case.
He came walking back again.
In this meadow, aside from someone out for a stroll, there should have been no one pacing to and fro like this.
But could that really be the bearing of someone out for a stroll?
It was unthinkable that another man like that could be living in this vicinity.
The man occasionally stopped.
He tilted his head.
Or looked around in all directions.
He also appeared deeply lost in thought.
His behavior could also be taken as that of someone waiting to meet another.
I couldn't make sense of it.

I found myself utterly unable to tear my gaze away from this disquieting man.
It wasn't particularly frightening, nor did any urge to paint it arise.
I simply could not take my eyes away.
As I shifted my gaze right to left and left to right, tracking the man's movements, he abruptly came to a halt.
As he halted, another figure materialized within my field of vision.

The two, as if mutually recognizing each other, gradually drew closer from both sides.
My field of vision gradually narrowed, folding itself into a single constricted point at the meadow's center.
The two stood facing each other precisely, with spring mountains at their backs and the spring sea before them.

The man was undoubtedly that masterless samurai from before.
And the other?
The other was a woman.
It was Miss Nami.

When I saw Miss Nami's figure, I immediately thought of this morning's dagger.
When I wondered whether she might have concealed it in her robes, even I—a practitioner of inhuman emotions—felt a chill.

The man and woman remained facing each other, standing in identical postures for some time.
No movement animated the scene.
Though their lips might have been moving, no words reached my ears.
The man eventually lowered his head.
The woman turned toward the mountains.
Her face remained beyond my view.

In the mountains, a bush warbler sang.
The woman seemed to lend her entire attention to its song.
After a suspended moment, the man abruptly raised his bowed head and began pivoting on his heel.
Nothing about his bearing suggested normalcy.
The woman fluidly shifted her stance and reoriented toward the sea.
What emerged from her obi's fold resembled a dagger.
The man strode forward with combative resolve.
The woman advanced two steps along his wake.
Her feet bore straw sandals.
Had some summons arrested his retreat?
As he turned, her right hand plunged toward her sash.
Danger!

What slipped out smoothly was not what I had anticipated - no nine-and-a-half-sun blade (roughly eleven inches), but rather a pouch-like bundle resembling a purse. From beneath the extended pale hand dangled a long cord that swayed listlessly in the spring breeze.

With one foot advanced and her upper torso slightly arched backward, that pale wrist held aloft a violet-wrapped parcel. This posture alone would suffice as a painting.

The violet bundle - its fabric pattern slightly rent - maintained an interval of two or three inches that coalesced into exquisite harmony through how the man turned his body with poised control. Non-attachment yet non-detachment - this must be the phrase describing their momentary state of being, I thought. The woman bore herself as though pulling forward while the man appeared drawn backward - though neither physically pulled nor resisted. Their connection severed cleanly where the violet purse reached its limit.

While the postures of the two maintained such an exquisite harmony, their faces and clothing presented an absolute contrast, making the scene all the more fascinating when viewed as a painting.

A stocky build, dark complexion, bearded face; and a sharply defined slender face with a long-collared, sloping-shouldered, delicate figure.
The brusquely twisted posture of a geta-clad masterless samurai, and above the slender form that even wore everyday meisen silk with supple grace, demurely recoiling from the waist up.
A faded tea-colored hat; indigo-striped hakama cut short at the hem; the combed sides of his hair, their hue intense enough to ignite heat haze; from beneath the lustrous black satin, the glimpse of coquetry revealed at her obi.
Everything made for an excellent pictorial subject.

The man extended his hand and received the purse.
The positions of the two, which had skillfully maintained equilibrium through mutual pulling and resistance, collapsed in an instant.
The woman no longer pulled; the man made no attempt to pull back.
That mental states could exert such influence upon the composition of a painting—though a painter, I had never noticed this until now.

The two parted to left and right.
Since there was no intensity from either side，as a painting，it was already incoherent.
At the entrance to the grove，the man looked back once.
The woman did not even look back.
The woman walked effortlessly toward me.
Before long，she came directly before me，

“Master! Master!”

she called out twice.
This was bad—when had she noticed me?

“What is it?”

And I emerged from the quince bush.
The hat fell into the grassland.

“What are you doing in such a place?”

“I was composing poetry while lying here.”

“You’re lying. You must have seen what just happened.”

“Just now? Are you referring to that just now? Yes. I did catch a glimpse.”

“Hohohoho, if it wasn’t just a little… You really should have watched to your heart’s content.”

"In truth, I witnessed a great deal."

"There now—you see?
"Do come out this way.
"Please emerge from the quince bush."

I meekly crawled out from the quince thicket.

"Do you still have unfinished business in those bushes?"

"There remains nothing here.
"I had even considered returning."

"Then shall we depart together?"

"Yes."

Obediently withdrawing once more into the quince growth, I donned my hat, gathered my painting implements, and commenced walking alongside Miss Nami.

“Did you paint?”

“I stopped.”

“You’ve come all this way, yet you still haven’t painted a single piece, have you?”

“No.”

“But after making such effort to come paint, if you don’t paint at all, it’s rather pointless, isn’t it?”

“What makes it pointless?”

“Oh? Why?”

“Why? Because it remains equally unsatisfactory either way.
Whether I paint or don’t paint, in the end it amounts to the same thing.”

“That’s quite the jest, hohohoho. How remarkably carefree you are.”

“Since I’ve come to a place like this, if I don’t stay carefree, there’s no point in having come at all.”

“Wherever you are, if you don’t stay carefree, there’s no point in living. As for someone like me, even if I were seen by others in such a state, I wouldn’t feel ashamed or anything at all.”

“You needn’t concern yourself with that.”

“Do you think so? And what do you take that man from earlier to be?”

“Well... he doesn’t seem particularly well-off.”

“Hohoho, well guessed.”
“You’re quite the fortune-teller.”
“That man came to get money from me because he’s impoverished and claims he can’t remain in Japan anymore.”

“Huh, where did he come from?”

“He came from the castle town.”

"He came from quite a distant place, didn't he? So where's he going?"

"He says he's off to Manchuria, apparently."

“What is he going there to do?”

“What’s he going there to do? Whether he’s going to collect money or go die—who can say?”

At this moment, I raised my eyes and looked at the woman’s face. At her recently closed lips, the faint shadow of a smile was beginning to fade. The meaning eluded me.

“That is my husband.”

Like a sudden thunderclap, the woman abruptly swung her blade at me. I had been taken completely by surprise. I had no intention of asking such things, nor had the woman likely considered exposing herself to this extent.

"Well? Were you surprised?" she said.

"Yes, I was somewhat surprised."

"He's not my present husband—he's the one I divorced."

"I see... So—"

"That concludes it."

"I see.—There's that splendid white-walled house on Mandarin Orange Hill over there."
"That one's well-situated—but whose residence might that be?"

“That is my brother’s house. Let’s stop by there on our way back.”

“Do you have business there?”

“Yes, there’s a small errand I’ve been asked to do.”

“Let’s go together.”

Emerging at the rugged mountain path's ascent point and—without descending toward the village—immediately turning right to climb another chō or so brought us to a gate.
Without approaching the main entrance from the gate, we immediately circled around to the garden entrance.
Since the woman strode boldly ahead without ceremony, I too strode boldly ahead without ceremony.
In the south-facing garden stood three or four palm trees, and below the earthen wall lay a mandarin orchard.

The woman promptly sat down on the veranda edge and spoke.

“What a fine view. Do look.”

“Indeed, that’s quite lovely.”

Beyond the shōji screens lay utter stillness, devoid of human vitality. The woman herself stood silent and expressionless, sitting composed as she gazed down at the mandarin orchard below. I found myself perplexed. What purpose had originally brought her here?

When conversation failed entirely, we both simply sat wordless, contemplating the orchard beneath us. The midday sun pressed closer, bathing the mountainside in direct warmth until even the undersides of the overwhelmingly abundant mandarin leaves shimmered with steamed radiance. Then from beyond the storehouse came a rooster’s raucous cry: “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

“Oh dear, it’s already...
“It’s noon already.”
“I’d forgotten something I needed to do.”
“—Mr. Kyūichi! Mr. Kyūichi!”

The woman leaned forward and slid open the tightly closed shoji screen with a sharp clatter.
Within lay an empty ten-mat room where Kano school diptychs vainly adorned the spring alcove.

“Mr. Kyūichi.”

From the direction of the storehouse came a reply at last.
Footsteps halted beyond the sliding door; with a sharp clatter it opened—and a white-sheathed dagger tumbled onto the tatami.

“Here’s your uncle’s farewell gift.”

I had not noticed at all when a hand had slipped into my obi.
The dagger somersaulted two or three times across the quiet tatami mats to Mr. Kyūichi’s feet.
The blade seemed carelessly secured—a cold glint flashed briefly.

Thirteen

They saw Mr. Kyūichi off by riverboat to Yoshida Station.
In the boat sat those being seen off—Mr.Kyūichi—and those seeing him off:the old man，Miss Nami，Miss Nami’s elder brother，Genbei handling the luggage，and lastly myself.
I was，of course，nothing more than an invited companion.

If I'm invited as a companion，I'll go.
Even if I don’t understand the meaning，I’ll go.
In a journey of non-human emotions，deliberation has no place.
The boat，like a raft fitted with gunwales，had a flat bottom.
With the old man in the center，Miss Nami and I took seats at the stern，while Mr.Kyūichi and her elder brother positioned themselves at the bow.
Genbei remained apart by himself with the luggage.

“Mr. Kyūichi, do you like or dislike war?” Miss Nami asked.

“I won’t know unless I go out and see for myself. There will probably be hardships, but I suppose enjoyable things will come up as well,” said Mr. Kyūichi, who knew nothing of war.

“No matter how hard it gets, it’s for the nation,” said the old man.

“If you receive a dagger like this, doesn’t it make you want to go off to war for a bit?” Miss Nami posed another odd question.
Mr. Kyūichi,

“I suppose so.”

gave a slight nod.
The old man threw back his beard and laughed.
The elder brother maintained an impassive expression.

“Do you think you can handle war with such composure?” the woman demanded, thrusting her pale face toward Mr. Kyūichi without regard for decorum.
Mr. Kyūichi and the elder brother briefly exchanged glances.

“If Miss Nami were a soldier, she’d surely be formidable.”
These were the first words the elder brother spoke to his younger sister.
Judging from his tone, it scarcely seemed a jest.

“Me?
“Me? A soldier?”
“Had I been fit for soldiering, I’d have enlisted long ago.”
“I’d be dead by now.”
“Mr. Kyūichi.”
“You should die too.”
“Returning alive would disgrace us all.”

“Such violent talk—now now, return home triumphantly. Dying isn’t the only way to serve your country. I still plan to live two or three more years. We’ll meet again.”

When one drew out the tail of the old man’s words at length, their ends thinned into threads of tears. Yet being men, they did not let those tears fall. Mr. Kyūichi said nothing, turning sideways to gaze at the shore.

A great willow stood on the bank. Beneath it moored a small boat where a man stared fixedly at his fishing line. As their procession’s boat passed before him, gently trailing ripples, this man suddenly looked up and exchanged glances with Mr. Kyūichi. Between these two who had met eyes passed not a spark—the man thought only of fish, while in Mr. Kyūichi’s mind lingered no space even for a single crucian carp. The procession’s boat quietly glided past the fisherman.

The number of people passing through Nihonbashi—how many hundreds per minute, one didn’t know. If one were to stand at the bridge’s edge and could hear each and every entangled conflict in the hearts of those passing by, this fleeting world would have proved too dizzying to endure. Because people met and parted as strangers, in the end volunteers came forth to stand at Nihonbashi waving flags for trams. It was fortunate that the fisherman did not demand any explanation from Mr. Kyūichi’s tearful face. When I looked back, he was calmly staring at his float. He probably intended to keep staring at it until the Russo-Japanese War ended.

The river was not very wide.
The bottom was shallow.
The current was gentle.

Leaning against the gunwale, gliding over the water—where must we go? Until spring ended, people stirred, and we reached where they clamored for confrontation—there we had to go.
This youth, his brow marked with a single spot of blood, dragged our party along without mercy.
Because the rope of fate pulled this youth to a distant, dark, terrifying northern land, we who had become entangled with him through the karma of some day, some month, some year had to be dragged along by this youth until that karma exhausted itself.
When karma had exhausted itself, there came a sound between him and us, and he alone was inevitably reeled in to the hand of fate.
We who remained also had to inevitably remain—whether willing or not.
Even if we pleaded, even if we struggled, we could not have him continue pulling us along.

The boat glided along with remarkably smooth ease.
On both banks, horsetail plants seemed to be sprouting.
Many willow trees were visible along the embankment.
Sparsely, low houses thrust out thatched roofs from between them.
They thrust out soot-stained windows.
At times they let out white ducks.
The ducks quacked noisily and came out into the river.

Between the willows, what glistened brightly appeared to be a white peach.
The clack-clack of a loom being woven could be heard.
From between the clack-clack of the loom, a woman’s song—Haaai, iyouu—resonated all the way to the water’s surface.
It was impossible to make out what she was singing.

“Master, please paint my portrait,” Miss Nami requests.
Mr. Kyūichi and his brother are engrossed in talking about military matters.
The old man had begun to doze off at some point.

“I’ll draw it for you,” I said, taking out my sketchbook.

Spring breeze unravels the sky—what name graces this satin brocade?

I wrote and showed her.
The woman laughed and,

“This rough sketch won’t do at all. You must draw me more carefully to capture my true essence.”

“I would paint you properly, but... Your face alone makes an incomplete picture.”

“What a delightful compliment. Then how does one make it complete?”

“It could be painted as it stands now. There’s simply something absent. To paint it without that quality showing would be regrettable.”

“Even lacking, it’s the face I was born with—nothing can remedy that.”

“The face one is born with can take on various forms.”

“However you please?”

“Yes.”

“If you think me merely a woman, feel free to treat me as an utter fool.”

“It’s precisely because you are a woman that you utter such foolishness.”

“Then show me your face assuming various expressions.”

“When it transforms this much daily, that suffices.”

The woman turned away silently.
The riverbank had imperceptibly lowered until it barely grazed the water’s surface, while the expanse of rice fields lay submerged beneath a blanket of crimson clover.
Vivid scarlet droplets—washed away by some forgotten rain—had dissolved into a half-melted sea of blossoms that spread endlessly through the haze, while high above in the midair, a jagged peak faintly exhaled spring clouds from its midsection.

“You crossed over beyond that mountain,” the woman said, extending her white hand beyond the gunwale to point at a spring mountain like something from a dream.

“Is Tengu Rock around there?”

“Under that deep emerald hue, you’ll find a place tinged purple.”

“That shaded patch there?”

“Is that the shaded area, I wonder? It’s bald, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s dented. If it were bald, it would look more brown.”

“Is that so? In any case, I hear it’s around the back of that area.”

“Then Nanamagari would be slightly more to the left, wouldn’t it?”

“Nanamagari lies way over there, far beyond. It’s the mountain beyond that one there.”

“Ah, I see now. But judging by direction, it should be around where that thin cloud hangs.”

“Yes, the direction is around there.”

The old man who had been dozing let his elbow slip from the gunwale and abruptly opened his eyes.

“Aren’t we there yet?”

Thrusting his chest forward, stretching his right elbow back, extending his left hand straight, he mimicked drawing a bow with a groaning yawn.
The woman gave a soft laugh.

"I can’t seem to break this habit..."

"You seem quite fond of archery," I remarked with a laugh.

"In my youth, I could draw it seven parts out of ten.
My draw strength remains surprisingly reliable even now," he said, tapping his left shoulder to demonstrate.

At the bow, war stories were in full swing.

The boat finally entered what appeared to be the town.
An izakaya with "Osakana" written on its waist-high lattice partitions came into view.
A traditional rope noren came into view.
A lumber storage area came into view.
The sound of rickshaws could even be heard from time to time.
A swallow flipped over mid-flight with a chirp.
Ducks quacked quack.

The group abandoned the boat and headed toward the station.

They were finally dragged into the real world.
They call the place where trains can be seen the real world.
There is nothing that represents twentieth-century civilization more than the train.
It crams hundreds of people into the same box and thunders through.
It shows no mercy.
The crammed-in humans all move at roughly the same speed, come to a halt at identical stations, and must alike bathe in the steam engine’s benevolence.
People speak of boarding trains.
I am loaded aboard, so to speak.
People say they go by train.
I am transported, so to speak.
Nothing despises individuality more than the train.
Civilization exerts every possible means to develop individuality, only to then attempt to trample this individuality by every possible method.
Modern civilization allocates each individual a plot of land measuring however many tsubo and gō, declaring that within this ground they may do as they please whether sleeping or rising.
Simultaneously, it erects iron fences around these measured plots and threatens that not a single step may be taken beyond them—this is modern civilization.
It is only natural that those who have seized freedom within their allotted tsubo and gō would come to desire seizing freedom beyond these iron fences as well.
The pitiable people of civilization gnash their teeth against these iron fences and roar day and night.
Civilization grants individuals freedom, makes them fierce as tigers, then hurls them into cages to maintain the world's peace.
This peace is not true peace.
It is a peace akin to a zoo tiger glaring at spectators while lying down.
If even one bar of the cage were removed—the world would descend into chaos.

The Second French Revolution would likely arise at this time.
Personal revolutions were already occurring day and night.
The great Northern European luminary Ibsen had provided mankind with detailed exemplars of the conditions under which such revolutions should arise.
Every time I witnessed trains charging fiercely across unbounded vistas, treating all people as mere cargo, and compared the individuals confined within passenger cars to this iron carriage that paid not the slightest heed to human individuality—dangerous, dangerous.
One must take care—it was dangerous, I thought.
Modern civilization was so saturated with this peril that it stung the nostrils.
The train blindly charging into pitch darkness was one perilous specimen.

I sat down at the tea shop in front of the station and, while gazing at the mugwort cakes, pondered my theory on trains. This wasn’t something to sketch in my notebook nor worth telling others about, so I silently drank my tea while eating rice cakes.

On the bench across the way sat two people. Both wore straw sandals—one had a red blanket, while the other had patches on the knees of his pale blue-green leggings and was pressing his hand over the patched areas.

“Still no good, eh?”

“Nope.”

“If I had two stomachs like a cow, that’d be grand.”

“With two, you’d have no complaints—if one went bad, you could just cut it out and be done with it.”

This country person appeared to have stomach trouble.
They knew nothing of winds blowing across Manchurian plains.
They failed to recognize even modern civilization’s ills.
As for what revolution even was—they’d likely never so much as heard the word.
Perhaps they couldn’t even discern whether they had one stomach or two of their own.
I took out my sketchbook and sketched the two figures.

The station bell clanged clang-clang.
The tickets had already been purchased.

“Well, let’s go,” Miss Nami said as she stood up.

“Well then,” the old man also stood up.
The group passed through the ticket gate together and emerged onto the platform.
The station bell rang incessantly.

With a roar, along the white-glinting railway tracks, the serpent of civilization came winding forth.
The serpent of civilization spewed black smoke from its maw.
"So this is finally our parting," the old man said.

“Farewell,” Mr. Kyūichi said with a bow.

“Come back dead,” Miss Nami said again.

"Has the luggage arrived?" asked Brother.

The serpent came to a halt before us.
Several doors along its flank opened.
People exited and entered.
Mr. Kyūichi boarded.
The old man, Brother, Miss Nami, and I all stood outside.

With one turn of the wheel, Mr. Kyūichi would already cease to be a person of our world.
He would depart to a far, faraway world.
In that world, amidst the smell of gunpowder, people worked.
They slipped on something red and tumbled about wildly.
In the sky, a loud sound boomed repeatedly.
Mr. Kyūichi, who was now bound for that realm, stood inside the train car gazing mutely at us.
The karmic connection between Mr. Kyūichi, who had drawn us out from the mountains, and us who had been drawn out was severed there.
It was already fraying.
Merely that the train’s doors and windows were open, merely that we could see each other’s faces, merely that about six feet separated those departing and those remaining—already the karmic thread was fraying.

The conductor came running toward us, snapping shut each door with sharp clicks.
With each door that snapped shut, the distance between those departing and those left behind grew ever greater.
Soon, the door to Mr. Kyūichi’s compartment snapped shut.
The world split in two.

The old man instinctively moved closer to the window.
The young man stuck his head out of the window.

“Dangerous! It’s departing!” a voice shouted from below, and with resolute clank-clank rhythms, the iron train began to move.
The windows passed one by one before us.
Kyūichi’s face grew smaller, and when the last third-class train passed before me, another face emerged from a window.

From under a brown, worn-out fedora, a bearded wild samurai stuck out his head with lingering reluctance.
At that moment, Miss Nami and the wild samurai involuntarily exchanged glances.
The iron train clanked and clanked as it moved forward.
The wild samurai’s face vanished instantly.
Miss Nami stood dazedly watching the departing train.
Within that daze, miraculously, a “pity” I had never before witnessed was suffused across her entire being.

“That’s it!
“That’s it! That’s it!”
“That’s it! If that emerges, it becomes a painting!” I whispered while tapping Miss Nami’s shoulder.
The canvas in my mind was completed in that instant.